diff --git "a/Airships.json" "b/Airships.json"
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+++ "b/Airships.json"
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+[
+    {
+        "title": "Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger",
+        "author": "John Appel (ed)",
+        "genres": [
+            "steampunk",
+            "adventure",
+            "short stories"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "The Adventure of the Unburnt Book by Tyler Hayes",
+                "text": "When engaging in the high-risk, high-reward career of airborne book piracy, precise planning is not the asset many think; the very nature of the world after the Time Crash makes timing fluid at best and physics a matter of debate. Rather, flexibility is paramount, the capacity to keep wits intact and paradigm-shifters ready for the inevitable moment when one's plan goes awry. Unfortunately, flexible thinking can create problems just as easily as it can escape them, which is how we ended up grappled to a ship that had just caught fire.\n\nThe trap should have been obvious. The capture of the airship Little Free Library was the most massive blow struck by the Reich Eternal since they burned the Elder Library; an entire ship dedicated to spreading the written word, taken out of the air by soldiers dedicated to its destruction. Not only that, I and the rest of the Logophile's crew were superstars of the Luftwaffe bounty rolls. Beth, our resident wizard, dared to be successful while Jewish; Ambrose, the undead dragon skull in the hold, lived on the very books the Literary Hygiene Division sought to purge; and the Nazis knew me as the Book Golem, the monster who refused to burn down with his library, a stone monster in a blurry video, decimating an LGA flamethrower team. The Nazis had been stamping out our legend everywhere we went, going so far as to bulldoze an entire print shop just because they printed a newspaper with us in it.\n\nThat the Nazis would go to great lengths to defend their prize was a given; that we were expected was a foregone conclusion; but we failed to consider book-burners would escalate to burning a whole ship just to catch us in the flames. And yet, within a few minutes of our grapple-lines dragging the Library out of their air fortress, when it was far too late to cut it loose, the Library ignited, with a whoosh of combusting air I could hear from belowdecks. I stopped setting up for my penmanship practice, my stomach sinking as I realized our flawless, daring rescue was to be far more of the latter than the former.\n\nBeth, ever the frontline leader, insisted she would handle the problem.; She accelerated, shouting the sea-shanties that powered the Logophile's engines, trying to combine escape and extinguishing by letting the wind douse the flames. But the wind only fed the conflagration, and with Ambrose's panicked shrieks of \"Save the books!\" commandeering our radios, I put aside my pencil\u2013\u2013why waste our scant paper when my cursive wasn't coming along anyway?\u2013\u2013and ran abovedecks, where Beth and I found ourselves clipping onto the grapple-lines and plunging toward the deck of the Library below, looting bags in hand.\n\nAs I slid down the cables toward a ship engulfed in brilliant emerald flames, the heat conjuring images of the Elder Library, I was sure I had reached the apex of my capacity for fear. But even my old trauma did not prepare me for what awaited us belowdecks. Everything about the Little Free Library, from the overstuffed chairs to the polish on the bookshelves, was dedicated to the love of books, and by the time I was seeing it, it was already beyond hope.\n\n\"Can you save the books?\" Ambrose shouted over the radio. The trouble with Ambrose is that the line between \"books for everybody\" and \"the hoard he needs to survive\" is malleable at best.\n\nBeth looked at our two simple oilskin bags and into one of the dozen cabins, every shelf laden with books. The grim set of her jaw said all that needed to be said.\n\n\"Cap,\" I grunted. When I had her attention, I signed \"I'll take the ones already on fire.\" Sign language worked far better than speech\u2013\u2013a mouth of clay leaves something to be desired when paired with a brain of sacred geometry.\n\nBeth pointed me to the most consumed of the cabins, produced a sphere of sapphire from her coat, and recited the opening verse to \"Hallelujah.\" The crystal glowed as her paradigm shifted to accommodate its workings.\n\n\"Stay cool, brother mine,\" she said as the crystal shielded her in glittering ice.\n\nThe flames didn't affect my body, but that didn't make them any less damaging; the first books I saw upon entering were already on their way to ashes. At first I grabbed any tome that remained unscathed, but before I even left the first room my bag was starting to bulge. I charged through the next door and stood, paralyzed, as I tried to decide which books most needed to be brought back to safety.\n\nBefore I took up piracy, my purpose was to guard the Elder Library at New Cambridge; I was quite literally built to believe in the inherent value of the book. I would not judge a copy of Superfudge any less worthy than Moby Dick, and neither would triumph over a Sedaris essay; every story is the key to a long-locked door for someone. So to pass wall after wall of books, weighing them not only by psychic impact but by mass and dimensions, was to take an entrenching tool to my soul. But listening to the roaring fire, thinking of my first home, I knew this was my burden to bear. I dove into the flames, and I saved what I could; and as my reward, my radio gave me news I didn't want to hear.\n\n\"Hello?\" asked a deep, feminine-sounding voice.\n\nI hesitated to respond, given my difficulties with speech.\n\nBeth took up the cause for me. \"This is Captain Beth Kaplan of the Logophile. Who is this?\"\n\nThe speaker responded with thanks to God in the language of my youth. \"This is Captain Sayyida al-Hurra of the Little Free Library. We're in danger.\"\n\n\"We're onboard your ship,\" Beth said. \"Have you been taken prisoner?\" In her voice I heard the same shameful hope I felt: that we might continue our plunder before devoting time to a rescue.\n\n\"We're in the hold!\" the woman cried. \"Please, the hatch is stuck\u2013\u2013we\u2013\u2013\" The punctuation to her plea was the crack of collapsing timber.\n\nI didn't need to see Beth to know her mind. We'd discussed this scenario many times; saving books was our calling, but books didn't matter if no people were around to read them.\n\n\"We're coming to get you,\" Beth said.\n\nAll around me I could hear the books burning, pages curling under the onslaught of the heat. Still, I met Beth in the passageway, and found us a ladder. Beth darted down and ran ahead of me, gasping words of reassurance into the radio when she had breath to spare.\n\nWe found the hold by following the black snakes of smoke curling along the orlop deck. The hatch was pinned in place by a stack of flaming timbers from the collapsed ceiling above, the epicenter of a spreading blaze. Beth kept me from charging forward while she whispered part of \"Wichita Vortex Sutra.\" As she spoke, the ice crystals surrounding her shot into the heart of the fire. The ice struggled at first, but a few more snatches of Ginsberg and the ice's paradigm won out over the fire's, leaving only a patch of scorched wood.\n\n\"You can come out now,\" Beth called as she opened the hatch.\n\nTwo people took tentative steps into our field of vision. One was human, feminine, a sunburnt face beneath a red silk hijab; the other looked feminine by human standards but was as much piscine as primate, with glittering silver skin and gills fluttering at their neck, dressed in a long blue tunic and a mantle that looked like an entire dire wolf hide. Both looked at us with understandable suspicion.\n\n\"Captain al-Hurra?\" Beth asked, saluting. \"Captain Kaplan. Call me Beth. She/her/hers.\"\n\nThe one in the hijab returned the salute with stiff, stilted movements. \"Sayyida. She/her/hers. This is\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"Sigrunn,\" the fish-person said, still uncertain. \"Same.\"\n\nBeth turned to me. \"And this is\u2013\u2013\"\n\nThere was a snap overhead, and the colossal whoosh of another flaming timber falling from above. I lunged forward and caught the beam before it could plunge through the hatch; Sayyida looked at me in amazement and gratitude, and I answered back with a smile.\n\n\"Cragg,\" Beth said. \"He/him/his.\"\n\nBeth beckoned them upward, watching the ceiling with great concern. Sayyida only made the ascent with help from Sigrunn.\n\n\"You're wounded,\" Beth said.\n\nSayyida flinched, ashamed. \"I am so sorry,\" she said. \"When the fascists captured us, we saw them start to bring the chemicals onboard\u2013\u2013we'd heard the stories, tried to\u2013\u2013\" Sayyida cut off with a hiss of pain.\n\nSigrunn spoke over the gap in the apology. \"We tried to fight. They cut Sayyida, took her hostage while they loaded in their Greek fire.\"\n\nBeth scowled. \"We'll do the best we can to save\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"Friends?\" said Ambrose over the radio, urgency galvanizing his words. \"We're about to be boarded!\"\n\nWe all buckled inside at the news. Beth gave me a bleak look as she answered. \"Sitrep, please.\"\n\n\"I have one Reich frigate inbound. They're carrying Untotsoldaten, but...I cannot tell how many. Let me see\u2013\u2013a frigate\u2013\u2013there could be as many as four hundred\u2013\u2013\"\n\nIf before we buckled, under this news we broke. Untotsoldaten, the Reich Eternal's jetpack zombies: quick, unfeeling, relentless. And as many as four hundred?\n\nBeth closed her eyes, lips moving in rapid-fire whispers as she tried to formulate a plan. Sayyida looked at Sigrunn, both despairing. I nudged Beth, and signed \"reassurance\" to her.\n\n\"We won't leave you behind,\" Beth declared to the two Library crew members. \"Everyone lives. Except Nazis.\"\n\nBurning wood popped somewhere above us, as if in defiance of Beth's resolve. Sayyida looked at Sigrunn; something passed between them that left Sayyida nodding insistently and Sigrunn shaking her head.\n\n\"Sayyida, no\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"I'm already too wounded to stand and fight, Sigrunn,\" Sayyida said. \"Plus, I have the better sense of self-preservation.\" She turned away as though the argument were settled. \"Captain Kaplan, I am going to stay behind. I want to do something rash.\"\n\nBeth smirked. \"Does this rash undertaking have the potential to ruin some Nazis' days?\"\n\n\"If it works,\" Sayyida replied with a similar expression.\n\nBeth nodded, and to my fright, unclipped the carabiner from her belt and handed it to Sigrunn. \"Rashness is easier with two pairs of hands.\"\n\nBefore I could ask a question, Beth turned and wrapped me in a tight hug. Her voice did not waver as she told me, \"Take care of the ship, brother. I'll be back soon.\"\n\nBehind us, Sayyida and Sigrunn shared a long, desperate kiss. Sigrunn was slow to let go of her captain, but Sayyida was patient, whispering reassurances and wiping away tears until she detached.\n\n\"I'm so angry at you,\" Sigrunn said.\n\n\"I love you, too,\" Sayyida replied.\n\nWe split up on the spot, Sayyida directing Beth toward the engine room, explaining her plan in wrathful tones.\n\n\"Do you ever feel like your captain's sidekick?\" Sigrunn asked me as we made our ascent.\n\nI was embarrassed at how I had to respond. \"Words...bad. Mouth...clay.\"\n\nWe climbed up onto the deck, Sigrunn in the lead. She craned her neck to gaze past the Library's masts, glowering at what she saw. \"Doesn't look like talking is the order of the day anyway.\"\n\nThe Reich frigate hovered in the air above us, a sleek, sharp thing made of pitch-black wood, throbbing with the sickly green light of the necromantic runes that kept it aloft. Leaping overboard and heading for the Logophile were scores of dark figures in brown uniforms, each one's path traced by a chemical blue blaze from the jetpack that bore them through the air.\n\nMy radio clicked to life\u2013\u2013Ambrose, declaring in a fragile calm, \"We're boarded. I'm guarding the deck with all the ectoplasm I can muster, but these abominations will overrun my defenses with great alacrity.\"\n\nSigrunn turned to me. \"Does your ship have any other defenses?\"\n\n\"Me,\" I said.\n\nSigrunn grinned, and said something melodious in a language that sounded like Old Norse. A sword appeared in her outstretched hand, a long, gray blade in the Viking style, lightning crackling along its edges.\n\n\"And me,\" she said, and clipped herself to one of the grapple-lines.\n\nI followed suit, and we ascended, the lines jiggling under our weight, the looting bag swaying heavily in my hand. I watched the Untotsoldaten leaping onto our ship, sabers at the ready, and felt rage boiling into my extremities.\n\n\"Shield...ship,\" I said to Sigrunn. \"Bring...here.\"\n\n\"I was thinking the same thing,\" declared Sigrunn, who brandished her sword and shouted what sounded like a prayer to Odin.\n\nIt had the desired effect; several zombies swung their decaying heads toward us and did an about-face, their hunger for the living overriding their master's commands. I clasped the line hard with my thighs and made my free hand into a fist as the jetpack zombies jetted toward us.\n\nUntotsoldaten are strong, enduring, and without mercy. But they are also incapable of more than the most basic, bloodlust-tinged thoughts; so when they tried to join us in combat, the first two broke their swords uselessly against my stone skin, only for their faces to meet my unrelenting stone fist. Black helmets tumbled down, followed by the rest of the now-inert corpses.\n\nNext to me, Sigrunn kept climbing, chanting her Old Norse paradigm-shifter, swinging her sword in great arcs that brought with them gale-force winds. Zombies scattered before her onslaught, spinning out of control in the tempest, and those that managed to engage her found a spirited combatant; limbs and helms sloughed off around her like waves breaking against a ship.\n\nSixty feet of open air remained between us and the Logophile; we ascended as fast as we could under the assault. Fifty-five feet from the deck, Sigrunn stopped to duel two zombies. At fifty feet, I dispatched one with an uppercut, another with a headbutt. At forty-five feet, one produced a pistol with enough paradigm to fire; I shielded Sigrunn from the bullets, and she summoned a biting wind that sent the monster skidding away. And all around us, zombies rained down from the Logophile, their jetpacks stripped away by Ambrose's powers. I felt exultant, alive, grateful for this new companion and this chance to bloody the Reich's nose, some small recompense for the books already destroyed.\n\nMy life has often turned on ironies.\n\nWe were halfway to the ship. I struck the latest zombie a glancing blow; it gripped my throat, smashing its saber against my shoulder, cracking and denting me even as it ruined its weapon. I gripped it with my free hand, and unthinking, gleeful at victory, I clouted the zombie across the head with my looting bag. The creature fell away from my grasp, and the tip of its saber came up with inexorable speed and dug deep into the bottom of my bag, ripping the oilskin wide open.\n\nBooks tumbled free of the bag, dropping out of reach before I could react: two, three, four of them, all lost to the sky. I lashed out an elbow to drive the zombie back, and squeezed the bag tight in both hands, clutching the remaining books to my chest. Sigrunn saw me defenseless and summoned another gale, sending the zombie spiraling away. Losing books again stung, but another peril loomed larger: the bag required two hands now. I had no way to climb, fight, and keep the books safe.\n\nI looked at the zombies swarming down at us, trying to think of a way to get a moment's respite, just a moment. I hit upon a plan, but enacting it would require...\n\n\"Fish!\" I yelled, already mortified.\n\nSigrunn glared at me.\n\n\"Ray...dee...talk box!\" I was grateful I could not blush.\n\nSigrunn, scribes be praised, understood. She reached out and pressed Send on my radio.\n\n\"Skull!\" I yelled at the device. \"Skull!\"\n\n\"Cragg!\" replied Ambrose. \"I'm here!\"\n\n\"Dan-ger!\" I shouted. \"Dan-ger! Need...dis...dis...\" I scowled.\n\nSigrunn gave me an apologetic frown, and pulled the radio closer to her. \"We need a distraction!\"\n\n\"Who is this?\" demanded Ambrose.\n\n\"Now!\" replied Sigrunn.\n\nAmbrose did not respond verbally; but after a moment, there came an unearthly wail from above us, and a wave of ghastly, green, ragged sheets of paper lashed out from the deck of the Logophile, cascading into the side of the black frigate. Ambrose's spectral assault dissipated against the runes warding the enemy ship, but it was enough to make a plurality of the zombies turn their attention to matters higher up than us.\n\nTwo stray zombies still scudded toward our position. I held onto my prize and the rope, letting Sigrunn take the initiative while I tried to solve our problem. There were too many books to carry by hand; the bag was too full and too damaged to tie off the bottom. The grapple-lines were already igniting below us, so simply hanging here and weathering the attack would be impossible even if the Logophile were not in danger. The zombies' jetpacks ran off who-knew-what paradigm, rendering them as useful as lead weights. The Elder Library flashed into my mind, its books disintegrating, my creators screaming...not again, no, not again...\n\n\"There's too many!\" Ambrose broadcast. \"I do not know how long I can hold them!\"\n\nAn idea took shape in my head and was banished three separate times before I let it gain purchase. I looked at the books I was clutching and took stock.\n\nAgain, the pain of trying to rank the value of books. But Ambrose was fifty feet above us, besieged; and Beth was below, risking life and limb on the plan of a total stranger. How could I do anything less?\n\nFate chose that moment to pile more straw atop our backs. Sigrunn swung into me, pushing off me to lunge out and skewer an oncoming zombie. She pendulumed back toward me, beheaded another rocketing in from port\u2013\u2013and as she recovered, a third zombie came in from above and caught her a vicious slash across her off-hand side. Blood streamed from the wound, and the moment of pain slowed Sigrunn's counterattack, allowing the creature to follow through with a left hook that stunned the fishwoman enough to send her skidding back down the grapple-line.\n\nThought and strategy gave way to haste. I struck the zombie a haymaker blow that sent its skull flying\u2013\u2013joined by two of the books. I let myself fall, my body pivoting about the point where my thighs clenched the line, and stretched my hand out to the falling Sigrunn. She caught my wrist, then gasped in horror as books came avalanching out of the torn bag; she reached out her sword hand to lend support, but by the time we had the bag stable, we were supporting all of a half-dozen volumes.\n\nWe hung there, spinning in space, me upside-down, Sigrunn hanging from one hand, the gashed bag of books from the other. I looked at Sigrunn, dangling a lethal distance above the burning Library; I looked at the books, the only survivors of that inferno, barely held in place by our two hands. Even if I did not have to help her, even if her wound did not diminish her mobility, I needed to turn myself right side up again...\n\n\"Need...grab...rope,\" I said.\n\nSigrunn's eyes were wild. \"If we don't save the books, they'll have taken everything from us.\"\n\nI hated myself as I answered. \"You...first.\" I closed my eyes, a moment of quiet before I had to say it. \"Will...take...one.\"\n\nSigrunn's black eyes bulged, but she set her lip and nodded.\n\nI looked inside the bag, at what remained of our ill-fated haul. We had a collection of horror stories by an award-winning author. We had a signed first edition of a seminal mystery novel. We had an atlas of Europe circa World War IV, a kraken-skin journal with a scant few entries, and a Congolese classic so old the binding had been replaced with everseal tape. I looked at each of them, mind spinning at the words I would never read. With my stomach in my throat, I made my choice.\n\nI brought the bag closer to my mouth and bit down as hard as I could manage on the kraken-skin journal. I shook my head, making sure a quick worrying did not loosen the book from my mouth. And then we let the rest fall.\n\nThey plummeted like stones. Their pages ripped free in the wind; their bindings collapsed as they lost their insides; their lavish covers flipped end over end, back toward the very place we'd tried to rescue them from. I closed my eyes, and I said goodbye.\n\nHer sword hand freed, Sigrunn gripped the line below me. I helped her climb up closer to me and wrapped my arm around her waist, supporting her weight in lieu of her damaged abdominal muscles. She smiled, grim but thankful, and brandished her sword.\n\n\"You climb. I'll kill.\"\n\nWe were a terror. The Nazis besieged us as we ascended those last thirty feet, but the pain of loss and the need to salvage victory proved more powerful than any necromancy. Sigrunn summoned wind and swung steel, scattering zombie parts in a gory hailstorm, while I climbed as promised, keeping my teeth bit deep into the journal. When we grabbed onto the rail of the Logophile, one zombie had the temerity to swing his saber at me, catching me a vicious dent across my wrist; I made sure Sigrunn had a tight grip on the rail, caught the zombie about the throat, and smashed him against the hull until his body went limp.\n\nAnd then we were climbing over the side, and I felt solid wood under my feet, and looked up to see two dozen zombies engaged in battle with the animated contents of our upper holds, desperately parrying and riposting against sacks and barrels and ropes.\n\nI grinned around the book, and made ready to do battle. But before we could raise our fists, there came a great, metallic screech from below us\u2013\u2013and the Little Free Library, so burned I could see clear through its hull, shot past us at full speed, careening like a cannonball straight into the underbelly of the Nazi frigate.\n\nThe frigate's hull shattered, the runes etched there winking out like a snuffed candle. The ship lost its eldritch buoyancy and plunged out of sight, trailing embers; the Library fared not much better, the aft falling away to join the Nazi craft, the fore spearing up toward the stratosphere before it, too, succumbed to inertia.\n\nOut of the smoke and chaos, gleaming in the emerald firelight, shot a familiar silver-feathered owl, which flew unerringly toward the Logophile's bowsprit before transforming into a gleaming grappling hook. And behind it, trailing on the end of a retracting line, came the flying forms of Sayyida and Beth, soot-streaked and flecked with burns, but alive.\n\nThe zombies collapsed, the frigate's shifters no longer around to power them. Beth and Sayyida landed sprawling on the deck, laughing and screaming obscenities at the fallen Nazis. But then Sayyida stood with haste, elation decayed to fear at the sight of Sigrunn's wound.\n\n\"Do not say a single thing about irony,\" Sigrunn warned her.\n\nSayyida answered with a laugh, a kiss, and grateful whispers I did them the courtesy of ignoring.\n\n\"Ambrose,\" Beth said as she rose. \"Our guests need medical assistance.\"\n\n\"It will be my utmost pleasure, Captain,\" Ambrose said, his ethereal voice vibrating the deck.\n\nBeth stopped in front of me. \"And how are you, Cragg?\"\n\nWhatever bulwark against emotion the danger afforded me was gone. It was all I could do to hand the journal to Beth and say three words.\n\n\"This is all.\"\n\n\"Oh, Cragg.\" Beth clutched the book to her chest. \"I know you did all you could. Sigrunn was wounded...I...\"\n\nMy hands finally free, I signed her my response. \"What good are books if no people are around to enjoy them?\"\n\nShe started nodding before I finished, smiling wistfully.\n\n\"I could only save one,\" I signed, any relief long gone. \"They were all so valuable, but that one\u2013\u2013\" \u2013\u2013I pointed to the journal\u2013\u2013 \"\u2013\u2013was a single person's story. I thought, we will probably find more King or Miller or M-E-L-V-I-L-L-E\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Beth said, nodding in comprehension. \"I like to think I'd have done the same.\" Beth looked at the journal's covers, riffled its pages. \"It's half blank\u2013\u2013more than half blank...\" She saw the shadow on my face and held up a hand. \"I actually think it's a good thing.\"\n\nI raised my clay eyebrows. \"What?\"\n\nShe handed the journal back to me with reverence. \"Once I make sure none of us bleed to death,\" she said, \"I'll see if I can find some ink. I think...\" She smiled at me. \"This could be good practice.\"\n\nHer implication was a starburst in my mind. I stood holding the journal, feeling the leather warming in my hands. I expected it to feel weighty, but actually, it felt quite light. It made sense; the Nazis wanted to stamp out our legend, so why not try to make it permanent?\n\nWe were a wounded crew of five, two of us unfamiliar with the paradigm running the ship. Sigrunn and Sayyida were likely to join us on the bounty rolls, and even if they didn't, we'd be pursued by the Luftwaffe as far as the biplanes' shifters would allow.\n\nBut all of that was distant birdsong in my mind; I was preparing to start our ship's log. I would write an entry for every one of our exploits here in the Broken Skies, and when the journal was full, I would seek a working press, that we might pass it on to others. Maybe I could inspire readers to see the world as we do: to value stories above riches and people above stories. Or perhaps one day time and space would heal again, and it could just be a way to pass the time.\n\nBeth's hand could do us more justice; even Ambrose's powers could produce cleaner prose. But I was unwilling to even loosen my grip on the journal. They already had ways to make themselves heard. This time, the Book Golem would write his own book. The writing itself, regardless of anything else, was victory.\n\nThe Nazis had already burned many stories in their quest to control the world's narrative...but maybe they wouldn't burn ours.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Always A Chance by Chelsea Counsell ]\n\nEverything was going smoothly until the pirates attacked.\n\nFor thirty-six hours, Amalie and Silver had taken turns navigating the Benbow from Florence to Peking, trading sleep shifts so that there was always someone at the helm. Her neck itched occasionally with worry, thinking of their cargo and Grandin, the dragon trainer, who had remained below deck for the entirety of the journey. But after a breakfast of cheese and figs around sunrise, a dot appeared just above the horizon, and then she had bigger things to worry about.\n\nKeeping her gloved hands on the steering, she leaned forward, eyeing the dot. They were passing through the Qing Empire's hinterlands. The ground below them was a speckled map of plains and ice-covered mountains. But that dot...\n\nIt was not uncommon to see other airships near industrial hubs. They'd had a near miss flying over the crowded airspace of Belgrade, and Amalie had expected the same the closer they got to Peking. But they weren't that close, and the dot kept getting bigger.\n\n\"Silver, can you make that out?\" she asked.\n\n\"You see it, too?\" From his long coat, Silver pulled a brass spyglass, which he held to one eye with his good hand. His other arm dropped off to nothing but a neatly pinned sleeve just above the elbow, above which sat Morpheus, a black dragon the size of a hound, its tail curled for balance around Silver's throat.\n\nSilver hissed a breath through his teeth that made Morpheus's dark plumage ruffle. \"Black flag,\" he said of the dot in the sky. \"They're illegal freighters. It's possible that they're not pirates, just bootleggers, but at this distance, in Qing hinterland airspace, with us carrying the cargo we are? Unlikely.\"\n\nAmalie clutched the helm. Her torc dragon, Ratha\u2014a gift from her father upon graduating from the Institute\u2014hissed and burrowed under the collar of her thick shearling coat. So much for being a guard dragon.\n\n\"What do you plan to do?\" Silver asked.\n\n\"Keep going,\" Amalie said with a hardness in her voice that could have rent steel.\n\n\"Not 'try to lose them in the mountains'? Not 'radio for help'?\"\n\n\"There will be no help out here,\" Amalie said, feeling irritation well inside her. Her first mission out of the Institute\u2014a mission her father was supposed to lead, had he not disappeared\u2014and she risked losing everything in a pirate attack. The odds had been unfairly stacked against her from the start. \"We're on our own,\" she said. \"Did you not realize that when they sent a child to do a man's job?\"\n\n\"You're not a child.\"\n\nAmalie's jaw tightened, and for a moment she looked only at the horizon, where Peking lay. Then she pulled a lever on the steering, releasing a hunk of meat or some other such morsel in the bowels of the ship to inspire the ship-dragon, Sparky, to light his chest fire, heat the water system, and speed up the ship\u2014depending on how serious his cold was.\n\n\"We'll fight them if they come,\" she said. \"I'm going to check on Grandin. Will you take the helm?\"\n\n\"Of course, m'lady.\"\n\nAmalie nodded and turned to duck down the ramp to the cargo hold. When she reached the hold, lit by golden lanterns on the walls, she froze as every tendon in her body locked.\n\nIn the center of the room, now free from its cage, stood a four-legged mass of sinew and muscle enameled in iridescent ivory. The mane was the most peculiar part\u2014like blue fire quickening from crest to tail. It sent flickers of opal firelight against the walls. The dragon's skin was tessellated\u2014dark blue ridges standing out against white shell. And two horns like crescent moons sprung from a brow over a long-whiskered snout, which puffed clouds of steam into the air.\n\nRegardless, the strangest thing in the room was not the dragon itself but Grandin, the dragon trainer\u2014a young woman of small, round stature with dark skin and curly hair. There was the dragon, looking like a majestic portent of death with its hand-long canines and fire-blue eyes. And there was Grandin...hugging it.\n\nGrandin noticed Amalie and pulled back slightly, stroking a small hand down one of the dragon's haunches. Her smile was tentative.\n\nAmalie's chest constricted painfully and her lips pulled back in a snarl. \"What are you doing?\" she snapped. \"What did I say about letting it out of its cage?\"\n\nGrandin flinched, as if Amalie scared her more than the horse-size beast in her arms. \"Tianfei doesn't like the cage,\" she said.\n\nAmalie's fists balled. \"You can't just give the dragon free rein of the ship because it doesn't like the cage!\" she said. \"There is a ship out there coming closer that is no doubt full of pirates drooling to steal that beast. Do you understand what will happen if we don't make it to Peking? Not to mention it's dangerous, just\u2014just look at it.\"\n\nIndeed, the dragon had begun to step back and forth in agitation, and the steam from its thumb-size nostrils had turned black as smoke.\n\n\"Pirates or no pirates, I have Tianfei under control,\" Grandin said stolidly. She patted the dragon right on the chest. \"Everything will be okay. But you're making her nervous. You should go above deck for a bit, so I can calm her down.\"\n\nRage blistered on Amalie's cheeks, and deep in her coat, Ratha squirmed. How dare Grandin give her orders? That she would tell Amalie what to do on her own mission made her so angry that her mind was like mortar smashing together\u2014she couldn't even speak. Pursing her lips, she turned and marched up the stairs, throwing the door of the hold shut behind her.\n\nThe slam shook her reverie, and she moved toward the helm a little less stormily. Silver stood there, tending the wheel. A lit pipe hung from his mouth.\n\n\"What happened?\" he asked easily.\n\nLike milk curdling in her stomach, Amalie felt a mix of anger and shame because she felt so angry. \"It's my first mission and I've got some lowborn simpleton reining my dragon,\" she bit off. She flushed at how petulant she sounded. Her father's reputation rested on her shoulders; the peace between countries depended on getting the dragon from Florence to Peking. How could she do that if she couldn't control her own emotions?\n\nSilver stepped away from the steering to let her regain control of the ship. With Morpheus crouched on his shoulder like a gargoyle, he moved to the banister and made himself comfortable, leaving Amalie to sulk in her thoughts at the wheel.\n\nThe dot on the northern horizon bloomed into a ship with two blade-like wings and a black-colored hull. To the east, the Great Wall snaked like a pale river through verdant trees\u2014just beyond that was the city Peking, and though Amalie could not make out the buildings yet, she could see it in her mind's eye as she had seen it in books, with the clay tile roofs, curved eaves, and Fu Lion statues sitting at magnanimous attention.\n\nWith Sparky's help, the pace of the Benbow quickened, sending the landscape by more quickly. But the pirate ship\u2014if it was a pirate ship\u2014nonetheless managed to gain.\n\nAs it came closer, Amalie saw that the ship's wings were biplanar, tapering to points, and the hull tapered at the bow to almost a harpoon. If the Benbow were a harbor seal, the black ship was an orca\u2014pointed and sharp, with a deadly bite.\n\nFor a moment, she fingered the handle of the saber at her hip. Silver reappeared from the cargo hold, and he stood tense near her, resting his hand on his cutlass.\n\nShe counted ten men on the black ship. Nine standing eagerly at its rails, and one necessarily on steering. Before she could even make out the color of their hair, she knew they were pirates, for the way they eyed her ship was nothing but predatory.\n\nThen the black ship was upon them, and all Amalie could do was spin her hands around and around, steering in a vain attempt to circumvent them. She could almost see the bricks of the Great Wall when the black ship harpooned her bow.\n\nIt was like running aground in air. The entire Benbow lurched, throwing Amalie against the wheel and jarring her arms in their sockets. Silver went floundering across the planks of the deck before rolling upright and drawing his sword. Morpheus scurried up after him.\n\nThe pirates, for they were pirates, jumped from the black ship onto the deck of the Benbow. Three of them went for Silver, attempting to down him with their cutlasses. The rest\u2014a half dozen\u2014ran below decks for the cargo.\n\nAmalie almost felt hurt that they didn't see her as a threat. Their loss.\n\nShe abandoned the helm. Caught by the black ship, the Benbow would keep aloft and steady so long as Sparky kept puffing. From her sheath Amalie pulled her glimmering saber, which she wielded almost as confidently as the wheel.\n\nSilver held his own against the three pirates. They were younger and perhaps stronger than he, but Silver's sword hand was steady and quick, like a dragon bite, and Morpheus was like a second sword, slashing out with claws and teeth against the pirates' vulnerable flesh.\n\nAmalie rushed, sword drawn, behind one of Silver's assailants, and struck the man's cutlass from his hand so that it soared over the side of the Benbow. As the man gaped at his empty hand, Silver used the man's shock to cut him down.\n\n\"Go!\" Silver shouted to her. \"The dragon!\"\n\nAmalie nodded, her heart quickening, and ran for the cargo hold, disappearing down the dark ramp. She leveled out to the sound of a wail, just as Grandin rushed the pirates, clawing at their burly arms like a wildcat.\n\n\"Get off me, girl,\" one of them growled, and thrust his elbow into her face, knocking her straight back to the floor.\n\nThe dragon pulled against the iron chains the pirates had swung around it, as if trying to get to Grandin's side. Dark smoke puffed from its nose.\n\n\"Alrighty, men, let's get this beast aloft,\" said a bald pirate with drooping earlobes. Then he noticed Amalie. They all noticed Amalie, for her sword glimmered in the dragon light.\n\n\"If you'll excuse us, miss,\" he said.\n\nAmalie made no move to abandon her guard on the exit. Keeping her eyes on the pirates, she held her sword steady.\n\n\"As you like it.\" The bald man smiled and drew his cutlass.\n\nAmalie backed up the ramp. She didn't want to give the man leeway, but the incline would give her the advantage, and the narrow passageway meant that she would stand between the pirates and their goal\u2014the dragon would not leave while she still stood.\n\nThe bald man engaged her, testing her sword as she parried. He seemed to take her more seriously than the man above decks had. Maybe it was that she stood between him and his goal. Maybe it was the firelight.\n\nShe lanced out, attempting to disarm him. He parried. A quick twist of his blade and he sent his cutlass shooting toward her like a saber strike. Amalie jumped back. He struck at her more quickly, his sword biting like a cobra. She managed to parry, but only just. His sword was heavy, and though she parried his strikes, each one jarred her arms until she grew tired. With each attack, she lost ground, until she had reached where the ramp opened onto the main deck.\n\n\"Amalie!\"\n\nShe turned, barely managing to parry the second blade that swooped in from behind\u2014one of the pirates had broken away from Silver and advanced on her. The bald man saw his chance and went for her throat.\n\nAmalie gasped as his sword\u2014not quite parried by her own blade\u2014pierced the thick shearling of her coat. The blade dug against her flesh, and she howled, a brutal sound that swept out of her like a whale cry.\n\nSilver re-engaged the man who had come at her back, pulling him away, but it was too late. Amalie gripped the cut on her shoulder and felt hot blood seep through her coat.\n\nWith a hiss, Ratha scampered out from the belly of her coat and back around her neck. When the bald man swung his sword at her again, the dragon jumped across their meeting blades, scurried up the man's arm, and burrowed into his garments.\n\nThe bald man's eyes went wide and he screamed high.\n\nAmalie stepped to the side, narrowly missing him as he danced past her, trying to get the tiny dragon out of his clothes. As he staggered, she ripped her sword through his calf, felling him to the wood floor.\n\n\"Who's next?\" she started to say, but then the three pirates leading the dragon shoved past her, and she had to move back just to avoid being trampled.\n\nThe dragon shrieked like grating metal, its nostril smoke turning black as ash as it reared against the men pulling it by the heavy shackles around its limbs. But six men's brute strength was too much for it, and it was losing ground toward the side of the Benbow.\n\nFear that they would escape crashed in Amalie's chest. She threw herself at them, her sword drawn like a bolt of thunder, but one of the pirates caught his cutlass against her saber and dragged her into a fight, where she had to parry or else be cut down\u2014she could only watch them take the dragon as she fended off his attacks.\n\n\"Let her go!\" a voice shouted, and Grandin appeared from the cargo bay, her nose flushed with blood that ran down over her lips. She ran straight for the pirates, seemingly oblivious to their weapons, and lunged at one at random, biting down on a scarred bicep.\n\nThe man gave a guttural shout and yanked Grandin off him by her short, curly hair, throwing her against the deck.\n\nAmalie's heart lodged in her throat as she thrust her sword first one way, then another, trying to shake off the man who had engaged her. The dragon's frantic blue mane danced against her eyes, and Amalie knew she was only moments from losing everything\u2014from irredeemably failing her father, the Institute, and herself.\n\nThe pirates threw a steel lasso around the dragon's neck, tightening it like a noose as they dragged it toward their ship.\n\nOn the deck, forgotten, Grandin crawled to her knees and raised her fingers, blowing a sharp, high-pitched whistle that broke over the noise of the fighting.\n\nAt once, the dragon's entire demeanor changed. If Amalie had thought it dangerous before, she had no idea what to think of it now, for it made the creature Grandin had hugged in the cargo bay look like a birth-wet kitten.\n\nWith a roar like an engine seizing, the dragon swept its muscular tail like an undertow at the knees of the men surrounding it, knocking them to the ground. The blue-white flames of its mane grew almost too bright to look at. Then it opened its mouth wide like the inhale of a bellows and fire erupted the deck, blue and liquid as lava.\n\nAmalie jumped back toward the steering, scared for her own skin, as grown men screamed wet, guttural screams. The air grew sharp with the stench of blackened wood and charred flesh. Not all of the pirates had been burned\u2014but the ones who hadn't jumped over the side of the Benbow onto the black ship, retreating, and dragged their burned counterparts with them.\n\nAmalie stood in shock, clutching a rail, as the black ship pulled away from the Benbow. Grandin clutched Tianfei with tears running down her cheeks. Amalie felt a pull of sorrow and shame in her chest, seeing her cry. Then a downward lurch awakened her to her senses\u2014Sparky was not lit. They were falling.\n\n\"Get ready to come down hard!\" she shouted, running to the steering. She took hold and hooked her feet under the crossbar. She pulled the lever that would feed Sparky, hoping that the many, many apparatuses that could fail would not.\n\nThe Benbow plunged toward the ground, which had cropped up in tidy squares of pavilions and terraces, flying by too quickly and too close.\n\nAmalie looked across the burning deck to where Grandin held on to the dragon, which clung to the wood of the deck by its claws. Silver and Morpheus were on the other side of the flames, holding tight to a guardrail.\n\nAmalie pushed another lever, pitching the ship forward. The wings needed to catch the wind\u2014they had to. Her heart hammered in her chest, knowing the ground was coming closer and closer to their hull. There was always the chance that the ship-dragon wouldn't light properly. Always a chance.\n\nAnd then she felt it, a lurch forward like the kick of an engine, and she pulled the lever to even them out as Sparky lit.\n\nAmalie stood in a courtyard just inside the Qing palace, waiting for the Qing ambassador to give them the exit documents for the mission.\n\nSilver was there, too, with lit pipe, watching Morpheus stalk blood-red koi at the edge of a pond. The Benbow had been damaged in the fight and the resulting rough landing, so he waited to hear whether they could repair it before they returned to Florence.\n\nAmalie strode nearer to where Grandin stood, speaking with the Qing dragon trainer\u2014a black-haired woman in a pale green dress, who gave an enthusiastic \"mmm\" to everything Grandin said about the dragon.\n\nAmalie watched Grandin speak about the dragon\u2014how her hands moved as she spoke, she was so passionate, and how the dragon would nuzzle her shoulders with its snout whenever it wasn't getting enough attention from her. Amalie tried to reconcile this gentle creature with the terror she had seen on the ship. Were they really the same?\n\nWhen the Qing trainer left to get the ambassador, Amalie approached Grandin, who was stroking the dragon's snout\u2014probably saying goodbye.\n\nFor a moment, Amalie was silent, watching, feeling something like an intruder on their intimate moment. But then she cleared her throat, and Grandin turned.\n\n\"Grandin, I wanted to say how sorry I am for the way I acted,\" Amalie said. \"I shouldn't have yelled at you. I didn't understand...but I should have trusted your expertise.\"\n\nShe tensed, expecting Grandin to bite in the same way she'd expected the dragon to.\n\n\"That's all right,\" Grandin said. \"You were just scared.\"\n\nAmalie nodded, impressed again with her ease. \"I hope that when we go back to Florence, I can explain to the Institute what a help you've been.\"\n\nGrandin started. \"I'm not going back to Florence,\" she said.\n\nAmalie thought for sure she had misheard her. \"What?\"\n\n\"I'm staying here. Wherever Tianfei goes, that's where I'm needed.\"\n\nAmalie felt herself deflate slightly. \"Oh. Oh, I had no idea.\" She couldn't imagine giving up Florence, her home, for a dragon. The bond between them must be even greater than she understood. \"Well. Perhaps I'll have another mission in Peking sometime. We could see each other again.\"\n\n\"I would like that,\" Grandin said. Then she smiled, in a way a mischievous cherub might, and gestured toward Tianfei's long-whiskered, ivory snout. \"Do you want to pet her?\" she asked.\n\nWith a smile, Amalie stepped forward and allowed herself to be guided toward new experience.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ What A Tea Witch Promises by C. C. S. Ryan ]\n\nJenoye padded through the quiet corridors of the leisure airship Starlight Spectacle. It was her fourth day on the ship. She had made it to the semifinal round of the competition to be the Spectacle's first resident tea witch, and she had things to do before everyone else woke up.\n\nAs she approached the topmost observation deck, over which the ship's silvery, almost entirely ornamental sail soared toward the fading stars, she narrowed her eyes. Someone was up on the mast, in the ropes, well past the reach of the muted lights on the deck. Jenoye had never gotten around to taking an airship cruise before, so maybe, she thought, that was normal.\n\nJenoye removed a roll of silk from her robes and pulled vials and bundles out of the many pockets of her apron. She spread the cloth on the deck and arranged her ingredients on it. The eight items she'd chosen would become more potent when they were touched by the first rays of the sun. None of the other competitors were in sight, but she supposed they each had their own ways of preparing. She sat back and waited for the sun to crest the vast horizon. A good time to meditate, maybe. Just cast back the stiff hood of her formal cloak, open her witch-eye and\u2014\n\nThe pain almost made her fall over. Distress, sharp and deep, came from the figure above her. Jenoye got to her feet and stared upwards as all three of her eyes filled with tears. Blinking them away, she tongued a bit of foxfire moss from a pocket and gently blew a puff of light from her mouth. She sent it spiraling up the mast.\n\n\"Good morning. Are you all right?\" Jenoye asked gently. The witch-light carried her voice and sight up with it. She could just make out a face\u2014vaguely familiar, maybe featured on one of the posters promoting the airship's attractions: a magical ice rink, a banquet hall with a starry sky, the tea witch competition, a pirate show... Yes, that was it. An actor.\n\n\"What? Who\u2014oh. One of the tea witches. I'm all right. How...?\"\n\n\"May I speak with you?\"\n\n\"I...\"\n\nIn the witch-light, Jenoye could just make out the rope that was loosely wrapped around the woman's hand. She didn't know what she would do if the actor's anguish caused her to...to do something rash.\n\nThe sharp pounding of the actor's heart layered on top of Jenoye's anxious pulse. She closed her witch-ears. \"You're not Endoan, right? Has a tea witch ever given you a service? If you come down, it would be my pleasure to offer you one. It\u2014it may suggest some solution to your dilemma. Please? At the very least, it should taste good!\" A bit undignified, but Jenoye hoped she'd covered her terror and sounded friendly and professional.\n\nThe woman sighed, tightened the rope, and slid-scrambled toward the deck. Jenoye felt a rush of relief, and closed her witch-eye tight\u2014it was rude to open witch-senses around others without permission.\n\nThe actor approached Jenoye, keeping plenty of space between them, and looked her up and down. \"I don't know that tea can help, uh...\"\n\nJenoye cleared her throat. \"I'm Jenoye. It's not simply tea\u2014although it's good tea! It's genuine magic. Sure, tea witches can't fly like wizards, but we have other talents, including the powers of insight.\" She touched her closed eyelid and her ears, and was gratified when the other woman looked curious. \"And you are?\"\n\n\"Lieute\u2014Andev, just Andev. I'm a...performer. I didn't think tea witches were quite real,\" Andev said. Her eyes drifted toward the graying sky. \"But my problems aren't something I can chat about with a stranger.\"\n\nJenoye didn't need her witch-senses to see the hollows in Andev's cheeks or the harsh dark circles under her eyes, interrupting the soft brown of her face. Jenoye was surprised, though, to see tangled scars that trailed across Andev's tight jaw and disappeared under a high collar. Maybe acting was a rougher trade than she knew.\n\nJenoye nodded. \"Well, sometimes the client doesn't have to tell me anything. Did you see the first round? That gentleman hardly had to speak at all.\"\n\nAndev cocked her head. \"I caught a little of it, and the second round yesterday. I didn't quite understand what was happening. Although they did seem happy afterwards, your clients.\"\n\n\"Well, a tea witch helps a client address something in their heart, slight or profound. These ingredients here are mostly simple herbs and dried tea leaves, right? That's where we start. We blend them with magic, and we conjure sweet fancies\u2014they may look like bonbons, but they also do a share of the work. That's how we reach a person's heart, to restore balance or name a hidden fear or rediscover joy.\" And then she was supposed to carry a bit of it with her, but for the past two days, Jenoye had been so focused on the competition that she'd only brought back tiny shards of openness and joy from those clients.\n\n\"But is it always so...public?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! Only for competitions. If you ask for a private tea service, I'm bound to help and to never tell anyone what happened. That's the promise. If I broke it, I wouldn't be a tea witch anymore.\"\n\nAndev gave Jenoye a hard stare, and she had to fight the urge to step back. Behind Andev, the golden edge of the sun spilled across the horizon.\n\nFinally, Andev nodded. \"I think you're telling the truth. Offering me a lifeline. But why? You don't know me, and I have no money. I have nothing.\"\n\nWisps of glowing sparks rose from the ingredients at their feet. Jenoye bent to gather them up and waved off Andev's hesitant gesture of assistance. \"Rules are rules. A tea witch is obligated to help someone in distress. Just like how Endoans always offer a cup of tea\u2014the regular kind, I mean\u2014to anyone who asks.\"\n\nAndev shook her head. \"Endoa. So strange. All right, I'll try your tea service.\"\n\n\"This way,\" said Jenoye. \"We can do it before the competition begins.\"\n\nAndev followed her. \"It's important to you, this competition.\"\n\nJenoye hugged her bundle to her chest. \"It's everything. After I graduated, I was itinerant. I like meeting new people. But for some, if you don't have your own appointed position or your own shop...\" She reminded herself that she was a professional, and hastily straightened and tucked the bundle under her arm. \"So, tell me about your show!\"\n\nAndev was silent and Jenoye had to glance back to see if she was still there. Then she shrugged and pointed at a poster on the wall ahead of them. \"Can't say much more than that.\" Andev couldn't seem to actually look at the poster herself.\n\nTwo fine portraits depicted Andev and a woman whose face was partly hidden by a cockaded captain's hat. Both wore uniforms that were surely sharper than any real pirate had ever worn. Beneath the portraits, multi-hued and gold-tinted calligraphy declared:\n\nThe days of piracy are long over in the skies of Endoa, but everyone loves a swashbuckler! For your delight, before the final round of the tea witchery competition, you may experience the thrill and frisson of a piratical boarding!\n\nDuels and derring-do? Yes! Risk to yourselves or your heirlooms? No!\n\nDon't miss this event in the banquet hall with our handsome band of privateers, led by Captain Toural and First Lieutenant Andev!\n\n\"I...see. Well, this way.\"\n\nJenoye sat facing andev at her cabin table. Tight quarters meant that scents would be more potent, for better or for worse, and she would need to be mindful.\n\nWith Andev's permission, Jenoye took her hands and recited the invocation and pledge for a private service. She opened her witch-eye, and her second pair of ears twitched out ever so slightly. A quiet moment passed while she set out three small pots and filled them with spring water from the mountains back home. Another bit of foxfire-moss and a whisper against each pot set a softly-colored flame around its base.\n\nThe first pot was to open the heart. Sometimes that was enough. The second pot, if needed, was to touch the heart, and the third pot was to change the heart. Jenoye had only used a third pot twice in her career so far. But she didn't know how well any of it would work on a foreigner.\n\n\"How...how much can you see?\" whispered Andev.\n\n\"Not specifics, usually,\" Jenoye said. \"And it's all confidential.\"\n\nAndev's panic had resurfaced and wasn't subsiding. How could Jenoye get this foreigner to trust her?\n\nSome of the fear and pain in Andev's heart flowed from the distant west. Between that and the way she spoke, Jenoye had a guess as to where she was from. What was it Jenoye had heard about people from there? They swore on blood, didn't they?\n\nBefore she could second-guess herself, Jenoye pushed back her hood and took out the tiny, sharp blade that she used for ingredients like citrus peels. A light prick of her finger, and a drop of blood welled out. \"I promise you my secrecy,\" she said.\n\nAndev's fear eased a little. But now what to do with this drop of blood?\n\nShe'd have to keep improvising. Jenoye put an orange leaf on a tray and let the blood fall onto it. Then she carefully released a drop of shimmering, hot water from the first pot onto it. Both liquids disappeared into a tiny scarlet puff.\n\nJenoye doubted that was what Westerners did. Still, it seemed good enough for Andev, who made a nod of satisfaction and held out her finger. Jenoye hadn't expected that, but now she had to go with it. She swallowed and repeated the steps.\n\nTime to begin the actual tea.\n\nThe first little cup was stoneware, rough and thick, like a child might use. The scents that rose from the tea came from as many Western fruits and spices as Jenoye could find in her collection. Scent was a direct route to a client's past. She took the first sip and passed it to Andev.\n\nAndev breathed in deeply\u2014just what she was supposed to do\u2014and then tossed it back in one gulp. Definitely not what she was supposed to do. But her eyes unfocused slightly, and after a moment, she spoke. \"When I was little, before...before things changed, if something scared me, I'd make a point of doing it anyway. But now, I'm afraid of...the performance.\" She shook her head. \"I don't have the words.\" She stared into the empty cup.\n\nJenoye waited for three breaths, then drew a second, stronger cup from the pot. She took her sip and passed it to Andev. \"Not stage fright?\"\n\n\"No.\" Andev swallowed the tea and closed her eyes. \"Have you ever experienced something you couldn't help but see over and over, where even thinking about it made you sick?\"\n\nJenoye knew of it: the injury to the heart that reopened itself. One of her teachers had decided to study tea witchery because of how tea services had stopped her from waking sobbing in the night. Jenoye conjured a small sphere of warm apple and molasses, and passed the fancy on a tiny tray to Andev.\n\n\"Never knew you could use magic to make sweets.\" Andev hesitantly tasted it, then ate it all. \"It's so warm.\" She put a hand on her chest.\n\nThe obvious problem was that Andev needed assistance in overcoming her hurt so that she could perform. But there was something else. The warmth of the sweet wasn't going to get Jenoye there, but at least it would make Andev feel a little better. Her witch-gaze roamed over Andev and settled on the recent past, trailing above her like an angry storm.\n\nJenoye took the cup back and looked at the traces. Some of the leaves were twisted in on themselves. Jenoye rolled them between her fingers. Andev, she thought, was not an actor.\n\nOn to the next course, then. Jenoye wrapped the second teapot in gentle spring rainclouds. The tea that she steeped now smelled of safety: toasted grains, warm cotton, the fur of a cat lazing by a fire. She warmed the cup with witch-fire before pouring. After her sip, she placed the cup and a tray with a silvery, sugar-frosted berry into Andev's hands. Jenoye had never seen the fruit before; she had conjured it from Andev's heart.\n\nAndev took a sip of tea and nibbled the berry. \"I was picking frostberries when they took me,\" she said, so quietly that Jenoye could hardly hear. Tears spilled down her cheeks, into her cup. Jenoye felt Andev's heart crack open.\n\n\"You don't have to say anything,\" Jenoye said quickly.\n\nAndev shook her head. \"I need to now,\" she whispered roughly. \"I\u2014I don't ever want to hold a sword again, even a toy sword. I got away! And I thought I was free, but Toural, first mate on the ship I escaped\u2014I might've set fire to it, a bit\u2014she's off raising havoc on her own now. It's all she knows how how to do. And she tracked me down for this scheme. I was...\" Andev flushed. She stared at her feet for a moment, then let out a short bark of bitter laughter. \"She used to call me her prot\u00e9g\u00e9, the one she'd been able to whip into exactly what she wanted. I'm the linchpin of this plan. She's had me training these poor actors. They don't know anything. I haven't been able to tell anyone! I\u2014I'm a fugitive. If Toural turns me in, I won't see the sky again for ten years, not till execution day. And so I can only do what Toural tells me to do. I'm useless. A coward.\"\n\nJenoye pulled threads of insight from Andev's heart and stitched them together. Andev was a real pirate. Well, not exactly\u2014as a young woman, really barely more than a child, she'd been pressed into a pirate crew. Just as rumors claimed could happen in the West. But she had managed to free herself. Not right away, not before maelstroms of blood and terror. Those memories were the wounds in her heart. Now Toural had essentially run a sword through Andev and twisted the blade.\n\nJenoye tried to keep the shock from her face while she conjured another fancy, this one a candied hazelnut, flecked with gold and wrapped in a cloud of autumn sweetgrass. She took a deep breath and put it directly into Andev's hands. \"No, Andev. You've been so brave.\"\n\nAndev ate it slowly, as though afraid of being overpowered by the flavor. \"Have I?\" She wiped at her face with a flaxen napkin. Her heart lightened and then sank again. \"It doesn't change anything. When the 'performance' begins, Toural will have the troupe gather everyone's valuables. She'll set off a flare, and a skycab she's stolen will come for her, or us.\" She made as though to spit, but stopped herself. \"No security on this ship! I didn't believe it'd be so, but you Endoans... You can't stop her.\"\n\nJenoye poured more tea into Andev's tear-stained cup, to ease her worry. \"Oh, yes we can,\" Jenoye said. She had a plan. \"Just come watch the competition. Bring Toural.\"\n\nAndev, clearly puzzled but also less tightly coiled than before, watched as Jenoye conducted the end of the service. \"I believe you, but I don't know why.\"\n\n\"Then I'll see you there,\" Jenoye said.\n\nAndev left. Jenoye gripped the edge of the table for a moment, pushing down a surge of nausea. She loved a challenge that played to her strengths, and she had promised to help, but had she made the right decision?\n\nJenoye shook her head and reorganized her ingredients. She had work to do, and midmorning was on its way.\n\nJenoye hardly noticed the bright blue of the sky or heard the drums and applause as she climbed to the competition platform. Was Andev there? She was, and so was Toural, smirking faintly. The other troupe members jostled behind them. Jenoye opened her witch-eye just a sliver and cast it over Toural. It was a tea witch competition, after all; no one could expect to be entirely shielded from witch-senses here.\n\nDespite Toural's sturdy exterior, she was shrouded in chaotic feelings. Not the thunderheads of greed and bloodlust that Jenoye might have expected from a pirate (though there was certainly some of that) but a persistent haze of resentment and bitterness.\n\nJenoye was third, and she wasn't sure that she would survive the wait. She made herself focus on developing and rehearsing her strategies. The first two witches did well; though Jenoye wasn't watching them, she felt the bright hearts of their clients as they stepped down.\n\nFinally, she was called. Jenoye arranged her ingredients and utensils on the table, working to look calm.\n\nThe host called for clients. It was time.\n\nJenoye pointed into the crowd of sunlit faces and waving hands. In the loudest voice she could manage, she called out, \"Captain Toural!\"\n\nToural took a step back. Andev glanced up at Jenoye, questioning, and then Jenoye's witch-ears heard her say to Toural, \"Go on, it's harmless.\" The rest of the troupe took up the cause, cheering for Toural, and soon enough, Toural put on a smile and took her seat.\n\nJenoye began the competition invocation and set out her teapots. Her hands were shaking as she chose her first ingredients. Toural would volunteer nothing, not like Andev had. And yet Jenoye's choices still had to be perfect. Her flavors had to be so enticing, so close to Toural's heart, that she would never think of leaving the stage.\n\nFor the entire first pot, neither of them uttered a word, but Jenoye strained to open her eyes and ears as widely as she could. Toural had her own wounds, but she also had thick scar tissue that prevented Jenoye from reaching her. Finally, at the end of the first pot, heavy with the nostalgia-inducing herbs from the West that had unlocked Andev's memories, Jenoye began to find her way in. Like Andev, everything had been taken from Toural. But Toural believed that she took only what she was owed, and over the years, this unreasoned belief, fed by greed, had only taken stronger root in her heart.\n\nToural was alarmed now, but Jenoye had made the heart-touch successfully. They were connected, however much Toural was fighting it. Jenoye searched for sources of joy and empathy in Toural's tangle of thoughts and memories.\n\nThe first fancy of the second pot was faceted like a gem, with the same green luster as the stones in Toural's ears and belt. It shattered between her teeth, releasing the sweet rush of victory inside. Jenoye watched Toural carefully, looking for the light of remembered triumph in her eyes.\n\nWhen Toural's jaw lifted, Jenoye poured tea into a little cup that was decorated with gold vines on the outside, but rough and unfinished inside. She wafted the scented steam toward Toural, who reflexively breathed in as she took the cup. This tea was as down-to-earth as the fancy had been heady, made with leaves from a deep valley, the humblest of toasted barley, and the clearest of snowmelt. This was to ground Toural in the present.\n\nJenoye spoke silently, directly to Toural's heart, weaving thin strands of joy and clarity into images and meaning for her alone. \"The passengers on this ship are not your Western tyrants, warlords, and aristocrats, Toural. They've taken nothing from you, neither gold nor blood. Their boots aren't the ones that have been on your neck.\" Another fancy, and another tiny cup. \"They're ordinary people, like you. Their losses will hurt them.\"\n\nJenoye suppressed a flinch at the spiky paths of Toural's heart. Thick, scarred briars twisted toward the west, marked by heartbreak and loss. To be sure, Toural hadn't been forced down her road. She'd made many terrible choices over the years and had rarely resisted her darker impulses. But her memories of oppression and brutality, which seeded her resentment, were also genuine.\n\nThe third pot.\n\nJenoye spoke aloud, softly enough that only Toural could hear. \"This third pot is to change the heart. But not for me to change you. It's for you to change yourself. I'm only here to open a way.\"\n\nShe felt Toural's heart shudder, but the captain didn't move.\n\nThis pot was black, cast iron with a pattern of waves and birds that held the viewer's eye. Jenoye silently asked for the grace of her mentors' mentors to make her blend potent. On an impulse, she slipped in the orange leaf from earlier.\n\nThis tea changed significantly as it brewed. First, she poured a smoky cup accompanied by a lozenge of layered memories that made Toural dwell anew within her own sense of loss, to remember how it felt when it was fresh. Secondly, a sharp cup, to which Jenoye added directly a handful of fancies composed of small silver pearls. They tasted of metal and tears.\n\nToural reached for the cup with shaking hands, as though daring herself to complete the ceremony. As each pearl burst in Toural's mouth, she was flooded with the full strength of the pain and fear a passenger would feel as they lost their heirlooms to her.\n\nToural's face became ashen as she swallowed the final mouthful. Her eyes were fixed on the iron pot. The connection between them choked as though Toural had caught it in her fist.\n\nCold sweat ran down Jenoye's spine and all three of her eyes ached. She glanced around for the first time since the service had begun. A heavy silence hung over the crowd, and the judges stared down at her.\n\nAndev, eyebrows knitted together, caught her gaze. \"What are you doing?\" Andev mouthed. But it was time for the final cup of this final pot, the real test of Jenoye's skills. The connection was still there. She needed to use it while she still could.\n\nJenoye had thought to give Toural a taste of peace and strength here, a glimpse of what could be hers if only she didn't carry out her plan. She listened more carefully to the thorns holding back Toural's quaking heart.\n\nThe last cup was tiny but profoundly bitter. The fancy that Jenoye gave Toural was both the most astringent and the sweetest she had ever made. She had taken a risk and made it from scratch that morning, out of real sugar and citron, but now she would change the magic that it would carry. Jenoye breathed on it and conjured a ray of sunlight, a soft taste of sky, and the freedom of the wind to accompany it into Toural's mouth. She wrapped the teacup in piercing starlight.\n\n\"Be free of all this,\" Jenoye whispered, and she felt Toural's heart clench.\n\nToural swallowed the fancy, drank down the tea, and began to sob. Not helpless tears like Andev had wept, but a wretched howl. The thicket around her heart tore itself apart. She swept her arm across the table and Jenoye tried not to flinch as her best cups and trays shattered on the stage. Toural buried her face in her hands, and then she stood, knocking over her chair.\n\n\"What's left of me now, then? What else do I know to do? What is to fill my life if not some small measure of payback? If I have to feel their pain and my own\u2014you may as well have murdered me,\" Toural said raggedly, and she stalked off the stage.\n\n\"You'll find a new heading,\" Jenoye said. Toural was already out of earshot, but maybe Jenoye's words would reach her anyway.\n\nThe judges spoke in strained, rapid whispers. Jenoye sat, frozen. It was done. She ought to feel either pride in her work or regret at her recklessness, probably, but instead she felt dizzy, as though she had just looked down before the last step on a rope bridge.\n\nIn the distance, a scarlet flare rose into the sky, calling Toural's skycab, but only Jenoye and Andev saw it.\n\nJenoye tried to breathe evenly. She quickly recited the closure and knelt to gather the shards of her things. The host rushed to announce an intermission and the muttering crowd dissolved.\n\nAndev crouched next to Jenoye, and this time, Jenoye let her help. \"I could probably fix this,\" Andev suggested, holding up two halves of a cup.\n\nJenoye forced a smile and felt it go askew on her lips. \"Don't know if I'll be needing it anytime soon.\"\n\n\"What? You were incredible. I\u2014\"\n\n\"You've got a job to do.\" Jenoye took out a stoppered bottle from a hip pocket. \"Here. A tea to steady you through the performance. You and the troupe need to get paid. Go on, you'd better help them get ready.\" She pressed the bottle on Andev and hurried away to her cabin.\n\nJenoye sorted through her damaged tools in a daze. She hadn't entirely thought through the consequences of success. Now, when she tried, her mind just turned away.\n\nWhen she was done salvaging what she could, it was nearly performance time. She might as well go and see if her tea had worked. Right? No one would recognize her in regular clothes with her hair curled over her witch-eye and ears. She took her cloak off and finally felt something: a strange sense of relief. For the first time in weeks, she wasn't fretting about the competition.\n\nThe first thing Jenoye saw in the banquet hall was a board with the names of the two finalists. Her name wasn't there. It hurt, but not as much as she'd expected it to.\n\nHalf of the troupe was present, dressed as archaic naval officers and mingling. Dancing had just begun when the faux pirates burst in, led by Andev in the captain's hat. Andev stood tall and delivered her lines boldly, and then there was a great deal of acrobatic fencing and dramatic fisticuffs between the \"pirates\" and the \"officers.\"\n\nFinally, with most of the pirates vanquished, Andev approached Jenoye, followed by a spotlight. In one hand, she gripped a rope that dropped from the ceiling, and in the other, a camellia.\n\nBemused, Jenoye felt Andev silently ask for her permission. Jenoye's witch-ears weren't open, but it seemed they still had some connection. Not sure what she was agreeing to, she nodded.\n\nAndev placed the flower in Jenoye's lapel, swept an arm around her, wrapped the rope around them both, shouted some ridiculous, defiant lines to the crowd, and then\u2014\n\nJenoye's feet left the ground. \"What\u2014!\" She gasped as they flew up toward the starry ceiling. They soared out of the light to a shadowed balcony where the troupe's waiting hands helped them land. Jenoye could barely hear the pleased roar of the crowd over the pounding of her own pulse.\n\nAndev released Jenoye and stood back. She rubbed the back of her neck. \"I do beg your pardon,; I know that was very silly. Toural hadn't written an ending, y'see. I had to do something. Now I hope I'm done with all of this forever.\" She returned the mostly empty bottle of nerve-steadying tea to Jenoye, and then Andev's face grew serious. \"But...your chance to be the tea witch of the Starlight Spectacle. Is it gone?\"\n\nJenoye tried to summon her professional face, but Andev seemed to read the answer anyway. \"Oh. No, no! I didn't\u2014I'll go tell the judges. I'll tell them everything. Surely they'll\u2014\"\n\n\"It's all right,\" Jenoye said. And it was, but why? She uncorked the bottle and shook out the last few drops into her mouth. \"I\u2014I did what a tea witch promises. If I hadn't helped you, I wouldn't be a tea witch. And honestly? A tea witch is all I've ever wanted to be.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A Most Worthy End by Timothy Shea ]\n\nThe ends don't justify the means.\n\nA short, simple turn of phrase, one that has served as a cornerstone of moral philosophy for pretty much as long as moral philosophizing has been a thing. Plato said it. Aquinas said it. Even thinkers with ostensibly nothing else in common\u2014Ayn Rand and Noam Chomsky, for instance\u2014had jumped on the anti-Consequentialist bandwagon at some point in their lives. The message those six words embody is the touchstone of mental juggernauts, tirelessly explored and expounded upon and explored again by some of the greatest minds humanity has ever known.\n\nAnd, to Abrams Miller, it was complete bunk.\n\nNow, it wasn't as if he suffered from a total lack of empathy, or that he held no appreciation of what it meant to follow a higher calling. He cared about other people. At least he thought he did. And he respected those that walked the path of righteousness for righteousness's sake, even if he didn't follow them. Blessed be the names of Plato and Aristotle and all that. Theirs was a noble calling, truly. It just wasn't for him.\n\nNo, as far as his own life was concerned, Abrams preferred a more Machiavellian approach. It was better to be successful than to be righteous. After all, Socrates had wound up sucking hemlock while the Athenian elders went on to die peacefully in their beds. So what if his name had lived on through the ages while those same elders had melted quickly into obscurity? That knowledge could hardly offer succor to a corpse.\n\nAnd as for the others, the Thomas Aquinas-types who had pinned their moral certitude on a belief in their God, Abrams felt nothing but utter contempt. Theirs were nothing but lives wasted on a lie.\n\nHow could he be so sure of himself? How could he be so certain in his condemnation of other's certainty? It was simple, really.\n\nWhen those men had lived, beating their chests and preaching their faith in the divine, God\u2014the real one\u2014hadn't even been born yet.\n\n\"Dad, i'm cold,\" Aizika muttered, miserable as a knife-like breeze cut through the dark ringlets of her hair.\n\nAbrams didn't answer at first. He let his gaze continue to wander across the Behemoth's open-air deck, taking everything in with the cold precision of a dispassionate fanatic; Captain Samson perched on the steering platform, the seedy-looking crew milling between cargo pallets, his own two portos and muledroid tucked safely away on the meager square of planking that his coin had purchased. Shrouding it all was the persistent, impermeable shadow of the vessel's helium bladder.\n\n\"Dad,\" Aizika whined again.\n\n\"Shh,\" Abrams chided as he looked down at his young daughter. Her face was turned up towards him, cherry-red cheeks shining out from the inadequate protection of her oversized hood. \"These are bad men, girl, and they have better things to do than listen to a ten-year-old's cries. If they hear you, they might just cut out your tongue.\"\n\n\"I can still cry without a tongue,\" she shrewdly pointed out. \"I just wouldn't be able to talk.\"\n\n\"Then you won't like what they cut next,\" he warned her. Sometimes the girl's precociousness still took him off-guard. And worried him. If she had any idea of why they were making the Pilgrimage...\n\n\"Why do we have to take a skyship?\" she asked. She still sounded unhappy, but her question was noticeably hushed. \"Why can't we sail on the water like we did before? It was never this cold down there.\"\n\n\"Because,\" he answered, \"you can't get to God from the ocean.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"You'll see, girl. You'll see.\"\n\nTaking a deep breath, Abrams stared forward along their path. The glaring light cascading down past the helium bladder was deceptive. In the distance, barely visible, the steel blue of the ocean met with the unrepentant darkness of a storm system. Their crossing of the Pacific would be neither peaceful nor pleasant.\n\nThe sight of the gathering clouds was enough to make him queasy with dread. And, for one brief moment of weakness, he longed for the days of his youth when the journey could be made in hours instead of weeks. What was it his mother had called them? Bow-wings and air busses? He looked back fondly on the memory, his legs dangling from a padded chair, a nice man bringing him peanuts and pop. How long had it been since he'd had a peanut?\n\nAs quickly as the thought came to him, he shook it away as the blasphemy it was. He couldn't claim understanding of God's Revolution. He didn't know why the old world had to be destroyed in favor of the new, but he knew it was good. No nations, no wars, no pollution. And soon, if he just kept his faith, he would be elevated to greatness. God had spoken to him.\n\nThat didn't make the coming storm any less daunting. But it was necessary, the first of many sacrifices demanded by humanity's only true higher power.\n\nThe storm lasted three days. Three days of rain, three days of darkness, three days of stomach-churning agony as the three-hundred-meter Behemoth was tossed through the skies like a dead leaf in an autumn gale. The engines screamed and the wind howled until the two noises merged into the incessant shriek of a nightmare's orchestra. Aizika endured all of it in a petrified silence.\n\nHer stomach heaved over and over again during those three days, and between each spasming wretch, she wondered over and over again why they were there; why her father insisted on suffering through a Pilgrimage. She told her herself that it was for her, that he was doing it to buy her a better life, but she knew it was a lie. The man never did anything if it wasn't for himself. He hadn't even been willing to move back to Washington City when Mother had gotten sick.\n\nShe shivered constantly as the days dragged on, the worn fabric of Mother's rain-soaked sweatshirt plastered to her skin. The last trace of the woman's scent had been swallowed by the storm. All Aizika could smell was the static-tinged downpour cut by the sweat and terror of the crew. All she could hear were their shouted curses as they trimmed flaps and adjusted ballast and fought desperately to keep the skyship upright. She'd watched as two of the men were dragged over the guardrails by the storm, their screams quickly lost as they plummeted to a fate far below.\n\nTheir deaths went un-mourned. The surviving crewmen scarcely had time to eat, let alone to commemorate their fallen comrades. Aizika clutched desperately to the unadorned, utilitarian bulk of the four-legged muledroid, praying to God for the storm to pass. Her father crouched alone on the opposite side of the deck. The Behemoth continued to sway, and the rain continued to lash. Aizika felt she was trapped inside a hellish eternity.\n\nAnd then, eventually, eternity passed. The skies cleared into a star-strewn black as the air quieted into an eerie chill. Aizika relinquished her grip on the muledroid and tried to stand, stumbling off-balance when the deck failed to shift beneath her feet. Her father was standing by one of the guard rails, peering at something below.\n\n\"Here, girl,\" he called softly to her.\n\nAizika hesitated. The illusion of safety created by the guardrails had been shattered by the storm, and her feet refused to carry her anywhere near the edge of the deck. But her father beckoned her again, and slowly, she moved to comply. The rhythmic squelch of her footfalls seemed to clash irreverently with the loud snoring of the Behemoth's exhausted crew. Coming within a few feet of the rail, she paused again.\n\n\"Come look,\" he told her, a crooked finger pointing down over the side.\n\nWary, she watched him for a moment, but saw no sign of the manic detachment that seemed to grip him at times. All she saw on his face was...awe. Her curiosity overcame her fear and she walked the final three steps to the edge.\n\nLeaning carefully over the guardrail, Aizika had expected to be met with the inky black of the ocean. Instead she was greeted by a milky gray extending as far as she could see. A gasp left her lips. The moon, just cresting the horizon, sent a brilliant sliver of light across the mysterious world below. She stared in silence for a long while, sharing in her father's mesmerized stupor.\n\n\"Is that...ice?\" she asked eventually. Her eyes were adjusting now. Shadows marring the brilliant facade became towering peaks or deep crevices that looked impassible to anything made for land or sea.\n\n\"Yes,\" her father said. \"The Hau Freeze.\"\n\n\"How...how did this happen?\"\n\n\"We don't know. It's a mystery. A miracle, really. God saw fit its creation, and the angels made it so.\"\n\nAizika watched the endless shield of ice drift below them, trying to find some meaning in the jagged shards reaching up into the night sky. It stared back, an enigmatic canvas, cold and menacing.\n\n\"Why?\" was all she could bring herself to say.\n\n\"Because God willed it,\" her father answered. \"To protect herself from those who would see the New Kingdom destroyed. And to keep away those who aren't worthy.\"\n\n\"And we're worthy?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered, sounding torn between confidence and apprehension. \"I've been summoned in my dreams.\"\n\nAizika didn't know what to say to that. She turned her attention back to the Freeze, and her father placed a hand on her shoulder. She shivered.\n\nHis touch held neither warmth nor comfort.\n\nAbrams seethed, but kept his face neutral. He hoped he was misreading the situation, but knew he wasn't. Up on the steering platform, Captain Samson was engaged in a hushed but animated conversation with his first mate, both of their gazes flickering frequently towards the horizon. The rest of the crew was likewise arrayed at the front of the Behemoth, staring ahead. All of them were restless. All of them were riveted by what lay beyond, turning back only to cast brief, malicious glares towards Abrams.\n\nThe cause of the sailors' apprehension was obvious. Dominating the horizon, and growing larger by the minute, the dark, brooding mass of the Island towered. It had looked benign enough when they'd first spotted land, two dark smears rising up from the endless sheets of ice. The slope of the twin mountains had appeared so gentle that they looked little more than glorified hills.\n\nNow, an hour's journey had laid bare the mountains' deception. The skyship's altimeter read 2,500 meters, and though they were still several kilometers from where they broached the ice, both mountains clearly swelled to peaks high overhead. The sheer power of the landscape made Abrams feel like they were nearing the edge of the world. It was, he thought, a home worthy of a god.\n\n\"Mr. Miller,\" the captain summoned him, his voice harsh and uncompromising.\n\nSo that was it then. Abrams suppressed a grimace and made his way over to the captain's platform. \"Yes?\" he asked. It was a struggle to keep hostility from the simple question, but, biting his cheek, he managed.\n\n\"A situation has come up that necessitates a change to our agreement,\" the captain began stiffly. \"We'll no longer be able to traverse up to the 4,200 meters required to deposit you at the summit. Instead, we will maintain our present altitude. My first mate informs me there is a path on the southern slope of the mountain. You and your equipment will disembark there.\"\n\n\"A situation,\" Abrams repeated, letting a biting dose of sarcasm slip into the words. \"By which you of course you mean that your crew refuses to comply with our agreement. Shocking.\"\n\n\"If you're dissatisfied with our service,\" the other man countered drily, \"perhaps next time you should hire a courier service to provide you transport.\"\n\n\"I hired you and your crew,\" Abrams replied, scowling, \"precisely because you told me you would go where courier services wouldn't. And, I'll remind you, I paid a premium for this. You were supposed to be tough. Fearless! Clearly, those qualities fall considerably short of what was advertised.\"\n\n\"Watch yourself, Mr. Miller,\" Captain Samson warned.\n\n\"Or what?\" Abrams hissed before he could be stopped by his better judgement.\n\n\"Or you'll find I'll alter our agreement further,\" he answered, cryptic and menacing. \"I assure you, the new terms will be even less to your liking. You're leaving my ship with your lives and freedom intact. There are not many that can make that claim. Consider yourself lucky.\"\n\nLuck was the last thing Abrams felt, but he recognized a losing battle when faced with one. It was just a test. Another test to be passed, and when he'd earned God's favor, he'd have his revenge on these bastards. He swore it.\n\nTwenty minutes later, unceremoniously deposited onto a rutted dirt track with two portos, a muledroid, and one daughter, he made that promise overt. He screamed after the fleeing airship, his voice snatched by the wind so that he was certain they couldn't hear a word of it. He screamed anyway.\n\n\"You bastards! You miserable, treacherous cowards! I will earn God's blessing and then I will come and find you and pay you back what you deserve you...you...you pirates!\"\n\nAizika's legs ached. Her shoulders sagged. Her feet felt like they were weeping from a dozen sores and blisters, the wounds thankfully hidden from view by her thick boots. It was cold now, and it hurt to breathe. Her head swam deeper and darker with every step she took. But still they walked.\n\nWhen they'd been driven off the Behemoth, the sun had still been in its ascent, maybe two fists above the horizon. Now it was two fists above the opposite horizon and sinking fast. Darkness would come soon. Aizika summoned the strength to look ahead, hoping to see some sign of the end. All she saw was a road climbing higher and higher, back and forth up to nowhere. But still they walked.\n\n\"Dad, I can't,\" she gasped as the thin mountain air tore at her throat. \"I can't.\" The porto behind her seemed to voice its assent with a particularly grating whir as it cycled its gear housing.\n\nHer father stopped, glaring back at her with a blend of agitation and annoyance. It felt like he blamed her for everything. She squirmed from one painful foot back to the other, wishing again that it had been him that had gotten sick and not Mother. Eventually, with a withering look at the setting sun, he caved.\n\n\"Fine. We can stop for the night by that wreck up there.\" He nodded towards the next bend, where a rusting hulk was sinking into the cracked and broken road. It looked impossibly far. It also looked like heaven. Wincing through the pain, she trudged onwards.\n\nThey'd passed by many such wrecks early on in the march. Aizika, being scared and exhausted, had hardly taken notice. The metal ghosts were nothing but obstacles that forced her off the road, another struggle to overcome in a journey already rife with them.\n\nNow that they were stopping, though\u2014now that she could breathe without her stomach churning and her head swimming through a field of darkness\u2014she gaped in fascination. It was metal, so much metal, at least ten times as large as the portos and muledroid combined. The sight of it was both awe-inspiring and sickening, a testament to the opulence that had defined the previous age. She wondered what it had been used for. Why was it here at all? Her curiosity got the better of her, and she braved a question.\n\n\"Was it an angel?\" she asked her father as the portos set about unpacking the shelter from the mule droid.\n\n\"No,\" he answered sharply. \"At least not one of the true angels. They were sent here to destroy God.\"\n\n\"And they suffered?\" she asked, noting the jagged rents in the metal, as if something had stripped it back like an orange peel.\n\n\"Yes, they suffered. As they should.\"\n\nAizika didn't answer. She instead poked around the wreckage as her father assisted the portos in staking the shelter in place. Her eyes caught on a black metal plate with silver runes carved into it. She wasn't much for reading, and most of it was incomprehensible, but one word of the jumble stood out clearly to her.\n\n\"Look, Dad,\" she called out, \"Abrams. Just like you!\"\n\n\"What?\" he said, looking startled. She held out the plate for him to see. He walked over, taking it into his gloved hands. His surprise and worry melted into something even more disconcerting. \"Yes, girl,\" he said, \"just like me.\" He tossed the metal farther down the slope and went back to setting up the shelter.\n\nOnce securely inside, he warmed up food from their stores in the muledroid. He ate his fill and then offered her the rest. She refused. Her stomach felt sour, and her limbs hung uselessly at her side. She was asleep in minutes.\n\nIt was not a restful slumber.\n\n\"There, girl,\" Abrams said, unable to keep the excitement from his voice as he pointed a weary finger in front of them. \"There, it is them. The Silos!\"\n\nHe hadn't been sure at first, afraid that his tired eyes were mistaken in what they saw or that his oxygen-starved brain was inventing the vision out of whole cloth. But it was no mistake. There they stood, half a dozen or more structures strewn out along the path, giant spheres of white and metal gleaming in the later afternoon sun. The Enchanted Silos. The home of God. He'd been marching up the mountain for nearly two days straight now, and travelling for much longer, but Abrams's journey was finally at its end. Almost.\n\n\"Girl?\" he asked when she said nothing. He turned back to see her still clinging atop the muledroid, the cold gray of her eyes boring into him. Her stare was as blank as it was terrifying. Suppressing a shudder, he turned back ahead and marched farther up the cracked and brittle path.\n\n\"Where's our sacrifice?\" she called out to him.\n\nHe froze, his heart pounding in his chest. That question, her eyes.... She knew.\n\n\"What?\" he asked, feigning ignorance in a hope that it would buy him time.\n\n\"Where's our sacrifice?\" she pressed again, her voice quiet but strong. \"You said we were making the Pilgrimage so we could sacrifice to God and earn a blessing. That's why we loaded all this wood onto the muledroid, right? So where is it? What are we sacrificing?\"\n\n\"God will provide,\" he answered, not daring to look back as he resumed his walk. \"Up ahead, I'm certain.\"\n\n\"Something lives up this high?\"\n\n\"God will provide!\" he snapped at her, silently cursing his dead wife and the sharp intellect she had passed on to their daughter. \"And if not, then we'll scrap one of the portos as a sacrifice instead. Useless fucking things would be worth a damn for once.\"\n\nAizika said nothing, her return to silence only confirming that she knew. It was fine. Even if she did know what he planned for her at the summit, there was nothing she could do to stop him. The girl had been unable to walk for hours now, confined by weakness to the back of the muledroid. She couldn't overpower him. She couldn't escape, and even if she could, where would she go?\n\nNo, he told himself, her knowing didn't change his plan. If anything, it made it easier. Her caustic petulance, her constant needling, it helped him forget that he'd once held her in his arms or that he'd comforted her when she called out at night. It hardened his heart against what had to come next. The sacrifice would still be unpleasant, but it would be worth it.\n\nHe was nearing the summit, muledroid and portos groaning behind him, when he noticed a simple stone altar built into the center of the road. His pulse quickened, and his apprehension melted into excitement. He allowed himself to picture all that would soon be his. Fame, power, riches beyond his wildest dreams, his prize for hearing God's call and proving beyond question his devotion. All it would take was a simple sweep of a knife.\n\n\"Come here, girl,\" he said, greed quickly overcoming a final stab of reluctant regret. Hauling her off of the mule droid, he began dragging her towards the altar.\n\n\"What are you doing!\" she cried out, her limbs flailing weakly against his grasp.\n\nHe thought for a moment of binding her hands but decided against it. What could she do now? His lungs rasping from the effort, he set her down atop the altar, pinning her in place with one hand while the other reached for his knife.\n\n\"Sorry, girl,\" he gasped, forcing himself not to look at her. \"I really am. I'm just doing what God told me.\" The knife slid free of its sheath and he lifted it towards the sky. He'd expected the girl to scream, or to cry, but she did neither. A chill came over him. He finally looked down and saw not terror in her eyes, but defiance. She smiled darkly.\n\n\"Holy Gabriel, servant of God, protect me!\" she called out with a voice calm and confident.\n\nAbrams moved to plunge the knife into her throat. Before he could, a mighty rush of wind swept the mountaintop, and a steel grip clenched around his wrist. He turned to see a beast of metal had appeared beside him, its wings splaying wide from a glistening copper chest. An angel. Abrams felt his breath leave him.\n\nWith a single twitch of its claw-like hands, the angel broke Abrams's wrist. The knife fell. Another blow from the metal creature sent him to his knees.\n\nAizika freed herself from his grasp, her eyes never leaving his as she went to retrieve the blade. Weapon in hand, she walked back over, her face set in a look of grim determination he knew all too well. He tried to get away, but the angel was too strong.\n\n\"Aizika, don't,\" he pleaded. \"Please, I'm...I'm your father.\"\n\n\"You think you're the only one who dreams?\" was all she said in reply. The knife flashed briefly in the sunlight as she slammed it home.\n\nWatching through Gabriel's camera feed, Gloria Olive Durham smiled as the blood poured from Abram Miller's throat. The girl had done well. Understandably, she'd been terrified when Gloria had visited her in her dreams last night, but she'd listened carefully and spoken the instructed words at the appointed time. Even better, she'd generally kept her wits about her throughout. Perhaps she was finally the one, a worthy heir to a god's legacy.\n\nBecause Gloria was getting old. Her gene therapy nanos were still doing a commendable job, but there was no use denying it any longer. Master of the world or not, the one thing she couldn't conquer was her own humanity. She had a decade. Maybe two. She needed to find her replacement. Unfortunately, that task had proven stubbornly difficult. It wasn't enough for her would-be prot\u00e9g\u00e9 to match her unsurpassable intellect; they needed to see her vision. They needed to understand what the New Kingdom was, what the world could become when governed by a single, all-powerful force. And they needed the steel in their heart to destroy those who would oppose that future.\n\nThis one\u2014Aizika Anne Miller\u2014she had promise. The girl's initials might not be as fortuitously grandiose as Gloria's own, and they'd lose at least a year teaching her the basics. She couldn't even read! But Gloria had peered into the girl's soul, and it was a mirror of her own. This could finally be the one. And, if not, she could always be disposed like the others.\n\nAs for the father...Gloria smiled, taking a sip of wine. The look of shocked terror on his dying face delivered a thrill she so rarely got to enjoy these days. It was his bewilderment as much as his pain that set her tingling. That he'd ever believed he was worthy of her blessing! Absolutely delightful.\n\nWell, it was about what he deserved. He'd been willing to kill for her favor, so certainly he was willing to lay down his life for the same? Ha! Of course he wasn't. Too bad for him, that's not how deities worked.\n\nShe let out a small sigh of satisfaction as she watched the light fade from his eyes, indulging in a second glass of wine. It had been a good day's work. She had found a new prot\u00e9g\u00e9, and another martyr had died for his god.\n\nThat was, she decided, a most worthy end.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ A Step Out Into the Blue by Hilary B. Bisenieks ]\n\nElaine's stomach leaped into her throat as the airship dropped into the cloud tops, the sky outside going from blue to gray. Cargo in the hold crashed and scattered when the ship leveled out a moment later, making Elaine glad she'd secured her tool-roll when they'd scrambled to take off a minute before.\n\nNext to her, the little caged navigation demon took a break from its incessant nattering to whimper.\n\nElaine swore. She shouldn't be here. They should have given her a chance to disembark before leaving the maintenance yard, unfinished installation be damned. Stupid lowlander raiders. With luck, the ship's skeleton crew would be able to repel the barbarians. She muttered a charm to keep herself upright, one of the few pieces of magic her job had taught her, and held her breath.\n\nIt was thrilling to be skybound, though, despite the terror. This could be her chance. Once they were back in port, management would have to transfer her and give her more training. Right? She'd threaten to quit, but as far as management was concerned, she was replaceable. The city of Kingston on Cumulus was full of young women just like her: gifted with magical abilities and ready to be suckered into menial labor with the promise of future training.\n\nAny shred of hope of safe return was shattered as something thumped against the hull, making the ship lurch. Boarders. It couldn't be anything else. The airship pitched, like the pilot was trying to buck the lowlander flier off, like this was some sort of fast attack flier, not a hulking great transport still half-loaded with medical supplies.\n\nThe demon whimpered again.\n\nShe banged on its cage. \"Hush up! I don't like this any more than you do.\" If the little bastard hadn't been so hard to corral in the first place, maybe Elaine would've gotten to the job on time and finished installing the demon before the lowlanders showed up. She should be sneaking around the academy after skiving of work right now, trying to learn more magery rather than wondering if she'd make it home alive.\n\nStupid job. If they would just give her the training she'd been promised for months, Elaine could've quit and gotten a real mage's job instead. Something safe and away from the maintenance yard and its lax security.\n\nThe ship lurched with a second thump. In the distance, someone shouted. Then gunshots rang out.\n\nThe airship burst through the cloud-tops, sunlight lancing through the porthole above Elaine's head, then leveled out.\n\nMore shouting. More shooting.\n\nThere was no place for Elaine to hide in the relay room. The space was little more than a closet lined with a mess of pipes and crystals that shunted power and control signals between the bridge and the ship's engines and lift units. If she wanted to avoid being shot by a lowlander, she'd have to find somewhere else.\n\nThe narrow corridor outside was empty for the moment. Elaine didn't know much about the layout of the ship\u2014she'd mostly done installs on smaller, merchant-class vessels, not these military supply ships\u2014but she'd passed an entrance to the hold on her way aboard. The lowlanders would look there at some point, but hopefully they wouldn't do too thorough of a search until they'd set the ship down someplace. It wasn't a great idea, but it wasn't like she had a better plan.\n\nElaine grabbed her tool-roll and crept out of the relay room and down the corridor, shutting the door against the nav demon's protests as softly yet swiftly as she could. She stifled a yelp at a sudden noise behind her and dashed the rest of the way to the hold, expecting at any moment to hear a gunshot or a shout, but nothing happened.\n\nIn the hold, the cargo was scattered across the deck from their evasive maneuvers. The ship was supposed to stop over in the maintenance yard just long enough for Elaine to install the nav demon before moving on. It shouldn't have even been loaded to begin with. Nevertheless, the chaos of the hold was a godsend.\n\nElaine found a hiding spot among some pallets of bandages beneath a heavy tarp where she could still see the doorway. From there, she might be able to manage a stunning spell. She knew the words for one at any rate. If it came to a fight, her chances weren't good, but at least in the hold, she had some space to move and evade.\n\nShe hadn't been pursued into the hold, and the shooting had stopped. Maybe the lowlanders had been repelled? Elaine didn't know how large a crew had been aboard when they had taken off, nor how many lowlanders had been in pursuit.\n\nA shadow passed across the sliver of hallway outside, and a moment later, a woman stepped through the door. She had commanding bearing, definitely not one of the ship's original crew. So much for that hope.\n\nThe woman wore a motley but dashing ensemble that looked like it had been pillaged from half the sky's armies: her breeches, blouse, and vest a riot of contrasting colors, topped with a long, heavy coat that nearly brushed the floor. In one hand, she bore a carbine like those used by air crews around the maintenance yard, while her other hand gripped a tall staff that she seemed to lean on slightly.\n\nA mage's staff. Its power tingled at the edge of Elaine's perception.\n\nHad this lowlander stolen a mage's staff, or was she herself a mage? The woman stalked through the hold. She didn't carry herself like any of the mages Elaine had met\u2014no haughtiness in her dress or her step. But she didn't look like the pictures of barbaric lowlanders from the papers, either.\n\nThe woman passed within a few feet of Elaine's hiding spot, and Elaine prayed she could hold herself still enough. She could cast an illusion to hide further, but not without making a sound. The officer walked on, though, step, thump, her footfalls and the sound of the staff hitting the deck the only sounds in Elaine's world. Then, satisfied, the woman left, and Elaine could breathe again.\n\nElaine stayed put, wondering what she should do. It was a foolhardy thought, but if she could steal the staff, surely even her meager abilities would allow her to send some sort of distress signal. The chances of her being able to steal it, whether the lowlander was mage or simple pirate, were slim.\n\nIf she had the demon, though... Its abilities were limited, but with luck and maybe some coaxing, Elaine might be able to use it to get a message out.\n\nOne of the first spells that Elaine had taught herself was a silencing charm. It made it easier to sneak around the mage's academy and get bits and pieces of the training she'd otherwise been denied. It came in handy now, as she extricated herself from under the tarp and crossed the hold.\n\nThe ship had sunk back into the cloud layer, though the smoothness of its flight suggested they were yet near the top, and the shadows in the corridor outside had lost some of their definition.\n\nShe eased open the door to the relay room and peeked inside, the effort of maintaining her silencing charm for so long draining on her. Indeed, the room was quiet once Elaine entered and closed the door. She released her silencing charm, feeling the weight of maintaining it lift from her shoulders, and she breathed deeply for a few moments, her back against the door.\n\nIt wasn't until she took another look around the room after collecting herself that Elaine realized why the room was so quiet. The nav demon, who had nattered at her quietly in its own language nearly constantly since she'd collected it from the office on her way to this job, was gone. The lowlander officer. She must have taken it while she was searching the ship.\n\nThe demon wasn't smart, exactly\u2014it could replace a human navigator, and it knew how to keep altitude and heading for the ship if the pilot stepped away from the helm\u2014but Elaine didn't doubt for a moment that it would give her up, her presence if not her location, the moment it felt threatened. They already knew she was aboard, then.\n\nUsing the demon to send a distress signal had been her best plan, but another option remained. A desperate option, built on chance and hope, though little of either. The mage's staff.\n\nElaine didn't know if the lowlander captain used it for its magical power or just for the power that it implied, but if Elaine could get it, the power that it held would make up for her own lack of talent. With the staff, she could get home, and they'd have to train her. She'd make them do it.\n\nThe ship began to shake a little, buffeted by turbulent winds. They were sinking lower into the cloud layer.\n\nSlowly, Elaine got to her feet and listened at the door. If she could keep her balance, the creaking of wood around her should obviate her need to use the silencing charm again for a while, anyway. After a moment's consideration, she also got out the biggest of her wrenches. With the element of surprise, it might serve her better than trying to use an unfamiliar spell.\n\nOnce again Elaine stepped into the corridor, ears straining to hear footsteps over the sounds of wind and wood. She stayed low, each step careful as she headed towards the bridge. It had sounded like at least two flyers had landed on the airship, but who knew if either remained, or if they'd departed, leaving behind a prize crew?\n\nElaine saw the first bullet hole as she reached the end of the corridor\u2014a jagged, splintered scar in the wall. She peered around the corner but saw only more bullet holes, empty shell casings, and a splash of blood.\n\nThe air reeked of gunpowder, smoke still hanging in the air. Light lanced through a bullet hole in the far wall.\n\nElaine took shallow breaths as she moved down the corridor towards the door to the bridge, expecting at any moment to hear someone shouting at her from behind, or the crack of a gunshot.\n\nThe door to the bridge was closed, but over the sound of the wind outside, Elaine could hear a voice. She inched her way towards the door and put an eye up to a bullet hole in the wall by the doorframe.\n\nThe lowlander officer was inside, seated at the controls. Elaine's limited view, however, didn't show her anyone else. Or the nav demon or the staff.\n\nElaine pressed her ear to the hole just in time to hear a quick \"Yes, Captain Barton,\" then footsteps approaching. She dared a glance through the hole, just long enough to see that someone else, a young woman, on the bridge, was coming towards the door. Elaine looked left and right, and then moved to the other side of the door so that she would be between the door and the wall when it opened.\n\nWith a tremendous effort, she muttered the words for an illusion, followed by her silencing charm. A real mage would be able to weave a tapestry of light and dark to perfectly conceal anything they wished or simply turn themselves invisible.\n\nElaine turned the color of the wall behind her.\n\nA moment later, the door swung open, nearly slamming into Elaine's head, and the young woman walked out, passing down the corridor and around the corner without so much as a glance back.\n\nStill on silenced feet, Elaine exhaled and slipped around the door.\n\nThe bridge was clean, save for a few splinters of wood from the bullet hole in the wall behind her and some shards of glass where the bullet had come to rest in one of the gauges. The huge panoramic window that dominated the far side of the bridge was undamaged.\n\nAnd the captain's chair was empty.\n\nA tingle of power and the lightest touch of something cold accompanied a steely voice. \"Can I help you with something, little one?\"\n\nElaine shook her head, suddenly unable to find her words.\n\n\"Turn around nice and slow, and let's have a look at you,\" Captain Barton commanded.\n\nElaine complied. Her gaze skated around the wall as Barton looked her over, finally settling on the splintered bullet hole. What would it feel like to be shot, she wondered? Or would they even waste a bullet on her? They could just toss Elaine overboard and let gravity do the work.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" Barton asked.\n\nElaine stammered, trying to come up with a convincing lie, wondering what it mattered if she was just going to be killed or sold into slavery.\n\n\"Speak.\" The captain didn't so much point her staff at Elaine as incline it with practiced confidence.\n\nCaptain Barton's command didn't feel harsh, for all that her words were cold. Elaine felt the magic course through her, a sort of warmth that brought the truth to her lips. \"I was aboard, installing a nav demon, when your flyers were spotted, and I wasn't given a chance to disembark before the ship took off.\"\n\n\"We found your nav demon. What I'm more interested in, though, is what you were doing right here.\"\n\nElaine paused for a moment. Again, Barton inclined her staff a fraction of an inch, and the warmth washed through Elaine. \"I saw you with your staff when I was hiding in the hold. I was going to use the demon to send a distress signal, but then I found it gone.\"\n\n\"You wanted to steal my staff, then?\"\n\nElaine nodded.\n\n\"Not the wisest plan, but you were clever enough to evade us for this long. And you've a bit of talent to you already.\" She nodded. \"You could be of use.\"\n\n\"Of use?\" Elaine blanched. She'd almost rather be killed. Better dead than enslaved to barbaric lowlanders.\n\n\"Sit.\" The power she put through Elaine wasn't violent, but it lacked the warmth of the earlier compulsion. \"And put that wrench away. We both know it wouldn't have done you any good.\"\n\nElaine's feet took her to one of the chairs beside the captain's, her knees bent, and she sat. She opened her tool-roll and replaced the wrench. When she'd only been compelled to speak, Barton's power had felt like a warm tingle, gently leading her to do the right thing. This, though\u2014Elaine felt cold, disconnected from her whole body.\n\n\"You'll stay there and not make trouble, I trust?\" Barton asked. \"I can make you comply, but I find that tiresome.\"\n\nElaine nodded. Anything to avoid that cold power that severed her from her own will.\n\nBarton seated herself at the ship's controls and pulled the speaking horn towards herself. \"Nell, you can come back now. I've found our stowaway.\"\n\nThey could be going anywhere, flying through the cloud layer, but Captain Barton, checking against the binnacle, seemed confident of their heading.\n\nNell appeared a few minutes later, scowling at Elaine. She and Barton had a quick whispered conversation in a Slavic-sounding language, which led to more scowling before Nell stalked off, muttering.\n\nThe ship dipped below the clouds, revealing a scorched landscape. Elaine hadn't realized that they'd flown far enough to reach one of the Exterminations. Nothing moved below them. Nothing lived. The whole of the earth's surface, for hundreds of miles, littered here and there with the hulking great bones of impossible beasts, was burned, salted, and poisoned so that nothing would grow.\n\nIn the distance, though, there seemed to be some variation, some patch of color breaking up the grays and blacks and browns.\n\n\"I won't be your slave,\" Elaine said, her eyes fixed on that patch of color on the horizon. \"I think I'd rather be left here to fend for myself.\"\n\nThe captain laughed. \"Slave? Really? Is that what people are saying about us nowadays?\"\n\n\"You said that I could be 'of use,'\" Elaine said, reddening at Barton's laughter. Did this lowlander take her for a fool? Well, if she did, that wasn't wholly unfair. Elaine had tried to steal a mage's staff.\n\n\"I did, and you can,\" Barton said. \"If you want to. You could be trained, work a job that you enjoy. Or you can be returned to your former life, if that's what you'd prefer. That's not what I would choose, though, if I were you.\"\n\n\"Really,\" Elaine said, feeling somehow safe to let sarcasm edge into her voice. \"Because from where I'm sitting, it still feels like I'm being kidnapped. Anyway, what do you know of my life?\"\n\nCaptain Barton turned and looked Elaine dead in the eyes. \"You've got talent that's going to waste. You work a dead-end job in the hopes that one day you'll get the chance to climb the ladder, get some training, and do something better. The rich are robbing you blind and telling you you're lucky to have as much as you do. I'd trade that away in an instant.\"\n\nElaine's eyes widened, then narrowed. \"And I suppose that I'd be better off among barbarians and pirates, scraping out a living on the surface, always on the lookout for some hulking great monster who could come along and eat me up like a snow pea?\"\n\n\"You really don't know anything about what it's like down on the surface, do you? Only the propaganda they've been feeding you since the day of your birth.\"\n\nThe patch of color on the horizon was somewhat larger than before, though without any sense of speed or scale, Elaine couldn't guess how long it would be until they reached it. \"I suppose that you're going to tell me that it's a fantasyland where nothing bad happens? You're going to say that nobody from the surface ever forms a raiding party, boards a cargo ship, kills her crew, and kidnaps a young woman who shouldn't even be aboard, for instance? Try the other one, it's got bells.\"\n\n\"Believe me or don't,\" Barton said, looking again at Elaine. \"We'll be landing in less than an hour's time. If you're convinced that you'd be better off back where you came from, I'll personally see to it that you're put on a flyer and left somewhere safe with a distress beacon and a week's worth of food. I was like you, once.\" She carefully pulled one sleeve up, revealing a mass of taut, scarred skin covering half of her forearm. Above it, there was part of a faded tattoo, its blue-black lines describing some sort of regimental insignia.\n\n\"Before I went to the surface, I served the Queen. I was a mage for the Fifth Heavy Dragoons, fighting for queen and country above the continent.\"\n\nThe captain fell silent, and for a minute, there was only the sound of engines and wind.\n\nElaine broke the silence at last. \"What happened to make you leave?\"\n\n\"My platoon's flyer was shot down near Zagreb. Nobody else survived. I barely did. Some civilians pulled me out of the fire, helped patch me up.\n\n\"I could have gone back. I could have laid a beacon on myself and brought my own rescue, gone home to medals. But I saw something. Those refugees, living on the surface? They had nothing. Nobody but themselves to rely on. Zagreb, high overhead, was not their home. The occupying forces had made certain of that. But they kept going. There was talk among them of a safe haven, so I decided that I'd help them get there.\"\n\nCaptain Barton lapsed into silence again. After a few minutes, Elaine felt compelled to ask, \"Then what happened?\"\n\n\"We got picked up by a crew out searching for refugees and taken to a camp. I stayed. Not there, ultimately. But the leaders of that camp had already scouted out several locations for us to move to. By the time that location was no longer tenable, everything was set for us to up and move to another place.\"\n\nSilence, again. \"So you're taking me to, what? A refugee camp?\"\n\n\"Yes. And no. Freiheit isn't just a camp, though we have people trying to find refugees, still. The war isn't just the glory you read about in the papers. Nobody talks about the human toll on those uninvolved citizens around whose ears the wars keep descending, I bet. I certainly didn't think about any of that until some of those very people saved me.\"\n\nA thought struck Elaine. \"What happened to the crew? The guys you stole this ship from?\"\n\n\"They're safe, I promise.\"\n\n\"Like hell they are! I saw bullet holes. I saw blood! I may have been a bit of a fool trying to get your staff, but I'm not stupid.\"\n\n\"Look,\" Barton said, pointing to a ragged, bloody hole in one leg of her trousers. No wonder she'd been leaning on her staff earlier. \"The only person shot was me. This ship's former crew were put on flyers, unconscious but unharmed, and left somewhere they'd be found. Just as you would have been, if we'd found you when we first boarded. That's as far as I can vouch for their safety.\"\n\nElaine gave her a skeptical look. This Captain Barton certainly wasn't like any of the lowlanders she'd ever heard about. Hell, she couldn't think of anyone who would make an effort not to harm people who were shooting at them.\n\n\"I didn't start my day looking to kidnap anyone,\" Barton said, seeming to read her mind. \"But here you are. Your being here is my mistake, and I've got to take some responsibility for that. We're not the bloodthirsty pirates that your serials and newspapers make us out to be. The women and men of Freiheit aren't anyway. We take what we need, as payment for the violence that's been done to our people by society and wars, but we don't take lives. Not if we can help it.\"\n\n\"Alright, say I come to Freiheit,\" Elaine said. \"And say I don't take you up on the offer of safe transport away. What did you mean about training?\"\n\n\"As a mage,\" the captain said. \"There are precious few of us around. Those charms to turn you colors and silence your footfalls were well done for someone with little training. Just think what you could do if you were apprenticed to an actual mage.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Elaine's heart leaped, then sank. Training, yes. That was what she had wanted, what she'd begged for, but like this? Leaving behind all that she knew up in the sky? The other girls from the boarding house would wonder what happened to her. Maybe some of them would miss her. \"What happens if I want to leave? Later, I mean?\"\n\n\"Anyone in Freiheit is free to leave, so long as they don't mean us harm. The council might decide to bind you to certain promises, if you did decide to leave. Many of us are thieves of a sort, after all. Anyhow, think it over. We arrive in half an hour.\"\n\n\"And if there are any affairs I need to wrap up, back where I'm from?\"\n\nBarton gave her a critical look. \"You resent your job, where they likely pay you pittance, so you live in a boarding house with other girls, sorry, women, like yourself. If you had any family attachments, you would have mentioned them already. How am I doing?\"\n\nElaine glared at her.\n\n\"The offer I make to you is sincere, but it's not the offer I would make to everybody. Living in Freiheit is an adjustment, and it's not one that everyone can make.\"\n\nThe patch of color in the distance had grown so that Elaine could now see it for what it was: a city, fortified and vibrant, in the midst of one of the Exterminations. There, below the cloud layer, there was life, greenery, even. It seemed such an unlikely sight, though she knew that people had lived on the surface for countless millennia.\n\n\"If I do stay, and I'm not saying that I will, but if I do, can I send word back, at least to let some of the others at the boarding house know I'm safe?\"\n\nBarton's face softened a touch, and she nodded. \"If you stay, of course. We have our ways.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\nIf...\n\nIt would be a change, but wasn't that what Elaine had been wanting? And Captain Barton had said that she could always go home if she chose to.\n\nSomehow, Elaine knew that wasn't what her choice would be.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Lips of Red, Lips of Black by A. J. Hackwith ]\n\nIt took three bone mages and a dreadnaught with a terrorsoul to capture the paper pirate Katha. A crown of stolen reliquary shards, worth half a ship each, still nettled her dark hair as she came, barefoot and snarling, before the Lady of Embers.\n\nThe dreadnaught was the Lady's, and she its captain. All of the Isles knew it. She'd given her own fear to fuel its skyheart, and now had none left of her own. Each ship required a sacrifice of its captain to fly, a desire, an emotion, a fate. Ships with terrorsouls were fast and feared, as were their captains.\n\nSo all Isles know the Lady's ways were not kind, especially to one of her own. But through coal and spike, the pirate Katha had one refrain: \"Just wait until my true love comes.\"\n\n\"Your crew is dead. Your friends have flown,\" the Lady said, as she split Katha's lip and placed a traitor's brand upon her skin. \"You'll die for what you've stolen from me.\"\n\nAnd Katha's smile was red touched with iron blood. \"Just wait until my true love comes.\"\n\n\"To the decks,\" the Lady instructed her women, and on an eight-armed skyhook beast they flew. Collared mages bound Katha to a pillar on the rusting deck, a pyre of cold straw to warm her toes. Smoke clogged the Isle of Embers in a sooty fog and stained her lips with ash. A taste before the flames.\n\nYet Katha said, \"Just wait until my true love comes.\"\n\n\"All you love is lost and so are you,\" said the Lady. \"I burned your ship, you foolish thing, and I'll do you just the same. Who dares to fly a paper ship in the realm of flames?\"\n\nKatha, bloodied, burned, and bound, laughed high and loud. The wind picked up, guttering torchfire. The flecks of black in the wind coalesced, a wing of ash pierced through the gloom. There rose a black cloud, a wyrm, a myth of ash and sail. Light speared the deck, wind swept the straw away. The dreadnaught swayed as cannons rose, under fire from a ship of shadow and lightning.\n\n\"She still flies.\" The paper pirate's hands were free, but the Lady of Embers wreathed herself in flame.\n\n\"I burned your ship and branded your skin, you have no way to fly,\" the Lady said. \"There's no sky for a branded soul.\"\n\n\"Aye, that might be, if it was me who captained her.\" The vessel was a blot of sky, ink and fury laced with bone-white fire. Soot settled on Katha's brow. She turned her face into it like a kiss as she mounted the railing. \"But even you should know, paper does not make a ship, as flesh doesn't make a soul. There's better fuel than fear.\"\n\nIron buckled and rust wept down. The Lady of Embers threw fire at a futile sky, and the ash prow embraced it whole. \"Impossible! No fool can sacrifice her heart to the sky and still live.\"\n\nAnd at that, Katha paused, one foot over open air. Flames licked her boot but were ignored. Flame and ash seemed nothing to one who grieved. \"That's what I told her,\" she said. \"That's the thing about love\u2014it doesn't care.\"\n\nStorm-wrought light lashed out from the ghost ship, piercing the dreadnaught's terrorsoul. An empire of fear returned to its captain like a flood in a dry creek bed. The Lady of Embers ignited the sky as she went down.\n\nAnd Katha leapt to a ship of paper ash. She stroked a charred railing, for there was no wheel to steer, and pressed her sooted fingertips to her mouth. The skyheart flew where it wanted, brittle and burning and bright.\n\n\"Burn that horizon, love,\" she whispered. The ship took the sky on ash-eaten hearts, and Katha's smile was black.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Every Subject's Soul Is Her Own by Kelly Rossmore ]\n\nAn American chica crooning about love filtered in from the radio in the corner as First Mate Maria Estrella Gutierrez slid into a rickety chair at one of the tables of the dingy bar. Across from her in a striped men's suit sat her former best friend, a former person, too, according to los locos. Some people believed that the gears and bolts they installed in place of eyes and bits she'd rather not think about meant that a Compass like Emilia was no longer a human being.\n\nAll the air pinched out of her chest as she forced herself to look at her friend. Gears turned under what remained of the dark skin at her neck as Emilia cocked her head at Maria, her mechanical eyes blinking slowly and with an audible click.\n\nDios, it was a blessing that the American music and the conversations from the half-filled Havana bar drowned out the rest of the sounds from Emilia's augmented Compass body. Metal replaced half the skin on her arms, glinting yellow under the cheap lights, and there were couplings on the palms of her unnaturally still brown hands, which rested on the beer-stained table.\n\nShe missed Emilia's dark eyes, the way the old lamps of the neglected streets they'd grown up on in Santiago had rendered them luminous, reflecting her friend's girlish dreams for a better life. A life where they'd still have each other, Cuba would be free, and they'd have a permanent roof above their heads.\n\n\"Maria,\" Emilia said, her head still cocked. The thick curls she'd once sported would've covered the gears in her neck, but had been replaced now by a short cap. \"You asked for me?\"\n\nIt was her voice, the medical mechanics of Guantanamo Bay hadn't changed that, but it was foreign in all other ways. Emilia spoke in the precise and emotionless English of Compasses instead of the rapid, fiery Spanish of their youth.\n\n\"I wanted to see you,\" Maria said, surprised to discover it was the simple truth.\n\nFor years she hadn't, paralyzed by her own guilt and afraid to see what her friend had become. But her life had become stacked with regrets, and she'd acquired a growing need to shorten that stack.\n\n\"You want me on your ship,\" Emilia said. \"They say your last job fue una tragedia.\"\n\nEmilia's voice was still flat, so Maria reined in her hope at the mixing of Spanish with English, something many of their Cuban people did these days en una rebeli\u00f3n peque\u00f1a against the American occupation.\n\n\"S\u00ed,\" Maria said, encouraging her as if they were young girls again. \"Te necesito. Por favor.\"\n\nEmilia frowned, though with those mechanical eyes Maria could no longer read how she really felt. Or if she felt the same about anything anymore, Maria thought, pain lurching in her chest again. Had it all been for nothing?\n\n\"Bueno,\" was all Emilia said, though. \"What do you need?\"\n\n\"I need you to remember,\" said Maria.\n\nFrom the deck of the American airship Justice, Maria gazed out across the dockyards of Havana Harbor. Far more crowded than even ten years ago, the harbor currently had a dozen airships of various sizes docked, while beyond them countless seagoing ships of every size bobbed in the water. The Justice was of average dimensions for an airship, lightly gunned but surprisingly swift and maneuverable;: an ideal scout ship. All the airships and the large military sea vessels before her were American, not Cuban, and more appeared each year.\n\nAfter helping Cuba finally oust Spain at the turn of the century, the United States had offered a big brotherly hand in setting up a new government on the island. Motivas ulteriores emerged in the years after, though, as the US expanded their airship construction operations at Guantanamo to assert control over the shipping lanes of the Americas and later in response to the first outbreak of world war in Europe.\n\nWith world war brewing there once again, America's demand for airships and the Compasses necessary to operate them had swelled even higher in the last few years.\n\nSo had its need to exert political influence over Cuba in the name of protecting its assets. Cuba's freedom had been a brief spark in a long history of occupation, extinguished once again.\n\n\"Gutierrez! Get over here,\" Captain Fred Connors said, his gringo accent butchering Maria's name again across the deck.\n\nShaped like the hull of an old European warship, the airship Justice was lighter, able to be lifted by the massive balloons above it and powered by an engine whose secrets the US kept under wraps from Cubans\u2014except for Compasses like Emilia. Whatever the engine did, a human had to be augmented to control it.\n\nThe captain held court above her at the ship's sterncastle, while Maria stood on the main deck helping the Cuban crew load wooden boxes of supplies onto the Justice. Maria threw down a rope with more force than needed and climbed up the stairs with what she hoped was a neutral expression.\n\nWomen weren't looked at favorably for crewing airships or becoming the Compasses that piloted them, but orphans like Maria and Emilia with neither family to care about them nor white enough beauty had been allowed to volunteer for the new and highly dangerous airship prototypes and Compass transformations. Maria knew lucky timing\u2014volunteering when so few would\u2014and persistence had been everything. And even so, within the American airship fleet, she knew she was fortunate to have risen to first mate; she could go no higher.\n\n\"Yes, Captain?\" she said once she'd joined him, unsurprised to see the captain's lapdog, one of the two American engineers, standing with Captain Connors on the sterncastle.\n\nThrough the closed doors behind them lay the navigation room, where Maria had left Emilia checking the equipment earlier. This included the strange machine Emilia would soon connect herself into that regulated the engine, a contraption with gears and pumps and mechanical slots to place her arms and her face, and viewing lenses that lined up with her artificial eyes.\n\n\"She couldn't have been the only Compass you could find,\" the captain said, staring her down. In his polished American uniform with his imposing height and receding sandy brown hair, it was a stern look bien practicada.\n\nMaria was also well-practiced in withstanding it. \"Compasses travel up into the sky, Captain. They do not fall from it.\"\n\n\"Sometimes they do, with the rest of us.\" The black humor triggered a boyish grin that softened his usually harsh demeanor. \"Since our last one vanished without a sign, I'd say we're due for one to tumble into our laps.\"\n\nMaria understood why the Americans had made him a captain. He wielded that infectious grin well, aware how a joke at the right moment and a determined attitude could inspire his subordinates. It didn't overcome the whole, however. \"I spoke to several Compasses,\" she replied, \"and there were reservations. What happened on our last voyage is known.\"\n\nHis frown intensified, as she'd expected it would, which helped cover up her lie. She'd approached only Emilia.\n\n\"I thought those automatons couldn't feel anything,\" he said, before turning to his lapdog engineer. \"I never understood why they weren't declared military assets. We'd be assigned one then as needed, without a damn hunt.\"\n\nShe imagined the Compasses she'd worked with, all Cuban citizens who'd allowed their bodies and minds to be fractured in a sacrifice of self, handed around like objects. Hatred burned hot inside her.\n\nOf course his perrito engineer was quick to agree in a meaningless pageant of words, but Captain Connors soon brought his attention back to Maria. With an air of granting her a favor when in reality there was no time to find another Compass before their scheduled patrol, he said, \"Fine, we'll see how she does. We depart in the morning. Get the crew ready.\"\n\nHe looked up and down Maria's thin, deeply suntanned body in the crew jumpsuit, topped by a short mop of wild dark hair. His lip curled. \"You would hire the Negro woman Compass though.\"\n\nShe said nothing, because there was nothing polite to say. Just another herida upon endless ones.\n\nAs they were the only two women on board, Maria was unsurprised when Captain Connors told her to share her quarters with Emilia. When her friend entered the tiny first-mate's cabin that night, Maria asked, \"We're set?\"\n\nEmilia leaned against the closed door, the gray jumpsuit she wore similar to Maria's blue one, except hers had zippered sleeves that allowed Compasses to swiftly conquer a wayward engine. Her mouth curved upwards to form the same shy smile present in so many of Maria's best memories. \"S\u00ed, todo es listo. Vive Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed.\"\n\nMaria grinned at her friend so wide her cheeks ached. They'd grown up near one of the many monuments to Cuba's fallen patriot. She'd feared that after years of working as a Compass, Emilia would've forgotten the plan or resented her for changing the script. They had vowed to do everything together, but at the last moment before undergoing the surgery to become a Compass, Maria had lost her courage. Ever since, she'd sworn never to let fear control her again.\n\n\"I've missed you.\" Maria closed most of the gap between them, but not all. She didn't know how her friend felt about her anymore.\n\n\"The surgery,\" Emilia said haltingly, her usually distant voice collecting more emotion as she spoke. \"You forget so much. Your memories, how to talk. Some of us forget how to walk, too. We always have to think carefully about how to form words right.\"\n\nMaria closed her eyes in pain for a moment. That explained why most Compasses she'd met spoke as they did.\n\n\"From before, I remember fragments,\" Emilia said. \"You were in most of them. Enough of the plan was there, too, so it was familiar. I just needed you to remind me.\"\n\n\"We've been apart so long.\" Maria pushed herself to say it. \"Do you hate me?\"\n\nEmilia cocked her head like she had back in the bar in Havana. \"Why would I?\" She gestured at Maria and then herself. \"Familia. Para siempre.\"\n\n\"Para siempre,\" Maria whispered in return as they always had, her vision blurring. She hugged her friend, ignoring the whirl of gears near her ear and a patch of cool metal against her cheek.\n\nStrong arms encircled her, and soft words sank deep into Maria's soul. \"I'm glad you didn't do it.\"\n\nMaria's next breath emerged ragged. The immense burden she'd grown so accustomed to carrying was crumbling away, a relief beyond words, and yet its loss also left her raw and exposed.\n\nWhen they pulled apart, Emilia seemed to pull back emotionally, too, her face more remote. \"The plan works like this anyway,\" she said. She sat down on the bed and encouraged Maria to join her with a stiff pat of her augmented hand. \"Let's review the details.\"\n\nSince the Americans prohibited Cuban crew from possessing any handheld firearms for \"safety,\" Maria's smuggler contact in Havana had marked the boxes carrying the hidden guns with a splash of red paint. Two days after liftoff, near dawn, Maria distributed the weapons to the Cuban crew members.\n\nOne engineer they cornered down in the engine room with the threat of knives and fists, because no one would risk firing a shot there. Once he was secured with rope in the cargo hold, Maria directed her men to round up the few American sympathizers among the crew and lock them up with the engineer.\n\nA pistol in her hand, she crept down the cramped hallway to the perrito engineer's room. His lapdog ways had granted him the second best cabin on the ship, directly below the captain's. She'd chosen dawn because it was a rare time of day when the two men were apart; they often drank and talked long into the night.\n\nTwo of the crew stood just behind her. While all were armed, she'd reminded them they needed the engineer alive. She knocked on the locked door, and curses and grumbling erupted from inside. \"It's not my shift!\"\n\n\"Open up. I need to talk to you.\"\n\nThe door opened, and the man's unshaven, bitter face changed to shock when he absorbed the sight of the three of them, guns in hand. She pushed inside before he could prevent it, her men following. Still in his rumpled clothes from the day before, the engineer backed away toward the bed, stumbling over the pants, shirts and utensils scattered across the floor of the cluttered cabin. He snatched up a broom from the corner as if to ward them off with it.\n\n\"Come quietly, perro,\" one of her men said. He held the rope to tie him with.\n\nThe engineer looked up. Catching his thought instantly, Maria rushed toward him. She was too late.\n\n\"Captain! Mutiny!\" he yelled, banging the top of the broom against the ceiling above him.\n\nWhen she closed in on him, he shoved the broom into her, wielding it like a staff. It sent her tumbling onto the basura-filled floor. She raised her pistol, intending only to threaten with it, but the crack of a shot sounded from behind her.\n\nBlood blossomed high up in the engineer's chest. He stumbled back into a chest of drawers, staring at the bloody hand he'd pressed to his wound. The forgotten broom slipped from his other hand.\n\n\"Idiota,\" she said, glaring at the pale face of the crewman who'd shot him. The plan was to not kill anyone, especially the engineers. She removed the gun from the crewman's limp hand and said, \"Get him downstairs. Have the medics look at him.\"\n\nThere were two medics among the crew. Her men carried the engineer out into the hallway, where they encountered Emilia. Maria handed her the gun she'd taken from the man who couldn't be trusted with it.\n\nHer friend grasped it awkwardly, and Maria wordlessly showed Emilia how she held her pistol. Emilia copied her, saying, \"The captain heard that. Does he have a radio in his cabin?\"\n\n\"A small one, perhaps. The communications room is still secure?\" It had been Emilia's task to take it over and guard it, with the help of some crew.\n\n\"S\u00ed. I left three men there.\"\n\n\"Bueno, we must go quickly then. Before he talks to anyone out there.\"\n\nThey hurried upstairs and then moved more quietly as they neared the captain's door. Listening, she heard him saying, \"This is Captain Connors of the airship Justice. Mutiny! We require assistance. Anyone there?\"\n\n\"Pretend you need help,\" Emilia whispered in her ear.\n\nNo, Maria hadn't completely hidden her dislike for him. He'd rightfully believe she was part of the mutiny. \"You just joined us. You do it,\" she whispered back.\n\nEmilia stuffed the gun into her waistband at her back, her untucked shirt covering it, then knocked on the locked door. \"Captain? The crew are acting strange. Should we change course?\"\n\nFootsteps thudded on wood as he moved close to the door. \"Tell me what they're doing.\"\n\n\"They carried one engineer away. Down the stairs. And they were looking for someone. Perhaps me?\" Emilia spoke in her flat Compass voice, as if it had little to do with her. \"I hear them now. Getting closer.\"\n\nMaria tightened her grip on the pistol, waiting. A moment passed in silence. Would the captain risk opening his door to secure the ship's Compass? He moved around the cabin, then returned to the door. \"Get in,\" he said, and it creaked open.\n\nFrom her hidden position beside the doorway, Maria couldn't see inside. She followed after Emilia almost blindly, only to see the captain grab her friend's arm and pull her aside, a gun to her head. \"Lock the door,\" he told Maria.\n\nHer pulse racing along with her mind, she obeyed him. Her palm was sweating, and it was harder to hang onto the pistol one-handed as she manipulated the door lock.\n\n\"Just as I thought,\" Captain Connors said once she faced him again. \"You two know each other.\"\n\nMaria's gaze met Emilia's artificial eyes, doing their slow blink. Her face was neutral, but her body was twisted away from his, resisting as he used her as a shield. So he wouldn't feel the gun at her waist, Maria realized. He'd had no chance to search her.\n\nHe pressed the gun barrel closer to Emilia, who leaned her head away from it as best she could. \"Drop the weapon, or I'll shoot her.\"\n\nShe couldn't lose Emilia. To avoid that, she had to use her mind.\n\n\"An airship needs its Compass,\" Maria pointed out. \"You can't shoot her.\"\n\n\"Yes, I can.\" He lowered the gun near Emilia's hip instead. \"We aren't too far out. One session, maybe two, should be enough to regulate the engine. We can fly the rest of the way on manual control.\"\n\nIt was true. He could maim Emilia and finish her off later without endangering the ship. If he had his engineers, which he didn't, and a way to send for emergency help in manually docking the ship, which he did.\n\nThe small radio he'd been using was on his neatly ordered desk, clear in her line of sight. She'd been pointing her gun at the floor while he had Emilia, but she raised it now, telegraphing how much she wanted to shoot him. He smirked, angling his body sideways to be a smaller target, with Emilia between them.\n\nShe shifted her aim slowly to the right, as if giving up the idea, then shot the radio.\n\n\"Son of a bitch,\" he swore, his face reddening when he realized what she'd done.\n\n\"We have the ship,\" she told him. \"We have the engineers, and any crew that supported you. There's no one left to help you.\"\n\nEmilia joined in. \"Surrender. You'll be kept alive and safe, then traded later and freed.\"\n\nA minute ticked by, a bead of sweat trickling down Maria's face as she wondered whether he'd lash out like a cornered rat or yield to reason. The delay also allowed doubts to surface. Her aim was mediocre, poor enough that she wouldn't risk hitting Emilia. If he didn't back down, she had no plan forward.\n\nThe captain finally made a decision, an unhappy one judging from the scowl on his face. \"All right,\" he said, releasing his grip on Emilia's arm, and Maria's shoulders loosened in relief.\n\nThen he shoved Emilia hard at Maria, knocking them both against the door. Her pistol wound up pinned between it and Emilia's body, useless as he raised his gun again. She turned to shield Emilia from him, only to feel and hear the jolt of a gun going off right next to her.\n\nEmilia had reached for her hidden weapon while falling onto Maria, turned, and fired, her arm braced against Maria's ribs. Three shots she fired, and only one hit the captain, but it was enough for his bullets to land high, buried in the door above Maria's head. He ducked behind a small table meant for dining and knocked it over for better cover. Blood droplets decorated his path.\n\nThe captain released a torrent of curses under his breath, at them and at himself for taking this job.\n\n\"There's nowhere to go,\" Maria said. \"Drop your weapon.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" he said, the word ground out as if through metal. He spat on the floor and hurled one last insult at her.\n\nHe'd be more useful to them alive, she reminded herself. After making them swear again that he would not be killed, the captain kicked his gun across the cabin floor. He ignored both them and his wounded shoulder, as if it were all beneath him, as she commanded some of her crew to transport him to the hold with the others. His injury was treated, but the engineer had not survived.\n\nMaria had thought of this day so many times. Un d\u00eda de triunfo y felicidad. Instead she was exhausted and hollow, and shaky with how narrowly they'd escaped death.\n\nUntil she looked at Emilia, who curved an arm around her and smiled, head cocked. \"Where shall we go, Captain?\"\n\nAnywhere, except there was a grander plan in motion. She'd already smuggled a Compass over to the Resistance, and now she had an airship.\n\n\"Wherever Cuba needs us,\" she told Emilia. \"So we can all be free.\"\n\nThe war was just beginning. Today was the birthday of Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, beloved poet and patriot, with the uprising on the Justice echoed by citizens all across Cuba. Unlike the revolutions before it, this one was taking place not only in the fields and mountains and cities, but across the skies above.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Thou Shalt Be Free As Mountain Winds by Jennifer Mace ]\n\nThe last time I saw aly, we were chasing a different sunset.\n\nI hadn't known it was the last, of course. We used to chase them all the time when we were young. Just me and her and the tearing wind beneath our feathers, land spilling out below us like a tipped jug of wine, all the doubts and hungers of dirtlife ripped out and abandoned in our wake.\n\nIt wasn't just the beauty of the sky that called us. There's a magic to dying things, from the snapped neck of a goose to first love's heartbreak, and a day's no different. Death's as sacred as any bloody birth or sticky act of conception, no matter what priests might say. And the violent prolonged death of the sun spews power into the air like a pyroclastic flow.\n\nWe'd get drunk on it, dizzy and over-full with magic. The slow sip of power it took to feed our wings was nothing next to the glut of orange and purple and gold, the hiccuping sweetness of the clouds, the last splash of colour as day succumbed to night.\n\nSometimes it would take us half the night to make it back up the mountain. Gibbous or crescent, a moon provides no thermals, sheds nothing but dead air and sickly light. We'd beat our muscles to ribbons clawing back up through the sky.\n\nIt was worth it.\n\nWorth it for the magic, of course. For me, though, it had always been about those other sticky, stolen moments, huddled close in the crooks of massive lowland ilma trees or tumbled onto the dry pebbled streambeds of the foothills. About laughter and touch and the flitting stroke of feathers.\n\nFor Aly, too. Or so I'd thought.\n\nMY PINIONS WERE SINGED.\n\nThe smell of ash and burning hair clung stubbornly between the barbs no matter how fast I flew. The ghost sensation of constructed wingbones pulsed threateningly through my magic, sending little fingers of pain through the muscles of my back. The healing incisions ached and tore again, seeping new blood onto old feathers.\n\nThat's the price of bonded feathercraft. The sky is yours\u2014\u2014but so are all its tiny agonies.\n\nMy wings beat. I wasn't the only featherwitch in Breywell Village, and certainly not the only one in the high valley towns that studded the Zephward mountains like sour cherries in a solstice cake. But their wings were knit from snow cock and partridge feather, rounded and multilayered for long, hovering cliff harvests.\n\nI had had a pair like that.\n\nI'd ripped them out my back nine days ago; they couldn't do what was needed. The wings I wore instead were vicious, sharp-tipped things, made for chewing through league after league, and cosmetic charring wouldn't hinder them. They tied deeper into the rings of my spine than any witch would dare to delve, devouring power and oxygen both. My chest burned and burned.\n\nFinally, eventually, I gave in, and touched witchcraft to the bubbling meat of my lungs, coaxing and molding it to fit my needs. It was dangerous, risky magic, as likely to warp flesh as to enhance it. But Aly and I'd paid that price a decade ago, needed it for our long, high flights where the air thinned like milk from an underfed goat. I'd all but forgotten the trick of the thing. The spells we'd built together had hurt too much to use.\n\nIf they'd bring me to her now, I'd use every one of them and more, even if it tore my rib cage open to do so.\n\nBy the time I found her, Aly and her crew were hunting once again.\n\nIt took me days to track them. Days of hijacking unfamiliar thermals, gliding down unknown trade winds, eking out every fragment of energy I could from storm clouds and starshine and, yes, the angry death of the sun. Days of sleeping hidden in forest canopies, drinking from streams, dodging suspicious lowlanders' arrows like a pheasant flushed from its nest. Days of skirting township walls and fountainmage barriers across a world cut to pieces like goat flesh carved for market.\n\nBut I knew how she thought, how she dreamt. And I was hunting, too.\n\nThe merchant ship was slow and fat against the setting sun, cargo hanging bulbous as a pelican's pouch beneath the silken carapace of her balloon. This one, at least, had armed herself. Clanking plates of mismatched metals rattled against her hull, the weight dragging awkwardly through the air. Even as I drew close, the flare of cannonfire echoed impotently from her gunports, their sound more like the barking of coyotes than rolling thunder.\n\nThey were mudborn, clay-toed ignorants, and they didn't stand a chance.\n\nThe Desperante wasn't an airship, not in any sense but the literal. I'd only seen her sketched, before; heard descriptions passed ear-to-mouth through the voices of those who'd never so much as glimpsed a Zephborn trader, let alone a featherwitch. She was both more glorious and more terrible than I had imagined.\n\nGlorious, the way her banks of wings flexed and pulled against the air. Glorious, the bend and weave of her bronze-and-canvas mechanical frame as she swooped around the lead shot and the roaring violence of flamecraft. Glorious, the entirety of her, five times the size of a full-grown drake, feathers brindled brown and gold in the fading sun.\n\nTerrible, the leather-clad featherwitch crew with pistols strung across their chests like garlands, the barely-human rictuses of their faces. Terrible, the crack and cry of birdbone when a wild shot hit home, painful in ways I couldn't fully comprehend.\n\nTerrible, to see the theory and engineering I'd crystallised from Aly's dreams made manifest for this use.\n\nThis was my fault as much as hers. I knew her, Alcyone of the West Wind, knew the way her heart burned, the way her temper fractured like splintering bone, knew the damage her kingfisher-swift mind could wreak when the last fragments bent and snapped. We'd grown up close as sisters, then closer still. If anyone could have seen it coming, could have stopped her, it would have been me.\n\nWell.\n\nBetter late than never.\n\nThe desperante. Scourge of the Zephward skies, phantom of the Tlelz Abyss, deepest terror of every forgewight merchant clan and sworn enemy of the Alaran Immolate.\n\nIt seemed ridiculous. A single feathercraft pirate ship could never materially damage an empire, could never loosen the firecrafters' stranglehold on the flow of goods, couldn't wrest our mountains free of the Immolate's tariffs and tithes.\n\nBut if one existed, then so could more. And that scared them.\n\nIt shouldn't. Only two people knew the skeleton of the thing, the siphoning of sun through mountain glass to spin the fragile bones, the force-feeding of energy into eagle and vulture quills until they grew and grew and grew. The gestalt feathercraft you needed to fly the thing. The grotesqueries you fed it to keep it hale.\n\nOnly two of us, and neither would teach another. She was too selfish. I was too afraid. The secret of the Desperante's construction would go down with the ship and her captain.\n\nHopefully very, very soon.\n\nThe desperante had posted no watch behind.\n\nAnd why should she? I counted no more than a score and a half aboard as I drew closer; she likely couldn't spare them. And the merchant dirigible\u2014the Carillion Ruby, from the gold-flecked paint on her stern\u2014could not possibly hope to circle her.\n\nI was no merchant dirigible.\n\nI looped above her once, twice, learning the pattern of the ship, when she dove and when she retreated. How she moved. I may have designed her, but we'd never built more than models. I'd never seen her fly.\n\nThe merchant ship was growing desperate. A cloud bank was forming from the roar of its cannon, acrid and bitter and reminiscent of things I was fighting to forget. Now. I had to act now.\n\nDiving felt like freedom. The wind pushed my cheeks back against my bones, clawed at my goggles, dug into the crevices between my knives and wrenched at my pistols. But I knew its strength. I pulled up before it could tear anything free, soaring forward like a raptor sighting prey, straight for the Desperante's tailfeathers.\n\nThey were vulture-like in shape, paler in colour, two times as long as I was tall, and stiff as ironwood. I flared my wings and matched speed, the creak and shout of battle settling across me like a smothering fog. I could hear Aly's voice in the chaos, screaming orders. I knew it instantly, intimately. She sounded so angry.\n\nGods. How dare she plant doubts and regrets in my heart, when she was the one who\u2014\n\nI dug my nails into my palms until they ached, joining the phantom burn of my wing muscles. The feathers. I was close, now. Close enough to touch.\n\nI stripped off my gloves. Bare flesh is a conduit, any child learns this at the knee of priests or storytellers. The barbs were oily beneath my fingers, smooth and alive and grotesquely large, like insect legs beneath a lens. They twitched and quivered with warmth.\n\nWith magic.\n\nI closed my eyes, and drank.\n\nIt is not drinking, not truly. Not as plants drink the sun. Flesh is a permeable receptacle for magic; you can glut yourself for hour upon hour and have nothing to show but lingering spasms and the memory of glory.\n\nThe trick, then, is to use flesh as a siphon to the soul.\n\nFirst, you suffuse yourself with witchcraft. Not just the shoulders and rib cage, the spine and neck and back muscles needed to graft the wings, but the whole of you\u2014kneecaps and fingers and the whorls of your feet, the strange pulsing gristle of the engine of you, the fibers that tie bone to bone. Then, at the very moment of repletion, you pause.\n\nImagine pouring ice wine into a goblet. You can pour until the liquor lies level with the lip of the glass. If you are careful, if the table is steady, the goblet well made, you can even pour a little longer. The wine will cling to itself as it rises, in a curve as subtle as the edge of the world seen from goose-height, above the rim.\n\nYou will want the magic to feel like that within you.\n\nStop. Hold steady. Balance on the precipice of excess, and open the well of your soul.\n\nThis is hard to describe.\n\nA priest will teach it as listening to the glory of their goddess. An aesthete hermit will speak of allowing beauty entry. Myself, I think of the wonder of frost patterns blooming over cedar twigs before dawn, when the skies are cloudless and the stars suck all warmth from the trees. You will find your own way, your own key to unlock the frozen quiet awe that lives inside each of us.\n\nMagic calls to magic; wonder to wonder. If you catch the trick of cracking open this door, it will drink eagerly of the sunset or the stormcloud or the stolen crumbs of feathercraft animating your enemy's pirate ship.\n\nIt will sip the ice wine from your goblet, and you need not spill a drop.\n\nI sank the teeth of my will into the witchcraft beneath my fingers, and I ripped.\n\nMetal groaned. Feather tore. Magic gushed away into the air. The hollow shafts of the quills I touched collapsed in on themselves like stream-banks swept away in a storm. The desert dregs of my reservoirs swelled under the deluge. I flapped harder, fighting to stay abreast of the tailfeathers as the Desperante yawed above me, unable to hold steady with half her tail falling away like ash in the wind.\n\nThe tone of the shouting had changed. Less bloodlust, more fear. Featherwitches came tumbling up from the ship's canvas like glassfoxes out a smoked burrow, their wings barely unfurled as they jumped. Fragile, makeshift things, fashioned for short bursts of extreme agility\u2014\u2014they'd not catch me.\n\n\"Lady Alcyone!\" came the shout from above, from the open-topped platform where the ship's wingbones socketed themselves to brass. \"Lady, they're getting away!\"\n\nThe pirate was right. The Desperante could barely hold a steady elevation, let alone give chase, and the Carillion Ruby was making for the horizon as fast as her propellers could spin. I felt a grim spark of triumph kindle in the back of my throat, and doubled my effort as the last great rectrix crumbled away to dust.\n\nFrom above came a terrible, high-pitched noise of fury, the cry of a hawk deprived of prey. As I fell back, the Desperante wallowing in the air, Aly appeared above me like a vengeful god.\n\nShe'd barely changed. Gods, with the sky behind her and her wings outstretched, it was like time itself had fallen away around us. She stole my breath.\n\nAnd then I folded my wings and dropped, sluggish and stupid as a fledge, as she dove towards me cutlass-first.\n\nSlow, I was too slow\u2014her blade caught my shoulder, tore across. Blood danced in the wind. My bandolier fell, spiraling away beneath us. I clamped one hand across the wound and wrenched back, boosting my wings with the magical remnants of the Desperante's tailfeathers.\n\n\"Have I changed that much?\" I didn't mean to say it, let alone boost my voice to slip it into her ears above the rush of the wind and the laboured clank of the Desperante.\n\nBut there was joy to this, to seeing her again, bubbling alongside the rage and utter resentment I'd been nursing for days\u2014no, years\u2014if I tore away the scab, forced my guilt into the light. Years of watching the mysterious coin and silk and linen, the forgecraft and foreign seeds, as they appeared in the houses of families who'd misplaced a young witch or two. Years of suspicion and gnawing anxiety every time the Immolate's officers tallied us at midsummer, at midwinter, wondering if this would be the time someone slipped. The time they noticed.\n\nNo. She wasn't my Aly anymore. I was facing Alcyone, Pirate Queen of the West.\n\nBut my voice had stopped her.\n\n\"Kes?\" she said, like a little girl, baffled and uncertain. Her wings beat, swiveling in place, leaving her bobbing in the air, and I realised she had changed. She'd adapted her wings. They were as long, and still primarily vulture-feathered, as the ones I now wore, but the joints were different, the musculature tweaked. Optimised for a different style of flight.\n\nOf course they were different. Alcyone of the West Wind didn't need to fly for leagues with nothing but travel bread and the strength of her back\u2014she had her ship for that.\n\nI turned into the wind, letting it pin me in place. \"Yeah,\" I said, throat sore. Had I spoken at all since I fled the ashes of Breywell? \"It's me.\"\n\n\"You\u2014you nest-wrecking piece of crowbait, do you know how long that's gonna take to repair?!\" Nose crooked and proud like a shrike's beak, cheekbones and brows and chin like the edges of cliffs gone round only grudgingly with age, hair shorn tight and curly against her scalp; her voice was high and taut with fury.\n\n\"A real long fucking time,\" I said, feeling my face crack open in a grin, and flicked my knives up out of their sheaths.\n\nShe had the upwind advantage and was unwounded, but I'd been preparing for this ever since the first lick of flame touched timber. I'd known exactly who I'd been facing.\n\nI closed with her before she could draw her cutlass back into a guard, my wings more powerful than hers\u2014I was half again her weight and stronger by far. She'd cut away my pistols but knives were more satisfying in the thick of it, more intimate. The heat of her gasp seared against my ear when I rammed the first blade home.\n\n\"Gods-dammit, Kes, why\u2014get off!\" The blade was too short, a tool more than a weapon. I'd barely pierced muscle beneath her leathers. I tried to wrench it back, bring my other knife around, but the first had snagged inside her armour and she'd grabbed my wrist before I could get the second in close.\n\nWe strained, legs tangled, wings beating, bobbing gracelessly through the sky like ducks swept over a waterfall. \"You know why,\" I said, my knife pushing closer, and closer still. \"You've known.\"\n\n\"Why\u2014why now,\" she panted, bewildered. Vulnerable.\n\nA trap.\n\nShe'd dropped the cutlass. Her hand was free. I realised it a second too late as the poison of her witchcraft stole into my secondaries, unraveling them where they lay.\n\nWith a shout, I let go of my knife in her vest and shoved.\n\nWe broke apart. Miles downwind of the foundering Desperante, hundreds of yards lower\u2014I couldn't see the billowing smoke of the Carillion Ruby at all anymore.\n\nShe was laughing. My knife still jammed into her ribs to its hilt, black blood slicking her leathers, and she was laughing.\n\n\"Kes, Kes,\" she said, voice cruel with affection. \"You never learn.\"\n\nI jammed my knife back in my belt, reached around behind me. I was listing. She'd destroyed feathers on the same side she'd sliced my shoulder. The arm was already stiffening. I could knit the cartilage together again, but it would take time. Time with land beneath my feet.\n\nBut she was wrong. I did learn. I patched the baldness in with pure magic, spun barbs from the brimming well within me. It would hold for now, but it was not strong or subtle. I wouldn't be able to turn as fast, dive as sharp. I wouldn't dodge her again.\n\n\"You can't fight me,\" she was saying, certain as a child. \"You won't fight me. I'll never believe you'll finish it.\" She had drawn a dirk from her belt while I fixed my wings, and now she caressed it, wight-forged steel shining like glacial ice. \"So why don't you tell your Aly why you're really here?\"\n\n\"To kill you,\" I said, hand going to the hilt of my knife.\n\n\"Steady,\" she said, pistol appearing suddenly from her belt, its silver barrel pointed square at my chest. \"Let's not be hasty. Why, love? You want my riches? My crew? My ship?\" She flew closer. I held still. \"You know I'd kill to have you by my side. It's only your stubbornness\u2014\"\n\n\"Never.\" My voice was shaking. \"I'm here to burn all that to the ground.\" Her dirk was almost gentle where she rested it against my breast. \"Like the Immolate did Breywell.\"\n\nShe flinched. Just for an instant, but I saw it. Horror. Guilt. Denial. \"They did what? When!\"\n\n\"A tenday ago.\" A little more. It had been late morning. They'd come at dawn.\n\n\"I'll kill them,\" she said, eyes hard like flint, dirk gone loose in her hand. \"By Vymis's teeth, I'll kill them all\u2014how many? The young ones, the elders\u2014did they escape?\"\n\n\"They let us go.\" Gave us two fingers of the sun to gather food and tools and the infirm, to huddle under blankets in the cold morning light as we watched them burn our homes. I'd been beyond lucky to find these wings intact in their chest. \"None dead.\"\n\nIt had been close. Mylz had almost thrown a punch when they'd refused to let him rescue his little one's cradle. Nilta had thrown a curse\u2014she'd survived only because the agents hadn't known enough to recognize it and because she'd missed. \"It was a warning.\"\n\n\"A warning?\"\n\n\"We featherwitches are to stop our raiding. Or they'll return.\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed. \"Ah,\" she said, soft as a snow owl's wingbeat. \"I see. And so you come to kill me.\"\n\n\"And so,\" I agreed.\n\n\"You're wrong,\" she said. \"They won't leave you alone if you hand them my head.\"\n\n\"Maybe so.\"\n\n\"They strangle us day after day. We die a little every time we bow. Kes, how can you ask me to live like that? How can you ask it of any of us?\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\nShe was expecting me to fight, I think. Expecting to retread the same familiar arguments we had woven again and again, blistering the air between us in those last months before\u2014before she'd left me.\n\n\"I'm not a child, Aly,\" I said, slowly brushing her blade aside. \"Just because a boulder allows the river to flow over it doesn't mean it can't eventually turn its path. And you haven't the saltpetere or the sulphur you would need to blow its banks. You're just an annoyance to them. A bad storm could take down as many ships as you do.\"\n\n\"Oh, shut up, Kes.\" She laughed. It was a wet, bitter sound. \"You always were a pompous ass.\"\n\nShe let me move the knife, slipped it back into its sheath. She pressed the pistol to my heart instead. \"I can't just do nothing. I won't. I never will.\"\n\n\"And I can't let you keep doing this.\" I couldn't. At any moment, the Immolate might decide we had gone too far, that feathercraft was toxic, the Zephward lands untameable. Anathema, like the fategilders and their crystal ruins, drawn out by superstitious envy and slaughtered by song. They would drive us from our homes and into the highest ice valleys, into our caves and mines. Into hiding. Into extinction.\n\nThe Desperante was just the excuse they needed.\n\n\"Stalemate,\" Aly said, and the click of her pistol was almost swallowed by the wind. \"Oh, wait. No, it isn't.\"\n\nBut I knew her. I'd known her. Her focus was sharp as obsidian. And yet she was here, with me, instead of up above, wrestling her beloved ship into working order, rescuing her tumbling crew.\n\nShe wouldn't believe I'd kill her. She couldn't. And until she did, she'd never bring herself to kill me first.\n\nShe still loved me.\n\nCould I kill her, knowing that?\n\nDid I have a choice?\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I said, instead softening my voice, my shoulders, the tilt of my wings. I had never been good at dissembling, as a girl. The years had taught me much. \"But you don't want to shoot, really. Do you?\"\n\nI reached out. We were close, now\u2014I didn't need to stretch. My fingers were resting on her skin. My smallest blade nestled half-forgotten in its wrist sheath.\n\nSoft. So soft, for such a harsh face. I rubbed a thumb along her cheekbone. Slid it down past her ear, felt the fluttering of her pulse. She bit her lip. Said nothing.\n\nMy wings beat. Hers, too. They fell into a rhythm. Drew us close, closer still, until the toes of her boots nudged against my shins. The barrel of her pistol pressed hard against my ribs.\n\nI kissed her.\n\nI shocked her, I think. I used to think I never would. But she hung there, lips slack, chapped from the wind.\n\nShe didn't taste of blood. Just chill skin, perhaps the scent of gunpowder, of grease. Her lips moved against mine. She began to raise her hand.\n\nAnd I tore the bottom out of the well of her magic.\n\nI hadn't known I was going to. Hadn't known it even to be possible. But if flesh is a conduit, and wonder a reservoir, then in the press and yield of lips, I discovered a further truth: love is the gateway, the sundering of self, against which all walls crumble.\n\nThrough the channel of our devotion, I stole it all\u2014her craft, her knowledge, her years of hoarded power like a wyrm hissing in the darkest deepest caverns of the mountains. And rather than swallowing it, I destroyed it.\n\nWhat else could I do? It was not enough to take. She could rebuild. Out of spite, out of hatred, she would rebuild, and turn her rage on those who had harmed her: the Immolate, who had despoiled her childhood, who ruined her people. And me.\n\nSo I reached, desperate and ignorant and filled with prayer, down the avenues and vessels of her power, and every path I traced I sealed behind me.\n\nShe screamed. I barely noticed\u2014the magic burned like I was the one destroyed\u2014even though her lips left mine, and her hands clawed at me like an animal, slipping away, pistol forgotten in her panic. Her wings disintegrated around us, feathers tumbling like debris from a kestrel's kill, and she tipped back out my grasp, arms wheeling. Falling.\n\nNo. No, it couldn't end like this. It couldn't. I'd found a way\u2014a way to win, a way to end her piracy, a way to save us from her short-sighted fury, a way where my quick-witted, jewel-bright Alcyone could survive. Seething, wounded, hating me with every shred of her soul\u2014but alive.\n\nLove, I discovered, was a weapon which cut its wielder just as deeply as its target.\n\nI folded my war wings like sleek daggers behind me, twisted in the air, and dove.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ The Birthday Heist by Fred Yost ]\n\nCaius's eyelids started to droop near the end of his first hour locked in the brig. Goddamned lulling motion of the goddamned airship.\n\nShould've been easy money. Save some people while collecting a nice bounty. That's how Ma'd sold the job to him. Couldn't blame her though. He'd fucked up, got snatched up by the first security patrol he'd run into after they stowed away on board. Splitting up had been a good idea. The rest of the team had avoided capture. At least, none of the rest were in the brig. Safe on board, or wounded in the sick bay, or killed and tossed over the side. Helluva way to kick off his birthday.\n\n\"Got any coffee?\" Caius asked the guard, a faunus named Halloway.\n\nHalloway shook his head. \"Wouldn't waste it on you if I did, werewolf. Zach says the Sapphire Order's gonna kill you as soon as we reach port.\"\n\nCaius blinked. \"What? Why?\"\n\n\"Zach said they'd kill you. That's all I know.\"\n\nMotherfucker.\n\n\"Shit. Got anything stronger than coffee?\"\n\nHalloway pulled a flask from his pocket. \"Yeah. But...\"\n\n\"But why waste it on a dead man.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\" Halloway looked back as he set the flask on his desk. \"I...can't.\"\n\nCaius leaned against the cell wall. So much for decency. \"Fuck you, too, buddy.\"\n\nHe tried to ignore the sudden wave of nausea rising inside him. Hell of a time to get motion sick, or have some weird reaction to the silver in his cuffs. He took a measured breath, practicing a deep-breathing technique Rei'd shown him. Calming shit. Break the situation into digestible chunks. He just needed to escape, find Pru, get her to break him out of these goddamned manacles unnoticed, lure away one of the heavily armed elite guards, knock them out, steal their armor, shift, not lose control, and take out all seven wizards before any one of them could cast the spells to kill almost everyone on board for some dumbass ritual. Easy fucking peasy.\n\nBut first he needed his stomach to settle. He'd close his eyes, just for a second.\n\nCaius sank into darkness. Fire. Blood and blades. Blue-robed figures dragging eldritch creatures from crystalline prisons with bloodstained ropes. Death heaped upon death.\n\nHe rolled to his knees, dry heaving. Visions were Rei's department. If he was seeing something like that, he knew for sure those damned mountains were the real deal, and the ship was too goddamned close. He spit a mouthful of what he hoped was blood.\n\n\"You okay in there?\" Halloway asked.\n\nCaius tilted his head. Something felt different in the air. Under the unpleasant scents of the brig, a new smell floated through the air ducts. Distant. Cucumbers with a hint of musk. Either Miche'd been nabbed or escape moved towards him.\n\nHe turned back to Halloway, surprised to see genuine concern on his face. \"Like you care. If you cared about anyone, you wouldn't be working for those murderers.\"\n\nHalloway moved closer to the cell. \"What do you mean, murderers? If you hadn't stowed away... It's harsh, but it's not technically murder. I'm sorry.\"\n\nCaius idly tugged at the bars. \"You don't get it, do you, kid? Would have been a helluova lot easier for me to hit the ship and grab the wizards on the way out, when it was almost empty, but that'd be a lot of folks dead when I could have stopped it. Ritual sacrifices to elder demons ain't my jam.\"\n\n\"What the fuck are you talking about?\"\n\n\"Like you really don't know? Don't bother bullshitting a dead man.\"\n\n\"I signed on two weeks ago. They put up a posting and hired a bunch of us, amazing pay. Too good to ask questions. And they made me a lieutenant right off the bat.\"\n\nCaius leaned against the bars. \"Never could figure how a death cult got an experienced crew to work for them. They didn't, did they?\"\n\n\"Post said they wanted fresh folks. Ones without bad habits they'd need to train out.\"\n\nCaius rubbed the bridge of his nose. \"That didn't set off some alarm bells?\"\n\nHalloway looked to the ground. \"I needed the work.\"\n\n\"Must have. This whole trip is full of red flags. None of the passengers look like the type to go on a luxury cruise. Damned few'd notice if they went missing. Fewer still would care.\"\n\nHalloway took a shaky sip from the flask. Caius heard the click of a lock somewhere down the hall.\n\n\"I'm dead, you're dead, life sucks. Sure you can't spare a drink?\"\n\n\"Promise you won't eat me?\"\n\n\"For fuck's sake,\" Caius said. He faintly heard mumbled words from the other room. A countdown in a sibilant tongue. Not much time at all. \"I don't fucking eat anything I can hold a conversation with.\"\n\nHalloway stumbled to the cell. Caius smelled the whiskey on his breath. A fuzzy hand reached through the cell sbars. The countdown stopped. Caius grabbed Halloway's wrist and pulled hard.\n\n\"Do me a favor and don't scream.\"\n\nHalloway screamed.\n\nWith a sigh, Caius bent the faunus's arm at an uncomfortable angle so he could cover Halloway's mouth without letting go of his wrist.\n\n\"Seriously, kid, I don't want to hurt you, but you gotta keep quiet and cooperate.\"\n\nHalloway quieted.\n\nThe door slid open, revealing a vaguely feminine silhouette. The smell of snakeskin intensified.\n\n\"Salutations, Bosswolf,\" the newcomer said.\n\n\"Hey, Miche. Kid here has the keys.\"\n\nHer flats tapped lightly on the metal floor as she moved closer, licking her lips. The dim light revealed a forked tongue dancing over bright white fangs.\n\n\"Venison? You spoil me.\"\n\nHalloway yelped into Caius's palm. Caius slammed the faunus's head against the bars.\n\n\"Quiet. Miche, just the keys, please.\"\n\nMiche grumbled, but he heard the jingle of keys freed from a pocket. Halloway mumbled something into Caius's hand. Caius relaxed his grip.\n\n\"Largest key opens the cells,\" Halloway said.\n\n\"And the shackles?\" Miche asked.\n\n\"No keyhole,\" Caius said. \"Should've tipped me off they never intended to open them.\"\n\nThe door popped open. Caius maneuvered Halloway into the cell as he stepped out.\n\n\"Good job, kid, almost done. Hold tight in there, and before you know it, we'll either let you out someplace safe or you'll be dead.\"\n\n\"You said you weren't going to hurt me,\" Halloway whimpered.\n\n\"We won't, but if we can't stop the blue robes in time...\"\n\n\"Bosswolf, time comes. Mountains grow near. Demons hunger.\"\n\nCaius slid the cell door shut and followed Miche through the rectangle of dim light at the end of the brig. He broke into a steady jog as soon as his eyes adjusted to the hall's lights.\n\n\"How long was I locked up?\"\n\n\"Too long. Paired hours? Maybe more.\"\n\n\"Shit. I should have figured a way out sooner. Or at all. Wait. Why did you come get me? Are they out of wine already?\"\n\nMiche glared. \"Wine was boring. Everyone else, occupied. Needed you out.\"\n\n\"Everyone is in place on the observation deck?\"\n\n\"Blue robes? Yes. Civilians? Yes. Our crew? Technically.\"\n\n\"Technically?\"\n\n\"The Lady grows anxious.\"\n\n\"Best not to keep her waiting.\" Caius lifted his cuffs. \"Speaking of easing her anxieties, anything you can do about these?\"\n\n\"Bosswolf.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Did not magically cure rage virus in lockup, yes? Without Lady's ice, you will lose self to blood.\"\n\n\"I won't shift. I just...I don't like being trapped like this.\"\n\n\"Poor Bosswolf, trapped as mere mortal.\"\n\n\"Please.\"\n\nMiche grabbed his wrists and muttered a few arcane words. She pulled back with a hiss.\n\n\"Alarms. Traps. No time to bypass.\"\n\n\"Alarms? Do they know you magicked them?\"\n\n\"Not likely, but possible.\"\n\nCaius picked up speed. They still had half a ship to cover.\n\n\"Halt!\" called a gravelly voice as he rounded a corner.\n\nCaius slid to a stop, bracing for Miche to slam into his back, but her tongue had always been better than his nose. Rock golems, even those in woolen guard uniforms, didn't smell like much.\n\n\"Evening, good sir,\" Caius said. \"Is there something I can do for you?\"\n\nThe mottled guard lifted his blaster and pointed it in Caius's general direction. \"Could pretend ya don't think I'm an idiot?\"\n\n\"Beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"You're the werewolf that was in the brig,\" the guard said, slurring. \"I remember the shirt. Distinctive.\"\n\n\"My fucking shirt? Really?\"\n\nThe guard belched, then chuckled. \"All right, the silver bracelets helped.\"\n\nCaius glanced at his wrists. The manacles definitely gave him that \"escaped prisoner\" look. \"Don't suppose you'll let me go so I can save everyone's lives?\"\n\nThe guard blearily studied Caius. \"Not likely. Gonna take you back to your cell and punch you until you tell me how you got out. After that? We'll play it by ear.\"\n\nCaius felt the hair on his arms stand on end as red pulsed in his vision. Calming breaths. He couldn't transform. The silver protected him. The virus couldn't take hold unless he transformed, right? \"Maybe you go upstairs, have a drink, and relax.\"\n\n\"Fuck no,\" the guard said with another belch. \"Awful party. Took forever to nick a little wine. S'okay though. Shit's strong. Now get moving so we can make with the hitting.\"\n\nCaius took a deep breath. \"Do they pay you enough for this? You saw the bounty. The rumor is they're going to kill me. I must be dangerous.\"\n\nThe guard shrugged. \"Danger's literally in the job description. Interrogating you is a fringe benefit.\"\n\nCaius heard the light tap of flats moving down the side hallway. \"Hate to disappoint, but you don't need to hit me. I'll tell you how I got out.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\nMiche stepped from around the corner and grabbed the guard by the back of his neck, pressing a small cylinder to his temple.\n\n\"I had help,\" Caius said.\n\n\"Drop your weapon,\" Miche said. \"Kick to Bosswolf.\"\n\nThe guard hesitated.\n\nMiche licked the side of his neck and grinned at Caius. \"Maybe inside taste like rock candy?\"\n\nCaius met the guard's wide eyes. \"I wouldn't test her.\"\n\nThe guard did as she asked. Caius turned the blaster on him. \"This thing have a stun setting?\"\n\nThe guard glared.\n\nCaius clicked the safety off. \"C'mon, buddy. Keep cooperating.\"\n\nMiche ran her hand over the guard's arm. \"Near four hundred pounds, yes? Mostly muscle, some rock?\"\n\nThe guard glanced at the blaster. \"Three fifty. Mostly muscle. Rock skin's lighter than people think.\"\n\nMiche twisted the tube a quarter turn. \"Wise to answer. Improper dosage could be dangerous.\"\n\n\"What?!\"\n\nThe tube sprayed a puff of powder in the guard's face. He blinked twice, dropped to his knees, then toppled forward.\n\nCaius frowned. \"Dead?\"\n\nMiche shook her head. \"Unconscious.\"\n\n\"Useful that. Something of theirs?\"\n\n\"Not quite. Made a new toy.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\nMiche shifted her weight, not meeting his eyes. \"Told you. Dosing wine was boring. Made something to react with our additive. Right dose means unconscious enemy.\"\n\n\"And the wrong dose?\"\n\nShe pocketed the tube. \"Important to get right dose.\"\n\nCaius didn't ask how she found that out. He turned his attention to the fallen golem, who'd stood just over five feet tall. \"Think you could do that with a guard closer to my height?\"\n\n\"Guards know each other.\" Miche tapped his wrists. \"And you stand out.\"\n\n\"True.\"\n\n\"Waiter?\"\n\n\"They're dressed like goddamned sailors. How would that stand out any less?\"\n\n\"Too obvious to be noticed. All they see is waiter.\"\n\nCaius sighed. \"That makes sense.\"\n\n\"Will take a moment to procure. Better to take time than get caught.\"\n\n\"Just be quick about it, please.\"\n\nMiche led Caius past the observation deck to a side room and told him to wait. He paced. Every second of delay meant more danger.\n\nJust stay calm. Time for more fancy breathing. Think about clear skies and happy things. Think about birthday dinner.\n\nAs he took another deep breath, the faint sounds of giggling and the sharp smell of arousal interrupted his thoughts. Miche stumbled into the room, arm in arm with a tall, bulky, human man. The man froze when he saw Caius.\n\n\"What's going on?\" he asked. \"I thought\u2014\"\n\nCaius tried not to notice the man's pants were unzipped. \"Look, I know you're a bit dazed right now, so I'll take this slow. Bad news is you're not getting laid right now.\"\n\nMiche glared.\n\n\"Good news is it's my birthday, so if you cooperate, I won't hurt you.\"\n\nThe waiter looked at him, obviously confused, but able to focus without effort.\n\n\"Fuck. You didn't drink any wine, did you?\"\n\n\"Can't. Allergic to grapes.\"\n\n\"No shit, really?\"\n\n\"Ever since I was a kid. Ended up in the hospital at my first communion.\"\n\n\"Hmm,\" Caius said. \"Do the blue bastards pay you enough to get concussed for this gig?\"\n\n\"No.\" The waiter rapidly shook his head. \"Do you have any idea what kind of long-term damage a concussion can cause?\"\n\nCaius leaned against the door. \"Fair point. My scaled associate is going to take your clothes and tie you up. Don't make a scene and don't attract the attention of a guard and we should be fine.\"\n\nCaius could only describe the look on the man's face as a mix of fear and anticipation. \"Yeah, I'll do it. Whatever she says.\"\n\nMiche leaned close to the waiter. Caius turned his attention out the viewport. Clothes slowly landed at his feet. He struggled to change while manacled. Pants, he could manage. Shoes, too. Soon, all that was left in the pile was a pressed shirt and...\n\n\"Hey, uh, I don't need his underwear.\"\n\n\"Not everything is about your needs, Bosswolf.\"\n\nCaius tapped his wrists together, carefully keeping his gaze on Miche's face. \"Magic up a shirt switch for me, please.\"\n\nMiche distractedly waved her free hand and Caius's shirt peeled off his body in strips. A hissing chant sent the waiter's puffy white shirt crawling up Caius's torso, sliding in place over his manacles.\n\n\"Go now. Am not needed for fighting.\"\n\nCaius fought off a sigh. He hated to begrudge anyone their simple pleasures, but now was not the time for distractions. Or leaving the most volatile member of his team alone. \"Of course we need you. You're our problem solver.\"\n\nShe let out an exasperated sigh. \"Why do I listen to you?\"\n\n\"I'm your boss and our secret base has a sweet lab?\"\n\n\"No. Could eat you, become new boss, take lab.\"\n\n\"Because you're a wonderfully talented magical potions ninja and it's my birthday?\"\n\nMiche rolled her eyes. She looked back at the naked waiter and then glared at Caius. \"Fine, but do not blame me if I accidentally eat someone. And you, naked man. Give me your number. We'll finish this later.\"\n\nCaius tapped his foot impatiently while waiting for Miche to jot down the waiter's info. They had time, he kept telling himself. They'd be cutting it close, but by the gods they'd still have time, even if he had to will it into existence.\n\nOutside the observation deck, he grabbed a hand towel off a nearby table and used it to cover his wrists before stepping into the room.\n\nThe sight of the crowd poked at something in his heart. Every goddamned one of them in their threadbare Sunday best. Except for two assholes in Hawaiian shirts. Otherlanders of all kinds, the only unifying factor that they all looked tired and hungry, and except for a few huddled families, lonely. Reminded Caius of the foster families he'd bounced between before he fell in with the O'Sheas. With Mairead. Ma. He hadn't told her, but he'd have taken this job even without the payout for the wizards. But first, he had to do the job.\n\nEasy to spot his crew: Brayden standing near the plexiglass window, talking up a storm; Rei at the DJ booth, headphones around her neck, dancing to music not yet playing; Alex, hovering by the door marked PRIVATE, ready to slip onto the flight deck and hot-wire the airship's auto-pilot.\n\nEasy to spot the wizards in the blue robes, scattered throughout the room. Same for the seven-foot-tall, steel-plated elite guards watching over them.\n\nNot easy to spot Pru.\n\nShe couldn't afford to be seen with a bunch of thieves, so she'd come aboard in disguise. But he damn well knew what that disguise looked like and she wasn't anywhere he could see. Her smell lingered throughout the room, fire and ice and metal and flesh. Everywhere and nowhere, a bit of olfactory camouflage born of Miche's boredom on the East Bay job. Great when they needed her hidden from other shifters. Not so great when they needed to find her.\n\nExcept she'd left her body armor back at their apartment. So why metal? Unless...\n\n\"Fuck.\"\n\nMiche raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"She already took out an elite, didn't she?\"\n\nMiche shrugged. \"Not before I leave to get you. But she had concerns about time.\"\n\nCaius grumbled as he studied the room. So much for Pru not getting involved with an easy job. \"Double fuck. Blues're too far apart.\"\n\n\"Almost as if worried about attack from one person?\"\n\nCaius growled softly. Focus on the targets, find a solution. He smiled. Each one carried a mostly empty champagne flute. He tapped the tube in Miche's pocket. \"Think you could take out the Order of Murderous Fuckery if I make a big enough distraction?\"\n\nMiche surveyed the room. \"Very big distraction, perhaps.\"\n\nCaius whistled three short notes, barely audible over the ambient noise of the room. Brayden searched the crowd, his eyes widening momentarily when he spotted Caius. Caius nodded.\n\n\"Distinguished guests!\" Brayden's voice cut through the hushed conversations around the room. Melodic. Powerful. \"If you take a look out the observation window right now, you'll see we're approaching the Lightspire Mountains, quite possibly the oldest known formations in the entire Otherlands, according to this hastily constructed pamphlet they handed out as we boarded.\"\n\nAll seven blue-robed figures and all but two guards turned towards Brayden. Miche took a step back into the press of the crowd, blending in almost instantly. Caius grabbed a nearby tray of wine glasses and maneuvered to the nearest inattentive guard. He took a deep breath and fought off a flinch. Ogre skin and ball sweat. Definitely not Pru.\n\n\"What the brochure doesn't tell you,\" Brayden continued, \"is the Lightspires are home to Soultaker Ridge, the site of numerous sacrifices attempting to unleash an ancient evil.\"\n\nThe murmurs took on an unsettled edge. The blue robes exchanged confused looks. Without Miche's additive in the drinks, there might have been a full-blown panic.\n\nCaius sidled up to the other guard. This one, at least, smelled of nothing that might keep her from being Pru.\n\n\"Wine?\" he asked, doing his best to disguise his voice, just in case.\n\nThe guard backpedaled away, drawing a large falchion as she moved. \"Escape!\" the guard cried. \"The werewolf's escaped!\"\n\n\"Shit.\" Caius allowed that perhaps his British accent wasn't as good as he thought.\n\nCaius moved to the center of the room, studying the rest of the guards as they approached, trying not to let anyone get a clean shot at his back for any length of time. One of the elites didn't move a smoothly as the others. Caius could see their breath in the air, despite the heat from the bodies filling the room.\n\nOf course. She couldn't fit in the giant suit of armor without some kind of filler, and ice drew a helluva lot less attention that lava.\n\nHe charged the armored figure with the frosted breath, his arms stretched over his head. The guard grabbed the chain between the shackles and lifted him high in the air.\n\nMotherfucker. Wrong again? Pru'd give him so much shit for not being able to find her. Assuming they survived, of course, which... Well, odds weren't great, now that he'd been grabbed again. Hell, he already felt the creeping chill of death.\n\nWait, no. Not death. Just regular cold seeping into his arms through the manacles. Caius grinned.\n\n\"Hi, darlin',\" he said. \"Ready to cause a distraction?\"\n\n\"'bout damn time.\" Pru's voice, unmistakably hers, echoed in the large suit of armor.\n\nShe dropped him. Heavy boots pounded on the ground far behind him. She swung her hammer down and he caught the blow with the frosted silver manacles. The shockwave from the impact reverberated through the room as the hammer exploded and pain blossomed in his side.\n\nCaius blinked as silver shards rained down around him. Why would his side hurt?\n\nHe looked down to see the blade of a falchion protruding from the ruffles of the shirt he'd stolen from the waiter, blood pouring from a gaping wound. Ow. His own bitter laugh rang in his ears. Sonnuva bitch. On his birthday no less.\n\n\"No!\" Pru shouted.\n\nThe air went dry as the ambient moisture turned to flurries of snow. Frost cracked along the edges of her armor, branding the steel. Pru punched the falchion wielder hard enough to send the guard flying into a wall.\n\nCaius staggered forward, the bitter laugh turning into a chuckle. Heat poured through his body, radiating from the cut. A steel blade. Not enchanted. Not silvered. Just plain fucking steel. He shook the last silver shards from his shaggy hair. Nothing keeping him from shifting now.\n\nThe heat turned to burning. The chuckle turned to a howl. Heart pounding. Vision narrowed to blood-red pools. A clawed hand ripped the blade free from a furry side. Flesh knitting as the falchion pulled free. Thoughts of torn throats, shredded armor, and a feast of blood and ogrekin flesh.\n\nA metal gauntlet gripping a furry arm. A flood of cold magic pouring through the arm. No. Him. His arm. His heartbeat slowed. The red faded from his vision. One of the elite's dangled limply from his claws. He could taste blood on his canine teeth. Shit shit shit. He tossed the guard in Rei's general direction, hoping she'd be able to keep them alive.\n\n\"You okay, fuzzbutt?\" Pru asked.\n\nCaius nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Pru lifted her arm from his and formed a blue-and-white longsword in her hand. They stood back to back. The remaining five elites circled them slowly, less confident now the odds were a bit more even. Caius glanced at the wizards, worried they might take matters into their own hands, but only three remained standing. Two stared raptly out the window, no doubt counting down the time before one of them could start the ritual. The third watched the fight, hands waving in the air. Before Caius could say anything, Miche appeared next to the waving wizard, a tube at her lips. Then only two remained.\n\nA blade slashing past his face brought his attention back to the fight in front of him. Pru caught the sword in her free hand. A blast of frost shot from her gauntlet and engulfed the weapon. The elite pulled back and struck again. The blade shattered on Pru's armor. The answering swing of her sword sent her opponent flying to the ceiling, the icy shards of their weapon pinning them in place.\n\nCaius stepped up to another, dodging an ax swing. He fought with no fancy magic, nor practiced form, only a flurry of claws and teeth shredding armor, but that served well enough. He stared at the guard's throat. One bite could end it. Deep breath. A single punch knocked out the exposed ogrekin.\n\nHe looked up to see Pru slamming one guard into a wall. The elite collapsed and didn't get back up. One left. Caius checked the room. He looked up in time to see the last wizard open their mouth to begin the ritual, but Miche stepped up beside them. A single puff of powder sent them sprawling to the ground.\n\nThe last elite tossed their weapon to the ground and dropped to their knees. Caius picked up the oversize cutlass and planted his foot on their chest.\n\n\"You surrender?\" he growled.\n\nThe downed fighter choked out a desperate chuckle. \"Fuck yes, I surrender. The shit I've seen, man, I did not sign up for. And those assholes do not pay me enough to die for them.\"\n\nCaius started to let the guard up, but Pru signaled he should wait.\n\n\"Fellow travelers,\" Brayden said, his voice reverberating beyond the acoustics of the room. \"All unpleasantness is out of the way. Please calm down.\"\n\nThe crowd immediately settled. Brayden was a damned good siren.\n\n\"Please think of this as a rescue mission. We'll be taking a detour to the Lightbringer mountains, a real tourist destination. Emergency services will undoubtedly provide you passage home.\"\n\nTrusting the drugged wine and Brayden's spells to keep the passengers calm for the remainder of the journey, Caius turned to Pru.\n\n\"Can I let this guy up?\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" she said. \"Miche?\"\n\nCaius turned to the click of a camera. Pru pulled a sailor's cap from the suit of armor and placed it on his head. Caius flushed.\n\n\"Just go with it,\" she whispered.\n\nHe struck a pose that wouldn't have been out of place on the logo of a rum bottle, a silly grin creeping on his face.\n\n\"Should I send Rei to the sick bay for an eyepatch?\"\n\nCaius coughed. \"Not necessary.\"\n\n\"A little ice parrot?\"\n\nCaius pointed the sword in Miche's direction. \"We done?\"\n\n\"You're the bosswolf, Bosswolf.\"\n\nCaius tossed the sword to Pru. She grabbed it midair and pulled the ogrekin guard to his feet. \"You seriously repent getting involved with these killers?\"\n\n\"Of course. Everything about them was horrific.\"\n\n\"Then come with me,\" Pru said. \"Let's talk about your redemption arc.\"\n\nThe small office in the hangar indirectly owned by the O'Shea Syndicate lacked any sign of a personal touch. But it served well enough as a front, if you didn't look too close.\n\nPrudence shook flecks of ice from her shirt while waiting for the prisoners to be pulled from the brig. Nephilim didn't need to worry about cold, but if her top got too wet she'd need to go back to the apartment to change. And she'd already told Caius she'd deliver the wizards so he could have time to make himself look less like he belonged on the cover of a particular brand of romance novel.\n\nShe watched a stately older woman walk down the gangplank of her airship.\n\n\"Evening, Ma,\" Prudence said.\n\n\"Lady Danakil, I do not care how close to the boy you are, if your mother heard you call me Caius's little nickname, I'd be in as much trouble as if she found out you accompanied those ruffians on their jobs,\" the woman said. \"Please. Call me Mairead, or Ms. O'Shea if ye must be formal.\"\n\n\"Fine, Mairead, but you need to call me Prudence. Or Pru. I'm no Lady Danakil. Not here.\"\n\n\"Of course, dear,\" Mairead said, thumbing through a stack of papers.\n\n\"I trust you found everything in order?\"\n\n\"Seven wizards, neatly bound. Seven matching bounties posted by the Danakil Corporation in the last hour. Big bounties. Big rewards.\"\n\n\"Then we're square?\"\n\n\"More than square. Your debt's paid on the bounties alone, even after cutting Caius and his crew their share. Add in the airship\u2014\"\n\n\"Apologies for any confusion, the airship is mine now. Just coincidence that happened to be the best way to apprehend them.\"\n\n\"Bullshit. Coincidence, dear? Just like it was coincidence a concerned guard called in a tip the same day your love took this job?\"\n\nPru stretched. \"Lucky break, that.\"\n\nMairead clicked her tongue. \"Lucky? Don't lie to me. Lie to Caius, if you must. Using insider information never sat well with the proud idiot.\"\n\n\"Danakil's enforcement division has been trying to get the Order of the Sapphire Revenant for years. Too long. But it only made it to my desk last week.\"\n\n\"So why today? The fools haven't succeeded in summoning an elder god yet.\"\n\n\"I didn't want anyone to die while waiting for a bureaucrat to authorize a strike. And if I'm being honest, the timing was too good to pass up.\"\n\n\"Timing?\"\n\n\"Don't tell me you've forgotten Caius's birthday. He'll be heartbroken.\"\n\nMairead rolled her eyes. \"You've got the best table in Shipwrecks, with dinner from a chef I flew in just for tonight. What does his birthday have to do with the fucking job?\"\n\n\"Two months ago, they picked up that guard thing on the East Bay. I tagged along. Easy money. Boring job. We talked. About the past, our dreams, and some silly things.\" Prudence tucked her hair behind her small horns. \"Caius told me he'd always wanted to be a pirate.\"\n\nShe showed Mairead on of the photos Miche'd taken.\n\nMairead smiled. \"I see. Get on out of here and give the birthday boy my best.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Prudence paused by the door. \"You can borrow my airship for now, but take good care of it. The worlds may need the Dread Pirate Caius to fly again.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Airships are Overrated (Always Insist on Taking the Kittens and Puppies Valley Route) by Laura Davy ]\n\nEvelyn had always thought an airship would be grand and awe-inspiring. With a gleaming deck, masts reaching the clouds, and sails glimmering with magic. Instead it was a box.\n\nNo deck, no portholes, no rails, and not even a hint of a sail. Just a wooden bottom with four short walls.\n\nDefinitely a box.\n\nSure, the magic to make a ship fly could be used on any object. But airbox didn't have the same ring as airship.\n\nA stranger who seemed more beard than man walked over and smiled at the structure with a manic gleam in his brown eyes. \"Stargazer's a beauty, isn't she?\"\n\nEvelyn glanced around to see if he was talking to her. Or maybe talking about a different secret ship hidden away. Though from the way he looked at the box this object had to have some redeeming quality. Perhaps she didn't know enough about air travel and the square design made it extra safe.\n\nHe slapped the side of the box, making the structure shudder as if it was on the verge of collapse.\n\nSo, not safe then.\n\nThe man asked, \"Are you interested in booking a ride?\"\n\nEvelyn glanced skeptically at what was probably a deathtrap, but it wasn't like she had many options. It would take her a month to walk to school and it would cost too much to rent a stagecoach.\n\n\"How much does it cost to go to Aveility City?\"\n\n\"Aveility, eh?\" He stroked his beard and looked at her, taking in her youth, secondhand robe, and the fact that her visible luggage was ninety percent books and ten percent tea. \"Isn't that where the wizard schools are? You know we offer a discount for wizards if they don't mind helping out a bit.\"\n\nEvelyn quickly decided he didn't need to know this would be her first year at school and so she wasn't actually a wizard yet.\n\n\"What's the discount?\" Evelyn asked, hoping she didn't sound too interested.\n\n\"Half price if you just help power up the flight spell every now and then.\"\n\n\"Deal.\"\n\n\"Good. Name's Conor and I'll be the one flying you and anyone else who wants to go. Now let's figure out what route we should take.\" Conor pulled a large map out of nowhere. Either he knew magic himself or the map had been hidden in his beard. \"Company doesn't send us enough wizards to fly everywhere we want, but Aveility is important enough that you have a few route options. Different stops along the way, but they all land at the city.\"\n\n\"Is there a difference in price?\"\n\n\"For you? No.\" He stretched out the hand-drawn map and pointed to the different colored lines, clearly routes or someone was really bad at drawing country boundaries. \"Let's see, you could take the Red Route, takes you across the Boiling Lake and the Give-Up-All-Hope Mountain. That's the quickest way and you'd reach Aveility in six hours.\"\n\n\"Boiling Lake and Give-Up-All-Hope Mountain,\" Evelyn repeated. \"Isn't that dangerous?\"\n\n\"Oh, I wouldn't think so.\"\n\nEvelyn eyed the skull and crossbones so cluttered on the map they left little room for landmarks. \"What are the other options?\"\n\n\"The Yellow Route takes you over Valley of the Tortured Souls and Forest of the Damned.\"\n\n\"Pleasant.\"\n\n\"Though for the best view I'd recommend the Blue Route over Annihilation Peak, Eternal Rest Mountain, and the Cliff of Ruin. Basically over the entire Death Mountain Range.\"\n\nWho came up with these names?\n\n\"Couldn't I go over the Kittens and Puppies Valley or something?\" Evelyn asked.\n\n\"Oh, God, do you have a death wish?!? Though speaking of death wishes, the Green Route over Death Wish Valley would get you there in two days.\"\n\n\"What's the safest route?\"\n\n\"Umm...\" Conor avoided meeting her eyes. \"They're all safe.\"\n\nEvelyn glanced over at the airbox/airship. The less time she had to spend in it the better. \"I guess the fastest route.\"\n\nEvelyn vowed never to take the fastest route again. And never ride an airship again.\n\nThe wind stung her eyes and it was so cold even layering on two of her winter coats didn't help. The box was crowded with at least a dozen passengers sitting side-by-side on the airbox's floor, most of whom looked either bored or terrified \u2013 which were the two feelings Evelyn herself fluctuated between.\n\nAnd then there was the nausea.\n\nNone of her books mentioned feeling ill while flying. Then again all of the books claimed airships were valid transportation options so nothing the authors wrote could be trusted anymore. Conor claimed Evelyn was feeling seasick, but how could she feel something that happened on the ocean when they were flying through the air? Evelyn would have pointed out the logical problem, if she wasn't afraid of what would happen if she opened her mouth.\n\nAt least the scenery was beautiful. Forests reduced to patchwork greens, snow-peaked mountains, and turquoise rivers cutting through it all. Give-Up-All-Hope Mountain really should be a vacation spot.\n\n\"Hey, wizard.\" Conor's voice cut through Evelyn's thoughts. He sat upfront, which really was just the side of the box facing the direction they were headed, with his hands on a steering wheel, which was really just a stick. \"Add some magic to the seal, would ya?\"\n\nEvelyn placed her hand on the magical seal that kept them all airborne. The spell looked like a small hand. Each time she refilled the magic it felt like that hand reached out and punched her in the gut. That probably didn't help with the nausea.\n\n\"How do you fly this thing without a wizard onboard?\" Evelyn asked, looking at the other passengers and wondering just how long they'd had to wait before a flight.\n\n\"We don't. But at least once a week some wizard wants a ride, or we temporarily hire one, then we fly. Worse comes to worse, we get one drunk enough to pass out and then wake them up about halfway in. At that point they have to power up the spell.\"\n\nKidnapping confession aside, Evelyn wondered if she could have gotten a better deal than half off. And the fact that not a single passenger seemed surprised by the unorthodox methods simply confirmed that anyone willing to fly was either foolish or fearless.\n\n\"You know,\" Conor continued, \"If schooling doesn't work out we could always use wizards around here. Travel, adventure, and maybe a little windburn, all yours for the taking.\"\n\nEvelyn vowed she'd never leave school.\n\n\"By the way, what happens if there's a storm or a dragon finds us?\"\n\n\"Dragons usually don't bother ships, something about us being beneath their dignity or whatnot. And our airships are made to handle even the toughest storms. But neither of those are usually the issue. What's the problem is pirates.\"\n\n\"Pirates?\" Evelyn repeated with an added amount of skepticism. \"But we're in the sky, how could pirates reach us?\"\n\nNow if pirates were to suddenly appear right after Evelyn asked the question, she would know never to tempt fate again. But naturally that didn't happen. Events don't occur just because someone spoke out loud. No, the pirates came ten minutes later.\n\n\"Incoming off the starboard side!\" Conor yelled out, pointing to the right.\n\nTwo small figures were speeding towards the airbox. Squinting, Evelyn could make out two people balancing on what looked like flying boards. Literal boards. A plank of wood that they balanced on without even a railing.\n\nDid no one understand the concept of the \"ship\" in airship?\n\nThe two pirates zoomed closer and a voice that was so loud it had to have been enchanted by magic called out, \"Stop flying and surrender!\"\n\n\"Never!\" Conor yelled out with such passion that Evelyn didn't have the heart to tell him there was no way the pirates would be able to hear him at such a distance without magic.\n\nBut given that the airbox wasn't slowing down, the pirates appeared to have figured out they weren't giving up. And with that, the pirates started throwing spears and the passengers started to scream.\n\nThis wasn't good.\n\n\"Quick,\" Conor yelled to Evelyn as a spear with a rope tied around it just missed the airbox's side. \"Power up that seal! We've had a lot of missing ships from this route so the pirates probably don't leave survivors. Our only hope is to outrun them!\"\n\nEvelyn slapped her hand against the magic seal and added power to it, realizing it didn't make her feel nearly as sick as the fear did.\n\n\"Do you know any attack or defense spells?\" Conor asked as he made them soar even higher.\n\n\"No! I haven't even taken a single class!\"\n\n\"Should have guessed you were new when you settled for working for just half off rather than money and a free ride.\"\n\nEvelyn quickly noted never to make that mistake again. Well, if she lived through this and could make more mistakes.\n\nAnother spear flew above them, barely missing Conor's head.\n\n\"We outnumber them,\" Evelyn shouted to Conor and the cowering passengers. \"Maybe we could beat them in a fight.\"\n\n\"They have magic and weapons, what do we have?\"\n\nOne of the passengers stood up and threw off his cloak. He was armed with more weapons than a standard army and it looked like even his muscles had muscles.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" he declared as the wind tussled his hair. \"I will protect you!\"\n\nA spear hit him in the head.\n\nThe would-be hero collapsed into a heap. As the other passengers screamed and cried - which seemed like a smart action given the circumstances - Evelyn crawled over and checked out the body.\n\nThe man groaned and clutched the spear attached to his head. Literally attached. It was a rounded spearhead with no point, but it must have had some magical spell to make it stick to whatever it hit. Plus there was a rope tied to the spear. But why?\n\nAs if to answer the question, the rope went taut. The man slid towards the side of the airbox, as if someone was trying to reel him in.\n\nEvelyn looked out at the pirates and saw they were moving hand-over-hand on the rope to close the distance between them and the airbox. Attached by rope, now even the best ship maneuvers wouldn't be able to lose them now. The pirates would be on them in a matter of seconds if this continued.\n\nEvelyn grabbed a knife from the unconscious man's belt and sawed off the rope. Maybe that would make the pirates fall. Evelyn gazed out, hoping to see nothing but sky. Instead, the pirates were getting closer.\n\nShe really should have insisted on traveling the route across the Kittens and Puppies Valley.\n\n\"What's happening back there?\" Conor called out.\n\n\"Nothing good!\"\n\n\"Are you sure you don't know any spells?\"\n\n\"I only know small spells, like warming up tea, finding lost sheep, and making my voice louder,\" Evelyn trailed off and then looked back at the pirates. \"Actually, should we try negotiating?\"\n\n\"Didn't you hear me?\" Conor asked as the airbox dived down, making Evelyn remember why she had felt nauseous for most of the flight. \"A lot of airships don't return from this route. These pirates don't just take your money. They take your life.\"\n\n\"It doesn't hurt to ask.\"\n\nIgnoring Conor's shouts of protest, Evelyn cast the spell to amplify her voice. Then, as another spear passed over her head, she called out, \"Will you stop chasing us?\n\nWell, at least it was worth asking.\n\n\"No,\" a pirate countered with a voice also magically louder. \"Surrender!\"\n\n\"No. We don't want to die!\"\n\n\"Who said anything about dying? We wouldn't kill anyone! Rough them up a bit, sure, but not kill!\"\n\nThe confusion in the voice was only amplified with how loud it was. Either the pirates were terrific actors or they really weren't murders.\n\n\"But we heard you don't leave survivors,\" Evelyn said with a meaningful look at Conor.\n\n\"That's just bad for business. Too many deaths mean people wouldn't fly here anymore, and then we'd have no one to steal from.\"\n\n\"Plus, killing is like, super bad,\" the other pirate called out with a magically enhanced voice. If they both had enchanted voices, that means they both could use magic. \"We'll steal, but we draw the line at murder.\"\n\nGreat, two wizard pirates and Evelyn could only magically make tea hotter. At least it looked like they weren't going to kill them all. Maybe.\n\n\"But airships have been disappearing on this route,\" Evelyn said.\n\n\"That's probably from the dragons and storms. Very dangerous.\"\n\nEvelyn sent another meaningful look at Conor, who studiously ignored her. They continued flying as quickly as they could. The wind was giving Evelyn a headache. And she still felt sick.\n\n\"Could we all just stop and talk this out?\" Evelyn cried out.\n\n\"A parlay?\" Conor and the pirates asked at the same time.\n\n\"Sure,\" Evelyn replied. Whatever a parlay was, it had to be better than this chase.\n\nThe airbox slowed down and the pirates slowed down as well. They were clearly experienced with flying since they wore multiple jackets, a number of scarves, and goggles. Oh yes, and at least a dozen gleaming weapons each looking scarier than the last.\n\nSoon everyone simply hovered in the sky and glared at each other. Off to a good start.\n\n\"Well,\" Evelyn said slowly as she rubbed her temples. \"If storms and dragons are so dangerous then why would you risk flying yourselves?\"\n\n\"Not a lot of ways to make money here. A few years back, we changed the area's name to Hope Mountain in the hopes of becoming a popular vacation spot, but somehow the name changed to Give-Up-All-Hope Mountain.\"\n\nEvelyn considered the name apt given the dragons, storms, and pirates, but wisely didn't comment.\n\nThe other pirate spoke up. \"We even went to a wizarding school so we could learn a new trade and were kicked out before the end of the year! Apparently they didn't like it when you prefer fighting to reading. We don't really want to be pirates, but we need to make money somehow.\"\n\nGood thing schools didn't teach lightning attack spells until the second year.\n\nBut even if the pirates didn't know attack spells, they were already so powerful. The spears, the speed, and the ability to balance on a board over a thousand feet off the ground and not freeze in terror. They had to be either fearless or foolish to be a pirate. Just like everyone else who liked airships.\n\n\"So,\" Evelyn said as an idea began to form, \"would you be willing to relocate if you could make money?\"\n\nThe two huddled together and silently chatted before one called out, \"Sure. I mean, as long as we could visit home every once in awhile.\"\n\n\"And could you endure travel, adventure, and maybe a little windburn?\"\n\n\"For money? Sounds like a dream!\"\n\nEvelyn looked towards Conor. He laughed and said, \"I think I know where you're going with this, little wizard. And I like it! Always preferred fighting over reading myself.\"\n\nWith a smile Evelyn turned back to the pirates. \"Have you ever considered becoming airship pilots?\"\n\nAfter that it was just down to negotiations.\n\nThe once-pirates and now-pilots left with company employment contracts and only a few stolen coins. They even healed the would-be hero's concussion without being asked.\n\nConor turned to Evelyn. \"Don't worry, the rest of the route should be just as easy. Probably. Maybe. With luck it will be just as easy!\"\n\nEvelyn vowed that next time she'd just walk.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Runaway by Joshua Curtis Kidd ]\n\n\"No one escapes the guild,\" Jacob Shelley said to himself as he chased a rebel up the side of a mountain. He hoped that he wouldn't allow the first exception today.\n\nJacob aimed the three-pronged claw of his sparking iron at a tree just beyond the rebel. He summoned his magical energy, and a bolt of electricity arced between his sparker and the tree. Its bark exploded in large chunks.\n\nThat ought to have been enough to convince the rebel to lay down her rifle and return quietly to the munitions factory with him. Instead, she turned and fired her rifle at Jacob.\n\nHis shield stone stopped the bullet in an explosion of blue light. Jacob stumbled, disoriented by the flash, and the rebel continued her run for the woods.\n\nJacob could have caught her already, if he had used his flash stone. He held back because he wanted her to give up and realize the futility of running from The Guild. His orders were to capture or kill. He wasn't ready to kill.\n\nThe rebels were idiots, persisting in a war that had ended more than a hundred years earlier when King George III had hired The Guild to crush their forces. They were an underground group now, and their methods included assassinating leaders and blowing up buildings. They no longer even had a clear cause. Queen Victoria ruled the American colonies in name only, and The Guild was paid by an American government to keep the peace.\n\nKeeping the peace sometimes meant meeting the rebels with lethal force. Jacob knew that such things were required to maintain the greater good, but it was a different thing to have to do them yourself.\n\nThe rebel turned to fire at Jacob again. Two other Guild members flashed up beside her. The hoods of their robes hid their faces. Lightning leaped from the ends of their sparkers at the rebel. Jacob turned away, but his shield shimmered blue as dust and heat pelted it.\n\nNo one escaped The Guild.\n\nJacob returned to the munitions factory, which was now engulfed in a magical green flame that would consume bricks, iron, steel, and everything else. Soon, only a pile of smoking ash would remain to show that any structure had ever been there.\n\nNestled in a valley in western Virginia, this factory had escaped the notice of The Guild for some time because the rebels hadn't constructed it along a major river. It ran on steam power, and nearby mines provided the coal it needed for fuel.\n\nJacob found his mentor, Benjamin, overseeing the building's destruction.\n\n\"We might never have found this place if we hadn't tracked that airship making a delivery of iron,\" Benjamin said. From up close, his long gray beard and sharp cheekbones were visible under his hood.\" They might have continued to manufacture rifles here for years. We're saving a lot of lives here today.\"\n\nJacob nodded. This was for the greater good.\n\n\"I heard that the rebel that I sent you after was dealt with,\" Benjamin said to Jacob. His voice and expression were full of disappointment. Benjamin knew who had dealt with the rebel.\n\n\"That's right,\" Jacob said.\n\n\"I need you to handle something else for me,\" Benjamin said.\n\n\"What is it, sir?\" Jacob asked.\n\n\"A few rebels escaped into the woods this way,\" Benjamin said. \"There should be three of them. I need you to find them and deal with them.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" Jacob said. Benjamin was testing him, seeing how far he would go. He was giving Jacob another chance.\n\n\"I knew I could count on you,\" Benjamin said and put a hand on Jacob's shoulder.\n\nJacob had seen how The Guild dealt with failure. He still didn't know if he could summon his magic to kill another person, and he was afraid. He touched his belt and flashed into the forest.\n\nThe range of travel with a flash stone was a few hundred yards under normal conditions. In the forest, the density of trees shortened that range to only fifty yards or so. Jacob could use the stone to open temporary portals for quick travel, but only to locations within line of sight. He would have to progress more slowly here than he could out in the open, moving back and forth across the forest in an expanding pattern.\n\nWith each step through a portal, complete silence engulfed Jacob. On the other side, sound returned just as abruptly.\n\nJacob emerged from the silence to a man's scream, and he saw a figure dive behind a large boulder. In fear, Jacob's magical energy surged forward and out through his sparking iron. The rock exploded, and pieces flew in all directions.\n\nIt was getting dark, and the electric arc of the sparking iron had blinded Jacob. He stepped past what remained of the rock, squinting to see. Jacob hoped that the man was dead. He had fired without thinking much about it. He wasn't sure he could fire on the rebel again if he had to.\n\nJacob found the man lying face down, hunched over something else. He was bleeding from several wounds where he had been struck by flying rock fragments, and he was no longer breathing. Jacob rolled him onto his back.\n\nBeneath the man, Jacob found two other bodies. They were children, and they were also dead.\n\nJacob raged at the man's stupidity. He had not only run from The Guild, he had put his children in danger by taking them as well. Magic surged up within him and again he fired his sparker. The bolt struck a nearby tree, splitting it in two. The sudden destruction startled Jacob out of his rage, and guilt came forward to take its place.\n\nHe had been a fool to think that he could remain a part of The Guild and avoid complicity in its brutality. He had been trying to escape The Guild while still remaining a part of it. And Benjamin had sent him here, knowing that Jacob would have to murder children.\n\nJacob couldn't go back to the factory. He couldn't escape, but he had no other choice. He had to run. He touched his belt and flashed away.\n\nJacob flashed through the evening without stopping to eat or sleep. He found the North Star in the sky and he followed it. When morning came, he stopped to learn his location from some people he passed, but he refused to rest or look for food. Hunger and exhaustion soon caught up with him.\n\nWhen he arrived at his mother's boardinghouse in his home town of French Creek, Jacob felt like he was dreaming. His mother came out to welcome him home with tears in her eyes.\n\nHe had had many dreams like this since joining The Guild. He always woke from these dreams, lying on his cot in The Guild dormitory, knowing that his dreams were showing him something he wanted to be real.\n\nHis mother had been so angry when he left. She had told him that if he left for The Guild, then he wasn't any son of hers. He hoped that one day he would come back and show his mother all of the magic that he had learned and tell her of all the places he had been. She would understand why he had left French Creek to join The Guild, and she would forgive him.\n\nWhen Jacob woke in a soft bed rather than a Guild cot, he knew that his memories of the night before had been real. The room was the one he had grown up in. The quilt on the bed was one that his mother had made with fabric stitched together to show birds flying through the clouds.\n\nJacob's limbs were heavy, but he pulled himself up from the bed. His robes and everything he was carrying the night before were piled in the corner. He heard his mother talking beyond the door and went to find her.\n\n\"Mom,\" Jacob said, but his voice was weak.\n\nFrom the top of the stairs, Jacob could see his mother talking to a man who put on his coat and left the house.\n\n\"Mom,\" Jacob said again and nearly stumbled down the stairs.\n\nEva Shelley ran to her son's side to support him. \"I've got you,\" she said. \"You shouldn't be out of bed yet.\"\n\nJacob was surprised to see that he was taller than her now and that she had streaks of gray in her hair.\n\n\"Who was that, Mom?\" Jacob asked.\n\n\"It was just a boarder,\" Eva said. \"I've sent him away. It's just us in the house now.\" She put her shoulder under her son's arm and led him back to bed.\n\n\"I'm going to go out to get us something to eat for tonight,\" Eva said. \"But I need to know something first, Jacob. Are you back?\"\n\n\"I don't understand, Mom,\" Jacob said. \"You can see that I'm here.\"\n\n\"No,\" Eva said. \"I mean have you left The Guild?\"\n\nJacob had to think about the question for a moment before he could answer. \"Yes,\" he said at last. \"Yes, I have.\"\n\nEva smiled and hugged her son. Jacob could see tears welling up in her eyes. \"I thought I'd lost you forever,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm surprised you would take me back,\" Jacob said.\n\n\"I never felt as bad as when you told me you were leaving to join The Guild,\" Eva said. \"And things haven't gotten much better in the five years since then. If you're back, then maybe that can change. They say forgiveness is a virtue, but I'm just ready to not feel so terrible anymore. We can talk more about it later. You should try to get some more sleep.\"\n\nEva left the room, but Jacob couldn't fall asleep again. Saying aloud that he had left The Guild started something stirring in his mind.\n\nHe couldn't really have left The Guild. No one left The Guild, just like no one escaped The Guild. He might have run away, but they would come for him and they would kill him. And, if he was with his mother when they came, they would kill her, too.\n\nJacob got up and extinguished every lamp in the house. He grabbed his sparker and waited by the front door, watching through a window the dirt road that led into town.\n\nWhen Eva returned home, Jacob pulled her into the house.\n\n\"Jacob,\" she said. \"You should be in bed.\"\n\n\"Mom, I think I may have put you in danger,\" Jacob said.\n\n\"I know,\" Eva said. \"The grocer said that some men from out of town were asking about you.\"\n\n\"Then we need to leave now.\"\n\nA bright flash of light outside interrupted them.\n\nJacob used the iron-claw muzzle of his sparker to move the curtain on the window just enough to see the silhouettes of two robed figures.\n\n\"Come on,\" he said. \"We have to go out the back.\"\n\nJacob couldn't see anyone behind the house, but The Guild wouldn't give them an easy escape. He removed the chain that held his shield stone and put it around his mother's neck.\n\n\"When we go out, run for the woods,\" he said. \"We might be able to lose them in there.\"\n\nEva nodded and remained quiet.\n\nJacob pushed the door open slowly, taking two careful steps. A bolt of electricity struck the ground in front of him, sending up a spray of dirt and smoke.\n\n\"Run, Mom!\" Jacob shouted. He still couldn't see the Guild member, but he fired his own sparker in the direction from which the shot had come. He hit a tree, igniting a few dry autumn leaves that still clung to the branches.\n\nJacob fired a few more shots and then flashed into the woods, catching up with Eva in the cover of the trees.\n\n\"I need to tell you something,\" Eva said.\n\n\"No, Mom,\" Jacob said. \"We have to keep moving.\"\n\n\"Keep moving where?\" Eva asked. \"I appreciate your willingness to act quickly, but we also need a plan if we're going to escape. We need to get to the airship docks.\"\n\n\"What good will that do us?\"\n\n\"I never told you this, but your father and I were part of an airship crew before you were born. When you came back last night, I reached out to some old friends\u2014\"\n\n\"Mom, we can't outrun The Guild. Not even in an airship. They're going to catch us, one way or another.\"\n\n\"Jacob, I'm trying to tell you that the ship was our home, one that we took with us wherever we went. We weren't always safe, but it was our bubble of freedom in a world controlled by The Guild.\"\n\n\"Maybe it would be better for us to split up,\" Jacob said. The Guild was after him and not his mother. But if they found the two of them together, Eva's fate wouldn't be any different than his. \"You can go to the airship docks, and I can go draw them off.\"\n\n\"Jacob, that's not what I\u2014\"\n\nThe rest of Eva's words were cut off when Jacob flashed deeper into the woods.\n\nJacob stepped through a portal onto an empty baseball field. Eva was still in the woods, and he needed to draw The Guild's attention.\n\nHe fired his sparking iron at the wooden bleachers, which exploded into a hail of flaming splinters. The remaining boards continued to burn, illuminating the field with a flickering light. The Guild would see where he was, and he would see them coming. That was what he wanted.\n\nA flash of light just beyond home plate drew Jacob's attention, and three hooded figures emerged from the shadows. Each carried a sparking iron trained on him.\n\n\"I don't expect mercy,\" Jacob said. \"But you should expect a fight.\"\n\n\"And why wouldn't you expect mercy, Jacob?\" Benjamin pulled back his hood to reveal his face. \"Your mission was successful, and you haven't done anything wrong yet. Do you think that you're the first of our initiates to question his commitment to The Guild?\"\n\nJacob had expected The Guild to send men he didn't know, men who could kill him without hesitation. Benjamin's even voice disarmed him.\n\n\"I know what happens to members who try to leave The Guild,\" Jacob shouted.\n\n\"It's true,\" Benjamin said. \"We can't let anyone leave with our secrets. But I'm giving you the chance to tell me that you're not leaving. That you had a strong reaction to a bad situation and that was all.\"\n\n\"A bad situation? You sent me to kill children,\" Jacob said.\n\n\"I didn't know that there were children,\" Benjamin said as he walked slowly toward Jacob. \"If I had, I wouldn't have sent you. Not without help and without a plan to bring them back alive. That factory was producing more than fifty rifles a day. Think of all of the lives we've saved by destroying it. We work for the greater good, Jacob. You know that.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't have been sent to kill anyone,\" Jacob said. \"They just wanted to get away.\"\n\n\"Jacob, I truly regret the decision I made,\" Benjamin said, putting his hand on Jacob's sparker. \"And I would rather no one else die for my mistake. Let's go back to the Guild Hall in London and discuss this. We don't need any more violence.\"\n\nJacob wanted to make another argument, but that wouldn't be the end of it. Making arguments was just like running. He could do it until he was exhausted, and The Guild would keep coming.\n\nJacob let go of his sparker in resignation. \"All right,\" he said. \"I'll go.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" Benjamin said. \"We'll get a portal set up to transport the two of us to London immediately.\"\n\nOne of the Guild members behind Benjamin pulled a keystone from his pack and set it on the ground. The other waved his hands over it and began muttering incantations.\n\n\"You're making the right decision, Jacob,\" Benjamin said. \"When we get back to London, you'll feel\u2014\"\n\nBenjamin's words were cut off by the sound of an engine starting above them. An airship was circling overhead to land in the field.\n\n\"Quickly, now,\" Benjamin said, pulling Jacob towards the keystone where the shimmering mist of a portal was forming. The keystone could open a portal to any other keystone in the world, but it required more time to work than the flash stones.\n\n\"We're losing the connection with London, sir,\" one of the Guild members shouted.\n\n\"It's the airship,\" Benjamin shouted. \"Fire on it.\"\n\nThe Guild members pointed their sparking irons towards the ship, but nothing happened. Rifle fire sounded from the direction of the airship, and one of the Guild members dropped his sparker to grab his arm. The mist above the stone was dissipating.\n\n\"Our sparking irons and shield stones aren't working, sir,\" shouted the Guild member who was hit. \"Neither are our flash stones.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Benjamin shouted. \"Back into the forest. Don't leave that sparking iron behind. Jacob, come with me.\"\n\nJacob stood still, transfixed by the sudden appearance of the airship.\n\nLarge sails protruded like ears from either side of the cigar-shaped gas envelope. Two long poles extended from each side of the gondola, and at the end of each pole, a spinning propeller pointed skyward, pushing the ship down toward the field for a landing. But why had The Guild's magic started to fail as soon as the ship appeared?\n\nJacob remembered what his mother had told him. The airship was her bubble of freedom in a world controlled by The Guild.\n\n\"No,\" Jacob said. \"I've left The Guild, Benjamin. I'm not going with you.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Jacob,\" Benjamin said. \"I can't let you stay.\"\n\nJacob felt a sharp pain in his abdomen and looked down to see a knife's hilt and a growing blood stain on his shirt.\n\n\"I'm truly sorry, Jacob,\" Benjamin said.\n\nJacob fell back onto the grass and lost consciousness.\n\nWhen jacob woke, he lay in bed. Eva sat in a chair beside him, holding his hand. Little else could fit in the room besides the two pieces of furniture, and Jacob thought he could feel a gentle swaying.\n\nHe tried to sit up, but his mother put a hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"Easy now,\" Eva said. \"You almost died. It's a good thing for all of us that Dr. Plowright was aboard.\"\n\n\"Where am I?\" Jacob asked.\n\n\"This is Windchaser,\" his mother said. \"You were born on this ship, you know. I suppose it might have been poetic if you had died on it as well, but I've never much cared for poetry myself.\"\n\n\"Mom, what happened that night?\" Jacob asked. \"Why weren't The Guild members able to work their magic?\"\n\n\"Well, The Guild likes to shroud themselves in an air of mystery with their silly robes and complicated rituals, but their magic is really just another kind of technology. It can be studied and understood. And we've been studying it for decades now. The engineer on this ship came up with a machine he thought could disable magic at a short distance. He was eager to try it out, and Captain Merriwether owed me a favor.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"That's what I was trying to tell you that night. I've been a part of The Resistance for your entire life. After you were born, I had to leave this airship for a life that I thought would be safer, but I continued my work. The boarding house was a way station for Resistance members passing through. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you when you were younger, but the wrong word to the wrong person could have gotten us both killed. Then you were off to join The Guild, and there was nothing I could do.\"\n\nJacob had to look away from his mother. How could she be part of the rebels? Had some of her boarders been assassins? Had they blown up government buildings? He had wanted out of The Guild, but joining the rebels didn't sound much better to him.\n\n\"Mom, have you ever killed anyone?\" Jacob asked.\n\n\"I haven't,\" Eva said. \"We all resist in our own way. But I won't claim that I don't know plenty of people in The Resistance who have killed. And that includes some of the people on this airship.\"\n\n\"So, I've left The Guild only to join the rebels?\" Jacob asked. \"Why can't I just find a place to live in peace?\"\n\n\"Because peace in this world is the order maintained by The Guild,\" Eva said. \"Anyone who threatens The Guild's power to maintain order is dealt with violently, and they call it peace. You can't peaceably separate yourself from The Guild. To do so is to be part of The Resistance.\"\n\nJacob was too weak to think through his mother's words, but a phrase bubbled up through his consciousness.\n\n\"No one escapes The Guild,\" Jacob said.\n\n\"That's right,\" Eva said. \"No one. But if enough of us get together, maybe we can escape together.\"\n\nAll of those years, his mother had been part of The Resistance, and The Guild hadn't taken them. Jacob hadn't done nearly so well on his own. He might not ever escape The Guild, but he could run much farther with help.\n\n\"I don't know if that's true,\" Jacob said. \"But I'm willing to find out.\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Clockwork & Consensus by Mary Alexandra Agner ]\n\nIfigenia glass adjusted the tiller and watched dawn come up through the clouds. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, but it wasn't the altitude that chilled her.\n\nBy now the wizard Ransaransa had probably noticed she'd escaped. The wizard would probably be tasting the wind, working out Ifigenia's direction and speed, debating which monster to command from the menagerie. Ifi flinched at the thought of claws closing around her.\n\nShe consulted the hypsometer and the azimuth-rose. She would make the floating city of Seffel by nightfall if the weather held. If the air currents didn't pull her off course into a cloud lagoon rife with sky sirens, who preyed on humans. If she avoided the pirates known to infest these skies. If she could stay awake to steer. If, if.\n\nShe had a contact in Seffel willing to sell her clockwork for a small cut, both her prototype worker and her airship. She ran her fingers slowly along the railing of the captain's hut. Her heart and sweat were in its copper and pine finish; already it was difficult to let it go. At least she was still tinkering with the autonomous clockworker.\n\nThe light level dropped. Ifi stepped onto the bow of the ship. Between her and the sun were two pirates, keeping time. Larger craft than hers, probably holding half a dozen people each, more than enough to take her and her ship.\n\nShe winced, imagining crushing grips and harsh voices. Her pistols? She'd meant them for intimidation. They'd do little against the metal hulls of the ships, but they could deter the pirates themselves\u2014if she could bring herself to use them. Panic jerked from her chest to her limbs like a coil spring released.\n\n\"Ehoy! Little craft! What have you got to pay our tax?\" The speaker leaned over the deck of the closer pirate. Brown hair cropped short yet rising and falling with the wind, brown skin nearly the color of his hair. \"I am Obrahom of the Cirrus Circle, and we claim this current.\"\n\n\"Ridiculous,\" Ifi muttered under her breath.\n\n\"Do you think so?\" Obrahom asked, laughing. He gestured with his hand, and the wind between them fell still.\n\nIn the silence, Ifi heard singing, a long chord held by multiple voices and then released. She could make out a handful of people now standing on the deck of each of the pirate ships.\n\nEncouraged by their small hands and Obrahom's cultured voice, Ifi repeated herself, louder. \"No one owns the air.\"\n\nObrahom nodded. \"Certainly, the air is its own. But we all have desires. And we all have to eat. The design of your ship is unique, so small a craft, run by a single person. We want the details. Schematics? You look like that type. Let us rummage about in your hold, and we'll let you go.\"\n\nIfi thought of her unfinished clockworker, of having to kick or punch the pirates or fire her pistols. \"No.\"\n\nObrahom shrugged. \"Thisle?\"\n\nA woman with blond braids leaned over the railing. Then she and Obrahom began to sing, and the others joined in, no words Ifi knew, but her vocabulary was full of cranks and gears and tolerances and the many ways people said five and ten and zero. Not magic. Definitely not magic.\n\nWhile they stayed at a distance, it was easy for Ifi to envy the way the pirates worked together. She understood harmonic oscillations better than harmonies but could read their body language: they received and listened and passed on like a water clock spilling liquid from one jar into another.\n\nAt one point a few of them linked hands, and Ifi shuddered. She recalled Ransaransa and other mages slashing their palms and clasping together bloody fingers to make a circle, how it was the last wizard standing who gained the others' power, how the static electricity raised Ransaransa's hair and clothes when the wizard turned to Ifi and made demands. Ifi had tried to make her insides as stiff and resilient as those of her clockworkers, but her heart had always skipped a gear tooth. She never wanted to make anyone feel that way. She had measured the amplitude of impending violence in the width of the wizard's smile, the diameter of the wizard's pupils.\n\nThe threat in the pirate's voice earlier was nothing like that. The pirates' song now was like oscillating clock pendulums of different lengths, surging in volume and congruence of pitch when the long rods swung in synchronicity. It felt magical but nothing like Ransaransa's magic.\n\nIfi shook off the thick memories as ropes descended from the pirates' ships and began to loop themselves into knots around her ship's railing. The first few missed\u2013\u2013the music swelled\u2013\u2013then grappled successfully, tightening.\n\nThisle, Obrahom, and another woman levitated over the side of the ship to land on Ifi's deck while they sang. The second woman was taller than the others, her skin less sun-kissed and more night-sky-dark.\n\nIfi turned to run, tripped over the side of the captain's hut, and threw her hands out in front of her to break her fall. She landed on her front, the pistols in her pantaloon pockets digging into her thighs.\n\nAs the music ended, Obrahom stepped over Ifi and grabbed her wrists.\n\nShe jerked away, but the other women stepped closer.\n\n\"Now,\" Obrahom said, pulling her upright and passing her wrists off like a parcel, \"why don't you stay here a moment with Thisle while I look in your hold?\"\n\nThisle began to hum. Ifi struggled in her grasp; Thisle's grip didn't shift. The second woman picked out a little harmony against Thisle's tune. But she made a face each time Thisle increased the pressure on Ifi's wrists, which Ifi appreciated.\n\nTheir music did nothing to cover the sounds of the other pirate on the ladder, then boxes and bins being shifted and metal levers being used to pick open Ifi's cargo. Her mouth was as dry as pig iron in a puddling furnace. Would he lift up the tarps?\n\n\"Ah! What a beauty!\" Obrahom's voice.\n\nListening hard for the shifting of her tarps, Ifi instead heard more singing, multiple voices, intricate harmonies, like interlocking gears supporting and winding each other. Crisp and cold, like the air about her, and most distinct from the pirates' song.\n\nIfi tore away harder, and Thisle let her go. Her muscles felt like lead, squishy and heavy. Thisle stood still, head cocked, listening. The second woman stood still, too, listening.\n\nA quick glance up showed her nothing, but Ifi tugged two grease rags from her belt and mashed them into her ears. She pushed herself through the muffled quiet toward the ladder, descended. Her special crate was safe in the corner, still disguised by paint-splattered tarps.\n\nObrahom was slumped next to the crate of weather balloons, his hands full of pry bar.\n\nShe felt bodies hit the deck above her. Sirens alighting? Humans dropping unconscious? She crawled to the crate of weather balloons, then looked back over her shoulder toward the ladder.\n\nRainbows fell through the hold. Ifi shivered, recalling that the patagia of sirens were magically-bound droplets of water. Jointed digits, longer than a human's, grasped the top rung, the lower rung, then suddenly disappeared. Ifi could imagine the shrieks, some so high no human could hear them, according to a professor at Kuntun University.\n\nHer eyes on the ladder, she reached into the crate and felt for a switch. Off to on. Second switch. Off to on. She could feel the metal vibrating, the crate vibrating. Off to on. Her weather balloons\u2013\u2013silver, spherical, propellers spinning, lighter-than-air gasbags hefting them upwards\u2013\u2013rose over her head, seeking the current.\n\nIfi climbed up to peek onto the deck. A cacophony of color blinded her, overlapping rainbows projected onto the ship, its gasbag, even her own skin. Enormous wings filled the air as the sirens swooped and dove, trying to outmaneuver the balloons. The flight of the sirens was the strongest local current so the balloons followed them.\n\nShe laughed at the sight, so hard that a rag fell from her ear. She clapped a hand to her head. In that brief moment of movement, she heard piercing clicks, not song.\n\nShe stuffed the rag back into her ear and climbed onto the deck. A siren swooped low over her head, its long canines yellowed and dull compared to the rainbows. Ifi fell to the deck to avoid the bits of sharp bone veining between its wing membranes.\n\nAs she watched, it banked and headed back for her. She scrabbled for her pistols. Could she fire at a living being?\n\nThe siren dove, opening its snout to aim its call at her; Ifi felt herself pinned to the deck\u2013\u2013except her heartbeat, which seemed to be pounding through her sternum.\n\nThe siren banked and began to descend toward her body. When she felt her hands shaking, she asked herself again, could she fire at a living being? She'd put herself back together after the wizard's beatings; she'd escaped the wizard's fortress. She would do what she had to to survive.\n\nIfi bit her lip\u2013\u2013then raised her arms and squeezed the pistol's trigger. The siren dropped\u2013\u2013Ifi saw blue sky through its torn wing\u2013\u2013and Ifi's heart dropped. The siren struggled to rise over the ship's railing, then fell again. The rest of the flock plunged afterward.\n\nIfi was as empty as the pistol's chamber. Her hands continued shaking even after she rolled over to pin them to the deck. She had hurt someone, she had bloodied them intentionally. Was she any different than the wizard? The flexing of the deck and the ship's balloon against the airstream gave her no answer.\n\nSlowly Ifi sat up, pulled the rags from her ears, pocketed them, and went to check on Thisle and the other woman. Pulses pounding but sleeping. She tied their wrists together behind them, but gently. Down in the hold, she did the same to Obrahom.\n\nShe counted the remaining weather balloons. More uses than she'd realized. If only she didn't have to climb down into the hold to turn them on. She hefted the spent pistol in her hand. She scrunched up her face as she thought. The pirates could be useful if she could manipulate them rather than fight. Ransaransa might still find her.\n\nShe picked out a sunny spot on the deck to convert her pistol into a device for calling the weather balloons. She breathed in the cold push of the wind, absent when she was trapped in the wizard's fortress.\n\nShe'd had to leave behind every flying being in the wizard's menagerie, their cages all locked by blood and magic. The carrier pigeons with their iridescent plumage and enormous tail feathers, whom she'd befriended to secretly transport her letters in and out with Ransaransa's mail. The mega-bees, soft like kittens and as playful, who'd kept her company with their antics. The red dragon, most fearsome of Ransaransa's prisoners until you got to know them, their insistence on bright yellow cheese for snacks, their love of pranks, the low note in their throat when they indicated to Ifi they were thinking of home.\n\nThe glint off her tools woke her from a nap. The sun had moved past its zenith. Ifi looked about frantically, but the pirates were still sleeping.\n\nNo. One of the pirates on the far ship stood. Ifi grabbed her remaining pistol and shot into the air.\n\n\"Wait!\" A woman's face looked down over the railing. \"Can we just talk?\"\n\n\"Speech but no song. I had a remedy for the sirens, I've got one for you, too.\" Ifi looked pointedly at the pistol in hope of confusing them. She hadn't managed to finish the control device. What other leverage did she have?\n\nThe woman paled. \"Of course.\" She called out loudly, \"Ekren! Wake up! You've got to open negotiations with the clockmistress.\" And insufficiently softer, \"Because I'm not going down there.\"\n\nThe dark woman struggled to sit up with her hands tied behind her. She smiled broadly at Ifi once she was upright. \"Hello, fair clockmistress! Perhaps we started on the wrong foot.\" Ekren's grin was infectious. \"Yes, see, wrong foot.\" She raised one leg into the air, nearly overbalancing herself.\n\nIfi heard pirates from the other ships laughing. \"Ey!\" Ekren called, \"Wrong foot!\" And suddenly Ifi saw pirate feet sticking over the railings of their ships. She couldn't help it, she burst out laughing.\n\n\"You are terrible pirates.\" Ifi curbed her laughter. \"And I don't mean that in a fearsome or efficient way.\"\n\n\"Well, we're new at this sort of thing.\" Ekren's smiled dimmed. \"It's not our long-term career choice. It's just been the best way to enable our traveling. We've been making our way to Seffel because, well, you see, in Rijk\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"Your home?\"\n\n\"Mine, yes, but not Obrahom's or Thisle's. They come from somewhere further west. And Seht and Nenet\u2013\u2013\" Ekren tilted her head up and behind at the woman Ifi had spoken with earlier\u2013\u2013\"they're from Kuntun. But we're a family, you see, that's how we make magic. And\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"No one approves?\" Ifi was startled by the sympathy in her own voice; she'd been holding on to it so tightly.\n\nEkren smiled. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Not in Rijk nor Kuntun nor somewhere further west,\" Ifi said quietly, not really a question. Ekren nodded. \"I had thought everyone, well, liked magic?\" Ransaransa's many rants on the importance of magic began to unspool through her memory, longer and louder and with more blows each time, as it became clearer Ifi had no magical abilities.\n\nEkren hesitated. \"Well, people like a wizard, you know? Heroic, or mysterious. We're\u2014\" she half-shrugged\u2014\"too big, too noisy. We have to practice together to make the magic come from the harmonies, okay? And we also have to be, well, harmonious together, or the magic doesn't happen. It takes consensus and music.\" Ekren looked over Ifi's head, clearly picturing something else. \"And it's beautiful when we do it.\"\n\nIfi considered that. \"It takes all of you to make magic?\"\n\nEkren nodded slowly. \"Well, most of us, at least. More than\u2013\u2013\" Ekren swallowed\u2013\u2013\"just Thisle and me.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Ifi said, voice turning brisk. \"Let's get your family back to your ships before they're conscious. That way I've nothing to fear from you, and you\u2013\u2013\" Ifi waggled the spent pistol in Ekren's direction\u2013\u2013\"aren't in a position to disagree that you're in my debt for saving you from the sirens.\" And, she said silently to herself, there's no chance I'll have to hurt you.\n\nEkren choked. Kept choking. Ifi grew alarmed, reached a hand out\u2013\u2013then realized the other woman was laughing. When she caught her breath, Ekren called, loud enough to be heard on the other ships, \"Well, family? I see the clockmistress' point as well as the point of her pistol. And she seems a jolly one. So how about we take that one step further? Band together to fly on to Seffel?\"\n\nNenet laughed, a dry sound. \"I'm not coming down there to check out either of those points. You can have my vote.\"\n\nEkren looked at Thisle, but she was still asleep. \"Obraham? Seht? Tahr? Ferna?\"\n\nNo response from Obrahom but a new voice, sharp, called out. \"I'm with Nenet. And here's my leg.\" Barefoot even at this altitude, Ifi saw. \"Now leave me alone while I check on Tahr. He was on the stairs when he fell asleep.\"\n\n\"Ekren, why don't we just wait for folks to wake up?\" A deeper voice also from the second pirate. \"Then we can just finish what we were doing when the sirens arrived. Maybe there are valuable schematics down in the hold? Like Obrahom said?\"\n\nNo, Ifi thought. Get off my ship. Her hands began to shake, and she forced them into her pockets.\n\nShe called up to Seht, \"Which do you want? Your family members back or some schematics you probably can't even read?\"\n\n\"Why do you think I can't?\"\n\n\"Seht!\" That sounded like Nenet. \"We need to get the others back.\"\n\n\"But they'll wake up soon\u2013\u2013\"\n\nIfi interrupted, \"But right now they are down here with me and my pistols.\" My empty pistols, she thought. And no heart to fire them.\n\n\"I'll come down and\u2013\u2013\"\n\nIfi pulled both pistols out and pivoted to point them at Ekren. \"I wouldn't do that if I were you.\"\n\n\"Nenet, what about that ship gun?\" Seht's voice muffled as he turned away from Ifi.\n\n\"No!\" Ifi cried. She advanced on Ekren. Ekren's glance darted between Ifi's shaking hands and eyes. Ifi squeezed the handles of her empty pistols, her empty heart squeezed back. Even if she had loaded bullets, could she fire at another singing, living being today? \"Please?\" Ifi whispered.\n\n\"Seht,\" Ekren called, eyes locked with Ifi's. \"Maybe we should try to trade for the schematics, if we really want them.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Ekren, we'll think of some way to save you and the others\u2013\u2013\"\n\nNenet interrupted him, \"Why not just use Ekren's suggestion?\"\n\nSeht sighed. \"Have you looked in the holds recently? We barely have enough to get us to Seffel. We have nothing to trade.\"\n\n\"Of course you do.\" Everyone looked at Ifi in surprise when she spoke. \"You can trade your promise not to hurt me. Or, your promise that I can join your band of pirates until Seffel, like Ekren said. In return, I'll send back your family.\"\n\n\"Why would you do that?\" Nenet was clearly universal in the application of her skepticism.\n\nIfi scuffed a boot toe against the ship's deck. \"There's a wizard. Probably chasing me.\" She cleared her throat. \"I escaped and\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"You'd do anything not to go back?\" Ekren wasn't smiling. \"Even become a pirate.\" An explanation, not a question.\n\nIfi nodded. \"Even an efficient terror of the skies.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Seht said, blowing out a bellyfull of air.\n\nEkren asked, \"Are only the four of us awake?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" Seht called.\n\n\"Can you speak for the others?\" Ifi asked.\n\n\"You can only promise us, Ekren,\" Nenet pointed out.\n\nEkren nodded her head. \"We'll have to re-negotiate when the others wake up. Is it acceptable to make an agreement with just us for now?\"\n\nIfi didn't think she could do anything else. They were closer to Seffel, but there was still a lot of sky left. \"Yes.\" She lowered her arms, but they were still shaking. She pocketed the pistols.\n\n\"What's your name?\" Seht called down. \"We can't keep calling you the clockmistress.\" His blond head peered farther over the railing. \"Unless that's a title?\" He looked at Nenet. \"Is that a title? Like nobility? I thought it was a vocation?\"\n\nEkren rolled her eyes. \"You'll need to untie me,\" she said to Ifi. Freed, she turned to Ifi and held out her hand, palm up. \"Now, let's formalize this deal. Your name?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Ifi said. \"My name is\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"Ifigenia Glass, of the House of the Ransa.\" The voice was deep for a woman's and came from all around them. Ifi couldn't look up, as stiff with fear as a fully-wound mainspring, but Ekren did\u2013\u2013and blanched.\n\n\"Dragon!\" she screamed.\n\nA deep thunk sounded from the first pirate ship; Ifi expelled a breath and softened enough to see Nenet positioning a long gun atop the railing. Ifi shook her head slightly. Most guns were too slow or too small a gauge to hit or harm a dragon.\n\n\"Ifigenia.\" Ifi was pretty sure even the pirates recognized that parental tone of voice. She looked up at the wizard riding the red dragon.\n\nCloak cast back, her black hair, pinned at the nape, flowed behind her like streamers. Or eels. Or hungry lightning. Ransaransa's eyes were the same sky-blue as Ifi's. One hand was wound through the dragon's hackamore. In the other, she lifted a palm-sized glass ball, pink like watered blood, which she used to focus her power.\n\nIfi hated that ball. Her gorge rose in her throat, jammed cogs blocking her breath. Instead, she looked to the dragon, whose wingspan was thrice the length of her airship. She blushed with guilt. Slowly, the dragon closed all three of its left eyelids, winking at her. Not angry. Still an ally.\n\n\"Mother, leave.\" Ifi put everything sturdy she could think of into her voice: struts, stabilizers, even the materials that flex and reshape, like canvas or the softer metals. She wasn't going back to being trapped in her room, or beaten, or having her clockworkers stolen and reprogrammed to hurt people. But to do that, she'd have to hurt people. She bit her lip.\n\nRansaransa watched Ifi a moment but didn't respond to her. Instead, the wizard turned to the pirates, bringing the dragon closer to Nenet's ship.\n\nIfi cut her off, \"Don't bother. We've negotiated\u2013\u2013\"\n\n\"Then perhaps they will renegotiate.\" Her mother always sounded gracious. She looked over the pirates, widening her smile.\n\nThe dragon rose and fell with the current, its smallwings flitting, its whiskers waving to taste everything. Scales flashed crimson, carmine, and fired clay in the sun as its long body undulated.\n\nIfi wondered whether the pirates knew that the bright silver patterns along its throat and belly were scars. She curved her hand into a claw shape, the dragon's own tell for pulling a prank. The spiral of her fingers was neither as elegant nor as strong as a mainspring. And even the most well-tempered mainsprings shattered under constant stress.\n\nShattered. Ifi raised her curved hand, her fist, to show the dragon. Her movement caught Ransaransa's attention.\n\nMeeting her mother's eyes, Ifi threw a used pistol at the glass ball, shattering it in the wizard's grasp. Ransaransa screamed, long and agonizing like the screech of metal scraping against metal. Shards and pistol fell beneath the clouds.\n\nIfi startled as the dragon trumpeted, two pitches at once\u2013\u2013Ekren gasped, and Seht belted out a harmonizing note\u2013\u2013and then rolled to its side, sending Ransaransa down through the clouds after her magical ball.\n\nIfi bit her lip and closed her eyes.\n\nThe dragon's notes resolved from mournful to joyous. Ifi knew her own, un-silvered scars, would take longer to heal. Then a two-tone question. She opened her eyes.\n\nThe dragon watched her, a small thread of flame between their fangs. They curled their right claw, then wiggled their smallwings in farewell. They plunged below the cloud-line in the wizard's direction.\n\n\"Ifigenia?\" Ekren's voice was soft and tentative.\n\n\"Just Ifi, please.\"\n\nEkren nodded. \"Of course. Ifi. Do you\u2013\u2013do you need a moment?\"\n\nIfi swallowed. \"No. Here's my hand. Let's seal this agreement.\"\n\nEkren reached out and set her palm above Ifi's. \"To Seffel at least. We'll renegotiate there.\"\n\n\"Says who?\" Obrahom called from down in Ifi's hold, using the flinty pirate voice from their first talk. A number of pirates shushed him at once, their scolding causing Thisle to groan and sit up.\n\nNenet's voice carried. \"Didn't you see what she just did?\"\n\n\"You mean, be a fearsome, efficient pirate?\" Ifi asked, unable to meet Ekren's eyes. Ekren squeezed Ifi's hand gently.\n\nIn the distance, they heard the dragon sing out again. Seht responded, a long note that wound into a fast-moving sequence that to Ifi sounded like the changing pattern of pins on a rotating music box cylinder.\n\nThe rest of the pirates joined in: Obrahom with low, slow notes, Nenet and Thisle imitating the sharp strikes of a snare drum, Ekren slapping her hands together and ululating like a storm-cloud rumble, and Tahr, supported physically and vocally by Ferna, repeating Seht's melody at a pleasing interval.\n\nIfi breathed in time, holding tight to the image of her nearly-complete clockworker. She looked into the wind and blamed it for water in her eyes as she watched for Seffel to come into view.\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Jack Among Wolves by Wren Wallis ]\n\nIt could not be said that Captain Jack Valiant objected to illicit custom; what she did object to, strenuously, was being entered into such an arrangement without her foreknowledge and consent.\n\n\"It is my most ardent desire,\" the Captain said sotto voce to the great blond bear of a man at her shoulder, \"that the portmaster should fling himself into the God-damned sea.\"\n\n\"He would have to go some way,\" her Chief Mate observed. \"Better to desire he fling himself into the river, no?\"\n\n\"Desire knows neither reason nor geography, Mr. Kuznetsov.\" The Captain stepped forward to address the trio waiting amongst their baggage on the gangway. \"I am sorry; you could have the sigil of Black Bess herself and I'd still tell you to sod off. The Blackbird is a cargo vessel, neither obliged nor licensed to ferry passengers anywhere, much less to the bloody Sebiran border. As Mr. Hewlett damned well knows.\"\n\nThe governess, a neat, prim-lipped woman, had gone salt-white at the Captain's language, and now throttled her folded parasol in gentle fury or mortification. The grave-eyed child beside her only stared from beneath the enormous halo of her sun-hat.\n\n\"It is,\" the governess managed stiffly, \"of direst urgency. This poor child's father lies upon death's threshold. She may never see him again. Yours is the only vessel at present liberty to enter Sebir\u2014\"\n\nThe Captain cut her off. \"You are mistaken, madame. I'm at liberty to do no such thing, no more than any Ardish ship. The Sebiran border is close guarded at the best of times; since the assassination of Empress Elena, it is sealed. Christ with all His sorcerers couldn't get an Ardish ship into a Sebiran port just now.\"\n\n\"But the portmaster\u2014\"\n\n\"Can bugger a dog for a tuppence.\" The Captain folded her arms and gave the governess such a black-eyed glare as had sent customs-men packing in the past.\n\nGovernesses, however, are made of sterner stuff than customs-men, and this one merely lifted her obstinate chin.\n\nThe heretofore-silent third member of the traveling party exhaled a weary cloud of tobacco smoke. Mr. Kuznetsov, the Chief Mate, took a pointed step back.\n\n\"How much do you want?\" the gentleman asked, and flicked the dog-end of his cigarette over the gangway rail, where the wind snatched and whisked it away.\n\n\"Mr. Black\u2014\" the governess protested.\n\nHe waved her off, his bespectacled gaze fixed on Jack.\n\n\"How much did you pay the portmaster for his seal on those passes?\" she asked.\n\n\"That is not\u2014\" the governess attempted.\n\n\"One hundred fifty,\" the gentleman said. He drew a calfskin billfold from within his coat.\n\n\"Two hundred,\" said Jack. \"Per person.\"\n\n\"Absurd!\" the governess cried. \"Six hundred! Better than the Bank Governor's salary! Who would carry\u2014?\"\n\nBut her traveling companion had already begun to count out that princely sum. He offered the notes crisply. \"Do we understand one another, Captain Valiant?\"\n\nShe plucked the notes from between his kid-gloved fingers and folded them into a pocket of her waistcoat. \"Sufficiently. Were you seen coming up the tower?\"\n\n\"By one or two early souls. We spoke of our impending departure for the Andalacian coast and asked at the platform below for directions to the mooring of the Star of Tehr\u00e2n.\"\n\n\"Come aboard then and look sharp about it. Mr. Kuznetsov will see to your baggage. We'll bring you as far as Temsk. Not even my contacts can permit us farther, in light of the current situation.\"\n\nAs the governess ushered the child past, she reproached Jack, \"Not even Christ with His sorcerers, is it?\"\n\nThe Captain shrugged. \"Christ didn't deal in cash.\"\n\nThe djinn-room, that octagonal chamber at the ship's heart, held a darkly resinous whisper of myrrh and a buzzing tension like the approach of lightning on the air. The djinn in its central brazier was smoke given form, veins of flame writhing within. Its eyes were pits of brilliant fire.\n\nJack bowed to it, and for a moment it contemplated her, its electric regard raising the fine hairs on her arms. Then the blaze of its attention drifted indifferently away.\n\nJack skirted the brazier. Behind it, the djinneer stood frowning at an array of equations freshly chalked on her soot-blacked cedar table. \"Donkeys within donkeys,\" she muttered in Atashi, and absently tucked a tendril of hair back beneath her headscarf, leaving a pale smudge of chalk on her smooth brown temple.\n\n\"Such vulgarity, Yasmin,\" Jack chided in the same tongue, and the djinneer looked up swiftly.\n\n\"Bah,\" she said, mingling relief and exasperation, and switched to Ardish. \"You goose. What?\"\n\n\"Are we ready to depart?\"\n\n\"Of course, yes.\" Yasmin stepped aside to indicate the chalk-and-salt sigils elaborately diagrammed on the cedar planks of the chamber's floor behind her.\n\n\"Very good. I'll have Mr. Kuznetsov cast us off directly.\"\n\nAs Jack made to leave, though, the djinn rustled like embers in its nest of flame. Yasmin touched the spherical glass pendant at her throat. \"Your new guests are liars,\" she translated.\n\n\"Of course they are,\" Jack agreed. \"Honest men don't pay.\"\n\n\"Jack,\" the djinneer warned. \"What if they're Melusian agents?\"\n\n\"To what end? Why would the Astrologer King smuggle agents into Sebir, of all places? Sebir has no native sorcery, so surely no sympathy for his puissantiste cause. His war's with Queen Bess.\"\n\n\"Smuggle agents into a closed Sebir, in the wake of Empress Elena's assassination, in an Ardish ship? Imagine the mischief they might work, and the blame they might direct.\"\n\nJack weighed this. \"It seems a great deal of trouble for Melusian agents to take.\" At the look on Yasmin's face, she relented. \"I shall keep a weather eye on them, cousin. But I tell you, I caught no whiff of sorcery, Melusian or otherwise, on any of them.\" Her uncanny nose for magic had never yet led her false.\n\nBut abruptly she recalled Mr. Kuznetsov stepping back in distaste from the pungent cloud of the gentleman passenger's tobacco smoke, and it prickled at her like the djinn's regard.\n\n\"I shall keep a weather eye,\" she repeated thoughtfully.\n\nBlackbird cast off from Aldwych Aero-Port Tower just as the bells of St. Margery's began to sing six o'clock. The city below was still an expanse of darkness scattered with streetlamp constellations, but night was lifting like a curtain over the eastern sky to reveal a radiant swathe of gold-and-crimson beneath.\n\nThe djinn-ship maneuvered with practiced precision away from the tower before unfolding gleaming brass-jointed wings and rudders and turning its eager prow toward the rising light.\n\nBelowdecks, a man dressed as an Ardish city gentleman smoked cigarettes and prowled his small cabin like a restless animal. A woman in the severe garb of a governess set aside on her narrow berth the elements of a lady's toilette and lifted out the false-bottom pouch from her carpetbag to check the documents within. And a white-faced child in an overlarge sun hat gazed out her porthole and gravely contemplated the coming dawn.\n\nAt midday, Jack yielded the quarterdeck to a helmsman and descended to the main platform. Her passengers had emerged some time since \u2014 the gentleman first and rather hastily. He stood now with one hand clutching the forward starboard rail but as far from it as his reach allowed, and pointedly did not take in the view sliding past below. With his other hand, he smoked.\n\n\"Do you require a handkerchief, Mr. Black?\" Jack enquired.\n\nHe turned to contemplate her approach above the wire rims of his spectacles. His eyes were a most extraordinary golden-amber hue, like whiskey held up to the light. \"I have my own,\" he informed her dryly, and drew on his cigarette again.\n\n\"Some people do not take to air travel,\" Jack confided, leaning on the rail. \"Even on a clear day, you know, a sudden wind may toss a vessel like thistledown.\"\n\nHis complexion took on a remarkable greenish cast, but he did not flinch and continued to weigh her in a steady gaze. At length he mused, \"Jack Valiant is a peculiar sort of name for a woman such as yourself, is it not? Like an Ardish folk hero. A penny-dreadful name.\"\n\n\"Well, Penny Dreadful itself seemed too on-the-button. Pray tell me what do you mean, a woman such as yourself?\"\n\n\"You are half-Atashi, are you not? Your father is \u2014\"\n\nJack drew herself upright; she was tall for a woman, and he not so for a man, and so they stood nearly nose to nose.\n\n\"I am half none of your damned business,\" Jack told him evenly, \"and the other half spite. You know a deal of information for an ordinary gentleman.\"\n\nBeneath the veiling tobacco, she noted, was no telltale whiff of enemy spellcraft. There was a distinctive scent, though, a familiar one\u2014an impression of ice and pine, and some pleasantly animal odor\u2014but it wasn't a magical smell, and she could not place its familiarity.\n\nMr. Black took a courteous step backward, his gaze untroubled. \"I have wagered seven hundred fifty crowns thus far on this voyage,\" he said in his easy city drawl. \"Do you not expect a financier to research his investments?\"\n\nJack surveyed the man. His clothing was expensive in both cloth and cut, but worn casually: the tie-knot looser than strictly respectable, the coat-collar turned up. He was of no great height or breadth, fair-skinned, neat-bearded. His dark hair was, again, somewhat longer than might be expected of a gentleman, but on the whole the effect was that of a man with a deal of money and little regard for public opinion.\n\n\"Your employer's investments,\" she corrected.\n\n\"Naturally,\" he agreed. \"My employer's investments. Though you will understand I have a personal stake\u2014if I manage to convey his daughter to him before he passes, my employer has bequeathed me a substantial additional sum for the service.\"\n\n\"Pray remind me \u2014 what did you say your employer's business was in Sebir?\"\n\n\"Chiefly in timber,\" Mr. Black answered, with an air of patient humor. \"He made this most recent journey in hopes of broadening his interests to include a certain nickel mine.\"\n\n\"I thought Sebirans were terribly resistant to foreign meddling in their Empire.\"\n\nThe gentleman made a deprecating gesture. \"The Empress\u2014 the late Empress, that is, Elena Verovna\u2014was something of a reformer and had encouraged new openness to the West. My employer was ever quick to seize an opportunity.\" He shook his head. \"God only knows what becomes of Western investment in the Empire now.\"\n\n\"It is odd about the timing. That he should be taken so ill on the heels of Empress Elena's assassination, as the borders closed.\"\n\nThe gentleman looked mildly taken aback. \"Do you suggest some connection? Surely not.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Jack, and clapped his shoulder heartily enough to give him a jolt. She took petty satisfaction in the panicked glance he threw at the rail. \"Do enjoy the view.\"\n\nAt the opposite rail, the child stood with one hand in her governess's and watched the scuffed-slate plain of the sea far below. She was a dark-eyed little creature, with a thin, sallow face and a great mass of frizzy hair under that enormous hat. Jack had intended to pass the pair by, but the forlorn small figure exerted a sorrowful magnetism, and so the Captain paused.\n\n\"I am sorry to hear of your father's illness,\" Jack told her.\n\nThe child nodded uncertainly and then, at a nudge from the governess, dropped a curtsy. \"Thank you,\" she said to her slippers.\n\nThere was some terrible misery writ plain on her, but it didn't to Jack much resemble grief. She stooped to the child's eye level. \"Miss,\" she said as kindly as she knew how, \"if you are in some other difficulty or danger\u2014\"\n\nThe governess made a startled sound and swept around, meaning to gather the girl back against her skirts.\n\nThe child did not yield, though; she stood steadfastly straight and lifted grave eyes to meet Jack's. \"No, Captain Valiant,\" she said in a clear, piping voice. \"But I am grateful for your concern.\" She hesitated and then added, more softly, \"I have never been to Sebir. I am anxious, is all.\"\n\nThe governess squeezed the girl's small shoulders, and now the child subsided back against her.\n\nJack straightened. \"Sebir has a peculiar reputation,\" she said, \"because it guards its borders and its secrets closely. But there's no cause to fear the place. The good Mr. Kuznetsov, my Chief Mate, is Sebiran himself.\"\n\nThe girl nodded.\n\n\"Thank you, Captain Valiant,\" the governess said, by way of stiff dismissal. Jack bowed with elaborate mock courtesy before turning away.\n\nThe strange ship appeared as afternoon faded toward dusk. The watchman sighted it first, and halloo'ed from the spy's nest; Jack stepped to the rail and snapped out her spyglass to consider the black fleck against tattered cloud and colored sky.\n\n\"A ship,\" she affirmed. \"Too distant for trouble, and it may yet alter course. But keep eyes on it.\"\n\nAs Jack turned away, the governess intercepted her. \"Could it not be a bird? A ballon?\"\n\n\"We'd have outpaced either swiftly, and neither holds so steady at apparent altitude. It is a ship.\"\n\nThe governess smoothed her skirts anxiously. \"Not a hostile one, surely.\"\n\n\"Are you sure of it, indeed? I am reassured, madame,\" Jack replied. \"For it is only that we fly a little-traversed route toward a destination no other ship should seek right now. The fact that there is another ship strikes me as peculiar indeed.\"\n\n\"Then what do you mean to do about it?\"\n\n\"At present, nothing. It will have to be a damned sight closer for us to do anything useful.\"\n\nWhen night fell, the strange vessel vanished. Jack returned to her cousin in the djinn-room.\n\n\"We're changing our bearing,\" she told Yasmin. \"Four points green. We'll come at the border more directly from the west and then bear straight north to Temsk. I need all the speed you can give me tonight.\"\n\n\"It's trouble, then,\" Yasmin said, already moving to stoke the brazier with charcoal.\n\n\"No sight of them. But I don't think they've changed course. I think they're flying dark.\"\n\n\"Bother,\" said Yasmin. She pushed up her sleeves. \"I daresay we might conjure a fog as well, so long as we're over the water. Let them try to pursue a quarry they can't see either.\"\n\nThe djinn in its brazier rustled like laughter and wavered, casting strange shadows.\n\nThe fog wouldn't hold. Three times the djinneer raised it, and the shroud gathered. Three times a new wind from the south chased it clear again.\n\nNor was the wind a kindly one; it buffeted the Blackbird about, trying her wings and rudders, and set her crew scrambling to secure flyaway rigging and loose-rattling panels. Jack stalked the quarterdeck barking orders until her voice was rusted. The passengers huddled in their cabins.\n\nToward dawn, Yasmin mounted the steps to where the Captain paced. The djinneer was ashen with weariness. The wind whipped the tails of her knotted headscarf impishly. \"They have a magician,\" she confirmed. \"A strong one. Whoever they are, their aim is serious.\"\n\nJack had tasted the stale cathedral odor of incense on the wind half the night. \"Melusian,\" she agreed.\n\nThe djinneer knit her brows. \"But why? What is a minor Ardish cargo vessel to them?\"\n\nJack stared into the blind, cloud-scudding black sky behind them. \"At the rate they pursue us,\" she said grimly, \"I would prefer to leave the why of it for another occasion.\"\n\nDawn's first glimmer revealed what Jack had dreaded. Not only was the strange ship still on a course to intercept, it had gained sky enough that even without her glass she could make out the stark outline of wings and rudders. \"A Melusian cr\u00e9cerelle,\" she informed Yasmin, who still stood shivering beside her. \"We're outgunned three to one.\"\n\nBeneath them, land flowed past once more, the deep greens and stark greys of forest and scree; they closed fast with the Sebiran border, the Blackbird flying with all her fire.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" the djinneer gritted through chattering teeth. \"Why such ardent pursuit?\"\n\n\"Madame,\" said Mr. Kuznetsov diffidently, stepping onto the quarterdeck behind them. He was already gallantly shedding his greatcoat. \"Please. It is quite a chill.\" He swept the coat over Yasmin, fairly swamping her in its expanse.\n\nThe djinneer nestled into its warmth and breathed a grateful sigh, as faint roses bloomed in her cheeks. \"Most kind, Mr. Kuznetsov,\" she murmured.\n\nJack stared at them both.\n\nMr. Kuznetsov noted her regard first, and now he flushed as well. \"Captain?\"\n\n\"Step here,\" Jack commanded, and pointed to the planks at her feet. \"Stand beside me.\"\n\nBemused and sheepish, he shuffled two steps to obey. Jack drew a deep breath of his presence.\n\nIce and distant pines. A warm, animal undertone.\n\nBut Sebirans have no native sorcery.\n\nShe turned her regard back toward the ship that trailed them like a carrion-crow. \"Remind me,\" she said. \"What was the name of your late Empress?\"\n\n\"Elena Verovna,\" Mr. Kuznetsov answered promptly.\n\nShe shook her head, affecting a frown. \"No, no. Yasmin, what was it?\"\n\n\"He's correct,\" Yasmin said, puzzled. \"It was Empress Elena.\"\n\n\"What did you call her, Mr. Kuznetsov?\"\n\n\"Elena Verovna,\" he repeated. \"But it is the same name, Captain. Sebirans use the matronym\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Jack turned on them triumphantly. \"Sebirans use the matronym. Yet when I spoke to Mr. Black yesterday afternoon, he called her 'Elena Verovna.'\"\n\n\"It could be,\" Yasmin offered, \"that he's become accustomed, in his Sebiran dealings\u2014\"\n\nJack shook her head. \"He smells like Mr. Kuznetsov. He smells like you.\"\n\nMr. Kuznetsov went chalk-white. \"Christ God,\" he swore.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" Yasmin demanded.\n\nJack folded her arms. \"That ship doesn't pursue merely because we fly an Ardish flag. They pursue because we're smuggling Sebiran nationals back into Sebir, and it appears someone means to disrupt that homecoming.\"\n\nWhen mr. Kuznetsov escorted Mr. Black to the quarterdeck, both men were set-jawed and silent. Mr. Kuznetsov was still pale and now perspiring, despite the other man's smaller size and genteel manner.\n\nMr. Black wore no spectacles now; the whiskey-bright eyes regarded Jack with sardonic amusement. \"A fine alias after all,\" he drawled. \"The Jacks of Ardish folktale are always clever.\"\n\n\"You will give me your identity. Bear in mind I'll put overboard a man who lies to me twice.\"\n\nHe lost a shade of color but held her gaze. \"I understand your anger, Captain, but bear in mind that whatever else I may be, I am certainly your present ally. I am aboard your ship and would be considerably inconvenienced by its sinking.\"\n\n\"We're not going to sink,\" Jack informed him. \"We're going to land. I'm going to run up the white and hand all three of you over, unless you explain.\"\n\nHe straightened and pressed his lips together but still made no answer.\n\nThere was a scuff on the stair. The girl ascended, her governess in tow.\n\n\"Captain Valiant,\" the child said in a thin, high, unsteady voice. \"I beg your pardon for the ruse, and that we have endangered your good crew by it. This man is Aszer Chernovich Niyazov, of the Imperatorskii Otdel' Volkov\u2014a captain of the Imperial Secret Police.\"\n\nThere was a moment's startled silence, and then Mr. Black\u2014Captain Niyazov\u2014sighed and reached into his waistcoat for a silver cigarette case. \"Has anyone got a match?\" he asked, dryly rhetorical.\n\n\"If he's a captain of the Imperial Secret Police,\" Jack said to the child, \"would that make you\u2014?\"\n\n\"Grand Duchess Anna Elenovna,\" the child admitted. \"Heir to the Imperial throne.\" Her small voice quivered as she said it, but her solemn gaze was steady.\n\n\"Well,\" Jack said, briefly rooted by revelation. She removed her hat and scrubbed a hand through her hair. \"Honored, Your Highness. Perhaps you might do me the further honor of explaining what in the hundred holy names you're doing aboard my ship?\"\n\n\"Her mother's antipathy for the puissantistes and her esteem for your Queen Elizabeth were no secret in the Imperial court,\" Captain Niyazov said. \"The Astrologer King, I believe, took steps to keep Sebir out of your war, to ensure the Empire would not align itself with your queen's cause.\" He gestured with an unlit cigarette at the ship in pursuit. \"Takes steps.\"\n\n\"I am a God-damned smuggler, begging Your Highness's pardon,\" Jack said. \"I am not an agent of the Crown. Royal intrigues are well outside my sphere.\"\n\n\"This is the point in an Ardish story,\" Captain Niyazov observed, \"when a Jack would do something clever.\"\n\n\"Can we be certain this will work?\" asked the anxious governess\u2014a genuine governess, to Jack's surprise, one Miss Orlova by name\u2014as Jack led them down the corridor.\n\n\"Certainty is for priests and mathematicians, madame, and I am neither.\" Jack glanced over her shoulder and saw the governess, white-faced and resolute, holding firmly to the little Grand Duchess's hand. It softened her somewhat. \"But my djinneer is a mathematician. The timing will cut very fine, but I promise you the Melusians know very little of djinn-ships, and will never expect us to take such a risk.\"\n\nThe sebiran wilderness at dawn was a place of secrets and shadows; small things rustled in the velvet darkness still gathered between ancient trees, and patient, predatory eyes kept watch from bough and burrow.\n\nIn the rose-streaked sky above, the tiny black silhouette of an airship appeared. A second, sleeker silhouette closed on it. From below, the pursuit was a dreamlike, silent shadow play.\n\nThe second ship gave a jolt that, from this vantage, looked like delicate hesitation. The ship in front bloomed a wreath of brilliant flame. A moment later, a distant thunder sounded.\n\nThe first ship hung for a breathless instant and then, trailing smoke, began to fall.\n\n\"What if it doesn't return?\" Captain Niyazov shouted above the whine-and-rattle of the falling ship. He and Miss Orlova had each braced themselves in a pair of the octagonal chamber's adjacent corners, the Grand Duchess wedged against the wall between them.\n\n\"It will!\" Yasmin cried, clutching her glass-bauble pendant.\n\nThey all watched the empty brazier in the chamber's center.\n\nSeconds rolled past. The ship's uncontrolled fall gathered momentum. Jack closed her eyes.\n\nThe whoosh was near-inaudible amid the racket of disaster, but it was followed by a bonfire roar and scorching heat on Jack's face. She opened her eyes.\n\nThe djinn flared like the rising sun in its brazier, too bright to look upon, and Jack flung up a hand to shield her eyes. She heard the governess cry out, and Yasmin's laughter.\n\n\"Ah, well done!\" the djinneer cried in Atashi. \"Well done, beloved!\"\n\nThe djinn blazed with laughter of its own, sated on enemy incendiaries. Around them the clatter of free fall died as their wild plummet became a gently spiraling downward glide.\n\nCaptain Niyazov, still braced in the corner, one arm stretched protectively across the child, shook disheveled dark locks back from his eyes and looked to Jack. \"And now?\"\n\n\"Now,\" said Jack, and straightened shakily, \"we lay the bait.\"\n\nThe ardish ship lay exposed on the clear slope of a rocky rise, just above the treeline. It listed gently to one side, and one of its fine brass-jointed wings had sheared off. Debris lay scattered in the grass.\n\nA Melusian cr\u00e9cerelle, the Demoiselle Victoire, set down cautiously on the clear slope a little distance from the fallen Blackbird.\n\nNothing stirred aboard the wreck, and an ozone stink of burning hung in the air. The forest that fringed the lower part of the slope held breathlessly silent.\n\nFor a time the Melusian ship was silent as well, but at last she opened hatches and dropped ladders, and her soldiers boiled out toward the Ardish wreck.\n\nThey had ventured only partway across the field when Hell rose up around them.\n\nUnder cover of the trees, Jack cried, \"Fire!\"\n\nThe Blackbird's crew ranged in shadow around her opened small-arms fire; hardly accurate at distance, but enough to sow panic. Enough to allow Mr. Kuznetsov and his comrades precious seconds to run out the Blackbird's starboard carronade and smash a jagged wound in the cr\u00e9cerelle's hull, whilst the two nine-pounders raked the approaching party with a brutal volley of grapeshot.\n\nIn the stunned, gun-muffled silence that followed, Jack screamed, \"Forward!\"\n\nShe and her party swarmed from the trees toward the bloodied Melusian survivors. Mr. Kuznetsov and his party spilled from the carefully staged wreck to close from the other side. Jack shot two men at pistol-range and paused to give a third, half-gutted by grapeshot, a mercy cut.\n\n\"Captain!\" Mr. Kuznetsov bellowed, and Jack whirled to see a stained, disheveled blonde in the silver-ornamented coat of a Melusian sorci\u00e8re raise a fistful of lightning, her expression dire.\n\nA black shadow flowed across the field and leaped, bearing the sorci\u00e8re down; when it lifted its head, Jack saw it was a great dark wolf, smoke-silver pelt shaded to black, jaws painted with blood. The sorci\u00e8re sprawled unmoving at its feet.\n\nThe wolf regarded Jack with sardonic amusement. Its eyes were the golden-amber hue of whiskey held up to light.\n\n\"Well,\" Jack said when she had found her voice. \"I am obliged, Captain.\"\n\nThe wolf grinned its canine grin and loped deeper into the fray.\n\nWhen it was done, Jack left her crew scavenging the field and the Melusian ship, and went to see to Yasmin and the Sebirans.\n\nThree of them waited in the clearing where she'd left them. Grand Duchess Anna Elenovna perched on a fallen log swinging her legs in the green cathedral forest light. Her governess stood with her. Yasmin stood some little distance away, clutching her glass pendant, which swirled with smoke and a glint of flame.\n\n\"It's done,\" Jack informed them, and looked about. \"Where is Captain Niyazov?\"\n\n\"I sent him to assist you,\" said the Grand Duchess, and stopped swinging her legs. \"He seemed better used there.\"\n\n\"He's a shapeshifter.\"\n\n\"An oboroten,\" the child agreed. \"All of the IOV are oborotnii. Everyone in the Imperial court is, really.\" She resumed swinging her legs. \"You might want a word with your Mr. Kuznetsov about that, in fact.\"\n\n\"I might, in fact. But you aren't one,\" Jack guessed.\n\nThe girl shook her head mutely.\n\n\"And therein lies the trouble.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Miss Orlova said quietly. \"Sebir has its own faction sympathetic to the puissantistes. They opposed most of Elena Verovna's reforms. When it was evident that her daughter was not oboroten herself, Elena Verovna knew what they would make of it and arranged for her to be raised abroad, out of the court's eye. We had anticipated some\u2014resistance to her investiture. Though I confess we had not thought our agitators would be so bold as to involve Melusin directly.\"\n\n\"And so now what happens?\" Jack enquired.\n\n\"There will be some interval to see Her Highness settled on the throne,\" Miss Orlova said. \"But I expect your queen will have her alliance with the Empire after all.\"\n\nThe Grand Duchess nodded.\n\n\"No,\" Jack said. \"What happens here? Among us?\"\n\n\"Captain Niyazov will have means of contacting some trustworthy IOV,\" said Miss Orlova. \"They will get us all from here to Kyiv.\"\n\n\"And?\" Jack prompted.\n\nThe governess knit her brows. \"You have secured an international alliance and been paid six hundred crowns.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\nMiss Orlova flushed indignantly. Beside her, the little Grand Duchess laughed. \"We shall make additional provision, Captain,\" she promised.\n\nThe underbrush rustled, and Captain Niyazov himself emerged in his shirtsleeves, shaking back his disarranged hair and buttoning a cuff. \"I did tell you, Miss Orlova,\" he chided. \"She is a Jack. In Ardish tales, you must always wager on a Jack, even among wolves.\""
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Magebreakers 1) The Flaw in All Magic",
+        "author": "Ben S. Dobson",
+        "genres": [
+            "fantasy"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Someone was in the room with her.\n\nAllaea Hesliar was digging through the endless shelves of the artifice workshop for an uninscribed copper sheet when she heard the footsteps. No one else should have been there. It was after midnight, and she was working long past her scheduled hours.\n\n\"Indree? Is that you?\" Of course it was. Who else would it have been? Indree's constable badge got her past the workshop wards, and lately she'd decided that Allaea was putting too many hours into the airship project. Come to drag me into the fresh air again, no doubt. \"I'm back here.\"\n\nNo answer, but the footsteps started in her direction. The funny thing was, they weren't coming from the entrance, but from further inside. Had Indree come in and headed for the worktables at the back without Allaea hearing? Unusual\u2014elven ears didn't miss much. But then, she had been absorbed in her work.\n\nAllaea sighed. The last thing she needed just then was Indree's mothering. The heating glyphs for the airship's envelope were still less efficient than she liked, and final inscription had to be done tomorrow in preparation for the launch, only two days away. She'd already submitted her spell diagram for the evening deadline, but a better solution had come to her that night as she'd lain awake in bed. If she could have it done by morning, she could still get Dean Brassforge to approve the change. All that was left was to test a working mock-up. What she really needed was a damned copper plate, and they were never where they were supposed to be.\n\n\"You don't have to keep checking on me, Indree.\" She extracted herself from the shelves, stowed several components in the pockets of her topcoat, and went to meet the approaching footsteps. \"You're my dearest friend, and I love you, so please don't take this the wrong way, but you're an insufferable nag and I wish we'd never met.\"\n\nIt wasn't Indree.\n\nAllaea turned the corner to see a man in dark clothes standing before her in the shadowy aisle between shelves. His face was covered by a dark cowl with holes for eyes, like an executioner's mask.\n\nShe let out a startled yelp and backed away a step. \"Who in the Astra are you? This place is off-limits. How did you get in?\" There were privileged projects being worked on in the University's primary artifice workshop, the airship chief among them. No one got by the wards without a properly glyphed badge.\n\n\"You weren't supposed to be here,\" was all the man said. At least, all he said in Audish. He raised a hand, and started to mutter a spell in the lingua magica.\n\nAllaea spoke the quickest barrier spell she could muster. A sheet of silver-blue energy shimmered into existence in front of her just as the man completed his own spell. Silver flame crashed towards her in a wave that broke against her shield.\n\nSpellfire. He was throwing spellfire. If it touched her, it would melt the flesh from her bones in an instant. He's actually trying to kill me.\n\nShe couldn't hold her hasty shield much longer under that kind of assault. It was already failing.\n\nAllaea turned, and ran.\n\n\"Help!\" she shouted, for the guards or for Indree\u2014and she wished more than anything that Indree had come, now. She would have known what to do. She was a constable, trained in combat magic. Allaea knew ancryst machines inside and out, but she'd been lucky to get that shield up at all, and any other spell that might help seemed to have deserted her. \"Help me! There's someone in here!\"\n\nShe raced down aisles of shelves, darting through whatever gap brought her closer to the exit. Her legs ached, and she was moving too fast for the tight corners\u2014she had to yank herself around by the edges of the shelves, dislodging gems and components. A trail of fallen artifice pieces littered the floor behind her.\n\nShe could hear him following, quick footsteps against the stone floor. He was chanting in the lingua again, readying a spell to burn her alive. From somewhere deep in the workshop behind came a distant howling, with an icy crackle behind it that sent a chill through her blood. What in the Astra was that? She didn't want to find out.\n\nHer lungs burned and her breath came in short, terrified gasps, but she was nearly at the door. Just around the next corner, and then\u2026\n\nShe put her foot down wrong; her ankle turned, and she stumbled sidelong against a shelf. She put her hand out to catch herself, and knocked over a collection of iron rods and copper plates\u2014there they were.\n\nNo, no, no. She had to keep moving, couldn't afford this. Panicked, she risked a look over her shoulder.\n\nHe rounded the corner behind her, still chanting. Lifted his hand.\n\nAllaea screamed as silver flame roared over her skin and dissolved her sight."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Tane Carver knew something was wrong the moment the clock began to chime.\n\nIt was the students. There weren't enough of them. Normally the clock atop Thalen's Hall tolling the hour would have sent hundreds of young humans and elves and gnomes and more scurrying to their classes, but today the campus was nearly empty. A few dozen students scattered about, and that was all.\n\nThe University Guard were out in force, though, patrolling the cobbled paths in their silver-on-blue uniforms. Two stood at the entrance to every building, new and old\u2014from the functional brick of the artifice workshops to the ancient stonework of the cathedral-like invocation hall. At every door, guards were stopping what few students approached, making them display laurel wreath badges to identify themselves. Tane hadn't been back since he'd been expelled two years prior, but unless the University of Thaless had become a prison camp since then, he had to classify that as unusual.\n\nHe felt the familiar high-altitude pressure in his ears that always preceded a sending, and then a voice spoke in his head. \"Mister Carver, I'm reading you on campus. Don't dawdle. I'm waiting.\" Liana Greymond, Dean of Divination. Tane had come at her request, though he'd considered refusing\u2014he didn't much want to hear a lecture on how badly he'd embarrassed the University. Ultimately though, he'd been curious enough to chance it. After two years, she wouldn't have contacted him without reason.\n\n\"I know you're eager to see me, but try to contain yourself, Dean Greymond,\" Tane answered without speaking\u2014through her spell, not his own. She'd left the link open, an Astral channel that he had no way to replicate. \"You'll make me blush.\"\n\nA slight pop in his ears as the pressure abated, and Greymond's presence was gone. He'd been her favorite student once, but even then she'd never had much patience for his sense of humor.\n\nTane studied what few students he saw as he walked\u2014without hurrying\u2014toward the divination hall. They mirrored the population of the Audland Protectorate at large, half of them human like him, and half a diverse selection of the magical races: a dwarf here, an elf there, a doll-sized sprite fluttering down the path beside a nine-foot tall ogren. All wore the silver-on-blue laurel wreath badge of the University displayed proudly at the breast of their topcoats. And they all looked so young, though he was only a few years older now than they were.\n\nMost kept their heads down and walked quickly, avoiding eye-contact, but a small group had gathered on the open grass at the campus center, whispering in hushed tones. Tane didn't need divination to sense their unease. As he watched, a dwarven man in University Guard uniform approached the little congregation and hurried them on their way with a few words. They moved on without argument.\n\nWhat is going on? Tane regretted not asking Dean Greymond while he'd had the chance, but she wouldn't have answered in any case, not until he was sitting in front of her.\n\nHe was still watching the little group disperse when someone bumped into him.\n\n\"I'm sorry!\" A squeaky voice from somewhere near his waist. \"I wasn't watching\u2014Tane?\"\n\nTane looked down to see a dark-skinned gnomish woman with a broad face and large eyes, her hair arranged in a rather severe bun. For a moment, she flickered before him, her skin and clothes taking on the greens and greys of the grass and cobblestones behind her\u2014the natural gnomish ability to mask themselves with illusion when they didn't want to be seen.\n\n\"Roona,\" he greeted her. \"Just when I was beginning to worry they'd replaced everyone I used to know with children.\" He'd shared classes with Roona Nackle, though she'd concentrated in invocation and he\u2014ostensibly, at least\u2014in divination. She would have advanced to graduate studies by now. An opportunity he'd never gotten. \"You must know what all this is about. If the guards were wearing different colors I'd think the campus had been occupied by an invading army.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I'm not sure exactly. Something happened last night, but everyone's heard a different story. I haven't\u2026\" Roona trailed off and looked rather unsubtly over her shoulder, then fumbled her pocket watch from her waistcoat and gave it a cursory glance. \"Listen, Tane, I have to\u2014\"\n\n\"Stop talking to me before someone sees you?\"\n\nShe had the grace to look sheepish, at least. \"I'm sorry. It isn't personal, it's just that\u2026 people still talk about you, you know, and I'm on the list for a faculty position next year.\"\n\n\"I understand.\" Tane forced a smile. \"The price of infamy. It's fine. Go.\"\n\nRoona went, a little bit more eagerly than he would have liked. It was hard not to take that personally.\n\nThe divination hall was at the far eastern end of the campus, but it didn't take him long to cover the rest of the distance. The oppressive mood in the air was making him nervous, not to mention curious, and either one was enough to overpower his admittedly petty desire to make Dean Greymond wait.\n\nA three-story marble building topped with a brass-domed observatory, the divination hall cast a long shadow across the grass in the pre-noon sun. Outside the main doors, two of the University Guard stood watch: a dark-bearded human man and a stout dwarven woman. Each of them wore a shortsword and a single-shot ancryst pistol at the waist, and a laurel wreath University badge at the breast\u2014though theirs would have different glyphs on the back than the students, allowing them to pass through more secure wards.\n\n\"Badge?\" the dwarf asked, eyeing Tane's frayed waistcoat and rumpled shirt with suspicion.\n\n\"Don't have one,\" said Tane. \"I'm Tane Carver. Dean Greymond asked me to come.\"\n\nThe human nodded. \"Carver, right.\" There might have been a flicker of disapproval in the man's eye, but he didn't let it enter his voice. \"She left word. Go on in. Straight to her office, please.\" They pushed open the doors and held them until Tane had passed.\n\nInside, the building was lit with globes of magelight hanging from the ceiling, glowing in the familiar silver-blue common to all Astral energy. Tane passed only a few students\u2014for the most part, he heard nothing but the echo of his own footsteps against marble floors.\n\nGreymond's office was on the third floor just below the observatory, and the hall leading up to it was empty, save for two guards outside a small study room. One was a short brown-scaled kobold, watching Tane with slitted reptilian eyes, but it was the larger woman who drew his attention\u2014grey-skinned, muscular, easily six and a half feet tall. An orc? They weren't entirely unheard of on the Audland Isle, but orcs were rare outside their homeland of Sverna at the far north of the Continent. He'd never seen one on campus\u2014they had no affinity for magic whatsoever.\n\nBut no, her features weren't quite right for an orc, either. She had the size, the greyish skin, the glinting yellow eyes and pointed ears, but her flat nose and protruding jaw weren't as pronounced as they might have been, and she lacked the short tusks sticking up from her lower lip. Grey-white hair that was almost like fur framed her face, but the similar fur on the back of her hands and arms wasn't near heavy enough, and while her fingernails were dark and thick, they were no orcish claws. She had to be a half-orc\u2014almost unheard of in the Protectorate, or anywhere else.\n\nThe woman caught him staring and grinned, exposing sharp lupine teeth. Embarrassed, Tane looked away, and walked faster. He heard her chuckling behind him as he moved down the hall.\n\nIt wasn't far to Dean Greymond's door. When he raised his hand to knock, it swung open before his knuckles touched wood, leaving him rapping on air.\n\n\"Tane Carver. It has been a long time. Come in.\" Liana Greymond was a human woman of a young-looking fifty years, her face only slightly lined beneath short dark hair. She sat behind a desk cluttered with papers, a silver-blue magelight lamp standing at one corner. She didn't appear to be looking at Tane, but rather somewhere through him. Those faraway eyes were customary for her, as if she was seeing things no one else could.\n\nShe usually was.\n\n\"I hate when you do that,\" said Tane. \"Let me\u2014\"\n\n\"Do something before I respond to it?\" Greymond finished. \"Why waste the time?\" That was a habit of hers. Sometimes she caught glimpses of things a half-second before they happened, and Tane was convinced she enjoyed using that foresight to put people off balance. \"Please, take a seat.\" She muttered a spell under her breath in the lingua magica and gestured to a chair in front of her desk. It pulled out for him to sit as if drawn by an invisible hand.\n\nTane sat, shifting uncomfortably under her appraising eyes. He was suddenly all too aware of what she was seeing: an unkempt, unshaven man of average height and build with untidy brown hair and shabby clothes. His appearance didn't say much for the life he'd been living since his expulsion, working odd jobs\u2014and not always entirely legal ones\u2014wherever he could peddle his education in magical matters. He hadn't cared with Roona or the guards, but Liana Greymond had been something of a mentor to him once. He ran two fingers along the watch chain attached to his waistcoat, and then dipped them into his pocket to rub the dented brass watch casing there\u2014a habit, when he was uneasy. It didn't tick beneath his fingers. There hadn't been clockwork inside for a long time.\n\n\"I assume this is about\u2026 whatever it is making everyone so nervous out there,\" he said by way of distraction. \"If you're looking for a good scapegoat, I'll take the fall, but know that my price isn't going to be cheap.\"\n\n\"This isn't a laughing matter, Mister Carver,\" Greymond said. \"I understand you are working as a consultant of sorts, now. On magical matters, proofing spell diagrams and the like. Is that correct?\"\n\nThat was a generous way of putting it, but Tane wasn't about to argue. \"You must\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, of course I looked into it before I summoned you. I was simply confirming. You aren't misrepresenting yourself to anyone as a graduate mage, I hope?\" She was peering through him again, a slight furrow of concentration at the corners of her eyes.\n\n\"Are you casting a truth-spell? I'm insulted, Dean Greymond.\" Tane smiled innocently. \"When have your divinations ever caught me in a lie?\"\n\nGreymond let out a short, sardonic laugh. \"I suppose that's true. Four years as my best student without an ounce of magic to your name, and I never guessed. You know how to evade a divination, I'll grant you that. But please, humor me.\"\n\n\"I haven't misrepresented anything,\" said Tane, and by the look on her face, it passed muster with her divination. It was the truth, this time. \"That's the point. I'm trying to show people that you don't need to be a mage to understand magic.\" It's usually better if you aren't, he thought but didn't say.\n\n\"Yes, I recall the nature of your final dissertation. That's why I asked you here, in fact. I wish to acquire your services. I'm loathe to say it, but the University has need of your\u2026 rather peculiar area of expertise.\"\n\n\"In other words, you need me to find a loophole in a spell that your mages can't.\" Tane leaned forward, intrigued. \"This is about whatever happened last night, isn't it?\"\n\nGreymond frowned, her eyes glazing for a brief instant as she searched the Astra for some answer or another, and then she nodded. \"What I am about to tell you is not to be shared until the chancellor makes it public. Do you swear to abide by that?\"\n\n\"I suppose I have to, don't I?\" said Tane, and he meant it\u2014at least for now. Anything else would have triggered her truth-spell. \"I'm not about to leave here without knowing now that you've made it so mysterious. And you know I can keep a secret.\"\n\nGreymond was silent for a moment\u2014confirming his sincerity with her divinations again, or perhaps just weighing the decision. But she would tell him. She wouldn't have asked him here otherwise. He expected it would be a poorly formulated spell for an artifice project or the like, something the University administration needed fixed quickly and quietly. Perhaps something for the airship in drydock at the waterfront\u2014it was meant to launch the day after next, the first ancryst-powered flying machine, and they wouldn't want word of any problems getting out now.\n\nBut what Greymond said next wasn't what he expected at all.\n\n\"A student was killed on campus last night, Mister Carver.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "\"What?\" Tane shook his head. I can't have heard that right. \"Are you telling me someone was murdered?\"\n\n\"I am,\" Greymond confirmed.\n\n\"And you sent for me? Why not bring in the bluecaps?\"\n\n\"Stooketon Yard is being notified, of course, but the chancellor wants to have this situation well in hand before we bring in the constabulary. The University's reputation must be considered, after all. To that end, there is a matter I believe you can help with. Let me explain.\"\n\n\"Please,\" said Tane. A murder, and they need me for some reason. This could be the chance I've been waiting for. It felt ghoulish to be excited about it, but helping here could get him a foot in the door with the University administration. They might actually listen to him this time.\n\n\"Shortly after midnight last night, someone accessed the primary artifice workshop. There were guards in the building, but they saw no one in the halls at any point. A\u2026 a student\"\u2014Greymond's eyes flicked away from his there, for an instant\u2014\"was using the workshop, considerably past the hours she was scheduled to be there. She was involved in the airship project, but those spell diagrams had already been submitted and approved. Still, she may have hoped to fit in some last-minute change before the final inscription of the glyphs this morning. The guards heard her screaming, but by the time they arrived, she was dead. Spellfire burns all across her face and chest.\"\n\nTane winced. \"That's awful.\" Spellfire burned hotter than molten metal. The only thing worse was the fire of a true dragon\u2014at least according to records from before the fall of the Estian Empire, when such creatures still lived.\n\n\"It was\u2026 difficult to look at,\" Greymond said, and by the look on her face, she was seeing it again now. She didn't say anything for a moment, and then, \"Nothing was stolen from the workshop, so we must assume murder was the intent. The building was quickly closed, and a second student was apprehended, hiding in the graduate workshop down the hall. Our only suspect, but a likely one. He was seen arguing with the victim earlier that day. He claims he was meeting someone in the building, but he won't provide a name, and my divinations say he is lying.\"\n\n\"Sounds like\u2014\"\n\n\"If the matter was already solved, Mister Carver, I would not have sent for you. Will you let me finish?\"\n\nTane almost laughed at that. When has she ever let anyone finish? But he leaned back in his seat and motioned for her to continue.\n\n\"The issue is this: our suspect should not have been able to enter the primary workshop at all, and certainly not without triggering an alarm. The wards and detection spells on that room should only allow University staff, faculty, and students with properly glyphed badges\u2014those involved with the rather privileged spellwork being done within. And the constabulary, of course.\" All campus wards had an exemption for the bluecaps, in case of emergency. \"As I said, the victim was one of Dean Brassforge's apprentices, assisting with the airship project. The suspect had no such access, nor did we find a stolen badge anywhere on him. We've accounted for all of the badges with access among faculty, students, and guard. None seem to be missing.\"\n\nThere it was. The reason she'd asked him here. Wards could be restricted in near limitless ways: by specific name or title or physical feature, by badge or passphrase, by any number of arbitrary criteria or simply by the caster's whim. But they all shared the same ultimate purpose, which was to keep people out. When they didn't, it was almost always because of careless magecraft.\n\nAnd finding careless magecraft was Tane's specialty. \"You want me to see if I can find a flaw that might have let him in.\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Greymond. \"Either he found a way to exploit our wards, or someone else with access sneaked by the guards. We need to know which, at the very least. The wards have been recalibrated to allow only constables, high-level faculty, and University Guard for the time being. With the airship so close to completion\u2026 Lady Abena has invested a great deal into the project, and we cannot afford a lapse in security only days before the launch ceremony. Chancellor Nieris is eager to resolve the matter before then. He has charged me with overseeing the investigation.\"\n\nHoping she can divine an answer before they have bluecaps crawling over the campus, no doubt. Tane understood the stakes now. It was common knowledge that the Protector of the Realm had put much of her political capital into the airship project. She'd given a number of speeches in the Senate of Houses to that effect, touting the age of peace and prosperity that would result from improved trade and travel between the Audland Protectorate and the nations of continental Calene\u2014relations that had been strained since the Mage War had dissolved the Estian Empire into squabbling factions centuries ago. And the University couldn't afford to displease the Lady Protector if they wanted to maintain their operating budget.\n\nIf Tane proved himself useful here, it could change everything. It might get me out of double-checking the glyphs on fenced artifacts just to pay rent, at least.\n\nBut there was something else. Greymond wasn't using names, and the way she'd avoided his eyes for a moment there\u2026 \"Wait,\" he said. \"This woman, the victim\u2014if she was on the airship project, or any project in that room, for that matter, she must be a graduate student.\" Which meant she might have been a classmate of his. And one name came to mind above all others, one woman who would easily have qualified for such a prestigious apprenticeship. Not her. Please. \"Do I\u2026 did I know her?\"\n\nGreymond sighed, and Tane's heart fell into his feet. \"I should have known it wouldn't take you long. I'm afraid so.\"\n\nNo. He clutched the arms of his chair, and waited.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Tane. It was Allaea Hesliar.\"\n\nA wave of relief swept over him, and he felt awful for it. Allaea had been a friend, once\u2014an elven woman with a sharp tongue and a passion for ancryst machines. She deserved better. But it's not Indree.\n\nAnd then the full weight of it hit him. Memories of long nights spent studying, the three of them trading notes and ideas and stupid inside jokes. Allaea had been kind, and clever, and never shy about letting him know he was being an ass\u2014and now she was dead. Burned alive in the worst way imaginable. He hadn't seen her for two years, but it hurt, even so. Spellfire, Indree must be devastated. He'd only known Allaea through her, and those two had been inseparable friends long before he'd met them. He swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. \"Does Ree know?\"\n\n\"I can't say. Miss Lovial took her considerable talents elsewhere after graduation. But if this is too difficult for you\u2026\"\n\n\"No. I want to help.\" He didn't imagine Allaea had thought very highly of him after the way he'd left the University\u2014or the way he'd left things with Indree\u2014but he owed her this much.\n\n\"I hoped you would.\" Greymond shuffled through the papers on her desk and slid several towards him. \"These are the diagrams for the wards on the workshop, and the detection spells. I\u2026 when I learned who she was, I thought of you, and that dissertation of yours. You always were the best at finding the cracks in whatever spell I put in front of you.\"\n\nTane flipped the spell diagrams around to face him and looked them over. Glyphs detailing the exact nature of the spell, directions for placement. A few things stood out to him as worth checking into, but they might have been incidental. There were always flaws and oversights. Casting a spell meant making a request of the Astra, the plane of magical energy that stood behind the physical world. And that energy always did exactly what it was told, for better or worse. A misused word or careless sentence structure could have disastrous effect. It was very much like all the old stories of magical wish-granting spirits\u2014if there was the slightest way for the spirit to misinterpret the wish, it always did.\n\nThat was the essence of the dissertation he'd been expelled for: how dangerous spells could be when cast carelessly, especially when so many in the Protectorate relied on artifacts and machines created by mages. How even the non-magically gifted should be allowed to enroll at the University to learn how the magic they relied upon worked, how to check it for errors. How it was ludicrous to expect reliability from a spell that had only ever been proofed by the caster. And the centerpiece of the essay had been the fact that Tane had spent near four years as a student of magic at the University without any magic of his own, outsmarting every detection spell and excelling above the true mages in most of his classes.\n\nThe revelation had not been well received. Not even by the professor he'd most hoped would support him.\n\nThat still rankled, more than a bit. \"If I was the best, why\u2014\"\n\n\"You think I should have stood up for you with the chancellor? After what you did?\" Greymond narrowed her eyes, and a suggestion of anger heated her careful, professional tone. \"Never mind how much you humiliated the University, did you ever think for a moment how humiliating it was for me? The Dean of Divination fooled for four years by her favorite student? If you'd just come to me with the truth at any point, I might have\u2026\" She stopped herself, took a long breath. \"It doesn't matter now. We aren't going to do this. Just look at the spells.\"\n\nShe's right. Don't ruin this chance. \"It's going to take longer than a few minutes to study these,\" said Tane. \"I'll have to bring them back to my office.\" By which he meant the narrow brick-front single room he rented in Porthaven by the docks.\n\n\"Not the originals. I will have copies sent to your address.\"\n\n\"Fine. 17 Tilford Street, in Porthaven. I'll also need\u2014\"\n\n\"No. Under no circumstances may you enter the workshop. We can't have anyone interfering with evidence before the constabulary investigates, and your involvement is not something I want widely known. The spells were cast from those diagrams, and I promise you they match perfectly. That should be enough.\"\n\nDisappointing, but Tane had expected that. \"Fine. Then I need to know a few things. You've checked the glyphs for wear?\" Magic always needed specific instruction. Without a mage's active concentration, long term spells used engraved glyphs of the lingua magica to direct their energy.\n\n\"Of course. They were redrawn last month, and have been double and triple checked against the diagrams. A perfect match, as I said.\"\n\n\"No sign of Astral tampering?\" Tracing a spell's Astral link and deconstructing it was extremely difficult for even the most skilled diviners, and it took a great deal of time and effort, but it was possible.\n\n\"None. It would have set off a number of detections.\"\n\n\"Were the gems replaced recently?\" All spells needed a source of Astral energy. Absent a mage, most used gems or crystals charged in advance, linked to the spell glyphs with magically conductive copper. That was the other, slower way to beat a ward\u2014simply waiting for the power to fail.\n\n\"A week ago, and plenty of energy left in them. We hardly need you to point out the obvious, Mister Carver.\"\n\n\"And your divinations? Did you find anything I should know?\"\n\n\"Very little, sadly. I was able to witness Miss Hesliar's final moments through the Astra, but they didn't offer a great deal of guidance.\"\n\n\"Show me.\"\n\nGreymond frowned. \"Are you sure? It isn't a pleasant memory, and I know you were close.\"\n\nHe wasn't sure at all, but if there was any chance that he might see something she hadn't\u2026 \"Do it.\"\n\nGreymond's eyes focused somewhere behind his head, and pressure built in his ears for a moment before the sending came to him, halfway between a memory and a waking dream.\n\nFor some reason he'd expected to see Allaea, but instead he was looking through her eyes, at an aisle of shelves stacked with artifice tools and materials. The workshop. She was moving quickly, running from something. He could hear her breath, heavy and frightened. There were footsteps behind her, and a male voice, chanting in the lingua magica. She stumbled, put out a hand, knocked several bits of metal from a shelf. Until then there had been a part of Tane that didn't believe it, but he knew her by that hand\u2014long, delicate elven fingers callused and scarred from tinkering with ancryst machines. She looked over her shoulder, caught a brief, blurred glimpse of a dark figure rounding the corner, wearing a masked cowl like an executioner's hood. The figure reached out toward her.\n\nAllaea screamed as her vision dissolved into silver flame.\n\nTane's ears popped as the sending faded. He took a shaky breath, and tried to focus on the facts instead of the pain in that scream. \"Not\u2026 not much there, with the mask.\" That was unfortunate but not uncommon\u2014when a diviner could call up the last memories of the dead, smart murderers covered their faces.\n\n\"As I said.\"\n\n\"What about this suspect the guards found, then? He'd know better than anyone how he beat the wards. If he did. You say your spell caught him in a lie, but that could mean a lot of things. You know as well as anyone that truth-spells aren't perfect. They can be misled.\" Tane himself was living proof of that. All a truth-spell did was reach through the Astra to read a subject's mental and emotional state, both of which could be controlled. Or the opposite\u2014agitation could make true statements look false to a spell. \"If he'd really planned to kill someone, I'd expect him to have invented a better story.\"\n\n\"A fair point,\" said Greymond. \"But added to the rest of it, the lie certainly doesn't speak to his innocence.\"\n\n\"Who is he? Anyone I know?\"\n\n\"The same year as you, but beyond that, I'm not sure. Kivit Thrung.\"\n\n\"I've met him.\" A goblin student, concentrating in artifice like Allaea. He'd always been over-competitive in class. Goblins weren't exactly highly respected as mages\u2014he'd always had to prove he deserved to be there. Tane knew how that felt. \"Things can change in two years, but\u2026 he always seemed too nervous to hurt anyone. Could\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, I thought you might want to talk to him.\" Greymond answered the unasked question with a nod. \"That I can arrange. He is just across the hall\u2014I was questioning him before you arrived. As I said, my divinations caught him in a lie, but he refuses to explain further. Given your history, you might get something out of him that I couldn't.\"\n\n\"As a fellow liar, you mean?\" Tane said, quirking an eyebrow.\n\n\"Essentially, yes. You mimicked divination in my class for years\u2014in the absence of magic, I must assume you did so by reading behavior. That may prove useful. Come.\" Greymond stood, and led him out of the office.\n\nAcross the hall and a short distance down, the two guards Tane had passed on the way were still standing at attention. Greymond approached them.\n\n\"Let us in,\" she said, and the half-orc woman pushed open the door, held it, and followed them in. Her partner remained outside to watch the hall.\n\nInside, a scrawny goblin man with grey-green skin sat hunched over the table, the tip of his long nose pressed flat against the wood. A pair of round spectacles sat low on his face, threatening to fall off at any moment. He didn't look up. \"I already told you I didn't do it!\" he said in a high, nasally voice.\n\nTane glanced at Dean Greymond, who gave him a slight shake of her head\u2014she was still detecting a lie. They sat down across from Thrung while the half-orc guard took her place in front of the door.\n\n\"Ask what you will,\" Greymond said.\n\nThrung finally raised his head then, and saw Tane. He pushed up his spectacles, and small black eyes narrowed beneath the lenses. Thick goblin eyebrows knit together to form a single line of bushy black hair. \"Carver?\" He looked to Greymond. \"What is he doing here?\"\n\n\"Helping,\" Tane said quickly. \"Can I ask you a few things?\"\n\nGreymond, for once, didn't interrupt\u2014she just sat silently, watching Thrung sweat. Apparently she was willing to let Tane take the lead on this.\n\nThrung's eyes moved wildly from side to side. \"I already told them, I was just meeting someone. I swear!\"\n\nIt was impossibly obvious that he was lying, divination or no. The real question was what about. By necessity, Tane had learned how to read people fairly well, and this didn't strike him as the manner of someone who had just burned a rival alive. \"Calm down, Kivit. I want to help, if you'll let me.\"\n\nHope brightened Thrung's face immediately. Predictable\u2014a drowning man would cling to whatever happened to float by. \"You understand what it's like, don't you, Carver? To have everyone distrust you? They just think I did it because I'm a goblin.\"\n\n\"And, to be fair, because you were the only one in the building, and you were seen arguing with Allaea earlier.\" Hope was important, but he couldn't let Thrung forget the stakes, either.\n\n\"I didn't kill her!\"\n\nTane held up a hand. \"Of course you didn't.\" He really did want to believe that, but if it was a lie, he meant to find out. For Allaea's sake. \"But it would help to know what you were arguing about.\"\n\n\"She took my spot on the airship project! My diagrams for the heating glyphs in the envelope were far more elegant, and we both knew it. But a goblin was never going to be picked over an elf. I just wanted her to admit it, that's all. I promise I didn't want her dead.\"\n\nTane could see why Greymond thought Thrung had done it. He wasn't exactly helping himself. \"And you were meeting someone in the artifice workshops that night? Who?\"\n\n\"Just\u2026 just a girl. I don't know her name. A\u2026 a friend thought we might enjoy each other's company, and set it up.\"\n\n\"Really? You couldn't come up with anything better than a nameless girl in the artifice workshops at midnight?\" Tane leaned forward over the table. \"You and I both know that isn't going to beat Dean Greymond's divinations.\" Someone else might have, but it would have taken a great deal of self-control, and Thrung clearly wasn't very much in control of anything just then. \"Let me tell you what they already believe, Kivit: that you were jealous of Allaea for taking your spot, so you waited in the workshops until late at night, snuck in, and burned her alive with spellfire. They're already at that point, so when you're caught in an obvious lie, it only makes you look worse.\"\n\nThrung's cheeks went an ashy shade of grey. He really was easy to lead. \"I would never\u2026 I couldn't\u2026 my badge doesn't even have access to that workshop!\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Tane. \"So whatever the truth is, it must be better than what they think. Just tell me, and we can get you out of here.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 They won't believe it. It\u2026 it sounds bad.\"\n\n\"It can't sound any worse, I promise you.\"\n\nThrung's shoulders slumped. \"I suppose you're right. I\u2026 look, you have to understand I wasn't going to hurt her. I just wanted her to admit my designs were better. I was\u2026 I was waiting for her, that's true. I was watching the door from the workshop down the hall. I meant to confront her when she left. Then I heard the scream, and the guards came, and\u2026 I panicked. I hid. And when they found me, I lied. If I'd admitted I was there for her\u2026 People always want to believe the worst of a goblin. But that's the truth, I swear it.\"\n\nAgain, Tane glanced at Greymond.\n\n\"That reads as true,\" she said. \"You would have saved us a great deal of time if you'd said so earlier, Mister Thrung.\"\n\nThrung just hung his head. \"I'm sorry, Dean Greymond. I just\u2014\"\n\n\"Wait,\" said Tane. \"You were watching the door the whole time? You must have seen the real killer go in.\"\n\n\"That's the thing,\" said Thrung. \"That's why I didn't say anything. It\u2026 it doesn't sound very good for me.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Mister Thrung?\" Dean Greymond was staring slightly past Thrung now, with that faraway look that said she was concentrating on the Astra, not the physical world.\n\nThrung swallowed, his long neck convulsing nervously. \"What I mean is that I watched that door all night. No one went in.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "\"You have to let me look at the workshop!\"\n\n\"Absolutely not,\" said Dean Greymond. They were standing in the hall just outside the room where they'd questioned Kivit Thrung.\n\n\"If he didn't do it, and no one went in or out, it raises a thousand questions,\" said Tane. \"Even if someone had been waiting inside since before Kivit got there, how did they get out after the building was closed down? No illusion would have done it once the guards were on alert.\" True invisibility was impossible\u2014the closest thing was the instinctive gnomish ability to blend into their surroundings with illusion, which was extremely difficult for a mage to emulate consciously. And it didn't hold up well under scrutiny. \"That leaves, what\u2026 a portal? That's dangerous magic.\" An improperly stabilized portal could swallow whoever stepped through it into the Astra\u2014not to mention the things that could come out.\n\n\"You know we have very strict portal wards,\" Greymond said. \"Only the deans or the chancellor can make a portal into or out of University grounds, and it wasn't one of us\u2014we had a meeting in Chancellor Nieris' office that night that went very late, and no one was absent.\"\n\n\"That's exactly my point,\" said Tane. \"This looks impossible at a glance. Whoever did it might have left some sign, and just looking at diagrams isn't going to tell me\u2014\"\n\n\"It's all you're going to get, Mister Carver. You did well with Thrung, but I shouldn't have let you go that far. I have to admit, I was\u2026 curious. To see what you could do, now that I know you have no magic. But the constabulary will be arriving soon, and we can't have you running around the University where someone might get the wrong idea. Can you imagine how it would look if word reached the Gazette that you were assisting in the investigation?\"\n\n\"Dean Greymond, please.\" Tane needed this. His friend was dead, and he needed to know who had done it, and why\u2014and beyond that, solving an impossible crime where the mages of the University and Stooketon Yard couldn't would go a long way towards proving the point he'd been trying to prove for years. \"I just want to help.\"\n\n\"And you can. It will help us a great deal to have those diagrams proofed for errors, and you will be paid well for it. That is your role here. Nothing else.\"\n\nShe isn't going to listen. I'm wasting my breath. Tane nodded. \"Of course, Dean Greymond. I'm sorry, I'm just\u2026 invested in this. Allaea was my friend.\"\n\nGreymond's eyes narrowed and took on that faraway look. Looking for lies. \"Mister Carver, promise me you won't try to get into the workshop.\"\n\nCareful. Easy breaths. \"I won't.\"\n\nShe watched him a moment longer, pursed her lips, drummed a finger against her leg. Finally, she turned to the guards at the door. \"You,\" she said to the half-orc. \"Escort Mister Carver off campus. See that he goes nowhere but out through the gates.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the half-orc woman said, and took Tane's arm in a startlingly firm grip. \"Come.\" She had a strong Svernan accent\u2014the Audish words came out short and clipped.\n\nTane went along without a fuss. It didn't matter. He'd already made his choice, and Greymond's divinations had been easy enough to evade.\n\nHe was getting into that workshop, one way or another.\n\nOutside, on the front steps of the divination hall, the half-orc released his arm. \"Don't run,\" she said in her heavy accent. \"I am faster.\" She bared her teeth in a wide, unsettling grin.\n\n\"I don't doubt it,\" Tane said agreeably, matching step with her down the path toward the campus center. He was going to have to slip her guard before they reached the gates, or he'd never get back in, but for that he'd need to put her at ease first. \"Forgive me if this is nosy, but you must come from Sverna by your accent. We don't see very many orcs here who weren't born on the Isle.\" The orcish homeland was highly isolationist, and they had no magic there\u2014quite the opposite of the Protectorate. But then, Svernan orcs weren't supposed to approve of breeding with humans either, and here this woman was. \"It feels like there's a story there, if you don't mind telling it?\"\n\n\"Clever man,\" she said with another toothy grin. \"I was born in Sverna, yes. There, do what clan chief says, every day. Everything is\u2026 ordinary. Boring. I wanted to see things. See magic.\"\n\n\"Well you came to the right place,\" said Tane. \"There's nowhere more magical than the Protectorate, and most of it is here in Thaless.\" He stopped, and extended his hand. \"I'm Tane. Carver.\"\n\nShe squeezed his hand too tight and shook vigorously. \"Kadka, of Clan Nadivek. Or was. Now not so much.\"\n\n\"It's a pleasure, Kadka. Have you been here for very long?\"\n\n\"Only month, little more,\" she said. \"Is still new for me.\" That was good. She might not know the best paths across campus yet. \"But not new for you, yes? Sivisk\"\u2014that must have been the kobold guard\u2014\"tells me you were student in magic here with no magic. How do you fool so many mages for so long?\"\n\n\"Trickery and deceit, mostly,\" Tane said. \"I'm strong at magical theory, which made the practical parts easy to fake.\"\n\n\"Teachers never ask you to make spell?\"\n\n\"Of course, but that's not so hard. A little sleight of hand\u2014\" He reached behind Kadka's ear and produced a brass coin, to her obvious surprise, then flipped it into the air, caught it, and spun it across his knuckles. \"\u2014and you'd be surprised what you can do. An artifact up the sleeve to duplicate one spell or another, that sort of thing. With proper misdirection, they never notice a thing.\" She was still staring at the coin in his right hand when he opened the left one, revealing the silver-on-blue enameled badge he'd plucked from her coat.\n\nShe laughed, a too-loud cackle of delight. \"You are clever man. But why do they never make spell to catch lies, or see if magic is yours?\"\n\n\"Those can be fooled, but no one is casting them in the first place if they don't have reason to. I didn't give them a reason. It's like this: there are three schools of magic a student can concentrate in. Invocation and Artifice both require harnessing magical energy with showy words or glyphs, and you're expected to produce tangible, physical results. Divination is all about quietly searching the Astra for answers that you can usually get out of people without any magic at all, and if you get one wrong, well, it's known to be an unreliable art. I'll give you one guess where I declared my concentration.\"\n\n\"So you are like mage with no magic,\" said Kadka with an impressed nod. \"You must know much about spells, to do this for so long. This is why Greymond asks for your help?\"\n\nThey were nearing the narrow gap between the lecture theatre and Thalen's Hall\u2014the administrative center of the University. There were no guards in sight. And Kadka seemed charmed by his story, for the moment.\n\nHe wasn't going to get a better chance.\n\n\"Something like that,\" Tane said. \"And I want to help. The woman who died\u2026 I knew her.\"\n\nKadka frowned. \"I am sorry. There is no good way to lose friend, but that is bad one.\"\n\n\"That's why I wanted a closer look. I know you're supposed to bring me to the gates, but maybe we could stop by the artifice workshops? We don't have to go in, I just\u2026 I want to see for myself that they're taking the investigation seriously.\"\n\nShe hesitated. \"Greymond says\u2014\"\n\n\"I know. Look, though.\" He still had her badge in his hand, and he flipped it over to show the polished brass on the back where the glyphs were engraved. On this side, glinting in the light, it looked like nothing more than a strangely patterned coin. \"These glyphs are keyed to the campus wards. They determine who can go in and out. Without one of these, I can't get anywhere I'm not supposed to, so\u2026\" His foot caught on a cobblestone, and a glinting circle fell from his hand, rolling away into the grass. \"Well that was stupid. Can you see it?\"\n\nKadka stepped off the path, kneeling to look for her badge.\n\nThe moment her back was turned, Tane bolted.\n\nHe darted into the narrow alley between buildings just ahead and to his right. Kadka shouted what might have been a Svernan curse\u2014\"Deshka,\" it sounded like\u2014and then he heard her running. He took a left into the alley behind the dining hall, where a locked gate barred the way. With any luck, Kadka would see that and assume he'd gone the other way, which would cost her time heading back toward the lecture theatre before joining with the main footpath on the other side.\n\nBut Tane had cut through this gate many times when he'd been a student. The latch was easy to flip.\n\nHe rounded the next corner and froze, holding his breath and waiting for the patter of Kadka's feet passing by the little alley. And there it was\u2014she was going the wrong way. Thank the Astra.\n\nTane exited the alley onto the open grass of the campus center. From there it was a quick sprint across to the artifice workshops on the north side.\n\nHe was panting as he neared the broad brick building, but he couldn't see Kadka behind him yet. He forced himself to slow down and breathe through his nose. Don't want to look too suspicious to the guards.\n\nThere were two men at the door, a broad-shouldered human and a dwarf with thick mutton-chop sideburns. Spellfire, let them not recognize me.\n\n\"Gentlemen.\" Tane gave them a nod, and strode confidently for the door.\n\nThe dwarf moved to block his way. \"The building is closed, sir.\"\n\nTane flashed them Kadka's badge\u2014he'd palmed it up his sleeve and dropped the coin for her to chase. \"That's why I'm here,\" he said. \"Dean Greymond asked me to double check the wards, make sure no one has access who shouldn't. We don't want the scene tampered with before the constables get here.\" He shook his head sadly. \"That poor girl. I hope they catch the bastard who did this soon.\" Greymond had said they were still keeping the murder quiet\u2014just knowing about it would make his story credible.\n\n\"Damn right,\" said the big human. \"No one should die like that.\" He waved his partner aside. \"Go on in. It's the one at the far end of the hall.\"\n\nTane pushed through the doors, risking a quick glance over his shoulder. Still no sign of Kadka, but she wouldn't be long. It would take her a moment to explain why she didn't have her badge, and then they'd come after him.\n\nHe didn't have much time.\n\nTwo smaller workshops sat at either side of the mage-lit hall, but Tane hurried toward the far end. The primary workshop took up most of the back half of the building, an ample space for artificers to develop the magical devices and machines that made their small island nation a powerful force in the economy of the Continent.\n\nThe door wasn't locked. Tane was certain that the keys to most doors on campus had been misplaced long ago out of simple disuse\u2014the wards were meant to be an improvement over any mundane lock.\n\nBut they hadn't been enough to protect Allaea.\n\nI hope this works. If it didn't, it was going to be like walking into a wall. He took a deep breath, and stepped forward through the open doorway. He felt a familiar tingle on his skin, and the hair on the backs of his arms stood up as he met the wards.\n\nAnd then he was through.\n\nThere was no time for relief. The guards would be coming soon.\n\nThe workshop stretched open before him, a vast, warehouse-like space stacked with shelf after shelf of artifacts and components and ancryst machines in various states of disassembly. The metals common to artifice glittered in the dim magelight: copper for conductivity, brass for insulation, silver for amplification, gold for stability. Stacks of tubes and plates were interspersed with brass chests, carefully sealed to protect the magically reactive ancryst stone within. Gears and cogs and rods of iron and steel were strewn everywhere\u2014Astrally inactive metals that wouldn't interfere with the magic fields that drove ancryst machinery. High up on the walls, in the shadows near the ceiling, he could vaguely make out glyphs of the wards surrounding the room.\n\nAnd there was the body.\n\nTane hadn't seen her at first. She'd been left for the bluecaps to examine with their divinations, lying face-down on the floor some ten feet back, half-hidden between shelves. Devastatingly close to the door. If she'd just been a little bit faster\u2026\n\nHe knelt beside her. Her head lay on its side, staring back at him with scorched, empty eye-sockets. Thank the Astra Indree isn't here to see her like this. He wouldn't even have known it was Allaea if Greymond hadn't told him. Much of her skin had melted and sloughed from her skull, leaving exposed patches of blackened bone crumbling to powder in places. Only a few locks of blonde hair remained on her scalp, clinging to patches of flesh the spellfire hadn't touched. Tane's stomach lurched, and he had to look away.\n\nI'll help find whoever did this to you, Allaea. I promise you that.\n\nThere were no scorch-marks anywhere but on her flesh, no signs of fire behind her. Despite its great heat, spellfire went only where it was aimed by a mage, and burned only what it was permitted to burn\u2014assuming, of course, that the spell was worded properly. But scattered metal parts and stray gemstones marked the way she'd come, knocked from the shelves in her haste. The trail led deeper into the workshop. There was something strange about that. If he snuck up on her with the intent to kill, how did she get this far? He should have been between her and the door, but it looks like he was chasing her this way.\n\nA sudden thud came from the doorway, and a grunt of pain. Tane leapt to his feet and looked toward the sound.\n\nKadka was outside, rubbing her nose where it had struck the wards. She gave him a rueful grin. \"Forgot. No badge.\"\n\nShe was, as far as he could tell, alone. \"Where are the other guards?\"\n\n\"Outside. I tell them I have message for you from Dean Greymond.\"\n\n\"What? Why?\"\n\nKadka shrugged. \"Tell them you stole badge, maybe trouble for me. We leave quietly now, maybe not.\"\n\n\"You're not angry?\" Orcs had a reputation for ill temper, though Tane supposed that could easily be rumor and prejudice. There weren't many of them in the Protectorate to judge by.\n\n\"Why be angry? You wanted to help friend. And chase is more exciting than standing by door all day.\" She grinned again, and then cocked her head. \"How are you inside? Even with badge, should only let in deans and guard now, yes?\"\n\nTane's fists clenched with an anger he knew all too well. He forced one open, found the brass watch casing in his pocket, and touched the familiar dents and scrapes. \"I'll tell you how. Someone was careless. There are two wards on this room. The first is used in secure areas all across campus, a general purpose ward that keeps out anyone but registered faculty, staff, and students. Present and former students, so they can bring wealthy alumni through when they need donations. The second ward narrows access to anyone who can get through the first and has a properly glyphed badge. When they restricted the wards, they didn't change the first one, and I am in the registry as a former student. Expelled, but that's a kind of former. That phrasing was the first thing I noticed when Greymond showed me the ward diagrams. They did restrict the badges allowed through the second ward, but University Guard badges still have access.\" He flashed her badge. \"And I have this.\n\n\"Small oversights. Easy to correct. But nobody did, so here I am. They assumed no one would get by both wards, or maybe no one noticed the problem at all\u2014no mage is going to look very closely at some glyphs in the corner once the spell's been cast. Any of the staff who maintain those glyphs and the gems that power them might have caught it, but they don't know what they're looking for. Menial jobs like that are beneath a trained mage. People who can't cast spells don't get to understand them.\n\n\"You came here for the magic? Well, let me tell you the most important thing about magic, Kadka. There's a flaw in all of it, the same flaw in every spell: the mage. When they make a mistake, who's going to challenge them on it? That's why I'm standing here. That's why my friend is dead. Because there's always\u2014\"\n\nA distant howl cut off the end of Tane's diatribe, something like an animal's call with the low crack and groan of sudden frost behind it. It had to have come from deeper in the workshop, but it sounded somehow further away than the size of the room would allow. His heart thumped against his chest, and he half-turned toward the sound, then back toward Kadka.\n\nShe was staring past him, a focused glint in her eye. Drawing her shortsword with one hand, she beckoned to Tane with the other. \"My badge,\" she said in a low voice. \"Something is in there with you.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "Tane tossed Kadka her badge. She caught it in her outstretched hand and stepped freely through the wards.\n\n\"Stay,\" she whispered, and started down an aisle between shelves, toward the source of the sound. She moved with the easy, silent grace of a predator\u2014a wolf stalking prey.\n\nTane hesitated a moment, and then followed. Kadka just shrugged, and held a finger to her lips.\n\nThe noise had come from the back end of the shop, past the shelves, where the artificers' worktables stood cluttered with parts and spell diagrams. At the last row of shelves, Kadka halted Tane with a raised hand and peeked around the corner, then beckoned him closer. Tane crept toward her and stole a look.\n\nBetween the worktables, a shimmering silver-edged hole in reality split the air. Through it, Tane could see another room, but it was hard to discern any details\u2014the image rippled and distorted, like he was seeing it through a translucent silver-blue curtain shifting in the wind. It could have been anywhere.\n\n\"What is this?\" Kadka asked, barely loud enough to hear.\n\n\"A portal,\" Tane breathed. \"That's not supposed to be possible.\" He'd never even seen an open portal before\u2014he'd been taught the theory, but opening tears in the world through the Astra was the most dangerous kind of magic, and his teachers hadn't dared demonstrate. The strict portal wards on campus shouldn't have allowed anyone but the heads of the University to open one here. Tane had only ever heard of it being done once in recent memory, when an ancient sub-basement of the invocation hall had collapsed over a decade ago, and even then only after every other way of freeing the trapped students had been tried.\n\nThe sound came again, a distant, icy howl. Is that the portal? Are they supposed to make that noise? He'd read of portals making strange sounds, but he didn't have the experience to be certain.\n\nAnd a tear in the Astra doing anything unexpected was a very bad sign.\n\nHe was still watching the portal when Kadka tapped him on the shoulder. She gestured past the silver-blue rift, toward the back of the workshop where a bank of drawers ran along the wall\u2014storage for spell diagrams. A figure in black was bent over one of the drawers. By size and build, he was probably a human or half-elf. From behind, Tane couldn't tell what he was doing, and a dark cowl hid his face.\n\nExactly like the cowl Allaea had seen in her last moments.\n\n\"Have to stop him,\" Kadka whispered. \"This time, you stay.\" With a slight grin, she stepped around the corner.\n\nShe made no sound as she stalked across the floor toward the intruder. Tane watched, holding his breath, expecting the man to turn around with each step she took. But he didn't, and she was closing the distance rapidly.\n\nThis has to be the man who killed Allaea. The portal explains how he got by the guards, but why come back? Tane inched around the corner, straining for a better look. He had no intention of following Kadka\u2014he couldn't move anywhere near as quietly\u2014but if he could just get a glimpse of the drawer the man was looking at\u2026\n\nThe tip of Tane's foot slid beyond the front edge of the shelf.\n\nInstantly, the intruder spun on his heel. His cowl covered his face, but his head swiveled toward Tane's position among the shelves as if guided there by magic.\n\nHe must have had a detection spell up! But Kadka\u2026 And then Tane remembered: orcs were said to have a very weak Astral presence. He'd read of divinations struggling to detect them at all. Damn it! She would have had him if I'd just stayed still!\n\nIt was only then that the intruder noticed Kadka, not twenty feet away from him. He uttered a muffled curse under his mask. There was something in his hand, but Tane couldn't tell what it was before the man tucked it away behind his back.\n\nFor a moment, neither Kadka nor the intruder moved. Both glanced toward the open portal\u2014about halfway between them and several yards to the left, from Tane's vantage point.\n\nAnd then the man lunged into motion, sprinting for the rift at desperate speed.\n\nKadka was faster by far. She vaulted onto a nearby table, leapt across the next, and landed on her feet between the portal and the man in black. He skidded to a stop, spun, and ran for the shelves.\n\nHe can't get away. That was the only thought going through Tane's head as his feet carried him into the open. He leapt in front of the intruder, and they collided with jarring force. Tane fell back, and the other man landed hard on top of him, knocking the air from his lungs.\n\nThe man in black was on his feet in an instant. Kadka was already coming for him, her sword drawn. Tane heard the man utter a short spell in the lingua magica, and tried to warn her, but he couldn't get his breath.\n\nSilver-blue force rippled from the black-clad mage in all directions\u2014a precisely targeted spell would have taken too long to recite, with Kadka closing fast. A crushing pressure shoved Tane along the floor into a nearby shelf, and hurled Kadka against the worktable behind her. She grunted in pain as the edge of the table hit the small of her back.\n\nThe man bolted for the portal, half turned, and sent another wave of force crashing over them. Kadka ducked beneath one of the tables, gripping the anchored leg to weather the spell; Tane couldn't get on his feet in time to take cover. Silver magic pressed him hard against the shelf behind him.\n\nUnmoored by the spell, the shelf swayed dangerously, and started to topple.\n\nTane tried to scramble out of the way on his hands and knees. Heavy metal and gemstones clattered to the floor on all sides. The shadow of the falling shelf stretched across the floor in front of him.\n\nHe wasn't going to make it.\n\nA grey hand tufted with white fur gripped him by the wrist, and yanked him forward. The shelf struck the ground just behind him with a thunderous crash; on either side, several others swayed and fell just as loudly.\n\nKadka pulled him to his feet.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Tane gasped, but she was already whirling to chase the intruder.\n\nThe mage was nearly at the portal now. Kadka drew the brass-barrelled ancryst pistol from her belt and took aim. Spellfire, no. All ancryst machinery was based on one property\u2014that the translucent green stone reacted to the presence of magic by moving in the opposite direction, the way lodestones repelled one another from the wrong ends. When she pulled the trigger, the firing charm would be consumed in a burst of magical energy, propelling a lead ball with an ancryst core from the barrel of the weapon.\n\nToward a portal into the Astra\u2014the very essence of all magic.\n\n\"Kadka, wait!\" Tane shouted, already running toward her.\n\nHe was too late. She pulled the trigger, and the pistol discharged with a silver-blue flash.\n\nTane tackled Kadka to the ground as the ball ricocheted directly back from the portal. Splinters flew as it struck the table behind them, digging a long groove through the wood.\n\nWhen Tane looked up, the intruder was already through the portal. On the far side of that silvery curtain, the man extended his hand to touch something Tane couldn't make out. The portal bulged at the edges, twisting and writhing.\n\nKadka leapt to her feet and hurled herself forward.\n\nThe portal snapped closed in a blinding burst of silver.\n\nThe man was gone.\n\n\"Deshka!\" Kadka cursed at empty space, and then turned to Tane. \"Are you hurt?\"\n\n\"I've been better, but no permanent damage,\" said Tane.\n\n\"Captain will not like this. Let you steal badge, let this poska go.\" She gestured vaguely at where the portal had been.\n\n\"He didn't get away entirely clean,\" said Tane. \"I took this when he ran into me. He tried to hide it when he saw us.\" He reached behind his back and pulled a brass cylinder from his belt. It looked like a scroll case, capped at one end.\n\nKadka laughed. \"Clever man with clever hands. This is important?\" She peered at the tube as she stowed her sword and pistol.\n\nTane was about to answer when the lights began to flicker. Directly above, one of the magelight fixtures in the ceiling blinked out. Suddenly, the already dim workshop was a great deal dimmer.\n\n\"Oh no. No no no.\" Tane looked over Kadka's shoulder.\n\nThere, in the exact place the portal had been, a hazy figure drifted a foot above the floor, glowing a faint silver-blue. Another light flickered out overhead, and the shape became more defined, easier to see. It was humanoid but lacked any sort of detail, just an outline of Astral energy with two points of intense lightning-blue for eyes.\n\nA wraith.\n\nKadka turned to see what he was looking at, and her hand went back to her sword.\n\n\"Don't,\" said Tane, tucking the scroll case back into his belt and backing away from the hazy figure. \"You can't hurt it that way.\" It was beginning to move towards them now, drifting slowly, still gaining its bearings in the physical world.\n\n\"What is it?\" She copied his movement, backing away a step as the wraith drifted closer.\n\n\"A wraith. An Astral spirit.\" Some said wraiths were what remained of those lost in unstable portals, forced to wander the Astra until they found a way out. Others claimed that they were spirits of corrupted Astral energy, created by grievous abuses of magic. Tane didn't know what they were, just that they were extremely dangerous. \"Whoever that man was, he had to close his portal without proper precautions to keep us from following him. He must have destabilized it. That's why portal spells are so restricted\u2014make any mistakes, and these things get out.\"\n\n\"Dangerous?\"\n\n\"Very. They feast on Astral energy, and the link to the Astra is everything that makes us who we are, mage or no. What people called the soul, before they knew what it was. You won't die without it, but\u2026 The Astra-riven aren't themselves anymore. Just shells.\"\n\nAbruptly, the wraith blurred forward, moving toward Kadka with unsettling speed. The worktables did nothing to slow it\u2014its silvery form passed through them as if they weren't there. It made no sound as it moved.\n\n\"Watch out!\" Tane shouted.\n\nKadka leapt aside; the wraith passed silently by.\n\nAnd kept moving toward Tane.\n\nThat wasn't right. Wraiths were drawn to Astral energy, and she should have been the nearest source. Spellfire, her Astral signature is too weak! Just like with the detection spell!\n\nIt had never been moving toward her\u2014she'd just been standing between it and a much tastier meal.\n\nTane turned on his heel and ran.\n\nArtifice debris was scattered all across the floor from fallen shelves\u2014maybe some with enough magical charge to distract the wraith a moment, if he was lucky. As he moved he searched frantically through the mess for what he needed. I know I saw\u2026 there! Sticking up from between the slats of a fallen shelf was the brass casing of an ancryst engine, large enough that Tane could almost have fit inside if he curled into a ball. Brass was always used for an engine's outer shell, as an insulator\u2014it stopped Astral energy from passing through, so no external magical force could disrupt the movement of the ancryst pistons.\n\nTane hopped over the broken shelves that stood in his way and knelt beside the engine, then risked a look behind him. The wraith approached erratically, drifting for short stretches to drain this small artifact or that, and then advancing in blurs of sudden speed. As it moved, the magelights overhead flickered and failed.\n\nJust behind him, Kadka vaulted through the remains of the shelf to grab his shoulder. \"This is not time for playing with machine! Run!\"\n\nTane tugged at the engine casing's hatch, a twelve-inch square plate that provided access to the internal workings. It wouldn't open\u2014it must have been bent in the fall. \"We can't leave that thing free. They're only visible in the dark. If it gets out onto campus in the daylight\u2026\"\n\nKadka didn't hesitate, just gave a firm nod. \"What, then?\"\n\nThe wraith surged forward, and Tane threw himself out of the way just in time to avoid its touch. \"It doesn't seem to want you! I'll keep its attention, just get that hatch open!\"\n\nShe yanked it open in a single pull. \"What now?\"\n\n\"Give me a minute!\" Tane scrambled back as the wraith moved implacably toward him. Something rolled under his foot. He stumbled, and barely caught himself on the edge of a fallen shelf.\n\nThe wraith loomed over him. Hazy fingers reached out, grazed his chest. A terrible cold radiated through his body. He sagged back against the ground, felt his awareness fading\u2026\n\n\"Carver!\"\n\nKadka's voice pierced the fog, and Tane rolled desperately to the side, gasping. If it touches me again, I'm done. And it was still there above him, a ghost made of silver-blue light. An indistinct hand grasped for his heart.\n\nBeneath his foot, Tane saw what it was he'd tripped on: a copper rod some four feet long. Just what I was looking for.\n\nHe snatched the rod up, ducked beneath the wraith's reaching hand, and made for Kadka and the engine. \"Get ready to close the hatch, when I say!\" Rod in hand, he turned to face the wraith.\n\nIt was just behind him, moving fast.\n\nTane jammed one end of the rod into the hatch, braced it so that it pointed at the wraith, and let go. The wraith surged forward, crossing the last few feet almost faster than he could see.\n\nAnd impaled a body made of magic on a rod of magically conductive copper.\n\nThe wraith dissolved into silver-blue mist, drawn along the length of the rod, and pooled inside the brass engine casing. It only took an instant. With his sleeve over his hand, Tane grabbed the rod and pulled it free. Even that short moment of contact through the cloth of his shirt was enough to send cold racing up his arm to the elbow.\n\n\"Now!\"\n\nKadka slammed the hatch closed.\n\nFor a moment, they were both silent, watching the engine hatch. Nothing. No sign of movement. The seal was good, and the wraith was a creature of magic\u2014it couldn't pass through brass.\n\nFinally, Kadka looked up at him, grinning her sharp-toothed grin. \"Is like this every day for you, or just lucky today?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's all the time.\" Tane couldn't help but grin back. \"That's the third one I've trapped since breakfast.\"\n\nKadka cackled and clapped him on the shoulder, and then they were both laughing, out of giddy relief as much as anything.\n\n\"You two seem to be having fun. I hope we aren't interrupting.\" A woman's voice, from somewhere amid the shelves nearer the door. Tane instinctively slipped the brass scroll case from his belt and let it fall in with the scattered artifice parts littering the floor\u2014just another piece of debris.\n\nIn the space of a moment, a half-dozen constables of various races surrounded Tane and Kadka. All of them wore blue uniforms and distinctive brimmed caps, batons on one hip and ancryst pistols on the other. Constable's badges glinted at their breasts\u2014gold shields with the Protectorate's gryphon at the center. Most were men\u2014three humans, an elf, a kobold\u2014but standing head and shoulders above the others was a nine-foot tall ogren woman, striking and statuesque, as her people always were. Even if Tane had been so inclined, trying to flee would be pointless. No one joined the constabulary without some skill at magecraft, particularly spells to locate and subdue suspects quickly and efficiently.\n\nBehind them came another woman in the same uniform, but with the gold cord of a constable inspector at her shoulder. She held her cap clasped under one arm. It was too dim to see her face very well, but she was half-elven, with slightly pointed ears and a build somewhere between human and elf, solid but lean. \"Search them,\" she said.\n\nThe ogren bluecap grabbed Tane and Kadka and lifted them to their feet. The constables patted both of them down, taking Kadka's sword and pistol\u2014and several knives she'd apparently had hidden on her. Tane raised an eyebrow after the third; she just grinned back at him.\n\n\"Nothing stolen, Inspector,\" the elven bluecap said when he'd finally confiscated all of Kadka's blades.\n\nWhen the ogren woman released his arm, Tane let himself fall, feigning a loss of balance. He landed hard on his ass, and winced. \"Ouch.\" A quick grab behind his back and he had the scroll case again. He tucked it surreptitiously into his belt and pulled his waistcoat down to hide it.\n\n\"Get him up,\" said the half-elf, and the ogren did just that, hauling Tane roughly to his feet.\n\nThe half-elf approached, near enough that Tane could see her clearly even in the weak light. Her skin was a tawny brown, and her black hair was pinned up so that it would fit under her constable's cap. Her face was more elven than human, long and delicately featured with high cheekbones. When she reached Tane, amber eyes that he would have known anywhere widened in sudden recognition. \"Tane?\"\n\n\"Indree?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "The ogren bluecap had to duck her head to enter the waiting room outside the chancellor's office, escorting Tane and Kadka in behind Indree.\n\n\"You can go, Laertha,\" said Indree. \"See that no one else enters the workshops without permission. I don't want the scene contaminated any more than it already is.\" She threw Tane an annoyed glance, there.\n\nThe ogren woman nodded. \"Understood, Inspector,\" she said in a perfect, melodious voice, and then ducked back out the doors.\n\nTane rubbed his arm where the big hand had gripped it\u2014rather more tightly than he liked. \"Is all this really necessary, Ree? You know we aren't criminals.\"\n\n\"Constable Inspector Lovial,\" Indree corrected. She didn't bother to respond to the rest of it. \"My friends call me Ree. We aren't friends.\"\n\n\"Constable Inspector?\" Tane said. \"Already? Always the over-achiever.\" He hadn't expected to see her in a bluecap's uniform, but it was no shock at all that she'd risen quickly through the ranks. Indree had always excelled at anything she wanted to excel at.\n\nIndree didn't answer. Instead, she strode across the small waiting room and knocked firmly on the inner door.\n\n\"Enter,\" came a voice from the other side.\n\n\"Come on,\" Indree said, and beckoned to Tane and Kadka. \"Don't do anything else stupid, and maybe I won't be throwing you in a cell at the end of this.\" She pushed open the door and strode through.\n\nKadka leaned close to Tane, grinning. \"Think she likes you,\" she whispered.\n\n\"She used to,\" Tane answered quietly, and followed Indree in.\n\nTane had been in the chancellor's office only once before, after submitting his dissertation, and that meeting had ended in his expulsion. He very much hoped this one went better. The office was much as he remembered, huge and well-appointed, decorated with impressive artwork and artifacts of historical meaning to the University. One piece in particular drew his attention, one he didn't remember from the last time: a bronze sculpture against the northern wall depicting an archaic mage's staff extending upright through the center of a crown. The Mage Emperor's sigil. If the piece truly dated from the time of the Mage War, it was some six hundred years old.\n\nInside, the deans of the University waited on either side of the chancellor's desk: Dean Greymond, of course, frowning sternly at Tane; Sorn Brassforge, the dwarven Dean of Artifice, scratching his short auburn beard uncomfortably; and Valis Orthea, the Dean of Invocation, a massive, flaxen-haired ogren woman who could have been sculpted from marble.\n\nAnd sitting behind the desk was Chancellor Talain Nieris, a pale elven man with startlingly blue eyes and just a touch of grey in the black hair around his sharply pointed ears\u2014the only sign of his three hundred and more years, a long life even for an elf. One of the elder scions of House Nieris, a Great House of the Senate, he'd been named chancellor of the University near a hundred years ago. The latest in a long tradition of elves in the position. Where most of the so-called magical races had some innate magical quirk\u2014the instinctive illusory camouflage of the gnomish, or the stone-and metal-sense of the dwarven\u2014elves were, in the eyes of many, the living essence of magic. Almost none were born without the gift of magecraft, and their long lifespans allowed them to master it in ways few others could. When the Senate of Houses appointed a chancellor, it was almost always an elf, and almost never a surprise.\n\n\"Inspector Lovial. Thank you for dealing with this so promptly.\" Nieris stood and nodded a polite greeting. He was impeccably dressed, in a deep purple longcoat with a ruffled silvery cravat at his throat. \"And Mister Carver. How\u2026 unexpected, to see you here again.\" If he was surprised, though, it certainly didn't show on his face. He gestured to a number of chairs arrayed before his desk. \"All of you, please sit. I understand we have much to discuss.\"\n\nTane took his seat, the brass cylinder tucked in his belt pressing uncomfortably against his back. He gestured at the sculpture of the staff and crown. \"A bit of a controversial piece to have on display, isn't it?\" The Mage Emperor wasn't remembered very kindly by history. The last ruler of the Estian Empire, his war to subjugate the magicless had shattered a dominion that once stretched all across Calene and parts of the southern continent of Anjica. It was in the aftermath of the Mage War that the Audland Protectorate had been founded, an island haven for the mages and magical races who had found themselves feared and hated across the Continent\u2014whether they had sided with the Mage Emperor or not.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Nieris said mildly, settling back into his chair. \"They say that forgotten history is doomed to repeat. If that is the case, then the Mage War is worth remembering, is it not?\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Tane. He still didn't like having to look at the thing. Easy to dismiss when you have magic. It was the ones who didn't that he enslaved and killed.\n\n\"In any event, we aren't here to talk about the past.\" Nieris looked to Indree. \"Constable Inspector, if you would?\"\n\nIndree was still standing behind Tane and Kadka, her cap under one arm. \"Of course, Chancellor Nieris. For the benefit of those of you who weren't there, Stooketon Yard sent me to meet with the chancellor about the murder. Shortly after I arrived he informed me of a triggered alarm spell in the primary artifice workshop. Considering that we had come to investigate the same location, I chose to respond in place of the University Guard. When we arrived, we found the scene in\u2026 considerable disarray. These two were alone inside. We searched them, but found no evidence of theft.\"\n\n\"The alarm was us,\" Tane offered. \"I'll admit that. It must have detected me when I gave Kadka back her badge. But there was already someone in there. The real question is, why didn't he trigger it?\" No apologies\u2014if he had any chance of not being thrown off campus, begging wouldn't do it. Confidence opened more doors than contrition.\n\nNieris frowned. \"Perhaps you should tell us this story from the beginning, Mister Carver.\"\n\nIt didn't take long for Tane to explain what had happened: the intruder, the portal, the wraith, and the smaller details in between. \"And that's about everything,\" he finished. \"Questions?\"\n\nGreymond was the first to speak, rubbing her fingers against her temples. \"You promised you wouldn't\u2026 Spellfire, Tane, I should have the Inspector throw you in a cell.\"\n\n\"Allaea was my friend. Are you really surprised that I lied?\"\n\nGreymond sighed. \"I shouldn't be, should I? But somehow I keep thinking better of you. I'm sorry, Chancellor Nieris. This is my fault. I never should have asked\u2014\"\n\n\"We can work out who is to blame later, Dean Greymond,\" said Chancellor Nieris. It was, Tane thought, more than a little bit satisfying to see Greymond interrupted for once. \"Right now I only want information.\" Nieris turned to Kadka. \"What about you, Miss\u2026 Kadka, was it? What do you have to say for yourself?\"\n\nMost University Guard would have been cowed under question from the chancellor, but not Kadka. She just stared back at him, her arms crossed. \"Is not so bad, is it? If we aren't there, no one knows this man comes back, or how. No one finds\u2014\"\n\n\"Any of the information we have now that we didn't before,\" Tane said, before she could mention the scroll case. Kadka gave him a questioning glance, but she didn't contradict him. \"We know he used a portal to get in, for one thing.\"\n\n\"So you said. That shouldn't be possible.\" Now Nieris looked to Indree. \"Inspector Lovial, you saw evidence of this wraith?\"\n\n\"I did. They trapped it in an engine casing.\"\n\n\"Then I suppose we must believe your tale, Mister Carver. Where there is a wraith, there must have been a portal. You say it made a noise?\"\n\nTane nodded. \"A howl, with a kind of crackling, groaning sound behind it. It made me think of ice.\"\n\n\"Like tunvok,\" said Kadka, and then, after confused glances from all sides, \"Animal. From Sverna.\"\n\n\"It might well have been,\" said Nieris. \"I can't imagine the portal came from there\u2014the distance is too great\u2014but such rifts are\u2026 deeply unstable. It isn't uncommon for random instabilities to draw sound through the Astra from places half the world away.\" He laid a finger against his chin. \"But I don't see how this man could have done it. I crafted the campus wards against such spells myself, and I daresay there is no mage alive with as much experience in portal magic.\" That was true\u2014Nieris had been university faculty for literal centuries, and experiments with portals had been much less restricted in his youth.\n\n\"What if there were no portal wards for him to bypass?\" Tane asked. \"Would anyone have noticed if they'd already failed somehow? Portals aren't exactly common. It might have been decades since anyone tried to open one on campus.\"\n\nIt was Indree who answered. \"We've already secured the workshop and begun testing the wards. I received a sending on the way here verifying that they are intact.\"\n\n\"Of course they are,\" Nieris said, rather haughtily. \"Our ward maintenance is very thorough.\"\n\n\"Well, then, there's another possibility no one is going to like very much,\" said Tane. \"Any of you four can cast portals on campus. I know you were together last night, but were all of you accounted for today?\"\n\nDean Orthea didn't look offended so much as absolutely horrified\u2014and her exquisitely sculpted ogren features made even that rather lovely. \"You aren't suggesting\u2026 It isn't possible that one of us could have done that to Miss Hesliar, is it?\" She was very much the clich\u00e9d representative of her people\u2014gentle, sensitive, appalled by senseless violence. Rather cruelly ironic, Tane had always thought, considering their great curse: one of every three was born a brutish, barely sentient ogre that had to be sequestered in a sanctuary at the far south of the Isle.\n\n\"Of course not, Valis,\" Nieris said, in the bland, placating tone of a man who had dealt with such sensitivity a thousand times before. \"Classes were in session during your\u2026 adventure, Mister Carver. Any number of students can account for the whereabouts of each of my deans. And I was meeting with Inspector Lovial.\"\n\n\"Then someone found another way through,\" said Tane. \"There must be a loophole, some way to make the wards see an intruder as one of you. I'd recommend changing the portal wards until we know more, at least for the workshops. No portals at all, in or out. The only perfect spell is one that deals in absolutes.\"\n\n\"As much as I appreciate your insights, Mister Carver,\" Nieris said dryly, \"keep in mind that you are here to be questioned, not to lead the investigation.\"\n\nTane seized the opening. \"Sir, at this point I know as much about what happened as anyone. More than most. I saw the man who did it. Even Ree\u2014er, Inspector Lovial can't say that. If you want this solved quickly, you need me.\"\n\nDean Greymond interjected almost before Tane had finished speaking. \"Chancellor, I don't think\u2014\"\n\nAt the same time, Indree said, \"Sir, I have to protest\u2014\"\n\nNieris silenced them both with a raised hand. \"Interesting. Perhaps 'need' is a strong word, but then\u2026 you have found several flaws in our wards already, and provided information we would not otherwise have, putting aside the issue of your rather questionable methods. And I will admit you showed considerable courage and ingenuity in dealing with the wraith.\"\n\nAgain, Greymond cut in. \"Chancellor Nieris, there is the University's reputation to consider. If Mister Carver is seen\u2026\"\n\n\"That ship is already well over the horizon, Dean Greymond,\" Tane said. \"If I wasn't noticed on campus before, I promise you nobody missed me being marched here by the constabulary. Better to claim that you asked me here to assist than admit you let an expelled student\u2014particularly this expelled student\u2014gain access to a murder scene without permission. Especially if the Lady Protector is watching closely.\" That was something of a guess, but Greymond had suggested it might be the case earlier\u2014and if it was, the University couldn't afford any embarrassing gaffes.\n\n\"You do make a compelling argument for yourself, Mister Carver.\" Nieris stroked his chin. \"It may be prudent to keep you on, if only for appearances.\"\n\nIndree shook her head. \"With respect, Chancellor Nieris, I won't allow this. Murder doesn't fall under campus autonomy. This is firmly within the purview of Stooketon Yard, and I can't have anyone interfering in my investigation.\"\n\n\"Normally you would be correct, Inspector,\" said Nieris, \"but the Lady Protector has taken an interest in this, as Mister Carver suggests. I spoke with her shortly before summoning you. She wants the matter resolved promptly, before anyone links it to the airship project. The launch is scheduled for the day after next, and it must not be delayed. I have been granted broad authority to speed the investigation along. Mister Carver, the University can offer you fifty staves a day\u2014will that suffice?\"\n\nIndree caught Tane's eye with a glare and shook her head, but he wasn't about to pass up an offer like that. All personal investment in the case aside, he was lucky to make fifty silver staves in a given month. \"That should be\u2026 adequate. I'll need a badge, though.\"\n\n\"And have you wandering the campus entirely unrestricted?\" Nieris chuckled in mild amusement. \"I admire the attempt, but I think not. It's one thing to hire you, and another to let you display University colors. Take what's offered, Mister Carver.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" Tane said with a shrug. \"I had to try. We have a deal.\"\n\n\"Splendid.\"\n\nDean Brassforge had raised his head at the mention of the airship\u2014he'd always been reserved for a dwarf, unless he was talking about one of his projects. \"So you think they were after my airship spells?\" He scratched at his beard. \"I don't like that at all. She's supposed to fly in a few days.\"\n\n\"I imagine we'll find that it's unrelated, Sorn,\" said Nieris. \"Lady Abena simply wants us to be certain. But there are a hundred other projects being worked on in that shop, and we have no reason to believe this tragedy wasn't about some personal matter.\"\n\n\"Actually, sir,\" said Indree, \"if Tane's story is true, then we have to assume this man wasn't there to kill Allaea, or he wouldn't have had reason to come back. I don't think he was expecting her to be there. He must have been scared off when she screamed for the guards, and returned today to finish whatever he meant to do that night. That doesn't mean the airship project, necessarily, but those diagrams are kept in the section where Tane says he was looking.\"\n\nNieris didn't look greatly pleased, but he said, \"A point well taken, Inspector Lovial. I'll trust you and Mister Carver to look into that. Now, if you will all excuse me, I must see to the banishment of this wraith, and I don't want to hold you up any longer. If you need anything else, I have asked Dean Greymond to act as the University's liason in this matter\u2014her divinations should prove useful to you.\"\n\nThe deans were the first out the door, but Indree lingered as Tane and Kadka stood. It was only then that Nieris spoke again. \"Miss Kadka, if you would stay behind for one moment, please?\"\n\nTane exchanged a glance with Kadka as he left, but she only shrugged. Spellfire, I hope I haven't got her in too much trouble.\n\nAs soon as they left the chancellor's waiting room, Indree spun to face him. She didn't look happy.\n\n\"Indree, I know you don't want my\u2014\"\n\nIndree pressed a finger against his chest, backing him into the wall. \"I don't care what Nieris said in there. You aren't getting involved. I just saw my best friend with the skin burned off her face\"\u2014her voice quavered slightly there, but she didn't stop\u2014\"and I intend to find the man who did it. I don't know why you came back, but the last thing I need is you making a mess of things.\"\n\nIt was disorienting, having her so near. The last time her face had been this close to his, it had been for very different reasons. Or maybe not. We always did argue as often as the other thing. \"I'm so sorry, Indree. When I heard that it was Allaea\u2026 I just wanted to help.\"\n\nIndree's scowl softened, but only slightly. \"So you said before. I wish I could believe that you still care that much, Tane, I really do. But how am I supposed to trust anything you say? I'll make it simple for you: I don't care if you take the University's money. Just don't get in my way.\"\n\nThe door opened behind them, and Kadka emerged. Indree backed quickly away from Tane, flushing slightly.\n\nTane straightened his waistcoat and turned to Kadka, attempting to appear as collected as he could manage. \"What did he want?\"\n\n\"To tell me I am not guard anymore,\" she said. \"I let you steal badge and lied to hide it. Can't have that when security must be strongest, he says.\"\n\n\"That's hardly fair. I'll tell him it was my fault, he'll have to\u2014\" Tane moved toward the door.\n\nKadka blocked his way with one arm. \"No. Won't help. Is done.\"\n\n\"She's right,\" said Indree. \"The chancellor isn't going to overturn his decision for you, of all people.\" A short pause, and then, to Kadka, \"I'm sorry he got you into this.\"\n\n\"Got into it myself.\" The corner of Kadka's mouth quirked upward. \"Even if he starts it.\"\n\n\"Either way, take my advice: get away before he makes it any worse,\" said Indree. \"Oh, and I had your knives delivered to the guard barracks. You can retrieve them there. I don't know what you need so many of them for, but they're legal enough.\" She gave Tane one last look, as if she might say something more, and then shook her head and strode away down the hall.\n\nTane watched her go, until Kadka stole his attention back with a nudge in the ribs. \"Know she likes you now.\"\n\n\"How do you get that from what she said?\"\n\nKadka tapped the pointed tip of her ear with one finger. \"Orc ears. Hear what she says even before I come out. Too much feeling, for someone who doesn't care.\"\n\n\"Oh, she definitely cares, if you call wanting to break someone's teeth a kind of caring.\" Tane started toward the stairs, and Kadka kept pace beside him. \"Look, Kadka, I\u2026 I am sorry it happened like that. I didn't think they'd blame you.\"\n\n\"Doesn't matter,\" she said. \"Have new work now.\"\n\nTane raised an eyebrow. \"You literally just walked out of his office. What work did you find in the past minute?\"\n\n\"Helping you investigate.\" Kadka grinned. \"He pays you too much. We can share.\"\n\n\"What? No. Look, I'm sorry about what happened, but Indree wasn't wrong. Associating with me isn't good for the reputation. I'll only get you in more trouble.\"\n\n\"Trouble can be fun,\" Kadka said, still showing her teeth.\n\n\"Kadka, I can't\u2014\"\n\n\"You don't tell them about case you found,\" she said. \"You think I don't notice? I say nothing then, but maybe now I tell someone.\"\n\n\"So that's how it's going to be? I pay you off or you tell Indree I'm hiding something?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Kadka, and she looked genuinely perplexed by the anger in his voice. \"You pay me to help you, and I don't tell. Don't want money for nothing. Why not? Without me, you would be crushed under shelf already.\"\n\nTane sighed and spread his hands. \"Fine. I suppose I don't have much choice.\"\n\nShe nodded, as if confirming something she'd known all along. \"So. Where is case?\"\n\nThey were in the stairwell now, hidden from sight on a landing between floors. Tane leaned out to check above and below, satisfying himself that no one was coming, and then he pulled the scroll case from his belt.\n\nIt was a brass tube about a foot long, with a cap at one end. Just below the cap were a series of five rotating copper bands, with a matching set at the far end of the tube. Both sets of bands were engraved with glyphs of the lingua magica, and a pair of small arrows showed where the glyphs were meant to line up. In the center of the tube, a green peridot gemstone was held in a copper setting, joined by inlaid copper lines to the bands on either side. Tane tested one band and it rotated with a click, putting a new symbol forward. He popped open the cap and looked inside. Empty.\n\n\"What is it?\" Kadka asked.\n\n\"It's called a scrollcaster, or sometimes a forger's case,\" said Tane. \"They're used to send or duplicate documents. You roll up some paper and put it inside, then turn these dials\"\u2014he indicated the glyphed copper bands near the cap\u2014\"to the glyphs of the caster you're sending to. Whatever is written on your papers is copied onto the ones at the other end. They're mostly owned by very important people sending things like state secrets\u2014it's illegal to own one without a license, and they all have a set receiving address.\" Now he tapped the bands at the opposite end. \"These bands mean it's black market. The glyphs at this end are meant to be engraved, impossible to alter without wrecking the caster. If you flip to a new set of glyphs after sending or receiving something, it breaks the Astral link. Makes it impossible for a diviner to trace.\"\n\nUnderstanding lit Kadka's eyes. \"You think he used this to copy some spell from workshop.\"\n\n\"Probably. It might be as simple as someone trying to steal privileged spell diagrams to sell on the black market. It's empty, which either means our mage had time to copy what he came to copy and put it back in the drawer, or we stopped him before he found what he was looking for.\"\n\n\"So what is plan? Can it tell us something?\"\n\n\"If he sent something, he'll have changed the glyphs, so we probably can't trace where it went. But if we find the maker, they might be able to tell us who bought it. And if we're very lucky, they might be able to divine what was sent, if not where. That's why I didn't tell Indree. She'd have taken it away, and no black market artificer is going to talk to a bluecap.\"\n\n\"But they will talk to you?\"\n\n\"I know someone I can ask. I don't know how much he'll want to say.\"\n\nA wide grin stretched across Kadka's jutting orcish jaw, and there was a rather menacing twinkle in her eye. \"Maybe I will find way to convince him.\" She nodded decisively. \"Come.\" She started down the stairs.\n\nTane hastily stowed the scroll case in his belt and hurried after her. \"Come where?\"\n\n\"I will get my things, give back uniform. Then, we find your criminal.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "It was strange, seeing Kadka out of her uniform.\n\nWhen she'd been wearing it, there had been a certain air of University prestige about her\u2014when Tane had taken her badge, he'd felt the little rush of satisfaction that always came with defying authority. Now, absent the sword and pistol and dressed in rough-spun trousers and a threadbare shirt with tattered suspenders over top, she looked like a girl from some country village visiting the capital for the first time.\n\nExcept that there weren't a great many orcs living in country villages in the Protectorate.\n\nHer wide-eyed awe didn't do anything to dispel the impression, either. As they descended from the street into the crowded disc-tunnels, she craned her neck eagerly to catch a glimpse of the floating ancryst platforms approaching the station.\n\n\"You must have ridden the discs before,\" Tane said, nudging his way through the current of departing passengers. \"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've lived in Thaless for more than a day, haven't you?\" The question came out sharper than he'd intended. He was still annoyed at the way she'd forced his hand earlier, and the discs made him nervous at the best of times.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Kadka. \"But is always exciting, no? To ride floating stones in underground tunnels? This is kind of magic I come here to see.\"\n\nSpellfire, how am I supposed to stay angry if she's going to be so\u2026 enthusiastic? The discs probably were impressive, he had to admit, if one weren't accustomed to them: a series of linked ancryst platforms suspended in mid-air in a copper-lined tunnel, metal and translucent green stone glimmering under silver-blue magelight. Atop each disc was a wood-and-iron passenger carriage, large enough to hold perhaps thirty people if they were packed very closely together\u2014and they always were. Tane hated it, but he could see how it might appeal to someone else.\n\nThey squeezed into a carriage full of humans and elves and gnomes and kobolds and more: miners and dockworkers and laborers in clothes much like Kadka's, students in so-called \"scholar's uniforms\"\u2014topcoats of University silver-on-blue over much cheaper trousers and waistcoats\u2014and well-to-do merchants dressed in colored silks and velvets. There were no seats inside, just a number of metal poles to grip and a tight space filled with every sort of person that called Thaless home\u2014and in the Protectorate's capital, that meant every sort of person there was. Too many people, and not enough room. Tane shuffled aside as a foot-tall sprite fluttered by on iridescent butterfly wings to land on the narrow ledge along the wall where others of its kind perched.\n\nThe ancryst platform lurched into motion underfoot, and Tane's stomach lurched along a second behind. Sweat beaded on his brow, and his fingers compulsively rubbed the watch casing in his pocket. Magelights set into the tunnel flashed by outside the windows, making the shadows inside shift rapidly from front to back as if the passage of time had accelerated along with the discs.\n\nKadka was forced in close by the crowd, standing near enough that those sharp wolf-teeth could have easily taken off his nose if she'd felt the urge. She wasn't looking at him, though, electing instead to peer around with sheer wonder in her yellow-gold eyes. More than a few people looked back, suspicious or curious or both. For all the Protectorate's diversity, orcs and half-orcs were still a rarity. She didn't seem to notice the attention, though, or didn't show it if she did.\n\nAfter a short while, Kadka turned back to him. \"You know about magic,\" she said, loud enough to be heard over the surrounding chatter. Loud enough to be heard a disc down in either direction, by Tane's estimation. \"I wonder sometimes, how does this work? Is there spell to make it fly?\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" said Tane, swallowing his nerves so that she wouldn't hear his voice shake. \"The discs are ancryst. I assume you've heard of it?\" She hadn't seemed well-versed in the stone's properties when she'd discharged her ancryst pistol at an open portal.\n\n\"It moves by magic, yes?\"\n\n\"It moves away from magic, more accurately. The tunnel is lined with copper conducting a magical field, which repels the ancryst from all sides. As long as the field is balanced, the discs hover in the middle.\" It made him feel a little bit better, somehow, to explain how the magic worked\u2014as if talking about it aloud could keep the spells from going wrong. \"There are artifacts in the front and back that project their own adjustable fields, pushing us in the direction we want to go or slowing us to a stop. It's more efficient than a levitation spell\u2014magic with a specific purpose takes far more power to maintain than a simple field that doesn't have to do anything but exist. I'd bet a mid-sized topaz array could power a section of tunnels for a year.\"\n\n\"Why only here? I travelled through other places to come here. They have nothing like this.\"\n\nTane shrugged. \"Practicality. It's expensive to dig tunnels all over a city and line them with copper. If it was done today, they'd probably use an ancryst-powered rail-car above ground instead. The discs were really just an experiment, from before we had ancryst engines. Actually, they were what inspired the development of the ancryst engine\u2014an ancryst piston moves in its cylinder in a very similar way to how the discs move through these tunnels.\"\n\nKadka nodded slowly. \"I can understand this, I think.\" She grinned, showing her teeth. An elven woman standing beside Tane flinched noticeably at the sight. \"But maybe more fun when I only think it is floating.\"\n\n\"Magic always seems less magical when you learn how it works,\" said Tane. \"Once you know how all the pieces fit together, it's easier to see where a little mistake could lead to disaster. But it's better to know. At least then you're ready for it when the worst happens.\"\n\n\"Makes you nervous, travelling this way?\"\n\n\"Like I said, there are a lot of things that could go wrong. But it takes hours to walk anywhere in Thaless, so\u2026 I've gotten used to it.\"\n\n\"Not so used to it.\" She eyed the sweat on his brow with a slight smirk.\n\n\"I manage,\" Tane said, a little defensively. \"Anyway, it's my turn for a question. There's something I wanted to ask you about.\"\n\n\"So you ask to ask?\" She laughed. \"Such manners in big city. Just ask. No danger in question.\"\n\n\"I've heard about orcs being hard to detect with divinations, but I'd never seen it before. I didn't think it would be so absolute. You didn't trigger that mage's detection spell, and the wraith didn't seem to care about you at all. Is that something you have to do, or is it just natural?\"\n\n\"I do nothing,\" said Kadka. \"In Sverna, we say orcs are too strong for magic to touch, but how can I know for myself when there is no magic there? And after I leave, mostly no one casts spells on me. At University when I talk to mages they say is hard to find me with some magic, but is all kind you call divination. I never see it. Wraith is first time I know there is truth there. But\u2026 I still hurt myself on ward.\" She rubbed the tip of her nose. \"And mage's spell still throws me. Why is this?\"\n\n\"I assumed you would know more than I do,\" said Tane. \"I can only tell you what I've read. I've seen it written in a few places that orcs have a faint link to the Astra. Every living thing has an Astral connection, but it's apparently weaker for the orcish, or maybe naturally masked somehow. That would make it hard for divinations to find you\u2014they seek people out through Astral channels. But it wouldn't stop anything physical. Like you say, we know that you can still be tossed around, or blocked by a ward.\"\n\n\"What if we find mage, then? Spells stopped me before. I want better fight next time.\"\n\n\"Good question.\" Tane hadn't ever had to fight a mage before, and neither he nor Kadka had any magic of their own. It was worth musing on. \"In our favor, it's hard to put together a spell quickly, and most mages are academics, not fighters. I don't think our man was combat trained, or he might have managed more than a simple force wave. That's the best you'll see from most mages in a fight. Things like spellfire take focus and power and precise wording\u2014harder to cast and easier to stop. The best way to fight him would be to silence him somehow. He can't cast if he can't speak, unless he's very quick at writing glyphs. Distraction works too. Get him to lose concentration and his entire spell could fail, or go off very differently than intended. Or\u2026 Orcs can see in the dark, can't they?\"\n\n\"Yes. Is this useful?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Tane said. \"If you can get him in the dark, or maybe blind him somehow\u2026 He could still cast, but every spell is a request of the Astra, and it needs instruction. Not being able to just point and say 'that person there' makes it much harder to specify a target. He'd have to aim by guessing a direction. It would make us harder to hit, at least.\"\n\n\"Useful, then,\" Kadka said with a grin that fell abruptly into a thoughtful frown. \"I am hard to see with spells, you say, but this mage is no orc. Why does the University not cast spell to find him?\"\n\n\"It isn't that easy. To cast any targeted divination you need to either know the target fairly well or have a divination focus\u2014something from their body, like blood or hair or a fingernail. Which there are laws about, for privacy's sake. We'd need a constable with a warrant. But we don't even have a face or a name, let alone a focus.\"\n\n\"What about case you found? That was his.\"\n\n\"A diviner might be able to get some impression of past owners off of it,\" Tane admitted, reaching back to touch the scroll case in his belt and reassure himself it was still there. Pickpockets weren't unheard of on the discs. \"But it's black market, so it will be masked\u2014purposely passed between enough people and magical signatures to throw off any object reading. And anyway, divining anything outside the present is unreliable. Most of the time it just gives some vague vision, and the interpretation is as much about the diviner's bias as any real information. It's an option if we run out of others, but I'd rather not rely on it.\"\n\nKadka cocked her head. \"For man who knows so much about magic, you don't like very much. Why?\"\n\n\"I don't dislike it. I just don't trust it. And neither should you. Magic can be useful, but don't forget to look for the flaws. Better to trust yourself than a spell.\"\n\n\"Is good to trust in self. But good to use what is useful, too.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that in mind,\" said Tane. \"Right now, though, the most useful thing is going to be finding whoever made the scrollcaster.\" He staggered against Kadka as the discs began to slow. \"And on that note, it looks like we're here.\" Thank the Astra.\n\nThe familiar smells of salt and fish greeted Tane's nostrils as they climbed the stairs into daylight. The cawing of gulls rang from above. The disc-tunnels emerged near the Porthaven fish market, and the waters of the Audish Channel stretched out ahead, late afternoon sun shining off murky water between the hulls of dozens of anchored ancryst ships. It wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was always a welcome sight coming out of the tunnels.\n\nAcross the harbor, the towering scaffold around the airship's rigid envelope monopolized the shipyards, and the view. The outer skin\u2014some artificer-made cloth with a shimmering finish\u2014reflected the sunlight so that Tane had to squint to look at it. Over the months, he'd watched the envelope progress from a skeletal frame to a long, smooth ovoid, nearly finished now with only two days until its first flight. Below, the body of the ship rested in drydock, a lightweight wooden hull with a skeleton of steel, mounted with a pair of gleaming brass ancryst engines. Tiny figures crawled over the scaffolding and the body of the ship, making final adjustments, and Tane knew there were more that he couldn't see\u2014at this distance, the diminutive sprites were entirely invisible, but dozens of them would be flitting about the higher parts of the scaffolding, their wings allowing them to work in relative safety.\n\n\"Hard to believe it will fly.\" The awe was back in Kadka's voice. \"Something so big, how does even magic lift it?\"\n\nTane only vaguely understood himself\u2014the specifics were a fairly guarded secret. \"Not all of it is magic,\" he said. \"It's a little bit like a hot air balloon. They'll heat the air in the envelope with spell glyphs, but the lift that creates isn't magical. I'm not sure, but I'd guess there must be some levitation spells on the body too, or it would still be too heavy to fly\u2014but nothing too strong, or they'd take too much power. That's where ancryst engines are useful. If you had to steer a ship that big with spells, they'd be so complex it would drain the gemstones in a day. It's a balance artificers have been trying to solve for a long time. Whether they got it right remains to be seen.\"\n\n\"You think it won't work?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I haven't looked at the diagrams. It's going to be something to see if it does, but you won't catch me on board.\" Tane clasped Kadka's shoulder and steered her in the opposite direction, towards the fish market. \"It isn't going to fly today, in any case. Come on.\"\n\nStalls filled all four sides of the little square, and gulls wheeled overhead, descending now and again to fight over discarded guts and fish-heads. People of all kinds and all sizes\u2014save for a notable lack of elves, who for the most part kept to the better districts of the city\u2014wandered up and down the market looking over the day's catch and haggling with the fishmongers. Most wore plain clothes, not far different from Kadka's, and Tane's frayed waistcoat made him feel almost overdressed. These were the residents of the Porthaven district itself, or perhaps Greenstone near the southern ancryst quarries, shopping for their dinner. Tane's class of people. His own cramped home\u2014or rather the office that he happened to sleep in\u2014wasn't far away. The wealthy citizens of the Gryphon's Roost didn't come to places like this. They had servants for that.\n\n\"This is black market?\" Kadka asked, glancing over her shoulder one last time at the airship.\n\n\"This?\" Tane had to laugh, looking over the run-down stalls. \"No.\"\n\n\"What is funny?\" Kadka half-grinned at his laughter, a picture of amiable confusion.\n\nSuddenly, he could vividly imagine Allaea's voice\u2014she'd always been the one to call him out. You're being an ass, Tane. It was an honest question. \"Nothing,\" he said. \"Sorry. It just occurred to me that crime in Sverna must be very different than what we have here.\" Svernan orcs eschewed magic altogether, by all accounts\u2014they didn't have modernized magical cities like Thaless, or the thriving criminal enterprise that came with them.\n\nKadka shrugged, unperturbed as ever. \"True. At home when people break law, is all\u2026 smaller. Thieves, not whole market. But no need for sorry. Just explain.\"\n\n\"It's just\u2026 The black market isn't a place, if you're picturing something like the markets in Stooketon Circle. That would just draw the bluecaps right to them. It's more like a collection of people who know where to get things. Most of the illegal trade in Thaless is centered around the docks, though. Easier to smuggle goods in and out with access to the harbor, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Oh. So why here?\"\n\n\"I know someone who might be able to point us where we want to go. Essik Tisk. He has a stall here, but it's mostly a front for peddling black market charms and artifacts.\" Tane didn't trust any spells he hadn't written himself, but it was illegal to cast from a diagram drafted without a University degree. He'd used Tisk more than once to commission custom spellwork from less-than-reputable sources.\n\nLuckily enough, Tisk was working today\u2014Tane spotted his distinctive blue-green scales from across the market. He was perhaps five feet tall, with green ridges running from the back of his head down to the end of his short, pointed tail. A heavy apron covered his chest, but beyond that he wore only a light cloth around his hips. Outside of uniformed professions, kobolds didn't much care for clothing.\n\n\"That's him,\" said Tane, nodding toward the stall. \"Act like you're here for the fish. We'll work our way over.\"\n\nTane pretended to examine the wares at a few stalls, ambling gradually toward Tisk. Beside him, Kadka made a much less subtle show of it, loudly professing her admiration of the quality of the day's catch and drawing looks from everyone around them. Spellfire, how is she so bad at this when I've seen her move without making a sound?\n\n\"Carver.\" Tisk looked up as Tane and Kadka came near, and punctuated the greeting by chopping the head off a fish with his cleaver. \"I'll be with you in a moment.\" He wrapped the fish, wiped his hands on his apron, and handed it to an elderly goblin woman, who thanked him and went on her way.\n\n\"I need your help with something, Essik,\" Tane said when the woman was gone.\n\nTisk turned his attention toward them and blinked slitted reptilian eyes up at Kadka. \"Who's your friend? She's\u2026 loud.\" His tongue hissed on the 's' sounds. \"And orcish. You didn't really think you'd go unnoticed with her around, did you?\"\n\n\"I suppose not,' said Tane, \"but it was worth a try. Essik Tisk, this is Kadka. Kadka, Essik Tisk\"\n\nKadka clasped Tisk's hand, but she looked a little bit indignant. \"I can be very sneaky. Just\u2026 different kind. Not so good at pretending.\"\n\n\"I'm sure,\" Tisk said, wincing at the strength of her grip. \"So, what is it you two need?\"\n\n\"I'd like to see what you have back there, if you don't mind,\" Tane said, nodding his head to the barrels of fish behind the stall.\n\nTisk beckoned them in. \"Come right back.\"\n\nOnce they were somewhat shielded from view, Tane pulled the scrollcaster from his belt, keeping it low\u2014out of sight of any wandering eyes. \"I hoped you could help us find whoever made this. I admire the craftsmanship, and there's some work I need done.\"\n\nTisk glanced down at the scrollcaster for a moment, and then up again, swiping his forked tongue along his teeth. \"Where did you get it?\"\n\n\"In trade for some consulting I did. You seem like you recognize the work.\"\n\n\"I do.\" Tisk hesitated a moment, then hastily moved to his stall-front and pulled closed the shutters. \"Come with me.\"\n\nThat was easier than it should have been. Essik was rarely so forthcoming\u2014the black market survived through secrecy. Tane had assumed that Kadka would need to show her teeth, at least. \"Right now? I didn't think\u2014\"\n\n\"Come on, Carver. I can't leave the stall closed for long.\"\n\nTane glanced at Kadka; she put one hand on her waist, where he knew she'd tucked one of her knives, and gave him a slight nod.\n\n\"Lead the way, then,\" said Tane.\n\nTisk led them into a shaded alley behind the fish market, surrounded on both sides by brick-walled warehouses. Tane felt his pulse throbbing in his neck. This was a bad idea. Alleys like this are where you get led right before you're murdered for asking the wrong questions. His fingers found his watch casing, and he rubbed it nervously.\n\n\"Just up here,\" Tisk said, pointing at a blind corner up ahead.\n\nKadka stepped in front of Tane, her head slightly cocked. \"Footsteps. Someone coming,\" she said.\n\nTane couldn't hear anything at all, but an instant later, three armed thugs rounded the corner to bar their way\u2014a stocky dwarf with a forked beard and two impressively muscled human men.\n\n\"What is this, Essik?\" Tane demanded. Kadka grabbed for the kobold, but he darted out of reach, toward the approaching men.\n\n\"Sorry, Carver,\" Tisk said over his shoulder. \"You're a good customer, but not that good.\" He sidestepped past the thugs and disappeared around the corner.\n\nTane whirled back the way they'd come, but there were already three more approaching from behind: a hook-nosed goblin, a pock-faced human, and a particularly mean-looking gnome. At Tane's side, Kadka tensed, shifting on the balls of her feet.\n\nAhead, the dwarf stepped ahead of the others, holding a short brass wand in one hand. A daze-wand, Tane guessed\u2014if he touched either of them with the end of it, an overwhelming surge of Astral energy would put them out of their senses for at least a minute or two. The two men flanking him both produced heavy cudgels.\n\n\"Easy now,\" the dwarf said, moving in close with his wand extended in front of him. \"Don't give us any trouble and maybe you don't get hurt.\"\n\nTane raised his hands and took a step back. \"We'll do whatever\u2014\"\n\nBefore he could finish, Kadka punched the dwarf in the throat."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "Tane watched in horror as the dwarven thug stumbled back, clutching his throat. \"Kadka, what are you doing?\"\n\nBut Kadka's knife was already in her hand. Grinning savagely, she slashed at the arm holding the brass wand, and drew a crimson line across the back of the dwarf's hand. The wand clattered to the ground. Then, with something between a roar and a battle-cry, she bent low and tackled the man at the midsection. With surprising strength, she lifted him from his feet and flipped him over her shoulder into the three approaching from behind. The goblin dodged to one side, but the dwarf hit the human and the gnome full on, and all three collapsed in a tangle.\n\nSpellfire, she might actually manage this. Tane snatched up the wand from where it had fallen\u2014if this was happening, better to have a weapon than not.\n\nThe three thugs still standing closed in from both sides. Kadka's eyes went to the wand in Tane's hand, and she grinned wider. \"Good! Get that one!\" She jabbed a finger at the goblin. Before he could answer, she drew a second knife and charged the two big cudgel-wielding men ahead.\n\nThe goblin had a knife of his own, and he tossed it from hand to hand as he approached, sneering at Tane under a long, hooked nose. They were of similar height, but those lanky goblin arms gave the other man the advantage of reach. This isn't good.\n\nTane jumped back as the goblin lunged. He managed to twist out of the way of the knife, and jabbed blindly with his wand. The uninsulated copper tip brushed the inside of the goblin's forearm.\n\nIt was enough.\n\nAt the wand's touch, the goblin stiffened convulsively, and his knife fell from his hand. He staggered sideways into the alley wall and slid down it, a glazed look in his eye.\n\nDefinitely a daze-wand, then. That should keep him for a moment or two. But the fallen human and gnome had already squirmed out from under the dwarf, who was still gasping for air. Tane glanced at the peridot inlaid in the pommel of the wand\u2014a very clouded, milky green. Not much power left. A daze-wand worked by pushing a powerful surge through the Astral connection of anyone it touched, which took a fair amount of power. He could daze one man before the gem crumbled, maybe, but not both. There was a way by, though, while they were still finding their feet.\n\nTane bolted past, looking back for Kadka. She was holding off both of the big humans; one clutched a deep slash across his bicep. \"Kadka! Come on! Before they\u2014\"\n\nAnd then he saw the others\u2014three more thugs coming around the corner behind her. He snapped his gaze to the opposite end of the alley, and sure enough, another three emerged to cut off the path. Another goblin, green-brown with broad shoulders, pointed an ancryst pistol at Tane's chest.\n\n\"Drop your weapons!\" the goblin ordered.\n\nWith his hand behind his back, Tane slipped the daze-wand up his sleeve and hoped it hadn't been noticed. He didn't want to get shot, but he wasn't about to throw away his only weapon. \"I'm unarmed!\"\n\nThe goblin jabbed the pistol's barrel toward Kadka. \"You too! I said drop them!\"\n\nTane looked over his shoulder; she was nearly beside him already, backing away from the advancing thugs with her knives still in hand. \"Kadka!\" he said sharply.\n\nShe glanced back, and saw the pistol. Her eyes narrowed.\n\n\"Boss wants to talk to you,\" the goblin said. \"Drop the weapons and we'll bring you in safe.\"\n\n\"Can't say same for you,\" Kadka growled, and raised one of her knives, looking very much like she meant to throw it.\n\nTane lunged for her and caught her arm. \"We'll come!\" he said, and then again, more firmly, \"We'll come with you.\" He gave Kadka what he hoped was a pointed look.\n\nShe stared back at him for a moment, and then sheathed her knives. \"Good blades. Won't drop them.\" She raised a challenging eyebrow at the goblin with the pistol. \"You want to take, come take.\"\n\nThe goblin frowned. \"\u2026Fine. Keep them. Boss wants you treated courteous-like. But reach for them again and we have a problem.\" He pointed further down the alley with his pistol. \"That way.\"\n\nThe newcomers were already helping their comrades up, and several closed in around Tane and Kadka, escorting them rather firmly in the direction the pistol-wielding goblin had indicated.\n\n\"When you said you'd help me investigate, you might have mentioned that you're insane,\" Tane hissed to Kadka as the thugs marched them down the alley. Most of them, he noticed, were still watching her with wary eyes.\n\nKadka didn't look very contrite. \"How do I know they don't want to hurt us? Maybe still do. Or do you know where we are going?\"\n\nHe didn't have an answer for that, so he said nothing at all.\n\nAfter a few twists and turns through the back alleys of Porthaven, they descended a staircase down from street-level to the faded basement door of an old brick building. One of the thugs knocked a particular pattern, and it swung open. As Tane passed through, he felt the hair-raising tingle of a ward sweep over him. Apparently they'd been granted access, because it didn't stop him, or Kadka.\n\nInside, the basement was considerably less run-down than it had looked from without. Warding glyphs were inscribed on copper plates in corners along the top of the wall, presumably linked to a power source somewhere out of sight. Near the door, elegantly set magelights illuminated a small library stocked with rather unusual magical texts: all of them were quarter-sized. Beside the shelves, two generously padded armchairs sat before a four-foot-high pillar furnished with a doll-sized chair and reading table. Atop the table, a tiny book had been left open\u2014still over-scaled even at quarter size, but ancryst presses didn't work much smaller. It was clear at a glance that the little dais had been designed for a sprite.\n\nFurther back, an assortment of workers bent over a series of worktables much like the ones in the University's artifice workshops. The tables were strewn with charms and artifacts in various states of completion, many being assembled even as Tane watched.\n\nA tiny figure hovered over the tables on iridescent wings, flitting from artifact to artifact. \"No, no. We'd have to charge too high a price for gold-infused ink. For a one-time charm, the stability will be more than\u2014\"\n\n\"Boss?\" The goblin put away his pistol with a sheepish look. \"We brought them.\"\n\nThe sprite looked up. Oddly enough, the upper half of his face was covered with a deep green masquerade mask worked in fine gold and silver filigree. \"Ah, welcome, welcome!\" he said with the delight of a man greeting long-awaited guests. \"Please, sit down! Make yourselves comfortable!\"\n\nTane and Kadka were escorted to the larger armchairs, and Tane obediently sat down\u2014they were still surrounded in armed men, and he didn't want to make anyone angry. Kadka was less willing, but when Tane glared at her, she took her place in the other chair.\n\nThe sprite fluttered toward them and landed on the dais, putting himself at close to eye-level. He looked nothing like the dangerous criminal Tane had expected. Quite the opposite, really: one tended to imagine sprites frolicking in glades with creatures of the forest, not selling illegal goods. And this one looked particularly ill-suited for it, with his exceptionally ample belly and that round-cheeked smile, so wide that it nearly split his face in half. Even his clothes weren't right. He was dressed like a gentleman of leisure, in a fine waistcoat and trousers of a deep green that matched his odd mask.\n\n\"Bastian Dewglen, at your service,\" the fat little sprite said, bowing enthusiastically. \"I do apologize for the inelegant means by which you were escorted here. My friends were meant to extend every courtesy, but it seems things became rather\u2026 muddled. You must understand, in my line of work I have to be careful of those who come asking questions. Hence the mask!\" He gestured to it and chuckled, as if quite taken with his clever disguise. \"And the false name, which I regret to say is not my own\u2014I've grown quite fond of it.\" He gestured to a gnome woman waiting nearby, a foot shorter standing up than Tane was sitting. She produced a small pair of scissors and started toward them.\n\nKadka was halfway out of her chair and reaching for her waist before the woman had taken her first step.\n\nBastian halted the gnome with a raised hand. \"Ah, I must apologize again! I can see how this would appear untoward. But I assure you, it is only a bit of insurance. It won't hurt at all!\"\n\n\"It's fine, Kadka.\" Tane offered his hand to the gnome woman. It wasn't hard to guess what she was looking for. \"They just want a divination focus. Like I was telling you about before.\" There was an implicit threat there\u2014tell anyone about me, and I'll find you\u2014but that was better than an explicit one. The little sprite's friendly enthusiasm wasn't enough to make Tane forget the dangerous men standing guard all around them. And if the scrollcaster is his work, he might have been the one behind Allaea's murder. More likely he'd only sold the caster to someone else, but more wasn't out of the question. A black market spellmonger might have buyers eager to obtain highly guarded spells.\n\n\"Very astute!\" Bastian said, clapping his hands in approval. \"But I would expect nothing less from Tane Carver\u2014the very man who bamboozled the University for years! You're right of course. I haven't much stomach for hurting people just to keep my little lair a secret, and I'm pleased to say no one has yet forced me to resort to anything so distasteful.\"\n\nThe gnome took a clipping from Tane's thumbnail and slipped it into a small glass vial, which she handed to Bastian as he spoke. Tane showed Kadka his hand to demonstrate the lack of injury, and she relaxed slightly into her chair.\n\n\"You know me?\" Tane asked Bastian as the gnome woman moved on to Kadka.\n\n\"Of course! I make a point of knowing all the most interesting characters in Porthaven, and you were rather prominent in the Gazette for a time after your grand reveal. I was able to procure a copy of your dissertation\u2014a very interesting read. I admire how far you went to prove your point. An honor to meet you at last, an absolute honor.\" Bastian turned to Kadka, and fluttered closer. \"But who is your lovely friend? I must say, my dear, you are absolutely intriguing.\"\n\nThe gnome woman was nervously clipping some fur from the back of Kadka's hand; Kadka bared her teeth in what could have been a grin or a snarl. The woman shrank away with a small lock of fur in hand, instinctively camouflaging herself to blend with the colors of the workshop behind.\n\nKadka watched the gnome's glamored retreat with some interest, and then glanced at Bastian as he drew near. \"I am Kadka.\" She cocked her head at his obvious fascination. \"Is something on my face?\"\n\n\"Not at all, except perhaps for a lovely smile.\" Bastian's round cheeks rose into a broad smile of his own beneath his mask. \"Forgive me for staring, but you are a wonder, my dear Kadka. I expected Mister Carver, but the warning charm I supplied Issik with failed to sense you at all. Even looking at you now, I can't sense so much as a hint of Astral presence! I have dealt with orcs who were hard to detect, but never quite so invisible. Something in the way orcish blood and human mix, perhaps? There are so few half-orcs, I can't imagine it's ever been researched.\" It was an interesting question. Tane had no way to check on his own, but Kadka's Astral masking did seem stronger than it ought to be.\n\nKadka shrugged. \"Don't know. You are mage, not me.\"\n\n\"Ah, a mystery then! What a delight!\" Bastian clapped his hands merrily. \"Needless to say, my friends were quite surprised to see you in that alley without warning, let alone to have you fight back so skillfully. I am deeply impressed, on both counts. You aren't looking for employment, perchance?\"\n\n\"Not now.\" Kadka glanced sidelong at Tane. \"Maybe soon.\"\n\n\"Then I shall not stop asking! Expect a sending\u2026 hmm, I wonder.\" He picked up the small vial the gnome had placed on his dais\u2014quite large in his little hand\u2014and squinted at the tuft of Kadka's fur.\n\nKadka started in her chair and jerked her head around as if she expected to see someone behind her. \"Who is there?\" She smacked her ear with one hand, and then looked back at Bastian, as nonplussed as Tane had yet seen her. \"Is\u2026 is your voice? In my head?\"\n\nBastian chuckled. \"Only a simple sending. I apologize, but I had to check.\" Sendings were a kind of divination, like any magic that sought a target through the Astra\u2014apparently a divination focus was enough to locate Kadka even through the masking of her half-orc blood.\n\nA brief silence, and then Kadka cackled aloud at something Tane couldn't hear. \"You are funny, little man. But for today, I need no work.\"\n\n\"A pity,\" Bastian said. \"But hope remains for another day! Now, if you won't accept my offer, I suppose it is time we discussed why the two of you are here. Something to do with the tragic events at the University last night, I expect?\"\n\n\"You're\u2026 well informed,\" said Tane. \"How do you know about that already?\"\n\n\"Sendings travel quickly, my friend! In this city, no secret lasts much longer than it takes for the bluecaps to arrive. And your own presence hardly went unnoticed, either. But I can't imagine what you think I had to do with it!\"\n\nTane produced the scrollcaster from behind his back. \"This is your work, isn't it? It was found at the scene.\"\n\nBastian flitted to the arm of Tane's chair and examined the brass case. \"Mine, certainly. Notice the peridot? Something of a signature. I find the balance of power and affordability quite ideal\u2014and I am somewhat fond of the color!\" He beamed broadly and patted his green waistcoat. \"Now, if I might surmise: you are wondering if I sent someone to relay certain highly valuable spells to me via this scrollcaster. Spells, perhaps, relating to the majestic airship being constructed across the harbor?\"\n\n\"It\u2026 has been suggested,\" Tane said cautiously.\n\n\"Well put your minds at ease! I may be a criminal, but I am also a patriot! Where else could I live as I do but in the Protectorate? In Rhien I would always be watched; in Belgrier my kind live in ghettos, hardly suited to free trade. And let us not forget Estia, where non-humans are stopped at the border. No, I support Lady Abena and her airship wholeheartedly. A more prosperous Audland benefits all of us!\" He laid a finger alongside his nose and gave an exaggerated wink under his mask. \"And of course, my business will hardly suffer from increased trade with the Continent. I may not wish to live there, but where magic is restricted, magical goods sell at\u2026 rather exorbitant prices.\"\n\nTane was inclined to believe him. There was no sign that the little man was lying\u2014whatever else he was, he genuinely considered himself a devoted citizen. \"Then I'm sure you'll be happy to help us. Can you tell us who bought this case?\"\n\nThere, Bastian hesitated. \"Now that is a delicate matter. I can hardly expect my business to prosper if it becomes known I am willing to reveal the names of my customers.\"\n\nTane leaned forward in his chair. \"Can you expect it to prosper if the bluecaps start looking into what your product was doing in the workshop?\" No need to mention that the bluecaps didn't actually know about the scrollcaster. \"And they certainly will. They are under some pressure to resolve this quickly.\"\n\nBastian wrung his hands and paced along the arm of the chair, fluttering his wings erratically. \"Oh dear. I was worried about that. I do want to help, of course, but\u2026\"\n\n\"Bastian, the Protectorate needs you. Lady Abena is very concerned about this\u2014I was brought in under her authority.\" That was stretching the truth more than a bit, but Tane thought he had the measure of the man now\u2014a representative of the Lady Protector could be just the person to convince him. \"I believe you when you say you're a patriot, and a patriot answers when his country calls. Do the right thing.\"\n\nBastian puffed out his chest and bobbed his head enthusiastically. \"You're right, Mister Carver! This is no time for selfishness! A girl has been killed, and the future of the Protectorate is at stake! Never let it be said that I quailed from my duty to my homeland!\" He rose into the air, and beckoned them to follow. \"Come, come! Bring the scrollcaster!\"\n\nTane and Kadka followed him across the workshop, and as they passed, both of them examined the various artifacts spread across the tables\u2014Tane with mild interest and Kadka with open curiosity. Charms, mostly: spells written on rolls of paper no bigger than Tane's little finger, wax-sealed and set with a small gem or crystal\u2014rarely more than a quartz shard. When the seal was broken, the gem was consumed to power a single-use magical effect. There were dozens of them, identified in plain Audish on their seals: darkness charms, flash charms, shield charms, repulsion charms, and more.\n\nBastian led them to a small pillar at the back, much like the one in the library area. Atop it sat a small worktable covered in sprite-sized tools. He landed behind the little table and gestured toward it. \"Place it here, if you will.\"\n\nTane laid the scrollcaster down on the table\u2014it was rather too long, extending over the edge on both sides. Too large for the little sprite's hands, too, but Bastian uttered a spell and the brass tube levitated into the air, moving as he directed. With various instruments, he began to probe the dials and gemstone. And as he worked, he talked. \"I remember the lad. He came in perhaps two weeks ago. I don't have much to tell you. He wore a\u2026 a kind of cowl that covered his face, and he gave no name. He paid a high price to waive the requirement of a divination focus, as well. I didn't think much of it, at the time\u2014customers often want to keep their identities hidden, and I am a businessman.\"\n\nThis can't be a dead end. It's all I've got. \"Is there anything you can tell us that might identify him?\"\n\n\"He may have been a student at the University. He was young, I think. He fidgeted a great deal. Educated in magical matters by the way he spoke, but he didn't give me the impression of great experience.\"\n\n\"That's useful. Anything else? Did he buy anything besides the scrollcaster?\" By way of example, Tane picked up a brass ball a little smaller than the palm of his hand from the table of charms. The clockwork key jutting from one side identified it as a charmglobe. A charm placed inside could be activated at a short delay set by winding the key. When it wound down, the ball would open and a brass lever within would break the charm's seal, activating it. And as an added benefit, the brass insulated whatever was inside against detection spells. Quite illegal, outside of the Protectorate's military\u2014they served little purpose besides weaponizing charms. He tossed it absently from hand to hand a few times.\n\n\"No devices or artifacts,\" said Bastian, \"but a number of components which might have been used for the construction of any long-term spell. Wards or the like.\" He set aside his tools with a sigh. \"I had hoped, but\u2026 there's no way to trace where the caster sent last, I'm afraid. The sending and receiving glyphs have been changed. But I may yet be able to recreate what was sent, if you leave it with me.\"\n\n\"How long?\"\n\n\"Two days, perhaps.\"\n\nKadka eyed Bastian with suspicion. \"How do we know you don't just keep, tell us nothing?\"\n\nBastian put a hand to his chest and fluttered his wings. \"My dear Kadka, you wound me to my core! I thought we had an understanding! How can you think I would lie to you?\"\n\nShe grinned. \"Like you, little man. Doesn't mean I trust you.\"\n\n\"Beauty, strength, and wisdom,\" Bastian said wistfully. \"If only I could convince you to lend them to my service. But I'm afraid all I have to offer you is my word.\"\n\n\"Then it will have to be enough,\" said Tane. If Bastian was up to something, he was an extremely credible liar, and either way the scrollcaster wasn't much use without him. \"But as soon as you find anything, I want to know. You shouldn't have any trouble contacting us with a sending.\"\n\n\"Of course, of course!\" Bastian enthused, fluttering from his table. \"Is there anything else?\"\n\nTane glanced at the charmglobe in his hand, and then at the charms spread across the worktables. With one notable exception, he'd been in more danger today than ever before in his life. It wouldn't hurt to be better prepared next time. I'd rather not rely on someone else's spells, but\u2026 what did Kadka say? Good to use what is useful.\n\n\"I might need a few things,\" he said."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "\"You could have gotten us killed,\" Tane insisted, walking beside Kadka down the darkened street.\n\n\"But if they come to kill us, maybe I stop them,\" she said. \"You would not be so angry then.\"\n\nTane sighed. It was pointless to argue with her. He hadn't known Kadka for long, but one thing was already clear: she didn't waste much time on doubt. \"Just\u2026 let me try to talk to the next people who attack us, maybe.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"We will see. Some things, talk does not change.\"\n\nThat was probably the best he was going to get, so he let it be.\n\nEvening had descended, and what sinking light remained in the sky couldn't force its way into the cracks of Porthaven's narrow streets and alleys. In the poorer districts, magelight had yet to replace the cheap oil-fuelled street lamps, dim and flickering and spaced so far apart that they served little purpose but to spoil Tane's night vision. And it didn't help that he was distracted, thinking about what Bastian had told them.\n\n\"Watch out,\" said Kadka, and nudged him around a pothole. She had no trouble with the dark\u2014orcish night vision was evidently quite strong. \"Thinking instead of looking, yes? About masked mage? Where to look next?\"\n\nTane nodded. \"It makes some sense if he's a student, like Bastian said. We know he can use magic, and he seemed to know what he was looking for and where to find it, which implies some knowledge of the University. It doesn't explain why he had a badge that got him into the room, though. A graduate student might have had access for a project, but that would only have worked the first time. When you and I caught him, the wards were set to keep student badges out. The only people who should have been able to get in were constables, heads of the University, and the Guard.\"\n\n\"But guard has no mages, and deans all have other stories.\"\n\n\"Right. And a constable would have been better trained in combat magic, among other things. Which doesn't get us anywhere. If we assume the badge was stolen by a student\u2014I got in with yours, after all\u2014it opens up possibilities. But even with a badge, if he somehow found a way to open a portal into the workshop, he'd need a place to cast it from. He couldn't do it anywhere on campus without being noticed. The components he bought must have been to cast new wards on a bolthole somewhere, and to prepare his portal.\"\n\n\"So maybe we look for student who is gone too much in last weeks. Warding lair, making plans.\"\n\nTane nodded. \"Exactly what I was thinking. They'll have attendance records at the University. It's a start, at least. But I still can't figure out how he opened the portal.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" she said. \"Very strange.\" There was something cursory to it, like she'd stopped listening. Her head was slightly cocked.\n\n\"Kadka, what\u2014\"\n\n\"Pretend nothing is wrong,\" she whispered. \"Hear someone following. On roof.\"\n\nTane forced himself to keep walking at the same pace. \"Could it be one of Bastian's?\" he asked under his breath. But he suspected they weren't so lucky. There was no one else in sight in either direction\u2014this would be the perfect time and place for an ambush.\n\n\"No. Would have heard sooner. Coming from other side.\"\n\nTane felt for the stolen daze-wand tucked into the back of his belt under his waistcoat, still probably good for one more charge. If he was lucky. His other hand slipped into his pocket, searching for the charms and charmglobe he'd bought from Bastian. All at a steep discount, of course, for a representative of Lady Abena, but still he'd only been able to afford three charms: shield, flash, and darkness. They all felt the same, just sealed rolls of paper. There was no way to identify them by touch. Surreptitiously, he drew one out and glanced at the writing on the seal, hoping for the shield charm. But it was too dark\u2014he couldn't read it.\n\nAnd then, suddenly, there was light, silver and blinding.\n\nBefore he understood what was happening, Kadka sprang into motion, pushing him to his knees behind her. Bright silver flames flared from the rooftop. She half-turned, leaning over Tane and shielding her face.\n\nA gout of spellfire roared across her back.\n\n\"Kadka!\" Tane shouted. He pulled out a charm, read the seal by the pulsing silver light. Shield. Thank the Astra. He crushed the seal in his fist, and a shimmering barrier of force surrounded them.\n\nSilver fire licked along the outside of the shield for an instant longer, and then blinked out as if it had never been there. Tane leapt to his feet and spun to face Kadka, expecting the worst. Blackened flesh melting from cracked, crumbling bone. Just like Allaea. Not that. Not again.\n\nShe was entirely untouched. The flames hadn't burned her at all. She looked as surprised as he was, probing her shoulder where the flesh should have been seared away.\n\nImpossible. Her masked Astral link might protect against divinations, but spellfire was physical. It should have killed her. Unless\u2026 he was aiming for me. Spellfire only burned what it was told to burn\u2014their attacker must have been too precise in naming his target. He hadn't predicted Kadka getting in the way. But she had no way of knowing that.\n\nAs soon as she realized she was unharmed, Kadka drew a knife from her sleeve with a flick of the wrist and hurled it through the darkness at the source of the spellfire. The blade passed silently through the shield\u2014the charm only kept things out, not in.\n\nNo sound, no scream. An instant later, the sound of the knife skipping across the rooftop.\n\n\"Come out!\" Kadka shouted. \"Poska! Fight me where I can see!\"\n\nNo answer.\n\nNot aloud, anyway.\n\nA sudden pressure in Tane's ears, and then a voice spoke in his head. \"Forget the scrollcaster. Leave this investigation alone.\" The mage had to be near, still\u2014without sufficient familiarity or a focus, finding an Astral signature to send to or divine from was only possible at close range. Tane swept his eyes over the rooftops, but he couldn't see anything in the dark. \"This is your only warning. The next time, you won't be so lucky.\" Clear as diamond, an image flashed across his mind: a door in a brick-front building, the same as any of the identical narrow single-room homes on either side, joined together in one long row. Only the number painted on the letter-box by the door distinguished it from the others."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "His number. The office he rented near the docks.\n\nThen, a burst of intense pain, like a spike driving through both temples. \"Ahh!\" Tane bent over, gripping his head in both hands.\n\n\"Carver?\" Kadka knelt in front of him. \"What is wrong?\"\n\nThe intensity faded as quickly as it had come, but it left a pulsing ache behind. \"N\u2014nothing. Just\u2026 a sending. Is he still\u2026\"\n\nKadka shook her head. \"Gone. Heard him running. Maybe wasn't expecting\u2026 this.\" She gestured at the shimmering barrier around them.\n\nTane straightened up and rolled his head from side to side. It didn't help the headache. \"Kadka, you\u2026 you jumped in front of spellfire for me.\" He paused, and then, \"Do you have any idea how stupid that was?\"\n\nKadka shrugged. \"Felt like thing to do. Why doesn't it burn?\"\n\n\"It would have, if he'd been any smarter about phrasing the spell! If he hadn't specified me as the target, you'd be dead!\"\n\n\"I should have let you try to talk to fire instead?\" She flashed her wide, toothy grin.\n\n\"No, that's not\u2026\" Tane let the sentence drift away unfinished. Just like before, there was no point in arguing with her. His head hurt and he could still feel his heart beating against his chest, but he had to laugh. \"I mean, thank you. Obviously. But please, in the future, try not to get yourself killed on my account.\"\n\n\"Don't stand in front of spell, then,\" Kadka said. \"What was sending? Way you shout, it sounds painful.\"\n\nTane frowned. \"He wants us to drop the investigation. Forget the scrollcaster, he said. Then there was an image of the place where I live, and\u2026 pain.\" Just thinking about it made him wince.\n\n\"Pain? This is possible? Why not do that when we fight him?\"\n\n\"He'd have to be focused on the Astra to send. When you see that distant look in a mage's eyes, that's what they're doing\u2014looking past the physical world. Not ideal in the middle of a fight. But outside of one, just about anything can be sent. Words, images, emotions, sensations. Some of it isn't legal, but I don't think our mage cares very much about that.\"\n\n\"Talking of mage, we should not stay here. Don't know how long\u2014\" Before Kadka could finish, the shield blinked out of existence. \"Ah. Not long. You have place to go?\"\n\n\"My office isn't far,\" said Tane. \"We'll be safe there.\"\n\n\"You mean place he showed you?\" She raised an eyebrow. \"One place where he knows to find you?\"\n\n\"If he tries anything, he'll be disappointed. I'd trust my wards against any mage in this city. I designed them myself.\" He didn't keep them up unless he needed them\u2014couldn't afford to replace the gems regularly\u2014but this definitely merited the cost.\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\nTane didn't wait for her to finish. His head was still throbbing. \"Come on,\" he said, starting down the street. \"I need a drink.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "\"It doesn't make sense!\" Tane threw the spell diagram down on his desk and took another swig of whiskey\u2014no aged Belgrian, but the cheap local stuff dulled the pain in his temples just as well. \"I can't find the problem. He shouldn't have been able to open that portal.\"\n\nThe ward diagrams had been delivered to his letterbox while he and Kadka were out, as Dean Greymond had promised. Tane had been looking them over for the past quarter hour or so, but he couldn't see the answer he was looking for, and he was getting frustrated. Usually he could find the flaw in a spell at a glance.\n\n\"You are sure there is one?\" Kadka asked. She sat across from him in the flimsy chair he kept for clients\u2014not that he had many of those\u2014with her feet up on his desk. There wasn't much else in the room, just a few cabinets, a single magelight lamp casting silver light from the corner of the desk, and a folding screen at the back that hid his mattress from sight. Being a 'magical consultant' without any magic or University honors hadn't proven particularly profitable.\n\n\"Like I told you before: the flaw in all magic is the mage. They always miss something. Sometimes it's minor enough not to matter, or obscure enough that it will never come up, but it's always there. And there has to be a hole in these portal wards, or he couldn't have done it. I just can't find it.\"\n\nKadka pulled the diagram to the edge of the desk with one foot and blinked at the glyphs for a moment. \"Nonsense to me. Why not write with letters?\" Leaning back, she took far too large a swallow of her own whiskey, and didn't so much as flinch as it went down.\n\n\"To avoid the kind of problem I'm looking for. Most languages are a clumsy patchwork, thrown together by necessity. You could use them for spells\u2014the Astra doesn't care\u2014but you risk all manner of problems with connotations and identical spellings for entirely different things. The lingua magica was designed to be precise. A unique word for everything, a unique glyph for every word. Perfect for casting, in theory, except the person choosing the words can still be an idiot. Nothing can fix that. There's always a flaw.\"\n\n\"How do you find, usually?\"\n\n\"Most of the time it's easy. Find the flaw in the mage and you'll find the flaw in the spell. Are they lazy, arrogant, prejudiced? Figure that out and you know what mistakes they'll make. Those old folktales about some ward that 'no man shall pass' and then a woman does? In real life that's not some epic destiny. It's because someone with a low opinion of the opposite sex just entirely forgot to consider them. The thing is, though, as far as I can see, this ward is too simple to break.\" He traced a line under the glyphs with his finger. \"This essentially says 'no portals into or out of the University campus unless made by the chancellor or one of the deans'. That's fairly absolute.\" Tane took another sip and winced against the burning in his throat. \"But there has to be something. And I'm going to find it.\"\n\n\"You are so sure only you can? Why not your Inspector Indree? Or University mage? They must know magic same as you, yes? Could tell them what we find. Too late for them to take scrollcaster away now.\"\n\n\"No one born with magic is ever going to see through a spell like I can,\" Tane said. \"That kind of power, you start to forget it's not perfect. You stop seeing the flaws even when you're looking for them. Even Indree. She's always been brilliant, but she's not going to solve this. She's a mage. It has to be me.\"\n\nKadka cocked her head at him, curiosity glinting in her yellow eyes. \"And you don't think to quit? Some men would, after mage throws fire at them.\"\n\n\"If he wants to stop me, it just means I'm close to something. All the more reason to keep looking.\"\n\nKadka laughed. \"This is why I like you, Carver. But there is more, I think.\"\n\n\"Of course there is. Allaea was my\u2014\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Vengeance for friend I understand, but is not all. You spend four years lying to University to prove you are better than mages, and still you talk about spell like enemy to fight. Is personal for you. Why?\"\n\nThat was more insightful than he'd expected. Maybe it's the whiskey. Speaking of which\u2026 He took another gulp, and waggled a finger at her. \"No, no, no. Everyone we meet has had something to tell you about me, but all I get to know about you is 'came from Sverna for magic'? I know a dodge when I hear it. No one is that willing to jump in front of spellfire without some reason. You don't get my story until I get yours. Fair is fair.\"\n\nKadka shifted her heavy lower jaw from side to side for a moment, considering, and then nodded. \"Fine. I tell you, you tell me. But you try to get out of this, I find other way to make you pay. Yes?\"\n\nTane raised a solemn hand. \"I swear by the Astra, I'll keep my end.\" He probably owed her that much for saving his life, and at least this way he'd be considerably drunker when his turn came.\n\nKadka took her legs off the desk and sat forward in her chair. \"Is not such a long story. When she is young, my mother leaves Sverna, like I do. Goes to Rhien, Audland, Belgrier. Sees many things. In Belgrier, she meets my father. He makes her pregnant with me. But he is human from wealthy family, and this is not so good in Belgrier.\"\n\n\"I can imagine.\" None of the nations on the Continent allowed mages or non-humans to live entirely free. Belgrier was neither the best nor the worst, but they were strict about segregation. For a wealthy Belgrian family, a son having a child by an orc would be an enormous scandal.\n\n\"His family has my mother put out of country. Never sees my father again. She does not want to raise me alone, so she comes home to clan. I grow up in Sverna. Is law to serve as soldier there for time when young, so I learn to fight, and to hunt food for clan.\" That explained some things\u2014from what little information made it out of their borders, the Svernan army was said to train exceptionally skilled fighters. \"But they think human blood is weak. Is\u2026 not always good life for me.\" Kadka took another long swallow of whiskey to finish her glass, and slid it across the desk to Tane. He refilled it and pushed it back.\n\n\"When things are bad, my mother teaches me tongues she has learned, tells of all the things she sees when she travels. Boats and carriages that move by magic, people with wings and dragon scales, cities lit after dark by silver light. One day, she says, I will see all of this myself. For a long time, closest I get is when I am hunting by border of Rhien and one of your ancryst trains goes by, far away over plains. But always I dream of lands where magic is real.\n\n\"Then my mother gets sick. She does not get better.\" Kadka dipped her head between her shoulders.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Tane. \"I\u2026 know what that's like.\" Absently, he touched the watch casing in his pocket.\n\n\"Thank you.\" Her mouth turned up at one side, revealing her teeth. \"But is not your turn yet.\" She took another long drink, and then, \"Without her, nothing is left to keep me there. So I go, like she did. Think I will travel world, see magic everywhere. Get away from place where they look at me and only see human.\"\n\n\"Did you ever try to find your father?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said firmly. \"He had chance. Could have fought for us, left with my mother. He is nothing to me. I leave for me, not for him. But\u2026 is not like I dreamed. Not so magical. Everywhere I go, they look at me like I don't belong. People say Protectorate welcomes all kinds, so I come across channel. It is\u2026 better, but still I see how people look at me. Even at University, they only let me join guard because I fight better than the rest. Beat them all, sparring. There is law here, I think?\"\n\n\"There is,\" said Tane. \"If you beat the other applicants, they'd have to take you. Can't turn you down for race\u2014that's why the Protectorate exists. Although, ask any goblin, they'll tell you that people find ways around it.\"\n\nKadka nodded. \"They are not so sad to see me go, I think. But they do take me, first. Is good to have work, and some in guard are friendly enough. And there is magic here, but not like dreams when I was little. There are discs, and people like I never see before, but mostly I just stand outside doors while they do magic on other side. And then you come, and steal my badge.\" She smiled\u2014not her usual toothy grin, but something more wistful. \"Today, I see more real magic than my whole life before. Portals and spells and silver fire. Like my dreams.\"\n\n\"Mages throwing spellfire aren't exactly the stuff dreams are made of. Nightmares maybe. My friend is dead, Kadka.\"\n\n\"I know. And I am sorry. I don't mean that it is good this happens. But today I feel like I have\u2026 purpose. Like this is what I am looking for. I want to find this man who kills your friend. See what he can do, with all his magic. And maybe next fight, I win.\" She shrugged. \"Does this make sense?\"\n\n\"Not really,\" Tane said. \"But\u2026 I suppose I understand. If I'm being honest, it's\u2026 not just about Allaea for me, either.\" He sighed and took a sip. It burned all the way down. \"I wish it was. She deserves that much. But it's not.\"\n\nKadka rolled her hand in the air. \"Keep going, Carver. I tell mine. Your turn.\"\n\n\"I suppose I have to now.\" Another long pull drained his drink, and he poured another. It was keeping his headache at bay, and he was going to need it for this. \"First thing, you need to know about my father. He's gone now, and my mother, but when I was younger, he was a conductor on the ancryst rail.\"\n\nKadka's eyes widened. \"This means he drives it, yes? He must have been great mage.\"\n\n\"He wasn't. Or my mother. No magic at all. Mages cast the spells that make the trains run\u2014other people do the everyday work of operating them. That's the problem. But that\u2026 that comes later.\" Tane reached into his pocket and took out his watch casing, a battered brass circle covered in old dents and scratches. \"This was his. My father's, I mean. It doesn't work now, but he used it to keep the time on his route. He'd let me play with it, pretend I was a conductor myself. Sometimes my mother would take me to the station when he was due home, and we'd watch the trains come in. I loved it.\" For a moment, the memory made him smile, but it curdled just as quickly. He took another drink.\n\n\"When I was thirteen, he took us on a trip. His route went north into the country, and we were going to stay out there for a few days. I'd been on his train before, but this was the first time I was old enough to really take an interest in how it all worked. So the day we left, he took me up to the engine while they were still checking all the parts.\n\n\"I still remember everything. An aquamarine array for power, brand new without a hint of clouding. Steel pistons with ancryst cores. Everything polished to a shine inside a brass engine casing. He showed me all of it, every rod and bolt. All those men working on it, and my father in charge of all of them. That stays with me, more than anything.\" Another drink, longer this time. \"He was looking right at it. All of them were. And they didn't see anything wrong.\n\n\"After, the artificers found that the spells pushing the pistons had been misaligned. Off balance. The train jumped the track at exactly the wrong place, crossing a ravine. Not many people came out alive.\" His hands shook as he pulled down the neck of his shirt, enough to show her the beginning of the scars that ran from his collarbone to his navel. \"I had to be put together again by mage-surgeons. My parents weren't so lucky.\"\n\nKadka took in the scars with a solemn frown. \"Awful. Carver, if telling is too hard\u2026\"\n\n\"No, we had a deal. And this was\u2026 a long time ago. It's fine.\" But he poured a third glass and took another long sip. The warm whiskey haze made it easier.\n\n\"This accident\u2026 this is why you don't like riding discs?\"\n\nTane gestured wide with one hand. \"It's why everything. My father and a dozen other men checked that engine piece by piece, and didn't see the problem. They knew everything about the mechanics of it. Nothing about the spells. And it was such a simple thing. There's nothing to it, just basic magic fields. The ancryst does all the work. I don't know if the mage was lazy, or stupid, or\u2026\" He sloshed the whiskey around in his cup. \"Or drunk. But if anyone else had known what to look for, it wouldn't have happened. My parents didn't have to die. And it didn't even change anything. They died, and all anyone did was put a new mage in charge of maintaining the engine spells.\" He drained half his new glass in a single gulp. It didn't seem to burn so much anymore.\n\n\"So you go to University. Try to show them this.\"\n\nHe bobbed his head emphatically. \"Except it wasn't that easy. I had no place to go, and no money to pay tuition. I was living in an orphan's home. Just fooling the University wasn't good enough\u2014I had to place high enough on the entrance exams to earn a scholarship with room and board. So I worked out every detail. Studied for years, figured out exactly how I would do it. Found ways to get my hands on the books and charms and artifacts I needed, legal or not. Practiced my sleight of hand until I knew every trick by heart. And as soon as I turned eighteen, I took the entrance exams.\n\n\"Before the written tests, they make you move a piece of ancryst, just to prove you can. I snuck in a charm to do it for me. Got it past all their detections. Not so hard\u2014they don't know mundane tricks as well as magical ones.\" Tane flipped open his father's watch case. A coin-sized piece of cloudy green ancryst was anchored inside. No longer shielded by brass, it slid very slowly away from the magelight in the corner. \"Palmed the stone as a momento. And it worked. I got the scholarship. Top marks on every test. I thought that would be enough. I was in, and when I graduated without magic, they'd have to listen. But you know how that ended.\" He snapped the watch case shut, shoved it back in his pocket, and took another drink.\n\n\"And this is why so many are angry with you? You lie about magic?\"\n\n\"Like Dean Greymond, you mean? Absolutely. And she's not alone. When word got out, it was an embarrassment to the University, and a lot of people think that was the point. But Indree?\" Tane rubbed the back of his neck. \"That's different. When I was expelled, I didn't exactly tell her about it. We were\u2026 close, and I more or less vanished on her. And on Allaea, too.\"\n\nKadka narrowed her eyes. \"This is poskan thing to do, Carver.\"\n\nHe didn't know exactly what that meant, but he knew it wasn't good. He raised his hands defensively. \"I know. But Greymond and the chancellor asked a lot of questions before they threw me out. About who else knew. Being close to me was going to be a liability, and I didn't want anyone else dragged down. Thought it would be best if I just\u2026 left. Went as far as using divination masking artifacts the first few weeks, in case anyone came looking. It wasn't my best moment.\"\n\n\"No,\" Kadka agreed, still scowling. He couldn't blame her\u2014she'd just explained how her father had abandoned his family.\n\nProbably shouldn't have told her that part. \"Indree really wasn't wrong when she told you I'm not the best person to be around.\" He sighed, took another drink. \"All of this, with Allaea\u2026 I want to find whoever killed her, I really do. To make some kind of amends, even if it's too late. But it's more than just that. If I can help solve it\u2026\"\n\n\"Maybe people see worth of mages with no magic.\"\n\n\"Yes. Something like that. Spellfire, that's miserable, isn't it? She's dead and I'm worried about proving a point.\"\n\nKadka's face softened. \"Not so bad. You still try to find her killer, just want to honor your mother and father at same time. Is not insult to your friend to want both.\" She smiled, surprisingly gentle. \"Tell me what she is like, this Allaea. Is good to remember, maybe.\"\n\nIt might have been the whiskey, but that felt right, just then. Tane didn't fight it. \"I met Indree first. We were fighting it out for top spot in most of our classes. At each other's throats most of the time, until\u2026 until we were at each other's throats in a different way, I suppose. Allaea was her closest friend. We spent a lot of time together, the three of us. Long nights studying, debating big ideas in their room in the dormitories. And it wasn't just 'any friend of hers' with us. Allaea and I got along right from the start. Which, if you knew her, didn't happen often.\n\n\"She could have been friends with anyone on campus, if she'd wanted. She was funny, pretty, an absolute genius at artifice. Elven, which\u2026 it shouldn't matter, but for some people it does. But she didn't have the patience. She expected the best from people and she wasn't shy about letting them know it. And she could be mean.\" He smiled fondly. \"You know that way that some people can say the worst things, but it feels like a compliment?\"\n\nKadka grinned. \"I know this, yes.\"\n\n\"She was like that. Except if you got on her bad side\u2026 it could be brutal. The funny thing is, she was also as soft-hearted as anyone I've ever known. The kind of person who couldn't turn a blind eye when someone needed help. Spellfire, the things she'd say to chase off a bully. You wouldn't believe it. I once heard her call someone a 'quivering mound of putrid kraken pus'.\"\n\nKadka cackled long and loud. \"I like her.\"\n\n\"So did I,\" said Tane. \"So did everyone, even with the sharp tongue. People were always making advances, trying to get her attention. She hated it. An elf who looked like she did, they assumed she came from money or power. She didn't. But if they were decent about it, she'd let them down easy. If they weren't\u2026\" He laughed, remembering. \"Well, you get the idea.\"\n\n\"Sends them away limping on broken pride?\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Tane. \"And she was good at it. I was on the wrong side of it more than once. Maybe you've noticed, but I'm told I can be a tiny bit arrogant, sometimes.\"\n\n\"Man who thinks he can best any mage in city?\" Kadka put a hand to her chest in feigned shock. \"No.\"\n\n\"Well, she never let me get away with it. But when I needed help, she was always there, too. When me and Indree argued\u2014and we would argue\u2014Allaea would usually tell me how to fix it. She knew Indree long before I did, and she always had the answer. She liked us together. 'There are a lot of idiots she could be with, and you're probably not the worst,' was how she put it. From her, it meant a lot.\" Tane ducked his head to wipe away the sudden moisture in his eyes. \"I miss her. I\u2026 don't think I knew how much until\u2026\" He couldn't finish past the thickness in his throat.\n\nKadka raised her glass. \"To Allaea.\"\n\nTane just clinked his glass against hers, unable to speak. He drained the rest of his drink in a single pull, and Kadka did the same.\n\nTane looked at the bottle for a long time, and then put his glass down. \"I think I've had enough. If we're going to find who did this to her\u2026 I need to sleep. We can meet early\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, I am staying,\" Kadka said, utterly matter-of-fact.\n\nTane froze in his seat. \"Kadka, you don't think\u2026 This was nice enough, but we're not\u2026\"\n\nShe laughed. \"You have too much to drink, Carver. Not like that. In case mage comes looking.\"\n\nTane felt his cheeks flush. \"Oh. Right. Sorry.\"\n\n\"Is fine. I know is not me you want in bed.\" She raised an eyebrow suggestively. \"Maybe tomorrow we impress Indree for you, yes?\"\n\n\"That's\u2026 She's not\u2026\" But he couldn't come up with a convincing lie, so he didn't bother. \"You don't have to stay. No one is getting by my wards, and I don't really have anywhere for you to sleep.\"\n\nKadka shrugged and leaned back, putting her feet up on the desk again. \"Chair is fine.\" There was something about the way she said it that didn't leave room for argument. And it did make him feel a little bit safer, having her there.\n\n\"If you say so.\" He stood up, stumbled, and braced himself on the edge of the desk. The whiskey had hit him harder than he'd thought, and they'd been sitting a long time.\n\nKadka grinned. \"Humans. Can't hold drink.\"\n\n\"Shut up.\" He touched the glyph to turn off the magelight on his desk, and traced a slightly crooked path through the dark to the folding screen at the back of the office. But before he collapsed onto his mattress, he turned back. \"Kadka?\"\n\nShe was only a suggestion of a shape in the dark, leaning back in her chair. \"What?\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" And then he let himself fall into bed, and remembered nothing more."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "\"And just where are you getting this information?\" Indree demanded, glaring at Tane with her arms crossed. She wasn't wearing her constable's uniform today, just a charcoal topcoat over a white shirt and dark trousers, with her hair tied back behind her pointed ears instead of pinned up to fit under her cap. Plain enough that she could ask around campus without drawing too much attention.\n\n\"Yes, Mister Carver,\" said Dean Greymond. \"You'll have to explain how you arrived at the conclusion that our murderer is a student, after you defended Mister Thrung so effectively yesterday.\" She sat behind her desk, frowning heavily. Indree had already been there speaking with her about the investigation when Tane and Kadka had arrived. \"And while you're explaining, what is Miss Kadka doing here? I understood that she had been relieved of duty.\"\n\n\"She's not\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm aware she isn't here as a member of the Guard. What I am asking is, why is she with you?\"\n\nTane glanced at Kadka for a moment, and shrugged. \"Consider her\u2026 my partner, for now.\"\n\nKadka grinned at that. \"Needs someone to look after him.\"\n\n\"A fair assessment,\" Greymond said with a very mild smirk. \"Fine. What about the rest of it?\"\n\n\"A student just makes the most sense,\" said Tane. \"Before we even get to badges, the only people who could have gotten by the basic ward on that room are present and former students, faculty, staff, guard, and constabulary. We know it was a trained mage, so staff and guard are out\u2014even if one of them had some latent gift, they wouldn't know the lingua or how to use it. I'm certain the man we saw was younger, and his spells weren't particularly polished, so student fits better than faculty or constable. I asked around with certain\u2026 less-than-savory contacts, and they tell me a man in a mask like the one Kadka and I encountered was seen buying black market components very recently.\" Still best not to mention the scrollcaster, not until he heard back from Bastian. \"They got the same impression\u2014young, and probably a student, by the way he spoke.\"\n\n\"Certain contacts?\" Indree raised an eyebrow. \"I need names if I'm going to use this, Tane.\"\n\n\"If I gave their names to a bluecap, they wouldn't be much good as contacts anymore, would they?\"\n\n\"You expect me to just take your word?\" said Indree. \"Even if I was at all willing to do that, it isn't much to go on.\"\n\n\"Let me finish. We have to assume he wasn't buying those components to use on campus\u2014any new wards would have been noticed, let alone a portal opening in the dormitories. And I can't imagine he found a way past the portal wards without some experimentation. He must have set up some sort of workshop in the city, and spent considerable time there. What we need to do is look for students who have been absent from class over the last few weeks.\"\n\nShe didn't look very happy about it, but Indree had never been one to ignore a well-reasoned argument. \"So you suggest we go over the attendance records for everyone who missed a class or two? We can't question that many people without missing something important. One point of reference isn't enough.\"\n\nTane felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Despite everything, this felt like the way it used to be, sparring with her over magical theory or spell construction late into the night. The ideas on either side of those debates had always come out more refined than they had been going in. \"You're probably right. I can tell you I'm sure he was human or half-elf by build, and male.\"\n\n\"Better, but still too many. If you'd said gnome, or dwarf, maybe, but human men leaves us with a list of near a thousand across all years, and hundreds will have missed a class recently.\" Indree prodded the side of her cheek with her tongue, the way she did when she was thinking, and then, \"Dean Greymond, does the University\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, we keep a record of students who are related to members of the University Guard, at least for immediate family. There are tuition benefits involved. Shall I have them ready that along with the attendance logs?\"\n\nIndree nodded. \"And a full guard roster, so we can compare surnames. Whoever did this, they needed access to a guard's badge to get in, and they had to be able to get it back before anyone noticed it missing. That wouldn't be hard for a spouse or relative.\"\n\n\"Or a friend,\" Tane pointed out.\n\n\"True,\" said Indree. A pause, and then, \"But the first\u2026 incident\"\u2014she tensed visibly there, even without mentioning Allaea's name\u2014\"happened past midnight. Less likely for a friend to be in your home at that hour unobserved. And we don't have any way to check for friendship. If this doesn't turn anything up, then I'll worry about expanding the list.\" She was as competitive as ever\u2014couldn't let a point stand if she thought she knew better, which she usually did. There was something comforting about that.\n\n\"Fair enough,\" said Tane, and started for the door. \"Let's go.\"\n\n\"No.\" Indree's voice was firm, and when he looked back at her, she shook her head. \"You've been\u2026 more helpful than I expected, Tane, but I don't need you for this.\"\n\n\"The more help you have, the faster it will be to compare those records. And I can be useful when it comes to the questioning. You know I'm good at reading people. Please, Indree. I want to help. Allaea was important to me too.\"\n\nIndree's eyes narrowed. \"Don't you dare use her to\u2014\"\n\n\"Is not like that.\" Kadka didn't flinch when Indree's glare fell on her.\n\n\"You two met yesterday. What do you know about it?\"\n\n\"Only what he tells me,\" Kadka said gently. \"Your friend is woman I am sorry not to meet. I see his tears when he remembers her. Carver is good liar, but this was not lie.\"\n\nTane wasn't sure if he should be grateful or embarrassed. And Indree was staring at him again now. \"The thing is,\" he said, \"we'd been drinking\u2014\"\n\n\"Shut up, Tane,\" Indree snapped, and then shouldered past him to the door, yanked it open, and marched through. It had nearly swung closed when she stopped it with one hand and peered back in, scowling. \"Are you coming, or not?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "Tane was beginning to worry.\n\nThey'd been at it for most of the day, and made little progress. Even the narrowed list left dozens of students to interview, and most could account for themselves during one of the intrusions or the other. The few who couldn't weren't strong suspects\u2014there was no reason to believe they'd been involved, other than that the timing worked. If we don't find something soon, Indree will never take me seriously again.\n\n\"Who's next?\" Indree asked, stretching as they emerged from the invocation hall into the fading sunlight. They'd pulled the last student they'd interviewed from class within.\n\nTane glanced at the list. \"Randolf Cranst. Not one of our better prospects.\" They'd gone through the most likely names hours ago. \"An average student, no standout subject that looks particularly suspicious. He missed two classes last week and was absent yesterday, but he's far from alone there. Not registered as immediate family of any members of the Guard, but he shares a surname with one. Dedric Cranst. Could be cousins, if we're lucky.\"\n\nKadka yawned wide. \"Maybe we break, yes? Eat something?\" She hadn't bothered to hide her boredom for the past few hours. Showing her teeth had helped get certain students talking a little bit faster, but otherwise there wasn't much for her to do\u2014especially not under the watchful eye of a bluecap.\n\n\"We're almost through the list,\" said Tane. \"Only a few names left.\"\n\n\"Then we keep at it,\" said Indree. \"Where do we find Cranst?\"\n\n\"No classes just now, it looks like,\" said Tane. \"He has a room in the dormitories.\"\n\n\"Come on, then.\" Indree headed across the campus center toward the northeast corner, where the dormitories were located.\n\nThe campus wasn't as quiet as it had been the day before, but it wasn't near as lively as Tane remembered either. The guards were still checking badges at doors, and beyond that, there was a new presence that he hadn't expected: the Mageblades, elite guardians of the Protectorate. A handful of them were scattered around campus at strategic points, imposing in brass cuirasses engraved with the Protectorate's gryphon over blue and white uniforms. Glyph-etched sabers and dual ancryst pistols hung at their sides.\n\nTrained to wield magic in combat in a way few mages could, the Mageblades were utterly loyal to the Protector of the Realm, and their abilities were legendary. By reputation, they could best anyone with spell or sword, and make impossible shots with their ancryst guns, guiding the ball's path with magical fields. Tane had known that Lady Abena was concerned about what had happened in the workshop, but even so he hadn't expected such a strong gesture. She hadn't sent many, but even one would have been a powerful deterrent against anyone looking to cause more trouble. Passing by a towering ogren in cuirass and uniform at the entrance to the dormitories, Tane felt oddly compelled to avoid eye-contact, as if the Mageblade might see everything he was hiding at a single glance.\n\nCranst shared a room on the third floor with another student\u2014a dwarf by the name of Heln Stonehand. It was Stonehand who answered the door when Indree knocked, and only by a crack, just enough to peek through. Tane could only tell it wasn't Cranst by height. \"Yes?\"\n\nIndree showed him her badge. \"Constable Inspector Indree Lovial. I'm looking for Randolf Cranst.\"\n\nStonehand sighed, and opened the door wider, revealing a wide-nosed dwarven face half-hidden by a bushy auburn beard. \"What did he do?\" His eyes fell on Kadka, and widened. \"Oh.\"\n\nTane raised an eyebrow. \"Oh what? You think he did something to Kadka?\"\n\n\"I thought\u2026 she's orcish, and Rand\u2026 he's been talking a lot about magical superiority lately. Some people, they take a first year magical history class and suddenly every conversation ends with 'maybe the Mage Emperor wasn't so wrong'.\" Stonehand turned to Kadka once more, obviously concerned. \"He didn't try to hurt you, did he?\"\n\n\"Don't know,\" said Kadka. \"That is why we come. To find out.\"\n\nIndree peered over Stonehand's head into the room. \"He's not here, I gather.\" It was fairly obvious: the room was just large enough to fit a bed and desk on each side, all of it visible from the door.\n\n\"No. He hasn't been sleeping here much the last few weeks.\" Stonehand stepped aside. \"You can look through his things if you want. Honestly, the way he's been talking, I've been wondering if I should tell someone.\"\n\nIndree was inside before he finished inviting her. \"Which side is his?\"\n\n\"There.\" Stonehand pointed to the right side of the room.\n\nIndree set to work immediately, opening the top drawer of Cranst's desk and sifting through papers and trinkets. Tane followed her in; Kadka closed the door behind and leaned back against it, guarding against interruption.\n\nTane picked up a small pamphlet from the top of the desk, clearly printed on some basement press. Magic for the Magical was the slogan stamped crookedly along the top, followed by a screed about the superiority of mages. The Mage Emperor's staff and crown was emblazoned in the middle of the page. \"Look at this.\" He showed it to Indree.\n\nHe recognized the glint in her eye\u2014the same one he'd seen there a hundred times before, when the solution to a problem was coming clear. But aloud, all she said was, \"It could be something. But not by itself.\" She started digging through the next drawer down.\n\nTane sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at Stonehand. \"Any idea where he's been, if not here?\"\n\nThe dwarf shrugged. \"He stays with his cousin sometimes. In Greenstone I think, not far from the Conservatory off Rosepetal Park.\" Rosepetal Park sat on the edge of the Citadel Court at the center of Thaless, but it was a large park, and the Conservatory of Magical Beasts was situated at the far southern end, bordering on a much less affluent district\u2014better for animal noises to wake some poor miner in the night than the Rhienni ambassador. \"If you want me to guess\u2026 what if he found some like-minded people? Maybe having some sort of meetings? That could get dangerous.\"\n\n\"His cousin,\" said Tane. \"Is that Dedric Cranst? From the University Guard?\"\n\n\"That's him.\"\n\nAgain Tane caught Indree's eye, and saw the same understanding there. This was easily the best lead they'd found all day.\n\nBut there was something strange about it, too. \"Would you call Randolf a gifted student?\" Tane asked. \"Did he have any particular insight into magical theory?\"\n\nStonehand looked at him incredulously. \"Rand? No, not at all. He's studying invocation, but he's average at best. I've had to help him with some pretty basic concepts.\"\n\nThe records said much the same\u2014sometimes tests and grades didn't tell the entire story, but in this case it seemed they did. So how did he find a loophole in the portal wards that I can't see?\n\nIndree was on the last desk drawer now, and she'd only had it open a moment when she frowned and drew out a crumpled piece of paper.\n\n\"Tane.\" She showed it to him.\n\nA schedule of student and faculty hours in the primary artifice workshop.\n\n\"Well that's definitely something,\" said Tane.\n\n\"The cousin,\" said Indree. \"Is he on campus now?\"\n\nTane looked over the guard roster. \"He should be on duty.\"\n\nIndree's eyes went unfocused a moment, and then, \"I've sent to Dean Greymond. She'll have him waiting for us in her office. Come on.\"\n\nWhen they were outside, away from Stonehand's ears, Kadka said, \"This is him, you think?\"\n\n\"It makes sense,\" said Tane. \"Lady Abena is supposed to share the airship designs with the Continent as a gesture of goodwill. That might look like a sign of weakness, if you were interested in magical superiority. He might have gone after the plans in the hopes of finding a way to sabotage tomorrow's launch.\"\n\nIndree was several steps ahead, and walking fast. \"He could also just be one of a hundred harmless idiots who thinks a first-year class was enough to show him how the whole world works. What we need to know is whether he could have taken his cousin's badge. Hurry up.\"\n\nGreymond's door, as usual, swung open before they knocked. She was waiting behind her desk. In a chair at the side of the room sat Dedric Cranst, a broad-shouldered human man with thinning brown hair, dressed in a University Guard uniform. He looked up nervously as they entered.\n\n\"Inspector Lovial,\" said Greymond, and gestured at the guardsman. \"As requested.\"\n\n\"What is all this?\" Cranst asked.\n\n\"Mister Cranst, I won't waste time,\" said Indree. \"Your cousin is Randolf Cranst, correct?\"\n\n\"Y\u2014yes, Inspector.\"\n\n\"Did he stay at your home the night before last?\" It was new, seeing Indree like this\u2014every inch the no-nonsense constable.\n\n\"Yes he did. He does sometimes, when his roommate is\u2026 you know, with someone. But what\u2014\"\n\n\"Would he have been able to take your badge between midnight and two o'clock the night before last, and again just after noon yesterday?\"\n\n\"What? No, he wouldn't do that.\" Dedric's eyes widened. \"Wait, those times\u2026 you don't think he\u2014\"\n\n\"Answer the question, Mister Cranst. Not whether you think he would or would not, but whether he had access to the badge.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I suppose while I was sleeping. And I wasn't on duty yesterday. I was out in the afternoon. Listen, Rand is a bit hot-headed, but he would never\u2026 what happened to that poor girl, that wasn't him.\"\n\n\"Do you know where your cousin is right now?\"\n\n\"I don't\u2026 I haven't seen him today.\"\n\nIndree was almost certainly using a truth-spell herself, but even so she glanced at Greymond, who gave her a slight nod. Tane didn't raise an objection\u2014it didn't sound to him like the man was lying, and two divinations were probably enough.\n\n\"Then we're done here,\" Indree said. \"Dean Greymond, please make certain that he is kept under watch until the constables arrive to take over. I don't want him getting word to his cousin.\" She didn't hesitate a moment before heading back out the door. Tane and Kadka hurried after.\n\n\"So this Cranst is mage we fought.\" Kadka easily matched Indree's pace, leaving Tane several steps behind.\n\n\"Looks like.\" Indree didn't break stride.\n\n\"How do we find him now?\" Kadka asked.\n\n\"We have cause to justify a divination focus,\" Indree said. \"We should be able to pull something from his room.\" She cursed under her breath. \"I've already sent to my superiors. They're arranging a warrant, but we can't afford to spend long digging around for hairs right now. If he tries to contact his cousin he'll realize something is wrong, and mask himself from seeking spells.\"\n\n\"Will these do?\" Tane asked. He fished around in his pocket and then thrust his hand between the two women. A few tangled strands of brown hair sat in his open palm.\n\nIndree stopped mid-stride to look down at the hairs, and then back to Tane, frowning. \"Where did you\u2026\"\n\n\"His pillow, when we were in his room. I had a feeling.\"\n\n\"Tane, that's against the law. We didn't have cause or warrant.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I'm no bluecap. You didn't break any rules.\"\n\n\"You're going to get yourself arrested one day. I hope you don't expect me to get you out of it.\" And then Indree's mouth tugged up at the corner, just a bit, and she snatched the hairs from his hand. \"Come on. We're wasting time.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "\"Any sign of Cranst?\" Dean greymond's voice, accompanied by a sudden pressure in his ears. She sounded nervous. As the University's liason to the investigation, she'd insisted Tane keep her informed\u2014she was more familiar with him than with Indree, which made the sending easier.\n\n\"We're just off the discs in Porthaven,\" Tane sent back through the open link. \"He's still masked, but Indree thinks we're getting closer.\"\n\nIndree's seeking spell had found a bearing on Cranst, but his Astral signature was blurred. A cursory masking\u2014probably not a sign that he knew they were coming\u2014but enough that even the divination focus couldn't give her more than a broad sense of his location until they were closer. She'd led them to Porthaven, and from there toward the north side of the harbor. Wherever they were going, it wasn't terribly far from the airship's drydock. The narrow streets were falling into shadow as the sun set overhead. It reminded Tane a little bit too much of the night before. He half-expected a burst of spellfire from the rooftops at any moment.\n\nIndree led them briskly through the streets and alleys, Cranst's hair clutched tight in one hand and her ancryst pistol in the other. He'd been taken aback when she'd drawn it from beneath her coat\u2014it was still hard to look at her and see a bluecap.\n\n\"How did you end up here, Ree?\"\n\n\"Indree,\" she corrected reflexively.\n\n\"Sorry. Indree. But really, why this? You were at the top of your class. You could be drafting spells for any of the manufacturing firms in Thaless for more money in a day than a constable makes in a month.\"\n\nIndree glanced over her shoulder, and something flickered across her eyes. \"Really? You're asking now?\"\n\nTane shrugged. \"It just\u2026 this isn't something you ever talked about.\" He didn't really expect an answer, but it was a distraction from his growing unease.\n\n\"You don't know me very well anymore, Tane.\" She was silent a moment, and then she surprised him. \"I wasn't angry when I learned the truth about you, you know. I already knew about your parents, and after I read your dissertation, I\u2026 well, I suppose I was angry. But not the way everyone else was. I just wanted to understand. I wanted you to explain.\n\nShe didn't look back again, just kept talking as she led the way. \"I didn't give up, after you disappeared. Everyone said you'd just run away. Even Allaea\u2026\" Her voice failed her, for just an instant. \"Even she said you weren't coming back. She always liked you, but she knew. Me, I didn't think you could do something like that. I thought something had happened to you. Someone had heard about the way you fooled the University and decided to punish you for it. It kept me awake at night.\n\n\"So I tried to find you. I cast seeking spells, but you were masked, which only scared me more. Someone was trying to keep you from me. I tried a focus, a hair you left in my bed, but even then you were too well hidden. The focus was just enough to get me a slight feeling every few days when the masking started to fade, before a new one went up. Not enough to find you. But I did my research. Looked into every seeking and masking spell I could find, tracked the times when the mask seemed to weaken. I kept trying. Every day, for weeks. And then one day there was a gap. I suppose they\u2014you\u2014thought no one would be looking by then. But I was.\n\n\"It didn't last very long, but it led me to Porthaven. I had an area. And every day I went back there, looking for some sign. Until one day I saw you, across the street, strolling through the fish market.\" Her fist clenched tighter around the strands of Cranst's hair. \"You weren't in trouble. No one had taken you away. You were just\u2026 there.\n\n\"It was just like Allaea said. She\u2026 she was always better at seeing things like that. I should have given up on you as soon as you left. And after that, I did.\" Still she didn't look at him, but she squared her shoulders and raised her chin a little higher. \"But I learned that I was good at that kind of divination. The kind the constabulary specializes in. And there are always people in this city in real trouble, people with families and friends who are just as scared and worried as I was. People who need help. So I decided to help.\"\n\nTane hung his head. \"I'm so sorry, Indree. I didn't mean to\u2026 I thought I was helping you. You would have been expelled too, if they'd thought you were part of it.\" I should have known she wouldn't quit. When has she ever?\n\n\"I don't care,\" Indree said flatly. \"I'm not looking for an apology, and I'm long past expecting to understand. I just wanted you to hear what it was like, not knowing. So if anyone else\"\u2014she glanced at Kadka, there\u2014\"is stupid enough to get close to you, maybe you don't put them through that.\"\n\nKadka didn't react at all to the rather pointed hint\u2014she appeared to be listening to something else entirely. And Tane recognized the look on her face.\n\n\"There's someone following us again, isn't there?\" He touched his watch case nervously, and then reached into his trouser pockets to check the charms there, better organized than the last time\u2014darkness on the right and charmglobe on the left, loaded and wound with a flash charm inside.\n\n\"Many someones,\" said Kadka. \"I think we are surrounded.\"\n\nIndree frowned. \"No, I\u2026\" Her eyes glazed a moment, and then, \"Spellfire, I was concentrating so much on Cranst, I didn't think\u2026 She's right. I can sense maybe a dozen, all around us. His cousin must have warned him. It's a trap, and I led us right into it.\"\n\nKadka had a knife in her hand now, and she bared her teeth. \"Not over yet.\"\n\n\"You're right.\" Indree raised her pistol and drew her baton from beneath her coat. Again, a cloud passed across her eyes. \"I've notified Stooketon Yard. They're tracking my location, and there were already men on the way to help take Cranst in. We only need to hold until they get here.\"\n\n\"Come then,\" said Kadka. \"Why wait to fight where they want?\" She sprinted ahead. Tane exchanged a look with Indree; she raised her shoulders slightly, and followed Kadka.\n\nA man in a black coat darted from an alley ahead to cut Kadka off. She didn't even slow, just lowered her shoulder and hit him full on. He went down. She didn't.\n\nTane heard the sound of the lingua coming from somewhere deeper in, and he recognized the words. Spellfire. \"Kadka!\" He lunged ahead, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back. A gout of silver flame poured from the shadowed mouth of the alley, barely missing her. Tane looked back, but there were already men emerging along the street behind.\n\n\"Stop!\" Indree pointed her pistol at a second black-clothed man emerging from the alley ahead\u2014the one who had cast the spellfire, Tane guessed. \"By the authority of Stooketon Yard, I demand you let us pass!\"\n\nMore came after him, from the side-streets ahead and behind, all dressed in black. Men and women, most human, but there were others too: a pair of dwarves, an elf, a kobold, a goblin, a gnome. Very soon the street was blocked by a half-dozen in either direction. A few of them brandished weapons, and one woman wore an ancryst pistol at her hip, but it was the unarmed ones Tane found most worrisome. By the extremist literature he'd found in Cranst's room, he had a feeling that most of them would be mages. Magic users tended to assume their spells were better than any weapon, and they rarely carried ancryst pistols or the like unless extensively trained\u2014their own magic would throw their shots off course.\n\nThe man Indree was aiming at laughed. \"Let you pass? You're in no position to make demands. Three of you, and two with no magic. You think an orc\"\u2014he spat the word with disgust\u2014\"can best a mage?\" He looked to Tane, ignoring Indree's pistol. \"You shouldn't have come after me, Carver. You're out of your depth.\"\n\n\"Cranst.\" It had to be. He was dressed in a black topcoat over dark clothes, but he hadn't bothered with the mask. There was a certain resemblance to Dedric, though Randolf was younger, with a stronger jaw and a full head of brown hair.\n\nPressure in his ears, and then Greymond's voice: \"Mister Carver, have you\u2014\"\n\n\"Not now!\"\n\nShe must have recognized the urgency in his words, because the pressure abated immediately.\n\n\"I told you to let the scrollcaster be,\" Cranst said. \"If you had, maybe less people would have gotten hurt. But I had to deal with it.\"\n\nBastian. Tane glanced at Kadka, and saw the same realization on her face. His fingers wrapped around the charm in his right pocket. It was the only one worth using at this close a range. Anything else would affect Indree and Kadka too.\n\nKadka snarled at Cranst. \"Enough talk. You want us dead, come try.\"\n\n\"Gladly,\" Cranst answered with a sour smile. \"One less orc in the world.\" He started to utter words in the lingua.\n\nOne advantage to pre-cast spells: they were much faster than speaking the words in the moment. \"Get ready to move,\" Tane whispered to Indree and Kadka. They were going to have to do the rest\u2014he wasn't going to be much use in a moment.\n\nHe drew his hand from his pocket, crushed the charm's seal, and threw the little roll of paper to the ground at his feet.\n\nThe street went black."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "Kadka's eyes adjusted almost instantly to the sudden darkness, casting the world in washed-out shades of pale color. Amid cries of alarm and confusion, she threw herself to the side. Carver and Indree did the same.\n\nSilver spellfire roared across the space where they'd been standing.\n\nThe strange thing was, the flames didn't light the darkness at all. Kadka could see them clearly, but the light didn't go anywhere. The magelights along the side of the street were the same: globes of isolated silver-blue that illuminated only themselves. And yet the darkness wasn't absolute\u2014something filtered in from outside, like a sliver of starlight peeking through on a clouded night. Whatever charm Carver had worked, it seemed to stop magical illumination in its tracks, while allowing just enough natural light for those blessed with keen night eyes. Even under these circumstances, it was a wonder to see, like so many things in this city that so few seemed to notice.\n\nOther voices were already starting to chant in the strange language of magic that Carver called lingua. A quick sweep told Kadka that most of them were utterly blind in the dark, save for two dwarves, a goblin, and an elf\u2014those four moved like they could still see.\n\nKadka leapt for one of the dwarves, a woman chanting nonsense magical words. The ones who could see were the danger now, and spellcasters above the rest. A fist to the throat cut the spell off mid-cast, just like Carver had said. Blind them, distract them, shut them up. That was the gist of the advice he'd given her for fighting mages, and he'd provided the darkness already\u2014it was only fair she do her part.\n\nThe goblin came at her next, and to her disappointment he didn't try a spell, just swiped at her with a knife of his own. She grabbed his wrist, spun, and heaved, lifting him over her shoulder and slamming him down on the ground.\n\nIndree's half-elven eyes must have been keen enough to pierce the dark too, because she aimed her pistol at the second dwarf. But she didn't shoot. Instead, she spoke a sequence of magic words\u2014quick and practiced, unlike some of their attackers\u2014and from nowhere, bands of translucent silver-blue wrapped around the dwarf's mouth and wrists and ankles. Indree flicked the barrel of her pistol downward and spoke another word, and he was forced to his knees. One of the humans stumbled blindly at her, and she backhanded him across the face with the baton in her other hand. He went down, at least for the moment.\n\nKadka was impressed, and not just by the spell. The woman knew how to take care of herself.\n\nCarver, not so much. Unable to see in the dark, he'd pressed himself to the ground just ahead, trying to stay out of the way, but a kobold man was only a few steps from tripping over him. Kadka lifted the gasping dwarven woman by the collar and heaved her at the kobold. Both fell in a heap, and Carver scrambled away from the noise. Behind her, Kadka heard the elven man utter the first words of a spell; she whirled and threw her knife in the same motion. The blade bit deep into the elf's shoulder, and a scream of pain signalled his broken concentration.\n\nSomeone else was muttering the words of a spell, but before Kadka could find him by the sound, Carver's voice interrupted. \"Idiot! If you start throwing spellfire without a precise target, you're going to burn each other alive!\" The strange words ended abruptly.\n\nShe was starting to understand what he'd said about most mages not being trained for battle.\n\nA flicker of movement ahead. Kadka looked up to see Cranst sprinting away down the street. Apparently his confidence had only lasted as long as his advantage. She drew another knife and hurled it, but at the same moment a tall human finished speaking a spell, and a barrier of silver-blue energy blossomed from his hands to span the street. Kadka's blade rebounded from the shield, sending silver ripples over its surface. She had another knife in hand before it hit the ground, but the way forward was blocked. Cranst was out of reach.\n\nThe goblin was up again, and he'd given up on a fair fight\u2014he was sneaking up on Carver, who had crawled away to huddle against the wall. The goblin raised a blade. No time for Kadka to get there. \"Carver, watch out!\"\n\nIndree spun toward Carver and aimed her pistol at a spot on the left side of the silver shield, where no one was standing at all. There was a silvery flash from the barrel, and at almost the same moment the shield rippled bright where the ball neared it and banked away. An instant later the goblin man cried out and dropped.\n\n\"Not bad!\" Kadka said, grinning wide. She liked this woman.\n\nAnother man staggered past, blind in the dark. He flinched at the sound of her voice, but he couldn't avoid the hilt of her knife against his temple. He collapsed. Normally she might have killed him outright\u2014he'd attacked them first, after all\u2014but there were still questions to ask, and she suspected Indree would object to a slaughter. Better if they could be friends.\n\nBefore she could find another target, a wave of silver force struck her in the side, throwing her against hard brick. She hit the wall laughing, even as her arm twisted and her vision blurred. It hurt, but it was magic. Nothing she'd ever done before warmed her blood like this. She didn't think she'd ever get tired of it.\n\nShe landed on her feet, searching the direction the spell had come from. The dwarven woman had risen to her knees, and she was already casting another spell.\n\nKadka charged, snarling for effect\u2014people in the city didn't seem to like when she showed her teeth. The dwarf's eyes widened, and she fell back on her hands, scrambling to get out of the way.\n\nShe didn't get far.\n\nKadka's momentum carried her foot hard into the other woman's windpipe, and the dwarf went down, choking and grasping her throat. Won't be speaking again soon.\n\nShe glanced from side to side, looking for someone else to fight.\n\nAnd then, suddenly, she was standing in the dim light of the evening once more. Carver's charm was spent."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "The darkness was gone, but Tane didn't much like what there was to see.\n\nThere were still seven of them standing, one holding a shield-spell to cover Cranst's escape. Kadka closed with a gnome who was chanting a spell and backing away too swiftly for his illusory camouflage to keep pace. Indree had stowed her spent pistol; she was speaking in the lingua and fending off a big human man with her baton, all while maintaining her shackling spell on a dwarf nearby. That was impressive\u2014most mages couldn't hold more than one spell and still do much else. A wave of force erupted from her hand, hurling the man she'd been fighting against the magical shield blocking the street. The shield flickered under the force of her spell, but held; the man fell to the ground on his hands and knees.\n\nThe ladies were holding their own, but they couldn't last against so many. If just one mage gets a spell off\u2026 But it wasn't a spell that spurred Tane into motion. As Indree turned to face the other attackers, a human woman put her back against the shield and took aim with an ancryst pistol. From there, the magical force of the barrier wouldn't interfere with the shot\u2014it would send it right into Indree's back.\n\n\"Ree!\" Tane didn't have time to think, just threw himself forward, yanking the daze-wand from his belt as he moved.\n\nHe leapt at the woman with the pistol and jabbed toward her torso, hoping for the best. They collided hard; she caught the wand with one hand, holding the end inches from her chest. The pistol went off in a silver flash. The two of them pitched to the ground in a tangle of limbs.\n\nThe woman held the wand tight and battered Tane's head and shoulders with her expended pistol. He gritted his teeth and pushed, avoiding the blows as best he could. Then, all at once, he relaxed his arm. She wasn't expecting it. Her grip weakened for an instant, and he shoved again with all his strength. The copper tip of the wand touched her chest, and she went limp. The already cloudy peridot set above the grip was entirely consumed by opaque white, and a crack ran down the center as the last of its structural integrity was utterly consumed by magic.\n\nTane rolled off the woman, panting. His eyes found Indree. Still on her feet. \"Thank the Astra,\" he breathed.\n\n\"Stop where you are!\" A new voice from behind. Tane lifted his head to see a dozen uniformed bluecaps approaching from behind, pistols drawn.\n\nSome of the remaining attackers threw down their weapons; others tried to run, but the constables restrained them with shackling spells similar to the one Indree was maintaining on the dwarven man. The human holding the shield bolted down a side-alley, and the shimmering barrier flickered and vanished. Three constables were after him the instant the way was clear.\n\n\"About time,\" Indree said, but she was smiling, and the relief was clear on her face. \"Take them to the Yard. We'll want to question them.\" The constables closed in, binding the prisoners with shackles and brass muzzles to stop the mages from casting.\n\nKadka pulled Tane to his feet and clapped him on the back. \"Carver! Is clever thing, this darkness!\"\n\nIndree had released her spell on the dwarf now that he was bound, and she was tapping a small amount of silver powder into her pistol\u2014firing charms didn't carry much force unless enhanced with silver, but the powder was consumed along with the charm, requiring a new load for each shot. \"Don't give him all the credit. You must have dropped at least five yourself. That was\u2026 impressive.\"\n\nKadka bared her teeth in a wide grin. \"Is more they were not. And you are not so bad yourself.\"\n\n\"I had spells, and my pistol. You took more of them with a few knives.\" Indree finished tamping the ancryst ball and charm into the barrel of her gun, and looked up at Tane. \"And the charm helped. That was quick thinking, Tane. It probably saved our lives.\" She glanced at the woman he'd dazed, still limp on the ground. \"Thank y\u2014\" Her eyes widened and she broke off mid-word. One hand dipped into her pocket, and came out with a strand of brown hair. \"Cranst! We might still catch him!\" And then she was off down the street, with Tane and Kadka sprinting after.\n\nCranst hadn't gotten far, as it turned out. He was waiting at the end of the road where it met the harbor, just a few blocks south of the airship and its towering scaffolds. He must have known that his ambush had failed\u2014that there was no escape while Indree was alive and still had a focus on him. A forced rictus of a smile stretched across his face, but Tane saw fear in his eyes. The last faint light of the setting sun glinted off the long knife in his hand.\n\n\"Drop the weapon, Cranst.\" Indree levelled her pistol at him.\n\n\"They were supposed to stop you,\" Cranst said, his voice trembling. \"You weren't supposed to come after me.\"\n\n\"Did you kill Allaea?\" The pistol shook slightly in Indree's hands, but she kept her voice steady. \"Confess, and it will go toward a merciful sentence.\"\n\n\"She wasn't supposed to be there. Another failure. I\u2026 I made a mess of it.\"\n\n\"A mess of what?\" A raw edge crept into Indree's voice as her composure failed. \"What did she die for? What were you doing?\"\n\n\"You\u2026 you won't get anything from me!\" His voice broke, but he raised his knife in both hands. \"I may have failed, but the time of the magical will come again! You can't stop it!\"\n\nTane took a step toward him. \"Cranst, don't!\"\n\n\"For the Mage Emperor!\" Cranst screamed, and drove the knife into his chest with both hands.\n\nTane surged forward as Cranst collapsed to the ground, face first. \"Get help! He might\u2014\"\n\n\"There's no point.\" Indree approached slowly, staring at the crumpled body. \"The blade went through his heart. I can feel him fading from the Astra. He killed her, and he can't even tell me why.\" With a strangled cry of rage, she aimed a savage kick at Cranst's head. \"Why?\"\n\nCranst jerked limply at the impact, but he was beyond answering.\n\nTane wanted to say something, offer some comfort, but he didn't think she'd welcome that from him just then.\n\nInstead, it was Kadka who went to her. She placed a fur-tufted hand on Indree's shoulder. \"You found man who killed her. This is not nothing.\"\n\n\"It's not enough,\" said Indree. But she didn't pull away.\n\n\"He might have something that can tell us more,\" Tane said, and started to pat down the body, trying to avoid the spreading blood. \"Here.\" A small purse, tucked into an inner pocket of Cranst's coat. Tane emptied it into his palm. A plain iron key and\u2026 \"A badge?\" Not University Guard, though\u2014this wasn't what he'd used to get into the workshop.\n\nA gold crown and staff on a circle of deep purple. The Mage Emperor's sigil.\n\n\"Look at this,\" Tane said, holding it up. \"For the wards on his bolthole? Or maybe\u2026 all the magical extremist rhetoric, and those others with him\u2026 some sort of cult, like Stonehand thought?\"\n\nIndree leaned down to look. \"It could be. We'll question the others, they might\u2014\" She stopped, frowned. \"Tane?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"He said something about a scrollcaster.\" She was glaring at him now, in that terrifying way only she could. \"What. Scrollcaster.\"\n\n\"Spellfire, I nearly forgot!\" Tane locked eyes with Kadka over Indree's shoulder. \"We need to get to Bastian. Now.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "At the bottom of the short stairway off the alley, the door to Bastian's workshop stood half-open.\n\nTane couldn't imagine that was a good sign.\n\nIndree stopped Tane and Kadka with a raised hand, and then waved the constables forward. Four bluecaps followed her in, pistols and batons at the ready\u2014she'd left the others to bring in the prisoners.\n\nTane glanced at Kadka, who tipped her head toward the door. He shrugged and nodded, and they stepped inside, disregarding Indree's signal.\n\nThe bodies were the first thing Tane noticed. Six of them, and none looked to have died very pleasantly. He recognized four as Bastian's \"friends\", three humans sprawled on the floor and a goblin bent over a worktable with terrible burns across his back. The last two must have been with the intruders, a human and an elf slumped against one another, both in black coats and trousers like Cranst and the rest had worn. At first glance, there was no sign of a little sprite in a green mask and waistcoat.\n\nThe room had been thoroughly ransacked. Dark scorch marks marred the walls at various points. Books littered the floor, and the dais beside Bastian's little library had been toppled, the tiny furniture left in pieces. Tables had been shifted and tipped over in what must have been a violent fight for the scrollcaster, and artifacts were scattered everywhere, most of them broken. The charms must have been incinerated with spellfire\u2014only a few remained intact amid drifts of ash and scraps.\n\nIndree gave the two of them an annoyed glance as they entered, but she didn't waste time on reprimands. \"We're looking for a brass scrollcaster set with a peridot,\" she instructed the bluecaps. \"It's possible they didn't find it. Cranst made implications, but he didn't say anything outright. Spread out and search.\" The constables did as she ordered, sifting through the mess. Tane had explained the situation to her on the way\u2014she hadn't been terribly pleased, but she'd been more concerned with retrieving the caster than scolding him, so far.\n\n\"How did they get in?\" Tane wondered aloud. \"There were wards when we came.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter now,\" said Indree. \"Do either of you have any idea where he might have put the scrollcaster?\"\n\nTane shook his head. \"No, I\u2014\"\n\nHe felt a pressure in his ears, and then Bastian appeared just in front of his face. One moment the space was empty, and the next, a fat little sprite in a masquerade mask hovered in front of him on iridescent wings. Tane took a startled step back. Beside him, Kadka did the same.\n\n\"Hello!\" Bastian said. \"Mister Carver and my dear Kadka, I'm so pleased to see you again. If only it were under better circumstances. I'd intended to contact you shortly, but my detections tell me you've already seen this unspeakable tragedy for yourselves.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" Indree demanded. \"What are you two looking at?\" She waved a hand through the air in front of Tane's face; it passed through Bastian as if he wasn't there.\n\n\"You don't see?\" Kadka asked. She mimicked Indree's gesture, passing her hand through Bastian's belly. Her eyes widened.\n\nIndree raised an eyebrow. \"I don't see anything. A sending?\"\n\nTane nodded. \"The contact I told you about. This was his shop.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, I did detect a number of bluecaps with you,\" said the illusory Bastian. \"How strange this must look to them! I'm afraid they won't see or hear me, nor I them\u2014a shared sending seemed the most efficient way to contact you both, but I haven't any divination foci for your friends. Under any other circumstances I would be very cross with you for leading the authorities to my humble shop, but tonight I can hardly complain!\"\n\n\"Ask him what happened,\" Indree said urgently. \"We need to know where the scrollcaster is.\"\n\n\"I know. Let me talk to the man.\" Tane waved Indree away. She scowled at him, but moved to help her men search the wreckage. \"What happened here, Bastian?\"\n\n\"A young man came in with two others. He knew the proper procedures, my secret knock. A pity. I'll have to change it now, and I did rather like the rhythm. Suffice it to say, there was nothing overly suspicious about them, other than a certain nervousness. I suspect now that their leader must have been the masked student we discussed\u2014not masked this time, of course. He would have known how to get in the door.\"\n\n\"Dark hair and eyes, a sharpish jawline?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes that sounds like the man!\"\n\nCranst. He must have come straight from Bastian's shop to the street where they'd been ambushed. \"Go on,\" said Tane.\n\n\"My friends searched them for weapons and found nothing. The young men acted only after our guard was lowered. One of them raised a shield while the others cast spellfire at the warding glyphs around the room. It wasn't terribly swift or skillful, but I must admit, we were wholly unprepared for such a barbaric attack! There is a certain honor among my colleagues, criminal or no. A certain way of doing things. But this\u2026 It simply isn't done!\" Bastian fluttered his wings in obvious agitation. \"They were successful in damaging the wards, in any event, even with the redundancies I had in place. After that, more came. My friends were able to get me out through a passage in the back, at a\u2026 rather terrible cost.\" He hung his head. \"But I am afraid I have let you down rather gravely, Mister Carver. These\u2026 these savages destroyed the scrollcaster you entrusted to me.\"\n\n\"But you still have focus for us,\" said Kadka. \"Why take these when you go, and not caster?\"\n\n\"I had the scrollcaster on my desk, in plain sight. By the time I gathered my wits, it was already too late to save it. I fled with nothing but my life, I assure you! I have the foci only because I store my collection at a separate location. I do have resources beyond this shop, my dear! One must be ready to relocate quickly, in this business!\" Bastian puffed out his chest slightly, as if that was a matter of personal pride.\n\n\"There's nothing here,\" Indree said from across the room. \"What does this contact of yours have to say?\"\n\nTane didn't want to answer. She wasn't going to like this, and he couldn't blame her.\n\nKadka had no such hesitation. \"Was Cranst. Scrollcaster is gone. Destroyed.\"\n\n\"Damn it!\" Indree slammed a hand down on one of the tables. \"If you'd just told me about it sooner\u2014\"\n\n\"I know!\" Tane snapped, and then, after a breath, \"I'm not happy about this either. But\u2026 you would have taken it, and then we'd never have gotten anything out of Bastian. He was never going to talk to a bluecap.\"\n\n\"Oh dear,\" the Bastian figment said with a frown, and peered around as if searching for Indree and the others. His eyes passed over them, unseeing. \"I hope I haven't gotten you in trouble. It is true that I wouldn't have spoken to a constable, if that makes any difference at all.\"\n\nBut Indree couldn't hear him, and by the look on her face it wouldn't have mattered much if she could have. \"Maybe that's true,\" she said, \"but it wasn't your decision to make. I know you think you're the smartest man in every room, but\u2026 Spellfire, Tane, I should take you in for this. Obstructing my investigation.\"\n\n\"If that's what you want to do, I can't stop you,\" said Tane. \"But at least let me get what I can here first. Bastian might still have something we can use.\"\n\nIndree looked at him for a long moment, prodding her cheek with her tongue. Finally she nodded, and gestured for him to finish.\n\nTane looked back to Bastian. \"Were you able to get anything from the caster before they took it?\"\n\n\"Not as much as I would like,\" said Bastian. \"But I was able to discern what it was used for last. It may have sent any number of papers first, but the last thing it did was receive.\"\n\nTane narrowed his eyes. \"What would he have been receiving? Some sort of instructions? From where?\"\n\n\"If only I could say!\" Bastian's voice positively throbbed with lament. \"It was taken before I could find anything more!\"\n\n\"It's\u2026 fine, Bastian.\" He didn't want the little sprite to burst a blood vessel.\n\n\"You can be proud, little man,\" said Kadka. \"You try to help, even at high price. Is good thing.\"\n\n\"I did nothing more than my duty to Lady Abena and the Protectorate!\" Bastian said, though he looked rather pleased with himself beneath his mask. \"I'm only sorry I can't tell you more. But if there is nothing else you need, this attack has left me with a great deal of work to do.\"\n\n\"Go,\" said Tane. \"But if you remember anything else\u2026\"\n\n\"Of course, Mister Carver! I want nothing more than to see the man who did this brought to justice!\" The illusory sprite turned to Kadka. \"And my dearest Kadka, my offer is and shall always remain open. You need only contact my friend Issik.\"\n\n\"Need to finish this,\" Kadka said. \"But when is done, who knows?\"\n\n\"Ah, how you toy with my hopes. A delight, as ever!\" Bastian's sending bowed as deep as his round little body could manage. \"I wish you both the best of luck!\" And then he was gone.\n\nIndree noticed the change right away. \"Well?\" she said. \"You said something about receiving a message.\"\n\n\"He told me the case was last used to receive, not to send,\" said Tane\n\n\"To receive what?\"\n\n\"That's the question,\" Tane said. \"He didn't know. New instructions, maybe?\"\n\n\"Means he was working for someone, then, yes?\" Kadka said.\n\n\"It might,\" said Indree. \"But it could have come from a subordinate, too. One of the people with him tonight. Until we know what was sent, all we can say for certain is that someone sent it. It's something to ask our prisoners about, at least.\"\n\n\"So,\" said Tane, offering his hands for binding, \"are you going to throw me in a cell now?\"\n\n\"I should.\" Indree sighed and shook her head, and for a brief, startling moment, Tane could have sworn he saw a smile. \"You're an arrogant dunce, Tane Carver, but I do believe you meant well. And we still have something to work with. I suppose you can keep your freedom for now.\"\n\n\"That's what I hoped you'd say. Time to do some questioning, then?\"\n\n\"It's time for me to spend a long night questioning the prisoners,\" said Indree, \"and for you to go home. Without arguing. Because you understand that I'm already turning a blind eye to several misdemeanors, and there is no force in the Astra that would convince the Chief Constable to let you into the Yard unshackled.\"\n\nThere wasn't much room to fight her there. \"Fine. I suppose I could use some sleep.\"\n\n\"I'll send someone with you, in case Cranst laid any other traps.\" Indree turned to Kadka. \"I don't know that you're any better than Tane, but please, stop him if he tries to do something stupid like sneak into Stooketon Yard?\"\n\nKadka grinned. \"If plan is too bad\u2026 maybe I will stop. Could be fun to watch.\"\n\n\"I shudder to think what the two of you might consider a good plan, but I suppose that's the best I'm going to get. Now go. I have to get these bodies back to the Yard.\" Indree gestured to a pair of constables. \"See them home.\"\n\nTane turned to leave, hesitated, and looked back. \"Indree?\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"We'll be back tomorrow. I'm not giving up on this.\"\n\nAnother ghost of a smile. \"I didn't think for a moment that you would. Greymond's office, first bell. I'll expect you there.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "Greymond scowled at Tane from behind her desk. \"Would you mind telling me why I am only hearing about this scrollcaster now? Is it physically possible for you to tell the truth, Mister Carver?\"\n\nIndree answered before Tane could. \"Some secrecy was necessary to appease his contacts in the black market. I agree that he went too far, but what's done is done.\"\n\nTane glanced at her, surprised. She looked all too much like an official representative of Stooketon Yard in her constable's uniform with her blue cap over pinned hair\u2014he hadn't expected her to defend his interference. She ignored him, her gaze fixed on Greymond, but Kadka caught Tane's eye and grinned knowingly.\n\nGreymond hardly looked satisfied, but she moved on. \"And the prisoners? Did they give you anything?\"\n\nIndree shook her head. \"Not very much. I questioned every one of them with truth-spells, and as far as I can tell, they don't know anything. A handful of overly suggestible students, and the rest pulled from various Halls of the Astra.\" That wasn't surprising. Astralites already worshipped the source of magic as a divine entity\u2014it wouldn't be a huge jump from there to magical superiority. \"They responded to pro-magical literature like the pamphlet we found in Cranst's room. Apparently he held regular meetings. Some of them are\u2026 rather fanatical, but they weren't told anything about his overarching plans. They didn't have badges like we found on him, either.\" She indicated Cranst's pouch, lying on Greymond's desk. \"Divinations on the badge and key confirmed that they belonged to Cranst, but nothing beyond that.\"\n\n\"Can we assume, then, that the matter is closed? Cranst all but admitted to the murder, by your account, and seems to have been the motivating force behind these lunatics.\"\n\nTane shook his head. \"I don't think it's that simp\u2014\"\n\nGreymond interrupted him with a short phrase in the lingua, and her office door swung open.\n\nChancellor Nieris strode into the room in an extravagant purple coat and frilled crimson cravat. \"Thank you, Liana,\" he said briskly, and held the door for the woman behind him.\n\nShe was human, perhaps a few years past forty, with deep brown skin\u2014darker than Indree's, who was of Anjican descent on her human mother's side. Her hair was short, dense black curls trimmed close to the scalp. She wore very fine clothes: a pale blue full-skirted longcoat buttoned in silver, with black boots beneath. Tane knew her instantly, even before Nieris introduced her. The air of authority she carried could only belong to a scion of one of the Great Houses, and only one human house traced its roots back to Estian-occupied Anjica before the Mage War.\n\n\"May I introduce Lady Abena Jasani, Protector of the Realm,\" Nieris said. \"Lady Abena, I know you are familiar with Dean Greymond.\"\n\nLady Abena nodded her head. \"It is always a pleasure, Liana. I appreciate\u2014\"\n\n\"I was glad to help, Your Ladyship, but the constabulary hasn't needed a great deal of assistance. I've done little enough.\" Greymond went pale then, realizing too late that she'd interrupted the Lady Protector. \"Oh I\u2026 I'm sorry, I\u2014\"\n\nLady Abena smiled. \"Great diviners are always ahead of their time, they say. I take no offense.\"\n\nNieris continued around the room. \"This is Constable Inspector Indree Lovial, and I imagine you've heard of Mister Tane Carver.\" He frowned when he got to Kadka. \"And Kadka, formerly of the University Guard. I confess, I'm not certain why she is here.\"\n\nKadka returned his gaze steadily. \"Helping.\"\n\n\"She has been a great help, Lady Abena,\" Indree said quickly, dipping her head respectfully to the Lady Protector. \"Without her, I think last night's ambush would have gone very differently.\"\n\n\"Then I thank you, Kadka,\" said Lady Abena. \"If you have been of use to the investigation, you are welcome here. Or is there a problem, Chancellor Nieris?\"\n\n\"Of course not. As I said before, Miss Kadka, I was very sorry that I had to\u2026\" Nieris trailed off under Kadka's yellow-eyed stare. \"Well, in any event, we have important things to discuss.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lady Abena. \"I am very interested to hear about what you have found, Inspector Lovial. Chancellor Nieris assures me that your efforts have been most admirable.\" She turned to Tane, then; his instinct was to bow, but no one else was, so he just dipped his head low. \"And Tane Carver. I have long been interested in meeting you. I read your dissertation, years ago. You raised some very interesting points. Of course, my family saw that I was instructed in magical theory by the finest tutors, but not everyone has that privilege. I would not presume to question my predecessor's decisions, but had I been Protector of the Realm at that time\u2026 well, there is no use speculating, is there?\"\n\n\"No, Your Ladyship, I suppose there isn't.\" Tane swallowed nervously. Protectors of the Realm were elected in the Senate of Houses, and didn't demand the same subservience as born royalty like the Kaiser of Belgrier or theocrats like the Lord Provost of Estia, but still he felt extremely shabby standing before her in his frayed waistcoat. \"I'm\u2026 glad you found my work interesting, at least.\" That actually did mean something, coming from her. There were few in the Protectorate's upper ranks who would better understand what he'd been trying to say.\n\nAbena Jasani, like every Protector of the Realm before her, lacked any magic of her own.\n\nNo mage could hold Audland's highest office. It was one of the nation's founding principles, to signify that although the Protectorate was founded as a haven for the magical, they did not hold those born with magecraft to be superior to those without. And perhaps more importantly, to prove to the nations of the Continent that they didn't need to fear another Mage Emperor. It made for a strange political reality that in a country so reliant on magic, a senate of houses made wealthy and powerful by magecraft was forced to select a leader from those born without the gift. Less affluent families prayed to the Astra for their children to be mages; in the great houses, the magicless were groomed all their lives for the possibility that they might one day govern the nation. And unique among the highest positions in Audland, Lord and Lady Protectors were almost never elvish, because the elvish were almost never magicless.\n\nLady Abena smiled. \"Perhaps one day, after I have seen my airship into the sky, we can speak more about what you wrote.\" She looked back to Indree. \"But for now, I must know what your investigation has uncovered. Please, Constable Inspector.\"\n\nIndree summarized the investigation up to the events of the previous night, going so far as to credit Tane and Kadka's assistance as indispensable. Tane wasn't sure if she really meant it or if she was just trying to make the story sound better for Lady Abena, but it was nice to hear either way.\n\n\"You see, Lady Abena?\" Nieris said. \"The matter is dealt with, as I promised. Cranst was behind the murder, and his little cult won't be a problem any longer.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Chancellor Nieris, but I'm not so certain,\" said Indree. \"There are still things we don't know. Cranst shouldn't have been able to bypass the portal wards on campus to begin with.\"\n\nNieris waved a dismissive hand. \"We will look into that, of course, but for now the wards have been tightened and the threat is gone. What matters is that the airship launch can proceed safely.\"\n\nIndree frowned. \"I don't\u2014\"\n\n\"You understand, Inspector,\" Nieris said firmly, \"that it would not reflect well on anyone if the ceremony were to be put off now. You have done a great deal to assure that does not happen. On behalf of the University, I thank you. The Chief Constable will certainly be hearing from me about your work here.\"\n\n\"You\u2026 you have to be joking! Tane sputtered. \"You can't be that arrogant.\" He could have screamed. The same as it always goes. Reputations to uphold. It wouldn't do to announce that the University's mages can make mistakes.\n\nNieris gave Tane a look that could have frozen over the Audish Channel. \"You are out of line, Mister Carver.\"\n\n\"Out of line? A man opened a portal inside your supposedly unbreakable wards and murdered a student! My friend!\" Everyone was looking at him now, but he didn't stop. \"Cranst didn't break those wards alone. He wasn't close to capable of that. We know he was receiving messages from someone, and we don't know who.\" Tane snatched up the pouch from Greymond's desk, emptied the badge and key into his hand, and lifted them for all to see. \"A badge like this implies an organization, and we don't know that we've caught them all. There is still a very real chance someone out there has one like it, which means they have access to wherever Cranst was hiding. And probably to anything he sent out of the artifice workshop. If they're planning to sabotage the airship, they might well have the plans they need to do it. You're a fool if you ignore that!\"\n\n\"Tane!\" Dean Greymond looked absolutely mortified, and she glanced nervously at the Lady Protector.\n\nWhich reminded Tane where the true power lay here. He spun to face Lady Abena. \"Your Ladyship, please. You have to postpone this until we know more.\"\n\n\"I apologize for this inexcusable outburst, Lady Abena,\" Nieris said hastily. \"Mister Carver, that is more than enough. You will remove yourself immediately, or I will have you removed.\"\n\nKadka stepped in front of Tane, her thick jaw set stubbornly. \"No. We stay. Carver is right. You should listen.\"\n\nTane pushed past her. \"This is between me and the chancellor, Kadka.\" He gave her a pointed look, tried to tell her with his eyes what he couldn't say aloud. Stay out of this. You don't have to go down with me. But she only stared at the chancellor, unflinching.\n\nNieris rubbed his temples. \"Have you both taken leave of your senses? I can have the Guard\u2014\"\n\nLady Abena held up one hand. \"That will not be necessary, Talain,\" she said, and then to Tane, \"I admire your conviction, Mister Carver, and I share your concerns.\"\n\n\"Then you'll postpone?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I truly wish that I could, but the ceremony must go forward. Too much depends on it. You must understand: we are a small nation, and the larger ones across the Channel have no love of us or our magic. Smaller conflicts have been piling on one another for years, and I fear they will soon lead to a war we cannot afford. My airships and the promise they represent are, I believe, the best hope of a lasting peace. Perhaps even a chance to better the lives of our magical cousins on the Continent. But if the dignitaries attending tonight sense that something is awry with the launch, that opportunity could be lost. A hint of doubt is all it would take.\"\n\nThat was a hard thing to argue against. For centuries now, the Protectorate hadn't gone more than thirty years at a time absent some conflict with the nations that bordered the Audish Channel on the Calenean side. Each had reacted to the Mage War differently, but they were all wary of magic to some degree. In Estia, the remnant of the old empire had turned to a religious dogma that called magecraft a corruption of the soul\u2014though they somehow justified ancryst engines to keep their naval presence strong. In Belgrier, they saw the magical as a danger, segregating them into ghettos and workhouses. Even in Rhien, the least severe of the three, those with magic in their blood were allowed to live as citizens only under constant government oversight. Lady Abena had long preached improved ties of trade and travel and diplomacy as the most practical solution to the problem, even before she had been named Protector of the Realm.\n\n\"So what, then?\" Tane said. \"We just\u2026 close our eyes and hope nothing goes wrong?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Lady Abena. \"We ensure it does not. My Mageblades will secure the launch site itself, and there are few who would dare to stand against them, as I'm sure you know.\" She looked to Indree. \"But I would also ask that Stooketon Yard send men to patrol the whole of Porthaven, and conduct a full search of the area for any remaining saboteurs before the ceremony begins this evening. And during the event, perhaps a number of constables in dress attire among the guests?\"\n\nIndree nodded. \"Of course, Your Ladyship. I will see it done. Cranst ambushed us not far from the airship, and it seems likely he would have kept his hiding place near there. We may yet end this before the ceremony starts. If not, I will personally coordinate a covert detail.\"\n\n\"Your dedication speaks highly of you, Constable Inspector,\" said Lady Abena. \"And Mister Carver, Miss Kadka: whatever your reservations, I ask that you help however you can. I know you have both been invaluable to this investigation. The Protectorate needs you now.\"\n\nIt was almost exactly what Tane had told Bastian the day before, but it was hard to see it as the same sort of cheap trick when it came from the Protector of the Realm herself. \"I\u2026 I'll do my best, Your Ladyship.\"\n\nKadka inclined her head. \"Too far in to not go farther. I want to see what end looks like.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" Lady Abena spread her hands in a wide gesture. \"All of you, for everything you have done and the work to come. Now, I believe it would be best not to delay any longer.\"\n\nTane left with Indree and Kadka, doing his best to pretend he didn't notice Greymond and Nieris watching him with disapproving eyes. I suppose this isn't going to leave me as well positioned with the University as I'd hoped. But it had needed saying, and no one else would have. The only thing he regretted was dragging Kadka into it.\n\nWhen they were outside, Indree turned to him. \"Tane? I'm going to need that badge and key.\"\n\nHe still had Cranst's empty pouch clutched in one hand, the key and badge in the other. He looked down at them, and hesitated. \"Doesn't it seem too easy to assume Cranst's bolthole was in Porthaven? They obviously knew we were coming. Why lead us right to the place they're trying to hide?\"\n\n\"Besides the fact that they thought we'd be dead?\" But Indree didn't sound very certain. \"I\u2026 don't entirely disagree, Tane. But I'm acting under request from the Lady Protector now. This is the best lead we have. We can't ignore it for a hunch. Even if we don't find anything, a heavy constabulary presence in Porthaven might discourage any attempts to sabotage the airship.\" She prodded her cheek with her tongue a moment, and then, \"But I don't need you two patrolling the docks. If you come up with something better and decide to follow it up, I don't see any harm in that. As long as you don't find some way to cause a diplomatic incident at the launch ceremony.\"\n\n\"No promises,\" said Tane with a slight smile.\n\n\"You were never much for keeping them anyway,\" Indree said. \"I do need the badge and key, though. I can't let you keep important evidence. We'll need them if we do find his hiding place.\"\n\nTane stowed the contents of his hand in Cranst's pouch, and handed it over.\n\n\"Good luck,\" said Indree. \"And Tane\u2026 be careful.\" She turned to Kadka. \"Don't let him get himself killed.\" Before either one of them could answer, she walked briskly away.\n\nAfter a moment, Kadka said, \"She will not be happy when she finds you kept key and badge.\"\n\nTane rubbed his neck sheepishly. \"You noticed?\"\n\n\"I guessed.\" Kadka grinned as he plucked the key and badge from his sleeve. \"What does she have?\"\n\n\"A silver stave and a spare key to my office.\"\n\n\"So she can unlock door when she comes later to put you in cell. This is thoughtful of you.\"\n\n\"I'm nothing if not considerate.\" Tane flipped the badge into the air and caught it, glancing at the glyphs on the back side. \"She's not going to find a place to use this in Porthaven. I still might.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nTane looked away. \"Kadka\u2026 maybe you shouldn't come. It's bad enough that I lost you your position with the Guard, but now Nieris is angry with me. With both of us, after you backed me in there. Which you shouldn't have done. Making an enemy of the chancellor could make things very difficult for you in Thaless. It's probably best if you aren't seen with me anymore.\"\n\nKadka laughed. \"I am not afraid of skinny elf man with all his frills. If you go alone, how do I earn my part of pay?\"\n\n\"You earned it three saving my lifes ago. I'll give you your share. You don't have to\u2014\"\n\n\"Carver. Stop. Like I say to your Lady Protector: I come too far now to not see end. Tell me where we go.\"\n\n\"Spellfire, don't be stubborn about this. I'm trying to help you!\"\n\n\"Want to help? Let me say what is best for me.\"\n\nTane threw up his hands. \"Fine! But when things get bad, don't say I didn't warn you.\"\n\nShe just grinned that sharp-toothed grin. \"Because is so good, this far?\"\n\nTane tried to hold his glare, but a snorted laugh forced its way out of his nose. \"Fair point.\"\n\n\"So. Where to look?\"\n\n\"I'm\u2026 still working on that part,\" he admitted grudgingly. \"We saw the room he came from through that portal in the workshop. There might have been some clue there.\"\n\n\"Was blurry. Couldn't see much.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Tane. \"But\u2026 there had to be something.\"\n\n\"There was sound,\" Kadka said.\n\n\"Probably just an instability in the portal.\" He frowned. \"Except\u2026 we heard it twice. If it was just random sounds pulled through the Astra, would we have heard the same noise twice?\"\n\n\"I still say it sounds like tunvok howling.\"\n\n\"Right.\" She'd mentioned that before, but he hadn't paid it much mind at the time. \"Some sort of animal, you said. What is it, exactly?\"\n\n\"Is like\u2026 wolf, you would say. But bigger. Howl brings cold. In Sverna, they are tamed sometimes, to ride.\"\n\n\"Wait\u2026 orcish wolf-riders are real? Spellfire, I thought that was a story.\"\n\nKadka shrugged. \"Is real. Tunvokovir, they are called.\"\n\n\"Still, that howl had to have come through an instability from Sverna. Where else would you be able to hear\u2026\" Tane's eyes widened, and he grabbed her by the shoulders. \"Kadka! That's it!\"\n\nShe grinned broadly, caught up in his enthusiasm. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Dedric Cranst said his house was near the Conservatory of Magical Beasts! If there are any of these tunvok in Thaless, that's exactly where they'd be!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "\"She's just down here,\" the sprite woman said, fluttering down the cobbled paths of the Conservatory. The Head Keeper on duty, Selene Meadowgrass had taken it upon herself to personally assist Tane and Kadka after he'd dropped the Lady Protector's name. She wore exactly the uniform Tane would have imagined an animal-keeper to wear, but in miniature: a khaki coat with a great many pockets, matching trousers, and a wide-brimmed hat over her brown hair. \"I should be able to get her to howl for you\u2014we're working on those commands. I'm surprised she hasn't started on her own, to be honest. Some days it seems like she'll never stop.\"\n\n\"Well, we appreciate the help,\" Tane said, but he was only half-listening. He hadn't visited the Conservatory since he was a boy, and the animals were both incredible and distracting.\n\nDozens of large fenced habitats lined the path, the smallest of them easily ten times the size of his little office in Porthaven. Magically warded and spelled to mimic environments from deserts to plains to frozen snowdrifts, each housed a beast directly out of ancient legend. To his left, in the forested unicorn habitat, one of the majestic equine creatures bent over a little stream, its spiral horn glimmering with a hundred colors in the afternoon sun. Tane found it hard to look away.\n\nKadka stared wide-eyed at the right-hand enclosure, a large desert-like environment with sandstone caves all along one side. Inside, a massive lion-headed manticore with bat-like wings and a scorpion tail padded back and forth over arid ground, watching them pass. The enclosure was fully caged, with iron bars overhead. \"All these animals live in wild? How do I not hear more of them?\"\n\n\"There aren't many left.\" There was just a hint of anger in Selene's voice. \"Hunted down for one magical property or another, or just out of fear. Driven from their natural habitats as cities expand here and on the Continent. No one wants a chimera for a neighbor, even if the chimera was there first. Most of the animals we keep here are nearly extinct. The Conservatory's primary purpose is to protect the ones that are left.\"\n\nThey'd moved past the manticore, but Kadka was still looking back, craning her head over her shoulder. \"Why do they stay? That one could break bars, if he tried.\"\n\n\"I've trained them too well for that,\" Selene said with a smile, and Tane believed her. Sprites had a natural affinity for animals. They couldn't actually control beasts, like some people believed, but they could commune with them. \"But you aren't wrong. A full-grown manticore could break out of just about any housing we could make. The fences and cages are for show, more than anything. They make people feel safer. It's the wards that really keep them from escaping.\"\n\n\"You have dragons?\" Kadka peered around with interest.\n\nSelene shook her head. \"Just a wyvern, but he's a bit of a runt. Not much larger than a big dog. True dragons\u2026 if they ever existed at all, no one has seen one for centuries.\"\n\nTane laughed at Kadka's disappointed pout. \"What, unicorns and manticores aren't good enough?\"\n\nShe grinned. \"They are good. Dragon would be better.\"\n\n\"Here we are,\" said Selene, pointing ahead to an enclosure on the left side of the path. \"Olka, our Svernan ice wolf. We've only had her two weeks or so. She's still learning not to keep people up at all hours, but her training is coming along.\"\n\n\"Can't use spell to keep her quiet?\" Kadka asked.\n\n\"The people who live nearby suggest it every time we get a new addition, but we need to be able to hear when the animals are in distress,\" said Selene. \"For the most part, our residents are trained well enough that it isn't a problem. It just takes time.\" She landed on an eye-level perch designed for people of her size along the side of the fence, and waved them closer.\n\nThe huge enclosure had been made to mimic the Svernan climate, all icy tundra and snowy crust. The ice wolf\u2014or tunvok, according to Kadka\u2014padded to the fence as they drew near, her paws crunching against the frozen ground. She looked much as Kadka had described: a massive wolf the size of a horse, with a strange undercoat of pale blue beneath white fur. Her hackles were raised, and her grey-blue eyes traced every movement. Where she breathed, a coat of frost formed on the iron fence.\n\nShe growled, and Tane retreated a step, keeping his distance.\n\n\"Don't take it personally,\" Selene said. \"She's not very friendly to anyone just yet.\"\n\n\"Maybe never,\" said Kadka. \"Is not easy, taming tunvok.\" She leaned close. The wolf snapped her teeth between the bars, then danced back, confused, when the wards repelled her muzzle. Kadka frowned, but didn't flinch. \"Has spirit. She will never be happy here. Is big enough, and looks like home, but still cage.\"\n\n\"It isn't ideal,\" admitted Selene. \"We usually only take animals in when they can't survive safely in their natural habitat, but Olka's situation was\u2026 complicated. She'd crossed into northern Rhien from the Svernan border, and she was causing problems for some of the smaller villages there. Killing livestock, freezing crops with her howl. They were scared to get close, so the Rhienni ambassador asked the Conservatory for help. We're still trying to make contact with someone in Sverna about sending her home, and the Rhienni would have killed her if she stayed near the border, so here she is. Where she ends up depends on the diplomats now, but I don't think she's a very high priority.\"\n\n\"Well, she might be the solution to a problem that the Lady Protector wants solved very badly,\" said Tane. \"That could help. Now, I hate to annoy your neighbors, but can we hear her?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Selene. \"Assuming she's in the mood to cooperate.\" She locked eyes with Olka, and the wolf tilted her head as if listening.\n\nAnd then Olka raised her muzzle to the sky and let out a long howl.\n\nThe sound of it sent a circle of frost racing across the enclosure, expanding rapidly until it reached the fence, coating black iron bars in white rime. The air crackled loudly with the sound of sudden, intense cold; the already frozen ground groaned and split open in places. Even outside the wards, protected from the immediate effect, Tane felt a chill raise gooseflesh across his body.\n\n\"That's it,\" he said. \"That's the sound.\" It was the same as what he'd heard in the workshop, there was no doubting that. \"You said you've had complaints. That must give you a sense of how far people can hear her from.\"\n\n\"Just the upper streets of Greenstone, south of here. It's all Rosepetal Park for a ways in the other directions. If anyone hears her from that far, they haven't complained.\"\n\n\"Good. That gives us a place to start looking. I just have one more favor to ask: can you have her howl one more time in about fifteen minutes?\"\n\nSelene raised an eyebrow. \"I suppose, but why?\"\n\n\"I want to get an idea of how it sounds from where we're looking,\" said Tane. \"That should give us enough time to get there.\"\n\n\"It shouldn't be a problem.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Selene. You've been a great help.\"\n\nSelene waved a dismissive hand. \"If it's for Lady Abena, I'm glad to do it. Whatever you're looking for, I hope you find it.\"\n\nNot quite fifteen minutes later, Tane and Kadka arrived at Dedric Cranst's house in northern Greenstone. The squat brick building was divided into four separate homes, and there were more just like it on both sides and on down the street. Each home had its own cramped yard at the back, fenced off from the others and accessible through narrow side alleys. This was the better end of Greenstone, though it was still a far sight from more affluent districts like the Gryphon's Roost. Further south, under the green-grey haze rising from quarries and ancryst processing facilities, the homes shrank and the buildings stretched into rows of unbroken brick with no yards or open space to speak of. Very much like Tane's neighborhood by the docks.\n\n\"This is the place,\" said Tane. He remembered the address from the records: 8 Thiel Street. The number was painted beside the door.\n\n\"You think Cranst hid portal here?\" Kadka looked suspiciously at the brick building.\n\n\"No, but I think he might have chosen a place reasonably near. If he stole the badge, he would have wanted to be able to get to his hiding spot and back before Dedric noticed.\"\n\n\"So how do we find?\"\n\n\"First, we wait for\u2014\"\n\nPerfectly timed, a distant howling rose from the north, toward the Conservatory. The groan and crackle of ice was faint from this distance, but still noticeable\u2014perhaps a little bit louder than what he'd heard through the portal, but he couldn't be certain.\n\n\"For that,\" Tane said. \"What do you think? You have good ears. Was that closer or farther than what we heard in the workshop?\"\n\n\"Closer, I think,\" said Kadka.\n\n\"Then we search southward, away from the park.\"\n\n\"What do we look for? Sound is not enough. Ears are not that good.\"\n\nTane pulled the watch case from his pocket and snapped it open to reveal the cloudy green ancryst held inside. \"We use this. Ancryst makes a good magic detector, and the place should be warded against intrusion. The badge we found on Cranst was probably what he used to get in. So we circle these buildings front and back until the ancryst tells me there's a ward nearby, and then we look closer.\"\n\n\"Other magic won't move it? Magelights?\"\n\n\"We'd have to be very close. It's going to react to a decent ward spell from much further away, and in a neighborhood like this, we're not likely to run into many of those. Too expensive to keep them up. Same reason I don't activate the ones on my office unless I know I'll need them. If the ancryst moves from the street or outside the yard, it's worth a closer look. There are going to be misleads, but I don't have a better way.\"\n\n\"Maybe Cranst is stupid, uses next house down.\"\n\n\"I don't think we're that lucky.\" Tane sighed. \"This is probably going to take a while. Let's get started.\"\n\nIt was even slower work than Tane had expected. They moved down one street and up the next, checking each building as thoroughly as possible, but more than once they were driven off by residents who valued their privacy, or occasionally ones who just didn't like the look of Kadka's orcish features. Even when they weren't being chased, it was difficult to avoid attention from people sitting on stoops or going for an afternoon stroll. Kadka was usually able to sneak around the back fences to check the yards without being seen, but there was nowhere to hide in the street.\n\nA few times the ancryst moved enough to be worth checking, but each time it was a false alarm: usually someone using some minor charm to banish a smell from their yard or clean their windows or the like, but once a gnomish child setting off colorful flash charms, all bright lights and loud popping sounds. That caught Tane by surprise, leaving him blinking away spots for several minutes.\n\nLate afternoon was quickly becoming evening when Kadka called Tane around to the back of a seemingly empty home on Bolane Street, in a low brick building just like all the rest.\n\n\"Here, Carver. Stone is moving.\"\n\nTane ducked into the alley and found Kadka standing outside the fence of the second yard down. She handed him his watch case; he could feel it pushing against his palm.\n\n\"Boost me over,\" he said.\n\nKadka ducked down; Tane stepped into her cupped hands and vaulted the fence, landing roughly on his hands and knees. He lost his grip on his watch case, and an invisible force pushed the ancryst a foot or more toward the fence as it fell. Definitely magic nearby.\n\nKadka pulled herself over and landed easily on her feet as he retrieved the watch case. She pointed across the yard. \"There, you think?\"\n\nTane followed her finger to a pair of cellar doors set against the base of the building. He moved the ancryst from side to side, testing the direction of the force. \"It's strongest in that direction.\" He stepped closer, and the force increased, until it threatened to push the case from his hand. When he snapped it closed, the pressure abated immediately, blocked by brass.\n\nA chain held the doors shut, with a heavy iron lock at the center. Tane drew the key they'd found on Cranst from his pocket. Black iron, like the lock. He tried it\u2014the key turned, and the lock opened.\n\n\"This is place, then,\" said Kadka.\n\nTane only nodded, his heart beating fast against his chest.\n\nKadka quickly pulled the chain free, and together they threw open the doors. A stone stair descended into the earth, with brick walls on either side. At the bottom, a hint of silver-blue magelight glimmered around the corner.\n\n\"Time to see what Cranst was hiding.\" Tane started forward.\n\n\"Wait,\" Kadka said, and caught him by the wrist. \"Should be me. Might be other spell to see you, and then someone knows you are here. Won't see me.\"\n\nPart of him wanted to argue\u2014it felt like he'd come a very long way to get to this place, and he wanted to see it for himself. But Kadka was right. If there were any detection spells, she could walk through them freely. \"Here,\" he said, and reluctantly handed her Cranst's crowned staff badge. \"This should get you past any wards.\"\n\nKadka took the badge, and grinned. \"Is good that I come now, yes?\"\n\n\"Don't rub it in,\" Tane said, smiling slightly. \"Just be careful, and tell me what you see as you see it.\"\n\nHer grin widened. \"If nothing kills me first.\"\n\nWith that, she started down the stairs."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "At the bottom of the stairs, Kadka turned the corner into a room that made no sense to her at all.\n\nThe cellar was awash in silver-blue magelight cast by a glass globe hanging from the ceiling. Most of the floor was taken up by a strip of copper inlaid in the stone in a large circle. Glyphs she couldn't understand were scribed in gold across the copper band. On the far side stood a stone pedestal, about waist height, and from the top of the pedestal a bird-like copper claw jutted upward, holding a fist-sized gemstone of an opaque milky white. The gem was riddled with tiny cracks and chipped where pieces had fallen away. Lines of inlaid copper radiated from the base of the claw, one striking straight down to meet the copper circle and two more running to the other side of the pedestal, out of sight. Against the wall near the entryway where Kadka was standing, a little desk held a few books and a half-rolled paper.\n\n\"Don't know what this is, Carver, but looks like magic.\"\n\nCarver's voice came from the top of the stairs. \"Describe it to me.\"\n\n\"Is\u2026 big circle. Copper. Gold glyphs.\"\n\n\"Gold? They were trying to stabilize an unreliable spell. What else?\"\n\n\"Pedestal at one side with white gem. Gem has little cracks, all over.\"\n\n\"The white is a sort of milky color?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How big?\"\n\n\"Like fist.\"\n\n\"Spellfire.\" Carver sounded surprised. \"A gem that size, and they used up all its power. How did Cranst pay for that?\"\n\n\"Is desk here, with books. Let me check.\" The books had long titles that were nonsense to her, mostly Audish words she didn't know. She took one and opened it, looking for anything of interest.\n\n\"I took a peek through the window up here,\" Carver said from above as she flipped through pages. \"There's nothing inside. Cranst must have rented this place just to use the cellar. Did you find anything else?\"\n\nThe books meant very little to Kadka, and she didn't understand much of what she saw inside, but one word stood out. \"Magic books, about portals.\"\n\n\"That makes sense, under the circumstances. Anything else?\"\n\n\"Paper here too.\"\n\n\"What kind of paper?\"\n\nAt one side of the desk was a large rectangular sheet, held in place in one corner with a brass paperweight. The other corners were free, and the sheet had been rolled closed to make room for the books. Kadka cleared the desk and flattened out the paper. It was covered in glyphs and complex instructions, but she recognized the diagram at the center easily enough. She'd seen it before, from across the Porthaven harbor.\n\n\"Plans for airship,\" she called to Carver.\n\n\"Really? I need to see that.\"\n\n\"Let me finish first. Might be more.\" She crossed the copper circle to the pedestal, tracing the copper lines inlaid in the marble. A glass-fronted cabinet was set into the far side. Inside was a scroll held between a pair of copper claws very much like the one holding the milky gem. The lines of copper from above each met a claw at its base.\n\nKadka knelt and opened the little glass door. \"Is scroll in pedestal.\"\n\n\"Kadka, don't\u2014\"\n\nShe grabbed the scroll and lifted it from its housing. \"Already took. Nothing happened.\"\n\n\"It might have been trapped!\"\n\n\"Why trap when they think no one can get in?\"\n\n\"I don't know, paranoia?\" She heard him sigh, even from down the stairs and around the corner. \"It doesn't matter now. I need a look at that scroll.\"\n\nThere didn't seem to be much else, which was disappointing. She'd been hoping for some magic she hadn't seen before. \"Coming now.\"\n\nCarver snatched the airship plans from her the moment she stepped out of the cellar.\n\n\"Now you say 'Thank you, Kadka,' yes?\" she said, grinning.\n\n\"Thank you, Kadka,\" he repeated absently, without looking up. \"These are for the envelope. The heating glyphs. That's what Thrung said Allaea was working on. This has to mean Cranst was planning to sabotage the launch.\" He beckoned for the other scroll. \"Let me see that one.\"\n\nKadka handed it over. \"Was in little copper hands. All joined up to circle.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"That's not uncommon for a pre-cast spell. Engraving the glyphs is more permanent, but overly complex spells can be too long for that.\" He unrolled the scroll and started reading.\n\nAll the color left his face at once.\n\n\"Carver?\"\n\n\"This is the flaw, Kadka. This is how they did it. Spellfire, I'm an idiot. What did I get us in to?\"\n\nAs usual, she wasn't going to get any useful answers if she didn't ask. Carver was smart enough\u2014when he wasn't being stupid, at least\u2014but he took for granted a great deal of knowledge that she didn't have. Making him talk it through aloud seemed to help him find his way to the important parts. \"Explain to me.\"\n\n\"This is a portal spell. It was all prepared in advance. The spell, the circle, that huge gem. Diamond, it says here, to provide the kind of power this would have taken. What we saw in the workshop wasn't a spell being cast in the moment. It was more like an artifact being activated.\" Carver touched the watch case in his pocket, the way she'd seen him do when he was agitated. \"I should have seen it! I just never thought\u2026 portals are unstable, always shifting and changing. I've never heard of one being cast without direct oversight. I didn't know it could be done.\"\n\nKadka furrowed her brow. \"So portal was made like artifact. This means something?\"\n\n\"It means I've been working under a false assumption. Only the University heads can make a portal on campus, and they were all accounted for both times, so I accepted that they couldn't have done it. But make is the key. I told you the lingua is literal, and the glyph used in the portal ward refers to the actual effort of constructing the spell. As long as the right person made it, scribed the glyphs, invested their power into the gem\u2026 anyone could activate the portal, and the ward would allow it.\"\n\nAnd now she understood. \"This means a University head\u2026\"\n\n\"Was behind this all along,\" said Carver. \"One of them put this portal together. And all four are going to have access to the airship tonight.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "\"These are powerful people, Kadka,\" Tane said, weaving his way toward the lights of the ceremony through the crowd assembled along the harborfront. \"And we're about to accuse one of them of a serious crime. They can make my life harder, but my reputation doesn't have far left to fall, and at least I have the protection of being born a citizen. You don't have that. If it goes badly, staying in the Protectorate might not be an option for you.\" Short of wrestling her to the ground and tying her up, there was no way to stop her from following\u2014and he wouldn't win that contest. But at least he could warn her.\n\nShe wasn't ever going to listen, but he could warn her.\n\n\"You have bad memory, Carver. Same words, again and again.\" Kadka grinned. \"Have to come, or I don't see what spell they try next to kill us.\"\n\n\"We both know I can't do much to stop you. I just thought you should know it could go worse for you than for me.\"\n\n\"Still. I go where you go.\"\n\n\"Have it your way.\" Tane sidestepped around a kobold woman who had stopped in the street to gawk at the lights.\n\nThe sun had set by the time they'd gotten off the discs in Porthaven, and the launch ceremony was well under way. Ahead, at the edge of the water by the drydocked airship, the little park where launch ceremonies were traditionally held had been transformed for the occasion. Strings of hundreds of silver-blue magelights held back the dark, and the area had been fenced off from the surrounding harborfront and filled with silk-covered tables and elegant flower arrangements.\n\nVisible by its slight silver shimmer, a transparent barrier surrounded the entire affair to keep away any unexpected weather, or unexpected guests. Within, the city's elite mingled with foreign dignitaries, dancing and laughing and probably making expensive deals and alliances. And all along the waterfront outside, the less powerful gathered to watch the launch, waiting excitedly for the moment when the airship first took flight.\n\n\"Look, Carver.\" Kadka pointed upward, her eyes wide\u2014for a moment, orcish features or no, she fit perfectly with the rest of the awestruck crowd.\n\nThe airship itself didn't look much different from the last time Tane had seen it, but the scaffolding was gone. Now the great gleaming envelope loomed free over the ceremony, unfettered save for the rigging linking it to the hull. Several large magelights had been positioned beneath so that it shone majestically against the night like a strange, oblong moon, shedding reflected silver radiance across the water. Why Lady Abena had chosen an evening launch, Tane didn't know, but he supposed the airship would look impressive shining over the harbor, and the lights of Thaless equally so from above.\n\nHe kept moving. It was a lovely sight, but he didn't have time for it.\n\nMageblades stood all around the perimeter of the fence, holding back the crowd, and there was only one point of entry to the ceremony: a white tent positioned around the single gate, so that the unsightly business of checking invitations and searching for weapons and artifacts could be conducted without bothering those already inside. To one side of the entryway, dozens of guarded carriages sat waiting for their owners, most horse-drawn, but a few powered by ponderous, expensive ancryst engines. The wealthy didn't travel through Porthaven on foot, especially at night.\n\nTane strode directly to the tent, with Kadka just behind. Two Mageblades blocked his way, a handsome dark-haired elven man and a blonde human woman. Tane didn't let himself flinch. Any hesitation would only prove he didn't belong.\n\n\"Invitations?\" the elf asked, eyeing the frayed edges of Tane's waistcoat and Kadka's tattered suspenders.\n\n\"I'm not a guest,\" said Tane. \"But I am working at the request of Lady Abena. I have urgent information.\" By way of demonstration, he raised the portal scroll and airship plans rolled in his fist.\n\n\"No one gets in without an invitation. We're under strict orders.\"\n\n\"And you're doing a fine job. I know how important security is tonight, but this can't wait. Like I said, I'm working for the Lady Protector.\" Tane glanced theatrically to either side, leaned in, and lowered his voice. \"Send to your commander. Say I need to speak with Inspector Indree Lovial. She's in charge of the covert detail from Stooketon Yard. The fact that I know that should tell you I'm not wasting your time. She'll vouch for me.\" He hated to bring Indree into it\u2014she had more to lose than he did\u2014but there wasn't much choice. He could worry about evading her once he was inside.\n\nThe elf lifted the graceful sweep of his eyebrow. \"Sir, I don't think\u2014\"\n\n\"It's about the airship launch,\" said Tane. \"If it goes wrong because I don't get in there, it's going to be on your heads. You don't want that. All you have to do is ask.\"\n\nThe two Mageblades shared a look, and then the blonde woman's eyes focused on a distant point. After a long silence, she nodded. \"You'll be escorted to the inspector, but we'll have to search you first.\"\n\n\"Fine, just hurry. This is urgent.\"\n\nThe human woman pushed open the tent flap and held it aside. \"In here.\" She glanced at Kadka with some distaste. \"Your friend will have to wait.\"\n\n\"No, she's\u2014\" Tane stopped himself short. He might have been able to persuade them, but he didn't have to. And if Kadka wasn't going to listen to reason\u2026 \"She's not part of this. Just an escort to see me safely through the crowd. You know how Porthaven can be at night.\"\n\nKadka's brow creased. \"Carver?\"\n\n\"Wait here, Kadka,\" he said, feigning an authoritarian tone. \"I won't need you inside.\"\n\nShe didn't argue. After everything they'd been through together in the past few days, it might have been easier if she had. Instead, she just looked at him. No sign of the toothy grin he'd become accustomed to, but it wasn't quite anger either. Just unblinking yellow eyes and a straight, tight line to her mouth.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he whispered. \"It's better this way.\"\n\nAnd then he stepped into the tent, and left Kadka behind.\n\nThe tent was lit inside by a single globe of magelight suspended overhead. A pair of copper posts stood at the mid-point of the space, one on the left and one on the right, each topped with an unlit glass globe. A band of glyphed copper ran across the ground between them, perhaps six inches wide and long enough to span the tent from side to side. Tane recognized the device at a glance: a detection band, with a standard selection of security divinations. When he stepped across the copper, the spells would detect any Astrally charged artifacts he was carrying and any brass that he might be using to hide them, as well as a number of metals commonly used to forge weapons. If he was carrying any of those things, the globes on either side would fill with magelight. Two Mageblades were waiting on the far side to step in if necessary\u2014a black-haired elven man and a red-scaled kobold.\n\n\"Please step through, sir,\" said the elf, and gestured at the detection band.\n\nTane did, and the magelights flared to life. No surprise, there. \"I'm sorry,\" he said. \"It must be this.\" He slipped the papers from Cranst's lair under his arm and took out his watch case, flipping it open to show the ancryst inside. It pulled against his grip, reacting to the presence of the detection spells behind him. At the same time, he slipped his left hand into his pocket and palmed the charmglobe within. \"Brass, you know. Only a keepsake. No danger. Surely I don't have to leave it?\"\n\n\"You can take it in with you, sir,\" said the kobold, hissing his 's' sounds. \"But I have to ask you to step through the detections again without it first. We'll hold on to it for you.\"\n\nThe kobold approached with his hand out, and Tane took a sudden step forward, just a little bit too fast, so that they nearly collided. Tane reached out with his left hand to stop himself, and his fingers slid down the Mageblade's brass cuirass to surreptitiously deposit the charmglobe in the other man's pocket.\n\nThe kobold grabbed Tane's shoulder to steady him. \"Careful.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Tane said, stepping back with a sheepish smile. \"You'd think I'd gotten a head start on the festivities, but it's just clumsiness.\" He flipped the watch case closed and detached the chain from his waistcoat, then handed it over.\n\n\"Not a problem, sir. Please, step back through.\"\n\nTane stepped back across the detection band, and then forward again. The glass globes remained unlit.\n\nIt was easy enough to retrieve the charmglobe after the kobold gave him a final cursory pat down\u2014pickpocketing was the most basic sleight of hand, and he'd used the same trick to get artifacts into exams a hundred times. He wasn't entirely certain why he'd done it this time, other than a strong feeling that he didn't want to go into this without any sort of defense. A simple flash charm wasn't much, but at least it was something.\n\nThe elven Mageblade escorted Tane across the ceremony grounds, keeping to the fence so as not to disturb the guests. Men and women in dress far finer than Tane's danced with one another further in, and others chatted at tables nearby. More than a few cast disparaging looks at his shabby clothes. He ignored the glances, and refastened his watch chain as he walked.\n\nHalfway between the entry tent and the harborfront, Indree was leaning against the fence with one hand and holding a handbag in the other, watching the crowd. She wore a dress with a wine-red bodice and a long black skirt, and her black hair was elegantly done, swept up above her pointed ears in an elaborate knot of waves and curls. He'd never seen her like this before\u2014at university, she'd stuck to the coats and trousers common among students.\n\nShe didn't turn as they approached, just waved off the Mageblade with a subtle gesture. \"I'll take him from here. Keep moving, like you were just patrolling the perimeter.\" The dwarven man continued on with hardly a pause in his step.\n\nTane leaned his back against the fence beside her, trying not to draw attention. She was meant to blend in with the guests\u2014best not to dispel the illusion. \"You look very nice tonight,\" he said in a low voice. \"Although I have to confess, I miss the badge and pistol.\"\n\nShe didn't look at him, but her cheeks flushed slightly. She pulled open the mouth of her handbag just enough that he could see the badge and ancryst pistol stowed inside. \"I don't go anywhere without them. And speaking of badges\"\u2014a flash of annoyance in her eyes, there\u2014\"I suspect you have one that you shouldn't.\"\n\n\"Kadka has it, actually.\"\n\n\"But you did take it. Damn it, Tane, you'd better have found something good, or I swear by the Astra\u2026\" She glanced in his direction, and frowned. \"Wait, where is Kadka? She's not with you?\"\n\n\"We\u2026 decided it was better to split up. Cover more ground.\"\n\nIndree rolled her eyes. \"Which means you did something to chase her away. On the slim chance that you might actually listen to someone besides yourself: fix it. I like Kadka, and you two make a better team than common sense would suggest.\"\n\nTane rubbed the back of his neck. \"It was the better plan. That's all.\"\n\n\"If you say so. Now, are you going to tell me why you're here?\" She swept her gaze over the ceremony grounds as she spoke. \"I have a job to do tonight. If you know something, get to it. Otherwise, let me work.\"\n\n\"It's nothing,\" Tane said, controlling his voice and his breath in case she tried a truth-spell. \"I just had to use your name to get in. I'm not exactly on the list.\" He pulled the rolled papers from under his arm. \"I got a sending from Dean Greymond. She wanted me to bring her some spell diagrams. Have you seen her?\"\n\nNow Indree turned fully toward him. \"What diagrams?\"\n\n\"Just some of the wards on the workshop. Maybe she's on to something for the investigation? I should probably go find her, in any case.\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed. \"Why are you lying to me, Tane?\"\n\n\"What? I'm not\u2026\" But when he saw the look in her eyes, he gave it up. \"How did you know? Truth-spell?\"\n\n\"You'd just have beaten it. But it doesn't take a spell to see the holes in that story. Why would Greymond ask you to bring her these diagrams? And if she did, why didn't she arrange a way to get them to her without giving my name at the gate? You usually manage a better lie.\"\n\n\"In my defense, I don't know if there was a good lie for this. I was hoping you wouldn't think too much about it.\"\n\n\"What's going on, Tane? The truth. Now. Or you go right back out the gate.\"\n\nHe'd had enough arguments with Indree to know she meant it, and if she threw him out, he wouldn't be getting back in. So he told her the truth. What he and Kadka had found in Cranst's bolthole and what it meant, with the spell diagram and the airship plans to support the story.\n\n\"Spellfire,\" Indree said softly. She'd turned away from the bulk of the crowd, hiding the spell scroll with her body as she looked it over. \"One of the University heads? I don't want to believe it, but this spell\u2026 nothing else makes sense.\" She gave him a sidelong glance. \"Why Greymond? You wanted to know where she was.\"\n\n\"Think about it. Cranst and his little cult were ready for us last night. There was only one person who knew where we were going.\" That had been on his mind since he and Kadka had found the portal diagram. He hated it, but it made sense.\n\n\"His cousin\u2014\"\n\nTane shook his head. \"They were waiting for us. They knew exactly who was coming and when. Dedric couldn't have told them that much. Greymond could have. And it's not just that. She was awfully eager to blame Kivit Thrung for the murder, that first day. She only brought me in to try and prove he could have done it, and when I didn't, she immediately wanted me gone.\"\n\n\"That's\u2026 compelling, but it isn't proof,\" said Indree. She rolled up the scroll and tucked it into her bag alongside the airship plans. \"If it's true, it means she's the one who sent Cranst. She's the reason Allaea's dead. I don't want to believe that. She was always so good to me. And she adored you, before\u2026 before everything.\"\n\n\"Do you think I want to believe it? I'm praying to the Astra that she has an explanation.\" However strained their relationship had become, it didn't change the fact that Liana Greymond had been an important part of his life once. He didn't want to believe she was capable of murder. \"But it has to be one of the four of them, and right now she's at the top of the list.\"\n\nIndree raised an eyebrow. \"And if you'd managed to lose me and confront her alone, how exactly did you see it going? She could have easily had you thrown out. Or much worse, if you're right about this. She's a powerful mage, and you\u2026 aren't.\"\n\n\"There are a lot of people here. I thought if I could goad her into saying something she shouldn't, in front of witnesses\u2026\" Tane shrugged. \"I would have had a plan by the time I found her.\"\n\n\"Here's one,\" said Indree. \"I'll question her. I'm here at Lady Abena's request. She can't throw me out. Come on.\" She gestured to the tables nearest the water, where the most important guests were seated. \"I don't think she's much of a dancer. She probably hasn't left the faculty table.\"\n\n\"Wait.\" Tane grabbed her arm. \"Accusing a dean of murder could get you demoted or worse. Please, just\u2026 let me do this. I don't have as much at stake.\"\n\nIndree jerked her arm away and rounded on him, anger flashing in her amber eyes. \"Hard as it may be for you to believe, not everything is a puzzle that only the brilliant Tane Carver can solve! I didn't join the constabulary just to have the shiniest badge, and you know that! Stop pretending\u2014\" She stopped herself, sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. \"If Greymond means to sabotage the airship, it's my duty to stop her. You can be part of it or not, but I don't have time to do this with you.\" And then she was pushing her way through the crowd, and he had no choice but to follow.\n\nGreymond was sitting with Dean Brassforge and Dean Orthea around a table near the water, leaning forward in animated discussion. As Tane and Indree approached, he became aware of a number of other guests moving in from all sides. None of them stood out particularly\u2014they were dressed in much the same evening finery as everyone else\u2014but several slipped hands into handbags or topcoats as they drew near. Reaching for badges, or perhaps pistols. Indree must have sent to the rest of her detail for support.\n\nIndree hadn't yet announced herself, and she was still ten steps back when Greymond stood bolt upright and whirled around, eyes wide.\n\nIt wasn't easy to take a diviner by surprise.\n\nBut Greymond didn't run. Her hands shook as she raised them. \"You think I\u2026 No! I would never!\"\n\n\"What is this, Liana?\" Dean Orthea asked, her perfect brow creasing slightly. She pushed back her chair and made to stand to her full eight foot height.\n\nIndree drew her badge from her purse and flashed it quickly before hiding it once more. The rest of her detail closed in to surround the table. \"I'm going to have to ask all three of you to stay where you are for a moment,\" she said. Orthea frowned, but took her seat once more. \"I'm sorry for the disturbance. Dean Greymond, I have to ask\u2014\"\n\n\"I wasn't part of this, Inspector Lovial, I promise you!\" Greymond's voice was high and the words came too fast. \"Ask whatever you need to ask to believe me, cast any spells you must. I would never put any of my students in danger!\"\n\nTane stepped forward. \"But you wanted me\u2014\"\n\n\"I only asked for your help with Mister Thrung because there were no other suspects, and I had to know if he could have bypassed the wards. I admit I\u2026 I didn't want you involved after that, but only because of our history. Tane, you must know I wouldn't do this!\" And she did seem genuinely panicked\u2014if it was an act, he couldn't see through it.\n\nIndree was watching her closely too, with that faraway diviner's look in her eye. \"And what about\u2014\"\n\n\"I swear by the Astra, I didn't warn Cranst you were coming!\"\n\n\"No one else knew, Liana,\" said Tane. \"How\u2014\"\n\n\"I don't know! I\u2026\" And then all the color fled her cheeks at once. \"I only told one person.\"\n\n\"Who?\" Indree demanded, but by the look on her face, she'd already guessed the answer, just as Tane had.\n\nFear dawning in her eyes, Greymond said the only name she could have said:\n\n\"Chancellor Nieris.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "For a moment, Tane didn't believe her. He wanted to, but it felt too easy. Greymond's only way out was to blame someone else, and Brassforge and Orthea were at the table, so it had to be Nieris. If there was a more transparent excuse, he couldn't think of it.\n\nExcept\u2026 there was something there, a hint of memory at the back of his mind.\n\nIndree raised an eyebrow, outwardly skeptical. \"You told\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course I did!\" Greymond exclaimed, drawing glances from the surrounding guests. \"He's the chancellor of the University! Why wouldn't I update him on the investigation?\"\n\nThe sculpture. That was it. The Mage Emperor's crowned staff, wrought in bronze, sitting in plain sight in the chancellor's office. The same symbol as the one on Cranst's badge.\n\nIf it was true, it would be almost unbelievably arrogant for Nieris to put his true allegiance on display like that, but it also made a strange kind of sense. He was three hundred years old, chancellor of the most prestigious university of magic in the world for more than a century, among the most experienced mages alive. He dressed in clothes that princes of Rhien might have found a bit much. If any man had ever had reason to believe himself untouchable, it was Talain Nieris. Of course he wouldn't hide who he was\u2014he would show the world, and laugh when no one noticed.\n\n\"There is no mage alive with as much experience in portal magic,\" Tane said softly.\n\nIndree glanced sidelong at him. \"What?\"\n\n\"That's what Nieris said about himself, that first day in his office. Spellfire, he might as well have been bragging about it.\"\n\n\"So you believe her?\"\n\n\"I think I do,\" said Tane. \"Nieris could have warned Cranst, if Greymond was reporting our movements to him. He's the one who said the howling Kadka and I heard was nothing, which is why we ignored it for so long\u2014he was the expert, after all. By his own admission, he knows portal magic better than anyone. Who better to come up with this particular plan? And he was so keen to blame Cranst and bury any problems with the wards, as long as the launch wasn't delayed. I thought it was just typical University arrogance and bureaucracy, but if he means to sabotage the airship\u2026\"\n\nIndree prodded her tongue with her cheek, thinking it over. \"But why bother sending Cranst through a portal at all? If the chancellor of the University wanted airship plans, he could have just walked in and looked at them.\"\n\n\"But he couldn't have done anything with them. The workshops were under guard. If he was seen coming and going, and then something went wrong with the airship, he'd be on the list of suspects. This way it could have been done without anyone noticing, and if someone did, he had an alibi. He made sure he and all the deans were accounted for, so we had to assume the portal wards had been beaten some other way.\" The last piece fell into place then, the one thing he hadn't been able to explain before. \"That's what Cranst was receiving. Not instructions\u2014new diagrams. He sent them out to Nieris the first time, when he killed Allaea. The second time, he wasn't taking anything. He was replacing the original plans with ones Nieris sent him.\"\n\n\"Then what are these?\" asked Indree, tapping a finger against the airship plans poking from her handbag.\n\n\"The originals,\" said Tane. \"They must be. Cranst couldn't leave them behind, or someone would have noticed there were duplicates. He must have taken them the day Kadka and I found him in the workshop.\"\n\n\"This is absurd,\" interrupted Dean Brassforge. \"You're saying my airship plans were replaced? By the chancellor? Which plans? Why?\"\n\n\"The heating glyphs for the envelope,\" said Tane. \"They wanted diagrams for vital airship spells, and Allaea would have had these ones out already. After she alerted the guard, there wasn't time to search for more.\" And then the full implication hit him. \"Spellfire, Nieris was never planning to sabotage the airship at the ceremony. He's already done it. If Cranst made the exchange, then the final heating glyphs came from their diagram, not Allaea's!\"\n\n\"Impossible!\" said Brassforge, his cheeks flushing beneath his auburn beard. \"We would have noticed\u2014\"\n\n\"Would you?\" Tane rounded on Brassforge, his voice rising. He'd seen this happen before\u2014it was the ancryst rail all over again. \"The spell diagrams were already finalized. That's why Cranst chose that evening\u2014no one should have been working on them by then. Tell me, Dean Brassforge, after you'd given your approval, would you have been the one looking at those plans? Do you and your mages tend to build your ancryst machines with your own hands?\"\n\nBrassforge\u2014never particularly verbose\u2014could only stammer under Tane's sudden anger. \"I\u2026 We don't\u2014\"\n\n\"No. You don't. Workers and engineers and mechanics do that part, and none of them have any magecraft. By now they'll have scribed the glyphs exactly as the diagram says, because how would they know not to? You say you would have noticed, but the truth is that if it wasn't for Allaea working too late that night, you'd never have known anything was wrong!\"\n\n\"I told her,\" Indree whispered. \"I told her she was giving too much time to those stupid glyphs.\" And then she set her jaw, slung her handbag over her shoulder, and drew her pistol from within. \"We need to find Nieris. He does not get away with this.\" Looking to the deans, she demanded, \"Where is he?\"\n\nDean Orthea looked entirely lost, her lovely lips hanging agape. \"He\u2026 He was here earlier, but we haven't seen him for\u2026 a quarter hour, perhaps. He was with Lady Abena.\"\n\n\"Let me,\" Greymond said. Her eyes clouded for a moment, and then she frowned. \"I\u2026 can't locate either of them. They're nearby, but their Astral signatures are clouded.\"\n\n\"Spellfire!\" Indree swore. \"He must have seen us already. And if the Lady Protector is masked too\u2026 damn it, he has her!\" She swept her eyes over the disguised constables surrounding the table. \"I want all eyes looking for the chancellor and Lady Abena. And tell any Mageblades you find to get word to their commander: we need them to ground that airship.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Tane said, and Indree looked at him, raising a hand to belay her order. \"That's it, Indree. The airship. If Nieris thinks we're coming for him, that's where he'll be. He knows he can't wait for the launch anymore\u2014he's going to have to do it himself!\"\n\n\"Come on!\" Indree was already moving, hitching up her dress and sprinting toward the drydock at the edge of the ceremony grounds, where the airship sat waiting. Tane and the rest of her detail followed behind.\n\nA pair of human Mageblades stood guard over the ramp leading to the steel entry hatch in the airship's side. It stood open, ready for boarding during the launch ceremony. The wood-and-steel hull towered overhead, braced in the drydock, and at this distance the light reflecting from the envelope cast everything in shimmering silver.\n\nThe Mageblades moved to block the ramp as they approached, and both put hands to their pistols when they saw Indree's already drawn.\n\n\"Stop!\" called the man on the left, bald and broad-shouldered. \"Drop your weapon!\"\n\nIndree held up her badge. \"Constable Inspector Indree Lovial. Have you seen the Lady Protector?\"\n\nThe second Mageblade, a sturdy brown-haired woman, nodded her head. \"She just came aboard, with Chancellor Nieris. What is this about?\"\n\n\"We have reason to believe the chancellor may mean her harm,\" said Indree. \"I'm going to need you to let us by. Send to your commander. Tell him to get everyone here, right now. We have to clear the airship and keep it grounded.\"\n\n\"Lady Abena didn't show any sign of distress,\" the bald man said. \"We were told the chancellor had something to show her before the launch. She left orders not to let anyone\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm not just anyone,\" said Indree. \"The Lady Protector personally asked me to lead this detail. We don't have time for this!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, ma'am, but we need authorization from Commander Tavis to let you on board,\" the bald man said flatly.\n\n\"So get it! Isn't that what I just asked you to do?\" Exasperation colored Indree's voice. \"If he doesn't believe me, tell him to try and contact Lady Abena. He'll find someone is masking her.\"\n\nThe bald man nodded at his partner; she concentrated a moment, and then her eyes glazed with the sending.\n\nTane shifted his feet impatiently as the woman questioned Indree and relayed the answers to her commander. This was taking too long, and Nieris wasn't going to wait for their convenience. He'd been trying very hard not to think of Kadka\u2014of the way she'd looked at him when he left her behind\u2014but in that moment he couldn't help it. She wouldn't have any patience for this. And he could imagine very easily what she'd have done in his place. He glanced at the female Mageblade's clouded eyes, and then down to her waist, where a pair of ancryst pistols were slung over either hip.\n\nThere was one sure way to make the Mageblades seize the airship.\n\nThey just needed an obvious threat.\n\nThe woman was still distracted by her sending when Tane darted forward. He shouldered her to one side and lifted a pistol from her hip in a single motion. The bald Mageblade jabbed out a hand to grab him. Tane felt fingers brush his back, but they found no purchase, and then it was too late. He was already by, sprinting up the ramp.\n\n\"Stop!\" the Mageblade bellowed, and then a sound of metal on leather\u2014almost certainly an ancryst pistol being drawn. \"One more step and I'll shoot!\"\n\nTane ducked his head, and kept running.\n\n\"Wait!\" Indree's voice. A quick flurry of noise, and then a startled grunt. A pistol-ball threw splinters from the wooden hull ahead, significantly off-target.\n\nFootsteps behind, then, moving quickly. They were following. Good. Close at his back, someone was chanting words in the lingua, but spells took time, and it wasn't a terribly long ramp. He was nearly at the door.\n\nAstra, please just keep them from shooting me for a little bit longer.\n\nThis had to be the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Even if he didn't get himself killed, there would be consequences later. But if it got Indree and the Mageblades on board before Nieris launched the ship, it would be worth it. Sometimes talking worked, or knowledge, or clever tricks, but sometimes there was only Kadka's way: charge at the problem with your teeth bared and punch it in the throat.\n\nTane lunged through the door into the body of the airship. A short magelit hall led further in, with a brass railing running down both sides. It branched in three directions just ahead; he started toward the junction. He had to lead them to the bridge\u2014that was where Nieris would be, if he meant to launch the ship.\n\nA loud thud and clang from behind stopped him in his tracks. He knew what it was even before he turned. No. Not now.\n\nThe hatch was closed, slammed shut by some invisible force. He was alone.\n\nThe floor lurched beneath his feet.\n\nThe airship began to rise."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "Kadka stalked along the fence just outside the perimeter established by the Mageblades.\n\nA crowd of onlookers milled about in her path, pointing and gawking up at the airship\u2014the first time she'd seen the people of Thaless react properly to an obvious wonder of magic. When they saw her coming, most took one look at her face and gave her ample room to pass. They saw an orc, and they moved in the other direction. Not very nice, but useful just then. If they didn't get out of the way, she pushed them aside herself, which did nothing to stop the nervous looks aimed at her.\n\nBut she was used to that. It wasn't resentment driving her forward, it was urgency. She needed to find a way into the ceremony, and there wasn't any time to waste. Carver was going to get himself in trouble, and if she wasn't there\u2026\n\nCarver. That vekad fool of an idiot. Too clever to realize how stupid he was. She'd never been quick to anger, but when she found him again, he'd be lucky if she didn't break his nose.\n\nHe didn't get to decide she wasn't a part of this anymore. She'd witnessed magic in these last few days she never would have seen standing watch over doors all day. People had tried to kill her, and that needed answering. She wasn't ready for it to be over. She wasn't done.\n\nShe'd circled almost all the way around the fence now, drawing near the drydock where the airship waited. She couldn't see any break in the security. For a moment, she considered diving into the harbor to approach from the water, where the Mageblades were fewer. But even if she wasn't seen, she would still have to contend with the dome of magical energy over the ceremony grounds.\n\nShe wasn't done, but she couldn't see any way forward, either.\n\nAs consolation, she allowed herself a brief glance up at the airship's shining envelope. At least she'd gotten to see it like this, illuminated by magelight, reflecting silver radiance all across the harborfront. It was beautiful against the starlit sky.\n\nAnd it was moving.\n\nKadka blinked, squinted her eyes. Had she imagined it? No, it was moving, lifting out of the drydock. The activity among the crowd intensified\u2014frantic gestures, cries and shouts of \"It's starting!\" and \"Look, son, this is it!\"\n\nThey thought this was the launch, happening as scheduled. But something was wrong.\n\nThe airship was still tethered.\n\nThe first line broke free on the corner of the drydock nearest Kadka, and then another followed, and another. The airship rose slowly, moving away from the harbor toward the city. The Mageblades were mobilizing now, pushing people out of the ship's path, but there was little they could do\u2014they were as helpless to stop it as everyone else.\n\nOne of the broken tether-lines drifted by over Kadka's head, and she followed without thinking. She only knew two things: first, that the airship wasn't supposed to be moving; second, that if it was, Carver was probably on board, and in some kind of danger.\n\nAnd as much as she wanted to kick him in the head just then, he was going to need her.\n\nThe tether-line was already a full body-length above her, but she sprinted after it anyway, picking up speed as she moved. A towering ogren in a gryphon-etched Mageblade cuirass was trying to clear the crowd; he saw her coming, and stepped into her path. Kadka didn't slow down.\n\n\"Stop, ma'am,\" the ogren ordered in a deep, harmonious voice. He bent to catch her, a nine-foot statue carved of flawless marble dropping to one knee. \"You need to clear\u2014\"\n\nKadka bared her teeth in a wide grin and jumped straight at him. The ogren's eyes widened in surprise. She kicked off his grasping arm\u2014startlingly firm and strong under her feet\u2014and bounded to the lowered shoulder of his brass cuirass like she was climbing a staircase. He straightened, lifting her higher still as he reached up to grab her.\n\nHe was too late.\n\nArms outstretched, Kadka leapt for the trailing tether-line."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "Tane's stomach leapt into his throat as the floor swayed beneath him. His vision spun. He hated travelling by ancryst machine at the best of times; this might well have been the worst. He thrust the stolen ancryst pistol into his pocket and grasped the brass rail that ran along the hall to keep himself upright.\n\nPressure built in his ears, and then a voice from nowhere spoke in his head. \"Mister Carver. I hoped you would come.\"\n\nThe pressure didn't abate; the link was still open. \"Nieris.\" Tane clenched his eyes shut and touched the watch case in his waist pocket with two fingers, but the voice he sent was as calm as he could manage. \"What do you want?\"\n\n\"For you to join me and the Lady Protector on the bridge. She would very much appreciate if you came quickly and agreeably.\"\n\n\"Because you'll hurt her if I don't, you mean?\" The pressure of the sending was making his nausea worse; sweat beaded on his forehead. But still, he didn't let Nieris hear it. \"Why mince words at this point?\"\n\n\"I am a civilized man, Mister Carver. I dislike making vulgar threats. Please, don't keep us waiting.\"\n\nTane's ears popped, and the presence in his head was gone. Gasping with relief, he slumped to the floor and put his back to the wall. His head dropped between his knees, and he held it there until his breathing slowed.\n\nCollect yourself, Carver. Lady Abena's life is at stake. He pushed himself upright and grabbed hold of the rail, gripping it with white-knuckled desperation. At least I won't fall on my ass if\u2014 Something shook the airship; the hall moved suddenly underfoot. He clutched tight to the rail and rode it out. I swear by the Astra, if I survive this, I'm never setting foot on an airship again.\n\nShuffling along the rail, he started down the hall that he guessed would bring him toward the bridge. A stairway at the far end led to an upper level.\n\nHe hadn't gone far when the pressure in his ears returned. Astra, not again.\n\n\"Tane!\" Indree's voice. That wasn't so bad. \"I couldn't reach you! I thought\u2026 Are you alright?\"\n\n\"I'm on the first flight of an untested, presumably sabotaged airship,\" he answered, continuing on past the heavy steel hatches that lined the hall on both sides. \"I wouldn't say I'm alright. But I'm not hurt.\"\n\n\"Good.\" A pause, and then, \"You Astra-riven idiot. What were you thinking?\"\n\n\"That we were taking too long to get aboard. Looks like I was right.\"\n\n\"Of course. Getting yourself locked in a stolen airship with the most powerful mage in Thaless was obviously the right decision.\" If she'd been there with him, she'd have been glaring in that way only she could. He could almost see it\u2014like she meant to flay the skin from his bones with her eyes alone. \"Have you heard from Nieris? Was it him blocking my sending before?\"\n\n\"He has Lady Abena. I'm supposed to come to him on the bridge.\" He reached the stairs and started up, taking great care with each step. His hands never left the rail.\n\n\"You have to stall him. We're still trying to find a way to board.\"\n\nHe didn't have high hopes. Mages could levitate, but not at speed, and a portal into a moving target was dangerous and impractical. \"I'll try,\" he said. \"What about the heating glyphs? Whatever Nieris did, it might be reversible. If you can get the altered plans from the shipyard\u2014\"\n\n\"Already done. Dean Brassforge is looking over the glyphs now.\"\n\n\"Tell me as soon as he finds something.\" Tane crested the stairway to find another four-way junction in the hall. \"I think\u2026 I think I see the bridge.\" Ahead, straight through the junction, the hall ended in a large steel hatch with a round window. In the room beyond, a huge half-circle of glass panes looked out onto the deck. A panel of levers and glyphed instruments sat below, with a large ship's wheel at its center.\n\nHe couldn't see anyone, but Nieris had to be inside somewhere. Tane reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the ancryst pistol's grip.\n\n\"Just keep him talking while we figure out how to get to you, Tane,\" Indree sent, and in that moment he was all too aware of just how far away and below she was. \"Don't make him angry. As much frustration as it might save me, I don't want you getting yourself killed.\"\n\n\"I'll try not to\u2014\" He neared the hatch, and the sending-pressure abated before he could finish. Indree wouldn't have cut him off like that\u2014this was something else. He'd come within range of Nieris' masking spell.\n\nThe handle on the hatch turned itself, and the door opened. Nieris' voice came from over the threshold. \"Mister Carver. I'm so glad you've decided to join us. Please, come in.\"\n\nTane stepped through the hatch. The tingle of a ward raised the hair on his arms.\n\nTalain Nieris stood in front of the instrument panel a few feet to the right of the wheel. Through the half-circle of windows behind him, the lights of Thaless shone against the dark. He held his head high, his shoulders square, his hands clasped at his back\u2014the picture of elven refinement and poise. A perfectly pressed indigo topcoat with black lapels draped perfectly over his shoulders, with trousers to match, and a deep violet cravat at the neck, impeccably tied and ruffled. His short black hair was neatly parted, not a strand out of place; the hint of grey above his pointed ears only made him look more distinguished. He might have been a gentleman receiving an honored guest, rather than the dangerous criminal he was.\n\nThe Lady Protector wasn't with him.\n\n\"Nieris. Where\u2014\"\n\nWithout moving or even unclasping his hands, Nieris uttered a single word in the lingua. Before Tane could react, a band of silver-blue force wrapped around his midsection, binding his arms to his sides and lifting him from his feet. The spell pushed him hard against the back wall, and pinned him there, a foot above the floor. He struggled, but the Astral energy held him fast. This was too complex a spell for so few words\u2014it must have been spoken in advance and held for completion. One of the most difficult tricks of magecraft, especially while concentrating on other spells. Nieris looked like a bit of a dandy, but he had three hundred years of magical experience, and that made him exceptionally dangerous.\n\nAnd now Tane saw Lady Abena pinned to the same wall just to his right, her arms likewise constrained with silver-blue magic. Her ceremony attire was considerably less neat than Nieris', a rumpled white coat-dress accented with Audish blue, rucked up at the sleeves where the band of force held her arms.\n\nShe offered him a wan smile. \"Mister Carver. I don't suppose you brought any friends?\" Capture, it seemed, hadn't diminished her composure.\n\n\"It's just me, I'm afraid,\" said Tane. His fingers were still wrapped tight around the pistol in his pocket, but it wasn't going to do him much good with his arms bound below the elbow.\n\nNieris raised an eyebrow. \"Not even that\u2026 thing that has been following you all over the city?\" His lip twisted with distaste. \"There is no purpose in lying, Mister Carver. I may not be able to detect her, but she cannot pass through the ward I've cast on this room. She won't be coming to help you.\"\n\n\"I don't know where Kadka is. We\u2026 parted ways.\" Tane tried, without much success, to focus on Nieris rather than the nighttime glow of the city glimmering through the half-circle of the bridge windows. The lights were too small, too far below.\n\n\"An act of surprising good taste, if true,\" said Nieris. \"I don't know how you could stand to be near such an unnatural creature. It is one thing to be magicless, another to be absent from the Astra. I've never seen the like, and I have dealt with full-blooded orcs more than once. But I suppose as a non-magical yourself, you are blind to such things. I admit, it was a great relief when you supplied me with a reason to remove her from the Guard.\"\n\n\"So you owe me a favor,\" said Tane. \"Let us go and set down the airship, and we'll call it even.\" The airship shuddered, and a long groan sounded from somewhere above. He swallowed, and his fingers twitched instinctively toward his waist pocket, but he couldn't reach.\n\nNieris chuckled. \"Even now you insist upon your little jests. I must say, Mister Carver, you have impressed me. When I allowed you to work on the investigation, I believed that a man without magic could only get in the way of the constabulary. But you persevered, and here we are. Perhaps I should even thank you. You see, it occurred to me after you dealt with poor Randolf that I would need a new scapegoat. And you offered yourself up so nicely.\"\n\n\"It's too late to put the blame on me, Nieris. I've already told the constabulary everything.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you've told them quite a tale,\" said Nieris. \"A pity that in a short while you will not be available to argue your case.\" He smiled, a menacing glint in his sapphire-blue eyes. \"You see, Mister Carver, this airship is about to fall out of the sky. With you on board.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "Kadka clung to the side of the rapidly ascending airship, clutching the tether-line tight in her fist as the ground dropped away beneath her. She had to be hundreds of feet up already, and still rising. The air was growing colder, and a rising wind whipped through the hair on her head and the backs of her hands, threatening to tug her away into open sky if she loosened her grip for even a moment.\n\nIt was incredible.\n\nShe could see all of Thaless spread across the coast below, a city mapped in landmarks of light and dark. Yellow-orange oil lamps at the outer edges transitioned to silver-blue magelight in the wealthier central districts. There in the middle of it all was the great dome of the Brass Citadel, the seat of the Protectorate's government, divided into pie-slice segments by a framework of silver lights embedded from tip to base. Just south of that was the great expanse of Rosepetal Park, a broad swath of untouched natural darkness. Further north, the illuminated face of the clock tower above Thalen's Hall marked the University campus. Craning her neck back, she could still see a dense collection of magelights at the edge of the harbor behind her\u2014the ceremony grounds, getting further and further away as the airship drifted inland over the city.\n\nShe climbed hand over hand up the rope, stopping to anchor herself on the sill of a porthole whenever the wind gusted too strong or the ship swayed too heavily. Now and again, a strange, straining groan came from the shimmering silver envelope overhead. It didn't sound very good, but then, she didn't know what sound an airship was supposed to make. It might have been the result of some kind of sabotage; it might have been nothing at all.\n\nEither way, it was enough to make her climb faster.\n\nThe tether-line was tied off to a heavy iron ring a few feet below the deck\u2014just far enough that she couldn't reach the edge to pull herself up. There were no handholds across that final gap, just the sealed wood of the hull.\n\nBut she wasn't about to stop here. There was still one way up.\n\nKadka took a final look down at the beautiful lightscape below, gripped the ring with both hands, tensed her arms, and hurled herself upward.\n\nFor a moment, she was suspended in open air, a thousand feet above the ground, at the mercy of wind and gravity. Flying, almost. She laughed aloud, terrified and exhilarated at once. With straining fingers she reached for the edge of the deck. The fingertips of her right hand grazed the edge, caught\u2026\n\nAnd slipped away.\n\n\"Deshka!\" she swore, and grasped wildly with her left hand. Two fingers hooked over the side, no further than the second joint. Not enough to support her weight, but in that brief moment of stability, she gathered her feet under her and kicked blindly for the iron ring below. Her right foot found purchase. She pushed off, just high enough to get her elbow over the edge above. With her right hand, she reached up again and gripped a brass support of the deck rail. A moment later she was pulling herself over to safety.\n\nShe collapsed on the deck, her heart pounding, and rolled onto her back. For a moment she just looked up at the great silver oval shining above and tried to catch her breath.\n\nAnd then that groan came again, louder and longer. Something wasn't right.\n\nKadka pushed herself up and looked along the deck. Just ahead, near the front of the ship, a half-circle of windows framed a room that had to be important. There were lights inside, casting moving shadows over the deck.\n\nSomeone was there.\n\nShe crept closer, staying low, until she was crouched beneath the nearest window. Showing as little of herself as she could manage, she peeked in the bottom corner.\n\nShe'd been right about Carver\u2014he'd gotten himself in trouble. He was pinned against the wall by some kind of spell, a band of silver-blue force around his torso and arms. Lady Abena was beside him, likewise trapped. And though the mage holding them in place had his back to her, Kadka knew him. Pointed elven ears, greying temples, expensive clothing with frills at the sleeve and neck\u2014he was hard to mistake.\n\nChancellor Nieris.\n\nKadka was less surprised than she should have been. For all his forced politeness, she'd seen the ugliness beneath when the chancellor had looked at her, the glint of pleasure in his eyes when he'd stripped her of her badge. He wasn't the first to look at her that way, and probably not the last, but she always noticed. She hadn't suspected him of worse only because he'd seemed too much the fancy bookish sort to get his hands dirty.\n\nApparently she'd misjudged him, there. But nowhere else.\n\nAnd now he had Carver, and the Protector of the Realm. She had to help them, but how? There was a door just to her right, but it was thick steel, and turning the wheel to open it would draw too much attention. Breaking a window would be no better. If Nieris heard her coming, she'd have to cross the room faster than he could cast a spell, and he had three hundred years of experience doing just that. And even if she could get in quietly, he might well already have wards in place to stop her. She'd learned some about magic over the last few days, but not enough to find the flaws the way Carver could.\n\nSo Carver would have to do it for her. If she was going to save him, he'd have to help her do it.\n\nShe just had to get his attention first."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "\"What did you do, Nieris?\" Tane demanded. His only chance now was to keep Nieris talking until help came\u2014if help was coming. \"It's the heating glyphs, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Astute, Mister Carver,\" Nieris said with a condescending smirk. \"A shame such a mind was wasted on a non-magical. Yes, I altered Miss Hesliar's work on the glyphs. A minor change to the limits on their power consumption. Or rather, a complete removal. But the engravers had no means to catch such a mistake, as you well know. And now the envelope is overheating above us, expanding beyond its capacity. The higher we go, the further it stretches. You've already heard it groaning under the strain, I expect. Very soon\u2026\" Nieris clasped his hands together and then parted them suddenly, pantomiming an explosion.\n\n\"This is madness, Talain!\" said Lady Abena, pulling against her magical bonds. \"If we crash over the city\u2026 there are people down there asleep in their homes! They'll be killed!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Nieris said. \"And then your airship will be nothing but a failed experiment. How could the project go on, after such tragedy?\"\n\nLady Abena ceased her struggles, and looked, aghast, to the chancellor. \"You'll die just as surely as anyone!\"\n\n\"You think so little of me, Your Ladyship?\" Nieris affected a tone of mild indignation. \"I assure you, I will survive. You forget: I am the most accomplished portal mage alive.\"\n\n\"You're going to portal out of a moving ship?\" Tane's incredulity was only partly feigned to keep Nieris talking. \"That is insane. There's no way to anchor it!\" A portal linked two fixed points in space\u2014it wouldn't be able to move with the ship.\n\n\"Ah, the limited vision of the magicless.\" The chancellor preened a bit, grasping his lapel with one hand. \"I only need to anchor this end at the moment of entry, Mister Carver. The casting can be done in motion, and the position fixed only at the last instant. Then I simply need to step through before the ship moves away. Perilous for the untrained, but for a master of the craft? Easily done.\"\n\nIt was theoretically possible, but it would make an already unstable spell even more unreliable. \"If you get it wrong and miss your jump, the portal will tear the hull apart as the ship moves by,\" Tane said. \"We all die, and who knows what comes out of the Astra. Directly over Thaless.\"\n\n\"True,\" Nieris said without apparent concern. \"But I have no intention of making such an amateur mistake.\" The arrogance of it was astounding, and Tane was no stranger to arrogance.\n\n\"Why, Talain?\" Lady Abena demanded. \"Why are you doing this? You've served the Protectorate faithfully for centuries!\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" said Nieris. \"Centuries, watching the nation I have devoted my life to make the same mistake, again and again. I am a scion of House Nieris and the greatest mage of our time, and yet I am forced to suborn myself to an endless parade of magicless fools calling themselves Protectors of the Realm. And all because I was born with a power that makes me their better!\" For a moment, his mannered veneer peeled aside; he spat the last word with a grimace of disgust. \"And now you would ally with the people of the Continent. With these barbarians who fear everything that magic can do, who have sought to destroy us for centuries. Your peace will not last. They will take these airships you mean to give them, and turn them against us. I will not allow that to happen. The time has come to make the Mage Emperor's dream a reality. Your demise with your airship will be a symbol: a new age is dawning, and the magical will rule!\" He raised his fist with all the zeal of a preacher in the Halls of the Astra, and looked to his captives as if expecting applause.\n\n\"You're mad,\" said Lady Abena. \"The moment they see a new Mage Emperor rising to power, every nation on the Continent will move against us. We can't fight them all, Talain. The Protectorate will be wiped from the map.\"\n\n\"Spoken like a non-magical. You haven't the faintest idea what a mage is truly capable of.\" Nieris looked at her for a long moment; his eyes clouded over slightly. \"Let me show you.\"\n\nAnd then Lady Abena screamed.\n\nShe writhed wildly against her bonds, her eyes rolling back in her head, her neck cording with the strength of her screams. Nieris had to be sending her pain\u2014or maybe that wasn't strong enough. This was more like agony, and not just a short burst of it like Tane had gotten from Cranst. No one could suffer like that for very long.\n\n\"Stop it!\" Tane shouted. \"You'll kill her!\"\n\nLady Abena gave a final heave against her bonds, and slumped limply forward. Nieris' eyes focused once more, and he released her, letting her fall to the ground.\n\nTane stared at her, wide-eyed. \"Is she\u2026\"\n\n\"She lives,\" said the chancellor, looking contemptuously at the Lady Protector. \"For now.\" His eyes moved to Tane, considering. Overhead, the envelope groaned once more, long and loud.\n\nSpellfire! If he's willing to do that to the most powerful woman in the Protectorate, he isn't going to balk at me. Tane blurted the first thing that came to mind as a distraction, hoping Nieris' pride would demand he answer. \"You must know you can't get away with this! You've already made too many mistakes. You trusted Cranst, and he let himself be seen. This won't look like an accident, now that everyone is looking for a crime.\"\n\nNieris took a long breath, visibly collecting his calm, and clasped his hands behind his back once more. \"Yes, poor Randolf did make rather a mess of things, didn't he? But don't confuse his mistakes for mine. You know, he didn't even tell me that you had taken the scrollcaster at first. I had to confront him after Dean Greymond told me about your 'black market contacts'. He wanted to fix his failure himself, I suppose. He was so eager to make it up to me\u2014how could I deny him the chance?\"\n\nIt wasn't hard to find the meaning in that. \"You told him to kill himself. He did it for you.\"\n\n\"I thought perhaps the investigation would end with him. And it might have, if not for you and that orcish aberration.\"\n\n\"But the bluecaps know about you now. Even if you portal away, they know you're behind this!\"\n\n\"No,\" said Nieris. \"They only know that you claim I am. They cannot catch us in time to stop me now, and afterward, all the witnesses will be dead\u2014who's to say I was ever aboard? I will claim that I slipped away in the confusion of a madman taking the ship. I have powerful friends who will vouch for me. And the infamous Tane Carver was seen wandering about the University shortly after the murder, and boarding this airship just before it took flight. Seeking vengeance for his expulsion, I shouldn't wonder. Given your reputation, who will believe your story against mine? Not many, I suspect, considering you will not be alive to argue the point.\"\n\n\"Indree will never accept that.\"\n\n\"Inspector Lovial will do what her superiors tell her, or surrender her badge. Enough of this, Mister Carver. I know you are trying to delay me. It is amusing that you think I can be so easily fooled. I didn't come this far only to leave you with enough time to ground the airship after I am gone. I have simply been waiting for the point of no return.\" Another great moan came from the envelope. Textile stretching, metal bending and buckling. \"I believe we are past that now.\" Nieris turned away to face the right wall, and began to chant under his breath. Tane recognized the words of the lingua\u2014he was casting his portal.\n\n\"Wait! I\u2014\"\n\nNieris didn't even look at him, just flicked his fingers and uttered a few short words. A muzzle of silver-blue force surrounded Tane's jaw, clamping it shut.\n\nAstra, what am I supposed to do now? The flash charm loaded in his charmglobe was a momentary distraction at best, and the stolen pistol in his pocket was useless. Even if he could fumble it out and shoot from the wrist with true enough aim to hit anything, casting a portal took more than enough Astral energy to turn an ancryst ball aside. And no aid was coming. Nieris had been right about that. There was no way for the bluecaps or Mageblades to get aboard. Casting a portal from the ship was one thing\u2014opening one into a moving target would be impossible.\n\nTane watched helplessly as the chancellor uttered his portal spell, bringing a silver-blue shimmer of magic into the world near the right wall. It shifted and grew from the size of his fist to the size of his head and then larger still. It wasn't a true portal yet\u2014nothing was visible on the other side\u2014but it wouldn't be long. I can't stop him. I'm going to die here.\n\nAnd then, behind Nieris' back on the left side of the bridge, he saw something. Movement. He couldn't turn his head far under the constraint of the muzzle, but he shifted his eyes.\n\nKadka stared back at him through the window, waving her arms over her head to get his attention."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "If Tane hadn't been muzzled, he might have cheered. He'd never been so happy to see anyone in his life.\n\nNieris' detections can't sense her. He doesn't know she's here.\n\nHe only looked at Kadka from the side of his eye so Nieris wouldn't notice, but he waggled the fingers of his left hand to show he'd seen her. She pointed at the window, gave an exaggerated shrug.\n\nShe can't get in without drawing attention to herself. And if she could, there are wards. And if there weren't, Nieris could shield himself, or\u2026 There were a dozen different problems to deal with before she could get to him, and none of them were particularly easy to fix while he was stuck to the wall.\n\nBut Kadka had come when he'd thought no one could. And if he didn't do something, they were both going to die.\n\nCalm down, Carver. Work this through. The flaw in the mage is the flaw in the magic. What's Nieris' flaw?\n\nThat was easy: arrogance.\n\nHe thinks he's the greatest mage alive. How does that affect his spells? He takes pride in the craft\u2014he'll have chosen his wording carefully. But\u2026 how many is he keeping up right now? The wards, the binding spell, the detection spell on the bridge, the Astral mask that blocked Indree's sending\u2026 and the portal. The most unstable and difficult of spells. More than any mage would risk.\n\nExcept maybe one who thought himself a true master.\n\nThat's where he's vulnerable. He's concentrating on too much at once. If I can distract him badly enough, he might drop something. It won't be the portal, and it won't be the binding\u2014he won't risk letting me free. But if he doesn't think anyone else is capable of getting on board, he has no reason to hold his ward.\n\nBut Kadka still had to get inside. Just breaking the spells would make little difference if Nieris could simply cast them again. Breaking a window or opening the door would draw attention, and that would give the chancellor more than enough time to stop her with a spell\u2014based on the efficiency of his binding, Tane had little doubt that the man knew his combat magic.\n\nThere wasn't much time left. The portal was large enough now to fit a man, a silver-blue hole in reality that only had to be anchored in place.\n\nKadka was still watching; Tane flicked his fingers at her, gesturing her away from the window, and she ducked aside. He tested the freedom of his wrists, gripped the pistol in his pocket, found the clasp on the charmglobe in the other.\n\nHe had a plan.\n\nIt wasn't easy with his limited range of motion, but Tane fumbled the pistol from his pocket, and aimed from the hip at Nieris. No shot would fly straight while the chancellor was channelling so much Astral power, but that wasn't the point. Unable to speak, Tane slammed the heel of his foot against the wall for attention.\n\nNieris halted his chanting with a frown, holding his nearly-complete portal in stasis, and glanced sidelong at Tane. His eyes fell on the pistol.\n\nTane pulled the trigger, and the firing charm consumed itself in a silver flash.\n\nAt the same time, Nieris shouted in the lingua, and a shield of shimmering silver burst to life around him. The ancryst ball had already banked away from the strength of his magic, shattering through the window at the far left of the bridge. The pane of glass fell from its frame in great shards, and the roar of passing wind filled the room.\n\nAnd for just a moment, Tane felt his bonds loosen as the shield drew some of Nieris' concentration. The ancryst would never have struck true, but throwing up a shield under threat was instinctive for any combat-trained mage. Which was exactly what he'd been counting on.\n\nNieris looked to the shattered window, and back to Tane. \"Mister Carver, if you insist on interrupting, I will have to punish you.\" He glared at Tane, and his eyes glazed.\n\nPain lanced through Tane's temples like a white-hot spike driven directly through his brain. It spread over his body, a thousand hot needles stabbed directly into every nerve. He screamed silently into his magical muzzle, writhed against his bonds.\n\nBut he didn't let it stop him. Forcing his fingers open through spasms of agony, Tane rolled the charmglobe along the floor.\n\nNieris' eyes widened as he recognized the brass ball for what it was. He uttered a spell, sealing the charmglobe in a dome of magical force, and threw an arm across his face to shield his eyes against the possibility of a flash charm.\n\nAnother spell cast, and again, the energy holding Tane faltered. The muzzle on his jaw faded away, and the pain dulled. His arms were still bound, but it didn't matter. It was working.\n\nThe charmglobe clicked open inside Nieris' seal.\n\nNothing happened. It was empty.\n\nThe chancellor uncovered his eyes at the sound, and scowled at the empty brass ball. \"I am losing my patience, Mister Carver!\" he snapped. Again, that distant look in his eye.\n\nThe pain returned, worse than before. It seared through Tane's bones, boiled the blood in his veins, filled his skull until it felt like it would burst. He screamed, aloud this time, as every muscle in his body tensed and strained under the assault. He squeezed his eyes shut.\n\nAnd in his clenched fist, he crushed the seal on the flash charm he'd palmed.\n\nA burst of blinding light filled the room, bright enough to blaze red even through the flesh of Tane's eyelids. Nieris cried out in surprise. The pain abated, and Tane sagged several inches from the wall in his bonds.\n\nHe opened his eyes. The portal was still there, a door-sized oval of silver-blue, but the shield around Nieris was gone, and the one around the charmglobe. Which meant the spells Tane couldn't see might have failed too.\n\nIf they hadn't, it was over. He didn't have any tricks left.\n\nNieris clutched a hand to his eyes, his face twisted with rage. \"Enough!\" he bellowed, all illusion of gentility long since vanished. \"You will not distract me with these petty\u2014\"\n\nA blur of grey skin and wild white hair struck the chancellor hard in the side, tackling him to the floor. The portal flared wide and blinked out of existence. At the same moment, Tane's bonds failed. He collapsed to the floor on his knees.\n\n\"What about her?\" he said, and lifted his head to look at Kadka.\n\nShe'd pushed Nieris up against the wall, pinning him there. The chancellor started to chant, but she clapped a hand over his mouth, and her knife was at his throat in an instant. \"Say magic words and you die.\"\n\nTane pushed himself to his feet. His head throbbed with residual agony, and he was unsteady on the shifting airship floor, but he made it to Kadka. \"You came,\" he said. \"I didn't think anyone would.\"\n\nShe glanced at him, frowning. \"Would be easier, if you don't leave me behind.\"\n\n\"I know. I'm sorry. I thought\u2026 I suppose I thought I could do it alone. I was wrong.\"\n\n\"Never again.\" A hint of that familiar grin, a flash of sharp teeth at one side of her mouth. \"Or maybe I don't save you next time.\"\n\n\"Never again,\" he agreed.\n\nAbove, a great wail and moan came from the envelope. Ah, yes. Imminent death. Tane had absolutely no interest in falling from the sky aboard a broken ancryst vehicle\u2014even his worst nightmares weren't as bad as that. There had to be some way to stop it.\n\nHe gestured at Nieris. \"Uncover his mouth, but be ready if he tries anything. We need answers and we don't have much time.\"\n\nKadka leaned close to Nieris' face. \"Remember. Faster to cut throat than say spell.\" Raw disgust and terror warred in the chancellor's eyes, but he nodded his head slightly. She removed her hand.\n\nAs soon as she did, Nieris spoke. \"Call off your beast, Mister Carver. We can still be civilized about this. None of us want to die here. I can portal all of us to safety before the envelope breaks. All I ask is that you let me go.\"\n\n\"Let you go?\" Tane felt his fist close, and before he knew what he was doing, he was swinging it at Nieris' jaw. His knuckles jarred painfully against bone, and pain shot up his arm; he'd never hit someone like that before.\n\nKadka gave him an impressed grin as he rubbed his hand. \"Not bad, Carver.\"\n\nNieris spat blood from his mouth, and glared at Tane. \"Are you quite satisfied? We haven't time to\u2014\"\n\n\"Shut up,\" Tane said flatly. \"You do not go free, and this airship isn't going to hurt anyone. You killed my friend, and I'm not letting you turn the last project she worked on into your weapon. Or your symbol. You can tell me how to fix it, or you can die with us.\"\n\nNieris stared at him for a long moment, and then, \"You believe that would be the end of this, don't you? If you save the airship and turn me over to the bluecaps.\" He laughed, sharp and bitter. \"You truly don't understand what you've stumbled upon. The Knights of the Emperor are so much larger than one man. There are others, so many others, and they know that the time has come. They will carry on the work. If I\u2026 if I must die for the cause, so be it.\"\n\nKnights of the Emperor? Tane didn't like the sound of that, but there wasn't time to worry about it now. \"If you're so willing to die, why try to bargain to begin with? Come on, Nieris, you can still\u2014\"\n\nAnother moan from above, and then a loud snap. The airship listed sharply to one side.\n\nTane felt himself start to slide as the floor tipped upward, and then faster, and then he was hurtling toward the broken window. Lady Abena's unconscious body struck the wall before he did, and she was low enough that it stopped her.\n\nTane wasn't so lucky. The lip of the window took him in the thigh and swept his legs out beneath him. He tumbled out into the darkness, and his watch case slipped free of his pocket, swinging from his waistcoat at the end of its brass chain. Below, only the deck rail stood between him and an impossible drop to the city lights below.\n\nHis vision spun wildly as he fell. He couldn't tell which way was up\u2014the night-time lights of the city below looked very much like the stars above. Too disoriented to grab hold, he struck the railing with his shoulder and bounced over. The impact spun him around so that he was looking back in the direction he'd come from. Just above the bridge, a section of the rigging that bound the envelope to the hull flapped free\u2014it must have snapped as the envelope expanded. With one hand, Tane grasped wildly for the rail as he plummeted away from the ship.\n\nHe missed.\n\nSuddenly Kadka was there, holding the railing with one hand. Her fingers closed tight around his wrist.\n\nTane dangled wide-eyed, too terrified to speak or breathe for fear that the slightest movement might shake him free of her grip. The ship adjusted to the sudden shift and righted itself as well as it could, though the hull still swayed and the nearer side of the deck hung considerably lower than the farther. Kadka found her footing, let go of the rail, and reached for Tane's arm with her now-free hand.\n\n\"Such an unfortunate turn.\" Nieris' voice, wretchedly smug. He appeared out of the dark behind Kadka, looming above her as she bent over the rail. \"You did come very close to stopping me, I must admit.\" He started to chant a spell.\n\nKadka lashed her free hand behind her, but Nieris simply stepped out of reach. There was nothing she could do without letting Tane fall, and Tane was utterly helpless, hanging in the night sky. He's won.\n\nBehind Nieris, the light shining from the bridge windows flickered and dimmed. The chancellor's mouth gaped open. His eyes rolled back in his head.\n\nGlowing faintly against the night, a ghostly silver-blue hand thrust directly through his chest."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 28",
+                "text": "Kadka heaved Tane to safety as Nieris collapsed to the deck. The wraith bent over the chancellor, feasting hungrily. Still reeling, Tane could only watch, clinging to the rail to hold himself upright.\n\nNieris' pale elven skin went paler still, and his veins bulged out like dark worms burrowing beneath. He twitched and spasmed as the wraith siphoned away his Astral bond, but its grip was in him too deep now to pull away.\n\n\"Carver,\" Kadka said, gripping Tane's shoulder. \"The Lady Protector. Come.\"\n\nTane shook his head to clear it, and they skirted around the feeding wraith toward the hatch that led back into the bridge.\n\nIt was dim inside\u2014the wraith had drained most of the lights. Lady Abena lay unmoving against the left wall.\n\nKadka bent down beside the Lady Protector, and held a hand just above her nose and mouth. \"Still breathing,\" she said, and looked up at Tane. \"What now? We have to stop this, yes?\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I don't know how. We need to stop the power going to the heating glyphs to save the envelope, but if we pull the gems, the lift spells lose power too, and the whole ship will fall out of the sky. If we even make it that long.\" Tane jabbed a finger toward the broken window, where the ghostly figure was still siphoning power from the chancellor. \"That thing is distracted for now, but Nieris won't last forever.\" Absently, he grabbed the watch case dangling from his waistcoat and clutched it tight. \"Astra, I can't see any way out, Kadka. I'm sorry I pulled you into this.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"No. I make you let me come, remember?\"\n\n\"At the beginning. But you came here to help me.\"\n\n\"Some. Also I want to ride airship.\" She grinned. \"But I can't let friend fight insane mage alone. My choice, not yours.\"\n\n\"Well I'm sorry anyway. For all the times you've saved me, I don't think I've been a very good friend in return. Not good enough to deserve this.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"In Sverna, everyone looks at me like human. Here, everyone sees orc. You look at me like Kadka, even if you are stupid sometimes. Show me magic like I have never seen. Is enough.\" With one white-furred hand, she clasped his shoulder. \"If I die flying on airship like no one ever has\u2026 is not such a bad death. But if anyone can stop it, I think you can. Fighting is done, Carver. Time for cleverness now.\"\n\nHe wanted more than anything to tell her he had something. Some solution to justify her faith. But he didn't. He had nothing. \"Kadka, I\u2014\"\n\nA long, screech cut him off, and the airship lurched again, this time directly downward.\n\nThe deck fell under their feet, and Tane's stomach rose into his throat. He lifted into the air as if he was entirely weightless; beside him Kadka did the same, and the limp figure of the Lady Protector.\n\nAnd then, just as suddenly, the ship caught itself, and he slammed down painfully on his hands and knees.\n\nKadka landed improbably on her feet, and caught Lady Abena before she struck the floor. \"What is this, Carver?\"\n\n\"The envelope wasn't made to expand this much,\" said Tane, rising shakily to his feet. \"One of the compartments must be losing air. The lift spells on the hull are trying to compensate, but with so much power going to the heating glyphs, they're failing. We don't have long left.\" He glanced out the window.\n\nThe sudden fall hadn't thrown Nieris overboard, but he'd been tossed limply against the railing. The wraith, unaffected by the movements of the ship, drifted easily back down to the deck. But it wasn't moving toward Nieris anymore. It was coming for the bridge. For them. And this time I don't have an engine case to trap it\u2026 wait.\n\nHe grabbed Kadka's arm and jabbed a finger toward the instruments at the front of the bridge. \"Take the wheel. Steer us out over the water if you can. If this works, it might be a rough landing. If it doesn't, we can still save the people below us.\"\n\nThe wraith passed through the window as if it wasn't there and drifted toward the nearest source of Astral energy: Lady Abena, in Kadka's arms.\n\nTane stepped around them to block the way.\n\n\"This way, you ugly wisp of mist.\" He didn't think the weak insult would do much to draw its attention, but saying it made him feel a little bit more confident.\n\nThe wraith turned lightning-blue eyes toward him, and reached out a hand. Tane leapt back, but not far enough to lose its attention. And just as he'd hoped, it followed, closing the space with increasing speed now that it had chosen its prey. With Nieris gone, Tane's was the strongest Astral signature in the room\u2014unconscious, Lady Abena's would be relatively dormant.\n\nKadka hadn't gone for the wheel yet. Instead, she lowered Lady Abena to the floor and took a step toward Tane. \"Carver, what\u2014\"\n\nHe waved her off, backing rapidly away from the wraith as it closed on him. \"Just take the wheel! It doesn't want you, and we have to get it away from the instruments. Trust me, Kadka. I'm doing something clever.\" I hope. The door to the lower decks was just behind him now, and he stepped backward over the threshold. \"Come on, fog-face. Follow me!\"\n\nIt did, blurring toward him with unnerving speed.\n\nTane turned and ran."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 29",
+                "text": "Kadka tied off the ropes, lashing Lady Abena's unconscious body to the wall beside Chancellor Nieris\u2014she'd dragged him in from the deck, in case they still needed him. He was conscious, but he didn't resist, just stared blankly and went where he was led. There were cords and fastenings all around the bridge; whatever they were supposed to be used for, they worked well enough for this. She couldn't look after the Lady Protector and do what she had to do at the same time. It was safer this way.\n\nShe strode to the wheel, took it in both hands, turned it just a bit to the right. There was resistance, but it moved slightly. A moment later, the airship began to turn. Kadka grinned. She didn't know if she'd get out of this alive, didn't know what Carver was doing, or even if he knew what he was doing. But for a moment, she didn't care.\n\nShe was flying.\n\nThe lights of the city spun slowly, far below, as she maneuvered the ship's nose toward the Audish Channel. There it was, coming into view through the right window pane, a dark expanse against a coast speckled with light.\n\nThey were still too high. If the ship fell from this height, it wouldn't matter if they were over water or earth. Kadka glanced at the instrument panel; there were two large wood-handled levers, one on either side of the wheel. Each was currently set at a different angle, with space to move forward or back. She had no idea what either of them did, but if one didn't control descent, this airship had been built very stupidly.\n\nGuessing at random, she grabbed the one on the right, and pushed.\n\nThe ship lunged ahead at speed. Kadka gripped the wheel to keep from stumbling back under the sudden acceleration, and her weight pushed it further right. Suddenly the airship was turning too hard and too fast.\n\n\"Deshka!\" She pulled the lever back down, and the ship began to slow. Grabbing the wheel in both hands once more, she levelled out the turn as gently as she could.\n\nIt had to be the other one, then. She took the left-hand lever and pushed it forward, slow and gradual. At first, it seemed as if nothing had happened, but after a moment, the coastline started to rise over the nose of the ship. With a satisfied nod, Kadka steered in the direction of the bay.\n\nA deafening screech from overhead, and the airship dropped again.\n\nKadka's feet lifted off the floor; she gripped the wheel tight to keep from being slammed against the ceiling. Against the wall, the ropes held Lady Abena and Nieris in place. The abrupt descent only jostled them slightly.\n\nOnce more, something arrested the fall\u2014the lift spells, Carver had said\u2014and Kadka slammed back to the deck, barely keeping her legs under her.\n\nThey'd dropped further this time. And they were still high enough that if the spells on the ship couldn't stop the next fall, everyone on board would be thoroughly crushed on impact.\n\nIt was up to Carver now. Whatever plan he had, she hoped it worked, because she didn't think they had long left."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "Tane sprinted down the stairs from the bridge, and then along the hall toward the rear of the ship. He didn't know the layout, but it wasn't hard to guess the direction he needed to go. The floor trembled and moved underfoot, but he didn't have time for vertigo. Steel hatches flashed by on either side; he ignored them. Walls and doors wouldn't stop the wraith. His shadow on the walls shifted as lights flickered and died behind.\n\nIt was getting closer.\n\nPressure filled his ears, and then a voice. Ree. \"Tane! You're alive! I couldn't reach you!\"\n\n\"Nieris had a mask up. But I have bigger problems now.\"\n\nAhead, at the far end of the hall, he saw what he'd been hoping to see: a hatch, similar to the others, but made of brass. That had to be it. He glanced over his shoulder\u2014the wraith was no more than a few yards behind him, a silver-blue phantom with arms outstretched. Lightning-blue eyes fixed on Tane, unblinking.\n\nHe put his head down and ran with everything he had.\n\n\"Tane, what are you\u2014\"\n\nAll at once, the floor leapt under his feet. The ship accelerated, turning hard to the right, and he was thrown against the wall. \"Spellfire! Keep it steady, Kadka!\"\n\nHe didn't realize he'd sent the words to Indree, but she answered. \"Is she steering the ship? It's turning back toward the coast.\"\n\nHe didn't have time to send back. The wraith closed the distance as Tane tried to get his balance again. A ghostly hand reached for his chest. He threw himself back, and silver-blue fingers passed through the air inches short of contact. Tane grabbed the railing and launched himself forward once more into a stumbling run.\n\nHe reached the hatch, gripped the wheel, pulled it hard. It turned, but too slowly. Again, he looked back\u2014the wraith was nearly on him. He wasn't going to make it.\n\nThe wraith reached out. There was nowhere left to run.\n\nThe ship lurched downward into sudden freefall.\n\nTane held the hatch wheel as his body lifted into the air. The wraith, unanchored, rose sharply through the ceiling to the upper level.\n\nIt lasted longer than the first time, but just as Tane was certain he was plummeting to his death, the lift spells re-engaged and caught the ship. His weight returned, pulling him back to the deck.\n\nThe wraith was still somewhere above, but it could pass through the deck like air. It would be coming back. Tane wrenched hard at the brass wheel.\n\n\"Tane?\"\n\n\"Indree, I don't know if I'm going to get out of this alive.\" The wheel moved easier the further it turned. He spun it until he felt the latch give way, and pulled the door open. The room beyond was fully lined with brass, insulated against outside magic. \"If I don't see you again\u2026 I'm sorry. For everything.\"\n\nA ghostly silver-blue figure descended through the ceiling above, just a few feet behind him.\n\n\"Tane, I don't\u2014\"\n\nTane stepped through the door, and the pressure in his ears died, blocked by brass. Indree was gone.\n\nBut he'd made it. The engine room. Against the back wall, a glass-fronted hatch held an array of a half-dozen fist-sized diamonds. The first two were already entirely lost to milky white, cracked and lustreless, and the next two were heavily clouded over from the unchecked drain of the heating glyphs. The last pair, though, was still clear enough that Tane could see the brass of the wall behind them. All were grasped in claws of conductive copper, and all along the walls, brass tubes\u2014no doubt lined on the inside with copper as well\u2014ran from the sides of the power array to the left and right sides of the room. On both sides, large panels allowed access to the inner workings of the ancryst engines.\n\nThere was no way out. If this didn't work, he'd trapped himself with the wraith at a dead end.\n\nTane ignored the engines, and lunged for the hatch at the back wall. With both hands, he yanked it open. Even without looking, he could feel the wraith behind him, reaching. He ducked, threw himself to the right, scrambled away. Braced himself for that cold spectral touch.\n\nIt didn't come.\n\nHe turned to see the wraith's hands thrust into the power array.\n\nYes! The only source of Astral energy on the ship that had a chance of distracting a wraith from living prey was the gem array that powered the spells keeping them in the air. Tane hadn't been sure they'd have enough charge left, but it had worked.\n\nHe leapt through the door, slammed it shut behind him, turned the wheel hard. The latch clicked into place.\n\nThe wraith was trapped, sealed in brass.\n\nTrapped with the ship's power source. Which didn't give them much time.\n\nTane sprinted back down the hall, up the stairs, through the door to the bridge. It was dark inside\u2014the last of the magelights had given out.\n\n\"Kadka!\" She was at the wheel, a silhouette against the starlit sky. He closed the distance to her side. \"How long before we can land? We don't have much time.\" Against the left wall, he noticed Lady Abena and Nieris lashed tight beside one another. Good\u2014he didn't much care about the chancellor, but the sudden drop before might well have dashed the Lady Protector against the roof.\n\nKadka glanced at him as he drew alongside her. \"Don't know. Hard to tell, like this.\" She gestured at the windows. The lightless expanse of the bay was beneath them now, just like Indree had said, but it was difficult to judge their height in the dark. \"What did you do? Where is wraith?\"\n\n\"Locked in the engine room, siphoning the ship's gems. Which should drain the flow to the heating glyphs before the envelope bursts. Whatever air is left, it will help to slow our fall when the lift spells end. But it's not going to keep us aloft. If we're too high when the power runs out\u2026\"\n\nHe met her eyes, and saw that he didn't have to finish. She nodded her understanding, and smiled slightly, without showing her teeth.\n\n\"Is good we meet each other, Tane Carver. Has been\u2026 exciting.\" She offered him her hand.\n\nTane took it. He didn't know what else to say\u2014or maybe there was nothing left to say. Hand in hand and side by side, they waited silently as the ship descended over dark waters.\n\nIt wasn't long before the lift spells failed."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 31",
+                "text": "There was nothing else for Tane to grab, so he grabbed Kadka, throwing his arms around her. She gripped him tight with one hand, holding the wheel with the other as they rose into the air together.\n\nNothing stopped them, this time. The power was spent. For what felt like forever, they plummeted toward a black sea.\n\nAnd then, with a great splash, the airship hit water.\n\nThrough the window, the dark of the bay surged outward in a massive wave, just visible in the reflected moonlight. He and Kadka hit the floor with jarring force, still clinging to one another. Kadka landed atop him, crushing the breath from his lungs.\n\nBut they weren't dead.\n\nThank the Astra! Whether they'd been nearer to the water than he'd thought or sufficiently slowed by what was left of the envelope, he didn't know, and it didn't matter now. All that mattered was that he was still alive.\n\nAlive enough to feel the full weight of Kadka's knee digging into his ribs.\n\n\"Get off,\" he wheezed. \"Can't breathe.\"\n\nShe rolled off of him on to her back, laughing. \"That was\u2026 not so bad.\"\n\n\"Speak for yourself,\" Tane groaned, clutching his side.\n\nAcross the room, Lady Abena stirred against the ropes holding her. \"What\u2026 what happened? Nieris!\" She glanced to her side, saw the chancellor lashed beside her, and tried to recoil. Nieris only stared at her, his mouth gaping open. A string of drool fell from his lower lip.\n\n\"He's harmless, Your Ladyship,\" Tane said. \"Kadka, let her free.\" Painfully, he started to rise as Kadka bounded up and drew her knife. She'd freed Lady Abena before Tane had gotten himself to his feet.\n\nLady Abena let Kadka help her up and leaned against her, blinking in confusion. \"You\u2026 how did you do this, Mister Carver? Last I remember, you were in no position to stop Talain.\"\n\nHe glanced at Kadka, and smiled. \"I didn't do it alone. But it's a long story.\" A light drew his attention. More than one, actually, visible through the bridge windows. Boats, moving over the water. \"And it looks like help is coming. We wouldn't be very good hosts if we didn't greet them at the door.\"\n\nThe three of them made their way down to the side hatch Tane had entered by, and he threw it open. The boats were only a few yards out now. There were two of them, cutters powered by ancryst engines, both dwarfed by the airship. In the silver-blue of their magelights he could see the constabulary's golden shield on their prows, marking them as coastal patrol vessels.\n\n\"Tane?\" Indree's voice.\n\n\"I'm here,\" he said. \"We're alive.\"\n\nThe first boat raised a ramp to the hatch, and three human Mageblades were the first ones off the deck. One took Lady Abena from Kadka while the others fell in protectively on either side. Tane moved to follow as they took her back down the ramp, but one of them raised a hand to stop him.\n\n\"The next boat is yours. The Lady Protector's security can't be compromised.\"\n\nTane didn't argue, although it was tempting. Where was that security a half-hour ago?\n\nFrom the deck, Lady Abena turned back one last time. \"Thank you, Mister Carver, Miss Kadka. I will not forget this.\" And then her Mageblades led her into the cabin, and out of sight.\n\nThe next boat had barely raised its ramp before a figure was marching toward them, flanked by several bluecaps in full uniform.\n\n\"Not the most elegant landing,\" said Indree. Up close, he could see that her evening dress was soaking wet. The wave they'd raised when they hit water must have thrown up a powerful spray.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Kadka said, grinning. \"But is not bad for my first time, I think.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Indree. \"Not bad at all.\" She turned to Tane, then, and before he knew what was happening, she was throwing her arms around him. \"I'm glad you're alive.\"\n\nInstinctively, Tane folded his hands around her waist. \"I'm glad you're glad,\" he said. \"I\u2026 thought you'd be angrier.\"\n\nShe drew back, but didn't let go. \"Oh, I'm extremely angry.\" She smiled to take the bite from the words, but he could see the annoyance behind her eyes. \"You nearly got yourself shot, and it wasn't exactly easy to explain why I stopped the Mageblades from killing a man chasing after the Lady Protector with a stolen pistol. But you did it. Somehow. So this time, I'm going to skip the scolding.\"\n\nKadka leaned close to Tane's ear, and far too loudly, she whispered, \"Now you kiss.\"\n\nHe should have been embarrassed, but it was just too absurd, after everything. Instead, he quirked an eyebrow at Indree. \"I do hate to disappoint an audience\u2026\"\n\nIndree hesitated, just an instant, and then shook her head and pushed him away. \"In your dreams. I have work to do. Where's Nieris?\"\n\nTane pointed back through the hatch. \"Tied up on the bridge. He won't give you any trouble. He's been Astra-riven.\"\n\n\"What?\" Indree frowned. \"How did a wraith get on board?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you later,\" Tane said. \"When you're done working. It's trapped in the engine room. You'll need to have someone banish it.\"\n\nIndree took a pair of bluecaps in with her, and directed one\u2014a gnomish man she introduced as Constable Tobtock\u2014to bring Tane and Kadka aboard the smaller boat. He led them down the ramp and into the ship's cabin. There wasn't much to it, just a small enclosed space with a bench along one side and a small cot bolted to the floor.\n\n\"Sit where you like,\" Tobtock said. \"It will take some time to properly secure the airship. Can I get you something to drink?\"\n\n\"Whiskey,\" Kadka said quickly, before Tane could answer.\n\nTobtock smiled. \"I probably shouldn't, but after the night you've had\u2026 I might be able to find something. Wait here.\" He stepped out of the cabin and left them alone.\n\nTane sat down on the edge of the cot. Kadka lowered herself onto the bench and leaned against the wall. For a long time, they were both quiet, and then their eyes met across the room. That sharp-toothed grin spread across Kadka's face, and Tane couldn't help but match it.\n\nAnd then they were both laughing, letting the tension spill out of them in the only way that seemed to make sense just then. Just like in the workshop, the day they'd met.\n\nIt was a long time before they stopped."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 32",
+                "text": "\"No one worked harder on the airship project than Allaea did. I always admired that about her, even while I was trying to get her to rest for a night or two.\"\n\nIndree stood behind a podium atop a dais erected on the grass at the campus center, before an audience of hundreds of students and citizens. She wore her full constable's uniform, with her cap held at her side. Her voice\u2014magically projected to reach the furthest corners of the crowd\u2014rang in Tane's ears as if he was standing right beside her, though he was actually sitting beside Kadka several rows back.\n\n\"She loved her work. She loved the University. But she was just as dedicated to her friends. Since we were children, she would drop everything to help me when I really needed her. She could be blunt, and sometimes it hurt to hear, but her advice always went straight to the heart of the problem. I wouldn't be who I am today without her.\" Indree stopped, there, and wiped a hand across her cheek. Tane couldn't see the tears, but he knew they were there.\n\n\"But even though she's gone, she'll be remembered. By the friends whose lives she touched, and by her family\"\u2014there, she gestured at Allaea's parents, an elven couple sitting on the dais behind her\u2014\"and by everyone who looks up to see an airship passing by overhead. Soon that will be a common sight, all across Audland and the Continent. She would say that she was only responsible for a small part of it, that there were hundreds of others who worked on the project. And as usual, she would be right. But even if it's only in part, our nation owes its mark on the sky to her.\n\nIndree looked up, then, at the clear blue afternoon sky. \"Thank you, Allaea. You won't be forgotten.\" And then she stepped away from the podium, and returned to her seat beside Allaea's parents and the University deans. The Hesliars stood to embrace her.\n\nLady Abena rose next, and stepped up to speak. \"Thank you for the beautiful words, Constable Inspector Lovial. Miss Hesliar was truly one of the University's best. And in honor of her great contribution to the project, I am proud to announce that a name has been chosen for our first airship: the Hesliar.\"\n\nCheers from the crowd, and applause like thunder. Allaea had been well known on campus, and well liked, despite her sharp tongue. Tane stood with a hundred others to clap for the friend he'd lost, and Kadka did the same beside him.\n\nLady Abena held up a hand as the applause died. \"Now, there is one more announcement to make. As some of you know, with the airship project completed, Chancellor Nieris has decided to take his retirement after more than a century of service.\"\n\nA few sounds of surprise, there.\n\n\"Should say he is drooling in his bed,\" Kadka grumbled. \"Is criminal and murderer. Should tell truth.\"\n\n\"You know they can't, Kadka,\" Tane said quietly. \"I don't love it, but if the full extent of what happened got out, the Continent would never trust our airships, and the treaty would fall apart. Lady Abena was lucky she was able to pass off last night as a final test flight.\" The full blame for Allaea's murder had been laid on Randolf Cranst. Who had been the one to actually kill her, but still, it felt like a lie. It wasn't as if Nieris had gotten off easily, though\u2014everything the man was had been stripped away, including the magic he'd been so proud of. He'd spend the rest of his life an Astra-riven invalid, being cared for by his family at some estate in the countryside. House Nieris had been as eager as anyone to keep his crimes quiet.\n\n\"As Protector of the Realm,\" Lady Abena continued, \"it falls to me to select a worthy individual to fill the rather large shoes Talain Nieris leaves behind. As such, it is my pleasure to present to you your new chancellor: Liana Greymond.\"\n\nThat wasn't entirely a surprise. There hadn't been a non-elven chancellor for a very long time, but there were no elven deans to raise up, and Dean Greymond was a well-respected mage. Tane applauded again as Greymond took the podium from the Lady Protector.\n\n\"Thank you, everyone,\" Greymond said. \"I will strive to live up to the legacy of my predecessors. And as my first act, Lady Abena has graciously given me permission to announce a new program, in honor of the many non-magical laborers and mechanical engineers who worked on the airship project.\"\n\nTane couldn't help but rise a little bit in his seat. She can't mean\u2026\n\n\"Beginning with the next term, we will be opening the University's schools of magic to the non-magical. All who pass the entrance exams will be welcome. The Protectorate's great strength is our magic, and the Lady Protector and I agree that all of our citizens deserve the opportunity to understand and work with it, whether they are born with magecraft or not.\"\n\nAs the crowd gasped and shouted and cheered, Tane's hand found his father's watch case. He held it tight as tears rolled down his cheeks. After all this time, all the years he'd worked for this, he couldn't believe it.\n\nKadka was looking at him. He swallowed, embarrassed, and moved to wipe his cheeks. But she only put a hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"No shame, Carver. Is dream long time coming. Enjoy it.\"\n\nSo he did, until the noise of the crowd began to fade. It was only then that he found himself wondering, What am I supposed to do with myself now?\n\nGreymond dismissed the crowd, and the seats emptied quickly as people stood and filed down the aisles. But Tane didn't move, just sat where he was for a long time, gathering himself.\n\nKadka waited patiently beside him until she couldn't anymore, and then she nudged him and pointed to the dais. \"Come, or we miss them. You can talk to Indree.\" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, and then started across the grass, not waiting to see if he was behind her.\n\nIndree was still with Allaea's parents, exchanging goodbyes, but Lady Abena and Dean Greymond\u2014Chancellor Greymond, Tane reminded himself\u2014were already climbing down the steps. Tane followed Kadka over to catch them before they left.\n\n\"Mister Carver, Miss Kadka,\" Lady Abena greeted them. \"I'm pleased you accepted the invitation. After hearing the story you told the constables, I may never be able to repay you. I wish that we could have given you the recognition you deserve. If there was any way to do it without revealing how close the airship came to disaster\u2026\" She looked to Tane. \"But Liana suggested that you might appreciate the validation of your thesis as some degree of compensation.\"\n\n\"It's more than enough,\" said Tane, and looked to Greymond. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"You earned it,\" Greymond said. \"I wouldn't have thought even a trained mage could best Nieris, but you stopped him without any magic of your own. I was wrong about you, Tane, and you've more than proved it. If you'd like, we'll need lecturers who understand the viewpoint of our non-magical students. There could be a position for you here.\"\n\nIt was more than he'd ever expected. He didn't have an answer ready; the words came out in an embarrassing stammer. \"I\u2026 I'm not sure I'd know how to\u2026\"\n\n\"You don't have to decide now,\" said Greymond. \"Just think about it.\" And then, to Kadka, \"And Miss Kadka, needless to say, there is a position in the University Guard for you if you want it. We owe you just as much as Mister Carver.\"\n\n\"I will think too,\" Kadka said. \"Is good that you offer. Maybe you are better to work for than Nieris.\"\n\nGreymond arched an eyebrow, and smiled slightly. \"I hope I am, Miss Kadka. I truly do.\"\n\n\"Now,\" said Lady Abena,\" we must be going. There is a great deal of work to do getting the University and my airships back in working order. Come, Liana.\"\n\n\"What about\u2014\" Kadka began.\n\nGreymond, predictably, was already answering. \"Ah, yes. I nearly forgot. I've arranged for the bursar to release your pay. You can see him on your way off campus.\" With that, she and Lady Abena departed toward Thelan's Hall, surrounded by an escort of a half-dozen Mageblades.\n\nIndree approached then, holding her cap under her arm. \"Tane. Kadka. I'm glad you came.\" Her eyes were tired and sad, rimmed with red, but she offered them a shallow smile.\n\n\"Is good speech you give,\" said Kadka.\n\n\"It was.\" The corner of Tane's mouth quirked upward. \"Allaea would have hated it.\"\n\nIndree laughed, and it brought a hint of brightness to her eyes. \"She would have, wouldn't she? But I think she would want me to thank you. Both of you. Without your help, her killers would never have been brought to justice.\"\n\n\"There might still be others, if what Nieris said about the Knights of the Emperor was more than just an empty threat,\" said Tane. \"Have you found anything on them?\"\n\n\"Not yet. I think that might be a more long-term investigation. But we have Cranst's badge, and we'll be going through Nieris' home and office over the next few days. Speaking of which, Tane\u2026 if we do find something, I might be able to offer you some consulting work. We don't know how many of these people there are, or how high they go. If they exist, we're going to need help finding them. And you've proven to be good at that.\"\n\n\"I'll help however I can.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said Indree. She paused for a long moment, as if unsure what else to say. \"Well. I should get back to the Yard. There's work to be done, like I said.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Tane. Another pause, broken by Kadka faking the most unsubtle cough he'd ever heard and prodding him sharply in the ribs. Spellfire, she's going to make me do it. \"Er, Indree\u2026 maybe you'd like to get dinner, some time? And talk about\u2026 things?\"\n\n\"I think I might like that,\" Indree said, with a slow smile. \"I'll let you know.\" She turned to go, and then looked back at him over her shoulder. \"And Tane? You can call me Ree.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 33",
+                "text": "An unmarked envelope was waiting in Tane's letterbox when he and Kadka arrived back at his office. He sat behind his desk to examine it, and Kadka took the seat on the other side, putting up her legs.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked.\n\nTane broke the seal and pulled out a small sheet of folded paper. At the top, it was marked with the image of a green masquerade mask. \"I think it's from Bastian.\" He read it aloud. \"My friends. On behalf of all the Audish patriots who will never know the great service you have done our nation, let me thank you. Consider yourselves welcome guests in my establishment, and know that you will always merit a generous discount. Signed, an ardent admirer.\" He smiled as he read the next bit. \"Postscript: My dear Kadka, the offer always stands. If you are ever in need of work, please present yourself to our mutual friend the fishmonger.\"\n\nKadka laughed. \"Is him. No question.\"\n\n\"So,\" said Tane, \"are you going to take him up on it? For a criminal, he seems like a good sort. And it might be exciting. I know you like that. Or are you going back to the University Guard?\" Part of him dreaded her answer. Now that it was all over, he knew she'd have to find some sort of reliable work, but discussing it aloud felt more final than he liked.\n\n\"Don't know yet,\" Kadka said. She hesitated, and then, \"You have choice too. Teach at University, work with bluecaps. What will you do?\n\n\"I suppose I'll lecture,\" he said, without much enthusiasm. \"The pay is going to be better than anything I've made working on my own.\" It was strange\u2014he'd spent ten years of his life worrying about proving his worth to the University, and now that he'd done it, the prospect of returning was less exciting than he'd imagined. Indree had already forged her own path, and Allaea was gone. After all this time, it didn't feel like there was anything left for him there. \"Or\u2026 maybe the bluecaps would be better. Maybe both, if the timing works. It's\u2026 more options than I've had for a long time.\"\n\nKadka nodded, and after a moment, she said, \"Feels strange, not to work together. Is not many days since we meet, but\u2026 seems longer.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Tane. \"But this case was an anomaly. I've been calling myself a 'consultant' for years now, and even split between us I made more coin today than I have over the last two months. There isn't enough work for\u2014\"\n\nA knock at the door interrupted him. He shared a glance with Kadka\u2014he wasn't expecting anyone, but if Nieris could be believed, there might be other Knights of the Emperor, and they might know who he was. They both stood; her hand went to her hip, where he knew she had a knife hidden.\n\nTane made sure the door-chain was fastened tight, and Kadka put her back to the wall, knife in hand. Another shared glance, and at her nod, he opened the door a crack to peek through.\n\nThere was no one in sight.\n\n\"Hello,\" a voice said at waist-height. He looked down to see a matronly gnomish woman with dark hair standing just outside the threshold. \"My name is Telna Dookle. Are you the ones they're calling the Magebreakers?\"\n\nTane blinked. \"I don't\u2026 what? What in the Astra is a Magebreaker?\"\n\n\"The ones who stopped Chancellor Nieris,\" she said, looking up at him hopefully.\n\n\"I think you're mistaken,\" said Tane. \"The chancellor retired\u2014\"\n\n\"I know, I know.\" She wrung her hands, a worried frown on her face. \"But I've heard another story too. There are rumors, people who saw things last night, and I hoped\u2026 They say you can help people without magic deal with magical problems?\"\n\nTane closed the door just enough to slip the chain free, and then swung it fully open. If he was any judge of liars, this woman wasn't one. He beckoned to Kadka, and she moved into sight beside him. \"I'm Tane Carver, and this is Kadka. Exactly what kind of help are you looking for?\"\n\n\"It's my husband,\" she answered. \"About a week ago, he met an unlicensed mage at a tavern who offered to hire him for some sort of job. I didn't like the sound of it, but my husband\u2014Tonke is his name\u2014has always been stubborn. He wanted to give our family the things we couldn't afford, artifacts to make our lives easier. He engineers tunnels for the mines south of the city, and this man wanted his skills for\u2026 I don't know what. They were supposed to meet two days ago, and he hasn't come back!\" She wrung her hands again, tears building in her eyes. \"I can't go asking after a dangerous mage by myself, but if I tell the constables, they'll ask what my husband is involved in. I'm sure it's nothing legal. If they lock him up at Stooketon Yard\u2026 we have children, Mister Carver. They need their father. Can you help me?\"\n\nTane looked down at Telna Dookle for a moment, and then his eyes met Kadka's over the little woman's head.\n\nA sharp-toothed grin stretched across Kadka's face. \"Seems like job for Magebreakers.\"\n\n\"I suppose it does,\" said Tane, and found himself smiling back. \"Although I can't say I love that name.\"\n\nMrs. Dookle's eyes widened. \"Does that mean you'll help me?\"\n\nTane stepped aside, and ushered her toward his desk. \"Mrs. Dookle, you came to the right place.\"\n\nThank you for reading The Flaw in All Magic. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, and you want learn more about my novels, have a look at my website at bensdobson.com, or join my Facebook page. If you just want to know when the next Magebreakers book is released, you can sign up for my mailing list here. And please, consider leaving a review of this book on Amazon. It's a great way to help me build an audience so I can keep writing!\n\nFinally, if you're interested in more of my work, flip to the end of the book for a free sample of my already released stand-alone novel, Scriber. Enjoy!"
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "Agatha H. and the Airship City",
+        "author": "Phil & Kaja Foglio",
+        "genres": [
+            "Steampunk",
+            "Humor",
+            "Adventure"
+        ],
+        "tags": [
+            "Girl Genius",
+            "steampunk",
+            "female proragonist",
+            "inventions"
+        ],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Adventure! Romance! Mad Science!\n\nThe Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. It has been eighteen years since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over\u2014and terrorizing\u2014the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Hetrodynes' return.\n\nAt Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck. Incapable of building anything that actually works, but dedicated to her studies, Agatha seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown by the ruthless tyrant Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha finds herself a prisoner aboard his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach\u2014and it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "A a small clearing, an intricate device of glass and metal tubes scanned the night skies. The stars glittered. Barry Heterodyne sat back and rubbed his eyes. Nothing. Around him the nighttime sounds of frogs and insects filled the marsh air. He glanced over at the campsite. Bill sat in front of the black flames, endlessly cleaning his weapons.\n\nBarry sighed. His worry about the state of his brother's mind was steadily increasing. It had been three years since the explosions had ripped through Castle Heterodyne, killing Bill's infant son and covering the escape of his wife's abductors. Three years without a clue to the identity of the perpetrators, a ransom note, or indeed, any information at all.\n\nBarry pulled out a pocket watch and flipped open the cover to check its glowing numerals. He then pulled out a pad of foolscap covered with equations and, for the hundredth time, checked his calculations. He sighed again. It all balanced out. If this was another blind alley\u2014\n\nThe device quietly chirped. Suddenly Bill was at his side. Barry swallowed. Whatever deterioration was taking place in his brother's head, there was no effect upon his abilities. If anything, Bill was getting faster.\n\nBarry fitted his eyes to the scopes. Yes! There was a new set of stars in the crosshairs. Two more flickered on as he watched.\n\nUnthinkingly, he gave his brother the old \"thumbs up\" signal, and then realized with a start that it was the first time he had done so since that terrible night in Mechanicsburg.\n\nThe destruction of their castle had only been the first such attack upon the Sparks of Europa. Six months later the attacks had begun in earnest, and in the subsequent two and a half years, thirty-eight of the most powerful Sparks of Europa had been snuffed out.\n\nThe most frustrating thing had been the lack of information. There had been no demands, no manifestos, no ultimatums. Just a single-minded effort to destroy as many Sparks as possible.\n\nOf course, in the beginning, accusations had flown between the Great Houses, usually accompanied by wind-up starfish ninjas or giant glass crabs. But as time went on, all the obvious suspects were wiped out in turn, and soon there were few left. Eventually they just started calling the mysterious antagonist \"The Other.\"\n\nBarry switched off the scope and stared up into the sky. The new stars could be seen with the naked eye now and rapidly were getting brighter. This attack looked like it was following the traditional pattern, but this time, they were ready. He handed Bill a pair of bulky goggles and donned a pair himself. Now when he looked, the objects hurtling towards the ground were greatly magnified. Then, they seemed to fall apart and vanished. Barry whipped a hand up to the goggles and flipped a switch. The quality of the light changed and the sky was now orange. He looked about frantically. His brother growled, \"Down. Left. At 7:37.\" It was the most Bill had spoken this week. Barry shifted his head as instructed and\u2014there! Three small shapes in freefall. There was a fourth and\u2014\n\nWithout warning the shapes seemed to burst apart yet again, and each one sprouted a huge mushroom-like growth\u2014Barry blinked. It was a da Vinci parachute. But it must be enormous. On the other hand, they certainly seemed to be working, as the objects, now clearly discernable as spheres, were noticeably slowing.\n\nBill tapped his shoulder, and the two dashed back to the swamp strider, which Barry had left ticking over. Bill maintained observation of the falling spheres, while Barry maneuvered the craft through the pools and bogs.\n\nAll too soon they broke through a wall of brush in time to see all ten spheres gently plow into the spongy ground and roll to a stop. The great parachutes fell to earth and were draped over the landscape.\n\nThe spheres themselves were six meters in diameter, constructed of glass and metal. As Barry watched, he saw the last of what looked for all the world like bread crust flaking off the spheres and falling to the ground. Possibly some sort of insulator, he mused.\n\nThe spheres were hot. They could feel the heat from where they were. Barry tugged his thick leather gloves out of his belt and pulled them on. Then he hopped down beside his brother who had already begun unloading the swamp strider's cargo pod, and the two of them got to work.\n\nBarely an hour later, as the sky was beginning to lighten, there was a sudden change. Lights began to bloom across the spheres, and machinery could be heard activating. Pumps began to whirr, and pipes sucked and gurgled.\n\nWhen a Spark was attacked, those that were not crushed by the initial bombardment suddenly found themselves attacked by large, insect-like creatures that would appear, seemingly from nowhere, and overrun the area. While people were battling them, smaller wasp-like creatures would also appear, burrowing into anyone they could find. Many died outright. Those that didn't were infected by parasitic organisms that forced them to obey the orders of the insect army, while physically distorting their bodies in unmentionable ways. These doomed souls came to be called \"Revenants.\" While they were slow and easy to spot, they were fearless and many a despairing band of fighters had been overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. The transformation took place quickly enough that, often, newly infected revenants helped overrun their own towns, killing all non-human creatures and converting as many people as they could into monsters like themselves. Once they were finished, they lurched off, without a backward glance, led by their insect masters towards the next target. There was no cure.\n\nAgain and again this pattern repeated itself. The governments of Europa were powerless, and many quickly fell into ruin as the Sparks propping them up were exterminated.\n\nBoth varieties of Slaver Wasp, for so they were labeled, were examined, but even the greatest Sparks couldn't determine if these creatures were natural or constructs, let alone how to prevent their depredations.\n\nWith a hiss, the spheres began to split open. First to emerge were waves of the all-too-familiar soldier wasps; they tottered weakly out of the spheres, and immediately began to feed upon the remains of the parachutes. Barry nodded. No wonder they'd never seen any evidence of them.\n\nThen, from the heart of the burst spheres, reared enormous slug-like grubs, themselves laced with pipes and valves. They stretched upwards, opened their surprisingly small mouths and began droning an eerie call. When the soldiers had finished devouring the last remnants of the parachutes, they gathered around the base of the spheres and waved their claws in time to the song. More and more of the monstrous creatures began to sing in the predawn light. Barry had to fight the urge to clap his hands over his ears. In desperation, he began to hum the comforting atonal drone that helped him to think clearly. Beside him, Bill was already humming in familiar counterpoint.\n\nAll of the grubs were singing now. A ripple of color spread over the first, and it opened its mouth even wider and began to spit out a swarm of the feared Slaver wasps.\n\nThat was good enough for Bill; he twisted the control lever in his hand, igniting the string of phosphorus grenades that the boys had festooned the spheres with as they lay cooling.\n\nAlmost a hectare of swamp fiercely burned with a white-hot glare for several minutes. Within the inferno, Barry could hear the screaming of the great slug monsters and the crackling of the soldiers. Several of the latter attempted to break free of the conflagration, but they were easily cut down by the boys.\n\nHalf an hour later, Barry sat down, exhausted. The nature of the swamp had prevented the fire from spreading, but the great heat had ignited enough trees that they'd had to move quickly to escape. But the danger was behind them now, and the fire was already dying down.\n\nScarcely five kilometers away loomed the gutta-percha citadel of Lord Womak, \"The Lightning Eater.\" Barry had to admit that he felt a small, unworthy bit of satisfaction as the first of the flaming boulders smashed into His Lordship's castle. They had tried to warn Womak, but he had merely laughed and released a pack of flying badgers against them.\n\nA total of ten boulders impacted. Two of them directly upon the main castle. In Barry's opinion, the rest were quite superfluous, as the devastation caused by the first two left no doubt in his mind that the Lightning Eater was pulverized along with everything within the castle walls.\n\nThe remaining eight missiles were obviously meant to soften up the town and the surrounding countryside for the subsequent attack by the Slaver wasps.\n\nWomak had situated his castle on a crag outside the nearest town, so the town had only suffered minimally from the impacts that had destroyed the castle. The remaining boulders rained down in a precise geometric pattern surrounding the town, and culminated with the last falling directly into the town center.\n\nBarry forced himself to watch as each boulder impacted. It was as he'd suspected. When they had first viewed a bombarded town, the general consensus had been that the missiles must have contained explosives. But Bill had never been able to find any chemical residue for analysis. Watching now, Barry could see that there were no additional explosions, the devastation was caused by the terrible kinetic force of the impacts themselves. That was the final confirmation of his unthinkable hypothesis.\n\nThe Other had tipped his hand. Barry knew where to find him, and once there\u2014\n\nBut there was time enough to deal with that later. The townspeople would need help, but for the first time, one of the Other's attacks had been predicted and curtailed.\n\nHe could be beaten."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "\u2002\"In conclusion, the evidence shows that there has not been a legitimate sighting of either William or Barry Heterodyne since they assisted in the cleanup of Woggleburg after the destruction of Lord Womak's castle sixteen years ago. All such reported sightings have proved to be either fraudulent Heterodynes or simple cases of mistaken identity. However, amongst the general populace, the belief that they are still 'out there' fighting the good fight remains unshakable, as is the conviction that someday, they will return. This belief remains despite the fact that their castle is in ruins, their lands are overrun, their servants are scattered and indeed nothing remains but their name.\" \u2014Summary of a report to the Baron on an upsurge in false Heterodyne sightings\n\nAgatha dreamed\u2026 Mathematical formulae and gear ratios wound through her head and took shape with a feeling of inevitability that terrified her as much as it excited her. With a groan, the vast machine lurched to life, gears meshing together in a jewel-toned mechanical ballet. As more and more of the machine coalesced, Agatha noticed that the great engine was pulsing at the same rate as her heart, sending waves of energy through her like waves being dashed upon a rocky shore.\n\nThis was the answer, ringing in Agatha's ears like a chorus of clockwork angels. Impatiently she reached forward, trying to grasp the shifting, glittering thing before her. Something clicked into place in her mind. She began to recognize the patterns forming before her. She realized that all of the surrounding space was beginning to react to the shining thing before her. Of course. The principals involved could be expanded infinitely outwards, therefore\u2014\n\nA vise slammed shut on her mind. A dark tunnel closed in on her perceptions and squeezed the glittering pattern down, down, down to a speck so small she couldn't see it except as a twinkling mote of light just out of reach. With a sob of desperation Agatha lunged forward to grab it, and\u2014\n\nWith a SMACK, her hand struck the wall.\n\nThe pain snapped her fully awake. She was gasping as if she had run all the way to the University and back, and covered in a sheen of sweat that had soaked her bedding. Her head was a throbbing ball of pain. Gamely she tried to swing out of bed, and almost crashed to the floor. Belatedly she noticed that her muscles were stiff and cramped, and that her blankets were knotted and wrapped around her in a way that told her she must have spun like a top in her sleep. As she began to unwind herself, the headache began to subside. Agatha was a connoisseur of headaches, and was relieved at the transitory nature of this one.\n\nOnce free of the bedclothes, Agatha snatched her spectacles from a small shelf and slipped the brass loops over her ears. The world clicked into focus and she was soon at her desk ripping bits off of a small machine, hastily adding others, bending wires and shuffling gears in a frantic attempt to capture the quickly fading memory within the structure of the device.\n\nOn an overloaded bookshelf in the corner, a painted metal woodsman struck a golden wolf repeatedly with a miniscule axe. First clock. An enameled couple wearing tiny crowns struck up a mazurka while a chime counted time to their bouncing feet. Second clock. Agatha began to work even more frantically. The beat of the mazurka insinuated itself into the last memories of the dream machine's song, tangling them up and then sweeping them away in three eighths time.\n\nAgatha growled in frustration and sat back onto her chair with a thump. She blew an errant lock of blonde hair out of her face. Gone. She touched the golden trilobite locket at her throat and sighed.\n\nGetting to her feet, she stripped off the damp nightshirt and stretched in the early morning light that came in through her attic window, past several plants and what appeared to be a small mechanical spider. A variety of prisms caught the light and scattered it throughout the small room. Flashes of bright color glowed against her hair.\n\nOn a shelf by the window crammed with devices constructed from wire and fish bones, a small brass mushroom chimed as a cheerful mechanical centipede clog danced around the stalk. That was the third clock, which meant that it really was time to go. She would have to skip breakfast again.\n\nShe poured a dollop of water out of the blue ceramic pitcher into her washbowl and quickly washed up. Her skin pebbled in the cold air as she considered the meager contents of her closet. A white linen shirt, and her green tweed skirt and vest. These last had been a birthday present from her parents, and were Agatha's current favorites. Long striped woolen stockings and a stout pair of boots completed her outfit. Quickly she stripped the sheets from her bed and hung them from the pole that held the bed drape. Then it was down the stairs, grab the large military greatcoat and cap that hung from her hook in the boot room, and through the door of the smithy to the outside world. The device she had cobbled together banging against her thigh through the pocket as she ran down the steps to the street.\n\nShe breathed deeply of the crisp cold air and blew out a great cloud of vapor. The sun had barely cleared the city walls and the lamplighters could be seen striding above the cobblestoned street, their stilt suits clacking as they hurried to douse the last few streetlights. It was evident that the city gates had been opened for the day, as the streets of Beetleburg were already full. Carts piled high with everything from produce to machine parts were pulled by horses, oxen and the occasional mechanical construct as they rumbled through the center of the street. On either side, the shops had opened and exposed their wares. The small fried pastries of several different cultures were hawked next to dried fruits and vegetables. Ovens unloaded aromatic platters of fresh bread. Several hundred different types of sausage and an equal number of cheeses were grabbed from hooks and shelves and consumed before the purchaser had gone three meters. Schools of smoked fish and eels hung next to sellers of hot beverages, and everywhere there was a bewildering variety of unclassifiable foodstuffs that were served on sticks.\n\nThe people consuming this bounty were a varied group. The great university drew students from all over the known world. Most were garbed against the March cold in what were obviously scrounged military uniforms. The garish colors added a festive note to the cold gray streets. Many were workers, trudging to or from the Tyrant's factories. Occasionally men from different shifts would meet and stop briefly to pass along news or laugh at a humorous incident. Clumps of students headed towards the great gates of the University. Some groups were engaged in serious debate, others looked like they'd had a bit too much to drink last night.\n\nAgatha was surprised to see a lone J\u00e4germonster strolling casually down the street. People looked at it nervously out of the corner of their eyes, but were determined to act casual\u2026 which the monster soldier seemed to find quite amusing, but then, apparently, J\u00e4germonsters found everything amusing. Except when people tried to beg for mercy. That they found downright hilarious.\n\nThis one still retained most of its humanity, as far as Agatha could see. Its frame still fit into an obviously scrounged uniform, although its arms were disturbingly long. The face was covered in what appeared to be small spikes, but that didn't keep it from sporting a large, disturbing grin.\n\nThese days the J\u00e4germonsters served Baron Wulfenbach, whose rule currently stretched across most of Europa, but it was unusual to see any forces of the Empire here. Relations between the Tyrant of Beetleburg and the House of Wulfenbach had been cordial ever since the city had been peacefully annexed into the Pax Transylvania over a decade ago. In spite of this, Beetleburg continued to be patrolled by the Tyrant's own mechanical forces. Even now, one quick-stepped around the corner, jogged to the center of the block, stopped, and swiveled twice around its axis, looking for trouble. It registered the J\u00e4ger, and with a snap, extruded a pair of guns as it skipped towards it. Agatha always thought the watchmen clanks looked like indignant wind-up toys. Everyone did, really, until they started shooting.\n\nThe J\u00e4ger went still. The clank stopped three meters away from the monster soldier. There was a hiss, and then a scratchy voice asked the J\u00e4ger to slowly and clearly state its business. This should be amusing, thought Agatha. The J\u00e4germonsters carefully cultivated and maintained their original Mechanicsburg accent. There had been numerous instances where clanks or other devices that relied on verbal instructions had, upon hearing it, simply opened fire. This was especially disconcerting when said devices were otherwise harmless household appliances.\n\nAgatha was again surprised, as the soldier fumbled at its belt, and pulled out a crumpled bit of paper. It nervously scrutinized it for a minute, turned it upside down, checked it again and then laboriously stated, \"I am coming to\u2026 the mar-ket to\u2026\" The J\u00e4ger was visibly sweating now. \"To buy, not schteal\u2026 a piece of\u2026 ham.\" He looked up expectantly. The entire street had gone still, and Agatha could hear the clacking as wax disks shuffled about inside the steel watchman.\n\nThe voicebox crackled to life. \"Please move this horse. I believe it is dead.\" With that the mechanical soldier swiveled about, and continued on down the street and bobbled around the next corner.\n\nThe J\u00e4ger blew out a huge sigh of relief, saw Agatha looking at him and gave her a cocky \"thumbs up,\" before tucking the paper back into the pouch at his belt and strolling on.\n\nAs the J\u00e4ger passed, the rumble and buzz of the town resumed. Housefraus resumed their dickering over soup bones, peddlers hawked candied fruits and insects, and swarms of children flowed through the crowds shrieking and looking for dropped treasures.\n\nAgatha frowned. It wasn't the first time that the Tyrant's clockwork soldiers had made a harmless error, but she had been noticing them more often. Discussing it with the Tyrant, however, had proved fruitless. He frequently avowed that the Clockwork Army that had successfully defended Beetleburg for over thirty years had been declared the finest fighting force in Europa by the Baron himself, and thus wasting time and resources on them was unnecessary. Still, Agatha had heard stories about the battle clanks that the Baron's armies used, and more and more she had found herself thinking about ways Beetleburg's defenders could be improved\u2014until a quick, sharp blossom of pain behind her eyes ended the chain of thought. It never failed.\n\nMassaging her brow, Agatha found her progress was suddenly slowed by a crowd of people clustered in front of her. Focusing, she saw that she was in front of the familiar windows of the local booksellers. The display inside explained the crowd, a new Heterodyne Boys novel had arrived, and people were in line waiting for the shop to open. A card in the window displayed the title: The Heterodyne Boys and the Mystery of the Cast Iron Glacier. That sounded promising. Agatha made a mental note to put her name down on the request list at the university library. Agatha's parents disliked the Heterodyne Boys novels, and refused to permit them in the house.\n\nPeople in the bookstore line were eagerly discussing the book, analyzing the cover art, or just reminiscing about the actual Heterodyne Boys themselves.\n\nPassions were easily aroused by this, even though the Heterodyne Boys had vanished over fifteen years ago. Things were a lot quieter now, the older people constantly reminded the younger generation, but before the Baron had imposed the Pax Transylvania, all of Europa had been a crazy quilt of kingdoms ruled by Sparks, embattled royalty, or any number of improbable and unstable combinations thereof. If a mad scientist wasn't at war with at least two of his neighbors, it was because he had his back to the sea, and even then he had to watch out for an invasion of intelligent sea urchins. The populace at large was used mostly as soldiers, laborers, bargaining chips, or in some of the worst cases, monster chow. Into this nightmare world had come the Heterodynes, a pair of Sparks who had taken on the Sisyphean task of stopping the more malignant despots, a task which seemed to involve battling an endless stream of monsters, clanks, armies of various species, and the insane madmen who'd created them.\n\nNow there was a legitimate school of thought that held that the Heterodynes did not actually accomplish all that much. They were, when all was said and done, just two men, two incredibly gifted Sparks accompanied by an ever-changing coterie of friends, assistants and fellow adventurers to be sure, but they could only do so much. The world produced a never-ending supply of dangerous creatures, as well as the scientists who had spawned them. But the point wasn't that they had taken down the diabolical Doctor Doomfrenzy and his giant moss-bees, it was that there was someone actively out there, in the world, trying to make said world a better place, and in some small, measurable way, succeeding. They gave people hope, when hope was in desperately short supply.\n\nAnd because of this, people remembered them as heroes. Almost everyone over a certain age could recite an incident that had, in some way, touched them personally. As she moved through the crowd, Agatha heard the old arguments about how the world would be better if the Heterodyne Boys were still around, as well as the fervent assurances that one day, Bill and Barry would return and make everything better, starting with the price of oats.\n\nBy the time Agatha cleared the crowd and hit the Street of the Cheesemongers, she had slowed to a walk and was once again deep in the mists of her own thoughts. Her feet followed the route to the University automatically, which brought her near the institution's great bronze gates.\n\nThe answer she'd glimpsed in her dream was still there, somewhere in her head. If she concentrated, she could almost visualize the correct assembly that would make her little machine actually work. Almost\u2026 and then the order of the parts would muddle and blur, the formulae would lose themselves in the murk of her mind and her head would feel as though it were filled with honey\u2014thick and comforting, but impossible to work through. If she could just filter out all of the distractions\u2026 She unconsciously hummed a few notes\u2026 trying to sharpen her mental sight and cut through the sticky thoughts\u2026\n\nShe was so busy chasing ideas around her own head that she didn't notice the cries of surprise from the people around her, or the electrical smell on the air. A small arc of blue electricity leaping from the metal rims of her glasses to her nose brought her back to the present and she gave a small yelp.\n\nAnd then a hole in the sky opened up. A huge silver figure pointed the accusation at her as an unearthly voice rang out: \"\u2014LIKE THAT?\"\n\nIn his long military career, Machinist Second Class Moloch von Zinzer had sampled quite a wide variety of alcoholic concoctions. In good times they were made from potatoes, grapes, or sometimes barley. However, in his experience, decent brews could be wrung from wheat, oats, rye, honey, pears, melons, corn, apples, berries, turnips, seaweed, sorghum, sugar beets, buckwheat, zucchini, rice, yams, sunflowers, artichokes, cattails or giant mushrooms. It was sort of a hobby, and one that made him popular with his fellows.\n\nOne used what one was able to scrounge, which meant that the drinks were usually brewed up on spare bits of madboy equipment, so occasionally the stuff was blue, or caused you to grow an extra set of ears, but it usually got the job done. But this\u2014this was a new low. He looked at the crudely printed label on the bottle in his hand. \"Beetle Beer\" it proclaimed. Fair enough, he thought, I can believe that.\n\nMoloch sighed and took another pull. What made it even worse were the smells that even the dank air of the little back alley couldn't hide. Shops selling all kinds of foodstuffs lined the streets, the rich aromas of cheese, sausages and pastries filled his head. To a soldier who'd seen the outside world, a world filled with shattered towns and endless kilometers of abandoned farms, the sight of shops piled high with food that could be bought directly off the street by anyone with a little money was astonishing. It was like stepping into a world he'd thought lost forever. The bread was the worst. He'd have killed for any one of the fresh loaves he could smell baking.\n\nSo what had Omar spent the last of their money on? Beetle Beer. Well, it was sort of like bread, and it was all the breakfast he was going to get. When money failed, philosophy would have to do.\n\nMoloch took a long look at his brother. Of all of the companions that he could have been left with, lost in strange territory, his brother Omar was surely at the bottom of his list. He stood in the middle of the alley, despite his wounded leg, swilling his beer with characteristic nervous energy. Moloch wished that Omar would pull up a crate, relax, and for just once, not be poised to fight. Moloch was well-and-truly tired of fighting. Omar would never get enough. He had laughed off Moloch's protests over the lack of breakfast. He'd find money enough, somewhere. Moloch didn't like to think where.\n\nOut in the street, shouts erupted. A bright electrical light flared, the shouts turned into screams and a girl wearing an overlarge officer's coat ran down the alley toward them. In her panic she tripped on a box and landed sprawling at their feet. Her glasses flew off her nose and skittered out of arm's reach.\n\nAgatha blinked. There were muddy boots a few inches from her nose, and she realized that she had just missed plowing into their owner. She looked up. The uniform proclaimed a soldier, its condition implied hard use. Although his face was blurred, she could see that he was smiling, and that it wasn't a nice smile. A bottle dangled from one hand.\n\nAgatha had led a fairly sheltered life, but even she could tell that this person was bad news. Her eyes never left Omar's as her hands franticly patted the ground about her, unsuccessfully searching for her glasses.\n\n\"Well! What have we here?\" Omar eyed her speculatively. \"Obviously our very own angel of mercy, here to help out a couple of poor lost soldiers who are down on their luck.\"\n\nMoloch could see his brother's habitual nastiness gearing up. His heart sank. Begging and intimidation. So they were reduced to that. He shifted in his seat on a stack of crates. The girl started, she hadn't seen him right away. \"Ha. She must know that you just spent our last groat on this swill you call booze. Well, help her up, Omar. Show her we can be friendly.\" Moloch tried to keep his tone happy. Maybe she wouldn't notice the edge to Omar's voice. Maybe she could be convinced to give them a handout quickly, and go away, before Omar had a chance to get them into trouble. Ho ho, look at us, two jolly soldier boys, just like in the music halls. Except one of us is a murderous bastard who couldn't keep out of trouble in a locked duffel\u2026 He smiled at Agatha. \"Spare some change, Miss?\"\n\nOmar stepped toward Agatha. He had got round her as she stumbled to her feet, and was now between her and the alley mouth. \"Oh, no, she can spare more than that, look at that fine locket!\"\n\nAgatha abandoned the search for her glasses and backed up, eyes huge. Beetleburg was a safe town, but mothers still passed down stories about what soldiers did to girls who didn't take care. Being mugged was a new experience, and her head was still humming from the shock of the apparition in the street, but Agatha still knew she was in trouble.\n\n\"A pretty little townie like this, she'll have a whole box of the stuff at home. She'll never miss a couple of small gifts to the deserving. And then\u2014\" Omar's grin grew even larger. \"Maybe she'll let us show her just how nice we can be.\"\n\nWhile a lot of the advice and instruction that Agatha's parents had passed down had been either tantalizingly vague or dryly academic, certain situations had been discussed in detail, as well as their possible consequences. This was one of them.\n\nAs Omar reached out towards her chest, Agatha sidestepped him neatly, grabbed Moloch's bottle and in one fluid motion swung it round to connect with Omar's face. Moloch had to admit that it was a superb shot, but with nowhere near enough force to do anything useful. Agatha looked a bit surprised at what she had done, but gamely swung again, and this time Omar was ready. He stepped within her swing, grabbed her lapel, jerked her off balance and delivered two quick slaps that set Agatha's head ringing. As she slumped, Omar's eyes narrowed and a grin of anticipation crossed his face as he slowly drew his fist back.\n\nSuddenly Moloch's hand gripped his upper arm. \"That's enough, Sergeant,\" he roared in his best military voice. As he'd hoped, the reference to rank checked Omar's swing.\n\nOmar had endured enough punishment duty that its memory could stop him when appeals to reason failed. \"She hit me,\" he hissed petulantly. \"I am not taking that from a lousy civilian!\" He tried to shake off Moloch's restraining arm.\n\n\"Stop it, you fool! Don't you remember what they do to people in this town? Do you want to wind up in one of those damned jars?\"\n\nThat stopped Omar, as it stopped a lot of people. The Tyrant of Beetleburg had little patience for those who broke his laws. A popular punishment consisted of simply placing wrongdoers inside large glass jars in the public squares. There they eventually died of thirst or hunger. Their bodies lay undisturbed until a new lawbreaker was put in. Consequently, the locals rarely broke the law.\n\nOmar nodded to his brother, but a smirk twisted his face as he drew a dazed Agatha toward him. \"Okay, doll, it's been fun, but we have to leave. To remember these happy times\u2014\" with a flick of his wrist, he gripped, twisted, and snapped off the large golden trilobite locket at Agatha's throat, \"\u2014I'll just take a little souvenir.\"\n\nAgatha's eyes bugged, but before she could yell, Omar swung his foot and swept her feet out from under her. She collapsed in a heap on the ground as he took off down the alley with a laugh and a wave. \"Thanks for the souvenir!\"\n\nMoloch trotted along after him, with both of their duffels under his arm. \"You are such an asshole,\" he hissed. Omar grinned.\n\nAgatha scrambled to get up. She spotted a glint upon the ground, which proved to be her glasses, thankfully undamaged. Her anger finally roared up and gave voice. \"BRING BACK MY LOCKET!\" she screamed, as she went pounding up the alley in pursuit. She burst out onto the street and was confronted by a milling crowd of soldiers and ordinary citizens. Of the great hole in the sky, there was no sign, as there was no sign of the two thieves.\n\nAgatha felt tears well up in her eyes. \"You miserable wretched knaves,\" she fumed. \"I'll inform the Watch on you!\" Her voice started to climb in volume, and a wild note entered her voice. People in the vicinity began to regard her with suspicion and then fear, as her voice entered registers that set off alarm bells in their heads. \"They'll comb the city, and they'll find you, and when they do, they'll put you in the jars, and I'll come down every day and watch you beg and scream and claw at the glass as you die slowly\u2014like the miserable rats you are!\"\n\nShe took another deep breath and then to the onlookers it seemed as if an invisible bolt of lightning had struck her in the head. Agatha clutched at her temples and screamed in pain as she collapsed to her knees. Another headache. She always got them when she got worked up, and this one reflected her rage with skull-splitting force. A small crowd formed, but no one approached. When people acted strange, anything could happen. In addition to the pain, Agatha felt a wave of embarrassment flow over her.\n\nSuddenly there was a flurry of activity over to one side, and a tall figure loomed over her. A greenish, hirsute hand offered her a canteen. Agatha looked up into the interested face of a J\u00e4germonster. A different one than the one she'd spotted before. \"Hey dere, gorgeous.\" He smiled a smile with way too many teeth. \"Iz you okeh, or iz you gonna change into sum kinda giant ting mit no clothes on?\"\n\nThe concept caused Agatha to blink in surprise, and wonderfully, her headache began to recede, almost as quickly as it had arrived. That was a rare and welcome occurrence. She climbed unsteadily to her feet while trying desperately to look like she wasn't avoiding the monster's proffered hand. \"Um\u2026 not this time.\"\n\n\"Oh vell, ken't vin dem all.\" The canteen disappeared with a gurgle. The main clock in the Market Square began to toll. Agatha's head whipped around. The hands stood at seven. \"Oh no! Oh NO! I'm LATE!\"\n\nTaking off like a shot, Agatha pelted off down the street. The crowd dispersed and yet another J\u00e4gersoldier joined his companion. \"So vot hyu say to her, eh? Not de old fang polish line again?\"\n\n\"I din say notting!\" He looked after the retreating girl and a quick smile twisted his upper lip. \"Pity doh, she smelt verra nize.\"\n\nLate! Late! Late! Dr. Merlot would have her boil every bottle in the building before she could go home tonight, and little he'd care for her stolen locket. He was Dr. Beetle's second in command, and while not a Spark himself, was as ruthlessly despotic as one. He drove everyone around him as hard as he drove himself, seemingly trying for a breakthrough by the sheer amount of misery he caused his subordinates. He had been with Dr. Beetle for the last twenty years, and had resented Agatha's presence almost from the moment she had been brought into the lab as an assistant, but Dr. Beetle was The Tyrant, and one did not argue with The Tyrant. There were times Agatha wished that she had been assigned to another lab, but she had to admit that the most interesting work was being done by the Doctor himself.\n\nThe thought processes of a major Spark were difficult to follow most of the time, especially with her limited understanding. But Agatha found the work exhilarating in a way she couldn't explain. After a heartbreaking series of setbacks in her own fumbling experiments, it only took a few minutes in the presence of the man to fire her up full of enthusiasm all over again. Indeed, part of Merlot's annoyance with her could be explained by Dr. Beetle's insistence on spending as much time with her as he did. She was to be present for every major experiment, and he always asked her opinion, even when the subject was one that had Merlot or Merlot's Chief Assistant, Dr. Glassvich, thoroughly muddled.\n\nAgatha cleared the last of the shops and angled across the greensward that circled the walls of Transylvania Polygnostic University, and towards the great front gates and the cyclopean figure that guarded them.\n\nMr. Tock was the largest mechanical construct anyone had ever seen, and was still considered the Tyrant's greatest feat of engineering to date. It towered almost twenty meters high. The great clock in his chest was the timepiece the town set its watches by. As intricately decorated as the smaller clanks that comprised the city Watch, but infinitely deadlier. It appeared to move slowly, but this was an illusion brought about by its great size. Those who had underestimated its fighting ability had done so to their regret. Tock had been known to single-handedly quash several small rebellions, one (admittedly poorly organized) army, and an invasion of giant slugs, an event nobody ever wanted to talk about, especially over dinner.\n\nEach year the various schools within the University vied for the honor of polishing the behemoth for its quarterly parade through and around the town, and as a result, his brass exterior gleamed in the morning sun.\n\nAs Agatha approached, the glowing blue eyes swiveled down at her, and a plume of steam puffed out from his upper lip, much like an old man puffing out his moustache before speaking. Its great metallic voice tolled out across the grounds: \"IDENTIFY YOURSELF.\" Agatha groaned. Students were expected to be within the gates by a certain time.\n\n\"Mr. Tock, it's me! You've seen me every day for eleven years! I'm late and\u2014\"\n\n\"IDENTIFY OR BE\u2014\"\n\n\"Agatha Clay! Student 8734195!\"\n\n\"WORKING\u2026\"\n\n\"Come on.\"\n\n\"WORKING\u2026\"\n\n\"Come ON!\"\n\n\"WORKING\u2026\"\n\n\"Oh please come on!\"\n\n\"ACCEPTED. ENTER STUDENT.\" The great feet began to shuffle aside, and then, maddeningly, paused. \"YOU ARE\u2026 LATE.\"\n\n\"I KNOW!\" Agatha screamed and darted past the giant.\n\nThe T.P.U. campus was a large complex, and the building Agatha was aiming for was near its center. Clusters of students talked together, many of them discussing the electrical phenomenon of that morning. Several groups were disrupted by Agatha cannoning through them at full speed, leaving nothing but a barely heard \"Late!\" fading behind her.\n\nAgatha was a familiar figure on the campus, and many of the students simply rolled their eyes at her retreating back. Agatha would have been astonished, and rather appalled, to know that she was the subject of many a speculation. Most of those who tried to strike up a conversation with her were put off by her odd behavior, the more persistent or outspoken found themselves hauled in and given a quiet talk by university officials. Agatha Clay was the Tyrant's assistant and thus Off Limits. This, of course, only added fuel to the speculative fires.\n\nAs she approached the massive stone edifice that was Laboratory Number One, the door-clank swung the great bronze portal open in time for her to dart through. Helpfully, it informed her that she was late, eliciting a howl of despair.\n\nFinally she slammed through the blast doors into the Central Laboratory and clung to a railing and gasped as she caught her breath. Below her, on the main floor, Dr. Hugo Glassvitch turned away from a humming device and mildly remarked, \"Mademoiselle Clay? You're late.\"\n\n\"I KNOOOOOWW!\"\n\nThe doctor picked himself up off the floor in time to find his arms full of a sobbing Agatha. \"You're only a little late,\" he said comfortingly.\n\n\"My locket! Oh, Doctor, they stole my locket!\" Quickly she filled him in on what had happened that morning. \"It had the only pictures I have of my parents and it belonged to my mother and now it's gone!\"\n\nDr. Glassvitch looked surprised. \"I didn't know that. You never showed\u2014\"\n\nAgatha interrupted. \"My uncle gave it to me before he went away. He made me promise to never take it off and now it's gone and he'll be disappointed in me again and he'll\u2026 he'll never come back because I'm\u2026 I'm stupid and damaged!\" To Glassvitch's horror, she slid to her knees and began to sob even louder. \"Why? Why can't I do anything right? What's wrong with meeeee?\"\n\n\"Agatha! Mon Dieu!\" Agatha only sobbed louder. Glassvitch's specialty was chemical engineering, which minimized his experience with hysterically sobbing young ladies. Up until now, that had seemed like a perk, but now he realized he had no idea what to do. He cast about desperately and his eye fell upon a bulge in Agatha's greatcoat pocket. \"Agatha!\" He gently shook her shoulder. \"Show me your latest machine!\"\n\nAgatha's cries stopped as if a switch had been thrown. She blinked up at Glassvitch through her tears. \"My machine?\"\n\n\"Oui!\" Glassvitch patted her pocket. \"Your petite clank? Does it work?\"\n\nAgatha got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt. \"I\u2026 I don't know.\" She pulled the little device out of the pocket. It looked like an excessively large brass pocket watch. She wound the stem at the top as she talked. \"I\u2026 I wanted to show it to you before I showed it to the Master.\"\n\nGlassvitch nodded encouragingly. \"Ah. Good idea. We don't want to waste his time, eh? Let's see it.\"\n\n\"All right.\" Agatha smiled nervously at him and placed the device on a lab bench. Her index finger hovered for an instant, and then pushed down the stem with a sudden click. Immediately, the sound of gears grinding emanated from within. The device shuddered and a small dome on the face snapped up, revealing a crude eye that jerkily surveyed its surroundings. With a lurch, a pair of legs unfolded from the bottom and it shakily stood, then took an uncertain step forward. Suddenly, the ticking of the gears ended with a Poink! A horrible grinding rattle came from the little device and it began to shake uncontrollably. Its single eye rolled up out of sight, the body twisted violently and exploded in a shower of tiny gears and springs that sent half of the body casing shooting past a startled Agatha and Glassvitch and out through a window pane. The remaining small bits showered down throughout the room.\n\nAgatha looked at her shoes and whispered, \"Sorry. I\u2026 I was so sure\u2026\"\n\nGlassvitch shrugged and patted her shoulder. \"Well, at least this one actually moved before it blew up. That is improvement, no?\"\n\nAgatha looked up at him in surprise. She opened her mouth\u2014\n\n\"I should have guessed.\"\n\nThe two flinched and turned. At the door stood the Tyrant's second in command, Dr. Silas Merlot. A small, thin, elderly man who owed his current position not to the Spark, but to procedural brilliance and a dogged perseverance in his work. He was rubbing his head and clutching the piece of Agatha's device that had shot out the window. Agatha groaned mentally. Dr. Merlot hardly needed this additional excuse to cause her trouble.\n\nDr. Glassvitch smiled. He was one of the few friends the cranky scientist had, and often interceded on Agatha's behalf. \"Good Morning, Dr.\u2014\"\n\nMerlot interrupted him. \"I don't know why you encourage her, Glassvitch, we have enough problems today.\"\n\n\"Problems?\"\n\n\"Baron Wulfenbach is here.\"\n\nThe smile drained from Glassvitch's face. \"WHAT? He's early! Weeks early! We're not ready!\"\n\n\"He's with the Master, if you'd care to complain.\"\n\n\"No! I meant\u2026 What do we do?\"\n\n\"We've got to remove all traces of the Master's project from the secondary labs. Miss Clay, get this lab cleaned up. You've got half an hour.\"\n\nAgatha started and looked wildly around the lab. It was a rat's nest of equipment and papers strewn about the room. The Master always demanded that it remain untouched during an ongoing project. \"Cleaned up? By myself? In half an hour? This room is a disaster area!\"\n\nMerlot narrowed his eyes. \"Don't be impertinent with me, Miss Clay. The Master may derive some twisted amusement from your pathetic antics, but if this lab is anything less than spotless, you'll see how patient Baron Wulfenbach is with incompetents. Now move!\"\n\nAs the two scientists hurried to the secondary lab, Glassvitch frowned. \"Silas\u2026 there's no need to frighten the girl\u2014\"\n\nMerlot cut him off. \"Listen. The Master's little pet may actually prove useful for once. With her crashing around, perhaps the Baron will not look too closely at the rest of us, understand?\" Glassvitch frowned, but after a moment, reluctantly nodded.\n\nMeanwhile a stunned Agatha surveyed the mountains of equipment. \"Half an hour?\" she whispered to herself. \"How can I possibly\u2014\" Her eye was caught by a storage closet. Her jaw firmed, she nodded to herself and rolled up her sleeves.\n\nTwenty-nine minutes later, Merlot and Glassvitch were striding back to the lab, muttering to each other.\n\n\"Have we forgotten anything?\"\n\n\"Ssh. Hugo, we have done the best we can. This whole project was a mistake just waiting to destroy everything we've\u2014\"\n\nThey turned the final corner and stopped dead in their tracks. Before them was the main lab. Every surface was cleared. Every shelf was tidy. The floor was swept and the instruments had been neatly laid out in geometrically perfect rows. In the exact center of the room, a deeply breathing Agatha stood with her hands clasped behind her back.\n\nDr. Merlot blinked, opened his mouth once or twice and in a dazed voice said, \"Well\u2026\" It almost choked him to say it. \"Well done, Miss Clay.\" And, because he was an honest man, \"I'm\u2026 impressed.\"\n\nDr. Glassvitch nonchalantly slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels with an enormous grin lighting up his face. \"Not quite so incompetent after all, hm?\"\n\nAgatha smiled demurely, \"Thank you, doctors.\"\n\nSuddenly the main door slammed open and a harsh voice commanded, \"No von move! Dis is you only varning!\"\n\nThe hairy face of a J\u00e4germonster quickly surveyed them and as quickly dismissed them, although his weapon never left them. He made a quick motion with his free hand and, with a crash and a hiss, two large Wulfenbach trooper clanks lumbered into the room. The tops of their shakos barely cleared the doorway and their gigantic machine cannons never stopped moving. Agatha saw at once that everything she'd heard about them was correct.\n\nUnlike the Clockwork Army, these clanks moved as smoothly as animals. You knew these machines were dangerous.\n\nBehind them came a group of four people. At the center was Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, the man who currently controlled a significant part of Europe. He loomed above the rest of the group, and his movements were those of a jungle cat kept in check. No one knew how old he truly was, the only sign of age was the silver color of his hair. Klaus had been an adventurer in his youth, and indeed had traveled with the Heterodyne Boys. It was known that Klaus and Bill Heterodyne had both vied for the favors of the beautiful but villainous Lucrezia Mongfish, with Klaus finally losing out to his more heroic rival, who had managed to win her over to the side of the angels when he took her as his bride.\n\nKlaus had vanished before the wedding, off to nurse a broken heart it was said. He reappeared six years later, when Europa was deep in chaos and ruin with the Heterodynes, as well as most of the other Great Sparks, gone. The final blow came when he found his ancestral castle, as well as the town around it, completely destroyed.\n\nHe had reestablished the town, and declared that anyone who attacked it would be mercilessly wiped out and their lands absorbed.\n\nUp until that point Baron Klaus Wulfenbach had been considered a minor Spark adventurer, who had never been taken very seriously, as he had always allowed himself to be overshadowed by his more charismatic companions. His proclamation was considered mere bravado. Nearly fifteen years later, thanks to this simple policy, the Wulfenbach Empire stretched from the great bronze gates of Istanbul almost to the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nNext to him was his son, Gilgamesh, who, though fully grown, had only recently been revealed to the world.\n\nPhysically, he resembled his sire. Not quite as tall, nor as broad at the shoulder, perhaps, but impressive none the less. His face was set in lines that seemed too grim for one his age. This was no doubt brought about by the numerous attempts on his life that had occurred since his identity had become known. There were many who had reluctantly knuckled under to the Empire, telling themselves that Klaus was but one man, and thus could be endured. These arguments went out the window with the appearance of an heir. The additional knowledge that he was supposedly possessed of a Spark nearly as strong as his father's, just made things worse.\n\nQuietly standing at the Baron's right hand was his secretary, Boris Vasily Konstantin Andrei Myshkin Dolokhov, a man feared throughout the Empire almost as much as the Baron himself. He had started out in life with two arms and an eidetic memory, which had brought him to the attention of the Spark who ruled his homeland. Said Spark had given him enhanced speed, strength, balance, and an additional two arms in an attempt to build the ultimate juggler. Sadly, for Boris, he succeeded.\n\nBoris spent several miserable years as court jester before his master had sent an ill-conceived army of land squids against the Baron. This had resulted in the area quickly being absorbed into the Wulfenbach Empire.\n\nKlaus has a sharp eye for talent, and quickly realized that Boris was not born to the stage. However he was a natural secretary, and had quickly risen to become Klaus' second in command.\n\nBuzzing angrily around the Baron was the Tyrant of Beetleburg, the Master of the Unstoppable Army, Owner and Headmaster of Transylvania Polygnostic University, Dr. Tarsus Beetle.\n\nDr. Beetle was a third-generation Spark whose family had established and run the university and its environs for the last hundred and twenty years, maintaining and defending it against other Sparks and their armies. Like the great city-state of Paris, Beetleburg was considered neutral ground. Thus many of the Great Houses of Europa, and elsewhere, had T.P.U. alumnae on staff. About ten years ago, after a particularly hard winter had strained the resources of the area, Klaus, a former student of the University, had offered to absorb both the University and the surrounding town into his expanding empire and extend it his protection, while the Tyrant retained control. Dr. Beetle accepted. This arrangement had worked out well for all concerned, which was why the apparent anger of the Tyrant toward the Baron was so surprising. Indeed he was yelling nonstop as the group entered the room.\n\nThe Baron interrupted him in mid-shout and addressed the J\u00e4germonster: \"Thank you, Unit-Commander, stand at ease.\"\n\n\"Jah, Herr Baron.\" The soldier's weapon never faltered, but he allowed himself to slouch a bit. This, for some reason, merely made him look more dangerous.\n\nBeetle resumed his diatribe. \"Blast it, Klaus, you're too early! I told you\u2014\"\n\nThe Baron effortlessly cut him off and strode over to the group in the middle of the floor. \"You've had plenty of time, Doctor. Now who are these people?\"\n\nDr. Beetle swallowed his annoyance, and brusquely nodded to each of the staffers as he introduced them. \"Dr. Silas Merlot, my second in command.\"\n\nAs he paused, the Baron broke in, \"Ah. I read your latest report with great interest.\"\n\nMerlot bowed and clicked his heels together. \"I am honored, Herr Baron.\"\n\n\"Dr. Hugo Glassvitch, my Chief of Research.\"\n\n\"Welcome, Herr Baron.\"\n\n\"And this is our lab assistant, Miss Clay.\" As he said this, he turned away dismissively. \"Now the machine\u2014\" Suddenly he stopped, and with a snap, turned to stare at Agatha. \"Miss Clay!\" He barked, \"Where is your locket?\"\n\nAgatha blinked. \"It\u2026 it was stolen, sir. There was an electrical anomaly of some sort and I was accosted by some soldiers while trying to get away.\"\n\nThe Baron's eyebrows rose at this. Beetle looked shaken. \"Accosted? Stolen?\" His voice rose, \"In my city?\" He clutched at his forehead. \"Oh no! This is terrible! Terrible!\"\n\nAgatha tried to address his obvious distress. \"I'm feeling better, sir, I\u2014\"\n\nAt this Dr. Beetle snapped out of his distracted state and grabbed Agatha by the elbow and began to hustle her towards the door. \"Sh! No! You're obviously distraught, my dear. I want you to go home. Yes! Go home and have a nice lie down and I'll have the Watch find your locket as quickly as possible!\"\n\n\"Wait.\" The force of the Baron's voice arrested Beetle's movement as if he'd been grasped physically. Agatha looked up to see the Baron studying her with interest. \"You actually saw the event in the town?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, Herr Baron, I was right in the middle of it.\"\n\nThe Baron nodded. \"Stay. I would like your observations of the event when I am done here.\"\n\nBeetle went pale. \"Klaus, the poor girl has had a terrible shock! You must let her go home!\"\n\nAgatha tried to calm the distraught scientist. \"Master, please! I'm all right. Really.\"\n\nKlaus nodded to signal that the affair was closed. \"I'm impressed by your concern for your people, Beetle, but the young lady appears stable. Let us get down to business.\"\n\nHe turned to Merlot and Glassvitch. He gestured towards a large, obviously half-finished device that sat in the center of the room. It was a bizarre collection of tubes and coils that bent and twisted back on themselves in a most peculiar manner. \"Doctors. My Dihoxulator. Why is it not finished? I'd thought I'd explained the underlying theory rather succinctly.\"\n\nMerlot took a deep breath. \"We do not know, Herr Baron. We were able to construct the machine up to a point, but then we hit a block.\" Beside him, Glassvitch nodded vigorously. \"We cannot reconcile the final linkages with the rest of the assembly,\" he added. \"We just don't know what to do to make it work.\"\n\nThe Baron stared at him steadily for moment. \"I see.\" He raised his voice. \"Gilgamesh?\"\n\nThe young man looked up from the device he was examining. \"Yes, Father?\"\n\n\"These fellows seem to be having some problems. Can you assist them?\"\n\n\"I can try, Father. If you'd explain the theory?\"\n\nThe Baron nodded, placed a hand on his shoulder and drew him over toward the device. Beetle followed. \"The basic idea is to promote secondary oxidation\u2026\"\n\nRelieved that they were no longer under the Baron's direct scrutiny, Glassvitch turned to his companion and whispered. \"Silas, we're doomed! We've accomplished nothing! They'll ship us to the Waxworks!\"\n\nMerlot however, ignored him. He was staring at the Baron as a suspicion was growing in his mind. A very nasty suspicion. \"\u2026Of course.\" He muttered, \"The Baron knows we don't have the Spark. We weren't expected to finish this. It's a test!\"\n\nGlassvitch looked even more distressed. \"Then we're failing!\"\n\nMerlot shook his head impatiently. \"Not us, Hugo, his son! Gilgamesh Wulfenbach is the Baron's only heir. I've heard rumors that the Baron is testing him, trying to determine if the Spark burns as brightly in him as it does in his sire.\"\n\n\"And if it does not?\"\n\nSuddenly the J\u00e4germonster loomed up behind them. \"Dis is Baron Wulfenbach, sveethot! He vill break him down for parts and try again!\" Having divulged this information, he gave them a sharp-toothed grin and sauntered off.\n\n\"Mon Dieu!\" A shaken Glassvitch breathed.\n\nMerlot shook himself. \"Yes. Rather comforting to know there's someone whose life is more wretched than our own, eh?\" It was then that he noticed a peculiar buzzing hum that rose and fell in pitch. A scowl flashed across his features and he whirled around to face a distracted Agatha. \"Miss Clay!\" he shouted . \"For the last time, stop that infernal humming!\"\n\nAgatha snapped back to the present and blinked wildly. \"Hah? I\u2026 I'm sorry, Herr Doctor, but I was listening to the Baron, and something he said isn't right, and\u2014\"\n\n\"Silence!\"\n\nMeanwhile Klaus had finished his explanation. Gilgamesh studied the half-finished device and slowly a frown creased his face. \"Well?\" Klaus prompted.\n\n\"Interesting, Father\u2026\" His voice trailed off as he scratched his head. \"Hmm, I see what they were trying to do\u2026 but that won't work\u2026 no\u2026 wait\u2026 hum\u2026 this makes no sense!\" Gilgamesh stared at the device as if it had personally offended him. \"No\u2026 this is all\u2026 wrong!\" His voice began to rise. \"This would work at cross purposes!\" He wrenched off an armature and threw it across the room. \"This is absurd! What are you fools trying to do? Can't you see what you've done?\" He began to rip apart the machine. \"This is all wrong! I would expect a first-year student to do better! You have forces canceling each other out throughout the entire structure! Where are your plans?\"\n\nMerlot looked around, then quickly turned to Agatha. \"The plans, Miss Clay! They were on the main board. Where did you put them?\"\n\nAgatha looked surprised. \"Oh.\" She said, \"They're in with\u2014\" She swung her attention to the storage room door in time to see a rivet pop out of one of the door's straining cross bracers. She swung back and smeared a grin across her face. \"A-heh. They're in the files in the storage room, doctors. How about everybody goes and has a nice cup of tea while I dig them out?\"\n\nGil strode forward and pushed her aside. \"Bah! I'll get them myself! I'm sure your pitiful filing system will be simple\u2014\" He turned the handle of the storage room door and yanked just as Agatha shouted \"NOOOOOO!\" and with a bang, the door flew open and a tidal wave of lab equipment roared out and over the young man's head, smashing him to the ground and carrying him several meters back.\n\nAfter the shower of material finished falling, Gil could be seen lying on his back, covered in debris. Clutched in his outstretched hands was a small goldfish bowl along with its grateful occupant.\n\nBoris and the J\u00e4germonster quickly clambered over the pile of equipment and began to dig him out and help him up. Agatha, Merlot and Glassvitch began to rush forward as well, and found themselves looking down the giant two-meter-long barrels of the clank's guns, a steely \"HOLD\" their only warning. They skidded to a halt.\n\nGilgamesh slowly clambered to his feet. \"That's the worst filing system I've ever seen.\"\n\nKlaus rounded upon the huddled scientists. His voice was cold. \"Beetle, this sloppiness is intolerable. Have these people\u2014\"\n\n\"No, Father, wait.\" He was interrupted by a smiling Gilgamesh, \"The thump to my head has cleared it, I think. I believe your theory is\u2026 incorrect.\"\n\nKlaus looked surprised. \"What?\"\n\nGil nodded. \"Yes, what you want is possible, but your theoretical structure is flawed. There's no way this machine could ever work.\"\n\nKlaus' face darkened and he drew himself up. When he spoke his voice was glacial, and his words were measured. \"Think carefully, boy. You're saying that I am wrong?\"\n\nGil paused, took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He clutched the fishbowl to his chest protectively, but his voice was firm. \"Yes.\"\n\nKlaus slowly relaxed and looked at him carefully before he swung his arm onto Gil's shoulder and patted it twice. He smiled. \"You are quite correct, my son.\"\n\nAs one Merlot, Glassvitch and Agatha burst out with a loud \"WHAT?\"\n\nGil frowned in annoyance. \"Another test, Father? I am beginning to find them tiresome.\"\n\nKlaus twitched an eyebrow. \"Ah, it is much like raising children then. But I persevere for the moment.\" He turned to the three shocked researchers. \"Thank you, doctors. You will receive new assignments tomorrow.\"\n\nAt this Agatha could no longer contain herself. \"This was all for nothing? But they worked so hard!\"\n\nGlassvitch began to nod furiously in assent. \"For three months we have toiled on this monstrosity!\"\n\nMerlot, who had seemed the most stunned, began to show signs of a growing annoyance. \"We were simply\u2026 window dressing.\" His voice gained energy. \"I see. I understand.\"\n\nGlassvitch looked at him in surprise. \"What? Silas, you're the one who's always going on about how little time we have for our own work.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes\u2014but now I understand why the great Dr. Beetle couldn't be bothered to work on this oh-so-important assignment.\" His voice began to break with emotion. \"Unlike we mere mortals, he had real work to do.\"\n\nDr. Beetle frowned and stepped up to the distraught scientist. \"Merlot! I don't like your attitude\u2014\"\n\n\"Then how do you like this?\" With viper-like speed, Merlot spun, and his hand cracked across Beetle's face, spinning the older man halfway around and sending his spectacles flying through the air.\n\nThe J\u00e4germonster's machine pistol lazily swung towards Merlot. \"Ho!\" He grunted, \"I tink I bettah\u2014\"\n\nA hand dropped onto his arm and Klaus shook his head. \"Hold. Gil? You are about to receive an important lesson in employee relations.\"\n\nMeanwhile Beetle and Merlot had squared off, the aging scientist vibrating with rage. \"How dare you! I'll\u2014\"\n\nMerlot interrupted him. \"Shut up! Shut up! My attitude? How dare you treat us like this? Just because you have the gift you think we're simpletons? I have faithfully served you for twenty years and you waste my time with this garbage? I thought you had finally given us something worthwhile! I am not a student! I am not a construct! I haven't got The Spark, but I am not a fool and I do not have to take this from an arrogant has-been like you! Does the Baron know that his trusted old mentor has defied his strictest orders with his latest experiments? Experiments conducted in the middle of a civilian town?\"\n\nWith a snarl he strode over to an unobtrusive wall panel, jerked it open and threw the switch inside. \"Perhaps he would like to see the important work that has been keeping the Beloved Tyrant of Beetleburg so busy!\"\n\nDr. Beetle screamed, \"Merlot! Silas! For the love of God! NO!\"\n\nHowever, this came too late, as the back wall of the lab folded back into itself, revealing a hidden laboratory. Dominating the center of the hidden room was a massive glass and metal sphere, festooned with gauges and pipes. Within its depths swirled a thick roiling fluid. Within the fluid, shapes could only vaguely be seen, but when one slowly drifted close to the glass, what could be seen was extremely disturbing. After one look, the J\u00e4germonster and the clanks independently swung their weapons towards the panicked Dr. Beetle. Dr. Glassvitch pulled Agatha back. The expression on Klaus' face would have frozen nitrogen.\n\nA triumphant Merlot gestured at the sphere. \"Slaver wasps, Herr Baron! I wish to report that two weeks ago we found a fully functional, unhatched Hive Engine, which Dr. Beetle insisted upon bringing into the heart of this University!\" He turned with a vinegary smirk towards Dr. Beetle. \"Now\u2014Master\u2014show me how fast that superior mind of yours works! I want to see you talk your way out of this!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "\u2002\"When a monster flattens your home, it doesn't matter who built it.\" \u2014Peasant saying\n\nThe room froze for a timeless moment. Finally Klaus slowly shook his head, his great hands balled into tight fists. His eyes gleamed with controlled fury. \"One rule, Beetle. I made one rule when I left you in charge of this city. 'Report all unusual discoveries. Devices of the Other are to be turned over to me immediately.' You agreed.\"\n\nThe smaller man shook with rage. \"A pledge made under duress is worthless, Wulfenbach! You threatened my city, my university\u2014 I'd have agreed to anything! You were in control then.\"\n\nKlaus raised an eyebrow in inquiry. \"And now?\"\n\nSuddenly from above came a CRACK\u2014that shook the building. A white line appeared near the ceiling and spread, revealing itself to be the open sky, as with a thunderous groan, the roof was lifted open upon monstrous hinges by the towering figure of Mr. Tock. His eyes glowed and steam poured from his moustache as a vast hand reached in and aimed an array of fingertip nozzles at the Baron and his son. A voice like a pipe-organ boomed, \"DO NOT MOVE.\"\n\nBeetle drew himself up and a triumphant grin crossed his features. \"Now I am in control!\" He followed this statement with a burst of laughter that showed that the owner had done a fair share of gloating in his time, and had the basics down pat. \"What do you think of that?\"\n\nThe Baron and his son stared up at the colossus for a moment, then eyed each other, as if each were embarrassed at the thought of speaking first. Finally the Baron cleared his throat and said, \"Yes, Gil, what do you think of that?\"\n\nGilgamesh looked furiously at his sire. \"Are you joking? This is another test?\"\n\nKlaus shook his head. \"No, no\u2014He's quite serious. But I am interested in your analysis.\"\n\nAt this Dr. Beetle burst out with a startled \"Hey!\" which the two politely ignored.\n\nGil rolled his eyes and shifted the fishbowl to his other hand. The fish grinned. Gil sighed. \"Oh very well. If we directly attack him, the clank kills us. But if he kills us, our clanks will finish him. An apparent standoff.\"\n\nThe Tyrant cackled. \"Correct! Now\u2014\"\n\nGil wheeled on him in annoyance. \"Oh shut up before you embarrass yourself any further!\" Beetle sputtered in shock as Gil continued. \"Being a short man,\" he gestured significantly at the looming clank, \"he places too much importance on size.\"\n\n\"I'M NOT THAT SHORT,\" Beetle screamed and futilely attempted to kick Gil in the ankle.\n\nGil ignored him and continued. \"Thus the use of the one, slow, unwieldy, but impressively large clank, instead of surprising us with a squad of the faster but smaller units that are no doubt surrounding the building.\"\n\n\"And excuse me, but I do still have the drop on you.\" This contribution was also ignored.\n\n\"He has thus 'Put all his eggs in one basket,' confident that he could contain our group.\"\n\n\"As I have!\" the Tyrant screamed.\n\nGil looked pityingly at the smaller man. \"A viable strategy perhaps. If we had come alone.\"\n\nAn explosion rocked the building and all heads whipped upward in time to see half of Mr. Tock's face explode in a cloud of smoke and metal shards. The giant automaton wobbled slightly, then, like a great brass tree, slowly fell over sideways out of sight, though the sound of his hitting the ground left nothing to the imagination, and the entire building shuddered from the impact. A few seconds later, a rain of metal shards pattered to the floor. In the sky overhead floated a fleet of military airships, all sporting the Wulfenbach crest on their sides.\n\n\"Tock!\" cried Beetle in an agonized voice.\n\nKlaus outlined the size of the forces overhead: \"The Third Airborne, the Seventh Groundnaut Mechanical, and the J\u00e4germonsters. Can we end this now?\"\n\n\"Guards!\" Beetle yelled. The Baron's party rolled their eyes.\n\nThe J\u00e4germonster sneered. \"Now he calls for de guards?\"\n\nGilgamesh shrugged. \"Yes, well\u2026 make it quick.\"\n\nThe main doors to the labs crashed open as a squad of Beetleburg's feared Watch marched into the room in perfect step. Each unit raised its left gun arm in perfect unison and they all chanted \"Stand!\" in four part harmony. They were instantly mowed down by the hail of armor-piercing bullets from the machine cannons of the two Wulfenbach clanks.\n\nAs the last bits of metal rained down, the J\u00e4germonster gave the order to cease fire. \"Dem,\" he remarked, \"dat vas easy.\"\n\nKlaus looked disgusted. \"They were the best self-contained fighting machines on the planet\u2014When they were new!\"\n\nBeetle looked stunned. \"My\u2026 my Watch!\"\n\n\"Time marches on, Beetle; you remained behind. Well, by now the city should be secure\u2014\"\n\nBeetle snapped back into the present. \"This is an invasion? Blast it, Klaus, this is my city!\"\n\nThe Baron looked contemptuous. \"Wrong. It became my city ten years ago. I merely let you administer it.\"\n\n\"But\u2026 but\u2026\" Beetle gestured, \"But why?\"\n\nKlaus' eyes narrowed. \"Withholding a Hive Engine isn't enough?\"\n\n\"But that would mean\u2026\" Beetle stared at Klaus. \"Before Merlot\u2026 You already knew!\"\n\nKlaus idly looked out the window. Screams and explosions could be heard faintly through the glass. \"A field team has a sudden 'communications breakdown' followed by several 'accidents.' The river is cordoned off for a night, the laboratory schedules are suddenly rearranged. If you analyze the last week's chemical requisitions, as well as the dramatic increase of the price of honey in this sector\u2026\"He slammed his fist down on the window sill. \"Of course I knew!\" For the first time an expression of regret crossed his features. \"I had hoped I was wrong, old friend, but\u2026\" He sighed, \"Ah, well.\"\n\nSuddenly Agatha appeared at the Baron's elbow. \"Please, Herr Baron, don't kill him! We need him!\"\n\nKlaus closed his eyes. \"Where do they get these ideas?\" he muttered. \"Beetle, the loyalty of the rest of your people does you credit. They can rest assured that I have no intention of killing you. Indeed, I have use for you.\"\n\nIf this was meant to be reassuring to the smaller man, it had the opposite effect. His eyes went wide and his face paled. \"No!\" His initial strangled whisper changed to a scream: \"I'll never submit to being one of your experimental subjects! Never!\" As he said this, his hand grabbed one of the stylized, beetle-shaped cloak clasps on his chest and ripped it off. As it came free, it snapped open into the deadly shape of one of the Tyrant's feared seeker drones. It still resembled a beetle, but this one was sleek, armored, and its' brass needles gleamed. The J\u00e4germonster snarled and tried to bring his weapon up, but before he could, Beetle launched the device towards Gil, Klaus and Agatha, shouting, \"You won't get me! You won't get any of us!\"\n\nCalmly, Gilgamesh tossed the goldfish bowl up high into the air. Pivoting in place he swept a large wrench off a nearby bench and, continuing the motion, smashed the flying device in midair. Clattering and sparking, it pinwheeled back into Beetle's face.\n\nGil then dropped the wrench, caught the falling fishbowl, grabbed a startled Agatha and pulled her to the ground while yelling, \"Down!\"\n\nAn explosion rocked the lab and blew those remaining upright to the ground. Agatha felt herself encircled by strong arms. A tiny part of her mind had time to notice the warm, spicy scent of Gil's hair and to identify an odd sensation as that of a goldfish bowl pressing into her back.\n\nThe echoes of the explosion died down amidst the clatter of falling machinery and the tinkling of glass.\n\nFirst on his feet was the J\u00e4germonster. \"Herr Baron?\"\n\nThe Baron rose and dusted himself off. \"Relax, Unit Commander.\"\n\nHe knelt beside the swaying figure of Boris, who was trying to raise himself up and dust himself off simultaneously. \"Ah\u2014 wha\u2014sir?\" the secretary muttered.\n\nKlaus helped him to his feet. \"Pull yourself together, Boris, you're fine.\" He nonchalantly looked over toward his son. \"Gil?\"\n\n\"I'm all right, Father.\" He looked down at the girl in his arms. \"And you, Miss Clay?\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I think so. Where\u2014?\" It was then that she saw Dr. Beetle's shattered and smoking spectacles upon the floor. \"NO,\" she shouted, \"Dr. Beetle!\"\n\nDr. Glassvitch was already kneeling over a small smoldering corpse. \"Dead. He's\u2014\"\n\nThe Baron interrupted him. \"His head! How's his head?\"\n\nGlassvitch swallowed. \"T\u2014totally destroyed, Herr Baron.\" Klaus swore.\n\nGil looked contrite. \"I'm sorry\u2026\"\n\nAgatha twisted away from him. \"Don't touch me! You killed him!\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"Permanently. A pity, that.\"\n\nGil looked stunned. \"What? He threw a bomb at me.\"\n\nKlaus cocked an eyebrow. \"A poor excuse.\"\n\n\"Poor excuse?\" A look of annoyance crossed Gil's face. \"He threw a bomb at me!\"\n\nThe J\u00e4germonster wandered up holding an unidentifiable organ in its hand. \"Hey, I von't say he vas shtupid, but I hain't findin' a lot uf brains around here!\"\n\nBoris gave the monster soldier a look of disgust, but merely added, \"Can we leave, Herr Baron? My boots are sticking to the floor.\"\n\nNone of them noticed Agatha bristling in the background until she snarled at them. \"How dare you!\" The three backed into each other before the furious girl. \"How dare you? You murder one of the greatest scientists in Europe and you're treating it like a kitchen accident?\"\n\nGil attempted to explain, \"But he threw a bomb\u2014\"\n\nBut a glare from Agatha shut him up. She went on, her voice beginning to take on the power of conviction. \"The people of this city loved him! When they find out how you\u2014\"\n\nThe headache lanced through her skull like a white-hot bar of iron, causing her to scream and drop to her knees. The listeners blinked and looked towards the Baron, who shrugged.\n\nDr. Glassvitch hurried over to Agatha's side and helped the quivering girl to her feet. \"Forgive her, Herr Baron,\" he pleaded. \"She has these attacks when she gets upset.\"\n\nThe Baron's lip curled. \"Pathetic.\"\n\nGilgamesh stepped close and quietly murmured, \"That doesn't make her wrong, Father.\"\n\nKlaus looked at him, then at Agatha, then slowly rubbed his great jaw. \"Hmm\u2026\" he conceded. \"The populace is sometimes a problem\u2026\"\n\n\"Possibly not, Herr Baron.\" Klaus wheeled about to face Dr. Merlot, who quickly realized that drawing attention to himself at this time was not the wisest of decisions, but having committed to it, chose to push on. \"Very few people actually saw Dr. Beetle on a regular\u2014hurk!\"\n\nThis last sound was caused by the Baron grasping the front of Merlot's labcoat and effortlessly hauling him up before his face. \"I despise traitors.\" Klaus informed him. \"I consider Dr. Beetle's death to be your fault. Without your theatrics I might have salvaged him. I am very annoyed. So now, I'm going to put you in charge.\"\n\nMerlot squirmed futilely in the Baron's iron grasp. \"I\u2026 I don't understand, Herr Baron.\"\n\n\"You'll oversee everything. The city, the college, the lands\u2014 everything.\"\n\n\"But\u2026\" Klaus shook him once. Merlot's teeth shut with a snap.\n\n\"And the first time you make a mistake, I'm shipping you to Castle Heterodyne.\"\n\nMerlot's face went white. \"No! All I wanted\u2014\"\n\nKlaus released him and turned away dismissively.\n\n\"What you wanted is irrelevant. I want Dr. Beetle lying in state\u2014for viewing\u2014by midnight, with a hero's funeral to be held the day after tomorrow.\"\n\nMerlot stared at the charred corpse on the floor. \"But\u2026 my work\u2026 I just wanted to\u2026 do something important\u2026\"\n\nAgatha muttered an aside to the J\u00e4germonster. \"He was trying to turn chalk into cheese.\" The soldier guffawed.\n\nMerlot's head whipped around and found a focus for his displeasure. \"Right! At least I shall get to do one useful thing today. Miss Clay\u2014get out! Henceforth you are banned from this university. Forever!\"\n\nAgatha looked stunned. \"You\u2026 you can't do that! I'm a student and\u2014\"\n\nMerlot drew himself up. \"Of course I can do it! Haven't you heard? I'm in charge now!\"\n\nAgatha felt her world collapsing around her. She barely registered Dr. Glassvitch's hand on her shoulder. \"It may be for the best, Agatha,\" he murmured. \"Without Dr. Beetle's protection, I doubt you would like it here.\"\n\n\"No!\" Agatha shook her head. \"How will I\u2026?\"\n\nGlassvitch cut her off gently, and began to escort her to the door. \"I'll come and see you, I promise. But now, I think, you had better leave.\"\n\nKlaus watched the two leave. His mouth twitched. \"Petty,\" he muttered.\n\nGlassvitch returned and approached him with a worried look on his face. \"Herr Baron, the girl is quite distraught\u2026 Are the streets safe?\"\n\nKlaus sighed. He turned toward the J\u00e4germonster. \"Unit Commander! See the girl home.\"\n\nThe soldier grinned. \"Hokay!\"\n\nKlaus plowed on, \"Then come right back!\"\n\nThe soldier shrugged. \"Oh. Hokay.\"\n\nOnce out on the campus, Agatha could see that things were in disarray. There were few students in evidence, though she could see that almost every window was crowded with anxious observers. Several airships had landed in the quad, and J\u00e4germonsters and the Baron's clanks were everywhere. As Agatha watched, one of the late Tyrant's own clanks rounded the corner and advanced. Agatha had time to directly compare its jerky motion to the deadly fluid movements of the Wulfenbach clanks who spun and mowed it down. Other smoking piles of parts revealed the fate of the \"Unstoppable Army.\" The Baron had been right. Beetle's clanks had become quite obsolete. As Agatha turned the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. There, looming before her was the burning hulk that had been Mr. Tock. A crew of the Baron's mechanics was already swarming over it, and as Agatha watched, a group of hovering airships began to lower cables to their waiting hands. Agatha suspected that the giant clank would be quickly rebuilt. But it wouldn't be the same. Nothing would.\n\nAgatha skirted the vast remains and felt tears well up as she passed between the vast gateway for the last time. \"Goodbye, Mr. Tock,\" she whispered.\n\nHer mood was shattered by the business end of a machine cannon dropping towards her face, and the amplified voice of the clank behind it roaring, \"HALT. ALL CITIZENS ARE TO STAY OFF THE STREETS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.\"\n\nAgatha stepped backwards and bumped into someone. Turning around, she found herself face to face with the grinning J\u00e4gersoldier she'd last seen in Dr. Beetle's lab. \"Hoy,\" he called out to the clank, \"she's vit me!\"\n\nThe clank paused. \"YES SIR,\" and with a hiss it resumed its watch position.\n\nThe soldier then looked back at Agatha and was nonplussed to see her crying. \"Vot's de matta, gurl?\"\n\nAgatha stared at him through her tears. \"They sent you out to eat me!\"\n\nThe monster soldier actually looked embarrassed. You could also tell that this was an unfamiliar emotion. \"Hy em not gun eatchu.\" This did nothing to stop the flow of tears, and after several minutes, the exasperated soldier roared, \"Onless dats de only vay to shot hyu op!\" Agatha's sobbing stopped instantly, and she stared at him with wide eyes. The J\u00e4gersoldier nodded. \"Now. Vere hyu liff? Let's get hyu home,\" and when Agatha continued to stare at him blankly: \"MOOF!\"\n\nThe walk back through the town was markedly different from the one she'd taken this morning. The number of citizens on the street was greatly reduced, and the few left were obviously determined to get home as quickly as possible. Shopkeepers were closing up, frantically pulling stock in off the sidewalks or, when they saw Agatha and her escort, abandoning it altogether and slamming shut doors and window shutters.\n\nThe only sign of fighting that Agatha saw was a shattered member of the Watch, which still twitched and feebly ticked against a wall as they passed by. More and more of the giant Wulfenbach clanks and soldiers wearing the Wulfenbach crest were to be seen assuming positions on various street corners, and with chilling silence, a small troop of J\u00e4germonsters swarmed across the rooftops of the buildings across the street and disappeared. Shadows from the overhead fleet glided across the streets, causing the townspeople to involuntarily duck their heads and move even more quickly.\n\nSoon enough they turned on to Forge Street, and the large former stables that housed Clay Mechanical came into sight.\n\nAgatha turned to her companion. For the last several blocks, the J\u00e4ger had abandoned its attempts at conversation, and had been sniffing repeatedly, while a look of distracted concentration flowed across its face. \"That's it. That's my house. Um\u2026 thanks.\" With that she bolted for the main door. The J\u00e4germonster lazily leaned against the nearest wall and watched her scurry inside. With a sigh, he shook his head and muttered, \"Tch. Poor little ting.\" Again he sniffed deeply, then shrugged irritably and loped off.\n\nInside the shop, machinist and master blacksmith Adam Clay grasped a thick chain in his massive fists and pulled. The ceiling beam that held the combined pulley system groaned, and the front of the steam tractor the chain was attached to began to slowly rise upwards.\n\nHerr Ketter's tractor had some leaks. Adam was pretty sure he knew where. A small collection of probable replacement parts were neatly laid out on a small bench by his side.\n\nAdam liked this sort of job, as it didn't involve dealing with madboy technology. Whereas Sparks were able to design and construct bizarre, physics-skirting machinery, their devices were never really able to be mass produced or even reliably duplicated by regular people. Even trained machinists eventually suffered nervous breakdowns if they were forced to try.\n\nOne of the Wulfenbach Empire's groundbreaking ideas had been that instead of exterminating rival Sparks after defeating them, Klaus hired them. He kept them happy by keeping them supplied with materials, tools, and food, and a dedicated staff that made sure they ate it. They found themselves free of the petty concerns that had plagued their lives, such as what to actually do with that small country once they had proved that they could conquer it with nothing more than a navy composed of intelligent lobsters. He also gave them challenges, adoring minions, and on a regular basis, a large dinner celebrating their accomplishments along with a beautiful calligraphed award expressing the sincere thanks of the Empire in general and Klaus in particular.\n\nAs a result, almost any one of the Sparks Klaus had defeated over the years would have disintegrated you if you had seriously attempted to offer them their freedom, and they gleefully built and repaired the airships and the armies of clanks as well as the other terrifying monstrosities that supported the Pax Transylvania. This easily made up for the tightly guarded warehouses full of devices that made ants run backwards or could remove the rings from Saturn that they occasionally delivered in their free time.\n\nAnd of course, regular science marched on, if only in self-defense.\n\nThe pulley caught. Adam grimaced and gave the chain a sharp tug, and links snapped with a sound like a gunshot, the tractor slamming back to the ground, shaking the entire building.\n\nAdam looked at the broken chain as if it had personally betrayed him, and then he dropped it to the ground. He walked over to the tractor and quickly inspected it to make sure there was no additional damage. Seeing none, he glanced around and, reassured that he was alone, grabbed the front of the tractor in one large hand, and slowly lifted it above his head. Satisfied, he hooked a foot around the bench that contained the spare parts, slid it over to his side, selected a wrench from a loop on his belt, and began working on the undercarriage.\n\nAdam was a construct. Whereas the term \"construct\" encompassed any and all biological creatures created by Sparks, Adam was an example of a \"traditional old-school\" construct, i.e., a patchwork collection of body parts that had been revivified by a massive dose of electricity. They were the simplest form of construct to make, and the vast majority of Sparks had started their careers by assembling one. Unfortunately, while reviving the corpus was simple enough, the brain remained a tricky thing, and most Patchworks, as they were called, were either dull-witted or homicidally deranged, which meant that a significant number of Sparks had their careers ended surprisingly soon after they started.\n\nAs a result, there was a well-established tradition of such constructs being viewed with suspicion at best, discriminated against with impunity, and made the butt of jokes in sensationalist novels, such as those chronicling the adventures of the Heterodyne Boys. Their loyal construct companions, Punch and Judy, were portrayed as oafish clowns. Music halls and traveling shows across Europa also embraced this interpretation, and the two were solidly established as the personification of low humor. Constructs tended to avoid popular entertainments.\n\nRefreshingly, the Baron had long let it be known that blatant discrimination against constructs was officially frowned upon within the Empire, and he backed this policy up with force.\n\nBut this was a rule that was often ignored in the small towns and rural villages that rarely saw the Baron's forces or polysyllabic words. As a result, constructs moved into the larger, more cosmopolitan towns and cities. There they were reluctantly embraced. Those like Adam and his wife, who, with a bit of effort, could pass as human, tried to do so.\n\nAnd thus Adam and Lilith lived happily amongst the general populace of Beetleburg, and were respected members of the community. Adam impressed many with his ability to repair the simpler Spark creations, and did regular piece-work for the Tyrant. Lilith played the piano, giving lessons in music and dance, and provided entertainment at various functions. There were those in town who knew what they were, but usually they were constructs themselves.\n\nSuddenly the door slammed open behind Adam, and before he could react, he found a sobbing Agatha clutching at his chest. \"Oh, Adam,\" she cried, \"I've had the most awful day in existence! Dr. Beetle is dead! And I was robbed! And I'm not allowed back in the University! Ever!\"\n\nAdam strained to keep his balance, and the arm holding up the tractor began to shake. Agatha continued, \"I can't think of anything that could make it worse!\" Sweat began to form on Adam's brow as he tried to gently disengage Agatha from his shirt with one hand.\n\nThe door to the inner house opened, and Agatha's mother appeared. \"What is all the noise out here?\" She blinked at the scene before her. \"Agatha? You're back? What's wrong child? Come here.\"\n\nTo Adam's great relief, Agatha turned to his wife. \"Oh, Lilith, Dr. Beetle is dead!\"\n\nShock crossed Lilith's face. \"What? How?\"\n\n\"He was killed in his lab by Baron Wulfenbach!\"\n\nAt the sound of Wulfenbach's name, Adam gave a start, dropping the tractor, again shaking the building.\n\nLilith's eyes widened. \"Baron Wulfenbach! Here?\"\n\nAgatha looked at her in surprise. \"Yes. He's taken the town. You didn't notice?\"\n\nLilith looked embarrassed. \"I've been canning all morning\u2014\" she looked at Agatha again, \"Klaus Wulfenbach. Are you sure?\"\n\n\"Lilith, I work in the main lab. I was right there. I saw the whole thing!\"\n\nLilith only looked more worried. \"Did he see you?\"\n\n\"Dr. Beetle introduced all of us.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course he did. Why shouldn't he? How did\u2014?\" Suddenly a look of horror crossed Lilith's face and she grabbed Agatha and lifted her up before her eyes. \"Your locket!\" she exclaimed. \"Where's your locket?\"\n\nAgatha looked surprised at the turn of the conversation. \"I was robbed. By two soldiers.\"\n\n\"Wulfenbach soldiers?\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I don't think so. They looked too shabby.\"\n\nLilith set Agatha back down and turned to Adam. \"We've got to find it!\" Adam nodded.\n\nAgatha interrupted. \"With everything else that's happened\u2014 that's what you think is important?\" Adam and Lilith looked at each other, unspoken communication passed between them.\n\nLilith's face took on an expression that Agatha knew as \"I'll explain this when you're older,\" a look that at eighteen, she no longer had any patience for. \"Your uncle was very clear. You must always wear\u2014\"\n\n\"Dr. Beetle is dead! Don't you understand?\"\n\n\"Agatha, when your uncle left you with us, he told us things we'd need to know if\u2014\"\n\n\"If he didn't come back! Things I needed to know! Well what are you waiting for? It's been eleven years! Maybe\u2026 maybe he never meant to come back at all and\u2014\"\n\nAdam's vast hand dropped gently onto her shoulder, cutting her off in mid-word. The look in his eyes as he slowly and deliberately shook his head conveyed the message that whatever else, her uncle had never intended to leave for good.\n\nLilith nodded in agreement. \"Agatha, your uncle loves you very much. Almost as much as we do.\" With a sigh, Agatha allowed herself to be enfolded by the arms of the two constructs. The quiet minute that followed would be one of Agatha's most poignant memories.\n\nIt was ended by Lilith straightening up and assuming her no-nonsense voice. \"Now. Agatha, Adam and I are going out. There are a few things you must do. We're leaving Beetleburg. Pack everything of importance to you, but it must fit into your green rucksack. No more than two sets of clothes, but take two extra sets of stockings, the thick wool ones, and linens.\"\n\nAgatha blinked in surprise. \"Leaving town? But the shop! Our house! Your canning!\"\n\nLilith nodded. \"It can't be helped. If Baron Wulfenbach has taken the town then we have got to leave.\" Agatha opened her mouth, but Lilith cut her off. \"Once we are on the road, I'll answer everything, but now there is no time. Prepare similar packs for Adam and myself, as well as the blue shouldersack that is already packed in our closet and\u2014\" she paused, and seemed embarrassed, \"Our generator.\"\n\nAgatha looked somber. \"We really are leaving.\"\n\nLilith nodded and looked around the cozy room. \"Yes. I'm afraid so.\" While they were talking, Adam strode over to the fireplace. Lifting aside the rag rug, he exposed a stone tile over a meter square set into the floor. In the center was an indentation that was revealed to be a handle, as Adam grasped it and effortlessly lifted. The tile was revealed to be a cube that easily slid from the hole with the sound of stone on stone. Depositing it to the side, he leaned in and lifted out a thick money belt, as well as several small canvas bundles, before smoothly sliding the block back into place.\n\nLilith continued. \"Then you must clean the house.\" Agatha opened her mouth, but Lilith raised her hand. \"Start a fire in the fireplace. Burn everything in the red cabinet. This is very important, Agatha. When you're done with that, I want you to disassemble our two spare generators and scatter the parts around the shop. Then go through the house and if you find anything that you think would tell someone that the people living here were constructs, get rid of it.\"\n\n\"You're terrified of Baron Wulfenbach finding you.\"\n\n\"Yes. And you should be too.\" She forestalled Agatha's next outburst. \"Tomorrow. Now Adam and I will go and check the pawnshops and jewelers for your locket. If it's not there, we'll talk to Master Vulpen and see if it has made its way onto the Thieves' Market. In any case, if we're not back, make sure all the doors are locked, be in bed by eight o'clock and ready to leave by dawn.\"\n\n\"The Baron has established a curfew,\" Agatha warned her. \"He's using clanks and those creepy J\u00e4germonster things.\"\n\nAdam and Lilith looked at each other. To her surprise, Agatha saw that they were more relaxed than she had seen them in quite a while. \"Really? It'll be like old times then. Now get to work, lock the door, put up the 'Away' sign, and don't let anyone in while we're gone.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Agatha headed up the stairs. \"Be careful.\"\n\nAdam and Lilith watched her go. Lilith allowed herself a brief fierce hug with Adam. \"Confound the master,\" she muttered into his vast chest, as he tenderly patted her head. \"We're not equipped to deal with this. Eleven years! Where can he be?\"\n\nThree hours later, Agatha sat wearily on her bed. She had tackled the cleaning of the house first, then the dismantling of the generators. Although she knew that Adam and Lilith were constructs, her parents had never talked about who had created them. Agatha suspected the reason had something to do with the competence of that unknown Spark or, rather, the lack thereof. There were numerous flaws with the pair, such as Adam's inability to speak. The most painful to them was their inability to have children. The most embarrassing was the lack of care that had been taken when assembling them regarding things like uniformity of skin tone, and Lilith's left eye, which was noticeably larger than her right. When she was younger, Agatha had pointed out that the variegated skin revealed that at least their creators had been equal opportunity exhumers, while her mismatched eyes were a flaw shared by the famous Heterodyne construct, Judy, and thus no detriment. Lilith's reaction to this statement had always puzzled the youngster. It was only as she got older that she realized that the Heterodyne plays that were performed at fairs and circuses by traveling players consistently portrayed the Heterodyne Boys' construct servants as buffoons, and that none of the constructs that her family knew enjoyed these plays. Agatha had thus realized that constructs were considered second-class citizens, and explained her parents' efforts to keep their status as such hidden.\n\nBut the most annoying flaw in their construction was that they were unable to maintain the charge that gave them life. Periodically, they had to hook each other up to a small hand-cranked generator and re-vitalize themselves. At a young age Agatha had once stumbled upon them during this process and had suffered nightmares for several weeks as a result. The generator was never talked about except when absolutely necessary.\n\nAgatha looked around her room now, and mentally packed the large rucksack at her feet. No matter how she did it, there were things she loved that were going to have to be left behind.\n\nBefore Adam and Lilith, she had lived with her Uncle Barry. All she could remember about him was that he was a large, good-natured man who was very good at repairing things, seemed very worried about things he couldn't talk about, and who would, without warning, periodically uproot them from whatever town they had established themselves in and have them travel for days, sometimes for weeks, to another town.\n\nIn the beginning Agatha had thought it was fun. But as she got older, she realized that she had no friends. Partially this was caused by their constant travel, and partially by the fuzzyheadedness that began to increase its hold upon her thinking around that time. Upon their arrival in a new location, children could tell that there was something not quite right about the newcomer, and with the casual sadism of the young, proceeded to give her a hard time. After an especially cruel series of pranks, which even her perennially preoccupied uncle had noticed, they had come to Beetleburg, and the Clays, where she had found the loving stability she had so desperately needed.\n\nShe remembered the guarded joy she had felt when the Clays had told her that this was her room. For quite a while, she tried to do as little to it as possible, convinced that they would soon leave. It had started out as a simple, bare attic, but as time passed, Agatha had begun to devote a great deal of time to it, and now it was a thing of beauty.\n\nAt a young age, Adam had shown her how to carve wood, a skill many machinists honed, as they often had to design and forge their own parts. Her early efforts defaced the bottoms of newel posts and cabinet doors, but eventually she began to develop a grace and geometric precision that allowed a profusion of cunningly interlaced designs to cover many of the wooden surfaces. The ceiling had been painted a dark blue and covered with bright yellow, white and orange stars. Hanging from the ceiling were various objects that Agatha found interesting: a gigantic dried sunflower (which she had been convinced was the result of some Spark's biological tinkering), a stuffed iguana she had discovered in a musty old junk shop, an airship kite that her uncle had built for her long ago, and a Roman sword that Dr. Beetle had discovered while digging the foundation for a new building. Crammed on shelves were her precious books, fossils, unusual bits of madboy tech, clocks, and a small misshapen clay dog that a boy had given her when she was eight.\n\nOn the shelf in front of her single window were racks containing pots of plants, some common herbs, some exotic and strange things that she had collected from the spice shops or the Tyrant's Botanical Gardens.\n\nIt would all have to be left behind.\n\nEven, and the thought filled her eyes with tears, her work table, a vast swivel-topped affair that Adam had constructed in secret for her one Yuletide several years ago. All that remained on it were her drafting tools, her notebooks, and the remains of the few, painfully few, devices she had constructed that actually worked: the butter clock, the air-driven quill sharpener, the hooting machine, and the wind-up hammer. They had already been dismantled, and that had been the hardest thing to do. With a groan she allowed herself to fall back onto the bed in despair.\n\nThey had all lived together happily for several months, and Uncle Barry had made the occasional trip while leaving Agatha in the care of the Clays. Agatha had vague memories of a growing tension amongst the grownups, which culminated in a late night argument she could dimly hear from her bedroom. The next morning, the tension appeared to have cleared and Barry announced that he was going on another trip. A lengthy one, that might take as long as two months. He had written three times: once from Mechanicsburg, the home of the fabled Heterodyne Boys; once from Paris; and over a year later, a much travel-stained letter, full of disquieting and vague ramblings, that was found to have been slid under the Clays' front door while they had been outside the city picking apples.\n\nIt was the last they had heard from or of him.\n\nThe thought of returning to that wandering lifestyle filled her with apprehension and she felt her head begin to throb in a peculiar way that left her feeling dizzy.\n\n\"Maybe a short nap,\" she muttered, and stripped down to her camisole and pantalets before burrowing under the covers. A thought eased its way to the forefront of her mind even as she felt herself begin to slide into sleep: her whole day had started going wrong when that electrical phenomenon had appeared. But bizarre things occurred all the time, such as last week's sudden mimmoth infestation. The tiny pachyderms had been discovered living in the sewers, and an ill-thought-out poisoning scheme had seen the creatures emerging from drains in alarming numbers and establishing themselves in houses all over town.\n\nNo, the problems had really begun when those two soldiers had stolen her locket. Agatha's last coherent thought as she succumbed to sleep was \"I wish I could get my hands on them.\"\n\nIn a small, cheap rooming house, the objects of Agatha's thoughts were reaping the results of that morning's encounter. Moloch paced back and forth in the tiny room, as a lean man wearing a long white apron over his suit examined Omar. Moloch's brother was stretched out unconscious upon the room's single bed. The doctor removed his stethoscope and leaned back with a hiss of annoyance.\n\nMoloch turned towards him. \"Please, Herr Doctor, can't you help him? What's wrong with him?\"\n\nThe doctor tugged at his small beard in frustration. \"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this. This man should be in a hospital.\"\n\nMoloch shuddered. \"Oh no, I saw enough of them in the war.\"\n\n\"I don't mean one of those butcher shop field hospitals. Ours is fully equipped and your brother needs\u2014\"\n\n\"What? What does he need? What could they do? You don't even know what's wrong with him!\"\n\nThe doctor opened his mouth, hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly. \"Yes. No fever, no chills. No respiratory problems, no sweating, no convulsions\u2014But\u2026 it's like he's\u2026 shutting down, like\u2026\"\n\n\"Like a boiler when you've blocked the air intakes.\"\n\nThe doctor looked at him with mild surprise and nodded. \"Yes. Well put, young man.\"\n\nMoloch ignored the compliment and leaned over the unconscious man. \"Ach, Omar,\" he muttered, \"you're a jerk, but you're all I have left. Fight it!\" He slapped his brother's face but got no response.\n\nBehind his back, the doctor's look of worry increased. \"How long has he been like this? Days? Weeks?\"\n\nMoloch shook his head. \"He started to feel dizzy, um\u2026 a little before twelve hundred. He got more and more disorientated and collapsed around fifteen. Towards the end he had trouble talking, and I\u2026 I don't even think he knew who I was. He passed out around sundown.\"\n\nThe doctor looked shaken. \"That quickly? Dios,\" he muttered. \"How do you feel?\"\n\nMoloch looked surprised at the question. \"Me? Okay, I guess, why?\"\n\n\"I'm trying to decide if I should have you moved to the hospital along with your brother.\"\n\n\"What? But I'm not\u2014\"\n\nThe doctor was paging through a book he had removed from his medical bag. He stopped and looked Moloch in the eye. \"Listen, von Zinzer, was it? This could be some sort of plague.\"\n\nMoloch went white. \"Plague?\"\n\nThe doctor nodded. \"The big question is how contagious it is. Aside from hospitalization, my other option is to quarantine the pair of you in this inn. You talk to anyone other than the innkeeper?\"\n\n\"No, there weren't any customers when we\u2014\"\n\n\"Praise be for that. Where do you work?\"\n\n\"Nowhere. I mean, we just hit town this morning.\"\n\nThe doctor made a small grunt of satisfaction at this news and made another checkmark in his book. \"Mm. Probably something you picked up outside then. Eat anything unusual? Find anything odd?\"\n\n\"Odder than Beetle Beer? No, we\u2014\"Suddenly Omar convulsed upon the bed. A strangled groan came from his mouth. Moloch and the doctor were at his side instantly.\n\n\"Omar?\" Omar's head whipped from side to side twice, froze in position, and a deep final breath rattled from him as he sagged back into stillness. Moloch knew he was dead even before the doctor checked his brother's pulse and then drew the sheet over his head. In the silence, the sound of something hitting the floor echoed through the small room with unnatural loudness. In death, Omar's hands, which had been clutched for hours, had relaxed, and Agatha's locket had dropped to the floor.\n\nThe doctor reached down, examined it briefly, and handed it over to Moloch. \"I'm sure it gave him some comfort.\" Moloch looked at him blankly, the locket clutched in his hand. The doctor continued, \"I myself don't know whether the Heterodyne Boys will actually come back someday, but I do believe that we should live our lives as if they were. People like your brother, who try to make the world a better place, do so by the very act of trying. I'm sure the Heterodynes would have been proud of him.\"\n\nMoloch looked woodenly at the locket and then back at the doctor, who changed the subject as he donned his hat and greatcoat. \"I'm afraid I must be going. Now listen up, soldier. I'm confining you to this room. I'll have a medical disposal team up here before dawn for your brother. You can relax, our Dr. Beetle doesn't permit unauthorized resurrectionists in this town. You'll be fed and examined for the next week and after that you'll be free to go. So sit tight soldier, and we'll do our best.\" And with that he slipped out and shut the door behind him.\n\nMoloch grimaced. \"Reckon Omar and me have seen your 'best.'\" He turned to glare at the sheet-covered form. \"You idiot!\n\nYour last act on earth is to steal from a townie and leave me stuck holding the evidence waiting for her to report me. That's making the world a better place, huh? Leaving me stuck like a sitting duck!\" In his fury he threw the locket against the wall where it smashed open with a bright blue flare and the sounds of gears scattering. A smell of ozone filled the room and brought Moloch up short. \"What the\u2026?\"\n\nHe bent down and gingerly picked up a few bits of the locket. It had contained a pair of portraits, a handsome-looking man and woman. But hidden behind the portraits were the smashed remains of delicate machinery. Machinery that Moloch was totally unfamiliar with.\n\nHe muttered as he gathered together the bits from the floor. \"Too complicated to be a watch. Not a music box. I've never seen anything like this\u2026\" A chill swept over him. \"This is madboy stuff.\" He examined it again. \"But what did it do?\" He raised his eyes and found himself looking at Omar's body.\n\nWith a cry he leapt back, scattering bits of locket across the floor. After a moment, he gingerly picked up the larger pieces and examined them again, to ascertain that it was indeed broken. Of this there could be no doubt.\n\n\"This is what killed Omar,\" he muttered. \"He started acting strange right after he stole it from that girl\u2026\" A new thought emerged. \"The girl! She was wearing it and it wasn't killing her. She must have\u2026 turned it on, somehow. She knew it'd do him, the black-hearted\u2014wait! Wasn't there a note?\"\n\nHe turned the locket over and indeed there was lettering engraved upon the back:\n\n\u2002If found, please return to Agatha Clay Clay Mechanical Forge Street, Beetleburg. REWARD\n\nMoloch grabbed his greatcoat and slung it on as he left the room. \"A reward, huh? I'll give her a reward a'right, and she'll be making no reports when I'm done with her either.\"\n\nAgatha was very small. She ran into a large room filled with tools and machines and things that she didn't understand, but knew were full of magic, mystery and excitement. At the center of this collection sat the master of the magic, her uncle Barry. He was a large shadowy figure hunched over a workbench, where something full of gears and springs grew under his tools. \"Hey, Uncle Barry,\" Agatha cried as she entered. \"I learned a trick!\"\n\nThe large man paused and slowly turned to look at her. Even now his face was in shadow. A small set of spectacles glinted in the light from his bench. \"A trick?\" he enquired.\n\nAgatha nodded, and jumped up and down in place with excitement. \"Yeah! You know how when you' retryin' to think and there's noise and stuff botherin' you? Well I found out I can make other noises in my head and it makes the botherin' noise stop! And then I can think real good! Listen!\" With that she stopped jumping, serenely folded her hands and began to hum, no, to whistle? To buzz? No\u2026 It was all of these and yet none of them, a soft melodic sound that you couldn't call music, but\u2026\n\nThe effect of this performance upon Uncle Barry was electric. He stiffened in shock and the handle of the screwdriver clutched in his hand cracked. His voice was strained. \"You\u2026 no! It can't be!\" Agatha hummed on obliviously. \"You're only five years old! You're too young! You've got to stop!\" His large hands shot out and grabbed her shoulders and began to shake her. Agatha kept on humming. She could no longer stop, even as her uncle cried, \"I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do! I don't\u2014\"\n\nA particularly violent jerk snapped Agatha awake. She was slumped over a table\u2014another jerk\u2014someone was grabbing her hair!\n\nShe twisted around enough to see that her assailant was one of the soldiers who had accosted her this morning! Without thinking she swung her left hand and the large spanner she was grasping connected with Moloch's jaw and sent him crashing to the ground.\n\nAgatha blinked in surprise and examined the tool in her hand. \"Where did this come from?\" she muttered, and then noticed that the hand holding it was black with grease and dirt. With a cry, she saw that both of her hands were dirty up to the elbow, as was her underwear\u2014\n\nHer underwear? But she was in the middle of Adam's shop floor! A wild look around showed her that tools were scattered and parts were littered across the floor. Heat still radiated from the great welding torch and, most astonishing, the tall double doors to the street were wide open.\n\nAs Agatha hurried to close them, she saw that outside, in the first light of dawn, a small crowd had gathered to help the ironmonger across the way right his wagon, which appeared to have been overturned in the night.\n\nSlamming the doors closed and surveying the disheveled workshop and the unconscious soldier, Agatha could only mutter to herself, \"What's happened?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "\u2002\"When lightning hits the keep the wise man does not sleep.\" \u2014Traditional folk saying\n\nIn the early dawn light, the streets of Beetleburg were quiet. Most of the populace peered out through shuttered windows or from behind curtains. Beetleburg was a town under occupation, the Tyrant was dead, and no one was sure what the future held.\n\nA few brave shops were open, carters still moved necessary supplies through the streets under the watchful eyes of Wulfenbach forces, but the heart of the town, the University, was closed. Crowds of students and teachers filled coffee shops and taverns discussing the events of the previous day. These conversations fell silent whenever the tall brass clanks of Baron Wulfenbach passed by outside. Their machine cannons constantly moved from side to side as they slowly strode down the center of the streets.\n\nHuman officers patrolled the area as well, identifiable by the flying castle badge they wore. They regulated traffic, politely answered questions and put a human face upon the occupation.\n\nThe inhuman face was supplied by the J\u00e4germonsters, who had, during the night, stopped several bands of looters, seized fourteen people who had attempted to leave the city under cover of darkness, and apparently captured a large saurian that had been prowling through the city's sewers for some time. Several of these (including the saurian) were on display in the Square of the Tyrant.\n\nThe most talked about incident had occurred when a small band of J\u00e4gers had blithely walked into the Thieves' Market. Instead of closing it down, they wound up dickering furiously with Blind Otto for some hats. After they left, it was discovered that they had managed to steal the boots off of Otto's feet. Blind Otto was said to be, grudgingly, impressed.\n\nThe death of the Tyrant had stunned the populace. There was a great deal of confusion as to which event, the Master's death or the town's occupation, had come first. So far there was little anger. Dr. Merlot had been correct in his assessment that for the populace at large, the presence of the Master had been more of a reassuring concept than a day-to-day experience. The actual takeover of the town had been quick, and the hand of its new master lay lightly so far. Civic leaders had been honored with an audience with the Baron himself, and the ones who survived the experience moved with a new purpose.\n\nThe greatest disturbance had appeared, unexpectedly, in the western part of town. The Baron, his son Gil, Boris, several clanks, a very brave and opportunistic doughnut seller, and a squad of J\u00e4germonsters stood in the center of the street and watched with interest as a large, crude clank, belching black smoke and moving with a ponderous slow step, lurched around the corner. To the trained eye, it was obvious that the device had been built out of a large steam tractor, with the addition of a pair of large solid legs. A single manipulator claw was folded up beneath the prow. At each step, the device paused and swung its front end from side to side.\n\nThe Baron, his hands clasped behind him, observed the device with genuine pleasure. \"Well well well.\" He murmured, \"This is interesting. Boris?\"\n\nHis secretary, who was munching on a doughnut, took a sip of coffee, delicately wiped his lips and gestured in the direction of the machine simultaneously. \"Not one of ours, Herr Baron. Nor is it from outside the town. It has caused some minor damage, but I believe that to be unintentional.\" The Baron nodded.\n\nThe clank was now halfway down the street, and appeared to register their presence. The whistle perched upon its top gave a brief hoot, and it began to advance steadily towards them.\n\n\"Purpose?\"\n\n\"It appears to be looking for someone.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Allow me to demonstrate.\" Boris turned to a J\u00e4germonster standing nearby who was gnawing on a sausage. \"Sergeant? Go up to it.\"\n\nThe soldier spit out a chunk of sausage in surprise. \"Vat? Me?\"\n\nBoris nodded. \"Yes, you. Go up to it.\"\n\nThe soldier glowered at the shorter man. \"I don' take schtupid orders from you.\"\n\n\"I don't give them. Now go do something useful.\"\n\nThe J\u00e4ger grinned. \"Ho! So I can sqvish you den, hey, bugman?\"\n\nBoris and the J\u00e4germonsters despised each other. Boris, a naturally fussy man, found their permanently disheveled lifestyles an affront to everything he believed in. The J\u00e4gers thought him a self-important, officious prat. Boris had yet to give any J\u00e4ger an order that was not automatically questioned. This had escalated until the famous incident where a J\u00e4germonster who was on fire had to be ordered several times, in writing, to put himself out, after which Klaus had stepped in. There were still arguments, but now there was a time limit.\n\nThis morning Klaus intervened early. \"Boris, is it safe?\"\n\n\"I honestly believe so, Herr Baron.\"\n\n\"Good. Sergeant? Carry on.\"\n\n\"Jah, Herr Baron.\" With a theatrical sigh, the soldier tossed his weapon to Boris, who managed to catch it without spilling his coffee, and stomped over to the machine, which had advanced to meet him in the middle of the street. When he was within range, the arm quickly unfolded from underneath and grabbed him.\n\n\"Oh, help,\" he muttered in a disgusted tone of voice, \"I hef been captured by a clenk. Help. Help.\"\n\nThe machine raised him up to what appeared to be an array of crude sensors on its front. \"Hokay,\" the J\u00e4ger muttered, \"get on vit it.\"\n\nSeveral of the sensor lens flared into blue-white brightness and swept over the captive soldier, who flinched at the glare. After several seconds of stillness, the device casually tossed the J\u00e4gersoldier onto the ground and again began to advance.\n\nBoris smiled serenely and bit into a fresh doughnut. \"You see, Herr Baron, entertaining, but harmless.\"\n\nThe furious sergeant strode up, while brushing off his hat. \"You is schtupid! Dat ting could be lookink for hennybody! And ven it finds dem, den you gots trouble!\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"You are correct, Sergeant, but this is also a priceless opportunity.\"\n\nBoris looked stricken. \"I don't understand, Herr Baron.\"\n\nThe now grinning J\u00e4germonster poked him in the back of the head. \"Dots because hyu ain't the schmot guy.\"\n\nThe Baron turned to his son, who quickly finished his own doughnut. \"Gil?\"\n\n\"Well, Father, I've thought of four ways to stop it, depending on whether you want it destroyed, shut down, contained, or immobilized.\"\n\nThe Baron sighed. \"Actually, I want it distracted.\"\n\nA look of annoyance flashed across Gilgamesh's face. \"Of course you do.\" It was replaced by a mischievous look and with a \"Consider it done!\" he bounded forward, ignoring his father's cry of alarm.\n\nStriding up to the machine he jauntily addressed it. \"Hullo, Herr Clank! Are you looking for me?\"\n\nAgain the metal arm whipped out and grabbed, but all it brought up to its sensors was an empty greatcoat. Several yards away, from atop a stack of barrels, Gilgamesh gaily called out, \"Ho! You'll have to do better than that!\"\n\nInstantly the giant device launched itself towards him, displaying an unsuspected turn of speed. The ground shook under the impacts of its massive feet. Gil stood, apparently unconcerned as the device thundered towards him, until the last second, when as the great hand smashed into the barrel where he'd been, he leapt onto the shaft of the arm, and with a bounce, latched onto the case containing the sensor array, blocking it with his body.\n\nThe device stopped dead for several seconds. Its arm swung up, but could not reach Gil. It then began a twisting, gyrating series of movements to try and throw him off. Clinging grimly, Gil called out, \"Any time, Father!\"\n\nKlaus, after his first display of agitation, had gone still, as he intensely studied the movements of the control unit at the rear of the clank. It was a small bullet-shaped mechanism equipped with several flexible arms which furiously operated the levers and wheels that actually drove the main engine. After a minute or so, a grim smile crossed his features and he reached into his coat, pulling out a small grappling gun. In a single motion he aimed and fired, and the automatic grapple closed upon the lever he desired. A sharp tug, and the switch was thrown. With a massive hiss of escaping steam, the clank pitched forward onto its knees, inert. Gil released himself at the last moment and landed lightly upon his feet. Nonchalantly dusting himself off, Gil remarked, \"Well done, Father.\"\n\nKlaus wheeled at him and roared, \"LACKWIT! How dare you put yourself at risk! You or I may very well be this device's quarry! I needed a distraction, not a sacrifice! That is what the J\u00e4germonsters are for!\"\n\nBoris looked askance at the sergeant. \"A pity we can't use them all.\"\n\nThe J\u00e4ger dismissed him with a good-natured wave of his hand. \"Ah\u2014go kees an hoctopoos. Oh vait, you mama already did!\"\n\nHis point made, Klaus began to examine the motionless device. The monster soldier sidled up to a silently fuming Gil and murmured. \"Hey, keed.\" Gil blinked as a large hairy hand descended on his shoulder. \"Hyu deed pritty goot dere, hen don be fooled. You papa doz crazy schtupid stoff like dot hall de time. Hokay?\"\n\nGill nodded. \"Hokay. Ah\u2014I mean okay. Thanks.\"\n\nAt that moment the Baron yelled, \"Everybody back!\" as he leapt from the rear of the clank, which, with much hissing and squealing, was pulling itself back up onto its feet. Once there, it spun around several times, and whistle blowing, strode off down the street by which it had come. Klaus nodded in satisfaction. \"Sergeant,\" he roared, \"prepare some 'C' bombs! First patrol\u2014 Follow that clank!\"\n\nSix J\u00e4gers roared, \"Jah! Herr Baron, ve hunt!\" and pelted off down the street.\n\nGil turned to his father who was shrugging off his greatcoat. Even beneath his shirt and vest, muscles could be discerned, shifting and moving. \"What did you do, Father?\"\n\n\"The device was programmed to find someone and then bring them 'home.' I simply reversed the device's task order.\" He flung his coat at a startled Boris. \"Now let's run!\"\n\nAs one, the two men sped off down the road, to the astonishment of the observing townspeople. As they ran, Klaus called out, \"Tell me what we'll find!\"\n\nA look of exasperation crossed Gil's face. \"Everything does not have to be a test!\"\n\nKlaus laughed and effortlessly cleared a cartload of barrels that had been knocked down by the passing clank. \"Life is a test! Now answer!\"\n\nGil concentrated for a moment as he ran, then spoke as they leapt down a set of stone steps. \"It's not one of Beetle's\u2014it's too crude. Maybe a student, or a younger professor.\"\n\nThe streets were beginning to fill now, people were staring after the clank that had rumbled through the streets and the J\u00e4germonsters that had pursued it, but the way was still clear enough that the two men were able to run unhindered.\n\nKlaus shook his head. \"No. Anyone at the University would have had access to better materials. The construction screams inexperience, and since there have been no new Sparks in this area for several years, I believe this to be a breakthrough! A new Spark, and I want him!\"\n\n\"Maybe Beetle was hiding him?\"\n\n\"No. The preliminary stages of a breakthrough are extremely difficult to disguise. Remember?\" Gil nodded. His own breakthrough had had to be explained as a venting explosion in the main labs, and everyone else had just assumed that the pools of raspberry jelly were a bizarre side effect. Klaus continued, \"Beetle couldn't even hide a Hive Engine. A new Spark would have been impossible.\"\n\nGil looked and saw that the street up ahead had completely filled with curious bystanders. Without a word the two men swerved, and leapt atop a wall that ran along the street, upon which they dashed past the astonished crowd. \"Unless, Father, he'd known that this particular person would break through, and had isolated them beforehand.\"\n\nKlaus frowned. \"Unlikely. We keep records on the families of all established Sparks, and there are none unaccounted for. As for detecting a potential breakthrough amongst the general populace, even I have yet to develop a sure test for that. What else can you tell me?\"\n\nGil thought for a moment while leaping from the wall. \"It wasn't constructed at the University. So a foundry or a machine shop off-campus. Only they'd have the necessary tools. But if he's a newcomer to town\u2014\"\n\nKlaus interrupted: \"Shops can be rented. What about the man himself?\"\n\nA series of overturned carts, shouting peddlers, and items strewn about the streets indicated they were entering a market district. Gil vaulted over a load of spring onions. \"He's been wronged by someone. Someone he can't touch through normal channels.\" He grimaced. \"Most likely us.\"\n\nKlaus nodded grimly. \"Yes, the timing is perfect. Beetle is dead at our hands\u2014\"\n\n\"He threw a bomb at me.\"\n\n\"Someone here is very upset.\" They raced through Beetle Fountain Square, with its spitting statues. Pigeons clattered upwards around them, their clockwork mechanisms almost inaudible over the sound of their wings. Suddenly one of the birds froze and dropped to the ground, where, Gil suddenly noted, dozens more lay. Obviously the events of the last day had interfered with the pensioners whose daily job it was to wind them. \"Many people are going to be upset, Father.\"\n\n\"Beetle was loved by the populace,\" Klaus admitted. \"But more in the abstract. He did not interact with the general populace on a day-to-day basis. Therefore our question is who would be so upset that it would trigger a breakthrough?\" He grinned wolfishly. \"That is the mystery, and soon enough we shall know the answer!\"\n\nAdam and Lilith hurried through the meager crowd in front of the shops along Market Street. Their dark clothing, while a bit somber, did not stand out as much as their size. However people in the district were used to the oversized couple, and no longer gave them much thought. Adam looked glum. Lilith, being able to give voice to her annoyance, was more animated in her displeasure. \"Fruitless!\" she grumbled. \"We've wasted a good part of yesterday and an entire night thanks to those stupid J\u00e4gerkin and no one knew anything about the locket or the thieves.\" She looked at the dawn sky with trepidation. \"We must leave the city at once and get as far away as possible. I'm guessing that we have a week at best before\u2026\"\n\nA subtle change of the pressure on her arm caused her to look at her husband in annoyance. \"Adam, you're not listening to a word I'm\u2014\"\n\nThis was all too true, as Adam's head had snapped back at a booming noise that was getting closer. Effortlessly he swept up the startled Lilith and hurled them both to one side just as the clank, its smokestack pouring forth clouds of black smoke thundered past them. Raising themselves up, they were just in time to see a squad of J\u00e4germonsters fly past, howling. Purely by chance, Adam's eyes locked with that of an older J\u00e4ger, who grinned widely at them before running on.\n\nSweat started out on Adam's forehead. Lilith pulled herself up, her eyes wide with realization. \"Was that\u2026 That was Herr Ketter's tractor!\" The full ramifications of what they had seen caused her face to go white. \"Agatha!\" she cried.\n\nAgatha was furiously scrubbing her hands in the big zinc tub when a pained groan came from the figure on the floor. She was a bit unsure about what she should do. Normally, of course, she'd have summoned the Watch, but as the only law enforcement lay in the hands of the Wulfenbachs, she'd decided that it would be easiest to wait for Adam and Lilith to return. She had hoped they would do so before the man had revived, but obviously it was not to be. She decided to go on the offensive. \"Finally waking up, eh?\"\n\nMoloch rolled over and tried to move his arms, but found them tied behind him. He sagged in despair. \"Ow. My face. Ow.\"\n\nAgatha came over and grasped his chin and examined the lump there. \"It's not broken. You'll live.\" She hefted the wrench she held in her other hand menacingly. \"But I'll smack you again unless you tell me what you did here.\"\n\nMoloch looked at her ruefully. \"I woke you up. Not really a morning person, are you?\"\n\n\"No, I mean, why did you bring me down to the shop? Why did you trash the place?\"\n\nMoloch looked genuinely surprised. \"I did not! You were already here asleep on that bench and the place looked like this when I got here. Even the door was open.\"\n\nAgatha frowned. \"Then who\u2014?\"At that moment the great doors swung open and the doorway was filled by an enormous clank that stepped within the forge and paused. Agatha dropped her wrench. Moloch tried to scramble away, but got tangled in the coil of rope, and he tumbled backwards. A small part of Agatha's brain noted with alarm that Moloch had managed to surreptitiously slip his bonds.\n\nBefore he could disentangle himself, the clank's arm snapped out and the metal hand snatched the soldier up, kicking and squealing. It swung him up towards its sensors and a bright flash filled the gloomy shop accompanied by Moloch's scream of terror. Several seconds of whirring and clicking within the depths of the machine suddenly resulted in an array of green lights blooming across its front. A small bell rang and the arm gently swung Moloch down and offered him to a bewildered Agatha, who backed away. As she did so, the machine followed her, jogging its hand encouragingly. Agatha shook her head. \"What? What do you want?\"\n\nMoloch caught her attention. It was obvious that he was being squeezed rather tightly, if the way his eyes were bugging out was any indication. \"Help,\" he whispered.\n\nAgatha blinked. \"I\u2026 ah\u2026 down! Put him down.\"\n\nGently the device deposited a shaken Moloch onto the floor of the shop, dinged twice, and ceased all movement. Agatha and Moloch stared at it for a moment, but it did nothing else. Moloch turned towards Agatha. \"What is this thing?\"\n\nAgatha shrugged. \"I don't know.\" Suddenly her eyes narrowed as she examined the device. The core was certainly familiar though, wasn't that Herr Ketter's\u2014?\n\nThe sound of breaking glass caused both of them to turn. Agatha saw the small hole in the west window. Moloch saw the small metal container that landed on the floor and spun about on its weighted base, a small windup key ticking gently. As Agatha murmured \"What in the world\u2014\" Moloch yelled in his loudest battlefield voice, \"C-GAS!\"\n\nAgatha just had time to look up and ask, \"What's\u2014\" Before a cloud of gas exploded upwards, filling the room and enveloping them both.\n\nFive minutes later, a J\u00e4germonster stuck a furry face around the open front door and sniffed the air. Satisfied, he stepped forward. \"C-Gas has dispersed, Herr Baron. C'mon in.\"\n\nSeveral J\u00e4germonsters and the Wulfenbachs entered the shop. Outside, two of the tall brass clanks flanked the doorway. At a silent signal from the elder soldier, a runner was sent off to check on the J\u00e4gers that had encircled the building.\n\nThe Baron and his son moved towards the two crumpled figures on the floor. Klaus turned towards the senior J\u00e4gersoldier. \"Check the rest of the building. Bring anyone you find. Unharmed.\"\n\n\"Jah, Herr Baron.\" With quick motions of his hands, he sent half of the squad into the main house.\n\nGil turned about and examined the layout of the shop. His brows rose at several of the heavier pieces of machinery. \"Nice set up.\" He gestured at the quiescent clank. \"This could easily have been built here.\"\n\nKlaus had knelt down and turned Moloch over onto his back. He smiled in satisfaction. \"So this is our new Spark.\"\n\n\"It could be the girl, Father.\"\n\nKlaus sniffed. \"Hmf. Don't you recognize her?\"\n\nWith a feeling of embarrassment, Gil glanced at the scantily clad girl. She was tall, and full-figured, and her long reddish-blonde hair covered her face. Suddenly his eyes narrowed and he knelt by her side. He gently brushed the hair from her face. There was a smear of grease across her small nose. \"The student assistant in Beetle's lab! Miss\u2026 Clay.\" He glanced at a delivery wagon which had \"CLAY MECHANICAL\" neatly painted along the side. \"I see.\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"Yes, decorative, but evidently damaged. Held in contempt by those she worked with. Obviously not what we are looking for.\" An unexpected movement caught Klaus attention. Gil was removing his waistcoat. \"What are you doing?\"\n\nGil nodded towards the unconscious girl. \"I was just going to cover her up.\"\n\nKlaus nodded approvingly. \"Commendable, but your waistcoat will do little. Here.\" Effortlessly he lifted Moloch, stripped off his greatcoat and handed it over. \"I'm sure they'll not mind.\"\n\nGil looked up as he tucked the coat over Agatha. \"Oh?\"\n\nKlaus stood up. \"Yes, it all falls into place. The girl was truly upset at Beetle's death. Her soldier lover had recently returned home and her agitation was enough to trigger a breakthrough, and he built this clank for her.\"\n\nGil arched an eyebrow. \"Lover?\"\n\nKlaus frowned at Gil. \"You don't find the fact that the girl is running about in a machine shop in her underwear to be unusual? Red Fire, boy, what sort of laboratory did you maintain at school?\"\n\nGil blushed. The J\u00e4gersoldiers guffawed. \"Father! Please!\"\n\nThe faintest hint of a smile twitched at the edge of Klaus' mouth. \"Very well. What would you do now?\"\n\nGil gratefully turned to the question. He gestured to the two figures on the floor. \"Ideally? Talk to them, but what with the C-Gas, we must assume that they'll be out for at least thirty-six hours. So\u2026\" He thought for a second and then wheeled about to face the silent clank. \"Examine the device?\"\n\nKlaus sighed. \"No, no no! You must get your priorities straight. Examining the clank is important, but it can wait.\" He gestured to the room at large. \"What is missing here?\" He pointed to Moloch. \"This fellow is still travel-stained. The shop is not run by the girl\u2026\"\n\nGil nodded. \"The owner! Her parents, the Clays. Where are they?\"\n\nOne of the J\u00e4germonsters who had been sent to search the house stepped forward. \"Dere ain't nobody else in de house, Herr Baron.\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"They'll tell you much, when you find them.\" Klaus had turned away and was examining the workbench with professional interest.\n\nGil frowned. \"Well that should be easy enough.\"\n\nKlaus had found a set of micrometers and was evidently impressed by the workmanship. \"Yes, no doubt,\" he said absently, he found the case and turned it over until he found the maker's mark, and Gil knew that he was memorizing the information.\n\nThe Empire always needed good toolmakers. If he was any judge of workmanship, the Clays would find themselves hired as well. Gil sensed there was something different about his father now, but was unsure as to what it was. One would never use the word \"slumped\" when thinking about Klaus Wulfenbach, but the energy he had exhibited earlier in the morning seemed diminished.\n\nGil continued. \"The clank will be transported to the University and your new Spark\u2014\"\n\nKlaus had carefully replaced the tools on the workbench and turned back to his son. \"Both of them will return with us to Castle Wulfenbach.\"\n\nGil blinked. \"The girl as well?\"\n\n\"Yes. If they are indeed lovers, she'll be an additional lever. If she is merely an exhibitionist, we'll send her back.\"\n\n\"Her parents might not like that.\"\n\nKlaus walked outside and surveyed the neighborhood. \"They'll take her back anyway.\"\n\nGil followed him outside. \"That's not what I meant. Father, what's wrong? You seem\u2026 disappointed.\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"I am. I was hoping for something\u2026 interesting. All we have here is a sordid little tale of revenge and manipulation, set up and solved.\" He took a deep breath and stretched, then clapped his son on the back, to the surprise of all present. \"But it was a good bit of morning exercise and he is a new Spark, and those are always useful. However, while it is fortuitous, it is hardly urgent.\" He then dropped his hand and began to stride down the street. He called back over his shoulder, \"I must finish consolidating our takeover of the town. I'm sure you can finish up here on your own.\"\n\nCaught by surprise, several of the J\u00e4gers who had been stationed outside pelted up alongside the Baron, the eldest said, \"I vill assign you two\u2014\"\n\nKlaus waved him off. \"I will go by myself. Let the people see that I can.\"\n\nThe J\u00e4gers stopped and watched as the Baron strode around the corner and out of sight. The senior J\u00e4ger muttered, \"Hokey, fine, diz iz vun a dose moods, izit?\" He turned to two of the soldiers with him. \"Dey make great coffee back vhere der Baron is going. Go get me some. Und dun let him see hyu.\"\n\nThe two monstermen looked offended, slung their weapons over their shoulders and, faster then one would think possible, scaled the building across the street and were silently leaping across the rooftops. Shaking his head, the officer returned to a fuming Gilgamesh.\n\n\"Oh thank you, sir. Yes I'm sure that even I can deal with this.\" Gil sighed. \"Well, let's get started.\"\n\nGil and the senior J\u00e4ger entered the building. As the elder soldier got his first whiff of the interior, he started, and looked around in surprise. Gil noticed. \"Something wrong, G\u00fcnther?\"\n\nThe J\u00e4germonster looked at him blankly. One of the younger soldiers piped up. \"D'pipple who liff here. Dey schmell fonny.\"\n\nAlmost faster than Gil could follow, G\u00fcnther scooped up a chunk of lead pipe and threw it at the younger soldier, catching him between the eyes. He blinked. \"Ow. Vat for hyu\u2014?\"\n\nG\u00fcnther roared at him, stunning him into silence. \"Hey! Hyu iz in schombodies howz! Iz not goot manners to say dey schmells fonny!\" The rest of the J\u00e4gersoldiers gawped at the elder monster in astonishment. This was a new one.\n\nGil bore down on the younger soldier. \"'Funny'? Like how?\"\n\nG\u00fcnther glared at the younger monster over Gil's shoulder. The recipient of this glare was nonplussed. Lying was easy, but it was always good to know what you were lying about. \"Um\u2026 ahh\u2026 like\u2026 like machines or someting?\"\n\nG\u00fcnther nodded in satisfaction and spoke up. \"Vell, dey iz mechanics, you dumbkoff!\"\n\nGil looked unconvinced. He pointed to Agatha. \"Does she smell 'funny'?\"\n\nThe J\u00e4gers clustered around and leaned forward. \"She schmells goot.\"\n\nGil nodded. \"All right, I\u2014\"\n\nAnother J\u00e4ger interrupted him. \"She schmells really goot.\" The others joined in. \"Really really goot.\"\n\nGil flushed and turned away. \"Yes, yes, that's quite enough! Now get that wagon ready.\"\n\nReluctantly the soldiers began unloading machinery from the Clays' wagon. Gil failed to notice G\u00fcnther still kneeling by Agatha's side, a stunned look on his hirsute face as he remembered a large familiar face he had seen on his way here. Absently, his hand clutched at a small object on a chain around his neck\u2026\n\nQuickly he snapped back to attention and approached Gil. \"Hey. Hyu vants me to get schome of her clothing und schtuff? Or ve gun let her run around the kessel in her undervear?\" The accompanying leer suggested that this last would be a fine idea.\n\nAgain Gil reddened and turned away. \"Yes. I mean, yes, as in go get her some clothing.\" He looked over at Moloch. \"And see if there's anything of his lying around as well.\"\n\nTurned away, he missed the look of satisfaction that crossed G\u00fcnther's face. \"Hokay, your loss, boss.\"\n\nMeanwhile others were preparing to load Agatha and Moloch into the wagon. \"Don't drop him on his head, he's a schmott guy.\" A loud thump followed. \"Vell, at least dat vasn't his head.\"\n\nAn argument broke out over Agatha. \"I vant to pick op de gurl.\"\n\n\"No! Hyu vay too clumsy. I peek op de gurl.\"\n\n\"Me!\"\n\n\"Me!\"\n\n\"Me!\"\n\n\"ME!\"\n\nGil stepped into the middle and roared. \"Shut up! I'll do it!\"\n\nThe J\u00e4germonsters looked abashed. \"Vell hyu dun gotta get cranky over it,\" one muttered. Gil knelt down and gently picked Agatha up.\n\nInstantly the tractor clank lurched to life and the great metal hand flashed out towards an astonished Gil, who felt himself jerked backwards as a J\u00e4gersoldier swept him away. The hand plowed into the monster soldier, throwing him back against the far wall, where he slumped to the floor. Gil managed to keep both his balance and Agatha in his arms as he hit the floor. The smoking device wheeled towards him. \"Clanks!\" He yelled, \"Contain it!\"\n\nThe two tall Wulfenbach clanks rushed in through the doorway and plowed into the side of the engine, slamming it against the wall. But after a second the greater weight of the more primitive engine allowed it to gain better traction, and it slowly began to force itself back up despite the best efforts of the two other machines. Gil circled around, heading for the rear of the rogue engine. \"If I can get to the control unit\u2014\"\n\nThen one of the J\u00e4gers yelled, \"Stend beck!\" Gil glanced back and froze in horror. Three of the J\u00e4germonsters had manhandled one of the Wulfenbach clank's massive three-meter machine cannons into firing position. \"I alvays vanted to try dis,\" one shouted.\n\n\"NOOOO!!\" screamed Gil, even as he dived for the floor, desperately trying to shield Agatha.\" With a roar that was only magnified by the enclosed space, a stream of shells poured forth, the first few indeed hit the struggling clank, but the rest sprayed wildly around the room. The stream of fire stabilized only long enough to completely demolish one of the Wulfenbach clanks before the shooting stopped.\n\nGil dared to look up and saw that the recoil of the cannon had smashed the J\u00e4ger manning the trigger, as well as the last quarter of the gun itself, into the wall. The other two, their clothing on fire and their hats in tatters, looked sheepish. \"Ho! Leedle recoil problem dere, sir.\" One of the standing soldiers grinned. \"Pretty neat though, jah?\"\n\nMeanwhile the iron clank had thrown its lighter opponent into a pile of debris, and as the Wulfenbach clank struggled to regain its feet, swiveled about and, despite a shattered leg joint, again headed for the two humans. \"The control unit on the back,\" Gil yelled, \"you must be sure to\u2014\"\n\nThe other remaining J\u00e4ger grabbed his gun. \"Hoy! Got'cha!\"\n\nCircling around behind the crippled machine, he scrambled atop some boxes and launched himself over the stumbling clank. The zenith of his arc carried him over the bullet-shaped control mechanism and as he passed he pointed his weapon downward and fired a charge into it at point blank range. The resulting explosion completely obliterated Gil's plaintive, \"\u2014Not destroy it\u2026 never mind.\"\n\nThe clank and the soldier hit the ground at the same moment, the one to twitch and vent gouts of steam, the other to pose dramatically, to the approbation of his fellows.\n\nThe lone note of disapproval came from Gil, but this was turned upon himself. \"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! My father is going to\u2014\"\n\nThe leaping J\u00e4germonster looked offended. \"Vot did ve do now?\"\n\n\"Not you, me!\"\n\n\"Hah?\"\n\nGil kicked at the cooling clank at his feet. \"The clank activated to protect its master! Why wasn't I ready\u2014\"\n\nThe J\u00e4gersoldier interrupted. \"But ve got him into de vagon mit no problem. It didn't move until\u2014ow!\" The \"ow\" was caused by a flying wrench smashing into his nose, thrown by G\u00fcnther, who had re-entered the room, clutching a large valise.\n\n\"What for you hit me in the nose?\"\n\n\"Cause you all de time yakking like an eediot!\" G\u00fcnther pointed towards the corner, where the Wulfenbach clank was still foundering awkwardly amidst the debris. \"Get dat clenk op, hyu fools, or do hyu vanna pull de vagon tro de strits?\" That caused the rest of the monsters to quickly begin hauling the great clank back to its feet.\n\nGil ignored this interplay, as he was struck motionless by the thoughts triggered by the logic of the J\u00e4germonster's words. With a quick shake of his head, he dismissed the idea. His father had said\u2014\n\n\"Hey, hyu gun carry dat gurl all day?\"\n\nWith a start Gil realized that he was clutching the unconscious girl tightly in his arms. He looked up into the leering face of G\u00fcnther. Awkwardly he handed her over and, lost in his thoughts, failed to notice the excessive care with which the old soldier placed her in the wagon and covered her up with Moloch's coat. \"Ve's ready to go, sir,\" he announced.\n\nGil looked up. \"Pick one of you to wait here for the owners and the crews to collect the clanks.\" He glanced over at the steaming ruin. \"We might still be able to learn something. When the owners get here, have them lock the place up and bring them to me. Assure them we'll pay for any damages.\"\n\nAfter the inevitable game of sock-paper-scissors, the J\u00e4ger who had allowed himself to be socked slouched against the doorway rubbing his nose as the wagon began to roll out.\n\nGil suddenly yelled, \"Stop!\" The J\u00e4gers looked at him in surprise as he scrambled aboard the wagon and bent over the two unconscious figures. Gently he lifted Agatha's hands and examined them closely. Though she had scrubbed them, there were still ample amounts of grease and oil under her fingernails and embedded within the lines of her palms.\n\nA similar inspection of Moloch's hands revealed grime, yes, but no evidence that the owner had recently worked with heavy machinery.\n\nThoughtfully, Gil climbed back out of the wagon. After a moment he indicated that it was to move on without him. G\u00fcnther protested, \"Hyu poppa vould skeen us alife! Und I dun meen dat in a goot vay.\"\n\n\"What would he do if he found out you'd assigned him guards after he told you not to?\" The two appraised each other. Gil waved his hand. \"I'm just going to walk a bit behind. You can keep an eye on me.\" G\u00fcnther nodded reluctantly and the wagon started off.\n\nAs they pulled ahead of Gil, G\u00fcnther whispered fiercely to the others, \"Dun mention notting about dis mawnink. Not de fonny schmells, not the clenk schtarting op, notting! Dis iz schtoff for de generals.\"\n\nThe others looked surprised. \"Hokay.\" they agreed. G\u00fcnther nodded in satisfaction and looked at the young man following the wagon, a look of concentration on his features. The young master was going to be trouble enough."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "\u2003Hide the women! Hide the beer!\n\n\u2003The Baron's great big thing is here!\n\n\u2003It's huge and fat and long and round\n\n\u2003And you can see it from the ground.\n\n\u2003It flies way high up in the air\n\n\u2003He rides it here, he rides it there.\n\n\u2003And every mad boy lives in fear\n\n\u2003That Klaus will stick it in his ear.\n\n\u2014Popular tavern song\n\nAgatha blinked and stretched. Her mouth tasted metallic. She opened her eyes fully and stared at the ceiling, something was different. The light\u2014\n\nSuddenly a hand roughly clasped itself over her mouth. Her eyes jerked around and saw that the hand belonged to the soldier who had appeared in her father's shop. A sudden surge of memories, as well as the current situation made her twist and flail about.\n\nMoloch dropped forward, pinning her arms to the bed. \"Quiet!\" he hissed. \"Quiet! I'm not gonna hurt you unless I gotta\u2014but I will if you act stupid!\" With this he tightened his grip upon Agatha's face. Having little choice, she froze, and then sagged. Her eyes stared at Moloch like those of a frightened animal. The hand relaxed slightly. He continued. \"Now I'm gonna take my hand away. I'm giving you one chance. Don't Blow It.\"\n\nAfter a second, he released her face. Agatha licked her lips, but said nothing. Moloch relaxed slightly, but still pinned her arms. Agatha noted that he had been cleaned up, his beard trimmed, and an attempt had been made on his hair, but it was the sort of hair that defeated anything but an all out tonsorial assault.\n\nHe was dressed in a large sturdy labcoat, which Agatha realized she had seen on Wulfenbach staffers that had visited the late Dr. Beetle's lab.\n\nWhen she still did nothing, Moloch continued. \"Good. Now listen. We've been taken prisoner by Baron Wulfenbach.\"\n\nAgatha frowned. \"Why?\"\n\nEncouraged by this response, Moloch sat back, allowing Agatha to sit up on the bed and rub her arms. \"Because of that clank I'm supposed to have built back in Beetleburg.\"\n\n\"You built that clank?\"\n\nMoloch snorted. \"Of course not! But the Baron thinks I did, and I'm not going to tell Baron Wulfenbach that he made a mistake. So I'm his madboy until I can make a break for it.\"\n\nAgatha saw the wisdom in this, but\u2014\"What does he want you to do?\"\n\nMoloch looked up at her with grim humor in his eyes. \"He wants me to build him some more clanks. He wants to see what I can do in a real lab with proper materials.\"\n\nAgatha cocked an eyebrow and her mouth twitched upwards. \"Ho. You do have a problem.\"\n\nMoloch observed the smirk and he leaned forward in satisfaction. \"We have a problem, sweetheart. He also thinks you're my little assistant.\"\n\n\"What!\" There was no way Agatha wanted to get involved in anything like this. She leapt up and threw open the door. \"Forget it! You can just get out and\u2014\"\n\nIt was a soft \"woo!\" from the outer room that brought her up short. Turning her head, she saw that the door opened out into a large common room. Easily two dozen people, mostly children, along with a sprinkling of young adults, were casually gathered around several long tables which were set for a meal. All eyes were riveted upon Agatha. A sudden cool breeze dragged her eyes downward to reveal to her that she was dressed in naught but her underclothes. With a squeak she slammed the door closed and, blushing furiously, turned upon a grinning Moloch.\n\nGrabbing a blanket off of the bed she fumbled with it awkwardly. \"Do\u2026 do those people know you're in here alone with me in my underwear?\"\n\nMoloch made soothing motions with his hands. \"Don't worry about your reputation.\"\n\nAgatha drew herself up. \"I most certainly will. I have never\u2014\"\n\nMoloch cut her off. \"They already think we're lovers.\" The blanket dropped from Agatha's hands as she swayed in shock. Moloch took the opportunity to survey her critically. \"You're not really my type\u2026\" he sighed. \"But I guess I'll just have to fake it.\"\n\n\"Why should I let anyone think\u2014\"\n\n\"Because I didn't build that clank!\" Moloch leaned in and whispered triumphantly, \"Your father did, didn't he?\"\n\nAgatha rocked back. \"My father?\"\n\nMoloch nodded. \"That was his shop, wasn't it? Before I woke you up I saw the wheels he'd taken off the tractor, and when you told it to put me down, it did it. It followed your orders.\" He paused for a second as an idea hit him: \"Did you build it?\"\n\nAutomatically Agatha answered honestly, \"No, but, Adam\u2014\"\n\n\"No buts. Unless you want me to inform the Baron where he can get a real madboy to take my place\u2026?\"\n\nAgatha looked into his face. \"You wouldn't.\"\n\n\"I will. Unless we got a deal.\"\n\nAgatha stared at him with loathing in her face, but could see no way out. It explained so much. Adam and Lilith had been scared to death of encountering the Baron. Everyone knew that Klaus collected Sparks, when he wasn't defeating them. The longer she gave them to get away from Beetleburg\u2026 \"Yes.\"\n\nMoloch closed his eyes and took a deep breath. \"Good.\" At that moment Agatha realized how tightly he'd been keeping his fear in check. She felt a flash of sympathy for him. There were numerous stories of innocent people who had come to the attention of those with the Spark. None of them ended well.\n\nMoloch continued, \"So, the way the Baron figures it, I'm your boyfriend and I built you that clank because you were mad about the Baron killing this Dr. Beetle guy. You see any loose ends?\"\n\nAgatha slipped her glasses on. \"Hm. Yes. You had a friend.\" The reaction this statement got astonished her.\n\nMoloch wheeled furiously and looked as if he would strike her, but with great effort he held himself in check. \"My brother,\" he said menacingly. \"And we don't have to worry about him, you saw to that!\"\n\nAgatha found herself pressing up against the wall as Moloch advanced towards her. As he talked, he fished around in his pocket. \"And if you've got any hopes about me going the same way, you can just forget it.\" Triumphantly he pulled forth Agatha's battered locket. \"It's been deactivated!\"\n\n\"My locket!\" Agatha reached for the locket, only to have it snatched away and stuffed back inside Moloch's coat. \"Give it back, you thief!\"\n\nMoloch smiled coldly. \"Oh no, sister, that's my ace. You'll get it back when I leave here safely.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, it's been\u2014\"\n\nMoloch interrupted her. \"Omar was my brother, but he did steal from you and hit you. I'll admit that. You help me get outta here and we're square. Mess with me and I'll have company at the Waxworks, I promise you.\" He turned towards the door. \"I gotta get going. I'm not even supposed to be here, so\u2026\" He thought for a second with his hand on the door handle. He glanced at Agatha and a mischievous smile came to his face. He opened the door and spoke loudly. \"Okay, that's enough kissing for now, doll. I'm glad you're okay, but give me a chance to rest up and we'll celebrate properly later!\"\n\nWith eel-like swiftness he was out of the room and had the door shut before Agatha could reach him. Furious, she yanked open the door and almost collided with a tall reserved-looking man who had obviously been just about to knock. A raised eyebrow was his only comment as to her attire. Quickly she scooted back behind the door and peeked out.\n\n\"Miss Agatha Clay?\" he enquired with an upper-class British accent. Agatha nodded.\n\n\"Good morning. My name is Ardsley Wooster. I have the honor of being Master Gilgamesh Wulfenbach's man. Now that you are awake, he requests your presence in his laboratory immediately.\"\n\nAgatha looked at him with trepidation. \"Gilgamesh Wulfenbach? Wants to see me?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss. Immediately.\"\n\nAgatha looked back into the room and then down at her outfit. \"I'm not going out like this. I'm not\u2026 not dressed.\"\n\nWooster smiled. \"Of course not, Miss. There should be a package containing clothing and toilet articles from your home on the dresser. I shall wait until you are ready.\"\n\nAgatha glanced at the dresser. There was nothing there. She quickly surveyed the room. It was about six meters square, and contained two beds, separated by a nightstand, two tall armoires and two dressers. The side she had awoken in was bare, but the other had obvious signs of an occupant. Portraits of aristocratic-looking people and an impressive castle adorned one wall. A rack of fencing foils were hung with a display of awards. An ornate family crest was displayed over the bed, which was covered with a sumptuous quilt. The other dresser was covered with a tasteful array of books and knickknacks.\n\nShe turned back towards Wooster. \"There's no package there. I don't see it anywhere.\"\n\nA mild look of consternation flitted across Ardsley's face. \"If I may, Miss?\"\n\nAgatha pulled back the door and hid behind it as the man stepped into the room. He quickly scanned the room, stepped around the bed, and opened the armoire. Empty. He bent down and looked under the beds. Nothing. With obvious reluctance he opened the other armoire. It was neatly stacked with clothing and other items, but nothing that could be called a package, and he closed the door without disturbing anything within.\n\n\"My apologies, Miss Clay, it appears that your clothing has been\u2026 temporarily misplaced. If you will excuse me.\" With that he backed out, closing the door as he went.\n\nLess then a minute later there was a soft knock and a redheaded girl poked her head in. She spoke with a faint Irish accent. \"Hello. I'm Sleipnir O'Hara. Mr. Wooster here says that you be needing some clothes.\"\n\nShe stepped into the room. She was wearing a mechanic's work suit, with a toolbelt around her waist; kneepads, wristbands and a pair of goggles pulled up onto her head completed her outfit. She had an embroidered Chinese robe over her arm. \"Your Mr. Wooster reckons that we're about the same size, so you can borrow something of mine.\"\n\nAgatha smiled. \"That would be very kind. I'm Agatha Clay.\"\n\nAs Sleipnir and Agatha shook hands, Sleipnir's nose wrinkled. \"Hm. I'm thinking before we get you dressed, a trip to the showers.\"\n\nAgatha looked blank. \"What's a 'showers'?\"\n\n\"It's a kind of bathing system, but without a tub.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Agatha looked down at herself and flushed with embarrassment. \"Need one, do I?\"\n\nSleipnir waved her hand before her nose. \"Oh yes.\" She handed Agatha the robe. \"Here. We're not all as relaxed about being in our unmentionables as you are. Are you from England, then?\"\n\nAgatha reddened down to her chest. \"No! I\u2014\"\n\nSleipnir interrupted her. \"Whatever you do, don't let the Von Pinn see you like that.\"\n\n\"The who?\" The two headed out the door, and Agatha's question went unanswered as a swarm of young children, ranging in age from six to twelve swarmed around her.\n\n\"Hey! It's the new girl! She's awake!\"\n\n\"Hello, new girl!\"\n\n\"She's stinky.\"\n\n\"She's the one who came out naked and you missed it!\"\n\n\"You're lying!\"\n\nThe room itself was long, lined with doors leading to, Agatha assumed, apartments similar to the one she had awoken in. The walls between the rooms were covered in bulletin boards filled with drawings, letters, strange looking objects such as leaves, insects or bizarre tribal masks.\n\nDividing the room was a large sunken area, which contained the long tables she had seen earlier. Several dark-clothed servants were quietly clearing the plates, aided by what appeared to be older children.\n\nSleipnir made shooing motions. \"Oy! Clear off, you rigger rats! And I'd better not see any of you hanging around the showers or I'll\u2014\"The threat was left unsaid, but the smaller children nodded seriously, except for a slightly older boy who spoke up defiantly. \"Or you'll what? Feed us to the gargoyles?\"\n\nSleipnir leaned in close to him. \"Or I'll tell the Von Pinn that you were peeking into the showers, you dirty little sod.\"\n\nInstantly the boy went pale and bolted from the room. Agatha and Sleipnir went down the hall and into a locker room.\n\n\"What's with all the kids?\" Agatha asked as she undressed.\n\nSleipnir leaned against a locker. \"They're students.\" Agatha raised an eyebrow. \"Hostages, really. You're one too, you know. We're mostly the children of the various Great Houses in the Baron's territory. We're all supposed to be learning about science and how to administer properly and such. Of course we all know we're really here to keep our folks in line. So your fella won't be doing anything stupid because himself's got you safe and snug.\"\n\nAgatha paused and considered how much concerns for her safety would be likely to check\u2026 at this point Agatha realized that she didn't even know the man's name. \"That's a great comfort.\" She reached for the robe, but Sleipnir stopped her. \"You'll not be needing that yet. Now come on.\"\n\nSleipnir ushered Agatha into a large, tiled room. A complex brass boiler system hissed quietly in the corner. Agatha felt exposed, and vainly tried to cover herself with her hands while Sleipnir threw a switch and turned a large wheel valve. She then gently pushed Agatha under a large sunflower-shaped nozzle in the ceiling. \"Brace yourself,\" she warned, and pulled a hanging cord. A cascade of water poured from the nozzle. Agatha screamed in shock as the water hit her, then realized, to her amazement, that the water was warm! To a person who had lived her whole life boiling bathwater on the kitchen stove, this was luxury indeed.\n\nSleipnir chuckled at her reaction. \"When you're done, I should have some clothing for you,\" and she exited.\n\nFor several minutes Agatha forgot her predicament and just let the water cascade over her. After a moment she noticed a small metal table in the middle of the room. On it were racks containing bottles, which were labeled as containing shampoo and various hair oils, as well as bars of soap. Agatha selected one and examined it. Even the soap here was different, transparent, and it smelled like oranges. A far cry indeed from the stuff that Agatha helped Lilith boil up out of ashes, lye and lard from the rendering plant. The very oddity of the mundane object in her hand helped Agatha begin to think clearly. She began to lather up her hair.\n\nWhen Agatha emerged, her skin glowing red, vigorously toweling herself off, Sleipnir was rummaging around inside a locker. Turning around with a few outfits hung over her arm, she critically eyed Agatha and frowned.\n\n\"I was afraid of that. I may be the closest match to you sizewise, but you're a bit larger than me, especially in the chest.\"\n\nAgatha sighed. Sleipnir's next words surprised her. \"I wish I looked as good as you.\" She turned back and rooted deeper within the locker and turned back while holding up a red leather overall. \"There's a few things we can adjust a bit when we've got the time, but for now, it's this or nothing.\" She shook out the outfit. \"Luckily this has always been a bit loose on me.\"\n\nIt was not loose on Agatha. Indeed in several places it took a bit of shoehorning to get all of her inside it, but eventually they got the final buttons buttoned.\n\n\"It's\u2026 tight.\"\n\nSleipnir nodded. \"It most certainly is that. The good news is that as it's leather, it'll stretch out a bit once you get moving.\"\n\n\"At the moment, I'm more worried about breathing.\"\n\n\"Overrated.\"\n\nAgatha caught sight of herself in a large mirror. Her face went as red as her outfit. \"I can't wear this!\" She turned and looked at her backside, which the outfit revealed all too well. \"I mean\u2014look at this!\"\n\nSleipnir shrugged. \"it's a bit tight, but I said it'll stretch\u2014\" A realization struck her. \"Have you ever worn trousers before?\"\n\n\"Well\u2026 no.\"\n\nSleipnir nodded. \"You'll get used to it. Here no one expects you to be daft enough to work inside the big engines in a dress, that's a good way to get yourself mangled. The Baron scandalized everyone when he said women wouldn't wear them. The boys'll stare a bit, but they stare at everything. Call 'em on it and they'll go red as a brick. You'll see. It's fun.\"\n\nAgatha took another look at herself in the mirror. The outfit looked like it had been sprayed on. \"Fun.\"\n\nSleipnir grinned. \"Oh, yeah. Now c'mon, if you're done admiring yourself, there's people waiting for you. Who is this Mister Wooster anyway? He's a bit of a codfish, isn't he?\"\n\nAgatha was taken aback at Sleipnir's language, but gamely ignored it. \"All I know is that his name is Ardsley Wooster. He's come to take me to Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.\"\n\nSleipnir stopped dead. \"Gil? He's here?\"\n\n\"I guess. Why? Do you know him?\"\n\nSleipnir looked sad. \"Sure, and I used to. I thought I did. He was raised here with us, but no one knew who he was, of course. Once he left for school in Paris, he never even answered our letters, and no one has seen him since he got back.\" They walked for a moment. \"I really miss him, he told the funniest stories.\"\n\n[ Agatha tried to reconcile this image with the serious young man she had seen in Beetle's lab \"Funny stories. Gilgamesh ]\n\nWulfenbach.\"\n\nSleipnir sighed. \"I expect he's changed quite a bit. We've read\u2014\" She shook her head, cutting herself off, and looked to Agatha. \"When you see him, tell him I said 'welcome back.' At least I can say I did the right thing there.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nAs they exited the shower room, Ardsley Wooster glided up from where he'd been standing. Sleipnir waved goodbye, and the two of them exited into the bustling corridor. \"So what does Master Wulfenbach want to see me for?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that is not my place to say, Miss Clay.\"\n\nThis seemed to shut down any hope of conversation, so Agatha took the opportunity to look around. The corridor she found herself in was quite large, easily ten meters wide and the ceiling was almost as high. The only unusual thing was that instead of wood or stone, it appeared to be constructed of metal. This oddity extended right down to the floor, which Agatha noted, wasn't solid but was some sort of grate. To Agatha's disappointment, there didn't seem to be any windows, but the view before her was fascinating enough without one.\n\nGrowing up in Beetleburg, Agatha had considered herself to be fairly cosmopolitan, but the crowd here made her feel like a small-town girl on her first trip to the big city. A surprisingly large number of the people moving purposefully along seemed to be Wulfenbach airship personnel, but perhaps that was because their bright red-and-white-striped shirts caused them to stand out. The other armed forces were certainly represented, their brightly colored uniforms, in every possible variation, were a treat for the eyes. Black clad domestics kept to the sides of the large paneled corridors, carrying bundles and pushing carts. People from all over the Baron's wide-flung empire could be seen, as well as visitors from outside its borders. Fairly regularly, there would be a goose-like honking, and a young child in a blue uniform, astride a tall golden unicycle, would expertly weave through the crowd like it was standing still, leather messenger bags slung over the cyclist's shoulders. A procession of silk-garbed Chinese moved sedately down the center of the corridor. The procession was proceeded and followed by a squad of sleek, ornately coated footmen, whose gait caused Agatha to study them intently. There was something not quite right\u2026 One of the footmen looked directly at her. Large, luminous green eyes with thin, vertical pupils examined her and then swung away. Agatha shuddered and moved a bit closer to Mr. Wooster, allowing the procession ample space in which to pass. She noticed that hers was not an unusual reaction, as everyone seemed eager to give the inhuman footmen plenty of space. As the Chinese passed, Agatha noticed that they all held themselves quite rigid, their faces expressionless, except for one of the junior clerks bringing up the rear. He was obviously terrified of the creatures escorting him. A faint odor of lilac reached her as they passed. A quick glance at her companion revealed that he observed the procession until it was out of sight before continuing on their way.\n\nHe noticed Agatha's look. \"The creatures in the purple coats are known as the Lackya. The Baron employees them for many tasks, but it is wise to steer clear of them.\" With that he turned about and moved on.\n\nThere were other non-human creatures in the crowd. A squad of huge bulky men passed by in single file. Perched upon each of their shoulders was a small woman who appeared to have a glass dome set upon her head. As Agatha looked closer, she saw, with a shudder, that the men had no heads, but instead, similar, larger glass domes where a head should be, and within their crystalline depths, machinery gleamed with an odd purple light.\n\nClanks there were in abundance, not just the now-familiar soldiers who, Agatha noted, carried much smaller weapons than the immense machine cannons she had seen in Beetleburg, but others in a bewildering variety of shapes that lurched or rolled along on mysterious errands.\n\nAnd sprinkled throughout the throng were odd, unclassifiable creatures whose differences ranged from the blatantly obvious, such as the octopus with spectacles who operated its own rolling aquarium, to the disquietingly subtle, such as the charming young lady who, only as she was walking away from Agatha, revealed a cow-like tail that swayed in mesmerizing counterpoint to her hips.\n\nEventually, after a bewildering maze of such passages, and several sets of metal stairs, they found themselves in front of a massive steel blast door. Ardsley broke the silence. \"We have arrived, Miss.\" With that he discretely knocked twice, spun the large metal wheel in the center of the door, pushed, and it slowly swung inwards.\n\nThey entered atop a metal catwalk that surrounded a large open workshop. Agatha's practiced eye saw an impressive array of lathes, mills, disintegrators, presses and shapers. An efficient-looking forge took up one wall, and tables and benches were covered with racks of tools, vats of chemicals, piles of humming, crackling electrical devices, or often some intriguing combination of all three. Clouds of steam arose from several large boilers, and the smell of machine oil and ozone filled the air. Overhead, a bank of arc lamps lit the scene with a harsh blue light.\n\nIn the center of the room was a large sunken bay, which was filled with a sleek green machine. To Agatha it appeared to be some sort of motorized carriage, although the aerodynamic effect was spoiled by some sort of large, multi-layer fender attached to each side. Bent over a large motor located amidships was Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, clad in a blue work shirt and a leather work apron. Agatha's eye was caught by a sudden movement. From under the machine came a bizarre little creature. She couldn't really tell what it was, as it was concealed within a large greatcoat several sizes too large, and an enormous felt hat. The only clues as to its species were the bright blue claws that extended from the sleeves as it dragged a large mallet along the ground, and a pair of long, blue, articulated antenna that poked out through two holes that had been cut into its hat. It moved with a manic energy that belied its diminutive size.\n\nWooster coughed. \"Miss Agatha Clay, sir.\"\n\nBoth the man and the creature looked upwards. Agatha noticed that the creature possessed but a single eye.\n\nYoung Wulfenbach smiled and tossed the wrench he was holding into a bin resting on the cowl of the machine. \"Ah, Miss Clay. Glad to see you on your feet.\" He waved his hand towards one of the benches on the side of the room. \"If you would be so kind as to bring me a left-leaning Lurning wrench on your way over? Wooster? You may go.\"\n\nThe butler paused slightly, but bowed and silently backed out of the room, shutting the great door as he did so. Gil turned to the creature who continued to stare at Agatha. \"Zoing? Bring Miss Clay some tea, please.\" The creature dropped the mallet and scuttled off to another bench while making high-pitched squealing noises. Gilgamesh turned back to his engine.\n\nAfter several seconds, Agatha swallowed and climbed down the metal ladder and went to the indicated bench. Seeing the young man had sent a peculiar feeling through her, one she attributed to her conviction that he was responsible for Dr. Beetle's death. She reflected upon this while searching through the tools. To her immense surprise, she saw the goldfish that had been kept by Dr. Beetle. For some reason this upset her more than ever, and by the time she had located the correct wrench and climbed down into the work pit, she was building up to a fine temper. There was a small step-ladder leaning against the machine, and Agatha climbed up to the cockpit with a murderous gleam in her eye.\n\nGilgamesh was now elbow deep in the motor cavity, and with a grunt of satisfaction, pulled out a small hairy mimmoth. These pests, the result of some unknown madboy's tampering, had infested most of the known world, and frequently fouled machinery. It honked at him. He spoke without looking at her. \"I hope you found your quarters comfortable, I\u2014\"\n\nA wrench was thrust into his face with a commanding \"Here.\"\n\nStartled, he turned and saw a sullen Agatha regarding him, the wrench in one hand, the other hand upon her hip. A look of annoyance settled upon his face. He briskly tossed the mimmoth into a container and stripped off his work gloves. \"Right. So much for small talk. Let us have this out right now. Sit down.\"\n\n\"There's nothing\u2014\"\n\nGil's head swiveled towards her and he fixed her with an icy stare. \"Sit. Down,\" he commanded.\n\nWith a thump, Agatha found herself sitting upon a small bench seat.\n\nGil regarded her warily. For the first time, he seemed to notice her outfit. Agatha saw the direction of his gaze and squirmed in embarrassment. Her outfit creaked in protest.\n\nGil realized his mouth was open slightly and shut it with a snap, then shook his head and spoke calmly. \"Miss Clay, I'm really sorry about Dr. Beetle. I know he was important to you, and I agree that his death was a complete waste, but\u2014\"\n\nAgatha looked away and interrupted coldly, \"But he threw a bomb at you. Yes, you've said.\"\n\n\"NO!\" Gil's fist crashed down and a startled Agatha saw him staring at her intently. \"I think he threw a bomb at you!\"\n\nAfter the first shock, Agatha felt herself getting angry. \"Dr. Beetle loved me! He wouldn't\u2014\"\n\nGil ignored her. \"He wanted you out of that lab. In retrospect I can see that he was terrified of you being there. Why? What is it about you that could have gotten him in even more trouble with my father than his hiding a Hive Engine?\"\n\n\"Nothing! There's nothing about me!\"\n\nGil leaned back and regarded her seriously. \"Then what about your parents, the Clays?\"\n\nAgatha's sudden start caused a tight smile of satisfaction to flash across his face. \"Yes, that hit a nerve.\"\n\nAgatha rallied. \"Wrong. My parents are simple, normal people.\"\n\nGil nodded agreeably. \"Did you know that you have been asleep for around thirty-six hours?\"\n\nAgatha felt off-balance at the change in conversation. \"What does that have to do with\u2014?\"\n\n\"I can't find these 'simple, normal people' of yours.\"\n\nA small smile curved Agatha's lips. \"Oh, really?\"\n\nGil leaned forward. \"And that doesn't surprise you. It certainly surprises me. We had the town sealed and they still got out. How did they do that? More important, why did they do that? At the very least, one would think that they would inquire about you, their only daughter, but they never even returned to their home. Should we be worried about them?\"\n\nAgatha bit her lip. These were legitimate questions. The idea that Adam and Lilith could actually be in a situation where they needed assistance was a foreign one, but there was always the possibility. \"I don't know.\"\n\nGil studied her for a moment longer and nodded. \"I see.\" He smiled. \"Now let's talk about Herr von Zinzer.\"\n\nAgatha looked blankly at him. \"Who?\"\n\nGil's smile widened. \"Moloch von Zinzer?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't\u2014\"\n\nGil continued, \"The man you help build clanks with? While in your underwear? Your boyfriend? Your lover? The reason you're here? Ring a bell?\" he asked innocently.\n\nAgatha flushed. \"I never! He's n\u2014\" Too late she caught Gil's look of satisfaction. She quickly shifted mental gears. \"He's\u2026 nnnice!\"\n\nGil looked at her askance. \"Nice?\"\n\nAgatha nodded inanely, scarcely believing the drivel pouring out of her mouth. \"That's what I call him. Herr Nice. I don't even think of him as\u2026 as\u2026\"\n\n\"Von Zinzer.\"\n\n\"Von Zinzer. Yes.\"\n\nGil raised an eyebrow. \"Ah. Well then, you'll both be happy to know that you'll be assisting\u2026 Herr\u2026 Nice, with his next clank.\"\n\n\"Oh. But\u2026 Good,\" she finished weakly.\n\nGil smiled. \"And I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that we have a very relaxed dress code in the labs.\"\n\nAgatha stiffened. \"You know, as much as I'd miss Mowgli\u2014\"\n\n\"Moloch?\"\n\n\"Herr Nice, I'd rather just go home and help look for my parents.\"\n\nGil got serious. \"I assure you, Miss Clay, we're doing everything we can to find them. Unless you can think of somewhere in particular we should look?\"\n\nReluctantly, Agatha shook her head. A sudden clink made her look around. A small blue claw appeared over the side of the machine, holding a delicate delftware teacup. Agatha reached out and took it. The tea within smelled delicious. \"Thank you,\" she murmured.\n\nThe claw then grabbed onto a protruding grommet and Zoing hauled himself upwards. Up close, Agatha still couldn't penetrate the gloom under the little creature's hat. Feeling her eyes upon it, Zoing looked back briefly, then reached inside a wide sleeve and pulled out a sugar bowl, which it offered graciously. Agatha declined. Zoing shrugged, and deftly extracted several sugar cubes and popped them inside its coat. Satisfied crunching noises followed.\n\nGil's voice brought her back to the conversation. \"Anyway, I'm afraid my father won't allow you to leave just yet, he considers you his guarantee to Herr von Zinzer's good behavior.\"\n\nAgatha felt an uncharacteristic flare of temper. \"You can't just keep me here.\"\n\nGil had the grace to look slightly embarrassed, but he shrugged. \"We can actually. It's not like you could walk out the front door, you know.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"We don't have one.\" His face brightened. \"You don't know where you are, do you?\"\n\nAgatha blinked. Gil grabbed a control box that was attached to a long cable that went up into the ceiling. He grinned and stabbed at a button. \"Let me show you!\"\n\nAgatha heard a squeal of alarm from Zoing, and then with a great CLANG! the floor split into two massive panels that swung downward, and the machine they were sitting in dropped. A quick look over the side caused Agatha to think she'd gone mad, as the ground was easily several thousand meters under them. A few farms nestled beside a river, and a vast forest covered much of the land. \"What have you done?\" she screamed against the uprushing wind.\n\nGil was busily manipulating the controls of the machine. He grinned again. \"Ha! Watch this!\"\n\nHe threw a large switch, and the motor behind them coughed twice and then stopped. Silence surrounded them as they fell. Agatha crossed her arms. \"Oh. It's a Falling Machine. I'm so impressed.\"\n\nGil looked annoyed. \"Weird. It worked perfectly on paper\u2026\" Simultaneously the both of them swarmed over the engine.\n\n\"How's it work?\"\n\n\"Fuel here. Spark here. Main shaft. Boosters.\"\n\n\"Interesting. Should this be loose?\"\n\n\"Yes, it's a balance arm.\"\n\nAgatha glared at him. \"A balance arm? You're wasting space in a flying machine with a balance arm?\"\n\n\"Well\u2026 yes, you still need\u2014\"\n\nAgatha pushed him aside and reached into the engine compartment. A quick wrench and the small device was flung out into space, where it hung in front of Gil's face.\n\n\"And this!\" Another part was ripped loose. \"This is a heat pump! Superfluous!\"\n\nGil eyed the slowly spinning device with regret. \"Nicely designed though, eh?\"\n\nAgatha reached back, grabbed his shirt front and hauled him beside her. \"Look\u2014\"she commanded. \"With more room you can enlarge this flywheel and it will act as a balance! Add coolant lines here and here and then it will also act as a heat dump!\"\n\nThe light dawned on Gil's face. \"I see! Then we can also get rid of these here if we add more vents!\"\n\nThe two of them grinned in accord and began ripping various pieces of engine out and tossing the mover the side. A gleam came into Gil's eye, and his voice began to match Agatha's in intensity. \"That'll fix our heat problem and tighten up these linkages! I see! Yes! There's a whole bunch of stuff we can get rid of!\" He grabbed a large wrench. \"Help me unbolt the engine!\"\n\nAt this Agatha heard a strangled noise from behind, and felt an urgent tapping on her shoulder. Turning, she saw Zoing hanging upside down from the steering wheel. The small creature looked at her beseechingly and pointed over the side. A glance downward revealed the ground rushing upwards at an alarming rate. She in turn tapped Gil on the shoulder. \"Um\u2026 of course, we are still falling.\"\n\nGil looked at her blankly for a second. Then he rolled his eyes. \"Oh, that.\" He reached into the engine compartment. \"This wire was loose. Let's try it now.\"\n\nSo saying, he turned to the controls, and threw a lever. Instantly the engine caught with a roar. The odd fenders unfolded with a snap to reveal themselves as a pair of large green wings, and with a massive jolt, the machine's fall turned into a graceful dive that swung forward and the machine gently began to climb back up into the sky, barely clearing several of the taller treetops.\n\nWith a squeak, Zoing toppled forward onto the floor and twitched. Agatha decided not to disturb him. She looked around, but failed to see any buildings at all, let alone one tall enough to have fallen from.\n\n\"So,\" she asked, \"How did we get so high in the first place?\"\n\nGil grinned. \"We started higher. Look up.\"\n\nAgatha did so and gasped.\n\n\"We started from Castle Wulfenbach.\"\n\nAnd indeed, above them loomed the greatest symbol of the Baron's authority. Castle Wulfenbach was a vast dirigible, almost a kilometer in length. The surface was encrusted with engines, viewpoints, and complex structures that would have dwarfed entire earthbound castles. Massive gun turrets bristled along its length. A row of windmills turned slowly along its keel. Perched atop its spine, minarets, domes and towers filled every square foot. Gardens were visible, as were the three great smokestacks venting steam.\n\nSurrounding it on every side, above and below, was an armada of hundreds of smaller airships, although, Agatha realized with a shock, that several of these \"smaller\" ships were themselves dreadnoughts in the Baron's fleet, made small only by the presence of the larger ship they escorted. Even at a glance one could see an order in the seeming chaos, as ships arrived and departed to and from the wide-spread empire.\n\nThe Baron had begun construction of the giant airship almost sixteen years ago, and had continually enlarged it until it had reached its current size. As his base of operations, it was unique as the only capital that was able to patrol its own empire. Onboard was the bureaucracy that allowed the Baron's Empire to function, and many a local warlord had awoken to discover that the master's crack teams of accountants and inspectors had landed in the night and were anxious to question him about irregularities in the books or that peculiar smell coming from the hidden laboratory. Its support crew numbered in the thousands, and rumor had it that vast numbers of them had not touched the earth in years. Many things were whispered about what went on aboard the gigantic airship, but surprisingly few townsfolk had been there. Sightings always caused the local population to pour out into the streets to stare until it had passed by. The panic started when it stopped overhead.\n\nAgatha sat down as she stared upwards. She had traveled with Dr. Beetle several times on airships. They had been cramped, utilitarian vehicles. \"I didn't know\u2026 it didn't feel like we were aboard a\u2026\"\n\n\"Really? I wouldn't know. I grew up there.\"\n\nThis brought Agatha back. \"Oh yes. Sleipnir O'Hara said to say 'Welcome back.'\"\n\nGil's face hardened. \"Oh, she did, did she? Nice of her to remember me.\"\n\nAgatha was surprised at his reaction. \"She seemed very fond of you, actually.\"\n\n\"She has a funny way of showing it. I never heard from her, or any of the others once I left for Paris.\" It was obvious despite his light tone, that this was something that bothered Gil quite a bit.\n\nAgatha frowned. \"Now wait a minute. She said that you never responded to any of their letters.\"\n\n\"I never got any letters, and they never bothered to come see me when I returned.\"\n\n\"Did you try to see them?\"\n\n\"No,\" Gil said coldly, \"I thought they'd made their feelings clear enough\u2014\"\n\n\"Guess they felt the same way.\"\n\n\"But I didn't\u2014\" Gil paused. His eyes narrowed. He continued slowly, \"Or rather, I had been led to believe\u2026\"\n\nThe engine gave a sudden cough and both of them looked at it. It hiccoughed and then roared back to full power. Gil nodded. \"You had some interesting ideas regarding the engine.\" He paused. \"Build many?\"\n\nAgatha slumped down into her seat. \"None that work. I can't concentrate. Nothing I do ever works. It's so frustrating! I can see it in my head, but everything I build explodes or falls apart.\"\n\nThe engine burped again. A worried look flitted across Gil's face. \"Um\u2026 Maybe I'd better check that engine again\u2026\"\n\nAgatha ignored him. \"And when I do try to concentrate, I get these terrible headaches that prevent me from doing anything! It's so\u2014\"\n\nGil broke in. \"You were working pretty intensely a minute ago and you didn't get a headache then.\"\n\nAgatha looked at him owlishly. \"Why, you're right.\" She thought, \"Maybe it was because I was interrupted by your\u2026\" She looked at the little construct who had been waving at her frantically, but gave up, \"Zoing?\"\n\nGil studied her. \"But if you've never been able to concentrate, how could you have\u2014?\" At this point Zoing grabbed the front of Gil's coverall and began to furiously shake it. Annoyed, Gil turned. \"What is it, Zoing? I\u2014\"\n\nIt was then that they saw the enormous gallery of windows set into the side of Castle Wulfenbach looming scant yards before them. All three had time to see the reflection of their stricken faces before they plowed straight through them in an explosion of glass and metal. Agatha found herself clutching Gil for dear life as the flyer burst into a causeway and continued through the walls on the opposite side. Wood paneling and various weapons flew about. The machine crashed to the ground and began to skid upon an ornate oriental carpet as debris bounced through the room, smashing furniture and knocking what appeared to be hunting trophies to the floor. In an enormous chair in the center of the room, a large creature looked up, startled at the intrusion. He had a large ornate teacup halfway to his mouth, and a book clumsily held in his oversized hand. They were heading straight for him when the creature calmly dropped his book, stuck out his arm, and with no apparent effort, halted the skidding machine dead.\n\nAgatha, Gil and Zoing were thrown forward. Agatha flew through the air and suddenly found herself gently cradled in the crook of an enormous arm, while a pair of curious eyes beneath furry white eyebrows peered down at her. A wreath of white hair encircled the monster's brow, and a fearsome set of tusks protruded from its mouth. The lower set had been elegantly capped in gold. The rest of the creature was dressed in an elaborate red military uniform, encrusted with medals and festooned with gold lace and buttons. The sharp-toothed mouth gaped wide. \"Iz hyu hokay dere, sveethot?\"\n\nAgatha blinked. The dialect was unmistakable. This was a J\u00e4germonster, but unlike any she had ever seen or heard of. \"I\u2026\n\nI think so,\" she said.\n\n\"Goot!\" He turned to Gil, who clambered out from behind the remains of the steering wheel. \"Howzabout hyu, kiddo?\"\n\nGil tried to stand, and wound up sitting instead. He looked at the enormous creature sitting calmly before him, and looked at the front of the little flyer. The image of a gigantic clawed hand was deeply imprinted in the machine's nose. \"General Khrizhan! Are you all right?\"\n\nThe J\u00e4gergeneral snorted in amusement. \"Ho! Uv caurze, a leedle machine like dot? Pliz!\"\n\nAt this point Agatha realized that the monster soldier had not put her down. \"Excuse me?\" she ventured. The general looked at her with surprise, and with evident reluctance, gently set her to her feet.\n\nHe looked at the damage to his room, and seemed to find it genuinely amusing. He turned to Gil. \"If hyu vaz tryin kto zuprize hyu poppa, hyu vaz a leedle off. He iz not due for hour meetink for anodder\u2014\" he twisted his head to look at the face of an ornate clock that was smashed onto its side \"\u2014fife meenutes.\"\n\nGil went pale. \"My father? My father is coming here?\"\n\n\"Ho yez.\"\n\nGil clutched at his head. \"Was I just thinking that this day couldn't get any worse?\"\n\nAgatha spoke up from next to the mangled flyer. \"I think the engine is still salvageable. We could\u2014\"\n\nThe change that came over Gilgamesh was astonishing. Instantly he became the grim, efficient creature that Agatha had seen in Dr. Beetle's lab. He pointed towards the door. \"GO!\" he barked.\n\nAgatha looked stunned. \"What?\"\n\n\"Go! I've got to deal with my father and I do not want him to\u2014\" He seemed at a loss. \"Just go!\"\n\nGeneral Khrizhan broke in. \"Ho dun be like dat. Hyu poppa vould understend. Vy the tings hive dun to impress a pretty gorl make dis luke like nodding! Some tea end\u2014\"\n\nGil forcibly picked Agatha up, carried her to the door and thrust her outside. \"Zoing!\" he yelled.\n\nThe little creature scuttled out from under the general's chair clutching a tea biscuit. \"Take her back to the dorm level. Now!\" And with that he slammed the door behind them.\n\nThe general shrugged and raised a hand to his face to hide a grin, and totally failed to do so. \"A peety.\" He rumbled, \"She seemed verra\u2014\" He stopped suddenly. He sniffed at his hand deeply. He paused. \"Master Wulfenbach,\" he asked casually, \"who vas dot gorl?\"\n\nGil kicked a flyer part off of the remains of the carpet. \"She's just a lab assistant.\" He looked closely at the J\u00e4gergeneral. \"Why?\"\n\nKhrizhan grinned toothily. \"She smells\u2026 verra nize.\"\n\nEmbarrassed, Gil turned away. \"Oh, please, what is it with you people? She does not smell 'nice'!\"\n\nUnfortunately, this last statement was delivered with enough force that it was clearly audible to the people standing outside the door. In addition to Agatha and Zoing, there was a crowd of J\u00e4germonsters as well as a growing number of airship personnel, many of them obviously prepared to deal with fire or some other disaster.\n\nAs Gil's pronouncement rang through the air, everyone turned to Agatha, who reddened, and radiating fury, stalked off with Zoing scrabbling to keep up. One of the J\u00e4germonsters called out to her. \"He dun know vat hees talkink about, sveethot! Hyu schmell vunderful!\"\n\nAt this point it was hard to tell where Agatha's skin began, and the red coverall ended, but she managed to turn the corner with her head held high. Her attitude was evident enough that the onrushing crowd parted around her, until the familiar figure of Ardsley Wooster rushed up. \"Miss Clay,\" he cried. \"Where is Master Gilgamesh?\"\n\nAgatha glared at him icily. \"Your swinish employer is in with a General Khrizhan. He's better than he deserves to be.\"\n\nArdsley blinked, but wisely realized that these were waters best avoided. \"Ah\u2014thank you,\" he said, and dashed off.\n\nAgatha watched him go. She looked down at Zoing. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nZoing bobbled affirmatively and offered her a nibbled tea biscuit.\n\nAgatha suddenly realized that she was starving. Enough so that she seriously considered the offered biscuit. \"No thank you. Let's go.\"\n\nAlmost half an hour later, the enormity of Castle Wulfenbach had been firmly established, and Agatha was feeling a bit overwhelmed.\n\nEventually they reached a set of doors labeled \"Student Dormitory,\" which were guarded by a pair of bored-looking soldiers. They asked Agatha her name, checked her off against a list, and waved her through. Once they stepped over the sill, Zoing stopped, tipped his hat and skittered back the way they'd come. Agatha sighed and pushed open the inner door and found herself in the long common room. Cries erupted from the apparently ever-present swarm of children.\n\n\"There she is!\"\n\n\"Master Gilgamesh really took you on a flying machine?\"\n\n\"We saw you out the windows!\"\n\n\"You were flyin'!\"\n\n\"Were you in your underwear?\"\n\n\"Did you really crash into the Castle?\"\n\n\"We all felt it!\"\n\nSleipnir pushed through the crowd of chattering children. Agatha was surprised at how happy she was to see a friendly face, and impulsively hugged the redhead, who smiled, and hugged her tightly in return.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" Sleipnir asked. \"You were really flying with Gil?\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"I'm okay. No one was hurt, but it was a real mess.\"\n\nOne of the little boys piped up in a singsong voice, \"Your boyfriend is gonna be jealous.\"\n\nA hissing voice filled the room, freezing all the children into immobility. \"No, he won't\u2014\"\n\nAgatha started to turn, but a sudden blur turned into a black claw that grabbed the front of her outfit and swung her around as it hoisted her into the air. Agatha found herself staring into the face of a furious woman, her blonde hair pulled back into a painfully tight bun, a ruby-red monocle was screwed into her left eye and her mouth was filled with sharp, pointy teeth. Her tight black leather outfit was fastened with a variety of buckles and straps that creaked and clinked whenever she moved, which she did with an inhuman quickness. Effortlessly she brought Agatha up to her face with one hand and snarled, \"He will be in mourning!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "\u2003Monsters and machines blotting out the sun\n\n\u2003Fighting in a war that never can be won.\n\n\u2003The men in the castles are having lots of fun\n\n\u2003And all we can do is run, run, run.\n\n\u2014Traditional children's song\n\n\"I am Von Pinn,\" the ominous figure continued, \"I am in charge here. You\u2014\" she gave the dangling Agatha a sharp shake, \"are Agatha Clay. I have not heard good things about you.\" She indicated the children who were frozen into immobility around the room. \"I take the safety of these children very seriously, and I have just witnessed an example of your reckless behavior.\"\n\nAgatha tried to break in. \"The flying machine? But I didn't\u2014 urk\"\n\nVon Pinn loosened the grip that had cut Agatha off. \"Understand that you are here to keep a minor Spark in line. Nothing more. I will not permit you to place any of my charges in danger.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't\u2014gurk!\"\n\nVon Pinn's voice became even more ominous. \"I have also heard reports of your tendency towards indecency. Your upbringing has obviously been shockingly lax. This is no doubt the fault of your parents.\"\n\nA small switch in Agatha's head clicked over from \"scared\" to \"angry.\" \"Oh, now hold on! My parents\u2014\" She was jerked to within inches of Von Pinn's face. \"Silence! I am aware of the swinish behavior of the lower classes.\" Agatha's eyes bulged. \"You\u2026 I\u2026 If\u2026\"\n\n\"While you are in my care you will conduct yourself in a more seemly fashion. And despite any pathetic dreams you may have about 'bettering your position'\u2014I assure you that Master Gilgamesh, in particular, will not be taken by your slatternly ways.\"\n\nAgatha grasped Von Pinn's arm and glared at her in fury. \"I wouldn't have your Master Gilgamesh if you stripped him naked and dipped him in cheese!\"\n\nEveryone watching, gasped. Von Pinn's face froze. Slowly she brought Agatha's face to within an inch of her own. \"And what,\" she asked dangerously, \"is wrong with Master Gilgamesh?\"\n\nRage filled Agatha and exploded outwards. \"PUT ME DOWN YOU WRETCHED CONSTRUCT!\"\n\nInstantly Von Pinn's hand snapped open and Agatha fell to the floor. A look of shock and horror crossed Von Pinn's face as she stared at her open hand. That look changed to fury and she turned to face a dazed Agatha, her hands forming into claws, when suddenly, a soft chiming sound came from her waist. Faster then the eye could follow, a hand dipped into a hidden pocket and extracted a small gold pocket watch. Von Pinn glanced at it and snapped the cover shut. When she looked at Agatha, she was once again in control.\n\n\"I have a class in three minutes. I am never late. I will deal with you later.\"\n\nAgatha stood up. \"Deal with me by listening to me. I\u2014\"A puff of displaced air and the slamming of the door at the end of the room announced Von Pinn's departure.\n\nAgatha blinked. \"Wow. That was fast. How does she\u2014?\" It was then that she noticed the circle of open-mouthed faces staring at her in astonishment. The tableaux continued for several seconds before Agatha broke it with a sharp \"What?\" This was the signal for all of the children under six to begin crying at the top of their lungs.\n\n\"What did I do?\" Agatha asked Sleipnir as she held a sobbing four-year-old.\n\n\"You got Von Pinn riled up.\" A boy who appeared to be about twelve, with a small silver clock imbedded in his forehead, started tossing a little girl up into the air. \"Sleipnir said you were friendly. She neglected to mention that you were suicidal.\"\n\nA tall, dark skinned, young man with sleek black hair pulled back into a short ponytail emerged from one of the apartments. He took in the situation and then stepped up to the railing and his voice boomed out. \"Hey! Who wants to hear a Heterodyne story?\"\n\nStartled, the children stared at him and then began clamoring in assent, their fear forgotten. The young man settled down at the top of the steps and made a great show of scratching his chin in thought. \"Well now, what's a good one?\" The children clustered about his feet and made suggestions.\n\nOne boy stood slightly apart from the rest and crossed his arms defiantly. \"Aw, the Heterodyne Boys weren't real people.\" This caused the children to gasp in surprise.\n\nThe young man turned to him. \"Of course they were, Olaf. The Baron used to work with them. My Aunt Lucrezia married one of them. They're real people all right.\"\n\n\"Then where are they?\"\n\n\"Ah, now that's a good story! It's called The Heterodyne Boys and the Dragon From Mars!\" All of the children, even Olaf, leaned forward in expectation.\n\nOff to the side, the older children relaxed. Agatha nudged Sleipnir and indicated the storyteller. \"Who's that?\"\n\n\"Theopholus DuMedd. He's head boy.\"\n\n\"Head boy?\"\n\nSleipnir looked slightly embarrassed. \"There's a\u2026 pecking order here. There's some that take it more seriously than others. It factors in family lineage, Sparkiness and some other nonsense. Theo's related to the Heterodynes by marriage, and he's got a touch of the Spark to him.\"\n\n\"Really? Wow.\"\n\nSuddenly Theo jumped up and stretched out his arms and intoned, \"And the revenants saw them and they RAN!\" Which was apparently the signal for all of the young children to run squealing about the room, a lumbering Theo in pursuit.\n\nSleipnir smiled. \"He's a great storyteller.\"\n\nThey paused as a swarm of children fled past. Theo followed stiff leggedly. He nodded to the girls as he passed. \"RHaah,\" he said conversationally.\n\n\"And he knows how to talk to a lady, he does.\" Sleipnir looked over at Agatha and \"tsked.\" \"I see you'll be needing a change of clothes. The Von Pinn's a rough one.\" Agatha glanced down and saw that where the construct had grasped her, her outfit was sliced and torn. \"Come on, I got you some stuff from crew supplies. It'll probably fit you a bit better too.\"\n\nInside Sleipnir's room, Agatha tried on several outfits. They did fit better, and Agatha felt more herself once she was back in a proper, ankle-length skirt. But Sleipnir did insist on including a few pairs of mechanics trousers in the wardrobe they assembled. \"You'll get used to 'em,\" she promised. Agatha doubted it.\n\n\"So, this Von Pinn. What is she?\"\n\n\"She's the nanny. She's in charge of the children.\" Agatha stopped and looked at Sleipnir closely, but as far as she could tell, the redhead was serious.\n\n\"You've got to be kidding. That vicious lunatic is in charge of children?\"\n\n\"Oh, aye. I've been raised by her for the last ten years. It's very comforting, really. She's never hurt any of the children, and you know that nothing could get past her to hurt you.\" Sleipnir looked Agatha in the eye, \"And on this ship, this close to the Baron, that's worth knowing.\" Her voice dropped conspiratorially, \"They say that she was once Lucrezia Heterodyne.\"\n\nAgatha was surprised. \"Really?\"\n\n\"Oh, aye. The Baron found her in the ruins of Castle Heterodyne after the Other destroyed it and brought her back here.\"\n\n\"That would be a heck of a case of P.R.T.\"\n\nP.R.T, or Post-Revivification Trauma, was a frequent result when people were brought back from death as constructs. The chief symptom was memory failure, which could range from the temporary blanking of a few hours, up to and including total, permanent identity loss. This latter was the more common result, and was the main reason why more madboys didn't transform themselves into constructs in the first place. It was still tempting, as the basics of construct technology were fairly well understood, as were the steps required to give the standard improvements to speed, strength and lifespan. Many a madboy, impatient with the limitations imposed upon their body by nature, had succumbed to temptation only to awaken with no knowledge of their previous life. Most of these creatures were subsequently destroyed by vengeful citizens or were now working for the Baron. This was because another frequent result was a shift in personality, and many a fulminating madboy now found simple contentment as a researcher or lab assistant. Theoretically it could also go the other way around, but as the supply of meek, quiet, sensible Sparks was vanishingly low to start with, it had, so far, remained merely a tricky essay question on the \"Ethics of Revivification\" final exam at Paris' Institut de L'Extraordinaire. These revived Sparks were so useful that the Baron actively encouraged his more hysterical fellow Sparks to \"give themselves a makeover.\"\n\n\"That's as may be,\" said Sleipnir, \"though I've heard it whispered that the Lady Heterodyne had quite a temper in her before.\"\n\nThey emerged just at the climax of Theo's story. Agatha was sorry she'd missed the rest, as it apparently involved a gigantic mechanical dragon that was currently being dragged off to Mars via some sort of water portal, pulling the Heterodynes in behind it aboard a rowboat. Suddenly the portal shut with the SMACK of Theopholus' hands coming together, causing his rapt audience to jump and then squeal in appreciation.\n\nThen one of the boys announced that he was hungry and the others joined in. At this the dark-clad servants swooped in and began seating the children at the table.\n\nAgatha was forcibly reminded of how hungry she was at this point by her stomach growling loud enough to be heard by Sleipnir, who laughed and showed her where to sit at one of the long tables.\n\nThere was a quick round of introductions, but Agatha found herself distracted by a flurry of activity from a small group of children who had not sat down, but had, to Agatha's surprise, produced several odd-looking devices. These proved to be controllers of some sort, as with a crash, several primitive clanks rolled, or in one notable case lurched, into the room from what was obviously an attached kitchen.\n\nFirst came a tall, spindly device that made sure everyone had knives, forks and spoons. Unfortunately, it delivered them with such speed, that as it swept past, it left a small forest of utensils imbedded into the wooden tabletop, still vibrating. Agatha couldn't help but notice that the tabletops looked brand new, and were held in place by spring-locked brackets for easy replacement. Suddenly, this made a lot of sense.\n\nNext came the lurching clank, which was loaded with a precarious tower of ever shifting china soup bowls. To everyone's astonishment, it stepped up onto the tabletop itself, and proceeded to spill bowls onto the table in an endless cascade. After the first panic, everyone realized that the bowls wound up undamaged, upright, and perfectly positioned upon the table. Agatha stared at the wildly flailing mechanism and saw how the \"falling\" bowls were actually skillfully guided down by a series of well-coordinated taps. Everyone understood now, and the table spontaneously erupted in applause right up until the clank strode over the edge of the table and crashed to the floor, sending shattered bowls across half the room. An eight-year-old girl with bluish-black hair and prominent eyebrows dropped her controller and began to cry. A servant knelt to comfort her while several of the others quickly swept up the mess.\n\nThe third clank looked like a small tanker car on treads. It lumbered up and a pipe swiveled out. The pipe gurgled and Theo, with a lightning fast move, twitched his bowl under the pipe in time for a stream of hot soup to pour forth. The bowl filled perfectly, and Theo closed his eye and sniffed appreciably, which is why he failed to see the pipe swing towards his head with a dull BONK. A small child with a swarthy complexion swore in Greek and made an adjustment on the controller. The pipe elevated, the clank advanced, and the process repeated. By the time the device had swung around the table and got to Agatha, a fourth clank, held aloft by an ingenious collection of balloons and propellers had made several trips back and forth delivering baskets of fresh hot bread, racks of condiments and ramekins of fresh butter.\n\nAgatha ducked under the pipe and examined the soup, which smelled incredible. It was a rich chicken soup, filled with an array of finely sliced vegetables, several of which Agatha was unfamiliar with. A bowl of thick yellow sp\u00e4tzle noodles was handed to her by Sleipnir. Agatha took her cue from the others and spooned a ladle full into her soup.\n\nThe children were wiping down their clanks and congratulating each other. The girl with the bowl-dispenser clank was still snuffling a bit, but had rallied.\n\n\"That was pretty amazing,\" Agatha said. \"Does that sort of thing happen at every meal?\"\n\n\"Are you joking?\" DuMedd muttered sottovoce, \"We'd be dead in a week.\" He twitched a thumb and Agatha noticed several small holes in one of the walls. \"You're lucky you missed last Monday's Swedish meatballs.\"\n\nAgatha thoughtfully turned back to her meal. The soup itself was tangy and delicious and Agatha found that she had emptied half her bowl before she looked up. \"You were hungry,\" Sleipnir allowed, and poured Agatha a large glass of a thick, white liquid from a broad-based pitcher. Agatha sniffed it and a brief taste confirmed that it was tangy, like buttermilk, but sweet.\n\n\"That's called lassi,\" Sleipnir said as she lowered her own half-emptied glass. \"It's a fermented milk drink that Theo brought.\"\n\nFurther down the table, DuMedd waved a hand in acknowledgement. \"Everyone's expected to provide a few dishes from their homeland. Makes for a nice bit of variety,\" he explained.\n\nAgatha found herself chewing a spicy vegetable that required the rest of her lassi to quench. She demurely wiped her lips with the heavy linen napkin from her lap. \"You know, I'm quite fond of the Heterodyne Boys stories, but I've never heard that one with the dragon before.\"\n\nTheo grinned and pushed his spectacles up his nose. \"I just made it up. You liked it?\" He had a deep voice that made Agatha's ears tingle.\n\nAgatha nodded. \"My favorite story is The Heterodyne Boys and the Race to the West Pole.\"\n\nA short young man with a noble prow of a nose spoke up. \"You have an ear for the truth. That one really happened.\" He became aware of the rest of the group looking at him. \"Well, mostly,\" he added defensively.\n\nAgatha cocked an eyebrow at him. \"Right.\"\n\n\"No, no! It is true! My father built the Mechanical Camel!\"\n\nAgatha blinked. \"Your father is\u2014?\"\n\nThe young man drew himself up proudly. \"The Iron Sheik. Yes. And I am his son, Z\u00e2m\u00ee Yahy\u00e2 Ahmad ibn Sulim\u00e2n al-Sin\u00e2j\u00ee.\" He smiled. \"But you may call me 'Z.'\"\n\nAgatha sat back in her chair and regarded him with wide eyes. \"Golly. I'm not used to thinking of the Heterodyne Boys and the people in the stories as\u2026 as real people.\"\n\nZ\u00e2m\u00ee shrugged. \"As real as you or I.\"\n\nAt this point, a large dish of various cheeses began to make the rounds. None of them looked familiar, and Sleipnir made a few helpful suggestions. Most of them were delicious, but one of them caused Agatha to choke, as she was convinced that she was eating someone's unwashed foot. The others at the table, who had been watching her surreptitiously, snorted in laughter at her expression. \"Give it up, O'Hara,\" said Sun Ming, a slim Asian girl seated next to DuMedd. \"No one else but you likes that stuff.\"\n\nSleipnir morosely took the remaining chunk of the offending cheese off of Agatha's plate. \"You are all heathens, who wouldn't know the ambrosia of the gods from a cod's head and I pity you all, sure enough.\" She popped it in her mouth and chewed.\n\nAgatha found herself laughing with the rest. While the circumstances behind her being here were alarming, she found that she enjoyed the company of these people more than she had ever enjoyed the company of the students at the college.\n\nA thought struck her and she looked around. Between the older and younger children, they occupied just two of the vast tables in the common area. There were easily another twenty of these, all unoccupied, except for a cluster of the servants who sat near the younger children, keeping an eye on them while they supped on their own bowls of soup. \"I can't help but notice that there aren't a lot of students here,\" Agatha observed. A few of the others nodded.\n\n\"You came at a quiet time,\" DuMedd explained. \"The Baron insists that those with lands that need planting in the spring should help oversee the process personally, and actually assist if they're old enough.\"\n\nA tall young man with wildly disheveled hair who'd been introduced as Nicodeamus Yurkofsky chimed in. \"He says that it gives them a better appreciation of where their power comes from and who's actually keeping them fed.\"\n\nAgatha thought about some of the members of Royalty that she had seen come through the Tyrant's labs throughout the years. \"I'll bet they love that,\" she said carefully.\n\n\"It's the older generation that gets all horrified,\" DuMedd said with a laugh. \"The kids look forward to it all year long. That and the harvest. The fact that it scandalizes their parents? That's usually seen as a bonus.\"\n\nAgatha looked around at them. \"So what about your families?\"\n\nDuMedd's face got sober. \"I don't have any family.\" Agatha started to stammer an apology, but he waved it aside. \"You couldn't know. My parents died fighting air pirates about twelve years ago.\"\n\n\"Really? Were they Sparks?\"\n\n\"Yes. My father was more into the theoretical stuff, but my mother was Demonica Mongfish.\"\n\nThe Mongfish name was one that was mentioned prominently in any history of the Spark. From their citadel in Novaya Zemlya, they had periodically terrorized the surrounding area. The latest, Lucifer Mongfish had been a perennial opponent to the Heterodyne Boys, so much so that, eventually, one of his three daughters, Lucrezia Mongfish, actually married Bill Heterodyne. After that, everyone pretty much agreed that fighting in public would be unseemly. Holiday get-togethers, however, were a different matter, and by mutual agreement, every event was held at a different location to reduce the collateral damage.\n\nMost of the others had similar stories. Sleipnir concluded, \"There's also a few of the others who are still here, but they're on duty, like your roommate, Zulenna. You'll meet her later.\"\n\n\"Zulenna. That's a pretty name. Is she nice?\" The others looked at each other.\n\n\"Um\u2026 no, not really,\" Sleipnir admitted. \"There's a reason why she's without a roommate at the moment.\"\n\nSuddenly they became aware of raised voices from the children's table. \"No\u2014that's not how they worked!\"\n\n\"Oh, like you'd know!\"\n\n\"I know enough to do basic research on biomechanics!\"\n\n\"The only thing that's basic around here is your grasp of the theories behind mechanical forces!\"\n\n\"Oooh! You take that back!\"\n\nAgatha found this discussion a bit disconcerting, partly because it was delivered by a pair of twelve-year-olds, and partly because it sounded exactly like an argument she'd heard last week in the teacher's lounge at the University.\n\n\"Make me, stupid head!\"\n\n\"Ooh! I'm telling!\"\n\nYep. Exactly.\n\nTheo reached in and pulled the two apart. \"Now what is this all about?\"\n\nA small, wiry boy sporting a large pair of goggles spoke up. \"The bugs\u2014\"\n\nThe other boy, the freckled redhead with a small silver clock set into his forehead, interrupted. \"Duh\u2014Slaver wasps.\"\n\n\"Get wound. You can't just suck them out of people like in Theo's story, can you?\"\n\nTheo nodded somberly. \"That's correct, Itto. Nothing can cure a revenant.\"\n\n\"But the story said\u2014\"\n\n\"Stories are for fun. Do not mistake them for facts.\"\n\nAnother child spoke up. \"My father said that the wasps came out of machines.\"\n\n\"That is correct. They're called Hive Engines.\"\n\nA little girl piped up. \"Oh that. We saw one of those.\"\n\n\"What?\" Sleipnir exclaimed. \"Where?\"\n\n\"We were playing on the dirigible deck and the footmen said we had to go. But we hid and we saw them unloading this big thing they called a Hive Engine.\" She pointed towards Agatha. \"They unloaded her too. She and her booooyyfriend were on stretchers.\"\n\nEveryone looked at Agatha expectantly. She nodded. \"There was a Hive Engine in Dr. Beetle's lab. I guess they brought it here.\"\n\nZ\u00e2m\u00ee looked upset. \"A Hive Engine? In the middle of a town? What was this Dr. Beetle thinking?\"\n\nOne of the black-clad servants suddenly appeared at his elbow. \"Such talk is not for younger ears. Off with you.\" To the obvious disappointment of the younger children, the older group moved off down the hall.\n\n\"I\u2026 I don't know what he was thinking,\" Agatha admitted. \"About anything.\"\n\nSleipnir broke in, \"What is the Baron thinking bringing it here?\"\n\nNicodeamus proclaimed, \"The Baron can handle anything.\"\n\nThe others looked at him. He shrugged. \"Mostly.\"\n\nMeanwhile Theo had gotten a faraway look in his eyes. \"So\u2014 Where would this Hive Engine be, do you think?\"\n\nSleipnir looked at him askance. \"The Large Dangerous Mechanical Lab would be my guess. Why?\"\n\n\"Well\u2026 I've never seen a Hive Engine, now have I?\"\n\nSleipnir wheeled around and prodded his chest with a finger. \"You want to go sneaking into one of the Baron's labs? Even after what happened to you the last time?\"\n\nTheo looked at her blankly. \"Well\u2026 Yeah.\"\n\nSleipnir did a quick jig. \"Sweet! Let's go!\"\n\n\"What exactly did happen to you the last time?\" Agatha asked.\n\n\"Oh never you mind that, Agatha,\" said Sleipnir. \"Come on, it'll be fun!\"\n\n\"Plus,\" pointed out Nicodeamus, \"she's the only one who knows what this thing looks like.\"\n\nAgatha felt a sudden tug at her skirt. Looking down, she saw Itto standing defiantly. \"I want to come too,\" he announced.\n\nTheo shook his head. \"Forget it, Itto. You're too young. Von Pinn would kill me.\"\n\n\"I won't tell her!\"\n\n\"No! You stay here.\"\n\nWith that the group moved off. Agatha's last view of Itto was of the youngster sullenly kicking a table leg. Once around the corner, she hurried to catch up to Sleipnir. \"You can't tell me that we can just waltz into one of the Baron's labs.\"\n\nSleipnir winked. \"You'd be surprised. Most of the labs aren't that well guarded.\"\n\nZ\u00e2m\u00ee nodded. \"The Baron is most careful about who gets onto the Castle in the first place.\"\n\n\"And getting off is even harder,\" Nicodeamus added.\n\n\"Besides,\" Theo pointed out, \"we're not going to walk in through the front door. There's lots of ways\u2014\" He was interrupted by Agatha, who had stopped dead and put a finger to her lips. The others stopped and, a second later, a small figure slipped around the corner they had just turned and ran straight into Agatha's waiting hands.\n\n\"ITTO!\" Frantically the boy tried to break free from Agatha. Theo's hand descended onto his shoulder. \"You were told not to come.\"\n\nAgatha looked slightly relieved. \"I'll just take him back\u2014\"\n\nSleipnir shook her head. \"Oh no, he's coming with us now.\"\n\nItto punched the air. \"Yes!\"\n\n\"BUT\u2014\"Sleipnir continued to the boy, \"if you get infected by a Slaver wasp, we'll have to kill you.\"\n\nItto's eyes got huge behind his goggles. \"What?\"\n\nSleipnir looked sad. \"Sure, and I'd hate to do it. So whatever you do, don't open your mouth. Understand?\"\n\nItto nodded frantically and clapped a hand over his mouth.\n\nThey moved off in silence, twisting and turning through corridors until Theo stopped before an unobtrusive door. Reaching into his vest, he pulled out a large bunch of keys. He flipped through them, selected one and delicately probed the lock. A quick twist, a muffled thunk, and the door swung open. With a flourish, he bowed them into a small antechamber lined with maintenance lockers. Against the far wall was a metal ladder that ascended into the darkness. He lightly grasped the ladder to feel for the vibrations that would indicate that it was in use, and felt nothing. He nodded in satisfaction and turned to the others, his face serious. \"This is an access ladder to one of the lighting maintenance platforms. Once we get up there, move slowly and gently, they're not made to take a lot of extra weight.\" He looked directly at Itto. \"And above all, keep quiet.\"\n\nFrom behind his hand, Itto grunted an acknowledgement.\n\nWhen Agatha's turn came, she stepped onto the ladder, and with a sigh of resignation, began climbing. Eventually she joined the others on a small metal platform dominated by an enormous arc-light. The air was sweltering, as the great light put out heat like a furnace, and the platform shivered unnervingly whenever anyone stepped too heavily. It looked out upon a large cavernous room, lined with workbenches and machinery. Agatha noticed however that there were also racks of weapons to hand, as well as excessive amounts of fire fighting equipment, medical supplies and large mobile barriers. Also standing about the room were some of the large creatures that Agatha had seen in the corridor. The domes that occupied the place where their heads should have been gleamed under the arc-lights.\n\nSleipnir noticed the direction of Agatha's gaze. \"Those are Radioheads,\" she whispered. \"The Baron acquired them from some madlad he had to put down in Albania a few years ago. He figured if he could build fighters without brains, they wouldn't get scared or feel pain or worry about dyin'. The Baron doesn't use them off the Castle, because they creep people out too much.\"\n\n\"But\u2026 If they don't have a brain, how can they do anything?\" Sleipnir directed Agatha's attention to a group of uniformed women that were on a small balcony on another wall of the vast chamber. All of the women were lined up, peering at the room below them. They seemed relaxed, and Agatha could hear their voices as they idly chatted amongst themselves. A flash of reflection made Agatha realize that each of them was wearing a small glass dome atop their heads as well.\n\nSleipnir continued, \"Each one of them controls a Radiohead. Like a puppeteer, except it's permanent.\"\n\nAgatha shivered. \"Those poor girls.\"\n\n\"Don't feel sorry for them. The Baron's offered to free them from the connection, but not one of them took him up on it. They're happy the way things are.\"\n\nAgatha blinked. She was spared having to reply by Theo touching her arm. \"Agatha, is that the Hive Engine?\" He whispered. She followed his finger and was startled to see that the device was almost directly below them. Within its thick glass shell, the now familiar disturbing shapes slowly roiled in the thick green liquid.\n\n\"Yes, that's it.\" A trio of figures emerged from a doorway and approached the sphere. \"Isn't that the Baron?\"\n\nEveryone else froze. \"Yes it is,\" whispered Theo in a strangled voice. \"Now shhhh!\"\n\nOn the floor below, the Baron walked around the vast sphere, examining it closely. Following him were two of his oldest assistants, Dr. Vg and Mr. Rovainen. Vg was a tall, whipcord-sleek Asian of indeterminate sex. Mr. Rovainen was a short, shambling figure who was swathed in thick bandages, goggles and a voluminous coat. The bits of him that were exposed, glistened with a soft nacreous sheen. Mr. Rovainen had not shaken hands with anyone in years.\n\nKlaus stopped and faced them. \"So. Your preliminary analysis?\"\n\nMr. Rovainen spoke in a wet, buzzing voice. \"It is definitely the work of the Other, Herr Baron.\" He slowly rubbed his bandaged hands together. \"A viable Hive Engine\u2014after all this time. Fascinating.\"\n\nVg broke in angrily. \"No, terrifying! I strongly recommend we put it on a fast ship and drop it into the nearest volcano. There is nothing we can learn that is worth the risk presented by having this thing aboard the Castle.\"\n\nKlaus raised an eyebrow. \"Really. Then you can already tell me whether this device is indeed eighteen years old or brand new.\"\n\nShocked, the two scientists glanced at each other and then wheeled about to stare anew at the slumbering engine. Mr. Rovainen coughed wetly. \"My apologies, Herr Baron. Not yet.\"\n\nOn the platform, the students were straining to hear what was being said. \"It's smaller than I thought,\" Theo murmured.\n\n\"What are they saying?\" Nicodeamus muttered.\n\n\"What if the Slaver wasps escape?\" whimpered Itto.\n\n\"Then all we have to do is run faster than you,\" Sleipnir replied.\n\nLooking slightly ill, Itto backed away from the edge of the platform. Suddenly he noticed a pale lump on an adjoining ledge. The lump rippled. Itto felt his throat close in terror. The lump moaned softly and extended a pale protuberance. Itto backed up until he ran into Sleipnir.\n\n\"Wa\u2026 wa\u2026\" he moaned.\n\n\"Itto? What is it?\" The lump reared itself upwards and a pair of gleaming eyes opened.\n\n\"WHAAAAASSSPP!\" Itto screamed and scrambled over the others, throwing them into confusion. The large white cat that had been slumbering on the platform bolted off into the darkness. Suddenly there was a loud CRACK! and the platform began to move. It tipped forward sharply. Agatha grabbed for the wall and snagged an exposed ring bolt. Her arms twinged as the platform stopped with a jerk, but suddenly everyone screamed as they felt the floor begin to buckle. With a groan, and a snapping of restraining bolts, the great arc-light swayed forward, flared, went out, and with a slow twist, pulled free from its restraints and fell over the side.\n\nAgatha and the others watched in horror as the plummeting light smashed into the Hive Engine, knocking it off of its pedestal. The massive sphere hit the ground and began to roll directly towards the three startled scientists. Dr. Vg and Mr. Rovainen stared at the looming engine, spun and ran shrieking. Klaus sighed and sidestepped the great sphere while scanning the upper reaches of the room.\n\n\"Who's up there?\" he yelled. \"Are you all right?\"\n\nAbove him, Theo pulled Sleipnir off of the swaying platform. \"We are so dead,\" the girl moaned.\n\n\"Only if they catch us,\" Theo reminded her. \"Now come on!\" All of the others were already scrambling down the ladder.\n\nThe door to the lab burst open and a group of Lackya flowed in and surveyed the situation.\n\nOn the floor, a squad of Radioheads had rushed forward and brought the great sphere to a stop. A swath of crushed lab equipment showed its path through the room. In the corner where they'd trapped themselves, Vg and Rovainen realized that they were clutching at each other and hastily disengaged.\n\nOne of the footmen appeared next to the Baron. \"Is it an emergency, Herr Baron?\"\n\n\"No, no, the engine hadn't been activated.\" He pointed upwards. \"There are some students on that light platform. Bring them to me.\"\n\nIn another corridor, the students were moving as quickly as they could without attracting suspicion. Theo was in the lead. \"If we can just get out of this sector\u2014\"\n\n\"WAIT!\" Agatha's shout brought them all up short. She pointed at a small figure running back the way they'd come. \"It's Itto! He's running the wrong way! We've got to get him!\"\n\nSleipnir caught hold of Agatha's sleeve. \"Not to worry! The footmen will catch him and they'll bring him back to the dorm unharmed. Von Pinn would destroy anyone who hurt him.\"\n\nAgatha looked confused. \"Then\u2026 why are we running?\"\n\nTheo put a hand on both girls' shoulders and pushed them along. \"Itto is too young. We, on the other hand, will be put on grease trap duty for life. Again.\"\n\n\"That's bad, is it?\"\n\n\"RUN!\"\n\nBack in the lab, the Baron looked up from a pile of debris to see a squad of footmen approaching. They stepped aside to reveal the terrified figure of Itto in their midst. The Baron looked askance at the leader. \"This is all you caught?\"\n\n\"So far, Herr Baron. Though he does say that he was alone.\"\n\nKlaus scowled. \"Yes, that's what I would expect the son of Jurgen Wheelwright to say.\"\n\nThe boy spoke up. \"It\u2026 It was all my fault, Herr Baron.\"\n\n\"I expect it was. Why were you here?\"\n\n\"I wanted to see a Hive Engine, sir. Everyone knows the story about how you defeated a dragon from Mars that captured Lucrezia Mongfish and spit out Slaver wasps and turned her into Von Pinn and I wanted to see what could do that.\"\n\nKlaus' jaw snapped shut. A massive hand thoughtfully rubbed his nose, incidentally concealing a smile. \"I'd have given a lot to see that myself,\" he conceded. He turned serious and leaned down until his face was inches from Itto's. \"You will never mention to Mistress Von Pinn how she used to be Lucrezia Mongfish. She wouldn't like it. She wouldn't like it at all. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes, Herr Baron,\" the boy whispered.\n\n\"Good.\" The Baron straightened up. \"You will now assist me in sorting out this mess.\" Itto looked astonished, then quickly snapped to attention. \"Yes sir, Herr Baron!\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"And while you're working, tell me this story.\" Itto took a deep breath, but Klaus held up his hand and turned to the waiting footmen. \"Katz? Tell the Blue Level Kitchen Master that young DuMedd is on grease trap duty until further notice.\"\n\nThe footman smirked and bowed slightly. \"Yes, Herr Baron.\" Klaus' voice caught him broadside as he straightened up. \"As is your entire squad if you fail to catch him and his companions!\"\n\nKatz gave a strangled \"glurk!\" and he and his squad swirled out of the room and were gone.\n\n\"Theo? I hear people running.\"\n\nSleipnir slumped against a wall, panting. \"I think we're goin' down, boyo.\"\n\n\"What we need is a place to hide.\" They rounded a corner. Theo brightened. \"Wait! I know where we are! That's an empty lab! Come on!\"\n\n\"What if someone is in it?\" Agatha asked.\n\n\"Relax!\" Theo said as he pulled out his keys. \"We'll use the old 'Mimmoth Catcher' routine. It works every time!\"\n\nThe keys proved unnecessary, as the door was unlocked. Theo straightened his outfit, ran a hand through his hair, and briskly knocked three times before quickly opening the door. \"Excuse us,\" he sang out, \"mimmoth exterminators. Don't let us disturb\u2014\" He stopped dead.\n\nGilgamesh Wulfenbach, who had been hauling the twisted remains of his flying machine up onto a massive workbench, paused, hanging onto the pulley chain with a nostalgic look upon his face. \"Wow. Does that ever take me back.\" He eyed the frozen Theo. \"You're in trouble. You need a place to hide. Probably from my father.\" His lip curled. \"I should have known none of you would talk to me unless you needed something.\"\n\nTheo glared. \"Well if you hadn't told Von Pinn that you were too busy to see anyone\u2014\"\n\nGil looked surprised. \"What?\"\n\nTheo plowed on: \"You're obviously far too important to associate with us anymore, so we'll just\u2014\" As he turned away, Gil grabbed Theo's arm. Theo tried to shrug him off and found instead that he couldn't move his arm at all. A startled glance at Gil's facade showed the faraway look that meant his brain was racing.\n\nHe focused on Theo. \"Did you get any of my letters?\"\n\nTheo blinked. \"No,\" he said slowly. \"Did you get any of ours?\"\n\nHe then hissed in pain at the viselike grip on his arm as a look of fury filled Gil's face. \"Someone was intercepting them\" he growled. \"I don't know who, or how, but I will!\" Suddenly his face cleared and he noticed Theo's distress. He released his arm. \"How many of you are there?\"\n\n\"Um, five.\"\n\n\"Right! Into the cracking vat, I'll get the rest!\"\n\nHe swung open the door to reveal the astonished face of Sleipnir. \"Gil!\"\n\n\"Sleipnir! We'll talk later! Everybody into the vat!\"\n\nSleipnir took a step into the lab and then stopped dead. \"Whoof! What is that smell?\"\n\n\"Ah! There's this girl, a Miss Clay\u2014\"\n\nHe turned and found himself face to face with a furious Agatha who grabbed his shirtfront and shook him like a terrier shaking a rat. \"I have had quite enough of your public opinions about how I smell, Herr Wulfenbach!\" She snarled, and so saying, she hauled off and smacked him across the face. \"I'll face that Von Pinn again before I take any help from you!\"\n\nBefore the stunned young man could say anything, she was off down the corridor at a dead run.\n\n\"No! Wait!\" Gil pulled himself to the doorway. \"Because of your redesign of the engine\u2014\" She was gone. He turned to Theo, who had an amused look on his face. \"Because of her redesign, I can use this great new fuel additive, but it really stinks and I\u2014\"\n\nTheo patted him on the shoulder. \"You still have that fine touch with the ladies, I see.\" The others grinned.\n\n\"GET IN THE VAT!\" Gil snapped.\n\nAgatha stomped along muttering to herself. \"\u2014and then we'll see how he likes smelling that! Get me to a chemical lab and I'll brew up something that will make that pompous jerk wish he'd never been born!\"\n\nHaving got that off of her chest, Agatha surfaced from her thoughts, took note of her surroundings and stopped dead. She was in a dimly lit side corridor. A part of her brain had noted that there had been fewer and fewer people in the corridors she had passed through, and for some time now, she had traveled alone. She briefly considered turning around, but rationalized that as she had no idea where she was, retracing her steps could only aid any lingering pursuers.\n\nShe pushed on, through long winding corridors lined with sealed and locked hatchways, and the occasional large space filled with enigmatic machinery, which hissed and gurgled as she passed. There were no signs, no labels, and nobody else. Initially she would have avoided another person, but now she was actively calling out, trying to find anyone at all. At yet another unlabeled crossways, she stopped and glared at where, logically, a sign should have been.\n\n\"This is ridiculous. Somebody must come through here.\" No one, however, conveniently did so.\n\nShe passed a series of open store-rooms. Dimly lit vaults full of drums and bales. She turned a corner and saw a light wink out from a doorway halfway down the long corridor. Someone was here! Agatha broke into a run and called out, \"Hello? Please wait, I'm lost. Hello?\" But there was no answer, and indeed, no sign of anyone when she reached the doorway in question.\n\n\"I know I saw a light,\" Agatha muttered to herself. She reached around and found the power switch in the usual place and threw it. There was a snap, and the room filled with the harsh white glare of the overhead lamps. Agatha was taken aback. This light was different from the dimmer, more golden light she'd seen. The room was filled with giant spools containing bolts of the crusty, metallic fabric that sheathed Castle Wulfenbach. There was no sound. Agatha felt herself beginning to get annoyed. She stepped in and looked around. The idea that she had been mistaken never entered her head. She came to the end of an aisle of spools, turned, and stared.\n\nLaid out on the floor of the aisle was a collection of debris that was obviously out of place. Such untidiness was doubly shocking after the neatness and order that was rigorously maintained everywhere else aboard the great airship. Agatha was about to go when she noticed that in the middle of the pile was a large ship's lamp. On a hunch, she went over to it and gently touched the metal hood, snatching her hand back at the heat. There was someone here!\n\nQuickly she stood and looked about. She took a step and noticed the ringing sound her foot made upon the deck. She'd heard nothing like that as she approached, so unless the mysterious garbage collector was wearing naught but socks upon their feet, there was nowhere else to go but\u2014\n\nAgatha whipped her head upwards, causing the large white cat that was watching her to jump upwards in surprise.\n\nShe puffed a lock of hair out of her face in annoyance, and looked back at the objects at her feet. She looked again. Odd, from here, it was obvious that the objects were not haphazardly strewn about. They had been laid out quite deliberately. A book caught her eye. It was an open comb-bound manual. Upon examination, Agatha realized that it was an instruction manual for flying one of Castle Wulfenbach's small inspection airships. Excitement seized her. This was exactly what Agatha needed! She examined the line drawings that showed the airship controls. They looked fairly simple and\u2014\n\nAgatha paused, looked again at the debris on the floor, and then re-examined the drawing in the book. There was no mistake. Someone had meticulously re-created the control panels out of various found objects. The inference was obvious. Someone else was surreptitiously trying to learn how to fly one of the small airships.\n\nNow Agatha felt conflicted. Yes, she desperately needed to get off of the airship, but here was evidence that someone else had the same need. Who knew what their reasons were. She thought fiercely for a moment, hugging the book to her chest. Then she spoke up. \"I need to get off of this airship,\" she said loudly. Her voice echoed through the vast room. She listened intently, but heard nothing. \"My parents need me, and the Baron won't let me help find them. This book, the airship instruction manual, will help me get off of this ship, so I'm taking it.\"\n\nSilence. Agatha noticed that the cat, which had been watching her all this time, was lashing its tail in an agitated manner. \"Sorry, kitty,\" she said, \"I'll be out of here shortly.\" The cat hissed at her.\n\nAgatha again called out, \"If you still need this book, speak up now, and we can work together. My companion and I just need to get down to the ground safely. Your reasons are your own.\"\n\nAgain there was nothing.\n\n\"Okay. I've done my best.\" However she still had a twinge of guilt as she tucked the book within her jacket. Looking around, half expecting someone to appear at any moment, she exited the room, switching off the light as she did so, and continued down the hallway. Atop the stack of fabric, the cat stared balefully at the doorway and, with a savage swipe of its claws, tore a great rent in the fabric at its feet.\n\nBuoyed by her discovery, Agatha quickly realized that her immediate situation hadn't really improved. This was driven home by her arrival at yet another desolate, uninformative intersection. She sighed. \"I guess I'll just keep going until I meet somebody or run out of dirigible.\"\n\nThis decision made, she squared her shoulders, picked a corridor at random and strode off, turned a corner, and came to a blank wall.\n\nShe regarded it with disapproval, turned about and marched off, stopping after she had taken two steps. She turned back. \"That's stupid. Why put in a corridor that leads up to a dead end? There must be something here\u2026\"\n\nAs she glared at the wall, one of the rivets surrounding the edge caught her eye. It looked\u2026 different. Experimentally she pushed it, and was rewarded with a dull CHONK noise, and the wall swung open with a faint squeeee.\n\nAgatha grinned, stepped through, and found herself at the lip of a vast pit. She windmilled her arms, barely keeping her balance upon the small ledge that surrounded it.\n\nThe room itself was lit by the lights of some odd-looking machinery that lined the far wall. Agatha noted that there was a much larger floor, as well as another door, on the other side, so she was preparing to inch her way around the pit, when a deep booming voice addressed her from the darkness.\n\n\"Ah! You must be the Villain's Beautiful But Misguided Daughter!\" She almost lost her balance again.\n\nWhen she had stabilized herself, she looked up. Agatha saw a large burly man suspended over the pit by an excessive number of chains. A vast complex of devices were attached to various points on his head, and an obvious bomb had been attached to his feet. He smiled at Agatha engagingly. \"You're just in time!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "\u2003\"J\u00e4germonsters are hard to kill, because the devil don't want them in Hell.\" \u2014Peasant saying\n\n\"I'm the what?\"\n\n\"You're the Baron's beautiful daughter, surely.\"\n\n\"I am not the Baron's daughter.\"\n\nThe hanging man looked nonplused for a moment. His brow furrowed around the visor that hid his eyes. \"Are you sure? I'm usually very good at spotting the offspring of evil geniuses\u2026\" Then his face cleared. \"Ah! Then you must be the plucky lab assistant here to set me free!\"\n\nAgatha began to feel like she was on stage and didn't know her lines. \"I'm sorry, who are you?\"\n\nThe man grinned and, astonishingly, managed to make himself look imposing, even restrained as he was. \"Ah, allow me to introduce myself. I am Othar Tryggvassen\u2014Gentleman Adventurer!\" He smiled modestly. \"Perhaps you've heard of me. I'm told the stories are getting around.\"\n\nAgatha felt her feeling of unreality increase. \"Othar. The Othar. The man who defeated the wooden warriors of Dr. Krause.\"\n\n\"That would be me, yes.\"\n\n\"The hero who saved the hamlet of Lunkhauser from the ever-widening moat.\"\n\n\"The very same.\"\n\n\"The savior of the town of Mount Horeb from the rain of mustard.\"\n\nOthar's grin slid off his face. He chewed his lip. \"I\u2026 uh\u2026 I'm afraid you have me on that one.\"\n\nAgatha nodded approvingly. \"I made it up.\" She peered down the shaft below. Much to her surprise, the bottom was quite visible, as were the gigantic gears that would swiftly grind anything that fell into them into a fine lubricating paste. She looked back at the again grinning Othar. \"You don't seem too worried about\u2026\" She gestured downwards.\n\n\"About being a prisoner in a seemingly hopeless predicament? Well I'd be lying if I said it wasn't inconvenient, but I'll escape eventually. I am the hero, after all, and you are just what I need!\"\n\n\"An audience?\"\n\n\"Ye\u2014no! You can be my spunky girl sidekick. I'm fresh out at the moment. Release me and we'll blow up the Baron's Dirigible of Doom, escape by the skin of our teeth, and then it's cocoa and schnapps all around!\"\n\nAgatha folded her arms. \"'Spunky girl sidekick.'\"\n\n\"Sure! It'll be fun!\"\n\nAgatha nodded and began to resume her edging around the pit towards the far door. \"Look, no offense,\" she said, \"but I've been around Sparks and their labs most of my life.\"\n\nOthar's grin faltered. \"Oh?\"\n\n\"Uh-huh, and I'd rather not end up being the Easily Duped Minion Who Sets the Insanely Dangerous Experiment free. Or the Hostage Who Ensures the Smooth-Talking Villain's escape.\"\n\n\"Ah\u2026\"\n\n\"I don't have any proof that you really are Othar Tryggvassen, or even that you're really human.\"\n\n\"Er\u2026\"\n\nAgatha reached the far side and dusted herself off. \"This Girl Sidekick job doesn't call for a lot of smarts, does it?\"\n\nThe hanging man had the grace to look embarrassed. \"Um\u2026 Not as such, no, but no matter who or what I am, is it right to leave a fellow sentient strung up like this?\"\n\nAgatha considered this. \"That depends on the nature of the experiment.\"\n\nOthar frowned. \"I think you spent a little too much time in those labs.\"\n\nAgatha looked surprised. \"Really? Why?\"\n\nThe door behind her slammed open. \"Vot is all dis yakkink\u2014\"A J\u00e4germonster shambled through the door and stopped dead upon seeing Agatha. \"GOTT'S LEEDLE FEESH IN TROUSERS!\"\n\nHe rushed over to Agatha as another monster soldier entered and surveyed the prisoner. \"Anodder shtupid easily duped minion!\" He waved at Othar. \"Don't you know dis iz an insanely dangerous guy?\"\n\n\"I knew that!\" Agatha responded defensively.\n\nThe other J\u00e4ger turned towards them. \"He's shtill secure.\" He jerked a large thumb over to the other side of the pit, where the door that Agatha had used to enter still swung open. \"She came in throo dot idiotic secret door. Dey gots to get rid of dot ting. Vell, let's just keel her.\" He turned towards Agatha. \"Ve ain't suppozed to let anybody in here,\" he said apologetically.\n\n\"Fiends!\" roared Othar. \"Kill her and I'll tell the Baron!\"\n\n\"Vell mebbe ve keel you too, schmot guy.\"\n\nThe other J\u00e4germonster began to look troubled. \"Gorb\u2026\"\n\n\"Vat?\"\n\n\"Gorb, dis iz turnink into von of dose plenz\u2026 The kind vere ve keel efferbody dot notices dot ve's keelink pipple?\"\n\nGorb deflated slightly. \"It is?\"\n\nThe other J\u00e4ger nodded and slung a friendly paw over Gorb's shoulders. \"Uh-huh. Und how do dose alvays end?\"\n\nGorb muttered, \"The dirigible is in flames, everybody's dead, an' I've lost my hat.\"\n\nHis friend smiled. \"Dot's right! Und any plan vere you lose your hat iz\u2014?\"\n\nGorb struggled for a second. \"A bad plan?\" he ventured.\n\nThat earned him a slap on the back. \"Right again!\"\n\n\"Look\u2014\" Agatha broke in impatiently, \"How about you don't kill me, and I won't mention that you let me get in.\"\n\nGorb looked troubled. \"But\u2026\"\n\nHis companion beamed. \"Hoy! Excellent! Vut a schmot gurl!\"\n\nGorb spoke up. \"Stosh, you mean dis iz vun of dose plenz vere ve dun keel hennybody?\"\n\nStosh nodded glumly. \"Yop. 'Fraid so.\" He turned to Agatha and leered. \"Zo, howzabout I ezcort hyu beck to you qvarters, Meez\u2014?\"\n\n\"Clay,\" she responded automatically. \"Agatha Clay.\"\n\nThe J\u00e4germonsters stared at each other in astonishment. Gorb looked sheepish. Stosh smacked him in the head. \"See? See?\" he roared. \"Dis iz vhy dot 'keelink evverbody' plan iz no goot! Hyu never know, now do hyu?\" Another smack on the head.\n\n\"Know what?\" asked Agatha.\n\nStosh and Gorb spun to face her. \"Ve has orders regadink a meez 'Agatha Clay.'\"\n\nThere was something different about him. About them both. With a chill she realized what it was. Nothing she could actually point a finger to, but they weren't\u2026 funny anymore.\n\n\"O\u2026 orders? What orders?\" she asked. A tiny analytical part of her brain wondered how much of their daily behavior was an act put on to put those around them at ease.\n\nStosh shattered the mood by whooping and sweeping Agatha up over his head. \"I gots to take hyu to a party!\" And with a loud \"Wheeeee!\" scurried off with her down the hall.\n\nOthar and Gorb stared after them for a moment until Othar sighed and remarked conversationally, \"No one ever takes me to parties.\"\n\nGorb looked at him and smiled. \"Ve haff our own party. Hyu ken be da pi\u00f1ata!\"\n\nAfter being rushed along several halls, Agatha realized exactly where the J\u00e4germonster was holding her and demanded loudly to be put down. He did so with a laugh and they proceeded onwards.\n\n\"Zo. Agatha Clay, hyu iz da gurl who helped Master Gilgamesh fly smek into General Khrizhan's qvarters?\"\n\n\"Well\u2026 I\u2026\" she saw the look of amusement in the soldier's eyes and gave up any thought of pretense. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Heh heh. I bet he vas sooprized. So vat heppened?\"\n\n\"Your Master Gilgamesh was doing the steering, and he\u2026\" she paused, and grudgingly amended her narrative, \"we didn't look where we were going and plowed right into the Castle. We smashed through the wall into your general's room. He was sitting in a chair reading a book and we skidded right into him and he reached out with one hand and WHAP\u2014\"she clapped her hands, \"we stopped dead. Can you believe that?\"\n\nStosh's face was filled with wonder. \"You saw him do dat?\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Amazing, huh?\"\n\nThe J\u00e4germonster just shook his head. \"Reading a book. Da tings hyu gots to do ven yous a general.\"\n\n\"HALT!\" The order came from behind them. They turned to see a Lackya hurrying up to them.\n\nAgatha turned to look at her companion and saw that he looked\u2026 stupider. It was something about the face\u2026\n\n\"Vot hyu vant?\" he asked the footman. The newcomer drew himself up and sniffed disapprovingly at the soldier.\n\n\"There was an intrusion in one of the Baron's labs. Equipment was damaged. I am to bring in all personnel that I find in this sector.\"\n\nThe J\u00e4germonster slowly scratched his jaw while glancing at Agatha. She realized that she was acting nervous and forced herself to relax. \"Vos de Baron hurt?\"\n\n\"No one was hurt, but valuable equipment was damaged, and we were ordered to find the culprits.\" Unseen by the footman, the J\u00e4ger's mouth twitched upwards approvingly.\n\nHe slowly turned back. \"Hovell, den itz not impawtent. Schtuff break all de time. Goot luck.\" He turned to Agatha. \"Letz go.\"\n\nThe footman darted forward, reaching for Agatha. \"You will both come with me now!\"\n\nAgatha did not see the J\u00e4ger move, but suddenly the footman's hand was grasped within the soldier's paw. The footman hissed, exposing fangs that caused Agatha to take a step back in surprise.\n\n\"I dun gotta answer to hyu,\" the J\u00e4ger said lazily, \"and dis gurl iz vit me, so hyu dun gotta vorry about her needer.\"\n\nThe footman's arm suddenly twisted and his hand was free. The J\u00e4ger was surprised, but covered it instantly. The footman smirked. \"All personnel in this sector includes\u2014\"\n\nThe J\u00e4ger interrupted him. \"To be 'personnel,' hyu gots to be 'person.' I is J\u00e4gerkin, vitch is better. Vere as hyu is jumped-up lackey boy mit delusions of authority.\"\n\nThe footman began to vibrate and started hissing. His eyes swiveled towards Agatha. \"You will come with me\u2014\"\n\nAgatha took a step backwards, and felt her hand deftly tucked into the crook of the J\u00e4germonster's arm. \"De lady has chosen. Now ve gots to be goink.\"\n\nThe footman stood and stared at them until they turned the corner. Agatha looked at the J\u00e4ger beside her. He was obviously thinking hard. \"You won't get in trouble, will you?\"\n\nStosh looked at her in surprise and grinned. \"Trouble?\" His tongue shot out for a quick raspberry. \"The Lackya are veak.\" He glanced back at Agatha. A troubled look crossed his features. \"But dey is vindictive. Vatch out for dem. Ve do not know how dangerous dey is yet.\"\n\n\"You don't?\"\n\n\"Mm. De Baron inherited dem ven ve smacked down de Gilded Duke last year. Dey is zuper-engineered sqvirrels or zumting. Dey gots to serve somebody, so de Baron has dem delivering messages and annoying pipple. He keeps dem busy.\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Ah, like he took in the J\u00e4gerkin after the Heterodynes disappeared.\"\n\nStosh grabbed her and swung her about until they were faceto-face. \"Iz not like dot at ALL!\" he roared.\n\nHe would obviously have said more, but a large door next to them opened, and the massive form of General Khrizhan filled the doorway. \"Vot iz dis shoutink?\" he rumbled.\n\nStosh snapped to attention. \"Dis iz Mizz Agatha Clay, who smells verra nize, but tinks der Baron iz kippink uz like dose poncy useless Lackya.\" He thought for a moment. \"Sir,\" he added.\n\nThe general stared at Agatha through narrowed eyes. \"She sees dot, does she?\" He stared for another moment and then closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. \"Thank you, Stosh, I vill talk to her. Beck to hyu post.\"\n\nStosh grinned triumphantly at Agatha. \"Hah! Hyu tell her, sir!\" With that he wheeled about and strode off.\n\nAgatha and the general looked at each other for a moment, then the J\u00e4gergeneral pushed the door open further. \"I tink dat der are tings ve should tell each odder, Meez Agatha Clay. Pliz to com inside.\"\n\nIt was a different room from the one that Agatha and Gil had crashed through earlier. It was smaller and cozier, with a large ceramic stove warming the room. An enormous brass samovar hissed upon a table. Agatha glanced at it and saw, to her shock, that it was decorated with naked female demons. Trying to find someplace else to set her eyes, she discovered that all of the walls were filled with paintings and drawings of a similar nature. She settled for staring at her shoes, realizing belatedly that she did not want to examine the pattern on the rug underneath them too closely.\n\nGeneral Khrizhan coughed, and Agatha thought he sounded embarrassed. \"Hy must apologize for the decor. General Zog does not belief dot age, or de dignity of his office, should interfere vit a rich fantasy life.\"\n\n\"Dose are memories, Alexi, un don hyu forget it!\"\n\nStartled, Agatha's head snapped up and saw two other creatures entering the room. The one that had spoken was shorter than General Khrizhan, but was obviously older. The fur that covered his body was snow white, and his teeth were yellow and uneven in his mouth. His clothing looked like it belonged, not to a soldier, but some sort of barbarian warlord. Despite his evident age, however, he moved with a fluidity that Agatha found hard to follow. The effect was startling.\n\nThe last creature was the oddest of all. For one thing, he was gigantic, even next to General Khrizhan, towering a full four meters tall. His mouth was easily a meter wide and filled with what appeared to be hundreds of small sharp teeth. Thick brass goggles hid his eyes, and a small brass dome, scratched and battered by the passage of the years, appeared to be screwed directly onto his skull. His large hands ended in small, delicately clawed fingers. General Khrizhan gestured towards them.\n\n\"Dis iz General Zog\u2014\" The ancient J\u00e4gergeneral nodded his head while keeping his eyes locked on Agatha.\n\n\"And dis iz General Goomblast.\" The tall monster executed a perfect courtier's bow that he had evidently been practicing for the last three hundred years.\n\nHis voice was a surprisingly pleasant contralto. \"And dis must be de Meez Agatha Clay dot made such an impression on our compatriot. Velcome.\"\n\nGeneral Zog spoke up. His voice rasped and buzzed like his voicebox was constructed from shoe leather and horn. \"Vas hyu involved in dis trouble in der Baron's lab?\" he asked.\n\nAgatha looked at the three creatures. Would they know if she lied? Agatha didn't lie, as a rule. If for no other reason than she had discovered that she wasn't very good at it. \"Well\u2026 it was an accident,\" she confessed. All three of the generals broke into huge grins.\n\n\"Ho!\" Zog slapped her on the back, almost sending Agatha into a wall. \"En exident!\" He leaned in and spoke confidentially. \"Vun ting de J\u00e4gerkin understand is dat krezy exidents heppen, right, boyz?\"\n\n\"Hoo boy, yaz\"\n\n\"Dot's de trooth.\"\n\nAgatha could well imagine. \"Yes, that's all very good, but why am I here?\"\n\nGeneral Khrizhan opened a large cabinet and pulled out a small chest that Agatha recognized with a start as one from the Clays' home in Beetleburg. Opening it up she discovered\u2014\"My clothes! My stuff!\"\n\nGeneral Goomblast nodded. \"It vas collected ven you vas taken from Beetleburg. Somehow, it vas mizplaced, und ve just discovered it. Ve thought hyu vould vant it as soon as possible.\"\n\nAgatha nodded happily, but as she repacked the outfits, her movement slowed and her brow furrowed. \"Yes\u2026 but you could have just sent them to the dormitory.\"\n\nGeneral Khrizhan shrugged as he fiddled with the controls on the samovar. \"Oh. Yaz, I suppose hyu is right. Oh vell. Vould hyu like sum tea? To make op for de inconvenience?\"\n\nAgatha realized that she was hungry again. How could that be? \"Oh, I\u2026\"\n\n\"Ve effen t'row in sopper.\"\n\n\"But I\u2026\" Agatha's stomach growled. \"Supper?\"\n\nGeneral Goomblast offered her a silver platter piled high with warm tea cakes. Agatha could see that some were stuffed with custard and jelly, sprinkled with nuts and topped with a thick sugary glaze. Some appeared to be covered in thick chocolate, and a few were evidently stuffed with fruit. A second plate appeared, covered with warm pastries that Agatha could smell were stuffed with savory meats and baked cheeses. \"Iz goot! Ve not eat bugs. I svear!\"\n\nGeneral Zog looked at his plate disappointedly. \"No bugs?\" General Khrizhan shushed him with a glare.\n\nAgatha smiled nervously and graciously plucked a small meat pastry from the tray and gingerly nibbled at it. Onions and spices she was unfamiliar with suffused her mouth and she let out a muffled, happy squeak. It was delicious. Intensely so. In three bites it was gone.\n\nGeneral Goomblast was obviously pleased. He poured her a cup of tea and gestured towards the platter. \"Hyu like? Take anodder.\"\n\nAgatha looked longingly at the platter, but the manners that Lilith had drilled into her stayed her hand. \"Oh, I couldn't\u2014\" she began, but was stopped by General Zog's reaching forward, tilting the platter, and dumping half of the cakes upon Agatha's plate.\n\n\"Degorl is starffing,\" he said conversationally as he put the tray back down. Turning to Agatha he said, \"In enemy territory hyu neffer know ven you is gonna eat. Don't pass up an opportunity.\" With that he scooped up the remaining cakes in one hand and dumped them into his mouth.\n\nGeneral Khrizhan took a deep breath and smiled alarmingly at Agatha. \"General Zog has been a varrior longer dan any uf us. He see sefferyting in terms of\u2026practicality.\" He gestured at Agatha's plate. \"Dis doz not mean dot he iz wrong. Please eat up.\"\n\nGeneral Goomblast had stared at the empty platter for a second, sighed in disappointment, and from a sideboard produced an enormous cake pan. Lifting the lid allowed the spicy odor of gingerbread to begin filling the room. A crock on the table was opened, revealing its contents to be thick yellow whipped cream. The large creature showed Agatha how to stir a spoonful into her tea, which, he informed her, came from a friend of the Baron's in China.\n\nAfter some steady eating, Agatha felt herself starting to relax, a fact the three J\u00e4gers noted.\n\n\"Zo, my dear Meez Clay,\" Goomblast began while refilling her cup, \"vere iz hyu family from?\"\n\nAgatha looked at him warily. \"Beetleburg?\"\n\n\"Iz dot so? Mine people still liff in Mechanicsburg.\"\n\n\"Ah. The Heterodynes' home. Of course. I've never been there, but I always wanted to go.\" Despite her reservations, the very inanity of the topic was reassuring, Agatha found herself relaxing and discussing the various merits of different towns. Off to one side, the other two generals quietly sipped their tea and observed.\n\nGeneral Khrizhan leaned closer to the older J\u00e4ger and muttered behind his hand. \"Vot you tink?\"\n\nGeneral Zog glanced at him and snorted. \"Hy don gotta tink.\n\nHy knew ven hy smelt her clothing.\" He considered Agatha with a scowl. \"Could be a forgotten second cousin, or a by-blow\u2026\"\n\n\"A by-blow? Dem?\"\n\nZog smiled at his colleagues' astonishment. \"Dey vas hooman.\"\n\nKhrizhan nodded reluctantly. \"De kestle vould know,\" he said quietly.\n\nZog shook his head. \"De kestle iz mad. Dyink. Useless.\"\n\nKhrizhan's shoulders slumped. \"Den it iz op to us.\" He leaned into the conversation, which had come to a lull. \"Tell us about you parents.\"\n\nInstantly a wall of suspicion slammed down behind Agatha's eyes. \"My father's a blacksmith, and my mother gives piano lessons. I'm worried about them,\" she admitted.\n\n\"Yez. Dey haff disappeared und ve cannot find dem. Dey obviously do not vant to be found, but dey vould vant to know dot hyu vas safe, jah?\" Khrizhan shook his massive head. \"Iz qvite puzzling.\"\n\n\"They're probably hiding,\" Agatha admitted. \"They don't\u2026 trust the Baron.\"\n\nGoomblast waved a hand dismissively. \"Who does? Ve's used to pipple hidink. Vat's strenge iz dot we cannot find dem.\"\n\nAgatha absorbed this information and deliberately reached for another tea cake. There were few left. \"These are very good,\" she said, and smiled at Goomblast, who frowned at her in annoyance.\n\nGeneral Zog, who had been pacing around the room, dropped into the chair next to Agatha. He smelled like ancient leather boiled in vinegar.\n\n\"Zo,\" he said brusquely, \"hyu vent flyink mit der young master.\" He leaned closer. \"Vot hyu tink of him?\"\n\nAgatha flushed. \"Well\u2026\" she struggled for words. As she did so, the general's nostrils flared, and a smile crossed his features. General Khrizhan's hand smacked the back of his head, sending Zog's fez flying.\n\n\"Vot kind of schtupid qvestion is dot?\" Khrizhan roared.\n\n\"Vell it vould make tings really simple if\u2014\"\n\n\"I know vat hyu is tinking! Bot hyu ain't tinking tinking!\"\n\n\"Tinking iz overrated!\" Zog roared, and tapped his nose. \"Dis tells me\u2014\"\n\nKhrizhan grabbed Zog's vest and shook him violently. \"Be qviet you idiot!\"\n\nAgatha scrunched down in her seat as the generals roared about her. Two delicate furry hands effortlessly scooped her up and deposited her before the door. \"I tink hyu better go,\" General Goomblast muttered.\n\nAgatha picked up the box with her belongings. \"Did I say something wrong?\"\n\nGoomblast smiled at her in what he thought was a reassuring manner. \"No, no, madam waz qvite charmink. But ve gonna haf a leedle discussion now, and dey can get kind ov loud.\" He opened the door and called out, \"Minsc!\"\n\nA tall J\u00e4gersoldier with a particularly toothy grin appeared and snapped to attention. \"Yezzir?\"\n\nGoomblast pushed Agatha forward. \"Dis iz Meez Clay. See dot she's get beck safely to\u2014\"\n\nA scream of rage from within the room was all the warning they got as the samovar caromed off of the back of the general's head. Spinning about, Goomblast's head appeared to split in half as his mouth opened wider than Agatha would have thought possible. A scream like tearing metal filled the hallway and the J\u00e4gergeneral leapt back into the room, slamming the door behind him. Minsc grabbed Agatha's arm and dragged her down the hall. \"Ve go now,\" he advised.\n\nThe sound of breaking furniture followed them down the hall, until there was a sudden final shattering of glass and then silence. Minsc turned to Agatha and grinned. \"Zo. Vere to, dollink?\"\n\n\"Um\u2026 the student dormitories?\"\n\nMinsc brightened. \"Ho! Excellent!\" He licked his hand with a purple tongue and slicked back his hair. \"Mebbe I see my sveetie.\"\n\nAgatha stopped dead. \"Your\u2014who?\"\n\n\"De gorgeous Von Pinn.\"\n\n\"Your sweetheart is Von Pinn? The Von Pinn is your sweetheart.\" No matter how many times she said it, it still sounded wrong.\n\nMinsc shrugged slightly. \"Vell, if youz gonnaget technical about it, not yet. But I am confident dot she vill pick me!\"\n\n\"Pick you out of what?\"\n\n\"All of der J\u00e4germonstern iz desirous of her,\" he confided. \"She iz zo sharp\u2026 zo dangerous, like a pudding bag full uf knives!\" He growled at the thought.\n\nAgatha swallowed. \"Ah. And that's good is it?\"\n\nMinsc's eyes went misty and a beatific smile played across his face. He sighed. \"Tvice I haff felt de touch uf her hand as it caressed my face.\" He pointed proudly. \"See der scars? Vunce her elbow lingered as it vas buried in mine kidney. And vunce, ven her teeth seek mine throat, I gaze into her eyes und\u2014\"\n\n\"You're crazy!\" Agatha screamed, \"She was trying to kill you!\"\n\nMinsc stared at her and then his face slid into a sly, knowing grin. \"Ho, ho, ho. Hyu iz still a leedle gurl in der vays of luff.\" He patted her shoulder. \"Hyu vill learn.\"\n\nAgatha swallowed. \"I sure hope not.\" She looked up. To her surprise, they had already arrived at the dormitory door. \"Thanks. I guess\u2014\"\n\n\"Miss Clay! Don't move!\"\n\nAgatha and Minsc whirled and saw Von Pinn racing towards them, her hands outstretched, a look of fury on her face.\n\nAgatha squeaked in alarm and froze. Minsc grinned and stepped forward while pushing Agatha through the doorway. \"Hyu moof along now, kiddo.\"\n\n\"But she's after me.\"\n\n\"Hee heh,\" Minsc smirked as he straightened his hat. \"I guarantee dot a kees from me vill make her forgets all about hyu!\"\n\nVon Pinn was almost on them and Minsc stepped forward into the crazed construct's outstretched arms. \"Hey beautiful, it's me, you Minsc!\"\n\n\"MOVE OR DIE!\"\n\n\"Whoo! Already mit der sveet tok!\"\n\nAt this point the massive door closed behind Agatha and all she heard was a sound that reminded her of a fight she'd witnessed in the biological oddities lab when a soon-to-be-deceased lab assistant had neglected to lock a number of cage doors. A large object slammed into the door, shaking Agatha out of her shock. She raced into the main room and saw a plump young man sporting a yarmulke coming out of the kitchen clutching a large number of bottles. She ran up to him. \"Von Pinn is killing one of the J\u00e4germonsters!\"\n\nThe young man raised an eyebrow. \"Oh. So?\"\n\n\"So we've got to help!\"\n\nHe considered this for a second, then shook his head. \"I think Von Pinn can handle them by herself.\"\n\nAgatha thought she was going mad. \"No,\" she explained through clenched teeth, \"we've got to help him.\"\n\nThe light dawned. \"Oh!\" He then turned back to the stairway. \"No, I don't think so.\"\n\nAgatha raced around him and pointed at the door, where the noise had grown even more frenzied. \"Can't you hear that?\"\n\nThe young man looked at her patiently. \"That's what I mean,\" he explained. \"It's taking much too long. If she really wanted to kill him, it would be over very quickly. She's just warning him off.\" A pained squeal rose through the air and was cut off with a sharp wet sound. \"Ah, Minsc. I should've guessed.\"\n\nAgatha stared at him. \"Oh.\" She leaned wearily against the wall. \"This is a very strange place,\" she observed.\n\nThe young man considered this. \"You think so? I don't get out much.\" He awkwardly shifted his load of bottles so that he could stick out a hand. \"I'm Hezekiah Donewitz.\" Agatha gingerly shook his hand. \"You must be Agatha,\" he continued. \"You should come to Theo's room. Gil is here! He's telling us about Paris.\"\n\nAgatha scowled. \"I wouldn't\u2014\"\n\nHezekiah interrupted her. \"Aw, come on!\" He jiggled the load of bottles. \"We're going to reinvent the corkscrew. You can help! I hear you're brilliant at systems analysis.\"\n\nAgatha blinked. \"What?\"\n\n\"Sure. Gilgamesh said you really improved his flying machine.\"\n\n\"He did?\"\n\n\"Yeah. He says you're really smart.\" He leaned forward: \"I think he really likes you.\"\n\nAgatha looked closely at Hezekiah's face, but could detect no trace of irony. Her head felt funny and she desperately wanted to sit down, and the last thing she wanted to do was face Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. \"I'm afraid I'm so tired that I don't think I could stay awake if he was telling you about his trip to\u2026 to America by way of the moon. I'm sure I'll hear all about it tomorrow.\"\n\nHezekiah shrugged with a clink. \"Fair enough, from what I'd heard, you've had a busy day. Good night.\"\n\nAgatha realized that it had been a busy day, and as she climbed the short stairway to her room, felt weariness drop onto her like a blanket.\n\nOn the wall next to each of the bedroom doors, Agatha had noticed a set of thin metal pockets mounted to the wall, labeled with the occupant's name. As she approached her door, she saw that the second pocket had been labeled with her name, and that there was an envelope within. She unfolded it and found a notification that in the morning, she was to report to Minor Mechanical Workshop Number 311. There was a map showing the way from the dormitory. She studied it a moment and then realized that she was swaying slightly.\n\nShe pushed open the door and was startled to see a large white cat eating off of a tray of food that had been left on the desk of the room's other occupant. In a flurry of white, the cat leapt down and vanished under the other bed.\n\nAgatha got down on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. Two large glowing green eyes stared back. \"Hiya, cat,\" she said. The cat scrunched itself further back into the corner.\n\nAgatha sat back on her knees. \"How many cats do they have running around here anyway? Well, you don't want to come out? Suit yourself.\"\n\nThe door opened and a tall, aristocratic-looking young lady walked in. She had a long, thin face, pale skin, and an elegant mass of long auburn curls. Her outfit was a standard Wulfenbach overall, but it had been tailored to fit, and shiny brass buttons replaced the regular issue. From the state of her outfit, it was apparent that she had been engaged in heavy labor. Upon seeing Agatha, she stopped dead. In an eyeblink her tiredness had vanished and was replaced by an air of graciousness. \"Ah, you are awake. You may rise.\"\n\nAgatha realized that she was still on her knees and hastily scrambled to her feet.\n\n\"I am Her Highness, Zulenna Luzhakna, a princess of HofnungBorzoi. We are to be roommates, it appears.\" She extended a hand. \"And you are?\"\n\n\"Agatha Clay.\"\n\nA faint frown flitted across Zulenna's face and the hand was smoothly withdrawn. \"Clay,\" she mused. \"Not a\u2026 noble house. Which member of your family possesses the Spark?\"\n\n\"Ah, none of them. My father's a blacksmith,\" she offered hopefully.\n\n\"A blacksmith. How utilitarian.\" Zulenna sat down on her bed and surveyed Agatha. \"So, why are you here?\"\n\n\"Baron Wulfenbach captured my\u2026 my boyfriend. He's a Spark.\"\n\n\"A captured\u2026\" Zulenna's eyes narrowed. \"Do you mean Moloch von Zinzer?\"\n\n\"You've heard of him?\"\n\n\"I keep tabs on all of the Sparks aboard Castle Wulfenbach. So you are Herr von Zinzer's bed warmer.\" She jumped up, obviously greatly annoyed, and leaned into Agatha. \"I have heard about you, and I trust there will be no nonsense within this room.\"\n\nAgatha found that she was so tired that her outrage barely flickered. \"Look,\" she said evenly, \"there seems to be a mistaken impression that I'm some sort of\u2014\"\n\n\"How dare you!\" Zulenna interrupted furiously. Startled, Agatha saw that she was holding the tray she'd seen the cat eating from. \"This was my dinner. I work the late shift. The kitchen is closed! It was on my desk! How dare you touch it! And how dare you make such a mess!\" Indeed, food was scattered across the desktop.\n\n\"Oh, now wait a minute!\" Agatha objected hotly, \"I didn't touch your stuff. The cat was up on the desk eating it when I came in!\"\n\nZulenna cocked an eyebrow. \"What cat?\"\n\n\"I thought it was yours. It's a big white cat. It's under your bed.\"\n\nZulenna looked at Agatha for a moment, a look of uncertainty passed over her face, and she gracefully dropped to her knees and raised the coverlet to peer under the bed. When her head came back up, she was glaring furiously. \"You can't even lie competently.\"\n\n\"What?\" Agatha looked under the bed. No cat. Hurriedly she looked under her bed. No cat. A quick look around the small room showed that there was certainly no place a cat could hide, and she knew it hadn't left when Zulenna opened the door\u2026\n\n\"But it was there!\" Agatha looked under Zulenna's bed again. A small, flat underbed chest, which would have to be removed to be opened, and a ventilation grate were all that were to be seen.\n\n\"There's a ventilation grate here, maybe it\u2014\"\n\nZulenna's hand snapped down and whipped the coverlet out of Agatha's hand. Her voice was icy with disdain. \"That vent cover is held in place with two snaps. I doubt that any cat, even one as fabulous as the one you saw, could open them. Therefore I must conclude that in addition to being a person of low moral character, you are a liar as well as a thief. I expect nothing less from the lower classes, but I'll be damned if I will sleep in the same room with you. I imagine your parents expected you to sleep in the foundry; I suggest\u2014\"\n\nThe smack to her face caught Zulenna by surprise. The force of it spun her around causing her to slam into the wall. Before she could recover, she found herself hoisted up off the floor by an Agatha who was radiating rage.\n\nAgatha felt the fury roaring through her body like a lightning storm. A part of her realized that she had never been allowed to be this angry before. Whenever she got mad, a headache seemed to come along to snuff out the rage. But not this time. For the first time in her life, Agatha could vent all the fury that she was capable of feeling, and a part of her reveled in it. She screamed as years of pent-up emotions found voice.\n\nZulenna had been about to deliver a solid kick to Agatha's stomach, but an older part of her brain looked into Agatha's face, overrode her conscious mind, and she stopped struggling and went limp.\n\n\"One thing my parents taught me,\" Agatha said in a voice that set off fresh alarms, \"was that nobody gets to badmouth my family. I will tell you this one last time. I didn't eat your dinner. There was a cat. I have had a very long day. And I am not\u2014\" this was emphasized with another slam into the wall\u2014\"von Zinzer's\u2026 like that.\" The embarrassment she felt over this last admission seemed to sap her strength. Zulenna felt her feet touch the ground. She eyed Agatha warily.\n\nAgatha was fading fast now. She felt a great weariness roaring over her, and merely stood there, her hands still grasping Zulenna's clothes.\n\nZulenna gingerly reached up, and found that she could remove Agatha's hands without effort. She stepped sideways. Agatha didn't move.\n\nZulenna considered slamming Agatha face first into the wall, but at that moment, Agatha's face turned towards her, and the thought fled. She stepped back and tried to project self-assurance. She jerked her clothes straight.\n\n\"Never touch me again.\" She braced herself for another attack, but Agatha ignored her and simply shuffled past her to drop onto her bed. \"And I want you out of my room.\"\n\nAgatha looked at her, and then closed her eyes. As\u2026 exhilarating as the rage had been while she was experiencing it, now that it was gone, she felt sick, exhausted and ashamed. \"Nothing would please me more,\" she whispered, \"but tonight I'm sleeping here.\"\n\nZulenna glared at her and stepped forward, then hesitated. With a disdainful sniff, she turned, disrobed and got into her own bed. She reached out to extinguish the light and stopped. Agatha was already asleep. Zulenna began to ease out of her bed, then reached up and touched the tender spot on her face. Agatha made an odd humming noise in her sleep, then began to breathe deeply. Zulenna crept out of bed, selected one of the fencing foils that was on the rack, and carefully climbed back into bed with it placed between her and Agatha. She left the light on. It was quite a while before she slept.\n\nIn Agatha's dreams, the great celestial machine warped itself slightly. The teeth of the gears grew longer and sharper, and began to fly off and chase Von Pinn, and Zulenna, and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, and as they ran squealing in terror, Agatha found herself enjoying the show until she realized that the largest and sharpest gear was bearing down upon herself.\n\nShe came awake with a jerk, dropping a jeweler's wrench upon a benchtop which was littered with parts. She looked around in surprise. She was in an empty machine shop. But it wasn't Adam's. Where was she? A voice behind her\u2014\n\n\"Miss Clay? Good heavens.\"\n\nSwinging about, Agatha saw the Baron's secretary Boris, and Moloch, both looking rather dumbfounded.\n\nYears of training as Dr. Beetle's assistant kicked in and she leapt to her feet, smoothed back her hair and stood at attention. \"Good morning, sir. I\u2026 I was asleep, but I am ready to begin.\"\n\nThis only seemed to make Boris even more uncomfortable. He glared at Moloch. \"I dare say she is.\"\n\nMoloch tried to control a grin. \"Um\u2026 Didn't you forget something\u2014er\u2014darling?\"\n\nAgatha looked at them blankly. \"What do you\u2014\" belatedly she noticed the direction of Moloch's gaze. Looking downward she saw that she was dressed in naught but her camisole and pantalets. With a shriek she barreled between the two men and dashed from the room.\n\nOnce she had vanished around the corner, Boris rounded on Moloch and shook several fingers at him reprovingly. \"You are expected to get work done, Herr von Zinzer. Perhaps a different assistant\u2026\"\n\n\"No!\" The last thing Moloch wanted was someone who could tell he knew nothing. \"Um\u2026 she's\u2026 it's just\u2014the science stuff, it\u2026 um\u2026 it really gets her\u2026 excited.\"\n\nBoris rolled his eyes. \"Ah. One of those.\" He shrugged. \"Well, as long as you're discreet and it does not interfere with your work. But\u2014\" he warned. \"Tell Miss Clay not to flaunt herself in front of the Baron or his son. They have no tolerance for such things.\" Satisfied that he had cleared up the matter, he steered Moloch deeper into the lab. \"Now the one example we saw of your work was rather crude, but the Baron found aspects of the design quite remarkable. He believes that with access to proper materials, your work might be well worth his full attention.\"\n\nMoloch smiled weakly. \"Great.\"\n\nBoris nodded. \"If this is so, you will subsequently report to the Baron directly. For now, however he is interested in seeing what you can produce independently.\"\n\n\"I'll bet.\"\n\nThere followed a quick tour of the lab, ending with Boris indicating a small electric bell. \"And finally, whatever you need, be it supplies, assistants or food, simply ring this and it will be provided. We look forward to seeing what you will do.\" As he left, he passed a fully dressed Agatha coming the other way. Tactfully, neither said anything.\n\nAgatha entered the lab to find a despondent Moloch rummaging about in the chemical locker. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pulled out a large carboy of clear liquid and filled a beaker. He swigged fully a third of it down before he sat on the nearest stool.\n\nAgatha examined the label. \"That's supposed to be used for cleaning machine tools,\" she pointed out.\n\n\"So I'll die clean.\" Moloch saluted her with his glass and polished off another third. \"Now what the heck were you doing? Do you always work in your underclothes?\"\n\n\"No!\" Agatha began to pace back and forth in agitation. \"I don't know! I never used to walk in my sleep!\"\n\n\"Well you sure made a mess of the workbench.\" The two of them examined the bench, which did show all the signs of heavy use. \"But I don't see what you were working on.\" It was true. Tools and parts littered the area, but there was no device anywhere in sight.\n\nAgatha slumped against the bench. \"Probably nothing,\" she admitted. She straightened up and turned away. \"Well, at least I don't have another failure staring at me.\"\n\nFrom an upper shelf, a small device paused in its labors. A small lens focused on her, ascertained that she did not require its assistance, and resumed its task.\n\nMoloch finished off his drink just as the beaker began to dissolve. He tossed it into the trash. \"So now what?\"\n\nAgatha grinned. \"Take a look at this!\" She turned away and reached into her shirt and hauled out the airship manual and handed it to him.\n\nMoloch looked surprised. \"Where'd you get this?\"\n\nAgatha shrugged. \"Just found it.\"\n\nMoloch paged through it, then handed it back. \"This has possibilities. There's a lot of traffic, there's supply balloons coming and going all day long. Unfortunately, stuff like this will be guarded all the time. But look over here\u2014\" He took Agatha's arm and brought her over to a rack of packages mounted on the wall near the main exit to the lab. A small sign explained how to prepare the devices for use. \"This might be easier. These are personal balloon gliders for if they have to abandon the dirigible. You can use these to just glide down to earth, and they're located throughout the Castle. The problem with these, is that people would see you jumping off the Castle. At night the damn things glow.\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Hmm. Modifying one of them might be our best bet. It glows? We could paint it with tar or something.\"\n\nMoloch looked surprised. \"That's a good idea.\"\n\n\"I want to get out of here too.\" She thought for a minute. \"I'll bet they notice if we start messing about with one of these things, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised\u2014\" She stepped over to the rack and examined it closely. She gave a grunt of satisfaction and motioned Moloch over. \"Look. See this? There's a wire running through these rings. Probably some sort of tripwire, I'll bet. When one of these things is pulled off the rack, it sounds an alarm somewhere. Makes sense, really, even if it's a genuine emergency.\" She studied the wire closely. \"This is going to be tricky.\" She looked at Moloch. \"We can't afford to do it wrong the first time.\"\n\nMoloch sat down heavily. \"I wouldn't even have looked for something like that,\" he admitted. He brightened up. \"On the other hand, I got to be pretty good at disarming booby traps.\"\n\n\"How good?\"\n\n\"I'm still here, ain't I?\"\n\n\"Fair enough. I think I might be able to build some stuff that could help.\"\n\nMoloch looked at her askance. \"You said you couldn't build anything.\"\n\nAgatha paused. \"Yes, but I\u2026 I think I know what I did wrong. I have some ideas\u2026\" She shook herself. \"But whatever we do, it's going to take some time, and we've got to make it look like you're doing something.\" She looked around. \"An inventory.\"\n\nMoloch looked up. \"That's always a good one. Place like this, we could kill a day or two at least before they expect us to produce anything.\"\n\n\"It'll work better if you can fake it a bit.\" She snatched up a tool from the nearest bench. \"Now this, is a wrench.\"\n\nMoloch glared at her. \"I know it's a wrench.\"\n\n\"Ah, but what kind of wrench?\n\n\"A 3/17 Occipital Left-Leaning Heterodyne wrench.\"\n\nAgatha whipped the wrench up to her face and stared at it. It was. She glared at Moloch. \"How did you know that?\" she demanded.\n\nMoloch smiled bitterly at her from his chair. \"These days, machines are more important than soldiers. If you know how to fix machines, it makes you more valuable.\" He stared off into the distance. \"My brothers and I, there were nine of us, we crewed this walking gunboat for the Duke D'Omas. Mad as a bag of clams, of course, but it was a good berth. Snappy uniforms, fresh food, and plenty of it, and he paid in gold.\" Moloch sighed. \"Then it all turned to dung. Wulfenbach blew up the Duke's mountain and we had to start raiding the countryside to keep the gunship repaired.\"\n\n\"But why would you do that?\"\n\n\"Ah, well, you see, the peasants didn't like the Duke. Which meant they didn't like us. After the Baron took him down, the gun was the only thing keeping us alive. We figured our best bet was to get out of there, so we headed for Paris. We had to go through Wulfenbach land, sure, but if you keep to the Wastelands and the dead towns, you can travel for days without seeing a soul, which was the plan. But just our luck, we ran into one of the Baron's patrols, led by this\u2026 this crazy woman! We'd have surrendered if she'd asked.\" Moloch's eyes showed that he was far away. \"I think Bruno and the kid made it, but I don't know about anyone else. Nobody but Omar and me. And now it's just me.\"\n\nAgatha placed her hand on his shoulder. \"That's\u2026 that's really rough. I didn't know.\"\n\nMoloch jerked his shoulder away. \"Of course you didn't know.\n\nYou're just a spoiled townie. The big towns are important. They get cleaned up, repaired, disinfected. Not like the rest of the world.\" He stalked over to the carboy of cleaning solution and hunted about for another beaker.\n\nAgatha stood behind him. \"Oh, that will help.\"\n\nMoloch furiously turned upon her. \"Get out!\"\n\n\"But\u2026 but the inventory\u2014\"\n\n\"Screw it. I want to be alone.\" He pulled out a beaker and discarded it for being too small. \"I'm expected to act like a brooding unstable psychopath? Great. Here's a chance for me to rack up some extra credit.\"\n\nAgatha turned to go, took two steps and then wheeled about. \"Now you're just being stupid.\"\n\nMoloch didn't even look up from his pouring. She continued: \"A brooding, unstable psychopath? Fine. But you've got to convince the Baron that you're a brooding unstable psychopath who's having way too much fun to ever want to leave. They've got to see you eager to get to work in this beautiful lab they've given you!\"\n\nMoloch looked at her and frowned. He harrumphed. \"That does make sense,\" he admitted. With a sigh, he poured his drink back into the carboy and tossed the beaker into the trash. \"Okay. Inventory it is, then.\"\n\nThey turned and looked at the room. It was a large space, twenty meters square. The main central area was clear, surrounded by benches and work tables. Overhead were lights and a set of winches on motorized tracks. Lining the walls were cabinets and bins filled with various parts, chemicals, tools. The shelves were easily four meters tall. They looked around, but failed to find a ladder.\n\n\"Guess we use this a little sooner than I'd thought,\" said Moloch as he pressed the bell button.\n\nLess then a minute later, the door opened and an immense man entered. He was over two meters tall and everything about him was proportioned to fit. He wore a gray overall covered in pockets. His head was the thing you looked at, however. His face was open and friendly, but above it was a bald pate that showed the obvious signs of multiple, extensive surgery.\n\n\"Hello!\" he said in a booming, cheerful voice. \"I\u2026\" He suddenly appeared to be having trouble remembering something. \"I am Dr. Dimitri.\"\n\nMoloch and Agatha were surprised. \"Doctor?\" Moloch exclaimed.\n\nDimitri nodded enthusiastically. \"Yes! I am a doctor! Yes I am!\"\n\nMoloch smiled apologetically. \"I'm sorry we disturbed you, Herr Doctor, I thought we were ringing for an assistant.\"\n\nDimitri beamed and slapped his chest. \"Yes! Yes! I am assistant! Yes!\"\n\nMoloch and Agatha glanced at each other. Right.\n\nMoloch spoke slowly. \"We need a ladder.\"\n\nDimitri brightened. \"I will get a ladder! Yes! I could make you a ladder! A giant ladder that will go up to the sky!\"\n\nMoloch blinked. \"No thanks. Just a regular ladder.\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes! A ladder that will carry you up and down by itself! I could make that! I could! Up and down and up and down and up and\u2014\"\n\n\"No, just a regular ladder.\"\n\n\"Ah! Yes! Yes! I understand! You want it to look like a regular ladder, and when you are at the tippy top, the blades come out and\u2014\"\n\n\"Enough!\" Moloch shouted. Dimitri looked hurt. Moloch turned to Agatha. \"Miss Clay, you'd better go with him.\" He thought for a moment. \"Get us something without blades.\"\n\n\"I'll try.\" At this Dimitri began to look worried. Agatha looked at him. He reminded her of some of the faculty back at the University. She gently took him by the arm and pulled him out into the corridor. \"Okay, Herr Doctor, where do we keep the ladders?\"\n\n\"But I go! Yes, me!\"\n\n\"Well I'll just go with you.\" Dimitri looked very worried now, but he reluctantly began to move down the hall. \"I don't understand what the problem is,\" said Agatha. \"All we want is a ladder.\"\n\nDimitri looked slightly reassured. \"Yes, ladder. We just go to get ladder.\"\n\nThey quickly came to a large door labeled \"LABORATORY SUPPLIES.\" Dimitri spun the locking wheel and the door eased open, revealing a large dimly lit store-room, neatly crammed with crates and barrels, cans, jars and tools. Agatha quickly spotted a rack of ladders and moved toward it.\n\n\"This looks like what we need\u2014\" She paused. Hidden behind the ladders, she saw a small, neat cot.\n\nShe turned back to Dimitri. \"Oh, do you sleep here?\" She stopped because the giant's face was now set in a rictus of fear. She looked back at the bed. There was nothing there, except\u2026\n\nA closer examination revealed a number of small objects. Agatha picked one up\u2026 \"Why they're bears!\" she exclaimed in delight. \"Made from rags! They're adorable! Did you make these?\" So saying she turned back to Dimitri, only to find him huddled upon the floor at her feet, his tear-stained face raised in supplication.\n\n\"Please,\" he whispered, \"please don't give them to the Baron.\"\n\nAgatha looked at the rag doll in her hand. \"What, these?\"\n\nDimitri nodded frantically. \"Yes, please\u2026\"\n\nAgatha gently placed the bear into Dimitri's trembling hands. \"Why would I give them to the Baron? They're yours.\"\n\nThe large man clasped the toy to his chest. \"Yes! Mine! I made them! Me!\"\n\n\"But\u2026 if the Baron really wanted them, he'd just take them\u2026 wouldn't he?\"\n\nAt this, Dimitri's face underwent a startling change. A look of pure determination crept into it, although it obviously took a great deal of effort. \"He doesn't know!\" His voice, too, was different. It was a voice that was used to wielding power, but it was obvious that it was power long gone. He jerkily turned towards Agatha. The look he gave her was of someone who was unaccustomed to asking for help, but who had no choice, and had known it for a long, long time. \"It's my last secret. He's taken all the others, but not them! I've kept them safe!\"\n\nAwkwardly Agatha patted his massive shoulder. \"Well\u2026 I won't tell anyone.\"\n\nSudden hope flared within the kneeling man's eyes. \"You\u2026 help keep my bears\u2026 secret? Keep them safe from the Baron?\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Of course. I won't even tell that man I'm working with, von Zinzer.\"\n\nSoftly, silently, the large man began to cry. \"Thank you! Thank you!\" he blubbered. \"I've been so worried about them.\"\n\nAn embarrassed Agatha looked about and grabbed a large rag, which she handed to Dimitri, who gratefully used it to scrub away at his face. \"They'll be okay, I promise. Now let's get that ladder.\"\n\nOnce again beaming widely, Dimitri climbed to his feet. He wheeled about and addressed the row of bears lined up on the shelf. \"Did you hear? She has promised to help take care of you. You will be safe!\"\n\nThe watcher nodded. He'd heard.\n\nSeveral hours later, after von Zinzer had dismissed her for the day, Agatha found herself swept up by Sleipnir and several other girls and dragged off to their fencing practice. Agatha had never held a sword, but she had always admired the way actors had flailed about with them onstage. Much to her surprise, the people she watched didn't seem to do any flailing at all. Indeed, the object appeared to be to hit your opponent while moving as little as possible. The analytical part of her mind found this intriguing, though she did miss the singing.\n\nThe girls warmed up fencing with each other in various combinations, but after a while, Sleipnir went off and returned pushing a large cart which was topped by a vaguely humanoid figure possessed of a single arm, holding a fencing foil. Once activated, it turned out to be a fencing clank, and the girls took turns battling it while the others rested.\n\nIt took little encouragement to get Agatha to suit up in a padded outfit, and the girls looked on with interest while Sleipnir began to teach her the basics. A stream of humorous comments at her expense were made, but to Agatha's surprise, instead of feeling hurt, she found herself laughing along with them.\n\nRelinquishing the sword, she sat and tried to ignore how the other girls now attacked each other while singing. It had seemed like an interesting idea at the time.\n\nOne of the girls, Sun Ming, handed her a cup of water, and asked her about her first day at the lab. Eventually the conversation got around to Dr. Dimitri, though Agatha omitted any mention of his stuffed bears. \"We call him Dr. Dim.\" Sun Ming admitted. \"I believe him to be some sort of construct that didn't work out.\"\n\n\"He's been here for years,\" Sleipnir chimed in. \"He seems to be harmless.\"\n\nThe door to the changing rooms swung open and Zulenna strode towards them. She carried a gold foil over her shoulder. She nodded to several of the other girls, but a frown creased her face at the sight of Agatha. \"Miss Clay. I didn't know you fenced.\"\n\nAgatha experienced another wave of embarrassment at her actions last night. She resolved to try and be civil. \"I don't, but Sleipnir said I should try it.\"\n\nSleipnir nodded. \"Agatha has pretty good reflexes. I think that with some training\u2026\"\n\nZulenna interrupted, waving dismissively. \"Really, Sleipnir. Taking a plow horse to the races?\" Whereas Agatha had felt distress at last night's incident, Zulenna had been replaying it over and over again and getting more and more annoyed. She wanted a rematch. With a sword. And witnesses. Sleipnir blinked. Zulenna continued, \"I would like to see these fabulous reflexes.\" She turned to Agatha. \"If you're not afraid to face me when I'm armed.\"\n\nSleipnir looked back and forth between Agatha and Zulenna and tried to avert certain calamity. \"No, I don't think that would be a good idea. Why don't we\u2014\"\n\nAgatha interrupted. \"Sleipnir, would fencing give me a chance to hit her with this sword in a civilized manner?\"\n\n\"Well\u2026\" Sleipnir hesitated, \"theoretically, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Let's do it.\"\n\nSleipnir closed her mouth and shrugged. Some things just had to be worked out.\n\nZulenna chuckled as Agatha's outfit was checked by Sleipnir. \"Oh, this will be amusing.\"\n\nSleipnir muttered to Agatha as she finished up. \"She's very good.\"\n\n\"Indeed I am,\" Zulenna confirmed brightly. \"So just try to hit me.\"\n\nAgatha and Zulenna moved into position. Tentatively Agatha reached forward with her sword, and, languidly, Zulenna flicked it aside.\n\nAgatha frowned and whipped her sword around from the other direction, and again, Zulenna deflected it with ease. She had watched the other girls and the fencing clank, but even her untrained eye could tell that Zulenna was superior to them all. Fascinated, Agatha executed a series of attacks from any direction she could think of. The smirking girl easily batted them all away while moving nothing but her arm.\n\nAgatha stepped back and wiped a trickle of perspiration from her brow. This was developing into a very interesting problem, and Agatha's anger at Zulenna began to fade as she considered it.\n\nThis detachment disappeared when Zulenna reached out with her sword and smacked the side of Agatha's head. Agatha whipped her foil upwards, but hit nothing. There followed a series of strikes by Zulenna, which Agatha found herself helpless to prevent. The few times she actually managed to hit Zulenna's sword, it simply slid off and connected with Agatha anyway. Her anger building, she decided to ignore the attacks and concentrate on striking back. There followed a series of attacks and feints delivered at blinding speed, which had absolutely no effect. Zulenna raised an eyebrow, and with an enormous grin, continued to strike Agatha at will while she deftly parried Zulenna's furious attacks.\n\n\"As you can see, Miss Clay,\" she said with a smirk, \"fencing is the sport of the highborn. There is far more to it than hacking and slashing.\" This was punctuated with a sharp poke to Agatha's stomach. \"And while I'm sure you'd do very well with a sledge hammer, which is probably all you need for tavern brawling, fencing is all about finesse, the art of exploiting your opponents' weaknesses.\" A move too fast to see and Zulenna's sword cracked against Agatha's hand, causing her to drop her sword. Zulenna smiled and turned away. \"This was entertaining.\" She glanced back over her shoulder. \"Those are good reflexes, by the way.\"\n\nA panting Agatha reached down and picked up her sword. Blowing a lock of hair from her face, she turned to a watching Sleipnir. \"Hey\u2026\" she said between breaths, \"I just figured out the difference between Dr. Dim and royalty. Dr. Dim is still doing something useful.\"\n\nZulenna froze, and then spun about, sword upraised to strike. \"How dare you\u2014Oof!\"\n\nThis last sound was caused by Zulenna slamming herself directly onto the point of Agatha's foil, which had been aimed at her solar plexus. Zulenna dropped to her knees and tried to gasp in a lungful of air. Agatha leaned over her. \"Your reflexes, on the other hand, could get you into trouble, your highness.\"\n\nZulenna shot Agatha a look of pure hate as two of the other girls helped Zulenna to her feet. When she could stand, she shook them off, wheeled about and stalked off. Sleipnir looked after her and shook her head. \"You fight nasty.\"\n\nAgatha slid the foil back into the rack. She didn't feel good about her win. \"Back in Beetleburg, we didn't care much about royalty as such, what was important was if you had the Spark or not.\"\n\nSleipnir nodded. \"Yes, we've been seeing that trend spreading out from the larger towns for some time. It's been giving Zulenna's family some real problems, apparently.\"\n\n\"Aren't most of you from noble families?\"\n\nMing grinned. \"Some of us, but the important thing here is your position vis-\u00e0-vis those who possess the Spark. Baron Wulfenbach needs to control those who can disrupt things, the few royal families that still rule are desperately eager for things to remain calm. Zulenna's family is a case in point. They rule a small nation in the Germanies. Useful because it controls a pass that at least three major trade routes use. Their defenses were built by the Heterodynes, and thus they'd stood off a number of attacks by madboys until they were annexed by the Baron.\"\n\nAgatha frowned. \"I would think that would make her a little more willing to get along, not less.\"\n\nSleipnir sighed. \"Yes, you would, wouldn't you? But Zulenna is determined to keep her position.\"\n\n\"What position?\"\n\nThe other girls looked embarrassed. A dark-haired girl named Yvette explained. \"Most of us came here as children, non? So there was established a pecking order.\"\n\n\"Sleipnir explained a bit about that,\" Agatha said.\n\nA quiet blonde named Gunload spoke up. \"When she first got here, Zulenna ranked pretty high, if only because she was used to bossing people around. But as we all got older, things changed. Zulenna's family is just royalty. She's not here as a hostage, but because they're genuinely loyal to the Baron.\"\n\nSleipnir nodded. \"Her being royalty is all that Zulenna has, so she tries to make the most of it.\" She looked Agatha in the eye. \"Be careful. She'll not forgive you for this.\"\n\nAgatha frowned. \"Oh, come on. Surely, over time some of you have made similar comments, or worse. You grew up together.\"\n\n\"True enough,\" Sleipnir admitted, \"but there is this pecking order thing\u2026\"\n\n\"Meaning?\"\n\nMing gently patted her shoulder. \"Welcome to the bottom of the heap.\"\n\nThe next few days were quiet ones.\n\nVon Pinn gave Agatha a wide berth.\n\nAgatha returned to her room one evening to discover that Zulenna had moved out.\n\nThe biggest change was in Agatha's sensations. Every day brought new smells, tastes and nuances of sounds that occasionally threatened to overwhelm her. Foods that she had grown up with revealed startling new flavors. For a few days, Agatha felt like she was starving. At meal times she ate until she felt ready to burst, but within the space of two hours, she would be prowling the kitchens looking for more. She worried about her clothes, but over the course of several days, they seemed to get looser, despite everything she was eating. Sleipnir actually got annoyed over this, until she confirmed Agatha's claims with a tape measure.\n\nA noisy room became a rich aural tapestry of underlying rhythms. The most distracting was her sense of touch. She was aware of the textures of the clothing she wore, the surfaces of the tools in the lab. A prolonged shower left her gasping on her knees.\n\nIt was a difficult few days. Sleipnir was concerned. Agatha saw a medic, who examined her and found nothing wrong, and suggested that she was simply over-stimulated by being in a new, exciting situation. Agatha certainly had to admit that was a plausible possibility.\n\nAnd, most glorious of all, Agatha's headaches, the Damoclean sword that had always checked her emotions, had stopped.\n\nShe noticed it the second day. By the third, she had actually tried to induce one and failed. That night, Sleipnir had found her in her room weeping. She'd never been able to have a good, solid cry, and by the time she was done, she felt wrung out like a rag and slept for twelve hours. After that, while her sensations and emotions remained much sharper than before, everything began to become much more manageable. Thankfully, Agatha found her appetite beginning to diminish.\n\nThe crises had passed.\n\nMoloch proved to be adept at finding his way around a lab. The inventory was completed. Agatha tried to create something that would interest the Baron, but these attempts always ended in failure. The biggest problem was caused by Agatha herself, who continued to sleepwalk each night, ending up in the lab, sprawled over one of the workbenches.\n\nOn this particular morning, she was awakened by Moloch tossing his coat on top of her. \"I wish you'd build something we could use instead of just messing up the place.\"\n\nStartled, Agatha thrashed around a bit scattering tools and machine parts to the floor as she pulled the coat on. She glanced at a clock. \"You're late. Did you oversleep?\"\n\nMoloch shook his head. \"I wish. I got summoned before the Baron. He's getting impatient. He wants to see something.\"\n\n\"But what about those plans we've been working on the last couple of days?\"\n\n\"He took one look at them and told me to stop cribbing D'Omas' designs. It's like I told you, every madboy has a style like\u2026 like a painter\u2014and the Baron can recognize them.\"\n\nAgatha drummed her fingers on the bench. \"Well\u2026 I do have some ideas of my own\u2026\"\n\nMoloch waved his hand in dismissal. \"Those tiddly little clockwork things that don't work? Forget it. I'm supposed to be a Spark, not an idiot toymaker. I hand him plans for something like that and I'll be shipped off to Castle Heterodyne within the hour. We need something Big. Impressive.\"\n\n\"Well\u2026 Maybe stylistic similarities run in families. We could say that you're D'Omas' natural son.\"\n\nMoloch grinned ruefully. \"Not a bad idea, but D'Omas' taste in women was\u2026 well\u2026 let's just say it was lucky for him he could build his own. A lot of people knew it too. There were reasons why the public didn't like him. No, there'll be no D'Omas heirs showing up, except preserved in glass jars.\"\n\n\"Yech. Any ideas on escaping?\"\n\n\"Only if I want to throw myself out a window, which I'm not ruling out, by the way. But for the moment, the plan is to get out alive.\"\n\nMoloch paced back and forth several times and then whirled to face Agatha again. \"You were there when that clank in Beetleburg was built. That's what we need. You must remember something!\"\n\nAgatha shrugged apologetically. This was an old subject. \"No. I woke up after it was gone. I don't know anything. I could do some research\u2014\"\n\nMoloch slammed his fist down onto the bench hard enough to send several tools flying. \"Stuff that!\" he screamed. \"You didn't see the Baron's face this morning! I need something now!\" He loomed menacingly over Agatha. \"I don't think you're really trying.\"\n\nApprehensive, Agatha tried to back up, and found herself bumping into another bench. \"You said yourself that I'm no Spark! What do you expect me to\u2014\"\n\nMoloch gripped her shoulders. \"Think, you stupid cow! You have as much to lose as I do!\"\n\nAgatha shook herself free and glared at Moloch. \"Wrong! My parents are long gone and in hiding. Even the J\u00e4germonsters can't find them. You no longer have a hold on me, so if you want my co-operation, I suggest you change your attitude, or\u2026 or\u2026\"\n\nA change had come over Moloch's face. His eyes looked dead. He reached out and, grabbing the lapels of the coat Agatha was wearing, hauled her forward. \"Or what? You'll kill me too? Wrong. You're gonna help me out one more time. A lab accident, I think. That should buy me some more time\u2026\"\n\nHorrified, Agatha watched as he raised his fist, and suddenly Moloch's eyes widened and he screamed and dropped her. A quick glance down revealed the white cat biting and clawing at the inside of one of Moloch's legs. As he danced away, trying to dislodge it, Agatha regained her balance, reached behind her and felt her fingers close around the handle of a large mallet.\n\nGilgamesh Wulfenbach strolled down the corridor, his brow furrowed in thought. Eventually he nodded. \"Oh very well, I'll concede the point, it does appear alarming, but you shouldn't be afraid of it, I'm rather sure it's just a goldfish.\"\n\nBeside him Zoing frantically waved his claws and discoursed at length in high-pitched squeals.\n\nCRASH! A lab door slammed open beside them and the inert form of Moloch von Zinzer was booted out into the corridor. A second later his labcoat was flung over him. Gil and Zoing turned to see a furious Agatha standing in the doorway, clutching a broken mallet. \"You pathetic thug! Don't you dare threaten me again! Come near me and I'll put you in a glass jar!\" It was now that she noticed Gil and his companion for the first time.\n\n\"Lover's spat?\" Gil inquired.\n\n\"I quit!\" Agatha snarled. \"I don't care if you put his brain into a jellyfish!\"\n\nGil frowned. \"But you made such a cute couple\u2014\" Without visible effort he dodged the mallet handle that sailed past his head.\n\n\"You know perfectly well he is not my lover! Now send me home! I have to find my parents!\"\n\nGil looked serious. \"Yes, your parents. I can certainly understand your concern. We still haven't been able to find them. The J\u00e4germonsters haven't been able to find them, none of your neighbors has seen them. According to the University records you don't have any other family in Beetleburg. Do you have any other family anywhere?\"\n\n\"I have an uncle, but he\u2026 he disappeared over ten years ago.\"\n\n\"Not much help then. Did they have any enemies?\"\n\n\"Enemies?\" Agatha looked shocked. \"No!\" Then certain things she had seen and heard over the years assumed a possible new significance. \"At least, I don't know of any. Why?\"\n\nGil sighed. \"It is not uncommon, when my father takes over new territory, that during the confusion, some people take the opportunity to\u2026 settle old grudges.\"\n\n\"That's\u2026 that's terrible.\"\n\n\"Foolish, certainly. My father prides himself on maintaining law and order within the Empire, it's kind of the whole point really, and we come down very hard on things like this. Up until now, we've been assuming that your parents were hiding from us, but now we also have to consider the possibility that something has happened to them.\"\n\n\"Why? What's changed?\"\n\n\"One of the things I did was place public notices throughout Beetleburg advising the Clays that we had you in our possession and providing an address where they could anonymously send you a message to at least let you know that they were safe. So far there's been nothing.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I have to go back! I\u2014\"\n\nGil interrupted. \"And do what? My worry now is that if someone is responsible for your parents' disappearance, they might be after you as well. Until we find your parents, I'm afraid my father will insist on you being kept here under protective custody.\"\n\n\"That's outrageous! He can't\u2014\" Agatha suddenly stopped as she realized who she was talking about.\n\nGil nodded grimly. \"He most certainly can. Now I can understand you not wanting to work with Herr von Zinzer\u2014\" Gil nudged the prone mechanic with the toe of his boot\u2014\"But I'm afraid everyone aboard the Castle is expected to justify their weight\u2014\" Agatha opened her mouth\u2014\"Would you consider working with me?\"\n\nAgatha's mouth hung open for a second, then closed with a snap. Her eyes narrowed. \"\u2026Why?\" she finally asked.\n\nGil ticked off points on his fingers. \"I found your daily reports to be concise and well-written, you very efficiently re-organized the parts warehouse, and, most important, your suggestions regarding my flyer's engine increased its efficiency by seventeen percent.\"\n\nAgatha looked pleased. \"Seventeen percent? Really?\"\n\nGil nodded. \"Really. And I believe that by working together, we could do even better. Interested?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes I am!\"\n\nGil smiled. \"Good.\" He casually reached down and with one hand hauled Moloch up by the collar. \"I shall deal with Herr von Zinzer here. Be at my lab this afternoon.\"\n\nAgatha drew herself up and performed the traditional bow. \"Yes, Herr\u2026\" she paused.\n\n\"Doctor,\" Gil supplied.\n\n\"Herr Doctor Wulfenbach.\"\n\nGil coughed discretely. \"Ah, there is one thing, Miss Clay\u2026 If you're going to be working with me, I'd appreciate it if you wore more clothes.\"\n\nFor the first time Agatha became aware of her appearance and with a strangled \"Eep!\" vanished inside the lab.\n\nGil puffed out his breath and grinned. A slight movement at the end of his arm caused him to set his face in sterner lines, and he briskly slapped Moloch's face several times until the man began to thrash feebly. \"All right you, let's go.\"\n\nMoloch's eyes opened, rotated in different directions, focused upon Gil and then snapped open in terror. His feet began to move, but as they weren't touching the ground, nothing happened. When he became aware of this, he seemed to give up, and with a sigh, went limp. Gil cocked an eyebrow. \"You're not a very good soldier, are you?\"\n\nMoloch shrugged. \"That's why I became a mechanic, sir.\"\n\nGil nodded. \"Now I believe this little charade has played itself out, hm? You are not a Spark.\"\n\nAgain Moloch spasmed within Gil's grasp. \"No! Sir! I\u2026 I can explain!\"\n\n\"Sh\u2014sh\u2014shhh! Relax.\" With an alarming smile Gil gently lowered Moloch to the floor, and reached around to drape a friendly arm over Moloch's shoulders. Another smile and Gil had gently propelled him down the hallway. \"I want to help you.\" Zoing gathered up Moloch's coat and scuttled along behind.\n\nInside the lab, Agatha leaned against the door, her head swimming. She looked over and saw the large white cat, which had bitten Moloch, sitting on the nearest bench glowering at her. \"He listened to my suggestions! He actually tried out my ideas\u2014and they worked! Nobody has ever listened to me!\"\n\nShe hugged herself and did a quick jig over to the bench. The cat continued to stare. \"And he asked me to work with him! Do you understand what that means, you beautiful leg-biting cat? Everybody knows that the labs on Castle Wulfenbach do the real, cutting-edge science! The stuff the universities only dream about doing! And I'll be working with the Baron's son! Doing real science, in a real lab, with someone who actually listens to me!\" Overcome with emotion she scooped the surprised animal up and swung him around. \"What do you think of that?\"\n\nThe cat frowned and leaned into her and pointed at her with an oddly shaped paw. \"I think,\" he said clearly, \"that you'd better be very, very careful.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "\u2003\"With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. But wait, I thought, why not give it the ability to spit acid? Or a few extra claws? Or, yes! A total disregard for the sanctity of human life! That will show them!\" \u2014A typical last entry from the journal of an emergent Spark\n\nAgatha stared at the cat. \"Oh,\" she said carefully, \"I'm dreaming again. How disappointing.\" The cat rolled its eyes. \"You work with mad scientists and you're surprised at a talking cat? I'm the one who's disappointed.\"\n\nAgatha gently placed the cat back onto the lab bench. Instead of dropping to all fours, it remained on its hind legs, which Agatha now saw didn't look like normal cat legs at all.\n\nShe took a deep breath. \"Okay, I'm sorry. You really talk. You just startled me.\" The cat nodded briskly. \"Right. Now that we've got that settled, I'm here to help you.\" Agatha nodded back. \"Help me. Okay.\" She paused. \"Do I need to get you some boots?\"\n\nThe cat glowered at her and his tail lashed back and forth in annoyance. \"I don't do the boot thing, so knock it off. I'm serious. We can't talk now.\" His ears flicked towards the door. \"Someone will be here soon.\"\n\nAgatha opened her mouth\u2014the cat raised his hand peremptorily.\n\n\"Tonight. Your room. Bring something to eat.\" He leaned forward. Agatha found herself doing the same. \"And be careful around young Wulfenbach. He's up to something. He knows that you're a Spark and\u2014\"\n\n\"WHAT?\" The cat looked surprised at Agatha's outburst. \"I am not a Spark,\" she said.\n\nThe cat frowned. \"What? Of course you are!\"\n\nYears of worrying about the state of her mental health found voice and Agatha slammed her hand down on the bench, hissing: \"Don't you make fun of me, cat. I\u2014\"\n\nThe cat swiftly but gently smacked her nose with his paw. Agatha's mouth snapped shut in surprise. \"Shhh,\" the cat said, and gestured her closer. Gingerly Agatha leaned in and the cat put its muzzle up to her ear. \"You talk in your sleep,\" he whispered. Agatha reared back.\n\nSuddenly there was a clack and the door to the corridor swung open. With a fluid motion, the cat flowed off the bench and under a stack of gears leaving Agatha alone. She whirled to face the door and saw Ardsley Wooster, his head discreetly averted, holding forth his large coat. \"Good morning, Miss Clay. Master Gilgamesh informed me that you would require a cover-up as well as an escort back to your quarters. This afternoon I am to show you the way to the location of your new duties.\"\n\nKlaus Wulfenbach was in a genial mood. He strode down the center of the corridor, marginally aware of the crowd that carefully broke before him and stood aside as he passed. Coming up to a large, reinforced door, he nodded to the J\u00e4germonsters that were lounging before it. The nearest picked up a small book and leafed through it at random, then looked up. \"Vat is de sqvare root uf 78675?\"\n\nKlaus nodded in approval, thought for a moment, and then replied: \"345.\"\n\nThe J\u00e4ger carefully checked the book before him and then grinned. \"Dot is correctly incorrect. In hyu go.\" The other J\u00e4ger moved and spun the locking wheel on the door until it opened with a chunk.\n\nKlaus stepped inside and waited until the door was shut behind him. He unlocked another door and then entered a small laboratory lit only with red lights. Humming a tune, he removed his greatcoat and began donning protective equipment. A small sound caused him to look over his shoulder and smile genially. \"Ah, good afternoon.\"\n\nIn the center of the room, strapped down to a massive examination table, lay Othar Tryggvassen. His muscles strained against the bonds holding him. When this proved to be useless, his head thumped back against the neckrest and he settled for glaring at the Baron.\n\nKlaus scanned a report in his hands. \"Didn't sleep well? Quite understandable. Today is going to be a very exciting day.\"\n\n\"You'll excuse me if I don't share your enthusiasm, you twisted fiend!\"\n\nKlaus shrugged good naturedly. \"Quite all right. I'm used to it.\" Silence descended, broken only by Klaus quietly humming a waltz as he began to check a row of surgical instruments.\n\n\"No matter how you torture me,\" Othar declared, \"I won't talk.\"\n\n\"If only that were true,\" Klaus muttered.\n\nOthar stared at his back for several minutes. \"So. What is it you want to know?\"\n\nKlaus turned, holding a small bone saw. \"Why you're a Spark. What is it that makes you different from other people.\"\n\nOthar chewed on his lower lip. \"But I\u2026 I don't actually know that.\"\n\nKlaus smiled and patted him on the shoulder. \"Of course you don't. Neither do I. But I intend to find out.\"\n\nDespite himself, Othar looked interested. \"How?\"\n\nKlaus began holding up a series of drill bits against Othar's skull. Othar couldn't help but notice that they were getting progressively larger. \"I will destroy selected parts of your brain,\" Klaus explained, \"until you no longer are a Spark.\"\n\n\"You ah\u2014\" Othar tried to maintain an even tone to his voice. \"You can do that?\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"Oh yes. Eventually.\"\n\nOthar considered this for a moment. \"And afterwards?\"\n\nKlaus sighed. \"Ah. That whole 'quality of life' question.\" He ran a hand through his mop of hair. \"I'm working very hard on that.\" He smiled ruefully. \"And I'm getting much better.\"\n\nOthar strained against his bonds. \"But my work!\" he shouted. \"My mission!\"\n\nKlaus activated a device attached to a swing arm that descended from the ceiling. With a whine, a number of blades began spinning. \"Yes, a bonus, that.\"\n\n\"You villain!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes.\" Klaus muttered as he began to position the device above Othar's head. \"Normally, there would be a lot more tests. You'd have a long, productive career working for me while I studied your habits and patterns.\"\n\n\"But?\"\n\n\"But I'm afraid that you are far too dangerous.\" The device's whine took on a higher pitch. \"Now look up\u2026\"\n\nWith a clack, the lighting changed from red to white. With a sigh, Klaus moved the device back up and turned it off. He turned towards the door with a frown. \"Yes, Boris?\"\n\nThe Baron's secretary nodded apologetically. \"I'm sorry to disturb you, Herr Baron, but you did tell me to tell you the moment Herr von Zinzer said he had something.\"\n\n\"Indeed I did.\" He looked down at the smaller man who had been cowering behind Boris, his eyes taking in the scene before him. When he realized that the Baron was staring at him, he jerkily brought forth a sheet of paper and extended it before him.\n\n\"It's\u2026 um\u2026 it's all here!\" The Baron made no move to take the paper, but continued to look at Moloch. The shaking of his hand increased so much that the paper itself rattled. \"I\u2026 I know what I want to do, but I don't know where to get some of these materials.\" He extended the paper upwards. \"It's all here,\" he repeated.\n\nThe Baron plucked the paper from Moloch's hand and studied it. A frown crossed his features and he studied it again. After several seconds he pursed his lips and his massive eyebrows rose and all but disappeared beneath his hair. \"Interesting,\" he said, like a man bestowing a great compliment. \"Very interesting indeed. Yes, some of this will be quite tricky.\" He looked down at Moloch with new eyes. \"This will take some time to assemble, but I look forward to the results.\"\n\nMoloch blinked. \"Really?\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"Yes. Boris? See that these items are secured, and make sure that I am informed when Herr von Zinzer is ready for the initial test run. I wish to attend.\"\n\nBoris looked surprised. \"Yes, Herr Baron.\"\n\nKlaus handed the paper back to Moloch. \"I must say that I was beginning to have my doubts about you, but this\u2026 this justifies my original estimates and then some. What was holding you back?\"\n\nMoloch started and then shrugged. \"Oh, er\u2026 it\u2026 it was that assistant of mine. I\u2026 fired her this morning. She was very distracting.\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"I see.\" He turned away dismissively. \"And now I must\u2014\"\n\nBoris cleared his throat apologetically. The Baron's shoulders slumped slightly. \"Yes, Boris?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Herr Baron, but as long as I have your attention\u2026 The city council of Hufftberg is still unhappy about the glassworks. They're really just feeling slighted because Tarschloss got the new university.\"\n\nKlaus drummed his fingers on a nearby bench. \"Tell them that I will cover the cost of a Corbettite rail terminal if they will supply the labor.\"\n\n\"But didn't the Corbettites petition us to place a terminal there already?\" Klaus merely looked at him, and the secretary looked embarrassed. \"Ah. Yes, I understand. No doubt they'll see it as very generous. But if they continue to be difficult?\"\n\nKlaus whirled. \"Then tell them I'll have the J\u00e4germonsters there in two days and the city council will be the labor!\"\n\nBoris smiled. \"Yes, that should do it. Good day, Herr Baron.\"\n\nAs the Baron's secretary and a relieved von Zinzer left, Klaus leaned against a bank of controls and sighed. To Othar he remarked, \"I swear, it is like running a kindergarten.\"\n\n\"What is that, Tyrant?\" Othar asked snidely, \"Does your precious Empire give you no pleasure?\"\n\nKlaus frowned, and he straightened up. \"No,\" he admitted, \"it gives me no pleasure. Politics always annoyed me, and now I have to play it every day. I despise the whole business. I haven't seen my wife in years\u2014\"\n\nOthar started violently. \"Your who?\"\n\nKlaus ignored him. \"I haven't traveled or explored\u2014\"\n\n\"Who exactly is this wife you mentioned?\"\n\n\"At least with the Heterodynes we had the adventures. The occasional fight. We expected people to at least be able to govern themselves after we cleaned the monsters out for them. Well I won't make that mistake again. Now I just send in the armies, then the bureaucrats with mops. Same old formula, over and over again.\" He stared darkly at something only he could see, then shook himself free of his reverie and turned back to Othar. \"Well, we do what we must. But I will confess that one of my few pleasures is in these rare moments of research.\" He patted Othar on the head as he started up the drills again. \"So hold still, and rest assured that I am going to enjoy this very much.\"\n\nOthar braced himself as the device began to descend, when a fussy voice from the doorway broke in. \"Your pardon, Herr Baron?\"\n\nKlaus froze. Then slowly and deliberately stopped the drills, removed his goggles and then turned towards the door. \"Yes?\" he asked politely.\n\nAt the door stood one of the Lackya in a state of high indignation. Standing beside him was a sullen Theopholus DuMedd.\n\n\"Sorry to disturb you, Herr Baron,\" the servant said in a voice that clearly didn't realize how annoying it was, \"but young DuMedd here refused to report for grease trap duty this morning. He had hidden himself in one of the smaller machine shops.\"\n\n\"I wasn't hiding,\" DuMedd said testily, \"I was working.\"\n\nKlaus looked interested. \"Working? On what?\"\n\n\"On an automatic grease-trap cleaner, Herr Baron.\"\n\nA large hand came up to try and hide a small smile that vanished instantly from the Baron's face. \"Ah\u2014hmm. Potentially useful, certainly, Herr DuMedd, but I must insist that such things be pursued in your free time. Think of this duty as inspiration.\"\n\nDuMedd rolled his eyes. \"I have a surfeit of inspiration, sir.\"\n\nKlaus turned away. \"Well, if that is all\u2014\"\n\nSuddenly Othar shouted out, \"Don't be too clever, lad, or you'll be on this slab next!\"\n\n\"Silence!\" Klaus roared. He swung back to Theo and fixed him with a piercing glare. \"Master DuMedd is aware that he is under my protection.\"\n\nDuMedd nodded vigorously. \"Of course, Herr Baron.\" He said cheerfully, \"Very much aware!\" With a large grin on his face he moved towards the door. \"I apologize for causing you any annoyance, Herr Baron. I'll just be getting back to those grease traps. In fact, I'll put in a little overtime! Yes sir!\" And then he was gone, the sound of his running boots echoing down the corridor was cut off by the closing of the inner door.\n\nThe Lackya did not see Klaus move, but suddenly found the lapels of his greatcoat clasped within an immense fist and a furious Klaus inches from his face.\n\n\"Idiot!\" He said through clenched teeth, \"You were told to never bring any of the students into this lab!\"\n\n\"But, Herr Baron, the guards outside said\u2014\"\n\n\"You like to listen to them? Done! You are now a J\u00e4ger orderly until further notice!\"\n\nThe Lackya went white. \"No, Herr Baron! Please, I\u2014\"\n\n\"I could have you shipped to Castle Heterodyne?\"\n\nThe terrified construct visibly considered this option, then sagged in the Baron's grasp. \"Yes, Herr Baron.\"\n\nKlaus flung him away. \"Get out.\" The Lackya spun about and silently vanished.\n\n\"Confound that idiot!\" Klaus muttered, \"To jeopardize all my work with DuMedd\u2014\"\n\n\"That boy is not stupid,\" Othar said. \"A web of lies can unravel at the lightest touch of the truth!\"\n\nKlaus whirled, smacked aside the massive drill, snatched up a scalpel, and grasped Othar's face in his other hand. He grinned fiercely. \"This will hurt slightly less if you don't move.\"\n\nA voice sang out from the doorway. \"Ta-daaa! I am here!\"\n\n\"GIVE ME STRENGTH!\" Klaus screamed as he drove the scalpel into the table scant centimeters from Othar's face. Composing himself, he turned about. \"Bangladesh DuPree,\" he acknowledged.\n\n\"That's right! It's me!\" A tall, shapely young woman sashayed into the room. Her dark east Indian complexion was complimented by the crisp, white airship captain's uniform she wore. Her long black hair cascaded down her back until it was gathered in a series of small tufts. Ornamenting her forehead, a small skull-shaped bindi glittered.\n\nBangladesh was one of Klaus' freelance agents. She patrolled the wilder parts of the Wastelands, and was occasionally dispatched when circumstances warranted the use of a barely controlled homicidal maniac.\n\nBangladesh's mother had been a pirate queen, ruling one of the small remote islands of the North Sea. The princess Bangladesh had been away when the island populace had revolted and her mother was slain. Determined to avenge her, Bangladesh had taken up the family business, and ruthlessly built up her own organization of air pirates, which had quickly earned a fearsome reputation throughout Scandinavia and northwest Europa. Preparations for the assault to reclaim the family island were almost complete when she had returned from an expedition only to find her fortress a burnt-out hulk, her fleet in ruins, and her crew dead or vanished. There was no clue as to who had destroyed them.\n\nThen and there, she took a bloody oath upon her family's malevolent god to avenge them, but until she could discover who was responsible, she needed a job.\n\nTo her surprise, she was recruited by Klaus Wulfenbach. Klaus had followed her career from a distance, and realized that having Bangladesh working for him would be preferable to eventually having to fight her.\n\nBangladesh had accepted his offer on the condition that the Baron's intelligence gatherers seek out those who had destroyed her base. Klaus had agreed. However there were no other similar incidents, and in the subsequent three years, Klaus had successfully found useful avenues in which to channel DuPree's murderous tendencies for his own ends. When correctly applied, she was terrifyingly efficient.\n\nThere was also, he had to admit, something fascinating about her. DuPree was disarmingly open about her thirst for blood and destruction, and Klaus found that he enjoyed the challenge of keeping her in check. She was also one of the very few people who displayed absolutely no fear of the Baron whatsoever. She treated him like an equal in all things, which made for a refreshing change in some respects, though her familiarity sometimes caused him great annoyance.\n\nShe was also one of the nastiest fighters Klaus had ever seen. With some trepidation, he had asked that she instruct his son in combat techniques while he was in Paris. To her surprise, Gilgamesh had survived her instruction, and proved an apt pupil, though he had acquired several scars, some of which were physical.\n\nKlaus was positive that he could take DuPree in a fair fight, but was equally positive that he'd never have a chance to prove it.\n\n\"I heard that you wanted to see me, and I knew you wouldn't want to wait.\" She got about halfway into the room when she saw Othar. A look of concern crossed her face. \"Say, what are you up to here?\" She looked at Klaus suspiciously. \"Klaus, are you torturing this man?\"\n\nKlaus looked embarrassed. \"No\u2014\"\n\n\"YES!\" Othar shouted. \"Help!\"\n\nBangladesh blinked in surprise. \"He asked me to help!\" She grinned and a blackened stiletto materialized in her hand. \"A wise choice! Nobody knows more about torture then me!\"\n\n\"I believe,\" Klaus murmured, \"he expected you to rescue him.\"\n\nBangladesh pouted and the knife vanished. \"What\u2014Is he stupid?\"\n\n\"A bit.\" Klaus opened a slim leather volume that had been crudely adorned with hand-drawn skulls, scenes of decapitation, flogging and other acts of violence that Klaus carefully did not look at too closely. \"I noticed something interesting in your latest log book\u2026\" He looked up. \"A pity about that walking gunboat, by the way.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that was over way too quick.\"\n\nKlaus opened his mouth, and then just sighed and shook his head. \"What caught my eye was this note in your Phenomena Log.\"\n\n\"The rain of marzipan?\"\n\n\"No\u2014though that is intriguing. I meant the apparitions.\"\n\nBangladesh grew serious. \"Yeah, those were weird.\" She thought back. All trace of frivolousness was gone now. \"The first time was when I was watching that gunboat burn. There was this\u2026 crackling in the air, a kind of hole in the sky opened up, and there were these people\u2026 it was like they were right next to me. One of them looked like Gilgamesh, but\u2014\" She thought. \"But older than he is now. Not a lot older, but\u2014\" She patted Klaus' great shoulders. \"Bigger. Tougher. He'd been working out. And you could tell from his face that this guy didn't go around moaning about how miserable his life was; he made life miserable for other people,\" she said approvingly. \"He looked right at me, like he could see me. And then he said 'maniac.' You know, I think maybe it was Gil, because he's always saying pointless stuff like that.\" Klaus forced himself to nod sympathetically.\n\n\"The second person was a girl. Light hair, fair complexion, a little shorter that Gil, big hips, but in good shape, not fat. Big glasses. She was running some sort of mechanism. When they appear she's in mid-sentence and she says, '\u2014A little earlier. How's this?'\n\n\"A third guy, he's shorter, darker, trim beard and moustache, kind of rumpled. Looks like a minion. He's looking at the burning gunboat and he starts jumping up and down and shouting, 'Yes! There they go! They made it!'\n\n\"At this point a Geister enters from the right. The others don't even blink. She seems to be addressing the girl, and she says, 'Mistress\u2014you are needed.'\n\n\"The short guy says 'Thanks.' and the girl smiles and does something to the controls and the hole in the sky kind of collapses in on itself.\" Bangladesh paused. \"I just remembered. Gil was dressed like one of the Geisterdamen. It didn't really suit him. Does any of that make sense to you?\"\n\nKlaus shook his head.\n\nBangladesh shrugged and continued. \"Then, two weeks later, I'm investigating this burnt-out town, Furstenburg, which I did not do, when\u2014ZAP! There's another hole in the air. Same group of people, same situation. The girl says, 'Okay, there's Bang.' Like she knows me, you know? Then she says, 'You see your friends?'\n\n\"The little guy looks around and says, 'Um\u2026 no, this isn't the right place.'\n\n\"Gil notices that I've pulled my shooter and he says, 'Hey mistress\u2014'\"\n\n\"Mistress?\" Klaus asked sharply.\n\n\"That's what he said. For what it's worth, he looked kind of annoyed, and he's saying it like he's saying something stupid. So he says, 'Hey mistress, she's getting ready to shoot you.'\n\n\"The girl looks at me and says, 'Don't worry. I'm going to try\u2014' And then it was gone. Say, are you okay?\"\n\nThis question was asked because Klaus was staring grimly at nothing, and his hands had crushed a metal canister without his knowledge. When he spoke, it was obvious that he was trying to project a calm demeanor. \"This is very important news, DuPree. Thank you.\"\n\nTo her astonishment, Bangladesh found that she was upset at Klaus' obvious inner turmoil. She realized that she relied on Klaus' imperturbability as a sign that all was well. Awkwardly she reached out and patted him on the shoulder. \"Hey. Don't worry. What do I know? It couldn't really have been Gil. You've had him caged up here for the last couple of months, haven't you?\"\n\nKlaus went still, and the air of worry vanished. He turned to Bangladesh and nodded. \"You are correct, of course. Thank you, DuPree.\"\n\nBangladesh relaxed. \"Always am. So. Any news about my problem?\"\n\nKlaus shook his head. \"No. I told you I'd let you know.\"\n\n\"It's been three years.\"\n\n\"And I've heard nothing.\"\n\nBangladesh sighed, then shrugged. \"Well, a group that tough can't hide forever. I'll be in dock for the next three days if you need me to burn down Sevastopol or something.\"\n\nKlaus waved his hand in dismissal. His brow furrowed in thought as DuPree strode out. \"This is very bad,\" he said conversationally. He turned towards Othar. \"Surely even you realize\u2014\"\n\nThe examination table was empty. The restraints cut cleanly, as if by a scalpel. From behind, Klaus heard Othar's triumphant voice, \"Ha, villain! Realize that your reign of evil is at an end!\"\n\nKlaus sighed.\n\nAgatha and Wooster stepped through a giant set of metal doors, and Agatha stopped in confusion. This was yet a different lab, still filled with a bewildering array of machines and benches, but the ceiling was easily thirty meters high. Almost one entire wall was covered in glass revealing a magnificent cloudscape, as well as several dozen of the Wulfenbach support fleet. On an outside ledge along the bottom, several gargoyle clanks squatted motionless. The center space was dominated, and almost filled, by pieces of a gigantic clank. With a shock, Agatha recognized a section of the exterior carapace, which was hanging from a set of enormous chains.\n\n\"It\u2026 that's Mr. Tock!\"\n\nHigh above, Gilgamesh's head and shoulders popped out from inside a cavernous hole in the massive chest plate. Agatha saw a large clock mechanism hanging beside it, waiting to be placed within. \"Ah, Miss Clay! Wooster, do show her in!\"\n\nTossing aside a large wrench, Gil clambered out onto a precariously balanced ladder, which began to fall backward. Agatha gasped, then blinked as Gil calmly stood on the falling ladder until it passed a hanging chain, which he snagged with one hand, as he kicked at the ladder with one foot. The ladder swung back into place with a thunk, just as Gil touched the ground next to Agatha and Wooster. \"Today I'll just show you around the lab and let you settle in.\"\n\n\"Shall I fetch some tea, sir?\"\n\nGil looked around and, not finding what he was looking for, shrugged and nodded. \"That would be excellent, Wooster, thank you.\" With a short bow, Wooster glided away. Agatha looked up at the immense clank.\n\n\"What are you doing with Mr. Tock?\"\n\nGil blinked. \"I'm fixing him, of course.\" He patted a gigantic toe affectionately. \"He's too much a part of Transylvania Polygnostic's history and tradition.\" He then turned serious. \"Dr. Beetle may be dead, but the University his family built will continue as he wanted it to.\"\n\nAgatha smiled. \"That's good.\" They stood looking at each other awkwardly for a minute. Agatha looked around. \"So how many labs do you have?\"\n\nGil smiled. \"Four. You've seen the flight lab, and you\u2014\" he coughed discretely\u2014\"saw the entrance to the chemical lab. This is the large mechanical lab, and my private lab and library are through those doors.\"\n\n\"You really need four different labs?\"\n\nGil snorted. \"My father has forty-three onboard the airship, plus two ground-based complexes. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a model of efficiency.\"\n\nAgatha felt a light tug on her skirt and, looking down, saw a single eye staring at her from under an oversized hat. \"Hello again.\" Agatha smiled.\n\n\"Ah. You haven't been properly introduced.\" Gil reached down, lifted the small creature up and deposited him on a nearby bench. Try as she might, Agatha could only see the tips of large blue claws peeking out of fleece-lined cuffs and two long-jointed antenna. Everything else that might have given a clue as to the little creature's nature was hidden beneath layers of clothing.\n\n\"This is Zoing.\" The little creature clicked its heels and bowed slightly. Gil continued, \"Zoing, this is Miss Agatha Clay. She will be helping us now.\"\n\nZoing studied Agatha for a moment and then turned back to Gil. \"Schmeka tee?\"\n\nGil shook his head. \"No, that's still your job.\" He paused, then looked guilty. \"Although, I couldn't find you a moment ago, and I believe Mr. Wooster is fixing us some now.\"\n\nZoing squealed like a penny whistle and, faster than Agatha would have believed, leapt off the bench and scuttled away, furiously waving its claws.\n\nGil rubbed the back of his neck. \"I'll hear about that,\" he sighed. A crash of crockery from the next room seemed to verify this.\n\n\"What is it?\" Agatha asked.\n\n\"My friend,\" Gil replied tersely as Wooster gave a yelp of pain.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I meant\u2014\"\n\nAn entire china cabinet collapsed now. Gil held up a hand and, closing his eyes, took a deep breath. He opened his eyes. What sounded like a fire alarm went off, and then was silenced, if the noises were any indication, by being pummeled with a live animal. Gil resolutely ignored it. \"It's understandable. He's a construct. I made him when I was younger.\"\n\n\"He was eight,\" Wooster informed Agatha. Unruffled and impeccable, he set a laden tea tray down upon a bench. From the next room could be heard a frantic hammering, as if from inside an overturned cauldron.\n\n\"Eight?\"\n\nGil shrugged. \"Even my father was surprised.\"\n\nWooster handed Agatha a sturdy triangular mug. She tasted it and realized that the mixture was exactly as she preferred it. Wooster hadn't bothered to check her response, but was pouring another mug.\n\n\"As well he should have been. Eight is very young. Most of the gifted break through in their teens\u2014or even later. Master Gilgamesh is a very strong Spark indeed.\"\n\nGil accepted his mug with a shrug. \"This is Ardsley Wooster. He does my bragging for me.\"\n\nWooster smiled. \"I had the pleasure of meeting Master Gilgamesh while we were both students in Paris. After graduation, he kindly arranged for me to be his assistant here. This was before I knew who he was, of course.\" Wooster looked down in surprise. A third mug of tea had apparently materialized in his hand. He shot Gil an exasperated look.\n\nGil smirked and raised his mug. \"You should have seen his face!\"\n\nWooster raised his mug in return, and took a sip. \"Very sneaky, sir. Most amusing.\"\n\nGilgamesh took Agatha's elbow and steered her towards a series of work stations. \"To start with, you'll be giving me general assistance when I require it. When it isn't required\u2026\" They stopped before a small bench that was littered with old tools and scraps from other projects. \"You have permission to work on your own projects here, as long as they don't interfere with your other duties.\"\n\nAgatha looked at Gil, the hand holding her tea mug frozen midway to her mouth. \"My own\u2026 I can work on my own projects?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"This is my space?\"\n\n\"Yours and yours alone, as long as it doesn't interfere with your other work. Later today you can clear it off and set it up for your requirements.\"\n\nAgatha turned towards the bench and slowly ran her hand along it. She put her tea down, quickly picked it back up, found a large gear and used it as a coaster. She turned back to Gil. \"Thank you. I've never had\u2026 I mean, at the University I couldn't\u2026 they\u2026\"\n\nGil awkwardly patted her on the arm. Their eyes met and locked. Gil felt his breath stop as he realized that Agatha's eyes were the largest and deepest he'd ever seen.\n\nAgatha saw eyes that regarded her as someone with thoughts and ideas that were worthwhile. Eyes that saw her as she had hardly dared to see herself. The moment seemed to last forever until a small gasp of pain broke the spell. Whirling about, the two saw Wooster trying to maintain a semblance of dignity, while attempting to dislodge one of Zoing's claws from his foot. Gil opened his mouth to say something, looked at Agatha, and instead, gently pulled her away from the gyrating figures, over to a large series of bookshelves. \"You will also be in charge of my library.\"\n\nScores of books filled the racks, books of every type. Large leather tomes framed and braced with metal clasps, scrolls in intricately decorated bamboo cases, roughly bound manuscripts and notebooks were mixed in with scores of the cheaply printed textbooks that were emblematic of university students. Agatha noted that while the sciences predominated, books on an astonishing range of subjects were present, many showed signs of use, such as cracked spines or thickets of bookmarks sticking up from the pages. One rack in particular caught Agatha's eye. These books, cheap though they were, obviously were part of a set, and a familiar set at that. \"You collect the Heterodyne Boys books?\"\n\nGil looked embarrassed. Agatha pulled down The Heterodyne Boys and Their Pneumatic Oyster. \"These are so much fun!\" A thought struck her. \"Oh, of course! Your father is in these, isn't he?\"\n\nGil mumbled, \"I\u2026 uh\u2026 I don't really remember\u2026\"\n\n\"Of course he is! Here we go\u2026\n\n'Hey Klaus, what are you doing in that vat?'\n\n'You put it under the hatch you great idiot! Help me out!'\n\nPunch scratched at his massive head. \"Wull, iffen you hadn't been running away\u2026'\"\n\nAgatha stopped. \"Oh. Oh dear.\"\n\nGil gently took the book from her and tucked it back onto the shelf. \"Yes, well\u2026 I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention these.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Another set of books caught Agatha's eye. They were gaudily bound in red, white and blue, and looked quite new. \"What are these?\" She read a title: Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm?\n\nGil's face lit up. \"Ah, these are terrific! Total British propaganda, of course, but really good!\"\n\nThis last comment was clearly heard by Wooster, who paused while carrying a large, thrashing sack over his shoulder. He frowned. \"Oh, I say sir\u2014as I have told you before, Miss Thorpe is a real person.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, and I'm sure that these stories are just as accurate as the Heterodyne series.\"\n\nWooster wagged his finger. \"Ah, but these publishers are British.\"\n\nGil gave up. \"Of course.\" He turned back to Agatha, who was sliding several of the volumes around on the shelf. \"Feel free to borrow any you like,\"\n\nAgatha pulled a book out from behind the others. \"This one must've slipped back\u2014\" The title caught her eye: \"\u2014In the Seraglio of the Iron Sheik?\"\n\nWooster waggled his eyebrows. \"A favorite, I believe.\"\n\nAgatha did not actually see Gil move, but suddenly there was a different book in her hand. \"I'd recommend that you start with this one.\"\n\n\"The Glass Dirigible? Sounds interesting.\"\n\nGil glared at his servant. \"Wooster, take Zoing and help him clean the flight lab.\" A blue claw punched through the sacking and missed closing on Wooster's ear by several millimeters. Wooster sighed. \"Very good sir.\"\n\nAgatha looked up. \"But about that seraglio one\u2014\"\n\nQuickly Gil reached up and pulled a large lever. \"Oh, Hey! What do you think of this?\"\n\nWith a hiss, part of the wall folded back to reveal a series of figures. They were animals, dressed in formal evening wear, arranged as an orchestra, equipped with instruments. From the center, a small figure, which looked disturbingly like the Baron, rose from a hidden cavity with a pneumatic hiss, and raised a slim baton. After a brief pause, the tip of the baton glowed, and the orchestra began to play a light waltz. Small statues that Agatha had thought were merely there to hold lighting fixtures began to sing a melodic counterpoint. Agatha began to notice the little details, how the rabbit playing the piccolo managed to twitch aside its ears every time the trombone slide approached from behind, the small mice with penny whistles that occasionally popped out of the bells of various horns. She was entranced until she felt a light tap upon her shoulder. Gil bowed. \"Would milady care to dance?\"\n\nAgatha shyly curtsied. \"I would.\" She felt Gil's strong hands grasp her hand and shoulder, but resisted slightly. He looked at her enquiringly. \"But later, I want to see how it works.\"\n\nGil smiled. \"I expected nothing less,\" and with that she allowed him to swirl her around in time to the music. Never had Agatha felt so grateful to Lilith as she did then, for the endless dance lessons that she had endured, acting as a prop for Lilith's male students. Seeing that she was no novice, Gil nodded in appreciation, and increased the complexity of the steps. With a gleam in her eye, Agatha returned the favor, catching Gil off guard, but with a delighted laugh, he carried through on the change, and, locked together, they swirled around the floor in a graceful arabesque that, when the music ended, deposited them exactly where they had started. But now they were closer to each other, their eyes again locked, their hands grasping the other's, and their breathing slightly faster than even the exertions they had completed would account for.\n\nWith a hiss, the orchestra bowed in unison and went still. After a moment, they both, reluctantly, released each other's hands. \"That\u2026\" Agatha ventured, \"that was wonderful dance music. Who wrote that?\"\n\nGil smiled modestly. \"I did. When I was a student in Paris.\"\n\n\"If that's any indication, you really liked Paris.\"\n\nGil nodded. \"I loved it. It's beautiful. You can be anything you want there.\" He glanced at Agatha and visibly pulled himself back from the past. A calculating look flashed across his face. He crossed over to a large wall cabinet and, reaching inside, pulled out a large globe of blue glass which was mounted upon a small brass figure of a man holding it, Atlas fashion, upon his shoulders. Several nozzles and connectors were placed upon the exterior, and a small brass trilobite was mounted upon a band that ran down the center. \"This is a genuine Heterodyne artifact I found at a curiosity shop. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out what it is yet. What do you think?\"\n\nAgatha looked at the device for a moment and then looked at Gil over her glasses. \"It looks like a lamp.\"\n\nGil frowned and pulled it back. \"It is not a lamp. I've been fiddling with it a bit. But nothing I run through it seems to do much. Unless it just takes an enormous amount of power, I must be doing something wrong.\" He displayed several sides of the object to Agatha. \"I'd like to open it up, but as you can see, there's no visible screws, hinges or access plates. I'd hate to take a chance on breaking it just to find out what it does.\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Your father knew the Heterodynes. Maybe he would know what it is.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he would, but where's the fun in that? I'll get it eventually.\"\n\nAs Gil was placing the globe back in the cabinet, Agatha's eye was caught by a large ceramic tube festooned with cables that seemed to be surrounded by charred equipment. \"What's this?\"\n\nGil's eyes lit up. \"Lightning generator. Watch.\" So saying, he activated a small control unit and instantly a bolt of electricity crackled through the air and a copper globe vaporized into molten fragments.\n\nAgatha whistled in admiration, but Gil was shaking his head in annoyance. He held up his hand with the control unit and clicked it a few times, but nothing happened. \"It still needs work. At the moment it takes way too long to recharge.\"\n\nAgatha took the control unit and peered up at the glowing tip of the generator while flicking the switch a few times herself.\n\nOver the next half hour, Gil showed Agatha the layout of the labs and explained the procedures she'd need to know. Eventually they came to a large room that looked to Agatha like a gymnasium, complete with several racks of fencing swords. There, the battered, spider-like clank that dominated the middle of the room looked even more out of place than it ordinarily might have. It had a large humanoid torso, with a single left arm, which clutched a dueling saber. Its lower half consisted of four triple jointed legs, which were crouched down, bringing the torso almost to the floor. The only ornamentation that Agatha could see was a small, cherry-red heart, which was located in the center of the clank's chest.\n\n\"That looks nasty,\" She remarked.\n\nGil nodded. \"It is. I wanted a more\u2026 realistic fencing clank to practice with. The ones the students use are kind of tame, don't you think?\"\n\nAgatha frowned. \"I don't fence, actually.\"\n\nGil looked at her speculatively. \"You should. It comes in useful.\" He picked up a foil and tossed it to Agatha, and nodded in satisfaction at the way she snagged it out of the air. \"Plus it's fun. You should ask Zulenna to teach you. She's really good.\"\n\n\"Zulenna doesn't like me.\"\n\nGil grimaced. \"Ah. That stupid ranking game of hers. That girl needs a good smack upside the head.\"\n\n\"I tried that. It didn't work.\"\n\nGil stared at her. Agatha's face reddened, and she concentrated on swinging her sword about. \"I'm not proud of it, but she was asking for it. She was insulting my parents.\"\n\nGil nodded. \"That sounds like Zulenna, all right. Well, she's going to do some occasional work for me here, so I'll expect you to be civil to her, and I'll expect the same of her. Is that clear?\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Yes, Master Wulfenbach.\"\n\nGil rolled his eyes. \"Please, call me Gilgamesh.\"\n\n\"Yes, Master Gilgamesh.\"\n\n\"Miss Clay\u2014\"\n\nAt that moment, Agatha's sword tip smacked into the small red heart of the fencing clank. With a burst of steam, the device reared up on its multijointed legs. Three slots irised open, and an additional three arms sprang forth. One was equipped with a Japanese sai, one carried a small but lethal-looking hand axe, and the last terminated in a circular sawblade, which began to spin faster and faster until the gleaming teeth faded into invisibility.\n\nAgatha stared entranced until Gil pulled her aside as the axe swept through where she had been standing. \"Amusing,\" she commented. \"How do you shut it off?\"\n\nMeanwhile Gil had grabbed a sword and was blocking the clank as it lashed out again with its own weapons. \"You hit the heart again!\"\n\n\"Oh. Well that seems pretty straight forward.\"\n\nGil moved to block the clank's sawblade and found his sword trapped within the sai. With a quick twist, the blade was snapped. He dropped the weapon and found Agatha ready with another. He swept it up and deflected the other three arms in a flurry of motion. \"Straight forward, yes, but it's a really good fencing clank.\"\n\nA small oilcan flew through the air and smacked onto the heart. The clank froze, and with a hiss, began to relax. Gil turned in surprise and looked at Agatha. \"I don't fence,\" she explained. \"So how is this thing more realistic?\"\n\n\"Ever traveled the Wastelands?\"\n\n\"No, but I've heard\u2026 oh.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. But there are still some problems\u2026\"\n\nWith a roar, the fencing clank snapped back into action. Gil pushed Agatha back as the sawblade swung through the air in front of them. \"There's a forty-three percent chance of spontaneous restart within thirty seconds,\" Gil shouted.\n\n\"Okay,\" Agatha acknowledged. \"That's a problem.\" She scooped up a small wrench and fired it at the heart. Casually, the clank brought up its axe and deflected the missile before it could hit.\n\n\"That's not the problem,\" corrected Gil, \"that's a design feature. The problem is that it learns from its previous encounters.\"\n\nAgatha looked impressed. \"But that's great.\"\n\nGil pushed her aside and a sword blade ripped through his sleeve. \"Thanks. But I'm afraid that with all the test fighting I've been doing, I've been reaching the limits of my ability.\" He leaped back as a pointed leg slammed into the ground where he'd been standing. Agatha studied the fight for a moment and then stepped forward.\n\n\"Miss Clay? What are you doing?\" Gil lunged towards her, but was beaten back by a flurry of steel. Meanwhile Agatha calmly walked up towards the clank, and gently tapped the device's heart.\n\nAgain it froze and began to power down.\n\nAgatha blew out her breath in relief and turned towards Gil. \"No attack, no response,\" she explained.\n\nHer grin faltered when she saw the look of fury upon Gil's face. \"You could have been killed!\"\n\n\"I\u2026 It was an experiment\u2014\"\n\n\"I will not tolerate lax procedures in this lab!\"\n\nAgatha flushed. \"You're just mad because I beat it twice.\"\n\n\"I AM NOT!\" Gil froze, and took a deep breath. He held up a hand to forestall any further conversation and looked up at a large clock. Agatha joined him in watching the ticking progression of the second hand. After thirty seconds had passed without any movement from the clank, they both relaxed.\n\nIt was then that Othar Tryggvassen crashed backwards through one of the doors in a shower of fragments. Looming within the doorway was Klaus Wulfenbach. His shirt and vest were in tatters, and it was obvious that Othar had managed to get in a few good punches of his own. What struck Agatha was that the expression on the Baron's face was the closest she'd ever seen to something approaching enjoyment. \"Sorry, son. I got a bit carried away.\"\n\nOthar slammed into the floor and bounced back up. He looked remarkably unharmed. Taking in his surroundings, he snarled, \"Gilgamesh! So\u2014ALL the vipers are now in residence!\"\n\nGil's shoulder's slumped. \"Get wound, Tryggvassen. I can't believe you still talk like that.\" He turned to Klaus, who was leaning nonchalantly against the doorway. \"Father, why is he here?\"\n\nKlaus shrugged. \"I don't think we can do any more damage to my labs.\"\n\n\"No, I mean why is he still on his feet? I know you could\u2014\" He stopped and a look of fury crossed his face. \"You've been sizing him up as a fighter.\" He glanced at Othar. \"There isn't a real mark on him. This is another stupid test! I'll bet you let him loose on purpose!\"\n\nKlaus examined his fingernails.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" Othar boomed. \"I escaped using naught but my wits!\"\n\n\"And a knife or a key or coat hanger my father left within your reach, right?\"\n\n\"Um\u2026\" A brief moue of uncertainty crossed Othar's face.\n\nGil nodded. \"That's what I thought. Well, I can't have you running around.\" So saying he jumped and spun in midair, lashing out with his foot so that the heel solidly caught Othar's jaw. The big man dropped to the ground.\n\nHe pushed himself up and found himself looking up at Agatha. \"Why, 'tis the fair maiden! Have no fear! I shall rescue you from this den of evil and\u2014\"\n\nGil stepped up and brutally smacked the back of Othar's head with a large wrench, sending him face forward to the floor. \"In your dreams,\" he muttered as he tossed the wrench aside.\n\nKlaus clicked the stem of his stopwatch and looked pleased. \"Well done, son.\"\n\nGil visibly kept himself under control as he spoke. \"Father, this was very irresponsible. He should be kept locked up. You know what he could do!\"\n\nKlaus prodded Othar's inert form with a booted toe. \"And he isn't even damaged.\"\n\n\"Believe me, if I had my way, but I don't want a repeat of that business with Beetle.\" As he said this, he seemed to remember Agatha. And glanced towards her. Agatha was in shock. Her face was white at the casual brutality with which Gil had taken Othar down. She had seen numerous fights in Heterodyne Boys shows, and read about them in novels. This had been nothing like that at all.\n\nKlaus nodded at Gil's words and his face went somber. \"Yes, that was a pity.\"\n\nGill appealed to the heavens. \"Not that anybody cares, but he did throw a bomb at me.\"\n\n\"Hold on.\" Agatha stepped forward. \"Is this really the Othar Tryggvassen?\"\n\nGil nodded. \"I'm afraid so.\"\n\n\"But isn't he a hero? You know\u2026 one of the good guys? How could you\u2014\"\n\nGil stepped up to her and cut her off. \"Miss Clay, a good assistant is one who trusts her employer. A healthy assistant is one who doesn't meddle in things she doesn't understand. Now please go fetch the maintenance staff.\"\n\nAgatha looked at him for a moment, and then wordlessly whirled about and dashed off. Gil turned back towards Klaus, but the old man peremptorily held up a hand until the lab door closed behind Agatha. Then he scowled at his son. \"Assistant?\"\n\nGil scowled. \"She's a good assistant, Father!\"\n\n\"Even Glassvitch's assessment said otherwise, and he liked her.\"\n\n\"Her work with von Zinzer\u2014\" Klaus cut him off.\n\n\"Von Zinzer fired her! And she was his\u2014\" Klaus stopped. He blinked a few times, and looked at Gil in a peculiar way that made the young man nervous. \"Ah.\" Klaus nodded. \"Of course. I see.\"\n\nGil looked blank. \"You do?\"\n\nKlaus looked over towards the door. Conflicting emotions flickered behind his eyes. A grudging resignation won. He sighed. \"You're young, and she is quite comely\u2026\"\n\nGil's face went scarlet. \"Father!\" he gasped.\n\nKlaus awkwardly tousled his son's hair. An act so rare that it shut Gil up as his father continued. \"These things must run their course.\" He caught Gil's eye. \"Discreetly, I trust.\" Gil sucked in an outraged lungful of air\u2014\n\n\"Obviously,\" Klaus mused, \"it is time we found you a suitable bride.\"\n\n\"A what?\" Gil squeaked.\n\n\"Someone from one of the Great Houses preferably, though we are having some problems with the Southern border states\u2026\"\n\n\"But\u2026 but\u2026\"\n\n\"Yes. I shall see to it.\" He turned towards Gil and spoke seriously. \"These sort of negotiations take some time, so I expect you'll be able to keep her through the summer, which\u2014\" a flicker of memory softened Klaus' features for a moment\u2014\"is the best season for that sort of thing.\" His usual sternness returned. \"But I want her set aside come mid-September at the latest. We can get her a job in a library or some such in one of the northern towns easily enough, and a harsh winter will help persuade her to find someone else to keep her warm, I expect.\" Klaus nodded in satisfaction and strode out of the room. Gil realized that his mouth was hanging open and shut it with a snap. He felt a slight tug on his pant leg, and looked down to see Zoing staring at him with concern.\n\n\"Ugettagurl?\" Zoing inquired.\n\n\"You heard that! He thinks I hired Miss Clay because I'm\u2026 because she\u2026\" Words failed him and he flailed his arms wildly until another memory surfaced. \"AND he's talking about marrying me off! Most of those stupid princesses have trouble remembering their own name!\" He slumped in place. \"This couldn't get any worse.\"\n\nA brawny arm snaked around Gil's neck and jerked him back. \"Nonsense!\" Othar chuckled. \"The Baron could find out about your actual taste in women. Now if I were to suggest a side trip to the Island of the Monkey Girls\u2014\"\n\nEffortlessly, Gil reached back and Othar found himself being slammed to the floor. Gil stood over him and said conversationally, \"I really hate you.\" With that he aimed a vicious kick that drove Othar's head into the floor hard enough to cause the giant man to go limp. A gasp from the doorway caused Gil to spin about. Agatha, flanked by a couple of the Lackya and Mr. Rovainen, stared back at him.\n\nShe nervously licked her lips. \"They\u2026 they're here for Othar,\" she whispered.\n\nGil felt his rage dissipate. He glanced down at the unconscious man at his feet, noted the bruise which was already coloring the side of his face, and a feeling of embarrassment swept over him. He stepped forward. \"Miss Clay, I should\u2014\"\n\nAgatha's expression was wooden, but she flinched slightly as his hand approached. Gil froze. His face darkened and he turned away, gesturing dismissively at Othar. \"Clean this up.\"\n\n\"Yes, 'Master.'\" Agatha intoned.\n\nAgain Gil froze, but it was only momentary. Without looking back, he strode from the room and pulled the great metal door closed behind him.\n\nThe others released a gust of breath. Wordlessly, the Lackya bent down and seemingly without effort, hoisted the unconscious Othar up and began to haul him away. Agatha stood and stared at the door through which Gil had departed. Mr. Rovainen, having directed the Lackya where to take their charge, turned to the troubled girl.\n\n\"He just struck him. Kicked him when he was down,\" she whispered. Mr. Rovainen nodded approvingly, but Agatha failed to notice. \"I was just starting to like him. But he\u2026 he can be so horrible.\"\n\nMr. Rovainen's voice rasped from beneath the bandages on his face, \"Will you\u2026 leave his employ?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Confusion crossed Agatha's face. \"I mean\u2014No. I\u2026 I don't\u2026\"A bizarre sound that Agatha realized was Mr. Rovainen's attempt at a chuckle, filled the air.\n\nThe smaller man shook his head. \"It is part of the power of the gifted. Those around them wish to aid them. To\u2026 serve them. Even when we know them to be monsters.\" Within his enormous coat, he suddenly shivered, stopping himself with a jerk.\n\nAgatha nodded slowly. \"Must he be a\u2026 monster?\"\n\nMr. Rovainen shrugged. \"With that one, it is too soon to tell. The best thing we can do is advise them. Try to influence them.\" He glanced down and casually patted Agatha's rump. \"You, at least, have methods of persuasion at your disposal that I do not.\" Again he chuckled, but it was cut off sharply by Agatha grabbing a fistful of his shirt and hauling him forward.\n\n\"You disgusting little man,\" she snarled. \"Don't you have something you should be doing? Somewhere else?\"\n\nThe harmonics in Agatha's voice caused Mr. Rovainen to flinch, and he gasped out a feeble, \"Yes.\"\n\nWith that, Agatha flung him against the nearest wall and said through clenched teeth, \"Then go do it!\"\n\nFor a moment, Rovainen resisted, then caught Agatha's eye, and with a whimper, he spun and loped off with a muttered, \"Yes, Mistress.\"\n\nAgatha stood until he was out of sight, and then stalked back to the dorm to take a shower.\n\nLater, around the dinner table, Agatha regaled the others with the events of the day.\n\nAfter she was finished, Sleipnir added a few castle-grown strawberries to her dish of rommegrot, and frowned. \"Othar Tryggvassen. Are you sure you got the name right?\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"I heard both the Baron and Gil say it.\"\n\nSleipnir looked pensive. \"I can't believe it's the same person. Othar Tryggvassen is a hero. We've all heard of him. Theo even has some of the new books about him. He hides them under his bed.\"\n\nTheo choked on a cup of tea. \"How did you\u2014?\"\n\n\"I found them when I was looking for my shoes.\" Theo blushed. The others looked interested.\n\nThe mood was altered by Zulenna standing and declaring, \"If the Baron has confined him, he must have just cause, books or no. You shouldn't believe everything you read. Anyone can say they're a 'hero.'\"\n\nNicodeamus raised an eyebrow. \"I'd say it has to do with how a person acts, wouldn't you?\"\n\nZulenna shrugged dismissively. \"I suppose some people would allow themselves to be rescued by just anybody.\" Nicodeamus rolled his eyes. Agatha also stood up.\n\n\"Where are you off to?\" Sleipnir asked.\n\n\"I have some letters to write. There are people in Beetleburg who might have news of my parents.\"\n\nSleipnir noticed the dish that Agatha was loading up. Agatha shrugged. \"Writing letters. Hard work.\"\n\n\"For some of us,\" Zulenna said to no one in particular. Without a word, Agatha straightened up and walked back to her room and very carefully closed the door. She then leaned back against it, closed her eyes, and took a deep, slow breath. \"Cat?\" she whispered.\n\n\"My name is Krosp,\" said a voice from atop an armoire. Gracefully, the cat leapt to the floor where Agatha had placed the dish. \"What's for dinner?\"\n\n\"Fish.\"\n\nKrosp sat on his haunches and gave her a thumbs up. He then reached out for the linen napkin, and tied it around his neck. Satisfied it was in place, he buried his nose in the food and began devouring it. Agatha watched this all with fascination.\n\n\"So, what are you?\" she inquired when Krosp came up for air.\n\n\"I'm a construct. A cat with human intelligence. No milk?\"\n\nAgatha shook her head. \"I didn't think of it. Sorry.\"\n\nKrosp shrugged and again attacked his plate. Within minutes it was clean. He sighed, sat back, and daintily dabbed at his mouth with the napkin. \"Anyway, I was declared a failure and was 'scheduled to be terminated,' but I escaped.\"\n\n\"A failure? But you sound pretty intelligent to me.\"\n\n\"I hid that. Which, in retrospect, might have been a mistake. But the intelligence wasn't the point.\"\n\nAgatha looked confused. \"Then what\u2014?\"\n\nKrosp held up a paw. \"I'm the Emperor of all cats. Think about it. Cats can go anywhere. They're invisible. Nobody looks at them twice. Imagine if you could order them around. If you could use them as spies, messengers, saboteurs. Well, you tell me what to have them do, and I can give them their orders.\"\n\nAgatha nodded, impressed, then she saw Krosp's slumped shoulders. \"It didn't work,\" she guessed.\n\n\"Oh, it worked perfectly. I'm the highest-ranking cat there is. They all listen to me.\"\n\n\"Then why\u2014?\"\n\nKrosp whirled, his fur a-bristle, \"Because they're cats! They're animals! They can't grasp complex concepts! Their attention span can be measured in microseconds! Even if I can get them to understand what I want, they're only under my command until they fall asleep, or see something move, or blink! It was a moronic idea!\" He collapsed into a small, dejected shape on the bed. \"Sometimes I think I was supposed to be killed because I was too embarrassing to live.\"\n\nAgatha sat down next to him. \"I understand. I feel like that a lot.\"\n\nKrosp looked up. \"You do?\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"I\u2026 I want to make things. I see them in my head\u2014but they never work! I got headaches! I can't concentrate! I feel so useless sometimes. Why am I like this? I must be good for something, but I feel like my head is full of junk! I can't do anything useful!\"\n\nKrosp blinked. \"You got me something to eat.\"\n\nAgatha looked at him for a moment and then slumped over onto her side. \"Oh of course. I see. My destiny is to serve the King of the cats.\"\n\nThe effect of these words upon Krosp were electric. Thoughts raced through his head, and then a grim resolution filled his face and he nodded once. With great gravitas, he stood and placed his right paw upon Agatha's forehead. \"I accept your fealty,\" he said. \"Next time, don't forget the milk.\" He straightened and looked at her seriously. \"Now we have to figure out how to escape.\"\n\nAgatha sat up. \"Escape? From what?\"\n\n\"From the Baron. I can live here, but you couldn't. Not safely.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\nKrosp looked at her. \"You placed yourself in my service. You're my responsibility now. I can't guarantee your safety here, so we have to leave.\"\n\n\"Why would the Baron care about me?\"\n\n\"The Baron studies the Spark. One of the ways he studies it is by destroying it. He 'studied' my creator, Dr. Vapnoople.\" Krosp looked away. \"I couldn't save him, but I have vowed to help save his work, and\u2026\"Krosp sighed, \"and what's left of him.\" He gave Agatha a look she couldn't interpret. \"And now I must try to save you.\"\n\n\"But I don't have the Spark. I seem to have the opposite. Nothing I build even works.\"\n\nKrosp signed in exasperation. \"What do you think you DO at night?\"\n\nAgatha looked wary. \"I don't know. I'm asleep. What do I do at night?\"\n\n\"You build things.\"\n\n\"But there's never anything there when I wake up.\"\n\nKrosp folded his arms. \"They always run away.\"\n\nGirl and cat stared at each other for a minute. Finally Agatha said carefully, \"Why?\" Krosp shifted uncomfortably and looked away. Agatha folded her hands and continued to look at him.\n\nKrosp hunched his shoulders. \"I chase them,\" he whispered. He looked up at Agatha with lowered ears. \"I can't help it.\" Now he looked annoyed. \"And I can't catch them.\"\n\nAgatha took a deep breath and a new thought struck her. \"Othar Tryggvassen, he's a Spark. Would the Baron really hurt him?\"\n\nKrosp considered this. \"He'll destroy his mind, certainly. It might kill him eventually, but I don't think he'll go out of his way to hurt him\u2014\"\n\n\"But Othar, he's supposed to be a good person. He's helped people. Why would the Baron do that?\"\n\n\"The Baron sees a bigger picture.\" With that, Krosp leapt with surprising grace back atop the armoire. \"I've got to go.\" With a deft motion, he hooked the ventilator grill with a claw and popped it from the wall. Agatha snapped her fingers.\n\n\"There's another one of those under the bed.\"\n\nKrosp nodded. \"Think about what you want to take, if anything, and keep it with you. Opportunity will dictate our schedule.\"\n\n\"Wait. If you're going to rescue someone, rescue Othar. I'll be fine.\"\n\nKrosp's head looked out at her from the depths of the airshaft. \"Othar isn't my responsibility.\" With a muffled click, he pulled the cover back into place, and was gone.\n\nAgatha stared at the vent for a moment and then nodded to herself. \"Well. Then I guess he's mine.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "\u2003\"It is a terrible thing, to see your loved ones moving, and yet know they are dead.\" \u2014Survivor's report, after the destruction of the town of Berne\n\nMr. Rovainen froze halfway through the door. In a dim pool of light, a familiar figure was hunched over a series of microscopes. \"Dr. Vg,\" he said. \"Why are you still here? It is very late.\"\n\nVg nodded without turning to face him. \"I couldn't sleep.\" He delicately placed a pipette on a dish, and sat back with a sigh. \"I think I have found a way to determine the age of the Hive Engine.\"\n\nRovainen scuttled forward. \"Really?\"\n\nVg removed his pince-nez and buffed them on his sleeve, always a sign that he was pleased with himself. \"Yes. It will involve disassembling part of the control unit, but once we have, we can compare the crystallization rates of the brines.\"\n\nRovainen peered up at the massive Hive Engine that dominated the room. He nodded. \"That would work.\" He hesitated, then awkwardly placed a hand on Vg's shoulder. \"I have\u2026 always admired your brilliance, Doctor.\" Vg was so surprised by this statement, that the shock of the blade passing through his chest was almost an afterthought. \"I am so sorry,\" Mr. Rovainen whispered as he gently lowered the stricken Vg to the floor.\n\nVg felt the life draining from him. \"You\u2026 you have killed me!\"\n\nMr. Rovainen stood over him and deftly reinserted the long steel blade into the spring device in his coat sleeve. \"No, old friend. I have spared you.\" He stepped up to the Hive Engine, and with three sure motions, activated it. \"Spared you from that which is to come.\"\n\nVg struggled, but only felt himself grow weaker. \"You've activated it! Are you insane?\"\n\nRovainen looked at him askance. \"Alas, that comfort is denied me.\"\n\nVg's brain made one final leap of logic. \"You're a servant of the Other. You're a revenant!\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Fight it! Don't do this! The Other is dead! Gone!\" The effort caused a gout of blood to cover his lips and he fell back.\n\nMr. Rovainen turned back to the now-glowing Engine. \"Oh no. The Other lives\u2014and I have seen her.\"\n\nAgatha floated in the middle of the universe and saw that it was an engine, endlessly ticking. She saw how it was put together. She reached out and grasped a tiny part which was, as she saw, connected to everything else, and twisted\u2014\"Yes. Now I see. Wrench.\"\n\nA small silver wrench was delicately placed into her outstretched hand. A final twist and she stepped back from the large cylinder before her. A movement to her side caught her eye and she realized that the wrench had been handed to her by a small brass clank that was the size and shape of a large pocket watch. It had diminutive arms and legs, and the single great eye set in the center of its face watched her intently. Agatha gave a small gasp of delight and leaned forward to study it. \"What are you?\" she breathed.\n\n\"You should know,\" a voice remarked from behind her. Agatha whirled in surprise. There, perched upon a lab stool looking tired but exultant, was Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. He waved a hand. \"You built them.\"\n\nIt was only then that Agatha realized that the lab they were in, Gilgamesh's she realized, was literally crawling with hundreds of small clanks, no two of them alike and all of them small enough to fit in her hand. Half of them seemed to be disassembling parts of the lab and its equipment, while the other half were reassembling said parts into new, unfamiliar shapes.\n\nAgatha shook her head. \"No, I couldn't have built all these. There are too many of them.\"\n\nGil shrugged. \"I think you started a few nights ago\u2014in your sleep.\"\n\n\"But still\u2014all of these\u2026\"\n\n\"That's the best part. They're self-replicating.\" He snagged a small, domed clank that was moving across the floor by fits and starts. \"I watched as this one was built by three others tonight.\" Agatha peered at it and noticed that the rivets were misaligned along half of the little clank's carapace. Its single eyed rolled towards her slowly. \"It doesn't seem to be as well made as the others,\" Gil remarked.\n\nAgatha stared at him. \"But they work. I built something that works.\"\n\nGil shrugged. \"You'll have to get used to that\u2014being a Spark and all.\"\n\nAgatha felt like she was watching the conversation happen to someone else far away. \"I built something that works,\" the faraway girl said. She turned and looked Gil in the eye, to see if he was making fun of her. \"A Spark,\" she said.\n\nGil grinned. \"I certainly hope so.\" He gently took hold of her shoulder and swung her around. \"Because if you're not, then I'm never going to figure out what this is about.\"\n\n\"This\" was a tall, barrel-shaped clank standing motionless upon a pair of powerful, jacked legs. Attached to its back was a tapering, green metal pod that looked vaguely insectoid. The whole thing was startlingly familiar, and it suddenly dawned on Agatha where she'd seen it. \"Is\u2026 is that your fencing clank?\"\n\nGil nodded. \"The fencing clank, part of the wrecked flying machine, bits of the furnace and the mechanical orchestra, my good lathe\u2014\" he looked at her quizzically \"\u2014and a pneumatic nutcracker.\"\n\nAgatha looked embarrassed. \"I really like nuts.\"\n\nGil nodded. For a Spark, this was solid stuff. Any number of devices had been built because \"The cats on the moon told me to.\"\n\nAgatha frowned. \"Wait. You don't know what this is? But if you saw me put it together\u2014\"\n\nGil shrugged. \"Oh, I know most of how you did it\u2014You had me playing assistant half the night. But that's a lot different from actually firing it up and seeing what it does. Maybe I'll get Wooster to do it.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Just kidding.\" Gil grinned. A part of Agatha noted with a touch of embarrassment how much she enjoyed seeing his smile. He pulled a bizarre pocket watch out of his waistcoat and clasping her wrist, began to check her pulse. His hand was warm and comfortably strong. \"Hmm. Accelerated pulse. So, how are you feeling?\"\n\nAgatha thought about it. \"Good,\" she realized, with a touch of surprise. \"A little tired. Hungry.\"\n\nGil snapped the watch lid shut and gestured towards a long table along the wall. \"Hardly surprising, you've been working all night. I had the kitchens bring up some food. Help yourself.\"\n\nA large covered basket revealed a stack of warm crusty loaves of French-style bread. A block of sweet Irish butter was surrounded by several different types of cheese, including a sharp orange cheddar webbed with fiery spices, a buttery gouda baked into a flaky crust and a pungent bleu which contained small salt crystals that crunched between your teeth. Platters of cold meats, an astonishing selection of various puddings and sausages and smoked fish from all over the Empire. Several small crocks contained pickled vegetables.\n\nHungry as she was, Agatha swiftly constructed a massive sandwich and was in the process of topping it off with a potent garlic mustard that was a Beetleburg favorite, when she realized that the young man was observing her closely. He nodded when he saw that she had noticed. \"You seem very\u2026\" He considered his words carefully. \"Together.\"\n\nAgatha quickly checked her attire and then hefted the finished sandwich self-consciously. \"Yes\u2014I'm all dressed and everything.\"\n\nGil waved that aside. \"No, no. When a Spark breaks through, it's usually very traumatic. A fair number go mad. Since they're made during these periods of great emotional pain and confusion, breakthrough devices usually cause a lot of destruction. It's how a lot of Sparks get killed. But you\u2014even your first clank in Beetleburg was fairly benign. You haven't broken through so much as eased through. My father will find this very interesting.\"\n\nAgatha swallowed. \"You're telling your father?\"\n\nGil nodded. \"Oh yes! He was totally wrong about you! He still thinks von Zinzer is the Spark! Hee!\" It was obvious that catching his father in a mistake was the best thing to happen to Gil in quite some time.\n\n\"But I don't want to be 'studied,'\" Agatha objected. \"What if I end up like\u2026 like Dr. Vapnoople?\"\n\nGilgamesh was instantly serious. \"What makes you think you'll end up like Dr. Vapnoople?\"\n\nAgatha blinked. \"Oh. Ah\u2026\"\n\nGil's eyes narrowed. \"How do you even know who he is?\"\n\n\"I don't really, but his cat warned me.\" The sentence actually formed in Agatha's head, but common sense kept it from being spoken. Luckily, she was spared further interrogation by a blast of sound that came from a set of whistles set into the wall. Both Agatha and Gilgamesh clapped their hands to their ears. \"What is that?\" Agatha shouted.\n\nGil leaned close to her and shouted back. \"Evacuation alarm! There isn't a drill scheduled, so let's move!\" With that he grabbed her hand and took off for the exit. Pipes were whistling all through the section, and Agatha saw people emerging from various doorways, some of them frantically clutching armloads of papers or equipment.\n\n\"Evacuation?\" she yelled over the din, \"You mean off the Castle?\"\n\nGil shrugged. He seemed remarkably unconcerned. \"Probably not,\" he shouted back. \"Just out of the labs. If it's really bad, we'll head to one of the support dirigibles.\"\n\nAgatha stopped suddenly, almost jerking Gil off his feet. \"Wait! My little clanks!\"\n\nGil frowned. \"You don't have time to collect them!\"\n\nIgnoring him, Agatha cupped her hands and roared down the hallway, \"FOLLOW ME!\"\n\nFrom the doorway of the lab, a glittering carpet of tiny devices poured out into the hall. Suddenly the flood paused, and the giant mystery clank smashed through the doorframe. It moved quickly, but with a delicate mincing step that managed to avoid crushing any of the smaller machines that swarmed around its feet.\n\n\"But what are they even good for?\" Gil yelled.\n\n\"If I leave them behind, we'll never know!\"\n\nWith that the two again headed towards the exit. Agatha noticed that the hall was now empty, except for them. Gil explained, \"We're experimenting with dangerous stuff here. Once the alarm goes off, we have two minutes to get out of the labs before they're sealed off.\"\n\n\"Does this happen a lot?\"\n\nGil shrugged. \"Every couple of weeks. You'll get used to it.\" They turned the corner and saw the exit doorway. Beyond it an anxious crowd was gathered, arms loaded with items. At the sight of Gil and Agatha, they raised a cheer and called encouragement. On the doorframe itself, lights were blinking, and a digital display across the top was counting down the seconds. As Agatha watched, it clicked to 21. With a gasp, they crossed the threshold. Agatha felt embarrassed at how out of shape she was, and with a guilty start, realized that she was leaning on Gil's arm. She jerked herself off just as Gil's hand was about to delicately ease itself onto her shoulder. With only a slight hesitation, said hand smoothly fished out his watch instead. He nodded.\n\n\"That's cutting it a bit fine. But now we should find my father and help\u2014\"\n\n\"WAIT!\" Agatha had screeched to a halt. \"The prisoner!\"\n\nGil looked at her blankly, then he frowned. \"Othar? What about him?\"\n\n\"He's still locked up in your father's lab. If it's something dangerous, he'll be helpless!\"\n\n\"Your point being\u2026?\" Agatha frowned. Gil lowered his eyes. \"Look, you've got to understand. I've known Othar a long time. He's completely insane. He's probably the cause of this alarm. He's very dangerous, especially to you\u2014because\u2014\"\n\nA collective gasp from the crowd caused him to look up in time to see Agatha darting back down the corridor just as the counter clicked to \"0,\" and the great metal doors clanged! shut. Instantly a shrill metallic keening arose from the floor. Everyone looked down and saw the swarm of little clanks frantically scrabbling at the closed door. The crowd shrieked and scuttled away, anxiously checking skirt hems and pant cuffs. Gil sighed and rolled his eyes, then squatted down and addressed them. \"If you want me to go in after her, you'll have to help me open that door!\" The array of little machines stared back at him. He sat back upon his heels and felt slightly foolish. Why had he allowed himself to succumb to the impulse to talk to them like they could do could actually do anything\u2014\n\nWith the sound of a thousand tiny relays flipping to a new setting, the little clanks pulled out, re-arranged themselves into, or simply grabbed a neighbor who was thus revealed to be part of, a vast set of miniature tools, with which they instantly attacked the great metal doorway that stood between them and their mistress.\n\nOn the other side of said door, Agatha was having second thoughts as she raced back down the corridor. Turning the bend, she almost plowed into the large mystery clank, which was jogging towards her. She swerved to the left, caromed off the corridor wall and kept on going. The clank jabbed a leg forward, pivoted around it with a screech until it was facing the way it had come, and then clanked off after her.\n\n\"What am I doing?\" she muttered. \"The Baron's labs are probably even bigger than Gilgamesh's. How can I find Othar quickly?\"\n\n\"A-ha!\" a voice rang out from an open doorway. \"The reticent damsel answers the call of adventure!\"\n\nAgatha skidded to a halt and looked in. For a fellow who was chained upside down surrounded by an array of spring-loaded weapons all aimed at him, Othar looked remarkably cheerful, not to mention a bit smug. Agatha took a deep breath and went up to him. Behind her, the great metal clank tried, with qualified success, to ease itself through the doorway without causing too much damage.\n\n\"You okay?\" she asked.\n\n\"Ha! Othar Tryggvassen laughs at such a question!\"\n\n\"Probably because all the blood's in your head.\"\n\n\"That's certainly part of it,\" Othar cheerfully conceded.\n\nSuddenly the great clank stepped forward. With a hisss, the four great fencing arms, topped with their various weapons, unfolded. \"Subject Othar\u2014\"Its voice was an astonishingly melodious three-part chorus \"\u2014I am here to rescue you!\"\n\nWith a scream, the great circular sawblade on its lower right arm roared into life and, with a flourish, cut through the chains holding Othar aloft, centimeters away from his fingers. Instantly, the spring-loaded weapons released, and were deftly deflected by the remaining arms quickly enough that the machine was able to grab Othar by the leg before he had time to crash onto the floor. Triumphant music erupted from the device and it waved Othar about like a baton as it lumbered back through the doorway, all consideration for the doorframe's integrity forgotten.\n\nAgatha raced after it, opened her mouth, and ran straight into a billowing expanse of ribbed fabric. Backing up, she saw that the pod upon the clank's back had opened, and a vast set of green, bat-like wings, supported by an intricate cluster of rods and levers, was unfolding and snapping into position. \"Fear not!\" The clank sang joyously, \"Soon you will be safe!\"\n\n\"Wait!\" Agatha screamed. \"We're inside! You can't fly in here!\"\n\nFor a split-second, the device paused, and then spun about and lumbered forward, gaining speed as it headed for a vast bank of windows. Seeing this, Othar frantically doubled his efforts to escape the device's clutches, but to no avail, as without hesitation, the clank, and its unwilling passenger, smashed through the tempered glass and plunged into the empty sky. Agatha dashed to the gaping hole, and clutched the edge, fighting against the great winds that tore at her long enough to hear a final triumphant \"Be free!\" along with Othar's fading scream as they dropped out of sight.\n\n\"Well,\" she said distantly to no one in particular, \"at least now I know what it was for.\"\n\nA sudden silence caused her to look around. \"The alarm is off. Now what was that for?\"\n\nAt the far end of the gallery, a door creaked open. A large insectoid head poked through, along with several long multi-jointed arms. Agatha froze. Everyone was trained to know what a Slaver wasp looked like.\n\nKlaus' quarters were large and opulent, in a restrained and tasteful way. Many of the quarters aboard the Castle were snug at best. Here, there was space, despite the great canopied bed and the large solid items of furniture that occupied the area. At the moment, it was filled with people, many of whom were in the process of coming or going, while a core group collected reports and sent messengers out anew. In the center of it all was the master of Castle Wulfenbach, who was finishing off a goblet of warm wine while his valet finished buckling on a great bandoleer fully loaded with immense shells. The gun that used these shells was strapped into a large holster on his hip. The other hip was taken up with a scabbard holding a villainous-looking greatsword almost two meters long.\n\nThe main doorway was filled by the large, bulky form of J\u00e4gergeneral Goomblast. \"Herr Baron\u2014der outfliers report Slaver warriors all over your main labs.\"\n\nBoris nodded. \"Yes, the Hive Engine has been activated. Do you have any new information for us?\" Goomblast shook his head.\n\n\"A revenant onboard,\" Klaus muttered. \"How many were in the labs?\"\n\nMr. Rovainen hunched his shoulders. \"We're not sure. A few technicians cleaning, Dr. Kirstein's team was running their lizard-candy experiment\u2026 oh, and the prisoner, of course.\"\n\nKlaus rolled his eyes. \"Of course. Where is Dr. Vg?\"\n\nMr. Rovainen polished his left lens with a bandage-wrapped finger. \"Ah. No one has seen Dr. Vg since last night,\" he admitted.\n\nGoomblast broke in. \"Dere iz some goot news\u2014All der bogs dey haff seen so far iz varriors!\"\n\nKlaus perked up. \"So there's a chance that the actual swarm is still gestating? That is good news! How soon before we're ready to go in?\"\n\n\"Hyu giff der order undvego. Vehaff a mixed team of J\u00e4gerkin, Lackya, clenks und crew at each entry.\"\n\n\"Excellent. I am pleased at the lack of rivalry.\"\n\nGoomblast drew himself up. \"Sir\u2014dere iz a time to twit nancyboy feets men and a time to crush bogs.\" The head Lacky a bristled while Boris rolled his eyes. Klaus blinked.\n\nHe was saved from any comment by the arrival of Von Pinn, who entered through the door with a creak of leather and an expressive leer from the J\u00e4ger on the door. \"The children's ship is away,\" she rasped. \"The older ones were not happy.\"\n\nA pair of booted feet sticking out from a shadowed chair uncrossed themselves and Bangladesh DuPree leaned forward. \"Well of course. They're kids. They want to fight! It's fun!\"\n\nVon Pinn swiveled and glared at the seated woman. \"I teach restraint.\"\n\nDuPree eyed the leather-clad form and grinned. \"So your dressmaker's an 'A' student then?\"\n\nVon Pinn hissed and DuPree slowly began to rise from her chair, her grin even wider. \"You're losing air, sweetheart,\" she crooned.\n\nThe two jerked upright as Klaus' voice snapped out. \"Enough!\" Crisply Klaus gave orders and assigned positions. With a rush, the soldiers left to implement his orders. Klaus turned to an airman who had been patiently waiting off to the side.\n\n\"Present Captain Patel with my compliments and tell him to continue the evacuation. If he does not hear from myself or my son in two hours, or if the wheelhouse is about to fall, he is to scuttle the Castle.\" The airman looked nervous, but his voice was steady as he repeated back the orders, saluted and left.\n\nKlaus turned back. His group consisted of General Goomblast, Bangladesh, Boris, and a squad equally composed of J\u00e4gers, Lackya and Castle Wulfenbach's own marines. He patted his greatsword and for the first time, grinned. \"Let us take some exercise.\"\n\nAgatha was running flat out down the hallway. She was glancing behind her when she took a corner and smacked into Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. \"Miss Clay! Are you all right? Ow.\"\n\nGil was the first one to move, but it was Agatha who hauled him to his feet. \"No! Slaver wasps! Coming fast!\"\n\nA look of loathing crossed Gil's face. \"That cursed Hive Engine! What was Beetle thinking?\"\n\nUnsteadily, they broke into a trot towards the exit. \"What were you thinking?\" snapped Agatha. \"How did you get in here?\"\n\nThey turned the corner and skidded to a stop. Before them a tide of small machines ran to meet them, swarming around Agatha's feet, producing a noise that sounded suspiciously like small, tinny cheers. \"Your little clanks,\" Gil explained. \"They opened the door. They're amazing.\"\n\nAgatha felt a surge of hope. \"That's great! Then we can leave!\"\n\nShe turned to run, but Gil grabbed her arm and hauled her in a different direction. \"No,\" he explained, \"I had them seal the door behind us. I didn't know what was in here.\"\n\n\"Then\u2026 then we're trapped!\" She glanced back and slowed at what she saw. \"Wait\u2014my little clanks can't keep up.\"\n\nAgain Gil jerked her forward. \"They'll catch up, and they're in no danger. It's us the wasps want. Now hurry! My main lab is just ahead. If I can seal it off, we can wait for my father.\"\n\nThey turned another corner, but outside the lab doors, they saw several of the insect creatures freeze briefly, and then scuttle rapidly towards them.\n\nWith an oath, Gilgamesh steered them into the first room they found and slammed the door behind them. They looked around, panting. The room was bare of furniture, but was lined with shelves, cabinets and bins filled with racks of various devices.\n\n\"This is your electrical parts storage locker,\" Agatha noted.\n\nGil finished securing the door to a sturdy rack of shelves with a coil of heavy-duty cable. As he stepped back, the door shuddered as something slammed into it from the other side. \"That might do,\" he muttered. \"But we've no time to waste.\"\n\n\"But we should be okay now, right?\" Agatha looked around with interest. \"Once we equip ourselves from your arsenal, those things shouldn't stand a chance.\"\n\nGil looked blank. \"My what?\"\n\n\"Your weapons. The stuff you've built.\" Agatha rubbed her hands together in gleeful anticipation. \"I wondered where they were. So any chance of a good Death Ray? That'd be perfect!\"\n\nGil looked appalled. \"I don't have a Death Ray!\"\n\nAgatha blinked. \"What, it's an early prototype or something?\"\n\n\"I don't have a Death Ray.\"\n\nA sudden realization filled Agatha. She blushed in sympathy and with a gentle smile she placed a hand on his arm. \"I'm sure that next time you'll build a much bigger one, but trust me, right now any Death Ray, will do, no matter how\u2014\"\n\n\"I. DO. NOT. HAVE. A. DEATH. RAY!\" Gil shouted.\n\nAgatha stared at him in disbelief, and with an exasperated puff blew a lock of hair out of her face. \"Don't be ridiculous. Dr. Beetle had stuff like that all over the place. You must have something.\" She scratched her nose. \"Sonic Cannon?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Disintegration Beam?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You must have some sort of Doomsday Device. We can modify it. Come on, it'll be fun.\"\n\n\"I don't have anything like that!\"\n\nThey stared at each other.\n\n\"Fine. So what you're telling me is that you\u2014Gilgamesh Wulfenbach\u2014the person next in line to the despotic, iron-fisted rule of the Wulfenbach Empire\u2014have no deadly, powerful weapons lying around whatsoever! That's just great! What kind of an Evil Overlord are you going to be, anyway?\"\n\n\"Apparently a better one than I'd thought,\" Gil said, suddenly thoughtful.\n\nSuddenly, with a series of sharp thuds, a swordlike arm punched its way through the door. It was joined by several others, and using the opening, rapidly expanded it.\n\nA canister of old fencing swords was next to a cupboard. Gil grabbed two and faced off against the wasps struggling to get at them. \"Build something!\" he ordered Agatha.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I'll hold them off, you build your own damn Death Ray!\"\n\n\"But I don't know how! You should\u2014\"\n\n\"You can't fight\u2014but you're a Spark!\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"Or we'll die\u2014or worse!\" With that he turned away from her and sliced away at a wasp that had managed to cram itself through the door.\n\nAgatha backed into a corner. \"Got to think.\" She gasped as a razor-edged claw sliced through Gil's boot. Deliberately she turned away. \"Got to think!\" The noise was becoming overwhelming. It sounded like dozens of creatures hammering and tearing away at the metal door. Sounds became magnified. The sound of sword striking chitin, the smashing of equipment, the slow rending of the metal door, even the slow steady breathing of Gil as he wove a curtain of death before him.\n\n\"Too much noise,\" Agatha whispered. \"I have to think.\" And softly at first, then quickly gaining strength, a complicated atonal humming filled the room. Agatha stood stock still for several seconds, and then her head snapped forward, her eyes filled with a furious purpose.\n\nMeanwhile Gil found himself being slowly pushed back by the sheer weight of numbers. It didn't help that the wasps seemed capable of taking an extraordinary amount of damage before their brain admitted that they were dead, and even in death, they tended to lash out, as the numerous tears ands gashes covering his arms and legs attested to. \"I'd better be right about you,\" he muttered. One of the swords bent as it hit an internal structure. He was only barely able to wrench it out in time to parry a darting bladelike arm. A wrenching groan was his only warning, but he was able to leap backwards as a section of the ceiling collapsed, raining a fresh wave of Slaver wasps across the floor. Another step backwards and he found himself surrounded by empty canisters, which were just tall enough to hamper his movement. Suddenly his swords were occupied and another bug flashed towards him, its saberlike arms upraised.\n\nA pair of copper rods drove into the wasp's eye. And a cascade of sparks erupted. The creature jerked frantically and then collapsed. The other wasps froze in surprise. Gil looked behind him.\n\nThere stood Agatha, a fierce grin on her face. In one hand she had the mysterious Heterodyne sphere. Connected to it was a supple cable, which ended at a bizarre-looking swordlike object, which crackled and continually threw off great arcing Jacobs ladders. \"HA!\" she cried. \"It works!\"\n\nGilgamesh scrambled to his feet. \"You did it!\"\n\n\"Sure did.\" Agatha tossed him a large rubberized gauntlet, identical to the one she was wearing on her right hand. He quickly slid it on as she tossed him another sword, which was also attached to the glowing blue orb. \"Here. You're the fencer.\"\n\nTogether they returned their attention to the again advancing bugs. Whenever they touched the wasps, the insects jerked and died instantly. \"You used part of my lightning generator,\" Gil observed.\n\n\"Yes, the Heterodyne device can recharge it instantly.\"\n\n\"Good job. I never thought to test it as a power source, but I'd really thought there was more to it.\" As he said this, both he and Agatha smacked the same bug at the same time. It jerked once, crackling, and when they swung their swords away, it clattered to the ground like a collection of scrap iron.\n\nThey pushed out into the hallway, effortlessly scything down wasps. Gil nodded approvingly as Agatha swept her sword in an arc that took out three wasps at one swipe. \"I thought you didn't fence,\" he remarked.\n\n\"This isn't fencing!\" she retorted. \"This is swinging wildly!\" A frantic series of such swings on both of their parts brought them almost face to face, slightly tangled in the cords. Gil's face was glistening with sweat and a small cut oozed on his cheek. Agatha was breathing heavily and grimly determined. Their eyes locked. They froze and swayed fractionally closer\u2014and then whirled away as an attacking arm slashed through the place they'd been.\n\n\"Couldn't you have used a longer cable?\" Gil groused.\n\n\"It's what was there,\" Agatha snarled.\n\nGil shrugged. \"Okay. So now what do we do?\"\n\nAgatha looked at him askance as she fried an unwary wasp. \"Um\u2026 we should try to get out of here?\"\n\n\"We could head for the exit,\" Gil conceded, \"but that won't solve the problem.\"\n\n\"You're saying we have to stop them at the source. We've got to destroy the Hive Engine.\"\n\n\"As long as we're here.\"\n\nAgatha drove her sword up into a wasp's mouth causing its head to explode. \"Then we'd better get going.\"\n\nAround Castle Wulfenbach, the ever-present cloud of attendant airships began to shift. Ships carrying emergency crew and marines began to head towards loading docks, while shuttle and passenger ships removed non-essential personnel.\n\nOne such ship was carrying away the students and other children. On one of the observation decks, Theo had commandeered the largest of the great brass telescopes and was training it upon the laboratory decks. \"Well,\" he reported to the others, \"there's wasps all over the place. But I still don't see any resistance.\"\n\n\"Let me look,\" said Sleipnir. Theo yielded the telescope.\n\n\"At least I couldn't see any outside the lab area,\" he said, \"so I guess the doors\u2014\"\n\n\"Omigosh!\" Sleipnir yelled. \"It's Gil and Agatha! They're in the labs! They're fighting wasps!\"\n\n\"Let me see!\"\n\nSleipnir defended her position with a deft kick to Theo's knee. \"They're using swords and\u2014wait. They just vanished!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"No\u2014There they are. I must've\u2014no, they're gone\u2014they're back\u2014\" Sleipnir furiously knuckled her eyes. \"What the heck is wrong with my eyes?\"\n\nSun Ming pushed her aside and peered through the eyepiece. \"No, I see it too. They're vanishing,\" she announced. \"I wonder how they're doing that?\"\n\nTheo scribbled a quick note and handed it to Von Tock, the boy with the clock in his head. \"Have the message light send this to the Baron right away. He's got to know.\" The boy nodded and dashed off. \"I hope the Baron can get to them in time.\"\n\nSleipnir grinned. \"Why wait?\"\n\nTheo's eyebrows perked upwards. \"Go rescue them ourselves? Intriguing\u2026\" His eyes slid over towards Zulenna. \"But the life gliders will be guarded.\"\n\nZulenna tossed her head. \"Probably by a man.\" With that she gave her torso a supple little twitch that caused Theo to blink and swallow. \"And there's no male guard on this ship that can resist a beautiful and oh-so-lonely princess.\"\n\nTheo nodded as he picked up a large spanner and cheerfully smacked it into his palm. \"That's the truth.\"\n\nBehind them Sleipnir rolled her eyes. \"I cannot believe that works every time.\"\n\nHezekiah shrugged. \"It always works on me.\"\n\nLeaving the younger children in the care of the governesses, the students slipped out into the main hallway. Moving through the ship proved to be almost disappointingly easy, as things were so confused that their passage went unnoticed. The bay they had chosen for their departure was indeed guarded by a lone soldier. He was young and good looking, and was lounging against the entrance, quietly eating an apple while gazing at the panorama of ships spread out before him.\n\nZulenna looked him over, gave Theo a silent thumbs up, and then wandered into the bay.\n\nInstantly the apple disappeared and the soldier snapped to attention. \"This area is off limits, Miss.\"\n\nZulenna appeared startled. \"Oh, I'm sorry, I was just\u2026\" She shuddered. \"It's all so horrible. I was just looking for something\u2026 someone to take my mind off what's happening.\" She looked up at him with large luminous eyes, which blinked in surprise as she saw the guard's weapon pointing at her chest.\n\n\"It is very horrible, Miss. I remember when wasps wiped out my village. It started with people acting all odd.\"\n\nZulenna faltered, then gamely rallied with a shy smile. \"Really?\"\n\nThe guard's weapon didn't move a millimeter. \"Oh yes. For instance, if a snooty little princess who had, just last week, upbraided a hard-working member of the ship's guard because he'd neglected to do up a collar button even though he was off duty, suddenly came slinking in like a Parisian streetwalker, just waiting for the proper moment to burst into soppy crocodile tears\u2014why that'd be suspicious enough that any experienced soldier'd haul her off to the brig.\" He prodded the now scarlet-faced Zulenna in the stomach with the end of his rifle. \"Now let's move along, eh?\"\n\nMechanically Zulenna wheeled about and strode off, causing her captor to hurry after her, which helped explain why he didn't see Theo step out from behind a duct and smack him smartly across the back of the head. He collapsed forward onto the deck.\n\nZulenna saw Sleipnir valiantly trying to keep from laughing. \"Very well, I will concede that there's one who can resist.\"\n\nSleipnir shrugged. \"Personally, I'm rather glad the Baron's troops are so well trained. I feel so much safer, don't you?\" Zulenna deigned to reply, but carefully placed the soldier comfortably against a bulkhead, and then delicately arranged his arms so that one thumb was in his mouth while the forefinger of the other hand was lodged deeply within his nose.\n\n\"Now you're just being petty,\" Sleipnir observed.\n\nZulenna rose and dusted her hands together before smiling beatifically. \"Quite.\"\n\nMeanwhile the others had found the personal flyers. These were small dirigible shaped balloons attached to harnesses, fitted with large bat-like wings, which the user could control with long rods. For emergency use only, the flyers were capable of slowing a person's fall enough that they would have an excellent chance of surviving should they have to abandon one of the great airships in mid-flight. The students had long ago discovered that the flyers also be used to glide from ship to ship, providing that the ship you started from was sufficiently higher than your destination. This was, of course, strictly forbidden, and it had been weeks since they'd done it last.\n\nZulenna and Sleipnir entered just as Theo finished circumventing the tripwire alarm. Nicodeamus was using the gas tanks to inflate a pair of flyers for the girls. \"You know, this is really stupid,\" he cheerfully informed them.\n\nSleipnir buckled herself into her rig while Zulenna checked her connections. \"Oh. You just noticed?\"\n\nZulenna patted his shoulder, then began to pull her own flyer on. \"You can stay here.\"\n\nNicodeamus waved. \"Nah. Just making conversation.\" He snuck a quick look at Zulenna, who pretended not to notice, but once Sleipnir had patted her shoulder and turned away, she leaned in and placed a quick kiss on his cheek.\n\nThey joined the others lined up at the opening. Before them was the crenellated wall that was Castle Wulfenbach, stretching away in all directions. Scale was provided by the support ships that were moving to and fro between them. Theo pointed out the nearest windsock, and then to a landing deck several hundred feet below them on the Castle. \"We'll aim for Docking Bay 451. That's closest to an armory.\" Nicodeamus tossed out a scrap of paper. With an aeronaut's experienced eye, they all watched it flutter away in the wind and plotted their trajectories accordingly.\n\nTheo moved up to the lip and grinned. \"Okay, you brats, let's go!\" Without pause, he launched himself over the edge, and with a whoop, the others followed.\n\nA troop of J\u00e4gers sloped down the hallway, looking like a parade sergeant's personal vision of Hell. Sloping was a combination of loping and slouching developed by the J\u00e4gerkin. To the untrained eye, it looked like they were ambling along in a disorganized fashion. A closer look and you saw that they were traveling at a respectable clip, and prolonged observation revealed that they could do it for a very long time over a wide variety of terrain. As with many J\u00e4ger practices, it had been developed to annoy other people. Particularly Boris.\n\nDespite the haste, great care was taken to keep their uniforms straight, and several were brushing their hats and buffing their braid even as they moved forward. There was a palatable excitement amongst them, and much boasting and declarations regarding the number of wasps that were about to be killed, stomped, and (possibly) eaten.\n\nThe other Castle personnel hastily hugged the side of the corridor as they approached, and only dared to breathe again when they had passed. With each yard they covered, they became more and more excited, until they poured around a corner into a large intersection and stopped dead, the ones in the back flowing forward until the entire corridor was a solid sea of J\u00e4gerkin.\n\nBefore them, in the center of the intersection, stood Von Pinn. Still as a statue. As soon as they stopped moving, she slowly moved with a leathery creak. Wordlessly she approached them and glided from one end of the crowd to the other. As her gaze swept them, each J\u00e4germonster felt themselves snapping to attention, some of them for the first time in years. Without a word she spun away and headed off down the hallway ahead of them. Three meters away, she stopped, twisting about, gave them a toothy come-hither look over her shoulder, and whispered, \"Well? What are you waiting for? Let's go squash some bugs.\"\n\nWith a roar that was heard throughout half of the Castle, the J\u00e4gers leapt forward and headed for battle.\n\nThe Baron's squad moved into position. It moved slowly because of the constant stream of unicycle messengers that darted in and out with reports from other parts of the vast dirigible.\n\nBoris scanned the latest missive. \"The main troop of J\u00e4germonsters have engaged the bugs in Docking Bay 422.\" He waved the note. \"They seem especially enthusiastic.\"\n\nKlaus nodded. \"It's been a while since they really fought.\"\n\nFrom the corridor behind, a young voice rang out. \"Personal message for the Baron! Clear the way! Stand aside!\" Noiselessly, a tall brass unicycle wove through the crowd and the rider slid from the seat in front of the Baron. From a large pouch on the front of her uniform, she pulled out a note, which the bright yellow paper identified as being from the Heliography Corps. Klaus unfolded it, scanned it quickly, and went pale.\n\nConcerned, Boris leaned in. \"Are you all right, Herr Baron?\"\n\n\"Gilgamesh has been spotted within the laboratory section. He is fighting wasps.\" Klaus' voice was rock steady, but Boris noticed that the note had been crushed. Klaus took a deep breath, and continued. \"He is my son. He will survive.\" He looked around at the retainers gathered around him. \"But he still needs a talking to. Let's go get him, shall we?\" With a shout of affirmation, the group broke into a trot and headed off down the hallway.\n\nAgatha gasped and dropped to her knees. By a supreme effort of will she kept the point of her sword up, but nothing impacted upon it. She looked up. Gil stood over her, a light sweat covering his face. His left sleeve was in tatters from where an extremely agile wasp had managed to get a bit too close. Blood oozed from several lacerations, but he breathed easily, his head and sword gliding easily back and forth keeping the wasps that surrounded them at bay.\n\nThey had entered a larger room, Agatha noticed. It was filled with crates and large barrels. The wasps, while certainly visible, had pulled back, and were circling them warily. \"But they've stopped attacking.\"\n\nGil nodded. \"Yes, of course. We're already heading towards the Slaver Engine.\"\n\n\"But I thought they were defending it.\"\n\n\"To a degree, but once they've established a perimeter, they'll begin to herd everyone inside it towards the Engine at the center. Once the actual Slavers hatch, then we'll be taken over and it will be our job to defend the Engine.\"\n\nAgatha looked ill. Everyone knew what happened to people who were taken over by Slaver wasps. She looked up at Gil. \"Kill me first,\" she whispered.\n\nGil nodded slowly. \"I will.\" That said, he offered her his hand and helped her to her feet. As they moved deeper into the room, the wasps began to scuttle backwards, losing themselves within the dimly lit stacks. By the time they came to the next hallway, the bugs had all vanished.\n\nThe hallway was dark and low ceilinged. The few lighting fixtures they could see had been smashed. They turned a bend and the next room came into view. It was one of the experimental bays in the Baron's section of the lab. The ceiling faded into the distance, and the metal walls were dimly lit by a collection of glowing machinery. Suddenly a massive form in the center shifted and Agatha realized that it was the activated Hive Engine.\n\nThe great sphere had split, and the creature within had uncoiled itself. A messy collection of things that might have been tentacles, or simply entwined pipes and cables, had spilled out around it. A pool of thick liquid collected around the base. Rising upward was a horrible amalgamation of flesh and machinery. Two glowing red eyes blinked myopically while it snorted and gasped like a broken steam radiator. It shook itself and rose higher, not stopping until it was almost four meters tall.\n\nGil looked sick. \"How do we kill that?\" he mumbled.\n\nAgatha dug her fingers into his arm. \"Quickly,\" she whispered back.\n\nSuddenly, on the various bits of machinery adorning the creature's head, a series of lights flicked on. Its eyes rolled up into its head, its great lantern-fish jaw dropped open and a long low note boomed out. Gil stiffened.\n\n\"What was that?\" Agatha asked.\n\n\"Bad news,\" Gil replied. \"The Slaver swarm is about to hatch. If we're going to attack it, we have to do it now!\"\n\nJust as Agatha nodded and tensed, the walls around them unfolded to reveal dozens of Slaver wasps, which had been hiding in the darkness. Moving almost too fast to see, they reached out and grabbed Agatha and Gil and held them steady. The swords were knocked from their grasps and clattered to the floor, sparking uselessly.\n\nAbove them, the Slaver Queen shuddered, opened its maw even wider, and a single insect-like creature darted out. It zipped upward and then paused.\n\nAgatha felt her arms pulled tight and her head tipped backwards, forcing her mouth open. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gil suffer through the same procedure.\n\nThen the tiny Slaver wasp twitched its body, folded its wings and dove straight towards her open mouth."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "\u2003Little Mary has bugs inside her head\u2014\n\n\u2003Inside her head, inside her head.\n\n\u2003Now The Baron's gonna come and make her dead\u2014\n\n\u2003Make her dead, make her dead.\n\n\u2003But Mary puts bugs in little Karl instead\u2014\n\n\u2003In Karl instead, in Karl instead.\n\n\u2003So little Karl has bugs inside his head\u2014\n\n\u2003Inside his head, inside his head.\n\n\u2003Now The Baron's gonna come and make him dead\u2014\n\n\u2003Make him dead, make him dead\u2026\n\n\u2014Children's naming game\n\nAgatha struggled, but it was hopeless. Every limb was secured by several of the Slaver warriors. Before her, Gilgamesh thrashed wildly, but to no avail. Two of the creatures delicately inserted their barbed spear-like forearms into his mouth and slowly forced it open. Gil's eyes rolled frantically, but his head was held tight. Agatha realized that despite the fact that they were being clasped tightly by a multitude of the sharp-edged creatures, they were not being harmed. \"They want us healthy enough to defend the Queen,\" she realized with a sick feeling.\n\nAbove their heads, the first of the mind-controlling drones swooped downwards towards Gil's open gullet. With a final futile shudder, Agatha felt herself begin to panic. \"Let us GO!\" she screamed.\n\nSeveral things happened at once. The assembled slavers froze, and Agatha felt the pressure upon her arms and legs begin to relax, when a glittering orb darted through the air and, with a small electrical burst, fried the small flying Slaver just as it was about to dive into Gil's mouth. The orb hovered, revealing itself as one of Agatha's small clanks, held aloft by a furiously spinning propeller. Suddenly a carpet of the diminutive clanks poured into the room and began attacking the remaining Slaver wasps, who seemed nonplussed at the nature of this new enemy, and began to skitter away in confusion, releasing their captives.\n\nGil scooped up his sword and began laying about with it, dropping every insect within reach. He noticed Agatha standing with a perplexed look on her face. \"Come on,\" he yelled as he plucked up her sword and put it into her hand. \"We're lucky those little clanks of yours showed up to distract them. This must be an old engine. That's a bit of luck! The Slaver swarm should have been huge\u2014and fast! We've got to try to destroy the Queen before she can generate any more of them!\"\n\nWith that he swung away and fried another dozen warriors, who having a more traditional enemy in front of them, were once more beginning to attack, but, Agatha noticed, in a hesitant, half-hearted manner.\n\n\"They let us go\u2026 when I told them to,\" she whispered. The idea was patently absurd, but\u2026\n\n\"You!\" Agatha directly addressed a group of wasps that were drawn up before the massive Queen. \"Stand aside.\"\n\nGil had his back to her, and was engaged by several foes, so he merely obeyed her and stepped aside. Thus he didn't see the group that Agatha addressed dipping their heads and reluctantly drawing back, until they had opened an empty corridor between Agatha and the Queen.\n\nAgatha stared blankly for a second, shook herself, grabbed Gil by the upper arm and yelled, \"It's clear!\"\n\nGil spun about and, although he was clearly taken aback by the sight before him, responded to Agatha's tug on his arm. The two of them leapt forward, reached the base of the Queen, and as she swung her massive head towards them, sank both of their swords deep within the pulsating flesh.\n\nAs they pulled their hands back, the flesh quivered and smoked and the entire creature began to squeal and jerk spasmodically, ripping loose cable and smashing bits of imbedded machinery until, with a final snap, it crashed to the floor, flattening a phalanx of soldier wasps and buckling the deck beneath it.\n\nAgatha and Gil stared at the dead behemoth. It began to slowly deflate. The warrior insects were frozen in place, not even defending themselves against the continued attacks of the small clanks.\n\nAgatha felt an upwelling of emotion unlike any she'd ever felt. A great wave of exultation flooded through her and it felt like every part of her body was electrified. She realized that Gil still had his arm around her shoulders, and with a growl she pulled him towards her and fiercely kissed him. Gil's initial astonishment caused him to hesitate, but the urgency of her lips upon his quickly caused him to wrap his arms around her in a crushing embrace and return the kiss with interest. Agatha felt as if a ball of fire was expanding outwards from her chest. The sensations coming from her lips, chest and head almost caused her to pass out from excitement. They broke, panting and wild-eyed, still clutching each other. They looked questioningly at one another for several seconds, then Agatha closed her eyes and pulled him back towards her\u2014\n\nA liquid noise caused them to freeze, lips scant millimeters apart. They swiveled their heads in time to see a section of the Queen's corpse beginning to swell alarmingly. With a sound like bubbling oatmeal, the large swelling burst, releasing a swarm of angrily buzzing Slaver wasps.\n\n\"Run!\" They yelled in unison and pelted off down the hallway.\n\n\"What do we do now?\" Agatha asked.\n\n\"What DO we do now?\" Gil panted, \"What was my father thinking? What would he\u2014\" He grabbed Agatha and dragged her off in another direction. \"Of course!\"\n\n\"Of course\u2026?\" she prompted. They entered another short corridor off the main room. It was lined with small, identical metal panels. Gil handed Agatha his sword.\n\n\"My father would have a fail-safe here. It'll be disguised but\u2026\" He began counting off squares. Several wasps buzzed around the corner and accelerated when they saw the two Sparks. Behind them Agatha could hear the clattering rustle of the warrior wasps approaching. By frantically waving her sword back and forth, Agatha caught the two wasps in midair, and they exploded and dropped, smoking, to the deck.\n\nAs they hit, Gil finished his calculations, and snapped off a metal panel that appeared no different from its neighbors. Beneath it was a control panel with several levers and the legend \"VESPIARY CONTROL.\"\n\nHitting the first switch caused a steel door to roll down into place. Unfortunately, two of the warriors scuttled under the descending door and approached, saberlike arms at the ready.\n\nGil assayed them coolly. \"The entirety of the lab should be sealed,\" he told Agatha as he reached for the second switch. \"And this one will flood it with gas.\" Just as he was about to hit the switch, Agatha's hand stopped him. \"Wait! Somebody activated that Engine on purpose.\" She tossed Gil the swords. \"Let me look at this first.\"\n\nGil made a moue of annoyance, but quickly turned to dispose of the warrior bugs. As the swords connected, Agatha was astonished to see Gil apparently blink out of existence. She was only slightly less astonished when it happened again.\n\nShe was about to speak when something caught her eye in the machinery before her. By the time Gil appeared at her side, she was halfway into the opening.\n\n\"Anything?\" he ventured.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Agatha's voice came from within the depths of the wall. \"This gas line has been rerouted, to what I think must be the main ventilator for this area.\" With a delightful wiggle she extricated herself, and held up a small valve in a grimy hand. \"Everything on this level except the hive's lab would have got the poison.\" She dropped the valve into Gil's hand. \"It should be okay now.\"\n\nGil nodded and threw the second switch. Within the walls, pipes boomed and a great roaring was heard.\n\n\"He didn't even check my work,\" Agatha thought to herself, and a warm feeling filled her that was almost entirely unconnected to the sight of white gas gushing from vents in the room outside, and the subsequent death throes of the assembled bugs.\n\nGil moved up behind Agatha. She felt the heat that rolled off him, and smelled his sweat. She was very much aware of his hand gingerly hovering above her shoulder. She knew that all she had to do was lean into it, and he'd never remove it. She shivered in anticipation, swayed gently\u2014and they both jumped as a warrior slammed into the window before crashing to the deck.\n\nAgatha looked at Gil, but the moment was gone. \"Looks like it worked,\" she said lamely.\n\nGil cleared his throat and nodded. \"Yes\u2026\" A puzzled look eased its way onto his face. \"You know, from everything I've learned about Slaver wasps\u2014I would have thought defeating them would have been more difficult.\"\n\nAgatha considered this. \"Maybe because it was an old engine.\"\n\nGil frowned and then reluctantly nodded. \"Makes sense.\" His face brightened. \"At least my father will have an easy time mopping up.\"\n\nThe hanger bay was a charnel house. The Wulfenbach forces laid about with a desperate ferocity, but the wasps were quicker and more ferocious than any they had ever encountered. Klaus stepped back from a smoking wasp to access the situation as he levered a fresh round of radium bullets into the chambers of his ancient pistol.\n\nTo his right, Boris kept any wasps from approaching, his four swords weaving an impassable wall of glittering death. To his left General Zog was using the mangled form of a warrior wasp as a flail to beat back others, while roaring orders to the hoard of J\u00e4germonsters that fought before them. Those with weapons used them with a deadly precision that, to someone who had only seen the monster soldiers clowning around, would have been terrifying. Those without weapons used their teeth and claws so effectively that one questioned why they bothered to use weapons at all. Beside them fought the Lackya, still adorned in their long, elegant coats, but they moved like lightning, and dealt death with an elegant precision. Standing like pillars amidst the swarms of insects were a row of the great mechanical soldiers, wielding giant claymores almost three meters long that swept back and forth, destroying dozens of wasps with each swipe. Striding amongst the bugs were an eclectic sampling of the Spark-spawned creations that Klaus had collected and sworn into the service of the House of Wulfenbach over the years. Rumbletoys spun and smashed bugs wherever they moved, Radioheads crushed and pounded wherever their diminutive masters directed them, and deep within the enemies midst moved the Dreen, two unearthly, terrifying creatures garbed in dark, wide-brimmed conical hats and long, obscuring veils. They killed with but a touch, and they alone seemed to scare the Slaver wasps. Everywhere they drifted, a circle of emptiness opened around them as wasps desperately tried to escape.\n\nThe destruction the Wulfenbach forces were dealing was horrific, but to Klaus' eye the story of the battle was inescapable. He glanced at General Zog with a look of inquiry. The general bared his teeth in a fierce grimace and growled. \"Dis iz not goink vell.\"\n\n\"FALL BACK!\" Klaus roared.\n\nGil touched a switch and the metal door rolled back into the ceiling. \"I suppose my father will be sorry that he missed all the excitement,\" he sighed. A glint caught his eye, and he stepped behind Agatha. \"Wait. You have something in your hair.\" His fingers ran through her tresses and he briefly marveled at its delicate smoothness before he encountered the object he sought. He dropped it into Agatha's hand.\n\nIt was a small circular piece of shiny silver metal. Agatha looked at it blankly, then her face cleared. \"Ah. It's some sort of connector from the gas system. It's kind of pretty.\"\n\nGil nodded as he plucked it from her hand. \"Yes. It's perfect.\" With that he gently but firmly took Agatha's left hand and slid the connector over her ring finger. \"Here. A little souvenir.\"\n\nAgatha felt herself flushing as she took her hand back. Selfconsciously she re-examined her hand. The connector was stamped with a tiny little Wulfenbach House sigil. She felt a wave of joy beginning to fizzle upwards through her body. She was so happy that she almost missed that Gil was talking.\n\n\"Now come on. As pitiful as they are, the rest of the wasps should keep my father busy for a while.\" He slipped her arm through his, and turned towards the exit. \"We can grab one of the support gigs, sail down to the nearest town and be married before he even knows that we're gone.\"\n\nAgatha stopped so suddenly that Gil, still hooked through her arm, found himself spun around to face her. Agatha's face was blank. \"Married?\"\n\nGil patted her shoulder. \"Don't worry. He won't be mad once he finds out that you're a Spark! He's talking about marrying me off anyway\u2014it'll serve him right when I run off and do it on my own.\"\n\nAgatha gazed upwards into Gil's excited face. Her lips parted and she burst out laughing. This was not the reaction Gil had expected and he looked surprised. \"What?\"\n\nAgatha took a moment to wipe the tears off the inside of her glasses as she continued to giggle. Finally she took a deep breath, and smiled. \"That's the worst marriage proposal I have ever heard.\"\n\nGil swallowed. \"You\u2026 get a lot of them?\"\n\nAgatha crossed her arms. \"You want to marry me to annoy your father?\" She sighed dramatically and theatrically raised her hand to her brow. \"How romantic.\"\n\nThese were unknown waters for Gil, but he was smart enough to realize that by flailing desperately enough, he might still come through.\n\n\"NO! No! No!\" He waved his hands frantically. Agatha cocked an eyebrow. Still interested. Good.\n\n\"I\u2026 I know we haven't known each other long. But I really think we'd be very well suited\u2026 for each other.\"\n\nGlance. Eyebrow down. Not good. Panic.\n\n\"Look\u2014I've known a lot of girls and they were\u2014\" At this point Gil could feel hereto for unused parts of his brain screaming at him to shut up. He didn't even bother to look at her now. \"No. Wait! That's unimportant!\" What is important?\n\nHe looked at Agatha. She stood there, outlined in early morning light coming in through the window. Her hair was the most magnificent reddish gold he had ever seen. He took in the entirety of her and realized that he wanted to hold her in his arms and never ever let her go, and then he looked once again into those dazzling green eyes and knew that if he could spend the rest of his life watching them experience the things he could show them, then his life would be complete, and more importantly, that without her, his life would be forever empty and bereft of purpose. For the rest of Gilgamesh's life, whenever he thought of Agatha, the first and most enduring image, the one that was burned into his heart, was this one, where she stood and looked at him and listened to him babble and tried to decide whether he would live or die.\n\nWith this realization, a great clarity washed through him and he realized that if he wanted her, all he had to do was tell her why. His mouth finally got the message and snapped shut in mid-burble.\n\nHe straightened up and looked Agatha full in the face. Agatha blinked and uncrossed her arms. Gil stepped closer.\n\n\"Agatha, I\u2014\"\n\n\"Ha-HA!\" There was a swoosh, a blur of gold, and a \"Gloof!\" from Agatha. And she was gone.\n\nGil spun around and saw Agatha being carried off by Othar Tryggvassen, who was effortlessly swinging through the air on a long cable. \"HEY!\" he yelled.\n\nOthar gracefully turned, and he and Agatha landed atop a ceiling girder. She twisted out of his grasp. \"Do you mind?\" She hissed, \"I was busy here!\"\n\nFrom the floor Gil called up frantically. \"Agatha! Get away from him!\"\n\n\"What's the matter, Wulfenbach?\" Othar called back jovially. \"Didn't expect a hero to rescue the damsel from your unwelcome advances?\"\n\nGil shook his fist. \"They weren't unwelcome, you idiot!\"\n\nAgatha shoved forward. \"Just a minute! I'm not done yelling at you yet!\"\n\nOthar gently pulled her back from the edge. \"Well, yes you are.\" He reached into his side holster and pulled forth a bizarre little steam pistol. \"We've got to go.\" He aimed the gun at Gil: \"And he's got to die.\"\n\nJust as he fired, Agatha grabbed his arm and yanked with all her might. This threw Othar off balance and he swayed precipitously on the edge of the girder. Below, the bullet smacked into the wall centimeters from Gil's head. With a grimace, Gilgamesh ducked down into the maze of machinery and was lost to sight.\n\nOthar sighed. \"Drat.\" He turned to Agatha. \"He got away\u2026 for the moment.\"\n\nAgatha stood braced for Othar's fury. \"I won't let you\u2014\"\n\nHe wagged a gently admonishing finger in her face. \"You should be more careful. You could have fallen. You're lucky I caught you.\"\n\nThe events of the last twenty seconds replayed in Agatha's mind. \"But you didn't\u2014\"\n\n\"I hope you're not going to be one of those clumsy girl sidekicks who always need rescuing during my final showdown with the villain,\" Othar remarked.\n\n\"I AM NOT YOUR SIDEKICK!\"\n\nOthar laughed. \"Of course you are! You came to rescue me!\"\n\n\"If I'd known you were going to run around trying to shoot people who were proposing to me\u2014!\"\n\n\"Oh that was just the once.\" The sheer number of things that Agatha wanted to say to this, temporarily overwhelmed her ability to speak. Othar, unfortunately, did not have this problem. \"Now, your innocence does you credit, but you'll soon learn that Evil deserves no pity! And young Wulfenbach is certainly evil.\"\n\nAgatha rolled her eyes. \"Clueless I'll give you, but\u2014\"\n\nHer words were left behind as Agatha herself was swept off the girder by Gilgamesh swinging through on his own cable. They lightly touched down on an adjoining girder. \"If being like you is the alternative,\" Gil remarked to Othar, as he relinquished his grip on the cable, \"then I'll gladly take being evil.\"\n\nThe released cable vanished into the dimness of the ceiling, followed by several squeaks and a faint fwap. This caused Othar to pause and peer upwards into the darkness, which may have been why he missed seeing the beam which swung down from the side, caught him square in the ribs and smashed him through the plate glass wall and into open space. As he arced downwards, they heard him admonish them with a final declaration of \"Foul!\" before he vanished into the cloudscape below.\n\nAgatha rushed over to the window and stared down in shock. \"You threw him out of the airship,\" she cried. \"I went to all that trouble to rescue him and you've killed him!\"\n\n\"But he was shooting\u2014\" Gil realized this was a futile line of argument and switched tactics. \"He'll be fine. I've seen him survive worse.\" Agatha looked at him incredulously. \"Trust me. When you get to know him better, you'll want to throw him out a window yourself.\"\n\nAs he spoke Gil casually slipped off a shoe and with a moment's calculation tossed it down into the machinery below. It hit a lever and a winch began to creak, lowering a hook on a large chain past their girder. Gil casually looped his arm around Agatha's waist, snagged the chain and they held each other tightly as they headed for the distant deck below.\n\n\"I occasionally want to throw any number of people out a window\u2014\" Agatha said looking significantly at Gil\u2014\"But I control myself.\"\n\nBut Gil wasn't listening. \"Uh-huh. Forget eloping.\"\n\nAgatha blinked. \"Oh. But\u2014\"\n\n\"We're going straight to my father. I'll have him announce that you are, in effect, married to me already.\"\n\nThe thudding of their feet upon the deck broke Agatha's shocked silence. She ripped herself free of Gil's arm. \"How dare you? What do you think\u2014?\"\n\n\"Any number of people are going to try to grab you. So the sooner the world sees that you are mine, the safer you'll be.\" Gil calmly retrieved his shoe and slipped it back on. He turned back to Agatha and froze. Agatha's fury poured off of her like a physical force, and it took all of his strength not to step back. Every instinct he possessed warned him that he was close to death and he frantically tried to figure out why.\n\n\"I am not your personal property, or Othar's!\"\n\n\"I know that! But you're going to wind up someone's personal property unless we act now!\"\n\n\"I thought the Baron outlawed slavery.\"\n\nGil rolled his eyes. \"You've never been outside Beetleburg. You couldn't understand\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't assume I'm too stupid to understand\u2014explain it to me!\"\n\nGil reeled as if he'd been struck. His shoulders slumped. \"You're right.\"\n\nAgatha had been prepared for more arguing. She paused, and released the lungful of air she'd gathered. Encouraged by her silence. Gil continued: \"The reason I\u2026 I like you is because you're smart. I should treat you that way. Explain why I think this is in your best interest, as well as my own.\" Agatha raised her eyebrows encouragingly.\n\nA small explosion shuddered somewhere in the distance. Gil's eyes hardened. \"But I'm afraid I simply don't have the time.\" Agatha's eyes widened in shock as Gil took her wrist in a grip like iron. \"You'll come with me now, and I'll explain\u2014\"\n\nA massive fist came down and connected to the top of Gil's head with a meaty BONK, and he collapsed to the deck.\n\n\"Was this boy bothering you, dear?\"\n\n\"Lilith!\" Agatha shouted. \"Adam!\" For it was indeed her parents standing before her. To her surprise she saw that they were garbed in coveralls, peppered with small pockets carrying tools and useful bits of gear. The outfits appeared to be rather old and well-used, though Agatha was sure that she'd never seen them before. She looked down at Gilgamesh sprawled out at her feet. \"You hit him.\"\n\nThe burly construct allowed himself a self-satisfied smile. But Lilith noticed the concern in Agatha's voice. \"He'll be fine, dear.\" A touch of concern appeared on her face. \"Who is he?\"\n\nAgatha leaned down and shifted Gil slightly so that his head was at a less awkward angle. \"Gilgamesh Wulfenbach,\" she informed them. \"He\u2026 um\u2026 wants me to marry him.\" A look of shock passed between the two constructs. Agatha continued, \"In fact, he kind of insists.\"\n\nSeconds later Agatha found herself tucked under Adam's massive arm while her step-parents were running down a corridor. \"So you don't think I should then?\"\n\n\"We're leaving,\" Lilith informed her. \"Right now!\"\n\nAgatha looked out the window at the flotilla of airships that attended the Castle. \"How?\" She thought for a second. \"And how did you get here?\"\n\n\"We've been following the Castle from the ground. We were planning on hijacking one of the regular supply ships, but today there was a flurry of activity, with dozens of ships bringing people to the ground.\" They came to a massive bulkhead door which had been sealed. Lilith began spinning dials.\n\n\"There was an evacuation of the labs,\" Agatha explained. \"There was an accident with a Slaver Engine.\"\n\nLilith froze on hearing this and then, without further ado, simply ripped the massive door out of its frame. \"We commandeered a pinnace and we'll leave the same way.\"\n\nThey found themselves in an enormous, dimly lit chamber lined with pumps slowly thumping away on either side. \"But this place is huge,\" Agatha observed. \"How did you manage to find me?\"\n\nLilith shrugged. \"We have done this sort of thing before, dear. We just looked for the center of chaos and there you were.\" She shook her head. \"We knew something like this would happen if your locket was removed.\"\n\nAgatha's hand automatically went to the empty place near her throat. \"My locket?\"\n\nAdam and Lilith looked at each other. Adam shrugged, and Lilith nodded. \"You started to break through at a very early age\u2014\"\n\n\"You knew I was a Spark?\"\n\nLilith nodded. \"Your uncle made the locket specifically to keep you from breaking through completely.\"\n\n\"But I was so stupid! How could you let me live like that?\"\n\n\"We were hiding you!\" Lilith answered hotly. \"Young Sparks never survive without powerful protection! If they don't blow themselves up or get killed by their creations, they're likely to go mad and kill everyone around them.\"\n\nThey turned a corner and Agatha began to note signs of the fighting. Smoke drifted through the air, and a single dead wasp warrior lay crushed beneath a gas cylinder that had obviously been taken from a stack of same that lined the wall. Lilith grimaced, and continued: \"Your uncle was gone. Beetle wasn't strong enough, and the Baron would have taken you instantly.\" She broke off and caught Agatha's eye. \"And you don't ever want that.\"\n\nAgatha opened her mouth to question, but Lilith plowed on. \"In the country you would have been killed by the peasantry. Even burned as a Witch. Plus you're a girl. Girls with the Spark, they usually just disappear. Even the Baron's people have noticed that there's a disproportionately low number of them, but they don't know why. Every power in Europe is going to try to kill you or control you. You've already seen that with young Wulfenbach.\"\n\n\"But I don't understand,\" Agatha cried. \"There are a lot of Sparks wandering about. Why would I be in so much danger?\"\n\nLilith stopped dead in front of the door. Her head briefly slumped forward enough that it rested on the cool metal surface.\n\n\"I suppose there'll never be a good time\u2026\" she muttered. She looked at Agatha. \"Your family. We never told you.\" She leaned on the door, which, surprisingly, was unlocked, and began to creak open. \"You're the daughter of\u2014\"\n\nThe opening door revealed a large room lined with galleries extending several stories upwards. The room was filled with people, constructs and clanks. They all turned towards the opening door, revealing, at the center of the crowd, none other than the Baron himself.\n\nSilence spread, until Klaus, his eyes wide in surprise at the figure in the doorway, stepped forward. \"Judy?\" he whispered."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "\u2003Go to sleep, lay down your head,\n\n\u2003The Heterodynes, they are not dead.\n\n\u2003They will return to us someday,\n\n\u2003And send the monsters far away.\n\n\u2014Child's lullaby\n\nLilith went white. \"Klaus!\" Adam set Agatha down and moved forward. Klaus saw him and his brows lowered. \"Punch?\" Without taking his eyes off of the little group he snapped out orders. \"Contain them, and find my son!\" Several of the guards began to spread out, and a small squad raced off, no doubt to try to encircle the three. The others began to move forward, but the Baron checked them with an upraised hand. Agatha noticed that he was dirty, and that his clothes were torn; with surprise, she saw that his left hand was bandaged. Another part of her mind took note of the fact that she was shocked that he could be injured. The rest of the group had obviously been through a tough ordeal. Many were injured, and all looked weary.\n\n\"Something very odd is going on here,\" Klaus muttered.\n\nLilith swallowed. \"Klaus, we\u2014\"\n\nSuddenly a lone J\u00e4germonster pushed its way forward until it was right behind the Baron. A distant memory was obviously fighting its way to the surface of its mind. \"Vait! Meester Ponch?\"\n\nWithout hesitation, Klaus backfisted the J\u00e4ger in the face and it dropped to the ground unconscious. \"Damn! He'll be a problem.\" To the others he said, \"Seal the area, and keep the J\u00e4gers out of here.\"\n\nAt this point Agatha didn't know what was happening, but thought to correct things before they got further out of hand. \"Herr Baron,\" she piped up, \"there's been some sort of a mistake. These are my parents: Adam and Lilith Clay.\"\n\nKlaus nodded slowly. \"Punch and Judy. So you're the unfindable Clays. This explains so much. But the girl\u2014she's not your real daughter.\"\n\n\"She's just an orphan we took in,\" Lilith interjected.\n\n\"I'm sure she is. Lucrezia and Bill's, I imagine. Or is she a surprise from Barry's past?\"\n\nAgatha blinked. It almost sounded like the Baron knew her parents. He must be confused. They'd had many a laugh around the dinner table about the coincidence of the names\u2014\n\nA shriek caught them all by surprise. A wild-eyed Von Pinn pushed her way to the fore. Klaus put up a hand to check her progress, and she glared at him while she panted in short, excited bursts. \"Yes!\" She spoke in a strained voice. Gone now was the controlled fury that Agatha had seen before. \"She is the daughter of Lucrezia Mongfish! When first she came, she gave to me an order, which I obeyed without thinking!\" She whipped her head around and glared at Agatha with unreadable emotions distorting her face. \"That will not work again, Girl Agatha. Now you are mine!\" She clutched at Klaus' hand and, shockingly, pleaded with him. \"She\u2014Klaus, she is mine! Nothing have I ever asked, but now\u2014!\"\n\n\"Hold.\" Klaus did not speak loudly, but Von Pinn instantly went silent, and returned to staring, quivering, at Agatha. The Baron closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose.\n\n\"Yesss\u2026 so she was the Spark in Beetleburg. It's so obvious now.\" He sighed. \"I must be getting old.\"\n\nLilith took a small step backward. \"Klaus, we're going to leave now.\"\n\nThe Baron's eyes snapped open. \"Oh no. Not this time. Not without an explanation. I was gone for less than four years, and I came back to a world in ruins! Death, destruction, chaos\u2014the endless fighting\u2014it was like the Heterodyne Boys had never existed. Things were worse than ever.\n\n\"So I stopped it. And I did it my way this time. No more negotiating, no more promises, no more second chances. Rule by conquest and peace by intimidation because that was all the geniuses I dealt with could understand. And I did it alone because I had to. All my friends and companions were gone, gone without a trace! I thought them all dead and gone and no one even knew what happened to them\u2014and now here you are, the Heterodyne Boys' steadfast companions. I had considered us mutual friends; I had always thought of you as people, decent people, and yet you've obviously been hiding from me for all these years.\n\n\"Well, I will find out why you were hiding from me. I will find out where the Heterodyne Boys went and I will find out what else you have been hiding from me, because I assure you, you will tell me.\"\n\nLilith glowered. \"You always could play to the gallery, Klaus, but Barry came back.\"\n\nKlaus sighed. \"Wonderful. More puzzles. Apparently that's supposed to worry me?\" He waved a hand dismissively. \"Soon enough. Katz!\" A Lackya stepped forward. \"Have these people locked up\u2014In separate quarters. I want them guarded by at least two guards each around the clock.\" Klaus frowned. \"And not by the J\u00e4gers; in fact they're not to know of this until I've sorted this mess out.\"\n\nKatz nodded. The door swung open. Everyone tensed, but the only one there was Bangladesh DuPree. She was obviously trying to keep herself from laughing about something. \"Hey, Klaus,\" she announced, \"we found your boy! Babbling a bit, but that's pretty normal. Get this\u2014Says his fianc\u00e9e knocked him out.\"\n\nFew announcements could have broken Klaus' concentration, but this certainly appeared to be one of them. \"His what?\"\n\nHe spun about in time to see Agatha wearily rest her face in her hands. He went white. \"Ah,\" he said a trifle unsteadily. \"I see that history repeats itself. That will stop\u2014\"\n\nAgain DuPree interrupted. \"Hey! That's her!\"\n\nKlaus tensed. \"Explain.\"\n\nBangladesh waved towards Agatha. \"That girl I told you about. The one in my Phenomena Log, the one with Gil and the Geisterdamen. That's her!\"\n\n\"Worse and worse! All right, in addition to being confined, this girl is to be kept sedated\u2014\"\n\nWith a hollow sound, the head of the Lackya standing next to Klaus snapped back and the guard dropped to the deck.\n\nIn the next second, a small object tore through the Baron's leg. He roared with pain and dropped to one knee. Almost simultaneously, another object glanced off of Boris' skull and knocked the wind out of Bangladesh, sending them down.\n\nA brief pause as Adam poured another handful of rivets into his immense hand. Lilith touched his arm. \"I'll get Agatha out of here. Meet us at the dock.\" Adam absentmindedly blew her a small kiss as, in the space of half a second, six more rivets flew to their targets, taking out one of the giant battle clanks, a Radiohead, and three crewmen. The only surprise was Von Pinn, who coolly plucked the rivet out of the air and dropped it to her feet. Before it hit the deck, Adam had sent another dozen at her. She darted forward, her arms blurring into invisibility as she successfully deflected them all, but this did prevent her from being able to stop Adam himself, who, moving like a juggernaut, caught her with a roundhouse blow to the jaw that snapped her head to one side. But even as her ruby-red monocle flew back, her arms whipped upwards and grasped Adam's arm. Adam tried to recoil and he blinked as his arm remained where it was. With that, Von Pinn flashed him a toothy grin of triumph, and effortlessly tore his arm free from its socket.\n\nAdam stared in shock as a gout of purplish fluid pulsed from his shoulder, then he gasped as Von Pinn tossed his arm aside and then swung back and punched her hand through his chest, crushing his spasming heart in her grasp before tossing it to the deck.\n\nAdam blinked, then his eyes rolled up into his head and he pitched forward. Agatha found herself screaming until a hand grabbed her arm and brutally dragged her up to Lilith's terrifyingly calm face. \"Go.\" Her voice was as calm as her face. \"Get to Castle Heterodyne. It will help you.\"\n\nBefore Agatha could respond, she felt herself flung upwards. She caught a brief glimpse of Von Pinn centimeters away from Lilith, who was smiling calmly. \"We love you!\" She called out, \"Now run!\"\n\nAgatha arced upwards and sailed over the railing of the balcony that circled the room. To her astonishment, she saw a huddled mass of wide-eyed figures, onto which she landed. Desperately she clawed her way back to the railing, in time to see Von Pinn finish ripping Lilith to bloody bits. Just as Agatha realized what she was seeing, Von Pinn's head snapped towards her with a glare that burned its way into her memory, where it resurfaced in nightmares for several years to come. Upon seeing Agatha, Von Pinn shrieked, \"MINE!\" and darted out of the room.\n\nA hand dropped onto Agatha's shoulder, causing her to scream in terror, but it was only Theo DuMedd. She realized that the figures were, in fact, the other students who were staring at her. It was Hezekiah who broke the silence. \"We'd better get out of here!\" He glanced back over the balcony at the mess below, and took Agatha's other arm. \"Now!\"\n\nAgatha shook herself free. \"But I have to\u2014\"\n\nA number of the others began to speak up, when a commanding voice cut through the babble. \"Move! Or their deaths will be wasted!\"\n\nEveryone turned in surprise, and there, poised regally before them atop a canister, was Krosp. \"Follow me,\" he ordered. \"I can take you to the airship that the constructs used to get here. Now hurry!\" With that he leapt to the ground and strode off. Unhesitatingly, Agatha moved, and with the briefest of pauses, the rest quickly followed.\n\nIt was Z who felt he had to state the obvious. \"It's a talking cat.\"\n\nTheo shrugged. \"Well, we're in a Heterodyne story now. These things happen.\" The others nodded.\n\n\"Hey, Theo,\" Nicodeamus realized, \"she's your cousin!\"\n\nTheo stumbled. \"Wow. I never had any family before.\" He considered this briefly. \"I mean that wasn't dead, or missing, or a head in a jar or something.\"\n\nMeanwhile at the front of the crowd, Agatha was trying to cope with the events of the last few minutes. \"Lilith! She\u2014\"\n\n\"Focus!\" Krosp roared over his shoulder.\n\nAgatha swallowed and nodded. \"I\u2026 I don't know how to fly an airship.\"\n\n\"Well, you're in luck. I do.\" He frowned. \"I'll need something to stand on, though.\"\n\nAgatha's brain gratefully seized the memory that bubbled up. \"The airship manual\u2014and the controls laid out on the floor. Those were yours?\"\n\n\"Yes. I think I have everything memorized, so it wasn't that big a setback.\"\n\nAgatha glanced back over her shoulder at the crowd following. Hezekiah puffed along behind her, a disbelieving grin on his face. Agatha dropped back slightly so she was running alongside him. \"So what are you guys doing here?\"\n\n\"We came to help you and Gil. We sure didn't expect this,\" he admitted. \"You're a Heterodyne heir. Wow!\"\n\nAgatha shrugged. \"Even if it's true, it doesn't change\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't be even more absurd,\" Zulenna interrupted. It was obvious from her face that the girl was almost as upset by the day's events as Agatha. \"It changes everything. The Heterodynes saved my family's lands. Designed our defenses. When he incorporated our lands into the Empire, the Baron had to treat us with respect. We would have been another backwater former monarchy without their help.\" Zulenna sighed. \"Whereas you yourself have done nothing; many of those who owe your family will feel obligated to support you. This could be a problem if you are not under the Baron's direct control. Arguably, to best preserve the stability of the Pax Transylvania, perhaps you should\u2014\"\n\n\"Naughty children!\" The voice sent chills down their spines, and without conscious volition, the group stumbled to a halt. Filling the corridor behind them was the figure of Von Pinn, who glided forward. \"Stop this at once,\" she hissed. \"Bring me the Agatha girl.\"\n\nThe group was frozen until Zulenna suddenly stepped forward and, with a whisper, drew the rapier from the scabbard at her waist. Without looking back at the group she ordered them, \"Go! I'll hold her off!\"\n\nTheo blinked. \"Zulenna, what are you--\"\n\n\"My family owes her family. Everything that I am dictates that I do this. Now GO!\"\n\n\"Good luck,\" Krosp offered. \"Now move!\" With that the group reluctantly ran off. Seeing this, Von Pinn flowed forward impossibly fast, but found herself blocked in the narrow corridor by Zulenna's sword. She reared up. \"Get out of my way, child.\"\n\nZulenna's hand shook slightly, but her voice remained firm. \"You talk a good game, Madam, but you've never actually hurt any of us. Don't make me hurt you.\"\n\nVonn Pinn made a few lightning fast swipes at Zulenna's sword, but was unable to grab it. \"You cannot hurt me, but I will hurt you in order to pass.\"\n\n\"Then that is what you will have to do.\"\n\nVon Pinn screamed and lunged forward. Zulenna retreated slightly and slashed at Von Pinn's face. The construct flinched. \"I am charged with your safety. I do not want to hurt you!\" she muttered.\n\nA friendly hand dropped onto her shoulder. Von Pinn spun and found Bangladesh at her side with a sympathetic look sitting incongruously on her face. \"Kids, huh? What are you gonna do?\" She patted the construct's leather-clad shoulder. \"Let me take care of this.\"\n\n\"You must not\u2014\"\n\nBangladesh raised a hand in reassurance. \"Relax. I ain't gonna hurt her. I'll just get her out of the way.\" With that she strode forward, a gleaming cutlass weaving idle figures in the air. \"Hi, girlie, let's play!\"\n\nZulenna brought her sword up, but clearly was unsure how to handle DuPree's casual advance. \"I'm warning you\u2014\"\n\nBangladesh smiled. \"Say, that's mighty nice of you.\" Her cutlass flicked out and Zulenna barely intercepted it in time. Bangladesh continued to walk forward, casually engaging the girl in a lightning fast series of moves. She spoke conversationally. \"And really, a lot of people would consider you pretty good.\" With that, she brought her sword down from above. Zulenna raised her arm to block it, allowing Bangladesh to step forward and deftly sink a slim dagger into the girl's breast with her other hand.\n\nZulenna froze and stared at the spreading patch of red on her shirt. DuPree sighed and patted her shoulder. \"But you know, I'm a Pirate Queen. I do this for a living. Adios, kid.\" With that, Zulenna's eyes rolled up into her head and she slumped to the ground. Bangladesh pirouetted around her as she fell, and grinned back at Von Pinn. \"See? She never felt a thing. Now let's get the rest of them. This is fun!\"\n\nVon Pinn screamed and launched herself forward, claws extended.\n\nFor a fraction of a second, a look of surprise crossed Bangladesh's face, then she fell back laughing. \"Oh yeah! Better and better!\" Moving like a dancer, she swiveled and cut at the enraged construct as Von Pinn roared past her. The sword cut through the leather and a deep gash appeared. \"So big and scary,\" DuPree taunted. \"But you've got no teeth when it comes to the kids, hey? Well that'll make it even more fun when I catch 'em.\"\n\nVon Pinn snarled in pain, spun to a halt and examined the wound. A tiny part of DuPree's brain offered up the observation that Von Pinn seemed more annoyed about the damage to her outfit than the large cut into her flesh. \"Aw, does that hurt?\"\n\nVon Pinn swiveled her head towards Bangladesh, and the captain felt her smile falter. \"Pain does not bother me.\" She slowly swayed forward and extended a hand toward Bangladesh. \"I live with it.\"\n\nBangladesh raised her cutlass. Von Pinn continued to reach forward. She jabbed towards the construct's hand. With a sudden move, Von Pinn impaled her own hand upon the sword. DuPree was shocked and froze as Von Pinn drove her hand down the length of the sword until she could grasp the guard. \"I use pain. Cultivate it.\" Effortlessly she squeezed and the sword guard crumpled, trapping DuPree's hand within. \"Shape it.\" Delicate bones snapped within DuPree's hand and she screamed. A leather-clad claw slapped over her nose and mouth, cutting off her breathing. She found herself face to face with a toothily grinning Von Pinn, who drew her close. \"Ah-ah-ah\u2014\" she whispered. \"Time for a lesson. A final lesson.\" She began to tighten the hand covering the struggling captain's face, and suddenly became aware of the slim dagger that DuPree was desperately trying to slide past the belts and buckles of her outfit and between her ribs. She grinned, but then both women were distracted by a small object arcing through the air and landing at their feet. They just had time to recognize the C-Gas canister for what it was when it went off, belching forth a cloud of thick gas that caused the two combatants to fall over unconscious.\n\nThe gas cleared quickly, and a shape loomed in the corridor. It was a combat clank. Its eyes broken by Adam's rivet attack. In its arms it carried Baron Wulfenbach. Leg bandaged, and wearing a small facemask. A lapful of similar canisters clunked whenever the big clank moved. Klaus looked down at the three women and sighed in exasperation. \"I'll deal with you idiots later.\" He addressed the clank carrying him. \"Continue forward.\"\n\nThe machine continued down the corridor. Behind the Baron, he heard running footsteps and a Lackya appeared at his elbow. \"Herr Baron!\" he inquired. \"Are you\u2014\"\n\nKlaus interrupted him. \"I am fine. Scout ahead and\u2014\" A thought struck him. \"No\u2014wait. Back there with Von Pinn and DuPree\u2014There was someone else.\"\n\nThe Lackya nodded. \"Ah. The Princess Zulenna. I checked them all, Herr Baron, and I regret to say that the princess appears to be dead.\"\n\nKlaus pounded his fist on his leg. \"Damnation!\" he snarled. \"You will take the princess to my medical lab and place her in the cold room.\"\n\nThe Lackya looked distressed. \"You\u2014The Baron would revive her? But she is\u2014was a Royal. The Fifty Families expressly forbid\u2014\"\n\nKlaus cut him off furiously. \"The Fifty Families haven't got the authority or the power to forbid me from doing anything. Zulenna was under my protection, and I don't give a damn about their ridiculous games of succession.\"\n\n\"But Herr Baron\u2014The princess will.\"\n\n\"That is her privilege. But she is the one who will choose her fate.\"\n\nThe Lackya opened his mouth, and Klaus roared, \"GO! You're wasting time!\"\n\nThe Lackya bowed, but could not resist adding, \"I go, Herr Baron, but while the Royals have little obvious power, that which they do have, they use with deadly finesse. Beware.\" With that, he swiveled about and set off at great speed.\n\nThe Baron frowned. \"The Lackya are getting\u2026 argumentative.\" He sighed and settled back into the arms of the clank. \"It's always something.\"\n\n\"Herr Baron.\" Klaus raised his eyebrows in surprise as a group of students appeared from around the edge of a doorway where they had been hiding. Sleipnir stepped forward. \"Thank you for taking care of Zulenna, sir.\"\n\nKlaus looked uncomfortable. \"Not a word about her revivification. We shall talk about this later. Now stand aside. I have\u2014\"\n\n\"No, Herr Baron.\" It was Hezekiah who spoke up. He was sweating profusely, but stood tall. \"You're trying to capture Agatha, yes?\"\n\nSun Ming chimed in. \"Please, just let her go.\"\n\nHezekiah nodded. \"She's a good person, sir. She won't cause trouble.\"\n\n\"She didn't even know she was a Spark.\"\n\n\"Or a Heterodyne.\"\n\nZ looked at the Baron's face. \"But you aren't going to let her go. Why?\"\n\nKlaus sighed. \"Because you hardly know her and still you rally to her side, even in defiance of me. If all of you\u2014who have studied under me for so long, and have the best chance of understanding what it is that I have built and how terribly fragile it is\u2014will do so, imagine what the populace at large will do?\"\n\nThe group of students looked at each other uncertainly, which was when Klaus slipped the mask over his face and activated a new canister of C-Gas. They dropped to the floor and the great clank delicately stepped over them.\n\n\"I think it time you all returned home,\" he sighed. \"Your use to me is ended. I can only hope you've learned your lessons.\"\n\nAgatha and Theo followed Krosp. Theo suddenly called out, \"This isn't the way to the docking bays! We've gotten turned around!\"\n\nKrosp paused. \"No. I know where we are, but there's someone we have to bring with us!\" Again he took off, leaving Agatha and Theo no choice but to follow. Everywhere there were signs that things were not going well aboard the great airship. In every corridor, lights were flashing orange, and swarms of people were rushing about in a surprisingly orderly fashion.\n\n\"Krosp,\" Agatha called out, \"where are we going?\"\n\n\"It's Monday! He'll be in the chemical locker,\" Krosp replied unhelpfully. They reached a large door marked \"CHEMICAL STORAGE & DISPOSAL LOCKER 55.\" Krosp motioned to Theo. \"Open it.\"\n\nTheo did. Inside were racks and racks of metal shelves, holding endless canisters and glass tubes. Halfway down the second aisle, the large, hulking figure of Dr. Dim pushed a small cart and delicately wielded a feather duster.\n\n\"Papa!\" Krosp cried as he ran up and leapt up onto Dim's cart. The man smiled at the sight of him, and patted his head.\n\n\"Hello, Krosp. Are you hungry?\" He saw Agatha and DuMedd, and a guilty look crossed his face. \"This is a good cat,\" he said defensively.\n\nKrosp patted his hand. \"It's all right, Papa. They're friends. They are here to help us. It's time for us to leave Castle Wulfenbach.\"\n\nDimitri looked confused. \"Leave? I don't think we can do that.\"\n\n\"Yes we can. I have a ship, I have a crew, and the Baron is distracted. We have to take this opportunity to escape.\"\n\nDimitri took a step away from his cart and then stopped. Conflicting emotions played across his face. \"But, I haven't finished dusting.\"\n\nKrosp stared at him. \"Forget the dusting, Papa. It's not important. We've got to\u2014\"\n\nThe man slammed a hand down on the cart. \"You forget yourself, cat.\" His face was filled with a cold arrogance that Agatha had seen on any number of Sparks when their knowledge or competence had been questioned. \"I am Dr. Dimitri Vapnoople!\"\n\nAt this declaration, DuMedd started, and looked from the large man to Krosp, and Agatha could see connections being made.\n\nVapnoople continued: \"The Baron assured me that I would continue to do important work. Work worthy of my genius! And I have done my work and I have heard no complaint! The Baron's secretary saw me in the corridor last week, and do you know what he said to me? Do you? He said, 'You are doing a good job.' That's what he said! To me!\" At this, Vapnoople hunched over, grinned, and whispered, \"And he still does not know that I continue my real work! Here! In the very heart of his own castle!\"\n\nKrosp glanced at Agatha and DuMedd and looked distressed.\n\n\"Yes, Papa, we know. But now we have to\u2014\"\n\n\"I have been constructing my armies! Here! Out of sight! And I have learned! I have learned from the Baron's own books and laboratories! I have improved my work! Each creature I build is better! Much better than the last!\"\n\nThroughout this tirade, DuMedd had gotten more and more nervous. \"Dr. Vapnoople was famous for creating intelligent animals,\" he whispered to Agatha. \"His armies of wolf/men controlled hundreds of square kilometers. It took the Baron almost three years to defeat him and capture them all.\"\n\n\"And Wulfenbach killed them!\" Vapnoople roared. \"He absorbs all sorts of half-finished trash into his service, but my creations he said weren't good enough! They had to die!\"\n\n\"I believe, Herr Doctor,\" Theo said carefully, \"that the Baron judged them as being\u2026 too good at what they did. Plus he was unable to break their loyalty to you. They couldn't accept a place in the Baron's forces.\"\n\nA tear ran down Vapnoople's face. \"Yes. I always did know how to build in the loyalty, eh Krosp?\" He ruffled the top of Krosp's head. The cat's ears were flattened, but he still leaned into the big man's hand. \"But I learned. Even at the beginning, when Wulfenbach was first engaging my glorious creations, I saw how it would go. I saw that I would have to do better the next time, and I have! BEHOLD!\" With that he whipped open a small door in the cart and displayed a small patchwork bear made from rags. \"My beautiful bears,\" he crooned. He picked it up, and holding its little paws, made slashing and growling noises before putting it back in the cart. \"They will overrun Wulfenbach and send his oversized castle crashing to the ground! And you\u2014\" He patted a slumped Krosp on the head. \"You will lead them to glory!\" He pointed to Agatha. \"I remember her. She said she would help.\"\n\nKrosp and Agatha looked at each other.\n\nVapnoople picked up his duster. \"And so you see why I cannot leave. Now, I must get back to my important work, so that the Baron does not suspect.\" So saying, he turned away and, cackling occasionally, returned to cleaning.\n\nAgatha gently put a hand on Krosp's shoulder and whispered, \"We have to go.\"\n\nKrosp addressed Vapnoople's broad back. \"I'll come back for you, Papa. I'll take you and\u2026 your bears and we'll go somewhere safe. I promise you.\"\n\nDr. Dimitri waved a hand without looking around. \"I'll save you a fish.\"\n\nKrosp was quiet. Several times DuMedd had to prod him to get him to tell them the correct turn to take, but quickly enough they opened a large door and found themselves in one of the hundreds of airship docks that peppered the sides of the vast dirigible. This one had bays for over a dozen mid-size ships, and from the debris that littered the deck, it was obvious that there had been a great deal of activity a short time ago. The only ship in evidence was a tiny two-engine pinnace. The three headed towards it, but stopped dead when they found a half-dozen Wulfenbach crewmen, unconscious and neatly lined up next to a fuel barrel. A faint whistling was heard, and to Agatha's amazement, a cheerful Othar straightened up from behind the ship where he was coiling some rope. He spotted them and his face broke into an easy grin. \"Ah! Excellent! You made it!\"\n\n\"Othar!\" Agatha exclaimed. \"You're alive!\"\n\n\"As always!\" he replied.\n\nTheo's eyes widened. \"That's really him? You know a talking cat AND Othar Tryggvassen?\"\n\n\"But\u2026 he\u2026 Gilgamesh\u2026\"\n\nOthar waved this off with obvious disdain. \"I knew you'd choose the side of good in the end.\"\n\nThis snapped Agatha out of her confusion. \"I'm not here for you\u2014!\"\n\nShe was cut short by Krosp shoving her towards Othar. \"No time! Come on!\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Othar agreed. \"Come on! It's time for adventure!\"\n\nAgatha looked at him levelly. \"Get on the airship.\"\n\nOthar looked surprised. \"Don't you want to hear the exciting tale of my escape?\"\n\nAgatha was now on the ship and at Krosp's direction was untying ropes. Othar quickly clambered aboard. \"Casting off!\" she called out.\n\nTheo came up. \"Good luck.\"\n\nAgatha looked surprised. \"You're not coming?\"\n\nTheo shook his head. \"I was, but now that I know you'll be traveling with Herr Tryggvassen, I know you'll be safe. I've got to see how the others are doing, I'll bet some of them will want to come along. We'll catch up to you in Mechanicsburg!\"\n\nAgatha looked panicked. \"But\u2014\"\n\n\"That is where you'll be going, right?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I don't want to travel alone.\"\n\nOthar clapped her on the shoulder. \"Silly girl, didn't you hear? You'll be under the protection of Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer!\"\n\nKrosp pulled her skirt. \"And don't forget me.\"\n\nAgatha looked at them and turned back to Theo. \"No, really. You sure you don't want to come? There's room. Or I could stay with you.\"\n\nTheo laughed. \"Don't be silly.\"\n\nAgatha sighed, \"Well, you should know that Gil's got some kind of invisibility device.\"\n\nTheo's eyes lit up. \"Is that what that was? Interesting.\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"It might help.\" With that, she reached out, drew his head towards her and placed a kiss upon his forehead. \"Thank you for everything. And take care of yourself, cousin.\"\n\nTheo grinned. \"You too, cousin.\" With that he stepped back and helped shove the airship out of the docking cradle. It floated beside the hanger bay until Krosp, standing atop a crate, activated the engines, and the tiny craft warped away from the side of the great airship. Suddenly Theo heard a rhythmic thudding from the corridor leading to the hanger. He ducked behind a gas tank just as Klaus' transport clanked through the doorway.\n\nKlaus saw the airship pulling away and swore. He then directed the clank to the nearest signaling station. He picked up the handset and cranked the handle to activate the system. Suddenly an explosion gently rocked the deck, almost causing the clank carrying the Baron to fall. A cloud of smoke rolled out of one of the hanger doorways, and several coughing figures stumbled from it. They were revealed to be some of Castle Wulfenbach's fire-fighters. Most of them quickly recovered and rushed over to a water cistern and began refilling the pumper tanks they wore strapped to their backs. One of them saw the Baron and ran to him. \"Herr Baron! You should get out of here! All of the experiments in the lower labs have either been let loose or activated, and three of the compartments are on fire.\"\n\nKlaus stared at him, and with another oath, slammed the speaker phone back into place. \"Assemble your men,\" he told the fire-fighter. \"Have each of them grab one of those cylinders of Carbonic Acid Gas and then follow me!\" He grabbed a cylinder himself, urged his clank forward, and the group ran back into the smoking doorway.\n\nAgatha lowered the telescope she had been using. \"And now they've gone back to fight the fire, I guess. The Baron looked pretty mad.\"\n\nOthar laughed. \"I imagine so. The little diversions I arranged before we left should keep him too busy to worry about us for a while.\"\n\nKrosp nodded. \"There's a lot of smoke, but I don't think the envelope is going to catch. But it's looking bad enough that the support fleet is moving in to assist. They're not going to waste time on us. We need to put as much distance behind us as we can.\" He turned back and spun the ship's wheel so that they were traveling in the opposite direction as the Castle.\n\n\"Normally I don't work with children or animals,\" Othar murmured, \"but that is one amazing cat.\"\n\nAgatha nodded. \"Yes. I guess I'll have to get used to things like this now.\"\n\nOthar grinned and clasped her shoulder. \"Ah! So you're taking the sidekick job! Now it's strictly a profit-sharing situation, so\u2014\"\n\nAgatha shrugged his hand off. \"No. I'm not. I'm my own Spark, thank you. I'm going to have to get my own sidekicks.\"\n\nOthar went still. \"What?\"\n\nAgatha nodded and leaned on the railing. Below her the countryside sailed serenely past. \"I'm a Spark. I'm afraid it's true, it explains so much.\"\n\nOthar came up behind her. \"I'm\u2026 very sorry to hear that.\"\n\nAgatha rolled her eyes. \"Yes, well, you don't have to make it sound like a death sentence.\"\n\n\"But it is.\"\n\nThe tone of Othar's voice brought Agatha around quickly. Othar's face was different. It was set in a grimace, and a small pistol was pointed unwaveringly at Agatha. \"I'm really sorry about this,\" he muttered. \"But you have to die.\"\n\nAgatha realized that the comically jovial Othar she thought she knew had vanished entirely. \"Why?\" she asked.\n\nFor a terrible moment she thought he wasn't going to answer. When he did, his voice was strained and intense. \"What is the cause of everything wrong in the world today? Madboys. The Spark. They create monsters. Rip apart the cities with their constant fighting and terrorize the countryside\u2026 They can't help it. They're like mad dogs. They've almost completely destroyed civilization. Surely you can see that. For the good of the world, all Sparks have to die, and since you are one of them\u2014\"\n\n\"But you\u2014You have the Spark.\"\n\nOthar grimaced. \"Yes! But I alone have the resolve to do what must be done! I must hunt down and destroy every Spark in existence! And then\u2014\" He threw his head up and screamed to the heavens, \"And then I can finally kill myself! And rid the world of this scourge once and for all!\"\n\nHe stood there panting and trembling while Agatha stared at him. \"Well, why didn't you say so?\" she exclaimed.\n\nOthar paused. \"I\u2014what?\"\n\nAgatha nodded furiously. \"Being a Spark has ruined my life! My parents were killed by some insane construct! I spent most of my life crippled by some mind-altering device! Everyone wants me dead or on an examining table!\"\n\nOthar raised his pistol. \"You do understand.\"\n\nAgatha stepped up to him and grabbed his sweater in both hands. \"Of course! And now you say that I can work with you to destroy them all? Count me in!\"\n\nOthar's jaw dropped. Slowly a tentative smile, not the forced jocularity of his public face, but a genuine smile, blossomed upon his face. \"At last.\" He whispered, \"Do you really mean it?\"\n\nAgatha rolled her eyes and puffed out her cheeks in dismissal. \"No.\" And she shoved Othar over the side of the airship.\n\nAs he plummeted from sight, he called out, \"Foul!\" and snapped off a single shot from his pistol before he vanished into a cloud below.\n\nAgatha and Krosp peered over the side for a moment. When nothing happened, Agatha slumped down and cupped her head in her hands. \"I really owe Gil an apology,\" she muttered.\n\nA faint sound caused Krosp to peer upwards. He frowned. \"The idiot hit the envelope. But we should still be able to stay up for a few hours.\"\n\nAgatha roused herself. \"Perhaps they have a patch kit.\"\n\nKrosp shrugged as he hauled himself back onto his crate. \"Doubt it. Ship like this, they judge every gram. A minor repair like this would get fixed at a dock before it was a problem. Won't hurt to check though,\" he conceded. \"We'll need to see what we have available anyway.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"We've got to steer clear of civilization. Our best bet is the Wastelands.\"\n\nAgatha shivered. She had heard stories about the Wastelands. Although the Empire of the Baron was extensive, there were large tracts of land that were still uncontrolled, wild expanses where entire towns had disappeared overnight. It was the perfect place to hide, but there was a distinct possibility that once in, they'd never return. Agatha felt a sense of desolation filling her. The future looked bleak.\n\nMad, Othar may have been, but he certainly had a point. The last several hundred years had been filled with a distressingly long list of catastrophes, disasters, blights, monstrosities and terror directly attributable to a small handful of crazed geniuses.\n\n\"Why am I bothering?\" she whispered.\n\nKrosp shrugged. \"What?\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't I just turn myself over to the Baron? Why shouldn't I just throw myself over the side right now?\"\n\nKrosp scratched his chin and then jerked the steering wheel. The little airship lurched to the side. Agatha grabbed onto the railing and held on tightly. Krosp pointed to her hands. \"Because you don't want to die.\"\n\n\"But Othar had a point. Sparks\u2014\"\n\n\"Not all Sparks,\" Krosp interrupted. \"Most of them are dangerous,\" he conceded. \"But what about the ones who fight the monsters, save the towns, build the machines that help people. It's not what you are, it's what you do with it.\"\n\n\"But so many of them are monsters!\"\n\nKrosp grinned. \"That's because being a monster is easy. Doing good, making a positive difference. That's hard. But that's what your parents did.\" He considered her. \"Unless you think the construct was lying about the Heterodynes being your parents.\"\n\nAgatha didn't even have to think about that. \"Lilith wouldn't lie to me. Not about that. Not then.\"\n\nKrosp nodded. \"I have to agree. It's not like she did you any favors acknowledging it.\"\n\n\"And everybody is making such a big deal about it. The Baron must discover new Sparks all the time.\"\n\nKrosp glared at her. \"Because you're not just a Spark. You're the last of the Heterodyne family. Surely you must understand how momentous that is. As long as you're around, the Baron and every other major power in Europe will want to control you, and everyone else will either want to follow you or kill you. You've got to understand that.\"\n\n\"But that's all\u2026 politics. I don't care about any of that.\"\n\n\"Well you'd better start to care. Because everyone's going to care about you.\"\n\n\"You mean they're all going to want something from me.\"\n\nKrosp nodded. \"That's right, and like it or not, you'll cause a lot of trouble just by existing.\"\n\nAgatha thought about this and had to admit the logic of it. Her jaw tightened and she straightened up. \"All right then,\" she declared. \"Let's go cause some trouble.\""
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Lost Regiment 8) Men of War",
+        "author": "William R. Forstchen",
+        "genres": [
+            "scifi",
+            "military"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "For the men of all the Lost Regiments of the American Civil War, North and South, who gave the last full \"measure of devotion and, in so doing, set an undying example of dedication and valor.\n\nThis series has spun its web around me for more than a decade and it is now difficult to part from it. The desire to write a story in this genre with a Civil War theme formed over fifteen years ago, and I am eternally grateful to John Silbersack, my first editor with Penguin, for embracing an idea that other editors thought a bit mad. My sincere thanks must go as well to my agent, Eleanor Wood. When I became her client twelve years ago the Lost Regiment was the first thing I dropped on her desk, and it was she who saved it and moved it forward.\n\nThis series started just as I entered graduate school and is now finished after obtaining tenure at Montreat College, so it has been a constant companion through a lot of changes in my life. My most humble thanks must go to Professor Gunther Rothenberg. Gunther was, and still is, my mentor, and it was an honor to study under him. Dennis Showalter, President of the Society of Military Historians, was a hero of mine years ago, and thus my shock when he called me one day, me a lowly graduate student, to express his delight in Rally Cry. Dennis's input ever since has been invaluable and his studies of technology, logistics, and wdt are an inspiration. Mention must be made of Professor David Flory as well, a professor second to none. Another inspiration was the role model of L. Sprague de Camp when it came to combining history with science fiction and fantasy.\n\nNumerous friends were advisors and of tremendous help on this project and others, and are deserving of thanks, especially John Mina, Kevin Malady, Maury Hurt, Bill Fawcett, Elizabeth Kitsteiner, Monica Walker, Donn Wright, Tom Sesy, Tim Kindred, Dr. David Delle-croce for discussions on the finer points of the \"Moon Fest,\" Newt Gingrich, and Jeff Ethell. Any relation to those who served in the 35th is purely coincidence. The community of Montreat College, students, faculty, and administration has been remarkably tolerant of my idiosyncrasies and story writing. It is a rare college today that indulges its professors thus, and I am thankful for their understanding and support.\n\nOf course there is my family, who had to live through all of this, Sharon, Meghan (who learned to sing the \"Battle Cry of Freedom\" before she was three), and lay parents, who encouraged my interest in history from the start.\n\nThere are numerous other names to mention, but publishers are not into acknowledgments that run for pages, nor as a reader do I often take the time to check them out, so we shall close it here. So if you are reading this, my thanks, but it is time to move on with the tale!\n\n\u2014William R. Forstchen Montreat, NC June 1999"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Colonel Andrew Lawrence Keane reached up and reverently touched the silken folds of the flag of the 35th Maine. Aged and bloodstained, the fabric was as fragile as the wings of a dying butterfly.\n\nA hundred nameless fields of strife, he thought wistfully. My own blood on that standard, my brother's, all my comrades. How many of us left? Less than a hundred now. He slowly let his hand drop.\n\nIt was early morning, the air heady with the scent of late spring. The grass was up, thick, a lush green, sprinkled with a riot of flowers\u2014blue, yellow, and strange purple orchids unique to this alien world that was now home.\n\nNature was already hard at work covering over the scars of the bitter winter battle. The deep trenches cut by the besieging Bantag were beginning to erode away, collapsing in on themselves under the incessant drumbeat of the heavy spring rains. Scattered wreckage of battle, discarded cartridge boxes, broken caissons, shell casings, tattered bits of uniform, and even the bones of the fallen were returning to the soil.\n\nHis gaze swept across the field, fingering for a moment at the great city of the Roum, looking like a vision of an empire lost to his own world far more than a millennium ago. Pillared temples adorned the hills, the new triumphal arch commemorating the great victory already half-raised in the center of the old forum. Even in the city the scars of the bitter winter battle were beginning to disappear, new buildings rising up out of the wreckage, the distant sound of sawing, hammering; a city being reborn echoed across the fields.\n\nHe turned his mount, nudging Mercury with his knees, shifting his gaze to the long lines deployed out behind him, a full corps drawn up for review before heading to the front. It was the glorious old 9th Corps, so badly mauled in the siege. The corps was deployed in battle formation, three divisions, with brigades in column, colors to the fore, occupying a front of more than half a mile. The formation was obsolete for battle use; in an open field it would be torn to shreds by modern firepower. But old traditions died hard, and such a formation could still inspire the ranks, giving them a sense of their strength and numbers.\n\n\"They're starting to look better,\" Hans Schuder announced. Andrew looked over to his old friend and nodded, urging Mercury to a slow canter, the flag bearer of the 35th following, as he paraded down the length of the line, saluting the shot-torn standards of the regiments, carefully eyeing the men.\n\nMost of the wear and tear of the winter fight, at least on the exterior, had been repaired \u2026 new uniforms to replace the rags that had covered the men by the end of the winter, rifles repaired and well polished, cartridge boxes and haversacks bulging with eighty rounds per man, and five days' rations.\n\nHere and there the ranks had been replenished with new recruits, but most of the men were veterans: rawboned, tough, lean, eyes dark and hollow. Far too many of the regiments were pitifully small, sometimes down to fewer than a hundred men. Andrew had considered combining units and cutting the corps down to two divisions, but there had been a howl of protest. Regimental pride was as strong on this world as with any army back on the old world, so he had let the formation stand.\n\nReining in occasionally, he paused to chat, making it a point to single out men who wore the coveted Medals of Honor. Eighteen had been awarded for the siege of Roum, and another five for the units that had flanked the Bantags with Hans Schuder. Self-consciously he looked down at his own medal, given to him personally by President Abraham Lincoln. It still made him feel somewhat guilty that he had thus been singled out. Taking command of the old 35th at Gettysburg after the death of Colonel Estes, he had simply held the line, refusing to budge, the same way the other regiments deployed along Seminary Ridge had fought on that terrible first day of the battle. He had bled the 35th white, lost his only brother, and awakened in the hospital minus an arm. And for that they gave me a medal. He looked over at Hans riding beside him. It wasn't fair, he thought again. If anyone deserved the medal for that day, it was Hans.\n\nHis gaze shifted to a color sergeant from the 14th Roum who had won his medal the hard way, killing over a dozen Bantags in hand-to-hand fighting. Andrew nodded to the sergeant and, as tradition demanded, saluted first in recognition of the medal. The sergeant, really not much more than a boy, grinned with delight and snapped off a salute in return.\n\n\"Sergeant, ready to go back up to the front?\" Andrew asked, still stumbling over the Latin.\n\n\"I think we're ready, sir.\"\n\nAndrew smiled and continued on.\n\n\"I think we're ready,\" Andrew said in English, looking over at Hans. \"They'll fight, but they're worn out.\"\n\n\"Who isn't, Andrew?\" Hans replied laconically. \"The years pass, the fighting continues, the faces keep changing in the ranks. They just keep seem to be getting younger; that boy with the Medal of Honor couldn't be nineteen.\"\n\n\"Actually just turned eighteen,\" Andrew replied. He looked back again at the boy with the old eyes, and saw the looks of admiration from the others in his company, for Keane had singled him out.\n\nThe old game, Andrew thought, \"with such baubles armies are led,\" Napoleon had once said. Two new awards had been created at the end of the Battle of Roum, and many of the men now wore them, a dark purple stripe on the left sleeve denoting a battle wound, and a silver stripe, also on the same sleeve, for having killed a Bantag in hand-to-hand combat or for a conspicuous display of gallantry. A good third of the corps wore the purple stripe, and several hundred the silver. It just might motivate a frightened boy to stand while others ran.\n\nComing to the head of the formation Andrew reined in and returned the salute of Stan Bamberg, commander of the 9th Corps and an old gunner of the 44th New York Light Artillery, who today was relinquishing command to head south and take over the 3rd Corps in front at Tyre. Jeff Frady, a redheaded gunner from the 44th had been promoted to take command, and in part this ceremony was the pomp and circumstance for a change of leaders.\n\n\"Nice day to be heading up to the front,\" Stan announced, looking at the pale blue morning sky. \"This is a good corps, Andrew.\"\n\nAndrew caught the undercurrent of concern in Stan's voice. The 9th had been shredded at Roum, and some said the unit had simply broken. The survivors, including Stan, felt that something had to be proven.\n\n\"How's the arm?\" Andrew inquired. Stan smiled, flexing it with barely a grimace, a souvenir of the last minutes of the battle for Roum, when the corps commander had gotten a little too enthusiastic, ridden to the front lines, and received a Bantag bullet as a result.\n\n\"Ready to head south?\"\n\nStan smiled. \"I'll miss these boys.\" He was staring at Jeff, who had been his second for well over a year. \"Take good care of them.\"\n\nJeff nodded, not replying.\n\nA steam whistle echoed in the distance, interrupting their thoughts. Looking past Stan, Andrew saw a train coming down the broad open slope, its flatcars empty after delivering half a dozen land ironclads to the front. The corps would need thirty trains to take the ten thousand men and their equipment up to the front lines. Once they were in position everything would be in place for what he prayed would be the blow that cracked the Bantag position wide-open.\n\nHe had taken the trip up there only a week before, to see the situation in front of Capua and arrange the final plans for the next offensive. The Bantag withdrawal back to the destroyed town, ninety miles east of Roum, had been thorough and brutal, not a single building, barn, hovel, bridge, or foot of track had been left intact by the retreating Horde. Over the last four months his railroaders had worked themselves to exhaustion, repairing, as well, the damage done by the two umens that had raided between Hispania and Kev.\n\nEven with the reconnected line, Pat O'Donald, up at the front, could barely keep five corps supplied, and though he was screaming for the 9th to move up as quickly as possible, Andrew half wondered if their arrival would be more of a burden than a help.\n\nThey were at a stalemate, and he feared that this was a stalemate the Human forces would eventually lose. Though the Battle of Roum, in a tactical sense, had been a victory, in an overall strategic sense he feared it might very well have proven to be a dark turning point of the war.\n\nHe remembered his old war back home, the summer and autumn of 1864, when Sherman and Sheridan had laid waste to Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley, crippling the breadbasket of the Confederacy. That, perhaps far more than the bitter siege in the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond, had truly broken the back of the Rebel cause.\n\nHere, in the present, the Bantag ravagings were a blow so severe that he had been forced temporarily to demobilize nearly twenty thousand Roum infantry who had been farmers. If they didn't get some kind of crops in, the Republic would starve the following winter.\n\nBeyond the physical devastation of the Bantag winter offensive there was the human toll as well. Another forty thousand casualties for the army, more than a hundred thousand civilians lost and a million more homeless. The war was wearing them down, even as they continued to win on the battlefield.\n\nHe sensed this new Bantag leader understood that far better than any foe he had ever faced across all the wars with the three hordes. The others had always perceived victory as a prize to be won on the battlefield. Yet in the reality of war that was only one component.\n\nWhat was needed now was not just a victory but a shattering and overwhelming triumph, an annihilating blow on the battlefield that broke the back of the Bantag Horde. He hoped that the forthcoming offensive would be that blow.\n\n\"Sir, are you all right?\" Jeff asked.\n\nAndrew stirred, realizing he had been gazing off in silence.\n\nHe smiled, saying nothing for a moment. He was still weak, a hollow fluttery feeling inside, as if his heart, his body had gone as brittle as glass. The pain, thank God, was gone, though the dark craving for that terrible elixir, morphine, still lingered, the memory of its soothing touch drifting like a fantasy for a forbidden lover.\n\n\"Just fine, Jeff, let's not keep the boys standing hefe. Reviews might be grand fun for generals, but they can be a hell of a bore for privates.\"\n\n\"Yes sir. I'll see you up at the front, sir.\"\n\nJeff snapped off another salute and turned his mount, barking out a command. The fifers and drummers deployed behind him started in, commands echoing across the field as the densely packed columns wheeled about to pass in review and from there deploy out to the depot where the trains waited.\n\nThe \"Battle Hymn of the Republic\" echoed across the open fields as the long sinuous columns marched past, the bayonet-tipped rifles gleaming in the morning sun.\n\nStan, obviously moved by sentiment for his old command, cantered back and forth along the ranks, reaching down to shake hands and wish the boys well.\n\n\"This has got to be the last campaign,\" Hans announced. Andrew shifted in his saddle, looking over at his old friend.\n\n\"Another battle like the last and it's over with; either they will break us, or Roum will crack, or maybe even our own government. Andrew, you've got to find a way to end -it now.\"\n\nAndrew looked away, watching as the ranks passed. There had been a time when this army, his army, so reminded him of the old Army of the Potomac. No longer. It had the look, the feel of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The men were lean, too lean. His army was beginning to unravel from having fought one too many battles and knowing it would be forced to continue to fight, the only escape being dismemberment or death.\n\nIt was evident all across the Republic, not just here, or at the front, but back in Suzdal, and to the smallest village hamlet. The vast infrastructure he had attempted to build to support this war was stretched like a bowstring and beginning to fray.\n\n\"You see it, too?\" Andrew asked.\n\nThe columns swayed past, dust swirling up so that they looked like shadows passing even though it was noon. He could sense the lack of enthusiasm, the almost boyish excitement that went through an army when it finally broke camp and headed back up. No, these were grim veterans who would fight like hell, but the enthusiasm was dampened by the knowledge of reality.\n\n\"I see it in you as well, Andrew Keane. You're still not over your wound.\"\n\nAndrew chuckled dismissively. \"Breath comes a bit short, but other than that I'm fine.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nHe looked over at his old friend and smiled.\n\n\"You should talk. How many wounds is it, five now? And that heart of yours. Emil keeps telling you to slow down a bit and to cut out chewing tobacco.\"\n\nAs if in response Hans fished into his haversack, pulled out a plug, bit off a chew, and, playing out their old ceremony, offered the plug to Andrew. He took it and bit a chew as well, and Hans smiled.\n\n\"We're two worn-out old warhorses Andrew. But hell, what's the alternative, go to the old soldiers' home and sit in a rocking chair on the porch? Not I. Down deep, I kind of hope I get shot by the last bullet of the last war.\"\n\n\"Don't even joke about that.\"\n\n\"Superstitious?\" Hans chuckled.\n\n\"No, it's just something you don't joke about. But you're right, we're both wearing down. Everyone is.\"\n\nIn the dust-choked column a passing regiment raised their caps in salute. Andrew let go of Mercury's reins and took off his hat to return the gesture.\n\n\"You know, there is part of me that would actually miss this,\" Hans drawled as he leaded over and spat. \"Nothing in peacetime can equal this, full corps of infantry drawn up to march off to war.\"\n\nAndrew nodded. It wasn't just the sight of them, it was the sounds, the smells \u2026 the rhythmic clatter of tin cups banging on canteens, the tramping of feet on the dusty road, the snatches of conversations wafting past, the scent of leather, sweat, horses, oil, even the staticlike feel of the powdery dust. It was something eternal, and it was one of the few things the gods of war gave back in exchange for all the blood offered up on their altars.\n\nAfter so many years he could close his eyes, and it could be anywhere, here on this mad world, or back in Virginia. And he could sense as well the differences, the grimness of purpose, the quiet resignation, the feeling that this was some sort of final effort. He wondered, if, at this very moment, his rival less than a hundred miles away was engaging in the same exercise, towering eight-foot Bantag warriors marching past. Was he judging his troops as well, knowing that a final cataclysmic battle was coming?\n\n\"And what about them? What does he have? What is he feeling at this moment?\" Andrew whispered.\n\n\"Who, this Jurak?\"\n\nAndrew nodded again.\n\n\"I rarely saw him, can't recall if I ever even talked to him. He's changed the war though, that's certain. Almost makes me wish we still had Ha'ark.\"\n\nEscaped Chin slaves confirmed the rumors that Ha'ark had died in front of Roum, most likely murdered by his own followers. For a brief moment Andrew had hoped beyond hope that with the death of the so-called Redeemer, the war would be over, and the Bantags would simply retreat. They had indeed retreated, but it had been to dig in and go on the defensive throughout the waning days of winter and into the spring.\n\nFor the first month he was glad of the breathing space, giving them a chance to do repairs, especially to the railroads, evacuate Roum civilians westward to Suzdal, bring up supplies, and get ready.\n\nBy the second month he was actually hoping they'd come out of their defensive positions at Capua \u2026 and by the third month he knew this new leader, Jurak, had changed the nature of the war.\n\nHe could sense a difference, a more methodical mind, calculating, not given to rash moves.\n\n\"I hate the fact we have to dig him out,\" Andrew said, Hans nodding in agreement. \"It's as if the bastard is sitting there, just begging us to come in.\"\n\n\"Could always count on them attacking up till now,\" Hans replied, \"but you're right, he's waiting for us to kick off the ball.\"\n\nAndrew grunted. Though Hans had taught him how to chew, he had never really mastered it and was embarrassed as he tried to spit and half choked instead.\n\nDamn, the hordes could always be counted on to attack. The trick then was to find a narrow front, dig in, and tear them up. Jurak had reversed the tables. Capua was a damn fine defensive position, flanked by marshes and heavy forests to the north, more marshes and sharp jagged hills to the south. It was a front fifteen miles wide and fortified to the teeth.\n\nYet it seemed there was no other way. All indicators were that during the spring Jurak had invested a massive effort on building up his infrastructure, and his factories were churning out guns, ammunition, and supplies most likely at a faster pace than that of the Republic. If Andrew let this pace go on for another six months to a year, Jurak could swarm them under. He had to strike, like it or not.\n\nThe last of the swaying columns of infantry drifted past, blue uniforms already turning dirty gray-brown from the dust, men covering their faces with bandannas soaked in water. Jeff emerged out of the dust, cantering back down the line, followed by his guidon bearer. They reined in and saluted.\n\n\"I'll see you up at the front, Jeff. Tell Pat not to get overanxious and start the show without me.\"\n\n\"Yes sir. And sir, please do all of us a favor.\"\n\n\"What's that, Jeff?\"\n\n\"Don't push yourself too hard.\"\n\nAndrew smiled. How strange the role reversal of late. Prior to the wound he had been the father; now he was feeling like the aging parent whose children were increasingly solicitous about his well-being.\n\nOffering a casual salute, Jeff spurred his mount, shouting for the column to increase its pace. Fifers squealed, picking up the \"Battle Cry of Freedom,\" the song rippling down the ranks, a strange mix as some sang the words in Latin, others in Rus. The column wound past, rank after endless rank, the strange rhythm of rattling canteens and tin cups, the squeaking of leather, the scrape of hobnailed shoes on the hard-packed ground all blending together. More dust swirled up as a battery of three-inch rifles clattered past, the air thick with the smell of horse sweat, leather, tar, and grease, the men riding the caissons waving cheerily.\n\nThe dust thickened, obscuring the view. Andrew reached up to wipe his eyes. But it wasn't just the dust; to his surprise he was in tears. It was as if he was watching an ageless ritual for one last time, a sense that here was a final moment, the army going forth one last time, hopefully to victory. But the pageantry, the flags snapping in the rising breeze, the dark columns of infantry, rifles glinting, all of it was the passing of the armies into a dark and unknown land. It was an army of ghostly apparitions, and again he thought of the dream that had consumed him while he had lain in the twilight world that bordered on death, the tens of thousands who had gone ahead, sent there by his orders. How many of these boys were now marching to that destiny? When, dear God, would it ever end?"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "Jurak Qar Qarth of the Bantag Horde walked along the battlements lining the east bank of the river just above Capua. The midsummer twilight cast long shadows across the river, silhouetting the human fortifications on the opposite side of the river. He peered intently, raising his field glasses to scan the lines, oblivious to the warnings about snipers. An occasional shot fluttered overhead, a round smacking into the embankment above the firing slit, sending down a shower of powdery dirt.\n\nAn enemy flyer lazily circled above the lines, waiting in challenge for any of his own airships to come over, an offer he would not take since airships were far too precious to waste in foolish dueling that served no strategic purpose.\n\nHe slid back down from the firing slit and looked back at the gathering of umen Qarths, the commanders of his twenty-five divisions committed to this front.\n\nIn the hours after his killing of Ha'ark he had assumed that he, too, would die. But led by Zartak, the oldest of the clan Qarths, the council had declared him as the rightful successor, the one of legend sent to redeem the world, while Ha'ark had been a false usurper.\n\nIt was a position he had never desired, but the simple fact of the matter was that he either take it or die. He knew that if there had actually been a blood challenge, he would have been lost, but there was still enough of the superstitious fear of him and the others who had come through the Portal of Light, to ensure his acceptance as a demigod sent to save the hordes.\n\nBeing stuck on this world, fighting this war, none of it was what he desired, but saddled with the responsibility, he would see it through to its conclusion. Ha'ark had been far more the adventurer, the seeker of glory and power, while he had stayed in the background.\n\nEven on the old world he had not sought the shock of battle. Drafted to serve in the War of the False Pretender, he had spent eight years in the ranks, never rising because such power was not what he wanted. Solitude, a good book, a conversation with some depth to it were far more to his liking, and the others of his unit, though they knew he was dependable in a fight, found little else in common with him.\n\nRegarding the humans of this world he felt no real hatred; the visceral loathing and dread shared by all of the hordes for this hairless race since the start of the rebellion of the cattle was beyond him in any true emotional sense. On an intellectual level he fully understood the fundamental core of this war; it was a fight for racial survival. After all that had happened only one race could expect to survive, while the other would have to be destroyed. That is what he now fought for, survival. He was of the race of the hordes, they had made him their leader, and he had to ensure that this world would be safe for them.\n\nHe smiled, remembering, a refrain from a poem from his old world:\n\n\"Those I fight I do not hate, those I defend I do not love.\"\n\nHis gaze scanned the umen chieftains. Barbarians, all of them barbarians, clad in black leather, human finger bones strung as necklaces, one of them casually drinking fermented horse milk from a gold-encrusted human skull. Yet they were now his, perhaps the most capable warriors he had ever seen, razor-sharp scimitars that could cut a human in two dangling from waist belts, more than one of them carrying revolving pistols, a few with carbine rifles casually slung over their shoulders.\n\nAll of them were scarred, most sporting old saber slashes across cheeks, brow, and forearms, reminders of a simpler and happier age when the enemy were the other hordes and war was the sport of warriors and not a question of survival or total annihilation. Many bore the ritual cuts on forearms or across foreheads, slashes that were self-inflicted at the start of a battle in order to lend a more fearsome appearance. Several were missing limbs, hands, arms blown off or amputated.\n\nZartak, the eldest, was legendary throughout the Horde, a rider of four circlings of the planet, eighty years or more of age. At Rocky Hill, it was said that his left leg had been blown off just below the knee and he had not even flinched. After,wrapping a tourniquet around his thigh he continued \"to lead his umen on the last desperate charge to take the hill, and then, in spite of the injury that normally would have killed someone half his age, he actually survived.\n\nThe ancient warrior looked straight at him then, and nodded. Strange, Jurak thought, he had often heard of the ability some claimed to be able to sense and probe the thoughts of others. Ha'ark had claimed the skill, but lied. Zartak had it, though, and in the months since becoming Qar Qarth Jurak had felt an increasing bond with this ancient one who had seen the world from one end to the other four times over.\n\nThat must indeed have been a dreamworld, the endless ride eastward toward the rising sun. The daily cycle of rising, mounting, following the slow pace of the wheeled yurts, herding the millions of horses that were the wealth of the clans, the arrival at yet another city of the cattle, there to exact tribute of gold, silver, cunningly wrought weapons, and the flesh of four-legged cattle and the delicacy of the two-legged variety as well. Then moving on the next day, riding forever, breaking the tedium by raiding northward into the realm of the Merki Horde, or to the far north and the domains of the dead Tugars.\n\nBut Keane had changed all that. Keane and his Yankees from another world.\n\nThose changes were spreading like a plague around the world faster than a Horde could ride, and if he, his race were to survive, there was but one answer now: total annihilation. This was a war of no quarter. Either the rebellion and this human dream died, or within a generation not a single rider of the hordes would still be alive. They would be hunted by the victors, with machines ever more cunning and complex. The memory of the thousands of years of the Endless Ride, of the joy of the Riders, of the misery of the cattle, could be forgotten by neither side, and the time of reckoning had come.\n\nJurak had promised them that when victory was complete, when the last of the Rus and Roum were dead, and for good measure the Cartha, Chin, and Nippon were systematically slaughtered as well, so that there was no living memory of what happened, then the Golden Age would return. The machines would be destroyed. Bow, lance, and scimitar would again rule, and again they would ride eastward, resuming the endless journey of their ancestors.\n\nHe knew the promise was a lie. Such knowledge once released could not be returned. As he gazed silently at those gathered around him, he could sense that change already. Many of the Qarths, the clan and umen commanders, had already started to adapt themselves, speaking of enfilading fire, advancing by fire and cover, the use of artillery for suppressive fire. They understood how one locomotive could move in a single day what once required ten thousand horses, and the advantages of that. No, the machines would triumph in the end, and in a way the thought pleased him, for he knew it was a vital necessity.\n\nFor if Keane and his Yankees had come to this world via the Portals of Light bearing the knowledge that they did, it meant that somewhere in this universe there was a world of cattle who had mastered steam. The natural progression of such things would lead them forward to more, and greater, discoveries. Eventually, as well, they would discover that their world was studded with the lost Portals of Light left behind by his own fallen race, and how such gates could be used to span the universe.\n\nNo, there would come a day when more humans might very well arrive with yet more advanced weapons, and on that day his own race must be ready or, better still, rediscover the portals for themselves and use them.\n\nThat was but part of the reason why he had moved so aggressively throughout the last of winter and the spring to stop offensive action, to build up reserves, to spend more on the making of more factories and newer weapons. With the millions of slaves at his disposal, as distasteful as that was, he would outproduce the Yankees and then destroy them.\n\nBut such musings were not for now. There was still this war to be won. It was fitting that the Qar Qarth, the new Redeemer, have moments of silence, as if praying to the ancestors, but they waited for his pronouncements.\n\n\"You are right, Zartak,\" he said, finally breaking the silence, \"they are building up for .an attack. New gun emplacements, more sniper fire, the report of troop trains carrying ironclads.\"\n\nZartak, who would be known as a chief of staff on his old,world, grunted an acknowledgment. Jurak looked at the old one, mane nearly gone to white, balanced precariously on his peg leg, and felt a bond of affection. Here was one who during the long months after the defeat before Roum had educated the new Qar Qarth as to the ways of the world, the history of the Bantag clan and of all the hordes that rode the world in the north, or who sailed the great seas of the southern hemisphere.\n\n\"I know the inactivity of the past months has weighed heavily upon all of you,\" Jurak continued, \"as it has weighed upon me. Victory was within our grasp before Roum and lost in the blinking of an eye for but one foolish mistake, the failure to protect our transport for supplies.\n\n\"That is why we have waited for so long. We have built those supplies back, but we have done more, occupying half of the lands that were once of the cattle of Roum. This is causing them to starve, and sooner or later they will be forced to attack, and it will be here.\"\n\n. \"Directly across the river?\" Tukkanger, commander of the elite umen of the white horse, asked. \"Even we have learned the folly of that.\"\n\n\"Yet they will come. The river is low, fordable now for much of its length.\" And he pointed back west. The river, the only barrier separating the two lines dug in on opposite banks six hundred yards apart, was reduced to a muddy trickle.\n\n\"Keane must attack; it is the only front available. Their southern pocket leads but to open steppe, and, without a rail line advancing behind them, they cannot support an operation. We, in turn, are building a rail line across the narrows between the two seas to support our efforts against Tyre. That city has become a trap for them, one which they now cannot abandon for fear that we will use it as a base once our rail line is completed. Yet for them to attack us there would be a useless thrust into empty land.\n\n\"The path up through the mountains where they flanked us last time is now secured and heavily fortified by us. No, they must cross the river here. He will seek a battle of annihilation, a final desperate lunge to break our strength and our morale.\"\n\nThere was no sense in explaining the political pressure to these warriors, though he and Zartak had spoken of it often enough. Part of his strategy, in fact the major part, was to try and drive a wedge between the alliances of Roum and the Rus, to emphasize their military helplessness.\n\n\"They must take back this land which belonged to the Roum or lose face. So we will let him attack; he will fail. Then, when the time is right, we shall attack in turn. And this time, I promise you, we will not stop until Roum, and beyond that Suzdal and all of Rus, are in flames.\"\n\nHe said the words not as some grandiose vision or prophecy, but rather as a simple statement of the campaign to come, and those around him nodded one by one in agreement.\n\nThis would be a new kind of war for them, he realized. They had been bloodied in the long campaign all the way from the Great Sea to the gates of Roum, learning how all things had changed. Now they would see it in action. All he needed was for Keane to step into the trap, and in his heart he knew that Keane was about to take that step."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "Varinna Ferguson, widow of the famed inventor who had done so much to ensure the survival of the Republic, walked through the vast hangar, gazing up in wonder at the air machine that filled the cavernous hall. This machine was special, with the name Ferguson painted on the port side, just behind the pilot's cabin. Work crews were busy putting the final coat of lacquer on the double-weaved canvas of the wings. Tomorrow the machine would be ready for its first rollout.\n\n\"You checking this one off, too?\"\n\nShe looked over at Vincent Hawthorne, chief of staff of the Army of the Republic, and smiled. He was directly responsible for all ordnance development, and thus her boss. But the relationship of Ferguson's widow to the Republic was a strange one. She held no official rank or title. As she was heir to the memory of the great inventor, all showed her deference, for in the final months of his life she was the one who increasingly served as his eyes, his ears, and finally even his voice. It was as if some part of him still survived through her.\n\nWhat few had grasped was just how unique their pairing had been. The attraction wasn't just that of a shy eccentric inventor for a beautiful slave in the house of Marcus, former Proconsul of Roum and now the vice president of the Republic. The beauty was long gone, and she was no longer even conscious of the frozen scar tissue that made her face a mask, or the twisted hands that still cracked open and bled after hours of writing. It had always been something more than the simple attraction, as if Chuck had sensed the brilliant light of the mind within. When he had first started to share his drawings, his plans, his daydreams with her, she found she could strangely visualize them in their entirety, the parts on the sheets of paper springing into three-dimensional form, fitting together, interlocking, working or not working.\n\nThough she might not have the leaps of imagination he did, there was within her the concrete ability to carry out what he had visualized, to sense when to reject the impractical and when to mold the practical into life. Only a few, the inner circle of Chuck's young apprentices and assistants, fully realized just how much it was Varinna running things toward the end. She had the natural mind of an administrator who should be paired with a dreamer. Her dreamer was dead, but his notes, his sketchbooks, his frantic last months of scribblings were still alive, lovingly stored away, and she would make their contents real.\n\nHe had recognized that in her, and in so doing had not just been her lover but her liberator as well. In any other world she would have lived her life out as a servant in a house of nobility, a mistress most likely in her youth, as she had in fact been to Marcus, and then married off to another slave or underling when the prime of beauty began to fade. That, indeed, had been her fate, but instead she married a free man, a Yankee who had loved her for what she was, and she knew there would never be another like him in her life.\n\nShe looked over at Vincent and smiled, suddenly aware that she had allowed her thoughts to drift again. Even after all these years, he was still slightly embarrassed around her, unable to forget the day they had first met, when a very young Colonel Vincent Hawthorne had come to Roum as a military attache and Marcus had casually suggested that she make sure that the guest was comfortable in every way that a guest of a Proconsul should be.\n\nThe young Quaker had been in a panic over her advances and now, with the memory of Chuck, she was glad it had turned out as it did, for though Chuck was able to deal with her relationship to Marcus, there was something about the way the Yankees thought about sex that might have made difficulties between her husband and Vincent if anything had indeed finally happened.\n\n\"What did you say?\" she asked.\n\n\"This machine. Is it getting checked off for the-front?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\nVincent looked around for a moment at the vast hangar. Over a hundred feet long and forty feet high it was like a cathedral for the new age of air, high timber-vaulted ceiling, skylights open to admit as much light as possible for dozens of workers lining the scaffolding, carefully inspecting every double-stitched seam, searching for the slightest leak of hydrogen from the four gasbags inside the hull. It had been Varinna's idea to mix in a small amount of pungent coal gas with the hydrogen for this test so that the smell would be a tip off of a leak. She watched as one of the inspectors called over a crew master who leaned over, sniffed a seam, and then gave the go-ahead to lacquer on a patch.\n\n\"Let's step outside where we can talk,\" Vincent suggested, and she nodded an agreement.\n\nThe evening was fair, the first hint of a cooling breeze coming up from the Inland Sea to the south, rippling the tops of the trees, and with the sleeve of her white-linen dress, she wiped the sweat from her brow.\n\nThe crew down at number seven hangar was carefully guiding its machine, E class, ship number forty-two, out of its hangar, a crew chief swearing profusely as a dozen boys worked the guidelines attached to the starboard side, keeping the ship steady against the faint southerly breeze. As the tail cleared the hangar they cast off, letting the 110-foot-long airship pivot around, pointing its nose into the breeze. Carefully they guided the ship over to a mooring post, in the open field where ships number thirty-five, through forty-one were anchored as well. The production run of the last four weeks, all of them going through the final fitting out, engine checks, test flights, and crew training before being sent up to the front.\n\nShe had nearly ten thousand people working for her. An entire mill had been set up just for the weaving of silk and canvas, then stitching the panels together on the new trea-cile sewing machines. Hundreds more worked in the bamboo groves, selecting, harvesting, and splitting the wood that would serve as the wicker frames for the airships.\n\nCanvas, silk, and framing came together in the cavernous sheds to make the 110-foot-long ships, while in other workshops the bi-level wings were fashioned. From the engine works the lightweight caloric steam engines were produced, brought to the airfield, mounted to the wings, hooked into the fiiel lines for kerosene, and mounted with propellers.\n\nOnly within the last six months had one of her young apprentices, after examining the remains of a captured Ban-tag ship, announced that the propellers should not be made like ship's propellers, but would work far better if shaped like the airfoils Chuck had designed for the wings. The new designs, though difficult to make, had resulted in a significant increase in performance.\n\nFinally, with framework completed, wings mounted and folded up against the side of the ship, forward cab, bomber's position underneath, and topside gunner positions mounted, tail and elevators added on, and all the controls and cables correctly mounted, it was time to gas up the ship.\n\nThe center bag was hot air, hooked into the exhaust from the four caloric engines mounted on the wings. Forward and aft were the hydrogen gasbags, filled from the dangerous mix of sulfuric acid and zinc shavings, cooked in a lead-lined vat, mixed with a bit of coal gas for scent.\n\nTen thousand laborers produced eight Eagles and four of the smaller Hornets per month. And the average life expectancy was but ten missions. She wondered, given the current state of affairs, how much longer she'd be allowed such resources, yet in her heart she sensed that it was there, not with the vast arrays of army corps and artillery, that the fate of the Republic would be decided.\n\nAll of this from my husband's mind, she thought with a wistful smile. Ten years ago I would have thought it mad wizardry, or the product of gods to fly thus.\n\nOf all of Chuck's projects it was flight that had captivated him the most, inspiring his greatest leaps of creative talent and research. The Eagle class airships were the culmination of that effort. With a crew of four and three Gatling guns, it could range over nearly five hundred miles and go nearly forty miles in an hour.\n\nA low humming caught her attention, and she looked up to see a Hornet single-engine ship diving in at a sharp angle, leveling out at less than fifty feet and winging across the field, the evening ship returning from patrol of the western steppes on the far side of the Neiper, keeping a watch over the wandering bands from the old Merki Horde. They weren't enough to pose a truly serious threat, but they were sufficient in number to tie down a corps of infantry and a brigade of cavalry to make sure they didn't raid across the river.\n\nThe Hornet banked up sharply, the pilot showing off for the audience on the ground, and Varinna winced slightly at the boyish display. The fault with the rear-mounted engine had killed half a dozen pilots before it was figured out, and though the problem had been solved, she wished the pilots were a little less reckless.\n\nOut in the field where the seven new Eagles were moored, ground crews were double-checking the tie-downs for the evening and getting ready to settle in for the night in their camp, each crew of twenty-five sleeping in tents arranged around the mooring poles. They had to be ready to react instantly, day or night, to any shift in the wind or weather. Far more ships had been lost to thunderstorms than had ever been shot down by the Bantags.\n\nAnother airship, a somewhat battered Eagle\u2014number twelve, a veteran of the winter campaign and sent back for refitting\u2014came in, banking erratically, a cadet pilot most likely at the controls. She watched anxiously as it turned to line up on the vast open landing field of several dozen acres.\n\n\"The boy's crabbing, not watching the wind vane,\" Vincent announced.\n\nVarinna nodded, saying nothing, as one wing dipped, almost scraped, then straightened back up, the boy touching down hard, bouncing twice, then finally holding the ground. She could well imagine the chewing out he'd get from Feyodor, her assistant now in command of the pilot-training school, made worse by the withering sarcasm of the crew chief for the machine, who would make it a point of stalking along with the pilot for the postflight checkoff, blaming the novice for every crack and dent the machine had ever suffered since the day it had first emerged from a hangar.\n\n\"How many more machines can you have up within the next five days?\" Vincent asked.\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Varinna, you know it really isn't your place to ask. I'm ordered to send up every available machine, and that's what I'm out here to check on.\"\n\n\"I know the plan as well as you do,\" she replied sharply. Vincent started to sputter and, quickly smiling, she held up an appeasing hand.\n\n\"Colonel Keane shared it with me when he was here in the city last week. But even before then I knew about it.\"\n\n\"I don't even want to ask.\" Vincent sighed, gesturing back to the west, where the distant spires of the cathedral in Suzdal stood out sharply against the late-aftemoon sky. \"That damn city is a sieve when it comes to keeping a secret.\"\n\n\"And that's just one of the reasons I don't think the attack should be launched in front of Capua.\"\n\nShe could see her statement had caught his attention, and he had learned long ago not to dismissively wave off her opinions. That was another thing Chuck had taught her. When you prove yourself right on the big issues, you can get away with one hell of a lot. It was Chuck's insistence on continuing the rocket-launcher program that had saved everyone's hide at Hispania, and that little feat had been performed in direct contradiction to orders.\n\n\"So go on, madam general, explain,\" Vincent pressed. She bristled for a second, then realized that he wasn't being sarcastic and was in fact listening respectfully.\n\n\"Capua is so damn obvious that this new chief of theirs must know it as well. For that reason alone I think we should avoid it.\"\n\n\"Don't you think Andrew and I have argued out that point a dozen times in the last three months?\" Vincent replied, a slight flash of temper in his voice.\n\n\"Ah, so you don't agree either then?\"\n\nHe flushed, his eyes turning away for a moment, and she nodded slowly. Vincent always had been too transparent. But now she knew she was in.\n\n\"I've talked with every pilot who's come back here throughout the spring. One of them, Stasha Igorovich, told me that he flew a reconnaissance flight just two weeks ago and reported signs of numerous land ironclads having been moved into the forests north of town.\"\n\n\"I read that report, and you know then as well as I do that when Andrew sent up two Hornets the following mnming to check on these tracks this eagle-eyed pilot claimed he saw, there was no sign of them.\"\n\n\"The Bantag are learning concealment, Vincent. The same as we have.\" She pointed back up toward the all-important offices and machine shops for the Ordnance Department. The once attractive whitewashed buildings had been covered with a coating of dirty brown paint. Netting with woven strips of green-and-brown cloth had been draped over the buildings so that from the air they were all but invisible.\n\n\"Need I remind you that we got the idea for that netting from the Bantag? Yet another thing this Ha'ark and his companions most likely brought over from their own world. In fact, I suspect that from the air we are far more visible than they are. And if so, the Bantag must be blind not to have noticed the buildup along the Capua front, the number of guns moved up, the dozen pontoon bridges and hundreds of canvas boats, rocket launchers, all of the equipment needed for a direct assault across a river. They're waiting for us.\"\n\n\"Maybe they are, but the war has to be decided, and decided now If we can only come to grips with them, beat them on their own field, we'll turn the tide. Damn it all, woman, they're still parked less than one hundred miles from Roum. We have to get them out of there now.\"\n\n\"Or if we don't Roum leaves the Republic? Is that the sole motivation now for this attack?\"\n\n\"Or the Republic, or what we want to call the Republic, will leave Roum.\" Vincent sighed, wearily shaking his head. \"Varinna, you know as well as I do this country's finished. One more winter of war, and we fall apart. Even if we win now, it'll be a near-run thing at best.\"\n\nVincent looked away again, watching for a moment as the pilot who had so clumsily landed endured a good chewing out from Feyodor while the crew chief pointed at what was most likely a broken wheel strut and exploded into a torrent of swearing.\n\n\"Tell me where we have shortages right now,\" Vincent snapped, looking back at her.\n\nShe said nothing.\n\n\"Where do I start then? Fulminate of mercury for percussion caps? Our source of quicksilver is playing out, six more months and we might have to start rationing cartridges, or go all the way back to flintlock guns. How about silk for these airships? We're out. Oil for kerosene, the Bantags overran the last oil well eleven days ago. Sure we can substitute coal oil, but that's just one more example. And men \u2026 .\"\n\nHis voice trailed off for a moment.\n\n\"How many hundred thousands dead? If we had five corps more, even three corps, I'd break the back of this war in a month. But even if I did have the extra men, where the hell would I get fifty thousand more uniforms, cartridge boxes, tents, smallpox inoculations, and rations for a summer's campaign, let alone the rifles and eighty cartridges per man for one afternoon's good fight?\"\n\nAgain he sighed, extending his hands in a gesture of infinite weariness.\n\n\"One of the things I'm supposed to order is the reduction of the workforce for the airships.\"\n\n\"What?\".\n\n\"You heard me right. You and I played a good litde game of doctoring the books, but some of our congressmen finally figured it out and hit the ceiling. They want the resources put into artillery or land ironclads.\"\n\nShe waved her hand dismissively.\n\n\"Taking one for the other is illogical. Those people are trained for this job. We'll lose production on both ends if we switch them off.\"\n\n\"Well, they want five thousand of them transferred before the month is out. Sent to the fields if need be to try and harvest more food. Lord knows we're falling short of that as well.\"\n\nShe wearily shook her head.\n\n\"Varinna, we can't keep what we have in the field much longer. That's why Andrew's making this lunge.\"\n\n\"They must be in the same boat as we are,\" she replied.\n\n\"Maybe so, but then again maybe not. Remember, they have slaves, millions, tens of millions if need be, spread all across this world. I think the newcomers, Ha'ark and the others, brought with them the understanding of how to harness that labor to their own ends. So they outproduce us, and in the end they overwhelm us. Our only hope was to kill so damn many of the Bantag warriors that they'd finally turn aside. We destroyed a good third of their army during the campaign of last autumn and winter, but it wasn't enough.\"\n\n\"So destroy their supplies.\"\n\nVincent smiled, and for an instant he caused her temper to flare, the dismissive look reminiscent of ones far too many men would show when she first stepped forward to make a suggestion. The smile finally disappeared.\n\n\"Sorry, Varinna, it's just that every damn senator and member of the cabinet, and even the president comes at me with their war-winning suggestion.\"\n\n\"I'm not one of them. I was Ferguson's wife first, then I was his assistant, then his partner, and finally in the end I did it myself, including holding him while he died.\"\n\n\"I know. I'm sorry.\"\n\nShe lowered her head. She didn't let it show much anymore, the memory of the pain. With an effort, she forced it aside.\n\n\"To go all the way back to your original question, I could force ten more ships into the air and have them up at the front for the offensive.\"\n\n\"But you don't want to.\"\n\n\"They'll most likely all get shot down the first day. You saw the way that boy just landed. I agree with Jack Petracci that these ships need to be used en masse. We saw that last month when forty of the Bantag machines bombed Roum and sank three supply transports in the harbor.\"\n\nAnd they lost half their machines in the process,\" Vincent replied. \"Not much of a trade-off in my book.\"\n\n\"Still, it showed what could be done. But there's no sense in having the mass if the poor dumb fools fly straight into enemy fire. After all the work it takes to build one of these, sending it up with a boy who's got twenty, maybe twenty-five hours of flying time is suicide. Hold these machines back from this fight. Give us time to train more pilots. Twenty more Eagles and Hornets won't make a difference.\"\n\n\"I have my orders.\"\n\n\"For flightworthy machines. Listen to me in this, and while you're at it keep those bastards from Congress and their investigating committees out of my way. I'm tiling you, my friend, after the attack on Capua, these ships might be the deciding factor for this war.\"\n\n\"After Capua?\"\n\n\"You'll see, Vincent. You'll see.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "Pulling aside the blanket that served as a door, Andrew stepped down into the dank confines of the bombproof that doubled as headquarters for the Capua Front.\n\nA smoky coal oil lamp suspended over the map table by a piece of telegraph wire tied to an overhead beam provided the only illumination. He looked over at the pendulum clock tacked to the broken lid of a caisson and leaned against the opposite wall \u2026 3:10 in the morning.\n\nThe long twilight of dawn was just beginning, and through one of the view slits he could see a tinge of scarlet to the northeast, silhouetting the Bantag earthworks on the opposite bank of the river. The fact that he had managed to get any sleep at all surprised him, but ever since the wounding near this very same spot six months ago, he found that he tired easily and needed far more rest. The ability to get through a sleepless night and then fight a daylong pitched battle was gone for him.\n\nGoing over to a smoking kettle resting atop a leaky woodstove, he poured a cup of tea and sipped the scalding drink. He looked over at Pat, Hans, and Marcus, who were huddled over the map debating some minor detail.\n\nThe fact that the three were thus engaged was a clear indicator that they were nervous. The plan had been laid over two months ago. Everyone was in place; there was no changing it now. All that was left was the one word of command that would set the complex assault into motion. He had learned ages ago that there came a point in an operation where it was best to step back and let those farther down the chain take over. A nervous commander, at such a moment, was much more a burden than a help.\n\nAndrew put down his cup and moved to join his friends. \"Anything new?\"\n\n\"There was a skirmish down by the river a half hour ago, a Bantag patrol trying to slip across,\" Pat announced.\n\n\"And I think they're on to it,\" Hans replied. \"Not just this patrol, the whole thing; they're on to it, they want us to try this crossing.\"\n\n\"And you want me to call it all off?\"\n\nHans said nothing.\n\n\"Damn it, Hans,\" Pat replied, \"we've been stuck on this line all spring. My God, man, if we don't break this stalemate, we'll be here till Judgment Day. We break his back here, today, and we end this standoff and end this damn war.\"\n\nHans wearily shook his head and looked up at Andrew with bloodshot eyes.\n\n\"Son, you're making this decision out of political concerns rather than for military objectives.\"\n\n\"The president ordered it,\" Andrew replied, his gaze fixed on Marcus.\n\nMarcus stared straight at him and was silent. Andrew knew the Roum vice president was fully committed to this assault. The Bantag were still in possession of some of the most fertile lands of Roum, a million of his people were displaced, and he wanted the land back.\n\nMarcus's gaze shifted toward Hans.\n\n\"I remember Andrew once saying that war was an extension of politics.\"\n\n\"My God, I've got a Roum proconsul quoting Clausewitz to me,\" Hans groaned.\n\n\"Who the hell is Clausewitz?\" Pat asked. \"Does he live here?\"\n\nAndrew could not help but chuckle, then, more soberly, \"This war transcends politics.\"\n\n\"Maybe externally,\" Marcus replied, \"as far as the Bantags go. But internally, for the Republic, it has become an ever-present concern: Which one of the two states will abandon the other first?\"\n\n\"Not while I'm alive,\" Andrew replied, jaw firmly set, his voice gone quiet.\n\n\"Nor I, my friend, you know better than that. But the people of Roum want their land back, and this morning we're going to get it, and drive those bastards from the field. You, I, all of us here have planned this battle for months, down to the finest detail. I fear the only thing we might be lacking here is the nerve to see it through.\"\n\nHans stiffened and leaned forward over the table.\n\n\"I can't believe you would think that of me,\" Hans snapped.\n\nMarcus extended his hand in a conciliatory gesture.\n\n\"I'm not doubting your courage, old friend. We've planned our best, now let us trust in the gods and in the courage of our men.\"\n\nAndrew swept the group with his gaze.\n\n\"It goes as planned,\" he announced, and without waiting for comment he left the underground room, finding it far too claustophobic.\n\nAscending the steps of the bunker, he stepped onto the grassy knoll under which the headquarters was concealed. A faint breeze was stirring from the north, cool air coming down out of the hills and distant forests. Sighing, he sat down, kicking up the scent of sage with his boots. Strange smell; never knew it up in Maine, he thought. Hans had mentioned it, though, saying it reminded him of his days out on the prairie before the Civil War.\n\nHe plucked up a handful of the thick coarse grass, crushing it in his hand, letting the pungent smell fill his lungs. Leaning back, he looked up at the stars, the Great Wheel, wondering as he always did if one of the specks of light might be that of home.\n\nSo strange, home. Maine, the Republic, the memory of peace. Even in the midst of a civil war, everyone knew that there would be a day when it would come to an end, when both sides, North and South, would go home to their farms, villages, towns, and pick up the threads of their lives. Perhaps that was some of the uniqueness of America, the sense that war was an anomaly, an interruption of what was normal, a tragic third act of a play that had to be waded through so there could be the final resolution and running down of the curtain. Then the audience could get up, go home, and resume their lives.\n\nHe knew so much of the old world was not that way. Strange, though he had never been there, this place made him think of Russia. It wasn't just the Rus, descendants of early medieval Russians, that he had found here and forged a nation out of. No, it was the land itself, the impenetrable northern forests, and out here the vast open steppes, the endless dome of the sky, the scent of sage and dried grass, or the cold driving wind of winter. This is what Russia must be like, he thought. The history, the same as well. A land of ceaseless bloodletting, of vast armies sweeping across the dusty ocean of land. War, when fought, was with implacable fury, no quarter asked or expected! Here it was the norm, the ever-present reality.\n\nHe wondered yet again if his dream of the Republic could ever take root in this land. The necessity of war and survival had united Yankee, Rus, and Roum together, at least for the moment, but would that hold if they ever won and drove the barbarians back? Could the Republic survive peace?\n\nHe heard someone approaching, but didn't bother to turn. The limping stride and smell of tobacco indicator enough of who it was. Hans settled down by his side with a groaning sigh, reached over, and, like Andrew, plucked up a handful of sage, rubbing it between his hands, inhaling the scent.\n\n\"Long way from Kansas to here,\" Hans announced.\n\nAndrew said nothing, knees drawn up under his chin as he looked off to the east. The light was slowly rising, only a matter of minutes now. He heard the clatter of a rifle dropping, a muffled curse, and looked to his left; down in the ravine below a column of troops waited, more felt than seen, the hissed warning of a sergeant barely audible as he tore into the fumble-fingered soldier. At the head of the ravine engineering troops had positioned bridging pontoons and dozens of the flimsy canvas assault rafts. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there; the men of the 9th Corps had rehearsed this assault a score of times along the Tiber over the last two months.\n\nTo the right he heard the hissing of a steam engine, one of the land ironclads, Timokin's regiment, deployed in the next ravine. He wondered if the sound carried across the river, so still was the air. We should have gone yesterday, he thought. The fog cloaking the river was thicker then. There's still time to call it off, wait for fog, rain \u2026 maybe we should go an hour earlier, in the complete dark.\n\n\"Nervous, son?\"\n\n\"Huh?\" Andrew looked over at his old friend.\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nStartled, Andrew said nothing. Hans was always the rock, the pillar; not once had he ever expressed fear when battle was nigh. Andrew remembered Antietam, his first fight, waiting in the predawn darkness of the East Woods. He had been so frightened that after trying to choke down a breakfast of hardtack and coffee, he had crept off to vomit. But until five minutes before the assault went in, Hans had made a great display of sitting with his back to an elm tree, fast asleep. The old sergeant latter confided that it had all been an act, he had been wide-awake, heart racing like a trip-hammer, but figured that such studied indifference was a better tonic to the boys than going around whispering nervous encouragements.\n\n\"You don't think it will work?\" Andrew asked.\n\nHans looked over at him. \"We did plan it together, but a frontal assault across a river, Andrew? Risky business. I fear at best it's an even chance. From what little we've figured of Jurak we know he's damn smart. He must have figured this one out as well, knew we'd finally have to come in frontally.\"\n\n\"And you have another suggestion,\" Andrew asked, trying to mask the note of testiness in his voice.\n\nHans put his hand out, letting it rest on Andrew's shoulder.\n\n\"Responsibility of command, Andrew. At Gettysburg you held when I would have pulled out. It shattered the regiment but saved the old First Corps. You led the assault at Cold Harbor when I would have told Grant to go to hell and ordered the boys to lie down. Maybe you've got more nerve than me.\"\n\nStartled, Andrew said nothing.\n\n\"I'm getting far too old for this.\" Hans sighed, taking off his hat to run his fingers through his sweat-soaked wisps of gray. \"There always seems to be one more campaign, though, always another campaign.\"\n\n\"But there are times we do love it,\" Andrew whispered. \"Not the killing, not the moments like this one with the doubt and fear. But there are moments, the quiet nights, the army encamped around you, the moment of relief when you know you've won, the pride in the eyes of those around you.\"\n\nSurprised Hans looked over at him and nodded. \"If this is the last campaign, what becomes of us then?\"\n\nAndrew chuckled softly. \"I wish.\"\n\n\"Your instinct is telling you don't attack this morning, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then listen to it.\"\n\nAndrew sighed, \"We've been over it before, Hans. We can't flank, we can't break out from the southern pocket, they won't attack. We have to end the stalemate. The president ordered this assault. And remember, we planned this one, and all the time we planned it we figured we could pull it off.\"\n\n\"So why the cold feet at this last minute?\" Hans asked. Andrew looked at his friend.\n\n\"You first. Why you?\"\n\nHans sighed. \"Gut feeling that they're on to us over there. That this is what they want us to do and fully expect us to do.\"\n\nAndrew plucked up another twist of grass, taking pleasure in the scent of sage.\n\n\"There are no alternatives now,\" Andrew said.\n\n\"What Vincent suggested, it is a thought.\"\n\nAndrew shook his head.\n\n\"Maybe six months from now, with four times the amount of equipment to even hope that it'd work. Right now it would be nothing more than a mad suicidal gesture. Vincent's dreaming if he thinks we could deliver the killing blow that way. There simply isn't enough to do it.\"\n\n\"It's because you know I would do it\u2014that I'd have to go. That's what's stopping you from considering it.\" Andrew looked over at his friend in the shadows. \"Hans,\" and he hesitated for a moment, \"if I thought that sacrificing you would end this war, would save your child, my children, I'd have to order it.\"\n\nHans laughed softly.\n\n\"I'm not sure if you're just a damn good liar or you really mean that. Strange though, I do hope you're not lying. We're soldiers, Andrew, we all know what the job means, and I hope that from the beginning I taught you the sacrifice required of command, even when it comes to your closest friend.\"\n\n\"I sacrificed my brother, didn't I?\"\n\nHans said nothing in reply.\n\nAndrew dropped the fistful of grass, reached out, and let his hand rest on Hans's shoulder for a moment, then shyly let it fall away.\n\n\"So why the butterflies in your stomach now?\" Hans asked, shifting the subject.\n\n\"I'm not sure, and that's what troubles me. At Cold Harbor I knew it was suicide but I went in because it was an order. I knew if I refused they'd take the Thirty-Fifth from me and the boys would have to go anyhow. I saw Chamberlain do the same damn thing two weeks later at Petersburg. He knew it was senseless, but he led his brigade in anyhow.\"\n\n\"And he damn near got killed doing it if I remember correct.\"\n\nAndrew nodded. \"It's just that this battle is different. Most all of them were either meeting engagements like Rocky Hill, or we were on the defensive and well dug in, like Hispania or Suzdal. Now they're the ones dug in, and you're right, I have to assume that Jurak has this one figured.\n\n\"It's more than that though. We both know we're all but finished. Its becoming evident that Jurak is outproducing us. You saw those reports Bill Webster sent us from the Treasury and Vincent from the Ordnance Department.\"\n\nHans spat a stream of tobacco juice and grunted.\n\n\"They'd change their song if the Bantag were at the gate.\"\n\nAndrew shook his head.\n\n\"We're running out, Hans. The pace of production, it's exhausted the nation. The same thing we saw with the rebs by the autumn of '64. There are too many supply bottlenecks, too many men in the army, too many people making weapons, not enough making the basics for living, and a millton people from Roum driven off the land. In short, we're collapsing.\"\n\n\"And that's your reason for attacking here and now?\"\n\nAndrew leaned forward, resting his chin on his drawn-up knees.\n\n\"No, Hans. I think I'd have enough sense to stop it if I understood that was the only reason for attacking. But Marcus is right, we have to do something. The people of Roum have to know that the Rus will fight to help them take back their land. So there is the politics. We have to find a way, as well, to end this war before we either collapse or Kal succumbs to the pressure that's growing in the Senate to accept Jurak's offer for a negotiated settlement.\"\n\n\"If Kal accepts that, he deserves to be shot,\" Hans snapped.\n\n\"He's the president,\" Andrew replied, a sharp edge to his voice.\n\n\"And you wrote the bloody Constitution. So change it. I tell you I smell something in this.\"\n\n\"Are you accusing Kal?\"\n\n\"No, damn it, of course not. If anything he's a rotten president because he's too damned honest and simple.\"\n\n\"We used to say that about Lincoln, but under that prairie-lawyer exterior there was a damn shrewd politician.\"\n\nHans nodded, spitting a stream of tobacco juice and wiping the bottom of his chin with the back of his hand.\n\n\"We have to end this war now,\" Andrew announced, shifting the topic away from matters that he felt bordered on treason. Hans was right; he had indeed written the Constitution for the Republic. But once that Constitution had been accepted by the people of Rus and Roum, it had gone out of his grasp, and it now must bind him as it bound any other citizen who swore his allegiance to it, and thereby accepted its protection.\n\nHe stood up. Raising the field glasses that hung from his neck, he turned his attention to the opposite shore. The eastern bank was lower than the western, the terrain flat, not cut by the ravines of the western bank. Jurak should have drawn his line farther back, not here. It was almost as if he chose a weaker position to tempt them in. Andrew could see the outlines of the fortifications lining the opposite bank.\n\nWisps of smoke, morning cook fires, rose straight up in the still air. Again the shiver of a thought. The monthly moon feast had been two days ago, the cries of the victims echoing across the river throughout the night. He wondered if what was left was now roasting on those fires.\n\nOriginally he had planned the attack to go in then, but it was too obvious a night for them to strike, and, besides, the bastards usually stayed awake throughout the feast night and might sense something.\n\nThere's still time to stop, the inner voice whispered. The battlements along the eastern bank were clearly silhouetted. This was the precious moment, the west bank draped in darkness, the east bank highlighted. He heard footsteps behind him \u2026 it was Pat, followed by Marcus.\n\n\"Andrew, it's three-thirty.\"\n\nAndrew looked at Hans, almost wishing he could defer the decision. Hans was staring at him.\n\nAndrew lowered his head, whispering a silent prayer. Finally he raised his gaze again.\n\n\"Do it.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "Jack Petracci, circling five miles back from the front, took a deep breath, not sure if he was glad that the moment had finally come, or dreaded the fact that the show was really on.\n\n\"There's the signal flare,\" he announced to Theodor, his copilot. \"Make sure the others follow.\"\n\nBanking his aerosteamer over to a due easterly heading, he scanned to port and starboard. The formation appeared to be following. Leaning over, he blew into the speaker tubes.\n\n\"Romulus, Boris, report.\"\n\n\"One airship, turning back,\" Romulus announced, \"think it's number twenty-two. Rest are forming up.\"\n\nBetter than expected, Jack thought; forty heavy aerosteamers and thirty of the new Hornet single-engine escorts, it would be the largest air strike ever launched, the dream of more than five months of planning. Not exactly the way he wanted it done, but it would prove once and for all that the tremendous investment in airpower was worth it.\n\nMore flares were soaring up along the front line, marking the beginning of the assault, slowly rising heavenward in the still morning, catching the scarlet light of dawn. Seconds later sheets of fire erupted, climbing rapidly and filling the sky with curtains of flame and smoke as more than three thousand rockets thundered across the river, smothering the Bantag in an inferno of explosions. Long seconds later the dull concussion washed over him, clearly audible above the howl of his ship's engines and the wind racing through the rigging.\n\nAnother volley rose up, several errant rockets twisting, corkscrewing back toward his formation, which was now less than two miles from the front. The shells detonated in the air, leaving white puffs of smoke drifting.\n\nHe was now over the rear lines of the fight.\n\nLong snakelike columns of troops were below, black against the landscape, waiting to head down into the ravines lacing the riverbank, which were the assault paths to the front. Pontoon crews were already out into the river, floating their barges into place, dropping anchor lines, while hundreds of assault craft, water foaming about them as the men paddled furiously, were already approaching the far shore.\n\nIt looked like the first wave was making it, men swarming out of the boats, struggling up the muddy embankments. Mortar shells were impacting on the river, foaming geysers erupting.\n\n\"Colonel, sir?\" It was Romulus, his top gunner.\n\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\n\"Formation is spreading out as planned, sir.\"\n\n\"Fine, now keep a sharp eye for their ships up there, son.\"\n\nHe caught a glimpse of half a dozen of his airships breaking formation, turning to the northeast, and was startled as four Hornets passed directly overhead, moving fast, forging straight ahead to penetrate deep into the rear, ready to interdict any Bantag airships that dared to venture up.\n\nThey were over the river, thickening clouds of dirty yellow-gray smoke obscuring the view.\n\n\"There's our target!\" Theodor shouted, pointing off to starboard. Jack picked it out, an earthen fort on a low rise that jutted out into the river. It looked just like the sand table model of the front that he and his force had spent days studying and planning over. Smoke was rising up from the position; the rocket barrage had hit it hard, but he could see where dark-clad Bantags were pouring into the position from a trench connecting the battery position to the rear. Two fieldpieces were already at work, spraying the river with bursts of canister.\n\n\"Hang on, boys. Here we go!\" Jack shouted, as he pushed the stick forward, the heavy four-engine craft rapidly picking up speed. Slipping out of his seat, Theodor dropped down below Jack's legs, fumbling to open the steam cock to the forward Gatling gun.\n\nA dark shadow slipped overhead, and, cursing, Jack jammed the throttles to his four engines back as he stared up at the underbelly of an aerosteamer slipping across the top of his ship, the bottom gunner and bomb dropper gazing down at him in wide-eyed fear. Jack pushed the nose down, praying his tail wouldn't slam into the ship above. Romulus, in the top gunner position, cursed wildly in Latin.\n\nFor an instant he forgot the fight below until a rifle ball slammed up between his legs in a shower of splinters. Looking down, he saw the ground racing up and pulled back hard on the stick. The aerosteamer nosed up, swinging in almost directly astern the ship that had almost collided with him. The Bantag trenches raced by, several hundred feet below, and Theodor opened up, .58 caliber Gatling bullets stitching the earthworks.\n\nHe felt his ship surge up and at almost the same instant Boris, his bomb dropper in the cabin slung below, cried that their load had been dropped. Ten canisters, each weighing a hundred pounds, tumbled into the fort. Jack violently swung his craft over into a sharp banking turn. He caught a glimpse of his bomb load slamming in; the first two tins burst open but the percussion fuses which studded them failed to ignite. The third one, however, blew, sparking the load of benzene to life. The fort disappeared in an incandescent fireball as nearly two hundred gallons of benzene exploded, the concussion rocking his ship.\n\nBright orange-red flares of fire ignited along the entire front as one after another the aerosteamers unleashed their new weapon. He caught a brief glimpse of one ship, folding in on itself. Too low, damn it, you bloody fools! he silently cried as the ship's hydrogen air bags, ignited by the burst of flame from below, flared with a pale blue flame, the wings folding in, flaring as well, the wreck spiraling down and disappearing into the inferno.\n\nThe heavy airships turned, racing back to the west, heading for the airfields twenty miles behind the front to reload and rearm. Jack swept low over the river, passing over the second wave of assault boats and pulled back hard, going into a spiraling climb, turning to head back over the front for a closer look at the action.\n\nHe watched as the squadrons of Hornets swept in, dodging around the fires, raking the enemy positions with their Gatling guns. On the river he could see several land ironclads, loaded onto rafts pushing off into the river, dozens of men slowly poling the ungainly cargos across, geysers of water erupting around them. Blue-clad bodies bobbed in the swirling confusion.\n\nOn the eastern shore, the lead regiments of the 9th Corps were up into the wire entanglements, cutting their way through. He caught a glimpse of a regimental standard going up the embankment of the fort he had just bombed. Other flags were going forward, men spreading out around the fires ignited by his aerosteamers. Damn it, it looked as if they were actually making it!\n\nA Hornet passing below him suddenly went into a tight spiraling climb, seemed to hang motionless, then started a slow sickening backwards slide, crashing tail first into the ground next to an ironclad, rupturing into a fireball as its gasbag ignited.\n\nAnother rifle ball cracked through the cabin, showering Theodor in splinters.\n\n\"Damn it, Jack, if you're going to float about up here, at least go higher.\"\n\nEmbarrassed, he realized his copilot was right. He had allowed the spectacle below to capture his attention. Pulling over into a tight corkscrew turn, he started upward, looking down at the ironclad as it churned past the flaming Hornet. The top of the machine's turret had a white cross painted on, signifying that it was a regimental commander's machine, most likely Timokin's. At least the kid was safe for the moment, he thought grimly, turning back to survey the layers of defense still to be penetrated. They had breached the first line, but there were still three more lines to go before they would be across the rail line to the rear."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "\"Put that next shot through the embrasure damn it!\" Brigadier General Gregory Timokin, commander of the First Brigade of Land Ironclads roared, looking down from his perch in the top turret to his gunnery crew below.\n\nWithout waiting for a response he turned his attention back forward, then slowly rotated his turret aft, sweeping the shoreline with his gaze. The first wave of assault boats was ashore, at least what was left of them, men hunkered down low on the riverbank, most of them still half in the water, hugging the protection of the low rise. He could see columns of fire rising up from Jack's firebomb strike, but directly in front the enemy were still holding. Half a dozen ironclads to his right were up over the bank, crushing down the wire entanglements, the lead ironclad already into the first line of bunkers and entrenchments, its Gatling gun shredding the Bantags who panicked and climbed into the open to run. Back across the river everything seemed an insane confusion. Dozens of broken canvas boats littered the muddy waters that were still churning up from mortar rounds and shells detonating. Men floundered about in the chest-deep water, some struggling forward, others flaying about in panic, trying to head back to the west shore, while others bobbed facedown, no longer moving.\n\nIt looked like a disaster but experience told him that at least the first stage of the assault, the gaining of a foothold on the eastern shore, was apparently succeeding. When first approached by Pat O'Donald with the proposal that he and his ironclads would attempt to ford the river in a frontal assault he had thought the scheme insane.\n\n\"Damn it all, even if we don't sink, we'll get hammered by their artillery before we're halfway across,\" he had argued. \"Make the shore, and their rocket crews will slaughter us on the muddy banks as we wallow about.\"\n\nWell, he had made it across. As for incoming fire, precious little had hit yet, the human's barrage of weaponry all but incapacitating or panicking the Bantag forward defense.\n\nAnother wave of boats came out of the swirling smoke, men paddling hard. He turned his turret forward again as the crew below shouted with triumph, their next round having torn straight into the Bantag bunker.\n\n\"Take us forward,\" Gregory shouted. \"Everyone look sharp, gunner load with canister.\"\n\nHe slowly pivoted his turret back and forth, scanning the ground ahead as they inched up over the river embankment. Crushing down the wire, he caught glimpses of blue-clad infantry surging forward to either side of his machine, leaping into the trenches. Cresting up over the top of a bunker, he saw a mob of Bantag running along a communications trench, heading back toward the second line. A well-placed burst from his Gatling dropped half of them before the survivors disappeared around a cutback in the trench.\n\nThe ground ahead was open and flat, the second enemy line now clearly visible as a rough slash in the ground a quarter mile ahead. The plan called for the ironclads to lead a direct assault and overrun the position, supported by Hornets and ground troops armed with rocket launchers. By the time they approached the strongest defenses, the third line a. mile farther back, Jack's airships were to have landed, rearmed, and returned to plaster a mile-long stretch of trenches with over four thousand gallons of flaming benzene. But at this moment the key to the plan was to keep moving, to keep the Bantag off-balance and running until their supply depots to the rear were overrun and destroyed.\n\nFlashes of light were igniting from the second trench line, and bullets and mortar fragments started to ping against the armor. Cracking open the top hatch, he stuck his flare pistol out and fired, sending up the green signal indicating he was across the Bantag riverfront position. A second, then a third ironclad crept into view on his right, the turret of one turning, the machine's commander sticking a hand out of the firing slit to wave.\n\nTimokin grinned. Mad fool, I'll put you on report for that once we get this over with, he thought, trying to remember the name of the young lieutenant aboard the St. Galvino. The lead company started to form around him, deploying out to either side. A rocket slashed past his turret, startling him. He caught a glimpse of a Bantag launcher team falling back into a trench, torn apart by the fire of the ironclad to his left.\n\nCautiously he reopened the hatch and stuck his head out for a quick look around. Nearly a dozen machines were up, hundreds of infantry deployed into the trenches behind him. There was no telling what the hell was going on to either flank, but straight ahead the way looked clear. He saw a regimental standard, a brigadier's guidon beside it. Catching the general's eye, he motioned forward; the brigadier waved in agreement. Back on the shoreline he saw more waves of the flimsy canvas boats coming in, some of them bearing mortar and rocket-launching crews. A Hornet flashed overhead, Gatling gun roaring, tracers tearing into the position forward. The sun broke the horizon straight ahead, silhouetting the enemy line.\n\nJuly Fourth, he thought. The Yankees put great store in that day; Independence Day they called it. It was also the anniversary of the Battle of Hispania. He had been too young to fight in that one. Will this day be as glorious? he wondered. He felt a moment's hesitation. Somehow the shoreline felt secure, a haven to pull back to, where you couldn't be flanked, but he knew the thought was senseless. The whole plan, a plan which he had helped to design, was predicated on speed. Cut through the lines of defense, get into the open country, and slash down to their major rail depot and destroy it. Victory was five miles ahead, and the longer he waited, the more remote the chance of grasping it.\n\nReloading his flare pistol, he fired it again, rapidly reloading and firing off yet another shell, the signal that he was moving on the second line.\n\nHe slipped back down into his turret, slamming the hatch shut.\n\n\"Engineer, full power; driver, straight ahead!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "\"I'm going over,\" Pat announced.\n\nAndrew stood silent for a moment, leaning over, eye glued to the tripod-mounted telescope staring intently toward the ruins to Capua on the east bank and several miles downstream.\n\n\"The message dropped from Petracci was on the mark,\" Andrew announced. \"There're definitely plumes of smoke over there.\"\n\n\"Well, we did expect some sort of countermove,\" Pat replied. \"It's less than two dozen ironclads. Timokin can handle that.\"\n\nAndrew stood back up, stretching, trying to ignore the occasional shell that hummed overhead. In the two hours since the beginning of the attack they had forced a lodgment nearly two miles across and in some sectors were already through the third line. Considering the nature of the assault, casualties had been light, so far twenty-five hundred. Marcus had already gone forward, insisting over Andrew's objections that he should be up forward with his boys from 9th Corps.\n\nThe first of the pontoon bridges was nearly completed, and he watched for a moment as his engineer troops, laboring like a swarm of ants, anchored the last boat in place, while half a regiment of men armed with picks and shovels worked to cut down the low embankment on the east side and fill in the labyrinth of trenches just beyond. A column of infantry, rifles and cartridge boxes held high overhead, slowly wended their way across the river at a ford, a long serpentine column of blue standing out boldly against the muddy brown river.\n\nThe surviving canvas boats were now being used to ferry boxes of ammunition, mortar and rocket-launching crews, medical supplies, and even barrels of fresh water since the day promised to be hot and with all the dead and refuse littering the river Emil had issued the strictest of orders against using it. Andrew looked over his shoulder to where a casualty-clearing station was already at work. Those who could survive the trip were loaded into ambulances for the hospital train that would have them back to Roum before noon.\n\nCasualties had been heavy in the first two waves, nearly fifty percent of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 9th Corps had gone down. He kept trying to console himself that the losses had just about been what was expected, but it was small solace for the nearly twenty-five hundred dead and wounded. He thought of the review held just a week ago, remembering faces, wondering which of them had been part of the sacrificial offering.\n\nAndrew looked over at Pat. \"I'm going with you. Hans, you stay here at headquarters.\"\n\n\"Now, Andrew, we agreed on this,\" Pat protested.\n\nAndrew nodded, forcing a smile. It was more than just being at the front, getting close to get a feel for what was going on, and to inspire the troops. Ever since his wounding, only a few miles from this place, he had not been under heavy fire. Inwardly he was terrified; it was hard not to jump every time a mortar shell slipped overhead or a bullet snapped past, and this was the rear line. He had to see for himself if he could take it.\n\nHe looked over at Hans. His friend was staring at him appraisingly. Pat had turned as well, arguing his point to Hans, trying to get the old sergeant major to agree that Andrew had to stay back from the fighting. Andrew knew that Hans understood the real reason he had to cross over that river. Hans wordlessly nodded an agreement.\n\n\"Well damn all,\" Pat growled. \"Don't blame me if you get your fool head blown off.\"\n\n\"What about you then?\" Andrew asked. \"What about your fool head?\"\n\n\"Bullet hasn't been cast yet,\" Pat replied with a twinkle in his eyes, backing down front the argument.\n\nLeaving the top of the bunker, Andrew motioned to his orderly, who was holding the bridle of his favorite old mount, Mercury. He rubbed the horse's nose, then shook his head. No, it would be hot up there, and Mercury was getting on in years. Besides, after all the campaigns together he wanted him to survive this one.\n\n\"Bring up another mount,\" Andrew said.\n\n\"Can't risk your old horse but it's all right to risk you, is that it?\" Pat asked peevishly.\n\n\"Something like that.\"\n\nAndrew swung up awkwardly into the saddle of a massive mare, a mount bred from the horses captured in the Tugar Wars. It was nearly the size of a Clydesdale, typical of nearly all the mounts in this army\u2014and damned uncomfortable, he thought as he picked up the reins and nudged the horse down toward the nearest ravine.\n\nReaching the edge of the shallow gorge, he hesitated for a second. Even though the engineering troops had cut a road into the side of it, it was still a steep descent. Then he urged the horse forward, falling in with a column of infantry, noticing by the red Maltese Cross on their slouch caps that they were men of the 1st Division, 5th Corps.\n\n\"Hot up there, sir?\" one of the sergeants asked, looking up nervously at Andrew.\n\n\"We got a firm foothold, Sergeant. Ninth Corps is driving them.\"\n\n\"Well that's a switch,\" came a comment from the ranks.\n\nAndrew continued forward, ignoring the insult, even though Pat turned, ready to offer a good chewing out. There was still some bad blood between the Rus and the Roum Corps, especially toward the 9th and 11th, which had broken during the siege. It was part of his reasoning for giving the assault job to the 9th, a chance to clear their reputation and break the jinx.\n\nStrange, he thought; back with the old Army of the Potomac the 9th had been jinxed there as well, damn good fighting men but something always seemed to go wrong for them.\n\nReaching the bottom of the ravine he followed the contours of the twisting washout. Wreckage littered the rocky sides, broken equipment, empty ammunition boxes, a scattering of dead who had been caught by the Bantag counterbarrage. The last turn in the ravine revealed the river straight ahead.\n\nIt was said that whether you were winning or losing, the rear area of a battle always looked like a disaster, and he hesitated for a moment, steeling himself while taking it all in.\n\nShattered canvas boats littered the shoreline, dozens of bodies, and parts of bodies lay along the beach or floated in the muddy water, washed back up to shore by the slow-moving current. Fragments of bodies, blackened by fire, were plastered against the side of a ravine, most likely what was left from a caisson igniting. The air was thick with the stench of muddy water, powder smoke, and that unforgettable clinging smell of death, a mixture of excrement, vomit, and raw open flesh. In another few hours the cloying stench of decay would be added until finally one would feel as if he could actually see the hazy green smell of death.\n\nHe straightened in the saddle, moving his mount out of the way as the infantry column, without hesitating, splashed into the river by columns of fours, holding rifles and ammunition pouches, haversacks filled with rations over their heads. A line of cavalry were deployed downstream, ready to fish out any man who might lose his footing and go under.\n\nAndrew rode along the edge of the water, heading up to the next ravine, where the pontoon bridge was going in. A mortar shell whistled overhead, impacting against the top of the cliffs that rose up on his left, sending down a shower of rock fragments and dirt. He tried not to flinch, and then looked over sheepishly at Pat.\n\n\"You'll get the nerve back,\" Pat said softly, \"I was the same way after I took that ball in the stomach.\"\n\nAndrew nodded, saying nothing. Straight ahead, the bridge was rapidly taking shape. The last boat had already been anchored, and stringers between the boats were nearly halfway across the river, the crews working feverishly to anchor the heavy timbers to the reinforced gunwales of the pontoon boats. Dozens of men, most of them stripped to the waist, were hauling up the four-by-ten planks, which were laid across the stringers and serve as the roadbed. Once completed, the heavy artillery, a second regiment of ironclads, and hundreds of tons of supplies could be rushed forward.\n\nTurning his mount, Andrew splashed into the river, the water surprisingly cool as it spilled into his boots. The mare surged forward, stepping nervously for footing as they reached the middle of the river, Pat at his side.\n\nFifty yards downstream an artillery shell slapped into the water, raising a geyser. He studiously ignored it, keeping his eyes on the far shore. His mount shied nervously, nearly throwing him as it quickly sidestepped. A body, which the horse had trod on, tumbled up out of the murky water, then sank, dragged back down by the weight of the pack harness that had three close-support rockets strapped to it.\n\nHe said nothing, wondering about the human packhorse who had drowned thus. He tried to make a mental note, to balm his soul, that if there was another river assault, the first waves were to go in with rifles and personal ammunition only. But then how many die because of no close-in rocket support \u2026 again the equations of death.\n\nThey finally gained the shore. The litter there was far worse than the west bank. Dozens of waterlogged assault craft, which had barely made it across, lay abandoned, many of them bloodstained, bodies still inside. Scores of dead littered the embankment, dead twisted into every impossible angle the living could never assume, bodies torn by rifle shot, shells, fire, tangled in with the Bantag who had defended this position. Casualty-clearing stations, marked with green banners, were packed, the seriously injured men being sorted out for the trip back across the river by boat, the less seriously injured and those who were doomed being detailed off to wait until the pontoon bridge was finished.\n\nAs he rode up over the embankment the roar of battle seemed to double. Straight ahead was obscured in yellow-gray clouds of powder smoke and dust, the front line dully illuminated by flashes of gunfire and the sudden flare of another load of benzene dropped by an Eagle.\n\nGhastly weapon, he thought as he rode up over the forward line of Bantag trenches and saw where such a strike had incinerated dozens, their giant bodies curled into fetal balls, a few outstretched, blackened clawed hands raised to the heavens in a final gesture of agony. The stench was horrific, and he struggled not to gag.\n\n\"Bloody bastards, good to see 'em like this,\" Pat snapped. Andrew looked over at his old friend and said nothing. No, the hatred was far too deep to express pity, to wonder if there was any sense of humanity in these creatures. Interesting that he had chosen that word in his thoughts \u2026 humanity. Does it mean I consider them to be human? Strange, old Muzta of the Tugars, I had shown him pity, spared his son, and he in turn spared Hawthorne and Kathleen, even went over to our side in the Battle of Hispania and turned the tide of battle. He's most likely a thousand miles east of here by now, but if I saw him, I would offer him a drink from my canteen. Yet still I hate his kind in general.\n\nDon't think about this now, he thought. There's a war to be fought.\n\nHe turned away from the trench, dropped the reins of his mount, and awkwardly scanned the action with his field glasses. The ground was too bloody flat, hard to get above the fight and get a feel for it. It seemed to be spread out in a vast arc sweeping a mile or more to the north, then several miles in from the river, and then arcing back around into the ruins of Capua.\n\nSpent rounds slapped past him, kicking up plumes of dirt like the first heavy drops of rain from a summer storm. From out of the smoke ahead two aerosteamers appeared, both of them Eagles, one with two engines shut down, broken fabric and spars trailing from its starboard wing. The second Eagle was above and behind it, protecting it; as they reached the river the second steamer turned, started back to the front, then turned yet again and began to circle above Andrew, a blue-and-gold streamer fluttering from its tail marking it as Petracci's command ship.\n\nA message fluttered down, marked by a long red strip of cloth. An errant breeze had picked up, and the streamer fluttered down into the edge of the river behind them. One of Andrew's staff who had been trailing behind him urged his mount back to retrieve it from a soldier who had already picked it up.\n\nThe orderly who had retrieved the message reined in, holding the leather cylinder, the muddy ribbon dragging on the ground. Andrew motioned for him to unstrap it and open it up, a task impossible for him to do with but one hand.\n\nThe orderly popped the lid, unfolded the sheet of paper, and handed it over. Andrew's glasses were splattered with water and mud, and it was difficult to focus as he carefully read the note, written in English in Jack's clumsy printed hand.\n\nCount twenty plus ironclads coming up from Capua. Three to four divisions, half mounted, deploying out from reserve depot on rail line. Watch your left, numerous plumes of smoke at point F=7. Going back for closer look\u2026 . J.P.\n\nAndrew handed the message over to Pat while calling for another orderly to unroll a map. The young Rus lieutenant pulled the map out and held it open for Andrew.\n\nHe cross-referenced the coordinates. F-7, a ruined plantation, a square-shaped forest at the north end, a woodlot of maybe forty to fifty acres. The heavy belt of forest marking the edge of the open steppes several miles beyond. Could they? His aerosteamers had carefully swept the front line for weeks, looking for buildups, concealed positions, wheel marks.\n\nWell there were bound to be surprises, but Jack had a good nose for spotting trouble. Is the plan too obvious, he wondered. Too obvious that we break through here, then pivot in a right hook, sweeping down behind Capua and their rail line. Might the counterpunch be concealed to the north of us?\n\nEven as he wondered, the sound of battle started to pick up from the north, and, reining his mount around, Andrew rode toward the roar of the guns."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "Bent over the map table Jurak watched as one of the Chin scribes leaned forward, having taken the message from a telegrapher who was also a Chin and traced a blue line onto the map, marking where the Yankees had broken through his third line and were now driving straight toward this position.\n\nStepping out of the camouflaged bunker, which was concealed in a grove of peach trees and covered with netting, he turned and looked to the northwest. Mounted riders were coming back, many of them wounded. Straight ahead he could hear the staccato bursts of Gatling-gun fire and the whistle of a steam engine. The enemy column of steam ironclads was approaching.\n\nHow damn primitive, he thought. Most likely can't make three leagues in an hour. Hell, on the old world there'd be hundreds of them, thousands, breaking through at ten, twenty leagues to the hour, jets by the hundreds blasting the way clear.\n\nYet this is my war now. Ha'ark never understood the nuances of tactics, how to adapt to what was here, how to lay the trap, and then have the patience to let it spring shut. It was always the attack, the offensive. He was right in that these primitives have no concept of defensive warfare but let them see victory today and it will all change.\n\nHe raised his field glasses, scanning the line, catching glimpses of dark black masses, the Yankee ironclads, advancing slowly, methodically, brief glimpses of blue, the infantry deployed behind them.\n\nA stream of tracers snapped overhead, one of the ironclads firing at long range. He ignored it, looking across the grove and back toward the rail line behind him. A single train was on the track, one of the heavily armored units. On the siding were dozens of cars, some of them burning from the air attacks, but most still intact, their deadly cargo concealed within. The trenches weaving through the grove, and around the rail track were a masterpiece of concealment, the raw earth carted off at night, the deep bunkers cunningly placed, everything covered with camouflage netting, something that his warriors had first thought was some sort of bizarre joke.\n\nHe could clearly see them now, range less than a league away, the thin line of troops he had deployed were just enough to let the enemy think that there was resistance and that it was now breaking up. \"The best time to strike is when your opponent is flush with victory for then the collapse of his morale shall be complete. \" Master Gavagar made that pronouncement three thousand years ago, Jurak thought. Ha'ark had never had the subtlety to think of that, to think of the best way to break their will \u2026 now we shall see."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "\"Jack, to the north, where we were looking earlier.\"\n\nPetracci turned his attention to port, to where Theodor was pointing. The same spot as before, F-7, the plantation near the northern rim of forest. Vertical plumes of smoke, a few before, but now dozens of them. The smudges of smoke were puffing \u2026 damn, machines.\n\n\"Take the controls,\" Jack shouted. Letting go of the stick he raised his field glasses, braced them, finding it hard to focus in as the machine surged up on an early-morning thermal, then leveled back out. He caught it for a second, lost it, then caught it again\u2026.\n\n\"Damnation, ironclads, fifty \u2026 a hundred of them!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "General Gregory Timokin never even saw the shot that took him out of the fight. One second he had been watching the retreat of the Bantag infantry and mounted units, eager finally to get in range of the rail line, the next instant an explosion of steam blew up into his turret. He could hear the screams of his crew down below, men being scalded alive from the burst boiler.\n\nClawing at the turret hatch, he pulled himself up and out, gasping for breath. Just as he rolled clear of the turret and hit the ground his ironclad blowtorched as nearly a hundred gallons of kerosene poured from the ruptured fuel tanks into the boiler and ignited. Horrified, he could hear the dying screams of his men inside, one of them fumbling at the latch on the starboard entry port.\n\nHe stood up, staggering to the machine. Grabbed the handle to try to turn it, screaming with pain\u2014it was already scalding hot. He felt someone jiggling the handle spasmodically, but the door wouldn't give. Damn, they were turning the latch but hadn't unbolted the locks inside.\n\n\"Open the locks, God damn it, open the locks!\" he screamed.\n\nHe felt as if he was trapped in a cursed nightmare, the door wouldn't open, the screaming inside wouldn't stop \u2026 and he was terrified of what he would see if the door did open.\n\nHe heard the screams inside and then he was down, someone pushing him to the ground.\n\n\"Stay down, you damn fool!\"\n\nBullets snapped past, machine-gun fire, slower than a Gatling but a machine gun nevertheless, the bullets tattooing against the side of his ironclad where he had been standing only seconds before.\n\nA rocket snapped overhead. Turning, he saw it slam into another ironclad, the St. Yuri, which had been on his right flank. The round struck a glancing blow and detonated, scoring the armor.\n\n\"My men!\" Gregory screamed. \"I've got to get 'em out!\"\n\n\"They're dead already.\" Then he was being dragged back, another soldier coming up out of a shallow ditch behind the burning machine to help pull him in.\n\nAs the three rolled into the ditch the ammunition in the St. Malady burned off, ten-pound shells bursting, the top turret tearing loose, tumbling skyward and then crashing down, a pile of twisted wreckage. Tracer rounds soared upward, oily black smoke blowing out from the turret mount as if the ironclad had been turned into a blast furnace.\n\nNumbed, he stared at his beloved machine, still not believing that his comrades inside were dead.\n\n\"What hit us?\" he asked vacantly.\n\nEven as he asked the question he saw a flash of light straight ahead, the muzzle blast of a gun, and a split second later the St. Yuri went up, the turret blowing clear off from the shot.\n\nStunned, ignoring the danger, he stood up. Only seconds before he had been leading nearly forty ironclads, advancing in line abreast, supporting a full division of infantry. Half of them were now burning. Impossible; the ground ahead, all the way to the railroad track, was open, the enemy on the run. He saw more flashes, as if the guns were firing from out of the ground \u2026 a concealed line, camouflaged, invisible from the ground and from the air. God damn, how did they do this? How did they learn it?\n\n\"Sir, if you want to get killed, damn it, do it someplace else. I'm not going to risk my ass again to save you.\"\n\nHe turned and saw a colonel by his side, crouching low. At nearly the same instant something plucked at his shoulder, his epaulette snapping off, tearing his uniform. He squatted back down and stared at the officer, saying nothing.\n\nThe colonel uncorked his canteen and offered it over. Gregory took a drink, grimacing. It was vodka laced with just a hint of muddy water.\n\n\"Your hands; you better get back to the aid station; I'll send a man with you.\"\n\nHe saw that his hands were already puffy, bright pink. The flesh of his right hand was blistering, and the sight of it made him realize just how damn much it hurt. Looking down he noticed that his trousers were scorched black, the leather cf his boots burned. Not as much pain there at least. \"In a minute,\" he gasped, handing the canteen back. \"Out of nowhere,\" the colonel announced, obviously shaken. \"Thought we had a clear run, then the ground ahead just exploded.\"\n\nHe paused, looking back over the edge of the ditch. Timokin followed his gaze and saw dozens of men down on the ground, in a line so neat it was as if they had been ordered to drop together. Some of them were still alive, trying to crawl back, puffs of dirt kicking up around them, and above the roar of battle he could hear the barking laughter of the Bantags who were picking them off. A desire to do something, anything, urged him to climb out and try to help, but instinct told him it was now a deadly killing ground, and he was amazed that someone would be so insane as to pull him away from the St. Malady, which was a dozen yards forward and still burning.\n\n\"It just exploded with fire,\" the colonel continued. \"It looked like your ironclad rolled over some sort of infernal machine, the back end just lifted right up from the blast. Then you got hit from the front a second later.\"\n\nThe dirt on the lip of the ditch sprayed up as machine-gun fire swept them. Seconds later the mortar rounds started, whistling in, bracketing the depression that was rapidly filling with men who were crawling back from the inferno ahead. He caught a glimpse of a lone ironclad driving back in reverse, a rocket flaring up from ahead, streaking past the machine's turret.\n\nPuffs of smoke were igniting along the Bantag train track which was so tantalizingly close, less than a quarter mile ahead. Motioning for the colonel's field glasses, Gregory took them, grimacing with pain as he cupped them in his hands and clumsily focused them on the rail line. Rhythmic lights were snapping from the armored cars, the rate of fire was slow, maybe a hundred rounds a minute, but it was a machine gun, and he cursed silently.\n\nWhat was far more startling, though, was the sight of ironclads emerging, as if rising up from out of the ground on the far side of the track and from a peach-orchard-covered knoll. The bastards had dug them in, the saints only knew how long ago, and covered them over and waited. Now they were stirring to life, rising up out of concealment. They looked heavier, a newer model, with turrets just like his own machine. Along the rail track, farther back, he could see several dozen small specks, apparently hovering in the air, but gradually taking form. Bantag airships, coming in to support. Several Hornets harried the edge of the formation; a Bantag machine went down in flames, but a Hornet plunged to earth as well.\n\n\"My God,\" he whispered. \"We're losing.\"\n\n\"Andrew, I think we better get the hell out of here!\" Pat roared, leaning over to grab the reins of Andrew's horse.\n\nAndrew shook his head, motioning for Pat to let go, but his friend refused.\n\nSitting upright in the saddle, Andrew raised his field glasses, fixing his attention to the north. Less than a quarter mile away he could see them coming, a wall of Bantag ironclads, forty or more advancing nearly side to side.\n\nJack, who only minutes before had dropped a message warning of the breakthrough was circling above them, oblivious of the ground fire, all three of his gunners firing their Gatlings.\n\nSurviving ironclads that had been supporting the left flank of 9th Corps were backing up, engaging the enemy machines, but it was apparent the armor on the Bantag machines had been reinforced, bolts that had once so easily sliced through at two hundred yards were now careening off the enemy machines in a shower of sparks.\n\nFour ironclads stopped after backing into a shallow depression, and Andrew watched intently as they waited for the Bantag to close in. Knots of infantry fell in around the ironclad behemoths, and Andrew nudged his mount, wanting to ride up to join them.\n\n\"Are you crazy!\" Pat roared. \"A mounted man won't last three seconds up there.\"\n\n\"Well, damn it. I've got to do something!\" Andrew shouted.\n\nPat looked over at the half dozen staff and couriers who still trailed them. Most of them were wide-eyed with fright, ' but they knew what to do, moving up to surround Andrew and shield him.\n\n\"Back away, damn you!\" Andrew shouted, but they ignored his protests.\n\nThe battle erupted straight ahead as the four ironclads opened up at less than a hundred yards. Two of the enemy machines exploded. A hail of fire slashed back. Deployed as they were directly behind the action, solid shot bolts, machine-gun fire, and shell fragments screamed past Andrew and his companions. Pat visibly flinched as a solid bolt sucked the air between them, the round screaming past like a demented banshee.\n\nThe turret was torn off one of the ironclads, steam and flame blew out the back of another. The two survivors fired back, destroying two more of the enemy machines. The Bantag continued to press in, yet another machine exploding as a rocket crew fired into its flank at point-blank range. And then they were through the line, followed by hundreds of Bantag infantry swarming forward. Several of the enemy machines were towing wagons, which were now unhitched. Mortars were already set up inside the wagons and within seconds their crews were sending dozens of shells aloft.\n\n\"We've got to get back!\" Pat shouted, and he pointed to the left.\n\nDown by the riverbank a solid wall of Bantag infantry were racing forward at the double, oblivious of losses; the thin line of blue trying to contain them cracking apart.\n\n\"They must have had five umens or more concealed on our flank,\" Pat shouted. \"They're going to cut the pontoons and our crossing point. Andrew, you're getting out of here now.\"\n\nAndrew wanted to knock Pat's hand away, as his friend again grasped the reins of his horse, turned, and broke into a canter, dragging Andrew along.\n\n\"Give me the reins, damn it,\" Andrew shouted.\n\nPat looked back at him.\n\n\"I'm not doing anything stupid.\"\n\nPat nodded and finally let go.\n\nAndrew gathered up the reins and followed as Pat weaved his way down a farm lane, that in a different age had connected a villa to the road running parallel to the river. As they reached the river road Andrew was stunned by the chaos.\n\nSome officers still had control of their units, ordering men to dig in. A battery of ten-pounders was pushing its way up through the ever-increasing mob of refugees heading to the rear. Pat broke away, rode over, and ordered them to unlimber alongside the ruins of a small temple, the toppled-over columns of limestone offering some protection.\n\nAndrew turned to watch, surveying the ground, wondering if this could be a breakwater to stop the unrelenting assault. A regiment, still in semblance of order and falling back down the road, slowed as Pat galloped up to them, ordering the men to fall in on the flanks of the guns.\n\nThe enemy ironclad assault was clearly visible, less than a quarter mile away, coming across the open plain, hundreds of men running in front of it, trying to escape.\n\nTerrified soldiers crashed through the line Pat was trying to form up. With drawn sword Pat rode back and forth, screaming for the men to rally. Some slowed, falling in; others dodged around and kept on going, crying that it was impossible.\n\nThe advancing line of Bantag ironclads slowed and ground to a halt two hundred yards away.\n\n\"God damn them,\" Pat cried. \"They know the range we can kill them at and are sitting just beyond it!\"\n\nAndrew nodded, saying nothing.\n\nA ragged volley erupted from the line of enemy machines, and a gale of canister swept the position. Gunners dropped at their pieces, two of Andrew's staff collapsed, one of them shrieking in agony, clutching a shattered arm.\n\nThe gunners opened up, six pieces recoiling back with sharp cracks, but the bolts simply ricocheted off the front armor of the enemy machines.\n\nThe one-sided duel lasted for several minutes, the slowfiring machine guns of the enemy ironclads stitching back and forth along the line.\n\nConceding that a suicidal gesture was meaningless, Andrew urged his mount behind the wall of the temple, Pat and the surviving staff joining him.\n\nMortar rounds began to rain down, bracketing the position, and Andrew struggled to control his own fear as the deadly messengers whispered overhead and detonated with loud cracks.\n\n\"Why don't they charge, damn it?\" one of the staff cried. \"They don't have to,\" Pat snarled. \"Not until they're damn good and ready.\"\n\nA ragged cheer erupted from the battery, and, looking up over the wall, Andrew saw a lone enemy machine exploding, most likely a lucky shot through an open gun port. Three of the six guns of his battery were out of action, and more than half the crew was down.\n\nAndrew was startled as a flyer, skimming overhead, engines roaring, blocked out the sun for an instant.\n\nA message streamer dropped less than a dozen feet away. He looked up, saw smoke pouring from one of the Eagle's engines\u2014another engine had been shut down.\n\nAn orderly handed the message up.\n\nSir, get the hell out! Entire front collapsing. Ten umens and hundred ironclads attacking you. South flank gone, Bantag about to take pontoon bridge. Must pull out. My ship is finished\u2026 . Jack.\n\n\"Here they come!\"\n\nAndrew nudged his mount around and came out from behind the temple. The enemy ironclads were advancing - again. Their tactics were changing; they smelled victory. Bantag infantry, thousands of them, were swarming forward, all of them heavily armed with rifles, rocket launchers, mortars. Ignoring the losses, they broke into a swarming charge. The regiment Pat had deployed fired a single ragged volley, then simply melted away, officers shouting for the men to fall back. There was no semblance of order to the pullout; men simply turned and started to run.\n\nAndrew rode up to the battery commander, who had miraculously survived the enemy barrage.\n\n\"Major, abandon your guns, get your men the hell out of here!\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"You heard me, son. Get your wounded on the limber wagons and save yourself. Now move!\"\n\nThe gunners, hearing Andrew's command, needed no persuasion. Turning, they started to run, though discipline held long enough for them to help the wounded onto the limber wagons. Drivers lashed their teams, swinging the wagons out onto the road.\n\nA blast of canister dropped the entire lead team of six horses into a tangled heap, blocking the road. Chaos erupted as the other limber teams tried to maneuver around the pileup.\n\nPat, hat gone, saber dropped, was waving a pistol, standing in his stirrups, bawling orders. Andrew looked back, saw Bantag infantry less than a dozen yards away, piling up over the guns, catching those who had not moved quickly enough, bayoneting the wounded on the ground.\n\nAndrew rode up to Pat.\n\n\"Come on!\"\n\n\"The guns. God damn them, I've never lost a gun!\"\n\n\"Come on!\"\n\nPat suddenly turned, lowering his pistol, apparently aiming it right at Andrew. He fired, dropping a Bantag who was between them, clubbed rifle poised to knock Andrew from the saddle.\n\nPat spurred his mount forward, Andrew following, his mount staggering, nearly falling, as it was shot in the haunch. It regained its footing and in a panic broke into a lopsided gallop.\n\nAndrew looked back, horrified. The Bantag were into the traffic jam of limber wagons, tearing the wounded down off of the caissons, bayoneting drivers. He saw a man being flung into the air, shrieking, falling back down on upturned bayonets. The Bantags seemed to have reverted, caught up in the blood frenzy, some of them literally tearing men apart with their bare hands.\n\nBehind the insane swarm the ironclads pressed in, not hesitating, one of them rising up and over a twisted tangle of men and horses, crushing them under.\n\nAhead the road was packed with thousands heading to the rear. And there was nothing for Andrew to now do but ride with them into defeat.\n\nGregory could sense the rising panic in the troops packed in around him. Minutes before the men had advanced jauntily, feeling the worst of the assault was over, the trench lines cleared, and they were into the open ground beyond. ' He was beginning to feel the panic in his own heart as well, the easterly breeze blowing back into his face the stench of his machine burning, a mixture of kerosene, hot iron, and human flesh.\n\nHe started to shake. He had seen it often in others, after getting hit, no pain at first, then the shaking, the feeling that all the blood had drained out of you. Suddenly, with no warning, he leaned over and vomited, \"Sergeant, get the general the hell out of here.\"\n\nHe didn't want to accept the offer of help but was grateful when he felt strong hands grabbing him by the shoulder.\n\n\"This way, sir.\"\n\nHe looked into the eyes of the infantryman. About his own age, early twenties, but harder, muscles like whipcords, a scar creasing his jaw, an ugly red slash that seemed to double the size of his mouth lopsidedly to one side.\n\nThe sergeant led him down along the ditch, head bobbing up occasionally, scanning the land.\n\n\"Defile there, sir, about a hundred yards farther back. We'll have to move quick to get to it \u2026 Ready?\"\n\nHe found he couldn't speak, his entire body was trembling. Fear, exhaustion, the pain, he wasn't sure which. Another convulsion hit him, and he vomited again. The sergeant held him by the shoulders until the spasm passed.\n\n\"Ready to make a run for it?\"\n\nGregory nodded weakly.\n\n\"Now sir!\"\n\nTogether they went up out of the ditch, Gregory still gagging, the sergeant half-dragging him along. Bullets whip-cracked overhead, they reached the next ditch, rolling in amongst the packed tangle of men who were cowering there for cover, several of them cursing the pair, ignoring the star that was still on one epaulette.\n\nA mortar round thudded into the packed crowd less than twenty feet away, and Gregory winced as a fine mist of blood sprayed into his face. He started to cry, not exactly sure why, sick with himself that he was breaking down in front of the men, but the sight of a lieutenant who the shell had landed on caused him to think of his crew. By now, they were blackened charred bits of greasy dirt, not blown apart like the body in front of him.\n\n\"It's all right, sir, let's keep going.\"\n\nThe sergeant fell in with a carrying party using the shallow ravine to move the wounded back. It was a procession of tears, some of the men moved along easily on their own, clutching a blood-soaked arm, obviously glad to be out of it with, at worst, the loss of an arm. Others moved along silently, features a ghastly green-tinged pale. No stretcher party would carry them\u2014they were the dying and time could not be wasted\u2014but by some herculean effort they dragged themselves back, believing that by doing so, by staying with this river of half-torn bodies that they could somehow remain in the ranks of the living.\n\nMedical orderlies with green armbands to identify them to the provost guards, struggled to carry the rest, some on stretchers, others bundled into a ground cloth or blanket.\n\nHe was a veteran of half a dozen hard-fought engagements, but until this moment, locked up in his iron machine, he had never really looked closely at what could be done to men, or to himself. Some were burned, faces, hands blackened, others parboiled by steam like him, features puffing up, eyes swelling shut. Others clutched at holes torn in the chest, mangled faces, or shattered limbs.\n\nThe procession was strangely silent, and he staggered along with it, feeling as if he was a fraud, not really wounded, a coward who was allowing himself to be led away, hiding under the protection of a sergeant ordered to take him to the rear.\n\nHe would rise from his inner woe occasionally to realize that there was a mad battle swirling about him. Hundreds of shells were arcing overhead, the worst mortar barrage he had seen, far worse than the Battle of Rocky Hill. Nothing was moving forward. Men were bunched up in ditches, sprawled flat behind the ruins of abandoned villas, barns, sheds, or behind burning ironclads, some digging frantically with bayonets, scratching holes to hide in. The rifle and machine-gun fire was continuous, but increasingly he noticed the men were not firing back, but instead were hunkering down, unable to go forward and too frightened to get up and sprint for the rear.\n\nHe looked back toward the front and gasped. A dozen enemy ironclads were moving up, the lead one within spitting distance of his own destroyed machine. Machine-gun fire erupted, stitching the shallow ravine he had been dragged into. Men were bursting out of the cover, running, collapsing. A rocket crew to one flank stood up, fired off a round. It slammed into the side of the enemy machine and skidded off. Seconds later the men were dead.\n\nHe spotted one of his machines pivoting, a lone David fighting a dozen Goliaths. It slammed a shot into the rear of a Bantag machine, blowing it apart, and then was torn to shreds in turn, half a dozen bolts slicing it apart. The entire front was breaking apart, falling back. Dark forms were emerging out of the ground, Bantag infantry, bent double, moving quickly, sprinting forward, dropping, then rising and racing forward again. Their movements were different, not the upright charges of the past. He sensed that these warriors were different, trained in a different type of combat, and the sight of them was terrifying.\n\nHis sergeant pulled him away and pushed on down the ravine, heading back to the rear. Several times officers started to close in on the sergeant, but when they saw he was helping a general to the rear they backed off, yet again redoubling Gregory's shame. Without the star on his shoulder he would have had to make it back on his own, and at the moment the terror was so great that he knew he couldn't walk, let alone crawl, without the strong arms of the sergeant around him.\n\nThe ravine finally played out, but they were now a good six hundred yards from the front and the sergeant ventured up the side and out onto the open ground. Gregory looked around and saw a green flag fluttering behind the ruins of a plantation house with a white rectangle in the middle, the insignia of the field hospital for 2nd Division, 11th Corps. The low stone walls provided some protection from the incoming fire, and several times the sergeant pulled him down as mortar rounds crumped in the open field they were traversing, their progress hindered by the torn-up tangle of untended grapevines and arbors.\n\nWell over a hundred men were lying behind the building, most of them from 11th Corps but a sprinkling of 9th Corps and even a few wearing the distinctive black jackets of the ironclad Corps, the men looking up at him expectantly as he came in.\n\nThe sergeant eased him down, announcing that he was going to fetch the doctor. The soldier to his right was unconscious, a bandage covering most of his face, blood seeping out; to his left was one of his ironclad men, hands and face blackened, the flesh cracked and peeling. He could see the boy was blinded and didn't have the heart, or the courage, to speak to him.\n\nA hospital orderly came up, led by the sergeant, and squatted down.\n\n\"How you doing, sir?\"\n\nGregory looked at him, unable to form the words, to tell him to go away and tend someone else who needed him more.\n\nThe orderly held up his hand moving it slowly back and forth in front of Gregory's face, watching intently.\n\n\"Can you see my hand, sir?\"\n\nNext he took Gregory's hands, turning them over, pressing gently, watching Gregory's reaction.\n\n\"You'll do all right, sir. You got scalded. From the sound of your voice you might have taken some steam in. I'll get some ointment, then the sergeant here can take you back to the river.\"\n\nEven as he spoke a courier came galloping up, crouched low in the saddle, reining in hard, a bloodstained doctor turning to face him. Words were exchanged. The courier saluted, reined about, then started forward, heading up to the front.\n\nThe doctor stepped back, shouting for his staff to form up. Gregory watched silently, sensing something as orders were given with hushed voices. The orderly never came back with the ointment as the men raced off. The doctor seemed to shrink visibly as he looked at his charges.\n\n\"Everyone listen up,\" he shouted in Latin, trying to be heard above the incessant roar of battle. Gregory listened intently, unsure if he was hearing the words correctly. The doctor paused, crouching low as a flyer passed low overhead, smoke trailing from an engine, then stood back up.\n\n\"We have to evacuate this position now! Anyone who can move on his own, start heading for the rear immediately. If you have the strength to help a comrade do so. Let's get going.\"\n\nHe turned away. Gregory struggled to his feet, looking around. Men staggered up, others tried, then slipped back down. Far too many didn't move at all and he could see there were nowhere near enough orderlies to move them all. He looked over at his sergeant.\n\n\"Give a hand with someone else; I can make it from here.\"\n\n\"You certain, sir?\" and he could sense a genuine concern that touched him deeply.\n\n\"Certain, Sergeant. Kesus be with you.\"\n\n\"And the gods with you too, sir,\" the sergeant hesitated, then looked back. \"Sir, I'm sorry about your crew. My younger brother's on one of them machines. Do you think he's all right?\"\n\n\"I pray so.\"\n\nThe sergeant nodded, looked down at an unconscious man with a bandaged face, and, reaching down, he hoisted him, cradling him in his arms like a child, and started for the rear. Gregory went up to the doctor. At his approach the doctor's eyes shifted to the star on his shoulder.\n\n\"Why are you pulling out?\" Gregory asked.\n\n\"Didn't you hear?\"\n\n\"Hear what?\"\n\n\"We're being flanked, cut off.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nThe doctor pointed to the north, and for the first time Gregory was aware of the roiling columns of smoke, punctuated by fires, and dull flashes of light. It was like a curtain stretching from horizon to horizon. He caught a momentary glimpse of a dark machine slowly moving up over a distant hill, dozens of dark towering forms behind it \u2026 Bantag; above them an aerosteamer was spiraling down in flames. The image reminded Gregory of a painting that terrified him as a child, in the great cathedral of Suzdal, The Day of Judgment, the world was in flames, the damned consigned into the hands of demons, who, of course, were of the Horde. It looked the same now. Turning to look back from where he had come, he could see the survivors of the assault pulling back, some of the men running headlong for the rear, others turning, trying to fight, going down under the hail of fire.\n\n\"Better get the hell out of here now,\" the doctor said, turning to the operating table to scoop his instruments into a carrying bag. A lone ambulance was being loaded up with wounded.\n\n\"These men?\" Gregory asked.\n\n\"Those who can't walk are left,\" the doctor announced grimly, and to his horror he saw an orderly drawing out a revolver. It was never spoken of, but all knew that orders were never to leave wounded behind for the Bantag if they couldn't be evacuated.\n\nHorrified Gregory stepped around the doctor and struggled to pull a man up.\n\n\"Leave him, he's dying anyhow,\" the doctor announced calmly.\n\n\"Like hell.\"\n\nTears of pain and frustration streaming down his face Gregory grabbed a corporal who had lost a leg and was still unconscious, hoisted him, and started for the rear."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Brakes squealing, the train glided to a halt. Wearily, Andrew stood up, looking down at his dress uniform, nervously brushing at a stain just below his breast.\n\n\"Long ride,\" Hans groaned, sitting up from the narrow bunk where he had slept for the last hundred miles of the grueling seven-hundred-mile transit.\n\nAndrew nodded, vainly trying to stretch the kinks out of his back.\n\n\"Ready for this?\" Hans asked, standing up and, with an almost fatherly gesture, brushing some soot off Andrew's shoulder.\n\n\"Not sure. Almost feels like going into a battle.\"\n\n\"It is, and maybe just as dangerous.\"\n\nThere was a final lurch of the cars, then a blast of the whistle. Looking out the window, he saw an expectant crowd waiting in the hot early-morning sunlight. A military band, sounding tinny, struck up \"Battle Cry of Freedom.\" He stepped out onto the back platform, looking around. A small delegation was waiting, but his eyes were focused on but one group, Kathleen and the four children. Madison, his oldest, broke free and rushed forward with delighted cries, the twins following. Kathleen, dressed for once in a civilian dress, the traditional Rus smock and blouse, with her red hair tucked under a kerchief, looked absolutely delightful, their youngest son in her arms, looking at him wide-eyed. It had been over half a year since he had last seen him, and the boy had obviously forgotten though he did smile tentatively as Andrew stepped off the back of the car, Madison tugging at his pants leg, Jefferson and Abraham grabbing the other. She came forward, leaning up to kiss him.\n\n\"You look exhausted.\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nLooking down the length of the platform, he saw anxious families swarming around the three hospital cars that made up the rest of his express train, the first casualties back from the front since the disaster in front of Capua.\n\n\"There's no one here,\" she whispered. \"He didn't come down.\"\n\nThough he was not one for pomp and ritual, the fact that the president had not come to meet him, or at least have an honor guard, was a clear enough indication of the mood. It was also a very public and visible statement by his old friend that there was serious trouble ahead.\n\n\"Colonel. How was it?\"\n\nHe turned to see Gates, editor of Gates's Illustrated Weekly, standing expectantly, pad of paper in hand, pencil poised.\n\n\"No comment for now, Tom.\"\n\n\"Come on, Colonel. I'm running an extra on the battle, and there's precious little information out other than a partial casualty list and rumor that it was bad.\"\n\n\"You'll have to wait.\"\n\n\"Is it true you've been summoned back by Congress to report before the Committee on the Conduct of the War?\"\n\n\"Tom, why don't you just back the hell off,\" Hans snarled.\n\n\"I need something, anything,\" Tom pressed, ignoring Hans.\n\n\"Gates,\" Hans snapped, \"I remember how you peed your pants at Gettysburg, you were so damn scared, and hid behind the Seminary building till I dragged you back out. Why don't you print that.\"\n\nAndrew shook his head at Hans, feeling sorry for Gates, who stood abashed, face turning red.\n\n\"Your first fight, Tom. We all peed ourselves at one time or another,\" Andrew said reassuringly, patting him on the shoulder. \"It's all right.\"\n\nHe guided the editor off to one side.\n\n\"Look, Tom, it was bad, very bad. In short, they tore us apart, but for the moment you can't publish that.\"\n\nTom looked at him, obviously torn between his old loyalty to his colonel and the demands of his new profession.\n\n\"Let me report to the president first. Come over to my place later in the day, and I'll tell you everything I can. Is that fair?\"\n\nTom nodded. \"I'm sorry, sir. It's just that this place is going wild with rumors. There's talk that if it's true we lost at Capua, that Congress will vote that the Chin ambassadors sent by Jurak are to be formally received and given the offer of ceasefire.\"\n\nAndrew sighed and lowered his head.\n\n\"Andrew, be careful going in there. That's not the only rumor floating around town this morning.\"\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"Senator Bugarin is calling for Rus formally to secede from the Republic, establish its own state again, and make peace with the Bantags.\"\n\n\"Damn all,\" Andrew hissed.\n\nIt was, of course, illegal according to the Constitution. Given the experience back on his home world, he had written a clause into the document strictly forbidding secession unless three-quarters of Congress, and all the voting citizens, agreed to a new Constitutional convention.\n\n\"I told you before we should have hung every last boyar after the revolution before the Merki War,\" Hans announced, having come up to join the conversation. \"Bugarin was in with that crowd then.\"\n\n\"He was formally absolved,\" Andrew replied sharply, \"and remember, he is a senator of the Republic.\"\n\n\"Yeah, sure,\" Hans snarled, letting fly with a stream of tobacco juice.\n\n\"Flavius, the Speaker of the House, is hopping mad, too,\" Gates continued. \"With word that Marcus is missing and presumed dead, a hell of a lot of pressure is on him now to stop trying to be even-handed and think more like the senior representative from Roum.\"\n\n\"He's also now the next in line to the presidency,\" Hans announced.\n\nAndrew found himself wishing he could block this all out. He had left the battlefield less than a day ago; too much was flooding in too quickly.\n\n\"I've got a carriage waiting for us,\" Kathleen announced, breaking in. \"Tom, let Andrew meet with the president, then they'll most likely make a joint statement. Why don't you come over after dinner.\"\n\nAndrew could not help but smile at the way she could switch on the charm when needed, and the publisher finally relented, backing away and darting off to catch a lieutenant who was being carried off the hospital car on a stretcher.\n\nKathleen led the way, Madison grabbing her father's hand and chattering away, Andrew replying absently to her conversation. Reaching the carriage, she pried the children loose from their father and handed the baby over to a nurse, who led them away, Andrew waving good-bye as the carriage lurched forward, feeling guilty about his role as a father who was never home and was now too preoccupied to offer them any attention.\n\nThey drove past the long row of ambulances drawn up by the station. There was a time when he would have insisted upon stopping, getting out to talk to the men and their families, but he could so clearly sense the mood. In spite of the brilliant sunshine it felt as if there was a dark shadow over the city. Official censorship or not, news was clearly out that the offensive had turned into a bloody disaster.\n\nReaching the inner gate, they passed into the old city of Suzdal, and for a brief instant he relaxed, enjoying yet again the exotic medieval flavor of the city. Though this section had been twice destroyed in the wars, each time the residents had built it back as it was, though somehow the woodwork now seemed more crudely done and hurried, as if the pace of the new world he had created would not allow time for the ancient Rus art of woodcarving as it was once done. The old gaily painted window frames and decorative designs were gone as well since the lime for whitewash and the lead for paint were both designated as precious war materials.\n\nThe carriage finally reached the great square of the city, going past the cathedral, Kathleen making the sign of the cross as they did so. He was tempted to stop, to go in and see if Casmir, the Holy Metropolitan and head of the Rus Orthodox Church, was there, for he knew that the priest would be his staunchest supporter to the bitter end, and at this moment he needed to hear some form of encouragement. But the white banner was not flying over the central onion dome, meaning that the holy father was elsewhere, most likely at the military hospital to help as the first wounded came in.\n\nThe carriage turned across the square, the scene of so many triumphal parades, and the place where twice he led the old 35th into battle, first against the Boyar Ivor, and then in the final charge against the Tugars. Memories rushed back of so many who had marched or fought across this square and were now but dust, and Kathleen, as if sensing his mood, reached over and squeezed his hand again.\n\n\"Remember the first time we went for a walk here?\" she said, as if trying to divert his thoughts from more melancholy contemplations.\n\nHe smiled, looking into her eyes, remembering that first wondrous day together, when they had visited the court of Ivor then roamed the city till dusk, having no idea, as yet, of the terror of the hordes.\n\nStraight ahead was the White House. A strange blending of the old and the new, the former palace of a boyar, with all its ornate and intricate stone carvings, high narrow windows, and fairy-tale domes, whitewashed by order of the president in imitation of the legendary place where Lincoln had once resided. He could see a crowd gathered near the steps, a twin line of infantry drawn up to clear the way. A color guard was waiting, bearing the flag of the Republic, and as the carriage stopped at the base of the steps they came to attention. Andrew and Hans stood up, each of them saluting the colors as they stepped down to the cobblestone pavement. A small band of half a dozen drummers and fifers now sounded ruffles and flourishes and then went into \"Hail to the Chief.\" At the top of the steps the president, Andrew's old friend Kal, appeared, wearing his traditional black frock coat and stovepipe hat, beard cut like Lincoln's, always a slightly absurd sight since he stood barely five and a half feet tall, yet touching nevertheless in its respectful imitation of a legend from another world.\n\nKal slowly came down the steps, the small crowd of bystanders respectfully silent, the few soldiers in the group coming to attention and saluting, civilian men and boys removing their hats and one old woman making the sign of the cross.\n\nAndrew, curious, watched, knowing that protocol demanded that he ascend the steps, not forcing the president to come down to greet him. But Kal had never stood on such foolish protocol, and normally would have been at the station, eager to embrace his friend in a traditional Rus bear hug and kiss. The fact that he had not done so indicated so much to Andrew, and it was such a strange paradox for Andrew had so often lectured the old peasant on the dignity of office and the precedents that needed to be set. Now they were caught in that very game.\n\nKal stopped midway down the twenty steps, hat still on, and there was a long pregnant pause.\n\n\"Don't push it,\" Kathleen whispered.\n\nFinally, Andrew climbed the steps, trying not to let his fatigue and stiffness show. He came to attention and saluted, Kal nodding a reply but no embrace or even a slap on the shoulder. The effect was immediate, whispers running through the crowd of onlookers. Behind the president Andrew caught a glimpse of several senators, all from Rus, one of them Vasily Bugarin.\n\n\"Let's go inside to talk,\" Kal finally announced.\n\nAndrew nodded in agreement, saying nothing. There was a moment's hesitation as Kal looked over at Hans.\n\n\"I want my second-in-command with me,\" Andrew said, and Kal turned without comment, leading the way up the stairs.\n\nAndrew looked back at Kathleen, who flashed a smile and turned without comment, getting back into the carriage. He felt guilty, not having said more, not feeling more, and that realization was troubling. His feelings were almost an abstraction, a memory, as if he had become so brittle inside that there was no room at the moment for the love and devotion he knew he should feel for his family.\n\nThough it was still early morning, he was glad to step through the ornately carved doors and into the cool dark interior of the executive mansion. Once out of sight of the crowd he hoped that Kal would drop the role and show some warmth, but there was no relenting as the president led the way down the corridor, past the old audience chamber of the boyar and into a side room which served the president as his office.\n\nThe room was simply appointed, as was typical of the old Kal. Icons of Perm and Kesus, the half-pagan manifestation of Orthodoxy which had been transplanted to this world dominated the far wall, with smaller icons of a variety of saints, some of them men of the old 35th and 44th New York, surrounding the centerpiece. The other walls were covered with maps studded with red and blue pins marking the situation on the western front, where remnants of the Merki were raiding, the coasts of the Inland Sea and the shadowy war which had resumed against Cartha, and the Eastern Front from which he had just come. In the center of the room was a battered oak table around which a dozen straight-backed chairs were set. Andrew was delighted to see the Holy Prelate Casmir sitting at the far corner, the priest coming to his feet as Andrew came in.\n\n\"Good day to you, Andrew,\" he said in fairly good English, and Andrew smiled, taking off his old kepi hat with a show of genuine respect. Across from him was Vincent Hawthorne, a mere shadow of a ghost, his uniform hanging loosely on his narrow frame, still sporting the Phil Sheridan look of pointed goatee and mustache.\n\nWithout comment Bugarin took a chair next to Casmir, and Kal beckoned for Andrew to sit next to Vincent, Hans taking the chair to Andrew's right while Kal sat down next to Bugarin.\n\nAndrew was tempted to voice a protest, to ask to be allowed at least to freshen up and get a bite to eat before going into this meeting and then somehow get a few minutes alone with Kal to probe out what was going on, but a cold look from Kal stilled his protest, and as he sat down he made do with a cup of tea that Casmir made a point of pouring for the two new arrivals. The prelate then insisted upon a prayer which ran on for five minutes and which placed a heavy emphasis on his thankfulness for the safe return of Andrew and Hans, the need for divine guidance and strength in the trials to come.\n\nAs the three Rus made the sign of the cross Andrew raised his head and stared straight at Kal.\n\n\"Andrew, we need an honest report of what happened out there and why,\" Kal said, opening the meeting without comment or one of his usual witticisms designed to break the tension.\n\n\"I've never been anything but honest with you, Mr. President,\" Andrew replied coolly, deciding to be formal and avoid the use of the informal nickname of Kal.\n\nStrange, he thought, you were once a peasant, a storyteller and jester for the Boyar Ivor, hiding your cunning behind the mask of a fool in order to protect your family and yourself when the Tugars came, hoping against hope to thus spare your daughter from being sent to the slaughter pits. Hawthorne, who is now your son-in-law, taught you about the ideals of a Republic, it was you who triggered the rebellion, and for years afterward I taught you all I know about how to rule and wrote the very Constitution which put you in power.\n\nAndrew could not help but feel a flicker of resentment now, the mentor who found himself outranked by a student, but was this not as it should be, he told himself. Across all these years I kept demanding that the military must answer to the civilian, and here now are the results.\n\n\"Andrew, please tell us what happened,\" Casmir interjected. \"The entire city is in turmoil with fear, some are even claiming the front has collapsed and the Bantags will be at the gates.\"\n\n\"No, they haven't broken through, the front is the same is it was before the attack.\"\n\n\"In other words you did not gain a single inch of ground,\" Bugarin interjected.\n\nAndrew shifted his gaze to study the senator. It was rumored that he had tuberculosis; his skin was almost china white, laid flat against the bones of his face. Dark eyes seemed to burn like coals as he returned Andrew's look. In spite of the senator's current stance Andrew found he did have a certain amount of respect for the man. He had avoided the infamous \"Boyars' Plot\" to overthrow the government before the Merki War and had briefly commanded a regiment and then a brigade before Rus was evacuated. Stricken with illness he left the army and was immediately elected senator.\n\nYet, in the last year protest against the war had increasingly centered around him, first as a general concern about the progress of the fight, and then increasingly as a voice of separatism and mistrust of the Roum and their ability to fight. That was the one thing Andrew could not comprehend, this damnable wedge being driven between Rus and Roum. If it succeeded in splitting them apart, the Republic would fracture, and they would all die. How men with the intelligence of Bugarin could not see that was a mystery.\n\n\"If you are asking if we held the opposite bank of the river,\" Andrew replied. \"No.\"\n\n\"What are the total losses?\" Casmir asked. \"I want to know the human cost first.\"\n\nAndrew sighed, looking up for a moment at the ceiling.\n\n\"At least twenty-seven thousand five hundred men killed, wounded or captured out of the forty thousand who crossed the river. Just over nine thousand wounded made it back; all the rest of the casualties were lost.\"\n\n\"Merciful Perm bless them,\" Casmir intoned, making the sign of the cross.\n\n\"And equipment?\" Kal asked.\n\n\"Every ironclad engaged was lost, that's fifty-three machines. Nineteen light aerosteamers and eleven heavy machines lost as well. Eight field batteries lost, and almost all the equipment for three corps along with two regiments of engineering and pontoon equipment, three corps field hospitals, and somewhere around fifty regimental stands of colors.\"\n\nKal blew out noisily and leaned back in his chair.\n\n\"How, damn it?\" Bugarin cried. \"What did you do wrong?\"\n\n\"Just tell us,\" Kal said, cutting Bugarin off.\n\n\"It was a trap,\" Andrew said. \"Plain and simple. This new leader, Jurak, is different. I fear that the world he came from is far more advanced than mine. He has a better grasp of how to use the new weapons being created, his army is transforming itself into something far different that what we faced with the Tugars and Merki.\"\n\nAndrew drew in a breath; the room was silent except for the ticking of a small wooden clock on the wall near Kal's desk. He remembered that the clock was the same one Vincent had carved for him long ago before even the Tugars had come.\n\n\"They had a new model of land ironclad. Heavier armor and with that the knowledge to keep back out of range of our own ironclads and rocket launchers. There was a new airship, twin engine, faster than our Eagles and almost as fast as the Hornets. Also, they have a new type of gun, like our Gatling, slower firing but still deadly.\"\n\n\"Didn't you anticipate any of this?\" Bugarin asked.\n\n\"Not directly,\" Andrew had to admit.\n\n\"What do you mean 'not directly'?\"\n\n\"As commander I had to assume that things would change with their new leader. Also, that they undoubtedly would have new weapons. Jurak, however, was shrewd enough to keep all his cards hidden until we were fully committed, then he unleashed them all in one killing blow.\n\n\"Tactically, as well, he presented a new front. I would estimate that at least five of his umens were armed with better rifles, but beyond that they had obviously trained as much as we had. These were not Horde warriors charging blindly\u2014they came on with a skill and purpose we haven't seen before.\"\n\n\"What actually happened,\" Kal interrupted. \"Tell me that.\"\n\n\"We launched the assault following the plans I reviewed with you the week before the attack. Losses in the first stage were less than anticipated, just over two thousand killed and wounded. Six hours into the assault our advanced column was within striking distance of their main depot, five miles east of Capua, when the counterattack struck.\"\n\n\"And you did not anticipate that they would counterattack?\" Bugarin asked sharply.\n\n\"Of course we expected a counterattack,\" Andrew replied, trying to keep the weariness and frustration out of his voice. \"All of the hordes were masters of mobile warfare and knew enough to keep a mobile reserve positioned behind their lines, either as a force to seal a break or as reserve to deliver the final blow.\"\n\n\"So why were you not prepared?\" Kal asked.\n\nAndrew hesitated for a moment, surprised by the coldness in Kal's voice.\n\n\"We were prepared. Ninth Corps led the breakthrough supported by the First Ironclad Regiment. Eleventh Corps followed next, anchoring the left flank, while elements of two other corps crossed to anchor the right flank and provide reserves. The Second Ironclad Regiment was held in reserve for the follow-up advance once the pontoon bridges were laid and we felt we had achieved a breakthrough.\n\n\"What surprised us was the sheer number of ironclads in their reserves, reports estimate there were upward of two hundred compared to fewer than a hundred of ours, of which we committed only fifty in the first wave, the number of new aerosteamers, their introduction of a machine gun, and finally the tactics of concealment and concentration of ironclads in large striking columns.\"\n\n\"In other words, you were caught unprepared,\" Bugarin pressed.\n\nAndrew said nothing, and Hans finally interrupted.\n\n\"No plan ever fully survives first contact with the enemy, and in war no one can ever prepare for all eventualities.\"\n\n\"You were against this offensive, weren't you, Hans?\" Kal asked.\n\nNow it was Hans's turn to hesitate.\n\n\"Yes, he was,\" Andrew said. \"The responsibility is mine.\"\n\nThere was a long silence again, and Andrew half wondered if Kal, for a variety of reasons, would ask for his resignation and turn command over to Hans. That was indeed part of the reason he had insisted that Hans leave the front and return to Suzdal with him. There was even a bit of a wish that indeed such a decision would be made, relieving him of all that was pressing in.\n\n\"The retreat, I heard it was a rout,\" Bugarin said, breaking the silent tension.\n\n\"Yes, there is no denying that. The river was at our backs, the men quickly realized that the enemy was breaking through on both flanks and rolling the line up with the intent of creating a pocket. Yes, they ran, ran for their lives as even the best troops will.\"\n\n\"So they ran,\" Bugarin continued. \"Ninth and Eleventh Corps ran, troops primarily made up of men from Roum.\" So that was it, Andrew now realized, and he felt a flicker of anger. No senator from Roum was present.\n\n\"I don't see Tiberius Flavius, Speaker of the House, present here,\" Andrew replied coolly. \"As Speaker, isn't he entitled to be here as well, Mr. President?\"\n\n\"This is an informal discussion,\" Kal replied.\n\n\"It seems more like an inquiry by the Committee on the Conduct of the War,\" Hans snapped.\n\n\"I wasn't asking you for comment, Sergeant,\" Bugarin growled.\n\nHans started to stand up, but a look from Andrew stilled him.\n\n\"I will accept no aspersions on the gallant soldiers who crossed that river, whether they were Rus or Roum,\" Andrew said, his voice cutting through the tension.\n\nIt was impossible for him to try and explain now all that had happened. Though he would not admit it here, the army had indeed broken, the worst rout he had seen since the disaster along the Potomac.\n\nIt was almost like Hispania in reverse, his army disintegrating, falling back to the river a disorganized rabble. But in this room, under the cool gaze of Bugarin and Kal, that was impossible to explain. How to explain the exhaustion, the fighting out of the army as an offensive weapon? He knew that to try and explain that now would be an admission of defeat.\n\nYet was this not defeat? He could admit to the loss of the battle at Capua and take responsibility for it. Yet was this the beginning of the end he wondered? Would the army continue to disintegrate and fall back, or was there some desperate way to wring one last victory out of the situation and save what was left?\n\n\"Why did you let the vice president go into the attack against my orders?\" Kal asked.\n\nAndrew was silent. The memory of the broken body of his old friend, carried back across the river by men from the 11th, was still too fresh.\n\n\"I could not stop him,\" Andrew replied sadly. \"He insisted that he go forward with 'his boys,' as he called them. I understand that was part of the reason for the rout. When the counterattack was launched he was caught by the opening barrage of rockets and killed instantly. Word quickly spread through the ranks \u2026\"\n\nHis voice trailed off. Still hard to believe that Marcus was dead. Yet another part of the political equation he had not anticipated.\n\n\"And your own actions?\" Bugarin asked. \"Did you personally try to rally the men?\"\n\nHans bristled yet again; there was a certain tone to the statement, an implication. Andrew did not respond for a moment, never dreaming that someone might actually question his own behavior under fire.\n\nKal was the first to react. With an angry gesture he cut Bugarin off.\n\n\"This is an inquiry,\" Kal snapped, \"not an inquisition.\" There was a flicker of eye contact, and Andrew felt at least a small sense of relief. Some of the old Kal was still there and was not comfortable with the way things were going.\n\n\"I'm willing to answer,\" Andrew said, breaking the silence. He looked past Kal, staring at the ceiling.\n\n\"I'll admit here that going under fire again left me nervous, though it did not affect my judgment. I crossed to the east shore and stayed there until it was evident that the north flank had completely caved in.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you call up reinforcements?\" Bugarin asked. \"Always reinforce victory, never reinforce defeat,\" Andrew shot back.\n\n\"Wasn't the defeat perhaps in your own mind?\"\n\n\"I think that after more than a decade of campaigning I know the difference,\" Andrew replied sharply. \"Any unit, even First Corps, would have broken under the pounding inflicted on the left and center. As to a counterstrike, I have to ask with what?\n\n\"Three corps went into that assault. I have a total of three left to cover all the rest of that front from the tangles of the Northern Forest down into the mountains of the south. That was our total offensive striking power. If that was blunted, there was nothing left.\"\n\n\"In other words, as an offensive force in this war, the Army of the Republic is finished,\" Bugarin replied sharply, staring straight at Kal.\n\nAndrew inwardly cursed. It was exactly what he did not want to admit to but had now been maneuvered into saying.\n\n\"And if the Bantag now launch a counterattack?\" Bugarin pressed. \"Can you stop it?\"\n\n\"We have to stop it.\"\n\n\"You didn't answer my question.\"\n\n\"There is no alternative,\" Andrew snapped.\n\n\"Perhaps there is.\"\n\n\"There is no alternative,\" Andrew repeated, his voice sharp with anger. \"We cannot make a deal with the Bantag; that will divide us and in the end kill all of us. We must fight if need be to the bitter end.\"\n\nBugarin stood up and leaned over the table, staring directly at Andrew.\n\n\"You have been nothing but a disaster to us, Keane. We have fought three wars, hundreds of thousands have died, and now we are trapped in a war that we are losing. Beyond that we are trapped in an alliance with an alien people who can't even defend their own land. As chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, I hereby summon you to give a full accounting of this disaster.\"\n\nWith barely a nod of acknowledgment to Kal, the senator stalked out of the room. Casmir, rising from his chair, motioned for Kal to stay and hurried out after Bugarin.\n\nAndrew sat back down, realizing that Kal was staring at him coldly.\n\n\"Now you see what I am dealing with here,\" Kal announced. \"You'd better prepare yourself for what you'll have to face over the next couple of days.\"\n\nAndrew nodded. \"Kal, you at least know the boys out there tried their damnedest to win.\"\n\n\"I know that, Andrew, but it doesn't change the fact that nearly twenty thousand more families lost a son, or father, or husband. How much longer do you think we as a people can take this?\"\n\n\"Until we win,\" Hans replied coolly.\n\n\"Define victory to me when we are all dead,\" Kal whispered. \"Andrew, we have to find a way out of this war.\"\n\n\"Kal, there's only one way,\" Hans inteijected.\n\n\"You, old friend, are a soldier, and that is the path you must see to victory,\" Kal replied, his voice filled with infinite weariness. \"I, as president, am forced to consider alternate means. I might not like them, I might not even trust them, but I do have to consider them, especially when Bugarin has rallied a majority of senators.\"\n\nAndrew looked over at Vincent, who nodded. That bit of news was a shock. If Bugarin held the majority, the Senate could force the issue to a vote at any time.\n\n\"Kal, we can't surrender. Nor can we allow the Republic to split. Jurak is obviously outproducing us. Any agreement, even a temporary ceasefire, will play to his hand.\"\n\n\"I hear that from you, Andrew. From Bugarin I hear threats of breaking the Republic apart if need be to end the war. From the Roum representatives I hear complaints about our supposed suspicions regarding them. From Webster I hear that the economy is tottering into collapse. Tonight, as the casualty lists come in, I will sit and write letters until dawn, sending my regrets to old friends who've lost a loved one.\"\n\nHis voice seemed near to breaking.\n\nHe lowered his head, put on his stovepipe hat, and slowly walked out the room, moving as if the entire weight of the world was upon him.\n\nAndrew, Hans, and Vincent stood respectfully as he left. Andrew sighed, settling back in his chair and looking over at Vincent, who smiled weakly.\n\n\"Hawthorne, just what the hell is going on back here?\" Hans asked, going around to the side table and taking the pot of tea from which Casmir had poured earlier and refilling his own cup. Taking a fruit vaguely resembling an apple but closer in size to a grapefruit, he settled into the chair Kal had occupied, pulled a paring knife from his haversack, and began to peel off the thick skin from the fruit.\n\n\"It's madness here,\" Vincent began. \"Kal is losing control of Congress, which is fracturing between representatives of Rus and Roum. The Roum bloc is claiming the war is not being pressed hard enough to expel the invader from their soil. Beyond that there are some who are claiming it is deliberate in order to cut down the population and thus establish an equal balance in the House.\"\n\n\"That's insane.\" Andrew sighed. \"Damn all, who the hell could even think that?\"\n\n\"And the\u2014Rus side?\" Hans asked.\n\n\"Well, you heard it straight from Bugarin. The Roum can't fight and the burden is resting on the old army of Rus. We lost tens of thousands pulling their chestnuts out of the fire last winter and now, in this last battle, they panic again.\"\n\n\"Never should have named them the Ninth and Eleventh Corps,\" Hans said. \"It was unlucky with the Army of the Potomac, and the same here.\"\n\n\"Funny, even that legend is spreading around,\" Vincent said, \"some of the Roum claiming it's a jinx we deliberately set on them.\"\n\nAndrew could only shake his head in disbelief.\n\n\"So the bottom line?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"Word is the Senate will vote a resolution today asking for your removal from command.\"\n\nThere was a quick exchange of looks between Andrew and Hans as the sergeant cut off a piece of peeled fruit and passed it over to Andrew.\n\n\"It won't happen of course. You'll stay, and there'll be a staged show of support for you, but the mere fact that it happens will weaken your position.\"\n\n\"Figured that, but what's the real game?\"\n\n\"Far worse. With Crassus dead, and no vice president, the Roum representatives are increasingly nervous. Speaker Flavius is next in line but remember he isn't of the old aristocracy of Roum. He was once a servant in the house of Marcus who rose through the ranks, was disabled after Hispania, and found himself in Congress.\"\n\nAndrew nodded. He had tremendous admiration for Flavius. A true natural soldier. If he had not been so severely wounded, he undoubtedly would have risen to command a division, or even a corps. His selection as Speaker had been something of a surprise, but then the House was dominated by old veterans, both Roum and Rus from the lower classes. But he didn't have the blind support and instant obedience Marcus could command. Marcus could merely snap his fingers, and all would listen. Flavius lacked that, and though he was now but a heartbeat away from the presidency, Andrew knew he could not stem the growing friction between the two states of the Republic.\n\n\"Bugarin will hold hearings about the battle at Capua. He'll declare the war lost and push for a ceasefire.\"\n\n\"An agreement with the Bantag?\" Hans asked. \"Damn all to hell I keep telling you, Andrew, we should be shooting those Chin envoys they keep sending through.\"\n\n\"I can't. Congress specifically ordered that we receive them and pass them along.\"\n\n\"And they're nothing but damned spies.\"\n\n\"Don't you think I know that?\" Andrew snapped hotly.\n\nHans settled back in his chair, saying nothing at the tone of rebuke and frustration.\n\n\"Are there the votes for a ceasefire?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"No, not yet, but the real maneuver is to break the Republic. Reestablish an independent state of Rus, cut Roum off, and pull the army out.\"\n\n\"And after the Bantag crush Roum they'll be at our gates.\"\n\n\"You know that, I know that,\" Hawthorne replied, \"but for a lot of folks here, any offer of peace, even if but for six months or a year, with the boys back home, and the crushing work in the factories eased off \u2026 well that seems all right with them.\n\n\"Bugarin's already floating around a plan to build a fortified line at Kev, claiming that even if the Bantag did betray the agreement, without having to worry about Roum or holding Tyre, we'd have more than enough to stop them.\"\n\n\"They're fools,\" Hans cried, his anger ready to explode as he glared at Vincent.\n\n\"Yes, but remember I've been stuck back here since last year being your liaison, so don't blame me for the bad news.\"\n\nAndrew could see that being cut out of the action was still wearing on Vincent but on the other side his exposure to all the administrative work as chief of staff was seasoning Hawthorne, training him for a day when, if they survived, he would take the mantle of control.\n\n\"You should go into the factories,\" Vincent said. \"I'm in there damn near every day now, trying to keep production up. They're hellholes, old men, women, children as young as eight working twelve-hour shifts six days a week. Emil is pitching a fit, about conditions. Tuberculosis is up, and a lot of the women working in the factory making percussion caps are getting this strange sickness; Emil says it has something to do with mercury, the same as with hatters.\n\n\"There's shortages of everything, especially since we're feeding nearly a million Roum refugees who lost their land. A lot of folks are getting by on gruel and watery soup with a hint of meat dipped into it. The prosperity we saw building two years ago is completely out of balance now. A few folks, mostly old boyars and merchants are getting filthy rich on the war industries, but the ordinary workers are slipping behind.\"\n\n\"So get Webster in, have them figure out some new kind of tax. Hell, he's the financial wizard who figured it all out in the first place,\" Andrew said, always at a loss when it came to the finances of running a war.\n\n\"He's trying, Andrew, but these same people have the ears of Congress and block any changes in the taxes. We cobbled together an industrial war society. The Union could take it back home; we had two generations of change to get used to it. The Confederacy didn't, and remember how they were falling apart. Well, it's the same here. We're producing the goods but barely hanging on, in fact it's slipping apart. Rebuilding the railroads after last winter's campaign, and the buildup for this last offensive meant too many other things were not done. Webster said it's like pouring all the oil we have on only half the machine. Well, the other half, the installations, morale, political support, they're all seizing up and falling apart.\"\n\nAndrew did not know how to reply. During the early spring, after his recovery from the wound, he had tried to understand just how complex it had all become, attending meetings with Webster that would go half the night. He'd demand more ironclads, locomotives, better breechloaders and flyers, and ammunition, always more ammunition, and Webster would repeat endlessly that it meant scrimping on something else equally important if they were to keep the machine of war running.\n\n\"You want to understand disenchantment with this war, go into the factories at two in the morning and you'll see. There have even been rumors about strikes to protest the war and conditions.\"\n\n\"It's that or the slaughter pit,\" Hans growled, cutting another piece of fruit and this time tossing it to Vincent.\n\n\"It's been what, more than six years since this city was the front line,\" Andrew said wearily. \"We've taken well over a hundred thousand more casualties in this war. I can understand people back here grasping at any straw that's offered.\"\n\n\"In fact even the good news from the western front seems to be hurting us,\" Vincent said.\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Sorry, I guess you didn't hear. We got reliable intelligence that Tamuka was kicked out by what was left of the Merki Horde following him.\"\n\n\"That bastard,\" Hans growled. \"I hope they made him a eunuch or better yet killed the scum.\"\n\nIt was rare that Andrew heard a truly murderous tone in Hans's voice, but it flared out now. It was Tamuka who first held Hans prisoner. He could see his friend actually trembling with pent-up rage at the mere mention of the name.\n\n\"What happened?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"You know that the skirmishing has died off on the western frontier. So much so that I'm recommending relieving a division posted out there and shifting it over to the eastern front. A couple of weeks back a small band of people came into our lines, refugees from what apparently are folks descended from Byzantine Greeks living to the southwest. They said that a umen of the Merki came to their town, killed most of them, but the survivors witnessed a big blowup, the bastards were killing each other and a one-handed Merki who was the leader was driven out of the band.\"\n\n\"That's got to be him,\" Hans snarled. \"Even his own kind hated him. And he wouldn't have the guts to die with some honor rather than run.\"\n\n\"The rest of them took off, riding west; the one hand, with maybe a score of followers, rode east.\"\n\n\"I wonder where to?\" Andrew mused.\n\n\"Straight to hell I hope,\" Hans inteijected.\n\n\"Word got back here, and Bugarin said it shows that we will now have more than enough troops to defend ourselves.\"\n\nThere was a long moment of silence, and yet again he was troubled by all the changes he and his men had created here. Industrialization was the only hope for survival in their war against the hordes, to stay ahead of them in technology and use that to offset their skill and numbers. But ever since the arrival of Ha'ark and Jurak, their hope for that edge was disappearing, and in many ways had clearly been lost in front of Capua. Though on his old world, America had embraced technology and what industrialization could provide, he knew there was a dark side to it, the teeming noisome hellholes around the factories, children laboring in smoky gloom, the mind-numbing dullness of a life of labor. He could balm his conscience with what the alternative was, but for most peasants what had happened in their lives?\n\nTen years ago they waited in dread for the arrival of the Tugars but resigned themselves to that fate, knowing that but one in ten went to the slaughter and then the Horde rode on and the cycle of life continued the dread of the return twenty years\u2014a lifetime, away. Though he could not truly comprehend it, he could indeed see where some might say the old ways were preferable to what they had now.\n\nThrough the high window he could hear a stirring outside, distant shouting, and he froze for an instant, wondering if indeed there was already rioting in the streets over the defeat at Capua. He stared off, unsure of what to do next.\n\n\"Andrew, we have to end this war,\" Vincent announced.\n\n\"You talking surrender, too, boy?\" Hans asked, his voice icy.\n\n\"No, hell no,\" Vincent replied. \"But it's my job to tell Andrew and you what is going on at the capital. Hell, I'd rather be at the front than here. I know what you two saw at Capua. The difference here is that since this campaign started no one in Rus, except for the soldiers, has seen a Bantag, except for those raiders around Kev. All they know is the hardship and shortages without seeing the enemy face-to-face. Those damn Chin ambassadors are talking sweet words, and some are listening, and then the rumors get spread out.\"\n\n\"My people, are they working on the ambassadors?\"\n\nAndrew found it interesting how Hans referred to the three hundred Chin whom he had led out of captivity from Xi'an as \"my people.\" In a way they had become his own personal guard. There was even a Chin brigade now, made up of those who had escaped during the winter breakthrough into Ha'ark's rear lines, and shortly they would go to the front. In a way they were Hans's personal bodyguard, his status with them as liberator raising him to a godlike position in their eyes. It was his idea to make sure they were put in contact with the human ambassadors representing the Horde.\n\n\"I have their reports waiting for you,\" Vincent said. \"Sure, they admit that if they fail to return with a peace agreement their entire families will be sent to the slaughter pits. Some have even whispered it's all a crock what they're saying but none will do so publicly out of fear that word will get back to Jurak. But this Jurak is shrewd, damn shrewd. His last messenger said they would offer to stop the slaughter pits, the same as the Tugars did.\"\n\n\"Damnable lie,\" Hans cried. \"I was there; I saw what they did.\"\n\n\"The Tugars stopped,\" Andrew said.\n\n\"We haven't heard from them in years; they might very well be back at it,\" Hans replied.\n\n\"I'm not sure. They learned our humanity\u2014that changed it.\"\n\n\"And you believe this Jurak?\" Hans asked heatedly. \"Of course not. He and I both know one clear point. This is a war of annihilation. After all that has happened, it is impossible for this world to contain both of us. Anything he offers is the convenience of the moment to buy breathing time, to split us apart.\"\n\n\"I wish we did have a year's breathing time,\" Vincent interjected.\n\n\"It'd be a year's breathing time for him, too, and never at the price of losing the Roum.\"\n\n\"Andrew!\"\n\nSurprised he looked up to see Kathleen standing in the doorway, face red, breathing hard, as if she had been running.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" and for an instant he thought it was something with the children.\n\n\"You're all right, thank God.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Someone just tried to assassinate Kal!\"\n\nAndrew was out of his chair, followed by Hans and Vincent. He suddenly realized that the clamor outside the building had risen in volume, and with the door open, the shouting in the corridors was audible as well.\n\n\"Where is he? Is he all right?\"\n\n\"In his quarters; Emil was sent for and I followed.\" Furious that he hadn't been told immediately Andrew pushed through the growing turmoil in the hallways, shoving his way past the crowd in the old audience chamber and back around to the rear of the building and the private apartments. Andrew caught a glimpse of Tanya, Kal's daughter and Vincent's wife. Crying she ran up to Vincent, who swept her up under his arm, shouting questions.\n\nAndrew forced his way through the troops assigned as the presidential guard and into the bedroom. Emil looked up angrily from the side of the bed and for a moment Andrew froze at the sight of the black frock coat, covered with blood, lying crumpled on the floor, the battered stovepipe hat beside it, just above the brim an ugly blood-soaked gash cut along the side. Kal, eyes closed, features pale, was lying on the bed, the pillow beneath him stained with blood, his wife kneeling on the other side, crying hysterically, Casmir behind her, hands resting on her shoulders.\n\nFor a flash instant he remembered a nightmare dream of years ago in which he had seen his hero, Abraham Lincoln, in the same pose, dead from an assassin's bullet.\n\n\"Out, all of you out!\" Emil shouted.\n\nAndrew did not move.\n\nEmil rose from the side of the bed and came up to him.\n\n\"Please, Andrew, I need his wife out of here; if you go, she'll follow with the others.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I wasn't there,\" Emil said wearily. \"Casmir said they were walking across the plaza when a shot was fired from atop the church. Thank God at the same instant someone called his name and he started to turn. The ball creased his head. He might have a fractured skull, I'm not sure, but I've seen worse who lived.\"\n\n\"But he's unconscious,\" Vincent said nervously.\n\n\"Hell, you'd be, too, if someone cracked the side of your head like that. Like I said, I'm not sure if it's fractured. I just want quiet in here, so please leave.\"\n\nAndrew nodded, withdrawing, motioning for Casmir to follow. The priest gently guided Tanya out with him, her cries echoing in the hallway, creating a dark tension that was ready to boil over as everyone was asking who and why.\n\nAndrew caught the eye of the captain of the guard and motioned him over.\n\n\"Secure this building, Captain. Six guards on this door, then sweep the building, everyone outside, send them home or, if they live here, they're to go to their rooms and stay. Send a messenger over to the barracks of the Thirty-Fifth, mobilize them out, secure a perimeter around this building and Congress.\"\n\n\"There's no need to surround Congress.\"\n\nIt was Bugarin, features flushed with excitement. \"Senator, as commander of the military I am responsible for security, and I ask you not to interfere.\"\n\n\"And it sounds like it could be the start of a coup to me, Colonel.\"\n\n\"Follow your orders, Captain,\" Andrew snapped. \"Report back to me within a half hour.\"\n\n\"I said there is no need for this now.\"\n\nAndrew finally turned back to face Bugarin.\n\n\"I'll be the judge of that, sir.\"\n\n\"The culprit has already been caught.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"And hung by the crowd outside; it was a Roum soldier.\"\n\n\"Merciful God,\" Andrew whispered in English.\n\nThough all urged him to launch the attack, still he refused, counseling calm, the gathering of strength before the final unleashing of the storm."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "\"As your own ancestor Vigarka once declared, 'When the portal of victory appears open, gaze twice before entering.'\"\n\nJurak saw several of the clan leaders nodding in agreement, chant singers who stood at the back of the golden yurt exchanging glances of pleasure that their new Qar Qarth could so easily quote from the great history of the ancestors.\n\n\"We know we have destroyed three of their umens,\" and as he spoke, he pointed to the Corps commanders' guidons hanging from the ceiling of the great yurt, shot-torn and stained regimental flags by the dozens clustered around them.\n\n\"That leaves but three on this front; surely our twenty-five umens can overwhelm that,\" Cavgayya of the 3rd umen of the black horse replied.\n\n\"Yes, we can overwhelm that, but why spend so needlessly of our sacred blood. More than fifty thousand yurts mourn their sons and fathers from the war before the great city of the cattle. Though we won this battle, still another fifteen thousand mourn. Our seed is not limitless like that of the cattle; each of your lives is precious to me.\"\n\nAgain he could see the nods of agreement. Ha'ark had been a profligate with the lives of the Bantag. It wasn t just the fifty thousand before Roum, it was another seventy thousand casualties to bring the army to Roum, nearly a third of their total strength of warriors lost. Yes, he suspected he could break through even this evening, but let it simmer just a bit longer, he reasoned. Keep the pressure on with raids, shows of strength. And most of all let the dozens of new ironclads, that even now were being sent to Xi'an and from there shipped across the Great Sea, come up to the front. Then he would launch the final push.\n\nBut perhaps that might not even be necessary, he thought with a smile. Their will is cracking.\n\n\"There shall be time to finish this war forever and with but a few more drops of blood compared to the buckets spent already.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "Suzdal was seething with rumors of plots and counterplots as Andrew stepped out of his simple clapboard house on the village square, the guards standing to either side of his porch snapping to attention.\n\nAfter the battle against the Tugars, and the destruction of the lower quarter of the city, the men of the 35th had been given this section of the city as a place to live, and there they had built a fair replica of a New England town square, complete with Presbyterian and Methodist churches, a monument in the center of the square to the men who had come to this world, and a bandstand, where in the brief periods of peace, evening concerts had been held.\n\nAndrew allowed himself the indulgence of a cigar while Hans, hands in his pocket, leaned against a pillar of the porch, anxiously looking around for a place to spit before settling on a bare spot of ground next to a bush covered with exotic yellow flowers. Emil came out a moment later, slapping his stomach.\n\n\"First halfway decent meal I've had in days,\" Emil announced.\n\nAndrew smiled. How Kathleen had managed to scrounge up a piece of corned beef and what passed for cabbages on this world was beyond him. Upstairs he could hear the children settling into bed, and again he felt guilt for not going upstairs to spend a little time, to play with them and forget, but too much had happened today, and there was still more to be done.\n\n\"You can almost sense it in the air,\" Emil said. \"This place is ready to explode.\"\n\nIt had come close to a riot in the hours after the assassination attempt. Emil declared that Kal stood a chance of making it even though his skull had indeed been fractured by the glancing blow of the bullet. Most of the citizens of the city, though, were convinced that Kal was already dead no matter what Emil or anyone else said. It had almost come to a fight when Andrew personally led a detachment to cut down the broken body of the Roum soldier who had been dragged out of the cathedral and strung up from a tavern sign. It took the intervention of Casmir to still the mob, and the body was taken by a detachment of soldiers to the Roum temple for burial in the catacombs. A guard was now on that temple, and orders passed that any Roum citizens in the city were to remain inside for the time being.\n\nThe only good thing to come out of it all was the cancellation of the meeting with the Committee, but that ordeal would come later in the week.\n\n\"Here comes Hawthorne,\" Hans announced, and Andrew saw Vincent come around the corner of the square, limping slowly, still using a cane, accompanied by the rest of the men Andrew had summoned, Bill Webster, who was secretary of the treasury, Tom Gates from the newspaper, Varinna Ferguson, and Ketswana, who was Hans's closest friend from their days of captivity and now served on his staff.\n\nAs the group came up the steps Andrew motioned for them to stand at ease and led the way into the small dining room, which had already been cleared of the evening meal. The group settled around the table, Andrew playing the role of host and passing around tea and, for those who wanted something stiffer, a bottle of vodka.\n\n\"All right, we've got to have it out,\" Andrew said. \"Perhaps I've been out of touch,\" and he hesitated, \"what with getting wounded and staying up at the front. I need to know just what the hell is going on back here.\"\n\nNo one wanted to open, and finally his gaze fixed on Webster. Years behind the desk had added a bit to his waistline, and his face was rounder, but the flag bearer who had won a Medal of Honor leading a charge still had the old courage in his eyes and the ability to talk straight when needed.\n\n\"The economy is in a shambles, sir.\"\n\n\"You were responsible to make sure it kept running,\" Hans interjected.\n\n\"Yes sir, I was. Now I could go into some long-winded lecture on this, but the plain and simple fact is we've tried ever since we've arrived here to pull these people across a hundred years of development in less than a generation. We've created a top-heavy system here, and the strain is now showing.\"\n\n\"Top-heavy? What do you mean?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"Well sir. Back when this all started all we needed to build was a factory, actually several factories, that could turn out lightweight rails, steam engines, and a few small locomotives, and works to make powder, smoothbore muskets, light four-pound cannons, and shot. That didn't take much doing once we got the idea rolling. Primitive as we thought them to be, the Rus can be master craftsmen, and they quickly adapted.\"\n\n\"And the Tugars were breathing down our necks to spur us along,\" Hawthorne interjected.\n\nWebster nodded in agreement and pushed on.\n\n\"We had a couple of years of peace after that to consolidate. In fact that was our boom period thanks to the building of railroad installations and the mechanization of farming with McCormick reapers, horse-drawn plows and planters. We produced surpluses that weren't going into a war, but rather were going to generate yet more production. We even had enough surplus that it started to improve people's lives as well, things like additional food, clothing, and tools. We started schools, literacy went up, and with it even more productivity.\"\n\n\"Don't forget medicine and sanitation,\" Emil interjected, and Webster nodded.\n\n\"Right there for example, sir. We had close to a thousand people working in Suzdal alone to install sewers and pipes for water. The same in Roum and every other city. We had thousands more building hospitals, training as nurses, midwives, and doctors. They were taken out of the traditional labor force, but the economy could afford that and in fact benefited directly by it. People had immediate benefits with lower mortality, particularly with children. Such things had a major impact on people's morale and willingness to work.\n\n\"Then the Merki War comes along. Sir, as we all know, Rus was devastated from one end to the other in that fight.\n\nWe scorched earth like the Russians did against Napoleon; the only thing we evacuated were the machines to make weapons and tools. After the end of that war the rebuilding normally would have taken a generation. Barely a home, other than in Suzdal, was left standing, and in addition we had to help Roum with the building of their railroads.\n\n\"Beyond all that we had to change our industry completely to outfit a new kind of army. Now it was rifles, breechloading guns, more powerful locomotives, aerosteamers, ironclads, new ships for the navy, heavier rail for the track. Tolerances on all machinery had to be improved a full magnitude or more.\n\n\"For example our old muzzle-loading flintlocks were nothing more than pipes mounted on wooden stocks; if they were off a hundredth of an inch in the barrel no big deal. The caliber of the ball was three-hundredths of an inch smaller than the barrel anyhow.\n\n\"When it comes to our new Sharps model breechloaders, however, we're talking thousandths of an inch tolerances on each part. It took tremendous effort, precision, and training to reach that. We had to take thousands of men and women and train them from scratch, and that took time, surplus, and money. Remember, they still have to eat, have housing, and the basics of life, even though while they are learning new skills they aren't directly contributing anything to the economy.\"\n\nAndrew nodded, trying to stay focused on what was being said but already feeling frustrated. His point of attention had always been the battlefield, and the politics of shaping a republic, having to deal with this aspect, was troubling to him.\n\n\"All our production energy went into improving our military,\" Webster continued without pause, \"rather than things directly needed to build a broader base of wealth for everybody. Even though we were at peace, we were still running a wartime economy. Living standards, both here and in Roum, actually started to drop as a result even though people were working harder.\n\n\"If we had had five years, better yet ten, we could have adjusted, eased off, produced things like housing, schools, churches, hospitals other than for the military, improved roads, made better farm tools, laid track for the transport of goods rather than for items of military priority, trained doctors for the villages-rather than the army, and for that matter had hundreds of thousands of young men building these things rather than carrying rifles. So when this new war started the strain redoubled.\n\n\"Add into that the fact that more than half of Roum is occupied territory. Some of our richest land is in the hands of the Horde, with more than a million refugees having to be provided for.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Hans interjected. \"I keep hearing about how nearly half the Rus have died as a result of the wars.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" Webster replied quietly.\n\n\"Then give that land to the Roum refugees.\"\n\n\"They still have to have places to live, seeds for crops. Some of the fields have been fallow for five years or more and are overgrown. We're trying that, but still, what they're producing is maybe one-tenth of what they grew a year ago.\"\n\nHans grunted, looked around, and finally spat out the open window. Andrew could not help but grin and made certain not to make eye contact with Kathleen.\n\n\"The point is,\" Webster pressed, \"the economy is brittle. The best analogy I can give is that we're like the Confederacy in late 1864. Sherman is cutting the heart out of Georgia, Sheridan has burned the valley, the rail lines have been pounded to pieces by overuse and undermaintenance. I remember Sherman saying that war was not just the armies that fought, it was the entire nation, and he was taking the war into the heart of the enemy nation.\n\n\"That's what the Bantag have done, though I don't know if they're actually aware of it or not.\"\n\n\"From what I suspect of Jurak he's aware of it,\" Andrew replied.\n\n\"I hate to say this, sir,\" Webster replied, \"but no matter how gallant our army the folks back home are just plumb worn-out. People no longer trust the paper money we introduced. The women that make fuses for shells, we were paying them five dollars a week a year ago, now it's fifty. I'm printing money twenty-four hours a day, and no one wants it anymore. Andrew, the tens of thousands who work in the factories have to eat since they're no longer growing their own food. We have no gold or silver reserves, so what do we pay them with?\"\n\nHe fell silent looking around guiltily as if he had created the bad tidings. Everyone knew he had wrought a miracle just managing to build the system up, and for Andrew it was frightful to hear that it was on the point of collapsing.\n\n\"And the Bantag, isn't that reason enough to work?\" Hans replied. \"Damn it all, their sons and husbands are dying up at the front. Isn't that reason to go and work?\"\n\n\"A growling stomach, your children crying because they're hungry can blunt the argument,\" Gates replied. \"I'm out there every day talking to people, getting news.\"\n\n\"And what are they saying?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"Maybe if the Bantag were pouring over the White Mountains by Kev, maybe that would rouse them up again. But then again, Andrew, how many times have they already endured that since we got here? It's these damn Chin ambassadors talking peace and the word going straight from the floor of Congress to the streets that's helping to undermine it.\"\n\n\"And can't they see it's a damned lie?\" Hans cried. \"I was there, damn it. The Bantag are no different than the Merki, or even the Tugars for that matter.\"\n\n\"We have to talk not about what we wish or desire, but rather what is,\" Hawthorne replied.\n\nAndrew looked over at his young chief of staff.\n\n\"Go on, Vincent.\"\n\n\"I think Webster and Gates are right. War weariness is eroding our ability to fight. All these people went into this war with little if any concept of what freedom was, other than a vague ideal. Next they expected that it would be one short hard fight and decided. No one, not even us, anticipated a series of wars that would drag on for close to a decade.\"\n\nAndrew found that idea alone to be troubling. The question had been raised more than once during his old war back home as to whether a republic had the ability to maintain a long-term conflict. It was through the personal strength of George Washington alone that the Revolution had not finally degenerated into a military dictatorship.\n\nIn the war with the Confederacy if victory had not been so evidently close in 1864, the Democrats most likely would have won the elections and accepted a divided country, thus squandering the blood of more than a quarter million Union men who had died to hold the United States together. Given that knowledge he wondered if a republic could endure this continual battering?\n\n\"Politics in Congress,\" Vincent continued, \"is dividing the Republic not just between Roum and Rus, but also between those who are accepting the bait of terms and those who are not. Finally, there is the simple military question we must all face.\"\n\n\"And that is?\"\n\n\"Can we still win in the field?\"\n\nAndrew looked around the room. Kathleen stood in the doorway, hands tucked into her apron pockets. Upstairs he could hear one of the children engaged in some mischief, their nanny trying to shush him to silence. All eyes were upon him, forcing the question that had burdened his soul long before the start of the doomed offensive.\n\n\"It's not a question of can we win,\" Andrew offered, \"rather it's a statement that there is no alternative to victory. Even if we had lost the war back home, we would have gone on living. Sure, we all remember the stories about Andersonville and Libby Prison, but even then we knew that if cornered, surrender was still an option, and most Rebs would share their canteen with you and bandage your wounds. We were fighting a war where surrender for either side was an option. If we had lost that war, we would not have liked the results, but we would have gone home and continued to live.\n\n\"We'll most likely never know if indeed we did win the war back on Earth. I think it was evident that we would. As for the Confederates, defeat did not mean annihilation or even enslavement, so we were all seeing that many of them were willing finally to have peace and to accept the consequences. Here there is no such luxury.\"\n\n\"You haven't answered the question, sir,\" Vincent pressed.\n\nAndrew bristled slightly at the cold, almost accusing tone in Vincent's voice but knew that the boy was doing his job, and besides, he would be forced to answer the same question before Congress.\n\n\"If it continues as it is,\" he hesitated, looking down at his clenched fist, \"no, we will lose the war.\"\n\nThere was a stirring in the room, looks of fear, shock. All except Hans who didn't stir, his jaw continuing to move mechanically as he worked his chew of tobacco.\n\n\"Why?\" Gates asked.\n\n\"It was always the edge of superior technology that offset their numbers. We had barely a corps of men armed with smoothbores when the Tugars came. We were outnumbered ten to one. but it was enough to stop them. Against the Merki we fielded six corps, about the same size army that fought at Gettysburg. We were outnumbered six to one there, and that was a damn close run for they had smoothbores and artillery the same as we did, but we had moved on to rifles, rockets, and better airships.\n\n\"Even last fall we had an edge. They had the land ironclads, but we quickly made one that was better and armed with Gatling guns. But in one short year they've caught up with some sort of rapid-fire gun, their airships are as good as ours, and their new ironclads heavier than ours and able to outgun us.\n\n\"As to the numbers. One corps is wasted guarding the frontier to the west. Two more corps are ringing the territory to the southeast of Roum. We have three corps in the pocket down on the eastern coast of the Inland Sea, and\u2014until three days ago\u2014we had eight corps on the main front. Now we have little more than five corps on that front.\"\n\nHe hesitated for a moment.\n\n\"So we've lost the edge. They're outproducing us. They outnumber us six to one on the Capua Front. We can assume that within a fortnight they will force a crossing the same as we tried, the difference being that they will succeed. At that moment, in a tactical sense, we will be exactly where we were back at midwinter. Strategically, however, the difference will be that their weapons are better, their commander more prudent, and we will be down well over fifty thousand men compared to what we had the last time.\"\n\n\"And so that's it?\" Gates asked.\n\n\"I think the political ramifications are clear enough,\" Andrew continued. \"Marcus, God rest him, is dead. Though he was bloody difficult at times, he was a friend I could trust. That strong leadership from Roum is now a vacuum.\n\nFlavius is good as Speaker of the House but doesn't have the following Marcus did. I fear that once the line is broken, Jurak will shrewdly offer terms yet again, the fears between the two states of the Republic will explode, the Republic will fracture, and then we shall be destroyed.\" Andrew stopped talking. As he reached over to his glass of tea he realized his hand was trembling.\n\n\"Are you suggesting that we stage a coup d'etat?\" Gates asked.\n\n\"I didn't say that,\" Andrew replied sharply.\n\n\"It has to be considered,\" Hawthorne replied forcefully. Startled, Andrew looked over at him.\n\n\"Sir, the army knows what it is fighting for. They see what the enemy can do. For that matter damn near every veteran who is no longer in the service because of disabilities understands it as well. Yes, they're war weary, we all are, but they'll be damned if they'll ever bare their throats to the Bantags' butchering knives.\n\n\"And as for Congress. If those bastards are willing to sell us down the river, if they're maneuvering to splinter the Republic, then they deserve to be hung as traitors, every one of them.\"\n\n\"What you're saying is treasonous,\" Andrew snapped. \"If this be treason, make the most of it,\" Hawthorne cried.\n\nVincent looked over at Hans. \"Ask Ketswana to tell us what he learned.\"\n\nHans nodded and quickly spoke to Ketswana in the dialect of Chin which the captives had used while in slavery. Ketswana replied in broken Rus.\n\n\"Roum soldier, one who hung. Was in tavern five minutes before shot fired.\"\n\nSurprised, Andrew looked at Hans.\n\n\"I have my own intelligence net here; they answer to Vincent when I'm not around.\"\n\n\"This was never authorized by me.\"\n\n\"It was by me. The Chin and Zulus were neutral; they could talk to both sides, Rus and Roum. With the stress developing between the two sides I thought it best to act, so I got this going last autumn.\"\n\n\"Something about that shooting didn't sit right from the start,\" Vincent replied. \"I checked that poor boy's record.\n\nPromoted to corporal for heroism at Rocky Hill. Invalid due to dysentery and the last nine months in hospital. But everyone said he was a good soldier, eager to get back. Not the assassin type.\"\n\n\"But he was found in the church?\" Kathleen asked.\n\n\"Yes, he went running in to try and catch who did it. Then a mob grabbed him, claimed he had a gun, and he was dragged out and hung.\"\n\n\"According to who?\"\n\nHans looked over at Ketswana.\n\n\"One of my men drink with him, follow, see all, get away before he hung, too.\"\n\n\"So who was leading this mob?\"\n\n\"It might have been a crowd carried away with frenzy. It might have been more, though,\" Hans said.\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"Kill the president. There's no vice president; therefore, the Speaker of the House, Tiberius Flavius, becomes president. Either he was plotting to do it or someone else.\"\n\n\"Flavius is an honorable man,\" Andrew replied sharply. \"I knew him as a damn good officer who came up through the ranks, and he's a wounded veteran of Hispania. He's not the type.\"\n\n\"Or then a countercoup,\" Hawthorne replied. \"Blame Flavius for the death of Kal, claim it's a plot by Roum to seize the government, and break the Republic in the process.\"\n\n\"Bugarin?\"\n\n\"My likely candidate,\" Hawthorne snapped bitterly.\n\n\"Damn all.\" Andrew sighed. So that's why Hawthorne is thinking coup, strike first in order to prevent one.\n\nThere was too much to assimilate. He had been far too preoccupied with the preparations for the offensive and the dealing with the results to give serious consideration as to what was going on seven hundred miles away in the capital. He knew there were tensions but prayed that a successful attack, even one that was just a partial success, would quiet the differences and create the resolve to push the war through to its conclusion. He wondered self-critically if that concern had clouded his decision-making to go ahead with the offensive.\n\nHe suddenly felt exhausted, unable to decide what to do next. He knew that a mere nod of his head would mean that Vincent would get up, walk out of the room, and within the hour Congress would be arrested. Besides the training school of cadets who were now the 35th Maine and 44th New York, there was a sprinkling of forty or fifty men from the original units in the city, holding various key positions. There was a brigade of troops garrisoned there and thousands of discharged vets in the factories who could be called out in an emergency. He'd have the government by morning, straighten out the mess, then go from there.\n\nAnd, damn it, destroy forever what I wanted to create here. Of that he was certain. Once the precedent had been set, it would be forever embedded in the heart of the Republic. Washington had resisted the temptation knowing the history of Rome and Greece when it came to coups. He would rather have seen the Revolution go down to bloody defeat than betray it. Napoleon, rather than Lincoln and Washington, would then be the model for this Republic, this entire world. The concept of a republic which he had so carefully nurtured since first setting foot upon this world would be lost forever.\n\nYet even if I did seize control, then what? The war is still being lost. We might hold on for a while, maybe even create a stalemate on the Capua Front, but still Jurak will wear us down, for he has the labor of millions of slaves to support him, and if need be feed him with their own flesh. Either way we lose.\n\nHe looked at his friends. How to admit it, that after ten years of valiant effort, they were losing. Have we been losing all along, he wondered, and were just not willing to admit it? If that's true, then is the dream of a republic one that is ultimately doomed to failure? Though he wanted to believe in Kal, he sensed that his old friend was weakening under the stress, and for the time being he was out of the picture. The other side promised peace. And the greater complexities of the issues\u2014well, tragically, the average person just didn't seem to grasp them.\n\nHe had been in the army too long, he realized. In the military issues were far clearer\u2014there was survival or death, that was drilled in from day one. You did the right thing, you survived, make a mistake \u2026 you died, or worse yet, good men died because of you.\n\nA hell of a lot of good men had just died because of his mistake, his not realizing that the very nature of the war was changing yet again.\n\nIt's changed again, so we have to find a way to change it back in our favor. He looked over at Emil.\n\n\"I want the truth from you, my friend.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"Since I got wounded, I mean since I came back to command,\" he hesitated.\n\nEmil leaned forward in his chair. He sensed Kathleen's watchful gaze on him.\n\n\"I'm not the same. Something's changed in me.\"\n\n\"We're all changed,\" Emil started soothingly, but an angry wave from Andrew silenced him.\n\n\"No, I don't mean that. It's deeper than that. I feel like I've lost something. Not just my edge, far deeper, the very mettle of my soul. All along I sensed a problem with our assault at Capua, I sensed it but failed to clearly get ahead of the problem and reason it out before it happened.\"\n\n\"No one could have anticipated the response from their new leader,\" Emil replied.\n\n\"But I should have. There's no damn room for a mistake in my position.\"\n\nHe looked around the room at his old friends, wondering for a moment if he was about to dissolve into tears. Do that, though, and we've all lost. In the end, he realized, all of it, from the moment they had come through the Portal of Light, back so many years, so many ages ago, all rested upon him.\n\nDamn, I never wanted this, and then he hesitated with his inner remorse as the truth surged up from within. The self-humility was a lie, a damnable lie. He had indeed wanted it.\n\nHe had wanted command of the regiment, Hans knew that as far back as Fredericksburg. He loved his old commander, Colonel Estes as a father, but like any son of ability, inwardly he longed to transcend what his father was and could be. And when Estes fell at Gettysburg he had mourned him, yet he had sprung to take his place.\n\nHe had wanted a brigade, knowing he could do better than far too many of the damned fools Meade and Grant allowed to command. Here was a harsh realization. One is taught to have humility, to admire one's elders and emulate them, and a display of raw ambition is somehow immoral.\n\nYet he knew in the core of his soul that he was blessed with something, and that something was the ability to lead \u2026 and to dream of all the greatness that a republic could be. Yet so unfortunately a republic, and a volunteer army of a republic, far too often drew into its folds the weak, the venal, those who were ambitious for their own sakes.\n\nHe looked around at his friends.\n\n\"I fomented a rebellion against the natural order of this world,\" he said slowly. \"When we realized what the hordes were, the men actually voted to take ship, to find some safe haven and sit it out, but I talked them into fighting and convinced the Rus they could fight.\n\n\"And now it is all crashing down around me.\n\n\"Emil, I think I've been sick. Sick within my soul. Ever since this winter the stress of it has paralyzed me. I feel like a puppet. The strings are moved, I woodenly follow into the next step, and thus I've numbly wandered to this point. The government is collapsing, I allowed an offensive to be launched that my inner heart told me not to allow, and now I sit here numbly as the end closes in around us.\"\n\nEmil said nothing, staring straight into his eyes. The moment seemed to stretch out.\n\n\"I believe there are two paths to this world, to any world,\" Andrew said slowly, his voice thick with emotion. \"The one is to believe what the masses believe. To make yourself part of them, and to follow, to follow even as you claim to lead.\"\n\n\"And the other path?\" Emil asked.\n\n\"If God gave you the ability, even if everyone else thinks you are mad, then use it.\"\n\nEmil chuckled softly.\n\n\"We shall either meanly lose or nobly save the last best hope of mankind,\" Emil finally offered.\n\n\"I'm taking control of this situation,\" Andrew said. \"We're all frightened right now, me most of all. Either we become mad and fight back, or we die. But if we are doomed to die, let's die as free men.\"\n\n\"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.\"\n\nSurprised, he looked up at Kathleen, who had just spoken. She smiled knowingly, as if having sensed every thought that had crossed his mind.\n\n\"And as our case is new,\" Gates continued, \"we must act anew and think anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.\"\n\nAndrew smiled at the recitation of Lincoln's famous words. The room was hot, silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the comer of the room, the only other sound the laughter of one of the children upstairs.\n\nWe must disenthrall ourselves \u2026 but how damn it, how?\n\n\"We have to end the war now,\" Kathleen said. Her voice was hard, cold. It wasn't a statement of speculation or hope, it was merely hard honest fact.\n\nHe looked up at her.\n\n\"You mean negotiate?\"\n\n\"No, damn it. No! We all know where that will lead. It will merely postpone our deaths. If you do that, I'll go upstairs and poison our children rather than have them live with the death we all know will come. Jurak cannot rest until all in this room, and all touched by you, are dead. He understands us too well, and thus understands the threat that we are.\"\n\n\"So what is the alternative then?\" Andrew sighed. \"Another offensive? The government will block it. For that matter I wonder if we'll even have a government or a united effort in another few days.\"\n\n\"Exodus, go north,\" Webster ventured quietly.\n\n\"You mean just leave?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"Exactly. We did it before, we evacuated all of Rus against the Merki. Well, maybe the mistake was we tried to hold on to the steppe region. Lord knows how far north the forest belt extends. Pack it up, and go into the forest until we find a place where they won't follow.\"\n\n\"We've talked about that before,\" Vincent replied. \"It's impossible. First off, the government will break apart on that one. Second, they'll follow us, and we'll be burdened down with hundreds of thousands of civilians, children, old people. It will turn into a slaughter.\"\n\n\"Well if the government does surrender, that's where I think we should all head,\" Webster replied. \"I'll be damned if I stay here and wait to have my throat slit. At least there's some hope in that.\"\n\n\"If I were Jurak,\" Andrew replied, \"I wouldn't care if it took twenty years. I'd hunt down the survivors. There is no way they can ever dream of continuing their ride until they know we are all dead, for once they turn their backs upon us we'll rebuild. The fundamental issue, besides the moon feast, the enslavement, is that they are nomadic. They cannot leave a cancer behind that will spread in their wake.\"\n\n\"He'll kill everyone once we're dead or fled,\" Hans said. \"You people seem to have forgotten something in all this. Andrew, I remember the dream was there for you at the start, but it seems to have blurred. This is not just about us. We started a revolution on this world. The only way it will survive is if we spread the revolution around the entire planet. We must free everyone or no one. I left millions of comrades in slavery when I escaped, and I vowed upon my soul to help set them free and if need be to die doing it.\"\n\nAndrew was surprised by the passion of Hans's words. He was normally so reticent, and so rarely was an idealism allowed to creep out from behind the gruff Germanic exterior of the old sergeant major. He could not help but smile at the revolutionary passion that moved his oldest friend.\n\n\"Then free them,\" Varinna Ferguson said in flawless English.\n\nFor the first time since the meeting had started Andrew took serious notice of the woman sitting on the chair by the doorway. Kathleen's hands slipped down to rest on the woman's slender shoulders. As she spoke it seemed that the voice almost came from somewhere else, so horribly scarred were her features, the skin that had grown over the burns a taut expressionless mask. And yet he could still sense the graceful beauty that was locked within, that had caused Chuck Ferguson to see beyond the torn exterior to the beauty and strength of the soul.\n\n\"I didn't know you could speak English,\" Gates exclaimed, looking over at her in surprise.\n\n\"You never asked,\" she replied, her words causing a round of chuckles from the others. \"You were always too busy talking to my husband to notice me.\"\n\n\"My apologies, madam,\" Gates quickly said, his features turning red, \"my most humble apologies.\"\n\n\"You said 'free them,' \" Hans said, the slightest tone of eagerness in his voice. \"How, may I ask?\"\n\n\"How did we first know that you were alive?\" she replied.\n\n\"Jack Petracci flew over us.\"\n\nShe looked inquiringly at Andrew, who nodded. She slowly stood up. In her hands was a battered notebook.\n\n\"These are some of my husband's writings. How do you say \u2026 ideas, dreams. That is why he taught me English, so I could read them after he was gone.\"\n\nShe put the book upon the table and all looked at it with a bit of reverence, for without the mind of Chuck Ferguson they knew they would have died long ago.\n\n\"Right after you were rescued, before the war started on the eastern front, he made some notes here.\" And she opened the book, skimming through the pages until she finally came to the place she wanted. \"Just a few pages, but on the night before he died he pointed them out to me, told me to work upon them.\"\n\nShe passed the book over to Andrew. He carefully took the bound volume, scanning the page, wondering how she had managed to master Chuck's infamous scrawled crablike writings.\n\nShe reached into her apron pocket, pulled out a sheaf of papers, carefully unfolded them, and laid them out on the table. It wasn't a bundle of papers but rather a large single sheet of drafting paper, half a dozen feet across and several feet wide, taking up most of the table. Andrew noticed just how badly her hands had been burned as well\u2014two of the fingers on her left hand were little more than stumps. As he scanned the paper he saw that half of it was a detailed map, the other half covered with a different kind of handwriting than Chuck's, simple block lettering, some of it calculations, the rest commentary with lines drawn to the map while the far right side of the sheet had sketches of airships.\n\n\"I did,\" she hesitated, \"calculations. I think it is possible to do, but the chances? It is win all or lose all.\"\n\nAndrew stood up and went over to her side, the others gathering around him. He stood silent, scanning the map, then the plan written out, and finally the calculations. It was the details of the plan Vincent had forwarded to him just prior to the assault. He looked over at Vincent; there was the slightest flicker of a smile tracing the corners of his mouth.\n\n\"Impossible,\" Webster announced sharply, breaking the silence.\n\nAndrew looked over at Hans and saw the eyes of his comrade shining brightly, and he felt a stab of fear, knowing what it undoubtedly meant.\n\n\"I rejected this idea out of hand less than a week ago,\" he finally announced.\n\n\"That was a week ago,\" Varinna replied. \"Today is today, the day after a defeat. Just minutes ago I heard you admit that we shall lose the war. If we are to lose the war, then this plan should go forward.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Emil asked, leaning over the table to study the lines on the map. \"I think anyone who goes on this, particularly the airship operation is doomed to die.\"\n\n\"Because it won't matter then,\" she announced smoothly. \"The men who go would die anyhow if they stay home. If they go and die, and lose, then it is the same. If they go, and die, but change the path of the war to victory, then it is a sacrifice that is worth it.\"\n\nAndrew marveled at her cold precise logic, which cut straight to the heart of the matter.\n\nAs if from a great distance he could hear the grandfather clock chiming the hour\u2014it was midnight.\n\nAll waited for him to speak. He was torn. He so desperately wanted to grab this, to cling to it, to see it bring them to a change in fate. Yet he feared it as well and all that it suggested and held, especially for Hans.\n\n\"This is what I've dreamed of all along. I say go,\" Hans finally said, breaking the silence. Andrew turned, looking into his eyes again.\n\nAndrew finally nodded.\n\n\"We do it. Start preparations at once.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "Who was it? Kal stirred uncomfortably, the pain was numbing but he had known worse, losing an arm, the beatings old Boyar Ivor, might his soul burn in hell, had administered.\n\nYet who did it?\n\nHe opened his eyes. His wife, sitting at the foot of the bed, roused from her sleep and started to get out of the chair. Her features were pale, heavy cheeks looking.pasty in the candlelight.\n\nHe motioned for her to sit back down, but she was already at the side of the bed.\n\n\"Water, my husband?\" she whispered.\n\nHe started to shake his head, but the pain was too much.\n\n\"No, nothing.\"\n\n\"I made some broth, beef, your favorite.\"\n\n\"No, please.\"\n\nHe looked around the room.\n\n\"Emil?\"\n\n\"He left. Said I was to fetch him if you wanted.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"He's at the colonel's home.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see.\"\n\nHe knew she would not relent with her attentions until she could do something, so he finally let her pull the blankets up, even though the night was so hot. He remained quiet, staring at the candle as she finally settled back into her chair and picked up her knitting which had fallen to the floor when she had dozed off.\n\nWhy would Emil be at Andrew's? Were they planning something?\n\nNot Andrew. Never Andrew. In the beginning he could have so easily become boyar himself. No one would have objected, least of all me, he reasoned. I was just peasant, he was already officer, like a noble and he was the liberator. Instead he propped me up, trained me, made me the president.\n\nBut was that so I could always follow what he desired. Bugarin said as much, that a Yankee could never rule for long, so he had chosen a dumb peasant to be his shield. He wondered on that thought for a moment. There was a certain wisdom to it, for in the end never did I go against what Andrew desired; therefore, in a way he did rule without all the bother of it.\n\n\"Not Andrew,\" he whispered.\n\nShe stirred, ready to get up again and he allowed his eyes to flutter shut. She settled back down in her chair.\n\nBugarin? Logical. Blame it on Flavius. I'm dead, Flavius is killed by the mob, Bugarin becomes president and then boyar again. So guard against Bugarin. But it just might have been Flavius after all. Yet if I had died, we would not have lived an hour in the city of Suzdal.\n\nWho then?\n\nI have lost Congress. Bugarin has the votes of those who want an end to it. The Roum congressmen are in terror, lost with the news of Marcus's death. If I continue the war as Andrew wants, then they will block it, splitting the Republic. If I try to stop it, what will Andrew do?\n\nAn inch to the right Emil said. But one inch, and I would not have to worry about this. I would be standing before Perm and his glorious son Kesus, all cares forgotten. Yet Tanya would still be here, the grandchildren, their half-mad father Vincent.\n\nAh, now there is a thought. Vincent is the warhawk. Could he be the mask behind the mask? Andrew would never do it, but Vincent was capable. If Bugarin tried a coup, Andrew would block it but might fall as well. Then it would be Vincent.\n\nNo. What was it Emil called it? A word for too much fear. But it was troubling, and he could not go to sleep."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "The fact that he had asked for the meeting had caught him by surprise. Walking into the main hall of the Capitol Building he stopped, looking to his right toward his own chambers. The building was empty except for the lone military guard posted under the open rotunda. It had been started in the year before the start of the Bantag War. Though Keane insisted that construction must go forward in spite of the war, the less than half-completed dome was now covered with canvas.\n\nHe turned to his left and walked into the meeting chamber of the House of Representatives. Often he had heard the shouted debates coming from this room, and he found it distasteful, a rowdy mix of foreigners and lowborn peasants. At least the fifteen members of the Senate were, except for one or two, of the proper blood, even those from Roum, in spite of their being cursed pagans.\n\n\"Senator Bugarin. Thank you for coming.\"\n\nThe chair behind the desk turned and the diminutive Flavius was staring at him. He was lean and wiry, a mere servant in the house of Marcus and now the Speaker.\n\nThough he loathed the type, Bugarin could sense that Flavius was a soldier's soldier, one whom the veterans who predominated in Congress could trust whether they were of Rus or Roum. And since the pagans were the majority, of course their man would control this half of Congress.\n\nBugarin said nothing. He simply approached the chair, waiting for this one to rise in front of a better. Flavius, as if sensing the game, waited, and then slowly stood, favoring his right leg, giving a bare nod of the head in acknowledgment of the man who controlled the other half of the legislators.\n\n\"I'll come straight to the issue,\" Flavius said in Rus, his accent atrocious to Bugarin's ears. \"We both know that poor soldier who was murdered today had nothing to do with the assassination attempt.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" Bugarin asked politely.\n\nFlavius extended his hands in a gesture of exasperation. \"We might disagree on a great many things, but to assassinate the president. Never.\"\n\n\"Are you saying he acted alone then?\"\n\n\"You know precisely what I am saying. The boy was innocent. He should have been standing in these chambers receiving a medal rather than being hung by a Rus mob.\"\n\n\"So you are saying we murdered him?\"\n\n\"Damn you,\" Flavius muttered in Latin, but Bugarin could sense what was said and bristled.\n\n\"The Republic is dying; we can still save it,\" Flavius continued, gaining control of his temper.\n\n\"Republic? It is already dead,\" Bugarin snapped. \"It died when your soldiers ran at Capua, unable even to retake their own territory.\"\n\n\"I had a brother with Eleventh Corps,\" Flavius announced coldly. \"If he is dead, he died fighting, not running. I've been a soldier most of my life, and I know my people. They are as good in battle as those from Rus. I wish I could strangle with my own hands whoever started these rumors, these lies about my people.\"\n\n\"Understandable you would react that way.\"\n\nFlavius stopped for a moment, not sure of what to say next.\n\n\"If that is all you wish to discuss?\" Bugarin asked haughtily.\n\n\"No, of course not.\"\n\n\"Then out with it. It's late, and I have other concerns.\"\n\n\"Will you pull Rus out of the war?\"\n\n\"My position is well-known.\"\n\n\"And that is?\"\n\n\"The war is unwinnable now. We must seek a way out.\"\n\n\"And that means selling Roum to the Bantag?\"\n\n\"Are you not contemplating the same deal with Jurak?\" Flavius said nothing for a moment.\n\n\"You have spies as do I. I know that Marcus, before his death, was secretly meeting with the ambassadors before they were forwarded to the Senate. And remember, Flavius, the issues of war and peace rest with the Senate. The great colonel designed it that way, did he not?\"\n\n\"There is nothing more to be said,\" Flavius replied coldly.\n\nBugarin smiled.\n\n\"It was a feeble attempt,\" Bugarin ventured just as he was starting to turn to leave.\n\n\"What?\" And there was a cold note of challenge in Flavius's voice.\n\n\"Just that. Too bad you missed.\"\n\nAs Bugarin turned the sound of a dagger being drawn hissed in the assembly hall. Bugarin turned, dagger drawn as well.\n\n\"Come on you lowborn bastard,\" Bugarin snarled. \"Spill blood here and show what a lie this place is.\"\n\nFlavius was as still as statue, dagger poised low. Finally, he relaxed, letting the blade slip back into its sheath.\n\n\"Yes, it's true I know not who my father is. My bastardy is of birth, not of behavior.\"\n\nBugarin tensed, ready to spring, but knew that before he even crossed the few feet that separated them the old veteran would have his blade back out and buried to the hilt. Forcing a smile, Bugarin stepped back several feet.\n\n\"It will be settled soon enough. I think the question is now, who will betray whom first.\"\n\n\"As I assumed, Senator,\" Flavius said with a smile."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "Andrew slowed as they rode past the station, reining in his horse for a moment to let the long string of ambulances pass. The hospital trains had been coming in throughout the night, more than three thousand men over the last week, and with each casualty unloaded a new story was blurted out about the disaster at Capua.\n\nIn the predawn darkness he knew no one would recognize him. In the past he would have stopped to talk with the wounded as they were off-loaded, offer encouragement, but not this morning. On this of all mornings there were other things to be done before the sun rose.\n\nHans, riding beside him, bit off a chew and passed the plug over to Andrew, who nodded his thanks and took a bite of the bitter tobacco.\n\nThey rode in silence. Hans, slumped comfortably in the saddle, carbine cradled in one arm. Andrew looked over at him, wondering, wanting to say so much but not sure how to say it.\n\n\"Hans?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nHe sounded so relaxed.\n\n\"Are you afraid?\" Andrew whispered.\n\nHans smiled.\n\n\"A slave doesn't have the luxury to be afraid. Remember, I was a slave, and then I was freed, at least in body. I wonder if this is how Lazarus felt, having seen what was beyond and then returning.\"\n\nHe shook his head, as if the dark thoughts of the years of imprisonment weighed him down.\n\n\"Every day I've had since has been a gift. Now it's time to pay for the gift.\"\n\n\"I wish it was different.\"\n\n\"I know, son. It's all right, though,\" Hans said soothingly. \"You were the one that had to make the decision to do this and now bear the responsibility for our lives. This might very well be the hardest command decision you've ever made.\"\n\nAndrew nodded.\n\n\"Once we take off, the commotion will certainly be noticed. and you'll have to tell Congress. If we lose\"\u2014and he chuckled\u2014\"well, there goes the last hope I guess.\" Andrew didn't want to think of that alternative yet. It would mean every single airship and ironclad was gone. Without them, Jurak would slice through the Capua line like a hot knife through butter. As it stood now, if he second-guessed what was truly up, he might do it anyhow.\n\n\"Damn tough decision,\" Hans said, \"and here you were worried if you'd lost your nerve.\"\n\n\"Just before we went in at Capua, I lied to you, Hans.\"\n\nHans chuckled and spat. \"You mean about willingly sacrificing me if it meant victory.\"\n\n\"Yes, I've sacrificed too many. I still think I should go on this one, not you.\"\n\n\"Can you speak Chin?\" Hans asked. \"How about the Bantag slave dialect, or even Bantag for that matter?\" Andrew sighed and shook his head.\n\n\"Well that kind of settles it, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Andrew. Sometimes it's the staying behind and doing nothing that's the hardest thing of all.\"\n\nThey stopped as a diminutive switching engine, one of the old 4-4-0 models wheezed past them, pushing a flatcar loaded with two freshly made ten-pound breechloaders. \"I've been thinking on that, too,\" Andrew said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The doing nothing.\"\n\nHans chuckled. \"Actually, my friend, given my choice, I'm glad I'm going rather than staying here and dealing with this snake pit of politics.\"\n\nAndrew could not help but smile as they urged their mounts forward after the train passed.\n\nOnce clear of the yard they rode up through the rows of roughly made brick homes that housed the thousands of workers who labored down in the valley of the Vina River.\n\nPast one of the burial mounds of the Tugars they continued their climb up the hill, Hans stopping for a moment to watch the inferno of steam and smoke cascading up from the foundry as a new batch of molten iron was released from its cauldron.\n\n\"It's almost beautiful,\" Hans exclaimed, pointing to the towering clouds of smoke caught and illuminated by the first light of early dawn. Andrew found himself in agreement. It made him think of the school of artists back on the old world, who worshiped the beauty of nature and painted the scenery of the Hudson River valley.\n\nThe smoke and steam had the same quality as the billowing afternoon cumulus, cloaking a mountaintop, but this mountain was man-made, the clouds man-made as well. The lighting, however, was unworldly, the deep morning reds unique to this world.\n\nHe smiled at the thought of the word unworldly, unworldly for home, but then this was home now, after all these years the sunlight normal, the twin moons normal, the lighter feel when one walked normal as well.\n\n\"I take it yesterday's session with the Senate was bad?\" Hans asked.\n\nAndrew nodded. \"It's deadlock. Kal is nowhere out of the woods yet. Flavius refuses to step in as acting president since it would mean that a pro-peace man would take his place, and Bugarin is badgering to sign the agreement presented by the Chin ambassadors.\"\n\n\"Well, in an hour I'll be beyond it all,\" Hans announced.\n\n\"I know,\" Andrew whispered.\n\n\"Maybe by doing nothing at all you might be doing the best thing possible,\" Hans said.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"You'll figure it out.\"\n\nHans chuckled, and Andrew knew his friend had presented him with a little something to dwell on and was not about to say anything more on the subject.\n\nTheir path led them through what had once been the grove where he had first admitted to Kathleen that he loved her, long since gone and replaced with warehouses and yet more brick homes. Finally, they crested the road leading along the banks of the reservoir and were out of the new city of Suzdal. The waters of the lake were still, a mirror surface reflecting the morning sky, a soft welcome relief.\n\nDirectly ahead were several low clapboard buildings covered with camouflage netting and painted a dark green and brown. Lights still glowed in the windows and there was a bustle of activity inside. Out around the building dozens were racing back and forth.\n\nRiding up, the two dismounted and hitched their horses. Varinna stood in the open doorway, and it was obvious she had been up all night, as she wearily came down to greet the two.\n\nSince the decision to launch the mission all of her people had worked at a frenzied pace, made more difficult because of Andrew's decision to clamp down a tight lid of security on the whole operation. It was a near-impossible thing to contain, with the city only a couple of miles away but by some miracle no one in Congress had found out, most likely because they were too preoccupied with their own squabbles to notice the round-the-clock insanity up at the aerosteamer field.\n\nAs for the dozens of messages sent to the front and to Roum, ordering the redeployment of aerosteamers and the remaining regiment of land ironclads, that had all been done using a book code. Admiral Bullfinch had personally overseen loading the ironclads during the night. The two ships carrying the machines and a transport hauling hydrogen vats, ammunition, and ground crews had all sailed under cover of night. If everything was going according to plan, they should have arrived during the night at Tyre and also alerted Stan Bamberg that things were suddenly going to get very hot.\n\nVarinna smiled and extended her hand.\n\n\"Everything's ready,\" she announced. \"Any word from Roum?\"\n\n\"Nothing. The front's quiet.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nAndrew took her hand and squeezed it, pleased by the light that seemed to sparkle in her eyes. This effort had triggered something within her, and he felt a surge of confidence that she was the mastermind who had conceived so many of the details. The death of Chuck had deeply shaken him, so much so that he had failed to realize the capabilities that were alive in her.\n\n\"Let's go to the field.\" And leading the way, she walked down the slope and out onto the flat open landing field. Crews were dragging out the last of the airships from the hangars, and engines were beginning to turn over.\n\nHe was awed by the panoramic sight laid out before him. Sixteen Eagle airships were lined up wingtip to wingtip. Twelve of them brand-new, four having come back from the front for repairs and engine replacements. In the shadowy light they looked ghostly, giants out of some forgotten age of the past, or a foretaste of the world to come.\n\nThe men chosen for the mission were already lining up beside their machines, ten to each airship in addition to the crews. Nearly all of them were Hans's old companions, survivors of his liberation last year, or the winter flanking assault down into the valley of the Ebro.\n\nThree hundred of their comrades from the Chin brigade had been loaded on trains the morning after the decision was made to launch the assault and sent by express to Roum, there to take transports to Tyre. With them went equipment to refit the twenty-eight Eagles and thirty Hornets that would fly from Capua to Roum, and from there down to Tyre as well. If all went according to plan there, those airships would lift off shortly before midday.\n\n\"You know, Varinna, you were holding out on me,\" Andrew said, looking over at her and trying to appear cross.\n\n\"The airships? Some needed repairs, the rest, well there were problems, adjustments, and several were finished ahead of schedule.\"\n\n\"They could have made a difference at Capua.\"\n\n\"I don't think so. If Chuck had been alive, he would have told you not to do it and then done the same thing I did.\"\n\n\"So that justified holding back on these Eagles?\"\n\n\"No sir, but you are glad now that I did.\"\n\nAndrew could not argue with her on that point. And he knew eight, twenty, fifty airships would not have made a difference that day.\n\nThe morning silence was shattered as more engines turned over, stuttering up to a humming throb.\n\nHe saw Jack Petracci slowly walking toward them, moving stiffly. Andrew motioned for him to stand at ease.\n\n\"Everything ready?\"\n\nJack laughed softly.\n\n\"I guess so, sir.\"\n\nAndrew said nothing. With most men he would have torn into them over such a lackadaisical air, but there were some, especially those like Jack, who danced so closely with death for so long, that one had to understand their fey attitude, especially at a moment like this.\n\n\"Numbers forty-seven and fifty-two, we should check them both off the list. I think forty-seven is leaking too much gas; the inboard starboard engine on fifty-two is shot.\"\n\nJack looked over at Varinna, who shook her head.\n\n\"Everyone goes,\" Andrew said. \"Order those two to hug the coast as long as possible but everyone goes.\"\n\n\"What I figured, sir. I already told them that.\"\n\n\"These new pilots, you think they have the ability?\" Andrew asked.\n\nJack again chuckled softly. \"Well, sir, as long as there's no storms, the sky is clear, we don't get jumped by any of the Bantag aerosteamers. I sort of figure half of them will be dead within the week anyhow, even if this doesn't work, but that goes with the job.\"\n\n\"All right, Jack,\" Andrew said quietly, but his tone conveyed that Jack's fatalism shouldn't be pushed too far.\n\nAndrew looked around at the assembled group, then put his hand on Jack's shoulder and led him off so the two could talk alone.\n\n\"I haven't had a chance to talk with you about this plan.\"\n\nJack said nothing, leaving no opening.\n\n\"You don't like the plan.\"\n\nAgain the laugh. \"Don't like it. Well, I always figured I'd die ever since I got myself drafted into this damn fool air corps. You see, sir, I was just thinking yesterday that if I had kept my mouth shut about having flown in a balloon back on the old world, none of this would have happened.\" And he waved vaguely toward the assembled ships.\n\n\"And we would have lost the war long ago. The missions you flew made the difference.\"\n\n\"Sir. We're going to die. I mean all of us. I saw the fight at Capua from a mile up. The reserves they have, the numbers. They just keep coming and coming. And I thought about all that we were taught when we were young. Remember the poems, 'Old Ironsides,' even that Tennyson fellow and the 'Charge of the Light Brigade.' We believed it was good to die the heroes' death. But I wonder now, maybe it's all meaningless. You die, and that's it. So you lose.\"\n\nAndrew said nothing. Anyone with a mind had dwelled on this idea, just that it was poison when it took hold on the eve of battle.\n\n\"You ever have the feeling they had just made the bullet with your name on it?\"\n\nAndrew nodded. \"Sure, plenty of times. Remember Cold Harbor. We wrote our names and pinned them on our backs before we went in? At Hispania, the morning of the third day, I knew I was going to die.\"\n\n\"And the winter, at Capua?\"\n\nAndrew felt a cold shiver. No, no real premonition then, and yet it had all but killed him. Yet far too often he had seen men like Jack, the darting eyes, the inner agony, made worse by the sense of futility that seized some.\n\nAs he looked at Jack the thought came yet again about the nature of courage. Some men, those like Vincent, for some strange reason truly lacked the imagination to contemplate just how agonizing a wound or death could be. They simply went about their duty, mind at ease. Vincent had suffered a horrifying wound, yet it seemed not to have scarred his soul. The scar in that boy was different, an inner woe triggered long ago because of the conflict over his Quaker upbringing and his innate talent for leading men in battle. Vincent's answer was to let his soul sink into a cold indifference to all suffering, his or anyone else's.\n\nThere were others though, like Jack, who were continually tormented by their imaginations, inwardly flinching as each bullet flickered past, who awoke in the middle of the night, sheets sweat-soaked, the nightmare of what could be twisting into their fluttering hearts. As he looked at Jack he felt a surge of admiration, knowing that Jack's type of courage was far more difficult to grasp and maintain. Every day he had to mask that terror and go out to face death yet again.\n\nJack, his hand trembling, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper.\n\n\"I was never much of one for being a gentleman with the girls. Remember the Oneida Society back before the war? Actually tried to join it. I did, but they said I was too young then.\"\n\nHe laughed softly, and Andrew smiled.\n\n\"She's a girl in Roum, works in Ninth Corps main hospital. Took care of me right after I crashed back in the spring. Funny, she's suddenly very important to me now, so see that she gets this.\"\n\nAndrew solemnly took the letter, knowing it was senseless to try and talk differently at a time like this.\n\n\"Jack, I wish I could let you stand down from this one. But you're the only one who can lead it. That's why I asked you to fly back here. These boys are so green I was afraid they couldn't find Tyre unless you were there to shepherd them along.\"\n\nJack smiled weakly. \"I know, and believe me, I'd take the offer if I thought I could.\"\n\n\"Jack, in all honesty, is there a chance for this one? I mean Vincent seems to believe in it. Hans, well of course he'd do it. We've done desperate things in the past, but this is a throw in the dark.\"\n\nJack looked at him silently, and Andrew regretted his few seconds of weakness. He had pulled Jack aside to gently tell him to brace up in front of the others, and he was asking for reassurance instead.\n\n\"As long as we limit it to what we agreed on. I know Hans wants to push it all the way, but sir, the ships simply don't have the range. I can't ask the boys flying the ships to go on a one-way trip with no hope of survival. Stick to the original idea, and there just might be a chance. If we had three or four times as many airships, a real fleet of a couple of hundred of them, I'd guarantee we'd do it. That'd mean we'd have a full brigade of troops rather than barely a regiment. At the very least, though, it will throw one hell of a punch into their supplies and might take the pressure off at the front.\"\n\nAndrew nodded. That had been the big fight argued out all week. Varinna's plan called for a two-step approach, the second phase not being launched unless the first half went flawlessly and a truly secure base was seized to operate out of. The morning after the decision was made to go Hans started the argument that it had to be done all at once. Andrew could understand the argument about surprising Jurak and not giving him time to react, but he knew as Hans most certainly knew that it was suicide to try.\n\nAnd yet he could sense what Hans would indeed do once he was out there. The first phase was, at best, a spoiling raid, to swoop down on the Bantag port city of Xi'an, smash things up, sink ships, and destroy supplies. Vincent's mission was to act as bait to draw troops and better yet ironclads out of Xi'an before the air attack hit. The goal, if it could be achieved, was for Vincent to cut all the way to the Great Sea and secure a base for airships and perhaps even for oceangoing ships captured at Xi'an.\n\nBut it was still only half a victory. If they could actually hold Xi'an, transferring troops by sea from Vincent's force to reinforce the captured city, Jurak would be cut off from his supplies and forced to abandon all of the Roum territory all the way back to the Great Sea. He'd have to pull back all the way to Nippon. It would be a tremendous victory \u2026 but the Bantag army would still be intact, the war machine still working and ready to come back yet again. What Hans wanted was to take it all the way, but he felt he could never order that, for such an action would surely result in the death of all those who attempted it. It could mean, as well, that in attempting to reach for everything, Jurak could counterstrike and smash the plan apart.\n\nAndrew took Jack's hand and grasped it tightly.\n\n\"Fly carefully.\"\n\n\"The soul of caution I've always been. It's how I've made it to twenty-eight very old years.\"\n\nComing stiffly to attention Jack saluted. \"Sir, I think it's about time we got the show moving, so if you'll excuse me.\n\nAndrew returned to his small group. While he had been talking with Jack, Vincent rode in. As usual he was dressed in his \"Phil Sheridan\" uniform, oversize riding boots, snowy white gauntlets, uniform with a bit too much gold braiding, rakish kepi, and still the ridiculous pointed goatee and mustache.\n\nAndrew could see the boy was eager to be returning to the front. He would have preferred that Vincent stay in Suzdal, but given the assassination attempt on his father-in-law Andrew now felt that it was best to get him out of town for a while. If not the target of an assassin's bullet, Vincent could, on the other hand, do something rash. And besides, given what he was contemplating doing, Vincent's presence in the city simply wouldn't fit into the plan.\n\nIt was indeed getting to the time for departure. For days he had agonized about this moment.\n\nThe engines on most of the airships were now turning over, shattering the predawn quiet as pilots revved each one up in turn, let them run full out for several minutes, then throttled them back down to idle.\n\nVincent was eager to be off. He had already said his good-byes to his family; it was part of his nature never to let that side of his life show anymore. There was no sense in going over the plan one more time. Vincent had conceived part of it, especially the land ironclad assault out of Tyre. He knew it far better than Andrew.\n\nThe salute was casual, as if he was leaving for morning inspection of a company.\n\n\"It'll work, sir,\" Vincent said. \"I promise you that.\"\n\nAndrew nodded, and the boy was off, heading to his airship, his chosen staff following. He had abandoned his cane and walked slowly, with a pronounced limp. Now it was just Hans and Varinna and she mumbled something about going to check one of the ships and left the two alone.\n\nHans sighed and slowly sat down on the grass, motioning for Andrew to join him.\n\nHans smiled and Andrew suddenly felt a terrible longing, somehow to turn the clock back, to make it all as it once was so many years before, and to hide from the knowledge of all that would be. Hans had aged, his hair going to white, his teeth crooked, stained dark yellow, several of them gone or turned to black, his skin no longer tanned and leathery but now waxy. He had never really admitted to himself just how much the years of prison had changed Hans. In so many ways they had softened him, made him more open to saying what was in his heart, but be had lost pis tireless vitality as well. Yet, at this moment he felt as if Hans was summoning back that strength for one more effort.\n\n\"The war's lost, Andrew. We've fought the good fight for God knows how many years. We've held three empires at bay, but now they're closing in. But in order for them to do that they had to change, too, and that is where they are vulnerable.\n\n\"Before, it was like striking at a nest of bees. We had to cut them down one at a time until there were none left. Andrew, we've forced them in a way to become like us, and in so doing we now have the opening. We can reach into the nest, crush the queen, and the eggs and the nest dies.\"\n\nHans became animated as he spoke, his eyes locked on Andrew's.\n\n\"Don't you think he's figured that,\" Andrew replied, \"and taken the necessary precautions?\"\n\n\"Surprise will be on our side. We maintain that element, and we win. The part of the plan involving Vincent seems like folly, but it will be the focus for just long enough that it will keep them off-balance. Then the rest of it goes in. He'll suspect the air support is for Vincent. By the time he realizes, we'll be on him.\n\n\"We've got to do this, Andrew; otherwise, it isn't just us who lose, it's the Chin, it's the entire world. Now that's something I'm willing to risk my life for. The question is, now do you have the guts to risk it as well.\"\n\nAndrew looked over angrily at Hans.\n\n\"It isn't a question of my courage.\"\n\n\"Yes it is. The courage to let go. If it wasn't me going, maybe it'd be easier somehow.\"\n\nHe wanted to deny it. Lord knows how many he had sent to certain death going all the way back to his own brother. But Hans was different.\n\nAndrew lowered his head.\n\n\"Yes, damn it. I think when that aerosteamer takes off that is it, I never see you again. I can deny it, say it's the committing of our remaining air fleet to a mad venture. But it's really you.\"\n\n\"And I am the only one that can lead it.\"\n\nAndrew finally nodded.\n\n\"Go.\" He whispered.\n\nHans leaned out, his hand tentatively taking Andrew's, and then he grasped it tight.\n\nAndrew looked up to see tears in his friend's eyes.\n\n\"You'll do fine, son, just fine.\"\n\nAndrew started to break. What could he say, how could he say it? The words finally spilled out of him, contained for so long.\n\n\"I love you, Hans, as I loved my own father.\"\n\nHans smiled.\n\n\"I know. We've always loved each other, you as the son I never had; it's just that the way we both are, who we are, makes it impossible to say what we feel.\"\n\nThe two sat in silence for a moment, eyes locked. There was such a flood of memories for Andrew, of Antietam, the lonely nights on picket, the cold winter mornings sharing a cup of coffee, the dusty marches, the moments of fear and of triumph, the pain of losing him and the indescribable joy of finding him again.\n\n\"And Hans.\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\nHe had not breathed a word of it to anybody over the last week, but now was the true moment of letting go, of turning back the lie he had whispered at Capua. He knew what had to be done \u2026 and both of them were soldiers who understood that.\n\nHe unbuttoned the top of his uniform, reached into his breast pocket, and pulled out an envelope, handing it to Hans.\n\n\"I want you to go all the way,\" Andrew whispered.\n\nHans, looking straight into his eyes, understanding what Andrew was asking, simply nodded.\n\n\"This is my written authorization in case Jack or anyone else disagrees. Hans, you've got to go all the way with this one, no half measures.\"\n\nHans smiled. \"You know I would have done it anyway.\"\n\n\"I know that.\" Andrew sighed.\n\n\"It's just you wanted me to know you were behind my decision.\"\n\nAndrew nodded, unable to speak.\n\nHans patted Andrew on the shoulder.\n\n/ \"Like I've always said, I'm proud of you, son,\" he said, hesitating, \"and thank you. Ever since the day I escaped, leaving my comrades behind, it has haunted me. I have to do this.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence between the two, both lost in their memories.\n\n\"I think they're waiting,\" Hans said gruffly, trying to hide the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him.\n\nAndrew finally looked over his shoulder and saw all who were waiting, standing respectfully, some with heads lowered. All was silent except for the aerosteamer engines powering up, propellers cutting the still morning air.\n\nAndrew nodded and ever so slowly let go of Hans's hand. Andrew tried to smile, fighting to hold on to what little control he had left.\n\nHe stood up shakily, Hans grunting as he stood as well.\n\n\"Well, they sure as hell haven't gotten us yet. You lose an arm at Gettysburg, get your lung shot out at Roum. Hell, the Comanche couldn't get me, a Reb sniper tries to take my leg off and a Merki arrow in the chest and then shot up again escaping. Shit, we'll get through this one, son; there ain't nothing left to shoot up.\"\n\nAndrew chuckled as Hans put his arm around Andrew's side as if helping him along, two old battle-scarred warriors, hobbling along. The others waited, and Andrew felt as if all of them could sense what was exchanged between the two.\n\nAndrew was surprised to see that Father Casmir had just ridden up and was dismounting. How the priest found out was beyond him, but then he always seemed to know everything.\n\nHe came up to Andrew and Hans, shaking their hands.\n\n\"Hawthorne told me about the plan.\"\n\nAndrew shifted silently, angry that Vincent could be so loose-tongued.\n\n\"Don't worry, I haven't breathed a word of it. Brilliant, it's absolutely brilliant.\"\n\nHe looked over at Varinna.\n\n\"Perhaps you should be a permanent part of our war councils.\"\n\n\"Chuck would like that,\" she said with a smile.\n\n\"No, you're your own person now. Let the dead sleep, my daughter. You have a mind and a heart of your own.\"\n\n\"Your Holiness, a good blessing sure would help,\" Hans said, and Andrew looked over at his friend in surprise.\n\nHans reddened slightly. \"Well, it's never too late to get a bit of religion.\"\n\nCasmir chuckled and, reaching into his robes, pulled out a small vial filled with holy water. Uncorking it, he motioned for Hans to kneel and sprinkled a few drops over his head while softly chanting a prayer in the ancient language of the Rus, unchanged across a thousand years of exile.\n\nThe deep melodious chant rose in volume, all who were gathered around falling to their knees, even the Chin and Ketswana. Though of old Presbyterian stock, Andrew felt overwhelmed by the moment and fell to his knees as well, head lowered in prayer for his friend, for the mission, for all who were fighting or longing to be free.\n\nCasmir turned away from Hans, holding the vial up, sprinkling the holy water over the assembly, the chant continuing, Andrew managing to understand a few words \u2026 \"and for those of the old world and all those of the Diaspora in exile upon this world we beg your mercy and protection \u2026\"\n\nThe Diaspora, an ancient Greek word carried to this world. We of the Diaspora, he thought, but if we win this fight it shall no longer be thus. We will have finished our wanderings, our enslavement, our exile, and this shall forever be our home.\n\nHe looked over at Hans again, and it was as if a strange light was gathered about him, about all those who were leaving. He remembered now and understood, that if ever there was a cause worth dying for, this was it. It wasn't a war to take something, or even to defend the property or country one had. Hans was right. It had been, it always would be, a war to set men free, the most noble of all causes that one could ever sacrifice oneself for. That was why Hans had to go, and that was why Andrew had to let him go.\n\nThe chant died away and there was a long drawn-out moment of silence. Andrew looked up and saw Casmir staring straight at him, smiling. The priest offered his hand, and Andrew took it, coming to his feet.\n\n\"Load 'em up!\" Andrew shouted, surprised by the power of his own voice.\n\nHans went up to Ketswana, the two exchanged a few words, slapped each other on the back, and Ketswana started to detail off the Chin in groups of ten, pointing each group in turn to one of the machines.\n\nWith a grin Ketswana started for the machine directly behind Flying Cloud, then angled over to Andrew.\n\n\"Don't worry, sir, I bring him back for you,\" Ketswana announced. Andrew took the Zulu's hand with a firm grasp.\n\n\"Godspeed and good luck, my friend.\"\n\nKetswana, obviously delighted with the mission, slapped Hans on the shoulder, turned, and sprinted off.\n\n\"Other than you the closest friend I have,\" Hans said.\n\nThe two went over to Jack, who was briefing the pilots gathered round, with Varinna and her assistants standing to one side.\n\n\"Remember, you have no bottom gunner now. If we do get jumped, you head right to the deck and hug it. The fake stinger might throw them off for a while, but if they ever figure it out, that's the spot they'll go for.\"\n\nAndrew looked over at one of the ships. The compartment which had once held the bottom gunner and bomb dropper had been removed, replaced with a wicker basket affair fifteen feet long and six feet wide. What was nothing more than half a dozen broom handles, bundled together and painted black now extended from the back of the basket. The squads of Chin soldiers were lining up by the doorway into the baskets, most of them obviously unnerved by the size of the airships, the noise of the engines, and the prospect of what they were about to do.\n\nThere had been no time, or surplus fuel to give any of them even the briefest of orientation flights; this would be their first time aloft. They chattered nervously amongst themselves, waiting their turn as the first man climbed the rope ladder into the wickerwork compartment. By the time the sixth to seventh man had climbed aboard, the airships had settled down onto their wheels and now it was not much more than a high step to board.\n\nAfter the last man was aboard the ground crews passed in their carbines, which had been thoroughly checked to make sure they were empty, cartridge boxes, two blankets per man, tins filled with rations, and two five-gallon barrels of water. Slung along either side of the compartment were four boxes roped in place carrying the additional gear.\n\n\"All you have to do is stay behind me,\" Jack announced, continuing his briefing. \"If I should fall out, well you'll have to navigate yourselves in. You're divided into squadrons of four ships, so squadron leaders, it'll be up to you. The navy's given us good maps of the coast with all prominent landmarks, so once you hit the coast again fix your position and either head north or south into Tyre.\"\n\nHe looked around at the group.\n\n\"I'll see all of you this evening.\"\n\n, The pilots, nearly all of them not much more than twenty, grinned nervously. There was a scattering of laughter, some gallows humor, and the group stood up.\n\n\"Hold it!\"\n\nIt was Gates. Andrew felt a flash of annoyance when he saw what the newspaperman wanted, but then the historian inside took hold and he nodded approval.\n\nGates already had the camera out of the wagon and up on its tripod. The sun was just breaking the horizon, casting long shadows.\n\n\"You'll all have to stand very still, there's not much light.\"\n\nGates moved the camera slightly so that he could get part of an airship in the background, then motioned for Andrew to join the group. He felt a presence to his side and saw that Hans had come back from his ship to join in the moment, followed by Ketswana and several of the Chin. Vincent strolled over and stood beside Varinna, who had a chart rolled up under her arm, with Casmir on her other side.\n\n\"Hold it now.\" Gates took the cap off the lens and started to count down the seconds.\n\nAll stood silent, striking their most formal pose, Andrew realizing that as always he had turned slightly to hide the empty sleeve. From the corner of his eye he saw Hawthorne, always the young Sheridan with right hand slipped into his open jacket. Pilots stood casually in their baggy coverall pants, wool jackets open, several with their hands in their pockets. Then there was Hans, slouch cap pulled low, shading his eyes, jaw working a plug of tobacco so that his face would look blurred.\n\nAgain the moment of crystal clarity came, the realization of just how precious this all was, how this was a moment as fragile as a glass figurine.\n\n\"'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,' \" he whispered, his voice carrying.\n\n\"That's it,\" Gates announced, replacing the lens cap.\n\nJack broke the tableau, stepping in front of the group, turning, and facing Andrew.\n\n\"With your permission, sir. Air's heavy and still. All machines are loaded. It's time to go.\"\n\nAndrew returned the salute.\n\n\"Good luck, son.\"\n\nJack smiled wanly and without another word started for his machine. The group broke up, the men setting off at the run, and suddenly he was alone.\n\nHe turned to say a final farewell to Hans, but his friend had already set off, falling in alongside Jack. Andrew felt a shudder of disappointment but knew instantly that Hans was right.\n\nHans climbed up the ladder into the forward crew compartment without looking back, followed by Jack, who pulled the rope ladder up behind him and closed the door. He could see Hans climb into the seat normally occupied by the copilot but Theodor was now the backup commander of the air corps and so was flying in the second airship.\n\nGround crews stepped back from their airships, crew chiefs each standing in front of his machine, right hand raised, red flag held aloft. The chief in front of Jack's machine twirled the flag overhead in a tight circle. One after another each of the engines revved up, propellers turning to a blur, then idled back down. Stepping away to the port side of the aerosteamer, the chief waved the flag again and pointed it forward.\n\nAll engines revved, and the machine slowly lurched forward. The bi-level wings on the port side passed within a few feet of Andrew, and as it passed the twin engines kicked up a swirl of dust around him, the air heavy with the smell of burning kerosene. The second and third aerosteamers followed, engines roaring. The column, looking like ungainly birds, taxied down to the eastern end of the grass airstrip, a line of slender hydrogen-filled ships, wings seemingly added on as an afterthought.\n\nThe lead ship turned, facing into the gentle breeze stirring out of the west. The heads-on silhouette, illuminated from behind by the rising sun, caught Andrew as a stunningly beautiful sight, wings mere slivers of reflected light. The machine lurched forward, seconds later the sound of the engines coming to him.\n\nHe tensed, watching as the airship lumbered down the runway, not seeming to move at first, then ever so slowly picking up speed. Gently, gracefully, it lifted off while still a hundred yards away.\n\nJack expertly leveled off not a dozen feet off the ground, letting his machine build up speed before climbing. It came straight on, some of the crowd around Andrew ducking. He came to attention, saluting as the machine soared overhead, engines roaring, wind strumming the wires sounding like a harp floating in the heavens. He caught a brief glimpse of Hans, perched in the copilot's seat, a childlike grin lighting his features. Their eyes held for a second, and in that instant it was as if all the years had stripped away and he was now the old man and Hans was the boy, embarking on some grand and glorious adventure, and then he was gone.\n\nNose rising up, Flying Cloud started to climb, followed by Heaven's Fire, and Bantag's Curse. One after another they passed, some wagging their wings in salute, others coming straight on, their pilots too nervous to try anything other than getting off the ground.\n\nJack led the way, spiraling heavenward, waiting for the last ship to form into a long, straggling column. Finally, he turned due east, rising up through a thousand feet, and sped off, catching the breeze aloft.\n\nAndrew watched as their shape changed from that of slender crosses to a round indistinct blur and then a mere dot of light that finally winked from view. Around him the ground crews finally began to break up, talking softly among themselves, walking back to their hangars, some looking back longingly to the east as if wishing they could go.\n\n\"I think that was one of the hardest decisions you've ever made.\"\n\nAndrew turned to see Casmir by his side.\n\n\"Yes, Your Holiness, it was,\" he whispered.\n\n\"I remember you once saying that in order to be a good commander you must love the army with all your soul. The paradox is that there will come a time when you must then order the very destruction of the thing that you love.\"\n\n\"Yes, I said that a long time ago.\"\n\n\"Do you think it will work?\"\n\n\"Hans believes in it.\"\n\n\"But do you?\"\n\n\"I don't know. There are too many variables. The weather turns bad. The Bantag have warning and send airships up to meet them. As it is there's barely enough fuel, if they don't capture additional stores, or the advance position for the second wave ..His voice trailed off. \"Far too many things can go wrong.\"\n\n\"Life is a process of things going wrong. That is how Perm made the universe. It is our challenge then to find the faith to remake them into what is right and pleasing to His eye.\"\n\nCasmir smiled and put his hand on Andrew's shoulder. \"I wish I had your faith.\"\n\n\"You do, it's just hidden at the moment. Best we head back to the city. Who knows, by the time we get back there might not even be a government.\"\n\nHe said it so casually but Andrew felt all the worry of that other problem returning.\n\nVarinna, who had launched this entire effort, stood wistfully, crippled hand cupped over her brow to shade the sunlight as she continued to gaze eastward, tears streaming down her face. She sensed him looking at her, and, turning, she faced Andrew, and he knew he had to resume his strength. He forced a smile.\n\n\"Chuck dreamed it, you made it possible. It will work.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have ordered it,\" Andrew said. He looked around at those gathered around him, Casmir, Varinna, Gates, the technicians and ground crews, all of them wanting to believe, and he knew that he had lost his own faith ever since the moment he had been cut down by the mortar shell. It was needed now, needed for all of them.\n\nHe smiled.\n\n\"I have faith,\" he whispered. \"It will work.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "\"My Qarth.\"\n\nJurak stirred, looking up at the entry to his yurt. Zartak stood in the open doorway, silhouetted by the dawning light.\n\n\"The time?\" Jurak asked, embarrassed that he had slept past sunrise.\n\n\"No matter, you were up half the night. I ordered the guards not to disturb you. but this cannot wait.\"\n\n\"The Yankees, they're moving,\" Jurak said even as he stretched and came to his feet.\n\n\"How did you know?\" Zartak asked cautiously.\n\nJurak shook his head. \"Don't go running off proclaiming I have the ability of far seeing. It's just that I had a dream. I saw Yankee airships. My back was turned, and they fell upon me by surprise.\"\n\nZartak stared at him intently until Jurak nodded toward what he was holding. The old warrior stirred and handed him two telegrams, and Jurak scanned the contents.\n\n\"Three Yankee ships carrying land ironclads spotted late yesterday by a flyer out of Tyre patrolling the Inland Sea between Tyre and Roum. First light this morning ships seen in harbor at Tyre. New airships at Tyre already behind our lines and attacking.\"\n\n\"When did this come in?\"\n\n\"The second report just minutes ago. The first report the middle of the night.\"\n\n\"Why the delay?\" he asked angrily.\n\n\"Apparently a problem with a relay station. Then when it arrived here the Chin who transcribed it simply put it in with the other reports on train movements and supply shipments.\"\n\n\"Damn all.\"\n\n\"Should I have an example made of him?\" Zartak asked.\n\nJurak thought on it for a moment, then shook his head.\n\n\"If I killed every telegrapher who made a mistake, the line would be down in a day.\"\n\n\"He might have done it deliberately,\" Zartak pressed.\n\n\"Tell him another such mistake and it won't be the moon feast, it will be slow impaling,\" Jurak replied.\n\nZartak gave a noncommittal grunt in reply.\n\nJurak looked around the yurt. Though it was the yurt of a Qar Qarth, piled with gold and every luxury known to this world, he still would have traded it all for running hot water, privacy when relieving himself, and music, music that could be heard at the touch of a button rather than the wailings of the chant singers and the nerve-tearing screeches of the single-string basha.\n\nZartak offered to help him dress, but he waved the old warrior aside as he slipped into leather trousers that felt cold and clammy, riding boots, a leather jacket, and a lightweight shirt of chain mail, nothing that would be much good in a battle but here in the rear lines was worn as a matter of course to protect against an assassin's blade in the back.\n\nAs he did so he continued to think about the two telegrams.\n\n\"Moving their ironclads down to Tyre,\" he said. \"I wonder if they stripped everything off this front.\"\n\n\"We could send up our airships to look behind their lines here.\"\n\nHe nodded in agreement.\n\nWhy Tyre though? He walked over to a map drawn on the tanned hide of one of the great woolly giants that wandered the steppes. The map was stretched out on a wooden frame, showing the entire world from Nippon to Suzdal.\n\nThe mapmaking of the Bantag had intrigued him as soon as he had come to this world. With the endless circlings they had drawn out every step of their march, every watering hole, river ford, cattle settlement, place of good grazing, and places where the land was barren. The great scroll, when stretched end to end, measured well over two hundred paces. What hung before him was but one small part of the great fabric of this strange world that was now his home.\n\nHe stared at the map.\n\n\"From Tyre, two days of hard marching could bring them up to the head of the rail line we are running from this small port here.\" He pointed at the map. Zartak nodded.\n\n\"Camagan the cattle call it,\" Zartak replied.\n\n\"Our warriors at Tyre, except for a few regiments, have yet to be armed with rifles. If he flings his ironclads into them, there will be no stopping such an advance. Take our rail line, push to the Great Sea, and establish there a base to harry our supply shipments.\"\n\n\"Audacious. Typical of Keane.\"\n\nKeane. Did Keane dream of this he wondered. If so, it was a desperate bid. Most likely he had stripped all his ironclads and his surviving airships for this attack. He just couldn't send the ironclads. It would have to have infantry support, at least a umen of their troops as well.\n\nHe traced the route out on the map. Send an order to Xi'an, have them divert the next shipment of ironclads, rush the machines to Camagan. Though the distance was long, move up some airships as well, and also some airships from Capua. There were eight umens surrounding Tyre. Even with just bows that should be enough once the ironclads and airships were moved into place.\n\n\"We let them get their heads well into the trap,\" Jurak announced, \"make sure we don't attack too soon. Then snap it shut and annihilate what is left of his advanced weapons.\"\n\n\"Suppose that isn't the true goal?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Suppose it is something else.\"\n\nJurak turned back to the map. The ironclads were too far south even to think of attempting a march to the northeast. From there it was nearly 150 leagues to his main supply depot at what the Yankees once called Fort Hancock.\n\nXi'an? Two hundred leagues southward and then east to the narrows of the Great Sea, and even there it was a mile-wide channel to cross to the eastern shore and then another hundred leagues back up to the northeast.\n\nNo. Not Xi'an.\n\n\"You dreamed of airships, my Qarth,\" Zartak said, his voice barely a whisper, \"not ironclads.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nHe continued to stare at the map.\n\n\"Well, it was only a dream, my friend.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "\"There's the coast,\" Jack shouted, trying to be heard above the roar of the engines. \"That looks like Tigranus Point, means we're about twenty miles north of Tyre.\"\n\nJack lowered his field glasses and passed them to Hans, but at the moment Hans really didn't care. For the last hour he had been far to busy suffering from an acute bout of airsickness.\n\n\"I can still see the Hornets, though.\" He pointed down and to the right. Hans vaguely looked in the direction Jack was pointing and nodded bleakly, though he saw nothing.\n\n\"We'll have to wait out here another ten minutes or so, give them a little more time to cut up the Bantag telegraph lines just to make sure.\" Even as he spoke he turned the wheel hard over to the right.\n\nHans grasped the edge of the forward panel, sparing a quick glance to his right as the aerosteamer went into a sharp banking turn. A mile or more below the ocean sparkled, catching the light of the late-afternoon sun. He tried not to contemplate just how far down it was, how long the fall would take.\n\nJack grabbed the speaking tube to his topside gunner and blew through it.\n\n\"You still with me up there? Tell me if everyone turns on me, and I want a count off.\"\n\nHans uncorked his own speaking tube to listen in as the Roum gunner counted off the ships, still holding at eleven Eagles, and all were turning.\n\nAs Jack had predicted the one with the leaking hydrogen bag had turned back after only an hour. After leaving the coast of Rus behind and crossing out over the Inland Sea for the run to Tyre the topside gunner had excitedly reported that one of the ships had burst into flames and gone down. Two more just seemed to have wandered off.\n\nThe ship bumped through another bubble of air, and Hans was again leaning out the side window, gagging.\n\nThey spiraled through half a dozen banking turns. Hans looked around bleakly. He guessed it should be a beautiful sight. Puffy clouds seemed to dance and bob around them, the aerosteamers pirouetting in circles like butterflies in a field of white flowers. They slipped through the edge of a cloud, the world going white, the air colder, the ship bobbing up and down. Suddenly the world exploded back into blue, the turquoise blue of the ocean below, the crystal blue of the horizon, the darker sky above.\n\nHe could hear a moaning curse echoing through the speaking tube connected to the compartment holding their passengers. A small hole had been left in the floor for the men to relieve themselves but from the shouts and curses only minutes after they had taken off he could figure easily enough that it didn't work thanks to the forty-mile-an-hour breeze whistling through the compartment. Someone apparently had missed the target yet again. Jack chuckled at their distress.\n\n\"We should have papered over the compartment at least. Those boys must be freezing back there.\"\n\nJack pushed his ship through one more slow banking turn, gaze fixed on the eastern horizon.\n\n\"They must have cut the telegraph lines by now; we gotta head in if we want all these ships down by dark.\"\n\nHans sighed with relief as they leveled out, again picking up a southeasterly heading.\n\nAfter several minutes he could finally distinguish the eastern shore of the Inland Sea, recognizing the point north of Tyre and the gentle curving coast of shallows and mud flats that finally led down to the rise of ground and narrow harbor. Jack edged the elevator stick forward, easing back slightly on the four throttles. They thumped through another small cloud, which was beginning to glow with a pale yellow-pink light. The summits of the Green Mountains, fifty miles to the north and east, were cloaked in the clouds and what appeared to be a dark thunderhead.\n\nJack pointed out the storm.\n\n\"Get caught in one of those, and you're dead,\" he shouted.\n\nHans nodded, breathing deeply, struggling against the urge to get sick yet again.\n\nScanning eastward, he wondered if his eyes were playing tricks or could he actually see the distant shore of the Great Sea nearly a hundred miles farther east. The two oceans, back on the old world they'd more likely be called great lakes, were closest together at this point. Long before the wars there was even a trade route going overland from Tyre eastward to the small fishing village of Camagan.\n\nBack in the old days of the Great Ride, the eternal circling of the world by the hordes, this region between the two seas was usually disputed by the Tugars to the north and the Merki, making their long ride farther south through Tyre and from there around the southern end of the Great Sea and then up into Nippon and the edge of the vast populous lands of the Chin.\n\nHe took the field glasses, which rested in a box between his seat and Jack's, checked the map, then raised the glasses to scan the coast. After months in the siege lines of Tyre he knew it all by heart, the outer circle of the Bantag lines, half a dozen miles from the city, the inner line of his own works, the ancient whitewashed walls of the town clustered around the harbor. He caught a glint of sunlight reflecting off the wings of a Hornet out beyond the enemy line, held it for a second, then lost it, wondering how Jack could so easily spot such things from ten, even twenty miles away. He again looked eastward with the glasses, but they were lower now. It was hard to tell just how far he could see out across the open brown-green prairie.\n\nHe studied the harbor again, bracing his elbows on the forward panel containing the pressure and temperature gauges for the four engines. The machine was bobbing up and down too much, though, for him to keep a steady lock, and another wave of nausea started to take hold. Taking a deep breath, he settled back in his chair.\n\nThe air was getting warmer, humid.\n\n\"I see transports in the harbor. Hope they're the right ones, or we're finished.\"\n\nHans nodded, closing his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, wishing they were higher up again, where the air was cooler. The minutes slowly passed. He finally got his stomach back under control. He opened his eyes again. They were just a couple of miles out from the harbor, flying parallel to the coast.\n\nHe spotted the aerosteamer landing field, south of town, right on the coast. There was already one airship down.\n\n\"We got more ships to the north.\" It was the top gunner.\n\nHans looked over anxiously at Jack. Several seconds passed.\n\n'\"Four engines, must be the ones from Roum.\" Both breathed a sigh of relief. The Bantag had committed only a couple of ships to that front, and both had been aggressively hunted down over the last week and destroyed, but there was always the prospect that Jurak had moved reinforcements down there.\n\nFrom due east he could see two Hornets coming in as well, one of them trailing a thin wisp of smoke. They passed directly west of the harbor, and Hans saw half a dozen ships tied off at the docks. Several land ironclads were on the dock, puffs of smoke rising as they slowly chugged along, joining a long column of machines weaving up through the narrow streets of the town. At least that phase of this mad plan seems to have gone off, he thought.\n\nThey passed the airfield on their left and a quarter mile in from the coast, Jack looking over at it, then at the ocean below.\n\n\"Bit tricky, crosswind coming off the sea, about ten knots or so. Keep both your hands on the throttles. Remember the two to the left are for port engines, the two on the right for the starboard. It takes several seconds for them actually to change anything, so be damn quick.\"\n\nHans shifted uncomfortably, doing as ordered. Jack started into a shallow banking turn to port, altitude still dropping. As they got halfway through Hans looked up through the topside windows, which were now angled down toward the horizon, and saw the other aerosteamers bobbing along like moths, following in a ragged line stretching ba\u00a3kT half a dozen miles or more.\n\nJack gradually started to straighten out, having drifted past the airfield, turning slightly to port to compensate for the crosswind. Hundreds of antlike figures ran about along either side of the field\u2014the ground crews. It was going to be a tricky balancing act.\n\nThey had started out heavy, but after close to fifteen hours of flying they had burned off hundreds of gallons of fuel. They could have dumped some of their hydrogen to compensate, but orders were not to do that since it would be impossible to cap off all the hydrogen needed if the ships were to be turned around quickly. The center air bag was filled with hot air, drawn off the exhaust of the four engines. On the way down Jack had dumped all of it. In the fine balancing act between hydrogen bags, hot air, and the lift provided by the bi-level wings, the ship should have a stall speed of only ten knots or so, about the same as the crosswind. That meant they would touch down almost standing still, then ground crews would have to snag lines and secure tie-downs. If not, the ship would start drifting backwards, drag a wing, and within seconds be destroyed.\n\nJack kept the ship nose low, coming in over the edge of the field, then continuing down most of its length to leave plenty of room behind for all the other airships to touch down. Hans, nervous, kept both hands tight on the throttles, never quite matching up to what Jack wanted as he shouted commands to throttle up on one side, then the other, ease back, then throttle up again.\n\nThe airship bounced down once, gently, soared back up, Jack cursing sharply, quickly slapping Hans's death grip on the throttles, knocking all four of them back. The ship hung in the air for a moment, then settled back down, harder this time, as Jack spun the crank to his left, which opened and closed the vent to the top of the hot-air bag.\n\nHans saw someone darting up toward their cab, disappearing underneath to grab the forward hold-down line; a dozen others swarmed in to either side. Jack seemed to have three arms and four hands all at once, making sure the throttles were back, but not all the way, so that if the ground crew lost grip, he could slap them forward and try to claw back up into the sky. The hot-air vent was opened again. The machine lurched, ground crew under them becoming visible again as they spliced on a long pull line and a dozen men took hold, allowing the ship to weather-vane into the wind, and then pulled it off the field.\n\nA pop that sounded more like a dull whoosh than an explosion startled Hans. Jack looking back out the port-side window, cursed softly, then settled back into his seat.\n\n\"Looks like number twenty-eight; I knew the boy was too green.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Burning, what's left of it. Most likely jammed a wing into the ground, snapped it, fuel line sprays, then the fire hits the hydrogen bags.\"\n\nHe said it matter-of-factly, but there was a deep, infinite weariness in the tone.\n\nThe crew chief in front of their machine held up a red flag, spun it in a tight circle several times, then slapped it down to his side.\n\n\"Throttles off,\" Jack announced even as he pushed them all the way back. \"Fuel valves off, controls neutral ..\n\nHe continued down the list, announcing each step as he did it, leaning over to Hans's side to perform several of the tasks.\n\n\"Fine, that's it. Open the hatch.\"\n\nHans opened the bottom hatch, dropped the ladder, and, feeling very stiff and old, slowly went down the dozen feet to the ground. The air felt different, the memory of the long months in Tyre triggered by the scent of the ocean mingling with the dry musky sage. As he stepped away from under the ship he looked back and saw the flaming wreck of one of the airships. A wagon was drawn up, a crew working the pumps, laying down a feeble spray of water. More airships came in, pilots wisely swinging to windward so no errant sparks caught them.\n\nSome of the ships came in easily, touched down as gently as hummingbirds; others plodded in, slamming down hard, bouncing. A few came in without enough speed, hung motionless, and started to drift backwards, one of them digging its tail in. Jack cursed soundly as the machine just hung there, ground crews frantically jumping up and down, trying to grab the hold-down lines. The pilot threw on full throttles, the machine started back up, hung in the air, finally stalled, and this time the nose dropped, most likely from his having opened the forward hydrogen bag. The machine slammed down hard, undercarriage wheels snapping, driving up into the wings, while the cargo compartment seemed to disappear. Even though they were upwind, Hans could hear the screams of the men trapped within.\n\nAs the ground crew around him secured the tie-down ropes to bolts fastened into heavy concrete blocks, the crew chief finally gave permission for the top gunner and the men in the cargo compartment to dismount. One by one they came down the ladder and were a pitiful sight, obviously half-frozen, covered in vomit, disgusted with themselves and the world in general. The last two had to be helped down and laid out on the grass. Hans realized he most likely didn't smell too good himself.\n\nHe was relieved to see Ketswana coming up with Vincent right behind him, and together, as the shadows lengthened, the last of the airships from Suzdal landed. Then several minutes later the first of twenty-eight more ships, Eagles all of them veterans from the Roum Front, came in, the more experienced pilots having no problems with the crosswind landing. Several of them simply bypassed the landing strip and, ignoring the shouted protests of ground crews, picked out a tie-down location, slowed to a hover, then gently floated in to a touchdown.\n\nLast of all were the twenty-five Hornets from Suzdal and Roum, buzzing in like tiny insects after the heavy cumbersome four-engine machines. Mingled in were half a dozen more Hornets that had been fighting throughout the day in front of Tyre. Powder-smoke stains from the forward Gatling gun blackened the undersides. One of the ships was badly shot up, streamers of fabric fluttering from a starboard wing.\n\nThe display made Hans's pulse quicken. Here, obviously, was one of the most remarkable sights in history. Over seventy flying machines, all of them gathered together in this one place. And though it was a wild, mad scheme, it gave him hope for the moment. Nature seemed to be adding to the display, the long shadows of late afternoon lengthened, exaggerating the size of the machines so that they looked like giants skimming over the ground. The bloodred sun hung heavy in the western sky, while to the north the towering thunderstorm, which everyone had been eyeing nervously, marched on in stately pageantry to the east.\n\nThe last of the Hornets, stripped-down versions with no forward gun, replaced by a small compartment underneath which could hold one man, came in and landed. There was barely any room left on the open field as the last ship rolled to a stop.\n\nA young major came up to the group, and in the shadows Hans recognized the sky-blue jacket and silver trim of an officer in the air corps.\n\n\"Welcome sirs. Sorry I couldn't come over earlier but I was kind of busy,\" the boy announced, obviously from Roum and struggling to speak in Rus.\n\nJack clapped him pn the shoulder.\n\n\"Varro. Good job, son, your people did a damn fine job.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. It helped to have those extra ground crews brought down by transport from Roum but still all the hold-down crews were infantrymen yesterday. I'll pass the word along.\"\n\n\"The Hornets that flew down from Roum yesterday\"\u2014 he nodded to the half dozen machines that had the unusual baskets underneath\u2014\"started out this morning as ordered. Two haven't come back, but the first reports are that they've cut the telegraph lines at twenty or more places from here all the way up to the Green Mountains.\"\n\n\"Damn good news,\" Vincent announced.\n\nHans nodded in agreement. Yet another idea of Varinna's. One of the first objections he had raised when the plan was presented was that the moment they touched down with so many airships in Tyre, Jurak might surmise the real target. She immediately countered with the sketch of how to convert the light fighting airships into a two-man unit. Strip out the Gatling gun, put in a small crew compartment. The ship touches down along some isolated stretch of the telegraph line, the crew member hops out, climbs the pole, cuts the line, and if there's enough time rolls up jLCouple of hundred feet of wire and takes it with them while a second Hornet, this one fully armed, circles to keep back any riders posted to patrol the wire.\n\nHans was delighted with the simple ingenuity of the proposal. Telegraph lines had always been so damn vulnerable. Back in the old war on Earth a couple of dozen cavalry men could play hell with a line, and it took regiments of men, posted damn near at every pole to keep a crucial line up and running. The Bantag umens at Tyre were now completely out of touch with Jurak, and it'd take at least a couple of days for word to be carried by horse. The trick, of course, was in the timing. To let Jurak get word of the ironclads' landing in order to draw his attention to Tyre, but not the entire air fleet.\n\n\"Are General Timokin and Stan Bamberg here?\" Vincent asked.\n\n\"Follow me, sirs; they're waiting over at headquarters.\"\n\nHans fell in with the group as they strode across the field. The passengers from the airships were out, nearly all of them a sorry-looking lot.\n\n\"Major, are copies of Gates's Weekly making it down here?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes sir, we just got the issue about what happened up at Capua. They came in on the transport carrying the ironclads.\"\n\n\"Well detail off some men. I want every copy you can find rounded up. Then find some glue, if need be take some flour and mix it into a paste. Then paper it on the outside of those wicker troop carriers.\"\n\nThe major looked at him confused, then called to a sergeant who had been tailing along and detailed him off.\n\n\"In all the rush we never thought of it,\" Jack said. \"Damn foolish mistake, type of thing that can lose a war.\"\n\nAs they passed the line of Hornets Hans slowed to inspect the machines. More than one was holed, a couple had hydrogen bags that were completely deflated, a patching crew was working by feel since no lighting of any kind was allowed near a ship that could be leaking hydrogen.\n\nSeveral of the Hornet pilots came up to Jack, saluting.\n\n\"We really grabbed their tails out there,\" one of them announced excitedly. \"I came over a low rise, must have caught a hundred of them camped out in the open, about fifty miles back from the front. Damn did I tear them up.\"\n\n\"The landings, did they work?\" Vincent asked.\n\nThe pilot was startled to see the chief of staff of the army standing in the shadows and snapped to attention and saluted.\n\n\"Ah, yes sir. The Hornet I was escorting, he landed three times along a ten-mile stretch of the wire and tore out a good long piece at each.\" The pilot nodded to a slight boy standing beside him.\n\n\"Tell him, Nicholas.\"\n\n\"Like he said, sir. We took down wire between two poles at three different places.\"\n\nHans could see that the boy was shaken, left hand clasping his right arm in the evening twilight, the black stain on the arm obviously blood.\n\n\"Your crewman?\" Jack asked.\n\nThe boy shook his head.\n\n\"I lost him on the third landing. Some of them bastards were hiding in a gully, no horses. They shot Petra as he was up on a pole, then came rushing out. I got hit, too, but managed to get off.\"\n\nHe lowered his head.\n\n\"I think Petra was still alive when I left him,\" the boy whispered.\n\nJack patted him lightly on his left shoulder.\n\n\"You did the right thing. You had to save your Hornet.\"\n\n\"No sir, I was scared. I might have been able to get him in.\"\n\n\"No you couldn't,\" the other pilot interjected. \"I had no more ammunition, so all I could do was try and scare them by flying low. That's when they shot up my ship as well.\"\n\n\"I was scared and ran.\"\n\n\"We're all scared,\" Jack replied softly. \"Now get some rest. I want both of you back up tomorrow at first light, wounded or not. Anyone who can fly has to be in the air tomorrow. You saved your ship, so don't think about anything else now.\"\n\nThey continued on, Hans catching a glimpse of a bottle being passed around as soon as they had passed.\n\nThe headquarters hut for the airfield was nothing more than a-hrown-walled adobe shack, typical of Tyre, where lumber was in such short supply. It was the only light on the field as the men labored under the glow of the twin moons that were breaking the eastern horizon.\n\nAs they stepped in Hans was startled to see Gregory Timokin. His face was still puffy, pink, blistered. Hands were wrapped in bandages, and it reinforced yet again just how desperate this venture was. Stan stood beside him, grinning, obviously eager for the operation to begin.\n\nThough his stomach was still in rebellion over the flight he quickly took up the bottle of vodka sitting on a rough-hewn table, uncorked it, and took a long drink.\n\n\"All right. What's the bad news first?\"\n\nGregory snickered.\n\n\"You want the long or the short version?\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"Fuel first of all. If we were burning coal, there'd be more than enough. Fifty-two ironclads. I'll need twenty-five thousand gallons if you want them to get to Carnagan.\"\n\n\"I have first priority,\" Jack interjected.\n\n\"And that's at least another forty thousand gallons for one way.\"\n\n\"We supposedly had it stockpiled,\" Hans said, rubbing his forehead as the vodka hit him.\n\n\"The oil field is lost. We had enough stockpiled through our coking of coal and getting the coal oil,\" Vincent said. \"What's the problem? And what do you mean 'fifty-two ironclads'?\"\n\nGregory sighed, staring at the ceiling. \"One of the ships carrying more coal oil and ten land ironclads hasn't docked.\"\n\n\"What the hell? There was supposed to be a monitor escort for you people.\"\n\n\"Fog. Yesterday and the day before. We came out of it, near Tigranus Point, and the ship was missing. I asked a Hornet to go up the coast, and the pilot thinks he found the wreck. It went straight into a shoal and foundered.\"\n\n\"Damn all,\" Hans snapped. \"So we're short how much?\"\n\n\"Fifteen thousand gallons.\"\n\nHans looked over at Vincent, who shook his head.\n\n\"We could make that up in a week from the coking plants at Roum and Suzdal. It's getting it here, though.\" An argument broke out between Jack and Gregory over who got priority on the fuel; Hans just sat woodenly, staring at the bottle for a moment, while meditatively munching on a piece of hardtack to put something back into his stomach.\n\n\"Ground the Hornets that got shot up. Pull off the Eagle that cracked its undercarriage, then detail off four more Eagles to stay behind.\"\n\n\"What?\" Jack snapped. \"That's ten percent of my remaining force.\"\n\n\"Our force, Jack, our force. We need fuel for the ironclads. The Eagles can be used locally for support. Once more fuel comes in they can be used to haul what, a couple of hundred gallons each out to the column to keep it supplied. Gregory, I'm taking five thousand gallons from you for our remaining airships.\"\n\nNow both Gregory and Jack were on him, but he sat silent, his icy stare finally causing them to fall silent.\n\n\"I know that won't give you enough fuel to reach your objective with any margin to spare. Figure this though. Half your machines will break down before you even get there. Do like we did on the Ebro. Drain off the remaining fuel, load it into the ironclads still running, then move on.\"\n\nThe two started to object again, and Vincent slammed the table with his fist.\n\n\"Damn all. There's no time to argue now. This operation is supposed to kick off tomorrow morning. The argument's over. Gregory, your machines, are they ready?\"\n\n\"If you mean off-loaded, yes sir. Like I said, we're down to fifty-two.\"\n\n\"And did the Bantag see them before the lines got cut?\"\n\n\"Certain of it.\"\n\nHans smiled. \"Good. That's what we wanted.\"\n\n\"I don't get it,\" Gregory replied sharply. \"Why didn't you cut the telegraph wires first before we brought the ironclads down here. Now they'll know and be on us.\"\n\n\"That's what I wanted,\" Vincent replied. \"We're the bait.\"\n\n\"The what?\" Stan asked. \"And what do you mean 'we'?\"\n\n\"Because I'm going with you, Stan.\"\n\n\"Fine, but what the hell is this about bait?\"\n\n\"We had to cut the lines before we flew all the airships in here to Tyre. The moment we did I assumed Jurak would figure what the real target is. I didn't want him to guess the true intent, so I wanted him to get word that all our ironclads had been moved down here. He'll assume that we are trying to break out of Tyre and take Camagan. After all, it is a logical move. We take Carnagan even briefly and we could threaten his supplies moving over the Great Sea. Beyond that we could tear up that rail line they're building from there over to here. I want him to focus on here while Hans presses the main attack.\"\n\nBoth Stan and Gregory nodded, but it was obvious that they were less pleased with this role, and the definition that they were to be a diversion rather than the main attack.\n\n\"So it's Third Corps and nothing else?\" Stan asked.\n\n\"Yes. We have to keep a minimum of two corps here in Tyre to hold this base. I think one corps is more than enough.\"\n\n\"You ready?\" Hans asked.\n\nStan smiled, shifting the plug of tobacco in his cheek, looking a bit like a younger version of Hans.\n\n\"We scraped up ten days of rations per man, one hundred rounds of ammunition with an additional hundred in the supply wagons. New shoes have been issued. We're ready.\"\n\n\"And your feelings on this one?\" Timokin asked.\n\nStan smiled. \"Oh, about the same as everyone else, I guess. But what the hell. Kinda figured we all should have drowned off the coast of Carolina ten years ago. Every day since has been a bonus. If we're going to go down, let me do it out in the open fighting. Tell me where to go, Hans, we'll get there.\"\n\nHans smiled and looked over at Vincent. The three corps cut off in Tyre had developed a unique spirit. In the one sense they felt abandoned, cut off on a useless front while the big actions were fought up around Roum. But on the other side they had a blind faith in Hans and any sense of difference between Rus and Roum had been burned out of them during the harrowing retreat from the Green Mountains down to this coastal port and the long months in the trenches afterward. These men were battle-hardened but not battle-exhausted as were the survivors of Roum and the nightmare assault at Capua.\n\n\"Effectives?\"\n\n\"Ten thousand two hundred men with the corps ready to march. Six batteries of breechloading three-inchers, and one mounted regiment.\"\n\n\"What about supply wagons?\" Gregory asked. \"That's the crucial thing. We need healthy horses and good strong wagons that can keep up.\"\n\n\"About a hundred,\" came the reply, and again there was the look of exasperation from Gregory.\n\n\"Hell, four hundred wounded in a fight, and we're in trouble.\" He looked over at Hans.\n\nAfter the horror of leaving over a thousand wounded behind during the retreat of last year, Hans had made a firm statement that never again would wounded by abandoned. He shifted uncomfortably.\n\n\"Ammunition and coal oil have to come first. With luck we'll capture a lot of horses at the start. That'll alleviate food and transport for lightly wounded. Wounded that can be saved get wagon space; those who can't make it \u2026\" He lowered his head, leaving the rest unsaid, that the man would be left behind with a few rounds of ammunition.\n\n\"What I figured,\" Stan replied. \"Just I think of old Jack Whatley at times \u2026\" His voice trailed off.\n\n\"Anything else?\" Hans asked.\n\nThe group was silent, looking one to the other.\n\n\"Fine, we start up in six hours. Try and get some sleep.\" One by one the group headed out. He knew Jack and Gregory would be up all night, double-checking on each machine. Finally, only Vincent was left. He settled down in a chair across the table from Hans, eyed the bottle, and finally uncorked it and took a drink. Hans said nothing.\n\n\"War's changed too much.\" Hans sighed, stretching out his stiff leg. \"I miss the old ways. God, there was something about a division, an entire corps on the volley line. It was hell, but I'll never forget Fredericksburg, watching the Irish brigade going up the hill. Damn what a sight.\"\n\n\"Even Hispania,\" Vincent replied. \"When we pivoted an entire division, closing off the flank, the men cheering, shoulder to shoulder, perfect alignment, over four thousand men. Wonder if we'll ever see the likes of that again.\"\n\n\"Not with these new machines. Changed everything. Guess it's inevitable. Back on the old world, bet they have 'em as well by now.\"\n\nVincent took another drink and passed the bottle to Hans, who nodded his thanks, shifted his chew, and enjoyed another gulp.\n\n\"Don't go getting yourself killed out there,\" Hans said.\n\n\"Goes with the job.\"\n\n\"No, there's more to it.\"\n\nHe leaned forward, staring into Vincent's eyes.\n\n\"Son, my generation, Andrew, Pat, Emil, we've played out our part. A chapter's closing with this war. If we win.\" He shook his head. \"No, when we win, I pray that will be the end of it for us. But that doesn't end it on this world. You and I, perhaps even more than Andrew and Pat, are the real revolutionaries. I was their prisoner. You, well you had your own torment from them.\"\n\nVincent said nothing.\n\n\"We both know this war will have to sweep the entire world. The Bantag are of the great northern hordes, but there must be more out there. We only know of one small part of this world. We have no idea of what is southward beyond the realm of the Bantag, what's on the other side, what threats there still are. The only hope is to free all of humanity on this world, then build from there. It will be your war then.\"\n\n\"So stay alive, is that it?\"\n\nHans smiled. \"After this is over you'll have Andrew as your mentor. He thinks he wants to let go of the reins, but knowing Andrew that will change. There's supposed to be an election at the end of the year. Who knows, he might even run if we still have a country and are still alive. If he does, well you'd be the choice for who would run the army.\"\n\n\"What about you, or Pat?\"\n\nHans smiled and waved aside the question.\n\n\"You can't have a better model than him to follow. And watch out for him, too. It will be tough at times.\"\n\n\"As he followed you,\" Vincent said, and Hans was surprised to see a softening, something so rare in this boy who had come of age too early in the crucible of war.\n\nHans cleared his throat nervously.\n\n\"You talk like you don't expect to come back,\" Vincent said.\n\n\"Well, when you planned this mad operation, what chance did you give to the air operation?\"\n\nVincent said nothing for a moment.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Varinna was a bit more optimistic than I.\"\n\n\"I see. But you know, it's what I wanted, what I said from the very beginning. That's why Andrew decided it was me who should lead it rather than you.\"\n\n\"I know that now.\"\n\n\"And Vincent.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I'm going all the way with this one.\"\n\nHe didn't mention Andrew's authorization; he'd only play that if he had to.\n\n\"Kind of figured you would,\" Vincent replied calmly. Hans looked up at the simple wooden clock hanging over a tattered picture from Gates's Illustrated, a full-page print of Jack Petracci with four smaller images, one in each corner of the illustration, showing airships fighting.\n\n\"Well past ten,\" Hans announced. \"We're up at three, so let's get some sleep.\"\n\nVincent nodded. He was never one to be able to hold his liquor, and the three shots of vodka had made him noddy. Within minutes he was snoring peacefully. Hans stepped outside. By the light of the twin moons he could see the shadowy forms of the airships lined up, men laboring about them in the dark. A wagon clattered past him, trailing a heavy scent of kerosene. He heard muttered snatches of conversation in Rus, Latin, Chin, even a few choice expletives in English. Overhead the Great Wheel filled the sky. It was a comforting sight. A good world this. Maybe we can go beyond the mistakes of the old one, build something better. But first we have to survive, he thought.\n\nHe went back into the hut and quietly lay down on the other cot. Strange memories floated for a moment, not of the war, even of the prairie, but long before, Prussia, the scent of the forest wafting through the open window at night when he was a boy. The shadow of his mother coming in to check on him, then drifting away.\n\nWhy that? he wondered. His hand rested on his chest, feeling the quiet beat. Steady now, not the hollow drifting sense that came too often. Emil kept talking about the need to take it easy. Old Emil, God just how old was he? Must be well over seventy. Hard to keep track of the years, real years as counted back home.\n\nThe clock quietly ticked, his thoughts drifted, and he knew there would be no sleep tonight. Far too much to think of, not of what would come \u2026 but rather of what had once been."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "Jurak sifted through the reports, carefully reading the roughly printed Rus letters taken down by the Chinese telegraphers. All lines south of the Green Mountains had been cut by airship attacks.\n\nThat was not the concern of the moment, though. It was the airships that were troubling him. Along the entire Capua Front there was only one airship.\n\nIt was supposed to represent ten ships, and it was the clumsy deception that gave it away. The humans had taken to the use of symbols which were known to be numbers in their English language. Observers along the front were given the strictest of orders to note down such symbols when they reported sightings. The same ten numbers kept appearing for the last seven days but it was only this afternoon that one of his warriors, a lowly commander of ten, had been allowed into his presence, claiming that he was convinced there were not ten ships but only one. When questioned he said he remembered the one particular ship since it had almost killed him during the river battle and that it had a slight stain along the underside of its left wing and a triangle-shaped patch not much more than a hand-span across on the right wing. All of the supposed ten ships now had the identical stain and patch.\n\nWith that Jurak had made it a point to observe the ship as it flew over twice during the day and the commander of ten (who was now commander of a hundred) was right. They were pasting different numbers on the ship. It was an old trick, and the fact that the humans resorted to it must mean that their airships were all somewhere else.\n\nHe had already sent faster riders southwest from the nearest garrison to the breaks in the line, demanding a full report. News, though, would be a day old.\n\nIn the morning he thought he had a clear grasp of the plan. Now he wasn't sure. Such an operation would not require every airship of the Yankee fleet. There were several scenarios possible, a couple within the capability of what the humans knew of war. There were several beyond them, or had they realized that airships could be used for more than just reconnaissance and bombing?\n\nHe felt a cold shiver at that thought and called for a guard to summon Zartak."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "\"Hans, time we got moving.\"\n\nIt was Ketswana, his towering bulk filling the doorframe. First light was tracing the horizon, dawn still more than an hour off. Engines were already warming up on the airstrip, distant voices echoing.\n\n\"Come on, Vincent, let's roll.\"\n\nThe boy was fast asleep, curled up on the coat, his oversize riding boots still on, making him look even more like a child who had insisted upon falling asleep in his play uniform. Vincent stirred, and then was bolt upright, a brief instant of panic until he realized where he was. Hans said nothing, understanding. Old instincts from the field. \"Everything all right?\" Vincent asked a bit too loudly.\n\n\"Just that it's time.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nKetswana came back into the room carrying a wooden plank. Two steaming tins of tea were on it, along with pieces of hardtack topped off with slabs of cold salt pork. Hans blew on the rim of the cup between gulps of the scalding brew, then quickly consumed the cold breakfast.\n\nVincent was up, eating a bit more slowly. Gregory Timokin came in.\n\n\"Everything's ready, sir,\" he announced to Vincent. \"We better get up to the front.\"\n\nVincent nodded and started for the door, taking his cup of tea with him. He stopped by Hans's side.\n\n\"Not much at sentimental good-byes, Hans.\"\n\n\"Nor I.\"\n\nVincent chuckled. \"Sure, Hans. See you in a week.\"\n\n\"You too, son. Gregory, don't let him bang his head.\" Gregory smiled and offered Hans his hand. Hans took it gently, and even then Gregory grimaced from the pain.\n\n\"Wish you were coming along, too. It'd be like the Ebro all over again,\" he said, forcing a smile.\n\n\"Once was enough,\" Hans lied. \"Besides, I like flying.\"\n\nVincent started out the door, then stopped.\n\n\"Save a little glory for me, will you?\" he asked lightheartedly.\n\nHans laughed softly.\n\n\"And for God's sake please come back.\" And now there was a note of concern in his voice. Before Hans could reply, he was gone.\n\n\"Everyone seems to think we're going to get killed, my friend,\" Hans said to Ketswana.\n\n\"Not us, we're immortal. As long as I'm with you, you're safe.\"\n\nFinishing his tea, Hans left the cup in the hut, stepped outside to relieve himself, then started for the flight line. More and yet more engines were turning over, warming up. Crews were loading into the cargo compartments, and Ketswana mentioned that nine men, after the flight over from Suzdal, absolutely refused to get back in. Volunteers from the ground crews had replaced them.\n\nAll around them was a bustle of activity. They passed several Hornets revving up their engines, a crew chief shouting obscenities in Rus. A wagon clattered past, again the smell of kerosene. With a thousand men working as ground crews, most of them pressed into service and only given a couple of days training, it was a near miracle, Hans realized, that the entire place hadn't exploded with some darn fool having smuggled in a box of matches for a smoke, or from the accidental discharge of a gun.\n\nThey passed an Eagle, the ten Chin gathered in front of it, squatting around a bucket of steaming grits and a smaller bucket of tea. They didn't even notice their commander passing, and continued to chatter in their singsong voices. A ground crew trotted past, carrying coils of ropes, and then several boys darted around Hans, lugging skins filled with water to be loaded on board a ship.\n\n\"The training pays off here,\" Hans said. \"There was part of me thought Varinna mad to think it could be pulled off, but here it is. Men, equipment, fuel, food, ammunition, all of it coming together in this place.\"\n\n\"They know it's this or defeat,\" Ketswana replied. \"We know as well that this is something special, a new thing, something we will always remember.\"\n\nIt was hard to sort out which flier was which in the darkness, and finally they had to grab one of the ground crews to guide them to Jack's ship. As they approached the aerosteamer, Hans was glad to see that Gates's Illustrated had finally been put to a good use, enough copies had indeed been found to paper over the front and sides of the cargo compartments to block out the wind.\n\nKetswana started for the crew compartment under Jack's ship.\n\n\"I thought you were on number thirty-nine,\" Jack observed.\n\n\"Didn't like the pilot.\"\n\n\"Suppose something happens to me,\" Hans interjected. \"You're to take over, remember?\"\n\nKetswana laughed.\n\n\"And suppose something happened to me on the other ship. Where would you be? No, I stay with you, my friend.\"\n\nHans wanted to argue but he could see Jack standing by the ladder to the forward compartment, arms folded, grinning.\n\n\"Kinda logical actually,\" Jack announced. \"I'll get you in. Besides, the boys know what to do; the company commanders are all briefed.\"\n\n\"All right, go on, get in,\" Hans said, and Ketswana gave a final wave before ducking under the airship and climbing aboard.\n\n\"How is everything?\" Hans asked.\n\n\"One more machine down. Engine caught fire about an hour ago when they started it up, and part of the wing burned. This takeoff in the dark, a bit tricky.\"\n\n\"I know. It's a balance. Would have preferred to come in at dawn, but that meant night flying, and most of these boys would have gotten lost or wound up in Cartha or back in Suzdal. We've got to get down with enough daylight to get the job done.\"\n\n\"Then we better get moving.\"\n\nJack climbed the ladder first and a moment later one of the ground crew, who had been sitting in the forward cab watching while the engines ran on idle, scrambled down the ladder. Hans ascended into the cab and climbed into the copilot's seat, suddenly aware again of the lingering stench from the previous day's bout with airsickness. He wondered if there was something perverse about pilots, and they took a secret delight in the smell. For a moment he was worried that his stomach would rebel, leaving him without a breakfast. Opening the side window he stuck his head out and took a gulp of air.\n\n\"Let's hope everyone's on his toes,\" Jack shouted. \"I taxi out first, then each airship down the line follows. We circle out to sea and form up, then head out from there.\" Opening up both speaking tubes, he blew into them. \"Topside. Bottom side, hang on, we're heading out.\" Hans caught some moans and a burst of laughter from below. Ketswana actually was enjoying himself. Any chance to get into battle, in a land ironclad, aerosteamer, if need be crawling through a cesspool, it didn't matter to him, as long as he could kill Bantag.\n\nJack took hold of the throttles, edging them up until all four engines were howling. Finally, the ship lurched forward.\n\n\"We're heavy, damn heavy, and no wind to help us lift off.\"\n\nHe spun the wheel, closing the hot-air-bag vent atop the center air bag. They reached the center of the landing strip, following a ground crewman holding a white flag aloft, which stood out like a pale shimmer in the early-morning light. Hans felt as if somehow the machine was beginning to feel lighter, and he mentioned it to Jack.\n\n\"The center bag, depending on outside temperature, provides several hundred pounds of lift. Hell, I'll make an airman of you yet. You seem to have the feel for it. Starboard throttles idle, keep port side at full.\"\n\nHans put his hands on the throttles, Jack quickly guiding him, then letting go as he turned the wheel for the rudder. With ground crew helping, the airship slowly pivoted and lined up on a faint glimmer of light, three lanterns at the end of the field marking the takeoff path. The crew chief held his flag aloft, twirled it overhead, and let it drop while running to the port side to get out of the way.\n\n\"Here goes, full throttles, not too fast now \u2026 that's it.\" Hans fed the fuel in, the caloric engines slowly speeding up. They held still for what seemed an eternity, then started forward again. The takeoff seemed longer than the day before, the ship slowly lurching and bouncing, bobbing up once, settling, then finally clawing into the air. The three lanterns whisked by underneath, Jack holding the ship low to gain speed, the hot exhaust going into the center air bag, heating it up even more, lift increasing. He banked gently to starboard, and in the darkness Hans sensed more than felt the ocean open out beneath them. Jack continued his slow climbing turn, the top gunner reporting a second, third, and fourth ship lining up behind them. As they spiraled upward Hans wondered how anyone could see where the other ships were, but as they completed one full circle and the eastern horizon came back around he saw several airships clearly silhouetted against the red-purple horizon.\n\nThe air was gloriously still, reminding Hans of the sensation of sliding with skates on the first black ice of winter when he was a boy. They went through another circle and another, the ships spiraling up like hawks, slowly climbing on a summer thermal, soaring into the dark heavens.\n\nThe vast world spread out below them, faint wisps of ground fog now showing dark gray, the second of the two moons slipping below the western horizon, to the east the sky getting brighter. Each turn took them farther out to sea, the coast receding, part of the plan in case watchful eyes on the ground had somehow reestablished communications during the night.\n\n\"Losing another one,\" Jack announced, breaking the silence, and he pointed to where a ship, streaming smoke from one of its engines, was breaking away, heading straight back to the airfield.\n\nTwo Hornets came up, climbing far more steeply than the Eagles, soaring upward, their escort but also a signal that the last of the Eagles was off the ground.\n\n\"Any count?\" Jack asked, calling up to the top gunner, whom Hans truly pitied, stuck atop a flammable bag of hydrogen in an exposed Gatling mount. It was also his job to crawl around atop the bag and plug any holes shot through it in a fight. No silk umbrellas had been issued to the crews for this flight\u2014the weight considerations had ruled it out\u2014but even with such a device for jumping the top gunner rarely made it, since as soon as a ship caught on fire the heavy weight of the gun plunged the man straight down into the burning bag.\n\n\"Hard to count. I figure at least thirty ships are up, sir.\"\n\n\"Well try and get me the right number,\" Jack snapped. \"Damn. If we only got thirty up, we'll be slaughtered.\" Jack sighed, looking over at Hans.\n\n\"We go with what we got even if it's only one at this point,\" Hans replied absently, straining to catch a glimpse of the ground east of Tyre. Dawn was just breaking down there; Vincent would most likely be kicking off his move. Hans thought he could catch glimpses of smoke, a flash of light.\n\nThey continued through their final turn, the aerosteamer coming out of its gentle banking climb. Jack leveled them off, commenting that they were up over three thousand feet and climbing. The air was noticeably cooler, still calm and smooth. There was a glimpse of an airship several hundred feet lower, passing directly beneath them, the gunner looking up and waving. Jack lined up the compass on a southeasterly heading, pulled the elevator back slightly higher, pitching the nose upward. Tyre was now off the port side, a dozen miles away, impossible for Hans to see in his starboard seat.\n\n\"We level out at nine thousand, should be able to catch the current coming out of the west. That'll help us along a bit. Now remember, Hans, this is all from memory. I've only been there twice, so the charts aren't good.\"\n\n\"I trust you.\"\n\n\"You've got to; there's no one else.\"\n\nThe climb continued and gradually, through the glass view port between their feet, down in the position of the forward Gatling mount, Hans spotted the coast as they headed back to shore.\n\n\"Take the wheel, hold it steady for me on this heading,\" Jack ordered. \"Watch the compass, but also line up on some feature on the horizon. Also you can use the sun, but remember it keeps shifting, so don't follow it around.\" Hans tentatively put his hands on the wheel.\n\n\"That's it, just hold it steady. Let me ease back a bit on the throttles\u2014we need to conserve fuel.\"\n\nThe steady thump of the engines, the vibrations running through the ship, changed pitch, and though still loud, the change was a blessed relief. Still, there was the sensation of gliding on ice. The beautiful light of the dawning sun suddenly exploded across the horizon, flooding the cabin with a deep golden glow.\n\nWith the plane's nose pitched high, he felt as if he were climbing to the heavens and was filled with a deep abiding peace. The moment was worth holding on to and savoring. He looked sideways, Jack had settled back in his chair, eyes half-closed, and his hands were off the controls, arms folded across his chest. There was a momentary fear, and Jack smiled.\n\n'\"Hans, actually it's not all that hard. Just keep the heading, as we clear through nine thousand feet, the mercury in that gauge in the middle will tell you when, ease the nose down slightly. That's a while off, just relax and hold course.\" And he closed his eyes.\n\nHe felt suddenly as if he was alone in the ship, a joyous sensation, piloting it through the upper reaches of the sky. What waited ahead was forgotten for the moment, all of it washed away \u2026 and he was content."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "\"Andrew.\"\n\nThe dream had been of long before, of Mary. Long before her betrayal, long before all the pain when it had all been so innocent, so fresh and alive, walking hand in hand along the shore. Even in the dream he had been cognizant of the fact that he had one day found Mary with another man while he was still in Maine, that Kathleen was the center of his life now, but still there was such a pleasure in seeing his first true love again in spite of all the pain she had given him. Kathleen's gentle touch stirred him from the memory, and he felt a pang of guilt as he looked up into her worried eyes, as if afraid she could somehow sense what he had been dreaming.\n\n\"What time is it?\" he whispered.\n\n\"Just before dawn.\"\n\nHe heard a distant rattle of musketry and was instantly awake.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"I was at the hospital in the church when it started, and came back here. I don't know.\"\n\nEven as she helped him to get his trousers and jacket on he heard the hard clatter of hooves on the cobblestone pavement below his window, a rider reining in, the horse blowing hard, the messenger shouting to the guards at his door. He looked out the window and saw one of his staff, a young Roum lieutenant, another one of old Marcus's innumerable \"nephews,\" leaping from the saddle and running up the steps of the front porch, to pound on the door below.\n\nFrom the next room one of the twins stirred, crying softly, and Kathleen looked to Andrew. He nodded, and she left as he stepped out into the dim hallway and went down the stairs. He could see the shadow of the messenger beyond the glass panes of the door and called for him to enter. The boy came in, stiffly snapped to attention, and saluted, speaking so rapidly in Latin that Andrew had to motion for him to slow down.\n\n\"Sir. There's gunfire in the Congress halls. It's reported that the Speaker is dead and Bugarin has declared himself to be acting president.\"\n\nAndrew sighed wearily, leaning against the wall. Poor Flavius. Most likely went to meet Bugarin alone and died for it, he thought.\n\n\"Andrew!\"\n\nEmil came through the door, breathing hard.\n\n\"Andrew, they've taken the White House!\"\n\n\"What? I was just there.\" He paused, trying to remember. He had sat up with Kal till after midnight. The president was still drifting in and out of consciousness but apparently on the mend. But that was four hours ago.\n\n\"Well it was just stormed by some of the old boyars,\" Emil gasped. \"Bugarin's proclaiming that he is president.\"\n\n\"If Flavius is dead, then he is,\" Andrew said quietly, staring off, eyes no longer focused on the messenger or Emil.\n\n\"What the hell do you mean?\"\n\n\"Just that. The Constitution places Bugarin fourth in line of succession. The president is still incapacitated. Flavius wanted to avoid the crisis but not be declared acting president. Bugarin wants it, and with Flavius dead he has it.\"\n\n\"And you'll let him take it?\"\n\nAndrew said nothing.\n\n\"Andrew, at this very moment, that bastard's most likely proclaiming an armistice, passing the order for the armies to stand down.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"And what are you going to do?\"\n\n\"Do? My God, Emil, what the hell have I been doing here for the last ten years? We didn't want to be here. We didn't want to get dragged into this war. Damn near all the men of our lost regiment have died in this godforsaken hellhole.\"\n\nHe turned away and backed up to the staircase. \"Kathleen, get the children up.\"\n\n\"Why, Andrew?\"\n\n\"We're getting them out of here for the moment.\"\n\nHe looked back at the young Roum staff officer.\n\n\"Get down to the office of Gates's Weekly. Find Gates, let them know what's happening, round up some men if you can to hold that position, and don't let anyone you don't know into this part of the city.\"\n\nHe looked up to the top of the stairs where Kathleen was standing, ushering the children out of the bedroom.\n\n\"Take the children over to the armory of the Thirty-fifth. They'll be safer there.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\nHe reached over to the stand by the door and, taking his sword, clumsily snapped it on, reluctantly allowing Emil to help.\n\n\"I'm going to the White House.\"\n\n\"Why, for God's sake? Bugarin will kill you.\"\n\nAndrew shook his head.\n\n\"No. There's too many old veterans still with him to allow that. We're going to have a talk.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe paused, looking into his office, where framed over his desk were his two most prized possessions, his commissioning papers as colonel of volunteers, signed by Lincoln, and his Medal of Honor won at Gettysburg, presented by Lincoln as well. Going over to the display case he tore it open, taking out the medal, holding it reverently in his hands for a moment before clumsily pinning it on and heading out the door.\n\nSeveral more men had come on horse, others were gathering in the town square that looked so strangely like a small piece of New England transported to this alien world.\n\nOne of his orderlies, as if reading Andrew's mind, was leading Mercury out from the stable behind the house. Andrew mounted, Mercury moving easily beneath him, two old companions who had been together for over a decade. Word was spreading rapidly, and from the clapboard houses lining the square he could see the last few of his old companions who were in Suzdal coming out, Webster fumbling to button a uniform that was far too tight among them. From the northeast corner of the square a small detachment came into view, moving at the double \u2026 they were boys, cadets serving in the 35th Maine, which was now a training regiment, the West Point of the Republic, the boys too young to be pressed into action at the front. One of them proudly carried the regimental standard. Emil came up by Andrew's side, having taken a horse from one of the couriers.\n\n\"Going to the White House now is madness, Andrew. If Bugarin has indeed seized the government, he'll kill you on sight.\"\n\nAndrew felt a building rage.\n\nWebster came running up, breathing hard.\n\n\"Is Kal all right?\"\n\n\"We're not sure,\" Emil replied.\n\n\"Damn all, Andrew, this has gone too far. Seize control of the government now. The men will follow you!\"\n\nHe delivered the last words with a rhetorical flourish that echoed across the plaza, and a cheer went up in response.\n\nAndrew reined Mercury around hard, his steely gaze silencing the group. Turning, he headed toward the southeast corner of the square, saying nothing as Emil urged his Clydesdale-sized mount up beside him.\n\nAs Andrew rounded the corner onto the main street to the great plaza and the White House beyond, he saw that the street was already filling. He rode past the boarded-up theater, a tattered post hanging from the side billboard announcing a performance of King Lear. It caught his attention for a moment, the strangeness of watching Shakespeare performed in Russian on this alien world. The Roum soldiers stationed in Suzdal had been fascinated by Julius Caesar, since the real Caesar was from a time on Earth long after their ancestors had been swept to this world. He remembered as well a final night just before the start of the Merki War and the performance of Henry V.\n\nHe rode past, following the broad open boulevard flanked on both sides by ornately carved log buildings three and four stories high, the few older ones that had survived the fires and wars still adorned with gargoylelike images of Tugars. The crowd moved uneasily as he passed; there were no cheers today. Nor was there anger \u2026 rather it seemed to be an exhaustion of spirit and soul. It was easy to spot veterans, for nearly everyone was very old, very young, or female, veterans standing out as men on crutches or with empty sleeves. Those that could came to attention and saluted as he passed, but he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.\n\n\"Are you going to fight them?\" Emil finally asked, and Andrew said nothing.\n\n\"The men are with you. You know that?\" Emil nodded behind them. He didn't need to turn; he could hear the steady tramping of the cadets, the voice of Webster shouting out orders, urging even the veterans by the side of the road to fall in and \"support their colonel.\"\n\nThey passed the office of Gates's Illustrated Weekly. The publisher was in the street, mounted, waiting, apprentices, printers, the rest of his staff pouring out, some of them carrying rifles or pistols. Gates fell in on Andrew's flank.\n\n\"I thought the press was supposed to be neutral,\" Andrew quipped. \"What ever happened to the pen being mightier than the sword?\"\n\n\"Like hell we're neutral,\" the publisher snapped angrily. \"He has some senators with him, all of them armed.\"\n\n\"Any troops?\"\n\n\"No organized units. But there are some men, a few old boyars and former men-at-arms mostly. I knew we should have killed all of them after that last rebellion.\"\n\n\"What happened?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"Flavius is dead. I know that for a fact; one of my reporters was in the building when it happened. Bugarin didn't do it, though, at least not by his own hand. Again, it was like the shot at Kal. We don't know. But once it happened Bugarin rounded up some followers and made straight for the White House. Apparently a few shots were fired there.\"\n\n\"Kal?\"\n\n\"No idea. But word is Bugarin dragged in one of the justices and Casmir.\"\n\n\"So he's getting himself sworn in,\" Emil replied. \"If he's president, we've got to fight them, Andrew.\"\n\n\"I realize that,\" Andrew said quietly.\n\nSometimes the hardest thing was to do nothing, Hans had told him, and he smiled at the thought.\n\nThe great central plaza of the city of Suzdal was directly ahead, already filling with the citizens of the city. As he rode to the edge of the square a buzzing hum rose up from the crowd. Behind him Andrew heard Webster shouting for the company of cadets to move forward at the double and clear a path.\n\nAndrew reined in sharply, then turned Mercury sideways. He looked back down the street and saw that several hundred men were now with him. Behind them a crowd was pressing up the street to watch the drama.\n\nDrama, so much history and drama in this square, he thought. The first time we marched in. The day the envoy of the Tugars arrived. The charge against the boyars' army and then the stand against the Tugars in their final assault. Grand moments, too, the victory parades, the first reading of the Constitution I penned myself, its public ratification and the declaration of the Republic and the inauguration of President Kalenka.\n\nNow this.\n\nHe held his hand up, motioning for Webster to stop.\n\n\"I want this formation to halt and ground arms,\" Andrew said. He spoke softly but firmly.\n\nWebster looked up at him, confused.\n\n\"Mr. Webster, you are secretary of the treasury and no longer a soldier of rank with the Thirty-fifth, but I expect you to obey my orders nevertheless. Halt and stand at ease.\"\n\nWebster still did not react.\n\n\"William. Do you understand me?\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\nReluctantly Webster turned and shouted the order. There was a tense moment, several of the men shouting their refusal, but the order was finally carried out. He caught a glimpse of Kathleen in the crowd and forced a smile to try and calm her fears.\n\n\"Mr. Gates, you might as well come along as a member of the fourth estate. Emil, well I just want you along as well. Once you get the chance, go inside to check on Kal.\"\n\nHe saw the colors of the 35th Maine hanging limp in the still morning air. A gentle nudge with his heels, and Mercury edged forward to the head of the column, where the color-bearer stood. The boy came to rigid attention at Andrew's approach. He looked down and smiled at him.\n\n\"Son. do you know the responsibility you have?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, the souls of the men who died beneath these colors\"\u2014he nodded up at the blood-soaked folds\u2014\"they float about us now. Their spirits live in the flag.\"\n\nThe answer caught Andrew off guard and he stiffened. Of course the boy would believe that, he was from Roum. Two thousand years ago their soldiers believed their dead gathered about the standard of the legion.\n\nWas Johnnie now here, Ferguson, Mina, Malady, Whatley, and Kindred, so many others?\n\nSlowly he raised his right hand, eyes focused on the flag, his mind filled with all that it represented. He saluted the colors.\n\nQuickly, before the men could see the emotion that was about to flood out, he turned Mercury about with a nudge of his heels and a whispered command, picked the reins up, and quickly urged the horse to a slow canter. Emil fell in behind him, the doctor cursing under his breath since he hated to ride.\n\nThe crowd gathered in the great plaza parted at Andrew's approach; he could hear his name echoing across the square. As he passed they closed in behind him, surging forward toward the White House.\n\nIt was really nothing more than an oversize log structure, typical of ancient Rus, window shutters painted with gay designs, wildly fantastic ornamentation adorning the corners and steeply pitched tile roof. At Kal's insistence the entire thing had been whitewashed, since after all that was the house a president lived in, a house painted white.\n\nHe wondered if poor Kal was still alive in there. His old friend, his first real friend on this world, had changed so much in the last year. It was almost as if a dementia, an exhaustion, had broken him. He at times wondered if Kal had simply been too gentle, too filled with compassion to be a president. Every single death at the front told on him. Barely a day went by when he was not in the cathedral at noonday, attending yet another memorial service for the boy of a friend, an old drinking comrade, or simply because he felt that a president should be there when someone mourned a life given for the Republic.\n\nAndrew remembered how shocked he had been the last time he saw Lincoln, face deeply etched, eyes dark and sunken. When Lincoln noticed the empty sleeve, just a quick sidelong glance, then looked back into his eyes, he felt as if the president was filled with a fatherly desire and prayer that Andrew would be spared from any more agony in service to his country. That was Kal, even more so, and all the man wanted now was for the killing to stop.\n\nAnd there was the paradox of war, that there were times that in order to save lives the killing must go on.\n\nHe reined in by the steps of the executive mansion. A cordon of troops ringed the last few steps into the building, the crowd nervously edging up on the lower level. Emil suddenly blocked his view, swinging his mount in front of Andrew'.\n\n\"Doctor, just what the hell are you doing?\" Andrew whispered.\n\n\"Damn all, Andrew, there could be a sniper in any of those windows up there.\"\n\n\"I know that, Doctor; now kindly move. The last thing I want at this moment is to see you get hurt.\"\n\nEmil reluctantly drew his mount around beside Andrew, but he continued to look up at the building, squinting.\n\nAndrew was motionless, and the seconds dragged out.\n\n\"Andrew?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\"\n\n\"Waiting.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Just waiting,\" Andrew snapped, his tone making it clear that he didn't want to talk.\n\nThe crowd was pressing around him, an old woman tugged at his leg, he looked down, she spoke too rapidly in Rus for him to understand, her voice drowned out by the rising clamor of the anxious crowd.\n\nFinally, a captain came out the front door, leaving it open, stepped through the cordon of guards, walked down the steps, smartly snapped to attention, and saluted. Andrew recognized him as the officer in charge of Kal's personal guard.\n\n\"Colonel, sir?\"\n\n\"Good morning. Captain.\"\n\nThe soldier looked up at him, obviously a bit confused. \"Captain, President Kalenka, how is he?\"\n\n\"Sir, he is still alive. I have placed a double detachment of guards at his door, two officers in his room armed as well.\"\n\n\"And they're good men?\"\n\n\"Sir, I picked them,\" the captain announced, hurt by the implication.\n\nAndrew stared at the young officer, gauging him, then nodded.\n\n\"And his condition?\"\n\nThe captain drew closer, coming up to Andrew's side, the crowd drawing back slightly.\n\n\"Not good I'm afraid, sir; the fever's coming back, his wife says.\"\n\n\"Damn all,\" Emil mumbled.\n\nAndrew nodded, lifted his gaze, staring again at the building.\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Sir, is there anything else?\"\n\n\"Has Bugarin been sworn in as acting president?\"\n\n\"Yes sir. Sir, I was ordered by one of his people to remove the guard from President Kalenka and place them around the room Bugarin is in.\"\n\n\"And you refused?\"\n\n\"Yes sir, I most certainly did.\"\n\n\"As colonel in command of the army, I am giving you a personal order, Captain. You are to guard Kalenka with your life.\"\n\n\"I would do it anyhow, sir.\"\n\n\"No matter what orders you receive afterward my order to you right now comes first. President Kalenka is to be protected at all cost.\"\n\n\"I will die before anyone harms him, sir,\" the young captain replied fiercely.\n\n\"Good, son. Now please go inside and announce to Mr. Bugarin and Metropolitan Casmir that I request to see them, out here.\"\n\nThis order he announced with raised voice, the command echoing out over the crowd. The square grew hushed.\n\nThe captain saluted, hurried inside, and long minutes passed. Finally he returned, alone.\n\n\"Colonel Keane, Mr.,\" and he hesitated for a second, \"Acting President Bugarin says that you are to report to him inside.\"\n\nAndrew stiffened.\n\n\"As commander of the army I request a public meeting, here in front of the citizens of Suzdal, and tell him I will wait here all damn day if necessary.\"\n\nThe captain scurried back, and Andrew pitied him, caught between two fires.\n\n\"Andrew, are you going to do what I think you're doing?\"\n\nAndrew looked over at Emil and smiled.\n\nThe bell in the church tower tolled, marking the passage of time, and finally someone appeared in the door. It was Metropolitan Casmir. He turned, looking back into the White House, obviously shouting something that was unintelligible, then turned and strode down the steps, black robes billowing. He stopped several steps above Andrew, raised his staff, and looked out at the crowd, then made the sign of blessing. Instantly there was silence, everyone going to their knees, blessing themselves. Remaining mounted, Andrew was at eye level with him.\n\n\"Has Bugarin been sworn in as acting president?\" Andrew asked.\n\n\"Yes, Andrew.\" His voice was low, barely a whisper. \"It was your own Constitution that forced me to do it. Kal, I'm not sure if he will survive. Marcus is dead, Flavius is dead. Bugarin is next in line. The Constitution requires it; I had to bless the ceremony.\"\n\nAndrew knew instantly from his tone that Casmir loathed what he had to do.\n\n\"Since you are the chief justice, I request that you initiate an investigation into the attempted assassination of the president and the assassination of the Speaker. I doubt seriously if the executive branch will do so. I doubt as well if you could muster the votes in the Senate to remove Bugarin.\"\n\n\"I will do everything I can, both as a justice and as a priest.\"\n\nThere was a stir in the crowd. Casmir looked back over his shoulder. Half a dozen guards were in the doorway.\n\n\"I told Bugarin I would denounce him as a coward if he didn't come out to meet you,\" Casmir whispered.\n\nAndrew could not help but chuckle.\n\n\"Are you going to overthrow him?\" Casmir asked, and Andrew sensed the conflict in his friend's voice.\n\nHe said nothing, watching intently as Bugarin appeared in the doorway, strangely wearing the stovepipe hat of Kal, which to this world had become the ceremonial symbol of the president. The guards, all of them older senators, came down the steps, Bugarin in the middle of the group.\n\nThey stopped behind Casmir.\n\nAndrew stared at him intently. There was a defiance, but he could sense the fear as well. Was this the man who could engineer not just the assassination of the Speaker but the attempt on the president as well? Did he believe so passionately that the war must end that he would kill, or was he just a pawn as well?\n\nRegardless of what Andrew suspected about how Bugarin had come to power, he was at least for this moment the president of the Republic.\n\nWith deliberate slowness Andrew raised his hand and saluted. A hushed whisper ran through the crowd. It was an acknowledgment, they all knew that. He could sense the tension easing out of Bugarin, but there was still a wariness. He heard a mumbled curse; it was Emil who remained defiant, unable to bring himself to salute.\n\n\"I wish to see President Kalenka now,\" Emil announced, addressing his statement to Casmir and emphasizing the word president.\n\n\"I'll see to it, Emil,\" the prelate replied, \"and you are under my personal protection.\"\n\nEmil looked over at Andrew.\n\n\"Just a second,\" Andrew whispered.\n\n\"For what? To see you kiss his bloody boot?\"\n\nAndrew ignored his friend's defiance.\n\n\"May I inquire of the acting president if there are any orders for the army in regards to operations both offensive and defensive.\"\n\nHe said the words slowly, deliberately, so that all could hear.\n\n\"All offensive operations are to cease. I am asking for a ceasefire immediately. We will end this senseless war.\"\n\nAgain the ripple of voices erupted in the square. This was the moment. The crowd was confused. There was a ripple of cheers, but it lacked depth and enthusiasm. He could hear the rustling of arms back across the square, a muffled order, most likely Webster telling the men there to get ready.\n\n\"Sir, if you are ordering me to have the army stand down, I cannot obey that order.\"\n\nThere was an expectant hush.\n\nAndrew slowly reached down to his side, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword. One of the senators started to raise a pistol, cocking it. Casmir turned to face the senators, shouting for them to remain still.\n\nAndrew carefully drew out his sword, a ceremonial blade given to him by Kal and the Congress in recognition of their victory over the Tugars. He made it a point of now saluting with the blade, hilt drawn up before his face, blade vertical, but as he did so he looked up toward the flag gently fluttering atop the White House.\n\nHe took a deep breath, steadying himself for what would come next.\n\nQuickly he inverted the blade in his grasp, fumbling slightly with his one hand since he was nervous.\n\nWith hilt pointed toward Bugarin he tossed the sword onto the steps so that it clattered by Casmir's feet.\n\n\"I hereby resign my commission with the Army of the Republic,\" he cried, voice carrying to the farthest corners of the plaza. \"I retire to private life and shall leave this city and the Republic.\"\n\nThe crowd fell as silent as the grave. Bugarin looked at him startled, unable to react.\n\nAndrew took a deep breath; to his surprise, he felt as if a horrible burden had been lifted.\n\nHe half turned his horse away from Bugarin. In his mind the man simply no longer existed.\n\nAndrew looked at the crowd, the upturned faces.\n\n\"I gave ten years to this country,\" he shouted, his voice echoing. \"We came to this world, more than five hundred of us. Over four hundred of them are dead, dying to give you freedom. In those ten years of service and sacrifice, I have learned something.\"\n\nHe waited a moment, the crowd in the square as silent as the tomb.\n\n\"You cannot give freedom to anyone. Each man, each woman must earn it themselves, and then guard it from others who would take it away. Guard it from the hordes, guard it from those who would bow again to the hordes.\" As he said the last words, he nodded toward the White House.\n\nHe looked straight back at Bugarin.\n\n\"I am now a private citizen and as a private citizen I say this to you. I expect the health of our beloved President Kalenka to be guarded at all cost. If he should die, for whatever reason, you will have to answer to me personally.\"\n\nBugarin blanched at the direct threat but said nothing. With a deliberate show of contempt, Andrew turned his back without waiting for a reply and again faced the crowd.\n\n\"To those who were my friends, who fought for freedom, I thank you. As for the rest.\" He hesitated remembering Davy Crockett's famous farewell statement. \"Well, I pity you, for if you surrender, you will surely die. Farewell.\"\n\nWith head held high he started to ride back toward his home and felt a lightness within he had not known in years. He had done his duty, he had wrestled with the desire to take it all, an act he knew he could have done. He had not stained himself, and he had not destroyed the Republic. If the Republic was doomed to die, it would be other hands that destroyed his dream and not his own. By doing nothing more at this moment he felt that he had performed one of the most important duties of his career.\n\nAs he passed the spell around him broke, voices erupting, some shouting for him to stay, others calling to fight, others shouting that the war was over. Gates, riding by his side, looked at him, gape-mouthed.\n\n\"What about the war?\" Gates finally asked.\n\nAndrew smiled.\n\n\"They have three days down in Tyre before word can ever get to them. It's beyond my control now.\"\n\n\"God protect Hans and Vincent.\" Gates sighed.\n\n\"Yes,\" Andrew replied, lowering his head. \"God protect us all.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"North; I'll leave the city tomorrow.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "Hans had told him he would enjoy it, and he was right. He had never liked horses all that much. An officer was expected to ride, and so he did, but trying to keep a comfortable seat aboard a monster the size of a Clydesdale was impossible, especially after the wound to his hip.\n\nRiding an ironclad was different. It bounced the guts out of him as they rumbled up and down over the vast undulating plains, but at the moment he didn't care \u2026 he was back in action, and that's what counted.\n\nCresting a low bluff the driver down below halted their machine. To Vincent's left, sprawled on the ground, were half a dozen Bantag, torn apart by Gatling fire, their mounts dead as well. The Hornet that had done the job came sweeping back from the east, wagging its wings as it passed overhead, most likely returning back to base, its ammunition spent.\n\nMoving stiffly, Vincent turned, holding the side of the turret, letting his legs dangle over the side of the machine, and he dropped clumsily to the ground. It was good to be out of the machine. The open hatch atop the turret tended to act as a chimney, drawing heat up from the main deck below, where the boiler was. The dry sage crackled beneath his feet, the pungent smell clearing away the stench of hot oil and kerosene.\n\nHe raised his field glasses. Far ahead, several miles away, he could see them, six umens identified so far, sixty thousand mounted warriors of the Horde \u2026 and all of them confused as hell.\n\nThe breakout had started at dawn. A rocket barrage of five hundred rounds had preceded the attack, and then fifty-two ironclads led the way. They'd lost six in that opening assault, but within minutes their firepower, combined with the support of twenty Hornets, had torn a gaping hole in the Bantag lines a mile wide, the enemy fleeing in disorganized panic.\n\nFollowing them had come the entire 3rd Corps, moving by regiments in a huge block formation, the same system Hans had used the year before during the withdrawal from the Green Mountains. But this time they had additional artillery with them, wagons for supplies, in addition to the Gatlings aboard the ironclads and in the air.\n\nIt was a different kind of warfare for a different age, Vincent realized. Varinna had grasped that, and it was beginning to crystallize in his own mind. This was more like ships maneuvering at sea than the old style of battles on land. Keep the ironclads together except for a dozen scattered around the square of 3rd Corps to provide fire support and to act as rally points.\n\nAn ironclad ground up the slope beside him and came to a stop, steam hissing from the safety valve, the top door open, a head sticking out.\n\n\"Bastards don't know what to do!\" Timokin grinned, sitting up in the turret of his machine and wiping his face with a sweat-stained rag. He climbed out and dropped to the ground next to Vincent. Other machines were climbing the slope behind them, moving in a giant V formation a half mile wide. It was a grand sight, smoke billowing, cleated wheels cutting into the dry turf, gun ports open, three-inch rifles and Gatlings protruding and ready for action.\n\nBehind them all of 3rd Corps was marching in open block formation. Just inside the giant square six batteries moved at an easy pace, ready to swing out and deploy if needed, while in the center of the vast square were the wagons loaded down with extra fuel, ammunition, and medical supplies. The lone regiment of mounted troopers weaved back and forth outside the square along the flanks and rear, troopers occasionally reining in to trade a couple of shots with Bantag riders who ventured too close to the formation. Overhead four Hornets circled lazily, ready to swoop down if the Bantag should try to venture a charge.\n\nHe could sense the exhilaration in the ranks. Third Corps had stayed in Tyre throughout the winter, avoiding the gutting of the army at Roum and the disaster at Capua. If anything, the men had felt abandoned, forgotten on a secondary front, and after nine months in the siege lines were glorying in a chance to prove something.\n\nGregory offered Vincent his canteen, and he gladly took it. He had drained his own canteen hours ago and pride had kept him from asking for more water from his crew below, who were suffering in far worse heat. Too many months behind a desk he realized.\n\nThe water was hot, but he didn't care, rinsing the oily taste out of his mouth and then taking a long gulp.\n\n\"This is a damn sight better than Capua,\" Gregory said, wincing slightly when Vincent tossed the canteen back. \"Type of country these machines were made for. not the tangle of trenches and traps up north.\"\n\nVincent nodded in agreement.\n\nHe continued to scan the enemy. Plumes of dust were rising from the west several miles behind the column. They are most likely detaching more troops away from Tyre to follow, he thought. Maybe even abandoning the siege completely except for a small covering force, figure to pin us out here with everything they have and wipe us out.\n\nIn spite of Gregory's enthusiasm and the fact that he had planned this operation himself, Vincent did feel a shiver of nervousness. It was one thing to calculate all this out on paper and maps; it was another thing to be out here now. Hans had been right, it was different down here. North, in Roum, the land was settled: There were roads, villas, towns, the typical orderliness of the Roum, everything squared off and proper. This was vast unsettled land, undulating prairie as far as the eye could see, like what he imagined Kansas or the Nebraska Territory to be. A place for the ironclads, but not for a column of infantry on foot.\n\nIt was a strange balance. The Bantag did not have a single ironclad on this front. The few rocket launchers they had were expended, and none of their artillery could stand in the open against the attack. Yet once mounted they could ride rings around the machines and the marching column of 3rd Corps. He looked back to the west, where 3rd Corps, nearly eleven thousand men, were moving through the dry knee-high grass, looking like an undulating blue wave traversing a green-brown sea.\n\nNeither side could now come to grips with the other.\n\nThe Bantags did have one serious advantage, though\u2014they could chose the place to stand and fight. He could not. They had mobility both tactically and strategically, his side had the firepower. If they could bring up firepower as well, it could turn deadly. And that was part of the plan as well.\n\nHe walked in front of his machine, surveying the ground, remembering the maps he had studied so intently that they were' etched clearly in his mind. They were just under twenty miles out from Tyre, a damn good march for the first day. A shallow stream was directly ahead, several hundred yards down the slope, its water dark and muddied by the passing of the Horde riders.\n\n\"We camp here,\" Vincent announced.\n\n\"We've still got four hours or more of daylight, we could make another eight to ten miles.\"\n\nVincent shook his head.\n\n\"No. This is far enough. Besides, I want the men dug in, stockade with sod walls, and we've got water down there for the night. The next stream is six miles farther on, and if the Bantags have any sense, they'll fight us for it.\"\n\n\"Grand, and we chew them apart.\"\n\n\"There's time for that, plenty of time,\" Vincent said absently. \"Let the pressure build some more first. Besides, we're not the main show, that's Hans's job. Remember, we're the diversion, the bait. We bed down early tonight, do a hard march tomorrow, and should nearly reach the head of the rail line they're driving west from the Great Sea. Jurak has undoubtedly figured by now that we are attacking here. He might already have dispatched troops and ironclads from Xi'an and Fort Hancock to converge and meet us in defense of that rail line. Let's give him time to get there and make the show easier for Hans.\"\n\nHans. He pulled out his watch. He should be hitting just about now, he thought. God help him."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "It wasn't the time to vomit but the last two hours had been pure hell. Leaning over weakly, he retched, but there was nothing left to give. The ship bucked and surged, rising up on another thermal of hot air, then plunging back down.\n\n\"Is that Xi'an?\" Jack shouted.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Damn it, Hans, pull yourself together.\"\n\nHe nodded bleakly, looking forward. They'd been over land for the last hour, bisecting the arcing curve of the river up to Xi'an. The cloud cover had been building since early afternoon, forcing them to drop lower, Jack expressing increasing anxiety about the prospect of a thunderstorm. If a storm did come up, it could wipe out the entire mission.\n\nHans raised his field glasses, bracing his elbows on the forward panel, trying to compensate for the unceasing motion of the airship, which was bobbing like a cork on a windswept sea.\n\nIt had to be it. In spite of the surging motion of the ship he caught glimpses of a vast walled compound, ships anchored, and for a brief instant a place that looked all too chillingly familiar, the small fortress village half a dozen miles below Xi'an, where he had holed up after escaping from the slave camps. The aerosteamer steadied for a moment, and the world beneath him seemed to come into sharp focus. The city was spread out along the east bank of the river, ancient brick walls glowing red in the late-afternoon sun.\n\nDozens of ships lined the docks below the bluffs, most of them galleys, several steamers, the rest traditional Chin junks. A dark seething mass swarmed the docks, looking like a stirred-up nest of ants \u2026 Chin slaves. From the air the city had a fairy-tale quality to it, a towering pagoda in the center, buildings with steeply pitched red-tile roofs, dozens of small temples dotting the skyline. Yet as he steadied his field glasses he could sense, more than actually see, that a fair part of the city was abandoned, derelict homes, weed-choked streets, collapsed roofs. Even as they labored for their masters the pathetic residents of Xi'an were dying, chosen for the moon feast, transported to work on the railroads, factories, and supply lines, or simply worked to death.\n\nChecking again on the village where he had fought off the Bantag till help arrived, he gauged the distance up the river. There was no doubt about it: They were approaching Xi'an, main supply base for the Bantag Horde, the transition point for supplies coming from the heart' of the Chin realm.\n\nTwo hundred miles eastward was that black heart of the Bantag Empire, the vast prison camps and factories where millions of Chin slaves labored to support the war. That heart was his ultimate goal, but first he had to seize this city. Everything the Bantag made to support their war effort had to come through here, off-loading from the trains to be loaded on ships that would transport it across the Great Sea, five hundred miles northward to be off-loaded yet again for the final run to Capua. This was the weak link in that vast chain.\n\nThis was the linchpin of Varinna's plan. A raid deep into the realm of the Bantag to seize the docks, sink the ships, burn the supplies\u2014to cut the precious lifeline. Vincent was the diversion, to present Jurak with two threats, the prospect of their seizing a base on the Great Sea and with luck draw off some forces before his own raid struck. If Vincent was successful, all the better.\n\n\"Where do we land?\" Jack cried.\n\n\"Damned if I know,\" Hans replied. \"Can't you remember?\"\n\n\"I only flew over the damned place once, and that was a year ago. The second time I flew to where you were, then got the hell out. Damn it, Hans, we should have sent in at least one reconnaissance flight before doing this.\"\n\nHans shook his head. One such flight might have tipped their hand. This one was going to be blind.\n\n\"Think they're on to us?\" Jack asked.\n\n\"Have to be by now; they must have coast watchers reporting us coming in.\"\n\nThe city was just several miles out. Hans anxiously scanned the riverbanks, looking for a place to touch down that was close enough that they could directly storm the harbor area.\n\nNothing.\n\n\"We're losing another ship.\"\n\nIt was their top gunner calling in.\n\n\"She's going down. Damn, it's a Bantag flyer!\"\n\nHis voice was drowned out by the staccato roar of a Gatling, the vibration of the topside gun firing shaking the cabin.\n\nJack held the ship steady, still aimed straight at the city, while anxiously scanning the sky above, looking for the enemy ship.\n\n\"There, north of the city wall, looks like an airfield!\" Hans cried.\n\n\"That's it then! We're going in!\" Jack shouted. He nosed the ship down, picking up speed.\n\n\"Got him! He's breaking to starboard. He's burning!\"\n\nHans leaned forward, looking out the side window and caught a glimpse of a twin-engine airship, trailing fire, going down.\n\n\"Topside, how many still with us?\"\n\n\"Somewhere around thirty-five I think.\"\n\nHans said nothing. Better than he hoped but still only 350 men.\n\nThey dropped through two thousand feet, the wires on the wings singing.\n\nHans cleared the speaker tube to the cargo department.\n\n\"Ketswana, get ready!\"\n\n\"About time.\"\n\nEngines howling, the airship leveled out a hundred feet above the marshy western shore, then turned as they reached the river just south of the city and started to race straight in. Straight ahead he could see startled faces looking up, Chin slaves on the docks and around the warehouses, hands raised, pointing at the incoming assault. A scattering of Bantag were running along the walls. A stream of tracers snapped past the open window, startling Hans, it was one of the gunners flying behind them sweeping the walls.\n\n\"Fly us over the ships, then bank around into the airfield,\" Hans shouted.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I want the Chin on the docks to see our insignia so they know what the hell is happening.\"\n\nJack banked the ship, turning more easterly, heading straight in toward the city, then banked over sharply, port-side wing dropping down. They were directly above the docks lining the river below the city walls, white stars of the Republic exposed on the bottom side of the wings, an insignia clearly different than the human skulls of the Bantag. In spite of the howling of the engines and the shriek of the wind, he distinctly heard thousands of voices rising up, excited cries of hope.\n\nThe nausea was gone, he hung on, watching as land, river, city, and sky wheeled in front of him. A bullet snapped through the cabin, shattering a window, glass flying.\n\nThey leveled out, heading straight toward a row of galleys berthed side by side, each of them loaded down with two land ironclads. A steamer, looking vaguely like an old-style Mississippi riverboat, towing two barges was out in the middle of the river, barges loaded down with crates behind it, heading downstream. Again the staccato roar of the Gatling from above; tracers tore into the first barge. It ignited in a towering fireball, debris soaring hundreds of feet heavenward.\n\n\"God damn that idiot!\" Jack screamed, banking away from the explosion. \"Cease fire up there!\"\n\nThe boy was shouting with joy, tracers sweeping into the second barge, igniting the ammunition aboard that one as well. It looked like a vast fireworks show gone berserk. Jack continued to turn away, flying up over the top of the city wall, gape-mouthed Bantag looking straight up. Swarms of Chin on the docks were running, panic-stricken.\n\nHans was filled with a mad exhilaration, holding on to the side railing as Jack banked sharply in the opposite direction, leveling out, sweeping along the city wall, Bantag so close below that Hans could not resist the urge to stick his hand out the side window and offer a universal rude gesture. He was tempted to man the forward gun but knew he had to stay focused on the battle. Down in the narrow twisting lanes of the tightly packed city he could see hundreds pouring out of buildings into the streets, pointing.\n\nThey reached the northwest corner of the wall. The airfield was less than a quarter mile ahead, but now they were coming in at a right angle to the long axis. A Bantag air machine was starting to lift off, crawling into the sky, turning toward them.\n\nJack slammed the throttles back, banked to the west out over the river again until they reached the opposite shore. He then slapped the wheel in the opposite direction. The airship seemed to stand on its starboard wing as it pivoted, turning to line up on an easterly heading, aiming straight at the airfield. Jack eased the throttles back even farther.\n\nHans lost sight of the Bantag airship, felt a shudder, and caught a glimpse of a tracer snapping past, return fire from above. As they turned, he saw one of their aerosteamers going down, port wing folding up, caught in the fireball explosion of the barges, the machine falling like a moth with a wing torn off. The ship crashed into the river, the blue glow of a hydrogen fire soaring up, consuming the canvas and wicker framework.\n\nThe sky was filled with airships, flying about like a swarm of confused and angry bees, heading in every possible direction. The Bantag airship flew right through the middle, tracers streaking in from all points of the compass as a score or more gunners fired on it. The Bantag machine exploded and crashed into the dock, striking down dozens of Chin. Another ball snapped through the cabin past Hans's head, fired from one of their own ships in all the confusion.\n\n\"This is gonna be tight!\" Jack shouted, as they lined up on the airfield.\n\nIt wasn't much, Hans realized, nothing more than a narrow swath of grass, the west side ending at the bluffs of the river, the other three sides surrounded by a jumbled sprawl of warehouses, slave encampments, and round wooden buildings that looked like oversize Bantag yurts.\n\nThe airship bobbed down, dropping below the rim of the bluff, Jack slammed in throttles, nosed up, cursing. They seemed to hang in midair, drifting in toward the bluff. Hans caught a glimpse of a red streamer fluttering in the wind at the end of the strip. They were coming in to land with the wind at their backs.\n\nThe ship barely climbed over the rim of the bluff and there was a sharp blow. They were down!\n\nThe ship bounced, rolled down the length of the airfield. Hans saw several dozen Bantag standing to one side, all of them motionless, completely surprised.\n\nJack let his ship roll out to the very end of the airstrip, clearing the way for the rest to come in, turning at the last second, slamming the throttles down.\n\n\"Everyone out! Get out, damn it!\"\n\nHans unstrapped from his seat, stepped down, pulled open the bottom hatch, grabbed his carbine out from under his chair. It was a drop of a dozen feet, and he suddenly realized he couldn't negotiate the ladder while holding on to his gun.\n\n\"Move, damn it. move!\" Jack was crying.\n\nHans dropped his weapon through the hatch and slid down the rope ladder, holding on to either side, burning his hands. Hitting'the ground hard he clutched at his carbine, came up to his knees and levered it opened, pulled a cartridge from his pocket, and slammed it in. Some of the Bantag were still standing along the edge of the strip, watching. He stood up and came out from under the machine, moving along the wing, almost stepping into a propeller that was still spinning.\n\nKetswana was by his side, carbine raised. At a walk Hans started toward the Bantag, for a moment not really sure of what to do. They were mostly gray pelts and young. Another airship skidded past him, turning, spinning about as it ground to a halt. He looked down the airstrip. Airships were lining up, coming in, one after the other, one of them trailing smoke from a burning wing. It never made it, slamming into the bluff just below the airstrip, exploding. The ship behind it rose up, banking hard, nearly clipping the city wall with its wing, leveled out, then flew down the length of the field to come around again for another try.\n\nHe continued to walk toward the Bantag. They stood frozen like statues, most likely not even comprehending what was happening. Their inactivity told him volumes \u2026 the attack was a complete and total surprise, the arrival of the air fleet a complete shock. He was so close he could almost talk to them in a normal voice. He paused, and in spite of his hatred he couldn't bring himself to raise his gun; it was too much like murder.\n\nSuddenly they came to life. One of them fumbled at his belt, pulled out a pistol, and raised it. Others started to draw their weapons as well. Ketswana leveled his weapon, fired, pitching one of them over backwards. Shots erupted, Hans continued forward, a bullet snipping past his face. He took steady aim on the forehead of a gray pelt and dropped him clean. Levering open his carbine he reloaded, looked up, and saw the last of them running toward the wall.\n\nHans looked back over his shoulder. More men were swarming out from under the grounded airships. Eight were already down, two more came in, landing almost wingtip to wingtip, one of them coming straight at him. He sprinted to get out of the way, dropping to the ground as the ship veered, its starboard wing clipping the side of a shack, a propeller popping off, spinning across the field like a berserk toy of a giant child, tearing up great gouts of dirt, then disintegrating into splinters. The ship lurched to a stop, port-side wing pivoting over Hans's head. The crew compartment underneath was already open, Chin soldiers spilling out, jabbering, cursing.\n\nOne of Ketswana's men raised a bugle, sounding the rally call, and men came sprinting from all directions. An airship screamed past overhead, coming from the opposite direction of the landing traffic, its topside and forward gun firing upward. He caught a glimpse of a Bantag machine turning away, fire billowing from its hydrogen bag, pilot tumbling out of the forward cab, a silk umbrella opening. The Bantag pilot drifted toward the airstrip. Before Hans could say anything, guns were raised, riddling the warrior, who hung limp in his harness.\n\nMore men were falling in around Hans. Someone had his guidon. He had completely forgotten about bringing that along.\n\nHe scanned the wall facing the airstrip. There was a gate, but it was already closed. No, get lost in the warren of streets. It was the docks, get the docks, round up the Chin out there, then take the city from that side.\n\nHe looked back over at the airstrip. More ships were still coming in. What's on the other side, those wooden yurtlike buildings? Barracks for the Bantag. If so we could lose our ships.\n\n\"Jack?\"\n\n\"Right here.\"\n\n\"Round up fifty men or so; I want a defensive perimeter on the other side of the field. Once the last airship lands and off-loads, start turning them around, get them back up in the air again to provide support.\"\n\nHe started off without even waiting for a reply, racing down the length of the airfield. More ships were landing; one was on its side, burning fiercely, survivors hanging out of the side of the cargo compartment, dropping to the ground and crawling away.\n\nA rattle of shots erupted from along the wall. He looked up, saw more Bantag up there, firing at the aerosteamers on the field.\n\nHe detailed off a dozen men, shouting for them to suppress the fire,.and at the same instant an airship, banking sharply, winged overhead, its topside and nose gunners pouring a stream of Gatling fire down on the wall. Good, someone up there was thinking.\n\nHe pushed on, breathing hard, not used to the running, feeling his heart pounding, fluttering. He slowed for an instant urging Ketswana to push forward. There was a brief slap of pain in his chest that almost stole his breath away.\n\nDamn, not now. He bent over, a Chin soldier slowing, coming up face filled with fear.\n\n\"Hans shot?\"\n\n\"No. No, I'm fine.\"\n\nHe stood back up, placing his hand on the young soldier's arm to steady himself. The shiver of pain passed.\n\nHe started forward again, rounding the northwest corner of the wall. The shipyard and docks were far bigger than he had realized from the air. To his right, on the north side of the landing strip, were a row of boat sheds, bows of what looked to be seagoing ironclads sticking out. If any of those ships could get up steam and make it out into the river, they were finished. If we could capture them, though, he thought with a grin, Bullfinch could play hell with Bantag shipping. Catching the eye of a Chin sergeant leading a detachment, he pointed toward the boat sheds. The sergeant didn't need to be told. He saluted, shouted for his men to follow, and ran off. Directly below his feet, less than a hundred feet away, was the burning wreckage of an aerosteamer sticking out of the river. He saw several survivors crawling up onto the muddy bank.\n\nDown the length of the city were dozens of piers, anchored ships, several of them burning like torches. Ammunition from the burning barges in the middle of the river was still igniting, showering the dockside with flaming embers.\n\nThe river was low, nearly twenty feet below the level of the wall. The bluff that the city was built on extended about forty feet out from the wall, then sloped off sharply down to the docks twenty feet below the level of the bluff. A steeply sloping walkway, emerging from the main city gate a couple of hundred yards away, connected the upper and lower levels. Just south of the gate he noticed for the first time that a railroad track ran between the wall and the 178 William R. Forstchen edge of the bluff, boxcars and flatcars lining the track, all of them swarming with Chin. Atop several of the boxcars Bantag were already in position, crouching low, firing in his direction.\n\nThe wide pier along the riverbank was a scene of absolute chaos. Thousands of Chin swarmed back and forth, Bantag visible in the crush, towering above their slaves. Ketswana had deployed a heavy skirmish fine from the wall to the edge of the bluff. Hans came up to join him.\n\n\"We can't get separated!\" Hans shouted, trying to be heard above the cacophonous roar. \"I'll advance along the top of the bluff. Keep pace with me down on the docks. As you pass each ship anchored to the pier, sweep the Bantag off but don't get tangled up in them. We advance to the gate, then try and gain a foothold in the town. Now move!\"\n\nHe started forward at a slow walk, followed by several dozen men, moving along the lip of the bluff, looking up warily at the wall above. Ketswana, leading several dozen more, slid down the clay embankment, alighting on the pier. The seething chaos of Chin and Bantag was backing up in confusion at the sight of this blue-clad line sweeping around from the side of the city. Puffs of smoke ignited from Bantag on the pier, along the embankment, from ships, and atop the parked train.\n\n\"Aim carefully!\" Hans shouted.\n\nThe skirmish line fired back, trying to avoid hitting the frightened slaves caught in the middle of the chaos. They pushed forward, passing the first dead, tragically too many of them human. A scathing volley erupted from a galley tied to the pier, several dozen Bantag lining the side of the ship. A man next to Hans dropped without uttering a sound, face a bloody mass.\n\nHans knelt, aimed carefully, fired. The battle stalled for several minutes as they struggled to suppress the Bantag defending the anchored ship, the men around Hans kneeling and lying down to return fire. He lost two more in quick succession. It was taking too long. Ketswana, leading the way, scrambled over the bow of the ship, disappearing in the confusion. Seconds later he reappeared, swinging a heavy Bantag scimitar two-handed, cutting down a black-clad warrior. Screaming a wild battle cry, holding the scimitar aloft, he jumped back onto the dock and charged forward.\n\nThe next ship downstream was in flames, bundled-up sails burning like torches. Hans pushed his line forward; they had to gain the gate. He saw a dark column coming out of that gate, Bantag infantry, and his heart sank.\n\nAnd then it happened. The Bantag infantry, hemmed in on all sides by thousands of terrified slaves trying to get away from the fighting slashed out, clubbing, bayoneting their way through the press.\n\nCaught between two fires, the Chin finally exploded. The terrified mob turned on their tormentors and within seconds the entire dockside from one end to the other had dissolved into a frightful, bitter riot, a revolution of tormented slaves turning on their implacable, fearsome masters.\n\nBantag were dragged down, disappearing under the swarm.\n\n\"Keep together!\" Hans roared to his men. \"Don't get lost in this! Take the gate and hold there!\"\n\nHe pushed the line forward, advancing slowly, keeping the pressure on, coldly and logically realizing that if he could push the Chin back, drive them together, panic would seize them and they'd turn on their foes. The ground was slick with blood, footing nearly impossible with the mass of bodies. His line finally broke in two between the embankment along the wall and the lower dock, Chin by the hundreds swarming through on the steep-sloping ground separating the two.\n\nAs he advanced he looked down on the ships to his right. More of them were burning, one of them flaring like a furnace, Bantag in flames plunging off the side. Damn, loaded with kerosene most likely, he thought.\n\nSuddenly they were at the gates \u2026 which hung wide-open, bodies littering the entryway, most of them Chin, but there were a half dozen Bantag as well. The boxcars, which he feared might serve as a barrier to his advance, were in flames. He almost felt pity for a lone warrior running back and forth, obviously terrified, weapon gone, the surging mob of Chin below taunting and screaming at him. He suddenly crumpled and fell off the side, into the waiting arms of the mob. The fighting was exploding through the streets of the city, the venting of long-suppressed rage.\n\nHe turned, looking down at the docks. If it was possible to pity the Bantag, he did so at this moment. No longer were they the feared masters. Some still fought, several dozen of them forming a square, bayonets poised outward. Most were simply being swarmed under. He saw one rising up into the air, held aloft by a dozen Chin, kicking feebly while the mob tore at him, beating him with clubs, slashing with knives; one, holding a Bantag rifle, plunged the bayonet in the warrior's side, pulled it out, then plunged it in again.\n\nThe flames continued to sweep along the docks, jumping from ship to ship, feeding hungrily on canvas sails, tarred ropes and decks, stores of kerosene, crates of ammunition.\n\nHe leaned against the walls of the city, resting for a moment to catch his breath.\n\n\"Hans, you all right?\"\n\nIt was Ketswana, obviously delighted with the slaughter, carbine slung over his shoulder, sword still in his hands and dripping with blood and matted hair.\n\nHe nodded. It was too damned hot, made worse by the fires and the press of the mob.\n\nA flyer streaked overhead, skimming down the river, forward gunner firing at a lone junk that had managed to push off from the dock. Water foamed around the ship, tracer rounds walking onto the deck, dropping the Bantag crew, sails sparking into flames, a wild hysterical cheer rising from the thousands of Chin along the riverfront.\n\nHans watched it soar past, the thought forming, wishing he was on it, above all of this madness, blood, and chaos where he could still his pounding heart and breathe cool air.\n\n\"Easy, so damned easy!\" Ketswana exalted.\n\n\"Not yet, damn it,\" Hans snapped, refocusing his attention.\n\n\"First. Detail off some of our Chin sergeants. Get the people down there on the docks organized and put out those fires. We want those ships and the supplies on board.\"\n\nKetswana looked at him.\n\n\"This is no longer a raid; we're going to hold this place.\"\n\nHis companion broke into a grin. He pointed to the south end of the dock, where he had first spotted two land ironclads. The ship was still there, fire licking along its bow.\n\n\"I want those ironclads saved. We can use them. Next, detail off a company, get into the city, find out if there are any pockets of resistance. Try and find the human chieftain or ruler in there. I'm heading back to the airfield; we've got to organize the flyers, and find out if anything's coming at us from outside the city.\"\n\nHe broke away from the press around the gate, motioning for his guidon bearer and bugler to follow. Moving back along the wall, he was horrified by the extent of the slaughter left in their wake. He had seen far too many a battlefield, but there was nothing worse than the wake of a bloody murderous riot. The dead were not simply shot, they were torn apart, humans and Bantags locked in deadly embrace, hands about each other's throats, clawing at each other's eyes; blood, brains, looping entrails covered the embankment. Hundreds of Chin wandered about aimlessly, many of them seriously injured, but still capable of falling on a Bantag if they saw the slightest sign of life.\n\nHe reached the northwest corner of the wall. The airfield was again in view. Burning airships littered the ground, patches of dried grass burning as well, thick white smoke swirling up. He could hear a scattering of shots in the distance. He caught a glimpse of the ironclad boat sheds; the buildings were in flames. He moved slowly, winded from the battle, reaching the shed which must have been the headquarters for the airfield. Jack was out front shouting orders and threw his hands wide in exasperation at Hans's approach.\n\n\"Damn all! Where the hell have you been?\"\n\n\"Fighting a battle.\"\n\n\"It's your job to stay in one damn place and give orders. I'm not a ground commander, and that's what you've got me doing here.\"\n\nHans smiled at Jack's exasperation.\n\n\"One of my men who just landed said he flew several miles to the northeast. Do you know there must be several regiments of Bantag camped up there, and they're already forming up?\"\n\n\"We had to expect that,\" Hans said, forcing himself to conceal his surprise.\n\n\"We did our job here, Hans. Let's get the hell out while we can.\"\n\n\"How many airships left?\"\n\nJack looked around at the packed confusion of the airfield.\n\n\"We lost nine coming in, at least I think that's the count. Another half dozen got lost or turned back. We're down to twenty-five, with just barely enough fuel to get home. Let's off-load the weapons, hand them out to the Chin, so I can get our airships out of here.\"\n\nHans shook his head.\n\n\"The air fleet stays here.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Just what I said. Pick out one ship with a good crew that won't get lost, and send them back to Tyre with word that we're in. I'll write out the message before they leave.\" Jack drew closer.\n\n\"Hans, you know and I know that wasn't the plan I agreed to fly. This was a raid to smash up Xi'an and, hopefully, trigger a revolt to tie Jurak down and cut his supplies. If you and your men were going to stay, I was to turn my fleet around and get back to Tyre. We've done that. I want my airships out of here now.\"\n\nBoth ducked as a bullet whined past. Turning, Hans saw a couple of Bantag on the wall. A volley of shots erupted from the Chin soldiers standing around the two, driving the Bantag down.\n\n\"Damn all, Hans, a dozen Bantags with rifles could riddle the rest of my ships. I've got to get them up and out of here. This place is just too hot.\"\n\n\"I know that. Get airborne, we still got a couple hours of daylight. Range east, up the track, get some other ships over that camp where their troops are forming and shoot it up. Let's get some panic going out there. If you can, have someone land twenty or thirty miles up the track and tear up some telegraph lines. Once dusk settles come back in and land here. We should have this place secured by then.\" Again another shot snapped past them. Cursing, Hans raised his carbine, took careful aim at a Bantag on the wall, and dropped him.\n\n\"If I do that, we won't have enough fuel to g\u00a3t everyone back,\" Jack cried even while Hans was shooting.\n\n\"I know that,\" Hans said.\n\n\"Hans?\"\n\nThe sergeant major stared at him, saying nothing.\n\n\"Damn it, Hans, you won. Jurak will choke up there at Capua. It'll take him weeks to get any supplies after this. If you want to stay here, well that was part of the plan if you thought you could hold. I can be back from Tyre by tomorrow evening with two hundred more men and supplies.\"\n\n\"No.\" He shook his head violently.\n\nJack stared at him, and their eyes locked.\n\n\"I knew you would do this,\" Jack finally whispered. \"Damn you. I didn't think we'd even make it this far. Hans, I'm still alive. Do you understand that? I thought I was dead, and I'm still alive. For God's sake, all I want to do now is live out a few more days without being terrified.\"\n\nAs he said the last words his voice started to break.\n\n\"And you knew as well as I did what we have to do out here.\"\n\n\"You're talking bloody suicide for all of us,\" Jack cried.\n\nHe backed away from Hans, cursing violently.\n\n\"I'll not order my men to die. God damn you, Hans, I've lost nearly half of them already.\" He pointed toward the flaming wrecks littering the field.\n\n\"You're not ordering them,\" Hans whispered. \"I'm ordering them.\"\n\n\"Andrew said nothing of this to me,\" Jack shouted.\n\nHans started to reach for the letter of authorization tucked into his breast pocket and hesitated. No, that wasn't the way, he realized. He stepped up to Jack, putting his hand on the pilot's shoulder. Jack tried to shake it off, but Hans grasped him tight, forcing him to look into his eyes again.\n\n\"Jack, I'm going to end this war the only way it can be ended,\" he announced slowly. \"We're going straight into the heart of this bloody empire and tear it out. We're not stopping with Xi'an. We're going to liberate all the Chin.\"\n\nJack said nothing.\n\n\"I can't order men to near-certain death, Jack. But you know this is the only way left, and someone has to do it.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "\"So, they found the weak spot.\"\n\nJurak turned away from the map in the center of the yurt illuminated by oil lamps looted from a nearby Roum villa.\n\nHe motioned for his aging friend to have a seat. Taking down a wineskin, he tossed it over. Zartak grunted his thanks, uncorking the skin and draining half of it off in long, thirsty gulps.\n\n\"This Roum wine, far better than the brew the Chin make. About the only thing I like in this damnable country is the wine.\"\n\nJurak said nothing, turning back to study the map and calculate his next move.\n\n\"There's a wine from the south, a land out across the great encompassing ocean,\" Zartak said. \"Our cousins who live there make it themselves, delicious as nectar.\"\n\n\"Make it themselves?\" Jurak asked.\n\nZartak nodded, motioning for Jurak to sit down. The - expression on Jurak's face made it obvious that he did not want to be diverted at the moment, but Zartak simply chuckled and patted the camp chair.\n\n\"You already know what needs to be done, and so do I. Now relax for a few minutes before you go off.\"\n\nJurak grudgingly gave in and sat down, taking the wineskin.\n\n\"None of these humans down there,\" Zartak continued. \"Oh, a few slaves are traded as we ride past. Five hundred leagues or more south of Cartha. The two oceans here are mere lakes to the Great Sea.\"\n\n\"Have you ever seen it?\"\n\n\"I've ridden nearly four circlings,\" Zartak cackled. \"I've seen everything of this world. Not like the stories you tell me of your world, my Qar Qarth.\"\n\nJurak looked up, annoyed at the honorific title. Zartak smiled as if joking.\n\n\"Cities that glow at night, flying machines that are as fast as sound. Now you are my Qar Qarth, but I must confess I find it hard to believe, for nothing can outrace the voice of thunder. So many strange things you've seen Jurak.\"\n\nZartak sighed wearily, shaking his head, running long, knurled fingers through his thinning mane.\n\n\"You're different, too,\" Jurak replied. \"Not like the other clan chiefs.\"\n\nZartak laughed.\n\n\"The Merki had a position within their Horde, the Shield Bearer, believed to be the spiritual advisor, the other half of the soul of the Qar Qarth. The fallen Tugars as well had an elder general. I fought him once, the last one that is. He was good, very good.\"\n\n\"And you were thus to the last leader of the Bantag, before we, Ha'ark, the rest of my squad came here?\" Jurak asked.\n\nZartak nodded.\n\n\"We're not all as primitive as Ha'ark believed, or wanted to believe. We were here long before the first humans trod this world. I, for one, believe this was the home world, the birthplace of the first ancestors who grasped the stars and then fell from greatness. How else is it explained that you came from another world through the Portal of Light.\"\n\nJurak nodded. The history of his own world taught that they were descendants of the first elders, godlike travelers who stepped through space and then became stranded upon his world. If so, they had to have come from somewhere. This world might very well indeed be the ancestor world of all of his race.\n\n\"The portals, I've wondered about that since we came here,\" Jurak said, staring up through the open flaps of his yurt, the Great Wheel overhead.\n\n\"Gates, I think,\" Zartak replied. \"And may the gods and all the ancestors curse the day the gates into the world of the humans were created. The fools who built them, then left them unattended, were mad.\"\n\n\"Yet it brought you the horse, even the great woolly beasts, and of course the cattle?\" Jurak said cautiously.\n\nZartak looked at him carefully and leaned forward. He picked the wineskin up, realized it was empty, and tossed it aside.\n\nJurak reached under a table and pulled out another sack, handing it over. The old warrior nodded his thanks.\n\n\"The air up in this region is chilled at night; this will warm my bones and help me to sleep.\"\n\nHe smacked his lips, sighing as he recorked the skin, which was now half-empty. Picking up the folding stool he had been sitting on, he moved it over to the open doorway of the yurt, motioning for Jurak to join him. They sat in silence for several minutes, gazing out at the steppes and the Great Wheel rising in the eastern heavens.\n\n\"The Endless Ride,\" Zartak whispered, gaze fixed on the heavens.\n\n\"Oh how glorious it was in my youth. You came long after these troubles had started, and all was changing. I think you would have liked it then, even though you are civilized.\"\n\nJurak looked over and saw that Zartak was smiling slyly.\n\n\"At dawn to see the vast multitude arise, facing to the east, chanting our greetings to the morning sky. The yurts, a hundred thousand of them, and that of the great Qar Qarth drawn by a hundred oxen with room for a hundred within. Our encampments blanketed the steppe for as far as the eye could see.\n\n\"And then we would ride, the wind in our hair, the thunder of a million hooves causing the earth to shake. Hunters sweeping far forward, bringing in game, the great wool-clad giants with tusks that could feed a thousand for a day.\"\n\nHe smiled, taking another drink.\n\n\"I remember my first hunting eagle. I named him Bakgar after the God of the Westerly Wind. His cry would reach to the heavens. We'd range far ahead, he and I. Have you ever truly been alone on the steppes, my son?\"\n\nJurak shook his head, inwardly pleased that the wine had loosened the old one's tongue, causing him to drop the deference, the titles, to call him son. He realized that Zartak was not even aware of the slip.\n\n\"To be truly alone, the bowl of the blue heavens overhead, the great green sea beneath you, spring grass as high as your stirrups. When the god Bakgar sighed, the green sea shifted, rocking, the wind taking form as it touched the land. And the air. the smell, you know you were breathing the sweet breath of heaven.\n\n\"And I'd raise my wrist, setting my own Bakgar loose, and with a great cry he'd circle upward, bright golden feathers rippling. Alone, so truly alone, and it was worth everything to be alive and to know that, to know the joy of a fleet horse, an eagle on your wrist, and the wind in your hair.\"\n\nHe lowered his head for a moment, lost in his dreams.\n\n\"And you never knew the joy only the young can feel when they ride to war for the first time. Our umens would fill that green sea, ten thousand riding as one, turning as one, pennants snapping overhead, the great nargas sounding the charge.\n\n\"My first charge, ah there was a moment. It was the year before I completed my first circling, not far from here in the land of the Nippon. We and the Merki. When we loosed our shafts ten thousand arrows blotted out the sun, the dark shadow of them racing like a storm cloud.\"\n\nHe shook his head and sighed.\n\n\"Madness really. But we fought for different things then. The world was big enough for all of us to ride, to hunt, to have pasture. It was simply to match steel against steel and prove that we were still worthy of the blood of our ancestors and unafraid. It was not to the final death, to the slaughter of the young, the old, the bearers of young. No, just steel against steel. Not like this.\" And he vaguely waved back toward the west and the front lines.\n\n\"If you bested a champion, you took his faka, his glory, but would suffer him to live, even to feast him before sending him back to his yurt. That was as war should be.\"\n\nHe took another drink of wine.\n\n\"But always there were the humans.\"\n\n\"You don't call them cattle anymore,\" Jurak said.\n\nZartak laughed sadly.\n\n\"You know I once had a pet. It was when I was a child, a female. In those days, among those of the blood of the royal lines it was common to give to a youth a human pet to serve as companion, a teacher of their languages, a slave to do the menial tasks.\"\n\nHe was silent for a moment.\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"Some, as they came to their first passions of youth, would become besotted by such a cattle female.\"\n\nJurak could not hide his disgust at the mere thought of it. It was a subject not spoken of, a dark infamy only whispered of, and punished brutally.\n\n\"No, not in that sense did I care for her,\" Zartak added, not even aware of his friend's reaction.\n\n\"Not in that sense?\" Jurak asked cautiously.\n\n\"Her name was Helena. She was of the tribe called the Greek Byzantens, a thousand or more leagues to the west. But I did love her.\"\n\nZartak shifted uncomfortably.\n\n\"I think she genuinely cared for me, almost like a mother to a child. She was a gentle creature. I remember when I was not more than five years or so I was stricken with a fever that all but killed me. She sat by me day and night for nearly the passing of an entire moon.\"\n\n\"What of your mother?\"\n\n\"I never knew her. She died giving me life. My father never took another to his bed and died mourning her. Thus there was only Helena to tend to me.\n\n\"She would tell me stories of her people, of human kings and princes of their old world, of a poet called Homer. She knew much of his great ballad by heart.\"\n\nAnd for a moment Zartak drifted, speaking in an unknown tongue of House Atreides and black-hulled ships. The ancient song died away, and he took another drink.\n\n\"You know the ritual of the naming day, the day a warrior is accepted into his unit of ten and finally takes the name he will carry for the rest of his life?\"\n\nJurak nodded, having seen it often enough since coming to this world.\n\n\"One is expected to make a sacrifice, usually a horse\"\u2014 he paused for a moment\u2014\"but also a cattle. My cousins had taunted me that I was too attached to my cattle pet. My father was dead by then, so it was my eldest uncle who on that morning decreed that Helena was to be the sacrifice.\"\n\nHe stopped again, finishing the rest of the wine sack. With a low grunt he threw it out of the yurt, reached back under the table without bothering to ask, drew out another sack and opened it.\n\n\"Strange how this brew loosens the tongue to such foolishness.\"\n\n\"Go on,\" Jurak said softly. \"Tell me.\"\n\n\"So 1 went to my yurt. She had laid out my warrior's garb, my first shirt of chain mail, the scimitar and bow of my father. I knew she was proud of me, even though I was of the Horde and she was merely a cattle. And she was wearing a plain white robe, as white as a morning cloud, the robe of a cattle sacrifice. She already knew.\n\n\"I could not speak. She'smiled and said that today she would join her parents. We had slaughtered them years before, and yet she loved me. She went unafraid. I was the one who was afraid, as we walked to the circle where my family awaited.\n\n\"We entered the circle. She hesitated at the sight of the stake she was supposed to be tied to. My uncle, a cruel one he was, had wood piled about it. He wanted the old forms to be observed, so she was to be burned alive and then devoured.\"\n\nZartak hesitated and looked away.\n\n\"She turned and looked at me and whispered in her language. 'If you loved me as I loved you, do it now. Please don't let me burn.'\"\n\nHe stopped again.\n\nJurak waited in silence.\n\n\"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters.'\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The last words she said,\" Zartak whispered. \"It was a prayer of her people. She taught me to say it. She said her god taught it to her people, and my gods would hear it, too. When I was a cub we would say it together every night.\n\n\"She began that prayer. I stepped behind her so she could not see the blade.\"\n\nHe paused again.\n\n\"No. That's a lie. Because I could not bear to look into her eyes. I killed her with a single blow before she finished the prayer. I did that so it would catch her unaware and those were her last words.\n\n\"And so the feast of my naming day began. My cousins fell upon her body. I had lost face for my weakness, killing her thus, and I was taunted for years after that. I didn't care. I knew what was in my heart even if they did not.\"\n\nZartak's voice broke, and Jurak was unable to contain his surprise. Such a display of emotion before one not of your own blood was all but unknown.\n\nAfter several minutes Zartak regained his composure.\n\n\"The drunken ramblings of a decrepit warrior,\" Zartak announced self-consciously.\n\n\"No, not at all.\"\n\n\"I knew then they had souls. That they were as good as us. Yes, I joined in the moon feasts and felt the passion of the slaughter when after a long and hungry ride we fell upon a great city of theirs and one out of ten were culled out to feed us. I remember three circlings back when one of the cities on the far side of this world rebelled. It was somewhat the same as here; some humans had come through a portal in a ship. They had weapons of powder, men with black beards, blue uniforms, and a great ship flying a flag of red and blue and white. They did not have the skill of these Yankees, though, in the making of machines. But they did field a great army of humans armed with pikes and bows, following those flags and golden eagles as standards. We slaughtered all of them, millions, the feasting lasted for weeks before we rode on, and I did love it.\n\n\"Yet always I was haunted by her.\"\n\n\"Your love of her?\" Jurak asked, uncomfortable associating the word love with a human.\n\n\"No. That was inside here.\" He pointed to his stomach, the liver, where all feelings rested.\n\n\"No. It was the knowledge of what they truly are. When the first humans came here our ancestors slaughtered them out of hand.\"\n\nHe hesitated for a moment. \"And that was good.\"\n\n\"Why?\"'\n\n\"Our ancestors had reverted to barbarism, becoming little better than the cattle they slaughtered. And then came the horse and we\u2014bred it to our size and the tribes started the Great Ride about the world. If only it had stayed thus, I would say that was good, too. But somewhere back then our ancestors decided not to slaughter all the humans, but to spread them out about the world instead. To place one of each of their tribes as a chief or king. Then, when we circled the world and returned in twenty years, there would be more of them.\n\n\"We thought ourselves so wise, for we reasoned, let the humans do the labor. Let them raise food for us, let them fashion saddles, lay down vineyards, make the boats, rafts, and bridges so that we might cross the great rivers in our path. Let the humans do all things and in addition offer up their flesh as food.\n\n\"We thought that would control their numbers, to harvest them as one harvests the great tusked beasts or the vast herds of the hump-backed bisons. So in that first circling of long ago there might be a village of a hundred humans by a river. Twenty years later two hundred and then by my time a city of a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand.\n\n\"They are fertile, and we are not. Perhaps our blood is old, and theirs is young. I don't know. But our numbers never seemed to increase; theirs did. Some in their wisdom urged that we harvest half, and at times we did, but then we would ride on and upon our return a generation later there'd be yet more.\n\n\"They spilled out of the Portals of Light. Oh, never many, perhaps in an entire ride we'd discover one new tribe. Sometimes they were but a few dozen, more often a ship or two. I suspect that upon their world the old portals are lost beneath several different seas. We'd scatter them about or settle them in one place, tell them to labor, and move on. Of late, though, in the last ten or so circlings we should have realized that something was happening on their world that was not happening here.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Their cunning, their skill with machines. That ship I told you of. I spoke once with the elder warrior of the Tugars who told me of a similar ship, filled with men wearing jackets of polished steel. The Tugars slaughtered them, of course, but we should have realized the threat and acted before it was too late. The Tugar elder also told me that near here there was a similar ship whose crew actually escaped and sailed south toward the ocean that circles the southern half of this world.\n\n\"We should have realized then that we had to somehow change the balance between us.\"\n\n\"And do what?\"\n\n\"Either come to terms with them or slaughter them all.\"\n\n\"Terms? How?\"\n\n\"I know. I think it is impossible now. My cousins, all my people, not one in a thousand do I think contemplated who these humans truly were. They were cattle, they were food, they were slaves. None heard the beauty of their languages, their poetry, their songs.\" Again his words lapsed into the ancient human tongue, speaking of the numbering of ships and the names of captains dead across three thousand years and the infinity of the universe.\n\n\"It was far more, though. We have become\"\u2014he hesitated for a moment and then spat out the word\u2014\"parasites upon the flesh and minds of the humans.\"\n\nJurak stirred uncomfortably, started to voice an objection but Zartak waved his hand, motioning him to silence.\n\n\"Think of it. Every weapon we carry, the clothing we wear, the food we eat, all of the new tools of war, none of it has been shaped by our hands. We do nothing but exist; it is they who have fashioned the world.\n\n\"It has gone to the very soul.\" Zartak sighed. \"The division between us now. Imagine if the world was reversed, imagine if it was the humans who rode and who feasted upon our blood, who cracked our bones open to draw out the very marrow while we were still alive.\"\n\nJurak shivered at the thought. Impossible. The primal dread of being consumed, eaten alive, the fear that was even more dreadful than the fear of death filled him with darkness.\n\n\"No, it could never be. Could it?\" Jurak laughed coldly. \"That gulf can never be crossed now,\" Zartak continued. \"Too much blood has been drawn for them ever to forgive us. For that matter our own people cannot imagine it any other way as well. Oh, I have whispered at times and been rebuffed when I suggested such thoughts when I was young. My cousins taunted me, accused me of an obscene love for my dead pet, so I learned to be silent. I learned to hide such thoughts and thus did I rise through command of ten, to a hundred, to a thousand, to ten thousand, to eldest of the clan of the white horse. Now as an ancient one though I find I am as free as a youth to speak again.\"\n\n\"And that is why I value you,\" Jurak replied. He hesitated, looking at the Great Wheel, visible outside the open flaps of the yurt, wondering which out of all the millions of stars was his home world. He felt a cold shiver, a loneliness, and infinite sadness.\n\n\"So you see no chance then of a change?\" he finally whispered.\n\n\"Go outside this yurt and shout for the west wind to go away.\"\n\nZartak sighed, then chuckled softly, the laughter sad, lonely.\n\n\"No, we are both trapped in this war. The Yankees freed these humans and with that freedom the inner dread, the paralyzing fear of being eaten alive was replaced with a blind all-consuming rage. You saw with your own eyes what they can now do, even with their bare hands if they have the chance.\"\n\nJurak nodded, remembering the carnage of Roum, and along the Ebro, where the slaves had rebelled and escaped, literally tearing warriors limb from limb in their frenzy.\n\n\"And now what?\"\n\nZartak looked up at him and smiled.\n\n\"I'll be gone before it is decided. Perhaps the last of you will come early to join me above, where again there will be the Endless Ride. I fear, son, that either you must kill all of them or they will kill all of us. It is that simple.\"\n\n\"Even though you loved one of them?\"\n\nZartak flinched.\n\n\"A weakness of youth,\" he fumbled.\n\n\"No. Perhaps an insight?\"\n\nZartak sadly shook his head.\n\n\"Don't let it weaken you. This is not a time for weakness. Do you honestly think that after all we have done to them there could ever be peace, a place in this world for us and a place for them?\"\n\nJurak found that he was again wrestling with that thought. If this campaign was lost, as he feared more than once it would be, then what?\n\n\"You're wondering what will happen if we lose this war,\" Zartak said. \"This attack at Xi'an caught you completely off guard.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It surprised me, too. I did not understand these flying machines. I did not ever think they could be used to transport hundreds of warriors across hundreds of leagues to fall upon our center of supply. Tell me, were such things done on your world?\"\n\nJurak sensed the slightest tone of rebuke in Zartak's question.\n\n\"Yes! But the airships there could carry a hundred in their bellies. And there would be hundreds of such ships in the sky at once, warriors leaping from them, floating to the ground under the umbrellas made of silk.\"\n\n\"Such a sight it must have been.\"\n\nJurak nodded.\n\n\"The ships here, so primitive in comparison, I never considered that they would risk all of them. There cannot be more than three hundred of them in this attack.\"\n\n\"Joined by how many tens of thousands of Chin?\"\n\nJurak was silent. Damnation.\n\n\"If you do not suppress this rebellion within the next day, two days at most, all is lost. You will have to flee east or south, south across the seas, for they will come after you.\"\n\n\"From all that I've heard of Keane, I wonder if he would if we did leave.\"\n\nZartak grunted.\n\n\"I wonder about him as well. I do have the sense you know. And of Keane I sense much. But consider the rest of the world. Let word come to all the other humans of this world that we have been beaten, and they will rise up, remembering their dead across all these thousands of years. There is no compromise with that I fear.\"\n\nJurak slowly nodded in agreement.\n\n\"I know. Perhaps we are alike in that, for I know if it was as you said, if it was they who rode and we who bowed, I would die to kill but one.\"\n\n\"See what we've created here?\" Zartak laughed sadly. \"I know.\"\n\n\"And now?\"\n\n\"They found the weak link. They've used their air machines to fly several hundred soldiers to Xi'an. The city is in chaos, rebellion, the last telegram before the line was cut said hundreds are being slaughtered, including females and cubs.\"\n\nZartak nodded.\n\n\"A brilliant move,\" Jurak whispered. \"Damn all. I tried to consider every potential, every move and countermove. I knew if we went to the defensive and waited, we could build our forces up, train our troops, and even outproduce the Yankees. I knew if we held most of the territory of the Roum we could perhaps even drive a political wedge between the two states of their Republic, maybe even get them to mistrust and turn on each other.\"\n\n\"The humans you sent in secret to kill their president and Keane, a masterful move,\" Zartak said.\n\nEven now that might be working, Jurak thought. A few additional refugees slipped across the line, trained and conditioned, knowing that if they did not come back within three moon feasts their entire families would die in the next one.\n\n\"Yet never did I see this coming.\"\n\n\"Your dream of last night,\" Zartak said, \"it was a portent. You have the power, you know.\"\n\nIf I have the power, he wondered, then why do all the paths ahead now seem equally dark.\n\n\"You told me that you have a weapon that can burn entire cities in one blinding flash. Could you make one now? That would end this.\"\n\nJurak was surprised at the casual mention of such a fearsome weapon.\n\n\"No, that is the work of thousands, tens of thousands,\" Jurak replied, his voice distant.\n\nTo get these primitives to the point where they could make a magnetic separator, let alone a breeder reactor, maybe in a thousand years perhaps. As for the science? I can figure out how to make explosives, even a lathe to turn out guns, but that?\n\nAnd even if I did, he thought, would I unleash such a horror on this world?\n\n\"The Yankees will make one someday,\" Zartak announced.\n\nThat thought had never crossed his mind. Yes, they most likely would. They were makers of machines, and machines begot more machines.\n\n\"And this attack from Tyre?\" Zartak asked, suddenly shifting the conversation back to more immediate concerns.\n\n\"It might be a diversion, but if they gain the western shore of the Great Sea, create a base, combine that with ships captured from Xi'an, we are finished on this front. That was masterful as well. Letting us see it coming. The ironclads we sent from Xi'an, if they were there now, tonight, we would crush the rebellion.\"\n\n\"But the new railroad coming up from Nippon and connecting across the north of the Great Sea is finished. We won't need the Sea.\"\n\nJurak shook his head. Here it was obvious that Zartak was thinking only as a warrior who fought on land and had never before faced a naval force.\n\n\"We must hold the Sea. If they take the rail line we were building toward Tyre and combine that with holding Xi'an, they can move reinforcements up. I suspect that is why they are moving one of their corps overland along with the ironclads. If they've captured ships at Xi'an, they could have that equipment in Camagan within three days. Or they could strike us from behind, or even range northward, landing'troops to cut the new rail line along the northern shore. We have to crush the rebellion in Xi'an and at the same time beat back this attacking force.\"\n\nZartak slowly nodded in agreement.\n\n\"Or send it straight into the heart of the Chin realm, toward Huan.\"\n\nJurak sighed, looking back at the map in the middle of the yurt.\n\n\"What will they do next?\" Jurak whispered, more to himself than his companion.\n\nZartak stood up and looked at the map.\n\n\"I think the one they call Hans is leading this,\" Zartak said.\n\n\"Why do you say that?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Call it that sense we believe in.\"\n\nHans. The thought chilled Jurak as he stared at the map. \"If it is Hans, what do you think he'll do next?\" Jurak finally asked, looking back at his old friend.\n\nZartak walked up to the map and jabbed at it with a bony finger.\n\n\"He'll go here. Straight for the heart. Why they did not do that in their first strike is beyond me.\"\n\n\"Most likely their flying machines could not range that far and carry enough men.\"\n\n\"If that is so, then by flying out of Xi'an such a move would now be possible. He will do this come first light tomorrow. What you saw at Roum, what is happening today at Xi'an. Tomorrow it will erupt there.\"\n\nJurak felt a cold chill.\n\n\"We still have the railroad back to Nippon and from there back into the land of the Chin,\" Zartak said, tracing the route out on the map. \"The humans most likely don't even know we completed that. Supplies can be shifted that way. Order every train on that line to reverse itself, to go back. There are two umens in Nippon with modern arms; send them down at once.\"\n\nJurak worked out the mental calculations, the number of trains that were moving those two umens up to the front. \"They could be back in Huan by tomorrow night.\"\n\n\"Alert the commander of the city. Have him round up the human leaders. Have him make it clear that if the Yankees land and the local population does not join in the rebellion, they will all be spared. If they do join, all will die.\"\n\nJurak was surprised by the forcefulness of his voice. He nodded in agreement.\n\n\"I'm going back there. I wanted to check with you first, but just in case I already ordered the track to be cleared and a train prepared.\"\n\nThe pieces seemed to be falling into place. He looked at his desk piled high with the messages of the day, and his thoughts focused on one in particular.\n\n\"Did you know that Tamuka rode into Huan this morning?\" Jurak asked.\n\nZartak stiffened.\n\n\"The usurper. The old Qar Qarth of the Merki?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"He is a mad beast. Why did he go there?\"\n\n\"I had a report that the Merki who were following him finally rebelled and drove him out. I assumed he had been killed or taken the honorable path and fallen upon his sword.\"\n\n\"You should have told me of this, my friend. Tamuka has not the courage to rid the world of his presence.\"\n\n\"When I heard that he was seen this morning I assumed he was riding east, perhaps even to join the Tugars in the empty lands to the east.\"\n\n\"Or to make problems for you. That is the more likely path.\"\n\n\"And he has wandered straight to where the fight will be tomorrow,\" Jurak replied. \"Are the gods of our fate spinning a thread here?\"\n\n\"I hope not. Order the commander there to seize him, kill him if need be.\"\n\nJurak nodded. He heard a train whistle sounding from the rail yard. Seconds later there was a clatter of hooves, his escort guards coming to tell him that the track ahead was clear and it was time to leave.\n\n\"I'd best be leaving, old friend.\"\n\n\"By train, it will take days.\"\n\n\"Only till dawn. I've ordered a flyer to be waiting for me 150 leagues east of here. The train will reach there by dawn, and I'll fly the rest of the way.\"\n\nZartak chuckled.\n\n\"Better you than me. The only time I intend to fly is when my ancestors summon me home.\"\n\nHe scratched his balding mane.\n\n\"Soon enough it will be, but not too soon. I wish to see how this all will end.\"\n\n\"I want you to command here, to press an attack.\"\n\n\"We're not ready.\"\n\n\"Get ready, and press it. I would prefer this morning if possible.\"\n\nZartak shook his head.\n\n\"The ironclads we diverted to Carnagan. We'll need those. You'll remember they started landing this afternoon.\"\n\nJurak sighed.\n\n\"I don't have time now for the details. Have the messages I've left on my desk sent. Send instructions to Huan as we discussed and one to Carnagan that they must press the attack there tomorrow and finish it. At least we can smash that army, then we launch the attack here. Win or lose at Huan, we smash their armies before they realize what they've accomplished and we can still win in spite of this setback.\"\n\nZartak formally bowed, and again the old roles were assumed.\n\n\"My Qar Qarth. The machine of steam awaits you.\" It was one of his guards, waiting respectfully outside the yurt. \"So you see no alternatives other than this,\" Jurak asked, dropping his voice, gaze locked on Zartak. \"A war of total annihilation of one or the other.\"\n\n\"For the sake of an old friend of my youth, I wish I could,\" Zartak whispered. \"No. And I think she knew that, too. We and they are bound together in this world, and only one shall emerge triumphant.\"\n\n\"Then let it be us,\" Jurak said coldly."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "Though numbed with exhaustion Hans still felt a fierce exultation. Grim though war was, there were indeed moments, that in spite of the tragedy, nevertheless held a soul-stirring drama to them.\n\nDuring the night the Bantag had tried three assaults to break into the liberated city of Xi'an. The third assault had actually gotten over the walls until it was finally cut off by a reserve of several hundred Chin armed with revolvers hauled in by the airships. Most of them barely knew how to shoot their weapons, most of them died, but the Bantag died with them.\n\nStanding outside the wall, he looked back at the city. It was burning out of control, a vast pillar of light, like out of some biblical story, marking a place of vengeance and liberation, the flames a holy purging that would wipe away the stain of bondage.\n\nHe felt strangely different this morning. It wasn't just the exhaustion, or the gnawing pain in his chest. It was the fact that with his decision to press the attack the very nature of the war had changed within him and within his men. It was no longer a desperate defensive lunge to hold on to what they held. It was now truly a war of liberation, an all-or-nothing throw of the dice. He was never one for the false heroics of battle\u2014he had always felt himself to be beyond such idiotic notions\u2014but at that moment, as he watched the city burn, he felt a strange exultation, as if his small army was an avenging host going forth to purge this world of its sin.\n\nHe nudged the flanks of his mount, a Bantag warhorse, the saddle far too big, the animal as exhausted as he was, and therefore docile. They slowly weaved their way through the wreckage of the rail yard east of the city. A string of boxcars still burned fiercely, thick oily smoke tumbling skyward, the air heavy with the smell of burning meat. Bantag rations. He preferred to think that it was salted beef, taken from the bisonlike herds that roamed the steppes in this part of the world, or even salted horse. The idea that they might actually slaughter humans, salt them down, and package them the same way his own army prepared rations was too horrid to contemplate.\n\nThe wind shifted, the black cloud enveloping him for a moment, and he gagged on the smell. He nudged his mount again, cleared the smoke, and reined in for a moment. A knot of Chin were gathered around a shed by the side of the track. They were shouting, cursing. He drew closer. Three Bantag had been cornered inside, all of them wounded. They were dying slowly under the kicks and blows.\n\nHans spotted one of his own men, a Chin in uniform, and roared at him to finish the wounded off. The soldier saluted, drew his revolver, and pushed his way through the crowd. Hans rode on, barely noticing the crack of the pistol behind him.\n\nDiscarded equipment littered the rail yard, broken rifles, an upended box of cartridges, an overturned caisson, shells lying on the ground, a fieldpiece on its side, a stack of saddles smoldering, bundles of arrows, smashed-open barrels leaking oil, kerosene, flour, what even smelled like the rice wine of the Chin, and everywhere bodies, Bantag and human. All of it was illuminated by the lurid red glare of the city burning, a glow so bright he could have easily read one of Gates's papers, reminding him of the night Fredericksburg burned just prior to the assault.\n\nThe troops he had brought in were hard at work. Each man was now in charge of a unit of ten, sheperding them along, organizing details to pick up discarded equipment that might be useful, a group of them on their hands and knees picking up cartridges spilled from an ammunition box. One sergeant, a survivor of the escape from the factory prison the year before, had his men broken into two-man teams. One man was supposed to stand stock-still while the second man rested the barrel of a Bantag rifle on his shoulder, aimed, and shot. It looked ludicrous but the damn idea actually worked, enabling the diminutive and emaciated Chin actually to use the enemy weapons. They gleefully fired away, sniping at a scattering of Bantag who still lingered on the far side of the rail yard.\n\nIf he had the time there was enough captured artillery here to field several batteries, but the thought was absurd. They might get one or two shots off, but anything beyond point-blank range was hopeless. Down deep he knew the entire idea was next to hopeless. It was one thing to come swooping in as they did, trigger a rebellion, and overwhelm the local garrison. If they ever had to face a disciplined umen of Bantag warriors, it would be a massacre.\n\nThe trick was to keep moving, to roll them up before they had time to react. He had to keep moving in spite of his exhaustion.\n\nHe rode around a line of half a dozen flatcars on a siding A couple of hundred Chin were piled on board, half of them armed with the precious revolvers carried in on the airships, others simply carrying makeshift spears, poles with a knife strapped to the end. As he rode past the engine he recognized one of his comrades, yet another survivor of the prison.\n\n\"Ready to go back?\" Hans asked.\n\nThe old man flashed a grin.\n\n\"I know this machine. Remember ride to there.\" He gestured off to the south, where half a dozen miles away they had holed up after the escape. \"I run it good.\"\n\nHans leaned up, shook the man's hand, and rode on.\n\nFour trains were lined up, four engines pulling a total of thirty flatcars and boxcars, all of them crammed with over fifteen hundred Chin. The vast majority knew damn little of what they were doing. A day ago they were slaves, knowing that they'd live only as long as they could work. Now they were loaded aboard trains heading east, straight into the heart of the Bantag realm. If they had any sense about it at all, they undoubtedly knew they were going to die. He could see the fear and resignation with many, torn away from a numbed life, but a life nevertheless. A few were afire with the desire for revenge, clutching the pistols given out, holding them up as Hans passed, making him nervous. Several men had already been killed by accident.\n\nReaching the forward engine, he returned the salute of Seetu, one of Ketswana's men, who overnight had been promoted from sergeant to commander of an expedition. \"Ready?\" Hans asked.\n\nSeetu nodded eagerly.\n\n\"All the engines are fired up. A couple of these Chin worked the rail line, so they know how to run the engines and what's ahead.\"\n\n\"Remember. Until it's full light, take it slow. If anyone up there's thinking, they'll have broken the track. At each junction or station you pass, make sure you cut the telegraph line. Round up any Chin you meet; if you capture any more trains, take them along.\"\n\n\"We'll go all the way to Huan.\"\n\nHans said nothing.\n\n\"This is gonna be the hard part, Seetu. I want you to get as far forward as you can. But remember, they might cut you off from behind once you pass. If you can get thirty or forty miles up that track and start tearing things up, it'll buy a couple of days for the men here to get organized.\" Seetu said nothing.\n\n\"Son, I won't lie. There isn't much hope you'll get through this one. They'll most likely lay a trap, let you pass, cut the rail ahead and behind, then box you in and finish you. Try and spot that, stop, then slowly pull back, tearing up track, burning bridges as you go. If they do trap you,\" he hesitated, \"well, take as many of the bastards with you as you can and smash everything up good and proper.\"\n\n\"I was dead anyhow a year ago,\" Seetu replied. \"Every day you gave me since is extra gift from the gods. Hans, I'm not stopping. Expect to see me in Huan tomorrow.\" Hans leaned up and shook his hand.\n\nHe rode on. Strange how we all feel that way, he thought. You come back from the grave and after that, well it's a gift. Hans turned his mount back and slowly trotted out of the rail yard, weaving his way past a skirmish line of Chin moving through the still-burning ruins of a Bantag encampment of wooden barracks.\n\nSo they were even giving up their yurts. Strange, the vast circular buildings were wooden replicas of their tents. Yet another changing over to human ways. The Chin were little better than a swarming mob, led by half a dozen of his soldiers, who were desperately shouting orders, trying to create some semblance of organization.\n\nIt was the shock of the air assault, the riot of the tens of thousands in Xi'an, that had won this fight, Hans realized. Sheer numbers had dragged the Bantag down. He wondered how many were still lurking out beyond the city and the surrounding warehouses and encampments.\n\nAs if in answer to his question a rifle ball slapped past. There were shouts ahead, a flurry of pistol shots. He rode on.\n\nReaching the base of the eastern wall, he gingerly rode around mounds of Bantag killed trying to retake the city. A damned stupid assault. They should have just sat back, waited for reinforcements, then shelled the place until the defenders panicked. Stupid arrogance to attack like that.\n\nRiding along the wall, he reached the northern side of the city. In the glare of the inferno the airfield was clearly silhouetted. The machines were lined up, engines turning over. Jack, spotting his approach, slowly walked up.\n\n\"I'm going to make this formal,\" Jack announced, while reaching up to help Hans get off his horse.\n\n\"I know, I know.\" Hans sighed.\n\n\"My crews and machines are finished. We were circling this damned town half the night while the fighting was going on down here.\" He gestured to the bodies that littered the perimeter of the airstrip.\n\n\"Then we come back in and land again, losing three more ships. Hans, I'm down to twenty-two aerosteamers, an average of two hundred Gatling rounds per gun.\"\n\n\"At least you got fuel,\" Hans replied, nodding toward the empty barrels that had been saved from a burning train.\n\n\"Yeah, great.\"\n\nHans wearily sat down on the grass, lowering his head for a moment. Again, the shortness of breath, the flutter of pain.\n\nJack knelt by his side.\n\n\"Hans? You all right?\"\n\nHe looked up bleakly.\n\n\"No. I don't think so, to tell you the truth.\"\n\n\"Hans, you need some rest. Everyone here needs rest. The men are staggering around like the walking dead. I'm going to ask this one last time. We've got Xi'an. Hole up here. I'll take the airships back to Tyre. We'll refit, load up on hydrogen we desperately need, and be back in two days with reinforcements.\"\n\n\"Two hundred more men now won't make a difference here.\"\n\nHe was simply too numb to order, to roar out the order to go. He looked up, half-broken inside, appealing to Jack to understand.\n\n\"We'll all die doing this, Hans.\"\n\nHans chuckled in spite of his pain.\n\n\"Jack, don't you get it?\" he whispered. \"That day on the Ogunquit, the day we left Earth forever and came here. We died. You know, I bet back home, somewhere up there on the coast of Maine, they've got a statue with all our names on it. We died. We died but then the good Lord caught us as we fell and dropped us here. Maybe this is purgatory, maybe this is the punishment for our sins. I don't know anymore. But I was in their prisons; you weren't. I know that there is the key to our victory.\"\n\n\"They're ready for us by now.\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But we'll never have a better chance than at this moment. Tomorrow will be too late. Jurak will react, and it will be too late. Jack, today we can either win or lose this war.\"\n\nHe paused for a moment.\n\n\"It's up to you. Yesterday evening I ordered you to do it.\" He paused, struggling to catch his breath. \"I don't have the strength to order you. I'm simply asking you.\"\n\nJack stood up.\n\n\"Oh, God damn it all, thank you very much, Sergeant Schuder, for the guilt.\"\n\nHans looked up and couldn't help but smile.\n\n\"One more push,\" Hans whispered. \"That's all I ask, and then you can call it quits. Then we can rest.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "It was surprisingly quiet. Standing atop the low ridge, Vincent Hawthorne shaded his eyes, looking to the rising sun. He knew they were out there, the haze of dust rimming the horizon in a vast arc to the north, around to the east and south showed that they were out there.\n\nIt had been a sleepless night, curled up by the side of his ironclad, waiting for an attack that never came. They had the advantage on that score. The bastards could decide if and when to attack; they'd most likely pulled back and slept the night through while he and his men had stayed alert throughout the hours of darkness.\n\nStretching, he scratched the back of his neck. Two days down here and I'm lousy, he thought with disgust. Forgotten just how lousy the army could get, and he wondered which of his crewmates in the ironclad had passed the damned little critters over to him.\n\n\"Your honor, some tea?\"\n\nIt was Stanislaw, driver of his ironclad, who in spite of his years in the army still hadn't shaken the honorific given to boyars. The man was easily twice his age, drafted out of the locomotive engineers to serve on the front line.\n\nVincent gingerly took the tin cup, holding it by the edges, blowing on the rim, took a sip. One of the true advantages of serving with the ironclads, he realized, hot tea, drawn off from the boiler water at any time, even though it tended to have an oily taste, plus plenty of rations since the men always seemed to manage to \"borrow\" a few extra boxes of salt pork, hardtack, and for this expedition some precious jam, butter, and even a few loaves of bread that were almost fresh.\n\nStanislaw produced a great hunk of the bread, slathered with jam and butter, and Vincent eagerly wolfed it down, squatting in the grass while he ate.\n\nAll around him, farther down the slope of the knoll, the army was coming awake, bugles sounding, men milling about, gathering around smoking fires made with twisted-up bundles of dried grass and the ubiquitous dried chips from the bisonlike creatures and woolly elephants that wandered the plains.\n\nMounted pickets had pushed out from the earthen wall fortress encircling the camp, making sure no Bantag skirmishers had crept up during the night, and men were wandering outside the fortified position to relieve themselves. Vincent wrinkled his nose. Whenever you had ten thousand men camped in one place, it didn't take long truly to stink the place up.\n\n\"Think we'll fight today, your honor?\"\n\n\"Don't know, Stanislaw. It's their choice. They're mounted, we're not. They'll pick the time and place.\"\n\nStanislaw reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of dried applies, offering one to Vincent, who nodded his thanks.\n\n\"As long as we got St. Katrina with us\"\u2014he reached back and affectionately patted their ironclad\u2014\"we'll give them a hell of a fight.\"\n\n\"You like your ironclad?\"\n\n\"Oh, at first no, your honor. I remember when you Yankees first came.\" He chuckled softly. \"I thought you were devils the first time I saw the steam makers, the locomotive you made that went from your fort up to Suzdal.\"\n\n\"Seems like an eternity ago.\" Vincent smiled.\n\n\"Then I was drafted to work laying track to Kev, and from there on to Roum. That was work.\"\n\n\"What did you do before we came?\"\n\n\"I was gardener for the wife of my boyar Garvilla.\"\n\nThe name somehow registered. One of the boyars who had tried to overthrow the government before the Merki came, Vincent realized.\n\n\"Oh, he was a devil he was, but his lady wasn't. She liked the flowers I grew.\"\n\nHe sighed, and Vincent realized that yesterday he had noticed fresh wildflowers tied in a bundle next to where Stanislaw sat down below.\n\n\"Well, there was no room for flower growers and gardeners in this new world you Yankees made. Machines and more machines. So I realized that I, Stanislaw, could either lay rails or drive the machine that rode them. I had a nephew who was the driver of one of your new locomotives, and I got him to let me be his fireman. I learned and soon had my own machine to drive.\"\n\nHe sighed.\n\n\"I named her St. Katrina, same as our big machine of war here. She is the patron saint of gardens. She protected me.\" He shook his head.\n\n\"Though I wish she'd protected me more and kept me with my steam engine on rails rather than this black thing on wheels that crawls around on the ground.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you stay with the locomotives?\"\n\n\"Ah, my nephew. He went with these machines and said I was lucky and wanted me with him. He said it would be glorious and perhaps some woman would look upon me with favor in my new black uniform, and I'd finally have a wife. Foolish me, I went.\"\n\nVincent tried not to smile for Stanislaw was decidedly ugly\u2014head far too big for his body, a vast misshapen lump for a nose, and he was completely bald. And yet, there was a gentleness to his smile, a certain quiet sparkle in his eyes that was touching.\n\n\"I was at Rocky Hill, you know,\" Stanislaw announced proudly, \"in one of the older machines that ate coal rather than the burning oil. That was a good fight.\"\n\nVincent said nothing. There was the flash memory of the charge, falling, falling away, seeing the flag bearer staggering past, all of it lost in smoke and fire.\n\n\"You were brave beyond the brave there, your honor.\" Vincent, embarrassed, said nothing.\n\n\"Were you at Capua?\" Vincent finally asked.\n\n'\"No, your honor. Well yes, but I was in the second regiment, the one that didn't go in. Bless Saint Katrina for protecting me,\" and as he spoke he grasped a small icon which dangled from a chain around his neck, and holding the image of the saint, he crossed himself three times. \"And how do you feel about this?\" Vincent asked.\n\n\"I go where ordered, your honor.\"\n\n\"No. We're in this together. How do you feel?\"\n\n\"You Yankees.\" Stanislaw chuckled. \"Asking a peasant like me.\"\n\n\"You are a citizen of the Republic,\" Vincent said slowly. \"You have a right to your opinion.\"\n\nStanislaw smiled. \"When this war is over, then I will be a citizen, but now I am a soldier who follows orders. That is what my nephew says.\"\n\n\"You're not happy with it?\" Vincent pressed.\n\n\"Well, your honor. We seem to be driving around to nowhere. The Bantag, the Tugars, all the riders. They own the steppes. They are of the horse, we are not. I wish we could just let them have the steppes and they agree to leave us alone.\"\n\n\"We know that can't be,\" Vincent replied.\n\n\"Yes, yes, I know. If wishes came true, mice would ride on cats.\"\n\nStanislaw picked up Vincent's empty tin cup, retreated through the open door of his ironclad. The encampment was now swarming with activity, the buzz of ten thousand men echoing, sergeants barking orders, snatches of conversation drifting; someone was even playing a fife, another an instrument that sounded hauntingly like a banjo. He was glad he had ordered that the march would start late, an hour after sunrise. It gave the men time to relax just a bit longer and have a solid breakfast before moving on.\n\nStanislaw came out a minute later with the cup refilled, carrying a second cup for himself and sat back down.\n\n\"You didn't answer my question,\" Vincent pressed while nodding his thanks for the refill and a second helping of bread and jam.\n\n\"Your honor, if we do make it to their rail line and from there to the Great Sea, then what?\"\n\n\"Once there we set up a base for any ships that Hans and his men capture at Xi'an.\"\n\n\"I heard the Horde riders have iron ships on that sea.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Won't the iron ships sink what we capture?\"\n\n\"Maybe we'll capture some of the iron ships at Xi'an.\"\n\n\"And if we don't?\"\n\n\"We can still raise hell.\"\n\n\"Suppose the Bantag bring up their own land ironclads to fight us. We shall have only what we carry with us.\"\n\n\"It's what we want,\" Vincent replied. \"If they bring their own ironclads in, we can fight them out in the open. We can have the battle to decide this. Defeat their ironclads, shatter their army here in the south, and keep their leader guessing, that is what we are doing. We want that fight, Stanislaw.\"\n\n\"Then why do I feel like the mouse who is sent to pull the whiskers of the cat so that the old cat will chase him outside and then the others can eat. I wish right now I was one of the mice that was going to eat rather than the one that has to run.\"\n\nVincent laughed.\n\n\"Back in Suzdal. Suppose they make peace. We heard the rumors of that, you know, just before we sailed. Poor Kal, we had many a drink we did in the old days, trading stories about our boyars.\"\n\n\"We'll win this fight before they can do anything that stupid.\"\n\nStanislaw said nothing, then, looking beyond Vincent, he came to his feet and saluted.\n\nVincent looked over his shoulder and saw Gregory walking up the slope.\n\n\"Good morning, sir,\" Gregory announced, coming to attention and saluting.\n\n\"Morning, Gregory. Everything in order?\"\n\n\"All machines are warmed up except one. We're going to have to leave it behind.\" He nodded downslope to where a swarm of men were clustered around an ironclad, some of them arguing while others were lugging out shells. Several had torn open the hinges on the top turret and were starting to remove the steam Gatling gun.\n\n\"Cracked boiler, can't be fixed out here. I've ordered it stripped.\"\n\nVincent nodded. \"Not bad so far, only two machines broken down.\"\n\n\"That was yesterday. As we add up the leagues today, more will fail as I warned.\"\n\n\"We'll have enough when the time comes.\"\n\nGregory said nothing for a moment, obviously disagreeing with Vincent's assessment.\n\n\"Sir, my machines will be ready to roll in fifteen minutes. I think Third Corps is ready to move as well.\"\n\nVincent smiled. He was being gently chided for taking the extra few minutes to talk with Stanislaw.\n\n\"Fine. Pass the word\u2014fifteen minutes.\"\n\nGregory saluted and started back down the slope to where his machine was parked.\n\n\"Ah, my nephew, such an officer.\"\n\n\"That's your nephew?\"\n\n\"Couldn't you tell?\" Stanislaw laughed. \"Someone had to come along to keep an eye on him.\"\n\nVincent finished his cup of tea while Stanislaw disappeared back into his ironclad, shouting orders to the crew to get ready. Exhaust from the kerosene burners plumed from the smokestack, the safety valves for the steam lines popped several times, venting. The engine was hot and ready. A courier came up informing Vincent that the corps was formed. Looking round from his high vantage point, he saw the regiments forming into their loose block formations. Cavalry was already ranging outward in a vast circle a mile across, a few pops of carbine fire forward marking where a minor altercation was going on between outriders of the Horde and the advance pickets. Teams were hitched to the wagons, caissons, and limbers. Bugle calls signaled the call to form ranks, and drummers began to pick up the beat.\n\nVincent emptied the rest of his cup and climbed through the hatch into the already stifling heat of the lower deck of the ironclad. Slipping around the boiler and its attending fireman, he moved behind the gunner and assistant gunner, who, in the informality aboard ironclads, nodded their greetings since there was little room for anyone to snap to attention.\n\nStanislaw looked up from his driver's seat and smiled, Vincent noticing a fresh bunch of wild prairie flowers bunched up and dangling by a string from the bulkhead, the brilliant reds and blues adding a gentle touch.\n\nGoing up the ladder into the upper turret, he squeezed past the breech of his steam Gatling gun, popped open the upper hatch, climbed half-out, and sat on the rim. Gregory, who was already in position, caught Vincent's eye, and Vincent raised a clenched fist, pointing it forward.\n\nA bugler, riding mounted beside Vincent's machine, sounded the advance. The machine beneath him lurched, great iron wheels churning up clods of dirt and crushed grass as they started down the hill, moving to the fore, passing through the lines of infantry. Fording the shallow stream, they started up the next slope, moving past a lone cavalry trooper coming back, clutching a wounded arm, but still looking game, a cigar clenched between his teeth.\n\nVincent looked back, watching him ride through the blocks of infantry toward the medical wagons marked with their big green circles. The ten thousand men of the corps were all on the march, regimental columns deployed in a vast hole-square formation, rifle barrels catching the reflected glint of the morning sun so that the army looked as if fire was dancing across the ranks.\n\n\"Rows of burnished steel,\" the words of the \"Battle Hymn\" came to him.\n\nThere are still moments, he realized, still moments when one can again glimpse the chimera dream of glory."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 28",
+                "text": "He didn't even look back as he rode through the gate. Forgetting himself for an instant, for old habits die hard, he snapped off a salute to the guards standing to either side who had come to attention.\n\nThe suit felt uncomfortable, the only civilian suit he had, stitched together by Kathleen, a black coat typical of what was worn back on Earth, at least what had been in style when they left, an unbleached cotton shirt of standard army issue, and black trousers. There was no longer a sword dangling from his belt, though he still had a pistol in a saddle holster. Behind him, in a wagon owned by Gates, rode his wife and the children, following them rode Webster, who had resigned from the government as well, and his young family.\n\nIn a way this whole thing felt so damnably foolish, a show play of bluff. The resignation had actually caught Bugarin and his followers off guard; they had expected a coup attempt. He had to go all the way. If he had stayed in the city, it would have somehow conveyed that he was still in the game, waiting down the street for the delegation to come and beg for his return.\n\nHe knew that would not happen. Even as he rode out of town the Republic was disintegrating into chaos. The Roum senators and congressmen were packing up to head for home, furious over the murder of Flavius and loudly announcing that they were going to seek a separate peace. It was as if a race was on, for Bugarin was announcing the same intention as well, and the Chin ambassadors sent by Jurak were even then receiving the offer of terms to take back to their master.\n\nHe, in turn, had presented them with a dilemma. Vincent was now supposed to be in command, but he was beyond reach. Next after him was Pat, but Pat had apparently cut the telegraph lines to the front, or something was blocking the line just out of Roum. What if they announced a ceasefire but nobody listened?\n\nMercury stepped onto the bridge over the Vina River, and he looked to his right and the valley choked thick with factories, rows of brick houses. The dam farther up the river was barely visible in the smoky haze. Strange how after ten years it looked far more like Waterville, Lewiston, or Lowell than the medieval city of the ancient Rus. The city he was riding out of was already a memory of an age passed. This was the new Suzdal, if it should survive the madness of its frightened leaders.\n\nWord must have passed that he was leaving. From out of the foundries, rail works, boiler works, gun factories, construction yards, he could see thousands of workers filling the streets, looking his way.\n\nHe wondered sadly what it was he had actually tried to create for them. A generation ago they were born, lived, and died on the estates of the boyars, their lives short and brutish, ignorant and filled with fear.\n\nWhat did they now have? Sons, fathers, brothers, husbands dead or at the front. Twelve hours of laboring in the heat, smoke, and grime of the war factories pouring iron, making steel, casting guns, making machines of war and yet more machines of war. Endless labor and still early deaths but now from consumption or accidents or simple exhaustion.\n\nHe wondered if Rousseau was right, and the thought made him smile for an instant, the mind of the professor still there, ready with the random thought of philosophy even in the darkest moments. Yet he had hoped that they would see, that all would see that this was a generation called to the highest sacrifice, that it had to bear the horrible burden so that someday their children, their grandchildren would never know the fear, the filth, the degradation, not just of the hordes, but of slavery and the horror of war.\n\nHe realized that he had slackened the reins on Mercury and his horse, as if reading his thoughts, had stopped so that he might look from the bridge and contemplate what he had tried to accomplish and where he had failed.\n\n\"Keane \u2026\"\n\nIt was a distant cry, a lone voice, sending a shiver down his spine, reminding him of the moment of triumph at Hispania, his name a cry of victory.\n\nSomeone else picked it up, a woman, closer, standing in the open doorway into the rifle-barrel works. She took the kerchief off her head and waved it. The women around her joined in, the name echoing across the valley, accompanied by the cry of a modern age, a locomotive whistle, then another, then the whistles of the factories.\n\nEmbarrassed by the outpouring, he did not know what to do. There was the temptation, to be sure, and he sensed that at this instant it would be all so easy.\n\nWashington at Newburgh, he thought. But that was easier\u2014the stakes were not the choice between life or annihilation\u2014it was an abstract, an ideal that Washington preserved. Or was it?\n\nThe thoughts raced through his mind. How easy it would be even now to turn Mercury about, point toward the city, and surely they would follow. And then what?\n\nHe could sense Kathleen, and looking over his shoulder, he saw her gazing at him, eyes filled with pride.\n\n\"Don't you think it's time we pushed on?\" she asked softly.\n\nHe smiled. Her words were enough.\n\nWithout saluting, without looking back, he rode out of Suzdal and headed north toward the great woods."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 29",
+                "text": "Stretching wearily Jurak stepped down from the car, taking the dispatches that a courier pressed into his hand. He scanned through them, taking particular note of the last one that had just been relayed up all the way from Huan.\n\nYankee aerosteamers report, leaving Xi'an. Sighted by station at Chu-lin. Heading east.\n\nChu-lin? It was the town where Ha'ark had staged maneuvers last year to show the superiority of the new weapons to the clan chieftains. Nearly a third of the way between Xi'an and Huan.\n\nIt had to be Hans. So he was going all the way. The airships most likely could get to Huan, but it was doubtful if any would ever be able to get back. This was the desperate bid, not just to disrupt his supplies but to destroy everything.\n\nBrilliant \u2026 and insane madness.\n\nHe skimmed through the other dispatches. The transport carrying thirty new land ironclads was at Camagan and was off-loading already.\n\nHe jotted down two quick notes in the clumsy block print of the Rus and handed them to the telegrapher. Parked a hundred yards north of the track, three aerosteamers were waiting, the fastest of the new twin-engine designs, propellers spinning lazily. At his approach the pilots came stiffly to attention.\n\n\"Which one do I fly in?\"\n\n\"Mine, my Qar Qarth.\"\n\nHe nodded, walking up to the pilot. Strange, most likely five years ago this warrior was horse-mounted, illiterate, never dreaming of what would be.\n\nJurak slowly walked around the machine, inspecting it. He felt a slight knot in his stomach. He had never much cared for flying, but on the old world it was in vast cavernous six-engine transports, capable of spanning continents to disgorge hundreds of assault troops. Now it was a flimsy hybrid, a sausagelike hydrogen airship with wings tacked on for lift and wheezing steam engines for power. The only factor that even allowed this damn thing to fly was the lighter gravity of this world, and even with that it could barely stagger aloft.\n\nTaking a deep breath, he reached up and pulled himself into the cockpit and strapped into the narrow forward seat, the pilot climbing up to sit behind him.\n\n\"My Qar Qarth, the umbrella pack is what you are sitting on. Hook the harnesses over your shoulder. If I tell you to get out, do it quick. You then pull the rope on your left side.\"\n\nJurak nodded as he followed the pilot's orders.\n\n\"The gun between your feet, my Qarth. You are responsible for shooting that. The hand crank on your right side fires it.\"\n\nJurak knew a bit more about this, having sketched out the designs of it more than a year ago, a primitive crank-powered machine gun.\n\n\"Are you ready, sire?\"\n\n\"Ready.\"\n\nWithin seconds both engines were at full power, and the machine slowly lurched forward, bouncing and rolling over the rough grassy field, and finally lifted, heading due west into the morning breeze.\n\nThe pilot banked the machine, passing over the locomotive that had carried him two hundred miles back from Capua during the night. As they leveled out, flying low, less than a hundred feet off the ground, he caught a glimpse of one of his two escorts turning sharply, cutting in to come up on their left side. Below, hundreds of Chin slaves stopped their labors for a moment, faces upturned to watch.\n\nHe saw the flashing of whips, dark towering forms gesturing, urging the humans back to their tasks. With the wind at their backs, they quickly picked up speed, racing eastward, the single line of track their guide.\n\nThey passed a locomotive stopped on the main line, most likely waiting for the train that had carried him to this rendezvous with the air machines to back up onto a siding. The vast open plains were dotted with villas, small villages, all of this once part of the Roum lands, ruled over by the Tugars. The wreckage of war was complete. Not a building was intact. They skimmed over a river, the ruins of a bridge still blackened, a fresh span built by Chin slaves looking dangerously weak. As they slowly continued to climb he could discern the Great Forest to the north and far to the south the rising of the ground into hills and distant mountains beyond.\n\nHe settled back. It would be a long day. First to their base at the northern edge of the ocean to refuel. Then the flight across it to a base on the eastern shore to refuel again, and from there by the middle of the night to Huan, where he suspected the true battle was about to be fought.\n\nThis day and the next might very well decide everything, all of it. He knew that in his heart. And in anticipation of what was to come he settled back in his chair and let the hum of the engines lull him to sleep."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "\"Damn!\"\n\nHans snapped his hand back from the shattered throttle controls. His fingers stung, blood seeping out from the wood splinters studding his palm.\n\n\"The throttles!\" Jack shouted.\n\nA forward windowpane exploded, showering them with glass.\n\n\"I knew this place would be hot!\" Jack cried. \"Under your seat. The master fuel valve, shut it down!\"\n\nHans spared a quick glance up. The place they had chosen to land was an open field adjoining the factory where he had once labored as a slave. So much had changed though over the last year. A new factory, plumes of black smoke pouring out of half a dozen smokestacks occupied the adjoining ground to the west. From the open doors of the compound he could see dozens of Bantag pouring out. Shots were punching into the gasbags behind him, a loud twang announcing that a support wire for the starboard wing had separated.\n\nGrimacing with pain, Hans reached under the seat, fumbling about, his hands coming to rest on a cold brass valve. Hoping it was the right one he turned it, and at the same instant all four engines throttled back.\n\n\"Don't shut it completely.\"\n\nHans looked up. The open field they had chosen for landing was directly ahead, just to the north of the rail yard where he and his escaping slaves had hijacked a train for their run back to the outskirts of Xi'an.\n\nA thin skirmish line of Bantag ran out into the field, several of them already kneeling, firing, levering breeches open to slam in fresh cartridges.\n\nAn aerosteamer passed over Hans, momentarily casting a shadow. The machine was flying full out, banking over sharply, a stream of fire pouring down from the topside gunner, rounds stitching the field, breaking up the skirmish line, scattering them.\n\n\"Fire!\"\n\nThe scream came from the lower cargo compartment's speaking tube. Hans craned forward, looking out at the starboard wing. A flicker of orange-blue flame trailed from the outboard engine. The fabric around the engine was burning as well, fire tracing with red-hot fingers along the trailing edges of the upper and lower wings.\n\n\"Full off!\" Jack shouted.\n\nHans turned the master valve the rest of the way, shutting down all four fuel lines. The machine simply dropped. Jack nosed it down, heading straight for a drainage ditch bordering the west end of the field, pulled up at the last second, bobbled up a dozen feet, then slammed down hard.\n\nThe upper wing on the starboard side ignited, fire leaping inward toward the volatile hydrogen gasbags.\n\n\"Out, everyone out!\" Jack cried.\n\nHans fumbled with his harness, unbuckling, cursing from the pain as he snatched up his carbine, tossed it out the bottom hatch. Without waiting to unroll the ladder, he dropped his legs through the bottom opening, took a deep breath, then lifted his arms over his head, falling the dozen feet to the ground, knocking the wind out of his lungs.\n\nStunned, he couldn't move. Jack crashed down beside him. He felt Jack grabbing him under the shoulders, dragging him clear even as he continued to clutch his carbine.\n\nA long staccato burst of fire roared. As they cleared the side of the ship he saw that their top gunner was still firing. Pouring a continual stream of Gatling rounds into a column of Bantag storming out from the two compounds, he dropped dozens of them.\n\n\"Get out!\" Jack screamed, as the flame from the starboard wing hit the side of the forward gasbag. Within seconds the fire bored a hole through, hitting the hydrogen that spilled out, combining with the surrounding oxygen and flaring into a dull ghostly blue light. The entire side of the airship peeled open.\n\nThe boy topside continued to fire, sweeping his Gatling around, pouring fire across the rail yard, tearing apart the small warehouse that had served as the exit for the escape tunnel Hans and his men had dug. As the rounds punched through the flimsy wooden structure Hans could hear the Bantag screaming inside.\n\nThe gun fell silent, the steam line hooked to the inboard starboard engine having burned through. The boy stood up to jump clear even as his cockpit collapsed into the burning bag.\n\nA round exploded out the back of his chest. He tried to stagger clear, the cockpit disappearing, falling into the roaring inferno, and the boy disappeared. Cursing, Hans looked away.\n\nHe heard Ketswana shouting and caught a glimpse of the enraged Zulu, followed by his men, pouring out from under the burning airship, one of the men somehow dragging clear a precious crate loaded with revolvers and extra ammunition.\n\nA second airship skidded to a stop behind Jack's burning machine, disgorging its assault team, the top gunner emptying his Gatling in support fire as well. A third machine crashed into the left of Jack's machine, pivoting about as its forward wheel collapsed from the hard landing. A fourth airship, coming in too low, crashed on the top of the third machine, crushing the topside gunner, nosed over the bow of the third ship, and slammed into the ground, forward cockpit disappearing, wings snapping off and pivoting into the gasbags, which exploded. Half a dozen men tumbled out of the cargo compartment.\n\nAnother airship, abandoning the approach, soared overhead, banking sharply, starboard wing almost clipping the warehouse, which had been shredded by Gatling fire. The topside and forward gunners let loose a stream of fire as they pivoted over the landing site. Another airship, clearing the pileup of the first four, touched down smoothly, followed seconds later by another and yet another.\n\nKetswana and his skirmish line were already past the warehouse, which was beginning to burn, screams of dying Bantag echoing from within. The building suddenly detonated with a thunderclap roar, bits of lumber, bodies, and kegs of powder soaring up, bursting like shells at a Fourth of July celebration, the explosion enveloping an airship overhead and knocking down several of Ketswana's men.\n\nDebris rained down; Hans crouched into a tight ball, and Jack threw himself over the old sergeant. Peeking out, Hans saw a burning barrel plunge down next to the airship that had landed behind Jack's machine, blowing a few seconds later, destroying that ship as well, catching the pilot and copilot as they tried to scramble away.\n\n\"We've landed in a madhouse!\" Jack roared. \"I'll handle the landings! Secure this area, otherwise, we'll all be slaughtered.\"\n\nLetting go of Hans he came to his feet, ignoring the debris still tumbling from the heavens, and raced out into the field, waving his arms, trying to flag the other airships off from their landing approaches. Hans saw two machines banking hard to the north, turning away, but another one came straight in through the spreading plumes of smoke, clearing the confusion, touching down, men from the cargo hold tumbling out before the ship had even stopped.\n\nNumbed, Hans slowly came to his feet, his mind a mad jumble of confusion. A squad of troops, Chin dressed in uniform, sprinted past, their lieutenant shouting for them to press into the first factory. He fell out, coming up to Hans.\n\n\"Sit down, sir.\"\n\nHans looked at him, confused.\n\nThe Chin officer gently helped Hans down to the grass, undoing a red bandanna tied around his throat and started to wipe Hans's face. Hans flinched. Shards of glass from the exploding window, he vaguely realized. The officer talked softly, as if soothing a child, falling into the dialect of the camps, the strange combination of Chin, Rus, Zulu, a polyglot language of the slaves.\n\n\"We're back now, now we're back with guns. Listen, listen.\"\n\nThe blood cleared from his eyes, Hans looked up to the smoke-shrouded gate. Ketswana stood silhouetted in the gateway into the factory where they had once been slaves, carbine held overhead, his battle chant serving as a rally cry. There was something else as well, though, a loud roaring cry, the screams of thousands of men and women.\n\nLegs shaky, Hans got to his feet, the Chin lieutenant, who was nearly his own age, helping him along.\n\n\"We free our brothers here, then we rest, old friend. We drink cha, and then we watch the Bantag slave.\" He chuckled.\n\nHe stepped around the bodies of two of the men caught when the warehouse blew, both of them torn and horribly burned. On the main rail line the wreckage of the aerosteamer destroyed in the explosion was a piled-up ruin, burning fiercely. Miraculously, most of the men in the cargo compartment apparently had survived, though badly shaken, and were huddled to the side, staring blankly at the inferno.\n\n\"Get in, get in!\" the lieutenant cried, pointing toward the gate. Several still had their carbines; the others drew pistols and woodenly shuffled off.\n\nAs Hans reached the gate he recoiled in horror. First there was the stench, the sickening cloying stench of the camps, the unwashed bodies, the steamy heat of the foundry, the musky smell of Bantag, and the deeper underlayer of rotting food, human waste, death, and a strange surreal sense that one could also smell terror.\n\nThe camp inside the compound was a scene of murderous chaos. Ketswana had wisely stopped his men just inside the barrier, drawing them up into a volley line. Occasionally one of the men raised a carbine to fire, but it was the thousands of slaves inside the compound who were doing the job. The prisoners were in full riot, swarming like a writhing host of maddened insects, tearing apart the remaining Bantag in the main courtyard. They had charged across the dead space that separated the perimeter wall from the barracks and were now up on the battlements. Frantic Bantag backed up along the upper walkway, furiously trying to keep the enraged host back. From down inside the camp, prisoners were pelting the trapped Bantag with lumps of coal and hunks of twisted rocks from the slag heaps until their comrades moving along the battlement walkways closed in. Four, six, sometimes a dozen died, until finally one overpowered a Bantag and knocked him off his perch to fall screaming into the waiting grasp of the mob below.\n\nHans spotted a knot of several dozen Bantag cutting their way through the compound, fighting to gain the doorway into the vast cavernous foundry building that dominated the center of the compound. Hans shouted for Ketswana to cut them off. Together Hans, Ketswana, and several squads of his troops pushed their way through the surging crowd.\n\nThe Bantag gained the door just ahead of them, his own men unable to fire owing to the press of Chin slaves between the two groups. The first couple of men to gain the entryway were dropped by fire from within the building. Hans pressed against the warm brick wall of the building, edged up to the huge open doors, which were wide enough that a railroad boxcar could be rolled in, and peeked around the corner. The Bantag were inside, deploying into a line not a dozen feet away. One raised a rifle, and Hans jerked his head back, a spray of brick fragment snapping out as the Bantag fired.\n\nThe Chin swarming around the door backed away as a concentrated volley tore into them. Hans looked over at Ketswana, who nodded without having to be told. A second volley slashed out; more Chin dropped. Ketswana seemed to be counting, he held his carbine up. Another volley flared.\n\n\"Charge!\"\n\nKetswana leapt from the side of the building, carbine leveled, firing from the waist. Others charged after him, firing as they came around the side of the building. Hans tried to follow, but the Chin lieutenant pushed him back, stepped around the corner, fired, and was knocked backwards by a ball that caught him squarely in the face.\n\nHans stepped over the body, firing blindly, and caught a glimpse of a Bantag crumpling only feet away. The Chin mob, which had been recoiling from the hammerblows, now turned in a mad frenzy and charged into the warehouse, knocking Hans up against the wall, Ketswana and the men who had followed him disappearing in the crush.\n\nThe thin Bantag line collapsed, the warriors breaking, running in panic, some turning to go up the north wing of the foundry, others running to the south. Hundreds of Chin pushed in. Hans dodged around the side of the first furnace just inside the door. Looking up at the wall he saw that the damnable treadmills were still there, their human occupants still locked inside, bony hands clutching the side, all of them shrieking in rage.\n\nA Bantag dodged past Hans, running blindly, stumbling straight into a stoking crew. Long iron stoking rods were now weapons. The Chin slaves fell upon the Bantag, the first one dying from the Bantag's bayonet thrust. One of the Chin, grasping the rod like a club, caught the Bantag across the knee, breaking his leg. The Bantag went down like a felled tree, then tried to scramble back up on his one good leg. Another one caught him across the back, and he collapsed, rolling over. Screaming with insane rage, one of the Chin straddled the Bantag, held his iron rod up like a spear, and drove it down straight into the Bantag's face. Then all of them started to beat the still-trembling corpse.\n\nIt was madness, and in that place, with all that he remembered, he felt the madness take hold of his own soul as well. Ignoring the pain of the splinters in his hand, he cocked open his carbine, chambered another round, and pushed forward, moving along the wall, dodging around the backs of the furnaces.\n\nIt was all so chillingly familiar, furnace number eleven. He wondered if it still drew poorly. He stepped wide of a fresh pour from number eight, several tons of molten iron still boiling hot, slowly congealing in the channels cut into the floor, a dead Chin lying half in the pour, clothes and hair smoldering. As always the windowless foundry was a stygian realm, illuminated only by the flare from the open hearths and the glow of hot iron, echoing with screams, gunshots, the hissing of hot metal, cloaked in a dark gloom so that all seemed ghostlike in the shadows.\n\nHe pushed down toward the end of the corridor, stepping out from behind a furnace, dropping a Bantag in the back as the warrior was backing up. Chin ran past, eyes wide with terror and rage, screaming incoherently.\n\nHe caught a glimpse of a ragged Chin, a skeletal form, naked except for a filthy rag tied around his waist, pointing. Hans spun around and catlike jumped backwards just as a heavy cauldron of molten iron upended, the glowing silvery cascade exploding into steam as it vomited out onto the pouring floor. Half a dozen Chin who had been next to Hans were caught in the boiling river, the men stumbling, falling, flames exploding as the liquid splashed onto their clothes, hair, and skin.\n\nThe two Bantag behind the upended cauldron ran out from behind the overturned vat. The charging mob skirted around the spreading pool and fell upon the two. The fight was horrifying. Hans watched, torn between rage at his old tormentors and pity for two living beings about to die agonizing deaths. The crowd simply beat the one half to death, then pushed him out onto the slowly congealing pool of molten iron. The second one was hoisted up by a dozen Chin, who carried him, kicking and flailing, to the open door of a glowing hearth.\n\nOften enough Hans had seen a Bantag pick up a slave with a single hand and toss him into a furnace over some minor infraction, or simply for no reason at all other than to serve as a minor amusement. The half-conscious Bantag, realizing his fate, started to kick and scream as they tried to plunge him headfirst into the flames. His arms snapped out, trying to block the entry. Blows from stirring rods broke his limbs.\n\nScreaming, he was thrown in, and, to Hans's terrified amazement, the Bantag, wreathed in flames, stood up inside the inferno, bellowing in agony. A single shot from Hans's carbine ended the agony, the explosive shot ending the horrific nightmare.\n\nThe shot reverberated through the cavernous room, and there was a strange silence for a moment. The mob, stunned by what it had done, seemed to collectively pause for breath.\n\n\"Hans.\"\n\nStartled, he turned. It was the Bantag dying in the molten pool of iron still slowly spreading out on the floor of the foundry.\n\nThe Bantag, kicking weakly, was looking straight at him.\n\nMy God, was this one of my captors from so long ago? Hans wondered. What torments did he inflict upon me, upon my comrades?\n\n\"Hans.\" It was a rattling gasp of agony, and he could sense the pleading supplication in the alien guttural voice.\n\nHands shaking, he ejected the spent round. He couldn't stop the shaking as he fumbled to pull another round out of his cartridge box, dropped it, and, cursing, tried to retrieve it from the blood-soaked floor. The Chin surrounding the still slowly spreading puddle gazed in mute silence at the agony of the Bantag and the apparently vain attempt of Hans to end it.\n\nAt last he chambered the round, cocked the hammer, and raised his carbine, aiming straight at the head.\n\n\"No, no!\" It was several of the Chin, gesturing angrily, motioning for him not to shoot.\n\n\"Hans \u2026\"\n\nTears filled his eyes. Snarling, he raised his carbine, aiming straight at the forehead. The Bantag, twitching spasmodically, appeared to dip his head in acknowledgment.\n\nHe squeezed the trigger.\n\nLowering his gun, he looked at the mob.\n\n\"We are men, damn it,\" he cried. \"Not like them. We are men.\"\n\nHe felt an infinite exhaustion, a wish simply to crawl away to a dark corner, to collapse into oblivion. His gaze swept the mob, eyes lingering on the very spot where only a year ago he had cowered in fear as a Bantag, perhaps the very one he had just shot, had almost uncovered the secret tunnel that had led him back to freedom.\n\n\"We are not like them,\" he cried, again his voice breaking. \"Fight to be free, not for revenge, not to be like them!\"\n\nAnd yet he knew the rage, the horror of slavery, the secret wish, buried in one's heart, to if nothing else kill one of them, to kill one of them in the most frightful and agonizing way possible, willing to trade one's own life for that terrible instant of freedom, the freedom to kill before dying yourself.\n\n\"We're here to win freedom for all the Chin,\" Hans said, his voice now not much more than a whisper, speech beginning to slur from exhaustion, his heart feeling heavy and leaden, again the spasm of pain. He took a deep breath trying to will the pain away, still it lingered.\n\n\"We are from the Republic. I was a slave here as you are now.\"\n\nSeveral of the Chin nodded, and he heard them whispering his name in their lilting singsong voices.\n\nHe took another breath.\n\n\"Furnace captains and barracks leaders. Organize your people. Round up all weapons taken from the Bantag. Find the camp leader and his assistants, I want them out by the gate in ten minutes.\"\n\nThe group seemed to freeze.\n\n\"Smash this whole damn place,\" he cried, \"smash it all, burn the barracks. We leave here, forever, within the hour.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 31",
+                "text": "Vincent watched in glum silence as flames blowtorched out of the turret of the abandoned ironclad, its crew standing sadly to one side. A medical orderly was by the side of the boiler operator, smearing ointment on his scalded hands and face. It was the fifth ironclad to break down that day, a steam line splitting wide-open. Two or three hours' work, and they could have torn out the line, replacing it with a spare, but there was no time for that. The rear of the vast marching column had already passed and was a quarter mile to the east. He could see that the cavalry pickets bringing up the rear were getting nervous, wanting to push on.\n\nThe injured driver was loaded into a two-wheel ambulance wagon, the driver snapping the reins, urging the horse into a slow trot. A second wagon, loaded with the salvaged ammunition and Gatling gun, fell in behind the ambulance. The crew stood silent, not sure what to do, and Vincent motioned for them to get moving. They would be walking, and he could sense their unhappiness over the demotion back to the infantry.\n\nA rifle ball fluttered past his face, another one pinged against the rear of his turret. He looked back to the west. A heavy skirmish line of mounted Bantag, several of them armed with rifles, was less than four hundred yards away.\n\nThroughout the day the pressure on all sides had been slowly building. Most of the Bantag were still older formations, armed with traditional bows, but apparently several regiments, perhaps a full umen, armed with rifles had shown up. They had brought up two batteries of rifled pieces and several batteries of mortars as well, which were becoming something of an annoyance.\n\nA mortar round arced overhead, bursting near the ambulance, the startled driver urging his draft horse into a plodding gallop to regain the protection of the square formed by 3rd Corps. A captain from the trailing cavalry unit rode up beside Vincent's ironclad and saluted.\n\n\"Ah sir, they're starting to press a little close.\"\n\nVincent nodded, and shouted down to his driver to get moving.\n\nHe spotted the puff of smoke as the mortar fired again, back and just behind the cover of the Bantag skirmish line sweeping in behind them. Though it was against orders to fire at long range, he pivoted his turret around, slipped back inside, raised the elevation on the gun, opened the steam cock, and fired several long bursts. Several mounted riders dropped.\n\nStanislaw engaged the engine and the ironclad lurched forward, wheels cutting into the dry turf. Standing up in the turret he watched as the cavalry skillfully pulled back, one troop reining about, covering, as a second troop a hundred yards farther back broke off, rode through their covering line, then came about in turn to cover. The men were good, skillful, always keeping the Bantag at bay. Twice during the long day of marching the Bantag had attempted to mount a serious charge. The cavalry then pulled in, letting the ironclads cut them apart.\n\nThey crested a low rise. Again the vast panorama ahead \u2026 3rd Corps in a huge block formation, a thousand yards to a side, inside the hollow square the supply wagons, ambulances, a reserve brigade to plug any hole, and a dozen ironclads. Spread in a vast circle several hundred yards out around the square were mounted units and five ironclads per flank, the forward V formation of the previous day abandoned as the Bantag increased the pressure.\n\nA Hornet came sweeping in, strafing the mortar crew that had been harassing them, the tracer rounds igniting the crew's limber wagon. The mushrooming fireball triggered a ragged cheer from the men at the rear of the square. The Hornet pulled up sharply and continued west, heading back to Tyre to reload and refuel.\n\nThe farther east they traveled, the more difficult it was maintaining air cover since the airships now had to fly nearly a hundred-mile round-trip before getting into action. The continual flying and fighting of the, last three days was undoubtedly taking a toll on maintenance as well; there were long stretches of time now when no airships were overhead.\n\nHe thought about school, so many years ago, at the old Oak Grove in Vassalboro. Memory of Plutarch and the last campaign of Crassus against the Parthians. Much the same, the circling riders. Only two differences, though. The first, his force had gunpowder. But the disturbing second one, unlike Crassus, who actually outnumbered the Parthians, he was facing odds of maybe six to one, the only thing holding them back the ironclads and the Hornets circling overhead.\n\nHis driver below turned slightly, and Vincent looked forward again, where several men, dead infantry, lay twisted in the high grass. He hated leaving them to the bastards. A scattering of dead Bantag and horses were in the grass as well, having tried to dispute the possession of the ridge when the head of the column had swept it half an hour ago.\n\nThey pushed on, a gust of dry wind from the west blanketing him in a choking cloud of smoke from the ironclad's exhaust stack. Coughing, he waited for it to clear. A courier came out of the smoke, reined in beside his machine, and rode at a slow canter, keeping pace.\n\nVincent returned the salute and took the note. Still perched atop the turret he unfolded the paper, ignoring the occasional hum of a bullet snapping past.\n\nIt was from Gregory, riding at the head of the column, announcing that water had been sighted. He shaded his eyes and looked back to the west. Still a couple of hours of sunlight. There was no need to look at the map, another watercourse was still five or six miles beyond. According to the map that was also the head of the Bantag rail line, which was being constructed from the Great Sea. A Hornet had flown all the way east earlier in the day and dropped a message that two Bantag transports were off-loading land ironclads and additional troops. Two Hornets had been lost trying to strafe the ships and locomotives, and the equipment was being loaded onto several trains, but had yet to move out.\n\nWell, that is what we wanted, he realized. But still it was a chilling thought that somewhere up ahead a warm reception was being planned.\n\nHe knew the men were getting tired, they'd been on the march for nearly fourteen hours, a hard thirty miles that day, a little more than halfway to the coast. They'd still have to dig in once stopped for the night. The enemy would come to them. It was best to have the boys as rested as possible for the next day.\n\n\"Tell General Timokin to hold at the stream. Tell Stan to halt the corps as well and dig in. Whether we take the railhead today or not doesn't really matter; they'll just simply off-load farther back.\"\n\nHe could sense the boy's disappointment as he shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, then saluted and spurred his mount forward.\n\nHe looked out at the circling host. After months in the siege lines they had to be exhausted as well. No, they won't press it yet, they'll wait for ironclads to come up. Then there'll be hell to pay."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 32",
+                "text": "The aerosteamer touched down lightly, bounced once, then settled back down, quickly rumbling to a halt.\n\nJurak pulled open the hatch and swung down, barely acknowledging the bows of the aerosteamer ground crew. It was an out-of-the-way position on the northeast shore of the Great Sea, near the realm of Nippon, a little more than halfway to his destination. The only purpose for the station was to act as a refueling depot for the occasional aerosteamer flying the great route from the realm of the Chin, northward to Nippon, then northwest, skirting the flank of the Sea, then finally to turn straight west to the front, now three hundred leagues away. He regretted not setting up stations on the western and eastern shore of the Sea, so one could simply fly across the water, but after too many of the precious ships had disappeared making the transit, Ha'ark had forbidden such overflights, and he had never bothered to rescind the ban.\n\nAs it was he had witnessed firsthand the wisdom of that choice. Thirty leagues back one of his two escorts had simply quit, an engine shutting down, the aerosteamer spiraling down to a semi-crash landing along the rail line that ran the length of the northern shore.\n\n\"Any messages?\" he shouted, looking over at the station commander, who stared at him as if he was a god who had tumbled from the sky.\n\nA sheaf of papers was pressed into his hand, and he scanned them, yet again cursing the fact that the script of his own world had not been introduced rather than the damnable writing of the Rus.\n\nSo it was Huan after all. He had at least guessed right on that; otherwise, this trip would be a foolish waste. He jotted down half a dozen messages on a pad of rice paper, tore them off, and handed them back to the station commander. Without a word, he looked back at his pilot.\n\n\"How are the engines?\"\n\n\"My Qar Qarth, they need work.\"\n\n\"Can they take us to the next stop?\"\n\n\"Tonight?\"\n\n\"Yes, damn all, tonight. We'll have moonlight, just follow the damned rail line. We're almost around the Sea. The rail line will turn southeast down toward Nippon. It'll be open steppe soon.\"\n\nThe pilot said nothing.\n\n\"Shouldn't we wait for our escort?\" He nodded toward the small dot that was now winging in from the west.\n\n\"He can catch up. Let's be off.\"\n\nGrabbing a waterskin and satchel of dried meat offered by a trembling cattle slave, Jurak returned to the air machine and climbed in, impatiently waiting for the pilot, who checked as the last of the tins of kerosene was loaded into the fuel tank.\n\nThe pilot finally climbed back through the hatch and before it was even closed Jurak leaned over and pushed in the throttle lever, propellers stuttering up to a blur. Turning back out onto the grassy strip, they took off, clearing the towering trees at the far end of the field, heading back for a moment toward the setting sun. Banking hard over, they continued to climb, Jurak catching a glimpse of the Sea off the starboard side. Straight ahead he could see where a shallow arm of the ocean finally played out into a bay ringed with low hills, a place where a year ago the first actions of the campaign had been fought in a vain attempt to lure the Yankees eastward before the attack across the ocean came two hundred leagues to the west.\n\nHuan. The war had leapt all the way back to there. Chaos all the way from Xi'an to Huan, half a dozen factories in enemy hands. A mob though. A disorganized mob led at best by two or three hundred trained troops. They still most likely thought that there was only one rail line. The one that ran from Huan to Xi'an. With luck they didn't know that throughout the winter and into early summer he had pressed the completion of the second line, the one that ran northward out of Huan, up to Nippon, and then finally connected to the route the Yankees had been cutting along the northern shore of the Great Sea. And on that road, even now, he had reversed every train, over thirty of them carrying two entire umens of troops who had been sent back after the siege of Roum to refit and train with the newest weapons.\n\nIt had been his plan to keep them in reserve at Huan, an inner warning perhaps that the vast encampment areas for the old, the young, and the females, more than three hundred thousand yurts spread in a vast arc across hundreds of leagues between Huan and Nippon, were too vulnerable."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 33",
+                "text": "Pat O'Donald furiously shredded the paper, tearing it in half, then again, and yet again until it was nothing more than confetti. Rick Schneid, his second-in-command for the Capua Front, said nothing, having read the note over Pat's shoulder.\n\nPat looked down at the telegrapher who had transcribed the note.\n\n\"That thing still operating?\" Pat asked.\n\nThe boy nodded, wide-eyed and uncomprehending of the long stream of English and Gaelic imprecations that had poured out of Pat while reading the note.\n\nPat looked around the room; half a dozen men of the signal corps were at their telegraphs, which connected to the various commands along the river, and the main line back to Roum and Suzdal beyond.\n\nUnholstering his revolver he grabbed the weapon by the barrel, and slammed the butt down on the receiver, smashing it to pieces.\n\n\"Well, now the son of a bitch is broken,\" he snarled.\n\nThe room was silent.\n\nReversing the revolver he held it casually in his hand, not pointing it at the telegrapher but not quite turning it away from him either.\n\n\"If a word, if a single word of that message slips out of this room, I'm going to blame you personally,\" he paused, his gaze sweeping the others, who stared at him nervously. \"I'll blame all of you. Do we understand each other?\"\n\nNo one answered; there was simply nodding all around.\n\n\"I expect it'll be at least a day before you can find a replacement for that machine.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes sir, days more likely.\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\n\"Sir, I have to enter something into the official logbook.\"\n\n\"Damn the logbook to hell,\" he shouted, as he reached over, tore out several pages, and shredded them as well.\n\n\"A shell hit this place, damn lucky anyone got out alive, damn lucky. Do we understand each other?\"\n\n\"Sir, you're right.\"\n\n\"What the hell do you mean I'm right?\"\n\n\"Just that, sir.\"\n\n\"Don't ever say that, boy, or you'll hang with me. The rest of you keep me posted. We can maybe expect action by dawn. I want to know.\"\n\nTossing the pieces of paper on the packed-dirt floor he stalked out, tearing aside the blanket that acted as a curtain. Climbing out of the command bunker, he walked up onto the battlement and with a sigh leaned against the earthen embankment, gazing blankly at the rising moons. \"You can't keep it back forever.\"\n\nIt was Schneid, coming up to join him, proffering a lit cigar, which Pat gladly accepted.\n\n\"I want good troops, old veterans we can trust,\" Pat said. \"Make it the First Suzdal. Be honest and tell them what's going on. Get 'em on a train and head back up the line toward Roum. Turn command of your corps over to your second and go with them.\"\n\n\"Me? Pat, we both know those bastards over there are fixing to attack, maybe as early as tomorrow. I'm needed here.\"\n\n\"No, you're needed more back there. Pick a good spot, say the bridge crossing that marshy creek about thirty miles back. That's a good enough spot. Block the track, tear the bridge up a bit, then stop anyone who comes up that line. If the Chin ambassadors should happen to show up, arrest them or shoot them, I don't care which it is at the moment.\"\n\n\"You sure you know what you're doing?\"\n\n\"Look, Rick. The government might not send anybody up at first, other than a couple of mealymouthed senators. If they do, arrest them as well.\"\n\n\"On what charge?\"\n\n\"Damn all, Schneid, I don't care. Littering, soliciting for immoral purposes, public drunkenness, I don't give a damn.\"\n\nLeaning over, he rubbed his temples.\n\n\"Sorry, I don't mean to blow on you.\"\n\n\"It's all right.\"\n\n\"I just can't believe that after everything we've been through it's come down to this.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"They might send troops, then.\"\n\n\"I know that, too. I'll leave it up to you at that point. I don't want our people killing each other, I'm not ordering you to do that.\"\n\n\"Pat, you can only keep this under wraps a day, two days at most. The army's bound to find out. You can't tie up every damn supply train coming this way. Word will finally get through.\"\n\n\"Two days, make it three, that's all.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"If need be, I'm going to try one more time.\"\n\n\"Try what?\"\n\nPat nodded toward the east.\n\n\"To get across that damned river.\"\n\n\"Don't even think it, Pat. You have no orders.\"\n\n\"Rick, everything's breaking apart. The Republic, Andrew resigning, that last damned telegram telling us to inform the bastards on the other side of the river that we want a ceasefire. It's all breaking apart. Well maybe it's breaking apart over there, too. I'm willing to make one more try at it. I think they'll hit first, then I plan to hit back with everything I have.\"\n\n\"Pat, give it another day. We still don't know what's happening with Vincent or Hans. Maybe they've succeeded. If so, the bastards here will have to pull back, and that could reverse the whole political situation at home.\"\n\nPat said nothing, staring at the rising moons.\n\n\"All right then, one more day, but then, by God, I plan to go down fighting.\"\n\n\"With an army that's no longer supposed to fight?\"\n\nPat smiled.\n\n\"They don't know that yet now, do they?\"\n\n\"You're talking rebellion.\"\n\n\"Only you and I know that, my friend, and maybe a bit of rebellion is exactly what this country needs at this moment.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 34",
+                "text": "He had seen cities burn before, Fredericksburg, Suzdal, Kev, Roum, and only this morning it had been Xi'an. None of his nightmares, however, had prepared Hans for the apocalypse spreading from horizon to horizon. Huan, the great city of the Chin, was dying.\n\nIt had started at dusk, a column of smoke to the east, a beacon, a warning, the column of smoke by day, and now the pillar of fire by night, and it seemed as if the world, the entire world, was doomed to a purging by flame for its sins.\n\nEven before nightfall the first refugees had come into his advancing lines seeking refuge. No one could explain how or why they knew to head west, it was as if a primal force of nature, chained for ten thousand years had been unleashed.\n\nWhile a slave he had learned something of the mystery, the Chin called it \"wind words,\" the strange almost supernatural way that news flowed through the slave camps, leaping like the chimera wind, bearing with it tiding of death, the choosing of who shall be next for the moon feasts, the distant whispers of wars. Before the Bantag even came to a barracks to lead someone away, already the news had arrived as \"wind words.\"\n\nHans knew that in the world of master and slave, the slave was always present, standing by every table, every entryway to a yurt, always there were slaves, mute, dumb-looking, but always listening, and from mouth to mouth the word would spread of what had been decided. That was the only explanation he now could find. \"Wind words\" had floated into the city of Huan, miles away from where he had landed, bearing with it news of the spreading rebellion.\n\nSome of the refugees claimed that the Bantag garrison of Huan had started it, rounding up the appointed leaders of the city, taking them out beyond the walls to slaughter them all, that one of the leaders slew a Bantag, and thus the killing frenzy had started in the streets of the city. Others, that the Bantag were in a panic, fleeing the city, setting it aflame and sealing the gates with the intent of murdering the hundreds of thousands within. And yet others said that Cu-Han, the great ancestor god, had ridden into the city upon a winged horse and struck down Ugark, the Bantag Qarth of the city, the flaming light of his sword blinding the Bantag, and then proclaimed that the hour of liberation had come.\n\nHe suspected he knew the truth. That all the stories were true. When word arrived of the air assault on Xi'an, and the following day the strike on the factories west of Huan, the garrison commander had panicked and ordered the roundup of all the Chin who were collaborators and managed the daily running of the millions of Chin who labored as slaves. Perhaps it was merely to interrogate, maybe even to take hostages to ensure that the people did not rebel, or stupidly it was with the intent to kill them all in retaliation. As for the god, that was a fascinating irony, the similarity in names, and if at the moment it helped to feed the rebellion, so be it. But as he looked at the thousands staggering past he could see the panic as well.\n\nPanic would feed on panic, the Bantag beginning the slaughter, and the population, after years of occupation, slavery, and terror, sensing that liberation was at hand, but now confronted by the death they had sought so long to avoid, would then turn like cornered rats, believing that the gods themselves would now come to their aid.\n\nSitting on the side of the wood tender of a Bantag locomotive, which was slowly pushing up the main line toward the city, he nursed the cup of tea given to him by the locomotive engineer, a Chin slave freed when they had seized the engine works adjoining the foundry where they had landed.\n\nThe tea and a dirty chunk of hard bread were reviving him, and to his amazement he had actually managed to snatch a few hours' sleep, the first in two days. Seeing that the cup was empty, the engineer gently took it from Hans, opened a hot water vent, filled the cup, then, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a dirty rag, scooped out a precious handful of leaves, and threw them in, swishing the contents around.\n\nHans nodded his thanks. Setting the cup down on the floor of the tender to let it cool a bit, Hans leaned out of the cab. A firefight was flaring up ahead, yet another walled-in compound; one of the men reported that it was a powder works. The complex stood out sharply, the burning city, still several miles off, illuminating the world. His skirmish line, deployed a half mile to either side of the tracks, was hotly engaged, beefed up now by thousands of Chin, some armed with cumbersome Bantag rifles, others with the precious pistols carried in on the aerosteamers and not left behind at Xi'an. Most were just a surging, milling horde carrying clubs, pitchforks, stoking rods, knives, heavy Bantag swords, and spears.\n\nRight through the middle of the fighting an endless column staggered to either side of the track, women clinging to screaming infants, frightened children clutching their mothers' skirts, old men, women, lost children, all of them confused, terrified, moving west, trying to get out of the madness.\n\nHe had detailed off a few precious troops to cull out anyone, man or woman, who seemed capable of fighting. In any other setting the gesture would be obscene, for all of them were little more than emaciated skeletons, the final dregs of the pit after years of existence in hell and the death of millions in the monthly feasts or dying to prop up the empire of the hordes.\n\nHe tried to ignore them, to let his gaze linger for even a second on a lost child, or an exhausted mother lying in the mud and surrounded by screaming children would sap his will to continue the madness. He had come to try and free them, for they had become his brothers and sisters, yet now to free them he could do nothing but watch them die, and it was destroying him.\n\nThey were all dead anyhow, he had to remind himself of that. For surely, once the Republic was destroyed, the Bantag would annihilate everyone here and then move on. Yet rather than feeling like a liberator he felt as if he was the angel of death, realizing that as he looked at the inferno enveloping the world, a hundred thousand or more must be dying this night.\n\nA blinding light ignited. Where the powder works had been a harsh white glare, brighter than a hundred suns, erupted, rising heavenward, the flash brilliance of it seeming to freeze everyone. By the light of the explosion the entire world came into a sharp-etched reality. Far to his left he could see the end of his battle line, a milling confusion, mounted Bantag swirling into a tangled mass of humanity. Straight ahead the track was clogged with people, all of them frozen, then falling, their cries drowned out by the earth-splitting thunderclap. The ragged line of infantry circling about the walled compound were turning, running back, flinging themselves to the ground.\n\nThe fireball soared thousands of feet heavenward, the brilliant glare darkening into a sullen red hell, spreading out. The concussion stunned him. He staggered, leaning forward into the gale, the air hot and dry. More explosions ignited, crates of ammunition thrown heavenward, bursting asunder, millions of cartridges flaring, sparkling, streaks of fire plunging back to earth.\n\nThe compound walls were down, blown asunder, providing a glimpse into the inferno. Bantag, looking like flaming demons, staggered out, flaying wildly at the agony that was consuming them, humans, dwarflike beside them, burning as well. A box of rifle cartridges crashed down beside the engine, exploding like a bundle of firecrackers, rounds pinging against the side of the tender.\n\n\"Hans!\"\n\nIt was Ketswana, dragging several Chin behind him, all three dressed in the loose black coveralls marking them as men who worked aboard the locomotives. They were the precious few, allowed extra rations, exemption of their families from the feasting pit, and in the madness of the last few hours more than one had been beaten to death by those lower on the order of survival in this mad world and thus the special order to round them up not only for intelligence but also for their own protection.\n\nKetswana climbed into the locomotive cab and, exhausted, slumped down to the floor, back against the pile of wood in the tender. Hans offered his cup of tea, and Ketswana greedily gulped it down, nodding his thanks when Hans offered a piece of hardtack. The three Chin rail workers he had dragged along were in the cab as well, talking excitedly to the engineer piloting Hans's train, their words flowing so fast Hans could barely decipher what was being said.\n\n\"They're from the northern line,\" Ketswana announced, still chewing on the dry bread.\n\n\"Northern line?\"\n\n\"Remember, we knew they were laying a line up toward Nippon.\"\n\n\"And?\" He felt a flash of fear.\n\n\"We should have flown a few reconnaissance flights that way, Hans, before ordering Jack to take the remaining ships back to Xi'an.\"\n\nIt was a stupid mistake, damn stupid, Hans realized. He should have ordered Jack to circle out for a quick look around, but had yielded to the argument that if any of the aerosteamers were to survive, they had to get back to Xi'an before dark, refuel, patch up, and hopefully find a hydrogen-gas generator at the Bantag airfield. From there they could get back to Tyre the next morning. But now this.\n\nHe knew that his releasing of Jack was also motivated by guilt. Jack had finally agreed to the attack, though he had insisted that the other pilots had to volunteer as well and could not be ordered. Of course all of them did volunteer, they were far too green to know when to say no, and none would ever allow himself to be called the coward.\n\nOnly nine airships survived the assault intact and in some semblance of flying order. Close to five out of every six Eagle crews alive just two weeks ago were now dead. Jack and his boys were beyond the breaking point, and thus Hans had sent them home. His sentimentality might just have cost him the fight. He had had no idea of the completion of the rail line to the north.\n\n\"The bastards didn't just run the line up to Nippon,\" Ketswana continued, \"they hooked it all the way up to the line we were running along the north shore of the Sea!\"\n\nHans lowered his head, saying nothing. Damn! Six, eight hundred miles of track in a year. He didn't think the Bantag were capable of it. Wearily, he looked down at Ketswana.\n\n\"They have another route, Hans. Even though we cut the sea-lane, they can still move supplies by rail! Taking Xi'an means nothing; they can still keep the war going!\"\n\n\"We should have heard something,\" Hans replied, his voice thick with exhaustion, his mind refusing to believe the dark reality this intelligence presented. \"Prisoners, escaped slaves during the winter, something.\"\n\n\"The slaves working it were kept separate. They only finished it within the last month. Nearly all the supplies were still going down to Xi'an and moving by boat\u2014it was easier. Now for the bad news.\"\n\nHe could already sense what it would be.\n\n\"First off, they built some more factories up in Nippon and put the people to work. Hans, even if we smash this place up, they'll still be able to produce weapons.\"\n\n\"We had to figure on that.\" Hans sighed, trying to hide his bitter disappointment. So this would not be the crippling blow. The thought sank in with a brutal clarity that the war was indeed lost. Jurak would annihilate the Chin, perhaps stop for a while to regroup, then simply press on with the fight. He was afraid that in his exhaustion his despair would show. He lowered his head in order to hide his face.\n\n\"And Hans. Those three Chin I rounded up,\" Ketswana continued, \"were supposed to run a trainload of rails north this morning. They told me that even then word was already in the city that we had taken Xi'an. The Bantag were getting nervous, rounding up the families of the Chin rulers as hostages when we hit the factories west of here. That's when all hell broke loose, and the city rioted.\"\n\n\"Kind of what we figured.\"\n\n\"That's not the main point, though. These three were supposed to pull out with that load of rails when suddenly they got orders to wait in the rail yard. One of them, his brother worked on the telegraph line, said that messages were flying north, up toward Nippon, calling back two umens of troops.\"\n\nHans tried not to react.\n\n\"We had to figure on resistance. If they only had two umens here covering their rear, we should be able to handle it.\"\n\n\"Hans, two umens of troops with modern weapons. They were sent back here after the Battle of Roum to refit. These Bantag are veterans. They're deploying north of the city right now.\"\n\nHans looked back toward Huan. Damn all, it would have been the perfect place for a defensive fight. Like most Chin cities, it was a rabbit warren of narrow streets, laid out with no rhyme or reason. It had once housed over a million people. There was no telling how many were left after the years of occupation and slavery, but even with several hundred thousand he could have consumed half a dozen umens in a street-to-street fight.\n\nThe pillar of fire filled the night sky, a vast inferno, a city thousands of years old dying in one final cataclysm. There was a flash of guilt. He knew that everyone who had lived in that city was doomed to die. Once the war a thousand miles to the north and west was finished, everyone here would have been massacred before the Bantag moved on. Yet still, as a slave he remembered far too well the clinging to life in spite of the doom. If one more day of survival could be wrung out of existence, that was all that counted, a day of numbing agony ameliorated by a warm bowl of millet at sundown, the gentle touch of a loved one sought in the middle of the night, the prayer that the night would last forever, the dawn and the agony that came with it banished by a dream.\n\nHis coming had shattered that dream, for everyone here this was the last night, and they knew it. Come dawn two umens of the Horde's finest warriors, battle-hardened from bitter campaigning, would be unleashed, and in their frenzy all would die.\n\nHe turned to look west, the twin rails glimmering by the firelight. He could back the train down that track right then. Fighting against despair, he tried to reason that at least they had accomplished something. It was a blow that would take months to recover from. Jurak would undoubtedly have to retreat to the Sea, perhaps even as far back as the Shennadoah or Nippon if Vincent's mad thrust won through and thus threatened the southern flank of the Horde armies.\n\nAnd then what? Ultimately nothing would change, nothing. Jurak would simply build a new war machine.\n\nHans squatted next to his friend, sighing with the pain as his knees creaked in protest. He looked at the three railroad men who sat hunched up in the far corner of the cab, talking in whispers with the driver of the locomotive. He caught words here and there, whispers about slaughter, death, families lost, fear.\n\nOutside, to either side of the stalled engine, the columns of frightened refugees continued to pass, fleeing they knew not where, but trying to get out nevertheless. Again another short stab of pain.\n\n\"Hans?\"\n\n\"Yeah?\"\n\n\"You all right?\"\n\n\"Just tired, so damned tired.\"\n\n\"We've got to do something, you know.\"\n\n\"What?\" He could sense his voice breaking. His mind was clouded, and it was becoming too hard to focus.\n\n\"Come dawn they'll attack; they're reorganizing not five miles from here.\"\n\n\"I know that.\"\n\nKetswana spoke quickly to the locomotive engineer, motioning with his tin cup. The engineer took it, vented some more hot water, and threw some leaves in. Ketswana took the cup and pressed it into Hans's hands, which were trembling.\n\nHans took a sip, set the cup down, and leaned his head back against the woodpile.\n\n\"We've got six hours or so till dawn,\" Ketswana announced. \"We have to dig in and get ready. Build a fortified line anchored on this rail line, use the factory compounds we've taken as bastions.\"\n\n\"I know, I know,\" he whispered.\n\nSo many years of struggle, so many long hard years, and now it seems to all end here. His mind drifted, the prairie, the starlit nights: Antietam, the road to Antietam, cresting South Mountain, looking back across the valley, the blue serpentine columns stretching to the horizon, afternoon sun glinting on fifty thousand rifle barrels; Gettysburg, when the sun seemed to stand still in the heavens; and these strange heavens. He looked up, the Great Wheel overhead, again wondering which star was home. To have run the race so far, so far, and now to fall at the last step and see it all washed away.\n\nHe closed his eyes, a prayer drifting through his heart, God, let this all be for something.\n\n\"Hans?\"\n\nKetswana leaned over, a moment of fright, his hand gently touching his friend's forehead, drifting down to his throat, feeling for a pulse.\n\nHe sighed and leaned back. Let him sleep, he needed sleep. Always trying to carry all the burden, forgetting just how many he had inspired and trained. No, let him sleep.\n\nThe engineer was looking over, and Ketswana motioned that Hans was not to be disturbed.\n\n\"Ketswana?\"\n\nHe looked down from the cab. Through the confused press milling about he saw Fen Chu, one of the old guard, a survivor of the Escape.\n\n\"There's not much left of the powder mill,\" Fen reported. \"All blown to hell it is.\"\n\n\"The next compound?\" He motioned up the tracks toward Huan.\n\n\"Told by some of the slaves that escaped that the guards started to shoot everyone, then fled. It was a cartridge factory for their rifles.\"\n\nKetswana looked back to the west. The factory compounds were strung like beads along the track for miles, most of them basically laid out the same, brick buildings housing foundries, mills, works for cartridges, shells, bullets, rifles, artillery barrels, land ironclads \u2026 the brick building surrounded by wooden barracks for the slaves, and those in turn surrounded by a palisades, usually of logs or rough-cut planking.\n\nMost of them were burning.\n\nHe looked back toward the city. No, that hope was finished.\n\nSouth? He knew next to nothing of the land, just rumors. From his days of slavery he occasionally was allowed outside the compound on some errand, southward was nothing but open farmlands, vast rice paddies and pastures before the coming of the Bantag. Most of the farms were abandoned now. He remembered that on a clear day, from the roof of the factory one could see hills rising up, the distant hint of cloud-capped mountains beyond.\n\n\"Can't go south,\" Fen announced, as if reading Ketswana's thoughts.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"People are fleeing from that way as well. They said most of the Horde's encampments are down that way, hundreds of thousands of them, their old ones, women and cubs, yurts as far as you can see. That's their summer pasturing grounds on what had once been farms before everyone was herded into the compounds or slaughtered.\"\n\nThat was out then.\n\nNo. The anchor was the railroad. We try to flee south, this mob will spread out run, in panic, and it will turn into a hunt.\n\n\"All right, pull our men together; we start retreating back along the tracks. We'll push the trains back up the line three or four miles. We string the trains along the tracks between three or four of the compounds and upend them. Loot out what weapons we can. Get into the cartridge works, for example, and drag out as much ammunition as you can. Start culling out this mob, tell them reinforcements are coming up the rail line but we have to hold out.\"\n\n\"Are they?\"\n\n\"We both know the answer to that, but we got to give these people some hope, some reason to turn and fight like men, rather than be hunted down like the cattle they were. If we can get ten hours, even eight, we should be able to fortify a good position, and then let's see what those bastards will do.\"\n\n\"You're talking about hundreds of thousands of people out here,\" Fen cried. \"They'll all die once the Horde recovers and attacks.\"\n\n\"Fen, a year ago we all figured we'd die anyhow. All I asked then was to die killing the bastards. I still feel that way; how about you?\"\n\nA grin creased Fen's weary face, he came to attention, and saluted.\n\n\"Fine, let's get to work.\"\n\nFen raced off, disappearing into the mob, shouting orders. Ketswana looked over at the engineer and motioned for him to start backing the train up. As the machine slowly lurched into reverse, he looked down at Hans. Picking up a dirty blanket from the comer of the locomotive cab he gently draped it around his friend's shoulders.\n\n\"My friend, today will be a good day to die,\" he whispered."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 35",
+                "text": "It felt like the old days, the assault on Caradoga, the fifth year of the War of the False Pretender. The city had been hit by the third atomic to be used in the war, the air assault was dropped upwind to seal off the retreat of the refugees and drive them back in to the inferno, since Caradoga had been a center of stiff resistance. That was the battle where he had lost faith in the cause. Ha'ark had joined the unit shortly after that fight. Perhaps it would have tempered him more to have seen it, Jurak thought.\n\nThe Chin city of Huan looked the same now. It had been their beacon for the last fifty leagues of the flight, first a glow on the horizon, then a soaring pillar of light, so bright that it filled the cockpit of the aerosteamer with a hellish red glare. It reminded him as well of the Sacred Texts, the destruction of the city of Jakavu for its sinful ways.\n\nExplosions ignited in the city, entire blocks of cramped derelict homes, abandoned as the population had been driven to work in the factories, rail lines, or to the feasting pits, were now consumed, flaring to explosive incandescence. From the north to southern wall the entire city was burning. By the glow he could make out snakelike columns moving out of the gates to the west of the city, where more fires burned.\n\nEven as his attention turned to that direction a glaring white-hot explosion ignited, soaring heavenward in a giant fireball. It was the powder mill. Damn all, so they were into the factories. A dozen plants or more, foundries, cannon works, powder mill, cartridge works, rifle works, all of them burning.\n\nIt was hard to see the works to the east and south. He never should have left old Ugark as umen commander. He was far too much of the old ways, and bitter as well for not having command at the front. For that matter those who were there were, in general, warriors not fit for the front anymore, or those who were never fit, willing enough to torture a defenseless cattle, but not so willing to face one that just might be armed.\n\nIt was always the same mistake, to group together the less competent, then send them off to some forgotten front.\n\nAnd yet the war was so damn close to victory, he could feel it within his grasp. The raids, both here and across from Tyre, though brilliant, were indicators of a final desperation. All that was needed now was to hang on, to contain this madness, save the factories that were left. Once that was done, return to the front and make a final push as if nothing had happened at all. That would shatter their morale once and for all, and they would give in.\n\nThe wind was building; the column of smoke ahead rose ten thousand feet or more to the heavens, then spread out in a dark mushroom cloud that blotted out the Great Wheel. Even from two leagues out bits of ash and smoldering embers were raining down. The machine lurched, bounced.\n\nFirestorm, the outer edge of the winds being sucked into the heart of the inferno, he realized, and ordered the weary pilot to turn about and find a spot to land along the railroad tracks north of the city.\n\nHe could see the troop trains lined up, over two dozen of them. In the distance the headlight of another one came down from Nippon, winked, and shimmered. The pilot spiraled down, deciding to alight on what appeared to be open land parallel to the track where the long line of trains were parked.\n\nA volley of bullets slashed through the cabin. A red mist sprayed into Jurak's eyes as the machine lurched over. Wiping his eyes clear he saw the pilot, the side of his head a shattered pulp, slumped over the controls.\n\nMore bullets slammed into the cabin as Jurak leaned over, trying to push the pilot to one side and free the wheel.\n\nHe caught a glimpse of a locomotive, sparks soaring up from the stack, winks of light flashing behind it, rifle fire, and for an instant he wondered how the damned humans had gotten this far, then realized his own men were shooting at him in blind panic.\n\nJerking the wheel back he banked sharply, closing his eyes for a moment and turning his head away as the forward glass panes exploded, showering him with fragments.\n\nDamn, after all this, to be killed by your own warriors, he thought grimly as he opened his eyes, caught a glimpse of several yurts straight ahead, pulled back up to go over them and felt the shudder of a stall shaking his machine. The controls were mushy, and the machine started to settle, tail first, then slapped down hard.\n\nThe forward cabin snapped off from the front of the machine, and, covering his face, he fell.\n\nThere was a moment of stunned silence, and then he felt the heat. The hydrogen bags were burning.\n\nKicking, clawing, he tore himself free of the tangled wickerwork of the cab and crawled out onto the grass. A clump of dirt sprayed up into his face, the crack of another bullet whined overhead.\n\n\"You damned fools, it is your Qar Qarth!\" he roared.\n\nAnother bullet snicked past so close that he felt the hollow sucking pop of it as it brushed his face and then the shouts of a commander echoed, screaming to the warriors to cease fire.\n\nHesitantly, he came to his knees, knowing that to cower on the ground would be a loss of face. He stood up, brushing himself off. A commander of ten raced up, slowed, turned to shout for everyone to ground arms, then fell to his knees.\n\n\"Forgive us, my Qarth.\" His voice was trembling.\n\n\"We thought ..\n\n\"I know, that it was a Yankee airship.\"\n\n\"Yes, my Qarth. Take my life in atonement.\"\n\nJurak reached down and grabbed the commander by the shoulder, pulling him up to his feet.\n\n\"If I killed everyone who made a mistake, I don't think I would have much of an army left.\"\n\nThe commander looked at him wide-eyed, and nodded.\n\n\"Your umen commander, where is he?\"\n\nThe trembling leader of ten pointed to the train. He could see that hundreds were coming over out of curiosity. In the long history of the hordes, he realized, never had a Qar Qarth arrived in such a manner.\n\n\"Take me to him.\"\n\nJurak followed as he was led to the long line of trains. Word had already spread of what had happened and all were on their knees, heads lowered in atonement and fear.\n\nBokara, the commander of the umen of the white-legged horse, came forward at the run, stopped, and went to his knees.\n\nJurak motioned for him to stand.\n\nHe started to sputter an apology, and Jurak cut him off. \"Will your warriors be ready by dawn?\"\n\n\"Yes, my Qarth. The last of the trains is coming in even now.\"\n\n\"The situation?\"\n\nBokara looked south toward the flaring inferno.\n\n\"The truth, my Qar Qarth?\"\n\n\"What I would expect and nothing less.\"\n\n\"Ugark panicked, my lord. When he heard the Yankees had landed at Xi'an he ordered all the cattle leaders of the city to be rounded up and slaughtered. I am told rioting was already breaking out even before the Yankees landed here early in the afternoon. Rumors had swept through the Chin that their liberator, the god Hans, was coming to free them.\"\n\n\"Slaughter the leaders? I didn't order that.\"\n\n\"I know that, my Qar Qarth.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"I am told that last night the Chin telegraph operators in the city received your message. I know that it was correctly relayed through Nippon, for I was there and received it, making sure it was passed on.\"\n\nJurak nodded, sensing that Bokara was also being careful to wash his hands of this mistake.\n\n\"It is apparent the cattle operators did not give the messages to Ugark but did spread the word among their own kind. Thus the riot which actually started before the Yankees even landed here.\"\n\nJurak nodded. Again it shows our weakness, he thought. Our very messages carried by our enemies. He should have realized that given what his message to Ugark contained, of course the cattle operators would hide it and use it against him. And the way Bokara said the word rioted carried with it a certain disbelief, that the Chin slaves, dumber than the dumbest beast, were incapable of such rebellion.\n\n\"My train arrived here just before dusk. I heard Ugark was already dead and that Tamuka had seized command.\"\n\n\"The Merki?\"\n\n\"Yes, my Qar Qarth.\"\n\n\"How, damn it? I wanted him detained.\"\n\n\"Sire. He wears the crest of a Qar Qarth and said that you had given him authority.\"\n\n\"Where is he now?\"\n\n\"I don't know, my Qar Qarth. Reports are he is west of the city, fighting, rallying the warriors that survived. They say he fought well.\"\n\nJurak caught the note of admiration in Bokara's voice. Was this also a subtle way of conveying his disagreement. Far too many of his own Horde actually admired Tamuka's fanatical manner and hatred of the cattle.\n\n\"Then let him fight there for the night,\" Jurak finally announced, deciding that dealing with Tamuka could wait.\n\n\"I arrived here just as the cattle started to swarm out of the burning city. It was like waves upon a great ocean, my Qar Qarth, no one could stop them, driven in panic as they were by the flames behind them. I abandoned my attempt to try and link up with those rallying to Tamuka, thinking it best to pull back, form my umens here, to the north of the city, and wait till dawn to move in strength.\"\n\nJurak nodded in agreement.\n\n\"The second umen?\"\n\n\"Already forming as well. We'll have twenty thousand warriors well armed, with artillery support and half a dozen land ironclads I managed to get out of one of the factories before it was taken.\"\n\n\"Very good.\"\n\n\"My lord.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The encampments of the clans of the black horses and of the gray-tailed horses. Our people are in the summer encampments to the south in the hills.\"\n\nJurak did not quite grasp for a moment what he was driving at.\n\n\"The cattle, my Qar Qarth. They are between us and a hundred thousand yurts of my own clan. The cubs of my own young, all that is left of my blood, are but a day's ride south of here.\"\n\nHe caught the edge of fear in the old warrior's voice. \"They are armed,\" Jurak replied, trying to reassure. \"Only with bows, my lord. Many of the Yankees and the cattle they've freed now have guns.\"\n\n\"We defeat the Yankees tomorrow morning, then that fear will be put to rest.\"\n\n\"Yes, my Qarth.\"\n\n\"I'm exhausted; I need some food and a place to rest.\"\n\n\"This way, my Qarth.\" Bokara started to lead him toward the train.\n\nHe stopped for a moment and saw a dark form lying on the ground, then another and another. Ten of them in all. Other warriors stood in silence. It was the commander of ten and his warriors, all of them dead, having performed the ackba, the ritual of forming a circle and simultaneously slitting the throat of the comrade to their right in atonement for a failure by the unit.\n\nHe wanted to denounce such madness; it had been a mistake, but ritual had to be obeyed. He said nothing, the ten were fallen, it would not be seemly for him to comment upon those who should be beneath his notice. His gaze swept the circle, warriors carrying rifles, yet still wearing the horned and human-skull-adorned ceremonial war helmets of old, the train venting steam while Chin slaves, moving furtively so as not to draw notice, tended to it, feeding wood into the firebox, while another was oiling the driveshaft. What acts of destruction might they be secretly planning at that very moment, he wondered.\n\nAhead the city still burned, silhouetting the spreading encampment of his army, fieldpieces lined up next to felt-and-hide yurts, a dozen warriors gathered round a fire, roasting what appeared to be the legs and arms of a human while another casually cracked open the severed skull to scoop out the brains.\n\nTo make them modern, he now realized with grim certainty, was impossible; one could not expect them, in the span of a few short years, to leap generations. Somehow the humans were more adaptable, or was it simply more desperate. Did his own people truly realize just how desperate they were at this moment?\n\nHe felt a twinge of fear. No, not now, I can't lose my nerve now though the dark foreboding is ready to consume me. Victory first, then let the rest fall where it may."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 36",
+                "text": "Sitting atop his ironclad, Vincent Hawthorne raised his field glasses, scanning the horizon to the east, which was silhouetted by the dawning light.\n\n\"See them?\" Gregory asked. \"I count at least twenty-five plumes. They must have brought them up by rail during the night. And there, see it, four, make that five flyers are up as well.\"\n\nVincent said nothing, slowly sweeping the line of the horizon. Gregory's eyes were undoubtedly far better, and he was trained for this through a year's hard experience.\n\n\"Fine then. They're going to make a fight of it,\" Vincent announced, lowering his glasses.\n\nA sharp rattle of rifle fire, sounding sharp and clear in the early-morning air, ignited. Directly ahead a line of cavalry skirmishers was drawing back from the opposite ridge. Ever since the men had dug into camp just after sundown, the ridge had been a source of contention throughout the night. If the bastards were allowed to deploy artillery up there, they could fire right down into the fortified camp of 3rd Corps.\n\nStanding up, he slowly turned. The dawning light was starting to reveal the encircling host. It was hard to tell, but he sensed that more Bantag had come up during the night. The odds were running steep, at least six to one, perhaps even seven to one, the advantage held by having thirty-eight ironclads offset by the arrival of the enemy machines.\n\nThis day would be the day, then, and for all he knew, in the greater world beyond, the war might already be over. There was no word from Hans, not a single flyer had come back from Xi'an with a report. He was beginning to suspect that it would prove to be a very bad day.\n\n\"Should we move up to meet them?\" Gregory asked.\n\nVincent shook his head.\n\n\"Get the men digging in. We've got fresh water here.\" He nodded to the oasis-like spring that was in the center of the camp. \"Even if the water is somewhat bitter, they can't block it off. We dig in and let them come at us. As for our ironclads, we move up onto the ridge east of here to keep their artillery back. That's where we'll meet their ironclads coming in.\"\n\n\"They could wait us out, you know. We're down to five days' rations.\"\n\n\"They don't know that. No, I think their pride is hurt, us getting this far through territory they felt was theirs. No, once those ironclads come up the fight will be on.\"\n\n\"Wonder if this is all futile anyhow.\" Gregory sighed.\n\nVincent looked over at him.\n\n\"Sorry, but word is getting around with the boys. Somehow rumors are floating about a coup back in Suzdal, that the war might already be over, and we've surrendered, that Hans and even Andrew are dead.\"\n\n\"And what do you think?\"\n\n\"If we surrendered, how long do you think those hairy bastards would let someone like you or me live. We know too much.\"\n\nHe laughed, shook his head, and slapped the ironclad they were sitting on.\n\n\"We're all doomed to die anyhow; if given the choice, I want to go down fighting in one of these. I was nothing before you Yankees came. You trained me, gave me a chance to command, gave me a machine I could master and even learn to love. That's a pretty good life, I think, and something worth dying for today.\"\n\n\"I wish we had another corps though,\" Vincent whispered.\n\n\"Air cover, that's what I want. What the hell do you think the Hornets were doing last night?\"\n\nVincent shook his head. At least twenty machines had flown directly overhead in the middle of the night. One of them had circled several times and then pressed on. He had hoped that someone would have found a dropped message streamer, but so far nothing. Perhaps they were attempting a moonlit strike on the enemy ships off-loading the ironclads. If that was their mission, the smoke just over the next hill was indicator enough that the mad scheme had been a failure.\n\n\"Anyhow, the fewer men, the greater share of honor,\" Gregory continued with a smile, and the two chuckled softly.\n\n\"Well, I guess we're the bait. We wanted a stand-up fight, and we're going to get one. Let's make the most of it.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 37",
+                "text": "\"Hans.\"\n\nThe voice was gentle but insistent, waking him from a soft floating dream. It was Maine. Funny, he had actually spent very little time there, but even after all these years it still haunted his memory and dreams. Pulled from the Regulars, he'd been sent to Augusta to help form up a volunteer regiment, 1030-odd farm boys, lumbermen, clerks, students, fishermen, boat builders, craftsmen, railroad men, factory hands, and a lone history professor who would become the 35th Maine. He'd arrived early in July. By the end of August they were already heading south to join the Army of the Potomac in Maryland. Less than two months, and yet somehow it had made its stamp upon his heart. He remembered the day he and a nervous and still-young lieutenant hiked their company from the parade field below the Capitol to the village of Belgrade. The lieutenant allowed the boys to strip down for a swim in Snow Pond while the two sat on a grass-covered hill and first questions were asked. \"What's the war like \u2026 how good are the Rebs\" and the startling admission \u2026 \"I hope I don't fail these boys.\"\n\nHe had grown, sick of officers who only seemed concerned with rank, privilege, clawing to promotion and this shy volunteer, voice near breaking, wondering aloud if he would \"fail his boys.\"\n\nHe'd been dreaming of that, but it was different. His own wife, Tamira, their baby Andrew, and with them Andrew, Kathleen, and their children. It was like a dream of heaven. No fear, a soft lazy summer day in Maine where, though the sun was warm in July, there was always a cool breeze stirring off the lake.\n\nEven in the dream he wondered if he was wandering in Andrew's dream realm, for the colonel had told him of his feverish morphine-twisted visions of death, of lingering by a lakeshore with all the dead who had gone before.\n\nNo. This was different, and he wondered if it was a foreshadowing, a dream of heaven.\n\n\"Hans.\"\n\nIt was Ketswana, hand lightly on the shoulder, shaking insistently.\n\nHans opened his eyes and saw the dark features, the shaved head, eyes that were so transparent, like windows into the soul, and the look of concern.\n\nHans sat up, disoriented. He had sat down on the woodpile, the city was burning, the powder works had blown.\n\nHe sat up, feeling light-headed, unsure of where he was. The air was heavy with the smell of burned wood, rubbish, and the ever-present clinging smell of the camps. He looked around. He was off the train, inside a brick building, roof burned off and collapsed. There was a chill; it was all so familiar in a distorted way, the foundry where he had once slaved.\n\nEverything was a mad scurry of confusion, men using stoking rods were cutting into the brick wall, chiseling out firing ports through the heavy wall. He was near the main doorway, dead Bantag from storming the building were dragged to one side and piled up, and had been half-con-sumed in the fire.\n\nHe stood up. \"How did I get here?\"\n\n\"You don't remember?\"\n\nHans shook his head.\n\nKetswana looked at him closely.\n\n\"You all right?\"\n\n\"Sure. Now tell me what's going on.\"\n\nKetswana motioned for him to follow as he climbed up a ramp that had once been used by labor crews pushing wheelbarrows of crushed ore, coke, and flux up to the tops of the furnaces. Most of the heavy-beamed walkway had survived the fire but was badly charred.\n\nThe walkway rimmed the inside of the factory walls just below the roofline and men and women were working feverishly, clearing away rubble from the collapsed roof, and to his amazement a couple of dozen were slowly dragging a Bantag light fieldpiece, a breechloader, to the northeast corner.\n\n\"Where the hell did you get that thing?\"\n\n\"At the cannon works. A dozen of them brand-spanking-new. We even found some shells. I got one posted down by the gate, the rest of the guns are in the other compounds.\" A couple of Chin, a single rifle between them, looked up as they passed, one of them holding up a half-charred piece of flesh and, grinning, nodded his thanks. Directly below, on the floor of the factory compound, Hans could see the burned remains of the Bantag he had shot yesterday, baked into the frozen pool of iron.\n\nKetswana, knowing what he was thinking, shook his head and laughed.\n\n\"I've had crews working all night. We found a herd of horses. I ordered them slaughtered and, using the wreckage of a barracks compound, we roasted tons of the stuff.\"\n\nHe grimaced.\n\n\"Well, most of it was damn near raw, but I remember a time when you and I wouldn't have turned down raw meat, as long as we knew what it was. That was the lure, word spread, and we must of had them coming in by the tens of thousands. Anyone who could do anything we organized off with their compound leaders, village elders, even some of their princes.\n\n\"We fed them and made it clear, if they ran off, everyone would be slaughtered come dawn. Hans, they all know that. Did you hear who's here?\"\n\n\"No, who?\"\n\n\"Tamuka.\"\n\nHans said nothing.\n\n\"Word is he's the one that fired the city. They went crazy yesterday, started murdering everyone, as word spread that we had taken Xi'an and were coming this way.\"\n\nHans nodded, but said nothing. There was no hope of trying to turn these people into a trained cadre, that'd take weeks, months, and months of simply feeding them right as well. Though it was hard to believe he felt they actually looked worse than what he had experienced a year ago. The simple knowledge of what was coming that day would give them the courage to go down in a final mad frenzy.\n\n\"Hans, they were organizing for this day, did you know that?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"You think we were the only ones?\" Ketswana chuckled, as he reached out and moved Hans aside as a work crew, carrying a crate of ammunition for Bantag rifles, slowly moved past, pausing by the pair consuming their meal so that they could grab several dozen cartridges before moving on.\n\n\"Hans, they had a whole network put together. Word of our breakout a year ago spread from one end of the Chin realm to the other. They say even the people up in the Nippon lands knew about it. The 'wind words' are that rioting is erupting in Nippon as well. The Bantag couldn't stamp it out. Hans, you're something of a god around here.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Legends that we would return, that we wouldn't let them be massacred. They're right, you know.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He sadly gazed at the skeletal crew laboring to roll the fieldpiece into position so that it wouldn't recoil right off the platform the first time it was fired.\n\n\"So they had a network, every compound linked together by the railroad crews and track laborers. Telegraphers kept the leaders informed of everything the Bantag did. With rumors that the Republic had surrendered sweeping the city, they were actually going to try and stage a mass rebellion even before we flew in to Xi'an.\"\n\n\"Madness.\"\n\n\"Well, what else could they do? Even if they traded lives a hundred to one, it would have stirred things up at the end. They knew just as well as we did that once the war was over they'd all be slaughtered. Some were talking about moving on the encampment areas south of here.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The old ones, their women and children.\"\n\nHe said nothing, the dark thought repulsive.\n\n\"They say there's a hundred thousand yurts less than thirty miles from here.\"\n\nThe way Ketswana spoke chilled Hans, and he shook his head, silencing him.\n\nKetswana motioned Hans forward as the last of the ammunition carriers hauling up shells for the fieldpiece passed. Gaining the corner of the foundry building, Hans stepped up onto a raised observation platform and sucked in his breath.\n\nThe enemy host was coming. They were still several miles off, but in the cool morning air they stood out sharply. These were not mounted archers, aging guards, cruel slave drivers who could whip a terrified Chin to death but might step back from one armed with a stoking rod or pick. They were coming on slowly, deliberately, open skirmish line to the fore. Somehow Ketswana still had a pair of field glasses, and Hans took them, fumbling with the focus. One of the twin barrels had been knocked out of kilter, so he closed one eye.\n\nThese were good troops, Hans could see that, black-uniformed, rifles held at the ready. A scattering of Chin were drawing back, refugees who had wandered out into the fields northwest of the burning city. The Bantag were not even bothering to waste a shot on such prey. If their steady advance overtook one, the victim was simply bayoneted and left. There was no looting, tearing apart of bodies, just a cold dispatching and then continuing on.\n\nBehind the double rank of skirmishers he could see the main body of troops, advancing in open order of columns, well spread out, half a dozen paces between warriors so that each regiment of a thousand occupied a front a half mile across and a hundred yards deep. Gatlings had finished the days of shoulder-to-shoulder ranks, and Jurak knew that, as he seemed to know far too many things.\n\nSweeping the advancing columns he could see their left flank, his right, reaching all the way to the walls of the still-burning city, while their right flank overlapped his left by at least a mile or more. Several thousand Bantag were mounted, ranging farther out into the open steppes. These troops were not black-uniformed, many wearing older style jerkits of brown leather. He caught a glimpse of a standard adorned with human skulls.\n\nIt was a Merki standard.\n\nHe lowered the field glasses, looking over at Ketswana, who nodded.\n\n\"The bastard is here, Hans. During the night he pulled to the west, organizing the survivors of yesterday's fight.\"\n\nHans raised the glasses again, but the standard had disappeared in a swirling cloud of dust.\n\nThere was nothing to anchor his own left flank on; it simply ended at this factory compound. It was obvious that within minutes after the start of the fight the mounted Bantag would be around his left and into the rear.\n\nMoving with the advancing host he picked out half a dozen batteries of fieldpieces, and several dozen wagons, which were undoubtedly carrying mortars. Except for a few pathetic guns such as the one mounted next to where he stood, they had nothing to counter that. Worse yet, though, in the middle of the advancing line half a dozen land ironclads were approaching as well, while overhead several Bantag aerosteamers were climbing, passing over the infantry and coming straight for him.\n\nAs for his own aerosteamers, there was nothing left. The wreckage of his air fleet cluttered the field, bits of wicker framing, scorched canvas, and dark lumps of what had once been engines all that was left of the air corps of the Republic. He spared a quick thought for Jack, wondering if any of them had even made it back to Xi'an.\n\nTurning his field glasses away, he scanned the position Ketswana, his few veterans, and the Chin had attempted to prepare during the night, and he struggled not to weep. The rail line, cutting straight as an arrow from west to east, heading toward the burning city, was the rally point. During the night track had been torn up, crossties and ballast piled up to form a rough palisades.\n\nThe dozen compounds that were strung along the track were the strong points; unfortunately, most of them had been severely damaged in the fighting. The powder works, several miles to his right, was still smoldering.\n\nWhat made his heart freeze, though, was the humanity huddled and waiting. Along the palisades he could see the occasional glint of a rifle barrel or someone holding a precious revolver, but most were armed with nothing more than spears, clubs, pickaxes, iron poles, a few knives, or rocks. And there were hundreds of thousands of them.\n\nTerrified children wailed, old men and women squatted on the ground, huddled in fear, their voices commingling into a mournful wail of forlorn terror. Looking to the south, he saw tens of thousands who, with the coming of dawn, were already quitting the fight, heading out across the open fields, moving through what had once been prosperous villages and hamlets but had long ago been abandoned as the Bantag drew off the populace for labor and for the pits. They were heading God knew where, for there was no place to hide, and once the mounted riders were into the rear they would be hunted down like frightened rabbits.\n\nHe knew with a sick heart that his coming had triggered the final apocalypse. After what had happened the day before, Jurak would not suffer a single person to live. They had killed Bantag, they had destroyed the factories that were the sole remaining reason for their existence. They would all have to die.\n\nOne of the Bantag aerosteamers lazily passed overhead, the pilot staying high enough to keep out of range of rifle fire. He banked over, making several tight turns. Hans looked back over the wall and saw a sea of upturned faces, hands pointing heavenward.\n\nNow it was not the ships of the Yankees, coming like gods from the heavens, bringing a dream of freedom. It was the dreaded Horde, and as if to add emphasis, the bottom side of the machine was painted with the human-skull standard and there were cries of fear. Yet more Chin started to break away. There was a scattering of rifle shots, a few of his men posted to the rear, holding their weapons overhead, firing not at the ship but to scare the refugees back into the line. Some turned about, but he knew that once the real fighting started, there would most likely be a panic.\n\nThe machine turned one more time, nosed over, a puff of smoke ignited. A second later there was the almost lazy pop, pop, pop, of the slowfiring Bantag machine gun. Between his compound and the next one up the line the rounds hit, half a dozen Chin falling, panic beginning to break out. The machine finally leveled out and flew on toward the city.\n\nHans looked over at Ketswana.\n\n\"My God, this will be a massacre,\" Hans whispered.\n\nKetswana looked at him, eyes narrowed.\n\n\"If they realize they're all going to die anyhow, they'll fight. They have to.\"\n\n\"Fight? With what.\"\n\n\"Their bare hands if need be.\"\n\n\"Against rifles and artillery.\"\n\n\"Hans, they only have so many bullets, so many shells. They can kill a hundred thousand and still we'll outnumber them.\"\n\n\"My God, what have we become to talk like this?\" Hans sighed.\n\n\"What they have made us become in order to survive.\"\n\nA whispering flutter interrupted them. Hans crouched instinctively as the mortar round arced over head, crashed down in the middle of the foundry compound, and detonated, the explosion instantly followed by screams of pain.\n\nLooking back over the wall he saw where several dozen mortars had been set up on a low rise, a thousand yards ahead. The advancing skirmishers were already past that position, still relentlessly advancing.\n\nPuffs of smoke ignited all along the low ridge.\n\n\"Here it comes,\" Hans announced, his voice filled with resignation.\n\nSeconds later the factory compound was blanketed with explosions.\n\nJurak, sitting uneasily astride his mount, said nothing to the subordinates around him. He could sense their blood-lust. This was no longer war; it was an act of extermination. The advance to the jump-off point had carried them across fields where the previous day pathetic bands of guards, fleeing the rioting, had been swept up and torn apart by the Chin mob. It had stirred him as well, and that thought troubled him. He had almost grown immune to the sight of the humans being slaughtered, devoured, but it was now evident that more than one of the Bantag dead had been mutilated after death, or, perhaps, while still alive. He wondered if the cattle had sunk to eating Bantag flesh, and the thought chilled him. Looking down at three aging guards who were sprawled in a ditch, he saw that the arms had been hacked off one, the limbs missing, and the sight of it set the hair on his back to bristling.\n\nHe wondered if this was indeed what the humans felt at the sight of the slaughter pits. Did it create that same visceral fear? Was that not as well, then, the reason for their fanatical resistance? He suddenly remembered how during the War of the False Pretender he had learned that the two most influential factors in a soldier's morale had nothing to do with generals, causes, and leadership. The first one was knowledge of how well you would be tended to if wounded. Second, what would happen if you were taken prisoner. On this world there was no such thing as prisoners, and, therefore, though the humans facing him were a disorganized rabble, still each of them might very well fight with the fury of despair.\n\nHe rode forward to join the mortar batteries deployed on the low ridge, their steady coughing thumps echoing across the battlefield. The factory compound on the left flank of the human line was smothered under a steady hail of exploding shells. Far to his own right he could see mounted units swinging wide, advance elements already across the tracks moving to get into the rear.\n\nHe had sent a courier over ordering them to hold and stand in place. The humans had to believe there was an escape route so that the panic might set in. If their line was flanked too soon, it might hem them in and cause further resistance.\n\nThere was a puff of smoke from atop the compound wall and seconds later a hissing roar as an artillery shell streaked past, the round startling him and causing his mount to rear.\n\n\"Disgusting way to die, Jurak.\"\n\nHe looked over his shoulder and saw Tamuka behind him, trailed by his small retinue.\n\nJurak said nothing. Tamuka reined in beside him, slumping forward, hand resting on the pommel of his mount.\n\nHe knew the Merki was watching, judging, figuring he could do better. Though enraged at him, now was not the time to express it.\n\n\"That is Hans over there,\" Tamuka finally announced.\n\n\"What makes you think that?\"\n\n\"I can sense it. It would be like him to come back. The greatest mistake I made was turning him over to your Ha'ark. I should have kept him for my own pleasures. I could have made of him a moon feast that would have lasted for days.\"\n\n\"No. Your greatest folly was in losing as you did,\" Jurak snapped.\n\nTamuka turned, eyes filled with cold fury.\n\n\"Repeat that.\"\n\n\"You heard it right the first time. If you had done your job correctly as Qar Qarth, you would still have your Horde.\"\n\n\"I weakened them for you.\"\n\nAnother round screamed past, but they both ignored it. \"Weakened them? You aroused them. You murdered the rightful Qar Qarth and seized power for yourself and used the war as an excuse. You let your hate blind you. Now it is my people who must pay for this, perhaps all those of our race.\"\n\nTamuka reached to his side, scimitar flashing out. The gesture was met with the clicks of half a dozen rifles being raised, cocked, and pointed straight at him by Jurak's personal guards.\n\n\"You are not of this world,\" Tamuka hissed.\n\n\"Exactly! That is why I see more clearly than you. They\"\u2014and he pointed to the compound disappearing under the rain of artillery fire\u2014\"they are not of this world either. They brought change. Now I must, too. The old ways are dead forever, Tamuka. Even if we win this day, we lose. Can I rebuild all this in a month, even a year?\n\n\"No. I must slaughter every human here for their own folly of believing in freedom. With luck, back at the front their political will shall collapse and we can attack, finishing it. But if so, I fear this is nothing more than a pyre for both our races.\"\n\nEven as he spoke the advancing phalanx of infantry started to pass, breaking formation to maneuver around the wagons and caissons of the mortar batteries.\n\nThe warriors were well-trained veterans, moving with casual ease, rifles poised, bayonet-tipped, but most still carried their traditional scimitars strapped to their hips. When the real killing started that would be the weapon of choice. They seemed lighthearted, eager for the fray, unlike the weary, exhausted warriors he had watched being shoved into the inferno at Roum. This was sport to them, almost like the field exercises Ha'ark would hold when a Chin town would be singled out and stormed just to give the warriors a taste of modern combat.\n\nThe skirmishers far ahead were already engaged, firing, advancing slowly. Several of them were down, a spattering of fire opening from the Chin position. To his left the traditional. signalers of the hordes, the giant nargas trumpets and kettledrums were coming up, the deep rumble of the horns and heartbeat thump of the drums setting his hair on end.\n\nHe looked back over at Tamuka.\n\n\"If you are so eager for the kill, why not ride forward and join in?\" Jurak asked.\n\nTamuka looked at him angrily.\n\n\"And you shall stay here?\"\n\n\"I am the Qar Qarth. This is a modern battle.\"\n\nTamuka snarled. Nodding to his renegade followers, he viciously spurred his mount and galloped off.\n\nJurak, glad to be rid of his presence, dismounted, tossing the reins of his horse to one of his guards. The day was already hot, made worse by the grass fires ignited by bursting shells, the pall of smoke hanging over the entire front.\n\nAfter I win here, then what? he wondered.\n\nThe advancing column slowed, reaching the skirmish lines forward. Tearing volleys started to ripple up and down the length of the front as twenty thousand warriors, the elite of two umens, began to fire into the hundreds of thousands of Chin huddled behind the railroad embankment. The day was turning into a slaughter."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 38",
+                "text": "\"You've got your mission,\" Vincent shouted. \"I want their ironclads kept back from this square. If they can bring us under fire, they'll break us up.\"\n\nGregory, sitting atop his machine, grinned and nodded.\n\nSaluting, he raised a clenched fist, waved it over his head, and pointed due east, toward the advancing column of Bantag ironclads.\n\nSlipping down inside the turret, he buttoned the hatch shut, machines lined up to either side of him already lurching forward. Vincent, trying to ignore the pain, mounted a horse held by an orderly and swung it around, galloped back down the sloping hill and into the fortified camp of 3rd Corps.\n\nThe battle was about to explode. After years of fighting the hordes he could sense the building tension. They were the bait, the focal point to divert Jurak. And now the bill was coming due.\n\nThe Horde completely encircled their position, but it was easy enough to see that most of their strength, at least four umens, were poised to the north, though there were more than enough of them ringing the other three sides of the square to keep his forces pinned down. The ironclads held the rise to the east, but he still had to keep troops along that side, in case their infantry or mounted units swarmed in behind Gregory and attacked.\n\nWhen it finally hit there were no preliminaries, no softening-up bombardment. They knew that if the ironclad battle should go against them, any hope of exacting vengeance was lost. Even if they did win the ironclad fight, the artillery well dug in at the four comers of the square, and in reserve at the center, would chew the precious machines apart. They were going to try it in one sharp push.\n\nFrom a mile out he saw them emerging out of the cloud of dust kicked up by the tens of thousands of horses. It was a solid wall of Bantag, dismounted, advancing with long-legged strides.\n\nHis heart swelled at the sight of them. It was like the old days once again, and to his own amazement he felt a surge of emotion. This is the way they looked before Suzdal, on the Potomac Front, and at Hispania. From all that the older veterans told him, it was the same at Cold Harbor, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and Antietam. A full frontal assault, thrown in regardless of loss.\n\nA murmur swept through the men along the northern flank of the square. Some of them stood up, ignoring the bursting of mortar shells raining down. A ripple of excitement swept up and down the line. Young captains scurried back and forth, carrying teams hurried back to supply wagons, bringing up extra boxes of ammunition. Sergeants paced behind the firing line, a division commander, swept up by the moment, jumped his horse over the sod earthwork embankment and galloped down his line, waving his hat, men breaking into cheers at his display of foolish bravado.\n\n\"Damn if it isn't like Pickett's Charge!\"\n\nIt was Stan, reining up beside him, his voice shrill with excitement.\n\nVincent said nothing, raising his field glasses, studying the enemy advance. Red umen standards were at the fore, a few of their commanders mounted. At regular intervals down the line human-skull totems for regiments of a thousand'were held aloft, surrounded by towering bulky warriors armed with rifles. The rest carried the powerful war bows of two hundred pounds pull, arrows already notched.\n\nBatteries at the northeastern and northwestern flanks opened up on the advancing enemy, case shot burst over the lines, but that was merely an annoyance. A standard of a thousand went down, caught by a direct burst, then came up again. The range was down to less than a thousand yards, then nine hundred, then eight hundred.\n\nSergeants along his own lines were shouting orders, telling the men to lever their sights up to full elevation. There was a scattering of shots, the sniper company armed with Whitworths and the new long-barreled Sharps heavy rifles. Some of the men armed with lighter guns opened and were soundly cursed by their officers.\n\nGood. Wait until four hundred yards. It was a still morning, the smoke would cling, killing visibility. Better to wait.\n\nThe range was at six hundred, and then they stopped.\n\nThere was an eerie moment of silence, and then he heard the chanting, the weird spine-chilling cries. Harsh, guttural words. He had seen it before, Horde riders who knew they were going to their deaths, and before the charge made this final gesture to their enemies and their gods \u2026 the chanting of the names of their clans, their ancestors, and their own names and battle honors.\n\nThe strange rumbling cries rolled across the steppes, joined by the nargas and war drums, a thunderous roar. Bantag stamped their feet to the rhythm of the chant, the ground shaking. The effect was hypnotic, the chant rising to a crescendo, dropping off, rising even higher.\n\nAgain men were standing up, watching, awestruck. For a brief moment all hatred died in Vincent's heart. There was almost an admiration for such insane raw courage. Individual Bantag began to step out of the line, unsheathing scimitars, many of them drawing the razor-sharp blades across their own forearms, then holding the blood-soaked steel up again, their individual chants drowned out by the thunderous roar.\n\nAlong his own line he could hear the men mustering a response, the surreal sound of the \"Battle Hymn of the Republic\" sung in Rus. All this was counterpointed by the continual crump of mortar shells exploding, artillery thundering out case shot, and then, off to his right, a mile to the east of the square, the ever-increasing roar of the ironclad battle.\n\nHe looked heavenward. The air machines were up, nearly twenty of them. They were holding back, flying high, waiting most likely for the square to break apart before swooping in. He caught a glimpse of just two Hornets dropping like stooping falcons, tearing into the enemy machines. He wondered where the hell the rest of the Hornets were.\n\nThe roaring chant dropped down to a deep growling bass, and then in a matter of seconds swirled up to a high shrieking crescendo \u2026 \"Bantag hus!, Bantag hus! Bantag hus!\"\n\nUmen standards held aloft twirled about in tight circles. Mounted commanders rode out ahead of the line, urging their horses into a slow canter, drawing scimitars. As if controlled by a single hand twenty thousand bows were slung over the shoulder, then twenty thousand scimitars were drawn and held heavenward, catching the morning sun. A collective gasp went through his lines.\n\n\"My God, they're going to charge straight in!\" Stan cried.\n\nVincent turned to a courier.\n\n\"I want the reserve brigade in the center deployed out now!\" Vincent shouted.\n\nThe boy saluted and galloped off. Vincent grabbed another messenger and sent him to the commander on the east flank of the square, telling him to get ready to shift half his men to the north and sent yet another galloping with the same order to the west side.\n\nEven as the three couriers raced off, the red banners fluttered down, pointing straight at the center of his line. A mad, howling roar erupted. There was no stepping off at a slow steady march, no subtle maneuvering.\n\nWith a mad passionate scream twenty thousand Bantag flung themselves forward at the run, their giant strides consuming the distance between the opposing lines at a frightening pace.\n\n\"At four hundred yards volley fire present!\" the cry echoed along his own line.\n\nMen hunkered down behind the sod breastworks, hammers clicking back, fingers curling around triggers.\n\nThe charge swept across the first hundred yards in less than twenty seconds, Vincent estimated, and they were still picking up speed, the bravest and fleetest moving to the fore. Mounted commanders, carried away by the mad frenzy, were far ahead, some nearly half the distance to the line.\n\n\"Glorious!\" Stan cried.\n\nStartled, Vincent looked over at his old comrade, but something was stirring in him as well. He remembered many a night so long ago back on Earth, hearing the old veterans speak with awe, describing the rebel charges sweeping toward Seminary Ridge and across the Cornfield at Antietam. My God, this is what it must have looked like, sheer insane courage unleashed in a wild, all-consuming explosion.\n\n\"Take aim.\" The cry echoed up and down the line from a hundred sergeants and officers. \"Aim low, boys, aim low!\"\n\nVincent held his breath.\n\n\"Fire!\"\n\nThe volley ignited in the center of the line and within a couple of seconds swept down the flanks.\n\nA billowing white cloud exploded, temporarily blinding Vincent. There was the collective metallic ring of thousands of breeches levering open, shell casings ejecting, fresh rounds sliding in, breeches slamming shut, officers and sergeants roaring to lever sights down to three hundred yards.\n\nVincent felt a swelling of pride. These were veterans. There was no panic, just a steady professional pace.\n\nThose who were quickest waited, bracing their barrels on the embankment.\n\n\"Take aim!\"\n\nIndividual companies and regiments fired, sheets of flame swirling out. Already the dry grass in front of the works was igniting, puffs of thick white flames clinging to the ground. In the brief instant before the smoke from the second volley shut down all vision forward he saw the deadly effect of the volley, scores of Bantag going down, yet it barely stilled the pace of the mad charge, as the wave leapt over the fallen and pressed in.\n\nA jarring concussion swept the square, a caisson exploding in the center of the position, the mortar round detonating several hundred pounds of shot and shell, sending a fireball a hundred feet into the air.\n\nHe caught a glimpse of the battery anchoring the corner to his right, the crew feverishly cranking 'the elevation screw, even as their companions tore breeches open, swabbed out bores, and slammed in loads of canister.\n\n\"Independent fire at will!\"\n\nThe command echoed above the cacophonous thunder, men cheering as they were released from the constraints of waiting and within seconds the measured heavy volleys were replaced by a continual rattle.\n\nThere was just enough of a breeze that the curtains of smoke lifted so that the shadowy wall of the advancing charge was visible. They were down to less than two hundred yards and still coming at a terrifying pace.\n\nThey were going to come straight in.\n\nStan broke away from Vincent, spurring his mount forward, drawing his revolver.\n\nVincent felt pulled in as well.\n\nNo, here, stay here. He looked to his left, his guidon bearer was stock-still, sitting tall in the saddle, but the boy's jaw was actually hanging open in shocked amazement.\n\nSuddenly from out of the smoke a lone rider emerged, blood streaming from half a dozen wounds, his face a pulp, dead but still charging, the horse in its mad frenzy actually leaping the earthen stockade before going down under a hail of bullets. Another rider shot out of the smoke, this one still alive. With his hands off the reins, both arms extended wide, a scimitar in his right hand, his horse leapt over the barricade. The rider's wild shriek of battle frenzy sounded above the roar of battle. He seemed to hang in midair, men recoiling back as if he was a mad god.\n\nThe horse touched down, the rider coming straight for Vincent. He drew his own revolver, started to raise it, and then a volley riddled the berserker. He tumbled from his horse, sprawled faceup on the ground, the horse going down beside him.\n\nMagnificent courage, Vincent thought.\n\nThen he noticed it, a dark cloud rising up from beyond the pall of smoke. An arrow volley. It was the old Horde tactic of bringing up mounted fire support behind a charging line. In the smoke and confusion forward he could barely see them, towering high above the line that was still charging forward and now less than a hundred yards away.\n\nFew of the men actually saw, so intent were they on pouring in the fire. Thousands of arrows arced down, so that in an instant it looked as if thousands of young feathered saplings had sprouted from the earth. The volley was short, but enough arrows slammed into the lines to cause a startled cry to go up as men fell, clutching pierced arms, legs, or simply collapsed.\n\nVincent turned to yet another messenger, shouting for him to find the commander for the four batteries of mortars and tell him to set the range at two hundred yards and pour it on.\n\nAnother volley rose up and then another, this one longer. The bastards were sweeping high, sending the deadly shafts into the center of the square. At nearly the same instant the charge emerged out of the billowing smoke, a solid wall of Bantag, running straight in.\n\nWild cries went up, commanders urging their men to stand. Directly in front of Vincent, a regimental commander holding the flag of the 15th Suzdal and showing remarkable poise, had firm control of his unit, having ordered his men to cease fire and wait. With the wall of Bantag less than thirty yards away the command was given to present and take aim.\n\nThe Bantag charge barely hesitated. At ten yards the volley of four hundred rifles erupted. It struck with such force that the front ranks of the Bantag seemed to have run into a wall, collapsing, thrashing, some picked up bodily and flung backwards into those behind them.\n\nHe could actually hear the volley hit, bullets smacking into bodies, swords, accoutrements, helmets, bows \u2026 equipment, parts of bodies, and blood actually showered up and backwards. As one the regiment slammed open breeches, slapping cartridges in. A few Bantag struggled through the confusion and flung themselves up and over the battlement, swords flashing. Vincent saw a human head tumbling into the air. Another soldier was lifted into the air, scimitar driven through his body to the hilt, the Bantag shrieking in triumph. A lieutenant leapt forward, driving his own blade up into the throat of the warrior.\n\nMore Bantag surged forward, the next volley cutting them down at ten paces. The flanks of the 15th started to cave in as the regiments to either side were pushed back from the embankment, curving inward like a drawn bow. A dark wall of Bantag surged over the top of the battlement, swords flashing. Men still down behind the embankment slashed upward with their bayonets, stabbing their towering opponents in the legs, groin, and stomach. Scimitars rose and fell, blood splashing.\n\nA reserve regiment to Vincent's left stormed forward, dozens of men falling as hundreds of arrows soared down from straight overhead.\n\nThe batteries in the corners and dug in at the middle of the line were anchor points, the gunners all having gone over to double canister, each gun discharging a hundred iron balls at waist-high level every twenty seconds.\n\nTo the left of the 15th and the center battery the entire line started to peel back, men stumbling out of the fight, the insane charge pushing in.\n\nVincent caught a glimpse of Stan in the middle of the fray, still mounted, revolver out, firing into the host as reserves from the west flank stormed in, counterattacking. Toward the center of the square, men were upending empty supply wagons to form a barricade while the battery in the center, now unlimbered, wheeled about in preparation to fire, but so thick was the tangled press of Bantag and humans that they didn't dare shoot.\n\nA tearing volley erupted behind Vincent, and, looking over his shoulder, he saw that they were charging against the south side of the square as well, this one a combined mounted and dismounted assault. An orderly to Vincent's right was lifted out of his saddle and collapsed, caught in the back by a rifle ball. Vincent could see puffs of smoke from the south \u2026 so that's where they are committing their rifle-armed troops.\n\nBantag skirmishers by the hundreds were pressing in on the south side, and though his own men had the advantage of earthworks, they advanced relentlessly, falling down into the knee-high grass, popping up to shoot, then disappearing again.\n\nThen the final blow came in. Overhead the first of the Bantag air machines started into a steep dive, the slowfiring machine gun thumping, bullets stitching into the center of the encampment.\n\nIt was now time to unleash his one reserve for this, and the two specially equipped ironclads parked in the center of the square went into action. The canvas tops of the converted machines were pulled back, revealing the open center and the twin Gatling guns positioned to fire straight up. The gunners inside the two machines waited, letting the Bantag machines get well in range, then opened up.\n\nTracer rounds soared heavenward from the center of the beleaguered square. Within seconds both gunners had the range, rounds tearing into the first of the machines, which instantly ignited. The gunners shifted targets to the second machine, then the third and fourth in line.\n\nOne after another Bantag airships exploded, the pilots of the other airships breaking off the attack in sharp, banking turns. One of them banked over so sharply that the machine hung vertical on its side, seemed to hover, then slowly rolled over on its back and went straight in.\n\nWreckage rained down on the square, parts of burning ships, wings, howling engines, causing dozens of casualties, but the sight of the feared Bantag air fleet shattered so completely in a matter of seconds heartened the beleaguered defenders, a ragged cheer erupting from the square.\n\nBut the position was starting to collapse in spite of the victory overhead. The 15th Suzdal was all but surrounded, forming its own small square, men backing up, rear ranks firing, front ranks standing with poised bayonets to impale any who broke through. Hundreds of Bantag were swarming in on Vincent's right, a wild confused melee swirling about not fifty yards away. Arrows by the thousands continued to rain down, now catching as many Bantag as humans, sowing confusion on both sides.\n\nAs for the ironclad battle to the east, it was impossible to see anything because of the confusion and smoke.\n\nVincent heard a shouted warning. It was his guidon bearer, arrow buried in his leg, but still astride his horse, screaming, pointing, with his free hand.\n\nAround the edge of the 15th Suzdal several score of Bantag, led by what he assumed to be a umen commander, who miraculously was still mounted, were coming straight at them.\n\nVincent leveled his revolver and deliberately fired. Still they came on.\n\nHe turned his mount; the charge pressed in. A Bantag, scimitar held high overhead with both hands, charged straight at him. He caught the warrior in the face with his next to last round. Letting go of the blade it tumbled end over head, flashing past Vincent's face. Another Bantag, this one on foot, came in low, aiming to hamstring Vincent's horse. He dropped that one, raised his revolver to fire at the umen commander, and clicked on an empty cylinder.\n\nThe commander, roaring in wild triumph, blood streaming from wounds to the face and chest, slashed viciously, Vincent ducked low, the blade whistling past his ears. Their mounts collided, nearly unhorsing Vincent. He reeled back, throwing his revolver aside, clumsily trying to draw his own sword but barely getting it out in time to parry the next blow, which sent a numbing shock through his arm.\n\nHe caught a glimpse of his guidon bearer, sword plunged through his chest, reeling in the saddle, vainly clutching the guidon as dark eager hands reached up to grab it.\n\nThe umen commander easily recovered from the parry and started a backhanded swipe. Vincent tried to turn, awkwardly raising his numbed arm and blade to block the blow.\n\nA staccato roar ignited, sweeping past Vincent, hot tracers stitching into the commander. There was a moment when they gazed into each other's eyes, the Bantag suddenly looking infinitely old and weary, cheated at the last second of the prize he had so bravely and now so vainly sought. He tumbled over backwards and a loud cry rose up from those around him, a cry of anguish and of fear as one of the two land ironclads that had so completely devastated the air attack now clattered forward, twin Gatlings depressed to fire into the charge.\n\nTracer rounds tore across the flank of the 15th, two, three, four heavy .58 caliber bullets striking each warrior. Within seconds the breakthrough disintegrated and receded over the wall.\n\nThe machine, wheels churning up the thick sod, creaked past Vincent, still firing. He tried to block out the guttural screams of the Bantag wounded as the heavy iron wheels rolled over them, crushing their still-twitching bodies into the ground.\n\nA long burst of fire swept along the battlement, dropping the charge that was still breaking in. A cheer went up from the 15th, and the counterattack was on as men turned and pushed forward with the bayonet. Again it was the old trade-off, the massive size and strength of the Bantag, offset by the smaller but far more nimble humans, who could dodge the heavy blows, rush in, and slash upward with the bayonet.\n\nGradually the embankment was regained, the ground for a hundred yards inside the square paved with the dead, wounded, and dying. As the ironclad gained the embankment it turned its fire outward, slashing into the mounted archers providing fire support, and within seconds created havoc.\n\nBantag were fleeing, stumbling back out of the square; knots of defiant survivors trapped inside grimly traded their lives. Those who were wounded in a final gesture of contempt struggled to cut their own throats rather than suffer the agony of death at the hands of the humans.\n\nVincent, still numbed from the brief sword fight, rode up to the embankment. The attack was breaking apart, broken fragments falling back like a wave shattered by a rock-bound coast.\n\n\"Did you see 'em, did you see 'em!\"\n\nIt was Stan, blood streaming from a saber slash to his left cheek. He was shouting hysterically, aiming his revolver, squeezing the trigger. Its hammer fell on empty cylinders and yet he was still trying to shoot.\n\nRifle fire struck into the mounted units as the last of the dismounted assault fell back. Horses reared up, falling, the volume of arrow fire dwindled, then they reined about, retreating, joined by the surviving infantry.\n\nVincent gazed about in numbed awe. The ground was carpeted black with Bantags. The charge had been an annihilation. Yet as he surveyed his own line he saw that he had received a terrible blow as well. Well over a thousand, maybe two thousand or more of his own men were down, their bodies tangled in with the Bantag along the battlement line and far into the center of the square.\n\nThe center battery had been completely overrun, its entire crew annihilated in hand-to-hand fighting, an infantry officer was already at work, shouting for his men to stack their rifles and clear the guns. Walking wounded were heading back into the center of the square, stretcher-bearers were already at work, and the cries and shrieks from the hospital area could be heard throughout the square.\n\n\"Damn. We beat 'em, we beat 'em,\" Stan cried in English. \"Like Fredericksburg, except it was us behind the wall this time.\"\n\nVincent said nothing, his gaze turning back to the east, where the roar of the ironclad battle rumbled. A machine, one of Gregory's, ignited in a fireball, turret blowing off and rising straight up as the kerosene and ammunition inside blew.\n\nBurning machines, both human and Bantag, littered the next ridge as both sides fought for possession of the high ground. Hundreds of Bantag infantry were filtering into the flanks of the battle outside the square. He saw several Bantag rocket teams maneuvering, running through the grass, trying to get close enough for a kill.\n\n\"We got 'em by the tail and really twisted it,\" Stan gasped.\n\nVincent wearily shook his head. Raising his field glasses, he looked straight ahead. The broken charge was falling back to get out of range, but there were still thousands of them. If they had sent three umens instead of two into the infantry assault, he suspected they most likely would have broken clean through.\n\nLooking to the west and around to the south, he could see signal pennants flying, dust swirling up, mounted warriors by the thousands moving. They could harass from the south, but the steep bluff along that side was too good a position to take by storm. No, they were shifting around.\n\n\"Stan,\" Vincent snapped, \"get your division commanders here now. They're coming back, and we don't have much time.\"\n\nStan, calming at last from his battle frenzy, looked around at the wreckage of his corps and finally nodded toward the west.\n\n\"That way, the ground is still clear.\"\n\n\"We don't have much time.\"\n\nTime. He looked back to the east at the ironclad fight. It was slowly dragging out. The Bantag not closing for the kill, Gregory wisely not going too far in for fear of being overwhelmed by the infantry. If this kept up, the infantry would be annihilated and then the ironclad battle would no longer matter.\n\nHe gazed at the sun, which was now bloodred from the battle smoke. It seemed as if it hung motionless in the morning sky."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 39",
+                "text": "Hans looked overhead to the red sun that seemed to hang motionless in the noonday sky.\n\nThe compound below him was a shambles, packed wall to wall with the wounded and terrified refugees. Mortar shells fell inside with terrifying regularity, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The one artillery piece had fallen silent, shells exhausted, the survivors of its crew reduced to prying loose bricks from the wall and hurling them as the Bantag surged outside the wall. All along the railroad embankment the Chin, after hours of insane resistance, were falling back, retreating into the ruins of the factory compounds lining the rail line. In the fields to the south, tens of thousands of refugees were stumbling away, desperately trying to escape. Mounted units of Bantag rode back and forth, cornering and slaying them.\n\nHans knew it was hopeless. The compound could not hold much longer. The only thing that was slowing the Bantag was the sheer number of people they had to slay. Yet they were paying as well. Their first assault, which had come on with such self-assured cockiness, had stormed up over the embankment and then been swarmed under as tens of thousands of terrified Chin, desperate when they realized they were cornered by cavalry closing in from behind, turned and in a spontaneous surge rushed forward, crushing the Bantag by sheer weight of numbers.\n\nThat had given him several thousand more rifles and ammunition, enough that when the second charge came, the single volley at a range of less than a dozen paces so that his inexperienced riflemen couldn't miss, dropped hundreds more.\n\nJurak had then pulled back. Letting firepower, his unrelenting artillery and aimed rifle from several hundred yards out, do the deed. The Chin, defenseless against such an onslaught, had held through midmorning, but now were finally beginning to melt away.\n\nRisking the enemy fire, Hans looked up over the east wall back toward Huan. Rumors had come that tens of thousands of survivors, still huddled in the south end of the burning city, were pouring out, enveloping the flank of the enemy, but it was impossible to see what was occurring there.\n\nNargas sounded, and seconds later there was a ragged cheer. Leaning over the wall he saw the Bantag infantry pulling back.\n\nKetswana, eyes wide with battle frenzy, trailed by his two surviving Zulus, came up to Hans's side and pulled him back down from the exposed position.\n\n\"They're retreating!\" Ketswana cried.\n\nHans, exhausted, absently rubbed his left arm and nodded.\n\n\"You know why?\"\n\n\"Artillery; he's shifting his artillery over here, the same treatment as the rifle works.\"\n\nThe next compound up the line had been swarmed under after the Bantag rolled a dozen guns up to within a hundred yards and blasted a hole through the wall.\n\nHans stood back up and saw the two batteries riding into position out in the middle of the field where the airships had landed. Even as he watched, the first of the guns unlimbered, its crew swinging it about, aiming it straight at him. Other guns fell into position.\n\nThey were so close he could see the gunners opening their caissons, pulling out shot and powder bags. Hans rested his carbine on the battlement wall, took careful aim, and squeezed, dropping what he suspected was the battery commander. It barely slowed the crew.\n\nHe fumbled in his cartridge box. Only one round left.\n\nOne final round, and as he chambered it he knew what that had to be saved for.\n\nThe first gun fired, the shock of the solid bolt hitting the wall beneath his feet nearly knocking him off-balance. The other guns opened, bolt after bolt slamming into the wall beneath them. In less than five minutes the first round cracked clean through the brick barrier, the spent bolt careening into the foundry. The platform they were on swayed, a huge crack in the wall opening up from the ground all the way to the top.\n\n\"Down!\"\n\nHans followed the rush as they abandoned their position, swarming down the ramp. More bolts slammed into the building, the vast room echoing with shrieks of terror as thousands of Chin, with no place to hide, huddled on the ground; the few with weapons clustered behind furnaces, upended cauldrons, piles of coke, slag, and iron ore.\n\n\"They'll charge as soon as the artillery stops firing! So get ready,\" Ketswana roared, trying desperately to be heard. Few paid attention.\n\nKetswana unholstered a revolver, opened the barrel, dropped the empty cylinder, and, reaching into his haversack, pulled out a loaded cylinder and clicked it in. He looked over at Hans.\n\n\"Figured to save the last six rounds.\"\n\n\"Got one for myself,\" Hans said, trying to smile as he patted his carbine.\n\n\"So we have come full circle.\" Ketswana sighed. \"Until you gave me hope I always figured I'd die here.\"\n\nHans looked around at the terrified mob, remembering all too painfully the same sight of not much more than a year ago, when he had fought his way through this same building to gain the tunnel and escape, leaving thousands of others to die. Perhaps this was atonement.\n\n\"At least we smashed this place,\" Hans announced grimly. \"Smashed the whole damn place from here to Huan and beyond. Took their port of Xi'an as well and smashed that up good and proper. It'll be months, a year or more, before they can even think of recovering.\"\n\nThe artillery fire slackened and stopped. The cries from within the building hushed. Horrified, Hans saw that some of the Chin were already making their final choice, more than one turning a blade upon themselves or loved ones rather than endure the horror of the final butchering.\n\nThe nargas sounded the charge."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 40",
+                "text": "\"Damn Tamuka,\" Jurak roared. \"Damn him. I wanted the flank kept back, give them room to run, let them break.\"\n\nJurak stalked back and forth, angrily shouting at no one in particular. He knew he should have slain Tamuka. It was undoubtedly he who urged the charge forward that had cornered the Chin into a fight. He wondered if Zartak had somehow foreseen this, and wished that his old friend was here now.\n\nThe losses had been appalling. Nearly half his warriors were down, most of them dead, swarmed under in the slaughter. Now word had come that Chin by the tens of thousands were coming up from beyond Huan and out of what was left of the burning city. In another hour they'd be into his flank, forcing him to disengage. He had already passed a signal all the way up to Nippon to bring down yet another two umens. But every train available had been used to bring the forces he now had. It would take at least two days, perhaps three, to bring up the reserves. As for the vast encampments to the south, he had dispatched a flyer to them. The females, cubs, and old ones had to be prepared to defend themselves, and that was his true concern. A hundred thousand yurts with nowhere to go farther south because of the mountains and jungles. If he broke off the fight, if he allowed those still dug in along the line a breathing space, they'd rally the hundreds of thousands of Chin still alive and it would be massacre if they turned south. He had to kill the core of resistance now \u2026 or lose the war.\n\nThe wall of the factory finally collapsed under the incessant pounding. That, at least, was a relief. His battery commander before being killed by a sniper had already informed him that they were digging dangerously into their reserves of ammunition. A ragged cheer erupted from the warriors who had been ordered back, and they surged forward again, closing in for the kill. Soon it would be finished.\n\nSomehow word had spread into his army that it was the legendary Hans who was leading this fight. A Chin demigod, a legend returned to liberate. And something now told him that directly ahead was where Hans was cornered. He had already passed the word to his warriors that if Hans could indeed be captured and brought to him alive, the warrior would be promoted to command of a thousand.\n\nIt wasn't that he wanted Hans to die in agony as Tamuka muttered about. True, Hans would have to die, and the Chin had to see him die to crush their hope of resistance forever. And then the Chin would have to die as well.\n\nHans would have to die, but first he wished to speak to him. Ha'ark had had that privilege a number of times. He had but observed him from a distance. If one was to understand Keane, Hans was the teacher. He was, as well, a consummate foe, a warrior worthy of respect for what he had accomplished, escaping, leading the flanking attack that finished the campaign in front of Roum, and now this.\n\nSo he would feast him once and talk long into the night. Perhaps he would learn something from him, perhaps not, but still he wanted that moment, and then with the coming of the following dawn he would offer him the knife or the gun so that he could finish it with his own hand. Then, after the Chin were brought forth to see the body, he would bum and scatter his ashes to the wind out of respect.\n\nThe charge reached the wall and within seconds gained the entryway, a desperate hand-to-hand struggle erupting in the piled-up rubble.\n\nAnd then he saw them.\n\nA commander of a thousand had just ridden up to ask for orders and his gaze, locked on Jurak, drifted, looking past him, eyes going wide. Raising a hand, he pointed.\n\nJurak turned and looked. For a moment he refused to believe, and then the enemy aerosteamers began to fire.\n\nHans, standing by Ketswana's side, waited just inside the shattered wall. The first of the Bantag were up and over the barrier, crouched low against a hail of thrown bricks and chunks of iron ore. They slashed into the defenders, the killing frenzy upon them. Several, looking in his direction, shouted to each other and came on, as if recognizing him.\n\nInstinct took hold and he raised his carbine, aiming straight at the chest of the nearest one, and fired, dropping him. He heard a revolver let go, several rounds, dropping the next two.\n\nKetswana was by his side.\n\n\"Two rounds left,\" his friend cried, looking at him questioningly.\n\nHans smiled."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 41",
+                "text": "Skimming the ground, Jack Petracci bore straight in, aiming directly at the tall standard adorned with horse tails and human skulls. An umen commander at least, perhaps even Jurak, he thought grimly.\n\nThere was no need to tell his copilot to open fire. Crouched behind the steam-powered Gatling in the nose, his copilot fired the forward weapon. A steady stream of bullets stitched into the low ridge, slicing through a mortar battery, walking up along the hillside, the standard-bearer collapsing.\n\nContinuing to fire, the gunner shifted aim, slashing into the open-order columns of Bantag infantry. As they raced past the first compound, which was blanketed with smoke and fire, he saw a charging column gaining a shattered wall. Looking down from above, he saw the thousands huddled inside and knew what was about to happen.\n\nHoping that the other aerosteamers were not following too closely and would continue to press toward Huan, he banked his Eagle hard over, shouting to his top gunner to bring the column under fire as they turned.\n\nSwinging about to the south, he spared a quick glance back to the west. Twenty Hornets, flying nearly wingtip to wingtip, were coming straight in, joined as well by the four surviving Eagles. The arrival of the Hornets in Xi'an just before dawn had left him stunned. The Eagle he had sent back to Tyre had actually survived and touched down. The pilots of the Hornets clamored to be released, to go up and save Jack and Hans. The fact that they had actually made the audacious jump from Vincent's position all the way to Xi'an, burning nearly every ounce of fuel they had to make it, had filed him with awe. As it was, nearly half of them had been lost in transit. Never had he known such pride in his command as he did at that moment.\n\nThe twenty Hornets and four Eagles were all that was left of a force of over eighty that existed but a week before. From the looks of what was going on below, once they expended their ammunition there would be no place left to land. He might be able to get back to Xi'an, but with the increasing wind out of the west the Hornets were doomed. Yet still they came on, sweeping low over the ground.\n\nBehind them, half a dozen miles back, he could still see the eight trains. He had almost strafed them coming in until he spotted a makeshift flag of the Republic fluttering from each of the locomotives, and then realized that the thousands packed aboard the flatcars were in fact Chin. What they proposed to do was beyond him.\n\nHe bore straight in at the compound, top and forward gunners both firing continual blasts of Gatling rounds into the attacking column. Within seconds the enemy began to dissolve, looking up in panic, turning aside, and running.\n\nAs he winged up over the compound he wagged his wings, hoping all below would see the stars of the Republic painted on the bottom of his ship. And in spite of the noise of battle, he could hear the cheers.\n\nBanking hard up to the left, he winged over sharply, turning to head straight toward the artillery batteries that had been pounding the makeshift fortress only minutes before. Gatling fire from a Hornet flying across his own path at a right angle slashed into the position, decimating the crews. As the Hornet passed he added his own fire into the balance. A caisson blew, and he winged over yet again to avoid the exploding mushroom cloud.\n\nHe was behind the advance line of Hornets, who now that they were into the fight had poured on full throttle and were quickly surging ahead at nearly a mile a minute.\n\nSmoke poured out from underneath as twenty Gatlings fired, sweeping the Bantag lines, tearing them to shreds. The enemy quite simply broke apart from this unexpected pounding from above. Chin started to pour out from the beleaguered compounds, racing forward, a human wave of tens of thousands, moving like a swarm of locusts.\n\nHe circled back around once more to check on the first compound. But the countercharge was already up and over the broken wall, some of the Chin were nearly into the Bantag artillery positions.\n\nAnd then he spotted him, a ragged guidon, several Zulus around him standing out in dark contrast to the surrounding Chin.\n\nAnd then he saw him fall.\n\nJurak stood motionless as the burst of fire swept past him, knocking over his standard-bearer, and he wished at that instant that it would take him as well, ending this horrible burden forever.\n\nThe rounds stitched past, clumps of sod kicked up in his face, then the machine passed. Another one soared by, skimming the ground so close he could look straight into the cab and see the human pilot.\n\nAround him was chaos. A mortar battery annihilated, a caisson erupting in a fireball. He could see his warriors falling back, not giving ground doggedly but running, frightened of the mob, the tens of thousands of Chin pouring out from their beleaguered positions sweeping all before them.\n\nLooking back to the west he saw the plumes of smoke, and for a brief instant there was a renewed flash of hope, but he knew in his heart that it had to be Chin coming up from Xi'an. If it had been his own warriors, the Yankee aerosteamers would have strafed them.\n\nAt that instant he knew that he had lost a war.\n\nWarriors raced past him in panic, and press of the crowd forced his horse to turn. Suddenly his mount reared, screaming in pain. Never a trained horseman, he panicked, sawing on the reins rather than letting go and jumping off. The horse went down heavily on its side, pinning him.\n\nCursing, he gasped for breath, trying to pull himself free and then was shocked by the explosion of pain from his broken ankle, which was twisted in the stirrup.\n\nWarriors continued to run past, not noticing him. Suddenly there was a shadow, and looking up he saw an emaciated Chin standing above him, holding a broken rifle tipped with a bayonet. The Chin gazed down at him, eyes wide with lust and hate. He raised the weapon up. Jurak looked straight at him, not resisting, at the moment not caring.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nA man, a black man, grabbed the Chin by the shoulder, pulling him back."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 42",
+                "text": "Jack's aerosteamer had barely rolled to a stop next to the wreckage of the factory compound when he was already out. He had passed over once more to check, and what he had seen convinced him something was wrong and caused him to venture the landing. Running across the field he made his way through the press of advancing Chin.\n\nHe spotted Ketswana, kneeling by the side of an artillery piece, and he pushed his way forward.\n\nThey had Hans sitting up, jacket torn open. No blood, but his features were deathly pale, beads of cold sweat on his forehead. Ketswana, obviously frightened, was holding his hands.\n\nJack burst through the crowd, cursing at them to move aside. He knelt by Ketswana's side and to his relief saw that Hans's eyes were open, though dull.\n\n\"What happened?\" Jack cried.\n\n\"We thought it was finished,\" Ketswana whispered, \"I had two rounds left, I was saving one for him, one for me, and then you soared over us. Never have I seen him smile like that, and laugh, the first time in so long he laughed from the depths of his soul.\n\n\"We followed the charge out. He had just spotted Jurak, pointing him out, when suddenly he stopped, grasping his chest and fell.\"\n\nKetswana lowered his head, a sob wracking him.\n\n\"Still here, my friend,\" Hans whispered.\n\nHans stirred, life coming back into his eyes.\n\n\"Jack, that you?\" he spoke in English, the words slightly slurred.\n\n\"Here, Hans. I couldn't leave you out here. A lot's happened, Hans. Word reached Tyre last night that the government wanted an armistice. The damn stupid Hornet pilots decided on their own to fuel up and see if they could reach Xi'an. They touched down just after dawn. I was getting set to come back here anyhow, and they wanted to come along.\"\n\n\"You broke them with that.\"\n\n\"No, you did. We just mopped up.\"\n\nHans chuckled softly, then was silent for a moment, obviously wracked by another seizure of pain.\n\n\"Damn, hurts worse than getting shot.\"\n\n\"What's wrong, Hans?\"\n\n\"I think the old heart finally decided to give it up.\"\n\nJack tried to force a smile.\n\n\"Hell, if that's all it is, we'll have you up and around in no time.\"\n\nHans looked up at him, his silent gaze frightening Jack.\n\nThere was a stir behind Jack, a confusion of angry voices.\n\nKetswana stood up to see what was going on, then barked out a sharp command. Jack saw several of Ketswana's men dragging a Bantag toward them. He instantly suspected who he was, the gold trim to the uniform, the gilting on the bent horns of the war helmet.\n\n\"Hans, is that him?\"\n\nHans stirred again.\n\n\"You got him?\"\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"Help me up. Don't let him see me like this.\"\n\nKetswana grabbed several Chin, placing them around Hans, blocking the view.\n\nJack was down by his side.\n\n\"You need rest. Don't move.\"\n\nHans smiled.\n\n\"Son, I've been in this war for how long now? I'm not going to miss the final act. Now button up my jacket for me.\"\n\nJack didn't move for a moment.\n\n\"Do it now, son,\" he gasped through clenched teeth.\n\nJack let his hand rest on the narrow chest. It was the chest of an old man who had been filled with unstoppable strength in his youth but was now sunken, flesh sagging, as if ready to begin the final breaking away. The skin felt cold, clammy, and though not a doctor, he could tell there was something wrong with the heart fluttering beneath the ribs.\n\n\"All right,\" he finally whispered, and he buttoned the jacket, the buttons still the old eagles from his Union Army uniform, the gilding long since polished off.\n\nHans nodded his thanks.\n\n\"Now help me up.\"\n\nJack took him by the arm and there was a gasp of pain as Hans stood. He swayed uneasily for a moment, took a deep breath, and it seemed as if by sheer strength of will the heart continued to beat.\n\nHe slowly brushed the dirt off his jacket and stepped out of the surrounding circle. Jack wanted to stay by his side, to help him walk, but Ketswana held him back.\n\nHe fought to block out the pain, the strange, empty sensation that part of him was floating away. He focused on the warrior before him, leaning awkwardly against the wheel of an artillery caisson. Though he had only seen him from a distance, Sergeant Major Hans Schuder knew he was facing Jurak, Qar Qarth of the Bantag Horde.\n\nHe approached slowly, warily. Except in the heat of combat, the last time he had been this close to a horde rider he had still been a slave, and he was ashamed that the old instinct almost took hold, to lower his head and avert his eyes until directly spoken to.\n\nHe maintained eye contact. Jurak shifted slightly, and there was a slight grimace of pain.\n\n\"Are you wounded?\" Hans asked, speaking again in the tongue of the Bantag, the mere act of it sending a chill through him as he carefully sorted out the words.\n\nJurak said something in reply, a bit too quickly, and Hans shook his head, a gesture they used as well.\n\nJurak spoke again, more slowly.\n\n\"The ankle is broken; it is nothing. You look wounded as well.\"\n\nHans paused for a moment on the mental translation, startled to realize that in the language of the Horde, Jurak had used the personal form of you, used only when addressing another of the same race, rather than the contemptible kagsa, their form of the word you for speaking to cattle.\n\nIt took him a moment to regain his poise from that. The pain in his chest was still there, coursing down his arms; he forced the recognition of it away.\n\n\"Knocked down by an explosion. It is nothing,\" he lied.\n\nJurak stared at him and Hans wondered if the ability to see into the thoughts of others was with this one. He realized he had to be careful, to stay focused.\n\n\"Though enemies, we must talk,\" Hans announced.\n\nHe felt light-headed, knew that Jurak was in pain as well. Finally, he motioned to the ground. Jurak nodded and, with leg extended, sat down, Hans making it a point of not waiting to be invited to sit as well.\n\n\"You've lost,\" Hans said.\n\n\"Today yes, but not tomorrow. I have two more umens arriving by train even now.\"\n\nHe waited, forming his words carefully so as to not imply that Jurak was lying and therefore automatically dishonorable.\n\n\"My eyes see differently,\" he finally said.\n\n\"And what is it that your eyes see that mine do not?\"\n\nHans looked straight at him. Less than an hour ago he assumed it was lost. They had damaged the Horde, perhaps fatally, but it would still be lost for him and his comrades. Now there was a glimmer of light.\n\nAgain the flutter of pain, but he ignored it. Even if I don't survive this day, those whom I love will.\n\nHe tried to pierce into the mind, the heart of Jurak. The Horde believed their shamans could read into the souls of others. Andrew claimed it was true as well, having resisted the leaders of the Tugar and Merki Hordes. He, in turn, had been in the presence of Tamuka and Ha'ark. There was something about Tamuka that had been coldly troubling, a sense that he could indeed see.\n\nAs for Ha'ark, he was simply a warrior. A shrewd one at times but nevertheless easy to pierce. There was something about this one, though, that was different yet again.\n\nHans reached into his haversack, Jurak's gaze fluttering down. Hans slowly withdrew the small piece of tobacco and bit off a chew. There was a soft grumbling chuckle from Jurak.\n\n\"Now I remember,\" Jurak said. \"You chewed that dried weed. Disgusting.\"\n\nHans could not help but laugh softly as well.\n\nHe continued to stare at Jurak. As with most of the Horde there was no discomfort in silence, the feeling that one needed to fill the emptiness. As horse nomads they were a race long accustomed to silence, to days of endless riding alone.\n\nThe air reverberated around them, distant explosions, the chatter of a Gatling. From the west the shriek of an approaching steam train, the neighing of horses, guttural cries of mounted warriors. Hans looked up. Less than half a mile away he could see a knot of them forming up, the fallen standard of the Horde held aloft again as a rally point. They most likely knew that their Qar Qarth was fallen; he wondered if they knew that he was still alive and a prisoner.\n\nA Hornet circled in on the forming ranks, opening fire, scattering them.\n\nHans looked over his shoulder. Several hundred men were gathered behind him, watching in open awe and curiosity.\n\n\"Jack, do you have some sort of signal to tell those flyers to cease fire? And Ketswana, I think they understand a white flag. Get some men out there, men who can speak Bantag. We're not surrendering, but we are offering a ceasefire. Tell them we have their Qar Qarth.\"\n\nHe looked back at Jurak who sat, features unreadable. That has always been one of the damned problems with dealing with them, he thought. Can't read their faces, their subtle gestures; it's like dealing with a statue of stone.\n\n\"I am telling my men to stop firing while we talk,\" Hans said.\n\nJurak nodded, then looked around. Groups of Chin were wandering about the battlefield. Whenever they spotted a wounded Bantag they closed in with shouts of rage, and of glee and fell to tormenting him before finishing it with a bayonet thrust or a crushing blow to the head.\n\n\"And Ketswana!\"\n\nHis comrade came up to his side, looking down at him, eyes still filled with concern.\n\n\"I'm doing fine now. But tell our people to stop that,\" Hans said in the language of the Bantag. He nodded to where, less than fifty yards away, a mob of Chin had fallen on a Bantag warrior. \"It's despicable. This is a ceasefire, damn it, not an opportunity for a massacre. I want our people to halt where they are and hold. The wounded are to be left alone; if they can get out on their own, let them pass.\"\n\n\"Their blood's up,\" Ketswana replied in the same language, his voice filled with bitterness. \"It's time to remember and take vengeance. They wouldn't offer us mercy if it was you who were now prisoner.\"\n\n\"And that's what's different between us,\" Hans shouted, the effort of it leaving him dizzy and out of breath.\n\nKetswana's gaze locked on Jurak. He finally nodded, formally saluted Hans, and ran off, shouting orders.\n\n\"Are we really so different?\" Jurak asked.\n\n\"I would like to think we are, at least when it comes to how we wage war.\"\n\n\"And tell me, Hans. After all this, after all the thousands of years of this, if your race gains the upper hand, can we expect any different?\"\n\n\"I can't promise anything,\" Hans replied. \"For myself, yes. For those who've lived here all their lives, who know nothing different. I don't know.\"\n\n\"So we shall continue to fight. Kill me if you wish. But I was always an outsider. Few will truly miss me. I was Qar Qarth because they were afraid of you and believed in Ha'ark, who claimed we were sent by the gods. They will select one of their own blood to continue the fight.\"\n\n\"What I assumed,\" Hans replied wearily.\n\nThere was a long blast of a steam whistle. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a train easing to a stop. Shocked, he saw that Seetu, one of Ketswana's men was leading them. They had actually made it all the way from Xi'an. Dismounting from the locomotive, hundreds of Chin, all of them armed with Bantag rifles, jumped down from the string of flatcars and formed up.\n\n\"They're from Xi'an,\" Hans announced proudly, \"and there will be thousands more.\"\n\nJurak said nothing.\n\nIf what Jurak said was true, Hans realized, it would simply go on. He might have saved the Chin, but who would be next after that? And so the war would continue.\n\n\"You said your eyes did not see-my new umens,\" Jurak said, interrupting Hans's thoughts.\n\nHans looked back at him absently rubbing his left shoulder.\n\n\"I know enough of cat \u2026\" Jurak quickly stopped, \"of humans to know you are ill.\"\n\n\"I'll be fine.\"\n\n\"It is your heart, isn't it?\"\n\nSurprised, Hans nodded.\n\n\"You are very ill, Hans Schuder.\"\n\n\"Not too sick to see this through to the end.\"\n\nJurak laughed softly.\n\n\"Ha'ark once told me you were indomitable. I remember once telling him that if he sensed that in you, perhaps it was best to kill you before you created trouble.\"\n\n\"One of his many mistakes,\" Hans said with a soft laugh.\n\n\"Yes. I know.\"\n\n\"What do I see that your eyes do not?\" Hans replied.\n\n\"I know two umens were brought up by rail last night from Nippon. It must have taken near to every locomotive and piece of rolling stock within three hundred leagues to do that. Even if you had half a dozen umens in Nippon, it will still take you two days to turn those trains around, run them north, load them up, then another two days to bring them all back.\n\n\"As you can see, I now control the rail line between here and Xi'an.\"\n\nJurak looked past Hans and nodded.\n\n\"I will not speak an untruth. I don't know how they got through. Perhaps they control the line. Perhaps you had few if any warriors between here and Xi'an to stop them.\" Jurak was silent for a moment.\n\n\"Obviously not enough to stop them.\"\n\n\"We captured supplies in Xi'an. Powder, artillery, guns.\" He hesitated, remembering the barges of ammunition exploding. \"Millions of cartridges, thousands of shells, even some of your steamships and land ironclads.\n\n\"By the time you are reinforced, I can arm fifty thousand Chin.\"\n\n\"Then it will be a mutual slaughter.\"\n\n\"I could also pull back, tearing up track. Burn the factories that are left before leaving. Then you will have yet another front and hundreds of thousands of Chin armed and eager for blood by the time your umens reach Xi'an.\" Jurak shook his head wearily.\n\n\"Then we are doomed to fight. You and I will not be here to see it, but it will continue.\"\n\nHans sighed and lowered his head.\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nThere was a long moment of silence. He looked back up at Jurak. Here was a warrior of the Horde. Eight feet or more in height, black-and-brown mane matted, dirty, the same as the black uniform. Visage that for a decade had filled him with horror. There was the memory of slavery, the terror, the brutality, the moon feasts and slaughter pits. And all so many comrades of the 35th and 44th New York. Men of Rus, his friend Marcus, those whom he had suffered bondage with. All caused by this race.\n\nHe fought down the urge to find a weapon, a knife, anything, to gut Jurak right there, to make it a signal for the slaughter to continue to the death. For he did indeed have the upper hand at the moment.\n\nHe looked to his left and saw Ketswana standing over a wounded Bantag, ordering the Chin back. They were ready to fall on him with drawn knives.\n\nHe thought of the rumors of yesterday, that in the frenzy of killing, Bantag had been mutilated beyond recognition; and some were even whispering that a few had even taken their flesh and consumed it.\n\nHe looked closely at the wounded Bantag and realized that it was barely more than a cub, about the same height as the Zulu standing over him. He was on his side, gutshot. Looking up at Ketswana.\n\nThe Chin fell back. Ketswana started to turn away, and the wounded Bantag said something. Ketswana hesitated, then unslung his canteen, pulled the cork, knelt, and offered the Bantag a drink.\n\nJurak was watching as well.\n\n\"In spite of what my race did, still one of yours will offer a drink to a dying child.\"\n\nHans said nothing for a moment. He was ready to shoot back with a sarcasm, an enraged comment about how many human children had died in agony, watching parents murdered before they themselves were slaughtered. He sensed, as well, that Jurak had an inner revulsion for what this world was. And the thought formed as he continued to watch Ketswana, holding the canteen to the cub's lips.\n\n\"Jurak.\"\n\nHe was looking straight into his opponent's eyes.\n\n\"Yes, Hans.\"\n\n\"Your tribal camping areas. Your old ones, your children, your women. Do you know where they are camped now?\"\n\nJurak seemed to stiffen slightly, the first true gesture Hans felt he could read accurately.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Many are south of here, toward the Shin-Tu Mountains.\"\n\nThere was a moment's pause.\n\n\"Yes, some are there. Others to the north and east.\"\n\n\"But many are there. A hundred thousand yurts, two hundred thousand perhaps.\"\n\n\"I cannot count them all.\"\n\nHans smiled. Jurak could try to bluff, but somehow he wasn't.\n\n\"My forces here are between them and you. Troops moving along this rail line are between them and you. For that matter, I have a score of airships that could be over them within the hour.\"\n\n\"What are you saying?\"\n\nHans made it a point of dropping eye contact for a moment. He slowly stood up. Jurak remained seated, but now it was he looking down on Jurak rather than the other way around.\n\n\"I am ordering that all of them are to be put to death.\"\n\nJurak said nothing, gaze becoming icy.\n\n\"The umens you see that I do not can come up if you want. But in two days' time I will have a ring closed in around a hundred thousand yurts. The flyers will be over them ceaselessly from dawn to dusk. Arrows fired by women and old ones will fall back to the ground. Bullets and firebombs slashing down from the skies will slaughter by the tens of thousands.\n\n\"And once armed Chin are amongst them, once I tell the Chin that this is their destiny, that the gods seek revenge, the slaughter will continue until even the ground can no longer drink all the blood, and the rivers will turn red.\n\n\"You might bring up two umens, a dozen umens, but they will find themselves to be childless, fatherless, for their seed will be extinguished from this world forever.\n\n\"This is the war your race started and I shall now finish.\"\n\nAs he spoke he was aware that Ketswana had come back and was standing by his side.\n\n\"When do we begin?\" Ketswana asked, his voice a guttural challenge.\n\nJurak looked at the two of them and wearily shook his head.\n\n\"Am I to believe you, a warrior I had come to respect, would do this thing?\"\n\n\"You did it to us first.\"\n\nJurak visibly flinched and lowered his head.\n\nHe was again silent, and then ever so slowly he grabbed hold of the wheel of the caisson he had been sitting against and pulled himself up, flinching as he gingerly tried to put weight on his broken ankle.\n\n\"It is over,\" he finally whispered. \"I would like to believe that you do not wish this murder to continue. I am asking you to spare them.\"\n\nHans said nothing, keeping his features hard.\n\n\"Your terms?\"\n\nThis was a leap ahead for Hans which momentarily caught him off guard. Two hours earlier he was hoping Ketswana had saved one final round to prevent the agony of capture, now he was negotiating the end of a war. He wished Andrew was here; his friend would be far better at this than he.\n\n\"Immediate ceasefire on all fronts. Immediate withdrawal from the territory of Roum, Nippon, and the Chin.\"\n\n\"To go where?\"\n\n\"East if you want, south. I've been told that there's a thousand leagues east of here with barely a human on it. That is range enough for your people to live upon.\"\n\n\"You'd suffer us to live?\"\n\n\"It's either that or kill all of you.\" He held back for a second then let it spill out. \"And if I did that, if we did that, in the end we would become you.\"\n\nJurak stood with lowered head and finally nodded.\n\n\"I offer no apologies for what this world became.\"\n\n\"Then change it, damn it. Change it.\"\n\n\"And what is to prevent war from starting again?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Hans said, his voice weary. \"I promise you this, though, if you go beyond that thousand leagues of open prairie, if word should ever come back of but one more person dying, of being slaughtered for food, or put into bondage, then I, or Andrew, or those who come after us will hunt your people without mercy.\"\n\n\"You will have the factories, the flyers, the machines. We will not,\" Jurak replied. \"I know what the result of that would be.\"\n\n\"Fine. I will keep the Chin back from your encampments. I will order the release of ten thousand yurts immediately to start moving east. Once I have word that the last of your troops are out of Roum territory, twenty thousand more. Once out of the realm of Nippon and the Chin, fifty thousand more, and a year from today the remainder. Any violation of what we agree upon here and all of them will die without mercy.\"\n\n\"Would you really do that?\" Jurak asked.\n\nHans stared straight at him.\n\nHe knew there was no sense in bluffing, but he could not betray his own doubts either.\n\n\"I don't think either one of us wants to find out what we are capable of doing.\"\n\nJurak nodded.\n\n\"Perhaps someday we can talk more, Hans Schuder. You might not believe this, but I sense your Andrew and I are more alike than each of us realizes, the same as Andrew has you, there is an elder for me.\"\n\nHans did not know what to say.\n\nIn a way it had all been so simple, and yet all the years of agony and suffering to reach this moment, and all the millions of dead.\n\nStrange, he suddenly thought of Andrew, and knew that what had happened here Andrew would have agreed to.\n\n\"I will signal that the attack is off at Capua.\"\n\nHans looked at him quizzically.\n\n\"There were rumors that your government had collapsed, that Andrew was going into exile. We were to start the attack this evening, just before sundown.\"\n\nHans tried to quickly digest all that he had just learned. Andrew in exile? Suppose the government had already thrown in the towel. Then what? If this fighting was to end, he had better move quickly. He had already decided to let Jurak go, but he had to get him back to where he could telegraph out orders of a ceasefire before the government back home surrendered first. If they did that, some other Bantag leader might be tempted to press the attack anyhow.\n\n\"Ketswana, bring up a couple of mounts.\"\n\nThe two stood in silence, waiting as Ketswana left them to find horses.\n\n\"Twenty years from now I wonder,\" Jurak said.\n\n\"Wonder what?\"\n\nJurak fell silent again as Ketswana came up, leading two horses, one of them sightly wounded and limping.\n\nHans motioned for Jurak to take the better horse. He hobbled over. Grimacing, he grabbed hold of the pommel, swung his injured leg up and over, then slipped his good foot into the stirrup.\n\nHans, still feeling light-headed, though the pain had subsided somewhat, struggled to mount and was embarrassed when Ketswana and several others came to his side to help.\n\n\"Hans, where the hell are you going?\" Ketswana asked.\n\nHans looked down at his old comrade.\n\n\"lust for a little ride, that's all.\"\n\n\"Wait for me.\"\n\n\"I can't wait for you, my friend.\"\n\nHans suddenly reached down and took Ketswana's hand.\n\n\"Thank you. I don't know how many times over I owe you my life.\"\n\n\"I owe you my freedom,\" Ketswana replied, his voice suddenly choked.\n\n\"No man owes another man his freedom,\" Hans replied softly. \"That was, and always will be, your right. Remember that.\"\n\nHe nudged his mount gently, not wanting to hurt it.\n\n\"Wait here; I'll be back soon enough.\"\n\n. The two rode off, side by side, heading to where Bantag survivors of the bloody fight were rallying. Overhead a flyer circled as if keeping watch. Chin infantry, coming off of the trains, was fanning out to envelop the flank of the Bantag. Eastward, toward the still-burning city, the sound of battle continued to thunder, though it seemed to be dying away, falling into a final spasm of slaughter.\n\nThe pain had abated; he wondered for a moment if that meant that he would survive the day after all, or was it the final ringing down of the curtain and that soon he would slip away.\n\nAt the moment it really didn't seem to matter. He felt a sudden lightness, a gentle floating, a sense of peace. Back home, back in Suzdal, for that now was home, Tamira would most likely be out with his young Andrew, the boy leading his mother on their daily walk through the meadows to the east and south of town. The thought of it made him smile. In the last year he had shared not more than half a dozen days with them, but each moment had been a blessed treasure, each night a reawakened dream.\n\nThey would be safe, and ultimately he knew that a man could not ask for anything beyond that, to know that those whom he loved were safe.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" Jurak asked.\n\nHans stirred.\n\n\"My family.\"\n\n\"You had a child, I remember that.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And they are safe?\"\n\n\"You mean did they escape safely with me?\" Hans asked, a touch of anger flaring into his voice.\n\n\"No. I know that. I was there, I saw her lead the escape carrying your child. She was brave. To be proud of.\"\n\nSurprised, Hans nodded his thanks.\n\n\"They are safe now?\"\n\n\"Yes, as far as I know.\"\n\n\"You are lucky.\"\n\n\"Why so?\" Surprised he turned to look at Jurak. Strange, for a brief instant he had almost forgotten who he was talking to.\n\n\"My home world. My family, parents, the one that I \u2026 what you called married.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"They all died. A type of bomb I pray to the gods is never known on this world. They all died. That was just before I came here.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nJurak looked over at him, surprised. Hans as well felt a mild shock. The two words had slipped out of him so easily. Never did he dream he could feel sorrow for a Bantag. Yet in Jurak's voice he had sensed the pain.\n\nThere was an awkward moment of silence.\n\n\"Do you have a family here?\" Hans asked.\n\nJurak shook his head.\n\n\"No. They cannot replace her.\"\n\n\"Perhaps someday. I lived alone nearly all the days of my life and did not find her until \u2026\" He let the subject drop, given how he and Tamira had met.\n\n\"Perhaps someday.\"\n\nThey were approaching the Bantag formation. Hans could see them stirring as they recognized that their Qar Qarth was still alive. Jurak reined in, gaze sweeping the battered ranks.\n\n\"The war is finished,\" he shouted. \"We withdraw.\"\n\nExcited murmuring erupted. Hans could sense rage on the part of many, but there were others who seemed relieved, nodding, grounding clenched rifles.\n\nJurak looked over at Hans.\n\n\"I will order my troops pulled back north of the city at once. Tomorrow, at noonday, let us meet on the rail tracks going north out of Huan. We both have to assume that there will still be fighting until word reaches all, and we can separate from each other.\"\n\nHans nodded.\n\n\"Noon then.\"\n\nTo his surprise, Jurak extended his arm in the gesture of clasping. Hans reached out tentatively, then grasped Jurak's wrist, and felt the tight grip on his own forearm.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nHans looked up. A rider, followed by half a dozen, broke out of the ranks and approached. There was something darkly familiar about him, and then the recognition hit, the scarred disfigured face. It was Tamuka.\n\n\"No! That is the path of a coward. Press the fight now and slaughter them all.\"\n\nJurak drew himself up stiffly.\n\n\"They are between us and the yurts of our clans. In agreement for our ending the war and withdrawing, they will harm no one and let our families live. If this madness continues half a million or more of our sires, females, and cubs will die.\"\n\nWith the announcement of that Hans could see that yet more were now glad that it was ended. He suddenly realized that the Bantag had been terrified that over the last day the Chin would even now be swarming southward to initiate a massacre.\n\n\"They have made the gesture of letting our old ones and young live, even though they now have the power to kill them all. We all know that we are powerless to stop them. There is not one more warrior between Xi'an and Nippon capable of resisting them. It will take days to bring down what we have left in Nippon. By then, all our families will have been slaughtered.\"\n\nThat admission startled Hans. So it was a bluff. They had stripped themselves bare.\n\nThere was a sidelong glance from Jurak and Hans felt he could almost smile, as if Jurak had finally revealed that he didn't have a pair of deuces, let alone a full house.\n\nTamuka turned to face the Bantags.\n\n\"Fight! Kill them all while there is still time! One more charge, and we break through and slaughter them all!\"\n\nHis screams were met with a stirring. More than one again gave himself over to the lust for battle, some raising their rifles in response, shouting agreement.\n\nHans could not understand all that was being said, the words were spilling out of Tamuka so quickly, yet he could sense the rage that was out of control. He looked over again at Jurak, who sat motionless. This wasn't a leader who could win by overpowering. It had to be a display of calm in the face of madness.\n\nHe knew that if Tamuka should somehow win the argument, then it was over. Jurak would die, they would attack in a mad frenzy, and the Chin would unleash a massacre against hundreds of thousands in a final orgy of mutual destruction. Madness, to be so close and then have it all plunged back into madness.\n\n\"Kill them all!\"\n\nThe world seemed to be shifting like sand swept away by a tidal wave. The lust was coming back. Jurak sat impassive, undoubtedly knowing he could not shout down the mad leader of the once great Merki.\n\n\"And kill this traitor from another world first!\" Tamuka cried.\n\nHans barely understood the words, but he recognized the gesture as Tamuka dropped his reins and reached for a saddle-mounted holster. Like a snake striking, the revolver flashed out.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nHans kicked his own mount forward. He saw the revolver going up, thumb cocking the trigger back. He fumbled with his own holster \u2026 and grabbed nothing but thin air. There was a flash memory of throwing it away after firing the last round. Time seemed to distort, he felt his heart thumping over, wondering if it was finally shattering. Or was it fear.\n\nHe saw the gun coming down, Tamuka squinting, one eye half-closed, the other sighting down the barrel, aiming it straight at Jurak. He caught a final glimpse of Jurak, knew the Bantag, at heart, was not a true combat soldier. He was reacting far too slowly, just then recognizing the danger, starting to recoil in anticipation of the crashing blow.\n\nThere was a final instant, a wondering, a sense that somehow this was a vast cosmic joke. This wasn't Andrew, or Pat, or Emil, or even a simple Chin that he was trying to save. It wasn't anyone, yet it was, as well, a warrior whom he had learned in the last few minutes to respect. He was someone who had offered an ending to the madness, a way out, a way for Tamira and the baby to live in peace \u2026 and that peace was about to die if Jurak died.\n\nTime distorted, and he knew there was but one last thing he could do. Without hesitating Hans lunged forward across the neck of his horse. He saw the gaping maw of the revolver, the eye behind the barrel, face contorted in a mad scream \u2026 and then the flash.\n\n\"No!\"\n\nIt was Jurak screaming, as Hans, lifted out of his saddle, tumbled over backwards and crashed to the ground. The dirty yellow-white smoke swirled in a cloud, and through the cloud he saw Tamuka. There was a momentary look of surprise that he had shot Hans, and then, even more enraging, a barking roar of delight.\n\nJurak drew his scimitar, blade flashing out, catching the light. He caught a momentary glance of those watching. This was now a blood challenge for control of the Bantag Horde. He raked his spurs, the pain in his leg forgotten. His mount leapt forward.\n\nTamuka, thumb on the hammer of his revolver, cocked the weapon and started to shift aim.\n\nScreaming with a mad fury Jurak charged his mount straight into the flank of Tamuka's horse. The revolver swung past his face, going off, the explosion deafening him, the flash of it burning his cheek.\n\nTheir eyes locked for a second. Even as he started his swing, there was a final instant, a flash of recognition. His rage, a rage which surprised him, for it was a mad fury over what had been done to a human, added strength to his blow.\n\nThe look in Tamuka's eyes turned in that instant to disbelief as the blade sliced into his throat, driven with such force that it slashed clear through flesh, muscle, and bone.\n\nTamuka's horse, terrified as a shower of hot blood cascaded over its back, reared and galloped off, ridden by a headless corpse still showering blood.\n\nJurak was blinded for an instant, not sure if he had somehow been wounded after all by the pistol shot. Then the mist started to clear as he blinked Tamuka's blood out of his eyes.\n\nHe viciously swung his mount around, gaze sweeping the assembly, wanting to shout his rage at them, at all their insanity and bestiality. And in their eyes he saw something that had never quite been there before. It wasn't just that he was their Qar Qarth. It was that he was their leader. Some went down on their knees, heads lowered.\n\nSomething snapped inside and he screamed incoherently at them, holding his bloody scimitar aloft. More went down on their knees; within seconds all were down, heads bowed.\n\nHe reined his horse around and looked down. Cursing wildly, he swung off his mount. As he hit the ground his broken ankle gave way and with a gasp of pain he went down on his knees. None dared to rise to help him.\n\nHe slowly stood back up and limped the half dozen paces over to where Hans lay. Looking up he saw humans, hundreds of them, running up, led by the dark Zulu. He held up his sword so they could see it, then threw it down by the severed head of Tamuka. The humans slowed, the Zulu turning, shouting a command. They stopped, and, alone, Ketswana came forward.\n\nJurak knelt down by Hans's side, Ketswana joining him.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Jurak gasped. \"And thank you for my life.\"\n\nHans looked up. Strange, no pain. The dark specter who had trailed his every step across all the years, and all the worlds, had him in hand at last, and, surprisingly, there was no pain.\n\nStill he wondered why he had done it. Was it because I knew I was dying anyhow?\n\nNo.\n\nA gallant gesture then? And he wanted to laugh over the irony of it, but no laughter came.\n\nHe saw them gazing down. Jurak was saying something, but he couldn't hear him. He saw Ketswana, tears streaming down his face. He tried to reach up, to wipe them away, as if soothing a child, but for some strange reason his arm, his hands would no longer obey.\n\nThey were kneeling side by side, and he fully understood what it was he had been fighting for all along, and what he was now dying for. And he was content.\n\nThen they slipped away \u2026 and Hans Schuder smiled as they disappeared into a glorious light."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 43",
+                "text": "Exhausted, he stood alone, watching as the sun touched the horizon.\n\nThe last of the gunfire died away and he felt cold, alone, empty. Throughout the long day the square had slowly contracted inward, drawing closer and yet closer after each successive charge until the backs of the surviving men were almost touching.\n\nThe ground was carpeted with the dead and dying, tens of thousands of Bantag and humans tangled together.\n\nIf ever there was a killing ground of madness, this was it. He stood atop the low rise of ground, watching as half a dozen ironclads, the survivors of the daylong fight wove their way up the hill, maneuvering slowly, looking for an open path through the carnage.\n\nThe lead machine ground to a halt fifty yards short of the square, the turret popped open, and he saw Gregory stiffly climb out then half slide, half fall to the ground. He looked at the other machines. St. Katrina? No, he had seen that one blow up \u2026 the gentle gardener was dead, and Vincent blinked back the tears.\n\nWalking like a marionette with tangled strings, Gregory slowly made his way up the hill. The men around Vincent parted at his approach.\n\nComing to attention he saluted. Vincent, exhausted beyond words, merely nodded in reply.\n\n\"They're leaving,\" Gregory announced, his voice slurring.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"What's left of them, the poor damned bastards. They're mounting up now, heading north.\"\n\nEven as he spoke there was a ripple of comments along the battered line. Vincent looked past Gregory and saw a lone rider appear on the next rise half a mile away. The Bantag rider stood out sharply against the horizon. He held a horse tail standard aloft.\n\nHe waved it back and forth and Vincent watched, mesmerized. The Horde rider slammed it down, the shaft sinking into the earth. The rider held a clenched fist aloft and he could hear a distant cry, desolate, mournful. Vincent stepped out from the battered square, removed his kepi, and held it aloft.\n\nThe Bantag rider turned and disappeared, leaving the standard behind.\n\nGregory came to his side, and Vincent turned to face him.\n\n\"I hope this was worth it,\" Gregory whispered.\n\nVincent's gaze swept the wreckage, the tangled mounds of dead. All he could do was lower his head and cry."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 44",
+                "text": "\"Pat!\"\n\n\"It's started?\"\n\nInstantly, he was awake, sitting up in his cot. All day long he had been anticipating the attack. Praying in fact that it would come, come before someone finally got through from the west with the orders to stand down or he finally made the suicidal gesture and attacked instead. Rumors had been floating through the army ever since Pat had dropped the telegraph lines and all trains from the west had ceased to arrive.\n\nOnly that morning Schneid had come back up to the front, personally bearing a report that rioting had erupted in Suzdal and Roum.\n\nRick stood in the doorway of the bunker, the sky behind him glowing with the colors of sunset.\n\n\"Where are they hitting?\" Pat cried, stumbling up from the steps and out onto the battlement.\n\nHe was stunned by the silence. There were no guns firing, not even the usual scattering of shots between snipers. Then he heard it, a strange distant keening.\n\nHe stepped up onto a firing step and cautiously peered over. He saw though that men were now standing up, some atop the earthworks, fully exposed, and not a shot was coming from the other side.\n\n\"What the hell is going on?\"\n\n\"I'm damned if I know. It started an hour or so ago. This weird chanting. I thought they were getting themselves built up for the assault. I figured to let you sleep as long as possible, though, and waited. Well, this chanting kept on going and going and then about five minutes ago I saw the damnedest thing.\"\n\nHe suddenly pointed across the river.\n\n\"There, another one!\"\n\nPat looked, not sure for a moment what he was seeing. It was darker on the far shore, and then he saw where Rick was pointing. Two Bantag were standing, fully exposed. They were holding something. It was a mortar \u2026 and they flung it over the side of their fort and down into the mud of the riverbank. And then, without any ceremony they turned and simply walked away.\n\nAll along the riverbank he could now see them, not just a few, but hundreds upon hundreds, climbing up out of the trenches, still chanting, then walking off into the darkness.\n\nSuddenly a flare ignited on the far shore and in the flickering light he saw a mounted Bantag, war helmet off, white mane catching the light. The Bantag was holding the flare and Pat looked at him mesmerized.\n\nHe felt a strange stirring within, as if this one could somehow reach into his soul and touch his heart. There was no hatred, only an infinite sadness.\n\n\"It's over,\" a voice seemed to whisper inside.\n\nBy the light of the flare he saw a rider moving down into the river, holding a white flag aloft, in his other hand waving what appeared to be a piece of paper.\n\n\"Send someone down to get that,\" Pat shouted.\n\nThe rider reached midstream and waited, and a minute later a mounted artilleryman galloped into the shallow river, approached the messenger, and took the paper.\n\nAt the same instant the flare was thrown heavenward. He traced its flight as it bisected the Great Wheel, which even then was rising in the east. It fell into the water, and all was darkness.\n\nPat, unable to speak, simply looked over at Rick and smiled, though in his heart he sensed, at that same moment, that something was lost forever as well."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 45",
+                "text": "Andrew Lawrence Keane, his wife riding beside him, rode into the Great Square of the city. The entire populace was out cheering his arrival, chanting his name, but he ignored the tribute.\n\nHe saw Father Casmir standing on the steps of the White House, and as Andrew reined in his mount, Casmir made the gesture of taking off his skullcap and offering the traditional Rus bow, right hand sweeping to the ground.\n\nAndrew smiled and dismounted. He started to raise his hand in a formal salute, then remembered he was no longer in the army and instead he simply held it out. Casmir took it.\n\n\"Welcome home, Colonel Keane.\"\n\nAndrew did not know what to say. The courier, a young priest, had arrived at his retreat, a country house on the edge of the Great Forest, near the old Tugar Ford, only that morning. Breathless, he had announced that Father Casmir insisted that he return to the city immediately.\n\nAll Andrew's questioning would not budge the youth, who insisted he was sworn to a vow of silence. The only news he would divulge was that Kal had emerged from his coma and asked for him as well.\n\nLeaving the children under the protection of several young men from the 35th who had gone with him into exile, he rode south, back to the city along the old ford road, Kathleen insisting that she come along, too. The ride with the silent priest and Kathleen was a flood of memories \u2026 the battles around the Tugar Ford, the first skirmish in the woods against a raid by boyars, the ambush of the Tugar column just north of the city. As they cleared the lower pass he was stunned to see thousands outside the gates, lining the road.\n\nThere had been no cheering, only an awed and respectful silence. As he passed, all offered the old traditional bow of the Rus, bent at the waist, right hand sweeping to the ground. He wanted to ask but sensed all had been told to wait, to let Casmir explain.\n\nHe looked into the eyes of the Metropolitan of the Rus.\n\n\"I will never forget the night that I, a young priest, ran barefoot through the snow to where you and your men were camped below this city,\" Casmir began, his voice echoing across the plaza, and Andrew realized that this was all part of some elaborate ceremony.\n\n\"I knew you Yankees were voting that night whether to stay and fight the Tugars or to take ship and leave and seek safety. I came bearing the news that we, the people of Suzdal, had rebelled against the boyars and wished to fight the Tugars as well.\n\n\"Colonel Keane, you could have turned your back upon me at that moment. You could have left, but you decided to stay and to fight for our freedom.\n\n\"Those men that were with you that night,\" and his voice faltered, \"how few now remain.\"\n\nCasmir paused, and Andrew saw the emotions and felt a knot in his own throat.\n\n\"You did not leave us, Andrew Keane. It was we who left you.\"\n\nAndrew wanted to say something, embarrassed. He felt the touch of Kathleen's hand on his shoulder, stilling him.\n\n\"We left you. You tried to teach us that though you fought to give us freedom, we ourselves must have the strength to defend it. When you rode out of the city, alone, we finally learned that.\n\n\"My friend, I now beg you. Pick up your sword again. Take command of the armies. Be Colonel Andrew Lawrence Keane once more.\"\n\nAs he spoke the last words the chanting resumed, \"Keane, Keane, Keane.\"\n\nStunned, Andrew was unable to respond for a moment.\n\n\"What about Bugarin, the vote for an armistice?\" Kathleen asked.\n\n\"Those buggers. We loaded them onto a ferry across the river. They're packing it on the road west of here,\" Emil announced, coming down the steps to join them.\n\nAt the sight of him Andrew brightened, reached out, and grasped his hand.\n\n\"It started down at the factories,\" Emil continued. \"Oh this priest might deny it, but his monks were organizing it. By yesterday evening the entire city was on strike. They cut the telegraph lines repeatedly, blockaded the Capitol and the White House. The poor damned Chin representatives didn't dare set foot outside for fear of getting torn apart.\"\n\n\"They didn't overthrow the government, did they?\" Andrew asked.\n\nEmil smiled.\n\n\"Let's call it vox populi. Some of the senators got a bit roughed up, maybe a couple of them were told that if they voted the wrong way, they might not get reelected because they wouldn't live long enough to make reelection. But the people of Suzdal made it clear they would fight to the end rather than go down, and communicated that real clear to the Roum as well.\"\n\n\"What did Bugarin do?\"\n\n\"It came to a head last night. He tried to order some ruffians he had rounded up to fire into the crowd gathered right here. They lined the steps, and then Casmir here steps out, arms extended, and tells them to aim at him first.\" Andrew looked at the priest, unable to speak.\n\n\"That finished it. There was a bit of roughness, a few black eyes, busted ribs, broken arms, and a few lads singing soprano, but the people of this city took the White House. I declared Kal competent to resume office. There was talk of a treason trial and that was it, ten senators and a couple of congressmen quickly resigned and got the hell out of town.\"\n\n\"My role is somewhat exaggerated,\" Casmir intervened. A wild cheer rose up in the square, laughing, belying Casmir's statement.\n\n\"I doubt that,\" Andrew cried, trying to be heard above the roaring of the crowd.\n\n\"You know, Andrew. Maybe it's a good thing for a Republic to clean house occasionally and throw out a few cowardly senators now and then.\"\n\nAndrew said nothing, shaking his head with disbelief. \"Flavius, and the shot at Kal. Who did it?\"\n\n\"I don't think we'll ever really know, but if my sacred vows did not prevent it, I'd bet on Bugarin even though he vehemently denied it.\"\n\n\"I'd like to see Kal,\" Andrew said. \"He is the president, and he alone can appoint the commander of the army.\"\n\n\"I told you he would say that,\" Emil interjected as he led the way up the steps and into the White House.\n\nFollowing Emil, he could not contain himself any longer and asked the question that had been tearing his soul apart ever since he had let go of the mantle of command.\n\n\"Any news from the front?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Emil replied. \"I think Pat cut the lines, though we've been trying to reach him all day. Of course, nothing from Tyre, though we have to assume a courier boat from Roum carrying the ceasefire order reached there last night.\"\n\n\"Not even a flyer?\"\n\n\"No, nothing.\"\n\n\"I hope these people realize that by doing this they've most likely condemned themselves to death.\"\n\n\"Andrew, they know that. They know as well that what Bugarin offered was death as well. A coward's death. It might have given them an extra month, maybe a year, maybe even five years, but in the end, without freedom, it would be death anyhow. At least now, if we're doomed, we go down with heads held high. I think that alone is worth fighting for.\"\n\nThey reached the door to Kal's sickroom. He stepped in, following Emil's lead. Kal was propped up in bed, features pale and drawn. The Lincolnesque beard was still there, and the unofficial symbol of his office, the stovepipe hat, was back by his side on the nightstand.\n\nAndrew approached the bed, and Kal, smiling weakly, patted the covers.\n\n\"Sit down, my old friend.\"\n\nJust the tone in his voice broke away all the tension of the last months. Andrew sat down and took his friend's hand.\n\n\"Once I'm out of this damned bed we should go off together, have a drink, and perhaps buy that pair of gloves we're always talking about.\"\n\nAndrew chuckled at the clumsy joke, for Kal had lost his right arm and Andrew his left.\n\n\"How are you, Kal?\"\n\n\"Better than I've ever been. Perhaps that bullet knocked some sense into my thick skull.\"\n\n\"You know what you are letting yourself in for?\"\n\n\"I know. Most likely a bloody end. But then again, my boyar often told me that would be how I finished.\"\n\n\"For everyone,\" Andrew whispered.\n\n\"That was our difference, my friend. I wanted a way out, any way out to stop the slaughter. You saw that the only way out was to endure it, to have the courage to fight your way through it. When I thought of Bugarin crawling before them, again offering us up, something finally changed in my heart, as if I was throwing off a sickness. Oh, he would be spared, perhaps even I would be spared, but I swore an oath to myself, long before the Republic, long before I was president, that never again would I see a child go into the slaughter pits. That I would die first, that I would rather see us all die than endure that again.\n\n\"You knew that all along. I had to relearn it. So if we are doomed to die, we'll die as free men. And as long as you are by my side, Colonel Andrew Keane, I will be content.\"\n\n\"Fine then,\" Andrew whispered, squeezing his friend's hand. \"Together, and perhaps we can still win.\"\n\nKal smiled.\n\n\"Actually, I think we shall. This afternoon I had a dream. You often told me that Lincoln was famous for such things.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Strange. It was even like his dream. A ship, far out to sea, coming toward me. It sailed past, and I felt a strange wonderful peace.\"\n\n\"Good. Perhaps it will come true.\"\n\n\"There was something else, though. Someone was standing on the deck. I couldn't tell who. He was alone, but then he wasn't. The deck was crowded, so very crowded. I felt that it was the Ogunquit, the ship that bore you to this world, sailing one last time, perhaps back to where it came from, bearing with it all those who gave the final sacrifice. The lone man raised his hand, and then the ship disappeared into the mist.\"\n\nAndrew said nothing.\n\n\"Sleep, my friend. Perhaps you'll have another dream.\"\n\n\"I think I will. Knowing you're back, I feel safe again.\"\n\n\"I never really left.\"\n\nKal winked. \"I know that, too.\"\n\nAndrew looked up at Emil, who nodded, and with Kathleen quietly withdrew. Andrew sat by Kal's side, watching as his old friend drifted off.\n\nIt was a peaceful moment. A strange mix of feelings. On the one side an infinite sadness, knowing what was still to come, the sacrifice still to be made. On the other side, though, there was a tremendous swelling of pride. Win or lose, the people of Rus, of Roum had come together, mingled their blood, and out of that mingling a republic was born. And now, even if they should lose, they would not crawl basely into the night but would go with heads held high. The legend of it would then live on as well, and in the turning of years be remembered, be reborn, and finally triumph.\n\nHis thoughts drifted to Hans, wishing he was there to share the moment. As Hans had taught him, he had passed that strength and vision on to others. Everyone pointed to him, and yet actually it had been Hans all along who had shaped and guided him, and, in turn, he had created the Republic.\n\nHe heard renewed cheering outside, a wild tumultuous roaring that thundered up. Embarrassed, he stood up, gently releasing Kal's hand. They were most likely cheering the news that he had accepted reappointment; he would have to go out and give yet another speech, something he did not want to do just now.\n\nAnd then he saw Kathleen in the door, tears streaming down her cheeks.\n\n\"It's over,\" she gasped.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"The war Andrew! It's over.\"\n\nHe couldn't speak, and then he sensed something else.\n\n\"The telegraph line just went back up to the front. Pat reports a message from the Bantag side. They are withdrawing. The Chin have revolted.\"\n\n\"Glory Hallelujah,\" Andrew gasped.\n\n\"Andrew.\"\n\nAnd then he knew, even before she whispered the words and fell into his arms crying.\n\n\"Andrew, darling. Hans is dead.\"\n\nHe couldn't speak. He held her tight, trying not to break.\n\nHe saw Emil and Casmir in the doorway.\n\nSo strange, such joy, and yet such pain in their eyes.\n\n\"Emil, stay with Kal. Let him sleep; if he wakes up, tell him, but don't say anything yet about Hans.\"\n\n\"That dream\u2014I think he already knew.\" Emil sighed.\n\nHe tried to step past Emil. The doctor touched him on the shoulder.\n\n\"The year, this year was a gift, Andrew. He came back to lead us one last time. Now the job is finished.\"\n\nAndrew nodded, unable to speak.\n\nHe stepped out of the room, and Kathleen stopped him.\n\n\"Andrew.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nShe nodded to Casmir, who was holding a package.\n\n\"I brought this with me; I thought you might want it.\"\n\nCasmir opened the package. Inside was Andrew's weather-stained uniform jacket, his Medal of Honor still pinned to the breast.\n\nHe nodded in agreement, and Casmir and Kathleen helped him remove his simple brown coat. The feel of the tight uniform somehow reassured him, and he wordlessly nodded his thanks.\n\nHolding Kathleen's hand, he walked down the corridor, passing the reception room where he and Hans had first stood before the Boyar Ivor, and at last gained the steps to the White House.\n\nOut in the square there was wild rejoicing, and though he was filled with grief, he could feel their joy as well. They had made the decision to stand and fight, redeeming their souls at that moment, and now they had discovered that it was not just their souls that had been redeemed, but their lives as well.\n\nAt the sight of him the cheering redoubled into a thunderous tumult, so that it seemed as if the very heavens would be torn asunder.\n\nHe stood silent, and then gradually the wild celebration died away. As if sensing his thoughts and his pain, a new chant emerged, \"Hans, Hans, Hans.\"\n\nThere was no rejoicing in it, only a deep and reverent respect.\n\nAlone he stood, eyes turned heavenward, imagining the ship Kal had dreamed of.\n\n\"Good-bye, Hans,\" he whispered. \"Good-bye and thank you, my comrade, my friend.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 46",
+                "text": "\"As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free ..\n\nThe final refrain of the song echoed across the open steppes.\n\nColonel Andrew Lawrence Keane, commander of the Army of the Republic, stood stiffly at attention as the last chorus drifted away.\n\nThe ceremony was nearly done. All the dignitaries had spoken, as had he. Now there was only the final ritual.\n\nA company of soldiers, cadets of the 35th Maine, came to attention, the first rank making a sharp half turn.\n\n\"Present \u2026 fire!\"\n\nThe volley made him start. There was a momentary flash of memory, the first volley crashing into his line at Antietam.\n\n\"Present \u2026 fire!\"\n\nHe lifted his gaze. The ruins of what was now simply called the Foundry were before him. In front of it was the cemetery, neat orderly rows with simple stone slabs, thousands of them. Some were for single bodies, most marked mass graves, the thousands upon thousands who had died in the final battle of the war.\n\n\"Present \u2026 fire!\"\n\nIn the middle of the vast graveyard there was a lone cross. Some had wanted a towering monument, others a vast mausoleum, but his quiet insistence on what he knew his friend would have wanted had swept away all the grandiose proposals. Hans Schuder had tasted slavery, rose up, and cut free the chains, and then died coming back to liberate not just the people he called his comrades, but the world. To rest among those who had died with him that day was all the tribute he would want.\n\nAs the last volley died away, a lone bugler, concealed inside the ruins of the Foundry, blew the first notes of taps.\n\nIt was yet another ritual from the old world. It was a tune born of the Army of the Potomac, written by Dan Butterfield as nothing more than a signal for lights-out. Butterfield's lullaby many had come to call it. Hans had once said he was partial to it, and Andrew now thought it would be a fitting gesture.\n\nAs the bugler hit the final high note, a shiver seemed to go through those assembled. He could hear President Kal choking back tears. The note echoed and died away.\n\n\"Stand, at ease!\"\n\nThe order, given by a young Rus colonel who now commanded the 35th Maine, cut through the air. Andrew lowered his hand from the salute, the boys of the 35th slapping rifles from the present salute down to at ease.\n\nAndrew swept the assembly with his gaze. They were all here, having made the journey by rail from Suzdal to Roum, where the delegation of Roum senators and congressmen joined them. Then by rail all the way to Nippon, where yet more newly elected senators and congressmen joined in, and then finally to Chin.\n\nIt had been a year to the day since the ending of the war, and at last he had come to visit his friend and say a final farewell.\n\nThey had passed through the Roum lands devastated by the wars, and he was pleased to see new homes going up, tangled vineyards being cleared and replanted.\n\nThey had passed through the battlefields around Junction City, Rocky Hill, and the Shennadoah, and already monuments were going up to honor the regiments that had fought and died there. He had seen as well the orderly cemeteries at each place of battle and had stopped at each of them to offer his salute and his prayers.\n\nThere would still be four more. Tomorrow they would complete the long train ride and go to Xi'an, and from there take a boat to Carnagan, to visit the battlefield that still haunted Vincent, and from there to where Hans had made a stand in the retreat to Tyre, and, finally, a last stop at Tyre.\n\nBut this was the place that had been central to his tour of the battlefields of the war and the dedication of the cemeteries. The week before the Chin had held their first election, and Kal had made it a point to come to this place to witness the swearing in of the new senators and congressmen and congresswomen. Politics was even returning to normal, he realized. Kal had been up for reelection, and somehow it seemed like the admission of Nippon and Chin into the Republic didn't quite come until after the votes had been counted and the Republican Party had swept back in. Though the way feelings were at this moment in the first heady days of peace, Kal had nothing to fear; every last citizen, Chin, Roum, Rus, and Nippon would have voted for another term.\n\nThe amusing part of the admission of the Chin though was that they had indeed elected several women to office. It was an action which delighted him, though the election had scandalized some of the more straitlaced from Roum and Rus. He had pointed out that in the Constitution there was nothing that said a woman could not serve thus, and it was Kathleen who triggered even more of an uproar with a statement in Gates's Illustrated Weekly that there should be an amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote, and she planned to organize a movement to see that it was done.\n\nSo much in a year, he thought. Only this month the last of the Horde had been released by the terms of the treaty with Jurak and escorted to the border. A report had just come in as well that the remnants of the old Tugar Horde were joining them. So far there had been an uneasy peace, but he would feel far better when the expedition dispatched to make contact with those living a thousand leagues to the east returned with a report that the depredations of the Horde had indeed stopped along that distant border as well. Of the last of the horde clans, those who rode south and east of the Bantag and passed through the region half a dozen years ago there was no news; apparently they had simply ridden on, ignoring the conflict to the north. He sensed that someday they might have to be dealt with, but that was years, maybe even decades, off.\n\nHe had come to trust Jurak, having met with him twice in the months after the war, but unfortunately Jurak was a lone individual moving to break thousands of years of tradition. All reports indicated, though, that at least for now the moon feasts were finished, the riders of the Horde turning instead to hunting of the bison and the wool-clad elephants of the steppes.\n\nThere had come other reports, these from the south, beyond the realm of the Cartha, who only now were beginning to make the first overtures of peace. A Cartha merchant reported that there was a vast ocean in the southern half of the world, a realm few humans had seen. Andrew wondered what was out there, but for the moment that could wait.\n\nHe suddenly realized that he had been daydreaming again. Kathleen jokingly said that he was already beginning to slip into the mode of being a professor, a career he still promised he would return to once the demands of running the army diminished and he finally felt comfortable with letting go.\n\nHe stepped forward, his gaze sweeping the dignitaries gathered on the dais, the indomitable Father Casmir, Kal, Emil, Pat, Vincent, the other corps commanders, senators, and congressmen. As far as he could see, completely encompassing the Foundry and the graveyard stood hundreds of thousands of Chin, all of them silent, filled with reverent respect for this ceremony dedicated to their departed ancestors and to the one they now considered to be their eternal guardian in the spirit world above.\n\nHe waited. There was one final touch, and it was running a bit late. Finally, he heard them. The crowd shifted, looking to the west.\n\nA squadron of aerosteamers, half a dozen Eagles, followed by half a dozen Hornets winged straight in and a loud roaring cheer erupted, for these were the fulfillment of prophecy, the coming of the gods, the Yankee gods coming from the sky bringing redemption.\n\nThe aerosteamers soared overhead, and he caught a glimpse of Jack Petracci leaning out of the cab, snapping off a sharp salute. They continued on eastward.\n\nAndrew returned the salute. The cheering was deafening, and there was no sense in announcing that the ceremony was ended. His voice would never carry. He simply saluted the crowd, the gesture causing the wild cheering to redouble.\n\nThe fireworks, which had been carefully saved until after the aerosteamers were well out of range, started soaring heavenward, and even though it was the middle of the day, the crowd still clapped and cheered. Andrew turned to salute Kal, who, grinning, lifted his stovepipe hat in reply.\n\nAndrew looked over at Kathleen and nodded.\n\nSmiling, she came forward and took his hand. Together they stepped off the dais and carefully walked out into the graveyard. The band picked up a patriotic air, the marching song of the army, \"The Battle Cry of Freedom,\" and the music cut into his soul.\n\nSo many times I heard that, he thought wistfully, on the parade ground in Maine, on the road to Antietam as we crossed South Mountain, again on the road to Gettysburg, in the camps around Petersburg, then through so many hard-fought victories on this world. And now yet again here.\n\n\"Mind if we join you?\"\n\nIt was Pat, Vincent, and Emil trailing behind.\n\nAndrew smiled.\n\nTogether they walked to the middle of the cemetery. They stopped together before his grave. Andrew looked down at the mounded earth, finding it hard to believe that here was the final resting place of his oldest friend. No, not here, he tried to reason, and he thought again of Kal's dream. Kathleen let go of his hand, and he looked back and saw that Tamira, leading her son, was quietly approaching.\n\nKathleen put her arm around her shoulder. Andrew and the others respectfully drew back.\n\nShe knelt by the grave, placing a flower upon it, the boy doing the same.\n\n\"Papa here?\" the boy lisped.\n\n\"No,\" she replied softly, \"Papa in heaven.\"\n\nThe boy smiled and, as two-year-olds will, started to wander off.\n\nKathleen looked over at Andrew, eyes bright with tears, and again there was the deep unspoken understanding of love.\n\nHe nodded, and she turned, putting her arm around Tamira's shoulder, and led her away.\n\n\"You old Dutchman. Damn how I miss you.\" Pat sighed as he stepped forward, looked around awkwardly, wiping the tears from his eyes, and saluted. A bit self-consciously he reached into his pocket, pulled out a flask, raised it in salute, and took a drink. Recorking the flask, he laid it on the grave.\n\n\"Farewell, sir, and thank you.\" Vincent stepped forward and saluted. Gone were the rakish kepi and the Sheridan whiskers. The boy was clean-shaven, wearing a standard-issue slouch cap. Andrew studied him carefully and smiled inwardly. Hans always liked the lad, and he sensed that in Vincent he saw the same things Hans once saw in him. The icy fury of war had been purged out of the boy. He had seasoned into a commander who could lead, earn respect, and show compassion. Vincent shyly laid a single flower on the grave.\n\nEmil stepped up to join his friends. He started to say something, but couldn't. Lowering his head, he gently reached out and touched the headstone.\n\nAndrew caught a whisper of an ancient prayer in Hebrew. \"Yisgadahl, v'yiskadash \u2026\" With head still lowered, he finally stepped back.\n\nAs if by unspoken agreement, the three looked back at Andrew and nodded. They turned, Pat in the middle, the other two with hands on either shoulder, and walked off, leaving Andrew alone.\n\nThere was nothing more to be said, Andrew realized. The tears were all but gone, replaced with a sad yet happy memory of all that had been, of all they had done and all the dreams still to come.\n\nHere at last the Lost Regiment had found a home and a country. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a precious keepsake of the other world.\n\n\"It was always yours, Hans,\" he whispered through his tears. \"I just hung on to it for a little while.\"\n\nHe placed the object on the grave, stepped back, and saluted.\n\n\"Good-bye my old friend.\"\n\nAs he started to turn he saw the colors passing by the edge of the cemetery, the regiment following in close order, accompanied by the band still playing the \"Battle Cry of Freedom.\"\n\nComing to attention he saluted the passing of the colors of the 35th Maine, the 44th New York Light Artillery, and the flag of the Republic.\n\nColonel Andrew Lawrence Keane, commander of the Army of the Republic, quietly left the cemetery to rejoin his friends \u2026 leaving behind, on the grave of Sergeant Major Hans Schuder \u2026 the Medal of Honor given for heroism above and beyond the call of duty."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Leviathan 3) Goliath",
+        "author": "Scott Westerfeld",
+        "genres": [
+            "alternate history",
+            "steampunk"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "\"Siberia,\" Alek said. The word slipped cold and hard from his tongue, as forbidding as the landscape passing below.\n\n\"We won't be over Siberia till tomorrow.\" Dylan sat at the table, still attacking his breakfast. \"And it'll take almost a week to cross it. Russia is barking big.\"\n\n\"And cold,\" Newkirk added. He stood next to Alek at the window of the middies' mess, both hands wrapped around a cup of tea.\n\n\"Cold,\" repeated Bovril. The creature clutched Alek's shoulder a little tighter, and a shiver went through its body.\n\nIn early October no snow lay on the ground below. But the sky was an icy, cloudless blue. The window had a lace of frost around its edges, left over from a frigid night.\n\nAnother week of flying across this wasteland, Alek thought. Farther from Europe and the war, and from his destiny. The Leviathan was still headed east, probably toward the empire of Japan, though no one would confirm their destination. Even though he'd helped the British cause back in Istanbul, the airship's officers still saw Alek and his men as little better than prisoners. He was a Clanker prince and they were Darwinists, and the Great War between the two technologies was spreading faster every day.\n\n\"It'll get much colder as we angle north,\" Dylan said around a mouthful of his breakfast. \"You should both finish your potatoes. They'll keep you warm.\"\n\nAlek turned. \"But we're already north of Tokyo. Why go out of our way?\"\n\n\"We're dead on course,\" Dylan said. \"Mr. Rigby made us plot a great circle route last week, and it took us all the way up to Omsk.\"\n\n\"A great circle route?\"\n\n\"It's a navigator's trick,\" Newkirk explained. He breathed on the window glass before him, then drew an upside-down smile with one fingertip. \"The earth is round, but paper is flat, right? So a straight course looks curved when you draw it on a map. You always wind up going farther north than you'd think.\"\n\n\"Except below the equator,\" Dylan added. \"Then it's the other way round.\"\n\nBovril chuckled, as if great circle routes were quite amusing. But Alek hadn't followed a word of it\u2014not that he'd expected to.\n\nIt was maddening. Two weeks ago he'd helped lead a revolution against the Ottoman sultan, ruler of an ancient empire. The rebels had welcomed Alek's counsel, his piloting skills, and his gold. And together they'd won.\n\nBut here aboard the Leviathan he was deadweight\u2014a waste of hydrogen, as the crew called anything useless. He might spend his days beside Dylan and Newkirk, but he was no midshipman. He couldn't take a sextant reading, tie a decent knot, or estimate the ship's altitude.\n\nWorst of all, Alek was no longer needed in the engine pods. In the month he'd been plotting revolution in Istanbul, the Darwinist engineers had learned a lot about Clanker mechaniks. Hoffman and Klopp were no longer called up to help with the engines, so there was hardly any need for a translator.\n\nSince the first time he'd come aboard, Alek had dreamed of somehow serving on the Leviathan. But everything he could offer\u2014walker piloting, fencing, speaking six languages, and being a grandnephew of an emperor\u2014seemed to be worthless on an airship. He was no doubt more valuable as a young prince who had famously switched sides than as an airman.\n\nIt was as if everyone were trying to make him a waste of hydrogen.\n\nThen Alek remembered a saying of his father's: The only way to remedy ignorance is to admit it.\n\nHe took a slow breath. \"I'm aware that the earth is round, Mr. Newkirk. But I still don't understand this 'great circle route' business.\"\n\n\"It's dead easy to see if you've got a globe in front of you,\" Dylan said, pushing away his plate. \"There's one in the navigation room. We'll sneak in sometime when the officers aren't there.\"\n\n\"That would be most agreeable.\" Alek turned back to the window and clasped his hands behind his back.\n\n\"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Prince Aleksandar,\" Newkirk said. \"Still takes me ages to plot a proper course. Not like Mr. Sharp here, knowing all about sextants before he even joined the Service.\"\n\n\"Not all of us are lucky enough to have an airman for a father,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Father?\" Newkirk turned from the window, frowning. \"Wasn't that your uncle, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\nBovril made a soft noise, sinking its tiny claws into Alek's shoulder. Dylan said nothing, though. He seldom spoke of his father, who had burned to death in front of the boy's eyes. The accident still haunted Dylan, and fire was the only thing that frightened him.\n\nAlek cursed himself as a Dummkopf, wondering why he'd mentioned the man. Was he angry at Dylan for always being so good at everything?\n\nHe was about to apologize when Bovril shifted again, leaning forward to stare out the window.\n\n\"Beastie,\" the perspicacious loris said.\n\nA black fleck had glided into view, wheeling across the empty blue sky. It was a huge bird, much bigger than the falcons that had circled the airship in the mountains a few days before. It had the size and claws of a predator, but its shape was unlike any Alek had seen before.\n\nIt was headed straight for the ship.\n\n\"Does that bird look odd to you, Mr. Newkirk?\"\n\nNewkirk turned back to the window and raised his field glasses, which were still around his neck from the morning watch.\n\n\"Aye,\" he said a moment later. \"I think it's an imperial eagle!\"\n\nThere was a hasty scrape of chair legs from behind them. Dylan appeared at the window, shielding his eyes with both hands.\n\n\"Blisters, you're right\u2014two heads! But imperials only carry messages from the czar himself. . . .\"\n\nAlek glanced at Dylan, wondering if he'd heard right. Two heads?\n\nThe eagle soared closer, flashing past the window in a blur of black feathers, a glint of gold from its harness catching the morning sun. Bovril broke into maniacal laughter at its passage.\n\n\"It's headed for the bridge, right?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Aye.\" Newkirk lowered his field glasses. \"Important messages go straight to the captain.\"\n\nA bit of hope pried its way into Alek's dark mood. The Russians were allies of the British, fellow Darwinists who fabricated mammothines and giant fighting bears. What if the czar needed help against the Clanker armies and this was a summons to turn the ship around? Even fighting on the icy Russian front would be better than wasting time in this wilderness.\n\n\"I need to know what that message says.\"\n\nNewkirk snorted. \"Why don't you go and ask the captain, then?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Dylan said. \"And while you're at it, ask him to give me a warmer cabin.\"\n\n\"What can it hurt?\" Alek said. \"He hasn't thrown me into the brig yet.\"\n\nWhen Alek had returned to the Leviathan two weeks ago, he'd half expected to be put in chains for escaping from the ship. But the ship's officers had treated him with respect.\n\nPerhaps it wasn't so bad, everyone finally knowing he was the son of the late Archduke Ferdinand, and not just some Austrian noble trying to escape the war.\n\n\"What's a good excuse to pay the bridge a visit?\" he asked.\n\n\"No need for excuses,\" Newkirk said. \"That bird's flown all the way from Saint Petersburg. They'll call us to come and fetch it for a rest and a feeding.\"\n\n\"And you've never seen the rookery, your princeliness,\" Dylan added. \"Might as well tag along.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Sharp,\" Alek said, smiling. \"I would like that.\"\n\nDylan returned to the table and his precious potatoes, perhaps grateful that the talk of his father had been interrupted. Alek decided he would apologize before the day was out.\n\nTen minutes later a message lizard popped its head from a tube on the ceiling in the middies' mess. It said in the master coxswain's voice, \"Mr. Sharp, please come to the bridge. Mr. Newkirk, report to the cargo deck.\"\n\nThe three of them scrambled for the door.\n\n\"Cargo deck?\" Newkirk said. \"What in blazes is that about?\"\n\n\"Maybe they want you to inventory the stocks again,\" Dylan said. \"This trip might have just got longer.\"\n\nAlek frowned. Would \"longer\" mean turning back toward Europe, or heading still farther away?\n\nAs the three made their way toward the bridge, he sensed the ship stirring around them. No alert had sounded, but the crew was bustling. When Newkirk peeled off to descend the central stairway, a squad of riggers in flight suits went storming past, also headed down.\n\n\"Where in blazes are they going?\" Alek asked. Riggers always worked topside, in the ropes that held the ship's huge hydrogen membrane.\n\n\"A dead good question,\" Dylan said. \"The czar's message seems to have turned us upside down.\"\n\nThe bridge had a guard posted at the door, and a dozen message lizards clung to the ceiling, waiting for orders to be dispatched. There was a sharp edge to the usual thrum of men and creatures and machines. Bovril shifted on Alek's shoulder, and he felt the engines change pitch through the soles of his boots\u2014the ship was coming to full-ahead.\n\nUp at the ship's master wheel, the officers were huddled around the captain, who held an ornate scroll. Dr. Barlow was among the group, her own loris on her shoulder, her pet thylacine, Tazza, sitting at her side.\n\nA squawk came from Alek's right, and he turned to find himself face-to-face with the most astonishing creature. . . .\n\nThe imperial eagle was too large to fit into the bridge's messenger cage, and it perched instead on the signals table. It shifted from one taloned claw to the other, glossy black wings fluttering.\n\nAnd what Dylan had said was true. The creature had two heads, and two necks, of course, coiled around each other like a pair of black feathered snakes. As Alek watched in horror, one head snapped at the other, a bright red tongue slithering from its mouth.\n\n\"God's wounds,\" he breathed.\n\n\"Like we told you,\" Dylan said. \"It's an imperial eagle.\"\n\n\"It's an abomination, you mean.\" Sometimes the Darwinists' creatures seemed to have been fabricated not for their usefulness, but simply to be horrific.\n\nDylan shrugged. \"It's just a two-headed bird, like on the czar's crest.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" Alek sputtered. \"But that's meant to be symbolic.\"\n\n\"Aye, this beastie's symbolic. It's just breathing as well.\"\n\n\"Prince Aleksandar, good morning.\" Dr. Barlow had left the group of officers and crossed the bridge, the czar's scroll in her hand. \"I see you've met our visitor. Quite a fine example of Russian fabrication, is it not?\"\n\n\"Good morning, madam.\" Alek bowed. \"I'm not sure what this creature is a fine example of, only that I find it a bit . . .\" He swallowed, watching Dylan slip on a pair of thick falconer's gloves.\n\n\"TWO-HEADED MESSENGER.\"\n\n\"Literal-minded?\" Dr. Barlow chuckled softly. \"I suppose, but Czar Nicholas does enjoy his pets.\"\n\n\"Pets, fah!\" her loris repeated from its new perch on the messenger tern cages, and Bovril giggled. The two creatures began to whisper nonsense to each other, as they always did when they met.\n\nAlek pulled his gaze from the eagle. \"In fact, I'm more interested in the message it was carrying.\"\n\n\"Ah . . .\" Her hands began to roll up the scroll. \"I'm afraid that is a military secret, for the moment.\"\n\nAlek scowled. His allies in Istanbul had never kept secrets from him.\n\nIf only he could have stayed there somehow. According to the newspapers, the rebels had control of the capital now, and the rest of the Ottoman Empire was falling under their sway. He would have been respected there\u2014useful, instead of a waste of hydrogen. Indeed, helping the rebels overthrow the sultan had been the most useful thing he'd ever done. It had robbed the Germans of a Clanker ally and had proven that he, Prince Aleksandar of Hohenburg, could make a difference in this war.\n\nWhy had he listened to Dylan and come back to this abomination of an airship?\n\n\"Are you quite all right, Prince?\" Dr. Barlow asked.\n\n\"I just wish I knew what you Darwinists were up to,\" Alek said, a sudden quiver of anger in his voice. \"At least if you were taking me and my men to London in chains, it would make sense. What's the point of lugging us halfway around the world?\"\n\nDr. Barlow spoke soothingly. \"We all go where the war takes us, Prince Aleksandar. You haven't had such bad luck on this ship, have you?\"\n\nAlek scowled but couldn't argue. The Leviathan had saved him from spending the war hiding out in a freezing castle in the Alps, after all. And it had taken him to Istanbul, where he'd struck his first blow against the Germans.\n\nHe gathered himself. \"Perhaps not, Dr. Barlow. But I prefer to choose my own course.\"\n\n\"That time may come sooner than you think.\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow, wondering what she meant.\n\n\"Come on, your princeliness,\" Dylan said. The eagle was now hooded and perching quietly on his arm. \"It's useless arguing with boffins. And we've got a bird to feed.\"\n\nThe eagle turned out to be quite peaceable, once Deryn had stuffed a pair of hoods over its cantankerous heads.\n\nIt sat heavy on her gloved arm, a good ten pounds of muscle and guts. As she and Alek walked aft, Deryn soon found herself thankful that birds had hollow bones.\n\nThe rookery was separate from the main gondola, halfway back to the ventral fin. The walkway leading there was warmed by the gastric channel's heat, but the freezing wind of the airship's passage sent ripples through the membrane walls on either side. Considering the fact that they were inside a thousand-foot-long airship made from the life threads of a whale and a hundred other species, it hardly smelled at all. The scent was like a mix of animal sweat and clart, like a stable in summer.\n\nBeside her, Alek kept a wary eye on the imperial eagle.\n\n\"Do you suppose it has two brains?\"\n\n\"Of course it does,\" Deryn said. \"What use is a head without a brain?\"\n\nBovril chuckled at this, as if it knew that Deryn had almost made a joke about Clankers in this regard. Alek had been in a touchy mood all morning, so she hadn't.\n\n\"What if they have a disagreement about which way to fly?\"\n\nDeryn laughed. \"They settle it with a fight, I suppose, same as anyone. But I doubt they argue that much. A bird's attic is mostly optic nerve\u2014more eyesight than brainpower.\"\n\n\"So at least it doesn't know how horrid it looks.\"\n\nA squawk came from beneath one of the hoods, and Bovril imitated the sound.\n\nDeryn frowned. \"If two-headed beasties are so horrible, how come you had one painted on your Stormwalker?\"\n\n\"That was the Hapsburg crest. The symbol of my family.\"\n\n\"What's it symbolic of? Squeamishness?\"\n\nAlek rolled his eyes, then launched into a lecture. \"The two-headed eagle was first used by the Byzantines, to show that their empire ruled both east and west. But when a modern royal house uses the symbol, one of the heads symbolizes earthly power, the other divine right.\"\n\n\"Divine right?\"\n\n\"The principle that a king's power is bestowed by God.\"\n\nDeryn let out a snort. \"Let me guess who came up with that one. Was it a king, maybe?\"\n\n\"It's a bit old-fashioned, I suppose,\" Alek said, but Deryn wondered if he believed it anyway. His attic was full of all kinds of old yackum, and he was always talking about how providence had guided him since he'd left home. How it was his destiny to stop this war.\n\nAs far as she could tell, the war was too big for any one person to stop, prince or commoner, and fate didn't care a squick about what anybody was meant to do. It was Deryn's destiny to be a girl, after all, stuffed into skirts and stuck with squalling brats somewhere. But she'd avoided that fate well enough, with a little help from her tailoring.\n\nOf course, there were other fates she hadn't escaped, like falling for a daft prince in a way that filled her head with unsoldierly nonsense. Like being his best friend, his ally, while a steady, hopeless longing pulled at her heart.\n\nIt was just lucky that Alek was too wrapped up in his own troubles, and the troubles of the whole barking world, to notice. Of course, hiding her feelings was made a bit easier by the fact that he didn't know she was a girl. No one aboard did except Count Volger, who, despite being a bumrag, at least had a knack for keeping secrets.\n\nThey arrived at the hatch to the rookery, and Deryn reached for the pressure lock. But with only one free hand, the mechanism was a fiddle in the darkness.\n\n\"Give us some light, your divine princeliness?\"\n\n\"Certainly, Mr. Sharp,\" Alek said, pulling out his command whistle. He gave it a studious look, then played the tune.\n\nThe glowworms behind the airship's skin began to flicker, and a soft green light suffused the corridor. Then Bovril joined in with the whistle, its voice as shimmery as a box of silver bells. The light grew sharp and bright.\n\n\"Good job, beastie,\" Deryn said. \"We'll make a middy of you yet.\"\n\nAlek sighed. \"Which is more than you can say for me.\"\n\nDeryn ignored his moping and opened the rookery door. As the ruckus of squawks and shrieks spilled out, the imperial clutched her arm tighter, its talons sharp even through the leather of the falconer's glove.\n\nShe led Alek along the raised walkway, looking for an empty space below. There were nine cages altogether, three underneath her and three on either side, each twice as tall as a man. The smaller raptors and messengers were a blur of fluttering wings, while the strafing hawks sat regally on their perches, ignoring the lesser birds around them.\n\n\"God's wounds!\" Alek said from behind her. \"It's a madhouse in here.\"\n\n\"Madhouse,\" Bovril said, and leapt from Alek's shoulder to the handrail.\n\nDeryn shook her head. Alek and his men often found the airship too messy for their liking. Life was a tumultuous and muddled thing, compared with the tidy clockwork of Clanker contraptions. The ecosystem of the Leviathan, with its hundred interlocking species, was far more complex than any lifeless machine, and thus a bit less orderly. But that was what kept the world interesting, Deryn reckoned; reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out of its chaos.\n\n\"SECRETS IN THE ROOKERY.\"\n\nShe'd certainly never expected to help lead a Clanker revolution one day, or be kissed by a girl, or fall for a prince. But that had all happened in the last month, and the war was just getting started.\n\nDeryn spotted the cage that the rook tenders had emptied, and pulled the loading chute into place above it. It wouldn't do to put the imperial in with other birds\u2014not while it was hungry.\n\nIn one swift motion she snatched the hoods off and pushed the beastie into the chute. It fluttered down into the cage, spinning in the air like a windblown leaf for a moment. Then it came to rest on the largest perch.\n\nFrom there the imperial eyed its fellow creatures through the bars, shifting from foot to foot unhappily. Deryn wondered what sort of cage it lived in back at the czar's palace. Probably one with gleaming bars, with fat mice served up on silver platters, and no smell of other birds' clart thickening the air.\n\n\"Dylan,\" Alek said. \"While we have a moment alone . . .\"\n\nShe turned to face him. He was standing close, his green eyes glinting in the darkness. It was always hardest meeting Alek's gaze when he was dead serious like this, but she managed.\n\n\"I'm sorry about bringing up your father earlier,\" he said. \"I know how that still haunts you.\"\n\nDeryn sighed, wondering if she should simply tell him not to worry. But it had been a bit tricky, what with Newkirk mentioning her uncle. It might be safer to tell Alek the truth\u2014at least, as much of it as she possibly could.\n\n\"No need to apologize,\" she said. \"But there's something you should know. That night I told you about my da's accident, I didn't quite explain everything.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Well, Artemis Sharp really was my da, just like I said.\" Deryn took a slow breath. \"But everyone in the Air Service thinks he was my uncle.\"\n\nShe could see from Alek's expression that it made no sense at all, and without her even trying, lies began to spin from her tongue.\n\n\"When I signed up, my older brother Jaspert was already in the Service. So we couldn't say we were brothers.\"\n\nThat was blether, of course. The real reason was that Jaspert had already told his crewmates about his only sibling, a younger sister. A brother popping out of thin air might have been a squick confusing.\n\n\"We pretended to be cousins. You see?\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"Brothers don't serve together in your military?\"\n\n\"Not when their father's dead. You see, we're his only children. And so if we both . . .\" She shrugged, hoping he'd believe it.\n\n\"Ah, to keep the family name alive. Very sensible. And that's why your mother didn't want you signing up?\"\n\nDeryn nodded glumly, wondering how her lies always got so barking complicated. \"I didn't mean to mix you up in a deception. But that night I thought you were leaving the ship for good. So I told you the truth, instead of what I tell everyone else.\"\n\n\"The truth,\" Bovril repeated. \"Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nAlek reached up and touched his jacket pocket. Deryn knew that was where he kept his letter from the pope, the one that could make him emperor one day. \"Don't worry, Dylan. I'll keep all your secrets, as you've kept mine.\"\n\nDeryn groaned. She hated it when Alek said that. Because he couldn't keep all her secrets, could he? He didn't know the biggest of them.\n\nAll of sudden she didn't want to lie anymore. Not this much, anyway.\n\n\"Wait,\" she said. \"I just told you a load of yackum. Brothers can serve together. It's something else.\"\n\n\"Yackum,\" Bovril repeated. Alek just stood there, concern on his face.\n\n\"But I can't tell you the real reason,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because . . .\" she was a commoner, and he was a prince. Because he'd run a mile if he knew. \"You'd think less of me.\"\n\nHe stared at Deryn a moment, then reached out and took her shoulder. \"You're the best soldier I've ever met, Dylan. The boy I'd have wanted to be, if I hadn't wound up such a useless prince. I could never think badly of you.\"\n\nShe groaned, turning away and wishing an alert would sound, an attack of zeppelins or a lightning storm. Anything to extract her from this conversation.\n\n\"Listen,\" Alek said, dropping his hand. \"Even if your family has some deep, dark secret, who am I to judge? My granduncle conspired with the men who killed my parents, for heaven's sake!\"\n\nDeryn had no idea what to say to that. Alek had got it all wrong, of course. It wasn't some musty family secret; it was hers alone. He would always get it all wrong, until she told him the truth.\n\nAnd that, she could never do.\n\n\"Please, Alek. I can't. And . . . I've got a fencing lesson.\"\n\nAlek smiled, the perfect picture of a patient friend. \"Anytime you want to tell me, Dylan. Until then, I won't ask again.\"\n\nShe nodded silently, and walked ahead of him the whole way back.\n\n\"Rather late with my breakfast, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Sorry about that, your countship,\" Deryn said, plunking the tray down on Count Volger's desk. A splash of coffee sloshed out of the pot and onto the toast. \"But here it is.\"\n\nThe wildcount raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"And your newspapers as well,\" she said, pulling them from beneath her arm. \"Dr. Barlow saved them especially for you. Though I don't know why she bothers.\"\n\nVolger took the papers, then picked up the soggy piece of toast and shook it. \"You seem to be in rather a lively mood this morning, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Aye, well, I've been busy.\" Deryn frowned at the man. It was lying to Alek that had put her in a huff, of course, but she felt like blaming Count Volger. \"I won't have time for a fencing lesson.\"\n\n\"Pity. You're coming along so well,\" he said. \"For a girl.\"\n\nDeryn scowled at the man. Guards were no longer posted outside the Clankers' staterooms, but someone passing in the corridor might have heard. She crossed to shut the cabin door, then turned back to the wildcount.\n\nHe was the only person on the airship who knew what she really was, and he generally took care not to mention it aloud.\n\n\"What do you want?\" she said quietly.\n\nHe didn't look up at her, but instead fussed with his breakfast as if this were a friendly chat. \"I've noticed the crew seems to be preparing for something.\"\n\n\"Aye, we got a message this morning. From the czar.\"\n\nVolger looked up. \"The czar? Are we changing course?\"\n\n\"That's a military secret, I'm afraid. No one knows except the officers.\" Deryn frowned. \"And the lady boffin, I suppose. Alek asked her, but she wouldn't say.\"\n\nThe wildcount scraped butter onto his half soggy toast, giving this a think.\n\nDuring the month Deryn had been hiding in Istanbul, the wildcount and Dr. Barlow had entered into some sort of alliance. Dr. Barlow made sure he was kept up with news about the war, and Volger gave her his opinions on Clanker politics and strategy. But Deryn doubted the lady boffin would answer this question for him. Newspapers and rumors were one thing, sealed orders quite another.\n\n\"Perhaps you could find out for me.\"\n\n\"No, I couldn't,\" Deryn said. \"It's a military secret.\"\n\nVolger poured coffee. \"And yet secrets can be so difficult to keep sometimes. Don't you think?\"\n\nDeryn felt a cold dizziness rising up inside, as it always did when Count Volger threatened her. There was something unthinkable about everyone finding out what she was. She wouldn't be an airman anymore, and Alek would never speak to her again.\n\nBut this morning she was not in the mood for blackmail.\n\n\"I can't help you, Count. Only the senior officers know.\"\n\n\"But I'm sure a girl as resourceful as you, so obviously adept at subterfuge, could find out. One secret unraveled to keep another safe?\"\n\nThe fear burned cold now in Deryn's belly, and she almost gave in. But then something Alek had said popped into her head.\n\n\"You can't let Alek find out about me.\"\n\n\"And why not?\" Volger asked, pouring himself tea.\n\n\"He and I were just in the rookery together, and I almost told him. That happens sometimes.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it does. But you didn't tell him, did you?\" Volger tutted. \"Because you know how he would react. However fond you two are of each other, you are a commoner.\"\n\n\"Aye, I know that. But I'm also a soldier, a barking good one.\" She took a step closer, trying to keep any quaver out of her voice. \"I'm the very soldier Alek might have been, if he hadn't been raised by a pack of fancy-boots like you. I've got the life he missed by being an archduke's son.\"\n\nVolger frowned, not understanding yet, but it was all coming clear in Deryn's mind.\n\n\"I'm the boy Alek wants to be, more than anything. And you want to tell him that I'm really a girl? On top of losing his parents and his home, how do you think he'll take that news, your countship?\"\n\nThe man stared at her for another moment, then went back to stirring his tea. \"It might be rather . . . unsettling for him.\"\n\n\"Aye, it might. Enjoy your breakfast, Count.\"\n\nDeryn found herself smiling as she turned and left the room.\n\nAs the great jaw of the cargo door opened, a freezing whirlwind spilled inside and leapt about the cargo bay, setting the leather straps of Deryn's flight suit snapping and fluttering. She pulled on her goggles and leaned out, peering at the terrain rushing past below.\n\nThe ground was patched with snow and dotted with pine trees. The Leviathan had passed over the Siberian city of Omsk that morning, not pausing to resupply, still veering northward toward some secret destination. But Deryn hadn't found time to wonder where they were heading; in the thirty hours since the imperial eagle had arrived, she'd been busy training for this cargo snatch-up.\n\n\"Where's the bear?\" Newkirk asked. He leaned out past her, dangling from his safety line over thin air.\n\n\"Ahead of us, saving its strength.\" Deryn pulled her gloves tighter, then tested her weight against the heavy cable on the cargo winch. It was as thick as her wrist\u2014rated to lift a two-ton pallet of supplies. The riggers had been fiddling with the apparatus all day, but this was its first real test. This particular maneuver wasn't even in the Manual of Aeronautics.\n\n\"Don't like bears,\" Newkirk muttered. \"Some beasties are too barking huge.\"\n\nDeryn gestured at the grappling hook at the end of the cable, as big as a ballroom chandelier. \"Then you'd best make sure not to stick that up the beastie's nose by accident. It might take exception.\"\n\nThrough the lenses of his goggles, Newkirk's eyes went wide.\n\nDeryn gave him a punch on the shoulder, envying him for his station at the business end of the cable. It wasn't fair that Newkirk had been gaining airmanship skills while she and Alek had been plotting rebellion in Istanbul.\n\n\"Thanks for making me even more nervous, Mr. Sharp!\"\n\n\"I thought you'd done this before.\"\n\n\"We did a few snatch-ups in Greece. But those were just mailbags, not heavy cargo. And from horse-drawn carriages instead of off the back of a barking great bear!\"\n\n\"That does sound a bit different,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"Same principle, lads, and it'll work the same way,\" came Mr. Rigby from behind them. His eyes were on his pocket watch, but his ears never missed a thing, even in the howling Siberian wind. \"Your wings, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. Like a good guardian angel.\" Deryn hoisted the gliding wings onto her shoulders. She would be carrying Newkirk, using the wings to guide him over the fighting bear.\n\nMr. Rigby signaled to the winch men. \"Good luck, lads.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir!\" the two middies said together.\n\nThe winch began to turn, and the grappling hook slid down toward the open cargo bay door. Newkirk took hold of it and clipped himself onto a smaller cable, which would hold their combined weight as they flew.\n\nDeryn let her gliding wings spread out. As she stepped toward the cargo door, the wind grew stronger and colder. Even through amber goggles the sunlight made her squint. She grasped the harness straps that connected her to Newkirk.\n\n\"Ready?\" she shouted.\n\nHe nodded, and together they stepped off into roaring emptiness. . . .\n\nThe freezing airstream yanked Deryn sternward, and the world spun around once, sky and earth gyrating wildly. But then her gliding wings caught the air, stabilized by the dangling Newkirk, like a kite held steady by its string.\n\nThe Leviathan was beginning its descent. Its shadow grew below them, rippling in a furious black surge across the ground. Newkirk still grasped the grappling hook, his arms wrapped around the cable against the onrush of air.\n\nDeryn flexed her gliding wings. They were the same kind she'd worn a dozen times on Huxley descents, but free-ballooning was nothing compared to being dragged behind an airship at top speed. The wings strained to pull her to starboard, and Newkirk followed, swinging slowly across the blur of terrain below. When Deryn centered her course again, she and Newkirk swung back and forth beneath the airship, like a giant pendulum coming to rest.\n\nThe fragile wings were barely strong enough to steer the weight of two middies. The Leviathan's pilots would have to put them dead on target, leaving only the fine adjustments for Deryn.\n\nThe airship continued its descent, until she and Newkirk were no more than twenty yards above the ground. He yelped as his boots skimmed the top of a tall pine tree, sending off a burst of needles shiny with ice.\n\nDeryn looked ahead . . . and saw the fighting bear.\n\nShe and Alek had spotted a few that morning, their dark shapes winding along the Trans-Siberian Trailway. They'd looked impressive enough from a thousand feet, but from this altitude the beast was truly monstrous. Its shoulders stood as tall as a house, and its hot breath coiled up into the freezing air like chimney smoke.\n\nA large cargo platform was strapped to its back. A pallet waited there, a flattened loop of metal ready for Newkirk's grappling hook. Four crewmen in Russian uniforms scampered about the bear, checking the straps and netting that held the secret cargo.\n\nThe driver's long whip flicked into the air and fell, and the bear began to lumber away. It was headed down a long, straight section of the trailway aligned with the Leviathan's course.\n\nThe beastie's gait gradually lengthened into a run. According to Dr. Busk, the bear could match the airship's speed only for a short time. If Newkirk didn't get the hook right on the first pass, they'd have to swing around in a slow circle, letting the creature rest. The hours saved by not landing and loading in the normal way would be half lost.\n\nAnd the czar, it seemed, wanted this cargo at its destination barking fast.\n\nAs the airship drew closer to the bear, Deryn felt its thundering tread bruising the air. Puffs of dirt drifted up from the cold, hard-packed ground in its wake. She tried to imagine a squadron of such monsters charging into battle, glittering with fighting spurs and carrying a score of riflemen each. The Germans must have been mad to provoke this war, pitting their machines not only against the airships and kraken of Britain, but also the huge land beasts of Russia and France.\n\nShe and Newkirk were over the straightaway now, safe from treetops. The Trans-Siberian Trailway was one of the wonders of the world, even Alek had admitted. Stamped flat by mammothines, it stretched from Moscow to the Sea of Japan and was as wide as a cricket oval\u2014room enough for two bears to pass in opposite directions without annoying each other.\n\nTricky beasties, ursines. All last night Mr. Rigby had regaled Newkirk with tales of them eating their handlers.\n\nThe Leviathan soon caught up to the bear, and Newkirk signaled for Deryn to pull him to port. She angled her wings, feeling the tug of airflow surround her body, and she briefly thought of Lilit in her body kite. Deryn wondered how the girl was doing in the new Ottoman Republic. Then shook the thought from her head.\n\nThe pallet was drawing near, but the loop Newkirk was preparing to grab rose and fell with the bounding gait of the giant bear. Newkirk began to lower the grappling hook, trying to swing it a little nearer to its target. One of the Russians climbed higher on the cargo pallet, reaching up to help.\n\nDeryn angled her wings a squick, drawing Newkirk still farther to port.\n\n\"HOOKING THE PACKAGE.\"\n\nHe thrust out the grappling hook, and metal struck metal, the rasp and clink of contact sharp in the cold wind\u2014the hook snapped into the loop!\n\nThe Russians shouted and began to loosen the straps that held the pallet to the platform. The bear's driver waved his whip back and forth, the signal for the Leviathan's pilots to ascend.\n\nThe airship angled its nose up, and the grappling hook tightened its grip on the loop, the thick cable going taut beside Deryn. Of course, the pallet didn't lift from the fighting bear's back\u2014not yet. You couldn't add two tons to an airship's weight and expect it to climb right away.\n\nBallast began to spill from the Leviathan's ports. Pumped straight from the gastric channel, the brackish water hit the air as warm as piss. But in the Siberian wind it froze instantly, a spray of glittering ice halos in the air.\n\nA moment later the ice stung Deryn's face in a driving hail, pinging against her goggles. She gritted her teeth, but a laugh spilled out of her. They'd hit on the first pass, and soon the cargo would be airborne. And she was flying!\n\nBut as her laughter faded, a low growl came rumbling through the air, a sovereign and angry sound that chilled Deryn's bones worse than any Siberian wind.\n\nThe fighting bear was getting twitchy.\n\nAnd it stood to reason. The frozen clart of a thousand beasties was raining down onto its head, carrying the scents of message lizards and glowworms, Huxleys and hydrogen sniffers, bats and bees and birds and the great whale itself\u2014a hundred species that the fighting bear had never smelled before.\n\nIts head reared up and let out another roar, and the great brown shoulders rippled with annoyance, tossing the Russian crewmen into the air. They landed safely, as surefooted as airmen in a storm.\n\nThe grappling hook clanked in its loop as the bear jerked about, and the cargo line snapped and quivered beside Deryn. She threw her weight to the left, trying to pull herself and Newkirk to safety.\n\nThe driver's whip rose and fell a few times, and the bear settled a little. As more ballast glittered in the air above, the cargo finally began to lift.\n\nThe last one of the fighting bear's crewmen leapt from the pallet, then turned to wave. Deryn saluted him back as the bear slowed to a halt. The cargo spun in the air now, skimming just above the ground.\n\nDeryn frowned. Why wasn't the Leviathan climbing faster? They didn't have much time before the next bend in the trailway, and she, Newkirk, and the cargo were still below treetop level.\n\nShe looked up. The spray of water had stopped. The ballast tanks were empty. The Clanker engines were roaring and belching smoke, trying to create aerodynamic lift. But the airship was climbing too slowly.\n\nDeryn frowned. Dr. Busk, the head boffin himself, had done the calculations for this snatch-up. He'd cut it close, to be sure, with a long trip still ahead of them. But Deryn and Mr. Rigby had supervised the ejecting of supplies over the tundra, bringing the ship to exactly the right weight. . . .\n\nUnless the cargo pallet was heavier than the czar's letter had promised.\n\n\"Barking kings!\" Deryn shouted. Divine right didn't change the laws of gravity and hydrogen, that was for certain.\n\nShe heard the shriek of a ballast alert above, and swore. If anything tumbled from the bay doors now, she and Newkirk would be plumb in its path.\n\n\"We're too heavy!\" she shouted down.\n\n\"Aye, I noticed!\" the boy cried back, just as the trailway veered to the right beneath him.\n\nInstantly the pallet clipped the top of an evergreen, and Newkirk was swallowed by an explosion of pine needles and snow.\n\n\"We need to toss some of that cargo!\" Deryn cried, and angled her wings to the right. When she and Newkirk were over the pallet, she snapped a safety clip onto the cargo line, then shrugged out of the gliding harness.\n\nShe and Newkirk slid down, screaming, their boots thudding against the cargo as they landed.\n\n\"Blisters, Mr. Sharp! Are you trying to kill us?\"\n\n\"I'm saving us, Mr. Newkirk, as usual.\" She unclipped herself and rolled onto the pallet. \"We have to throw something off!\"\n\n\"Full marks for stating the obvious!\" Newkirk shouted, just as the pallet smashed into another treetop. The collision sent the world spinning, and Deryn fell flat, grasping for handholds.\n\nPressed against the cargo, her nose caught a whiff of something meaty. Deryn frowned. Was this pallet full of dried beef?\n\nShe raised her head and looked about. There was nothing obvious to toss overboard, no boxes to cut free. Just heavy netting covering the shapeless brown mass. It would take long minutes to cut into it with a couple of rigging knives.\n\n\"Blisters,\" Newkirk cried.\n\nDeryn followed his gaze upward, and swore again. The ballast alert was in full swing. Fl\u00e9chette bats were taking to the air, and dishwater was being flung from the galley windows. A barrel emerged from the cargo bay door and came tumbling down at them.\n\nDeryn tightened her grip in case the barrel hit and sent them spinning\u2014or would the whole pallet simply break apart?\n\nBut the barrel flashed past a few yards away, exploding into a white cloud of flour against the hard-packed tundra.\n\n\"Over here, Mr. Sharp!\" Newkirk called. He had scrambled to the far side of the pallet, one foot dangling off the edge.\n\n\"What've you found?\"\n\n\"Nothing!\" he shouted. When Deryn hesitated, he added, \"Just come here, you blithering idiot!\"\n\nAs she headed toward Newkirk, the pallet began to tip beneath her weight. Her grasp on the netting slipped for a moment, and she skidded toward the edge.\n\nNewkirk's hand shot out and stopped her.\n\n\"Grab hold!\" he shouted as the pallet tipped farther.\n\nFinally Deryn understood his plan\u2014their weight was pulling the carefully balanced pallet sideways, turning it into a knife blade skimming through the trees. It was a much smaller target for the debris raining down, and the bulk of the cargo was above the two middies, protecting them from any direct hits.\n\nAnother barrel went by, barely missing, shattering in the airship's wake. A few ice-laden treetops shot past, but the Leviathan was finally climbing, lightened enough to pull them a few crucial yards higher.\n\nNewkirk grinned. \"Don't mind being saved, do you, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"No, that's quite all right, Mr. Newkirk,\" she said, shifting her hands for a better grip. \"You owed me one, after all.\"\n\n\"RETURNING WITH THE GOODS.\"\n\nAs the treetops slowly dropped away, Deryn climbed back up, leveling the pallet again. As they were winched higher, she took a closer look at what was beneath the cargo netting. It appeared to be nothing but dried beef, slabs and slabs of it all crushed together.\n\n\"What does this smell like to you?\" she asked Newkirk.\n\nHe took a sniff. \"Breakfast.\"\n\nShe nodded. It did smell just like bacon waiting to be tossed into a pan.\n\n\"Aye,\" she said softly. \"But breakfast for what?\"\n\n\"We're still traveling west-northwest.\" Alek looked at his notes. \"On a heading of fifty-five degrees, if my readings can be trusted.\"\n\nVolger scowled at the map on his desk. \"You must be mistaken, Alek. There's nothing along that course. No cities or ports, just wilderness.\"\n\n\"Well . . .\" Alek tried to remember how Newkirk had put it. \"It might have to do with the earth being round, and this map being flat.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. I've already plotted a great circle route.\" Volger's index finger swept along a line that curved from the Black Sea to Tokyo. \"But we left that behind when we veered north over Omsk.\"\n\nAlek sighed. Did everyone but him understand this \"great circle\" business? Before the Great War had changed everything, Wildcount Volger had been a cavalry officer in the service of Alek's father. How did he know so much about navigation?\n\nThrough the window of Volger's stateroom, the shadows were stretching out ahead of the Leviathan. The setting sun, at least, agreed that the airship was still angling northward.\n\n\"If anything,\" Volger said, \"we should be headed southwest by now, toward Tsingtao.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"The German port in China?\"\n\n\"Indeed. There are half a dozen Clanker ironclads based there. They threaten Darwinist shipping all across the Pacific, from Australia to the Kingdom of Hawaii. According to the newspapers that Dr. Barlow has so kindly provided me, the Japanese are preparing to lay siege to the city.\"\n\n\"And they need the Leviathan's help?\"\n\n\"Hardly. But Lord Churchill won't let the Japanese be victorious without British assistance. It wouldn't be seemly for Asians to defeat a European power all alone.\"\n\nAlek groaned. \"What a colossal exercise in idiocy. You mean we've come all this way just to wave the Union Jack?\"\n\n\"That was the intent, I'm certain of it. But since the czar's message arrived, our course has changed.\" Volger drummed his fingers on the map. \"There must be a clue in that cargo we picked up from the Russians. Has Dylan told you anything about it?\"\n\n\"I haven't been able to ask him. He's still taking the pallet apart, because of the ballast alert.\"\n\n\"Because of the what?\" the wildcount asked, and Alek found himself smiling. At least he understood something that Volger didn't.\n\n\"Just after we picked up the cargo, an alert sounded\u2014two short rings of the Klaxon. You may remember that happening in the Alps, when we had to throw my father's gold away.\"\n\n\"Don't remind me.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't have to,\" Alek said. Volger had almost doomed them all by smuggling a quarter ton of gold aboard. \"A ballast alert means the ship is overweight, and Dylan has been in the cargo bay with Dr. Barlow all afternoon. They must be taking apart the cargo, to find out why it's heavier than expected.\"\n\n\"All very logical,\" Volger said, then shook his head. \"But I still don't see how one cargo pallet can matter to a ship three hundred meters long. It seems absurd.\"\n\n\"It isn't absurd at all. The Leviathan is aerostatic, which means it's perfectly balanced with the density of the\u2014\"\n\n\"Thank you, Your Serene Highness.\" Volger held up one hand. \"But perhaps you could recount your aeronautics lessons another time.\"\n\n\"You might take an interest, Count,\" Alek said stiffly. \"Seeing as how aeronautics is keeping you from crashing into the ground at this very moment.\"\n\n\"Indeed it is. So perhaps we'd best leave it to the experts, eh, Prince?\"\n\nSeveral sharp retorts came to mind, but Alek held his tongue. Why was Volger in such a foul mood? When the Leviathan had first turned east two weeks ago, he'd seemed pleased not to be headed toward Britain and certain imprisonment. The man had gradually adapted to life aboard the Leviathan, exchanging information with Dr. Barlow, even taking a liking to Dylan. But for the last day Volger had seemed cross with everyone.\n\nFor that matter, Dylan had stopped delivering breakfast to the wildcount. Had the two of them had a falling-out?\n\nVolger rolled up his map and shoved it into a desk drawer. \"Find out what was in the Russian cargo, even if you have to beat it out of that boy.\"\n\n\"By 'that boy' I assume you mean my good friend, Dylan?\"\n\n\"He's hardly your friend. You'd be free now if it weren't for him.\"\n\n\"That was my choice,\" Alek said firmly. Dylan might have argued for Alek to return to the ship, but it was no use blaming anyone. Alek had made the decision himself. \"But I'll ask him what they found. Perhaps you could inquire with Dr. Barlow, since you two are on such good terms.\"\n\nVolger shook his head. \"That woman tells me only what she finds it convenient for us to know.\"\n\n\"Then, I don't suppose there are any clues in your newspapers. Anything about the Russians needing help in northern Siberia?\"\n\n\"Hardly.\" Volger pulled a penny paper from the open desk drawer and shoved it at Alek. \"But at least that American reporter has stopped writing about you.\"\n\nAlek picked up the paper\u2014the New York World. On its front page was a story by Eddie Malone, an American reporter that he and Dylan had met in Istanbul. Malone had learned certain secrets of the revolution, so Alek had traded his life story for the man's silence. The result was a stream of articles about Alek's parents' assassination and his escape from home.\n\nIt had all been most distasteful.\n\nBut this story wasn't about Alek. The headline read A DIPLOMATIC DISASTER ABOARD THE DAUNTLESS!\n\nBelow those words was a photograph of the Dauntless, the elephant-shaped walker used by the British ambassador in Istanbul. German undercover agents had taken it on a rampage during the Leviathan's stay there, causing a near-riot for which the British had been blamed. Only Dylan's quick thinking had saved the situation from total calamity.\n\n\"PONDERING.\"\n\n\"But that was, what, seven weeks ago? Is this what they call news in America?\"\n\n\"This paper took its time getting to me, but yes, it was old news from the start. Apparently this man Malone has run out of your secrets to spill.\"\n\n\"Thank heavens,\" Alek murmured, following the story to a page inside. Another photograph was printed there: Dylan swinging from the metal trunk of the elephant, flailing at one of the Germans.\n\n\"'A Daring Midshipman Handles the Situation,'\" he read aloud, smirking. For once it was Dylan in the limelight instead of him. \"May I keep this?\"\n\nThe wildcount didn't answer\u2014he was glaring at the ceiling, where a message lizard had appeared.\n\n\"Prince Aleksandar,\" the creature said in Dr. Barlow's voice. \"Mr. Sharp and I would like the pleasure of your company in the cargo bay, if possible.\"\n\n\"The cargo bay?\" Alek said. \"Of course, Dr. Barlow. I'll join you shortly. End message.\"\n\nVolger waved his hand to shoo the lizard away, but it had already scuttled off into a message tube. \"Excellent. Maybe now we'll get some answers.\"\n\nAlek folded up the newspaper and slipped it into a pocket. \"But why would they need me?\"\n\n\"For the pleasure of your company, of course.\" The wildcount shrugged. \"Surely a lizard wouldn't lie.\"\n\nThe cargo bay smelled like a tannery, a mix of old meat and leather. Long strips of dark brown were piled everywhere, along with a few wooden crates.\n\n\"Is this your precious cargo?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"It's two tons of dried beef, a hundredweight of tranquilizers, and a thousand rounds of machine-gun ammunition,\" said Dylan, reading from a list. \"And a few boxes of something else.\"\n\n\"Something unexpected,\" Dr. Barlow said. She and Tazza were in the far corner of the bay, staring down into an open crate. \"And quite heavy.\"\n\n\"Quite,\" the loris on her shoulder said, eyeing the crate with displeasure.\n\nAlek looked around for Bovril. It was hanging from the ceiling above Dylan's head. He held his hand up, and the creature crawled down onto his shoulder. Count Volger, of course, did not permit abominations in his presence.\n\n\"Guten Tag,\" the creature said.\n\n\"Guten Abend,\" Alek corrected, then turned to Dr. Barlow. \"May I ask why the czar wanted us to pick up a load of dried beef?\"\n\n\"You may not,\" she said. \"But please take a look at this unexpected cargo. We need your Clanker expertise.\"\n\n\"My Clanker expertise?\" Alek joined the boffin beside the crate. Nestled in the packing straw was a jumble of metal parts, shiny and glinting in the darkness. He knelt, reached inside, and pulled one of the parts out. Tazza gave it a sniff and made a whining noise.\n\nIt was some kind of electrikal part, about as long as a forearm and topped with two bare wires.\n\n\"The czar didn't tell you how to put this all together?\"\n\n\"There wasn't meant to be any machinery at all,\" Dylan said. \"But there's almost half a ton of parts and tools in here. Enough to drag poor Mr. Newkirk into a pine tree!\"\n\n\"And all of it Clanker-made,\" Alek murmured. He stared at another part, a sphere of handblown glass. It fit atop the first part with a satisfying click.\n\n\"This looks like an ignition capacitor, like the one aboard my Stormwalker.\"\n\n\"Ignition,\" Bovril repeated softly.\n\n\"So you can tell us the purpose of this device?\" Dr. Barlow asked.\n\n\"Perhaps.\" Alek peered down into the crate. There were dozens more parts there, and two more boxes to come. \"But I'll need Klopp's help.\"\n\n\"Well, that is a bother.\" Dr. Barlow sighed. \"But I suppose the captain can be convinced. Just see that you're quick about it. We reach our destination tomorrow.\"\n\n\"That soon? Interesting.\" Alek smiled as he spoke\u2014he'd just seen another part that would fit onto the other two. It was tightly wound with copper wire, at least a thousand turns, like a voltage multiplier. He whistled for a message lizard, then sent it to fetch his men, but didn't wait for them.\n\nIn a way it was easy, guessing how the pieces fit together. He'd spent a month helping to keep his Stormwalker running in the wilderness with repaired, stolen, and improvised parts. And the metal and glass pieces before him were hardly improvised\u2014they were elegant, with lines as sinuous as the Leviathan's fabricated wood furniture. As Alek worked, his fingers seemed to grasp the pieces' connections, even though he didn't know the purpose of the whole yet. By the time Klopp and Hoffman had arrived, he'd made a fair start of it.\n\nPerhaps His Serene Highness Aleksandar Prince of Hohenberg wasn't such a waste of hydrogen after all.\n\nBy early the next morning the device was nearly done. The few remaining parts\u2014the knobs and levers of the control panel\u2014were spread across the floor. The dried beef had been removed from the cargo bay to make room, but the scent of new leather remained.\n\nAlek, Dylan, Bauer, and Hoffman had worked without sleep, but Master Klopp had spent most of the night snoozing in a chair, awakening only to shout orders and curse whoever had designed the device. He had declared its graceful lines too fancy, an affront to Clanker principles. Bovril sat on his shoulder, memorizing new German obscenities with glee.\n\nSince the night of the Ottoman Revolution, Klopp had used a cane, grimacing whenever he had to stand up. His battle-walker had fallen during the attack on the sultan's Tesla cannon, struck by the Orient-Express itself.\n\n\"ASSEMBLAGE OF THE DEVICE.\"\n\nDr. Busk, the Leviathan's surgeon, had said it was lucky the man could walk at all.\n\nThe revolution had lasted only one night, but the cost had been high. Lilit's father had been killed, along with a thousand rebel soldiers and countless Ottomans. Whole neighborhoods of the ancient city of Istanbul lay in ashes.\n\nOf course, the battles going on in Europe were ten times worse, especially those between Alek's countrymen and the Russians. In Galicia a horde of fighting bears had met hundreds of machines, a vast collision of flesh and metal that had left Austria reeling. And, as Dylan kept saying, the war was only just beginning.\n\nNewkirk brought them breakfast just as sunlight began to trickle in around the edges of the cargo door.\n\n\"What in blazes is that contraption?\" he asked.\n\nAlek took the coffeepot from Newkirk's tray and poured a cup.\n\n\"A good question.\" He handed the coffee to Klopp, switching to German. \"Any fresh ideas?\"\n\n\"Well, it's meant to be carried about,\" Klopp said, poking at its long side handles with his cane. \"Probably by two men, perhaps a third to operate it.\"\n\nAlek nodded. Most of the crates had been full of spare parts and special tools; the device itself wasn't so heavy.\n\n\"But why not mount it on a vehicle?\" Hoffman asked. \"You could use the engine's power and save fiddling about with batteries.\"\n\n\"So it's designed for rough terrain,\" Klopp said.\n\n\"Lots of that in Siberia,\" Dylan spoke up. After a month among Clankers in Istanbul, the boy's German was good enough to follow most conversations now. \"And Russia is Darwinist, so vehicles have no engines.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"A Clanker machine designed for use by Darwinists?\"\n\n\"Custom made for wherever we're headed, then.\" Klopp gently tapped the three glass spheres at its top. \"These will react to magnetic fields.\"\n\n\"Magnetic,\" Bovril said from Klopp's shoulder, rolling the word around in its mouth.\n\nIgnoring the engine grease under his fingernails, Alek took a piece of bacon from Newkirk's tray. The night's work had left him ravenous. \"Meaning what, Master Klopp?\"\n\n\"I still don't know, young master. Perhaps it's some kind of navigating machine.\"\n\n\"Awfully big for a compass,\" Alek said. And far too beautiful for anything so mundane. Most of the pieces had been milled by hand, as if its inventor hadn't wanted mass-produced parts to sully his vision.\n\n\"If I may ask something, sir?\" Bauer asked.\n\nAlek nodded. \"Of course, Hans.\"\n\nBauer turned to Dylan. \"We might understand this machine better if we knew why the czar tried to sneak it past you.\"\n\n\"Dr. Barlow reckons the czar doesn't know about this machine,\" Dylan said. \"You see, the man we're headed toward has a reputation. He's a bit mad. The sort of fellow who might bribe a Russian officer to smuggle something for him, without thinking of the consequences. The lady boffin never liked the fellow, she says, and this just confirms that he's a . . .\" He shrugged and switched to English, \"A bum-rag.\"\n\n\"Bum-rag,\" Bovril said, and giggled.\n\n\"But who is he?\" Alek asked in English.\n\nDylan shrugged again. \"A Clanker boffin of some kind. That's all Dr. Barlow will say.\"\n\nAlek finished his bacon, then looked at the parts scattered all around them and sighed. \"Well, let's finish and see what happens when we turn it on.\"\n\n\"Is that a good idea?\" Dylan looked down at the batteries, which Hoffman was charging with the power lines for the airship's searchlights. \"It's stored enough electricity to throw sparks, or even explode. And we're hanging from a million cubic feet of hydrogen!\"\n\nAlek turned to Klopp and said in German, \"Dylan thinks this could be dangerous.\"\n\n\"Nonsense.\" Klopp prodded the battery case with his cane. \"It's designed to run for a long time at low voltage.\"\n\n\"Or designed to look that way,\" Dylan said, then switched to English. \"Newkirk, fetch Dr. Barlow, would you?\"\n\nThe other middy nodded and scampered off, looking happy to leave the Clanker device behind.\n\nAs they waited, Alek put together the control panel, polishing every piece with his sleeve. It was good to feel useful again, to have built something, even if he had no idea what it was.\n\nWhen Dr. Barlow arrived, she walked once around the machine, both she and the creature on her shoulder inspecting it closely. The two lorises jabbered to each other, Bovril repeating the names of electrikal parts that it had learned during the night.\n\n\"Well done, all of you,\" Dr. Barlow said in her flawless German. \"I take it this is a magnetic device of some kind?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\" Klopp glanced at Dylan. \"And I'm certain it won't explode.\"\n\n\"I should hope not.\" Dr. Barlow took a step back. \"Well, we haven't much time. If you please, Alek, let's find out what it does.\"\n\n\"If you please,\" her loris added imperiously, which made Bovril giggle.\n\nAlek took a slow breath, his hand pausing over the power switch. For a moment he wondered if Dylan might be right. They had no idea what this machine was.\n\nBut they'd spent all night putting the device together. There was no point in letting it sit here. He turned the power switch. . . .\n\nFor a moment nothing happened, but then a flickering glow appeared in each of the three glass spheres on the machine's top. In the drafty cargo bay Alek felt heat emanating from the machine, and a soft whine built in his ears.\n\nThe two lorises began to imitate the sound, and then Tazza joined in, until the cargo bay was humming. A sliver of light came into being inside each of the glass spheres, an electrikal disturbance, like a tiny, trapped bolt of lightning.\n\n\"Most intriguing,\" Dr. Barlow said.\n\n\"Aye, but what is it?\" Dylan asked.\n\n\"As a biologist, I'm sure I don't know.\" The lady boffin lifted Bovril from Klopp's shoulder. \"But our perspicacious friend has been watching and listening all night.\"\n\nShe placed the loris on the floor. It immediately clambered onto the machine, sniffing the batteries, the control panel, and finally the three glass spheres. While it moved, it kept up a steady nonsense conversation with Dr. Barlow's loris, the two beasts repeating the names of electrikal parts and concepts to each other.\n\nAlek watched with bemusement. He'd always wondered how Dr. Barlow had expected these creatures to keep the Ottomans out of the war. They were charming enough but hardly likely to sway an entire empire toward Darwinism. He half suspected they had been only a ruse, an excuse to take the Leviathan to Istanbul, and that the real plan had always been to force the strait with the behemoth.\n\nBut was there more to these lorises than met the eye?\n\nFinally Bovril reached out a hand toward Dr. Barlow, who only frowned. But the beast on her shoulder seemed to understand. It slipped its tiny hands behind the woman's head and unclasped her necklace.\n\nDr. Barlow raised an eyebrow as the creature handed her jewelry over to Bovril.\n\n\"What in blazes\u2014,\" Dylan began, but the lady boffin waved him silent.\n\nBovril held the necklace close to one of the glass spheres, and a trickle of lightning leapt out, creating a shivering connection between the pendant and the glass sphere.\n\n\"Magnetic,\" Bovril said.\n\nThe creature swung the pendant, and the tiny finger of light followed it back and forth. When Bovril pulled the necklace away, the lightning seemed to lose interest, retreating back into its glass sphere.\n\n\"God's wounds,\" Alek said softly. \"That's quite odd.\"\n\n\"What's that necklace made of, madam?\" asked Klopp.\n\n\"The pendant is steel.\" Dr. Barlow nodded. \"Quite ferrous, I should think.\"\n\n\"So it's for detecting metal.\" Klopp pushed himself to his feet, then brought his cane up. As its steel tip drew close to one of the spheres, another trickle of lightning leapt out to meet it.\n\n\"Why would you need such a thing?\" Dylan asked.\n\nKlopp fell back into his chair. \"You might use it to discover land mines. Though it's quite sensitive, so perhaps you could find a buried telegraph line. Or a buried treasure! Who knows?\"\n\n\"Treasure!\" Bovril declared.\n\n\"Telegraph lines? Pirate treasure?\" Dylan shook his head. \"Those hardly sound like things you'd find in Siberia.\"\n\nAlek took a cautious step closer, squinting at the machine. The three glass spheres had settled into a jittering pattern, each tiny finger of lightning pointing in a different direction. \"What's it detecting now?\"\n\n\"One's aimed straight back at the stern,\" Dylan said. \"And the other two are pointed up and toward the bow.\"\n\nThe two lorises made a rumbling sound.\n\n\"Of course,\" Hoffman said. \"Most of the Leviathan is wood and flesh. But the engines are full of metal.\"\n\nDylan whistled. \"They must be two hundred yards away.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's a clever machine,\" Klopp said. \"Even if it was designed by a madman.\"\n\n\"I just wonder what he's looking for.\" The lady boffin stroked Tazza's fur as she contemplated the device, then turned and walked toward the door. \"Well, I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Mr. Sharp, see that all this is hidden away in a locked storeroom. And please don't mention it to the crew, any of you.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"But won't this . . . boffin fellow be wondering where it is?\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Dr. Barlow gave him a smile as she slipped through the door. \"And watching him squirm with curiosity should prove most interesting.\"\n\nAlek headed back toward his stateroom soon after, wanting to get an hour's sleep before they arrived at their destination. He should have gone straight to Count Volger, he supposed, but he was too exhausted to endure a barrage of questions from the man. So instead Alek whistled for a message lizard when he reached his room.\n\nWhen the creature appeared, Alek said, \"Count Volger, we shall arrive at our destination within the hour. But I still have no idea where that is. The cargo contained a Clanker machine of some kind. More later, when I've had some sleep. End message.\"\n\nAlek smiled as the creature scuttled away into its tube. He'd never sent Volger a message lizard before, but it was high time the man accepted that the beasts were part of life here aboard the Leviathan.\n\nNot bothering to remove his boots, Alek stretched out on his bunk. His eyes closed, but he could still see the glass tubes and shining metal parts of the mysterious device. His exhausted mind began to play a game of putting together its pieces, counting screws and measuring with calipers.\n\nHe groaned, wishing the thoughts would let him sleep. But mechanikal puzzles had taken over his brain. Perhaps this proved he was a Clanker at heart and there would never be a place for him aboard a Darwinist ship.\n\nAlek sat up to pull off his jacket. There was something large in the pocket. Of course. The newspaper he'd borrowed from Volger.\n\nHe pulled it out; it was folded open to the photograph of Dylan. In all the excitement about the strange device, he'd forgotten to show it to the boy. Alek lay back down, his bleary eyes skimming across the text.\n\nIt really was the most atrocious writing, as breathless and overblown as the articles Malone had written about Alek. But it was a relief to see someone else's virtues extolled in the reporter's purple prose.\n\nWho knows what rampant destruction might have been visited upon the crowd had the valiant midshipman not acted so quickly? He surely has bravery running in his veins, being the nephew of an intrepid airman, one Artemis Sharp, who perished in a calamitous ballooning fire only a few years ago.\n\nA little shudder went through Alek at the words\u2014Dylan's father again. It was strange how the man kept coming up. Was there some clue about the family secret here?\n\nAlek shook his head, dropping the newspaper to the floor. Dylan would tell him the family secret when he was ready.\n\nMore important, Alek hadn't slept a wink all night. He lay back down, forcing his eyes closed again. The airship would reach its destination soon.\n\nBut as Alek lay there, his mind would not stop spinning.\n\nSo many times Dylan would come close to telling him something momentous. But each time he pulled away. No matter what promises Alek made, however many secrets of his own he told Dylan, the boy didn't trust him completely.\n\nPerhaps he never would, because he simply couldn't bring himself to confide in a prince, an imperial heir, a waste of hydrogen like Alek. No doubt that was it.\n\nIt was a long, restless time before he finally fell asleep.\n\nIt was Newkirk who spotted them first.\n\nHe was up in a Huxley ascender, a thousand feet above the Leviathan in the cold white sky. His flight suit was stuffed with old rags to keep him from freezing, making his arms and legs bulge, like a tattie bogle waving semaphore flags. . . .\n\nT-R-E-E-S\u2014A-L-L\u2014D-O-W-N\u2014A-H-E-A-D.\n\nDeryn lowered her field glasses. \"Did you get that, Mr. Rigby?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" the bosun said. \"But I've no idea what it means.\"\n\n\"T-R-E-E-S,\" Bovril added helpfully from Deryn's shoulder. The beastie could read semaphore as fast as any of the crew, but couldn't turn letters into words. Not yet, anyway.\n\n\"Perhaps he's seen a clearing. Shall I go up to the bow for a look, sir?\"\n\nMr. Rigby nodded, then signaled to the winch man to give Newkirk more altitude. Deryn headed forward, making her way through the colony of fl\u00e9chette bats scattered across the great airbeast's head.\n\n\"D-O-W-N,\" Bovril said.\n\n\"Aye, beastie, that spells 'down.'\"\n\nBovril repeated the word, then shivered in the cold.\n\nDeryn was feeling the cold too, on top of her night of missing sleep. Barking Alek and his love of contraptions. Sixteen long hours putting the mysterious machine together, and they still had no idea what its purpose was! An utter waste of time, and yet it was the happiest she'd seen Alek since the two of them had returned to the Leviathan.\n\nGears and electricals were all the boy really cared about, however much he claimed to love the airship. Just like Deryn, who'd spent a whole month in Istanbul without ever feeling at home among walkers and steam pipes. Perhaps Clankers and Darwinists would always be at war, if only in their hearts.\n\nWhen she reached the prow of the ship, Deryn raised her field glasses to scan the horizon. A moment later she saw the trees.\n\n\"Barking spiders.\" The words coiled like smoke in the freezing air.\n\n\"Down,\" Bovril said.\n\nAhead of the airship was an endless fallen forest. Countless trees lay on their sides, plucked clean, as if a huge wind had blown them over and stripped their branches and leaves. Strangest of all, every stripped-bare trunk was pointed in the same direction: southwest. At the moment, straight at Deryn.\n\nShe'd heard of hurricanes strong enough to yank trees up from the ground, but no hurricane could make landfall here, thousands of miles from any ocean. Was there some manner of Siberian storm she'd never heard of, with icicles flying like scythes through the forest?\n\nShe whistled for a message lizard, staring uneasily at the fallen trees while she waited. When the lizard appeared, Deryn made her report, trying to keep the fear from her voice. Whatever had cut down these full-grown evergreens, which had been as hard as nails and sunk deep into the frozen tundra, would tear an airship to bits in seconds.\n\nShe made her way back to the winch, where Mr. Rigby was still taking signals from Newkirk. The Huxley was almost a mile above the ship now, its swollen hydrogen sack a dark squick upon the sky.\n\nThe bosun dropped his glasses. \"At least thirty miles across, he says.\"\n\n\"Blisters,\" Deryn swore. \"Might an earthquake have done this, sir?\"\n\nMr. Rigby gave this a think, then shook his head. \"Mr. Newkirk says all the fallen trees point outward, toward the edges of the destruction. No earthquake would've been that neat. Nor would a storm.\"\n\nDeryn imagined a great force spreading out in all directions from a central point, knocking down trees and stripping them as clean as matchsticks as it passed.\n\nAn explosion . . .\n\n\"But we can't stand here theorizing.\" Mr. Rigby raised his field glasses again. \"The captain has ordered us to prepare for a rescue. There are people down there, it seems.\"\n\nA quarter hour later Newkirk's flags began to wave again.\n\n\"B . . . O . . . N . . . E . . . S,\" Bovril announced, its sharp eyes needing no field glasses to read the distant signals.\n\n\"God in heaven,\" Mr. Rigby breathed.\n\n\"But he can't mean 'bones,' sir,\" Deryn said. \"He's too high up to see anything as small as that!\"\n\nShe stared ahead, trying to think what letters poor shivering Newkirk might have sent wrong. Domes? Homes? Was he was begging for some hot scones to be sent up?\n\nDeryn wished she could be aloft herself, and not stuck down here wondering. But the captain wanted her standing by for a gliding descent, to prepare for a landing in rough terrain.\n\n\"Did you feel that shudder, lad?\" Mr. Rigby pulled off a glove, kneeling to place his bare hand on the ship's skin. \"The airbeast is unhappy.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir.\" Another shiver passed along the cilia on the membrane, like a gust of wind through grass. Deryn smelled something in the air, the scent of corrupted meat.\n\n\"Bones,\" Bovril said, staring straight ahead.\n\nAs Deryn raised her field glasses, she felt a trickle of cold sweat inside her flight suit. There they were on the horizon, a dozen huge columns arcing into the air. . . .\n\nIt was the rib cage of a dead airbeast, half the size of the Leviathan and gleaming white in the sun. The ribs looked like the skeletal fingers of two giant hands, clutching the wreck of a gondola between them.\n\nNo wonder the giant creature beneath her feet was twitchy.\n\n\"Mr. Rigby, sir, there's an airship wreck ahead.\"\n\nThe bosun dropped his gaze to the horizon, then let out a whistle.\n\n\"Do you think it got caught in the explosion, sir?\" she asked. \"Or whatever it was?\"\n\n\"No, lad. Airbeast bones are hollow. The force that snapped all these trees would've shattered them. The poor beastie must have come along afterward.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. Shall I whistle for another lizard and inform the bridge?\"\n\nIn answer the engines slowed to quarter speed. After two days at full-ahead, the great forest around them seemed to echo with the sudden quiet.\n\nMr. Rigby spoke softly. \"They know, lad.\"\n\nAs the Leviathan drew closer to the dead airbeast, Deryn spotted more bones among the fallen trees below. The skeletons of mammothines, horses, and smaller creatures were scattered like tenpins across the forest floor.\n\nA growling chorus rolled up through the freezing air. Deryn recognized the sound at once, from during the cargo snatch-up, when the ballast had put too many smells into the wind.\n\n\"Fighting bears ahead, sir. Angry ones.\"\n\n\"Angry's not the word, Mr. Sharp. Have you noticed that we haven't spotted any caribou or reindeer herds since we reached this place? With the forest fallen, there isn't much hunting hereabouts.\"\n\n\"Oh, aye.\" Deryn looked closer at the bones of the smaller beasties. They'd all been gnawed clean, and when the distant roars came again, she heard the hunger in them.\n\nThe bears came into sight soon, a dozen at least. They were skinny and hollow-eyed, their fur matted and their faces scarred, as if they'd been fighting among themselves. A few of them stared up at the Leviathan, scenting the air.\n\nThe Klaxon began to sound, the long-short ring of an upcoming ground attack.\n\n\"That's a bit odd,\" Mr. Rigby said. \"Do the officers think aerial bombs can hit those beasties?\"\n\n\"We're not dropping bombs, sir. That secret Russian cargo was mostly dried beef.\"\n\n\"Ah, for a distraction. Nice of the czar to provide a bit of help.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" Deryn said, though she wondered how long two tons of beef would distract a dozen starving bears the size of houses.\n\n\"There we are, lad,\" Mr. Rigby said with satisfaction. \"An encampment.\"\n\nShe raised her field glasses again.\n\nHere, deep in the devastated area, a large circle of trees remained standing. They were stripped bare like the others, as if the blast had come from directly above. In a clearing among them was a handful of simple timber buildings, surrounded by barbed wire. Wispy columns of smoke rose from their chimneys, and small forms were spilling out, waving at the airship overhead.\n\n\"But how are these people still alive, sir?\"\n\n\"I've no idea, Mr. Sharp. That wire wouldn't hold back a single bear, much less a dozen.\" The bosun lifted Bovril from her shoulder. \"I'll have this beastie taken down to the lady boffin. Go prepare your Huxley for descent.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"Get those men set for a rope-and-winch landing, and be quick about it. If we come about and you're not ready, we'll have to leave you all behind.\"\n\nAs she glided toward the ground, Deryn took a closer look at the fallen forest.\n\nLichen was growing over the snapped-off tree stumps, so the destruction had happened months ago, perhaps years. That was comforting, she supposed.\n\nBut this was no time for pondering. The Leviathan was already headed back, preparing to scatter the dried beef a few miles away. Hopefully searching through the broken trees for food would keep the beasties busy for a while.\n\nDeryn landed the Huxley softly, just inside the ring of barbed wire. About thirty men had come out to greet her, hungry-and astonished-looking, as if they couldn't quite believe that rescue had arrived. But a half dozen of them took hold of the Huxley's tentacles with the efficiency of experienced airmen.\n\nAmong those watching was a tall, slender man with dark hair, a mustache, and piercing blue eyes. The others' furs were threadbare, but he wore a fine traveling coat and carried a peculiar walking stick. He watched as the Huxley was secured, then he addressed Deryn in an unfamiliar accent.\n\n\"You are British?\"\n\nShe struggled out of the piloting harness and made a bow. \"Aye, sir. Midshipman Dylan Sharp, at your service.\"\n\n\"How annoying.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\"\n\n\"I specifically requested that no powers other than Russia be involved in this expedition.\"\n\nDeryn blinked. \"I don't know about that, sir. But you do seem to be in a spot of bother.\"\n\n\"I will grant you that.\" The man pointed his walking stick at the airship overhead. \"But what on earth is a British airship doing in deepest Siberia?\"\n\n\"We're barking rescuing you!\" Deryn cried. \"And we haven't any time to debate the matter. The ship will be dropping food for those beasties a few miles from here, like a trail of breadcrumbs leading away from us. But it won't keep them busy for long.\"\n\n\"There is no need for haste, young man. This compound is quite secure.\"\n\nDeryn looked at the coils of barbed wire a few yards away. \"I doubt that, sir. Those bears have already eaten one airbeast. If they get wind of another on the ground, that wire won't stop them!\"\n\n\"It will stop any living creature. Observe.\" The man strode toward the fence, extending his walking stick before him. When he prodded the wire with the stick's metal tip, a flurry of sparks shot into the air.\n\n\"What in blazes?\" Deryn cried.\n\n\"An invention of mine, a crude improvisation with many defects in its current form. But necessary under the circumstances.\"\n\nDeryn looked up at her Huxley in horror, but the other men had already pulled it a fair distance from the wire. At least they weren't all barking mad down here.\n\n\"I shall call it the 'electrical fence,' I think.\" The man smiled. \"The bears are quite wary of it.\"\n\n\"Aye, I'm sure they are!\" Deryn said. \"But my airship's a hydrogen breather. You'll have to turn that electricity off, or you'll blow us all to bits!\"\n\n\"Well, obviously. But the bears won't know that the fence has been disarmed. The work of Dr. Pavlov is quite instructive in this case.\"\n\nDeryn ignored his blether. \"This clearing's too small for my airship, anyway. We'll have to get out of these trees and into the fallen area.\" She turned in a slow circle, counting the men around her. There were twenty-eight in all, perhaps a thousand pounds heavier than the cargo the airship had just dropped. \"Is this everyone? It'll be tricky, making a quick ascent with this much weight.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of the difficulties. I arrived here by airship.\"\n\n\"You mean that dead airbeast we saw? What on earth happened to it?\"\n\n\"We fed it to the bears, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn took a step back. \"You what?\"\n\n\"In outfitting my expedition, the czar's advisers didn't take into account the desolation of this region. We were undersupplied, and the bears of my cargo train began to lack for hunting. I was too close to a breakthrough to abandon the project.\" He twirled his walking stick. \"Though, if I'd known a British ship would come meddling as a result, I might have chosen otherwise.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head, still not believing. How could he have done such a thing to a poor innocent beastie? And how had the czar dared to send a British airship to rescue this madman, after he'd fed his own ship to the bears?\n\n\"Pardon me for asking, sir, but who in blazes are you?\"\n\nThe man stood straighter, extending his hand with a courtly bow.\n\n\"I am Nikola Tesla. Pleased to meet you, I suppose.\"\n\nThe Leviathan was a few miles distant when its bomb bay doors opened. Bales of dried beef fell in ten-second intervals. As each one dropped, the airship rose a little higher in the air.\n\n\"An ingenious distraction, I'll admit,\" Mr. Tesla said. \"Of course, if you'd brought this food earlier, I'd still have an airship.\"\n\nDeryn gave him a hard look. He'd spoken so lightly of what he'd done, feeding not only his airbeast, she realized now, but also the horses and mammothines of his cargo train to the fighting bears. And all to stay a few more weeks in this blighted place.\n\n\"What were you doing here, anyway, Mr. Tesla?\"\n\n\"I should think that would be obvious, boy. I am studying the phenomenon around us.\"\n\n\"Did you find out what caused it?\"\n\n\"I have always known the cause. I was only curious about the results.\" The man raised a hand. \"I must remain secretive at the moment, but soon the world will know.\"\n\nHe had a mad gleam in his eye, and as Deryn turned away toward the Leviathan, a twitchy feeling came over her.\n\nThis was, of course, the same Mr. Tesla who'd invented the Tesla cannon, a lightning weapon that had twice almost destroyed the Leviathan. He was a Clanker boffin, a maker of German secret weapons, and yet the czar had given him free run of Darwinist Russia.\n\nNone of it made sense.\n\nShe thought of the mysterious device hidden belowdecks back on the Leviathan, and wondered why this man had wanted it smuggled here. It certainly wouldn't have been much use for fending off bears.\n\nThe airship's engines changed pitch. The bomb run was finished.\n\n\"They'll be coming about now,\" Deryn said. \"We should head for the clearing.\"\n\nMr. Tesla waved his walking stick in the air, calling out in what Deryn reckoned was Russian. A group of the men ran into one of the buildings and came back with large packs on their shoulders.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir, but you can't bring all that gear. We're too barking heavy as it is!\"\n\n\"I am hardly going to abandon my photographs and samples, young man. This expedition took years to prepare!\"\n\n\"But if the ship can't take off, it's all lost anyway. Along with us!\"\n\n\"You shall have to make room, then. Or leave my men behind.\"\n\n\"Are you mad?\" Deryn cried, then shook her head. \"Listen, sir, if you want to stay here with your samples until the bears eat you, that's fine. But these men are coming with me, without any of that extra weight!\"\n\nMr. Tesla laughed. \"You'll have to explain that to them, I'm afraid. How good is your Russian, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"It's barking fluent,\" she lied, then turned to the men. \"Do any of you speak English?\"\n\nThey stared back at her, looking a bit confused. One offered up a choice curse in English, but then shrugged, apparently having exhausted his vocabulary.\n\nDeryn clenched her teeth, wishing Alek were here. For all his useless knowledge, he could speak a fair number of languages. And this mad boffin might listen to another Clanker.\n\nShe looked at the men again. Some of them must have crewed the dead airship, so they would have to understand weight limits. . . .\n\nBut there wasn't time to put on a pantomime. The howls of the bears were echoing through the still, stripped trees. They'd already found the first of the food, and had fallen to fighting over it.\n\n\"Just get your men moving, sir,\" she said. \"We'll discuss this at the ship.\"\n\nIt took a few minutes to reach the edge of the standing trees, and another ten to find a level field large enough for the Leviathan to land upon. \"Level\" was hardly the word for it, though. Here near the center of the destruction, the fallen trees weren't laid out so neatly. They were jumbled together like in a game of Spellican sticks, with jagged splinters thrusting up from their stumps.\n\nDeryn scrambled across the fallen trunks, hoping she could estimate distances properly in all this muddle. She pointed and waved at the Russians, like a cricket captain setting a field, and she soon had them arranged in a long oval a little larger than the Leviathan's gondola.\n\n\"The ship's light after dropping all that beef,\" she explained to Tesla. \"Normally the captain would vent hydrogen to land, but not if he wants to get back up quickly. We'll have to use ropes to drag it down.\"\n\nThe man lifted an eyebrow. \"Are there enough of us?\"\n\n\"Not a chance. If a gust of wind came along, we'd all be yanked into the air. So when the ropes fall, have your men tie them to the trees.\" She pointed at a fallen pine as big around as a rum barrel. \"The bigger the better.\"\n\n\"But we won't be strong enough to pull the ship down.\"\n\n\"Aye, the ship pulls itself down, with winches inside the gondola. Once it's low enough, we'll go aboard and cut the ropes, and the ship pops back up like a cork in water.\"\n\nDeryn paused, listening. Low growls rolled through the forest, setting her small hairs on end. The bears sounded a squick closer now, or maybe it was just her nerves.\n\n\"If you hear a Klaxon ringing in pairs, tell your men to throw anything they can out the windows\u2014including your precious samples\u2014or the bears will be having us all for dinner!\"\n\nThe man nodded and began to instruct his men in Russian, waving his walking stick as he called to them. Deryn guessed he was leaving out the part about the ballast alert, but there was nothing she could do about that. She pulled out a short length of line and began to tie herself a friction hitch, in case she needed to climb.\n\nSoon the airship was overhead, its engines rumbling as the crew pulled it to a halt. Heavy cables fell from the cargo deck portholes, a swaying forest of rope tumbling into place around them.\n\nThe Russians began to scramble about, gathering the cables and tying them onto the trees. Deryn could tell the airmen among them by their knots\u2014at least a dozen of the men had been in the fallen airship's crew. Surely they would understand that if the bears were on their way and the ship wasn't rising, the boffin's precious baggage would have to go overboard. And no decent airman would hesitate to disobey Mr. Tesla, after what he'd done to that airbeast.\n\nWhen the last man had stepped back from his knots, Deryn pulled out her semaphore flags and sent the ready signal. The ropes went taut, shuddering and creaking as the winches started to turn.\n\nAt first the airship didn't seem to move at all. But a few of the smaller trees began to stir, shifting along the ground. Deryn ran toward the nearest and jumped on to add her weight to it. The Russians understood, and soon all the nervously stirring trees had men standing on them. Mr. Tesla watched impassively, as if the operation were some sort of physics experiment and not a rescue mission.\n\nIt was almost noon, and the Leviathan's shadow lay over them all, slowly widening as the airship descended.\n\nDeryn listened again, and frowned. The sounds of bears in the distance had faded. Were they so far away she couldn't hear them anymore? Or had the last scrap of beef been found and eaten, and now the creatures were charging toward the scent of airbeast?\n\n\"Quite large, your hydrogen breather,\" Mr. Tesla said, then frowned. \"Does that say 'Leviathan'?\"\n\n\"Aye, so you've heard of us.\"\n\n\"Indeed. You've been in the\u2014\" The wind gave a violent start, and the tree Deryn was standing on was pulled into the air, knocking Mr. Tesla to the ground. The Leviathan drifted twenty feet or so, dragging along a small host of Russians on their fallen logs.\n\nThey clung on gamely, though. Soon the wind died, the airship settling earthward again.\n\n\"Are you all right, sir?\" Deryn called.\n\n\"I'm fine.\" Mr. Tesla stood, dusting off his traveling coat. \"But if your ship can lift these trees, then why complain about a bit of extra luggage?\"\n\n\"That was a gust of wind. Do you want to bet your life on getting another one!\"\n\nDeryn looked up. The Leviathan was close enough for her to see one of the officers leaning out of the front bridge window. There were semaphore flags fluttering in his hands. . . .\n\nB-E-A-R-S\u2014H-E-A-D-E-D\u2014T-H-I-S\u2014W-A-Y\u2014F-I-V-E\u2014M-I-N-U-T-E-S.\n\n\"Blisters,\" Deryn said.\n\nThe airship was still a dozen yards up when Deryn spotted the first fighting bear.\n\nIt was loping through the area of standing trees, huffing coils of condensation into the freezing air. The bear was a small one, its shoulders barely ten feet high. Perhaps the others had kept it away from the spoils of dried beef.\n\nIt certainly didn't look like a beastie that had already eaten lunch.\n\n\"Climb!\" Deryn shouted, pointing up her own rope. \"Tell them to climb!\"\n\nMr. Tesla didn't say a word, but his men needed no translation. They began to pull their way up toward the portholes, hand over hand on the thick mooring ropes. None of them thought to drop his pack, or perhaps they were too scared of the Clanker boffin to leave anything behind.\n\nBut there was nothing Deryn could do for them now. She scampered up her own line, glad for the friction hitch she'd tied earlier.\n\nAs the men's weight was added to the ropes, the lines began to slacken, the airship settling closer to the ground. This was the situation Deryn had wanted to avoid\u2014another gust of wind would pop the ropes taut again, flinging off the men holding them.\n\nShe looked over her shoulder. The small bear had broken into the open, and larger shapes loomed behind it.\n\n\"Sharp!\" Mr. Rigby's voice called from the porthole above her head. \"Get those men to drop their packs!\"\n\n\"I've tried, sir. They don't speak English!\"\n\n\"But can't they see the bears coming! Are they mad?\"\n\n\"No, just afraid of that fellow there.\" She jerked her chin toward Mr. Tesla, who still stood on the ground, impassively regarding the approaching bear. \"He's the mad one!\"\n\nThe whoosh of a compressed air gun split the air, and Deryn heard a howl. The anti-aeroplane bolts had hit the closest bear and sent it tumbling among the fallen trees.\n\nA moment later it stood again and shook its head. A fresh mark gleamed on the beastie's scarred and patchy fur, but it let out a defiant roar.\n\n\"I think you've just made it angry, sir!\"\n\n\"Not to worry, Mr. Sharp. We're putting that tranquilizer to good use.\"\n\nDeryn glanced backward as she climbed, and saw that the bear looked unsteady on its feet now, ambling across the fallen trees like an airman full of too much drink.\n\nWhen Deryn reached the porthole, Mr. Rigby stuck out a hand and pulled her in.\n\n\"The spare cargo's ready to drop,\" the bosun said, \"so we've plenty of lift. But with bears closing in, the captain won't take us any closer to the ground. Can the rest of those men climb?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. About half of them are airmen, so they should\u2014\"\n\n\"Good heavens,\" Mr. Rigby interrupted, peering out the porthole. \"What in blazes is that man doing?\"\n\nDeryn crowded in beside the bosun. Mr. Tesla was still on the ground, facing three more bears that had broken from the trees.\n\n\"Barking spiders!\" Deryn breathed. \"I didn't think he was this mad.\"\n\nThe largest of the creatures was hardly twenty yards from Tesla, leaping across the fallen trees in huge bounds. The man calmly raised his walking stick. . . .\n\nA bolt of lightning leapt from its tip, with a sound like the air itself tearing. The beast reared onto its hind legs and howled, trapped for a split second in a jagged cage of light. The brilliance faded instantly, but the bear howled and turned to flee, the other beasties following in its wake.\n\nMr. Tesla inspected the end of his walking stick, which was black and smoking, then turned toward the airship.\n\n\"You may land your ship properly now,\" he called up. \"Those beasts will be wary for an hour or so.\"\n\nThe bosun nodded dumbly, and before he could call for a message lizard, the winches started up, inching the ship lower again. The officers were in agreement.\n\n\"REPULSION OF THE STARVING WAR BEASTS.\"\n\nMr. Rigby found his voice a moment later. \"It's not just the bears that should be wary, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nShe nodded slowly. \"Aye, sir. We'll have to keep an eye on that fellow.\"\n\nAlek awoke to a thunderclap, a buzzing sound, and then a monstrous roar.\n\nHe sat up and blinked his eyes, convinced for a moment that some awful dream had shaken him from sleep. But the sounds kept coming\u2014shouting, the creak of ropes, and beastly growls. The air smelled of lightning.\n\nAlek swung his boots to the floor and ran to his stateroom window. He'd only meant to doze for an hour, but the sun was high and the Leviathan had arrived at its destination. Dozens of mooring lines stretched to the earth below. The figures manning them were dressed in furs instead of airmen's uniforms, all of them shouting in . . . Russian?\n\nThe ground was littered with fallen trees\u2014hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Chimney smoke rose from a distant cluster of buildings. Was this some sort of logging camp?\n\nThen Alek heard another roar, and saw fighting bears among the fallen trees. They had no riders, not even harnesses, and their matted fur looked wild. He took an involuntary step back from the window. The ship was low enough for the giant beasts to reach it!\n\nBut they seemed to be running away.\n\nAlek remembered the thunderclap that had woken him. The ship's crew must have scared the creatures off somehow.\n\nHe leaned out the window as the Leviathan settled to the ground. Gangways were dropped, and the Russians, at least two dozen of them, climbed aboard. Soon a wailing siren swept through the ship, warning of a fast ascent.\n\nAlek pulled himself back inside just in time. The air crackled with the sound of ropes being cut, and the airship shot straight up, rising as fast as the steam elevators he'd ridden in Istanbul.\n\nWhat was this place? The jumble of fallen trees stretched as far as the horizon, the area far more vast than any logging camp could be. Even as the Leviathan climbed into the sky, no end to the destruction came into sight.\n\nAlek turned toward his cabin door, wondering where to go for answers. The Darwinists might involve him when they needed his Clanker expertise, but they wouldn't be calling for him now.\n\nWhere would Dylan be at a time like this? In the cargo bay?\n\nAt the thought of the boy, Alek remembered the newspaper lying by his bed. The questions he'd fallen asleep asking welled up again. But this was hardly the time to wonder about the mysterious Dylan Sharp.\n\nThe corridors of the ship were teaming with the Russians who'd come aboard. They were unshaven and haggard, half starved beneath their thick furs. The Leviathan's crew was trying to relieve them of their heavy packs, but the men were resisting, English and Russian colliding with little effect.\n\nAlek looked about, wondering how the ship could lift them all. The crew must have dumped every last bit of spare supplies.\n\nA gloved hand landed on his shoulder. \"It's you, Alek. Perfect!\"\n\nHe turned to find Dylan before him. The boy was wearing a flight suit, his boots muddy.\n\n\"You were out there?\" Alek asked. \"With those bears?\"\n\n\"Aye, but they're not so bad. Can you speak any Russian?\"\n\n\"All the Russians I've met have spoken French.\" Alek looked at the starving, unkempt men around him and shrugged. \"And I think they were a different class of Russian.\"\n\n\"Well, ask them anyway, you ninny!\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Alek began to push his way through the corridor, repeating, \"Parlez-vous fran\u00e7ais?\"\n\nA moment later Dylan was imitating him, calling out the phrase with a distinctly Scottish lilt. One of the Russians looked up with a spark of recognition, and led them both to a small man wearing pince-nez glasses and a blue uniform beneath his furs.\n\nAlek bowed. \"Je suis Aleksandar, Prince de Hohenberg.\"\n\nThe man bowed in return and said in perfect French, \"I am Viktor Yegorov, captain of the Czar's Airship Empress Maria. Are you in charge here?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I'm only a guest on this ship. You're the captain of these men?\"\n\n\"The captain of a dead airship, you mean!\" The man glared over Alek's shoulder. \"That fool is in charge.\"\n\nAmong the crowd was a tall man dressed in civilian clothes, being led away by two of the ship's officers.\n\nAlek turned to Dylan. \"This man is Yegorov, an airship captain.\" He pointed. \"But he says that fellow is in charge.\"\n\nDylan snorted. \"Aye, him I've met already. That's Mr. Tesla, the Clanker boffin, and he's barking mad!\"\n\n\"Tesla the inventor?\" Alek asked. \"You must be mistaken.\"\n\nCaptain Yegorov heard the name and spat on the floor. \"He cost me my ship, and almost got us all killed! An utter fool, with the czar's men behind him.\"\n\nAlek said in careful French. \"It isn't Nikola Tesla, is it? I thought he was working for the Clankers.\"\n\n\"Of course he was!\" the captain said. \"The Germans funded his experiments when no one else would, and he designed plenty of weapons for them. But now that war is here, he's seen what they've done to his motherland! He's a Serb.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Alek said softly. \"Of course.\"\n\nThis Great War might have stretched across the world, but it had all started with the invasion of Serbia, for which Alek's family was to blame. His father\u2014heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne\u2014and mother had been killed by a group of Serbian revolutionaries, or so everyone thought. In reality the murders had been plotted by Alek's own granduncle and the Germans. But tiny Serbia had been the first victim of Austria's revenge.\n\nCaptain Yegorov's eyes narrowed. \"Wait. Is that . . . an Austrian uniform?\"\n\nAlek looked down at himself, and realized he was wearing his piloting jacket thrown over grease-stained mechanik's overalls.\n\n\"Yes. Hapsburg Guards, to be precise.\"\n\n\"And you're the prince of Hohenberg, you said?\" Captain Yegorov shook his head. \"The archduke's son, on a British airship? So the newspapers were telling the truth.\"\n\nAlek wondered how Eddie Malone's ridiculous articles had made it to Siberia. \"Some measure of it, anyway. I am Aleksandar.\"\n\nThe man let out a dry laugh. \"Well, I suppose if a Clanker inventor can switch sides, why not an Austrian prince?\"\n\nAlek nodded, the words finally sinking in. Nikola Tesla\u2014inventor of wireless transmission, the Tesla cannon, and countless other devices\u2014had joined the Darwinists. Count Volger would be fascinated to hear this bit of news.\n\n\"What are you two blethering about?\" Dylan asked. \"Has he told you yet why that Clanker boffin is here?\"\n\n\"Mr. Tesla appears to have joined the Darwinists,\" Alek said in English. He turned to the captain again. \"But why are you all in Siberia? Mr. Tesla is an inventor, not an explorer.\"\n\n\"He was searching for something in that fallen forest.\" Captain Yegorov shook his head. \"I have no idea what.\"\n\nAlek remembered the strange device in the ship's belly. \"Something metal?\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"It could be. A few days ago his soldiers excavated a huge hole, and he was quite excited. After that we retreated inside the wire to wait for rescue.\"\n\nAlek turned to Dylan, roughly translating. \"Tesla was looking for something here, something secret. He may have found it a few days ago, whatever it was.\"\n\n\"Blisters. That means it's come aboard.\" Dylan looked down the crowded corridor, full of men with heavy packs but no Tesla. \"They've taken him forward to speak with the officers.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose they'd want to meet Captain Yegorov?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Aye, they would.\" Dylan smiled. \"And they might need a translator as well.\"\n\nA marine guard stood at the entrance to the forward corridor, keeping back the Russians. But he saluted when Dylan approached, and listened as the boy explained who Captain Yegorov was, and how he spoke no English. A few minutes later Alek found himself and the captain being taken forward.\n\n\"Watch out for that bum-rag!\" Dylan called, then turned away to face the throng.\n\nIn the navigation room were Captain Hobbes, Dr. Barlow, Dr. Busk, and the famous Mr. Tesla. The inventor was elegantly dressed, considering he'd just been rescued from the middle of Siberia, but he had a wild gleam in his eye. He clutched a walking stick that looked as though it had been thrust tip-first into a fire.\n\n\"I see no reason for this man to be here,\" Tesla said, giving Captain Yegorov a cold stare. The man said something short and sharp in Russian back at him.\n\nDr. Barlow spoke in a calming voice. \"This is a difficult moment for us all, gentlemen. Our ship is full of men and empty of supplies. The expertise of another airship captain is welcome here.\"\n\nTesla gave a snort, which the lady boffin politely ignored.\n\n\"If you please,\" she added to Alek. \"My French is a bit rusty.\"\n\nAs he translated her welcome for Yegorov, Alek heard a murmuring overhead, and glanced up to see both Bovril and Dr. Barlow's loris hanging from the message lizard tubes. They were repeating everything, relishing the sounds of a new language.\n\nCaptain Yegorov bowed. \"You have my thanks for rescuing us, and I appreciate the dire situation you are in. But it's no fault of mine. That madman ordered his soldiers to kill my airship. Food for the bears!\"\n\nAlek translated the last part into English haltingly, not quite believing what he was saying. The Leviathan's officers looked horrified as well.\n\nAfter a moment's silence Dr. Busk cleared his throat. \"It is not our place to pass judgment on what has happened here. We are on a rescue mission, nothing more. Perhaps we should all introduce ourselves.\" He turned to Captain Yegorov and said in slow, untidy French, \"I am Dr. Busk, head science officer aboard His Majesty's Airship Leviathan.\"\n\nAs Dr. Barlow introduced herself and the captain, Alek noticed that her French was flawless. He wondered why she really wanted him here.\n\nMr. Tesla looked bored and irritable, tapping his cane and grimacing as pleasantries went around the table. But when Alek introduced himself, the inventor's eyes lit up.\n\n\"The famous prince!\" he said in English. \"I've been reading about you.\"\n\n\"Ah, you, too,\" Alek sighed. \"I had no idea the New York World was so popular in Siberia.\"\n\nMr. Tesla laughed at this. \"My laboratory is in New York City, and you were the talk of the town when I left. And by the time I passed through Saint Petersburg, the czar's court was also buzzing about you!\"\n\nAn unpleasant feeling came over Alek, as always when he thought of thousands of strangers discussing the details of his life. \"Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers, Mr. Tesla.\"\n\n\"Indeed. They claim you're pulling strings in the Ottoman Republic, and yet here you are aboard the Leviathan. Are you concealing the fact that you've become a Darwinist?\"\n\n\"A Darwinist?\" Alek dropped his eyes to the table, suddenly aware of the Leviathan's officers in the room. \"I don't know if you could say that. But if you've read about me, you know that the Clanker Powers plotted my parents' death. The Germans and my granduncle, the Austrian emperor, are to blame for this war. I only want to end it.\"\n\nMr. Tesla nodded slowly. \"We are both servants of peace, then.\"\n\n\"A noble sentiment, gentlemen,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"But at the moment we are at war. We have twenty-eight extra mouths to feed, and we have dropped most of our supplies onto the tundra to make room for them.\"\n\n\"Airships certainly have their limitations,\" Mr. Tesla said.\n\nAlek ignored the man, quickly translating Captain Hobbes's words into French.\n\n\"If we head straight toward the airfield at Vladivostok, we'll all survive,\" Captain Yegorov said. \"It's two days away. We won't starve, and for water we can scoop up snow without landing, as Russian airships have done for years.\"\n\nAlek translated, and Captain Hobbes gave a firm nod.\n\n\"We're grateful that you have joined our side in this conflict, Mr. Tesla, and the czar has asked us to offer any assistance we can. But I'm afraid Captain Yegorov is right. We can't take you back to Saint Petersburg just yet. We'll have to keep heading east.\"\n\nThe inventor waved his hand. \"It doesn't matter. I haven't decided yet where I wish to go.\"\n\n\"Thank heaven for small favors,\" Dr. Barlow said quietly.\n\n\"After we resupply in Vladivostok, we may have to complete our mission in Japan,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"But I won't be sure until the Admiralty's orders reach us from London.\"\n\n\"If you only had wireless,\" Tesla muttered. \"Instead of those ridiculous birds.\"\n\nCaptain Hobbes ignored this. \"In the meantime we shall have to ration our food carefully.\" He looked at Captain Yegorov, and Alek repeated his words in French.\n\n\"We are airmen. Of course we understand,\" Yegorov said. \"We've all missed a few meals since arriving in Tunguska.\"\n\n\"Tunguska,\" said Bovril from the ceiling.\n\nDr. Barlow glanced up at the beast, then asked in French, \"Is that the name of this place?\"\n\nCaptain Yegorov shrugged. \"The Tunguska River passes through this forest, but it hardly has a name.\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" Tesla muttered. \"But soon everyone will know what happened here.\"\n\nDr. Barlow turned to him, switching to English. \"If I may ask, Mr. Tesla, what did happen here?\"\n\n\"To put it simply, the greatest explosion in our planet's history,\" the man said softly. \"The sound broke windows hundreds of miles away. It flattened the forest in all directions, and threw such dust into the air that the skies went red for months around the world.\"\n\n\"Around the world?\" Dr. Barlow asked. \"When was this exactly?\"\n\n\"The early morning of June 30, 1908. Back in the civilized world the atmospheric effects were barely noticed. But if it had happened anywhere except Siberia, the event would have filled all mankind with astonishment.\"\n\n\"Astonishment,\" Bovril whispered softly, and Tesla paused to give the beast an irritated stare. Alek glanced out the navigation room's slanted windows. Even at this height, he could see that the fallen trees stretched out endlessly.\n\n\"I came here to study what happened, and soon I shall report my results.\" As the inventor continued, he placed a heavy hand on Alek's shoulder and turned his gaze to him. \"When I do, the world will shudder, and perhaps at last find peace.\"\n\n\"Peace? Because of an explosion?\" Alek asked. \"But what caused it, sir?\"\n\nMr. Tesla smiled, and tapped his walking stick three times upon the floor.\n\n\"Goliath did.\"\n\n\"He is quite mad, of course,\" Alek said.\n\nCount Volger drummed his fingers on his desk, his eyes still locked on Bovril. Dr. Barlow had handed the creature to Alek as the meeting had broken up, and Alek hadn't stopped to leave it in his own stateroom. The news was simply too extraordinary to wait. But now Volger and the beast were staring at each other, a contest that Bovril appeared to be enjoying.\n\nAlek pulled the creature from his shoulder and placed it on the floor. He stepped closer to the stateroom window. \"Mr. Tesla says he did all this from America, with some kind of machine. Six years go.\"\n\n\"In 1908?\" Volger asked, his eyes still fixed on the beast. \"And he's waited until now to tell the world?\"\n\n\"The Russians wouldn't allow a Clanker scientist into their country,\" Alek said. \"Not until he switched sides. So he couldn't study the effects firsthand. But now that he's seen what his weapon can do, he says he's going to make the invention public.\"\n\nVolger finally tore his eyes from Bovril. \"Why would he test this weapon on a place he couldn't visit?\"\n\n\"He says this was an accident, a misfire. He only wanted to 'create some fireworks' and didn't realize how powerful Goliath was.\" Alek frowned. \"But surely you don't believe any of this.\"\n\nVolger turned to stare out the window. The Leviathan was nearing the edge of the devastation, where only the youngest trees had fallen. But the massive extent of the explosion was still apparent.\n\n\"Do you have another explanation for what happened here?\"\n\nAlek sighed slowly, then pulled out a chair and sat down. \"Of course I don't.\"\n\n\"Goliath,\" Bovril said softly.\n\nCount Volger gave the beast an unfriendly look. \"What do the Darwinists think?\"\n\n\"They don't question Mr. Tesla's claims.\" Alek shrugged. \"Not to his face, at any rate. They seem quite pleased that he's joined their side.\"\n\n\"Of course they are. Even if the man's lost his mind, he can still show them a trick or two. And if he's telling the truth, he could end the war with the flick of a switch.\"\n\nAlek looked out the window again. The magnitude of the fallen forest, and the fact that Volger wasn't laughing outright at Tesla's absurd claim, made him feel queasy. \"I suppose that's true enough. Imagine Berlin after such an explosion.\"\n\n\"Not Berlin,\" Volger said.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Tesla is a Serb,\" Volger explained slowly. \"Our country attacked his homeland, not Germany.\"\n\nAlek felt the weight of the war settling on his shoulders again. \"My family is to blame, you mean.\"\n\n\"Tesla might well think so. If this weapon of his really works, and he uses it again, it will be Vienna that lies in splinters.\"\n\nAlek felt something dreadful rising up inside him, like the hollow feeling he'd carried inside since his parents' murder, but greater. \"Surely no one would ever use such a weapon against a city.\"\n\n\"There are no limits in war,\" Volger said, still staring out the window.\n\nThen Alek recalled the dead airbeast, sacrificed to the fighting bears so that Tesla could complete his mission. The man was determined, it seemed.\n\nBovril shifted on the floor, saying, \"Splinters.\"\n\nVolger gave the beast another withering look, then turned to Alek. \"This may be an opportunity for you to serve your people, Prince, in a way few sovereigns can.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Alek sat up straighter. \"We'll convince him that Austria is not his enemy. He's read about me in those newspapers. He understands that I want peace too.\"\n\n\"That would be the best solution,\" Volger said. \"But we must be certain of his intentions before we let him leave this ship.\"\n\n\"Let him leave? I hardly think we can convince the captain to arrest him.\"\n\n\"I wasn't thinking of an arrest.\" Count Volger leaned closer, his hands splayed across the map of Siberia on the desk. \"How close were you standing to him in that meeting? How close might any of us find ourselves to this man over the next days?\"\n\nAlek blinked. \"Surely you're not suggesting violence, Count.\"\n\n\"I am suggesting, young prince, that this man is a danger to your people. What if he wants revenge for what Austria has done to his homeland?\"\n\n\"Ah. Revenge again,\" Alek muttered.\n\n\"Two million of your subjects live in Vienna. Would you not lift a hand to save them?\"\n\nAlek sat there, uncertain of what to say. It was true\u2014half an hour ago he'd been standing next to the famous inventor, close enough to put a knife into him. But the whole idea was barbaric.\n\n\"He thinks Goliath can end the war,\" Alek managed at last. \"The man wants peace!\"\n\n\"As do we all,\" Count Volger said. \"But there are many ways to end a war. Some more peaceful than others.\"\n\nThere was a knock on the door.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Bovril said, then gave a giggle.\n\n\"Come in, Dylan,\" Alek called. The lorises had very keen hearing and could tell people apart by their footsteps or door knocks, even the particular rasp of how they drew a sword.\n\nThe door swung open, and Dylan took a step inside. He and Volger exchanged a cold glance.\n\n\"I thought I'd find you here, Alek. How was the meeting?\"\n\n\"Quite illuminating.\" Alek glanced from Dylan to Volger. \"I'll tell you all about it, but . . .\"\n\n\"I need to get some sleep first,\" Dylan said. \"Up all night, and out with the bears while you were napping.\"\n\nAlek nodded. \"I'll keep Bovril, then.\"\n\n\"Aye, but get a squick more sleep yourself,\" Dylan said. \"The lady boffin wants us to do some skulking tonight, to find out what Mr. Tesla's been up to.\"\n\n\"Skulking,\" Bovril said, quite happy with the word.\n\n\"An excellent idea,\" Alek said.\n\n\"There's no telling what he's brought aboard.\"\n\n\"Then, I'll see you after nightfall.\" Dylan made an infinitesimal bow at Volger. \"Your countship.\"\n\nVolger nodded in return. Once the door was closed again, a tiny shiver went through Bovril.\n\n\"Have you two had some sort of a falling-out?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"A falling-out?\" Volger snorted. \"We were hardly friends in the first place.\"\n\n\"In the first place? So you are on the outs with each other.\" Alek let out a dry laugh. \"What happened? Did Dylan talk back during his fencing lessons?\"\n\nThe wildcount didn't answer, but rose from his desk and began to pace about the room. Alek felt his smile fade, remembering what they'd been discussing.\n\nBut when the wildcount finally spoke, he said, \"How important is that boy to you?\"\n\n\"A moment ago, Count, you were suggesting cold-blooded murder. And now you're asking about Dylan?\"\n\n\"Are you trying to avoid the question?\"\n\n\"No.\" Alek shrugged. \"I think Dylan's an excellent soldier and a good friend. A good ally, I might add. He helped me get into that meeting today. Without him we'd be sitting here without a clue as to what's happening on this ship.\"\n\n\"An ally.\" Volger sat back down, dropping his gaze to the map on his desk. \"Fair enough. Does Tesla say he can fire this weapon at any spot on earth?\"\n\n\"I'm having trouble following your leaps in conversation today, Volger. But yes, he says he can aim it now.\"\n\n\"But how can he be certain, if this first event was an accident?\"\n\nAlek sighed, trying to cast his mind back to the meeting. Tesla had gone on at length about the matter. Despite claiming to be keeping secrets, the inventor had a gift for disquisition.\n\n\"He's been working on that problem for six years, ever since the accidental firing. He knew from newspaper accounts that something had happened in Siberia, something extraordinary. And now that he's measured the explosion's exact center, he can adjust his weapon accordingly.\"\n\nVolger nodded. \"So that device you and Klopp put together, it was meant to find the center of the explosion?\"\n\n\"Well . . . that doesn't make sense. Klopp says it's a metal detector.\"\n\n\"When a shell lands, aren't there traces of metal left?\"\n\n\"But it isn't that kind of weapon.\" Alek cast his mind back, trying to remember how the great inventor had described it. \"Goliath is a Tesla cannon of sorts, one that becomes part of the Earth's magnetic field. It casts the planet's energy up through the atmosphere and around the world. Like the northern lights, he said, but a million times more powerful. The way he described it, the air itself caught fire here!\"\n\n\"I see.\" Volger let out a slow sigh. \"Or rather, I don't see at all. This may all be a case of madness, of course.\"\n\n\"Surely,\" Alek said, feeling himself relax. The notion of murdering Tesla to stop some imaginary event was too absurd to contemplate. \"I'll ask Klopp what he thinks. And Dr. Barlow will also venture an opinion, no doubt.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" Bovril said thoughtfully.\n\nCount Volger waved his hand at the beast. \"Is that all this abomination does? Repeat words at random?\"\n\n\"Random,\" Bovril said, then chuckled a bit.\n\nAlek reached down to stroke the creature's fur. \"That's what I thought, at first. But Dr. Barlow claims that the beast is quite\"\u2014he used the English word\u2014\"perspicacious. And it does make a good suggestion every now and then.\"\n\n\"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,\" Volger muttered. \"Clearly those creatures were nothing but an excuse to have a snoop around Istanbul. Bringing the behemoth down the strait was always the Darwinists' plan.\"\n\nAlek lifted the beast back up to his shoulder. He'd thought the same thing himself, back in Istanbul. But just that morning in the cargo hold, the creature had borrowed Dr. Barlow's necklace to show how the mysterious device worked.\n\nSurely that couldn't have been random.\n\nBut Alek didn't mention it. No point in making the wildcount even more uneasy around the beast.\n\n\"I may not understand Goliath,\" he said simply. \"But I understand Darwinist fabrications even less.\"\n\n\"Keep it that way,\" Volger said. \"You're the heir to the Austrian throne, not some zookeeper. I'll talk to Klopp about all this. In the meantime you should follow Dylan's advice and get some sleep before tonight.\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow. \"You don't mind me skulking with a commoner?\"\n\n\"If what Tesla says is true, your empire faces grave danger. It's your duty to learn everything you can.\" Count Volger stared at him a moment, a look of resignation coming over his face. \"Besides, Your Serene Highness, sometimes skulking in the dark can prove most enlightening.\"\n\nMaking his way back to his stateroom, Alek felt his missed night of sleep again. The perspicacious loris sat heavily on his shoulder, and too many thoughts buzzed in his mind\u2014images of the ruined forest beneath the ship, the notion that a madman could destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the awful possibility that Alek himself might have to prevent it with the blade of a knife.\n\nBut when he slumped onto his bed, Alek found Volger's newspaper still there, opened to the story about Dylan.\n\nVolger had been so strange today, his questions zigzagging between Tesla's weapon and Dylan. They must have had a fight, but about what?\n\nAlek picked up the newspaper, staring at the photograph of Dylan swinging from the Dauntless's trunk. The wildcount had seen the story too, of course. He read every newspaper Barlow gave him from cover to cover.\n\n\"You know something you shouldn't, don't you, Volger?\" Alek said quietly. \"That's why you and Dylan are fighting.\"\n\n\"Fighting,\" Bovril repeated thoughtfully. Then it crawled from Alek's shoulder onto the bed.\n\nAlek stared at the beast, recalling what had happened in the cargo bay. The creature had sat on Klopp's shoulder all night, listening to everything, rolling words like \"magnetism\" and \"electrikals\" around in its mouth. And then it had plucked Dr. Barlow's necklace from her and demonstrated the purpose of the strange device.\n\nThat was how the beast's perspicaciousness worked. It listened, then somehow drew everything together into a neat bundle.\n\nAlek flipped the newspaper back to the first page, and began to read aloud. Bovril spoke up now and then, repeating new words happily, digesting it all.\n\n. . . He surely has bravery running in his veins, being the nephew of an intrepid airman, one Artemis Sharp, who perished in a calamitous ballooning fire only a few years ago. The elder Sharp was posthumously awarded the Air Gallantry Cross for saving his daughter, Deryn, from the hungry flames of the conflagration.\n\nAlek sat back up. He blinked away sleep, still staring at the words. His daughter, Deryn?\n\n\"Reporters.\" Alek took a deep breath. It was amazing how they could get the simplest facts wrong. He'd explained to Malone several times that Ferdinand was his father's middle name. And yet the man had referred to Alek as \"Aleksandar Ferdinand\" in several places, as if it were a family name!\n\n\"His daughter, Deryn,\" Bovril repeated.\n\nBut why would anyone change a boy into a girl? And where had the unlikely name Deryn come from? Perhaps Malone had been misled by someone in Dylan's family, to hide the fact that two brothers had entered the Air Service together.\n\nBut Dylan had said that was all a lie, hadn't he?\n\nSo this Deryn had to do with the real family secret, the one Dylan refused to talk about.\n\nFor a moment Alek felt dizzy, and wondered if he should put down the paper and forget all about this, out of respect for Dylan's wishes. He needed sleep.\n\nBut instead he read a little further. . . .\n\nAt the time of the tragic incident, the Daily Telegraph of London wrote, \"And as the flames exploded overhead, the father cast his daughter from the tiny gondola, and in saving her life sealed his own fate.\" Surely our brothers across the Atlantic are lucky to count brave men such as the Sharps among their airmen during this terrible war.\n\n\"Sealed his own fate,\" Bovril said gravely.\n\nAlek nodded slowly. So the mistake had been made two years ago, by a British paper, and had been merely copied by Malone. That had to be it. But why had the Telegraph made such an odd error?\n\nA cold feeling went through Alek then. What if there really was a Deryn, and Dylan was lying about it all? What if the boy had only watched the accident, and had inserted himself into the story in his sister's place?\n\nAlek shook his head at this absurd idea. No one would embellish the story of his own father's death. It had to be a simple mistake.\n\nThen, why was Dylan lying to the Air Service about who his father was?\n\nA strange feeling, almost a kind of panic, was coming over Alek. It had to be exhaustion, compounded by this reporter's odd mistake. How was he supposed to believe anything he read, when newspapers could get reality so completely wrong? Sometimes it felt as though the whole world were built on lies.\n\nHe lay down, forcing his eyes closed and willing his racing heart to slow down. The details of a years-old tragedy hardly mattered anymore. Dylan had seen his father die and his heart was still broken from it, of that Alek was sure. Perhaps the boy didn't know himself what had happened on that terrible day.\n\nAlek lay there for long minutes, but sleep wouldn't come. Finally he opened his eyes and looked at Bovril. \"Well, you've got all the facts now.\"\n\nThe creature just stared up at him.\n\nAlek waited another moment, then sighed. \"You're not going to help me with this mystery, are you? Of course you aren't.\"\n\nHe kicked off his boots and closed his eyes again, but his head was still spinning. He wanted more than anything to get some rest ahead of tonight's skulking. But Alek could feel sleeplessness nestling in beside him, like an unwelcome visitor in the bed.\n\nThen Bovril crept up beside his head, seeking warmth against the chill that pushed through the ship's windowpanes.\n\n\"Mr. Deryn Sharp,\" the creature whispered into his ear.\n\nTazza's ears perked up. The beastie strained at his leash, pulling Deryn forward in the darkness of the gut. Just ahead of them a strange two-headed silhouette was emerging from gloom.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" came a familiar voice, and Deryn smiled. It was only Bovril, riding on Alek's shoulder.\n\nTazza leaned back onto his haunches and bounced with excitement as the two approached. Bovril chuckled a bit at the sight, but Alek didn't look happy. He was staring at Deryn, his eyes hollow.\n\n\"Did you not get any sleep?\" she asked.\n\n\"Not much.\" He knelt to pet the thylacine. \"I looked in your cabin. Newkirk said you'd be here.\"\n\n\"Aye, this is Tazza's favorite place for a walk,\" Deryn said. The great airbeast's gut was where all the organic matter of the ship came together to be processed and separated into energy-making sugars, hydrogen, and waste. \"I think he likes the smells.\"\n\n\"Mr. Newkirk seemed quite at home there,\" Alek said.\n\nDeryn sighed. \"It's his cabin too now. We're short of bunks for the next few days. Still, it's better than back when there were three of us middies to a cabin.\"\n\nAlek frowned, his gaze lingering on her again. Even in the faint wormlight of the great airbeast's gut, his face looked pale.\n\n\"Are you all right, Alek? You look as if you've seen a ghost.\"\n\n\"My head's been spinning, I suppose.\"\n\n\"It's not just you. Since meeting with that Clanker boffin, the officers have been as twitchy as a box of crickets. What in blazes did Tesla say in there?\"\n\nAlek paused a moment, still giving her the strange look. \"He claims that he destroyed that forest himself. He has a weapon of some kind in America, called Goliath. It's much bigger than the one we tore down in Istanbul, and he wants to end the war with it.\"\n\n\"He said he . . . w-with a what?\" Deryn sputtered.\n\n\"It's like a Tesla cannon, which he says can set the air on fire anywhere in the world. Now that he's seen firsthand what it can do, he wants to use it to force the Clankers to surrender.\"\n\nDeryn blinked. The boy had said the words so simply, as if repeating a duty roster, but they hardly made sense.\n\n\"Surrender,\" Bovril said. \"Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"A barking weapon did all that?\" She could recall with perfect clarity the night of the battle with the Goeben, when the Tesla cannon's lightning had spread across the Leviathan's skin, threatening to set the whole ship aflame. An astonishing sight, but a fly's fart compared to the destruction here in Siberia.\n\nDeryn felt dizzy. The news was staggering, and it didn't much help that supper hadn't been served that night. Tazza nuzzled her hand, whining hungrily.\n\n\"No wonder you couldn't sleep,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"That was part of it.\" The boy looked her in the eye again. \"It could all be a lie, of course. You can never tell when people are lying.\"\n\n\"Aye, or mad. No wonder the lady boffin wanted us to do a little skulking tonight.\" Deryn stood, pulling on the thylacine's leash. \"Come on, beastie. It's back to the cabin with you.\"\n\n\"We should take the loris with us,\" Alek said as he stood up. \"It's been quite perspicacious lately.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Bovril added, and Deryn gave it a hard look.\n\n\"Well, all right,\" she said. \"But I hope it knows when to shush.\"\n\n\"Shushhh,\" the loris said.\n\nThe belowdecks were full of snoring men.\n\nThe Leviathan might not have had enough bunks for its guests, but the ship's empty storerooms had plenty of space. Except for their captain the Russians were all down here, packed together like a box of cigars. But Deryn reckoned they were happy enough, getting their first night of sleep in weeks without the lullabies of hungry fighting bears.\n\nIt was drafty in the belowdecks, and the men were still wrapped in their furs. Deryn saw no glimmer of watching eyes as she slunk past. Sitting on Alek's shoulder, Bovril softly imitated the sounds of snoring, breathing, and the wind of the airship's passage.\n\nNear the rear of the ship, she and Alek reached a locked door, its wooden frame bound with metal. She pulled out the ring of keys that Dr. Barlow had given her that afternoon.\n\nThe door swung open on silent hinges, and Deryn and Alek slipped inside. \"Some light, your princeliness?\" she whispered.\n\nWhile Alek was fiddling for his command whistle, she relocked the door behind them. His shaky tune came through the dark; then Bovril joined in, and the green light of glowworms sprang up around them.\n\nIt was the airship's smallest storeroom, the only one with a solid door. The officers' wine and spirits were kept here, along with any other cargo of special value. At the moment it was empty except for the captain's lockbox and the strange magnetic device.\n\n\"The crew saved this machine?\" Alek asked. \"Even when they threw all our food away?\"\n\n\"Aye. The lady boffin had to yell a bit to make it happen. She's a clever-boots, thinking ahead like that.\"\n\n\"Clever-boots,\" said Bovril with a chuckle.\n\nAlek's eyes opened wider. \"Of course. This device was meant to find whatever Tesla was looking for.\"\n\n\"Aye. But he's already found it! Captain Yegorov said that Tesla's men dug something out of the earth a few days ago. So whatever they discovered must be aboard the Leviathan right now!\" She looked down at the device. \"And he's supplied us with a way to find out exactly where.\"\n\nAlek's smile grew as his hands took the machine's controls.\n\nTypical, Deryn thought, that it took a clever scheme and a Clanker device to lift Alek's spirits. But it was good to see the boy happy at last, instead of moping about as if the world had ended.\n\n\"These walls are solid,\" she said. \"The Russians won't hear if you turn it on.\"\n\nAlek tapped at one of the dials, then gave the power switch a flick.\n\nThe low whine of the machine built, filling the tiny room. The three glass spheres began to shimmer, a wee sliver of lightning sparkling to life in each one. The electricity flickered aimlessly for a moment, then steadied.\n\nDeryn swore, leaning closer. \"That's exactly the same as this morning\u2014two pointed upward and one astern. It's detecting the engines again.\"\n\n\"One moment,\" Alek said.\n\nDeryn watched as he fiddled with the elegant controls. The machine's parts looked handmade, more like the Leviathan's equipment than a Clanker device. She remembered Klopp complaining about its fanciness as they'd put it together.\n\n\"It almost looks like it belongs here,\" she murmured.\n\nAlek nodded. \"Mr. Tesla has lived in America for some time. It must be difficult to escape the Darwinist influence there.\"\n\n\"Aye, poor man. I'm sure he wished he'd made it barking ugly.\"\n\n\"There!\" Alek said. \"It's got hold of something!\"\n\nThe slivers of lightning had faded for a moment, but now they were flickering back to life. All three of them pointed in the same direction\u2014up and toward the bow.\n\nDeryn frowned. \"That's the officers' staterooms, or maybe the bridge. Could it be detecting the metal in the ship's instruments?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. We'll have to triangulate to be sure.\"\n\n\"What, you mean move it?\"\n\nAlek shrugged. \"It's designed to be carried, after all.\"\n\n\"Aye, and we're supposed to be skulking, not waltzing about with this noisy contraption sparkling in the dark.\"\n\n\"Sparkling!\" Bovril announced, then began to imitate the sounds of the machine.\n\n\"Well, I can turn the current down,\" Alek said, and fiddled with the controls a bit. The glass spheres dimmed. \"How's that?\"\n\n\"It's still barking noisy,\" Deryn muttered, but there was no way around it. With only a single direction to go on, they'd have to search a quarter of the ship. \"You shush, beastie!\"\n\n\"Shush,\" Bovril whispered, and a moment later the sound in the room began to change. The whining grew flatter and dimmer, as if the machine were being carried away down a long corridor. But it was still there, right in front of Deryn.\n\n\"Did you do that?\" she asked Alek.\n\nThe boy shook his head, holding a hand up for silence. He turned to stare at the perspicacious loris on his shoulder.\n\nDeryn squinted in the green-tinged darkness, and soon she saw it. Every time Bovril paused for breath, the whine of the device grew in volume for a moment, then faded again.\n\n\"Is Bovril doing that?\" she asked.\n\nAlek placed a hand over his ear on one side, closing his eyes. \"The creature's whine is making the machine's quieter somehow, as if the two sounds were fighting each other.\"\n\n\"But how?\"\n\nAlek opened his eyes. \"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose that's a question for the lady boffin.\" Deryn reached for the machine's handles. \"We've got skulking to do.\"\n\nThe device was easy enough for the two of them to carry, but once out in the cargo bay, Deryn realized how tricky this would be. Only a narrow sliver of floor was visible among the sleeping bodies, like a path of paving stones through a carpet of brambles.\n\nAlek led the way, taking slow deliberate steps. Deryn followed, her palms growing sweaty on the machine's metal handles. She was certain of one thing\u2014if the device slipped from her grasp, whoever it landed on was going to make a ruckus.\n\nThe whine of the machine seemed even quieter out here, stifled by the packed bodies and Bovril's mysterious vocal trick. What sound remained was lost in the rush of wind slipping past the airship's gondola.\n\n\"A CAREFUL EXTRACTION.\"\n\nAs she and Alek made their way toward the bow, the slivers of lightning in the glass spheres gradually shifted, until they pointed directly up. Deryn stared at the ceiling, recalling the deck plans she'd copied a hundred times from the Manual of Aeronautics.\n\nOne deck up was the officer's baths, and above that . . .\n\n\"Of course,\" she hissed. Over the baths was Dr. Busk's laboratory, which the head boffin was letting Mr. Tesla use as a stateroom.\n\nThe realization froze her midstride, just as Alek took a long step over a sleeping Russian. Too late Deryn felt cool metal slipping from the fingers of her right hand. . . .\n\nShe stuck out a boot just in time\u2014the right rear corner of the device landed on it, sending a jolt of pain through her foot. She choked back a shriek, grabbing for the bars to steady the contraption before it toppled onto a sleeping Russian.\n\nAlek turned back to give her a questioning look.\n\nDeryn jerked her chin back at the storeroom, afraid that if she opened her mouth, the stifled cry of pain would leap out. Alek looked at the glass spheres, then up at the ceiling, and nodded. He steadied the machine, then reached out and turned it off.\n\nThe way back was even trickier. Deryn led this time, her foot throbbing, her steps slow and painful across the sleeping bodies. But finally the machine was inside the storeroom again. She and Alek slipped back out into the cargo bay, then locked the door behind them.\n\nAs they made their way toward the central stairs, Deryn scanned the sleeping men. None stirred, and a squick of relief competed with the drumbeat of pain in her foot.\n\nBut as she climbed the stairs, Bovril shifted on Alek's shoulder and made a soft sound, like whispers in the dark.\n\n\"Let me do this,\" Alek whispered again.\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. \"Don't be daft. I know every squick of this ship. You've never even been in the laboratory.\"\n\n\"But you can't just sneak into a man's room while he's sleeping,\" Alek said, his voice breaking from a whisper.\n\n\"And you can? You're a barking prince. I hardly think that qualifies you for burglary.\"\n\nAlek started to sputter something else, but Deryn ignored him, glancing up and down the hallway. After a day that had included a rope-and-winch landing and twenty-eight unexpected new passengers, the exhausted crew was mostly asleep, the airship's corridors empty and dark.\n\n\"Just stay out here and keep quiet.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tesla is quite unbalanced,\" Alek whispered. \"Who knows what he'll do if he wakes up? Volger said his walking stick was quite dangerous.\"\n\n\"Aye, there is that,\" Deryn murmured. Tesla had promised the captain that he wouldn't fire the stick inside the airship. But what if she startled the inventor, and he forgot that he was hanging from a giant bag of hydrogen? \"I'll have to make sure I don't wake him, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Why don't we simply tell Dr. Barlow that he's got something in his cabin?\" Alek whispered. \"The ship's marines can search for it in the morning.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"You know what a sneaky-beak the lady boffin is. She wants it all done quietly, so Tesla won't know she's on to him.\"\n\n\"Of course. The simplest path is completely beyond that woman.\"\n\n\"Listen, if you want to help, wait out here and give the door a wee scratch if anyone's headed this way.\" She pointed at the beastie. \"And keep your eye on Bovril. It'll hear any footsteps before you do.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. I'm not moving from this spot.\"\n\n\"Except to hide if you hear anything.\" Deryn recalled the whispering sound Bovril had made as they'd left the belowdecks. \"If any of Tesla's Russians saw us down there, they might pop up to tell him.\"\n\nAlek opened his mouth to protest again, but Deryn silenced him with a stern look, pulling Dr. Barlow's keys from her pocket. The largest was labeled LABORATORY, and fit perfectly into the lock.\n\n\"Shush,\" Bovril said with a quiet, anxious rush of breath.\n\nAs the door opened, a wedge of the corridor's green light spilled into the room, and Deryn's breath caught. Of course, being discovered right away would be easiest. She was simply a dutiful middy checking on an important passenger.\n\nBut Mr. Tesla was asleep in his bunk, his breathing heavy and slow. The moon shone through the window, three quarters full, and the glass instruments that Dr. Busk had left behind glittered with the moon's pearly light.\n\nDeryn stepped inside and leaned back against the door, her heartbeat taking up residence in her bruised foot. The door shut behind her with a soft click, but still Mr. Tesla didn't stir.\n\nA shiny leather suitcase lay open on the floor, revealing a neatly folded white shirt that glowed in the moonlight. The electrical walking stick lay on a laboratory bench, its handle pulled off to reveal a pair of wires. As Deryn's eyes adjusted, she saw they were connected to the airship's power lines. So the bum-rag was recharging his stick, despite his promise to the captain.\n\nDeryn took a few slow steps into the room, her foot still pounding from the contraption landing on it. She knelt by the suitcase and slipped a hand beneath the shirt on top, feeling layer by layer. Nothing but clothing.\n\nShe frowned, looking about the room. Dr. Busk had cleared most of his boffin gear away, so the lab wasn't in its usual cluttered state. There wasn't much space to hide anything, at least not anything big enough to create an explosion forty miles across. But the little slivers of lightning had pointed straight at this cabin, so whatever Tesla had found had to be here.\n\nShe swore under her breath. It was just like the lady boffin, sending Deryn to search for something without saying what it was.\n\nAs she knelt there pondering, a soft scratching sound came from the door. It was Alek, alerting her that someone was coming. . . .\n\nThere was nowhere else to hide, so Deryn dropped to her hands and knees and scuttled beneath the bed.\n\nShe waited there in the darkness, her heart pounding. There were no sounds from the corridor, nothing except the rush of wind and Mr. Tesla's steady breathing.\n\nMaybe it had been only a crewman walking past. . . .\n\nBut then a soft knocking came from the door. Deryn squeezed herself farther under the bed as the sound grew louder. Finally the door opened, spilling wormlight into the room.\n\nDeryn swore silently\u2014she hadn't locked the door behind her.\n\nA pair of fur-lined boots strode to the side of the bed, and she heard Tesla's name amid a stream of whispered Russian. Tesla's voice answered, sleepy and confused at first. Then a pair of bare feet descended before her eyes, and a quiet conversation began in Russian.\n\nLying there, Deryn realized that something was poking into her back. She reached a hand around and felt an object wrapped in a canvas sack. It was as hard as stone.\n\nDeryn swallowed. This had to be what she was looking for, but it wasn't much bigger than a football. Would Tesla have come six thousand miles to find something so small?\n\nShe would make too much noise if she turned over to take a closer look, so she slowed her breath and waited, staring at the fur-lined boots and trying to ignore her own throbbing foot.\n\nFinally the whispered conversation ended. The boots walked away and through the door, and the pair of bare feet shifted as Tesla stood up. Deryn clenched her fists. Was he going to check on his precious cargo beneath the bed?\n\n\"A SKULK INTERRUPTED.\"\n\nBut the feet padded over to the door, and Deryn heard the knob jiggle. Tesla was probably wondering how his Russian friend had simply walked in. But after the long and frantic day, could he be certain he'd locked the door before going to bed?\n\nThe rasp of a key reached her ears, then the click of a dead bolt sliding closed. The bare feet came back to the bed, which creaked above her as the man climbed back in.\n\nDeryn lay there, listening to his breathing, realizing that she would have to wait for ages to make sure he was asleep again. At least her throbbing foot would help her stay awake.\n\nThe mysterious object was still jabbing into her back, and its size still bothered her. How had that contraption detected something so small from the other end of the ship?\n\nMagnetic fields, Klopp had said.\n\nDeryn reached into a pocket and pulled out her compass. She inched it out from beneath the bed until its face caught a squick of moonlight. . . .\n\nHer eyes widened. The needle was pointing straight at the object, toward the bow of the ship. But they were headed south-by-southeast, not due north.\n\nThe mysterious object was magnetized. It had to be what Tesla had been looking for.\n\nDeryn counted a thousand slow heartbeats before daring to turn over. She felt the canvas sack in the darkness, and when her fingers slipped inside, they touched a cool metal surface. Not smooth, like cast metal, but as knobbly as a piece of old cheese.\n\nShe tried to test the object's weight, but it wouldn't budge from the floor. Solid metal was barking heavy, of course. Even hollow aerial bombs took two men to lift.\n\nWhat in blazes was this thing?\n\nDr. Barlow might know, if Deryn could get a sample somehow.\n\nShe remembered the chapter from the Manual of Aeronautics on compasses. Iron was the only magnetic element, and a great spinning blob of it at the earth's core was what made compasses work. She rubbed the metal and sniffed her fingers, and caught a tang almost like fresh blood. There was iron in blood, too. . . .\n\nAnd iron was much softer than steel.\n\nShe pulled out her rigging knife and slipped it into the sack. Her fingers searched until she found a wee sliver jutting up from the object's rough surface. Tesla was snoring by now, so Deryn began to saw away at the sliver, the canvas sack muffling the rasp of her knife.\n\nAs she worked, her mind spun with questions. Had Tesla's weapon used a projectile of some kind and this was all that was left? Or had the electrical explosion somehow fused all the iron in the frozen Siberian ground?\n\nOne thing was certain\u2014Mr. Tesla's claim of having caused all that destruction suddenly seemed more credible.\n\nAt last the sliver broke free, and Deryn slipped it into a pocket. She stretched her muscles carefully one by one. It wouldn't do for her legs to cramp as she was sneaking out of the room.\n\nShe crawled from beneath the bed and slowly stood, watching the rise and fall of Tesla's chest as she pulled her keys out. The door unlocked with a soft click, and a moment later Deryn was in the corridor.\n\nAlek stood there looking pale, a drawn knife in his hand. Bovril still perched on his shoulder, wide-eyed and tense.\n\nDeryn put her fingers to her lips, then turned and relocked the door. With a beckoning wave of her hand, she led Alek to the middies' mess. He followed, his expression still anxious, his eyes darting down every corridor.\n\n\"You can put that away,\" Deryn said when she'd closed the door to the mess.\n\nAlek stared at his knife a moment, then slipped it back into his boot.\n\n\"It was maddening,\" he said, \"standing out there. When that other man stayed so long, I almost burst in to make sure you were all right.\"\n\n\"Good thing you didn't,\" she said, wondering why Alek was so twitchy tonight. \"You'd have started a ruckus for no reason. And look, while I was hiding under the bed from that Russian, I found something!\"\n\nShe pulled the shard of metal from her pocket and placed it on the mess table. It didn't look like much here in the light, just a shiny black blob the size of Bovril's little finger.\n\n\"That can't be what Tesla came here for,\" Alek said. \"It's too small.\"\n\n\"That's just a wee piece of it, Dummkopf. The rest is as big as your daft head.\"\n\nAlek pulled out a chair and sat at the mess table, looking exhausted. \"That still seems awfully small. How did that device detect it?\"\n\n\"Watch this.\" She pulled out her compass and set it close to the sliver of metal, which set the needle shivering. \"It's magnetized iron!\"\n\nBovril crawled down from Alek's shoulder, getting close enough for a sniff.\n\n\"Magnetized,\" the beastie said.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" Alek said. \"What has magnetism to do with an explosion?\"\n\n\"I reckon that's one for the boffins to ponder.\"\n\n\"I'll ask Klopp as well. We have to know if Tesla's telling the truth before he gets off this ship.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"Why's that, exactly?\"\n\nAlek drummed his fingers on the table a moment, then shook his head. \"I can't tell you.\"\n\nDeryn's nerves twitched a bit. There was something odd about the way Alek was looking at her, not just exhaustion and nerves. He'd been tense all night, but now there was something stormy in his eyes.\n\n\"What do you mean you can't tell me?\" she asked. \"What's wrong, Alek?\"\n\n\"I need to ask you a simple question,\" he said slowly. \"Will you listen to every word? And answer me truthfully?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Just ask.\"\n\n\"All right, then.\" He took a slow breath. \"Can I trust you, Deryn? Really trust you?\"\n\n\"Aye. Of course you can.\"\n\nAlek breathed out a sigh as he stood up. He turned without another word and walked from the room.\n\nDeryn frowned. What in blazes was he . . . ?\n\n\"Can I trust you, Deryn?\" repeated Bovril, then it sprawled across the table, chuckling to itself.\n\nSomething coiled, tight and hard, in her chest. Alek had called her Deryn.\n\nHe knew.\n\nShe was a girl. Her name was Deryn Sharp, and she was a girl disguised as a boy.\n\nAlek walked toward his stateroom with steady, determined steps, but the floor was shifting beneath his feet. The soft green wormlight of the corridors looked all wrong, as sickly as when he'd first come aboard the Leviathan.\n\nHe raised a hand to guide himself, his fingers sliding along the wall like a blind man's. The fabricated wood trembled against them, the whole ghastly airship pulsing with life. He was trapped inside an abomination.\n\nHis best friend had been lying to him since the moment they'd met.\n\n\"Alek!\" came a frantic whisper from behind.\n\nPart of him was pleased that Deryn had followed. Not because he wanted to talk to her, but so he could walk away again.\n\nHe kept walking.\n\n\"Alek!\" she repeated, breaking into a full-voiced cry, loud enough to wake the sleeping men around them. Alek had almost reached the officers' cabins. Let the girl keep yelling where they could hear.\n\nShe'd lied to all of them, hadn't she? Her captain, her officers and shipmates. She'd sworn a solemn oath of duty to King George, all lies.\n\nHer hand grabbed his shoulder. \"You daft prince! Stop!\"\n\nAlek spun about, and they glared at each other in silence. It stung him to finally see her sharp, fine features for what they really were. To see how completely he'd been fooled.\n\n\"You lied to me,\" he whispered at last.\n\n\"Well, that's pretty barking obvious. Anything else obvious to say?\"\n\nAlek's eyes widened. This . . . girl had the nerve to be impertinent?\n\n\"All your talk of duty, when you're not even a soldier.\"\n\n\"I am a barking soldier!\" she growled.\n\n\"You're a girl dressed up like one.\" Alek saw that the words cut deep, and he turned away again, shards of satisfaction mixing with his anger.\n\nUntil this moment he hadn't believed it. The newspaper article, her lies to the crew about her father, even the whispered words of the perspicacious loris hadn't convinced him. But then Deryn had answered to her real name without blinking.\n\n\"Say that again,\" she spat from behind him.\n\nAlek kept walking. He didn't want to have this absurd discussion. He wanted only to go inside his stateroom and lock the door.\n\nBut suddenly he was stumbling forward. His feet tangled, and he landed on his hands and knees, staring at the floor.\n\nHe turned to look up at her. \"Did you just . . . shove me?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Her eyes were wild. \"Say that again.\"\n\nAlek got to his feet. \"Say what again?\"\n\n\"That I'm not a real soldier.\"\n\n\"Very well. You aren't a real\u2014oof!\"\n\nAlek staggered backward, the breath driven from his lungs. His back thumped against a cabin door\u2014she'd punched him in the stomach. Hard.\n\nHe clenched his fists, anger coursing through his blood. In a flash he saw an opening, how her fists were held too low, how she favored her injured foot . . .\n\nBut before he could swing, he realized that he couldn't hit back. Not because she was a girl, but because she wanted so much to fight. Anything to make herself feel like a real boy.\n\nAlek straightened himself. \"Are you proposing that we settle the matter with a fistfight?\"\n\n\"I'm proposing that you say I'm a real soldier.\"\n\nHe saw a glimmer in the darkness, and his lips curled into a thin smile. \"Is that how real soldiers cry?\"\n\nDeryn swore extravagantly, her thumb squashing the single tear on her left cheek, her fists still clenched. \"That's not crying; that's just\u2014\"\n\nHer voice choked off as the door behind Alek opened. He stumbled a moment, then turned and took a hasty step back. A sleepy-looking Dr. Busk stood in the doorway, wearing his nightgown and an annoyed expression.\n\nHis eyes darted back and forth between them. \"What's going on here, Sharp?\"\n\nHer fists dropped. \"Nothing, sir. We thought we heard one of the Russians wandering about. But it might be that a sniffer's got loose.\"\n\nThe boffin glanced up and down the empty hallway. \"A sniffer, eh? Well, whatever it is, keep it quiet, boy.\"\n\n\"Our apologies, sir,\" Alek said, giving the man a small bow.\n\nDr. Busk returned the bow. \"Not at all, Your Highness. Good night.\"\n\nThe door closed, and Alek met Deryn's eyes for a moment. The naked fear in them sent a pang through him. She had expected him to tell the boffin everything. Was that what she thought of him?\n\nAlek turned and walked toward his stateroom again.\n\nHer quiet footsteps followed, as if she'd been invited along. He sighed, the rush of anger fading into the dull throb where she'd punched his stomach. There was nothing else to do but have this out with her.\n\nWhen Alek reached his stateroom door, he pulled it open, extending his hand. \"Ladies first.\"\n\n\"Get stuffed,\" she said, but went in ahead of him.\n\nHe followed, shut the door softly, and sat down at his desk. Out the window the snowy ground glowed in patches, moonlit islands in a black sea. Deryn stood in the center of the room, shifting her weight, as if still ready for a fight. Neither of them whistled for the glowworms to light up, and Alek realized that they'd left the loris behind in the middies' mess.\n\nFor a moment he brooded on the fact that a mere beast had figured Deryn out before him.\n\n\"That wasn't a bad punch,\" he finally said.\n\n\"For a girl, you mean?\"\n\n\"For anyone.\" It had hurt rather a lot; it still did. He turned to face her. \"I shouldn't have said that. You are a real soldier\u2014quite a good one, in fact. But you aren't much of a friend.\"\n\n\"How can you say that?\" Another tear gleamed on her cheek.\n\n\"I told you everything,\" Alek said in a slow, careful voice. \"All my secrets.\"\n\n\"Aye, and I've kept them all too.\"\n\nHe ignored her, making a list on his fingers. \"You were the first member of this crew to know who my father was. You're the only one who knows about my letter from the pope. You know everything about me.\" He turned away. \"But you couldn't tell me about this? You're my best friend\u2014in some ways my only friend\u2014and you don't trust me.\"\n\n\"Alek, it's not that.\"\n\n\"So you lie simply to amuse yourself? 'Sorry, Dr. Busk, it might be that a sniffer's got loose.'\" Alek shook his head. \"It's as natural to you as breathing, isn't it?\"\n\n\"You think I'm here for my amusement?\" Deryn stepped closer to the window, her fists clenching again. \"That's a bit odd. Because when you thought I was a boy, you said it was barking brave for me to serve on this ship.\"\n\nAlek looked away, remembering the night Deryn had told him about her father's accident. She'd wondered if it was madness for her to serve on a ship full of hydrogen, as if she secretly wanted to die like him.\n\nPerhaps it was both brave and mad. She was a girl, after all.\n\n\"All right. You're an airman because your father was.\" Alek sighed. \"That is, if he really was your father.\"\n\nShe glared at him. \"Of course he was, you ninny. My brother's crewmates knew Jaspert had a sister, so we made up another branch of the family. There's no more to it than that.\"\n\n\"I suppose all your lies have a certain logic to them.\" As he thought it through, Alek felt his anger building again. \"So in my case you thought I'd be a stuffy, arrogant prince who'd turn you in!\"\n\n\"Don't be daft.\"\n\n\"I saw your face when Dr. Busk caught us in the corridor. You thought you were done for. You don't trust me!\"\n\n\"You're being a Dummkopf,\" she said. \"I only thought he might have heard us arguing. We'd said enough for him to figure it out.\"\n\nAlek wondered what Dr. Busk had heard, and found himself hoping it hadn't been too much.\n\nDeryn pulled out the chair and sat down across from him. \"I know you'll keep my secret, Alek.\"\n\n\"As you have kept mine,\" he said coldly.\n\n\"Always.\"\n\n\"Then, why didn't you tell me?\"\n\nShe took a long, slow breath, then spread her hands on the desk, staring at them while she talked. \"I almost told you when you first came aboard, when you thought I might get in trouble for hiding you. They'd never hang a girl, you see?\"\n\nAlek nodded, though he doubted that was true. Treason was treason.\n\nThat thought made him shake his head\u2014this girl had committed treason for him. She'd fought by his side, taught him how to swear properly in English, and how to throw a knife. She'd saved his life, and all while lying to him about what she was.\n\n\"When we were in Istanbul,\" Deryn went on, \"and I thought we'd never get back aboard the Leviathan, I tried a dozen times to tell you. And just a week ago in the rookery, after Newkirk mentioned my uncle, I almost told you then, too. But I didn't want to . . . to ruin everything between us.\"\n\n\"Ruin everything? What do you mean?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"It's nothing.\"\n\n\"It's obviously not nothing.\"\n\nShe swallowed, pulling her hands back from the surface of the desk, almost as if his sharp tone had frightened her. But nothing scared Dylan Sharp, nothing but fire.\n\n\"Tell me, Deryn.\" The name tasted strange in his mouth.\n\n\"I thought you couldn't stand to know.\"\n\n\"You mean you thought I was too delicate? You thought my fragile pride would crumble, just because some girl can tie better knots than me?\"\n\n\"No! Volger may have thought that, but not me.\"\n\nAlek squeezed his eyes shut, fresh anger rising in him. Tossing and turning that afternoon, wondering if the loris's hints were true, he'd forgotten about Deryn's falling-out with Volger. But it was all so obvious now. . . .\n\n\"Why didn't he tell me?\"\n\n\"He didn't want to upset you.\"\n\n\"That's another lie!\" Alek stood up. \"I see it all now. This is why you helped us escape\u2014why you've kept my secrets. Not because you're my friend. But because Volger was blackmailing you all along!\"\n\n\"No, Alek. I did all that because I'm your friend and ally!\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"But how can I know that? All you've done is lie to me.\"\n\nFor a long moment Deryn didn't answer, staring at him across the desk. Fresh tears rolled steadily down her cheeks, but she seemed frozen in place.\n\nAlek began to pace about the stateroom. \"That's why Volger never told me, so that he could hold it over you. Everything you've done was to protect yourself!\"\n\n\"Alek, you're being daft,\" she said softly. \"Volger might have tried to blackmail me, but I was your friend long before he knew.\"\n\n\"How can I believe you?\"\n\n\"Volger wasn't with us in Istanbul, was he? Do you think I jumped ship and joined your barking revolution for him?\"\n\nAlek clenched his fists, still pacing the room. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"I didn't go to Istanbul because of Volger, or because of any mission. I was never meant to reach the city, just The Straits. You know that, right?\"\n\nAlek shook his head, trying to order his thoughts. \"Your men were caught, and you were cut off from the Leviathan. So you had no choice but to join me.\"\n\n\"No, you daft prince! That's just what I told the officers. There were a hundred British ships at harbor in Istanbul. I could've taken one into the Mediterranean anytime I wanted. But Volger said you were in danger, that you'd stay in the city and fight instead of hiding. And I couldn't let you do that all alone. I had to save you!\" Her voice broke on the last word, and she steadied herself with a ragged breath. \"You're my best friend, Alek, and I couldn't lose you. I'd do anything not to lose you. . . .\"\n\nHe stared at her, frozen midstride. Her voice sounded so different now, like another person's altogether. He wondered if she'd been putting on a voice before, or whether he somehow heard her words differently, now that he knew she was a girl.\n\n\"What do you mean, lose me? I'd already run away.\"\n\nShe swore, then stood and walked to the door. \"That's all you need to know, you daft prince, that I'm your friend. I have to go collect the beastie, before it starts looking for us. It might wake somebody up.\"\n\nShe left without another word.\n\nAlek watched the door close. Why was it so important that she'd joined him in Istanbul? She'd taken the fight to the enemy, helped the revolution, and saved the Leviathan in the process. That was simply the kind of soldier she was.\n\nBut then it came back to him, that first moment when he'd seen her in the hotel in Istanbul. The way Deryn had looked at Lilit with such suspicion. Even jealousy.\n\nAnd then, without a perspicacious loris whispering the truth into his ear, he finally understood. She hadn't come to Istanbul as a soldier at all. And she never would have revealed her secret to Alek, for the simplest reason in the world.\n\nDeryn Sharp was in love with him.\n\nThe crooked fingers of inlets stretched from the sea into the city of Vladivostok, slicing it into winding peninsulas toothed with piers. Hills rose up from the water's edge, crisscrossed by avenues where mammothines trudged, bearing cargo from the ships scattered across the harbor.\n\nAs the Leviathan's shadow rippled along the rooftops, traffic slowed, with people looking up and pointing. Clearly they had never seen an airship so huge. The airfield looked paltry to Alek, barely half a kilometer across.\n\n\"We're in the middle of nowhere,\" he said. \"Exiled.\"\n\n\"Vladivostok,\" Bovril answered from the windowsill, and Alek wondered where the beast had heard the city's name.\n\nBovril rubbed its paw against the window glass, which was always fogging up here in the officers' baths. The plumbing was integrated into the airbeast's circulatory system, the air as warm and moist as a steam bath in Istanbul, an unpleasant reminder that the ship was a living thing. But at least the room was empty during the day. The officers were on duty, the crewmen not allowed to enter.\n\n\"A SHOWER TO CLEAR THE HEAD.\"\n\nSince finding out Deryn's secret, Alek had steered clear of her and Newkirk. The rest of the crew had little time for him, so he'd taken to wandering the ship alone. It had been an education, seeing places where the middies' duties rarely took them\u2014the ship's electrikal engines, the darkest reaches of the gut. But after two days of skimpy rations, Alek no longer had the energy to explore. Loneliness and hunger were natural allies, together carving an emptiness inside him.\n\n\"Middle of nowhere,\" said the perspicacious loris.\n\nAlek frowned. The beast had sounded almost sad.\n\n\"Do you miss her?\" he asked.\n\nBovril was silent for a moment, staring down at the airship's shadow slipping across the ground. Finally it said, \"Exiled.\"\n\nAlek couldn't argue. He was truly on the outside now, hiding from the crew, his own men, and especially Deryn. He had only Bovril for company.\n\nBut a fabricated beast was better than nothing, he supposed. And its company was much simpler than trying to untangle Deryn's feelings for him. She of all people knew that he could never love a commoner.\n\nThe Leviathan was coming about, turning its nose into the wind, slowly descending. The tiny figures on the airfield resolved into view. Half a dozen cargo bears waited with supplies, and two mammothine-drawn omnibuses stood ready to carry the Russians away. A lone Siberian tigeresque stood sentinel, its fangs as long and curved as scimitars.\n\nAlek dimly recalled that the fangs of a tigeresque came from the life threads of some extinct creature. But surely no dinosaur had been armed with such teeth. Were they from some ancient great cat? For the hundredth time while wandering the ship alone, Alek wished that Deryn were here to provide the answer.\n\nThe door opened behind him, and he turned, half expecting to find her there, ready to deliver a biology lesson. But it was Count Volger.\n\n\"I am sorry to disturb you, Your Highness, but I need you.\"\n\nAlek turned back to the window. The man had betrayed him far worse than Deryn had. She, at least, had her reasons to lie.\n\n\"I have nothing to say to you.\"\n\n\"I doubt that very much, but we haven't time in any case. We must deal with Mr. Tesla before we land.\"\n\n\"Deal with him?\" Alek shook his head. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"He's dangerous. Have you forgotten our discussion?\"\n\nAlek's mind processed the words, and a chill cut through the warm air of the officers' baths. In the last two days he'd forgotten to worry about Tesla and his city-destroying weapon, or Volger's plan to stop him. The possibility of murdering the inventor had never seemed quite real, but the look on the wildcount's face was deadly serious.\n\nBovril shifted nervously on the windowsill.\n\n\"So you're on your way to kill a man, and thought you'd stop by and ask for help?\"\n\n\"I didn't want to involve you in this, Alek. But we have to know if Tesla is leaving the ship today. He has refused to meet with me, but he'll talk to you.\" Volger's face showed a hint of a smile. \"You are all in the newspapers.\"\n\nAlek only glared, though the man was right. In the navigation room Tesla had been excited to meet him\u2014the famous prince. And an invitation to dinner had been slipped under Alek's stateroom door yesterday morning. He had ignored it, of course.\n\n\"You want me to find out if he's staying on board.\"\n\n\"If you please, Prince.\"\n\n\"And what if he's about to leave? Will you and Klopp gut him on the gangplank?\"\n\n\"Neither Klopp nor I will be anywhere near the spot. Nor shall you.\"\n\n\"Gut him on the gangplank,\" Bovril said gravely.\n\nAlek swore. \"Have you gone mad? If Bauer and Hoffman murder someone on this ship, the Darwinists will know who ordered it!\"\n\n\"I may not have to order anything.\" The wildcount gestured toward the door. \"But it's up to you to find out.\"\n\n\"And you waited until now to tell me?\" Alek spat, but Volger's cold smile didn't shift. The man had picked this moment on purpose, when Alek wouldn't have time to argue. \"What if I just stand here?\"\n\n\"Then Hoffman and Bauer will follow their orders. They're already in place.\"\n\nAlek lifted Bovril from the windowsill and put the beast on his shoulder. He took a step toward the door, ready to find his men and tell them to stand down. But where were they lying in wait? And worse, what if they ignored his commands? Now that they were all back aboard the Leviathan, Volger was in charge again.\n\nAlek's two days of sulking had made certain of that.\n\n\"Damn you, Volger. You shouldn't concoct plans without me. And you shouldn't keep secrets from me either!\"\n\n\"Ah.\" For a moment the man looked genuinely sorrowful. \"That was regrettable. But I did warn you not to make friends with a commoner.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you left out something rather important. Did you really think I was too fragile to know what Deryn was?\"\n\n\"Fragile?\" Volger looked about. \"I hadn't thought so, but now I find you brooding in a bathroom. This doesn't speak well of your sturdiness.\"\n\n\"I haven't been brooding! I've been exploring the ship.\"\n\n\"Exploring? And what have you discovered, Your Serene Highness?\"\n\nAlek turned back to the window, feeling a fresh wave of emptiness in his gut.\n\n\"That I can't trust anyone, and that no one has any faith in me. That my best friend was . . . a fiction.\"\n\n\"Brooding,\" Bovril said.\n\nCount Volger was silent. Alek almost added that his suspicion was that Deryn Sharp was in love with him, but he didn't want to see the scorn on Volger's face.\n\n\"I've been a fool,\" he finally said.\n\nVolger shook his head. \"But hardly a singular fool. That girl has tricked her officers and crewmates for months, and has been decorated in the line of duty. She even fooled me for some time. In her way, she's quite impressive.\"\n\n\"You admire her, Count?\"\n\n\"As one does a bear riding a bicycle. One sees it so rarely.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"And along with your admiration, you decided to blackmail her.\"\n\n\"I needed her help to get off this ship. I thought I could prevent you from joining in that pointless revolution and getting yourself killed.\" The annoyance in Volger's voice faded a bit. \"Of course, who knows? We may have need of her help again.\"\n\n\"Are you saying I should stay friends with her?\"\n\n\"Of course not. I'm saying that we can still blackmail her.\"\n\n\"Get stuffed,\" Alek said, and suddenly he had to get out of the steam and heat. He strode toward the door, halting with one hand tight around the knob. \"I'm going to Tesla's cabin. If he intends to disembark today, I shall call the ship's marines to escort him off in safety.\"\n\n\"It's your right to betray us, of course.\" Volger bowed. \"We are at your disposal.\"\n\n\"I won't betray you aloud, Volger, but the captain might draw unfortunate conclusions. Unless you promise me right now that\u2014\"\n\n\"I can't, Alek. Tesla's claims may be madness, but it isn't worth the risk. Two million of your people live in Vienna, and that's probably only the first city on his list. You saw what his machine can do.\"\n\nAlek pulled the door open. He didn't have time for this argument, and he couldn't let a man be killed over some imaginary threat. He had to stop this now. But he found himself pausing to say one more thing.\n\n\"If you threaten Deryn Sharp again, Volger\u2014in any way at all\u2014I'm done with you.\"\n\nThe man only bowed again, and Alek left, slamming the door behind him.\n\nMr. Tesla was still in his stateroom, but a leather suitcase lay on the bed. One of the Russians was packing while Tesla worked at the laboratory bench. The electrikal walking stick lay before him, partly disassembled.\n\nAlek knocked on the open door. \"Excuse me, Mr. Tesla?\"\n\nThe man looked up with irritation on his face, then brightened. \"Prince Aleksandar. You appear at last!\"\n\nAlek returned the bow. \"I apologize for not answering your note. I've been indisposed.\"\n\n\"No need, Prince,\" Tesla said, then his eyes narrowed at Bovril. \"So you really have become a Darwinist.\"\n\n\"Oh, this beast? It's . . . a perspicacious loris. 'Perspicacious' meaning 'wise or canny.'\"\n\n\"Get stuffed,\" Bovril said, then giggled.\n\n\"And it insults people,\" Tesla said. \"How peculiar.\"\n\nAlek gave the creature a sharp look. \"Bovril is usually more polite, as am I. It was an oversight not to join you last night. We have much to discuss.\"\n\nThe man turned back to his walking stick, his long fingers twisting a coil of wire round and round. \"Meals are a dismal affair on this ship, at any rate.\"\n\n\"The food isn't so bad when the galley has supplies.\" Alek wondered why he was defending the Leviathan, but he went on. \"The vegetables are grown fresh in the gut, and sometimes the strafing hawks bring their prey back for us.\"\n\n\"Ah, that would explain the braised hare. The highlight of the evening.\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow. This man had eaten fresh meat while Alek had been chewing on old biscuits? Of course, if the Darwinists believed that Goliath worked, they'd happily feed Tesla caviar three times a day.\n\n\"I'm sorry I wasn't here to share it with you. But now that the ship is resupplied, perhaps dinner tonight?\"\n\nMr. Tesla's face darkened. \"I must return to New York as quickly as possible. At last I have the data to complete my work.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Alek took a slow breath, then looked at the Russian, who was folding a pair of trousers. \"Might we have a moment alone, Mr. Tesla?\"\n\nTesla waved a hand. \"I have no secrets from Lieutenant Gareev.\"\n\nAlek frowned. Tesla had a Russian officer as his valet? No doubt one of the czar's confidants, sent to keep an eye on the inventor.\n\nThen Alek realized that he recognized Lieutenant Gareev. He was the man who'd interrupted Deryn's burglary two nights before. And it was possible that he'd spotted the two of them carrying the metal detector in the cargo bay that night.\n\nAlek switched from English to German. \"Mr. Tesla, can this weapon of yours really stop the war?\"\n\n\"Of course it can. I have always been able to see with absolute clarity how my inventions will operate, how every piece fits into another, even before I put the designs onto paper. Since this war began I have worked to extend this ability into the realm of politics. I am certain the Clanker Powers will yield to me, if only because they have no other choice.\"\n\nAlek nodded silently, struck again by the peculiar effect of listening to Tesla. Half of Alek rebelled at the wild claims; the other half was swept along by the man's certainty. What if Count Volger had got it backward? If Goliath really worked, then Tesla could end the war in a few weeks. It would be mad to plot against him.\n\nBut then Alek recalled the forest of fallen trees and scattered bones, a nightmare landscape stretching in all directions. What if it took the destruction of a whole city to convince the Clanker Powers to surrender?\n\nAll Alek knew for certain was that he couldn't see the future, and he didn't want blood on his men's hands today.\n\n\"Stop the war,\" Bovril said quietly.\n\nTesla leaned in to inspect the loris. \"What an odd beast.\"\n\n\"Sir, if there's any way you could stay aboard, I might be able to help you. I want peace too.\"\n\nThe man shook his head. \"My steamship leaves for Tokyo this afternoon, and I'm catching a Japanese airbeast for San Francisco in two days, then straight to New York by train. Missing a connection could cost me a week, and every day this war goes on, thousands die.\"\n\n\"But you can't leave yet!\" Alek clenched his fists. \"You need my help, sir. This is politics, not science. And my granduncle is the emperor of Austria-Hungary.\"\n\n\"The same granduncle you just accused of murder in the newspapers? My dear prince, you and your family are hardly on the best of terms.\" Tesla smiled gently as he said this, but Alek could hardly argue.\n\nThere was no other way, then. He reached for his command whistle and blew the notes to call a lizard. One popped from a message tube in seconds, but as Alek started to speak, his stomach twisted. He couldn't betray his own men, and he could hardly ask for an armed escort without explanation.\n\nMr. Tesla glanced up at the lizard, raising an eyebrow.\n\n\"Straight to New York,\" Bovril said.\n\nAlek finally found the right words. \"Captain Hobbes, Mr. Tesla and I need to see you at once. We have an important request. End message.\"\n\nThe creature scampered away.\n\n\"A request?\" Tesla asked.\n\nThe plan formed in Alek's mind as he spoke. \"Your mission is too important to waste time with steamships and trains. We should leave for New York immediately, and the Leviathan is the fastest way to get there.\"\n\n\"Are Japanese sea beasties as big as ours?\" asked Newkirk.\n\n\"Aye, they've got a few krakens,\" Deryn said through a mouthful of ham. \"But their wee beasties are deadlier. It was kappa monsters that captured the Russian fleet ten years ago.\"\n\n\"Aye, I remember that lesson.\" Newkirk was pushing his potatoes across his plate, feeling a bit twitchy here in enemy territory. \"Funny how the Japanese and Russians are on the same side now.\"\n\n\"Anything to beat those Clanker bum-rags.\" Deryn reached over to spear one of Newkirk's potatoes, but the boy didn't complain.\n\nDeryn couldn't see any point in not eating. She'd had four huge meals since the Leviathan had resupplied at Vladivostok, and she still felt empty from those two awful days of no rations.\n\nOf course, there was another void inside her, one that food couldn't fill. She and Alek hadn't spoken since he'd learned her secret. Whenever they bumped into each other, he only looked away, his face as pale as a mealyworm.\n\nIt was as if she'd transformed into something awful, a stain on the deck of the Leviathan that someone\u2014not a prince, of course\u2014ought to clean up. Alek had thrown their friendship straight out the window, just because she was a girl.\n\nAnd, of course, he'd taken Bovril for himself. Bum-rag.\n\n\"Where's Alek, anyway?\" Newkirk asked, as if reading her thoughts.\n\n\"Clanker business, I suppose.\" Deryn tried to keep the anger from her voice. \"I saw him with Mr. Tesla this morning, in a meeting with the officers. All very hush-hush.\"\n\n\"But we haven't seen him in days! Did you two have a fight?\"\n\n\"Get stuffed.\"\n\n\"I knew it,\" Newkirk said. \"He's been hiding from us, and you're as grumpy as a bag of wet cats. What in blazes happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing. It's just that, now that everyone knows he's a prince, he's too important to hang about with us middies.\"\n\n\"That's not what Dr. Barlow thinks.\" Newkirk stared down at his food. \"She asked me if you two'd been fighting.\"\n\nDeryn let out a groan. If the lady boffin was ordering Newkirk to spy for her, she had to be barking curious. And for a sticky-beak like Dr. Barlow, there wasn't much distance between curiosity and suspicion.\n\n\"It's none of her business.\"\n\n\"Aye, nor mine. But you have to admit it's a bit odd. After you two got back from Istanbul, you seemed as close as . . .\" Newkirk frowned.\n\n\"As a prince and a commoner,\" Deryn said. \"And now that he has Mr. Tesla to scheme with, he's got no more use for me.\"\n\n\"That's Clankers for you,\" Newkirk said. \"I suppose.\"\n\nDeryn stood and went to the window, hoping the conversation was at an end. The Sea of Japan spread out beneath the ship, glimmering with the afternoon sun, and beyond it the coastline of China. Scouting birds dotted the blue horizon, on the lookout for enemy craft.\n\nThe Leviathan was headed toward Tsingtao, a port city on the Chinese mainland. The Germans had a naval base there, whose warships could raid shipping across the entire Pacific. The Japanese were already besieging the city, but it seemed they needed a hand.\n\nNewkirk joined Deryn at the window. \"It's funny how Mr. Tesla didn't get off in Vladivostok. When I was laundering his shirts, he wanted them folded for packing.\"\n\nDeryn frowned, wondering what had caused the change in plans. She'd spied enough to know that Alek was spending a lot of time with his new friend. According to the cooks the two of them had eaten at the captain's table last night.\n\nWhat in blazes were they all up to?\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Sharp and Mr. Newkirk. Here you are.\"\n\nAs the two middies turned from the window, Tazza bounded forward through the door. Dr. Barlow was behind him, her loris sitting primly on her shoulder. The dark stripes under its eyes somehow gave the beastie a snooty expression.\n\nDeryn knelt to give Tazza's head a rub, glad for once to see the lady boffin, who might know something about Tesla and Alek's plans. Sticky-beaks could come in handy sometimes.\n\n\"Good afternoon, ma'am. I hope you're well.\"\n\n\"I am annoyed, at present.\" Dr. Barlow turned to Newkirk. \"Would you be so kind as to give Tazza his morning walk?\"\n\n\"But, ma'am, Dylan already\u2014,\" the boy began, but a look from Dr. Barlow silenced him.\n\nA moment later Newkirk was gone, having shut the door behind him without being told. The lady boffin sat down at the mess table and gestured at the remains of the middies' lunch. Deryn set to clearing them, her brain spinning.\n\nWas Dr. Barlow here to ask about her fight with Alek?\n\n\"If you would, Mr. Sharp, please describe the object you discovered in Mr. Tesla's room.\"\n\nDeryn turned away with a stack of empty dishes, hiding her relief. \"Oh, that. As I said, ma'am, it was round. A bit bigger than a football, but much heavier\u2014probably solid iron.\"\n\n\"Most certainly iron, Mr. Sharp, perhaps with some nickel. What of its shape?\"\n\n\"Its shape? I didn't get that good a look at it.\" Deryn cleared away a pair of aluminum tea mugs. \"I was under a bed in the dark, trying not to get caught!\"\n\n\"Trying not to get caught,\" the boffin's loris said. \"Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDr. Barlow waved a hand. \"At which you succeeded admirably. But roughly what form did this iron football take? Was it a perfect sphere? Or a misshapen lump?\"\n\nDeryn sighed, trying to recall those long minutes of waiting while Tesla had drifted back to sleep. \"It wasn't perfect at all. It was knobbly on the surface.\"\n\n\"Were these 'knobbles' smooth or jagged to the touch?\"\n\n\"Mostly smooth, I suppose, like that bit I sawed off.\" Deryn reached out a hand. \"If you've still got it, ma'am, I'll show you what I mean.\"\n\n\"The sample is on the way to London, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"You sent it to the Admiralty?\"\n\n\"No, to someone with intellect.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Deryn said, a bit astonished that even Dr. Barlow needed help to solve this mystery.\n\nThe loris crawled down to sniff at the empty milk jug. The lady boffin's eyes followed the beastie, her fingers drumming on the table.\n\n\"I am a species fabricator, Mr. Sharp, not a metallurgist. But what I'm asking is simple enough.\" She leaned forward. \"Would you say that Mr. Tesla's find was natural or man-made?\"\n\n\"You mean, was it cast iron?\" Deryn remembered her hands on the object in the darkness. \"Well, it was close enough to a sphere. But it was awfully banged up. Like a cannonball, I suppose, after it's been shot through a cannon.\"\n\n\"I see. And a cannonball is man-made.\"\n\nDr. Barlow fell into silence, and the loris picked up the teacup in its tiny paws and studied it.\n\n\"Man-made,\" it repeated softly. \"Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn ignored the beastie. \"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but that doesn't make sense. To cause all that wreckage, a cannonball would have to be as big as a barking cathedral!\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp, you are forgetting a basic formula of physics. When calculating energy, mass is only one variable. And the other?\"\n\n\"Velocity,\" Deryn said, recalling the bosun's lectures on artillery. \"But to knock down a whole forest, how fast would a cannonball have to fly?\"\n\n\"Astronomically fast. My colleagues will know exactly.\" The lady boffin leaned back in her chair and sighed. \"But London is a week way, even for our swiftest courier aquilines. And in the meantime Mr. Tesla spins his tales and takes us on a wild goose chase.\"\n\n\"But we're headed to fight the Germans, aren't we?\"\n\nDr. Barlow waved a hand before her face, as if a fly were bothering her. \"We may briefly show the flag, but Mr. Tesla and Prince Aleksandar have convinced the captain to proceed to Tokyo. From there we can contact the Admiralty by underwater fiber.\"\n\n\"What in blazes for?\"\n\n\"Tesla will try to convince them to order us to New York.\" The lady boffin snapped for the loris, which scampered back up her arm and onto her shoulder. \"Where Goliath waits to stop the war.\"\n\n\"What . . . go all the way to America?\"\n\n\"Indeed, and all for a delusion.\"\n\nDeryn's mind was spinning at the thought of crossing the Pacific, but she managed to ask, \"You think Mr. Tesla's lying?\"\n\nThe lady boffin stood, straightening herself. \"Lying, or simply mad. But at the moment I have no proof. Do keep your eyes open, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nShe turned and swept out the door, the loris on her shoulder staring back through slitted eyes.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp!\" it said.\n\nDeryn went back to the window, fretting over what the lady boffin had said. If Mr. Tesla were up to some deception, then he must have tricked Alek into helping him. And little wonder\u2014Alek was angry and alone, feeling betrayed by everyone he'd trusted. Tesla had appeared at just the right moment to take advantage.\n\nAnd it was all Deryn's fault. . . .\n\nBut there was no point telling him that Tesla was lying. Alek would never take her word for it, especially as Dr. Barlow had admitted that there wasn't any proof. Deryn stood there for a long minute, her fists clenched, trying to think of what to do.\n\nIt was almost a relief when the Klaxon began to sound, calling her to battle.\n\nThe ratlines were full, the ropes groaning with the weight of men and beasts. The whole crew seemed to be scrambling topside, eager to fight after a week of flying across the Russian wasteland. The sun was bright, the wind blowing across the Sea of Japan crisp and cool, nothing like the freezing gales of Siberia.\n\nDeryn paused to scan the horizon. A dark silhouette lay ahead\u2014two tall funnels, and turrets bristling with guns\u2014a German warship for certain. To her relief there was no sign of a spindly Tesla cannon on its decks. The ship was making for the Chinese coast, which stretched across the horizon, the haze of a Clanker city rising from a nest of steep-sided hills.\n\nShe continued climbing, following the sound of the bosun's voice.\n\n\"Reporting for duty, sir!\" she called when she reached the spine.\n\n\"Where's Newkirk?\" Mr. Rigby asked.\n\n\"Last I saw, he was seeing to the lady boffin's pet, sir.\"\n\nThe bosun swore, then pointed down at the water. \"There's a Japanese submarine somewhere down there, in pursuit of that warship. It's tending a school of kappa, so we can't put any fl\u00e9chette bats into the air. Let the men on the forward gun know, then report back here.\"\n\nDeryn saluted and turned, running for the bow, where two crewmen were erecting an air gun. She jumped in to help when she arrived, tightening the screws and cleats, feeding a belt of darts into the weapon.\n\n\"There are kappa in the water, so the captain doesn't want any spikes.\" Deryn spun the shoulder stock into place. \"Mind you don't scare the bats when you fire!\"\n\nThe men looked at each other dubiously. Then one said, \"No bats, sir? But what if the Clankers have got aeroplanes?\"\n\n\"Then you lads will have to shoot straight. And we've still got the strafing hawks.\"\n\nShe returned the men's salutes and headed aft, passing the word along. By the time she got back to Mr. Rigby, Newkirk had arrived with a pair of field glasses. Mr. Rigby was staring at the horizon through them.\n\n\"Pair of zeppelins over Tsingtao,\" he said. \"Never seen them this far from Germany.\"\n\nDeryn shielded her eyes. Twin squicks of blackness hovered above the city harbor, where the warship was coming to a halt. But the guns of Tsingtao would offer no protection from the kappa.\n\nAs she watched, the zeppelins seemed to lengthen against the horizon.\n\n\"Are they turning away, sir?\" she asked. \"Or toward us?\"\n\n\"Away, I'd think. They're tiny compared to the Leviathan. But that warship won't be happy to see them go. Without air cover the kappa will make short work of her.\"\n\nDeryn stared down at the sea, her heart beginning to race. Except for the doomed sailors of one unlucky Russian fleet, no Europeans had ever seen kappa in action. The Manual of Aeronautics contained no photographs of the beasties, only a few paintings based on rumors and stories.\n\n\"The attack signal will come soon,\" Mr. Rigby said, handing Deryn the field glasses and scanning the city below with his naked eyes.\n\nShe raised the glasses and peered at the Clanker warship. The name Kaiserin Elizabeth was painted on its side, and it flew an Austrian flag.\n\n\"Not German after all,\" she murmured, wondering if Alek had spotted that, and if he'd go back to dithering over which side he was on. Of course, he had a new Clanker friend to share his worries with, so he didn't need Deryn's shoulder to cry on.\n\n\"Not German?\" Newkirk asked. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"It's an Austrian ship,\" Mr. Rigby said. \"The Germans have got their own ships out and left their allies here to face the siege. Not very kind of them.\"\n\nDeryn squinted through the glasses. The sea around the Kaiserin Elizabeth was starting to look unsettled, like water coming to a boil. The kappa swam just beneath the surface, like dolphins riding the waves.\n\nWith a distant roar the smaller deck guns of the Kaiserin opened up, a torrent of bullets chopping the water into a white froth. Austrian sailors stood at the rails, peering down and fixing bayonets to their rifles.\n\nSuddenly Deryn was very glad to be up in an airship, and not down there.\n\n\"Have you spotted the Japanese submarine?\" Newkirk asked.\n\n\"We won't,\" Mr. Rigby said. \"Her periscope must be up, but it's too small. All we'll see is . . .\"\n\nHis voice faded as a sliver of a wave slid across the water, like a ripple in a cup of tea.\n\n\"That's the submarine now,\" Mr. Rigby said, nodding. \"As the boffins suspected, they use an underwater explosion to send the kappa into a battle frenzy.\"\n\nAs Deryn watched, the first beastie scrambled out of the water and up the side of the ship. It climbed with both hands and feet, four sets of webbed fingers splaying wide on the metal. Somehow the kappa ascended the smooth expanse as easily as it would a ladder, and was upon the men at the railing almost before they'd seen it.\n\nIts long fingers grasped the ankle of a sailor, and a dozen shots rang out, his fellows on either side blasting away at the monster. The poor beastie twisted for a moment in the volley of lead, but its claws stayed locked on its victim. Finally the kappa fell dead into the sea, dragging the unlucky Austrian along.\n\nDeryn held the field glasses tighter, ignoring Newkirk's pleas for them. The kappa were swarming up by the dozens now, their wet green skin shining in the sunlight. A few larger ones shot from the water and arced through the air, descending on the Austrian sailors from clouds of spray.\n\n\"KAPPA SURFACING.\"\n\nFrom the blazing guns of the defenders, a veil of smoke arose, like some makeshift, flimsy barrier. More sailors were pulled into the sea, and a few kappa broke past them and bounded across the deck. Soon the broad windows of the bridge were shattered, and as the beasties leapt through them, Deryn saw the flash of drawn cutlasses within.\n\nHer stomach twisted, and finally she handed the field glasses to Newkirk, wondering why she'd watched for so long. Battle was always like this, excitement and fascination turning to horror as the reality of bloodshed set in.\n\nAnd this wasn't a proper battle at all, just the extermination of an overmatched foe.\n\n\"Are they coming about?\" Mr. Rigby cried, pointing across the water to the zeppelins.\n\nNewkirk lifted the glasses a bit. \"Aye, they're turning back. And from the way their engine smoke is carrying, there's a wind at their tails.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Deryn said, and swore. \"They were waiting for the kappa!\"\n\nNow that the water was swarming with Japanese beasties, the Leviathan couldn't deploy its fl\u00e9chette bats. There was nothing to stop the smaller, faster zeppelins from closing in and using their rockets. . . .\n\n\"Blisters,\" Deryn said.\n\nThis was turning into a real battle, after all.\n\n\"Quick, lads, to the strafing hawks!\" shouted Mr. Rigby.\n\nHe picked up a coil of rope and flung it into Deryn's arms, then set off for the aft end of the ship. The two middies followed, lugging the heavy line as fast as they could.\n\nAs the three headed for the airship's tail, the spine sloped away beneath them. They hurtled down the decline, Mr. Rigby roaring at the other crewmen to jump aside.\n\nDirectly above the rookery he slid to a halt and pulled the rope from the middies' arms. Kneeling to tie one end off, the bosun clutched his side in pain. He'd taken a bullet there two months before, just before the Leviathan's crash landing in the Alps.\n\n\"Are you all right, sir?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"Aye, but I won't be sliding down with you.\" Mr. Rigby thrust a handful of carabiners at her and Newkirk. \"Half the hawks are fitted with aeroplane nets, which are barking useless against zeppelins. Get down there and help the rook men switch them into talons. And hurry!\"\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" Deryn said. \"Me first!\"\n\nSnapping her safety harness to the rope with three carabiners, she turned and ran straight for the edge. The great whale was narrow here, halfway to the tail, and within seconds she was flying off into thin air.\n\nRope hissed through the carabiners like an angry viper, and Deryn let herself fall fast. The first moments of descent were glorious, her worries about Tesla, his iron football, and barking Prince Aleksandar of Hohenberg all left behind. But soon Deryn twisted in midair, tightening the grip of the carabiners, and came to a long and skidding halt. Momentum swung her inward toward the airship's underbelly, where she reached out and grabbed the ratlines with one gloved hand.\n\nAs she climbed down toward the rookery, the cilia were in furious motion beneath her hands. The Leviathan was nervous about the zeppelins closing in. Deryn wondered how the great whale saw the Clanker airships. Did they look like a pair of fellow airbeasts? Or like inexplicable things, in a familiar shape but queerly devoid of life?\n\n\"Don't worry, beastie,\" she said. \"We'll take care of them.\"\n\nThe rookery was in a state, the birds squawking like mad inside their cages. Somehow they always knew when battle or bad weather was afoot. As she hauled herself through the aft window, Deryn called out to rearm the hawks.\n\n\"Aye, the bridge sent orders!\" answered Higgins, the head rook man. He was inside one of the cages already, pulling an aeroplane net harness from a large and fluttering bird. \"We've launched all the hawks we had in talons, and we're switching the rest!\"\n\n\"I'll give you a hand, then.\" Deryn slid down the access ladder, fighting a squick of nerves. She'd handled birds of prey before, but only one at a time. And she'd never set foot in a cage full of stirred-up strafing hawks.\n\nWith a deep breath Deryn opened a cage door and stepped into a blizzard of wings. It was hard to keep her eyes open, hard not to leap back out, but she managed to grab one of the hawks and smooth its wings. She worked quickly then, unclipping the tiny harness that held a folded net of spider silk. Its acidic strands would slice through the fragile wings of an aeroplane in an instant but had little effect on a huge and stately airship.\n\nOnce the harness was off, she moved on to the next bird, leaving it to the rook men to attach the talons. Every rook man she'd ever met carried nasty-looking scars from handling razor-sharp steel, and she wasn't keen to learn the art in the heat of battle. As Deryn moved on to her third hawk, she saw Newkirk at work in the cage beside hers.\n\nLong minutes later the first aerie of hawks had been fitted, and Mr. Higgins opened a chute to discharge them into the air. The rook men gave a quick cheer before setting back to work. Deryn felt the ship climbing, and she wondered if the captain had turned tail and run, or stayed to guard the kappa from the Clanker zeppelins.\n\nSuddenly a boom shook the floor beneath her feet, and the frenzy of the birds redoubled. Deryn was blinded by beating wings but managed to grope her way out of the cage. She climbed up to the rookery windows and peered sternward.\n\nOne of the zeppelins was a few miles behind and a thousand feet below, a horde of strafing hawks swirling around it, tearing at its skin with their talons. But as Deryn watched, a streak of red fire shot from its gondola straight at her. The distance was too great, though\u2014the rocket began to arc away before it could reach the Leviathan. It burst well below the ship, throwing out burning tendrils in all directions.\n\n\"Another close one, but they missed!\" Deryn cried down to the rook men, but as she turned back to the window, her eyes went wide.\n\nOne of the sputtering tendrils was reaching up from the center of the explosion, climbing straight toward the rookery!\n\nAt the last moment the bright ember veered away, drawn toward the ventral engine pod by its whirling propeller. Fire struck metal, and a sheet of sparks shot out from the pod. The engine ground to a halt, spilling a cloud of smoke into the ship's wake.\n\nThe Clanker airship was losing altitude quickly now, its shredded gasbag fluttering in the breeze. The other zeppelin was much farther back, hovering over the Kaiserin Elizabeth and raining metal darts onto the frenzied kappa.\n\nThe Leviathan was safe from the two zeppelins, but the ventral engine was still spitting smoke and flame. Deryn spun about and called to Newkirk, \"We're hit! I'm headed aft. But keep those birds coming!\"\n\nNot waiting for an answer, she hoisted opened the window and looked down. A stabilizing boom connected the gondola to the engine pod, wide enough to walk on in a pinch. But it was a good ten yards below the rookery, and Deryn didn't fancy jumping. If she missed the boom, nothing would stop her fall but the open sea.\n\nLuckily Mr. Rigby had made her draw the ship in profile a hundred times, and she remembered a steel cable connecting the rookery to the boom. It was anchored just overhead, almost close enough to reach. . . .\n\nAlmost, but not quite.\n\nDeryn swore. With smoke still pouring from the ventral engine pod, this was no time for caution. Crawling out the window, she saw a set of handholds leading up to her goal\u2014some poor blighter had done this trick before!\n\nDeryn grabbed the nearest hold and swung off into the air. She pulled herself hand over hand up to the cable and threw out her legs to wrap them around it. Then she was sliding down fast, the steel cable as hot as a teakettle in her gloves. Half a mile below, the plummeting zeppelin fired again, but the rocket burst uselessly low, sending a dozen sizzling threads into the sea.\n\nHer boots landed with a clang against the boom.\n\nAhead of Deryn the hatches and windows of the engine pod were all thrown open, and smoke was gushing out and spilling back into the Leviathan's wake. She entered through the nearest hatch, her eyes stinging.\n\n\"It's Middy Sharp. Report!\"\n\nAn engineer appeared from the smoke, wearing goggles and an ember-tattered flight suit. \"It's bad, sir\u2014we've called for a Herculean. Grab on to something!\"\n\n\"You called for a . . . ,\" Deryn began, her voice fading. A rushing sound was building overhead. She stared up at the belly of the airbeast, and saw the ballast lines swelling.\n\nShe'd never seen a Herculean inundation before. They were called only when the ship was in serious danger of burning, because they were barking dangerous themselves.\n\n\"FIREFIGHT IN THE AIR.\"\n\n\"It's coming!\" Deryn cried, pushing into the pod to look for a handhold.\n\nThe engineer turned and stepped through the thick smoke to a rack of gears and parts, where another man with engineering patches stood. Deryn knelt behind the main turbine, taking hold as the first spume of water exploded into the engine pod. The inundation came straight from the gut, briny and fouled with the clart of a hundred species. The torrent grew, the burning engine spitting white steam to mingle with the smoke and brackish water.\n\nThe inundation lifted Deryn from her feet for a moment, trying to sweep her out the open hatch and into the void. The water filled her boots, churning up to force itself into her nose and eyes. But she held fast until the last sparks in the engine sputtered out and the flood finally began to slacken. The briny water slowly drained from the engine pod, dropping below her waist, then her knees.\n\nOne of the engineers let out a sigh of relief, letting go to take a step toward the blackened mass of gears.\n\n\"Keep hold, man!\" Deryn said. \"We've lost our rear ballast!\"\n\nHe grabbed the rack again just as the ship began to tilt. With thousands of gallons of ballast gone from its stern, the Leviathan was out of balance, tipping the airship into a steep dive.\n\n\"A HERCULEAN INUNDATION.\"\n\nThe remaining water coiled past Deryn's feet, pouring out the forward hatch. She heard the creak of the ratlines overhead as the airbeast strained, bending its nose upward against the dive. But out the nearest porthole she saw the glittering sea rushing toward them.\n\nThen Deryn heard a growl like a pair of hungry fighting bears\u2014the Clanker engines shifting into reverse. The whole ship shuddered, its descent slowing to a crawl. The Leviathan hovered aslant in the air for a moment, until the ballast lines began to swell again with water pumping toward the tail. Gradually the floor of the engine pod leveled off.\n\nA lizard popped its head from a message tube and spoke with the captain's voice. \"Ventral engine pod, help is on the way. Please report your status.\"\n\nThe two engineers looked at Deryn, perhaps a bit nervous that they'd just sent the whole ship plummeting toward the sea.\n\nShe cleared her throat. \"Middy Sharp, sir, just arrived here from the rookery. The pod was set aflame, so the engineers called for a Herculean. The fire's out, but by the looks of things, we won't be giving you any power for a while. End message.\"\n\nThe lizard blinked, then scampered away. Deryn turned to the men. This was her station for the rest of the battle, it seemed.\n\n\"Don't look so sheepish,\" she said. \"You may have saved the ship. But if you want to be proper heroes, let's get this engine running again!\"\n\n\"Hard to starboard,\" the captain said, and the pilot sent the master wheel spinning.\n\nAs the Leviathan turned, the deck shifted beneath Alek's feet, but it was nothing like the sickening dive of a moment before. The ocean had filled the front windows of the bridge, and he and Mr. Tesla had skidded forward on their dress shoes. Not for the first time Alek was envious of the crew's rubber-soled boots. Bovril was still clinging tight to his shoulder, scared into silence.\n\nThe zeppelin that had fired at the Leviathan swung into view below, still falling. A swarm of strafing hawks had spilled its hydrogen from a thousand cuts, and the German airship settled on the ocean like a feather on a pond. As the Leviathan's shadow passed across it, a pair of canvas lifeboats emerged from beneath the billowing membrane.\n\nAn awful thought occurred to Alek. \"Will the kappa attack those lifeboats as well?\"\n\nDr. Barlow shook her head. \"Not unless the submarine sends out another fighting pulse.\"\n\n\"And we're close enough to shore,\" Dr. Busk added. \"Those chaps should be fine, as long as they don't mind a bit of rowing!\"\n\n\"A bit of rowing,\" repeated Dr. Barlow's loris from the ceiling, and had a chuckle. Bovril looked up and joined in, relaxing its grip on Alek's shoulder a little.\n\n\"The others aren't so lucky,\" Mr. Tesla said, staring at the Kaiserin Elizabeth in the distance. She looked like a haunted ship. Her decks were awash with blood and were glittering with spikes, and kappa roamed freely across them, searching for prey. If any crew had survived, they must have hidden belowdecks behind metal hatches.\n\nThe second zeppelin hovered over the warship, sending a last shower of darts down onto the kappa. But the first strafing hawks were arriving, hacking at the zeppelin's fragile skin. Its engines soon fired up, and the German airship began to pull away.\n\n\"We won't pursue them, will we?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"I doubt we shall bother.\" Dr. Busk nodded to Tesla. \"Getting you to Japan is more important than this sideshow.\"\n\nAlek let out a quiet sigh. As Count Volger had suspected, this long voyage had all been for show. The Admiralty wanted to prove that British air power was global, and that the Great War was a contest among European powers, not upstart empires in Asia.\n\nBut at least now that the Union Jack had been waved, the Leviathan could turn around and head for Tokyo\u2014and then America, if the Admiralty allowed it.\n\n\"I don't suppose those creatures recognize the white flag,\" Tesla said.\n\n\"The submarine will call them off,\" Dr. Barlow replied. \"Exactly how is known only to the Japanese, for obvious reasons.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't want the enemy figuring out how to turn your beasties peaceable, would you?\" Dr. Busk scanned the ocean's surface through a telescope. \"Some sort of sound would be my guess. One that humans can't hear, a bit like a dog whistle.\"\n\n\"Quite a vicious dog,\" Mr. Tesla said.\n\n\"Vicious,\" Bovril repeated gravely.\n\nAlek found himself nodding. He'd seen plenty of Darwinist creatures in battle before, but nothing as horrifying as these kappa. The beasts had sprung from the water so quickly, like something from a nightmare.\n\nBut in a way it was a relief, seeing Mr. Tesla so unsettled. If he was appalled to see Austrian sailors slaughtered like this, surely he would think twice before unleashing his weapon on a defenseless city.\n\n\"And yet the ship is undamaged,\" Dr. Busk said. \"She'll join the Japanese navy now, like the Russian fleet did ten years ago. A most efficient form of victory.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"The Japanese can operate a Clanker warship?\"\n\n\"They are adept with both technologies,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"An American named Commodore Perry introduced Japan to mechaniks some sixty years ago. Almost made Clankers of them.\"\n\n\"Lucky we put a stop to that, eh?\" Dr. Busk said. \"Wouldn't want these fellows on the other side.\"\n\nMr. Tesla looked as though he were about to say something impolitic, but instead cleared his throat. \"Your damaged engine, is it electrikal?\"\n\n\"All the Leviathan's engines are,\" Dr. Busk said, then bowed to Alek. \"Except for the two that His Highness kindly lent us.\"\n\n\"So you aren't entirely against the machine,\" said the inventor. \"Perhaps I could be of assistance.\"\n\n\"Allow me,\" Alek said. In his two days of sulking, he had explored all of the ship's engine pods. \"It's a bit tricky, but I know the way.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Prince,\" said Dr. Busk, bowing. \"You'll be pleased to see that we use your alternating current design, Mr. Tesla. A truly ingenious concept.\"\n\n\"You are too kind.\" Mr. Tesla bowed to the two boffins, and Alek led him from the bridge, heading for the aft end of the gondola.\n\nAs they walked, Bovril shifted nervously on Alek's shoulder.\n\n\"A bit tricky,\" it whispered into his ear.\n\nEven in the heat of battle, the boom that ran from gondola to ventral engine pod was unmanned. It was cramped inside, designed more to stabilize the ship than as a passageway, and the leggy Mr. Tesla had to stoop as he walked.\n\n\"That was a ghastly business,\" Alek said once they were alone.\n\n\"War is always ghastly, whether conducted with machines or animals.\" Tesla paused in his stride, watching a message lizard scuttle past overhead. \"Though at least machines feel no pain.\"\n\nAlek nodded. \"Even the great airbeast itself has feelings, which can be a good thing. It retreated from one of your Tesla cannons when the Leviathan's officers would not.\"\n\n\"Useful, I suppose.\" Tesla shook his head. \"But the slaughter of animals is destructive to human morals.\"\n\nAlek remembered an argument Deryn had made in Istanbul. \"But don't you eat meat, Mr. Tesla?\"\n\n\"A personal weakness. One day I shall give up that barbaric practice.\"\n\n\"But you sacrificed your airbeast back in Siberia!\"\n\n\"Not without my reasons,\" Tesla said, tapping his walking stick against the floor. \"I couldn't endure those bears starving to death, so I simply let nature take its course.\"\n\nBovril shifted on Alek's shoulder, murmuring. The loris was always quiet around Tesla, as if cowed by the man. Or perhaps it was listening carefully.\n\nAlek didn't know what to make of the inventor's words. Perhaps it made sense, sacrificing one creature to save many. But what if Tesla applied that same logic to stopping the war?\n\nAs they neared the engine pod, the floor of the passageway grew wet and sticky, and Alek smelled a foul, briny odor. Through an open hatchway ahead came the clang of tools.\n\n\"Hello?\" Alek called.\n\nA figure in a grimy flight suit appeared, sodden and smelly. As she snapped a salute, Alek realized with a start who it was beneath the muck.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp!\" exclaimed Bovril, leaning forward on Alek's shoulder, reaching out for her.\n\nOf course. Deryn Sharp could always be counted on to be in the thick of any mayhem aboard the Leviathan.\n\nAlek stiffly returned her salute. \"Mr. Tesla, I believe you've met Middy Sharp?\"\n\n\"He was kind enough to drop in on me in Siberia,\" the inventor said. \"Are those feathers?\"\n\nDeryn looked down at herself. Trapped in the engine grime on her flight suit were, indeed, a few feathers.\n\nDeryn flicked one off and snapped her heels, as if she were at a formal dance instead of in an engine room covered with bilge. \"I was tending to the strafing hawks. Very kind of you to visit, Mr. Tesla.\"\n\nTesla waved his walking stick. \"I'm not visiting; I'm here to help. This engine is based on my design, you know.\"\n\n\"What exactly happened here?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"The propellers sucked in a bit of rocket,\" Deryn said, avoiding Alek's eyes. \"Started a fire, so the engineers called for a Herculean inundation. Watch your step, please.\"\n\nInside, the engine pod smelled like the gut of the ship. The floor was covered in gunk, the machinery blackened by fire. The engineers stopped their work and stared at Mr. Tesla, their eyes wide.\n\n\"A Herculean inundation?\" the inventor asked. \"As in the seven labors?\"\n\nDeryn looked puzzled, so Alek jumped in. \"They must have flushed the rear ballast through the pod. Hence that sudden dive that sent us all sliding across the bridge.\"\n\nTesla lifted one shoe to peer at its grimy sole. \"Both ingenious and unhygienic, like so much Darwinist technology.\"\n\nDeryn stiffened a bit, but her voice stayed level. \"You say you invented this particular engine, sir?\"\n\n\"I created the principles of alternating current.\" Tesla poked at the machine with his walking stick. \"Much safer on an airship.\"\n\nAlek nodded. Visiting the pods a few days ago, he'd noticed how the electrikal engines didn't spit smoke or sparks, and ran almost silently.\n\n\"Alternating current,\" Bovril repeated happily.\n\n\"But you don't have a boiler room aboard,\" Tesla said. \"Where does the power come from?\"\n\n\"These fuel cells here.\" Deryn looked down at a pile of small metal kegs. \"Hydrogen made by wee beasties in the whale's gut.\"\n\n\"A biological battery!\" Mr. Tesla exclaimed. \"But they can't have much power.\"\n\n\"They don't have to, sir.\" Deryn gestured out the pod's high windows. \"Darwinist airships get most of their push from cilia\u2014those wee hairs along the flanks. The engines just give it a nudge in the right direction, and the airbeast does the rest.\"\n\n\"But the Leviathan is special. It has two Clanker engines as well,\" Alek added. \"It will get you to New York faster than anything else in the sky.\"\n\n\"Excellent.\" Mr. Tesla pulled off his jacket. \"Well, let's get to work, then. The more engines the better!\"\n\nAs Mr. Tesla worked, he held forth on a variety of topics\u2014from world peace to his fascination with the number three\u2014but Alek found it all a bit hard to follow. Master Klopp had never taught him much about electrikal engines, which weren't powerful enough to use in walkers.\n\nAt first Alek tried to help by handing Tesla his tools, but the engineers soon crowded him out for the honor. Just like Bovril, they hung on the great man's words. Alek found himself reduced to a waste of hydrogen, as usual.\n\nThen he noticed that Deryn had stepped out onto the stabilizing boom. Of course, Alek had been avoiding her the last few days. But it was childish, pretending not to know each other. Their sudden falling out might start Dr. Barlow asking questions, and the last thing Alek wanted was for Deryn to be found out thanks to him.\n\nHe took a deep breath and stepped out through the hatchway.\n\n\"Hello, Dylan.\"\n\n\"Afternoon, your princeliness.\" Deryn didn't look up. She was staring down at the passing ocean, the wind barely ruffling her muck-matted hair.\n\nFor a moment Alek wondered if she were upset about him seeing her like this, covered in grime. But that was nonsense. Ordinary girls worried about that sort of thing, not Deryn.\n\n\"Mr. Tesla should get your engine working soon,\" he said.\n\n\"Aye, he's a barking genius. You should hear the engineers go on about it.\" She looked aft. \"And it seems he's got the captain's head spinning too.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nDeryn pointed at the glare of sunlight in the airship's wake. \"We're headed due east. We'll be in Tokyo tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Alek said. \"Now that we've lent the Japanese navy a hand, we can depart with Britain's honor intact.\"\n\n\"The lady boffin said the same thing, but I thought she was blethering!\"\n\n\"Dr. Barlow doesn't blether. Your Admiralty couldn't let Tsingtao fall without British aid, because the Japanese aren't properly . . .\" He spread his hands, looking for the right word. \"European. It wouldn't do for them to beat the Germans without our help.\"\n\nFor the first time Deryn looked straight at him. \"You mean we came halfway round the world just for show? That's the biggest load of yackum I've ever heard!\"\n\n\"Yackum,\" Bovril said, and leapt down onto the handrail.\n\nAlek shrugged. \"More or less. But there was a higher purpose, it seems. Now we can help Mr. Tesla stop the war.\"\n\nDeryn gave him the same exasperated look she did whenever he mentioned his destiny.\n\n\"DRAINING.\"\n\n\"Are you going to punch me again?\" Alek asked. \"Because I'd like to get a good grip. It's a long fall.\"\n\nA smirk flashed across her face, but her eyes didn't soften.\n\n\"You are rather strong,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Aye, and I'm taller than you too.\"\n\nAlek rolled his eyes. \"Listen, Deryn\u2014\"\n\n\"It's not a good habit, you calling me that.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. But I've been calling you the wrong name for so long, I feel I should make up for it.\"\n\n\"It's not your fault I've got two names.\"\n\nAlek looked down at the water slipping past. \"So whose fault is it? I mean, even Volger thinks you're a fine soldier, and yet you have to hide who you are.\"\n\n\"It's just the way things are.\" She shrugged. \"It's no one's fault.\"\n\n\"Or everyone's,\" Alek said. \"Deryn.\"\n\n\"Deryn Sharp,\" said Bovril quietly.\n\nBoth of them stared at the perspicacious loris in horror.\n\n\"Brilliant,\" Deryn said. \"Just barking brilliant. Now you've got the beastie saying it!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry.\" Alek shook his head. \"I didn't realize\u2014\"\n\nSuddenly her hand was across his mouth. He smelled engine grease and brine on her palm, then saw the message lizard making its way along the underbelly of the ship. Deryn let her hand fall, gesturing for silence.\n\nThe lizard spoke with Dr. Barlow's voice. \"Mr. Sharp, tomorrow afternoon you shall accompany me to Mr. Tesla's meeting with the ambassador. I seem to recall, however, that you have no formal uniform. We shall have to remedy that when we arrive in Tokyo.\"\n\nDeryn swore, and Alek recalled that her only dress uniform had been destroyed in the battle of the Dauntless. Going to a tailor to replace it would be tricky enough, even without the lady boffin along.\n\n\"Um, but\u2014but, ma'am,\" Deryn sputtered. \"I'll have to\u2014\"\n\n\"Dr. Barlow,\" Alek broke in, \"this is Prince Aleksandar. I know you want young Dylan to look his best, but gentlemen's tailoring is hardly your area of expertise. It would be my pleasure to go with him. End message.\"\n\nThe beastie waited a moment, then blinked and scuttled away.\n\nDeryn gave him a long stare, then shook her head. \"You're both daft. I can see to my own clothes, right?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Alek pulled at his own threadbare sleeve. \"But I could use a bit of tailoring myself.\"\n\n\"True. You're looking a bit less than princely.\" Deryn straightened with a sigh. \"Well, I have duties to attend to. See you when we get to Tokyo, I suppose.\"\n\n\"I suppose so.\" He smiled at her.\n\nDeryn turned and strode back into the engine pod, shouting at the engineers to give Mr. Tesla some peace. Alek stayed out on the boom, staring down at the water a little longer and wondering at what he felt inside.\n\nWhatever her name was, he had missed his good friend these last few days, rather a lot.\n\n\"A bit of tailoring,\" Bovril said thoughtfully. \"End message.\"\n\nAlek pulled on another jacket, then scowled at the mirror. His Hapsburg Armor Corp uniform was just as threadbare as the others, shiny at the elbows and missing two buttons. Had he really spent the last weeks walking about in such a disreputable state?\n\n\"This seems unwise,\" Count Volger said.\n\nAlek fingered the jacket's frayed epaulettes. \"I have an ambassador to impress, and I doubt the tailors in Tokyo are expensive.\"\n\n\"I'm not talking about the cost, Alek. You're practically penniless, in any case.\" The wildcount glanced out the window\u2014one of the spires of Tokyo was sliding by, alarmingly close to the gondola. \"I'm talking about that girl.\"\n\nAlek picked up the silk piloting jacket he'd worn the night of the Ottoman Revolution. \"Her name is Deryn.\"\n\n\"Whatever she calls herself, you've managed to escape her influence at last. Why risk another entanglement?\"\n\n\"Deryn isn't an entanglement.\" Alek pulled the jacket on and considered the effect. \"She's a friend, and a useful ally.\"\n\n\"Useful? Only in that she's taken that beast away.\"\n\nAlek didn't answer. Deryn had dropped by his stateroom the night before to \"borrow\" Bovril. Alek found that he missed the creature's weight on his shoulder and its murmurs in his ear. The perspicacious loris had offered comfort when everyone else had betrayed him.\n\n\"You can't trust her,\" Volger said.\n\n\"Nor can I trust you, Count. And Deryn, at least, can tell me what the Leviathan's officers are thinking.\"\n\n\"Tesla does their thinking for them these days. Imagine, trying to requisition this whole ship to take him to America! It's madness to believe that the Admiralty will allow it.\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow. \"That was my idea, you know.\"\n\n\"Ah, of course.\" With a sigh Volger stood up from the desk and went to his traveling trunk. \"This is a diplomatic affair, not a costume party.\"\n\nAlek pulled off his Ottoman piloting jacket. \"Perhaps it is a bit too colorful for a British ambassador.\"\n\n\"You're taking a risk, believing in Tesla.\"\n\n\"He wants peace, and has the power to make it happen.\"\n\n\"Let's hope so, Your Serene Highness. Because if you support him publicly and he turns out to be mad, the whole world will think you're a fool. Do you think the people of Austria-Hungary will want a young fool for an emperor?\"\n\nAlek's glare was wasted on Volger, who was rummaging in his trunk. He pulled out a deep blue tunic with a red collar.\n\n\"My Hapsburg House Cavalry uniform.\"\n\nAlek said, \"Do you think I'm being a fool?\"\n\n\"I think you're trying to do something good. But doing good is rarely easy, and no weapon has ever stopped a war.\" Count Volger handed over the cavalry tunic. \"But who knows. Perhaps the great inventor has changed all that.\"\n\n\"And you wanted to murder him.\" Alek pulled the tunic on. The sleeves were too long, of course, but a decent tailor could fix that. \"Or was that whole business just an idle threat to shake me out of my sulk?\"\n\nThe wildcount smiled. \"Two birds, one stone.\"\n\nThe streets of Tokyo teemed with steam trams, pedestrians, and beasts of burden. The morning sun had crested the buildings, but the strings of paper lanterns hanging overhead still glowed. Each was filled with a little swarm of flickering insects, like a handful of stars.\n\nAlek was always uncomfortable in crowds, and here in Tokyo he felt especially conspicuous. There were no other Europeans about except the pair of marine guards following him. Many of the Japanese men wore western clothing, but the women were dressed in long dresses dyed in indigo and scarlet patterns, with broad silk belts that gathered into bundles on their lower backs. Alek tried to picture Deryn in such a getup, but failed completely.\n\nThe two technologies mixed more elegantly than he'd expected. Streetcars huffed out clouds of steam, but the most crowded were yoked to oxenesques for extra power. A few rickshaws putted along behind diesel two-legged walkers; the rest were pulled by squat, scaly creatures that reminded Alek disturbingly of kappa. Telegraph lines crisscrossed the sky overhead, but messenger lizards scampered along them, and carrier eagles wheeled against the clouds.\n\n\"Are we lost yet?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"Lost,\" declared Bovril from her shoulder, then went back to burbling snatches of Japanese.\n\nAlek sighed, unfolding Dr. Barlow's map for the fortieth time since they'd left the airfield. It was exasperating, not being able to read street signs. On top of which, addresses worked differently here in Japan. Instead of the numbers running along the avenues, they went clockwise around city blocks. Pure insanity.\n\nAccording to a local scientist friend of Dr. Barlow's, a whole street of tailors catering to Europeans was hidden somewhere in this madness.\n\n\"I think we're close,\" Alek said. \"You don't suppose those two could help?\"\n\nDeryn glanced at the marine guards shadowing them. \"They're only here to keep you from running away.\"\n\n\"Hardly necessary. I'm quite happy to be on the Leviathan these days.\"\n\nDeryn gave a snort. \"Aye, thanks to your new boffin pal.\"\n\n\"He's a genius, and he wants to stop this war.\"\n\n\"He's a complete nutter, you mean. Dr. Barlow says his talk of Goliath is daft!\"\n\n\"Nutter,\" Bovril said with a chuckle.\n\n\"Of course she would say so,\" Alek said. \"Mr. Tesla is a Clanker scientist, and she's a Darwinist\u2014and a Darwin to boot! They're natural enemies.\"\n\nDeryn started to reply, but her head swiveled as a food stall drifted slowly past. The whole thing was drawn, customers and all, by a squat two-legged walker. One of the cooks was chopping thin layers of dough into fine noodles; the others were slicing mushrooms, fish, and eels. The smell of buckwheat and prawns carried on the steam rising from the boilers, along with the tang of vinegar and pickles.\n\n\"Might want some of that later,\" Deryn mumbled.\n\n\"Want,\" Bovril said.\n\nAlek smiled. He'd learned in Istanbul that food could always distract Deryn from an argument. But she wasn't done yet.\n\n\"Have you forgotten what I found in Mr. Tesla's room?\"\n\n\"You found a rock,\" Alek said flatly.\n\n\"If it was only a rock, why did he bring it aboard?\"\n\n\"He's a scientist. They like rocks. Didn't Dr. Barlow know what it was?\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"She isn't certain, but it's all very suspicious. Mr. Tesla's weapons all use electricity, and it was a sort of . . . cannonball.\"\n\n\"No cannonball could destroy half of Siberia, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp!\" Bovril repeated.\n\n\"Perhaps I'll simply ask him myself.\" Alek gave a snort. \"Though he might wonder why you were hiding under his bed at night.\"\n\n\"Forget it. If he knows we were spying on him, he won't trust you.\"\n\nAlek shook his head\u2014as if Deryn could offer advice on trust and friendship. \"Once we get to New York and reveal Goliath to the world, I'm sure these minor details will all make sense.\"\n\n\"You think the Admiralty will really let us head off to America?\"\n\n\"Mr. Tesla can be quite convincing,\" Alek said. \"Besides, this is my destiny.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Deryn said, and snorted. \"Your destiny.\"\n\nShe was about to say more, when Bovril interrupted. \"A bit of tailoring!\"\n\n\"The beastie's right.\" Deryn was looking over Alek's shoulder. \"Your destiny is a better-fitting jacket, looks to me.\"\n\nHe turned. Beneath the awning of an open shop front whirred a spidery machine, bristling with spindles of thread. Squeezed onto a hanging banner full of Japanese characters were a few recognizable words: WELCOME TO SHIBASAKI TAILORS.\n\nAlek folded up the map. \"For the moment that will do.\"\n\n\"Irasshai,\" came a call as Alek stepped beneath the awning. Two men stood up from behind sewing machines, one robed in white cotton with a flowered print, the other in a European waistcoat and jacket.\n\n\"Welcome, gentlemen,\" the robed man said in practiced English.\n\nAlek and Deryn returned his bow.\n\n\"We've just arrived here, sirs,\" Alek said slowly. \"We have no money, but we can pay with gold.\"\n\nThe man looked embarrassed at this forwardness, but Alek could only bow again, holding out Volger's cavalry uniform.\n\n\"If you could make this fit me.\"\n\nThe other tailor took the jacket by the shoulders and shook it open. \"Of course.\"\n\n\"And my friend needs a dress shirt in the British naval fashion, by this afternoon.\"\n\n\"We have many shirts for British gentlemen, if we make alterations.\" The man turned to Deryn. \"May we measure you, sir?\"\n\nShe glanced at the marine guards waiting just outside\u2014close enough to hear any exclamations of surprise.\n\n\"I'm afraid not,\" Alek said. \"He has a . . . skin condition. Perhaps you could measure me, and adjust a little.\"\n\nThe tailor frowned. \"But you are shorter, sir.\"\n\n\"Not that much shorter,\" Alek said, and heard Bovril chuckling.\n\nThe tailor bowed gracefully, then extended a length of string between his hands. Alek took off his jacket and turned around, holding out his arms wide.\n\nDeryn leaned back to watch, wearing the first smile Alek had seen on her face in days.\n\nAfter the measurements were done, the tailors told Alek and Deryn to return in two hours. Deryn unerringly tracked down the moving food stall they'd seen earlier, and soon they were seated on a long bench that faced the cooks, shoulder to shoulder with the other customers. The marine guards took up station just behind the stall, watching from a distance.\n\nA dozen pots of noodles bubbled on the boilers, which Deryn said were burning an oil made from fabricated peanuts. The fuel let off a sweet scent that mingled with the briny smell of salmon slices edged with orange, a black vinegar sauce in small bowls, and tiny dried fish curled into silver half-moons.\n\nAs Deryn pantomimed for the cooks, Alek realized how hungry he was. He watched the other customers eating with chopsticks, wishing he'd brought a fork and knife from the Leviathan's mess.\n\n\"Did you hear?\" Deryn asked. \"The meeting's been moved to the Imperial Hotel.\"\n\n\"Why a hotel?\"\n\n\"It's got a barking theater! Seems the ambassador wants to show the whole world that the great Nikola Tesla has changed sides.\" Deryn inspected her chopsticks. \"Maybe that will get the Clankers quaking in their boots.\"\n\n\"Hopefully,\" Alek said. Two bowls were set before them, full of tangled noodles half covered in a thick broth. Atop the noodles sat a spoonful of white mush and a cluster of tiny orange spheres, as translucent as rubies. A plate of fresh salmon was set before Bovril.\n\nAs the beast started in, Alek stared at his dish. \"What have you ordered us?\"\n\n\"No idea,\" Deryn said, picking up a wooden spoon. \"It looked good, so I pointed at it.\"\n\nAlek lifted his chopsticks and attempted to pick up one of the pearly orange spheres. The first exploded, but he managed to get a second into his mouth. It popped like a tiny balloon between his teeth, tasting of salt and fish.\n\n\"It's like oversize caviar.\"\n\n\"Which is what?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"Fish eggs.\"\n\nShe frowned, but the revelation didn't slow her eating.\n\nAlek tasted the white substance, which turned out to be pickled radishes chopped into mush. There were also slivers of a pearly fruit, as tangy as lemon rind. He swirled his chopsticks in the bowl, mixing the sharp flavors of radishes, citrus, and fish eggs with the thick buckwheat noodles.\n\nAs he ate, Alek finally took a proper look at the slowly passing city. The rooftops of Tokyo curved and swelled like ocean waves, terra-cotta tiles rippling their surfaces. Miniature potted trees crowded the windows, growing in twisted shapes that mirrored the strokes of calligraphy decorating every shop. Canopies of vines overhead spilled pink blossoms onto the ground, and the hanging paper lanterns seemed to be everywhere, bobbing in the breeze.\n\n\"Quite beautiful, considering,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Considering what?\"\n\n\"That the same culture fabricated those horrid kappa.\"\n\n\"Less horrid than a phosphorous shell, if you ask me.\"\n\nAlek shrugged, not in the mood to revisit the argument he'd had with Tesla. \"You're right. Killing is ugly, whatever shape it takes. That's why we have to stop this war.\"\n\n\"It isn't up to you to fix the world, Alek. Maybe your parents' murder set it off, but the world was ready enough with war machines and beasties!\" She stared into her bowl, twirling noodles onto her chopsticks. \"A fight would have happened one way or another.\"\n\n\"None of that changes the fact that my family started it.\"\n\nDeryn turned to face him. \"You can't blame a match for a house made of straw, Alek.\"\n\n\"A nice turn of phrase.\" All that was left of Alek's meal was broth. The other customers seemed to think nothing of drinking from their bowls, so he lifted his with both hands. \"But it doesn't change what I have to do.\"\n\nDeryn watched him drink, then said simply, \"What if you can't stop it?\"\n\n\"You saw what we did in Istanbul. Our revolution kept them out of the war!\"\n\n\"It was their revolution, Alek. We just helped a bit.\"\n\n\"Of course, but Mr. Tesla can do much more. Destiny brought me to Siberia to meet him, so clearly his plan has to work!\"\n\nDeryn sighed. \"What if destiny doesn't care?\"\n\n\"Why can't you admit that providence has guided my course at every turn?\" Alek counted the points on his fingers. \"My father prepared a refuge for me in the Alps, in the very same valley where the Leviathan crashed! Then, after I escaped, I wound up back on your ship\u2014just as it was headed for the siege of Tsingtao. And that brought me to the wastes of Siberia in time to meet Tesla. All those connections have to mean something!\"\n\nDeryn opened her mouth to argue, then hesitated, a half smile crossing her face. \"So you must think that we're meant to be together.\"\n\nAlek blinked. \"What?\"\n\n\"I told you how I wound up on the Leviathan. If a freak storm hadn't carried me halfway across Britain, I'd be serving on the Minotaur with Jaspert. Never would have met you, then.\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose not.\"\n\n\"And when we crashed, and you came to help us on those silly snowshoes, you walked straight up to where I was lying in the snow.\" Her smile grew broader. \"You saved me, first thing.\"\n\n\"Only from a frostbitten bum.\" Alek stared into the empty bowl before him; a fish egg was stuck to one side. He picked it up with his chopsticks and regarded it.\n\n\"And when you jumped ship in Istanbul, you thought you'd got away from me.\" Deryn gave a snort. \"Not likely.\"\n\n\"You do have a habit of showing up.\"\n\n\"Must be rough for you. Having your destiny mixed up with a barking commoner's!\" She shoveled in her last mouthful of noodles, chuckling to herself.\n\nAlek frowned. In two days of brooding it somehow hadn't crossed his mind that without Deryn Sharp the Ottoman Revolution might have failed, and Alek certainly would never have come back aboard the Leviathan. Thus he wouldn't have met Tesla, and would be no closer to stopping the war.\n\nDeryn had been there every step of the way.\n\n\"We are connected, aren't we?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" she said, still chewing. \"And for us to meet at all, I had to pretend to be a boy. Fancy that.\"\n\n\"Barking destiny,\" Bovril said, then burped.\n\nAlek put his hands up in surrender. There were worse things than being connected to Deryn Sharp. In fact, the simple fact that she was smiling sent a wave of relief through him\u2014she was his ally again, his friend. Providence seemed to be saying that she always would be.\n\nAll at once a fist around his heart loosened its grip.\n\n\"It was awful, being at war with you.\"\n\nDeryn laughed. \"I missed you, too, daft prince.\" She started to say more, but then cast a look over her shoulder at the two marine guards, and sighed. \"We should go fetch our clothes. Tesla will be starting in a few hours.\"\n\nAlek nodded. \"It should be quite a show.\"\n\nThe theater of the Imperial Hotel was filling up; there were at least a hundred in the audience already. Deryn wondered if the Clanker boffin had invited them all, or if the British embassy had, or whether the news was spreading on its own across Tokyo.\n\nThe British ambassador was easy to spot, a man in a posh civilian suit surrounded by admirals and commodores. Not far away a dozen Japanese naval officers wore black tunics and hats with red piping. Deryn recognized other uniforms\u2014French, Russian, even a handful of Italians, though Darwinist Italy had yet to join the war. A gaggle of boffins, European and Japanese, stood about in bowlers, some with recording frogs perched on their shoulders.\n\nOf everyone there, only Deryn was alone. Dr. Barlow had abandoned her for the other boffins, and Bovril was sneaking beneath the chairs, listening for new snippets of language.\n\nMost of the audience seemed to be reporters, some already snapping photos of the stage. All sorts of electrical apparatus waited there, metal spheres and glass tubes, coils of wire, a generator the size of a smokehouse, and a large glass bulb hanging from the ceiling. How Tesla had put all these contraptions together so quickly was beyond Deryn. The Leviathan had made good speed and had landed just before midnight, and the man had left in a whirlwind shortly after. He must have spent the whole night and morning hunting for electrical parts.\n\nDeryn spotted Master Klopp off to one side, working on a tangle of wires. Hoffman stood beside him, tools at the ready. Alek had put his men at the disposal of the great inventor, of course. And at the moment, Alek himself was busy chatting to a group of officers in unfamiliar blue uniforms. Americans, perhaps.\n\nDeryn was still surprised at her own words from that morning, about her and Alek being meant to be together. She still didn't really believe any of his claptrap about providence. Blethering about destiny was simply a way for Alek to accept her as a girl, by fitting her into his grand plan to save the world. He'd swallowed it, of course, because deep down Alek knew that he was stronger with her than without.\n\nThe lights flickered, and the audience began to settle into their seats. Bovril returned to Deryn's shoulder, and Dr. Barlow made her way back across the room, taking a seat beside her.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp, have I mentioned it's good to see you so well dressed?\"\n\nDeryn fingered her shirt, which was made out of a thicker, softer cotton than she was used to. It fit marvelously, despite the tailors never having touched her.\n\n\"They take their tailoring seriously here, ma'am.\"\n\n\"And a good thing too. You are in the presence of greatness.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"I thought you didn't like this bumrag.\"\n\n\"Not Mr. Tesla, young man.\" She gestured with a white-gloved hand. \"There is Sakichi Toyoda, the father of Japanese mechanics. And, beside him, Kokichi Mikimoto, the first fabricator of shaped pearls. Clankers and Darwinists, working together.\"\n\n\"To-yo-da,\" Bovril said softly, separating each syllable.\n\n\"Better than fighting each other, I suppose,\" Deryn said. \"But what's the point of all this? The Admiralty's not even here to see it.\"\n\n\"In a way, they are.\" Dr. Barlow nodded her head toward the wings of the stage, where a Royal Navy officer sat at a telegraph key. \"Tokyo is connected to London by underwater fiber. According to the ambassador, Lord Churchill himself has awoken early to follow the proceedings.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. The underwater fiber system, which stretched from Britain to Australia to Japan, was one of the more uncanny creations of Darwinism. Made from mile-long strands of living nervous tissue, it bound the British Empire together like a single organism, carrying coded messages along the ocean floor.\n\n\"But they won't be able to see anything,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"Mr. Tesla claims otherwise.\" Dr. Barlow's voice faded as the lights dimmed and a hush settled over the crowd.\n\nA familiar tall figure strode to the center of the darkened stage, holding a long cylinder in one hand. He flourished it in the air, like a swordsman saluting, and then his voice boomed across the theater.\n\n\"Time is pressing, so I shall begin without prologue. I hold a glass tube full of incandescent gasses.\" Tesla pointed at the ceiling. \"And here is a wire conveying alternating currents of high potential. When I touch both . . .\"\n\nHe took the wire in one hand, and the glass tube suddenly illuminated in the other. There was a slight gasp from the audience, and then a scattering of laughter, as if some of them had known the trick was coming.\n\nShadows shifted across Tesla's features as he rested the glowing tube across his shoulder, like a phantasmal walking stick. \"This is merely an electric light, of course, except for the novelty of using my body as a conductor. But it reminds us that electricity can travel through more than wires. Through the atmosphere, for example, or the Earth's crust, and even the ether of interplanetary space.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Dr. Barlow said softly. \"Not martians again.\"\n\n\"Martians,\" Bovril said, chuckling, and Deryn raised an eyebrow.\n\nTesla placed the tube at the edge of the stage, the light extinguishing the moment his fingers left it. He let go of the wire and straightened his jacket.\n\n\"In some ways our planet itself is a capacitor, a giant battery.\" He reached up to touch the bulb hanging from the ceiling, and a light spread inside it. \"In the center of this sphere is another, smaller, globe. Both are filled with luminous gases, and together they can show us the engine of our planet at work.\"\n\nThe man fell silent then, standing back and saying nothing. The globe stayed lit, but nothing else happened as minutes passed in silence. Deryn shifted in her seat. It was a bit uncanny to see so many important people sitting quietly for this long.\n\nHer mind began to drift, wondering why Dr. Barlow had mentioned martians. Did Tesla believe in them? It was one thing to call the great inventor a nutter, but quite another if he was truly mad.\n\nAlek wanted to stop the war so badly, he was willing to believe any promise of peace. And after all he'd lost\u2014his family, his country, and his home\u2014how would he carry on if this hope were dashed as well? But there was not much she could do, Deryn supposed, except show him that there were other things to life besides saving the world.\n\nA murmur went through the crowd, and she looked up. The light in the glass sphere had formed a shape, a tiny finger of lightning, just like those inside Tesla's metal detector. The flicker was moving, sweeping slowly around the globe like the second hand on a clock.\n\n\"The rotation is clockwise, as always,\" Tesla said. \"Though in the Southern Hemisphere it would go in the other direction, I suppose. You see, this finger of light is set in motion by the spinning of our planet.\"\n\nAnother murmur traveled across the room, a bit unsettled. Deryn frowned. How was that so different from a pendulum or a compass needle?\n\n\"But we are not limited to the brute forces of nature.\" Tesla took a step closer to the hanging light, a small object in his hand. \"With this magnet I can wrest control of this flicker from the earth itself.\"\n\nHe stepped still closer, and the light stopped spinning. Tesla began to walk around the bulb, and the flicker began to move again, always pointing away from him, no matter how he paused or hurried.\n\n\"Strange, isn't it? To think that one can aim lightning as easily as a pistol.\" He pulled out his pocket watch and checked it. \"But now it is time for a larger demonstration. Much larger. A few days ago I sent a message from the Leviathan to Tokyo by courier eagle. The message was forwarded by underwater fiber to London, and finally by radio waves to my assistants in New York, more than halfway around the world. There, a few minutes from now, they will follow my instructions.\"\n\nHe signaled to Klopp, who began to make adjustments in one of the black boxes. A moment later all the devices onstage began to flicker and hum. Mr. Tesla stood among them, his hair standing on end like an angry cat's. Deryn felt her own hairs tingle, as if a summer storm were in the air.\n\n\"The results will be visible on these instruments here,\" Tesla said, then turned toward the Royal Navy officer at the telegraph key. \"And also in the early morning sky of London, if you would kindly ask Mr. Churchill and the Sea Lords to step to a window?\"\n\nAnother murmur went through the room, and Deryn whispered to the lady boffin, \"What's he on about?\"\n\n\"His machine in New York is going to send a signal into the air. Like a radio wave, but far more powerful.\" Dr. Barlow leaned closer. \"It's daylight here, so we need instruments to see its effects. But in London the sun isn't up yet.\"\n\n\"You mean, he thinks Goliath can change the sky?\"\n\nThe lady boffin nodded silently, and Deryn stared at the stage, where needles of light had begun to flicker from every object. Even Mr. Tesla's pocket watch was glowing, and a buzzing filled the air, like the bees in the gut of the Leviathan when they needed feeding.\n\n\"The transmission will begin in ten seconds,\" Tesla said, then snapped his watch closed. \"It will not take long to reach us.\"\n\n\"Transmission,\" Bovril said, shifting unhappily. The loris began to keen softly, and suddenly the buzzing wasn't so bad in Deryn's ear. She reached up to scratch the beastie's head gratefully.\n\nFor a long moment nothing happened, and Deryn let herself hope that the experiment was failing. The great Tesla would be humiliated, and all this yackum about going to America would end.\n\nBut then the fingers of lightning in the hanging globe grew stronger, flickering across the inside surface of the glass. Then they spun aimlessly for a moment, then turned strong and steady, pointing to the left side of the stage.\n\nAll the other instruments had come to life, filling the theater with light. The glass tubes were filled with rainbows of color, the metal spheres covered with a thousand needles of electricity. The antennae on Klopp's black box had erupted, sending shoots of lightning climbing up them, only to sputter out in the air. The officer at the telegraph still tapped away, the buttons on his coat alight with tiny sparks.\n\nGradually the countless fingers of light began to align, all of them pointed to the left. Deryn could feel the hairs on her head pulling in that direction.\n\n\"North-northeast,\" Dr. Barlow muttered. \"Directly toward New York, by great circle.\"\n\n\"As you can see,\" Tesla cried above the buzzing, \"I am able to control the currents in this room, even from ten thousand kilometers away. Imagine a thunderstorm brought to heel at such a distance. Or even the electrical charges of the earth's atmosphere itself, focused and aimed like a searchlight!\"\n\nBovril was burbling madly. The creature's fur stood on end, and its eyes were open wider than Deryn had ever seen.\n\n\"Don't worry, beastie,\" she said. \"He's on our side.\"\n\n\"Let's hope so,\" Dr. Barlow said.\n\nTesla lifted his hands into the air, waving them to and fro. Tendrils of lightning clung to his fingertips, but then went shooting off in the same direction\u2014north-northeast.\n\n\"This is the power of Goliath, that no one on earth, Clanker or Darwinist, can escape. So we all must learn to share the globe, or perish together!\"\n\nHe waved a hand, and Klopp cut a master switch. All the lightning disappeared at once, leaving the room in darkness. The silence was quickly filled with gasps and mutterings. Then came a halting applause that slowly grew in strength.\n\nA thousand flickers seemed to hover in the air, burned like sunbeams into Deryn's vision. Through them she saw Tesla reaching up to grab the hanging wire again. He picked up the simple glass tube, which sprang to life.\n\n\"Any word from the Admiralty?\" he asked, silencing the applause.\n\nThe Royal Navy officer stood up from his telegraph, a piece of paper in his quivering hand. \"Lord Churchill and the Sea Lords send their greetings, and wish to report that your experiment was a success. Subtle but strange colors appeared in the dawn sky over London.\"\n\nThe crowd went dead silent.\n\n\"They offer hearty congratulations.\" The officer cleared his throat. \"Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, but the rest of the message is for the captain of the Leviathan.\"\n\nDr. Barlow leaned back into her seat. \"Well, that's not much of a mystery, is it, Mr. Sharp? It looks as though we're headed for New York.\"\n\n\"New York,\" Bovril said thoughtfully, and began to smooth its frizzled fur.\n\nThe Pacific Ocean was nearly half the world, as Mr. Rigby liked to say. It certainly looked vast now, spread out beneath the ship like a rippling sheet of silver. The Japanese home islands were less than a day behind them, but already the very notion of land seemed distant and obscure.\n\nThe Leviathan was at full-ahead, making airspeed of sixty miles an hour. The wind blew down the spine at whole gale force, thrumming along the ship's surface like a surging river.\n\n\"Is it always like this?\" Alek shouted over the wind.\n\n\"Aye,\" Deryn replied. \"Brilliant, isn't it?\"\n\nAlek just scowled at her. His gloved hands clutched the ratlines in a death grip, and Hoffman's eyes were wide with fear behind his goggles. The two Clankers had been at full-ahead in their engine pods before, but never out here on the open spine.\n\n\"This is real flying!\" Deryn leaned closer. \"But if you're afraid, your princeliness, you can go back down.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"Hoffman needs a translator.\"\n\n\"My German's good enough,\" Deryn said. \"I had a whole month of your Clanker jabbering in Istanbul!\"\n\n\"Wei\u00dft du, was ein Kondensator ist?\"\n\n\"That's easy. You asked me if I know what a Kondensator is!\"\n\n\"Well, do you?\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"Well, it's some sort of . . . condenser. Obviously.\"\n\n\"No,\" Alek said. \"A capacitor. You just blew up the ship, Dummkopf.\"\n\nShe rolled her eyes. It seemed a bit unfair, expecting her to know German words for contraptions she'd never seen before. But she couldn't argue the point. Hoffman was the engineer best able to follow Tesla's orders, and only Alek could translate Clanker technical jargon into English.\n\nThis whole trip topside was at the bidding of the great inventor. He wanted a radio antenna stretching the length of the Leviathan, but he didn't want the ship slowing down. The captain had little choice but to obey\u2014the Admiralty's orders were to cooperate with Tesla, and to get him to America as quickly as practical.\n\nWorking on the spine at top speed wasn't impossible, after all, just a bit tricky. And also dead good fun.\n\n\"Take the wire to the bow, Sharp!\" Mr. Rigby shouted above the wind. \"And before you head back, make sure that end is secure.\"\n\n\"I'll go along,\" Alek said.\n\n\"No you won't, boy!\" Mr. Rigby shouted. \"It's too dangerous for princes up there.\"\n\nAlek scowled, but didn't argue. Up here on the spine, the bosun was the only royalty.\n\nDeryn waved for Hoffman, then began to make her way toward the great airbeast's head. Reattaching her safety clip every yard or so made progress slow, and the spool of wire was barking heavy. But the trickiest thing was crawling into a sixty-mile-an-hour headwind.\n\nHoffman followed, carrying his tools and a small device that Mr. Tesla had been tinkering with all day. He claimed that with a thousand-foot-long antenna at this altitude, he could detect radio signals from anywhere in the world\u2014even beyond.\n\n\"So he can talk to bloody martians,\" Deryn cried. \"That's what we're up here for!\"\n\nHoffman didn't understand, or chose not to comment.\n\nAt full-ahead the bow was bare of life. The fl\u00e9chette bats were all hidden away in their nooks and crannies, the birds safe in the rookery. Soon the last set of ratlines disappeared, and Deryn crawled still more slowly, lying flat, her palms spread across the rough, hard surface of the airbeast's bowhead.\n\nShe was glad for the weight of the spool now. At least with sixty pounds of wire strapped to her back, the wind was less likely to blow her into the ocean. She yelled at Hoffman to keep himself flat. At this speed, rushing air could find a grip in any space between a crewman's body and the airbeast's skin, like a knife prying up a barnacle, and fling him off into the sea.\n\nAt last Deryn reached the mooring yoke, the heavy harness at the extreme bow of the airship. She snapped her safety clip to it and sighed with relief. Hoffman joined her there, and together they began to secure one end of the wire.\n\nAs they worked in the relentless wind, Deryn found herself wondering if Hoffman knew what she really was. She doubted Volger would have told anyone; the man always kept secrets for his own uses. But what about Alek? He'd promised not to tell anyone that she was a girl, but did that include hiding the truth from his own men?\n\nWhen the wire was tied fast and Tesla's device attached, Hoffman clapped Deryn on the shoulder, muttering a few choice German curses into the wind. She smiled, suddenly certain that he didn't know.\n\nAlek might be a Dummkopf sometimes, but he was always true to his word.\n\nThe two started back, unspooling wire as they went, securing it to the ratlines every few yards, to keep it from flapping about. Crawling was much quicker with the wind at their backs, and they soon reached Alek and Mr. Rigby again. Together the four of them headed aft.\n\nThe journey grew easier as they neared the tail. The roar of the Clanker engines lessened with distance, and past the airbeast's middle its body narrowed, the great hump sheltering them from the wind. When the first spool emptied, they halted. Mr. Rigby and Hoffman spliced it to another five-hundred-foot wire.\n\nWhile they waited, Alek turned to Deryn. \"Are you excited about seeing America?\"\n\n\"A bit,\" she said. \"But it sounds like an odd place.\"\n\nThe United States was another half-Darwinist, half-Clanker country. But unlike Japan, the technologies weren't happily combined there. The two halves of America had been fighting a vicious civil war when old Darwin had announced his discoveries. The South had adopted Darwinist agricultural techniques, while the industrial North had stayed loyal to the machine. Even fifty years later the nation remained split in two.\n\n\"Isn't that why people join the Air Service?\" Alek asked. \"To see the world?\"\n\nDeryn shrugged. \"Me, I just wanted to fly.\"\n\n\"I'm beginning to see the appeal,\" Alek said, smiling. He stood up halfway, the airflow thrashing at his hair and flight suit, and he leaned forward at a precarious angle, letting the force of the wind keep him upright.\n\n\"Blazes, Alek. Sit yourself down!\"\n\nThe boy just laughed, splaying his hands like a bird's wings. Deryn leaned forward to grab the safety harness of his flight suit.\n\nThe bosun looked up from his work. \"Quit that skylarking!\"\n\n\"Sorry, sir!\" Deryn pulled at Alek's harness. \"Come on, you dafty. Sit down!\"\n\nAlek stopped laughing, dropping to one knee. He pointed ahead. \"Is that what I think it is?\"\n\nDeryn turned to face the wind. The Leviathan's nose was tipping down a bit, and the great hill of the whale's hump seemed to descend before them, revealing the sky ahead.\n\n\"Mr. Rigby!\" Deryn called, pointing at the bow. \"You should see this, sir.\"\n\nA moment later the bosun swore, and Hoffman let out a low whistle. Ahead of the airship was a towering mass of thunderclouds, framed by a dark wall that stretched across the horizon. It was a huge storm, right in the Leviathan's path.\n\n\"THE COMING STORM.\"\n\nDeryn caught the scent of rain and felt lightning in the air. \"What should we do, Mr. Rigby?\"\n\n\"We finish this job, lad, unless we get new orders.\"\n\n\"Begging your pardon, sir, but there's no way they'd send a message lizard up. Even a hydrogen sniffer would be blown off at this speed!\"\n\n\"The captain can always send up a team of riggers, if he wants.\" The bosun pointed at the second spool of wire, still full. \"In any case we can't stop now, or we'll hit that storm with loose wire flying about!\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. \"Aye, of course, sir.\"\n\nHoffman finished off the splice, and the four of them headed toward the tail again. Crawling along the spine was even trickier now. The wind was shifting unpredictably, the currents of the storm mixing with the airflow of the ship's great speed.\n\nDeryn felt the membrane moving beneath her, rolling to one side. She glanced over her shoulder at the bow.\n\n\"We're turning, sir,\" she said. \"Angling to starboard.\"\n\nMr. Rigby swore, waving them on.\n\n\"That's good, isn't it?\" Alek asked her. \"They're aiming to avoid the center of the storm.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"Hurricanes always spin anticlockwise, so we're headed into a massive tailwind. We're not missing the storm\u2014we're using it to move faster. A brilliant idea from Mr. Tesla, no doubt.\"\n\n\"Is that dangerous?\"\n\n\"The ship should be fine. It's us I'm worried about.\" Deryn snapped her safety clip down with a vengeance. \"If they'd just slow down a bit, we could get this barking job done!\"\n\n\"Settle yourself, Mr. Sharp,\" came the bosun's grumble. \"We have our orders, and the captain has his.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" Deryn said, then set herself to crawling as fast as she could.\n\nHaving a boffin in charge was getting to be annoying.\n\nThey were still out in the open when the airship hit the storm. The rain didn't build gradually but arrived in a silvery wall hurtling down the Leviathan's length at sixty miles an hour.\n\n\"Take hold!\" Deryn cried as the chattering tumult surrounded them. The membrane rippled beneath her, stirred by the wave of cold air that came with the rain, no doubt pulled down from the northern Pacific by the great spinning engine of the storm. Suddenly the driving wind seemed full of ice and nails, the freezing drops hitting her goggles like tiny stones.\n\n\"Don't anyone move!\" Mr. Rigby shouted. \"The captain should slow down for us now!\"\n\nDeryn clung to the ratlines with both hands, gritting her teeth, and it was only moments later that the roar of the Clanker engines went silent.\n\n\"Aye, I didn't think the officers had gone mad,\" the bosun muttered. He rose slowly, holding his side where he'd been shot two months before. A wave of fresh annoyance swept through Deryn. It was all very well for Tesla to send men up topside at full-ahead, when he was safe and sipping brandy in his cabin!\n\nWith the engines off, the airship quickly matched the speed of the wind, and a strange calm settled around the four of them. They headed for the steering house at a jog, the membrane slick with rain beneath their feet. Deryn kept one eye on Mr. Rigby, ready to grab him if he slipped. But the old man was as surefooted as always, and soon they were crowding into the dorsal steering house, the aft-most shelter on the ship.\n\n\"Get that wire secure,\" Mr. Rigby ordered.\n\nAlek translated for Hoffman, who set to work. The bosun plunked down heavily on a box of spare engine parts, and Deryn pulled off her gloves and rubbed her hands together, then whistled for glowworm light.\n\nThe dorsal steering house wasn't luxurious. It was full of parts for tending the ship's rear engines, and had its own master wheel if the bridge somehow lost rudder control. Thankfully it was connected by passageways to the airbeast's gut, so a squick of warmth rose from an open hatchway in the floor.\n\nOnce the wire was tied fast, Hoffman said a few words to Alek, then descended into the airship, unspooling still more wire behind him.\n\n\"Where's he off to?\" Deryn asked Alek.\n\n\"Mr. Tesla wants the antenna to run down through the ship, all the way to his laboratory.\"\n\n\"Aye, anything to keep him dry,\" Deryn muttered. She wondered exactly what the Clanker boffin was up to. Back in Tokyo he'd proven he could send radio waves around the world. What more could he do from up here in the sky?\n\nThe bosun still wore a pained expression, so the three waited a few minutes before moving on. Every gust of wind made the steering house shudder, the rain-spattered windows rattling in their frames. Deryn felt the floor shifting beneath her. The airbeast was flexing its body, turning its face away from the force of the storm. This close to the tail, it was easy to feel the giant body shift, like being at the end of a vast, slow whip.\n\nThe ratlines creaked around them, and an unfamiliar metal groan came through the sounds of wind and rain. The wire leading out into the storm went taut beside Deryn, then shuddered and fell slack.\n\n\"Blast it,\" the bosun sighed. \"That wire must have been too short.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Tesla's measurements were quite precise!\" Alek said.\n\n\"Aye, of course they were.\" Deryn shook her head. \"Too precise. He was thinking of the Leviathan as a zeppelin, a dead thing, rigid from bow to stern. But an airbeast bends, and more than usual in this barking storm.\"\n\nAlek stood up, looking out. \"Perhaps someone might have mentioned that to him!\"\n\n\"Your Mr. Tesla never bothered to ask,\" the bosun said flatly. \"But repairs will have to wait. They'll be starting the engines up again soon.\"\n\nAlek looked as though he were going to argue, but Deryn put a hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"They're idle for now, Mr. Rigby.\" She stepped to the windows, shielding her eyes with her hands. \"And the break might be close by.\"\n\nThe bosun snorted. \"All right. Pop out and take a look.\"\n\nDeryn opened the door a bit and squeezed out onto the blustery expanse of the topside. A moment later something caught her eye. At least five hundred feet away, near the base of the hump, a glimmer of silver danced in the rain.\n\n\"One end of the wire's got loose, sir,\" she called over her shoulder. \"Maybe twenty yards of it. And it's flailing about in the wind!\"\n\nMr. Rigby got to his feet and joined her at the door, then swore.\n\n\"When the engines come back, that'll get a bit lively! Could even cut into the membrane!\" He crossed to the gut hatchway. \"I'm afraid you've got to go back out, lad, and secure both loose ends. I'll find a message lizard and tell the bridge to hold the engines still for a bit longer.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir.\" Deryn pulled her gloves back on.\n\nThe bosun paused halfway down into the hatch. \"Wait a few minutes to make sure they've got the message, then get it done fast. Whatever happens, I don't want you out there at full-ahead!\"\n\nThe bosun dropped away, and Deryn began to search the parts drawers. All she needed was some pliers and a short length of wire.\n\n\"I'm going with you,\" Alek said.\n\nShe started to say no. The bosun hadn't given orders one way or the other, and she could handle the job herself. But if Mr. Rigby's message arrived too late and the ship went to top speed again, anyone alone out there could be swept away into the sea.\n\nBesides, who knew what Alek would get up to if she left him here alone?\n\n\"I'm not afraid,\" he added.\n\n\"You should be,\" Deryn said. \"But you're right, it's better if we stick together. Hand me that rope.\"\n\n\"Ready?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"I suppose so.\" Alek looked down at the rope tied to his flight suit's harness. He wondered what Count Volger would say about him being bound to a common girl. Probably something unpleasant.\n\nBut it was certainly better than letting a friend go out there on her own.\n\nDeryn opened the hatchway, and a rush of cold air sent a fresh chill through Alek's sodden flight suit. As he followed her out into the rain, the five meters of rope between them grew heavy with water.\n\n\"If the engines start up, drop flat and hold on to the ratlines,\" Deryn said.\n\nAlek didn't argue. The few moments of downpour at full-ahead had been convincing enough.\n\nHe followed Deryn toward the bow, keeping to the middle of the spine, his hands out for balance. Down below, the ocean's surface was in furious motion, the wind tearing whitecaps off the waves like they were plumes of steam.\n\n\"'Pacific' means 'peaceful,'\" he said. \"So far, this ocean isn't living up to its name.\"\n\n\"Aye, and believe me, it's much worse down there than it looks. We've matched the speed of the wind, so all we're feeling is the odd gust.\"\n\nAlek nodded. The sky was dark, the rain still falling, and he could smell a deadly hint of lightning. But the air was eerily calm. It was like being in the placid eye of a storm, with its energies boiling all around them, waiting to be unleashed.\n\n\"Then, why's that loose wire blowing about?\n\nDeryn's hand described an arc in the air. \"The hump always has an untidy bit of airflow behind it when the ship's free-ballooning, ever since the earliest airbeasts were fabricated. The boffins have never been able to fix it.\"\n\n\"You mean Darwinism has its flaws?\"\n\n\"So has nature. Ever seen a red-footed booby try to land?\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"I'm afraid I have no knowledge of red-footed boobies.\"\n\n\"Well, I've never actually seen one myself. But everybody says they're barking hilarious!\"\n\nThey were drawing near the airbeast's hump, and Alek felt the air growing restive around them. The loose section of antenna looked like a glint of silver dancing on the ratlines.\n\n\"Step carefully here,\" Deryn called.\n\nWith every meter the troubled airflow grew worse, driving the rain into a blur against Alek's goggles. But he didn't dare take them off. The loose wire was flailing like the tentacle of some dying creature, and he didn't fancy leaving his eyes unprotected.\n\nDeryn came to a halt. \"Do you hear that?\"\n\nAlek listened. Above the chattering of rain he heard a distant thrum.\n\n\"The rear motivator engines?\"\n\n\"Aye, on low speed.\" She shook her head. \"Just a bit of steering, let's hope. Come on!\"\n\nShe jogged toward the flailing wire, dragging Alek by his harness. The wind shifted every few seconds now, sending the falling rain into a dozen little whirlwinds. The wire skittered away as Deryn made a jump for it, but Alek managed to plant a boot down to bring its thrashing to a halt.\n\nDeryn reached into her tool bag. \"I'm going to splice another ten yards on to the antenna. That should be loose enough to keep it from snapping again. Go find the other end of the break.\"\n\n\"I can't go anywhere, Deryn. We're tied together, remember?\"\n\nShe looked down at the rope. \"Ah, right. Best to keep it that way, though.\"\n\nAlek didn't argue. If Mr. Rigby hadn't got word to the officers, the engines could come back on at any time. Deryn worked swiftly with the pliers, her hands as sure as they were with knots and cable. Alek noticed how rough they were. Of course, any sailor's hands were calloused and scarred, but now that he knew she was a girl . . .\n\nHe shook the thought out of his head. At times like this it was best just to think of her as a boy. Anything else was too confusing.\n\n\"Done,\" she said. \"Let's go find the other loose end.\" As Alek rose to his feet, a chill went through his wet flight suit.\n\n\"Has the wind gotten stronger?\"\n\nDeryn cocked her head to listen. \"Aye, the rear engines are running a bit faster.\"\n\n\"And we're losing altitude.\" Below, the towering waves were clearly visible now, their whitecaps glowing against the dark water.\n\n\"Blisters, we might be in trouble.\" Deryn knelt again, putting one finger into the water building on the airship's surface. \"Almost half an inch already!\"\n\n\"Of course. It's raining.\"\n\nHer eyes closed. \"Just let me remember my sums. Every inch of water spread across the membrane adds . . . eight tons to the ship's weight.\"\n\nAlek opened his mouth, but it took a moment to speak. \"Eight tons?\"\n\n\"Aye. Barking heavy stuff, water.\" She started down the spine toward the tail, letting out the added length of wire behind her. \"Come on. Let's find the other end and get this job done!\"\n\nAlek dumbly followed, his gaze traveling down the endless length of the ship. The Leviathan's topside was huge, of course, so of course a thin layer of water would add up to thousands of liters. And though water was running down the sloped sides and off the ship, the rain was constantly adding more to replace it.\n\n\"They'll have dropped all the ballast by now,\" Deryn said. \"But I reckon the weight's still building. That's why we're losing altitude.\"\n\nAlek's eyes went wide. \"You mean this ship can't fly in the rain without crashing?\"\n\n\"Don't be daft. We can still use aerodynamic lift, but that's what I'm worried about. There it is!\"\n\nShe knelt and picked up a loose end of wire tangled in the ratlines, the other end of the break. Her fingers worked quickly, splicing it together with the added length.\n\nAlek stood close, sheltering her from the rain. \"Aerodynamic lift? Like when we took off in the Alps and had to fly for a bit to get off the ground?\"\n\n\"Right. The Leviathan is like a big wing. The faster we go, the more lift we generate. Done!\" She stretched the wire between her hands once, snapping it hard\u2014the new splice held.\n\n\"So when it rains, your ship has to keep moving to stay aloft.\" Alek looked down at the ocean. The waves were building in strength, the tallest of them almost reaching the bottom of the ship. \"Aren't we getting a bit close to the water?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Deryn said. \"The captain's been waiting as long as he can. But I doubt we have much . . .\"\n\nHer words faded as the Clanker engines roared to life. Deryn swore, then stood there for a moment listening.\n\n\"What do you reckon, Alek? Quarter speed?\"\n\nHe knelt to press his palm against the membrane. \"I'd say half.\"\n\n\"Blisters. We'll never make it back to the wheelhouse before the wind gets too strong to walk.\" She looked around. \"Might as well stay here, where the ship's wider. It'll be harder to fall off.\"\n\nAlek glanced down at the roiling black sea. \"Very sensible.\"\n\n\"But we need to get out of the flooding channel.\"\n\n\"The what?\"\n\n\"You'll see.\" Deryn started jogging toward the stern.\n\nAlek hurried to catch up. The ship's speed was building fast, the wind at his back pushing him harder and harder. The rain felt like cold needles now, and the view through his goggles was a blur.\n\nHe slowed down to wipe them, forgetting the rope stretched between him and Deryn. It yanked tight, and Alek's boots skidded on the wet surface of the spine. He landed badly, the air driven from his lungs, his head cracking hard. With the blow echoing in his ears, Alek realized that he was still moving, sliding along in the flow of rainwater. He clawed at the ratlines, but his cold fingers wouldn't close. For an awful moment the slope of the airbeast's flank dropped away from beneath him.\n\nThen the rope around his waist went taut again, snapping Alek to a halt. He lay there, uncertain of up and down, his heart pounding.\n\nA voice was in his ear. \"This is no use! Clip yourself!\"\n\nAlek nodded, feeling blindly for his safety clip. He snapped it onto the grid of ropes beneath him, then sat up, his head spinning. Every second the engines roared louder, and as their power built, so did the driving power of the rain. His goggles were blurred, and his head still reeled from the impact of his fall.\n\n\"Sorry I fell.\" Talking hurt his head.\n\n\"No worries. We're far enough aft. Just wanted to stay out of that.\"\n\nAlek pulled his goggles off, following Dylan's gaze. Pushed along by the airship's passage, a channel of water was spilling down the backside of the hump, like a waterfall forming after a downpour.\n\n\"The flooding channel?\"\n\nDylan laughed madly. \"Aye, I've never seen it like that. And this is only three-quarter speed!\"\n\nAlek squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly uncertain how he'd gotten out here in this storm. It felt as if he'd just woken up to find himself magically transported from his bed out onto the topside.\n\n\"Blisters, Alek, you're bleeding!\"\n\n\"I'm what?\" He blinked. Dylan was staring at his forehead. Alek reached up to touch the painful spot, then looked at his fingers. They were stained by a thin, watery hint of blood.\n\n\"It's nothing.\"\n\n\"Are you dizzy?\"\n\n\"Why would I be dizzy?\" Alek reached up to pull his goggles off, but found them already in his hand. His vision stayed blurry, though, as if a layer of glass hovered between him and the world.\n\n\"Because you just cracked your head, you dafty!\"\n\n\"I did what?\" It was hard to think with the engines roaring like this.\n\n\"Barking spiders, Alek.\" Dylan grasped both his hands, staring straight into his eyes. \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I'm cold.\" All the heat in his body was trickling out into the storm, the strength in his limbs carried away by the cold water rushing past. Alek wanted to stand up, but the wind was too strong.\n\nA vast boom rang out, the whole ship shuddering beneath them.\n\n\"Blisters!\" Dylan swore. \"A wave just smacked our underside! The officers left the engines too late.\"\n\nAlek stared at Dylan, the shock wave echoing in his head. He wanted to ask a question about the engines and the storm, but all at once the blurry layer across his vision seemed to clear away.\n\n\"You're a girl, aren't you?\"\n\n\"What in blazes?\" Deryn's eyes grew wide. \"Did your brain get cracked that bad? You've known that for a barking week!\"\n\n\"Yes, but I can . . . see it now!\" Even after he'd known the truth, the lie had remained stuck in his mind, like a mask over Deryn's face. But suddenly the mask had shaken free.\n\nHe touched his forehead. \"Did you always look like this?\"\n\nDeryn's answer was drowned out by the engines. Alek knew the sound from his long hours in the pods, the distinctive roar of full speed ahead. The wind drove even harder, the rain suddenly like hailstones. He pulled his goggles on again.\n\n\"You fell and cracked your head!\" Deryn shouted. \"The ship's heavy with rain, remember? So they're throwing every engine to full speed.\" She turned into the gale, her arm thrown across her face, and stared up at the hump rising over them. \"And that's not all!\"\n\nAlek squinted into the wind and saw it\u2014a white sheet rippling toward them down the slope of the spine.\n\n\"What on earth is that?\"\n\n\"The water from the bowhead\u2014all being blown back at once!\" She wrapped her arms around him. \"Take hold of the ratlines before it hits, in case your safety line snaps!\"\n\nAs Alek dug his fingers into the ropes beneath them, another boom shook the airship. A vast ripple passed through the membrane, bucking Deryn and Alek half a meter into the air, but her arms held tight around him. Her body was a shadow of warmth in the freezing wind.\n\n\"We're still too low!\" she cried. \"A tall enough wave could hit the\u2014\"\n\nThe surge of rainwater struck at that moment, hardly knee height but moving fast. It swept across them where they lay, filling Alek's nose and mouth. He clutched the ratlines with all his strength, and felt Deryn's arms around him tighten. His safety line pulled taut as the torrent tried to carry them both down the sloping flank of the airbeast.\n\nAfter a few long seconds the flood passed by, the water spilling away in both directions from the spine. Deryn let him go, and Alek sat up sputtering and coughing.\n\n\"We're gaining altitude,\" she said, looking down the flank. \"Our speed has pushed a bit of water off.\"\n\nAlek huddled in his soaking flight suit, wondering if the world had gone mad. The wind was roaring with the fury of a hundred engines, a rain like cold gravel was tumbling from the sky, freezing rivers were pouring down the Leviathan's length . . .\n\n\"SPINE SPOUT.\"\n\nAnd his friend Dylan was a girl.\n\n\"What's wrong with everything?\" he said, curling up against the cold and shutting his eyes. The world had broken the night his parents had died, and it just seemed to keep breaking.\n\nDeryn shook him. \"You've got a head wound, Alek. Don't fall asleep!\"\n\nHe opened one eye. \"It's a bit cold for a nap.\"\n\n\"Aye, but don't pass out!\" She leaned closer, their heads almost touching. \"Keep talking to me.\"\n\nAlek lay there shuddering, trying to think of what to say. The rumble of the engines seemed to be inside his head, tangling his thoughts.\n\n\"I forgot you were a girl, just for a moment.\"\n\n\"Aye. That fall scrambled your attic, didn't it?\"\n\nHe nodded, her strange way with words setting off an old memory. \" 'My attic's been scrambled.' You said that the first time we met. After you crashed in the Alps.\"\n\n\"Aye, I was a bit loopy that night. But you sounded mad yourself, pretending to be a Swiss smuggler.\"\n\n\"I didn't know what I was pretending to be. That was the problem.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"You're a hopeless liar, your princeliness. I'll give you that.\"\n\n\"Lack of practice.\" Alek shivered, and they huddled closer, her face only centimeters from his. The hood of her flight suit was pulled up, her wet hair pasted to her forehead, baring the angles of her face.\n\nShe frowned. \"Are you going daft again?\"\n\nAlek shook his head, but his eyelids were heavy. He felt his body stop shivering, giving up its struggle against the cold. His thoughts began to fade into the roar of the world around him.\n\n\"Stay awake!\" Deryn cried. \"Talk to me!\"\n\nHe searched for words, but the rain seemed to strip away his thoughts before they could form. Staring at Deryn, Alek felt his mind switch back and forth, seeing her as a girl, then as a boy.\n\nAnd he realized what he had to say.\n\n\"Promise you won't ever lie to me again.\"\n\nShe rolled her eyes.\n\n\"I mean it!\" he shouted above the wind. \"You have to swear it, or we can't be friends.\"\n\nDeryn stared hard at him another moment, then nodded. \"Aleksandar of Hohenberg, I promise never to lie to you again.\"\n\n\"And you won't keep any secrets from me either?\"\n\n\"Are you sure you want that?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"All right. I won't hide anything from you again, for as long as I live.\"\n\nAlek smiled, and let his eyes finally drift closed. That was all he'd wanted, really, for his allies to trust him with the truth. Was it so much to ask?\n\nThen a warmth pressed against his mouth, lips touching his. Soft at first, then harder, trembling with an intensity that lofted above the storm. A quiver went through him, like the shudder of a dream-fall pulling him from the edge of sleep. He opened his eyes and was staring into Deryn's face.\n\nShe pulled away a little. \"Wake up, you daft prince.\"\n\nHe blinked. \"Did you just . . .\"\n\n\"Aye. I did. No secrets, remember?\"\n\n\"I see,\" Alek said, and another shiver went through him, not from the cold. His head was clear now, and the rain chattered in the silence between them. \"You know I can't . . .\"\n\n\"You're a prince, and I'm a commoner.\" She shrugged. \"But this is what no secrets means.\"\n\nHe nodded slowly, wondering at the warmth of her secret still on his lips.\n\n\"Well, I'm certainly awake now.\"\n\n\"So it works on sleeping princes, too?\" Deryn asked, then her smile faded. \"I need a promise from you also, Alek.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Of course. I won't keep secrets from you, I swear.\"\n\n\"I know, but it's not that.\" Deryn turned away, staring off into the blackness, her arms still around him. \"Promise that you'll lie for me.\"\n\n\"Lie for you?\"\n\n\"Now that you know what I am, there's no way to escape it.\"\n\nAlek hesitated, thinking how strange it was to make an oath to lie. But the oath was to Deryn, and the lies would be to . . . anyone else.\n\n\"All right. I swear to lie for you, Deryn Sharp, whatever it takes to protect your secret.\" Saying it aloud made Alek's breath quicken, and the feeling bubbled up into a laugh. \"But I can't promise I'll be any good at it.\"\n\n\"You'll probably be rubbish. But that's the mess we're in.\"\n\nHe nodded, though he wasn't sure at the moment exactly what kind of mess it was. She had kissed him, after all. He found himself wondering if she was going to kiss him again.\n\nBut Deryn was staring off into the storm. Her expression grew serious.\n\nAlek could see nothing but darkness and rain. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Rescue, your princeliness. Namely, the four biggest riggers in the crew, crawling straight into a sixty-mile-an-hour headwind on their hands and knees. Risking their barking lives to make sure you're all right.\" She turned back with a scowl. \"Must be nice to be a prince.\"\n\n\"Sometimes, yes,\" he said, finally letting his eyes close. Another shudder passed through him, shaking every muscle.\n\nDeryn held him tighter, lending him a sliver of her heat until the strong hands of the riggers picked him up and carried him somewhere warm and quiet.\n\n\"That will, I trust, be the last of your heroics.\" Count Volger said this too softly to make Alek's head hurt, but the words were brittle and precise.\n\n\"There weren't any heroics. I was only there as a translator.\"\n\n\"And yet here you are with bandages round your head. Rather tricky translations, I should think.\"\n\n\"Rather tricky,\" said Bovril with a chuckle.\n\nAlek took a drink of water from the glass beside his bed. He was fuzzy on much of what had happened last night. He remembered the airship free-ballooning through the strange calm of the storm, and then the engines roaring to life, lashing the rain into a tempest. Things had gotten complicated after that. He'd fallen and hit his head, then almost drowned in a surge of rainwater.\n\nAnd Deryn Sharp had kissed him.\n\n\"There were important repairs to be done,\" he said. \"A loose antenna.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. What could be more vital than Tesla's giant flying radio?\"\n\n\"Is it working?\" Alek asked, wanting to change the subject. Thinking about last night made his head spin, though it pleased him to have a secret from Count Volger.\n\n\"Apparently. Tesla sits in his laboratory, tapping out messages.\" The wildcount drummed his fingers. \"Instructions to his assistants in New York, to prepare Goliath for our arrival.\"\n\nBovril began to rap out Morse code on the frame of the bed.\n\nAlek shushed the beast. \"Maybe we've done some good, then, getting him home so quickly. If he stops the war . . .\"\n\nHundreds were dying every day. Rescuing Tesla from the wilderness and getting him to America quickly might save thousands of lives. What if something so simple had been Alek's destiny all along?\n\n\"'If' is a word that can never be said too loudly.\" Volger stood up, looking out at the still cloudy sky. \"For example, if you had died last night, the last decade of my life would've been altogether wasted.\"\n\n\"Have a little faith in me, Volger.\"\n\n\"I have great faith, tempered with vast annoyance.\"\n\nAlek smiled weakly, falling back into his pillows. The ship's engines were still at full-ahead, the stateroom rumbling around him. The world was unsteady.\n\nIt wasn't fair of Deryn, kissing him. She knew the story of how his father had married a woman of lesser station, and all the disasters that had resulted. It had torn Alek's family apart, and in turn had upset the balance of Europe. His father's one selfish act of true love had cost more than anyone could count.\n\nThe pope's letter might make Alek the heir to his granduncle's throne, but it didn't alter the fact that he'd been rejected by his own family. The slightest mark against him would cast his legitimacy into doubt. Alek couldn't allow himself to think about a commoner that way. He had a war to stop.\n\nHe made a fist and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.\n\n\"Great faith,\" Bovril repeated. \"Vast annoyance.\"\n\nGiving the beast a withering look, Volger said, \"The captain asked me to mention that he'll be coming to see you.\"\n\n\"He must be annoyed as well. He had to risk four men just to rescue me.\" Alek closed his eyes and began to rub his temples. \"I hope he doesn't shout.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't worry.\" Volger began to pace, his footsteps echoing in Alek's head. \"Unlike mine, his annoyance will be well hidden.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The Darwinists see you as a link to Tesla. You're both Clankers, and both of you have switched sides in this war.\"\n\n\"Tesla doesn't think much of my political connections.\"\n\n\"Not to the Austrian government, no. But he sees you as a way to broadcast the news of his weapon.\" The man mercifully stopped pacing. \"You were famous already, thanks to those ridiculous articles. And soon you will arrive in America on the world's greatest airship.\"\n\nAlek sat up again and stared at Volger, trying to figure out if the man was serious.\n\n\"He's always been a showman. Dr. Barlow told me about his spectacle in Tokyo.\" Volger gave a shrug. \"It makes sense, I suppose. The best way to keep Goliath from being used is to tell everyone what it can do, and that means creating a sensation. So why not promote his weapon to end the war with you, the boy whose family tragedy started it?\"\n\nAlek rubbed his temples again. The pounding was getting worse with every word. First Deryn, now this. \"It all sounds quite undignified.\"\n\n\"You wanted a destiny.\"\n\n\"Are you saying I should let him put me on display?\"\n\n\"I'm suggesting, Your Serene Highness, that you get as much sleep as possible over the next few days.\" Volger smiled. \"Your headaches have only begun.\"\n\nThe ship's officers came a few hours later, just when Alek had managed to fall back asleep.\n\nA marine sergeant shook him awake, then snapped to attention with a painful smack of his boot heels against the floor. Dr. Busk took Alek's pulse, staring at his watch and nodding sagely.\n\n\"You appear to be recovering nicely, Prince.\"\n\n\"Someone should tell my head that.\" Alek nodded at the assembled visitors. \"Captain, First Officer, Dr. Barlow.\"\n\n\"Good afternoon, Prince Aleksandar,\" the captain said, and the four of them bowed together.\n\nAlek frowned. This all seemed oddly formal, given that he was lying here in his nightshirt. He wished they would go away and let him sleep.\n\nDr. Barlow's loris dropped from her shoulder to the floor and crawled under the bed, where Bovril joined it. The two beasts began to mutter snatches of conversation to each other.\n\n\"What can I do for you?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"You've already done it, in a manner of speaking.\" The captain was beaming, his voice altogether too loud. \"Middy Sharp told us how bravely you assisted him last night.\"\n\n\"Assisted him? Dylan made the repairs. I only fell and hit my head, from what I can recall.\"\n\nThe officers all laughed at this, loudly enough to make Alek wince, but Dr. Barlow's expression remained serious.\n\n\"Without you, Alek, Mr. Sharp would have been un-tethered on the spine.\" She looked out the window. \"In gale conditions nothing is more dangerous than working topside alone.\"\n\n\"Yes, I make excellent deadweight.\"\n\n\"Most amusing, Your Majesty,\" said Captain Hobbes. \"But this modesty is falling on deaf ears, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"I only did what any member of the crew would have done.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" The captain nodded vigorously. \"But you are not a member of this crew, and yet you performed heroically. A copy of Mr. Sharp's report has already been dispatched to the Admiralty.\"\n\n\"The Admiralty?\" Alek sat up straighter. \"That seems a bit . . . excessive.\"\n\n\"Not at all. Reports of heroism are sent to London as a matter of course.\" He clicked his heels together and made a small bow. \"But whatever they decide, you have my personal thanks.\"\n\nThe officers made their good-byes then, but the lady boffin remained behind, snapping her fingers for her loris. The beast seemed reluctant to come out from beneath the bed, where Bovril was babbling the names of German radio parts.\n\n\"Excuse me, Dr. Barlow,\" Alek asked. \"But what was that all about?\"\n\n\"You really don't know? How charming.\" She gave up on her loris and sat down on the end of the bed. \"I think the captain means to give you a medal.\"\n\nAlek felt his jaw drop open. A week ago it would have overjoyed him to be made one of the crew, much less decorated as an airman. But Volger's warnings were still fresh in his aching head.\n\n\"To what purpose?\" he asked. \"And don't tell me it's in recognition of my heroism. What does the captain want from me?\"\n\nThe lady boffin sighed. \"So jaded for one so young.\"\n\n\"Jaded, heh,\" came a small voice from beneath the bed.\n\n\"Don't be tiresome, Dr. Barlow. The captain already knows I'll help Mr. Tesla's cause. Why must he bribe me with medals?\"\n\nShe looked out the window at the boiling clouds. \"Perhaps he fears you'll change your mind.\"\n\n\"Why would I do that?\"\n\n\"Because someone might convince you that Mr. Tesla is a fraud.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Alek remembered Deryn's words in Tokyo. \"And might that someone be you?\"\n\n\"We shall see.\" Dr. Barlow reached down and snapped her fingers again, and finally her beast emerged. She lifted it onto her shoulder. \"I am a scientist, Alek. I do not deal in surmise. But when I have proof, I'll let you know.\"\n\n\"It was awful, being at war with you,\" said the loris on her shoulder.\n\nAlek stared at it, recalling when he'd said the words to Deryn in Japan. Had Bovril recounted that entire conversation to the other loris? The thought of all their secrets being traded between the creatures was most unsettling.\n\nDr. Barlow shook her head. \"Pay no attention. These two beasts were clearly damaged in their eggs. Years wasted, all thanks to one bumpy landing in the Alps.\" She reached out to straighten Alek's bandages. \"And speaking of bumps, do get some sleep, or you shall wind up as simpleminded as they.\"\n\nAfter she left, Bovril emerged from beneath the bed. It crawled up onto Alek's stomach, chuckling to itself.\n\n\"What's got you amused?\" he asked.\n\nThe creature turned to Alek, suddenly wearing a serious look.\n\n\"Fell from the sky,\" it said.\n\nIt took five days for the sky to clear again.\n\nThe storm had pushed the Leviathan across the Pacific swiftly, carrying the airship well to the south. The coast of California stretched across the windows of the middies' mess. A few white cliffs caught the sun, and behind them were rolling hills, grassy and patched with brown.\n\n\"America,\" Bovril said softly from Alek's shoulder.\n\n\"Aye, that's right.\" Deryn reached up to stroke the beastie's fur, wondering if it was only repeating the word, or if it had a real sense that this was a new place with its own name.\n\nAlek lowered his field glasses. \"Looks rather wild, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"Here, maybe. But we're halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Put together, those two cities have got almost a million people!\"\n\n\"Most impressive. Then, why is it so empty between them?\"\n\nDeryn gestured at the maps on the mess table. \"Because America's barking huge. One country, as big as all of Europe!\"\n\nBovril leaned forward on Alek's shoulder, pressing its nose against the glass. \"Big.\"\n\n\"And growing stronger,\" Alek said. \"If they enter the war, they'll tip the balance.\"\n\n\"Aye, but which way?\"\n\nAlek turned, revealing the fresh scar on his forehead. His color had returned since the accident, and he no longer complained of headaches. But sometimes he got that daft look in his eye again, as if he didn't quite believe the world around him was real.\n\nAt least he hadn't forgotten again that Deryn was a girl. Kissing him had made certain of that.\n\nShe still wasn't quite sure why she'd done it. Maybe the energies of the storm had brought on an unsoldierly madness in her. Or maybe that's what oaths were all about, keeping your word even when it made everything go pear-shaped. No more secrets between them, no matter what. . . . That had a scary ring to it.\n\nNeither of them had spoken of that moment again, of course. There was no future in kissing Alek. He was a prince and she was a commoner, and she'd made her peace with that back in Istanbul. The pope didn't write letters turning Scottish girls dressed as boys into royalty. Not in a million years.\n\nBut at least she'd done it once.\n\n\"They'd never take up arms against Britain,\" Alek was saying. \"Even if they are half Clanker.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"But Americans aren't just a mix of Clanker and Darwinist; they're a mix of nations. Plenty of German immigrants fresh off the boat and still loyal to the kaiser. And plenty of spies among them, I'll bet.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tesla will end the war before any of that matters.\" Alek handed the field glasses to Deryn and pointed. \"On those cliffs.\"\n\nIt took her a moment to spot the mooring tower, rising up from an odd cluster of buildings on the seaside hills. They were a mishmash of styles\u2014medieval castles, ramshackle houses, modern Clanker towers, all half finished. Massive building machines moved among them, huffing steam into the clear sky, and cargo ships swarmed the long pier jutting into the sea below.\n\n\"Blisters, that's this fellow's house?\"\n\n\"William Randolph Hearst is a very rich man,\" Alek said. \"And a bit odd as well, according to Mr. Tesla.\"\n\n\"Which is saying something, coming from him.\"\n\n\"But he's the right man for the job. Hearst owns half a dozen newspapers, a newsreel company, and a few politicians as well.\" Alek said this firmly, then let out a sigh. \"It was a lucky storm that blew us this far south, I suppose.\"\n\n\"News,\" Bovril said softly.\n\nDeryn handed back the field glasses and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. Back in Istanbul, Alek had spilled his secrets to Eddie Malone to keep the reporter from sniffing out the revolution, about fleeing his home after his parents' murder and joining the Leviathan's crew. Everything except the pope's letter that promised Alek the throne, his last secret. He had hated every minute of being in the limelight. And now Tesla wanted to exhibit Alek's story on a much larger stage.\n\n\"Doesn't seem fair, making you go through all that palaver again.\"\n\nAlek shrugged. \"It can't be any worse a second time, can it?\"\n\nThey watched in silence as the sprawling mansion drew nearer. The Leviathan came about and turned its nose into the steady breeze coming off the sea, approaching the mooring tower from the landward side.\n\nA lizard popped its head out of a message tube overhead.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp, report to the topside,\" it said in Mr. Rigby's voice.\n\n\"Right away, sir. End message.\" She looked at Alek. \"I'll be down helping with the landing. Maybe I'll get to see your big entrance from the ground.\"\n\nHe gave her a smile. \"I shall try to look dashing.\"\n\n\"Aye, I'm sure you will.\" Deryn turned to the window, pretending to make a quick survey of the landing field, the obstacles of machines and men, the wind's patterns in the ruffling grass. \"They're just reporters, Alek. They can't hurt you.\"\n\n\"I'll try to remember that, Deryn,\" he said.\n\n\"Deryn Sharp,\" said Bovril with a chuckle as she headed toward the door. \"Quite dashing.\"\n\nShe hit the airfield softly, her gliding wings stiff with ocean air. A dozen ground men waited to steady her, and a young man in civilian clothes presented himself.\n\n\"Philip Francis, at your service.\"\n\n\"Midshipman Sharp, of His Majesty's Airship Leviathan,\" Deryn said, giving him a salute. \"How many ground men do you have?\"\n\n\"Two hundred or so. Is that enough?\"\n\nShe raised an eyebrow. \"Aye, that's loads. But are any of them trained?\"\n\n\"All trained, and they've got lots of practice. Mr. Hearst has his own airship, you know. It's in Chicago at the moment, undergoing repairs.\"\n\n\"He has his own barking airship?\"\n\n\"He dislikes train travel,\" the man said simply.\n\n\"Aye, of course,\" Deryn managed, turning to take stock of the airfield. The swarm of ground men was already in position, arranged in a perfect oval beneath the Leviathan's gondola. They looked sharp enough in their red uniforms, and most wore sandbags on their belts for extra weight, no doubt to guard against the gusty ocean breeze.\n\nShe heard the growl of Clanker engines, and turned to find a trio of strange machines lumbering forward\u2014six-legged walkers. Their pilots rode out in the open, and metal arms rose up from their backsides, carrying some sort of contraption.\n\n\"What in blazes are those?\" she asked Mr. Francis.\n\n\"Moving-picture cameras, on the latest walking platforms. Mr. Hearst wants the Leviathan's arrival captured for his newsreels.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. She'd heard about the Clanker obsession with moving pictures but had never seen one herself. The cameras whirred and shuddered, a bit like the sewing machines back in Tokyo. Each one had three lenses like insect eyes, all staring up at the airship overhead.\n\n\"That's the door on the starboard side, correct?\" Mr. Francis asked. \"We'll want to shoot them coming out.\"\n\n\"You want to shoot them?\"\n\n\"Photograph them.\" He smiled. \"Figure of speech.\"\n\n\"Of course. Aye, the gangway drops from starboard,\" she said, feeling like a traitor to Alek for helping. This Mr. Francis wasn't an airman at all, calling the gangway hatch a door. He was some sort of moving-picture reporter!\n\nBehind the walkers waited more men in civilian clothes, recording frogs on their shoulders, cameras in their hands. They surged forward as the airship dropped its lines to the waiting ground men.\n\n\"You might want to pull those reporters back,\" Deryn said. \"In case there's a gust.\"\n\n\"Mr. Hearst's crew can handle it.\"\n\nShe scowled. The ground men looked sure enough in their duties, but how dare they call her down here just to help with barking camera angles!\n\nThe ground men took hold of the lines and began to spread out, pulling the Leviathan downward. When the gondola was a few yards above the airfield, the gangplank lowered itself to the ground, revealing Captain Hobbes, Mr. Tesla, and Prince Aleksandar. The captain saluted smartly, and the inventor waved his walking stick, but Alek looked unsteady. His eyes flicked between the cameras and the crowd for a moment, until he managed a halfhearted bow.\n\nThe walking platforms plodded closer, their cameras rising up, and suddenly they looked predatory, reminding Deryn of the scorpion walker that had captured her men at Gallipoli. The cameras even looked a bit like Clanker machine guns.\n\nA plump man with a broad hat and pin-striped pants detached himself from the scrum of reporters, making his way up the gangplank. He reached out and pumped the captain's hand.\n\n\"Is that Mr. Hearst?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"The man himself,\" Mr. Francis said. \"You're lucky to find him at home. With the war boiling over, he's been in New York since late summer, tending to his newspapers.\"\n\n\"Lucky us,\" Deryn said, watching Alek greet Mr. Hearst. In the cavalry tunic he'd borrowed from Volger, Alek did in fact look quite dashing. And with his host before him, his aristocratic reflexes seemed to take over. He bowed again, gracefully this time, and even smiled for the cameras looming overhead.\n\nDeryn was glad to see him getting into the spirit of things, but then she had a disturbing thought. What if he started to enjoy all this attention?\n\n\"THE MOGUL.\"\n\nNo, it would take more than a knock on the head to change Alek that much.\n\nShe tore her gaze from the spectacle and checked the landing field once more. To her relief a tangle was developing among the ropes.\n\n\"Looks as though your men might need some help after all,\" she said to Mr. Francis, and took off at a run.\n\nThe snarl of cables was near the bow of the ship, where the breeze was strongest. Overhead the topside crew had already cast a line across to the mooring tower, but they were waiting for the chaos below to settle before hitching the airship fast.\n\nAs Deryn approached, two groups of ground men were shouting at each other. Someone had pulled in the wrong direction, crossing the ropes, and now no one wanted to let go. She waded in, barking orders while making sure the men didn't all drop their lines at once. It was sorted out soon enough, and Deryn pulled out her semaphore flags to flash a quick R-E-A-D-Y to the topside crew.\n\n\"I'm afraid that was my fault,\" came a voice from behind her.\n\nShe turned to find a man in an ill-fitting uniform, a bit older than the other crewmen. Behind his mustache his face was somehow familiar.\n\n\"Are you . . . ,\" she began, but then a croak came from one of the sandbags on his belt.\n\n\"Shush, Rusty,\" he hissed. \"Good to see you again, Mr. Sharp. Do you suppose we might have a quick word in the privacy of your ship?\"\n\nShe squinted at his face, and recognized him just as he stuck out his hand.\n\n\"Eddie Malone. Reporter for the New York World.\"\n\n\"What in blazes are you doing here?\"\n\nMalone considered the question. \"Why am I in California? Or why am I in disguise, instead of snapping photos with the other reporters?\"\n\n\"Aye, both!\"\n\n\"Happy to explain everything,\" Malone said. \"But first we need to get aboard your ship. Otherwise those fellows are about to give me a thrashing.\"\n\nDeryn turned to follow Malone's gaze, and saw a trio of burly men in dark blue uniforms striding across the airfield.\n\n\"Who in blazes are they?\"\n\n\"Pinkertons\u2014security guards in the employ of Mr. Hearst. You see, my paper was owned by a fellow called Pulitzer, and he and Hearst weren't exactly pals. So let's not dawdle.\" The man started to drag her toward the Leviathan's gondola.\n\n\"Surely they won't set upon you in broad daylight!\"\n\n\"Whatever they do, it won't be pretty.\"\n\nDeryn looked at the men again. They carried truncheons in their hands. Perhaps it was better to be safe than sorry.\n\nThe Leviathan's gondola was still too high to jump aboard, and she and Malone would never make it past the Pinkertons to the gangplank on the other side. But where the navigator's bubble bulged downward beneath the bridge were two steel mooring rings, just out of reach.\n\n\"Get ready to grab one of those handholds,\" she ordered Malone, then turned to the ground men she'd just untangled, shouting, \"Give me a good heave in one . . . two . . . three!\"\n\nThe men pulled back in a mass, and the ship's nose dipped just enough. Eddie Malone and Deryn jumped to grab the mooring rings, then hauled themselves up as the ship bobbed back to level.\n\n\"This way,\" she said, scrambling toward the forward cargo bay windows. Malone followed, his shoes almost slipping from the metal rail around the bottom of the gondola.\n\nThe Pinkertons had arrived below them, and were peering up at Deryn and Malone with annoyed expressions.\n\n\"PINKERTONS' PURSUIT.\"\n\n\"Come down here!\" one shouted, but Deryn ignored him. She rapped on a cargo bay porthole.\n\nThe ship shifted a squick beneath her\u2014the ground crew was bringing it slowly down. In another minute she and Malone would be within reach of the Pinkertons' truncheons.\n\nAn airman's face appeared at the porthole, looking a bit perplexed.\n\n\"Open up. That's an order!\" Deryn shouted, and the porthole popped open.\n\nAs she shoved Eddie Malone through, she wondered why she was helping him. Maybe he'd done them a favor back in Istanbul by not spilling the revolution's secrets, but only for a price.\n\nIn any case he was aboard now. It was the captain's decision whether to throw him back or not.\n\nDeryn scrambled after him, not waiting to see if the Pinkertons would take out their frustration on her. She climbed down from the barrels of the ship's honey stacked by the window, then gave the confused airman who'd let them inside a salute. \"Carry on, lad.\"\n\nMalone was looking about the darkened cargo bay, his pencil already scribbling in his notepad.\n\n\"So this is what belowdecks looks like?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid we haven't time for a tour, Mr. Malone. Why were those men after you?\"\n\n\"As I said, I work for the New York World, and Hearst owns the New York Journal. Archrivals, you might say.\"\n\n\"And here in America rival newspapermen attack each other on sight?\"\n\nThe man barked a laugh. \"Not always. But Hearst didn't exactly send me an engraved invitation. I had to disguise myself just to snap a few pictures. Speaking of which . . .\"\n\nHe pulled a camera from one of his sandbags, then reached into the other for his recording frog. As he placed the beastie on his shoulder, it made a burping noise, blinking at Deryn.\n\n\"I thought you were the Istanbul bureau chief,\" she said. \"Again, what are you doing here? Istanbul is seven thousand miles away!\"\n\nThe reporter waved his hand. \"Prince Alek's the best scoop I ever had. I'm not about to let a couple of oceans get in my way. Once I found out the Leviathan was headed east, I sailed back to New York. Been there for two weeks now, waiting to see where you popped up again.\"\n\n\"But how did you get here?\"\n\n\"After Mr. Tesla's shindig in Tokyo made the papers, I jumped on a train for Los Angeles. That's where the biggest airfield on the West Coast is. But last night I got a tip that you were coming here instead.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. Mr. Tesla had only convinced the officers yesterday to resupply at Hearst's. \"A tip? From whom?\"\n\n\"From the great inventor himself. Radio waves aren't like carrier pigeons, Mr. Sharp. Anyone with an antenna can pick them up.\" The man shrugged. \"You shouldn't be surprised that Tesla sent uncoded messages. Why let one newspaper have all the fun?\"\n\nDeryn swore, wondering who else was following the Leviathan's movements. Clanker spies had radios too. She also wondered why she'd been so anxious to rescue Malone. Sticky-beaks like him would only cause trouble in the end.\n\n\"Well, however you got here, Mr. Malone, we'll have to ask the officers if you can stay aboard. Follow me.\"\n\nShe led the man to the central staircase, then up and forward toward the bridge. The ship's corridors were buzzing; the cargo bay was already open to take on fuel and supplies. It was only a matter of time before Malone's pursuers found their way aboard.\n\nBut the bridge was just as hectic as the rest of the ship, and Deryn found herself shunted from one officer to the next. The captain was busy being photographed for the newsreels, and no one else wanted to take responsibility for a wayward reporter. So when Deryn spotted the lady boffin and her loris taking tea in the officers' mess, she pulled Malone inside and shut the door behind them.\n\n\"Afternoon, ma'am. This is Mr. Malone. He's a reporter.\"\n\nThe lady boffin nodded. \"How kind of Mr. Hearst, remembering that there are more than just Clanker scientists to interview aboard this ship!\"\n\n\"Clankers!\" said the loris with a snooty tone.\n\n\"Sorry, ma'am,\" Deryn said. \"But it's not what you think. You see, Mr. Malone doesn't work for Mr. Hearst.\"\n\n\"I'm with the New York World,\" Malone said\n\n\"A trespasser, then?\" Dr. Barlow's eyes traveled over his ground crew uniform. \"And in disguise as well, I see. Do you realize, Mr. Sharp, that there are German spies here in America?\"\n\n\"You're right about that, ma'am,\" Malone said with a smile. \"Stacks of them!\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp, how exactly did this man get aboard?\"\n\nDeryn's voice felt small in her throat. \"Um, I sort of let him in a porthole, ma'am.\"\n\nDr. Barlow raised an eyebrow at this, and her loris said, \"Spies!\"\n\n\"But he can't be a German agent!\" Deryn cried. \"I met him back in Istanbul. In fact, you did too! On the ambassador's elephant, remember?\"\n\nMalone stepped forward. \"The boy's right, though we didn't chat much. And of course I wasn't wearing this.\"\n\nHe reached up and took one end of his mustache, yanked it off in a single jerk, and threw it onto the table. The lady boffin's eyebrows shot up, and her loris crawled over to inspect the false mustache.\n\n\"Ah, you're that Malone,\" she said slowly. \"The one who's been writing those dreadful articles about Prince Aleksandar.\"\n\n\"The very same. And as I was just explaining to young Sharp here, I don't intend to stop. If you Darwinists think you can do an exclusive deal with Hearst's operation, you've got another think coming!\"\n\n\"There is no 'deal' between us and Hearst.\" Dr. Barlow waved a hand. \"This detour was Mr. Tesla's idea.\"\n\n\"Hmph, Tesla,\" said the loris, affixing the mustache to its own face.\n\n\"I've been trying to talk to the captain, ma'am,\" Deryn said. \"It might get a bit tricky for Mr. Malone. Hearst's men are after him.\"\n\n\"Well, of course they are.\" Dr. Barlow stroked her loris, which was now posing with the mustache. \"This land is private property, which makes him a trespasser.\"\n\nDeryn groaned, wondering why the lady boffin was being so bothersome. Had those articles about Alek upset her, too?\n\n\"Oh, so that's how you're going to play it?\" Eddie Malone said; then he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. \"Let me tell you something, Doctor. You don't want to get mixed up with this Hearst fellow. He has some mighty unsavory friends.\"\n\n\"I should think, sir, that having unsavory friends was the defining attribute of newspapermen.\"\n\n\"Hah! You got me there!\" Malone slapped the table, making the loris jump. \"But there's unsavory, and there's dangerous. A fellow called Philip Francis, for example.\"\n\n\"Mr. Francis?\" Deryn said. \"I just met him. He was in charge of the ground crew.\"\n\nMalone shook his head. \"What he's in charge of is the Hearst-Path\u00e9 newsreel company. At least, that's what most people think.\" He leaned closer, his voice dropping. \"But what they don't know is that his real last name isn't Francis. It's Diefendorf!\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence, and then the lady boffin's loris spoke up.\n\n\"Clankers!\"\n\n\"He's a German agent?\" Deryn asked.\n\nMalone shrugged. \"He was born in Germany, that's for sure, and he hides the fact!\"\n\n\"Many immigrants to America change their names,\" Dr. Barlow said, her fingers drumming the table. \"On the other hand, not all of them create propaganda films for a living.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Malone said. \"You must know how Hearst uses his papers and moving pictures to rail against the British, and against Darwinism, too. And now, all of a sudden, he's being friendly with you?\"\n\nDeryn turned to Dr. Barlow. \"We should tell the captain about this.\"\n\n\"I shall make the proper introductions.\" She waved a hand at her tea dishes. \"You may clear these, Mr. Sharp, and you shall come with me, Mr. Malone. If the captain is done with his theatrics, perhaps he can spare us a moment. I might be able to explain the wisdom of not putting all our eggs in one basket.\"\n\n\"Madam, I think we understand each other,\" said the reporter, rising to his feet. He clapped Deryn on the back. \"By the way, Sharp, thanks for your help back there. Much appreciated.\"\n\n\"Happy to be of service,\" Deryn said. She began to stack the dishes, glad that they'd run into the lady boffin, after all. Everybody else aboard seemed overawed by the famous Tesla, and this Hearst fellow with his cameras and newspapers could only make things worse.\n\nBut then something quite unsettling happened.\n\nAs Malone pulled out Dr. Barlow's chair for her, the loris yanked off the mustache and dropped it into a teacup, fixing Deryn with its haughty stare. Without thinking, she stuck her tongue out at the beastie.\n\n\"Deryn Sharp,\" it said as it rode the lady boffin's shoulder out the door, quite pleased with itself indeed.\n\nMr. William Randolph Hearst certainly knew how to host a banquet.\n\nHis dining room looked like the great hall of a medieval castle, with tapestries on the walls and saints carved into the ceiling. The chandeliers were sixteenth-century Italian, but flickered with tiny electrikal flames, and the marble fireplace was large enough for Alek to walk into without stooping. It was all quite garish and a bit of a muddle, as if Hearst's decorators had gone plundering across Europe, heedless of cost and tradition.\n\nThe dinner itself, however, was impeccable. Lobster Vanderbildt, roasted partridges with salade d'Alger, grouse chaud-froid, and for dessert succ\u00e8s de glace in the style of the Grand Hotel. It was, in fact, the first proper meal Alek had eaten since stealing away from home. Bovril had sampled every course, and was now curled up asleep on the high back of Alek's chair, though the creature's ears still twitched now and then.\n\nThough Alek had always hated formal dinners with his parents, this was altogether different. As a child he hadn't been allowed to utter a word once the conversation turned to politics, but now he was an indispensable part of the discussion. At a table that held thirty people, Alek had been seated at Mr. Hearst's right hand. Tesla sat to the host's left, with the captain beside him and the other officers of the Leviathan trailing off into the distance. Dr. Barlow sat unhappily at the far end of the table with the other ladies, one a newspaper reporter, the rest moving-picture actresses. Alek had been introduced to them before dinner with cameras looking on, the actresses smiling at the whirring machines like old friends. Deryn, of course, a common crewman, wasn't here at all.\n\nAs the meal wound down, Mr. Hearst was giving his views on the war. \"Wilson, of course, will side with his British friends. He won't protest the Royal Navy blockading Germany. But he'll scream bloody murder if German submarines do the same to Britain!\"\n\nAlek nodded. President Wilson was from the South, he recalled, and a Darwinist by upbringing.\n\n\"But he claims to want peace,\" Count Volger said. He was seated across from the Leviathan's first officer, close enough to join in. \"Do you believe him?\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly, Count. The only decent thing about the man is that he wants peace!\" Hearst stabbed at his dessert with a spoon. \"Imagine if that cowboy Roosevelt had been elected. Our boys would be over there already!\"\n\nAlek glanced at Captain Hobbes, who was smiling and nodding politely. The British would no doubt welcome the Americans fighting at their side, if they could arrange it somehow.\n\n\"This war will draw in the whole world sooner or later,\" Mr. Tesla said gravely. \"That's why we must end it now.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" Hearst clapped him on the back, and the inventor grimaced, but his host didn't seem to notice. \"My cameras and newspapers will be following you every step of the way. By the time you get to New York, both sides will have had fair warning that it's time to stop this madness!\"\n\nAlek noticed that Captain Hobbes's smile froze a little at this talk of \"both sides.\" Of course, Mr. Tesla's weapon could be used against London just as easily as against Berlin or Vienna. Alek wondered if the British had plans for making sure that didn't happen.\n\n\"I have faith that the world will find my discovery hopeful,\" Mr. Tesla said simply. \"And not a cause for fear.\"\n\n\"I am certain that we Darwinists will,\" Captain Hobbes said, and raised his glass. \"To peace.\"\n\n\"To peace!\" Volger said, and Alek quickly joined him.\n\nThe toast went round the table, and as the waiters stepped forward to pour the gentlemen more brandy, Bovril murmured the words in its sleep. But Alek wondered if any of the American guests were truly worried about a war thousands of miles away.\n\n\"So let's get down to brass tacks, Captain,\" Mr. Hearst said. \"Where will you be stopping on the way to New York? I have papers in Denver and Wichita. Or will you just hit the big cities like Chicago?\"\n\n\"Ah,\" the captain said, setting his glass carefully down on the table. \"We won't be stopping at any of those places, I'm afraid. We aren't allowed.\"\n\n\"The Leviathan is a warship of a belligerent power,\" Alek explained. \"It can stay in a neutral port for only twenty-four hours. We can't simply fly across your country, stopping wherever we take a fancy to.\"\n\n\"But what's the point of a publicity tour if you don't stop to make appearances!\" Hearst cried.\n\n\"That is a question I'm not qualified to answer,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"My orders are simply to get Mr. Tesla to New York.\"\n\nCount Volger spoke up. \"And how do you intend to do that without crossing America?\"\n\n\"There are two possibilities,\" the captain said. \"We had planned to go north\u2014Canada is part of the British Empire, of course. But after the storm pushed us this way, we realized that Mexico might be easier.\"\n\nAlek frowned. No one had mentioned this change of plan to him. \"Isn't Mexico neutral as well?\"\n\nThe captain turned his empty palms up. \"Mexico is in the midst of a revolution. As such, they can hardly assert their neutrality.\"\n\n\"In other words, they can't stop you,\" Tesla said.\n\n\"Politics is the art of the possible,\" Count Volger said. \"But it will be rather warmer, at least.\"\n\n\"A brilliant idea!\" Mr. Hearst waved at a servant, who scurried over to light his cigar. \"Flying across a wartorn country on a journey for peace is a cracking good story!\"\n\nEveryone stared at Mr. Hearst, and Alek hoped the man was joking. During the Ottoman revolt Alek and Deryn had lost their friend Zaven, one among thousands killed. And from what Alek understood, the Mexican Revolution was a rather bloodier affair.\n\nWhen the uncomfortable silence stretched a bit, he cleared his throat. \"You know, a granduncle of mine was once emperor of Mexico.\"\n\nHearst stared at him. \"I thought your granduncle was the emperor of Austria.\"\n\n\"Yes, a different uncle,\" Alek said. \"I'm speaking of Ferdinand Maximilian, Franz Joseph's younger brother. He lasted only three years in Mexico, I'm afraid. Then they shot him.\"\n\n\"Maybe you could fly over his grave,\" Hearst said, blowing on the tip of his cigar. \"Toss some flowers down or something.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, perhaps.\" Alek tried not to show his astonishment, wondering again if the man were joking.\n\n\"The emperor's body was returned to Austria,\" Count Volger said. \"It was a more civilized time.\"\n\n\"There still might be a news angle somewhere.\" Hearst turned to the man sitting between Alek and Count Volger. \"Make sure to get some shots of His Majesty on Mexican soil.\"\n\n\"I shall indeed, sir,\" said Mr. Francis, who had been introduced to Alek as the head of Hearst's newsreel company. Along with a young lady reporter and a few camera assistants, he would be coming along to New York on the Leviathan.\n\n\"We shall cooperate in any way possible,\" Captain Hobbes said, saluting Mr. Francis with his glass.\n\n\"Well, enough of politics,\" Mr. Hearst said. \"It's time for this evening's entertainment!\"\n\nAt this command the waiters swooped in and plucked the last dishes from the table. The electrikal flames in the chandeliers flickered out, and the tapestry on the wall behind Alek slid away, revealing an expanse of silvery white fabric.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Alek whispered to Mr. Francis.\n\n\"We're about to see Mr. Hearst's latest obsession. Possibly one of the best moving pictures ever made.\"\n\n\"Well, it will certainly be the best I've ever seen,\" Alek murmured, turning his chair to face the screen. His father had forbidden all such entertainments in their home, and public theaters had of course been out of the question. Alek had to admit he was curious to see what all the fuss was about.\n\nTwo men in white coats wheeled a machine into place across the table, pointing it at the screen. It looked rather like the moving-picture cameras that had stalked Alek all day, but with only a single eye in front. As it whirred to life, a flickering beam of light burst from the eye, filling the screen with dark squiggles. Then words materialized. . . .\n\nThe Perils of Pauline, said the shuddering white letters, which lingered long enough that a child of five could have read them a dozen times. The logotype of Hearst-Path\u00e9 pictures followed, the projector carving its shape into the cigar smoke hanging over the dinner table, like a searchlight lancing through fog.\n\nThe actors appeared at last, hopping about madly. It took Alek long minutes to recognize that the actress sitting beside Dr. Barlow was Pauline herself. In person she'd been quite pretty, but the glimmering screen somehow transformed her into a white-faced ghoul, her large eyes bruised with dark makeup.\n\nThe moving images reminded Alek of the shadow-puppet shows that he and Deryn had seen in Istanbul. But those crisp black shadows had been elegant and graceful, their outlines sharp. This moving picture was something of a blurry mess, full of muddy grays and uncertain boundaries, too much like the real world for Alek's taste.\n\nThe light show was intriguing the perspicacious lorises, though. Bovril was awake and watching, and the eyes of Dr. Barlow's beast glowed, unblinking in the darkness.\n\nOn-screen the characters kissed, played tennis in absurd striped jackets, and waved their hands at one another. The scenes were punctuated by words explaining the story, which was also something of a mess\u2014blackmail, fatal diseases, and deceitful servants. All quite dreadful, but somehow Pauline herself caught Alek's fancy. She was a young heiress who would inherit a fortune once she married, but who wanted to see the world and have adventures before settling down.\n\nShe was a bit like Deryn, resourceful and fearless, though thanks to her wealth she didn't have to pretend to be a boy. By odd coincidence her first adventure was an ascent in a hydrogen balloon, and events unfolded just as Deryn had described her first day in the Air Service\u2014a young woman set adrift all alone, with only her wits, some rope, and a few sacks of ballast to save herself.\n\n\"DINNER WITH PAULINE.\"\n\nWithout a hint of panic, Pauline threw the balloon's anchor over the side and set to climbing down the rope, and Alek found himself picturing Deryn in her place. Suddenly the jittering imperfections of the film fell away, disappearing like the pages of a good book. The balloon sailed past a steep cliff, and the heroine leapt onto the rocky slant and began to scramble toward the top. By the time Pauline was hanging from the edge, her betrothed racing to save her in his walking machine, Alek's heart was pounding.\n\nThen suddenly the moving picture ended, the screen going white, the film reels sputtering like windup toys set loose. The electrikal chandeliers sparked back to life overhead.\n\nAlek turned to Mr. Hearst. \"But surely that isn't the end! What happens next?\"\n\n\"That's what we call a 'cliff-hanger,' for obvious reasons.\" Hearst laughed. \"We leave Pauline in big trouble at the end of every installment\u2014tied to some train tracks, say, or in a runaway walker. Makes the audience come back for more, and it means we never have to end the darn thing!\"\n\n\"Cliff-hanger,\" Bovril said with a chortle.\n\n\"Most ingenious,\" Alek said, though in fact it seemed rather an underhanded scheme to him, making an audience wait for a conclusion that would never come.\n\n\"One of my better ideas!\" Hearst said. \"A whole new way to tell stories!\"\n\n\"Only as old as The Thousand and One Nights,\" Volger muttered.\n\nAlek smirked at this, but he had to admit that the moving picture had possessed a mesmerizing quality, like a tale written in firelight. Or perhaps it was only his mind still wavering\u2014since he'd cracked his head, the boundaries between reality and fancy had been uncertain.\n\n\"Bet you two can't wait till you see yourselves up on the screen!\" Hearst said, reaching out to take Alek and Mr. Tesla by their shoulders.\n\n\"Like a glimpse into the future,\" Tesla said with a smile. \"One day we shall be able to transmit moving pictures wirelessly, just as we do sound.\"\n\n\"What an intriguing notion,\" Alek said, though the idea sounded dreadful.\n\n\"Don't worry, Your Majesty,\" Mr. Francis said quietly. \"I'll make sure you look good. It's my job.\"\n\n\"Most reassuring.\" Alek remembered seeing his own photograph for the first time in the New York World. Unlike any decent painting, it had been unpleasantly true to life, even magnifying his too-large ears. He wondered how these moving pictures would rearrange his features, and if he would look as jittery and hurried on the screen as Pauline and her fellows.\n\nThe thought of the heroine made him turn to Mr. Francis again. \"Do women in America really fly about in balloons?\"\n\n\"Well, they must want to! The Perils of Pauline is so popular that our competitors are getting in on the act, making something called The Hazards of Helen. And we're already planning The Exploits of Elaine.\"\n\n\"How . . . alliterative,\" Alek said. \"But outside of moving pictures, do women actually do these sorts of things?\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"Sure, I suppose so. Ever heard of Bird Millman?\"\n\n\"The high-wire walker? But she's a circus performer.\" Alek sighed. For that matter, Lilit had known how to use a body kite. But she was a revolutionary. \"What I mean is, do normal women ever fly?\"\n\nCount Volger spoke up. \"I think what Prince Aleksandar wants to ask is, do American women pretend to be men? It is currently a subject of intense study with him.\"\n\nAlek gave the wildcount a hard look, but Mr. Francis only laughed.\n\n\"Well, I don't know about flying,\" he said, \"but we've sure got a lot of women wearing trousers these days. And I just read that one in twenty walker pilots is female!\" The man leaned closer. \"You thinking of getting yourself an American bride, Your Majesty? One with some frontier spirit, maybe?\"\n\n\"That was not in my plans, alas.\" Alek saw Volger's smug expression, and added, \"Still, five percent is something, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Do you want to meet Miss White again?\" Francis asked with a wink. \"She's quite a bit like her character. Does all her own stunts!\"\n\nAlek looked down the table at the actress who had played Pauline\u2014she possessed the rather unlikely name of Pearl White, he recalled. She was deep in conversation with Dr. Barlow and her loris, and Alek wondered what the three were talking about.\n\n\"Could be newsworthy,\" Mr. Francis said. \"A movie starlet and a prince!\"\n\n\"Starlet,\" Bovril said, sliding down onto Alek's shoulder.\n\n\"Thank you, but no,\" Alek said. \"Talking to her now might spoil the illusion.\"\n\n\"Very wise, Your Serene Highness,\" Volger said, nodding sagely. \"It's best not to mix make-believe with reality. At the moment the world is too serious for that.\"\n\nThe resupplied Leviathan took the air before noon the next day, hours ahead of the twenty-four-hour limit. Watching from his stateroom windows, Alek could see the strange truth behind Hearst's estate. The buildings weren't so much unfinished as flat and hollow, designed to be filmed from certain angles but never lived in.\n\nThey were false, in other words.\n\nAlek kept to his cabin most of the day, avoiding the newsreel cameras roaming the ship's corridors. One of his grandaunts believed that photographs snatched pieces of the soul, and maybe she was right. At sixteen frames a second, a moving-picture camera would chip away like a machine gun. Perhaps it was only last night's brandy in his head, but Alek felt as empty as Mr. Hearst's false buildings.\n\nThe airship followed the coast of California southward at three-quarter speed, angling against the cool ocean breezes that blew toward land. Los Angeles slipped past in the late afternoon, and a few hours later Alek felt the airship turn southeast. According to the map on his desk, the sprawling city below was Tijuana.\n\nA sudden blaring of horns and drums cut through the engine noise, and Bovril scampered to the windowsill. Alek looked out\u2014a huge stadium yawned below, packed with cheering spectators. Some sort of double-headed bull was kicking up dust in the arena's center, facing a matador almost too small to see in the fading light.\n\nIt occurred to Alek that however swift airship travel was, one missed a great deal of scenery from the lofty height of a thousand feet.\n\nBy the time he'd dressed for dinner, the desert below was wrapped in darkness. Bovril was still on the windowsill, gazing down. No doubt its large eyes could see by starlight.\n\n\"Meteoric,\" the beast said, and Alek frowned. It was the first word Bovril had said all day, and certainly not one that Alek had uttered.\n\nBut Alek was already late for dinner, so he placed the creature on his shoulder and headed out the door.\n\nThe lady boffin had commandeered the officers' mess for the evening, no doubt the first of many tiresome dinner parties. With so many civilians aboard, the Leviathan's journey to New York was in danger of turning into a pleasure cruise. At least tonight's dinner was for only five, and not two dozen like Hearst's affair.\n\nDeryn stood waiting at the mess door, dressed in her formal serving uniform. When Bovril reached out for her, she ruffled its fur and then opened the door with a deep bow. A smirk played on her face, and Alek felt briefly silly in his formal jacket, as if the two of them were children playing dress-up.\n\nThe other guests had already arrived\u2014Count Volger, Mr. Tesla, and the lady reporter from Hearst's San Francisco paper. Dr. Barlow ushered the young woman forward. She was wearing a pale red dress with a frilled collar, and a pink ostrich plume curled up from her rose-colored felt hat.\n\n\"Your Serene Highness, may I present Miss Adela Rogers?\"\n\nAlek bowed. \"I had the pleasure last night, but only briefly.\"\n\nMiss Rogers extended her hand to be kissed, and Alek hesitated\u2014she was hardly of his social standing. But Americans were famous for ignoring such notions, so Alek took her hand and kissed the air.\n\n\"You missed,\" she said with a baffled smile.\n\n\"Missed?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Her hand,\" said Dr. Barlow. \"The custom in Europe, Miss Rogers, is that only married women are kissed directly on the flesh. You young things are thought to be too easily swayed by the touch of lips.\"\n\nAlek heard Deryn snort, but managed to ignore her.\n\n\"Young? But I'm all of twenty,\" Miss Rogers said. \"My hand has been kissed many times without injury!\"\n\nDr. Barlow's loris laughed, and Alek coughed politely. \"Of course.\"\n\n\"And I was almost married once,\" Miss Rogers said. \"But an old suitor rushed in at the last moment and tore up the marriage license. I think he was still in love with me.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Alek managed. \"No doubt he was.\"\n\n\"Couldn't you have got another license?\" the lady boffin asked.\n\n\"I suppose so. But the interruption gave me time to think. I have decided to put my writing first. One can always get a husband, after all.\"\n\nDr. Barlow laughed as she guided the young lady toward the table. Alek felt himself blushing and looked away, only to see a smirk on Deryn's face\u2014and on Volger's as well. He wondered if all American women were this bold, as ready to embarrass men as they were to escape in balloons.\n\n\"Easily swayed,\" Bovril repeated; then it crawled beneath the table to join the lady boffin's loris. As Alek took his seat, he noticed a sixth table setting before an empty chair.\n\n\"We appear to be awaiting a mystery guest,\" Count Volger said, inspecting his wineglass for spots.\n\n\"Mr. Francis?\" Alek asked Dr. Barlow.\n\n\"He was not invited. You shall soon see why.\" She nodded at Deryn, who opened the door. A man in a somewhat ill-fitting jacket entered. It took a moment, but then Alek gripped the table's edge, half rising from his chair.\n\n\"You!\"\n\n\"Don't get up, Your Highness.\" Eddie Malone bowed. \"Ladies and gentlemen, sorry I'm late.\"\n\nAlek sank back into his chair.\n\n\"Mystery guest,\" the beast muttered.\n\n\"Mr. Malone, I believe you've met Count Volger and His Serene Highness.\" Dr. Barlow was all smiles. \"Mr. Nikola Tesla and Miss Adela Rogers, this is Eddie Malone, reporter for the New York World.\"\n\n\"The World?\" said Miss Rogers. \"Oh, dear.\"\n\n\"Edward Malone,\" Tesla murmured. \"Aren't you that reporter who interviewed Prince Aleksandar in Istanbul?\"\n\n\"That was me, all right.\" Malone took his seat. \"I've been tracking him ever since, you might say. And thanks to your flying radio, I've found him at last!\"\n\nThe inventor smiled. \"A most rewarding experiment.\"\n\nThe two men laughed, and Alek suddenly wished that he and Deryn had let the storm wreck the antenna. Its only purpose had been to generate more publicity.\n\nMiss Rogers looked aghast. \"Has anyone told the chief that one of Pulitzer's men is aboard?\"\n\n\"Mr. Hearst didn't think to ask.\" The lady boffin gestured to Deryn, who stepped forward to pour the wine. \"And you'll find that Mr. Malone has some interesting news.\"\n\nMalone turned to Miss Rogers. \"It has to do with your friend Philip Francis. We've been looking into him for some time now, and it turns out that's not his real name. He was born Philip Diefendorf, about as German a name as you could have!\"\n\nAlek frowned, recalling Mr. Francis from the night before. \"He doesn't have a German accent.\"\n\n\"Maybe he also changed the way he talks.\"\n\nMiss Rogers rolled her eyes. \"Philip was born in New York.\"\n\n\"So he claims,\" Malone said.\n\n\"Hah! You boys at the World are always making out like the chief's a traitor. You just hate him because he sells more papers than you!\"\n\n\"I didn't say Hearst knew anything about this,\" Malone said, raising his hands. \"But the head of your newsreel operation is German, and he's taken pains to hide it.\"\n\n\"Don't most Americans come from somewhere else?\" Count Volger asked.\n\nMr. Tesla nodded. \"I am an immigrant myself.\"\n\n\"An excellent point,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"But the captain is concerned. Last night we took aboard a large quantity of supplies in a great hurry, and not all of it has been searched yet.\"\n\n\"Searched for what?\" Miss Rogers asked.\n\n\"Sabotage is the easiest way to destroy the Leviathan,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"A small phosphorous bomb in the right place would bring us all to a fiery end.\"\n\nThe table went silent, and Alek felt his headache threatening to return.\n\n\"That's not likely, of course,\" Deryn spoke up. \"We've had the sniffers belowdecks all afternoon, and they'd have found any explosives. But something dangerous might've been smuggled aboard.\"\n\n\"Such as?\" Count Volger asked.\n\nDeryn shrugged. \"A weapon of some kind?\"\n\n\"Now, this is just preposterous,\" Miss Rogers said. \"One man can't take on the whole crew, no matter what sort of weapon he has.\"\n\n\"With the right tool one man can do quite a bit,\" Mr. Tesla said, and let out a sigh. \"I recently designed a device that would have been most useful in this situation. I had it built and shipped to me in Siberia, but, alas, it didn't arrive before your ship was kind enough to rescue me.\"\n\nAlek glanced at Deryn, remembering the contraption still sitting in the officers' storeroom.\n\n\"That sounds like a fascinating machine,\" Dr. Barlow said with a smile. \"Perhaps you could give us a demonstration, Mr. Tesla.\"\n\n\"A demonstration? But it never . . .\" He narrowed his eyes at the lady boffin. \"Ah, I see. I would be happy to.\"\n\n\"After dinner, of course. Mr. Sharp?\"\n\nDeryn bowed, then turned to open the door again. The ship's stewards were waiting outside.\n\nAs the dishes came clattering in, their metal covers steaming out the scents of steak and potatoes, Alek pondered what had just happened. The lady boffin never let anything slip without a good reason, but she'd revealed her suspicions about Philip Francis to Miss Rogers, a fellow Hearst reporter. And then she'd let Mr. Tesla know that his metal detecting machine had been aboard the Leviathan all along.\n\nHad she decided that cooperation was better than secrecy?\n\n\"Dinner,\" Bovril said happily, crawling up into Alek's lap.\n\nThe door to the officers' storeroom creaked open, revealing Mr. Tesla's machine among crates of sake and Japanese silks. The party had moved belowdecks after dinner, and the six of them looked out of place in their finery. Miss Rogers was still sipping sherry, and Volger and Malone had brought down their brandy snifters.\n\n\"This was here?\" Tesla asked. \"And you kept it from me?\"\n\n\"Sir, it was you who kept it from us,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"Why on earth did you have it smuggled aboard?\"\n\nTesla sputtered for a moment, then threw out his arms. \"Smuggled? Why would I do that? It must have been a misunderstanding with the Russians.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you merely asked them to exercise discretion?\" Dr. Barlow said helpfully.\n\n\"Well, of course. So many ideas have been stolen from me. And you know the Russians, very secretive people.\" The inventor stepped forward, inspecting the control panel. \"But how did you manage to put it together without plans?\"\n\n\"My men and I found your design quite intuitive,\" Alek said. \"We're still Clankers, you know.\"\n\n\"Clankers!\" Bovril said.\n\n\"Well remembered,\" Count Volger muttered, but Alek ignored him.\n\n\"Just as I visualized it.\" Tesla's hands caressed the woodwork. \"Not a bad job, Your Highness.\"\n\nAlek clicked his heels. \"I shall pass on your compliments to Master Klopp.\"\n\n\"What exactly is this doohickey?\" asked Miss Rogers.\n\nTesla turned to her. \"A magnetometer of the highest sensitivity, using principles of atmospheric conduction.\"\n\n\"In other words, it detects metal,\" Deryn said.\n\nTesla waved a hand. \"One of its more mundane uses.\"\n\n\"But at the moment, the most pertinent.\" Dr. Barlow stepped forward and twisted the main control knob; the machine started up with a hum. The two lorises began to imitate its sound.\n\n\"It appears to be fully charged,\" said Tesla, squinting at the dials.\n\nThe lady boffin smiled. \"Almost fully.\"\n\n\"Almost,\" her loris repeated.\n\nAlek glanced at Deryn, who was smirking again. Dr. Barlow, of course, was letting Tesla know that they'd used the machine already. And to what purpose, he could certainly guess.\n\nAlek recalled his argument with Deryn in Tokyo, when he'd declared that the specimen in Tesla's cabin was nothing but an interesting rock. But if Tesla had created this machine for the sole purpose of finding metal, then the rock must have been the goal of the whole expedition. The mysterious hunk of iron might well be the key to Goliath.\n\nAnd for some reason he'd wanted to keep it all a secret.\n\n\"Well,\" the inventor grumbled. \"Let's see if it even works.\"\n\nTesla was a virtuoso with his machine's controls. He could set it to search for metal in amounts large or small, distant or near. Each of the three globes had slightly different properties, and each could be adjusted separately. As Alek watched, he realized that he'd employed the device in the most fumbling fashion, like a cat playing a piano.\n\nDr. Barlow summoned two crewmen to carry the machine, and soon the globes were dancing, guiding Tesla though the piles of supplies that had been loaded at Hearst's estate. The dinner party trailed behind, Mr. Malone's flashbulb occasionally sending the party's shadows flailing across the darkened cargo rooms.\n\nThe machine's flickers finally led them into the back of a crowded storeroom, toward a stack of barrels buried beneath boxes of dates and apples.\n\nMr. Tesla squinted in the wormlight and tutted. \"These barrels contain more than sugar, it seems.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\nDr. Barlow gestured to Deryn, who ordered the crewmen to take the machine away. Alek helped her unstack the crates on top, and when the way was clear, she stepped forward with a crowbar in her hand. She split the wooden top of a barrel with one blow.\n\n\"Careful, Dylan,\" Alek said. \"If this is sabotage, there might be a trap.\"\n\nThe others took a step backward, but Bovril sniffed and said, \"Sugar.\"\n\nDeryn knocked away the splintered wood, then slid the crowbar into the barrel\u2014it stopped with a muffled thunk.\n\n\"Well, that's interesting.\" She pulled off her white gloves, rolled up a sleeve, and reached in. A moment later she tugged out something long and thin wrapped in oiled rags. Sugar streamed onto the floor as she pulled the object free.\n\nUnwrapped, the metal cylinder gleamed in the wormlight. Alek looked at Count Volger, who nodded and said, \"Yes, it looks a bit like the barrel of a Spandau. But it's a Colt-Browning, most likely the 1895.\"\n\n\"A machine gun?\" Miss Rogers said. \"Oh, dear.\"\n\nMalone's camera flashed again, blinding Alek for a moment. By the time he'd blinked the spots away, Deryn had pulled out another prize. She unwrapped the rags to reveal a metal case the size of a dinner plate.\n\n\"An ammunition drum?\" Alek asked.\n\nVolger stepped forward. \"Not one I'm familiar with.\"\n\n\"Wait. Don't open\u2014,\" Miss Rogers began, but Deryn had already pulled the case into two halves. A black disk fell out and struck the floor with a bang, making them all jump. It rolled away into the darkness, unspooling a sliver of something shiny behind it.\n\nMiss Rogers knelt to peer closer. \"This is unexposed moving-picture film. Or it was, young man, before you opened it. Now it's ruined.\"\n\n\"Film?\" Alek asked. \"But why would anyone smuggle more of that aboard? There's already stacks of it in Mr. Francis's stateroom.\"\n\nCount Volger nodded. \"For that matter, why a machine gun? The Colt-Browning weighs fifteen kilograms. A bit large for a saboteur to use.\"\n\n\"And we won't find any bullets for it either,\" Deryn added. \"Our beasties would've sniffed out the gunpowder.\"\n\n\"Rather a mystery,\" Dr. Barlow said, turning to Miss Rogers. \"Though in a way I am relieved. Perhaps your Mr. Francis is merely an arms smuggler.\" She frowned. \"And a supplier of . . . movie film.\"\n\nMiss Rogers shrugged. \"I have no idea what's going on, I promise. But I'll have a snoop around tomorrow, and see what I can find out.\"\n\n\"Just don't forget that this is my story,\" Malone said.\n\nMiss Rogers frowned, but gave him a curt nod.\n\n\"We'll check the rest of these barrels, ma'am,\" Deryn said to the lady boffin. \"Then I'll have the ship's carpenter seal them back up so no one's the wiser.\"\n\nAlek nodded. If the ship wasn't in immediate danger, there was no need for a confrontation. The best way to uncover Mr. Francis's plans was to let him make the next move.\n\nThe next morning Deryn stayed close to Mr. Francis and his camera assistants.\n\nShe served them breakfast in the middies' mess, then took them on a tour of the ship\u2014\"scouting locations,\" they called it. The captain had given the newsmen free run of the upper decks, so as not to give away any suspicions, and the guards watching the barrels in the cargo room had been ordered to stay out of sight.\n\nDeryn noticed that Adela Rogers, the young lady reporter, was also keeping an eye on Mr. Francis. She pretended to wander the ship on her own, but always stayed within earshot of Francis and his cameramen. And when Deryn left them in the middies' mess with lunch, she found Miss Rogers skulking outside.\n\nClosing the mess door carefully behind her, Deryn whispered, \"Pardon me, miss, but we mustn't let Mr. Francis know we're on to him.\"\n\n\"Well, of course not.\" The woman adjusted her hat. Just as last night, she was immaculately tailored, this time in a matching pin-striped jacket and skirt, with a black fedora in fabricated beaver fur. \"Do you think I was born yesterday?\"\n\n\"No, but you're being a bit obvious, following him everywhere.\"\n\n\"You're the one trailing after him, not me.\"\n\nDeryn pulled the reporter farther down the corridor. \"It's my barking duty to escort him! But you're tagging along like some village lassie in love.\"\n\nMiss Rogers laughed. \"Really, young man, I doubt you would know the signs of that condition. In any case, it isn't Mr. Francis I've been following. It's you.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, miss?\n\n\"Because you're quite obviously the bell captain of this ship.\"\n\nDeryn blinked. \"What are you blethering about?\"\n\nThe woman took a step back, looking Deryn up and down like a tailor sizing up a client. \"I grew up in a hotel, you see. Daddy was hopeless at housekeeping, and my mother wanted nothing to do with us, so it was our only hope of a civilized life. I learned at a tender age that the most important person in a hotel isn't the owner, or the manager, or even the house detective. It's the bell captain. He's the one who knows where the bodies are buried. He got quite a nice tip for burying them, if you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"No, miss, I don't know what you mean,\" Deryn said. \"I'm a midshipman, not a bellman.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. I caught your act last night, all white gloves and merrily pouring the brandy. But underneath it you're in on everyone's secrets, aren't you? And everyone glances at you when they've got a pickle to deal with. Dr. Barlow, Prince Aleksandar, even that crusty old count\u2014they all want to know what the bell captain thinks.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. This woman was either quite mad or dangerously canny. She'd proven quite deft at embarrassing Alek the night before, which had been amusing enough. But now she was being a bit too . . . perspicacious.\n\n\"I'm quite sure I don't know what you mean, Miss Rogers.\"\n\n\"The only thing my mother ever taught me is that the servants always have the keys.\"\n\n\"I'm not a servant. I'm a decorated officer!\"\n\n\"So is the bell captain at any fine hotel! Note the employment of the word 'captain.' I wouldn't mistake you for a bellboy, not ever.\"\n\nDeryn took a step back. What had she meant by that, exactly?\n\n\"Just because I'm a 'girl reporter,' don't think you can\u2014\" Miss Rogers's next words were cut off by the sound of an alert, single rings in quick succession.\n\nDeryn frowned. \"That's the 'enemy spotted' signal.\"\n\n\"What enemy? We're over neutral territory.\"\n\n\"Indeed, miss. You'll have to excuse me.\" Deryn turned away, grateful for any excuse to escape the reporter. As she headed toward the central stairs, the corridors filled with men rushing toward their battle stations.\n\n\"Mind if I come along?\" asked Miss Rogers, who was, in fact, already coming along.\n\n\"No, miss! My post is on the spine, and passengers have to stay in the gondola. You should head back to your stateroom.\"\n\nNot waiting for an answer, Deryn headed off through the bustling corridors. With the ship at high speed there would be no climbing the ratlines, so she made straight for the interior passages. For that matter, the wind topside would be too much for message lizards to be wandering about. Deryn snatched one up and shoved it into her jacket, in case she needed to get word to the bridge quickly. After all, there were German agents wandering about the ship, reporters everywhere, and now an enemy in the sky.\n\nNeutral territory, indeed.\n\nThe desert rolled past below, spotted with cacti and red-flanked gulches, and a few small farms cut into verdant rectangles. At three-quarter speed, the view swept past at almost fifty miles an hour, and only the master rigger, Mr. Roland, and a few of his men were topside. Deryn made her way toward them in a half crouch, ready to grab the ratlines if a gust sent her stumbling.\n\n\"Middy Sharp reporting, sir!\"\n\nMr. Roland returned her salute, then pointed. \"Spotted it twenty minutes ago. Some kind of manta airship. Local colors, Clanker engines.\"\n\nA sleek, broad-winged form stood out against the western sky, the pontoon gasbags under its wings striped with red and green. Smoke trailed from it, though Mexico was a Darwinist power.\n\n\"Might that engine be German-made, sir?\"\n\n\"Can't tell from this range,\" Mr. Roland said. \"But they're matching our speed.\"\n\nDeryn watched the Mexican airship's shadow rippling across the desert, and estimated a wingspan of no more than a hundred feet. \"Too small to trouble us, though. Perhaps they're only curious, sir.\"\n\n\"Fair enough, as long as they don't get too close.\" Mr. Roland frowned, raising his field glasses. \"Is that another one?\"\n\nA second winged shape had caught the sun, just behind the first. Deryn shielded her eyes and swept the horizon, and soon spotted a third manta airship off to starboard.\n\nShe pointed at it. \"More than just curiosity, sir.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Mr. Roland said. \"But even three to one, they don't stand a chance against us.\"\n\nDeryn nodded. Stern chases were tricky in the air. Beasties or rockets launched from the trailing ships would be fighting a fifty-mile-an-hour headwind, while the Leviathan could drop an aerie of strafing hawks into their laps at any time.\n\nA moment later the Leviathan's engines roared up to full speed.\n\n\"It seems the captain has taken a dislike to them!\" Mr. Roland shouted over the thunderous noise. Both of them knelt on the ratlines as the wind grew fiercer. The Mexican airships didn't seem to be losing much ground, though. Their smoke trails thickened, spreading across the horizon like storm clouds.\n\nOne of the riggers called from behind them, and Mr. Roland turned to face the headwind. \"Who in blazes is that?\"\n\nDeryn turned and saw a figure making its way toward them along the spine. She held her hat on with one hand, and her skirts billowed around stockinged legs.\n\n\"Blisters! That lady reporter must have followed me! Sorry, sir. I'll tend to her.\"\n\n\"See that you do, Sharp.\"\n\nMiss Rogers had the wind at her back, and looked surefooted enough. But when Deryn made to stand up, the headwind sent her staggering backward. She swore and clipped her safety line to Mr. Tesla's antenna. It was easier than re-clipping herself every few feet.\n\nShe scuttled ahead in a crouch until she reached the reporter.\n\n\"What in blazes are you doing up here?\"\n\n\"I'd like to interview you!\" the woman yelled, then pulled out a notepad. The pages fluttered furiously, and her unsecured fedora lifted off and shot away. \"Oh, dear.\"\n\n\"Now's not the barking time!\" Deryn shouted. \"As you can see, we've got a bit of trouble brewing!\"\n\nMiss Rogers peered into the distance. \"Our 'enemy' ships would appear to be Mexican. Do you suppose they mean us harm?\"\n\nDeryn took the lady reporter by the arm, but pulling her back toward the hatchway proved impossible. The woman's skirts caught the headwind like a frigate at full sail. It was a wonder she was standing at all.\n\n\"You're not getting rid of me that easily, Mr. Sharp.\" Miss Rogers frowned. \"Is there something moving in your jacket?\"\n\n\"Aye, a message lizard.\"\n\n\"How odd. Now, please tell me about these airships.\"\n\nDeryn glanced back at the Leviathan's pursuers, then sighed. \"If I answer a few questions for you, will you be sensible and go back down?\"\n\n\"It's a deal. Let's say . . . three questions.\"\n\n\"All right, then! But hurry!\"\n\n\"Who is following us?\"\n\n\"Mexicans.\"\n\n\"Yes, but under which of the generals?\" Miss Rogers asked. \"You realize there's a revolution on, don't you?\"\n\n\"I don't know which general, and yes, I do realize there's a revolution on. That was three questions. Now let's go!\"\n\nShe tried to pull Miss Rogers toward the hatch, but the woman stood firm. \"Don't be preposterous! That was only one question, which required two follow-ups due to your vagaries. My father was a lawyer, you know.\"\n\n\"Barking spiders, miss! Why can't you just\u2014\"\n\nA metal shriek shattered the air, and a cloud of acrid smoke whipped across them both. Deryn turned into the wind, and saw the starboard Clanker engine spitting flame. With an awful groan its propeller seized, coughing out one last flurry of sparks.\n\n\"What in\u2014,\" Deryn began, but with one engine halted, the ship went into a sudden starboard turn. The spine rolled beneath them, and Deryn grabbed Miss Rogers's arm and yanked them both to their knees. Tesla's antenna slithered beside them, stretching tighter as the airbeast bent hard along its length.\n\nA moment later the port engine coasted to a halt, and the ship began to straighten again.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Miss Rogers asked.\n\n\"No idea! But you'll have to wait here.\"\n\nThe airflow was already fading as the Leviathan slowed, and Deryn unclipped herself and ran forward toward the pods. Had the captain run the Clanker engines too hard this last week? Or was this sabotage?\n\nBut Mr. Francis had been followed from the first minute he'd come aboard, and the engines were manned at all times. It had to be a coincidence. . . .\n\nDeryn reached the hump above the engines and pulled the message lizard from her jacket. \"Starboard engine pod, this is Middy Sharp. Report!\"\n\nShe set the beastie down, and it scampered toward the pod, making good time. Even with the electrical engines still churning, the wind of the ship's passage was quickly dying. The airbeast's cilia never pushed while the Clanker engines were at full-ahead, so they'd been quiet for the better part of ten days. It might take an hour to wake them up again.\n\n\"Barking Clankers,\" she swore. Those contraptions had made the airbeast lazy.\n\nTo the west the Mexican airships were spreading out, taking time to surround their quarry. At this range Deryn could see their full wings and long whiplike tails, definitely based on the life threads of the manta ray. A brace of gasbags beneath the wings provided lift, with the Clanker engines slung in the middle. She recalled something like them from the Manual of Aeronautics, an experimental Italian craft, perhaps.\n\nThe manta ships weren't large; they didn't even carry a gondola. The crews rode in the ratlines on their backs, rifles in hand. The ships' only heavy armament was a pair of Gatling guns for each ship, mounted fore and aft.\n\nA line of strafing hawks was streaming out from the Leviathan, but not in attack formation yet. The birds encircled their airship home with a glittering ring of talons.\n\nThe starboard engine had stopped belching smoke, and Deryn saw a familiar spiked helmet down in the pod\u2014Master Klopp's. The Clanker machinery must have been acting up already, then. Since old Klopp's injury, the engineers never called him to the pods unless things were going pear-shaped.\n\nThe message lizard scuttled back up, speaking in the master mechanic's gruff German. \"There's something wrong with the fuel, Dylan. It tastes funny.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. Though she'd seen Klopp dip his finger into fuel and give it a sniff, she'd never seen him taste the stuff.\n\n\"The port engine will also be damaged if it keeps running,\" the lizard continued. \"Tell them to shut down.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with that critter?\" came a voice from behind her. \"Sounds like it's talking German.\"\n\nDeryn sighed as she picked up the lizard. \"Yes, Miss Rogers. One of Alek's men is working down there. That's a Clanker engine, after all.\"\n\n\"And you understand German?\"\n\n\"Well enough. I've worked with Master Klopp for more than two months now.\"\n\n\"What a fine coincidence! You've got a German fellow working on your engine that just broke down!\"\n\n\"Master Klopp is Austrian!\" Deryn said, pushing past the woman and heading across the hump.\n\nMiss Rogers followed, notebook in hand. \"Mr. Sharp, do you still suspect Mr. Francis of German sympathies? While ignoring the actual Clankers on your ship?\"\n\nDeryn waved at the riggers, hoping one would take the reporter away, but they were scrambling to set up an air gun. She swore, storming to the far side of the hump to set the lizard down again.\n\n\"Port engine pod,\" she told it. \"This is Middy Sharp. Klopp says your fuel supply has something wrong with it. Don't go to speed unless absolutely necessary! End message.\"\n\nAs she shoved the lizard on its way, she realized the engineers would never obey her orders over the captain's. Maybe she should have sent the lizard to the bridge instead.\n\nMiss Rogers was scribbling in her notebook. \"Fuel supply, eh?\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" Deryn stood up. \"That's the fuel that Mr. Hearst gave us, and it's damaged our engines right in the middle of an ambush! Now does that sound like a coincidence to you?\"\n\nMiss Rogers scratched her nose with her pencil. \"Hard to say.\"\n\nDeryn looked back at the Mexican airships. One was drawing abreast of the Leviathan, no more than a mile away, a line of semaphore flags running out across its wings.\n\nG-R-E-E-T-I-N-G-S\u2014L-E-V-I-A-T-H-A-N, they said.\n\n\"So now you're being friendly,\" she muttered.\n\n\"Who is?\"\n\nDeryn pointed at the flags. \"They've sent us greetings.\"\n\nAnother string followed, and she read them out to the reporter.\n\nE-N-G-I-N-E\u2014T-R-O-U-B-L-E\u2014W-E\u2014C-A-N\u2014H-E-L-P.\n\n\"Well, that sounds friendly,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\nDeryn frowned. \"Maybe so, but this is all a bit convenient. They knew just where to find us, and this is a barking big desert.\"\n\n\"Young man, this is also a rather big airship.\"\n\nDeryn started to retort, but another string of flags was running out. \"It says these airships follow the orders of General Villa.\"\n\n\"Pancho Villa? Well, that's handy.\" The lady reporter scribbled. \"The chief thinks quite highly of him.\"\n\nDeryn snorted. \"No doubt they're old pals. Now it says they've got an airfield nearby, with everything we need to make repairs. And they're happy to give us a tow.\" She squinted at the rest, then swore. \"And all they want in return is one little thing.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"A bit of sugar for their hungry beasts.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\nDeryn shook her head, remembering what Alek had told her\u2014Hearst had been delighted when he'd found out the Leviathan was headed across Mexico. And somehow he'd set all this in motion\u2014the doctored fuel, the smuggled arms, the airships stalking them\u2014in a single night.\n\nShe looked about. Men and sniffers were streaming up the ratlines now, and a few message lizards as well. She pulled out her command whistle and blew for a lizard. The bridge needed a full report.\n\n\"You say you know this General Villa?\"\n\nThe lady reporter shrugged. \"Only by reputation, but I know some of his business partners well enough.\"\n\n\"All right, then. Stay close to me, and keep your barking eyes open.\"\n\n\"Young man, you hardly need to tell me that.\"\n\nThe cilia woke faster than Deryn had expected; maybe the mantas were giving the airbeast a fright. The motivator engines ran on organic batteries, of course, and hadn't suffered from Hearst's contaminated fuel. So the Leviathan was soon under its own power again, following the Mexican airships at a wary distance.\n\nDeryn sent a message lizard down to the bridge, relating the news that Hearst and General Villa were on friendly terms. It came back and spoke in Captain Hobbes's own voice, telling her to take charge of docking. That was usually a rigger's job, but the captain wanted an officer on the bowhead. If the Leviathan's hosts made any hostile moves, the ship would drop all ballast and shoot into the air. The mooring cables would have to be cut loose\u2014and fast.\n\n\"I'll be ready, sir,\" Deryn said. \"End message.\"\n\n\"That just proves my earlier point,\" Miss Rogers said as the creature scuttled away. \"If you want something done right, always ask the bell captain.\"\n\n\"Stop barking calling me that.\"\n\n\"I assure you, young man, it's the highest compliment a hotel-raised girl can muster.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. And she'd thought Eddie Malone was annoying.\n\nWhoever had doctored the Leviathan's fuel had done a precise job of it. The starboard engine had seized up only an hour away from Villa's airfield. The tip of a mooring tower rose up from a steep-sided canyon, deep enough for the Leviathan to hide itself in. The canyon had only one narrow entrance, but a hundred rocky nooks and crannies along its sides.\n\n\"A natural fortress,\" Deryn said. \"I take it this General Villa is one of the revolutionaries.\"\n\n\"He's a rebel at heart.\" Miss Rogers shrugged. \"Though it's complicated these days, more of a civil war than a revolution.\"\n\n\"But he's using Clanker engines. Do the Germans have a hand in all this?\"\n\n\"All the powers are supplying one faction or another. The Great War has only raised the stakes.\"\n\nDeryn sighed. Alek was right about one thing: One way or another, the war had sunk its claws into every nation on Earth. Even this distant conflict had been shaped by the war machines and fighting beasts of Europe.\n\nAnother reason for Alek to feel bad, to think all the world's troubles were his fault. Sometimes Deryn wished that she could burn the guilt out of his heart, or protect him from how awful the war was. Or at least make him forget somehow.\n\nAs the Leviathan slowed to a halt, the bottom of the canyon came into view. A few Clanker engines aside, these rebels were definitely Darwinists. Patches of fabricated corn covered the ground in bright colors, and a high stone wall penned a herd of fabricated bulls the size of streetcars. Six-legged donkeys carried packs down the steep trails leading into the canyon, and a pair of squidesque airbeasts grazed on the nearby cliff tops, their languid tentacles clearing scrub grass and cacti.\n\nBut on a high outcrop of rock a mile away was another bit of Clanker technology\u2014a wireless tower.\n\n\"So that's how Hearst arranged all this.\"\n\nMiss Rogers tutted. \"Didn't someone tell me that your Mr. Tesla was a radio wiz?\"\n\n\"Aye, but he's hardly arms-smuggling material. He can't stop blethering about peace.\"\n\n\"But his Goliath is a weapon, is it not?\"\n\nDeryn didn't bother to deny that.\n\nThe Leviathan angled itself into the wind, the cilia rippling to push it down. The manta ships drifted at a polite distance, but Deryn wondered if they had any hidden firepower. If the Mexicans were importing Clanker engines, maybe they'd got a few rockets in the bargain. The Leviathan's strafing hawks were still in the air, of course, ready to strike in all directions.\n\nSoon the sides of the canyon were rising up around Deryn, making her feel trapped. It was strange to be up on the spine and yet have stone walls to either side. If there was any treachery, the only way out would be straight up.\n\nThe airbeast's nose eased toward the tower, a team of riggers standing ready at the mooring crossbow. A grappling hook was set in the crossbow.\n\n\"Ready . . . ,\" Deryn called as the tower drew near. \"Fire!\"\n\nThe crossbow snapped, sending the grappling hook soaring. With a rattle of metal and chain, its prongs tangled in the struts of the tower.\n\n\"Draw her in!\" Deryn cried, and the riggers wound the cable fast, tightening the hook's grip. \"Now tie her off!\"\n\nSoon the ship was secure, and from the canyon walls echoed the slither of cables dropping from the gondola below. The captain would be winching the ship down rather than venting hydrogen. That would keep the Leviathan buoyant, sitting in the canyon like a cork at the bottom of a bathtub, ready to pop up and out in case of danger.\n\nDeryn's eyes swept the rocky ground below. The men gathering up the Leviathan's ropes had rifles slung across their backs, but there was no sign of heavy arms, except for a half dozen cannon guarding the mouth of the canyon. They were pointed away from the airship, and looked like leftovers from a bygone war.\n\n\"Little wonder your boss wants to lend General Villa a hand,\" Deryn said, lowering her field glasses. \"The general has got plenty of beasties, but no proper guns.\"\n\n\"I've heard the chief say exactly that.\" Miss Rogers sighed. \"I just wish he'd told me what he was up to.\"\n\n\"Aye, he might have told us, too!\"\n\nThe ground men below were pulling the ropes out in all directions. Deryn spotted Newkirk drifting down on gliding wings to help them. The boy was soon waving his arms as he tried to organize Villa's men.\n\n\"Do you know any Spanish, Miss Rogers?\"\n\n\"As much as any girl from southern California. Which means more than a little but less than I'd like.\"\n\nDeryn nodded. \"You might be the only one on the ship who does. Stand ready.\"\n\n\"Much as I'd love to review my reflexive verbs, Mr. Sharp, it won't be necessary. I'm certain all of General Villa's motion picture contracts are in English.\"\n\n\"His what?\"\n\n\"Didn't I tell you? That's how Mr. Hearst knows him. They're both in the movie business!\" Miss Rogers swept her hand across the encampment. \"That's how Villa finances all this. He takes moving pictures of his battles and sends them to Los Angeles. He's practically a motion picture star!\"\n\n\"So Hearst has a movie deal with him?\"\n\nThe reporter shook her head. \"Villa's contract is with Mutual Films. But I suppose the chief wants to horn in. Crafty, isn't he?\"\n\n\"A bit too crafty for my liking,\" Deryn muttered. If Hearst was such a peace lover, why was he sending weapons into Mexico? Or did he only care about making newsreels?\n\n\"There's something above us, sir,\" one of the riggers called. \"Up on the cliffs!\"\n\nDeryn looked up. A column of smoke was rising from the edge of the canyon. She closed her eyes to listen over the shouts of the men below, and heard it\u2014the rumble of a Clanker engine.\n\nDid the rebels have a walking machine up there? She'd seen nothing from the air, though any number of walkers might have hidden in the rocky terrain.\n\n\"And that way, sir!\" called another man. Deryn turned and saw a second cloud of engine smoke rising from the far side of the canyon. There was dust rising as well, a sure sign of legs in motion. The tiny manta airships might have only Gatling guns, but walkers could carry heavy cannon.\n\nDeryn pulled out her command whistle and blew for a message lizard. \"We're being surrounded, and the officers down on the bridge can't see it!\"\n\n\"But why would General Villa betray us?\" Miss Rogers asked. \"He wants those guns we're bringing him.\"\n\n\"He might also want the Leviathan!\" Deryn cried. \"It's one of the biggest airships in all of Europe. Think how powerful it would make him here in Mexico!\"\n\nMiss Rogers waved a hand. \"But Mr. Hearst just wants a dramatic story. If the rebels destroy us, he'll get no story at all!\"\n\n\"Aye, but has anyone explained that to the barking rebels?\"\n\n\"These are civilized rebels, young man. They have movie deals!\"\n\n\"That's no guarantee of sanity!\" Deryn felt the tug of a message lizard pulling on her trouser leg. She knelt and said, \"Bridge, this is Middy Sharp. Walkers on the cliffs above us, at least two. Could be an ambush! End message.\"\n\nThe beastie scampered away, but it would take at least a minute to reach the bridge. By then the vast topside of the Leviathan would be in the sights of the walkers' guns, as easy to hit as a cricket field.\n\nShe spun around, checking on the manta ships. They didn't seem to be closing in. Not yet, anyway.\n\n\"If only I could send up a scout,\" Deryn muttered. But all the Huxleys were stowed in the ship's gut to protect them from the winds of high speed.\n\n\"Sir,\" said the rigger beside her. \"Mr. Rigby sent up a pair of gliding wings, in case the captain wanted you on the ground. You could use those.\"\n\n\"Aye, but I need to go up to\u2014,\" Deryn began, but then she saw the dust rising from the ground crew's feet. It was climbing the sides of the canyon, carried by an updraft. . . .\n\n\"Get me those wings!\" she shouted. \"Now!\"\n\nAs the man ran off, she watched the airflow in the canyon. The wind was rushing into the entrance, straight into the Leviathan's nose. If Deryn took off dead ahead, she might gain enough altitude to rise above the cliff walls.\n\n\"I still say you're being entirely too suspicious,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\nDeryn ignored her, turning to the crossbow crew. \"If we blow even a squick of ballast, cut this cable. Don't wait for orders!\"\n\n\"Aye, sir.\"\n\nTwo men arrived, gliding wings in hand, and Deryn struggled into the rig. She borrowed a pair of semaphore flags, then paced off ten yards from the bow, ready to take a running start. There was only one problem.\n\nThe mooring tower was in the way.\n\n\"Oh, sod it.\" She spread her arms and ran toward the edge. \"Watch out!\"\n\nThe riggers and Miss Rogers ducked beneath the wings, and Deryn sped past them and leapt from the edge of the bow, straight into the wind. The tower reared up before her, but she wrenched herself to starboard, barely clearing the metal struts.\n\nVeering right had pulled her out of the headwind, and she went circling downward. But with another hard jerk the air filled the gliding wings again. She rose a little, climbing just above the canyon walls.\n\nOne of the walkers was in sight now\u2014a two-legged machine the size of Alek's old Cyklop Stormwalker. It had the boxy look of a German contraption, and was rumbling straight toward the cliff edge.\n\nDeryn pulled her wings hard toward it, but she slipped beneath the cliff tops again. She was flying straight into a wall of stone. . . .\n\nAt the last moment she swung her weight back, and the wings climbed hard, almost stalling in midair. Her momentum carried her the last few yards, and Deryn alighted on the edge of the rocky cliff. Her boots slipped on loose stone, but somehow she kept her feet.\n\nThe walking machine towered over her, its head bending down as if to take a closer look. The huge maw of a gun pointed straight at her.\n\n\"Barking spiders!\" she said.\n\nIt wasn't a gun at all\u2014it was a moving-picture camera. She heard the whir and snap of it capturing her image a dozen times a second.\n\nThe wind shifted, pulling her back toward the cliff's edge. Deryn spun about and took a look across the canyon. The other walker was just the same, a two-legged camera platform.\n\nThe rebels wanted to film the Leviathan, not destroy it.\n\nHer message lizard would be at the bridge any moment now, and if the captain grew alarmed and dropped ballast, the landing ropes would rip through the hands of a hundred untrained men below. Worse, a few would hang on to be carried up into the sky, then fall back upon their fellows from a thousand feet. If General Villa didn't want to destroy the Leviathan now, he certainly would after that.\n\n\"THE WALKER SHOOTS DERYN.\"\n\nDeryn spun the gliding wings about and threw herself back off the cliff.\n\n\"Those men on the ropes look quite sharp,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"And this canyon keeps the wind steady enough.\"\n\nNone of the officers answered. They were spread out across the bridge, each at a different window, watching for signs of treachery. Bovril shifted nervously on Alek's shoulder, scenting disquiet in the air.\n\nOutside, the rebels were hard at work, staking ropes into the hard ground and tying them onto metal posts driven straight into the rock. The lines trembled as the Leviathan winched itself down, its huge shadow spreading meter by meter across the canyon floor. The captain hadn't vented any hydrogen, in case a quick takeoff were necessary. To Alek it felt as though the airbeast were fighting the ropes, like Gulliver among the Lilliputians.\n\n\"Do you really think these rebels will help us?\" he asked Dr. Barlow.\n\n\"I should hope so, after putting us through all this bother.\" She sniffed. \"I'm sure Mr. Hearst only wanted a bit of drama for his newsreel.\"\n\n\"Newsreel,\" her loris said softly, then hmphed.\n\n\"And to think I trusted that man,\" Mr. Tesla said. He'd been in a dark mood since the breakdown, especially after the engine pod had reported that Hearst's fuel was to blame.\n\n\"He may want peace,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"But conflict sells newspapers.\"\n\n\"I've heard of this Pancho Villa fellow, haven't I?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"He's in all the papers at the moment.\" Mr. Tesla stared out the window at the ground men. \"His name is Francisco Villa, but he goes by the nickname Pancho because he's a friend of the poor. He seizes wealthy plantations and gives them to the peasants.\"\n\n\"Quite a common habit among rebels,\" Dr. Barlow said, and her loris made a sniffing noise. \"One hopes that he is above seizing airships.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. However chaotic the world might be, he knew that providence was guiding him toward peace. His quest couldn't end here in this dusty canyon.\n\n\"Bridge, this is Middy Sharp!\" came Deryn's voice from nowhere.\n\nAll eyes turned to the message lizard clinging to the ceiling.\n\n\"Walkers on the cliffs above us, at least two,\" it said. \"Could be an ambush!\"\n\nA stir went through the bridge, and Bovril shivered on Alek's shoulder. The officers gathered around the captain.\n\n\"Walkers?\" Alek said. \"But they're Darwinists.\"\n\n\"Those airships had Clanker engines,\" Tesla said.\n\nDr. Barlow glanced out the window. \"This is unsettling. The Leviathan is quite vulnerable to attack from above.\"\n\nAlek tried to peer up at the surrounding cliffs, but the gasbag blocked out the sky. He felt trapped beneath the vast expanse of the airship.\n\nBlast Hearst and his news-making games.\n\n\"Prepare to blow all ballast,\" the captain announced.\n\n\"Cut the landing lines, sir?\" an officer asked.\n\n\"Don't bother. At this buoyancy they'll break.\"\n\n\"That's a bit unfriendly,\" Dr. Barlow muttered. \"Those lines can decapitate a man when they snap.\"\n\nOutside, the ground men were still working patiently to secure the ropes, not suspecting the chaos about to be unleashed. A flight-suited figure was among them, a pair of gliding wings folded across his back.\n\nAlek turned to Dr. Barlow. \"But Newkirk's out there. We can't leave him behind!\"\n\n\"I fear we must.\" The lady boffin shook her head. \"If this is an ambush, we can't afford to give them warning.\"\n\n\"You mean we'll just\u2014,\" Alek began, but a dark shape was flickering across the ground\u2014a small, winged shadow just beyond the starboard edge of the airship.\n\n\"On my command.\" Captain Hobbes raised his hand.\n\nAlek squinted, watching the shadow wheel in ever-tightening circles. Its shape reminded him of the gliding wings on Newkirk's back.\n\n\"Deryn Sharp,\" whispered Bovril.\n\n\"Wait!\" Alek cried, spinning about to face the captain. He took two steps closer, but a marine guard blocked his way. \"It's Dylan!\"\n\nThe captain turned, his hand still raised.\n\n\"Middy Sharp's gliding down!\" Alek shouted. \"There must be a reason!\"\n\nThe officers stood ready, their eyes on the captain. The man hesitated a moment, then glanced at the first officer. \"Take a look.\"\n\nAlek crossed back to the windows, pointing at the flitting, wheeling shadow. The men on the landing lines had seen it now\u2014they were looking up and calling to one another.\n\n\"How do you know it's Sharp?\" the first officer asked.\n\n\"Because it's\u2014it's . . . ,\" Alek sputtered.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp!\" Bovril declared.\n\nDeryn's winged form streaked into sight beneath the edge of the gasbag, careening downward at an absurd angle, two semaphore flags rippling in her hands. She shot past the bridge windows in an instant, arms flailing, and then she was gone.\n\n\"Did anyone catch that signal?\" the captain asked.\n\n\"A-M, sir,\" one of the navigators said. \"That's all I got.\"\n\n\"'Ambush,'\" the captain said. \"Stand ready, lads.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, sir,\" the first officer said. \"But there was a C at first.\"\n\nCaptain Hobbes hesitated, shaking his head.\n\nAlek ran to the far side of the bridge\u2014Deryn's shadow wheeled about, and a moment later she swung back into view. She came in low across the front windows, sending the ground men scattering before her.\n\nHer semaphore flags were still waving, but then her boots skidded on hard ground. Deryn reached up to regain control, the flags falling from her hands.\n\nThe wings pulled her up into the air one last time, then crumpled and twisted, dropping her into a stumbling halt. Ground men came running from all directions, and Deryn disappeared among them in a cloud of dust.\n\n\"Did anyone get that signal?\" the captain shouted.\n\n\"E-R-A?\" the first officer said.\n\n\"C-A-M,\" Bovril muttered, and suddenly it all fell into place.\n\n\"The walkers on the cliffs,\" Alek said. \"They're camera platforms!\"\n\n\"Walker cameras?\" The captain shook his head. \"Why would rebels have that sort of equipment?\"\n\n\"With Sharp flying about, they must know we're on to them,\" the first officer said. \"Sir, we should blow\u2014\"\n\n\"The film!\" Dr. Barlow cried. \"Those barrels had unexposed rolls of film in them. So the rebels must have motion picture cameras. This isn't an attack!\"\n\nThe bridge was silent for a moment, all eyes on the captain. He stood there with his arms crossed tight, fingers drumming.\n\n\"They haven't fired at us yet,\" he finally said. \"But stand ready to blow all ballast if you hear so much as a gunshot.\"\n\nAlek breathed out a slow sigh, and Bovril's claws eased their grip on his shoulder. But then Dr. Busk spoke up: \"Sharp looks hurt.\"\n\nAlek ran to the front of the bridge, shoving his way past the marine guards. From the front windows he saw her lying curled on the ground a hundred yards away.\n\n\"I'm going out there.\"\n\nThe captain cleared his throat. \"I can't allow that, Your Highness.\"\n\n\"Does anyone else on this ship speak Spanish?\" Alek asked, trusting that between Italian and Latin he could manage.\n\nThe captain looked at his officers, then shook his head. \"Perhaps not, but if the situation deteriorates, we'll have to blow our ballast.\"\n\n\"Exactly. Any misunderstanding could be a disaster, so give me a chance to sort this out!\"\n\nThe captain thought another moment, then sighed and turned to Dr. Busk. \"You go with him, and take five marines.\"\n\nNewkirk was already at Deryn's side. A crowd of Villa's men surrounded them, one waving and calling \"M\u00e9dico,\" which certainly meant \"doctor\"\u2014at least in Italian. A few landing lines swung freely, and an officer was trying to get the men back to their ropes.\n\n\"Dylan!\" Alek shouted, pushing through the crowd. The rebels pulled away, giving Bovril wide-eyed stares.\n\nNewkirk looked up, his face streaked with dust. \"He's conscious, but he's done his leg.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm barking conscious!\" Deryn shouted. \"It hurts like blazes!\"\n\nAlek knelt beside her. The left arm of her uniform was torn and bloody, and she clasped one knee to her chest. Her eyes were squeezed shut against the pain.\n\nBovril made a soft unhappy noise, and Alek took Deryn's hand.\n\n\"I've brought Dr. Busk,\" he said.\n\nHer eyes sprang open, and she whispered, \"You Dummkopf!\"\n\nAlek froze. Injured or not, Deryn couldn't afford to have a surgeon prying at her.\n\n\"Newkirk, get these men back on their lines!\" Alek ordered. Then he whispered to Deryn, \"Take my arm. If you can stand up, he might not look too closely.\"\n\n\"Stand on my right,\" she said, grasping his shoulder. Alek counted down from three under his breath, then stood, pulling her up onto one leg. Together they faced Dr. Busk, who was making his way through the crowd with the marine guards.\n\nDeryn shifted on her good leg beside Alek, threatening to pull him over. She was rather taller than him, he realized, and heavier than she looked\u2014muscles from climbing, he supposed. Bovril helpfully jumped down onto the ground.\n\nAlek gritted his teeth and nodded at Dr. Busk. \"Mr. Sharp seems well enough.\"\n\nThe surgeon looked Deryn up and down. \"Should you be standing, Mr. Sharp? That was quite a spill.\"\n\n\"It's all right, sir. Just a banged-up knee.\" She skidded forward a bit, and Alek helped her take a step. \"I'll walk it off.\"\n\n\"Blast it, Sharp. Sit down.\" Dr. Busk reached into his black leather bag and pulled out a pair of long scissors. \"Let me take a look at that leg.\"\n\nDeryn glanced at Alek, nodding just a bit, and the two struggled together to a nearby flat rock. Deryn sat down heavily, and Bovril crawled up into her lap. She grimaced at the beast's weight, but swallowed any cry of pain.\n\nA metal stake had been pounded into the shaley stone beside her, and the landing rope that was lashed to it quivered with energy. Alek imagined it snapping with enough force to cut his head off, and glanced up at the bridge windows. He could just make out the captain peering down, his officers crowded around him.\n\n\"We got your message just in time,\" Alek said.\n\n\"C-A-M-E-R-A,\" Bovril said proudly.\n\n\"I wish I hadn't sent the first one.\" Deryn shook her head, stroking Bovril's fur. \"According to Miss Rogers, General Villa's in the barking movie business! That's why Hearst is smuggling him arms and film. He wants battle scenes for his newsreels.\"\n\n\"Newsreels, fah!\" Bovril said.\n\n\"Steady there, lad.\" Dr. Busk was cutting away Deryn's trouser leg above the knee. Her flesh looked pale around a purpling bruise.\n\nShe stared up at Alek, worry in her eyes. If the leg were broken, carrying off her deception would be impossible.\n\n\"Sir!\" one of the marines called. \"Someone's coming.\"\n\nDr. Busk didn't look up. \"Some diplomacy, Your Highness, if you please.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Alek gave Deryn what he hoped was a reassuring nod, then stood and turned. Two large creatures were approaching, sending a ripple through the ground men.\n\nThe crowd parted to reveal a pair of gigantic fabricated bulls. They stood at least three meters tall, their horns tipped with metal, their shoulders as broad as train engines. The bulls had riders on their backs, holding steel chains that ran down through silver rings in the beasts' noses. Behind each rider was mounted a platform with another soldier; one bull carried a Gatling gun, the other a motion picture camera.\n\n\"PANCHO VILLA.\"\n\nAlmost lost between the two huge beasts was a man on horseback. He wore riding boots and pale trousers, a small-brimmed hat, and a short brown jacket crossed with two bandoliers of bullets. His clothes looked rumpled, as if he had just arisen from bed, and from above an unkempt, bristly mustache peered two lively brown eyes.\n\nAlek knew only a few words of Spanish, but he bowed and gave it a try.\n\n\"Sono Aleksandar, principe de Hohenberg.\"\n\nThe man laughed and said in a careful but clear English, \"I think you mean 'soy.' General Francisco Villa, revolutionary governor of Chihuahua, at your service.\"\n\n\"It is an honor, General,\" Alek said, bowing again.\n\nSo this was the famous rebel leader, the Robin Hood of Mexican peasants. Alek wondered what the man must think of the wealthy young prince before him, and if he had picked a side in the Great War in Europe.\n\nThe pistol on his belt was a Mauser\u2014German made.\n\n\"Is your man hurt?\" Villa asked.\n\nAlek turned. Deryn was wincing in pain as Dr. Busk applied some sort of compress to her knee. \"We hope not, sir.\"\n\n\"My personal doctor is coming. But please, why did he jump off your ship? He makes us very nervous for a moment.\"\n\n\"It was the camera walkers.\" Alek looked up. \"There was some confusion about their purpose.\"\n\nThe man clicked his tongue. \"Ah, I should have known. Last winter one of these walkers captures a whole platoon of Federales. They thought it would shoot them!\"\n\nAlek compared the Gatling gun and camera on the two monstrous bulls. \"An understandable mistake. It seems an odd machine for an army to travel with.\"\n\nThe man pointed at the Leviathan's gondola. \"But okay for your airship?\"\n\nAlek looked up and saw Mr. Francis and his men filming the encounter through the open windows of the middies' mess. Here he was in front of the cameras, performing again.\n\n\"There seems to be no escaping them,\" Alek said. \"Can you help us repair our engines?\"\n\nThe man bowed low in his saddle. \"Of course. All part of my deal with Se\u00f1or Hearst. He sends his apologies for the inconvenience.\"\n\nAlek was about to say something unpleasant, but a cry came from Deryn, and he spun about. Dr. Busk was pulling off her jacket now, revealing a red stain running down her left arm. In another moment he would have her shirt off.\n\nAlek turned to General Villa. \"Please, sir. If your doctor could be quick. I'm afraid our ship's surgeon is . . . a bit incompetent.\"\n\n\"You are lucky, then. Dr. Azuela is quite experienced with wounds of battle.\" Villa pointed at a man coming through the crowd. \"Take him to your friend.\"\n\nAlek gave a quick bow and raced back to where Deryn sat. He placed a firm hand on Dr. Busk's shoulder. \"General Villa would prefer that his own doctor see to Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Why, for heaven's sake?\"\n\n\"He insists, as our host,\" Alek hissed softly. \"We should not insult him.\"\n\n\"Most irregular,\" Dr. Busk said, but he stood and took a step back. Dr. Azuela was coming through the crowd. A man of less than forty, he was dressed in a tweed suit and string tie, his eyes behind small round glasses.\n\nAlek went to him, wondering how to get Deryn hidden. He looked up at the bright sun, ransacking his brain for a few words of Spanish.\n\n\"El sol. Malo.\"\n\nThe Mexican doctor glanced at Deryn, then at the Leviathan's shadow only a dozen meters away.\n\n\"Can he walk?\" he said in excellent English.\n\n\"We can't move him,\" Alek said. \"Is there some way to get cover?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" the man said, and began to shout orders. Soon the ground men were flinging canvas tarps across the landing lines, putting Deryn in the shadow of a makeshift tent and out of view of the Leviathan's gondola.\n\nAs they worked, Alek pulled Dr. Busk aside. \"General Villa wants a message taken to the captain. He says he'll do whatever he can to repair the ship.\"\n\n\"Well, that's good to hear, I suppose. I'll send one of the marines.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"He wants an officer to deliver it.\"\n\nDr. Busk frowned, looking at the tarps. \"I see. Look after Sharp, will you?\"\n\n\"Of course, Doctor,\" Alek said, turning away with a sigh of relief. The only remaining trick was to keep the rebel doctor from discovering Deryn's secret, or at least from making a fuss about it.\n\nHalfway back to the makeshift tent, Alek realized that he had lied to three men in as many minutes. And worse, he'd done so rather skillfully.\n\nHe shook his head, ignoring the queasy feeling in his stomach. Deryn had warned him about this, after all, and he'd given his word. This was the battle that she fought every day, and he was part of her deception now.\n\nWhen Alek slipped between the swaying tarps, he found only Deryn and Dr. Azuela inside. The ground men had swiftly thrown up a cot for Deryn and a case for the doctor's instruments. But now they had gone back to their ropes, and the growl of the winches drawing the ship down had started up again. Bovril was wrapped around Deryn's neck, purring softly.\n\n\"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I've had worse,\" Deryn said, but her eyes stayed fixed on the doctor's fingers as they probed her arm.\n\n\"It isn't broken,\" the man said. \"But this cut is bad. I need to sew it up. Take off your shirt.\"\n\n\"I can't,\" Deryn said softly. \"My arm won't move.\"\n\nThe doctor frowned, feeling carefully along her forearm again. \"But a moment ago you made a fist.\"\n\n\"Just cut the sleeve off,\" Alek said, kneeling beside them. \"I'll help you.\"\n\nDr. Azuela's wary gaze traveled from Deryn to Alek as he reached into his bag. He pulled out a pair of scissors and snipped through the cuff of the middy's uniform, then up her arm. Her pale skin was slick with blood.\n\nDeryn drew in a sharp breath\u2014the doctor's free hand had brushed her chest. Azuela frowned, hesitating a moment. Then, with a flash, the scissors had reversed in his hand. The points quivered at her throat.\n\n\"What's under your shirt?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Nothing!\" Deryn said.\n\n\"There's something strapped there. You're wearing a bomb! \u00a1Asesino!\"\n\n\"You're wrong,\" Bovril said quite clearly.\n\nAzuela stared at the beast, dumbfounded and frozen.\n\n\"It's all right, Doctor.\" Alek raised his hands in surrender. \"Deryn, just take off your shirt.\"\n\nShe stared dumbly at him, shaking her head.\n\nDr. Azuela tore his eyes from the loris. \"You're here to kill Pancho! You meant to fly down onto him with a bomb!\"\n\n\"She isn't an assassin,\" Alek said.\n\nThe doctor stared up at him.\n\n\"She,\" Bovril said.\n\n\"Deryn is a girl. That's why she's bound like that.\" Alek ignored the look of despair on her face. \"See for yourself.\"\n\n\"THE DOCTOR'S SUSPICIONS.\"\n\nWith the scissors still at her throat, Dr. Azuela felt her again. Deryn flinched, and his eyes widened as he yanked his hand away.\n\n\"\u00a1Lo siento, se\u00f1orita!\"\n\nDeryn opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her fists clenched, and she began to shake. Alek knelt beside her, gently opening one of her hands to hold it.\n\n\"Please don't tell anyone, sir,\" he said.\n\nThe doctor shook his head. \"But why?\"\n\n\"She wants to serve\u2014to fly.\" Alek reached into his inner pocket, the one the pope's letter always occupied. Beside the scroll case his fingers found a small cloth bag and pulled it free.\n\n\"Here.\" Alek handed it to the man. \"For your silence.\"\n\nDr. Azuela opened the bag, and found the sliver of gold\u2014all that remained of the quarter ton that Alek's father had left him. He stared at it a moment, then shook his head. \"I have to tell Pancho.\"\n\n\"Please,\" Deryn said softly.\n\n\"He is our commander.\" He turned to Deryn. \"But only him, I promise.\"\n\nDr. Azuela called in one of the rebels from outside and gave an order in rapid-fire Spanish. Then he set to work, cleaning the wound with a rag and liquid from a small silver flask, sterilizing a needle and thread, then handing the flask to Deryn. As she drank, he drew the needle through the skin of her arm, pulling the wound closed stitch by stitch.\n\nAlek watched, keeping his hand in Deryn's. She squeezed hard, her nails cutting half moons into his flesh.\n\n\"It'll be all right,\" he said. \"Don't worry.\"\n\nAfter all, why should a great rebel leader care if a girl had hidden herself in the British Air Service?\n\nBefore Azuela had finished, a gust of air from outside sent the canvas around them swaying. It was one of the great bulls snorting, like an exhalation of steam from a freight train.\n\nThe tarps parted, and General Villa stepped inside. \"\u00bfEst\u00e1 muriendo?\"\n\n\"No, he will mend.\" The doctor's eyes didn't leave his work. \"But he has an interesting secret to tell you. You may wish to sit down.\"\n\nVilla sighed, settling cross-legged next to Alek. On horseback he had seemed quite graceful, but now he looked a bit thick about the middle. He moved deliberately, perhaps with a touch of rheumatism.\n\n\"Tell him,\" Dr. Azuela said.\n\nDeryn looked exhausted, but her voice was firm. \"I'm Deryn Sharp, decorated officer in His Majesty's Air Service. But I'm not a man.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Villa's eyebrows rose a little as he looked her up and down. \"Forgive me, Se\u00f1orita Sharp. I didn't know the British use women for their glider troops. Because you are small, yes?\"\n\n\"That's not it, sir,\" Deryn said. \"This is a secret.\"\n\n\"Deryn's father was an airman,\" Alek explained. \"Her brother is too. She dresses as a boy because it's the only way she can fly.\"\n\nGeneral Villa stared at Deryn for a moment, then a snort of laughter rippled through his body. \"\u00a1Qu\u00e9 enga\u00f1o!\"\n\n\"Please don't tell anyone,\" Alek said. \"At least not for a few hours, until we've gone. It's nothing to you, whether you turn her in. But to her it's everything.\"\n\nThe man shook his head in wonder, then raised an eyebrow at Alek. \"And what is your part in this joke, little prince?\"\n\n\"He's my friend,\" Deryn said. Her face was still pale, but her voice sounded stronger now. She offered Villa the flask.\n\nHe waved it away. \"Only a friend?\"\n\nDeryn didn't answer, staring down at the fresh stitches in her arm. Alek opened his mouth, but Bovril spoke first: \"Ally.\"\n\nGeneral Villa gave the loris a curious look. \"What is this beast?\"\n\n\"A perspicacious loris.\" Deryn reached up and stroked its head. \"It repeats things, a bit like a message lizard.\"\n\n\"It does not only repeat,\" Dr. Azuela said. \"It told me I was wrong.\"\n\nAlek frowned\u2014he'd noticed that as well. As the weeks had passed, the lorises' memories had grown longer. They sometimes parroted things from days before, or that they'd heard only from each other. It wasn't always clear now where a word or phrase had come from.\n\n\"That's because it's perspicacious,\" Deryn said. \"In other words, it's clever.\"\n\n\"Dead clever,\" Bovril said, and Villa stared at it again, his brown eyes marveling.\n\n\"Tienen oro,\" Dr. Azuela said into the silence.\n\nAlek's Italian was sufficient for him to understand the word for \"gold.\" He pulled out the small bag again. \"It's not much, but we can pay for your silence.\"\n\nGeneral Villa took the bag and opened it, then laughed. \"The richest man in California sends me guns! And you tempt me with this gold toothpick?\"\n\n\"Then, what do you want?\"\n\nThe man's eyes narrowed on Alek. \"Se\u00f1or Hearst says you are a nephew of the old emperor, Maximilian.\"\n\n\"A grandnephew, but yes.\"\n\n\"Emperors are vain and useless things. We did not need one, so we shot him.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know the story.\" Alek swallowed. \"Perhaps it was a bit presumptuous, putting an Austrian on the throne of Mexico.\"\n\n\"It was an insult to the people. But your uncle was brave at the end. In front of the firing squad, he wished that his blood should be the last to flow for freedom.\" General Villa looked at the red-stained rag in Dr. Azuela's hand. \"Sadly, it was not.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Alek said. \"That was fifty years ago, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"S\u00ed. Too much blood since then.\" Villa tossed the bag back to Alek and turned to Deryn. \"Keep your secret, little sister. But be more careful the next time you jump off your ship.\"\n\n\"Aye, I'll try.\"\n\n\"And be careful of young princes. The first man I ever shot was as rich as a prince, and it was for my sister's honor.\" General Villa laughed again. \"But you are a soldier, Se\u00f1orita Sharp\u2014you can shoot men for yourself, can't you?\"\n\nDeryn gave a one-shouldered shrug. \"It's crossed my mind, once or twice. But pardon me, sir. If you don't like emperors, where did you get those German walkers?\"\n\n\"The kaiser sells us arms.\" General Villa patted the Mauser pistol on his belt. \"Sometimes he gives us arms, so we are his friends when the Yankees join the war, I think. But we will never bow to him.\"\n\n\"Aye, emperors are a bit pointless, aren't they?\" Deryn sat up straighter and held out her right hand. \"Thank you for not telling.\"\n\n\"Your secret is safe, hermanita.\" General Villa shook her hand, then rose to his feet, but suddenly his eyes narrowed and his hand went to his gun. A shadow loomed against the tarp.\n\nVilla reached up and flung the canvas aside, pointing his pistol into the beaming unshaven face of Eddie Malone.\n\n\"Dylan Sharp, Deryn Sharp . . . of course! Well, I can't say I had a clue, but it sure explains a lot.\" The man rubbed his hands together and then thrust one at Pancho Villa. \"Eddie Malone, reporter for the New York World.\"\n\nThe cut on Deryn's arm wasn't much in the end, just eleven neat stitches that hardly itched at all. But she was going to feel her injured knee for a long time.\n\nMost often the ache was simple and honest, as if she'd bashed it on the corner of an iron bed frame. Other times the whole leg throbbed, like her growing pains back when she'd been only twelve and already taller than half the boys in Glasgow. But the worst agony came at night, when her kneecap buzzed and thrummed like a bottle full of bees.\n\nThe buzzing was probably thanks to Dr. Busk's compress. It wasn't mustard seed and oats like her aunties favored, but a wee fabricated beastie of some kind. It had attached itself to her skin like a barnacle, its tendrils creeping inside to heal the ligaments torn in the crash. The surgeon hadn't said what life threads the compress was fabricated from, but it lived on sugar water and a bit of sunlight every day\u2014half plant and half animal, most likely.\n\nWhatever the beastie was, it got annoyed when Deryn moved. Even a squick of weight on the leg was punished with an hour of angry bees. Walking was a nightmare and dressing was tricky, and of course she could hardly ask for help with that.\n\nIf it hadn't been for Alek, the whole crew would've learned her secret that first day. It was Alek who'd persuaded General Villa to stay silent, and had convinced the officers that Deryn could stay in her own cabin, not the sick bay, even though it meant Alek had to fetch meals from the galley himself. It was Alek who half carried her to the heads in the dark gastric channel several times a day, standing guard at a gentlemanly distance while she went. And it was Alek who kept her company so she didn't go stark raving mad.\n\nHe'd done so much, just to make sure that her last few days aboard the Leviathan were spent as a proper airman and not as some mad girl shunned by the officers and crew.\n\nThat bum-rag Eddie Malone hadn't told anyone, not yet. After Mr. Hearst's treachery, the reporters weren't allowed near Tesla's radio or the messenger birds, and Malone was too worried that Adela Rogers would steal his story. But New York was only two days away. Two more days in uniform, and then her secret would be revealed to the world. There was no escaping the fact that this was Deryn Sharp's last journey aboard the Leviathan.\n\nIt was like awaiting execution, every second slow and sharp-edged, but sometimes at night she was grateful to the bees for keeping her awake. At least she could spend a few more hours feeling the vibrations of the ship and listening to the whispers of airflow around the gondola.\n\nMost of the time, though, Deryn wondered what she would do next. She'd have to make up some new lies, of course, to keep her brother Jaspert out of trouble for sneaking her into the Service. But her notoriety would eventually fade, and she'd have to find proper work.\n\nDeryn still knew her aeronautics, even if the Service took away her uniform. And whether or not her knee healed completely, she'd grown strong enough to work alongside most men. Alek said she should stay in America, where, according to him, women who could handle hydrogen balloons were all the rage.\n\nHe'd explained about Pauline and her perils. The girl was nothing but a moving-picture character, a flicker of shadows on a screen, but she'd crawled inside Alek's daft attic somehow.\n\n\"She stands to inherit a lot of money,\" he was explaining the second day out of General Villa's airfield. \"Millions of American dollars, I suppose. But here's the twist: She doesn't get a penny till she marries.\"\n\nDeryn leaned back into her pillows and stared up. The Gulf of Mexico lay sparkling beneath the Leviathan, casting shimmers on the ceiling. Alek sat at the foot of Deryn's bed while Bovril perched on the head, waving its wee arms as if practicing semaphore signals.\n\n\"Poor girl,\" Deryn said. \"Except for the millions of dollars part.\"\n\nAlek laughed. \"It's a melodrama, not a tragedy.\"\n\n\"Melodrama,\" Bovril said in the slow, clear way the lorises did when they learned new words.\n\n\"But instead of getting married,\" Alek went on, \"she goes off to have adventures. And no one stops her, even though she's a girl!\"\n\nDeryn frowned. It didn't sound likely, though if you had a few millions in the bank, perhaps people treated you a bit more like a man. \"Besides that palaver with the hydrogen balloon, what sort of adventures?\"\n\n\"Well, I saw only the first episode. It didn't have a proper ending, just what they call a cliff-hanger.\" Alek thought a moment. \"Though I think Mr. Hearst mentioned something about runaway walkers and being tied to train tracks.\"\n\n\"Tied to train tracks? Sounds like a brilliant career for me.\"\n\n\"Listen, Deryn. It doesn't matter if The Perils of Pauline is rubbish. The point is that it's terribly popular. So even if American women aren't piloting balloons yet, at least they want to. You could show them how it's done.\"\n\n\"Sometimes wanting isn't enough, Alek. You know that.\"\n\n\"I suppose I do.\" He leaned back against the cabin wall. \"For example, you don't want to be cheered up, do you?\"\n\nDeryn shrugged. At the moment she knew exactly what she wanted: for Eddie Malone not to have eavesdropped on their conversation with General Villa. Or for her not to have crashed the gliding wings. Or better yet, for barking Hearst not to have gummed up the Leviathan's engines in the first place!\n\nIf any of it had gone differently, no one would ever have found out she was a girl. Except Alek and that bumrag Volger, of course.\n\n\"Will you be staying in America?\" she asked. \"When the Leviathan heads on?\"\n\nAlek frowned at her. \"Would the captain let me?\"\n\n\"You're doing what the Admiralty wants, helping Mr. Tesla talk up his weapon. Why should they drag you back to England?\"\n\n\"I suppose you're right.\" He stood and went to the window, his green eyes bright as he stared at the sky.\n\nIt was obvious that he hadn't thought much about life after the Leviathan. Deep inside, Alek probably still hoped he could stay aboard. But even if he didn't disembark in New York, he and his men would be passengers only as far as London.\n\n\"You might be in love with the Leviathan, Alek. But the ship doesn't love you back.\"\n\nA sad smile played on his lips. \"It was a doomed relationship from the start. For you and me both, I suppose.\"\n\nDeryn stared at the ceiling. A Clanker prince and a girl dressed as a boy\u2014neither could last forever on this ship. Only dumb luck had kept them together this long.\n\n\"Did I ever tell you how I knew your real name?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"You had plenty of clues,\" she said, then frowned. \"But you tricked me by saying 'Deryn,' didn't you? Where did you hear that?\"\n\n\"It was all Eddie Malone's fault,\" Alek said.\n\n\"That bum-rag!\" Bovril exclaimed.\n\n\"He'd run out of my secrets,\" Alek went on, \"so he wrote an article about you saving the Dauntless. I always meant to show you the photograph. You looked quite dashing in it.\"\n\n\"Wait, are you saying Malone knew my name back then?\"\n\n\"Of course not. But he'd done some research on your family, your father's accident. He wrote about how you\u2014that is, a daughter named Deryn\u2014had survived.\"\n\n\"Oh, aye.\" She sighed. \"That's why I never told that story to anyone but you. And that was enough for you to guess that Deryn was me?\"\n\nAlek glanced sidelong at the perspicacious loris. \"Well, I had a bit of help.\"\n\n\"Barking traitor,\" Deryn said, and gave the head of the bed a thump.\n\nBovril teetered for a moment, its tiny hands out like a tightrope walker. Then it fell into her lap.\n\n\"Ooph,\" they both said together.\n\nAlek took the beast from her. \"You never told me, how did Volger figure you out?\"\n\n\"Fencing lessons. All that touching and moving me about.\" Deryn scowled. \"And I shouted at him too much.\"\n\n\"You shouted at him?\"\n\n\"When you escaped in Istanbul and Volger was left behind, he was being a bit smug. As if he were glad to be rid of you!\"\n\n\"I can imagine,\" Alek said. \"But what's that got to do with you being a girl?\"\n\n\"I was . . .\" She stared at the wall. This was just embarrassing. \"Maybe I got a bit screechy about you.\"\n\n\"Screechy,\" Bovril said with a chuckle.\n\nDeryn forced herself to look at Alek. He was smiling.\n\n\"You didn't want me getting hurt?\"\n\n\"Of course not, you daft prince.\" She found herself smiling back at him. For all her sadness about leaving the Leviathan, it was a relief being able to talk to him like this. What would it be like, once her secret was revealed to the whole world?\n\n\"We could both stay in New York, I suppose,\" she offered softly.\n\n\"That sounds perfect.\"\n\nThe simple words made Deryn's pulse quicken just a bit, enough to make the bees behind her kneecap stir.\n\n\"Really? You want to be immigrants together?\"\n\nAlek laughed, placing Bovril on the windowsill. \"Not quite immigrants. Americans aren't allowed to become emperors, I seem to recall.\"\n\n\"But with Mr. Tesla's weapon, you don't need to be emperor to stop the war!\"\n\nHe frowned. \"Someone has to lead my people after all this.\"\n\n\"Aye, of course,\" Deryn said, feeling foolish.\n\nAlek might pretend to be an airman now and then, but the pope's letter was always in his pocket, and he'd wanted his whole life to be his father's heir. Anything more than friendship with her would destroy his chances of taking the throne.\n\nBut every time one of them had fallen\u2014in the snows of the Alps, in Istanbul, on the stormy topside, in that dusty canyon\u2014the other had been there to pick them up. She couldn't imagine Alek leaving her for some daft crown and scepter.\n\n\"You're right, Deryn. We're both stuck in New York for the rest of the war.\" He turned from the window, his smile growing. \"You should join me and Volger!\"\n\n\"Aye, his countship would love that.\"\n\n\"Volger doesn't decide who my allies are.\" Alek stroked the loris's head. \"If it were up to him, we would have strangled Bovril the night it was born.\"\n\n\"That bum-rag!\" the beastie said.\n\nDeryn frowned. Had Alek just likened her to Bovril?\n\n\"We don't even know where we'll live,\" he continued. \"I've got hardly any gold left, and Mr. Tesla spent every penny he had building Goliath. But it'll be easy to raise more, now that he's proven what it can do.\"\n\n\"No doubt. But do you want to depend on that mad boffin's charity?\"\n\n\"Charity? Nonsense. It'll be like Istanbul, all of us working together to put things right!\"\n\nDeryn nodded, though it was clear Alek barely knew what charity was. His whole life had been spent in a bubble of wealth. He no more understood money than a fish understood water.\n\nBut a much worse notion had entered her mind.\n\n\"They might not kick me off the ship, Alek. They might take me back to London for trial.\"\n\n\"Have you broken any laws?\"\n\nShe rolled her eyes at him. \"About a dozen, you daft prince. The Admiralty might not want to make a fuss of it, but there's a chance they'll toss me into the brig. And if they do, we'll never see each other again.\"\n\nAlek was silent for a moment, his eyes locked with hers. It was like one of his daft spells coming on, except his expression stayed dead serious.\n\nShe had to look away. \"You should take Bovril with you. You were there when it hatched, and they won't let me keep a beastie in prison.\"\n\n\"You can escape,\" Alek said. \"If I could manage to get off this ship, you certainly can!\"\n\n\"Alek.\" She pointed at her knee. \"It'll be days before I can walk properly, and weeks before I can climb.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" He sat down on the bed again carefully, staring at her injured leg. \"I'm an idiot for forgetting.\"\n\n\"No.\" She smiled. \"Well, aye. But not in a bad way. You're just . . .\"\n\n\"A useless prince.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. Alek was a lot of things, but never useless.\n\n\"I've got it,\" he said. \"I'll tell the captain that Mr. Tesla needs your help. He'll have to let you join me!\"\n\n\"He'll ask for orders from London. It's not as though the Manual of Aeronautics has any chapters on girls dressed in trousers.\"\n\n\"But what if I . . . ,\" he began, then sighed.\n\nShe let out a dry laugh. \"Barking prince Alek, always thinking you can fix everything.\"\n\n\"What's wrong with trying to fix things?\"\n\n\"You always . . .\" She shook her head. There was no point in dredging all this up. It would only make the boy angry\u2014or worse, sad. \"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Alek said with a raised eyebrow. \"Are you keeping secrets from me?\"\n\n\"No secrets,\" Bovril said with a giggle.\n\n\"Barking stupid promises,\" Deryn groaned. Lying here in her cabin the last two days, countless mad notions had gone through her head. Was she meant to tell Alek all of them?\n\n\"Mr. Sharp?\" Bovril prompted her.\n\nDeryn gave the beastie a silencing glare, then turned to Alek.\n\n\"It's like this, Your Highness. The world fell apart after your parents died, and it's still falling apart. It must be awful for you, thinking about that every day. But I think you've got the two things muddled.\"\n\n\"What two things?\"\n\n\"Your world, and everyone else's.\" Deryn reached out and took his hand. \"You lost everything that night\u2014your home, your family. You're not even a proper Clanker anymore. But stopping the war won't fix all that, Alek. Even if you and that boffin save the whole barking planet, you'll still need . . . something more.\"\n\n\"I have you,\" he said.\n\nShe swallowed, hoping he really meant that. \"Even if they stuff me back into skirts?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" He looked her up and down. \"Though somehow I can't imagine that.\"\n\n\"Don't try, then.\"\n\nThey both glanced at Bovril, expecting it to weigh in. But the beastie only stared back at them, its large eyes glistening.\n\nAfter a moment Alek said, \"I have to stop this war, Deryn. It's all that's kept me going. Do you understand?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Of course.\"\n\n\"But I'll do anything in my power to keep them from taking you away.\"\n\nShe took a shuddering breath, then let her eyes fall closed. \"Promise?\"\n\n\"Anything. As you said in Tokyo, we're meant to be together.\"\n\nDeryn wanted to agree, but she'd promised him she wouldn't lie, and she wasn't certain whether that was true. If they were meant to really be together, why had they been born a prince and a commoner? And if they weren't, why did she feel this way inside?\n\nBut finally she nodded. Perhaps the daft prince's luck would hold and she wouldn't be hauled off to jail in London. And maybe it would be enough to stay by his side, an ally and a friend.\n\nThe East Coast of the United States had been in view all day, white beaches and salt-sheared trees, marshes and low green hills, a few small islands off the Carolinas. No delays for the last thousand miles, and the Leviathan was drawing near its goal. Deryn could hear the crew beginning to hustle about in the corridors. The sound made her heart sink.\n\nLate tonight Eddie Malone would be at the offices of the New York World, handing in his story about Deryn Sharp, the brave airgirl who had fooled the British Air Service. By tomorrow her secret would be in the World, and by the next day it would be in every newspaper in America.\n\nDeryn was exercising her knee, ignoring the buzzing bees, and readying herself to walk with the cane that lovely old Klopp had made for her. It was lathed from fabricated wood, but topped with a heavy Clankerish brass handle. She had no idea whether the captain would kick her off like a stowaway or throw her into the brig, but whatever happened, she didn't want to be helpless.\n\nA knock came at the door.\n\nIt opened before Deryn could answer, and in strolled the lady boffin, her loris on her shoulder and Tazza in tow. The thylacine bounded over and buried its nuzzle in Deryn's palm.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Afternoon, ma'am.\" Deryn lifted her cane into the air. \"You'll have to forgive me for not standing.\"\n\n\"Not to worry. It looks as though Tazza misses you.\"\n\n\"Don't you miss me too, ma'am?\"\n\nDr. Barlow sniffed. \"What I miss is Tazza being walked at regular intervals. Mr. Newkirk has proven quite unreliable.\"\n\n\"Sorry to hear that, ma'am. But he's got my duties as well as his own,\" Deryn said, then frowned. There wasn't much point in bowing and scraping, now that her career was over. \"Have you never thought of walking Tazza yourself?\"\n\nDr. Barlow's eyes widened a bit. \"What an odd suggestion.\"\n\n\"Mighty unsavory,\" her loris said.\n\n\"Poor beastie.\" Deryn stroked the thylacine's head. \"Well, send Mr. Newkirk round, and I'll tell him he's a bum-rag.\"\n\n\"Bum-rag,\" Bovril chuckled.\n\n\"Such language, Mr. Sharp!\" Dr. Barlow exclaimed. \"Are you sure you're feeling quite all right?\"\n\nDeryn stared down at her leg. Her uniform fit over the compress, but a lump was still visible. \"The cut on my arm's fine, but Dr. Busk isn't sure about my knee.\"\n\n\"So he's told me.\" The lady boffin sat at Deryn's desk, snapping for Tazza to return to her. \"If you've torn the ligaments behind the kneecap, your days of climbing the ratlines may well be over.\"\n\nDeryn looked away, a sudden burning behind her eyes. Not that she would be let near any ratlines, once the officers knew she was a girl. But it still hurt to think that her ma and aunties could be right, after all. What if she couldn't be an airman anymore?\n\n\"Dr. Busk isn't sure about that yet, ma'am.\"\n\n\"No, he is not. But with misfortune may come opportunity.\"\n\n\"Pardon, ma'am?\"\n\nDr. Barlow stood up again and began to inspect the cabin, sliding a white-gloved fingertip along the woodwork. \"Over these past two months you have proven yourself useful, Mr. Sharp. You're quite handy in unpleasant situations, and most adept at improvisation. You even possess, when not brooding in your sickbed, a certain knack for diplomacy.\"\n\n\"Aye, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Let me ask, have you ever thought of serving the British Empire in a more illustrious capacity than scampering about on an airbeast tying knots?\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. \"It's a bit more than just tying knots, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Having seen your talents firsthand, I cannot disagree.\" The lady boffin turned to Deryn and smiled. \"But if you accept my offer, you shall learn that untying knots\u2014figurative ones, of course\u2014can be even more rewarding.\"\n\n\"Your offer, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Am I so unclear?\" the lady boffin asked. \"I am offering you a position, Mr. Sharp. One outside the confines of the Air Service. Though I assure you, a certain amount of airship travel will be involved.\"\n\n\"A position, Mr. Sharp,\" her loris said, and Bovril made a low whistling noise.\n\nDeryn leaned back into her pillows. Quite suddenly the buzz behind her kneecap had redoubled. \"But what sort of position? You're the . . . head keeper of the London Zoo, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Zookeeper, fah!\" Dr. Barlow's beastie said.\n\n\"That is my title, Mr. Sharp. But were you under the impression that our mission to Istanbul was zoological in nature?\"\n\n\"Er, I suppose not, ma'am.\" It occurred to Deryn that she had no idea what Dr. Barlow's real position was, except that it involved ordering people about and acting superior. She was the great fabricator's granddaughter, of course, and had been able to requisition the Leviathan right in the middle of a barking war.\n\n\"Do you work for anyone in particular, ma'am? Like the Admiralty?\"\n\n\"Those half-wits? I should think not. The Zoological Society of London is not a government agency, Mr. Sharp. It is, properly speaking, a scientific charity.\" Dr. Barlow sat down again, and began to stroke Tazza's head. \"But zoology is the backbone of our empire, and so the Society has many members of high station. Collectively, we are a force to be reckoned with.\"\n\n\"Aye, I've noticed that.\" The lady boffin had practically run the ship, until Mr. Tesla had come aboard talking of superweapons. \"But what sort of position would your Society have for me? I'm no boffin.\"\n\n\"Indeed not, but you seem a quick study. And there are times when my scientific work takes me into situations that are, as Mr. Rigby likes to say, quite lively.\" Dr. Barlow smiled. \"At those times a resourceful personal assistant such as yourself might be useful.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Deryn narrowed her eyes. \"How personal an assistant, ma'am?\"\n\n\"You would hardly be my valet, Mr. Sharp.\" She swept her gaze about the cabin. \"Though I see you are in need of one yourself.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. It was barking hard keeping things tidy when you weren't allowed to stand up. But this position looked like a chance to escape prison\u2014or worse, being sent back to Glasgow and stuffed into skirts.\n\n\"That sounds agreeable, ma'am. But . . .\"\n\nDr. Barlow raised an eyebrow. \"You have misgivings?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. But you may, after . . . You see, there's something you don't know about me.\"\n\n\"Do tell, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Do tell,\" her loris said. \"Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn closed her eyes, deciding to blazes with it all.\n\n\"I'm a girl.\"\n\nWhen Deryn opened her eyes, the lady boffin was staring at her with no change of expression.\n\n\"Indeed,\" she said.\n\nDeryn's mouth fell open. \"You mean you . . . Did you barking know?\"\n\n\"I had no idea at all. But I make it a policy never to appear surprised.\" Dr. Barlow sighed, staring out the window. \"Though on this occasion it is proving rather more demanding than usual. A girl, you say? And you're quite certain?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Deryn shrugged. \"Head to toe.\"\n\n\"Well, I must say this is extraordinary. And somewhat unexpected.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" the loris on her shoulder said again, sounding quite smug.\n\nDeryn found herself smirking a bit at the lady boffin's discomfort. It was rather pleasing, revealing a secret to such a know-it-all. It might not be so awful, seeing the surprise on all the faces of the crew. And what could the officers do to her, now that she had the lady boffin's protection?\n\n\"And why exactly have you perpetrated this hoax?\"\n\n\"To fly, ma'am. And for the knots.\"\n\nThe lady boffin hmphed. \"Well, this is a new wrinkle, Mr. Sharp\u2014or Miss Sharp, I suppose\u2014but perhaps a useful one. The Society's efforts sometimes employ the art of disguise. Really, it's quite amazing that no one ever saw through your deception.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm afraid that's not the case.\" Deryn cleared her throat. \"Count Volger did first, and then a lassie in Istanbul named Lilit. And more recently Alek. Oh, and Pancho Villa and his doctor, and finally that bum-rag reporter Eddie Malone.\"\n\nThe lady boffin's eyes were quite wide now. \"Are you quite certain there aren't any more, young lady? Or am I the last person on this entire ship to know?\"\n\n\"Well, that's just the problem, ma'am. Pretty soon the World\u2014that is, Mr. Malone's newspaper\u2014is going to know as well. He plans to tell them when we get to New York tonight.\"\n\n\"Well, that puts things into rather a tailspin.\" Dr. Barlow shook her head slowly. \"I'm afraid I shall have to withdraw my offer.\"\n\nDeryn sat up straighter. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, Miss Sharp, that you have attained some notoriety in certain circles. You helped foment a revolution in the Ottoman Empire. An ambitious effort, even by the standards of the London Zoological Society!\" The lady boffin sighed. \"But when the news of what you really are is made public, your celebrity will only heighten the scandal.\"\n\n\"Well, aye,\" Deryn said. \"For a week or so.\"\n\n\"For some time, I'm afraid. Young lady, you have made a laughingstock of this ship and its officers. And you have picked a moment when all the eyes of the world are upon us. Think of what people will say of Captain Hobbes, not knowing that one of his own crewmen was a girl!\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Deryn blinked. \"There is that.\"\n\n\"And the shame won't end there, Miss Sharp. The Air Service is quite a new branch of the military forces, and the Admiralty . . . Well, they just gave you a medal!\"\n\n\"But you said they were half-wits!\"\n\n\"Very powerful half-wits, Miss Sharp, whom the Society cannot afford to antagonize.\" She shook her head. \"But I'm sure that someone will be made happy by this revelation.\"\n\n\"You mean the suffragettes, ma'am?\"\n\n\"No, I mean the Germans. What a boon to their propaganda efforts!\" She stood. \"I'm sorry, Miss Sharp, but I'm afraid this won't do at all.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed, trying to come up with some sort of argument, but the crushing truth was that Dr. Barlow was right. Lying in bed these last two days, Deryn had thought only about what Malone's revelation would mean for herself, not for her captain and shipmates, much less the Air Service and the British Empire.\n\nAnd worse, Alek hadn't thought about it either. Would he still want her in his life, once she was famous for humiliating her Service and her ship?\n\n\"Don't get me wrong, Miss Sharp, what you have done is quite brave. You are a credit to our gender, and you have my fullest admiration.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" The lady boffin snapped for Tazza and opened the door. \"And if you hadn't been caught, it would have been a pleasure working with you. Perhaps after this war is over, we can speak of this position again.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said the loris on her shoulder. \"Miss Sharp.\"\n\n\"There is still time to distance yourself from Tesla's madness.\"\n\nAlek stared into the darkness outside his stateroom window. \"Don't you think it's a bit late for that, Volger?\"\n\n\"It is never too late to admit one's errors, even in front of a crowd.\"\n\nAlek pulled on his dinner jacket and straightened it.\n\nSprinkled across the black waters below were at least a hundred small boats set out to greet the Leviathan, their navigation lights like shifting stars. Among them loomed a glittering cruise liner, her fog horn bellowing in the night. The low groan grew into a chorus as the other great ships in the harbor joined in.\n\nPerched on Volger's desk, Bovril attempted to imitate the horns, but wound up sounding like a badly blown tuba.\n\nAlek smiled. \"But they're already singing our praises!\"\n\n\"They are Americans,\" Volger said. \"They toot their horns for anything.\"\n\nBovril went silent, pressing its nose against the window glass.\n\n\"Is that what I think it is?\" Alek said, squinting into the darkness.\n\nIn the distance a towering human form was coming into view. She was as tall as the Leviathan, and her upheld torch glowed with both soft bioluminescence and a shimmering electrikal coil.\n\n\"The Statue of Liberty.\" Volger turned from the sight. \"A few newsreels of you shaking hands with Tesla is one thing. But to stand beside him while he goes into raptures about this weapon seems unwise.\"\n\n\"You still don't think Goliath will work?\"\n\n\"I spoke with Dr. Barlow this evening, and she says no.\" Volger's voice dropped. \"But what if it does work, Alek? What if he uses it on a city?\"\n\n\"I told you. He's promised not to attack Austria.\"\n\n\"So you'll happily preside over the destruction of Berlin? Or Munich?\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"I'm not presiding over anything. I'm helping to publicize Tesla's weapon so that he won't have to use it. The Germans will sue for peace when they realize what he can do. They aren't mad, you know.\"\n\n\"The kaiser's rule is absolute. He can be as mad as he likes. Your tie is crooked.\"\n\nAlek sighed, adjusting his necktie in the reflection of the window glass. \"You have a bad habit of listing everything that can possibly go wrong, Volger.\"\n\n\"I have always considered that a good habit.\"\n\nAlek ignored this, staring at himself. It was refreshing to have proper clothes again. Mr. Hearst might have sabotaged the Leviathan, but at least he'd thrown a few decent dinner jackets into the bargain.\n\nThe floor shifted a bit beneath Alek's feet\u2014the airship was turning north again. He leaned closer to the window and saw Manhattan ahead. A cluster of buildings erupted from the island's southern tip, some of them almost two hundred meters tall, as high as the steel towers of Berlin.\n\nAlek imagined the dark sky above them bursting into flame, the buildings' glowing windows shattering, their metal frames twisting.\n\n\"Tesla will use his machine if he needs to, whether I stand with him or not.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Volger said. \"So why not step aside? Is mass murder what you want to be remembered for, Your Serene Highness?\"\n\n\"Of course not. But a chance of peace is more important to me than my reputation.\"\n\nVolger let out a low hissing sigh. \"Perhaps that's a good thing.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Dr. Barlow also mentioned Dylan to me\u2014or rather, Deryn. It seems the doctor knows the girl's secret now.\"\n\n\"Deryn must have told her. The truth is coming out tomorrow at any rate, so it hardly matters now.\"\n\n\"Dr. Barlow seems to think it does. She says that the captain and this ship will be humiliated, the Admiralty outraged. And more important, your friend will become a point of German propaganda. The proud British Empire sending fifteen-year-old girls to fight their battles? Quite embarrassing.\"\n\n\"Deryn is hardly an embarrassment.\"\n\n\"They will make her into one. You would do well to keep your name out of the scandal. Tesla will thank you for it.\"\n\nAlek set his jaw and didn't answer, watching the city draw nearer. From a thousand feet up he could see a grid of streets traced out in the glowing dots of electrikal gas lamps. The piers were thronging with people gathered to watch the great airship's approach.\n\nWould everyone really turn on Deryn, once they knew? Perhaps the officers of the Leviathan, and of course the Admiralty. But surely lots of women would understand why she'd done it.\n\nOf course, women couldn't vote.\n\nThe Klaxon rang in a long-short pattern, the signal for high-altitude docking. Volger pulled on his cavalry jacket, then held out an overcoat for Alek, gleaming dark sable from among Mr. Hearst's many gifts.\n\nAlek didn't move, staring into Bovril's large eyes.\n\n\"Are you worried about Deryn?\" Volger asked.\n\n\"Of course. And also . . .\" He couldn't finish.\n\n\"This won't be pleasant for her. But if you insist on helping Tesla, it's best to keep your reputation intact for a bit longer.\"\n\nAlek nodded, not saying the rest of what he'd realized. He and Volger were headed off into a whirlwind of diplomacy and publicity, while the Leviathan would be refueled at a proper airfield in New Jersey, leaving the country in only twenty-four hours. When would he see Deryn again?\n\nThey'd never said a proper good-bye. . . .\n\nHe closed his eyes, feeling the rumble of the engines, the faint tug of deceleration as the ship approached Manhattan.\n\n\"Let's go,\" he murmured; then he picked up Bovril and headed for the door.\n\n\"Might I have a few words, Your Highness?\"\n\nAlek turned. Miss Adela Rogers was dressed in a dark red winter coat; the fox around her shoulders was a fabricated pink. Its fur ruffled in the wind of the open cargo bay.\n\n\"A few more, you mean?\" Alek asked. He had spent two hours with the woman the day before, recounting the Leviathan's rescue of Tesla in Siberia. He'd borrowed from Deryn's version, of course, given that Alek had slept through the whole thing.\n\n\"Our interview was delightful.\" Miss Rogers stepped closer, her voice lowering. \"But I forgot to ask you one thing. How do you feel about the danger you're in?\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"Danger?\"\n\nMiss Rogers's gaze drifted over Alek's shoulder. Among the others waiting in the cargo bay were four of the ship's marines. They were armed with rifles and cutlasses, and one had a hydrogen sniffer on a leash.\n\n\"As you can see, the captain is concerned,\" she said. \"There are German agents in New York, after all.\"\n\n\"There were more in Istanbul,\" Alek said. \"Not to mention Austria. I've managed so far.\"\n\nShe scribbled in her notepad. \"Mmm, quite brave.\"\n\n\"Quite,\" Bovril said. \"He can be as mad as he likes.\"\n\n\"Are those critters' sentences getting longer?\" Miss Rogers asked.\n\nAlek shrugged, though it was true.\n\nThe gears of the cargo door growled into motion, and as it opened, the wind began to swirl, bringing in the salt smell of the harbor. Alek pulled his coat tighter, and Bovril shivered on his shoulder.\n\nThrough the widening door Alek saw the air jitney approaching. Four small hot-air balloons glowed beneath the passenger platform, and three vertical propellers thrust out from its sides. The jitney was big enough for no more than a dozen passengers. Alek and Miss Rogers were headed ashore tonight with Mr. Tesla, Count Volger, Eddie Malone, Dr. Busk, Captain Hobbes, and four marines. Dr. Barlow had announced that she did not wish to be photographed with Tesla, and was waiting until the Leviathan landed in New Jersey before she disembarked.\n\nThe jitney slowed to a halt ten meters away, and its gangplank began to unfold. The lifting propellers swayed a bit, their angles in lazy orbits, like juggler's plates spinning on sticks.\n\n\"I shall be glad to have my feet on solid ground,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\n\"I've been happy in the air,\" Alek replied, then saw her scribbling down his words, and resolved to remain silent.\n\nThe gangplank connected with the cargo bay with a clunk, and the riggers set to work binding it fast. Then, without ceremony or good-byes, the shore party hustled across to the jitney.\n\nA moment later Alek was watching the Leviathan slip away.\n\nThe others crowded onto the far side of the platform, gawking at the Woolworth Building, the world's tallest, and the rest of Manhattan. But Alek stared back at the airship.\n\n\"Happy in the air,\" Bovril said.\n\nAlek stroked its chin. \"Sometimes you should be called the obvious loris.\"\n\nAs the beast had a chuckle at this, Alek felt the jitney lifting a bit beneath his feet, unbalanced by the scrum of passengers on the far side. The crew politely asked everyone to disperse their weight across the platform, and a moment later Alek found Eddie Malone at his side.\n\n\"Evening, Your Majesty. Nice and warm, thanks to these hot-air balloons, isn't it?\"\n\nAlek looked down. The burner of the balloon beneath him sent a ripple of heat up into the dark sky. Bovril was holding its hands out, like a soldier beside a campfire.\n\n\"Warm enough, Mr. Malone. But 'Your Majesty' is incorrect. 'Your Serene Highness' is proper. And if you're going to write about me, please remember that my last name isn't Ferdinand.\"\n\n\"It isn't?\" The notebook was produced, its pages fluttering in the cold wind. \"What is your last name, then?\"\n\n\"Nobles don't have last names. Our titles define us.\"\n\n\"Well, that's one way to put it.\" A moment of scribbling later, the man spoke up again. \"Perhaps you want to comment on Deryn Sharp?\"\n\nAlek hesitated. This was his chance to explain who Deryn really was. He could tell Malone, and the world, about her bravery and skill, about why she'd taken to the air. But he saw Volger eyeing him from across the platform.\n\n\"ARRIVING IN MANHATTAN.\"\n\nDeryn's scandal could only distract from Tesla's mission here in New York. And if he spoke on the matter, the headlines about her would only loom larger.\n\n\"I have no comment,\" Alek said.\n\n\"That seems a bit odd, considering how closely you two worked together in Istanbul.\"\n\nAlek turned away from the reporter. He hated this, not helping tell her story, but no one's reputation was more important than peace. Or was that just a convenient excuse? A way to escape being caught up in an embarrassing revelation? At first he'd been so ashamed for not knowing who and what she really was. But there was no shame at all in being a friend of Deryn Sharp. Maybe he should forget Volger's warnings, and explain to Malone how he really felt about Deryn.\n\nAlek swallowed. And how did he feel about her, exactly?\n\nUp in the sky the Leviathan was moving away, now only a silhouette against the starry blackness. When would he see his best friend again?\n\nAlek heard the growl of an engine, and dropped his gaze to the harbor. The jitney was descending quickly, heading toward the aero-piers at Manhattan's southern tip. Some sort of motorboat was skimming across the dark water, darting among the other bobbing lights.\n\n\"And from what I heard back in Pancho Villa's canyon,\" Malone went on, \"you sounded like you already knew what she was. How long ago did you guess?\"\n\nAlek frowned. The motorboat below had turned hard, and was skimming directly toward the jitney now. A sudden flash sparked on its deck, and a cloud of smoke billowed out, hiding the boat for a moment.\n\n\"I think that's some sort of . . . ,\" Alek began, his voice fading as something climbed from the smoke, spilling flame behind it.\n\n\"Rocket,\" Bovril said, and crawled inside Alek's coat.\n\nAlek spun about, but no one else was looking. Even Malone was staring into his notebook.\n\n\"There's a rocket,\" he said, not nearly loud enough. Then he found his voice and shouted, \"We're under attack!\"\n\nHeads turned toward him, as slow as tortoises', but finally a crewman spotted the rocket climbing toward them. Shouts carried across the platform, and one of the lifting engines roared to life. The craft slewed to one side, Alek's boots skidding beneath him.\n\nThe rocket was almost upon them, hissing like a steam train. Alek threw himself down onto the platform deck, sheltering Bovril beneath his body, as the missile roared past.\n\nAn explosion cracked the air above him and flung tendrils of flame down upon the jitney. An ember the size of a pumpkin bounced across the deck, hissing and spilling smoke. It knocked down a crewman, then rolled off the platform and hit one of the hot-air balloons. The thin envelope full of superheated air burst into flame.\n\nAlek's eyes were forced shut by the heat rolling up from below. He covered his face and peered out between gloved fingers. As the crew and passengers fled from the fire, the jitney rolled with their weight, dropping to one side. But a moment later the envelope was consumed, the fire having burnt itself into a ghost in seconds.\n\nWith only three balloons left, the jitney began to tip again, but now in the opposite direction\u2014toward the corner with no lift. The passengers staggered back that way, then one fell and slid, and Alek saw in a flash how this would end. As their weight gathered on the damaged corner of the jitney, the tilt would increase until the craft flipped over.\n\nTesla had realized it too. \"Grab on to something!\" the man cried, taking hold of the platform rail. \"Stay in this side!\"\n\nLying beside Alek, Eddie Malone began to slide away, but Alek seized the man's hand. Around them other passengers were slipping; some managed to take hold of the rail, some spread their weight flat across the deck. Bovril mewled inside Alek's coat, and Malone's hand squeezed his hard. Captain Hobbes was shouting orders at the jitney's crew.\n\nThe craft began to gyrate, like a leaf falling through the air. Buildings spun past, alternating with empty sky. Would they fall into the freezing water? Or crash into Manhattan's steel and marble towers?\n\nThe fall seemed to take forever\u2014the three remaining balloons were still full and functioning, and the jitney was not much heavier than the air around it. Alek saw Captain Hobbes at one of the lifting engines, trying to control the ship's descent.\n\nSoon they were over solid ground. Buildings spun past on all sides, their lit windows streaking across Alek's view.\n\nThen the jitney struck something solid, and the wooden deck beneath him split, hurling splinters into the air. The craft's underside shrieked, skidding sideways. Then came a crash like thunder, and a brick chimney shattered as the craft barreled through it. The captain had brought them down onto a large rooftop.\n\nBrick fragments of the chimney scattered across the deck, but the jitney was still sliding. Ahead Alek saw a wireless aerial rushing at him. He covered his head, but the aerial bent away under the mass of the jitney. The groan of the skid continued for another few seconds, then ended with another crash. The ruined craft had finally run into something heavy enough to stop it.\n\nAlek looked up. A short wooden tower loomed over the jitney's deck. The bottom of the tower's struts were splintered, and it leaned precariously over him, but it didn't fall.\n\n\"Fire!\" someone yelled.\n\nAnother of the balloons had burst into flame. The fuel in its burner was spilling from the jitney's deck, carrying the fire onto the rooftop. The marines and Captain Hobbes were beating the flames, but the blaze simply leapt onto their jackets, borne by the fuel.\n\n\"That's a water tower!\" Malone pointed at the structure the jitney had half knocked over in its crash.\n\nAlek looked about. The jitney carried no tools that he could see, but one of the lifting propellers had broken into pieces. He hefted one of the blades. It was a meter long and wasn't sharp, but it was heavy. Wielding it like an axe, Alek began to hack at the side of the water tower. The heat of the flames grew worse behind him.\n\nThe tower began to split beneath his blows. The wood was old and rotten, the nails rusted, and soon the planks were cracking open.\n\nBut no water rushed from the gap.\n\nMalone stayed Alek's hand, then climbed up and looked in.\n\n\"It's empty, dammit!\"\n\nAlek groaned, turning back to the fire. It had reached the wooden deck of the jitney, and the Leviathan's crewmen were retreating from the blaze.\n\n\"Your Highness!\" the captain called. \"This way! There's a fire escape!\"\n\nAlek blinked. They couldn't leave the building to burn, could they?\n\n\"Come on, Your Majesty!\" Malone said, grabbing his arm.\n\nThen Alek felt a drop of water hit his face, and he reached up and touched a finger to it. More drops fell, and for a moment he thought that it was a perfect and improbable rain spilling from a clear sky.\n\nBut then Alek's nose caught the familiar scent. . . .\n\n\"Clart,\" said Bovril from inside his coat.\n\n\"Indeed.\" Alek breathed in the effluence of a hundred interlocked species, all of it mixed in the gut of a living airship. He shielded his eyes and looked up to see the underside of the Leviathan a hundred meters above, its ballast tubes swelling. The downpour built around him, its roar joined by the plaintive hissing of the blaze.\n\nSomeone aboard must have been looking back, watching the jitney disappear into a tiny flicker against the city lights. Someone had seen the attack and had told the bridge crew to come about.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" said Bovril, then had a chuckle.\n\nThe heat of the fire was gone now, and Alek found himself soaking wet in a cold autumn wind. He cast aside the ruined sable coat, and Bovril scampered up onto his shoulder. The downpour was fading quickly now, and the Leviathan was growing smaller overhead. With its ballast spilled, it was climbing rapidly into the air, safe from any more rocket attacks.\n\n\"Two birds with one stone,\" Alek murmured, then looked about the roof. Dr. Busk was tending to Mr. Tesla and one of the jitney crewmen, but no one seemed seriously hurt. He heard the siren of a fire brigade from the streets below.\n\n\"Look over here, Your Majesty!\" Eddie Malone was backing up, his free hand shielding his camera from the last of the falling ballast. He was taking a photograph of the crashed jitney, with Alek as the star.\n\nIt was pointless scowling, Alek supposed. He dutifully set his jaw. The camera flashed, and he was blinking away spots. When he could see again, he noticed how close Malone was to the edge of the roof.\n\nAn odd realization struck Alek. As the jitney had been crashing, he'd saved Malone from falling. If Alek hadn't seen him, or their fingers had slipped, the man might have slid to his doom. Then Deryn's secret would be safe again.\n\nBut Alek had saved Malone, just as he'd failed to say a word in her defense. It was as though he couldn't stop betraying her.\n\nThen, quite suddenly, a simple and perfect idea entered his mind. Not letting himself think twice, Alek crossed the slick, broken deck of the jitney, until he was close enough to the reporter to speak softly. The camera flashed again.\n\n\"I saved your life during the crash,\" Alek said. \"Didn't I, Mr. Malone?\"\n\nThe man thought for a second, then nodded. \"I suppose you did. Thanks for that!\"\n\n\"You're welcome. Would you consider that payment for, say, not publishing what you know about Deryn?\"\n\nMalone laughed. \"Not likely, Your Majesty.\"\n\n\"I didn't think so.\" Alek smiled, putting his hand on the man's shoulder. \"Luckily, I have a backup plan.\"\n\nThe nightmare had come again.\n\nIt was the same as always\u2014the heat, the smell of propane, the awful crackle of ropes snapping. Then falling to the ground, pushed from the gondola by her da, and watching him soar away, burning in midair.\n\nDeryn had known the dream was coming from the moment she'd closed her eyes. After all, she'd been watching as the rocket had climbed up from the dark water and struck the jitney, setting one of its flimsy balloons alight. The dreadful image hadn't left her mind even when the messenger eagle had arrived half an hour later, carrying the news that all hands had survived.\n\nSo she'd lain there all night, drifting in and out of conflagrations.\n\nAs the sun rose at last, Deryn flung the covers from herself. It was no use pretending to sleep. Today was going to be its own nightmare.\n\n\"All hands\" meant Eddie Malone was still alive. He'd no doubt made it to the offices of the World with his airgirl story in hand. The Leviathan was docked only forty miles from New York City. Once the British consulate spotted the story, the news would make its way here by the fastest messenger eagle they could find.\n\nAt least the captain was off the ship. Deryn doubted that the first officer would have the nerve to toss her into the brig without orders.\n\nStill, the looks on her shipmates' faces would be bad enough.\n\nTwisted knee or not, Deryn decided to wear a decent uniform for when the officers came calling. She had just dressed when a knock came at her door.\n\nShe stood there, staring out the window. Was this it, then? The end of everything she'd worked for?\n\n\"Come in,\" she said softly. But it was only the lady boffin, her loris, and Tazza.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn didn't answer, just stuck out her hand for Tazza to nuzzle.\n\nDr. Barlow frowned. \"Are you unwell, Mr. Sharp? You look a bit peaked.\"\n\n\"It's just . . . I had a bad night's sleep.\"\n\n\"Poor dear. Our welcome to New York was unsettling, wasn't it? But at least we had a bit of luck.\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am,\" Deryn sighed. \"Of course, if that bumrag Eddie Malone had been a bit less lucky, I might be happier.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see.\" Dr. Barlow pulled out the chair from Deryn's desk and sat. \"You find this morning's news dismaying.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. \"News?\"\n\n\"Of course. The whole ship is abuzz with the story.\" Smiling, the lady boffin produced a neatly folded newspaper from her handbag.\n\n\"So it's\u2014it's already . . . ,\" Deryn sputtered. \"And the officers sent you?\"\n\n\"No one sent anyone, young man.\" Dr. Barlow handed the paper over.\n\nDeryn spread it out, her heart thudding in her chest, the bees inside her kneecap awake and angry. In the middle of the front page was a photograph of Alek looking sodden before the wrecked sky jitney, and below that a huge headline said:\n\nSECRET HEIR TO AUSTRIA'S THRONE SURVIVES ROCKET ATTACK\n\nLittle wonder that the attempt on Alek's life was the main story. And as her eyes traveled across the page, Deryn found articles asking whether German agents had been involved, asking whether they'd also meant to kill Nikola Tesla, and about an election for the city's mayor.\n\n\"FRONT PAGE.\"\n\nThere was, however, not a single word on the subject of Deryn Sharp.\n\nShe flipped through the next few pages, finding photographs of the Leviathan over Tokyo, the airship's encounter with Pancho Villa, and the German ambassador denouncing the great inventor's threats against the Clanker Powers. There was even a somewhat mad allegorical illustration of Tesla taming the Darwinist and Clanker Powers with electricity.\n\nBut still no mad airgirl.\n\nDeryn groaned. \"Malone's just waiting, isn't he?\"\n\n\"I think you're missing the point, young man. The first headline says it all.\"\n\nDeryn turned back to the front page, and stared.\n\n\"'The Secret Heir to Austria's Throne,'\" she murmured, the words finally sinking in. \"But how did Eddie Malone find out about the pope's letter?\"\n\nDr. Barlow tutted. \"The pope's letter? Hah! I suspected you knew about all this!\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am. Alek told me back in Istanbul.\"\n\n\"Indeed. One might ask if everyone on this ship has a secret identity?\"\n\n\"I hope not, ma'am. It's quite a bother, you know.\" Deryn shook her head. \"But why would he tell that . . .\"\n\n\"That bum-rag,\" supplied the lady boffin's loris politely.\n\nThen, all in a flash, Deryn understood. Alek had made another trade. Just like in Istanbul, when Malone had been about to reveal the revolution's plans, and Alek had agreed to tell his life story in exchange for the man's keeping silent.\n\nBut this time he'd given up his secrets for her.\n\n\"Oh,\" Deryn said softly.\n\n\"'Oh,' indeed,\" the lady boffin said. \"That was rather slow, Mr. Sharp. Are you sure you didn't bump your head along with your knee?\"\n\nDeryn looked up from the newspaper. \"Why are you calling me Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"Because you would appear to be the midshipman of that name. And given this\"\u2014Dr. Barlow tapped the newspaper\u2014\"no one is likely to believe otherwise. Now please get ready. We shall be traveling within the hour.\"\n\n\"Traveling, ma'am?\"\n\n\"To New York City. The Serbian consulate is giving a party for Mr. Tesla and Prince Aleksandar this afternoon. A formal uniform is required, of course. I see you've managed to dress yourself.\"\n\n\"Aye. But why are you dragging me along?\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp, you apparently have the ear\u2014perhaps even the affections, though I shudder to think it\u2014of the legal heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary.\" Dr. Barlow snapped for Tazza. \"As long as your little skeleton remains in the closet, the Zoological Society of London shall have many uses for you. Now get ready, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" her loris said.\n\nThe ride across the Hudson River was splendid\u2014the Statue of Liberty standing tall to the south, the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan ahead. Even the ferry's engine smoke pouring out across the blue sky looked rather grand. Deryn had grown used to Clanker engines over the last three months, she supposed, just as Alek had become a bit of a Darwinist. The rumble of the motors through her body felt almost natural now, and seemed to soothe her injured knee.\n\nShe and Dr. Barlow\u2014and their marine escort\u2014were met by an armored walker at the ferry docks. It was smaller than a proper war machine, nimble enough for the crowded streets of New York, but definitely bulletproof. After the attack last night, no one from the Leviathan would be venturing out unprotected. Deryn's rigging knife waited in a sheath inside her jacket, and the walking cane that Klopp had made for her was topped with a brass ball the size of an empress plum.\n\nShe might be dodgy in one leg, but Deryn reckoned she still had a bit of fight left.\n\nThe walker made its way through teeming crowds and beneath elevated trains. As they traveled north, the buildings grew shorter and were more like the row houses of London than skyscrapers. The air was clearer here than in Istanbul, the city driven more by electricity than steam, thanks to the influence of Tesla and the other great American inventor, Mr. Thomas Edison.\n\nAt last the walker reached the Serbian consulate, a large and solemn stone building with a line of policemen stretched along the footpath outside.\n\n\"Blisters. They look ready for trouble.\" Deryn turned from the small windows. \"But the Germans wouldn't be daft enough to start a fight in the middle of Manhattan, would they?\"\n\n\"The Germans will test President Wilson's patience, I'm sure,\" the lady boffin answered. \"But the country is divided. There may have been hard words for Germany in the New York World this morning, but Mr. Hearst's papers called the attack the work of anarchists, not Clankers.\"\n\n\"Hmph,\" Deryn said. \"Maybe that bum-rag really is a German agent.\"\n\n\"Mr. Hearst certainly dislikes the British.\" The walker lumbered to a halt, and Dr. Barlow began to straighten herself. \"And the Germans know that one stray rocket won't drag America into war.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"Ma'am, do you reckon the Germans were after Alek? Or are they more worried about Mr. Tesla?\"\n\n\"Last night I'd guess they wanted Tesla.\" Dr. Barlow sighed. \"But after reading this morning's papers, their priorities may shift.\"\n\nWithin the consulate walls it was easy to forget the armed policemen outside. White-gloved butlers in velvet tails took the lady boffin's hat and traveling coat, and the strains of dance music echoed from the marble walls. At a short staircase past the entryway, Dr. Barlow kindly took Deryn's arm, lifting a bit of weight off her bad knee.\n\nThe beastie on Deryn's wound had done its work quickly, and she could walk without limping now, but she was still glad for her cane. The sounds of voices and music grew as a butler guided them through the consulate to a large and crowded ballroom.\n\nThe party was in full swing. Half the gentlemen were in military uniforms, the other half in morning dress\u2014striped trousers and tailcoats. The ladies wore soft pastels, a few hemlines rising to the daring height of midcalf. Deryn's aunties would have been scandalized, but perhaps it was only another sign that American women were changing fast.\n\nOf course, that all mattered less to Deryn now that her secret was safe again. She wouldn't be staying here in America, but heading off with Dr. Barlow to work for her mysterious Society. Deryn had been so relieved this morning that it had taken all day for that simple fact to sink in\u2014when the Leviathan departed for London tonight, she would be leaving Alek behind.\n\nJust as the thought struck her, there he was across the ballroom, with Bovril on his shoulder, standing beside Tesla in a group of fawning civilians.\n\n\"Pardon me, ma'am.\"\n\nDr. Barlow followed Deryn's gaze. \"Ah, yes, of course. But do be . . . diplomatic, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Begging your pardon, ma'am,\" Deryn said. \"But I've been diplomatic enough to fool you these last three months.\"\n\n\"Gloating is unchivalrous, young man.\"\n\nDeryn only snorted at that, and made her way across the room. She was soon within earshot of Tesla, who was expounding about the commercial potential of Goliath\u2014how he could use it not just to destroy cities, but to broadcast moving pictures and free power to the whole world.\n\nShe hovered at the edge of the circle of rapt listeners until she caught Bovril's eye. The beastie murmured something into Alek's ear, and soon the boy was easing himself away from Mr. Tesla, who hardly noticed.\n\nA moment later they were alone together in a corner.\n\n\"Deryn Sharp,\" Bovril said softly.\n\n\"Aye, beastie.\" She looked into Alek's eyes as she stroked the loris's head. \"Thank you.\"\n\nAlek wore the same soft smile he always did when he was rather proud of something. \"I promised to protect your secret, didn't I?\"\n\n\"Aye, by lying. Not by telling the barking truth!'\n\n\"Well, I couldn't let you be disgraced. You're the best soldier I know.\"\n\nDeryn turned away. There was so much she wanted to tell Alek, but it was all too complicated and unsoldierly to say here.\n\nShe began with, \"Volger must be a bit angry with you.\"\n\n\"He's been oddly calm about it.\" Alek's gaze drifted over Deryn's shoulder, but she didn't turn to look. \"In fact, he's at work charming the French ambassador as we speak. We'll need their recognition if I'm ever to take the throne.\"\n\n\"Hang the barking throne. I'm just glad you're not dead!\"\n\nAlek's eyes came back to her. \"As am I.\"\n\n\"Sorry to be snappy,\" she mumbled. \"I couldn't sleep last night.\"\n\n\"It was almost like your father's accident, wasn't it?\" He displayed his hands. \"But I emerged without a scratch. Maybe the curse is broken. Providence.\"\n\n\"Aye, there's no denying you've got a ruinous case of good luck.\" She looked away. \"But now that I'm Midshipman Dylan Sharp again, I'll have to leave with the Leviathan. Our twenty-four hours is up tonight.\"\n\n\"Ah, I'd forgotten that this is still a neutral port.\" Alek's stare faltered, as if he'd only just realized that by protecting her secret he'd sent her away. \"Not much chance of them kicking you off now, is there?\"\n\n\"No.\" She looked around at all the people in their fancy clothes. No one was watching her and Alek, but it still seemed wrong to say good-bye in a crowd.\n\n\"You could still . . .\" He cleared his throat. \"What if you stayed anyway?\"\n\n\"What? You mean jump ship?\"\n\n\"Why not? Sooner or later they're going to find out what you are, Deryn. And now that your secret's safe, you can join us without a scandal.\"\n\n\"Desertion is worse than a scandal, Alek. I can't abandon my shipmates.\"\n\n\"But if they knew what you were, they'd abandon you.\"\n\nShe stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. He was right enough, but that wasn't what mattered. \"My country's at war, and I'm no deserter.\"\n\n\"You can help your country by ending the war. Stay with me, Deryn.\"\n\nShe shook her head, unable to speak. She wanted to stay, of course, but not for any noble reasons. However awful this war might be, she wasn't guided by anything so grand as making peace. Being steered by providence was for barking princes, not common soldiers.\n\nAnd what Deryn wanted was out of reach, whether she stayed here or went ten thousand miles away.\n\nAlek couldn't read her thoughts, of course. He straightened and said in a small voice, \"Sorry. That was foolish of me. We both have our duty. In fact, Mr. Tesla is talking to some very rich men over there. We'll need their money to make improvements to Goliath.\"\n\n\"You should go back and impress them with your Latin, then.\"\n\n\"The faster this war is over, the quicker we can . . .\" His voice faded.\n\n\"See each other again, aye.\"\n\nAlek clicked his heels. \"Good-bye, Deryn Sharp.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Aleksandar of Hohenberg.\" She felt a hard spot growing in her throat. This was really happening. They'd be apart for years now, and all she could think to say was, \"You're not going to get soppy and kiss my hand, are you?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't dream of it.\" Alek's bow turned into a slow step backward, as if he were trying to leave but couldn't. Then his gaze went past her, and he smiled with relief. \"In any case, there's someone else who wants a moment with you.\"\n\nDeryn closed her eyes. \"Please don't tell me it's that bum-rag Malone.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" Alek said. \"It's the ambassador of the Ottoman Republic and his beautiful young assistant.\"\n\n\"The who and his what?\" Deryn said as she turned around.\n\nStanding before her were Lilit and the Kizlar Agha.\n\n\"OLD ALLIES.\"\n\nLilit was the daughter of Zaven, the revolutionary who had befriended Alek and Deryn in Istanbul. The Kizlar Agha, on the other hand, had been the sultan's personal counselor. Zaven had been killed fighting for the revolution, and the sultan's government overthrown.\n\nSo, what were these two enemies doing here in New York . . . together?\n\n\"Mr. Sharp!\" Lilit threw her arms around Deryn, hugging her tight.\n\nFor a moment Deryn feared the girl would kiss her, as she had the last time they'd laid eyes on each other. But when Lilit pulled away, she only flashed a knowing smile.\n\n\"Ah, the airsick airman,\" the Kizlar Agha said, stepping forward to shake Deryn's hand. He was dressed in formal evening clothes, a far cry from his Ottoman uniform. But the mechanical recording owl still sat on his shoulder, its clockwork spinning. \"Pleasure to see you again.\"\n\n\"Aye, and you, too! Both of you.\" Deryn shook her head. \"A bit unexpected, though.\"\n\n\"Unexpected for all of us, I think,\" Lilit said, watching Alek making his way back to Tesla's group. Deryn forced herself not to do the same.\n\nMaybe the war really would end soon, and they could see each other again. But for the moment, thinking about Alek would only make her life more complicated, painful, and likely to fall apart.\n\n\"I thought you'd be busy ruling the Ottoman Republic,\" Deryn said to Lilit.\n\n\"So did I.\" The girl swore in unladylike fashion. \"But the Committee says I'm more suited to rebelling than to governing. So they've sent me as far away as possible.\"\n\n\"Hardly a punishment, though,\" the Kizlar Agha said with a smile. \"At least I hope not, as I am here too.\"\n\n\"Did Alek say you were the ambassador, sir?\" Deryn asked.\n\nThe man straightened. \"Ambassador of the Ottoman Republic to the United States of America. A rather long title to reward a tiny favor.\"\n\n\"Not so tiny, sir,\" Deryn said, bowing. On the night of the Ottoman Revolution, the Kizlar Agha had spirited away the sultan in his airyacht\u2014kidnapping his own sovereign. Thanks to that, the rebellion had ended in a single night. \"I reckon you saved a few thousand lives.\"\n\n\"I simply did my job and protected the sultan. He lives happily in Persia now.\"\n\nLilit snorted. \"He plots happily against the republic, you mean. His spies are everywhere!\"\n\n\"He's not the only one,\" Deryn said. \"As we found out last night.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" The Kizlar Agha reached up to switch off the mechanical recording owl; the tiny wheels whirring within halted. His voice became a murmur. \"As you may remember, Mr. Sharp, the kaiser was a close friend of my former sultan. I still have many contacts among the Germans.\"\n\nLilit stepped closer. \"Recently we learned certain secrets from them. Secrets that the government of the republic can't pass on to the British. Not officially.\"\n\n\"But unofficially?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"As long as no one ever finds out where they came from . . .\" The Kizlar Agha looked about the room. \"Perhaps you two should take a walk and catch up on old times. Relive the splendor of the revolution!\"\n\n\"An excellent idea.\" Lilit took Deryn by the shoulder.\n\n\"I shouldn't leave without telling Dr. Barlow.\"\n\n\"It's not a good idea to make a fuss,\" Lilit said softly. \"We'll be back within the hour. And I promise, what I have to tell you is worth a bit of bad manners.\"\n\nEscaping unnoticed wasn't difficult. Dr. Barlow had found a group of bowler-hatted boffins to chat with, and Lilit seemed to know her way around the consulate. She led Deryn through the kitchens and out a back door, where a pair of policemen looked a bit surprised to see them, but apparently weren't under orders to keep anyone from leaving.\n\nAs they walked along the asphalt streets of Manhattan, Deryn began to feel her knee. It hadn't hurt all day, but the autumn chill and Lilit's quick pace had started it buzzing again. When Deryn shifted more weight onto her cane, Lilit raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"That isn't just for show?\"\n\n\"I had a dodgy landing on glider wings. We probably shouldn't walk so fast.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Lilit slowed a squick. \"But can you still fight?\"\n\nDeryn snorted. \"You haven't changed much, have you?\"\n\n\"The world hasn't changed.\" Lilit shifted her daringly cut dress to reveal a tiny Mauser pistol gartered to her leg. \"I wish you weren't in that Air Service uniform. It's a bit conspicuous.\"\n\nDeryn looked about. The streets were full of bustling people, steam trams, and pushcarts. She'd heard snatches of several languages as they'd walked, and had even seen a few shop signs in German.\n\nShe shrugged. \"I'm an airman. This is my uniform.\"\n\n\"I preferred you in Turkish clothes,\" Lilit said. \"Perhaps we should get off the street and into someplace dark. Fancy a moving-picture show?\"\n\n\"Aye, I would,\" Deryn said. She'd been curious about the whole business after Alek had become so enthralled. \"Is there a cinema about?\"\n\nLilit smiled. \"In New York City? Yes, a few.\"\n\nThey took the next right turn, and a block away Deryn found herself looking up at a huge sign. It was covered in small electric lights that flicked on and off in sequence, as if wee beasties were skittering across it. In the center, giant letters spelled out EMBASSY CINEMA\u2014NEWSREELS ALL DAY.\n\nAs they approached the ticket booth, Deryn's hands went to her pockets, but of course she hadn't a single coin.\n\n\"Sorry, Lilit, but I've got no American money.\"\n\n\"Well, you did risk your life fighting for the revolution,\" the girl said, producing a folded bill from a hidden pocket. \"I suppose the Ottoman Republic can buy you a movie ticket.\"\n\nThe cinema was in most ways like an ordinary theater, with a few hundred seats spread out before a wide proscenium arch. But instead of a stage, a silvery white rectangle faced the audience. It was still late afternoon, and only a handful of people were present. As Deryn and Lilit made their way to seats near the back, the gaslights began to dim.\n\n\"Why exactly are we sneaking about?\" Deryn asked once they were settled. \"Are you afraid of making the Germans angry?\"\n\n\"The Ottoman people have enjoyed the kaiser's generosity for a long time. We still need his engineers to make our machines work.\"\n\n\"Aye, of course.\" Every bit of Istanbul that Deryn had seen was wrapped in steam pipes and other mechanical contraptions.\n\n\"The Germans are desperate for more allies.\" Lilit leaned closer. \"Austria-Hungary is falling to pieces. A few weeks ago they repulsed a Russian attack, but the fighting bears only scattered into the woods. And the creatures still have to eat.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed, remembering the starving bears in Siberia. In a populated countryside the beasties would be much worse. It would be like living in some horrid old fairy tale, with every forest full of monsters.\n\nLilit gave a shrug. \"So we pretend to consider joining the Clankers. A profitable ruse, so far.\"\n\nA sudden clattering came from behind them, and Deryn glanced back. Behind the audience a large machine with a single eye was sputtering and spinning. Light erupted from it to spill across the screen.\n\nAt first it was shadowy and blurred, just as Alek had said. But in a few moments Deryn's eyes adjusted, and a smoky auditorium appeared before her, two ghostly pale boxers in the ring cheered on by a silent crowd.\n\nLilit was settled back into her seat, her eyes wide and glittering. \"It's not just Austria's weakness that has the Germans worried. They're convinced that Goliath will work.\"\n\n\"Aye. You should have seen what it did in Siberia. Not a tree left standing for miles.\"\n\n\"I've seen it. Everyone has.\" Lilit gestured at the screen. \"Mr. Tesla was filming in Siberia, you know. The first of his newsreels appeared two weeks ago. We may see one today.\"\n\n\"Aye, he almost crashed our ship!\" Deryn cried. \"Bringing aboard all his cameras and scientific equipment.\"\n\nBut perhaps it made sense now. As Alek kept saying, the whole point of a weapon like Goliath was to scare everyone so much that you never had to use it.\n\nLilit was watching the boxing now, her shoulders twitching a bit, as if she were throwing the punches herself. But she went on talking.\n\n\"Last week the ambassador asked his German friends, 'How can we side with you now? We don't want Istanbul going up in a ball of flame.' They told him not to worry. They have plans for Mr. Tesla.\"\n\n\"Aye, that rocket attack.\"\n\n\"That was just a warning.\" Lilit swept her gaze across the audience. Two school-age girls sat a few rows away, but there was no one else within earshot. \"And if Tesla doesn't heed it, they intend to destroy Goliath once and for all. With an invasion if necessary.\"\n\n\"An invasion! Right here? Won't that drag the Americans into the war?\"\n\n\"An enemy across the ocean is better than their cities being leveled.\" Lilit's voice sank to a whisper. \"A Wasserwanderer is on its way. That's all we know.\"\n\n\"A water-walker?\" Deryn said.\n\n\"The ambassador thinks it's some sort of U-boat, but amphibious.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. She'd never heard the word \"amphibious\" applied to a machine before, but it had a certain logic. Goliath was on an island near New York City\u2014within a short stroll of the sea, Mr. Tesla always said.\n\nTesla might think to guard himself against saboteurs, but an armored walker popping out of the water?\n\n\"It will attack without warning one night,\" Lilit said. \"Then slip away into the ocean again, leaving only wreckage and a mystery. The Americans might never realize what happened.\"\n\n\"Have you warned Tesla?\"\n\nLilit shook her head. \"He'd only blab to the press about it. He can't afford a private army, after all. And telling the Americans is pointless. They won't send a battleship to protect one man's property against a rumor. Especially when that man wants to wage war like some sort of demigod!\"\n\nDeryn nodded. Some of the newspapers were already questioning whether Tesla should be allowed to wield such power. After all, if Goliath worked the way he claimed, he could become ruler of the world with the flick of a switch.\n\n\"So you want us to help?\"\n\n\"You'll be helping yourself.\" Lilit turned from the screen. The boxing show had sputtered to a halt, and while the projector was being reloaded, the two nearby girls began to chatter about boys. \"The Leviathan is powerful enough to stop a walker, and stealthy enough to lay in wait while Tesla completes his tests. And may I remind you, Mr. Sharp, that his success is entirely in British interests.\"\n\n\"Aye, true.\"\n\n\"Can you deliver this message without revealing who gave it to you?\"\n\nDeryn nodded. Only the lady boffin had to know. Now that Tesla was off the ship, she would have free rein to order people about again.\n\n\"I knew I could count on you.\" Lilit smiled. \"You're still in love with Alek, aren't you?\"\n\nDeryn opened her mouth, but behind her the projector began sputtering again, filling the cinema with flickering light. She cleared her throat, her mouth too dry to speak.\n\n\"He seems to have grown up a bit,\" Lilit said. \"Now that he's got a purpose in life.\"\n\nDeryn found her voice. \"Aye. He's convinced himself that he's destined to end the war. It's all part of a plan.\"\n\n\"Ah. So he's forgotten the most important rule of warfare.\"\n\n\"Which is . . .\"\n\n\"That nothing ever goes to plan. But he finally knows your secret, right?\"\n\nDeryn took a sharp breath. She'd forgotten how annoyingly perspicacious Lilit could be. \"Aye. It's made things a bit tricky between us.\"\n\n\"It shouldn't. Now you can tell him what you want.\"\n\n\"Aye, but to do that I'd have to know what I want,\" Deryn said.\n\nPart of her wished more than anything to remain here in America with Alek, but that meant throwing away her career. She could take up the lady boffin's offer of working for the London Zoological Society, or even stay in the Air Service, but there would always be the danger of being found out and losing everything.\n\nIt was all a great barking mess.\n\nShe turned from Lilit's gaze and stared up as the next newsreel began. . . .\n\nAnd there it was before her, the Leviathan soaring over a hilly expanse of desert, the image muddy and colorless on the screen, but vibrant in her memory. The point of view banked into a turn, and Deryn realized that there'd been cameras aboard General Villa's manta ships.\n\nThen she was seeing the Leviathan from above, the camera peeking over a steep cliff as the airship descended into Pancho Villa's canyon. Crewmen and beasties scurried across the topside like bugs, the steel talons of the ship's ring of strafing hawks glittering in the sun.\n\nSuddenly a winged figure rose into view, an airman staring wide-eyed into the camera. Deryn blinked, not quite believing\u2014it was her own face up there on the screen.\n\nThe image was replaced by a sign . . . THE BRAVE AIRMAN TESTS HIS WINGS!\n\n\"Tests his wings?\" she said aloud. As if she'd been larking about instead of preventing disaster! Giggles came from the pair of girls nearby as the sign disappeared. They were pointing up at her on the screen.\n\n\"They seem to think you make a dashing boy,\" Lilit said. \"Quite right too. When do you leave?\"\n\n\"Our twenty-four hours will be up tonight.\"\n\n\"Too bad. And Alek's staying, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Aye. He works for Tesla now.\"\n\n\"Oh, poor Dylan.\" The flickering screen showed Alek now, standing face-to-face with Pancho Villa's massive fighting bulls. \"But Dylan isn't your real name, is it?\"\n\nDeryn shook her head but supplied nothing more. Lilit seemed to have guessed everything else about her; she might as well figure out the rest on her own.\n\n\"Do you want to stay a man forever?\"\n\n\"It doesn't seem possible. Too many people know already.\" Deryn looked at the schoolgirls, who were unescorted and didn't seem ashamed about it. \"Though maybe I don't have to. Women can ride in balloons here, and they can pilot walkers. Dr. Barlow says that British women will get the vote, once the war is over.\"\n\n\"Fah. The Committee promised the same thing, back when we were rebels.\" Lilit shook her head. \"But now that we're in power, there seems to be no rush. And when I complained, I was sent five thousand miles away.\"\n\n\"Aye, but I'm glad you're here,\" Deryn said softly.\n\nShe'd never talked about Alek aloud before, not to anyone. That was the problem with leading a secret life. The whole unsoldierly business of wanting him had all taken place between her own ears, except for that one brief moment on the topside.\n\n\"I kissed him once,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Well done. What did he do?\"\n\n\"Um . . .\" Deryn sighed. \"He woke up.\"\n\n\"Woke up? Had you snuck into his cabin, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"No! He'd fallen and knocked his daft head. It was a medical emergency!\"\n\nLilit snorted out a laugh, and Deryn turned from her to stare glumly at the screen. Maybe she should just confess to the world what she was. Then she could stop having secrets forever.\n\nBut the reason why she couldn't was right in front of her, written in flickering light. The air was the air, and every minute aboard the Leviathan was worth a lifetime of lies.\n\n\"Do you love him?\"\n\nDeryn swallowed, then pointed at the screen. \"He makes me feel like that. Like flying.\"\n\n\"Then, you have to tell him.\"\n\n\"I told you, I kissed him!\"\n\n\"It's hardly the same. I kissed you, after all. That wasn't love, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Aye, and what exactly was it?\"\n\n\"Curiosity.\" Lilit smiled. \"And as I said, you're quite a dashing boy.\"\n\n\"But I'm pretty sure Alek doesn't want a dashing boy!\"\n\n\"You can't be sure until you ask.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"You were raised to throw bombs. I wasn't.\"\n\n\"Were you raised to wear trousers and be a soldier?\"\n\n\"Maybe not. But those are both dead easy compared to this!\" One of the schoolgirls glared back at them, and Deryn lowered her voice. \"At any rate it doesn't matter what he wants. He's the heir to the Austrian throne, and I'm a commoner.\"\n\n\"That throne may not exist once this war is over.\"\n\n\"Well, that's cheery.\"\n\n\"That's war.\" Lilit pulled out a pocket watch and read it in the jittering light from the screen. \"We should get back.\"\n\nDeryn nodded, but as she followed Lilit up the aisle, she took one last glance over her shoulder. The Leviathan was soaring again across the desert, its engines repaired.\n\nShe promised herself then to make everything clear, the very next time she was alone with Alek. After all, she'd made a solemn vow never to keep secrets from him.\n\nOf course that moment might not come until the war was over, years from now, when the world would be a very different place.\n\nAlek's next two weeks were a whirl of cocktail parties, press conferences, and scientific demonstrations. Money had to be raised, reporters entertained, and diplomats introduced to the young prince with a shaky claim to the throne of Austria-Hungary. It was all so different from the rhythms of the Leviathan, the patterns of watches and bells and mealtimes. Alek missed the steady thrum of engines and the gentle sway of the deck beneath his feet.\n\nHe missed Deryn as well, even more than he had in those awful days after learning her secret. At least then the two of them had been walking the same corridors, but now the Leviathan was missing as well, all connections with his best friend and ally severed.\n\nInstead of Deryn he had Nikola Tesla, a draining man to spend long days with. Tesla wrestled with the secrets of the universe, but he also spent hours selecting the right wines for dinner. He lamented the war's daily toll of lives, but wasted time flattering reporters, wringing every drop of fame from these moments in the spotlight.\n\nHe lived in the grip of odd passions, none stranger than his love of pigeons. A dozen of the gray, warbling creatures inhabited Tesla's rooms at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. He was overjoyed to see them again after his months in Siberia, during which the hotel staff had looked after them dutifully, and at great cost.\n\nAnd yet Tesla knew how to turn his eccentricities into charm, especially when investors were present. He put on electrikal shows in his Manhattan laboratory and presided over lavish dinners at the Waldorf-Astoria, swiftly raising enough money to make the necessary improvements to his weapon.\n\nBut it felt like ages before Tesla and Alek completed their journey to Long Island. In a Pinkerton armored walker paid for by Hearst-Path\u00e9 Newsreels, the inventor finally brought Alek and his men to a huge tower looming over the small seaside town of Shoreham.\n\nGoliath stood as tall as a skyscraper, a giant cousin to the sultan's Tesla cannon in Istanbul. Four smaller towers surrounded the central structure, which was crowned with a copper-sheathed hemisphere that shone brilliantly in the sun. Workmen scrambled over it, making the final adjustments before tonight's test. Beneath the towers was the brick powerhouse of the complex, its chimneys huffing.\n\n\"VISITING THE SECOND TOWER.\"\n\nThe Pinkerton walker entered the compound through a tall barbed wire fence. The fence was enough to keep away tourists and trespassers, but Alek saw nothing that would stop a military walker.\n\nTwo days after the Leviathan's departure, a messenger eagle had arrived bearing a letter from Deryn. She had passed on Lilit's warning, along with a promise that the Leviathan would be lurking off the coast, secretly watching for any sign of U-boats\u2014or \"water-walkers,\" whatever they were.\n\nDeryn had asked Alek not to tell anyone about the German threat. But as Alek watched the pair of guards closing the gate again, with their antique rifles leaning against the guardhouse, secrecy didn't seem like such a good idea. If he and his men were going to sit here in harm's way, a bit more information might be useful.\n\nAlek jostled the great snoozing form beside him.\n\n\"Master Klopp? We're here.\"\n\nKlopp's sleepy eyes peered up at Goliath. \"Looks like a child went mad with a mechanikal set.\"\n\n\"A child with very wealthy admirers,\" Volger muttered. He was fussing with the abundance of luggage he'd brought, dividing its weight between Hoffman and Bauer.\n\nAlek glanced at Tesla, who was riding in front with the pilot, and lowered his voice. \"Have you ever heard, Master Klopp, of something called a water-walker? A U-boat that can come onto land?\"\n\n\"Water-walker,\" Bovril said.\n\nThe old man frowned, wiping sleep from his eyes. \"I've seen a working model, quarter scale. But it's the other way round, young master.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"A water-walker isn't a U-boat with legs. It's a land machine that's waterproof. It walks across the bottom of a river or a lake, like a metal crab.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"A machine like that could never cross an entire ocean, right?\"\n\nKlopp looked at Hoffman, who said, \"Impossible, sir. It would be crushed at a few hundred meters.\"\n\n\"Crushed!\" Bovril said.\n\n\"So it's an empty threat,\" Alek said to himself, breathing a sigh of relief.\n\nBut then Hoffman spoke up again. \"Of course, sir, you could take it across by ship. Then drop it onto the continental shelf.\"\n\nKlopp thought a moment, then nodded. \"And let it walk in from, say, fifty kilometers out?\"\n\n\"I see.\" Alek doubted the Germans could sneak that large a ship past the British blockade, but the water-walker could be carried on some sort of U-boat.\n\n\"You see what, exactly?\" Count Volger said. \"Where did you hear of this machine?\"\n\n\"In the newspapers.\" Alek found that lying had come easier lately. It was distressing but quite useful. \"They were discussing the kaiser's threats against Tesla.\"\n\n\"And this penny paper knew of secret German weapons?\" Volger asked.\n\nAlek shrugged. \"Only rumors.\"\n\nVolger narrowed his eyes as the machine came to a halt. The gangway door opened, and Alek jumped out to help Klopp down. The reporters were piling out of the motorcar that had followed the walker, pointing their cameras up at Goliath.\n\nThe smell of salt was heavy in the air. The open sea was on the far side of the island, twenty kilometers distant, but Long Island Sound was a short walk away. According to the nautical maps Alek had checked, the sound was shallow, child's play for a water-walker to navigate.\n\nAlek stared into the sky, though he knew the Leviathan was too far away, lurking near the narrow passage between the ocean and the sound. But perhaps from the top of Goliath's central tower, with a pair of good field glasses, he could catch a glimpse . . .\n\nVolger was staring at him, so Alek dropped his eyes and hurried ahead. Tesla was already bounding toward the tower, ready to put the weapon through its final paces. If the improvements to Goliath worked as expected, tonight's test would change the color of the sunrise in Berlin\u2014fair warning for what was to come.\n\nThe Germans would have to take notice.\n\nThe control room of Goliath looked like a Clanker version of the Leviathan's bridge. It jutted out from the roof of the power station, with tall windows offering a sweeping view of the towers and the darkening sky. In the room's center stood a huge bank of levers and dials; around it were clustered black boxes on wheels, covered with glowing tubes and glass spheres.\n\nTesla called out orders to his men, making use of a dozen telephones connected to the other parts of the complex. Within a few minutes the smoke from the powerhouse chimneys had redoubled. An electrikal buzz filled the control room, and Bovril's fur began to stand on end.\n\n\"Rather intoxicating, isn't it, Your Highness?\"\n\nAlek turned, and was surprised to find Adela Rogers speaking to him. The Hearst reporter had spent the last two weeks angry at him for leaking the pope's letter to Eddie Malone, one of Pulitzer's men, instead of to her. But she looked caught up in the excitement of the moment, her eyes sparkling as the spheres and tubes began to glow around them.\n\n\"It's a relief more than anything,\" Alek said. \"We may be coming to the end of this war at last.\"\n\n\"There's no maybe about it,\" Tesla boomed from his controls. \"Your faith in me will be rewarded tonight, Your Highness.\"\n\nMiss Rogers raised her writing pad. \"Mr. Tesla, what can we expect the test to look like from here?\"\n\n\"Goliath is an earth resonance cannon, using the planet itself as a capacitor. What you will see is a path of pure energy stretching from the ground below us all the way to the troposphere!\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"Won't that be a danger to aircraft?\"\n\n\"Not this test.\" Tesla's hands paused a moment on the controls. \"But if I ever fire Goliath in earnest, we'll warn them to stay away. Ten kilometers in all directions, I should think.\"\n\n\"Let's hope that doesn't happen, sir,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\n\"Indeed,\" Alek said, and made a note to warn Deryn in his next letter.\n\nBovril was shifting nervously on his shoulder, trying to smooth its fur. Alek reached up and felt the crackle of static as he stroked the beastie. The air smelled of electricity, like when he and Deryn had been topside over the Pacific, facing the approaching storm. The night she'd kissed him.\n\n\"The kaiser can be quite cantankerous, you know,\" Miss Rogers said. \"How long will you give him to submit?\"\n\n\"That depends on tonight's experiment.\" Tesla gazed up at his machine, a smile on his face. \"If Goliath works as it should, a single demonstration should prove convincing enough.\"\n\nEven a test firing required vast amounts of energy, and it would be hours before the weapon's capacitors were full. So while the chimneys smoked and the dials nudged slowly upward, Mr. Tesla served his guests supper in an ornate dining hall just beneath the control room.\n\nThe inventor sat at the head of the table, as always ordering up several courses and wines, though it was quite late already. Alek had suffered through laboratory demonstrations in Manhattan that had lasted until the wee hours.\n\nHe turned to Volger beside him. \"This will take all night, won't it?\"\n\nAcross the table, Bauer cleared his throat. \"Actually, sir, sunrise in Berlin is at seven. That's midnight here.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Alek said. \"An excellent point, Hans.\"\n\n\"Did you think he'd end the war with a flick of a switch?\" Volger asked.\n\nAlek didn't answer, leaning back as the first course of the evening was served, a consomm\u00e9 of turtle soup. Hoffman and Bauer looked down at their bowls dubiously. They'd been spared Tesla's feasts in Manhattan, but out here in the wilderness of Long Island, there were fewer reporters and investors about, so they had been promoted to dinner guests. Tesla's head engineers were also present, as immaculate in their formal jackets as they'd been in white coats.\n\nAs always at the inventor's table, fabricated beasts were banned. Alek found himself missing Bovril's weight on his shoulder and its nonsense mutterings, especially the snatches of Deryn's Scottish lilt.\n\n\"You seem less than serene, Your Highness,\" Volger said. \"Perhaps a seaside stroll after dinner?\"\n\n\"It's a bit cold for that.\"\n\n\"I suppose. And so many unpleasant things in the water.\"\n\nAlek sighed. He'd said too much about the water-walker in front of Volger. The man wouldn't stop digging now until he knew.\n\n\"I was thinking about visitors,\" Alek said in a low voice. \"Germans.\"\n\n\"I wasn't aware any had been invited.\"\n\n\"They have invited themselves.\"\n\nVolger glanced at the other end of the table, where Tesla was amusing the handful of reporters by ordering that the cutlery be rearranged. He always insisted that the forks, spoons, and knives be laid out in multiples of three. The staff at the Waldorf-Astoria had grown used to his eccentricities, but the servants here in Shoreham were still learning.\n\n\"Who told you about these water-walkers?\" Volger asked quietly.\n\n\"Deryn. And I can't say from whom. In any case there's not much we can do except wait.\"\n\n\"Have I taught you nothing?\" Volger said. \"There are always ways to prepare.\"\n\n\"The Leviathan is stationed nearby, ready to protect us. And preparations are overrated. The fact that we're here in America instead of the Alps is proof of that.\"\n\n\"The fact that you're alive at all is proof of quite the opposite,\" Volger said. Then he leaned away to murmur to Bauer, Hoffman, and Klopp.\n\nAlek let himself relax and enjoy his food, relieved that he'd confessed the secret to Volger. The man might be a schemer at heart, a tight-lipped plotter who could never quite be trusted, but there was one oath he would never break\u2014the one he'd made to Alek's father. Every infuriating thing Volger had ever done, from his grueling fencing lessons to his blackmail of Deryn, had been to protect Alek and see him one day on the throne.\n\nWhen the wildcount turned back to Alek, leaving the other men still muttering, he said, \"We'll be ready, Your Highness.\"\n\n\"I should have known you'd have something up your sleeve.\"\n\n\"I have no other choice,\" Volger said. \"No matter how far from the war we run, it always catches up with us.\"\n\nDeryn stood at attention against the wall of her cabin, taking deep, unhurried breaths. Finally she bent her knees, sliding her back down the wall until she was sitting on her heels. Her muscles quivered and her injury burned. But now came the hard part\u2014pushing herself back up.\n\nIt was slow and agonizing, but Deryn managed it without crying out or toppling over. She stood there panting, her eyes shut against the pain.\n\n\"Exercising, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\nShe opened her eyes to find Dr. Barlow framed in the doorway, Tazza at her side. The boffin's loris sat on its usual perch, looking imperiously about the middy's tiny cabin.\n\nBut Deryn was in no mood for the three of them. \"It's traditional to knock, ma'am, even when the door's open.\"\n\n\"I stand corrected.\" Dr. Barlow rapped twice on the wooden frame. \"Though you are hardly a slave to tradition yourself, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nThe loris chuckled, but didn't repeat the words. It had grown quieter these last two weeks, almost thoughtful. Maybe it was missing Bovril.\n\n\"It's good to see you getting that knee into shape, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"I've got to climb the ratlines again,\" Deryn said. \"I'm going mad, stuck down here in the gondola.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Dr. Barlow said, then frowned. \"You'll be wanting to muck about on the topside of every airship we travel on, won't you?\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am.\" Deryn took a breath and bent her knees again. \"I do love tying those knots.\"\n\n\"In love,\" the loris said softly.\n\nDeryn froze halfway down and stared at it.\n\nDr. Barlow smiled. \"Aha. You are in love, aren't you, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"With flying. You're in love with the air.\"\n\nDeryn slid down the rest of the way, then pushed herself back up without a pause, letting pain hide her expression. Nosy boffins and their clever lorises.\n\nOf course, it hardly mattered what Dr. Barlow was really thinking. Alek was gone, swept up in a distant world of power, influence, and peacemaking, maybe forever. How could someone who was in the newspapers every day have anything more to do with Deryn Sharp?\n\n\"Don't worry, young man. My duties with the Zoological Society involve a great deal of travel. You'll see plenty of airships.\"\n\n\"I'm sure, ma'am.\" Deryn sullenly reminded herself how lucky she was for the lady boffin's offer of employment.\n\nHer close call with Malone had taught her one thing\u2014if she were found out, it would humiliate her officers and shipmates. Deryn couldn't risk that, and it was clear that the lady boffin's shadowy Society was an easier place to keep secrets than the Air Service. In the Society, she reckoned, having more than one identity wouldn't be a problem at all. Dr. Barlow had even joked that Deryn might need to disguise herself as a girl, every now and then.\n\nBut it meant that Deryn hadn't just lost Alek; she'd lost her home as well.\n\nShe slid down the wall once more, ignoring the growing pain in her knee. She was desperate for one last climb in the ratlines before they headed back to London, Dr. Busk and his timid advice be damned. Nothing else in the sky measured up to the Leviathan.\n\n\"Disconsolate,\" the loris said softly.\n\nDr. Barlow shushed it. \"You should join us on the bridge, Mr. Sharp. The view may be interesting tonight.\"\n\n\"That's right. They're testing Goliath, aren't they?\" Alek's latest letter had been full of excitement. \"But I thought you said it wouldn't work, ma'am.\"\n\nThe lady boffin shrugged. \"I merely said that Goliath cannot call down fire from the sky. I would never suggest that Mr. Tesla is incapable of putting on a show.\"\n\nWhen they were halfway to the bridge, the Klaxon began to ring.\n\n\"Is that battle stations?\" Dr. Barlow asked. \"How interesting.\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am, it is.\" Deryn winced as she walked faster, wishing now that she hadn't worked her knee so hard. \"But it's probably a drill. Sitting still for two weeks hasn't done much for morale.\"\n\n\"You could be right, Mr. Sharp.\" They both stepped aside as a squad of riggers thundered past. \"But mightn't the Germans think this a fine evening to strike?\"\n\n\"How do you mean, ma'am?\"\n\nThey started walking again, and the lady boffin said, \"Mr. Tesla has warned the world to expect alarms and eruptions in the sky. Any mishap might be written off as his machine going wrong, especially if there are no survivors to tell the tale.\"\n\n\"No survivors,\" the lady boffin's loris said, and Deryn redoubled her pace.\n\nThe Klaxon choked off in midring just as she and Dr. Barlow reached the bridge. The officers had gathered at the starboard windows, field glasses raised. A dozen message lizards were scampering across the ceiling.\n\nThis was no drill.\n\nDr. Busk turned from the windows and gave Deryn a nod. \"I must admit, Mr. Sharp, I was beginning to doubt your story. But this is quite extraordinary.\"\n\nDeryn stepped up beside him, following the stares of the officers. Below the Leviathan three trails of bubbles stretched across the water.\n\nShe shook her head, trying to imagine giant machines beneath the surface, their legs thrashing in the cold and dark.\n\n\"I'm a bit surprised myself, sir.\"\n\n\"The two escorts are no bigger than land corvettes, Captain,\" the first officer was saying. \"But the one in the middle must be the size of a frigate.\"\n\nDeryn leaned out over the handrail, wondering how the man could tell so much from mere bubbles. The water was as black as pitch, and the trails looked like scattered diamonds in the light of the rising half-moon, too delicate to be exhaust from huge Clanker engines.\n\nThe ruckus of battle stations filled the air, shouts and squawks and the roar of engines, and Deryn clenched the rail. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, her whole body outraged to be here on the bridge instead of topside.\n\n\"Our faith in you has been rewarded, Mr. Sharp,\" the lady boffin said from just behind her. \"But do stop jittering.\"\n\n\"Like a barking monkey,\" her loris said.\n\n\"Sorry, ma'am.\" Deryn settled herself. If they sent her back to her cabin, she might well explode.\n\n\"Less than a hundred feet deep here,\" the navigator spoke up. Charts were spread out before him on the decoding table. \"This is the shallowest water for miles, sir.\"\n\nThe captain nodded. \"Then, let us begin our attack. Slow to one quarter, Pilot. Let the wind carry us over.\"\n\nThe thrum of the engines softened, and the airship began to drift to starboard. The trails of bubbles were just reaching a narrow channel among the islands at the entrance to Long Island Sound.\n\n\"Those bubbles must be drifting as they rise,\" the captain said. \"How fast is that current?\"\n\nThe pilot lowered his field glasses. \"About five knots, sir.\"\n\n\"And how long does it take for bubbles to rise a hundred feet?\"\n\nNo answer came, and everyone looked at the lady boffin.\n\n\"That depends on their size,\" she explained. \"Champagne-size bubbles, as we've all seen, can take several seconds to travel an inch.\"\n\nA moment of bemused silence stretched out, until Deryn spoke up. \"These aren't champagne bubbles, ma'am. They're exhaust from barking great diesel engines. The size of cricket balls at least!\"\n\n\"Ah, of course.\" Dr. Barlow stared down at the black water. \"Perhaps ten feet a second, then.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Doctor,\" the captain said. \"Bombs away on my mark. Three . . . two . . .\"\n\nThe deck shuddered a bit as the weight of the aerial bomb fell away, sending a twinge through Deryn's knee. She leaned out over the tilted windows, trying to see directly beneath the ship.\n\nFor a moment there was nothing but the dark, flat ocean, but then a column of water shot into the air as the bomb went in. The detonation followed seconds later, a silvery flower opening in the moonlight. Finally the gasses released by the explosion reached the surface, rising up in a frothing white dome. Ripples tumbled out across the water, full-blown waves cresting and storming as they rolled across the shallows.\n\n\"Bring us about,\" the captain ordered.\n\nThe Leviathan spun slowly in place until the bridge windows faced the channel again. The surface had stilled, and Deryn peered down, searching for exhaust trails.\n\nOne of the machines was in trouble\u2014its stream of bubbles was swelling, filled with pops and splashes. And then another giant dome of water rose up, white and boiling.\n\n\"Secondary explosion,\" the first officer announced. \"That's one of the escorts crushed by the shock wave.\"\n\n\"Fish in a barrel,\" said the captain.\n\nDeryn tried to imagine the men inside the water-walker, fighting their hopeless battle to keep the ocean from gushing in. Now the other escort was failing, its exhaust stream sputtering in fits and starts. This one died with a whimper, though, its scattering of bubbles fading out to nothing.\n\n\"That's both the little ones, sir,\" the first officer said.\n\nDeryn shuddered. It would be dark down there as lights and engines failed, and the water would be icy cold.\n\nShe'd never seen combat from the serene vantage of the Leviathan's bridge before. Running about topside, the horror of battle was lost in a swirl of excitement and danger. This felt inhuman, watching men die when she felt no fear herself.\n\nNot that her squeamishness made any difference to the sailors below.\n\n\"The frigate's made of sterner stuff, Captain.\" The first officer turned from the windows. \"Shall we make another run?\"\n\nCaptain Hobbes shook his head. \"Stand by, but stay at battle stations.\"\n\nDeryn turned to Dr. Barlow and asked softly, \"Why aren't we finishing them off, ma'am?\"\n\n\"BOMBS AWAY.\"\n\n\"Because they're underwater, Mr. Sharp. A German warship that can't be seen is of no use to us.\"\n\n\"No use, ma'am?\"\n\n\"This is a Clanker attack upon sovereign territory of the United States. We can hardly let it go unnoticed.\"\n\nDeryn looked down at Long Island Sound, her eyes widening. The exhaust trail of the surviving walker was still moving, following the coastline toward Tesla's machine.\n\n\"But we can't just . . .\" Deryn's cry faded as she saw the eyes of the officers upon her. She dropped her eyes and said softly, \"Alek's down there.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Dr. Barlow cleared her throat. \"Captain, perhaps we should send a warning to His Highness.\"\n\nCaptain Hobbes thought a moment, then nodded. \"If you would, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn snatched up a piece of paper from the decoding table and began to scribble. \"It'll take an hour for an eagle to get there!\"\n\n\"Steady, Mr. Sharp,\" the lady boffin said. \"That walker's barely making fifteen miles an hour. Half the speed of an eagle at night.\"\n\n\"But Alek thinks we're protecting him, ma'am. He doesn't know we'll wait till that contraption's on his doorstep!\"\n\nThe woman sighed. \"It is unfortunate, but these are orders from Lord Churchill himself.\"\n\nDeryn froze, making a fist around the writing pen. So this had been the plan all along, to destroy the last walker only after it emerged onto land. The Admiralty, of course, wanted a German war machine sitting on American soil for all the world to see, not some wreck lying beneath a hundred feet of water.\n\nThis was all about dragging the United States into the war.\n\nBut Goliath stood only half a mile from shore. The Leviathan would barely have time for one bomb run. If they missed, the water-walker would destroy Tesla's weapon and everyone within.\n\nAlek was down there among the scattered lights of Long Island, without Deryn Sharp to protect him.\n\nDinner was unspeakably tedious. The turtle soup had led to saddle of lamb in sauce b\u00e9arnaise, and that in turn to breast of hazel grouse. Now that the cheeses were done, dessert was \"black cow\"\u2014ice cream floating in something called root beer, a concoction that had sparked a childish glee in Mr. Tesla and Master Klopp.\n\n\"A fencing lesson tomorrow, I should think,\" said Count Volger, leaning back from the table and loosening the lower buttons of his jacket.\n\n\"An excellent idea.\" Alek stared at his unfinished dessert, his ice cream melting into slurry. He'd been too impatient to eat much, but his reflexes were growing rusty from parties and dinners. He needed the feel of a sword in his hand.\n\nAdela Rogers seemed to be in her element, though. She was holding forth at Tesla's right hand, telling the host's end of the table how Hearst had managed to wrangle his new movie deal with the famous Pancho Villa. She didn't seem bothered that she was the only woman in the room. Indeed, she seemed to thrive on it. She was describing Hearst's flattery and bribes of Villa as if it were a romantic adventure, giving her female viewpoint incontestable authority.\n\nAlek tried to imagine Deryn using the same strategy, if she were ever stuffed back into skirts. Could her swagger ever translate into the sort of flair and charm that Miss Rogers deployed?\n\nPerhaps, Alek thought. But Deryn would also be ready with a good solid punch if one were needed. He could testify to that himself.\n\n\"Your Serene Highness?\" It was a servant at his shoulder, presenting a letter on a small silver tray. \"Just arrived by messenger eagle, sir.\"\n\nThe envelope was the apple green of the Leviathan's stationery, and Alek's name was written in Deryn's hand. But she'd sent him a letter just yesterday. . . .\n\nMiss Rogers had paused, and Tesla was staring at him. Alek nodded an apology to them, then ripped open the letter.\n\nThe writing was rushed, even worse than Deryn's usual scrawl.\n\nWater\u2013walker headed your way. You have an hour at most.\n\nThe Admiralty are bum-rags, so we won't engage till it reaches the shore. But we'll be there.\n\nTake care,\n\nDylan\n\n\"Ah,\" said Alek, his pulse quickening.\n\n\"News from our friends on the Leviathan?\" Tesla said. \"They must be in London by now.\"\n\n\"No, sir.\" Alek hesitated a moment, glancing at Miss Rogers\u2014but every reporter in the world would know soon enough. \"They're stationed only fifty kilometers away, at the mouth of Long Island Sound.\"\n\nA stir went round the table.\n\n\"But why?\" asked Tesla.\n\n\"They've been watching over us. There were rumors of a German surprise attack.\"\n\n\"A surprise attack?\" Tesla said. Then his face broke into a smile. \"Your Highness, please tell Dr. Barlow that she is invited to observe my experiments at any time, no excuses needed.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid that's not it, sir.\" Alek held up the letter. \"Their fears have proven correct. A German underwater walker will be here within the hour.\"\n\nThe table went silent, and all the guests turned to Mr. Tesla. The inventor stared at Alek for a long moment, then dropped his gaze to the table and began to rearrange his forks. \"An underwater walker? What an absurd notion.\"\n\n\"They exist, sir. My man Klopp has seen working models.\"\n\nTesla looked at Klopp, who appeared to be only half following the English, then brought his dark eyes back to Alek.\n\n\"How large is this machine?\"\n\n\"Large enough to destroy Goliath. Otherwise, why would the Germans bother?\"\n\nTesla spat out an angry noise and pushed away his dessert. \"Pardon me, gentlemen and Miss Rogers, but unless this is some sort of joke, I must prepare my defenses.\"\n\nTaking up his walking stick, he rose to his feet. The engineers jumped up from the table in unison.\n\n\"Defenses?\" Miss Rogers asked.\n\n\"I am not naive, dear lady. I knew that the Germans would make plans against me.\" Tesla waved in the direction of the compound. \"That's why Mr. Hearst provided us with that Pinkerton.\"\n\n\"But, sir,\" Alek said. \"That Pinkerton machine is designed to frighten workers on picket lines. It can't stand up against a proper military walker.\"\n\nThe reporters had broken into a nervous hubbub, some of them heading for the doors out to the observation deck. Others were asking the waiters to take them to a telephone.\n\nAlek rose to his feet, waving Deryn's letter. \"All of you, listen. I am assured that the Leviathan is on its way. It's more than capable of taking on a single walker.\"\n\nAdela Rogers laughed. \"So we should sit here and sip brandy?\"\n\n\"Not at all, miss,\" Count Volger said. \"We should retreat to a sensible distance and let the Leviathan handle this.\"\n\n\"That won't be necessary.\" Tesla turned toward the stairs up to the control room. \"I shall stop them myself!\"\n\n\"Sir . . . ,\" Volger said, but the inventor ignored him.\n\n\"It's no use,\" Alek sighed. \"This is a man who took on three fighting bears with nothing but a walking stick.\"\n\n\"That hardly fills me with confidence,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\n\"Nor me. I'll talk to him.\" Alek made for the stairs. \"If only to make sure he doesn't do anything rash.\"\n\n\"Your Highness,\" Volger said. \"We can still put some distance between us and this place, even if we have to walk.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"That won't be necessary, Volger. The Leviathan will protect us.\"\n\nThe control room was abuzz with shouted orders and sparking electrikals. The engineers were rushing about, wheeling equipment into a new configuration. Tesla was at the center of it all, a telephone receiver in each hand and several more tucked under his arms.\n\n\"Deploy the boats!\" he shouted into one. \"We'll destroy them as they come out of the water!\"\n\nHe slammed a receiver down and glared at Alek.\n\n\"How long have you known about this?\"\n\n\"As I said, it was only rumors,\" Alek said calmly. \"Mr. Sharp heard something two weeks ago.\"\n\n\"The very day we arrived in New York.\" Tesla turned to the control room windows. The ocean was just visible in the distance, a silvery plane of reflected moonlight. \"Every time I'm on the brink of a genuine discovery, someone tries to snatch it away.\"\n\n\"Sir, you needn't worry. Mr. Sharp has assured me that the Leviathan will deal with this walker.\"\n\n\"Then, more will come.\" The anger had left Tesla's voice all at once, and he only sounded tired now. \"They'll keep coming for me, one way or another.\"\n\n\"That's a bit dramatic, sir. These water-walkers are experimental weapons. I can't imagine the Germans have too many of them.\"\n\n\"You don't know what smaller men are capable of, Alek. Edison, Marconi, and now the kaiser!\" Tesla began to place the telephone receivers back into their cradles, till only one was left in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth. \"Boiler room? Please go to full.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tesla, we should abandon the test for tonight. Please!\"\n\n\"I am abandoning the test.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"But you told the boiler room\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't you understand? These men, these little men, want to destroy my life's work, to rob the world of everything Goliath will one day provide. Free power anywhere in the world, all of man's knowledge coursing across the airwaves! I can't allow that all to be snuffed out by this idiotic war.\"\n\nThe inventor turned to face the windows, his dark eyes gleaming, and Alek felt a cold drop trickle down his spine as Tesla placed the last telephone firmly back onto its cradle.\n\n\"I'm afraid this is no longer a test.\"\n\nThe walker was still half a mile from shore, but already its topside was cresting the surface. Water sluiced across its decks, swirling black with brine and seaweed. But beneath the ocean's detritus, wet metal gleamed. With a roar of its engines, the machine's krakenfighting claws reared above the waves.\n\nDeryn raised the field glasses to scan the deck for gun mounts.\n\n\"Doesn't look damaged at all,\" Dr. Busk was saying to the captain. \"It must be designed for tremendous pressures.\"\n\nThe first officer snorted. \"A direct hit should make it a bit less waterproof.\"\n\n\"Best to blow its legs off.\" Captain Hobbes lowered his field glasses. \"Let's leave the Americans something menacing for tomorrow's papers, eh?\"\n\nA bit of laughter went about the bridge, but Deryn's mouth was dry. Tesla's tower was already visible in the distance, lights shining in every window. The great barking fool of an inventor hadn't evacuated, after all.\n\n\"Alek's still there, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Our young prince would hardly leave an ally behind.\" Dr. Barlow stared out at Goliath and sighed. \"I'd hoped that Mr. Tesla would not stoop to bravery.\"\n\n\"It'll be all right, ma'am,\" Deryn said, trying to keep her voice firm. \"At least that walker hasn't any big guns.\"\n\nThe entire topside of the machine had cleared the surface now, and Deryn could see only a three-and-a-half-inch cannon, like the deck armament of a U-boat. The first crewmen were coming out of the hatches now, working to unplug the seals that kept the barrel waterproof.\n\n\"That's as we expected,\" the lady boffin said. \"The Germans mean to tear down the tower with their krakenfighting arms. Rather brutish of them.\"\n\n\"Aye, but it worked for us in Istanbul,\" Deryn said.\n\nThe captain had spotted the deck gun too. \"A bit more altitude, Pilot. Ready in the bomb bay.\"\n\nThe Leviathan was almost on top of the enemy now; Deryn could feel the walker's great Clanker engines rumbling through her boots. The smokestacks had popped their water seals, and the machine was roaring at full power.\n\nBut there was something shiny in the surf, halfway between the shore and the walker. She raised her field glasses again.\n\n\"REMOTELY FACING AN EMERGING THREAT.\"\n\nIt looked like a fleet of wee metal boats, each only a few feet long. Antennae whipped back and forth on their decks as the ripples from the emerging walker reached them. The boats were heading straight toward the German craft.\n\n\"Do you see those, ma'am?\"\n\nDr. Barlow squinted into the darkness, then nodded. \"Ah, yes. Mr. Tesla's remote controlled boats. He's been trying to sell them to the Royal Navy for years. How pleased he must be to finally make use of them.\"\n\nAs the first of the boats disappeared beneath the walker, light flared out across the water, and a jet of flame curled up around the metal. A few crewmen on the top deck cowered, but the machine hardly paused in its march toward the shore.\n\n\"A bit disappointing,\" the lady boffin said.\n\n\"A few sticks of dynamite and some kerosene, I reckon.\" Deryn frowned. \"Did Mr. Tesla think he'd be fighting wooden ships?\"\n\nDr. Barlow gave a shrug. \"He never was one for chemistry.\"\n\n\"Not to worry,\" the captain said. \"We'll show him how it's done. Starboard engine to half. Bomb bay, release when ready!\"\n\nDeryn stepped closer to the window, leaning out to see beneath the ship.\n\nThe water-walker's left foreleg was just stepping onto the beach when the shiver went through the deck. Deryn's knee twinged, and she held her breath until the bomb struck home.\n\nIt fell between the walker's two right legs, landing in a few yards of water. A dark column of sand shot into the air, fringed with silvery moonlit spray. Tesla's boats were tossed aside, bursting into flames that spilled across the surface of the sound. The Clanker machine was thrown sideways by the blast, almost tipping over. But finally it crashed back down, its right legs twisting and splitting.\n\nThe shock wave reached the Leviathan then, a great shudder traveling through the ship, the windows of the bridge rattling like teacups. Deryn kept her eyes trained on the walker. It was still trying to move, but its two working legs could only drag it a few yards with every step.\n\n\"Please give the bomb bay my compliments,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"They've left her quite in one piece.\"\n\n\"What about her deck gun, sir?\" the first officer asked.\n\n\"Keep an eye on it. If any more crewmen stick their heads out, we'll introduce them to our fl\u00e9chette bats.\"\n\nMore orders were called, and a searchlight lanced out across the darkness. The burned and battered hulk of the walker suddenly shone brightly.\n\nDeryn's eye caught a sparkle in the distance beyond. The central tower of Goliath was still dark, but the four smaller structures around it were starting to glow.\n\n\"Dr. Barlow?\" she said. \"I think Tesla's contraption is charging up.\"\n\n\"He means to complete his test?\" The lady boffin tutted. \"Captain, perhaps we should give Mr. Tesla some room. Even a test firing could prove unpleasant up here.\"\n\n\"Indeed, Doctor. Engines at one-half reverse.\"\n\nThe Leviathan hesitated for a moment in the air, then Deryn felt the gentle tug of the ship sliding backward. The black water of Long Island Sound pulled into view, and the tableau of the damaged walker and the sparkling towers spread out before them.\n\n\"Sir!\" the pilot called. \"There's another exhaust trail!\"\n\nThe officers crowded the windows, and Deryn took a step forward. Something metal was breaking the surface near the shore.\n\nIt was a smaller walker, its four legs thrashing in the dark water of the sound, heading toward the beach.\n\n\"One of the escorts?\" The captain shook his head. \"But where's it been hiding?\"\n\n\"It must have shut down after our attack,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"Just long enough for us to follow the big one away. Or it may have ridden on the larger walker's back, mingling their exhaust streams.\"\n\n\"Who cares!\" Deryn cried. \"We need to stop that barking thing!\"\n\n\"Well put, Mr. Sharp,\" the captain said. \"Go to full-ahead.\"\n\nA moment later the roar of engines rumbled through the bridge, and the Leviathan was moving forward again.\n\nBut the small walker had already made its way onto land. It was scrambling quickly through the trees, headed straight for the towers half a mile away. The machine hardly seemed large enough to tear Goliath apart, but it could certainly make a mess of things.\n\nSuddenly a burst of sparks and flame ignited on the walker's back, arcing across the darkness. An explosion thudded in the distance.\n\n\"It's got a deck gun!\" the first officer announced. \"Captain?\"\n\n\"Fl\u00e9chette bats,\" came the answer. \"We'll sweep them off the topside!\"\n\nDeryn's fingers curled into two fists. The airship was gaining on the walker, and the searchlights swung out to find it in the darkness. She heard the pop of an air gun overhead, and saw the first cloud of fl\u00e9chette bats streaking away.\n\nBut as her eyes drifted past the German walker, Deryn's breath caught.\n\nThe outer towers of Mr. Tesla's weapon were glowing brighter now, covered with nervous snakes made of fire and lightning. The tall central tower, Goliath itself, had begun to softly glow in the darkness, like the envelope of a hot-air balloon with its burner turned to full.\n\nDeryn tasted acid in the back of her throat, and felt the awful, paralyzing fear of her nightmares. She remembered how the Goeben's Tesla cannon had almost burned them all to a cinder. But Goliath was much more powerful, mighty enough to set the sky aflame thousands of miles away.\n\nAnd the Leviathan was headed straight for it.\n\nThe first shell landed at the edge of the compound, sending a length of barbed wire fence flailing and coiling in the air. A cloud of dust rolled outward from the explosion, and Alek heard pieces of torn metal hitting the rooftops around him.\n\nHe cupped his hands against the glass as the dust cleared, and saw the attacker striding through the trees\u2014a smaller walker, a four-legged corvette. Two searchlights bore down from the Leviathan, revealing the deck gun on the machine's back, its barrel spilling smoke.\n\n\"Mr. Tesla,\" Alek called. \"Perhaps we should evacuate.\"\n\n\"Your British friends may have deserted us, but I shall not abandon my life's work.\"\n\nAlek turned. Tesla's hands were on the levers on the central bank of controls, his hair sticking out in all directions. Sparks flew about the room, and Alek felt the air humming with power.\n\n\"You haven't been abandoned, sir!\" He pointed at the window. \"The Leviathan's still here.\"\n\n\"Can't you see they're too late? I have no choice but to fire.\"\n\nAlek opened his mouth to argue, but another boom sounded in the distance, and the shriek of the incoming shell sent him into a crouch. This one landed inside the compound, throwing dirt and debris against the control room windows.\n\nSuddenly the night turned red outside, the Leviathan's searchlights changing color, and then glimmers of metal were streaking from the sky. The men on the deck of the walker twisted and fell as the fl\u00e9chettes struck home. A moment later the gun was unmanned, rolling from side to side with the machine's gait.\n\nThe metal rain swept closer and closer, slicing through trees and sending up clods of dirt. As the torrent dwindled, one last fl\u00e9chette hit the window with a smack. A crack slithered across the glass, and Alek scrambled a few steps backward, but the attack had ended.\n\nHe cleared his throat, willing his voice to stay firm. \"The Leviathan has silenced that German gun, sir. We can stand down.\"\n\n\"But the walker is still coming, isn't it?\"\n\nAlek took a wary step closer to the window. The spikes had done nothing to the corvette's metal armor, of course. But in the sky above, the Leviathan was still closing in, its bomb bay doors already open.\n\nThen he remembered what Tesla had said about firing Goliath in earnest\u2014any aircraft within ten kilometers would be in danger. The Leviathan was no more than a kilometer distant, and Deryn was still aboard, thanks to Alek and his deal with Eddie Malone.\n\nThis madness had to stop.\n\nAlek turned and strode to the main bank of controls, taking Tesla by the arm. \"Sir, I can't let you do this. It's too horrific.\"\n\nTesla looked up. \"Don't you think I know that? To destroy a whole city . . . It's the most horrible thing any human could conceive.\"\n\n\"Then, why are you doing it?\"\n\nTesla closed his eyes. \"It will take a year to rebuild this tower, Alek. And in that year, how many more will die in battle? Hundreds of thousands? A million?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But you're talking about Berlin . . . two million people.\"\n\nTesla stared down at his controls. \"I can dampen the effect, I think.\"\n\n\"You think?\"\n\n\"I won't destroy the whole city, just enough to prove my theories. Otherwise Goliath will be lost forever! No one will invest money in a smoking crater.\" He looked out the window at the walker scrambling across the dunes. \"And the Germans will only grow bolder. If they aren't stopped now, do you think their assassins will let either of us live out the year?\"\n\nAlek took a step closer. \"I know what it is to be hunted, sir. I have been hounded since the night my parents died. But proving your invention isn't worth this!\"\n\nA clamor of gunfire came from behind Alek, and he spun about. In the red glare of the Leviathan's searchlights, the Pinkerton walker was venturing out to meet the German machine. A Gatling gun had popped up on its back and was chattering away.\n\nBut bullets were useless against steel armor, and the Pinkerton was far too small to stop the water-walker with brute force. It could only buy them time.\n\nThe Leviathan's vast shape had slowed to a halt and was starting to reverse course. The corvette was inside the compound walls now\u2014too close to Goliath for Leviathan to drop an aerial bomb. The airship's officers had to know that Tesla's weapon would be deadly to anything in the sky.\n\nBut there wasn't time to fly ten kilometers away. The air in the control room had begun to crackle, and Alek felt his hair standing on end. The buttons of his jacket softly glowed as the electrikal lights faded around them.\n\nThe weapon would be ready to fire soon.\n\nAlek turned to Tesla. \"The people of Berlin haven't had fair warning! You said we'd give them a chance to evacuate!\"\n\nThe man pulled on a pair of thick black rubber gloves. \"That chance has been stolen, but by their own kaiser, not by me. Please go back down to the dining room, Your Highness.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tesla, I insist that you stop this!\"\n\nWithout looking up from his controls, Tesla waved a gloved hand at his men. \"Show His Highness back to the dining room, please.\"\n\nAlek reached for his sword, but he hadn't worn it tonight. The two men approaching were much larger than him, and there were another dozen that Tesla could call upon in the control room.\n\n\"Mr. Tesla, please . . .\"\n\nThe inventor shook his head. \"I've dreaded this moment for years, but fate has taken control.\"\n\nThe men took Alek firmly by the arms and led him to the stairs.\n\nMost of the guests had fled the dining room, but Klopp was still there, a cigar in one hand, his cane in the other. Miss Rogers sat with him, scribbling madly.\n\n\"Sounds like quite a battle up there,\" she said.\n\nAlek sat heavily, staring at the empty chairs around the table, all askew. Even down here the floor was humming.\n\n\"He's going to fire at Berlin. Not a test, the real thing. What have I done?\"\n\nKlopp said in German, \"The others should be back in a moment, young master.\"\n\n\"Back? Where in blazes have they gone?\"\n\n\"To check on the luggage,\" Klopp said simply.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Your Highness?\" Miss Rogers asked. \"Would you say that Mr. Tesla has become unhinged?\"\n\nAlek spun to face her. \"He means to destroy a city, without warning or negotiation. What would you say?\"\n\n\"That this is what you signed up for. You and the chief, and all those investors in their motorcars, headed for Manhattan as we speak. This is something you all knew might happen.\"\n\n\"This is not what we planned!\" Alek shouted. \"This is murder!\"\n\n\"The whole city of Berlin . . . ,\" Miss Rogers said, shaking her head and scribbling.\n\nBut Alek wasn't imagining a city leveled by fire. He could think only of the Leviathan in the sky above, and of Deryn's nightmares of her father's death.\n\nThe wine trembled in the abandoned glasses around him. The whole table was vibrating.\n\n\"We can't let him do this.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, young master. Here they are.\"\n\nAlek turned. Volger, Hoffman, and Bauer came storming in, carrying the long cases they'd brought from New York.\n\nThe wildcount tossed one down onto the dining table. Dishes smashed and clattered, and wineglasses fell over, spilling red across the white table cloth.\n\n\"I take it we haven't much time?\"\n\n\"Only a few minutes,\" Alek said.\n\n\"And you want to stop him?\"\n\n\"Of course!\"\n\n\"Glad to hear it.\" Volger popped the case open. Inside was a pair of dueling swords.\n\nAlek shook his head. \"He has at least a dozen men up there.\"\n\n\"Have you forgotten your father's watchword?\" Volger asked.\n\n\"Surprise is more valuable than strength.\" Klopp said, and reached into the case that Hoffman had brought up, drawing out a black cylinder with a long fuse. \"I made this little surprise myself, in Tesla's own laboratory.\"\n\n\"THE AFTER-DINNER RAID.\"\n\nKlopp hobbled over to the staircase leading up to the control room, then touched the tip of his cigar to the fuse and grinned as it sputtered to life.\n\n\"Good heavens!\" Miss Rogers looked up from her writing pad. \"Is that a bomb?\"\n\n\"Not to worry, young lady,\" Count Volger said, tying a dinner napkin across his nose and mouth. \"It's only smoke. But lots of it!\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Miss Rogers said.\n\nHoffman threw a napkin to Alek as Bauer opened the other sword case.\n\nA deeper rumble came up through the floor and set the walls quivering. The air itself seemed blurry now.\n\n\"Ready yourself, Your Highness.\" Volger hefted one of the swords.\n\nAlek lifted the other sword from Volger's case. Its hilt was trimmed in gold, and its blade was carved with gears and clockwork. \"Another of my father's heirlooms?\"\n\n\"Hardly a century old. But sharp enough.\"\n\nAlek thrust the sword through his belt and hurriedly tied the napkin across his mouth. The smoke bomb had begun to sputter and spark in Klopp's hand, and had only a few centimeters of fuse left. But the old man waited, calmly staring at it. Finally he heaved it up the stairs.\n\nA whoosh came from above, and then a chorus of shouts and cries. Klopp stepped back as a few engineers came stumbling down the stairs, coughing and spitting.\n\n\"Wish I could join you, sirs,\" the old man said, reaching for his cane.\n\nAlek shook his head. \"You've all done more for me than I can repay.\"\n\n\"We remain at your service, sir,\" Volger said, and bowed to Alek. Then he went charging up the stairs, with Hoffman and Bauer behind.\n\nAs Alek followed, the smoke rolled down to sting his eyes and lungs. The hum in the air grew with his every step.\n\nThe control room was smoke and bedlam. Electrikal sparks were flying, and someone was yelling \"Malfunction,\" which only added to the chaos. Tesla's men seemed to think that the weapon itself had overloaded and set the room ablaze. The floor was shuddering, as if the whole building had turned into a vast engine.\n\nAlek led Volger and his men through the smoke toward the central panel of controls. Tesla stood there calmly, ignoring the pandemonium around him.\n\n\"Sir, shut your machine down!\" Alek ordered.\n\n\"You, of course.\" Tesla didn't look up. \"I should have known not to trust an Austrian.\"\n\n\"Trust, Mr. Tesla? You've gone against all our plans!\" Alek raised his sword, and his men followed suit. \"Turn off your machine!\"\n\nTesla glanced up at their sword tips, and laughed. \"Too late for second thoughts, Prince.\"\n\nWith a rubber-gloved hand he spun a dial, then ducked behind the panel. The crackling in the air suddenly built to a snap, and a spiderweb of lightning leapt out of the smoke from all directions, striking the tips of the drawn swords.\n\nThe hilt of Alek's weapon turned searing hot, but he couldn't drop it\u2014every muscle in his hand was suddenly clenched tight. A wild and unstoppable force seized him, twisting his heart in his chest. A lance of agony shot from his right hand down through his body, down to the soles of his feet.\n\nAlek stumbled backward until he slipped, the dancing cord of electricity breaking as he fell to the ground. His lungs were seared by the smoke, and the palm of his sword hand was charred and stinging. The smell of burned hair and flesh filled his nose.\n\nAlek lay there on his back a moment, but there wasn't time to be stunned. The floor was still shaking beneath him, stronger every second. He staggered to his feet, looking about for his sword, but the control room was a mass of smoke and flickering lights.\n\nHe stumbled over a prone form\u2014Bauer, clutching his burned sword hand to his chest.\n\n\"Are you all right, Hans?\"\n\n\"There, sir!\"\n\nBauer pointed his blackened fingers at a silhouette in the smoke. It was Tesla, his long arms working the levers, and propped beside him on the controls was his electrikal walking stick. Alek lurched toward him and grasped the stick, then rose to his full height.\n\nHe nestled his finger around the trigger and pointed it straight at Tesla.\n\n\"Stop, sir.\"\n\nThe man stared at the metal tip a moment, then gave an arrogant snort and calmly reached for the largest lever among the controls. . . .\n\n\"No,\" Alek said, and pulled the trigger.\n\nLightning slashed out across the room. It took Tesla's body and shook him like a puppet. Fingers of white flame spilled out of the cane to dance across the controls. Sparks spat in all directions, and the smell of burned metal and plastic filled the room.\n\nIn seconds the walking stick sputtered out. Tesla lay slumped across the controls, not moving. Tiny bolts of lightning skittered across his body, and his hair twitched and quivered.\n\nThe rumble in the floor beneath Alek began to shudder, surging and falling, rattling the whole building in shock wave after shock wave, as if a giant were staggering past. Alek's vision blurred with every pulse, and he heard the windows shattering all around him.\n\nHe called out Volger's name, but the trembling air itself seemed to shred the sound apart. The smoke thinned as the smell of salt water rolled in through the broken windows, and Alek staggered toward the nearest one, his lungs crying out for fresh air. His boots skidded, shards of glass cutting him through his burned boot soles. But at least he could breathe.\n\nHe stared up at Goliath looming over the compound. The pulsing beat beneath his feet was echoed in the crackles of electricity coursing the tower's length. The whole machine was bursting with power, and Alek realized what he'd done. . . .\n\nGoliath was like a steam boiler under pressure. It was ready to fire, but he had stopped Tesla from loosing the massive energies building up inside it. The chimneys were still spitting smoke, the generators sending more power to the already brimming capacitors. As Alek watched, he saw more windows shattering across the compound.\n\nIn the middle of it all, the German corvette stood over the wreckage of the Pinkerton walker. It had torn two of the smaller machine's legs off, and seemed to be performing a bizarre victory dance. Its legs were shivering, its body lurching back and forth.\n\nThen Alek saw the webs of lightning on its metal skin\u2014the walker's control systems had been addled by the wild energy that was setting the air aquiver. He looked into the sky.\n\nThe Leviathan itself was glowing, like a cloud catching the setting sun. The airship's cilia were rippling, slowly pulling it away, but the engines were silent, their electrikals also overwhelmed.\n\nWould the hydrogen catch fire? Alek grasped the edge of the window, hardly feeling the broken glass against his palms.\n\n\"Deryn,\" he sobbed. Anything but this.\n\nThen another shape loomed in the distance, something huge lurching over the horizon. It was the first walker, four times the size of the corvette, a tattered German naval jack fluttering from its spar deck. The machine was advancing slowly, its two right legs swinging uselessly. But the kraken-fighting arms were flailing at the ground, dragging the walker across the dunes as though it were a dying beast.\n\nAlek wondered for a moment how its electrikals hadn't shorted yet, but then the walker stumbled onto the tangled metal of the perimeter fence, and a circuit was completed. A single jittering finger leapt from the nearest small tower, striking an upraised kraken-fighting arm of the German machine.\n\nThe lightning from the other towers followed, their built-up charges hungry for a way out, and within an eyeblink five streams of electricity were pouring into the huge water-walker. The machine shuddered for a moment, its limbs rattling mindlessly as sparks swept across its metal skin. The air itself tore open in one long peal of thunder. The scrub trees around the walker burst into flame, the white fire consuming even the soil and sand beneath it.\n\nThe ammunition magazines must have caught then. The walker began to shake harder, and jets of fire burst from its hatches. Flames spat from the smokestacks as the fuel tanks caught all at once, and black smoke roiled out of the engine vents.\n\nWhen the thudding of explosions had finally faded, Alek could hardly hear, but he could feel that the trembling beneath his feet was gone. The control room behind him was dark and silent, save for dazed human voices. Goliath had expended itself on the German walker.\n\nAlek looked up again. The Leviathan's glow was fading, the airship whole and alive with all its crew.\n\nHe shook with another sob, sinking to one knee and realizing that the survival of that one ship\u2014one girl, really\u2014had been for a moment more important than the war itself, or a city's millions. Then the wind shifted, and Alek breathed in the burnt-meat smells that filled the room behind him.\n\nImportant enough for him to kill a man, it seemed.\n\nIn their infinite wisdom, the Admiralty approved Alek's medal for bravery in the air on the very same day the United States entered the war.\n\nThe timing seemed suspicious to Deryn, and of course the medal wasn't for anything useful, like shutting down Tesla's weapon to save the Leviathan. Instead Alek was to be decorated for blundering about on the ship's topside during a storm, and for his great skill in falling over and knocking himself silly. That was the Admiralty for you.\n\nBut at least it meant that the Leviathan was headed back to New York, and she would see Alek one last time.\n\nAfter fighting the German water-walkers on Long Island, the airship had been invited to Washington, DC. There the captain and his officers had testified before the Congress, whose members were debating how to respond to this outrageous attack on American soil.\n\nIt took a bit of droning and dealing, but finally the case was made that the Germans had gone too far, and Darwinist and Clanker politicians voted together to join the war. Already young men were swarming the enlistment offices, clamoring to go and fight the kaiser. As the Leviathan headed north, the streets below were choked with flags and parades and newsboys shouting war.\n\nDeryn was on the bridge when a second message from London arrived, this one marked Top Secret.\n\nShe'd healed enough to put her cane aside, but Deryn hadn't dared the ratlines yet. She spent her time assisting the officers and Dr. Barlow. Being stuck in the gondola was still dead annoying, but bridge duty had taught Deryn more than a bit about how the Leviathan was run.\n\nIt would all be quite useful, if she ever got to command an airship herself.\n\nThe messenger eagle arrived just as the skyscrapers of New York City came into sight, on the day Alek was to receive his medal. The beastie shot past the bridge windows, then angled to the bird port on the starboard side.\n\nThe watch officer called out a moment later, \"For Dr. Barlow's eyes only, sir.\"\n\nThe captain turned to Deryn and nodded.\n\nShe saluted him, then made her way to the lady boffin's stateroom with the message tube in hand. It rattled a bit.\n\nHer knock was answered by Tazza whining from inside, which Deryn took as permission to go in.\n\n\"Afternoon, ma'am. Message from London for you.\" She squinted at the writing on the tube. \"From a P. C. Mitchell.\"\n\nThe lady boffin looked up from a book. \"Ah, at last. Please open it.\"\n\n\"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but it says 'Top Secret.'\"\n\n\"I'm sure it does. But you have proven yourself adept at keeping secrets, Mr. Sharp. Proceed.\"\n\nHer loris chuckled, then said, \"Secrets!\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am.\" Deryn pulled open the message tube. It contained a single piece of translucent avian-mail paper scrolled around a small felt bag with something tiny and hard inside.\n\nShe unrolled the paper and read, \" 'Dear Nora, it is as you suspected: iron and nickel, with traces of cobalt, phosphorous, and sulfur. All quite natural in formation.' And it's signed, 'Regards, Peter.'\"\n\n\"Just as I thought,\" the lady boffin sighed. \"But too late to save him.\"\n\n\"Save who?\" Deryn asked, but then realized the obvious\u2014Nikola Tesla was the only person who'd needed saving lately. No one knew exactly what had happened the night he'd died. But it was fairly certain that the great inventor had been electrocuted by Goliath itself, the machine malfunctioning thanks to German shells and the general chaos of battle.\n\nDeryn upended the felt bag onto her palm, and there it was\u2014the tiny piece she'd cut from the object under Tesla's bed.\n\n\"So this is about that mad boffin's rock?\" She looked at the letter again. \"Nickel and cobalt and sulfur? What does it all mean?\"\n\n\"Meteoric,\" the loris said.\n\nDeryn stared at the creature. She'd read the word somewhere in the Manual of Aeronautics's natural philosophy chapters, but couldn't quite place it.\n\n\"It means, Mr. Sharp, that Tesla was a fraud.\" Dr. Barlow shrugged. \"Or perhaps a madman\u2014he seemed to think he could destroy Berlin.\"\n\n\"You mean Goliath wouldn't have worked?\" Deryn shook her head. \"But what about Siberia?\"\n\nDr. Barlow pointed at Deryn's hand. \"In Siberia a stone fell from the sky.\"\n\n\"A wee stone did all that?\"\n\n\"A meteor, to be precise. And not a small one but a giant piece of iron traveling at many thousands of miles per hour. What Mr. Tesla found was only a fraction of the whole.\" Dr. Barlow placed her book aside. \"I suppose he was testing his machine when the meteor struck, and he took it into his head that he himself wielded cosmic power. Quite typical of him, really.\"\n\nDeryn looked at the tiny piece of iron in her hand. \"But he had that metal detector sent to him, so he was looking for iron. He must have known it was a meteor!\"\n\n\"The greater part of madness is hiding the truth from oneself. Or perhaps Tesla imagined that his machine could call down iron from the sky.\" She picked up the stone for a closer look. \"In any case, what happened in Tunguska was merely an accident. A cosmic joke, so to speak.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head, remembering the fallen trees stretching mile after mile in all directions. It was too much to believe that a mere accident could have created such ruination.\n\n\"It is fitting, though,\" the lady boffin said with a sad smile, \"that Goliath should have been felled by a stone.\"\n\n\"But Tesla's machine made the sky change color. Lord Churchill himself saw it happen!\"\n\nThe lady boffin laughed outright at this. \"Yes, Tesla made the sky change color . . . at sunrise. Not such a difficult trick, if one has a gullible audience. Or perhaps Goliath really could change atmospheric conditions. But that's a far cry from destroying a city, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Gullible,\" her loris said with a snicker.\n\n\"You mean it was all rubbish? Everything we did, everything that Alek . . .\"\n\nDeryn closed her eyes. Alek had been duped, just as she'd always feared.\n\n\"An interesting point, Mr. Sharp. If a meteor falls in the forest and no one realizes it, does it end the war?\" The lady boffin handed back the stone. \"The Germans believed in Goliath, and in their belief they have propelled the United States to join our cause. That falling stone may have brought us peace, one way or another.\"\n\nThe black piece of iron suddenly felt uncanny in Deryn's hand. It was something from another world, wasn't it? She put it back into the bag, rolled the letter up, and slipped them both into the message tube. With a step forward she placed the tube on the lady boffin's desk.\n\n\"This will stay top secret, won't it, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"With Goliath being rebuilt, the Zoological Society will have to keep the truth under wraps. Even His Majesty's Government mustn't know.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"But what about Alek? He's still raising money for the Tesla Foundation.\"\n\n\"Repairing Goliath will make the Germans anxious to sue for peace.\" Dr. Barlow fixed Deryn with her stare. \"Telling Alek would be a mistake.\"\n\n\"But he's not your puppet, Dr. Barlow! Can you imagine what he's feeling? He thought the war would be over by now.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" the lady boffin said. \"So why make matters worse by revealing that Tesla made a fool of him?\"\n\nDeryn started to protest, but the lady boffin had a point. It would crush Alek to discover that his destiny was a lie, nothing but a cosmic accident.\n\n\"But Alek thinks it's his fault the war's still going, because he shut down the machine after Tesla was killed!\"\n\n\"None of this is his fault, Deryn,\" the lady boffin said. \"And the war will end one day. Wars always do.\"\n\nThey pinned the medal on Alek in the cargo bay, with half the crew in formal dress and standing at attention. Captain Hobbes read the honors while a score of reporters snapped photographs, including a certain bum-rag from the New York World. Klopp, Hoffman, and Bauer were there in fresh civilian clothes, while Count Volger still wore his cavalry uniform. Even a few diplomats from the Austro-Hungarian consulate appeared, hedging their bets in case Alek's claim to the throne prevailed.\n\nDeryn managed not to roll her eyes during the ceremony, even when the captain spoke of the grave injuries Alek had sustained.\n\n\"He fell and knocked his head,\" she muttered.\n\n\"Pardon me?\" came a whisper from behind her, and Deryn turned. It was Adela Rogers, the Hearst reporter.\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Surely it's something.\" The woman stepped closer. \"The bell captain never speaks without reason.\"\n\nDeryn bit her lip, wanting to explain that she was not a bell captain but a midshipman, a decorated officer. And soon a secret agent in the employ of the barking Zoological Society of London!\n\nBut she turned away, saying quietly, \"He's done better things, that's all.\"\n\n\"You may be right about that. I was there the night Tesla died.\"\n\nDeryn looked at Miss Rogers again, wondering what this was about.\n\n\"The last I saw of him,\" the woman said, \"His Highness seemed very determined to stop Mr. Tesla.\"\n\n\"Alek saved this ship that night.\"\n\n\"And Berlin, too, I hear.\" The woman's notepad came out. \"In fact, some people are saying the war might have been over already if Goliath had been fired, but Prince Aleksandar didn't want that. He is a Clanker, after all.\"\n\n\"No one even knows if that contraption\u2014,\" Deryn began, but halted herself. That was too close to Dr. Barlow's new secret to say aloud.\n\nWhy couldn't everyone see that Alek had done more to end the war than anyone else? He'd given his gold to the Ottoman Revolution and his engines to the Leviathan, which had rescued Tesla from being eaten in the wilderness. That had all made a difference, hadn't it?\n\n\"You know something secret, don't you, bell captain?\" the woman said. \"You always have.\"\n\nDeryn shrugged. \"All I know is that His Serene Highness Aleksandar wants peace, just like he says. You can quote me on that.\"\n\nAfter the ceremony, once all the photographs had been taken and the diplomats and notables had offered their congratulations, Alek went in search of Deryn. But before he could take two steps into the crowd, he found himself trapped between Captain Hobbes and the lady boffin.\n\n\"Your Serene Highness, congratulations again!\" the captain said, and he offered a salute instead of bowing. As Alek returned the gesture, he imagined himself for a fleeting moment as a member of the crew. But that dream was over.\n\n\"Thank you, sir. For this and . . .\" He shrugged. \"For never throwing us into the brig.\"\n\nCaptain Hobbes smiled. \"It was tricky for you in those first days, wasn't it? And a bit strange for us, having Clankers on the ship.\"\n\n\"But I always knew we'd make a proper Darwinist of you in the end,\" Dr. Barlow said, staring pointedly at Alek's medal.\n\nHe had been awarded the Air Gallantry Cross, the highest honor the British armed services could give a civilian, and right there on its face was a portrait of old Charles Darwin himself.\n\n\"A proper Darwinist,\" the lady boffin's loris said, and Bovril chuckled.\n\n\"I'm not sure what I am, these days,\" Alek admitted. \"But I shall try to live up to this honor.\"\n\n\"A fine watchword in these strange times, Your Highness,\" the captain said. \"If you'll excuse me, I must attend to our American guests. Their Clanker airships will be joining us on our way back to Europe. Most extraordinary.\"\n\n\"It certainly is.\" Alek bowed as the man strode away toward a clump of officers in dark American blue.\n\n\"How quickly things have turned,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"The Ottomans remain neutral, Austria-Hungary is looking for a way out, and now the United States has joined the fray. Tesla may not have ended the war, but his death seems to have shortened it considerably.\"\n\n\"Let us hope so,\" Alek managed to say, and he looked about for a way to change the subject.\n\n\"Klopp!\" said Bovril.\n\n\"Ah, yes.\" Alek waved his men over. \"Master Klopp, Bauer, and Hoffman have left my service. They'll be staying here in America.\"\n\n\"The land of opportunity,\" the lady boffin said in excellent German.\n\nKlopp nodded. \"And the only place in the Clanker world that won't call us traitors and plotters, madam.\"\n\n\"That's only for the moment, Master Klopp,\" Alek said. \"We'll all get home someday, I'm sure.\" The three men still looked odd to him in their civilian suits and ties, but they would be back in coveralls soon enough. \"They're starting work Monday for a manufacturer of passenger walkers.\"\n\n\"Mightn't that be a bit boring?\" the lady boffin asked. \"After months of gallivanting about with your young prince?\"\n\n\"Not at all boring, madam,\" Bauer said. \"Mr. Ford pays five dollars a day!\"\n\nDr. Barlow's eyes widened. \"How extraordinary.\"\n\nAlek smiled. He'd tried to give Klopp the rest of his father's gold, but the man hadn't taken it. In any case, the toothpick weighed less than twenty grams, no more than fifteen dollars' worth. Working for Ford Walkers, the three of them together would make that every day.\n\n\"Land of opportunity,\" the lady boffin's loris said with a sniff. The creature's German accent was also excellent.\n\n\"Where is your Count Volger?\" Dr. Barlow said. \"I've saved a number of periodicals for him.\"\n\n\"He's here somewhere.\" Alek looked about, and saw Volger skulking in a dark corner of the cargo bay. His eyebrows had been burnt off when Tesla's bolt of lightning had struck their swords, making his expression resemble a madman's in a motion picture show.\n\nOr perhaps he was simply in one of his moods. When Alek had told his men to make new lives here in America, only Volger had resisted. The man had vowed to work for Alek's elevation to the throne of Austria-Hungary, whether Alek wanted him to or not.\n\nBut when Dr. Barlow went to the wildcount, his expression softened, and soon they were talking intently together in the privacy of the corner.\n\n\"Perhaps I'm speaking out of turn, sir,\" Hoffman said, looking at them. \"But they are an odd pair, aren't they?\"\n\nKlopp snorted a laugh. \"Quite suited to each other.\"\n\n\"You know what I've always thought, sir?\" Bauer said. \"That this war's been as good as over since they wound up on the same side!\"\n\n\"Plotters,\" Bovril whispered into Alek's ear.\n\nIt took another hour for Alek to extract himself from all the well-wishers and interview-seekers, and to maneuver out of the cargo bay and into a smaller storeroom he'd seen Deryn make a quiet exit toward. She was still there waiting, sitting on a barrel of honey from the Leviathan's fabricated bees.\n\nIt was the first time Alek and Bovril had seen her since they'd said good-bye at the Serbian consulate, and the beastie practically threw itself into her arms. Alek wished he could as well, but the crowded cargo bay was on the other side of an unlocked hatch. Instead he only nodded, wondering how to start.\n\nHe had expected it to be years before they met again, but even three weeks had seemed so long. He couldn't say any of that, though, not yet.\n\nShe was staring at his medal as she stroked Bovril's head. It was, of course, the same decoration that Deryn wore on her own dress uniform, and that her father had earned for saving her life.\n\n\"A bit daft,\" she finally said. \"Getting a medal for falling down.\"\n\nHe swallowed. \"I don't really deserve it, do I?\"\n\n\"You deserve a stack of medals, Alek! For saving the ship back in the Alps, and in Istanbul, and again when you shut down Tesla's machine!\" She paused a moment. \"Not that the Admiralty would ever give you that last one, seeing as how you saved Berlin.\"\n\n\"You were there for all of those, Deryn, and I don't see medals filling up your . . .\" He cleared his throat and glanced away.\n\n\"Chest!\" Bovril said.\n\nDeryn laughed aloud at that, but Alek didn't join her.\n\n\"I'm happy with just the one, thanks,\" she said. \"And I wasn't beside you when you stopped Goliath.\"\n\n\"In a way you were,\" he said softly, staring at the floor. Only the fact that he'd been saving her had made pulling that trigger possible.\n\nDeryn smiled and shook her head. \"You never did recover from that knock to your head, did you?\"\n\n\"A bit daft!\" said Bovril.\n\n\"Maybe not. A lot of things have been a bit fuzzy since then.\" Alek looked up at her. \"Of course, other things have gotten clearer.\"\n\nBovril chuckled at this, but Deryn looked away. A silence stretched out, and Alek wondered if it would always be like this between them now, halting and uncertain.\n\n\"There's something I should tell you,\" he said. \"A secret about Tesla.\"\n\nDeryn's eyes widened. \"Blisters.\"\n\n\"Somewhere more private,\" Alek said, then wondered if he were only stalling. But suddenly he knew where he wanted to go. \"I know I'm not serving on this ship, Mr. Sharp, but do you suppose they'd let me go topside one last time?\"\n\n\"If you're escorted by a decorated officer, maybe.\" A grin spread across Deryn's face. \"And I suppose it's time for me to try the ratlines.\"\n\n\"Your knee's still hurt? But your cane . . .\" The first time he'd spotted her in the crowd, Alek had noticed she wasn't carrying it.\n\n\"It's much better, thank you. I'm still resting it, is all, and I'm forgetting all my knots!\" She shrugged. \"But if you don't mind climbing in your fancy clothes, I'm game to give it a try.\"\n\nThe Leviathan was keeping station over the East River, making a show of patrolling for any German water-walkers that might attack Manhattan, unlikely as that seemed. The ocean breeze blew from the south, keeping the view of the city spires steady. Deryn wondered what the airbeast thought of the huge, uncanny skyscrapers\u2014almost its own size, but planted in the ground sideways and pointing straight into the air.\n\nHer knee hurt as they climbed the ratlines together, of course, but the burning was an old friend now. The feel of rope in her hands and the tremble of the airbeast beneath her weight overwhelmed everything else. And by the time they reached the spine, the muscles in her arms hurt worse than her injury.\n\n\"Barking spiders, I've gotten soft!\"\n\n\"Hardly,\" Alek said, loosening the buttons on his formal jacket.\n\nThe U-boat spotters worked from the gondola, and half the crew had been to Alek's ceremony, so there was hardly anyone topside now. Deryn led Alek forward, away from the few riggers at work amidships. As they passed through the colony of fl\u00e9chette bats, Bovril twitched on her shoulder, imitating the beasties' soft clicking sounds.\n\nThe bowhead was empty, but Deryn hesitated a moment before speaking. It was enough, just standing here with Alek in the salt breeze. And she suspected that his secret about Tesla concerned a certain bit of meteor, and talking about that would only make things sour.\n\nBut they couldn't stand here forever, however much she wished for it.\n\n\"All right, your princeliness. What's this secret?\"\n\nAlek turned away to face the darkening sky, in the direction of Tesla's ruined machine fifty miles away.\n\n\"The Germans didn't kill him,\" he said simply. \"I did.\"\n\nIt took a moment for Deryn's mind to grasp the words.\n\n\"That's not what I . . . ,\" she began. \"Oh.\"\n\n\"There was no other way to stop him.\" Alek looked down at his hands. \"I killed him with his own walking stick.\"\n\nDeryn stepped closer and took Alek's arm. He looked as sad as when he'd first come aboard the Leviathan, back when his parents' deaths still haunted him.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Alek.\"\n\n\"When I was helping Tesla, I never faced the truth of what Goliath was.\" He stared into her eyes. \"But with the Germans storming up the beach, it all became real too fast. Suddenly he was standing there, ready to destroy a city, and I couldn't let him.\"\n\n\"You did the right thing, Alek.\"\n\n\"I killed an unarmed man!\" he cried; then he shook his head. \"But Volger keeps pointing out that Tesla wasn't exactly unarmed. Goliath was a weapon, after all.\"\n\n\"Quite,\" Bovril said.\n\nDeryn swallowed, realizing that Dr. Barlow had been right. They couldn't tell Alek about the meteor now. He could never learn he'd killed a man to stop a weapon that didn't work.\n\nBut she'd promised not to keep secrets from him anymore. . . .\n\n\"It was Volger's idea to lie,\" Alek went on. \"We told the truth about shutting down Goliath, because saving Berlin will make me a hero in the Clanker nations. But we can never say exactly how I did it.\"\n\n\"Aye, and he's right!\" Deryn took both his hands, remembering the suspicions that Adela Rogers had voiced. \"Don't tell anyone you killed him, Alek. They'll think you were in league with the Germans, and they'll blame the rest of the war on you!\"\n\nHe nodded. \"But I had to tell you, Deryn. Because we promised not to keep secrets anymore.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes. \"Oh, you daft prince.\"\n\nThere was no way out of it now.\n\n\"You're right enough about that.\" Alek was staring down at his formal boots, which were a little scuffed from climbing. \"I thought it was my destiny to stop this war, and in the end all I had to do was step aside and it would've all been over. But instead I kept it going. So it really is my fault from now on.\"\n\n\"No, it isn't!\" Deryn cried. \"It never was. And you couldn't have stopped it anyway, because Tesla's machine didn't work!\"\n\nAlek blinked. He took a step back, but Deryn stopped him, squeezing his hands hard.\n\nBovril chuckled a bit and said, \"Meteoric.\"\n\n\"Remember my bit of Tesla's rock?\" Deryn said. \"Dr. Barlow sent it to some boffin in London, and it was from a meteor. You know what that is, right?\"\n\n\"A shooting star?\" Alek shrugged. \"Then, it's as I thought; it was only a scientific specimen.\"\n\n\"This wasn't just some shooting star!\" Deryn tried to remember everything Dr. Barlow had said. \"What Tesla found was just a wee bit of it, but the whole thing was huge, maybe miles across. And it was going so barking fast that it exploded when it hit the atmosphere. That's what knocked down those trees, not some Clanker contraption! Tunguska was just an accident, and Tesla was a rooster taking credit for the dawn!\"\n\nAlek stared at her, his eyes glittering. \"Then, why did he try to fire Goliath?\"\n\n\"Because he was mad, Alek, out of his mind with wanting to stop the war!\"\n\n\"Just like you,\" she didn't say.\n\n\"And Dr. Barlow is certain of this.\"\n\n\"Completely. So it's not your fault the war's still going! It would have gone on, year after bloody year, no matter what you did.\" She flung her arms around him and squeezed hard. \"But you didn't know that!\"\n\nAlek stood there motionless in her embrace, his muscles tight. At last he pushed her gently away, his voice barely a whisper.\n\n\"I'd have done it anyway.\"\n\nShe swallowed. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I would have killed him to save the Leviathan. To save you.\" He put his hands on her shoulders. \"It was the only thing in my mind, when it came time to choose\u2014that I couldn't lose you. That's when I knew.\"\n\n\"Knew what?\"\n\nHe leaned forward to kiss her. His lips were soft against hers, but they kindled something sharp and hard inside her, something that had waited impatiently all the months since this boy had come aboard.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said after it was over. \"That.\"\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Bovril added softly.\n\n\"When we were topside in the storm, is this what you . . . ,\" Alek began. \"I mean, have I gone mad?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\" She pulled him closer, and they kissed again.\n\nFinally she took a step back and looked about, worried for a moment that they might have been seen. But the nearest riggers on the spine were five hundred feet away, huddled around a hydrogen sniffer that had found a tear in the membrane.\n\n\"It's a bit tricky, isn't it?\" Alek said, following her gaze.\n\nShe nodded silently, afraid that one wrong word could ruin everything.\n\nHe pulled something from his pocket, and as Deryn stared at it, her heart sank. It was the leather scroll case, the one with the pope's letter inside. She'd forgotten for a single, absurd moment that Alek was an emperor-in-waiting and she was as common as dirt.\n\n\"Tricky,\" Bovril said.\n\n\"Of course.\" Deryn dropped her gaze, stepping back from his embrace. \"No one's going to write me a letter to turn me royal, are they? And I'd hardly make a proper princess, even if the pope himself sewed me a dress. This is all ridiculous.\"\n\nAlek stared at the scroll case. \"No, the answer's quite simple.\"\n\nDeryn clenched her fists against too much hope. \"You mean we could keep it all a secret? We'd have to hide ourselves for a bit anyway, given that I'm dressed in trousers. And you're a bit better at lying these days . . .\"\n\n\"That's not what I mean.\"\n\nShe stared at him\u2014the daft look was in his eyes again. \"What, then?\"\n\n\"We'll keep some secrets, for a while. And you may need your disguise until the world catches up with you.\" Alek took a slow breath. \"But I have no use for this.\"\n\nAnd with those words Prince Aleksandar of Hohenberg flung the scroll case hard to starboard, and it went spinning out across the Manhattan skyline, the shiny leather glittering in the sunlight. The ocean breeze caught it and carried it astern, but the whirling case still cleared the broadest part of the airbeast's body by some distance, and from the bowhead Deryn could plainly see where it struck the water with a tiny, perfect splash.\n\n\"Meteoric!\" Bovril said a bit madly.\n\n\"Aye, beastie.\" The world had suddenly gone sharp and crackly, as if lightning were kindling the sky over Manhattan. But Deryn couldn't lift her gaze from the dark river. \"That letter was your whole future, you daft prince.\"\n\n\"It was my past. I lost that world the night my parents died.\" He drew close again. \"But I found you, Deryn. Maybe I wasn't meant to end the war, but I was meant to find you. I know that. You've saved me from not having any reason to keep going.\"\n\n\"We save each other,\" Deryn whispered. \"That's how it works.\"\n\nWith a quick glance at the distant group of riggers, she kissed Alek again. This one was longer, better, their hands entwining at their sides, and the steady headwind made it feel as if the ship were underway, going somewhere new and wonderful with only the three of them aboard.\n\nThat thought made Deryn pull away. \"But what in blazes are you going to do, Alek?\"\n\n\"I expect I'll have to get a proper job.\" He sighed, staring down at the river. \"My gold's run out, and it's not likely they'll let me join the crew.\"\n\n\"Emperors are vain and useless things,\" Bovril said.\n\nAlek gave the beast a hard stare, but Deryn felt another smile on her face.\n\n\"Not to worry,\" she said. \"I was thinking of leaving myself.\"\n\n\"What . . . you, leave the Leviathan? But that's absurd.\"\n\n\"Not quite. It turns out the lady boffin has just the job for me. For both of us, I'd think.\"\n\n\"AN END AND A KISS.\"\n\nIn a surprise announcement today, His Serene Highness Aleksandar of Hohenberg, putative heir to the empire of Austria-Hungary, renounced his claim to all the lands and titles of his father's line, including the imperial throne itself. This extraordinary news has shaken his war-ravaged country, many of whose embattled citizens have quietly embraced the fugitive prince as a symbol of peace.\n\nIt is unclear whether Prince Aleksandar would have taken the throne in any case. His claim is based on a papal bull that has not been verified by the Vatican, and which is contested by the current emperor, Franz Joseph. Indeed, as Russian victories mount on the eastern front, it is unclear whether the Austro-Hungarian Empire will exist at all once the Great War is over.\n\nIn a declaration of lesser importance, Aleksandar also renounced his ties to the Tesla Foundation, which is raising money to repair the late inventor's facility in Shoreham, New York. The prince's relationship with the organization had been under strain since the announcement that it was he who shut down the weapon after Nikola Tesla's death, fearing for the safety of nearby aircraft and the city of Berlin. According to his spokesman, Wildcount Ernst Volger, Aleksandar has taken a position with the Zoological Society of London, a scientific organization of royal patronage, best known for its upkeep of the London Zoo.\n\nRumors are flying as to why an heir to one of the great houses of Europe would trade his throne, lands, and titles for the post of zookeeper. But reached by this reporter while on his way to England via His Majesty's Airship Leviathan, Aleksandar had only this for comment: \"Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria, nube.\"\n\nThe phrase is the Latin motto of the Hapsburgs and refers to the house's tradition of gaining influence by alliance rather than conflict. It translates, \"Let others wage war. You, lucky Austria, shall marry.\" What it might mean in this context is unclear, though it suggests to this reporter that the young prince has found the comfort of new and powerful allies.\n\nEddie Malone\n\nNew York World\n\nDecember 20, 1914"
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Leviathan 2) Behemoth",
+        "author": "Scott Westerfeld",
+        "genres": [
+            "alternate history",
+            "steampunk"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Alek raised his sword. \"On guard, sir!\"\n\nDeryn hefted her own weapon, studying Alek's pose. His feet were splayed at right angles, his left arm sticking out behind like the handle of a teacup. His fencing armor made him look like a walking quilt. Even with his sword pointed straight at her, he looked barking silly.\n\n\"Do I have to stand like that?\" she asked.\n\n\"If you want to be a proper fencer, yes.\"\n\n\"A proper idiot, more like,\" Deryn muttered, wishing again that her first lesson were someplace less public. A dozen crewmen were watching, along with a pair of curious hydrogen sniffers. But Mr. Rigby, the bosun, had forbidden swordplay inside the airship.\n\nShe sighed, raised her saber, and tried to imitate Alek's pose.\n\nIt was a fine day on the Leviathan's topside, at least. The airship had left the Italian peninsula behind last night, and the flat sea stretched in all directions, the afternoon sun scattering diamonds across its surface. Seagulls wheeled overhead, carried by the cool ocean breeze.\n\nBest of all, there were no officers up here to remind Deryn that she was on duty. Two German ironclad warships were rumored to be skulking nearby, and Deryn was meant to be watching for signals from Midshipman Newkirk, who was dangling from a Huxley ascender two thousand feet above them.\n\nBut she wasn't really dawdling. Only two days before, Captain Hobbes had ordered her to keep an eye on Alek, to learn what she could. Surely a secret mission from the captain himself outweighed her normal duties.\n\nMaybe it was daft that the officers still thought of Alek and his men as enemies, but at least it gave Deryn an excuse to spend time with him.\n\n\"Do I look like a ninny?\" she asked Alek.\n\n\"You do indeed, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Well, you do too, then! Whatever they call ninnies in Clanker-talk.\"\n\n\"The word is 'Dummkopf'\" he said. \"But I don't look like one, because my stance isn't dreadful.\"\n\nHe lowered his saber and came closer, adjusting Deryn's limbs as if she were a dummy in a shop window.\n\n\"More weight on your back foot,\" he said, nudging her boots farther apart. \"So you can push off when you attack.\"\n\nAlek was right behind her now, his body pressing close as he adjusted her sword arm. She hadn't realized this fencing business would be so touchy.\n\nHe grasped her waist, sending a crackle across her skin.\n\nIf Alek moved his hands any higher, he might notice what was hidden beneath her careful tailoring.\n\n\"Always keep sideways to your opponent,\" he said, gently turning her. \"That way, your chest presents the smallest possible target.\"\n\n\"Aye, the smallest possible target,\" Deryn sighed. Her secret was safe, it seemed.\n\nAlek stepped away and resumed his own pose, so that the tips of their swords almost touched. Deryn took a deep breath, ready to fight at last.\n\nBut Alek didn't move. Long seconds passed, the airship's new engines thrumming beneath their feet, the clouds slipping slowly past overhead.\n\n\"Are we going to fight?\" Deryn finally asked. \"Or just stare each other to death?\"\n\n\"Before a fencer crosses swords, he has to learn this basic stance. But don't worry\"\u2014Alek smiled cruelly\u2014\"we won't be here more than an hour. It's only your first lesson, after all.\"\n\n\"What? A whole barking hour \u2026 without moving?\" Deryn's muscles were already complaining, and she could see the crewmen stifling their laughter. One of the hydrogen sniffers crept forward to snuffle her boot.\n\n\"This is nothing,\" Alek said. \"When I first started training with Count Volger, he wouldn't even let me hold a sword!\"\n\n\"Well, that sounds like a daft way to teach someone sword fighting.\"\n\n\"Your body has to learn the proper stance. Otherwise you'll fall into bad habits.\"\n\nDeryn snorted. \"You'd think that in a fight not moving might be a bad habit! And if we're just standing here, why are you wearing armor?\"\n\nAlek didn't answer, just narrowed his eyes, his saber motionless in the air. Deryn could see her own point wavering. She set her teeth.\n\nOf course, barking Prince Alek would have been taught how to fight in the proper way. From what she could tell, his whole life had been a procession of tutors. Count Volger, his fencing master, and Otto Klopp, his master of mechaniks, might be the only teachers with him now that he was on the run. But back when he'd lived in the Hapsburg family castle, there must have been a dozen more, all of them cramming Alek's attic with yackum: ancient languages, parlor manners, and Clanker superstitions. No wonder he thought that standing about like a pair of coatracks was educational.\n\nBut Deryn wasn't about to let some stuck-up prince outlast her.\n\nSo she stood there glaring at him, perfectly still. As the minutes stretched out, her body stiffened, her muscles beginning to throb. And it was worse inside her brain, boredom twisting into anger and frustration, the rumble of the airship's Clanker engines turning her head into a beehive.\n\nThe trickiest part was holding Alek's stare. His dark green eyes stayed locked on hers, as unwavering as his sword point. Now that she knew Alek's secrets\u2014the murder of his parents, the pain of leaving home behind, the cold weight of his family squabbles starting this awful war\u2014Deryn could see the sadness behind that gaze.\n\nAt odd moments she could see tears brightening Alek's eyes, only a fierce, relentless pride holding them back. And sometimes when they competed over stupid things, like who could climb the ratlines fastest, Deryn almost wanted to let him win.\n\nBut she could never say these things aloud, not as a boy, and Alek would never meet her eyes like this again, if he ever learned she was a girl.\n\n\"Alek \u2026,\" she began.\n\n\"Need a rest?\" His smirk wiped her charitable thoughts away.\n\n\"Get stuffed,\" she said. \"I was just wondering, what'll you Clankers do when we get to Constantinople?\"\n\nThe point of Alek's sword wavered for a moment. \"Count Volger will think of something. We'll leave the city as soon as possible, I expect. The Germans will never look for me in the wilds of the Ottoman Empire.\"\n\nDeryn glanced at the empty horizon ahead. The Leviathan might reach Constantinople by dawn tomorrow, and she'd met Alek only six days ago. Would he really be gone so quickly?\n\n\"Not that it's so bad here,\" Alek said. \"The war feels farther away than it ever did in Switzerland. But I can't stay up in the air forever.\"\n\n\"No, I reckon you can't,\" Deryn said, focusing her gaze on their sword points. The captain might not know who Alek's father had been, but it was obvious the boy was Austrian. It was only a matter of time before Austria-Hungary was officially at war with Britain, and then the captain would never let the Clankers leave.\n\nIt hardly seemed fair, thinking of Alek as an enemy after he'd saved the airship\u2014two times now. Once from an icy death, by giving them food, and the second time from the Germans, by handing over the engines that had allowed them all to escape.\n\nThe Germans were still hunting Alek, trying to finish the job they'd started on his parents. Someone had to be on his side.\u2026\n\nAnd, as Deryn had gradually admitted to herself these last few days, she didn't mind if that someone wound up being her.\n\nA fluttering in the sky caught her attention, and Deryn let her aching sword arm drop.\n\n\"Hah!\" Alek said. \"Had enough?\"\n\n\"It's Newkirk,\" she said, trying to work out the boy's frantic signals.\n\nThe semaphore flags whipped through the letters once more, and slowly the message formed in her brain.\n\n\"Two sets of smokestacks, forty miles away,\" she said, reaching for her command whistle. \"It's the German ironclads!\"\n\nShe found herself smiling a little as she blew\u2014Constantinople might have to wait a squick.\n\nThe alarm howl spread swiftly, passing from one hydrogen sniffer to the next. Soon the whole airship rang with the beasties' cries.\n\nCrewmen crowded the spine, setting up air guns and taking feed bags to the fl\u00e9chette bats. Sniffers scampered across the ratlines, checking for leaks in the Leviathan's skin.\n\nDeryn and Alek cranked the Huxley's winch, drawing Newkirk down closer to the ship.\n\n\"We'll leave him at a thousand feet,\" Deryn said, watching the altitude markings on the rope. \"The lucky sod. You can see the whole battle from up there!\"\n\n\"But it won't be much of a battle, will it?\" Alek asked. \"What can an airship do to a pair of ironclads?\"\n\n\"My guess is, we'll stay absolutely still for an hour. Just so we don't fall into any bad habits.\"\n\nAlek rolled his eyes. \"I'm serious, Dylan. The Leviathan has no heavy guns. How do we fight them?\"\n\n\"A big hydrogen breather can do plenty. We've got a few aerial bombs left, and fl\u00e9chette bats \u2026\" Deryn's words faded. \"Did you just say 'we'?\"\n\n\"Pardon me?\"\n\n\"You just said, 'How do we fight them?' Like you were one of us!\"\n\n\"I suppose I might have.\" Alek looked down at his boots. \"My men and I are serving on this ship, after all, even if you are a bunch of godless Darwinists.\"\n\nDeryn smiled again as she secured the Huxley's cable. \"I'll make sure to mention that to the captain, next time he asks if you're a Clanker spy.\"\n\n\"How kind of you,\" Alek said, then raised his eyes to meet hers. \"But that's a good point\u2014will the officers trust us in battle?\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't they? You saved the ship\u2014gave us engines from your Stormwalker!\"\n\n\"Yes, but if I hadn't been so generous, we'd still be stuck on that glacier with you. Or in a German prison, more likely. It wasn't exactly out of friendship.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. Maybe things were a squick more complicated now, what with a battle coming up. Alek's men and the Leviathan's crew had become allies almost by accident, and only a few days ago.\n\n\"You only promised to help us get to the Ottoman Empire, I suppose,\" she said softly. \"Not to fight other Clankers.\"\n\nAlek nodded. \"That's what your officers will be thinking.\"\n\n\"Aye, but what are you thinking?\"\n\n\"We'll follow orders.\" He pointed toward the bow. \"See that? Klopp and Hoffman are already at work.\"\n\nIt was true. The engine pods on either side of the great beastie's head were roaring louder, sending two thick columns of exhaust into the air. But to see the Clanker engines on a Darwinist airship was just another reminder of the strange alliance the Leviathan had entered into. Compared to the tiny British-made engines the ship was designed to carry, they sounded and smoked like freight trains.\n\n\"Maybe this is a chance to prove yourself,\" Deryn said. \"You should go lend your men a hand. We'll need good speed to catch those ironclads by nightfall.\" She clapped him on the shoulder. \"But don't get yourself killed.\"\n\n\"I'll try not to.\" Alek smiled and gave her a salute. \"Good luck, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nHe turned and ran forward along the spine.\n\nWatching him go, Deryn wondered what officers down on the bridge were thinking. Here was the Leviathan, entering battle with new and barely tested engines, run by men who should by all rights be fighting on the other side.\n\nBut the captain didn't have much choice, did he? He could either trust the Clankers or drift helplessly in the breeze. And Alek and his men had to join the fight or they'd lose their only allies. Nobody seemed to have much choice, come to think of it.\n\nDeryn sighed, wondering how this war had got so muddled.\n\nAs he ran toward the engines, Alek wondered if he'd told Dylan the whole truth.\n\nIt felt wrong, hurrying to join this attack. Alek and his men had fought Germans\u2014even fellow Austrians\u2014a dozen times while fleeing to Switzerland. But this was different\u2014these ironclads weren't hunting him.\n\nAccording to wireless broadcasts that Count Volger had overheard, the two ships had been trapped in the Mediterranean at the start of the war. With the British in control of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, there'd been no way for them to get back to Germany. They'd been running for the past week.\n\nAlek knew what it felt like to be hounded, trapped in a fight that someone else had started. But here he was, ready to help the Darwinists send two ships full of living, breathing men to the bottom of the sea.\n\nThe vast beast rolled under his feet, the tendrils that covered its flanks undulating like windblown grass, pulling it into a slow turn. Fabricated birds swirled around Alek, some already harnessed and carrying instruments of war.\n\nThat was another difference. This time he was fighting side by side with these creatures. Alek had been raised to believe they were godless abominations, but after four days aboard the airship, their squawks and cries had begun to sound natural. Except for the awful fl\u00e9chette bats, fabricated beasts could even seem beautiful.\n\nWas he turning into a Darwinist?\n\nWhen he reached the spine above the engine pods, Alek headed down the port side ratlines. The airship was tilting into a climb, the sea falling away below him. The ropes were slick with salty air, and as he strained to keep from falling, questions of loyalty fled his mind.\n\nBy the time he reached the engine pod, Alek was soaked in sweat and wishing he hadn't worn fencing armor.\n\nOtto Klopp was at the controls, his Hapsburg Guard uniform looking tattered after six weeks away from home. Beside him stood Mr. Hirst, the Leviathan's chief engineer, who was studying the roaring machine with a measure of distaste. Alek had to admit, churning pistons and spitting glow plugs looked bizarre beside the undulating flank of the airbeast, like gears attached to a butterfly's wings.\n\n\"Master Klopp,\" Alek shouted over the roar. \"How's she running?\"\n\nThe old man looked up from the controls. \"Smoothly enough, for this speed. Do you know what's going on?\"\n\nOf course, Otto Klopp spoke hardly any English. Even if a message lizard had brought the news up to the pod, he wouldn't know why the airship was changing course. All he'd seen were color codes flashed from the bridge to the signal patch, orders to be obeyed.\n\n\"We've spotted two German ironclads.\" Alek paused\u2014had he said \"we\" again? \"The ship is giving chase.\"\n\nKlopp frowned, chewing on the news for a moment, then shrugged. \"Well, the Germans haven't done us any favors lately. But it's also true, young master, that we could blow a piston at any time.\"\n\nAlek looked away into the spinning gears. The newly rebuilt engines were still cantankerous, with unexpected problems always cropping up. The crew would never know if a temporary breakdown were intentional.\n\nBut this was no time to betray their new allies.\n\nFor all the talk of Alek saving the Leviathan, the airship had really saved him. His father's plan had been for Alek to hide in the Swiss Alps for the entire war, emerging only to reveal his secret\u2014that he was heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. The airship's crash landing had rescued him from long years of skulking in the snow.\n\nHe owed the Darwinists for saving him, and for trusting his men to run these engines.\n\n\"Let's hope that doesn't happen, Otto.\"\n\n\"As you say, sir.\"\n\n\"Anything wrong?\" Mr. Hirst asked.\n\nAlek switched to English. \"Not at all. Master Klopp says she's running smoothly. I believe Count Volger is assigned to the starboard engine crew. Shall I stay here and translate for you two?\"\n\nThe chief engineer handed Alek a pair of goggles to protect his eyes from sparks and wind. \"Please do. We wouldn't want any \u2026 misunderstandings in the heat of battle.\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" Alek pulled on the goggles, wondering if Mr. Hirst had noticed Klopp's hesitation. As the airship's chief engineer, Hirst was a rare Darwinist with an understanding of machines. He always watched Klopp's work on the Clanker engines with admiration, even though the two didn't share a language. There was no point in arousing his suspicions now.\n\nHopefully this battle would be over quickly, and they could head on to Constantinople without delay.\n\nAs night fell, two dark slivers came into view on the horizon.\n\n\"The little one's not much to look at,\" Klopp said, lowering his field glasses.\n\nAlek took the glasses and peered through them. The smaller ironclad was already damaged. One of its gun turrets had been blackened by a fire, and an oil slick spread in the ship's wake, a shimmering black rainbow in the setting sun.\n\n\"They've been in a fight already?\" he asked Mr. Hirst.\n\n\"Aye, the navy's been hunting them all over the Mediterranean. They've been shelled a few times from a distance, but they keep slipping away.\" The man smiled. \"But they won't escape this time.\"\n\n\"They certainly can't outrun us,\" Alek said. The Leviathan had closed a gap of sixty kilometers in a few hours.\n\n\"And they can't fight back either,\" Mr. Hirst said. \"We're too high for them to hit. All we have to do is slow them down. The navy's already on its way.\"\n\nA boom rang out on the spine above, and a swarm of black wings lifted from the front of the airship.\n\n\"They're sending in fl\u00e9chette bats first,\" Alek said to Klopp.\n\n\"What sort of godless creature is that?\"\n\n\"They eat spikes,\" was all Alek could say. A shudder passed through him.\n\nThe swarm began to muster, forming a black cloud in the air. Searchlights sprang to life on the gondola, and as the sunlight faded, the bats gathered in the beams like moths.\n\nThe Leviathan had lost countless beasts in her recent battles, but the airship was slowly repairing itself. More bats were already breeding, like a forest recovering after a long hunting season. The Darwinists called the ship an \"ecosystem.\"\n\nFrom a distance there was something mesmerizing about the way the dark swarm swirled in the searchlights. It coiled toward the smaller ironclad, ready to unleash its rain of metal spikes. Most of the crew would be safe beneath armor plating, but the men at the smaller deck guns would be torn to pieces.\n\n\"Why start with bats?\" Alek asked Hirst. \"Fl\u00e9chettes won't sink an ironclad.\"\n\n\"No, but they'll shred her signal flags and wireless aerials. If we can keep the two ships from communicating, they're less likely to split up and make a run for it.\"\n\nAlek translated for Klopp, who pointed a finger into the distance. \"The big one's coming about.\"\n\nAlek raised the field glasses again, taking a moment to find the larger ship's silhouette against the darkening horizon. He could just read the name on her side\u2014the Goeben looked far more formidable than her companion. She had three big gun turrets and a pair of gyrothopter catapults, and the shape of her wake revealed a set of kraken-fighting arms beneath the surface.\n\nOn her aft deck stood something strange\u2014a tall tower that bristled with metal rigging, like a dozen wireless transmitters crammed together.\n\n\"What's that on her back side?\" Alek asked.\n\nKlopp took the glasses and stared. He'd worked with German forces for years, and usually had a lively opinion on military matters. But now he frowned, his voice hesitant.\n\n\"I'm not sure. Reminds me of a toy I once saw \u2026\" Klopp squeezed the glasses tighter. \"She's launching a gyrothopter!\"\n\nA small shape hurtled into the air from one of the catapults. It banked hard and came whirring toward the bats.\n\n\"What's he up to?\" Klopp asked softly.\n\nAlek watched with a frown on his face. Gyrothopters were fragile machines, barely strong enough to lift a pilot. They were designed for scouting, not attack. But the little aircraft was headed straight at the cloud of bats, its twin rotors spinning wildly.\n\nAs it neared the fluttering swarm, the gyrothopter suddenly kindled in the darkness. Bolts of flame shot from its front end, a spray of brilliant crimson fireworks that stretched across the sky.\n\nAlek remembered something that Dylan had said about the bats\u2014they were deathly afraid of red light; it scared the spikes right out of them.\n\nThe stream of fire tore through the swarm, scattering bats in all directions. Seconds later the cloud had disappeared, like a black dandelion in a puff of wind.\n\nThe gyrothopter tried to veer away, but was caught beneath a wave of fleeing bats. Alek could see fl\u00e9chettes falling, glittering in the searchlights, and the gyrothopter began to shudder in midair. The blades of its rotors tore and crumpled, their remaining energy twisting the delicate frame into wreckage.\n\nAlek watched as the flying machine tumbled from the sky, disappearing in a small white splash on the ocean's dark surface. He wondered if its unlucky pilot had survived the fl\u00e9chettes long enough to feel the water's cold.\n\nThe Leviathan's searchlights still swept across the sky, but the swarm was too scattered to resume the attack. Small fluttering shapes were already streaming back toward the airship.\n\nKlopp lowered his glasses. \"The Germans have some new tricks, it seems.\"\n\n\"They always do,\" Alek managed, staring at the ripples spreading out from where the gyrothopter had crashed.\n\n\"Orders coming in,\" Mr. Hirst said, pointing at the signal patch. It had turned blue, the sign to slow the engine. Klopp adjusted the controls, giving Alek a questioning look.\n\n\"Are we giving up the attack?\" Alek asked in English.\n\n\"Of course not,\" Mr. Hirst said. \"Just changing course. I reckon we'll ignore the Breslau for now and go after the big one. Just to make sure that other gyrothopter doesn't trouble us with those sparklers.\"\n\nAlek listened to the thrum of the ship for a moment. The starboard engine was still running high, pushing the Leviathan into a slow turn toward the Goeben. The battle wasn't over yet. More men would die tonight.\n\nHe looked back at the whirling gears of the engine. Klopp could halt them in a dozen subtle ways. One word from Alek would be enough to stop this battle.\n\nBut he'd promised Dylan to fight loyally. And after throwing away his hiding place, his Stormwalker, and his father's gold to make these Darwinists allies, it seemed absurd to betray them now.\n\nHe knew Count Volger would agree. As heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Alek had a duty to survive. And survival in an enemy camp didn't start with mutiny.\n\n\"What happens next?\" he asked Hirst.\n\nThe chief engineer took the field glasses from Klopp. \"We won't waste any more time tearing up their signal flags, that's for certain. We'll probably go straight in with aerial bombs. A gyrothopter can't stop those.\"\n\n\"We're going to bomb them,\" Alek translated for Klopp. \"They're defenseless.\"\n\nThe man just nodded, adjusting the controls. The signal patch was turning red again. The Leviathan had found her course.\n\nIt took long minutes to close the final distance to the Goeben.\n\nThe ship's big guns boomed once, spilling fire and smoke into the night sky. But Mr. Hirst was right\u2014the shells flew well beneath the Leviathan, erupting into white columns of water kilometers away.\n\nAs the Leviathan drew closer, Alek watched the German ship through the field glasses. Men scrambled across the ironclad's decks, hiding her small guns under what looked like heavy black tarps. The coverings shone dully in the last flickers of sunset, like plastic or leather. Alek wondered if they were made of some new material strong enough to stop fl\u00e9chettes.\n\nBut no plastic could stop high explosives.\n\nThe men on the ironclad hardly seemed worried, though. No lifeboats were readied, and the second gyrothopter stayed on its catapult, the rotors strapped down against the wind. Soon it too was veiled with a glossy black covering.\n\n\"Young master,\" Klopp said, \"what's happening on her aft deck?\"\n\nAlek swung the field glasses, and saw lights flickering atop the ironclad's strange metal tower.\n\nHe squinted harder. There were men working at the tower's base, dressed in uniforms made from the same shiny black that covered the deck guns. They moved slowly, as if encased in a fresh layer of tar.\n\nAlek frowned. \"Take a look, Master Klopp. Quickly, please.\"\n\nAs the old man took the field glasses, the flickering lights grew brighter\u2014Alek could see them with his naked eyes now. Shimmers slid along the struts of the tower, like nervous snakes made of lightning.\u2026\n\n\"Rubber,\" Alek said softly. \"They're protecting everything with rubber. That whole tower must be charged with electriks.\"\n\nKlopp swore. \"I should have realized. But they only showed us toys and demonstration models, never one that huge!\"\n\n\"Models of what?\"\n\nThe old man lowered the glasses. \"It's a Tesla cannon. A real one.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"As in Mr. Tesla, the man who invented wireless? You mean that's a transmitting tower?\"\n\n\"The same Mr. Tesla, young master, but it's not a transmitter.\" Klopp's face was pale. \"It's a weapon, a lightning generator.\"\n\nAlek stared in horror at the shimmering tower. As Dylan often said, lightning was an airship's natural enemy. If raw electriks flowed across the airship's skin, even the tiniest hydrogen leak could burst into flame.\n\n\"Are we in range yet?\"\n\n\"The ones I've seen could hardly shoot across a room,\" Klopp said. \"They only tickled your fingers or made your hair stand on end. But that one's huge, and it's got the boilers of a dreadnought to power it!\"\n\nAlek turned to Mr. Hirst, who was watching their conversation with an air of disinterest, and said in English, \"We have to come about! That tower on the aft deck is some kind of \u2026 lightning cannon.\"\n\nMr. Hirst raised an eyebrow. \"A lightning cannon?\"\n\n\"Yes! Klopp has worked with the German land forces. He's seen these things before.\" Alek sighed. \"Well, toy ones, anyway.\"\n\nThe chief engineer peered down at the Goeben. The electriks were sparkling brighter now, unfolding into spidery forms that danced along the tower's struts.\n\n\"Can't you see?\" Alek cried.\n\n\"It is rather odd.\" Mr. Hirst smiled. \"But lightning? I doubt your Clanker friends have mastered the forces of nature just yet.\"\n\n\"You have to tell the bridge!\"\n\n\"I'm sure the bridge can see it well enough.\" Hirst pulled a command whistle from his pocket and blew a short tune. \"But I shall inform them of your theory.\"\n\n\"My theory?\" Alek shouted. \"We don't have time for a debate! We have to turn around!\"\n\n\"What we'll do is wait for orders,\" Mr. Hirst said, dropping the whistle into his pocket.\n\nAlek swallowed a groan of frustration, then turned back to Klopp.\n\n\"How long do we have?\" he said in German.\n\n\"Everyone's cleared the deck, except for those men in protective suits. So it could be any moment.\" Klopp lowered the glasses. \"Full reverse on this engine will turn us around fastest.\"\n\n\"Full reverse from full ahead?\" Alek shook his head. \"You'll never make that look like an accident.\"\n\n\"No, but I can make it look like my own idea,\" Klopp said, then grabbed Alek by the collar and shoved him hard to the floor. As Alek's head cracked against the metal deck of the engine pod, the world went starry for a moment.\n\n\"Klopp! What in blazes are you\u2014\"\n\nThe shriek of gears drowned out Alek's words, the whole pod shuddering in its frame around him. The air suddenly stilled as the propeller sputtered to a halt.\n\n\"What's the meaning of this!\" cried Hirst.\n\nAlek's vision cleared, and he saw Klopp brandishing a wrench at the chief engineer. With his free hand the old man deftly shifted the engine into reverse, then pushed the foot pedal down.\n\nThe propeller sputtered back to life, drawing air backward across the pod.\n\n\"Klopp, wait!\" Alek began. He tried to stand, but his head spun, and he fell back to one knee.\n\nBlazes! The man had actually hurt him!\n\nHirst was blowing on his whistle again\u2014a high-pitched squeak\u2014and Alek heard a hydrogen sniffer howling in response. Soon a pack of the ugly creatures would be thundering down upon them.\n\nAlek pulled himself up, reaching out for the wrench. \"Klopp, what are you doing?\"\n\nThe man swung at him, yelling, \"Got to make this convincing!\"\n\nThe wrench whistled over Alek's head. He ducked and fell back onto one knee again, cursing. Had Klopp gone mad?\n\nMr. Hirst reached into a pocket and pulled out a compressed air pistol.\n\n\"No!\" Alek cried, leaping for the gun. As his fingers wrapped around Hirst's wrist, the pistol exploded with a deafening crack. The shot missed Klopp, but the bullet rang like an alarm bell as it ricocheted around the engine pod.\n\nSomething kicked Alek in the ribs, hard, and searing pain blossomed in his side.\n\nHe fell backward, his fingers slipping from Hirst's wrist, but the man didn't raise the gun again. Hirst and Klopp both gaped, dumbstruck, at the Leviathan's flank.\n\nAlek blinked away pain and followed their stares. The cilia were in furious motion, rippling like leaves in a storm. The airbeast's vast length was bending, twisting harder than he'd ever seen. The great harness groaned around them as it stretched, joined by the pop of ropes snapping in the ratlines.\n\n\"The beast knows it's in danger,\" Klopp said.\n\nAlek watched in wonder as the airship seemed to curl around them in the air. The stars spun overhead, and soon the huge animal had turned itself entirely around.\n\n\"Back to full \u2026,\" Alek began, but it hurt too much to speak. Every word was another kick in the ribs. He looked down at his hand pressed against his left side, and saw blood between the fingers.\n\nKlopp was already working, reversing the engine once more. Mr. Hirst clutched his pistol tight, still staring in wonder at the airbeast's flank.\n\n\"Get out of the pod, young master,\" Klopp yelled as the propeller's gears caught again. \"It's metal. The lightning will jump to it.\"\n\n\"I don't think I can.\"\n\nKlopp turned. \"What \u2026 ?\"\n\n\"I'm shot.\"\n\nThe old man dropped the controls and bent beside him, eyes wide. \"I'll lift you.\"\n\n\"Mind your engine, man!\" Alek managed.\n\n\"Young master\u2014,\" Klopp began, but his words were drowned out by a crackling in the air.\n\nWith a painful heave Alek pulled himself up to look backward. The Goeben was falling behind them, but the Tesla cannon was blindingly bright. It flickered like a welding lamp, sending jittering shadows across the dark sea.\n\nBeside him the airship's cilia still seethed and billowed, pushing at the air like a million tiny oars.\n\nFaster, Alek prayed to the giant airbeast.\n\nA great fireball formed at the tower's base, then swiftly rose, dancing and shimmering as it climbed. When it reached the top, a thunderous boom rang out.\n\nFingers of lightning, jagged and colossal, shot up from the Tesla cannon. They stretched across the whole sky at first, a tree of white fire, then leapt toward the Leviathan as if drawn by scent. The lightning spread a fiery web across the airbeast's skin, a dazzling wave that surged down its length. In an instant the electricity flowed three hundred meters from tail to head, leaping eagerly across the metal struts that supported the engine pod.\n\nThe whole pod began to crackle, the gears and pistons flinging out radiant spokes of fire. Alek was seized by an invisible force; every muscle in his body tightened. For a long moment the lightning squeezed the breath from him. Finally its power wilted, and he slipped back to the metal deck.\n\nThe engine sputtered to a halt again.\n\nAlek smelled smoke, and felt an awful pounding in his chest. His ribs ached with every heartbeat.\n\n\"Young master? Can you hear me?\"\n\nAlek forced his eyes open. \"I'm all right, Klopp.\"\n\n\"No, you aren't,\" the man said. \"I'll get you to the gondola.\"\n\nKlopp wrapped one big arm around Alek and pulled him up, sending a wave of fresh agony through him.\n\n\"God's wounds, man! That hurts!\"\n\nAlek wavered on his feet, dumbstruck by the pain. Mr. Hirst didn't lend a hand, his nervous eyes scanning the length of the Leviathan beside them.\n\nSomehow, the airship was not aflame.\n\n\"The engine?\" Alek asked Klopp.\n\nThe man sniffed the air and shook his head. \"All the electrikals are cooked, and the starboard side is silent as well.\"\n\nAlek turned to Hirst and said, \"We've lost the engines. Perhaps you could put that gun away.\"\n\nThe chief engineer stared at the air pistol in his hand, then slipped it into his pocket and pulled out a whistle. \"I'll call a surgeon for you. Tell your mutinous friend to set you down.\"\n\n\"My 'mutinous friend' just saved your\u2014,\" Alek started, but a fresh wave of dizziness passed over him. \"Let me sit,\" he muttered to Klopp. \"He says he can get a doctor up here.\"\n\n\"But he's the one who shot you!\"\n\n\"Yes, but he was aiming at you. Now please put me down.\"\n\nWith an unkindly look at Hirst, Klopp leaned Alek gently against the controls. As Alek caught his breath, he glanced up at the airship's flank. The cilia were still rippling like windblown grass. Even without the engines to motivate it, the great beast was still headed away from the ironclads.\n\nAlek looked sternward through the motionless propeller. The ironclads were steaming away.\n\n\"That's odd,\" he said. \"They don't seem to want to finish us off.\"\n\nKlopp nodded. \"They've gone back to their north-northeast heading. They must be expected somewhere.\"\n\n\"North-northeast,\" Alek repeated. He knew that was significant somehow. He also knew that he should be worried that the Leviathan was now drifting southward, away from Constantinople.\n\nBut breathing was worry enough.\n\nDeryn stood up slowly, blinking away spots from her eyes.\n\nA barking lightning bolt! That was what had fizzled up from the Clanker warship and leapt across the sky, dancing on every squick of metal on the Leviathan's topside. The Huxley winch had thrown out a blinding flock of white sparks, knocking her half silly in the process.\n\nDeryn looked in all directions, terrified that she would see fires bursting willy-nilly from the membrane. But it was all dark except for the jaggy shimmers burned into her vision. The sniffers must have done their jobs brilliantly before the battle. Not a squick of hydrogen had been leaking from the skin.\n\nThen she remembered\u2014the Leviathan had spun around just in time, the whole airship twisting like a dog chasing its own tail.\n\nHydrogen \u2026\n\nShe looked up into the dark sky, and her jaw dropped.\n\nThere was Newkirk, his arms waving madly, the Huxley blazing over his head like a giant Christmas pudding soaked with brandy.\n\nDeryn felt sick, the way she had in a hundred nightmares replaying Da's accident, so close to the awful sight above her. The Huxley tugged at its cable, carried higher by the heat of the flames, spinning the winch's crank.\n\nBut a moment later, its hydrogen expended, the airbeast began to drop.\n\nNewkirk was twisting in the pilot's rig, still alive somehow. Then Deryn saw a misting in the starlight around the Huxley. Newkirk had spilled the water ballast to keep himself from burning. Clever boy.\n\nThe dead husk of the airbeast billowed out like a ragged parachute, but it was still falling fast.\n\nThe Huxley was a thousand feet up, and if it missed crashing against the Leviathan's topsides, it would drop another thousand feet before the cable snapped it to a halt. Best to make that trip as short as possible. Deryn reached for the winch\u2014but her hand froze.\n\nDid electricity linger?\n\n\"Dummkopf!\" she cursed herself, forcing herself to grasp the metal.\n\nNo sparks shot from it, and she began to turn as fast as she could. But the Huxley was coming down faster than she could reel it in. The cable began to coil across the airship's spine, tangling in the feet of crewmen and sniffers running past.\n\nStill spinning the crank wildly, Deryn looked up. Newkirk was hanging limply beneath the burned husk, which was drifting away from the Leviathan.\n\nThe engines had stopped, and the searchlights had gone dead too. The crewmen were using electric torches to call the bats and strafing hawks back from the black sky\u2014the Clanker lightning contraption had knocked everything out.\n\nBut if the airship was powerless, why was the wind pushing Newkirk away? Shouldn't they all have been drifting together?\n\nDeryn looked down at the flank, her eyes widening.\n\nThe cilia were still moving, still carrying the airship away from danger.\n\n\"Now, that's barking odd,\" she muttered.\n\nUsually a hydrogen breather without engines was content to drift. Of course, the airbeast had been acting strangely since the crash in the Alps. All the old crewmen said that the crash in the Alps\u2014or the Clanker engines\u2014had rattled its attic.\n\nBut this was no time to ponder. Newkirk was gliding past only a hundred feet away, close enough that Deryn could see his blackened face and soaking uniform. But he didn't seem to be moving.\n\n\"Newkirk!\" she yelled, her hand raw on the winch's handle. But he fell past without answering.\n\nThe coils of slack cable began to rustle, like a nest of snakes strewn across the topside. The Huxley was dragging its cable behind as it dropped below the airship.\n\n\"Clear those lines!\" Deryn shouted, waving off a crewman standing among the slithering coils. The man danced away, the cable snapping at his ankles, trying to drag him down as well.\n\nShe went at the crank again, till the line snapped tight with a sickening jerk. Deryn hit the brake and checked the cable markings\u2014just over five hundred feet.\n\nThe Leviathan was two hundred feet from top to bottom, so Newkirk would be dangling less than three hundred feet below. Strapped into the pilot's rig, he was probably all right. Unless the fire had got him, or he'd been jolted to a neck-breaking stop \u2026\n\nDeryn took a deep breath, trying to stop her hands from shaking.\n\nShe couldn't crank him back up. The winch was designed for a hydrogen-filled Huxley, not to haul dead weight.\n\nDeryn followed the taut cable, climbing down the ratlines on the airbeast's flank. From the ship's waist she could just see the Huxley's dark shape fluttering against the whitecaps of the waves.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" she murmured. The water was much closer than she'd expected.\n\nThe Leviathan was losing altitude.\n\nOf course\u2014the great airbeast was trying to find the strongest wind to pull itself away from the German ironclads. It wouldn't care about smacking poor burnt Newkirk against the ocean's choppy surface.\n\nBut the officers could drop ballast, and drag the ship up against its will. Deryn pulled out her command whistle and blew for a message lizard, then stared again at the Huxley below.\n\nThere was no human movement that she could see. Newkirk had to be stunned, at least. And he wouldn't have the right equipment to climb the cable. No one expected to climb up from an ascender.\n\nWhere was that barking message lizard? She saw one scrambling across the membrane, and whistled for it. But the lizard just stared at her and jabbered something about an electrical malfunction.\n\n\"Brilliant,\" she murmured. The bolt of Clanker lightning had scrambled the wee beasties' brains! Down below, the dark water looked closer every second.\n\nShe was going to have to rescue Newkirk herself.\n\nDeryn searched the pockets of her flight suit. In airmanship class Mr. Rigby had taught them about how riggers \"belayed,\" which was Service-speak for sliding down a rope without breaking your neck. She found a few carabiners and enough line to make a pair of friction hitches.\n\nAfter attaching her safety clip to the Huxley's cable, Deryn twisted the carabiner tight. She couldn't wind the rope around her hips because the weight of the dead Huxley would snip her in half. But after a moment's fiddling, she attached the extra carabiners to her harness and strung the cable through them.\n\nMr. Rigby wouldn't approve of this method, Deryn thought as she kicked herself away from the membrane.\n\nShe slid down in short jerks, the carabiners' friction keeping her from falling too fast. But the rope was hot beneath her gloves, its fibers fraying wherever she snapped to a halt. Deryn doubted this cable was designed to hold the weight of a dead Huxley and two middies.\n\nThe ocean thundered below Deryn, the wind growing colder now that the sun had fully set. The peak of a tall wave smacked against the Huxley's drooping membrane, cracking like a gunshot.\n\n\"Newkirk!\" Deryn shouted, and the boy stirred in his pilot's rig.\n\nA shudder of relief went through her\u2014he was alive. Not like Da.\n\nShe let herself fall the last twenty yards, the rope hissing like mad and spilling a burnt smell into the salt air. But her boots landed softly on the squishy membrane of the dead airbeast, which smelled of smoke and salt, like jellyfish cooked on a hearth fire.\n\n\"Where in blazes am I?\" Newkirk mumbled, barely audible over the rumble of the waves. His hair was scorched, his face and hands blackened with smoke.\n\n\"Almost in the barking ocean, that's where! Can you move?\"\n\nThe boy stared at his blackened hands, wriggling his fingers, then unstrapped himself from the harness. He stood up shakily on the frame of the pilot's rig.\n\n\"Aye. I'm just singed.\" He ran his fingers through his hair, or what was left of it.\n\n\"Can you climb?\" Deryn asked.\n\nNewkirk stared up at the Leviathan's dark belly. \"Aye, but that's miles away! Couldn't you have cranked faster?\"\n\n\"You could have fallen slower!\" Deryn shouted back. She unclipped two carabiners and shoved them into his hands, along with a short length of line. \"Tie yourself a friction hitch. Or don't you remember Mr. Rigby's classes?\"\n\nNewkirk stared at the carabiners, then up at the distant airship.\n\n\"Aye, I remember. But I never thought we'd be ascending that far.\"\n\n\"Ascending,\" of course, was Service-Speak for climbing up a rope without breaking your neck. Deryn's fingers worked fast with her own line. A friction hitch slid freely up a rope, but held fast when weight was hanging from it. That way, she and Newkirk could stop and rest without relying on their muscles to keep them from sliding back.\n\n\"You go first,\" she ordered. If Newkirk slid down, she could stop him.\n\nHe pulled himself up a few feet, then tested his hitch, swinging freely from the rope. \"It works!\"\n\n\"Aye. You'll be conquering Mount Everest next!\" As she spoke, another wave slapped at the Huxley, splashing across them both. Deryn lost her footing, but her friction hitch held.\n\nShe spat out salt water and yelled, \"Get going, you Dummkopf! The ship's losing altitude!\"\n\nNewkirk started climbing, scrambling with feet and hands. He had soon cleared enough distance that Deryn could haul herself off the dead Huxley.\n\nAnother wave hit the airbeast, snapping the line tight, and Newkirk skidded down till he was almost on top of her. If the Leviathan dropped any lower, the beastie's carcass would be dragging in the water. If the membrane filled up, it would pull on the rope like a barrel full of stones.\n\nEnough to break any cable \u2026 She had to cut the Huxley loose.\n\n\"Higher!\" she yelled, and started climbing madly.\n\nAbout twenty feet above the Huxley, Deryn halted, hanging just above a badly frayed spot. She pulled out her rigging knife, reached down, and started hacking at the line. Huxley cable was barking thick, but when the next tall wave struck the airbeast, the fibers unraveled in a blur and snapped.\n\nWithout the beastie's dead weight anchoring them, suddenly they were swinging across the black sea, cast about by the wind. Newkirk cried out with surprise overhead.\n\n\"Sorry!\" Deryn yelled up. \"Should have warned you.\"\n\nBut with the Huxley's weight gone, the rope wouldn't snap \u2026 probably.\n\nShe started climbing again, wishing for the hundredth time that she had the arm strength of a boy. But soon the waves no longer threatened her dangling boots.\n\nHalfway up, Deryn took a long breather, searching the dark horizon for the two German ironclads. They were nowhere to be seen.\n\nMaybe the Royal Navy was close by, and had kept the ships running. But Deryn couldn't see any sign of surface ships. The only shape on the water was the Huxley's carcass, a lonely black smear on the waves.\n\n\"Poor beastie,\" she said, shivering. The whole airship and its crew might have wound up like that\u2014burnt black, as lonely as driftwood on the dark sea. If the hydrogen sniffers had missed a single leak, or if the airbeast hadn't spun itself around just in time, they'd all have been done for.\n\n\"Barking Clankers,\" Deryn murmured. \"Making their own lightning now.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes to shut her dark memories away, the roar of skin-prickling heat and the smell of burnt flesh. This time she'd won. The fire hadn't taken anyone she loved.\n\nDeryn shuddered once more, then started to climb again.\n\n\"This is entirely unacceptable!\" Dr. Barlow cried.\n\n\"I'm s-sorry, ma'am,\" the guard sputtered. \"But the captain said the Clanker boy wasn't to have visitors.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head\u2014the man's resistance was already faltering. He was backed up against Alek's stateroom door, sweat breaking out on his forehead.\n\n\"I am not a visitor, you imbecile,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"I'm a doctor here to see an injured patient!\"\n\nTazza's ears perked up at the lady boffin's sharp tone, and he let out a low growl. Deryn held his leash a squick tighter. \"Shush now, Tazza. No biting.\"\n\n\"But the surgeon was already here,\" the guard squeaked, staring wide eyed at the thylacine. \"Said the boy only bruised a rib.\"\n\n\"On top of suffering from shock, no doubt,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"Or did you fail to notice our recent encounter with a prodigious amount of electricity?\"\n\n\"Of course not, ma'am.\" The guard swallowed, still eyeing Tazza nervously. \"But the captain was quite specific\u2014\"\n\n\"Did he specifically forbid doctors from seeing the patient?\"\n\n\"Er, no.\"\n\nJust give up, thought Deryn. It didn't matter that Dr. Barlow was a boffin\u2014a fabricator of beasties\u2014and not a pulse-taking stick-out-your-tongue doctor. She'd be seeing this particular patient one way or another.\n\nDeryn hoped that Alek really was all right. The Clanker lightning had danced across the whole ship, but it must have been worst in the engine pods, with all that metal about \u2026 Well, second to worst, anyway. Newkirk's hair was half burnt off, and he had a knot on his head the size of a cricket ball.\n\nBut how had Alek bruised a rib? That didn't sound like something an electric shock would do.\n\nFinally the guard surrendered his post, slinking off to check with the watch officer and trusting Dr. Barlow to wait till he got back. She didn't, of course, just pushed the door straight open.\n\nAlek lay in bed, his ribs wrapped in bandages. His skin was ashen, his dark green eyes glistening in the dawn light streaming through the portholes.\n\n\"Barking spiders!\" Deryn said. \"You're as pale as a mealyworm.\"\n\nA wan smile spread across the boy's face. \"It's good to see you, too, Dylan. And you, Dr. Barlow.\"\n\n\"Good morning, Alek,\" the lady boffin said. \"You are pale, aren't you? As if you've lost some blood. An odd symptom for electrocution.\"\n\nAlek grimaced as he struggled to sit up higher. \"I'm afraid you're right, ma'am. Mr. Hirst shot me.\"\n\n\"Shot you?\" Deryn cried.\n\nAlek nodded. \"Luckily it was one of your feeble compressed air guns. Dr. Busk said the bullet hit a rib and bounced off, but nothing's broken, thanks partly to my fencing armor. I should be walking about soon enough.\"\n\nDeryn stared at the bandages. \"But what in blazes did he shoot you for?\"\n\n\"He was aiming for Klopp. They had a \u2026 disagreement. Klopp realized what was about to happen\u2014what the Tesla cannon was\u2014and decided to turn us around.\"\n\n\"A Tesla cannon?\" Dr. Barlow repeated. \"As in that awful Mr. Tesla?\"\n\n\"That's what Klopp says,\" Alek said.\n\n\"But you Clankers didn't turn us around,\" Deryn said. \"Everyone says that the beastie itself turned, because it got scared.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"Klopp reversed the port engine first, then the airbeast followed suit. It seems the Leviathan has more sense than its own officers.\"\n\n\"You said they had a disagreement?\" Dr. Barlow asked. \"You mean you changed course without orders?\"\n\n\"There wasn't time to wait for orders,\" he said.\n\nDeryn let out a low groan. No wonder Alek was under guard.\n\n\"That's barking mutiny,\" she said softly.\n\n\"But we saved the ship.\"\n\n\"Aye, but you can't disobey orders just because the officers are being daft. Especially not in battle\u2014that's a hanging offense!\"\n\nAlek's eyes widened, and the room was silent for a moment.\n\nDr. Barlow cleared her throat. \"Please don't say alarming things to my patient, Mr. Sharp. He's no more a member of this crew than I am, and is therefore not subject to your brutish military authority.\"\n\nDeryn bit down a reply. She doubted Captain Hobbes would see it that way. This had probably been his worry since the Clankers had come aboard, that they'd ignore the bridge and pilot the ship whichever way they wanted.\n\nChanging course wasn't like skylarking or learning to fence on duty. It was mutiny, pure and simple.\n\nThe lady boffin sat primly on the stateroom's only chair, snapping her fingers for Tazza to come to her.\n\n\"Now, Alek,\" she said, stroking the thylacine's striped flank. \"You say that Klopp was operating the engine. So this 'mutiny' wasn't your idea?\"\n\nThe boy thought for a moment. \"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"Then, pray tell, why are you under guard?\"\n\n\"When Mr. Hirst pulled the pistol, I tried to take it from him.\"\n\nDeryn shut her eyes. Striking an officer\u2014another hanging offense.\n\n\"Very sensible of you,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"This ship won't get very far without its master of mechaniks, will it?\"\n\n\"Where is Klopp now?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"I reckon he's in the brig,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"And not at work on the engines, thus further delaying my mission.\" Dr. Barlow stood up, straightening her skirts. \"Don't you worry about Master Klopp, Alek. Now that I have all the facts, I'm sure the captain will see reason.\"\n\nShe handed the leash to Deryn.\n\n\"Please walk Tazza and then check on the eggs, Mr. Sharp. I don't trust that Mr. Newkirk, especially with his head swelling up like a melon.\" She turned. \"In fact, I'd much rather that you were watching them, Alek. Please do get better soon.\"\n\n\"Thank you, ma'am. I'll try,\" the boy said. \"But if you don't mind, could Dylan stay a moment?\"\n\nThe lady boffin's eyes measured them both, and then she smiled. \"Of course. Perhaps you could amuse Mr. Sharp with whatever you know about this \u2026 Tesla cannon? I have some familiarity with the inventor, and it seemed a most intriguing device.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't know much\u2014,\" Alek began, but Dr. Barlow was already out the door and gone.\n\nDeryn stood silently a moment, wondering where to start. With the Clankers' lightning contraption? Or how Newkirk had almost burnt to a crisp? Or the possibility that Alek would be court-martialed and hanged?\n\nThen her eyes fell on his bandages, and an awful feeling went through her. If the gun had been pointed a few inches higher, Alek might be dead.\n\n\"Does getting shot hurt much?\" she asked.\n\n\"Like a mule kicked me.\"\n\n\"Hmm. I've never been daft enough to let that happen.\"\n\n\"Nor have I.\" Alek smiled weakly. \"But it feels about right.\"\n\nThe two were silent again, Deryn wondering how things had gone pear-shaped so fast. Before Newkirk had spotted the ironclads, she'd been hoping that Alek would wind up staying on the Leviathan somehow. But she hadn't meant lying wounded in bed, or clapped in irons for mutiny, or both.\n\n\"This is the second time someone's shot at me,\" Alek said. \"Remember those gunners on the zeppelin?\"\n\nDeryn nodded slowly. Back in the Alps, the daft prince had stepped out into the middle of a battle, right in front of a machine gun. Only a hydrogen leak had saved him, the German gunners setting their own airship aflame.\n\n\"Perhaps I wasn't meant to die that day,\" he said. \"Or last night, either.\"\n\n\"Aye, or perhaps you were just barking lucky.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" Alek said. \"Do you really think they'll hang us?\"\n\nDeryn thought a moment, then shrugged. \"There aren't any rules for something like this, I reckon. We've never had Clankers aboard before. But they'll listen to the lady boffin, because of her grandfather's name.\"\n\nAlek grimaced again. Deryn wondered if it was his wound, or being reminded that Dr. Barlow was related to old Charles Darwin himself. Even after serving on a living airship, the Clankers were still superstitious about life threads and fabrication.\n\n\"I wish we had mutinied,\" Alek said. \"And ended that pointless battle before it started. Klopp and I thought about stopping the engines and making it look like a malfunction.\"\n\n\"Well, thinking isn't the same as doing,\" Deryn said, slumping onto the chair. She'd entertained madder ideas than mutiny. Like telling Alek that she was a girl, or giving Dr. Barlow a smack\u2014the latter more than once. The trick was never to let what you were thinking slip out into the world.\n\n\"And anyway,\" she continued, \"I haven't heard about this mutiny business, so the officers must be keeping dead quiet. Maybe the captain wants to let you off without looking soft. Everyone thinks it was the airbeast who turned us around, for fear of that Clanker cannon.\"\n\n\"The beast did turn us around. It must have smelled the lightning\u2014it knew we'd all burn.\"\n\nDeryn shuddered again, as she did every time she thought of how close they'd come. She could still see the Huxley, blazing in midair just like Da's balloon.\n\n\"But Newkirk isn't dead,\" she told herself softly.\n\n\"Pardon me?\"\n\nDeryn cleared her throat. She didn't want to wind up with her voice squeaking like a girl's. \"I said, the engines are dead. And the airbeast has gone bonkers, and thinks it's still running away from that Tesla thingie. We're halfway to Africa!\"\n\nAlek swore. \"I suppose those ironclads are already there.\"\n\n\"What, in Africa?\"\n\n\"No, Dummkopf\u2014Constantinople.\" He pointed at the desk in the room. \"There's a map in that drawer. Kindly fetch it for me.\"\n\n\"Aye, your princeliness,\" Deryn said, hauling herself up to get the map. It was just like Alek, to be thinking of maps and schemes while lying wounded, guilty of a hanging offense.\n\nShe sat on the bed beside him, smoothing out the roll of paper. It was labeled in Clanker writing, but she could see it was the Mediterranean.\n\n\"The ironclads were headed north into the Aegean,\" Alek said. \"See?\"\n\nDeryn traced the Leviathan's course from southern Italy with one finger, until she found the spot where they'd fought the Goeben and Breslau\u2014almost due south of Constantinople.\n\n\"Aye, they were headed that way.\" She pointed at the Dardanelles, the narrow stretch of water that led to the ancient city. \"But if they head north, they'll be trapped in the strait, like a fly in a bottle.\"\n\n\"What if they plan to stay there?\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"The Ottoman Empire is still neutral, and ships at war can't hang about in a neutral port. Dr. Barlow says we're only allowed to stay in Constantinople for twenty-four hours. It must be the same for the Germans.\"\n\n\"But didn't she also say that the Ottomans were angry with the British? For stealing their warship?\"\n\n\"Well, aye,\" Deryn said, then muttered, \"but that's just borrowing, really.\"\n\nTo be truthful, though, it had been a bit like stealing. Britain had just completed a new dreadnought for the Ottoman navy, along with a huge companion creature, some new sort of kraken. Both the warship and the creature had already been paid for, but when the war had begun, the First Lord of the Admiralty had decided to keep the ship and its beastie, at least until the conflict ended.\n\nBorrowing or stealing, it had caused the diplomatic ruckus that Dr. Barlow and the Leviathan had been sent to sort out. Somehow the mysterious eggs in the engine room were meant to help.\n\n\"So the Ottomans might decide to let the ironclads stay,\" Alek said. \"Just to get back at your Lord Churchill.\"\n\n\"Well, that would make everything trickier, wouldn't it?\"\n\nAlek nodded. \"It would mean even more Germans in Constantinople. It might even bring the Ottomans over to the Clanker side! The Goeben's Tesla cannon is pretty convincing.\"\n\n\"Aye, it convinced me,\" Deryn said. She wouldn't fancy sharing the same city with that contraption.\n\n\"And what happens if the Ottomans close the Dardanelles to British shipping?\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. The fighting bears of the Russian army needed lots of food, most of which was brought in by ship. If they were cut off from their Darwinist allies, the Russians would have a long, hungry winter.\n\n\"But are you sure that's where the ironclads were headed?\"\n\n\"No. Not yet.\" He raised his dark gaze from the map. \"Dylan, can you do me a favor? A secret favor?\"\n\nShe swallowed. \"That depends on what it is.\"\n\n\"I need you to deliver a message.\"\n\n\"Barking bloody princes,\" she muttered, pulling Tazza along the airship's corridors.\n\nShe'd hardly slept a wink last night, what with looking after Newkirk, and the thylacine needed to go for a walk soon. On top of which, Deryn still had to check on Dr. Barlow's precious eggs. But instead of attending to her duties, here she was delivering secret messages for the Clankers.\n\nAiding the enemy in wartime. How was that for mutiny?\n\nAs she drew closer to the cabin, Deryn began to formulate excuses and explanations\u2014\"I was just asking our count friend if he needed anything.\" \"I was on a secret mission from the captain.\" \"Someone had to keep an eye on those mutinous Clankers, and this was the best way!\"\u2014all of them barking pathetic.\n\nShe knew the real reason she'd said yes to Alek. He'd looked so helpless lying there, pale and bandaged, not knowing if they were going to hang him tomorrow at dawn. It had only made the way she felt harder to ignore.\n\nDeryn took a deep breath, and rapped on the stateroom door.\n\nAfter a long moment it opened to reveal a tall man in a formal uniform. He stared down his sharp nose at her and Tazza, not saying a word. Deryn wondered if she should bow, because he was a count and all. But Alek was a prince, which sounded more important, and no one ever bowed to him.\n\n\"What is it?\" the man finally asked.\n\n\"Pleased to meet you, Mr.\u2026, um, Count Volger. I'm Midshipman Dylan Sharp.\"\n\n\"I know who you are.\"\n\n\"Right. Because Alek and I, we've been fencing and that. We're friends.\"\n\n\"You're that idiot boy who put a knife to Alek's throat.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed, willing her tongue to untangle. She'd only been pretending when she'd taken Alek hostage back in the Alps, to force the Clankers to negotiate instead of blowing up the airship.\n\nBut under the man's imperious gaze, the explanation wouldn't come.\n\n\"Aye, that was me,\" she managed. \"But it was only to get your attention.\"\n\n\"You succeeded.\"\n\n\"And I used the dull edge of that knife, just to be safe!\" She looked both ways down the corridor. \"Do you suppose I could come in?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I've got a message from Alek. A secret one.\"\n\nWith those words Count Volger's stony countenance shifted a squick. His left eyebrow arched, then finally he stepped back. A moment later she and Tazza were inside the room, the thylacine sniffing at the man's boots.\n\n\"What is this creature?\" he asked, taking another step backward.\n\n\"Oh, that's just Tazza. He's harmless,\" Deryn said, then remembered the damage he'd done to the lady boffin's cabin. \"Well, unless you're a set of curtains, which, um, you're clearly not.\"\n\nShe cleared her throat, feeling like a ninny. The man's cold, haughty manner had started her babbling.\n\n\"Will it repeat our words?\"\n\n\"What, Tazza, talk?\" Deryn stifled a laugh. \"He's no message lizard. He's a natural beastie, a thylacine from Tasmania. Dr. Barlow has him as a traveling companion, though, as you can see, he's mostly my responsibility. Anyway, I've got a message from\u2014\"\n\nVolger silenced her with an upheld hand, then glanced up at the message tubes in the cabin. A lizard was poking its head from one, and the count clapped his hands once to scare it off.\n\n\"Those godless things are everywhere,\" he muttered. \"Always listening.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. The other Clankers were even more twitchy about beasties than Alek. They seemed to think that everything living aboard the airship was out to get them.\n\n\"Aye, sir. But lizards only carry messages. They don't eavesdrop.\"\n\n\"And how can you be sure of that?\"\n\nNow, that was a daft question. Message lizards might repeat snatches of conversation by accident now and then, especially when they'd been recently dazzled by a Tesla cannon. But that wasn't the same as eavesdropping, was it?\n\nThen she remembered how Count Volger had pretended not to speak English when he'd come aboard, in hopes of overhearing secrets. And how Dr. Barlow had pulled the same trick on the Clankers, pretending not to know any German. No wonder those two were always suspicious of everyone\u2014they were both sneaky-beaks themselves.\n\n\"Those lizards have got brains no bigger than walnuts,\" she said. \"I don't reckon they'd make very good spies.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not.\" The count sat down at his desk, which was covered with maps and scrawled notes, a sheathed sword serving as a paperweight. \"And what about your brains, Mr. Sharp? You're clever enough to be a spy, aren't you?\"\n\n\"What, me? I told you, Alek sent me here!\"\n\n\"And how do I know that? Last night I was informed that Alek was hurt in the battle, but I haven't been allowed to see him or Master Klopp. And now I receive this 'secret' message from Alek, courtesy of a boy who held him hostage?\"\n\n\"But he \u2026,\" Deryn began, then groaned with frustration. This was what she got for doing favors for Clankers. \"He's my friend. He trusts me, even if you don't.\"\n\n\"Prove it.\"\n\n\"Well, of course he does! He told me his little secret, didn't he?\"\n\nCount Volger's eyes narrowed at her a moment, then he stared down at the sword on the table. \"His secret?\"\n\n\"Aye, he told me who he \u2026,\" Deryn began, but a slow realization was creeping over her. What if Alek had never mentioned to Volger that he'd spilled the beans to her? Finding out now might give the man a wee startle. \"You know, his big secret?\"\n\nThe air hissed as Volger whirled around, sunlight flashing on steel, the chair spinning across the floor and sending Tazza leaping to his feet. The sword suddenly stretched from Volger's hand, its cold, naked tip at Deryn's throat.\n\n\"Tell me what secret,\" the wildcount demanded. \"Now.\"\n\n\"A-about his parents!\" she sputtered. \"His father and mother were assassinated, which is what started this barking war! And he's a prince or something!\"\n\n\"Who else knows this?\"\n\n\"Just me!\" she squeaked, but the metal prodded her. \"Um, and Dr. Barlow. But no one else, I swear!\"\n\nHe glared at her for an endless moment, his eyes prying their way into hers. Tazza let out a low growl.\n\nFinally the wildcount pulled the saber a few inches back. \"Why haven't you informed your captain?\"\n\n\"Because Alek made us promise.\" Deryn stared at the sword point. \"I thought you knew he'd told us!\"\n\nCount Volger lowered the sword. \"Obviously I did not.\"\n\n\"Well, that's not my fault!\" Deryn cried. \"Maybe it's you he doesn't trust!\"\n\nThe man looked at the floor. \"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"And you didn't have to cut my barking head off!\"\n\nVolger gave her a thin smile as he righted the overturned chair. \"It was only to get your attention. And I used a dull edge. Surely you know a fencing saber when you see one?\"\n\nDeryn reached out and grabbed the weapon's blade. She swore\u2014it was the very saber she'd practiced with yesterday, no sharper than a butter knife.\n\nCount Volger sat heavily, shaking his head as he cleaned the sword with a pocket handkerchief and then sheathed it again. \"That boy will be the death of me.\"\n\n\"At least Alek trusts someone!\" Deryn said. \"The rest of you Dummkopfs, you're all as mad as a box of frogs! Lying and sneaking and \u2026 scared of message lizards. With all your scheming it's no wonder the world's in a barking great war!\"\n\nTazza growled again, then made his strange little yelp, hopping on his hind legs. Deryn knelt to calm him down, and to hide her burning eyes from Count Volger.\n\n\"Is Alek really hurt?\" the man asked.\n\n\"Aye. But it's only a bruised rib.\"\n\n\"Why won't they let me see him or Klopp?\"\n\n\"Because of what Master Klopp did during the battle,\" Deryn said, stroking Tazza's flank. \"He turned the ship around just before the Tesla cannon fired. Without orders.\"\n\nVolger snorted. \"So this is why your captain has summoned me? To discuss the chain of command?\"\n\nShe glared up at him. \"He might reckon it was mutiny\u2014a hanging offense!\"\n\n\"An absurd notion, unless he wants his ship to drift forever.\"\n\nDeryn took a slow, deep breath and petted Tazza again. It was true\u2014the Leviathan still needed the Clankers and their engines. More so than ever, with the airbeast acting up.\n\n\"I suppose the captain just wants to make a point,\" she said. \"But that's not what I'm here about.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. Your secret message.\"\n\nDeryn gave the man a hard look. \"Well, maybe you don't care one way or the other. But Alek thinks those two ironclads are headed for Constantinople, just like us!\"\n\nVolger raised an eyebrow at that, then pointed to the fallen chair.\n\n\"Sit down, boy, and tell me everything.\"\n\n\"Hear that?\" Corporal Bauer asked.\n\nAlek wiped his hands on an oily rag, listening. The air trembled with the distant clamor of an engine coming to life, sputtering at first, then settling into a low and steady roar.\n\nHe stared at the tangle of gears before him and said to his men, \"Three against one, and Klopp has his engine working first!\"\n\n\"Hate to say so, sir.\" Bauer spread his grease-blackened hands. \"But you and I aren't much help.\"\n\nMaster Hoffman clapped the gunner on his back and laughed. \"I'll make an engineer of you one day, Bauer. It's that one who's hopeless.\" He glanced at Mr. Hirst, who was watching them glumly from the engine pod strut, his hands perfectly clean.\n\n\"What's this about?\" the man asked.\n\nAlek switched to English. \"Nothing, Mr. Hirst. Just that it sounds as though Klopp has beaten us.\"\n\n\"So it would seem,\" the man said, and fell back into silence.\n\nIt was late afternoon, less than forty-eight hours after the unlucky encounter with the Breslau and the Goeben. Alek, his men Hoffman and Bauer, and Hirst had been assigned to the starboard pod, while Master Klopp was over on the port side, under armed guard, with Count Volger translating for him.\n\nSince the incident with the air pistol, it had been decided that Klopp and Mr. Hirst would no longer share the same engine pod. Alek was not under guard, but he suspected that was only because of the bandages wrapped around his injured rib. Every time he lifted a wrench, he winced in pain.\n\nBut no one was locked in the brig, at least. True to her word, Dr. Barlow had convinced the captain to accept reality\u2014without Klopp's help, the airship would drift on the winds. Or worse, the great airbeast might take them on a journey of its own choosing.\n\nThe captain's goodwill had come with certain conditions, however. The five Austrians were to stay aboard the Leviathan until the Darwinists understood their new engines fully, however long that took.\n\nAlek suspected they wouldn't be getting off in Constantinople.\n\nHalf an hour later, the starboard engine finally sparked to life. As smoke poured from the exhaust pipes, Master Hoffman engaged the gears, and the propeller began to spin.\n\nAlek closed his eyes, reveling in the steady thrum of pistons. Freedom might not be any closer, but at least the airship was whole again.\n\n\"Feeling all right, sir?\" Bauer asked.\n\nAlek took a deep breath of sea air. \"Just happy to be under way.\"\n\n\"Feels good to have an engine rumbling underfoot again, doesn't it?\" Hoffman nodded at Mr. Hirst. \"And maybe our sulky friend here has finally picked up a few tricks.\"\n\n\"Let's hope so,\" Alek said, smiling. Since the battle, Bauer and Hoffman had taken a dislike to the Leviathan's chief engineer. After all, the two had been at Alek's side since the awful night his parents had died, and had given up their careers to protect him. They hadn't taken kindly to Mr. Hirst shooting at him and Master Klopp, mutiny or not.\n\nSoon both engines were working in tandem, and the Leviathan set a northward course again. The water's surface slid by beneath them faster and faster, until the airship had left behind its escort of hungry seagulls and curious dolphins.\n\nMoving air tasted better, Alek decided. The airbeast had let itself drift most of the day, matching the speed and direction of the wind, wrapping everything in a dead calm. But now that they were under power, the salt air was sharp and alive against his face, driving away the feeling of being imprisoned.\n\n\"One of those talking things,\" Bauer said, frowning.\n\nAlek turned to see a message lizard making its way across the airship's skin, and sighed. It was probably Dr. Barlow putting him on egg duty again.\n\nBut when the lizard opened its mouth, it spoke with the master coxswain's voice. \"The captain wishes the pleasure of your company on the bridge, at your earliest convenience.\"\n\nBauer and Hoffman looked at Alek, recognizing the English word \"captain.\"\n\n\"Wants to see me at my earliest convenience,\" he translated, and Bauer gave a snort. There wasn't much convenient about climbing down to the gondola with a bruised rib.\n\nBut Alek found himself smiling as he wiped engine grease from his hands. This was the first time any of them had been invited to the bridge. Since coming aboard, he'd wondered how the officers controlled the airship's interwoven complements of men, fabricated animals, and machines. Was it like a German land dreadnought, with the bridge crew directly controlling the engines and cannon? Or an oceangoing ship, with orders dispatched to the boiler rooms and weapon stations?\n\nAlek turned to Mr. Hirst. \"I leave you to it, sir.\"\n\nThe man nodded a bit stiffly. He'd never apologized for shooting Alek, and none of the officers had ever admitted that Klopp had saved the ship. But as they'd started work that morning, Hirst had quietly turned out his pockets, showing that he wasn't carrying a pistol anymore.\n\nThat was something, at least.\n\nAlek found Volger waiting for him on the gondola's main staircase.\n\nIt was strange to see the wildcount's riding clothes spotted with oil, his hair tangled by propeller wash. In fact, Alek hadn't seen Volger since the battle. They'd both been working on the engines every waking moment since Alek's release.\n\n\"Ah, Your Highness,\" the wildcount said, offering a halfhearted bow. \"I was wondering if you'd been summoned too.\"\n\n\"I go where the lizards tell me.\"\n\nVolger didn't smile, just turned and started down the stairs. \"Beastly creatures. The captain must have important news, to let us see the bridge at last.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he wants to thank us.\"\n\n\"I suspect it's something less agreeable,\" Volger said. \"Something he didn't want us to know until after we got his engines working again.\"\n\nAlek frowned. As usual the wildcount was making sense, if only in a suspicious way. Living among the godless creatures of the Leviathan hadn't improved his disposition.\n\n\"You don't trust the Darwinists much, do you?\" Alek said.\n\n\"Nor should you.\" Volger came to a halt, looking up and down the corridors. He waited until a pair of crewmen had passed, then pulled Alek farther down the stairway. A moment later they were on the lowest deck of the gondola, in a dark corridor lit only by the ship's glowworms.\n\n\"The ship's storerooms are almost empty,\" Volger said quietly. \"They don't even guard them anymore.\"\n\nAlek smiled. \"You've been sneaking about, haven't you?\"\n\n\"When I'm not adjusting gears like a common mechanik. But we must speak quickly. They've caught me here once already.\"\n\n\"So, what did you think of my message?\" Alek asked. \"Those ironclads are headed for Constantinople, aren't they?\"\n\n\"You told them who you were,\" Count Volger said.\n\nAlek froze for a moment as the words sank in. Then he blinked and turned away, his eyes stinging with shame and frustration. It felt like being a boy again, when Volger had landed hits with his saber at will.\n\nHe cleared his throat, reminding himself that the wildcount was no longer his tutor. \"Dr. Barlow told you, didn't she? To show that she has something over us.\"\n\n\"Not a bad guess. But it was simpler than that\u2014Dylan let it slip.\"\n\n\"Dylan?\" Alek shook his head.\n\n\"He didn't realize you kept secrets from me.\"\n\n\"I don't keep any \u2026,\" Alek began, but it was pointless arguing.\n\n\"Have you gone mad?\" Volger whispered. \"You're the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Why would you tell our enemies that?\"\n\n\"Dylan and Dr. Barlow aren't enemies,\" Alek said firmly, looking Count Volger full in the eye. \"And they don't know I'm the legal heir to the throne. Nobody knows about the pope's letter but you and me.\"\n\n\"Well, thank heaven for that.\"\n\n\"And I didn't tell them, not really. Dr. Barlow guessed who my parents were, quite on her own.\" Alek looked away again. \"But I'm sorry. I should have told you they knew.\"\n\n\"No. You should have never admitted anything, whatever they'd guessed! That boy Dylan is completely guileless\u2014incapable of keeping a secret. You may think he's your friend, but he's just a peasant. And you've put your future in his hands!\"\n\nAlek shook his head. Dylan might be a commoner, but he was a friend. He'd already risked his life to keep Alek's identity a secret.\n\n\"Think for a moment, Volger. Dylan let it slip to you, not to one of the ship's officers. We can trust him.\"\n\nThe man stepped closer in the darkness, his voice hardly above a whisper. \"I hope you're right, Alek. Otherwise the captain is about to tell us that his new engines will be taking us back to Britain, where they'll have a cage waiting for you. Do you think being the Darwinists' pet monarch will be agreeable?\"\n\nAlek didn't answer for a moment, replaying all of Dylan's earnest promises in his mind. Then he turned away and started up the stairs.\n\n\"He hasn't betrayed us. You'll see.\"\n\nThe bridge was much larger than Alek had imagined.\n\nIt took up the entire width of the gondola, curving with the gentle half circle of the airship's prow. The afternoon sun streamed through windows that stretched almost to the ceiling. Alek stepped closer to one\u2014the glass leaned gently outward, allowing him to peer straight down at the dazzling water slipping past.\n\nReflected in the window, a dozen message lizard tubes coiled along the ceiling; others sprouted from the floor like shiny brass mushrooms. Levers and control panels lined the walls, and carrier birds fluttered in the cages hanging in one corner. Alek closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the buzz and chatter of men and animals.\n\nVolger gently pulled his arm. \"We're here to parley, not to gawk.\"\n\nSetting a serious expression on his face, Alek followed Volger. But still he watched and listened to everything around him. No matter what the captain's news turned out to be, he wanted to soak in every detail of this place.\n\nAt the front of the bridge was the master wheel, like an old sailing ship's, carved in the Darwinists' sinuous style. Captain Hobbes turned from it to greet them, a smile on his face.\n\n\"Ah, gentlemen. Thank you for coming.\"\n\nAlek followed Volger's lead and offered the captain a shallow bow, one suited for a minor nobleman of uncertain importance.\n\n\"To what do we owe the pleasure?\" Volger asked.\n\n\"We're under way again,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"I wanted to thank you personally for that.\"\n\n\"We're glad to help,\" Alek said, hoping that for once Count Volger's suspicions had proven overblown.\n\n\"But I also have bad news,\" the captain continued. \"I've just received word that Britain and Austria-Hungary are officially at war.\" He cleared his throat. \"Most regrettable.\"\n\nAlek drew in a slow breath, wondering how long the captain had known. Had he waited until the engines were fixed to tell them? Then Alek realized that he and Volger were smeared with grease, dressed like tradesmen, while Captain Hobbes preened in his crisp blue uniform. Suddenly he hated the man.\n\n\"This changes nothing,\" Volger said. \"We're not soldiers, after all.\"\n\n\"Really?\" The captain frowned. \"But judging by their uniforms, your men are members of the Hapsburg Guard, are they not?\"\n\n\"Not since we left Austria,\" Alek said. \"As I told you, we had to flee for political reasons.\"\n\nThe captain shrugged. \"Deserters are still soldiers.\"\n\nAlek bridled. \"My men are hardly\u2014\"\n\n\"Are you saying we're prisoners of war?\" Volger interrupted. \"If so, we shall collect our men from the engine pods and retire to the brig.\"\n\n\"Don't be hasty, gentlemen.\" Captain Hobbes raised his hands. \"I merely wanted to give you the bad news, and to beg your indulgence. This puts me in an awkward situation, you must understand.\"\n\n\"We find it \u2026 awkward too.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" the captain said, ignoring Alek's tone. \"I would prefer to reach some arrangement. But try to understand my position. You've never told me exactly who you are. Now that our countries are at war, that makes your status rather complicated.\"\n\nThe man waited expectantly, and Alek looked at Volger.\n\n\"I suppose it does,\" the wildcount said. \"But we still prefer not to identify ourselves.\"\n\nCaptain Hobbes sighed. \"Then I shall have to turn to the Admiralty for orders.\"\n\n\"Do let us know what they say,\" Count Volger said simply.\n\n\"Of course.\" The captain touched his hat and turned back to the wheel. \"Good day, gentlemen.\"\n\nWhile Volger bowed again, Alek turned stiffly about and walked away, still angry at the man's impertinence. But as he headed back toward the hatchway, he found himself slowing a little, just to listen for a few more seconds to the thrum of the airship at its heart.\n\nThere were worse prisons in the world than this.\n\n\"You know what his orders from the Admiralty will be,\" Volger muttered out in the corridor.\n\n\"To lock us up,\" Alek said. \"As soon as he can do without our help.\"\n\n\"Exactly. It's time to start planning our escape.\"\n\nThat night in the machine room, Alek stared at the eggs, his mind drifting.\n\nThey were such insignificant-looking objects, but this giant, marvelous airship had fought its way across Europe to bring them here. What was inside them? What sort of godless creature could keep the Ottomans from joining the war?\n\nThe heaters packed around the eggs glimmered softly, and in the ship's quiet, Alek felt sleep creeping up on him. He stood and shook himself awake.\n\nIt was just after three a.m., time to get started.\n\nAs he pulled off his boots, a twinge crept down his side. But the pain in his rib cage was only a dull ache. Nothing that would trouble him tonight.\n\nIt had taken an hour of arguing to make Count Volger see the logic of this plan. Klopp was still under guard, Bauer and Hoffman were busy with the engines, and Volger had already been caught skulking below. It was up to Alek to find their avenue of escape.\n\nHe pressed an ear against the machine room door, holding his breath.\n\nNothing.\n\nHe turned the latch and pushed it slowly open. The electrikal lamps were dark. Only the glimmer of glowworms lit the corridors, a green radiance as faint as starlight. Alek stepped into the hall, dead silent in his stocking feet, and eased the door shut behind him.\n\nHe waited for a moment to let his eyes adjust, then started for the stairs. There had to be an escape hatch somewhere, a way for the crew to abandon ship by rope or parachute. The lowest deck of the gondola was the logical place to look for it.\n\nThough, where they would find five parachutes\u2014or a few hundred meters of rope\u2014was beyond Alek. They would have to escape when the ship was grounded in Constantinople, then buy their way to safety with the last bar of his father's gold.\n\nThe stairs made no complaints beneath his weight. The Darwinists' wood came from fabricated trees, and was lighter than natural wood and stronger than steel. The airship didn't groan and creak like a sailing ship, but felt as still as a stone castle. The distant, rumbling engines were reduced to the barest trembling under his feet.\n\nAlek slipped past the central deck of the gondola quickly. At night a guard stood at the door to the bridge, two more were stationed at the armory, and the ship's cooks were always in the galley before dawn. But after the ship's five days on the glacier, the lower cargo holds and storerooms lay empty and unguarded.\n\nHalfway down the last flight of stairs, a sound froze Alek in his tracks.\n\nWas it a crewman walking past on the upper deck? Or someone behind him?\n\nHe turned and looked back up the stairs\u2014nothing.\n\nAlek wondered if airships had rats. Even metal land dreadnoughts could be infested. Or did the six-legged sniffer dogs hunt for pests as well as leaks?\n\nHe shuddered and kept moving.\n\nAt the bottom of the stairs, the deck was chill beneath Alek's feet. The night air was coursing past just below, thin and close to freezing at this altitude.\n\nThe corridors were wider down here, with two rails set in the floor for cargo trolleys. On either side lay open storerooms. They were shrouded in darkness, the glowworms reduced to a few green squiggles on the walls.\n\nThe sound came again\u2014the scrape of boots on wood. There was someone behind him!\n\nHis heart racing, Alek walked faster toward the bow. A few half-empty feed sacks sat in the shadows, but there was no good place to hide.\n\nThe corridor ended at a closed doorway. Alek turned and saw a silhouette moving behind him. For a split second he considered giving himself up and pretending he'd gotten lost. But Volger had already been caught down here \u2026\n\nAlek pushed his way through the door and shut it behind himself.\n\nThe room was pitch-black, and a heavy smell hung in the air, like old straw. He stood there in the darkness, breathing hard. It felt small and crowded in here, but the click of the closing door seemed to echo for a moment.\n\nAlek thought he heard mutterings. Was this a bunk room full of sleeping airmen?\n\nHe waited for his eyes to adjust to the blackness, willing his heart to stop pounding in his ears.\u2026\n\nSomeone, or something, was breathing in here.\n\nFor an awful moment Alek wondered if there were creatures aboard the Leviathan that Dylan hadn't told him about. Monsters, perhaps. He remembered his military toys, and the Darwinist fighting creatures fabricated from the life threads of extinct and giant reptiles.\n\n\"Um, hello?\" he whispered.\n\n\"Hello?\" someone answered.\n\nAlek swallowed. \"Oh, I seem to have gotten lost. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Gotten lost?\" came the reply. The words sounded hesitant, and there was something eerily familiar about the voice.\n\n\"Yes. I'll just be going.\" Alek turned back to the doorway and felt blindly for the knob. The metal squeaked a little as he turned it, and he froze.\n\nSuddenly the room was full of tiny screeches and complaints.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" a voice said. Then another whispered, \"Hello?\"\n\nThe murmurs increased, building in intensity. The room felt no bigger than a closet, but it sounded as though a dozen men were waking up around him. They muttered half-formed words, in a nervous and agitated babble.\n\nWas this the airship's madhouse?\n\nYanking open the door, Alek banged it into his bare foot. He yelped with pain, and a symphony of angry voices answered. More cries filled the darkness, as though a brawl were breaking out!\n\nThrough the half-open door a green face stared back at him.\n\n\"Barking spiders! What are you doing?\" the intruder said.\n\n\"Spiders! Barking spiders!\" came a dozen cries from every direction.\n\nAlek opened his mouth to scream, but then a low whistling sound floated through the room. The cacophony instantly went silent.\n\nA glowworm lantern lifted in front of Alek's face. In its green light he made out Dylan squinting back at him, a command whistle in one hand.\n\n\"I reckoned it was you,\" the boy whispered.\n\n\"But \u2026 but who are these\u2014\"\n\n\"Shush, you ninny. Don't get the beasties started again.\" Dylan pushed him backward and slipped into the room, closing the door behind them. \"We'll be lucky if the navigators haven't heard this ruckus already.\"\n\nAlek blinked, and in the light of the wormlamp finally saw the stacks of cages climbing the walls. They were full of message lizards, crowded together like puppies in a pet store.\n\n\"What is this place?\" he breathed.\n\n\"It's the barking lizard room, isn't it?\" Dylan whispered. \"It's where Dr. Erasmus takes care of the beasties.\"\n\nAlek swallowed, his eyes falling on a table where a dissected lizard lay pinned. Then he saw that the ceiling was covered with the gaping mouths of message tubes, tangled like railroad tracks at a station. \"And it's a sort of junction, too, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Aye. Dr. Erasmus is in charge of all that palaver\u2014origin and destination tags, emergency alerts, clearing up traffic jams.\"\n\nAlek stared at the dozens of tiny eyes peering at him, all glowing with wormlight. \"I had no idea it was so \u2026 complicated.\"\n\n\"How did you think the beasties always found you? By magic?\" Dylan snorted. \"It's a tricky job, even for a boffin, especially with half the lizards still dizzy from that Clanker lightning. Look at the poor things, and here's you riling them up!\"\n\nA few of the lizards started to murmur, repeating Dylan's words. But when he blew another soft, low note on his command whistle, they settled again.\n\nAlek looked at Dylan. \"You didn't just happen along, did you?\"\n\n\"No. I couldn't sleep. And you know how Dr. Barlow doesn't want us bothering each other on egg duty? Well, I thought if I dropped by now, she wouldn't be about.\"\n\n\"But I wasn't there,\" Alek said.\n\nDylan nodded. \"And that was a wee bit odd. So I thought I'd sniff around and see what you were up to.\"\n\n\"Didn't take you long to find me, did it?\"\n\n\"The beasties' ruckus helped, but I reckoned you'd be down here in the storerooms.\" Dylan leaned closer. \"You're looking for a way to escape, aren't you?\"\n\nAlek felt his jaw clench. \"Am I that obvious?\"\n\n\"No. I'm just dead clever,\" the boy said. \"Have you not noticed?\"\n\nAlek took a moment to think about this, then smiled. \"I have.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Dylan took a step past him and knelt at a small hatch on the opposite side of the room. \"Come through here, then, before we start the beasties yammering again.\"\n\nDylan went first through the hatchway, climbing down a few rungs mounted on the slanted wall.\n\nAlek passed the wormlamp down, spilling light into the small spherical chamber. He'd seen this place from outside the airship: a round bulge in the gondola's underbelly. The space was crowded by what looked like a mismatched pair of telescopes pointed down at the sea.\n\n\"Is that a weapon?\" he asked.\n\n\"No. The fat one is a reconnaissance camera,\" Dylan said. \"And the wee one's a sight for aerial bombs and navigation. But they're useless at night, so it'll be private enough.\"\n\n\"If not luxurious,\" Alek said. He climbed down and wedged himself onto a corner, half squatting on a giant gear attached to the camera's side. \"But aren't we right below the bridge?\"\n\nDylan glanced up. \"That's the navigation room over us, and the bridge is above that. But it's safer here than in the lizard room. You're lucky you didn't send out an alert to the whole barking ship!\"\n\n\"That might have been awkward,\" Alek said, imagining an army of lizards scampering through the airship's message tubes, shouting in his voice to the sleeping crew. \"I'm a pretty useless spy, I suppose.\"\n\n\"At least you were clever enough to be caught by me,\" Dylan said. \"And not someone who might have objected to you skulking about.\"\n\n\"Not so much skulking as bumbling,\" Alek said. \"But thank you for not reporting me.\"\n\nThe boy shrugged. \"I reckon it's a prisoner's duty to escape. After all, you Clankers keep saving the ship\u2014that's three times now\u2014and the captain's treating you like enemies! And just because Britain declared war on your granduncle. I think it's dead rotten.\"\n\nAlek found himself smiling. On the subject of Dylan's loyalty, at least, Volger's suspicions were completely wrong.\n\n\"So that's why you were looking for me,\" Alek said. \"To talk about how we can escape.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not keen to help you. That might be a squick too treasonous, even for me. It was only \u2026\" Dylan's voice faded.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"We'll be in Constantinople by noon tomorrow, so I reckoned you might be slipping away soon, and this might be our last chance to talk.\" The boy wrapped his arms around himself. \"And I've hardly slept anyway.\"\n\nAlek squinted through the darkness. Dylan's fine features looked drawn, even in the soft light of the glowworms. His usual smile was missing.\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"It was what happened to Newkirk. It's left me dead shattered.\"\n\n\"Shattered?\" Alek frowned. Dylan's strange way with the English language was playing tricks again. \"Newkirk is the midshipman whose Huxley burned, right?\"\n\n\"Aye, it was so much like \u2026 what happened when my da died. It's given me nightmares.\"\n\nAlek nodded. The boy had never said much about his father's death. Only that he'd been lost in an accident, and that Dylan hadn't spoken for a whole month afterward.\n\n\"You've never told anyone about it, have you?\"\n\nThe boy shook his head, then fell still.\n\nAlek waited, remembering how hard it had been to tell Dylan about his own parents. In the silence he could hear the wind sweeping around the prow of the airship, testing its joints and seams. A draft swirled up from where the camera thrust out into the night sky, snatches of cold air coiling around their feet.\n\n\"I mean, since you're leaving the ship anyway,\" Dylan said, \"I reckoned it wouldn't burden you too much to hear it.\"\n\n\"Of course you can tell me, Dylan. You know plenty of my secrets, after all.\"\n\nThe boy nodded, but fell silent again, his arms still wrapped tight around himself. Alek took a slow breath. He'd never seen Dylan afraid to speak his mind. The boy had never seemed afraid of anything before, much less a memory.\n\nPerhaps he didn't want anyone to see him this way, looking weak and \u2026 shattered.\n\nAlek slipped off his jacket and laid it over the wormlamp. Darkness wrapped around them both.\n\n\"Tell me,\" he said gently.\n\nA moment later Dylan began to speak.\n\n\"Da flew hot-air balloons, you see, even after the hydrogen breathers got so big. I always went up with him, so I was there when it happened. We were still on the ground, the burners firing to warm up the air in the envelope. Then suddenly there was this great blast of heat, like opening a boiler door. One of the kerosene tanks \u2026\"\n\nDylan's voice had gradually gone softer, almost like a girl's, and now it faded away altogether. Alek slid closer, putting his arm around the boy until he spoke again.\n\n\"It was just like with Newkirk. The fire shot straight up until the whole balloon was burning overhead, the heat pulling us skyward. The tethers held, even though they must have been on fire too. And my da pushed me out of the basket.\"\n\n\"So he saved you.\"\n\n\"Aye, but that's what killed him. With my weight gone, the ropes broke, all at once, like knuckles cracking. And Da's balloon went roaring away.\"\n\nAlek's breath caught. He remembered again the German zeppelin in the Alps, falling right in front of him, its hydrogen ignited by machine-gun fire. He could still hear the snow beneath the wreck hissing as it turned to steam, and the thin screams from inside the gondola.\n\n\"Everyone saw how he'd saved me,\" Dylan said, reaching into his pocket. \"They gave him a medal for it.\"\n\nHe pulled out a small decoration, a rounded silver cross that dangled from a sky blue ribbon. In the darkness Alek could just make out the face of Charles Darwin engraved upon its center.\n\n\"It's called the Air Gallantry Cross, the highest honor they can give a civilian for deeds in the air.\"\n\n\"You must be proud,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Back in that first year, when I couldn't sleep, I used to stare at it at night. But I thought the nightmares were over and done with, until what happened to Newkirk.\" Dylan looked at him. \"Maybe you understand a wee bit, how it comes back? Because of your ma and da?\"\n\nAlek nodded, staring at the medal and wondering what to say. He still had dreams, of course, but his own parents' death had happened in far-off Sarajevo, not in front of his eyes. Even his nightmares couldn't compare with what Dylan had described.\n\nBut then he remembered the moment when the Tesla cannon had fired, his horror that the Leviathan would be engulfed in flame.\n\n\"I think you're very brave, serving on this ship.\"\n\n\"Aye, or mad.\" The boy's eyes glistened in the glimmers of wormlight from beneath Alek's jacket. \"Don't you think it's daft? Like I'm trying to burn to death, same as he did?\"\n\n\"Don't be absurd,\" Alek said. \"You're honoring your father. Of course you'd want to be on this ship. If I weren't \u2026\" He paused. \"I mean, if things were different, I'd want to stay here too.\"\n\n\"You would?\"\n\n\"Well, maybe it's silly. But the last few days, it's like something's changing inside me. Everything I ever knew is upside down. Sometimes it's almost as if I'm \u2026 in love \u2026\"\n\nDylan's body tightened beside Alek.\n\n\"I know it sounds silly,\" Alek said quickly. \"It's quite obviously ridiculous.\"\n\n\"But are you saying that \u2026 ? I mean, what if things were different than you thought? If I were \u2026 or have you guessed already?\" Dylan let out a groan. \"Just what are you saying?\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"Perhaps I'm putting this stupidly. But it's almost as though \u2026 I'm in love with your ship.\"\n\n\"You're in love,\" Dylan said slowly, \"with the Leviathan?\"\n\n\"It feels right here.\" Alek shrugged. \"As if this is where I'm meant to be.\"\n\nDylan let out a strange, choked laugh as he put the medal back into his pocket.\n\n\"You Clankers,\" he muttered. \"You're all cracked in the head.\"\n\nAlek pulled his arm from the boy's shoulders, frowning. Dylan was always explaining how the airship's interwoven species sustained one another, how every beast was part of the whole. Surely he could understand.\n\n\"Dylan, you know I've always been alone. I never had schoolmates, just tutors.\"\n\n\"Aye, because you're a barking prince.\"\n\n\"But I'm hardly even that, because of my mother's blood. I never mixed with commoners, and the rest of my family has always wanted me to disappear. But here on this ship \u2026\" Alek laced his fingers together, searching for the right words.\n\n\"This is one place where you fit,\" Dylan said flatly. \"Where you feel real.\"\n\nAlek smiled. \"Yes. I knew you'd understand.\"\n\n\"Aye, of course.\" Dylan shrugged. \"I just thought you might be saying something else, that's all. I feel the same way as you \u2026 about the ship.\"\n\n\"But you're not an enemy here, or hiding what you are,\" Alek said, sighing. \"It's much simpler for you.\"\n\nThe boy gave a sad laugh. \"Not quite as simple as you'd think.\"\n\n\"I didn't say you were simple, Dylan. It's just that you've got no secrets hanging over you. No one's trying to throw you off this ship and put you in chains!\"\n\nDylan shook his head. \"Tell that to my ma.\"\n\n\"Oh, right.\" Alek recalled that Dylan's mother hadn't wanted him to join the military. \"Women can be quite mad sometimes.\"\n\n\"In my family they're a squick madder than most.\" Dylan pulled Alek's jacket from the wormlamp. \"Full of stupid ideas. Mad like you wouldn't believe.\"\n\nIn the sudden wash of green light, Dylan's face was no longer sad. His eyes had their usual spark, but there was an angry gleam in them. He tossed the jacket to Alek.\n\n\"We both know you can't stay aboard this ship,\" Dylan said quietly.\n\nAlek held his gaze a moment, then nodded. He would never be allowed to serve on the Leviathan, not once the Darwinists understood their new engines. They would take him and the others back to Britain for safekeeping, whether or not they learned exactly who he was.\n\nHe had to escape.\n\n\"I should get back to my skulking, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Aye, you should,\" Dylan said. \"I'll go up and watch the eggs for you. Come back before dawn, though, or the lady boffin will have both our heads.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" Alek said.\n\n\"We can only stay in Constantinople twenty-four hours. You'll have to find whatever you're looking for tonight.\"\n\nAlek nodded, his heart beating a little faster. He reached out a hand. \"In case we don't talk again, I hope we'll stay friends, whatever happens. Wars don't last forever.\"\n\nDylan stared at the offered hand, then nodded.\n\n\"Aye, friends.\" He stood up. \"Keep that lamp. I can find my way in the dark.\"\n\nHe turned and climbed up into the blackness without another word.\n\nAlek looked down at his hand, wondering for a moment what had happened, why Dylan had turned suddenly cold. Perhaps the boy had let more of his feelings show than he'd meant to. Or maybe Alek had said the wrong thing somehow.\n\nHe sighed. There wasn't time to think about it\u2014he had skulking to do. Once the Leviathan started back for Britain, there wouldn't be another chance to escape. He had to be off this ship in less than two days.\n\nAlek picked up the wormlamp and started for the hatch.\n\nDeryn had never seen a Clanker city before.\n\nConstantinople rolled past below, the hills filled to bursting with humanity. Pale stone palaces and domed mosques squashed against modern buildings, some rising up six stories tall. Two narrow arms of sparkling water carved the city into three parts, and a placid sea stretched away to the south, peppered with countless merchant ships under steam and sail, flying a dozen different flags.\n\nA pall of smoke hung over everything, coughed up from countless engines and factories, veiling the walkers striding the narrow streets. The muddled air was empty of messenger birds; only a few biplanes and gyrothopters skimmed the rooftops, skirting stone spires and bristling wireless aerials.\n\nIt was odd to imagine Alek being from a place just like this, full of machines and metal, hardly alive except for human beings and their bedbugs. Of course, it was strange to think of Alek at all right now. She'd made such a Dummkopf of herself last night, blethering on about Da's accident, then mistaking Alek's confidences for something more than they were.\n\nHow completely daft, imagining for a moment that a barking prince would think of her that way. Alek didn't even know her real first name. And if he learned somehow that she was a girl in boy's clothes? He'd run a mile.\n\nThankfully, Alek was planning to run in any case. Sometime tonight he and his Clanker friends would slip away into that smoky mass of city, and be gone for good. Then she'd be done with acting like some village girl, her fists twisting in her skirts whenever a certain boy walked by.\n\nNot that pathetic unsoldierly fate for Deryn Sharp.\n\nThe Leviathan swept in low over the water, and Newkirk leaned closer to the big window of the middies' mess, staring down, wide eyed. No doubt he was searching the forest of masts and smokestacks below for the deadly spindle of the Goeben's Tesla cannon.\n\n\"See any German ships?\" he asked nervously.\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"Just a few merchants and a coaler. I told you those ironclads would be long gone.\"\n\nBut Newkirk, his dress uniform cap pulled down tight over his singed hair, didn't look entirely reassured. The sea below them stretched all the way back to the Dardanelles, with plenty of nooks and crannies to hide a dreadnought in. The Leviathan had come to Constantinople over land, after all, not wanting to risk the ironclads' Clanker lightning again.\n\n\"Midshipmen Sharp and Newkirk!\" came a voice from the doorway. \"I must say you're both looking handsome.\"\n\nDeryn turned and bowed a squick to the lady boffin, feeling awkward in her full-dress uniform. She'd worn it only once before, at her swearing-in ceremony. The tailor who'd made it for her in Paris had probably wondered why some daft girl was going to so much fuss for a costume ball.\n\nNow, a month later, the fancy jacket stretched tight over the new muscles in her shoulders, and the shirt felt as stiff as a vicar's collar.\n\n\"Frankly, ma'am, I feel a bit like a penguin,\" Newkirk said, adjusting his silk bow tie.\n\n\"That may be,\" Dr. Barlow said, \"but we must look respectable for Ambassador Mallet.\"\n\nDeryn turned back to the window with a sigh. The storerooms were empty, and they had only twenty-four hours to resupply the whole ship. It seemed daft to bring diplomats along to the Grand Bazaar, especially if it meant dressing up. Dr. Barlow was all in riding clothes, like a duchess on a fox hunt.\n\n\"Do you reckon we'll find corned beef in Constantinople?\" Newkirk asked hopefully.\n\n\"Is-tan-bul,\" Dr. Barlow said, tapping her riding crop against her boot once for each syllable. \"That's what we must remember to call this city. Otherwise we shall annoy the locals.\"\n\n\"Istanbul?\" Newkirk frowned. \"But it's 'Constantinople' on all the maps.\"\n\n\"On our maps it is,\" the lady boffin said. \"We use that name to honor Constantine, the Christian emperor who founded the city. But the residents have called it Istanbul since 1453.\"\n\n\"They changed the name four hundred-odd years ago?\" Deryn turned back to the window. \"Maybe it's time to fix our barking maps.\"\n\n\"Wise words, Mr. Sharp,\" Dr. Barlow said, then added quietly, \"I wonder if the Germans have already fixed theirs.\"\n\nThe Leviathan came down on a dusty, mile-wide airfield on the western edge of the city.\n\nA mooring mast stood at the center of the field, like a lighthouse in a sea of grass. It looked no different from the mast back at Wormwood Scrubs. Deryn supposed that whether Darwinist or Clanker, an airship had to be secured from the fancies of the wind in pretty much the same way. The dozens of ground men certainly looked sharp as they corralled the landing ropes, their fezzes bright red against the grass.\n\n\"Mr. Rigby says they get plenty of practice on German airships,\" Newkirk said. \"Says we should study their technique.\"\n\n\"We could, if we were closer,\" Deryn said. She itched to be down there helping, or at least working with the riggers topside. But Dr. Barlow had warned the two middies not to muss their dress uniforms.\n\nThe engines were pulsing overhead, turning the ship into the wind. Even Alek and his Clanker friends had honest work to do.\n\nTen minutes later the Leviathan was secured by a dozen ropes, each held by ten men, and the airbeast's nose was pressed against the mooring mast, its great eyes covered with blinders.\n\nDeryn frowned. \"They've lashed us a bit high. We're still fifty feet off the ground!\"\n\n\"All according to plan, Mr. Sharp,\" said Dr. Barlow, pointing her riding crop into the distance.\n\nDeryn looked up and saw what was coming out of the trees\u2014her jaw dropped open.\n\n\"I didn't know Clanker countries had elephantines!\" Newkirk cried.\n\n\"That's no beastie,\" Deryn said. \"It's a barking walker.\"\n\nThe machine lumbered forward on huge legs, its tusks swaying back and forth as it moved. Four pilots in blue uniforms sat on saddles that stuck out from its haunches, one pilot working the controls for each leg. A mechanical trunk, divided into a dozen metal segments, swept slowly back and forth, like a sleeping cat's tail.\n\n\"It must be fifty feet tall,\" Newkirk said. \"Even bigger than a real elephantine!\"\n\nSunlight struck the walker as it left the trees, and its polished steel skin glittered like mirrors. The platform on its back was covered by a parasol shaped like a strafing hawk's cowl. A handful of men in dress uniform stood on the platform, while a fifth pilot perched in the front, working the trunk. The elephant's large metal ears flapped slowly, stirring the brilliant tapestries that hung down its sides.\n\n\"As you can see,\" Dr. Barlow said, \"the ambassador travels in style.\"\n\n\"I know we can't use beasties here in Clanker-land,\" Deryn said, \"but why make a walker look like an animal?\"\n\n\"Diplomacy is all about symbols,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"Elephants signify royalty and power; according to legend an elephant divined the prophet Mohammed's birth. The sultan's own war machines are made in this same shape.\"\n\n\"Do all the walkers here look like beasties?\" Newkirk asked.\n\n\"Most of them, yes,\" the lady boffin said. \"Our Ottoman friends may be Clankers, but they haven't forgotten the web of life around us. That is why I have hope for them.\"\n\nDeryn frowned, thinking for a moment of the mysterious eggs in the machine room. What did the creatures inside them signify?\n\nBut there wasn't much time to wonder. Soon the metal elephant was beside the airship's gondola, with a gangway level between them.\n\n\"Look smart, gentlemen,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"We have an elephant to catch.\"\n\nThe howdah, as the ambassador had called the Dauntless's platform, felt a bit like a small boat at sea. It rocked from side to side with the elephant's gait, but the motion was steady and predictable. Not enough to make Deryn seasick.\n\nNewkirk, of course, was another matter.\n\n\"I can't see why we should have to ride in this contraption,\" he said, his face growing paler with every step. \"We joined the Air Service, not the barking Elephant Service!\"\n\n\"And not the diplomatic corps either,\" Deryn muttered.\n\nSince being introduced the ambassador and his assistants had ignored the two middies. They were prattling away to Dr. Barlow in French, which was daft, as they were all English, but that was diplomacy for you. And, as far as Deryn could tell, no one was saying anything about transporting supplies.\n\nShe wondered how the Dauntless would carry all the provisions the airship needed. There wasn't much room in the howdah, which was all silk and tassels in any case, too fancy for stacks of crates. The machine could pull a sledge or wagon like a real elephantine, she supposed, but there was none in sight. Maybe when they got to the Grand Bazaar \u2026\n\n\"Mind if I ask you boys some questions?\"\n\nDeryn turned. The man who'd interrupted her thoughts wasn't dressed like the diplomats. In fact, his slops were a dog's breakfast. His jacket was patched at the elbows, his hat a shapeless mass on his head. An unwieldy camera hung around his neck, and some sort of frog perched on his shoulder.\n\nThe ambassador had introduced him as a reporter for a newspaper in New York, so Deryn supposed that his strange accent must be American.\n\n\"You'd best ask the lady boffin, sir,\" Newkirk said. \"Midshipmen aren't allowed to have opinions.\"\n\nThe man laughed, then leaned forward and said quietly, \"Off the record, then. Any particular reason why your airship is here in Istanbul?\"\n\n\"Just a friendly visit.\" Deryn nodded at the ambassador. \"Diplomacy and all that.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" the man said, and shrugged. \"And here I was thinking it might be because of all the Germans pouring in.\"\n\nDeryn raised an eyebrow, then glanced at the bullfrog. It had the big-brained look of a memory frog, the sort of beast that recorded court proceedings and sessions of parliament. She decided to watch her words carefully.\n\n\"Engineers, mostly,\" the reporter continued. \"They're building all sorts of things. Just finished a new palace for the sultan.\"\n\n\"Aye, the lady boffin's headed there tomorrow,\" Newkirk said.\n\nDeryn silenced him with an elbow between the ribs, then turned to the reporter. \"What's your name again, sir?\"\n\n\"Eddie Malone, of the New York World. And please don't call me 'sir.'\" He offered his hand, smiling again. \"I won't ask your name, of course, since this is all off the record.\"\n\nDeryn shook the man's hand, wondering if he was full of yackum. When the ambassador had introduced them, she'd seen the reporter scribbling all their names into his battered notebook. He'd taken pictures, too, the battered old camera blazing with light from a fabricated firefly living in its flash apparatus.\n\nAmericans were an odd bunch\u2014neither Clanker nor Darwinist. They dabbled with both ways, mixing technologies as they saw fit. Everyone reckoned they would stay out of the war, unless somebody was daft enough to drag them in.\n\n\"There are German officers here too.\" Malone pointed at the guards standing at attention beside the approaching airfield gates. Instead of red fezzes they wore pointy helmets that looked a bit like Alek's piloting hat.\n\n\"Those are Germans?\" Newkirk said with alarm.\n\n\"No, Ottoman soldiers,\" the reporter said. \"But just look at them. They used to have more colorful uniforms, until the field marshal dressed them up in gray, like proper Clankers.\"\n\n\"Who's that?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"Field Marshal Liman von Sanders. German fellow\u2014a good friend of the kaiser's. The Ottomans made him head of the army here in Istanbul. Your diplomat friends kicked up a fuss, of course, and he bowed out.\" Malone strutted across the howdah with a comically high step. \"But not before he got them marching like Germans!\"\n\nDeryn glanced at Newkirk. The man was clearly cracked. \"The Ottomans put a German in charge of their own barking army?\"\n\nMalone shrugged. \"Maybe they're getting tired of being pushed around. The French and the British used to run things here, but not anymore. I suppose you've heard about the Osman?\"\n\nDeryn nodded slowly. \"Aye, the ship that Lord Churchill borrowed.\"\n\n\"'Borrowed'?\" Malone chuckled, scribbling in his notebook. \"Now, that I can use.\"\n\nDeryn muttered under her breath, cursing herself for a Dummkopf. \"So that must be news here.\"\n\n\"News? It's the biggest story in Istanbul! The sultan is half broke, you see, so that dreadnought was bought with money raised by the people. Grannies sold their jewelry and handed over the money. Kids coughed up pennies, and bought shadow puppets of its companion creature. Everyone in the empire owns a piece of that ship! Or at least they did, till your Lord Churchill went and pinched it.\" The man's smile was maniacal, the bullfrog on his shoulder poised to memorize whatever she said.\n\nDeryn cleared her throat. \"I suppose they're a wee bit angry now?\"\n\nMalone nodded at the airfield gates parting before them, then licked the tip of his pen. \"You'll see soon enough.\"\n\nThrough the gates a broad avenue stretched toward the city. As the walker plodded ahead, the streets grew busier, the buildings rising up as tall as the howdah. People and pushcarts bustled past windows full of carpets and dishes, everything decorated with mad checkerboard patterns that dazzled Deryn's eyes. The footpaths were crowded with stalls selling stacks of nuts and dried fruit, or meat roasting on rotating skewers. Powdered spices lay in rust red and dusty yellow piles, or spilled bright green from sacks as large as feed bags. Rich and unfamiliar scents cut through the smell of engines, so heavy she could taste them in her mouth, like the air inside a fabrication greenhouse.\n\nDeryn saw now what the walker's trunk was for. As the machine lumbered through the crowd, its trunk swept gracefully from side to side, nudging pedestrians out of the way. The howdah pilot's fingers moved nimbly on the controls; he pushed carts aside, and even rescued a child's fallen toy from being crushed by the walker's giant feet.\n\nOther walkers pulled wagons through the streets. Most looked like camels or donkeys, and one took the form of a horned creature that Eddie Malone explained was a water buffalo. A metal scarab beetle as big as an omnibus carried passengers through the crowds.\n\nDown a narrow side street Deryn saw a pair of walkers constructed almost in the shape of men. They stood almost as tall as the Dauntless, with squat legs, long arms, and featureless faces. They were decorated with striped cloths and strange symbols, and carried no weapons in their giant clawed hands.\n\n\"Army walkers of some kind?\" Deryn asked the reporter.\n\n\"No, they're iron golems. They guard the Jewish neighborhoods.\" Malone waved his hand across the crowd. \"Most of the Ottomans are Turks, but Istanbul is a melting pot. Not only Jews, but Greeks, Armenians, Venetians, Arabs, Kurds, and Vlachs all live here.\"\n\n\"Blisters,\" Newkirk said. \"I never heard of half of those.\"\n\nThe man smiled and scribbled in his notebook. \"And all of them have their own combat walkers, just to keep the peace.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a flimsy sort of peace,\" Deryn muttered, watching the streets below. The people were dressed in a dozen different ways\u2014in tasseled fezzes, desert robes, women under veils, and men wearing jackets like any in London. Everyone seemed to be getting along, though, at least under the impassive stares of the iron golems.\n\n\"What's that?\" Newkirk asked, and pointed ahead.\n\nA quarter mile in front of the elephant, the street seemed to be churning, a mass of crimson trickling through the crowd\u2014moving closer.\n\nEddie Malone licked his pen. \"That would be your welcoming committee.\"\n\nDeryn stepped to the front of the howdah and shielded her eyes against the sun. She made out a group of men wearing red fezzes, their fists waving in the air. Behind her the diplomat's French prattle faded suddenly away.\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" Ambassador Mallet said. \"Those chaps again.\"\n\nDeryn turned to the howdah pilot. \"Who are they?\"\n\n\"A bunch called the Young Turks, sir, I think,\" the man said. \"This town is full of secret societies and revolutionaries. Can hardly keep track of them all, myself.\"\n\nThere was a burst of light as Eddie Malone took a photograph.\n\nThe ambassador began to clean his eyeglasses. \"The Young Turks tried to depose the sultan six years ago, but the Germans put them down. Now they hate all foreigners. I suppose this was to be expected. From what my sources tell me, the newspapers have been riling them up about the Osman.\"\n\n\"Your sources tell you?\" Dr. Barlow asked.\n\n\"Well, I don't speak Turkish, of course, and none of my staff does either. But I have excellent sources, I assure you.\"\n\nThe lady boffin raised an eyebrow. \"Are you telling me, Ambassador, that none of you can read the local newspapers?\"\n\nThe ambassador cleared his throat, and his assistants stared off into space.\n\n\"Not much point,\" Eddie Malone said, feeding the firefly in his camera's flashbulb a sugar cube. \"From what I've heard, the Germans own half of them anyway.\"\n\nDr. Barlow stared at the ambassador with fresh alarm.\n\n\"The Germans only own one of the newspapers,\" he protested, still cleaning his glasses. \"Though it seems quite influential. Very clever of them, spreading their lies here in Constantinople.\"\n\n\"It's called Istanbul,\" Dr. Barlow said quietly, her fingers clenched around her riding crop.\n\nDeryn shook her head and turned back toward the crowd.\n\nThe men were surging closer, chanting, their fists pumping in unison. They rushed through the bustle of people and carts, their fezzes like crimson water flowing past pebbles in a stream. They soon surrounded the walker, yelling up at the pilots on their saddles, waving newspapers. Deryn squinted\u2014every front page showed a picture of a ship under a huge headline.\n\nThe crowd was chanting \"Osman! Osman!\" But there was another word in all the hubbub\u2014\"behemoth\"\u2014that Deryn didn't recognize at all.\n\n\"Well,\" Dr. Barlow said, \"this is a discouraging start.\"\n\nThe ambassador drew himself up, patting the railing at the howdah's edge. \"There is no reason to worry, madam. We've ridden out far worse on the Dauntless.\"\n\nDeryn had to admit that they were safe enough up here, fifty feet above the mob. No one was throwing anything, or trying to climb the elephant's huge legs. The howdah pilot was deftly nudging the protesters aside with the trunk, so the walker's progress was hardly slowed.\n\nBut Dr. Barlow wore an icy expression. \"It's not a question of 'riding it out,' Ambassador. My objective is to keep this country friendly.\"\n\n\"Well, talk to Lord Churchill, then!\" the man cried. \"It's hardly the Foreign Office's fault when he goes and snatches a \u2026\"\n\nHis words faded as a metal groan filled the air, the world tilting beneath them. Deryn's dress boots skidded sideways on the silk carpet, and everyone went stumbling toward the howdah's starboard side. The railing caught Deryn at stomach level, and her body pitched halfway over before she righted herself.\n\nShe stared down\u2014the foreleg pilot below had toppled from his perch, and lay sprawled in a circle of protesters. They looked as surprised as the pilot did, and were bending down to offer help.\n\nWhy had the man fallen from his saddle?\n\nAs the machine stumbled to a halt, something flickered in the corner of Deryn's vision. A lasso flew up from the crowd and landed around the shoulders of the rear-leg pilot, then he, too, was yanked from his seat. A man in a blue uniform was scrambling up the front leg.\n\n\"We're being boarded!\" Deryn cried, running to the port side of the howdah. The Dauntless was under attack there too. The man driving the rear leg had already been yanked from his perch, and the foreleg pilot was pulling against a rope around his waist.\n\nDeryn watched as another man in blue uniform\u2014a British uniform\u2014took the place of the rear-leg pilot and grasped the controls.\n\nSuddenly the machine lurched back into motion, taking a massive stride into the crowd. Someone screamed as a huge foot bore down to shatter cobblestones into dust, and the protesters in red fezzes began to scatter.\n\n\"Do something, Mr. Sharp,\" cried Dr. Barlow above the din. \"We appear to have been captured!\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am, I noticed!\" Deryn reached for her rigging knife, but of course her full-dress uniform had no pockets to speak of. She'd have to use bare fists.\n\n\"How do I get down to the saddles?\" she asked the howdah pilot.\n\n\"You can't from here, sir,\" he said, his knuckles white on the trunk's controls. He was pushing people to safety as the machine stumbled through the panicking crowd. \"The leg pilots climb on from the ground, while the elephant's kneeling.\"\n\n\"Blisters! Do you have any rope aboard?\"\n\n\"Afraid not, sir,\" the man said. \"This isn't a sailing ship.\"\n\nDeryn groaned in frustration\u2014how could any ship not have rope? The machine stumbled again, and she grabbed the railing to keep her footing.\n\nMaking her way around the edge of the howdah, Deryn saw that three of the pilots had been replaced by impostors in blue uniforms. Only the foreleg pilot on the port side remained in his seat. But the rope was still around him, stretching down into the crowd. He'd be pulled off soon enough.\n\nIn the meantime three of the walker's legs were scraping and stamping, trying to get the contraption moving again. As she watched, the huge right forefoot stamped down on a vendor's cart, scattering peeled chestnuts like hailstones across the street.\n\n\"Barking stupid machines!\" Deryn muttered. A real beastie would know who its proper masters were.\n\nSuddenly the trunk swung to the port side. It reached among the protesters and found the man trying to drag the foreleg pilot off his seat. The man shrieked, letting go of the rope as he was flicked aside.\n\n\"Good work!\" Deryn said to the howdah pilot. \"Can you yank the impostors off?\"\n\nThe man shook his head. \"Can't reach the rear saddles at all. But maybe \u2026\"\n\nHe twisted at the controls, and the trunk whipped about to the starboard side. It curled back, reaching for the pilot on the foreleg, but stopped a yard short, metal segments grinding.\n\n\"It's no use, sir,\" the man said. \"She's not as flexible as a real beastie.\"\n\nHowever inflexible, the machine was barking powerful. It was lurching down the street now, scattering people and vehicles in all directions. One of its huge feet stamped down on a wagon and smashed it into splinters. The remaining British pilot struggled to bring the machine to a halt, but there was only so much that one leg could do against three.\n\n\"Can you grab something to use as a weapon?\" Deryn asked the howdah pilot. \"You only need another few feet of length!\"\n\n\"This is a Clanker contraption, sir! It's hardly as nimble as that.\"\n\n\"Blisters,\" Deryn swore. \"Then I suppose it'll have to be me!\"\n\nThe man took his eyes from the controls for a second. \"Pardon me, sir?\"\n\n\"Bend that trunk up this way. And make it fast, man!\" she ordered, pulling off her fancy jacket. She turned to toss it back at Newkirk, then climbed out of the howdah and onto the elephant's head.\n\n\"What in blazes are you doing?\" Newkirk cried.\n\n\"Something barking daft!\" she called as the tip of the metal-jointed trunk reared up before her. She readied herself on the rocking surface of the elephant's head.\n\nAnd jumped \u2026\n\nHer arms wrapped around the shining steel. The segments rasped and clanked as the trunk flexed, carrying her high above the crowd. Her feet swung out from the centrifugal force, as if she were riding the end of a huge whip whistling through the air.\n\nThe blur of passing shapes resolved around her\u2014she was swinging toward the starboard foreleg. The impostor pilot stared, wide eyed, as she aimed both feet at him.\n\nBut he ducked at the last second, her dress boots whistling over his head. As she swung past, Deryn's palms skidded on the shiny metal trunk, her grip sliding.\n\nThe man scowled at her and drew a knife.\n\nThere was something about his face\u2014he was paler than most of the protesters in the street.\n\n\"Dummkopf!\" she shouted at him.\n\n\"Sie gleichen die!\" he yelled back. Clanker-talk!\n\nDeryn narrowed her eyes\u2014this was no Turk, or Vlach, or Kurd, or whatever else they had here in Istanbul. The man was a German, as certain as anything.\n\nThe trouble was, how to get rid of him? She didn't fancy her dress boots in a fight against that knife.\n\nShe glanced up at the howdah. Dr. Barlow was shouting something at the howdah pilot, and Deryn hoped whatever the boffin was cooking up would work quickly. With every lurching step the elephant took, her grip on the polished steel loosened a squick.\n\nThe trunk began to flex again, swinging Deryn low over the street, a blur of paving stones passing below. She wondered what sort of boffin-inspired strategy she was expected to figure out while hurtling through the air.\n\nThen the trunk came to a shuddering halt, the pilot keeping her steady as the machine lurched along. Deryn glanced down. She was hanging just above a table piled with spices.\n\n\"What in blazes?\" she muttered. Did Dr. Barlow expect her to tempt the German off his perch with a home-cooked meal?\n\nBut after a moment of hanging there, a tickle started in the back of Deryn's throat, and her eyes began to burn. Even an arm's length away, the spices were fiery enough to notice.\n\n\"Not bad, Dr. Barlow,\" she muttered, then sneezed.\n\nDeryn reached down, snatching up the reddest and meanest-looking bag of spices.\n\nThe trunk swung back into action, whipping her back toward the German driving the starboard foreleg. She could see the cold look on the man's face as she zoomed toward him, the knife flashing in his hand.\n\n\"Try this for dinner, bum-rag!\" she shouted, and flung the entire bag straight at him.\n\nThe momentum of the speeding trunk redoubled the force of her throw, and the sack hit the German like a cannonball. It exploded against his chest, enveloping him in a dark red cloud. Spice billowed in all directions, swirling back at Deryn.\n\nRed-hot fingers clamped shut her eyes. She gasped for breath, and liquid fire spilled down her lungs. Her chest felt stuffed full of embers of coal, and her grip was slipping.\u2026\n\nBut she landed softly\u2014the howdah pilot had set her down. She lay there coughing and sputtering, her body trying to expel the spices from her lungs.\n\nFinally Deryn forced open her burning eyes.\n\nThe metal elephant stood motionless. Both its front legs were bent, as if the huge machine were bowing down to her. The back legs alone had not been enough to keep it moving.\n\nDeryn saw flashes of blue slipping through the crowd, the two other impostors running away. But the German she'd blasted with spice lay in a pile of red dust, still coughing and sputtering.\n\nAs she rose to her feet, Deryn looked down at herself.\n\n\"Barking spiders!\" she cried, then sneezed. Her uniform was ruined.\n\nBut the loss of one middy's dress slops was nothing compared to the trail of destruction that stretched down the street\u2014overturned carts and wagons, a donkey-shaped walker squashed as flat as a metal bug. The gathering crowd was quiet, still in shock at what the rampaging elephant had done.\n\nA gangway descended from the walker's belly. Two of the ambassador's assistants grabbed the spice-addled German, while Newkirk and Eddie Malone ran through the crowd to her.\n\n\"Are you all right, Mr. Sharp?\" Newkirk cried.\n\n\"I think so,\" Deryn said as Malone's camera flashed with a pop, blinding her again.\n\n\"Then, we'd better get back aboard,\" Newkirk said. \"These chaps could get unruly again.\"\n\n\"But someone might be hurt.\" Deryn blinked away spots, looking down the street. Were there bodies anywhere among the splintered wood and broken windows?\n\n\"Aye, that's why we're in a hurry. We need to find our pilots and get moving again, before things get ugly!\"\n\n\"Things already look ugly to me,\" Eddie Malone said, feeding a handful of sugar cubes to his firefly. He aimed his camera down the devastated street.\n\nStill blinking away red spice, Deryn followed Newkirk back toward the Dauntless. She wondered how many people had seen the impostor pilots coming aboard a hundred yards back. Would anyone realize that the elephant's British crew hadn't caused this disaster?\n\nEven if the crowd had seen what had happened, the newspapers wouldn't report it that way. Not the ones the Germans owned.\n\n\"You saw, right?\" she said to Eddie Malone. \"It was impostors driving! Not our men.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry. I saw them,\" the reporter said. \"And we only print the truth in the New York World.\"\n\n\"Aye, in New York,\" Deryn sighed as she climbed the gangway. The crowd was already stirring around them as the shock of the rampage faded away.\n\nThe question was, would anyone believe them here in Istanbul?\n\nAlek waited in the machine room, wondering when the signal would come.\n\nHe loosened another button on his jacket. Dr. Barlow had made the room as hot as an oven tonight. She always seemed to add more heaters when Alek watched the eggs, just to annoy him.\n\nAt least he wouldn't have to suffer much longer. He could already hear the distant rumble of glow plugs firing in the starboard pod. Klopp, Hoffman, and Bauer were up there, pretending to work on the engine. And being noisy about it, so no one would be surprised to see Alek heading up to help.\n\nAfter the disastrous start of Dr. Barlow's mission today, the escape plan had changed. Alek had watched the elephant-shaped walker's hasty return, carrying no supplies, its side spattered with some sort of red dust. Rumors had spread through the ship that the walker had been attacked, an incident in which dozens of civilians had been injured.\n\nWithin an hour angry crowds had arrived at the airfield's gate, threatening to attack the Leviathan. Guards were posted at all of the airship's hatches now, and a ring of Ottoman soldiers surrounded the gondola. There would be no sneaking out through the cargo deck tonight.\n\nFrom his station up in the engine pod, however, Klopp had reported that no one was guarding the mooring tower. It was connected to the airbeast's head by a single cable that hung eighty meters in the air. If the five of them could climb across and down, perhaps they could escape across the darkened airfield.\n\nAlek listened to the engine misfiring, waiting for the signal. Now that the captain considered him a prisoner of war, he was happy to leave the airship behind. He'd been a fool to let himself grow so attached. Volger was right\u2014pretending that this flying abomination was his home had lead only to misery. Dylan might have been a good friend in some other world, but not this one.\n\nThere it was\u2014five sharp coughs from the glow plugs. The signal meant that Bauer and Hoffman had subdued the Darwinist crewmen in the pod. Volger would be headed up from his stateroom.\n\nThey were really leaving. Tonight.\n\nAlek adjusted the eggs one last time. He picked up a fresh heater and shook it to life, then tucked it into the hay. As hot as the machine room was, Dr. Barlow's mysterious cargo would most likely be fine until dawn. In any case, it wasn't his concern anymore.\n\nAlek noticed an old smear of grease on the egg box and rubbed a finger across it. Then he drew a stripe across his cheeks, as if he'd been working up in the engine pod. If anyone saw him, they would assume that Dylan was down here with the eggs and that Alek was fetching parts for the engineers.\n\nHe stood and hefted his toolbox. It was stuffed with spare clothes and the wireless set from the Stormwalker. The set was heavy, but once he and his men were hidden in the wilds, radio might be their only means of contact with the outside world.\n\nAlek sighed. Here aboard the Leviathan he'd almost forgotten how lonely it was to run and hide.\n\nThe door opened with a soft squeak, and he stared out into the hall, listening to the murmurs of the ship.\n\nA small tapping noise reached his ears. Was someone headed this way?\n\nHe swore softly. It was probably Dylan, coming to talk one last time. Seeing the boy again would only make this harder, and Alek needed to start toward the engine pod.\n\nBut the noise was coming from behind him.\u2026\n\nHe turned around\u2014one of the eggs was moving.\n\nIn the rosy light of the heaters, he could see a tiny hole forming at the top of the egg. Little chips were breaking free and sliding down the smooth white surface. Fleck by fleck the hole grew larger.\n\nAlek stood there, his hand on the doorknob. He should be heading up, leaving these godless creatures behind. But he'd spent seven long nights watching the eggs and wondering what would emerge from them. In another few moments he would finally see.\n\nAlek pulled the door softly closed.\n\nThe odd thing was, it was the middle egg hatching\u2014the one Dr. Barlow had said was sick.\n\nSomething was poking its way out of the hole now. It looked like a claw\u2014or was it a paw? There was pale fur on it, not feathers.\n\nA small black nose poked its way out, sniffing the air.\n\nAlek wondered if the creature was dangerous. Of course, it was only a baby, and he had a rigging knife sheathed on his belt. But Alek stayed close to the door, just in case.\n\nThe beast emerged slowly, reaching out to grip the edge of the box with tiny four-fingered hands. Its fur was damp, and its huge eyes blinked in the glow of the heaters. It looked about attentively, twitching as it pulled itself farther from the broken egg.\n\nGod's wounds, but the thing was homely. Its skin seemed too large for its body, drooping like an old man's. It reminded Alek of his aunt's hairless cat, bred for its bizarre looks.\n\nThe beast stared at him and made a soft, plaintive noise.\n\n\"You must be hungry,\" Alek said softly. But he hadn't the first idea what it ate.\n\nAt least it was clear enough that the creature didn't eat humans. It was far too small for that, and too \u2026 appealing, even with its strange excess of skin. Somehow the large eyes seemed wise and sad. Alek found himself wanting to pick the animal up and comfort it.\n\nThe creature extended a tiny hand.\n\nAlek put down the tool kit and took a step closer. When he reached out a hand, the animal touched his fingertips, squeezing them one by one. Then it leaned forward, letting itself slide from the edge of the egg box.\n\nAlek caught it just in time. Even in the sweltering machine room, the creature's body felt warm, its short fur as soft as the chinchilla coat his mother had always worn in winter. When Alek held it closer, the beast made a cooing noise.\n\nThe huge eyes blinked slowly, staring straight into his. Thin arms wrapped around Alek's wrist.\n\nIt was strange, how the creature didn't give him the same uneasy feeling as other Darwinist creations. It was too small and sleepy-looking, and gave off an air of preternatural calm.\n\nThe engine sputtered again, and Alek realized that he was behind schedule.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he whispered, \"but I have to go.\"\n\nHe placed the creature back in the box amid the warm glow of the heaters. But as his hands pulled away, the animal made a high-pitched mewling noise.\n\n\"Shush,\" Alek breathed softly. \"Someone will be along soon.\"\n\nHe wondered if that were true. Dylan would be here at dawn, but that was hours away.\n\nHe took a step backward, kneeling to pick up the tool kit. The creature's eyes grew wider, and it let out another cry that ended in a high, sweeping note, as pure as a flute.\n\nAlek frowned\u2014that last sound was oddly like the whistles the crew used to command their beasts. And it was loud enough to wake someone up.\n\nHe reached out again, shushing the creature. The instant his hand touched it, the animal went silent.\n\nAlek knelt there for a moment, stroking the soft fur. Finally the large eyes closed and Alek dared to pull away.\n\nThe beast instantly sprang awake and began to mewl again. Alek swore. This was absurd, being held hostage by this newborn. He turned away and crossed the room.\n\nBut as the door opened, the screams shifted into a burst of whistling noises. The glowworms in the machine room reacted, green light spilling from the walls. Alek imagined the whole airship waking up, message lizards scampering from all directions in response to the creature's cries.\n\n\"Quiet!\" he whispered, but the beast didn't stop until he went back and picked it up again.\n\nAs Alek stood there stroking its pale fur, he came to a horrible realization.\n\nTo have any hope of escaping, he had to take the newborn animal with him. He could hardly leave it sitting here, bawling its tiny misshapen head off for the whole ship to hear.\n\nHe had no idea what to feed the creature or how to take care of it, or even what it was. And what would Count Volger say when he showed up with this abomination in his arms?\n\nBut Alek didn't have much choice.\n\nWhen he lifted the animal up from the hay, it scampered up his arm and clung to his shoulder like a cat, the tiny claws stuck fast in the wool of his mechanik's suit.\n\nIt looked at him expectantly.\n\n\"We're going for a walk now,\" he said softly, hefting the tool kit again. \"You're going to stay quiet, right?\"\n\nThe creature blinked at him, a look of smug satisfaction on its face.\n\nAlek sighed, and went to the door. He opened it again, looking up and down the corridor. No one was coming to investigate the strange noises\u2014not yet, anyway.\n\nHe loosened his jacket, ready to shove the creature inside if he encountered anyone. But for the moment the animal seemed happy on his shoulder\u2014and quiet. It felt as light as a bird there, as if designed to travel this way.\n\nDesigned, Alek thought. This animal was fabricated, not born of nature. It had some purpose in the Darwinists' plans, a role in Dr. Barlow's schemes to keep the Ottomans out of the war.\n\nAnd he had no idea what that purpose was.\n\nAlek shuddered once, then strode into the darkened hall.\n\n\"There you are!\" Count Volger called softly from the support strut of the engine pod. \"We'd almost given up on you.\"\n\nAlek made his way along the ratlines, feeling the creature move inside his jacket. It was flexing its claws again, like tiny needles piercing his flesh.\n\n\"I had a small \u2026 problem.\"\n\n\"Did someone see you?\"\n\nAlek shrugged. \"A few crewmen on the way. But they didn't ask where I was headed. You play a very convincing broken engine, Maestro Klopp.\"\n\nFrom down in the pod the master of mechaniks saluted, a broad smile on his face. Beside him was a very angry-looking Mr. Hirst, gagged and bound fast to the control panel.\n\n\"Then it's time to get moving,\" Volger said. \"I trust you're all ready for a fight, if it comes to that.\"\n\nBauer and Hoffman brandished tools in their hands, and Volger was wearing his saber. But Alek could hardly wield a knife with the creature hiding under his coat. The time to tell them was now, not in the middle of the escape.\n\n\"There's still my small problem.\"\n\nVolger frowned. \"What are you talking about? What happened?\"\n\n\"Just as I was leaving, one of Dr. Barlow's eggs hatched. Some sort of beast came out. Quite a loud one. When I tried to leave, it began to howl, like a newborn baby crying, I suppose. I thought it would wake the whole ship up!\"\n\nVolger nodded. \"So you had to strangle it. Most unpleasant, I'm sure. But they won't find its body till morning, and by then we'll be long gone.\"\n\nAlek blinked.\n\n\"You did get rid of it, didn't you, Alek?\"\n\n\"In fact, that strategy didn't cross my mind.\" Inside his jacket the creature moved, and Alek winced.\n\nVolger put a hand on his sword hilt and hissed, \"What in blazes is under your coat?\"\n\n\"I assure you, I have no idea.\" Alek cleared his throat. \"But it's perfectly well behaved, as long as one doesn't try to abandon it.\"\n\n\"You brought it with you?\" Volger leaned closer. \"In case it has escaped your notice, Your Highness, we are currently trying to escape the Darwinists. If you have one of their abominations with you, kindly fling it over the side!\"\n\nAlek tightened his grip on the ratlines. \"I certainly will not, Count. For one thing, the beast would make considerable noise on the way down.\"\n\nVolger groaned softly, his fists unclenching. \"Very well, then. I suppose if it comes to a fight, we could use it as a hostage.\"\n\nAlek nodded, unbuttoning his jacket. The creature poked its head out.\n\nVolger turned away with a shudder. \"Just keep it quiet, or I shall silence it myself. After you, Your Highness.\"\n\nAlek began to make his way toward the bow, the others following in silence. They climbed along the ratlines just above the airship's waist, the ropes sagging under the weight of the five men and their heavy bags. It was slow going, and poor old Klopp wore a look of terror on his face, but at least no one on the spine could see them.\n\nWhen the newborn beast began to squirm, Alek opened his jacket the rest of the way. It crawled out and climbed onto his shoulder, its huge eyes narrowing in the breeze.\n\n\"Just be careful,\" he whispered. \"And stay quiet.\"\n\nThe creature turned to him with a bored expression, as if Alek were saying something terribly obvious.\n\nSoon the awful fl\u00e9chette bats were everywhere.\n\nThe bow of the airship was covered with them, a seething mass of small black shapes all softly clucking. Dylan had once explained to Alek that the clicks made echoes, which the creatures used to \"see\" in the dark. They had eyes as well\u2014a thousand beady pairs were following Alek expectantly. No matter how carefully he moved, the bats fluttered about him. It was like trying to sneak through a flock of pigeons on a footpath.\n\n\"Why are they watching us so keenly?\" Klopp whispered.\n\n\"They think we're here to feed them,\" Alek said. \"Dylan always feeds the bats at night.\"\n\n\"You mean they're hungry?\" Klopp asked, his face shiny with sweat in the moonlight.\n\n\"Not to worry. They eat figs,\" Alek said, leaving out the part about metal spikes.\n\n\"I'm glad to hear\u2014,\" Klopp began, but suddenly a bat fluttered up in front of him. As it shot past his face, his boots slipped from the ratlines.\n\nKlopp jerked to a halt a moment later, his hands white-knuckled on the ropes, but his large body swung into the side of the airship's membrane, sending it billowing out in all directions. Around them bats launched into the air, their clicking noises changing into shrieks and calls.\n\nAlek grabbed for Klopp's wrist as the man struggled to get his feet back on the ropes. A moment later he was safe, but the disturbance was spreading, bats fluttering outward like ripples in a dark pond.\n\nWe're done for now, Alek thought.\n\nThe creature on his shoulder perked up, its claws sinking painfully into Alek's shoulder. A soft clucking noise came from its mouth\u2014the sound the bats had been making a moment before.\n\n\"Keep that beast\u2014,\" Volger hissed, but Alek waved him silent.\n\nAll around them the bats were growing quieter. The screeches faded out, the carpet of black shapes settling back onto the airship's skin.\n\nThe creature went silent and turned its big-eyed gaze upon Alek again.\n\nHe stared back at it. Had the thing, whatever it was, just silenced the fl\u00e9chette bats?\n\nPerhaps \u2026 by accident. It was some kind of mimic, like the message lizards. And yet the creature had required no training, no mothering at all. Perhaps that was the way with all newborn Darwinist beasts.\n\n\"Keep moving,\" Volger whispered, and Alek did.\n\nThe mooring tower stretched into the air before them, but Alek found himself staring downward. In the foggy darkness the ground seemed to be a thousand kilometers below.\n\n\"Does that rope look strong enough?\" he asked Hoffman.\n\nThe man knelt to feel the slender cable that stretched across to the tower, perhaps thirty meters away. It seemed too thin to hold a man's weight, though the Darwinist's fabricated materials were always stronger than they looked.\n\n\"From what I've seen, sir, the heavy cables are all attached to the gondola below. But this must be here for some reason. Pretty useless, if it can't hold a man's weight.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" Alek said. He could think of other creatures that could use the cable. It might be for message lizards to dart across, or for strafing hawks to roost on.\n\nHoffman shrugged a loop of rope from his shoulder. \"This line will hold any two of us, along with our gear. We should send someone over carrying one end of it.\"\n\n\"I'll go,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Not with your injury, young master,\" Klopp said.\n\n\"I'm the lightest of us.\" Alek held out his hand. \"Give me the rope.\"\n\nKlopp looked at Volger, who nodded and said, \"Tie that around his waist, so he doesn't kill himself.\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow, a little surprised that Volger was letting him go first.\n\nThe wildcount read his expression and smiled. \"If that cable breaks, we'll all be stuck here, so it hardly matters who goes first. And you are the lightest, after all.\"\n\n\"So my foolhardiness has produced the correct strategy, Count?\"\n\n\"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.\"\n\nAlek didn't answer, but the creature bristled on his shoulder, as if sensing his annoyance.\n\nKlopp let out a chuckle as he knelt and tied the heavier rope around Alek's waist. Soon it was secure, the other end gripped by Bauer, Hoffman, and Klopp in a tug-of-war line.\n\n\"Quickly now,\" Volger said.\n\nAlek nodded and turned away, walking down the slope of the airbeast's head. The others let the rope out slowly, a gentle pull at his waist. It reminded Alek of when he was ten and his father would let him lean out from castle parapets, keeping a firm hand on his belt. Of course, back then he'd felt much safer.\n\nThe slender cable stretched out ahead, disappearing among the dark struts of the mooring tower. Alek grasped the cable in both hands.\n\n\"I hope you're not afraid of heights, beastie.\"\n\nThe newborn creature just looked at him and blinked.\n\n\"Right, then,\" Alek said, and stepped off into the void. He dangled for a moment from his hands, then swung his legs up to wrap them around the cable. Though its claws sank deep into his shoulder, the beastie didn't make a sound.\n\nThere was one good thing about hanging faceup like this\u2014Alek couldn't see the dark ground below, only his own hands clenching the rope and the stars above. He pulled himself away from the airship hand over hand, the cable cutting into the backs of his knees as he inched along.\n\nHalfway across, Alek was breathing hard. His injured rib had begun to throb, and his hands were losing feeling. The night air turned the sweat on his forehead cold. As he inched away from the airship, the rope hanging from his waist grew longer and heavier.\n\nHe imagined the cable snapping, or his fingers slipping. He would fall for an awful moment, but the rope around his waist would swing him back toward the airship, smashing him into its nose\u2014maybe hard enough for the whale itself to awaken and protest.\u2026\n\nThe mooring tower grew closer, but the cable in his aching hands sloped gently upward now, and was harder than ever to climb. The creature began to moan softly, mimicking the wind in the struts of the tower.\n\nAlek gritted his teeth and pulled himself the last few meters, ignoring his burning muscles. For once he was thankful for the years of Volger's cruel fencing lessons.\n\nFinally a metal strut came within reach, and Alek wrapped an arm around it. He hung there for a moment, panting, then hauled himself up onto the cold steel of the tower.\n\nWith shaking fingers he untied the thick rope from around his waist and knotted it to the strut. Now that it stretched all the way back to the airship's head, the rope seemed to weigh a ton. How had he carried it so far?\n\nAlek lay on his back and watched as the others prepared to cross, dividing up the satchels of tools and weapons. It was odd to see the Leviathan from this head-on perspective. It made Alek feel insignificant, like some minuscule creature about to be swallowed by a whale.\n\nBut the darkness beyond the airship was vaster still. It was dotted with the fires of the protesters at the airfield gate, and past those, the lights of the city.\n\n\"Constantinople,\" he said softly.\n\n\"Mmm, Constantinople,\" the creature said.\n\nClimbing down the tower was simple. A set of metal stairs spiraled through its center, and the five of them descended quickly.\n\nOr was it six of them now? Suddenly Alek could feel the weight of the fabricated beast riding on his shoulder. The single word it had spoken made the animal heavier somehow, as if its uncanniness were something solid.\n\nAlek hadn't told the others, of course. Volger was terrified enough of message lizards. Why provide him with another excuse to get rid of the newborn creature?\n\nAt least it seemed to know when to stay quiet. Since speaking that one word, it hadn't uttered another sound.\n\nAs they neared the bottom of the stairs, Alek found himself level with the airship's bridge. Light from worm-lamps shone through the windows, silhouetting two officers on duty inside. But the faint green glow didn't reach the shadows within the tower.\n\nThe Leviathan's guards stood at attention in the airship's hatches. Ground men in red fezzes faced them, the two groups watching each other warily. The rest of the Ottomans were at the airfield gates, keeping an eye on the protesters.\n\nNo one was guarding the base of the mooring tower.\n\nThe moon was climbing, a fat crescent in the sky, and the tower cast a long shadow pointing west, away from the city and the crowds. Volger lead the others along that slender finger of darkness, heading for an empty stretch of fence at the airfield's edge.\n\nAlek wondered what would happen if they were spotted now. The Leviathan's crew had no authority here on Ottoman soil. But he doubted that the Darwinists would let their only engineers slip away without a fight. For that matter, the Ottomans mightn't take kindly to foreigners trespassing on their airfield.\n\nAll in all, it seemed better to remain unseen.\n\nSuddenly the newborn creature stood up on its hind legs, its ears twisting back toward the ship. Alek came to a halt and listened. The distant shriek of a command whistle reached his ears.\n\n\"Volger, I think they've\u2014\"\n\nA hydrogen sniffer's howl pierced the night. The sound came from near the engine pod\u2014someone had found the bound and gagged Mr. Hirst.\n\n\"Keep moving,\" Volger whispered. \"We're half a kilometer from the fence. They'll search the ship before they think to look out here.\"\n\nAlek broke into a run, shuddering to think what beasts the Darwinists would send after them. The six-legged sniffer dogs? The awful fl\u00e9chette bats? Or were there even worse creatures aboard the ship?\n\nThe alarm spread along the long, dark silhouette behind them, the gondola lights flickering from soft green to brilliant white. On Alek's shoulder the creature softly imitated the sounds of the alert, the barks and cries of the hounds, the shouts and whistles of command.\n\n\"I'm not sure that's helpful,\" he muttered to it.\n\n\"Helpful,\" the creature repeated softly.\n\nA minute later a blinding searchlight lanced out from the ship's spine. At first it pointed at the airfield gate, but slowly it began to turn, like a lighthouse on a dark ocean.\n\nSo much for the Darwinists letting them slip away.\n\n\"You four go ahead,\" Klopp said, his face bright red. \"I can't keep running like this!\"\n\nAlek slowed his pace, taking the man's heavy tool kit from him. \"Nonsense, Klopp. Spreading out just makes it easier for them to spot us.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" Volger said. \"Stick close together.\"\n\nAlek glanced over his shoulder. The light was swinging toward them, rippling across the grass like a luminous wave.\n\n\"Get down!\" he whispered, and the five of them dropped flat to the ground.\n\nThe blinding light flashed past, but didn't stop on them\u2014it had been aimed too high. The spotlight crew were searching the airfield from the outside in, checking the boundaries first. But Alek doubted Klopp could make it to the fence before the light swung round again.\n\nThe newborn creature's claws tightened on his shoulder, and it made a new noise in his ear \u2026 a sound like fluttering wings.\n\nAlek glanced back at the ship, his eyes widening. A dark cloud was boiling up from beneath the gondola, thousands of black forms spilling into the air. The tempest of wings climbed through the searchlight's beam, glittering with the flash of steel talons.\n\n\"Strafing hawks,\" Alek breathed. Back on the glacier, he'd seen the hawks in action against German soldiers. And just yesterday he'd seen a crewman sharpening the steel talons they wore, like a razor on a leather strap.\n\nThe birds spread out from the ship, and soon the air above was full of fluttering shapes.\n\nAlek looked ahead\u2014the fence was only a hundred meters away.\n\nBut a moment later the hawks had begun to circle, a whirlwind of wings and glinting steel forming overhead. Alek stooped his shoulders, waiting for an attack.\n\n\"Just keep running!\" Volger cried. \"We're no good to them dead.\"\n\nAlek ran, hoping the man was right.\n\nAs the spinning mass grew larger and larger, the spotlight altered course, heading toward the towering whirlwind of birds. It arrived in seconds, pinning Alek like the stare of a great, blinding eye.\n\nThe howl of hydrogen sniffers reached Alek's ears again, closer than before. The beast on his shoulder imitated the sound.\n\n\"They're coming on foot,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Go on, Bauer,\" Volger shouted. \"You've got the cutters!\"\n\nAlek followed as the man spurted ahead. The airfield's edge wasn't far now; the spotlight streaming past them glinted on the coils of barbed wire.\n\nWhen Bauer and Alek reached the fence, Bauer pulled out the bolt cutters and set to work. He snipped at the mesh of wire, slowly opening a way through. But the cries of the beasts behind them were growing louder every second.\n\nBauer was halfway done when the others caught up.\n\n\"The forest is heavy this way,\" Volger said, pointing at the blackness past the fence. \"Run due west until you drop, then find a place to hide.\"\n\n\"What about you?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Hoffman and I will hold the breach for as long as we can.\"\n\n\"Hold the breach?\" Alek said. \"With wrenches and a fencing saber? You can't fight off those beasts!\"\n\n\"No, but we can slow them down. And once the Darwinists realize they have an engineer and a translator in hand, they may decide it's not worth chasing the rest of you. Especially across Ottoman territory.\"\n\n\"We've thought this out, young master,\" Klopp said, panting. \"It's all in the plan!\"\n\n\"What plan?\" Alek cried, but no one answered. \"Why didn't you tell me?\"\n\n\"My apologies, Your Highness.\" Volger drew his sword. \"But you've been a bit loose with our secrets lately.\"\n\n\"God's wounds, Volger! Are you playing the martyr?\"\n\n\"If they weren't right behind us, I'd be going with you. But someone has to hold them here. And between the two of us, Hoffman and I offer them a chance to keep their ship flying, as long as they don't treat us too roughly.\"\n\n\"But I can't \u2026\" Alek swallowed.\n\n\"It's done, sir,\" Bauer said.\n\n\"Go, then,\" Volger said, handing his bag to Klopp, who scrambled through the breach. The shadows of hydrogen sniffers and men loomed, made huge by the searchlight.\n\n\"But, Volger.\" Alek clenched his fists. \"I can't do this without you! Not any of it!\"\n\n\"I'm afraid you must.\" Volger saluted with his saber. \"Good-bye, Alek. Make your father proud.\"\n\nBut my father is dead \u2026 and you're not.\n\n\"Come, sir.\" Bauer grabbed his arm. Alek tried to pull away, but the man was bigger and stronger. Alek found himself dragged through the opening in the fence, his jacket nipped at by the wire's barbs, the creature on his shoulder ducking low and howling like a hydrogen sniffer on the hunt.\n\nA moment later they were among dark trees, Klopp's panting ahead of them. Corporal Bauer still pulled him along, apologizing under his breath. The forest soon smothered the battle's sounds, the searchlight barely glimmering through the leaves. The sniffers' howls were muted, the strafing hawks forced higher by heavy branches.\n\nThe three of them thrashed deeper into the trees, until everything was swallowed up by blackness. All Alek could see were spots burned into his vision by the searchlight. Behind them the sounds faded abruptly.\n\nVolger would be negotiating now, offering Hoffman and himself in exchange for the others' freedom. The Darwinists would have little choice. If they fought their way through the fence, they'd risk killing their last engineer and translator.\n\nAlek found himself slowing. Count Volger's plan had worked to perfection.\n\nBauer tightened his grip. \"Please, sir. We can't go back.\"\n\n\"Of course not.\" Alek shook himself free and came to a halt. \"But there's no need to rush, unless we want to give poor old Klopp a heart attack.\"\n\nKlopp didn't argue. He stood, stooped and panting, his hands on his knees. Alek looked back the way they'd come, listening for sounds of pursuit\u2014nothing. Not even a bird in the sky.\n\nHe was finally free, but he'd never felt more alone.\n\nPrince Aleksandar knew what his father would have said. It was time for him to take command.\n\n\"Did we drop anything?\"\n\nBauer quickly counted the bags. \"The wireless set, the tools, the gold bar\u2014we've got it all, sir.\"\n\n\"The gold \u2026,\" Alek said, wondering how much the last of his father's fortune had slowed them down. He would've traded all of it for the extra minutes that Volger's sacrifice had bought them.\n\nBut this was no time for self-pity, or for wishing that things were different.\n\n\"And there's this,\" Klopp added, pulling a leather scroll case from his jacket. It was marked with the crossed keys of the papal seal. \"He said you should carry it from now on.\"\n\nAlek stared at the object. It was a letter from the pope stating that Alek was heir to his father's titles and estates, despite the wishes of his granduncle, the emperor. One could argue that it made Alek the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary as well. It was why the Germans were hunting him\u2014he might one day have the power to end this war.\n\nAs Alek's fingers closed around the case, he realized that he'd always relied on Volger to keep the letter safe. But now he had to carry his own destiny.\n\nHe slid the case into a pocket and buttoned it shut. \"Very good, Klopp. Shall I take Volger's bag for you?\"\n\n\"No, young master,\" the man panted. \"I'll be fine.\"\n\nAlek held out his hand. \"I'm afraid I must insist. You're slowing us down.\"\n\nKlopp paused. This was the moment when he would normally have glanced at the wildcount for approval, but no longer. He handed the bag over, and Alek grunted as the weight hit him.\n\nVolger, of course, had been carrying the gold.\n\nThe creature mimicked the grunt, and Alek sighed. Less than an hour old, and already it was becoming tiresome.\n\n\"I hope you learn some new tricks soon,\" he muttered, to which the creature blinked its eyes.\n\nBauer hoisted the other two bags. \"Which way, sir?\"\n\n\"You mean Count Volger didn't provide you with any more secret plans?\"\n\nBauer looked at Klopp, who shrugged.\n\nAlek took a slow breath. It was all up to him now.\n\nTo the west lay Europe, descending into madness and war. To the east was the Ottoman Empire, stretching, vast and alien, into the heart of Asia. And spanning the two continents was the ancient city of Constantinople.\n\n\"We stay in the capital, for now. We'll need to buy clothes \u2026 and perhaps horses.\" Alek paused, realizing that with the gold bar they could buy their own walker if they wanted. The possibilities were endless. \"At least in the city some of the storekeepers will understand German.\"\n\n\"Very sensible,\" Klopp said. \"But where tonight, young master?\"\n\nBauer nodded, staring back the way they'd come. The woods were silent, but the searchlight still glimmered on the horizon.\n\n\"We head west for an hour,\" Alek said. \"Then circle back toward the city. Perhaps we'll find a friendly inn.\"\n\n\"An inn, sir? But won't the Ottomans be looking for us?\" Bauer asked.\n\nAlek thought for a moment, then shook his head. \"They won't know who to look for, unless the Darwinists tell them. And I don't think they will.\"\n\nKlopp frowned. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Don't you see, the Darwinists don't want us to be caught.\" As Alek spoke the words, his own thoughts became clearer. \"We know too much about the Leviathan\u2014how its engines work, the nature of its mission. It won't help them to have us in Ottoman hands.\"\n\nKlopp nodded slowly. \"They could say it was only Volger and Hoffman who tried to escape, and they've caught them. So there's no one else to look for!\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Alek said. \"And as a warship, the Leviathan has to leave neutral territory by tomorrow. Once they're gone, no one will know we're here.\"\n\n\"What about the Germans, sir?\" Bauer said quietly. \"They saw the Stormwalker in the Alps, with its Hapsburg crest, and saw the Leviathan mounted with our engines. They must know we were aboard, and they'll guess who was trying to escape tonight, even if the Ottomans don't.\"\n\nAlek swore. German agents were everywhere in Constantinople, and tonight's ruckus hadn't been subtle.\n\n\"You're right, Bauer. But I doubt there are any Germans in these woods. I still say we sleep in an inn tonight\u2014a quiet, comfortable one that will take gold shavings in payment. Tomorrow we'll disguise ourselves properly.\"\n\nHe walked into the darkness, setting his course by the last glimmer of searchlights behind them. The other two hoisted their bags and followed. No arguments, no debate.\n\nAs simple as that, Alek was in command.\n\nDeryn carried the tray carefully, barely trusting herself to walk straight.\n\nThe Clankers' escape had kept her awake all night\u2014scrambling to the rookery to release the strafing hawks, being dragged about by a pack of excited sniffers, then two hours with the officers as they explained it all to the Ottoman authorities, who thought it a squick rude for the Leviathan's crew to be gallivanting across their airfield without permission.\n\nWhen Deryn had finally found a moment to check the machine room, Dr. Barlow was already there. One of the eggs had hatched in the night, and the newborn beastie was missing!\n\nThe odd thing was, the lady boffin had hardly seemed upset. She'd ordered Deryn to take a good look around the ship, but had only smiled when Deryn had come back empty-handed.\n\nThat was boffins for you.\n\nBy the time Deryn had stumbled to her own cabin, it had been dawn\u2014time to go back on duty. To add insult to injury, her first orders had been to deliver breakfast to the man who'd caused the whole palaver.\n\nA guard stood in front of Count Volger's stateroom. He looked as tired as Deryn felt, and stared hungrily at her tray full of toast, boiled eggs, and tea.\n\n\"Shall I knock for you, sir?\" he asked.\n\n\"Aye, feel free to wake his countship up,\" Deryn said. \"Seeing as how he kept us up all night.\"\n\nThe man nodded and gave the door a good piece of his boot.\n\nVolger opened it a moment later, looking as though he hadn't been to bed yet either. His hair stuck out at all angles, and his riding breeches were still spattered with mud from the airfield.\n\nHe gave the tray a hungry look and stepped aside. Deryn pushed past him and set it down on the desk. She noted that Volger's saber was gone, along with most of his papers. The officers must have ransacked the room after the escape.\n\n\"Breakfast for a condemned man?\" Volger asked, closing the door.\n\n\"I doubt they'll hang you, sir. Not today, anyhow.\"\n\nThe man smiled, pouring himself tea. \"You Darwinists are so forgiving.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes at that. Volger knew he was indispensable. The lady boffin might speak Clanker, but she didn't know the fiddly words for mechanical parts. And she certainly wasn't going to spend her days up in an engine pod. Volger would be treated well as long as Hoffman was needed to keep the engines running.\n\n\"I'd hardly say you're forgiven,\" Deryn said. \"There'll be a guard on your door day and night.\"\n\n\"Well, then, Mr. Sharp, I am your prisoner.\" Volger pulled out the desk chair and sat down, then gestured at an empty cup on the windowsill. \"Tea?\"\n\nDeryn raised an eyebrow. His countship was offering her, a lowly middy, a cup of tea? The floral smell rising from the pot had already set her mouth watering. Between the ruckus last night and resupplying the ship before they left today, it might be hours before she sat down to her own breakfast.\n\nBetter a quick cup of tea and milk than nothing.\n\n\"Thank you, sir. I believe I will.\" Deryn picked up the cup. It was fine porcelain, as light as a hummingbird, with Alek's mechanical eagle crest inlaid in gold. \"Did you bring this fancy china all the way from Austria?\"\n\n\"One advantage to traveling in a Stormwalker, there's plenty of room for luggage.\" Volger sighed. \"Though I'm afraid you hold our last surviving piece. It is two centuries old. Pray, don't drop it.\"\n\nDeryn's eyes widened as the wildcount poured. \"I'll try not to.\"\n\n\"Milk?\"\n\nShe nodded dumbly and sat down, wondering at the transformation that had come over Count Volger. He'd always been a dark presence on the ship, skulking through the corridors and glaring at the beasties. But this morning the man seemed almost \u2026 pleasant.\n\nDeryn took a sip of tea, letting its warmth spread through her.\n\n\"You seem in good spirits,\" she said. \"Considering.\"\n\n\"Considering that my escape was foiled?\" Volger stared out the window. \"Odd, isn't it? I feel somewhat light-hearted this morning, as if all my cares had lifted.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"You mean because Alek's got away, and you haven't?\"\n\nThe man stirred his tea. \"Yes, I suppose that's it.\"\n\n\"Well, that's a bit hard, isn't it?\" Deryn said. \"Poor Alek's out there on the run, while you're sipping tea out of a fancy cup, safe and sound.\"\n\nVolger raised his cup, which had the Leviathan's silhouette and nautilus spirals stamped on its side in black. \"That would be you, boy. Mine is quite plain.\"\n\n\"To blazes with your barking teacup!\" Deryn cried, annoyance rising in her. \"You're happy that Alek's gone, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Happy that he's off this ship?\" The wildcount salted his boiled eggs and took a bite of one. \"That he's no longer destined to spend the war in chains?\"\n\n\"Aye, but the poor boy's all on his own. And here you are having breakfast, smug as a box of cats! I think it's dead rotten of you!\"\n\nVolger paused, a forkful of potatoes now halfway to his mouth. He looked her up and down.\n\nDeryn swallowed her next words, realizing she'd let exhaustion get the better of her. Her voice had gone all high and squeaky, and she was gripping the antique teacup so hard it was a wonder it hadn't shattered.\n\nDuring the alert there'd been so much commotion, it had been easy to forget that Alek was out there running for his life. But sitting here watching Volger salt his eggs with a self-satisfied expression, the enormity of it all had finally struck home.\n\nAlek was gone, and he wasn't coming back.\n\nDeryn set the teacup carefully on the desk. Careful to use her boy's voice, she said, \"You seem dead pleased with yourself, is all. And I reckon it's because Alek isn't your problem anymore.\"\n\n\"My problem?\" Volger asked. \"Is that what you think he was?\"\n\n\"Aye. You're glad to see the backside of him, just because he had a mind of his own sometimes.\"\n\nVolger's face fell back into its usual stony expression, as if Deryn were a bug crawling across his breakfast. \"Listen, boy. You have no idea what I've given up for Alek\u2014my title, my future, my family's name. I'll never see my home again, no matter who wins this war. I'm a traitor in the eyes of my people, and all of it to keep Alek safe.\"\n\nDeryn held his stare. \"Aye, but you're not the only one who's had to go against his own country. I kept Alek's secrets and looked the other way when you lot were planning to escape. So don't go getting all high and mighty on me.\"\n\nVolger glared at her another moment, then let out a tired laugh. He finally took his bite of potatoes, and chewed them thoughtfully.\n\n\"You're as worried about him as I am, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Of course I am,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"It's quite touching, really.\" Volger poured more tea for them both. \"I'm glad Alek had you as a friend, Dylan, even if you are a commoner.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. Aristocrats were so barking stuck up.\n\n\"But Alek has trained for this moment his whole life,\" Volger went on. \"His father and I always knew that one day he would be alone, with the whole world against him. And Alek has made it amply clear that he was ready to go on without me.\"\n\nDeryn shook her head. \"But you've got it all wrong, Count. Alek didn't want to go it alone; he wanted more allies, not less. He even said he wanted to \u2026\"\n\nShe remembered the last time they'd spoken, two nights before. Alek had wished that there were a way for him to stay aboard the Leviathan, because the airship felt like the only place he'd ever belonged. And she'd been a bum-rag about the whole thing, just because he hadn't been declaring his undying love for her.\n\nSuddenly her throat was too tight to speak.\n\nVolger leaned forward and regarded her. \"You're a very sensitive boy, Dylan.\"\n\nDeryn glared back at him. It didn't mean she was barking \"sensitive,\" just because she knew when things mattered.\n\n\"I just hope he's all right,\" she said after a good swallow of tea.\n\n\"As do I. Perhaps we can still help Alek, you and I together.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"He has a bigger part to play in this war than you understand, Dylan,\" the count said. \"His granduncle the emperor is a very old man.\"\n\n\"Aye, but the throne doesn't mean anything to Alek, because his mum isn't royal enough. Right?\"\n\n\"Ah, I see he told you everything,\" Volger said, giving her an odd smile. \"But in politics there are always exceptions. When the right time comes, Alek could tip the balance of this war.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. What the count was saying didn't quite square up with Alek's story, about how his family had always looked down on him and his mother. But back in the Alps, of course, the Germans had sent a massive fleet of airships to capture him. They, at least, seemed to think he was important.\n\n\"But what can we do to help him?\"\n\n\"At the moment, not much. But one never knows what opportunities might present themselves. The problem is that I no longer have a wireless set.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"You had a wireless? Did the officers know about that?\"\n\n\"They didn't ask.\" Count Volger waved a hand at his breakfast. \"And I see you haven't thought to bring me the morning newspapers. So if you could keep me apprised of events, I would appreciate it.\"\n\n\"What? Spy for you?\" Deryn cried. \"Not barking likely!\"\n\n\"I could make it worth your while.\"\n\n\"With what? Cups of tea?\"\n\nThe wildcount smiled. \"Perhaps I can do better than that. For example, you must be wondering about a certain missing creature.\"\n\n\"The beastie that hatched last night? You know where it is?\" The man didn't answer, but Deryn's mind was already spinning. \"Then it must have hatched before Alek left the machine room! He's got it with him, hasn't he?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. Or perhaps we strangled it to keep it quiet.\" Volger took his last bite of toast and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. \"Do you think your Dr. Barlow would be interested in the details?\"\n\nDeryn narrowed her eyes. The way the lady boffin was acting, she already had a good idea where the newborn creature had gone. Suddenly it all made sense. Deryn would've seen it herself if she hadn't been so exhausted.\n\nNow that she thought about it, quite a few peculiarities surrounding the eggs were beginning to make sense.\n\n\"Aye,\" Deryn said. \"She might be interested.\"\n\n\"Then, I'll tell you exactly how your creature fared last night, as long as you keep me informed over the next few days.\" The count looked out the window. \"The Ottomans will soon make their decision about entering this war. Alek's next step will depend greatly on that choice.\"\n\nDeryn followed his gaze out the window. The spires of Istanbul were just visible in the distance, the haze of engine smoke already rising over the city. \"Well, I could tell you what the newspapers say. That's not spying, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Excellent.\" Count Volger stood, offering his hand. \"I think you and I may be allies after all.\"\n\nDeryn stared at his hand a moment, then sighed and shook it. \"Thank you for the tea, sir. And by the way, next time you try to escape, I'd be much obliged if you did it more quietly. Or at least in the middle of the day.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Volger bowed gracefully, then said, \"And if you ever want to learn to fence properly, Mr. Sharp, do let me know.\"\n\nHalfway back to the bosun's cabin, a message lizard stopped on the ceiling overhead and fixed her with its beady eyes.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" it squawked in the lady boffin's voice, \"I shall need you in full dress today. We'll be visiting the sultan.\"\n\nDeryn stared up at the beastie, wondering if she'd heard right. The sultan? The man who ruled over the whole barking Ottoman Empire?\n\n\"I have told Mr. Rigby to relieve you of other duties,\" the lizard continued. \"Meet me out on the airfield at noon, and make sure you look sharp.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. \"Aye, ma'am. I'll be there. End message.\"\n\nAs the beastie scuttled away, she closed her eyes and softly swore. She didn't even have a dress uniform to wear, not since yesterday. Deryn had taken off her jacket before she'd jumped onto the Dauntless's trunk, but her only fancy shirt was still bright red from the spice bomb. Even after two washings, one whiff of the shirt was strong enough to make a dead horse sneeze. She'd have to borrow one of Newkirk's, and that meant making adjustments with her sewing kit.\u2026\n\nShe groaned, then headed toward her cabin at a run.\n\nAs Deryn descended the gangway hours later, the rumble of Clanker engines sprang to life around her. In the airship's shadow Newkirk, the bosun, and a dozen riggers were loading themselves onto a squadron of walkers in the shapes of donkeys and water buffaloes. They were headed to the markets for supplies, and looked to be in a hurry. If the Leviathan didn't leave the city by late afternoon today, the Ottomans would have every right to impound it.\n\nThe officers hadn't let on where the ship was going next. But wherever they were bound, Deryn doubted she would be seeing Istanbul or Alek again, not until the war was over.\n\nShe watched Newkirk for a moment, envious of his disguise. The whole party was dressed in Arab robes to keep the Young Turks from spotting them and starting up another protest. If only she could be doing proper ship's work instead of diplomacy \u2026 or whatever Dr. Barlow was up to.\n\nThe lady boffin waited a hundred yards from the Leviathan, on a stretch of empty airfield past the mooring tower. She was dressed in her finest traveling coat, twirling a parasol and standing beside a small hay-filled box. One of the last two eggs sat inside it, shining like a huge pearl in the sun. So Dr. Barlow's secret cargo would at last be delivered to the sultan.\n\nBut why take a spare middy along?\n\nAs Deryn drew near, Dr. Barlow turned and said, \"You're a bit late, Mr. Sharp, and looking positively unkempt.\"\n\n\"Sorry, ma'am,\" Deryn said, adjusting her collar. Her shirt fitted all wrong despite a mad hour of sewing. Worse, it still smelled of Newkirk\u2014the bum-rag hadn't bothered to wash it since yesterday. \"I had to borrow this shirt. Mine was still a bit spicy.\"\n\n\"You possess only one dress uniform?\" Dr. Barlow clicked her tongue. \"We shall have to remedy that, if you're going to continue assisting me.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"Assisting you, ma'am? Frankly, I never fancied myself much of a diplomat.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. But this is what comes of making your self useful, Mr. Sharp. You were invaluable during the battle of the Dauntless, while the ambassador and his lackeys were quite hopeless.\" Dr. Barlow sighed. \"Soon I shall be afraid to leave the airship without your protection.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. Even when dispensing compliments, the lady boffin always managed a mocking tone. \"I hope you're not expecting to be attacked again today, ma'am.\"\n\n\"One never knows. We are not as welcome here as I might have liked.\"\n\n\"That's right enough,\" Deryn said, still hearing the anger in the protesters' voices. \"But I've been meaning to ask you, ma'am. What's a behemoth?\"\n\nDr. Barlow looked at her with narrowed eyes. \"Wherever did you hear that word, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"It was just something they were shouting yesterday. The Young Turks, I mean.\"\n\n\"Hmm, of course. That is the name of the Osman's companion creature, and thus part of Lord Churchill's unfortunate appropriation.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. \"But krakens don't have names. No beastie does, unless it's a whole ship.\"\n\n\"'Behemoth' is not a proper name, young man, but a species. You see, this creature is not a kraken at all but something altogether new. And a military secret, so perhaps we should drop the subject.\" Dr. Barlow tipped back her parasol to look into the sky. \"I believe this is our airship.\"\n\nDeryn shielded her eyes against the high sun, and saw a peculiar craft coming into view. \"It's quite \u2026 conspicuous, isn't it, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Of course. Guests of the sultan are expected to arrive in style.\"\n\nThe Clanker airship was less than a quarter of the Leviathan's length, but was as fancy as a wedding cake. A fringe of tassels fluttered from its airbag, and canopies of billowing silk covered the gondola, as if some Ottoman prince had decided to go soaring on his four-poster bed.\n\nThe craft was held aloft by a long cylindrical balloon with several funnels leading up into its belly, each fed with hot air by a blazing smokestack in the shape of a monstrous head. Propellers thrust out on long and jointed arms, some pointing up, some down, the two largest pushing the craft forward. The prow was carved in the shape of a falcon's hooked beak, and wings unfolding like straight razors were carved into the gondola's sides.\n\nThe craft's propellers turned and twisted, until it had settled gently on the scrub grass of the airfield.\n\nAs a short gangway unfolded from its gondola, Dr. Barlow closed her parasol and pointed it at the egg box. \"If you please, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Invaluable, that's me,\" Deryn said, lifting the box with a grunt.\n\nShe followed the lady boffin up the gangway to an open platform surrounded by a low railing, like the top deck of a sailing ship. The propeller wash swirled about them, ruffling the veil tucked into Dr. Barlow's bowler.\n\nThe crew were all dark-skinned men, but they weren't wearing desert robes, like the Africans that Deryn had seen from the elephant's howdah the day before. Instead they wore silk uniforms and tall turbans of brilliant red and orange. Two of them took the egg box from Deryn, lashing it fast to metal cleats on the deck.\n\nOne of the men wore a tall conical hat, his eyes protected by piloting goggles. Some sort of mechanical beastie perched on his shoulder, like an owl with big eyes and a wide-open mouth. A tiny cylinder sat on the machine's chest, a metal stylus scratching against its spinning surface.\n\nThe man stepped forward and bowed to Dr. Barlow.\n\n\"Peace be upon you, madam. I am the Kizlar Agha. Welcome aboard.\"\n\nThe lady boffin replied in a language Deryn didn't recognize, one made of softer sounds than German. The man smiled, repeating the same phrase as he bowed to Deryn.\n\n\"Midshipman Dylan Sharp,\" she said, bowing in return. \"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Agha.\"\n\nDr. Barlow laughed. \"Kizlar Agha is a title, Mr. Sharp, not a name. He is the head of the palace guard and of the treasury. The most important man in the empire, after the sultan and grand vizier. A carrier of important messages.\"\n\n\"And important visitors as well,\" the man said, raising a hand. The smokestacks belched fire, sending ripples of heat through the air.\n\nDeryn's nose caught the sweet smell of burning propane. She shuddered and clenched her jaw, turning to grip the rail as the airship lifted into the sky.\n\n\"Are you unwell, Mr. Sharp?\" the Kizlar Agha said, leaning closer to her. \"Airsickness seems a strange malady for an airman.\"\n\n\"I'm quite all right, sir,\" Deryn said stiffly. \"It's just that hot-air balloons make me a wee bit nervous.\"\n\nThe man crossed his arms. \"I assure you, the Imperial Airyacht Stamboul is as safe as any airbeast.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it is, sir,\" Deryn said, but her hands still gripped the railing. The smokestacks belched fire again, roaring like an angry tigeresque.\n\n\"We had something of a battle yesterday,\" Dr. Barlow said, putting a cool hand against Deryn's cheek. \"And alarms and excursions again last night. Mr. Sharp has been quite busy, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. I heard of the Young Turks pestering you,\" the Kizlar Agha said. \"Revolutionaries are everywhere now. But they will not trouble us at the palace, nor in the sky.\"\n\nThe craft had cleared the airfield fence now, and the protesters at the gate looked as small as ants below.\n\nWhile Dr. Barlow and the Kizlar Agha talked, Deryn stared down at the city, trying to ignore the air wrinkling with heat around her. The tangled streets of Istanbul were soon beneath the Stamboul, the metal flash of walkers glinting through the veil of smoke. Gyrothopters flittered past, looking as delicate as butterflies.\n\nAlek was down there somewhere, she supposed. Unless he'd already headed into the wilds of the empire, where the Air Service maps showed only mountains and dusty plains on the way to the Far East.\n\nWhen the Kizlar Agha returned to his duties, Dr. Barlow joined Deryn at the railing. \"Are you quite sure you weren't bumped on the head last night, Mr. Sharp? You look unwell.\"\n\n\"No, I'm feeling brilliant,\" Deryn said, gripping the handrail tighter. She wasn't going to spout off about her father's accident again. Best to change the subject. \"It's just that I had an odd chat with Count Volger over breakfast \u2026 about our missing beastie.\"\n\n\"Really? How enterprising of you.\"\n\n\"He said he saw it last night. The beastie must've hatched before Alek left, and the daft boy took it with him.\" Deryn turned to Dr. Barlow and narrowed her eyes. \"But you already knew that, didn't you, ma'am?\"\n\n\"The possibility had crossed my mind.\" The lady boffin shrugged. \"It seemed the only logical explanation for the creature's disappearance.\"\n\n\"Aye, but it wasn't just logic, was it? You knew Alek would try to escape before we left Istanbul, so you put him on egg duty last night.\"\n\nA smile appeared behind Dr. Barlow's veil. \"Why, Mr. Sharp, are you accusing me of scheming?\"\n\n\"Call it what you like, ma'am, but Alek was always complaining that you rearranged the heaters when he was watching the eggs. Made it hotter for him than for me.\" As Deryn spoke her suspicions aloud, more pieces fell into place. \"And you never wanted me to visit while he was on egg duty. So that when the beastie hatched, it would be just him in the machine room, all alone!\"\n\nDr. Barlow looked away and said sternly. \"Are you certain you weren't bumped on the head last night, Mr. Sharp? I'm not sure what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"I'm talking about the beasties inside those eggs,\" Deryn said, staring at the cargo box. \"What are they, anyway?\"\n\n\"They are a military secret, young man.\"\n\n\"Aye, and now we're taking one to this sultan fellow. A Clanker aristocrat, just like Alek!\"\n\nDeryn stared straight at Dr. Barlow, waiting for a reply. It was the rudest she'd ever dared be with the lady boffin, but between the sleepless night and this morning's realizations, anger had taken control of her tongue.\n\nIt was all starting to make sense. Why Dr. Barlow had been willing to keep Alek's secret from the officers, and why she'd put him on egg duty almost from the start. She'd wanted one of the eggs to hatch while Alek was alone in that room.\n\nBut what on earth was the beastie's purpose? And why hadn't Alek simply left the barking thing behind?\n\nAfter a moment of cold stares between them, Dr. Barlow broke the silence. \"Did Count Volger say anything specific about the creature?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" Deryn shrugged. \"He may have mentioned something about strangling it to keep it quiet.\"\n\nDr. Barlow's eyebrows shot up, and Deryn smiled. Two could play at this game of keeping secrets.\n\n\"But I think he was just trying to be clever.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Dr. Barlow said coldly. \"There appears to be a lot of that going about.\"\n\nDeryn held the woman's gaze. \"I'm not trying to be clever, ma'am. I just want to know \u2026 Is Alek in danger from that beastie?\"\n\n\"Don't be absurd, Mr. Sharp.\" Dr. Barlow leaned closer, lowering her voice. \"The perspicacious loris, as it is known, is quite harmless. I would never put Alek in danger.\"\n\n\"Then you did try to make an egg hatch while he was in there with them!\"\n\nDr. Barlow looked away. \"Yes, the loris was designed with a high degree of nascent fixation. Like a baby duck, it bonds with the first person it sees.\"\n\n\"And you made it bond with Alek!\"\n\n\"A necessary improvisation. After we crashed in the Alps, it seemed that we wouldn't reach Istanbul in time. I didn't want to see all my years of work wasted.\" She shrugged. \"Besides, I'm quite fond of Alek, and wish him every advantage in his travels. To those who listen carefully, the perspicacious loris can be quite helpful.\"\n\n\"Helpful?\" Deryn asked. \"How, exactly?\"\n\n\"By being perspicacious, of course.\"\n\nDeryn furrowed her eyebrows, puzzling over what \"perspicacious\" might mean. She wondered if she could trust the lady boffin's words at all. Dr. Barlow always seemed to have a larger plan than whatever she let on.\n\n\"But it wasn't just to help him,\" Deryn said. \"Alek's an important Clanker, just like the sultan, and that's why you wanted him to have this loris beastie.\"\n\n\"It is as I said yesterday.\" Dr. Barlow gestured at the beaklike prow before them, at monstrous heads belching fire. \"Unlike the other Clanker powers, the Ottomans have not forgotten the web of life. And I think that in his short time with us, Alek may have become amenable to reason as well.\"\n\n\"Reason?\" Deryn swallowed. \"But what does some newborn beastie have to do with reason?\"\n\n\"Nothing, of course, as per my grandfather's law: 'No fabricated creature shall show human reason.'\" The lady boffin waved her hand. \"Take it as a figure of speech, Mr. Sharp. But one thing is certain\u2014this war will make a mess of Europe's royal houses. So it's possible that young Alek may one day be as important as any sultan, proper royalty or not.\"\n\n\"Aye, that's what Count Volger was saying too.\"\n\n\"Was he?\" Dr. Barlow drummed her fingers on the railing. \"How interesting.\"\n\nJust ahead, the strait was shining in the noon sun. Almost directly below were two huge buildings of marble and stone\u2014mosques, of course, their domed roofs like giant shields arrayed against the sky, their minarets thrusting up like spears around them. The plaza between the buildings was crowded with people, their faces turning upward as the Stamboul's shadow slid across them.\n\nThe Kizlar Agha shouted orders, and the propellers shifted on their long, spindly arms. The aircraft began to descend toward what looked like a park surrounded by high walls. Inside it were dozens of low buildings, all stitched together with paths and covered walkways, and one great cluster of still more domes and minarets, almost another city within the palace walls.\n\n\"Perhaps we should keep an eye on Count Volger, then,\" Dr. Barlow said.\n\nDeryn nodded, remembering the wildcount's offer to tell her more about the beastie if she brought him news from outside. He was certainly open to an exchange of information.\n\n\"Well, ma'am, he did say he'd give me fencing lessons.\"\n\nThe lady boffin smiled. \"Then, dear boy, you shall have to learn to fence.\"\n\nThe Stamboul descended just inside the palace walls, in an overgrown garden the size of a cricket field.\n\nThe Kizlar Agha stood at the airship's prow, shouting directions to the propeller men, making adjustments all the way down. Deryn soon saw why\u2014there was barely room to land an airship. But the craft settled precisely at a spot where five paths crossed, as soft as a kiss, like a gaudy pavilion completing the garden's design. The fronds of palm trees around them shivered in the wash from the airship's propellers.\n\nThe gangway dropped, and the Kizlar Agha led Deryn, Dr. Barlow, and the two crewmen with the egg box down into the sultan's garden.\n\nA hundred windows looked down upon them, but all were covered with metal lattices that shimmered gold in the sunlight. Deryn wondered if there were people watching them through the narrow slats, courtiers and advisers, or the sultan's famous harem of countless wives.\n\nThis was nothing like Buckingham Palace, where Deryn had watched the changing of the Royal Lionesque Guard her first day in London. That was four stories tall and as square as a cake. But here the buildings were low and surrounded by colonnades, their arches decorated with checkerboards of black and white marble, as shiny as piano keys. Steam pipes wound across the mosaicked walls like message lizard tubes, sweating and huffing with the energies inside them. Guards stood at every door, Africans in bright silk uniforms armed with halberds and scimitars.\n\nDeryn wondered what it would be like to live among all this spectacle and pomp, all of it designed to dazzle the eye. Had poor Alek grown up in a place this fancy? It would be enough to drive you mad, having a million servants watching your every move.\n\nThe guards all made elaborate bows to the Kizlar Agha, murmuring the same greeting that Dr. Barlow had used.\n\n\"Is that Turkish for 'hello'?\" Deryn whispered, wondering if she should learn the phrase.\n\n\"Arabic. Many languages are spoken here in the palace.\" Dr. Barlow glanced up at the steam pipes. \"Let us hope that German is not one.\"\n\nSoon they were led to a large marble building that stood apart from the rest of the palace. Three blazing smokestacks thrust skyward from its roof, and the sound of grinding gears rumbled within.\n\nThe Kizlar Agha stopped before an archway sealed by two stone doors. \"We enter the throne room of Sultan Mehmed V, Lord of the Horizons.\"\n\nHe clapped his hands three times, and the doors opened with a hiss of steam. A smell rolled out\u2014burning coal and engine grease covered over with incense.\n\nThe throne room was dark after the brilliant sunlight outside, and Deryn could hardly see at first. But before her rose what seemed to be a giant sitting cross-legged, as large as the iron golems in the street the day before. It was a metal statue dressed in countless yards of black silk, a sash of silver cloth spread across its medaled chest, and a crimson fez the size of a bathtub on its strange horned head.\n\nAs her eyes adjusted, Deryn noticed a man beneath the statue. He was dressed in exactly the same clothes, and sat on his silk divan in the same position, cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees.\n\n\"Welcome, Dr. Barlow,\" he said, his right hand turning over to show an empty palm.\n\nBehind him the statue stirred, mimicking his movements. It was an automaton\u2014the whole throne room one huge mechanism! But the rumble of engines and gears was muffled to a whisper by thick tapestries and stone walls, so the huge statue seemed almost alive.\n\nIn the corner of Deryn's vision the lady boffin was curtsying smoothly, as if she met giant statues every day. Deryn recovered from her surprise and bowed from the waist, the way Alek always had when addressing the Leviathan's officers. She realized she had no idea how to behave around a barking emperor, and wished the lady boffin had spared a moment to tell her.\n\n\"My Lord Sultan,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"I bring you greetings from His Majesty, King George.\"\n\n\"Peace be upon him,\" the sultan said, bowing his head a little. Behind him the giant automaton followed in kind.\n\n\"I bring you a gift as well.\" Dr. Barlow gestured at the egg box.\n\nThe sultan's eyebrows rose. Deryn found herself relieved that the automaton didn't make facial expressions. The giant machine was uncanny enough as it was.\n\n\"An odd shape for a dreadnought,\" the sultan said. \"And a bit small for a behemoth.\"\n\nAfter a moment of uncomfortable silence, the lady boffin cleared her throat. \"Our little gift is not, of course, a replacement for the Osman or its companion creature. Though His Majesty regrets that unfortunate affair.\"\n\n\"Does he?\"\n\n\"Profusely,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"We have only borrowed the Osman because our need is greater. Britain is at war, and your empire is\u2014and hopefully shall stay\u2014at peace.\"\n\n\"Peace has its burdens too.\" The sultan crossed his arms, and the statue followed suit.\n\nWatching more closely now, Deryn noticed that the machine's movements were a bit stiff, like a sailor caught with too much rum under his belt and trying to act sober. Perhaps to aid the illusion, the sultan moved slowly and carefully, like an actor in a pantomime show. Deryn wondered if he controlled the automaton himself, or whether there were engineers watching from some hidden cubbyhole, their hands scurrying across levers and dials.\n\nSomehow, wondering about its inner workings made the huge contraption less unsettling.\n\n\"I am sure your cares are great, My Lord Sultan.\" Dr. Barlow looked toward the egg box. \"And we hope that this fabricated creature, humble though it is, will prove a welcome distraction from them.\"\n\n\"The Germans give us railroads, airships, and wireless towers,\" the sultan replied. \"All the glories of the mekanzimat. They train our armies and service our machines. They rebuilt this palace and helped us crush the revolution six years ago. And all your king can offer is a distraction?\"\n\nThe sultan gestured at the egg box, and the automaton's hand stretched out across the room, stirring the air as it passed over Deryn's head. She hunched her shoulders, wondering how powerful those giant fingers were.\n\nDr. Barlow didn't seem ruffled at all. \"Perhaps it is only a start,\" she said, bowing her head a little more. \"But we offer this gift with hope for a happier future.\"\n\n\"A gift? After so many humiliations?\" The sultan looked at the egg again. \"Perhaps we have been distracted long enough by your gifts.\"\n\nSuddenly the giant fingers wrapped around the box, closing into a fist. The crackle of splintering wood echoed from the stone walls, and pieces skittered like matchsticks across the floor. The egg burst with a sickening crack, and translucent strands oozed between the metal fingers. As they pooled together on the stone floor, the reek of sulfur joined coal smoke and incense.\n\nA gasp of horror escaped the lady boffin's mouth, and Deryn stared, wide eyed, at the closed fist, then at the sultan. Oddly, the man seemed surprised himself, as if he hadn't realized what he was doing. Of course, he hadn't done anything\u2014the automaton had.\n\nDeryn looked at the sultan's outstretched hand. His fingers were still open, simply gesturing at the egg box, not curled into a fist.\u2026\n\nHer eyes darted around the room. The Kizlar Agha and the crewmen who had carried the egg box wore astonished expressions, and there was no one else in the room. But then she spotted an upper gallery behind the statue's head. It was covered over with latticed windows, and for a moment Deryn thought she saw eyes peering down between the slats.\n\nShe glanced at Dr. Barlow, trying to get her to notice the sultan's open hand. But the lady boffin's face was pale and frozen, her poise shattered along with the egg.\n\n\"I see, Lord Sultan, that I have come too late.\" Despite her devastated expression, there was steel in her voice.\n\nThe sultan must have heard it too. He cleared his throat softly before speaking.\n\n\"Perhaps not, Dr. Barlow.\" He brought his palms together, but the automaton stayed motionless, its giant hand frozen around the shattered, leaking egg. \"In a way the scales have already been balanced.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Just today we have been able to replace the dreadnought you 'borrowed' from us, with two ships instead of one.\" The sultan smiled. \"May I present to you the new commander of the Ottoman navy, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon.\"\n\nA man strode from the shadows, and Deryn's jaw dropped. He wore a crisp blue German naval uniform, except for the crimson fez on his head. He clicked his heels and bowed to the sultan, then turned to salute Dr. Barlow.\n\n\"Madam, I welcome you to Istanbul.\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. So that was how the two German ironclads had disappeared\u2014the Ottomans had hidden them, for the price of owning them! And they hadn't just taken the ships, they'd put the master of the Goeben in charge of their whole barking navy.\n\nThe lady boffin simply stared, dumbstruck for the first time Deryn had ever seen. The silence stretched out awkwardly, the only sound the last innards of the egg dripping onto the stone floor.\n\nFinally Deryn cleared her throat and returned the German's salute.\n\n\"As ranking officer present, I extend the thanks of the British Air Service. For all your, um, hospitality.\"\n\nAdmiral Souchon looked coolly at her. \"I don't believe we are acquainted, sir.\"\n\n\"Midshipman Dylan Sharp, at your service.\"\n\n\"A midshipman. I see.\" He turned back to Dr. Barlow and offered his hand. \"Forgive me, madam, for the military formalities. I almost forgot you were a civilian. It is a pleasure to meet you. And how lucky that, thanks to my recent appointment, we do not meet as enemies.\"\n\nThe lady boffin extended her hand and let the admiral kiss it.\n\n\"Charmed, I'm sure.\" She slowly gathered herself, turning back to the sultan. \"Two ironclads is indeed a most impressive gift. In fact, I am so moved by this German generosity that I must offer another gift on behalf of the British government.\"\n\n\"Really?\" The sultan leaned forward. \"And what would that be?\"\n\n\"The Leviathan, Lord Sultan.\"\n\nThe room went silent again, and Deryn blinked. Had the lady boffin gone completely barking mad?\n\n\"It is the most famous of the great hydrogen breathers,\" Dr. Barlow continued. \"As valuable as the Osman and its companion put together, and a creation that your German friends could never match.\"\n\nThe sultan looked quite pleased, and Deryn noticed that Admiral Souchon's smile had frozen on his face. She herself was dizzy, unable to believe what the lady boffin was saying.\n\n\"Dr. Barlow,\" she spoke up. \"It is, of course, customary to check with the captain before, um \u2026 giving away his ship.\"\n\n\"Ah, of course.\" Dr. Barlow waved her hand. \"Thank you for reminding me, Mr. Sharp. We shall require a few days to communicate with the Admiralty, Lord Sultan, before effecting this transfer.\"\n\n\"That is unfortunate, Dr. Barlow,\" Admiral Souchon said, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword. \"The limit for harboring a combatant ship in wartime is twenty-four hours. International law is very strict on this matter.\"\n\n\"May I remind you, Admiral,\" the sultan said mildly, \"that your own grace period was extended while negotiations took place?\"\n\nThe German opened his mouth, then closed it and bowed, low. \"Of course, My Lord Sultan. I am at your command.\"\n\nLeaning back on his divan, the sultan smiled and folded his hands. Without the automaton mimicking him, Deryn noticed that he moved more fluidly. Or perhaps he was simply enjoying pitting two great powers against each other.\n\n\"Then we are all agreed,\" he said. \"Dr. Barlow, you have four days to get me the Leviathan.\"\n\nThirty minutes later the Stamboul rose into the air again. As it passed over the shimmering strait in a slow turn back toward the airfield, the Kizlar Agha joined Deryn and Dr. Barlow at the railing, his face pale.\n\n\"I do not know what to say, madam. My Lord Sultan was not himself today.\"\n\n\"He seemed firm enough in his convictions,\" Dr. Barlow said, her voice still quavering from shock.\n\n\"Indeed. But he has not been the same since moving back into the palace. The Germans have changed so much there. Not all of us approve.\"\n\nDeryn frowned, wanting to mention what she'd noticed about the automaton. But she couldn't in front of the sultan's closest adviser.\n\nThe mechanical owl still perched on the Kizlar Agha's shoulder, but she noticed that the cylinder on its chest was no longer spinning. Perhaps it was some sort of recording machine, and the man had switched it off to keep his words a secret.\n\n\"Are you saying that he may change his mind about the kaiser's gifts?\" Dr. Barlow asked carefully.\n\nThe Kizlar Agha spread his hands. \"That, I do not know, madam. But our empire has fought two wars in the last ten years, and a bloody revolution as well. Not all of us want to join this madness in Europe.\"\n\nDr. Barlow nodded. \"Pray, then, make yourselves heard.\"\n\n\"We shall try. Peace be upon you, and upon us all,\" he said, then bowed and returned to the prow of the airship.\n\n\"How interesting,\" the lady boffin said as he walked away. \"Perhaps there is still hope for this country.\"\n\n\"What did he mean exactly?\" Deryn asked.\n\n\"Perhaps he plans to give his emperor good advice.\" She shrugged. \"Or perhaps something more. Sultans have been replaced before.\"\n\nDeryn turned back to the railing, and suddenly there they were below\u2014the Goeben and the Breslau harbored in the Golden Horn.\n\n\"The admiral wasn't lying,\" she said, seeing crimson Ottoman flags fluttering from the ironclads' mainmasts. \"They must have been hiding up in the Black Sea yesterday.\"\n\n\"I should have known,\" Dr. Barlow said. \"Those ships were trapped, worthless to the Germans. So why not offer them as bribes?\"\n\n\"Aye, and speaking of bribes \u2026\" Deryn swallowed, almost afraid to ask. \"What was that about giving the Leviathan away? You haven't gone barking mad, have you?\"\n\nDr. Barlow gave her a sidelong glance. \"Don't be tiresome, Mr. Sharp. That was merely a ploy to extend our time here. Which of course you knew, as you played your part to perfection. Another four days may prove quite useful.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. Played her part? She'd only said the first thing that had come into her head. \"But if we're not going to give the Ottomans the ship, what's the point of staying?\"\n\n\"Really, Mr. Sharp,\" the lady boffin said, the steel returning to her voice. \"Do you suppose I would journey across Europe without an alternate plan?\"\n\n\"And this is your plan, ma'am? Making false promises to the sultan to make him even angrier?\"\n\n\"Hardly.\" The lady boffin sighed. \"I doubt the sultan's anger will make much difference, one way or the other. The Ottoman Empire is already in the Germans' hands.\"\n\n\"Aye, that's true enough,\" Deryn said. \"And speaking of hands, I'm not sure that the sultan really meant to crush that egg.\"\n\nDr. Barlow turned a cold gaze on Deryn. \"Are you saying that my life's work was destroyed by accident?\"\n\n\"Not by accident, ma'am. But the sultan didn't make a fist. He was just pointing at the egg, and then the automaton went and squashed your poor beastie, all on its own!\"\n\nDr. Barlow was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. \"Of course. I'm an idiot! That throne room was built by German engineers, so they were in control, not the sultan. They forced his hand, so to speak.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Deryn stared back at the water. The Stamboul had completed its turn, and the Goeben was receding into the distance. But she could still see the forbidding shape of the Tesla cannon, its struts covered with fluttering seabirds. \"Makes you wonder how they'll force the sultan's hand next, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"Indeed, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn looked at the water stretching into the distance. The Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet was stationed just south of the strait, still waiting for the Goeben and Breslau to emerge. And in the opposite direction, the Russian navy sat in its Black Sea ports, not yet aware that their old enemy the sultan had two new ironclads.\n\nAll it would take was a quick sortie by Admiral Souchon in either direction, and the Ottomans would be dragged into war.\n\n\"It's probably foolish, leaving the hotel with so many Germans about.\"\n\nThere was no reply as Alek buttoned the jacket of his new suit.\n\n\"But the Germans don't know what I look like,\" he continued. \"And the Ottomans don't even know we're here.\"\n\nAlek put on the fez and stared at himself in the mirror, waiting. But again no reply came.\n\n\"Anyone would think I was a proper Turk in these clothes.\" Alek flicked at the fez's tassel. Was it meant to hang on the left or the right? \"And if I have to speak German, at least I've been practicing my common accent, so I don't sound like such a prince anymore.\"\n\n\"Such a prince,\" the creature finally said.\n\n\"Well, that's your opinion,\" Alek said, then sighed. How had he gotten into this habit of talking to the beast? The animal was probably memorizing all his secrets.\n\nIt was better than sharing his doubts with the men, he supposed. And there was something about the creature's wise, contented expression that made Alek feel as if it really were listening, not just repeating words at random.\n\nAlek checked himself in the mirror one last time, then turned toward the door.\n\n\"Be a good little beastie, and Master Klopp will come and feed you. No whining. I'll be back soon.\"\n\nThe creature gave him a long, hard look, then seemed to nod.\n\n\"Be back soon,\" it said.\n\nCorporal Bauer was dressed in his new civilian clothes and was waiting in the room he shared with Klopp. The master of mechaniks himself couldn't leave the hotel. He was too well known among the Clanker technical class, and Constantinople was full of German engineers.\n\nOn their way into the city the night before, Alek had counted a dozen construction projects flying a black eagle on a yellow pennant, the kaiser's flag of friendship. The ancient walls of the city bristled with shiny new smokestacks, steam pipes, and wireless antennae. Alek remembered his father talking about Germany sponsoring this policy of mekanzimat, the reformation of Ottoman society around the machine.\n\n\"I still say this is a bad idea, young master,\" Klopp said, turning away from the wireless and a pad full of dots and dashes.\n\n\"No one will recognize me,\" Alek said. \"My father was very careful to not let me sit for portraits or photographs. Hardly anyone outside my family knows what I look like.\"\n\n\"But remember what happened in Lienz!\"\n\nAlek drew a slow breath, remembering the first time he'd been in disguise among commoners. \"Yes, Klopp, I acted exactly like a little prince. But I think my common touch has improved since then, don't you?\"\n\nKlopp only shrugged.\n\n\"And if we're going to hide in the Ottoman Empire,\" Alek continued, \"we need to know what the great powers are up to here. I'm the only one of us who can speak anything besides German.\"\n\nThe old man held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. \"I can't argue with your logic, young master. I just wish it weren't you going.\"\n\n\"I wish Volger were here too,\" Alek said softly. \"But I'll be taken good care of. Right, Bauer?\"\n\n\"At your service, sir,\" Bauer said.\n\n\"Indeed,\" Alek said. \"But that reminds me, no sirs while we're outside this room.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. That is, um \u2026 What should I call you, sir?\"\n\nAlek smiled. \"Well, no one who hears us talking will think we're Turkish, so let's pick a good German name. How about Hans?\"\n\n\"But that's my name, sir.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, of course.\" Alek cleared his throat, wondering if he'd ever known Corporal Bauer's first name. Perhaps he should have asked before now. \"I'll be Fritz, then.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I mean\u2014yes, Fritz,\" Bauer said, and Alek saw that Klopp was slowly shaking his head.\n\nSo much for the common touch.\n\nThe hotel was near the Grand Bazaar, the largest market in Constantinople, and the streets were full tonight. Alek and Bauer followed the crowds, looking for a place where German workers might congregate and gossip.\n\nSoon they were inside the bazaar, a gaslit labyrinth of shops under high arched ceilings. The owners cried their wares\u2014lamps, linens, carpets, silks, jewelry, tooled leather, and machine parts\u2014in half a dozen languages. Mechanikal donkeys pushed their way through the crowds, chestnuts and skewers of meat roasting on their steaming engine blocks. Veiled women rode on sedan chairs with silent clockwork legs, wary servants walking on either side.\n\nAlek remembered his first time disguised as a commoner, in the market at Lienz, when the press of bodies and smells had sickened him. But the Grand Bazaar was almost otherworldly, the scents of cumin, paprika, and rose water mixing with the bitter pall of tobacco coiling up from burbling water pipes. Jugglers jostled for space with fortune-tellers and musicians, while tiny clockwork walkers danced on a blanket spread out before a cross-legged man, the crowd clapping with appreciation.\n\nThe man at the hotel desk had said this was a holy month, and that the Muslims of the city would be fasting while the sun was up. They seemed to be making up for it now that night had fallen.\n\n\"Not many Germans about,\" Bauer said. \"Do you suppose they have a beer hall in this city?\"\n\n\"I don't know if the Ottomans have a love for beer.\" Alek gestured to a boy carrying a small tray with empty glass cups. \"But coffee is another matter.\"\n\nHe stopped the boy and pointed at the tray. The boy nodded and waved for them to follow, skipping deftly through the crowds, waiting impatiently for Bauer and Alek to catch up.\n\nThe boy soon brought them to a large public room on the edge of the market. The smell of chocolate-tinged coffee and black tea spilled out of its doors, and tobacco smoke hung in a pall across the ceiling.\n\nAs Alek tipped the boy for his trouble, Bauer said, \"Looks like we've found the right place, sir.\"\n\nAlek looked up. A row of the kaiser's friendship flags fluttered along the awning, and a German drinking song was rumbling along inside.\n\n\"That boy spotted us as Clankers right off.\" Alek sighed. \"Watch your step, and no more sirs. Remember, Hans?\"\n\n\"Sorry \u2026 Fritz.\"\n\nAlek hesitated at the door, the sound of so many German accents sending a shiver through him. Of course, the kaiser's airships had found him even hidden on a mountain peak in the Alps. Perhaps it was safer to keep one's enemies in sight.\n\nHe squared his shoulders and strode in.\n\nMost of the men inside appeared to be German engineers. Some still wore their mechaniks' coveralls, shiny with grease from the day's work. Alek felt out of place in his new Turkish clothes.\n\nHe and Bauer found an empty table, then ordered coffee from a young turbaned boy who spoke excellent German.\n\nAs the boy darted away, Alek shook his head. \"Whether the Ottomans join the war or not, the Germans are already running this country.\"\n\n\"And you can see why.\" Bauer pointed to the wall behind them.\n\nAlek turned to see a large poster tacked to the wall, the sort of crude propaganda his father had always hated. At the bottom was a cartoon city labeled Istanbul, festooned with steam pipes and train tracks. The city sat astride The Straits, with the Russian bear looming over the Black Sea and the British navy threatening from the Mediterranean.\n\nDominating the poster was a giant chimera striding over the horizon, a Darwinist beast fabricated from half a dozen creatures. It wore a misshapen bowler hat, and carried a dreadnought in one clawed hand and a sack of money in the other. A tiny fat man labeled Winston Churchill rode on its shoulder, watching as the obscene beast menaced the tiny spires and domes below.\n\n\"Who will protect us from these monsters?\" read the legend across the top.\n\n\"That must be the Osman,\" Bauer said, gesturing at the dreadnought.\n\nAlek nodded. \"It's odd to think, but if it weren't for Lord Churchill stealing that ship, the Leviathan would never have headed across Europe. We'd still be in that castle in the Alps.\"\n\n\"We might be a bit safer there,\" said Bauer. Then he smiled. \"But a lot colder, too, and no one would be bringing us good Turkish coffee.\"\n\n\"So you think I made the right choice, Hans? Leaving safety behind?\"\n\n\"You didn't have much of a choice, sir\u2014I mean, Fritz.\" Bauer shrugged. \"You had to face what was in front of you, whatever your father's plans. Every man arrives at that point, sooner or later.\"\n\nAlek swallowed, grateful for the words. He'd never asked Bauer's opinion before, but now that he was in command, it was good to know that the man didn't think he was a complete idiot.\n\n\"What about your father, Hans? He must think you're a deserter.\"\n\n\"My parents sent me off a long time ago.\" The man shook his head. \"Too many mouths to feed at home. It was the same with Hoffman, I think. Your father only chose men without families to help you.\"\n\n\"That was kind of him, I suppose,\" Alek said, struck by the thought that he and his men were, in a way, all orphans together. \"But once this war is over, Hans, I swear you'll never go hungry again.\"\n\n\"No need, Fritz. This is duty. And besides, one could hardly go hungry in this city.\"\n\nThe coffee arrived, smelling of chocolate and as thick as black honey. It certainly tasted better than anything that could have been cooked up over a fire in the freezing Alps.\n\nAlek took a long drink, letting the rich flavors sweep away his dark thoughts. He eavesdropped on the surrounding tables, hearing complaints of delayed shipments of parts, and censored letters from home. The conquest of Belgium was almost complete, and the engineers were celebrating. France would fall soon after. Then would come a quick campaign against Darwinist Russia and the island fortress of Britain. Or it might be a long war, some argued, but Germany would prevail eventually\u2014fabricated beasts were no match for Clanker bravery and steel.\n\nIt didn't sound as though anyone cared if the Ottomans joined the war or not. The Germans were confident in themselves and their Austrian allies.\n\nOf course, the high command might have a different view.\n\nSuddenly Alek's ears caught the sound of English. He turned and saw a man moving slowly among the tables, asking questions that drew only shrugs and uncomprehending stares. The man was scruffily dressed in a traveling coat and a shapeless hat, with a folding camera strapped around his neck. Some sort of fabricated beast rode on his shoulder\u2014a frog, perhaps, its beady eyes peering out from beneath the man's jacket collar.\n\nA Darwinist, here, in what was practically German territory?\n\n\"Pardon me, gentlemen,\" he said when he reached Alek's table. \"But do either of you speak any English?\"\n\nAlek hesitated. The man's accent was unfamiliar, and he didn't look British. His camera seemed to be a Clanker design.\n\n\"I do, a little,\" Alek said.\n\nThe man's face broke into a broad smile as he thrust out his hand. \"Excellent! I'm Eddie Malone, reporter for the New York World. Do you mind if I ask some questions?\"\n\nThe man sat down without waiting for an answer, snapping for a waiter and ordering coffee.\n\n\"Did he say reporter?\" Bauer muttered in German. \"Is this wise, Fritz?\"\n\nAlek nodded\u2014this was the perfect opportunity. The job of a foreign reporter, after all, was to understand the politics around him, the maneuverings of the great powers here in the Ottoman Empire. And talking to Malone was much safer than trying to extract gossip from a German, who might notice Alek's aristocratic accent.\n\nA few men at the other tables had glanced at the reporter as he'd sat down, but no one was staring now. The streets of Constantinople were full of stranger sights than a fabricated frog.\n\n\"I don't know how much we can help you,\" Alek said. \"We haven't been here very long.\"\n\n\"Don't worry. My questions won't be too tricky.\" The reporter pulled out a battered notebook. \"I'm just curious about what they call the mekanzimat\u2014all the new buildings the Germans are putting up in Istanbul. Are you here to work on something?\"\n\nAlek cleared his throat. The man had assumed they were Germans, of course. He probably couldn't tell an Austrian accent from the croak of his own bullfrog. But there was no point in correcting him. \"We aren't in construction, Mr. Malone. At the moment we're just traveling. Seeing the sights.\"\n\nMalone's eyes scanned Alek up and down, coming to a halt on the fez on the chair beside him. \"I can see you've been shopping already. Funny thing, though. Men of military age, on a vacation in wartime!\"\n\nAlek swore silently. He'd always been hopeless at any sort of lying, but pretending to be a tourist was absurd when every man in Europe was reporting for duty. Malone probably thought they were deserters, or spies.\n\nOf course, a certain amount of mystery might be useful.\n\n\"Let's just say you needn't know our names.\" Alek gestured at the camera. \"And no photographs, if you please.\"\n\n\"No problem. Istanbul is full of anonymous people.\" The man reached up to scratch his bullfrog's chin. \"I suppose you came in on the Express?\"\n\nAlek nodded. The Orient-Express ran straight from Munich to Constantinople, and he could hardly admit they'd arrived by airship.\n\n\"Must've been crowded, with all the new workers coming in.\"\n\n\"The train might have been crowded, but we had our own cabin.\" As the words came out, Alek cursed himself again. Why did he always find ways to make it obvious that he was wealthy?\n\n\"So you didn't talk to any of the folks working on that wireless tower, did you?\"\n\n\"Wireless tower?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Yep. The one you Germans are building on the cliffs out to the west. A special project for the sultan, they say. It's huge\u2014has its own power station!\"\n\nAlek glanced at Bauer, wondering how much the man was following with the English he'd picked up aboard the Leviathan. A large wireless tower might need its own power station, but so would a Tesla cannon.\n\n\"I'm afraid we don't know anything about that,\" Alek said. \"We've only been in Constantinople for two days.\"\n\nMalone looked at him closely for a moment, a gleam in his eye, as if Alek had just told a subtle but clever joke. \"Not long enough to start calling it Istanbul, I see.\"\n\nAlek remembered Dr. Barlow saying that the locals used another name for their city, but the staff at his hotel hadn't seemed to mind. \"Whatever the city's called, we haven't seen much of it.\"\n\n\"So you haven't been down to the docks yet to see the sultan's new warships?\"\n\n\"New warships?\"\n\n\"Two ironclads, just handed to the Ottomans by the Germans.\" Malone's eyes narrowed. \"You haven't seen them? They're pretty hard to miss.\"\n\nAlek managed to shake his head. \"No, we haven't been to the harbor at all.\"\n\n\"Haven't been to the harbor? This is a peninsula, you know. And doesn't the Orient-Express come in right along the water?\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" Alek said stiffly. \"But we were quite tired when we arrived, and it was a dark night.\"\n\nThe man looked amused again\u2014this was hopeless. Next, Malone would tell him that the moon was full, or that the Orient-Express never arrived at night.\n\nBut what did it matter? He didn't believe a word Alek was saying anyway. Perhaps it was time to change the subject.\n\n\"It's odd, seeing that creature here,\" Alek said, pointing at the bullfrog. \"I didn't know the Ottomans allowed Darwinist abominations in their country.\"\n\n\"Oh, you just have to know who to bribe.\" The man laughed. \"And I wouldn't go anywhere without Rusty. He's got a much better memory than me.\"\n\nAlek's eyes widened. \"He \u2026 remembers things?\"\n\n\"Sure. Ever seen one of those message lizards?\"\n\n\"I've heard of them.\"\n\n\"Well, Rusty is a close relation. Except he's all brain and no hop.\" The man patted the bullfrog on its head, and the beady eyes blinked. \"He can listen to an hour's worth of conversation and repeat it back to you, word for word.\"\n\nAlek frowned, wondering if the newborn creature back at the hotel was some sort of recording beast. \"Is this animal memorizing what we're saying right now?\"\n\nThe reporter shrugged. \"In as much as you're saying anything at all.\"\n\n\"As I said, we've just arrived.\"\n\n\"Well, at least your English is easy on the ears.\" The man laughed again. \"It's like you've been practicing up, just for me.\"\n\n\"You're too kind,\" Alek said. For the past two weeks, of course, he'd spoken more English than German. \"And you have a sharp ear. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?\"\n\n\"Sure. Why not?\" The reporter licked his pen.\n\n\"Do you think the Ottomans will join the Clankers in this war?\"\n\nMalone shrugged again. \"I doubt the Germans care, one way or the other. They're here for the long term. Defeat the Darwinists in Europe, then expand across the whole world. They're already extending the Express to Baghdad.\"\n\nAlek had heard his father say the same, that the Orient-Express had been built to spread Clanker influence into the Middle East, and then deeper into the heart of Asia.\n\nMalone gestured up at the propaganda poster behind Alek. \"All they want now is for the Ottomans to close the Dardanelles, so the Russians can't ship food in from the south.\"\n\n\"It's easier to starve a man than to fight him,\" Alek said. \"But can the Ottomans hold the strait against the British navy?\"\n\n\"Surface ships can't make it past the mines and the cannon, and they have nets to keep the krakens out. That's everything but airships, and the Ottomans may get one of those soon.\"\n\n\"Pardon me?\"\n\nMalone's face brightened. \"That's a sight you'll definitely want to see. The Leviathan, one of the great hydrogen breathers, is here in Istanbul.\"\n\n\"It's still \u2026 I mean, there's a British airship here? Isn't that a bit odd, with a war going on?\"\n\n\"I'll say it is. And what's odder still, the British are thinking of giving it to the sultan!\" Malone shook his head. \"Seems the Germans donated a pair of ironclads to the Ottomans, and the British want to up the ante. The sultan himself will be taking a joyride tomorrow, along with some of us reporters.\"\n\nAlek was almost too stunned to speak. That the Leviathan might be handed over to a Clanker power was absurd. But if the airship hadn't left yet, then Count Volger was still in Istanbul.\n\n\"Are you going on this \u2026 joyride?\"\n\nMalone beamed. \"Wouldn't miss it for the world. We've got hydrogen breathers in the U.S., but nothing half that big. Just watch the skies tomorrow, and you'll see what I mean!\"\n\nAlek stared hard at the man. If he was right about the Leviathan, then Volger might have another chance to escape. Of course, Volger thought that Alek and the others had already disappeared into the wilds.\n\nIt was madness to trust this strange American, but Alek had to take the chance. \"Perhaps you could do something for me,\" he said quietly. \"There's a message I want delivered to that ship.\"\n\nMalone's eyebrows rose. \"Sounds interesting.\"\n\n\"But you can't put any of this in your newspaper.\"\n\n\"I can't promise that. But remember, my paper's way off in New York City, and I use messenger terns to file my stories. Anything I write will take four days to get back to New York, and it'll take another day or so for the news to find its way back here. See what I mean?\"\n\nAlek nodded. If Volger really could escape, five days would be plenty of time for them to disappear.\n\n\"All right, then.\" Alek took a slow breath. \"There's a man aboard the Leviathan, a prisoner.\"\n\nMalone's scribbling pen came to a halt. \"A German fellow, I presume?\"\n\n\"No. Austrian. His name is \u2026\"\n\nAlek's voice faded\u2014the gaslights were suddenly sputtering around them, the room plunging into darkness.\n\n\"What's happening?\" Bauer hissed.\n\nMalone held up a hand. \"Don't worry. It's just a shadow play.\"\n\nThe coffeehouse went silent, and soon the back wall was flickering to life. Alek realized that it wasn't a wall at all but a thin screen of paper with powerful gaslights burning behind it.\n\nDark forms came into focus on the paper screen, shadows in the shapes of monsters and men.\n\nAlek's eyes widened. One of his aunts in Prague had collected shadow puppets from Indonesia, leather creations with moving arms and legs, like marionettes with sticks instead of strings. But the shadows here danced in perfect clockwork patterns. They were Clanker puppets, moved not by hand but by machines concealed behind the wall.\n\nThe hidden actors spoke in what sounded like Turkish, but the story was easy enough to understand. Across the bottom of the screen, waves rose and fell, and a sea creature bounded among them, a Darwinist monster with flailing tentacles and huge teeth. It approached a ship where two men stood on deck talking, unaware of the kraken coming for them. Alek caught the name Churchill among the unfamiliar words.\n\nThen suddenly the creature leapt from the waves, snatching one of the men and dragging him into the water. Oddly, the other man only laughed.\u2026\n\nAlek jumped as someone squeezed his arm. It was Bauer, who nodded at a pair of German soldiers making their way through the coffeehouse. The two were going from table to table, checking faces against a photograph in their hands.\n\n\"We should go, Fritz,\" Bauer whispered.\n\n\"They're here for someone else,\" Alek said firmly. No photograph of him had ever been taken.\n\nMalone had noticed their nervous glances, and turned to look at the German soldiers. He leaned forward to whisper, \"If you two are busy, perhaps we should meet tomorrow. Noon, at the gateway to the Blue Mosque?\"\n\nAlek began to explain that there was no need to leave, but then one of the soldiers stiffened. He glanced down at the photograph in his hands, then up at Alek.\n\n\"Impossible,\" Alek breathed. Then he realized that the soldier wasn't looking at him after all.\n\nHe was looking at Bauer.\n\n\"I'm a fool,\" Alek whispered to himself.\n\nThe Germans had, of course, investigated the other men who'd disappeared the night he'd run away. Bauer, Hoffman, and Klopp were all Hapsburg House Guards, with photographs in their military files. But somehow Alek had forgotten that commoners could be hunted too.\n\nHe looked frantically around the room. Two more German soldiers stood at the door, and the coffeehouse had no other exits. The soldiers who'd noticed Bauer were talking to each other intently, one glancing at their table.\n\nMalone leaned back in his chair and casually said, \"There's a door to the alley in the back.\"\n\nAlek looked\u2014the back wall was entirely covered by the glowing screen, but it was made of paper.\n\n\"Hans, do you have a knife?\" Alek asked softly.\n\nBauer nodded, reaching into his jacket. \"Don't worry, sir. I'll keep them busy while you run.\"\n\n\"No, Hans. We're escaping together. Give the knife to me, then follow.\"\n\nBauer frowned, but handed over the weapon. The two German soldiers were signaling to their compatriots at the door. It was time to move.\n\n\"Noon tomorrow at the Blue Mosque,\" Alek said, reaching for his fez \u2026\n\nHe leapt to his feet and ran through the tables toward the glowing screen.\n\nThe bright expanse of paper parted with a swift stroke of the knife, revealing whirling gears and gaslights behind. Half blinded, Alek crashed through silhouettes of ocean waves, stumbling against a large, humming contraption. His hand banged against one of the hissing gaslights, which burned like a branding iron against his hand. The light crashed to the ground, spilling naked flames and shards of glass across the floor.\n\nShouts exploded from behind them, the crowd panicking at the smell of burning gas and paper. Alek heard one of the soldiers yelling at the customers to let him through.\n\n\"The door, sir!\" Bauer cried. Alek could see nothing but the spots burned into his vision, but Bauer dragged him along, their boots skidding on machinery and broken glass.\n\nThe door crashed open onto darkness, the night air blessedly cool on Alek's burned palm. He followed Bauer, trying to blink away spots as he ran.\n\nThe alley was like a miniature version of the Grand Bazaar, lined with market stalls the size of closets, and crowded with small tables piled with pistachios, walnuts, and fruit. Surprised faces looked up at Alek and Bauer as they ran past.\n\nAlek heard the slam of the door bursting open behind them. Then a gunshot boomed through the alley, and dust sprayed from the ancient stones beside his head.\n\n\"This way, sir!\" Bauer cried, dragging him around a corner. People were scattering now, the alley turning into a tumult of men and overturned tables. Shutters flew open overhead, and cries in a dozen languages echoed from the walls.\n\nAnother shot shook the air around them, and Alek followed Bauer into a side passageway between two buildings. It was narrow and empty, and their boots slapped through a runnel of drainage that ran down its middle. They had to duck beneath low stone arches as they ran.\n\nThe alley didn't lead back to the Grand Bazaar, or to an open street\u2014it seemed to wind around itself, following the hissing spirals of steam pipes and wiring conduits. Only the barest hint of moonlight made its way down to the paving stones, and soon Alek had lost all sense of direction.\n\nThe walls here were chalked with a tangle of words and symbols\u2014Alek saw the Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets mixed together, along with signs he didn't recognize. It felt as though he and Bauer had stumbled into an older city hidden inside the first, Istanbul before the Germans had widened its boulevards and filled them with polished steel machines.\n\nAs they turned a corner, Bauer pulled Alek to a halt.\n\nAbove them loomed a walker, six stories high. Its body was long and sinuous, like a snake rearing up, a pair of arms jutting out from its sides. The front of the pilot's cabin looked like a woman's face, which seemed to be staring down at them, absolutely still.\n\n\"Volger told us about these,\" Alek whispered. \"Iron golems. They keep the peace among the different ghettos.\"\n\n\"It looks empty,\" Bauer said nervously. \"And the engines aren't running.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it's only for show. It doesn't even have guns.\"\n\nThere was something magnificent about the walker, though, as if they were staring up at a statue of some ancient pagan goddess. The expression of the giant face seemed to hint at a smile.\n\nShouts came from the distance, and Alek tore his eyes from the machine.\n\n\"We could break in somewhere and hide,\" Bauer said, pointing at a low doorway in the alley wall, an iron-grilled window at its center.\n\nAlek hesitated. Crashing into a strange house would only stir up more trouble, especially if the owners of the motionless walker were about.\n\nThe shriek of whistles echoed around them, as if pursuers were closing in from every direction.\u2026\n\nAlmost every direction.\n\nAlek looked up at the steam pipes climbing the stone walls. They sweated and trembled with heat, but he dashed down the alley, testing them until he found an old tangle of pipes that was cold to the touch.\n\nHe thrust the knife into his belt. \"Let's try for the rooftops.\"\n\nBauer gave the pipes a shake, and brick dust floated down from the rusty bolts. \"I'll go first, sir, in case it breaks off.\"\n\n\"If that happens, Hans, I suspect we'll both be in trouble, but be my guest.\"\n\nBauer took a firm grip and pulled himself up.\n\nAlek followed. His boots found steady purchase on the rough stone wall, and the rusty pipes were good handholds. But halfway up his burned palm began to complain, throbbing as though a splinter of flame were trapped beneath the skin. He let go with that hand and shook it, trying to put out the fire coursing through his nerves.\n\n\"Not much farther, sir,\" Bauer said. \"There's a rain gutter just above me.\"\n\n\"I hope there's some rain in it,\" Alek muttered, still waving his hand. \"I'd kill for a bucket of cold water.\"\n\nHis right boot skidded a few centimeters, and Alek grabbed the pipes with both hands again. Better a little agony than a long fall onto paving stones.\n\nSoon Bauer had hauled himself over the edge and out of sight. But as Alek reached up for the gutter, shouts came from below.\n\nHe pulled himself closer to the wall, and froze.\n\nA group of soldiers was running down the alley, wearing German gray. One called out, and they came to a ragged halt directly beneath Alek. The man who'd shouted knelt, lifting something from the ground.\n\nAlek softly swore. Bauer's knife had fallen from his belt.\n\nIt was Hapsburg Guard issue, the hilt marked with Alek's family crest. If the Germans had been wondering whether he was here in Istanbul or not, this would remove all doubt.\n\nThe men stood there talking, but none of them paid any notice to the steam pipes climbing the wall beside them. The officer was pointing in all directions, splitting up his men.\n\nGo away! Alek pleaded silently. Hanging there motionless was a hundred times harder than climbing. His burned hand was cramping, and the week-old injury in his ribs was pulsing with his heartbeat.\n\nFinally the last man had passed out of sight, and Alek reached out and grabbed the rain gutter. But as he hauled himself up, metal groaned, and the gutter pulled itself from the stone with a series of pops.\n\nAlek felt a sickening lurch downward, the rusted bolts spitting out into his face. The gutter held for another moment, but he could feel it twisting in his hands.\n\n\"Sir!\" Bauer reached out from the rooftop, trying to grab Alek's wrists, but the gutter had pulled too far away from the wall.\n\nAlek kicked out, trying to swing himself closer, but the movement only tore more bolts from the wall.\n\n\"The walker!\" Bauer cried.\n\nAlek realized that a huge shadow was moving beneath him, steam huffing from its joints into the cool night air. One of the great claws was reaching out.\u2026\n\nHe fell, dropping into the giant metal hand. The impact knocked the breath from him, sending pain shooting through his sore ribs. He skidded for a moment, the buttons of his tunic snapping against steel, but the claw closed into a huge bowl around him.\n\nHe looked up\u2014the arm was still moving, carrying him closer to the walker. Its face was splitting open, like a viewport cranking wider and wider. A moment later the pilot's cabin was exposed.\n\nThere were three men inside. Two stood leaning over the edge, peering down at the alley, pistols gripped tightly in their hands. The third sat at the walker's controls, a curious look on his face.\n\nClouds of steam swirled around them, puffing from the joints of the machine. Alek realized that its engines were still silent; it had used stored pneumatic pressure to spring to life.\n\n\"You speak German,\" the man at the controls said. \"And yet the Germans are chasing you. How interesting.\"\n\n\"We're not Germans,\" Alek answered. \"We're Austrian.\"\n\nThe man frowned. \"But still Clankers. Are you deserters?\"\n\nAlek shook his head. His allegiances might have been tangled lately, but he was no deserter. \"May I ask who you are, sir?\"\n\nThe man smiled and worked at the controls. \"I'm the fellow who just saved you from falling to your death.\"\n\n\"Sir, should I \u2026,\" came Bauer's voice from the rooftop, but Alek waved him silent.\n\nThe giant hand drew closer to the walker's head, and opened flat. As Alek rose to his feet, one of the other two men said something in a language he didn't recognize. It sounded more like Italian than the Turkish he'd heard on the streets today. It also sounded unfriendly.\n\nThe first man laughed. \"My friend wants to throw you back, because he thinks you're Germans. Perhaps we should pick another language.\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow. \"By all means. Do you speak English?\"\n\n\"Exceedingly well.\" The man switched effortlessly. \"I studied at Oxford, you know.\"\n\n\"Well, then. My name is Aleksandar.\" Alek bowed a little, then pointed up at the rooftop, where Bauer was staring down, wide eyed. \"And this is Hans, but I'm afraid he has no English.\"\n\n\"I am Zaven.\" The man waved a hand dismissively at the others. \"These two barbarians speak nothing by Romanian and Turkish. Ignore them. But I can see you are an educated gentleman.\"\n\n\"Thank you for saving me, sir. And for not \u2026 throwing me back.\"\n\n\"Well, you can't be all bad, if the Germans are chasing you.\" Zaven's eyes twinkled. \"Did you do something to annoy them?\"\n\n\"I suppose so.\" Alek took a slow breath, choosing his words carefully. \"They've been hunting me since before the war started. They had issues with my father.\"\n\n\"Aha! A second-generation rebel, as am I!\"\n\nAlek looked at the others. \"So that's what you three are? Revolutionaries?\"\n\n\"We are more than three, sir. There are thousands of us!\" Zaven snapped upright in his piloting chair and saluted. \"We are the Committee for Union and Progress.\"\n\nAlek nodded. He remembered the name from six years before, when the rebellion had demanded a return to elected government. But the Germans had stepped in to crush them, keeping the sultan in charge.\n\n\"So you were part of the Young Turks' rebellion?\"\n\n\"Young Turks? Fah!\" Zaven spat into the alley below. \"We split off from those cretins years ago. They think that only Turks are true Ottomans. But as you can see, the Committee takes in all kinds.\" He gestured at the other two men. \"My friends are Vlachs, I am Armenian, and we have Kurds, Arabs, and Jews among us. And plenty of Turks, of course!\" He laughed.\n\nAlek nodded slowly, remembering the chalk scratchings in the passageways below, some sort of code assembled from the empire's jumble of tongues.\n\nAnd all of them fighting the Germans\u2014together.\n\nFor a moment Alek felt unsteady on the giant metal hand. Perhaps it was just an echo of his near fall, but his heart was racing again.\n\nThese men were allies. At last, here was a chance to do more than simply run and hide, a way to strike back at the powers that had murdered his parents.\n\n\"Mr. Zaven,\" Alek said, \"I think you and I are going to be friends.\"\n\n\"Get out, you barking horrible spice!\" Deryn yelled, then sneezed for the hundredth time that day. The sultan and his entourage would be aboard in an hour, and the whole crew was due in full-dress uniform in half that time. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, the red stain in her shirt wouldn't budge.\n\nShe was well and truly stuffed.\n\nA yip came from the door of her cabin, and Deryn turned to see Tazza bouncing happily on his hind legs, a fresh bone in his mouth. That was one benefit of Dr. Barlow's mad scheme of pretending to give the Leviathan away\u2014the beasties were eating better. Over the last two days the crew had made more trips to the markets and smithies of Istanbul, trading the airship's ambergris for food and parts. Except for Deryn's uniform, the ship was fit to receive a foreign emperor, which it shortly would.\n\nThe lady boffin appeared, right behind her thylacine. She'd managed to dig another dazzling dress out of her luggage, and a hat with abundant ostrich feathers that matched her long white gloves. Even Tazza was wearing a fancy collar, a band of diamonds glittering around his neck.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" she said, and tutted. \"Once more I find you in a state of disrepair.\"\n\nDeryn held up her dress shirt. \"Sorry, ma'am. But this is ruined, and I haven't got another!\"\n\n\"Well, it's lucky you won't be serving the sultan this evening. Mr. Newkirk will be stepping in for you.\"\n\n\"But the whole crew is meant to be in full dress!\"\n\n\"Not those with more important matters to contend with.\" Dr. Barlow handed over the thylacine's leash. \"After you walk Tazza, please join me and the captain in the navigation room. I think you'll find our conversation interesting.\"\n\nTazza tried to pull her out the door, but Deryn stood firm. \"Pardon me, ma'am. The barking captain wants to see me? Is this about your alternate plan for the Ottomans?\"\n\nThe lady boffin smiled coolly. \"Partly. But it also concerns your recent behavior. If I were you, I wouldn't dawdle on your way there.\"\n\nThe navigation room was at the bow of the ship, just below the bridge. It was a small, quiet cabin where the captain sometimes retreated to think, or to have an awkward conversation with a wayward crewman.\n\nDeryn felt her stomach tighten as she drew near. What if the officers had noticed her fencing lessons with Count Volger? Whenever Deryn brought him a meal, she stayed for twenty minutes or so, practicing swordplay with mop handles.\n\nBut the captain himself wouldn't issue a reprimand for mere dawdling, would he? Unless he also knew that she'd been supplying Volger with newspapers, and had even told him about Admiral Souchon and the Goeben. Or how she'd looked the other way while the Clankers had been planning to escape!\n\nBut when the lady boffin had announced this meeting, she'd been smiling.\u2026\n\nThe late afternoon sun was slanting in through the windows that curved around the navigation room. Dr. Barlow and the captain were already there, along with the bosun and Dr. Busk, the officers all in resplendent dress uniforms for the sultan's visit.\n\nDeryn frowned. If she was about to receive a reprimand, why in blazes was the ship's head boffin here?\n\nWhen she clicked her heels, the four of them clammed up quickly, like children caught telling secrets.\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Sharp, glad you could join us,\" Captain Hobbes said. \"We need to discuss your recent exploits.\"\n\n\"Um \u2026 my exploits, sir?\"\n\nThe captain raised a dispatch. \"I have communicated with the Admiralty about the matter, and they concur with my recommendations.\"\n\n\"The Admiralty, sir?\" Deryn managed. If the Admiralty was involved, this had to be a hanging offense! She looked at Dr. Barlow, racking her brain for what had given her treason away.\n\n\"Don't look so surprised, Mr. Sharp,\" the bosun said. \"Even in all the recent ruckus, your rescue of Mr. Newkirk has not been forgotten.\"\n\nThe rest of them broke into broad smiles, but Deryn's brain ground to a halt.\n\n\"Pardon me, sir?\"\n\n\"I wish we had time to do this properly,\" Captain Hobbes said, \"but other duties await.\"\n\nHe lifted a velvet jewelry case from the map table, opened it, and produced a rounded silver cross that dangled from a sky blue ribbon. The face of Charles Darwin was engraved upon its center, the Air Service wings at its top.\n\nDeryn stared at it, wondering what the captain was doing with her father's medal, and how it had got so shiny and new.\u2026\n\n\"Midshipman Dylan Sharp,\" the captain began, \"I hereby award you the Air Gallantry Cross for your brave and selfless actions of August 10, wherein you saved the life of a fellow crewman at great risk to your own. Congratulations.\"\n\nAs he pinned the medal to Deryn's chest, Dr. Barlow applauded softly with gloved hands. The captain stepped back, and the officers saluted as one.\n\nA realization meandered its slow way through Deryn's brain\u2014this wasn't her father's medal \u2026\n\nIt was hers.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" she said at last, barely remembering to return the officers' salutes. Instead of charging her with treason, they'd gone and decorated her?\n\n\"Now, then,\" Captain Hobbes said, turning back to the map table. \"We have other matters to discuss.\"\n\n\"Well done, Mr. Sharp,\" the lady boffin whispered, patting Deryn on the shoulder. \"If only you were properly dressed!\"\n\nDeryn nodded dumbly, trying to gather her thoughts. She was a decorated officer now, pinned with the same medal her father had won. And unlike him, she was still alive. She could still hear her own heart beating, sure enough, like a drummer marching her off to war.\n\nPart of her wanted to weep, to let all the nightmares of the last week spill out of her. And another part wanted to shout aloud that this was madness. She was a traitor, a spy\u2014a girl, for heaven's sake. But somehow she managed to hold the jumble of feelings inside by staring down at the table as hard as she could.\n\nOn it was a map of the Dardanelles, with mines and fortifications drawn by hand in red. As Deryn took slow breaths, her brain gradually focused on the matter at hand.\n\nThe Dardanelles strait was the heart of the Ottoman defenses. It squeezed all ships headed for Istanbul into a channel less than a mile wide, which was stuffed with sea mines and lined with forts and cannon on high cliffs.\n\nWhatever the lady boffin's alternate plan was, Deryn had a feeling it didn't involve more diplomacy.\n\n\"We're forbidden to fly down the strait,\" Captain Hobbes was saying. \"The Ottomans don't want us spying on their fortifications during the sultan's joyride. But they've given us permission to travel down the ocean side\u2014so the sultan can watch the sunset, we've told them.\"\n\nThe bosun chuckled as the captain's finger traveled down the western edge of Gallipoli, the rocky peninsula that separated the strait from the Aegean Sea.\n\n\"Just here is a ridge known as the Sphinx, a natural landmark. We can find our way back to it easily, day or night. So can your landing party, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Landing party, sir?\"\n\n\"That's what I said. You'll have to keelhaul drop from cruising altitude.\"\n\nDeryn raised her eyebrows. A keelhaul drop meant sliding down a cable to the ground. But according to the Manual of Aeronautics, drops were only for abandoning ship.\n\nThe bosun saw her expression, and smiled. \"A bit lively, eh, Mr. Sharp? Especially for your first command.\"\n\n\"I'll be in command, sir?\"\n\nThe captain nodded. \"Can't have a full officer in charge, in case you're captured. Better a middy, so it's less of an incident.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Deryn cleared her throat, realizing why they'd been in such a rush to give her the barking medal. In case she didn't make it back. \"I mean, yes, sir.\"\n\nThe captain's finger slid across Gallipoli. \"From the Sphinx your landing party will cross the peninsula to Kilye Niman\u2014a bit more than two miles away.\" He pointed at a narrow passage at a bend in the strait, which was marked with a dotted red line. \"That's where the Ottomans have their heavy kraken nets, according to our best dolphinesques.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, sir,\" Deryn said, \"but if the dolphins have already scouted them, what am I going for? To take photographs?\"\n\n\"Photographs?\" The captain chuckled. \"This isn't a sightseeing trip, Mr. Sharp. Your job is to bring those nets down.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. Heavy kraken nets were strong enough to stop even the largest beasties from getting through. How was her landing party meant to cut them up? With a pair of clippers?\n\n\"Allow me to explain,\" Dr. Barlow said, gesturing to two jars on the map table. They were crowded with tiny beasties, a honeycomb of white shells clinging to the interior of the glass. She twisted off the top of one, and the smell of salt water filled the room. \"Did you know, Mr. Sharp, that my grandfather was an expert in the field of barnacles?\"\n\n\"Barnacles, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Amazing creatures. They spend their humble lives clinging to ships, to whales, to rocks and driftwood, and yet they are implacable. Enough of them can foul even the largest dreadnought's engines.\" She pulled on heavy gloves and lifted a pair of tongs from the table, then fished out a single beastie from the jar. \"Of course, these are no ordinary barnacles. They're a species of my own devising, prepared in case the Ottomans proved troublesome. You shall have to be careful with them.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, ma'am. I won't hurt your beasties.\"\n\n\"Hurt them, Mr. Sharp?\" the lady boffin asked, and Dr. Busk laughed.\n\nSuddenly Deryn smelled something besides seawater. It was a dark scent, like smoke from a smithy. Then she realized that the tongs were slowly drooping in Dr. Barlow's hand.\n\nThe metal itself was \u2026 melting.\n\nDr. Barlow maneuvered the tongs carefully, so that they dropped the barnacle back into the jar of brine before disintegrating altogether. \"I call them vitriolic barnacles.\"\n\n\"Of course, Midshipman Sharp, you must keep this mission secret from the rest of the crew,\" the captain said. \"Even the men in your landing party won't know the entire plan. Is that clear?\"\n\nDeryn swallowed. \"Perfectly clear, sir.\"\n\nDr. Barlow carefully screwed the top back onto the jar. \"Once the vitriolic barnacles are on the kraken nets, they'll begin to multiply, interbreeding with the natural barnacles already there. In a few weeks the colony will be overcrowded, like these in the jar. Then they shall begin to struggle, trying to dislodge each other's relentless grip. Their vitriolic ooze will tear away at the nets, turning the cables into a stringy paste of metal at the bottom of the sea.\"\n\n\"We'll return a month from now,\" the captain said. \"In the dark of the new moon, the Leviathan will guide a creature down the strait by searchlight. The Ottoman coastal artillery won't be able to hit us in the air, and the beastie will swim deep underwater, unharmed by magnetic sea mines.\"\n\n\"But won't the Ottoman navy have plenty of warning, sir?\" Deryn asked\u2014the strait was almost a hundred miles from Istanbul.\n\n\"Indeed,\" Dr. Busk said. \"But Admiral Souchon won't guess what sort of creature the Leviathan is bringing. It's a new species, more formidable than any of our navy krakens.\"\n\nDeryn nodded, remembering what Dr. Barlow had told her on the sultan's airship.\n\n\"It's called a behemoth,\" the head boffin said.\n\nBy the time she left the navigation room, Deryn felt unsteady on her feet.\n\nFirst a decoration for gallantry, when she'd half expected to be hanged for treason. Then her first command, a secret attack against an empire that Britain was at peace with. That didn't seem right at all. It was more like being a spy than a soldier!\n\nAnd the final shock was the drawing of the behemoth that Dr. Busk had shown them. It was a huge creature, with tentacles like a kraken and a maw big enough to swallow one of the kaiser's submarines. The body was nearly as big as the Leviathan, but made of muscle and sinew instead of hydrogen and fragile membranes.\n\nNo wonder Lord Churchill hadn't wanted to hand it over!\n\nAs Deryn neared the central stairs, she frowned\u2014a civilian was lurking about in the corridor ahead of her. She recognized the shapeless hat and the bullfrog on his shoulder. It was Eddie Malone, the reporter she'd met aboard the Dauntless, no doubt here to cover the sultan's joyride.\n\nBut what was he doing so close to the bow?\n\n\"Excuse me, Mr. Malone,\" she said. \"Are you lost?\"\n\nThe man spun around on one heel, a guilty expression on his face. Then he frowned and took a closer look. \"Oh, it's you, Mr. Sharp. How lucky!\"\n\n\"Indeed you are, sir. You're wandering about in a restricted area.\" She pointed back toward the stairs. \"I'm afraid you'll have to rejoin the other reporters in the mess hall.\"\n\n\"Well, of course,\" Malone said, but he made no move to turn around, just stood there watching a message lizard scuttling past overhead. \"I just wanted a better look at your magnificent ship.\"\n\nDeryn sighed. She had only a few hours to learn how to use a diving apparatus, how to keelhaul drop onto solid stone, and how to handle acid-spitting barnacles! She wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.\n\n\"You're very kind, sir.\" She pointed down the corridor again. \"But if you please.\"\n\nMalone leaned closer and spoke quietly. \"Here's the thing, Mr. Sharp. I'm checking out a story. One that might make your ship look bad, if reported in a certain way. Perhaps you could clear things up for me.\"\n\n\"Clear what up, Mr. Malone?\"\n\n\"I have it on good authority that you're holding a prisoner here. He should be a prisoner of war, but you're not treating him properly.\"\n\nDeryn took a long moment to speak. \"I'm not sure who you're talking about.\"\n\n\"I think you are! A man named Volger is aboard this ship. You're making him work on those Clanker engines of yours, even though he's a real-life count!\"\n\nDeryn's hand went to her command whistle, ready to call for the guards. But then she realized how Malone must have learned about Volger \u2026 from Alek.\n\nWith a quick look in both directions, she pulled Malone out of the main corridor and into the officers' baths.\n\n\"Where did you hear this?\" she whispered.\n\n\"I met an odd fellow,\" he said softly, scratching the chin of his bullfrog. \"I thought he was a bit suspicious, and suddenly the Germans were chasing him. That didn't seem right, as he was Austrian, a fellow Clanker!\"\n\n\"Germans?\" Deryn's eyes widened. \"Is he all right?\"\n\n\"He gave them the slip, and I saw him again today at lunch.\" The man smiled. \"He knew a lot about your ship, which was also odd. Do you think I could meet this Volger fellow? I have a message to deliver.\"\n\nDeryn groaned, her stomach winding into the same tight coils it always did when she was contemplating treason. But Alek was still here in Istanbul, and the Germans were after him! Maybe Count Volger could help.\n\nShe held out her hand. \"All right. I'll take the message to him.\"\n\n\"It won't work that way, I'm afraid.\" Malone pointed at his bullfrog. \"Rusty here has the message in his head, and you don't know how to make him speak.\"\n\nDeryn stared at the frog, wondering if it was memorizing everything she was saying right now. Could she really trust this reporter?\n\nHer thoughts were shattered by a whistle echoing through the ship\u2014the all-hands signal. The sultan was almost here. In a few minutes all the ship's marines would be arrayed along the gangway, waiting for his arrival.\n\nWhich meant that there wouldn't be a guard at Volger's stateroom door \u2026\n\nDeryn reached for her ring of keys.\n\n\"Come with me,\" she said.\n\nAs expected, no one was guarding the count's stateroom.\n\nDeryn opened the door to the sight of Volger leaning halfway out his window, trying to get a better view of the sultan's magnificent walker. Before she'd left the navigation room, Deryn had seen the elephant-shaped machine approaching across the airfield. It was even larger than the Dauntless, its howdah as ornate as a lady's hat on Derby Day.\n\n\"Excuse me, sir,\" she said to Volger's backside, \"but you have a visitor.\"\n\nAs the wildcount extracted himself from the window, Deryn checked the empty corridor and closed the door behind them.\n\n\"A visitor?\" Volger said. \"How interesting.\"\n\nThe reporter stepped forward and thrust out his hand. \"Eddie Malone, reporter for the New York World.\"\n\nCount Volger said nothing, eyeing Malone up and down.\n\n\"He has a message from Alek,\" Deryn said.\n\nVolger's face froze for a moment. \"Alek? Where is he?\"\n\n\"Right here in Istanbul.\" Malone pulled out his battered notebook. \"He told me about you being a prisoner aboard this ship. Are you being well treated, sir?\"\n\nVolger didn't answer, his expression still one of shock.\n\n\"Blisters, Malone!\" Deryn swore. \"We haven't got time for you to do a barking interview. Can your wee beastie please just deliver the message!\"\n\n\"Alek said it was private, just for the count.\"\n\nDeryn groaned with frustration. \"Alek won't mind me hearing whatever he has to say. Right, your countship?\"\n\nVolger regarded the bullfrog with an expression of infinite distaste, but he gave the reporter a nod.\n\nMalone took the beastie from his shoulder and set it on the desk. He scratched beneath its chin, tapping a sort of code with his fingertip. \"Okay, Rusty. Repeat.\"\n\nThe frog began to speak in Alek's voice. \"I can't be sure if this is really you, Count, but I have to trust this man. We're still here in Istanbul, you see, which I'm sure upsets you greatly. But we've met some friends\u2014allies, I suppose you'd call them. I'll say more about that when we meet face-to-face.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. Allies? What was Alek blethering about?\n\n\"Mr. Malone tells me that the Leviathan is still here as well,\" the beastie continued. \"If you and Hoffman can escape, you can join us! We're at a hotel in the old city, with a name like my mother's. We'll stay here as long as we can.\"\n\nAt this, Count Volger softly groaned, his fists clenching at his sides.\n\n\"Oh, and I apologize for making you listen to this abomination. But I need your help, Count, more than ever. Please try to join us. Um, end message, I suppose.\"\n\nThe bullfrog went silent.\n\n\"Do you mind if I ask you some questions, sir?\" Malone said, his pen at the ready.\n\nCount Volger didn't answer, but sank into his desk chair, staring hatefully at the frog. \"I suppose that's really him?\"\n\n\"It sounds like Alek, right enough,\" Deryn said. \"And the beasties can only repeat what they've heard.\"\n\n\"Then why was he speaking in English?\" Volger asked.\n\n\"My name's not Rosencrantz,\" Eddie Malone said. \"I wasn't going to carry a message I didn't understand.\"\n\n\"That little fool,\" the count said quietly, shaking his head. \"What's he playing at now?\"\n\nEddie Malone picked up the bullfrog and placed it on his shoulder, a frown on his face. \"You don't sound glad to hear from this fellow. He seemed to think highly of you.\"\n\n\"Do you know what he was talking about?\" Volger asked Malone. \"Who these new 'allies' of his are?\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"He was being cagey about it. Istanbul is full of secret societies and conspiracies. There was a revolution just six years ago.\"\n\n\"So he's fallen in with anarchists? Splendid.\"\n\n\"Anarchists?\" Deryn frowned. \"Alek's not completely daft, you know!\"\n\nVolger waved his hand at the bullfrog. \"I believe this proves that he is. All he had to do was leave Istanbul, then find somewhere to hide.\"\n\n\"Aye, but why would he do that?\" Deryn said. \"You and his da kept him cooped up his whole life, like a budgie in a fancy cage, and now he's finally free. Did you really think he'd find some hole to hide in?\"\n\n\"The situation would seem to call for it.\"\n\n\"But Alek can't keep running forever,\" she cried. \"He needs allies, like he had on this ship before the barking war got in the way. He needs somewhere to belong. But I will say this\u2014I'm glad he ran away from the likes of you, even if he's joined the barking Monkey Luddite Brigade! At least he can find his own way now!\"\n\nCount Volger stared at her for a long moment, and Deryn realized that she'd let her voice go all squeaky. That was what came of thinking too hard about Alek\u2014it turned her pure dead girly sometimes.\n\n\"This Alek fellow just gets more and more interesting,\" Malone said, pen scratching against his pad. \"Can you give me a bit more background on him?\"\n\n\"No!\" Deryn and Volger said together.\n\nThe cast off alert sounded, and Deryn heard footsteps scrambling in the corridor outside. She swore\u2014the captain had ordered a fast ascent. They had to make it down the peninsula before sunset, or her landing party would be keelhaul dropping in the dark.\n\n\"We have to go now,\" she said, dragging Malone toward the door. \"They'll be coming for his countship soon, to help with the engines.\"\n\n\"What about my interview?\"\n\n\"If they catch us in here, you'll be interviewing a barking hangman!\" Deryn eased open the door, peeking out and waiting for the corridor to clear.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Count Volger said from behind her. \"I hope you understand that this complicates things.\"\n\nShe looked over her shoulder. \"What are you blethering about?\"\n\n\"I need to rejoin Alek and talk him out of this madness. And that means escaping from this ship. Hoffman and I shall need your help with that.\"\n\n\"Have you gone barking mad as well?\" she cried. \"I'm not a traitor \u2026 not that much of one, anyway.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, but if you don't help us, I shall be forced to reveal your little secret.\"\n\nDeryn froze.\n\n\"I had begun to suspect during our fencing lessons,\" the count said coolly. \"There's something about the way you stand. And your outbursts on Alek's behalf have also been revealing. But really it was the look on your face just now that removed all doubt.\"\n\n\"I don't know \u2026 what you're talking about,\" she said. The words came out ridiculously low, like a wee boy trying to sound like a man.\n\n\"Neither do I,\" Eddie Malone said, his pen flying across the page. \"But this is sure getting interesting.\"\n\n\"So if you want to continue serving on this ship, Mr. Sharp, I think you will be helping us to escape.\" A cruel smile spread across Count Volger's face. \"Or shall I give our reporter friend here the news?\"\n\nDeryn's head was spinning like mad. She'd lived this moment in a hundred nightmares, but now the moment had arrived like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. And from barking Count Volger, of all people.\n\nSuddenly Deryn hated all sneaky, clever people.\n\nShe bit her lip, forcing her thoughts into focus. She was Midshipman Dylan Sharp, a decorated officer in His Majesty's Air Service, not some ninny about to lose her head. Whatever she said now, she could scheme her way out of this later.\n\n\"All right, then,\" she spat. \"I'll help you escape.\"\n\nVolger drummed his fingers. \"It'll have to be tomorrow night, before the Leviathan leaves Istanbul for good.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry. I'll be glad to see the back side of you!\"\n\nWith that, she dragged Eddie Malone out the door.\n\nThree hours later Deryn found herself staring out the Leviathan's open cargo door, a heavy pack on her back and a rocky expanse rolling past below.\n\nShe sighed. Might as well jump now, without a barking rope.\n\nNo matter how she thought the matter through, everything was hopeless and ruined. The count had guessed her secret, and he'd done so right smack in front of a reporter. Her first command was about to begin, but her career was practically over.\n\n\"Don't worry, lad,\" the bosun said from beside her. \"It's never as far as it looks.\"\n\nShe nodded, wishing that it was something piffling like a keelhaul drop that had her jittery. Gravity was something you could beat; all it took was hydrogen, hot air, or even a bit of rope. But being a girl was a miserable, never-ending struggle.\n\n\"I'm fine, Mr. Rigby. Just can't wait to get started.\" She turned toward her men. \"How about you lot?\"\n\nThe three men in her landing party put on brave faces, but their eyes stayed glued to the passing landscape. As the Sphinx drew closer, the airship slowed, turning into the stiff breeze coming off the ocean. But the officers couldn't come to a full halt without giving the sultan and his men too clear a view of the ground beneath them.\n\nA bit cheeky, committing espionage right in front of a nation's sovereign.\n\nThe bosun consulted his watch. \"Twenty seconds, I'd say.\"\n\n\"Clip your lines!\" Deryn ordered. Her heart was starting to race now, driving out her gloomy thoughts. Volger and his threats could get stuffed. She could always toss him out his stateroom window.\n\nThe terrain was rising beneath the ship now, turning from trees to scrub grass and rock, then finally sand. To her right was the Sphinx, a natural formation thrusting up like an ancient statue of some pagan god.\n\n\"Get ready, lads.\" She shouted, \"Three, two, one \u2026\" \u2026 and jumped.\n\nThe rope hissed through her safety clip, angry and piping hot in the sea breeze. She heard her comrades descending around her, a chorus of whirring cables slicing through the air.\n\nThe ground came up fast, and Deryn snapped on a second clip. The friction doubled, jerking her into a slower fall. But solid rock and scrub grass still blurred beneath her, too fast for comfort.\n\nThen she felt it, a sway in her line. The airship was slowing just a squick. Her rope swung forward with her momentum, then began a slow swing backward, so that her position was almost static with the ground below.\n\n\"Now!\" Deryn cried, and pulled her second clip from the line.\n\nShe dropped fast, hitting hard sand and loose, flat rocks that crunched and powdered under her boots. The impact shook her spine, but she stumbled along, managing to keep her feet. The rest of the cable whipped through her safety clip, smacked her hand spitefully, then skipped across the beach toward the sunset.\n\nAs the Leviathan slid away into the distance, its engine noise faded into the crash of the waves. Deryn felt her gloom descend again, along with a lonely feeling of being left behind.\n\nShe turned around, counting three other figures on the ridge. At least none of her command had been dragged into the sea.\n\n\"Everyone all right?\" she called.\n\n\"Aye, sir!\" two calls from the growing darkness, followed by a soft groan.\n\nIt was Matthews, ten yards away and still not on his feet. Deryn scrambled across the loose rocks, and found him curled into a tight ball.\n\n\"It's my ankle, sir,\" he said, teeth clenched. \"I've turned it.\"\n\n\"All right. Let's see if you can stand.\" Deryn waved for the other men, then shrugged out of her heavy pack. She knelt and checked the glass case that held the vitriolic barnacles; it hadn't broken.\n\nWhen Airmen Spencer and Robins had made their way over, she had them lift Matthews to his feet. But the moment his weight settled on the twisted right ankle, he cried out in pain.\n\n\"Set him down,\" she ordered, then let out a slow breath.\n\nThe man's ankle was stuffed. There was no way he could walk two miles across the rocky peninsula and back.\n\n\"You'll have to wait here, Matthews.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. But when are they picking us up?\"\n\nDeryn hesitated. Of the four of them, only she knew exactly when the Leviathan would return to the Sphinx. That way, if the men were captured, the Ottomans couldn't set a trap for the airship.\n\nAs for Deryn herself, well, she was a decorated hero, wasn't she? The Ottomans would never drag the truth from her.\n\n\"I can't tell you, Matthews. Just wait here, and don't let anyone see you.\" The man winced in pain again, and she added, \"Trust me, the captain won't leave us behind.\"\n\nThey knelt and divided the four packs among the three of them, giving Matthews most of the water and a little bully beef. Then Deryn, Robins, and Spencer headed down the ridge toward the strait, leaving him all alone.\n\nA few minutes into her first command, and she was already one man down.\n\nTwo miles hadn't looked very far on the map, but the real Gallipoli was a different matter.\n\nThe peninsula was crisscrossed by high steep-sided ridges, as if mountains of limestone had been raked to pieces by giant claws. The valleys between were choked with dry, brittle undergrowth. And whenever Deryn and her party rested, ants made their way out of the sandy ground to torment their ankles.\n\nTo make things worse, the Royal Navy's maps of Gallipoli were useless, showing only a fraction of the ridgelines and overgrown ravines. Deryn kept an eye on her compass and on the stars overhead, but the tangled geography still forced her into tortured zigzags.\n\nBy the time they reached the other side of the peninsula, it was after midnight.\n\n\"I reckon this has to be Kilye Niman, sir,\" Spencer said, dropping his heavy pack to the ground.\n\nDeryn nodded, peering down at the beach through her field glasses. Two lines of buoys stretched across the narrow strait, bobbing gently on the waves. The giant metal barrels were covered with cruel-looking barbs and phosphorous bombs. Hanging unseen beneath them would be the kraken nets, a thick lattice of metal cables threaded with more spikes and explosives.\n\nRising from the water at either end of the nets were tall towers, their searchlights sweeping slowly across the water. Deryn made a quick sketch of the fortifications she could see\u2014at least a score of twelve-inch guns aiming down from the cliffs, all sheltered in bunkers cut deep into the limestone.\n\nImpossible for ships to get past, but the behemoth could slip by beneath the water's surface.\n\n\"I reckon the navy will owe us a few favors after this, sir,\" said Robins.\n\n\"Aye, but it's the Russians who'll really thank us,\" Deryn said, spotting a cargo ship waiting for daylight to arrive so it could sail past the nets. \"This is their lifeline.\"\n\nWhen she'd told Volger about the Goeben and the Breslau, he'd agreed that the Germans' ultimate plan was to close The Straits. Starving the Russian army's fighting bears was worth giving the sultan a pair of ironclads.\n\nShe pulled the diving gear from their packs, and knelt in the brush to put the suit together. It was a Spottiswoode Rebreather, the first underwater apparatus created from fabricated creatures. The suit had been woven from salamander skin and tortoise shell. The rebreather itself was practically a living creature, a set of fabricated gills that had to be kept wet even in storage.\n\nIn short, the suit was a Monkey Luddite's nightmare. Deryn felt a squick of jitters herself as she crawled inside, the wrinkled skin of reptiles slithering over her own. At least it made Spencer and Robins nervous too; they were happy to turn away as she put it on. Even as dark as it was, it would have been tricky stripping down to her skivvies in front of two airmen.\n\nWhen Deryn was ready, she and Spencer crept down to the beach, leaving Robins to guard the packs. At the water's edge the tides had carved a yard-high bank of sand to hide behind. They waited there for the searchlights to sweep past, then slapped across the luminous wet sand of the beach, wading into the cool salt water of the strait.\n\n\"Here you go, sir,\" Spencer said, handing her the rebreather. \"I'll stay right here by the water.\"\n\n\"Just stay hidden.\" Deryn dipped her goggles and strapped them on. \"If I'm away longer than three hours, go back and see to Matthews before it's light. I can get back on my own.\"\n\n\"Aye, sir.\" Spencer saluted and crept back to the shadows. When he was out of sight, Deryn finally unwrapped the glass cases of vitriolic barnacles. As per the captain's orders, she hadn't let the men catch even a glimpse of them.\n\nThe searchlight was sweeping around again, and she sank down to her neck, pressing the rebreather to her mouth.\n\nJust as in Dr. Busk's office a few hours before, the feeling was uncanny and a bit horrid. The tendrils of the beastie crept into her mouth, seeking a source of carbon dioxide. A fishy taste covered her tongue, and the air she breathed turned warm and salty, like in the Leviathan's galley when the cooks were frying up anchovies.\n\nDeryn bent her knees, dropping beneath the surface.\n\nThe searchlight flickered past overhead, and then it was very dark. She squatted on the sand for a moment, forcing herself to take slow and even breaths.\n\nWhen she'd stopped shivering from the cold, Deryn pushed out toward the first line of nets, staying just beneath the surface. She'd swum in the ocean plenty of times, but never at night. The blackness around her seemed full of huge shapes, and the strange taste of the rebreather was a constant reminder that she didn't belong in this cold and inky realm. She remembered her first sea training exercise aboard the Leviathan, watching a kraken crush a wooden schooner into matchsticks.\n\nBut there would be no krakens in this strait, not yet. This was Clanker territory, where the worst beasties were sharks and jellyfish, neither of which could harm her through the Spottiswoode armor.\n\nAfter a long swim she reached one of the buoys, which bobbed in the water like a spiky metal hedgehog. Deryn took hold of one of the spurs gingerly. They were sharp enough to puncture kraken skin, and tipped with phosphorous bombs that would automatically ignite when the beastie tried to struggle free.\n\nShe clung there, resting before heading down. The vitriolic barnacles had to be placed deep beneath the waterline, so the colony wouldn't gobble up the buoys and give away their presence too soon.\n\nWhen Deryn had caught her breath, she let herself sink, descending until the last glimmer of the waning moon disappeared above. The net was easy to find even in the blackness, its cables as thick as her arm and studded with spurs the size of boat hooks. But it was tricky opening the glass cases while blind and wearing thick gloves of salamander skin, and it took Deryn long minutes to deposit six of the wee beasties a few feet apart. They had to be close enough to create a colony, Dr. Barlow had explained, but not so close that the fighting would start right away.\n\nDeryn kicked her way back to the surface, partly to orient herself and partly to recover from the cold of the deeper water. She stared tiredly down the line of buoys stretching across the half mile to the other shore. The job would take a dozen more dives, at least.\n\nIt was going to be a long, cold night.\n\nHer fingers were dead numb by the time the last barnacle was in place. The cold had seeped through the salamander skin and deep into her bones, and Deryn realized that this was her second lost night of sleep in three days.\n\nOn top of the cold and her exhaustion, the rebreather seemed to be slowly sucking the life from her. It felt as though she hadn't had a proper gulp of air since its tendrils had crept into her mouth. So when she came up for the last time, Deryn decided to risk the searchlights and swim back on the surface.\n\nThe rebreather came out a bit stickily, like pulling toffee stuck between her teeth. But it was worth a moment of irksomeness to taste the pure night air again. She headed back, ducking low in the water whenever the searchlights swung round.\n\nHalfway back to shore, the sharp slap of a gunshot rolled across the strait.\n\nDeryn's exhaustion vanished in a flash, and she sank down until her eyes were just above the surface. A large black shape was lumbering across the sand, perhaps twenty yards from where she'd left Spencer waiting.\n\nIt was a walker, a machine in the form of a scorpion, with six legs and two grasping claws in front. The long tail curled up into the air, the beam of a spotlight flaring from its tip.\n\nDeryn swam closer, hearing shouts and another gunshot. The spotlight was trained on a lone figure in a British flight suit, while a dozen or so men scrambled across the sand in pursuit. The searchlight from the nearest tower left its slow path and swung toward the beach, forcing Deryn underwater again.\n\nShe stuffed the rebreather back into her mouth, then swam closer beneath the surface, her heart pounding in her ears. One of her men had obviously been caught, but perhaps the other was still hidden. If she could find him, they could swim away, sharing the rebreather between them.\n\nA few yards from the beach, Deryn lifted her head above the water, letting herself rise and fall with the swell of the waves. Her eyes swept the shadows behind the shelf of sand, but she saw no one hidden there. She crawled closer, as slow as some primordial beastie taking its first steps on land.\n\nThe scorpion's spotlight shifted closer to the tree line, revealing another figure in a flight suit lying on the ground. Two Ottoman soldiers stood nearby, watching the downed man with their rifles pointed at him.\n\nDeryn swore silently\u2014both her men had been captured. She clung to the darkness behind the shelf of sand, wondering what to do. The walker was moving now, making the sand tremble beneath her knees. How was she meant to take on a giant scorpion and a score of soldiers with nothing but a rigger's knife?\n\nShe poked her head up. The two Ottomans were lifting the downed man now, helping him up from the sand. He was limping on his right foot.\u2026\n\nDeryn frowned. That was Matthews, the man she'd left at the Sphinx. The Ottomans must have captured him. Had he led them here? Or had the Ottomans simply guessed that the kraken nets were their objective?\n\nAnd where was her third man?\n\nThen the spotlight shifted again, and machine-gun fire erupted from the tip of the scorpion's tail, raking the trees along the beach. The branches thrashed madly in the hail of bullets, and sand sprayed into the air.\n\nFinally the machine gun went silent, and a group of Ottoman soldiers charged into the brush. A moment later they dragged something out. It was a body, motionless and as white as a sheet except for the red stains on the flight suit.\n\nDeryn swallowed. Her first command had been killed and captured down to the last man.\n\nWith a noisy grinding of gears, the scorpion moved closer to the dead body. One of its massive front claws dug into the sand, then came up, lifting the lifeless form into the air. The Ottomans were taking her men somewhere, probably to interrogate the survivors and take a closer look at their uniforms and equipment.\n\nThey would soon guess that the landing party had come from the Leviathan, even if they hadn't forced it out of Matthews already. But her men knew nothing about the vitriolic barnacles, and even if the Ottomans inspected the nets, they wouldn't notice a few more beasties among the millions already living along the miles of cable.\n\nHopefully they would think this had been a simple reconnaissance mission, and an utter failure. The Ottomans would probably lodge a protest with the Leviathan's captain, but as far as they knew, this mission had not been an act of war. Deryn was the only one who could explain otherwise.\n\nShe had to get away from here, or risk everything. There could be no heroic attempt to rescue her men, and no heading back to the Sphinx now either. The Ottomans would be patrolling the whole peninsula for weeks to come.\n\nThere was only one place to go.\n\nDeryn stared back out across the black water, to where the cargo ship she'd seen earlier waited to transit the strait. Once the sun rose, it would head for Istanbul.\n\n\"Alek,\" she said softly, and slipped back into the sea.\n\nThe minarets of the Blue Mosque rose up behind the trees, six tall spires like thin freshly sharpened pencils standing on end. The graceful arc of the mosque's dome stood out dark gray against the hazy sky, and sunlight shimmered from the spinning blades of gyrothopters and aeroplanes overhead.\n\nAlek sat outside the small coffeehouse where Eddie Malone had taken him the day before. It was on a quiet side street, and Alek was sipping black tea and studying his collection of Ottoman coins. He had begun to learn their names in Turkish, and which ones to hide from shopkeepers if he wanted a fair price.\n\nWith the Germans handing out photographs of Bauer and Klopp, it was up to Alek to buy supplies. He'd learned a lot, though, wandering the streets of Istanbul on his own. How to bargain with merchants, how to slip through the German parts of town unnoticed, even how to tell time by the prayers drifting down from the city's minarets.\n\nMost important of all, he'd realized something about this city\u2014he was meant to be here. This was where the war would turn, either for or against the Clanker side. A slender strip of water glittered in the distance, the fog sirens of cargo ships wailing softly as they crept along it. This passage from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea was the Russian army's lifeline, the thread that held the Darwinist powers together. That was why providence had brought him halfway across Europe.\n\nAlek was here to stop the war.\n\nIn the meantime he'd also taught himself a little Turkish.\n\n\"Nasilsiniz?\" he practiced.\n\n\"Iyiyim,\" came an answer from the covered birdcage on his table.\n\n\"Shush!\" Alek looked about. Fabricated beasts might not be strictly illegal here, but there was no point in drawing attention to himself. Besides, it was insufferable that the creature's accent was better than his own.\n\nHe adjusted the cage's cover, closing the gap the creature had been peeking through. But it was already sulking in a corner. It was uncannily good at reading Alek's mood, which at the moment was one of annoyance.\n\nWhere was Eddie Malone, anyway? He'd promised to be here half an hour ago, and Alek had another appointment soon.\n\nHe was just about to leave when Malone's voice called from behind him.\n\nAlek turned and nodded curtly. \"Ah, here you are at last.\"\n\n\"At last?\" Malone raised an eyebrow. \"You in a hurry to get somewhere?\"\n\nAlek didn't answer that. \"Did you see Count Volger?\"\n\n\"I did indeed.\" Malone waved for a waiter and ordered lunch, consulting the menu and taking his time about it. \"A fascinating ship, the Leviathan. The sultan's joyride turned out to be more interesting than I expected.\"\n\n\"I'm pleased to hear it. But I'm more interested in what Count Volger said.\"\n\n\"He said a lot of things \u2026 most of which I didn't understand.\" Malone pulled out his notebook and readied his pen. \"I'm curious if you know the fellow who helped me get in to see Volger. Name of Dylan Sharp?\"\n\n\"Dylan?\" Alek asked, frowning. \"Of course I know him. He's a midshipman aboard the Leviathan.\"\n\n\"Did you ever notice anything odd about him?\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"What do you mean by odd?\"\n\n\"Well, when Count Volger heard your message, he decided that joining you might be a good idea, and said so. I thought it was downright rash of him to talk about escaping right in front of a crewman.\" Malone leaned closer. \"But then he ordered Mr. Sharp to help him.\"\n\n\"He ordered him?\"\n\nMalone nodded. \"Almost as if he were threatening the boy. Looked like a case of blackmail to me. Does that make any sense?\"\n\n\"I \u2026 I'm not sure,\" Alek said. Certainly Dylan had done a few things he wouldn't want the ship's officers to hear about\u2014like keeping Alek's secrets. But Volger could hardly blackmail Dylan on that subject without revealing to the Darwinists who Alek really was. \"It doesn't sound right, Mr. Malone. Perhaps you misheard.\"\n\n\"Well, maybe you'd like to hear for yourself.\" The man took the frog from his shoulder, set it on the table, and scratched it under the chin. \"Okay, Rusty. Repeat.\"\n\nA moment later Count Volger's voice emerged from the bullfrog's mouth.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp, I hope you understand that this complicates things,\" it said, then switched to Dylan's voice. \"What are you blethering about?\"\n\nAlek looked around, but the handful of other patrons didn't seem to notice. They looked off into the distance, as if talking frogs came to dine at this establishment every day. No wonder Malone had insisted on meeting here.\n\nThe frog started up a whooping noise, like the Leviathan's Klaxon sounding an alert. Then it continued in a tangle of voices, with the wail of the Klaxon breaking in at odd times, most of the words flying by too fast for the frog to render clearly.\n\nBut then Count Volger's voice came out of the muddle. \"Perhaps, but if you don't help us, I shall be forced to reveal your little secret.\"\n\nAlek frowned, wondering what was going on. Volger was talking cryptically about fencing lessons. At first Dylan sputtered that he didn't understand, but his voice was shaky, almost as if he were about to cry. Finally he agreed to help the count and Hoffman escape, and with one last shriek of the Klaxon, the bullfrog went silent.\n\nEddie Malone lifted it from the table and placed it gently back on his shoulder. \"Care to shed any light on the matter?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Alek said slowly, which was the truth. He'd never heard such panic in Dylan's voice before. The boy had risked being hanged for Alek. What threat of Volger's could frighten him so much?\n\nBut it was no good thinking aloud in front of this reporter. The man knew too much already.\n\n\"Let me ask you a question, Mr. Malone.\" Alek pointed at the frog. \"Did they know this abomination was memorizing their words?\"\n\nThe man shrugged. \"I never told them otherwise.\"\n\n\"How honest of you.\"\n\n\"I never lied,\" Malone said. \"And I can promise you that Rusty isn't memorizing now. He won't unless I ask him to.\"\n\n\"Well, whether he's listening or not, there's nothing I can add.\" Alek stared at the frog, still hearing Dylan's voice. He'd almost sounded like a different person.\n\nWith Dylan's help, of course, Volger and Hoffman stood a better chance of escaping.\n\n\"Did Volger say when they would try?\"\n\n\"It has to be tonight,\" Malone said. \"The four days is almost up. Unless the British really do plan on giving the Leviathan to the sultan, it has to leave Istanbul tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" Alek said, standing up and offering his hand. \"Thank you for carrying our messages, Mr. Malone. I'm sorry that I must beg your leave.\"\n\n\"An appointment with your new friends, perhaps?\"\n\n\"I leave that to your imagination,\" Alek said. \"And by the way, I hope you won't write about any of this too soon. Volger and I might decide to stay in Istanbul a bit longer.\"\n\nMalone leaned back in his chair and smiled. \"Oh, don't worry about me making a mess of your plans. As far as I can see, this story is just getting interesting.\"\n\nAlek left the man scribbling in his notebook, no doubt writing down everything they'd said. Or perhaps he'd been lying and the bullfrog had memorized it all. It was mad to trust a reporter with his secrets, Alek supposed, but being reunited with Volger was worth the risk.\n\nHe wished the wildcount could be here for his next appointment. Zaven was introducing him to more members of the Committee for Union and Progress. Zaven himself was a friendly sort, and an educated gentleman, but his fellow revolutionaries might not be so welcoming. It wouldn't be easy for a Clanker aristocrat to earn their trust.\n\n\"You were very good at staying quiet,\" Alek whispered to the birdcage as he walked away. \"If you keep behaving, I shall buy you strawberries.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" the creature answered, then made a giggling sound.\n\nAlek frowned. The words were a snatch of the conversation the bullfrog had repeated. The creature didn't imitate voices, but Count Volger's sarcastic tone was quite recognizable.\n\nAlek wondered why the beast had chosen those two words from everything it had heard.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" it said again, sounding abundantly pleased with itself.\n\nAlek shushed it and pulled a hand-drawn map from his pocket. The route, labeled in Zaven's flowery handwriting, took him north and west from the Blue Mosque, toward the neighborhood he'd stumbled into two nights before.\n\nThe buildings grew taller as he walked, and the Clanker influences stronger. Tram tracks braided through the paving stones, and the walls were stained by exhaust, almost as black as the steel spires of Berlin and Prague. German-made machines huffed down the streets, their spare, functional designs strange to Alek after days of seeing walkers shaped like animals. The signs of rebellion also grew\u2014the mix of alphabets and religious symbols filled the walls again, marks of the host of smaller nations that made up the Ottoman Empire.\n\nZaven's map led Alek deep into a tangle of warehouses, where mechanikal arms stood beside loading docks. The stone walls loomed high above the narrow streets, so tall they almost seemed to touch each other overhead. Sunlight filtered grayly through the fumes.\n\nThere were few pedestrians here, and Alek began to feel wary. Before yesterday he'd never walked alone in a city, and he didn't know which sorts of neighborhoods were safe and which were not.\n\nHe came to a halt, setting down the birdcage to check Zaven's map once more. As he squinted at the flamboyant handwriting, Alek noticed a figure out of the corner of his eye.\n\nThe woman was dressed in long black robes, her face covered by a veil. She was hunched with age, and a few silver coins were sewn into her headdress. He'd seen plenty of desert tribesmen like her on the streets of Istanbul, but never a woman walking alone before. She stood, motionless, beside a warehouse wall, staring down at the cobblestones.\n\nWhen Alek had passed that building a moment ago, she hadn't been there.\n\nHe quickly folded the map, then picked up the cage and started walking again. A moment later he glanced backward.\n\nThe old woman was following him.\n\nAlek frowned. How long had she been there?\n\nHe chewed his lip as he walked. He was close to the address Zaven had given him, but he could hardly lead this stranger straight to his new allies. Istanbul was full of spies and revolutionaries, and of secret police as well.\n\nBut surely he could outrun an old woman. Hoisting the heavy birdcage higher, Alek quickened his pace. He let himself take longer and longer steps, ignoring the complaints from beneath the birdcage cover.\n\nAnd yet when he looked back, his pursuer was still there, gliding gracefully across the paving stones, her robes rippling like waves of black water.\n\nThis was no old woman, perhaps no woman at all.\n\nAlek's hand went to his belt, and he softly swore. He was armed only with a long knife he'd bought at the Grand Bazaar that morning. Its curved steel blade had looked exotically lethal laid out on red velvet. But its edge hadn't been sharpened yet, and Alek had never trained to use a weapon of its kind.\n\nHe rounded the last corner, almost at the address on Zaven's map. With his pursuer out of sight for a moment, he dashed ahead, ducking into the entrance of an alley.\n\n\"Shush,\" he breathed through the birdcage's cover. The creature made an unhappy noise at being bounced about again, but fell silent.\n\nAlek placed the cage carefully on the ground and peeked out.\n\nThe dark figure appeared, moving slowly now, and came to a halt in front of a loading dock on the other side of the street. Alek saw the symbol painted on the dock, and frowned.\n\nIt was the same symbol Zaven had drawn extravagantly on his map.\n\nWas this a coincidence? Or had this pursuer already known where Alek was headed?\n\nThe black-robed figure jumped up onto the loading dock in a single bound, confirming that this was no woman. The man backed into the shadows, but his robes were just visible, billowing softly in the breeze.\n\nAlek stood there in the alley, his back pressed hard against cold stone. Thanks to Eddie Malone, he was already half an hour late. If he waited for his pursuer to give up and go away, it might take ages more. What would his new allies think if he arrived at their secret meeting hours behind schedule?\n\nOf course, if he brought them this spy as his prisoner, they might be somewhat more impressed.\u2026\n\nA six-legged German walker was headed up the street, dragging a heavy cargo train behind it\u2014the perfect cover. Alek knelt and spoke softly to the birdcage. \"I'll be right back. Just stay quiet.\"\n\n\"Quiet,\" the creature muttered in reply.\n\nAlek waited until the cargo train was lumbering past, between him and the other man. He stole out of the alley and scampered along behind the train, then slipped between two cars and across the street.\n\nHis back to the stone warehouse wall, Alek inched his way toward the loading dock. The long, curved knife felt unfamiliar in his hand, and he wondered for a moment if the man had spotted him.\n\nBut it was too late for doubts. Alek crept closer.\u2026\n\nSuddenly a maniacal peel of laughter came from across the street, echoing from the alley where he'd left the beast!\n\nAlek froze. Was it in trouble?\n\nA moment later the black-robed figure jumped down onto the street. It crept toward the maniacal laughter, crossing the street to peer into the alleyway.\n\nAlek saw his chance, stealing up behind to press his knife against the man's throat. \"Surrender, sir! I have the advantage.\"\n\nThe man was smaller than he'd thought\u2014and quicker. He whipped around within Alek's grip, and suddenly they faced each other.\n\nAlek found himself staring into deep brown eyes framed with ringlets of black hair. This wasn't a man at all!\n\n\"Not quite an advantage, boy,\" the girl said in perfect German. \"Unless you want to join me in death.\"\n\nAlek felt a nudge, and looked down.\n\nThe tip of her knife was pressed against his stomach.\n\nAlek swallowed, wondering what to do. But then the door to the loading dock began to rise, rattling with the clatter of chains and pulleys.\n\nBoth of them looked up, still locked in their lethal embrace.\n\nZaven stood there in the doorway, beaming down at them.\n\n\"Ah, Alek! You're finally here. And I see you've met my daughter!\"\n\n\"You should have let me kill him,\" Zaven's daughter said as they climbed the broad staircase inside the warehouse.\n\nThe creature giggled from the birdcage, and Alek wondered what madness had gotten into it.\n\nZaven clicked his tongue sadly. \"Ah, Lilit. You are your mother's daughter.\"\n\n\"He was talking to a reporter!\"\n\nAlek realized that Lilit was speaking German, deliberately letting him understand. He found it rather awkward, being threatened by a girl. Almost as embarrassing as mistaking her for a man.\n\n\"Nene will agree with me,\" Lilit said, fixing Alek with a cold glare. \"Then we'll see who has the advantage.\"\n\nHe rolled his eyes at her. As if a mere girl could get the better of him. It had all been the creature's fault for distracting him. The birdcage seemed heavier than ever, climbing these endless stairs. How high up were they going?\n\n\"Mr. Malone was carrying a message for me,\" he explained. \"From my friend aboard the Leviathan. I didn't tell him anything about your Committee!\"\n\n\"Maybe not,\" Lilit said. \"But I followed you an hour before you noticed me. Stupidity can be just as deadly as treachery.\"\n\nAlek took a slow breath, wishing for the hundredth time that Volger were here.\n\nBut Zaven only laughed. \"Fah! There's no shame in being trailed by my daughter, Alek. She's a master of the shadows.\" He thumped his chest. \"Trained by the best there is!\"\n\n\"It's true, I didn't notice you,\" Alek said, turning to Lilit. \"But was anyone else following me?\"\n\n\"No. I would have seen them.\"\n\n\"Well, then. I haven't given you away to the sultan's secret police, have I?\"\n\nLilit hmphed and climbed ahead. \"We'll see what Nene says.\"\n\n\"In any case,\" Alek called up after her, \"if the Germans find me, they won't bother trailing me. I'll simply disappear.\"\n\nLilit didn't turn to face him, but muttered, \"That's useful to know.\"\n\nThe staircase continued up, dimly lit by a column of latticed windows letting in gray sunlight. As Zaven lead them above the swirling exhaust fumes on the street, the stairs grew brighter. Small touches of humanity appeared on the cold stone walls\u2014family portraits and the three-barred crosses of the Byzantine Church.\n\n\"Zaven,\" Alek asked, \"do you live here?\"\n\n\"A masterpiece of deduction,\" Lilit said.\n\n\"We've always lived above the family business,\" Zaven said, stopping before a pair of wooden doors with ornate brass fittings. \"Whether it was a hat shop or a mechaniks factory. And now that the family business is revolution, we live above the Committee!\"\n\nAlek frowned, wondering where this \"committee\" was. The warehouse felt as still as an empty church; the paint on the walls was cracked, the stairs in disrepair.\n\nAs Zaven unlocked the doors, he said, \"No disguises at home.\"\n\nLilit gave him an annoyed look, but pulled the desert robes over her head. Beneath them she wore a brilliant red silk dress that almost reached the floor.\n\nAlek noticed again how brown her eyes were, and how beautiful she was. What an idiot he'd been to mistake her for a man.\n\nZaven pushed through the doors into a riot of color. The apartments' divans and chairs were covered with vivid silks, the electrikal lamps decorated with rainbows of translucent tiles. A vast Persian rug was spread across the floor, its meticulous geometries woven in the hues of fallen autumn leaves. Sunlight spilled in from a large balcony, setting the whole mosaic aflame.\n\nThe furniture had seen better days, however, and the rug was worn through in places.\n\n\"Very cozy,\" Alek said, \"for a revolution.\"\n\n\"We do our best,\" Zaven said, taking in the room with a tired sweep of his eyes. \"A proper host would offer you tea first. But we're already late.\"\n\n\"Nene doesn't like to be kept waiting,\" Lilit said.\n\nAlek straightened his tunic. Nene was obviously the leader of the group. It would be best to look smart in front of him.\n\nThey led him to another set of double doors. Lilit knocked softly, waited a moment, then pushed the doors open.\n\nUnlike the outer apartments, this room was dark, the air heavy with incense and the smell of dusty carpets. The viscous light of an old-fashioned oil lamp turned everything the color of red wine. A dozen wireless receivers sat in the shadows, their tubes softly glowing, the chatter of Morse code filling the air.\n\nAgainst the far wall stood a huge canopied bed covered with mosquito netting. It rested on four legs carved with drooping folds of skin, like those of a reptile. Within the netting lay a small, thin figure wrapped in white sheets. Two glittering eyes stared out from beneath an explosion of gray hair.\n\n\"So this is your German boy?\" came a crackly voice. \"The one you had to save from the Germans?\"\n\n\"He's Austrian,\" Zaven said. \"But yes, Mother, he's a Clanker.\"\n\n\"And a spy, Nene.\" Lilit bent to kiss the old woman on the forehead. \"I saw him talking to a reporter before he came here!\"\n\nAlek slowly let out his breath. The fearsome Nene was simply Zaven's mother? Was this whole Committee nothing but an eccentric family hobby?\n\nHe set down the birdcage and bowed. \"Good afternoon, madam.\"\n\n\"Well, you certainly have an Austrian accent,\" she said in excellent German\u2014these Ottomans seemed to know half a dozen languages each. \"But there are many Austrians working for the sultan.\"\n\nAlek gestured at Zaven. \"But your son saw the Germans chasing me.\"\n\n\"Chasing you straight to one of our walkers,\" Nene said. \"A rather convenient introduction.\"\n\n\"I had no idea that machine would catch me when I fell,\" Alek argued. \"I could have died!\"\n\n\"You still could,\" Lilit muttered.\n\nAlek ignored her, kneeling by the birdcage to untie the cover's straps. As he stood, he lifted the cage into Nene's view.\n\n\"Would an agent of the sultan have one of these?\" he said, then whisked off the cover.\n\nThe creature looked out at them all, its huge eyes round. It turned from one face to the next, taking in Zaven's surprise, Lilit's suspicion, and finally Nene's cold, glittering eyes.\n\n\"What on earth is that?\" she asked.\n\n\"A creature from the Leviathan, where I've served as engine crew the last two weeks.\"\n\n\"A Clanker, on the Leviathan?\" Nene let out a chuckle. \"What nonsense. You probably bought that beast from some backroom shop in the Grand Bazaar.\"\n\nAlek drew himself straighter. \"I certainly did not, madam. This creature was fabricated by Dr. Nora Darwin Barlow herself.\"\n\n\"A Darwin, making a cuddly trifle like that? Don't be absurd. And what use would it be aboard a warship?\"\n\n\"It was meant to be a gift for the sultan,\" Alek said. \"As a way to keep the Ottomans out of war. But then it hatched, um \u2026 ahead of schedule.\"\n\nThe old woman raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"You see, Nene? He's a liar!\" Lilit said. \"And a fool to think anyone would believe his nonsense!\"\n\n\"Believe,\" the creature said, and the room fell silent.\n\nZaven took a step backward. \"It speaks?\"\n\n\"It's just a parrot,\" Alek said. \"Like a message lizard, one that repeats words at random.\"\n\nThe old woman fixed it with a long, critical stare.\n\n\"Whatever it is, I've never seen one before. Let me take a closer look.\"\n\nAlek opened the cage, and the beast climbed out and up onto his shoulder. He went closer to the bed, holding out a hand. The creature crawled slowly down his arm, returning Nene's cold stare with its own wide eyed gaze.\n\nAlek saw the woman's expression soften, just as Klopp's and Bauer's did every time he put the creature in their care. Something about its huge eyes and wizened face seemed to generate affection. Even Lilit was struck silent.\n\nNene reached out and took Alek's hands. \"You have never worked for a living, that's for sure. But there's a bit of engine grease under your fingernails.\" She rubbed his right thumb. \"And you fence, don't you?\"\n\nAlek nodded, impressed.\n\n\"Tell me something about the Leviathan that a liar wouldn't know,\" she demanded.\n\nAlek paused a moment, trying to recall all the wonders he'd seen aboard the airship. \"There are fl\u00e9chette bats, flying creatures made of jellyfish, and hawks who wear steel talons.\"\n\n\"Those beasts have been in the penny papers all week. Try again.\"\n\nAlek frowned. He'd never read a newspaper in his life, and had no idea what was public knowledge about the Leviathan. He doubted the Darwinists had shown him any military secrets.\n\n\"Well, we fought the Goeben and the Breslau on our way here.\"\n\nThere was a long moment of silence. From the looks on their faces, it seemed that little fact hadn't been in the papers.\n\n\"The sultan's new toys?\" Nene asked. \"When exactly?\"\n\n\"Eight days ago. We stumbled on them due south of the Dardanelles.\n\nNene nodded slowly, her eyes sliding to one of the chattering wireless receivers. \"It's possible. Something was certainly afoot last Monday.\"\n\n\"It was quite a battle,\" Alek said. \"The Goeben's Tesla cannon almost put us all into the sea!\"\n\nThe three exchanged glances, then Zaven said, \"Tesla cannon?\"\n\nAlek smiled. At least he knew something that these revolutionaries might find useful. \"That tower on her aft deck might look like a wireless transmitter, but it's an electrikal weapon. It makes lightning. I know that sounds absurd, but\u2014\"\n\nNene silenced him with a raised hand. \"It does not. Come for a walk with me, boy.\"\n\n\"A walk?\" Alek asked. He'd assumed the woman was an invalid.\n\n\"Onto the balcony,\" she ordered, and suddenly the delicate sound of a clockwork mechanism filled the room. One of the bed's wrinkled legs took a slow, smooth step forward.\n\nAlek jumped back, and Lilit laughed from across the room. The creature crawled back up to his shoulder, echoing her giggle.\n\n\"Haven't you ever seen a turtle move?\" Nene asked, smiling.\n\nAlek took another step back, getting out of the bed's way as it lumbered toward the double doors. \"Yes, but I never thought of sleeping on one.\"\n\n\"You sleep on one every night, boy. The world itself rests on a turtle's back!\"\n\nAlek smiled at her. \"My mother used to tease me with that old wives' tale.\"\n\n\"Old wives' tale?\" Nene cried, her voice crackling. \"The notion is perfectly scientific. The world rests upon a turtle, which itself stands on the back of an elephant!\"\n\nAlek tried not to laugh. \"Then what does the elephant stand on, madam?\"\n\n\"Don't try to be clever, young man.\" She narrowed her eyes. \"It's elephants all the way down!\"\n\nThe bed made its slow way from the bedroom toward the balcony doors. As he followed, carefully matching its turtle's pace, Alek wondered at the perfection of the mechanism. Clockwork machines ran on wound-up springs instead of noisy steam or gas engines, so the bed's movements were smooth and slow, ideal for an invalid.\n\nBut the woman lying in it had to be mad, with her talk of elephants. All three of them were a bit peculiar, in fact. They reminded Alek of his own poor relations, once-wealthy families who'd fallen on hard times but still had an inflated sense of their own importance.\n\nThe night before, Zaven had said they'd been part of the Young Turk uprising six years ago. But was this strange family a real threat to the sultan, or simply wallowing in past glories?\n\nOf course, Zaven's walker had been nothing to sneeze at.\n\nOut on the balcony Alek realized that the family's apartments were built atop the warehouse, the rooftop surrounding them like a small plot of land. An odd place to live, but it had commanding views of the city. From this height they could see both the Sea of Marmara and the sparkling inlet of the Golden Horn.\n\nThere she was, just as Eddie Malone had said\u2014the Goeben, resting beside a long pier. Her huge kraken-fighting arms were working above the surface, helping to load cargo.\n\nNene pointed a withered finger at the docks. \"How do you know about this Tesla cannon.\"\n\n\"It fired at us,\" Alek said. \"It almost set the whole ship aflame.\"\n\n\"But how do you know its name, boy? I doubt you guessed it.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Alek wondered how much to tell her. \"One of my men is a master of mechaniks. He'd seen experimental models of the cannon.\"\n\n\"Your men have knowledge of German secret weapons, yet you served aboard the Leviathan?\" Nene shook her head in disbelief. \"Tell me who you really are. At once!\"\n\nAlek took a deep breath, ignoring Lilit's cold smile. \"I'm an Austrian nobleman, madam. My father was against this war, and the Germans had him killed for it. My men and I were hiding in the Alps when the Leviathan crash-landed there.\"\n\n\"And they simply invited you aboard?\"\n\n\"We helped the Darwinists escape. Our Stormwalker was damaged, and their airship's engines were destroyed. So we put the two together, so to speak, so that we could both escape the Germans. But once we were airborne, it became clear they considered us prisoners of war. We had to jump ship.\" He spread his hands. \"So here we are, looking for allies to fight with.\"\n\n\"Allies,\" the creature repeated softly.\n\n\"I want revenge on the Germans,\" Alek said. \"The same as you do.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, then Nene shook her head.\n\n\"I don't know what to make of you, boy. Clanker engines on a hydrogen breather? It's ridiculous. And yet \u2026 no spy of the sultan's would dare tell a story so unlikely.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Lilit said, taking her grandmother's hand. \"Remember when the Leviathan flew over the city yesterday? And we thought it funny how the engines were smoking, like Clanker airships' do?\" She glanced at Alek. \"Not that he's telling the truth.\"\n\nNene shook her head again. \"No doubt this boy saw them as well, and that was what inspired this bizarre story.\"\n\n\"Madam, I don't enjoy being called a liar,\" Alek said firmly. \"It makes me a stronger ally that I know both Darwinist and Clanker secrets! I have military training and gold. My men and I can pilot walkers and fix them as well. You must let us help you, unless you're only playing at revolution!\"\n\nLilit sprang to her feet, her teeth bared. Zaven stood silent, but moved a hand to his knife.\n\nNene spoke very calmly. \"Young man, you have no idea what this struggle has cost my family\u2014our fortune, our station in society.\" She gently took Lilit's hand. \"And this girl's poor mother as well. How dare you call us amateurs!\"\n\nAlek swallowed, realizing that he'd gone too far.\n\n\"I doubt you can help us,\" Nene continued. \"I know an aristocrat when I see one. And spoiled brats like you never help anyone but themselves.\"\n\nThe words struck Alek like a kick in the stomach\u2014this was how people always saw him, as a pampered fool, no matter how hard he tried. His knees bent, and he found himself sitting on the bed.\n\n\"I'm sorry for speaking like an idiot,\" he said. \"And I'm sorry about your mother, Lilit. I lost my parents too. I just want to fight back somehow.\"\n\n\"You lost both your parents?\" Nene said, and her voice grew softer. \"Who are you, boy?\"\n\nAlek looked into the old woman's eyes, and realized that he had two choices\u2014he could either trust her or go back to being alone. Without allies he and his men could do nothing but run into the wilds and hide.\n\nBut he was here in Istanbul for more than that, he knew.\n\n\"Who do you think I am?\" he whispered.\n\n\"An Austrian nobleman, certainly. Perhaps an archduke's son?\"\n\nHe nodded, holding her fierce gaze.\n\n\"Then surely you know your mother's full maiden name. And if you don't get every last syllable right, my granddaughter will drop you off this roof.\"\n\nAlek took a breath, then recited, \"Sophie Maria Josephine Albina, Countess Chotek of Chotkow and Wognin.\"\n\nBelief dawned at last on the old woman's face.\n\n\"Our meeting is providence,\" he said. \"I swear I can help you, Nene.\"\n\nInexplicably, Lilit burst into laughter. Zaven let out a low chuckle, and the creature joined in.\n\n\"What a charmer,\" Lilit said. \"He's adopted you now, Nene!\"\n\nAlek realized his mistake. \"Nene\" wasn't a name at all, but simply a word for \"grandmother,\" like \"Oma\" in German.\n\n\"I'm sorry my Armenian is deficient, madam.\"\n\nThe old woman smiled. \"Not to worry. At my age one can never have too many grandchildren. Even if some of them are idiots.\"\n\nAlek took a deep breath, managing to hold his tongue.\n\n\"Perhaps it's my old age, but I'm starting to believe you,\" Nene said. \"Of course, if you are who you say, then surely you can pilot a walker.\"\n\n\"Show me one, and I'll prove it to you.\"\n\nShe nodded, then waved her hand. \"Zaven? Perhaps it's time to introduce His Serene Highness to the Committee.\"\n\nLilit and Zaven led him to the far corner of the balcony, which overlooked a huge courtyard within the walls of several warehouses. The windows of the surrounding buildings were boarded up, and the whole courtyard covered with camouflage netting to hide it from the air.\n\nIn the shadows five walkers stood silently.\n\nAlek knelt at the balcony railing, peering down. Over the last few days, he'd seen them in the streets, the motley array of combat walkers that guarded Istanbul's ghettos. These five were marked with the dents and scrapes of old battles, their armor decorated with a multitude of signs\u2014crescents, crosses, a Star of David, and other symbols he'd never seen before.\n\n\"A committee of iron golems,\" he said.\n\nZaven raised a finger. \"Iron golems is the Jewish name. The Vlachs call them werewolves, and our Greek brothers call them Minotaurs.\" He pointed at the walker from two nights before. \"I believe you've met \u015eahmeran, my personal machine. She is a goddess of the Kurdish people.\"\n\n\"And they're all here together,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Another excellent observation,\" Lilit muttered.\n\n\"Hush, girl,\" Nene said, her bed making its slow way toward them. \"For too long we were content to look after our own neighborhoods and let the sultan run the empire. But the Germans and their mekanzimat have done us a favor\u2014they've united us at last.\"\n\nZaven knelt beside Alek. \"The machines below are only a fraction of those pledged to us. We use these five to train, so that a Kurd knows how to pilot a werewolf, and an Arab an iron golem.\"\n\n\"So you can fight together properly,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Indeed. My own daughter has mastered all of them!\"\n\n\"A girl piloting a walker? How utterly\u2014\" Alek saw Lilit's expression, and cleared his throat. \"How exceptional.\"\n\n\"Fah! Not so strange as you think,\" Zaven said, raising a fist. \"Once the revolution comes, women will be the equal of men in all things!\"\n\nAlek stifled a laugh. More of the family madness, it seemed, or perhaps the influence of the iron-willed Nene on her son.\n\n\"How does that Tesla cannon work?\" Lilit asked.\n\n\"My man Klopp says it's a lightning generator.\" Alek cast his mind back to Klopp's explanation a few days after the battle with the Goeben. \"Mr. Tesla is an American, but the Germans fund his experiments. They've been working on this cannon for some time. How do you know about it?\"\n\n\"Never mind that,\" Nene said. \"Can it stop our walkers?\"\n\n\"I doubt it. The Tesla cannon is designed to be used against hydrogen breathers. But the Goeben still has its big guns, and walkers like these are the perfect targets.\" Alek looked to the southeast, where smoke plumes rose from the sultan's palace\u2014near the water. As long as the German warships waited there, the palace was safe from a walker attack. \"That's the real reason those German ironclads are here, isn't it? To keep the sultan in power.\"\n\n\"And to starve the Russians.\" Nene shrugged. \"A hammer can pound more than one nail. You've had a bit of military training, it seems.\"\n\n\"More than a bit, when it comes to walkers.\" Alek straightened his shoulders. \"Give me the trickiest one you have, and I'll prove it.\"\n\nNene nodded, a slow smile spreading across her face. \"You heard the boy, granddaughter. Take him to \u015eahmeran.\"\n\nAlek flexed his fingers, looking over the controls.\n\nThe instruments were labeled with symbols rather than words, but the purposes of most were clear. Engine temperature, pressure gauges, fuel\u2014nothing he hadn't seen in his Stormwalker.\n\nBut the saunters were a different matter entirely. They rose up from the pilot's cabin floor, like huge levers. The handgrips looked like the armored gloves of a medieval knight.\n\n\"How am I meant to walk with these?\" he asked.\n\n\"You aren't. The saunters control the arms.\" Lilit pointed at the floor. \"You use the pedals to walk, ninny.\"\n\n\"Ninny,\" the creature repeated, then chuckled.\n\n\"Your pet knows you quite well, doesn't it,\" Lilit said, stroking the creature's fur. \"What's its name?\"\n\n\"Name? Fabricated beasts don't have them. Except for the great airships, of course.\"\n\n\"Well, this one needs a name,\" Lilit said. \"Is it a boy or a girl?\"\n\nAlek thought for a moment, then frowned. \"The Leviathan's crew always said 'it' when speaking of beasts. Perhaps they're neither.\"\n\n\"Then where do they come from?\"\n\n\"Eggs.\"\n\n\"But what lays the eggs?\"\n\nAlek shrugged. \"As far as I know, the boffins pull them out of their bowler hats.\"\n\nLilit looked more closely at the beast while Alek stared at the saunters. He'd never piloted a walker with arms before. This \u015eahmeran might be trickier than he'd thought.\n\nBut if a girl could pilot the monstrosity, it couldn't be too difficult.\n\n\"How do I know what the arms are doing? I can't even see them from in here.\"?\n\n\"You just know where they are, as if they were part of your own body. But since this is your first time \u2026\" Lilit spun a crank, and the top half of the pilot's cabin began to move upward, huffing with pneumatics. \"You can try it in parade mode.\"\n\n\"Parade mode?\"\n\n\"For when \u015eahmeran marches in the Kurds' religious festivals.\"\n\n\"Ah, that sort of parade,\" Alek said. \"This is a very odd country. All the walkers seem to be symbols as well as machines.\"\n\n\"\u015eahmeran is not a symbol. She's a goddess.\"\n\n\"A goddess. Of course,\" Alek muttered. \"There certainly are a lot of females in this revolution.\"\n\nLilit rolled her eyes as she pulled the engine starter. The machine rumbled to life beneath them, and the creature imitated the engine noise, then climbed from Alek's shoulder to peek over the front edge of the control panel.\n\n\"Will your pet be all right?\" Lilit asked.\n\n\"It has an excellent head for heights,\" Alek said. \"When we escaped the Leviathan, we climbed across a cable much higher than this.\"\n\n\"But why did you steal it?\" she asked. \"To prove that you'd been aboard the airship?\"\n\n\"I didn't steal anything,\" Alek said, placing his boots carefully on the foot pedals. \"It insisted on coming.\"\n\nThe creature turned to face them and seemed to smile at Lilit.\n\n\"Somehow, I almost believe you,\" she said softly. \"Well, show us how clever you are, boy. Walking is the easy part.\"\n\n\"I doubt it shall be any trouble,\" Alek said, watching the instruments come to life. When the pressure gauges steadied, he pushed down on the foot pedals, slow and steady.\n\nThe machine responded, moving forward smoothly, the spiny legs along its belly moving in automatic sequence. He lifted his left foot from the pedal, guiding the walker into a slow turn.\n\n\"This is easier than my four-legged runabout,\" he exclaimed. \"I could pilot that when I was twelve!\"\n\nLilit gave him a strange look. \"You had your own walker? When you were twelve?\"\n\n\"It was the family's.\" Alek reached for the saunters. \"And boys have a natural gift for mechaniks, after all.\"\n\n\"A natural gift for boastfulness, you mean.\"\n\n\"We'll see who's being boastful.\" Alek slipped his right hand into the metal glove and made a fist. A great pair of claws snapped shut on the machine's right side.\n\n\"Careful,\" Lilit said. \"\u015eahmeran is stronger than any mere boy.\"\n\nAlek pushed the saunter about, watching how the walker's arm followed his movements. The arm was long and sinuous, like a snake's body, its scales sliding against one another with a sound like a dozen swords drawn from their scabbards.\n\n\"The trick is to forget your own body,\" Lilit said. \"Pretend that the walker's hands are yours.\"\n\nThe saunters were amazingly sensitive, the giant arms mimicking every movement of Alek's, but slowly. He paced himself to match the walker's scale, and soon he felt twenty meters tall, as if he were wearing a huge costume, instead of piloting.\n\n\"Now comes the tricky part.\" Lilit pointed. \"Pick up that wagon over there.\"\n\nIn the far corner of the courtyard, an old wagon lay overturned. Its wooden side was scratched and gouged, like an ill-treated child's toy.\n\n\"Looks easy enough,\" Alek said, guiding the machine closer among the motionless forms of the other walkers.\n\nHe stretched out his right hand, and the machine obeyed him. From the control panel the creature imitated the sounds of hissing air and metal as they echoed from the courtyard walls.\n\nAlek closed his fingers slowly, and the claws shut around the wagon.\n\n\"Good so far,\" Lilit said. \"But stay gentle.\"\n\nAlek nodded, remembering Volger's rule on how to hold a sword\u2014like a pet bird, tight enough to keep it from flying away but gentle enough not to suffocate it.\n\nThe wagon shifted in the \u015eahmeran's grip, threatening to fall.\n\n\"Turn your wrist,\" Lilit said quickly. \"But don't squeeze!\"\n\nAlek turned the claw upright, trying to settle the wagon in its metal palm. But the wagon had other ideas, tipping from its side onto its wheels. It began to roll.\n\n\"Careful!\" Lilit said, and the creature repeated the word.\n\nAlek twisted his hand in the saunter again, trying to flip the wagon back onto its side. But it wouldn't stay still, like a marble rolling back and forth in a bowl. The wagon reached the edge of his palm and teetered there, and Alek squeeze a little harder.\u2026\n\nThe giant metal fingers shut with a sharp hiss of air, and he heard the crack of wood splitting. Splinters flew in all directions, and Alek ducked as something large sailed past his head. Tiny wooden needles stung his face.\n\nHe opened his eyes in time to see the wagon's pieces crashing to bits against the paving stones below. He stared at the empty claw, annoyed.\n\nLilit sat back up beside him\u2014a few tiny splinters were caught in her black hair. The creature stared up at him from the pilot's cabin floor, making a sound like the creak of shattering wood.\n\n\"Having the power of a goddess is quite a responsibility,\" Lilit said quietly, flicking at her hair. \"Don't you agree, boy?\"\n\nAlek nodded slowly, turning his wrist and watching the giant claw rotate on its gears. He still felt it, the connection between himself and the machine.\n\n\"I don't suppose you have another wagon,\" he said. \"I think I've got it now.\"\n\nNight was falling at last.\n\nDeryn had spent a long, hot day among the crates on the cargo ship's deck, hiding from the crew and the merciless sun. It was the vessel she'd spotted from the beach at Kilye Niman, a German steamship carrying fat coils of copper wire, and turbine blades the size of windmill sails.\n\nThe ship had waited at the kraken nets till dawn, then had taken most of the day to steam to Istanbul. After spending seven weeks on an airship, Deryn was exasperated by the crawling pace of the surface craft. It didn't help that since her hasty supper the night before, Deryn had eaten only a stale biscuit she'd found among the crates. For drink she'd had only handfuls of dew scraped from a canvas lifeboat cover.\n\nOf course, she was better off than her men, who were all either dead or held captive by the Ottomans. On the slow journey here, she'd replayed the scene on the beach a thousand times in her mind, wondering what she could have done. But against the scorpion walker and two dozen soldiers, she would only have been captured herself.\n\nThe cargo ship was not entirely without conveniences, though. The crew mostly stayed belowdecks, and a line of sailors' uniforms had been left drying in the sun. She'd found a set of slops that would fit well enough.\n\nOnce the sun set, she would swim for shore.\n\nIstanbul was already lighting up before her. Clanker electricals were harsher than the soft bioluminescence of London and Paris, and what had seemed a ghostly glow from the airfield was dazzling this close. The city looked like a fairground coming to life, all glitter and brilliance.\n\nEven the sultan's palace was alight on its hill, the minarets of the two great mosques lancing into the sky around it. Deryn had decided to head for that section of the city, the peninsula where both the oldest and newest buildings were clustered.\n\nBut as she stretched her swimming muscles, Deryn felt one last squick of doubt about her plan and considered the options. There were more than a hundred ships standing off Istanbul, some of them civilian vessels under British flags. If she swam across to one of those, it might carry her back out to the Mediterranean, where the Royal Navy waited. Or north to the Russians in the Black Sea, who were Darwinists, at least.\n\nBut a thousand excuses crowded her head\u2014the Ottomans would be searching British ships carefully. And why would any captain believe that she was a decorated officer in the Air Service and not some mad stowaway? What if without her middy's uniform and a ship full of beasties at her command, anyone could see straightaway that she was a mere girl?\n\nAnd even if she did make it back to the Leviathan, what if Volger hadn't managed to escape? He could destroy her career with a word at any time.\n\nBut it wasn't any of those reasons that had set her on this course, Deryn knew. Alek was here in this city, and needed help. Perhaps it was daft to risk everything for some barking prince, a boy who didn't even know she was a girl. But it was no more daft than Alek walking across a glacier to assist a wounded enemy airship, was it?\n\nWhen the water had turned into a black expanse, an upside-down sky shimmering with the city's radiance, Deryn left her hiding place. She stuffed the stolen uniform inside her diving suit and crept to the bow. After slipping over the gunwales, she descended the anchor chain hand over hand, then slid into the water without a splash.\n\nShe crawled ashore in the shadows beneath a long pier. Even at night, men and walkers worked the bustling docks, scurrying about beneath huge mechanical arms that chuffed smoke as they pulled cargo from half a dozen ships. Floodlights cast hard black shadows that jittered and swung.\n\nDeryn stole into a maze of off-loaded crates and metal parts, and quickly found a dark spot where she could strip off the Spottiswoode suit. Pulling on her borrowed German sailor's slops, she felt a squick of vexation\u2014demoted from an officer in the Air Service to a common seaman! And if the Ottomans caught her like this, out of uniform, they'd hang her as a spy for sure.\n\nThe diving suit had to disappear, so Deryn stuffed all but the boots and her rigging knife into a towering coil of copper wire. She reckoned most dock workers would hardly know what to make of the tangle of turtle shell and salamander skin, except to wonder if a mermaid had come ashore.\n\nIt was easy, staying hidden among the endless piles of crates\u2014enough mechanical parts to rebuild Istanbul from scratch, she reckoned. They were all labeled in German.\n\nDeryn crept inland, heading toward the city lights and the promise of food and water. At the edge of the warren, however, she found herself facing a chain-link fence. It was sixteen feet tall, with three coils of barbed wire glittering along its top side. The only gate in sight was wound shut with a massive chain.\n\n\"Just my luck,\" Deryn muttered. She'd come ashore at a top secret section of the waterfront.\n\nIt would've been simple enough to swim out and come in elsewhere, but Deryn was weak with hunger. The thought of plunging back into the cold, dark water made her shiver. What was so barking important about all this cargo, anyway? As she skulked along the fence, looking for an unlocked gate, she took a closer look.\n\nIt wasn't just mechanical parts, but electricals as well. There were giant rolls of rubber insulation, and a row of glass jar batteries, the same kind of voltaic cells that the Leviathan's searchlights used. But these were the size of outhouses! Deryn remembered the turbine blades aboard the cargo ship. Were the Germans building a power station somewhere here in Istanbul?\n\nShe heard voices, and ducked lower into the shadows. It was a dozen men or so, one with a ring of keys jingling in his hand. Perfect\u2014they were headed out.\n\nDeryn crept behind them to a wide gate in the fence, with tracks leading through and out into the darkness. As their leader unlocked it, the men spread out across its length. They pulled it open, metal scraping over cobblestones.\n\nSomething huge and restless waited beyond the fence, huffing and steaming in the cool night air. Then it began to move, a colossal machine rolling slowly into view. The engine at its front took the form of a dragon's head, and the cargo arms were folded on its back like black metal wings. White clouds of steam roiled from its grinning jaws.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Deryn said softly, realizing that she'd seen pictures of this contraption in the penny newspapers.\u2026\n\nIt was the Orient-Express.\n\nThe great train eased forward, forcing Deryn farther back into the piles of cargo. But she was unable to take her eyes from it.\n\nThe Express seemed to be a strange crossbreed of Ottoman and German design. The engine suggested a dragon's face, with a great lolling tongue spilling from its jaws. But the mechanical arms that unfolded from its cargo cars were unadorned, and moved as smoothly as the wings of a soaring hawk.\n\nThe arms reached out into the piles of cargo, lifting metal parts, coils of wire, and glass insulators shaped like huge translucent bells. The train began to load itself, like some greedy monster ravaging a treasure trove.\n\nSuddenly the dragon's single eye burst to life, a blinding headlight. As brilliance spilled across the darkness, Deryn stumbled blindly back, the shadows of her hiding place ripped away.\n\nA cry sounded above the huffing engines of the Express\u2014\"Wer ist das?\"\u2014and Deryn understood enough Clanker to know what it meant.\n\nSomeone had spotted her.\n\nShe turned and ran, half blinded, stumbling on a bundle of plastic tubing. The tubes skittered underfoot, and Deryn hit the ground hard. She rose painfully to her feet and staggered into the darkness, where she curled up behind a large spool of wire.\n\nHer knee was throbbing, her hands cut and bleeding from breaking her fall. Dizziness swept across her, twenty-four hours without proper food taking its toll. The pounding in her chest felt thin and weak, like a bird's heart instead of her own.\n\nThere was no way to outrun the men\u2014she had to outsmart them.\n\nDeryn ignored the pain, crawling back toward the Express on hands and knees, keeping low in the cargo stacks, squeezing through the narrowest gaps she could find. She hoped they hadn't got a good look at her, and wouldn't realize they were chasing a skinny wee slip of a girl.\n\nTheir voices surrounded her, echoing through the piles of crates and metal. Deryn kept crawling, pushing back toward the bright lights of the train. The shouting men flowed past her, thinking she was still running away.\u2026\n\nThen a shadow spilled across Deryn\u2014a huge mechanical claw reaching down for her. She dropped flat, and the claw's three rubber-tipped fingers closed around a coil of wire as big as a hippoesque.\n\nThe machine paused a moment, its grip settling around the coil, and Deryn saw her chance. She scampered up and climbed inside the cylinder of wire.\n\nWith a lurch the claw hauled it\u2014and her\u2014up into the air.\n\nShe looked down to see the ground sliding past, the electric torches of her pursuers spreading out across the maze of crates. But no one thought to look up at the cargo passing overhead.\n\nThe metal fingers squeezed tighter for a moment, and the wire pressed inward around Deryn. Had the arm's operator spotted her and decided to crush her?\n\nBut it was just the giant claw adjusting its grip. Soon she was being gently lowered, the coil of wire settling in among a dozen others.\n\nShe waited for the arm to swing away again, then climbed out into the belly of an open-topped freight car. The side walls were only a bit taller than Deryn was, and she scrambled up and peered out.\n\nMore men had arrived to join the search. Dogs, too\u2014a pair of German shepherds was yanking their handler along, sniffing everything in sight. Luckily, traveling by mechanical arm didn't leave much of a scent trail. But she had to get out of this cargo car before the next incoming load crushed her flat.\n\nDeryn made her way to the front end, peeking at the next car along. It had a closed top and a fancy-looking glass door at this end. She climbed over and dropped between the cars, then jimmied the door open with her rigging knife.\n\nShe slipped inside and closed it, holding the knife out in front of her.\n\n\"Hallo?\" she called softly, hoping her Clanker accent was believable.\n\nNo one answered. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Deryn let out a low whistle.\n\nIt was a saloon car, as fancy as a box of peacocks. A row of small tables ran down one side. The brass handrails gleamed, and the gently arching ceiling was padded with dimpled leather. The armchairs looked absurdly heavy compared to the spindly furniture on the Leviathan. Each of these chairs had its own tiny footrest rising from the floor. A mechanical bartender wearing a fez stood motionless in the shadows.\n\nShe took a few steps forward, feeling out of place. Even empty and dark, the dining car had the smell of poshness, and Deryn half expected a man in a tuxedo to appear and smirk at her ill-fitting uniform.\n\nShe sat down at one of the tables, peeking out through the curtains at the hunt outside. The electric torches of her pursuers bobbed in the darkness, but they were fanning out in the direction of the water, still thinking she'd run away from the Express. Barks and shouts echoed around the docks, but here inside the train it felt as if a fancy supper were about to be served.\u2026\n\n\"Supper,\" Deryn whispered, and sprang to her feet.\n\nShe climbed behind the bar and hunted through the shelves, finding corkscrews and towels, and bottles of brandy and wine. This was just a saloon, separate from the dining car\u2014there was no barking food here!\n\nBut then she discovered a drawer full of several fancy cakes wrapped up in thick cloth napkins. One of the crew must have set them aside and then forgotten them.\n\nDeryn sat on the floor and began to gobble the cakes. Stale or not, they tasted better than anything she'd eaten since joining the Service. She washed them down with water from the bottom of a silver ice bucket, then had a few swigs from an open bottle of brandy.\n\n\"Not bad at all,\" she said, then burped.\n\nNow that her head had stopped spinning with hunger, Deryn found herself wondering what exactly was going on here. Where were the Clankers taking all this cargo? According to the labels, it had all come from Germany. So why put it on the Express, which would be headed back to Munich?\n\nDeryn peeked out a window again\u2014no sign of the search remained. Her pursuers were probably at the shore, having guessed that she'd snuck in from the water.\n\nThe mechanical arms were finishing up the last few pieces of cargo\u2014huge glass jar batteries and insulators\u2014and the train's engines were rumbling back to life.\n\nWhat if it was headed to a place close by, somewhere it could return from before dawn? No one would notice it had slipped out of the city, or suspect the luxurious Orient-Express of carrying industrial cargo.\n\nThe train jolted into motion, and Deryn reminded herself that she wasn't here to spy on the Clankers. She was here to help Alek, not uncover the secrets of the Ottoman Empire.\n\nThe barbed wire fence was already sliding past on either side\u2014she could jump off anytime now with no one the wiser.\n\nDeryn went back to the bar and selected the fanciest bottle of brandy she could find. It was stealing, plain and simple, but she needed something to trade for money and a proper meal. This dusty old brandy was the best thing she could find.\n\nThe Express crept slowly through Istanbul, not calling much attention to itself. The tracks traveled near the water's edge, past darkened warehouses and closed factory gates. Deryn opened the door and stood between the cars, waiting for the right moment to jump.\n\nAs the train slowed for a turn, she stepped off as smoothly as some tourist arriving on holiday. She skidded down the embankment and crouched there until the steaming dragon had passed, then made her way into the unlit streets.\n\nEven this late, the bright lights of the city still glowed on the horizon, but Deryn reckoned she needed rest more than food now. So she picked the darkest, shabbiest alley she could find and curled up for a few hours of fitful sleep.\n\nShe awoke before dawn to someone prodding her with a broom.\n\nIt was a young man in coveralls, who went about the task without particular enthusiasm. When Deryn scrambled to her feet, he turned back to sweeping the alley, never saying a word. Of course, the man would hardly expect her to speak Turkish. The port of Istanbul was probably full of foreign sailors lugging about bottles of brandy.\n\nDrums were sounding in the distance, along with a vigorous chanting. It seemed a bit early for anyone to be making such a racket. The trio of cats she'd shared the alley with hardly seemed to notice, though, and went back to sleep after the sweeping man had passed on.\n\nDeryn walked at random until she spied the forest of minarets near the sultan's palace. Surely there were restaurants for sightseers thereabouts. The fancy cakes in her stomach had been replaced by gnawing hunger, and she needed to be thinking clearly if she was to find Alek in this giant city.\n\nTouring Istanbul on foot wasn't like looking down from an airship or the howdah of a giant elephant. The smells were sharper down here\u2014unfamiliar spices and walker exhaust snarled in the air, and pushcarts full of strawberries passed, leaving a sweet haze in their wake, along with a few hungry-looking dogs. A dozen languages mixed in Deryn's ears; a jumble of alphabets decorated every news kiosk. Luckily, there were also simple hand gestures among all the babel. Making herself understood would be simple enough.\n\nWhen men in seamen's slops called out to Deryn, she answered them in Clanker. She'd learned a handful of greetings from Bauer and Hoffman, and a few choice curses as well. It never hurt to practice.\n\nShe found a shop window filled with fancy liquor bottles, dusted off her brandy, and went inside. At first the proprietor looked askance at her disheveled slops, and almost tossed her out when he discovered that she was there to sell, not buy. But when he glimpsed the bottle's label, his attitude changed. He offered her a pile of coins, which grew by half when she gave him a hard look.\n\nMost of the restaurants were closed, but Deryn soon found a hotel. A few minutes later she was sitting down to a breakfast of cheese, olives, cucumbers, black coffee, and a small bowl of a gloppy substance called yogurt, which was halfway between cheese and milk.\n\nAs she ate, Deryn wondered how she would find Alek. In his message to Volger he'd said that his hotel had a name like his mother's. That sounded simple enough, except that Alek had never told Deryn his mother's name. She knew his granduncle the emperor, of course\u2014Franz Joseph\u2014and remembered that his father's name was also Franz something-or-other. But wives were seldom as famous as their husbands.\n\nShe watched a group of sailors walk past, and wondered if any of them were Austrian. Surely they would know the murdered archduchess's name, if Deryn could only make her question understood.\n\nBut then she remembered the other half of Alek's message, that the Germans were looking for him. Questions about a fugitive prince from an English-speaking sailor in a Clanker uniform would only attract suspicion.\n\nShe had to find the answer herself. Luckily, Alek's family was famous. Wouldn't they be in history books?\n\nAll she needed was some sort of family tree.\u2026\n\nAn hour later Deryn was standing on a broad marble stair, a brand-new sketchbook in her hand. Before her stood, according to her half dozen conversations in sign language and halting Clanker, the newest and largest library in Istanbul.\n\nIts huge brass columns gleamed in the sun, and its steam-powered revolving doors gathered and disgorged people without pausing. As she passed through them, Deryn had the same jitters she'd felt in the saloon car of the Orient-Express. She didn't belong in any place so fancy, and the bustle of so many machines made her dizzy.\n\nThe ceiling was a tangle of glass tubes, full of small cylinders zooming through them, almost too fast to see. The clicking fingers of calculation engines covered the walls, fluttering like the cilia of the great airbeast when it was nervous. Clockwork walkers the size of hatboxes scrabbled along the marble floor, stacks of books weighing them down.\n\nA small army of clerks waited behind a row of desks, but Deryn made her way through the vast lobby, headed toward the towering stacks of books. There looked to be millions of them, surely a few were in English.\n\nBut she found herself halted by a fancy iron fence that stretched all the way across the room. Every few feet there was a sign that repeated the same message in two dozen languages:\n\nCLOSED STACKS\u2014ASK AT INFORMATION DESK.\n\nDeryn returned to the desks, screwed up her courage, and went to the one with the nicest-looking clerk behind it. He wore a long gray beard, a fez, and pince-nez glasses, and gave her a slightly puzzled smile as she approached. Deryn guessed that most sailors didn't spend their shore leave in the library.\n\nShe bowed to him, then tore two pages from her sketch pad and set them down on the desk. On one she'd drawn the Hapsburg crest that had decorated the breastplate of Alek's Stormwalker. On the other she had sketched a branching tree, like the genealogies of the great airbeasts that Mr. Rigby was always making them memorize. No doubt the Clankers drew their family trees in a different manner, but surely a librarian would understand the concept.\n\nThe man adjusted his glasses, stared at the sketches for a moment, then gave Deryn a quizzical look.\n\n\"You are Austrian?\" he asked in careful Clanker.\n\n\"No, sir. America.\" She spoke in German as well, but tried to mimic Eddie Malone's accent. \"But I want \u2026\"\u2014her brain raced\u2014\"to understand the war.\"\n\nThe man slowly nodded. \"Very well, young man. A moment, please.\"\n\nHe turned to face what looked like a piano set into the desk, and clacked away at its keys. No music emerged, but as he typed a punch card emerged from a slot in the desk. He handed it to her and pointed.\n\n\"Good luck.\"\n\nDeryn bowed and thanked him, then followed his gesture to a kiosk in the center of the room. She watched another patron use it first. The woman fed her punch card into what looked like a miniature loom. The card slid beneath a fine-tooth comb, whose tiny metal teeth jabbed up and down, as if scrutinizing the holes in the card.\n\nAfter a moment's spinning and clattering, the card was spat back out. From the top of the kiosk, a clockwork machine climbed up and out, then went skittering away into the stacks of books.\n\nDeryn felt queasy from following the Clanker logic of it all, but stepped forward to repeat the process with her own card. When the card popped back out, she discovered that it was stamped with a number. After a minute's wandering about the lobby, Deryn found a row of small tables labeled with numbers of their own. She sat down at the one that matched her card and pulled out her sketchbook.\n\nAs she drew, the whirr and clatter of the machines echoed around her, the sounds blending like the crash of distant waves. Deryn wondered how the Clankers managed it, translating questions into scatterings of holes in paper. Did every wee sliver of knowledge have its own number? The system was probably quicker than wandering through the ceiling-high shelves, but what other books might she have found, doing it herself?\n\nShe looked up at the calculating engines that covered the walls, and wondered what they were up to. Did they record every question that the librarians had been asked? And if so, who looked at the results? Deryn remembered the eyes peering at her through the slats of the throne room wall, and began to drum her fingers.\n\nSurely in all this tumult of information, no one would notice a few questions about the tragedy that had started this whole barking war.\n\nFinally her clockwork machine scuttled back, like a dog with a fetched bone. It was weighted down with half a dozen books, all of them heavy and bound with cracked old leather.\n\nShe picked a few up and leafed through the gilt-edged pages. Some were in Clanker, others in a flowing script she'd seen on many of the signs outside, but one had hardly any words at all, only names, dates, and coats of arms. On its cover was the Hapsburg crest, and a Latin phrase she remembered from the first time Alek and Dr. Barlow had met.\n\nBella gerant alii, tu Felix Austria, nube.\n\n\"Let others wage war,\" the first part meant.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Deryn said softly to herself\u2014there were a lot of Hapsburgs. The book was thick enough to stun a hippoesque, and the entries stretched back eight hundred years. But Alek was only fifteen; he'd have to be at the end.\n\nShe turned to the last pages and soon found him: \"Aleksandar, Prinz von Hohenberg,\" along with his birth date and the names of his parents\u2014Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek.\n\n\"Sophie,\" Deryn murmured, leaning back and smiling to herself.\n\nShe left the stack of books on the table and headed back toward the revolving doors. After a quick trip down the marble stairs outside, she approached the first of a rank of six-legged taxis, all of them in the shape of giant beetles. Deryn reached into her pocket for the remaining coins.\n\n\"Sophie Hotel?\" she asked. \"Hotel\" was the same in English or Clanker.\n\nThe pilot frowned, then asked, \"Hotel Hagia Sophia?\"\n\nDeryn nodded happily. That sounded close enough\u2014it had to be the one.\n\nThe taxi pilot inspected her handful of coins, then hooked a thumb toward the back seat. Deryn jumped aboard, for once enjoying the rumble of a Clanker engine beneath her. After tracking Alek down in a city of millions, she deserved to ride instead of walk.\n\nThe Hotel Hagia Sophia was pure dead fancy.\n\nDeryn shook her head. She might have expected to find Alek in a place like this. The lobby alone was three stories high and lit by two gas chandeliers and a giant stained-glass skylight. Uniformed bellmen guided their clockwork luggage carriers through the bustling crowd. Marble staircases spiraled their way to the mezzanines and balconies, while steam elevators huffed into the air like sky rockets taking flight.\n\nEven if Alek had chosen this hotel to match his mother's name, Deryn wondered if he might have found another clue to use\u2014one that would have led somewhere a bit less \u2026 princely. The Germans were still looking for him, after all.\n\nOf course, that meant that Alek wouldn't be listed under his own name. So how was she going to get a message to him?\n\nDeryn stood there, hoping to catch a glance of Alek, Bauer, or Master Klopp in the lobby. But the crowd was full of unfamiliar faces, and soon Deryn felt the eyes of a white-gloved bellman on her. Her stolen uniform was rumpled and dirty from sleeping in the alley, and she stuck out like a clump of clart on a fancy china plate. She had only a few coins left, surely not enough to pay for a room, not here.\n\nPerhaps she could buy coffee and some lunch. Judging by what she'd had for breakfast, there were worse places than Istanbul to crawl ashore half starved.\n\nDeryn took a seat at a small table in the hotel dining room, making sure she had a view of the lobby doors. The waiter understood no English, but spoke Clanker no better than she did. He returned with a pot of strong coffee and a menu, and before long Deryn was feasting again, this time on lamb chopped into a hash with nuts and sultanas, covered with a plum jelly as dark as an old bruise.\n\nShe ate slowly, keeping her eyes on the hotel's main doors.\n\nPeople came and went, most of them well-heeled old Clankers. The man at the table next to hers wore a monocle and a handlebar mustache, and was reading a German newspaper. When he left, Deryn reached over and snatched it up. She leafed through the pages to conceal that she was stalling with her food.\n\nThe last page was all photographs\u2014the latest fashions, new clockwork house servants, and well-dressed ladies at a roller-skating parlor. Nothing earth-shattering, until Deryn's eyes fell upon three photos across the bottom of the page. One was the Leviathan flying over the city, another was the Dauntless kneeling in the street after its rampage, and the last showed two men under guard.\u2026\n\nIt was Matthews and Spencer, the survivors of her disastrous first command.\n\nShe squinted at the caption, annoyed that Alek hadn't taught her any Clanker spelling. These three pictures together could hardly be good news. The Leviathan would be leaving Istanbul under a dark cloud today.\n\nUnless the Ottomans had been angry enough to order the airship away early.\n\nDeryn frowned. Count Volger had planned to escape last night, hadn't he? After her almost sleepless night, she'd forgotten all about him.\n\nShe lowered the newspaper, looking more closely at the stuffy old Clankers in the lobby. None had Volger's tall, lean frame and gray mustache. But the wildcount wouldn't have needed a trip to the library to learn Alek's mother's name. Maybe he and Hoffman were already upstairs, having a cup of tea with Alek and the others!\n\nJust then Deryn noticed a young couple coming in through the lobby doors. They were dressed like locals, and the girl was perhaps eighteen and quite beautiful, with long dark hair in tight braids.\n\nDeryn swallowed\u2014the boy was Alek! She'd hardly recognized him in his tunic and tasseled fez. Not that he could wander about Istanbul in an Austrian piloting uniform, but somehow she hadn't expected him to look so... Ottoman.\n\nAlek drew to a halt, his eyes searching the lobby, but Deryn snapped the newspaper up in front of her face.\n\nWho was this strange girl? One of his new allies? Suddenly that word took on an entirely new meaning in Deryn's head.\n\nA moment later Alek and the girl headed toward the elevators, and Deryn leapt to her feet. Whoever this girl was, Deryn couldn't afford to miss this chance. She slapped her remaining coins onto the table and headed after them.\n\nAn elevator opened up before the two, the attendant ushering them inside. Deryn waved her newspaper, and the attendant nodded, holding the door. Alek and the girl were talking intently in Clanker, and hardly noticed when she stepped in beside them.\n\nAs the door slid closed, Deryn opened the paper, pretending to read.\n\n\"Nice weather we're having,\" she said in English.\n\nAlek turned toward her, a baffled expression on his face. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.\n\n\"Dylan,\" she said politely. \"In case you've forgotten.\"\n\n\"God's wounds! It is you! But what are you\u2014\"\n\n\"It's a long story,\" Deryn said, glancing at the girl. \"And a bit secret, actually.\"\n\n\"Ah, of course\u2014introductions are in order,\" he said, then glanced at the elevator man. \"Or will be \u2026 quite soon.\"\n\nThey rode the rest of the way in silence.\n\nAlek led them to a set of double doors that opened onto a vast room, all silk and tassels, with its own balcony and a shiny brass switchboard for calling servants. There was no bed in sight, just a pair of French doors half opened to reveal yet another room.\n\nDeryn noticed the other girl's eyes widen, and she felt a squick of relief. Apparently this girl had never been here before either.\n\n\"Almost as fancy as your castle,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"And with rather better service. There's someone here you should meet, Dylan.\" Alek turned and called out, \"Guten tag, Bovril!\"\n\n\"Guten tag!\" came a voice from nowhere, and then a wee beastie waddled from behind the curtains. It looked like a cross between a butler monkey and some kind of cuddly toy, all huge eyes and tiny, clever hands.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Deryn breathed. She'd forgotten all about Dr. Barlow's missing beastie. \"Is that what I think it is?\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" the beastie said sarcastically.\n\nShe blinked. \"How in blazes does it know me?\"\n\n\"An intriguing question,\" Alek said. \"Bovril seems to have been listening while it was still in the egg. But it also heard your voice from that reporter's awful bullfrog.\"\n\n\"You mean that bum-rag was recording us?\"\n\nAlek nodded, and Deryn softly swore. What of Volger's threats had the bullfrog repeated?\n\nThe strange girl didn't seem surprised to see Bovril at all. She pulled a bag of peanuts from her pocket, and the beastie crawled over to her and began to eat them.\n\nDeryn remembered her conversation with Dr. Barlow aboard the sultan's airyacht. The lady boffin had been quite vague about the creature's purpose. Deryn still didn't know what \"perspicacious\" meant, and there was all that business about nascent fixation, which had sounded a bit sinister, even if baby ducks did it too.\n\nShe'd have to keep an eye on this beastie.\n\n\"You named it Bovril?\" she asked Alek.\n\n\"I named it, in fact,\" said the girl in slow, careful English. \"This silly boy kept calling it 'the creature.'\"\n\n\"But you're not supposed to name beasties! If you get too attached, you can't use them properly.\"\n\n\"Use them?\" Lilit asked. \"What a horrid way to think of animals.\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. Had Alek taken up with Monkey Luddites now? \"Aye, lassie, and you've never eaten meat?\"\n\nThe girl frowned. \"Well, of course I have. But that seems different, somehow.\"\n\n\"Only because you're used to it. And why in blazes did you name it Bovril, anyway? That's a sort of beef tea!\"\n\nThe girl shrugged. \"I thought it should have an English name. And Bovril is the only English thing I like.\"\n\n\"It's Scottish, actually,\" Deryn muttered.\n\n\"Speaking of names, I've been quite rude.\" Alek bowed a little. \"Lilit, this is Midshipman Dylan Sharp.\"\n\n\"Midshipman?\" she asked. \"You must be from the Leviathan.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Deryn said, giving Alek a hard look. \"Though I was meaning to keep that a secret.\"\n\n\"Secret,\" Bovril repeated, then made a chuckling noise.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Alek said. \"Lilit and I have no secrets from each other.\"\n\nDeryn stared at the boy, hoping that wasn't true. He couldn't have told this girl who his parents were, could he?\n\n\"But where's Volger?\" Alek asked. \"You must have escaped with him.\"\n\n\"I didn't escape at all, you ninny. I'm here for a \u2026\" She glanced at Lilit. \"A secret mission. I've no idea where his countship is.\"\n\n\"But the bullfrog said you were going to help Volger escape!\"\n\nDeryn raised an eyebrow, wondering what else the bullfrog had repeated. Of course, Eddie Malone hadn't understood Volger's threats, and neither would Alek.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" the creature said again, still chuckling.\n\nShe ignored it. \"I was planning to help him and Hoffman escape, but then I was given a mission. Maybe they managed on their own.\" Deryn held up the newspaper. \"But I reckon they didn't have time.\"\n\nAlek took the paper from her and squinted at the captions. \"'The Leviathan had been granted leave to stay in the capital for four extra days, but the night before last the brave Ottoman army discovered Darwinist saboteurs in the Dardanelles. All were killed or captured. In his outrage at this affront, His Excellency the sultan has demanded that the airship leave the capital immediately.'\"\n\nHe let the paper drop.\n\n\"Aye, I thought so,\" Deryn said. \"Volger was planning on escaping last night, but if the ship was sent away yesterday \u2026\"\n\n\"Then he's gone,\" Alek said softly.\n\nDeryn nodded, realizing that the Leviathan was gone too.\n\n\"Where will they take him? London?\"\n\n\"No. They'll head back down to the Mediterranean,\" Deryn said. \"Patrol duty.\"\n\nOf course, it would be much more than patrol. The airship would be awaiting the behemoth's arrival. There would be weeks of training missions, practice in guiding the huge beastie through narrow straits. Battle drills and midnight alerts. And here she was, stuck in this alien city, all alone except for Alek and his men, the perspicacious loris, and this unknown girl.\n\n\"But, Dylan,\" Alek said, \"if you didn't escape, then why are you here?\"\n\n\"Don't you see?\" Lilit spoke up. \"That's a German sailor's uniform\u2014a disguise.\" She turned to Deryn. \"You were one of the saboteurs, weren't you?\"\n\nDeryn frowned. The lassie was quick, wasn't she?\n\n\"Aye, I'm the only one they didn't catch. Those three poor blighters were my men.\"\n\nAlek sat down in a tasseled chair, swearing softly in Clanker. \"I'm sorry about your men, Dylan.\"\n\n\"Aye, me too. And I'm sorry about Volger,\" said Deryn, though she wasn't sure if she meant it. The wildcount was too much of a clever-boots for her liking. \"He really did mean to join you.\"\n\nAlek nodded slowly, staring at the floor. For a moment he looked younger than his fifteen years, like a wee boy. But he gathered himself and looked up at her.\n\n\"Well, I suppose you'll have to do, Dylan. You're a fine soldier, after all. I'm sure the Committee will be happy to have you.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about? What committee?\"\n\n\"The Committee for Union and Progress. They seek to overthrow the sultan.\"\n\nDeryn glanced at Lilit, then back at Alek, her eyes widening. Overthrow the sultan? What if Count Volger had been right, and Alek had joined some daft bunch of anarchists? And Monkey Luddite anarchists at that!\n\n\"Alek,\" said Lilit softly, \"you can't go telling this boy our secrets. Not till he's met Nene, at least.\"\n\nAlek waved her protests away. \"You can trust Dylan. He's known for ages who my father was, and he never betrayed me to his officers.\"\n\nDeryn's jaw dropped. Alek had already told this anarchist lassie about his parents? But he'd been in Istanbul only three barking days!\n\nSuddenly she wondered if she should just walk out the door. She'd seen a dozen cargo ships flying British flags. Maybe one would take her out to the Mediterranean and back to sanity.\n\nWhy had she abandoned her sworn duty for some barking prince?\n\n\"Besides,\" Alek said, standing up and putting a hand on Deryn's shoulder, \"fate has delivered Dylan here to Istanbul. Clearly he's meant to help us!\"\n\nDeryn and Lilit looked at each other, and they both rolled their eyes.\n\nAlek ignored their skeptical looks. \"Listen to me, Dylan. You Darwinists want to keep the Ottomans out of the war, right? It's the whole reason Dr. Barlow brought us all this way.\"\n\n\"Aye, but that's all gone pear-shaped. Everything we've done has only pushed the sultan into the Germans' hands.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Alek said. \"But what if the sultan were overthrown? Since the last revolution, the rebels here have despised the Germans. They'd never join the Clanker side.\"\n\n\"The British are just as bad,\" Lilit said. \"All the great powers take advantage of us. But it's true enough, we don't want anything to do with your war. We just want the sultan gone.\"\n\nDeryn stared at the girl, wondering whether to trust her. Alek apparently did, having blathered all his secrets. But what if he was wrong?\n\nWell, in that case he needed someone he could trust.\n\n\"Great powers,\" muttered Bovril, then went back to eating peanuts.\n\nDeryn let out a slow sigh. She'd come to Istanbul to help Alek, after all, and here he was, asking for help. But this was so much bigger than anything she'd expected.\n\nIf the sultan could be tossed out of his palace, then The Straits would stay open and the Russian army wouldn't starve. The Clankers' grand plan to extend their influence into Asia would be stopped in its tracks.\n\nThis was a chance not just to help Alek but to change the course of the whole barking war. Perhaps it was her duty to stay right here.\n\n\"All right, then,\" she said. \"I'll do what I can.\"\n\n\"I do look rather Turkish, don't I?\" Klopp said, regarding himself in the mirror.\n\nAlek hesitated a moment, struggling for words. The man didn't look like a Turk at all\u2014more like a zeppelin wrapped in blue silk with a tasseled nose cone.\n\n\"Perhaps without the fez, sir,\" Bauer suggested.\n\n\"You might be right, Hans,\" Alek said. \"A turban would be better.\"\n\n\"Fez!\" proclaimed Bovril, who was sitting on Dylan's shoulder eating plums.\n\n\"The fez is good,\" Dylan said. The boy's German was getting better, but he still missed words here and there.\n\n\"How does one put on a turban?\" Klopp asked, but no one knew.\n\nBauer and Klopp had been stuck in the hotel for almost a week now, and it had been slowly driving them mad. A cage was still a cage, however luxurious. But at last they were going out, headed to Zaven's warehouse to inspect the walkers of the Committee.\n\nThe problem was how to get them there without being spotted.\n\nAlek and Dylan had tried their best to buy disguises at the Grand Bazaar, but the results hadn't been entirely successful. Bauer looked too fancy, like one of the hotel doormen, and Klopp's voluminous robes had turned him into a silken airship.\n\n\"We don't have to pass for Ottomans,\" Alek said. \"We're just going through the lobby and into a taxi, then straight to the warehouse. Hardly anyone will see us.\"\n\n\"Then why aren't you dressed like a Hapsburg prince, young master?\" Klopp pulled the fez from his head. \"Seeing as how these anarchists already know your name.\"\n\n\"They're not anarchists,\" Alek said for the hundredth time. \"Anarchists want to destroy all government. The Committee just wants to replace the sultan with an elected parliament.\"\n\n\"It's all the same nasty business,\" Klopp said, shaking his head. \"Murdering one's masters. Have you forgotten those Serb boys throwing bombs at your parents?\"\n\nAlek bridled at Klopp's impertinence, but kept his anger in check. The old man had a dim view of revolutions in general, and Lilit's chatter about women's equality had hardly helped.\n\nBut meeting Zaven and the iron golems would put Klopp at ease. Nothing brought a smile to his face like the sight of a new walker.\n\n\"The Germans were behind that attack, Master Klopp. And allying with the Committee is our only way to strike back at them.\"\n\n\"I suppose you're right, young master.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" Alek said simply. He looked at Bauer, who promptly nodded his head.\n\nDylan, however, was proving more difficult to convince. He'd taken an instant dislike to Lilit, and refused to tell Alek anything about his mission in Istanbul, saying only that it was too secret to share with \"a bunch of daft anarchists.\"\n\nStill, it was enough that Dylan was here in Istanbul, ready to help. Something about the boy's brisk confidence made Alek remember that providence was on his side.\n\n\"We have to bring the beastie,\" Dylan said in English, pulling on a silk jacket. His clothes fit perfectly\u2014he'd spent an hour alone with the tailor getting them just right. \"Dr. Barlow says it can be quite useful.\"\n\n\"But all it does is babble,\" Alek said, pulling his most important cargo\u2014a small, heavy satchel\u2014onto his shoulder. \"Did she explain exactly how it's meant to help?\"\n\nDylan opened the birdcage, and Bovril scampered over and jumped inside. \"Only that we should listen to it. Because it's quite \u2026 perspicacious.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"I'm afraid that word is beyond my English.\"\n\n\"Aye. It's beyond mine, too.\" Dylan reached into the birdcage and scratched the creature's chin. \"But you're a cute wee beastie, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Perspicacious,\" the creature said.\n\nWhen Klopp was finally ready, Alek used the switchboard to call for a steam elevator. A few minutes later the four of them were downstairs and headed across the lobby.\n\nThe hotel was bustling, and no one stared at their clothes or asked why they were carrying toolboxes. Alek dropped the key off at the desk, and the doorman saluted smartly as he led them all outside. One thing could be said for Istanbul, people minded their own business here.\n\nSeveral of the city's scarab beetle taxis were waiting, and Alek chose the largest. It had two ranks of passenger seats, the rearmost big enough for Klopp's ample frame. Alek climbed into the front rank with Deryn, then handed the pilot some coins and told him the name of Zaven's neighborhood.\n\nThe man gave him a nod, and then they were off.\n\nAbove the noises of the street, Alek heard a rumbling from the birdcage. It was Bovril imitating the walker's engine. He leaned down to shush the beast, then slipped the small, heavy satchel under the seat.\n\n\"A lot of soldiers about,\" Bauer said. \"Is it always this way?\"\n\nAlek looked up, frowning. The walker was striding down a wide avenue lined with tall trees. Ottoman soldiers stood on either side, forming themselves into double ranks. Most were in dress uniforms.\n\n\"I've never seen this many,\" he said. \"Perhaps it's a parade.\"\n\nThe taxi was slowing now, the traffic growing heavier. Ahead of them a cargo walker in the shape of a water buffalo began to belch black smoke, and Klopp made a rude comment about poor maintenance. Hot steam clouds billowed from the surrounding engines, until the four of them were all tugging at their new clothes.\n\n\"Sir,\" Bauer said softly, \"something's going on up there.\"\n\nAlek peered through the water buffalo's exhaust. A hundred meters ahead a squad of soldiers was stopping every vehicle that passed.\n\n\"A checkpoint,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Foreigners are meant to carry passports in this country,\" Klopp said softly.\n\n\"Should we get out and walk?\" Alek said.\n\nKlopp shook his head. \"That'll just make them curious. We're carrying these toolboxes \u2026 and a birdcage, for heaven's sake.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Alek sighed. \"Well, then, we're tourists who've left our passports at our hotel. And if that doesn't work, we can bribe them.\"\n\n\"And if bribery doesn't work?\" Klopp asked.\n\nAlek frowned. They were carrying too much to run, and there were too many soldiers here to start a fight.\n\n\"Let me guess,\" Dylan said in English. \"You're thinking about bribing them. They'll refuse. No soldier takes a bribe with so many captains about.\"\n\nAlek swore softly. It was true\u2014officers with tall plumed hats were everywhere.\n\n\"Can't you pilot this contraption?\" Dylan asked.\n\nAlek peered over the pilot's shoulder at the strange controls. \"With six legs? Not me, but Klopp can handle anything.\"\n\nDylan gave him a grin. \"Enough with your blether, then. When it comes time, I'll give the pilot a heave, and you and Bauer shove Master Klopp in front of the saunters!\"\n\n\"I suppose that sounds simple enough,\" Alek said.\n\nBut of course it wasn't simple at all.\n\nThe next five minutes were quite excruciating. The line oozed along like heavy engine oil, while Klopp listed every conceivable disaster under his breath. But finally the belching water buffalo ahead of them passed the checkpoint, and the taxi strode into place.\n\nA soldier stepped forward and gave them all a long, puzzled look. He held his hand out, saying something in Turkish.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" Alek said, \"but we don't speak your language.\"\n\nThe man offered a polite bow, and said in excellent German, \"Passports, then, please.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Alek made a show of checking his pockets. \"I seem to have forgotten mine.\"\n\nKlopp and Bauer followed suit, patting their silk robes and frowning.\n\nThe soldier raised an eyebrow, then turned to his squad and lifted a hand in the air.\n\n\"Oh, blisters!\" Dylan cried, grabbing the startled pilot under his armpits and lifting him up. \"Do it now!\"\n\nAs Dylan dropped the man over the side of the taxi, Alek helped Bauer shove Klopp toward the front seat. He felt as heavy as a hogshead of wine, but a moment later he was sitting at the controls, his hands gripping the saunters.\n\nThe taxi reared up like a stallion on its four hind legs, scattering the guards around them. Then it bolted forward, sparks flying from its metal feet. Past the crowded checkpoint the avenue was clear, and soon Klopp had the machine at full gallop.\n\nThe soldiers cried out, unshouldering their rifles, and soon gunshots echoed around the taxi. Alek ducked, feeling as though his teeth were being shaken from his head. Dylan's arms were wrapped around Klopp's waist to keep them both from flying out of the taxi. Bauer had his hands on the toolboxes, and Alek reached down to secure the small satchel on the floor.\n\nThe only sound from the birdcage was Bovril's maniacal laughter.\n\n\"Hold on tight!\" Klopp shouted, and leaned the taxi into a tight turn. Its six insectlike feet skidded along the cobblestones, making a sound like sabers dragged along a brick wall.\n\nAlek stuck his head up. This side street was narrower, and pedestrians were scattering as the taxi's beetle jaws hurtled toward them.\n\n\"Don't kill anyone, Klopp!\" he shouted, just as the machine's right foreleg clipped a stack of barrels. One barrel split as the stack tumbled, and the sharp scent of vinegar sprayed into the air. At the next turn the taxi began to skid again, threatening to slide sideways through the large windows of a butcher shop, but Klopp wrestled it back under control.\n\n\"Where am I going?\" he cried.\n\nAlek pulled Zaven's hand-drawn map from his pocket, and made a rough calculation. \"Head left when you can, and slow down. No one's behind us yet.\"\n\nKlopp nodded, and brought the machine down into a six-legged canter. The next street was lined with mechanical parts shops and crowded with cargo walkers. No one looked twice at the taxi.\n\n\"I don't know how you can stand these daft contraptions,\" Dylan said, sitting up straight in his seat. \"They're pure murder when they go fast!\"\n\n\"Wasn't this your idea?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"It worked, didn't it?\"\n\n\"For the moment. They'll be after us soon enough.\"\n\nThe taxi made its way deeper into the industrial part of town, with Klopp following Alek's guesses. The markings of the Committee's mix of languages soon filled the walls. But streets signs were rare here, and nothing matched the few avenues labeled on Zaven's map.\n\n\"This is all quite familiar,\" Alek said to Klopp. \"We're close.\"\n\n\"That might be a problem, sir,\" Bauer said. \"Didn't you tell the cabbie where we were headed?\"\n\n\"I told him what neighborhood.\"\n\n\"The Ottomans must have questioned him by now. They'll be here soon.\"\n\n\"You're right, Hans. We have to hurry.\" Alek turned to Klopp. \"Zaven's warehouse has a view of the whole city. We should be able to see it from higher ground.\"\n\nKlopp nodded, turning whenever a road led upward. Finally the taxi eased to a halt at the crest of a hill, and Alek saw the cluster of warehouses, with Zaven's apartments nestled on top.\n\n\"That's it! Maybe half a kilometer!\"\n\n\"Do you hear that sound?\" Dylan asked.\n\nAlek listened. Even with the taxi idling, it was there\u2014a buzzing at the edge of his awareness. He looked around, but there was nothing in sight except cargo walkers and a clockwork messenger cart.\n\n\"It's not down here,\" Dylan said quietly, staring at the sky.\n\nAlek looked up and saw it.\u2026\n\nA gyrothopter hovering directly overhead.\n\n\"Find cover!\" Alek cried.\n\nKlopp urged the taxi forward again, rounding a corner into a narrow alley.\n\nStone walls loomed over them, the sky hardly wider than a sliver. The gyrothopter darted in and out of view. But however the alley twisted and turned, the machine's buzzing echoed in Alek's ears.\n\nHe noticed that the streets had cleared\u2014the people knew that a military operation was on, and were anxious to get out of the way. Only a few dogs were left to scamper out of the taxi's path.\n\nA light sparkled overhead, followed by a crackling sound.\n\n\"Fireworks!\" Dylan cried. \"The gyropilot's signaling that he's found us!\"\n\nAlek heard the shriek of whistles dead ahead.\n\n\"Klopp! Slow down!\"\n\nAs it rounded the next corner, the taxi skidded to a halt, too late. A squad of soldiers waited, their rifles ready. Klopp pulled the saunters back as they fired, and the taxi reared up again. Alek heard the ping of bullets ricocheting from the machine's underside.\n\nKlopp wheeled the taxi around with its forelegs still in the air, and bolted back the way they'd come. Another volley of shots followed, dust spitting from the stone walls on either side.\n\nThe taxi careened around a corner, but gears were grinding beneath the floorboards, and the smell of burning metal filled the air.\n\n\"Our engine's been hit!\" Bauer cried.\n\n\"I know a trick for that,\" Klopp said calmly.\n\nHe turned them aside into a small plaza with an old stone fountain, and walked the machine straight into the water. Hissing clouds of steam rose up around them as the tortured metal cooled.\n\n\"She won't go much farther,\" Klopp said.\n\n\"We're almost there.\" As Alek stared at his map, he noticed a rumbling sound coming from the birdcage. What in blazes was the beast imitating now?\n\nThen he heard it above the hiss of boiling water.\n\n\"A walker's coming.\" Dylan pointed ahead. \"From that way, dead fast.\"\n\n\"It sounds big. We'll have to turn back and face the soldiers.\"\n\n\"Not if we take those,\" Dylan said, pointing at a stone staircase that led down from the plaza.\n\nAlek shook his head. \"Too steep.\"\n\n\"What's the point of legs if you can't take the barking stairs? Just get moving!\"\n\nIn English or not, Klopp could tell what they were talking about\u2014he was also staring down the steps. He looked at Alek, who nodded. The old man sighed, then grasped the saunters again.\n\n\"Hold on, everyone!\" Alek shouted, planting one boot on the satchel at his feet.\n\nThe machine tipped slowly forward, then slid, its hooves rattling like a rock drill as they skidded down the steps. Stone dust flew as the taxi bounced back and forth, battering the ancient walls. Klopp somehow kept the machine from tipping over, and at last it reached the bottom, sliding onto level pavement.\n\nAlek heard a crack and looked up. Soldiers were taking positions in the plaza above, their rifle muzzles flaring. A two-legged walker strode into view.\n\nAlek blinked\u2014it had Ottoman markings, but it was a German design, not like an animal in any way.\n\n\"Get down!\" he cried. \"And keep going, Klopp!\"\n\nThe taxi ground back into motion, its gears whining with every step. As it rounded the next corner, Alek dared to glance back up. Soldiers were streaming down the stairs, but the walker had come to a halt, its crew unwilling to dare the stairway on two legs.\n\nAlek checked the map again. \"We're almost there, Klopp. That way!\"\n\nThe taxi was limping now, one of its middle legs flailing. But it managed to drag itself onto Zaven's street, staggering sideways like a drunken crab.\n\nLilit and her father had heard the commotion, of course\u2014they were waiting with the warehouse door wide open.\n\n\"Go fast, Klopp!\" Dylan shouted in crude German. \"The gyrothopter!\"\n\nAlek looked up. He couldn't see the gyrothopter, but its buzzing sound was building in the air. They had to disappear now.\n\nThe taxi took another step toward the open warehouse door, then sputtered and died. Klopp whirled the starting crank, but the engine only hissed and spat like a fresh log tossed onto a fire.\n\n\"Barking stupid contraptions!\" Dylan cried.\n\n\"Lilit, if you please?\" Zaven said calmly, and she leapt to the controls of the mechanikal arm on the loading dock. It rumbled to life and reached out to slide the taxi through the warehouse door.\n\nThe door rolled closed behind them, and Zaven stepped inside just as the last view of the street disappeared, plunging them all into darkness.\n\nAlek reached down and checked the satchel at his feet\u2014it was still there.\n\nA moment later an electrikal light switched on.\n\n\"A most dramatic entrance,\" Zaven said, his smile gleaming.\n\n\"But won't someone tell them?\" Alek panted, looking at the crack of sunlight beneath the door.\n\n\"Fah! Not to worry,\" Zaven said. \"Our neighbors are all friends. They have ignored greater disturbances than this.\" He offered a deep bow. \"Greetings, Masters Klopp, Bauer, and Sharp. I welcome you all to the Committee for Union and Progress!\"\n\nThe Committee's walkers towered over them like five huge misshapen statues.\n\n\"What an odd collection,\" Bauer said. \"Never seen any of these before.\"\n\n\"A few of those fought in the First Balkan War,\" Klopp said, pointing at the Minotaur. \"They were a bit old-fashioned even then.\"\n\n\"War,\" said Bovril, staring up from Alek's shoulder.\n\nAlek frowned. The first time he'd seen the walkers, he'd assumed the dents in their armor were from training battles. But with the noon sun flooding the vast courtyard, there was no denying it\u2014these machines were ancient.\n\n\"You can fix them up, can't you?\" he asked.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Klopp said.\n\n\"Fah! We shall fix them together!\" Zaven proclaimed. He was already treating Klopp like a long-lost brother. \"You may have modern knowledge, sir, but our mechaniks have those skills that can only be passed from father to son\u2014and to daughter, of course!\"\n\n\"These machines are like family to us,\" Lilit said.\n\nKlopp set down his toolbox. \"Hmm \u2026 grandparents, I suppose.\"\n\nNo one laughed at this joke except Bovril, who climbed down and scampered across the courtyard to inspect the giant steel hooves of the Minotaur.\n\nDylan had been standing silently since they'd arrived, his arms folded. But now he spoke in halting German. \"How many are there?\"\n\n\"How many pledged to the revolution?\" Zaven rubbed his hands together happily. \"We have a half dozen in every ghetto in this city. Almost fifty in all; enough to sweep away the sultan's metal elephants. We could have done so six years ago, but we were not united then.\"\n\n\"And now, sir?\" Bauer asked.\n\n\"Like a fist!\" Zaven said, demonstrating with both hands. \"Even the Young Turks have rejoined us, thanks to all the Germans marching about.\"\n\n\"And thanks to the Spider, too, of course,\" Lilit said.\n\nAlek looked at her. \"The Spider?\"\n\n\"Shall we show them?\" Lilit asked, but didn't wait for her father to answer. She ran to a large metal door in the courtyard wall, and jumped up to grab a chain hanging beside it. As she climbed it, her weight drew the chain down, and the door began to slide grudgingly upward.\n\nA huge machine stood in the shadows.\n\nAlek had no idea what it was for, but could see why Lilit had called it the Spider. A dark mass of machinery rested at its center, from which eight long jointed arms thrust out. A snarl of conveyor belts led into the core, like on a harvesting combine.\n\n\"Is that some sort of walking contraption?\" Dylan asked in English.\n\n\"They called it 'the Spider,'\" Alek translated, then shook his head. \"But it doesn't look as though it can walk.\"\n\n\"This is no mere war machine,\" Zaven proclaimed. \"But a far more powerful engine of progress. Lilit, show our guests!\"\n\nLilit stepped through the doorway, almost disappearing in the shadows beneath the machine's bulk. A panel of dials and levers flickered to life, showing her in silhouette. She worked the controls, and a moment later the paving stones of the courtyard were rumbling beneath Alek's feet.\n\nThe eight arms began to move, stirring the air like the hands of an orchestra conductor, their manipulator claws making fine adjustments to the conveyor belts and other parts of the machine.\n\n\"It does look a bit like a spideresque,\" Dylan said. \"One of the big ones that weaves parachutes.\"\n\nZaven nodded vigorously, answering her in his flawless English. \"The Spider has woven the threads that hold our revolution together. Did you know, lad, that the word 'text' comes from the Latin word for weaving?\"\n\n\"Text?\" Alek said. \"What does that have to do with \u2026 ?\"\n\nHis voice faded as he saw a flicker of white within the gloom. A roll of paper was unspooling along one of the belts, disappearing into the machine's dark center. The arms began to whirl through the air, carrying about trays of metal pieces, pouring buckets of black liquid, then cutting and folding the paper with long, nimble fingers.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Dylan snorted. \"It's a printing press.\"\n\n\"A Spider with a bark, indeed,\" Zaven said. \"Far mightier than any sword!\"\n\nThe machine whirred and spun for another minute, then slowed and darkened again. When Lilit emerged from the shadows, she was carrying a stack of neatly folded leaflets covered with inscrutable symbols.\n\nZaven lifted one up. \"Ah, yes, my article on the subject of women being allowed to vote. Can you read Armenian?\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow. \"Alas, no.\"\n\n\"How unfortunate. But the real message is just here.\" Zaven pointed at a row of symbols across the bottom of the page\u2014stars, crescents, and crosses that looked like mere decoration.\n\n\"A secret code,\" Alek murmured, recalling the markings on the alley walls. With the profusion of newspapers sold on the streets of Istanbul, one more in a hodgepodge of languages wouldn't attract much notice. But for those who knew the code \u2026\n\nHe felt Bovril tugging on his trouser leg. The beast was stepping from one foot to the other.\n\nAlek closed his eyes, and felt the slightest tremor through his boots.\n\n\"What's that rumbling?\"\n\n\"It feels like walkers, sir,\" Bauer said. \"Big ones.\"\n\n\"Have they found us?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Fah. It's just the sultan's parade, for the end of Ramazan.\" Zaven swept one hand toward the stairs. \"Perhaps you would all join my family on the roof. Our balcony has an excellent view.\"\n\nThe Ottoman war elephants paraded down the distant tree-lined avenue, leaving footprints of shattered cobblestones. Their crescent flags snapped in the wind, and their trunks\u2014tipped with machine guns\u2014swayed between long, barbed tusks. They turned in formation, as precise as marching soldiers, heading away toward the docks.\n\nDeryn breathed a sigh of relief, handing the field glasses back to Alek.\n\n\"Mr. Zaven's right. They're not coming this way.\"\n\n\"This must be the parade they were getting ready for,\" Alek said, then handed the glasses to Klopp. \"Was denken Sie, Klopp? Hundert Tonnen je?\"\n\n\"Hundert und f\u00fcnfzig?,\" the master of mechaniks said.\n\nDeryn nodded in agreement. If she understood him rightly, Klopp was guessing the metal elephants weighed a hundred and fifty tons each. Clanker tons were a bit larger than British ones, she recalled, but the point was clear enough.\n\nThose elephants were barking big.\n\n\"Mit achtzig-Millimeter-Kanone auf dem T\u00fcrmchen,\" Bauer added, which was beyond Deryn's Clanker. But she nodded again, pretending to understand.\n\n\"Kanone,\" repeated Bovril, who was sitting on Alek's shoulder.\n\n\"Aye, cannon,\" Deryn murmured, watching the shimmer from the steel turrets on the elephants' backs. The cannon were the important bit, after all.\n\nKlopp and Alek went on talking in indecipherable Clanker, so Deryn strolled to the far corner of the balcony to stretch her legs. Her bum was still sore from the wild ride in the taxi, which had been worse than any galloping horse. She didn't understand how Clankers could ride about in machines all day\u2014they way they moved was just dead wrong.\n\n\"Are you injured?\" came Lilit's voice from just behind her, making Deryn jump a bit. The girl was always sneaking up on her.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Deryn said, then pointed down at the war elephants. \"I was just wondering, do they often parade about like that, smashing up the streets?\"\n\nThe girl shook her head. \"They usually stay out of the city. The sultan is showing his strength.\"\n\n\"That's for certain. Pardon me for saying so, miss, but you can't beat them. Those walkers carry cannon, and yours have only got claws and fists. It'd be like taking boxing gloves to a pistol duel!\"\n\n\"The world is built on elephants, my grandmother always says.\" Lilit let out a sigh. \"It is an old law\u2014our walkers can't be armed, not like the sultan's. But at least we've scared him. His army wouldn't be tearing up the streets if he weren't nervous!\"\n\n\"Aye, he might be nervous, but that also means he's ready for you.\"\n\n\"The last revolution was only six years ago,\" Lilit said. \"He is always ready.\"\n\nDeryn was about to say how cheery a thought that was, but an odd buzzing sound had filled the air. She turned to see a bizarre contraption headed across the balcony. It waddled along on pudgy legs, a cross between a reptile and a four-poster bed, buzzing like a windup toy.\n\n\"What in blazes is that?\"\n\n\"That,\" Lilit said with a smile, \"is my grandmother.\"\n\nAs they walked back toward the others, Deryn saw a mass of gray hair sprouting from the white sheets. It was an old woman, no doubt the fearsome Nene that Alek had talked about.\n\nBovril seemed pleased to see her. It scampered down from Alek's shoulder and across the balcony, then crawled up to the footboard of the bed. The beastie stood there with its fur ruffling in the breeze, as happy as an admiral at sea.\n\nAlek bowed to the old woman, introducing Master Klopp and Corporal Bauer in a stream of polite Clanker.\n\nNene nodded, then turned her steely gaze on Deryn.\n\n\"And you must be the boy from the Leviathan,\" she said, her English accent as posh as Zaven's. \"My granddaughter's told me about you.\"\n\nDeryn clicked her heels. \"Midshipman Dylan Sharp, at your service, ma'am.\"\n\n\"From your accent, you were raised in Glasgow.\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am. You have a good ear.\"\n\n\"Two of them, in fact,\" Nene said. \"And you have an odd voice. Your hands, please?\"\n\nDeryn hesitated, but when the old woman snapped her fingers, she found herself obeying.\n\n\"Lots of calluses,\" Nene said, feeling carefully. \"You're a hardworking lad, unlike your friend the prince of Hohenberg. You draw a bit, and you do a lot of sewing, for a boy.\"\n\nDeryn cleared her throat, remembering her aunties teaching her to quilt. \"In the Air Service we middies darn our own uniforms.\"\n\n\"How industrious of you. My granddaughter tells me you don't trust us.\"\n\n\"Aye \u2026 well, it is a bit awkward, ma'am. I'm under orders to keep my mission here a secret.\"\n\n\"Under orders?\" Nene looked Deryn up and down. \"You don't appear to be in uniform.\"\n\n\"I may be undercover, ma'am,\" Deryn said, \"but I'm still a soldier.\"\n\n\"Undercover,\" Bovril said, chuckling. \"Mr. Sharp!\"\n\nDeryn glared at the beastie, wishing it would stop saying that.\n\n\"Well, boy, at least you're honest about your doubts,\" Nene said, dropping her hands and turning to Alek. \"So, what do your men think of our walkers?\"\n\nAlek answered in Clanker, and soon Klopp and Bauer were peppering Nene and Zaven with questions.\n\nDeryn couldn't follow half of it, but it hardly mattered what language you said it in\u2014this revolution was well and truly stuffed without cannon. Zaven was barking mad to think otherwise.\n\nEven Alek couldn't see the truth. He was always on about how it was his destiny to help the revolution, to get revenge on the Germans and end the war. That was a load of yackum, Deryn reckoned. Providence wouldn't stop the sultan's walkers from chewing up the Committee's antiques, as easy as a box of chocolates.\n\nShe pulled out her sketch pad and stared down at the parade again. The elephants were lining up beside a long pier, their guns elevating, readying to salute a warship.\u2026\n\n\"The Goeben,\" Deryn murmured. The ironclad's new Ottoman flags fluttered bright crimson, her Tesla cannon glittering like a steel spiderweb in the sun.\n\nLilit had been right\u2014the sultan was flaunting his power today. Even if the Committee could beat those elephants somehow, they'd still have to face the big guns of the Goeben and the Breslau.\n\nOr perhaps not. Less than a month from now the Leviathan would be headed up the Dardanelles, guiding a beastie hungry for German ironclads. Admiral Souchon might have fought kraken before, but nothing like the behemoth. The creature was supposedly powerful enough to sink the sultan's two new warships in half an hour.\n\nNow, that would be a barking good night for a revolution to start.\n\nThe problem was, Deryn couldn't tell the Committee what was coming. If just one of them was a Clanker spy, letting the plan slip could spell doom for the Leviathan. She was duty bound to keep quiet.\n\nA torrent of smoke poured from the war elephants' cannon, rippling into a vast dark cloud on the sea breeze. The sound arrived long seconds later, as tardy as distant thunder. Then the Goeben's guns returned the salute, ten times louder and more fiery.\n\nDeryn sighed as she began to sketch the scene\u2014there were too many barking pieces to this puzzle. The behemoth might sink the German ironclads, but it couldn't slither onto land and fight the sultan's elephants as well.\n\nBehind her the discussion had grown heated. Zaven was proclaiming in Clanker while Klopp shook his head, arms crossed.\n\n\"Nein, nein, nein,\" the old man kept repeating.\n\nIf only there were a simple way to handle a hundred and fifty tons of steel \u2026\n\nThen, all in a flash, it came to her.\n\n\"Hold on, Mr. Zaven,\" she broke in. \"It doesn't matter that your walkers haven't got cannon. We can fix that!\"\n\nAlek shook his head tiredly. \"There's nothing we can do. He says the army has strict control over cannon and ammunition.\"\n\n\"Aye, but you don't need anything so fancy,\" Deryn said. \"When the Dauntless was hijacked, the attackers had nothing but a few bits of rope.\"\n\n\"Hijacked?\" Nene asked. \"I thought the Dauntless's rampage was due to sloppy piloting.\"\n\nDeryn snorted. \"Don't believe everything you read in the papers, ma'am.\" She pointed down at the armored elephants. \"See how there's a pilot for each leg? The hijackers lassoed our men and yanked them off, then climbed up to take their place. That's how you stop those metal beasties. Knock out a couple of pilots, and you stop them completely!\"\n\n\"Perhaps on the Dauntless, where the pilots ride out in the open,\" Zaven said. \"But the men down there are well shielded.\"\n\nDeryn had thought of this already. \"Shielded from ropes and bullets, maybe. But they must have vision slits, like Alek's Stormwalker did. What if something spicy got through them?\"\n\n\"Something spicy?\" Nene asked.\n\n\"Aye.\" Deryn grinned, turning to Alek. \"I never told you about how I rescued the Dauntless, did I?\"\n\nAlek shook his head.\n\nDeryn took a moment to compose her thoughts, knowing she had their full attention now. \"It was my idea, in fact. The barking diplomats had no proper weapons aboard, so I snatched up a big bag of spice powder and hurled it at one of the hijackers. The smell of it knocked that bum-rag right off his saddle! And armor will only make things worse\u2014imagine being stuck inside a wee metal cabin with a snootful of spices!\"\n\n\"Spices,\" Bovril repeated quietly.\n\n\"That hijacker could hardly breathe,\" Deryn said. \"And my uniform was pure dead ruined!\"\n\n\"The army doesn't control hot peppers,\" Nene murmured, and Alek began to translate for Klopp and Bauer.\n\nLilit turned to her father. \"Do you think it could work?\"\n\n\"Even a foot soldier can fight a walker that way,\" Zaven said. \"The Committee can flood the streets with spice-wielding revolutionaries!\"\n\n\"Aye, but think bigger than that,\" Deryn said. \"Unlike the German walkers, yours have all got hands. I reckon that Minotaur beastie could throw a spice bomb half a mile!\"\n\n\"Farther than that,\" Lilit said, then smiled. \"If Alek can manage not to crush it first, that is.\"\n\nAlek hmphed a bit. \"Klopp says he can rig something up\u2014some sort of magazine to hold the spice bombs. We're standing above a mechanikal factory, after all.\"\n\n\"Parts aren't a problem,\" Zaven said. \"But the hottest spices are sold by the pinch. We're talking about buying tons!\"\n\n\"If I can provide the money, are you willing to try?\" Alek asked.\n\nZaven and Lilit both looked at Nene. She raised an eyebrow, staring at Alek.\n\n\"We're talking about a lot of money, Your Serene Highness.\"\n\nAlek didn't answer, but knelt to open his satchel\u2014the small one he'd been lugging about all day. He slid out what looked like a brick wrapped in a handkerchief.\n\n\"Junge Meister!\" Klopp said softly. \"Nicht das Gold!\"\n\nAlek ignored him, unwrapping the handkerchief to reveal a metal bar. When sunlight struck it, a pale yellow fire burned across its surface.\n\nDeryn swallowed. Barking spiders, but princes were rich!\n\n\"You really are him, aren't you?\" Nene murmured. A thin few slices had been shaved from the bar's edges, but the Hapsburg crest was still plain.\n\n\"Of course, madam,\" Alek said. \"I am a very poor liar.\"\n\nThe conversation started up again, shifting back to Clanker as Nene, Zaven, and Klopp began to plan.\n\nLilit turned to face Deryn, her eyes glittering.\n\n\"Spices! You're brilliant. Just perfectly brilliant.\" Lilit gathered her into a hug. \"Thank you!\"\n\n\"Aye, I'm dead clever \u2026 sometimes,\" Deryn said, pulling herself quickly away. \"It's just lucky Alek brought that slab of gold along.\"\n\nAlek nodded, but a pained look crossed his face. \"That was my father's idea. He and Volger planned for anything.\"\n\n\"Aye, but it's barking lucky you brought it today,\" Deryn said. \"Otherwise you'd have lost it.\"\n\n\"Pardon me?\"\n\n\"Stop being a Dummkopf,\" Deryn said, shaking her head. \"The taxi pilot knows what hotel we came from. And the way we're dressed, it's dead certain the management will remember us if the police come asking. So we'll have to stay here. We've lost the wireless set, but we've got Klopp's tools, Bovril, and your gold.\" Deryn shrugged. \"That's everything important, right?\"\n\nAlek squeezed his eyes shut, his voice falling to a whisper. \"Almost everything.\"\n\n\"Blisters! You didn't have two slabs of gold, did you?\"\n\n\"No. But I left a letter behind.\"\n\n\"Does it say who you are?\" Lilit asked softly.\n\n\"All too clearly.\" Alek turned to stare at Deryn, his gaze suddenly intense. \"It's well hidden. If no one finds it, we can sneak back and fetch it!\"\n\n\"Aye, I suppose so.\"\n\n\"In a week, once things have settled down. Please say you'll help me!\"\n\n\"You know me, always happy to lend a hand,\" Deryn said, punching Alek on the shoulder. Though, frankly, it sounded a bit pointless to her. The Germans already knew that Alek was in Istanbul, so why risk getting caught?\n\nIt was only a barking letter, after all.\n\n\"You bum-rag!\" Deryn cried. \"I was having a dead good dream!\"\n\n\"It's time to go,\" Alek said.\n\nDeryn groaned. She'd been helping Lilit with the Spider all day, carrying parts and trays of type, and every muscle in her body ached. It was no wonder that Clankers were grumpy all the time\u2014metal was barking heavy.\n\nIn her dream she'd been flying. Not on an airship or a Huxley, but with wings of her own, as light as gossamer. It had been brilliant.\n\n\"Can we not leave it for another night? I'm knackered.\"\n\n\"It's a week since we left the hotel, Dylan. That's what we agreed.\"\n\nDeryn sighed. She could see the desperate gleam in the boy's eye again. He got it every time he talked about his lost letter, though he wouldn't say why it was so barking important.\n\nAlek threw her blanket aside, and Deryn jumped to cover herself. But she'd slept in her mechanic's slops, as she always did now. She'd had to watch her step here. The pilots who came to train in Zaven's warehouse were all curious about the strange boy in the background, who knew none of the languages of the Ottoman Empire. So Deryn stuck with Lilit, working on the Spider, and helped Zaven with the cooking, learning the names of new spices, and slicing garlic and onions until her fingers stung.\n\n\"Leave off!\" she cried. \"I'm getting up.\"\n\n\"Hush. I don't want any questions from the others about where we're going.\"\n\n\"Aye, right. Just wait outside a minute.\"\n\nHe hesitated, but finally left her alone.\n\nDeryn changed into her Turkish clothes, muttering about the various defects of Alek's character. She often talked to herself these days\u2014living among Clankers was driving her mad. Instead of the murmurs of beasties and the steady hum of airflow, Deryn spent her days surrounded by the rattle of gears and pistons. Her skin smelled of engine grease.\n\nOf all the machines she'd worked on this last week, the Spider was the only one she had a fondness for. Its dance of cutting blades and conveyor belts was as elegant as any ecosystem, a whirl of paper and ink converging into neat bundles of information, and its huge legs stretched out like the boughs of an ancient tree. But even that faint suggestion of a living thing only made Deryn miss her airship home the harder.\n\nAnd all to help some barking prince.\n\nShe went out into the training courtyard, where the latest bunch of walkers stood, their spice-bomb throwers half finished. A djinn towered above the rest, its powerful arms crossed, its nozzles still wet from being tested. As fellow Muslims, the Arabs had a dispensation from the sultan to arm their walkers with steam cannon. The cannon didn't shoot projectiles, but in a pinch the djinn could disappear into a white-hot cloud.\n\nThe courtyard's outer door was wedged open a squick. Deryn slipped through to find Alek waiting out on the street.\n\nLilit was there too, dressed up in fancy European clothing.\n\n\"What's she doing here?\"\n\nAlek raised an eyebrow. \"Didn't I tell you? We need someone the hotel staff won't recognize. Lilit rented a suite yesterday.\"\n\n\"And exactly how does that help us?\"\n\n\"My room is on the highest floor, like Alek's was,\" Lilit said. \"Two doors away. And they both have balconies.\"\n\nDeryn frowned. She had to admit, climbing across balconies might be a wee bit easier than picking the lock. But why hadn't anyone told her the plan?\n\n\"I can sneak about just as well as you two can,\" the girl said. \"Ask Alek how easily I trailed him.\"\n\n\"Aye, he's told me that story more than once,\" Deryn said. \"It's just that \u2026\"\n\nShe tried to think of what to say. Lilit wasn't a bad sort, really. She was a dab hand with machines, as good at piloting as any of the men. In a way, she'd managed the same trick as Deryn had\u2014acting like a man\u2014without pretending, and that was a splendid sort of anarchy, one had to admit.\n\nBut the girl had a habit of turning up whenever Alek and Deryn were alone together, which was barking tiresome.\n\nWhy hadn't Alek mentioned that she was coming along? What other secrets was he keeping about her?\n\n\"Is it because I'm a girl?\" Lilit asked stiffly.\n\n\"Of course not.\" Deryn shook her head. \"I'm just sleepy, is all.\"\n\nLilit stood there, looking a little cross and waiting to hear more. But Deryn only turned and headed toward the fancy part of town.\n\nThe Hotel Hagia Sophia stood, dark and silent, a single gaslight burning above the doorway. Deryn and Alek watched from the shadows as Lilit made her way inside, the doorman saluting as she passed.\n\n\"It seems a bit daft, us sneaking in,\" Deryn whispered. \"Do you really think they'd recognize us?\"\n\n\"Don't forget,\" Alek said. \"If they've found my letter, there'll be a dozen German agents in the lobby, day and night.\"\n\nDeryn nodded. That was true enough\u2014any trace of Austria's missing prince would stir up more ruckus than a stolen taxi.\n\n\"She's meeting us back here.\" Alek led Deryn around to a small lane, where rubbish was heaped outside the hotel kitchen door. He and Lilit had done a lot of planning together, it seemed.\n\nDeryn shook the jealous thought from her head. She was a soldier on a mission, not some daft lassie mooning at a village dance.\n\nShe crept closer and peeked through a window. It was dark inside the kitchen, the motionless arms of a clockwork dishwasher casting eerie shadows. But after a few minutes a silent shape slipped through the darkness, and the door creaked opened.\n\n\"There's someone at the front desk,\" Lilit whispered. \"And a man reading in the lobby, so keep quiet.\"\n\nAs they slipped inside, the scents of cooking filled Deryn's nose, as delicious as she remembered from her two days here. Bowls of dates and apricots and waxy yellow potatoes crowded a long and knotted wooden table, a row of aubergines shining purple in the darkness, waiting for the gleaming knives to gut them.\n\nBut the smell of paprika made her wince. Zaven had been mixing up spice bombs all day, and Deryn's eyeballs were still sore.\n\nLilit led them from the kitchen into a dark and empty dining room. The places were all set, the napkins neatly folded as if guests were about to arrive, and Deryn got the shivery feeling she always did in fancy places.\n\n\"There's a back stair for the servants,\" Lilit whispered, heading for a small doorway in the far wall.\n\nThe staircase was narrow and pitch-black, and complained at every step. Clanker wood always sounded so ancient and unhappy, like Deryn's aunties on a damp winter morning. That was what came of chopping down trees instead of fabricating your wood, she supposed.\n\nThe three climbed slowly to keep quiet, and it was long minutes later that Lilit led them out into a wide, familiar hallway.\n\nDeryn felt a squick of chill as she passed Alek's room. What if his letter had been found, and half a dozen Clanker agents were waiting inside?\n\nLilit stopped two doors farther along, pulling out a key. A moment later they were all standing in a suite as fancy as Alek's had been. Deryn wondered again what was so barking important about this letter. Was it really worth spending money on this suite, money that could have gone to the Committee's walkers?\n\nLilit pointed. \"The balcony.\"\n\nDeryn crossed the room and stepped out into the cool of night. Here on the top floor the balconies were almost as wide as the suites themselves. Easy enough to get from one to the next\u2014the sort of jump an airman made every day.\n\nBut she turned to Alek and whispered, \"If you'd let me in on the barking plan, I could have brought a safety line.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Lost your air sense already?\"\n\n\"Hardly.\" Deryn put one foot up on the railing, hands out for balance.\n\nAlek turned to Lilit. \"Stay here. There might be someone waiting for us.\"\n\n\"Do you think I can't fight?\"\n\nDeryn paused in her jump, wondering how Alek would answer. Was he more worried about Lilit's safety than his own? Or didn't he want a mere girl helping him?\n\nEither would be dead annoying.\n\n\"It's not that you can't fight,\" he said. \"But if you're captured, someone might recognize you as Zaven's daughter. That would lead the police straight back to the warehouse.\"\n\nDeryn blinked\u2014maybe Alek was just being sensible.\n\n\"What if you two get captured?\" Lilit asked.\n\n\"Then you'll have to overthrow the sultan and set us free.\"\n\nLilit fumed a bit, but nodded. \"Just be careful, both of you.\"\n\n\"Don't worry about us,\" Deryn said, and jumped.\n\nShe landed on the next balcony with a soft clang, then waited to give Alek a hand. He jumped with a grim look on his face, and his hand was shaking a bit when she grabbed it to steady him.\n\n\"Who's lost his air sense now?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Well, it is rather high.\"\n\nDeryn snorted. After skylarking at a thousand feet, half a dozen stories was nothing. She crossed the balcony, climbed onto the railing, and jumped again, hardly glancing at the ground.\n\nShe gestured for Alek to wait as she peeked inside.\n\nThe room was dark, but no one was in sight. Deryn slipped her rigging knife into the crack between the doors to lift the hasp, pushed them open, and listened\u2014nothing.\n\nShe slipped inside and stole softly to the bedroom doors. The bed was empty, the covers and the pillows all straight. If anyone had searched this room, they'd cleaned up after themselves.\n\nIn fact, the whole suite looked exactly as Deryn remembered it: the potted plants, the footstool that had been Bovril's favorite, the low divan she'd slept on while Alek had snored away in the splendor of the bedroom.\n\nShe heard a soft thud and turned around\u2014Alek was stepping in from the balcony. He pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, heading straight for the shiny brass switchboard on the wall.\n\n\"Doesn't that contraption call the front desk?\" she whispered. In her two days here Alek had used the switchboard to call delicious meals up to the room, as if by magic.\n\n\"Yes, of course. But I won't activate it.\" His fingers spun, and soon the front panel slipped off into his hands.\n\nHe set the panel carefully onto the floor and reached into the Clanker guts of the device. From among the tangle of wires and bells, he pulled out a long cylinder of leather.\n\nDeryn took a step forward, squinting in the darkness.\n\n\"It's my letter,\" Alek said. \"It's in a scroll case.\"\n\n\"A scroll case? Someone sent you a barking scroll??\"\n\nAlek didn't answer, slipping the screwdriver back into his pocket.\n\n\"Aye, I know\u2014top secret,\" she muttered, crossing to the suite's front door. \"We may as well take the hallway. No point testing your air sense again.\"\n\nDeryn pressed her ear against the door\u2014no sound at all. But when she looked back at him, Alek was still standing in the same spot, wearing a thoughtful expression.\n\n\"Forgot something else?\" she whispered. \"Another scroll? A bar of platinum?\"\n\n\"Dylan,\" the boy said softly, \"before we go back to Lilit, I should tell you something.\"\n\nDeryn froze, her hand on the doorknob. \"Something about her?\"\n\n\"About Lilit? Why would I \u2026,\" Alek began, but then his expression broke into a smile. \"Ah, you've been wondering about her.\"\n\n\"Aye, a bit.\"\n\nAlek chuckled quietly. \"Well, she is quite beautiful.\"\n\n\"I suppose so.\"\n\n\"I was wondering when you'd notice. You've been quite a Dummkopf about it. And she's been trying awfully hard to get you to see.\"\n\n\"To get me to see? But why \u2026\" Deryn frowned. \"What are we talking about, exactly?\"\n\nAlek rolled his eyes. \"You're still being a ninny! Haven't you noticed how much she likes you?\"\n\nDeryn's mouth dropped open, but no sound came out.\n\n\"Don't look so surprised,\" Alek said. \"She's liked you from the start. Did you think she had you working on the Spider for your mechanical skills?\"\n\n\"But\u2014but I thought that you and her \u2026\"\n\n\"Me? She thinks I'm a perfectly useless aristocrat.\" Alek shook his head. \"You really are a Dummkopf, aren't you?\"\n\n\"But she can't like me,\" Deryn said. \"I'm a \u2026 barking airman!\"\n\n\"Yes, she thinks that's quite romantic as well. You do have a certain swagger about you, I suppose. And you're not bad looking, to be sure.\"\n\n\"Oh, leave off!\"\n\n\"In fact, when I first met you, I thought, 'Now, there's the boy I want to be\u2014or would, if I hadn't been born such a hopeless prince.'\"\n\nDeryn glared at Alek, who was clearly enjoying himself now, his eyes glistening with laughter held in check. It made her want to punch him, and yet \u2026\n\n\"Do you really think I'm handsome?\" she asked.\n\n\"Most beguiling, I'm sure. And now that you've masterminded the revolution, Lilit's affections are quite out of control.\"\n\nDeryn groaned, shaking her head. She had to put a stop to this, before it got too blistering tricky.\n\n\"But we should discuss your romantic life another time.\" Alek held up the scroll case. \"I need to tell you about this.\"\n\nDeryn stared dumbly, trying to force her mind to stop spinning. She could deal with Lilit. It was just a matter of\u2026 well, not of telling her the truth, certainly, but of saying something sensible.\n\nAfter all, it was true that women liked an airman's swagger\u2014Mr. Rigby was always saying so. It was just part of being a soldier. Part of being a boy, really. She could make up a story of a girl back home \u2026\n\n\"Right, then,\" Deryn finally managed. \"What's so barking important about this scroll of yours?\"\n\n\"Well, it's like this.\" Alek took a slow breath. \"Along with our revolution here in Istanbul, I think this letter might end the war.\"\n\nThe boy just looked at him, speechless again.\n\nStanding there in the dark, Alek could hear his own heart pounding. Getting those first words out had taken all the willpower he possessed.\n\nBut now that Volger was gone, bearing the secret alone was too much. And Dylan had proven himself loyal a dozen times over.\n\n\"It's from the Holy Father,\" Alek said, holding up the scroll case.\n\nIt took Dylan a moment, but then he said, \"You mean, the pope?\"\n\nAlek nodded. \"It changes the terms of my parents' marriage, making me my father's heir. I suppose I've been lying to you\u2014I'm not just a prince.\"\n\n\"Then you're \u2026 an archduke?\"\n\n\"I'm the archduke of Austria-Este, royal prince of Hungary and Bohemia. When my granduncle dies, it may be that I can stop this war.\"\n\nDylan's eyes slowly widened. \"Because you'll be the barking emperor!\"\n\nAlek sighed, crossing to the large chair with tasseled arms that had been his favorite. He fell into it, suddenly exhausted.\n\nHe'd rather missed this hotel room, with all its Levantine splendor. In the week of hiding here he'd felt \u2026 in command for the first time in his life, with no tutors or mentors to appease. But now he'd joined a committee of revolutionaries, and had to argue over every detail.\n\n\"It's complicated. Franz Joseph has named another successor, but he chose my father first.\" Alek looked at the crossed keys on the leather case, a sign of papal authority that no faithful Austrian could ignore. \"This document might throw the succession into doubt, if the war is going badly and the people want change. My father used to say, 'A country with two kings will always falter.'\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Dylan said, coming closer. \"And if there's been a revolution here, then Germany will be completely alone!\"\n\nAlek smiled. \"Not such a Dummkopf after all, are you?\"\n\nDylan perched on one arm of the chair, looking dizzy and astonished.\n\n\"Pardon me, your princeliness, but this is all a bit much. First you tell me about her \u2026\" The boy waved in the direction of Lilit's room. \"And now this!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. I never wanted to lie to you, Dylan. But I learned about this letter the same night I met you. It's still quite strange for me.\"\n\n\"It's pure dead strange for me, too!\" Dylan said, standing up again and pacing across the room. \"Ending a whole barking war with a bit of paper, even if it is a fancy scroll. Who would believe it's real??\"\n\nAlek nodded. He'd felt the same way when Volger had shown him the letter. It seemed too small an object to change so much. But here in Istanbul, Alek had begun to understand what the scroll really meant. The Leviathan had been brought to that mountaintop, and then here. It was up to him, Aleksandar of Hohenberg, to end the war that his parents' death had started.\n\n\"Volger says the pope himself will vouch for me, as long as I keep this letter secret until my granduncle passes away. The emperor turned eighty-four last week. He could die any day.\"\n\n\"Blisters. No wonder the Germans want to catch you so badly!\"\n\n\"True enough. It has made things dangerous.\" Alek looked at the scroll case. \"But that's why we had to come back here. And why I'm willing to trade my father's gold to make the Committee's revolution work. What we do here can change everything.\"\n\nDylan stopped pacing in the middle of the room, his fists clenched, as if struggling with some secret of his own.\n\n\"Thank you for trusting me, Alek.\" The boy looked at the floor. \"I haven't always trusted you. Not with everything.\"\n\nAlek pulled himself up from the chair and walked closer, resting his hands on the boy's shoulders. \"You know you can, Dylan.\"\n\n\"Aye, I suppose. And there's something I should tell you. But you have to swear not to tell anyone else\u2014not Lilit, not the Committee. No one.\"\n\n\"I'll always keep your secrets, Dylan.\"\n\nThe boy nodded slowly. \"This one's a bit trickier than most.\"\n\nHe fell silent again, the pause stretching out.\n\n\"It's about your mission here, isn't it?\"\n\nDylan let out a slow sigh, a sound of relief and exhaustion. \"Aye, I suppose it is. We were an advance party, sent to sabotage the kraken nets in the strait. It was all part of Dr. Barlow's plan from the beginning.\"\n\n\"But your men were captured.\"\n\nDylan shook his head. \"My men may have been caught, but we did our job. Right now those nets are being eaten away by wee beasties. And it's happening so slowly that the Ottomans won't realize until it's too late.\"\n\n\"So you British aren't waiting for the sultan to join the war. You'll strike the first blow.\"\n\n\"Aye, in three weeks. Dr. Barlow says the nets will be in tatters by then. On the night of the next new moon, the Leviathan will guide a new beastie down the strait. It's the companion creature for the Osman, the ship that Lord Churchill stole from the Ottomans. It's called a behemoth, and it's barking huge, like the world has never seen before! Those German ironclads' days are numbered.\"\n\nAlek clenched the scroll case tighter. The weakest link in the Committee's plans had always been the German ironclads. But with some kind of Royal Navy monster on its way, the odds had changed considerably.\n\n\"But this is exactly what we need, Dylan. We have to tell the Committee!\"\n\n\"We can't,\" the boy said. \"I trust Zaven and his family, but there are hundreds of others involved. What if one of them is a Clanker spy? If the Germans find out the Leviathan is coming, the Goeben could surprise it anywhere along the way with her Tesla cannon charged!\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Alek shuddered a bit, remembering the lightning coursing through his body. \"But what about Zaven's plan? He's leading walkers with spice bombs against the ironclads. Klopp says it's insane.\"\n\n\"Aye, completely daft,\" Dylan said. \"But don't tell Zaven that! If they strike on the night of the new moon, the Goeben will be sunk before they even get there!\"\n\nAlek nodded slowly, thinking it through. In an all-out battle for the city, the sultan would send his walkers into the streets, relying on the German warships to protect the palace. But if they lay at the bottom of the sea, the revolution could be over in a single night. Thousands of lives might be spared.\n\nOf course, an attack in utter darkness would mean teaching the Committee's pilots how to drive their walkers at night. He'd already explained the principles to Lilit, and she'd picked them up quickly enough. If anything, it would give the revolutionaries yet another advantage.\n\n\"I'll order Klopp to say he's changed his mind, that he thinks spice bombing the Goeben will work. He might grumble a bit, but he'll do as he's told. But how do we get the Committee to pick that exact night?\"\n\n\"Have Klopp say that it's best to attack the ironclads in darkness.\" Dylan shrugged. \"Then we'll point out that September 19 is a new moon, and let them decide on their own.\"\n\nAlek smiled. \"And with your masculine charms, you can persuade Lilit to plead our case for us!\"\n\nDylan rolled his eyes, turning beet red again. \"Speaking of secrets, you won't tell Lilit about that discussion either, will you? It'll only complicate things.\"\n\nAlek chuckled. He'd always heard that Darwinists were quite plainspoken about matters of biology, to the point of being vulgar. But Dylan looked positively shamefaced about the whole thing, more like a schoolboy than a soldier.\n\nIt was most amusing.\n\n\"As I said, all your secrets are safe with me.\"\n\n\"Aye, good, then.\" Dylan hesitated. \"And \u2026 you're completely sure it's me she likes, not you?\"\n\nAlek laughed. \"I should hope so. After all, if we did like each other, I'd have to run a mile.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"For heaven's sake, Dylan. Lilit is a commoner, far more common than my mother.\" Alek held up the scroll case. \"I grew up not knowing if this would ever happen. Not knowing who I really was, and always thinking how much easier it would be for everyone if I hadn't been born. I could never do that to my own children, not in a thousand years.\"\n\nDylan stared at the scroll case sadly. \"Must be tough, being a prince.\"\n\n\"Not any longer, thanks to this.\" Alek clasped Dylan's shoulder again, happy that his only real friend knew his last secret. \"Let's get out of here. We have a revolution to plan.\"\n\nLilit opened her door wearing a frown.\n\n\"Took you two long enough. I thought you'd got yourselves into trouble.\"\n\n\"We were having a bit of a discussion.\" Alek winked at Dylan, then held up the scroll case. \"But we found this.\"\n\nLilit gave them both an odd look, and Dylan turned away in embarrassment, heading toward the servants' staircase.\n\nAlek shrugged for Lilit's benefit, then followed.\n\nAs they descended the stairs, the hotel began to stir around them. The steam elevators rumbled and hissed, building up pressure for the morning traffic, and soon a clattering rose up from below.\n\nDylan came to a halt, raising his hand. \"The cooks are in the kitchen already. We can't go back that way.\"\n\n\"Straight through the lobby doors, then,\" Lilit said. \"If no one found your letter, there won't be any German agents about.\"\n\n\"Aye, but some of us are wanted taxi thieves!\" Dylan said.\n\nAlek shook his head. \"It'll be fine. We'll be out the door before anyone gives us a second look.\"\n\n\"Just try not to act suspicious,\" Lilit said, nudging open the door to the dining room.\n\nShe led them through the empty tables, with a stride as confident as if she owned the hotel. A young boy in a fez looked up from polishing silverware and frowned, but didn't say a word.\n\nThey passed him and headed through the lobby, which was empty except for one rather shabby-looking tourist waiting for a room.\u2026\n\nThe man glanced up from his newspaper, smiled, and waved a hand.\n\n\"Ah, Prince Alek,\" he called. \"I thought you might be somewhere hereabouts.\"\n\nAlek froze in midstride. It was Eddie Malone.\n\n\"Of course, I never took you for a taxi thief,\" Malone said, stirring his coffee. \"But then I heard the name of that hotel.\"\n\nAlek didn't answer, just gazed at his cup in silence. The black surface of the liquid flickered, reflecting the dancing shapes of shadow puppets on the screen behind him.\n\nThe reporter had led them to a coffeehouse, well away from the curious glances of the hotel staff. Each table had its own tiny shadow play machine, and the place was dark and nearly empty, the few patrons all transfixed by their own puppets. But Alek felt as though the walls were listening.\n\nPerhaps it was the beady eyes of the bullfrog staring at him from across the table.\n\n\"My mother's name,\" he said softly. \"Of course.\"\n\nMalone nodded. \"I've been looking at hotel signs ever since, and wondering. The Dora Hotel? The Santa Pera? The Angel?\" He let out a low chuckle. \"And then I heard about some Germans staying at the Hagia Sophia stealing a taxi. So the name Sophie started ringing in my ears.\"\n\n\"But how did you know to call me prince?\" Alek said. \"I'm not the only Austrian with a mother named Sophie.\"\n\n\"That's what I figured, until I started looking into that Count Volger fellow. He and your father were old friends, weren't they?\"\n\nAlek nodded, his eyes closing. He was exhausted, and there was another long day of work ahead\u2014a whole revolution to rethink.\n\n\"But we stole that taxi seven barking days ago!\" Dylan said. \"Have you been sitting in that lobby all that time?\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" Malone said. \"It took me three days of pondering, then another three to find out who Count Volger was. I practically just got there.\"\n\nAlek winced a little. If only they'd gone to retrieve the letter a day earlier, they might have never laid eyes on the man.\n\n\"But once it all fell into place, I just had to find you again.\" Malone's face was beaming. \"A missing prince, the boy whose family started the Great War! Biggest story I've ever covered.\"\n\n\"Should we kill him now?\" Lilit asked.\n\nMalone gave her a curious look; clearly he hadn't understood her German. He pulled out his notepad. \"And who might you be, miss?\"\n\nLilit's eyes narrowed, and Alek hurriedly spoke up. \"I'm afraid that's none of your business, Mr. Malone. We won't be answering any of your questions.\"\n\nThe man held up his notebook. \"So I'll have to publish my story with so many questions left unanswered? And so soon? Say \u2026 tomorrow?\"\n\n\"Are you blackmailing us, Mr. Malone?\"\n\n\"Of course not. I just don't like loose ends.\"\n\nAlek shook his head and sighed. \"Write what you want. The Germans already know I'm here in Istanbul.\"\n\n\"Interesting,\" Malone said, his pen scribbling on the pad. \"See? You're adding background already! But what's really interesting is young Dylan being with you. The Ottomans will be surprised to hear that one of the Leviathan's saboteurs escaped!\"\n\nFrom the corner of his eye, Alek saw Dylan's fists clench.\n\nBut Malone had turned his gaze on Lilit. \"And then there's the matter of your new revolutionary friends. That might raise a few eyebrows as well.\"\n\n\"My knife is ready,\" Lilit said softly in German. \"Just say the word.\"\n\n\"Mr. Malone,\" Alek said, \"perhaps we can convince you to delay publishing your story.\"\n\n\"How long do you need?\" the man said, his pen still poised to write.\n\nAlek sighed. Giving Malone a date only revealed more about their plans. But they had to string the man along somehow. If the Ottomans learned that a Darwinist saboteur was working with revolutionaries here in Istanbul, they might begin to piece together Dr. Barlow's plan.\n\nAlek looked to Dylan for help.\n\n\"Don't you see, Mr. Malone?\" the boy said. \"If you give us all away, then the story's over. But if you just wait a wee bit, it'll get heaps more interesting, we promise!\"\n\nMalone leaned back, drumming his fingers on the table. \"Well, I suppose you've got a little while. I file my stories by messenger tern. That's four days to cross the Atlantic. And because I use birds, the Germans' can't listen in on their fancy new wireless tower.\"\n\n\"Four days is hardly\u2014,\" Alek began, but Dylan grabbed his arm.\n\n\"Excuse me, Mr. Malone,\" the boy said. \"What wireless tower are you talking about?\"\n\n\"The big one they're just finishing.\" Malone gave a shrug. \"It's meant to be a secret, but half the Germans in this city are working on it. Has its own power station, they say.\"\n\nDylan's eyes grew wider. \"Is this tower somewhere along a railroad line?\"\n\n\"I've heard it's somewhere on the cliffs, where the old tracks follow the water.\" Malone narrowed his eyes. \"What's so interesting about that?\"\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Dylan said softly. \"I should have realized the first night I was here.\"\n\nAlek stared at the boy, remembering his story about the night he'd arrived. Dylan had secretly ridden a short way on the Orient-Express, which the Germans were using to smuggle parts out of the city \u2026 electrikal parts.\n\nThe pieces finally fell into place.\n\n\"With its own power station?\" Alek asked.\n\nEddie Malone nodded, his eyes flicking between the two of them.\n\nAlek felt a cold finger sliding down his spine. No mere wireless tower would need that much power. The Leviathan was flying straight into disaster.\n\n\"Can you give us a month?\" he asked Malone.\n\n\"A whole month?\" The reporter let out a snort. \"My editors would have me brought home in a brown bag. You have to give me something to write about.\"\n\nDylan sat up straighter. \"All right, then, I've got a story for you. And the sooner you publish it, the better. That wireless tower\u2014\"\n\n\"Wait!\" Alek said. \"I have something better. How about an interview with the missing prince of Hohenberg? I'll tell you about the night I left my home, how I escaped Austria and made it to the Alps. Who I think killed my parents, and why. Will that keep you busy enough, Mr. Malone?\"\n\nThe man's pen was scribbling, his head nodding furiously. Dylan was staring at Alek, wide eyed.\n\n\"But there's one condition: You can't mention either of my friends,\" Alek said. \"Just say I'm hiding in the hills somewhere, alone.\"\n\nThe man paused a moment, then shrugged. \"Whatever you want, as long as I can take some photographs too.\"\n\nAlek shuddered\u2014of course Malone's newspaper was the sort that published photographs. How perfectly vulgar.\n\nBut he could only nod.\n\n\"Mr. Malone,\" Dylan said, \"there's still one other thing\u2014\"\n\n\"Not tonight,\" Alek said. \"I'm afraid we're all quite tired, Mr. Malone. I'm sure you understand.\"\n\n\"You're not the only ones.\" The reporter stood up, stretching his arms. \"I've been in that lobby all night. Meet me tomorrow in the usual caf\u00e9?\"\n\nAlek nodded, and Malone gathered his things and left, not even offering to pay for his coffee.\n\n\"This is all my fault,\" Lilit said when the man was gone. \"I saw him when I followed you. I should have recognized him on my way up.\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"No. I was the one foolish enough to involve a reporter in my affairs.\"\n\n\"No matter whose fault it is,\" Dylan said, \"we should have told him about the \u2026\" He hesitated, looking at Lilit.\n\nShe waved a hand dismissively. \"The Committee knows all about that tower. We'd been watching the Germans build it for months, wondering what it might be. Until Alek came along and explained everything.\"\n\n\"I did?\" Alek asked, then remembered his first day at the warehouse. Nene hadn't believed a word he'd said \u2026 until he'd mentioned the Tesla cannon. Then suddenly she'd become quite interested, peppering him with questions\u2014what it was called, how it worked, and whether it could be used against walkers. \"But I thought we were talking about the Goeben. Why didn't you tell me the sultan had another Tesla cannon?\"\n\n\"It hardly mattered\u2014you said it couldn't affect our walkers.\" She frowned, looking at Dylan. \"But it can shoot down airships, can't it?\"\n\nThe boy cleared his throat, but only shrugged.\n\n\"And you both just turned green at the thought of that,\" Lilit said.\n\n\"Aye, well, you know,\" Dylan said. \"Those contraptions are a professional hazard, when you're an airman.\"\n\nLilit crossed her arms. \"And you were about to tell that reporter what this 'wireless tower' really was, to warn your Darwinist friends!\" She turned to Alek. \"And you're willing to spill your family secrets just to keep Dylan out of the papers! There's something you two aren't telling me.\"\n\nAlek sighed. Lilit could be annoyingly perceptive sometimes.\n\n\"Shall I ask my grandmother to help me sort this all out? She's very good at puzzles.\"\n\nAlek turned to Dylan. \"We should tell her everything.\"\n\nThe boy threw up his hand in surrender. \"Aye, it hardly matters anymore. We have to put a stop to the whole plan! Just tell Malone about the Tesla cannon tomorrow. Once that's in the papers, the Admiralty will know the plan is too dangerous.\"\n\n\"We can't,\" Alek said. \"The revolution will fail without the Leviathan's help!\"\n\n\"But they'll never make it. If that cannon's got its own power plant, it's got to be barking huge.\"\n\nAlek opened his mouth, but couldn't find words to argue with. There was no way to fly an airship over Istanbul now, not with a giant Tesla cannon overlooking the city.\n\nLilit let out an exasperated sigh. \"Well, since neither of you boys can be bothered to explain, allow me.\"\n\nShe held up one hand, ticking off points on her fingers.\n\n\"One, the Leviathan is clearly on its way back to Istanbul, or you wouldn't care about this Tesla cannon. Two, whatever it's up to can help the revolution, as Alek just said. And three, this all has to do with your secret mission.\" She hesitated a moment, staring at Dylan. \"Your men were captured near the kraken nets, weren't they?\"\n\nAlek opened his mouth again, wanting to interrupt before she figured out the truth. But Lilit silenced him with a wave of her hand.\n\n\"Everyone thinks your mission failed, but they don't know that you weren't captured.\" Her eyes widened. \"You plan to bring a kraken down the strait!\"\n\nDylan looked miserable, but only nodded. \"Not really a kraken, but close enough. And a fine plan it was too. But it's all ruined now! We have to tell Malone about the cannon, or get a warning to the Admiralty some other way.\"\n\n\"But this is perfect!\" Lilit said.\n\n\"Perfect in what way, exactly?\" Dylan cried. \"That cannon is a death trap, and the Leviathan is headed right toward it! That's my ship we're talking about!\"\n\n\"We're talking about the liberation of my people as well,\" Lilit said softly, her eyes locked on his. \"The Committee will deal with this problem, I swear.\"\n\n\"But my mission was meant to be top secret.\" Dylan shook his head. \"I can't let it go forward if a daft bunch of anarchists know about it!\"\n\n\"Then we won't tell anyone else,\" Lilit said. \"Only we three have to know.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"The three of us can't destroy a Tesla cannon.\"\n\n\"No, we can't. But \u2026\" Lilit held one hand up, her eyes squeezing shut for a moment. \"My father plans to lead the assault on the Goeben himself, with four walkers. But if the Leviathan and its sea monster can deal with the ironclads, we have those walkers to spare. So on the night of the revolution, we explain everything to my father, then head to the cliffs and tear this Tesla cannon to the ground!\"\n\n\"Someone might find out,\" Dylan said.\n\n\"What if we only use pilots we trust?\" Alek asked. \"Lilit's walker, mine, Klopp's, and Zaven's. No one else has to know what's going on.\"\n\nLilit shrugged. \"No one else is volunteering to fight the Goeben, after all.\"\n\nDylan stared at them both, a look of terror in his eyes.\n\n\"But what if we fail?\" he said softly. \"They'll all burn.\"\n\nLilit reached across the table and took his hands in her own.\n\n\"We won't fail,\" she said. \"Our revolution depends on your ship.\"\n\nDylan stared at her hands for a moment, then looked helplessly at Alek.\n\n\"It's the only way they can win,\" Alek said simply. \"And the only way to complete your mission. Your men sacrificed themselves for this, right?\"\n\n\"Oh, you had to say that,\" Dylan said with a groan, pulling his hands from Lilit's grasp. \"Aye, all right, then. But you barking anarchists had better not make a mess of this!\"\n\n\"We won't,\" Lilit said, beaming at the boy. \"You've saved the revolution again!\"\n\nDylan rolled his eyes. \"No need to get all moony, lassie.\"\n\nAlek smiled. They really were the most amusing couple.\n\nDeryn spread her arms out straight, and waited.\n\n\"R \u2026\"\n\nShe dipped her left arm forty-five degrees.\n\n\"S \u2026\"\n\nShe let her right arm drop, the screwdriver in her hand pointing straight down.\n\n\"G!\" said Bovril, and ate another strawberry. Then it tossed the stem over the edge of the balcony, leaning its head through the rails to watch it fall.\n\n\"How do you like that?\" Deryn cried. \"It's learnt the whole barking alphabet!\"\n\nLilit and Alek stared at the beastie, then at her.\n\n\"You taught it this?\" Lilit asked.\n\n\"No! I was just practicing my signals. I was saying the letters out loud, I suppose, and after a couple times through \u2026\" Deryn pointed at Bovril. \"The beastie joined in, as quick as a bosun's mate.\"\n\n\"And that's why you want to bring it along tonight?\" Alek asked. \"In case we need to send semaphore signals?\"\n\nDeryn rolled her eyes. \"No, you daft bum-rag. It's because \u2026\"\n\nShe sighed, unsure exactly how to say it. The loris had a knack for noticing important details, just as Dr. Barlow had claimed. And tonight was the most important mission that Deryn had ever been a part of. She didn't dare leave the beastie behind.\n\n\"Perspicacious,\" the creature said.\n\n\"Aye, that's the word,\" Deryn cried. \"Because it's barking perspicacious.\"\n\nTwo weeks before, Zaven had put his posh education to use and explained the loris's species name to Deryn. It turned out that \"perspicacious\" meant the same as \"shrewd,\" or even \"farsighted.\" And though that didn't sound like the sort of thing a beastie could be, it certainly fit.\n\nAlek sighed, and turned toward the family's apartments, where Nene's tortoise bed was emerging, covered with maps fluttering in the breeze. The old woman called to Lilit and Alek.\n\nAs they walked away, Alek said over his shoulder, \"All right, Dylan. But I have a walker to pilot. So you'll be looking after it.\"\n\n\"More than happy to,\" Deryn said softly, scratching the loris's wee head.\n\nOnly having the beastie about had made it bearable, working with Clankers and their lifeless machines, smelling of exhaust and engine grease. The bustling splendor of Istanbul was still so alien, its foreign tongues too many to learn in a lifetime, much less a month. Deryn spent her days printing newspapers she couldn't read, and wondering what the prayers gliding over the rooftops might mean. The intricate geometries of Zaven's carpets and tiled ceilings dazzled her eyes, and even the wondrous food often proved to be\u2014like the rest of the capital\u2014too sumptuous.\n\nBut hardest of all was being so close to Alek, while still hiding from him. He'd shared his last secret with her, and Deryn realized now that she could have told him that same night, in that dark hotel room with no one about to hear.\n\nBut every time she'd tried, Deryn had imagined the look of horror on his face. Not that she was a girl in boy's clothes, or that she'd lied to him for so long. All that yackum Alek would soon get past, she knew. And then he would love her, she knew.\n\nBut that was the problem, because there was one thing that would never change.\u2026 Deryn was a commoner. She was a thousand times more common than Alek's mother, who'd been born a countess, or even Lilit, an anarchist who spoke six languages and always knew which fork to use. Deryn Sharp was as common as barking dirt, and the only reason that didn't matter to His Serene Highness, Aleksandar of Hohenberg, was that she was also, in his mind, a boy.\n\nThe moment she could be anything more than a friend, she would be, and then he'd have to run a mile.\n\nThe pope did not write letters to transform orphan daughters of balloonists, or girls in boy's britches, or unrepentant Darwinists, into royalty. She was dead certain of that.\n\nDeryn watched Alek kneel by Nene's bed like a good grandson, the three of them going over the details of the attack one last time. This battle tonight was something they had helped make together, she and Alek, and this was the closest they would ever be.\n\n\"A, B, C \u2026 ?\" Bovril asked, and Deryn nodded.\n\nShe prayed that her signal practice really would come in handy. If all went well tonight, the Leviathan's crew would be taking a long hard look at the Tesla cannon after it had been destroyed. That could be her only chance to let them know that she was alive.\n\nIt might even be a chance to go home, and leave her prince behind at last.\n\nThe great outer gates of the courtyard swung slowly open, revealing a clear and moonless sky.\n\n\"Lucky it didn't rain tonight,\" Alek said, checking the controls.\n\n\"Right enough,\" Deryn answered. A midnight downpour would have turned the spice bombs into a useless, soupy mess, ruining the Committee's only weapons. That was the thing about battles, Mr. Rigby always said, one squick of bad luck could make all your plans go pear-shaped.\n\nMuch like the rest of life, she supposed.\n\nThe courtyard filled with the rumble of engines from four walkers. \u015eahmeran, with Zaven at its controls, raised a giant hand and waved them forward as it slithered out the gates.\n\nLilit went next, piloting a Minotaur. The half bull, half man bowed low to get its horns through, giant hands out for balance. Spice bombs rattled in the magazine that Master Klopp had welded to its forearm.\n\nAlek placed his feet on the djinn's pedals. Klopp had insisted that Alek pilot an Arab machine tonight; their steam cannon made them the safest of the Committee's walkers. Behind the djinn, Klopp and Bauer sat at the controls of an iron golem.\n\n\"Hold on tight, Bovril,\" Deryn said, and the beastie scampered up onto her shoulder. Its claws poked through her piloting jacket like wee needles.\n\nAlek worked his feet, and the contraption took a huge step forward.\n\nDeryn grasped the sides of her commander's chair, queasy as always in the lumbering machine. At least the djinn was still in parade mode, the top of its head split open, so she could see the stars and breathe fresh air.\n\n\"Turn left here,\" she said. To keep this mission as secret as possible, the four walkers had no copilots. So Deryn was serving as Alek's navigator and, once the shooting started, as range finder for the throwing arm. Deryn had never been a gunner before, but altitude practice had made her a dab hand at estimating distances\u2014as long as she remembered to think in meters instead of yards.\n\nDeryn looked at her map again. It showed four separate routes to the Tesla cannon, with Alek's marked in red. These four walkers were headed out before the main attack began, so they couldn't afford to raise suspicions by traveling together. The trick would be arriving at their target all at the same time.\n\nAlso marked on the map were the positions of the other forty-odd walkers pledged to the Committee, poised to spring into action an hour later. Deryn wondered if there were any spies among those crews, ready to sell the Committee's plans to the sultan for a lump of gold.\n\nAt least she could be certain that this attack on the Tesla cannon had been kept secret. Zaven himself had heard about it only this afternoon. He'd fumed a bit about being kept in the dark, until realizing that he wouldn't have to face the big guns of the Goeben.\n\nUnless the Admiralty had changed the night of the behemoth's arrival, of course.\n\n\"Have you thought about how many things can go wrong?\" Deryn said. \"It's like the bard says, 'The best laid plans of mice and men.'\"\n\n\"Fah!\" said Bovril, imitating Zaven's tone.\n\n\"You see?\" Alek said. \"Your perspicacious friend is confident.\"\n\nDeryn looked at the beastie. \"I just hope it's right.\"\n\nThey made good time on the almost empty streets of Istanbul. The Committee's walkers had been practicing night walking for the last month, pretending to patrol for robbers, so no one gave the djinn a second glance.\n\nThe buildings thinned out at the city's edge, and soon the djinn was traveling down a dusty carriage road. The route was barely wide enough for the walker, and the skirt of steam cannon thrashed the tree branches on either side. When they passed a darkened inn at a crossroads, Deryn saw curious faces peering from the windows. Sooner or later someone would wonder what a walker from Istanbul's ghettos was doing in the countryside.\n\nBut they were too close to their target for that to matter now. The landscape climbed, growing rockier as the cliffs rose. The city came into view out the walker's rear viewport, its glitter and brilliance garish in the moonless night.\n\nA hundred masts and smokestacks were scattered across the water's black expanse, and Deryn wondered again what would happen if the Leviathan were shot down. Would the behemoth simply swim away, or go mad among all those unarmed ships?\n\nShe shook her head. They couldn't fail tonight.\n\nThey were only a few miles from the Tesla cannon when a spotlight lanced out of the dark.\n\nDeryn squinted\u2014her eyes caught a flash of steel, and the silhouette of a trunk and tail.\n\nIt was one of the sultan's war elephants, blocking their path.\n\n\"Range?\" Alek asked calmly.\n\n\"About a thousand yards. That is, nine hundred meters.\"\n\nAlek nodded, pulling a lever. A spice bomb rolled from the magazine into the djinn's hand. Deryn caught a whiff of it and winced. Even wrapped in oiled burlap, the bombs let off eye-burning dust every time they moved.\n\n\"Top down, please,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Aye, your princeliness.\" Deryn set to work on the hand crank, and the djinn's forehead rolled slowly closed across the stars.\n\nAlek stoked the engines, sending power to the steam boilers. The machine's right arm drew slowly back.\n\nSomeone in the war elephant shouted at them through a megaphone. Deryn didn't recognize any of the Turkish words, but it sounded more curious than angry. As far as the Ottomans knew, the djinn was unarmed.\n\n\"They're just wondering what in blazes we're doing here,\" Deryn muttered. \"No reason to be nervous.\"\n\n\"Nervous,\" said the beastie.\n\nAlek laughed. \"Perspicacious or not, the creature knows you.\"\n\nDeryn frowned at the loris. Of course she was a wee bit jittery. Only a fool wouldn't be, heading into battle. Especially on a finicky Clanker contraption.\n\n\"Loaded and ready to fire,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Hold on.\" Deryn watched the ranging gauge that Klopp had installed, its needle slowly climbing as steam pressure built in the djinn's shoulder joint.\n\nThe tricky bit was, Klopp hadn't been able to test every throwing arm in the Committee's army, so he'd marked the gauges using only math and guesswork. Until their first shot landed, there was no telling how far the bombs would actually travel.\n\nThe needle finally reached nine hundred meters.\u2026\n\n\"Fire!\" Deryn cried.\n\nAlek pulled the release trigger, and the djinn's giant hand swung overhead. Clouds of steam gushed from its metal shoulder, turning the air in the cabin scalding.\n\nThe spice bomb struck fifty yards in front of the elephant, exploding into a cloud of dust that swirled as red as blood in the spotlight.\n\n\"Master Klopp knows his sums,\" Deryn said with a smile. \"Next time we'll hit the bum-rags dead-on!\"\n\n\"More steam,\" Alek ordered. \"I'm loading another.\"\n\nDeryn pulled the stokers, and the engines roared beneath them, but the ranging needle was slow to climb. The djinn had exhausted every squick of shoulder pressure with its first throw.\n\n\"Come on!\" she urged it. \"They'll be shooting back any second.\"\n\n\"If this were a proper walker, we'd be taking evasive action,\" Alek muttered. \"What I wouldn't give for a decent gun sight.\"\n\n\"Or a decent gun!\"\n\n\"These spice bombs were your idea, I seem to\u2014\"\n\nThe elephant's main turret roared to life, sending a shell screaming overhead. The explosion came seconds later, rocking the djinn on its feet.\n\n\"They overshot us!\" Alek cried. \"But they have our range now. Can I fire yet?\"\n\n\"Hold on!\" Deryn watched the needle climb. The loris dug its claws deep into her shoulder, imitating the whistle and boom of the near miss.\n\nThe needle passed nine hundred meters, but she needed another fifty at least.\u2026\n\n\"Fire!\" she finally cried.\n\nThe great arm swung again, rocking the cabin backward. The moment the bomb had flown, Alek grabbed the controls and took them charging ahead.\n\nThrough the rocking viewport Deryn watched the war elephant disappear into a roiling cloud of red dust.\n\n\"Bull's-eye!\" she cried.\n\nBut the walker's crew still managed to fire\u2014the main gun blazed again, setting the dust cloud around the elephant into a massive whirlwind. The air cracked once more as the shot zoomed past.\n\nThe djinn reeled from the blast\u2014the shell had landed right where they'd been standing, Deryn reckoned. Alek struggled with the controls as the walker staggered forward.\n\nThe machine gun on the elephant's trunk opened up, setting the path ahead of them jittering with plumes of dirt. Then came a chorus of bullets striking metal, as loud as pistons misfiring.\n\n\"We need steam cover!\" Alek cried.\n\n\"No chance!\" Deryn stared at the motionless pressure gauge. The engines were too busy keeping the walker moving to recharge its boilers.\n\nBut the elephant's main turret didn't fire again. Only its left front leg was moving, like a dog's pawing at the ground. The searchlight swung away aimlessly into the sky.\n\n\"They've got a snootful!\" Deryn cried. Even hundreds of yards away, her eyes were starting to prickle from the spices. She pulled the goggles up from around her neck and snapped them on.\n\n\"Snootful,\" Bovril said, chuckling, then sneezed.\n\nAlek twisted the saunters, putting the djinn's hands out for balance. But he kept the walker charging ahead.\n\n\"I'm going to knock them over. Brace yourself.\"\n\nDeryn checked her straps. \"Hold on, beastie!\"\n\nThe elephant was stumbling in circles now, another of its legs trying to move. But the turret stayed motionless. Had the spice bomb struck it dead-on?\n\nThen Deryn saw the airflow patterns made visible by red dust, and realized what had happened\u2014the cannon's recoil had sucked the spices right into the main turret. The elephant's crew had done themselves in with their own shot.\n\n\"They must be positively gagging!\"\n\n\"Not for long, though,\" Alek said. \"Hold on!\"\n\nThe war elephant had turned sideways, stumbling into a barbed wire fence just behind it. As the djinn charged into the swirling red clouds, Deryn's throat began to burn, and she was glad for her goggles. But Alek didn't waver\u2014he tipped the djinn's left shoulder down \u2026\n\nMetal crunched and tore around them, a shock wave thundering through the djinn's huge frame. The world spun in the viewport, sky and ground and darkness flashing past. Alek swore, twisting at the controls, and a lungful of spices set Deryn coughing.\n\nFinally the djinn stopped spinning; it was listing at a crazy angle. Deryn sprayed a squick of steam to clear the air, unstrapped herself, and leaned out the viewport.\n\nThe white clouds around them parted, revealing the elephant lying motionless on its side.\n\n\"We got them!\"\n\n\"Snootful!\" Bovril shouted.\n\n\"But why are we leaning like this?\" Alek cried. \"And what in blazes is holding us up?\"\n\nDeryn leaned out farther, and saw glittering metal everywhere. The djinn had stumbled through the barbed wire fence, pulling up a quarter mile of it.\n\n\"We're tangled in that barking wire!\"\n\nAlek worked his foot pedals, and wires snapped and scraped. \"There's more of them ahead. We need steam cover\u2014now.\"\n\nDeryn stoked the boilers, then looked through the viewport. Two miles in the distance the Tesla cannon rose up from the cliffs, half as tall as the Eiffel Tower.\n\nAround its base three more war elephants stood waiting, their smokestacks belching to life.\n\n\"Are the others anywhere about?\" Alek asked.\n\nDeryn leaned out the viewport, looking backward. There was nothing on the horizon but the silhouettes of short salt-sheered trees along the cliff tops. Then she spotted them\u2014a trio of smoke trails against the starlight, no more than two miles away.\n\n\"Aye, all of them! Three kilometers or so behind us.\" She glanced at the pressure gauge, which was only now beginning to climb again. \"And a good thing too. It'll be a few minutes before we can throw again.\"\n\n\"We don't have that much time. Give us some cover while I shake this wire off.\"\n\nAs Deryn reached for the steam cannon lever, one of the war elephants fired. The shell landed short, but close, and Deryn was thrown backward from the controls. Gravel and dirt spat through the viewport, leaving a scratch on her goggles.\n\n\"If you please, Mr. Sharp?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Bovril repeated with a chuckle.\n\nDeryn scrambled up from the floor to pull the lever, and hissing filled her ears. The pilot's cabin was suddenly as hot and humid as a greenhouse.\n\nOutside the viewport the world disappeared behind a veil of white.\n\nAlek worked the pedals and saunters, blindly tearing at the tangle of barbed wire. More gunfire boomed beyond the steam cloud, but the answering explosions sounded in the distance.\n\n\"They're shooting at the others,\" Deryn said.\n\n\"Then now's the time to attack! Get me some pressure in my throwing arm.\"\n\n\"I'd be happy to, Your Highness.\" Deryn pulled the engine stokers again. \"But we've emptied the boilers to make this steam, and now you're dancing about like a loon, which is taking even more power!\"\n\n\"Fine, then,\" Alek said, bringing the djinn into a crouched halt. As the engines idled, the ranging gauge began to climb again.\n\nThrough the whiteness came the clatter of machine guns\u2014the Ottomans were firing into the bank of steam clouds, listening to see where their bullets hit metal.\n\n\"They'll find us soon enough,\" Alek said. He pulled the release, and Deryn heard a third spice bomb rattle into place.\n\nShe wiped condensation from the ranging gauge. \"Three hundred meters and climbing.\"\n\n\"That's enough\u2014if we charge them!\"\n\n\"Are you daft? There's three of them and one of us!\"\n\n\"Yes, but we haven't much time. Listen to your beast.\"\n\nDeryn stared at the loris. Its wee eyes were closed, as if it had decided to take a nap. But a soft noise came from its lips\u2014a hum and crackle, like the static on Klopp's wireless. She'd heard the sound before \u2026\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" she breathed.\n\n\"Indeed.\" Alek pushed at the pedals. As the djinn thundered forward, the hot clouds parted around them.\n\nThe Tesla cannon stood tall on the cliffs, its frame glimmering against the dark sky. Faint sparkles traveled along its lower struts, like fabricated fireflies flitting about on Guy Fawkes Day. Its shimmer spilled across the battlefield.\n\nShe leaned forward to squint up at the stars. No dark silhouette moved among them, but if the Ottomans were charging up their cannon, they must have spotted the Leviathan approaching.\n\nThe war elephants were still firing at the other walkers, their mortars elevated high. But as Alek charged ahead, one of the turrets began to spin about.\u2026\n\nMoments later its main gun billowed flame and smoke. The shell struck close enough to send the djinn staggering. The needle on the ranging gauge trembled, then fell\u2014pressure was leaking somewhere.\n\n\"We're hit!\" Deryn cried.\n\n\"The trigger is yours, Mr. Sharp,\" Alek said calmly, his hands white-knuckled on the saunters. The djinn was limping now, the whole pilot's cabin lurching from side to side.\n\nDeryn grasped the release trigger, her eyes flicking back and forth between the ranging gauge and the three steel elephants ahead. The needle had stopped at four hundred meters, trembling uncertainly, and the distance to the elephants was lessening with every step.\n\nThe nearest elephant swung its trunk toward the djinn, its machine gun blazing. Bullets struck armor with a sound like coins shaken in a tin. One bullet slipped in through the viewport, a sliver of hot metal striking sparks around their heads.\n\n\"Are you hit?\" Alek asked.\n\n\"Not me!\" Deryn said.\n\n\"Not me!\" Bovril repeated, then filled the cabin with its maniacal laughter.\n\nAnother of the elephants' big guns was taking aim \u2026\n\nThe ranging needle sputtered again, then climbed, and finally they were close enough. Deryn pulled the trigger, and the walker's throwing arm swung overhead as they ran, like a charging fast bowler unleashing a cricket ball at a batsman.\n\nThe spice bomb went straight into the closest elephant, exploding into a swirl of fiery red. The machine staggered, but the cloud moved hastily away, spreading through the shimmering lower struts of the Tesla cannon.\n\n\"Blisters!\" Deryn cried. \"The wind's too strong up here!\"\n\nOf course, the wind always blew hard against seaside cliffs. She'd been a Dummkopf not to realize it!\n\nBut Alek didn't falter, barreling straight at the elephant. The direct hit had done some damage, at least. The Ottoman machine was stumbling about like a newborn calf.\n\nBut just before they collided, the elephant's great head rolled on its neck, raising the two barbed tusks.\u2026\n\nAlek twisted at the saunters, but the walker was moving too fast to turn. With an awful metal shriek the djinn impaled itself upon one tusk, a white blast of steam shooting from the boilers in its chest.\n\nThe air in the pilot's cabin turned wet and scalding, every valve hissing like a teakettle. The elephant shook its head, tossing the djinn madly and throwing Deryn from her seat. She screamed as her hands splayed against the burning metal floor and the beastie's claws went deep into her shoulder.\n\n\"We're done for!\" she shouted. \"Abandon ship!\"\n\n\"Not yet.\" Alek pulled a saunter back with one hand, hitting the bomb release with another, and with the djinn's last squick of strength brought its throwing arm down.\n\nDeryn stood, squinting through her goggles to watch the remaining spice bombs\u2014almost a dozen of them\u2014rattle down the magazine to burst against the elephant's back.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" said the perspicacious loris.\n\n\"Open us up,\" Deryn said, unstrapping herself. \"In another moment we won't be able to breathe!\"\n\nWhile Alek spun the hand crank furiously, she kicked open the locker in the back of the cabin, pulling a mass of rope from it.\n\n\"Aren't you glad we practiced belaying?\" she shouted over the din of steam and gunfire.\n\n\"I'd rather not know what's coming,\" Alek said.\n\n\"Nonsense. This is easy compared with a sliding escape from a Huxley! I'll tell you about that some time.\"\n\nAs the djinn's head opened, Deryn tied the rope off and flung it over the back of the walker. Stepping up onto the cabin's edge, she peered down into the nebulous white cloud beneath them. The last steam from the djinn's boilers was still billowing from the tusk protruding from its back.\n\n\"I'll go first,\" she said. \"So if you slide too fast, I'll break your fall.\"\n\n\"Won't that hurt a bit?\"\n\n\"Aye. So don't slide too fast!\"\n\nDeryn clipped herself to the rope, taking one last look at the battle spread out around them. Another of the war elephants had been hit\u2014it was stumbling in a circle, red dust splattered across its glittering steel armor. Lilit's Minotaur was charging forward while the iron golem stood back, its huge right arm launching spice bombs at the remaining elephant. Even with the sea breeze at her back, the smells of spices and gunfire were choking.\n\nThen she saw it\u2014\u015eahmeran lying on her belly half a mile from the tower, pouring out black smoke and burning oil.\n\n\"Zaven's been hit!\" she cried.\n\n\"And that's not all.\" Alek pointed toward the city, where a new column of smoke was rising in the distance.\n\n\"Blisters! Enemy reinforcements!\"\n\n\"Don't worry. That walker's ten kilometers away, and the Ottomans don't have anything fast.\"\n\n\"Fast,\" Bovril said.\n\nDeryn gave it a hard look. \"What in blazes are you saying, beastie?\"\n\n\"Fast,\" it said again.\n\nA giant crash rolled across the battlefield\u2014Lilit's Minotaur had charged straight into the last undamaged war elephant. Both machines went down, tumbling over each other like cats in a fight. A vast red cloud billowed out in all directions, driven by the steam from the two machines' broken boilers, turning the stars in the sky blood red.\n\nThe two walkers' tumbling came to a halt in the center of a swirling tower of dust and engine smoke, neither of them moving.\n\n\"Lilit \u2026,\" Deryn said hoarsely.\n\nThe Minotaur was down, but its head seemed to be undamaged. Maybe the girl was safe inside her metal shell.\n\n\"Look,\" Alek said. \"She's opened the way for Klopp!\"\n\nOnly one elephant remained standing, and it was covered with red dust, barely moving. The iron golem was lumbering steadily forward, with nothing between it and the Tesla cannon.\n\nBut Klopp didn't veer toward the wounded elephant or the cannon\u2014he was headed straight toward them.\n\n\"What's he doing?\" Deryn asked. \"Why's he coming here?\"\n\nAlek swore. \"Klopp and Bauer are following Volger's orders. They're coming to rescue me!\"\n\n\"Blisters, this is what you get for being a barking prince!\"\n\n\"An archduke, technically.\"\n\n\"Whatever you are, we have to show him you don't need rescuing. Come on!\"\n\nDeryn lifted the rope, and felt Bovril tighten its grip on her shoulder.\n\n\"Abandon ship,\" the beastie said.\n\nShe jumped, sliding down through hot clouds of vapor.\n\nBefore he followed Dylan, Alek looked down at the war elephant that had impaled the djinn.\n\nCrewmen were abandoning the walker through its belly hatch, coughing and stumbling blindly. They wouldn't be much of a threat for the moment.\n\nBut seeing the ground so far below made Alek pull his piloting gloves tighter. Learning how to \"belay,\" as Dylan called it, had taught him a healthy respect for rope burn. He swallowed, the tastes of paprika and cayenne heavy in his mouth, then jumped \u2026\n\nThe rope whipped past him, wild and angry, like a stream of scalding water. He jerked himself to a painful halt every few meters, his boots banging against the hot metal of the djinn's armor. Steam clouds swirled around him, the engines inside the walker knocking and hissing as they cooled.\n\nAs his feet thumped down onto hard earth, Alek pulled off the gloves to stare at his burning palms.\n\n\"Took you long enough,\" Dylan complained, turning toward the iron golem. \"Come on. That Tesla cannon's getting ready to fire. We need to show Klopp you're okay!\"\n\nAlek unclipped himself and followed the boy, who had broken into a dead run. The iron golem was still headed toward them, making its steady way across the battlefield.\n\nKlopp clearly hadn't seen the Ottoman reinforcements coming from behind him.\n\nAs he ran, Alek squinted at the smoke trail in the distance. It seemed closer already, and he saw now how the column curved backward against the starlit sky.\n\nFast, the creature had said. But what walker was that fast?\n\nDylan let out a yelp from just ahead. He'd tripped and fallen face-first into the dirt. As the boy scrambled to his feet, Alek slowed, staring down at what Dylan had stumbled on\u2014train tracks.\n\n\"Oh, no.\"\n\n\"What in blazes?\" Dylan stared down at the rails. \"Ah, this must be where the Orient-Express \u2026\"\n\n\"Express,\" the beast hissed softly.\n\nTogether they turned to stare at the approaching column of smoke. It was much closer now, charging along the cliffs ten times faster than any lumbering walker.\n\nAnd it was headed straight for the iron golem.\n\n\"He can't see it,\" Alek said. \"It's right behind him!\"\n\n\"Klopp!\" Dylan cried out, breaking back into a run, his arms waving in the air. \"Get away from the tracks!\"\n\nAlek ran a few more steps, his heart thudding in his ears. But yelling was pointless. He searched his pockets for a way to send a signal\u2014a flare, a gun.\n\nThe famous dragon-headed engine was visible in the distance now, it single eye glowing white hot, smoke spewing from its stacks. Dylan was still running toward Klopp, pointing back at the massive train.\n\nThe iron golem came to a lumbering halt, its head lowering for a better view of the tiny boy before it.\n\nAlek watched as two huge cargo arms unfolded from the engine car of the Express. A dozen meters long, they stretched out in both directions, like a pair of sabers wielded by a charging horseman.\n\nKlopp must have understood Dylan's cries, or heard the train behind him, because the walker began to slowly turn \u2026\n\nBut in that moment the Express shot past, its left cargo arm slicing through the golem's legs. Metal shrieked and buckled, and a cloud of steam burst from the ruined knees.\n\nThe walker tipped backward, its huge arms flailing, and landed on the trailing end of the Express. Two freight cars buckled around the fallen machine, and the cars behind kept piling into it, hurling glass and metal parts into the air.\n\nThe shock wave from being pulled in half rippled up the train until it reached the engine, which skidded from the rails, plowing through the dirt. But the pilots had been ready for this\u2014the Express's arms stretched out like wings to steady the engine car. A handful of coal and freight cars dragged behind the engine, sending clouds of dust into the air.\n\nAlek saw Dylan running back toward him, Bovril a tiny silhouette on his shoulder, both of them about to be swallowed in the rolling mass of dust.\n\n\"Run!\" he was shouting, pointing sideways from the tracks.\n\nThe front half of the train, skidding and derailed but still speeding along, was headed straight at Alek.\n\nHe turned and ran the way Dylan was pointing, directly away from the rails. Long seconds later the dust cloud overtook Alek, blinding him and filling his lungs.\n\nSomething flew out of the dark mass and knocked him off his feet, strong hands pushing his head down into the dirt.\n\nA huge shadow swept overhead\u2014the Express's cargo arm, Alek realized. A cascade of dirt and gravel flew over him, and a clamor like a thousand foundries rolled past, full of shrieks and clangs and explosions.\n\nAs the noise faded, the dust cleared a little, and Alek looked up.\n\n\"Well, that was close,\" he said. Not five meters from his head, the skidding claw of the cargo arm had carved a furrow as wide as a carriage lane.\n\n\"You're welcome, your archdukeness.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Dylan.\" Alek stood up, dusting off his clothes and looking dazedly about.\n\nThe front half of the Orient-Express had finally slid to a halt, almost skidding into the Tesla cannon itself. The iron golem lay hissing and steaming on the ground, the back half of the train in piles around it. Alek took a step closer, wondering if Master Klopp and Bauer were all right.\n\nBut Bovril was growling, echoing a low buzzing noise that drifted across the battlefield. A crackle was building in the air.\n\nDylan pointed toward the southern sky, where a long silhouette had finally appeared\u2014the Leviathan, black and huge against the stars.\n\nAlek turned back toward the Tesla cannon. As he watched, the awful shimmers began to travel up into its tip.\n\n\"We have to stop it,\" Dylan said. \"There's no one else.\"\n\nAlek nodded dumbly. Klopp and Bauer, Lilit and Zaven\u2014they all needed his help. But the Tesla cannon was readying to fire, and the Leviathan had more than a hundred men aboard.\n\nHis fists clenched in frustration. If only he were in a walker now, with huge arms to tear the tower down.\n\n\"Express,\" Bovril hissed.\n\n\"The train,\" Alek said softly. \"If we can take the engine car, we can use its cargo arms!\"\n\nDylan gazed at him a moment, then nodded. They ran together, stumbling across the wreckage-strewn ground, dodging the piles of scattered cargo that had been thrown from the train.\n\nThe front half of the Orient-Express had come to rest only fifteen meters from the Tesla cannon. The cargo arms were motionless, but the smokestacks were still belching. A few soldiers stumbled out of the engine cars, wearing German uniforms, rifles strapped across their shoulders.\n\nAlek dragged Dylan to a halt in the shadows. \"They're armed, and we're not.\"\n\n\"Aye. Follow me.\"\n\nThe boy ran to the last car in the line, a freight carrier lying lopsided in the furrow dug by the train's passage. He climbed up and along its top, making his way toward the engine car. Alek followed, crouching low to keep out of sight.\n\nThe soldiers hardly looked alert. They were walking about in a dumbfounded state, gazing at the battle wreckage around them and coughing spices from their lungs. A few stared at the Leviathan in the sky.\n\nAlek heard a familiar sound\u2014the rumble of the airship's engines. He glanced up and saw that the Leviathan was halfway through a turn. The crew had spotted the glittering Tesla cannon and were trying to bring the ship about.\n\nBut they were too late. It would take long minutes to get out of range, and the Tesla cannon was buzzing like a beehive, almost ready to fire.\n\nDylan had reached the coal hopper behind the engine, and Alek jumped in after him. Coal skidded under his feet and turned his hands black as he caught himself from stumbling.\n\nDylan scrambled to the front and climbed out, reaching down to give Alek a hand.\n\n\"Quickly now,\" the boy whispered.\n\nAlek pulled himself up between the two huge cargo arms. He could feel the air crackling; sparks from the giant tower were making the shadows quiver. But the engineer's cabin was just ahead.\n\n\"There's only one man inside,\" Dylan whispered, handing Bovril to Alek and pulling a knife from his jacket. \"I can handle him.\"\n\nNot waiting for an answer, the boy swung himself down and in through a window in a single motion. By the time Alek reached the door, Dylan had the lone engineer cowering in a corner.\n\nAlek stepped inside and looked at the controls\u2014a legion of unfamiliar dials and gauges, brake levers and engine stokers. But the saunters were metal gloves on poles, just like the ones that controlled \u015eahmeran's arms.\n\nHe placed Bovril on the floor, stuck his hands into the saunters, and made a fist.\n\nA dozen meters to his right, the huge claw responded, snapping shut. A few of the German soldiers looked up at the noise, but most were transfixed by the glittering Tesla cannon and the airship overhead.\n\n\"Don't muck about!\" Dylan hissed. \"Tear it down!\"\n\nAlek extended his arm, reaching out for the tower. But the great claw clamped shut a few meters short of the nearest glowing strut.\n\n\"Get us closer!\" Dylan said.\n\nAlek stared at the engine levers, then realized that the train's wheels were useless without a track. But he remembered a legless beggar he'd seen in the town of Lienz, propelling himself along on a wheeled board with his hands.\n\nHe set both claws against the ground, one on either side, and scraped them backward. The engine car lifted a bit, sliding forward a meter or so, then settled back into the dirt.\n\n\"Closer,\" Bovril said approvingly.\n\n\"Well, we've got the Germans' attention now,\" Dylan muttered, looking out the window.\n\n\"I leave that matter to you,\" Alek answered, scraping the huge claws against the ground again. The engine car skidded forward with an ungodly screech, metal striking the bedrock of the cliffs.\n\nShouts came through the windows now, and a soldier leapt up to pound on the door. Dylan punched the engineer in the stomach, crumpling him to the floor, then turned to stand ready with his knife.\n\nAlek outstretched the cargo arms again.\n\nThis time one great claw reached the Tesla cannon's lowest strut. As he snapped the claw shut, a crackle shot through the cabin. The metal gloves sizzled in Alek's hands, and an invisible force seemed to close around his chest. Every hair on Bovril's body was standing on end.\n\n\"Barking spiders!\" Dylan cried. \"The lightning's coming for us!\"\n\nSparks danced along the controls and the walls of the cabin, and the soldier at the door yelped, jumping off the metal running board.\n\nAlek set his teeth against the pain, pulling harder on the saunter. The engine car lifted into the air again, the strut letting out a metal groan as it slowly bent toward them. At the base of the tower, a ball of white fire was spiraling into being.\n\n\"It's about to fire!\" Dylan cried.\n\nAlek pulled as hard as he could, and a sudden shudder passed through the car. The saunters went limp in his hand, and the lightning on the cabin walls flickered out.\n\n\"You snapped it, and the cannon's \u2026\" Dylan frowned. \"It's tipping. The whole barking thing is tipping over!\"\n\n\"From one broken strut?\" Alek stepped to the window, looking up.\n\nThe tower was slowly leaning away, the lightning flowing down from its higher struts into a ball of white fire on its opposite side. A huge snakelike form clung to the struts there, halfway up, wrapped in a glowing cocoon of electricity.\n\n\"Is that \u2026 ?\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Dylan breathed. \"It's \u015eahmeran.\"\n\nZaven had somehow piloted his injured walker all the way to the tower. And now it was acting as a conductor, drawing the power of the cannon into itself.\n\nLightning spun in a whirlwind around the goddess walker, glowing brighter and brighter until Alek had to shut his eyes.\n\n\"He'll be done for in there,\" Dylan said, and Alek nodded.\n\nA few seconds later the Tesla cannon began to fall.\n\nThe tower toppled around \u015eahmeran in a maelstrom of white fire.\n\nTendrils of lightning leapt out in all directions, dancing on the frozen djinn and elephant, on the other fallen walkers, and along the wreckage of the Orient-Express. The metal walls of the engine car crackled with sparks and spiderwebs of flame.\n\nAs the lightning faded, the roar of the tower's collapse filled the air. A falling strut struck the engine car\u2014the ceiling dented inward, and the windows shattered all at once. Bending metal howled around them, and smoke and dust billowed through the car.\n\nLong moments later a heavy silence settled over the battlefield.\n\n\"Are you all right, Dylan?\" Alek's words sounded muffled in his own ears.\n\n\"Aye. How about you, beastie?\"\n\n\"Zaven,\" said Bovril softly.\n\nDylan took the creature into his arms. \"Listen. The Leviathan's still up there.\"\n\nIt was true\u2014the soft rumble of the airship's engines had settled over the silent battlefield. At least all this madness hadn't been in vain.\n\n\"Leviathan,\" Bovril repeated slowly, rolling the word around in its mouth.\n\nAlek stepped closer to the window. The Tesla cannon stretched out into the distance, jagged and broken, like the unearthed spine of some huge extinct creature. The djinn lay fallen beside the war elephant, both walkers battered by the cascade of debris.\n\nA cold shiver went through Alek\u2014most of the German soldiers had disappeared beneath the ruined tower.\n\n\"We need to see if Lilit's all right,\" he said. \"And Klopp and Bauer.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Dylan put Bovril on his shoulder. \"But who first?\"\n\nAlek hesitated, realizing that his men might be dead, as Zaven certainly was. \"Lilit first. Her father \u2026\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nThey opened the door and stepped out into a hellish landscape. The smoke and spices and engine oil were choking, but the smells of burned flesh and hair were worse. Alek turned his eyes from what the cannon's last discharge of electricity had done to the men outside.\n\n\"Come on,\" Dylan said hoarsely, dragging him away.\n\nAs they skirted the wreckage, Bovril raised its head and said, \"Lilit.\"\n\nAlek followed the creature's gaze, squinting through the darkness. There at the edge of the cliffs was a lonely figure, looking out over the water.\n\n\"Lilit!\" Dylan called, and the figure turned to face them.\n\nThey ran to her, the cool sea breeze carrying away the smells of battle and destruction. Lilit's piloting gear was torn, her face pale in the darkness. A long canvas bag lay in the dirt beside her feet.\n\nAs they drew close, she stumbled into Dylan's arms.\n\n\"Your father,\" the boy said. \"I'm so sorry.\"\n\nLilit pulled away. \"I saw what he was doing, so I cleared a path for him. I helped him do it \u2026\" She shook her head, tears tracking the dust on her face, and turned to stare at the fallen tower. \"Have we all gone mad, to want this?\"\n\n\"He saved the Leviathan,\" Alek said.\n\nLilit just looked at him, dazed and uncertain, as if every language she knew had been knocked from her head. Her stare made him feel foolish for speaking.\n\n\"All gone mad,\" Bovril said.\n\nLilit reached out to stroke the creature's fur, her eyes still glassy.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" Dylan asked.\n\n\"Just dizzy \u2026 and amazed. Look at that.\"\n\nShe pointed across the water toward the city of Istanbul. Its dark streets sparkled with gunfire, and half a dozen gyrothopters hovered over the palace. As Alek watched, a silent tendril of flame arced through the sky, then disappeared with a rumble among the ancient buildings.\n\n\"See? It's really happening,\" Lilit said. \"Just as we planned.\"\n\n\"Aye, that's the barking strangest thing about battle\u2014that it's real.\" Dylan looked out across the water. \"The behemoth won't be long now.\"\n\nAlek took a step closer to the cliff's edge and gazed down. The Goeben was steaming out, her kraken-fighting arms spread like the claws of a crab. Sparks glimmered across the tower on her aft decks.\n\n\"Another Tesla cannon,\" Lilit whispered. \"I'd forgotten.\"\n\n\"Not to worry,\" Dylan said. \"It's not as big, and doesn't have the range. The lady boffin has this timed to perfection.\"\n\nAs he spoke, a single spotlight lanced out from the airship's gondola, so bright that its beam sliced deep into the water. It slid toward the Goeben, a column of light rippling through blackness.\n\nThe gyrothopters above the palace moved toward the airship, and smaller spotlights from the Leviathan sprang to life, picking the gyrothopters out against the dark sky. From this distance Alek couldn't see the hawks or bats, but one by one, the gyrothopters tumbled from the air.\n\n\"They've had a whole month for repairs and refits,\" Dylan said. \"And to make more beasties.\"\n\nAlek nodded, realizing that he'd never seen the Leviathan at full strength, only damaged and starved. Tonight it would be a different ship altogether.\n\n\"Beasties,\" said Bovril, its eyes glowing like a cat's.\n\nThe main spotlight reached the Goeben, and for a moment the warship's steel guns and armor glowed a blinding white. Then the spotlight flicked from one color to the next\u2014purple, green, and finally blood red.\n\nA pair of tentacles stretched from the water, spilling sheets of rain across the Goeben's decks.\n\nIt was the behemoth.\n\nThe ironclad's kraken-fighting arms swung about, their snippers slashing at the sea monster's flesh. But the tentacles didn't seem to feel the cuts, coiling like slow pythons around the center of the warship. A huge head lifted up from the water, two eyes gleaming in the red of the spotlight.\u2026\n\nAlek took a step back. Unlike a kraken's, the behemoth's tentacles were only a small part of the beast. Its long body was all bony plates and segments, a spiny ridge traveling down its back. It repulsed him, like something dragged up from the deepest ocean, ancient and alien.\n\nA desolate sound rolled across the water, the ironclad's hull wailing as it bent in the behemoth's grasp. Her small guns were firing in all directions, the kraken-fighting arms flailing against the massive tentacles. Men and spent ammunition slid across the warship's decks as she rocked back and forth.\n\n\"Barking spiders,\" Dylan breathed. \"Dr. Barlow said the beastie was huge, but I never thought \u2026\"\n\nSomething flared inside the Goeben's broken hull, one of her boilers spilling flame. Hissing steam clouds shot from ruptures in the ship's armor plates.\n\nThe Tesla cannon tried to fire, but its half-charged lightning barely leapt into the sky, then tumbled back to coil around the behemoth's tentacles and dance on the metal decks. Explosions flickered up and down the warship's length as fuel tanks and magazines were ignited by white fire.\n\nThe searchlight turned a brilliant blue, and in one huge motion the behemoth hauled its body onto the superstructure, forcing the warship down. The Goeben resisted for a moment, but then her foredecks slipped beneath the waves. The aft end rose up, and the Tesla cannon climbed into the dark sky, still shimmering. With a metal shriek the warship split in two, both halves sliding neatly down into the water.\n\nA lone kraken-fighting arm reached up from the churning waves, its claw snapping at the air before it disappeared again. Then a burst of red light flared beneath the surface, sending columns of fresh steam into the air.\n\nThe water settled slowly, and then was still again.\n\n\"Poor bum-rags,\" Dylan said.\n\nAlek stood silent. In the last month he'd somehow forgotten what the revolution would mean for the crew of the Goeben.\n\n\"I have to join my comrades,\" Lilit said, kneeling beside the long canvas bag. She pulled out a mass of metal poles and rippling silk, and set to work. The contraption expanded, driven by coils of springs inside. In moments it was five meters across, the wings as translucent as those of a mosquito.\n\n\"What in blazes?\" Dylan cried.\n\n\"A body kite,\" Alek said. \"But you'll never make it back to Istanbul in that.\"\n\n\"I don't need to. My uncle's fishing boat is waiting beneath the cliffs.\" Lilit turned to Dylan. \"I'm sorry, but he can be trusted. And I had to tell someone else our plan, in case we needed a way back to the city.\"\n\n\"Now?\" Dylan asked. \"But we have to check on Klopp and Bauer!\"\n\n\"Of course you do; they're your friends. But the revolution needs its leaders tonight.\" Lilit stared across the water, her voice falling. \"And Nene will need me too.\"\n\nAs she stood there, fresh tears streaking the grime on her face, Alek thought of the night his own parents had died. Strangely, all he could recall now was repeating the story to Eddie Malone in payment for the man's silence. It was as if the telling had erased the real memory.\n\n\"I'm sorry about your father,\" he said, every word stiff and clumsy in his mouth.\n\nLilit gave him a curious look. \"If the sultan wins tonight, you'll simply run off somewhere new, won't you?\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"That's probably true.\"\n\n\"Good luck, then,\" she said. \"Your gold was very useful.\"\n\n\"You're welcome, if that was meant as a thank you.\"\n\n\"It was.\" She turned to Dylan. \"No matter what happens, I'll never forget what you've done for us. I think you're the most brilliant boy I've ever met.\"\n\n\"Aye, well, it was just\u2014\"\n\nLilit didn't let him finish, but threw her arms around him, kissing him hard on the lips. After a long moment she pulled away and smiled. \"I'm sorry. I was just curious.\"\n\n\"Curious? Barking spiders!\" Dylan cried, a hand at his mouth. \"You hardly know me!\"\n\nLilit laughed and lifted the body kite into the air. As its wings filled with the cool sea breeze, she stepped to the edge of the cliffs, her hands on the pilot strut.\n\n\"I know you better than you think, Mr. Sharp.\" She smiled, turning to Alek. \"You don't know what a friend you have in Dylan.\"\n\nWith that, she stepped off into the darkness \u2026 and fell from their sight.\n\nAlek rushed to the edge of the cliff, looking down in horror. The body kite tumbled for a moment, but then steadied itself and angled out to sea. The wind lifted it up higher, almost level with the cliff tops, and for a moment they could hear Lilit's laughter once more.\n\nThe kite turned hard, banking toward the city lights. A moment later it had slipped away into the darkness.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Bovril said, and chuckled.\n\nAlek shook his head, wondering at Lilit. Her father was dead and her city in flames\u2014and there she was, soaring through the air, somehow laughing.\n\n\"That girl is quite mad.\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Dylan touched his mouth again. \"But she's not a bad kisser.\"\n\nAlek looked at the boy, then shook his head again.\n\n\"Come on. Let's go see about Master Klopp.\"\n\nThe iron golem lay in a heap of train cars and scattered cargo, its legs twisted and torn. Only its upper half remained intact, the huge head leaning back against the wreckage of two freight cars, a sleeping giant with a crumpled metal pillow.\n\nDeryn and Alek made their way closer, through electrical parts and shattered glass. The railroad tracks had been torn from the ground, and lay among the other debris like tangled ribbons of steel.\n\n\"Blisters,\" Deryn said as they passed an overturned dining car, its red velvet curtains spilling through broken windows. \"Lucky there were no passengers aboard.\"\n\n\"We can get up to the golem's head that way,\" Alek said, pointing at the huge hand lying splayed in the dirt. They climbed onto it and up the walker's arm, and soon saw two motionless forms strapped into the pilots' chairs.\n\n\"Master Klopp!\" Alek cried out. \"Hans!\"\n\nOne of the men stirred.\n\nDeryn saw that it was Bauer, his eyes glazed, his hands reaching feebly for the seat straps. She followed Alek up and helped him get the man out.\n\n\"Was uns getroffen?\" he asked.\n\n\"Der Orient-Express,\" Alek explained.\n\nBauer gave him a befuddled look, then saw the wreckage around them, belief dawning slowly in his face.\n\nThe three of them unstrapped Klopp and laid him on the golem's broad shoulder. The master of mechaniks still wasn't moving. Blood caked his face, and when Deryn put her hand to Klopp's neck, his pulse was weak.\n\n\"We have to get him to a doctor.\"\n\n\"Yes, but how?\" Alek asked.\n\nDeryn's eyes swept the battlefield. Not a single walker remained standing. But in the sky the Leviathan's silhouette had swung into profile. It was just as she'd expected\u2014now that it had dispatched the Goeben, the airship was coming about for a closer look at the wrecked Tesla cannon.\n\nShe opened her mouth to explain, but suddenly the beastie on her shoulder was imitating a soft thumping sound.\n\nAlek heard it too. \"Walkers.\"\n\nDeryn turned toward the city. A dozen columns of smoke rose from the horizon.\n\n\"Could they be from the Committee?\"\n\nAlek shook his head. \"They don't even know we're here.\"\n\n\"Aye, it was meant to be that way. But that anarchist lassie told her uncle, didn't she?\"\n\nBauer rose unsteadily to his feet, lifting a pair of field glasses. One lens was shattered, so he held the other to his eye like a telescope.\n\n\"Elefanten,\" he said a moment later.\n\nAlek swore. \"At least those things are slow.\"\n\n\"But we'll never carry Klopp out of here,\" Deryn said. \"Not without help.\"\n\n\"And where do you suppose we'll get that?\"\n\nShe pointed up at the dark shape over the water, still turning, its searchlights angling toward the cliffs now. \"The Leviathan is on its way to take a closer look. We can signal them, and get Klopp to the ship's surgeon.\"\n\n\"A, B, C \u2026,\" Bovril said happily.\n\n\"They'll take us prisoner again!\" Alek said.\n\n\"Aye, and what do you think the barking Ottomans will do, after all this?\" Deryn swept her arm across the wreckage. \"At least with us you'll be alive!\"\n\n\"Ich kann bleiben mit Meister Klopp, Herr,\" Bauer said.\n\nDeryn's eyes narrowed. After a month working with Clankers, her German was much better. \"What does he mean, he'll stay with Klopp?\"\n\nAlek turned to Deryn. \"Your ship can pick Bauer and Klopp up, while you and I make a run for it.\"\n\nDeryn's jaw dropped. \"Have you gone barking mad?\"\n\n\"The Ottomans will never spot us in all this mess.\" Alek clenched his fists. \"And just think, if the Committee wins tonight, they'll throw the Germans out. And they owe both of us a debt, Dylan. We can stay here, among allies.\"\n\n\"Not me, you daft prince! I have to go home!\"\n\n\"But I can't do this alone \u2026 not without you.\" His eyes softened. \"Please come with me.\"\n\nDeryn turned from him, for a moment wishing that Alek were asking this same question but in a different way. Not as some Dummkopf of a prince who expected everyone to serve his purposes, but as a man.\n\nIt wasn't his fault, of course. She'd never told Alek why she'd really come to Istanbul\u2014not for the mission but for him. She hadn't told him anything, and it was too late now. They'd been together a whole month, working and fighting side by side, and still she hadn't convinced herself that a common girl could matter to him.\n\nSo what was the point of staying?\n\n\"There's more to do here, Dylan,\" he said. \"You're the best soldier the revolution has.\"\n\n\"Aye, but that's my home up there. I can't live with \u2026 your machines.\"\n\nAlek spread his hands. \"It doesn't matter. Your crew will never see us.\"\n\n\"They have to.\" Deryn stared out across the battlefield, looking for something to signal with. But Alek was right; even if she had ten-foot semaphore flags, no one would ever see her among the wreckage of the train.\n\nThen she saw them\u2014the golem's arms stretched out in both directions. The right one was straight out, the left one at an angle, almost making the sign for the letter S.\n\n\"Can this contraption still move?\"\n\n\"What, the walker?\"\n\n\"A, B, C,\" Bovril said again.\n\n\"Aye. A giant sending signals would be barking hard to miss.\"\n\n\"The boilers are cold,\" Alek said. \"But I suppose the pneumatics might still have some pressure in them.\"\n\n\"Then take a look!\"\n\nAlek gritted his teeth, but climbed back up to the head and knelt by the controls. He rapped at two of the gauges, then turned back, an uncertain look on his face.\n\n\"Can it work?\" she called. \"Don't lie to me!\"\n\n\"I would never lie to you, Dylan. We can signal perhaps a dozen letters.\"\n\n\"Then do it! Follow my lead.\" Deryn held her right arm out straight, her left angled down.\n\nAlek didn't move. \"If I give myself up to your captain, he'll never let me escape again.\"\n\n\"But if you don't signal the Leviathan for help, Klopp is a dead man. We all are, once those walkers get here!\"\n\nAlek stared at her another moment, then sighed and turned to the controls, placing his hands in the saunters. The hiss of pneumatics filled the air, and then the great arms scraped slowly along the ground, exactly matching Deryn's stance.\n\n\"S \u2026,\" the perspicacious loris said.\n\nDeryn swung her left arm across herself. This letter was harder for the iron golem, half lying in the dirt as it was, but Alek managed to bend its elbow just enough.\n\n\"H!\" Bovril announced, and kept up as Deryn continued. \"A \u2026 R \u2026 P \u2026\"\n\nBy the fifth letter the Leviathan's huge kraken spotlight had found them, and together they repeated the sequence twice more before the giant arms' last squick of pressure hissed away into the night.\n\nAlek turned from the saunters. \"Wie lange haben wir, Hans?\"\n\nBauer shielded his eyes from the spotlight's glare. \"Zehn minuten?\"\n\n\"We still have time to get away, Dylan.\"\n\n\"Not with only ten minutes, and there's no need to run.\" Deryn put a hand on Alek's shoulder. \"After what we've done tonight, I can tell the captain how you introduced me to the Committee. And how if you hadn't, the ship would've been shot down!\" She said it all fast. Breaking her silent promise to leave him behind was as easy as breathing.\n\n\"I expect they'll give me a medal,\" Alek said drily.\n\n\"Aye, you never know about that.\"\n\nThe spotlight began to flicker then, long and short flashes. Deryn was out of practice with Morse code, but as she watched, the familiar patterns came back into her mind.\n\n\"Message received,\" she said. \"And the captain sends me greetings!\"\n\n\"How very polite.\"\n\nDeryn kept her eyes on the flickering spotlight. \"They're getting ready to pick us up. We'll have Master Klopp to a surgeon in half a squick!\"\n\n\"Then you don't need me and Hans anymore.\" Alek held out his hand. \"I have to say good-bye.\"\n\n\"Don't,\" Deryn pleaded. \"You'll never make it past all those walkers. And I swear I won't let the captain chain you up. If he does, I'll break the locks myself!\"\n\nAlek stared down at his offered hand, but then his dark green eyes caught hers. They gazed at each other for a long moment, the rumble of the airship's engines trembling on Deryn's skin.\n\n\"Come with me,\" she said, finally grasping his hand. \"It's like you said the night before you ran away, how all the parts of the Leviathan fit. You belong there.\"\n\nHe looked up at the airship, his eyes glistening. He was still in love with it, Deryn could see.\n\n\"Perhaps I shouldn't run off without my men,\" he said.\n\n\"Mein Herr,\" Bauer said. \"Graf Volger befahl mir\u2014\"\n\n\"Volger!\" Alek spat. \"If it weren't for his scheming, we'd all have kept together in the first place.\"\n\nDeryn squeezed his hand harder. \"It'll be all right. I swear.\"\n\nAs the airship drew closer, a whisper of wings came from overhead, steel talons glinting in the searchlights. Deryn let go of Alek's hand, and breathed deep the bitter almond of spilled hydrogen\u2014the dangerous, beautiful smell of a hasty descent. Ropes tumbled from the gondola's cargo door, and seconds later men were sliding down them.\n\n\"Isn't that a barking brilliant sight?\"\n\n\"Beautiful,\" Alek said. \"If one isn't chained up inside.\"\n\n\"Nonsense.\" Deryn banged his shoulder. \"That blether about chains, that was just an expression. They only locked Count Volger in his stateroom, and I had to bring him breakfast every day!\"\n\n\"How luxurious.\"\n\nShe smiled, though the thought of Volger sent a squick of nerves through her\u2014he knew her secret. The man could still betray her to the officers, or to Alek, anytime he wanted.\n\nBut she couldn't keep hiding from his countship forever. It wasn't soldierly. And besides, she could always toss him out a window if it came to that.\n\nAs the airship came to a rumbling halt, Bovril clung tighter to her shoulder. \"Breakfast every day?\" it asked.\n\n\"Aye, beastie,\" Deryn said, stroking its fur. \"You're going home.\"\n\n\"S-H-A-R-P!\" said Newkirk from the mouth of the cargo bay. \"Blisters, Dylan, it's really you!\"\n\n\"Who else?\" Deryn replied, grinning as she took the boy's offered hand. She pulled herself up in a single heave.\n\n\"And you found the missing beastie?\"\n\n\"Aye.\" Deryn hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the wreckage-strewn battlefield. \"One of my many accomplishments.\"\n\nNewkirk looked down. \"You have been busy, Mr. Sharp. But save your bragging. There are German walkers coming, and the bosun says you're wanted in the navigation room.\"\n\n\"Now?\" Deryn glanced back at the rescue operation. Klopp was rising through the air, trussed to a stretcher, while Alek and Bauer waited on the iron golem's shoulder.\n\n\"The bosun says right away.\"\n\n\"All right, Mr. Newkirk. But make sure you get those Clankers up safely.\"\n\n\"Aye, don't worry. We'll not let the bum-rags slip away again!\"\n\nDeryn didn't argue with the boy. It didn't matter what Newkirk thought, as long as the officers knew that Alek had come back of his own free will.\n\nClanker or not, he belonged here.\n\nOn her way to the navigation room, the airship hummed and rumbled beneath Deryn's feet, the corridors full of scrambling men and beasts. Bovril took in everything with eyes the size of florins, awed into a rare silence. The beastie belonged here too, it seemed.\n\nThe lady boffin waited in the navigation room, staring out at the lights of Istanbul across the water. Deryn frowned\u2014she'd expected to find the captain. Of course, with German walkers on the way, the officers would be up on the bridge. But why had she been ordered here instead of to a battle station?\n\nTazza leapt up from the floor beside Dr. Barlow, running over to snuffle at Deryn's boots. She knelt to cup his nose with her palm.\n\n\"Good to see you, Tazza.\"\n\n\"Tazza,\" Bovril repeated, then chuckled.\n\n\"A pleasure to see you too, Mr. Sharp,\" the lady boffin said, turning from the view. \"We've all been quite beside ourselves with worry.\"\n\n\"It's brilliant to be home, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Of course, it stands to reason that you'd make it back safe and sound, resourceful lad that you are.\" The lady boffin's fingers drummed the sill of the window. \"Though I see you've caused a bit of trouble in the meantime.\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am.\" Deryn allowed herself to smile. \"It was a bit of trouble, knocking out that Tesla cannon. But we got it done.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes.\" The lady boffin waved her hand, as if she saw towers wrapped in lightning topple every day. \"But I meant that creature on your shoulder, not this tiresome battle.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Deryn said, looking at Bovril. \"You mean you're glad to have it back, then?\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Sharp, that is not what I mean.\" Dr. Barlow let out a slow sigh. \"Have you forgotten already? I went to great pains to make sure that the loris hatched while Alek was in the machine room. So that its nascent fixation would be directed entirely at him.\"\n\n\"Aye, I remember that,\" Deryn said. \"How it's like a baby duck, latching on to whoever it sees first.\"\n\n\"Exactly, which was Alek. And yet here it is on your shoulder, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\nDeryn frowned, trying to remember exactly when Bovril had started riding on her shoulder as often as Alek's. \"Well, the beastie seems to like me just as much as it does him. And why wouldn't it? I mean, Alek is a barking Clanker, after all.\"\n\nDr. Barlow sat down at the map table, shaking her head. \"It wasn't designed to bond with two people! Not unless they're \u2026\" She narrowed her eyes. \"I suppose you and Alek have rather a close friendship, haven't you, Mr. Sharp?\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Bovril repeated, then giggled.\n\nDeryn gave the beastie a hard look, then spread her hands. \"Honestly, I don't know, ma'am. It's just that Alek was busy driving the walker tonight, so Bovril started off on my shoulder, and I suppose that\u2014\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" Dr. Barlow interrupted. \"But did you just say Bovril??\"\n\n\"Oh, aye. That's its name, sort of.\"\n\nThe lady boffin raised an eyebrow. \"As in the beef extract?\"\n\n\"It wasn't me who named it,\" Deryn said. \"They taught us all that in middy training, about not getting attached. But this anarchist lassie kept insisting on calling it Bovril, and the name sort of \u2026 stuck.\"\n\n\"Bovril,\" the beastie repeated.\n\nDr. Barlow stepped forward to peer more closely at the loris, then shook her head again. \"I wonder if this excess of bonding is Mr. Newkirk's fault. He never quite kept the eggs at an even temperature.\"\n\n\"You mean, Bovril might be defective?\"\n\n\"One never can tell with a new species. You say an 'anarchist lassie' started this Bovril nonsense?\"\n\nDeryn started to explain, but found herself wavering on her feet, and plonked down into a chair. It wasn't exactly good manners, sitting in a lady's presence, but suddenly all that had happened tonight was hitting Deryn hard\u2014the battle, Zaven's death, the narrow escape of the Leviathan from a fiery end.\n\nMore than anything else, it was a relief to be home. To feel the ship beneath her feet, real and solid, and not burning horribly in the sky. And Alek aboard by now as well \u2026\n\n\"You see, ma'am, when I found him, Alek had taken up with this Committee for Union and Progress, who were dead keen to overthrow the sultan. I didn't approve of them, of course, but then we found out there was a Tesla cannon being built. Knowing that it could destroy the Leviathan, I had to make sure it came down. Even if that meant joining up with anarchists\u2014or revolutionaries, whatever you want to call them.\"\n\n\"Very resourceful, as always.\" The lady boffin sat across from her, reaching down to scratch Tazza's head. \"Count Volger wasn't far wrong, was he?\"\n\n\"Count Volger?\" A squick of panic went through Deryn at the name. \"If you don't mind me asking, ma'am, what exactly wasn't he wrong about?\"\n\n\"He said that Alek had fallen in with unsavory elements. And also that you would be able to find our missing prince.\"\n\nDeryn nodded slowly. Volger had been sitting right there, of course, when she'd heard the clue about Alek's hotel. \"He's a clever-boots, that one.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" The lady boffin stood up again and turned to stare out. \"Though he may be wrong about this Committee. However unsavory their politics, they have performed a valuable service for Britain today.\"\n\n\"Aye, ma'am. They helped us save the barking ship!\"\n\n\"They seem to have toppled the sultan as well.\"\n\nDeryn hauled herself up and joined Dr. Barlow at the window. The ship was under way again, heading back across the water. In the distance the streets of Istanbul were still alight with gunfire and explosions, and Deryn could make out swirling clouds of spice dust in the war elephants' searchlights.\n\n\"I'm not certain he's toppled yet, ma'am. It looks as if they're still fighting.\"\n\n\"This battle is quite pointless, I assure you,\" the lady boffin said. \"A few minutes after the Goeben was destroyed, we spotted the Imperial Airyacht Stamboul lifting off from the palace grounds, flying a flag of truce.\"\n\n\"Truce? But the battle's hardly begun. Why would the sultan surrender?\"\n\n\"He did not. According to the Stamboul's signal flags, the Kizlar Agha was in command.\" Dr. Barlow smiled coolly. \"He was taking the sultan to a place of safety, far from the troubles of Istanbul.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Deryn frowned. \"You mean he was \u2026 kidnapping his own sovereign?\"\n\n\"As I said to you some time ago, sultans have been replaced before.\"\n\nDeryn let out a low whistle, wondering how long this meaningless battle would go on. Out the window the dark water of the bay was still churning where the Goeben had gone down. She wondered if the behemoth was still down there, picking through the jumble of steel and oil for its supper.\n\nThe spotlight came on again, cutting into the water to bring the beastie to heel. The Breslau would be next on the menu.\n\n\"If the Committee's really winning,\" Deryn said, \"then Germany will be the only Clanker power left!\"\n\n\"My dear boy, there is still Austria-Hungary.\"\n\n\"Right, of course.\" Deryn cleared her throat, silently cursing herself. \"Don't know how I forgot about them.\"\n\nDr. Barlow raised an eyebrow. \"You forgot about Alek's own people? How odd, Mr. Sharp.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" came a voice from above them.\n\nDeryn looked straight up, and her jaw dropped.\n\nTwo small eyes were peering back at her from the ceiling. They belonged to another perspicacious loris, its tiny paws clinging to a message lizard tube. It looked almost like Bovril, except for missing the spots on its haunches.\n\n\"What in blazes?\"\n\nThen she remembered\u2014there had been three remaining eggs. Bovril's, the one smashed by the sultan's automaton, and another that she'd forgotten all about. It would have hatched in the last month, of course.\n\nDr. Barlow raised a hand, and the other beastie swung from one paw like a monkey, then dropped. It encircled the lady boffin's arm, sliding down to her shoulder.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" the new beastie said again.\n\n\"Mr. Sharp,\" Bovril corrected, then they both began to giggle.\n\n\"Why does it keep laughing?\" asked the lady boffin.\n\n\"I've no barking idea,\" Deryn said. \"Sometimes I think it's cracked in the attic.\"\n\n\"Revolution,\" Bovril announced.\n\nDeryn stared at it. She'd never heard the creature say something out of the blue before.\n\nThe new beastie repeated the word, rolling it around on its tongue happily, then said, \"Balance of power.\"\n\nBovril chuckled at the phrase, then dutifully parroted it.\n\nAs Deryn watched with growing astonishment, the creatures began to jabber, each repeating what the other said. The single words became a torrent of phrases in English, Clanker, Armenian, Turkish, and half a dozen other languages.\n\nSoon Bovril was reciting whole conversations that Deryn had shared with Alek or Lilit or Zaven, while the new beastie made declamations that sounded just like Dr. Barlow talking, even a few that had to be Count Volger!\n\n\"Excuse me, ma'am,\" Deryn whispered, \"but what in blazes are they doing?\"\n\nThe lady boffin smiled. \"My boy, they are doing what comes naturally to them.\"\n\n\"But they're fabricated! What's natural to them?\"\n\n\"Why, only becoming more perspicacious, of course.\"\n\nThe next morning Alek was allowed to visit Volger.\n\nAs his guard let him into the wildcount's stateroom, Alek noticed that the door wasn't locked. Alek himself had been treated politely the night before, more like a guest than a prisoner. Perhaps the tension between his men and their Darwinist captors had thawed a little in the last month.\n\nCount Volger looked comfortable enough. He was at his desk eating a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and toast, and didn't bother to stand when Alek arrived. He simply nodded and said, \"Prince Aleksandar.\"\n\nAlek bowed. \"Count.\"\n\nVolger went back to scraping butter onto a piece of toast.\n\nStanding there waiting, Alek felt like a schoolboy called in for punishment. He had never been to school, of course, but somehow adults\u2014whether tutors, parents, or grandmotherly revolutionaries like Nene\u2014all wore their disappointment in the same way. Surely headmasters weren't so different.\n\nFinally Alek sighed and said, \"It might save time if I began.\"\n\n\"As you wish.\"\n\n\"You want to tell me that I'm a fool for having been captured again. That it was mad to involve myself in Ottoman politics. By now I could be safely hidden in the wilds.\"\n\nCount Volger nodded. \"Yes, there is that.\"\n\nThe man went back to scraping his piece of toast, seemingly intent on covering every square millimeter with butter.\n\n\"In not taking your advice, I risked my life and the life of my men,\" Alek continued. \"Dr. Busk says that Klopp is recovering well enough, but I led him and Bauer into an all-out battle. Things could have turned out worse.\"\n\n\"Much worse,\" Volger said, then fell silent again.\n\n\"Let's see \u2026 Ah, I've also thrown away everything my father left me. The castle, all your plans, and finally his gold.\" Alek reached inside his piloting coat and felt for a hard lump sewed into a corner of the lining. He tore the fabric, pulled out what remained of the gold, and tossed it onto the table.\n\nAfter a month of buying spices and mechanikal parts, the bar had been mostly shaved away. All that was left was the round Hapsburg crest stamped at its center, like a thick, roughly made coin.\n\nVolger blinked, and Alek let himself smile. At least he'd finally provoked a reaction.\n\n\"Did you finance this revolution entirely on your own?\"\n\n\"Only the finishing touches\u2014a little spice on top.\" Alek shrugged. \"Revolutions are expensive, it seems.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't know. I avoid them on principle.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Alek said. \"That's what you're really angry about, isn't it? That I overturned the natural order and deposed a fellow royal? That I forgot that revolutionaries want to overthrow all aristocrats, including me and you?\"\n\nVolger took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully, then poured himself more coffee. \"There is that, too, I suppose. But there's one thing you've forgotten.\"\n\nAlek wondered for a moment what his final failure might be, but then gave up. He took a cup from the windowsill, filled it with coffee, and sat down across the desk from Volger.\n\n\"Enlighten me.\"\n\n\"You also saved my life.\"\n\nAlek frowned. \"I did what?\"\n\n\"If you had disappeared into the wilds as you were meant to, that Tesla cannon would have sent me and Hoffman to the bottom of the sea, along with the rest of this ship's crew.\" The count stared into his coffee cup. \"I owe you my life. Quite an annoying turn of events.\"\n\nAlek hid his surprise by taking a sip of coffee. It was true\u2014Count Volger had been saved along with the Leviathan. But was the man really thanking him for joining the Committee's revolution?\n\n\"This doesn't mean that you are any less of an idiot, of course,\" Volger added.\n\n\"Of course not,\" Alek said, a bit relieved.\n\n\"And there is also the matter of your newfound celebrity.\" Volger opened a drawer, pulled out a newspaper, and dropped it onto the desk.\n\nAlek picked it up. It was in English\u2014New York World, read the masthead. And there on the first page was a photograph of Alek, above a long article by \"Istanbul Bureau Chief\" Eddie Malone.\n\nAlek let the newspaper fall back onto the table. He'd never seen a photograph of himself before, and the effect was distinctly disagreeable. Like looking into a frozen mirror.\n\n\"Are my ears really that large?\"\n\n\"Almost. What on earth were you thinking?\"\n\nAlek lifted his cup, staring at the glimmering black reflection on the coffee's surface. He had steeled himself to face any amount of scorn from Volger, but not for this. As the newspaper's name declared, the whole world was gawking at him now. His family secrets were out there for anyone to read.\n\n\"That reporter, Malone, he knew too much about the Committee's plans. An interview was the only way to distract him.\" Alek dared another glance at the photo, and noticed the caption\u2014THE MISSING HEIR. \"So that's why the crew have been so polite to me. They know who I am now.\"\n\n\"Not just the crew, Alek. Britain has a consulate in New York, of course. Even their bumbling diplomats could hardly have missed this. Lord Churchill himself sent that newspaper to Captain Hobbes, carried by some sort of beastly eagle.\"\n\n\"But how in blazes did you get it?\"\n\n\"Dr. Barlow and I have been sharing information for some time now.\" The wildcount leaned back in his chair. \"She is proving to be a most interesting woman.\"\n\nAlek stared at the man, a slight shudder passing through him.\n\n\"Don't worry, Alek, I haven't told her all my secrets. How is your friend Dylan, by the way?\"\n\n\"Dylan? He's \u2026 quite astounding, at times.\" Alek sighed. \"In a way it's because of him that I let myself be captured again.\"\n\nVolger's coffee cup froze halfway to his lips. \"What do you mean by that?\"\n\n\"Dylan convinced me it was safer to give myself up than to escape. There were a dozen Ottoman walkers headed toward us, I suppose. But it was more than that. He seems to think that I belong on this ship.\" Alek sighed. \"Not that it matters. Once we're back in Britain, they'll put me in a cage.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't worry about that just yet.\" The wildcount glanced at the windows. \"Haven't you noticed?\"\n\nAlek looked out the window. Last night when he'd grown too tired to stay awake, the airship had been headed back down the strait, guiding the behemoth back toward the Mediterranean Sea. But now there were mountains passing by, tipped with orange from the rising sun. Their long shadows stretched through the mist, trailing toward his left.\n\n\"Are we headed east?\"\n\nVolger clucked his tongue. \"That took you some time. I'm sure your friend Dylan would have noticed right away.\"\n\n\"No doubt. But why are we headed for Asia? The war's back in Europe.\"\n\n\"When this war began, the German navy had ships in every ocean. The Goeben and the Breslau aren't the only ones that the British have been searching for.\"\n\n\"Do you know where in Asia we're going?\"\n\n\"Alas, Dr. Barlow hasn't been forthcoming on the matter. But I suspect we will be in Tokyo sooner or later. Japan declared war against Germany four weeks ago.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Alek stared out at the mountains passing by. The Japanese had been Darwinists since signing a cooperation pact with the British in 1902. But it was astounding to think that the war ignited by his parents' death had already outgrown Europe, and now encompassed the entire globe.\n\n\"This detour is inconvenient, but it keeps you out of that cage a little longer,\" Volger said. \"Austria-Hungary is not faring well against the great fighting bears of Russia. The time for you to reveal yourself may be sooner than I thought.\" He prodded the newspaper as if it were a dead fish. \"That is, to reveal what little you haven't already.\"\n\nAlek pulled the scroll case from his pocket. \"You mean this?\"\n\n\"I was afraid to ask if you still had it.\"\n\n\"As if I would have lost it!\" Alek said angrily, then realized that he had, in fact, lost it once already. But since the taxi incident, he'd kept the letter with him at all times.\n\nThe night before, the airman who'd searched him in the cargo bay had found the scroll case and opened it. But the letter's ornate Latin script had meant nothing to him, and he had politely returned it.\n\n\"I'm not a complete fool, Volger. In fact, this letter is why I ignored your advice and stayed in Istanbul.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Your Highness?\"\n\n\"A pointless feud among my family started this war, so it's up to me to stop it.\" He held up the case. \"This is the will of heaven, which tells me what I'm meant to do. Not skulk in hiding but take my rightful place and put an end to this war!\"\n\nVolger stared at him for a long moment, then steepled his fingers.\n\n\"That letter is no guarantee that you'll take the throne.\"\n\n\"I know all that. But the pope's word must count for something.\"\n\n\"Ah, I had forgotten.\" The wildcount turned away. \"You've been in a land of heathens and heretics. You haven't heard the news from the Vatican.\"\n\n\"News?\"\n\n\"The Holy Father is dead.\"\n\nAlek stared at the man.\n\n\"They say the war was hard on him,\" Volger continued. \"He wanted peace too much. Of course, what he wanted doesn't matter now.\"\n\n\"But \u2026 this letter represents the will of heaven. The Vatican will still confirm that it's real, won't they?\"\n\n\"One would think so. Of course, someone there told the Germans about your father's visit.\" The man spread his hands. \"We must hope that this someone doesn't have the new pope's ear.\"\n\nAlek turned to stare out the window, trying to make sense of Volger's news.\n\nAfter his parents' death, the whole world had gone mad, as if his family tragedy had broken history itself. But in Istanbul, somehow, things had started to fall back into place. The Committee's revolution, Dylan arriving with the behemoth in his wake, all of it revealed that it was up to Alek to stop the war, to put matters right. For the first time in his life, he had felt a certainty in all his actions, as if providence were guiding him.\n\nBut now the world was turning upside down again. Fate was taking him not back toward the center of the war but away from his homeland and his people, away from everything he had been born to do. And the letter in his hand, the only thing his father had left him that Alek hadn't thrown away, might now be worthless.\n\nWhat mad providence was this?"
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "Eberron",
+        "author": "D&D",
+        "genres": [
+            "fantasy"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "The final days of the Last War, in the City of Wroat",
+                "text": "It was a thing of beauty.\n\nTristam Xain carefully held the small glass sphere between two fingers and stared into its depths. Within the sphere floated a tiny model of a silver airship, a sleek vehicle surrounded by a metal ring. Tristam tapped the side of the glass with one finger and spoke the ship's name.\n\n\"Kenshi Zhann,\" he whispered.\n\nSmall particles of shimmering blue snow began to swirl within the sphere. The metal ring ignited a brilliant purple, like the pure elemental fire that surrounded a true airship. The overall image resembled a ship flying through a winter storm, a tiny replica of the same ship where Tristam dwelled. The light from the sphere suffused the smoky air in Tristam's improvised laboratory, casting the small cabin in a soft blue glow.\n\n\"Remarkable,\" Omax said. The warforged stood at the door of Tristam's tiny cabin. The enormous metal warrior looked down at the fragile trinket. His pale blue eyes shone in their adamantine mask, illuminated by the same magic that fluttered through the sphere.\n\n\"A gift for my teacher,\" Tristam said. \"Do you think he'll like it, Omax?\"\n\n\"A teacher can receive no greater gift than evidence of his student's brilliance,\" Omax said. \"I think Ash will be pleased.\"\n\n\"Do you think it will be enough to make him reconsider?\" Tristam asked, looking at his friend.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Omax said. \"A simple reminder that magic can still be used to make things of beauty might grant him some peace of mind.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" Tristam said, sounding unconvinced. The young artificer tapped the glass again. The whirling snow faded away, and the light died. \"He's been in a dark mood.\"\n\nTristam tucked the sphere into his pocket and rose to leave. He stopped short, catching sight of his own face in the mirror that hung beside the door. He smoothed a hand through his unkempt hair, removed his thin spectacles, and wiped most of the soot and grime from his face with a handkerchief. His chin was rough and unshaven, but there wasn't much he could do for that on such short notice.\n\n\"Do I look presentable?\" he asked.\n\n\"As presentable as anyone who knows you should expect,\" Omax said, patting some soot off of his friend's lapel.\n\nTristam shot the warforged an irritated look, but Omax had directed his attention toward a flask on the low table. Straightening his jacket, Tristam stepped out of the cabin and made his way to the upper deck, ignoring the warforged's chuckle as he departed.\n\nKenshi Zhann was a grand ship. In the Aerenal language her name meant \"Seventh Moon,\" though there was little about her construction or performance that could inspire regret in her creators. Tristam was still young, but he had seen a great deal of the world from the deck of this ship. He had never seen another vessel to match her, though Ashrem's other two airships were close. He was proud to serve aboard such a vessel, and proud to study at the foot of her master even if said master had been distant and moody in recent months.\n\nNot that Ashrem d'Cannith's depression was unexpected or surprising. The old artificer had committed himself to an impossible task. Peace. He had sworn to end the war that had consumed the Five Nations for the last century. Every three months his three crews would rendezvous to share their progress, as they did now. Meeting with friends and colleagues generally improved old Ashrem's mood, even if they had little to report.\n\nTristam hoped for the best.\n\nOmax fell into step beside Tristam as he made his way through the ship. The massive warforged made surprisingly little noise for a being constructed of dense metal and wood. Tristam glanced back to find Omax scanning the halls as they walked. He smiled.\n\n\"I think we're safe, Omax,\" Tristam said with a chuckle.\n\nOmax looked forward quickly. Though his metal face lacked expression, he seemed to radiate embarrassment. \"Old habits,\" he said. \"To realize that I have no enemies has been a difficult adjustment.\"\n\n\"The war isn't over yet,\" Tristam answered. \"You may get your chance for more excitement.\"\n\n\"I do not know if I want that,\" Omax said. \"Having sampled peace, I prefer it.\"\n\n\"You sound like Ashrem,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"I take that as a compliment,\" Omax said. \"Ashrem is a wise man.\"\n\nFootsteps approached from the stairs above. A familiar potbellied man in a dark silken suit of exquisite cut strode down toward them. This was Dalan d'Cannith, Ashrem's nephew, local guildmaster of House Cannith. Moon had put in at Wroat so that Ashrem might visit Dalan during the rendezvous. Dalan's expression was bored and mildly annoyed, though it softened into a pleased smile when he recognized Tristam. Tristam gave a small wave, hoping to move past Dalan and find his master.\n\n\"Ah, the promising young student and his bodyguard,\" Dalan said, upsetting Tristam's expectations. He shook Tristam's hand warmly and then nodded at Omax. \"It has been some time, Tristam. How have the two of you been?\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Tristam said. \"You look well, Dalan.\"\n\n\"I am well, my boy. Business is growing. I was hoping that I might convince Uncle Ash to take on a few side contracts, but he insists on discussing it with his fellows first. I don't expect much. He's as stubborn as he has always been.\"\n\n\"You know Ashrem doesn't make weapons anymore, Dalan,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Oh, I am well aware. I respect that.\" Dalan nodded, setting his jowls in motion. \"I would not expect him to set aside the ethics he holds so strongly, even if I do not agree with them. These contracts were of a neutral nature. Enchantments to aid in the preservation of rations and medicine for Aundairian troops. Aiding the war effort without harming anyone directly. You understand. Even so, he was reluctant and has reserved his decision until he can discuss the matter with his associates. The priest seems to want to help, but I fear he will be unable to convince my uncle otherwise. Ash is a difficult man to sway once his mind is set. By the look he gave me, I think I picked a poor time to negotiate.\" Dalan's expression became sad, wistful.\n\n\"He's been occupied,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"And with the training of his apprentice, I hope?\" Dalan said. \"I expect great things of you, Tristam. I mentioned the light-emitting wands you crafted in my report to Baron Zorlan just last week. They've been of extraordinary utility to our miners, providing cheap magical illumination without the danger of a lantern. Exquisite craftsmanship, as well.\"\n\n\"You really thought so?\" Tristam said, awed by the praise.\n\n\"Indubitably,\" Dalan said. \"I am surprised Ashrem has not sponsored you for guild membership yet.\"\n\n\"You and I both,\" Tristam said, smiling weakly. \"That's what I had hoped to talk to him about, actually, since there's a guild house here in Wroat and all.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Dalan smiled. \"Then let me take no more of your time. When Ash puts your name on the list, you can trust that your membership won't be delayed for long. I shall expedite the process personally.\" Dalan winked and chuckled.\n\n\"Thank you, Master Dalan,\" Tristam said, \"but I wouldn't want to be put ahead of someone more deserving.\"\n\n\"False modesty!\" Dalan retorted, walking past them as he made his way toward the galley. \"My uncle is a genius. Who could be more deserving than his heir?\"\n\nTristam looked up at Omax with a grin. The warforged nodded in encouragement, and they moved on. The ship was mostly abandoned. Most of the crew had taken advantage of the moment and scattered to the city's taverns. Tristam stepped into the large chamber at the heart of the ship. The walls were lined with brass runes and shimmering crystals. They shone and hummed, though they were mostly decoration with no true purpose. Tristam's eyes were on the column of dull black metal that stood in the center of the room. His fingers brushed its surface, sensing the magic that pulsed within. This was the ship's heart, the chamber that housed the crystals that bound the Kenshi Zhann's elemental to this reality. It was a wonder of artifice, the living heart of the ship. No matter how many times Tristam saw it, he could not help but be awed by its power and simplicity.\n\nBeyond the core, the floor opened on a large pane of thick glass. This normally offered a breathtaking view of the open sky. It currently displayed the busy street below, darkened by the airship's shadow. At the far end of the chamber, the hatch to Ashrem's cabin was closed. Tristam looked around for a place to sit and wait when a shout from within the room drew his attention. Looking at Omax in concern, Tristam moved closer to listen.\n\n\"I can scarcely believe this hypocrisy, Ash,\" snapped a harsh voice. Tristam recognized the speaker as Brother Llaine Grove. Llaine was an old friend of his teacher, a priest of Boldrei who had served with Ashrem in their youth. \"Many of those soldiers are near starvation. In the last five years, infection and disease have claimed more Aundairian lives than Cyre and Breland's forces combined. You would do nothing to stop this?\"\n\n\"Consider what you are saying before casting the label of hypocrite, Llaine,\" Ashrem said in his cool, even voice. \"Aundair's troops suffer because their leadership is too aggressive. Do you think any aid we offer would lessen their burden? The powers that command them would only push harder. We may save a few innocents, but countless more would suffer. Such misguided efforts only pollute our greater work.\"\n\n\"Greater work?\" Llaine scoffed. \"I go along with your plans only because no more sensible strategy has been presented. Your work is a dream, Ash. This is a reality. The war will continue no matter what we do, but perhaps we can save these soldiers' lives.\"\n\n\"Are you certain that your loyalties have not clouded?\" Ashrem asked. \"You are Aundairian. Perhaps patriotism has narrowed your vision?\"\n\n\"I serve Boldrei first,\" Llaine said. \"She values mercy foremost, and I cannot bear to hear of such suffering, countrymen or not. How can I look an Aundairian mother in her eyes and admit I allowed her son to starve or succumb to disease when it was within my power to aid him? Such an act is unconscionable.\"\n\n\"But necessary,\" said Kiris Overwood, Ashrem's consort and closest advisor. \"Our artificers and wizards work toward a nobler goal, Llaine.\"\n\n\"Not all of them,\" the priest said. \"This is a simple enough task. I am certain Tristam Xain could handle such a task quite admirably by himself, leaving the rest of us free to continue our work.\"\n\nTristam was impressed. Llaine was a harsh man, with few kind words for anyone. He hadn't thought the priest respected him at all. Omax gently clapped his friend on the shoulder.\n\n\"Tristam is still a child,\" answered the husky voice of Norra Cais. Of all his master's apprentices, Tristam knew the least about her. She was a prodigy, a graduate of Morgrave University who had only recently joined Ashrem's alliance. \"He may possess the skills necessary, but he has neither the wisdom nor responsibility to understand the full import of such a task.\"\n\n\"Child?\" Tristam whispered to Omax. \"She's a year older than me.\"\n\nThe warforged shrugged.\n\n\"Norra is correct,\" Ashrem said. \"Tristam was not ready to aid us in our work on the Legacy, and he is not ready for this. His progress has not been quite as impressive as you may believe, Llaine. On a relative scale, he is a mere novice.\"\n\nTristam's heart sank. He slumped against the wall, feeling as if someone had cut the cords that held him upright. Ashrem had expressed no disapproval, at least not to him. If he had been progressing so poorly, why did his master keep him here? Pity?\n\n\"Tristam is your student, Dalan,\" Llaine said. \"I will respect your judgment. Regardless, there is power and talent enough at this table that we could easily fulfill Dalan's contract, help those soldiers, and use the money Dalan pays us to further our research on the Legacy.\"\n\n\"I will not use the spoils of war to purchase peace,\" Ashrem said. \"Such deeds would corrupt everything we have done and hope to do.\"\n\nThe sound of approaching boots snapped Tristam back to himself. He rose and moved away from the hatch, attempting to appear nonchalant as he loitered near the viewing window. Omax watched him impassively, standing near the ship's core.\n\nA tall, thin man dressed in deep red entered the chamber. His blond hair was tied back in a loose tail. He favored Tristam with a quirky grin. This was Orren Thardis, captain of the Albena Tors, sister ship to this one.\n\n\"Evening, Captain,\" Tristam said, nodding to the man.\n\n\"Hello, Tristam,\" Orren said with a broad grin. \"Omax. Are they still at it in there?\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Suppose?\" Orren said, obviously feigning surprise. \"You aren't taking the chance to eavesdrop? I would.\"\n\nTristam laughed despite himself. It was hard to take a man like Orren Thardis seriously. Orren never took anything seriously. Maybe that was why, of Ashrem's colleagues, he was among the easiest to get along with.\n\n\"You're late for the meeting again, Captain,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Not late enough,\" Orren said, looking at the hatch in distaste. \"I was hoping to speak to old Ash without all those other busybodies poking in.\"\n\nTristam nodded. \"I'm waiting for him as well.\"\n\n\"Waiting is a fine way to waste your life, Tristam,\" Orren said, stepping to the glass floor and looking down at the dimly lit street. \"Opportunity won't wait for you. Don't bother to wait for it.\"\n\n\"I think opportunity has already passed me, Captain,\" Tristam said.\n\nOrren shrugged. \"Then find another,\" he said.\n\nTristam thought on it a moment. Preservative reagents for rations and medicine weren't difficult to make. If Ashrem turned down Dalan's contract, he would need someone else to fulfill it. Tristam could do it easily. Ashrem would be enraged if he knew that Tristam had defied him, but he wouldn't have to know. Dalan was the sort who would keep such a favor a secret, and even sponsor Tristam for membership himself if Ashrem continued to deny him.\n\nAnd if Ashrem found out, did it really matter? Was losing the respect of a master who didn't appreciate him such a bad thing?\n\n\"Thank you, Captain,\" Tristam said to Orren. \"That's good advice,\"\n\n\"Don't mention it,\" Orren said.\n\nTristam and Omax walked back to the stairs, making their way toward the galley. In Tristam's pocket, the tiny glass sphere and its miniature airship were forgotten.\n\n[ Four Years Later ]\n\nAs far as Seren Morisse was concerned, Wroat wasn't the sort of place people lived on purpose. It was just where you ended up. There you were, living a normal life, minding your own business, and one day you found yourself in Wroat. Didn't matter if you were rich or poor, Wroat just sort of snuck up on you. You came here thinking it might be a good idea to visit for a time, maybe make money or contacts before moving on to somewhere better, but the city found a way of sinking its hooks into you. Wroat made you need it. It made it easier to stay than to leave, and every day you stayed, the city got a little less pretty. The flaws became a little more apparent. The stink became a little more cloying. The people showed you who they really were, and by then it was too late.\n\nWroat became a part of you, and you were a part of Wroat.\n\nThe King of Breland lived in Wroat. As Seren hauled herself onto the rough stone ledge, she looked at the towering spires of the palace and wondered if the King ever felt the same way. He probably did, maybe even more so than anybody. After all, who had less say in his own future than a king? Maybe she wasn't that different from old Boranel. Let him enjoy his prison of silk, jewels, and fine food. At least Seren had her freedom... precariously huddled on a loosely tiled ledge on the second floor of the Cannith guild house with rain pouring down around her.\n\nSeren sighed deeply.\n\nNo, on second thought, she would most certainly trade him.\n\nSeren peered over one shoulder, around the edge of the window. Within, she saw a richly appointed study, illuminated by a roaring fireplace and a single lamp. A large wooden desk stood near the window, buried under heaps of unfurled scrolls and books, left lying open and stacked in heaps. The walls were lined with shelves stuffed with even more volumes. The number of books was somewhat surprising considering the inhabitant's reputation; he didn't seem the scholarly type. A few plates of half-eaten food and glass tumblers, some still half-filled with wine, sat heaped on the desk and even scattered on the floor. Small models of airships, lightning rail engines, and even the adamantine faceplate of a warforged decorated the walls and shelves in a random, haphazard manner. The decorations were covered with dust, but the books were clean and well maintained.\n\nSeren knew this house had plenty of servants\u2014she had watched them enter and leave the house for the past four days to learn their routine\u2014but they obviously had not touched this room in some time. Perhaps the things kept here were too valuable to trust in the presence of servants. If so, this was exactly what she was looking for. If not, then this was as good a place as any to start. Seren reached for the window, but she drew back as the door within opened. She huddled back against a nearby gargoyle, wrapping her arms around her knees to stay warm in the chilling rain. She tried once again to console herself with the fact that she was so much better off than King Boranel.\n\nHow did it happen? How did she end up here? Good question. Seren's answer was easy. Stupidity. Her father had been a soldier. The end of the War had been a good thing for a great many families\u2014but not for Seren's. Other fathers returned to joyous reunions with loving families. Seren's family received only a black envelope delivered by an apologetic young messenger in a travel-stained uniform. Seren remembered her mother dropping the envelope and bursting into tears. She remembered how the messenger hurried away\u2014he had many more messages to deliver that day.\n\nThe army had provided a small stipend to support the families of veterans who had died in the war\u2014but it wasn't much, just enough to get a family back on its feet or support a single widow. Seren's mother never complained, but with each day that passed the worried lines around her eyes grew a little deeper. Finally, one night, Seren decided to set out and find her own fate. Her mother would miss her, that was certain, but she knew if she stopped to say good-bye she would lose her nerve, and the two of them would starve together.\n\nIn any case, running off to the city seemed a romantic enough notion. How could she fail?\n\nOh, she had heard all the stories, all the warnings. Her mother had always told her how it was dangerous for a young girl to find a life on her own. Her father, when he was home, always warned her how runaways ended up doing the most terrible things to survive. It wasn't that she didn't listen or didn't believe them. Quite the opposite, she believed that sort of fate was exactly what could befall a foolish person, and she was not a foolish person. She ran away from Ringbriar to find a dazzling future somewhere, maybe as an artist or a diplomat. The fact that she had no talents in either art or politics was irrelevant. Those kinds of things weren't hard. It was all a matter of finding the right opportunity.\n\nA tile slid under Seren's feet and she wobbled dangerously. Her hand squished something unpleasant as she clutched the edge of the gutter. She grimaced but didn't risk letting go. She watched the tile spiral downward, wincing as she waited for the shattering report on the street below. The sky flashed overhead, and a riotous peal of thunder filled the night. Seren finally breathed. No one would have heard the falling tile. She whispered a brief prayer of thanks to Kol Korran and, while she was praying, added a polite request that whichever member of the Host was in charge of the lightning this evening, please keep it in the sky until she was safely off this ledge.\n\nIn hindsight, she realized she'd been every bit as foolish as the girls in those stories. Seren was young and pretty, if in a tomboyish sort of way. She soon found quite a number of gentlemen (and one rather curious lady) with many helpful suggestions as to how she could earn her keep, but the prospect of earning a living on her back was not very appealing.\n\nIt wasn't until a particularly fat and odious fish merchant propositioned her at the Steaming Ferret that Seren learned her true calling. Seren enjoyed several drinks with the man, only sipping from her own cup as he threw back mug after mug. She entertained his suggestions with vaguely noncommittal flirtation and then excused herself to use the lavatory. While the drunken merchant sat heaped on his stool, waiting for her to return, Seren snuck out the back door with his belt pouch tucked in her skirt.\n\nShe was no artist or diplomat, but she had proven to be quite a talented thief.\n\nSeren peered carefully through the window again. She now saw the back of a short, thick-bodied man dressed in a rich lavender suit and a peaked green cap. She couldn't see his face but recognized his build and clothing as that of the house's owner. The man sat at his desk, leaning back in his worn leather chair, holding a small frosted cake in one hand and chewing intently as he balanced a thick book upon his knee. Thunder cracked overhead again, and the rain came down even harder. Seren's long black hair was now plastered to her face and down her back. She scowled through the window, trying to compel the man to finish his reading and leave through sheer force of will. Not surprisingly, it didn't work. Seren settled back against the gargoyle, trying to find some shelter or warmth against its bulk. The statue stared blankly down at the street, showing no sympathy whatsoever.\n\nWaiting was the most difficult part of being a thief, by far. The threat of punishment didn't frighten her. The excitement of a job well done balanced that. The danger made the job worthwhile. But this? She muffled a sneeze with one hand, her damp hair slapping forward and covering her face. Waiting was miserable. Where was Jamus? He was late, and she was going to kill him\u2014if she didn't slide off the ledge or perish of pneumonia. Rain streamed down her back and shoulders. Seren wished that she had dressed a bit more warmly. Her short cotton breeches and leather vest offered mobility for climbing but little protection from the elements. The weather had been fair when she started climbing. It wasn't until halfway up the building that the clouds rolled in and the rain started. She should have climbed back down and put off the job until tomorrow, but Seren was a stubborn sort of person.\n\nCarefully holding the gutter with one hand and the gargoyle's stone claw with the other, she leaned out and peered down. She couldn't give up, even if she wanted to. The climb back down would be far too dangerous in the rain. The only way out of here was through the house, and her distraction was taking an inordinate amount of time to arrive.\n\nAlmost on cue, a heavy banging sounded in the street below. Seren sat back against the wall again, peering carefully in the window to see the inhabitant's reaction. The fat man merely sat in his chair, chewing on his cake and reading his book, ignoring the commotion.\n\nMore banging followed, this time accompanied with a quavering voice calling out, \"Hello? Master d'Cannith? Is anyone there?\"\n\nThe man inside set his cake down and sighed. He drummed his fingers on the desk, as if waiting for his visitor to go away.\n\nAnother round of heavy banging. \"Master d'Cannith, my business is most urgent! If you are occupied, I understand, and shall take my business to Master d'Phiarlan. I had hoped to offer your guild this honor first, but such is life!\"\n\nDalan closed his book with a snap, tossed it onto a nearby couch, and stalked out the study door. After several moments, she heard the iron squeal of old hinges below.\n\n\"What?\" snapped a terse voice below.\n\n\"Ah, greetings and good evening to you, Master d'Cannith.\"\n\nShe heard the reply, though she could not see either speaker beneath the sloping overhang.\n\n\"I bring you greetings on behalf of the Lost Children of Wroat. Surely being a member of a household whose humanitarian actions during the Last War are so renowned, you would be eager to aid this prestigious charity? I ask only whatever you can spare to help us purchase food, medicine, perhaps even new toys to brighten what would otherwise be a bleak and hopeless...\"\n\nSeren could not help a smile. Jamus hadn't shared the full details of how he intended to distract their target, but she had trusted the old thief to be creative. She unhooked the metal sphere from her belt, cracking it open to reveal the glowing stone within. Such magic was expensive, but light without a spark was a useful investment in her line of work. She frowned as she studied the window, finding no lock. Holding the stone up to the window, she began tracing the edges of the sill with one finger.\n\n\"Orphans?\" the other voice said below. \"You roused me from my leisure to beg for charity?\"\n\n\"Not just any charity, Master d'Cannith, the Lost Children of Wroat, a proud and well respected\u2014\"\n\nThe sound of a slamming door connecting with the toe of a boot interrupted his monologue.\n\n\"Ahem. A proud and respected charity with, as I am sure one of your impressive social connections is aware, a sterling reputation for\u2014\"\n\n\"I have never heard of you and I can assure you I give quite generously to several legitimate charities. Now get your foot out of my door.\"\n\n\"I can understand your reluctance, Master d'Cannith, for there are many opportunistic souls who seek to twist the generosity of those touched by the War,\" Jamus said, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of a door repeatedly hitting a foot. \"I assure you, however, that we are legitimate. Look only to these beautiful glass marbles, painted by the children\u2014\"\n\n\"Leave before I call the Watch.\"\n\n\"Please, Master, look at these marbles,\" Jamus continued, \"each hand-painted in exquisite detail by the very innocents whom your money will support.\"\n\n\"I am not interested. Return when it is daylight and take up your begging with my servants if you must.\"\n\n\"But please, good master, just examine one and see the simple beauty\u2014\"\n\nA wracking cough resounded from below, followed by the sound of a bag of glass marbles striking a wooden floor and scattering its contents.\n\n\"Oh, drat,\" Jamus said.\n\nThis was followed by the other voice swearing urgently in several languages.\n\n\"I apologize, good master. This chill rain has left me with trembling hands.\"\n\n\"Just pick them up and go!\"\n\nThere, Seren found what she sought. What appeared to be a flaw in the grain was actually a mark, painted in dark brown ink, in the upper corner of the window. It formed a figure eight pattern between the sill and the wood. She didn't recognize the rune. Perhaps it simply held the window sealed unless the proper word was spoken. Perhaps it would raise an alarm, or worse, explode and hurl Seren into the street. The Canniths were artificers and magewrights, and though the man who lived here reputedly possessed no magical training, it was no surprise to find his home was protected. Seren rose from her crouch as much as she dared, studying the ward further.\n\nIn a city as large as Wroat, magic was fairly common. The city drew wizards as surely as it drew everyone else. Seren avoided stealing from wizards or magewrights, not out of any fear of magic but simply because they were more trouble than they were worth. Jamus taught her that magic was no different from any other form of power\u2014worthy of respect, but no more frightening than the flawed men and women who used it. Even if you couldn't learn to use magic, you could learn to deal with it. Seren couldn't build a lock, but she could pick one with a bent wire. Magic was the same. There was always an answer.\n\nSeren drew a small tin and brush from her belt pouch. Shielding the tin from the rain, she opened its lid and wrinkled her nose at the harsh smell of its contents. Carefully, she brushed the thick, clear paste over one of the glass panes, coating it entirely, then closed the tin and put it back in her pouch. She drew out several strips of thick felt and pressed them against the glass, then bound another around her right hand. Taking a deep breath, she punched the glass as hard as she could where she had glued the felt over its surface. She heard only a muffled crack in reply. She peeled the felt away in a single piece, removing the broken pane in one neat sheet, which she carefully folded and stuffed into the gargoyle's open beak.\n\nNext she produced a small mirror with a sharp pin on one side and a long stick of charcoal. Careful to avoid the bits broken glass that clung to the window's frame, she reached through and pinned the mirror to the sill inside, facing her. She adjusted it until she could see the rune pattern on the inside and then carefully began work on the rune with her charcoal. It was the same sort of pigment most mages used to complete such wards, and if she was careful enough she could isolate the pattern on each side and disable the ward, at least for a short time. Finishing the pattern on the inside, she paused only long enough to sharpen her charcoal on a shard of broken glass, then do the same on the exterior. Tucking the tools back in her pouch, she looked at her work cautiously. There was only one real way to tell if it worked. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the window with a quick heave.\n\nSeren opened her eyes to discover, quite happily, that the window was open, there was no alarm, and she was still alive. She could still hear voices downstairs, one swearing in a rage and the other apologizing obsequiously as he continued to clumsily lose his marbles. With no sign that she had been discovered, Seren plucked up her mirror, nimbly hopped into the study, and closed the window behind her.\n\nThe thick smell of incense and woodsmoke hung heavily in the air, barely covering the more cloying scent of old sweat. This was clearly one man's private refuge, and she would be glad to be out of it. She looked down with a start as something wet touched her shin. A squat, shaggy black hound, its fur shot through with gray, looked up at her mournfully. Its tail thumped the side of the desk when she looked at it.\n\n\"Some watchdog you are,\" she whispered.\n\nThe old dog's ears perked up. It glanced up at the desk, then back at her. A low whine began to rise in the dog's chest, and it opened its mouth as if to bark. Seren quickly snatched Dalan's half-finished cake from the desk and tossed it to the dog. The animal caught the cake in midair and flopped on the floor, consuming the sweet bribe contentedly.\n\nSeren stepped past the dog, eager to find what she sought and leave before the dog reconsidered its treachery. She drew a scrap of paper from her pocket and glanced at the illustration as she scanned the shelves. The paper bore an illustration of a small journal with a black cover, emblazoned with the House Cannith gorgon crest above the image of an albatross in flight. Seren scowled in irritation as she looked at the countless books that lined the shelves. The house's owner had a reputation for being indolent and lazy; he was not known as a scholar. She had thought one book would be easy to find in his house. Now she realized she might search all night and never find the right one. She tested the nearest bookcase, hoping against hope that they were the false vanity books that many nobility favored. They were genuine enough, unfortunately, and focused on a variety of eclectic subjects from magic to history to music and even exotic cooking. All looked well read. She would never find the book she wanted before the guildmaster returned to find his broken window, missing cake, and the small river of rainwater she'd leaked on his floor.\n\nAs she stepped back to give the bookcases a better look, Seren stumbled over a book discarded on the floor. She glanced down to see the gorgon and albatross looking back at her impassively. Seren blinked in disbelief. She looked back at the dog. It only watched her with soulful black eyes, nose buried between furry paws, mourning the untimely demise of the cake. Rather than dwell upon her uncanny luck, Seren snatched the book and tucked it into the sack at her belt.\n\nThe study door no doubt bore wards like the window, but fortunately it had been left open. Seren hurried out and down the stairs, tiptoeing with a silent grace. To her right, she could see the two men. Jamus stood near the door, playing the part of the lost and confused old man as he apologized repeatedly, stroking his long white beard with one hand. The guildmaster, apparently tired of the crazed beggar's floundering, had snatched the marble bag and was now picking up the marbles himself.\n\n\"Here, take the accursed things, and do not drop them again or you shall return to the orphans without them.\"\n\n\"Are you certain you found them all?\" Jamus asked, blinking foolishly. \"I think I saw one roll under the clock in the corner...\"\n\n\"Then here!\" The man snapped. He rummaged in his pocket and held out a handful of silver. \"To pay for your lost marbles.\"\n\nJamus opened his mouth to demur again, but his sharp eyes focused squarely upon Seren in the shadows of the stair. He gave a slight nod and reached for the bag and coins, clasping the guildmaster's hands with both of his own in a gesture of exaggerated gratitude. Seren made her way to the back door and quietly unlocked the latch.\n\n\"I thank you, Master d'Cannith,\" Jamus said, bowing repeatedly as he clasped the man's hands. \"The orphans thank you as well.\"\n\n\"Yes, the orphans,\" she heard the other man growl as she slipped out into the alley. \"Give them my regards. Now go!\"\n\nClosing the door gently, Seren broke into a sprint. Darting between the puddles and strewn garbage of the alleys, she stopped at a particular abandoned house after several minutes of running. Looking back to make certain she wasn't followed, she pulled a loose board aside and stepped through the wall. The interior was lit by a single candle. An older gentleman dressed in a sleek black jacket and trousers reclined on a tattered couch. A long white beard lay discarded on the floor. He toyed with a pair of painted glass marbles, rolling them between his fingers idly.\n\n\"Did you find the book?\" he asked, looking up at her with a faint grin.\n\nShe stared at Jamus. \"How did you get here first?\"\n\n\"I should ask why it took you so long,\" he said, though his smile took the barb off his words. He fell to a fit of coughing for several seconds and then looked up at her with a forced grin. \"So. Find the book?\"\n\nSeren nodded, patting the bag at her hip. She picked up her cloak from where she had left it folded on the floor earlier in the evening and began using it as an improvised towel, drying herself as best she could.\n\n\"May I see it?\" Jamus asked.\n\n\"After you tell me why you left me up on that ledge in the rain for so long.\"\n\n\"Because I didn't think you'd be foolish enough to keep climbing when the storm began,\" Jamus said. \"I thought you would come back down and we'd try another day.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"Can't turn back once you start or you'll never finish,\" she said.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said. \"I underestimated your stubbornness, as always. It is your second most endearing and maddening trait.\"\n\n\"Second?\" she said. \"What is the first?\"\n\n\"Your infuriating willingness to speak your mind,\" he said. \"You remind me a great deal of my daughter. I suppose before you give me the book I shall be subject to another lecture on my questionable wisdom of undertaking this mission.\"\n\nSeren folded her arms across her chest and frowned. \"I did the job, Jamus, but my opinion stands,\" she said. \"I don't think it's smart to cross the dragonmarked houses. I don't care what the pay is. It's going to be trouble.\"\n\n\"Afraid of magic, Seren?\" he asked. Jamus rose from his couch and walked toward her. \"I thought I taught you better than that.\"\n\n\"You taught me to respect power,\" Seren said. \"The Canniths are powerful. If they find out what we've done...\"\n\n\"They simply won't care,\" Jamus said. He rested one hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with the expression of a parent soothing a frightened child. \"Dalan d'Cannith has a checkered past. He may be a local guildmaster, but he is not particularly liked or respected among his family. His power is limited outside of Wroat. Our payment for this job will place us far beyond his grasp.\"\n\nSeren's eyes widened. \"We're leaving Wroat?\" she asked, excited. \"You never told me that.\"\n\nJamus nodded, though he glanced away as another fit of coughing shook his spare figure. \"I didn't want to distract you before the job,\" he said. \"Our employer guaranteed future opportunities beyond the city when she gave me our advance.\"\n\n\"There's an advance?\" she asked with a small grin. Jamus hadn't mentioned that either. \"Where's my share?\"\n\nThe old thief smiled. \"Right here,\" he said, tossing her the bag of marbles. She caught it in one hand and favored him with a sour look. \"No worries, Seren, you'll be paid when we deliver. Only the most difficult part remains.\"\n\n\"The most difficult part?\" she said, bewildered. \"What can be more difficult than what we've just done?\"\n\n\"Don't ask that question,\" Jamus said with a chuckle. \"Never ask that question, lest it be answered sooner than you'd like.\"\n\n\"I'm serious, Jamus,\" she said. \"What else is left? We already have the book. All we need to do is deliver it. Are you afraid the Watch will find us, or do you not trust our employer?\"\n\n\"I never trust my employer,\" Jamus said. \"Anyone who enters our line of work, as a client or a professional, is untrustworthy by definition.\"\n\n\"But we trust each other,\" she said. \"Don't we?\"\n\nHe leaned forward and kissed her forehead, then made his way toward the door. \"Only because we both have something to gain,\" he said. \"Ours is a relationship of mutual benefit, teacher and student. Trust is born from mutual benefit. We trust our employer because we are offered payment in return for our services... mutual benefit\u2014but we do not trust foolishly.\"\n\n\"So what do we do if our employer decides there's greater benefit in not paying us?\" she asked. \"What then?\"\n\n\"In this case such a betrayal would be foolish,\" Jamus answered. He pushed the loose board aside, studying the street to make certain no one was outside. \"I have a reputation in this city. Were I to disappear, questions would be asked, and I have arranged for answers. I have written speaker posts addressed to certain allies, describing the details of our work here. If I do not arrive to cancel the deliveries, the Sivis messengers will whisper into their speaking stones and the truth will fly upon the winds of Khorvaire. Within hours, friends as far away as Fairhaven will know the truth.\"\n\n\"That doesn't make me feel much better,\" Seren said. \"If we die, we're still dead, no matter who knows what happened.\"\n\n\"Then ignore the negative and focus on your goals, Seren, dear,\" he said, stepping out into the street. \"Think about leaving this place far behind, and it will be. Until then, be safe. Stay out of sight. The town guards will be suspicious of anyone on the streets on a terrible night like tonight. I will meet you back at the house.\"\n\nThe old thief slid the board back into place behind him. She could hear his wet footsteps and quiet cough recede into the distance. Dalan d'Cannith would have summoned the Watch by now, searching for the thief and his beggar accomplice. It was safer to wait, to move separately.\n\nSeren would have preferred Jamus carry the book, at least. It was his idea to steal it, after all. She took the book out of the sack and studied its cover. She recognized the Cannith crest; she had seen it in the city often enough. Beneath a small hammer and anvil design, the snarling metal bull's head of a gorgon glared up at her. The relatively indifferent albatross beneath it was not typically part of the crest. It must be some sort of personal seal. Seren opened the book and flipped through the pages cautiously. She told herself she was merely checking to make sure that the book hadn't been damaged by the rain. In reality she wanted to know what was so important about it. Diagrams covered the pages within, depicting airships, clockwork mechanisms, and other artifacts whose purpose Seren could not comprehend. The writing was in a strange, arcane cipher. It told her nothing, nothing that would explain why it was important enough to make enemies of House Cannith.\n\nThe Canniths were one of the twelve dragonmarked houses, powerful organizations ruled by individuals born marked by hereditary arcane symbols. Seren didn't really understand what the Prophecy was, nor did she really care. All she knew was that the Prophecy gave incredible powers to those marked by it. Each of the dragonmarked houses boasted magical abilities and had used those abilities to cultivate great wealth and political influence. Each house was as powerful as a country, the services they offered so valuable that their power transcended international boundaries.\n\nHouse Cannith bore the Mark of Making, which granted the ability to repair what had been broken or to create new things. They were engineers, artificers, and weaponsmiths. Many of the most incredible inventions in all of Eberron\u2014the lightning rails, the airships, and even the mysterious warforged soldiers\u2014bore a Cannith artisan's seal. Many of the most ferocious battles in the Last War had been fought with Cannith weapons, and Breland was not the only nation that still owed them a great debt. If this book was as valuable as Jamus claimed and the Canniths realized who had stolen it from them... well, making two thieves in the slums of Wroat disappear wouldn't be such a difficult task for a house that commanded the loyalty of kings.\n\nSeren pushed the book back into the sack and pushed such thoughts away with it. Her own words returned to her\u2014can't turn back once you start or you'll never finish. There was no option now but to see the job through and try to make a profit. If this really got her out of Wroat, then maybe it was worth it.\n\nBut she hated waiting the most.\n\nSeren slipped back into the streets, avoiding the main roads as best she could. She cursed the rain again as it instantly soaked her cloak and clung to her bare legs. No one was in the streets at this time of night, no crowd to fade into. Anyone outside at this time of night would look suspicious. Though she was a fairly talented thief, her face was not unknown to the City Watch. Recognition was inevitable, Jamus had said. Just as even the finest tailor sometimes stuck himself with a needle; all the finest thieves got caught. Even Seren had visited the city's prison.\n\nAll things considered, her brief stay in the dungeon had been comfortable. The cells weren't the dank, shadowed affairs she expected but were in fact surprisingly clean and dry. Her cellmate was a quiet old woman who kept to herself. Seren never even knew why she was there and hadn't wanted to pry. Warden Thomas was a polite and courteous young man. He had seemed a bit taken with Seren, so she flirted innocently to pass the time. The more she flirted back, the more the quality of her food improved. It would have been a rather pleasant stay overall if it hadn't been, well, prison.\n\nAfter a few weeks as a guest of the King (as Jamus called it), Seren had been turned out on the streets. As large a city as Wroat was, its prisons were extremely crowded with all manner of serious criminals. There simply was no room for a minor offender like Seren, so it was not unusual to be set free after such a short time if you knew better than to make trouble for the guards. Yet forgiveness did not imply forgetfulness. The Wroat City Watch was annoyingly vigilant. They kept a list of known thieves, and hardly a week went by that she was not harassed on suspicion of one crime or another, usually a matter in which she had no involvement.\n\nIronically it was her innocence that had earned her something of a reputation with the city watchmen. Seren sometimes found it difficult to control her temper, and more than one guard had been on the receiving end of a scathing verbal assault when she knew she had a solid alibi. One such event had even led to her being thrown into the prisons again after making a particularly brutal comment about a high-ranking watchman's parentage. It had only been for a night, and it was nice to see Warden Thomas again, but Seren had tried to control her temper and avoid the Watch since then\u2014especially on nights like tonight, when she actually had been up to no good and was still carrying the fruits of her illicit labor in a burlap sack on her hip.\n\nThe sound of heavy boots approached from around the corner. Seren fell into a crouch and ducked behind a rain barrel. She could hear the creak of armor and the metal clank of swords as they slapped against armored legs. A cold chill spread down her back; a stream of water spilled from a leak in the gutter directly onto her shoulders, soaking through her cloak and adding to her general misery. She grimaced and stayed where she was. She feared that if she shifted position the new sound of water striking cobblestones might alert the guards.\n\nThe footsteps drew closer, stopping near the barrels. Seren peered up to see the backs of two watchmen, standing uncomfortably close to her. They didn't seem interested in much besides stepping out of the rain, but she quieted her breathing and hunched lower anyway.\n\n\"Damn this weather,\" one of the guards grumbled. \"First night I have patrol in a week and it rains like this. Can't believe they expect us to walk the streets on a night like this.\"\n\nIf the guards hated walking in it, Seren thought to herself, maybe they should try climbing in it. Preferably now, somewhere far away from here, so she could get out from under the leak and leave.\n\n\"Typical,\" the other watchman answered. \"Someone up there doesn't like us I guess, Rolf.\"\n\nSomeone down here doesn't like you much either. Leave!\n\n\"Well it's not as if anything is even going on tonight, Shain,\" the watchman who apparently was named Rolf countered. \"Nobody in their right mind would be out on a night like tonight.\"\n\nSeren had no argument.\n\n\"Mmm-hm,\" came the other guard's agreement. She heard the dry hiss of a match striking stone, followed by the faint smell of burning herb.\n\n\"No thanks, trying to quit,\" Rolf said to some unspoken offer. \"Wife can't stand washing the smoke smell out of my armor.\"\n\n\"You sure?\" said the other. \"Karrnathi cigars. They're the best.\"\n\n\"Aren't those expensive?\"\n\n\"Host, yes,\" Officer Shain said. \"This pack cost me a week's pay, but they're worth it. Finest smoke in Eberron.\"\n\n\"Doris would kill you if she knew you spent that kind of money on cigars.\"\n\n\"That's why I offered you one,\" Shain said. \"So you don't tell her.\"\n\nA long pause. Thunder cracked overhead, and the stream of rain on Seren's back came down a bit more forcefully. \"Very well, then,\" Rolf said. \"May as well enjoy ourselves and wait for this rain to die down.\"\n\nSeren gritted her teeth and clutched her knees with both arms, trying to preserve what warmth she could. She suspected she had never hated two people as much in her entire life as she did these two watchmen. She shivered uncontrollably. She would have to risk moving out from under the leak and hope they were too stupid to notice. If she stayed here any longer they would hear her teeth chatter anyway. She crawled slowly, looking up at the guards as the water fell gently on the street. Seren scowled. Somehow it irritated her that they didn't even notice the sound after she'd suffered so much not to draw any attention. Shaking her head, she began to crawl deeper into the alley.\n\nA sudden shudder passed through her and, despite her best efforts to control herself, she sneezed. Seren slapped herself in the face.\n\n\"Who goes there?\" Rolf shouted, holding up his lantern and flooding the alley with light.\n\n\"Show yourself!\" said Shain.\n\nSeren peered back and tried her best to look innocent, which she found a somewhat difficult prospect crawling on her hands and knees in a garbage strewn alley at night during a thunderstorm. She held out her hands so that they could see she held no weapons and slowly rose, turning to face them. She made sure to keep her hood's shadows over her face but held her cloak open so they could see the rest of her. Watchmen, especially young watchmen, tended to be a bit more easily distracted when they saw she was a girl. Sure enough, Officer Shain stopped wrestling with his crossbow strap and left the weapon hanging at his belt.\n\n\"Who are you?\" Rolf demanded. \"Why are you hiding?\"\n\n\"There's a simple explanation,\" Seren said, keeping a charming lilt in her voice despite her chattering teeth.\n\nRolf lowered his lantern a bit and looked at her warily. \"What is it?\"\n\nSeren pretended to sneeze to buy time. She couldn't think of anything they'd be likely to believe, but at least she had stalled long enough to stand up and get a good look at them. Both guards were somewhat overweight and wore the cumbersome chain mail that was part of their typical uniform. They still hadn't seen her face. Seren doubled over in a fake sneezing fit, then heaved the rain barrel at their legs and ran off through the alleys.\n\n\"Get her!\" Rolf cried, jumping back as the heavy barrel rolled past. The clang of a loud bell followed as he did everything he could to summon his fellow watchmen.\n\nSeren wove and ducked as she ran, trying to present a small and random target. She didn't expect the guards to shoot their crossbows, but she wasn't willing to risk it. Lightning crashed overhead, throwing the alleys into a flash of daylight brilliance. In that moment of clarity she saw a mounted watchman in the intersection ahead, looking toward the clamor. Not willing to attempt outrunning a horse, Seren stopped abruptly and ran back to an unmarked door she had passed.\n\nWell, that was what she intended to do, at least. In reality she tried to turn and found the rain slicked alley unwilling to cooperate. Her feet slipped out from under her and she skidded through the mud and garbage to stop near the horseman. She looked up at the point of a hastily drawn sword and tried to smile demurely. Given that she was flat on her back and covered with filth, the guard was unimpressed.\n\n\"Stop her!\" Rolf cried, running up behind her.\n\n\"She's stopped herself, Officer Rolf,\" the horseman said.\n\nSeren scowled and staggered to her feet. This time, the three watchmen surrounded her. Officer Shain had his crossbow drawn. Rolf still held his lantern and bell. He leaned heavily against a wall, struggling to catch his breath. Ironically, it was at that point that the storm faded into a drizzle, ending as quickly as it had begun.\n\n\"What's this all about?\" the mounted guard asked, looking at Rolf curiously.\n\n\"She was acting suspicious, Sergeant Narem,\" Rolf said. \"She rolled a barrel at us. Probably a thief.\"\n\n\"Search her,\" Narem commanded.\n\nWell used to the ritual, Seren sighed and held her arms up, away from her body. At least in her current filthy state, perhaps the guard would enjoy this as little as she did. Officer Shain put his crossbow away and began to pat her down. Seren grimaced. The way he pressed against her, she realized the dirt wasn't doing a great deal to dissuade him.\n\n\"Can I at least have a cigar so I enjoy this too?\" she asked.\n\n\"Quiet, you,\" Sergeant Narem said. \"Shain, go easy or I'm telling Doris,\" he added in a gentler voice.\n\nThe other watchman looked embarrassed and mumbled an apology.\n\n\"Hello, what's this?\" said a bright voice with an elegant Lhazaarite accent. \"A little midnight justice? What drama unfolds in the weary, rain-soaked roadways of Wroat?\"\n\nThe watchmen looked to the sound of the voice. Seren peered over her shoulder as well, though she kept her hands raised. A young man stepped out of the shadows of an awning, greeting them with a broad smile. He was dressed in a long blue coat and fine black cloak. His sandy brown hair was tied back by a think leather cord, and a thin pair of spectacles sat perched upon his nose. He wore a sword at his belt in the manner of a gentleman, though he kept his hand away from the hilt so as not to upset the guards.\n\n\"My, this is more dangerous than I first suspected,\" the man said, eyes widening as his gaze met Seren's. \"Three watchmen band together to arrest a fifteen-year-old girl?\"\n\n\"Nineteen,\" Seren said tersely.\n\n\"My apologies, my lady, but one day I think you will treasure such underestimations,\" the man said. He looked back to the guards. \"But clearly this is even worse than I suspected. Four years more experience than I thought\u2014all the more reason for caution. Are you certain you three can handle her? I am no citizen of your fair city, but I would be pleased to offer you my modest sword arm for the cause of justice, if deputies are required. I would be proud to participate in such a heroic confrontation.\"\n\n\"You're not funny,\" Rolf growled. \"Move on, stranger.\"\n\n\"What's in this bag?\" Officer Shain asked, tugging at the sack at her hip.\n\n\"Book,\" Seren said. She looked straight ahead and kept her voice and posture bored, hoping this would soon be over. She had no doubt that if they saw the seal on that book's cover, it certainly would be.\n\n\"A scholar!\" the man interrupted again. \"She is obviously a student of some local university. Is this how Wroat's watchmen encourage Breland's youth? No wonder this neighborhood is in such a sorry state.\"\n\nEven Seren glanced back at that, fixing the stranger with a bewildered scowl. She hoped this odd person wasn't trying to pick a fight with the Watch. One man against three guards was bound to go badly for him, and she didn't want to be in the middle of that. The man noticed Seren looking at him. He winked. What was he doing?\n\n\"Go take your advice somewhere else, pirate, before we search you too,\" Narem said. \"Chances are a Lhazaarite has something in his pockets that doesn't belong there.\"\n\n\"Your prejudice does not surprise me, though it saddens me,\" he said. \"I am Tristam Xain, citizen of Zilargo and an honored guest in this city.\" He sighed. His shoulders slumped. \"I am wounded.\"\n\n\"Keep it up and you will be,\" Narem said. He looked up at the horseman. \"Rolf, detain this man.\"\n\nRolf drew his sword, moving purposefully toward the well-dressed stranger.\n\n\"Put your weapon on the ground and back away from it, please,\" Rolf said.\n\n\"Now this is just going too far,\" Tristam answered, removing his spectacles and tucking them into his jacket pocket. \"I am a protected guest of the city with powerful friends. I have papers granting me immunity from such action as this. Omax, show them my papers.\"\n\nThe shadows behind Tristam moved. A bulk that Seren had previously thought to be a large stack of barrels rose and resolved itself into a monstrous figure. It was a foot taller than a man, with shining black wood and gleaming blue metal in place of flesh. Its face was a smooth metal plate, split only by an expressionless line for a mouth and two hollow eyes, glowing with an unnerving blue light. It wore only loose brown trousers and a soft woolen hat. It stepped out of the darkness with movement surprisingly lithe and graceful for a creature of its size. The watchmen each took a step back, and even Narem's horse whinnied nervously. Seren had seen creatures such as this before.\n\n\"Good evening, officers,\" Omax said, his cool voice echoing in its metallic chest. \"Is there a problem?\"\n\nThis was a warforged, one of the automatons created by House Cannith to fight in the Last War. Seren's annoyance was quickly replaced by fear and suspicion. She realized belatedly that the guards had not been looking for her, when by all rights Dalan d'Cannith should have roused the City Watch to investigate the theft. Perhaps he had not wanted the Watch to become involved. Perhaps he wanted to send his own agents to retrieve what Seren had stolen.\n\nNow they were here.\n\nSergeant Narem climbed out of his saddle, drawing his sword and standing beside Rolf as they watched Tristam and Omax cautiously.\n\nSeren watched the warforged with undisguised fear. She knew the dragonmarked houses could be ruthless, but she wondered if the Canniths were ruthless enough to kill three watchmen just to take back what she had stolen. She didn't intend to find out. She scampered into the horse's empty saddle. Rolf charged toward her, but she scattered Jamus's bag of marbles on the rain-slicked cobbles. The watchman squawked in comical surprise and fell forward on his teeth. Seren seized the horse's reins, kicked its flanks, and galloped off.\n\n\"Stop!\" came the cry, followed by the sound of boots falling on cobblestones.\n\nSeren ducked as low in the saddle as she could, hoping that the guards would be unwilling to loose arrows at their own horse. Rolf's bell clanged again. She saw lights flare in the windows along the road as the locals peered out to see what the trouble was, but she saw no more guards. She kept riding till the Watch, the Lhazaarite stranger, and the warforged were out of sight. Seren was not foolish enough to ride through Wroat on a stolen horse wearing City Watch colors, so she slowed just enough to leap out of the saddle and slap the animal's flanks. With a frenzied whinny it continued galloping without her. She darted into the nearest alley. In three years she had come to know the back streets of Wroat well. This was hardly the first time she had used this twisted network of alleys, tunnels, and abandoned buildings to escape pursuit.\n\nSeren kept running for ten minutes before slowing to catch her breath. She stopped for a moment in a leatherworker's shack, using a rag left hanging on a post to wipe the grime from her face, arms, and legs. By all rights she should hurry back to rendezvous with Jamus, but she was tired, cold, and frustrated. She needed a moment to compose herself.\n\nSo Seren sat on a stool, took a cigar out of the box she had taken from Officer Shain's pocket during his energetic search, and enjoyed the finest smoke in all of Eberron.\n\nSeren waited an hour, just to make sure she wasn't followed, and then headed to the rendezvous point. As she made her way to her destination, the streets became softer beneath her feet. Manicured cobblestones gave way to bare ground, paved only by a random covering of occasional wooden planks. Even these did little to make the path more hospitable, as the rain had turned the streets into mud. The streets sucked at Seren's shoes until she finally tired of struggling and took them off with a sigh, slinging the muddy things over one shoulder by their laces.\n\nThe fishermen's district was crowded even at this late hour. It was always crowded. People moved quickly through the streets in tight groups, moving urgently toward whatever clandestine business had brought them here. Few spared Seren any more than a suspicious glance. She minded her own path and ignored them; they were content to do the same. She arrived at the meeting place soon enough.\n\nThe Friendly Buzzard was an abandoned inn. In the three years she had come here to train with Jamus Roland, it had never been anything but a ruin. Jamus lived here and sometimes met clients here to fence stolen goods. She wasn't entirely sure whether he owned the place or had simply taken up residence since no one else wanted it. A painted sign still hung above the doors, depicting a comical, grinning buzzard clutching a mug of ale and a loaf of bread in its talons. The wooden stairs squealed noisily as Seren climbed up to the door. The effect wasn't entirely accidental; Jamus had replaced several of the boards in this place to make it difficult for someone to approach unheard. She tiptoed as she walked inside, setting the sign overhead swinging with a gentle slap as she always did.\n\nThe interior of the inn was dimly lit. Seren knew the way and easily navigated the darkness to the stairwell in the back. On the second floor, a long hallway led to a series of what had once been private dining rooms. She continued to the end of the hall, the floor creaking beneath her feet, and opened the last door. Within was a small room featuring a table and three chairs. Only a single candle provided light. Jamus sat with his back to the far wall. His arms were folded tightly and his chin was tucked against his chest. He seemed to be dozing.\n\nSeren frowned. He had been growing tired more often of late, sometimes even dozing off at important times like now. Much like his cough, his exhaustion was something he never spoke of. His silence on the matter was what worried her the most. Jamus Roland could be a manipulative cad and a demanding teacher, but he was all that passed for a friend in this large, uncaring city. Without him, where would she be? The old thief's body jerked as he was taken by a violent snore. Seren closed the door solidly behind her. Jamus glanced up in surprise, now wide awake.\n\n\"Seren,\" he said. He flushed with embarrassment. \"I'm glad to see you had no trouble getting here.\"\n\n\"A little trouble,\" she corrected him, sitting down across the table. \"A few watchmen,\" she said. She dropped the muddy sack containing the book on the table between them.\n\n\"But you lost them,\" Jamus said. There was no questioning tone in his statement, only a surety that Seren would not have been foolish enough to come here otherwise. He reached for the bag.\n\n\"I lost them,\" she said, leaning back precariously on her chair and propping her muddy feet on the table. \"Some warforged distracted them while I ran off.\"\n\nJamus paused in the act of opening the bag's drawstrings, then offered an uneasy smile. \"Ah, warforged,\" he said with a light chuckle. \"Such curious creatures. Some were built to protect humans, you know. Perhaps he saw a young girl in danger and felt motivated to intervene.\"\n\n\"Jamus, don't lie to me,\" Seren said in a low voice. \"We're hired to break into a Cannith guildmaster's house to steal one particular book out of a whole library. I steal the book, make a mess of his office, and he doesn't even report it to the Watch? And then some Lhazaarite mercenary and a warforged thug coincidentally show up to 'rescue' me from a wandering patrol? What's really going on here? What is this book? Who are we meeting here tonight?\"\n\n\"The less you know the better, Seren,\" Jamus said, his voice surprisingly clear and even. His previous sleepy frown was now replaced with an alert, intense stare.\n\n\"I warned you it was a bad idea to steal from Dalan d'Cannith, Jamus,\" Seren said.\n\n\"And perhaps you were right,\" the old thief answered. \"Now it's probably best if you left. Go home. I'll meet you in the morning, and we can leave this city behind.\"\n\n\"You don't actually expect me to do that,\" she said.\n\nJamus sighed and ran one hand through his thinning white locks.\n\n\"At least tell me who we're working for,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, make up your mind,\" he said with a sudden, irritated tone. \"Do you want to know who we're working for or who we're meeting here?\"\n\nSeren gave him a long, angry stare.\n\n\"It's complicated,\" he said evasively. \"Our employer's identity is a confidence I am not at liberty to betray, even to you, but she can be trusted.\"\n\nSeren wanted to slap the old man off his chair. She restrained herself, holding one wrist tightly with the other hand behind her back. \"Jamus, you know I trust you,\" she said, struggling to keep her voice even and patient. \"I assumed you wouldn't suggest a job like this unless you were sure it was safe. Now you're telling me you can't tell me who we're working for? I'm risking my life. Can't you give me that much?\"\n\n\"I told you, Seren, it's complicated,\" he said. \"Suffice it to say the Canniths are the least of our worries. We have powerful allies. If Dalan d'Cannith moves against us, we'll be protected. Why do you think they offered to move us out of Wroat? Our protection was always part of the deal.\"\n\n\"The fact that a group as powerful as the House of Making is the least of our worries doesn't make me feel much better, Jamus,\" Seren said. \"What are we involved in?\"\n\nJamus folded his hands on the table before him, staring silently at his long, gnarled fingers. He looked much older than he normally did, much more exhausted.\n\n\"Have I ever told you about this place?\" he said. \"About what it once was?\"\n\n\"This inn?\" Seren asked, confused by the sudden change of subject. \"You've told me a little about it, but what does that have to do with anything?\"\n\n\"Be patient, Seren,\" Jamus said, looking at her with a crooked smile. \"I have taught you many things in the time we've known one another, but I suspect this is the most important thing I have to teach.\"\n\nSeren frowned, but did not argue.\n\n\"Years ago this building was home to a den of smugglers,\" Jamus said. \"They were war profiteers. Scum. They stored weapons, supplies, sometimes even the occasional spy here. They used to meet their clients here. After the King's soldiers discovered what was going on, the place was cleaned out. The smugglers were executed for treason, and the building was left empty for twenty years. It was a Cyran woman, Fiona Keenig, who purchased it next. Exiled from her home, she did her best to turn it into a welcoming, comfortable sort of place. She said that she felt like a scavenger, snapping up this old husk of a building, so she named it the Friendly Buzzard.\"\n\n\"You've told me about Keenig,\" Seren said. \"You said she was a friend of yours.\"\n\nJamus nodded. \"Something of an understatement, but yes,\" he said. \"The Last War drove a deep wedge between Breland and Cyre. They were indifferent neighbors at best, bitter enemies at worst, depending on which way the War had turned that week. Fiona wasn't welcome here at first, but she persevered. This was the only place in all of Wroat where you could find genuine Cyran cuisine and hospitality. Fiona's brothers still lived in Cyre that time, and did what they could to send her the spices and ingredients that weren't available here.\" Jamus grinned. \"In a city as crowded as Wroat, it pays to be unique. People started noticing the Buzzard.\"\n\nSeren stared at her teacher in silence. She wanted to demand answers, to demand Jamus stop stalling, but when she saw the sad, distant look in his eyes she could not bring herself to interrupt. There was something deeper here. This was important.\n\n\"But rumors bred, as they always do,\" Jamus said. \"Mistress Keenig was accused of being a Cyran spy. The King's inquisitives conducted a public investigation, and Keenig's business ground to a halt. A few of the locals, people who knew her, braved the stigma of coming here. It wasn't much business, but it was enough to keep her afloat.\"\n\n\"Was she a spy?\" Seren asked.\n\nJamus shrugged noncommittally. \"After two years, the investigators found nothing,\" he said. \"King Boranel offered no apology, of course, because a king cannot apologize. However, he and his retinue did dine here. Boranel gave the Buzzard his highest possible recommendation, and business turned around overnight. The wealthiest members of the nobility lined up to dine at the Buzzard, even braving the wretched streets of the fishermen's district to emulate their beloved king.\" Jamus smiled silently for several moments, remembering. \"To her credit, Fiona did not allow the sudden fame to overwhelm her. She did not forget those who had remained her friends. The upper floor became dedicated to her wealthier clientele, private rooms and tables available only by reservation at astronomical prices. Her new customers were happy to pay. The bottom floor remained open to the common man, offering an alternate menu that was mostly the same thing being served upstairs... but at one-tenth the price.\"\n\n\"Bold,\" Seren said. \"What if the nobles had discovered she was overcharging them?\"\n\nJamus gave a wry smile. \"Fiona was a clever woman. She knew her clientele,\" he answered. \"The nobles expected a high price. After all, had not the king himself dined here? They were paying for the privilege of sharing in his glory. What they were eating certainly didn't matter, and they most assuredly were not going to share the details of their dinner with the scum downstairs. The nobles believed that Fiona only allowed the locals to dine here so that the Buzzard would have an authentic, earthy charm.\"\n\n\"She lied to them,\" Seren said.\n\n\"She gave them what they wanted,\" Jamus said. \"The sheltered rich will pay a fair sum for authenticity, as long as that authenticity is kept safely at arm's length.\"\n\n\"Some people have too much money,\" Seren said.\n\n\"A simple, profound wisdom that has driven my entire career,\" Jamus said with a nod. \"It was a similar thought that first drew me to the Buzzard in the hopes that I might relieve a noble of his excess wealth, and that is how I met Fiona. She caught me sneaking out the back door with a stolen purse in hand.\"\n\n\"She caught you?\" Seren said, impressed.\n\nJamus smirked. \"I could rationalize the matter and say that I was young and inexperienced,\" he said, \"but that's not entirely true. Every man has his match, Seren. I underestimated Fiona Keenig. She took the pouch back and promised not to press charges if I snuck back into the private room and listened in on the conversation there. So I did. More jobs followed, spying on her clients or reporting the information to her other contacts.\"\n\n\"So she was a spy after all?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Of course,\" Jamus said, \"but she wasn't a Cyran spy. She was King Boranel's agent, counter-intelligence, charged with defending the city against foreign infiltrators. The entire investigation had been a ruse. My life became a great deal more interesting after I met Fiona. I worked for her for over twenty years. It was only a few months before you came here that this place closed for good.\"\n\n\"What happened?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"The Day of Mourning happened,\" Jamus said. \"A wave of smoke and flame wiped out the nation of Cyre in a single night. Fiona loved Breland and was loyal to the king, but she had family in Cyre. The day she learned what happened, she closed the Buzzard and set out to find her brothers. That was four years ago, and no one has seen her since. This place has a great deal of memories for me...\" Jamus looked around wistfully and laughed. \"Also several emergency exits, built by the original smugglers who lived here. The perfect den for a spy. The perfect rendezvous point for a thief. No one else seemed to want the Buzzard, so I guess I've sort of adopted it.\"\n\nSeren was silent a long moment. \"What does any of this have to do with our meeting tonight?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"There weren't many people who knew I worked for Fiona,\" Jamus said. \"So when she vanished, I returned to being the two-bit thief the city always believed I was. A few weeks ago, I was given a better offer by someone who knows about my past. I've been offered\u2014 we've been offered\u2014a chance to do something worthwhile again. The payment and escape from this damned city is just a bonus.\"\n\n\"So we're spies now?\" Seren asked. It came out a bit more shrilly than she intended, and she saw Jamus flinch at her outburst.\n\n\"Seren, you left home to become something more than you were,\" he said patiently. \"You can't tell me that you can look at your life now and say you have no complaints?\"\n\nSeren did not answer.\n\n\"I thought as much,\" Jamus said. \"You're a talented girl, Seren, but you are not a normal person. Normal people do not climb on rooftops and pilfer other people's pockets. There are, however, ways to put those talents to use. Ways to help people. We've been given that chance.\"\n\n\"By whom?\" Seren asked. \"Why won't you tell me who we work for?\"\n\n\"Knowledge and security are very rare companions in this line of work, Seren,\" Jamus said. \"I can't tell you, for your own good and for our employer's. You just have to trust me, Seren.\"\n\n\"You say trust is born from mutual benefit,\" Seren said. \"I have mercenaries following me through the streets already. How does this benefit me, Jamus?\"\n\n\"Seren,\" Jamus said plaintively, but before he could say anything more he was interrupted by the protesting squeals of the wooden steps. He looked past Seren, his expression sharp and focused.\n\n\"They're early,\" Seren whispered.\n\nJamus remained silent, his expression worried.\n\n\"That's good, isn't it?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, it's not,\" Jamus said, rising from his chair. \"Early is never good.\"\n\n\"So let's get out of here,\" Seren said. She knelt and flipped a recessed latch on the floor. A small trap door in the floor led to a series of crawlspaces through which they could access any of the other rooms in the inn and make their way back to the street.\n\n\"Wait,\" Jamus said.\n\nSeren looked up at him curiously.\n\n\"There's more to this, Seren, a great deal more,\" he said, settling back into his seat and watching the door. \"Remember when I said the most difficult part still remained? Well, this is it. Run if you must, Seren. I'll understand, but I would prefer if you stood with me.\"\n\nThe doorknob turned. Seren stood quickly, but left the trap door unlatched. Two gruff-looking soldiers in light armor stepped inside. One held a lantern high, eyes searching the room for any sign of a hidden ambush. Seren could see the crest on his breastplate, a golden crown on a field of green. The soldier's eyes fixed on Seren for a brief instant, then moved on, disregarding her as a threat. Downstairs, she could hear more heavy footsteps. Who were they?\n\nSeren stood, slipping her shoes back on and moving to the edge of the shadows behind Jamus. One hand moved into her cloak, resting easily on the hilt of the dagger tucked in the back of her belt. Jamus was as uneasy as she had ever seen him, though she doubted a stranger would see the signs, a faint uneasiness around the eyes. To see her normally unflappable teacher so nervous gave Seren an incredible sense of dread. Yet she said nothing, only stood beside her teacher. If they hadn't attacked yet, then this was to be a negotiation. A focused front was required for all negotiations. Disagreement would make a client nervous. Doubt would convince them they had the advantage. Confidence was everything.\n\n\"Clear,\" the man grumbled. \"Only two of them, Captain.\"\n\n\"Just as promised,\" said an elegantly deep voice. \"You are a man of your word, Jamus Roland. At least thus far.\"\n\nA tall, whisper-thin man slid through the door. A cloak, so deep purple it was almost black, hung from his shoulders so that he seemed little more than a shroud topped by a floating head. His hair and eyes were ghostly white. His face was smooth, pale gray, nearly featureless save for the raw pink burn scars that covered his left cheek. Seren flinched when she saw him.\n\n\"Does my appearance upset your associate?\" the man asked, looking at Seren with a crooked smile.\n\n\"Seren means no offense, Captain Marth,\" Jamus said.\n\n\"I understand,\" he said. \"No doubt she simply has never seen a changeling honest enough to wear his true face? A lie may put her more at ease.\" The man's features blurred. His face was now lean and handsome, with rich black hair spilling out of his hood around his shoulders. \"Is this more pleasing, Seren?\"\n\nSeren nodded politely. Marth ignored her and moved to the table, cloak parting to produce a pale white hand with long, almost skeletal fingers. His fingertips brushed the table near the muddy sack. \"This is what I seek?\"\n\n\"It is, Captain,\" Jamus said.\n\n\"Excellent,\" Marth said, gesturing at one of his soldiers.\n\nThe man produced a thick pouch and spilled its contents on the table. The white gleam of five platinum coins, each stamped with the image of a dragon, reflected the candlelight. Seren's eyes widened. She had never dreamed of seeing so much money in one place.\n\n\"Is that enough?\" Marth asked.\n\n\"The money isn't the part of the reward that interests me,\" Jamus answered. He pushed the muddy bag back across the table.\n\nMarth smiled and reached out again. His eyes met Seren's, and she was taken aback by the strange intensity of his milky white eyes. He smiled, only faintly, and then slid the book from its container. His other hand appeared, producing a strange jeweled hand lens of frosted purple glass. Marth held it over one eye as he scanned through the pages.\n\nAfter nearly a minute of study, his shoulders slumped and he released a deep sigh. He opened the book carefully on the table, tucking the lens into his pocket. Before Seren could even react, one of the soldiers lunged forward and seized her arm, twisting it behind her back painfully, away from her weapon. She cried out and stomped hard on the man's foot with her heel. The bodyguard did not react, but only drew a short sword and held it to her waist. Jamus rose halfway from his seat, but Marth held out a cautioning hand.\n\n\"Please, Master Roland, there have been enough mistakes here tonight,\" Marth said in a calm, almost friendly voice. \"A stomach wound is not a misery I would gladly inflict on one so young, but I will illustrate my sincerity if I must.\"\n\nJamus sat back down, though he turned so that he could watch Marth and his bodyguard simultaneously. Marth took the seat across from Jamus and regarded him quietly. The other soldier stepped forward and started scooping the coins off the table with a bored expression.\n\n\"You have failed, Master Roland,\" Marth said. \"What I wish to know now is\u2014did you intentionally seek to offer me a forgery, or is Dalan d'Cannith responsible for this? If the latter was the case, I would not hold you at fault. I would even offer you half the agreed pay for your discretion, though naturally our professional relationship would be permanently concluded. But the former...\" He trailed off and was silent a long time. He drummed his long fingers on the book. \"I fear I know too much of magic. I know enough to realize that there is no certain way to find truth. Deceit is a powerful force. There is always a way to lie. I cannot think of a way to judge with any degree of certainty that you have not betrayed me, Master Roland. What I am sure you will find even more unfortunate is that I also cannot imagine any particularly dire consequences for me if I were to err on the side of caution.\"\n\nJamus opened his mouth to reply, but Marth held up a silencing hand with a vague smile.\n\n\"Before you seek to lecture me on honor between thieves, contractual obligations, a warning that you have powerful friends, or other such foolishness, consider this. I am no fool. I suspected that this lead might come to nothing. That is why I hired an expendable freelancer rather than risk one of my own loyal servants. However, know that I take no joy in the prospect of killing you. If you must speak, make it a convincing plea of your innocence\u2014nothing more.\"\n\nThe sound of a pained shout and a heavy object smashing into something wooden sounded outside. Marth glanced at his guards in annoyance. Jamus stood, moving with the fluid speed of a man one-third his age. He flipped the table over in Marth's face and drew two daggers from his sleeves, hurling one over his shoulder at the man that held Seren. Seren's eyes widened and she twisted aside, but the knife's path was true. The weapon lodged in her captor's throat.\n\nThe other soldier charged Jamus, but the old thief slashed the air at eye level. The man shrieked and staggered away, bloody hands clutched over his face. Jamus held the weapon high and leapt at the changeling. Marth rolled aside deftly, drawing a twisted amethyst wand from his cloak and aiming it at Jamus. It vomited an explosive cone of green fire, consuming Jamus and painting the ceiling in flame. The fire vanished in an instant, leaving only the smell of charred meat behind. Jamus Roland's unrecognizable corpse collapsed with a sickly thud.\n\nIt happened so fast Seren had no time to even move. Marth pointed the wand at her and smiled as she stood.\n\nShe froze, waiting for the opportunity to act. The Cannith book now lay on the floor at her feet.\n\n\"Poor girl,\" Marth whispered. \"He told you nothing, I imagine. Another pawn in these games, no doubt. How did you come to this life? An orphan of war, I'd wager. Do you have any idea what is happening here?\"\n\nShe only scowled and waited.\n\n\"Do not hate me for what I have done to your teacher, Seren,\" Marth whispered. \"One day you will appreciate the burden of deceit I have removed from your life. Perhaps I may yet offer opportunities for you, if you are wise enough to embrace them.\"\n\nThe doors burst open and three armored soldiers charged in.\n\n\"Captain, are you hurt?\" one said. The guard looked down at Jamus's charred husk with no apparent surprise.\n\n\"No,\" he said, still watching Seren. \"Nothing unexpected. What is happening outside?\"\n\n\"Some lunatic and a warforged are loose in the inn,\" the soldier said.\n\n\"A warforged?\" Marth looked at the man sharply.\n\nSeren reacted instantly to Marth's distraction. She fell into a roll, shoved Marth aside, grabbed the book, and rolled onto the trapdoor. It flipped under her weight, depositing her in the dank crawlspace. She locked the door behind her and ran. Seconds later she heard a riotous explosion and felt a wave of heat wash over her. Marth had turned his magic to removing the trap door. She didn't have long to make her escape. She pushed open another door and dropped through the ceiling of the kitchen. The angry shouts of Marth's guards sounded from the hall outside. The chaos apparently had little to do with her\u2014the Lhazaarite was busy piling furniture against the kitchen door while the warforged braced his shoulder against the door.\n\n\"What in Khyber?\" the Lhazaarite swore, looking up in surprise as he wedged another chair into the heap. \"Where did she come from?\"\n\nThe warforged looked at Seren, pointed at the ceiling, and returned his attention to the door.\n\nThey were, of course, the same pair she had encountered earlier in the street\u2014Omax and Tristam Xain. Seren's dagger was immediately in hand. She clutched the book to her chest and backed away from them.\n\n\"Don't try to stop me,\" she warned.\n\nTristam blinked. He glanced at Omax, then back at her.\n\n\"You're not getting the book back,\" Seren said. She continued backing away, moving toward the corner.\n\n\"Keep it,\" Omax said, turning his eerie blue stare upon her. \"Do you know another way out of here? Please.\"\n\n\"Omax, she's a thief,\" Tristam said. \"We can't trust her.\"\n\n\"Please,\" Omax repeated calmly, ignoring his comrade. \"If you know a way, we could use your help.\"\n\nSeren hesitated. She stood only a foot away from a sliding panel in the wall. She knew she could step through and seal it behind her before either of them could react, but she hesitated. There was something in the warforged's plain, direct demeanor that gave her pause, and Tristam seemed far too harried and confused to be threatening. In either case, if she escaped, Omax could likely just tear the wall away and follow her.\n\nShe already had enough new enemies. What did she really have to lose by helping them?\n\n\"This way,\" she said, sliding open the panel.\n\nTristam looked up at the ceiling, then at the passage with a look of astonishment. \"Another secret passage?\" he asked.\n\n\"This place has an interesting history,\" Seren said, stepping into the darkness.\n\nOmax followed, with Tristam bringing up the rear. The tunnel was narrow, passing through the walls between the ground floor rooms. Seren passed through with ease, but grimaced at the scraping clamor Omax produced as he squeezed his thick metal body through the passage. Fortunately Marth's guards were producing too much noise to notice. The smell of smoke drifted from above.\n\n\"The top floor is on fire,\" Tristam whispered. \"Who are these people?\"\n\n\"You don't know either?\" Seren shot back.\n\nThe warforged gave her a curious look. \"Why else would we\u2014\"\n\n\"Later, Omax,\" Tristam said, his voice a low hiss. \"Let's just get out of here.\"\n\nSeren pushed another hidden door aside. A cool rush of air and the smell of fresh rain washed over her. She stepped into the garbage-strewn alley behind the Buzzard and looked back at the top floor. Behind the upper windows she saw flames, and a plume of thick black smoke spiraled into the sky. Seren felt a bit of hope drain from her. The Buzzard had always been a safe place, with a dozen ways to escape, a hundred places to hide. It had been a refuge from the dangers of her life, and when she saw it burn, she truly realized that her teacher was dead.\n\nShe looked down again with a glum, distracted expression, only to see Omax emerge from the darkened tunnel at a full charge, eyes burning with violent blue fire. Seren's hand darted for her knife, but she knew it would be too late. The warforged was too fast, and her weapon would likely do little harm regardless.\n\nThe massive creature charged past Seren, its heavy fist colliding with something behind her. She turned to see one of Marth's guards slump against the wall, sword tumbling from his hand. She had not even noticed his approach. The warforged had likely just saved her life. Five more guards rounded the corner, shouting for help as they advanced. Seren drew her knife.\n\n\"Get behind me!\" Tristam shouted, darting forward with his sword in hand.\n\n\"I can defend myself,\" Seren retorted, but a heavy metal hand seized her shoulder from behind.\n\n\"Trust him,\" the warforged said, drawing back behind his comrade.\n\nThe soldiers moved to surround Tristam. He held his sword low to one side in one hand and flicked his left wrist. A slender ivory wand appeared between his fingertips and for an instant Seren saw a look of terror in the soldiers' eyes. Tristam shouted an unintelligible word, and a wave of sparkling white energy exploded into their scattering formation. Three fell among the garbage and did not rise, but another charged through the fire with sword held high. Tristam lifted his blade to defend himself, but his movements were slow, clumsy. Seren rolled between the guard and Tristam, slicing at the man's left knee with her blade. He stumbled and his stroke flew wide, allowing Tristam to easily parry. The guard fell to one knee and Tristam swung a second time, dropping the man beside his fellows.\n\nThe other two soldiers had rallied by now, but Omax was already among them. He bore no weapons but lumbered forward with his thick, three-fingered hands outstretched. He seized the first attacker by his chest plate; the metal creaked as it bent around his fingers. The soldier screamed and hacked at Omax's shoulder with his blade, leaving only light dents in his metal skin. He caught the other man's blade in his free hand and twisted, wrenching the sword from his grip. With a savage heave he lifted the first soldier into the air and hurled him at his fellow, crushing a rain barrel as they tumbled in a heap.\n\nOne soldier slumped unconscious, but the other scrambled to his knees, clutching his dented chest plate in pain. He glared at the warforged and searched about for his lost sword. Omax advanced a single thunderous step, squared his shoulders, and released a fierce, reverberating roar. The man kicked up a small cloud of refuse as he fell on his rear and scurried away, whimpering in terror.\n\nOmax looked back at them, his blue eyes casting about for any other threats. The metal plates in his torso still vibrated from the fury of his roar. \"We must go now,\" he said in his usual calm voice.\n\nTristam nodded, offering a hand to help Seren to her feet. She ignored him and stood on her own. The trio hurried through the alleys, away from Marth and his men. Alarm bells and panicked shouts came from every direction.\n\n\"At least this is a stroke of luck,\" Tristam said, looking back at the fire. \"The Watch and the fire brigade should be here soon. If your mysterious visitors are wise, they won't remain here too long.\"\n\n\"Luck?\" Seren snapped, glaring at him. \"They killed my friend.\"\n\n\"Well,\" Tristam said, stopping to look back at her. His mouth hung open lamely. He smoothed one hand nervously over his grime-streaked coat but could find nothing to say. \"I mean at least we're all safe. That's what matters, right? You have my sympathies. To lose a friend and a home...\"\n\n\"My home?\" she said sharply. \"You think I live in an abandoned inn?\"\n\n\"I... er...\" Tristam glanced back at the burning Buzzard and shrugged, obviously at a loss.\n\n\"This conversation is intriguing,\" Omax said, still scanning methodically for any enemies as he paused beside them. \"But this is not the time to have it.\"\n\nSeren flushed slightly in shame for allowing herself to lose her head in such a crisis. They began to move again.\n\n\"I never caught your name,\" Tristam said, looking back at her with an apologetic smile.\n\nSeren pushed past him and kept running. They emerged onto an unusually crowded street for this time of night, gawkers gathered to watch the fire from a safe distance. Seren ran out of the alley, directly toward them.\n\nTristam grabbed her arm. She gave him an icy look.\n\n\"Shouldn't we be keeping a low profile?\" he asked.\n\n\"A crowd is the best place to hide right now,\" she retorted.\n\n\"I am somewhat conspicuous,\" Omax said.\n\n\"Then find your own way out of this,\" she said.\n\nTristam's face burned red. He seemed to be struggling to find something to say.\n\n\"You are right,\" Omax said, and that surprised her. \"We will find our own way from here, but one more thing before we go.\"\n\nSeren looked up at him suspiciously. \"Everyone always wants one more thing,\" she said. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Thank you for saving our lives,\" the construct answered.\n\nSeren blinked.\n\nTristam gave a quick nod. \"Thank you, my lady,\" he added. \"Whatever your name is.\"\n\n\"Seren,\" she said softly. \"Seren Morisse. And I'm not much of a lady.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Seren,\" Omax repeated.\n\n\"Whatever,\" she said, though she her tone was light and drew a smile from Tristam. She turned to vanish into the crowd, but hesitated. She looked back just as the pair were leaving. \"What were you two doing there tonight, anyway?\"\n\n\"Looking for answers,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Answers to what?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Tristam said. \"Come to the docks tomorrow morning. Find Karia Naille, and maybe we can figure it out.\"\n\n\"I've had a terrible night,\" Seren said. \"Quite frankly, I have no reason to trust you.\"\n\nTristam laughed. \"Trust us?\" he asked. \"We're trusting you, Seren.\" He glanced at the thick journal tucked under her arm. \"Enjoy the book.\"\n\nThe Lhazaarite peered back the way they had come for sign of pursuit, then hurried off down the street. Omax followed, pausing only long enough to bow his head respectfully. She watched the strange duo for several moments, and then slipped into the crowd before the City Watch arrived.\n\nIt was only after Seren had returned to her shabby apartment and cleaned off the mud and grime of the evening that the adrenalin of her escape faded. The reality of her situation began to sink in. In a single evening the city of Wroat had become a much darker, stranger, and lonelier place. She had known that Jamus was sick for a long time now, and though he never shared the details she had suspected it was serious. She had wondered how she might survive in the city without him. As much as Seren liked to think of herself as cool, capable, and independent, the truth was that she had come to depend upon him. Now he was gone, and she was alone.\n\nIt wasn't as if she was helpless. In three years she had cultivated her own contacts throughout the city, but Jamus was the only one she really trusted. Maybe that was because of all the people she had met here, he was the only one who honestly admitted he was using her. For a pair of thieves, they had always been remarkably honest with one another, ever since the beginning.\n\nThey had first met shortly after Seren's arrival in the city, only three days after she had realized that her future lay in crime. Seren had spent four hours shadowing a pretty young noblewoman out slumming in the fishermen's district with her two bodyguards. Seren had been watching the girl carefully. When she paid for her drink, Seren noted that she kept her coin purse tucked carefully in her sleeve. She noted the sharp blades on the guards' belts but also noted the bored expressions on their faces. The tavern keeper and patrons treated her with exaggerated courtesy, but called her \"Lady Senthea,\" not \"my lady.\" This was obviously not the first time she had come here. Her guards clearly expected no trouble; their presence at this point was a mere formality. If Seren were to sit beside this Senthea, perhaps brush against her arm as they reached for the same drink, none would notice that her purse had been stolen.\n\nIt was a good plan, and it would have worked if Jamus hadn't stopped her. Just as Seren was making her way across the tavern, the old man rose from a nearby table and seized her wrist. She had seen the old thief around the neighborhood, knew him by name and reputation, but had avoided him as she avoided most people. Seren tried to slip away, but the old man's grip was surprisingly strong and she didn't wish to make the struggle so obvious. Instead she merely drew a short knife from her belt, displaying it to him within the shadows of her coat.\n\n\"I'm not worth the trouble I'd give you, old man,\" she said.\n\n\"Neither is she,\" Jamus whispered with a wry grin. \"You have no idea who she is, do you?\"\n\nSeren looked at him with suspicious curiosity.\n\n\"The esteemed Professor Senthea Montain is on leave from Morgrave University,\" Jamus said. \"She is no one to trifle with.\"\n\n\"Morgrave University?\" Seren said, not familiar with the name.\n\n\"An academy with a reputation for aggressive research,\" Jamus answered with a smile. \"Lady Senthea's particular field of expertise is enchantment.\"\n\n\"She doesn't look like a wizard to me,\" Seren said, trying to glance surreptitiously at Lady Senthea while still hiding her struggle with the old man.\n\n\"Of course she doesn't.\" Jamus cackled softly. \"You can tell by the smell, though. Strawberries and just a hint of ammonia. Wizards always smell a bit off. They can never really get the smell of all those reagents out of their clothes.\"\n\n\"You can tell she's a wizard because she smells funny?\" Seren asked with a dubious chuckle.\n\n\"No, that's how you should be able to tell,\" he answered. \"I know because I talked to her at length the first night I saw her here. She was even more obvious then. I advised her that the jewels she wore were a bit ostentatious, and that she might have better luck if she used less obvious bait. She was quite grateful for my professional expertise, if a bit disappointed her disguise was pierced so easily.\"\n\n\"Bait?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"She's a scholar doing a study on the criminal mind,\" Jamus said. He released her arm now, and Seren did not step away. \"Exploring the use of magic in their rehabilitation. That coin purse you've had your eye on is warded. She'll sense its absence the moment it's removed and find it wherever it goes. She's left a trail of disappointed thieves in her wake, all now permanently charmed to be perfectly law-abiding citizens. Well, except for Markham. Fool got a bit violent when he learned the truth and is now exploring an exciting new life as a frog. I suppose that's a form of rehabilitation, isn't it?\"\n\nSeren looked past Jamus, eyes wide. Lady Senthea was now watching them. She eyed Jamus with the bored, disappointed expression of a cat that has just watched a bird fly away.\n\nSeren tucked the dagger back into its sheath at the small of her back, though her hand still rested on its hilt. She looked at the old thief seriously. \"Why are you helping me?\" she asked.\n\n\"Honestly?\" Jamus ask as he returned to his seat. \"Because I know this city. Senthea means well, but without theft as a viable means of income, what would happen to a young girl like you?\"\n\nSeren's face flushed. She looked away. \"Thank you,\" she mumbled.\n\n\"You never needed me to save you,\" Jamus said. \"You saw the signs just like I did. The only mistake you made was not listening to your instinct. Of course, one mistake is generally more than enough for people like us.\" The old thief leaned back in the chair, clasping his hands behind his head.\n\nHe was right. The smell of spell reagents was only one clue. Seren had thought it somewhat odd that the guards were so bored in such a dangerous part of town. The bartender and other servants recognized Senthea by the way she was acting. She wouldn't have survived an excursion into this part of town without some means of defending herself. Seren had convinced herself she was just lucky. She might have found a more reliable target, but this just seemed too good to be true. She had chalked it up to a well-deserved instance of good fortune. Her hand fell limply from her dagger. She slumped into the chair across from Jamus and stared at the table.\n\n\"As old as I am, I have never seen a real wolf,\" Jamus said, rocking idly on the back legs of his chair. \"I spend too much time in cities. But I have read books about wolves. I am reminded of the lesson of the wolf.\"\n\nSeren glared at the old thief. \"What?\" she said. Her tone was perhaps a bit more irritable than she intended, but she was not in a pleasant mood and had no patience for nonsense.\n\nJamus did not appear to take offense. \"Though many creatures of magic and legend roam the wilds, the simple wolf is still among the most feared,\" Jamus answered. \"The Valenar respect the wolf greatly, for it is a creature of great cunning as well as ferocity. The lesson of the wolf is twofold. The first lesson is patience. The wolf must choose its prey carefully, for if the hunt fails it will not have the strength to hunt again. A poorly chosen hunt can kill a wolf.\"\n\n\"I think I know that feeling,\" Seren said, her voice much softer now. She tried without success to ignore the gnawing feeling in her belly. Seren had counted on a quick pull to earn enough coin to eat, and had almost paid the price.\n\n\"I'm glad you understand,\" Jamus said. \"The second lesson of the wolf is more important. Loyalty.\"\n\nSeren studied Jamus's weathered face thoughtfully. There was a keen, excited look in his eye. \"We had wolves out by my father's farm,\" she said. \"Father always said that the wolf you saw was never the wolf that killed you.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" Jamus said, snapping his fingers. \"Strength in numbers. Loyalty born of mutual benefit. Each member of the pack offers strengths the others lack. Each one watches the other's back. Youth and energy are strengths. As are wisdom and experience. With these combined, there is little that the pack cannot accomplish.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Seren said. \"You want me to join your pack, then?\"\n\nJamus nodded.\n\n\"And how many are in your pack?\" she asked.\n\n\"One,\" he said with a laugh. \"This old wolf has lost his pack, and he is too old to hunt alone. What say you, Seren Morisse? Are you interested in learning what I have to teach?\"\n\n\"How do you know my name?\" she asked, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair the same way he did.\n\nJamus smiled.\n\nSeren wiped her face with the back of one hand. She had not even noticed the tears when they came. She huddled on the tattered pallet in the corner of her apartment, rocking gently as memories of her mentor flooded through her mind. He was gone now. She was alone in the city, but that was not the worst part.\n\nWhat had happened tonight? Why had Jamus agreed to take a job from a man like Marth? Why had he hidden the truth from her? They had always been honest with one another, at least professionally. Now, she knew that Jamus had not merely been a thief before they met. He had been a spy. His old \"pack\" had been Fiona Keenig's intelligence network, washed away when the innkeeper vanished after the Day of Mourning.\n\nThere were no answers.\n\nShe still had a little money saved up. It might be enough to buy passage on a coach out of town. She could go back to Ringbriar, back to her mother. Whatever troubles Jamus had stirred up in Wroat would never find her there. She would still have to find a way to scrape out a living without relying on her impoverished mother, but she would be relatively safe. No more stealing. No more strangers following her through the streets or threatening to disembowel her. She might starve, but at least she would see it coming.\n\nThen she saw the seal of the gorgon and albatross looking up at her from the Cannith journal. The eyes of the gorgon glared up at her relentlessly. The albatross looked only to its flight, ignoring her completely. Seren wiped the tears from her cheeks again.\n\nLoyalty.\n\nIf she didn't find out who Marth was and why he killed Jamus Roland, who else would ever care? Jamus had been a spy and a thief. He had taken her under his wing because he was too old to scale walls and pick pockets himself. He was no hero. Even to say he was a good man would have been a stretch.\n\nBut he was her friend. He was her teacher. He had accepted her unconditionally when no one else would. Even if he had hidden things from her, Seren owed it to Jamus to find the truth.\n\nShe cradled the thick book to her chest as she lay back on her bed, quite literally clinging to the only clue she had. She would find the truth, she told herself as she pulled the thin sheets over her shoulders.\n\nBut not tonight.\n\nSeren lay in the dark for several hours, and the tears continued to come. Eventually, somehow, sleep found her.\n\nThe next morning, Seren set out to find Karia Naille. If Tristam and Omax had been truly sincere in their offer for help, then she would need to share information with them. The possibility that this might be some sort of trap flickered only briefly through her consideration. What would they have to gain? If the warforged had wanted to kill her, capture her, or take the book away from her, they could have done so easily last night.\n\nOf course that was no reason to walk into a situation unprepared. She rose and dressed conservatively in a long linen dress and cloak, so as not to draw attention. She stuffed the Cannith journal in a clean woolen bag and then stuffed a blanket in as well. Carrying around an expensive journal bearing the seal of a dragonmarked house might draw a question or two, but carrying a sack of laundry to the river was normal enough. Plucking her coin purse from the broken wooden crate that served as a dressing table, she counted her remaining funds. It would have to do for now. Tucking her knife into the folds of her dress at the waist, Seren set out for the landing.\n\nSeren soon arrived at the docks and carefully inspected each ship from a distance. She couldn't find one named Karia Naille. She began discreetly asking dockworkers and other passersby if they had heard of such a ship; most seemed to know nothing. She felt frustrated and confused. Why ask her to meet them at a ship that didn't exist? It didn't make sense, but then again, most of this didn't make sense. Perhaps she was simply asking in the wrong place. Wroat was a large city, after all, and whatever Tristam and his associates were up to, they would likely keep to themselves. Even so, it wouldn't matter how discreet they wished to be, a ship couldn't dock in Wroat and not announce itself to the Watch. However, that meant talking to the Watch. For a known thief like Seren, that was a tricky sort of undertaking.\n\nLuckily she soon found a watchman whose face she didn't recognize. \"Pardon me,\" she said in as meek a voice as she could muster. \"Do you know where I might find a ship called Karia Naille?\"\n\nThe guard looked at her with a bored expression then pointed past her with his spear. She looked that way only to see an empty area of the docks. Then she looked up. It was amazing, sometimes, what the eye could miss when it was simply unprepared to see it. The city of Wroat sprawled on both sides of the Howling River, and on the opposite side of the river, a series of six short towers faced the docks, each capped by a short bridge that ended in open air. Seren had always wondered what purpose the strange towers served, for she had never seen them in use. Now a long, sleek vessel hovered in the air beside one of the towers.\n\nKaria Naille was an airship.\n\nAirships were a relatively rare sight to begin with, at least in the poorer parts of Wroat. Only the phenomenally wealthy could afford such vehicles, and only expert artificers could maintain them.\n\n\"Do you know who owns that ship?\" Seren asked, looking back at the guard. He had already continued his patrol and didn't hear. Seren let him go. After last night, she reasoned she was better off not leaving a lasting impression on the Watch.\n\nShe crossed a nearby bridge and made her way to the tower's base. Seren felt one final pang of paranoia, a fear that she was walking into danger. She looked up at the ship. Seren didn't believe that Omax and Tristam planned to harm her. Her real fear was that, after this, there would be no turning back. Whatever Jamus, Marth, Dalan d'Cannith, and the others were involved in, it didn't really involve her yet. She didn't know enough to be a threat to any of them, and only Tristam and Omax even knew her last name. She could easily step away now, leave the city with the handful of coins she had left, and face whatever bleak and uncertain fate awaited her.\n\nWas this why Jamus had told her nothing? To give her an easy way out in case he died? It would be just like him, she thought with a scowl. Jamus always underestimated her stubbornness. Seren pushed open the door of the sky tower and stepped inside.\n\nShe was surprised to find no crewmen inside the tower, no one on watch. She climbed the spiraling staircase and stepped out onto the top of the tower. There were no outer parapets, not even a rail to protect a person from falling off the gangplank. A cargo crane mounted on the bridge creaked and wobbled in the wind. Seren felt a sense of vertigo but didn't stumble; she had no fear of heights.\n\nThis close to the ship, Seren could hear the crackling, rhythmic hum emanate from the faint ring of blue fire that surrounded the vessel. The flames hovered around Karia Naille, roughly twenty feet from the top of the deck and only a few feet from the bottom of the hull. A sleek elegant wooden strut rose from the top and bottom of the vessel, grasping the fire in a pair of crystalline hooks. The ring's color shifted by the moment, flickering from blue to white to lavender. Seren had heard that airships were powered by elementals, strange creatures summoned from a world of harsh primal fire and bound into service. She had always found the stories somewhat sad. In her more indulgent moments, she even sympathized with them, forced to serve in a world they didn't want to live in. If the burning ring sensed her sympathy it did not seem to care.\n\nBringing herself back to the matter at hand, Seren scanned her surroundings and again found no crewmen guarding the bridge between the tower and ship. The vessel was relatively small, with a door at each end of the deck leading to a cabin and presumably below decks. She saw no one on deck at all. The only sign of life she could detect was the rather curious odor of freshly baked pastry. She peered around uneasily, certain she must have missed something. Seren had never been on an airship before, but she knew they were very valuable. Why would this one be unguarded? Shouldn't there at least be a crew? It seemed unlikely that there wouldn't be someone around. This certainly wasn't the best neighborhood to leave a valuable ship unguarded.\n\nShe stepped cautiously across the bridge, ignoring the howling winds that sliced at the high tower. Seren felt a sudden sense of unease as she prepared to step onto the deck. A wave of dizziness washed over her. The winds increased, whipping past her and raising a keening wail from the burning elemental ring. She stepped away and reached out to steady herself on the docking crane. Seren felt suddenly as if someone were watching her, someone not altogether pleased by her arrival.\n\n\"Hello?\" she called out over the wind. There was no answer at first. \"Is anyone here?\"\n\nThere was a sudden sound of rushing air and Seren felt something heavy strike the bridge behind her. She turned around to see a reptilian beast the size of a small pony crouched on the top of the tower. Its flesh was a motley pattern of dark greens, with a pale blue underbelly. It held its long beak open just enough for her to see rows of sharp teeth and glared at her with dull black eyes. Most surprising of all was that it wore a leather harness on its back. The creature lowered its thin body and narrowed its eyes at Seren, releasing a birdlike shriek.\n\n\"He wants to know why you're here,\" said a voice from above her.\n\nSeren looked up. A child dressed in wildly colorful outfit of leather and silk now crouched on top of the crane, pointing a small crossbow at her. No, not a child, a halfling. He regarded her with a confident mix of mischief and silent menace as he waited for her answer.\n\n\"My name is Seren Morisse,\" she said calmly, trying not to let the halfling's sudden appearance unnerve her. \"I was invited here by Tristam Xain and Omax. This is Karia Naille, right?\"\n\n\"Oh, so you're not a thief, then,\" the little man said, lowering his crossbow. He chuckled. \"Or at least you're a thief on our side?\"\n\nSeren could not help but smirk. \"I'm not on anyone's side,\" she said. \"I only came here for answers.\"\n\n\"Funny place to look for them,\" the halfling answered, hooking his weapon on his belt. \"Glad to meet you, Seren. I'm Gerith. You've already met Blizzard.\"\n\nWith that, the halfling flipped backward, off the crane and into the wind. Seren's jaw dropped in surprise at the suicidal act, but in the same instant Blizzard shrieked and leapt off the tower as well. With a leathery snap it unfurled wide, batlike wings and dove down, past the bridge. A moment later it soared back up in a spiral. Gerith now clung to the harness on its back. The halfling laughed as the creature flew in a loop around the burning ring and landed gracefully on the ship's railing. Gerith looked back at her eagerly, taking obvious joy at the surprise on her face. He flashed a wide smile, showing off the wide gap where he was missing some of his front teeth. Seren stood with her hands on her hips for a thoughtful moment then clapped politely, drawing more laughter from the halfling.\n\n\"Welcome to Karia Naille, Seren,\" Gerith said, hopping from the saddle with a flourish as she stepped onto the deck. \"I'll tell everyone that you're here. I know you said you wanted answers, but perhaps in the meantime, you'd settle for pie? Pie is usually better than answers. Pie doesn't disappoint.\" He winked.\n\nSeren had been about to refuse, then realized how hungry she was. \"Pie sounds good, Gerith,\" she said.\n\nThe halfling nodded eagerly. \"My chicken pie is the best,\" he said, patting Blizzard on the beak before heading off toward the nearest hatch. \"Back in the Plains, it's said that great chefs make the best lovers, you know. That's a very pretty dress, Seren.\"\n\nSeren looked at the halfling incredulously.\n\nGerith looked back at her, winked again, and vanished below deck.\n\nSeren looked at Blizzard, but the creature was busy preening his wing. His master's antics were clearly something that no longer concerned the creature, and since Gerith had approved of her presence, she was no longer a concern.\n\nSeren heard the opposite hatch open behind her, accompanied by footsteps too heavy to be a halfling's. \"Pay no mind to Gerith Snowshale,\" said a familiar voice. \"He's a good translator and the best scout I've ever known, but he is too eager to impress the fairer sex. Whether they are the proper age, social class, or race is rarely a concern for him.\"\n\nSeren turned to face the new arrival. Her expression became grim when she recognized his face.\n\n\"Is there a problem?\" Dalan d'Cannith asked with a small smile. \"Did you not wish to see me?\"\n\n\"I didn't expect to see you here,\" she said. \"Usually a dragonmarked ship is a little more obvious.\"\n\n\"The ship bears no obvious marks of ownership for good reason, I assure you of that.\"\n\n\"Are you the captain?\" she asked.\n\n\"I own Karia Naille, if that is what you truly meant to ask, but I am not the captain,\" he said. \"I prefer to leave such matters in the hands of more qualified associates. What business do you have here?\"\n\n\"I'm Seren Morisse,\" she said. \"I came to see Tristam Xain and Omax.\"\n\n\"Both are in my employ,\" Dalan said. \"Tristam and Omax are currently in the city, gathering supplies for our departure. Perhaps I can be of assistance? You may as well address your concerns to me, as it is likely they would have referred you to me in any case. Or perhaps I have misjudged your arrival. Perhaps you simply returned to see if I had anything else worth stealing?\"\n\n\"I think I made a mistake,\" Seren said, backing toward the bridge. Dalan continued to watch her with a smug expression.\n\n\"Why am I not surprised?\" Dalan said with a sigh. \"A thief claims to seek answers, but when confronted with the most brutal truths, she scurries back to the safety of ignorance. Would you rather I lied to you, Seren? Would you rather I pretend not to know that you are a thief? I had assumed honesty would be our best starting point. If you change your mind, I will be waiting to discuss this. Enjoy the pie.\" He turned and slipped back into his cabin, closing the hatch behind him.\n\nThe other hatch opened, and Gerith appeared. He held a wooden plate heaped with a thick slice of pie and a crystal goblet of milk. His cheerful expression faded when he saw Seren standing on the bridge.\n\n\"Leaving already?\" he asked, crestfallen.\n\n\"Not yet,\" she said, stopping and looking back toward Dalan's cabin. \"I need to talk to Dalan.\"\n\n\"Ask him if he'd like some pie,\" Gerith offered cheerfully.\n\nDalan looked up with a frown as Seren entered his cabin. Much like his private study, it was packed with books and scrolls. The small chamber was only as tidy as it needed to be for its owner to navigate the room unharmed. A small bed in one corner was the only gesture toward comfort. The shaggy old dog lay half-asleep on it now, though its tail thumped the pillows when it recognized Seren, the beloved giver of cake.\n\n\"We knock before we enter a cabin on this ship,\" Dalan said, setting his quill down and placing whatever he had been writing out of sight.\n\nSeren did not answer his barb, only dug out the journal and dropped it heavily onto the desk. Dalan reached out quickly to steady his wine glass. The volume landed so that the gorgon seal was facing Dalan.\n\n\"My partner and I stole that book last night,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" Dalan said, dusting off the cover with one hand. \"Not only did you make a mess of my home, but Gunther was up all night with indigestion. Old dogs are not meant to have sweets.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you report the theft to the Watch?\" she demanded.\n\n\"It was not the Watch's affair,\" Dalan said.\n\n\"The man who hired us killed my partner when he learned that book was a fake,\"\n\nDalan looked up at her frankly. \"Then perhaps you should go to the Watch and report his death.\"\n\nSeren only looked at Dalan.\n\n\"Of course that is not an option for a person in your profession,\" Dalan said. \"As it is not an option for me. We are not so different, Seren.\"\n\n\"Why did our client want that book so badly? My partner didn't tell me much before he died.\"\n\n\"Why do you wish to know?\" Dalan asked. \"If you think you might ransom it back, you are mistaken.\"\n\n\"No,\" Seren snapped. \"I just want to know why my friend died to steal a fake copy of... whatever this is.\"\n\nDalan took a slow sip from his wine before he answered. \"The book is not a fake, Seren,\" he said. \"It merely isn't what your employer believed it to be. It is one of many mundane journals crafted by an author notable for several more significant works. Ironically, we might have more answers had you not so cleverly recovered it.\"\n\n\"Explain,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Tristam placed upon enchantments upon the book so that we could track it,\" Dalan said. He looked at her intently. \"So you really had no idea what your client believed this book to be?\"\n\n\"No,\" Seren said, unable to keep the edge from her voice. She pushed a pile of books from a chair across from Dalan and sat, eliciting an annoyed wince from him as the pile hit the floor. \"Jamus knew more, but he didn't tell me. Marth sure didn't give anything away.\"\n\n\"Marth,\" Dalan said, weighing the name carefully. \"So why did you bother to take the book with you when you escaped?\"\n\n\"I thought it might hold some answers,\" she said. \"I guess it's useless.\"\n\n\"Not entirely,\" Dalan said, leafing through the book's pages. \"It was necessary to use a compelling decoy, and thus it does bear some modest sentimental value. I appreciate its return. Had you not been the sort of person who would make the effort to return my property, for whatever reason, I most likely would not be tolerating your presence on my ship. Now, let us see if we can find some answers. Please tell me as much of your client, the man that killed your partner, as you can. His name was Marth, was it?\"\n\n\"Tell me why you set a trap with an enchanted book first,\" Seren demanded.\n\n\"A trap?\" Dalan said. He laughed, steepling his fingers over the book. \"The paranoid always overestimate their own importance. I did not trap you. I do not care about you. A man makes contingencies for his own protection, and you see it as some contrived plot against you. Realize where you stand. You and your partner chose the lives you did, and this Marth used you to get to me. You knew the risks, and when you failed to deliver genuine merchandise, you paid the price. If you cannot hold yourself to blame for being a thief who will offer her services to a murderer, then the depths of your denial are truly without measure. Keep in mind what your intent was yesterday evening\u2014to steal another man's property for money, on behalf of an employer you neither knew nor trusted. Do not pretend that you are somehow the injured party in this affair. You were simply not as clever as you imagined, and your friend Jamus died. Perhaps rather than curse me for some imagined entrapment, you might thank me for sending Tristam and Omax to save you.\"\n\n\"I saved their lives, actually,\" Seren said.\n\nDalan was silent a long moment, then chuckled. \"The details of that encounter varied slightly with Tristam's telling of the tale,\" he said. \"I suppose I should have known well enough to ask Omax what happened. He may be a construct, but he's far more reliable than the boy. Now, please, let us set aside our respective motivations and concentrate on facts. You thought yourself the clever thief set to receive a legendary reward. I thought myself a keen manipulator, setting an inescapable trap to catch those who conspired against me. We were both wrong. Now tell me what you know and let us help one another.\"\n\nSeren folded her arms and leaned back in the chair with a frown. \"I'm afraid I don't know much,\" she said. \"We met a changeling named Marth, who called himself a captain.\"\n\n\"A changeling?\" Dalan asked. \"He showed his true face to you and admitted he was a changeling?\"\n\nSeren nodded.\n\n\"Strange,\" he said. \"They are a misunderstood and often hated race. Their ability to control their appearance makes them difficult to trust. It's very rare for one to reveal himself in such a manner, except to another whom he trusts implicitly.\"\n\n\"Or maybe he planned to kill us all along so it didn't matter if we knew what he was,\" Seren said.\n\n\"A possibility,\" Dalan admitted.\n\n\"His guards were well armed and trained,\" Seren said. \"They were equipped like professional soldiers. I never saw the crest they wore before, but then I've never seen any soldiers other than Brelish ones.\"\n\n\"Omax recognized their uniforms, and so did I when he described them to me,\" Dalan said. \"They were Cyran.\"\n\n\"Cyre?\" Seren said. \"I didn't think Cyre had an army. Or much of anything else.\"\n\nDalan shrugged. \"Many Cyran soldiers survived the Day of Mourning because they were in enemy lands. The armor and uniforms Omax described were those of the Eighty-Seventh Legion, a unit that was in Karrnath when the tragedy occurred. They became mercenaries after the Day of Mourning. Such a fate is unsurprising. Imagine what that must be like, Seren. To be a warrior, fighting for the future of your homeland in strange and distant country, only to discover that you now have no homeland. All that you've fought for, all that you've lived for, is now gone. You are now irrelevant. Yet the desire to fight remains, the desire to shed blood for a cause endures even though there is no cause at all, except perhaps vengeance. What life would beckon such a lost soul other than that of a mercenary? Those who fought for king and country now fight for gold and silver. It saddens me, to see my own countrymen fall to such a fate.\"\n\n\"You're Cyran?\" she asked. Gunther hobbled out of his bed and sniffed Seren curiously for any sign of food. Finding none, the dog rested his head on her lap and waited to be petted.\n\n\"Many members of my House are Cyran,\" Dalan said. \"Fortunately, unlike the soldiers you met, most of my friends lived outside Cyre. My service to my house gives me continued purpose. But we are wandering far from the meat of this discourse. What else do you know of this Captain Marth?\"\n\n\"Not much,\" Seren said, scratching the dog's ears absently. \"Jamus wouldn't tell me much about who we were working for. I think he wanted to protect me. He said that he had arranged for speaker posts to be sent to his allies, and he mentioned Fairhaven, but I don't know anyone from there.\"\n\n\"A bluff, most likely,\" Dalan said. \"Pity that you survived and he did not. His insight would no doubt be more illuminating than your own. No offense.\" Dalan smiled insincerely. \"Cheer up, little thief. I am certain you are better off without a master who would hitch your wagon to a killer. Indeed, if he truly wished to protect you, he should have avoided taking a job from someone so untrustworthy.\"\n\n\"Are you done judging the dead, d'Cannith?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"For now,\" Dalan said. \"I do tend to go on, a trait I inherited from my mother. A wonderful woman. Pray continue, Seren. Tell me whatever you can remember, no matter how insignificant.\"\n\n\"Well, like I said, Jamus didn't tell me much about our employer,\" she answered. \"I'm not even sure if we were working directly for Marth. I thought our employer was a woman, at least from the way Jamus spoke. Jamus was surprised when Marth arrived so early.\"\n\n\"Interesting,\" Dalan said, thumbing through the journal as he listened to Seren's information. \"Is there anything else?\"\n\n\"He killed Jamus and set the inn on fire using magic,\" she said. \"Some sort of amethyst wand.\"\n\nDalan's eyes narrowed in thought. \"That makes a great deal of sense,\" he said. \"I have suspected that our competitor was a student of artifice.\"\n\n\"Competitor?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"What I am about to say is quite delicate,\" Dalan said. \"It would be in your best interests, once you leave my ship, to forget what I tell you\u2014not for my sake but your own. My troubles are a heavy thing, and could easily crush one as small as yourself. I am loath to even speak of them, but my associates promised you an exchange of information. As foolish as they may have been to make such an arrangement with a thief, I am a man of my word. Do you understand?\"\n\nSeren nodded.\n\n\"I reiterate the seriousness of this,\" he said. \"I am about to share perhaps more than Tristam's arrangement requires because I feel sympathy, if not responsibility, for your friend's death\u2014but do not mistake sympathy for forgiveness or trust. You stole from me, Seren, and I do not abide thieves. However, I am not a monster, so I will offer you answers to lessen your pain. But realize that what I say to you will be entirely useless to you.\"\n\n\"Useless?\"\n\n\"Because the answers will have no true use to you,\" he said. \"If you betray my confidence, few will believe an insignificant thief. Those who might believe you would likely kill you, suspecting you know more than you do. You seem relatively intelligent, thus I am certain you will remain silent to avoid dangerous scrutiny. But if you do not, your death will trouble me little. Is that understood?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Then I will tell you what I can,\" Dalan said. \"I am currently engaged in a project that has consumed a great deal of my time for the past two years. I have certain competitors in this endeavor, and as much as I despise to admit it, this is not a race I am currently winning. Further, these competitors do not share my regard for law, honor, or human mercy. Various clues, not to mention their previous owners, have vanished or perished before I had a chance to investigate. I have long feared that my competitors might seek to derail my own meager progress, so I set this book aside as a trap. Though it greatly resembles other significant pieces of research written by its author, it is, as you know, not genuine. Tristam placed certain enchantments upon this volume that would allow him to follow it if it was stolen, as long as it remained within a certain range.\"\n\n\"So that was why he interfered when the Watch stopped me,\" Seren said. \"He didn't want me to get caught.\"\n\n\"Not before we found out who you were working for,\" Dalan answered with a small smile. \"Unfortunately your escape from the Watch was a bit more dramatic than Tristam expected. It took him some time to untangle himself and, by the time he was able to triangulate the book's location again, the inn was already surrounded by Marth's henchmen. Being the impulsive individual he is, Tristam resolved to fight his way to rescue you rather than waiting to summon help. Omax is a more practical soul, but his single fault is that he invariably follows Tristam's lead. Thus they became embroiled in the conflict before they realized how hopelessly outnumbered they were. You have already noted that I do not hesitate to condemn you for your previous actions, but neither will I balk at praising you for a job well done. I thank you for saving their lives. Tristam and Omax have many flaws, but their services are irreplaceable. I have precious few trustworthy allies.\n\n\"I know the feeling,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Imagine my surprise,\" Dalan said dryly. \"Unfortunately, Tristam's foolishness lost us much and gained little.\" He sighed. \"Other than your confirmation that this Captain Marth uses magic, happens to be a changeling, and bears a connection to the fallen nation of Cyre, we still know nothing about our enemy's true identity. Knowing a changeling's name means very little. They collect names as other men might collect interesting coins. They often hide behind other identities, live lives as humans or elves so that others will not distrust them for what they are. What truly bothers me is not his identity, but his efficiency. How does he learn so much while we learn so little? How can he command so many minions yet leave no trail?\"\n\n\"It may not mean much,\" Seren said, \"but he tried to recruit me.\"\n\nDalan's eyebrows raised. \"Recruit you?\"\n\n\"He offered to spare my life if I joined him,\" she said. \"He thought I was an orphan of war.\"\n\n\"Very interesting,\" Dalan said. \"The import is unclear, but interesting nonetheless.\"\n\n\"So what comes next?\" Seren asked.\n\nDalan scowled. \"I suspect after this failed theft, Marth will make a more dramatic and violent move against me,\" he said. \"I have already gathered what I need so that I can leave Wroat, but I regret the damage he will do in my wake.\"\n\n\"What does he want?\" Seren asked. \"What's so important that it's worth killing for? What's so important that you would gamble with people's lives?\"\n\n\"I am no gambler, Seren,\" Dalan said, looking at her intently. \"A gambler is a man who risks what otherwise would not be lost. I gamble nothing, for many lives are already at risk.\"\n\n\"That's no answer.\"\n\n\"Fools always believe a simple answer will wipe trouble away,\" Dalan said with a sneer. \"Simple answers are the opiate of simple minds; I prefer things complex. But so be it, Miss Morisse. Let the burden of enlightenment be on your head. My uncle Ashrem d'Cannith was a brilliant scholar, but his primary area of expertise was artifice\u2014magical engineering. Though I doubt you would have heard of him, you know his symbol already.\" Dalan gestured at the crest on the book she had stolen. She realized many more of the books in this room bore the same crest.\n\n\"Ashrem made his career in the Last War,\" Dalan continued, \"fashioning all manner of devices. His skill and innovation are unsurpassed even to this day. You now sit in an example of his brilliance. This airship is one of three he once possessed, and it features many of his own innovations. It was his genius that helped bring about the warforged, as well as countless other creations. Sadly my uncle's political acumen did not match his ingenuity, and thus he made his share of enemies in our house. These enemies turned their ire to me when he passed; a rather dubious inheritance. That, and this, of course...\"\n\nDalan took a scrap of paper from his desk, rolled it into a tube, and held it over the small candle on his desk. Seren watched as it burned into ashes on his desk. Dalan concentrated a moment and, with a wave of his hand, rendered the page whole and undamaged again.\n\n\"Impressive,\" she said.\n\n\"A dragonmark trick,\" he said. \"Those who bear the Mark of Making can repair what has been destroyed, but such tricks are the extent of my magical talents. My uncle was a true genius. My minor talents are quite literally nothing compared to his, and to those of many others in my house. My lack of magical talent, combined with the political situation he left behind, made progress in my house difficult for me. The most I could manage was to maintain my position as guildmaster here, though such a prestigious title amounted ultimately to a clerk's duties. I was to be discarded and forgotten in Wroat.\"\n\n\"The city has a way of collecting unwanted things,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Indeed. A few years ago, while sorting through my inheritance, I discovered a passage in one of my uncle's journals. It made veiled references to other unfinished works, hidden works, in particular an artifact he called the Legacy. It is my belief that the Legacy would have been the most fantastic of my uncle's creations. It is my duty to reclaim it in his name, and to do so before men like Marth can do the same.\"\n\n\"How noble,\" Seren said. \"I'm sure the possibility that you'd win back your House's favor never entered your mind.\"\n\nDalan smiled. \"Naturally my motivations are complex. I hardly find that unusual. A soldier may fight with all his strength and win a battle\u2014in the end justice prevails and the king reigns for another day. Does it matter in the end that, during the battle, the soldier only wished to survive? I think we all do noble things for selfish reasons. I often find that only those who think they are truly selfless\u2014those who act on behalf of abstract ideals or beliefs with no thought for the moment\u2014are those who generally bring the most harm. They lose sight of what truly matters. In any case, I can assure you that my modest political aspirations are far more innocent than whatever this Captain Marth's intent may be for my uncle's work. All of Ashrem d'Cannith's closest colleagues and students have either perished or vanished since his death. Don't you find that unusual?\"\n\n\"What does the Legacy do?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"What indeed?\" Dalan said. \"I am not at liberty to discuss the specifics, but suffice it to say it is incredibly powerful.\"\n\n\"As a weapon?\" she asked.\n\nDalan paused. \"All things can be used as weapons,\" he said in a subdued tone. \"My uncle would not wish his discoveries to be used in such a way. He was a man of peace.\"\n\n\"Then maybe your Legacy is better off undiscovered,\" Seren answered.\n\n\"A conclusion I have not dismissed,\" Dalan said, \"but knowledge is not a thing that can be caged or extinguished. Whatever the truth of my uncle's discovery, one day it will be found, by Marth or others like him. It falls to me to ensure that it is discovered by those who will use the knowledge responsibly.\"\n\n\"And you believe House Cannith will use it responsibly,\" Seren said.\n\n\"In fact I do,\" he said, his tone mildly offended. \"Do not misunderstand me, Seren. I comprehend the mercantile motivations that drive my house. I understand them better than most. The lure of wealth and power are strong, and to be certain many Canniths would be seduced by the notion of exploiting my uncle's work. Yet remember that we have been the custodians of magical knowledge for over three millennia. If there are any with whom my uncle's secrets can be trusted, then who else but his own house?\"\n\n\"Then why didn't he leave the knowledge to you, as he left his ship?\" she asked.\n\nDalan did not answer immediately. \"To be honest, I do not know,\" he said in a sober voice. \"The answer to that question is one of many mysteries he left behind.\" He drummed his fingers on the desk for a long moment, then looked at her with a frown. \"If there is nothing else, Miss Morisse, then I believe our business is concluded.\" He reached into his pocket, scattering a few gold coins on the table. \"Take this for your trouble, and take my advice as well. Leave Wroat and do not involve yourself in this further. I can handle it from here.\"\n\nSeren looked at the coins as they shone in the lamplight. It was more money than she had seen in some time, but she made no move to reach for them.\n\n\"I want to help,\" she said.\n\n\"You?\" Dalan retorted. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you need help,\" she said. \"You already trusted me enough to tell me what you're after.\"\n\n\"I told you very little.\" Dalan laughed. \"I told you enough to satiate my own meager guilt over your friend's death, and no more. I do not need you, Seren Morisse. Return to your filthy hovel. I wish you a long, prosperous life of digging through other people's pockets. When you meet your final knife in the dark, may you bleed out painlessly.\"\n\n\"Marth killed my friend; I want to help stop him,\" Seren answered, her voice growing heated from Dalan's insults. \"Maybe you can't trust me, but you know I have nowhere else to go. You admitted you need allies. What do you have to lose?\"\n\n\"This ship operates with a surprisingly small crew,\" Dalan said, \"so I do not require another deckhand. What use would I have with a thief?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Seren said, \"you claim that you've studied some of the same clues as Marth, but that he learns more than you do?\"\n\nDalan nodded. \"I possess many copies of my uncle's works, but I believe there is a code, a pattern that I do not yet understand. Marth must have broken this cipher already. It seems he is much more skilled in his craft than Tristam.\"\n\n\"Or he has resources you don't know about,\" Seren said. \"Marth knew the journal was worthless when he studied it with this.\" She reached into her dress and took out a purple frosted lens, setting it on Dalan's desk with a clink.\n\nDalan d'Cannith's eyes widened as he picked up the glass and looked into its depths. \"Interesting,\" he said. \"Where did you find this?\"\n\n\"I took it from Marth's pocket before I ran away,\" she said. She plucked it from Dalan's fingers and returned it to her pocket. \"But you obviously don't have any use for a thief.\" She smiled at him primly.\n\nA wide, dangerous grin spread across Dalan d'Cannith's features. \"You are a shrewd negotiator, Seren Morisse,\" he said, leaning back in his seat. \"There may be room for you on Karia Naille after all.\" He sniffed the air tentatively. Seren detected the faint aroma of cooking\u2014Gerith's, probably. \"You may remain among us, for the time being. Now let us discuss the details of your employment over lunch.\"\n\nCaptain Marth stood in the middle of Dalan d'Cannith's study, his expression one of disappointment and irritation. He ran one hand along a nearby shelf as he examined the titles of the books.\n\n\"Captain,\" called one of his guards from the doorway.\n\nMarth looked up, his hood falling back upon his shoulders. He wore his natural face again, smooth and white except for the unsightly pink burns that crawled across his cheek.\n\n\"Speak,\" he commanded, beckoning to the guard.\n\n\"We discovered very little of interest in the rest of the house, Captain,\" the guard reported. \"Only a few guild logs detailing Cannith operations in the city. Many items were hastily removed, including much of the clothing in Master d'Cannith's wardrobe and the food in his larder. Even the servant's quarters are empty.\"\n\nMarth nodded. The servants would know nothing. Dalan would have already fled. While Dalan obviously bore interest in his uncle's work, the guildmaster had discovered nothing of true value. It came as no surprise. The Canniths were meddlers by nature, but ultimately harmless. They never understood Ashrem's work. Marth's fingers rested for a moment on the binding of one of many volumes bearing the House Cannith gorgon seal, and he remembered.\n\nHe had stood in a house much like this one, the modestly appointed home of a wealthy noble. The smell of smoke hung in the air, along with the shrieks of terrified children and servants. The fires blazed all around him, but Marth cared little. He wore the face of a Cyran soldier as he advanced on his former commanding officer, sword in one hand and wand in the other. Bright red blood shone on the steel blade.\n\n\"Cargul, what is the meaning of this?\" Lieutenant Keiran demanded. Sweat and soot streaked the old soldier's face. He held his broadsword unsteadily in one hand, the other hand pressed up against his bleeding side as he backed fearfully away, trying to distance himself from both his attacker and the fires.\n\n\"I'm not Sergeant Cargul,\" Marth corrected. His face became smooth and gray. He was younger in those days, his natural face unscarred. \"You remember me, sir.\" It was not a question, only a statement awaiting confirmation.\n\n\"You.\" Keiran hissed. \"The changeling spy! By Khyber, if you've harmed my wife...\"\n\n\"She is safe, sir,\" Marth answered calmly. \"I showed your family greater mercy than you offered mine.\"\n\nKeiran sneered and charged Marth with his sword held high. The changeling pointed his amethyst wand at the floor, summoning a wall of green fire between them.\n\n\"Face me without your magic, changeling!\" Keiran demanded. \"Face me with your sword, coward!\"\n\n\"This is not a matter of courage, nor a demonstration of strength,\" Marth said. \"This is revenge. Burn, as they did.\"\n\nGreen fire blazed within the purple crystal again, and the room filled with intense heat. Lieutenant Kieran screamed, vanishing within the blaze. Marth stood where he was, unharmed by the smoke and fire, and listened until the screams faded. Then, slowly, he made his way through the burning house and outside again. Huddled men and women gathered on the grass outside. Their clothing was seared and blackened with soot. They held their children close as they watched Marth with undisguised terror. He ignored them, walking past the crowd to the one man who stood apart from the rest. Marth looked up, his soot-blackened face marked now by trails of tears.\n\n\"You didn't stop me, Ashrem,\" Marth said to the old man.\n\nAshrem d'Cannith looked back sadly. The old man's crystal blue eyes reflected only sympathy. \"Perhaps I did not want to,\" he whispered. \"But it ends now, Marth.\"\n\n\"What happens now?\" the changeling asked.\n\n\"Come with me, and face justice for what you have done,\" Ashrem said.\n\n\"Justice?\" Marth repeated with a bitter laugh.\n\n\"If you come with me, I will stand by you, and defend you to the last,\" Ashrem said. \"If you refuse, you will be hunted. I cannot stop them, Marth, not after what you have done.\"\n\n\"Why not just kill me, Ashrem?\" Marth asked, dropping his sword and wand in the grass. \"Why not end it here? I have my vengeance. I have nothing left and would rather die at your hands than a stranger's.\"\n\n\"I have hope for you, Marth,\" Ashrem said. \"You are a good man, no matter what this war has forced you to become. The world is not done with you yet.\"\n\n\"You were right, d'Cannith,\" Marth whispered, returning to the present.\n\nThe changeling hurled the books from the shelf with a savage sweep of his arm. Reaching into one of the many pouches at his belt, he drew out a handful of pink crystalline powder and sifted it over the fallen books. He clapped the remaining dust from his gloved hands and reached into another pouch, drawing out another handful of chalky black dust. The chemical burned his skin as it mixed with the remaining pink residue, even through his silken gloves. Marth stood where he was for a long moment and studied the scattered volumes, offering no reaction even when a robed figure entered the room behind him.\n\n\"I have dispatched several of the men to determine where Dalan d'Cannith has fled,\" the newcomer said. He was a small, portly man garbed in flowing silken garments of burnished copper. His head was shaved in the manner of a monk, and he wore a long beard woven into a thin braid. \"Doubtless he has covered his trail well, but someone might have seen something.\" He looked at Marth's hand, still holding the corrosive powder over the books. \"Why do you hesitate?\" he asked.\n\n\"Destroying knowledge does not sit well with me, Brother Zamiel,\" Marth said. With a sigh, he scattered the black dust over the scattered books. Where it touched the pink powder, paper, leather, and even the wooden floor began to smoke.\n\n\"An admirable sentiment, but a necessary evil,\" Zamiel answered. \"Dalan d'Cannith is an enemy. We do not have the time to search his home properly, thus we must destroy whatever he might still hide here. We cannot afford to leave him any advantage, any security.\"\n\n\"Dalan is like his uncle,\" Marth said, stepping away from the smoke. \"He is no fool. He would not have left behind anything we can use. This is a pointless, destructive gesture.\"\n\n\"An enemy who cannot be destroyed must be intimidated,\" Zamiel said. \"Consider this a message\u2014a warning to a respected rival. Dalan will look upon the ruins of his home. He will witness the destruction of so many beloved possessions. He will recognize that he should have left well enough alone. D'Cannith is no warrior. He is a bureaucrat, an academic, a coward. If he is wise, he will withdraw from this race and be content that he has only lost his home.\"\n\n\"Unlikely,\" Marth said with a frown. \"I think we will face Dalan again before this is done.\"\n\n\"Then he will die,\" Brother Zamiel said.\n\nMarth did not reply. His smooth face was thoughtful as he watched the first tongues of flame emerge from the fallen books. He turned and made his way down the stairs. Three of his soldiers stood at the door, postures tense, hands on their weapons. One peered cautiously out the window just beside the back door. He looked back at Marth with an uncomfortable expression.\n\n\"Captain Marth, there is a problem,\" the soldier said.\n\nMarth moved to the window. The soldier quickly stepped aside. The first light of morning had only just begun to paint the street outside in pale, pastel colors. The rains had started again but now fell only in a meager drizzle. Few dared the muddy streets at this early hour, but Marth picked out a handful of armored men gathering in the shadows of an alley behind the house. Their eyes were on the Cannith home.\n\n\"The City Watch,\" Marth said with a sigh. He pushed the curtain back over the window, his gaze losing focus as he became lost in thought.\n\n\"We cannot afford to be seen here, Captain,\" Zamiel said as he descended the stairs. \"For Dalan d'Cannith to know we oppose him is one thing. For King Boranel's soldiers to learn of our presence is quite another matter.\"\n\n\"Captain, perhaps we might be able to escape through the front door,\" a soldier offered.\n\n\"The building will be surrounded,\" Marth answered. \"I will handle this. Perhaps their arrival might give us an opportunity for distraction.\"\n\nAs Marth reached for the door, his facial features shifted, becoming a young man's thin face framed by sandy brown hair. He stepped out into the street, arms folded in his sleeves. The instant he did so, four watchmen emerged to surround him.\n\n\"Halt and identify yourself,\" the sergeant commanded. He kept his crossbow trained on Marth's chest.\n\n\"My name is Tristam Xain,\" Marth said calmly, continuing his approach. \"Is there a problem, officer?\"\n\n\"Hands out and to your sides!\" the man said. \"I said stop!\"\n\nThe watchman loosed a crossbow bolt. It struck Marth in the shoulder and fell with a shower of sparks. Unharmed, Marth drew his hands from his sleeves with a flourish, releasing a cloud of sparkling dust toward the watchmen. They fell into fits of hideous coughing. All but one staggered and fell helpless to the earth. The fourth recovered enough to unsheathe his sword, only to see that Marth had drawn his twisted amethyst wand. Its length shone with green fire. The watchman ran. Marth's soldiers emerged from the house, flanking out to surround their leader. One drew his own crossbow, aiming it at the back of the retreating soldier.\n\n\"No,\" Marth said, pushing the weapon down and smiling with Tristam's face. \"Let one escape. Let him tell others who he has seen here.\"\n\nA pained coughing drew Marth's attention. He looked down at the remaining three watchmen, writhing on the earth as the toxins robbed them of their strength. With a slow, deliberate movement, Marth drew his sword and buried it in the chest of the nearest guard. A Cyran soldier drew his blade and advanced toward one of the others, but Marth waved him away.\n\n\"This blood is on my hands alone,\" he said. \"Return to the ship.\"\n\nThe soldiers complied, hurrying through the darkened alleys. Marth finished the other two watchmen and moved on as well. He had not gone far before Zamiel appeared at his side, like a shadow as he walked.\n\n\"Why do you brood, my friend?\" the prophet asked. \"Surely by now you recognize the necessity of what we do. Do you regret the deaths of those soldiers?\"\n\n\"No,\" Marth said. \"They earned their fate when they stood against me, just as Jamus Roland did. Do not worry, Zamiel. Your killer has not grown a conscience yet.\"\n\n\"Then what concerns you so?\" he asked.\n\n\"I fear we were too cautious,\" he said. \"I know the man who was with that warforged last night. I recognized him from the soldiers' descriptions.\"\n\n\"The man whose face you wear,\" Zamiel said, his face darkening. \"I remember him. I also remember your insistence that he would not be a problem.\"\n\n\"Clearly things have changed,\" Marth said. \"Hopefully the City Watch will cause some trouble for him, at least. It will be difficult for him to return to Wroat without explaining the deaths of three watchmen.\"\n\n\"This only reaffirms what I have cautioned from the start,\" Zamiel said. \"We should have confronted d'Cannith directly instead of relying on untested subordinates. We should have killed Dalan and all who stood beside him. If that lens falls into Xain's hands, it will not take long before they determine how to use it and gain ground.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Marth said. \"But think not on what we have lost. Think instead upon what we have gained. Tristam is brilliant, but also foolhardy. He may find clues that you and I would miss, but inevitably he will stumble and we will find his trail. Then we can harvest the fruits of his discoveries and our own search will grow much easier.\"\n\nZamiel was silent for a long time.\n\n\"You do not agree,\" Marth said.\n\n\"Xain should die,\" Zamiel said. \"We do not need the complication he represents.\"\n\n\"You have always told me that I was destined to succeed, prophet,\" Marth said. \"Is my destiny so frail that one foolish tinker could undermine it?\"\n\n\"You misunderstand me,\" the prophet said. \"I do not take destiny lightly, but neither should you. The Prophecy is a living thing. That which it foretells is certain, inevitable, but rarely predictable.\" He looked at Marth seriously. \"I have no time for those who play games with their own destiny. You claim you wish to use Xain to our advantage, but your words stink of mercy. Mercy is a luxury that a conqueror cannot afford.\"\n\n\"That sounds almost like a threat, Zamiel,\" Marth said.\n\n\"Not a threat, a warning,\" Zamiel said in a tired voice. \"You have spent only a few years helping me to fulfill this passage of the Prophecy. I have spent most of my life. Weigh this truth: You are not unique. There were others before you who seemed to be the conqueror I have foreseen. The Prophecy is a powerful force. Weak men who stand before it are ground into dust. Do not allow your enemies to gain ground, Marth. Show them no mercy, or all will be lost.\"\n\nThe changeling folded his arms in silent thought, pondering the prophet's words. \"Very well,\" he said. \"I will keep your words in mind.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Zamiel said. \"That is all I ask. All that I say, all that I have ever done for you was intended only as guidance. Do not follow me blindly. Your decisions must ultimately be your own, or you will never become what you must be.\"\n\n\"I will remember that,\" Marth said.\n\n\"See that you do,\" the prophet said.\n\nWith a sudden shift in the shadows, Zamiel vanished, leaving Marth to find his way to the ship alone. He pushed all thoughts of Ashrem d'Cannith and Tristam Xain out of his mind. The past was a burden, a weight that sought to drag him back down into the miserable mire that had consumed him before. Brother Zamiel had offered him the chance to fulfill a greater destiny, to embrace his talents and forge a better future for all of Eberron. Better to concentrate on that future, he thought, as he looked into a standing puddle and saw Tristam Xain's face staring back at him.\n\nSuch a brilliant, glorious future.\n\nSeren sat on the railing of Karia Naille. She crouched beside the ship's figurehead, overlooking the city. Though much of the deck was shielded from the elements, sitting on the rail offered no such protection. The wind rushed past her, whipping her long hair back in a fury. She paid little mind as she ate her lunch. She had no real fear of heights, and with one foot hooked behind the rail, she was balanced well enough. The old dog, Gunther, lay on the deck behind her. He kept his head nestled between his paws, watching intently for any fallen crumbs. Seren ignored the dog, her thoughts consumed with more urgent matters. She hadn't found the answers she was looking for, but she was off to a good start. If nothing else, she had decent food, a steady wage, and would soon be leaving the city. That, at least, was an improvement.\n\nSeren enjoyed the view from up here, but she found herself returning her attention to the figurehead. It was an impressive piece of sculpture, depicting a slender elf woman with arms folded across her breasts. Her eyes were closed, head thrown back with long hair that spilled over her shoulders. The statue was unpainted, carved from rich, dark wood and highly polished. Something about the statue resonated with Seren, made her feel more at peace here. It seemed so free and untamed, even bound permanently to the hull of the ship.\n\nOther than the rush of the wind, the ship was strangely silent. Gerith was busy scrubbing the deck, singing a soft tune in a tongue Seren did not recognize. Blizzard perched on the rail nearby, regarding his master solemnly. Occasionally Gerith would halt the song for a moment and the animal would produce a high-pitched note in reply, singing along.\n\n\"What are you singing?\" she asked, looking back at him.\n\nGerith looked up with a crooked smile. \"Just an old song.\"\n\n\"What is it about?\" she asked.\n\nGerith paused in his scrubbing and tilted his head. \"I don't think you're old enough,\" he said with a chuckle. \"Let's just say it's a song from my homeland, the song of an explorer, er, yearning for the comforts of home. We'll leave it at that.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" Seren said. \"So where is the rest of the crew?\"\n\n\"Rest?\" Gerith asked, peering up at her again. \"Well, you've met Dalan, though he isn't really crew, since he really doesn't do anything to help keep the ship going other than pay the bills. Then there's the captain, Tristam, Omax, me, and... and, well that's pretty much it.\"\n\n\"Doesn't a ship this size need a bigger crew than four people?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Usually, yes,\" Gerith said. \"Throw magic in the mix and things get a bit odd, and airships are things of magic. Think of it this way: The wizards and artificers are already there binding the elemental and enchanting the ship so that she'll take to the wind. They may as well add in a few extra spells so that the ship can function a bit more efficiently, right? Karia Naille has it better than most. One of the finest ships it's been my pleasure to crew on. She has a few special features.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" she asked.\n\n\"I'm not giving away her secrets,\" Gerith said with a laugh. \"Wait till you're with us for a bit. Maybe you'll find out.\"\n\nSeren nodded and let the subject slide, though the idea of more secrets didn't sit well with her. She looked past Gerith, at the creature perched behind him. \"What sort of animal is that? I've never seen a lizard so big before.\"\n\nThe creature glared at her with angry black eyes. The leathery crest behind his cheeks flared.\n\n\"Careful,\" Gerith said. \"Blizzard's sensitive. He's not a lizard. He's a glidewing with a proud pedigree. Only the finest warriors in my tribe can ride them. They're the most glorious creatures in all of the Talenta Plains, the rulers of the sky. And he's my friend. The two of us have seen the whole world together.\"\n\nBlizzard gave an irritated flap of his leathery wings and let out a quick shriek.\n\n\"And he gets irritated when we do not finish our song,\" Gerith explained, turning and flicking his towel at the creature. The glidewing blinked, snorted, and shook off the soapy water. Preening one wing, he huddled on its perch and waited patiently for Gerith to continue.\n\nThe cabin hatch beside Dalan's opened just as the halfling resumed his song. A tiny old man, only slightly taller than the diminutive Gerith, strode out onto the deck. He was dressed in an immaculately pressed black uniform, a tight leather cap, and a pair of frosted goggles. Seren recognized him as a gnome, though she had met only a handful of them during her time in Wroat. Jamus had always instructed her to avoid gnomes. Not only did their sharp, inquisitive nature make them difficult to rob, but you generally didn't want to know what they had in their pockets.\n\n\"Good afternoon,\" the little man said, bowing toward Seren.\n\n\"Hello,\" she said.\n\n\"You are Miss Morisse, the thief Master d'Cannith invited onto my ship?\" he asked in a pert voice.\n\n\"I am Seren Morisse,\" she said, taken aback by the abrupt greeting.\n\n\"Excellent!\" the gnome said. \"I am Captain Pherris Gerriman, of the Zilargo Gerrimans, of whom I am almost entirely certain you've never heard and likely couldn't care less. That makes us even, for the details that would lead Master d'Cannith to invite a known thief onboard my vessel would most likely only raise my lather and induce another in the chain of many headaches that have plagued my days of late. Therefore I prefer my ignorance. More importantly, now you are acquainted with me and I am acquainted with you. Most importantly, I see that you are now acquainted with the rail, and that pleases me a great deal.\"\n\n\"Why is that?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Because if you steal anything on my ship, Miss Morisse, or if you steal and draw trouble back to my ship because of it, then you will be going over that rail,\" the gnome said in the same cheerful tone. \"Until then, we have no problems with one another, and I will show you the same loyalty I show all my crew. Your past means nothing to me so long as you obey my orders. You are one of us now. Agreed?\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" she said, somewhat stunned.\n\nThe gnome clicked his boots pertly and turned away from her. \"Master Snowshale! Where in Khyber are my artificer and his bodyguard?\"\n\n\"Tristam and Omax are still in the city, I suppose,\" Gerith said, not looking up from his scrubbing.\n\n\"Blast,\" Pherris said. Grumbling under his breath, the gnome climbed onto the railing beside Seren and stared at the skyline. \"I should have sent the dog for supplies. At least he always comes back for dinner. We should have left Wroat hours ago.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to look for them?\" Seren offered. \"I know the city.\"\n\n\"Excellent idea, Miss Morisse,\" Pherris said, rolling his eyes. \"There's nothing I'd like better than to waste time looking for you as well. No, my dear, that shan't be necessary. Master Xain is a magnet for trouble, but I've no doubt he'll find an opportunity to... ah.\" The captain pointed at the southern skyline. \"There. That's their signal.\"\n\nSeren looked in that direction to see a streak of red light dropping from the sky, leaving a trail of thick purple smoke.\n\nPherris stomped back to the middle of the deck, climbing a short ladder to reach the ship's helm. Sensing what was to come, Gunther rose, trotted across the deck, and pawed impatiently at his master's hatch. \"Prepare for takeoff, Master Snowshale,\" Pherris said in a grim voice.\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" the halfling said, already hopping to his feet. \"Seren, lend a hand.\"\n\n\"What do I do?\" she asked.\n\n\"Just follow me and do what I do,\" the halfling said, busily beginning to untie the mooring ropes that secured the ship to the tower. Seren helped as best she could, though the halfling's deft fingers undid the knots more quickly than she could.\n\n\"Is there trouble, Captain?\" Dalan asked, opening his cabin hatch and peering out. Gunther shoved past his master and disappeared into the shadows beyond, obviously eager to flee the deck before takeoff.\n\n\"Tristam and Omax have been gone too long,\" the gnome said. \"They sent up a flare.\" He pointed in the relevant direction, though he did not take his eyes from the ship's controls.\n\n\"Those fools had best not be drawing attention,\" Dalan said angrily. \"They've caused enough trouble.\"\n\n\"Time enough to cast blame when they're back onboard, Master d'Cannith,\" the captain said. \"Ready for launch!\"\n\nDalan stepped back with a sigh and closed his cabin hatch. Gerith nudged Seren. She looked down to see he was now holding a thick rope, one of many tied securely to the rail at regular intervals. She seized one as well, and Gerith gave a whistle. Pherris nodded and spun the wheel with both hands. Above the deck, the glowing blue ring seethed with red energy and sang with a steady, high-pitched hum. A vibration passed through the deck and the ship lurched away from the tower. Blizzard released a sharp cry and dropped off the rail, only to appear again on the other side of the ship, wings spread wide to catch the wind. Captain Gerriman pulled sharply at a lever beside the wheel and the ship righted herself, falling even and roaring off over the river. Seren saw the streets of Wroat pull away beneath them, people dwindling into dots and buildings shrinking. It was an odd, detached feeling, as if she were falling away from the world. It was strangely thrilling.\n\n\"First flight?\" Gerith asked with a wide grin.\n\nShe nodded, unable to find any words.\n\n\"I envy you,\" he said. \"Wait till you fly through your first cloud.\"\n\n\"Master Snowshale, I would appreciate it if you would scout ahead!\" Pherris shouted over the hum of the elemental.\n\n\"Aye,\" the halfling said. He gave another sharp whistle, and Blizzard appeared once more, soaring beyond the ship's flaming ring. Gerith signaled to the glidewing, and it dove just as he leapt over the rail. Seren watched in astonishment as the halfling caught his steed's leather harness in midair and pulled himself into the saddle just as Blizzard leveled out and soared away over the city.\n\n\"Showboating lunatic,\" the captain said. \"He'll miss one of these days, and I'll never see the money he owes me.\"\n\n\"What do you want me to do now?\" Seren said, shouting over the howling winds.\n\n\"Just hold on, Miss Morisse,\" Pherris said. \"Though I've no doubt those two will need a hand when... Khyber.\" The gnome continued swearing under his breath and concentrated more intently on the small crystal mounted on the ship's wheel. The ring of fire flashed green and the ship surged forward with a burst of speed.\n\nSeren looked ahead and saw a plume of black smoke rising from the city. She saw the black silhouette of Blizzard rise up from the buildings, circle the plume, and then turn back toward Karia Naille. The glidewing banked sharply and landed on the ship. Gerith cartwheeled out of his harness and landed beside the captain, grasping Pherris's shoulder for balance.\n\n\"They're alive!\" Gerith announced in a bright tone. \"Though we should probably hurry before they die in the fire.\"\n\n\"Why have they set the city on fire, Master Snowshale?\" Pherris asked with exaggerated calm.\n\n\"It's just one building, to be fair, Captain,\" Gerith said. \"I think they intended to distract the Watch, but then they got trapped on the roof.\"\n\nThe captain cursed again, in a variety of languages. \"Guide me to them, Master Snowshale.\"\n\n\"Easy enough, Captain,\" the halfling said as he climbed back into his saddle. \"Just head for the fire.\"\n\nBlizzard took to the air again, his broad wingspan barely clearing the elemental ring around the deck. The glidewing soared down toward the city in a dizzying circle and Karia Naille followed, falling into a controlled dive. The city grew beneath them. Wroat looked so strange from above; though Seren knew her way around these streets, nothing was arranged quite how she thought it would be. The crowds that gathered in the streets to look at the rising smoke now stopped and pointed up at the airship in awe.\n\nThe plume of smoke rose just ahead, to the ship's port side. It rose from a dilapidated four-story building. The airship fell level with the streets, soaring between the city's taller structures. Seren could see a large contingent of City Watch galloping down the street beneath them, as well as a brigade of citizens carrying buckets of water from the Howling River. The airship rose gradually, banking to port as she circled the burning building. Blizzard dove and landed on the roof farthest from the smoke, where Tristam and Omax waited. The ship pulled as close as she could, the elemental flames that surrounded her preventing her from getting too close lest more damage be done.\n\n\"Throw that cable to them, Miss Morisse, and pull the lever when they are secure,\" Pherris said, nodding to a nearby coil lashed to the deck.\n\nSeren quickly complied, hurling the heavy cable over the rail. Omax caught it in one hand, passing the slack to Tristam, who gave a quick salute. She pulled the lever and a winch began to turn below the deck, hauling them both up toward Karia Naille. Omax crawled over first, carrying a body over one shoulder. He dumped it unceremoniously onto the deck.\n\nThe captain looked down at the limp bundle with a sour expression. \"Omax, why did you bring me a dead watchman?\" he asked, looking back to the wheel.\n\n\"It was Tristam's idea,\" Omax said.\n\n\"He's not dead!\" Tristam added as he climbed over the side. \"He passed out in the smoke.\"\n\nPherris pulled a lever and the ship banked upward again. \"Then we are merely kidnappers and arsonists, not murderers. That's good news. Don't you agree, Miss Morisse?\"\n\nThe sound of a metallic thunk sounded from the deck beneath them, followed by another.\n\n\"What was that?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Crossbows,\" Gerith said, alighting on the deck nearby. \"I'll be forever working those bolts out of the hull. Tristam, what in Khyber did you do?\"\n\n\"Not now, Master Snowshale,\" Pherris said in a warning tone, concentrating on the ship's control. The airship pulled smoothly to a halt above a low building and Pherris looked back at the warforged. \"Omax, please return to Wroat what is Wroat's.\"\n\nOmax nodded and, picking up the watchman, rappelled over the rail again. He laid the man carefully on the roof and then began scaling his way back up the cable. The flaming circle flared green and the ship started off again even before Omax had cleared the rail.\n\n\"Secure yourselves,\" Pherris said as Omax climbed onto the deck. \"Miss Morisse, say your good-byes to your home. Aeven, please give us a boost before the King's soldiers discover their own airships.\"\n\nThe captain did not remove his hands from the wheel, but the ship lurched heavily. Seren fell to the deck, clinging to the nearest secure rope with both hands. Tristam also fell nearby, though when he saw Seren's eyes watching him his own terrified expression became a grin of false confidence. Even Gerith scrambled for the ropes, securing himself and Blizzard to the deck. Only Omax seemed unaffected, standing in the middle of the deck with feet splayed and shoulders squared against the ship's sudden momentum.\n\nKaria Naille's bow fell forward, and the elemental ring burned white with an incredible burst of speed. The city melted away beneath them, dwindling to the size of a toy and eventually becoming nothing more than a distant black dot beside the blue ribbon of the Howling River. The deck boards shuddered against one another, and sweat streamed down Pherris's face as he gripped the wheel with white knuckles. After several minutes of such frantic speed, the flaming ring burned blue again. The ship fell into a calm cruise far above the Breland plains. Seren wobbled to her feet, holding the railing for support. The ground was now far beneath them. Wisps of white clouds streaked past on each side, some far below. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen. It was like entering a new world, a sea of calm far removed from the chaotic land below. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gerith look at her with a knowing grin.\n\nDalan d'Cannith's cabin opened and the fat guildmaster strode out onto the deck. He looked calm and unruffled by their rapid escape. Gunther peered warily around the corner of the door, then retreated rapidly back inside.\n\n\"What happened in the city, Tristam?\" Dalan asked. He folded his arms behind his back as he looked down at the prone artificer. \"You started a fire and attacked a watchman?\"\n\nTristam scrambled awkwardly to his feet and tried to dust the soot off his jacket with one hand.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Dalan, I dunno what happened,\" he explained. \"Omax found a wanted poster with my face on it, so we tried to investigate...\"\n\n\"If the Watch was looking for you, then wouldn't it make more sense to return and let Gerith and Omax investigate?\" Dalan asked interrupting Tristam's explanation.\n\n\"They think I killed city guards and burned down your house, Dalan! I'd hoped I could set the record straight.\"\n\n\"And making their arson charges a reality and nearly justifying a murder charge in so doing is how you set things straight?\" Dalan asked. \"What a unique approach.\"\n\n\"The building was empty,\" Tristam said. \"The Watch was already chasing us. That was a distraction, to throw them off while we ran back to the ship.\"\n\n\"I understand that,\" Dalan said. \"Why did you choose to create such an elaborate distraction and then trap yourself on top of it?\"\n\nTristam's shoulders slumped. \"We meant to run,\" he said. \"But Omax saw that stupid guard run inside. I guess he thought someone might be trapped inside. We had to help him.\" Omax stood beside Tristam, looking impassively at Dalan with his strange blue eyes.\n\n\"We could not let him die, Master d'Cannith,\" Omax said.\n\nPherris looked back from the wheel, giving the young artificer an appraising look. Dalan only chewed his lip thoughtfully. \"We can scarcely afford such reckless heroism, Tristam,\" Dalan finally said, though his voice was softer now. \"You know how much is at stake here.\"\n\nTristam nodded.\n\n\"Our apologies, Master d'Cannith,\" Omax added.\n\n\"No harm done,\" Dalan replied. \"Our Captain Marth is a changeling. No doubt he assumed your identity and framed you for his own crimes. Now at least one watchman in Wroat might not be so quick to believe you are a killer. Not that it matters in the end; I doubt we'll soon be returning to Wroat. Miss Morisse has provided us with a most intriguing lead in exchange for a position among our crew.\"\n\nTristam looked back at Seren in surprise, then back at Dalan. \"So she's coming with us?\" he asked, not sounding entirely pleased with the news.\n\n\"What did you find, Seren?\" Omax asked in a more pleasant voice.\n\n\"An enchanted hand lens,\" she said. \"Marth used it to study the book I stole. Whatever he was looking for with it, he didn't find it.\"\n\n\"Some sort of magical cipher,\" Tristam said, scratching his chin. \"Ashrem was a prolific writer. He could have easily hidden his work on the Legacy in his many books, written invisibly, and used something like that to read them. May I see the lens, Dalan?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Dalan said.\n\nDalan reached in his vest pocket and produced the small chunk of frosted glass. Tristam grabbed it eagerly, hurrying past Dalan into the cabin. Seren followed, watching Tristam curiously. He picked up one of the many volumes marked with Ashrem d'Cannith's seal and flipped through its pages, holding the lens to one eye.\n\n\"There's definitely something there I haven't seen before, but I can't understand the text,\" he said. He pushed the book aside and quickly seized another, flipping through that one and setting it aside as well. He reached for a third, but stopped as Dalan interrupted with a heavy sigh.\n\n\"Encoded as well as hidden,\" Dalan d'Cannith said, circling Tristam and seating himself at the desk again. \"And if it is one of Ashrem's codes, then all your skills will not unravel it. That is why we are going to Black Pit.\"\n\n\"Black Pit?\" Tristam said, incredulous. \"We don't need his help, Dalan. He already turned his back on us once.\"\n\n\"I hope that you are correct,\" d'Cannith said. \"Yet surely you agree if this truly is some sort of magical code, then his talents are better suited to this matter than yours. Until then, I will retain the lens.\"\n\n\"You aren't even going to give me a chance to crack this myself?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"If I cannot read it, I doubt you can,\" Dalan said. \"I cannot afford to see an item so valuable lost or broken, Tristam.\" He held out his hand.\n\nTristam dropped the piece of glass onto Dalan's palm and turned with a scowl, nearly tripping over Seren as he stormed out of Dalan's cabin. Tristam coughed an embarrassed apology and circled around her, headed to the far end of the deck. Omax sat down cross-legged by his friend's side in a posture of deep contemplation, the glow in his blue eyes dimming.\n\n\"Black Pit,\" Gerith said with a whistle, appearing beside Seren again.\n\n\"What's in Black Pit?\" she asked. \"For that matter, what is Black Pit?\"\n\n\"It's a hole in Eberron,\" Gerith said.\n\n\"Like Wroat?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, I mean literally a hole,\" he said. \"It's a crack in the ground that leads right into Khyber itself. There's a village right near the edge, and it names itself after the pit. That can be a bit confusing, having two places with the same name, but then humans have always been a confusing sort of people. The village built up near the end of the Last War. It's not even on most maps; the folks there prefer it that way. It's a place for deserters, smugglers, mercenaries, criminals. It's also the backbone of Breland's thriving black market. Very interesting place, with all kinds of interesting people.\"\n\n\"Why are we going there?\" Seren asked, looking down at the halfling with a worried expression.\n\n\"Like I said, all kinds of interesting people,\" Gerith answered. \"Zed Arthen is one of them. He's an inquisitive.\"\n\n\"Inquisitive?\" she said. \"An investigator?\"\n\n\"An inquisitive is a bit more than that,\" Gerith said. \"Sort of like a glidewing is a little more than a lizard. An inquisitive answers questions that nobody wants to have answered, questions that folks generally figure can't be answered. You'd like him, I think.\"\n\n\"Why would Arthen be in a place like Black Pit?\" Seren asked.\n\nGerith grinned a broad gap-toothed grin. \"Maybe because in a place like that a person like him always has something to do. Maybe because in a place like that, he hopes that people like us will leave him alone.\"\n\nIt was all so frustrating. She should have known better than to listen to Jamus.\n\nEraina d'Deneith watched the strange airship leave a trail of flame across the northern sky, taking her answers with it. Around her, watchmen and civilian volunteers formed frenzied bucket chains, passing water from the river to the burning building. She ignored them, steering her steed directly toward the building where she had seen the airship pause. Dropping from the saddle and pushing the door open, she strode inside. An elderly couple had been watching the fire from a nearby window, and looked at her with alarm.\n\n\"What is the meaning of this?\" the old man demanded, voice shaking as he looked at Eraina's polished armor, spear, and the shortsword that hung from her belt. \"Get out of our house!\"\n\nEraina drew a thin metal case from her pocket and snapped it open for the couple to see the identification documents inside. Within was a small packet of papers fixed with an official seal, featuring a small illustration of the dark-haired woman that held the case.\n\n\"I am a Sentinel Marshal conducting an official investigation. I have business on your roof and won't be more than a moment.\"\n\nThe man glanced at the papers in Eraina's hand but stayed well out of reach of her sword arm, holding his wife fearfully. Eraina had hoped for as much; though she had not lied to them, she would prefer not to have her name remembered. She snapped the case shut and continued toward the stairs. She climbed up onto the roof and looked around, holding her short spear in her left hand, right hand resting on the hilt of her blade. Her hand fell away when she saw the limp form lying on the roof. She leaned her spear beside the door and knelt, pulling off one mailed gauntlet to press two fingers to the man's throat. He was alive. His armor was blackened with soot but he did not seem to be badly burned.\n\n\"Get up,\" she said, standing and rolling the man onto his back with one steel-toed boot.\n\nThe man lay where he was, unconscious. Eraina knelt again and laid her hand on the man's chest. Her other hand grasped the amulet about her throat and she whispered a brief prayer. For an instant, her hand glowed with a white light. The glowing energy drained from her fingers into the man's body. A spasm shook him and he stirred, his eyes snapping open at the sky.\n\n\"What is your name, watchman?\" she asked. She held one finger out before his face, watching as his eyes focused upon it.\n\n\"Watchman Markus,\" the man said, still a bit dazed.\n\n\"Get up, Markus,\" she repeated with an impatient gesture. She rose and began to pace beside him.\n\nThe watchman sat up with a groan, pulling off his helmet and rubbing his head. Blinking in astonishment, he patted himself down with both hands for any sign of injuries. He looked about in confusion, his gaze eventually resting on the dying plume of smoke rising from the building to the south.\n\n\"How did I get up here?\" he said in a bewildered voice.\n\n\"You were dropped out of a fleeing airship,\" she said. \"Do you remember that?\"\n\nHe stood up unsteadily, staring at the three-headed chimera crest on her tabard with some amazement. \"A Sentinel Marshal?\" he said. \"What's going on here?\"\n\nEraina sighed. \"Boldrei's teachings advocate patience for those who have suffered,\" she said, replacing her gauntlet and stretching her fingers within it. \"However, as a Sentinel Marshal I am required to seek the truth efficiently. I called the Hearth-mother's blessings upon you to heal you, Watchman Markus. Thus I would appreciate it if you finished gather your senses swiftly.\" She fixed him with a stern expression.\n\n\"My apologies, Marshal,\" the man said, flustered. \"What would you like to know?\"\n\n\"As much as you can remember before you awakened here,\" she said, folding her arms across her chest.\n\nThe guardsman nodded. \"I can't remember much, to be honest,\" he said. \"We were pursuing a Lhazaarite who burned the Cannith estate and killed three watchmen last night. When the fire started I ran inside looking for anyone that might have been trapped.\"\n\n\"What was this man's name?\" she asked.\n\nThe guardsman shrugged. \"No name, only a description.\"\n\nMarkus took a folded scrap of parchment from his pocket and offered it to Eraina. She unfolded it and studied it for a long moment. It was a hastily printed wanted poster, and the man in the illustration was unfamiliar.\n\n\"He was the last thing I saw,\" the watchman said. \"He and his warforged friend ran into the fire to rescue me.\"\n\n\"The killer rescued you?\" Eraina asked.\n\nThe man nodded, though he looked rather confused. \"Seeing as how I'm here, Marshal, he must have.\"\n\nEraina sighed. Somehow, after all that had happened, she had hoped that the clues would begin to fall together. She was not truly surprised; she had enough experience to know that the truth rarely fit together in a convenient way as it did in stories. More often, even after a crime was solved, she never knew the full truth. Sometimes she just wished that a mystery would come together cleanly, if only for variety.\n\nWhen she spoke again, her voice was a great deal softer. \"Thank you for your help, Watchman Markus.\" She folded the poster and tucked it in one pocket. \"I have nothing further. No doubt your superior officer will be eager to discover you are still alive.\"\n\n\"Thank you again, Marshal...\" he said, letting the end of the sentence hang as he hoped to catch her name.\n\nEraina merely gave a brief salute and turned, taking up her spear and heading back down the stairs. The elderly couple was just as she had left them, still huddled by the window in terror. Eraina stopped with her hand on the door.\n\nShe moved to the window beside them, looking out at the smoking building. They moved away as much as they dared.\n\n\"Were you at this window the entire time?\" she asked, studying the skyline.\n\n\"Y-yes,\" the old man answered.\n\n\"Did you see the airship?\" she asked. \"Did you see the direction it came from?\"\n\n\"Downriver,\" the old man said, pointing out the window to the south.\n\n\"Boldrei walk beside you,\" she said, bowing thankfully and stepping back outside.\n\nEraina's horse waited patiently where she had left it. She climbed back into the saddle and rode toward the river. The crowd, slowly realizing that the fire was under control and there were unlikely to be any more airships swooping over the neighborhood, had begun to disperse, making passage a great deal easier. The farther south she went, the poorer the neighborhoods became. This was near the place that Jamus Roland had called home. Eraina scowled, pushing away thoughts of the old thief. She had hoped for a better life for him, but now there was no chance of that. He was a good man, despite his flaws. He had deserved better.\n\nShe would never forgive herself.\n\nThe sight of six towers looming above the fishermen's district quickly drew her attention to the task at hand. The towers were four stories tall, double the size of the average surrounding buildings. Each tower had a swooping bridge at its height, leading to nothing, with a large wooden crane mounted on the end. They were airship towers, though they looked to be poorly maintained. It was hardly surprising to see the docking towers unused. The Last War had ground most nonmilitary travel to a standstill. The few privately airships that remained would surely seek to dock in safer areas of Wroat. The thugs, smugglers, and ruffians who frequented this part of town would find greater profits traveling by boat or by road. On the other hand, someone seeking to slip an airship in and out of the city relatively unnoticed could do so quite easily here. Few locals would pry too deeply if the ship was well guarded.\n\nEraina stopped, her brow furrowing as she saw two horses gathered outside one of the towers. She galloped in that direction, drawing a muttered curse from a drunken sailor as he stumbled out of the way. She vaulted to the ground, took her spear from the saddle, and ran toward the tower. A tall, blond man in armor and a tabard matching Eraina's stepped out to greet her with a grim smile. A smaller, dark-haired man stepped out beside him, watching her without expression.\n\n\"Marshal Eraina,\" the blond man said with a brief nod.\n\n\"Marshal Galas,\" she said, striding toward him. \"Marshal Killian.\" She nodded to the other man.\n\n\"Fortuitous timing, Eraina,\" Galas said. \"I see the clues have led us to the same place. Let me spare you a great deal of wasted time. There is nothing here.\"\n\n\"Are you certain?\" she asked, looking past him into the tower. \"I believe the airship containing the suspect came from one of these towers.\"\n\n\"She did,\" Galas said, tightening his gauntlets as he prepared to mount his steed. \"Killian questioned what passes for a harbor master here. We drew him from his cups long enough to learn that an airship docked here last night, shortly before the debacle at the Friendly Buzzard. There were no symbols of ownership on the vessel. No crew wandered out to hit the taverns. No guards watched the tower door. A few nondescript figures boarded, followed by a girl who visited this morning. She matched the description of your friend Roland's partner.\"\n\nEraina looked at Galas. \"Seren Morisse?\" she asked.\n\n\"Whoever,\" Galas said, looking at her with a frown. \"Obviously the thief was not as reliable as Jamus believed and was somehow complicit in his death. It doesn't matter, Eraina. Your friend failed. We are done here.\"\n\n\"Done? How can we be done? This is the first real lead we've had!\"\n\nGalas turned to face her, placing one hand on her shoulder. His frown softened into a sympathetic smile. \"Eraina, I understand your feelings on the matter,\" he said. \"It is always hard for a Marshal to lose one under her protection, and it must be harder still for you, with Roland having been involved. I have served House Deneith as a Marshal for twenty years, so understand that what I say next is not said out of callousness, but out of practicality. While it is important for a Marshal to have passion, it is also necessary to have clarity. We have made a mistake here. Best to let it go rather than compound the danger, Eraina. We should return to Korth to plan our next move.\"\n\n\"Best to let it go?\" Eraina said. \"We have a duty to uphold, Galas!\"\n\nGalas sighed. \"You have an admirable thirst for justice, and I won't deny that injustice has been done here, but remember that your first duty is to House Deneith. Consider the facts. Dalan d'Cannith is rumored to have discovered a lost journal penned by his famous uncle, the very same sort of prize our quarry seeks. We hurry here, believing that the killer may strike again. You discover your old friend, Jamus, has already been contacted about acquiring the volume for an anonymous client. Upon your urging, he takes the contract, hoping to draw the client out so we may learn more. Somewhere the deal goes bad. Dalan d'Cannith's house burns down. Jamus Roland dies. Roland's partner flees in an unidentified airship, pausing only long enough to hover over a burning building and load a wanted killer aboard before fleeing to Khyber knows where. Pardon my swearing.\"\n\nEraina frowned at him.\n\n\"You can't deny how it looks, Eraina,\" he said. \"We've become entangled in something that is no longer our affair.\"\n\n\"None of our affair? We came seeking a killer, and we found one! The trail is still warm. Llaine Grove died for what he knew about Ashrem d'Cannith's work. This is obviously the same suspect. Why would we return to Korth now that things are only beginning to make sense?\"\n\n\"Because nothing makes sense, Eraina!\" Galas snapped, gesturing wildly as he turned away from her. \"Your desperate need for vengeance is forming patterns where there are none. If you wish to hunt random murderers, we could spend the rest of our lives in Wroat and find our fill of them, but I've seen nothing to prove that this is the suspect we seek. Perhaps your friend Jamus discovered the book wasn't what we wanted, tried to fence it, and died when the deal went bad. Perhaps his partner turned on him. Perhaps d'Cannith killed Roland himself and burned his own house down to cover his tracks. We could speculate forever, Eraina, but it's all too random. You dealt with a thief, and things went poorly. Roland's death was regrettable, but it is not our concern.\"\n\n\"Jamus Roland was not just a thief. He deserves better than to be abandoned by us.\"\n\n\"Jamus Roland,\" Galas said, \"was not our client. We owe him nothing. Baron d'Deneith will be upset enough that we became involved with the Canniths without his knowledge. Best that we cut our losses, withdraw before our involvement is detected, and wait for another opportunity for justice.\"\n\n\"An opportunity which may never come,\" Eraina said. \"I cannot believe after two years that you would give up so easily. Do you forget your vows so easily, Marshal? Or does your fear that we will fail again cripple you from any decisive action?\"\n\nGalas turned to face Eraina again. His mouth opened, then closed with a click. His face grew dark red as his temper began to build.\n\n\"Perhaps a compromise is not out of the question,\" Killian said, stepping between them.\n\n\"What?\" Galas demanded, too filled with rage to say anything else.\n\n\"You have already determined that this investigation has struck an impasse,\" Killian answered. \"We are to return to Korth and continue our research into the case. In the meantime, with no other leads, what harm could it do to allow Eraina to investigate her friend's murder? If, by chance, she should be correct and it somehow bears connection to our investigation, then we can only benefit. If there is no connection, we can at least foster good relations with Wroat for aiding them in resolving what must appear to be a truly baffling crime.\"\n\n\"A Sentinel Marshal does not take leave to conduct independent investigations,\" Galas said.\n\n\"Why?\" Eraina demanded. \"Is justice our cause only so long as there is profit?\"\n\n\"Guard your tongue, Eraina,\" Galas said. \"Simply because you bear the Deneith name, do not assume I will not report such insubordination to our superiors.\"\n\n\"Galas, Eraina, please!\" Killian said, holding restraining hands toward them both. \"We are friends! Comrades in arms. Such arguments accomplish nothing. Galas, I realize our duties to House Deneith are your primary concern, but recognize Eraina's position as well. She is a Spear of Boldrei. You cannot possibly expect that she would leave a comrade's murder to the City Watch when she has it within her power to put things right.\"\n\nGalas closed his eyes and did not speak for a long moment. When he regained his composure, he looked at Eraina sternly. \"Eraina, I cannot spare the resources to aid you,\" he said. \"I do not intend to send you into such a dangerous investigation alone. You... are worth too much to us.\"\n\n\"I am never alone, Galas,\" she said, one hand moving to the amulet about her throat.\n\n\"Stubborn paladins,\" Galas said. He grumbled a chain of curses under his breath. \"So be it! I hope you give the Hearth-mother as many headaches as you've given me.\"\n\nEraina smiled wryly. \"Thank you,\" she said.\n\n\"Thank Killian,\" he answered, climbing into his saddle. Galas looked pointedly away from her, studying the road north intently.\n\nEraina bowed to Killian. The soft-spoken marshal returned the gesture silently and mounted beside his commanding officer.\n\n\"We'll be expecting regular reports, Eraina,\" Galas said, still looking at the road. \"Weekly ciphered speaker posts.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she said.\n\n\"Come back to us alive, Eraina,\" he said softly, still looking away. \"May your goddess take good care of you.\"\n\n\"And you as well, sir,\" she answered.\n\nGalas gave a final sharp salute and rode away. Killian did the same, though he shared an apologetic smile before he left. Eraina watched them go in silence. Then, with a heavy sigh, she returned to the matter at hand. She looked back at the looming airship tower and ran through the facts in her mind.\n\nJamus Roland was no saint, but he was a man of his word and he knew better than to lie to a paladin. He had promised Eraina that he would help her trap the killer she had been following. He would not betray her. Of Jamus's partner, Seren, she knew little. It was possible that Seren might have betrayed Jamus and fled with the book.\n\nBut why burn Dalan d'Cannith's home? Why did the Lhazaarite stranger murder three guards and let another escape? It was obviously sloppy and hardly seemed to fit the pattern she and her fellow Marshals had been following thus far. Either Galas was right and this entire messy affair was entirely unrelated to their quarry, or all of this was a distraction. She frowned as she turned over the details. It wasn't entirely inconceivable that Roland would have invited a potential killer into his tutelage. The old thief had always been a rather spotty judge of character, especially where pretty young girls were concerned.\n\nSuch thoughts began to draw back memories, and with memories came undesired emotion. Eraina cast such distractions aside. She needed answers. She stepped into the tower, seeking focus as she searched for clues. She saw little other than dust. The stairs were well-traveled; she counted several sets of footprints beside those of Galas and Killian. The rest of the tower had fallen into disrepair. She moved to the top of the winding spiral staircase, the butt of her short spear thumping the stairs ahead of her. Her right hand rested on the hilt of her sword out of habit, though she was fairly certain the other two Marshals would have left no threats behind. She stepped out onto the bridge atop the tower, wind whipping around her with a low, keening whistle. Eraina extended one hand to steady herself as she looked down at the river. She wobbled on her feet and prayed to Boldrei for strength. Paladins were said to be without fear. For the most part that was true, but heights made her a little nervous.\n\nEraina stepped out farther onto the bridge. The cargo crane hung at an odd angle, and upon closer inspection she saw that it was long broken. Whoever came here had not been smuggling or taking on supplies, at least not in any great volume. They came specifically for their passengers and left just as quickly. She stepped back toward the safety of the doorway and pondered. Far below, she saw her steed had shied away from the door. The animal tossed its head and shifted weight from foot to foot. Eraina frowned at the horse's odd behavior. She cocked her head, listening more closely. A faint wooden creak sounded on the stairs below.\n\nEraina drew her sword and whispered a brief prayer to Boldrei. A sensation of quiet strength issued through her arm and into her spear. She slid her mailed sleeve up over her left forearm, revealing the swirling dragonmark pattern that extended from her wrist to elbow. She concentrated and felt its power flare as well, surrounding her body with a shimmering protective aura that quickly faded from view. Thus strengthened by her goddess and protected by her House, Eraina d'Deneith stepped into the stairwell.\n\n\"Who goes there?\" she demanded, holding out her spear and shortsword. Brilliant light shone from the spear's head, filling the stairs below.\n\nThe twang of three crossbows issued in reply. Eraina did not flinch. The bolts struck her chest harmlessly and fell on the stairs with a clatter. Three gruff-looking men stood on the stairs beneath, staring up at her in awe. Each now held an unloaded crossbow.\n\n\"Khyber,\" one swore and reached for the knife at his belt.\n\nEraina did not hesitate. Planting her spear against the stairs for balance, she lunged forward and planted her foot in the nearest man's chest. He yelped and rolled backward, seizing the railing in time but sending his friend tumbling into the void. He landed on the ground floor with a crack. The third man leapt over his fallen friend and charged Eraina with a stout pipe, rushing inside her reach before she could swing. She punched him sharply in the throat with the hilt of her sword and he fell backward. She swung her spear in a deadly arc, leaving a trail of red across his chest. He fell backward, screaming, down the stairs. The surviving thief clung to the railing as his dead friend rolled past. He held his knife in his free hand, looking up at Eraina in terror.\n\n\"Stay back,\" he said, though he could barely force the words out for his terror.\n\nEraina sneered and struck out with her sword, viciously slapping the man's wrist with the flat of the blade and sending his dagger flying into the depths. She sheathed her blade and seized his collar in a twisting grip, dragging him to his feet. She held the point of her broad-bladed spear an inch from his eye.\n\n\"Who sent you?\" she demanded.\n\nThe man looked up at her, terrified. \"Nobody sent us!\" he said. \"Three against one seemed like an easy mark is all! Please don't kill me!\"\n\n\"I walk a path of compassion,\" Eraina said. \"I kill only to defend myself or my charge. You are no threat to me.\"\n\n\"Thank the Host,\" the man whimpered.\n\n\"You should,\" Eraina said. \"Boldrei has given you mercy, but I have no time to spare you kindness.\" She leaned her spear against the wall and punched him hard in the temple with a mailed fist. Taking her spear back, she left him lying in an unconscious heap on the stairs. She frowned uncomfortably at the two corpses as she reached the bottom of the stairs. As usual, the rush of combat took all certainty with it. Now that the battle was over, her doubts returned, little by little. These men had been wicked, but could there have been another way? Was redemption beyond them? Now there was no chance for them and she was to blame\u2014again. She could not bring herself to pray for forgiveness; she suspected she deserved none.\n\nBut doubt could wait till later. Eraina peered out of the tower, wary of any more accomplices that might lay in wait. Either there were none or they had wisely fled when the screams began. As the excitement of the battle faded, something stuck in Eraina's mind. She looked back at the tower door. It hung wide open. The doorknob and lock were missing, probably scavenged by some enterprising local decades ago. Eraina frowned.\n\nAn airship was a highly valuable piece of property. Only a fool would land one unguarded in a neighborhood such as this, yet Galas said that there were no guards or obvious crew. It had taken only a matter of minutes for a band of thugs to follow her in here. An airship would not have survived docked to an unlocked tower without incident, not even for one night, unless other precautions were taken.\n\nEraina stepped back inside the tower and looked at the door frame. There, where the door's lock used to be, she saw a strange pattern etched into the wood. She prayed to her goddess, drawing upon Boldrei's wisdom to grant her insight. The pattern glowed blue to her eyes, displaying an intricate pattern of magical energy. It was a ward, intended to seal the door against outside entry until the proper command was given. It was inactive now, but that was not what truly interested Eraina. Like any form of art, magic was given to particular styles. To the trained eye such things quickly became recognizable. She noticed a looping curve in the runes here, a signature flare there, and the particular pigment of the ink was also noteworthy.\n\nThis ward was made by a Cannith, or someone who had been trained by them.\n\nMany possibilities ran through Eraina's mind. Could one of Cannith's underlings have made plans with Seren to obtain the book, kill Jamus, and burn his master's house to conceal the crime? Other than Dalan, there were no members of House Cannith in Wroat who were wealthy enough to possess such an airship, and any who had such holdings would probably be so highly ranked in their house they could have simply demanded that Dalan surrender the book. That left only Dalan d'Cannith. Could he still be alive? Why would Seren betray and kill Jamus only to turn the book over to the man she had stolen it from? Who had burned Dalan's home? Who was the mysterious Lhazaarite who had murdered the guards, and why was Dalan consorting with him?\n\nToo many questions, but at least this was a beginning. Now Eraina knew what to do. Once she had alerted the Watch to the thief and two corpses she had left behind, she could pursue the matter in earnest.\n\nMarshal Eraina d'Deneith climbed into her saddle and galloped away through the streets of Wroat.\n\nSeren woke with a pounding headache and a knifelike pain in her back. All about her was darkness. She sat up awkwardly, feeling around for some sense of her environment. She did not remember this room, nor how she came to be here. She felt a pang of alarm when she realized the knife at her belt was gone. Had she been wrong to trust d'Cannith's strange crew? Had they decided not to trust her after all and locked her in the brig? A thousand paranoid theories burned through Seren's mind.\n\nFear swallowed all rational thought as two pale blue lights suddenly shone in the darkness. The dim light was followed a moment later by a small lantern flaring to life, held by the warforged, Omax. Seren lay on a narrow cot in a cramped chamber. The warforged knelt in the center of the room, holding the lantern in one hand. A small table stood beside the cot. Seren's dagger lay atop it, still sheathed. She quickly snatched the weapon and huddled in the corner, as far away from the construct as she could. The weapon would do her little good if Omax was hostile, but some chance was better than nothing.\n\n\"Hello, Seren,\" Omax said in his deep, measured voice. \"Are you feeling better?\"\n\n\"What am I doing here?\" she asked. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"The captain felt it best if one of us remained to watch over you,\" Omax said. \"Sky sickness can leave one confused and disoriented. We did not wish to see you come to harm. I apologize if I frightened you.\"\n\nAs the initial terror passed, Seren began to remember the events of the previous day. The ship had continued her steady pace over the Brelish landscape. Seren had spent the better part of the first day helping Gerith and Omax tend to the ship, keeping the decks clean and preparing the meals. While helping scrub the aft deck, she had begun to feel unusually ill and could not remember anything after that.\n\n\"Sky sickness?\" she asked, tucking the dagger into her belt. She felt rather foolish for her paranoia but saw little need to apologize to the construct.\n\nOmax nodded. \"The enchantments that keep a ship like this afloat also provide some modicum of comfort, but they are not perfect,\" he said. \"The air is much thinner and colder than you are used to. The movements of the ship itself can be disorienting. A human not accustomed to the conditions can easily be overcome with exhaustion without any warning.\"\n\n\"I see,\" she said. Seren climbed off her pallet. Her thighs felt rubbery and sore, and for a moment her legs threatened not to support her. Omax held out a metal hand and she seized it for support. She pulled away just as quickly, unnerved by the construct's thick metal fingers. She had expected them to be cold, but Omax was warm, like a living creature.\n\nThe warforged lowered his gaze. When he spoke again, his voice was subdued. \"I will leave you to your privacy, Seren,\" he said. \"If you require me for anything, I shall be meditating in the forward cargo bay.\"\n\nSeren did not reply. Omax rose, gave a strangely formal bow, and departed. She waited where she was, listening to the sound of the construct's heavy metal footfalls receding through the ship. When she was fairly sure the warforged was gone, she opened her cabin door and tentatively stepped out into the hall. She was on the lower deck of the airship and could hear the steady hum of the ship's elemental ring pulsing beneath her feet.\n\nSmall doors lined the narrow hallway on either side. This part of the ship's lower deck was filled with these small cabins. As she continued forward, Seren heard movement inside the cabin closest to her own. She smelled a pungent, chemical smell from beyond the door, accompanied by a faint bubbling. She leaned closer to listen, and the bubbling grew more intense, followed by the sound of breaking glass and Tristam Xain swearing violently.\n\nSeren moved on, climbing the ladder that separated the cabins and cargo bay, emerging on the main deck. She felt a chill as the wind rushed over her bare arms and cut through her thin breeches. Looking out over the rail it was difficult to tell how high the ship flew. All around was a vast sea of clouds, showing only a rare hint of green beneath. In the distance, she saw Gerith's glidewing diving in and out of the clouds. She felt a detached sense of peace and safety. The flight of an airship was so calming, despite everything that had happened. She had no idea what lay ahead or what truly motivated Dalan d'Cannith and his strange crew, but somehow standing on the deck of Karia Naille she felt safer than she had since leaving Ringbriar so long ago.\n\n\"Good morning,\" Captain Gerriman said blandly from the ship's wheel. He peered pointedly at the sun, fixed precisely overhead in the noonday sky. \"Glad to see your first day on board was such a productive one.\"\n\n\"No one warned me about sky sickness, Captain,\" Seren said.\n\nThe gnome looked at her, stroking his bushy white moustache with one hand. \"I think you misunderstand me, Miss Morisse,\" he said. \"I meant what I said. A crewman willing to work herself to a stupor on the first day is exactly the sort of person who leaves a lasting positive impression on me. Just don't do it again. I respect determination, but I am not a great admirer of stupidity.\" He returned his attention to the ship's controls, turning the wheel idly with one hand.\n\n\"Well,\" Seren said with a small laugh, \"then I should get back to work.\" She looked around at the deck. \"What needs to be done?\"\n\n\"Nothing, really,\" Pherris said with a shrug. \"Gerith can be a little obsessive, always finding something to clean or polish, but she takes care of herself just fine most of the time. Sit and rest for a bit. If you plan to stay on my ship, I'd appreciate coming to know you better.\"\n\n\"I thought you said you preferred ignorance,\" Seren said.\n\n\"About how you came to know Dalan, yes,\" he said. \"But what sort of person you are and what sort of things you've done, while not entirely unrelated, are separate affairs. It is the former that interests me.\"\n\n\"It isn't much of a story,\" she said. She climbed to the upper deck and sat cross-legged in the bow of the ship. \"I come from a little village called Ringbriar. After the end of the war, I just thought I'd be better off somewhere else.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Pherris said. \"Did you lose your family, then? Parents dead in the war?\"\n\n\"My father died in the war,\" she said. \"My mother was alive, the last time I saw her.\"\n\n\"You don't know for sure if your mother is alive?\" he asked, incredulous.\n\n\"I haven't seen her in years,\" Seren said. \"She's better off without me.\"\n\n\"Hrm,\" Pherris said. He studied the clouds off to the left. His thoughts were elsewhere.\n\n\"You seem much different today, Captain,\" Seren finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. \"A lot calmer than you were when we first met.\"\n\nPherris wrinkled face twisted in a grin. \"When you met me, I had just been commanded to fly my ship unauthorized into the Brelish capital in the dead of night to rescue my employer from unknown enemies. Today I have the luxury of patience. My patience is not an infinite commodity, and I find it is expended more often than not in Master d'Cannith's service.\"\n\nSeren glanced quickly toward the door of Dalan's cabin, then back at the captain.\n\n\"Oh, trust me, Miss Morisse, he is well aware of my opinion of him,\" Pherris said. \"I am a gnome who speaks his mind, and he knows the ship would fall apart without me.\"\n\n\"If you think so little of him, why do you work for him?\" she asked.\n\n\"Because Karia Naille once belonged to Dalan's uncle, a good and honorable man,\" Pherris said.\n\n\"Ashrem d'Cannith built this ship?\" Seren asked.\n\nPherris looked extremely shocked. \"Built her?\" he said, scoffing. \"Ashrem didn't build Karia Naille. He improved her, certainly, and he understood what drives her better than most humans. I'll argue none of that, but Karia Naille and her sister ships are products of gnomish ingenuity. The Canniths would have you believe they build everything, but I assure you that is not the case!\"\n\n\"I didn't mean any offense,\" Seren said. \"I don't know much about airships.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Pherris said, his tone softening somewhat. \"Well, if you ever wish to know more, I am at your disposal. But to answer your original question, Ashrem once had three airships, Karia Naille, the Kenshi Zhann, and the Albena Tors \u2014or, translated, the Mourning Dawn, the Seventh Moon, and the Dying Sun. If you ask me, this one is the finest of the three, fastest at a sprint and prettiest by far. Ashrem had her built for Kiris\u2014the young wizard who stole his heart. Of course Kiris spent most of her time with Ashrem on the Kenshi Zhann and left the ship under my able command. When she shared Ashrem's fate, the Mourning Dawn passed to Dalan. I can't imagine why Ashrem would bequeath such ship to his nephew\u2014the two were not particularly close\u2014but he did. I offered Dalan my services on the day the will was read. I could not envision Karia Naille in the hands of another captain. Master d'Cannith knew better than to refuse. We have our differences, but on professional matters we recognize one another's talents. He leaves the ship in my hands. I leave the rest to him.\"\n\n\"And what of the others?\" she asked. \"Gerith, Tristam, Omax. How did they end up here?\"\n\n\"Gerith's tale is simple enough,\" Pherris said. \"He was looking for work, and I'd flown with him a few times before. His experience as a scout, explorer, and translator speaks for itself. He's lived half as long as I have and seen twice as much of the world. I was afraid he might get bored and leave again until we hit Wroat. Now we're moving again, so he's interested, and I'm sure a pretty young human girl joining the crew didn't hurt. Tristam and Omax are a bit more complicated.\"\n\n\"Complicated?\" she asked.\n\nPherris looked back at the door of Dalan's cabin, then back at Seren. His voice became much softer, as if concerned he would be overheard. \"It all goes back to Dalan,\" he said, \"and his uncle, of course.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"You ask a great deal of questions, Miss Morisse,\" Pherris said shrewdly. \"You are quite fortunate that gossip is the Zilargo national pastime.\"\n\nSeren laughed.\n\n\"Dalan is obsessed with his uncle's work, and rightly so,\" the captain said, answering her question.\n\n\"The Legacy is some sort of ticket to promotion to him with his house,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Well, it would be ironic, wouldn't it?\" Pherris said. \"It was Ashrem's work that crippled Dalan's career.\"\n\n\"Crippled?\"\n\nPherris sighed. He cast another look toward Dalan's cabin, but this time his gray eyes shone with sympathy. \"It's a sticky sort of story, all blood and politics,\" he said. \"Let's just say that old Ash earned his share of enemies in House Cannith right before the end. He was such a genius that few would ever really oppose him, but when he vanished, his rivals shifted their resentment onto Dalan.\"\n\n\"Dalan said Ashrem disappeared?\" Seren asked. \"I was told he died.\"\n\n\"Died, vanished, it's all the same,\" Pherris said. \"Near the end of the war, Ashrem packed up his flagship, the Dying Sun, and left Zilargo for Metrol, the capital of Cyre. Kiris went with him. She told me that Ash intended to make peace with his family, to make peace with everyone\u2014whatever that meant. That was two days before the Day of Mourning. Ashrem's ship hasn't been seen since, but House Cannith proclaimed him dead. That was bad news for Dalan, as it meant all of Ashrem's enemies had to find someone new to focus their hatred on. Dalan isn't exactly popular in his House these days.\"\n\n\"Hard to believe,\" she said wryly. \"He's such a charmer.\"\n\nPherris's bushy brows furrowed. \"You'd be surprised,\" he answered. \"Dalan is coarse when he has to be, but he has a way of getting what he wants out of people. It's to his credit that despite all his enemies, he managed to remain the Tinkers' Guildmaster in Wroat.\"\n\nSeren cocked her head at the gnome, surprised by the words of praise.\n\n\"Oh, don't get me wrong,\" the captain said quickly. \"I don't like Dalan much, but even I won't deny his talents. Dalan is clever; he knows how people think. He knows how to make them think. He knows what you're about to say before you say it. He knows how to make you change your mind, and you'll believe it was your own idea. But for a Cannith, even that gets you only so far. Wordplay and manipulation have a place, but the Makers want results. Other than a few dragonmark tricks, Dalan has no magical talent. He knew if he wanted to earn a place in his House it would be through his uncle's accomplishments, but he had no chance to understand Ashrem's work alone. So he sought out Ashrem's apprentice.\"\n\n\"Dalan said that Ashrem's colleagues and students were missing or dead,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Oh, not all of them,\" Pherris said. \"Just the most important ones. Kiris vanished with Ashrem. Orren Thardis disappeared not long after. Bishop Llaine Grove and Emil Harek were murdered last year. Norra Cais has been missing for months. Those five were the ones who helped Ashrem with his most critical research. Tristam was just an apprentice, and he left Ashrem two months before the Day of Mourning.\" Pherris frowned at Seren. \"Ashrem refused to sponsor Tristam for membership in House Cannith, and Tristam resigned in outrage. The boy came to work in my shipyard after that, and Omax followed him like he always does. Just on about a year ago, Dalan came to us with his grand quest. Tristam was eager for a chance to prove himself, to reclaim his master's work and earn a place in the House of Making.\" Pherris sighed. \"Poor Tristam. He's a bright lad, but he's such an idiot.\"\n\n\"I've had somewhat the same impression of him,\" she said.\n\n\"You don't know the half of it,\" Pherris said. \"So much potential ruined by so much doubt. Makes me want to toss him over the rail and be done with him some days. But he has his moments. Omax is proof of that.\"\n\n\"Did Tristam build the warforged?\" Seren asked.\n\nPherris laughed. \"No, no, no,\" he said, then paused. \"Well, actually, yes, I suppose he did but only in a sense. Nobody builds warforged anymore, not since the end of the war. No, Tristam saved Omax's life, gave him purpose when he had none. Beyond that, I'm not at liberty to say.\"\n\n\"More secrets,\" Seren said ruefully.\n\n\"Not my secret to share,\" Pherris said. \"Some of us prefer to leave the past where it is. Omax follows Tristam because the boy gave him a chance to become something better. Omax is not what he used to be. He's some sort of holy man now, calls himself a seeker on a path of enlightenment. If you want to know more, you'll have to ask them yourself.\"\n\n\"Tristam doesn't seem an inspiring sort,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, like I said, he has his moments,\" Pherris countered. \"Everyone on this ship has their moments. I suppose you do, too.\"\n\nSeren stood up languidly and frowned at the gnome. \"How do you know for sure?\"\n\nHe only laughed and nodded at the figurehead. \"Because she likes you,\" he said.\n\nSeren looked at the gnome for a long moment. He only smiled at her intently.\n\n\"How far to Black Pit?\" she asked, changing the subject as she looked out at the clouds once again.\n\n\"Six hundred and eighty-two miles,\" he said.\n\nSeren looked back at him, eyes wide. Her home village was almost as far from Wroat, and the trip had taken her a month on foot. \"How long will we be airborne?\" she asked.\n\n\"Three days,\" he said. Seren said nothing for several moments, and Pherris shrugged uncomfortably. \"I'm allowing time to take on supplies, of course. I don't see any point in rushing.\"\n\nSeren looked back down at the clouds. There was no sense of such speed, only a timeless sea of sky. The airship actually felt as if she were moving very slowly. The tiny black shape of Blizzard shot up out of a cloud and dove back down. \"I'm going to lie down again,\" she said.\n\n\"Suit yourself.\"\n\nShe climbed down the ladder into the cargo bay. She noticed Omax sitting among the piled crates. She stepped forward carefully, trying not to make any sound, studying the warforged's massive shape. He looked disturbingly human. His head was almost featureless, still capped with the incongruous woolen hat. Flesh and bone were replaced by sculpted adamantine metal and polished dark wood. Yet the creation was not flawless. As she stared at him, she saw a network of dents and scars laced through his body, a history of battle and conflict. Omax's head was bowed. The construct repeated a low chant, almost a whisper, and Seren moved closer to hear. To her surprise she recognized the words. It was a hymn often sung by the monks of Dol Arrah in the fishermen's quarter\u2014the prayer of a warrior seeking redemption.\n\nThe song stopped.\n\n\"I am sorry, Miss Morisse, I did not notice you,\" he said. \"Did you need something?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Sorry to disturb you.\"\n\nHis blue eyes pulsed as he peered over one shoulder.\n\nSeren returned to her cabin, leaving the warforged in peace. The door of Tristam's cabin stood open now, and the hall was filled with acrid, oily smoke. Fearing a fire, Seren looked inside. It was as small as her cabin, but where hers was empty this one was stuffed with clutter. It featured a small pallet and a table, but also contained a narrow bookcase stuffed with leather-bound tomes, loose journals, and yellowing scrolls. A model airship hung from the ceiling, a perfect reproduction of Karia Naille with an elemental ring sculpted of silvered steel. The table was covered with vials, crystals, and other pieces of alchemical equipment. The oily smoke rose from a bubbling retort filled with clear fluid. A lumpy clay man the size of a small cat sat on the table nearby, waving the smoke toward the nearby porthole as best it could. Tristam sat on the pallet nearby, reading a book, seemingly unconcerned.\n\n\"What is that?\" she asked.\n\n\"Distillation,\" Tristam said, peering up at her over his spectacles. \"I'm purifying some basilisk humors I picked up in the city. They're useful for potions of leaping, though a lot of people don't like the chalky flavor. If you mix it with a bit of rum, it's fine. I apologize about the smoke; it's sort of a necessary...\"\n\n\"No, that,\" she said, interrupting him.\n\nHe followed her eyes to the clay man. \"Oh it's a homunculus,\" he said. It looked up at Seren briefly and returned to waving away the smoke. \"A construct. It helps me in my work.\"\n\n\"Like Omax?\" she asked.\n\n\"No,\" Tristam said uncomfortably. \"Well, sort of. They're based on the same principles, but a homunculus isn't like a warforged. It's not alive.\"\n\n\"How can you tell Omax is alive and the homunculus isn't?\" she asked.\n\nHe looked at her silently for a moment. \"How can you tell that you're alive?\" he said, shrugging. \"Listen, Seren, is there anything else? I really am sort of busy.\"\n\nSeren nodded and turned to leave, but paused in the doorway. \"Tristam, why were you so angry when you learned we were going to Black Pit?\" she said.\n\n\"Because Black Pit is dangerous,\" he said, not looking up from his book. \"I don't think we should risk Karia Naille in a place like that.\"\n\n\"You were angry about Zed Arthen becoming involved,\" she said.\n\n\"You don't know Arthen,\" he said. \"We don't need him.\"\n\n\"Is he untrustworthy?\" she asked.\n\n\"It's not that,\" Tristam answered evasively. \"He's good in a crisis. The rest of the time he's only as reliable as he chooses to be.\"\n\n\"Then is it because the lens is the first real clue you've found, and Dalan doesn't trust you with it?\"\n\nTristam's eyes widened. \"I don't need your analysis, Seren,\" he said. \"Why don't you go find something to steal?\"\n\nSeren glared at Tristam. A dozen scathing replies came to mind, but it wasn't worth the trouble. She stalked out of the room toward her cabin.\n\n\"Seren, wait,\" Tristam said.\n\nShe slammed the door of his room, leaving him alone with his homunculus and the smoke.\n\nZed Arthen was not what you might traditionally consider an imposing figure. Short and stocky with bland features, he had a face that did not stand out in memory. Overall, he didn't mind much. Anonymity was a useful tool. Only fools became an inquisitive to be famous.\n\nArthen walked at an unhurried pace through the dank streets of Black Pit, his cane heavily stumping the cobbles beside him. The village was crowded this late afternoon, as crowded as Black Pit ever got. Most intelligent citizens knew to conclude what business they could before the sun went down. That was simple practicality. In a place like this, you avoided the shadows. The streets were slick with fouled water. A constant stream of sickly gasses roiled up out of Khyber, mixing with the clouds above and producing a chunky, oily black rain that stank like rotting meat. The puddles lingered for days without evaporating, much longer than normal water should. It was disgusting, but relatively harmless.\n\nThe people here claimed that you'd get used to the slime after a while, just like they claimed you got used to the shrieks that reverberated from the depths of the pit. It wasn't true. Nobody could ever really get used to this place, not if they were sane. All but the boldest citizens sought shelter when the clouds gathered and said a brief prayer to whatever gods they still believed in when the shrieking began. After all this time, even Zed gave the puddles a wide berth and felt a sense of nausea whenever he heard thunder approaching.\n\nThe flow of the crowd parted around a member of the Cleaners Guild. The solitary man knelt near an alleyway, shoveling some of the more offensive leavings of yesterday's storm into a large pail. He wore his guild's traditional apron, mask, and thick leather gloves. The cleaners wore the masks both to protect them from the stench of the rains and to hide their identities, for few citizens would willingly associate with someone who shoveled Khyber's offal for a living. Despite the cleaners' reviled status, there were brass bells on every street corner to summon them. Nobody really knew what the garbage that seeped out of the Black Pit really was, but someone had to deal with it.\n\nZed did not step aside as the others did, but strode directly toward the man, nodding in respect and dropping a few silver coins on the street. The cleaner looked up with surprise, probably more shocked by Zed's acknowledgment than his donation. The inquisitive couldn't help but respect the cleaners. Living in a forsaken village populated by deserters, murderers, smugglers, and opportunists, they spent their lives trying to make things better. In a few days, the rains would come again and undo all their work, and the cleaners would start over.\n\nIn a way, Zed considered them kindred spirits.\n\nZed turned down a side street, away from the flow of the crowd. He had entered a court lined with small shops. Some bore small signs, advertising themselves as herbalists or apothecaries. Most bore no signs at all, offering wares better left unadvertised. Zed stopped in the shadows of a doorway and propped his cane against the wall. He drew a long pipe, tobacco pouch, and small box of matches from his coat as he studied the streets and windows. Cupping his hand around the pipe to block the wind, he struck a match and inhaled deeply, wincing at the bitter aftertaste. Confident that he was not followed or watched, Zed limped across the court and entered Ein's Apothecary Shop, leaving a thin trail of smoke in his wake. The pungent smell of dried herbs drove away the stink of the rain. Shelves lined the walls, crowded with neatly labeled glass vials or paper packets filled with herbal remedies. A scrawny, nervous-looking little man sat behind a counter, crushing blue flowers with a mortar and pestle. He looked up at Zed suspiciously.\n\n\"Arthen,\" he said. \"It has been some time.\" He looked curiously at Zed's cane.\n\n\"It was a strange trip, Neril,\" Zed said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.\n\n\"Did you find what you were looking for?\" the apothecary asked.\n\nZed set a small clay bottle on the counter with a clack. The apothecary looked mildly confused when he saw the label.\n\n\"I hired you to remove our problems, not increase them,\" Neril whispered in a low voice.\n\n\"Koathil sap,\" Zed said in a loud, clear voice. \"I understand that your boss is interested in purchasing this?\"\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" Neril said with a sigh. The apothecary glanced behind him nervously and reached for the bottle. \"Just let me collect this, and I will obtain your payment from Master Ein immediately.\"\n\nZed cupped his hand over the bottle and gave a tight smile. \"I'd rather deliver it myself,\" he said. \"Just to be sure.\"\n\n\"You'll have your payment, Arthen,\" Neril said, a hint of anger in his voice. \"Master Ein is a man who repays his debts.\"\n\n\"I've heard differently,\" Zed said, tapping his pipe out on the floor and tucking it back into his coat. \"Indulge me, or I take my business elsewhere.\" He picked up the small bottle, cupping it in one hand.\n\nThe apothecary looked at Zed with a disappointed frown. He sadly shook his head at the inquisitive. \"Very well,\" he said. \"This way.\"\n\nThe apothecary led Zed through the back room of the shop and up a narrow flight of stairs. The second floor was a narrow hall lined with doors. Zed had the distinct feeling as he followed Neril down the hall that he was being watched from behind more than one door. A large man in black leather armor stood before the door at the end of the hall. He glanced at Neril dismissively, then gave Zed a stern, appraising look.\n\n\"Zed Arthen,\" Neril said. \"He has business with...\"\n\n\"We know,\" the guard said. He gestured impatiently, signaling for Zed to raise his arms. Zed leaned his cane against the wall and complied. The guard patted Zed down thoroughly, pausing to inspect his pipe before returning it to his coat. The guard snatched up the cane with a suspicious frown, inspecting it for any hidden weapons. Satisfied Zed bore none, he handed back the cane and nodded toward the door. Neril shot Zed a final, betrayed scowl and returned to the stairs.\n\nWithin was a large office, dominated by a rich mahogany desk. The man who sat behind it might have been handsome once, but his face was pale and slick with sweat. Dark rings hung below his eyes. He looked up from his ledgers with an irritated scowl. Behind him, another guard placed one hand casually on his sword. A pretty young girl sat on an overstuffed chair in the corner, glancing up from the book she was reading with a coy smile.\n\n\"Zed Arthen to see you, boss,\" the first guard said.\n\nMaster Ein sneered and snapped his ledger closed. \"Sir Arthen,\" he said.\n\n\"Master Arthen,\" Zed corrected him.\n\n\"Of course,\" Ein said. \"Normally I would be quite upset as such an unreasonable demand on my time. My subordinates exist for a reason, to shelter me from annoying distractions. However, if you truly offer what you claim to offer, I am eager to do business.\"\n\nZed walked to the edge of the desk, leaning his cane against the side. He set the clay bottle between himself and Ein. He saw the girl look up intently, setting her book aside. Ein reached for the bottle, but Zed nonchalantly plucked it up again.\n\n\"Before we trade, let's talk price,\" Zed said. \"Koathil sap is hard to come by.\"\n\n\"Five dragons a bottle. That is my price.\"\n\n\"The tree grows in the Watching Wood, in the heart of Droaam,\" Zed said. \"That's a long walk, Ein, and Droaam makes this place look safer than a lover's arms. Five platinum won't even cover my travel expenses.\"\n\n\"Six.\"\n\n\"It isn't as if this stuff is particularly difficult to sell, either,\" Zed said, ignoring the offer. \"It's in high demand. House Jorasco uses it in anesthetics. A proper assassin's guild would value it as well, I imagine.\"\n\n\"Seven.\"\n\n\"That's not even to speak of its addictive qualities, which I hear are quite considerable if used irresponsibly,\" Zed said. He began to juggle the bottle between his hands. The girl half-jumped from her seat and approached the table, standing at Ein's side. Ein's eyes widened.\n\n\"Eight platinum, no more. And be careful with that!\"\n\n\"I could get more in Wynarn,\" Zed said, cupping the bottle in his palm. \"The wizards are very eager to get their hands on this stuff.\"\n\n\"Wizards?\" Ein asked.\n\nZed opened the bottle. The tiny cap tumbled between his fingers and rolled across the desk toward the girl's hand. \"Khyber,\" he swore, smiling at her. \"Could you get that for me?\"\n\nShe bent and reached for the cap with one hand, then drew back. \"Get it yourself,\" she said, eyes narrowing.\n\nZed felt something brush over his awareness, like a feather across his mind. He ignored it, looking at the girl evenly. Fear flickered in her eyes.\n\nEin snatched up the metal cap with a muttered curse and tossed it back to Zed, who caught it in midair. He had missed the exchange between Arthen and the girl.\n\n\"Anyway, as I was saying. Wizards,\" Zed said. \"Koathil sap has been discovered to be a powerful naturally occurring conduit for enchantment. It weakens the will, leaves the user open to magical suggestion. It's a relatively recent discovery, but I still have a few friends at the University.\"\n\nEin's frown deepened. He glared at Zed with thinly veiled hate. The girl now stood close by Ein's side, eyeing the bottle warily. She placed one hand on Ein's shoulder. \"Wizards are of no concern to me,\" he said, his voice an angry hiss. \"I will pay you ten platinum for each bottle.\"\n\nZed stopped tossing the bottle. He took the cork out and sniffed its contents curiously. \"Now that's a very attractive offer. If I ever actually have any real koathil sap, I'll keep it in mind. In the meantime, how much would you pay for holy water?\"\n\nWith that, Zed flicked the bottle at the girl standing beside Master Ein, spraying the contents in her face. She shrieked and doubled over in pain. Ein ducked under his desk quickly just as his two guards drew their swords and charged. Zed held his cane with both hands, blocking the first man's sword even as he dodged the second man's blow. He delivered a knee to the first man's groin, followed by a sharp blow to the jaw that left him senseless. He turned and fell back just as the other guard's sword tore through his flowing coat. The guard lifted his blade for another blow, then stopped, jaw dropping open in horror.\n\nThe girl who had hovered near Ein had risen to her feet again, but not as she was. Her eyes now shone with an infernal yellow light, and her long fingers curled into claws. A pair of tattered bat wings erupted from her back, and a long tail curled around one long leg. She radiated a bizarre, exquisite sensuality despite her inhuman appearance. She blinked painfully and rubbed at her eyes, still blinded by the holy water.\n\n\"What in Khyber is that?\" the guard said fearfully.\n\n\"A demon,\" Zed said, recovering the unconscious man's sword. \"Now help me kill it.\"\n\nThe guard nodded and charged toward the demon. His sword struck her across the chest. She staggered backward from the force of the blow but took no real injury.\n\n\"You don't want to do this, Arthen,\" she said in a sweet voice. \"You want to help me get out of here.\"\n\nZed felt a buzzing sensation at the back of his mind, but that was all. Her catlike eyes narrowed when she realized nothing had happened. She turned to the guard instead, who was still staring at his sword in disbelief.\n\n\"Kill Zed Arthen,\" she said.\n\nThe guard turned, facing Zed with a dull, confused expression. Zed rammed a heavy shoulder into the guard, knocking him on the floor. He charged past at full speed, keeping his eyes averted from the demon's. He swung the guard's sword, but she caught it in one hand, fingers clenching around the blade.\n\n\"Holy water,\" she sneered, wrenching the sword from his hand. \"With a cold iron cap on the bottle. Edgeroot smoke to buffer your will against mine. You came well prepared, Arthen, but it was not enough. I am stronger than you, and you have no weapons.\"\n\n\"You didn't take a good look at the cane,\" he said. He struck the demon hard across the jaw. Her head snapped back, blood streaming from between her lips. She staggered against the wall, looking up at Zed with a suddenly fearful expression. The cane fell heavily a second time. She shrieked in agony and vanished with a flash of light, leaving behind a smoking plume of brimstone.\n\n\"What was that?\" Master Ein said in a terrified voice. He peered out from under his desk.\n\n\"A succubus,\" Zed said. \"Sometimes they crawl out of the Pit, sometimes they just get drawn here.\"\n\n\"Is it dead?\" Ein demanded.\n\n\"Unlikely,\" Zed answered. \"They're damned hard to kill. No pun intended. She probably won't be back for a while, though. They usually sulk for a bit when they get caught.\"\n\nThe remaining conscious guard helped Ein to his feet. He looked away from Zed with an embarrassed expression. \"Seven months!\" Ein shouted. \"For seven months Narisa has been beside me! I trusted her with every aspect of my business, all of my secrets!\"\n\n\"That's what they do,\" Zed said.\n\n\"There's no telling how much damage she's done,\" Ein said, tearing at his hair with one hand. \"How much of what I've done has been really me and how much was that... thing?\" He gestured vaguely at the smoking floor.\n\n\"Hard to say,\" Zed said. \"At the very least, she was the one who made you start drinking koathil. It made it easier for her to control you. My best advice is to get a good night's sleep. And keep a cold iron weapon close at hand; succubi are big on revenge. I'll check in from time to time.\" He offered his cane to Master Ein, who accepted it with a grateful if harried smile. The inquisitive walked toward the door, no longer moving with a limp.\n\n\"Sir Arthen,\" Ein said. Zed glowered over his shoulder. \"Master Arthen,\" he corrected. \"I would appreciate your discretion. If my competitors were to learn about this...\"\n\n\"My discretion for yours,\" Zed said. \"Tell your thugs to stop dealing dreamlily in my city.\"\n\n\"Master Arthen,\" Ein retorted, feigning insult. \"I would not participate in the sale of an illegal substance.\"\n\nZed looked back at Master Ein. Zed's face was no longer the bland, easily forgotten face of a random traveler. His eyes were filled with steel. He flipped his sword in one hand, its point directed at Ein's gaze. Master Ein blanched, his former outrage replaced with frightened shame. \"Count your blessings, Master Ein,\" Zed said. \"You've won back your soul today. All I want is this favor. Weigh it.\"\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" Ein said with a deflated sigh. \"Whatever you wish. I am in your debt.\"\n\n\"Like I said,\" Zed said, planting the sword in the wooden floor. \"I'll check in from time to time.\"\n\nThe inquisitive made his way out of the tiny shop, pausing to take the small pouch of gold that Neril had left at the edge of the counter. The old apothecary hadn't known what was plaguing his master, but it had twisted what passed for an honest business in Black Pit into something even more reviled. Nobody really knew what the garbage that seeped out of the Black Pit was, but everyone agreed someone had to deal with it. Zed Arthen was one of those people.\n\n\"Thank you, Sir Arthen,\" Neril said, looking up from his work from a grateful smile.\n\n\"Master Arthen,\" he corrected, stepping back out into the streets.\n\nA chill wind blew through the streets of Black Pit. Zed shifted his shoulders, huddling into his coat. His hand found the rip in the fabric left behind by the guard's sword, and he mumbled a quiet curse. This was his favorite coat. He'd have to see about getting it fixed tomorrow. The sun was setting now. That Zed understood the dangers of the Pit better than most only made him more eager to avoid them. The distant shrieks of Khyber grew louder. This was no night to be out unarmed. No doubt all manner of peculiar things would happen tonight, mysteries he'd be called upon to investigate.\n\nTomorrow would be an interesting day.\n\nZed walked briskly toward his office. He heard the creak of a shutter as he passed the building next door to his. That was Old Merkin, local spy and information peddler. Arthen pretended not to notice him. So many of the dangers of this world were much less threatening when they thought they weren't noticed.\n\nAs he reached the door, Arthen's head cocked suddenly. A strange sound met his ears. Not that Black Pit wasn't a place for strange sounds, but this one was different, a humming counterpoint to the sounds of the Pit. It was familiar. Zed looked to the southern sky and saw a streak of blue moving toward the city. It was the fire of an elemental airship. He recognized the hue of the flame and timbre of the elemental ring at once.\n\n\"Karia Naille,\" he mumbled to himself in astonishment, stepping back out into the street for a better look.\n\nIt was the simple things that could ruin a man's entire evening.\n\nSeren wasn't sure what she had expected when Gerith described Black Pit. As the airship circled for a landing, whatever expectations she might have had were wiped clean. She heard the pit before she ever saw it, an eerie harmony of inhuman shrieks echoing from the depths. A tremendous wound split the surface between the jagged Blackcap Mountains and the lush forests to the east. The earth within the pit was a disturbing red, like fresh blood. The surrounding land was black and dead. From above, Seren could see veins of dead soil twisting from the pit into the woodlands. It was as if Khyber were reaching out with long fingers, slowly drawing the life of the forest into itself.\n\nThe village perched on a plateau at western edge of the pit. It was no larger than Ringbriar, but while Seren's home consisted of a single road surrounded by houses and businesses, Black Pit was a disorderly sprawl of ill-tended buildings. The setting sun painted the village in a red hue, only deepening the sense that the land was raw and bleeding.\n\nShe stood at the rail as the ship circled the noxious coils of smoke rising from the Black Pit. Pherris was busy at the helm, and Dalan had disappeared into his cabin again. Gerith sat by Blizzard's perch, singing a quiet song to calm the nervous glidewing. Tristam and Omax stood at the opposite side of the deck. Seren sensed the artificer casting nervous looks in her direction. He had attempted to confront her a few times since their conversation three days ago, but she avoided him. He had even sent Omax to offer an apology, which she had answered noncommittally. She wasn't ready to forgive him yet.\n\nThere was something hypnotic, an odd ghastly beauty to the pit. Seren found it difficult to look away and hoped that Karia Naille might fly in for a closer look. The more rational part of her mind was horrified by her own fascination, and she was glad that Pherris kept the ship a good distance away.\n\n\"If I woke up and found something like this next to my village, I think I'd move somewhere else,\" Seren commented.\n\nPherris chuckled. \"The pit was here first, Miss Morisse,\" he said. \"The village came later.\"\n\nShe looked back at him incredulously. \"Someone built a village next to that on purpose?\"\n\nThe captain just shrugged and kept his attention on his course. She noticed that he assiduously avoided looking down.\n\n\"I've always wondered about that as well,\" Tristam said to no one in particular, \"What kind of idiot would build a village in a place like this?\"\n\n\"A certain sort of person just wants to go live where he won't be found,\" Pherris said. \"You should be grateful you don't understand it, Master Xain.\"\n\n\"What's making that noise?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Just the wind, or so they say,\" Tristam said. \"Of course, folks here say a lot of things so they can sleep at night. No one's ever gone into the pit and returned, so I guess they can pretend it's whatever they want.\"\n\nDalan's cabin door opened and d'Cannith stepped out, wincing at the relative brightness. His expression only soured when he saw the smoking pit beneath them. \"Well, at least we are on schedule,\" he grumbled.\n\n\"Two sky towers at the southern end of the village, Master d'Cannith,\" Pherris reported. \"Probably used by local smugglers. If it's all the same, I'd rather just hover in the forest and send Omax in looking for Arthen. As we're not loading cargo, it seems the safest route. No sense attracting attention in a place like this.\"\n\n\"Ordinarily that would be wise advice, but in this case attention is precisely what we want,\" Dalan said.\n\nPherris looked back at Dalan incredulously and returned his attention to the wheel. \"As you say, Master d'Cannith.\"\n\nThe airship banked, and Seren grasped the rail to steady herself. The pungent smell of the pit grew stronger as the ship circled slowly downward. They swooped over the village, dots below swiftly resolving themselves into people. Some stopped and looked up to watch the airship fly overhead. Others simply trudged onward, too jaded to care or too distracted for it to matter.\n\nA pair of rickety-looking towers stood at the far southern end of the village, bordering the road. Seren thought it strange at first that such a small village would have airship facilities, until she thought about it. If Black Pit really was home to the Brelish black market, the towers would come in handy for the occasional wealthy smuggler. The towers looked shoddy and hastily built. From the clutter that surrounded them, Seren suspected that a few of the locals had made homes inside.\n\n\"Prepare to secure the vessel,\" Pherris said as the ship pulled up alongside the western tower.\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" Gerith said, gesturing quickly to Seren.\n\nShe followed the halfling, leaping from the deck to the tower's docking bridge. A few terrified chickens scampered out of the way, leaving a swirl of downy feathers fluttering to the ground. Seren knelt to tie the rope through one of the iron rings mounted on each side of the bridge but stopped short, looking up cautiously at the four burly men who had emerged from the tower. They looked down at her with smug, dangerous expressions. Their faces shifted to blank looks of terror as a heavy thud sounded on the bridge beside her, followed by another.\n\n\"Good evening, gentlemen,\" Omax said in his even, metallic voice. Tristam stood beside the warforged, letting his coat hang open to display the sword at his hip. Seren tied off the rope and edged behind the warforged, as did Gerith.\n\n\"I assume one of you is the tower master?\" Dalan asked, stepping forward and greeting the thugs with a disconcertingly pleasant smile.\n\n\"Er, yes, that would be me,\" said the leader of the group. He was the largest of the four, an unkempt man whose wealth of dirt and stubble was broken only by a crisscross white scar on his neck. \"Docking fee is two gold per week.\"\n\n\"Omax, please pay these gentlemen,\" Dalan said.\n\nOmax reached into his pocket and drew out two gold coins. The money looked ridiculously small cupped in his adamantine palm as he offered it to the men. The tower master shouldered one of his henchmen, who nervously stepped forward to snatch the coins. Omax closed his hand over the coins with a clank, nearly snatching the man's fingers. He drew back with a start.\n\nDalan chuckled and looked embarrassed. \"My apologies, but my associate is a stickler for formalities,\" Dalan said. \"I shall need to see the King's Seal, tower master, just to make certain that you are in fact the proper authority.\"\n\nThe tower master chuckled. \"This is Black Pit, my friend,\" he said. \"We don't need any official sanction from the King here.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Dalan answered. \"How very interesting. It has long been my personal belief that a man willing to call a total stranger 'my friend' is invariably the least friendly, most untrustworthy sort of person. As pleasing as it is to see that once again I am not wrong, that is no excuse for either your behavior or your odor. If you are not an official authority, then your presence is irrelevant to me. Get away from my ship, or Omax will remove you.\"\n\nSeren's hand moved to the dagger tucked in the back of her belt as she edged back toward the ship. Dalan glanced back at her, his eyes narrowing, making her stop where she was. Seren caught his meaning\u2014a united front was important. Dalan looked back at the four men and folded his arms across his chest. Standing before the thugs, his face remained calm and unafraid. Omax stepped in front of the guildmaster, calmly tucking the coins back into his pocket. He fell into a relaxed stance, hands curled into fists near his waist, and bowed his head to the four men.\n\n\"Bah,\" the tower master said with a sneer. \"Don't let the fat man and his golem intimidate you. I've fought my share of warforged. They die just like men.\"\n\nOmax lunged forward, seized the man's chest in one hand, and hurled him from the tower bridge. There was a shrill yelp of terror, followed by the soft splat of a man landing heavily in the mud. Omax turned and faced the three remaining men calmly. They backed into the tower, then ran down the stairs as quickly as they were able.\n\n\"He survived,\" Dalan said, looking down as the tower master staggered to his feet and limped hurriedly away.\n\n\"What purpose would killing him serve?\" Omax asked.\n\n\"He may come back,\" Dalan said, sighing as he strode back onto the ship.\n\n\"And if he were to die, others might come seeking vengeance,\" Omax said, following him.\n\n\"If there would be risk whether he lived or died,\" Dalan said, looking back at the warforged. \"Then why let him live? That man is useless scum. Probably a killer.\"\n\nOmax shrugged at Dalan. \"Or just a desperate man,\" the warforged said. \"Mercy can put a desperate man on a path to redemption.\"\n\n\"Or grant him the opportunity to kill another day,\" Dalan said.\n\n\"Not everyone is a killer, Dalan,\" Tristam said tersely.\n\n\"Tristam, you misunderstand me,\" Dalan said, looking at the artificer with a smirk. \"I trust Omax's judgment and I value his opinions, even if I disagree with them. I was having a philosophical discussion. If you cannot add anything insightful to our discourse, then stay quiet and listen.\"\n\nTristam looked away, face darkening. Seren thought she might take some small joy in seeing Tristam humiliated after the way he'd insulted her, but she did not.\n\n\"But this is not the time for conversation,\" Dalan said, heading toward the cabin. \"Tristam, get into the village and find Zed Arthen. Take Seren with you to keep you out of trouble.\"\n\n\"I don't really know this village,\" Seren said to Dalan's back.\n\n\"Neither, thankfully, do any of us, save by reputation,\" Dalan said, pausing at the door. \"Nonetheless, if you could survive on the streets of Wroat, I'm certain you'll do well enough here. You'll do far better than Tristam, in any case.\"\n\n\"I will let no harm come to either of you, Seren,\" Omax said.\n\n\"Your loyalty is duly noted, Omax, but I need you to remain here,\" Dalan said. \"I cannot risk leaving Karia Naille undefended in case the 'local authorities' return.\"\n\n\"The ship isn't exactly undefended, Dalan,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Contingencies only retain their strength when they remain in place,\" Dalan said cryptically. \"Omax will remain here as our first line of defense.\"\n\nThe warforged looked at Tristam, waiting for his decision. The artificer looked at Dalan, who peered back with a patient, thoughtful expression.\n\n\"Better listen to Dalan, Omax,\" Tristam said quietly.\n\n[ Omax bowed to his friend. Dalan closed his cabin door ]\n\n\"Good luck, both of you,\" Gerith said cheerfully. The halfling climbed back onto the deck, carrying a struggling chicken under one arm. He headed toward the galley.\n\n\"Let's go,\" Seren said, brushing past Tristam and hurrying down the tower stairs.\n\nShe exited the tower to find Tristam already waiting at the bottom. She did a double-take, looking from him back at the door behind her.\n\n\"Feather fall ring,\" he said, holding up a hand to display a bronze ring with a smirk. \"What good's a little magic if you can't show it off, right?\"\n\n\"You made that?\" she asked.\n\n\"I haven't mastered ringcraft, but soon,\" he said. \"My friend Orren Thardis gave it to me after Ashrem suspended my teaching. He was brilliant; probably taught me as much as Ashrem did.\" Tristam bent low to examine the tower's doorknob. \"I think he gave me the ring because he felt sorry for me.\"\n\nSeren surveyed the area for any signs of danger. A number of locals were still staring at the ship in wonder. The locals all looked generally shady and suspicious, making it difficult to tell if anyone was a relevant danger.\n\n\"Wisdom,\" Tristam said under his breath.\n\n\"What?\" she asked, looking back.\n\n\"That's the password to get through the ward I just put on this door,\" he said, looking at her earnestly. \"Remember it, Seren. Please. I don't want you hurt.\"\n\nShe nodded and gestured for him to follow. She took to the middle of the road, staying as visible as possible to reduce the chance of ambush. Tristam followed, remaining silent for a long time.\n\n\"Seren,\" he finally said, still walking a step behind her. \"Did Omax talk to you?\"\n\n\"I don't like apologies,\" Seren said. \"They're just words.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Tristam said. \"Well, by that logic, when I stupidly called you a thief, that was just words too. Therefore no harm done and I don't need to offer a worthless apology. Right?\"\n\nSeren scowled at Tristam. He offered a crooked grin, and she had a difficult time remembering just why she was so angry at him.\n\n\"Fine. Apology accepted,\" she said, rolling her eyes. They continued walking down the street.\n\n\"Boldrei's blood, that's a relief,\" he said, exhaling. He walked beside her instead of behind, a bit of his cocky self-assurance returning. \"I have enough problems without worrying about you stealing something from me in revenge.\"\n\nShe glared at him again, but his quick laugh took the sting off his words. \"Joking! If there's one man in all of Khorvaire who has no right to judge you for your past, it's me. All in all, I think if you compared our respective professions yours is more worthy of respect. At least a thief is honest.\"\n\n\"How do you figure that?\" she asked. \"You're an artificer. You make things that change people's lives.\"\n\n\"We also make weapons, Seren,\" Tristam said. \"For every airship and lightning rail you can name, I can point to the warforged... or to Cyre.\"\n\n\"Omax is a warforged,\" she said. \"He seems like a good person. So to speak.\"\n\n\"He is,\" Tristam said, \"but that doesn't change the fact that his people were created to kill. The warforged were supposed to be monsters. The fact that some of them, like Omax, are strong enough to rise above their origins was not intentional.\"\n\n\"If you think so little of magecraft, then why are you helping Dalan find the Legacy?\" she asked.\n\n\"Because someone has to make sure it's used responsibly,\" he said. \"Whatever it really is, it's powerful, and I don't want to see it misused. That was why I was so suspicious toward you, Seren. I can't stand the thought of anyone exploiting Ashrem's work. You have to admit we didn't meet on very good terms. You had one of Ashrem's journals in your pocket.\"\n\n\"In a bag, actually,\" she said. \"But you think you can trust Dalan d'Cannith with Ashrem's secrets?\" She looked at him thoughtfully.\n\n\"I do,\" Tristam said, though he hesitated just a moment. \"Dalan wants what I want. He wants to find the truth before someone else does. But that makes me wonder what we're doing here.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Seren asked. She looked at him questioningly, then took stock of their surroundings again. A crudely painted sign depicting a full mug of ale hung over a nearby door. A tavern was as good a place to find information as any, so she headed that way.\n\n\"We've been looking for the Legacy for a long time now,\" Tristam said. \"Zed Arthen was a member of our original crew, but the search was too much for him. He abandoned us and came here.\" He looked at her seriously. \"I don't trust Zed, Seren. I never liked him, even before he left us. The Knights of Thrane don't cast out one of their own without reason.\"\n\nTristam opened the tavern door for her, breaking the tension with an exaggerated, bow. She chuckled and stepped inside. She was surprised to find no one drinking inside. A barkeep in a dirty apron was setting chairs on tables.\n\n\"Closed,\" the man said in a bored voice. \"Sundown.\"\n\n\"Sundown?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Oh, you're new,\" he said with an annoyed sneer. His right eye drifted to the right. \"Black Pit's no place to be out after dark. Get out quick. Find some place to sleep. Not here.\"\n\n\"We can take care of ourselves,\" Tristam said.\n\nThe bartender scratched his chin, grunted to himself, and returned to his work, ignoring Tristam. Seren was about to ask the man if he knew Zed Arthen when the door opened behind them. The tower master stepped inside, his clothes stained with jet-black mud. He was followed by the same three thugs as before, as well as two new arrivals. The barkeep quickly flipped the last chair onto the table and hurried out of the room. Seren looked around for any other exit. The only other door was the one the barkeep had just slipped through, and she heard a latch fall heavily in place.\n\n\"We saw you lock that tower door, magewright,\" the tower master said. He advanced as his thugs fanned out to block any path of escape.\n\nTristam drew his sword and wand, holding them in a ready stance. \"Stay back, Seren,\" he said, stepping between them.\n\n\"Put the sword away, boy,\" the thug said. His comrades drew small crossbows, aiming them at Tristam. \"The warforged is the one we want. Just tell us what we need to know and we'll only give you a beating. We'll even let the girl go.\" He gave Seren a ghastly grin. \"Eventually.\"\n\n\"You haven't the faintest idea who you've insulted,\" Tristam said. \"My name is Tristam Xain, and I rank among the most skilled swordsmen in the Lhazaar Principalities.\"\n\nThe man gave Tristam another appraising look and then laughed out loud. Tristam's bold fa\u00e7ade faded noticeably.\n\nSeren looked at the man coldly. \"Are you an idiot?\" she said. \"Omax let you live because he could. We aren't worth the pain we'd give you. Leave while you can.\"\n\nThe tower master looked at Seren soberly, then glanced back at Tristam, with a disdainful sneer. He reached for the heavy crossbow at his hip.\n\nA mocking chuckle sounded from the doorway, causing the thug to stay his hand. He turned quickly, aiming his crossbow at the newcomer. A stocky man in a long brown coat stepped into the room. His face was plain and unremarkable except for his sharp blue eyes. A long pipe hung from his lip, leaving a drifting plume of smoke as he entered. The newcomer looked at Seren, Tristam, and each of the men before looking at their leader again.\n\n\"This d-doesn't involve you, Arthen,\" the tower master said, stuttering in fear.\n\n\"I'm only trying to help you, Hareld,\" the man said, tapping out his pipe and tucking it into his coat. \"She's right, you know. You are an idiot,\" He looked at Seren with a sly grin. \"You can't even see her hands. Kol Korran knows what sort of weapon she's hiding under that cloak. The boy's no threat. I won't argue that, but look at the girl's eyes. She'll kill the first man that makes a move. Who will be first? Hesitate at all, and at least one of you won't walk away from this. Of course, that's your best-case scenario. That assumes that I don't plan to help them. That shifts the odds considerably.\"\n\n\"Help them?\" one of the others said, meekly.\n\n\"They are my clients,\" Arthen said. He plucked a chair from a nearby table and effortlessly wrenched one of its legs free, hefting it as an improvised club. \"Shall we begin?\"\n\nThe tower master lowered his crossbow and gestured for the others to do the same. \"No, no, that's not necessary,\" he said, stumbling over the words. \"We'll... we'll just go.\"\n\nArthen stepped away from the door, pointing the way with his club. The thugs nearly fell over each other in their haste to depart. When they were gone, Zed dropped the table leg on the floor and looked at Tristam with an unpleasant expression.\n\n\"So I'm nothing, Sir Arthen?\" Tristam asked, snapping his sword into its scabbard. \"I am honored to have risen so highly in your estimation.\"\n\n\"Don't start, boy,\" he said, leveling a dangerous glare at the artificer. \"Don't call me, 'Sir.'\"\n\nTristam's face darkened, but he looked away quickly.\n\nZed looked to Seren, expression softening only marginally. \"Zed Arthen, professional inquisitive,\" he said, flourishing his long coat in a half-bow.\n\n\"Seren Morisse,\" she answered, noticing the many pouches and small tools that hung from Arthen's belt and within his coat. \"We've been sent...\"\n\n\"I know who sent you,\" he interrupted. \"Normally I wouldn't mind keeping Dalan waiting, but we should get you back to your ship before dark.\"\n\n\"What happens here at night?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"The village is perched on a pit into the deepest hells of Khyber. Do you really need details?\" Zed said. \"Now let's go.\"\n\nSeren and Tristam filed back out of the tavern with Zed only a step behind. The streets were empty now, long shadows stretching across the road. The inquisitive hurried past them, his pace brisk as he kept a nervous eye on the setting sun.\n\n\"Could be nothing, mind you,\" Zed said as they jogged to keep up with him. \"It's usually nothing. One night in twenty. Of course, that night is well worth worrying about the other nineteen.\"\n\n\"Criminals and demons. Why do you live here, Arthen?\" Tristam said, shaking his head as they pressed on.\n\n\"Fairly preferable to your own circumstances,\" Zed said. \"Incidentally, Miss Morisse, I know we don't know one another and I hesitate to give advice to strangers, but I'd avoid becoming tangled up with Dalan d'Cannith.\"\n\n\"Arthen,\" Tristam said in a warning tone.\n\nZed ignored him. \"Whatever reason you have to work with him, whatever reason you think you need him, forget it. He's either lying to you or not telling you everything. Probably both. Leave him behind.\" He paused for a moment. \"Once you reach a port safer than Black Pit, just leave. Don't even say goodbye; just go.\"\n\n\"Like you did?\" Tristam asked, leaning close to whisper the password at the tower door.\n\n\"I'm serious,\" Zed said, ignoring Tristam. \"Don't give Dalan a chance to talk you out of it.\" He grasped her shoulder, stopping her at the tower door and looking earnestly into her eyes. \"D'Cannith has a way of endearing himself, of making the unreasonable seem reasonable. You do what he wants and you even think it's your idea.\"\n\n\"Zed, stop,\" Tristam said. He gently took Seren by the arm, pulling her away from the inquisitive. She didn't resist. \"Dalan doesn't have any sort of magic. All his dragonmark can do is fix things.\"\n\n\"Magic?\" Zed laughed. \"I'm not talking about magic. Dalan has never needed magic. The human mind is all he needs. Why do you think he sent you two into a dangerous place like this, unprotected, just before sunset? Because he knew I'd see the ship land. He knew I'd watch whoever came out, and he knew you'd be in danger. He knew I wouldn't leave Tristam to die, and that it was the only way to draw me back to Karia Naille. I suppose he told you some nonsense about how he trusted you not to get into trouble.\" Zed shook his head. \"And now here I am, walking right back into his ship. Dalan knows people, Seren.\" He tapped his temple with two thick fingers. \"He gets into their heads. Probably knows me better than I do.\" The inquisitive sighed as he looked up at the hovering airship. \"Just think about what I've said, all right?\"\n\n\"Seren, ignore him,\" Tristam said, shoving past Arthen through the tower door. \"He's a lunatic.\"\n\nSeren followed Tristam, only stopping briefly to look back at Zed. The shadows of Black Pit now crept across the streets. Arthen was looking back over one shoulder, into the darkness. It looked almost as if he were considering facing the dangers of being caught in the village at night rather than board Karia Naille.\n\nThen, slowly and methodically, Zed Arthen closed the door behind them and made his way up the tower stairs.\n\nWhat are you doing in here?\" Tristam asked, pushing open the door of his cabin with an annoyed frown.\n\nSeren looked up with a friendly smile. She sat on Tristam's cot, her feet kicked up on the chair nearby. A thick book lay open beside her, and the homunculus sat in her lap, staring blankly as she petted it on the head. \"Just reading,\" she said. \"The door was open.\"\n\nTristam looked at her intently.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" she asked. \"Surprised I can read?\"\n\n\"I didn't say that,\" Tristam said. \"It's just that\u2014\"\n\n\"I didn't steal anything.\"\n\n\"I never thought you did,\" he said, looking more amused than annoyed. \"I'm just amazed you're still conscious. I left the door open because I was airing out the fumes from my last experiment. It didn't go very well.\" Tristam hung his jacket on a hook behind the door. Omax stepped into the room as well, ducking to pass through the small threshold.\n\n\"What are you reading, Seren?\" the warforged asked, squatting in the corner and looking at her book. His blue eyes shone with curiosity as he extended one hand toward her.\n\n\"Karrnathi myths and legends,\" she answered, handing him the book. \"Seemed interesting. Pherris didn't have anything for me to do, Gerith is off exploring, and Dalan has locked himself in his chambers again.\"\n\n\"Careful with that book, please; it was my mother's,\" Tristam said, gently kicking her feet off the chair and sitting down. \"So you just invited yourself into my cabin, then?\"\n\n\"Not the first time a man's been surprised to find me in his room. But surely the first time he's complained.\"\n\nTristam looked at her with blank surprise and even Omax glanced up from the book.\n\n\"That's a joke,\" she said, rolling her eyes at them. \"My cabin is depressing. It's so empty. When I gathered all my things out of that hole where I lived in Wroat, there was almost nothing. Just some clothes, some tools, some broken furniture I'd taken from someone's garbage. I was actually glad to leave most of it behind. My room is like someone's closet now. It doesn't feel like a home. Sorry I intruded, Tristam.\"\n\n\"Apology accepted,\" he said. \"Now get your dirty shoes off my bed.\"\n\nShe laughed, kicking her heavy shoes onto the floor.\n\n\"I hope you didn't touch any of this,\" Tristam said. He began fidgeting over his table, checking the various vials, crystals, and reagents.\n\n\"I know better than to mess with a wizard's experiments,\" she said.\n\nTristam peered back at her. For the first time since he caught her in his room, he looked truly annoyed. He returned his attention to his work with a sigh.\n\n\"Tristam is not a wizard,\" Omax said, folding the book closed and handing it carefully back to Seren. \"A wizard merely manipulates the forces of magic. An artificer gives magic form, life, and persistence. They are as much different as a poet and a sculptor. Both are masters of their respective art but the results are not comparable.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Seren said. \"So what about Zed Arthen? Is he an artificer as well?\"\n\n\"Arthen?\" Tristam said, giving her an incredulous look. \"Khyber, no. Arthen is nothing, just a washed-up exile. A former Knight of Thrane who fancies himself an inquisitive.\"\n\n\"Then why do we need his help?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Because Zed knew old Ashrem,\" Tristam said. \"Ashrem had a habit of taking in strays, and 'Sir' Zed was a member of Karia Naille's crew for a while. They shared a weird penchant for riddles and code, the same fascination that makes Ashrem's books nearly impossible to read.\"\n\nThe homunculus took the storybook from Seren, carefully opened it to the page she had been reading before, set it down beside her, and returned to its place on her lap. She stroked the clay creature's head absently and frowned as she turned over Tristam's revelations in her mind. If Zed really knew so much, why hadn't their mysterious rival, Marth, hunted Arthen down as he hunted all of Ashrem's other colleagues?\n\n\"If Zed knows so much about Ashrem's codes, why didn't Dalan hire him earlier?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Who says he didn't?\" Tristam asked.\n\nShe thought back to Zed's arrival on the ship. Pherris had seemed to know Arthen, though he only nodded in greeting and returned to his work. She remembered the odd look of reflection, the sense of peace and serenity that she had seen in Arthen's face the instant he stepped aboard. It had only lasted for a moment before Dalan called the inquisitive to his cabin. She only saw him briefly later, hurrying back off the ship early the next morning, returning to his home in the village.\n\n\"Four days,\" Tristam grumbled, setting a glass vial down so hard she heard glass crack. \"Four days that traitor's been studying that lens. Dalan even gave him one of Ashrem's encoded journals so he could try to break the cipher. The Host only knows what he's done with them by now, or if he's even still in Black Pit. He could be in Wroat by now for all we know.\"\n\n\"Not without an airship,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Don't underestimate him,\" Tristam retorted. \"I wouldn't put it past Arthen to hit the local speaker's station. The speakers can send a message anywhere. He could arrange for a ship to come pick him up. An airship could sneak in under the cover of the forest, drop a ladder, pick him up, and we'd never know.\"\n\n\"Or he could board that ship across the street,\" Omax said, nodding toward the porthole.\n\nSeren and Tristam looked through the porthole simultaneously, out at the darkened streets of Black Pit. A sleek red airship, half again the size of Karia Naille, now hovered in port at the opposite sky tower. A proud kraken crest was emblazoned upon the hull.\n\n\"That's one of House Lyrandar's,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Another dragonmarked house?\" Seren said. \"Are the Lyrandar after the Legacy too?\"\n\n\"I doubt they'd care, if they even knew about it,\" Tristam said. \"The Lyrandar are neutral by nature, merchants and sailors. That's a charter ship.\"\n\n\"Then anyone could be onboard,\" Seren said. She set the homunculus aside and moved closer to the window for a better look. The little construct closed the book and carefully placed it back on the shelf, sitting down beside it as an improvised bookend.\n\n\"It has been docked all evening,\" Omax said.\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me about this before?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"It is night,\" the construct said. \"The city is dangerous at night. I feared you might do something rash.\"\n\n\"We'd better go check this out,\" Tristam said, rising from his seat and reaching for his jacket.\n\n\"My point exactly,\" Omax said dryly. The warforged rose with a weary metal creak.\n\n\"What do you plan to do, Tristam?\" Seren asked. \"Sneak onto the ship?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I plan to find Arthen. I'm willing to bet he's meeting with whoever came in on that ship.\"\n\n\"You have no idea where he is,\" Seren said. \"You haven't been in the village since we found him.\"\n\n\"But I can track him,\" Tristam said. \"The same way I tracked you, Seren. If he's carrying that lens, I can find him.\"\n\nOmax folded his metal arms across his chest and looked down at Tristam. \"You truly believe you could put a magical tracking device on Zed Arthen and he would not discover and dispose of it?\"\n\n\"He'd better not have disposed of it,\" Tristam said, smirking up at Omax before he pulled his jacket over his shoulders and left the cabin. \"It's the damned lens.\"\n\n\"You enchanted the lens?\" Omax asked, impressed. \"You only had it for a moment.\"\n\n\"And I know Dalan,\" Tristam said. \"I wanted to be able to find it again if I needed to, and knew I might not have another chance. Now let's go find him.\"\n\nOmax looked at Seren. She imagined she saw a long-suffering look in his mechanical eyes. The construct certainly seemed more human the longer she was around him. \"Please help me keep him alive,\" he said quietly.\n\nSeren nodded and hopped off the bed, kicking her oversized shoes onto her feet. Something about what Tristam said bothered her, though she couldn't quite figure out what it was just yet. The two followed Tristam into the hallway. He was already in the cargo bay, opening the lower bay doors and gathering a rope ladder.\n\n\"Shouldn't we wait until morning?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"What better time to meet secretly with someone in a place like this than when everyone else is hiding in their houses?\" Tristam asked. \"Besides, remember what Arthen said. One out of twenty days it might be dangerous\u2014and I feel lucky. Besides, Omax can protect us.\"\n\n\"I am flattered, Tristam,\" Omax said, with perhaps a hint of sarcasm.\n\n\"Pardon me, Master Xain,\" said a stern voice from above. \"What is it that you are doing there?\"\n\nThe trio looked up to see Captain Gerriman standing at the top of the deck ladder. He glared down at them, fists fixed imperiously upon his hips. Though he was half their height, Seren could not help but feel somewhat embarrassed and intimidated by the tiny captain's outrage.\n\nTristam stuttered for a moment before answering. \"We're going into the village, Captain,\" he said quietly, not meeting Pherris's eyes.\n\nPherris looked over his shoulder, toward Dalan's cabin, then glared back at them. \"Without your captain's permission?\"\n\n\"We thought you might disapprove,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Oh, I might!\" Pherris said. \"And one might think that you should wish to seek my approval or lack thereof, considering that I am in fact the captain of this ship! Now. The reasons for your departure are irrelevant. I can easily guess what they are, and thus your excuses are of no interest to me. Could you answer one question for me, Master Xain?\"\n\nTristam nodded.\n\n\"How did you plan to raise that ladder back up after the three of you had climbed down?\" he asked. \"Or did you plan to leave it dangling there so that any manner of demon or thief could climb onto my ship?\"\n\n\"I thought maybe Omax would pull it back up and jump down unharmed?\" Tristam asked.\n\nOmax laughed.\n\n\"I've seen you take worse,\" Tristam said, \"and I can fix you.\"\n\n\"And I can make a fine splint and tourniquet,\" Pherris said acidly. \"By your logic, I'm sure you wouldn't mind Omax breaking your arm.\"\n\nTristam looked at Omax. The warforged seemed to grin. Seren had to work very hard to restrain a laugh.\n\n\"And this is not even to consider that Master Dalan will be most displeased when he finds you've left without his knowledge,\" Pherris said.\n\nTristam looked up at Pherris now, his nervous confusion suddenly gone. \"Dalan made a mistake trusting Zed Arthen, Captain,\" he said. \"I have to fix it, or everything we've done will have been for nothing.\"\n\nPherris looked at Tristam steadily for a long time, then nodded and stroked his moustache with one hand. \"Very well,\" he said, hopping down into the hold. \"Climb on down. I'll pull up the ladder.\"\n\nTristam looked at Pherris, confused. \"But...\"\n\n\"Do not question the Captain's orders,\" Omax said, resting a heavy hand on his friend's shoulder.\n\nThe gnome cackled and waved them toward the ladder. Tristam climbed down first. By the time Seren landed beside him, he had already drawn his sword and wand. The wand shimmered with white light, illuminating the road around them. She quickly pushed his arm down, covering the wand with his cloak.\n\n\"Put that away,\" she whispered. \"The light will just draw anything that's sees us. The starlight is enough to get by.\"\n\nTristam looked about to argue.\n\n\"Are you going to tell me how to sneak around, Tristam?\" she asked.\n\nTristam shrugged and put the wand away.\n\n\"Can you sense the lens?\" she asked him, looking up at the Lyrandar airship.\n\nTristam nodded. \"It isn't on that ship, at least.\" He pointed toward the northern end of town with his sword. \"It's that way, somewhere. I can narrow it down if we get closer.\"\n\nA heavy thud sounded beside them, causing Tristam and Seren both to jump. Omax rose to his full height again, having jumped down without the ladder, and chuckled.\n\n\"I thought you said the fall would damage you,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"I said it might,\" Omax said. \"It's your fault for making me curious.\"\n\n\"I thought it was against a monk's vows to frighten people,\" Tristam said, smoothing his coat over his chest with one hand.\n\n\"A soul cannot appreciate the stillness of the pond until it ripples,\" Omax said. The warforged's head swiveled from one side to the other with a low metallic click, his shining eyes scanning the darkness for any threat. He walked past them, finding his way unerringly in the shadows.\n\n\"Is he joking?\" Seren asked with a half smile.\n\n\"It's always hard to tell,\" Tristam said, sheathing his sword and following.\n\nSeren moved to Omax's left while Tristam flanked the warforged on his right. She kept her hand on the hilt of her dagger. She was unsure if it would do much good against the creatures of the pit, but it would serve her well if the mortal inhabitants of the village decided to pose a problem. Other than the faint haze of starlight and the shimmering blue radiance of Omax's eyes, the city was in complete darkness. The shrieking sounds of the pit were as loud as she had heard them, growing by the moment. The sound was difficult to describe: a mad, piercing wail underscored by babbling. Seren wanted to go back. When she exchanged looks with Tristam, it seemed he was having second thoughts as well, but Omax's gaze was resolute and fearless. She saw no lights in any of the windows, only the occasional faint crack of radiance behind thick shutters. Though there were a few sconces for everbright lanterns on either side of the street, they did not shine. Seren paused by one and studied the empty bracket atop it. She looked at the others.\n\n\"Someone stole the light, I guess,\" Tristam said, shrugging.\n\n\"Or it was removed intentionally,\" Omax suggested. \"I think no one wants to see what happens here at night.\"\n\nThe same thought had occurred to Seren, but she had not wanted to speak it aloud. She gave the sconce a final anxious glance and moved on. Tristam stopped them several times, brow furrowing as he struggled to find the right way. They changed directions several times, until Omax finally sat down in the street and looked up at Tristam patiently.\n\n\"Whenever you know where we are going, I am ready,\" he said.\n\n\"Sorry, Omax, but you know this can be tricky to triangulate,\" Tristam said, scratching his chin as he looked one way, then the next. \"Remember how easily we lost Seren?\"\n\nThen it struck her, what had bothered her from before. \"Tristam, you can track the lens even though you only handled it for a moment,\" she said. \"If Marth is an artificer as well, shouldn't he be able to do the same?\"\n\n\"Doubtful,\" Tristam said. \"The transfusion I used is very rare. Ashrem taught it to me himself. Even if Marth could do it, he'd have to be an artificer of extraordinary power to sense its location all the way from Wroat.\"\n\n\"And what if he is?\" Seren asked. \"You saw what he did to the inn. Are we talking impossible or improbable?\"\n\nTristam grimaced. \"Improbable,\" he admitted. \"Let's not dwell on that, Seren; we already have enough worries.\" He pointed. \"It's that way.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Omax asked, still sitting.\n\n\"I think so,\" Tristam answered, scratching his chin again.\n\nOmax rose with what sounded like a sigh. They continued moving cautiously, if a bit quicker than before. They were almost at the center of town now, and when they emerged at the mouth of an alley Seren thought she heard Omax chuckle.\n\n\"How fortunate we are for your magical tracking ability, Tristam,\" Omax said. \"We might never have found this.\"\n\nA large sign emblazoned with an open eye hung above a door across the street. It read:\n\nINQUISITIVE FOR HIRE\n\nNO QUESTIONS ASKED\n\nALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED\n\nREASONABLE RATES\n\nINQUIRE WITHIN\n\n\"Well, look at that,\" Tristam said, shoulders slumping as he read the sign.\n\nSeren smiled, but her smile faded as she studied the surrounding buildings. They were uniformly dark and rundown, like the rest of the village. There was no way of telling who might be within, or if Arthen's home was already being watched from one of them. In a place like Black Pit, it was almost impossible to find anything conspicuously suspicious, since everything was already rather shady and threatening.\n\nThen Seren saw the small figure crouching on the rooftop next to Arthen's office. She darted forward, seizing Tristam by the sleeve and pulling him back into the alley. Wordlessly, she pointed up.\n\n\"Let's sneak around behind that building to the right,\" Tristam said. \"We should be able to get up on that roof behind him without him noticing.\"\n\n\"We probably don't need to,\" Seren said. \"Whoever that is, they aren't going anywhere unless Arthen does. What if they cry out and Arthen hears?\"\n\n\"He isn't going to hear anything with the racket out tonight,\" Tristam answered.\n\nSeren couldn't really argue the point, though the mysterious noise emanating from the Pit made her less eager to stumble through dark alleys. Omax led the way around to the back of the building adjacent to Arthen's. The alley was littered with refuse and heaped with the black filth that fell from the sky. Seren searched the wall for a way up, but saw nothing beyond a few rough handholds in the stone wall. She prepared to climb, but was surprised to find her feet rooted firmly to the ground.\n\n\"What are we standing in?\" she asked, twisting to look at the ground beneath her.\n\nThe shrieking that resounded from the pit erupted much closer. The pile of garbage that littered the alley exploded into movement. A grotesque amorphous shape surged toward them, a greasy pile of gray flesh studded with bloodshot eyes and clicking, fanged mouths. The sound that came from within it drilled into Seren's head, shaking her bones and robbing her of the will to act. She felt the ground suck at her feet. What once was sturdy earth now sucked at her calves. Tristam reached for his wand with a numb, shaking hand. The creature vomited a ball of black spit in the artificer's eyes and he fell back, screaming and clawing at his face.\n\nThe thing knocked Tristam down with a fleshy limb and rolled over his helpless form, extending more twisted hideous arms toward Seren. Then Omax was there, charging into the creature headfirst. He hit the thing squarely with a meaty slap and it began to extend fleshy, biting tentacles around the warforged's body. With a heavy grunt and a heave, Omax grasped the beast with both arms and lifted it from the ground, pulling it off Tristam's body. He hurled it to the opposite side of the alley. It struck the wall with the sound of cracking stone and oozed downward, leaving a trail of red ichor in its wake. Omax wrapped one arm around Seren's waist and pulled her free of the quagmire. The shifting ground was swiftly becoming stone again now that the creature was further away.\n\n\"Finish it, Tristam,\" Omax said.\n\n\"I can't see!\" the artificer said, panicked. He had tilted back his head and was now liberally dousing his face with something out of a vial from his pocket.\n\nThe creature pulled itself together with a bubbling noise. Its eyes wobbled unsteadily, then all swiveled in the same direction at once, focusing on Omax. Seren drew her knife, out of habit more than any real belief it would help. With a sudden surge it opened all the mouths on its body at once, screaming with a mad, gibbering cry.\n\nA crossbow bolt shot down from the roof above, leaving a trail of sparks as it flew directly into one of the creature's mouths. The abomination bit down hard. A muffled thud rocked the street just as fire erupted from several of the creature's orifices. A cloud of oily black smoke coughed out a moment later. The monster settled to the earth with a disgusting rasp of released gas.\n\nTristam looked around, blinking rapidly to clear his eyes. \"What happened?\" he asked. \"Is it dead?\"\n\n\"That looked like one of your explosive potions,\" Omax said, peering up at the roof above them.\n\n\"That's because it was,\" said Gerith Snowshale, hopping down from the roof. He tucked his crossbow back into his belt with a scowl. \"Are you hurt?\"\n\n\"Other than accumulating more character, I am fine,\" Omax said, poking the bite marks on his left forearm with one finger as he assessed the damage.\n\n\"Gerith, what are you doing here?\" Seren asked, tucking her knife away.\n\n\"How did you get one of my potions?\" Tristam asked.\n\nGerith pretended the question did not exist. He looked up at Seren with a charming grin. \"I've been spying on Zed Arthen for four days,\" he said to her. \"Didn't you know? I thought Dalan sent you to check on me.\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" Tristam said, looking at Omax for support. The warforged was still studying the dents on his arm, ignoring Tristam.\n\n\"He doesn't even know you're here, does he?\" Gerith said, looking up at Tristam and chuckling with malicious glee.\n\nA sharp reptilian squawk sounded from above, blending easily with the shrieking of the pit, but Gerith stopped speaking and looked up instantly. He replied with a similar cry, and Blizzard landed on the street nearby with a leathery flap.\n\n\"Arthen's moving,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"I know,\" Gerith said, hopping into the saddle. \"Keep up if you can, but try to keep your distance. And Seren.\" The halfling looked at her pointedly. \"Keep those two out of trouble.\"\n\nOmax looked up at Gerith in shock. The halfling gave a final cocky smile and flapped away on his glidewing.\n\nSeren's life as a street rat had made her fairly competent at shadowing people, or at least she'd thought as much. She was capable of fading into the background and following a mark for hours without attracting his attention. It was easier with a crowd to act as cover, but nearly as simple on a dark evening like tonight. In a place like Black Pit, it should have been relatively simple. To her surprise, Zed Arthen lost her in less than two minutes. She had only one clear glimpse of his ratty brown coat before he disappeared into another alley, during which she noticed that he had a large sword strapped to his back.\n\nThe worst part was that she was fairly certain that he hadn't even noticed her. She had been hanging back farther than usual, with Omax being as conspicuous as he was. The inquisitive ditched them effortlessly, without even knowing they were there. She hadn't seen any sign of Gerith since he had taken off, and could only hope that the little scout was having more luck. It was all in Tristam's hands now.\n\nThe artificer stood in the center of a crossroads, brow furrowed as he closed his eyes in concentration. Omax sat on the road in meditation, obviously not expecting Tristam to sort out the answer any time soon.\n\nSeren was not quite so patient. \"Well?\" she prompted. She scanned the streets for movement, nervous for any sign of life after the strange creature that attacked them. There was nothing. In fact, the mad shrieking of the Pit was now almost silent.\n\n\"This way,\" Tristam said, pointing to his left. \"He's stopped moving. That's good news?\"\n\n\"Or very bad news, depending on why he's stopped,\" Seren said.\n\nTristam laughed.\n\nOmax rose and fell into his usual dauntless stride. They soon found themselves on a path leading out of the village and into the thick forests to the south. The light of a torch shone in the forest ahead. Seren gestured for them to stop. Omax nodded in understanding.\n\n\"I will wait here,\" he said softly, settling into his meditative posture again. \"Silence is not my specialty.\"\n\nTristam laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. He fell in behind Seren, following closely as she picked her way through the forest. She stopped abruptly, looking back at him patiently. After several seconds, he realized he was literally hanging over her shoulder, one hand clenched tightly on her upper arm. He let her go and stepped back with an embarrassed smile.\n\n\"Sorry, Seren,\" he whispered. \"I get nervous sometimes. Omax is the soldier. I'm just a scholar.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Seren said, glancing at him in surprise. \"So the dashing Lhazaarite swordsman act is just bravado?\"\n\n\"You're teasing me,\" he said wryly. \"I'm not entirely clueless in a fight, but that's not how I like to handle things. I figure if I can scare the other guy into not fighting at all, then I don't have to worry about getting thrashed.\"\n\n\"Makes sense,\" she said, moving forward again.\n\nTristam coughed. \"Did you really think I was dashing, Seren?\"\n\nShe looked back at him, pressing one finger over her lips for him to be silent.\n\nSeren crouched in the underbrush and crawled forward for a closer look at their quarry. Tristam crawled beside her, moving with less grace and drawing a scowl from her. A small clearing lay ahead. Zed Arthen waited there, facing the way they had come. He stood with his back against a tree, one hand tucked in his pocket and the other holding a torch. He was definitely wearing a sword; its elaborate two-handed hilt protruded above his right shoulder. Tristam had mentioned twice before that Zed had been a knight. She wondered if the sword was a souvenir from that previous career.\n\nFor a long time, they watched Zed Arthen stand in the forest and do nothing. He occasionally removed his pipe from his mouth, blowing delicate smoke rings into the night breeze.\n\nTristam shifted restlessly. Seren guessed he had sat down awkwardly and was cramping up. She'd done the same thing the first time she'd spied on someone. She poked him sharply in the side with one finger. He looked at her in surprise. She smiled and laid one finger over her lips again. He frowned miserably and kept still.\n\nAfter a few seconds, Tristam clasped a hand over hers. She shot him a suspicious look. He pointed to the northern edge of the clearing. Another light was rapidly approaching, and the figure carrying it soon resolved from the darkness. It was a tall, fair-skinned woman with long black hair. She was obviously a warrior, the traditional image of a knight. She wore full armor, carried a short spear in one hand, and wore a shortsword at her hip. Her tabard bore an impressive crest, a monstrous creature with the heads of a lion, ram, and dragon underneath an iron gauntlet, holding a double-bladed sword. Seren did not recognize her but noticed the way Tristam's hand tightened when he saw her.\n\n\"Deneith,\" he whispered. His lips pressed into a grim, lipless line. \"Another dragonmarked house.\"\n\nZed did not seem at all distressed to see this newcomer, so this was obviously whom he was waiting for. She offered him a formal salute with her spear. He returned the gesture in such a nonchalant, offhand manner that it caused her to frown in disapproval. Seren couldn't hear what they were saying, but saw Zed brush her irritation away with a laughing comment, which only seemed to annoy her more. The two spoke in hushed voices. Eventually the inquisitive reached into his pocket and produced the purple hand lens. Seren felt Tristam tense. She looked down and saw he had drawn his wand. She squeezed Tristam's hand and he looked at her. She shook her head, cautioning him not to do anything foolish. He only fixed his gaze back on Arthen and the woman.\n\nThe Deneith warrior reached for the lens, but Zed drew it back with a quiet demurral. Seren wished she could hear what they were saying. She considered moving closer when she saw Zed Arthen suddenly tense and look directly toward their hiding place. Had he seen them? No, Seren quickly realized, he was looking slightly to their left. Arthen dropped his torch and drew his sword with the brilliant hiss of steel.\n\nThen eight of Marth's Cyran soldiers charged into the clearing with weapons drawn.\n\n\"Should we help them?\" Seren asked, looking at Tristam.\n\nHer reply was the heavy sound of adamantine footsteps charging through the forest behind them. Omax rushed past them and into the clearing with a mechanical howl. A shriek sounded from the tree above and Gerith soared down on his glidewing. Tristam just sighed and lunged to his feet, wobbling as the blood flowed back into his knees. He drew his sword and followed the others. Seren found her dagger and charged as well.\n\nZed Arthen had already taken down the first of his attackers with a heavy cleave of his sword. He whirled with a glare as Seren and the others burst into the clearing, but his fury changed quickly to astonishment when he recognized them.\n\n\"These are friends, Eraina!\" Zed shouted. The woman only nodded and parried a mercenary's sword with her spear.\n\n\"Take the inquisitive alive!\" the Cyran leader cried as the attackers shifted formation to address the new threat.\n\nOmax charged that one first, seizing him by his cloak and hurling him into a tree trunk. Tristam pointed his wand into the group, releasing a burst of white lightning that sent two more men flying. A third charged through the blast, putting Tristam down with a brutal slash of his sword. Seren shouted out in anger, lunging while still off-balance from the swing. He looked down at her with a murderous gaze and fell to his knees, his throat bleeding profusely from Seren's knife.\n\nSeren staggered back in horror and watched the man fall face down and lie still. She had been in fights before but had never killed a man. It had happened without thinking. She was so stunned she didn't see the sword cleaving toward her.\n\n\"Curse yourself later, girl,\" Arthen said, knocking the blade aside with his own.\n\nZed cut the man down with another swing, but left himself open from behind. A soldier clubbed Zed across the back of the skull with the hilt of his blade, driving Arthen to one knee. Seren hurled her dagger at the soldier but it went wide, lodging in a tree. The soldier ignored her, lifting his sword for a final blow. The weapon tumbled out of his hands as Gerith's crossbow bolt bloomed in his eye. Zed staggered back to his feet, paying no mind to the man dying behind him.\n\n\"Nice shot, Snowshale,\" he called out.\n\nSeren turned to find Tristam and was surprised to see him on his feet. The artificer wobbled unsteadily, looking down at his bloody shirt with a sleepy, bewildered expression. A faint trail of white sparkling light streamed from the rip in his shirt to the hand of the woman Zed had called Eraina. Seeing that Tristam was now stable, the dark-haired woman turned and ducked the sword blow of the nearest soldier. She drew her shortsword in a wicked underhand slash, leaving a red gouge across the man's chest.\n\nSome of the injured mercenaries were already retreating, but one charged at Zed Arthen with a frenzied scream, clutching his longsword in both hands. Omax darted in from behind, kicking the mercenary's feet out from under him. He fell face down and immediately rolled to stand again. Omax planted a foot heavily in the man's face and he went limp.\n\nSeren hurried to Tristam's side, pausing only to snatch her dagger from the tree. Tristam tried to push her away as she reached for his bloody shirt but she slapped his hands away. Her fingers brushed against his stomach and she stared at him in astonishment. Though his shirt was soaked with blood, there was no wound.\n\nZed frowned ruefully as he wiped the blood off his blade with a dead mercenary's cloak and sheathed it. \"If they were trying to take me alive,\" he said, \"They weren't trying very hard.\"\n\n\"Whatcha mean, Zed? You look alive to me,\" Gerith said. He smiled wickedly as he hopped down from a tree.\n\n\"Still following me, Snowshale?\" the inquisitive asked, sheathing his blade with a clack.\n\n\"That's some way to thank us for saving you,\" Tristam said, still shivering from the effects of Eraina's magic.\n\n\"I would have been fine, boy,\" Zed said.\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure,\" Tristam shot back angrily. \"What are you doing showing the lens to a Sentinel Marshal?\" He pointed at Eraina accusingly.\n\nEraina d'Deneith looked at Tristam with a cold expression. Her eyes flicked to the gaping hole in his shirt, then back to his face. \"Speaking of questionable thanks...\" she said simply.\n\n\"Time to fight later,\" Omax said as he heaped the body of a mercenary against a tree. \"None of us foresaw the coming of these men, so their presence is our immediate concern. This one is merely unconscious.\" He lifted the soldier lying under his feet and propped him against a tree, then looked at Eraina. \"You are a healer. Can you revive him? Perhaps we can question him.\"\n\nEraina nodded, sheathing her shortsword and walking over to the fallen man.\n\n\"Belay that, Marshal Eraina,\" Zed said, cocking his head to one side. Seren could hear it too, now, a steady throbbing hum growing swiftly louder. \"We'd best run.\"\n\nThe trees above exploded in a blaze of white light just as a sleek silver airship broke through the canopy. It was larger even than the Lyrandar ship, with the national crest of Cyre emblazoned on the hull. Electricity crackled from a long rod mounted on the hull.\n\n\"Khyber,\" Zed grumbled.\n\nSeren turned and ran with the others at her side; a flurry of crossbow bolts pelted the clearing. She felt a burning pain in her calf and her leg went dead. Just as she stumbled, Zed Arthen wrapped an arm around her waist and kept running, bearing her weight with ease.\n\n\"Gerith, we need a distraction and an exit!\" Zed shouted as they ran deeper into the woods.\n\n\"Working on it!\" came the halfling's reply. This was accompanied by a whoosh of air and the flap of broad wings as he swooped overhead and soared up over the trees. The glidewing soared back directly toward the airship, dodging and weaving as missiles rained into the forest. A plume of bright light fired from a tube in Gerith's hand onto the ship's deck, exploding in a cloud of pale gray smoke. Then Blizzard dove again, vanishing into the trees before the Cyran ship could score a lucky hit.\n\n\"What else did he take out of my lab?\" Tristam shouted, looking back with a scowl.\n\n\"Shut up and keep running,\" Zed shouted.\n\n\"Why aren't we running toward the village?\" Tristam shouted back.\n\n\"Black Pit has enough problems,\" Zed said. \"Those soldiers won't stop shooting if innocent people get in the way.\"\n\nUnder different circumstances, Seren might have argued the existence of innocent people in Black Pit. She kept such comments to herself and just kept hopping along in pain. Each jolt sent waves of agony through her leg. The roaring thrum of the strange airship receded and Zed set her down carefully against a tree. Seren was about to offer thanks, but her words became a confused stutter when she saw the crossbow bolt piercing through her calf.\n\n\"A clean wound,\" Zed said cheerfully. He clapped her on the shoulder and stood, facing the others. \"You took it well, Seren. Most men faint the first time they're shot.\"\n\nSeren only nodded dumbly, fighting the urge to do just that.\n\n\"Eraina, please help her,\" Zed said. \"Omax, establish a perimeter. Make sure we don't have any more of those mercenaries chasing us.\"\n\nThe warforged stomped into the woods without a word. The dark-haired marshal knelt by Seren's side, tending her wounded leg with the tender precision of a practiced medic.\n\n\"What's your name?\" she asked, smiling gently.\n\n\"Seren,\" she said, then stifled a cry as Eraina used the moment of distraction to snap the crossbow bolt and draw both ends cleanly from the leg. Eraina bound a scrap of silk cloth tightly over the wound and whispered a soft prayer. Seren heard the name \"Boldrei.\" Motes of white magic spread from Eraina's fingers to the wound. Her leg felt numb, then cold, and then the pain went away. Her calf twitched uncomfortably and itched a little, but there was no more pain.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Seren said, amazed.\n\nEraina studied her with an intensely curious expression.\n\n\"Can she run?\" Zed asked brusquely. \"We have to be ready to move.\"\n\n\"Why do you keep giving us orders, Arthen?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"This is not the time, Xain,\" Zed said, watching the sky.\n\n\"Yes, Sir,\" Tristam said. \"I guess that's the way it always is. We need your help and you run off to Black Pit, but the instant you're in trouble it's back to giving orders. What's your problem, Zed? Do we all look like squires to you?\"\n\n\"I will assume that the stress of the moment has overcome your senses and I will let that slide, Xain,\" Zed answered. \"Do not mock me again. Not about that.\"\n\n\"Then tell me what in Khyber is going on here!\" Tristam demanded. \"Where did that airship come from?\"\n\n\"Zed was as surprised to see that ship as we were, Tristam,\" Seren said.\n\n\"No,\" Zed said. \"That's not what he's talking about, Seren. Tristam recognized that ship. So did I.\" Zed looked at Tristam with a sober, pensive expression. \"Now is not the time to worry on it. We'll all get our answers.\"\n\n\"We had better,\" Eraina said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring coldly at Tristam and Zed.\n\nTristam grimaced at Eraina and quickly looked away, clearly uncertain whether to demand an explanation for her presence or thank her for saving his life. Instead he sat beside Seren with an exhausted sigh. He looked at the bandage on her leg, then at the Deneith Marshal. He shrugged uncomfortably into his heavy coat.\n\n\"Shouldn't we be getting back to Karia Naille?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Gerith went for help,\" Tristam said. \"Pherris is probably on his way to us already.\"\n\n\"How will he find us?\" she asked.\n\n\"Aeven always finds us,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Aeven?\" Seren asked, but was interrupted by the thrum of an airship overhead.\n\nSeren's heart jumped at the familiar rhythm. Even though she had only been on the ship for a short time, the song of Karia Naille's elemental fire was welcome and familiar. She leapt up just as Tristam did, just as Omax returned from his patrol. She watched the airship pass over the trees and stop, hovering above them. The cargo ladder unrolled and hung in the air with a snap.\n\n\"Ladies first, Marshal Eraina,\" Tristam said with equal parts courtesy and suspicion.\n\nThe Marshal did not argue, and quickly began her climb. Seren followed, feeling the strength fully return to her injured leg as she put her weight on it. Gerith and Eraina helped her into the cargo bay, and she turned to help Tristam board behind her.\n\n\"Welcome back, Master Xain,\" Dalan said coldly.\n\nSeren jumped. She had not noticed Dalan d'Cannith standing in the shadows of the cargo bay. He was watching them all with an unpleasant expression.\n\n\"How was your evening?\" he asked acidly.\n\n\"Productive,\" Tristam answered, facing Dalan with all the confidence he could muster. \"More productive than sitting in the airship, doing nothing.\"\n\n\"I missed you, Dalan,\" Zed said, climbing into the hold.\n\nDalan ignored Zed's greeting, standing as he was with arms folded across his thick stomach.\n\nSeren looked down to see Omax making his way up the ladder. The warforged was climbing slowly but surely. Seren thought she heard the wailing hum of the ship's elemental grow suddenly in volume. Omax looked up suddenly.\n\n\"Look out!\" the warforged cried.\n\nA cacophonous explosion sent a shockwave through the hull, sending her tumbling back into the cargo bay.\n\nThe hum had not grown louder at all. The other ship had found them.\n\n\"Enemy ship off the port bow!\" Pherris shouted, his voice echoing through the bronze tubes.\n\nSeren crawled back to the edge of the bay doors, looking down at Omax helplessly. The warforged was now hugging the rope ladder with both arms and legs, struggling to hold on as the ship heaved dangerously. Sparks flew from his shoulder as a crossbow bolt grazed his armor.\n\n\"Draw up the ladder!\" Arthen shouted.\n\n\"He's too heavy,\" Tristam said, tugging fruitlessly at the winch.\n\n\"Status report, crew!\" Pherris demanded from above.\n\n\"Omax isn't aboard yet,\" Tristam shouted.\n\n\"Take off now,\" Dalan said urgently.\n\nKaria Naille banked heavily, pulling higher into the sky. Omax spun helplessly at the end of the ladder.\n\n\"Omax!\" Tristam shouted. He fell to his knees beside the bay doors, tugging at the ropes. \"Someone, help me!\"\n\nGerith and Zed seized each side of the ladder, hauling it up with all their strength. Seren hauled on the ropes too, though she was so exhausted she feared she contributed little. Behind them, she heard Eraina's voice rise in prayer. She felt her exhaustion begin to melt away, and strength surged through her arms. The rope came up, rung by rung. The air thinned as the ship pulled higher into the air. Wind whistled dangerously through the open bay doors. Another explosion resounded as the other ship belched lightning across the sky.\n\nWhen Omax was only a dozen feet from the hold, the ship turned sharply. The left side of the ladder split with a sickly snap. Seren drew back in pain, the rope burning her fingers as it tore free. Almost immediately the remaining side of the rope began to fray and smoke. Omax looked up at them. The light in his blue eyes dimmed for a brief instant, and he bowed his head against his chest.\n\n\"Omax, no!\" Tristam howled, hauling on the remaining rope with all his strength. Zed stood by him, trying desperately to at least anchor the slack before Omax dropped further away. Smoke hissed their gloves, but they held firm.\n\n\"We need to be away from here,\" Pherris shouted from the helm. \"Is everyone aboard?\"\n\n\"Damn it, Dalan, do something!\" Zed hissed.\n\nThen Dalan was there, pulling the collar of his shirt aside to reveal the swirling tattoo on his right shoulder. Without a word, he called upon his dragonmark. There was no surge of magic, no fantastic display. He merely touched the broken ropes and the ladder was whole again.\n\n\"Keep pulling,\" he said blandly.\n\nTristam nodded, hauling with all his strength as Zed, Gerith, and Seren did likewise. Omax crawled up through the hull and collapsed in the cargo bay with a metal clang. Gerith fell on the bay door levers, sealing the hull with a heavy thud.\n\n\"Aeven, we're clear!\" Gerith shouted.\n\nThe winds howled around Karia Naille, and the elemental ring screamed with burning energy. Seren was thrown back on the deck as a burst of speed surged through the airship.\n\nThe sounds of the pursuing ship faded into the distance.\n\nAn uneasy silence had fallen over Karia Naille. The usual even hum of the ship's elemental fire was now broken by a rattling stutter. The bluish-white fire that orbited the ship was streaked with red. Seren had climbed onto the wooden strut above the deck. It was a precarious position. The elemental ring radiated a fierce heat. Her body would have been soaked with sweat if not for the chill winds that howled over her. Her hair was tied back with a black silk kerchief to prevent it from blowing into the fire.\n\nSeren carefully avoided thinking about what might happen if she fell. She leaned as close to the flame as she dared. The end of the wooden arm was singed black from one of the Cyran airship's lightning blasts. The crystalline hook that secured the elemental to the airship was now webbed with tiny cracks.\n\n\"How is it?\" Tristam asked. He stood directly below the hook, peering at it from all angles. The others looked up nervously with the exception of the captain, who was intent on the helm.\n\n\"It's cracked pretty badly,\" Seren said. Even as she spoke, the strut rocked, nearly shaking her off. She clung to it with arms and legs. A small shard of crystal splintered off the hook with a musical chime and disappeared on the wind.\n\n\"Khyber, the ring is coming loose,\" Tristam swore. \"Pherris, we need to land.\"\n\nThe captain looked up at the ring fearfully. \"If I put any more stress on the controls we'll go down quick enough, tinker,\" he said. \"A steady course is all that'll keep us alive now.\"\n\n\"Well, good luck, everybody,\" Gerith said, climbing on Blizzard's back with a nervous grin. \"If anybody wanted to pass on any last words, messages to loved ones, valuable possessions...\"\n\nOmax looked down at the halfling.\n\n\"Just trying to lighten the mood,\" the halfling said. \"Seriously, though. Good luck.\n\n\"Seren, try this,\" Tristam said. He took a small bottle from one of his numerous pouches and tossed it up to her. She snatched it in one hand, looking at it curiously. It was a small, unlabeled black bottle with a long brush clamped to one side.\n\n\"It's a bonding agent,\" Tristam explained. \"I use it for ship repairs. Just brush it on the hook!\"\n\nSeren nodded. She tried to remove the cap with her teeth, hugging the ship's arm with one arm and both lags.\n\n\"Careful, Seren, it bonds in seconds,\" Tristam said. \"Don't get any on yourself.\"\n\nShe quickly took the bottle out of her mouth and decided instead to risk unscrewing it with both hands, clutching the strut with just her legs. The arm shuddered beneath her, nearly shaking her off again. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she held on. Quickly, she held the bottle out and dumped the contents over the hook. The liquid inside was thin and gooey, like syrup. She spread it over the cracks using the brush, or at least did for several seconds until the brush became firmly glued to the hook.\n\n\"The brush is stuck,\" she said, looking down at Tristam.\n\n\"Then I guess it's working,\" Tristam said, his tone somewhat embarrassed. \"I'm still working on that formula. As long as you spread it around consistently it should hold.\"\n\nSeren looked back at the hook. The glue had assumed a shiny, metallic sheen, coating the hairline cracks. The ship's arm still shook, but a great deal less violently than before. Seren tossed the empty bottle over the side and rolled off the hook, hanging by one hand for a moment before dropping to the deck. Omax caught her easily and set her on her feet.\n\n\"Well done, Seren,\" Dalan said, surprising her with his praise.\n\n\"Impressive climb,\" Gerith added, looking up at the thin wooden arm in awe.\n\n\"Why didn't we send Snowshale?\" Zed asked, looking up from his pipe. \"He's lighter.\"\n\n\"Are you kidding?\" Gerith asked. \"Climbing something like that is insane.\"\n\nSeren looked at the halfling, then at the flying dinosaur he rode. Gerith shrugged.\n\n\"How long will that glue hold, tinker?\" Pherris asked, ignoring their discussion.\n\n\"Three or four days at most,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Cragwar isn't too far from here,\" Pherris said. \"We can put in for repairs.\"\n\n\"Can't you use your dragonmark to fix the damage?\" Eraina asked.\n\n\"I cannot,\" Dalan said. \"I exhausted my rather limited talents fixing the ladder, and even had I not done so, I am wary about mixing magics\u2014especially where the survival of everyone on board is concerned.\" He glared at Eraina. \"Now could someone perhaps explain why a Deneith Sentinel Marshal is on my ship?\"\n\n\"I might as well ask you why you fly a ship unmarked with any symbols of house or nation,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"A fair question,\" Dalan said. \"But the fact remains this is my ship, and that I have saved your life by allowing you to board it. What are you doing here?\"\n\nSeren was surprised that Eraina did not reply that she had saved Tristam's life and possibly her own as well. The marshal only looked away.\n\n\"Marshal d'Deneith is one of my contacts,\" Zed said, stepping between Dalan and Eraina. \"I was meeting her when those Cyran mercenaries attacked. I assure you, we both appreciate the rescue.\"\n\n\"My pleasure,\" Dalan said graciously, as if it were all his doing. Though his tone was polite, his eyes were shrewd. \"A pity we cannot risk returning you to your home in Black Pit. Cragwar will have to do. Of course you are welcome to stay with the crew if you like, Arthen. Your insights are much appreciated, assuming you remember your place. As for you, Marshal, I would be pleased to deposit you in Cragwar as long as you remain locked in one of the lower cabins until then.\"\n\n\"I'm to be imprisoned?\" she asked. \"Is this the hospitality of House Cannith?\"\n\n\"As you expertly pointed out, this is not a Cannith ship,\" Dalan said. \"If my proposed arrangement does not interest you,\" he added, and stepped to his left, gesturing at the deck rail with a flourish, \"there is your alternate exit. Feel free to utilize it. Surely your goddess will bear you safely to the ground.\"\n\nEraina glared at Dalan in silent hatred but did not rise to his barbs. \"I would appreciate a ride to Cragwar,\" she said. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" Dalan said. \"Omax, escort the good Marshal to her cabin.\"\n\nThe warforged nodded and stood beside the ladder leading below decks. Eraina offered Dalan a final scathing look and followed him below.\n\n\"Tristam, you are excused to your studies,\" Dalan said. \"I would like to discuss what just occurred privately with Zed and Seren.\" Dalan returned to his cabin and stepped inside, not even offering Tristam a second glance.\n\nTristam blinked in surprise. \"What?\" he shot back. \"You're just sending me off to my room? Do you even realize that Marth's ship...\"\n\n\"Tristam,\" Zed interrupted, fixing the artificer with a meaningful look.\n\nTristam glared at Zed, shrugged, and stormed off below deck. Seren watched the exchange with a curious expression, wondering what had just passed between them.\n\n\"What happened down there, Arthen?\" Dalan asked as Seren and Zed entered his cabin. The old dog, Gunther, snored noisily on Dalan's bed. Somehow it had managed to sleep through the entire escape from Black Pit.\n\n\"When I first saw that lens you gave me, it reminded me of something from Ashrem's work long ago,\" Zed said. \"But I wasn't sure. Eraina is a colleague of mine and has been conducting an investigation on a related matter, so I sent her a speaker post to get her insight. She agreed to meet me privately and booked the first Lyrandar ship, but she refused to meet me in the village. Some people just don't trust me, I guess.\" He smiled faintly at Seren.\n\n\"And you followed him?\" Dalan asked, looking at Seren.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered. \"We saw Eraina meet with Zed. The Cyrans attacked only a few moments afterward.\"\n\n\"The soldiers wanted to take me alive,\" Zed added. \"When that didn't work, the whole damned ship came after us. They might have killed Tristam if it wasn't for the Marshal.\"\n\n\"Interesting,\" Dalan said. \"And you saw their ship, Seren? Was there anything notable?\"\n\n\"Not really,\" Zed said, interrupting her.\n\nSeren looked at Zed in confusion. \"The ship looked like some kind of military vessel,\" she said, looking back at Dalan. \"Large and silver. I saw the Cyran crest, too. Just like the soldiers we fought before.\"\n\n\"That seems rather distinctive,\" Dalan said, brows rising. \"Strange that an inquisitive missed all of that.\"\n\n\"I didn't get a good look at it,\" Zed said. \"I was running.\"\n\nDalan grunted, unconvinced. He looked back at Seren. \"Is that all you noticed of interest?\"\n\n\"Other than getting attacked by some monster from the pit, yes,\" she said. \"But why question me about this? Tristam knows more about what's going on than I do. I think he even recognized the...\"\n\n\"Dalan is ignoring Tristam because the boy disobeyed orders,\" Zed said, interrupting her again. \"It was Tristam's idea to follow me, wasn't it? I'm guessing you were just looking out for him.\" He reached into his pocket, took out the lens and a small book, setting them both on Dalan's desk. \"Incidentally, you can have these back, Dalan.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Arthen,\" Dalan said, plucking up the lens and examining it briefly for any damage. He placed it into one of his desk drawers, then tucked the book into a shelf. \"He is precisely right, Seren. Tristam is an intelligent young man, but when he behaves in such a childish way I must treat him accordingly. He is too headstrong for his own good. On a ship like this, responsibilities are clearly delineated. To step outside one's bounds, to disobey orders, is to risk all that we have worked for. If one cannot respect the chain of command, then one must either learn respect or leave.\" He looked at Zed briefly.\n\n\"But if we hadn't followed them, Zed and Eraina would have died,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Wrong on two counts,\" Dalan countered. \"First, their lives are not our concern. No offense intended, Arthen.\"\n\n\"None taken,\" Zed said with a cynical chuckle.\n\n\"Second,\" Dalan said, \"you don't know they were in danger. Any number of things might have occurred differently. The Cyrans did not wish Arthen to die. Perhaps they were only watching, saw you approach, mistakenly believed you intended to attack him and sought to capture him alive. Perhaps the Cyrans followed you\u2014and you led them to Arthen. Perhaps your presence was irrelevant, but Arthen had contingencies in mind. After all,\" Dalan pointed to the sword hilt protruding above the inquisitive's shoulder, \"he did attend the meeting armed.\"\n\nSeren looked at him. \"Did you have a way out of there?\"\n\n\"I had an escape tunnel prepared in that clearing,\" Zed admitted. \"I could have dashed out and brought it down behind me, but Omax never would have fit inside. I wouldn't leave the big guy behind.\" He gave a quick smile.\n\nSeren nodded quietly. She suddenly felt very foolish.\n\n\"How noble,\" Dalan said dryly. \"Perhaps you retained some of your Thrane honor along with your Thrane steel.\"\n\n\"You're very funny, Dalan,\" Zed said. \"I'm laughing.\"\n\n\"So how did you come to know this Sentinel Marshal?\" Dalan asked.\n\n\"My contacts are confidential,\" Zed said.\n\n\"As long as she is on my ship, she is my business,\" Dalan said. \"If you wish to retain her anonymity, I will gladly deposit her in the woods. On foot it should take her only five days to reach Cragwar, assuming she can forage for her own food and water.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Zed said. \"She's a colleague, like I said. She's an investigator for the Sentinel Marshals. We've met professionally a time or two and kept in touch through speaker posts. If you want more, just ask her yourself. She won't lie to you. She can't. She's a paladin of the Host, for Khyber's sake. We can trust her.\"\n\n\"Oh, I certainly trust those who blindly place their faith in a higher power,\" Dalan said. \"I trust them to make horrible mistakes, to bring misery to those who disagree with their dogma, and inevitably to die disappointed in the world. I'm surprised you sought a paladin's aid, Arthen. I thought you abandoned your faith.\"\n\n\"This isn't about me, d'Cannith,\" Zed said. \"Don't push me.\"\n\n\"Or you'll silence my uncomfortable truths with your sword?\" Dalan asked with a smug grin. \"You become more like your old self every moment.\"\n\nZed's face darkened. He rose from his chair. Seren took a step back, hoping to look inconspicuous in case Zed drew his weapon.\n\n\"Why did I ever agree to help you?\" Arthen asked.\n\n\"Because we both need the truth, and despite our history we both know we can't find it alone,\" Dalan said, staring at his desk as he drummed his fingers on its surface. \"So did you learn anything useful from the lens and book?\"\n\nZed shook his head. \"There are definitely hidden messages in Ashrem's journals that only that lens can read,\" he said, \"but I couldn't break the cipher.\"\n\n\"Are you certain?\" Dalan asked peering up at him. \"Imagine that. An inquisitive not only fails to find any useful clues but also lets himself be ambushed twice in one evening. I can't imagine what that will do to whatever remains of your reputation.\"\n\n\"Whatever, Dalan,\" Zed said in a dull voice. He stepped toward the door. \"Just put me down in Cragwar, or wherever. I was an idiot to get involved in this again.\"\n\n\"Zed, please,\" Seren said. \"The leader of those mercenaries killed a good friend of mine. This was our only clue to stop him from finding the Legacy. If you discovered anything, anything at all, please help us.\"\n\n\"Ah, the Legacy,\" Zed said with a dark laugh. \"Well, we certainly can't let Ashrem d'Cannith's work fall into irresponsible hands.\"\n\n\"I should have a life as easy as yours, Arthen,\" Dalan said. \"So easy to walk away. Hide in a bottle. So easy to be offered a choice and make no choice at all.\"\n\nZed stopped in the doorway, his back to Dalan. His hands tightened into fists.\n\n\"Did you have something else to add, Arthen?\" Dalan asked.\n\n\"I didn't break the code,\" Zed said, \"but I recognized it.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Dalan asked, suddenly interested.\n\n\"Ashrem didn't create that cipher,\" Zed said. \"Kiris created it for him.\"\n\n\"Kiris Overwood?\" Seren asked, remembering the name from Pherris's stories.\n\nZed and Dalan both looked at Seren with some surprise. \"That's right,\" Zed said. \"It's magically encrypted. Without the proper spells to translate the code, it might take a wizard or artificer years to decipher.\"\n\n\"I sense an 'unless,' \" Dalan said.\n\nZed turned around to face Dalan again, extending a hand. \"Let me see the lens.\"\n\nDalan frowned curiously, then opened the drawer and handed the small chunk of glass back to Zed.\n\n\"Look at the frame,\" Zed said, tracing the white rim around the edge of the glass. \"That's petrified dragon bone. And look at the characters.\"\n\nDalan bent to study the item. \"More illegible rubbish,\" he said.\n\n\"Not quite,\" Zed said. \"That's halfling script. It's a prayer for clarity and wisdom in the name of Balinor, God of the Hunt. It also bears the mark of its creator. These arcane marks are very difficult to forge, and I recognize this one. Kiris Overwood made this herself.\"\n\n\"She signed a piece of glass?\" Seren asked dubiously.\n\n\"Kiris was a wizard,\" Zed said, if that explained it.\n\nSeren looked to Dalan, puzzled.\n\n\"Wizards are a curious lot,\" Dalan explained with a wry smile. \"They have always been somewhat jealous of the lasting mark artificers leave with each wonder they create. Their arrogance drives them to personalize the few rare things of use that they leave behind. Rare is the wizard who does not sign his work.\"\n\n\"So Marth stole this from Kiris?\" Seren asked. \"Does that mean he knows how to read Ashrem's cipher?\"\n\n\"In all likelihood,\" Dalan said. \"A disturbing revelation, but not an altogether surprising one.\"\n\n\"There's more,\" Zed continued. \"The halflings are a people very much in tune with nature. They believe that the gods recreate the world every year on the first day of spring. That belief is reflected in their language. The characters they use to refer to the gods vary by the year, and from the way Kiris wrote Balinor's name I can tell this was made within the last year. Overwood is still alive, Dalan, or at least she was recently.\"\n\n\"Preposterous,\" Dalan retorted. \"Balinor's name? What rubbish is that? You don't even speak the halfling tongue, much know less their customs.\"\n\n\"No, but Gerith does,\" Zed said. \"When I recognized the script two days ago I made him translate it. I figured if he was going to sit on that roof and spy on me all day, he might as well lend a hand.\"\n\n\"Clumsy halfling,\" Dalan muttered under his breath.\n\n\"It wasn't his fault,\" Zed said. \"I knew you'd send someone, so I was looking. Give him credit. It took me two days to catch him.\"\n\n\"Respectable,\" Dalan admitted.\n\nSeren resisted the urge to laugh. Somehow she wasn't surprised that Gerith hadn't told them he had been caught, or that he'd continued spying on Zed even though the inquisitive knew he was there.\n\nZed sat down beside Dalan's desk and placed the lens between them. They both studied it intently, and for a time at least Seren could barely tell how much the two men despised one another.\n\n\"It makes sense, Dalan,\" Zed said. \"If Kiris wanted to vanish, where better than Talenta? A lot of the land is still wild. The halfling tribes keep to themselves. She could fade away there for years.\"\n\n\"Working to unravel the secrets of the Legacy on her own,\" Dalan mused.\n\nZed nodded. \"So the man Seren nicked this from either stole it from Kiris within the last few months or commissioned it to be made. Either way, there's a chance that the halflings will know where she is or might at least have some idea of what happened to her.\"\n\n\"How can we be sure this isn't some sort of trap?\" Dalan asked. \"Overwood has been missing for four years. Might this be some forgery intended to lead us astray?\"\n\n\"That's ridiculous,\" Seren said. \"Why would Marth bother with something like that? He had no way of knowing I'd steal the lens from him. The times we've run into him so far, he just tries to kill us. Something that contrived seems out of character.\"\n\n\"A good point. I am merely entertaining all possibilities,\" Dalan said, dismissing his own argument with a wave of his hand. \"Pardon my paranoid mind. Perhaps I'm just too wary, but we've found misleading clues before. Of course it isn't as if we have any other leads. Even this one is of dubious usefulness. Any halfling in Khorvaire could have taught Kiris how to write this script. She could be in Xen'drik with a halfling manservant for all we know.\"\n\n\"Granted,\" Zed answered, \"but we can make a decent guess. There's only one place I know of that boasts petrified dragon bone and halfling tribes in close vicinity. It's a place called the Boneyard. We should start there.\"\n\n\"We?\" Dalan asked. \"I thought you loathed the idea of the Legacy falling into irresponsible hands.\"\n\n\"I guess that's why I'm going,\" Zed said.\n\n\"I hope you've left nothing of value in Black Pit,\" Dalan said. \"We won't be returning there.\"\n\n\"Nothing that matters,\" Zed said.\n\n\"Then it is settled,\" Dalan said, clapping his hands together. \"We'll need Gerith to plot a course. Seren, please fetch the halfling.\"\n\nSeren nodded and opened the door.\n\n\"Oh, and Seren...\" Dalan continued.\n\nShe looked back at him.\n\n\"After that, make sure Tristam is well,\" Dalan said, sounding genuinely concerned. \"If I know him, he will be in one of his moods and we shall need him alert and aware when we reach Cragwar.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Seren said, exiting the cabin.\n\nShe walked out on the deck to find Pherris still at the helm. Gerith sat on the deck nearby, eating a small meal while his glidewing watched with intense interest.\n\n\"Gerith,\" Seren called out.\n\n\"The Boneyard, I know,\" Gerith said. \"I was eavesdropping.\" He threw the last bit of his food in the air; Blizzard snatched it faster than Seren could even see. The halfling stood, wiped his hands on his pants, and walked past her into Dalan's cabin with a strangely morose expression.\n\nSeren walked toward the deck ladder, pausing only briefly to greet the captain. Pherris did not answer. His eyes were intent on the sky ahead as he struggled to control the wounded airship. Not wanting to distract him, she mumbled a quiet greeting and headed to the ladder.\n\n\"Thank you, Seren,\" Pherris said.\n\nSeren looked back at the captain in surprise.\n\n\"The ship,\" Pherris said. \"Thank you for saving her.\"\n\n\"Captain, who is Aeven?\" Seren asked impulsively. \"I've heard you mention the name. Tristam and Gerith mentioned it too.\"\n\n\"Aeven?\" Pherris asked with a chuckle. \"She's the only member of the crew you haven't met. Don't worry, Seren. She's just shy.\"\n\nSeren smiled, not sure how to react to the captain's reply. She left him to his work and made her way below deck. Omax was meditating in the cargo bay again. She wondered which of the cabins the paladin was locked in. Seren continued to Tristam's door and knocked lightly. There was no answer. She moved on to her own cabin, leaving him in peace.\n\n\"Seren,\" Tristam said, opening the door and peering out. \"I'm sorry. I thought you might be Dalan.\" He had changed out of his ruined and bloody clothing and was wearing a somewhat somber gray shirt.\n\n\"No need to apologize,\" she said.\n\nHe looked back down the hall, beckoned to her, and stepped back inside. With a pensive frown, she followed him. He closed the door and sat at the desk. She sat at the edge of the bed, watching him curiously. The homunculus immediately leapt off the desk into her lap.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" she asked.\n\n\"I have to tell you something, but you can't tell Dalan,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"What is it?\" she said.\n\n\"I recognized that Cyran ship,\" he said. He reached into his pocket and took out a small glass sphere. He tapped the side and whispered the words, \"Kenshi Zhann.\" The sphere immediately illuminated with swirling blue lights, displaying a model of a tiny airship.\n\n\"That's the ship that chased us,\" Seren said, recognizing it.\n\nTristam nodded. \"I made this model for Ashrem, but I never gave it to him,\" he said. \"It's the Kenshi Zhann, the Seventh Moon. Dalan didn't see her, but he would have recognized her too.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"She was Ashrem's flagship.\"\n\n\"The ship he flew into Cyre?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" Tristam said. \"Ashrem flew her into Cyre just before the Day of Mourning. Orren Thardis flew his other ship, the Albena Tors, into Cyre after him. Neither ship was ever seen again.\"\n\n\"But now Moon is back,\" Seren said, \"and Kiris Overwood is still alive.\"\n\n\"What?\" Tristam asked, surprised. \"Kiris is alive?\"\n\n\"That's what Zed thinks,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Strange,\" Tristam said. \"Zed should have recognized Moon.\"\n\n\"Maybe he did,\" Seren said. \"He avoided describing the ship to Dalan. Why would he do that?\"\n\nTristam didn't answer for a long moment. He just looked at her, his eyes lost and afraid. \"I don't know,\" he said. \"I don't know who to trust, Dalan or Zed, maybe neither. But I trust you.\"\n\n\"Me?\" she said, surprised. \"I thought you said you couldn't trust me.\"\n\n\"I say stupid things all the time,\" Tristam said. \"If you hold that against me, we'll never get anywhere. The point is, I trust you now, and I want you to know what's going on here.\"\n\nShe leaned closer to him to listen more intently. \"Tell me about Moon, then.\"\n\n\"She was Ashrem's oldest ship,\" Tristam continued. \"He commissioned her back when he still designed and sold weapons. The Cannith sometimes sold to both sides of the same conflict, so they weren't always welcome when they showed up. With that in mind, Ashrem outfitted Moon as a warship, designed to survive on the harshest battlefields of the Five Kingdoms. If her weapons are still intact, what she unleashed on us back there was only a taste. They'll come after us again, Seren. Karia Naille is faster, but we can't run forever.\"\n\n\"What are you getting at, Tristam?\" she asked.\n\n\"You aren't really a part of this,\" he said. \"I don't mean that as an insult. Cragwar isn't such a bad place. It's much nicer than Wroat and safer than Black Pit. Stay there, Seren. Maybe Eraina will even help you find a safe place to start a new life.\"\n\n\"Why would I want to do that?\" she asked stiffly, leaning away from him again.\n\n\"Because I'm not so sure we're going to survive this,\" he said. \"I'm not so sure that I'm doing this for the right reasons.\"\n\nSeren watched him quietly, waiting for him to explain.\n\n\"When I first met Dalan, I was Ashrem's apprentice,\" he said. \"I knew Dalan by reputation. He was one of the only people in House Cannith that Ashrem still trusted. Dalan came to me privately. He offered me a work, to create some infusions for House Cannith. Ashrem didn't seem to be interested in helping me join the house, but Dalan was. He offered me contracts on the side, things Ashrem wouldn't accept, so I took them. Ashrem found out about it eventually, of course. He also found out that the camouflage enchantments I thought were being used to help scouts remain undetected in the field were being used by Brelish soldiers to ambush Thrane border patrols. He was outraged that I had used his teachings and his facilities to create weapons. We argued about it, I called him a hypocrite and a few other things. I told him the war would never end if we stood by and did nothing. The old man didn't take that well at all.\"\n\n\"And that's why he ended your apprenticeship?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"That's right,\" Tristam said with a sigh. \"I never told Ashrem that Dalan was the one to give me the contracts, and Dalan didn't tell him either. When Dalan came back to me, asking me to help him find the Legacy, he said he appreciated my 'discretion,' whatever that means.\" Tristam laughed bitterly.\n\n\"Not that I don't appreciate your sharing something like this,\" Seren said, \"but what does this have to do with my staying or leaving?\"\n\n\"We're not doing anything noble here, Seren,\" he said. \"Don't stay because you think we're heroes or because you think you're doing some great favor by keeping the Legacy out of Marth's hands. Dalan isn't perfect, and neither am I. I might look like I'm fighting to keep my teacher's work pure, but really that's not it at all. I'm a failure, Seren. Ashrem didn't want me. House Cannith doesn't want me. Now I can tell even Dalan's getting tired of me. Don't stay to help me. I'm not worth helping, and anyone with an ounce of sense sees that.\"\n\n\"Omax doesn't see that,\" she said. \"Neither do I.\"\n\nTristam started to voice a reply but found nothing to say. He only lowered his head and clasped his hands over his knees.\n\n\"I don't understand why Omax follows me the way he does,\" he said. \"I'm no hero, Seren. I'm here because I have nowhere else to go, and because, really, I want to prove them all wrong. I'm fighting to prove myself to a dead man. That's what you're risking your life for. That's why you should leave us in Cragwar, Seren, and forget any of this ever happened.\"\n\nSeren set the homunculus on the floor and stood. She looked down at Tristam, arms folded across her breasts. He looked up at her meekly.\n\n\"If you want me to pity you,\" she said, \"you'll have to do better than that. If you need me, I'll be in my cabin.\"\n\nHe blinked in surprise. She turned and left, closing the door behind her.\n\nShe stopped with a start, finding Omax lurking in the hall outside. The warforged's blue eyes shone in the darkness.\n\n\"Thank you, Seren,\" he said in a quiet voice. \"He does not realize what he could be.\"\n\nShe looked at the construct for a long time, then finally nodded and returned to her cabin.\n\nSeren stood at the ship's rail for a long time, looking down at Cragwar as the ship circled for a landing. Gerith walked up beside her after a while, looking over the side and then looking at her in confusion, obviously not seeing what she was so interested in.\n\n\"Sorry,\" she said with a small laugh. \"It's just that Wroat is really the only other big city I've ever seen. Cragwar is a lot different, at least from up here.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah, I can see that,\" Gerith said, looking back down. \"Probably because it's clean. Wroat is too big. Too many people living there. Cragwar's different, probably because it's so close to the Aundairian border. The Brelish army is in command here, and they run a tight ship.\"\n\n\"Why does that make a difference?\" Seren asked. \"King Boranel lives in Wroat; you'd think he'd command more respect than the army.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's not it at all,\" Gerith said. \"Wroat's pretty far from any enemies, so the Watch is more likely to let things slide. This close to Aundair, any criminal could be an Aundairian spy. Any lapse in discipline could weaken the border. Not that Aundair is ready to challenge Breland, but better safe than sorry, I guess. The military has to be careful\u2014they're on their own here.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Seren said, looking down at the city again. After a while she realized Gerith was looking up at her with a serious expression.\n\n\"What?\" she asked.\n\n\"Just hoping all that sunk in,\" he said. \"You behave yourself down there, Seren. Not that I'd mind swooping to your rescue and your inevitable gratitude, but I don't want you to get hurt.\" She looked at him sharply, but he held out a hand to stop her. \"I'm not making judgments, Seren. Kol Korran knows every crown I made hasn't been an honest one\u2014but no stealing in Cragwar. Understand?\"\n\nShe laughed lightly and smiled at him. \"I'll keep my hands out of other people's pockets, Gerith,\" she said.\n\n\"Good,\" he said, his usual bright smile instantly returning. He gave a sharp whistle and vaulted over the rail into the open sky, falling with his arms and legs outstretched. With a shrieking cry and the snap of broad wings, Blizzard swooped past and caught his master.\n\n\"One of these days,\" Pherris said.\n\nThe glidewing began its descent, toward a quartet of sky towers at the northern edge of the city. Two of them were already occupied by sleek vessels flying the boar's head banners of Breland. As they drew closer, a group of mounted soldiers emerged from the city and rode toward the towers.\n\n\"Hope this goes better than last time,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"Last time went precisely as planned, Tristam,\" Dalan said. \"Merely because you do not know the plan is not an indication that it has failed. Now, someone please let the paladin out of her cell.\"\n\nOmax disappeared below decks, returning shortly afterward with Eraina in tow. She scowled at Dalan but did not speak a word. The ship pulled smoothly into the sky tower. Dalan strode forward with a pleasant expression, readying his official papers to show the waiting officers. After a few moments' discussion, the soldiers gave the airship a final warning look and returned to the city.\n\n\"We should be safe enough here,\" Dalan said, looking at the other towers. \"Even if Marth pursues us, those Brelish ships should be a match for him.\"\n\n\"Always so ready to let someone else fight your battles, d'Cannith?\" Eraina said coldly. She brushed past him without another word, disappearing into the tower.\n\n\"First time I've seen you let someone else get the last word, Dalan,\" Zed said.\n\n\"What do I care?\" Dalan said. \"She's off my ship. That's all I wanted. How does it look, Tristam?\"\n\nThe artificer had brought a ladder from below deck and climbed up to the strut holding the elemental ring in place. He probed at the crystal hook with a delicate silver wand. A broad bandolier holding many of the strange chemical concoctions and focusing crystals from his cabin now hung over his shoulder. Tristam concentrated intently on the hook. \"Nothing I can't fix,\" he said. \"I'll need some new lodestones to reseal the enchantments. The crystalline structure is badly fragmented.\"\n\n\"How long?\" Dalan asked.\n\n\"Three hours, maybe four,\" he said.\n\n\"Excellent,\" Dalan said. \"Time enough to catch a meal and find a copy of The Chronicle. I'll leave you to your work.\" Dalan paused at the door to the tower bridge and threw a small pouch at Seren. She caught it clumsily against her chest and heard the chink of coins inside. \"Seren, take care of whatever materials he needs,\" he said indifferently. \"That should be more than enough. Omax, accompany me.\"\n\nSeren saw the warforged look up at Tristam. Tristam nodded and went back to work. Dalan and Omax entered the tower.\n\n\"Just like Dalan to send a green girl into the city alone and keep the warforged bodyguard for himself,\" Pherris grunted, leaning back against the ship controls. The gnome looked much older and wearier than he had before, or perhaps he had finally allowed himself a moment to rest now that his ship was finally safe.\n\n\"I can take care of myself,\" Seren said.\n\n\"See that you do,\" Pherris said sternly. \"I am beginning to like you, Miss Morisse. You bring a dash of common sense that I've sorely missed hereabouts.\" The gnome's whiskers twitched with a faint grin.\n\nSeren smiled at Pherris, but the old gnome had dozed off where he sat. She looked up at Tristam, still busy with the repairs.\n\n\"Lodestones?\" she prompted him.\n\nHe nodded without looking down. \"Natural magnets. They're a reagent for a number of enchantments. I'll need about a dozen,\" he answered. \"I could probably use some more royal water to accelerate the dissolution of this binding agent, too.\"\n\n\"And maybe some frankincense to reinforce the elemental matrix?\" she asked.\n\nTristam looked down at her sharply, almost falling off his ladder. \"Yes, that would be useful,\" he said, impressed. \"You've been reading more than my fairy tales, haven't you?\"\n\n\"I only understand a little,\" she admitted.\n\n\"That's still amazing,\" he said, his intense expression fading into a smile. \"And yes, I could use some frankincense. You should be able to find all of that at any magewright's shop. Be careful, Seren. Don't make any trouble.\"\n\n\"Same to you,\" she said, returning his smile.\n\nSeren climbed down the tower stairs and surveyed the streets. Cragwar was a busy, happy place. The streets were crowded with people going about their daily lives. Groups of soldiers patrolled the streets and the citizens met them with friendly greetings, obviously content to be under their protection. Though she had already decided to remain on Karia Naille, she had to admit that this wouldn't be such a bad place to start a new life. For a city near the border of a potential enemy, it was a peaceful sort of place.\n\nSeren stopped at a corner vendor and used one of Dalan's coins to purchase a delicious-smelling treat on a stick. It looked like a sort of frosted bread filled with cooked meat. It tasted as good as it smelled. She chewed thoughtfully as she watched the traffic and considered her next move.\n\nIt was nearly a minute before Seren realized that she had instinctively been casing the local populace, looking for wealthy targets. The instant she realized what she was doing, Seren felt terribly alone. She would never fit in here, not as long as she saw everyone else as targets.\n\n\"Once a thief, always a thief,\" said a voice beside her.\n\nSeren jumped, dropping her food on the ground. Eraina d'Deneith looked down with a sneer. \"Best to pick that up, Seren. There are fines for littering in this city.\"\n\nSeren snatched up her ruined meal and looked at the paladin with a frown. \"What do you want?\" she asked. \"I thought you left.\"\n\n\"Did you kill Jamus Roland?\" she asked bluntly.\n\nEraina's eyes, so dark they were almost black, bored directly into her soul. She sensed anger, pain, and something more, a sense of a power Seren had never felt before. It felt almost as if she were being judged by Boldrei herself.\n\n\"How do you know Jamus?\" Seren asked, unable to keep a quaver of fear out from her voice.\n\n\"Just answer the question. Yes or no.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, a hint of outrage in her answer. \"Jamus was my teacher. He was my friend.\"\n\nEraina's brows furrowed quizzically. She looked disappointed by Seren's answer, but she nodded in acquiescence. \"Just a thief, then,\" she said in a sad voice. \"You have no idea what you have become involved in.\"\n\n\"Then why don't you explain it to me? How does a Sentinel Marshal know Jamus Roland? He was just a thief too.\"\n\n\"He was not just a thief,\" Eraina said. \"He was my father.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Seren said, eyes widening. \"I thought you were a member of House Deneith.\"\n\n\"I am,\" she said. \"My mother's husband was disgraced when he learned the truth. If my mother's dragonmark had not bred true, I might have been given to an orphanage. Instead I was raised and educated by the church.\" She looked at Seren calmly. \"Does it truly surprise you that Jamus Roland would have an affair with another man's wife?\"\n\n\"Not really,\" Seren answered, \"but why are you telling me this? I'm a stranger to you.\"\n\n\"Raised as a Spear of Boldrei, I have taken many vows,\" Eraina said. \"A vow of charity, a vow of mercy, a vow of humility, and a vow of honesty. Do you understand these things?\"\n\nSeren nodded.\n\n\"Then also understand that our vow of honesty is the most difficult of all, as well as the most important,\" she said. \"For we can neither lie nor promote falsehood. The fact that Jamus never told you who I was is disturbing, for he broke into Dalan d'Cannith's home on my behalf. He died trying to help me, Seren.\"\n\n\"A paladin hiring thieves?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"I didn't know what he planned, and he knew better than to tell me,\" Eraina said. \"My father has always been a foolish man. For almost a year now I have been hunting the murderer of Bishop Llaine Grove. I was to meet Jamus on the night he died. I traveled all the way from Fairhaven on the promise that he would have the name of the killer I sought. I suppose I should not be surprised that he died. My father was not adept at keeping promises.\"\n\n\"He never told me any of that,\" she said.\n\n\"And now you understand why Boldrei values honesty,\" Eraina said. \"I have wasted a great deal of time chasing you, Seren, thinking that you were responsible for my father's death. Now I know the real killer was on that Cyran ship. Those same mercenaries were probably responsible for Llaine Grove's death as well.\"\n\nEraina looked at Seren for a long time, not speaking. Seren had the uneasy sense that the goddess was judging her through those eyes again. She wanted to move away, but could not bring herself to do so.\n\n\"The truth, at least, is a relief,\" Eraina said. \"Father spoke highly of you in his letters. I wonder if, in some measure, by caring for you he hoped to atone for my unwanted and neglected existence. My father was a strange man.\"\n\n\"Looks like that bred true, too,\" Seren said.\n\n\"And you have adopted my father's intolerable sense of humor,\" she retorted. \"Jamus obviously saw some value in you, so I give you this final warning. Do not return to Karia Naille. I intend to stop Dalan d'Cannith and his allies. It would be best if you did not oppose me.\"\n\n\"Stop them?\" Seren asked. \"Why? They're hunting the same killer you are.\"\n\n\"No,\" Eraina said. \"They merely seek the same thing he seeks, and their greed will only cloud my path. Dalan d'Cannith is a ruthless, ambitious man. I do not doubt he knows more about the Cyrans than he admits, and I will not abide his dishonesty.\"\n\n\"So you want me to abandon my friends and run away in a strange city?\" Seren asked. \"What sort of paladin are you?\"\n\n\"Your faithfulness is admirable, but you do them no favors by letting them pursue petty ambitions,\" Eraina said. \"Do not fear that I would cast you out alone here as Dalan did to me. I have allies in this city. I can give you gold enough to return to Wroat, or even Ringbriar. I could offer you the protection of the Sovereign Host. You could find a new life in the Church if you wished, Seren. My mercy is a sincere mercy, not a Cannith's false promises.\"\n\nSeren looked past Eraina, at the crowds of happy citizens living their normal lives. Beyond them, she saw the sky towers standing tall above the skyline. Two rings of green fire burnt with a steady light, holding the Brelish warships aloft. Between them burnt a smaller ring\u2014blue, crackling with red.\n\n\"Think about it, Seren,\" Eraina said.\n\nSeren walked away. She felt the paladin's eyes watch her for a long time afterward.\n\nSeren went about her business, picking up Tristam's supplies. She dropped them off on the ship without a word, drawing confused looks from Pherris and Tristam as she went back into the city. For a while, she explored. Would it really be so bad to stay here? Was this such a horrible place?\n\nShe looked up at the ring of fire above the walls again, now burning a steady blue. This would be a safe place to live, but no one needed her here. If she were to find a home, it would not be here. After wandering aimlessly for a while, Seren made her way back to the sky tower. She boarded the ship as wordlessly as she had left. Gunther trotted to her feet and rolled over on one side, waiting to be petted. Pherris greeted her with an exhausted smile, which quickly changed to a look of concern as he looked past her toward the tower.\n\n\"Are the repairs done, Tristam?\" Pherris asked.\n\n\"Just touching up the paint now,\" Tristam said from the ladder. \"Why?\"\n\n\"I've a feeling we'll be leaving soon,\" the captain said.\n\nSeren looked up from petting the dog. A dozen Brelish soldiers marched out of the tower door, with Eraina at their head. She looked at Seren with a disappointed shake of her head and turned to face Pherris.\n\n\"Captain Gerriman,\" Eraina said in a bold voice. \"As a Sentinel Marshal of House Deneith, and with the aid and alliance of the Brelish Crown, I regret that I must impound your vessel and take your crew into custody.\"\n\n\"On what charges?\" Pherris asked stiffly.\n\n\"You are not being charged with anything,\" she said, her tone now clipped and formal. \"However, I believe that several members of your crew are withholding information pertinent to an international murder investigation. As a Sentinel Marshal, I have invoked my jurisdiction and enlisted these local officials to assist me. Please do not resist.\"\n\nSeren stood up slowly beside Pherris. Tristam dropped down from his ladder, tucking his tools back into his bandolier. Gerith poked his head up from below deck and quickly disappeared again. Zed, sharpening his sword as he sat on a nearby barrel, set his whetstone aside and sheathed the weapon across his back. Omax stood beside Tristam calmly, waiting for any command.\n\n\"Come out, d'Cannith,\" Eraina shouted.\n\nThe cabin door opened and Dalan stepped out. He held a breadstick treat in one hand, chewing absently. He looked at Eraina and her soldiers without concern. \"Good afternoon, officers,\" he said. \"May I help you?\"\n\n\"You heard me,\" she said. \"Order your crew to stand down and surrender.\"\n\nDalan bit the last scrap of bread from the stick, tossed it in a pail nearby, wiped his hands on his jacket and took a scroll case from his pocket. He looked past Eraina at the soldiers with a bland expression. \"Which of you is the commanding officer?\" he asked.\n\n\"I am,\" one said, stepping forward.\n\nDalan offered the man the scroll. He stepped forward and accepted it, looking at Eraina in confusion. Removing it from its case, he studied the parchment for several moments, rolled it up, and handed it back.\n\n\"My apologies, Marshal,\" the soldier said. \"This man has been granted immunity by the King.\"\n\n\"What?\" she spat.\n\nDalan smiled.\n\n\"My apologies, Master d'Cannith,\" the soldier said.\n\n\"Not necessary,\" Dalan said pleasantly. \"You're merely doing your duty. You are a tribute to your rank, country, and king.\" The man smiled proudly. \"Now if you would excuse us, we're preparing to depart.\"\n\nThe soldier nodded, saluted, and turned to leave. The others followed in his wake. Eraina remained where she was, scowling at Dalan.\n\n\"Let me see those papers,\" she demanded.\n\n\"Why?\" he asked, looking at her. \"Your jurisdiction extends beyond any diplomatic immunities. You are still perfectly free to find non-Brelish troops to aid you, or arrest us on your own.\" He looked at Omax and then smiled at her again. \"If you believe you are able.\"\n\n\"You know Boldrei grants me power to sense falsehood. You refuse to show me your papers because I will see them as the forgery they are.\"\n\n\"How insulting,\" Dalan said with a mocking grin. \"Is this the diplomacy of House Deneith?\"\n\n\"This is not over,\" Eraina said. \"You will not escape me. I will find allies and stop you.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" Dalan asked. He looked past her for a moment.\n\nShe looked back just as Zed Arthen clubbed her across the temple with the hilt of his sheathed sword. She staggered, attempting to ready her spear.\n\n\"Sorry, Eraina,\" he said, punching her across the jaw.\n\nThe paladin struck the deck with a thud. Seren looked at Dalan in shock, as did everyone else but Zed.\n\n\"Arthen what in Khyber have you done?\" Tristam shouted. \"You just assaulted a Sentinel Marshal!\"\n\n\"She went down a little more easily than I expected, too,\" Zed said, looking at her limp form with some surprise. \"I thought Omax would have to help me for sure.\"\n\n\"That Sentinel Marshal threatened to cause a great deal of trouble for us,\" Dalan said, turning back toward his cabin. \"Get us out of here, Captain. Zed, return the Marshal to her cell.\"\n\nZed loaded the unconscious paladin over his shoulder and climbed below deck. As Karia Naille swiftly rose above the city of Cragwar, Seren wondered if staying here had been a mistake.\n\nOld Merkin pushed the battered shutter aside and looked outside again. The street was empty, as it usually was this time of day. Zed Arthen preferred things clean and quiet, so most of the Black Pit citizens avoided doing business here. Everyone feared Arthen, though Old Merkin wasn't really sure why. Arthen had a way of turning up dirt, rooting out secrets, and in Black Pit most folks preferred secrets to stay right where they were. To Merkin, that just meant that Arthen was making waves. People who did that inevitably got put down. No one could stand alone forever.\n\nUntil then, of course, there was money to be made.\n\nAt the far end of the street, Old Merkin saw the familiar, stocky figure, leaving a trail of pipesmoke in his wake. The coat and clothes were new, but it was definitely Zed Arthen. Merkin waited for the inquisitive to walk down this way, past his window and approach his office. Arthen looked around warily, as he always did. He didn't see Old Merkin, but of course he never did. Merkin chuckled quietly in self-satisfaction.\n\nAfter Arthen's door closed, Merkin left his home, shrugging into his thick canvas jacket as he walked. He rapped loudly on the door of the inquisitive's office and waited, hands tucked in his pockets as he peered around, alert for any nosey passers-by.\n\nThe door opened after a moment. Zed Arthen looked at Merkin with a hawk-eyed gaze and stood quickly to one side. Merkin grinned and sauntered in.\n\n\"May I help you?\" Arthen asked in a low voice.\n\n\"Perhaps you can,\" Merkin said, voice dripping with sarcasm. \"I saw your little trip into the woods the other night, Arthen. Smart money says you were meeting someone from that Lyrandar charter ship. Care to share the secret?\"\n\nZed did not answer immediately. Instead he moved to the window beside his door, looking curiously outside. \"You came here alone?\" he asked.\n\n\"Like I need any protection from you,\" Merkin said. \"I'm the one man in all of Black Pit that knows you're all talk. Now tell me what you're up to, Arthen.\"\n\n\"I have a better idea,\" Arthen said, locking the door. \"Let me offer you a proposition.\" He turned to face Merkin, but the man who faced Merkin was no longer Zed Arthen. His features were smooth and gray. The left cheek twisted with a swirling burn scar. He looked at Merkin with dead white eyes.\n\n\"Khyber,\" Merkin swore, drawing a dagger from his belt. \"Get away from me, faceless!\"\n\n\"Please,\" the changeling said. He backed away from the door, holding his hands out to show he held no weapons, only the key to the door pinched between the fingers of his right hand. \"The term is 'changeling,' not 'faceless.' If you cannot call my race by a respectful name, then simply address me as Marth.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" Merkin demanded. He glanced around for any escape route, but the changeling blocked the only unlocked door. \"Did you kill the real Arthen?\"\n\n\"That is what we do, isn't it?\" Marth said with a deep sigh. \"Changelings come in the night. They murder the innocent and steal their lives, like parasites. Spies and assassins, all of us. No. I did not murder Arthen. He is alive and well, as far as I am aware, and far from here.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Merkin said, not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. \"Then what are you doing pretending to be him?\"\n\n\"Zed Arthen is an old associate,\" Marth said. \"I came to him regarding a matter of some discretion. He left abruptly, leaving no clues as to his destination. Rather than dig randomly for information in a place like this, I thought that assuming his identity would lead me to those who knew him. And so it has.\" Marth gestured broadly at Merkin.\n\n\"Arthen and I aren't really friends,\" Merkin said fearfully. \"But it doesn't surprise me that he runs with a diseased faceless.\"\n\n\"I never said I was seeking his friends, nor that I was one of them,\" Marth said. \"I seek only information, and I am willing to pay.\" Marth opened his left hand, palm out, to reveal a platinum coin.\n\n\"Well that's different,\" Merkin said, sheathing his dagger with a lewd smile. \"How can I help you, Master Marth?\"\n\n\"First of all, tell me who you are,\" the changeling said. \"What common ruffian speaks to Zed Arthen as boldly as you did when you entered?\"\n\n\"I'm Merkin, a courier for some of the local businesses,\" Merkin said. \"I live next door.\"\n\n\"An informant,\" Marth corrected. \"The local cartels pay you to spy on Arthen, to find out what he's up to, to report which of them he may be investigating next?\"\n\nMerkin smiled. \"A man has to make an honest living.\"\n\n\"But that's not all,\" Marth said. \"I wager you work for Arthen as well. He pays you to filter the information you pass on to your superiors. You came here hoping to perpetuate your web of blackmail.\" He looked at Merkin seriously. \"Have I hit the mark?\"\n\n\"Pretty close,\" Merkin said. \"Impressive.\"\n\n\"Arthen and I were friends once,\" Marth said. He tucked the coin into his pocket, leaving his hand there. \"I know the way the man thinks. I can assure you that any control you believe you maintain over him is an illusion. He is too clever for you by far. You believe you are blackmailing him, but I wonder how much he has learned about your superiors from your churlish thuggery. Look what I have already divined, Merkin, and I am not even trained as an inquisitive.\"\n\nMerkin's face drooped into a worried frown. He began replaying earlier meetings with Arthen in his mind, trying to remember what he had said, and wondering how much he had accidentally revealed.\n\n\"The great irony is this, Merkin,\" Marth said. He traced the fingers of his right hand along the edge of a nearby table as he paced slowly around it, his eyes on the floor. \"You fear me. You distrust me. You call me faceless, for no doubt you have heard the legends. Every village spins the tale of the changeling killer who murders a noble son of the nation and slides effortlessly into his life. We are spies. We are demons. We are monsters unworthy of trust or respect.\" He looked at Merkin intently. \"Yet look at yourself. Every word you use to describe yourself is a lie. 'Courier.' 'Honest living.' At least my face is my only lie, Merkin. You lack the imagination to be truthful.\"\n\nMerkin shrugged. \"Listen, I don't need the lecture. What else do you want to know about Arthen?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" Marth said. \"You have already told me all I need to know. If your own relationship with him is any indication, Arthen has covered his tracks with his usual prowess. I doubt you have anything useful to offer me.\"\n\n\"Then what about my money?\" Merkin asked irritably.\n\n\"Still yours for the price of one question,\" Marth said. He looked at Merkin intently, empty white eyes staring at his chest. \"That coat you wear. It looks familiar. Is it part of a military uniform?\"\n\nMerkin nodded. \"Only good thing the army ever gave me,\" he said with a laugh.\n\nMarth offered a thin smile. \"What nation did you fight for?\"\n\n\"I don't want to talk about that,\" Merkin said.\n\n\"You are a deserter,\" Marth said. \"A betrayer.\"\n\n\"You said only one question,\" Merkin snapped. \"So pay me and unlock the door.\"\n\nMarth frowned and drew his hand from his pocket. Instead of a coin, he now held a long amethyst. Merkin swore and dove toward Marth with his dagger, but not quickly enough. There was a brief flash of green light, and then pain so intense that Merkin could not even draw the breath to scream. He curled up on the ground, arms and legs twitching, spittle boiling from his mouth. Marth forced Merkin onto his back with one boot, leaving his foot on the old informant's chest.\n\n\"There are few things more reprehensible than a man who would abandon his country,\" Marth said, looming over the man as he twitched uncontrollably. \"A nation that cannot rely upon its sons and daughters has nothing. It is doomed to be crushed under its own weight, consumed by the greed and ambition of its neighbors. You humans call my kind 'diseased' because of our sickly pallor.\" Marth moved his boot forward, placing it squarely on Merkin's throat. \"But it is traitors like you who are a true disease upon all of Eberron.\"\n\nMarth leaned forward, pressing his weight on Merkin's throat. Marth stared into the man's helpless eyes until he stopped moving. He waited a minute more, just to be sure, then put the wand back in his pocket and stepped away. Assuming Zed Arthen's face once again, Marth exited the inquisitive's office and returned to Kenshi Zhann where she hovered in the forest nearby.\n\nAs he climbed aboard the airship, two of the soldiers greeted him with nervous smiles.\n\n\"Captain Marth,\" one said, saluting. \"We are glad you have returned. Black Pit is no place for any man to be alone.\"\n\n\"Worried, Neimun?\" Marth said, returning the salute. \"I was in no danger.\" He felt a scrutinizing presence behind him, and did not even need to look to realize Brother Zamiel had entered the room. He quickly dismissed the soldiers to their duties.\n\n\"You seem in high spirits, Captain,\" Zamiel mused, falling in beside Marth as he began his march to the bridge. A humming pulse ran through the ship as she began to lift into the sky. \"Such contentment is very strange for a man who has spent the night alone in an unfriendly village, disguised as one of his deadliest enemies.\"\n\n\"What do you want, prophet?\" he asked. \"To lecture me for being in a good mood?\"\n\n\"Quite the contrary,\" Zamiel said. \"Your bravery is an example to the men. I doubt even the murder you just committed would lessen their opinion of you.\"\n\nMarth prepared a sharp retort, but it died on his lips. The prophet was, as usual, not only remarkably aware of events he had no way of witnessing, but entirely sincere in his macabre praise.\n\n\"Unfortunately I learned very little,\" Marth said instead. \"Arthen still keeps others at a distance. He weaves lies to catch the truth like a fisherman. It was a mistake to let him live when he distanced himself from this. I should listen more closely to your advice, Zamiel. Mercy for old friends will be my undoing.\"\n\n\"I never said to set mercy aside entirely,\" Zamiel said. \"I said it was a luxury, and luxury brings harm only when indulged in excess. Kept in its proper place, in moderation, a luxury grants opportunity.\"\n\n\"More riddles, prophet?\" Marth asked as they stepped onto Moon's large enclosed bridge. The helmsman was already here, working the controls and plotting a course. \"You urge me to kill Tristam but show no rancor that I let Arthen slip away so long ago?\"\n\n\"Arthen is not a threat like Xain is,\" Zamiel said. \"The fallen knight still has a part to play.\"\n\n\"I disagree,\" Marth said. \"Tristam may be useful; he has both ambition and curiosity. Arthen is dangerous. If we find him, we must kill him.\"\n\n\"Then you may soon have your chance,\" Zamiel said. \"My spy has contacted us again, via speaker post.\"\n\nMarth looked at Zamiel with interest. \"What news?\"\n\n\"Karia Naille is bound for the Talenta Plains,\" the prophet said.\n\n\"Overwood,\" Marth said with a scowl. \"So they have found her.\"\n\n\"An unexpected development,\" Zamiel answered. \"I did not expect this to happen so soon. While you deal with this I shall have to return and consult the prophecy, to determine what I may have misread. You will have go to Talenta and deal with them yourself.\"\n\nMarth was lost for a moment in thought. \"If they find her,\" he mused, \"they will tell her what I have done. Do you think she will believe them?\"\n\n\"A pointless question,\" Zamiel said, settling into his chair. \"If so, I will trust you to deal with it.\"\n\nWhat amazed Seren the most wasn't how callously Zed Arthen had knocked out Eraina and locked her in her cabin. What disturbed her was that the rest of the crew did not seem surprised or concerned. After the ship left Cragwar, everyone returned to their normal duties. The only differences were that Omax occasionally took a plate of food to the paladin, and every time Seren entered the hold she saw the marshal's spear and shortsword lying atop the food crates. No one even mentioned Eraina, and Seren was not about to bring up the matter.\n\nTristam spent most of his time in his own cabin, absorbed in research or perhaps depression. Gerith was always busy tending the ship, cooking meals, or scouting the area on his glidewing. Seren felt increasingly alone. She didn't trust Dalan or Zed, and still wasn't sure what to think of Omax. That left her with the mystery that was Aeven.\n\nAfter all this time, she still had not met the last mysterious member of the crew, only heard her mentioned. Seren began to wonder if there was really an \"Aeven\" at all. The fishermen and riverboat captains she knew in Wroat were the most superstitious people she had met. It stood to reason that airship sailors were no different. Perhaps Aeven was just some sort of guardian spirit or minor goddess who protected airships?\n\nThe lush forests of Breland had given way to the broad green plains of Thrane. Having spent the entirety of her life in dreary Ringbriar or overpopulated Wroat, it was fascinating to see so much of the world in so short a time. Seren spent her free moments on the deck, watching the landscape fly by and occasionally commenting on the more interesting things she saw. If Aeven was real, Seren reasoned, it couldn't hurt to talk to her. If she wasn't real, then there was no harm done.\n\nAt noon on the second day of their journey, Eraina d'Deneith emerged from the hold, accompanied by Omax. The paladin went directly to Dalan's cabin. Seren heard muffled voices for several minutes before Eraina finally emerged once more, her expression somber. She immediately went to work helping Gerith with the ship's maintenance, not offering any word of explanation. The captain regarded her with suspicious curiosity whenever she was on deck, but otherwise kept his attention on flying the ship.\n\n\"Figured that would happen sooner or later,\" Zed Arthen commented dryly. The inquisitive had been sitting on a barrel nearby, slowly working his way through a chunk of beef jerky he had scavenged from the hold.\n\n\"What happened?\" Seren asked. \"Why did Dalan set her free? Why is she helping us now?\"\n\n\"Vow of honesty,\" Zed said, taking another bite. \"Makes the Spears do stupid things. That's my best guess.\"\n\n\"Why would her vow of honesty have anything to do with it?\"\n\n\"You ask a lot of annoying questions,\" Zed said.\n\n\"You're an inquisitive,\" Seren countered. \"Don't you ever ask questions?\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" Zed said, \"but they're not always the best ways to get answers. If you want to know why Eraina is here you should probably talk to her yourself. Or just stop bothering me. I really don't care.\"\n\nSeren grunted noncommittally and headed below deck. Though Eraina's release piqued her curiosity, her real motivation was to get away from Zed. The inquisitive made her uneasy since he had attacked Eraina. She hadn't really put much stock in Tristam's low opinion of the man until that moment. Now she wasn't sure what he would do next. She noticed Eraina was now in the cargo hold, moving the scattered crates into neatly organized stacks. Her polished armor and weapons were set carefully aside in the corner. She wore leather breeches and a sleeveless white blouse that revealed her dragonmark, an exotic pattern of swirling blue and green lines that stretched from her left hand halfway up her bicep. Eraina had obviously been at work for some time, for her hair and clothes were damp from labor. Overall, she looked more like a Wroat dockworker than a Spear of Boldrei.\n\n\"Can you give me a hand, Seren?\" she asked, pushing a dark lock of hair from her eyes.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Seren asked, moving to take up the other side of a heavy box of dried carrots.\n\n\"Cleaning up the hold,\" she said. \"I can't understand the halfling's method of organization.\"\n\n\"I don't think he has a method,\" Seren said, helping her haul the box up on top of another. \"I think he likes it random, so that what he finds to make for dinner surprises him as much as the rest of us.\"\n\nEraina chuckled as she moved to pick up another box. \"That may be fine for him, but not for me,\" she said. \"I like to know where everything is and why it's there.\"\n\n\"Then you're in strange company,\" Seren said under her breath.\n\nEraina looked at her seriously. \"I don't know what you mean,\" she said.\n\n\"Dalan imprisoned you here,\" Seren said. \"Now you're helping him?\"\n\n\"Dalan apologized for his behavior and drew a promise from me,\" Eraina said. \"I swore to aid him in his quest in return for his promise that he would help me bring Marth to justice and that he would use the Legacy only for honorable ends.\"\n\n\"And you believed him?\" Seren asked, astonished mostly by the answer but also by the accuracy of Zed's guess.\n\n\"No,\" Eraina answered. \"I believed in you.\"\n\nSeren looked at Eraina in utter confusion.\n\n\"Tell me, Seren,\" Eraina said. \"What do you have faith in?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Seren asked. \"I pray to Kol Korran a little, but I picked that up from Jamus. My parents prayed to the entire Host, but I never did.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Eraina asked. \"The gods exist to care for us, just as we exist to serve them.\"\n\n\"I figured that they were busy,\" Seren said. \"I'm just one person. They must have better things to do. Prayer seems too much like begging.\"\n\n\"And Kol Korran?\" Eraina asked. \"Why is he the exception?\"\n\n\"He's the god of thieves, so I'm sort of his job, right?\" Seren said with a small smile. \"I pray to him out of habit. I don't place a lot of faith in things I can't see. I guess that sounds sort of blasphemous to a paladin.\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised,\" Eraina murmured. \"A paladin does not believe blindly, for if we did, our faith would be without worth. A paladin does not hurl herself into battle and beg Boldrei for salvation. A champion who cannot succeed without her favor is no champion at all. A paladin does not close her eyes to the world and wait for Boldrei's voice to fill the emptiness. We see the will of the goddess in all things, but mostly through people. I have faith in the goodness of mankind. Though I may seem cynical, and I have been disappointed frequently, I can assure you that I see miracles every day. When I saw you had returned to Karia Naille, I knew Boldrei had spoken.\"\n\nSeren continued to stare at Eraina in puzzled silence.\n\n\"Jamus Roland looked upon you as his daughter, Seren,\" Eraina said. \"He wanted to take you from Wroat, to give you a better life. That was part of his deal with me. My father had his flaws and often failed, but he never ceased to try to make the world a better place. Any person in whom he would place such faith is a person in whom I will believe in as well. You saw something worthy in this crew, something that made you return. I have faith in you, Seren, and that is why I remain.\"\n\n\"No,\" Seren said. \"You remain because Zed Arthen knocked you unconscious.\"\n\nEraina laughed quietly and cast a guarded look about them. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. \"What a pitiful Sentinel Marshal I would be if I let one man defeat me in such a clumsy manner. Be honest, Seren, did you not think it a bit foolish of me to threaten Dalan to his face, on his own ship, while so heavily outnumbered. I did not even call upon my dragonmark to protect me. Strange?\"\n\n\"I did think it strange,\" Seren admitted.\n\nEraina smiled enigmatically. \"And now I am here,\" she said.\n\n\"But you said...\" Seren began.\n\n\"I said Dalan would not escape me.\" Eraina finished the sentence for her. \"And he has not. I said I would find allies.\" The paladin placed a hand on Seren's shoulder. \"And I have. Honesty in all things. I stand by you, Seren, and as long as Dalan keeps his word I stand by him as well.\"\n\n\"And if he doesn't?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Then I hope you will stand by me,\" Eraina said, her voice taking a dangerous edge. \"For your own good as well as mine.\"\n\nSeren nodded dumbly.\n\nEraina looked satisfied and returned to sorting crates. She chatted idly with Seren as they worked, asking her mostly about her time in Wroat. The paladin was particularly interested in stories of her father. She often interrupted Seren in midstream when she attempted to embellish the tales or gloss over his shadier accomplishments. Eraina had an unerring sense for falsehood that seemed more a natural talent than any form of magic. She wished only to hear the truth about her father's life, as much as Seren would tell her. She accepted all of it, good and bad, with the same sad smile.\n\nOmax entered the hold after they had been working and talking for nearly an hour. The warforged watched them only briefly before joining in their labor. The work went much more quickly after that, with Omax effortlessly lifting crates the two of them could barely budge together. Gerith entered much later, greeting them with a shriek when he discovered his comfortable chaos had become regimented, efficient order. He gave Eraina a scathing glare, whimpered at Seren like a hurt child, and stalked out of the hold with a sack of potatoes over one shoulder. Eraina and Seren looked at each other in silence for several seconds, then burst into laughter. Omax watched them thoughtfully for several moments, then laughed as well.\n\nWith the job complete, Seren excused herself and headed back above deck. She leaned out over the rail as far as she dared, letting the unimpeded wind wash over her shoulders and cool her after the hard work. She noticed Zed still sitting on his barrel. He stared off into the distance blankly, watching the land speed past as smoke drifted idly from his pipe.\n\nHe looked at her with a scowl. \"More questions?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"No questions.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Zed said, looking back out at the Thrane landscape. \"Cause I'm in no mood.\"\n\nSeren continued to look out at the countryside in silence. The sun set behind them, casting the land in a blanket of darkness disturbed only by the light of a rare farmhouse or village. Zed climbed down off his barrel, drawing a look from Seren.\n\n\"Because this was my home,\" he said, answering her unasked question with a strangely grateful smile. \"Home is always a part of you, no matter what else changes. I wanted to see it.\" Without another word, Zed Arthen returned to his cabin.\n\nThe next several days passed fairly uneventfully. One morning she found Gerith and Pherris looking at a pile of large maps as they plotted their course. Gerith traced a thin line across Karrnath with his compass and looked at the captain with a frown. The course they had plotted was an exaggerated curve, cutting north across the Khorvaire continent and then south again toward the eastern edge of the Talenta Plains.\n\n\"Still not sure we shouldn't have gone south,\" Gerith commented. \"Would have been quicker than cutting through Thrane and Karrnath, and we could have put into port in Zilargo.\"\n\n\"Whereupon my countrymen would have asked no end of questions that Master d'Cannith would have found most uncomfortable,\" Pherris said. \"After that our mission would be advertised on the front page of The Korranberg Chronicle, assuming we survive to see a copy after flying over hobgoblin and Valenar territories unannounced.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Gerith said eagerly. \"The interesting way.\" His little round face drooped when he saw that the Captain did not share his excitement.\n\nSeren studied the map between them. She had never seen a map of the entire continent before, and wondered vaguely why they hadn't merely flown in a straight line. She realized the truth a moment before her eyes found the name of the country to the southeast of them. She looked up quickly in that direction.\n\nThat nation was Cyre.\n\nIt was the first time Seren had ever seen the Mournland. Even from here, she could see churning white clouds boiling over the land. Life itself withdrew from the borders of Cyre. Even beyond the impenetrable mists that marked the Mournland, the ground was bare, vegetation shriveled. The shimmering clouds moved with a peculiar, pulsating rhythm. It was hypnotic and oddly beautiful in its way. A cold sensation spread through Seren as she stared at the white mist. She found it difficult to look away, but something brushed gently against her cheek, breaking the spell. When she looked, there were only Gerith and Pherris, still busy arguing about the ship's course.\n\nThey had been airborne for nearly a week and a half when the drab Karrnathi landscape gave way to an endless golden plain. The first morning over the Talenta Plains, Seren awoke and looked over the rail to see a herd of enormous reptilian creatures marching across the plains. Each was easily three times the size of a horse, with thick heads capped with a cropped thorny crest. Their hides were brilliant green, marked with orange stripes. They moved with a ponderous, steady pace, holding their thick tails above the ground for balance. Seren watched them for several minutes in quiet awe before she realized she was being watched herself. She looked to her left and saw Gerith nearby. His tiny chest was puffed out, and his face was flushed.\n\n\"Threehorns,\" he said, pointing to the herd. \"My brother leads a threehorn cavalry team. Aren't they incredible animals?\"\n\n\"They look a little big for a halfling,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Of course,\" he answered. \"That's why we ride them in teams. What do you think of the Plains?\" He watched Seren, waiting for her reaction.\n\n\"It's beautiful, Gerith,\" she said, looking back out at the land.\n\n\"No place in Eberron like this,\" he answered. His voice was choked with pride, as if he had crafted the land with his own hands.\n\n\"Will we see your home while we're here?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" Gerith said very quickly. \"Not yet. I'm not ready.\" He met her puzzled look with a wicked grin. \"There's a saying among the halflings. ' Kapen hara.' It means 'family before all else,' and that's what brought me to this crew. My grandfather is the greatest storyteller in all the Plains, but he's too old to go out and gather stories himself anymore. I promised him that the next time we met I'd have a tale that put all his to shame. I've been wandering the world, collecting stories, but I haven't found a better one yet.\" He sighed deeply. \"I've more or less resigned myself to a simple truth.\"\n\n\"And what's that?\" she asked.\n\n\"Stories are like baking,\" he said. \"A fresh pie is the best pie. So if I can't find a better story, then I'll just have to live through one.\" He chuckled. \"I think I'm on the right track. Karia Naille has always been a magnet for trouble. You'll help, of course. A winsome damsel in distress always adds a bit of spice.\"\n\n\"Damsel in distress,\" she said dryly. \"I thought I was the hero.\"\n\n\"No, obviously I'm the hero,\" Gerith said, \"but I can be flexible.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" she said dryly.\n\n\"Quite welcome,\" he said. He looked down at the plains again, a beatific smile spreading across his childlike features. \"I think you'll like it here, Seren. I hope we're in no hurry to leave. Just be careful around the locals.\"\n\n\"Careful?\" she said.\n\n\"The halflings are passionate people,\" he answered. \"Their love of beauty knows no bounds. Some of them can be a little rude. They haven't learned any manners, especially around pretty girls like yourself.\"\n\n\"I'm not a halfling,\" she said.\n\n\"Not necessarily a disadvantage,\" he answered with a wink. \"Eliminates certain parental responsibilities, if you catch my meaning.\"\n\nSeren smirked at him, holding back a laugh. \"I'll be careful,\" she said.\n\n\"Don't worry, Seren,\" Gerith said. \"If all else fails, I'll protect you from those terrible lechers. I'll tell them we're married.\" He reached up and patted her bottom firmly, then swiftly leapt over the rail before she could react. Blizzard soared off into the clouds a moment later, leaving the mischievous halfling's laughter behind.\n\n\"A whole nation of Snowshales,\" the captain said in a rueful voice. \"I think I'd rather go back to Black Pit.\"\n\nAs the ship continued her flight, the landscape of the Talenta Plains only awed her more and more. While what she had seen of Breland, Thrane, and Karrnath had certainly impressed her, the wild beauty of Talenta was inspiring. Seren often found herself drawing away from her duties on the ship just to look out at the landscape, and when Pherris snapped at her to get back to work, there was no real spirit in it. The captain mostly let the ship do the flying and enjoyed the scenery as well, occasionally dozing off in his seat as he stared at the peaceful plains.\n\nShe noticed that Tristam had emerged on deck again for the first time since leaving Cragwar. His clothes were stained with soot and chemicals, and he exchanged a nervous smile with Seren as he took a deep breath of fresh air. She began to cross the deck to talk to him when Blizzard dove out of the clouds behind them, flapping toward the ship at a frenzied pace. The glidewing did not slow its approach, and as it drew closer she saw Gerith slumped in the harness on its back. Tristam followed her startled gaze and immediately went pale.\n\n\"All hands on deck!\" Tristam screamed, startling Pherris from his nap.\n\nSeren and Tristam dove aside just as Blizzard crashed heavily into the deck. The glidewing shrieked in pain and collapsed. Gerith's body hung limp, still secured in the glidewing's harness. Tristam reached for the straps holding Gerith, but Blizzard snapped menacingly at his hand. Tristam backed away quickly, and Eraina took his place. Blizzard regarded the paladin with a suspicious eye but did nothing to prevent her releasing its master from his harness.\n\n\"He's alive, just stunned,\" she said, laying Gerith on the deck.\n\n\"What happened?\" Seren asked.\n\nThe glidewing shrieked uncomfortably and shifted its position, one wing snapping open to reveal a smoking wound on its leathery flesh. Tristam's face went pale when he saw the burn.\n\n\"Lightning,\" Dalan said, looking at the creature with a deadpan expression. \"Captain Pherris?\"\n\n\"I know,\" the gnome said, busily working the controls. Seren felt the airship accelerate. The blue elemental fire now glowed.\n\n\"Damn, too late,\" Dalan swore, looking out behind them.\n\nSeren looked back as well in time to see a massive shadow emerge from the clouds behind them. It resolved into the sleek, sinister hull of Kenshi Zhann, now bearing down on them with methodical, inevitable speed. A bolt of white electricity fired from its bow, missing Karia Naille by several yards.\n\n\"A warning shot,\" Dalan said.\n\n\"They want us to land,\" Pherris said grimly. \"Awaiting your command, Master d'Cannith.\"\n\n\"We can't outrun them, Dalan,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"I thought our ship was faster than theirs,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Only over short distances,\" Tristam said. \"They'll catch up eventually, and on the plains there's nowhere to hide.\"\n\n\"There's always somewhere to hide,\" Dalan said. \"To Khyber with surrender. Get us out of here, Captain.\"\n\nPherris nodded and leaned into the controls. The ship lurched forward with sudden acceleration.\n\n\"Shouldn't we return fire?\" Eraina shouted.\n\nOmax emerged above the deck, carrying several crossbows and quivers full of bolts. He offered one of the weapons to Eraina.\n\n\"Karia Naille has no built-in weapons,\" Omax said. \"We must defend ourselves.\"\n\n\"Better yet, wake up the halfling,\" Zed said. \"If anyone knows a place where we can hide an airship in Talenta, it's him.\"\n\nEraina nodded, bowing her head in prayer over Gerith's prone body. Omax stepped over her, handing out weapons to the others. Seren weighed her crossbow uncertainly. She had never wielded one before. She looked up to find Zed loading his own weapon, but conspicuously holding it out so she could see how it was done. He gave her a sidelong look, waiting for her to load her own.\n\nWhen she fumbled with the bolt, he loosed his bolt over the side and reloaded, showing her how to do it again. He never offered his advice or asked if she wanted help. He only showed her the way.\n\n\"Save your ammunition, Master Arthen,\" Dalan chided, hefting his own weapon.\n\n\"It just went off, Dalan,\" Zed said, grinning at Seren.\n\nMoon had drawn closer now, and another bolt of searing lightning exploded from its bow. This time it struck Karia Naille squarely in the hull. The ship shuddered violently, throwing Seren to her knees. The ship was so close now Seren could feel the warmth of the elemental fire that held it aloft. A peal of thunder echoed through the sky, and the clouds began to darken.\n\n\"Storm coming fast,\" Zed said. \"Magic?\"\n\n\"Magic,\" Tristam said. \"But not theirs.\"\n\n\"Aeven,\" Pherris shouted with a triumphant cackle.\n\nGerith sat up with a start, gasping as Eraina's blessing roused him from unconsciousness. He twisted and struggled frantically, barking incomprehensibly in his native language. Eraina clasped one arm around the scout's shoulders in an effort to calm him, but Gerith only relaxed when he saw Blizzard's head poking out from its hiding place behind a stack of barrels. The creature gave an annoyed squawk and returned to licking his wounds. Gerith laughed in relief when he saw his pet was alive.\n\n\"Good to have you back among the living, Master Snowshale,\" Pherris shouted without looking away from the wheel. \"Your counsel would be appreciated!\"\n\nGerith stood up on wobbly legs, looking around at the landscape as he attempted to get his bearings. Seventh Moon now soared directly beside them. Seren could see soldiers on the deck readying crossbows. Omax pushed her down behind the ship's rail as he took cover himself. A flurry of bolts thudded into the hull and passed over their heads. The clouds above now churned a dangerous black. A rumble resonated above them as the storm continued to brew. Dalan stood up briefly and loosed a single bolt at the other ship; Seren thought she heard a man cry out on Moon's deck.\n\n\"There's a small gorge about a half mile east of here,\" Gerith shouted. \"If they lose sight of us we can land there unseen.\"\n\nPherris nodded and turned the wheel sharply. The elemental fire now burned pure white as a burst of speed came over the smaller ship. At same instant, the sky exploded in rain and another searing flash of lightning exploded from Moon. Seren wrapped one arm around the railing at the savage force of the explosion. A loud crack sounded from deep inside the vessel, followed by the smell of burning wood.\n\n\"I think that was the keel,\" Tristam said in horror. He staggered clumsily across the shaking deck toward the cargo hold. \"Dalan, I might need your dragonmark!\"\n\nThe fat guildmaster stood and loosed another bolt at Moon, then followed Tristam. Omax followed as well, stopping only long enough to pick up a barrel and hurl it at the other vessel. The improvised missile sailed through the void and left a dent in Moon's hull, which was answered with another flurry of crossbow bolts. The head of one jutted through the railing just beside Zed's face.\n\n\"So tell me about your goddess, Eraina,\" Zed said with exaggerated calm. \"I suddenly find religion interests me.\"\n\n\"Belay your salvation until we are on the ground, Master Arthen,\" Pherris snapped.\n\n\"But if I survive I won't need to be saved!\" Zed said with a grin. The battle appeared to have cheered the grim inquisitive's spirits dramatically.\n\nKaria Naille dropped steadily from the sky even as she gained speed. Moon dove to intercept them. Another flash of lightning lit the sky, but this time from above and directly in Moon's path. The larger ship swerved, losing ground. In the flash of light, Seren thought she saw the silhouette of a slim woman standing protectively over Pherris, arms spread wide against the storm. When the lightning flashed a second time, she saw only the ship's figurehead.\n\n\"This is west, Captain, we're headed west!\" Gerith shouted, pointing the other way. \"The gorge is the other way!\"\n\nThe captain leaned hard into the wheel to fight the ship's steady decline. Smoke was now rising from between the deck boards. She could hear Tristam and Dalan shouting at one another below. Pherris peered back at Moon with a scowl, waiting for something Seren couldn't see.\n\n\"Hold fast!\" the gnome shouted and turned the wheel sharply.\n\nSeren heard a wooden groan and another snap from deep within the ship as Karia Naille spun about in midair. Eraina lost her grip on the rail and tumbled across the deck with a startled cry. Zed snatched her leg before she flew over the side. Their ship hurtled directly toward the larger warship on a suicidal path. Moon swerved hurriedly, but their pilot was less skilled than Pherris. The larger ship rolled dangerously as she turned. There was a moment when the black hull passed only a few feet from Karia Naille. Two rings of elemental fire passed through one another with the crackling smell of ozone. Karia Naille soared off at tremendous speed even as Moon struggled to recover from its dive. The rain came down in a furious downpour, covering their escape.\n\n\"Captain, we have to land!\" Tristam shouted from below.\n\nThe gnome continued to fight the controls as the ship shuddered and lost altitude. Seren clung to the rain-slicked rail. She felt terrified and helpless. She saw a flaming board peel itself away from the hull beneath her and tumble into the storm. The gorge yawned in the ground before them, dividing the landscape. The ship wove into the wide stone mouth and everything went dark. Something gripped Seren's arms tightly. A flash of lightning showed that roots had grown from the wooden deck to hold her fast, saving her from falling into the void.\n\n\"Don't be afraid, Seren,\" a woman's voice whispered in her ear.\n\nThen Karia Naille struck the unforgiving surface with a crash. Seren's head snapped back against the deck, and then there was nothing.\n\nThe storm disappeared as quickly as it came. The helm of Kenshi Zhann filled with eerie silence. Through the forward panel, Marth could see a vast expanse of nothing. He darted to the window, looking in all directions, milky eyes scouring the sky for any sign of their quarry.\n\nKaria Naille was gone.\n\nMarth spun about in a fury, chest heaving with every breath. His hand tightened about his amethyst wand, though there were no enemies about. He composed himself when he realized that the helmsman was staring at him with open terror.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Captain Marth,\" the man said in a low voice. \"I didn't expect them to be so fast, or for the storm to come up so suddenly, or for them to veer at us like that. I take full responsibility for their escape.\"\n\nThe changeling raised a silencing hand, closing his eyes patiently. \"You did nothing wrong, Devyn,\" he said. \"Pherris Gerriman is the finest airship pilot this side of House Lyrandar. I am not altogether surprised. His ship, like ours, needs neither magic nor dragonmark to command her\u2014the proper training and an iron will are all that are required.\" Marth smiled at Devyn. \"Next time, Devyn, your will must be stronger than Gerriman's.\"\n\nThe helmsman smiled in relief. \"I won't fail you, Captain,\" he said.\n\nMarth nodded in reply, ignoring the helmsman. Inwardly, the changeling restrained himself from punishing the pilot. He could not afford to do so, not now. Devyn was the best pilot among his crew, other than himself. He would need the fool if Karia Naille turned out not to be as damaged as she looked. In the meantime, perhaps his presumed mercy would drive the helmsman to try harder. Anything was possible.\n\n\"Land there,\" Marth said, pointing to a nearby valley. \"We will repair the damage to our vessel.\"\n\n\"Captain?\" the helmsman said. \"We suffered minimal damage, but the Karia Naille was crippled. She cannot have run far. If we patrol the area, we may find her.\"\n\n\"There is no need to patrol,\" Marth said. \"I already know where d'Cannith is going... even if he does not.\"\n\nSeren sat up with a groan, rubbing the knot on the back of her skull. She looked at her fingers and was relieved to see no blood. Rising gingerly, she noticed no other injuries besides several bruises and some soreness where the strange roots had held her during the crash. The plants were gone now, just as quickly as they had appeared. She had survived unscathed.\n\nZed lay on the deck nearby, looking dazed. Eraina knelt beside him, applying a bandage to the bleeding gash on his forehead. Pherris lay on the deck as well. His right arm had already been splinted.\n\n\"Are you injured, Seren?\" Eraina asked, looking at her in concern.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Seren said.\n\nThe same, unfortunately, could not be said of Karia Naille. The airship had come to rest at the bottom of a narrow gorge, leaving a deep gouge behind her. The lower strut that once held the ring of fire in place now lay cracked and broken nearby. Tristam knelt beside the hook at one end, studying it while Omax hauled debris and sorted it into a pile. Of the elemental fire that once surrounded the ship, all that was visible was a weak blue plume of crackling fire drifting from the upper arm. Sparkling motes of energy periodically separated themselves from the plume and drifted away on the wind. Seren had the impression the fire was slowly dying.\n\nBut what truly drew Seren's attention was the woman who now sat cross-legged on the upper strut. She was thin and petite, with long pointed ears and a rounded, childlike face. Long, golden hair hung loose over her bare shoulders. She wore a short dress of pale green that seemed woven of thin leaves. Her eyes were closed in quiet concentration and she kept both hands plunged into the elemental fire. It appeared to do her no harm.\n\n\"Don't disturb her, Miss Morisse,\" Dalan said from the cabin behind her. \"She's the ship's only hope of ever flying again.\"\n\nSeren looked back at Dalan. The fat guildmaster's cabin was a mess. Books and trophies had spilled haphazardly from the shelves. Strangely, Dalan paid the mess no mind. He sat on his bed. His old dog lay limply beside him, whining plaintively and gasping for breath. Dalan sat beside it and petted it with a worried frown. Seren stared for a long time. Dalan showing such concern for his pet was almost more surprising than the strange woman sitting atop the ship's strut. It was more genuine emotion than she had ever seen in the man. Dalan noticed her scrutiny, leaned forward, and gently pushed his cabin door closed. Seren looked back up at the woman on the arm, feeling like an intruder for witnessing Dalan in such a state.\n\n\"Who is she?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Aeven,\" Zed said, sitting up a bit, hissing with pain, and quickly lying down again. \"She's a dryad.\"\n\n\"Dryad?\" Eraina asked. \"How is that possible? Such trickster spirits are bound to trees. They cannot leave their forests.\"\n\n\"You know nothing, paladin,\" Aeven said in a soft voice, never opening her eyes. \"The livewood is a tree that never dies unless burned to ashes. Even when cut, it continues to live though it ceases to grow. For a dryad bound to such a tree, this can be both blessing and curse.\"\n\nSeren's eyes moved to the ship's figurehead. The delicate sculpture remained improbably unharmed by the crash. It was the perfect likeness of Aeven.\n\n\"Among my people I was a druid,\" she said. \"The soul of Eberron resonates within me, and I longed to see the world beyond Aerenal. A human sailor offered me a chance to leave my home, cutting and shaping my tree in my image. I was to protect his vessel.\" Aeven paused, a pained look flickering across her face. \"They proved to be wicked men, with savage appetites. Ashrem d'Cannith saved me from their clutches. He gave me a new home on Karia Naille. This ship is my forest now.\" She opened her eyes and looked down at Eraina, her gaze a pure and depthless green.\n\n\"Dryads don't like being called tricksters, Eraina,\" Zed said with a half-smile. \"Especially after they save your life.\"\n\nEraina's face darkened in shame. \"I apologize, Aeven,\" she said. \"I meant no insult.\"\n\nAeven only tilted her perfect chin, gave Seren an inscrutable look, and closed her eyes again. Seren had the sensation that the shimmering blue flame was watching her.\n\n\"Is there anything I can do?\" Seren asked, looking helplessly at the crippled ship.\n\n\"Help Tristam,\" Zed said.\n\n\"I don't really know anything about fixing airships,\" she said.\n\n\"No, but you can make him focus,\" Zed said, drawing a sharp breath as Eraina tightened the bandage around his left leg. \"He's been broken up since the crash, but he's more confident when you're around, Seren. If he can't focus, you're going to have to get him focused for all our sakes.\"\n\n\"You're beginning to sound as manipulative as Dalan,\" Seren said.\n\nZed smirked. \"Dalan has nothing on me.\"\n\nSeren climbed over the rail and dropped lightly to the ground. She stepped back from the ship and examined the damage. The airship looked relatively unharmed save a few patches where the outer hull had been stripped away and the shattered arm. Tristam appeared almost instantly by her side, looking down with a worried expression.\n\n\"Seren, are you all right?\" he asked, interrupting the question she had been about to ask. \"Eraina said you hit your head.\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she answered, offering a soothing smile. \"Zed and Pherris look worse than I do, and I think Dalan's dog is hurt.\"\n\n\"You're worried about Gunther?\" Tristam asked with a chuckle.\n\nSeren shrugged.\n\n\"Compassion is that which separates warriors from heroes,\" Omax said quietly, dropping another load of debris in the pile.\n\nTristam gave the warforged a look, then grinned back at Seren. \"Don't mind Omax. He gets philosophical.\"\n\nSeren studied the crippled ship again. \"The damage doesn't look as bad as I thought it would,\" she said.\n\n\"Airships are mostly made of soarwood,\" Tristam said. \"It's naturally buoyant in the air, so with a good pilot a crash is usually something you can walk away from. Usually.\"\n\n\"Will it fly again?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"She, not it, Seren,\" Tristam said. \"Ships are always 'she.' And I don't know. The hull just needs some patching, but the keel arm snapped right off.\"\n\n\"What is Aeven doing up there?\" Seren asked, pointing up at the dryad.\n\nTristam frowned uncomfortably. \"Honestly, I'm not sure. She has some sort of connection with the elemental bound to Karia Naille. With the damage the ship has taken, the elemental could have become unbound and returned to its home plane\u2014or worse yet, stuck around and killed us all. Aeven has convinced the elemental to remain for a while, but even she can't keep it here forever.\" Tristam ran one hand through his unkempt hair as he surveyed the wreckage.\n\n\"Convinced it?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Elementals don't belong in this world,\" Tristam said. \"An airship can bind one and harness its power, but a dead ship can't hold an elemental anymore.\" He sighed. \"That's not even considering that Karia Naille will just collapse under her own weight if we leave her lying on her hull too long. She's designed to be buoyed in the air, not lying on rocks. We need to get her up on some sort of hoist or scaffolding so that I can finish the repairs and replace the keel strut. It wouldn't take long to get her airworthy enough to limp to a real city for proper repairs, but we don't have the materials or the manpower to do it.\" The artificer offered Seren a hopeless look. \"I don't know what to do, Seren.\"\n\n\"You kept the ship together long enough for Pherris to land,\" she said. \"That's what's important, Tristam. You saved us. We'll figure out the rest.\"\n\nHe smiled thankfully, but said nothing.\n\n\"Something is coming,\" Omax said, standing up abruptly. The warforged's glowing eyes fixed on the far end of the gorge, along the deep rut the crashing airship had left behind.\n\nFearing that Marth's soldiers might have found them, Seren reached for her dagger. Tristam's wand was already in his hand. After several moments the sound of heavy footfalls could be heard. Seren thought that they were hoof beats at first, given their speed and volume, but the rhythm was wrong.\n\nA cloud of dust rolled around the corner of the gorge, heralding the arrival of a half dozen large, bipedal lizards. Each was the size of a small horse, their hides a pale gray slashed with brilliant green stripes. Their yellow eyes were catlike and intelligent. Their grinning maws were lined with razor-sharp teeth. Small forearms hung close to their bodies. Each thickly muscled leg ended with a single sharply curved talon. The creatures wore leather harnesses on their backs, and upon each sat a halfling rider. They dressed in wild outfits of dark leather and bright silk, with thick crystal goggles to protect their eyes from dust. Each carried a quiver of short javelins on his back. The riders fanned out in a half-moon formation as they approached the fallen airship, each rider coming to a halt in perfect unison a hundred feet away. Twelve sets of eyes watched them alertly for any sign of hostility.\n\n\"Halfling hunters,\" Tristam said. He did not make any move toward them, but neither did he put his weapon away.\n\nA loud shriek rang out from above, followed by the leathery flap of wings. Blizzard landed gracefully between the crew and the halflings, his injured wing now healed by Eraina's magic. From the glidewing's back, Gerith greeted them with a broad smile.\n\n\"These six fine fellows are elite clawhunters from the Ghost Talon tribe,\" Gerith said, hopping from his saddle and indicating them with a broad gesture. \"This is their leader, Koranth, who will take us to meet Chief Rossa. I believe he's a distant cousin of mine, but it's difficult to be sure. My bloodline is somewhat... tangled.\"\n\n\"Color me surprised,\" Seren said.\n\nKoranth looked at Seren, then at the dagger in her hand. He barked something at Gerith and pointed at her.\n\n\"Put your weapons away, please,\" Dalan said, climbing down the gangplank to join them. \"If you antagonize the Ghost Talons, they'll only increase the fee for their aid. I fear they'll already be charging a great deal, given our obvious desperation.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" Seren said, bowing her head pertly to Koranth and sheathing her dagger. Tristam put his wand away as well.\n\nThe halfling scowled and said something unintelligible.\n\n\"Koranth only speaks a little bit of your language, unfortunately,\" Gerith explained. \"The others speak only the halfling tongue.\"\n\nDalan spoke to Koranth in the same high-pitched, rapid language, finishing with a formal bow. Koranth gave a small salute and eyed Dalan suspiciously.\n\n\"Dalan, I didn't know you spoke my tongue,\" Gerith said.\n\n\"I don't,\" he said. He tapped the soft black cap he now wore. \"Tristam's work. It gives me a rough understanding of their speech. It tends to place words poorly in context, stumbles with regional dialects, and is utterly confounded by slang, but it's better than nothing.\" He continued speaking to Koranth in the halfling language again.\n\nThe two spoke for some time, with Gerith often stepping in to explain when Dalan or Koranth misunderstood each other. Dalan made a loud comment and gestured back each of the crew members in turn. There was obviously some attempt at humor in his introductions, for Koranth's sour face broke into a smile and his fellow hunters laughed out loud. Seren wondered what he had said but was more impressed with how expertly he had said it. In mere seconds and without truly knowing their language, d'Cannith had brightened their hostile mood and earned their respect.\n\nAfter several minutes of negotiation, Dalan took several folded papers from his coat and handed them to the halfling. Koranth turned in his saddle and whistled shrilly. In reply, an enormous threehorn rumbled around the bend in the gorge. This one wore a complex harness over its broad back. Two halflings sat at the front, each holding a thick rope tied to one of the creature's horns. Two more hung from the back on each side, shortbows slung over their backs.\n\n\"Their beast can carry three of us to the Ghost Talon camp, where we can negotiate directly with their chieftain,\" Dalan explained. \"I will go, obviously. Gerith, we will need your knowledge of the culture. Follow us on your glidewing.\"\n\n\"Aye, Dalan,\" Gerith said.\n\n\"Seren, I will require your aid as well.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" she said, echoing the halfling.\n\n\"You should take Omax along,\" Tristam offered. \"You may need his strength.\"\n\nDalan looked at the warforged with some surprise. \"Are you certain you don't wish him to remain with the ship?\" he asked.\n\n\"Tristam is correct,\" Omax said. \"You may need me.\"\n\n\"The halfling beast cannot carry you,\" Dalan said.\n\n\"I can keep up,\" the warforged said, undaunted.\n\n\"Very well,\" Dalan said with a respectful nod. \"Probably best we also bring the paladin, if only to keep her away from Aeven for a while.\"\n\n\"Aeven didn't seem angry,\" Seren said.\n\n\"And count us all fortunate,\" Dalan said. \"Aeven's temper is difficult to rouse, but terrible to behold. Gather whatever supplies you will need and bring the marshal, Seren.\"\n\nSeren murmured her agreement and returned to the airship. She did not see Eraina on the deck, so she went to her cabin. She grabbed a leather satchel filled with extra clothing and, assuming the worst, tucked her belt of assorted thieves' tools inside as well. She slung the bag over her shoulder and turned to see Tristam standing in the hall.\n\n\"Seren, take this,\" he said, in a worried voice. He held out a silver bracelet studded with dark green gems. \"Its enchantment is similar to Dalan's hat, so you'll be able to understand the halflings a little, even if you can't talk to them.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, slipping the bracelet over her wrist. She gave him a confident smile and walked past him.\n\n\"Seren,\" Tristam called out.\n\nShe looked back. His expression was distracted, looking at the ground rather than directly at her. \"Be careful,\" he said. \"Marth has found us twice now with no warning.\"\n\n\"If he finds us again, I'll be ready,\" she said.\n\n\"That's not what I mean,\" Tristam said. \"Doesn't it strike you as odd that he keeps finding us so quickly?\"\n\n\"Couldn't he be tracking us like you tracked me?\" she asked.\n\n\"That sort of magic only works at close range,\" he answered. \"It doesn't explain why he keeps finding us half a continent away.\"\n\nSeren caught the darker meaning behind Tristam's words. Marth's attacks had not been the result of magic or coincidence.\n\n\"You think there's a spy,\" Seren said softly. \"Why do you trust me?\"\n\nHe looked at her earnestly. \"Why shouldn't I?\" he asked.\n\nSeren was taken aback by the sincerity in his voice. She wasn't used to people trusting her. Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.\n\n\"You be careful too, Tristam,\" she said.\n\nHe blinked at her in silent surprise.\n\nSeren climbed back up on deck to find Pherris still unconscious. Zed had limped off the ship to speak to Dalan. Eraina stood on the deck alone, near the door of Dalan's cabin.\n\n\"Eraina,\" Seren began.\n\n\"I heard,\" the paladin said, walking down the gangplank. \"I'm coming.\"\n\nSeren followed her to the threehorn, wondering how she had missed the paladin on her way below deck. Dalan was already mounted in the center of the threehorn's back. He peered about in obvious discomfort but offered no complaint. One of the halflings watched Dalan carefully, obviously waiting for the fat human to fall out of the saddle. The gigantic dinosaur stamped one foot in boredom but otherwise looked unconcerned as another halfling helped Eraina climb onto the creature's complex harness. A third hunter offered Seren a hand as well, and she took her place just above the creature's right hind leg.\n\nThe halfling pointed out a leather loop between her knees and instructed her how to strap herself in using gestures and babbling in his native tongue. In her head, Seren heard another voice superimposed over his words, produced by the bracelet Tristam had given her.\n\n\"Hold on there and keep the belt over your left leg secure,\" the voice said. \"If you need to get off quickly, give the slack end a tug. Just don't do that when we're running or you'll fall and bust open your cabbage.\"\n\nSeren had to cough to cover up her laugh. She wondered whether the \"cabbage\" was a translating error or just part of the odd halfling sense of humor. Chances were roughly equal that it was either.\n\nWith their passengers secured, Koranth gave a sharp cry to his men. The threehorn rumbled into movement, and the clawfoot dinosaurs fell into a trot. While the creature she rode moved with a stolid, powerful inertia, the clawfoots loped along with birdlike grace. Their ease of movement suggested that they were capable of far greater speed. Gerith's glidewing swooped into the sky ahead.\n\nFor more than an hour they traveled across the plains. The skies were clear and the land was flat and open. Seren was grateful for that. At least if Moon came after them now, they would see the airship coming. As the sun began to set, a small village of brightly painted conical tents and covered wagons came into view. A pair of clawfoot riders rode out to escort them. These creatures were larger than the others, equipped with impressive white leather armor studded with metal spikes. A quartet of glidewings now circled overhead, each bearing another rider.\n\n\"How do we know these halflings are not in league with the men who shot us down?\" Eraina asked Dalan, eyeing the halflings with caution.\n\n\"Because we are alive,\" Dalan said, as if that were obvious.\n\n\"Perhaps they intend to capture us,\" Eraina countered.\n\n\"An interesting hypothesis,\" Dalan admitted. \"I would argue that even captured we're better off alive than dead, as death offers little opportunity for escape. Now allow me to ignite your paranoia with my own suggestion\u2014how do we really know these halflings don't speak our language?\"\n\nDalan looked back at her with a smirk. One of the halfling drivers glanced at them with an innocent smile and returned to steering the threehorn.\n\nAs they made their way through the camp, a small crowd gathered to watch them pass. Men and women, old and young, all emerged from their tents and wagons to see the strangers. Children no taller than a foot peered out shyly from behind their parents. A dozen dogs with low, stocky bodies and fluffy coats danced around them in a barking frenzy. They were led to a large tent at the center of the camp, where they dismounted.\n\n\"So now we bargain for their aid?\" Eraina asked.\n\n\"Already done,\" Dalan said. \"The chief empowered Koranth to bargain on our behalf, so we resolved it back at the ship.\"\n\nOne of Koranth's men was shouting at a group of laborers lounging around a cart heaped high with lumber and tools. At their command, the massive threehorn pulling the cart lumbered off the way they had come.\n\n\"So what are we doing here, then?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"A halfling chief doesn't leave bargaining to underlings,\" Gerith said. \"Nothing is official till the chief approves. It'd be against tradition.\"\n\n\"But the workers already left,\" Eraina said, pointing at the departing wagons.\n\n\"The halflings rarely let tradition impede efficiency,\" Dalan said. \"One of many things I admire about them. In any case, I still have much to discuss with the chieftain.\"\n\nKoranth looked at them cautiously as they gathered before the tent, eyes resting on Eraina's spear. \"Leave the weapons outside,\" he said to Dalan. \"Even that one.\" He looked directly at Omax.\n\nOmax looked down at the halfling impassively. If he took insult, he gave no sign.\n\nDalan smiled. \"Seren, Eraina, please leave your weapons out here while we meet with the chief,\" he said. \"Omax, it may be best if you remained to guard our possessions, just in case.\"\n\nThe warforged nodded, accepting Eraina's spear and sword and Seren's dagger in grim silence. Koranth removed his boots and set them beside the entrance, glaring and not moving aside so they could enter until they did the same. The interior of the tent was carpeted with thick, soft fur. Six chairs of woven wicker padded with felt stood in a circle. A small table stood before each chair, each featuring several plates of food and a small pitcher of wine.\n\nIn the chair directly opposite the entrance sat a halfling who could only be the chief. He was an older halfling a long, white moustache and white hair tied into thick braids. His clothing was outrageous, consisting of a motley suit of green and gray silk, several sparkling beaded necklaces, and a peaked yellow hat capped with a long green plume. A suit of spiked leather armor hung on a stand beside his chair. It was dyed the same riotous color scheme as the chief's outfit.\n\n\"Chieftain Rossa,\" Koranth said in the halfling language. \"I present to you Dalan d'Cannith and his associates: Gerith Snowshale, Seren Morisse, and Eraina d'Deneith.\"\n\n\"Greetings, travelers, and welcome,\" Rossa said, speaking in the Common tongue. He gestured dramatically at the chairs. \"I offer you all the hospitality the Ghost Talon tribe has to offer. Sit, eat, and let us talk of friendship.\"\n\n\"My thanks, Chieftain,\" Dalan said. He bowed politely and sat directly across from Rossa. Gerith had already taken one of the other chairs and began chewing a chicken leg noisily. Seren sat between Dalan and the halfling. The plates were heaped with roasted bird meat, steamed vegetables, and crusty black bread. A wave of hunger hit Seren when she saw the food; she hadn't realized how famished she was until this moment. There didn't appear to be any utensils, but that neither concerned nor delayed the halflings from consuming their own meals with their hands, so she did the same. The food reminded her of the bold, spicy meals Gerith prepared on Karia Naille. She tore into the offerings with great relish.\n\n\"Gerith told us your airship had been badly damaged,\" Rossa said. \"Most unfortunate.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Dalan said, \"but with the aid of your tribe's carpenters it should be nothing we cannot repair.\"\n\nKoranth, seated at Rossa's right hand, drew the folded papers from his jacket and dropped them on the chieftain's table. Even from here, Seren could see they were letters of credit, marked with the House Cannith household seal. From her experience with the letters of credit she had encountered in her thieving career, she judged Dalan must have paid the halflings a small fortune.\n\n\"I apologize for the price, but it was necessary,\" Rossa said, though his pleased grin demonstrated he wasn't all that sorry. \"Lumber is a prized commodity. We trade with the Valenar for most of our wood, but the elves have been standoffish this year.\"\n\n\"Are the elves preparing for war?\" Dalan asked.\n\n\"The Valenar are always preparing for war,\" Rossa said with a shrug, as if it did not concern him. \"Invading the Plains or Q'barra, or maybe even readying a fleet to sail Balinor knows where and start a fight with someone new. War is a sport to the elves. If they invade the Plains, they'll get bored and leave eventually. Someone will fight them off. I wish them luck. Meanwhile we're headed as far north as we can get before winter.\"\n\nSeren found the comment strange. Though the village was built of tents and wagons, none of them seemed to have been uprooted for some time and none of the halflings looked ready to leave.\n\n\"I am humbled by your generosity,\" Dalan said. \"It is my honor if the wealth of my House helps purchase the security of your tribe this winter, especially if my charity is forgotten.\"\n\nThe halfling chuckled. \"I catch your meaning, d'Cannith,\" he said. \"Have no fear of that. Lumber may be scarce but discretion is our most precious export. As long as your money's good, you were never here.\"\n\n\"Excellent,\" Dalan said. \"Then as our business is concluded, perhaps you would not mind speaking of other matters? I came here seeking someone and hoped that you or one of your tribe might have information.\"\n\n\"Ask, my friend,\" Rossa said, sipping deeply from his cup.\n\nDalan was silent for the briefest moment. He gave the chieftain a tight smile and continued. \"I am seeking a young woman, a scholar named Kiris Overwood. I believe she was conducting research somewhere in Talenta. Would you know of her?\"\n\n\"Is this Overwood a friend of yours?\" Rossa asked, perhaps a bit more stiffly than was required.\n\n\"We are acquainted,\" Dalan said. \"She owes my family a significant debt.\"\n\nRossa stroked his moustache with a cackle. \"Why am I not surprised?\" he said, voice tinged with malicious glee. \"Yes, I know her. That girl is the lowest sort of thief. She came to us only a few weeks ago, looking for refuge from the law, no doubt. We gave her a home, and in thanks she stole one of my wife's rings from the very tent where I sleep. My guards pursued her, but she fled into the Boneyard, only a few days' journey from here. A shame and a disgrace it is, that I clasped such a serpent to my breast, but there's little to be done. The Boneyard is taboo to my people. Bad luck will haunt any halfling that enters. My wingriders have watched the area carefully, and she has not emerged.\"\n\n\"So, living or dead, we must seek her there,\" Dalan said.\n\n\"I could not allow you to enter the Boneyard, Master d'Cannith,\" Rossa said. \"My riders are distraught enough at the idea of patrolling such a place. I could not place more friends at risk.\"\n\n\"Most of my associates are not halflings,\" Dalan said. \"We are not bound by the taboos of your people. Perhaps we could aid you as you have aided us, and return what has been taken.\"\n\nRossa's eyes lit up as he turned to Seren. \"What a clever idea,\" he said, as if it had only now occurred to him. \"Though she is unlikely to be carrying the ring, I am certain I could encourage her to reveal what she has done with it.\"\n\n\"Dalan, there is something you should know,\" Eraina said in a stern voice.\n\n\"Later, Eraina,\" Dalan said with a warning tone.\n\n\"This is important, Dalan,\" she insisted. \"The chieftain...\"\n\n\"I said later,\" Dalan repeated. \"Negotiation is my specialty, Eraina. Allow me to handle this.\"\n\nEraina rose, her face pale and angry. She strode briskly out of the tent.\n\n\"Is there a problem?\" Rossa asked, looking after her blankly.\n\n\"There is always a problem,\" Dalan said. \"The path of a Spear of Boldrei is beset by obstacles.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Rossa said. \"Paladins.\" There was both understanding and odd sympathy in his tone, as if Dalan had informed him that Eraina was afflicted with some incurable disease.\n\n\"Seren, Gerith, why don't you make certain she is all right?\" Dalan suggested, looking at each of them in turn. \"I have much to discuss with the chieftain in private.\"\n\nSeren looked forlornly at her unfinished meal. She noticed that Gerith took his plate and cup with him without any complaint from the chief, so she did the same. They emerged from the tent to find Eraina pacing back and forth before Omax, who sat on the ground and watched her patiently. She looked up with a cold expression as the tent flap opened, softening when she saw Seren and Gerith.\n\n\"Eraina, is something wrong?\" Seren asked. \"What were you trying to tell Dalan?\"\n\n\"The chieftain,\" she said in a low voice, glancing about to make certain none of the villagers were close enough to hear. \"He is lying to us.\"\n\n\"Lying?\" Seren said. \"About what? About helping us?\"\n\n\"About Overwood,\" Eraina said. \"This tribe has not moved in many months. Why would any chieftain risk the safety of his tribe by lingering so close to a place that is so dangerously taboo, especially in the face of a Valenar invasion? He has lied to us, Seren.\"\n\n\"Chieftains don't lie,\" Gerith said, absently nibbling the last piece of meat from his chicken bone.\n\nEraina looked at the halfling scornfully. \"Gerith, your trust in your countryman is admirable but misplaced. I am quite adept at detecting falsehood with or without my goddess's blessings.\"\n\n\"No, you don't understand,\" he said, tossing the bone over one shoulder. \"A Talenta chieftain is not a normal halfling. A chieftain is free of all sin and vice. A chieftain cannot lie, and he certainly doesn't have extramarital affairs. And if he did he certainly wouldn't give away family jewelry and then get caught.\" He wiped one hand on his shirt. \"If such a thing happened, it would shame him and all his tribe, wouldn't it? So it doesn't happen. Ever.\"\n\n\"What are you saying, Gerith?\" Eraina demanded.\n\n\"What you just saw in there is what we call the hmael,\" Gerith said. \"It means the 'golden lie.' The chieftain can't tell the truth because it would harm his pride and put his virtue into question. Instead he tells an obvious lie, and assumes you'll figure out the truth for yourself.\"\n\n\"But a chieftain can't lie,\" Seren said.\n\n\"Exactly right,\" Gerith said, snapping his fingers. \"See? Seren understands. Thus the honor of the tribe is maintained. Hmael isn't exclusive to chieftains either. Halflings will often tell an impossible lie instead of the truth, and assume that their friends will be smart enough to figure out the truth and polite enough not to bring it up.\" He looked from one face to the next. \"I can't believe any of you could have been around me for any length of time and not notice me doing that.\"\n\n\"What have you lied about, Gerith?\" Seren asked.\n\nThe halfling grinned. \"If you can't figure it out, you'll get no clues from me.\"\n\n\"I cannot believe your people would embrace such dishonesty,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"The halflings say the truth is like a bathtub,\" Gerith said, taking no offense. \"Dipping in can be quite refreshing at the right time and place, but it's too much trouble to carry along everywhere.\"\n\nOmax laughed, but Eraina clearly did not find the analogy humorous. She sighed at the halfling and snatched her spear from the ground. \"I for one don't appreciate being lied to,\" she said. \"If he'll lie to us about Overwood, how do we know he hasn't lied to us about Marth as well? This could be a trap.\"\n\n\"I know the Ghost Talons,\" Gerith said. \"As long as Dalan's money is good, we can trust them. And House Cannith letters of credit are very, very good.\"\n\n\"And what if Marth has made them a better offer?\" Eraina asked.\n\nGerith frowned. \"We don't really have a choice, Eraina. This was the only settlement I could find that had the resources to help us and was anywhere close by. If we turn to anyone else for help, we may as well just keep walking because Karia Naille will never fly again.\"\n\n\"If you fear treachery, Eraina,\" Omax said, \"then all that remains is to be vigilant.\"\n\nThe paladin said nothing.\n\nThis is foolish, Dalan,\" Eraina snapped. \"No good will come of this.\"\n\n\"A foreboding prediction,\" Dalan said. He pushed aside the tent flap and peered outside, probably more out of habit than any real suspicion. Dalan had requested a private tent while he discussed the chieftain's proposition, though he had spent much of his time arguing with Eraina. \"If you disapprove so strongly of the course I have chosen, perhaps you might beseech your goddess to provide a reasonable alternative?\"\n\nThe paladin regarded Dalan coldly. \"You know that the Host does not interfere in such a manner,\" she said. \"I do not see why we have agreed to aid a man who cannot even be truthful with us.\"\n\nSeren almost laughed at that. Was there anyone in the crew other than Eraina who was truthful?\n\n\"We have agreed to aid him because we are surrounded by his warriors,\" Dalan said. \"I have little doubt that whatever Rossa's interest in Kiris really is, it has nothing to do with a ring. I do not intend to expose her to him while she is still valuable to us\u2014but Rossa need not know that.\"\n\nEraina folded her arms across her chest, body tense as she glared at Dalan.\n\n\"I see such a statement does not lessen your disapproval, Marshal,\" he said.\n\n\"If you do not intend to honor the agreement you made with Rossa, you should not have made it,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"First you warn me not to trust Rossa because he is a liar, and now you are upset to hear my agreement with him is insincere?\" Dalan asked with a smug grin. \"Mourn not a ruin built on sand, or so it is said, paladin. Worry not for your honor, d'Deneith, you have made no promises.\"\n\n\"But if I know Rossa cannot trust you,\" she said, \"why should I?\"\n\n\"Because of your irritating talent for detecting falsehood,\" Dalan said. \"Have I lied to you yet?\"\n\n\"Not that I can see, but my senses are not absolute.\"\n\n\"Excellent. Then let us cease this bickering and decide how we shall find Kiris Overwood.\"\n\n\"What exactly should we be looking for, Dalan?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Overwood herself will suffice,\" Dalan said. \"Tristam will need her spells to break my uncle's ciphers. A pity he is also required to repair the airship. His insight would be useful.\"\n\n\"So we intend to take Kiris with us?\" Seren asked. \"What if Rossa's men guarding our ship see her?\"\n\n\"A road to cross when we find her,\" Dalan said.\n\n\"Then what if she does not wish to come with us?\" Eraina asked.\n\n\"She will come,\" Dalan said. He took an envelope from his coat and offered it to Seren. It was sealed with blue wax featuring the House Cannith crest. \"If all else fails, give her this. Try to reason with her at first, if possible. I would prefer not to fulfill the promises contained therein.\"\n\n\"What if Kiris is not alive?\" Omax asked. \"If the Boneyard is as dangerous as we have heard, and she has not emerged in weeks, she may be dead.\"\n\n\"Overwood was my uncle's most trusted confidant,\" Dalan said. \"I do not doubt she is resourceful enough to survive in such a place. It would be a simple matter for her to use magic to sustain herself, and I do not doubt she could find a way to protect herself from whatever horrors dwell there.\"\n\n\"Horrors,\" Gerith said. The halfling laughed bitterly. \"What about them? You haven't even talked about the biggest problem, Dalan. Surviving the Boneyard.\"\n\nDalan looked keenly at the halfling. \"You have known we were bound for the Boneyard since we left Black Pit.\"\n\n\"No,\" Gerith said. \"I knew that we were going near the Boneyard. I didn't expect that Kiris would be stupid enough to actually live there, or that we'd be stupid enough to follow her into the damned place.\" From the way Gerith spoke the word, \"damned\" was deliberately chosen.\n\n\"Then enlighten us before we continue,\" Dalan said. \"What, precisely, is the nature of the Boneyard and its curse?\"\n\n\"It's a graveyard,\" Gerith answered. \"It's filled with the bones of dragons as old as the continent itself. Nobody has ever seen a live dragon there. Nobody knows how the bones got there. It's off limits for all halflings. Even the city halflings who ignore the old ways don't take the curse lightly.\"\n\n\"And what is the curse, specifically?\" Dalan asked.\n\n\"Any halfling who enters will die far from home and be unmourned by his tribe,\" Gerith said.\n\n\"Then nothing prevents you from guiding Seren, Eraina, and Omax there, so long as you remain outside,\" Dalan said. \"After all, they aren't halflings.\"\n\nGerith laughed nervously. \"You don't understand, Dalan. The curse is there to protect us, to stave off curiosity. With or without the curse, the Boneyard is evil. There are dead things there, things better left undisturbed. That place is dangerous.\"\n\n\"We are already in a great deal of danger, Gerith,\" Dalan said. \"Or do you not recall our rough landing? Now will you lead us to the Boneyard, or must I rely upon one of Rossa's guides?\"\n\nGerith looked at Omax and Eraina before casting a long, troubled look at Seren. She offered him as encouraging a smile as she could muster.\n\n\"I'll help,\" he said. \"But I don't like it.\"\n\n\"And I regret forcing you into such a decision,\" Dalan said, \"but we all must make sacrifices.\"\n\n\"Sacrifice, d'Cannith?\" Eraina laughed. \"I notice you did not list yourself as one of those entering the Boneyard. What sacrifice do you intend to make, remaining here?\"\n\nDalan met the paladin's mocking gaze levelly. \"Do not mistake pragmatism for cowardice, Marshal,\" he said. \"I know my limitations. I do not excel in physical arenas. I would only be a burden in a place like the Boneyard. Here, at least, I can keep a watchful eye on Rossa. I assumed that all those more capable than myself would be willing to participate, but if that assumption was incorrect, please speak up. Do any of you wish to remain here?\"\n\n\"No,\" Eraina said.\n\nOmax did not reply. Strangely enough, he looked at Seren.\n\n\"Can't turn back once you start,\" Seren said.\n\nAt that, Omax silently nodded his approval.\n\nThey set out almost immediately afterward, making their way across the Talenta Plains on foot. Rossa claimed his tribe had no suitable steeds to offer humans, though Seren suspected that he did not wish to send his own animals into the accursed Boneyard. She didn't mind walking. After spending so many days cooped inside the cramped airship, a chance to stretch her legs was welcome. The plains were broad and flat, so they made good time.\n\nEraina set the pace for the others, moving with tireless energy. Gerith remained mostly airborne and out of sight, returning to adjust their course or prepare a brief meal. With each hour that passed, the halfling's cheerful demeanor grew more subdued. Seren met the change with mixed feelings. While a part of her was relieved that the halfling had ceased his bad jokes and mischievous flirtations, she was saddened to see the cheerful little scout so depressed.\n\nThe silence of her companions only added to Seren's sense of foreboding. Eraina was in a sour mood after her confrontation with Dalan. The warforged plodded along just behind her, hardly saying a word. That night, they pitched their tents and slept on the grass in tense silence. Early the next morning, they set out again. Seren had grown so used to the silence that Omax startled her with an unexpected question.\n\n\"What do you expect we will find?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" she said, slowing her pace so he walked beside her. \"A lot of the world outside Wroat is still new to me. I never know what to expect.\"\n\nThe warforged looked down at her. His metal face radiated concern, or perhaps she just imagined it. \"If the halflings fear the Boneyard, we should be extremely cautious.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Whatever frightens halflings can't be all that scary.\"\n\n\"You underestimate them,\" Omax answered. \"If halflings fear this place, we would be wise to do the same. Halflings are tenacious warriors. Have you ever seen Gerith shy away from danger? You have seen the way he leaps to his glidewing, hurling himself into the sky without hesitation.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Seren admitted. \"Though Gerith is the only halfling I've really known. It's hard for me to imagine him as a tenacious warrior.\"\n\n\"Then you do not truly know him,\" Omax said. \"Gerith has defeated the most difficult foe with ease.\"\n\n\"What foe is that?\" she asked.\n\n\"Himself,\" Omax said. \"None of the rest of us can claim such mastery. We are all haunted by ghosts, burdened by memories of what we once were, fearful of what we might become, or driven by the impossibly high expectations of others. Most souls look outside themselves for validation. Gerith is one of the few men I have met who knows who he truly is and is at peace with that. He is the strongest of us all, Seren.\" He looked at her. \"And he is afraid.\"\n\nSeren was silent for a long time. \"I never thought about halflings that way, but I never bothered to get to know them. I've never really known a warforged before either. You're more philosophical than I expected.\"\n\n\"Philosophical?\" Omax asked with a rattling chuckle. \"A philosopher asks the world why he exists, but I already know the answer to that question.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Seren asked. \"Why do you exist, Omax?\"\n\n\"To kill,\" Omax said sadly. \"I am a weapon.\" The warforged bowed his head and stared at the back of one wide metal hand, a smooth surface of adamantine and darkwood tattooed with an ancient patchwork of battle scars. \"I was among the first warforged that were truly alive. Beside a legion of my brethren I led a Cyran assault against the nation of Breland. The soldiers we faced were not prepared for our power. A single platoon escaped, taking refuge in the only fortified structure they could find\u2014a monastery of the Sovereign Host.\"\n\n\"That must have been a long time ago,\" Seren said.\n\n\"To me, the memories are fresh,\" Omax said. \"The monks gave our enemies sanctuary and would not surrender them to us. My orders were clear\u2014those who would not surrender were to be showed no mercy. We battered down the doors and invaded the monastery... the monks offered no violence but...\" The warforged's three-fingered hand closed with a metallic clang. \"They would not stand aside.\"\n\n\"Omax,\" Seren said softly. \"You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to.\"\n\n\"It was a slaughter, Seren. They were no match for us, and they knew it.\" He looked at her again. His blue eyes shone coldly. She did not know what else to say, so she continued to listen.\n\n\"One of the last surviving enemy soldiers must have been a wizard or artificer of some sort. As a final show of defiance, he unleashed an explosion that gutted the monastery, burying me and my comrades beneath tons of rubble. The others perished, but I did not. I found myself trapped in silence and shadow. A warforged needs neither food, nor air, nor sleep. So for two decades, I remained there.\"\n\n\"What did you do all that time?\" she asked.\n\n\"Nothing but think about how I had come to be,\" he said. \"Until at last I saw the light again. Tristam was the one who found me and repaired me. He gave me back my life, and this time I did not make the same mistake.\"\n\n\"To be a warrior?\" Seren asked.\n\nOmax shook his head. \"No,\" he said. \"To be a warrior is a worthy task, to fight with honor for a cause. That is not what I was. I was created with the power of choice, Seren. Though I am a machine, intended to be a weapon, I was somehow given the potential to become something more. Instead, I chose to obey blindly because it was the easier path. When I looked into the eyes of those monks, I saw the truth too late. Any crude weapon can take life away. When I refused to find a better way, I chose to be less than I could be. I squandered the gift I had been given, and I squandered the lives of those men and the warforged who followed me. Tristam gave me a second chance. I know what I was meant to be, Seren, but I do not wish to be only that.\"\n\n\"You still sound like a philosopher to me,\" Seren said. \"You know the answers, but now you're looking for a new question.\"\n\nHe glanced at her sharply. His blue eyes flickered. \"Yes,\" he said in an amused voice. \"That is exactly so. You have a keen mind, Seren. I can see why Tristam admires you.\"\n\n\"Me?\" she said. \"He's barely spoken to me since we left Black Pit. He's been obsessed with his work.\"\n\n\"Tristam has difficulty allowing others into his life,\" Omax said. \"Yet he cares for you, Seren. Remember that it was only after Dalan commanded you to join him that Tristam volunteered my aid.\"\n\nSeren blinked at Omax in surprise. She realized that the warforged had not wandered far from her side since leaving Karia Naille. Even during their meeting with the halfling chieftain, he had remained as close to the tent as he dared. \"Tristam sent you to protect me?\" she asked, sounding a bit outraged.\n\n\"It seems that way,\" Omax said. \"I think my efforts will be largely wasted. You appear quite capable of protecting yourself.\"\n\nSeren laughed and smiled up at Omax, but the warforged's blue eyes were locked straight ahead. She followed his gaze to find that Gerith had landed atop a hill. Eraina was already kneeling beside the halfling, shielding her eyes from the sun as she studied the distant horizon. She hurried to join them.\n\n\"Well, there it is,\" Gerith greeted them in a hushed voice. \"This is as far as I go.\"\n\nBeneath them, the grassy plains gradually gave way to a valley of chalky white, nestled just against the mountains. Chasms and gorges crisscrossed the surface, creating a maze of shadowed stone. Large white shapes broke the ground here and there, occasionally curving into a fearsome claw or a narrow skull with empty, staring eyes. The creatures that once owned these bones must have been truly immense if such detail was visible even from here.\n\n\"A graveyard for dragons,\" Eraina said, crouching low as she scanned the area for danger. \"Your people were right to be wary of this place, Snowshale. Boldrei warns me that there is evil here.\"\n\n\"You needed Boldrei to tell you that?\" Gerith asked, stunned.\n\nThe paladin ignored the halfling.\n\n\"Are there still dragons here?\" Omax asked.\n\n\"No,\" Gerith said. \"Nobody's ever seen a live dragon here, though if you ask me that isn't very reassuring. I'd almost rather meet a dragon than whatever frightens the dragons away.\"\n\n\"Or whatever they abandoned here,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"I'll wait in this area,\" Gerith said, glancing from one of them to the next helplessly. \"Are you sure you don't want to turn back? If you want to tell Dalan we didn't find anything...\" His words died away when he saw Eraina's unflinching glare. \"Right then,\" he said. \"I guess lying is out.\"\n\n\"We'll be careful, Gerith,\" Seren said.\n\n\"When you're ready to leave, or if you get in any trouble, fire one of these,\" Gerith said, offering a half dozen thick, cloth-wrapped tubes to Seren. \"Tristam made them. Break them in half and the air will ignite them. They let off a bright light and explode in a cloud of smoke. I'll see them, day or night.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Gerith,\" Seren said, tucking the tubes into one of her pouches. \"We'll be careful.\"\n\n\"See that you do,\" the halfling said. \"My story won't be any good without its heroine.\" He smiled weakly, then tugged at his glidewing's reins. Blizzard hopped into the air and spread its wings with a crack, soaring away over the plains.\n\n\"Where do we start?\" Seren asked, staring out at the vast expanse. \"It's larger than I thought it would be. Overwood could be anywhere.\"\n\n\"Then it doesn't matter where we start,\" Eraina said, starting off down the hill.\n\nSeren followed, with Omax bringing up the rear. When they drew closer, Eraina knelt in the thinning grass. She knelt to pick up a fragment of white stone, then stared out at the bleached expanse with wide eyes. \"The ground is bone,\" she said, gingerly setting the fragment back down. \"The entire valley is paved in fossilized bone.\"\n\n\"There is no wind,\" Omax observed. \"This place is undisturbed by the elements. I can see why the halflings would find this place unnatural.\"\n\n\"Let's find Kiris and leave,\" Seren said.\n\nThe others had no argument. They continued onward, the gentle slope of the plains becoming a steep incline. The scattered bone fragments became thicker until they covered the area like loose shale. Combined with the steep incline, the path became treacherous. Seren was forced to kick loose bone away with each step she took, seeking purchase underneath. The sounds of clattering debris resounded into the valley, making Seren wince.\n\nOmax pitched forward as the ground cracked noisily beneath his feet. His right leg sank into the surface up to his thigh, sending a ripple of scattered bone outward. Seren felt the ground pitch beneath her. Knowing there was little she could do, she leapt forward into a roll rather than fight for balance. She tumbled down the valley wall, grunting as the rough surfaces gouged her arms and legs. She finally tumbled to a halt and, finding nothing broken, came to her feet again. She stood in a forest of larger bone fragments. Broken skulls and hipbones lay like fallen boulders. Enormous ribs and claws reached for the sky like spectral trees, crisscrossing in a ghastly canopy. Spires of bare stone erupted from the bone in places, painted with bizarre sienna patterns. The air was still and musty with the faint taste of lime.\n\nHigher up the slope, Eraina helped Omax pull his trapped leg free. The warforged was annoyed but uninjured as he wrenched himself out of the bones. The dragon bones were hollow, like a bird's, and Omax's heavy tread had broken through the surface of one of the larger ones. The Boneyard was covered with layers upon layers of bone. Seren wondered how deep the remains went.\n\n\"Seren?\" Omax called out, unable to find her amid the broken landscape.\n\n\"I'm all right,\" she said, studying the steep, unstable slope. \"I don't think I can get back up to where you are.\"\n\n\"We'll come to you,\" Eraina said, picking her way gingerly down the slope.\n\n\"Be careful,\" Seren said.\n\nThe gigantic skulls of countless long-dead dragons stared silently down at her. Though it had been early morning when they had arrived, the valley was painted in a dusty half-light. She could no longer find the sun. The Boneyard radiated a sense of timelessness. \"We have been here for ages,\" the bones seemed to say, \"We will be here when you are gone.\"\n\nThere was something distinctly... wrong about the Boneyard. The shadows did not match the light as they should. The colors were not right. The patterns painted upon the stones twisted when Seren looked at them from the corner of her eye. Seren found it both disturbing and somehow familiar. She was an unwelcome intruder in a place where time stood still. She remembered Omax's words; it was obvious why the halflings avoided this place. She retreated into the curve of a fallen jawbone and waited for her friends.\n\nOmax led the way down to Seren, each step cautious and calculated. Eraina followed, spear clutched in both hands as she searched for any sign that the noise had attracted enemies.\n\nSeren saw it first, a furtive movement in the darkness between two towering rib bones. Eraina and Omax did not notice. As they approached, Seren peered out just enough for them to see her. She silently waved them away. A brief look of confusion flickered across Eraina's face, but Omax understood. The warforged marched directly past Seren's hiding place. The paladin followed with an uncomfortable frown. Several seconds after they had moved on, the shadows moved again. Seren saw it more clearly as it moved closer, a young woman in tattered robes, darting through the jagged white forest. The woman didn't offer a second glance in Seren's direction, following Eraina and Omax instead. Seren guessed that she had been drawn by the earlier noise and was investigating the new arrivals but arrived too late to see Seren hide.\n\nSeren crept out from behind the jawbone, falling into step behind the strange woman. Seren could see now that her robes were blue velvet, once obviously of fine quality, now torn and stained with the Boneyard's bleached dust. Her dark hair hung long and unkempt about her shoulders, adding to her savage appearance. Many heavy pouches hung from her belt but she carried no obvious weapons. Seren caught the faint smell of sulfur and jasmine. Seren tucked her dagger carefully away. She moved to the center of the rough path, hands clearly visible and far from her body but ready to spring away instantly if she needed to.\n\n\"Kiris Overwood,\" Seren said, loudly enough so that her friends ahead would hear.\n\nThe woman whirled, one hand reaching for her belt, eyes blazing with fear. She stopped when she saw Seren held no weapons, and realized that Eraina and Omax were now standing behind her.\n\n\"You aren't Cyran,\" she said, studying Seren's face intently. A brief look of relief shone on her dirty face, only to be replaced by intense suspicion. \"Who are you? How do you know me?\"\n\n\"My name is Seren Morisse,\" Seren said, keeping her voice calm and soothing. Kiris moved with the tense energy of a wild animal, as if, finding herself trapped, she would flee or attack at any moment. \"I work for Dalan d'Cannith. We need your help.\"\n\n\"Dalan d'Cannith,\" Kiris said, spitting out the name. \"Why am I not surprised?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Seren asked.\n\nThe heavy thud of a large and heavy thing falling erupted behind Seren, scattering the bones.\n\n\"Khyber,\" Kiris hissed. \"Run!\"\n\nSeren looked back in time to see a second shadowy mass distend, like a raindrop, from the end of a twenty-foot claw. It fell somewhere behind the rumpled heaps of broken bone, landing with a thud. Another, third shape struck the ground somewhere to their left, in the darkness. Kiris rushed past them, scrambling over heaps of shattered bone without hesitation.\n\n\"What?\" Omax said, following the wizard.\n\nThen a shrieking, gibbering screech filled the air. Seren screamed as the sound pressed into her mind, driving away all reason. A shapeless mass of flesh covered with fanged mouths and wide eyes launched from the bones and struck Omax in the chest, pinning the warforged to the ground. Another erupted from the path on the other side, lashing at Eraina with fleshy arms covered with countless biting mouths. The paladin parried the blows with her spear, moving to block its path to Seren. The thief knelt among the bones, laughing hysterically as the world melted and swirled before her eyes. In the distance, she saw Kiris unleash a bolt of arcane power into another thrashing beast and continue running without them.\n\n\"Seren, focus,\" Eraina shouted, stabbing at the nearest creature with her spear.\n\nOmax rolled to his feet, still struggling. The creature chewed hungrily at his chest and limbs. Unable to dislodge it, he instead positioned himself over a sharp bone outcropping and fell forward with all his weight. Something snapped noisily and the creature's mad gibbering became a shriek of pain. Its limbs flailed violently, pushing the warforged away. Omax fell to one side, out of its grasp, leaving the thing impaled on the now fractured spike.\n\nSeren's hand found her dagger and clasped the hilt. Her world drew into focus again. She leapt to her feet, holding the weapon in one hand. The weapon would likely do little good against these things, but being armed once again lent her confidence.\n\n\"These are the same creatures we fought in Black Pit,\" Omax said as another rose over a heap of bony debris.\n\n\"More are coming,\" Kiris said as two more dripped from bony overhangs in the distance. \"These are aberrations of Xoriat, gibbering creatures that corrupt the earth and spread madness to paralyze their prey. We cannot fight so many. Follow me if you can, but do not expect me to wait for you.\"\n\nThe gibbering sounds became louder again. They pressed in like a wave, clawing at their minds, seeking to tear away reason. Seren's eyes narrowed as she fought for focus. She saw another flash of magic far ahead. Kiris was abandoning them... but she was fighting her way toward something.\n\n\"Omax, grab Eraina's hand,\" Seren said, sheathing her dagger and digging through her pouches.\n\nThe warforged complied, though both he and the paladin looked at her with confusion. Seren drew out two of Gerith's flares, broke the ends, tossed them to the ground, and grasped Omax's other arm. The manic gibbering was broken by a loud shriek, a flash of light, and a choking cloud of smoke.\n\n\"Follow me,\" Seren shouted, charging in the direction Kiris had fled. She hoped they had the presence of mind to follow, because she certainly wasn't strong enough to drag Omax against his will.\n\nThey trudged along blindly after her, stumbling out of the smoke. The smell of burning, rotten flesh wafted over them, rising from one of the creatures Kiris had killed. Seren saw a patch of brown movement and ran after it, just in time to see the wizard disappear through a cleft in the bone wall.\n\nSeren hesitated only a moment before darting through after her.\n\nAt first glance, the crack in the wall appeared to extend only a few feet. Kiris had disappeared without a trace. Seren reached out to find the inside wall was actually a dull white curtain, blending seamlessly with the bones. She pushed it aside and stepped into a small natural cavern. A rumpled blanket lay in one corner, surrounded by scattered books. A collection of oddly shaped bone fragments littered the center of the room. The remains of a small fire smoldered in the corner, smoke trickling through a crack in the roof. The chamber smelled of stale sweat and smoke. Kiris Overwood stood in the far corner of the cavern, watching her suspiciously.\n\n\"Mind the wards,\" she said, pointing at Seren's feet with a slender copper wand. \"It is safe for you to step over but break their border and the aberrations of Xoriat will swiftly come for us.\"\n\nThe mad shrieking that filled the Boneyard punctuated her warning. Seren looked down and saw a row of shimmering silver runes spanning the threshold. She stepped over with care, as did Eraina. A loud crack sounded as Omax forced his thick bulk through the narrow opening and carefully followed them inside. Kiris darted past them, pulling the curtain over the opening again and offering them a suspicious look.\n\n\"You picked a fine time to come here,\" she said. \"Some days the Boneyard is quiet. This is not one of them.\"\n\n\"Are you certain we are safe here?\" Eraina asked.\n\n\"Quite certain,\" Kiris said. \"The wards both conceal our presence from the beasts and bar their entrance. They cannot even hear us, but I ask that you keep your voices down regardless. While my magic protects against the horrors from beyond this world, sometimes more mundane threats prowl this place. Fortune seekers. Grave robbers. Opportunists.\" She looked at each of them sharply. \"And tell your weapon to keep its distance.\" She gestured at Omax with her wand.\n\nOmax folded his heavy arms across his chest, neither backing away nor making any aggressive movement.\n\n\"Omax means no harm,\" Seren said.\n\n\"So it claims, I am sure,\" Kiris answered. \"Be wary. I saw the damage those abominable things can do in the war, and I know this one well. Tristam was a fool to ever repair it.\"\n\n\"On my honor as a Sentinel Marshal and a Spear of Boldrei, I vouch for the warforged,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"A Sentinel Marshal working for Dalan d'Cannith?\" Kiris said. \"I thought you mercenaries were more selective.\"\n\n\"There is no need to threaten Omax or insult me,\" Eraina said, her voice cool.\n\n\"I mean no insult, I merely wish to gauge your motivations,\" Kiris said. \"As for threats, that was no threat; it was a warning. If you would ally yourselves with a warforged, you are already in danger. Those beasts have a disturbing propensity for violence and betrayal.\"\n\n\"She is right,\" Omax said. \"Yet I assure you, Lady Overwood, I have set that path behind me. I serve Tristam Xain now.\"\n\n\"Tristam?\" Kiris asked, recognition flickering in her eyes. \"He is here?\"\n\n\"He is repairing our damaged airship,\" Seren said.\n\nKiris's angry scowl softened in confusion, but only for an instant. \"What are you doing here?\" she asked. \"How did Dalan find me?\"\n\n\"We found an enchanted hand lens that you created,\" Seren said. \"It was in the possession of a changeling named Marth. We know that it can read certain codes in Ashrem d'Cannith's journals, but we don't know how it works.\"\n\nKiris's eyes widened. \"You took the lens from Marth?\" she asked. \"Is he still alive?\"\n\n\"For now,\" Seren said.\n\nKiris frowned. \"So Dalan still seeks the Legacy,\" she said. \"I cannot help you, but neither will I offer you harm. You may remain here until the creatures have gone, but then you must leave and forget you saw me here.\"\n\n\"Then while we wait, perhaps you could tell us what you know about this Marth person,\" Eraina said. \"He is responsible for the murder of Jamus Roland and likely Bishop Llaine Grove as well.\"\n\n\"Llaine is dead?\" Kiris said, looking up at Eraina with wide eyes. \"Llaine's self-righteousness and blind faith in those who supported the war was galling at times, but I can't believe Marth would kill him.\"\n\n\"You are gravely deluded, woman,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"I saw Marth murder Jamus Roland,\" Seren said. \"He has been hunting us in Ashrem's old airship, Moon.\"\n\n\"You were aboard that ship on the Day of Mourning,\" Eraina said. \"How did you survive, and why did you allow the world to think you were dead?\"\n\n\"Why should I care what the world thinks of me?\" Kiris said in a hollow voice. \"My life ended in every way that matters on the Day of Mourning. Ashrem is gone. My homeland is gone. My entire family perished. Together, Marth and I repaired Moon enough to limp out of Cyre. I have been here since we escaped, helping him with his work from afar.\"\n\nEraina's stance shifted. The change was slight, but Seren could see that the paladin now held her spear ready. Her eyes were angry, intent. \"So you are his ally,\" she said. \"Who is he? Where is his home port? How did he gather his troops?\"\n\n\"Marth is a visionary,\" Kiris said after a long silence. \"There is no other word for it. He is the sort that others naturally wish to follow. His followers are Cyran soldiers who were fortunate enough to be outside their homeland when Cyre was destroyed.\" She closed her eyes, as if pained by the recollection. \"He is a patriot and a hero, not a killer.\"\n\n\"You are lying,\" Eraina said. \"You lie to us and to yourself. I hear it in your quavering voice. You've suspected what he truly is. What we've told you doesn't surprise you at all, does it?\"\n\n\"Marth is a good man,\" Kiris protested, lowering her eyes. \"Or he was, once. But you are right, Marshal. I have seen him change since the Day of Mourning, but were it not for him I would be dead or worse. The things we have seen, the horror that Cyre has become, have driven him to desperation. I know he has concealed things from me. His cause is noble, but I have seen the rage that burns inside him. Now, to hear that he might have had a part in these killings...\"\n\n\"What is his plan?\" Eraina demanded.\n\n\"He only wishes to finish Ashrem d'Cannith's work,\" Kiris said. \"He wishes to complete the Legacy. He returns here from time to time, and I share what I have learned with him. He applies my findings to his work.\"\n\n\"Why here?\" Omax asked.\n\nThe wizard sighed. \"What do you know of the Draconic Prophecy?\" she asked.\n\nEraina removed her left glove and rolled up her sleeve, exposing the dragonmark on her forearm. The twisting pattern closely resembled the marks on the stones outside. \"I know some,\" the paladin said. \"The Prophecy appears as a series of arcane symbols, like these. It manifests on the earth, the sky, and some say even the dragonmarks that we bear are part of it. The dragons created it as a guide to what is to come, and what has come to be. The writings often carry magical power.\"\n\n\"Partially right,\" Kiris said. \"Though I do not believe the dragons truly created the Prophecy. I think they were merely the first to discover it and thus it bears their name. After all, if a dragon wishes to name something after itself, who are we to argue?\"\n\n\"So where does it come from?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"I do not know,\" Kiris said. \"Such questions cannot be answered. Who created the Sovereign Host? Does the Marshal's inability to answer that question make Boldrei less worthy a goddess?\"\n\n\"Leave my faith out of this,\" Eraina warned.\n\n\"I meant no offense,\" Kiris said. \"I only mean that there is much about this world that none of us understand. We must take some things on faith as we search for answers, and the origin of the Prophecy is one of those things. We can rely only upon that which we know. The Prophecy is ancient. The Prophecy is powerful. The Prophecy\u2014as far as I know\u2014is never wrong.\"\n\n\"So what do those marks outside say?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Many things,\" Kiris said. \"Most of what I have deciphered speaks of a great battle between dragonkind and the demons of Khyber. It says that the dragons would sever the thread that binds the worlds and rend the very essence of their enemies. That battle came to pass before the dawn of mankind. Now the bones and the Prophecy are all that remain.\"\n\nEraina's face darkened. \"There is more you have not told us,\" she said with grave certainty. \"What does the Legacy have to do with this?\"\n\n\"Ashrem,\" Kiris said. \"He first found this place many years ago. With help, he deciphered many of the writings outside. He learned how the dragons defeated the demons. They created an... anchor, if you will. An artifact that negates magic of all kinds. All arcane energies are forcibly and permanently canceled. All enchantments are destroyed. All gateways to other dimensions permanently closed. The tool the dragons forged to defeat the demons is what inspired the Legacy. Ashrem used the principles he learned here to create it. While Marth searches for Ashrem's lost journals, I labor here to understand the Prophecy as Ashrem understood it. My skill at artifice is nothing compared to Marth or Ashrem, but I have always had a talent for deciphering language and codes. I have learned much.\"\n\n\"And what would the Legacy do to creatures of magic?\" Omax asked.\n\n\"See the results for yourself,\" she said, gesturing at the bone samples on the floor. \"Magic is a dragon's lifeblood, and it was stripped from them. The other dragons left their brethren where they fell as a tribute to their sacrifice. The dragons who activated the original Legacy knew what would happen, but to ensure the future of our world they were willing to die.\"\n\n\"The Legacy destroys all magic?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"With how heavily the Five Nations rely on magic,\" Eraina said, \"a thing like that could throw entire cities into chaos.\"\n\n\"It is not a weapon, it is a tool,\" Kiris said. \"If used improperly the potential for damage is great; I will not deny that. Why do you think we hide what we do? Marth intends to use the Legacy to tame the wild energies of the Mournland and restore the former grandeur that was our home. He wishes to restore Cyre.\"\n\n\"Marth has deceived you, Kiris,\" Eraina said. \"If he truly wished to help Cyre, he would approach the nations of Khorvaire and ask their aid. King Boranel would gladly aid him if only to remove the Cyran refugees from his borders. Marth need not steal and murder to reach his goal. He chooses a path of evil.\"\n\nKiris laughed. \"Is that so?\" she asked. \"Then which nation does your master, Dalan, represent? What good deed will he do when he finds the Legacy?\"\n\n\"Dalan is not my master,\" Eraina said. \"I seek only justice.\"\n\n\"Regardless, if you believe Dalan is any more honorable than Marth, or that the kings of Khorvaire can be entrusted with the Legacy, you are the one who is deluded. The surviving nations pretend to grieve for Cyre and offer its survivors what scraps they deign to spare, but they do not truly wish to see the Mournland restored. As far as they are concerned, the death of Cyre means one less enemy. If any of them gained the power of the Legacy, they would only use it against one another.\"\n\n\"Better Dalan than Marth,\" Seren said. \"I saw him kill Jamus Roland with my own eyes.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" Kiris said, though the hesitation before she spoke betrayed her doubt. \"I see your disgust. You think I am a fool, but we have come too far. I cannot allow myself to believe Marth is what you claim he is. I cannot turn against him.\"\n\n\"You are blind and pathetic,\" Eraina said.\n\n\"Am I?\" Kiris asked, looking at the paladin. \"Perhaps I believe he can become the hero he used to be. You embrace a killer who seeks redemption,\" she pointed at the warforged. \"Yet I do so and I am a fool?\"\n\n\"If he seeks redemption, shooting us down over Talenta is a curious way to start,\" Omax said.\n\n\"Then what if you are right?\" Kiris asked. \"What if Marth is a madman? If I turn against him it would be one more in a long chain of betrayals heaped upon him. What hope would there be for him then?\"\n\n\"You are a fool defending a murderer,\" Eraina said.\n\nKiris looked at the tip of Eraina's spear. \"I would think that a paladin of Boldrei would recognize the power of faith. Tell Dalan what I have said. I hope he will understand. I cannot help you, but neither will I tell Marth that you have been here.\"\n\n\"You misunderstand your situation, Overwood,\" Eraina said. \"I am a Sentinel Marshal. You have confessed to aiding a murder suspect. You will accompany us. I do not offer you a choice.\"\n\n\"You cannot force me to leave,\" Kiris said.\n\n\"Is that a threat?\" Eraina asked, hefting her spear. \"I do not fear your magic, wizard.\"\n\nSeren took a step away from Kiris, moving closer to Omax.\n\n\"I will not hurt you,\" Kiris said. \"Neither can you compel me to leave.\"\n\nEraina held the wizard's gaze for several moments and then lowered the point of her spear. With a swift, deliberate movement, she scratched a gouge across the wards that protected the door. Outside, the shrieking of the creatures that haunted the Boneyard began to build.\n\n\"What have you done, Marshal?\" Kiris asked in horror.\n\n\"I present a choice,\" Eraina said, pointing her spear in the wizard's direction. \"You can leave the Boneyard with us, or you can remain here and see if these beasts offer you greater mercy than I do. Can you restore your wards before they arrive?\"\n\nKiris's face paled. \"I cannot,\" she said, \"but I would rather Marth find me here dead than betray him.\"\n\n\"Idiocy!\" Eraina snapped, advancing on the wizard.\n\n\"Wait,\" Seren said, moving between them. \"Dalan said you might not wish to help.\" She took the sealed envelope from her pocket and offered it to Kiris. \"He asked me to give you this.\"\n\nThe wizard accepted it with a pensive eye. She broke the seal and hurriedly tore it open, taking out the letter and letting the envelope fall to the floor. Her eyes moved across the page several times, as if she did not believe what she had read. Her expression grew slowly more troubled. Outside, the beasts drew closer.\n\n\"We must leave now,\" Omax warned, watching the door. \"This is a bad place to be trapped.\"\n\n\"Ever the expert negotiator, Dalan,\" Kiris said in a bitter, subdued voice. \"Very well.\" She creased the letter sharply and dropped it in the fire. She darted for her scattered scrolls, quickly gathering those that were most important and stuffing them into an empty bag. She hoisted the bag over one shoulder and stepped through the curtain. \"Stay close. I know the way out.\"\n\nOmax and Eraina followed. Seren remained a step behind, still stunned by the sudden change in Kiris's demeanor. She glanced back at the discarded envelope, still bearing half a House Cannith seal, and the letter that now burned in the small fire.\n\nShe wondered exactly what sort of promise Dalan had made.\n\nKiris led them through the bone-littered paths to another narrow tunnel in a heap of enormous ribcages. Looking back the way they had come, she gestured nervously at the entrance.\n\n\"This passes beneath the valley and will lead back out onto the plains, the way you came,\" she said.\n\n\"Then you go first, wizard,\" Eraina said, watching Kiris.\n\nKiris sighed. She reached for her pouch, causing Eraina to heft her spear. Kiris slowly drew a glowing stone from within.\n\n\"It's just a light, Marshal,\" Kiris said.\n\n\"Give me your bags and your pouches,\" Eraina ordered.\n\n\"If I meant you any harm with my magic, would I not have attacked you already?\" Kiris asked.\n\n\"If you mean no harm,\" Eraina said, \"there should be no harm in surrendering them.\"\n\nKiris opened her mouth to argue, but the shrieks of the Boneyard beasts drew closer. She quickly took the bag from her shoulder, stuffed her numerous belt pouches inside, and handed it to the paladin. Eraina absently passed it to Seren so that she could keep both hands on her spear. Seren pulled the bag over one shoulder, still stunned by the brusque change that had come over the paladin since they had found Kiris.\n\n\"Lead the way,\" Eraina said stiffly.\n\nKiris entered the passage, holding her stone high to light the way. Seren entered after Eraina, leaving Omax to bring up the rear. The mad gibbering cries of the creatures drew nearer, passing almost directly overhead. Kiris looked back, the dim light of her stone painting ghastly shadows on her thin features. She placed a finger across her lips, though none truly needed the warning. After several tense moments the creatures continued on their hunt.\n\nThe narrow tunnel twisted downward. The air was cold and dry beneath the Boneyard. The faint lime taste was much stronger here. Fine white powder covered the stone walls. Occasionally the light of Kiris's stone would reflect upon a dragonmark scrawled upon the wall. The symbols would sometimes catch the light shine brilliantly in a mosaic of dazzling color, continuing to shimmer in the darkness for some time after they passed on.\n\n\"It is just as well that you are forcing me to leave,\" Kiris whispered. \"I think the Prophecy has grown silent here anyway.\"\n\n\"Silent?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"The Draconic Prophecy is a thing of magic,\" Kiris said. \"Parts of it can be read only under certain conditions. It has taken me some time to understand it as Ashrem did, but one thing is clear. The writings here are incomplete. The tale is continued elsewhere.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Eraina asked.\n\nKiris looked back at Seren with a pained expression. \"Why are the three of you working with Dalan on this? Surely you know that he'll only surrender the Legacy to House Cannith. They will use it to amass power, selling it to the highest bidders. Have you thought nothing of the damage that would do?\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about magic,\" Seren answered, \"but I know Marth murdered my friend.\"\n\n\"Keep walking,\" Eraina said coldly.\n\nKiris's gaze flicked to the ground.\n\n\"I can see that you hate me, Marshal,\" Kiris said. \"I know how your house and your goddess view the law. I could be no more despicable than if I had killed those men myself. I can respect that, though I regret it. But why do you hate me so, Seren? I did not kill your friend, nor was I even aware that he existed.\"\n\n\"Because you were used,\" Seren said. \"You work for an evil man, yet you refuse to see it.\"\n\nKiris laughed. \"Then we have much in common,\" she said.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" Seren said.\n\n\"You would not believe me,\" Kiris said. \"No more than I believe you.\"\n\n\"All of us already know that Dalan d'Cannith is a manipulative weasel,\" Eraina said. \"Our alliance is one of mutual benefit, not blind subservience. Now be silent.\"\n\nKiris continued walking, head bowed. Their trek through the tunnels went on for over an hour, winding underneath the dead earth. At last, a sliver of light shone ahead and Kiris tucked her glowing stone back into her pocket. The tunnel opened on the plains at the foot of a mountain wall. They stepped out onto the soft grass, squinting painfully as their eyes adjusted to the afternoon sun. Kiris slumped against a stone, exhausted. Eraina stood near the wizard, carefully watching her for any attempt to escape. Seren took one of Gerith's cloth tubes from her belt and fired it into the air to signal the halfling.\n\nSeveral minutes passed, with nothing but soft white clouds marking the sky overhead.\n\n\"Something is wrong,\" Omax said at last. \"Gerith should have seen the smoke by now.\"\n\n\"Over here,\" hissed a voice from behind them.\n\nGerith crouched amid the uneven terrain at the foot of the mountain, looking harried and out of breath. He gestured to them impatiently, eyes fixed on the western horizon.\n\nKiris looked up, eyes wide. \"You brought a halfling with you?\" she asked.\n\n\"Gerith Snowshale, pleased to make your acquaintance,\" Gerith said, offering a mischievous grin. \"Now hurry. We need to get out of sight!\"\n\nThey climbed the rocky wall to join the scout just as the rapid footfalls of approaching clawfoots sounded across the plains.\n\n\"We need to leave, quickly,\" Kiris said. Over the rolling hills, a half dozen halfling hunters mounted on clawfoot dinosaurs galloped toward them. Seren recognized the one that rode at the head of the pack - Chief Rossa's bodyguard, Koranth.\n\n\"Ghost Talons,\" Kiris whispered. \"They've been spying on me for almost a year.\"\n\n\"Dalan made a deal with them for repairs when our ship crashed,\" Eraina said. \"He also offered to help them find you, though he did not intend to fulfill that bargain.\"\n\n\"The Ghost Talons follow me when I leave the Boneyard to trade for supplies,\" Kiris said. \"They even hire nonhalfling travelers to draw me out so they can question me. I was afraid your Gerith was one of them.\"\n\n\"They saw your flare, Seren,\" Gerith said.\n\n\"Sorry. I didn't know they were following us,\" Seren said.\n\n\"I didn't know either,\" Gerith said. \"I didn't notice them following us until you went inside the Boneyard.\"\n\n\"Who are they working for?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"I do not know,\" Kiris answered. \"As long as I could avoid them, it was never a concern.\"\n\n\"If someone else is interested in what you're doing here, I'm not surprised they hired the locals to keep an eye on you,\" Gerith said. \"The Talons are just the sort to take that job. They're enterprising sorts.\"\n\n\"Enterprising?\" Kiris said with a laugh. \"You mean scavengers. They hide near the Boneyard because they know that even the Valenar avoid the accursed place. When and if the elves invade, the Ghost Talons can be the first to loot the battlefields. I do not know what interest they have in me. They could be working for anyone.\"\n\n\"Strange that halflings give you so much trouble,\" Eraina said. \"I'd think Marth and his followers could frighten them off for you.\"\n\nKiris hesitated. \"I have not told Marth about the Ghost Talons,\" she said. \"I was... concerned that he might overreact.\"\n\n\"Kill them, you mean,\" Eraina said. \"So much for your faith in your hero.\"\n\nBelow, the Talons had gathered in a small circle just at the tunnel exit. One had dismounted and was studying the grass with a practiced eye. He looked back at Koranth and mumbled something too quiet for them to hear.\n\n\"Servants of Dalan d'Cannith,\" Koranth shouted in a clear voice. \"I know that you can hear me; your tracks are fresh. Please reveal yourselves. We do not wish to do you harm. Chief Rossa is eager to see you return. He has dispatched his finest warriors to escort you back to the camp. Do not be afraid.\"\n\n\"More hmael?\" Seren asked.\n\nGerith nodded rapidly.\n\n\"Should we fight them?\" Eraina asked. \"Six enemies aren't such terrible odds. I've seen worse.\"\n\n\"I think you miscounted,\" Gerith said. \"I see twelve. Those clawfoots aren't just ponies, Eraina.\"\n\nKoranth continued to wait in uneasy silence, the last echoes of his voice still returning over the mountains. He gestured to his riders and two of them darted off, one in each direction, searching for them.\n\n\"Incidentally, your master sends his greetings,\" Koranth shouted. \"He is well guarded by my loyal hunters, and will continue to be until you return safely to the Ghost Talons.\"\n\n\"So now it has come to threats,\" Eraina said in a low growl. \"They are holding Dalan.\"\n\n\"What do we do?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Honestly, we may as well surrender,\" Gerith said. \"They're all hunters and this is their territory. It's only a matter of time before they find us.\"\n\n\"Can't you escape on Blizzard?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Sure,\" Gerith said. \"I can avoid Koranth and his amateurs forever, but Blizzard isn't big enough to carry three humans, a warforged, and me.\"\n\nSeren knelt and dropped Kiris's bag, hurriedly digging through its contents. She removed the pouches of spell reagents and returned them to Kiris, leaving only the books and scrolls inside.\n\n\"What are you doing, Seren?\" Eraina asked.\n\n\"We came here looking for Kiris because she could help us understand Ashrem's work,\" Seren said. \"Maybe the halflings, or whoever they really work for, just want to get their hands on her work too.\" She handed the bag to Gerith. \"Can you get these back to Tristam without being seen?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Gerith said.\n\n\"Those books are mine,\" Kiris protested.\n\n\"And if you let Gerith take them back to our ship, you have a chance of keeping them,\" Seren said. \"Koranth won't give you an offer like that.\"\n\nKiris only shrugged in agreement and secured her reagent pouches to her belt.\n\n\"You sure you'll be all right?\" Gerith asked, looking up at Seren in concern.\n\n\"I don't think Koranth wants to hurt us,\" Seren said. \"As long as he thinks he's in control, we'll have time to plan. If they really have taken Dalan prisoner, I'd be surprised if he hasn't already come up with an escape plan.\"\n\n\"Good point,\" Gerith said. \"I hadn't thought of that,\" The halfling took the satchel and climbed onto Blizzard's back. \"Good luck to you, ladies. You too, Omax. Be safe.\"\n\nGerith whispered something curtly to his glidewing. The creature made several agile leaps up the rock face, away from the hunters and out of their view. There was only the subtle flap of leather and a blur of motion across the sky to mark his departure. Blizzard's pale blue underbelly perfectly camouflaged it from below.\n\n\"Are you lost?\" Koranth shouted. \"Are the plains so confusing? Shall I send my hunters to guide you to us?\"\n\n\"No need, we're right here,\" Seren shouted back.\n\nShe stepped out of her hiding place, scaling down the rock wall carefully. Eraina, Kiris, and Omax followed. Koranth scrutinized each of them carefully, especially Omax, who stood at eye level to him even mounted on his steed. The other two roving hunters returned rapidly, their mounts moving with startling speed.\n\n\"Dusty and bruised but not wounded,\" Koranth said. \"Rossa will be pleased that you are in good health. Lady Overwood, I presume? We have been looking for you for a long time.\"\n\n\"What do you want with me?\" Kiris asked.\n\n\"That is Rossa's business, not mine,\" Koranth answered. He scanned the area briefly. \"Where is your scout?\"\n\n\"He fled,\" Seren said. \"The Boneyard terrified him.\"\n\nKoranth looked at Eraina. \"Is that true, paladin?\" he asked, looking at her shrewdly.\n\n\"Gerith was quite terrified of the Boneyard's curse,\" Eraina said. \"He left as quickly as he dared.\"\n\n\"That's what they get for trusting a Snowshale,\" said one of the other halflings. Koranth and the others laughed. Seren realized abruptly that the hunter had spoken in his native tongue, and that Tristam's bracelet had translated the words.\n\n\"Truly a pity,\" Koranth said with a smug grin. \"Never fear, we shall guide you back to our camp. You'll have to walk, unfortunately. Our steeds are notoriously intolerant of unfamiliar riders.\"\n\nNot to mention that if they tried to escape, the clawfoot riders could quickly run them down. Seren smiled at Koranth, trying not to be unnerved by the violence she detected just beneath his veneer of etiquette. Some of the other hunters were less subtle, scowling openly at her. She had the feeling that the Koranth was almost disappointed that they had chosen to surrender peacefully. The halfling gestured with his spear and moved his steed to one side, signaling for them to begin walking.\n\nThe hunters rode in a loose circle around them as they traveled back to the Ghost Talon village. In time, the sun set and the hunters struck a rough camp in the shadows of a short cliff. The halflings began cooking the evening meal and pitching tents. Seren stepped forward and offered to help but was ordered to return to the others with a gesture and a curt word that Tristam's bracelet didn't understand. The message was clear. Their status as \"guests\" was merely a convenient illusion. They were prisoners. Seren returned to sit beside Omax, Eraina, and Kiris. Koranth arrived shortly afterward, depositing a pot of steaming beans, a jug of water, tin plates, and clay cups.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Kiris said in the halfling tongue.\n\nKoranth smiled faintly. \"I know that all of you are concerned by our presence here,\" he said. \"Please, do not be. I assure you, we have your best interests at heart. The Ghost Talons have been retained by Baron Zorlan d'Cannith, who has taken a personal interest in your adventures. All of you will be treated as guests of the Ghost Talons until the Baron's emissaries arrive to collect you.\"\n\n\"Politics,\" Eraina said bitterly. \"So that's why your tribe was so interested in this place. I thought your chief just wanted his ring back? Or was that a lie too?\"\n\n\"A ring?\" Koranth asked. \"I remember hearing nothing about a ring. Perhaps Rossa misspoke. He is an old man. He says many strange things.\"\n\nKoranth's smug grin faded as he looked past them, to the west, his eyes narrowing in concern. Seren looked in the same direction. A faint red glow was visible on the far horizon. A plume of gray smoke curled into the night sky.\n\n\"Pian, Maern,\" he said, calling to two of the other hunters. \"Wait here and guard our guests. The rest of you come with me. Something is happening in the village.\"\n\n\"It's Marth,\" Seren warned. \"The one who shot down our ship. He's attacking your tribe.\"\n\nKiris's face was pale as she looked at the distant fire.\n\n\"Then he will rue that he crossed the Ghost Talon tribe,\" Koranth said.\n\n\"We can help,\" Omax said. \"We have fought him before.\"\n\nKoranth climbed onto his clawfoot with a grimace. \"You cannot keep up with us, outsiders. This is not your fight. The Ghost Talons stand and fall on their own.\"\n\nHe kicked his mount into stride and loped off across the plains, three of his hunters following in formation behind him. The other two remained behind with nervous expressions, watching as their brethren departed.\n\n\"We should go, Maern,\" one of the halflings said, his words translated by Tristam's bracelet. \"Our families are down there.\"\n\n\"We were told to remain,\" the other said, though his reply held no conviction. His eyes were on the fire as well, and they were filled with fear. Seren felt as angry and helpless as they did. She wanted to help, or at least convince them to go to their tribe, but what could she say? And then she remembered.\n\n\"Kapen hara,\" she said to the hunters. \"Family before all else.\"\n\nThey both turned to her, eyes wide, and then looked at each other. Maern bowed his head shamefully. Pian looked back at her with a steady, building resolve. He clapped his comrade on the shoulder and ran to his steed. Maern paused to offer a mumbled thanks and hopped on his steed as well. Together, the two rode off across the plains to defend their village.\n\nEraina, Omax, Kiris, and Seren stood in the now-abandoned camp, watching as the hunters galloped off across the plains. None said a word for a long moment. They were free now. They could easily escape to Karia Naille, assuming Marth had not found it. Tristam might be finished with the repairs. If Gerith had arrived, they might already be preparing to take off.\n\n\"Do what you must,\" Eraina said, hefting her spear as she stared at the distant fire. \"I plan to fight. Keep up with me if you can.\"\n\nThe paladin charged off across the plains, not waiting for the others. Omax fell into step behind her. Seren stopped only long enough to look back at Kiris, still sitting beside the fire. If she left the wizard behind, she left behind the first real chance to understand what Tristam and the others had been seeking, and perhaps let an enemy escape to threaten them another day. But as she watched the silhouettes of her friends and the halfling hunters charging to an uncertain fate, she remembered the night that Jamus Roland died. If Tristam and Omax had not stood beside her, she might have died as well. Could she let the Ghost Talons face Marth alone? Could she abandon Dalan to him?\n\nThere was really no choice at all.\n\nTristam peered up over the side of the ship's railing, removing his spectacles with an exhausted grin. \"I think I have it, Aeven,\" Tristam said. \"Try it now.\"\n\nThe dryad's eyes remained closed. Her hands were still clasped in the ball of seething blue fire. Slowly, she extended her fingers. The fire spilled out to each side, extending in two snaking tendrils. They extended around the sides of the ship and met at the newly repaired keel strut beneath. The flame wavered for several seconds, then resolved itself into a steadily burning ring.\n\nAeven slowly opened her translucent green eyes. She gazed into the fire in wonder. Her childlike face broke into a pleased smile. \"Yes, my friend,\" she whispered to the elemental. \"You can stay for a while longer. The tinker has fixed it so we can remain together.\" She dropped lightly from the upper arm of the ship and kissed Tristam lightly on the lips. \"The ship says thank you.\"\n\nTristam blinked in surprise. Aeven was already gone, having flitted away to sit on the rail near her figurehead. The young artificer could not help but smile. He put his spectacles back on, dropped down from the rope ladder, and stood back to admire his work. Karia Naille had been hoisted on a hastily constructed scaffolding. The ship was not as pretty as she once was. Chunks of the hull were missing and the keel arm was obviously an improvised replacement, but it would do. She was alive again.\n\n\"Excellent work, Xain,\" Zed Arthen said, limping up beside Tristam. The inquisitive had fashioned a crutch out of the halfling lumber and still favored his left leg.\n\n\"I couldn't have done it if Aeven hadn't held the elemental here,\" Tristam said with a sigh. \"And if Pherris wasn't such a skilled pilot, the damage would have been a lot worse. We still need to get her to a proper shipwright. She might not even hold together that long.\"\n\n\"I'm not a man who commonly distributes praise, Xain,\" Zed said, giving Tristam a pointed look. \"Best learn to recognize it, or I won't bother next time. I've walked away from more than one airship crash in my time. This the first time I've seen the ship get back up. Ash himself couldn't have done a finer job.\" Zed looked furtively around the canyon. \"Especially under the circumstances.\"\n\nA dozen halfling laborers sat in a circle around a small campfire, laughing and chatting as they prepared their evening meal. The trio of threehorns that had hoisted the airship onto its scaffolding browsed nearby, searching the canyon for sparse foliage.\n\n\"How many times is it now, Zed?\" Tristam asked quietly.\n\n\"Three times,\" Zed said. \"Three times I've caught those halflings trying to sabotage the repairs. They don't know that I know, but I'm sure they're wondering why the scaffolding didn't fall down when it was supposed to.\"\n\n\"Why are they doing it?\" Tristam asked. \"Do you think they're working for Marth?\"\n\n\"Doubtful,\" Zed said. \"If that were the case they would probably just kill us, or sabotage the ship so it crashed after takeoff and kill us.\" Zed looked worried. \"Are you sure they didn't do that?\"\n\n\"No,\" Tristam said confidently. \"The ship is fine. Aeven would know if it had been harmed.\"\n\nZed nodded. \"Then they're just trying to delay us,\" the inquisitive said. \"They want to keep us here as long as possible.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"Good question,\" Zed said. \"Toughest part of being an inquisitive is recognizing when not to obsess over the wrong questions. I'm not as interested in learning what their game is as I am in removing us from it.\"\n\nZed continued staring at the halflings for a long moment, searching for any clue as to their motives. He gave Tristam a questioning look when he realized the artificer was studying him in turn.\n\n\"What?\" he said.\n\n\"Why didn't you want me to tell Dalan that I recognized Moon the first time I saw her?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"It would have made things prematurely complicated,\" Zed answered, looking away again. \"Dalan didn't see Moon until she attacked us over the plains. Now think about what he's done since then. Why do you think he's spent all his time away from here in Rossa's camp, while you fix the ship? Now that he knows that you know Marth is connected to Ashrem, he's been avoiding you.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Tristam asked.\n\nZed looked at Tristam again, his gray eyes narrowing. \"Listen, Tristam. Your employment with Dalan is based upon several important assumptions. There are things that you're better off not knowing, and things that he's better off not knowing that you know. Let's leave it at that.\"\n\n\"For a person dedicated to solving mysteries, you seem pretty intent on concealing the truth, Arthen,\" Tristam said. \"What are you afraid I'll find out?\"\n\n\"I could answer that question, but I think you'll regret it,\" Zed said.\n\n\"Tell me,\" Tristam said. \"I need to know what's going on here. I need to know how Marth is connected to Ashrem.\"\n\n\"I can't really answer that,\" Zed said. \"But I know how he's connected to Dalan.\"\n\n\"Dalan?\" Tristam asked, surprised.\n\n\"Zed sighed. \"Even back when Ash was alive, Dalan suspected that his uncle was onto some sort of big research. He was always sniffing around, trying to figure out what it was. After Ashrem disappeared, Dalan redoubled his efforts. He figured Ashrem's lost research would be his ticket to the respect he always deserved. Of course, the old man didn't trust his nephew enough to leave him any of his journals. Dalan was a war profiteer, after all, and Ashrem was a pacifist. So Dalan turned to me for help. I owed Dalan a few big favors from back in the war, so I agreed.\"\n\n\"You knew Dalan during the war?\" Tristam asked. \"Does that have something to do with you being a knight?\"\n\n\"That happens to be none of your business,\" Zed said. \"Anyway, he hired me to find out who had inherited Ashrem's journals. Seemed a pretty straightforward job. Then some of the journals started disappearing. Then people who owned them started disappearing. I looked into it, and found out that Dalan had been meeting with displaced Cyran soldiers in some of Wroat's shadier inns. I followed them one night after they left; the soldiers boarded Moon in the wilderness outside Wroat.\"\n\nTristam's frown deepened. \"Dalan was working with Marth?\" he asked.\n\nZed nodded. \"For a while. I could tell that he didn't like it, though. I think he needed Marth's knowledge of artifice\u2014and that's why he brought you on, Tristam. He needed a skilled, trustworthy artificer so that he could eventually sever his association with Marth.\"\n\nTristam absorbed the information.\n\n\"When Bishop Grove was murdered, that was the last straw,\" Zed said. \"Dalan stopped meeting with Marth's agents, but by that time they didn't really need him anymore. Marth knew much more about the Legacy than Dalan did. I was disgusted by the entire affair, but I couldn't' expose Dalan. I owe him too much. So I made up a lame excuse to leave and went to live in Black Pit. I didn't want to be involved anymore.\"\n\nTristam frowned. \"All this time I thought you just abandoned us,\" he said. \"I'm sorry, Zed.\"\n\n\"Eh, you didn't trust me,\" Zed said with a shrug. \"Nothing new to me. If it makes you feel any better, I don't really care what people think of me. No offense.\"\n\n\"So why did you come back to help us?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"Because now Dalan's trying to fix what he did,\" Zed said. \"He knows how dangerous the Legacy is. I believe he really does want to stop Marth from unlocking its secrets and see that it's used responsibly. I didn't buy it at first, and that's why I warned you away from him, but I think he's sincere. I'd like to help him, if I can. I'm a big admirer of redemption. The only parts that still confuse me are how Dalan ever came into contact with Marth in the first place and how Marth commandeered Kenshi Zhann. Oh, and what in Khyber he's planning to do, of course.\"\n\n\"It worries me more that Marth keeps finding us everywhere we go,\" Tristam said. \"Could Dalan still be working with him?\"\n\n\"Doubtful,\" Zed said. \"Marth was trying to kill us when he shot us down. My theory is that he has some other way of finding us that has nothing to do with Dalan... or anyone else that's been on board Karia Naille.\"\n\nA shrill whistle came from the ship's deck above. Captain Pherris stood at the rail, pointing at the eastern sky with a grim expression. Tristam followed the gesture. At first he saw nothing, so he removed his spectacles. There was a subtle blur of movement in the sky. As it flew closer, it became more recognizable as a familiar glidewing bearing a tiny rider.\n\n\"The halfling came back alone?\" Zed said, sounding worried. \"Best see what's going on, Xain. I'll stay down here and make sure our hosts don't become too curious.\"\n\nTristam was already climbing back aboard the ship to wait by Blizzard's perch. With a swoop of leathery wings, the glidewing landed on the ship. The creature's rounded chest heaved with exhaustion. Gerith was nearly unconscious from his frenzied flight. He fell out of the saddle and stumbled toward Tristam. He dropped a heavy bag at the artificer's feet and then collapsed on the deck.\n\n\"From Seren,\" Gerith said, struggling to catch his breath. \"Hide it before the Ghost Talons see.\"\n\n\"Where are the others?\" Pherris asked.\n\nGerith explained as much as he could about how the others found Kiris and then were tracked by Rossa's hunters. Tristam felt a wild surge of emotions. He exulted that the clues he had sought for so long might be contained in the books and scrolls Gerith had brought, but he was terrified that Seren and Omax might be in danger.\n\n\"What do we do?\" Gerith said, looking to Pherris.\n\n\"You get to your cabin and get some rest,\" Pherris ordered. \"You're even more useless than normal when you're half dead.\"\n\n\"Aye, captain,\" Gerith said with a tired laugh.\n\n\"Meantime, we wait,\" Pherris continued. \"I wouldn't be surprised if Seren and the others escape before Rossa's hunters can get them back to his village. If they do, we'll need Seren's help to sneak in and rescue Dalan.\"\n\nGerith gave a lazy salute and limped away to fall below decks and crawl to his cabin.\n\n\"Who says we need to rescue Dalan?\" Tristam asked once the halfling was gone.\n\nPherris's fluffy brows lifted in surprise. \"Where in Khyber did that come from?\" he asked. \"Pherris Gerriman does not leave his crew behind.\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" Tristam said. \"I just learned some unsettling truths about Dalan.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Pherris said. \"So I suppose the next time you're trapped on the roof of a building that you and your metal cohort have set aflame, I should pause to weigh the worth of your eternal soul before I come and rescue you?\"\n\nTristam said nothing.\n\n\"Right, then,\" Pherris snapped. \"I'll just pretend that you never said what you just said and we shall leave it at that, Master Xain.\" The captain turned smartly and marched off across the deck.\n\nAeven knelt nearby, hands folded demurely in her lap. She looked at Tristam with wide green eyes. \"The ship is confused,\" she said. \" Karia Naille is glad to see her sister again, but wants to know why the Kenshi Zhann wounded her so badly.\"\n\n\"I wish I knew, Aeven,\" Tristam said, shrugging helplessly at the dryad. He picked up the heavy sack of books in one hand and returned to his cabin.\n\nFor the next several hours he pored through Kiris Overwood's writings. They were notes on the Boneyard, quotes from the Draconic Prophecy, and copious sketches of magical constructions that Tristam could only assume were part of the Legacy. Unlike Ashrem's own journals, these weren't ciphered. It made little difference. Tristam retained none of it. The words were clear enough, but his mind was too distracted. Each time he sought to understand, his thoughts would trail inevitably to Marth, wondering at his connection to Ashrem, or to Dalan. He wondered how much the guildmaster had lied to him. He thought of Seren, worrying that she might have come to harm.\n\nThe sounds of the halfling laborers shouting at one another outside finally gave him the excuse to put aside the books and climb above deck.\n\n\"Master Xain, I need a word with you!\" Pherris shouted just as Tristam emerged above deck.\n\nHe immediately noticed that the Ghost Talon halflings were in a hurry to leave. Some were rapidly packing their remaining supplies onto their mounts. Others were already running in the direction of their village on foot, holding weapons. Gerith and Zed stood at the edge of the deck, watching the halflings silently. Pherris was calibrating the ship's controls, ignoring the spectacle. Aeven sat cross-legged atop her figurehead, watching them all attentively.\n\n\"Master Xain, I need your expertise,\" Pherris said, not looking up from his work.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"A scout just arrived,\" Gerith said, looking at Tristam bleakly. \"The Kenshi Zhann is attacking Ghost Talon village.\"\n\n\"Khyber,\" Tristam swore.\n\n\"Dalan is still there,\" Zed said, \"and possibly the others as well.\"\n\n\"Master Xain, I've a mind to fly to that village and rescue our friends,\" Pherris said. The gnome captain marched toward Tristam, folding his arms behind his back as he paced across the deck. \"I wonder if this ship is in any condition to survive such an adventure. What is your professional opinion?\"\n\n\"She'll hold together,\" Tristam said. \"As long as we don't push her too hard or take any more direct hits. We won't survive another battle with Moon.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Master Xain,\" Pherris said pertly. \"Aeven, can you provide some sort of distraction when we reach the village?\"\n\n\"I have called the storm,\" Aeven said in her soft, musical voice. \"It will fight beside us.\" Overhead, the sky was already beginning to darken.\n\n\"Then let's see about our missing crewmates,\" Pherris said, stepping up to the ship's controls. \"All hands, prepare for takeoff.\"\n\nThe Ghost Talon encampment was engulfed in flame. Dozens of halflings ran past Seren as she approached the village, mostly fleeing on foot. Some carried bundles of possessions. Others carried injured friends or relatives. The occasional threehorn trundled past with a bleating cry. Many of the creatures had no riders, having broken free and stampeded away from the doomed settlement.\n\nHunters mounted on clawfoots either struggled to round up the fleeing dinosaurs or charged into the village to fight. The sleek silver shape of the Kenshi Zhann hovered above the spectacle. Plumes of lightning raked down from its bow, ravaging the village. Most of the Ghost Talons were not warriors, and those few who were had been no match for Moon's incredible firepower. A dozen charred bodies lay at the outskirts of the village, lying beside their dead steeds. Shrieks echoed through the night, punctuated by the crack of thunder in the distant sky.\n\nSeren caught sight of Omax and Eraina at the edge of the village. Koranth and two of his hunters were surrounded by seven of Marth's heavily armed Cyran soldiers. The riders moved back to back, holding their spears defensively as they prepared to fight to the last.\n\n\"For Boldrei!\" Eraina shouted defiantly and leapt into their midst. She whirled her spear in one hand and her short sword in the other, striking down one of the soldiers before the others even registered her presence.\n\nOmax rumbled up beside her, his massive presence drawing immediate attention. One of the soldiers struck fiercely with his sword, striking the warforged across the chest with a shower of sparks. Omax shrugged off the blow and clapped his hands together heavily on each side of the man's head.\n\nKoranth looked up in surprise. The halfling's anger that his prisoners had escaped was dispelled by a more practical reaction. \"Ghost Talon warriors, to me!\" he cried. His steed lunged forward, pinning another of the soldiers to the ground with one sharp claw. The other Cyrans a banded together, reappraising the situation now that the odds were not so clearly in their favor.\n\nSeren ran forward to join her friends, dagger in hand, but a flash of lightning revealed an unexpected figure. Kiris Overwood was running into the village, heedless of the danger. Seren scowled. Had the wizard believed nothing that they had said? She'd expected at most that Kiris might simply run away once the others had left her behind, or that she might even help them fight Marth. Was she running back to join her mad hero? Seren hurried after her.\n\nIn the center of the village, the Seventh Moon had dropped a boarding ladder near Rossa's tent, which remained mostly intact. Cyran soldiers were already hurriedly climbing back up the ladder, back onto the ship. Kiris was headed directly for them when Seren seized her by the shoulder. The wizard whirled around, only to find Seren's dagger held near throat.\n\n\"Khyber, Kiris are you insane?\" Seren asked. \"Are you going back to him?\"\n\n\"I have to, Seren,\" she said desperately. \"I have to try. I know the prophet is the one doing this, the one twisting him. If I leave him, who will keep him from becoming a monster?\"\n\n\"He's already a monster,\" Seren said.\n\n\"No, there's still hope,\" Kiris said. \"He hasn't completed the Legacy yet.\"\n\nSeren's eyes flicked past Kiris, toward the chief's tent. The tent flap opened and Marth and Dalan stepped out. Dalan looked angry but unafraid. Marth held his amethyst wand in one hand and gestured at the boarding ladder. Dalan began to climb.\n\n\"They're taking Dalan,\" Seren said.\n\n\"I can stop him,\" Kiris said, twisting away while Seren was distracted and running toward the tent. \"I can reason with him!\"\n\nSeveral of Marth's Cyran soldiers turned with weapons ready as Kiris ran toward them. Seren was a step behind, feeling impotent with only her dagger. Marth turned, staring at them with his ghostly white eyes. Kiris halted in her tracks.\n\n\"Hold, do not attack!\" he shouted to the soldiers. \"Kiris?\" he called out.\n\n\"Marth, what are you doing?\" Kiris cried, eyeing the soldiers warily. \"The halflings are no threat to you!\"\n\n\"They harbored our enemies, Kiris,\" Marth said. \"That makes them enemies.\"\n\n\"Kiris, get away from him,\" Seren warned as she crouched behind a pile of overturned crates.\n\n\"Seren?\" Marth said with a faint sneer. \"Is that you? You should have remained in Wroat, girl. Kiris, step away from the thief and join us. It is time to leave.\"\n\n\"Is what she said true, Marth?\" Kiris asked, voice shaking. \"Did you kill Llaine?\"\n\nMarth frowned. His smooth face creased in thought, as if weighing his reply.\n\n\"I am sorry, Kiris,\" he said.\n\nA cone of green fire leapt from Marth's wand. Seren leapt away, rolling between two small abandoned wagons. The smell of burning flesh seared the air. Seren looked back to see a twisting, burnt corpse curled in the road where Kiris had stood. Kiris hadn't even had time to scream.\n\n\"Kill Seren Morisse,\" Marth commanded his remaining troops, then turned to board his ship as well.\n\nSeren searched desperately for a better hiding place as three soldiers charged after her. Seren dropped and rolled under a wagon as two crossbow bolts struck the wood with a dull thunk. The storm that had been building during their approach arrived with a fury. The sky exploded in rain. Savage winds tore across the village and Seren thanked the Sovereign Host for whatever coincidence had brought the sudden storm.\n\nSeren rolled to her feet on the other side of the wagon, only to find herself facing four more of the mercenaries. Disoriented by the sudden storm, they turned to face her sluggishly just as a peal of thunder rocked the sky.\n\nNo, not thunder, Seren realized as the soldiers looked past her in terror. She felt a looming presence behind her. It was the metallic roar of a warforged. Omax held the other halfling wagon over his head with both hands. With a heave, he hurled it at the soldiers. Eraina, Koranth, and a half dozen mounted Ghost Talon hunters rallied to her side as well. The remaining Cyran soldiers stood in a line, readying their weapons. A bolt of lightning hammered down from Moon, blowing the other wagon to splinters and boiling the rain. A second bolt reduced Rossa's tent to ashes.\n\n\"Retreat,\" Eraina called, scowling up at the airship. \"We can't fight that airship!\"\n\n\"Ghost Talons, take cover in the storm!\" Koranth echoed, waving his javelin wildly.\n\nSeren fell back, following the others just as the Cyrans withdrew to their ship. She followed the halflings into the shadows beyond the burning village.\n\n\"What about Dalan?\" Seren shouted over the rain. She looked back over her shoulder to see the bright elemental ring of Moon lift into the sky and soar away.\n\n\"There is nothing we can do for him now,\" Omax said.\n\n\"What have you done?\" Koranth said, staring hopelessly at his village. \"What have you brought upon us?\"\n\n\"Do not blame us for this, Koranth,\" Eraina said. \"Blame Rossa.\"\n\n\"I was speaking to Rossa, curse his ghost,\" Koranth said. \"How can the tribe recover from this loss?\"\n\nJust as the halfling's words faded, a second ring appeared in the sky above them, a blazing circle of familiar blue. As she saw the familiar figurehead in the center of the flame, Seren realized that perhaps the storm was no coincidence after all. Karia Naille swooped over the village, flying in broad circles as she surveyed the scene below. Seren ran to the center of the village, waving her hands wildly to get the captain's attention. The others followed her as well, including Koranth and his halflings.\n\nThe ship's boarding ladder spilled from the hull and Tristam slid down in a flash, sword in hand. Zed dropped beside him, moving a great deal more stiffly with his wounded leg but still holding his weapon with deadly purpose. Seren saw Aeven standing at the rail, her golden hair illuminated by lightning. The winds whirled around her, and she gazed down at the burning village with a strangely cold expression. The look in Aeven's eyes frightened Seren more than any obvious rage or fear ever could. Thunder cracked the sky again. Seren remembered Dalan's warning about Aeven's fierce temper.\n\n\"Seren, are you hurt?\" Tristam asked.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" she said, running to his side and sheathing her dagger, \"but they killed Kiris and took Dalan with them.\"\n\n\"What?\" Tristam said, flustered. \"Kiris is dead? And why they take Dalan?\"\n\n\"He probably wants to know how much we know,\" Zed said. \"Dalan's dead, or he will be when Marth is done questioning him. There's no way we can take on Moon, especially with our ship in the shape she is.\"\n\n\"Maybe not,\" Tristam mused. \"In this storm, Moon's weapons won't be as accurate or affective. If we can catch up quickly enough, we can board and rescue him.\"\n\n\"It's suicide, Tristam,\" Zed said.\n\nTristam looked at the inquisitive. \"Are you telling me I shouldn't try?\"\n\n\"No,\" Zed said. \"I'm with you. Just wanted to be clear.\"\n\n\"You know that even if we made it aboard, Marth's soldiers would kill us,\" Gerith said. \"There are too many of them, and only eight of us. That's assuming we all board, of course, which would be stupid, since someone has to fly the ship.\"\n\n\"Koranth,\" Zed said, turning to the halfling warrior.\n\n\"I have heard everything, human,\" Koranth said. \"You have your army, if it means the Ghost Talons have their revenge.\"\n\nKoranth stepped from his saddle, holding his javelin in both hands. Behind him had gathered a dozen of the tribe's remaining hunters and warriors wielding whatever weapons they had salvaged from the village. Hatred burned in their eyes.\n\n\"Everyone aboard,\" Tristam said.\n\nThat way,\" Tristam said, pointing south through the raging storm.\n\nPherris nodded and urged Karia Naille to greater speed. Aeven crouched on the rail of the ship near her figurehead, oblivious to the howling wind. Though the rain fell in sheets all around them, the airship and her passengers remained dry. The deck was crowded with Koranth's halfling warriors and their glidewing steeds. The glidewings were agitated by the unfamiliar movement of the airship, so the halflings spent most of their time soothing the creatures. Blizzard glared disdainfully at the other creatures from his perch.\n\n\"We're getting closer,\" Tristam said. \"Definitely straight ahead, Pherris.\"\n\n\"Pretty lucky that you happened to enchant something Dalan brought with him so that you could track him,\" Zed said.\n\n\"Nothing lucky about it,\" Tristam said, still staring into the storm. \"I gave Dalan and everyone who went with him something so I could find them if something went wrong.\"\n\nSeren's hand moved to the silver bracelet the artificer had given her. For a moment, their eyes met and he smiled at her.\n\nZed chuckled in approval.\n\n\"We need to hurry, Pherris,\" Tristam said. \"I can't sense him if he gets too far away and Moon already has a lead on us.\"\n\n\"The ship can't give you much more, Tristam,\" the gnome said.\n\n\"I can,\" Aeven said softly. The dryad lifted her arms to the heavens and tipped her head back. The winds shifted and the storm built behind them, pushing the airship forward.\n\nTristam turned back to face the assembled crew. \"Each of you take one of these,\" Tristam said. He opened a small pouch at his belt, taking out several glass vials and handing them to Seren, Eraina, Omax, and Zed.\n\n\"What are they?\" Eraina asked, holding up the bottle and looking at the murky contents suspiciously.\n\n\"Leaping potions,\" Tristam answered. \"The halflings have their glidewings, but we'll need these to get aboard Moon and back. Save them for now; they don't last long. And for the love of all that's holy, don't miss when you jump onto Moon.\"\n\n\"Will the potion work on Omax?\" Seren asked, looking at the warforged dubiously.\n\n\"We are creatures of magic,\" Omax said. \"We were built so that we could benefit from other such creations. I suspect that the only reason we were given mouths was so that we might drink potions.\"\n\n\"Can you board an airship with your leg, Zed?\" Pherris asked.\n\n\"My leg is fine,\" Zed said, nodding briefly at Eraina. \"Still a bit sore, but I wouldn't miss the chance to get even with those Cyran bastards for dropping an airship on me.\"\n\n\"All well and good, but do we have a plan beyond 'everyone jump and hope for the best?' \" Eraina asked.\n\n\"I'm coming to that,\" Tristam said. \"I lived on Moon for a while, so I have some idea what we're heading into.\" He took a roll of vellum from his cloak and unrolled it on the deck, revealing a detailed sketch of the Kenshi Zhann's interior.\n\n\"What if Marth has changed the layout since he took the ship?\" Eraina asked.\n\n\"Old information is better than nothing,\" Tristam said. \"Moon's lightning cannon is its main weapon, but it's front mounted. As long as Pherris keeps Karia Naille above and behind her, she won't be able to fire it at us. Our ship is more maneuverable than theirs, so that shouldn't be a problem. The Cyran soldiers will still have crossbows, but with Aeven's storm they'll have trouble hitting anything. We'll use the clouds to approach unseen and, once we get close, Gerith and Koranth will lead the glidewings down Moon's main deck.\" He pointed at the diagram. \"Once they've distracted the crew, the rest of us will leap onto the rear deck. Dalan is probably being held in one of the lower cabins, here.\" He pointed again. \"Omax, Eraina, and Zed will fight their way there and retrieve him. Once you have him, leap back to Karia Naille and send off a flare so that the halflings know to break off combat and leave. We'll have the element of surprise and the Ghost Talons to help us, but with a ship as large as Moon, Marth's crew likely still outnumbers us. We can't afford to linger long. Wait ten minutes after we jump, Pherris. No longer. If anyone isn't back by then, assume the worst.\"\n\n\"And once we have Dalan back, what's to stop Moon from whirling about and firing that cannon at us?\" Pherris asked.\n\n\"That's where Seren and I come in,\" Tristam said. He pointed at the map again. \"Marth will expect that we've come to rescue Dalan as soon as he's aware of the attack, so Seren will help me sneak through the chaos into this room. This part of the lower cargo bay houses the main elemental containment chamber of Moon, the crystal housing that binds their elemental to this plane. While the rest of you do your part, Seren and I will sneak down there and I'll shatter the chamber. Moon will bleed out power fast and drift to the ground, crippled. Is all of that clear?\"\n\nThe others all murmured their assent. Seren did likewise, impressed that Tristam could show such focus and leadership in a crisis.\n\n\"What do we do about Marth?\" Gerith asked.\n\n\"Kill him,\" Zed said. \"Not like he doesn't have it coming.\"\n\n\"Just do what you can, Gerith,\" Tristam said. \"We're not really there to fight. Getting Dalan back and getting out safely is our real priority.\" He turned back toward the bow of the ship. \"Now get ready, everyone. We're getting close.\"\n\nA blur of light was visible in the distance, the glow of Moon's elemental fire gleaming through the storm. Pherris turned the ship's wheel and Karia Naille soared skyward. Churning mist covered the deck as the ship pierced the clouds. It was bitterly cold up here. Seren felt her teeth begin to chatter. The clouds grew thicker, until eventually even Moon's flaming ring could barely be seen.\n\n\"She's just below us now,\" Pherris said, and gestured to Gerith.\n\nThe halfling climbed onto his glidewing and shouted to the others. Koranth mounted his own steed and lifted his javelin in one hand. The creatures leapt from the deck, extending their wings with a synchronized snap. They soared down through the clouds, and soon after they vanished she heard Koranth's defiant cry.\n\n\"For the honor of the Ghost Talon!\"\n\nThe sound of crashing steel and startled cries followed. Pherris worked the helm again and Karia Naille dipped down from the clouds. Moon appeared dangerously close, beneath and just ahead of them. Her forward deck was already covered with Cyran soldiers battling halfling hunters.\n\n\"Now!\" Tristam said, tossing aside the cork from his potion and throwing back the contents.\n\nSeren drank her potion, as did the others. She winced at the chalky taste, but she immediately felt lighter, more energetic.\n\n\"It's better with rum, but we were fresh out,\" Tristam said with a weak grin. \"Just aim yourself at the other ship and jump. It's easier than it looks.\"\n\n\"Unless you miss,\" Zed said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Tristam said. \"Don't miss.\" He drew his sword and leapt from the deck.\n\nSeren stood and watched for a brief, awestruck moment. Tristam soared through the air between the two ships, moving with eerie grace. Omax and Zed were next. The massive warforged and the stocky man with his large sword looked almost comical as they soared through the void. Eraina patted Seren's shoulder encouragingly and followed. Not allowing herself any more time to think about what she was about to do, Seren leapt from the ship's deck.\n\nThe wind rushed by with a keening howl. She felt weightless as she hung in the air, the distance so great it was difficult to tell she was moving at all. When she looked down, she saw only clouds. Then the moment was past, and she landed lightly on the deck of Moon. She looked back the way she had come, at Karia Naille hovering high above them.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Tristam said. \"We don't have to jump that. Pherris will move closer when he sees our signal.\"\n\n\"Unless we die,\" Zed said, hefting his sword with both hands.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Tristam said. \"Don't die!\"\n\nZed cackled. \"Good luck, Xain.\"\n\n\"Good luck, all of you,\" Tristam answered as they stormed off across the deck. A Cyran soldier stepped around the corner and opened his mouth in alarm, but fell silent as a backhand slap from Omax sent him crashing limp into the wall.\n\n\"I have another sketch of the map if you need to see the way, Seren,\" Tristam said, reaching for his pocket.\n\n\"Memorized it,\" she said, moving past him and slipping through an open hatch in the deck.\n\nShe dropped into a darkened bay stacked with crates and barrels. The sounds of the storm and fighting were greatly muffled, interrupted only by the noisy thud of Tristam landing beside her. She gestured for him to wait and stalked ahead. The bay narrowed to a smaller passage. It was similar to the design of Karia Naille, albeit on a larger scale. She pressed herself between a beam and the wall just as one of the cabin doors opened, releasing three startled soldiers who ran past toward the upper deck, oblivious to her. Once they were gone, she gestured to Tristam and they moved down the passage.\n\nA closed door led to the ship's central containment chamber, guarded by a single soldier. The guard held his sword in one hand, looking around nervously as he protected the door. Seren drew her dagger and looked at Tristam.\n\nTristam shook his head and stepped forward from the shadows. The guard whirled with a start just as Tristam hurled a handful of dust in the man's face. The guard blinked, staggered, and slumped to the floor.\n\n\"Only sleeping,\" Tristam said, examining the door. \"These men are just soldiers, Seren. I don't want to kill them if we don't have to. They're only following Marth because they have nothing else left.\" He looked up at her. \"I don't sense any wards on this door. Do you think you can pick the lock?\"\n\nSeren studied the lock briefly, then looked back the way they came. She cocked her head slightly, listening to the chaotic melee above. Seeing no one nearby, she stepped back and kicked the door sharply, jarring it off one hinge and shattering the lock. Tristam stared at her blankly.\n\n\"Picked,\" she said.\n\nTristam didn't argue. He hurried into the room beyond. The large chamber was filled with shining brass runes and shimmering crystals. A large square of the floor was transparent glass, displaying a murky purple cloudscape below them. A cylindrical black column stood in the center of the chamber, radiating heat.\n\n\"That's it,\" Tristam said. \"That cylinder contains the crystal that binds the ship's elemental to this plane.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Send her home,\" Tristam said. He took a small tube from his pocket and unfolded it into a four-foot ivory rod, engraved with runes and capped with a square of shimmering jade. He held the staff in both hands and closed his eyes, concentrating as he turned in a slow circle and concentrated on the crystal chamber.\n\n\"Why not just blast the housing with your wand?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"Because that would just release the elemental into this room, not send her back to his home plane,\" Tristam said. \"After years of servitude, they tend to be quite angry\u2014and we don't want to be here for that.\"\n\nTristam opened his eyes when the door at the far side of the core chamber opened. Seren quickly darted behind the door, preparing to ambush whoever entered. A tall man in long purple robes stepped inside, long, white hair spilling over his shoulders. Tristam dropped the rod and quickly produced his ivory wand, releasing a bolt of crackling lightning at the changeling. When the smoke cleared, Marth was unharmed. An aura of magical power shimmered around him.\n\n\"Impressive but uncalled for, Tristam,\" the changeling said. \"I was prepared for your coming, and I only wish to talk. Had I wanted to kill you, I would have left more soldiers here. After all, crippling the heart of my ship would have been your only real chance of escape.\"\n\nTristam's scowl faded, replaced by a look of startled recognition. \"Your voice,\" he said. \"Orren?\"\n\n\"If it pleases you,\" Marth said. The changeling's features shifted to that of a thin young man with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. \"Orren Thardis is an old name, given by an old friend. I'd hoped to offer you the same thing Ashrem offered me\u2014a new life.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" Tristam said, backing away.\n\n\"Dalan brought you into his quest only when he realized I would not be his pawn,\" Marth said. \"When he realizes you are worthier than that, he will betray you as he betrayed me. He holds you back, Tristam. He forces you to underestimate your own talent because he fears that you will become something greater than he can control\u2014just as he could never control his uncle. He wants you to waste your life waiting for an opportunity that will never come, and all the while he reaps the fruits of your genius.\"\n\n\"And why should I help you?\" Tristam asked. \"So I get to be an accessory to murder?\"\n\nMarth sighed. \"I do not care if you help me, Tristam,\" he said. \"I do not want you to help me. You are my friend, Tristam. I just want you to find your own destiny, and stay out of mine.\"\n\n\"What if I say no?\" Tristam asked. \"Will you kill me like you killed Kiris?\"\n\nMarth's grip tightened on his amethyst wand. \"Zamiel was right,\" he said sadly. \"This was a foolish luxury.\" He pointed the wand at Tristam.\n\nAs Seren pounced, she prayed to Kol Korran that Marth's magical shield didn't protect him from steel as well. Her prayers were answered. She felt steel sink into the changeling's back and heard him cry out in pain. Green fire sprayed wildly through the core chamber as Marth staggered into the wall. Seren rolled away, losing her knife.\n\nTristam darted in front of Marth, seizing and holding his wand ready.\n\n\"Your magic doesn't harm me, Tristam,\" Marth sneered, looking for his own lost weapon.\n\nWithout a word, Tristam turned and fired a bolt of energy into the ship's housing chamber. A guttural roar, full of triumph and anger, echoed through the Kenshi Zhann. Marth's eyes widened in fear as a creature woven of fire and rage rolled over him. The changeling vanished as the elemental filled the room. Tristam ducked under the blast, shattering the glass floor with his wand.\n\nHe leapt into the swirling void with Seren in his arms.\n\nFor several minutes the storm winds howled around them. Tristam held Seren's waist tightly, so she gripped him firmly in return. Though she always thought she wasn't afraid of heights, she discovered she was quite afraid of falling from thousands of feet up. They didn't plummet as they should, but drifted, a feather. Seren didn't open her eyes again until she felt the ground beneath her feet.\n\nFinding herself alive and standing on the soft grass of the Talenta Plains was a most welcome surprise. Seren relaxed her grip on Tristam, though she did not release him yet. She looked around in numb surprise, still shivering from the chill of the storm and the terror of their fall. In the sky far above she could see the twin rings of the two airships. One ring sped away across the sky at extraordinary speed. The other flickered and wavered as she slowly drifted toward the ground. Blue fire also crackled within the ring, as the angry elemental wreaked its vengeance on the Kenshi Zhann. The storm was swiftly dwindling to a light drizzle. The eastern sky glowed red with the haze of the coming sun.\n\n\"I doubt that when he gave me that ring, Orren intended me to use it like that,\" Tristam said, looking up sadly at the plummeting corpse of Ashrem's flagship.\n\n\"You could have reminded me about it before you jumped,\" Seren said, finally catching her breath enough to speak. \"I didn't realize you could carry two people with it.\"\n\n\"Neither did I,\" Tristam said.\n\n\"What?\" she said. She took a step back and glared at him.\n\n\"I'm joking!\" Tristam said, holding his hands out defensively. \"Mostly joking. I mean, theoretically I knew it would support the weight of another light person, but I never really had a chance to test it, and I thought stopping to ask what you weighed wouldn't have been wise.\"\n\n\"What would have happened if you were wrong?\" she asked.\n\n\"I dunno,\" he said, tucking his wand back into his coat. \"I guess I would have given you the ring and let go.\" He looked at her seriously.\n\n\"So what do we do now?\" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Tristam said. \"It looks like Karia Naille escaped.\" He pointed at the point of flame in the sky. \"The others hopefully found Dalan and got back on board. If we can make our way to some sort of civilization and make contact with them, everything should be fine.\"\n\n\"But what about Dalan?\" Seren asked. \"Marth said that Dalan had been working with him.\"\n\n\"I'm not in the habit of taking lunatics at their word, even if they used to be friends,\" Tristam said. \"Though I will admit it makes a certain amount of sense. If Dalan wanted to crack the secrets of the Legacy, it would make sense for him to turn to one of Ashrem's old partners. I guess when Marth proved to be a little too ambitious, Dalan turned to me instead. Wroat makes a great deal more sense to me now.\"\n\n\"How do you figure?\" Seren asked.\n\n\"The way I see it is like this,\" he said. \"Dalan was working with Marth, but turned his back on him when he realized Marth was a killer. Later, he realizes that Marth is a great deal further along in his pursuit of the Legacy than we are. Dalan spreads rumors that he knows a little more about the Legacy than he ever let on, in the hopes that Marth will take the bait and give us a chance to track him. Marth is suspicious, so he hires Jamus to take the fall.\" Tristam sat down in the grass and smoothed his hair nervously. \"Of course that's just a theory, but it looks like we've been lied to from the beginning. I need to talk to Dalan.\" He sighed. \"I'm sorry, Seren. Sorry to have gotten you involved in this.\"\n\nSeren looked up at the sky. \"Do you think Marth is dead?\"\n\n\"No,\" Tristam said. \"I think he teleported away when the fire came for him. He's still out there, Seren. Still looking for the Legacy.\" Tristam shook his head slowly. \"I have no idea how to stop him.\"\n\n\"We still have Kiris's notes,\" Seren said. \"There has to be something to be learned there. Not to mention Dalan spent a good amount of time on Marth's ship. He must have learned something, especially if any of the soldiers made the mistake of talking to him.\"\n\nTristam chuckled. \"That's true,\" he said. \"Of course none of this solves our most pressing and immediate problem.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" she asked.\n\n\"The others probably think we're dead,\" he said. He looked around at the vast plain, then back at her. \"We have no idea where in Talenta we are. All I know is that the Valenar are to the south, the mountains are to the east, and the Mournlands is to the west.\"\n\n\"Then my suggestion,\" she said, standing up and offering her hand. \"Is that we head north.\"\n\nTristam smiled, took her hand, and stood. Together, the artificer and the thief began their march across the plains.\n\n[ Two Weeks Later, the City of Fairhaven ]\n\nShaimin loosened the garrote and let the old woman fall on the floor with a wet thud. He leaned back in the elegant mahogany chair where she had been doing her knitting only a moment before. The slim elf rested his chin on one hand as he looked at the corpse. It was almost disappointing. None of the guards had been paying attention. The windows had not been sealed, warded, or locked. He even gave the old woman a chance to see his reflection in the mirror. She didn't yell for help. She didn't have a knife. She only gaped in surprise. Now it would likely be several hours before anyone even found her.\n\nIn. Out. Eberron has one fewer duchess. Shaimin's bank account anonymously receives enough gold to feed a poor family for two years.\n\nThe gold didn't matter, of course. He had enough to live quite comfortably for the rest of his life. That was all most assassins dreamed of, but then most assassins had no sense of style, no understanding of why they killed. Their greed drove them to prison or to early graves. They had no appreciation for the hunt, no appreciation of the skills required to perform a task well.\n\nShaimin drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair. All that time wasted brooding, and still no guards had arrived. Well, he refused to make any more purposeful mistakes merely to make his evening more interesting. He had a reputation to maintain. That didn't make the boredom any less galling. If these assassinations didn't swiftly prove to be more challenging, Shaimin feared that he might well have to enter a more interesting line of work. Perhaps politics? He already had plenty of contacts.\n\nWith a heavy sigh, Shaimin d'Thuranni sauntered back to the window and bounded across the rooftops of Fairhaven. He moved with animal grace, traveling with no undue noise or hesitation, drawing no notice from the citizens in the street. When he felt he was sufficiently distant from the duchess's house as to draw little suspicion, he paused and concentrated on the elaborate dragonmark scrawled across his shoulder blades. His senses expanded from his body, giving him a view of the alley below as if he were there. Confident that no undue bystanders were watching, he dropped gracefully to the ground. He smoothed his black silken cloak over his shoulders with a feline fastidiousness, pursing his lips in frustration.\n\n\"Do you plan to follow me for the rest of the evening?\" Shaimin asked. \"Or are you quite satisfied with what you have seen?\"\n\n\"I am quite satisfied,\" was the answer. The air rippled. A robed figure appeared from nothing. He was a tall, pale-skinned humanoid with pink burns on one side of his face.\n\n\"Hello, Shaimin.\"\n\nShaimin moved his finger off the trigger of the small crossbow he held beneath his cloak. A smile split his pale features. \"Thardis,\" he said with a malevolent grin. \"I never believed you were dead. It is good to see you again.\"\n\n\"My name is Marth,\" the changeling replied. \"I am pleased to see you as well, though I fear I am not here to renew old friendships.\"\n\n\"I thought as much,\" Shaimin said, his interest piqued. \"A friend wouldn't spy on me while at work; he'd just meet me at the theater afterward. You wished to ensure that my skills had not deteriorated since last we met.\"\n\n\"And I am not disappointed, Shaimin,\" Marth said.\n\n\"I should hope not,\" Shaimin said stiffly. \"This is regarding Ashrem's legacy?\"\n\nThe changeling nodded.\n\n\"Then walk with me,\" the elf said, gesturing to the road. \"Let us speak of old friends and unfinished business...\""
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Gotrek & Felix 04) Dragonsla",
+        "author": "Warhammer",
+        "genres": [
+            "dark fantasy"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "NIGHT OF THE SKAVEN",
+                "text": "Soon, thought Grey Seer Thanquol, my brave warriors will attack.\n\nThanquol rubbed his paws together with glee. Soon all his planning and bargaining would pay off. Soon he would have his revenge on the dwarf, Gotrek Gurnisson, and his loathsome human henchman, Felix Jaeger. Soon they would regret forever that they had meddled in the plans of so mighty a sorcerer. Soon he would send them screaming and begging for mercy to their well-deserved deaths. Soon.\n\nAll around him, he heard his forces moving into position. Rank upon rank of awesome skaven warriors, the very cream of ratman soldiery, moved through the dark. Their pink eyes glittered in the gloom; their long tails lashed with suppressed killing lust; their fangs glistened with saliva. Just behind him, his monstrous bodyguard, a huge rat-ogre, the third to bear the name Boneripper, grunted with bloodlust.\n\nThe rat-ogre was bigger than any human, more than twice as tall and ten times as heavy. Its head was a terrifying combination of rat and wolf. Its red eyes burned with insane rage. Its monstrous talons were extruded from its stubby fingers. Its long, worm-like tail lashed the air furiously. This new rat-ogre, a replacement for the one slain by Felix Jaeger at the Battle of the Lonely Tower, had cost Thanquol a small fortune in warptokens. It was not the only thing that had cost Thanquol during his recent visit to Clan Moulder's huge burrow at Hell Pit. He had been forced to pledge more than half his personal fortune and a share in the spoils of the coming victory to the warped rulers of the clan in return for their support in this new venture. Still, thought Thanquol, it was an immaterial consideration. The rewards of his inevitable victory would more than recompense him for his outlay. Of that he was utterly certain.\n\nHe considered the force that had been rushed to this out of the way place in response to his brilliant scheming. Not only were there Stormvermin and clanrat warriors in the livery of Clan Moulder, there were rat-ogres and packs of huge rats goaded on by beastmasters as well. His army numbered almost a thousand.\n\nWith such a force Thanquol felt certain that victory was assured. Particularly since their opponents were mere humans. How could they stand against the true inheritors of the world, the progeny of the Horned Rat himself? The answer was simple: they could not. It made Thanquol's tail stiffen with pride when he contemplated the scale of the victory that would soon be his.\n\nThanquol sniffed the air with his long, ratlike snout. His whiskers twitched excitedly. Perhaps it was the proximity of the Chaos Wastes he sensed and the presence of a great motherlode of warpstone, the very essence of magical power. Once more he wondered at the stupidity of the Council of Thirteen's edict prohibiting skaven armies from entering those daemon-haunted lands. Surely the loss of a few skavenslaves would be more than compensated for by the vast trove of warpstone they could garner? Granted, in the past the Wastes had swallowed entire armies of ratmen whole, but surely that was no justification for the Council's timidity?\n\nThanquol felt sure that under his leadership, or at least with his guidance from afar \u2014 for, in truth, there was no sense in risking the loss of a skaven of his towering intellect \u2014 a verminhost would succeed in such a mission.\n\nAnd there were alternatives. If he possessed the airship that those accursed dwarfs had built for Gurnisson and Jaeger, and which his doltish lackey, Lurk Snitchtongue, had so far utterly failed to capture, he could use it to prospect for warpstone in the Wastes. He lashed his tail in frustration for a moment when he considered the imbecilic incompetence of Lurk, then wrung his paws together gloatingly as he thought about the aerial vessel. There were no ends to the uses he could put the thing to once it was his.\n\nIt would swiftly transport the grey seer and his bodyguard anywhere in the Old World. It would deliver troops behind enemy lines. It would be used as a prototype to build an aerial fleet and with such an armada Thanquol, and \u2014 he loyally hastened to add \u2014 through him the Council, would conquer the world.\n\nOf course, first he had to get his paws on the airship, which brought his attention firmly back to matters at hand. Through the spyglass he could make out the fortified mansion inhabited by the dwarfs' Kislevite allies. It was typical of the fortified manor houses built by the human clans in this area. It was surrounded by a high palisade and a ditch, and within the house itself was a rugged structure of stone and logs. The windows were narrow, mere arrow slits in many cases. The doors and gates were massive and strong. It was built to resist an attack by the monstrous creatures so common here, close to the Chaos Wastes. Inside there were stables, for the humans here dearly loved their horses. Thanquol had never understood this. He thought the beasts good only for eating.\n\nThe mansion was typical in all respects except one, he noted gleefully. Outside the main building was a massive wooden tower topped with a metal platform. Save for the material from which it was built, it was identical in all respects to the docking tower Thanquol had seen at the Lonely Tower before the airship had sailed off to avoid falling into his clutches. Doubtless this was the place where the airship had stopped en route northwards into the Wastes. Refuelling or reprovisioning obviously. To Thanquol's keen mind that implied there was a limit to the vehicle's range. That was worth knowing. But why here? Why so close to the Chaos Wastes?\n\nBriefly Thanquol considered what this might mean. Why had the dwarfs, particularly the accursed Trollslayer Gotrek Gurnisson, decided to take such a valuable device into the Wastes? If only that dullard, Lurk, had managed to find out. If only he had reported back as he had been instructed. Thanquol was not in the least surprised that he had not. It was ever his fate to be served by buffoons who lived only to spoil his ingenious plans. Thanquol often suspected that these catspaws were foisted upon him by the machinations of his devious enemies back in Skavenblight. The intricacies of skaven politics were endless and mazy, and a leader of Thanquol's genius had many jealous rivals so filled with envy that they would stop at nothing to drag him down.\n\nDoubtless once Gurnisson was in Thanquol's clutches he could be made to reveal his mission by various cunning methods of persuasion known to the grey seer. And if he could not, Gurnisson's henchman, that wicked human Felix Jaeger, could be made to talk. Actually, thought Thanquol, he would probably be the easier of the two. It was not that Thanquol feared a confrontation with the demented one-eyed dwarf, not in the slightest. He was, he knew, in all respects fearless, and not in any way, shape or form scared of a mindlessly violent brute like Gotrek Gurnisson. He had proven this time and time again in his encounters with the Slayer. It was just that it would take less effort to make Jaeger talk.\n\nCome to think of it though, Thanquol was forced to admit, Jaeger himself could be stupidly stubborn about such matters. Perhaps it would be easier simply to capture a few prisoners from the mansion below and interrogate them about the dwarfs' purpose. Surely they must be privy to the secret. After all, how could the stunties have gone to all the trouble to build the tower down there in the midst of this forsaken steppe, and not have revealed their mission to their human allies? He must make sure that his allies captured a few of the humans for questioning. In fact, he would give the order at once.\n\nThanquol tittered at the thought. Whatever plan the dwarfs had, it must be an important one for them to spend so much time and effort, and to risk the airship, to implement it. Perhaps they sought gold or magical treasures in the Wastes. Knowing dwarfs as he did, Thanquol thought this was the most likely explanation. And, as soon as his incredibly brilliant plan was implemented, whatever treasures his enemies had garnered would be gripped firmly in Thanquol's mighty taloned paw.\n\nHe reviewed his scheme in his mind. So simple, yet so devious. So direct and yet so cloaked in subterfuge. So clever and yet so foolproof, as all great skaven plans must be to avoid being fouled up by witless underlings. Truly it was proof, as if any were needed, of the singular genius that was Thanquol's. Step by logical step he reviewed it.\n\nFirst, they would capture the mansion. Then when the airship returned as it assuredly would, they would take the dwarfs by surprise once it docked. Before they could fly off, using superior skaven sorcery, a special spell that Thanquol had prepared for just this moment, they would immobilise the ship. Then nothing would remain for them to do except reap the rewards of victory.\n\nOf course, there were a few things that could go wrong. Thanquol prided himself that part of his genius was his ability to deal with the unexpected. With any skaven force there was the chance that lackeys would mess things up. And there was a slight possibility that the dwarfs might destroy their airship rather than let it fall into skaven paws. Such things had happened in the past, for dwarfs were a foolishly proud and insanely stubborn race. And there was the ever-so-slight chance that they would fly back by a different route.\n\nThanquol shivered. All his divinatory skills told him that this was a near impossibility. He had read his own droppings having eaten only of fermented warpstone-spiced curd for thirteen whole hours, suffering the most dreadful flatulence as he proved his devotion to the Horned Rat in this approved manner. The sanctified excreta had assured him that his plan could not fail and that he would encounter the dwarfs here. Of course, as with all prophesies, there was a certain margin of error that had to be taken into account, but nevertheless Thanquol felt that his vast experience in scrying had stood him in good stead. Other, lesser seers might allow their wits to be clouded by their own desires and hopes, but he had read the signs with the rigorous impartiality that was one of the signs of his unfailing genius.\n\nHe felt sure that the accursed Gurnisson would return from the Wastes. Frankly he doubted that anything could prevent it. Thanquol could read the omens and he knew that the dwarf carried a mighty doom upon his shoulders. It was the sort of destiny that could only be overcome by the possessor of an even mightier one. Naturally Grey Seer Thanquol knew that he was such an individual. Still, it would not pay to underestimate the Slayer.\n\nIn his warpstone-induced dreams, Thanquol had seen many a strange vision as he sought signs of his enemies' whereabouts. He had seen a mighty fortress buried deep beneath a mountain, and a struggle with a daemon of truly terrifying power, a being of such surpassing and baleful might that Thanquol was loath to think about it. He pushed the thought aside.\n\nThe dwarf would return, bringing the airship with him. It was his destiny to fall before the titanic intellect of Thanquol. No lesser doom could stay him.\n\nThanquol noticed that the Moulder clawleaders were watching him. He cursed under his breath.\n\n\"What are your instructions, Grey Seer Thanquol?\" rumbled the most massive of them. \"What do you require of us?\"\n\n\"My orders,\" said Thanquol emphatically, \"are that you and your skaven are to proceed at once with the plan. Take the mansion and keep as many of the humans alive as possible, for questioning. Pay particular attention to preserving breeders and their runts. The manthings become particularly malleable when you threaten them.\"\n\n\"We would preserve them anyway, Grey Seer Thanquol. For our experiments.\"\n\nThanquol tilted his head to one side to consider the clawleader's words. What did the Moulder mean? Was his clan considering some new program of breeding, one that involved mutating humans? That was worth knowing. The skaven seemed to realise that he had let something slip, for he turned his back on Thanquol and lumbered down the hill to instruct his troops. Excitement filled Thanquol. In five minutes the attack would begin.\n\nUlrika Magdova stood on the battlements of the mansion and gazed towards the distant mountains. She was a tall woman, garbed in the leather armour of a Kislevite warrior. Her hair was short and ash blonde, her face broad and oddly beautiful. Her hands played with the hilt of her sword.\n\nBehind the mountains the aurora blazed brightly in the sky. The scintillating light of the Chaos Wastes at night illuminated the peaks from behind. They were huge saw-toothed fangs belonging to a distant monster that intended to devour the world.\n\nAt that moment, she was wondering whether the monster had swallowed Felix Jaeger and his companions. There had been no word or sign from them in weeks, and not all the divinations of the sorcerer, Max Schreiber, had succeeded in revealing anything about their fate. Ulrika wondered whether she would ever see Felix again. She wondered whether she even wanted to.\n\nIt was not that she wanted him dead. Far from it. She desired his safe return with all her heart. It was just that his presence was so\u2026 unsettling. She was more attracted to him than she should be. He was, after all, a landless adventurer from the Empire, a self-confessed criminal and revolutionary. She was the daughter and heir of a March Boyar, one of those nobles who guarded the northern boundary of Kislev from the creatures of the Chaos Wastes. It was her duty to marry according to her father's wishes, to cement alliances with neighbours, to keep the blood of her clan strong and pure.\n\nIdiot, she told herself. Why does that even matter? It was a simple bedding down with a man you liked and wanted. You've done it before and you will do it again. It was not uncommon or disapproved of here in Kislev, where life was short and often ended in violence; where people took what pleasure they could, when they could find it. Why does the fact you slept with a landless adventurer matter at all? There is no future to it. Yet she had thought of little else since he departed. Typical of the man, really, that he should inflict such confusion on her and then depart, the gods alone knew where.\n\nHe had his reasons, she knew. Felix Jaeger was sworn to accompany the Slayer, Gotrek Gurnisson, on his death quest however long that took, and however much it might end in his own death. Ulrika came from a culture that respected oaths, as only a barely civilised people, who enforced their own laws with the sword, could do. Here on the marches there were none of the lawyers and written contracts so common in the Empire. Here you did what you swore to do, or brought shame on yourself and your family.\n\nAnd look what that oath had done to the foolish man. It had carried him away on that great dwarf flying machine into the Chaos Wastes in search of the lost dwarf city of Karag Dum. Ulrika had wanted to beg him not to go, to stay with her, but she was too proud to speak, and she had feared that he might refuse \u2014 and that would have been a shame she was unwilling to endure.\n\nShe kept her gaze on the mountains as if by staring hard at them, she might be able to see through the rock to what lay behind. And anyway, she had no idea how he felt about her. Perhaps it was just a one-night thing for him. Men were like that, she knew. They could promise you the world in the evening, and not even have a kind word come dawn.\n\nShe smiled. She doubted that Felix would be at a loss for a kind word, or any words at all. That was what she liked about him. He was good with words in a way her dour folk were not. It was a gift she envied him, if truth be told, for she was not good at saying how she felt. And in his own strange way, she felt that Jaeger was a good man. He could fight when that was called for, but it was not his whole life, the way it was for the men around whom she had grown up.\n\nThere were times when she thought that he was not hard enough, and there had been times when he surprised her with just how cold and ruthless he could be. Certainly only a dangerous man could be an associate of Gotrek Gurnisson's. From what the dwarfs who had built the tower had told her, the Slayer was already a dark legend among his people.\n\nShe shook her head. This was getting her nowhere. She had her duties to perform. She was her father's heir, and she was needed here to ride the borders, to lead the riders, a duty she fulfilled as ably as any man, and better than most.\n\nFootsteps sounded nearby. She turned her head to see Max Schreiber walking along the parapet towards her.\n\n\"Can't sleep?\" he asked, smiling. \"I could mix you a potion.\"\n\n\"Checking the sentries,\" she said. \"It's my duty.\"\n\nShe looked at the magician. He was tall and dark with a scholar's pallor and wide eyes. Recently he had taken to cultivating a goatee beard, which suited him. He was wearing the formal garb of a magician of his college, long flowing robes of gold over a jerkin of green, and yellow britches. An odd-looking skullcap perched on his head. A handsome man, she thought, but one who made her uneasy, and not just in the unsettling way good-looking men sometimes did. Here was one who truly stood apart from most of humanity, by virtue of the power in him, and the training that let him wield it. She did not quite trust him, which was the way she reckoned most of humanity felt about magicians in general. You always wondered about them \u2014 could they read your mind, bind you to their will with a spell, ensnare you in illusions? And you feared to say such things aloud or even to think them in their presence just in case they could, and they took offence.\n\nSchreiber himself had never given her any reason to doubt his benevolence. It was just\u2026\n\n\"You were wondering about the airship,\" he said.\n\n\"Are you a mind reader, then?\"\n\n\"No. Just a student of human nature. When I hear a young woman sigh and see that she is looking north into the Wastes, I can put two and two together. And I've seen you and Felix together. You make a good couple.\"\n\n\"I think you presume too much.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\" He smiled; a little sadly, she thought. \"Herr Jaeger is a lucky man.\"\n\n\"What's lucky about having to cross the Chaos Wastes?\"\n\n\"That's not what I meant, and you know it.\"\n\n\"I am not a mind reader either, Herr Schreiber, so how can I know what you mean if you do not say it?\"\n\n\"Why do you dislike me, Ulrika?\"\n\n\"I don't dislike you.\"\n\n\"You do not seem to approve of me.\"\n\n\"It's just you are\u2026\"\n\n\"A sorcerer?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe smiled a little sadly. \"I am used to it. People do not tend to trust us or like us much either. It was not that long ago that they stopped persecuting us in the Empire.\"\n\n\"They still burn witches here, sometimes. Warlocks too. I am sure some of my people here would like to do that to you.\"\n\n\"I have noticed.\"\n\n\"We are close to the Chaos Wastes here. People are suspicious. I would not take it personally if I were you.\"\n\nHe shook his head ruefully, and his sad smile widened. Ulrika realised that, given the chance, she could actually like the man. \"I don't see how I could take being burned at the stake other than personally.\"\n\n\"You have a point.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said with a faint trace of irony. Suddenly he cocked his head to one side. He seemed to be listening.\n\n\"What is it?\" Ulrika asked. She felt suddenly afraid.\n\n\"Hush! I think there is something out there.\" He closed his eyes and his face went slack. She sensed the play of power around him. Through his shuttered eyelids she saw a glowing light, as if his eyeballs had become tiny suns that could shine through flesh! The muscles on his jaw tightened. He muttered words in the arcane tongue under his breath.\n\nHis eyes snapped open. She could see the light in them fading, like the embers of a dying fire. He reached out and touched her on the arm. His grip was surprisingly strong for a scholar. \"Remain calm,\" he said. \"Show nothing on your face. There are things out there and we must get away from this parapet.\"\n\n\"We must give the alarm.\"\n\n\"We will give no alarms if we are shot by a sharpshooter,\" he said softly.\n\n\"Who could hit us in this light?\"\n\n\"Trust me,\" he said guiding her along the parapet. \"Walk normally and then climb up the ladder into the watchtower.\"\n\n\"What is going on?\" Ulrika asked. The urgency in the magician's voice had communicated itself to her.\n\n\"There are skaven out there. The ratmen followers of Chaos.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" she asked and then cursed herself. She already knew the answer. He was a magician. She altered the question slightly to cover her mistake. \"That they are skaven, I mean.\"\n\n\"I have studied the minions of Chaos extensively,\" he said, in his quiet voice. Ulrika knew that his calm tone was meant to reassure her, to keep her calm. It annoyed her slightly that he thought she would need such treatment. If he noticed he gave no sign. \"It's why the dwarfs hired me, after all.\"\n\nThey had reached the ladder. \"Climb. I will follow you in a moment. As soon as you are in the tower sound the alarm bell. We don't have much time.\"\n\nDespite her mistrust of him, she never doubted that he was serious. In this, at least, she had perfect faith in Schreiber. Out of the corner of her eyes, she thought she detected a faint scuttling mass, as of quickly moving creatures coming close. As she swung out onto the ladder she had a crawling feeling between her shoulder blades. She imagined that she was being targeted with a bow or a crossbow or one of those strange sorcerous weapons Felix had told her the skaven used. She felt cold sweat start to run down her back.\n\nShe was amazed by Schreiber's courage. The whole time, he stood there like a man engaged in a casual conversation, keeping up a flow of quiet chatter. Only once she was well up the ladder did he begin his own ascent.\n\nShe scampered up as quickly as she could and as soon as her feet hit the deck of the tower she reached out and grabbed the pull of the great bell. She tugged it with all her strength. The clear chiming tone rang out through the night. She knew it could be heard all across the manor, from the deepest cellars to the highest chambers.\n\n\"Awake!\" she shouted. \"Enemies are without!\"\n\nNo sooner had the bell's tolling started to fade than she heard a great feral roaring in the distance. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the skaven were out there. Warriors were already starting to tumble from the manor house, weapons held ready. She saw her father's massive form emerge into the darkness. A partially buckled cuirass was around his chest and one of his body servants helped him adjust the straps as he roared orders to the men.\n\n\"Oleg \u2014 take your section and man the parapet. Standa \u2014 I want archers on all four walls till we see what direction the attack is coming from. Marta! Gather all the servant girls and draw water from the wells in case of fire. Get bandages and unguents ready for the wounded! Come on! Look lively!\"\n\nUlrika was glad her father was there. He was a veteran of a thousand battles along this dangerous border. His very presence was heartening to all his followers as well as to her.\n\nShe glanced out of the watchtower and saw the horde approaching them. There were hundreds of skaven, advancing like a furry tide across the cleared ground. She wondered if her father had enough men in the manor to hold them. Somehow she doubted it. There had been reports of more and more Chaos followers coming and going through the passes. Most of the troops of riders were patrolling the border with Chaos. It had been their misfortune, or perhaps a tribute to skaven cunning, that they had been attacked when so many of their riders were abroad.\n\nAs she drew her sword, she wondered if she would ever see Felix again. Then the first wave of skaven hit the wall, and she had time to think of nothing else except fighting for her life."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE RETURN",
+                "text": "Felix Jaeger looked down from the bridge of the Spirit of Grungni. He was a tall man, blond of hair, broad of shoulder, narrow of hip. His face was tanned and worry lines radiated out from his eyes that really should not have been etched on the face of one so young. But then, as Felix would have been the first to admit, he was a man who in his time had endured more than his share of worries.\n\nHis hands were braced on the great wheel of the airship as he made a course correction, steering the mighty vessel directly towards where he believed the pass out of the Chaos Wastes should lie. His hand still hurt from the burns he had taken wielding the Hammer of Firebeard. He was grateful to be able to grasp anything at all. He had been lucky. The dwarf healing salve had helped a good deal.\n\nHis keen eyes scanned the tormented land below him, watching the arid semi-desert scroll along beneath the Spirit of Grungni. In the distance, he thought he could make out a rising dust cloud.\n\nHe shivered. Whatever was making it, it was not friendly. Nothing here was.\n\nHe looked at the compass but he knew it was not always reliable in the Wastes. Several times he had seen the lodestone needle rotate around in a circle under the influence of evil magic. Fortunately they were now nearing the edge of the cursed land, where the oddly-coloured storm clouds did not always obscure the sky, and the stars were often visible by night and sometimes in the dim light of day. These gave him something to navigate by. Several times they had drifted far off course until they had found a star to navigate by, which had added days to their travel time.\n\nFelix exhaled loudly. He was bone weary. He was no longer glad now that Malakai Makaisson had taught him how to fly the vessel \u2014 although it gave him something to do, and kept his mind from worrying about things he could not control.\n\nThe nose came round sluggishly, which was not surprising. The Spirit of Grungni was loaded to capacity and then some. The survivors of the dwarf community of Karag Dum, those who had been left alive after the last fatal confrontation with the daemonic bloodthirster and its minions, filled every cabin and spare cranny on the airship. The hold bulged with the treasures they had taken from the lost citadel. Felix wondered how Hargrim and his people would take to their new life beyond the Wastes.\n\nThe drone of the engines was loud as they struggled to drive the ship into the wind. Felix cursed, for it seemed that the very elements conspired against them on their journey out of the Wastes. He half-suspected evil magic. There were dozens of mages sworn to serve the Dark Powers down there, and it was easy to imagine one of them whistling up a wind to slow the airship down, or a storm to drive it into the ground. The Spirit of Grungni was protected against the direct effects of magic but there was really nothing anyone except another magician could do against such indirect methods.\n\nFelix strove to push such thoughts aside, to think of happier things. He wondered what Ulrika was doing just now, whether she missed him, or even thought about him at all. Perhaps she had forgotten all about him. Perhaps he had just been a brief fling for her. Any such thoughts were driven from his head by the sound of loud cursing from behind him.\n\nGotrek Gurnisson entered the bridge of the airship and made his presence felt in no uncertain terms. He stomped around the command deck, glaring at the apprentice engineers, and casting irate glances through the crystal windows as if half-expecting to see an enemy flying towards them. Considering that a mere few days ago Gotrek had been near death from the wounds he had taken in his battle with the Bloodthirster of Khorne, the dwarf had made a remarkable recovery. He still did not look well. His massive chest was swathed in bandages. His huge red dyed crest of hair poked out of a turban of similar bandages wrapped around his head. The same cloth obscured the eyepatch that normally covered his empty left socket. One of his arms was bound in a sling but he still managed to carry his massive axe in his right hand. Considering Felix would struggle to lift the weapon with both hands, it was an impressive feat.\n\nActually, the fact that the Slayer was up and about at all was a testimony to the ruggedness of the dwarf physique. Felix knew that if he, or any other man, had suffered the wounds Gotrek had, he would have been bedridden for months, if he could have survived at all.\n\n\"Feeling better?\" Felix asked. Gotrek's cursing had already given him an answer to that question.\n\n\"I feel as if I have been trampled on by a herd of donkeys, manling.\"\n\n\"An improvement then?\"\n\n\"Yes. Yesterday I felt like I had lost a head-butting contest with Snorri Nosebiter.\"\n\n\"Well, you're lucky to be alive at all. That's what Borek says.\"\n\n\"What's lucky about it, manling? If I had fallen in combat with that accursed daemon I would have atoned for my misdeeds, and you would be composing my death saga. As it is, I have to listen to Snorri Nosebiter snoring and boasting about how many beastmen he slew. Believe me, there are some fates that are worse than death.\"\n\nFelix raised an eyebrow. He knew the dwarf well enough now to understand when he was making a joke. Oddly enough, given the fact that his avowed purpose in life was to find a heroic death in battle, Gotrek did not sound all that sorry to still be alive. Felix suspected that he actually detected a note of sour pleasure in the Slayer's voice, though he thought it diplomatic not to point this out. Instead he said, \"But if you had fallen, none of the folk of Karag Dum would have escaped, the Hammer of Firebeard would have fallen into the hands of the Chaos worshippers, and the Great Bloodthirster would have had his revenge on the race of dwarfs. Surely that is something to be thankful for?\"\n\n\"You might have a point there, manling.\"\n\n\"You know I do. And we did help Borek prove his theory about the location of Karag Dum. We did find the lost city, and we did recover the sacred hammer.\"\n\n\"There's no need to belabour the point.\"\n\n\"And we did thwart the powers of darkness, and get a fair haul of gold and\u2014\"\n\n\"I said\u2014\"\n\n\"Felix Jaeger does have a point, Gotrek, son of Gurni,\" said a deep mellow voice. Felix glanced back to see that the ancient dwarf scholar, Borek, had also entered the bridge. He was stooped almost double with age and he had to use a stick to help him walk but there was a vitality about him, and an excitement, that Felix had never seen before. He was filled with life and triumph. Their success at Karag Dum, if you could call taking part in a battle that had left most of the dwarf population of the city dead a success, had given meaning to his entire life. They had recovered Firebeard's hammer and would restore it to the dwarf people. Felix knew that Borek thought they had performed a mighty feat of valour. He himself was not so sure. Beside the scholar was his nephew, Varek, who had accompanied Felix and Gotrek and Snorri into the lost city, and had recorded their deeds. Varek's glasses glittered in the light filtering onto the command deck. He smiled at Felix and the Slayer cheerily.\n\nAs well he might, thought Felix. Not many dwarfs could claim to have survived an encounter with a daemon of Chaos.\n\nJust behind them stood Hargrim, the son of Thangrim Firebeard, his beard dyed as black as his clothing as he mourned his father. Now his father was gone, he was the leader of the folk of Karag Dum. His face was as grim as death. His eyes were sad as only those of a dwarf who had lost father and home at the same time could be.\n\nHe noticed the look Borek gave him. It was not really a look suited to an ancient whose white beard dragged along the floor. It held an element of reverence that made Felix uncomfortable. Since his return from Karag Dum most of the dwarfs on the airship had been giving him that look. He had lifted Firebeard's hammer and invoked its power in the battle with the great daemon. Apparently he was the first and only human in history since the time of the man-god Sigmar to have performed such a feat, and they now regarded him as blessed by their gods. Felix did not feel particularly blessed. Just invoking the hammer's power had almost killed him. And fighting the daemon was a feat he hoped never to have to repeat in his life.\n\n\"Look down there!\" said Felix to distract them. His keen eyes had caught sight of movement in the Wastes from the edge of the vast dust cloud. By all the gods, it was huge. If it were being made by a force of men, Felix would have suspected the presence of an army. Here in the Chaos Wastes, who knew what it signified?\n\nAs they closed with it, he could see a group of figures, made tiny by the airship's altitude, riding across the land, a massive cloud of polychromatic dust rising in their wake.\n\nBorek peered down through his pince-nez glasses. \"What is it? Tell me! My eyes are not so good.\"\n\n\"It's a trail of dust,\" Gotrek said. \"There are riders down there. A lot of them.\"\n\n\"I would say several hundred. Black-armoured Chaos knights. Heading south, the same direction we are.\"\n\n\"Your eyes are better than mine, manling. I'll take your word for it.\"\n\n\"That's the tenth party we have seen since we left Karag Dum. All heading in the same direction.\" Slowly something became evident to Felix. He felt his heartbeat start to pound, and his mouth go dry. They were passing over the heart of the dust cloud now, and he could see many more figures. Thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. He thought he could make out the misshapen figures of beastmen, and other more disturbing things. It was apparent that the Chaos worshippers they had seen earlier were either stragglers from, or the rearguard of, a much mightier force. One that was heading directly into the lands of men.\n\n\"By Grungni, it's an army on the march,\" he heard Varek say. The young dwarf had a spyglass pressed to his face and was looking through it intently. \"This is larger than the force that besieged Karag Dum. What is going on?\"\n\n\"I fear the Powers of Chaos are planning a new incursion into the lands of men,\" Hargrim said. \"No place will be safe for my people.\"\n\nFelix felt a thrill of fear. The last thing anybody in the human lands wanted was a full-scale invasion by the followers of the Ruinous Powers. They were numberless and powerful, and Felix suspected, after what he had seen in these Wastes, that only their constant internecine fighting kept them from sweeping away human civilisation.\n\n\"Good. I could use a decent fight,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"I would have thought you'd had enough of that recently,\" Felix said sourly.\n\n\"There's never enough fighting for a Slayer, Felix Jaeger,\" said Borek. \"You should know that by now.\"\n\n\"Unfortunately I do.\" A new worry entered Felix's mind, one he knew he had been trying to keep out all day. \"If they invade, the Chaos hordes will come through the Axebite Pass.\"\n\n\"What of it, manling?\"\n\n\"Ivan Straghov's mansion is right in their path.\"\n\n\"Then we had best hurry on and warn them, hadn't we?\"\n\nExcitement and tension filled Felix's mind. They were through the pass. The land of Kislev lay before them. In hours he would see Ulrika again. He felt more nervous than he cared to admit. As nervous as he had ever been before a battle, perhaps more so. He wondered if she would be as pleased to see him as he was going to be to see her. He wondered what she would say, what he would say, what she would be wearing. He shook his head. He knew he was behaving like a schoolboy with a crush, yet he could not help himself. It had been a long time since he had felt this way about anyone. Not since the death of Kirsten at Fort von Diehl, which seemed like years ago. It was a pity that he had to be bringing such bad tidings.\n\nHe placed the spyglass to his eye and scanned the horizon, hoping for a first glimpse of the mansion, and was rewarded with a view of what he thought was the mooring tower. Soon, he thought, soon.\n\n\"Looking forward to being back?\" said a voice from beside him. Felix looked down at Varek. The young dwarf was looking at him with something uncomfortably like hero worship. Felix had no idea why. Varek had shared in all the perils of the descent into Karag Dum Felix had faced and had done his part to bring their quest to a successful conclusion. There was no reason for him to idolise Felix but it was apparent that he did. Varek wore a leather helmet and flying goggles. Makaisson had been teaching him how to fly a gyrocopter on the return trip. He had just come back from a flight, Felix realised.\n\n\"Course young Felix is,\" said Snorri Nosebiter. \"Even Snorri can see that. He's going to see his lady friend.\"\n\nSnorri winked across at Felix knowingly. It was not a reassuring sight. Even bandaged as he was, Snorri Nosebiter was the only dwarf Felix had ever met who was more terrifying than Gotrek in appearance, and the wounds he had taken at Karag Dum had not improved his looks.\n\nLike Gotrek, Snorri was a member of the Slayer cult, sworn to seek heroic death in battle. Like Gotrek his squat ape-like body was covered in tattoos. Unlike Gotrek, however, he had three nails driven directly into his shaven head. This was in place of the crest of hair that most Slayers had. Snorri was not the brightest of dwarfs but, for a Slayer, he was friendly.\n\nFelix focused the spyglass on the approaching manor house. There was something odd about it. At first he could not work out what, but slowly he started to put his finger on it. There were not enough people in the fields around it. In fact there was no one. There should have been serfs, carts, workhorses, soldiers, sentries, riders coming and going with messages. He ran his gaze across the horizon to make sure he was right. His heart was beating faster. His palms felt suddenly sweaty. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was wrong. Had the forces of Chaos already been here?\n\nHe breathed a prayer to Sigmar that nothing had happened to Ulrika, and then added one for her father and the rest of the people on the estate, but he was not sure his prayer was going to be answered. Looking closely at the mansion he could see signs of a disaster.\n\nIt looked as if the gate had been forced with a battering ram. There were signs of burning on the stone walls. Whole sections of the palisade had collapsed. It all reminded him sickeningly of the aftermath of the massacre at Fort von Diehl.\n\n\"No, not again,\" he muttered.\n\n\"What is it, manling? What do you see?\" Gotrek asked.\n\nFelix did not answer. The only thing that gave him hope was the fact that he could not see any bodies. And he was not at all sure that it was a hopeful sign. There were no signs of life at all. No signs of a battle except the damage to the buildings and fortifications. Surely, he thought, there would be corpses, or at least signs of burial. Frantically he scanned the area for a funeral pyre or a mass grave. Perhaps that mound over there was new.\n\n\"What do you see, manling?\" Gotrek asked again. There was a note of menace in his voice now.\n\n\"The mansion has been attacked,\" he said. He was not sure how he managed to keep his voice steady but he did. \"And it looks like everyone has simply vanished.\"\n\n\"Into thin air?\"\n\n\"It looks like it.\"\n\n\"I don't like it,\" Gotrek said. \"It smells of a trap.\"\n\nFelix was forced to agree with the Slayer's assessment. There was a wrongness about the situation down there that he did not like in the least. On the other hand, he desperately needed to find out what had happened to Ulrika. Let her be alive, he prayed.\n\nThe airship moved ever closer to the deserted-looking mansion.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol gazed at the approaching airship through the eyepiece of his periscope. As always, he was more impressed than he cared to admit by the dwarfs' creation. That such a massive vessel could fly hinted at a magic greater than his own. Yet he knew it was not magic that kept the huge vessel aloft, but the dwarfs' arcane technology.\n\nHe began to chew on some carefully hoarded pieces of powdered warpstone, knowing soon he would need all the sorcerous strength it could grant him. He felt a little weak. Last night his magical duel with the human wizard had taken nearly all his strength. It had almost upset all of his carefully laid plans. Who would have expected the humans to have such a strong mage in their midst? Still, in the end, Thanquol had triumphed, as was only inevitable. The power of a true servant of the Horned Rat would always overcome the feeble magic of mankind, just as the righteous skaven warriors had finally succeeded in taking the human keep. It filled Thanquol's heart with pride to think they had managed it even though they had only outnumbered the humans ten to one. It was a fitting tribute to the genius of his leadership that victory was his in the teeth of such odds.\n\nThey had even taken some prisoners, who would doubtless serve as suitable subjects for Clan Moulder's experiments once this expedition was over. It pained Thanquol to think that they had not had enough time yet to really interrogate their captives. There was nothing he found more relaxing than breaking a few terrified humans to his will. In particular he was pleased to have the human wizard in his clutches. The man had been knocked unconscious by magical backlash when attempting to dispel Thanquol's last spell. Once he was conscious and Thanquol had the time, he would torture the man for the secret of his spells.\n\nThey had even managed to capture a few breeders, which was an unexpected bonus. The survivors were imprisoned in the cellars except for the youngest and, Thanquol guessed, the most attractive of the breeders whom he thought he might be able to use to lure Felix Jaeger and Gotrek Gurnisson into a trap.\n\nEven the timing of the airship's arrival seemed to favour him. It was getting dark and that would help cover the ambushing troops waiting in the building and the cellars to erupt on the dwarfs. It occurred to Thanquol as he viewed the oncoming airship that Lurk could still be alive, and perhaps he might be able to contact him. That being the case, Thanquol thought, it was worth the attempt. It might prove very useful to have an agent alive and about Thanquol's business up there.\n\nHe decided he'd better make the attempt.\n\nLurk's head was splitting. It was not unusual these days. In the recent past he had endured more suffering than any skaven in the history of the world. It was so unfair. He had not asked to stow away on this accursed airship. He had not asked for these changes to come over his body. Doubtless it was the warpstone, he thought, and those lightning bolts that had hit the airship what seemed like an age ago. They had caused the changes. He had heard of similar changes coming over grey seers after prolonged consumption of the stuff, and the Horned Rat alone knew how much warpstone dust he had breathed in since the foolish dwarfs had taken their stupid airship out over the Wastes.\n\nIf only he had stayed below in the cupola, where it was safe. Where the air was filtered by screens, there was plenty of food and human and dwarf magic protected you from the effects of Chaos. Alas that had not proved possible. His thirteen-times-be-damned master, Grey Seer Thanquol, had insisted on regular reports and it was impossible for his sorcery to touch his lackey while he was within the protected area. So Lurk had to leave the protection of the gondola to please his accursed master. Thus had Lurk come to be exposed to the mutating dust in the first place. And now, with the cupola full to bursting with stunties, it was all but impossible for Lurk to hide down there. It would only have been a matter of time before he was detected, and he doubted that even a skaven of his prodigious potency could overcome so many dwarf warriors.\n\nHe did not know what was worse \u2014 the pain in his head or the hunger that burned in his belly. He could not remember ever being so ravenous, not even after battle, when every skaven was most in need of sustenance. The hunger had come on him with the changes in his body. He was huge now, and muscular, in a way he had never been before. He had muscles like a rat-ogre and his tail was like a length of steel cable. His body was probably twice its previous size and his talons were like daggers. Knobs of horn, similar to the ones on Grey Seer Thanquol's cranium, had started to protrude from his skull. Was he becoming a grey seer, Lurk wondered? Or was this a sign of some other blessing from the Horned Rat? Right at this moment, Lurk did not feel particularly blessed. Right now he was feeling tired and hungry and sorry for himself. He was filled with the justifiable caution in the face of his enemies that some mistakenly called fear. And there was this strange buzzing in his head. A buzzing that seemed to take the form of words.\n\nLurk! You dolt! Is that you?\n\nLurk wondered whether this was a hallucination brought on by starvation, or whether the horrors he had endured had finally driven him mad. Still, there was something strangely familiar about the voice, an annoying arrogance and a contempt for everyone but its owner.\n\nLurk! Answer me! I know you are there! I can sense you!\n\nLurk's paws strayed to the amulet Grey Seer Thanquol had given him. Was it possible, he asked? After all these long days, that Thanquol had managed to re-establish contact?\n\nI can see the airship, you oaf! And I can feel your feeble mind. If you do not answer me, I shall consume your pathetic soul, and feed your festering carcass to Boneripper.\n\nThe first faint flicker of rebellion flared in Lurk's brain. Who was Grey Seer Thanquol to speak to him in such a manner after all he had endured? Had Thanquol ever ventured into the Chaos Wastes? Had Thanquol ever travelled so far in such a dangerous and experimental vehicle? Had Thanquol ever been exposed to warpstone dust and mutated in such an uncontrollable fashion? Just let him try and feed me to Boneripper, Lurk thought, as the rage built up in his mind. I will tear the creature limb from limb, consume its flesh, crack its bones for marrow and spit the gristle at you, mighty Grey Seer Thanquol. You see if I don't.\n\nBut what he did was reach out and touch the crystal. \"Mightiest of masters,\" he chittered. \"Can it really be you? Has your omnipotent sorcery finally succeeded in overcoming the dire obstacles placed in its way by those wicked dwarfs and re-established contact with your faithful Lurk?\"\n\nYes, idiot, it has!\n\nThe baleful thought blasted through the ether and lodged itself in Lurk's brain. Lurk was amazed that his mouth and forebrain could mouth such gross and insincere flattery while his hindbrain and entire spirit festered with rebellion. He knew that given a chance he would kill Thanquol, and the world would be none the worse for it. The grey seer was mad and incompetent. He deserved to die and be replaced by someone better. Someone not unlike Lurk, in fact. He knew now that it was not only his body that the warpstone had altered but his mind and spirit. He had become smarter and his eyes had been opened to many things. He knew now he was cleverer than Thanquol, and could lead far better, if given a chance. For the moment though, he decided that prudent skaven caution was the best course.\n\n\"Where are you, mightiest of masters?\"\n\nI am below you in the human fortress, waiting to spring a trap on those stunted fools. Now report to me! Where have you been? Why have you not responded to my potent spells of communication?\n\nBecause they never reached me, you overbearing clod, thought Lurk. \"Perhaps my feeble brain was incapable of encompassing such potent sorceries, most masterful of mages,\" he replied.\n\nReport! Are there many dwarfs on the airship? Is it damaged? Where have you been? Do you have many treasures on board?\n\nWhat is this mad skaven on about? Treasures? What treasures could there possibly be? Grey Seer Thanquol had no idea what had been going on up here, that much was obvious. Did he think that Lurk had the run of the airship? That the dwarfs gave him a cheery greeting and an answer to all his questions? His disrespect for Thanquol increased with every passing moment. His mouth said: \"Which question should I answer first, wisest of leaders?\"\n\nAnswer as you will but answer quick-quick! We may not have much time before\u2026\n\n\"Before what, most perspicacious of potentates?\"\n\nNever mind. Just be ready to act when I give the order.\n\n\"As always, most commanding of commanders.\"\n\nIf he closed his eyes, Lurk could visualise Grey Seer Thanquol standing before him, red orbs gleaming with mad knowledge, the froth of the warpstone snuff to which he was addicted clinging to his lips. Lurk wished the grey seer was here right now so that he could reach out and wring his scrawny neck. He flexed his talons in anticipation.\n\nSoon the airship will dock and our trap will be sprung! Prepare to spread as much chaos and confusion among the stunties as you can, but be careful not to damage the airship!\n\nPrepare to get myself killed furthering your crazed schemes, you mean. Lurk had no intention of endangering his life for the greater glory of Grey Seer Thanquol. It occurred to him that he had done this quite often enough already without adding to the tally of misdeeds that Thanquol owed him for. \"Of course, master. I live to obey,\" he said.\n\nGood-good! See that you do and you will be well rewarded! Fail me and\u2014\n\n\"Say no more, most persuasive of pontificators. I will not fail you.\"\n\nNow answer my questions! Are there many dwarfs on board?\n\nLurk answered the catechism, being careful to overstate the strength of the dwarfs in every respect. It was as well to have your excuses prepared in advance with Grey Seer Thanquol. It was something he had learned from the master himself.\n\nFelix peered down at the mansion. It was as bad as he had feared. There was no sign of life. No! Wait! What was that? Was it movement at the window? He focused the spyglass on it but by the time he had done so it was gone.\n\n\"I suppose we had better go down and investigate,\" said Gotrek testily, pulling the sling from his arm and flexing the muscles experimentally.\n\n\"What if it's a trap?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"What's your point, manling? What if it is a trap?\"\n\nFelix considered his words carefully. The Slayer was still determined to seek his doom, that much was obvious. But for once Felix was keen to accompany him. He needed to find out what had happened here. He desperately needed to know what had become of Ulrika. And her people, he added as a guilty afterthought, though he admitted to himself there was only one person down there whose fate he really cared about.\n\n\"We'll go down together,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Snorri will come with you,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"I think the rest of us should stay with the airship,\" Borek said. \"No sense in risking everything and everyone at this late stage.\"\n\nThe old scholar at least had the grace to look embarrassed as he said it. Not that Felix blamed him. If he had been in command of the ship he would have forbade any of the crew except the Slayers to go down. And the only reason he would not have forbade them was because he would have known it was useless to give them orders anyway.\n\n\"We'll dock at the tower,\" he said. \"And you can make your way down. At least the thing is still standing, and it looks completely undamaged too. That's a stroke of luck.\"\n\n\"Is it?\" Felix asked, drawing his dragon-hilted sword. \"I wonder if luck has anything to do with it.\"\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol chuckled malevolently. It was all coming together perfectly. All the pawns were in position. He had even managed to recontact that imbecile Lurk. Perhaps the little runt might still prove to be of some use, Thanquol thought, though he did not have high hopes. Lurk had not proven to be that great a minion in the past. Still, you could never tell.\n\nHe looked at the blond-furred breeder he had ordered brought up from the cellar. He guessed she was attractive by the strange standards of the humans, and you never knew, he might be able to use her as a negotiating chip. Human males were strangely protective of their breeders, the Horned Rat alone knew why.\n\nHe showed her his fangs menacingly, and to his surprise she showed neither fear nor awe. Instead she spat on his face. Thanquol licked away the spittle with his long pink tongue and flexed his claws menacingly. Once again, the breeder surprised him. She reached for the hilt of the sword that was no longer scabbarded at her waist, and Thanquol was suddenly glad it was not there. It seemed that this breeder might actually be dangerous.\n\n\"Be very quiet!\" he chittered softly and menacingly. \"Or your life will be forfeit. Grey Seer Thanquol has spoken.\"\n\nIf she recognised his name she gave no sign. \"It's always nice to know the name of the rat you intend to kill,\" she said.\n\nThanquol opened his eyes a fraction and let her see the power burning there. This time she did quail a little, as almost anyone would when confronted by the supernatural glow.\n\n\"Do not be stupid, breeder. Kill me you will not. Live you only at my pleasure. Die you will if you annoy me.\"\n\n\"You are the skaven sorcerer of whom Felix spoke,\" she murmured to herself, so low that Thanquol almost did not hear. Almost.\n\n\"Know you the accursed Felix Jaeger?\" he demanded.\n\nShe seemed to realise her mistake for her mouth snapped shut, and she said nothing more. Thanquol bared his fangs in a grin. \"Interesting. Very-very.\"\n\nHe turned this knowledge over in his head, wondering what he might do with it, wondering what the nature of the relationship between this breeder and Felix Jaeger was. Had they mated? A possibility. Humans always seemed to be in heat. It was their way. Did they have runts? No. Not enough time. Thanquol cursed. If only he had found this out earlier, he might have been able to do something with the knowledge. Now, he no longer had the time. He needed to prepare his mind for the great spell of binding.\n\n\"Boneripper!\" he commanded. \"Watch this breeder. Do not let her escape.\"\n\nHe sensed other eyes on him, and noticed the nearest Moulder clawleader was watching him closely. How much of the exchange between Thanquol and the breeder had he followed, Thanquol wondered? Not that it mattered. There would be time soon enough to get to the bottom of all this. His enemies were almost within his grasp.\n\nFelix watched as the airship nosed into position near the tower. The dwarfs dropped their grapnels then pulled the ship gently into place. The boarding ramp was extended between the tower and the ship. Felix drew his dragon-hilted sword and got ready to make the long descent to the ground below. He was nervous. He sensed evil eyes watching him. Just your imagination, he told himself, but he knew it was not.\n\n\"Ready, manling?\" Gotrek asked.\n\n\"As I'll ever be.\"\n\n\"Snorri's ready too,\" said Snorri Nosebiter.\n\n\"Then let's go.\"\n\nAs they strode across the ramp, Felix was once more uncomfortably aware of how it flexed beneath their weight and how high up they were. The wind whipped his long red cloak and tugged at his hair. It was cold and chill as only a wind from the northern steppes could be.\n\nGotrek and Snorri would have looked almost comical, swathed as they were in bandages, had they not been so serious. Felix doubted that anybody in his right mind would laugh at two Slayers when this mood was upon them. He did not feel much like laughing himself. He could not help but notice that both Gotrek and Snorri were moving slowly and favouring their wounded sides. He hoped nothing was down there to attack them. When fully fit he knew Gotrek was a match for just about anything that walked on two legs, and nearly anything on four, but right now he was heavily wounded, and that would count sorely against him if there was fighting.\n\n\"I'll go first,\" Felix said, moving to the ladder. He doubted that the elevator cage would work right now, and anyway he did not want to be caught in it if they were attacked. It was too much like a death trap.\n\n\"In your dreams, manling,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"Snorri has a doom to find too,\" said Snorri. \"Your job is to record it, young Felix.\"\n\n\"I only agreed to do that for Gotrek,\" Felix said touchily.\n\n\"Well, if Snorri happens to be there when I find mine, you can surely give him a few lines, manling.\"\n\nFelix looked at the ground below. He was fairly certain he saw movement within the windows of the manor. \"Is there anybody alive down there?\" he shouted. There was no sense in being subtle. Any enemies would already have seen and heard the Spirit of Grungni arrive.\n\n\"There certainly is, manling,\" Gotrek said. \"I can hear them.\"\n\n\"Snorri smells skaven,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"Great,\" Felix said. \"That's just what we needed.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you think so, young Felix,\" said Snorri. \"Snorri thinks so too.\"\n\n\"I have a few scores to settle with those ratmen,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"I'm pretty sure they have a few to settle with us, Gotrek,\" said Felix. After Nuln, he was sure that the skaven would not be in the slightest disposed to talk with them. That was for sure. He forced himself to keep climbing down."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "Lurk padded through the great balloon. He knew the airship had come to a halt. He had heard the engine noise fade and die. He had felt the ship shudder as it nudged against something, felt the faint sideways movement as it was tied up. He knew it was time to be about his business. His business, not Grey Seer Thanquol's. He knew that if ever he was to escape from this accursed vessel full of stunties there would never be a better time than during Thanquol's attack. That would keep the crew busy while Lurk made his getaway. There would be time to make his excuses to Thanquol later. Lurk poised himself in readiness to spring into action.\n\nUlrika watched the small figures step out onto the platform above. One of them, she could see, was Felix. Her heart sank. She had not felt this bad since the skaven assault force had swarmed over the walls and began slaughtering her people. She consoled herself with the thought that she had at least killed half a dozen of the scuttling monsters before she was clubbed down from behind.\n\nNot that it had made much difference; there had been just too many of the things. Still, she calculated that her force had taken out a good half of the skaven. She felt sick with worry. All day she had been locked up in the cellars, part of her home turned into a cell, not knowing whether her father or her friends were still alive and now she was being forced to watch while this gloating, horned-headed albino sorcerer stood ready to ambush Felix and his crew. She had no hopes that they could drive off the ratmen. There were not enough of them aboard the airship to withstand the chittering hordes.\n\nShe looked around and wished she still had her weapons. Not that she fancied her chances much against the huge rat-ogre that acted as Grey Seer Thanquol's bodyguard even fully armed but she might have stood some chance. As it was, there was no hope at all. She wished she possessed Max Schreiber's sorcerous powers, then it would not have mattered if she was armed or not. What havoc the mage had wrought last night before being blasted by some spell of the mad ratman before her. Schreiber alone must have killed fifty of the skaven.\n\nSuch thoughts were getting her nowhere. If wishes were horses we'd all ride chargers, as her father used to say. There had to be something she could do, some way she could warn Felix and the others and still escape. She thought about it. Even if there was no escape she could still warn them. She was the hard daughter of a hard land. If her life was forfeit then so be it.\n\nShe glanced around at the hall and the seething sea of ratlike faces. It was a pity they were the last thing she was going to see in this life, she thought, as she hesitated for a moment, then opened her mouth and prepared to shout a warning.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol felt the power surge within him. His moment was almost here. Gurnisson, Jaeger and the beautiful, beautiful airship were almost within his grasp.\n\nHe reached into his pouch and found the necessary components. A piece of magnetised warpstone. A sliver of rune-encrusted metal. The thirteen-sided amulet inscribed with the thirteen fatal runes of utter power. He had everything he needed. He was ready to begin. There would be no escape for his enemies this time. He was certain of that.\n\nHe flexed his paws, reached out with his spirit, drew power from the winds of magic and prepared to unleash his spell."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "AMBUSH AT STRAGHOV MANSION",
+                "text": "Felix looked down. He was not happy. Of the many things he hated and feared in this life, skaven came close to the top of the list. He had loathed the vile vermin ever since he and the Slayer had first encountered them in the sewers of Nuln. What was worse, the awful creatures seemed to have dogged their footsteps ever since, even assaulting the Lonely Tower before their expedition to the Chaos Wastes. Who would have thought they would have shown up here, though? The northernmost provinces of Kislev were a long way from anywhere. Was the reach of the Horned Rat so long?\n\nStill, why should he be surprised by anything in this life? It sometimes seemed to him that he and the Slayer were the most unlucky creatures ever to walk the face of the world. Everywhere they went, they encountered the servants of Chaos. Everywhere they went, they met with disaster and destruction. Another, worse, thought pushed that idea from his mind. Was it possible that Ulrika was alive and down there in the clutches of the ratmen? It was something that did not bear thinking about.\n\n\"Should we go on down?\" Felix asked. They were half way down the ladder, on the fifth platform.\n\n\"Why not?\" Gotrek replied. \"You wanted to find out what happened to the Kislevites.\"\n\n\"Under the circumstances, I'm pretty sure I can guess.\"\n\n\"Guessing isn't good enough, manling. There may be some humans alive down there, and they granted us fire and shelter.\"\n\n\"Fire and shelter and a bucket of vodka for Snorri,\" added Snorri helpfully.\n\n\"That settles it then,\" Felix said sourly. \"I'll gladly sell my life for a bucket of vodka.\"\n\nFelix knew he was just grumbling for the sake of form. Even if the two Slayers had not been there, he liked to think he would continue anyway to find out the fate of Ulrika and her family. Flanked by Gotrek and Snorri there was no turning back. He consoled himself with the thought that if there were skaven down there, a lot of them were going to die.\n\nUnless they have some of those terrible sharpshooters, Felix thought. Or even some with crossbows. Easiest thing in the world to pick us off from a distance. Or maybe not. Not in this light. Not with all these wooden crossbars around. And Snorri and Gotrek were short; they would not make good targets. Of course, that left one obvious target for any sniping. He tried to push the thought from his mind as he put his weight on the rungs of the ladder once more.\n\nA glow surrounded Grey Seer Thanquol. For a moment Ulrika stood frozen, wondering what new horror the skaven sorcerer was about to unleash. The aura of power that surrounded the creature was almost overwhelming. The skaven raised two objects it had taken from its pouch and began chanting something in its own highpitched tongue. All skaven eyes in the room were upon it. The rat-ogre growled as it sensed the gathering of power. Ulrika decided that it did not matter what the skaven was up to. This was her best chance to do something. Whatever wickedness Thanquol was about to commit, she would put a stop to it.\n\nShe sprang forward and sent her booted foot crashing into Grey Seer Thanquol's groin. The skaven gave a squeal of pain and bent over double, dropping his sorcerous adjuncts. A strange smell of musk suddenly filled the air. The rat-ogre roared and reached for her. She dived forward, below its outstretched claws. They missed her by inches as she passed between its columnar legs and headed for the door.\n\nThe skaven shrieked in confusion. Ulrika threw the bar on the door and dashed into the next chamber. The rat-ogre bellowed its rage behind her. She saw a surprised skaven in front of her. Desperation gave her strength. She punched it on the snout. It shrieked in pain and dropped its sword. Ulrika stamped on its lower paw, and while it hopped away reached down to pick up its scimitar. It wasn't quite what she was used to, but she felt better with a weapon in her hand.\n\nShe looked around: to her left were the stairs down into the cellars where her people were imprisoned, to the right was a long corridor full of skaven. No choice as to direction then. With luck she might be able to free a few of her folk. Failing that a narrow corridor was a much better place to make a last stand than an open hallway.\n\nUnder the circumstances, she had no choice at all.\n\n\"What was that?\" Felix asked, hearing a distant roar that was all too familiar. It came hot on the heels of a highpitched squeal of pain.\n\n\"Sounds like one of those big rat monsters to me,\" said Gotrek. \"Whatever it is, it's mine.\"\n\n\"Can Snorri have one too?\" asked Snorri plaintively.\n\n\"You can have mine,\" Felix said, pausing on the lowest platform and getting ready to fight.\n\n\"Thank you, young Felix,\" said Snorri. He sounded grateful.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol clutched his tender bits and cursed. That foolish breeder would pay for this indignity, he swore. She had dared to lay her filthy paws on the greatest of skaven sorcerers. Worse yet, she had interrupted him just as he was about to unleash his spell, the one that would make the ambush foolproof, a spell of compelling potency that would bind the airship until he released it.\n\nNot to worry, there was still time. The element of surprise was still his.\n\nOnly at that moment, as the tears of agony cleared from his eyes, did he realise the full outrageous folly of his underlings. They had mistaken his scream of pain for the signal to attack and had come surging out of the buildings to attack Gotrek Gurnisson, Felix Jaeger and the other Slayer.\n\nWould these minions never learn to follow orders? Thanquol wailed.\n\nThen he realised that the worst had come to pass. Seeing the horde of ratmen surging towards the base of the tower, the cowardly dwarfs had already cast off. Even as he watched, the airship was gaining height above the battlefield. Perhaps it would escape before he could use his magic. It was an awful thought.\n\nThanquol swore that the human breeder was really, really going to pay when he got his paws on her. Right now, though, he had another problem. He had to take charge of this attack before it became a complete fiasco."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "Lurk Snitchtongue felt the airship suddenly gain altitude. He heard the engines roar. His keen ears could hear the dwarfish bellow of orders through the speaking tubes in the ship. Just for a moment, he wished that he understood that foul guttural tongue, but then he realised that he did not have to. It was quite obvious what had happened. The dwarfs had spotted the ambush Grey Seer Thanquol had set for them, and were busy escaping from it. Just one more proof, if any were needed, of Thanquol's gross incompetence.\n\nNot that it would do Lurk much good. He was still stuck on the ship and his chance of escape was all but gone. He could hear dwarfs clambering up the ladders within the gasbag to reach the turrets mounted on top of the airship. It seemed that they were preparing themselves for a fight.\n\nUnreasoning rage filled Lurk's brain for a moment, threatening to swamp every rational thought. He would clamber up there and tear them limb from limb and then he would feast on their warm bleeding flesh. He would cave in their skulls then scoop out their brains to make a tasty morsel to satisfy his hunger. He would stick his snout in their entrails and suck out their intestines while they squealed in pain.\n\nJust as quickly, prudent skaven caution returned and resumed command. Perhaps it would be better to clamber up and see if there was any way he could take advantage of the situation. Certainly it was pointless going down into the cupola. There were just too many dwarfs down there even for a skaven of Lurk's surpassing might. Even in his tormented state he could remember only too well how deadly Gotrek Gurnisson's axe was.\n\nQuickly he scurried to the ladder and began to pull himself up it.\n\n\"Here they come,\" shouted Gotrek.\n\nThere's no need to sound so pleased about it, thought Felix, but he kept the thought to himself. He knew he was soon going to need all his strength for fighting. A mass of tightly packed skaven warriors had erupted from the manor house, swords raised, mouths frothing. It was like something out of a particularly nasty nightmare. Any hopes that he might have had for Ulrika's survival vanished immediately. At least he could avenge her, he thought. A fair number of skaven were going to die in the next few minutes.\n\nThe tower shivered. Fearing the worst, Felix looked up. His fears were confirmed. The airship's engines roared to life as it slowly reversed away. Any thought of retreat to the Spirit of Grungni could be abandoned.\n\nThanks, lads, thought Felix. Just what I needed to make my day complete.\n\n\"Come on up and die!\" Gotrek roared.\n\n\"Snorri's got a present for you,\" yelled Snorri, brandishing his axe with one hand and his hammer in the other.\n\nFelix settled himself behind one of the support struts, hoping to get some cover from any missile weapons the skaven might care to deploy. The mass of ratmen warriors had reached the foot of the tower now. Some swarmed up the ladder, others clambered up the legs of the structure itself. There were far too many of them to count, and as he watched Felix saw the monstrous form of a rat-ogre emerge from the manor house. Given the number of close calls he had endured with these monsters in the past, the sight did not reassure him.\n\n\"Not going to be much of a fight, this,\" Gotrek complained.\n\n\"Easy,\" said Snorri.\n\nFelix wished he shared the confidence of these two maniacs. His stomach churned with the fear he always felt before a fight. He wanted nothing more now than to get to grips with the foe, to end this waiting. Part of him even considered jumping down into the mass of skaven but he knew it would be suicide. The fall was too long and he would be surrounded from all sides and dragged down.\n\nThe first furry snout poked up the ladder. Gotrek split it with one stroke of his axe. Black blood splattered his bandages. The skaven dropped down, knocking away the others on the ladder. It started to dawn on Felix that actually, as long as they stayed here, they would have quite a good chance of surviving. Not too many of the skaven could get at them at once, and most of them would be in the uncomfortable position of having to raise themselves onto the platform, leaving themselves vulnerable for vital moments as they did so.\n\n\"This is too easy,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"Snorri thinks we should climb down and start killing properly,\" said Snorri.\n\nDon't you dare, thought Felix, noticing that pink eyes were glaring at him as a skaven pulled itself up the metal strut. He lashed out at it, but in desperation it leapt forward, fangs bared, going right for his throat.\n\nIn a heartbeat he was too busy trying to stay alive to think about the precariousness of their situation.\n\nVarek raced through the corridors of the Spirit of Grungni. Swiftly he entered the hangar deck. The gyrocopters were waiting. He clambered into a cockpit, and worked the crank of the ignition. The engine roared to life. Wind hit Varek's face as the rotors began to spin. Dwarf engineers were already opening the doors at the back of the gondola. One by one the gyrocopters rumbled forward and dropped into the night. He was glad they had used the time flying over the Chaos Wastes to unpack and assemble the crated flying machines. It looked like they would all be needed now. Varek felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as his own copter dropped away from the airship, then the rotors above him churned the air and he began to gain altitude. He reached down into the satchel beside him and began to fumble for a bomb. This was almost as exciting as the trip into Karag Dum, he thought.\n\nUlrika raced down the stairs. A skaven turned to look at her, snarling. She split its skull with one stroke of the stolen sword. Its surprised companion growled at her. A strange acrid stink filled the air. She noticed that the creature was venting some sort of musk from glands near its tail. She struck out at it. Sparks flashed as its blade parried her own. There was a screech of metal on metal as she slid her sword down its blade. The guards of the two weapons met. She twisted her sword, disarming her foe. It leapt back, screeching for mercy. She gave it none.\n\n\"What's going on out there?\" she heard a mighty voice bellow. She almost cried with relief at its familiarity.\n\n\"Father \u2014 is that you?\" She was already throwing the door open.\n\n\"Ulrika,\" said her father, Ivan, reaching out to grasp her in a fierce hug. His bushy beard tickled her face. She saw a dozen more ragged and beaten looking men in the cellar. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"The airship has come back. The skaven are trying to ambush it,\" she gasped out.\n\n\"How many of the others are left alive?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I think there are more prisoners down here in the cellars.\"\n\nIvan reached down and picked up the sword of one of the skaven guards. He tossed it to his tall, thin, cadaverous-looking lieutenant, Oleg, and then picked up the sword belonging to the other skaven. His other favourite, Standa, short, burly and high-cheek boned, looked disappointed that there was no blade for him. \"Filthy weapons but they'll have to do.\"\n\n\"What shall we do?\" Ulrika asked.\n\n\"Free as many prisoners as we can find. Kill as many skaven as we can. Use the weapons to arm our warriors, then fight or escape depending on the situation.\"\n\n\"That's a pretty sketchy plan,\" she said, smiling.\n\n\"Sorry, daughter, but it's the best I can manage under the circumstances.\"\n\n\"It'll have to do.\"\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol gnawed on his lower lip as he watched his warriors swarming up the tower. He could see that things were not going well. His brave skaven had the advantage in numbers but their foes' position was a strong one. Gotrek Gurnisson held his ground above the ladder, and chopped anything that came at him. The other Slayer and Felix Jaeger roved around the platform killing any ratman who climbed up the outside of the tower. Thanquol was torn between aiding his troops and preventing the Spirit of Grungni from escaping.\n\nHe stood there undecided for a moment, and then decided to stick as close to the original plan as possible. After all, it was a mighty scheme of his own devising and it should still work despite the incompetence of his lackeys. He opened his mouth and began to chant the words of his spell.\n\nThe winds of magic howled in his ears as he drew their energies to him. Pure pleasure surged through him as the power of the warpstone filled him.\n\nFelix ducked a blow from a skaven sword and slashed at the rat-man attacking him. The skaven leapt back, claws scrabbling on the metal surface of the tower as it realised how close to the edge it was. Felix cursed. He had hoped that in its panic the creature would jump straight off. Well, he could always give it some assistance. He sprang forward, barrelling into it with all his weight. The skaven was much lighter than he and was sent tumbling back through the air, over the edge of the platform. And good riddance, thought Felix before he noticed that the thing had managed to grab a support strut with its tail and was dangling there upside down.\n\nSmiling nastily Felix chopped at the creature's long hairless tail. The tail parted and the skaven shrieked something in its incomprehensible tongue as it dropped to its doom. Felix had time for one brief snarl of satisfaction before the pitter-patter of paws on metal warned him that another skaven was behind him.\n\nHe whirled, sword raised to face his foe.\n\nLurk poked his snout up through the hatchway. He looked around. Dwarfs had taken up position behind the strange looking guns that filled the rotating turrets on top of the airship. He had seen enough of Clan Skryre's engines to know that those guns would probably rip him apart if he tried to attack them. While he was a mighty and invincible skaven warrior there was no sense in courting needless death. There was nothing for him up here.\n\nThere was a roaring sound from below him, and suddenly some sort of flying machine rose into view over the airship. Lurk ducked as it whizzed directly above his head. Here was powerful sorcery, he thought, looking at the small vehicle. If only he had known what it was earlier, maybe he could have stolen it and escaped.\n\n\"Oi! What's that?\" he heard one of the dwarfs shout.\n\nMay the Horned Rat consume their souls, the dwarfs had spotted him! He ducked back out of sight, scuttling down the ladder, wondering what to do next. Perhaps he could go and hide among the nacelles of gas that filled the balloon. No. Pointless. Sooner or later they would seek him out in sufficient numbers to ensure his death. While this would almost certainly fulfil Grey Seer Thanquol's dictum that he create a distraction on the airship, it would do him no good whatsoever. If he was going to help Thanquol to victory he wanted to be alive to claim his share of the credit for the triumph.\n\nNot that Thanquol would allow anyone to share in that, a small sour part of his brain quibbled.\n\nHe kept dropping until he reached the bottom of the gasbag. He saw a dwarf face peering up at him from the hatch that led down into the airship proper. Whichever way he looked there were foes. Nothing for it, then, but to fight. It would not have been his first choice of action but it looked like he had run out of options.\n\nHe bared his fangs and reached out with his claws. The terrified dwarf ducked back into the gondola, pulling the hatch shut behind him. A surge of pain passed through Lurk. He realised his tail had been caught in the heavy hatch.\n\nSomeone, he decided, was going to pay for that.\n\nUlrika fumbled her way through the darkened cellars. The stink of skaven mingled with scents familiar from her childhood, all but overlaying the smell of too many people cramped into too small a space. She was glad though. It meant a lot of her folk were still alive, more than she had dared hope for. They were locked in with the vodka barrels and in the holding cellars from which the hungry skaven horde had emptied the provisions.\n\nShe wished she had a lantern. She wished she had more weapons. She pushed those thoughts aside. It was pointless wishing for things she could not have. She was going to have to work with what she did have. She listened. Even through the tightly packed earth she could hear the sounds of fighting. She could hear the roar of the rat-ogre, the squeals of wounded skaven and the sound of something else.\n\nIt sounded like explosions. What was going on up there? Had the skaven sorcerer unleashed some foul spell? She gave the door of the last cellar a push and confronted two cowering skaven. They obviously had been set here for a special purpose, and that purpose was immediately obvious. One of them held a knife at the throat of Max Schreiber. Max was unconscious, his beautiful golden robes ripped and filthy. The other skaven, a huge black-furred monster rose to meet her.\n\n\"Prepare to die, foolish breeder,\" it chittered, in poorly accented Reikspeil.\n\nFelix saw that things were beginning to turn against them. Despite their best efforts more and more skaven were gaining the platform. Slowed by their wounds, Snorri and Gotrek were not fighting as well as they normally would. With only three of them they could not cover all the possible means of getting on to the platform. There were four pylons, one at each corner of the tower, and the central ladder. While they managed to guard three, two were always clear for the skaven and as more and more of them forced their way onto the platform, they could not even hold those successfully.\n\nHe looked around. Wounded or not, the Slayers were wreaking awful havoc. The platform floor was sticky with blood and spilled entrails. It was increasingly hard to keep a firm footing in the mess. He dreaded the fact that at any moment he might lose his balance and go slithering over the edge. Here and there in the dimming light he could see bodies that had literally been broken apart by the Slayers' axes. Bones and lungs and internal organs had all flopped into the light.\n\nIn one swift flash of terrible insight it struck Felix that they were differently arranged from human entrails, and that it was a dreadful thing that he had seen enough opened corpses to know this. A flicker of movement sent his peripheral vision to Gotrek. The Slayer stood on top of a pile of mangled bodies. He held one skaven in the air at arm's length, throttling it, while his axe described a huge half-circle holding the skaven's comrades at bay. Black skaven blood soiled Gotrek's bandages. Froth blew from his lips. He howled like a madman, drowning out the frightened chittering war cries and the screams of his opponents. Nearby Snorri lashed out with his two weapons, chopping and smashing like a demented butcher in a hellish abattoir. He smiled as he fought, obviously enjoying the mayhem and uncaring as to the nearness of death.\n\nThe stink was abominable. There was the wet fur reek of skaven, the odd musky scent they emitted when frightened, the smell of excrement and torn bodies and blood. At any other time, it would have made Felix want to be sick but right now he found it oddly exhilarating. As always when death was close his senses were almost intolerably keen and he found himself savouring every moment.\n\nA mighty roaring filled his ears. He was suddenly aware of flashes from the base of the tower and the movement of large ominous shadows above him. He risked a glance up and saw a gyrocopter had been catapulted from the airship and was soaring above them. He had a brief glimpse of the mad face of Malakai Makaisson at its controls, as the insane engineer rained bombs down at the foot of the tower. He heard the anguished, fearful screaming of the skaven massed there. The tower itself shook as if kicked by a giant, and Felix had to fight to keep his footing amid the gore.\n\nHe offered up a prayer to Sigmar that the bombs didn't send the whole towering structure crashing to the earth, burying them all in a chaos of smashed wooden beams.\n\nDid Makaisson have any idea what he was doing, Felix wondered? Did he care? Looking down Felix could see that he was causing terrible casualties among the skaven. Broken ratman bodies were hurled skywards. Some were torn completely to bits by the force of the explosions. Others lay on the ground, limbless, bleeding and shrieking. It was a wonder that the skaven could hold their ground in the teeth of so ferocious an assault. Felix realised that more bombs were cascading down, this time from the airship. One hit the tower near him, fuse spluttering. For a horrible moment, he felt that his time had come, that he was about to be blown into a thousand tiny fragments of flesh. He froze on the spot for an instant but then courage and mobility returned and he kicked the bomb off the platform.\n\nHe saw it disappear, sparks trailing from its flickering fuse, into the crowd below. A heartbeat later a terrible explosion blasted through the skaven.\n\nThat was too close, thought Felix. He shook his fist in the air and shouted, \"Watch what you're doing, you stupid bastard!\"\n\nIt was all too much for the skaven down below. They scattered in all directions, unable to face the death crashing down on them from above anymore. A glow from the door of the mansion attracted Felix's attention. He saw a familiar form illuminated by it.\n\nAstonishment almost paralysed him. He recognised the skaven sorcerer. It was Grey Seer Thanquol, who had led the attack on Nuln, and whom Felix had last seen fleeing from the ballroom of the Elector Countess' palace.\n\nHow had he got here, Felix wondered? Had the creature come all this way simply to get revenge? Was it possible that the grey seer had been behind the attack on the Lonely Tower?\n\nFrom the swirling energy around the figure he could tell that the grey seer was about to cast a spell.\n\nWhat new madness was this?\n\nLurk stood on the edge of the cupola. The whole hellish scene was visible below, illuminated by flashes of light from the bombs. He saw his luckless kin torn apart by the violent blasts and felt thoroughly and profoundly glad that he was not down there with them. The relief evaporated when he realised the precariousness of his own position. If he did not get off the airship soon he would be caught by the dwarfs and overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. He needed to get away now but he could see no way to do it.\n\nExcept one. The airship was moving close to the tower again. It was just possible that he could leap from the top of the cupola and land on the tower. It was dangerous, and if he mis-timed his leap or missed his footing he would be sent plunging to his doom. On the other hand, if he stayed here his death was certain, and any chance was better than no chance at all.\n\nLurk screwed his courage to the sticking point. He felt his muscles tense, his heart rate accelerate, his musk glands tighten.\n\nAny second now he was going to do it.\n\nUlrika ducked below the black-furred skaven's swipe and slashed back. The creature bounded away from her counter-blow and bumped into the skaven with its blade at Schreiber's neck, sending it flying. Ulrika realised that the ratman probably had orders to kill the wizard at the first sign of any trouble. It would make sense. On his own, a conscious Schreiber could wreak as much havoc as a troop of cavalry. Wizards had that kind of power.\n\nShe realised that she would have to do her best to save his life, and quickly. She sprang forward while the skaven were still entangled, and split the skull of the huge black beast with one powerful stroke. Its corpse flopped to the earth, trapping its smaller fellow. Taking advantage of the fact, she buried her sword in the still living skaven's throat and then kicked it a couple of times for good measure.\n\nAfter ensuring both were dead, she turned to Schreiber. He was bruised and his hair and eyebrows looked singed but a quick check told her his heart was still beating, a fact for which she was profoundly thankful. Gently she shook him, knowing it was risky to treat an injured man in such a way, and yet needing him to be awake and helping her. He groaned and mumbled and his eyes flickered open. Slowly she saw consciousness return. He smiled through bruised lips.\n\n\"I am too sore to be dead,\" he said eventually. \"It's pleasant to reenter the world of the living and be greeted by such a beautiful face.\"\n\n\"There's no time for flattery, Max Schreiber. The skaven are still here and upstairs a battle rages. We need your help.\"\n\n\"Tis always the way,\" he grumbled, pulling himself slowly and painfully to his feet. He brushed himself down, disgusted at seeing how soiled his golden robes were. \"No one wants to know a wizard\u2026 until they have a problem. Then it's different.\"\n\n\"Herr Schreiber, have your wounds rendered you insane?\"\n\n\"No, Ulrika. I'm just attempting to lighten the situation with a joke. You're a lovely woman, but if I may say so your sense of humour is not your strong point.\"\n\n\"Just get on with it, Max.\"\n\n\"And thank you for saving me. I owe you for it.\"\n\n\"You owe me nothing. Just get out there and start casting spells \u2014 like you did the other night.\"\n\nHe nodded and then a sudden serious expression flashed across his face. \"The grey seer is gathering its powers, and they are immense. I have never felt the winds of magic swirl and flow so turbulently. I wonder what new evil it is up to.\"\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol felt the power surging within him. It was like a snake in his belly, in his chest, fighting to get out. He had consumed an enormous amount of warpstone, enough to have caused lesser skaven mages to explode or devolve into primordial ooze but he was Thanquol. He was the greatest of the grey seers, the mightiest of mages, the supreme sorcerer of the skaven people. Nothing was beyond his powers. Nothing.\n\nControl yourself, he thought. Think. Think. He knew only too well the feeling of extreme self-confidence that filled the habitual warpstone user at such moments as this. Indeed, he believed that most skaven sorcerers had moments of utter grandiosity mere heartbeats before the warpstone led them to their final doom. He was not going to be one of them. It was true that like all grey seers, he had a healthy regard for his own abilities but he was not going to allow the potent raw Chaos stuff to drown out his sense of self-preservation. A sense that was, at this very moment, asserting itself and letting him know that he needed to cast the spell and vent the power now, before it consumed him. It was difficult to do so with so much raw sorcerous energy coursing through his veins and the ecstasy of unlimited power bubbling in his brain, but he knew that he must do it or his doom was certain.\n\nSlowly he forced himself to recite the words of the potent incantation he had devised. One by one he reconstructed the intricate maze of paw gestures that would focus the magic. As he moved his arm, streamers of pure magical energy followed his talons, as if he were slashing holes in the very substance of reality, which in a way, he supposed, he was. He moved his arms in ever-wider gestures; he shrieked the potent syllables of the incantation ever louder. As he did so, a nimbus of light played round his body. Raw magical energy began to leak from his eyes, his snout, his muzzle and the lower extremities of his body. He felt the power roiling back and forth in his gut like acid and knew that he was involved in a race against time, that if he did not complete his spell soon, the power would rip him apart. The part of his mind that was not caught up in the complex mystic geometry of the spell swore that never, ever again would he consume so much warpstone.\n\nHe rushed through the last potent syllables of the incantation and made the final paw gestures. Slowly at first a writhing mass of green tendrils extended themselves from his body. Then one by one, the filaments reached out and up, seeking the airship. Thanquol felt his whole body tingle with vibrant energy as they did so. His fur stood on end and his tail was fully extended. His whole body was uncannily sensitive. The faintest kiss of air on his fur felt like someone was rubbing him down with a wire brush. It was painful and yet not unpleasant. He forced himself to concentrate once more, to see each tentacle of energy as an extension of himself, a thing that he could control, that he could feel through as if it were his paw tips.\n\nHe extended the web of his power. The spell was a giant claw with which he could grasp the airship and immobilise it. Now those foolish dwarfs would learn the folly of opposing Grey Seer Thanquol, mightiest of mages, master of all magics. He would take their puny airship and crush it. He would smash it to pieces and cast it to earth. He would\u2026\n\nNo! What was he thinking? That was the warpstone dust speaking. He would merely immobilise the airship and let his minions take it. Yes. That was it. Concentrate, he told himself. Don't lose sight of the goal now that it is almost within your grasp.\n\nHis questing fingers of power touched the airship's cupola. Thanquol shrieked. He felt as if he had been scorched. What wickedness was this? What evil sorcery was at work here? He watched the streamers of green light retreat from the airship at his command. Of course, the airship was protected against Chaos magic. It needed to have been since it had flown across the Wastes. Gingerly Thanquol sent the streamers flickering back again. He knew he had time. What seemed like minutes to him in his exalted state were mere heartbeats to others. His questing tendrils played over the cupola and retreated. It was no use trying to grasp the airship there. It was well protected. He extended his reach to the gasbag. Success! It was not shielded. No! Correction. Parts of it were. The bits that held turrets. Suddenly as he ran his power over the lower part of the gasbag he sensed a familiar, and yet somehow subtly changed presence. It was Lurk! He detached one streamer of energy to grasp his wayward minion, catching him in mid-leap. The rest he continued to weave around the unshielded parts of the gasbag, anchoring the airship in place.\n\nNo! What was happening! Why was he starting to rise from the ground! This was not supposed to\u2026 Wait! He had it. Thanquol alone could not anchor the airship. His weight was insubstantial compared to the mass of the flying ship. A moment's consideration told him exactly what he needed to do to bind himself to the earth.\n\nAs quick as thought he created more streamers of warpstone energy and sent them burrowing deep into the ground, questing downwards like the roots of some sorcerously swift growing plant. Now he was locked in place. Now he had the leverage to pit himself against the airship's engines. He exerted his power once more.\n\nInstantly he felt himself being drawn back to earth again, and the airship with him. This was more like it. He was a giant! He was a god! With his magic he was going to pull the Spirit of Grungni right out of the sky. He had it hooked like a fish on a line, and now all he needed to do was reel it in. There was nothing any of those pitiful fools could do to stop him.\n\nExtending his power to the fullest, he slowly but surely began to pull the airship to the ground.\n\nFelix watched in astonishment as a mass of shimmering streamers of light surged up from the doorway of the mansion, curling round the tower like serpents until eventually they engulfed the airship. For a moment, the fighting stopped and all eyes were drawn upwards to watch the sorcerous spectacle. For an instant the lights touched the cupola and withdrew, but only for a moment were they thwarted. Almost immediately they encircled the gasbag of the balloon. Felix could see the skin of its surface flex and he wondered whether the skaven intended to rip the bag asunder and destroy the airship.\n\nSeconds later it became apparent that this was not the grey seer's plan. Felix's mouth gaped in astonishment as slowly but surely the Spirit of Grungni was drawn downwards towards the ground. The skaven had ceased to retreat, so awe-stricken were they by this display of the grey seer's powers. It looked all too possible that the airship was going to be captured.\n\nIt seemed as if the airship, and with it the proceeds of the expedition to Karag Dum, was doomed."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "BATTLE!\n\nUlrika and Max Schreiber raced through the cellars. All around her were the freed prisoners. Some were armed with weapons taken from dead skaven guards, others were arming themselves with cudgels made from broken chairs, old tools and kitchen knives. Ulrika was not reassured.\n\n\"How many?\" she asked her father.\n\n\"About thirty who can fight. About fifty all told.\"\n\n\"So few?\"\n\n\"So few.\"\n\n\"Do you think our patrols will return in time?\"\n\n\"We must not count on it.\"\n\n\"What is going on above?\"\n\n\"You would know better than I, daughter. I have been down here all this time.\"\n\n\"Mighty magics are being unleashed,\" Max Schreiber said. \"I fear the skaven are going to capture the airship. I suspect that may have been their plan all along.\"\n\n\"They must be stopped.\"\n\n\"How? We could not stop them last night when we held the walls and had a hundred armed men. How can we do so now?\"\n\n\"We must find a way, daughter.\"\n\nMax Schreiber smiled. \"We have an advantage now that we did not have last night.\"\n\n\"And what's that?\" asked Ulrika.\n\n\"They will not be expecting us.\"\n\n\"By Taal, Max Schreiber, you have a gift for looking on the bright side,\" boomed Ivan.\n\n\"Let's go up and see what we can do. At least in the confusion there may be a chance to escape.\"\n\n\"There will be no escape, Max Schreiber. This is my ancestral home. I will not abandon it to some stinking, gods-poxed ratmen.\"\n\n\"I can see why you get on so well with the dwarfs,\" said Max Schreiber. \"You're all as stubborn as hell.\"\n\nFelix Jaeger watched in awe as the grey seer dragged the Spirit of Grungni earthwards. One small skaven was engaged in a contest of strength with an enormous vessel and he was winning. The dwarfs were not going to be beaten quietly though. The engines of the airship roared and Felix could tell from the angle of the fins that whoever was at the controls was trying to get the ship up. The streamers of energy left a glittering after-image on his field of vision. It was an incredible display of magical power, one of the greatest he had ever seen.\n\n\"Best get down there and kill that skaven magician,\" said Gotrek.\n\n\"A good plan,\" said Snorri.\n\nAn idiotic plan, Felix thought. All we have to do is fight our way through a small skaven army and confront a sorcerer who is capable of plucking an airship from the sky. On the other hand, he could think of nothing better himself. The airship represented their best hope of escape and if it were captured or destroyed, they were doomed.\n\n\"Let's get on with it then,\" Felix said with no great enthusiasm.\n\nNow is the moment of my triumph, thought Grey Seer Thanquol. Now all skaven will bow before my genius. Now the Council of Thirteen must recognise my accomplishments. He felt capable of reaching up and pulling the moons from the sky and the stars from the heavens. Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea. Morrslieb, the lesser moon, was said to be made of a gigantic chunk of warpstone. If he could grasp it, then\u2026\n\nNo. Best stick to the matter at hand. First he would capture the airship then he would seize Morrslieb. And if he could not reach it with his spells perhaps he could fly there in the airship. Fully formed, a plan of awful majesty appeared in Thanquol's mind. He could use the airship to fly to the moon and mine all the warpstone he would ever need. It would be an achievement unsurpassed in all the annals of skavendom, and surely his reward must be a place at the Council table. At the very least. Perhaps the whole Council would bow before him, and recognise him as the greatest of all servants of the Horned Rat. Such was the magnificence of his vision that for a moment, Thanquol was lost in contemplation. Only when he felt the strands of his power slipping away was he drawn back to reality by the realisation that first he would have to land his fish before any of it would be possible. He threw himself back into the struggle with renewed ferocity.\n\nLurk was not happy. In mid-leap he had been caught by one of those huge streamers of energy and tossed all over the sky in a deranged frenzy of movement. He had long known how potent the grey seer was but never till now had he shown such full evidence of his might. Was this some sort of revenge by Grey Seer Thanquol for his disloyal thoughts? Had Thanquol been aware of Lurk's ideas concerning him all along? Did he plan to end Lurk's torment by dashing him into the ground?\n\n\"No-no, master!\" he gibbered. \"Spare your loyalest of servants. I will serve you faithfully all of my days. Blast those other foul vermin. They hate you. I do not. I have always done my best for you!\"\n\nIf Thanquol heard Lurk's earnest prayers, there was no sign. Filled with fear, Lurk watched the ground rise to meet him.\n\nUlrika put her sword through the back of the skaven cowering in the hall, and went to the window to look at the source of the eerie glow. She had never seen anything like it. The horn-headed skaven mage floated in the air about twenty strides above the ground. It was anchored to the earth by hundreds of streamers of light, and with hundreds of others it was drawing the straining airship down.\n\nBeneath it, hundreds of skaven muzzles pointed at the sky. They stood frozen in awe, watching their master at work. Beside her she heard Max Schreiber mutter, \"By Sigmar, how does it contain all that power and not explode? It must be consuming pure warpstone, and yet it still has not died.\"\n\n\"What?\" she asked.\n\n\"That thing out there is filled with the raw stuff of Chaos. It is using it to power its spell. It should not be possible for any mortal thing to be doing this but it is. I have no idea how.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it would be better if you applied your mind to the idea of killing it,\" Ulrika suggested.\n\n\"I am not sure I have the strength.\"\n\n\"Then things do not look good.\"\n\n\"You have a gift for understatement, my dear.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Felix watched Gotrek descend the ladder. With one arm the Slayer held the rungs, with the other he wielded his axe like a club, dropping it down on the skulls of any skaven below him. By sheer ferocity Gotrek managed to reach the bottom and clear a space around the base of the ladder. Moments later Snorri joined him. Seeing no other option, Felix began his own descent.\n\nA roar from above him told him that the gyrocopter had returned for another pass. Felix watched a bomb hurtle towards the hovering grey seer. The fuse timing, always a tricky thing at best, was not good, and the bomb went hurtling past Thanquol to explode amidst the skaven. Once more aware of their peril, they tried frantically to hurl themselves aside only to be blown asunder by the dwarf explosive.\n\nFelix shuddered, thinking just how easy it would be for one of those bombs to go astray and catch himself, Gotrek and Snorri in the blast. It did not bear thinking about. Instead he threw himself forward hacking desperately to right and left, trying his best to smash a path through the massed ranks of skaven to the place where Grey Seer Thanquol hovered. Although what he was going to do when he got there eluded him.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol opened his mouth and roared with only slightly crazed laughter. His senses had expanded with his power. He saw himself as a towering giant looking down on the insects below him. His spirit form was as large as the airship with which he grappled. He was a being of awesome proportions. Surely, he thought, this must be how the Horned Rat felt when he gazed down into the world of mortals. Perhaps it was an omen, a harbinger of things to come. Perhaps there would be no limits to Thanquol's destiny. Perhaps he could stride where no skaven had strode before and scale the very peaks of godhood. Certainly at this moment, with the warpstone coursing through his veins, it all seemed possible. There was nothing he could not do.\n\nHe was the master of this situation now. Nothing was going to stop him. Not even his accursed nemesis, Gotrek Gurnisson, or his devious henchman, Felix Jaeger. Finally after all these long months of effort he was going to achieve complete victory over them. How sweet that feeling was!\n\nWait! What was that? He glanced down and saw the gyrocopter flash past. He noticed the bomb that just missed him and exploded among his troops, sending their souls spiralling upwards to join the Horned Rat. How dare they attack the Horned Rat's chosen emissary on earth? He would show them. Quick as thought he reached out with his tentacles of power and swatted the gyrocopter like a man might swat a fly. Unfortunately he was. a tad too slow to catch the fast moving craft and his blow missed.\n\nOnly incidentally did he become aware of something sticking to one of his tentacles. Of course. It was that rascal, Lurk. Briefly, Thanquol considered smashing his errant henchman into the ground as a punishment for his failures but then, through the psychic link that allowed him to perceive through his energy streams, he became aware of the gratifying way Lurk was swearing eternal obedience to him, and more, he was suddenly aware of the changes that had overtaken his minion, of the warpstone coursing through his body, and the way it had been altered. This was something worth investigating. He took a moment to place Lurk not too gently on the ground and returned to his efforts to swat the gyrocopter.\n\nIt proved frustratingly elusive. Still, he thought, the sheer satisfaction of smashing it would be its own reward.\n\nFelix watched in horror as streamers of light impacted on the gyrocopter. The small flying machine began to break up, its parts tumbling headlong through the air, to smash into the ground killing more skaven. A huge cloud of steam and smoke erupted from the broken vehicle's engine. It was followed by a massive explosion, the blast of which sent him tumbling headlong. He guessed that the stock of bombs on the gyrocopter had just gone off. Skaven screams told him the dwarf pilot was not the only casualty.\n\nOverhead the other gyrocopters flashed. One down, three to go, thought Felix.\n\n\"What do we do?\" Ulrika asked. \"You're the magician. This is your field.\"\n\n\"There is no way any mortal form can contain that amount of power for any great length of time. It's possible that its owner will be consumed by it. It's also possible that the power contained within whatever it is he is eating will be exhausted, and he will lose his strength. If he weakens I might be able to disrupt his spell. Other than that\u2026\"\n\n\"You are saying that we should do nothing?\"\n\n\"I am saying that we should wait, Ulrika. There is nothing to be gained by attacking the thing headlong. Look at the way it smashed that gyrocopter. It could easily do the same to us.\"\n\nAh, that was good, thought Grey Seer Thanquol. He felt a monstrous surge of pleasure from destroying that dwarf flyer even at the cost of some dozens of his followers' lives. They were after all expendable. Most skaven were. He was simply glad he wasn't one of them.\n\nHe shook his head as a new problem struck him. During the moments that he had chased the flyer, he had let go of the Spirit of Grungni. It was heading skyward once more at a great rate of knots. Thanquol reached out with his tentacles of power, determined that he would soon put a stop to that.\n\nNo sooner had he grasped the airship once more than he became aware of another challenge. Gotrek Gurnisson, Felix Jaeger and that other accursed Slayer were on the ground and moving towards him. Of course, he was in the air above them but even so he was a little worried. Just the proximity of the Slayer was enough to get on Thanquol's sensitive nerves. He hated that vile creature with a passion.\n\nNow he had the means to end that threat once and for all. What he could do with the gyrocopter he could surely do to one solitary Slayer. Grinning daemonically, he prepared to smash Gotrek Gurnisson into the dirt.\n\nFelix watched the wave of power come towards them. Dozens of streamers of greenish energy raced forward like the tide, smashing aside the screaming skaven between Gotrek and Thanquol. Felix had no doubt whatsoever what would happen when that energy reached them, it was going to be the end of him. He almost closed his eyes, knowing that his doom was moments away but at the last second, determined to see the death that was his, he forced himself to watch.\n\nNow, thought Grey Seer Thanquol, bringing his powers to bear on Gotrek Gurnisson. Now you die!\n\nFelix saw the leading streamers reach Gotrek. As they did so the Slayer brought his axe round in a great arc. The runes on its edges blazed ever brighter where they came into contact with the grey seer's spell. A smell of ozone filled the air. The streamers flew apart in a cloud of sparks, having met with an ancient magic stronger than they. Felix offered up a prayer to Sigmar and whatever other gods might be listening. The remaining streamers withdrew, coiling upwards and backwards away from Gotrek like a cobra about to strike. Felix knew the Slayer had bought them only a moment's respite."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "Thanquol felt as if his fingertips were on fire. Of course, it was only the destruction of his spell that he was sensing but the sensation was similar. He cursed the dwarf. He might have guessed that it would not have been so easy to effect his doom. Still, perhaps if the Slayer was invulnerable, his henchman would not prove to be. He could at least destroy Felix Jaeger.\n\nFelix saw the streamers of light part and begin to flow around Gotrek. To his horror he realised that they were aimed at him, and there was nothing he could do about it. The skaven sorcerer obviously intended to see him dead. The spell rushed onwards, a dozen tendrils moving to the right and left of Gotrek, surging directly towards Felix. At least, thought Felix, the skaven mage was killing more of his own warriors. The way they fell to bits as the energy scythed through them did not bode well for his own fate.\n\nUlrika watched what was happening with her heart in her mouth. She saw Gotrek repulse the grey seer's attack and for a moment thought it might be enough. Then she saw that Thanquol intended to attack Felix.\n\n\"Can't you do something?\" she asked Max Schreiber.\n\n\"In a moment I will try a counter spell. I think I understand what the grey seer is doing now and I might be able to pick apart the weave of it.\"\n\n\"Felix doesn't have a moment,\" Ulrika said, knowing it was already too late.\n\nFelix steeled himself to meet death. This was not quite the way he expected it but then it was said that death never came by the route you thought it would. He braced himself, preparing his muscles for one last futile leap to safety. He doubted there was any way he could avoid the spell. It was all over. The tide of dazzling light hurtled towards him. He fought down the urge to scream.\n\nThis was more like it, thought Grey Seer Thanquol, certain that this time at least he was about to kill one of his sworn enemies. That would teach Felix Jaeger to oppose the might of Thanquol. But just before he could crush Jaeger like the insect he was, the Slayer struck once more, lashing out quicker than the eye could follow, first to his left, then to his right, severing the energy bands with that awful axe. Thanquol shrieked with pain. It was like having his own tail cut off.\n\nWorse yet, he felt the warpstone-induced power within him start to stutter and fade. Not now, he thought. No. Not now. Not with triumph so close. But unfortunately, it was so. The energy was already starting to drain out of him. It looked as if the airship was going to escape.\n\nWell at least, he thought, my minions will destroy those upstarts, Jaeger and Gurnisson. Even as he thought it a peculiar sinking sensation struck him. Why is the ground coming closer, he wondered?\n\n\"Now,\" Ulrika heard Max Schreiber mutter, and then the mage began to move his hands and incant in some language she did not understand. As she watched a complex structure of light began to take shape in the space in front of the magician, and then with a gesture of his hand he sent it spinning out towards the grey seer. When it struck Thanquol the glow around the skaven sorcerer faded and he went tumbling headlong to the earth.\n\n\"Now would be a good time to attack,\" Max suggested to her. She did not need to be told a second time.\n\n\"Let's go!\" she shouted and raced out of the mansion, plunging into the surprised skaven from behind. Roaring with battle-lust the Kislevite survivors followed her.\n\nFelix watched in surprise as the glow faded around the grey seer and he began to sink to the earth. He ducked the swing of a skaven warrior and gritted his teeth as he parried a second one. The shock of the impact passed up his arm. He braced himself and slashed downwards cleaving the skaven's skull in two, then whirled to strike the other, slashing it across the throat. Ahead of him Gotrek and Snorri hacked a bloody path towards the skaven mage. They were determined that nothing was going to stop them this time. Bombs continued to rain down from above, dropped by the now freed airship and the circling gyrocopters.\n\nEvery time a bomb hit the ground Felix flinched. He half expected one of them to go off near him, and for his body to be torn apart. He heard a voice shouting at the stupid dwarfs to stop bombing them, and he was surprised to discover that it was his own. He hoped that some time soon somebody up there would realise what was happening on the ground and cease the barrage. Felix doubted that Gotrek's heroic doom encompassed being torn limb from limb by his comrades' explosives. Still Felix had seen worse and stupider things happen in battle, and right now, all was chaos round about them.\n\nSlashing around him with renewed vigour Felix hacked his way through the skaven force.\n\nIt just wasn't fair, thought Grey Seer Thanquol. Just when victory was within his grasp it had been snatched away by the incompetence of his lackeys, and the inferior quality of warpstone sent to him by those cretins back in Skavenblight. Why was he doomed to be constantly thwarted in this manner? He was a good and faithful servant to the skaven cause. He was devout in his prayers to the Horned Rat. He asked so little. What was the problem?\n\nHe lay exhausted on the ground, prostrated by the sudden failure of his warpstone-induced power, and by the unweaving of his spell. Slowly but surely, the full implications of this sunk in. Somewhere out there was a mage potent enough to undo his work, a mage who was undoubtedly fresh and not drained of energy by his selfless efforts to protect his ungrateful minions, a mage who even now might be planning the destruction of Thanquol while he was vulnerable. The thought made Thanquol's glands tighten with the urge to squirt the musk of fear. This was not a fitting reward for his long service to the Horned Rat and the Council of Thirteen, he decided.\n\nSuddenly he became aware of another and even more terrifying threat. Off to his right, he could hear the bestial bellowing of Gotrek Gurnisson, as the Slayer smashed his way through the skaven troops. Doubtless the dwarf had nothing more in his tiny mind than an unjustifiable desire to exterminate Thanquol and rob the world of his genius. And doubtless the dwarf's henchman, Felix Jaeger, would be there to gloat at Thanquol's demise.\n\nWhat was he to do?\n\nAs if he did not have enough reasons to focus his mind on departure, Thanquol heard the sounds of human warcries from behind him. Where had these new forces come from? Had human reinforcements arrived during the fight? Was this some work of the enemy mage? It mattered not.\n\nWith the terrifying onslaught of bombs from above, the bloodcurdling prospect of combat with Gotrek Gurnisson to the fore, and the attack of this massive new force from behind, Thanquol could see only one option open to him. He would heroically elude capture by this overwhelming force of enemies, and return to exact his revenge another day.\n\nMustering the last remnants of his powers, he muttered the words of the spell of escape. It would only carry him a few hundred strides out of the fray but this would be enough. From there he would begin his tactical withdrawal.\n\n\"Where has that accursed mage got to?\" Felix heard Gotrek growl. Felix had no answer. They had reached the spot where he would have sworn he had seen the grey seer fall, and there was nothing there except a faint brimstone aroma in the air. Unreasonably annoyed, Gotrek slaughtered two skaven simultaneously with a stroke of his axe and turned around to look at the monstrous form of the rat-ogre as it approached.\n\n\"Mine!\" he roared.\n\n\"Snorri's!\" shouted Snorri.\n\n\"Race you for it,\" answered Gotrek and rushed forward.\n\nGet on with it, thought Felix as he looked around him. There was a sudden lull in the battle. The strange stink that he had come to associate with frightened skaven attacked his nostrils. He supposed he could not blame them. Their leader had vanished. They were being ripped apart by bombs, assaulted by two of the most vicious Slayers in the world, and ambushed from behind simultaneously. Felix could understand their demoralisation. He doubted that any human force would be less afraid.\n\nStill that did not mean that the peril had passed. The skaven still massively outnumbered their foes, and if given time to realise it, they would return to the fray and quite possibly win. Right now was the moment to seize the advantage and hopefully turn the tide of battle.\n\nHe looked around and saw the rat-ogre flanked on one side by Gotrek and the other by Snorri go down under a blizzard of blows. It toppled like a falling oak. If the sight of that did not help them rout the skaven force, nothing would. Shouting a battle-cry, he charged forward. Gotrek and Snorri accompanied him.\n\nSuddenly from up ahead he thought he heard the sound of human warcries, of one familiar voice shouting orders and encouragement to the troops. His heart leapt. Surely he was hallucinating. There was only one way to find out.\n\nLurk stopped gnawing the flesh of the dead skaven. His hunger momentarily assuaged, he could give his attention back to matters at hand. Behind him he could hear the squeal of terrified skaven, the triumphant shouts of the humans, and the berserker roars of dwarf Slayers. He could tell the battle was lost. It was as certain as the ache in his bones from hitting the ground. Of course, he knew that if it were not for the pain of his injuries, he could turn the tide of battle by his intervention. Unfortunately his bruises, and could that possibly be a sprained ankle, prevented it.\n\nFrom out of the gloom, beams of golden light scythed into the skaven, slashing them down. It looked like their enemies had sorcerous resources too.\n\nDefinitely lost, he thought to himself. Definitely time to go. He picked himself up, glanced around to make sure that no one had noticed him, and scuttled off into the night.\n\nMoving through the carnage of the battlefield Felix caught sight of a familiar figure. His heart leapt. Ulrika was alive. Thinking of nothing else, he moved towards her through the mass of skaven. All around him ratmen turned and fled. They had learned to fear his flashing blade and his proximity to the two Slayers. His mere presence at this moment seemed enough to unnerve them. There was little doubt in his mind that the ratmen were beaten. They milled around looking for a way out, their formation broken, their discipline gone. The loss of their leader and the surprise onslaught from their former captives had been enough to rout them. Now it was only a matter of staying alive while they fled.\n\n\"Ulrika!\" he shouted, but she did not hear him. At that moment, a huge black-furred skaven leapt at her. Terrified that he was about to lose her just when he had found her at last, Felix raced forward to intervene. He need not have bothered. Ulrika parried the rat-man's blow, and put a stop-thrust through its heart. Gurgling in pain, the skaven tumbled forward onto its knees, and then sprawled headlong in the dirt, surrounded by a rapidly spreading pool of its own lifeblood.\n\nUlrika caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, and whirled ready to attack. For a long tense moment she and Felix faced each other. Neither moved. Neither said anything. Then simultaneously they both smiled, then made to move together. Unable to stop himself, uncaring of the danger, Felix caught her in his arms. Their lips met. Their bodies strained against each other.\n\nSurrounded by the howling madness of battle, they stood like they were the only two people in the world.\n\nMax Schreiber looked around him. He was tired. As much from the magic he had just wrought as from the reaction to the beating he had taken last night. His limbs felt heavy with fatigue. Not even as an apprentice when he had maintained many a days-long vigil in the service of his master had he ever felt so worn out. Still, victory was theirs. The skaven were routed, and even though they still had numerical superiority, he doubted they would return. They were not by nature courageous creatures and it took them a long time to get over defeats.\n\nMax liked to think of himself as a scholar, not a warrior, but he felt satisfied with what he had done here. He had taken a stand against the forces of Chaos and he had helped turn them back. Part of him found the experience far more satisfying than casting protective spells on the homes and vehicles of his clients. He began to understand the thrill of battle he had always read about. He smiled sourly as he caught sight of Felix and Ulrika kissing.\n\nIt appeared that for a sheltered scholar he was getting a crash course in all manner of emotional turmoil. He felt jealousy gnaw away at him, and he knew that not all of his magic could root it out.\n\nHe was more than a little attracted to Ulrika. For the past few days he had felt himself in the grip of passion. He really should have left the mansion days ago but had stayed on under the pretence of waiting for the Spirit of Grungni's return. Seeing the way that Ulrika looked at Felix he guessed that there was little chance of her responding to his ardour.\n\nUnless, the most unworthy thought struck him, something were to happen to Felix Jaeger. Surprised at his own savagery he sent a hail of golden beams slashing into the retreating skaven.\n\nThey died in a most gratifying way.\n\nSilence came suddenly. The battle was over. The dead lay in piles around the mansion. The Spirit of Grungni hovered overhead, nuzzling the docking tower like a horse being hitched to a post. The skaven were defeated.\n\nIt was late. Felix felt tired but elated. He held Ulrika's hand as if he feared she would vanish if he let go of it, and she did not seem at all inclined to lose his grip. All his forebodings on the trip back now seemed senseless and futile phantoms. She was as glad to see him as he was to see her, and he could not begin to express how happy that made him. Instead he could only stand and gaze stupidly into her eyes. Words just would not come. Fortunately, she seemed content with that.\n\nSnorri stomped over. \"Good fight that,\" he said. Black blood crusted his bandages and he bled from dozens of new small cuts but he seemed happy with his lot.\n\n\"Call that a fight?\" Gotrek said. \"I've had more dangerous haircuts.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't want to meet your barber,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Felix made a joke,\" said Snorri. \"Snorri thinks it's funny.\"\n\n\"Let's get some beer,\" Gotrek said. \"Nothing like a bit of light exercise to work up a thirst.\"\n\n\"Snorri wants a bucket of vodka,\" said Snorri. \"And Snorri shall have it.\"\n\nDwarfs had started to climb down the docking tower where the Spirit of Grungni was moored. Soon a small contingent of them were helping the Kislevites pile up the bodies for burning.\n\nFelix thought this was as good a time as any for he and Ulrika to retire to their chamber. She agreed.\n\n\"I never thought I would see you again,\" Ulrika said.\n\nThe dawn was beautiful. Golden beams of sunlight slanted down and caught the endless sea of grass around them. Birds sang. It was so calm that if it were not for the faint smell of burned flesh in the air, Felix would have found it difficult to believe that any battle had taken place the previous evening.\n\n\"There were times when I thought I would never see you again. A lot of them,\" he replied.\n\n\"Was it bad?\"\n\n\"Very.\"\n\n\"In the Wastes?\"\n\n\"In the Wastes and in Karag Dum. You would not believe me if I told you what we found there.\"\n\n\"Try me.\"\n\n\"All right,\" he said, gathering her close in his arms.\n\n\"That's not what I meant,\" she said, then kissed him.\n\n\"It will do for the moment,\" he said, pulling her down into the long grass.\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied.\n\nAfterwards, as they lay naked on his old woollen cloak, she leaned on her elbow and began to tickle his face with an ear of grass. \"What was it like in the Chaos Wastes?\"\n\n\"Do we really have to talk about it?\"\n\n\"Not if you don't want to.\"\n\nHe considered for a time before replying. \"It is a terrible place. Like the dream of insane gods.\"\n\n\"That's not very specific.\"\n\n\"More than you would think. It changes seemingly at random. Landscapes shimmer and shift\u2026\"\n\n\"Sounds like mirages in the desert.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But there are things there\u2026 Huge idols large as hills, ruined cities that no man has ever heard of, that might just have dropped from the sky. Endless hordes of monsters, and black-armoured men, all of them dedicated to\u2026\"\n\n\"What is it? Why do you fall silent.\"\n\n\"They are coming here. We saw them from the airship. A horde of them. More than I could count, and they are merely the outriders of an even vaster host.\"\n\n\"Why haven't you mentioned this before?\"\n\n\"Because I was so happy to see you, and because I am sure Borek has told your father by now.\"\n\nUlrika sat up straight and stared at the horizon. It did not escape Felix's notice that she was looking northward, to the mountains beyond which lay the Wastes of Chaos. He sensed a change in her mood, a new watchful quality that had something of fear in it.\n\n\"The forces of Darkness have come this way before. We live on their borders. These are the marchlands. We have fought with them and triumphed in the past.\"\n\n\"Not against the force that is coming. This will be like the great Chaos Incursion of two centuries ago, in the time of Magnus the Pious.\"\n\nShe frowned. \"You are sure?\"\n\n\"I have seen it with my own eyes.\"\n\n\"Why now? Why in our time?\" He thought he detected a hint of fear in her voice.\n\n\"I am sure Magnus asked himself the same question.\"\n\n\"That is not an answer, Felix.\" Now there was a note of exasperation. A frown marred her brow. A corresponding annoyance welled up in him.\n\n\"I am not a prophet, Ulrika, I am just a man. I cannot answer these questions. I only know that it fits with what I have seen in other places\u2026\"\n\n\"What other places?\" Her words were sharp. He did not like her tone.\n\n\"In the Empire, the cultists multiply. The worshippers of Chaos are in every city. Beastmen fill the forests. The number of changelings, of mutated ones, is increasing with every month. Wicked magicians prosper. I sometimes think that the doomsayers are right, and that the end of the world is coming.\"\n\n\"Those are not cheerful words,\" she said reaching out and grasping his hand with feverish strength.\n\n\"These are not cheerful times.\" He reached out and stroked her cheek. \"We should go back soon. Find out what the others have been saying.\"\n\nShe smiled wanly and bent forward to kiss his brow. \"I'm glad you're here,\" she said suddenly.\n\n\"Me too,\" said Felix.\n\nMax Schreiber listened to what the dwarfs were saying with growing dismay. Their descriptions of the oncoming Chaos horde chilled him to the bone. The pictures they painted in his mind had even managed to drive out the jealousy he had felt this morning when he saw Felix and Ulrika ride off together.\n\nHe had read descriptions of such things from the time of the great war against Chaos two hundred years ago. He did not doubt that this was a force of similar size. For a long time now, he had suspected that such a thing would happen. He had studied the ways of Chaos for too long not to know its power was on the increase. He looked at the dwarfs' faces. They might well have been chiselled from stone. The matter-of-fact way in which they told of their descent into Karag Dum and their battle with the thing they had found there made him look on the Slayers with new respect.\n\nAnd despite his jealousy of Felix Jaeger he had to admit the man was brave as well as lucky. Max did not think he himself could have faced the thing the dwarfs described with quite the equanimity Jaeger had. He could understand why the dwarfs spoke of him with respect. The thing they had fought was obviously a Greater Daemon of Chaos. He wondered if the dwarfs had any idea of how lucky they had been to survive such an encounter. Not that they had actually succeeded in slaying it, Max knew. Such creatures could not be destroyed by mortals. All that they had done was banish its physical form. It would take on another sooner or later, and return to this plane to seek vengeance. If it could not find Gotrek Gurnisson or Felix Jaeger alive it would seek out their descendants and heirs. Such was the manner of the things.\n\nThere were times when Max Schreiber wished he had not studied this subject so long and so hard. Being privy to such knowledge often gave him nightmares. Still, it had been his choice; he had set his feet on this path long ago, and he had been given many opportunities to turn back. He had chosen not to. Ever since he had watched his family butchered by beastmen as a child, he had hated Chaos and all its works. He was sworn to oppose it in any way he could, and that meant learning its ways. Long ago when he had first started his studies as a mage he had encountered those who were of like mind. They needed to be warned of what was coming from the north. The world needed to be warned.\n\nIvan obviously agreed. \"If what you are saying is true\u2014\"\n\n\"You doubt my word?\" Gotrek Gurnisson said.\n\n\"It is not that I doubt it my friend, it's just that part of me would rather not believe it. The tide of Chaos you are describing could sweep away the world.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Borek. \"It could.\"\n\n\"Except the dwarfholds,\" Gotrek said stoutly.\n\n\"Even those would fall in the end,\" Borek said. \"Remember Karag Dum.\"\n\nGotrek smiled sourly. \"I don't see how I could forget it.\"\n\n\"I must send word to the Ice Queen,\" said Ivan. \"The Tzarina must be warned. The armies of Kislev must be mustered.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" said Borek. \"But what about you? You cannot remain here. This manor could not resist the massed might of Chaos.\"\n\n\"I will summon my riders and head south to Praag. That will be where our forces will meet. However, I must ask a boon of you\u2026\"\n\nMax Schreiber leaned forward interestedly. \"So must I,\" he said. Ivan looked up and indicated that he should speak first. It was a measure of the respect the Kislevite held for him since he had used his magic on their behalf.\n\n\"I must ask passage south with you on the airship if that is possible. There are those I must inform about these events.\"\n\n\"The Elector Count of Middenheim, perhaps?\" Borek said.\n\n\"Among others. I am sure that in the face of this threat I can prevail upon him to send aid to Kislev. If nothing else the Knights of the White Wolf will respond.\"\n\n\"The Spirit of Grungni is already full almost beyond capacity,\" Borek said. Max tilted his head to show he understood.\n\n\"That is a pity, old friend,\" Ivan said, \"for I too wished to ask the same boon. I want to send a messenger to the Ice Queen and to be sure your craft is faster than the swiftest rider ever could be.\"\n\n\"I am sure we could find space,\" Borek said. \"If need be we can always find space.\"\n\n\"Good \u2014 I wish to send my daughter Ulrika and two bodyguards. Oleg and Standa will go with her.\"\n\nThey all looked at the old boyar. It was plain from the bleak expression on his face that he had a stronger reason for this than merely warning the Ice Queen. It was clear that he wished to send his beloved daughter out of harm's way, at least for a short time. Max was profoundly grateful that the old man cared enough to do this thing.\n\n\"It shall be so,\" Borek said."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "Grey Seer Thanquol felt dreadful. His head ached. His body felt as if stormvermin had worked it over with clubs \u2014 not that any skaven would dare to do such a thing to him, of course. Worst of all was the sense of failure that gnawed at his bowels. He was not quite sure how they had done it, but he was sure that somehow Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger had contrived to thwart him yet again. Their malefic powers sometimes seemed unlimited. And of course there was always the worthlessness of his underlings to be considered.\n\nNot that the masters of Clan Moulder were likely to accept this. He was sure he had seen at least one of his clawleaders scurry away in the mad aftermath of the battle. Doubtless he would poison the minds of his stupid kinsfolk with lies about Thanquol. It was true that a small army of Clan Moulder troops had been lost in the attempt to seize the airship, but Thanquol was not to blame for the inferior quality of his troops. And it was equally true that he had failed to capture the airship as he had promised. But only the most biased of churls could blame Thanquol for the deviousness of the Slayer and his minions. Of course, he suspected that the Moulder skaven possessed exactly the amount of bias required to make these poorly informed judgements, and it was all too possible that if he were to return to Hell Pit an accident might befall him. There were no limits to the wickedness of his enemies.\n\nA familiar black depression, the consequence of too much warpstone used too suddenly, settled on him. The enmity of Moulder was only one part of the problem that faced him now. Another was how to get back to friendly skaven territory across a hundred leagues of plain. He knew from bitter experience that Kislevite horse archers were deadly marksmen and it would only take one arrow to end even so brilliant a career as his. What was particularly worrying was that his supply of warpstone was depleted and his sorcerous powers were at a low ebb. In many ways the situation was as dire as any he had ever faced in his long and incredibly successful career as a grey seer.\n\nWhat could he do? He knew that there must be some skaven survivors out here on the plain but he was not at all sure that seeking them out was a good idea. They were, after all, the house troops of Clan Moulder and it was conceivable that their misguided minds might hold a grudge against him because of the failure of the plan. Certainly there were many problems here, and even a mind as keen as Thanquol's quailed when he contemplated the difficulties which loomed before him.\n\nA strange smell made his whiskers twitch. It was oddly familiar and yet subtly distorted. He heard something massive moving through the long grass. Something that might conceivably be the size of a rat-ogre. Had Boneripper survived? It did not smell like him. Swiftly Thanquol summoned the remnants of his power. Whatever it was it would not find him defenceless.\n\nSuddenly a monstrous apparition loomed over Grey Seer Thanquol. It was as large as a rat-ogre. It had a horned head, and a large spiked tail. For a brief moment, Thanquol feared he might be facing the Horned Rat itself, come to make him give an account of himself. He felt his musk glands tighten as the thing opened its mouth to speak.\n\n\"Grey Seer Thanquol, it is I, the humblest of your servants, Lurk.\"\n\n\"Lurk! What happened to you?\"\n\n\"It is a long story, mightiest of masters. Perhaps I should tell it to you as we march.\"\n\nLurk's voice had deepened and though his words were respectful, there was a hungry glint in his eye that Thanquol did not like at all.\n\nNot at all."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "STORM TOSSED",
+                "text": "From the rear observation deck of the Spirit of Grungni, Felix watched the mansion fall away behind them. Sadness filled him. Ivan Straghov's house was a place where he had been happy, before he set off for the Chaos Wastes, and now he doubted that he would ever see it again.\n\nAlready the Kislevites were assembling to begin the long ride south. A troop of horsemen had arrived as they debated their plans; they had rounded up mounts that had fled from the skaven attack, and managed to provide horses for most of the survivors. It was agreed that a dozen or so scouts would remain at the mansion for as long as possible to tell the other troops what had happened as they arrived. After that, Ivan and the others figured that any troops abroad when the Chaos horde arrived would soon work out what had happened for themselves and would act accordingly. It was not much of a plan, but it was the best they could do under the circumstances.\n\nFelix turned and looked at Ulrika. Her face showed a strange mixture of emotions. She had not been happy to be dispatched south by airship to inform the Tzarina of their plight, while the others had to ride. She had wanted to share the dangers of her clan's warriors. Felix thought it was possible that if he had not been on the airship, she might not have agreed at all. Certainly he felt that he had helped persuade her to come. So had Max Schreiber.\n\nFelix looked over at the magician. He liked Max but recently he had noticed the strange looks the man was giving him when he was with Ulrika. Was it possible he was jealous? It was easy enough to believe. She was very beautiful and Max had been around the mansion while he had been away in the Chaos Wastes. Who knows what might have happened then? Felix smiled sourly. It sounded like he was feeling more than a little jealous himself.\n\nHe consoled himself with the thought that the worst was behind them, at least for a while. They had managed to escape from the Wastes with their lives intact, and they had survived the skaven ambush. From here it was a straight run south to the capital of Kislev, and then on to Karaz-a-Karak where Borek intended to present the survivors of Karag Dum and some of its treasures to the High King of the Dwarfs. Felix wondered what Gotrek really thought of that.\n\nAs far as Felix knew the Slayer had been banished from the great underground city, never to return. Felix was not sure whether the exile was self-imposed or a penalty for the Slayer's misdeeds. It had never seemed politic to ask. Gotrek insisted on remaining in Kislev and helping against the Chaos hordes. Felix certainly hoped so. Ivan had pointed out that, as a former engineer, he would be more useful helping prepare the defences to resist a siege. They would get off the airship with Ulrika and her bodyguards.\n\nWhatever the reason, Felix was glad. He wanted to stay with Ulrika and he certainly didn't want the Slayer reminding him of the oath he had sworn to follow him and record his doom. There would be time enough for that later, he did not doubt. With that monstrous army heading south, a mighty struggle was in the offing. There would be plenty of opportunity for Gotrek to find his heroic death.\n\nHe reached out and took Ulrika's hand and squeezed her fingers. She turned and smiled at him wanly. It was obvious that her thoughts were with those tiny figures slowly receding into the distance below. She turned and gazed back, like someone trying to memorise a scene and remember people she feared she might never see again.\n\nIn the wan northern daylight, Grey Seer Thanquol studied Lurk closely. He hated to admit it but he was both impressed and intimidated. His lackey looked like he could take on a rat-ogre and win. He was more than twice Thanquol's height and possibly ten times his mass. His claws looked strong as steel and the massive knob of horned bone at the end of his tail looked potent as a mace. Right at this moment, Thanquol rather regretted all the insults he had heaped on Lurk in the past. He was not sure that in his current state of depletion he could summon the magical energies needed to destroy Lurk. Under the circumstances, craftiness and diplomacy, two of Thanquol's greatest gifts, seemed like the most appropriate measures.\n\n\"Lurk! I am glad you have returned. Good-good! Together we must bring news of the failure of Clan Moulder's ill-conceived attack on the human fort to the attention of the Council of Thirteen.\"\n\nLurk looked at him with reddishly glowing and strangely forbidding eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak he revealed huge sharp tusks. Thanquol fought down the urge to squirt the musk of fear.\n\n\"Yes-yes, most majestic of masters,\" Lurk growled in a voice much deeper than the one Thanquol remembered. Thanquol almost let out a sigh of relief. On their long march through the night, Lurk had been strangely surly. At least now this huge warpstone-altered skaven seemed tractable. That was good. He would be able to protect Thanquol from many of the dangers on the route. And who knew? It was certainly possible that studying his mutated form might reveal many secrets, including how to create more of his kind. Dissection revealed many things. However, thought Thanquol, shifting uncomfortably before that unblinking stare, such matters could wait until they had escaped the immediate danger.\n\n\"These open spaces crawl with horse soldiers,\" Thanquol said. \"The traitors of Moulder will also be out in force. We must use intelligence and cunning to escape our enemies and fulfil our mission.\"\n\n\"As you say, most persuasive of potentates.\" Was there a hint of irony in Lurk's voice, Thanquol wondered? Was it possible his lackey was mocking him? Was that a gleam of hunger in his eyes? Thanquol did not like that look at all. Nor did he like the way in which Lurk was sidling closer. It reminded him uncomfortably of a cat stalking its prey. Lurk licked his lips hungrily.\n\nWith vast effort, Thanquol mustered his power. A flickering glow appeared around his paw. Lurk stopped his approach and froze on the spot. He bobbed his head servilely. Thanquol looked at him wondering whether it might not be a good idea to blast him on the spot, and get it over with. Had he possessed his full magical energies he would have done so without hesitation but now he was not sure whether it was a good idea. He did not want to use what little power he had unnecessarily. There were too many threats around him. Lurk watched him warily. He gave the impression of being poised to spring at the slightest provocation. Thanquol had seen that look before in other skaven. He knew it only too well.\n\n\"We will head northwards first. Towards the mountains. Our enemies will not expect that. Then we will circle round the edge of the plain till we come upon an entrance to the Underway.\"\n\n\"A good plan, most benevolent of benefactors.\"\n\n\"Then let us be away. Quick-quick! I will take the leader's place in the rear.\"\n\nLurk did not seem to object. Looking at his broad back, Thanquol continued to wonder whether this was such a good idea. It was a long way to the mountains on foot, and a longer way yet back to the heartlands of skaven civilisation. Would he be better off travelling with Lurk or should he blast the monster in the back right now? As if sensing his thoughts, Lurk cast him a grim look over his shoulder. Thanquol controlled the urge to squirt the musk of fear.\n\nPerhaps it would be best just to wait and see, he thought.\n\nMax Schreiber walked through the airship. It was more difficult than he remembered from his journey to Kislev. Every inch of corridor was filled with packing cases shifted from the hold to make room for the refugees from Karag Dum. Crew members were sleeping on bedrolls in the corridor. It could not be pleasant lying on those riveted cast iron floors. There was very little comfort on the whole ship.\n\nMax was uncomfortable from keeping in a semi-crouch the whole time. The airship had been built for dwarfs which meant that for him the ceilings were far too low. Movement sometimes seemed like an excruciating new form of torture. Of course, most of this trip had turned out to be that.\n\nHe still ached from the after-effects of the battle, and his heart felt heavy with jealousy over Felix and Ulrika. He had, of course, refused when the dwarfs had placed him in the same cabin as the two lovers. It had been tactless of them to offer, but then he was used to that from the members of the Elder Race. For a people who prided themselves on having been civilised when humanity was still wearing skins, they could be remarkably uncouth when it came to the subtleties of relationships. Not like the elves, Max thought. Of course, it would have been tactless for him to point this out. Most dwarfs hated the Eldest Race with a passion Max found incomprehensible.\n\nDon't be so negative, he told himself. Look on the bright side. You helped win a victory over the skaven the night before last, and you saved some lives with your magic. You even healed Gotrek and Snorri of the worst of their wounds. You have done good work here. You should be proud.\n\nHe paused and looked around for a moment. He wondered about the monster the dwarfs claimed to have spotted on the airship during the battle at the village. He did not doubt they had seen something but perhaps it was an illusion or some minor daemon summoned by the skaven seer. The creature was certainly powerful enough to be capable of such magic. Max considered himself very lucky to have survived that particular encounter. Another thing to be grateful for.\n\nIt was amazing, he thought. As an apprentice, secure in his ignorant pride, he had thought that nothing could threaten him once he became a mage. It seemed that most of his career in the arcane arts had consisted of discovering that the world was full of beings more potent than himself.\n\nAnother set of illusions shattered. How many had there been now? Let's see - one of his idle fantasies as a youth had been the thought that one day he would learn spells that could compel a woman to love him. He did indeed know such spells now, as well as half a dozen others that would command obedience in all but the most strong-willed. Of course now he was bound by the most sacred of oaths not to use such spells except in defence of the Empire and humanity. Such were the responsibilities that came with power.\n\nThe world was a more complicated place than he had ever believed as a lad. He knew he would be putting his immortal soul in peril if he ever used such spells now. The road to damnation was paved not with good intentions but with desires gratified by evil means.\n\nStill, there were times when it had crossed his mind that damnation might not be too high a price for the love of a woman like Ulrika. Swiftly he pushed that thought aside. The snares of Chaos are subtle, he thought, and very, very numerous. He was one of those who should know. His secret masters had taught him that. Look on the bright side, he told himself, and stop thinking such dark thoughts.\n\nDespite all his formidable training, he could not.\n\nUlrika wondered what was going on. All of a sudden her life seemed to have changed utterly. She had returned from Middenheim scant weeks ago and now she had fled her home, perhaps forever. It did not seem possible that things could change so swiftly.\n\nA few days ago she had fervently wished for Felix's return and dreaded it. Now it had happened and it had made her life more complicated than she would have thought possible. Of course, she was glad to see him, too glad in many ways. She knew that the only reason she had allowed herself to be persuaded to board the airship and warn the Ice Queen was because he was aboard, and she could not bear the thought of parting with him so soon after they had been reunited.\n\nAnd at the same time, it made her feel guilty and angry. She was a warrior of her people, and warriors did not shirk their duties simply because they were smitten. She wished now she had remained with her father. That would have been the right thing to do, and she knew it. Her place was at his side.\n\nThese complex emotions were infuriating and she knew they were making her withdrawn and sometimes unpleasant. And there were other complications. She had seen the way Max Schreiber looked at her. Men had looked at her that way before. She did not find it unpleasant, but she knew that though she liked Max she did not want more than friendship from him. She hoped she could make him understand that. If not, things might turn nasty. She knew some men got that way when they were rejected. Just to make things worse, Max was a wizard. Who knew what he was capable of? Well, that was a worry for the future. She pushed it to one side, one of those things that might never come to pass, worthless to consider until it did.\n\nThe question right now was the man standing beside her, holding her hand. Now that Felix was back all the other problems had come back to haunt her. He was a landless wanderer and they were going to the court of the Tzarina. He was oath-bound to follow Gotrek and record his doom. And he was different since he had come back from the Wastes. Quieter and grimmer. Perhaps the Wastes could change a man in more subtle ways than mutation.\n\nAnd how much did she really know about him? She told herself that these were things that should not make a difference to her feelings, but she knew in her secret heart that they did.\n\nIn the distance, she watched storm clouds gathering. They looked different from this altitude but no less menacing. There's a storm coming from the north, she thought, from the Chaos Wastes. The thought filled her heart with fear.\n\nSnorri looked northwards at the gathering clouds. Big storm coming, Snorri could tell. Something to do with the size and the blackness of the clouds and the faint flicker of lightning in the distance. Yes. Big storm coming. Not that Snorri cared. Right at this moment, Snorri was drunk. He had consumed more than a bucket of potato vodka and he was feeling a little the worse for it. That was common these days. Snorri knew he was drinking too much. But then again, Snorri told himself, that was not really possible.\n\nSnorri drank to forget. Snorri had become so good at it that he had forgot what he was drinking to forget. Either that or all those blows to the head he had taken during his career as a Slayer had done it. Right now, he should drink more. It would help him to stay forgetful, just in case.\n\nHe knew that whatever it was he was trying to forget was bad. He knew that he had done something that he must atone for, suffered a grief or shame so great that the only thing he could do to expunge it was to seek death in a heroic fashion and thus earn back his good name for himself and his clan. He wondered what it was.\n\nIn the corner of his mind, images flickered. A wife, children, little ones, all dead. Had he killed them? He did not think so. Was he responsible for their deaths? The stab of pain in his chest told him yes, Snorri probably was. He had been drunk then too? Yes, he had.\n\nHe took another swig from his bucket and offered it to Gotrek. Gotrek shook his head. He rubbed his eyepatch with the knuckles of one big fist and kept his gaze fixed on the clouds.\n\nThe storm was definitely getting closer. It was coming from the north to overtake the ship, Snorri could feel it in his bones. The thought occurred to him that it might be sent by the Chaos sorcerers as revenge for what they had done at Karag Dum. He shared the idea with Gotrek but Gotrek just grunted.\n\nSnorri wasn't offended. Even by Slayer standards, Gotrek Gurnisson was grim. Snorri knew he had reason to be. He had once known why Gotrek had shaved his head. He felt sure of it. But too much vodka or too many blows to Snorri's head had knocked the knowledge out again. It was the way, he thought.\n\nSnorri felt bone-deep aches. Amazing how well he had healed, all things considered. That human magician's spell was potent. Still, it could not get rid of all the pain. Snorri had taken a lot of punishment in the past few weeks, been in a lot of fights.\n\nBut that was all right. He liked fights. More even than vodka, or good dwarf beer, the madness of battle helped him stay forgetful. In combat he could lose sight of who he was and what he once might have been. He knew this was something he shared with Gotrek. He took another swig and watched the wall of blackness coming closer. Worst storm he had ever seen, he supposed. Worse even than the one the airship had endured in the Wastes.\n\nA vision of the Spirit of Grungni smashed to the ground by the force of the storm, lying broken and burned out on the ground filled Snorri's mind. He realised he didn't care. He didn't care much about anything anymore. He was a walking corpse now. His life had burned out long ago. At this moment, it did not matter whether the doom he found was a heroic one, as long as it was a doom. Even as he thought this, part of Snorri rebelled. It seemed too much like a betrayal of himself, and of his dead. And still part of him felt that way. He wondered if Gotrek ever felt the same.\n\nSnorri knew it was just another of those things he would never ask. He offered the bucket to Gotrek again. This time the other Slayer took it.\n\nBad storm coming, Snorri thought. Worst Snorri has ever seen.\n\nThe rising wind ruffled Lurk's fur. His stomach growled almost as loudly as a rat-ogre. He felt as if a whole nest of runts were in his belly trying to eat their way out of his stomach. He could not ever recall being this hungry.\n\nOverhead, black clouds boiled. Huge strokes of lightning burst through the darkness giving the scene a hellish flickering illumination. The rain drove into his face, almost blinding him. He had lost the scent of Grey Seer Thanquol, and wondered if the mage were still behind him in the darkness.\n\nThe high grass rippled and flowed like the waters of a great ocean. The blades slashed at him like soft impotent swords. He did not like this. He did not like this at all. He wanted to be anywhere but here. He wanted to be in some safe burrow of solid stone, not under this roiling turbulent ever-changing sky.\n\nSilently he cursed Thanquol. The grey seer was, and ever had been, the source of all the misery in Lurk's life. He wished he had taken the opportunity to spring on him when he had the chance. He was sure Thanquol's magic could not have been all that potent then. The grey seer had looked exhausted, as if the efforts of the previous evening had drained-him of all power. He knew that his new altered form had been more than capable of overwhelming his former master. He would have liked nothing more than to burrow his snout in the grey seer's belly and eat his intestines, preferably while Thanquol lived.\n\nAnd yet, despite his gnawing hunger, he had not done so. He had to face that fact. He was not entirely sure why. Part of it was simple force of habit, part of it was justifiable skaven caution in the face of Thanquol's magic, and part of it was natural skaven cunning. He knew that if he just bided his time a suitable opportunity would arise to exact his revenge with far less risk to his own precious hide.\n\nAfter all, with a skaven as cunning as Thanquol, you could never be sure whether he was really as weak as he was pretending. It was better to be safe than sorry.\n\nOr so he had thought. But now this hideous storm had arisen, and it felt like it would blow away their entire world. Worse, he could sense a strange taint to it, the faint mephitic odour of warpstone. This storm was coming straight from the Wastes. Which no doubt accounted for the odd multi-coloured aspect of the lightning. He turned to ask Thanquol what they should do. .\n\nThe grey seer was just standing there, eyes wide, mouth open, breathing in the storm winds like a skavenslave gulping down fungusberry wine. It was as if this storm had been made for him. Lurk shivered with fear. Perhaps he could put off his revenge a little longer. After all, he had waited long enough. What difference could a few more minutes, or hours, or days, or even weeks make?\n\nIf only he were not so damned hungry. He looked at Thanquol, measuring every ounce of his flesh. Thanquol saw his look and a faint flickering aura of power snaked around his claws. Now was not the right moment for vengeance, Lurk thought. But soon, very soon.\n\nFelix felt the airship shake.\n\n\"What was that?\" Ulrika asked. She didn't sound afraid. She never did but he could feel her body shiver where it lay against his.\n\n\"The wind,\" he said. The Spirit of Grungni suddenly bucked like a ship on a storm-tossed sea. She clutched tight against him. Felix felt his own heart jump into his mouth. This was not a pleasant sensation but he had experienced its like before in the Chaos Wastes. Come to think of it, so had she. There had been a storm on their first flight between Middenheim and Kislev. He reached out to stroke her hair, and touch her warm and naked body.\n\n\"It's nothing to worry about. I've been through worse in the Chaos Wastes.\"\n\nA keening sound echoed down the corridor and through the chambers. The whole ship vibrated. \"Just the metal of the ship. It's under strain,\" he said, trying to remember all the reassuring phrases that Malakai had taught him. He was surprised at how calm he sounded. He only wished he felt that way. The ship shuddered like a live thing. The two lovers held each other in the darkened cabin. Both were waiting for disaster to strike.\n\nMax Schreiber made his way onto the control deck. Things did not look good. He could see nothing through the monstrous black clouds ahead of them save the occasional flicker of a lightning flash. The whole ship shivered. The engines howled like lost souls as they strained to propel the Spirit of Grungni against the enormous currents of air.\n\nOn the bright side, at least Malakai Makaisson was at the controls. Of all the potential pilots of the ship, Max had most faith in him.\n\n\"Tisnae as bad as it looks,\" Makaisson said. As always his thick guttural accent and odd dialect confused Max. Makaisson was not the easiest of dwarfs to understand.\n\n\"I'm glad you are feeling so confident, Herr Makaisson,\" said Max. He glanced around. Aside from the Slayer engineer, every other face on the command deck was a picture of worry. Makaisson played with the earflap of his peculiar leather flying helmet, which had been cut at the top to let his Slayer's crest show through. He adjusted the goggles which sat on top of his head then he looked up at Max and grinned. It was not a reassuring grin. Makaisson did not look sane at the best of times, and at the moment he looked positively crazy.\n\n\"Nithin tae worry aboot! Ah've got the ship turned oot o' the wind. We'll joost rin afore the storm till it runs oot o' force. Nithin tae it.\"\n\nActually, Makaisson's words sounded suspiciously sensible, as they often did if you listened to them closely. Max pictured the airship running before the wind just like a sailing ship could. The storm would just make it fly faster. As long as the gasbag remained untorn they should be safe. lust as he was feeling slightly reassured the Spirit of Grungni leapt upwards like a horse clearing a fence. Max was forced to grab the edge of one of the command seats just to stay upright.\n\n\"A wee bit o' turbulence, man. Dinnae cack yer breeks!\"\n\n\"Is it just me or is the storm dying down?\" Ulrika asked. Felix had been wondering that himself for some time. Hours had passed since the storm had overtaken them, and they had been among the longest hours of Felix's life. The Spirit of Grungni had never felt quite so unsafe. At any moment he had felt like the whole thing might just break apart, and they would all be sent tumbling to their deaths. Somehow the presence of Ulrika had just made the whole thing worse. The prospect of his own death was not one that he particularly enjoyed, but the thought of the girl in his arms dying at the same time, and there being nothing he could do about, was just awful.\n\n\"I think it is,\" he said eventually. He was fairly sure he was telling the truth too. The airship seemed to have slowed a little. The rain no longer beat quite so strongly against the windows. The lightning flashes had become less frequent. Perhaps the worst had indeed passed.\n\nUlrika buried her head on his shoulder. He held her close and offered up a prayer to Sigmar that they would be spared.\n\nMax Schreiber looked at the speed gauge on the control console. The Spirit of Grungni was definitely slowing \u2014 a sign, according to Makaisson, that the tailwind was less strong. Max wasn't entirely sure what the dwarf meant, but he thought he got the general idea. He was duly grateful that the gods had spared them.\n\n\"Ah telt ye, didn't ah?\" said Makaisson, \"but wud yese listen? Naw! Ah sade this airship can tak far worse than this but ye ah kent better, didn't ye? Aye, well who was right, that's what ah ask ye, noo?\"\n\n\"You were, Herr Makaisson, no question,\" Max said, and he was grateful that the dwarf had been. He was even grateful that the Slayer had known exactly what to do to save his ship. Perhaps his reputation for causing disasters was not entirely deserved. Ahead of them something huge loomed out of the storm dark gloom.\n\n\"What's that?\" Max asked.\n\n\"It's a bloody mountain, ya eedjeet. Help me turn this damn wheel.\"\n\nDesperately Max added his weight to Makaisson's as they tried to change course. Slowly, too slowly, the Spirit of Grungni began to turn.\n\nSnorri woke up. His head was sore and he had to admit his hangover was bad. The whole floor seemed to be tilting and that normally was an effect he usually only got when he was very drunk. Then it dawned on him that maybe it wasn't his hangover. He was on an airship, after all. Maybe the whole thing was tilting? And what was that scraping noise? It sounded like the whole cupola was running along rock. Had they landed? If so, why were they bumping along in this atrocious manner? And why were all those voices in the distance screaming? He looked over at Gotrek. The other Slayer was peering grimly out into the gloom.\n\n\"I knew that idiot Makaisson was going to get us all killed,\" Gotrek said.\n\nThrough the rapidly parting storm clouds Snorri could see mountain peaks all around them. The grinding sound continued. He knew they were scraping rock. Under the circumstances there was only one thing to do. He took another long swig of vodka and waited for the end to come.\n\nMax Schreiber felt the whole hull of the cupola grind against the mountainside. He prayed feverishly that it would stay intact. On the bright side at least the gasbag was still alright. Just a few more moments and they would be clear. If only the airship would hold together a bit longer. He offered up a prayer to all the gods for their aid."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "AN AERIAL ENCOUNTER",
+                "text": "The grinding of the hull suddenly ceased. Max felt a momentary surge of relief. The airship was aloft again. They were off the side of the mountain. Makaisson shouted into the speaking tube, \"Ah want reports from the ship. What's the damage? Hoo are the enjuns? Ony holes in the cupola or gasbag? An' ah want ye tae jump tae it, ya bamsticks!\"\n\nHe pulled control levers and the engine noise died. The airship was still moving, propelled by the wind, but its speed had fallen away to almost nothing. It seemed that the storm had passed them by. Max looked at the Slayer engineer. \"What's the problem?\"\n\n\"Whaur tae start is the problem! Ah think the enjuns might be a wee bit damaged fae bein' dragged alang the mountainside. Joost a theory mind, but ye can see hoo it wood be possible. An' then there's the wee fact that ah hae nae idea whaur we are.\"\n\n\"We're in the World's Edge Mountains, obviously,\" Max said. \"That was the only range in a hundred leagues and we were blown south. I don't see Chaos Wastes below us.\"\n\n\"Gae the big man a prize!\" jeered Malakai. \"Ah ken we're in the World's Edge Mountains. Ah'm a dwarf, am't ah? Ah ken a mountain range when ah see yin. Ah joost don't know whaur exactly we are in it.\"\n\nMax looked at Malakai. The dwarf was upset. Malakai Makaisson was the best-tempered Slayer Max had ever met, and such a display of anger was quite unusual for him. Max was starting to wonder if they were in more trouble than he had imagined.\n\n\"I don't see how that's such a big problem.\"\n\n\"Then let me explain. If we've took serious damage then we're no in ony great shape. Daen repairs in the middle oh naewhaur, way nae proper spares is no gannae be easy. So we might be in for a bit o' a wak hame. Can ye see the problem noo?\"\n\nMax suddenly understood why Malakai Makaisson was so upset. He was distraught by the prospect of abandoning his beloved airship. Max could understand that. He was not exactly thrilled by the idea himself. The World's Edge Mountains were huge and filled with marauding tribes of orcs and other monstrous creatures, as well as by countless savage beasts.\n\n\"I think there might be another problem,\" said one of the apprentice engineers tugging at Makaisson's shoulder.\n\n\"Great! An' joost whit exactly might that be?\"\n\n\"That!\" said the other dwarf pointing.\n\nMax glanced in the direction of the dwarf's pointing finger. His eyes went wide. His jaw dropped open. His heartbeat sounded like a drum in his ear. \"Gods preserve us,\" he breathed.\n\n\"Ah dinnae think they can!\" said Makaisson. \"No fae that!\"\n\n\"Well, we're still alive,\" said Felix, rising into a crouch and drawing on his britches.\n\n\"I'm glad of that,\" said Ulrika. Felix smiled, suddenly looking years younger.\n\n\"Me too.\" He pulled on his boots and shirt and strapped on his sword. \"I'll just go and see what's happening.\"\n\nThe sound of boots hammering on the metal floor of the corridor was suddenly loud in his ear.\n\n\"Manling, get your sword!\" he heard Gotrek shout, as a heavy fist banged on the door.\n\n\"Snorri thinks that's a good idea too,\" he heard Snorri add.\n\n\"What in Sigmar's name is going on?\" he asked.\n\n\"You'll see for yourself in a minute.\"\n\nMax Schreiber looked through the window of the command deck in astonishment. He could not quite believe what he was seeing but that did not stop the sight of it from filling him with terror.\n\nIt was a dragon, and not just any dragon, but quite possibly the largest one he had ever heard of. Not that he was an expert on this particular subject. This was the first and, he quite sincerely hoped, the last he would ever see.\n\nAt first, when he saw it in the distance, he had thought it was just a particularly large bird. But it flew oddly for a bird, and as it came closer, he began to get some sense of the scale of the thing compared to its surroundings. It was far too big to be any bird he had ever heard of, including the war eagles of the elves which were large enough to carry a full grown warrior on their back.\n\nAs it came closer he began to see that the shape was wrong for a bird too. It was too long, and the wings were structured like those of a bat, rather than a bird.\n\nAs it came closer still, he noted the long-lizard like body, the enormous snake-like tail, the serpentine neck supporting the massive head. He saw the colours were like no bird that had ever flown save perhaps in the Chaos Wastes. The general colouration of the scaly leathery skin was red but there were glowing highlights in it that blazed all the colours of the rainbow. A massive shield of bone surrounded the monstrous head. A double row of razor-sharp spines ran down the long back.\n\nOn the command deck pandemonium reigned. Malakai Makaisson shouted orders into the speaking trumpet while all the time throwing the control levers forward to the maximum extent. Engines roared like daemons as the airship picked up speed.\n\n\"Gunners tae yer stations!\" bellowed Makaisson. \"Ah want every gyrocopter oot there, and ah want it noo!\"\n\nMax wondered what good they would do. He felt paralysed with fear as the dragon came effortlessly closer. He had never seen such a large living thing. From nose to tail it must have been as long as the gasbag of the airship. It looked like it could lift a bull in each of its claws. This was something to freeze the heart of even a Slayer.\n\nAll around him he could hear the sound of running feet as dwarfs raced to obey Makaisson's orders. The ship echoed with panicked exclamations and oaths as the dwarfs began to realise what they were facing. Given the fact that these were the survivors of Karag Dum, long inured to horror, it was a tribute to quite how fearsome the dragon actually was that it could stir terror in their hearts.\n\nVarek clambered into the cockpit of the gyrocopter. A dragon, he thought, elated as well as terrified. He had seen a dragon, one of the creatures of legend. One of the eldest of beasts. It was another wonder he had witnessed on this trip, another thing to note down in his book. If he survived, he thought, as the engine roared to life, and the gyrocopter made ready for take-off.\n\nMax felt rooted to the spot. If someone had told him at that moment he must cast a spell or die, he knew he would be dead. His mind was blank. He could not work magic if his life depended on it. The dragon opened its mouth and roared. The sound echoed like thunder through the mountains. Small flames lapped the sword-sized teeth as it did so. As it came ever closer, Max realised one cause of the horror. What he had thought were small jewels inset in its skin and glittering in the sun were in fact tiny shards of warpstone. He shuddered to think what exposure to that dreaded substance must be doing to the dragon. Mutation and madness were its lot at the very least. Perhaps that accounted for the creature's size, and its odd appearance.\n\nAt this range he could see long tendrils of flesh surrounded the mouth and long stalk-like antennae protruded from its brows just above the eyes. Here and there massive pustules blistered the scaly hide. The thing had definitely felt the touch of Chaos. Was it possible it had been brought here by the storm, blown all the way from the Wastes by the force of those daemonic winds? He did not know. He licked his dry lips. He did not want to find out.\n\nThe dragon was almost alongside them now, flying parallel with the airship like a whale sculling alongside a cargo vessel. It had yet to attack but Max did not doubt that it was hostile. It was toying with them like a cat might toy with a mouse.\n\nThis close he could make out the details of its enormous head. Its eyes glowed yellow, the pupils blazing red suns. A malign intelligence glittered in their depths. A cloud of poisonous-looking gas billowed from its nostrils and mouth, where occasionally small flames lapped forth.\n\nGods, the thing was big enough to swallow a horse in one gulp. Those claws could shred the gasbag like a man might tear a piece of parchment. If it breathed there was every chance that the gasbag might catch fire and who knew what might happen then. Max shuddered when he considered that the engines of the Spirit of Grungni were powered by black stuff. It was one of the most inflammable substances known to alchemical science. There were just far too many things that could go wrong here.\n\nHe heard more engines roar as gyrocopter after gyrocopter dropped from the hangar decks of the airship. After the battle at the manor house there were only three left. As far as Max was concerned they would probably cause as much trouble to the dragon as gnats would to a wolf. He could not see any way they could survive this encounter.\n\nEven as he watched the first of the gyrocopters curved into view, heading directly at the dragon. A roaring as of a thousand muskets firing at once told him that the organ gun turrets on top of the gasbags and the bottom of the cupola had opened fire. A line of explosions in the dragon's flesh showed where their shots had struck home.\n\nThe dragon roared its wrath. Its long snaky neck curved to bring the open jaws directly into line with the airship. Max fought down the urge to shriek as a cloud of flames and warpstone gas flashed towards them.\n\nThe wind whipped against Varek's face. He was filled with exultation and a sense of speed. He whooped wildly as the gyrocopter arced around and up towards the dragon. He felt as if he was being pressed into his seat by a giant fist. He had never felt so alive. He thought he understood one of the secrets of the Slayers now, why they constantly sought out death. This was existence on the very edge, and it was sweet. Ahead of him the huge monster loomed ever larger. Fear clutched at Varek's bowels as he felt its burning gaze fall on him. He fought it down, and made ready to attack.\n\nFelix heard the sound of the turrets opening fire above them. What was it? What could be attacking them here so far above the ground? It had to be something flying, and something that could move fast to overhaul them. At any moment he expected the firing to stop. He had once seen a demonstration of an organ gun being fired by the Imperial military during the Emperor's day parade back in Altdorf. The thing had ripped apart a small wooden fortification. Nothing could possibly resist the concentrated fire of half a dozen of them, could it?\n\nGotrek and Snorri had already clambered up the ladder and through the hatch of the gondola. Felix pulled himself up, more swiftly than any dwarf. For a brief moment he was on top of the gondola itself, and he caught sight of what was being fired at. He had a flickering impression of a long reptilian shape, large as the airship, winged like a bat, then the acrid smoke of the organ guns billowed into his line of sight and cut off his view. By all the gods, could it be a dragon, he wondered? Had he really just seen what he thought he had? He most sincerely hoped not.\n\nSnorri and Gotrek continued on up the ladder. It was made of flexible metal hawsers and ran all the way through the gasbag to the top of the airship. It was designed to give access to the turrets up there, and to let the crew into the gasbag to effect repairs.\n\nIt was cold up here, and the sting of the wind brought tears to Felix's eyes until he pulled himself inside the gasbag. Now all around he could see hundreds of smaller gasbags. He knew Makaisson had designed them so that even if the outer skin of the balloon was pierced not all the lift gas could escape at once. According to the dwarf, over half of these nacelles would have to be burst before the Spirit of Grungni would begin to lose altitude.\n\nSuddenly he felt the temperature rise dramatically. He became aware that flames were flickering below him and there was a terrible stench that reminded him of sewage and warpstone. What was happening?\n\n\"Dragonbreath!\" he heard Gotrek roar.\n\nI am going to die, Felix thought.\n\nMax almost screamed as the cloud of burning gas enveloped the airship. He pictured the gasbag catching fire and the whole vessel being blown apart in an apocalyptic blast of heat and flame. For one brief moment, he knew that he was dead. He closed his eyes, took a terrified breath and waited for the inevitable burst of agony that would tell him his life was over. A heartbeat passed, then another and he was still alive. He felt the airship tilt, and then knew it was a false reprieve. He reached out to steady himself instinctively, shocked to find he was still alive.\n\nHe opened his eyes, looked around and saw Makaisson still furiously tugging at the controls. The airship was heading upwards, climbing steeply. He looked around to see the dragon below them, spreading its wings, beginning a long lazy spiral upwards. Around it the three gyrocopters flitted like mosquitoes.\n\n\"We're still alive,\" Max said.\n\n\"Weel spotted!\" said Makaisson. \"Cannae pit much past you, big man, can we?\"\n\n\"How? Why aren't we burned to death? Why didn't the gasbag catch fire?\"\n\n\"Taks mare than a brief scorching to heat metal, as ye would ken if ye ever worked iron, so the cupola didnae melt. We were a wee bit luckier wie the gasbag. Had the explodin' problem wi' ma last airship, so this time ah treated the gasbag an' the nacelles wi' a flameproof alchemical mix. Joost as well, really.\"\n\n\"Makaisson, I don't care what others say about you, I think you're a genius.\"\n\n\"Thanks, ah think,\" Makaisson said. He made a small adjustment to the controls. \"By the way, whit exactly dae others say aboot me? No that ah care, ye ken.\"\n\nFelix emerged on the top of the airship. A metal dorsal spine ran along the top of the gasbag. From it, nets hung over the gasbag itself so that the brave and the foolhardy could climb over. Along the spine were organ gun turrets. A small handrail, set at the right height for dwarfs, ran along the spine. Felix grabbed it and hauled himself into the open. The wind tugged at his hair, and brought tears to his eyes. It roared in his ears when it wasn't drowned out by the thunder of the organ guns. He could see Gotrek and Snorri shout and wave their fists at the dragon but he couldn't hear a word they were saying. Probably just as well, really; it most likely wasn't anything sensible.\n\nHe shook his head, knowing that he was deliberately trying to distract himself from the awesome sight below. It was indeed a dragon, rising through the clouds. Beneath it he could see the streams and valleys of what he assumed must be the World's Edge Mountains. Gyrocopters buzzed around the mighty beast.\n\nFor a moment, he thought how few men had ever been privileged to witness such a sight, but it dawned on him that right now he would cheerfully swap the privilege to be on the ground and as far away from that huge creature as was humanly possible.\n\nHe could see that the gyrocopters were using their steamjets on the dragon, but ineffectually. A creature which burned internally with the fires of Chaos was unlikely to be hurt by a scalding jet of superheated water. Maybe if they tried blasting it directly down the creature's throat it might extinguish the fire but he doubted it. The bombs being lobbed by the pilots were proving just as ineffectual at the moment. Against such a swiftly moving target, it was difficult to judge distances and set the fuse time correctly. Even as Felix watched he saw bombs explode harmlessly in the air around the dragon. Then with a swift move the dragon turned and breathed on the nearest gyrocopter. It exploded as suddenly and explosively as one of the bombs but on a much more massive scale. Felix offered up a prayer for the soul of the pilot tumbling to the earth in a blazing pyre.\n\nThe dragon flexed its wings and began to gain altitude, moving swiftly in pursuit of the Spirit of Grungni. There was a lull in the firing as the gunners waited for it to come within range again.\n\n\"It's mine,\" he heard Gotrek say.\n\n\"It's Snorri's,\" Snorri replied.\n\n\"I think there's enough to go around,\" Felix said, reaching for the hilt of his sword. \"No need to fight over\u2026 Ow!\"\n\nHe drew his hand away from the hilt of his blade as if it had been scorched. It hadn't been but when he touched the dragon-headed hilt of the blade he had felt a strange tingling, and a surge of energy the like of which he had never felt before. It was not an unpleasant sensation merely an unexpected one. He reached out to grasp the sword again, half thinking he had imagined the whole thing, but no sooner had he done so than the sensation returned, redoubled.\n\nAn odd warmth spread through his hand, up his arm and through his body. He felt good. Any lingering fear he might have had of the dragon vanished. He felt exultation, power and strength pour into him. He found that he was quite looking forward to the dragon getting within striking distance.\n\nThe part of him that was an objective observer wondered if he had gone insane. There was nothing good whatsoever about a dragon getting within a hundred leagues of him, nor of this fragile gasbag, and the cupola suspended below it. He knew that some external power must be at work here, some sorcery. Was it possible that Max Schreiber had cast a spell without him knowing it? If so, why had he not noticed any change in Gotrek or Snorri? It made no sense for the magician to cast a spell on him and not the two Slayers, who were a good deal tougher than he.\n\nThe dragon swelled in Felix's field of vision, and a sense of expectation filled him. It was definitely coming from the sword, he felt. Holding the blade before him he could see the runes blazing along its length with a strength and a brightness he had never seen before. It was as if they had been inscribed in fire.\n\nHe wondered about this. He had never known much about the history of this blade, the one sought by the Templar Aldred all those months ago in the ruins of Karak Eight Peaks. He had always known it was magical. It kept its edge like no blade he had ever known, and had never taken a nick in all his many battles. He had thought that was the limit of the enchantment on it.\n\nLooking at it now, and examining the way it was behaving in the presence of that great dragon below them, it seemed that perhaps the hilt of the sword was more than mere decoration. Perhaps it was expressive of the purpose of the sword. From nowhere but the blade itself, it seemed, came the knowledge he was right.\n\nHe joined the Slayers in shouting abuse at the dragon, surprised at his own temerity. Normally, he would never in a million years have dared draw the attention of so powerful a beast to himself in such a way, but it seemed the influence of the sword was affecting him greatly. He could tell by the astonished looks Gotrek and Snorri were giving him that they were just as surprised as he was.\n\nWings beating the air furiously, the dragon rose to the attack. The gyrocopters rose in its wake, though the part of Felix that was still capable of sane thought wondered what they could do to so baleful a creature.\n\nThrough the porthole of the cabin, Ulrika watched the battle below with a growing sense of helplessness. There was nothing she could do to affect the outcome of this struggle. She did not have the skills to man any of the weapons or fly the ship. She doubted that she could nick the fearsome beast even if she could get within striking distance of it. And to make matters worse, they were thousands of strides above the surface of the earth. There was no way to hide or flee even if she wanted to.\n\nNo. She refused to sit here and be helpless. There must be something she could do. There was only one thing she could think of, so she did it. She snatched up the short powerful horn bow she used for horseback archery, strapped the quiver of arrows over her shoulder and set off to find a place she could shoot from.\n\nMax Schreiber was glad to feel the terror pass. It seemed that the overwhelming power of the dragon to inspire fear in him had been dispelled by something. He was not sure quite what, but somewhere close by he felt a surge of magical energy, pulsing like a beacon. Whatever it was, it was very strong. Was it possible there was another sorcerer on the airship? It did not seem likely. Dwarfs were not known for their proficiency in the magical arts, and he knew that neither Felix nor Ulrika nor either of her two bodyguards were mages. It must be something else.\n\nWhatever it was, he was grateful. His mind was clear, and he felt capable of drawing on the winds of magic once more. He reached deep down into the well of his soul and drew upon his power. In his mind he began to review his most potent spells. Perhaps there was something he could do to affect the outcome of the battle after all. Perhaps.\n\nLooking out of the windows of the command deck at the awesome form of the dragon, he doubted it.\n\nFelix watched the dragon come ever closer. He thought he could hear its mighty wing-beats even above the roar of the organ guns. He was impressed by the sheer size of the thing. He did not think he had ever been this close to so large a living creature. It made part of him feel insignificant, puny, despicable.\n\nAnd another part of him thirsted for it to come within striking distance, to reach a place where he could engage it in combat. Felix considered this, and realised that whatever it was that wanted the battle, it wasn't him, it was an external influence. It was something coming from his sword that was making him brandish his blade and shout challenges. While he was glad for the relief from fear, he also resented it. He was the master of his actions, not some ancient semi-sentient weapon. He forced himself to shut his mouth. By an effort of will he brought his sword down and held it in the guard position.\n\nIt was difficult but he managed it. The blade fought against him, writhing in his hand like a serpent. In a way he felt like he was drunk, not quite responsible for his actions. It took all his willpower just to keep quiet and hold still but he did so, and the more he did so, the more he felt the strange urges subside. Either he was his own master again or the sword was conserving its energies for the greater struggle.\n\n\"Come taste axeblade,\" Gotrek bellowed.\n\n\"And have a bit of Snorri's hammer for afters,\" shouted Snorri. Felix watched silently. The creature was almost upon them. He was close enough to smell the Chaos poison on its breath.\n\nThe whole hull echoed as if struck by a giant hammer. The force of the impact almost forced Ulrika from the ladder. She felt the cupola surge and swing, and she knew that one of those giant claws must have impacted on the airship. Her heart leapt into her mouth. A vivid picture of the gondola becoming separated from the gasbag and plunging earthwards to its doom filled her mind. Quickly she pushed it away, and resumed her climb. If she was going to die, she wanted to die fighting.\n\nMax rolled along the floor of the command deck, tossed about like a child's plaything by the force of the impact. He felt the cupola sway as the dragon's claws smashed into the side of the airship. The whole interior of the vessel vibrated like a drum as the huge reptile's wings beat against it in a flurry of blows. In his mind's eye, he saw the dragon clutching at the airship like a tiger on the neck of its prey. It was not a reassuring image.\n\nHe looked up and saw Makaisson wrestling with the controls. The dwarf cursed loudly, \"Bloody overgrown lizard! Tryin' to eat us alive, so it is. Bloody stupid critter if ye ask me. It cannae eat solid steel. Can it? Well, can it?\"\n\nIn his heart, Max was not so sure. He did know that the dragon did not need to be able to consume them to destroy them. A few more blows like that would pull the gondola loose and then they would all be dead."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Varek was really excited. He had thought that nothing could top his descent into the bowels of Karag Dum with the Slayers and Felix but this was close to proving him wrong. Aerial combat with a dragon, he thought. What a chapter this would be in his book. He lifted the portable organ gun Makaisson had given him. He decided it was time to get a few good shots at the dragon.\n\nFelix felt the deck sway beneath his feet at the impact. The dragon's claws had smashed into the side of the airship. The sound of shrieking metal filled his ears as the hull gave way under the force of the blow. The dragon's long neck snaked up. It took a bite from the gasbag, lifting away a huge patch of the outer skin. Nacelles exploded in its mouth. Felix shuddered, wondering how much of this punishment the ship could take. A sweep of the enormous tail curled right round the gondola and came down on one of the organ guns, flattening it and the gunner. The wreckage of the turret went plummeting into space, tumbling to earth far far below.\n\nThings were not looking good. The whole hull creaked when the dragon rested its weight on it. The dragon extended its long scaly neck and suddenly its head was looming over Felix.\n\nGotrek and Snorri rushed forward. Snorri's axe lashed out and bounced from the dragon's hide. His hammer had no discernible effect. Gotrek's axe on the other hand bit home, cleaving the armoured skin and drawing blood. The dragon bellowed with rage. Its enormous head swung round to regard the Slayer balefully. Felix saw the malign intelligence in the creature's eyes and knew that the dragon planned to revenge itself on the tiny creature that had hurt it.\n\nIt opened its mouth. The fires of hell burned within its jaws. Felix thought the creature looked almost as if it were smiling. Some strange impulse compelled him to throw himself between Gotrek and the dragon just as it breathed. He fought back the desire to scream as a wall of flame hurtled towards him.\n\nMax chanted the words of the spell, drawing more and more magical energy to him. He knew he was only going to get one chance at this and he wanted to make the best use of it. Even if the dragon destroyed them, it gave him slight satisfaction to think that he would hurt it.\n\nAs the words tumbled from his mouth, he felt the winds of magic swirl about him. Responding to the arcane properties of the mantra, golden magic was drawn to him. His gestures shaped it, moulded it, the way a potter moulds clay. Beneath his hands and the force of his mind and words, a huge bolt of energy took shape. When the surge of energy was almost too great to hold, he made the final gesture and sent it spiralling towards the dragon.\n\nA massive beam of gold light smashed outwards, passing harmlessly through the crystal of the window, before impacting on the dragon's flesh and boring inwards towards its heart.\n\nUlrika pulled herself out of the hatchway on the top of the gasbag. She was just in time to see Felix jump between Gotrek and the dragon as it breathed. She knew in that moment that he was going to die.\n\n\"No!\" she shouted. At the same time, responding without thought, her body was already bringing the bow up to the firing position, nocking the arrow, and bringing it to bear on the dragon's eye.\n\nVarek pulled back on the control stick with one hand, and blasted away with the portable organ gun with the other. It had very little effect. He could see scales being blasted out of the dragon's hide but it was like using buckshot on a curtain wall. It might be uncomfortable for the dragon, but he was not going to do any real harm. Perhaps his book was going to end here, he thought. Perhaps this was where the story stopped.\n\nFelix could not quite believe what happened next. As the flame flashed down at him, he brought the sword up to parry. It was a pointless futile gesture, made more from force of habit than from any hope of being able to save himself. And something happened. The runes on the blade blazed brighter. The blaze of heat and pain did not come. Some sorcerous force protected him.\n\nHe felt enormous pressure on him, as if he was pushing against the current of a river. For a moment, he felt as if he was going to be blown right off the top of the gasbag but he braced himself and held his ground. Slowly he forced himself forward, moving to strike the dragon. The blade pulsed brighter in anticipation of the blow.\n\nUlrika unleashed the arrow. It flew straight and true towards the dragon's eye, but at the last second the creature moved and the arrow buried itself in one of the strange tendrils descending from the monster's brow. The creature's roar of hatred was deafening.\n\nThe dragon Skjalandir was frustrated. This was not going as he had planned. This strange vessel was putting up a fight. There was a sorcerer on board directing spells at him. That dwarf's axe was as potent a weapon as any he had seen in his two thousand years of existence, and as for the sword that puny human was carrying, it almost worried him. It glittered with an ancient malice directed at all of his kind.\n\nRage and hatred filled him. He was easily angered now. He knew it. He had changed since those two identical albino sorcerers had woken him from his long sleep. He feared he knew why too. The one with the golden staff had driven warpstone charms into his flesh. The one with the ebony staff had wound him round with charms he had been too drowsy to resist. There was something of the memory of their arcane ritual that filled him with fear as well as anger. He remembered the name of a dark god, the Changer, ringing through his lair. He remembered the way the mages had spurned his great hoard. He knew he had been trapped in some sort of spell of their making, and he knew his mind was clouded and there was nothing he could do about it.\n\nThe axe bit home again, burying itself in the tendons of his neck. It was like an ant bite to Skjalandir. Painful, irritating, but hardly fatal. The same applied to the spell attacking his flanks, and the stings of those tiny guns. Really there was nothing these little creatures could do that would actually harm him. It was time to end this farce.\n\nSkjalandir considered his options. He could breathe on the gasbag structure above the metal gondola. When he had slashed it, he had detected the thousands of smaller nacelles inside. His draconic mind was quite clever enough to grasp that these were what kept the ship aloft. If they could be made to catch fire\u2026\n\nWould the spell the sword had woven to protect its wielder against his breath protect the inanimate structure? Skjalandir doubted it. He would teach these dwarf interlopers to invade his realm, befoul his hunting grounds with their machines. He would kill them as he had killed all the other dwarfs who had come against him. He would destroy this vessel the way he had destroyed the towns surrounding his lair and there was nothing they could do to stop him.\n\nOr perhaps he should continue to strike at the metal gondola. If he separated it from the gasbag all of those within would plummet to their doom. Then he could pick off the creatures on the gasbag at his leisure. Something within his warpstone-tormented mind preferred the latter option. It was more cruel.\n\nHe was aware of the other gyrocopters moving closer. Let them. Their steam breath could not harm him, and their pathetic explosive eggs would barely scratch his armour. That's if they dared use their weapons so close to the airship. They were much more likely to harm their own vessel than to hurt Skjalandir.\n\nMax felt the surge of magical energy above him. A protective spell, he guessed, and not cast by a mortal wizard. All wizards had their own magical signature, as distinctive as a voice. It could be recognised by a fellow worker of the mystic arts unless disguised. A skilled practitioner, like Max, could even tell the race and usually the sex of a caster from it most of the time, but for this one he had no clue. A device or a rune perhaps, and yet there was the hint of some sort of alien intelligence behind it.\n\nNot that he was likely to find out now, Max thought. He had realised moments after he had unleashed his spell that he was fooling himself if he thought he was really going to harm the dragon. He could hurt it, cause it pain, but he could no more kill it than a bee sting could kill an elephant. The creature was too large and powerful and there was too much magic woven into its very nature for Max to be able to really harm it.\n\nAnother thing more powerful than I, he thought wryly. I seem to be meeting a lot of them lately.\n\nHis mind flickered through the routines of the escape spell, but he doubted it would do much good. It probably couldn't carry him all the way to the ground and even if it could he still would be travelling with all his current velocity in the direction he was currently moving. If he got to earth he would be travelling at the same speed and in the same direction as the Spirit of Grungni, and would most likely smash into a rock or a tree or some other obstacle.\n\nAnd he was not sure he wanted to leave. Ulrika was on this ship and he did not want to abandon her. While she still lived, he wasn't going anywhere.\n\nFelix looked up at the dragon. He felt as if it were taunting him. It was flying just out of striking distance and ignoring the challenges roared by Gotrek and Snorri. He knew that it wanted them to know it could destroy them at will. It was toying with them. It appeared that everything he had ever read about the malice and cruelty of dragons was true.\n\nHe felt a brief surge of despair. After all this, was it going to end this way? It hardly seemed fair that after all the many adventures he had survived he was going to meet his doom during a chance encounter in the World's Edge Mountains. Then again, who knew when the day of their death would come? Everyone's luck ran out eventually, and recently he had begun to suspect that he had had more than his fair share. He was only sorry that Ulrika was here -and that he was not with her at this final moment.\n\nHe glanced over at Gotrek to see how the Slayer was behaving now that his last moments were upon him. Fittingly enough, Felix decided. The dwarf was waving his axe and bellowing threats at the dragon. Snorri was egging him on.\n\nFrom the corner of his eye, Felix saw something looping upwards to gain height above the dragon and then come crashing down like a swooping hawk.\n\nVarek grasped the controls of his gyrocopter and gnawed his beard in frustration. He had done his best to slay the dragon but it ignored his organ gun and he could not hit it with his bombs. Now it was about to destroy the Spirit of Grungni.\n\nWorse than that, aboard the airship was the lost treasure of Karag Dum and the Hammer of Firebeard, one of the legendary weapons of his people. If the Spirit of Grungni was destroyed the hammer might be lost once more, perhaps this time forever. Varek was proud of his part in this expedition, proud of being part of the airship's crew, and prouder yet he had taken part in the expedition that had returned this ancient rune-weapon to his people. If they failed now, he knew that he would have to shave his head and become a Slayer to atone for his failure. He knew he could not live with the knowledge that they had come so far, suffered so much, and yet had failed at the last. He knew it would eat away at him for the rest of his life.\n\nAnd a heartbeat after that the thought struck him, he knew the answer to his problem. If he became a Slayer he would need to seek his doom in combat against the mightiest of monsters. Before him was one of the mightiest. He would never find another so great, of that he was sure. He had a weapon that might kill it too, although at the cost of his life. Still, it was a mighty deed. A doom that would cause his name to live forever in the annals of his people and bring eternal glory to his clan and his ancestors. With a single action he could become a Dragon Slayer, and save the lives of all his fellows. Not wanting to give himself a chance to reconsider his decision, he acted immediately. He wrenched the control stick of his gyrocopter, jammed the throttle to full and aimed straight for the dragon before him.\n\nThe rotor blades hit first biting, great chunks out of the dragon's flesh, then the nose rotors chopped in too. The sudden smashing impact ripped the engine apart, and a massive explosion smashed through Varek's body.\n\nHis last regret before darkness took him was that he would never live to complete his book.\n\nFelix watched the gyrocopter flash down on the dragon. At the last moment he got a glimpse of a familiar face. Varek, he thought, don't do it! Even if his thought could have influenced Varek's decision it was too late. The gyrocopter smashed into the dragon. Its rotor blades carved out great chunks of dragon flesh. The force of the impact smashed the dragon down and away from the airship. Moments later there was a massive explosion as the gyrocopter and its cargo of explosives ignited. A fireball enveloped the dragon as it fell. Felix could see no way anything could survive. He was wrong.\n\nThe dragon tumbled headlong towards the ground's hungry embrace. Felix thought that any second it was going to smash into the ground but it did not. At the last moment, its wings snapped open, and its headlong fall stopped. As Felix watched it began to move upwards once more. At first he feared it was unharmed and coming for them again, but then to his relief he saw that its flight was wobbly and that it was heading off into the distance.\n\nGrief tugged at his heart. He could not believe Varek was gone. The young dwarf had been a companion on one of his most dangerous adventures and suddenly he was just not there anymore. Death's claw had reached out and taken him. It was unjust, he decided, looking over at Gotrek and Snorri to see how the Slayers were taking it.\n\nGotrek wore a look of sorrow and respect and something else that Felix could not quite recognise. \"A good death,\" he said slowly and painfully.\n\n\"A great death,\" said Snorri. \"He will be remembered.\"\n\n\"He will be avenged,\" Gotrek said and Felix knew he meant it.\n\nAgony coursing through his ancient body, Skjalandir dropped away from the airship. In all his long life he had never felt such pain. It was no satisfaction that the creature who had inflicted the wound had died in the moment he struck. This was not good. Best return to his lair and heal. There would be time enough to seek revenge on these accursed creatures."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "A HERO'S WELCOME",
+                "text": "Felix stood on the command deck of the Spirit of Grungni. He could tell just by studying the gauges that things were bad. There was no response from about half the dials and the engines. Even from here, just the two remaining motors sounded terrible.\n\nMakaisson limped through the door. Felix had never seen the engineer look so angry.\n\n\"Bad?\" he asked.\n\n\"Ah'll say it bloody is. We're lucky to still be up here. The suspension cables haddin' the gondola tae the gasbag wir near frayed through in three places. Ah hae the lads makin' some repairs but its joost jury-rig stuff. Matter o' time before it ah goes horribly wrang.\"\n\n\"Doesn't sound good,\" Felix said. This seemed to goad Makaisson to further fury.\n\n\"Gasbag's ripped! Twa o' the injuns arnae workin' right. Hulls broken in aboot twenty places! We've lost a turret and ah but yin on the gyros. Bloody hell. Ah tell ye. If it's the last thing ah dae, ah'm gannae make that dragon pay for this. It'll rue the day it ever attacked ma airship.\"\n\nFelix winced. He was sure that Makaisson meant what he said, but he could not see how he was going to fulfil his vow. They had hit the dragon with everything they had, and it had still flown away to its lair. Felix was not even sure they had driven it off. He had a feeling that it had let them go because it suited it. They had about as much chance of killing the dragon as Felix had of becoming emperor, he reckoned.\n\nOld Borek limped onto the command deck. He looked more ancient than ever. His stick moved feebly, like that of a blind man, fumbling to find his way. His long beard dragged along the floor. He seemed to be at the end of his strength. The loss of his nephew had hit him hard.\n\n\"I'm sorry about Varek,\" Felix said. \"He was a fine dwarf.\"\n\nBorek looked up at him and smiled sadly.\n\n\"He was, Felix Jaeger. He was. I should never have let him come on this expedition. I should never have let him leave the Lonely Tower but he wanted to come so badly\u2026\"\n\nFelix remembered Varek's courage in the depths of Karag Dum. His habit of jotting everything down in his great book. His sometimes annoying cheerfulness. His embarrassing hero worship of himself and Gotrek. His short sightedness. His light, slightly pedantic voice. It was difficult to believe that he would never see or hear the young dwarf again. He was surprised. It had been a long time since a death had affected him this badly.\n\n\"He was a guid laddie,\" Makaisson said. \"Ah probably shouldnae hae let him tak me intae teachin' him to fly the gyro.\"\n\n\"If you hadn't, my friend, I suspect none of us would be here right now.\"\n\n\"Aye \u2014 yer right. The laddie wis a hero.\"\n\n\"I am the last of my line now,\" Borek said. Felix saw two drops of water running down the old dwarf's cheeks. Were they really tears? He looked away to spare the scholar embarrassment.\n\n\"Well dinnae you worry! We'll get the basturd that killed him. It's joost gone right to the heid of my very ane list o' grudges.\"\n\nBorek just looked away and shook his head in sorrow.\n\nMax Schreiber stood on the rear observation deck, looking out through the cracked crystal of the window. It must have been shattered some time during the struggle with the dragon, but he was not sure how or when. The whole airship looked dreadful. Internal fixtures had come loose. The cargo crates and treasure chests had been tossed around during the fight, damaging themselves and anything they had hit. Two of the crew had been crushed to death. Twelve others had needed healing by Max's magic.\n\nHe could tell that the airship was badly damaged just from the sick drone of the engines and the lack of headway they were making. Compared to their previous progress this was a snail's pace. He wondered if they would ever get where they needed to go. It seemed that this flight had been dogged by one accident after the other. It was almost as if they were cursed. Perhaps Makaisson's reputation for disaster was not so ill-deserved after all.\n\nHe watched the mountain valleys drift by below them. They were following the path of a stream that descended towards the lowlands. He guessed that the torrent of waterfalls would be beautiful if you were down there, but he knew he would never find out. He would probably never see these places again. Enjoy the view, he told himself. Make the most of this while you're here. You will never come this way again. Somehow the cheery teachings of his mentors in the Golden Brotherhood seemed just a little precious in the aftermath of the battle with the dragon. And yet part of him knew that the words were true. He should enjoy the moment and he should be glad. The fight had shown him just how fragile life could be, and just how quickly it could end. Look at poor Varek and the dozen or so other casualties of the fight.\n\nThe engines stuttered for a moment, then fell silent. For an instant he felt the Spirit of Grungni drift like a rudderless boat on a river. Please, Sigmar, he prayed, aid us. Don't let this happen now. He feared in his heart that the powerless airship might drift into a mountain side or that more of the gas nacelles would burst and they might drop to earth. In the valley below he saw a tiny group of figures moving along at speed. He was not sure but he thought he caught a hint of green.\n\n\"Orcs,\" he heard Ulrika say from close by. He looked over, surprised.\n\n\"Your eyes are better than mine,\" he said.\n\n\"I've spent my life looking along the shaft of an arrow, not reading books by candlelight,\" she said. \"And I long ago learned to recognise orcs at a great distance. Anyone who lives on the plains of Kislev dies swiftly if they do not.\"\n\n\"Are the greenskins so fearsome then?\" he asked. He already knew the answer, he just wanted to hear her voice.\n\n\"Bad as Chaos warriors in their own way. Even more savage and they don't know when they're dead. I've seen an orc with two arrows through its heart and half its head cleaved away chop down half a dozen warriors before it died.\"\n\n\"So have I,\" Gotrek Gumisson said. Max looked over at the Slayer. His massive form filled the hatchway leading into the observation deck. He moved surprisingly quietly for one so massive. Max had not heard him arrive either. \"But a good axe will kill them all in the end.\"\n\nMax was relieved to hear the engines start up again. They began to move forward once more.\n\n\"Wherever we're going I hope we get there soon,\" he said.\n\n\"We'll have to wait till night and fix our position by the stars,\" Gotrek said. \"Then we'll have a better idea.\"\n\nMax wondered if the airship would even make it to nightfall. He had seen some of the ripped hawser cables. It was a miracle they were still here.\n\n\"You're very quiet,\" Ulrika said. Felix nodded and drew his cloak tighter about him. It was cold up atop the gasbag and the wind's bite was cruel. They stood on the dorsal spine of the airship watching the two moons rise over the mountains. It was a sight of strange and intense beauty.\n\n\"I was thinking about Varek. I never really knew him and now he's gone.\"\n\n\"Death comes to everyone,\" she said. Felix looked at her. He wondered if he'd ever get used to the strong streak of fatalism in her. He supposed being brought up on the plains of North Kislev you got used to death early. He had not quite been so hardened before he set foot on the adventurer's path. Being brought up the son of a rich merchant in Altdorf, the capital of the Empire, had left him quite sheltered. The only death he had really been aware of was that of his mother, when he was nine years old. He had been too young to really understand it.\n\n\"I was wondering what he would have done differently today if he had got up knowing this was his last day in the world. To tell the truth, I was wondering what I would have done under the circumstances.\"\n\n\"Have you come to any conclusions?\"\n\n\"I might have told you that I loved you.\" Felix was surprised to hear himself say the words. He knew he had wanted to say them for a while but had been afraid to. He wasn't sure why. She was silent for a long time. He wondered if she had heard him.\n\n\"I might have told you the same thing,\" she said eventually. He felt a strange kick in his stomach when she said the words. He turned and looked away into the distance. He felt as close to her at that moment as he ever had to anybody.\n\n\"Might?\" he asked.\n\nShe smiled too and nodded.\n\n\"Might.\"\n\nThey moved a little apart but their hands drifted together and their fingers interlocked. Overhead the stars glittered like specks of ice. The Spirit of Grungni ploughed on through the night."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "Max looked through the spyglass at the stars. \"You're right,\" He said. \"That's the polar star, and that is the Fang of the Wolf.\"\n\nMakaisson was already making a notation on his chart. He moved the callipers from the point that indicated their position to a red dot. \"Then the nearest place we can seek repairs is Slayer Keep,\" he said.\n\n\"Slayer Keep?\" Max enquired.\n\n\"Karak Kadrin. The city of the Slayer King. Tis a grim wee place.\"\n\n\"With a name like that I wasn't expecting something from a Detlef Sierck comedy.\"\n\n\"Will dae joost as weel as onywhaur else, so it will.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it will, Malakai. You're the expert.\"\n\n\"Aye that ah am.\"\n\nMakaisson bellowed orders into the speaking tube. Slowly, like a dying whale, the Spirit of Grungni responded, taking a new line through the mountains towards the city of the Slayer King.\n\nFelix and Ulrika stood on the command deck of the Spirit of Grungni. Ahead of them, dour and foreboding in the clear light of a mountain morning, lay Slayer Keep. It was a massive fortress carved from the very rock of the mountain peak. Its buildings had not so much been built as carved from the bare rock. Only the outer walls differed. They were built from massive chunks of lichen-encrusted stone. The stonework looked old as the mountains.\n\nKadrin Peak itself was not the highest of the local mountains by any means, but it stood apart from all its surroundings, dominating a massive valley between two chains of higher, grander mountains. A river ran below it. Borek had told Felix that once a forest had filled the valley, but that it had long ago been chopped down to feed the furnaces of Slayer Keep. Below the city were some of the deepest, darkest and most dangerous mines in all the dwarf realms. There were seams of coal and iron down there that had been worked since before the foundation of the Empire. They provided the raw materials for Kadrin steel, famous through the dwarf realms and the lands of men for making the finest of axe blades. Clouds of dark polluted smoke hung over the city.\n\nFelix did not think he had ever seen a more forbidding place. It was a grim fortress of crudely cut stone. Knowing the pride that dwarfs took in their masonry, Felix could only guess that the crudeness of the architecture was a statement of some sort. Karak Kadrin spoke of squat primitive power. It was a castle designed to be defended. A place meant to endure siege. An outpost in a place of infinite danger. He did not like the look of it particularly.\n\nAlready he could see warriors gathering on the walls. Various war engines were being brought to bear upon them. Ballistae, catapults and other things the purpose of which he could only guess were all being swivelled towards them. Even though Borek had insisted on draping rune banners from below the Spirit of Grungni, the occupants of Slayer Keep were treating them as a potential threat. Felix could see the sense in that. Had the airship appeared over any city of the Empire it would have caused similar consternation, even if it was flying the colours of Karl Franz himself.\n\nAs Felix watched, the last gyrocopter whisked past the airship and sped towards the city. It was a machine that would be recognised by any dwarf, and it carried a message for Ungrimm Ironfist, the Slayer King himself. Makaisson threw the engines of the Spirit of Grungni into reverse and they hovered just out of ballista range waiting for permission to land.\n\n\"A grim place,\" Felix said to Ulrika. She nodded agreement to him. They had been strangely shy of each other since their conversation last night. He could not speak for her, but he was relatively new to all of this. He had felt no strong emotional attachment to anyone since the death of Kirsten at Fort von Diehl.\n\n\"As well it might be, Felix Jaeger,\" Borek said from his chair. He looked up at Felix with rheumy old eyes, from which all the spark of triumph had vanished. \"If you knew its history, you would understand more. Slayer Keep has endured more sieges than any other dwarfhold, and it is the home of the Cult of Slayers, and the Shrine of Grimnir, who is the most bloodthirsty of all our Ancestor Gods.\"\n\n\"You say Grimnir is bloodthirsty.\" Ulrika asked. \"Does he accept living sacrifices then?\"\n\n\"Only the lives of his Slayers. He takes their death in payment for their sins. And their hair.\"\n\nBorek must have noticed the startled look pass across Felix's face, for he added, \"Most Slayers take their vow before the great altar of Grimnir down there, that is where they shave their heads, then they burn their hair in the great furnace. Outside is the street of skin artists, where they have their first tattoos inked into their flesh.\"\n\n\"Did Gotrek take his vow there?\" Ulrika asked. Felix tilted his head. The question had crossed his mind too.\n\n\"I don't believe so. To my knowledge he has never set foot in this city before, though I do not know all of his deeds.\"\n\n\"Then is he really a Slayer?\" asked Ulrika. Borek smiled.\n\n\"It does not matter where a dwarf takes the oath and shaves his head. He is a Slayer when it is done. Many choose to take the oath at Grimnir's shrine for the sake of form. They have their names carved on the great pillar in the temple and that way all will know of their passing from life.\"\n\n\"But they're not yet dead,\" Ulrika said.\n\n\"Not yet. But to family and friends, to clan and hearth, a dwarf is dead the moment he takes the oath. It may be that Gotrek chose you as a rememberer, Felix Jaeger, because he had not yet had his name carved on the pillar of woe.\"\n\n\"I don't follow you,\" said Felix.\n\n\"No one would know of his deed had he fallen in a far place with no dwarfs to witness it. A rememberer would bring word of his doom to us, and see his name carved on the pillar.\"\n\n\"That is not what he asked me to do.\"\n\nBorek smiled sourly. \"The son of Gurni was never conventional even before he became a Slayer. Once he greatly craved renown. I think in a way he still does.\"\n\nFelix was about to ask more when he was interrupted by a dull roaring noise from the distance.\n\n\"What is that?\" he asked. \"Are we being attacked?\"\n\nThe sour smile widened on Borek's face. \"I would guess that the Slayer King has received word of our quest's success. That is cheering you hear.\"\n\nAnd indeed it was, thought Felix, as the battered airship half-drifted over the dwarf city. Looking down all he could see was a seething ocean of dwarf faces, looking up. He could hear roaring and chanting. Drums beat, mighty horns sounded. Banners and flags were draped from every window of the city. Felix wondered where they found space to house all those dwarfs. The fortress city did not look large enough to be home to all of them. Then he remembered that like the great ice mountains floating in the Sea of Claws, most of a dwarfhold was hidden from sight, leaving only their smallest portion visible on the surface.\n\nBelow them he saw an enormous structure, squat and massive, with a massive sculpture of two crossed axes inset in its roof. Strange runes were set on the stonework that reminded Felix of those he had seen blazing on Gotrek's axe. He guessed they held some mystical significance for dwarfs.\n\nHe looked at Ulrika and smiled. It was the first time in his life he could ever remember being welcomed as a hero anywhere.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol looked at Lurk. Lurk glared back at the magician with loathing in his eyes. Thanquol's magic had brought down a grazing elk. Lurk had consumed most of it before Thanquol had even buried his snout in the flesh. He was not best pleased.\n\nGranted, he needed far less meat than his mutated henchman, and he could not have eaten one hundredth of what Lurk had anyway, but that was not the point. It was the disrespect that galled him. He was a grey seer. Lurk was a lowly warrior even if he was now a huge and powerful mutant. He should have waited till after Thanquol ate his fill before beginning this disgusting orgy of consumption, and he should have asked Thanquol's leave to eat. He was, after all, a mere lackey.\n\nBriefly Thanquol considered pointing this out. Very briefly. Lurk was now far more physically powerful than Thanquol. The seer's full magical power had yet to come back after the battle, and he had only the smallest piece of warpstone left to augment his energies. He wanted to save it for an emergency.\n\nNo, he decided. It was merely prudent skaven caution to avoid a confrontation with Lurk at this moment. He knew he was physically no match for the great brute. But then again, he consoled himself, what did that matter? As a feeble and skinny runt he had used his gigantic intellect to exact vengeance on skaven far larger and stronger than he. The same thing would happen here eventually, of that he was certain. Also, the thought had crossed his mind that the more Lurk ate now, the less likely he would be tempted to kill and eat Thanquol later. The grey seer had seen some of the hungry glances his minion had been shooting at him. They were in no sense reassuring.\n\n\"Where are we, most knowledgeable of navigators?\" Lurk asked. Thanquol wondered if he detected just a hint of irony in Lurk's tone. He dismissed the thought instantly. Lurk was far too stupid to mock his master.\n\n\"We are coming ever nearer to our destination,\" Thanquol replied with his best oracular vagueness.\n\n\"And where exactly is that, most sagacious of seers?\"\n\n\"Cease this relentless badgering, Lurk. If it was in your best interests to know our whereabouts, reveal them to you I would. Let me worry about such matters. You just continue to eat!\"\n\nThere, thought Thanquol, that showed Lurk. And it gave him some time to think, which was good. For, if the truth be told, Thanquol had no idea where they were. In the storm they had wandered aimlessly. The driving rain had obscured everything more than a few tail lengths from view. He guessed that they were on course, for the mountains were still ahead of them. Once there it should simply mean following the path southwards until they came upon a gateway to the Underways. If worst came to worst, Thanquol knew he could always use some of his power to cast a divination spell. Come to think of it, it might be worth telling Lurk that. It might prevent the massive dolt from braining Thanquol while he slept.\n\nThanquol considered sneaking off while Lurk rested, and making his own way back. Two things prevented it. He suspected that he might be safer with the mutant here on the plains. The Kislevites would doubtless attack the larger of them first on the mistaken assumption that it was the most dangerous. The second reason was that Thanquol suspected Lurk might well be able to track him down. His senses were as keen as any skaven Thanquol had ever known. And in that case sneaking off would only leave Thanquol with the onerous task of explaining his business. For Lurk in his new impudent state might take exception to such behaviour on the grey seer's part. Prudent skaven caution argued for staying with Lurk at least for the moment.\n\nOnce this was over, though, Thanquol swore, things would be different. He would exact a vengeance on Lurk that would be spoken of in terrified whispers by future generations. That would teach him to heap such indignities on the head of a grey seer.\n\nAll except the skeleton crew of the Spirit of Grungni were ushered towards the palace of the Slayer King. An honour guard of warriors clashed their axes upon their shields. Hargrim and the other survivors of Karag Dum had looked stunned at the sheer scale of their welcome. They had once believed themselves the only dwarfs left in the world. Now they knew differently. Felix felt proud to be there. The cheers of the crowds still rang in his ears. He could recall dwarf children running into the street to touch the hem of his cloak so that they could tell their descendants they had done so. Until they had pushed their way through the massed cheering throng, Felix had no idea of the scale of their deed or what it really meant to the dwarf people.\n\nHis association with Gotrek, characterised as it was mostly by outlawry and failure, had in no way prepared him for this. It was like being a king. Perhaps this is how Emperor Karl Franz felt every time he rode though Altdorf, Felix thought, and turned and beamed at Ulrika. She smiled up at him proudly. It seemed she too had no idea of what the Spirit of Grungni had accomplished until this moment.\n\nLooking at his companions, Felix felt happier than he had in a long time. The acclaim even seemed to have raised the spirits of Borek and Makaisson, and since Varek's death these two had looked as thoroughly miserable as any dwarfs Felix had ever seen, which was saying something.\n\nOnly Gotrek looked glum. His expression was as sour as that of a man sucking on a lemon. He glared at the crowd from under his bristling brows with his one good eye, and paused only to occasionally spit at an onlooker who came too close to touching his axe.\n\n\"Why so gloomy?\" Felix asked. Gotrek shot him a glare that would have daunted anybody else. \"I want to know for the telling of your tale,\" Felix added.\n\n\"Tis of no consequence,\" Gotrek said. \"And it would not do to mention it in my death poem.\"\n\n\"Tell me anyway.\"\n\nGotrek sucked his few remaining teeth, spat on the ground, and worked his thumb into the empty socket below his eyepatch. Felix thought he was not going to reply, but then a shame-faced look passed across the Slayer's face. \"I was thinking that if I had died slaying the daemon, it would have been the mightiest doom ever achieved by a Slayer. A laughable, empty vanity, manling, but it crossed my mind.\"\n\nFelix did not know what to say so he kept quiet. Ulrika looked at Gotrek, astonished, as if she had never considered the dwarf capable of such an admission. \"Well, I am glad you're still alive, and that you brought Felix back.\"\n\nTo Felix's astonishment the Slayer laughed. He looked as if he was going to clap Ulrika on the back but caught himself, and forced himself to look grim once more. He glared at the ground, as if embarrassed. At that moment, Felix caught some indication of how much this approbation really meant to the Slayer, how much it actually meant to him to be cheered by his people, and just how well he was hiding it.\n\nI'm happy for him, thought Felix; he has little enough in his life to give him joy.\n\nThe Slayer King was a morose-looking dwarf, squat and powerful like all his race, his hair cut in the distinctive crested fashion favoured by the Cult of Grimnir. His features were massive and his nose was long and beaky. His eyes glittered with a maniacal intelligence. His voice when he spoke was resonant and powerful. \"Greetings, Borek Forkbeard. Greetings, Gotrek, son of Gurni. Greetings Snorri Nosebiter. Greetings Malakai, son of Makai.\"\n\nFelix feared the Slayer King was going to greet them all by name, and his fears proved well-founded. He did so.\n\n\"You have performed a deed of great renown, all of you. Not in all the long years since I ascended my father's throne have I heard of such heroism. The return of Firebeard's hammer is a blessing beyond measure to the kingdom of the dwarfs, and all the kin of Grungni have cause to thank you this day. If there is any boon I can grant you, you have but to name it and\u2014\"\n\n\"Aye, there is,\" said Makaisson.\n\nThe Slayer King paused and eyed Makaisson balefully. He was just getting into his oratorical stride and obviously had not anticipated any interruptions just yet. Felix wondered if all dwarf kings were so long-winded.\n\n\"You have but to tell me, and if it's in my power\u2014\"\n\n\"Ah want a workshop and the service of twenty blacksmiths, and ah want to ken everythin' you can fin oot aboot a big beast o' a dragon that dwells aboot fifty leagues northwest o' here\u2026\"\n\nA gasp passed around the room. \"That would be Skjalandir, the ancient firedrake. Why?\" enquired the Slayer King, obviously shocked to brevity.\n\n\"Ah'm gannae kill the basturd,\" Makaisson said. \"Stone deid!\"\n\n\"And I'm going to help him,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"Snorri Nosebiter will too,\" said Snorri. A huge roar of applause passed through the chamber.\n\n\"Truly you are stalwart examples to Slayers the world over,\" said the Slayer King. \"You have no sooner returned from one mighty deed than you show willing to start another\u2026\"\n\nListening to this madness, it struck Felix that there was a larger issue here which should be addressed. While the Slayers were excited about the prospect of facing the dragon once more, a massive Chaos army was on the move. In the great scheme of things he was sure it posed a larger threat to the world than a single dragon ever would. He thought he saw an opportunity here to make a difference, and to help Ulrika's people and his own.\n\n\"There is another thing worth mentioning,\" Felix spoke up. All eyes in the chamber turned to him. He felt suddenly self-conscious. He was well aware that not all the dwarfs looking at him were pleased that a human was daring to speak in the throne room of their king.\n\n\"And what is that, Felix Jaeger?\" asked the Slayer King.\n\n\"A huge Chaos army approaches from the north.\"\n\n\"Does it pursue you?\" the Slayer King asked. Felix paused for a moment to think about this. It was something he had never considered. Had their deeds in Karag Dum been the start of all this, the pebble that caused the avalanche? He doubted it. The whole idea was too far fetched.\n\n\"No. I do not think so.\"\n\n\"Then why is it a problem? I can see that if\u2014\"\n\n\"Because soon it will enter Kislev, and if it is not stopped there, it will thrust onwards into the lands of dwarfs and men.\"\n\n\"Surely that is a bridge that will be crossed when we come to it?\"\n\nFelix could see that this was going to be the old, old story. The forces of Darkness were someone else's problem. Men and dwarfs would not unite their forces until after it was too late. The enemy would be dealt with only once it became an immediate threat. In the meantime others could fight and die facing it. Felix realised he was being unfair but he felt a little angry. He had learned enough about dwarfs not to let his anger show. They became unbearably stubborn in any form of conflict.\n\n\"I suppose all the glory of facing it will belong to the people of Kislev and their Imperial allies then,\" he said calmly. A quiet came over the room, and he knew he had their full undivided attention. \"I mentioned it only because this dwarfhold is known as Slayer Keep, and when the Chaos force arrives there will be many mighty monsters to slay and dreadful foes to face.\"\n\nA murmur went around the room. Felix knew that his words would be passed around the city swiftly. Even if the king offered no aid, he felt sure that many Slayers would go to Kislev in the hope of achieving a mighty death. To make his point absolutely clearly, he added,. \"It would be a great and memorable doom to fall in such a battle. After all, who does not remember those heroes who fell in defence of Praag during the last great war against Chaos?\"\n\nUngrimm Ironfist's reply surprised Felix. \"That was but a short time ago as dwarfs reckon such things, Felix Jaeger, but your point is well taken. I will think upon what you have said.\"\n\nOf course, Felix thought, dwarfs live longer than men, and their records stretch back further. To them two centuries was not so long ago. Old Borek there had actually been alive during the last great Chaos incursion. Borek's rheumy eyes caught Felix's glance and seemed to be aware of what he was thinking. The old dwarf leaned forward on his staff and spoke.\n\n\"Felix Jaeger speaks to good purpose, your majesty. I can indeed recall the last war with Chaos and it was a dreadful thing. If another such conflict is in the offing we had best prepare now, make new alliances and stand by the old ones. For those of us who have but recently been in the Wastes have seen this foe at first hand and know how terrible it is.\"\n\nThe Slayer King nodded. Borek continued to speak. \"It may be that the Hammer of Firebeard was returned to us at this time by the will of the Ancestor Gods to aid us in the coming battle. Perhaps all of this is part of a greater design than we can comprehend.\"\n\n\"I will seek guidance at the Temple of Grimnir,\" said the Slayer King. \"It may well be that what you say is true.\"\n\nFelix felt grateful to the old dwarf for his wisdom and understanding.\n\n\"That's aw very weil,\" Makaisson said. \"Ah still want that dragon deid. Ah would like to use your engineering shops and your forges. Ah think ah hae an idea o' hoo tae dae it.\"\n\n\"Whatever you require shall be provided, Malakai Makaisson, and my own personal engineers shall be put at your service.\"\n\nMakaisson did not look quite so happy at this, Felix thought. He guessed that the prospect of sharing his new designs with the king's engineers did not thrill him. Like many a dwarf engineer, Makaisson preferred to keep his secrets, Felix guessed. On the other hand, he could not turn down the king's offer with good grace and still expect aid. Makaisson seemed to have come to the same conclusion.\n\n\"Aye, weel, that'll dae fine.\"\n\nFelix and Ulrika inspected their chamber. It was spartan in the style he had come to expect at Karak Kadrin, but at least the bed and other furnishings were built on a human scale. It was obvious this place was designed for human emissaries and equally obvious that it had not been used in some time. The air smelled a little musty. Instead of blankets a mass of furs covered the bed.\n\n\"I thought that was never going to end,\" Ulrika said. \"Dwarfs can be very long-winded when they want to be.\"\n\nFelix agreed. \"True. Still this was an important thing for them. In some ways I suppose it would be as if one of the Runefangs had been lost and returned to the Empire. Probably more so. Firebeard's hammer appears to have religious significance to them.\"\n\n\"Everything seems to,\" Ulrika said. There was an undertone of antagonism to her words. She seemed to be wanting to disagree with him, and he with her. They had been this way ever since their talk that night on the Spirit of Grungni. Felix guessed they were both nervous about what the future held for them. He reached out and stroked her cheek. She caught his hand and turned it palm up to kiss it.\n\n\"What is going to happen to us, Felix?\" she asked suddenly.\n\nFelix looked at her. He was wondering that himself. All through this long day there had been a strange tension between them, an undertone of anger that he did not quite understand. What was there to be so nervous about? They had survived the trip here, lived through an encounter with a dragon, and the near destruction of the airship. Why were they behaving so now?\n\nHe looked down at her beautiful face. She had never seemed so lovely. He searched for an answer to her question within himself. Perhaps it was the very fact that they were safe that was causing them this stress. Now, at least for the moment, there were no external threats to distract them, nothing to keep them from the question that was now being asked. What was to become of them?\n\nTheir lives were so uncertain. A massive Chaos army approached from the north. Perhaps it was the harbinger of the end of the world. Somewhere far to the north her father and his riders might even now be facing the oncoming horde. Gotrek, Malakai and Snorri Nosebiter seemed determined to go and face the dragon. Ulrika had been charged with a mission to the Ice Queen. She almost certainly would have no home to go back to. And what could he offer her?\n\nHe was not rich. He had been disowned by his family and then rejected their offer of reconciliation. He was merely a landless wanderer bound to record the Slayer's doom. Worse than that, he was starting to suspect that it was his own doom too. He and Gotrek had travelled so far and survived so much that their destinies seemed intertwined. He could almost believe that the Slayer was destined to perform some world-shaking deed and it was his duty to witness it.\n\nHe realised that the silence had stretched for many heartbeats and he still had not answered her, that he had no answer to give. \"I do not know,\" he said softly, \"and I wish I did.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" she said. \"So do I.\"\n\nShe leaned forward and kissed him, and they fell entwined onto the bed.\n\nMax Schreiber stalked the streets of Karak Kadrin, knowing that he had found what he was looking for. Around him the buildings were higher, the doorways taller. In the narrow alleyways, he could hear human voices mingling with the deeper tones of the dwarfs. Men and women of the Empire looked at him from the open fronts of shops. They sat among their goods. Some looked at him speculatively, seeing him for what he was. Others shouted invitations to him to come in and study their wares. Max smiled. Even in these remote mountains, in this citadel of the Elder Race, there was a small human quarter. Men and dwarfs were bound by many ancient ties of faith and alliance, but none were more ancient than the bonds of trade. He had known that even here, in this distant highland city, he would find merchants, and with them a way of communicating with his order and his allies. He reached inside his robes and found the letter he had written and closed with his own rune. He smiled, feeling the magic he had woven into it. No one but a member of his order would be able to open the letter without the script vanishing like mist in the morning sun.\n\nJust in case, though, he had written the message in code which he hoped was readable only to one of his fellows. In the letter he had put all he knew of the Spirit of Grungni's journey and the oncoming Chaos army. He mentioned the increased skaven activity along the border and he described in detail his encounter with the grey seer and the spells that it had unleashed. In this way, he thought, even if something happened to him, those who came after would be better prepared to deal with the ratman threat. In a way it was a testament to his life as well as a report to his superiors in the order of the Golden Hammer. He knew his report was timely. It had been a long time since any member of the ancient society had ventured as far north as Max had, and even knowing what he did about the Powers of Chaos, he had been shocked by what he had seen and heard. The arm of Chaos had grown long, and Kislev itself was threatened. And Kislev was the bulwark of the Empire against the incursions of Chaos. If it fell, then the hordes of Darkness could drive deep into the lands of men. And he did not doubt that many traitors would rise up to aid them, and the monsters and mutants of the woods would emerge and\u2026\n\nMax knew only too well how frail the Empire was, and how easily it might fall into darkness. It was what his order had been formed to guard against. He knew that he must send a warning. He hoped to deliver it himself in person, but the future was never certain, and who knew what might happen to him? This letter was a safeguard against ill-chance. Even if he were to die, he hoped his warning and his knowledge would find its way into the right hands.\n\nHe paused in front of a tavern, bearing the sign of the Emperor's Griffon. He knew that he needed to find traders returning to the lands of men, preferably some who were heading all the way to Middenheim. This was a place he had been told he might find some. He took a deep breath and entered the beery warmth of the tavern's interior.\n\nAs he entered the place fell silent. He knew he had been recognised as one of the men who had arrived on the airship. He glanced around and smiled. Immediately someone offered to buy him a drink. He smiled his acceptance and prepared himself to answer a thousand questions.\n\nHopefully, after that, he would find someone to deliver his message.\n\nFelix looked out of the chamber window. It was small and circular, and covered with thick well-made glass. Through it, he could see a fine view of the mountains opposite. Behind him, he heard Ulrika stir on the bed.\n\n\"I must be leaving soon,\" she said. Felix nodded, wondering what business she had here in the Slayer King's palace.\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"The court of the Ice Queen.\" He continued to gaze at the mountain opposite, noticing the crown of clouds around its peak. Suddenly the meaning of her words sank in, and he swung around to look at her.\n\n\"Right now?\" he asked, his heart sinking.\n\n\"Now is as good a time as any. I have a message to deliver to my queen.\"\n\n\"You can't,\" Felix said. Her posture stiffened. Her face became a controlled mask.\n\n\"What do you mean by that? Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do?\"\n\n\"I am not trying to tell you what to do.\" Felix knew that she was right. He had meant to tell her she could not go, he did not want her to, but at the same time he also knew he had no power over her. He searched for a way to retrieve the situation. \"I was just saying you don't know the way.\"\n\n\"I dare say I can find out. Someone here must know the way back to human lands.\" She sounded unreasonably angry. Once again, Felix suspected she was trying to pick a fight. \"The king will know for sure, and there must be libraries with maps. Perhaps he can arrange a guide.\"\n\n\"Why not wait until the Spirit of Grungni is repaired. It will surely get you there much quicker than your own two feet. And a lot more safely.\"\n\n\"In the way it got us here safely you mean?\"\n\n\"Yes. No. I mean, once it's repaired it can cross these mountains a hundred times as swiftly as a man or woman on foot.\"\n\n\"Maybe, but how long will that take? And who says I must go afoot? Surely there must be some horses in this city.\"\n\n\"Dwarfs are not famous for their cavalry,\" he told her.\n\n\"There's no need to be sarcastic.\"\n\n\"I am not being sarcastic. They don't use horses much save to draw carts, and as pit ponies.\"\n\n\"There are human traders here.\"\n\n\"We are in the mountains. They most likely use mules, if anything.\"\n\n\"You have an answer for everything, don't you?\"\n\nWhere did this anger come from, Felix wondered? Why were they both so prickly? He was confused. This was not like the stories he had read, the plays he had seen. There were emotions here lurking below the surface, like pike in a pond. Emotions that did not seem logically connected with their words or with their relationship, and which he knew were somehow part of it. How could he be attracted to this woman, care for her, and still be so annoyed by her attitude? How could she feel the same way about him? Somewhere he felt there was a gap between his image of love and the reality of it, and it was not something he had been prepared for by books and poems.\n\n\"No,\" he said eventually, \"I don't. I just don't want anything bad to happen to you.\"\n\nHe hoped his expression of concern might pacify her a little but it did not. \"Something bad has already happened,\" she said. \"It's happening to the entire world.\"\n\nFelix could not fault her reasoning there. He felt the same way. He reached out to pull her close, but she backed away. Unreasoningly annoyed, he turned and walked away himself. The door made a satisfying slamming noise behind him, but already he felt weak, and foolish and guilty.\n\nMax poured another goblet of wine for his newfound companions. If they had noticed that he had slowed his own drinking they did not seem to care. Boris Blackshield and his brother, Hef, were hard drinking men, and weren't too picky about who paid the tab. After all, as Boris was quick to point out, with the Manflayer loose in the mountains, and the dragon burning the vales, who knew whether you would be alive tomorrow? He seemed proud of the fact that he and his brother blew all of their pay as caravan guards as soon as they hit town, and would leave again with nothing in their purses save their fire-making flints. After all, it just meant that any orc that killed them wouldn't make a profit on the transaction. Max didn't really care. Their caravan master had already retired to his chamber but before he did so he had agreed to deliver Max's message to a certain address in the Ulrikstrasse in Middenheim, on the understanding that he would receive several gold coins for his trouble. Seeing the glint in the merchant's eye, Max did not doubt it would be delivered. The Ulrikstrasse was only two streets away from the market to which the merchant was bound, and two gold pieces was a hefty reward for a short step. Max knew he most likely should have left after concluding the bargain, but when he had heard men discussing the road to the dwarf city he had decided to stay. After all, he might have to walk home, if the Spirit of Grungni could not be repaired, and it did no harm to find out a bit about one's route. Unfortunately, what he heard was more than a little discouraging.\n\n\"Tell me about this Manflayer again,\" he said to Hef.\n\n\"You don't want to know.\"\n\n\"Humour me, and assume I do.\"\n\n\"Big orc chieftain, he is, and a bad one. Likes to skin his enemies alive and make his tent from their cured flesh. They say he's assembling an army of greenskins in the mountains, and intends to drive the dwarfs out of their cities.\"\n\n\"That doesn't seem very likely. This is the strongest fortress I have ever seen\u2026\"\n\n\"Except Middenheim,\" Boris said drunkenly.\n\n\"Except Middenheim,\" Max agreed gently. \"Surely no mere orc warlord could take it.\"\n\n\"You can never tell with orcs,\" said Hef. \"They're sneaky and clever savages and they say this one has a shaman behind him, a shaman with powerful magic.\"\n\nMax felt a prickling of professional interest. \"I'd like to hear about this shaman.\"\n\n\"Don't know much,\" Hef said. \"Just heard tales from the survivors of the caravans they attacked.\"\n\n\"Not that there's many of them,\" said Boris. \"And all of them was fast runners. Who takes the word of yellow-bellies?\"\n\n\"Just tell me what you heard,\" Max said persuasively and poured more wine.\n\n\"They say he speaks with the old orc gods,\" said Boris.\n\n\"And that the gods listen,\" added Hef.\n\n\"The gods listen to everyone who prays to them,\" said Max. \"I don't imagine that orc gods are much different from ours.\"\n\n\"The difference is that the orc gods answer this shaman's prayers. They say he can tumble cliffs with a howl and smash the walls of forts with a wave of his hand.\"\n\n\"Maybe he'll do it to the walls of this city,\" said Hef.\n\nMax doubted it. The dwarfs had worked runes into their walls that were as potent as any defensive spell known to man, and more powerful than most. It would take more than some howling spellshouter to tumble them down. Max was possessed of a great deal of knowledge about defensive magic, and he doubted that he could protect this city any better if he had a hundred good apprentices and twenty years to work in. It wasn't places like Karak Kadrin that were at risk, he knew. It was the small villages and trader towns along the way.\n\nIn any case, though, what he was hearing wasn't good. There were dragons in the mountains and orc warbands gathering. In the north, a Chaos horde advanced, and he had seen for himself that the skaven were active once more. It looked like all those seers prophesying dark times a-coming had the right of it. The world was in a bad way, he thought. Maybe he should drink some more wine. He fought down the urge.\n\n\"Tell me about the dragon,\" he said.\n\n\"It's big and it's bad and it's burned most of the villages between here and the eastern lands.\"\n\n\"That's all you know?\"\n\n\"It's an old beast or so I've heard, slept for centuries until something woke it.\"\n\n\"Woke it?\"\n\n\"Aye. They say two hundred years ago it took up residence in a cave on Dragon Mountain, ravaged the land and then just as suddenly vanished. Some thought it had died. It seems now it was only sleeping. They say dragons can do that. Sleep for centuries.\"\n\n\"Very old dragons do that,\" said Max. \"So I've read.\"\n\n\"You can read?\" asked Boris.\n\n\"Aye. Have some more wine.\"\n\nThe sellswords drank and talked but Max was not listening too closely any more. Could the dragon really have slept for all this time? And if so, what had wakened it? Maybe it's just the coming of Chaos, he thought. Maybe it's just a sign of the times.\n\nOr perhaps it was something else entirely. There was a pattern emerging here, he felt sure of it. He sensed something dark and evil at work.\n\nThe forge blazed brightly. The heat was sweltering. Felix noticed it as soon as he walked into the chamber. He halted for a moment and took a deep breath. His anger had burned down now and he felt more guilty than ever. Perhaps he should go back and speak to Ulrika and patch things up. Part of him wanted to do that and part of him fought stubbornly against it. The latter part won. Anyway, he had come here to find something out, and he might as well continue.\n\nHe glanced around, looking for Makaisson. Amid the heat and fumes, it was difficult to be sure if he was there. There were many dwarfs present working bellows, hammering cherry-hot metal into new shapes, working with odd engines the purpose of which Felix could not even begin to guess at. All of them were moving with the sort of purposefulness that only dwarfs with a mission could muster.\n\n\"Where's Makaisson?\" he asked, reaching out and grabbing the shoulder of the nearest passing dwarf. The squat muscular figure jerked a thumb in the direction of one of the other doorways and continued on his way.\n\nFelix moved through the workroom and ducked his head as he entered the chamber beyond. Makaisson was there all right, bending low over a table containing plans and schematics marked with what Felix recognised as the runes used by the Engineers Guild. He looked up as the man came in, sucked his teeth and said, \"Aye, weel, whaut can ah dae for ye, young Felix?\"\n\n\"I was wondering when the Spirit of Grungni will be ready to leave.\"\n\n\"A couple o' weeks maest likely. Plenty o' time to get this stuff sorted oot and gae that bloody dragon a guid seein' tae.\"\n\n\"You're not serious,\" said Felix, although he knew the Slayer Engineer was most likely all too serious. He had hoped the airship would be repaired soon and could carry Ulrika all the way to the court of the Ice Queen. He had hoped that it might take him with her.\n\n\"Ah am so. That big lizard damn near smashed ma airship, and he killed pare young Varek. That's a grudge tae its credit that ah'll soon be settlin', believe you me.\"\n\n\"How? We barely scratched the thing.\"\n\n\"Aye, well, ah hae a few thoughts aboot that, don't ye worry. There's a few wee engines ah've haud the idea o' for years, and right noo, ah think is as guid a time as ony to be buildin' them.\"\n\n\"What good can any weapons do against a thing as mighty as Skjalandir?\"\n\n\"Ah would hae thocht that by noo ye's hae mare faith in ma machines, Felix Jaeger.\"\n\n\"I do have faith in your skill, Malakai, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Well, ah don't suppose ah can blame ye. It was a bloody big beastie richt enough. Even so it can still be killed with the right weapon. Any livin' thing can.\"\n\n\"So what are you building?\" Felix asked, glancing over at the plans. Malakai moved between him and the spread sheets of parchment. Like all dwarf engineers, Felix guessed he could be more than a little touchy when it came to sharing his designs with the world. A very secretive people, the dwarfs.\n\nMakaisson looked up at him for a moment then grinned. \"Tak a look if ye want,\" he said, stepping aside, \"Though ah doobt ye'll be able to make hade nor tail o' them.\"\n\nFelix looked down and saw that the dwarf was right. The blue papers were covered in squiggles. To some of the lines were attached runic symbols, to others there were none. It was like looking at a scroll inscribed by a particularly demented astrologer.\n\n\"You're right. I have no idea what these are,\" he said. \"What is it?\"\n\nMakaisson rubbed his meaty hands together in satisfaction. \"Ye'll find oot soon enough, don't ye worry. Noo, oot ye go, young Felix. Ah hae got a lot o' work tae dae, and no all that much time to dae it in.\"\n\nWith that he shooed Felix out of the workshop and into the street. Felix trudged back towards the palace. It was time to bring Ulrika the news. Somehow he just knew she wasn't going to be pleased."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "PREPARATIONS",
+                "text": "Felix looked around the tavern blearily. He did not care for it. The Iron Door was a haunt of lowlifes \u2014 Slayers, tunnel fighters, renegade engineers, outcast mercenaries and others. It had the reputation for being the nastiest hellhole in the city of the Slayer King, which was saying something. For all that, he noticed, the scarred and surly dwarfs were giving their table a wide berth. Felix was quite glad of it. He was now the only human present, and he did not doubt that if he had not been in the company of Gotrek and Snorri, he would have been in deep trouble.\n\nHe knew he was drunk. It seemed that in the past few days he had done very little except drink. While Ulrika studied maps and made ready to depart, Borek and Max scoured the libraries for more information on the dragon and Malakai built his machines, he and the Slayers had done little else but throw down ale. And why not? There was nothing else to do. His fights with Ulrika had gotten worse, and the prospect of heading out to the Dragon Mountain did not fill him with good cheer. Why not get drunk? Why not enjoy himself?\n\nWhere was Max? The wizard had disappeared again. He had only stayed long enough to drink a few goblets of wine and tell them what he had found out. The things he had said were enough to drive any man to drink. Skjalandir was old and powerful. He had awoken a few months ago and in that time he had already driven most of the dwarfs out of the high valleys and burned down most of the towns. A force of mercenaries hired by villagers had never returned nor had any of the many Slayers who had set out to kill him. It was feared that one day soon the monster would attack Karak Kadrin. No one had any idea what would happen then, but they all knew it would be bad. So why not get drunk? Ulrika might not approve, but so what? As she had pointed out, he could not tell her what to do so why should he let her order him about? He would get drunk if he wanted to, no matter how much she sulked.\n\nAnd now he was drunk, gloriously so. They all were: Gotrek, Snorri Nosebiter, and himself. He was perhaps a trifle less inebriated than the others but it was touch and go. He had not drunk a quarter of what the Slayers had drunk but dwarf ale was stronger by far than human ale, and he did not have their tolerance for it.\n\nThe tavern was full. All around were the seediest dwarf warriors Felix had seen since they had fought their way through the halls of Karag Dum. As he considered this, he realised that they were being watched.\n\nThe stranger lurked in a shadowy alcove of the tavern. His features were in shadow but Felix could see from his outline that he had the towering crested haircut that was the mark of a Slayer. He seemed to become aware of Felix's eyes upon him and a head poked out of the shadows. Felix saw a narrow-featured dwarf with mean eyes and a close-cropped beard. His crest was dyed grey and was shorter than Gotrek's. He was lean and quite skinny for a dwarf and his jaws worked constantly as if he were chewing something. Tattoos covered his face and bare arms in odd patterns. He sauntered closer to their table. Felix could see he had a long dagger strapped to his leg and a short handled pick slung over his shoulder. His britches and vest were black, his sleeveless shirt grey.\n\n\"Hear you're going looking for a dragon,\" the stranger said. His voice was low, and the words seemed to come out of the corner of his mouth. He eyed the trio at the table stealthily.\n\n\"What of it?\" asked Gotrek.\n\n\"Dragons have gold.\"\n\n\"So I've heard. What is it to you?\"\n\n\"Skjalandir has a big hoard. Should do anyway. That old firedrake has terrorised these mountains for nigh on a thousand years.\"\n\n\"It's not its gold I'm interested in, it's its life. I mean to kill the thing or die in the attempt,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"Not if Snorri Nosebiter gets there first,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"Quite so. I understand exactly. And a mighty death it would be for a Slayer too. I mean to try it myself.\"\n\n\"Can't stop you,\" said Gotrek. \"Just don't get in my way.\"\n\n\"Fair enough. Mind if I sit and sup with you a while?\"\n\n\"As long as you can pay for your own beer,\" said Gotrek.\n\n\"I can do that and buy a round for you all too,\" said the newcomer.\n\nGotrek's and Snorri's eyes widened. Felix gathered this was uncharacteristic behaviour for a dwarf.\n\n\"Steg, called by some the Light-fingered, at your service.\"\n\n\"A thief,\" Gotrek said tactlessly.\n\n\"Once, to my shame,\" said Steg. \"But I'm a Slayer now.\"\n\n\"You got caught!\" said Snorri Nosebiter.\n\n\"Aye, in the treasure chamber of the Vorgrund clan with the amber necklace in my hands.\" The other Slayers looked at him with interest.\n\n\"I'm surprised the Vorgrunds didn't cut your knackers off.\"\n\n\"They intended to. First they threw me into their dungeon but I picked the locks and escaped. There was a hidden passageway out of their citadel. Of course, there was the shame of being caught and unmasked so I became a Slayer.\"\n\n\"The shame of being caught!\" Gotrek spluttered. Felix was not surprised at Gotrek's outrage. He had always contrived to give the impression that dwarfs had higher standards of honesty than humans. Steg seemed to contradict this, although Felix thought the thief seemed a bit odd by dwarf standards. There was an almost boastful quality to the way he spoke, that was completely at odds with the reticence of Gotrek and Snorri. He was not entirely sane, Felix thought. On the other hand, how many Slayers were?\n\n\"Aye. Once I was unmasked no one would speak to me, my clan ostracised me, my betrothed disowned me, which seemed particularly unfair because I only wanted the necklace as a marriage gift for her.\"\n\nGotrek glared at Steg. Snorri looked on in unabashed amazement. Steg was confessing to the most heinous of all dwarf crimes, shamelessly and in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice. If Steg noticed he did not give any sign. \"So it was off to the Shrine of Grimnir for a haircut and a beard trim.\"\n\n\"You don't seem particularly ashamed,\" Felix said. Steg looked at him.\n\n\"Young human, I am a locksmith by trade, and a thief by compulsion. I am ashamed because I brought dishonour on my clan, and because through my lack of skill I was caught. I seek to atone for my crime by death but before I die, I intend restitution to those I have wronged. Since I spent the gold I took I will take my recompense from my share of the dragon's hoard.\"\n\nFelix looked at him sidelong. He wondered how sincere Steg was. Perhaps he suffered from gold fever and merely wanted to be near the treasure. Perhaps he was not really a Slayer at all but merely intended to accompany them and steal the treasure. Who could tell? Gotrek seemed a little mollified by Steg's explanation though. He no longer looked as if he wanted to take his axe to the self-confessed thief's skull. Felix found himself interested in Steg's tale.\n\n\"You are a locksmith? I have heard dwarf locksmiths are prodigiously skilled.\"\n\n\"Aye, we are. I think that was another reason I took to crime. The challenge of it. I wanted to prove myself superior to all other locksmiths by overcoming their creations.\"\n\nGotrek snorted. \"There are some things of which it is better not to speak.\"\n\n\"Snorri thinks he will have another beer.\"\n\n\"Felix thinks he will be staggering back to the palace,\" said Felix.\n\n\"Be careful of your purse,\" Steg said. Felix smiled and patted his belt \u2014 to discover it was not there.\n\nSteg extended a large hand which contained it. \"Sorry,\" he said. \"Old habits die hard.\"\n\nUlrika sat in the library of the Slayer King. The lanterns flickered eerily illuminating the rows and rows of shelves and pigeonholes containing scrolls, leather-bound books, maps and other documents. The Slayer King's library was surprisingly well furnished. Most of the books were unreadable to her, being written in dwarf runes, but there was a good selection of human volumes and many, many maps of the mountains. These were executed with far more detail and precision than human maps. Dwarfs, it seemed, were sticklers for detail.\n\nOn the low dwarf crafted table in front of her was spread out a map of the mountains, the latest product of the king's scribes, showing the area around the city for all of a hundred leagues. Little pictographs indicated towns and villages and it was easy to understand their meanings. A gold axe indicated a gold mine. A red axe might be coal or iron. A boat indicated a port where rafts or ships might go down river. Major trails were marked in thick red lines, lesser ones in thinner ones. What looked like perilous portage routes through mountains were lines of red dots. Crossed swords indicated a battle site. An orc's head most likely marked the lair of some greenskin tribe.\n\nLooking at the map she could see that Peak Pass ran down to the lowlands of the eastern Empire. The way was clear but from there it was a long circuitous route to the court of the Ice Queen. The fastest way north to Kislev lay along the Old High Road to Karak Ungor, and then down the River Urskoy to Kislev city. Unfortunately the dragon symbol lay athwart what had been a major trade route on the older maps, forcing the thick red line to wind a tortuous path through the peaks far longer than it had once been.\n\nIt looked as if Felix was right, she thought sourly. It might be quicker to wait until the airship was repaired. Assuming it could get past the dragon, it would be much faster, and judging by the number of orc symbols on the map, possibly much safer. Looking at the map, she could tell the swiftest way would actually be to go with the Slayers along the Karak Ungor High Road.\n\nPerhaps she simply wanted to believe that, so they could stay together for a little bit longer. It was annoying and frustrating \u2014 and saddening too. It was one of the things that put such a strain on their relationship. She wanted to be with him, and this desire made her want to shirk her duty to her father and nation. She knew she should take her father's message to Kislev. And yet she resented her duty for taking her away from Felix, just as she resented him for tearing her from her duty.\n\nShe was not sure what she felt about him anymore. While they had been separated, she had daydreamed about his return constantly, but his return had changed things. He was not a fantasy figure anymore but a real person, and one whom she could find quite annoying at times, with his cleverness and air of sophistication. He had grown up in the capital of the civilised world, after all, and she was the daughter of a border noble of a semi-barbarous land. She had not realised what a difference that could make. His allusions to poets and plays and books went right over her head, and made her feel stupid sometimes. He lacked the straightforward honour code of her people, and he had travelled so far and seen so much in his life that it was intimidating. At the court in Middenheim she had felt dowdy and out of place among all the sophisticated ladies. He made her feel that way sometimes too.\n\nMore than that, she felt threatened by the intimacy that had grown between them so strongly and so quickly. All of her life she had been in control of her emotions. She had been raised to be a warrior, to fight as well as any man, to be like the son her father had really wanted. That and her position as heir had kept an emotional distance between her and any man. She was not sure whether she wanted that gap closed.\n\nAnd then there was his drinking. Ulrika had grown up around hard drinking men but in Kislev, it was a thing reserved for festivals and feasts. It was too dangerous a place for anyone to risk sottishness more than a few times in a year. Since they had reached the city Felix had got drunk every day. It was worrying.\n\nShe shook her head. This was not like her. This was the first time she had ever felt this way. To worry so about what a man thought about her, and what she thought about a man. In the past, she had taken lovers according to the easy codes of her people's nobility, for evenings of pleasure. She had never felt any deep emotional connection or any unease whatsoever. But then again, she had understood those men, and what she expected of them, and they of her. She was not sure she understood Felix at all. And she was not sure she could see a future for them either.\n\nNot that it mattered anyway, she thought wryly. With the Chaos horde advancing, and the dangers of the road ahead, there most likely would not be a future anyway, so it seemed pointless to worry. She thrust the thoughts aside and returned to her study of the map, looking for the best route towards her goal. It did seem like accompanying the Slayers was the best way.\n\nShe heard the door open and footsteps enter the library. The footsteps were human, and not Felix's light tread. She looked up and saw Max. He gazed at her and winked.\n\n\"So I am not the only one burning the midnight oil,\" he said.\n\nShe nodded, wondering what he was thinking. From the look in his eyes it seemed perfectly possible that he had come here because he knew she was here. At her father's mansion house, he had always been bumping into her, as if by accident. There was also a smell of alcohol on his breath.\n\n\"What are you doing here, Max?\" she asked. His smile widened.\n\n\"I am taking this opportunity to study in a dwarf king's library. They preserve many old books, you know, ones that are rare in the Empire. Some translated from dwarfish by human scribes.\"\n\n\"I never knew that there were humans who could read dwarfish.\"\n\n\"Reading is not counted a great gift among the Kislevites,\" he said. Ulrika could hear the irony in his tone. It reminded her of Felix, and she felt a small surge of anger. Unaware of this, Max continued to speak. \"Among the citizens of the Empire it is different. Some there can not only read, they can read dwarf runes.\"\n\n\"I thought it was a secret tongue the dwarfs kept to themselves.\"\n\n\"It is now. It was not always so. Once dwarfs and men were closer, and in the time of Sigmar Heldenhammer, many were taught the dwarf tongue. Dwarf runes may have formed the basis of the first human alphabets. Certainly, according to the Unfinished Book, Sigmar could speak with dwarfs in their native tongue.\"\n\n\"Sigmar was a god.\"\n\n\"He took human form, and his first priests could speak dwarfish too. They passed it on to those who came after. It is still used by many scholars of the church.\"\n\n\"You are saying that there are humans who can speak dwarfish?\"\n\n\"The ancient version of the tongue, which is not too dissimilar to modern dwarfish. They are a very conservative people, the Elder Race, and not that much has changed in their language over the past two thousand, five hundred years. If you can speak the old version of the tongue, you can make yourself understood in the modern version. And you can most likely read it.\"\n\n\"How do you know all this?\"\n\n\"I am a scholar as well as a magician, and like many scholars I studied in the temples when I was young. Also, a magician these days needs a working knowledge of theology and liturgy if he is not to fall foul of witch hunters. The temples are still not fond of us. There are often times when we need to be able to prove that we are god-fearing men.\"\n\nUlrika remembered the superstitions of her own folk and the hatred that many of the followers of Ulric had borne mages when she was in Middenheim.\n\nShe could see some sense in his words. \"And are you a god-fearing man, Max Schreiber? Or is your soul in peril?\"\n\n\"I am more godly than you could guess, Ulrika Magdova. I have been an enemy of Chaos all my life, no matter what the witch hunters might think.\"\n\n\"You do not need to convince me of that, Max. I saw you fight against the skaven.\"\n\nHe moved closer and sat down opposite her. She could definitely smell the wine on his breath. \"You are contemplating a journey, I see. Going hunting for dragons, are you?\"\n\n\"No. I am trying to find a way to Kislev, to bring my father's warning to my people. The Tzarina must know about this impending invasion.\"\n\n\"You are not going with the dwarfs then? Felix is, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Felix is sworn to accompany Gotrek. I would not ask him to break an oath.\"\n\nUlrika was not quite sure what to make of the expression that moved across Max's face. In the dim light it was hard to tell if he was surprised, pleased, alarmed or a little of all these things. \"I thought you two were inseparable,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"We are bed companions, nothing more,\" Ulrika knew it wasn't true even as she said it, but it was close enough to the reality of the situation so that she did not feel like a liar. Max winced. Was he jealous or was it something else?\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"It's just that Kislevite women seem a little more forthright on\u2026 matters of the heart than men of the Empire are used to.\"\n\n\"We are honest.\"\n\n\"No question of that. It just took me by surprise that is all. In the Empire a lady does not talk of such things.\"\n\nUlrika looked at him. \"They certainly do such things, though. I spent quite enough time in the court at Middenheim to see that. At least we Kislevite women are not hypocrites!\"\n\nTo her surprise Max laughed. \"Yes. It's true. You have a point.\"\n\n\"There is no need to talk down to me.\"\n\n\"I am not doing that.\" His tone changed. \"How do you intend to get to Kislev? On foot?\"\n\n\"By horse, if we can find any in this place.\"\n\n\"How many of you? Will you be hiring bodyguards?\"\n\n\"I have Oleg and Standa and I have my own good sword. What need have I of any more?\"\n\n\"The way between here and Kislev is long and hard and full of peril.\" He paused for a minute as if considering something. \"Perhaps you could use another sword on the route, and more than a sword, a magician.\"\n\n\"Are you offering your services?\" Ulrika felt suddenly uneasy. She was not at all sure that she wanted Max riding with her, potent mage though he was.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I will think on it.\"\n\n\"You will need me,\" he said confidently. \"There are orcs in those mountains, and they have a shaman with them. It takes magic to fight magic.\"\n\n\"I have said I will think on it,\" she said, and rose to leave. Max bowed goodnight to her. As she reached the door, she felt him gazing at her. He opened his mouth to speak.\n\n\"I love you,\" he said suddenly.\n\n\"You're drunk,\" she said and swept out of the door. Even as she did so, she heard him say, \"True, but that doesn't make any difference.\"\n\nAs she walked through the corridor, she realised she had come to a decision. She would travel with Felix and Gotrek along the High Road to the Urskoy turning; assuming they survived the trip she would make her way north with Oleg and Standa. She felt as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders. She looked forward to seeing Felix and to sharing a bed. They had been apart a lot recently, and she felt some responsibility for that. She would try and make things up.\n\nMax stood in the library, feeling foolish. The effects of the wine he had taken earlier in the Emperor's Griffon had not worn off, and had left his tongue loose. Part of him was glad he had said what he had, and another part was deeply embarrassed by the rebuff. He realised that a lifetime of studying magic in musty old books had in no way prepared him for dealing with a living woman. He felt like he had said the wrong thing right from the beginning of the conversation.\n\nThis was dreadful. He would have to get a grip on himself. He was a master mage of the Golden College and a secret brother of the ancient order of the Golden Hammer. He was not some callow student of the mysteries. He could not afford to lose control of himself in this or any other way. With his powers, disasters could easily happen. He was only too aware of tales of mages who had wreaked terrible havoc whilst drunk. Not that he was going to. He was too clever for that. He would never try using his powers while inebriated. Not for any reason.\n\nIt was dark in here, though. Not enough light to see by. He moved his fingers through the familiar intricate pattern and felt the winds of magic answer. A sphere of softly glowing yellowish light sprang into being around his hand. He rolled it off, and left it to hover in mid-air in the centre of the chamber. Its light flickered erratically as if something were affecting his control of the magic. Perhaps it was the old dwarf protective runes. Perhaps it was something else. He was not going to worry about it now.\n\nHe shook his head and looked at the map Ulrika had been studying. It was not difficult to see the story it told. The dragon's awakening had certainly stirred things up in this part of the World's Edge Mountains. Orc tribes were everywhere. Towns had been destroyed. Trade routes were being blocked. He could easily imagine the cascade of troubles.\n\nThe dragon awakes and begins destroying human and dwarf towns and eating their flocks. This leads to the trade routes and mountain passes being less well-defended. Orcs and other nastier creatures take advantage of the anarchy to increase their own power. The caravan routes lengthen, sellswords increase their hiring price because of the danger. The cost of goods rises here in the mountains and in the human towns of the Ostermark. The ripples of this one event move out across hundreds of leagues, affecting the lives of thousands of people who will never even see a dragon and may even believe it is only a myth.\n\nMax wondered how often similar chains of events affected the human realms. Doubtless far more than he would ever learn of. It seemed all too likely though that enough of them occurring at once might cause the collapse of the Empire. For one thing, looking at this map, it was difficult to see how the dwarfs might move an army quickly through the mountains if the dragon and the orcs decided to oppose them. Even if they wanted to aid the Kislevites against the marching legions of Chaos, they might not be able to.\n\nOf course, there was always the Spirit of Grungni. The airship would allow the movement of many warriors very quickly. Perhaps that would be the answer. If the mighty machine could be repaired. Even then, the dragon had almost destroyed it once. Perhaps it might try again and succeed. Max shook his head. He knew he was simply trying to distract himself from his hopeless passion for Ulrika.\n\nOr was it so hopeless? It appeared that all was not well between her and Felix. Perhaps he might get his chance yet, particularly if she and Herr Jaeger were not travelling together, and he was with her. Who knew what might happen then? He allowed the surge of hope to fade. Just because she and Felix might be falling out did not mean that she would go with him. He felt almost like laughing.\n\nHere he was, sworn to oppose Chaos, with the largest incursion of the forces of Darkness in two centuries about to occur, and all he could think about was this one girl. Somehow, he would have to get his sense of proportion back. He walked over to the shelves and studied the books.\n\nThere was indeed a fair number of volumes here, including some copies of the Book of Grudges for Karak Kadrin that dated back well over 3,000 years. The earlier entries were in the almost pure ancient dwarfish he had learned as a youth. He flipped through the pages, and was soon slumped in the chair, snoring, with the old tales of treachery, betrayal and gloom slipping from his hand.\n\nFelix staggered back into the room he shared with Ulrika. He was none too steady on his feet and his efforts at moving quietly seemed to be failing horribly. Already he had kicked over a chamber pot, and sent his sword tumbling to the floor with a loud metallic clatter. Despite her stillness on the bed, he knew Ulrika was awake. He wondered how long she had been waiting for him. \"So you're drunk as well,\" she said. She sounded angry.\n\n\"You've been drinking,\" said Felix stupidly. \"I thought you were going to the king's library to plan your route home.\"\n\n\"No. Max was drinking.\"\n\n\"You were drinking with Herr Schreiber.\" Felix wondered at how much sullen jealousy managed to creep into his voice during that one sentence.\n\n\"No. I was in the library and he came in drunk.\"\n\n\"And what did you do then?\"\n\n\"We talked.\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"About the dwarfish language, as if it were any of your business.\"\n\n\"You've suddenly developed an interest in dwarfish?\"\n\n\"The maps and books in the library are mostly written in it.\"\n\n\"That makes a certain amount of sense,\" said Felix with unsubtle irony. He began to strip off his clothes and get ready for bed.\n\n\"You can be a nasty man, Felix Jaeger.\"\n\n\"Apparently. And Herr Schreiber isn't?\"\n\n\"At least Max offered to accompany me to Kislev.\"\n\nFelix felt his stomach twist. He had not realised that her words could affect him so much. He threw himself down on the bed beside her, and glanced over. In the darkness her expression was impossible to read. Judging by her voice, she sounded upset. He paused to consider what to say. The silence stretched, a vast empty desert that threatened to swallow anything he could say.\n\n\"I would go with you to Kislev,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"What about the dragon?\"\n\n\"After it is slain\u2026\"\n\n\"Ah, after it is slain, you will go\u2026\"\n\n\"I have sworn an oath, and I know what you Kislevites think of oathbreakers.\"\n\nThe silence stretched once more. She did not say anything more. Felix considered what to say next, but the beer surged through his brain, and the tentacles of alcohol-induced sleep dragged him down into the sea of slumber.\n\nWhen he awoke in the morning, Ulrika was gone.\n\nFrom the battlements above the courtyard of the Slayer King's palace, Max watched the morning sun rise over the mountains. His mouth felt dry. His head ached. His stomach churned. He had not gotten drunk like that since he had been a student, many years ago. He felt vaguely embarrassed and ashamed. In part he knew it was simply the effects of the hangover. In part though, it was the knowledge that he had spoken to Ulrika about something that he should have best kept to himself. In part too he was annoyed at himself for getting drunk. It was a bad thing for a master magician to do. He shuddered when he realised he had been using spells, even such simple ones as casting light globes, while being inebriated. Magic was a tricky and dangerous thing at the best of times, without the added complications of booze. He remembered what his old tutor Jared had to say on the subject. A drunken magician is a foolish magician, and a foolish magician is soon a dead magician.\n\nHe knew it should not have happened, but he knew also he had his reasons. He was a mage. He was aware of his state of mind. He took a deep breath, and counted silently and slowly to five as he did so. He held the breath in for a count of ten, and then let it out slowly for a count of twenty. As he did so, he sought to empty his mind, as his tutors had taught him.\n\nAt first it would not come. The sickness in his stomach and the dizziness in his head prevented him from managing it. Another danger of drinking, he thought. If an enemy were to attack me now, I would have difficulty protecting myself. He cursed, knowing that such thoughts were themselves a sign that he was failing to perform even this elementary magical exercise. He continued, concentrating on his breathing, trying to feel calm and relaxed, trying to let the tension flow from his muscles.\n\nSlowly, the exercise began to take effect. His thoughts became quieter and slower. His pains seemed to fade a little. Tension oozed from him. At the edge of his mind, he became aware of the tug of the currents of magic. Colours began to swirl in his mind, reds and greens and a predominant gold. He became aware of himself as an empty vessel, into which the power was starting to flow. The magic softly soaked his pains away; his mind began to feel cleaner and clearer and filled with a golden light. A sense of renewal filled him. The touch of magic was like the effects of some of the narcotic drugs he had experimented with under the supervision of his masters. It made him feel full of energy and almost euphoric in a low-key way. His senses were keener. He was aware of the wind's gentle caress on his skin, the faint tickling sensation caused by his woollen robes. The heat in the stones under his fingers. He could hear the faint voices of dwarfs in the depths of the castle that he had only been subliminally aware of before. The light was brighter and his vision clearer.\n\nOther senses than the five that mankind normally used clicked in. He could sense the flow of magic all around him, and the faint emanations of living things. He could feel the power of the runes that the dwarfs had bound into their buildings, and the way they channelled primal energies in magical defence. He knew that he could reach out in a manner inexplicable to normal mortals and begin to mould those energies to his will. For a moment, he felt utterly and completely alive, and filled with a gladness that he was sure no non-magician would ever understand.\n\nHe achieved emptiness and held it for a few moments, and then as he exhaled began to think again, reviewing his life with a new insight and clarity.\n\nHe could see now that he had gotten drunk as a response to the way things had been running out of control in his life. He had undergone a lot of things recently that were alien to the normal routine of his quiet scholarly life. He had been involved in a battle, and fought a sorcerous duel with a mage far mightier than himself. He could easily have died both in that duel, and in the battles with the skaven. He had fallen in love, passionately and uncontrollably and much to his own surprise. Perhaps he had been more vulnerable to it, out in the wilds of Kislev, far from his homelands, and waiting tensely for the return of the airship. True, Ulrika was a lovely woman, but he had known lovelier, and not fallen hard for them. Anyway, it did not matter what the reasons were, the simple fact was that it had happened and had affected him. He had been jealous, and desperate and filled with an anger he had only been barely aware of, and it had driven him to behave badly, and feel temptations he had never known before. He knew that the whole business was a threat to his peace of mind, and in some ways to his soul. His desire for the woman had led him to contemplate dark paths that should have remained closed to him and consider things he should never have given thought to. Last night he had even gone so far as to get drunk and use his magic. He was lucky he had been too drunk to work some of the spells he knew, ones that could bind others to his will.\n\nHe closed his eyes and considered the secret knowledge he had gained with such cost. Slaanesh, he thought. To the ignorant, he was the dark god of unspeakable pleasures, a master of daemons, whose pleasure-crazed worshippers engaged in orgies of dreadful excess. And such things did happen, as Max well knew. But this was not the only threat Slaanesh represented. He was the god of the temptations of the flesh, subtle and deadly. He could lure even the wisest onto the road of ruin through the urge to gratify their desires. Max knew that Slaanesh could ruin a man in many ways, through the urge to drink, or take drugs or to bed women. He knew that, in a way, what had happened to him last night was something he had to take seriously, for it was the first step on the path to perdition, if he followed up on it.\n\nIt was a thing he knew he must not do. He was sworn to oppose Chaos and not to serve it, that was why he had studied so long and so hard. He knew that he must forswear Ulrika and drink and all the other temptations that might lead him astray, or the consequences would be terrible. But even as he resolved this, part of him whispered that it did not want to do it, and his new insight showed him what might be another truth.\n\nPerhaps he had studied the works of Chaos for so long for a less pure reason, not because he hated it, and wished to oppose it, but because he was fascinated by it. Perhaps he had merely been fooling himself all along.\n\nEven as he told himself that this thought too was but one of the snares of Slaanesh, he was all too aware that it was, at least in part, the truth.\n\nFelix wandered out into the street. He had no idea where to find Ulrika but according to the sentries she, Oleg and Standa had left the palace earlier in the morning and headed off in the direction of the fairground that had sprung up around the Spirit of Grungni in the valley outside the city. This made sense. She would be looking for horses to continue her journey and the market there would be as good a place as any to buy them.\n\nAs he headed downhill, he noticed that a young dwarf of unusual appearance was looking at him. The dwarf was garbed in furs, and his head was covered in a pinkish fuzz that made it look as if it had recently been shaved. He had an axe slung over one shoulder. Noticing Felix was watching him, he began to move forward and fell into step beside him.\n\n\"You are Felix Jaeger!\" The dwarf's voice was even lower than usual for a dwarf's and boomed out loudly. As Felix looked he saw that on the dwarf's arms were an intricate series of tattoos, depicting huge, bleeding monsters. An inscription in dwarf runes ran under them. Seeing that Felix had noticed them, the dwarf flexed his arms proudly causing the muscle to ripple and the tattoo to expand.\n\n\"You've noticed my tattoos, I see! The inscription reads 'Born to Die!'\"\n\n\"Yes. Very impressive,\" said Felix. He lengthened his stride, and soon the dwarf was almost running to keep pace. He had no wish to be rude but he was in a hurry to find Ulrika and apologise for his behaviour of the previous evening. If the youth noticed his brusqueness, he gave no sign.\n\n\"Ulli, son of Ulli, at your service, and your clan's,\" said the dwarf. He tried bowing as he moved and almost tripped.\n\n\"Pleased to meet you,\" Felix said, hoping the dwarf would take the hint and leave him alone. His hangover was not making him feel sociable.\n\n\"You are a comrade of Gotrek Gurnisson's, aren't you? You have held the Hammer of Firebeard in your hand?\" There was a note of awe in the youth's voice as he spoke. Felix was not sure whether it was for Gotrek or for the hammer. He stopped and gazed down at Ulli.\n\n\"Yes. What of it?\"\n\n\"I don't like your tone of voice, human! Do you want to fight me?\"\n\nFelix looked at the youth. He was muscular in the apish way that dwarfs often were, but he was nowhere near as fearsome as Gotrek or Snorri Nosebiter. Still, there was no sense in getting into a fight for no reason, particularly not with a Slayer. \"No. I do not want to fight you,\" Felix said patiently.\n\n\"Good! I would not want to soil my axe with human blood!\"\n\n\"There's no need to shout,\" Felix said quietly.\n\n\"Do not tell me how to speak!\" roared the dwarf. Instinctively Felix's hand went to the hilt of his blade. The young Slayer seemed to flinch back a little.\n\n\"I am not telling you how to speak,\" Felix said as politely as he could manage. \"I am merely asking you to calm down a little.\"\n\n\"I am a Slayer! I am not meant to be calm! I am sworn to die in battle against terrible monsters!\"\n\nFelix grimaced sourly. He had heard such lines before from Gotrek but somehow they didn't seem quite so convincing coming from Ulli Ullisson. \"You've probably noticed that I am not a terrible monster,\" he said.\n\n\"Are you mocking me?\"\n\n\"As if I would.\"\n\n\"Good! I demand the respect a Slayer deserves from your sort!\"\n\n\"And what sort would that be?\" Felix asked softly. A dangerous edge had entered his voice. He was getting a little tired of being badgered by this boastful lout. Ulli seemed to notice it, and flinched back again.\n\n\"Humans! The younger race! The men of the Empire!\"\n\nA crowd of dwarfs was gathering to watch the confrontation. He could hear them muttering to each other in dwarfish. Some of the spectators were nudging each other with their elbows and pointing to him. He heard his own name mentioned several times. It seemed he was quite a well-known figure around the town. \"Is there something I can do for you, Ulli Ullisson?\"\n\n\"Is it true you intend to hunt down the dragon, Skjalandir?\"\n\n\"Yes. Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"I seek a glorious death.\"\n\n\"Join the queue,\" Felix said softly.\n\n\"What?\" roared Ulli.\n\n\"That's nothing new,\" Felix said. \"Do you intend to accompany us on our quest?\"\n\n\"I intend to go in search of the dragon with or without you! Still, if you are asking for my protection, I will grant it!\"\n\n\"I am not. Good morning to you,\" said Felix, and turned and strode away. He did not look back but he could hear Ulli blustering loudly behind him.\n\n\"We are lost, aren't we, most perspicacious of pathfinders?\"\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol did not like the way Lurk said this. There was an undertone of menace, combined with a hint of disbelief in Thanquol's abilities that boded ill for future dealings with his henchman. Thanquol's head hurt. He had run out of warpstone snuff two days ago and it was not helping matters. He felt a terrible craving for it. Maybe he could just nibble a little of his stash of warpstone. No! He knew he must preserve the pure stuff for an emergency. He would need its power then.\n\n\"Are we lost?\" Lurk asked again.\n\n\"No! No!\" chittered Thanquol with what he hoped was utter confidence. \"Such are my powers of scrying that we are exactly where we need to be!\"\n\n\"And where exactly is that?\"\n\n\"Are you questioning me, Lurk Snitchtongue?\"\n\n\"Expressing an interest I am.\"\n\nThanquol gazed at the horizon. The glittering peaks that marked the border with the Chaos Wastes seemed a lot closer. Was he being betrayed by his desire for warpstone, he wondered? Had the mysterious lure of those lost lands affected his sense of direction? Or was it simply that this constant badgering by Lurk's inane questioning was beginning to affect his judgement? Perhaps a little of both, he decided.\n\nAnd of course the weather was not helping either. When it was not raining, it was misty. When it was not misty, it was so bright that it hurt their sensitive skaven eyes and forced them to burrow into the earth rather than risk being spotted. Unwilling as he normally was to admit that humans might be superior to skaven in anything, Thanquol had to admit that a man on horseback was much more likely to spot them before they spotted him. There seemed to be no happy medium. The rains were awful. They drove in hard and reduced visibility to almost zero. They left his fur sodden and deadened his sense of smell. It was as if the very elements conspired with his enemies to undermine Thanquol's sanity.\n\nActually, he was surprised that he had not considered this before. It seemed all too likely that this atrocious weather was the product of some enemy's spell. Thanquol could think of several candidates. One thing was certain, he swore, when he returned to skaven civilisation, he was going to make someone suffer for the discomfort he had endured. And one candidate for his certain vengeance was no more than a few tail lengths away from him.\n\nLurk had become less and less endurable as their journey progressed. When he was not being insolent, he was hungry and cast alarmingly voracious looks at his rightful master. When he was not doing that he was asking foolish questions, and actually appeared to be implying that he had no faith in the grey seer's judgement. Thanquol would show him whose judgement was faulty soon enough, he vowed. He was not prepared to put up with insolence from underlings forever.\n\n\"You have not answered my question, most scintillating of seers,\" said Lurk. Thanquol glared at him until he noticed that Lurk was not looking back but instead was staring off over Thanquol's shoulders. Thanquol bared his teeth in a snarl. That was the oldest trick in the book. He was not going to turn around and let Lurk spring on his back. Did Snitchtongue take him for the merest runt?\n\n\"What are you looking at?\" Thanquol asked.\n\n\"Why not use your awesome powers of divination, and find out for yourself?\" suggested Lurk. \"Perhaps you could ascertain what that monstrous cloud on the horizon portends and whether it has anything to do with the way the earth shakes beneath our paws.\"\n\nAt first Thanquol suspected that Lurk was mocking him till he realised that the ground was indeed vibrating. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and noticed that there was a massive cloud stretching all the way to the horizon, obscuring everything, even the mountain peaks.\n\n\"Some strange mystical phenomenon,\" he suggested.\n\n\"More like an army on the march, it looks to me, mightiest of masters. And a very large one too.\" Lurk could not quite keep the fear from his voice. Thanquol could not exactly blame him. If that cloud was indeed being raised by an army, it was the largest one Thanquol had ever heard of.\n\nThanquol shuddered. There was little they could do except wait and hide.\n\nUlrika looked around the fairground that had sprung up around the airship where it lay outside the town walls. Hundreds of dwarfs surrounded the enclosure and looked at the mighty vessel in awe. Fire eaters and jugglers moved through the crowd. Pie vendors sold their wares from trays around their neck. Alemongers carried massive pitchers of foaming beer through the crowd, dispensing the brew to anyone with a few coppers to spare. A dwarf on stilts towered high over her and shouted jokes to the crowd. Ballad singers rumbled out fanciful tales of the great airship's voyage in the common speech.\n\nShe was disappointed. The horse market had proven to be nothing of the sort. It sold only pit ponies, mules and nags that no true Kislevite would be seen dead riding, beasts that would never survive the long trip north. It seemed, annoyingly enough, that once more Felix had been proven right. Dwarfs were not famous for their cavalry nor for their knowledge of horseflesh. She gritted her teeth. She was not going to allow the thought of the man to annoy her today. She did not want to give way to her anger. Last night she had been ready to make up with him, until he had proven himself a drunken sot. Now he would have to apologise to her.\n\nShe had never seen quite so many dwarfs from so close up before. There must be hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, most of them at least partially inebriated. They were all bent on celebrating in their own dour way. It seemed that the return of the Hammer of Firebeard was an event of great significance to them. Not that it appeared they needed any excuse to get drunk. In this they were like Kislev men. The alesellers were doing good business, but then so were the smiths and weaponsellers. It seemed that the dwarfs liked to haggle, and buy and sell almost as much as they liked to drink.\n\n\"You're a pretty lass,\" said a deep, rumbling voice close to Ulrika's elbow. She looked down to see a dwarf standing there. He was squat, muscular and repulsively ugly. His nose had been mashed and a huge hairy wart stood on the end of it. His head had been shaved and a tufted crest of dyed hair rose above it. Huge gold rings dangled from his ears.\n\n\"And you're a Slayer.\"\n\n\"As clever as ye are pretty, I see. Do you fancy a turn in the bushes?\" The dwarf gestured insinuatingly at the nearest clump of greenery. It took Ulrika a few moments to work out his meaning.\n\nWhen she did she did not know whether to be angry or amused. Oleg and Standa had reached for their blades. She quelled them with a glance. She was quite capable of handling this situation on her own.\n\n\"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"You'll soon change your mind if you do. There's no a lass ever regretted straddling Bjorni Bjornisson.\"\n\nThis time Ulrika did laugh. If the Slayer was offended, he gave no sign. \"If ye change yer mind, let me know.\"\n\n\"I'll be sure to do that,\" she said, and turned to go.\n\n\"You know Gotrek Gurnisson,\" said the Slayer. \"And Felix Jaeger?\"\n\nThat stopped her. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"They're going hunting for dragons, so I hear.\"\n\n\"You hear correctly.\"\n\n\"I might join them I think. We'll be seeing more of each other, bonnie lass.\"\n\nThe Slayer turned and walked away. Astonished, Ulrika followed him with her gaze. The last she saw of him, he was disappearing into the crowd, arm in arm with two rouged and none-too-young looking human wenches.\n\n\"Never seen anything like that before,\" Standa said, a look of discomfort showing on his moon face. Oleg tugged his long, drooping moustaches in agreement.\n\n\"You'll see a lot stranger things before we're done travelling, I'll warrant,\" said Ulrika. \"Now, let's get going. We might as well get back to the palace. We'll find no horses here.\"\n\nShe was still not sure she believed what she had just seen herself. That was surely the strangest Slayer she had ever encountered.\n\nThe Spirit of Grungni lay at rest. Even to Felix's hungover eyes it was an impressive sight. The massive airship lay in an open field beyond Karak Kadrin. The area was roped off to keep the crowd at bay and surrounded by dwarf soldiers to prevent any interlopers getting too close. The gondola actually rested on the ground anchored by ropes held by hooks driven deep into the ground like tentpegs. More ropes arced up and over the gasbag, running through the guardrails that ran along the top of the dirigible and coming down the other side. Even over the voices of the crowd of spectators Felix could hear the ropes creak as the airship shifted slightly. The spectacle reminded Felix of an old story he had once read of a sleeping giant who had been trapped in his slumber, ensnared in a webwork of ropes, pinned to the earth and unable to move.\n\nFelix had been looking for Ulrika, but like everyone else he was getting distracted by the circus surrounding the airship. He smiled to himself. He had become so accustomed to the Spirit of Grungni on the quest for Karag Dum that he had forgotten just how impressive the massive airship was. The onlookers had not. They had come to gape at it, the way they might at some captive dragon.\n\nThe guards recognised Felix as he forced his way into the roped-off enclosure, and let him pass. He heard his name murmured by the spectators as he moved closer to the Spirit of Grungni. It was strange to be recognised.\n\nDwarfs swarmed over the fuselage of the airship, painting the gasbag with a pitch-like substance which sealed the rips and tears. Felix knew it was made from some alchemical formula known only to Makaisson and his apprentices. Blacksmiths and artificers worked on the engines and the dented cupola, banging away with hammers, twisting nuts into place with huge spanners. The clangour was deafening. Looking through the portholes, he could see more dwarfs inside. It looked like the repairs were proceeding apace. Borek Forkbeard leaned on his stick and watched the work in progress. He looked sadder and older than ever but a smile crossed his face when he noticed Felix approach.\n\n\"Have you seen Ulrika?\" the young warrior asked.\n\n\"I thought I saw her and her guards heading back up to the city.\"\n\nFelix clamped down on his disappointment. He did not feel like going back to the palace right now. Maybe he should have some ale. It might help his hangover. He considered this briefly and decided against it. It probably wouldn't help, and he'd need his wits about him when he saw Ulrika again.\n\n\"How is it going?\" Felix asked. Borek nodded his head. An unlit pipe was clenched between his teeth. Felix knew it was there from force of habit. He would not light it so close to the gasbag.\n\n\"Slowly. Makaisson was here yesterday and said it may be some weeks before the airship is ready.\"\n\n\"Why is he not here himself? Surely he should be supervising this.\"\n\n\"His apprentices know all that is needful or so he claims. The crew were well trained before we set out. We knew he might not be alive to oversee any repairs that were needed.\"\n\nFrom his expression, Felix could tell that the old dwarf was thinking of someone else who was not here to witness this, his nephew. The scholar continued, \"Makaisson is obsessed with slaying the dragon. He gets like that. He has locked himself up in his workshop and is building weapons to kill the beast. He refuses food and drink, and only came to see the repairs being done yesterday because I banged on his door for an hour.\"\n\nFelix looked at him. \"Do you think even Makaisson can come up with something that will destroy Skjalandir?\"\n\nBorek shrugged. \"If anyone can, he can. He is a genius. In a dozen centuries the dwarf realms have not cast up an engineer as brilliant as he.\"\n\n\"A pity then that he has become a Slayer.\"\n\n\"Aye; he might have changed the world otherwise. If his theories had been accepted. If the Engineers Guild had not hounded him. As it is, his name will go down in history anyway. Creating this airship was a deed worthy of the Ancestors. Piloting it to Karag Dum means his name will live forever, even if he does not.\"\n\n\"Was the deed really so notable?\"\n\n\"More than you can imagine. Your name will live as long as the mountains too, Felix Jaeger. Your part in the slaying of the daemon, and the recovery of the Hammer of Firebeard will see to that.\"\n\nFelix found this a strange thought. He was not sure how he felt about the knowledge that his name would be recalled in centuries to come, in a time long after he was dead. He did not want to think of dying just yet. It was not a thought he found pleasant.\n\n\"Where is the hammer now?\"\n\n\"It is in the shrine of Grimnir. Hurgrim has left it there for the time being.\"\n\nA thought struck Felix. Curiosity overcame him.\n\n\"One day I would like to see the inside of the shrine.\"\n\n\"It is not usual for humans to be allowed to view the inside of Grimnir's sanctum.\" Borek paused for a moment. \"But you are the Hammerbearer, and the gods have looked on you with favour, so I suppose an exception could be made in your case.\"\n\n\"I would like that,\" said Felix. If he ever was going to write up the tale of Gotrek's adventures, it might be important. Perhaps seeing the inside of the shrine would give him some insight into the dwarf personality.\n\n\"Thank you,\" Felix said. \"I will go now.\"\n\n\"May the Ancestor Gods watch over you, Felix Jaeger.\"\n\n\"And you,\" Felix said, striding away.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol watched the dust cloud come ever closer. It billowed to the sky. It was as if all the grass of the plain had caught fire and was sending smoke plumes skyward. The ground vibrated. He could feel the thunder of hundreds of hooves against the earth. His nose twitched. He could smell warpstone in small quantities, and cold steel and flesh, human-like and yet not human. His mystical senses told him that powerful magic was present. He and Lurk exchanged scared looks, animosity temporarily fading as they confronted a threat to their common well-being.\n\nAlmost. Thanquol briefly considered running and leaving Lurk to face whatever it was that rushed towards them. What held him in place was the knowledge that it would probably be pointless. Instinct told him that there were so many foes coming towards them, that a few of them could overcome Lurk, and others would still have time to seek him out. Being with Lurk at least offered the possibility of some protection. At moments of stress like these, when the urge to squirt the musk of fear filled him, the scent of another ratman reassured even a skaven as independent as Grey Seer Thanquol.\n\n\"Horse warriors, most perceptive of potentates?\" rumbled Lurk.\n\nThanquol shook his horned head and bared his fangs. His mouth felt dry. His heart pounded within his chest. He fought the urge to begin stuffing the last of the powdered warpstone into his mouth.\n\n\"No. Others. Not humans.\"\n\n\"From the north? From the Wastes?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes! Black-armoured warriors. Altered beasts. Other things.\"\n\n\"You have seen this? The Horned Rat has granted you a vision?\"\n\nNot in the strictest sense, Thanquol thought, but it served no purpose to let Lurk know, so he maintained a significant silence as he peered into the cloud. The dust made his pink eyes water and his nose twitch. His musk glands felt tight and he lashed his tail to try and dispel the tension. Lurk let out a low threatening growl. Thanquol glared into the advancing dust cloud trying to see into it.\n\nForms moved within the cloud. Massive, dark shapes that emerged slowly from the gloom and resolved themselves into riders. Thanquol had seen many of the mounted warriors the foolish humans called knights when he had served the Council of Thirteen in Bretonnia. The horsemen reminded him of those, save that their armour was made all of black iron with brass rondels. It was more intricate than any human armour Thanquol had ever seen before. Daemonic faces, twisted runes, arcane symbols: all seemed to have been moulded into the steel by some sorcerous technique.\n\nOne warrior had a gaping mawed daemonic face set in his chest plate. His helm echoed the daemon's features and glowing red eyes glared out from behind his visor. Another wore armour covered in monstrous spikes and clutched a similarly spiked mace, shaped like a shrieking human head, in one armoured fist. A third's armour glowed with an eerie yellow light, pulsing softly as if in time to his heartbeat. Behind them came other riders garbed in armour just as fantastically elaborate.\n\nTheir weapons were also of black steel set with fiery runes. They carried swords and maces, lances and morning stars. Their shields showed the symbol of Tzeentch, the Great Mutator, one of the four Ruinous Powers. The horses were huge, far bigger than normal human steeds. They needed to be to carry their massive armoured riders, and the weight of the impossibly intricate, segmented barding. Like their riders, the steeds' eyes glowed with baleful internal fires. It was as if the gates of Hell had opened and these awful spectres had ridden straight out.\n\nThe Chaos warriors were a terrifying sight, and what was even more frightening was the fact that Thanquol knew they were but the outriders of a vast horde. What had those fiends, Felix Jaeger and Gotrek Gurnisson done, Thanquol wondered? He did not doubt for a moment that the onset of this monstrous army was somehow connected with their mission into the Chaos Wastes. It was just like them to stir up a hornets' nest of malefic forces and then run, leaving others in the path. May the Horned Rat devour their souls, Thanquol cursed.\n\nWith a terrified howl, Lurk threw himself headlong on the ground and abased himself. Thanquol cursed him too, and fought the urge to repeat Lurk's action himself. His mind raced. If he prostrated himself before these bloodthirsty madmen, they would most likely simply ride over him, trampling the greatest skaven mind of this age into a bloody husk. Thanquol knew that would never do. He needed to keep all his wits about him if he wanted to survive.\n\nDramatically he threw his arms wide and let a nimbus of power play around his claws. The leading horse reared but its rider kept it under control and dropped his weapon into the attack position. Thanquol desperately controlled his musk glands as they sought to void themselves. He raised his chin high and let them see his horned head, his white fur, his magnificent lashing tail. He felt his power surge within him, and knew that if worst came to the worst he would take a few of these Tzeentch worshippers with him to greet the Horned Rat in the Thirteenth Level of the Abyss.\n\n\"Halt!\" he shouted in the common tongue of humans in his most impressive oracular voice. \"I bring you greetings from the Council of Thirteen, lordly rulers of all skavendom.\"\n\nIf the Chaos warriors were impressed, they gave no sign of it. Instead, one of them touched spurs to the flanks of his mount, dropped his lance and thundered forward, obviously intent on skewering the grey seer.\n\nEverything seemed to slow as the armoured warrior advanced. The spearpoint looked very sharp. Thanquol wondered if his last moment had come.\n\n\"Wait! Wait!\" shrieked Grey Seer Thanquol. \"Don't kill me. You are making a grave error. I bring tidings from the Council of Thirteen. They wish to make obeisance to your all-conquering army!\"\n\nThanquol thought his doom was upon him. He summoned his power to attempt the escape spell that would cast him across the warp. He was not sure he had the time or the energy, but it seemed like his only slim hope. The glittering lance point came ever closer. It looked sharp as Felix Jaeger's sword and ten times as deadly. Just before it pierced his body, the lancer raised his weapon and let out a bellow of mocking malevolent laughter.\n\n\"You wish to ally with us?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes!\"\n\n\"Or you wish to surrender to us?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes!\"\n\n\"Which is it? Or is it both?\"\n\n\"Both!\" Thanquol had squirted the musk of fear, but it did not matter right now. What was important was that he preserve his life and his genius for the benefit of the skaven nation. Once he had gotten through the next few difficult moments, he would go about the business of turning the tables on these arrogant dullards. At the moment though preserving his skin took the highest priority.\n\n\"Why should we spare you?\"\n\n\"We have mighty armies! We can aid you in crushing mankind! We have knowledge of the human cities and human dispositions! We know many things!\"\n\n\"Perhaps you could spare this mutant's life and keep it as a jester!\" roared the creature with the daemon's face on its breastplate. Thanquol forced himself to bob his head in an appeasing manner, although inwardly he seethed and swore vengeance on the speaker as soon as the moment was right. If there was as much warpstone nearby as he suspected that moment would come soon.\n\n\"Or maybe we should nail it to our banners as a warning to the rest of its kind. I have met skaven before. I have fought with them. A nasty treacherous bunch they were too.\"\n\n\"Doubtless they were renegades,\" said Thanquol thinking quickly. \"True skaven always keep faith with their allies.\"\n\n\"That's a good joke,\" said daemon face. \"You shall be our jester!\"\n\n\"This one is a grey seer,\" said a Chaos warrior carrying a massive banner depicting a flayed human brandishing a sword. \"It is possible that it does speak for the Thirteen.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"Perhaps we should spare it! Perhaps the warlord or his pet sorcerers should interrogate it!\"\n\nListen to this one, Thanquol prayed. He shows common sense. And doubtless the horde's leader would have the wisdom to negotiate with a grey seer.\n\n\"And we can always offer his soul to Tzeentch afterwards. The seers are said to be magicians and our mighty lord might appreciate such a tasty morsel!\"\n\nWhat have I let myself in for, Grey Seer Thanquol asked himself? Perhaps he should have tried the escape spell but before he knew it, the lancer had stopped, snatched him up and thrown him across his saddle like a sack of wheat. The others had surrounded Lurk and were herding him forwards with their weapons.\n\nIn heartbeats they were on their way into the heart of the oncoming Chaos horde. Thanquol's heart raced with fear, and his empty musk-glands hurt from the strain of trying to squirt. It was not a reassuring feeling.\n\nFelix entered the inner sanctum of the Temple of Grimnir. His fame had obviously proceeded him. The priests had made no fuss about letting him in. They had simply seemed surprised that any man should want to enter the place. It was dark and gloomy in here after the huge fire that burned bright in the entrance hall, and it took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the dimness.\n\nThe enormously thick stone walls muffled all sound. The air smelled of incense and the acrid odour of burned hair. This inner sanctum was empty save for a few old dwarfs in plain robes of red. They carried no weapons; their beards were long and bound with clips that showed the sign of two crossed axes. They seemed to do little else but pray and tend the enormous fire that burned constantly in a pit in the antechamber.\n\nFelix looked around. The ceiling would be considered low in a human temple but it was still three times his own height. Enormous stone sarcophagi lined the walls. Each was as tall as a man and carved to represent a dwarf lying flat on his back, a weapon clutched to his chest. These were the tombs of the Slayer Kings, Felix knew. For many generations the royal family of Karak Kadrin had been buried here.\n\nThe centre of the room was dominated by a massive altar over which loomed a statue of a mighty dwarf warrior with an axe held in each hand, standing with his foot on the neck of a dragon. The figure depicted was recognisably a Slayer. His beard was short. A massive crest towered over his head. A dwarf knelt before the altar, murmuring quiet prayers.\n\nOn the altar rested the Hammer of Firebeard. Just looking at it, Felix felt a spasm of pain pass through his fingers. He could still remember carrying it into battle against the great Bloodthirster of Karag Dum. Mortal man had not been meant to wield such a weapon, and he paid the price for it in agony. Sometimes, in the still small hours of the night, he wondered about this. Why, of all the men in the world, had the hammer allowed him to wield it? He was no hero. He had not even wanted to be there in Karag Dum, and he could have lived his entire life quite happily without ever seeing a Great Daemon of Chaos, let alone fighting one.\n\nThe Slayer rose to his feet and turned from the altar abruptly, not in the way a man would leave a shrine sacred to his god, but in the manner of a warrior who had been given a command by his general and goes at once to carry it out. As he passed, he looked at Felix. His face showed no surprise at seeing a human there in one of the most sacred sites of his people. Looking at him, Felix thought the dwarf possessed the bleakest eyes he had ever seen. His face might have been chiselled from granite. His features had a primitive massiveness to them of the sort sometimes seen in ancient druidical statues. His head had been recently shaved, save for a tiny strip of hair that might one day grow into a crest. His beard had been reduced to mere stubble.\n\nFelix made the sign of the hammer and advanced on the altar. There was no particular sign of the presence of the dwarf god. The altar was a massive structure carved of solid stone. The hammer appeared to be just a massive warhammer whose head bore the same dwarf runes as the altar itself. Had Felix himself not held the hammer and felt its power, he would have thought it only an impressive weapon and not some holy relic.\n\nOnce again, he asked himself why he was here. What had he hoped to gain by visiting the shrine? Some insight into the dwarfs, perhaps? A glimpse of the peculiar psychology that caused so many of them to shave their heads and set out to seek their dooms? It was a hard thing for him to understand, and he could not quite picture himself or any other man doing such a thing.\n\nOr perhaps he could. Men did self-destructive things all the time. They drank to excess and performed feats of foolish bravado. They became addicted to witchweed and weirdroot. They joined the cults of the dark gods of Chaos. They fought duels for the most petty and pointless of reasons. Felix sometimes recognised a perverse and self-destructive urge in himself. Perhaps dwarfs just possessed this to a greater degree, and, in typical dwarf fashion, formalised it more. Perhaps here he might look upon their god and understand why they did this.\n\nHe advanced to the front of the altar and knelt at the foot of the statue. The statue itself showed all the dwarf genius for stonework. It was carved to a level of detail that no human sculptor would have the patience or the skill to master. Borek had told him that this statue had been laboured over by five generations of master craftsmen, almost a thousand years as humans reckoned time.\n\nFelix inspected it closely, as if it held the key to some great mystery, as if by studying it he might come to understand what drove Slayers to do what they did. If the statue knew the answer to his questions, it kept an obstinate silence about it. Felix smiled sadly, thinking there was nothing here but old stonework. If these walls were permeated with the essence of millennia of sacrifice, as the dwarfs claimed, Felix could get no sense of it. What had he expected? He was a human, and the dwarf gods showed little enough interest in their own race, so why should they pay any attention to him?\n\nStill, he was in a holy place, and it would do no harm to risk a prayer while he was here. He could think of nothing to ask for, save that the old god grant Gotrek the brave doom he sought, and keep Felix alive to record it. For a moment, as his hands instinctively made the sign of the hammer, Felix thought he sensed something. A deepening of the silence in the place, a keenness coming over his senses, a sense of the presence of something ancient, vast and potent. He gazed up on the blank features of Grimnir once more but they were unchanged. The stern but empty eye sockets in the helm still looked out on the world without pity or understanding.\n\nFelix shook his head. Perhaps it all had been in his imagination. Best mention this to no one. He rose to his feet and almost reached out to touch the hammer for one last time, but as he did so his fingers began to tingle and he remembered all too vividly the pain of bearing the weapon. Perhaps that was the sign he waited for, he thought sourly. Or perhaps it was simply given to a man like him to bear a weapon like that only once in his life, and only for the mightiest of purposes. He did not know.\n\nIt made him think of his strange experience with the sword and the dragon. He had wanted to talk Max about it, but things had been touchy between himself and the magician. He suspected they were both jealous of each other over Ulrika. Felix resolved that when the opportunity arose he would discuss it. He did not look back as he left the shrine and stepped out into the street. It was time to get back to the palace. He knew they would be leaving the city soon."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "INTO THE MOUNTAINS",
+                "text": "Felix marched wearily along the mountain path. His chainmail shirt felt heavy and strange, now that he was wearing it again for the first time in days. He was glad to have it though. There were orcs in these mountains and he wanted all the protection he could get.\n\nAhead of him were Oleg and Standa. They flanked Ulrika, who was conspicuously ignoring him. She had accepted his apology for his drunkenness but now she was sulking again. Well, at least she had decided to come with him as far as the turn-off to Urskoy. All of the Kislevites wore leather armour and carried bows. They scanned the mountainside warily even though Peak Pass was supposedly safe territory. He guessed that just being in the mountains made them nervous. Their homes were the flat plains of Kislev, after all, and they were more used to being on horseback than afoot.\n\nWalking just behind them, leaning on a heavy oaken staff, was Max Schreiber. Max looked a dapper figure in the new robes of golden and yellow brocade he'd had tailored back in the city. He looked ill at ease here, and kept studying the path as if expecting an ambush any moment. Felix understood his fear all too well. The rumours back in Karak Kadrin spoke not only of the dragon but of orcs and goblins in the mountains. Felix had fought greenskins before and did not relish the prospect of another encounter with them.\n\nHe cast a glance back over his shoulder for reassurance. He was astonished to see that they had gathered companions as they had left the city. Four new Slayers had joined the party. Steg had joined them, as he had said he would back in the Iron Door. He had been lurking at the main gate of Karak Kadrin as they left. Ulli, the boastful young Slayer, had fallen in step with them a few hundred strides along the road. A repulsively ugly dwarf called Bjorni Bjornisson had greeted Ulrika with a knowing leer and begged permission to join them. When no one had answered he seemed to take it for granted and tagged along. Half a league later they had overtaken the hammer-wielding dwarf Felix had seen in the Temple of Grimnir. He seemed to know who they were and lengthened his stride to keep up.\n\nGotrek strode along, scowling grimly. His axe was slung over his shoulder and he appeared to be doing his best to ignore his comrades. Snorri Nosebiter chuckled as Bjorni Bjornisson bawled out the ninety-seventh verse of some bawdy song which involved a Slayer, a troll and a convent full of Shallyite nuns among other things. Bjorni was singing in the common tongue so they might all have the benefit of his humour. Felix was astonished by the imagination he showed. He doubted that half the things the Slayer sang were even physically possible.\n\nBehind them rode Malakai. He drove a cart full of mysterious equipment which he refused to let anybody see. As the cart bounced along the rutted road, Felix could hear the clatter of metal on metal, so he knew that the engineer's days at the forge had produced something, though he had no idea what. Every so often the dwarf flexed the reins and the two small pit ponies pulled the heavy cart a little harder.\n\nFelix smiled sourly. It was his suggestion that the Kislevites should try riding the ponies, the only horseflesh available in the city of the Slayer King, that had put him in the doghouse with Ulrika this time. She had not wanted to see the joke. He guessed that she was already embarrassed enough by having to accompany the Slayers after all, and his comment had been all that it took to goad her to fury. This insight had come rather too late to do him any good.\n\nBehind the wagon came Steg, who Felix occasionally saw sneaking peeks at the wagon whenever they stopped. It was only the presence of the last two Slayers, Ulli and the silent newcomer, that kept him from investigating. Felix did not know which was worse, Bjorni's singing or Ulli's incessant boasting. At least the last dwarf, the nameless one, was quiet. There was that to be thankful for.\n\nHe supposed there were other things to be grateful for as well. It was a beautiful day. The mountain air was fresh and pure. The sky was clear and blue with not a cloud in sight. Mountain flowers bloomed along the side of the pass. Had it not been for their eventual destination Felix might almost have enjoyed the walk. In his career as Gotrek's henchman he had been in far less prepossessing places.\n\nHere the Peak Pass was wide and easy to travel. It descended into the plains of the eastern Empire and joined the trade road through the province of Osterland. The path was wide and paved with cracked flagstones that testified to the length of time dwarfs had been using the route. Felix would have liked to follow this path back down into the lands of men, but his oath to follow Gotrek and his desire to be with Ulrika compelled him to do otherwise.\n\nSoon they would turn northwards to take the Old High Road to Karak Ungor, into the valleys haunted by the dragon and by man-hating orcs. He did his best to forget this and concentrate on his surroundings. Copses of pine trees darkened the mountain sides. Smoke rose from where dwarf charcoal burners were at work. Here and there along higher trails herds of goats and sheep were watched over by dwarf shepherds. It was a wonder to Felix to see members of the Elder Race engaged in such mundane professions.\n\nHe always thought of them as Slayers and engineers and diggers of tunnels. To him, as to most men, dwarfs were miners, dwellers in deep tunnels, makers of fine weapons. It was hard now, despite the evidence of his own eyes, to dispel that image. Still, he supposed like everyone else, the Elder Race had to eat, and there certainly were dwarf brewers, butchers and bakers. He had seen evidence of this with his own eyes back in Karak Kadrin. He supposed his own experience with dwarfs had up till now been limited to the more exotic types the mountain people produced: Slayers, scholars, engineers, priests. He had never visited a fully functioning dwarf city, only the tiny colony that dwelled amid the ruins of Karag Eight Peaks, and the enormous desolate labyrinth of Karag Dum. The huge industrial complex at the Lonely Tower that had produced the Spirit of Grungni was far from typical, he knew. It was a secret kept even from the majority of the Elder Race.\n\nHe flexed his shoulders to settle his pack more comfortably. He had considered asking Malakai if he could put it on the cart, but had decided against it for two reasons. The Slayer engineer was touchy enough at the moment, and he wanted to have all his stuff on him if for some reason he got separated from the rest of the party. He had learned enough in his years of adventuring to be prepared for the worst.\n\nHe shook his head, realising that he was simply trying to distract himself from thinking about Ulrika. He knew that if she was being unreasonable, he was too, and he was damned if he could find any reason for it. He just seemed unduly sensitive to her behaviour. It was as if everything she did had a magnified effect on it. What, in any other human being, he would have dismissed as a minor foible, somehow became in her a major flaw. Words, which from anyone else would have been simply a joke, became subtle insults and putdowns, to be brooded over and analysed in depth. The fact that Max was walking closer to her than he was became a threat, and made him unreasonably jealous. Part of him knew that this undue sensitivity was because he was in love, and that perhaps her odd behaviour came about for a similar reason. But part of him went ahead and acted on his own unreasonable impulses anyway. This was something the love poets never mentioned, and he felt annoyed by it. Perhaps it meant that he was not really in love with her after all.\n\nOr perhaps the love poets simplified things, to make them neater and to turn them into better stories. And perhaps they were not being dishonest either. Memory played tricks. He remembered his first love Kirsten fondly, had forgotten most of the bad things about their relationship and idolised the good ones. Yet he knew that he and Kirsten had had bad days, and had argued and had simply not wanted to talk to each other. It was only human. And he had cared about her in spite of the bad things that sometimes happened between them. Sometimes he suspected it was easier and more pleasant to live with the memories of a past love than it was to be involved in a new one. After all, he could edit his memories the way he had once edited his poems, selecting the good parts, polishing them till they shone. Reality always had flaws. Bellies rumbled when you made love. Words that should be spoken sometimes never are. Real people were contradictory, annoying and sometimes selfish. Just like he was, he reminded himself.\n\nHe knew that Ulrika was being unreasonable. He knew that he was in the right. He knew that he should wait for her to come and apologise. His pride demanded it, and so did this strange near subliminal anger. Yet somehow he found his legs carrying himself forward to her side, and his lips murmuring an apology, and his hand reaching out to take hers and squeeze her fingers.\n\nAnd just as strangely as everything else, he found that this made him, if not happy, at least content."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "The camp fire burned. Felix helped himself to another slice of waybread and spiced dwarf sausage. He looked across at Ulrika and smiled. She smiled back. They had made their peace that day, at least for a little while. Max Schreiber was a shadowy form on the far side of the flames. He sat cross-legged on the ground, breathing deeply, seemingly engaged in some mystical exercise. Felix did not know why but he felt certain that despite the fact he appeared to be asleep Max was well aware of all that went on around him. Oleg and Standa kept guard a few paces off, facing out into the darkness so as not to ruin their night vision. Feeling the wine he had drunk earlier go right to his bladder, Felix excused himself and got up to make water.\n\nOn his return he paused to observe the dwarfs for a moment. Makaisson sat glaring into the flames, while his fingers toyed idly with the innards of some small clockwork device. Beside the engineer sat Bjorni, Ulli and the silent dwarf. As Felix passed Bjorni summoned up the courage to do what Felix had wanted to do all day.\n\n\"What's your name?\" he asked the stranger.\n\n\"Grimme,\" answered the newcomer, and his tone and his features were more than enough to prevent any further questions. Bjorni decided that this just made him a better audience.\n\n\"Well, Grimme, you might have heard stories about me and the three elf maidens. It's not true. Well not entirely true. There were only two of them, and only one was elven, well half-elven actually, and I didn't find that out till later, though the pointy ears should have been a giveaway but she was wearing a head scarf you see. And I was drunk, and all cats are grey in the dark and\u2026\"\n\nIf Grimme heard he gave no sign. He simply continued to stare morosely into the fire. Felix tried to tune Bjorni out. He and Ulli seemed to have become soul mates. They at least provided each other with an audience for their endless boasting. Bjorni had an interminable source of anecdotes about his love life. Ulli talked of nothing except the fights he had been in, and the battles he was going to win.\n\n\"\u2026and then I said, bring me a donkey,\" Bjorni said. \"You should have seen the look on her face\u2026\"\n\nFelix glanced over at the other Slayers to see how they were taking it. Grimme simply glared bleakly into the fire, lost in some inner world of misery and torment. Felix wanted to talk to him but he knew his attentions would not be welcome.\n\nSteg sat beneath the wagon, whittling a piece of wood with his knife, seemingly unaware of the casual glances Makaisson directed at him occasionally. Beyond the wagon, Snorri Nosebiter and Gotrek kept watch. Felix walked over to see how it was going.\n\n\"There is a stranger coming,\" said Snorri Nosebiter. \"Snorri can smell him.\"\n\nGotrek grunted. \"I have known that for the last five minutes. It is a dwarf that comes and one we'll soon be having words with.\"\n\nFelix knew better than to question Gotrek or ask how he knew what he did. Over the years he had developed a tremendous respect for the keenness of the Slayer's senses. In the dark and wild places of the world, the dwarf was at home in a way a man could never be.\n\nFelix glanced over in the direction Gotrek indicated with a jerk of his thumb. There was something moving out there. In the light of the two moons Felix could see two shadowy outlines. As they came closer, he could hear the clip-clop of hooves on stone.\n\nAs the stranger approached Felix saw that it was a dwarf leading a mule.\n\n\"Greetings, strangers,\" he said. \"Can an old prospector share your fire?\"\n\n\"Aye, you can,\" Gotrek said. \"If you tell us your name.\"\n\n\"I am Malgrim, son of Hurni, of clan Magrest. Who might you be?\"\n\n\"I am Gotrek, son of Gurni.\"\n\n\"Snorri Nosebiter.\"\n\nThe prospector was within sword's reach now. Felix could see he was a typical dwarf, short but broad. He wore some sort of hooded jerkin which covered his head, and his long beard reached almost to his knees. He had a pickaxe in one hand, and by the way he held it Felix guessed he was proficient at using it as a weapon. There was a shovel slung over the pack on the mule's back, along with the sort of mesh pans prospectors used to filter gold from river water. The dwarf's face was seamed and his eyes were wary. They went a trifle wider when he saw that Gotrek and Snorri were Slayers, and wider still when he saw that Felix was a human.\n\n\"Two Slayers travelling with a man of the Empire,\" he said. \"I am sure there is a tale there.\"\n\nFelix accompanied the dwarfs back to the fire. Malgrim looked at the five Slayers and then at Gotrek and Snorri. \"I had not heard the kinfolk mustered for war,\" he said. \"No battle-banners have passed among the mountain clans.\"\n\n\"There is no mustering,\" Gotrek said and slumped down beside the fire.\n\nFelix realised that Malgrim thought the only reason so many Slayers could have assembled was to answer a call to battle.\n\n\"A pity,\" said Malgrim, \"for there is great need. The orcs of the mountains assemble for battle. Ugrek Manflayer has organised all the tribes under his banner.\"\n\nFelix shivered. Even in distant Altdorf, he had heard tales of the Manflayer. His name was used to terrify naughty children. He was said to be a gigantic orc who skinned his captives alive and used their hides to make his clothing. Felix had always considered the tale merely a legend, but the prospector sounded convinced of his existence, and he did not seem like a dwarf who merely recounted traveller's tales for the sake of it.\n\nTo Felix's surprise it was Max Schreiber who spoke next. \"There are tales of a greenskin shaman in the mountains. He is said to have powerful magic. I heard he too follows the Manflayer.\"\n\n\"Well, if they get in our way, we'll show them what their innards look like!\" bellowed Ulli. \"We are on our way to slay the dragon Skjalandir.\"\n\nThe prospector glanced around him and slowly nodded his head, as if understanding were dawning. \"I had wondered what would bring seven Slayers into the mountains when no battle-banners fly. It is a mighty death indeed that you seek for the dragon will give you one. Since his reawakening he has scoured the High Valleys and made of the Manling Vales a desolation. Still, I wonder if you will even catch sight of him for the greenskins are numerous and there are human bandits in the hills too.\"\n\n\"Things are grim in the mountains,\" Felix said. If Malgrim heard the irony in his voice he gave no sign.\n\n\"Aye. There were always wild hill men but they have been joined by desperate folk driven from their farms by the depredations of the orcs and the firedrake. Life is short and cheap in the heights right now. Even more so than usual.\"\n\n\"Why does Ungrimm Ironfist not gather his army and restore the peace?\" said Felix.\n\nMalgrim's laughter was joined by the other dwarfs. \"It is Ungrimm's duty to keep Peak Pass clear, and prevent the orc hordes of the east from passing through into the lands of men. If he was to desert this vale with his force and the greenskins got word of it, then an orc horde would soon be rampaging through your Empire's eastern provinces.\"\n\n\"Why is that important to the dwarfs? Why should they care whether Osterland is invaded?\"\n\nMalgrim looked shocked. \"There are binding oaths and treaties of friendship between our peoples. Humans may forget the old ties, but the kinfolk do not. As our ancestors swore so shall we do.\"\n\n\"Aye, tis so!\" bellowed Ulli.\n\n\"Also,\" Malgrim added, \"this pass is ours. We will not allow the greenskins free passage through it.\"\n\nFelix could see that all of this was simply a long-winded way of saying that the dwarfs would not send forces to clear out the High Peak Road. As he considered the prospector's words another thought struck him. If the Elder Race felt this way, why would they even consider sending troops to aid the Kislevites? Simple reflection gave him the answer. The threat of Chaos was of an order of magnitude greater than mere greenskin tribes raiding into human and dwarf lands. If the northlands fell before the onslaught of the hordes then all the southlands would fall soon afterwards. At least, he hoped the dwarfs thought this way. There was little hope of help if they did not.\n\n\"I say we stop and slaughter some greenskins on our way to face the dragon!\" said Ulli.\n\n\"You can if ye want tae,\" Makaisson said. \"Ah hae business wae that big beastie and it wullnae wait.\"\n\n\"The greenskins will still be there after the dragon is dealt with. That's if any of us are alive to care,\" Bjorni said.\n\n\"If any orcs get in our way we will kill them,\" Gotrek said. \"Otherwise we go to kill the dragon.\"\n\n\"Snorri thinks that's a fine plan,\" said Snorri Nosebiter, then added wistfully, \"still, Snorri wouldn't mind slaughtering a few greenies.\"\n\n\"It's late,\" Gotrek said. \"Those who aren't on guard should get some sleep.\"\n\nThe prospector nodded and laid himself down by the fire. Felix returned to where Ulrika and the other humans were sitting.\n\n\"What was that all about?\" Ulrika asked.\n\n\"The Slayers can't decide whether we should cleanse the mountains of orcs or dragons first.\"\n\n\"Why not do both?\" asked Oleg ironically.\n\n\"Hush!\" Felix said. \"They might hear you.\"\n\nAll around great bonfires blazed. From nearby Thanquol could hear the disquieting roars of beastmen and the thunder of huge drums. He could smell tens of thousands of beastmen nearby and thousands of the black armoured Chaos warriors. He knew then that he was in the encampment of the largest army he had encountered since he himself had commanded the massive skaven force that attacked Nuln. He also suspected that in terms of sheer raw power this monstrous force completely outclassed even that mighty skaven horde. He knew enough of the followers of Chaos to understand that one for one they were more than a match for all but the most puissant of skaven.\n\nAll around he could smell warpstone, and his magician's senses told him that the winds of magic blew strong around this army. It was worrying, for he knew that this force possessed not only mere physical might, but a terrible magical potency as well. He knew that even at the peak of his powers he would be hard pressed to overcome the sorcerers gathered here, and he was far from the unassailable height of his awesome abilities.\n\nHe could tell just from the flow of energies around him that his captors were approaching the heart of the horde, the nexus around which all this energy flowed. As they came closer he sensed the presence of mighty beings, creatures of a potency he had not encountered since he stood before the Council of Thirteen themselves.\n\nAt the heart of the camp was a great gathering of armoured Chaos warriors. Their steeds roamed nearby as the masters squatted beside camp fires that burned yellow and green and other colours that spoke of magical origin. They talked to each other in their debased tongue and Thanquol could tell just from their tone that they were boasting of conquests to come. Just looking at them filled his heart with fear and tightened his musk glands. He glanced around, suddenly grateful that Lurk was there. The presence of another skaven was somehow reassuring even to Grey Seer Thanquol in the centre of this awful force.\n\nAhead of them, he was sure they would find the war leaders of the horde. He sensed their presence before he saw them, and when they came into view he knew his impressions were correct.\n\nA huge armoured figure lounged in a massive throne of crystal that pulsed with subdued yellows and greens. The throne floated a fingerbreadth over the ground. Using his sorcerer's senses Thanquol could see that both the man and his seat were permeated with the energies of Chaos. Across his knees was a massive two-handed broadsword covered in yellowish glowing runes. Thanquol did not have to be told that the weapon was enwrapped with the mightiest of killing magics. He could see this for himself, just as he could see that the armour was designed to act not merely as a shield against weapons but against sorcery too. The man's armour was golden with greenish rondels and inscribed with runes that Thanquol knew were sacred to Tzeentch.\n\nFlanking the throne were two figures. They were lean and vulturish, unarmoured and swathed in huge cloaks whose folds gave them a resemblance to wings. Their skin had an albino whiteness that was close to the grey seer's own. Looking closely at their thin, hungry features and hellishly glowing eyes Thanquol could see that they were twins, identical in all ways except one. The one on the general's right hand side held a gold sheathed staff in his right hand. The one on the left held a staff of ebony and silver in his left hand. The hand which held the gold-sheathed staff had long talonlike nails of gold. The talons of the left-hand wizard were encased in silver. That the two were potent sorcerers was immediately obvious to Thanquol. Unwilling as he was to concede that any save the Council of Thirteen might be stronger than he in the use of magic, he knew that he would need to consume prodigious amounts of warpstone to overcome either one of these two in sorcerous battle. If they worked together, he feared to consider the powers they might wield.\n\nThe Chaos warlord glared balefully down at Thanquol. The grey seer at once prostrated himself, and said, \"I bring greetings, mighty warlord, from the Council of Thirteen.\"\n\n\"Your masters knew of our coming then, grey seer?\" said the warlord. Thanquol thought it better to lie than to admit the truth. He sensed tendrils of mystical energy coming from the two wizards who flanked the warlord. Immediately he masked his thoughts as best he could. Since he was a grey seer, he knew this was very well indeed.\n\n\"They sensed a mighty gathering of forces and sent me northwards to investigate.\"\n\nWell, it could almost be true, thought Thanquol. \"Alone and unaccompanied. That is most unusual,\" said the magus with the gold staff.\n\n\"I am accompanied by my bodyguard, Lurk Snitchtongue, and protected by my own mighty magic. What need have I of any other protection?\" Thanquol said, a hint of his old arrogance returning.\n\n\"What need indeed,\" said the sorcerer with the ebony staff. Thanquol noticed the hint of mockery in his voice and vowed that one day he would make the magician pay for it. How dare this hairless ape make light of the greatest sorcerer in skavendom. \"Tis true your bodyguard shows signs of the blessings of our lord Tzeentch. The Great Mutator has touched him. He has the favour of the Changer of the Ways.\"\n\nThanquol glared over at Lurk, who preened himself visibly at these words. Black rage ate at the grey seer's bowels. Thanquol wondered if Lurk had been consorting with the followers of the Chaos Powers while he was in the Wastes. That would explain the changes in him, for sure. If this were the case he would be made to pay for his apostasy to the Horned Rat. Another score to settle, Thanquol told himself. Assuming he survived this encounter, which at the moment looked by no means certain.\n\n\"You lead this great host?\" Thanquol asked, out of politeness.\n\n\"I am Arek Demonclaw,\" said the Chaos warrior, \"Chosen of Tzeentch. These are Kelmain Blackstaff and Lhoigor Goldenrod, my spellcrafters.\"\n\n\"I thank you for this information, mighty one,\" Thanquol said diplomatically. \"I am Grey Seer Thanquol and I abase myself a thousand times before you and offer you the alliance of the Council of Thirteen.\"\n\nThanquol knew he was being a little premature here but he was determined to say anything he needed to get himself out of this trap. \"We have no need of alliances, Grey Seer Thanquol. What you see here is but the vanguard of a greater host. The Powers march forth to claim the lands of men once more. Those who do not abase themselves before the Powers of Ruin, and most especially my master Tzeentch, will be destroyed. This world will be cleansed and remade in the image we desire and all the false gods and their followers will be swept away.\"\n\nThere was something in Arek's voice that compelled belief. His words almost convinced even Thanquol, but the grey seer was too wily a sorcerer and too well schooled in the ways of magic not to recognise a potent spell when he encountered one. He dismissed the hypnotic compulsion in the voice by an effort of will. A glance at Lurk told him that his henchman was making no such effort. He looked at Arek enthralled.\n\nThanquol could understand why. Lurk was ensnared by the Gift of Tzeentch the warlord was using, and his feeble mind was enthralled by the dark visions of conquest that hovered behind the Chaos warrior's words. He had even raised his head from the dirt to hear them better. The two sorcerers looked down at him with mocking interest. Thanquol concentrated on matters at hand, deciding he had best find out what was going on, while his enemies seemed in the mood to answer his questions.\n\n\"All four of the Powers march then?\"\n\n\"Aye. Tis the way. When one makes a move, the others must respond, lest they lose some advantage.\"\n\nThat made sense to a skaven as astute as Thanquol. It was exactly the way the clans of his own race manoeuvred back in Skavenblight. He sensed that he was beginning to understand what was happening here, and might even be able to use it to his advantage.\n\nPerhaps he could even see the reason why these Chaos worshippers had spared him.\n\n\"There are advantages to be gained in alliances,\" he said. \"My own god is mighty and has great powers. My people possess vast armies.\"\n\n\"Your god is weaker than ours, Grey Seer Thanquol, but his aid might prove useful. Your armies might join our own in time. Certainly, we are the only ones who will make this offer. The followers of Khorne are too brutish. The followers of Nurgle care only for the spreading of their foul plagues, and the followers of Slaanesh are too wrapped up in their own pursuit of pleasure to consider aught but that.\"\n\n\"I will convey your words to the Council of Thirteen and explain all that you have said to them.\" Thanquol mouthed the empty words expertly, still worrying about what had been done to Lurk.\n\n\"See that you do, Grey Seer Thanquol, and your rewards will be great.\"\n\n\"I thank you mighty warlord.\" Suddenly a thought struck Thanquol. He doubted that his request would be granted but he could see no harm in asking. \"I sense the substance known as warpstone is carried by your army.\"\n\n\"It is one of our master's greatest gifts and is used in sorcery and in the making of weapons.\"\n\n\"We too use it for such purposes, which I take as a sign of our common purpose,\" said Thanquol, pleased with his own eloquence.\n\n\"Do you wish some?\" asked the sorcerer with the golden staff. Thanquol could not quite believe his luck. He licked his lips greedily.\n\n\"Yes-yes!\" he said.\n\n\"Then you shall have it.\" The sorcerer flexed his fingers and the air in front of him glowed. Particles of greenish dust flowed together forming a ball the size of Thanquol's fist. With another gesture the mage sent it spinning towards the grey seer. Thanquol knew instantly what it was, and snatched it out of the air. His paw tingled as he closed it around a sphere of the purest warpstone he had ever encountered. Hastily he pushed it into his pouch. He could not believe the fools had just handed him the key to so much power. Some inner instinct, which he had long ago learned to trust, told him to be careful. Perhaps all of this was merely a trap. Still, he could not quite see what the Chaos worshippers had to gain. He was already in their power.\n\n\"An enclave of your kind is near,\" Arek said. \"The place called Hell Pit. I will instruct my riders to escort you there. See that you bear our words to your rulers, Grey Seer Thanquol, and speak fairly of us.\"\n\n\"Rest assured I will,\" Thanquol said, offering up a silent prayer to the Horned Rat thanking him for his deliverance. It looked like he and Lurk were going to get away from the horde with their lives.\n\nThe suspicious part of him, which had kept him alive so long, told him that it wasn't going to be quite that easy.\n\nFelix watched as Malgrim rolled up his blankets and placed them in the pack on the mule's back. The dwarf looked at them and then shook his head.\n\n\"I'd tell you all to be careful, but it would be daft to say that to seven Slayers and a rememberer, so I'll just thank you for the use of your fire, your food and your company.\"\n\n\"Have you any news of the road ahead?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Aye,\" said the prospector. \"About a day's march ahead, you'll find the village of Gelt. It's an odd place, a meeting place for prospectors, and a trading post for the mountain-folk. There's a deep mine there still. And an inn. I suggest you take advantage of it, for you'll be seeing the last friendly faces you're going to see for a while.\"\n\nMalgrim paused and considered his next words. \"That's if the orcs haven't razed the place to the ground.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "AN ORCISH ENCOUNTER",
+                "text": "Felix strode down the path into the small valley. He was pleased to see that Gelt still stood. It was a placid enough looking little settlement, if you discounted the high stone walls, topped with a wooden palisade, and the guard towers that loomed above the walls. It had been built on a knob of rock rising in the middle of the valley. From his vantage point on the trail above the village, Felix could see smoke drifting upwards through holes cut in the turf roofed stone cottages. There was a large central structure he took to be the inn. On a ledge above the village was what he first took to be another watchtower and eventually realised was the fortified entrance to the mine. A gravel path ran all the way down the hillside to the gates of the town.\n\nJudging from the size of the place several hundred people lived there, and by the look of the fortifications, it would be a hard place to take by storm. He could see humans and dwarfs walking the stony streets in about equal numbers.\n\n\"Looks like a safe enough place,\" he said aloud, as much to reassure himself as for the sake of speaking.\n\n\"Aye, manling, providing the attackers don't have siege engines,\" said Gotrek.\n\n\"Or powerful sorcery,\" said Max Schreiber.\n\n\"Or aren't mounted on flying monsters,\" added Ulrika.\n\nFelix glanced around at his companions. \"Sorry I spoke,\" he said eventually. \"I hate to destroy your cheery mood.\"\n\n\"Snorri is looking forward to a drop of ale,\" said Snorri Nosebiter. \"Old Hargrim said the Broken Pickaxe brews the best ale in the mountains.\"\n\n\"Then what are we waiting for?\" Gotrek said. \"Let's get down there.\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Felix Jaeger,\" Ulli said. \"No orc would dare attack Gelt while I am there.\"\n\n\"Wonder if they have any bar girls?\" Bjorni said. \"I could use a little company.\"\n\n\"Maybe there'll be a game of chance,\" said Steg. \"I brought my own special dice.\"\n\nGrimme merely shook his head, sucked his teeth, and marched stolidly down the hill. At the rear, Standa and Oleg glanced over their shoulders. They had their strung bows held ready in their hands, but there was no perceptible threat.\n\n\"Go on,\" Felix said. \"We should be safe for this evening, at least.\"\n\n\"If the dragon doesn't come get us,\" Oleg said.\n\n\"Look on the bright side,\" Felix said. Misgivings and forebodings aside, everybody looked a little happier once they were past the dwarf sentries on the gate.\n\nThe Broken Pickaxe had a large common room. A roaring fire served to keep out the chill of the mountain night. Felix glanced around at the crowd. Their party was attracting a lot of attention, which wasn't surprising when you considered it. How often did these people see seven Slayers travelling in the company of five humans?\n\nThe crowd itself was an unusual one. It seemed to consist of an equal mix of humans and dwarfs. Most of the dwarfs had the pale faces and scrubbed clean look of miners after work. The humans were a more mixed bunch. Some of the tougher looking ones wore the warm leather garments favoured by high mountain prospectors. Others looked like peddlers and shopkeepers. None of them looked exactly prosperous, but none looked starved either.\n\nA silence had spread across the room as the Slayers took up one long table. This close to Karak Kadrin no one was going to be stupid enough to object. All of them knew exactly what the Slayers were and what they were capable of when annoyed. Felix had joined Ulrika, Max and the two bodyguards at the table next to the Slayers. Some semblance of normal business was restored when Gotrek called for ale, an order swiftly seconded by Snorri Nosebiter and Malakai Makaisson.\n\nA fat, prosperous looking dwarf with a balding head, rosy cheeks and a long greying beard brought the ale over himself. Judging by the proprietorial air he cast over the place, he was obviously the owner of the inn.\n\n\"You'll be wanting rooms for the night?\" he asked.\n\n\"The Slayers will sleep in the common room,\" Gotrek said. \"The humans might want their own chambers.\"\n\n\"We do,\" said Ulrika, glancing over at Felix. Max noticed this and looked away, adding, \"I'll take a room to myself.\"\n\n\"Me and Standa will stay in the common room,\" Oleg said tugging morosely at his moustache. Standa beamed approval of his comrade's decision. Ulrika agreed.\n\n\"I'll see the best rooms are aired and the beds turned out. There's a nip in the air, so you'll be wanting a fire, no doubt?\"\n\nFelix could imagine that the bill was increasing with every word, but so what, he thought. This might be his last chance of a comfortable bed in this life, so why stint tonight?\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"And you'll be wanting food too, no doubt?\"\n\n\"Aye. Bring us the stew we smell, and bread and cheese,\" said Ulli.\n\n\"And more ale,\" added Snorri. \"Snorri has a thirst.\"\n\n\"And you'll be paying for the rooms and the food now, will you?\"\n\nThe innkeeper was obviously taking no chances with their absconding without paying, even if they were Slayers. Possibly even because they were Slayers. After all, they were dwarfs who had somehow failed to abide by the normal dwarf code of honour. Malakai Makaisson dug into his purse and gold changed hands. Felix could not see how much but the innkeeper's eyes widened, and he became particularly jovial. It looked like Malakai thought the same way as Felix did about staying in the inn.\n\n\"And that'll keep the beers comin' ah nicht,\" said Malakai. \"And ah'll be sleeping in the wagon so there's no need to clear me a space in the common room.\"\n\nSteg looked a little disgruntled by that, but after a sip of the ale, his expression became slightly more contented.\n\n\"That it will,\" said the innkeeper and bellowed instructions to his staff. Bjorni's eyes widened as a busty barmaid approached. Within seconds, he was slapping her rump, and whispering in her ear. If the barmaid was offended she gave no sign.\n\nFelix sampled a drop of the ale, and nodded. \"Malgrim was right,\" he said. \"This is fine ale.\"\n\n\"It's not bad,\" allowed Gotrek, which for the Slayer was high praise indeed.\n\nNow that he had been paid, the innkeeper seemed more inclined to be sociable. \"And you'll be taking the High Road to Radasdorp then?\"\n\n\"If it's on the way to the dragon's mountain we will,\" bellowed Ulli, obviously taking a great deal of pleasure from the buzz of conversation this started.\n\n\"So it's the dragon you're after,\" said the innkeeper.\n\n\"Aye,\" Malakai said. \"We're gannae kill the great big scaly beastie!\"\n\n\"It's been tried before,\" said the innkeeper. Felix looked over, his interest suddenly piqued.\n\n\"By whom?\" he asked.\n\n\"Half a dozen Slayers have passed through here in the past couple of years - not all at once mind,\" said the innkeeper. \"None of them ever came back.\"\n\n\"The orcs probably ate them,\" bellowed one of the humans.\n\n\"Or skinned them,\" added another man ominously.\n\n\"Aye,\" said an ancient looking miner. \"That'd be likely enough. One of the Slayers was found skinned alive and nailed to a tree by the roadside. They reckon the Manflayer is using his hide for a new pair of boots now.\"\n\n\"Another's head was found on a spike up near the Mirnek Pass. The crows was pecking his eyes out so they was.\"\n\n\"And there was one of those human knights, on a big black charger,\" said the innkeeper. \"Said he had a magic sword and a dragon-killing lance.\"\n\n\"He never came back either,\" one of the dwarfs said gloomily.\n\n\"Most likely the orcs got him too,\" said the first man who spoke.\n\n\"Or the human bandits. Henrik Richter is a nasty piece of work,\" said the innkeeper. Seeing Felix's enquiring glance, he said, \"He's the local bandit chief these days. He's been forging the human bands into a small army. Since the Manflayer came the humans have needed it to survive. They say there'll be war for control of the high country between those two soon. I can believe it.\"\n\n\"It sounds like the High Road has become very dangerous,\" Felix said.\n\n\"This was never the safest of places to live,\" said the innkeeper. \"But ever since the dragon came back it's got downright dangerous. I reckon it's only a matter of time before it attacks Gelt. It's said to have destroyed all the other towns along the High Road now.\"\n\n\"You mean we could just wait here and it will come to us?\" Felix asked hopefully.\n\n\"Aye. Most likely.\"\n\n\"Ah dinnae hae time tae waste. I want that beastie deid, and ah want it soon.\"\n\n\"There's more glory in seeking it out!\" shouted Ulli. \"And if any greenskin or any human tries to stop us, they'll get a blow from my axe.\"\n\n\"Och, if any of them try to stop us, ah hae a nasty wee surprise for them,\" Malakai said. Felix did not doubt that was true. He had seen ample evidence of the Engineer's genius at devising weapons. Of course, most of Malakai's weapons were experimental and subject to malfunction. Some of them might prove as dangerous to their wielders as to any foe.\n\n\"And what might that be?\" asked a large burly man who looked more like a mercenary than a prospector.\n\n\"Onybody that's interested can attack us and find oot,\" said Malakai with a hint of satisfaction. Felix was now really curious about what the engineer had up his sleeve.\n\n\"There are plenty here in the mountains who will take you up on that,\" said the man with a sneer. Felix wondered if this fool was tired of living. It was not wise to sneer at any Slayer, even one as relatively even tempered as Malakai was.\n\n\"They're mare than welcome tae,\" was all the engineer said in response, and returned to glugging down his beer.\n\nThe innkeeper said, \"You pay no attention to Peter. He is a surly chap at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. He used to make a living selling all along the High Road. Now there's damn few left to sell to. The dragon's seen to that.\"\n\n\"We'll change that!\" bellowed Ulli. His boast was met with laughter from the other tables. For some reason, the dwarfs present refused to take the young Slayer as seriously as the others. Ulli did not seem to mind as long as he was the centre of attention. \"You may laugh but you'll see. You won't mock us after the dragon is dead.\"\n\n\"You'll be dead as well,\" shouted someone and the others laughed.\n\n\"What of it,\" shouted Ulli. \"Everybody dies.\"\n\n\"Some sooner than others,\" said Peter.\n\nBjorni had the barmaid on his knee now. She was running her fingers through his beard while he looked up at her with a lascivious leer. A moment later the woman was tumbled off his knee by a huge man with a scarred face and massive hands. He was without a doubt one of the bouncers.\n\n\"Leave Essie alone,\" he said, his voice flat and menacing.\n\n\"Let it be, Otto,\" said the innkeeper. \"You know this always happens.\"\n\n\"What is that to you?\" asked Bjorni innocently.\n\n\"She's my wife.\"\n\nFelix groaned aloud. He had seen women like Essie before when he and Gotrek worked the taverns of Nuln. Women married to large violent men who thrived on their jealous attention. He couldn't understand why they did it, but they did. The bouncer looked over at him.\n\n\"What are you whining about, boy?\" he said. Felix looked up at him. The man was big. Perhaps a head taller than he was, and broad in proportion. His arms looked almost as large as Gotrek's.\n\n\"Some ale went down the wrong way.\"\n\n\"Watch it or I'll take that tankard and stick it up your\u2026\"\n\nFelix looked at him, and started to rise from his seat, but it was already too late. Bjorni had taken his fist and whacked Otto between the legs while the bouncer wasn't looking. The big man groaned and bent double, and as he went over Bjorni took his tankard and smacked him hard on the head. Otto's eyes crossed and he slumped forward unconscious.\n\n\"Not the first jealous husband I've had to deal with,\" said Bjorni tugging lasciviously at the wart on his nose. \"Now, love, what say you and me find a quiet corner and\u2026\"\n\nThe girl was bent down over Otto and shrieking. \"Otto, what has that brute done to you?\"\n\n\"He'll be all right in the morning,\" Bjorni said. \"Now how about we go behind the woodshed. There's a big gold piece in it for you if\u2026\"\n\n\"Go to hell,\" said Essie.\n\nBjorni shrugged and sat down again. \"Another ale, landlord. My jar is suddenly empty.\"\n\nThe innkeeper was looking at the Slayers warily again. Still, with his biggest bouncer down, and the newcomers not seeming about to start any more trouble, he decided it was best to humour them.\n\n\"More ale, it is,\" he said.\n\n\"I'll help you carry him upstairs,\" said Steg to Essie, moving over to the slumped body and making as if to pick him up.\n\n\"Don't bother,\" said the girl. \"I don't need any of your help.\"\n\nSteg shrugged and dropped the body once more. Felix wondered if he was the only one to notice that the bouncer's purse was suddenly missing from his belt.\n\n\"I think I'll just go for a walk,\" said Steg.\n\n\"Ah think ah'll go with ye,\" Malakai said. \"It's aboot time for me to turn in anyway.\"\n\nIf Steg was disappointed at missing the opportunity to search Makaisson's wagon, he did not show it.\n\n\"Time for bed,\" Felix said, looking over at Ulrika to see if she agreed with him. She nodded and they made their way up the stairs."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "Grund Hugenose of the Broken Nose tribe looked down on the village. His orc eyes were much keener than any human's, and even by the dim light of the two moons he could make out all he needed. From his vantage point, he could see the wagon in the courtyard. It told him that someone would be leaving the small fortified outpost soon. That meant manflesh, and steel weapons, and maybe gold and rotgut booze. He slipped back from the cliff edge, and headed up the trail.\n\nThere was no need to tell the Manflayer about this, he decided. It was a small party and the spoils would be barely enough for him and the lads. He would get his warband together, and make sure that whatever was on that wagon would be his before the next night's stars shone.\n\nFelix awoke to the sound of metal ringing against metal outside the inn. He threw open the shutters and looked out to see what was going on. From the racket he half expected to see half a dozen orcs swordfighting with Templars in the courtyard but the source of the noise was not immediately evident. After a moment or two of looking he noticed that the back of Malakai Makaisson's cart was bouncing up and down, and that the covered wagon was where all the row was coming from.\n\n\"What is it, Felix?\" Ulrika asked.\n\n\"Don't know,\" he said, \"but it looks like Malakai is up to something.\"\n\n\"If it's important we'll find out soon enough. Now come back to bed,\" she said. Glancing back at her naked form he did not have to be asked twice.\n\nFelix's legs ached from the strain of the constant uphill walking. His feet were sore from slamming down on the hard rocks of the High Road. He drew his red cloak of Sudenland wool tight around his shoulder, glad of it now. Despite the brightness of the sun, it was chilly in these mountain heights and getting chillier. A cold breeze blew down the valleys, and ruffled his hair with invisible fingers.\n\nHe smiled at Ulrika. They were getting on better today, as they usually did after the nights they slept together. She smiled back warmly. Felix could tell she was as tired as he, if not more so, but was determined to show no sign of it. Felix felt a certain sympathy for her. She had grown up on the flat plains of Kislev and had even less experience than he of mountain walking. He at least had travelled among the peaks before he had fallen in with Gotrek. Oleg and Standa were quite visibly faltering. Their breath came in gasps, and every now and again, one or the other would bend over almost double, legs spread wide, hands resting on thighs, heads bowed as they attempted to catch their breaths.\n\nOf all the humans, Max Schreiber showed the least sign of fatigue, which surprised Felix no end. He had gotten used to thinking of the wizard as a sedentary scholar, and yet he had taken to the hills as if born to them. He leaned on his high staff and spoke encouragingly to Oleg then put his hand on the Kislevite's shoulder. Felix could have sworn he saw a spark of energy pass between the two men, and then Oleg rose to his full height, and began to walk with renewed vigour. Perhaps that was Max's secret, Felix decided, maybe he was using his magic to give him strength while they walked, and maybe he had used it to lend some of that strength to Oleg.\n\nWhatever it was, it was effective, Felix thought. Max seemed almost at home here as the dwarfs, and, until today, Felix would have thought that impossible for any human. The dwarfs were unbelievably cheery, considering they were Slayers and bound on a mission that most likely meant their deaths. They strode along tirelessly, taking the steepest of gradients with no apparent effort, sometimes deviating from the path, and scrambling easily up near vertical slopes apparently just for the sheer joy of it.\n\nOnly Malakai did not do so. He stayed with his cart at all times, goading his ponies when they balked on the steep inclines, keeping a beady eye on their surroundings and most especially on Steg, whenever the suspected thief strayed close to the cart. Gotrek and Snorri led the way. Felix could see them at the head of the column, cresting the nearest ridge, where the pathway wound ever higher and further up slope.\n\n\"It is beautiful, is it not?\" said Ulrika. Felix glanced around, knowing what she meant. The mountains had a strange barren loveliness that seemed like a reward for making the effort of walking among them. On either side loomed the great grey flanks of mountains, spotted here and there by the green of woods and scrub brush. High above them glittered the snowline, and the chill proud peaks. Boulders rose from the mountainside, and occasionally blocked the path. Felix guessed that this was where stones had been dislodged and rolled downslope.\n\nFar below them, he could see Gelt. Through a pass between two nearby mountains the trail wound down to a cold clear lake.\n\n\"Yes, it is,\" he said. \"Though not nearly as beautiful as you.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"You are a shameless flatterer, Felix Jaeger.\"\n\n\"It is not flattery. It is merely the truth.\"\n\nShe turned and looked away for a moment, and her smile took on a strange sad quality. \"What am I going to do without you?\" she asked.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I have never met a man who makes me feel like you do.\"\n\nFelix knew she meant it as compliment but felt embarrassed nonetheless. \"Is that good or bad?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" she said. \"I do know it is confusing.\"\n\nHe struggled for a reply, and could not find exactly the right words to say what he felt. He was almost glad when he heard Gotrek bellow, \"Looks like trouble ahead!\"\n\nFelix and Ulrika made their way to the crest of the ridge. The path ran on, descending into a small valley before passing once more over a series of ridges that rose like giant frozen waves to the horizon. Gotrek and Snorri stood on the ridge, silhouetted against the skyline.\n\nA quick glance showed Felix exactly what Gotrek meant. Hurrying along the path towards them were a group of greenskin warriors. Felix tried counting them, but there were too many and they were too tightly packed for him to be very successful in his efforts. He gave up somewhere over twenty.\n\n\"There are fifty-four of them,\" Ulrika said.\n\n\"Your eyes are better than mine.\"\n\n\"Either that or my counting skills are.\" He knew she was attempting a joke but he could hear the strain in her voice.\n\nOleg and Standa got into position beside them. They had already strung their bows. Ulrika began to ready hers. Max took up a position beside them, leaning on his staff with both hands. \"It seems we are outnumbered,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"They are only greenskins,\" said Snorri. \"No need to worry.\"\n\n\"They outnumber us more than four to one,\" Max said. \"That causes me just a little concern.\"\n\n\"One dwarf is worth ten orcs!\" boomed Ulli.\n\n\"Particularly in bed,\" Bjorni said with a leer.\n\n\"Don't you ever think of anything else?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Sometimes I think about fighting,\" Bjorni said. \"And I think now is as good a time as any to dwell on that.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Gotrek said. That it is. We'll meet them here, and let them come up at us. I would normally take the battle to them but it would be a pity to fall to an orc scimitar when there's a dragon in these mountains'\n\n\"Sound thinking,\" Felix said ironically. Behind him he could hear Malakai Makaisson's cart rumbling slowly up the hill. Felix sincerely hoped that Malakai had the weapons he had been promising and that they worked.\n\n\"Snorri thinks we should just charge them,\" said Snorri Nosebiter.\n\n\"I think Gotrek's plan is better,\" Ulli said. Felix wondered if he heard just a little fear in the boastful dwarf's voice. It would not surprise him. Emptiest vessels make the loudest noise, his father had always claimed. And he should know, thought Felix, for his father was a very loud man.\n\n\"I wonder if they have any gold,\" said Steg. \"You can never tell. If they've just robbed a prospector they might have.\" He became aware of the looks the others were giving him and shrugged affably. \"You never know. That's all I'm saying.\"\n\n\"I'm more concerned as to whether they have any bows,\" said Gotrek. \"Being pin-cushioned by greenskin arrows is no death for a Slayer.\"\n\n\"I might be able to do something about that,\" said Max Schreiber. \"If the winds of magic are strong enough, and there's no shaman down there.\"\n\n\"Doesn't look like there is,\" Gotrek said. \"If there was, he would be dancing around and chanting nonsense to his gods.\"\n\nThe orcs were maybe four hundred paces below them now. Just out of arrow range but closing fast. Felix could hear their savage guttural warcries. They brandished their weapons menacingly.\n\n\"Maybe we could turn back,\" Ulli said. Felix glanced over at him. He looked pale, and a little shaken.\n\n\"That might not be a bad idea,\" Gotrek said. Felix looked at Gotrek curiously. In all their long association, this was the first time he had ever heard the Slayer evince a desire to retreat. \"Why?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because there are some more greenskins to kill down there.\"\n\nFelix looked back in the direction they had come. Orcs and other smaller creatures were pouring down the slopes behind them. It appeared their line of retreat was cut off.\n\n\"This is not looking good,\" said Felix. He noticed that some of the smaller greenskins were mounted on huge spider-like creatures. Just the sight of those savage steeds made his flesh crawl. They were coming on with terrible speed. He began to think that perhaps the Slayers had been overconfident proceeding into the mountains in such a pitifully small party.\n\n\"For them, manling,\" Gotrek said. \"For them.\"\n\n\"I wished I shared your confidence,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Ah'll deal wae this bunch,\" Malakai said. \"You see tae the yins in front o' ye.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you're up to it?\" Felix said.\n\n\"Ye can bet on it,\" Malakai said. With one hand he pulled a lever and the canvas cover of the wagon dropped away. Revealed was an odd looking multi-barrelled gun, mounted on a tripod. Felix had seen a smaller version of the weapon before, and knew what it was capable of. Malakai pulled the brake lever of the wagon, locking it in position on the far side of the hill.\n\nThe spider riders to the rear had begun their advance up the hill. Felix watched as Malakai sighted down the barrel of his weapon and clutched the trigger guards tight. Felix risked a glance at the other side of the hill. The orcs had begun their climb, shouting confidently as they came. Felix knew that if their foes had any idea of what was waiting for them at the top of the hill, they would not be so confident. Still, he wondered, would it be enough?\n\nUlrika, Standa and Oleg had begun to fire their short composite bows. Arrows whooshed away downhill, and impaled three of the leading orcs. Two went down, one with an arrow through his eye, another with one through his throat. The third kept coming despite the feathered shaft embedded in his breast.\n\nIn response to the arrow fire, the greenskins began to spread out so they would not be quite so tightly packed together and not make such good targets. Savage they might be, Felix thought, but they were not stupid. At this moment, he wished he had learned to use a bow. In his youth he had been given some training with duelling pistols, but none in archery. It was not the mark of the gentleman his father had hoped to turn him into. Right at this moment it would have been very useful though. Apparently the orcs agreed, several of them had unslung bows from their backs and begun to string them. It looked like an archery duel was about to break out. All around him, the Slayers bellowed taunts at the greenskins, mocking them, and brandishing their weapons.\n\nGotrek raised his axe above his head, and bellowed, \"Come on up and die!\"\n\n\"Snorri wants to fight!\" shouted Snorri Nosebiter.\n\n\"I slept with your mothers,\" Bjorni shouted, then fell quiet, as the other dwarfs all stared at him. \"Well, needs must when daemons drive,\" he muttered at last. As the dwarfs hurled insults, Ulrika and the Kislevites kept up a steady stream of arrow fire at the orcs. Three more fell but the rest howled angry warcries and kept on coming.\n\nSuddenly a sound like thunder erupted behind them. Felix looked back to see that Malakai Makaisson had activated his gun.\n\nFlames flickered as flint strikers struck home. The barrels rotated and death roared forth from the weapon. As Felix watched one of the spiders crumpled in the middle, its body torn asunder, its legs twitching feebly. Malakai moved the gun slightly on its tripod and the arc of fire changed. A second spider crumpled and then a third.\n\nUnfortunately, the roar of the gun spooked the ponies. It was either that or the sight of the unnaturally huge spiders coming towards them. They began to rear and buck and lash out with their hind legs, kicking at the cart and wrestling with their harness in a desperate attempt to get free. One of the kicks smashed into the brake lever, knocking the mechanism loose and snapping it in two. Another flurry of blows sent the cart rumbling downslope. Slowly at first, and then moving ever faster, it picked up speed. Felix considered racing after it and trying to stop it, but swiftly realised that it was futile. There was no way a man of ordinary strength could bring the careening vehicle to a halt.\n\nIf Malakai Makaisson was dismayed he gave no sign of it. He shouted a dwarf warcry and kept firing, mowing down another spider rider. The last two moved to intercept him.\n\n\"Beware, manling,\" Felix heard Gotrek say, and twisted his head to look at the oncoming orcs once more. Half a dozen of them had managed to get their bows ready and were returning fire at the hilltop. Felix flinched as arrows blurred towards him, then suddenly Max Schreiber raised his hands and finished whatever spell he had been muttering. A glowing sphere of golden light sprang up around the hilltop. The arrows struck its shimmering translucent surface and caught fire, disintegrating harmlessly in a shower of sparks.\n\nThe advancing orcs halted in confusion, dismayed by this display of sorcerous power. The Kislevites kept the stream of arrows coming, taking down two more orcs. Felix guessed that they had taken perhaps ten of the orcs out of the combat now. Still, that left more than enough to overwhelm the hilltop. A crunching sound behind him drew his attention again. He looked back.\n\nThrough the shimmering haze he saw that one of the spider riders had got in the way of the cart and had been crushed under its heavy ironshod wheels. The last one was torn to shreds by a burst of fire from the organ gun. Malakai continued to rumble downhill into the horde of goblin troops. Felix could see them looking up at the oncoming Slayer with wide-eyed panic. Malakai continued to bellow and roar challenges as he raced towards the small greenskins.\n\nA shout from the front drew Felix's attention back there. The orcs had overcome their dismay swiftly enough and continued their advance. Realising the futility of their efforts the greenskin archers had put away their bows, drawn their heavy black iron scimitars, and now rushed to join their comrades. Felix hastily judged the distance and readied his own dragon-hilted sword.\n\n\"I reckon you've time for one more shot, and then you'd better get your blades out,\" he told Ulrika.\n\nA faint smile curved her lips, as she drew the bowstring to her cheek and loosed. \"You don't say\" she said as another orc dropped. From behind them came the sound of explosions. What was Malakai up to, Felix wondered? He dared not look and see the first of the onrushing orcs were almost within striking distance. Ulrika fired once more at almost point blank range, and then hastily dropped her bow and drew her sword. Felix stepped forward, ready to interpose himself between her and anyone who might strike at her before her weapon was out.\n\nThe sound of Max's chanting altered, and the sphere of golden light collapsed inwards, tendrils of energy congealing into a far smaller sphere about the size of a man's head that hovered just in front of Max. Another gesture shattered the sphere and sent bolts of golden light raining down onto the orcs. In an instant the whole front row was felled by the blaze of magical energy. Felix saw one orc sink to its knees, the whole front of its chest ripped away, its ribs visible through the smoking hole in its armour.\n\n\"Right, lads,\" Gotrek said. \"Let's get stuck in!\"\n\nIt was all the encouragement the Slayers needed. All six of them raced forward at the discouraged orcs who stood gawping at them, the momentum of their charge lost in the face of Max's magical onslaught. Even as Felix watched, Gotrek stormed in amidst the orcs. His axe rose and fell in a bloody arc, smashing through one orc to bury itself in the chest of another. With a brutal twist, the Slayer pulled it free and sliced about him, the mighty mystical blade transformed into a whirlwind of death in his hands.\n\nSnorri raced in behind him, axe and hammer held at the ready. He lashed about him with mighty strokes, uncaring of his own life. Each of his blows downed an orc reducing them to lifeless husks in an instant. The other Slayers joined them, forming a wedge that cleaved through the orcs, like a ship sailing through a sea of green blood. Felix watched in awe at the destruction the dwarfs wreaked. He doubted that a company of knights could have created more havoc than the Slayers had in those few brief instants.\n\nBjorni head-butted one orc and as it drew back, he lashed out with his axe, severing its head. Laughing like a maniac, he stamped on the foot of another, kneed it in the groin and then drove his axe into its chest before it could recover. Pale-faced Ulli moved alongside him using his own axe two-handed, hewing at his foes like a woodcutter chopping a trunk. Felix could see he was far less skilled than the other dwarfs but his strokes were nonetheless effective, powered as they were by his mighty dwarf muscles.\n\nSteg lurked at the rear, lashing out with his pickaxe at any orc who threatened to get round his comrades. His eyes darted everywhere, as if looking for loot, but not even his greed could get the better of him in the middle of this swirling, turbulent melee. Grimme fought off to the right on his own, and the carnage he created was appalling. He used his huge hammer two-handed but with a speed that rivalled Gotrek's. One mighty blow reduced an orc's skull to jelly. A second sideways stroke knocked a greenskin head clean off, sending it flying a hundred strides down the slope.\n\nA company of men would have routed in instants under the fury of the Slayers' attack, but these orcs were made of sterner stuff. For a moment only they wavered, and then they threw themselves into the fray with a berserker bravery that almost matched their foes'. They swarmed in over the dwarfs, seeking to overcome them with sheer weight of numbers. A few of them, noticing the humans who stood waiting on the hilltop, swept past the Slayers and charged. Felix considered the position for an instant. Would it be better to wait or charge? Here, they had the advantage of position. If they charged they would have the advantage of momentum.\n\nA glance told him that the orcs did not seem to be too winded by their uphill run. He reached his decision instantly.\n\n\"Let's go!\" he shouted, and ran forward. Ulrika and her bodyguards followed.\n\n\"Stay close. Watch each other's backs!\" Ulrika cried. Felix was glad she had thought of it. It was the one advantage they might have in the midst of the chaos that surrounded them.\n\nMoving downslope added to his speed. He selected the largest of the onrushing orcs as his target and raised his blade high. At the last second, he brought his blade down, ducked under the orc's stroke and with a backward slice chopped it across the spine. He felt bone crunch and leather give way under the impact of his razor-sharp blade and then the orc dropped, its legs no longer obeying it. Standa kicked it in the head as he passed, and the orc grunted and lay still.\n\nFelix was lost in the madness of battle. He ducked and dodged, parried and struck, thrusting out with his blade into the tightly packed mass of bodies. Sweat almost blinded him, blood splattered his face and arms. The howls and screams of his foes almost deafened him. The shock of each parry almost tore his blade from his numb fingers.\n\nHe lashed out to left and right, trying always to keep Ulrika in view, lest a foe strike her down unawares. He saw her fighting with her long Kislevite sword. She moved through the fray like some warrior goddess. If she could not match the orcs for strength, she made up for it in speed. Battle madness seemed to overtake her. Felix had fought her once in play, but had never really witnessed her fight in earnest. Some primordial rage seemed to fill her, and transformed her into an engine of destruction. She danced through the battle like a flame, whirling and cutting, and leaving a trail of death in her wake. Behind her Oleg and Standa fought like men possessed, guarding her flanks. They lacked her skill and speed, but fought with the deadly competence of veterans.\n\nOut of the corner of his eye, Felix caught a flicker of golden light. He glimpsed Max moving through the orcs. His whole body was surrounded by a flicker of yellowish light which seemed to deflect blows. Whenever his staff struck an orc there was a flash of utter brilliance and the smell of burning meat filled the air. Felix knew that the mage's enchanted weapon was burning through whatever it touched. The moment passed. Another orc attacked and Felix was hard pressed to defend himself. He backed away up the hill, frantically trying to keep his balance as he parried, desperately hoping that he would not trip over some unseen obstruction, like a boulder or an orc corpse. His foe was a massive orc, a head taller than he, and half again as broad. Its long ape-like arms gave it greater reach. Its red eyes were filled with hate and bloodlust, and spittle and foam erupted from its mouth, drenching the tusk-like teeth that protruded from its lower jaw. It looked like it fully intended to kill Felix then eat him. It was very strong and very fast, and for a sickening instant Felix doubted his own ability to stop it.\n\nFrom some dark depth of his mind bubbled up the realisation that if he fell here, he would never get his chance to confront the dragon. As if in answer to this, he felt new strength flow into him from the sword. The tidal wave of energy drove back fatigue and fear. He blocked the orc's blow easily, catching its blade with his own, and holding it with ease, as if the orc did not outweigh him by ten stone. He saw a look of shock twist across the orc's face, as it registered this feat by its relatively puny foe.\n\nThen time seemed to slow for Felix. He moved at normal speed but everything around him moved at half its usual pace. He drew his blade back from the orc and before it had time to respond separated its head from its shoulders. He strode forward into the fray once more, killing as he went.\n\nIn an instant the orcs realised they were overmatched. One of them turned to run and, in a heartbeat, all of his surviving brethren came to the same decision. As they chose to flee the dwarfs cut them down. As they ran the Slayers and their human companions followed. The short-legged dwarfs were soon outdistanced but the humans managed to keep up and chop down a few more from behind.\n\nStill, there were too many to overtake and kill them all, and Felix realised that if they kept on the orcs might regroup and overwhelm the humans. He shouted for Ulrika and her bodyguards to halt and reluctantly they obeyed. The orcs kept running.\n\nFrom behind the ridge top came the sound of another explosion. Felix could see a cloud of black smoke rising skyward. Instantly the thought came to him that Malakai Makaisson was down there somewhere, fighting alone against a horde of goblins.\n\n\"We've got to get back and help Malakai,\" he said, and saw understanding pass across Ulrika's face. She nodded and turned at once, Standa and Oleg following her. Felix cursed under his breath as the strain of running up hill told on his legs. His clothes were already saturated with sweat and wet with blood. His muscles ached from the strain of the fight. Yet he forced himself to keep up with the Kislevites.\n\nHe saw that the Slayers had already turned and were racing across the ridge top in the direction of the other battle. He rushed onwards as they vanished out of sight, feeling confident that as they had vanquished the savage orcs, the goblins were likely to prove far less of a threat. Then the thought of those giant spiders entered his mind, and his feelings of confidence vanished.\n\nSilhouetted on the ridge-line, Max Schreiber raised his staff high. A nimbus of yellowish light flickered around him, but it was less bright than it had been and Felix knew instinctively that Max had exhausted a great deal of his strength. Even so, he swirled his staff around his head, and as he did so, the tip seemed to catch fire. Angry golden light blazed brighter and brighter with each rotation of the staff, as if it were a firebrand catching alight in the motion. Finally, having gathered sufficient power, Max unleashed it, sending a torrent of energy vanishing downslope. The spell was answered by the highpitched, piping screams of dying goblins.\n\nFelix crested the ridge ahead of Ulrika and her bodyguards, and looked down on a scene of appalling carnage. The Engineer's cart had cut a bloody swathe through the goblin horde's ranks. The huge spiders were crushed or blown apart. Many small goblin bodies lay still on the ground, testament to the terrifying power of the organ gun. Malakai himself stood precariously atop the cart which had crashed to a halt in a depression by the side of the road. He tossed black bombs into the massed goblins.\n\nThe greenskins huddled together, kept at bay by the power of the explosives, as they tried to gather their courage and assault the inventor. Now it looked as if Max's spell and the sudden advent of six Slayers was enough to daunt them completely. They turned and fled back the way they came. Seeing their departure, Felix decided that he had had enough of slaughter for one day, and slowed from a run to a walk. Ulrika and the Kislevites swept past him, and moved to join the Slayers below.\n\nFelix let them. He knew they would never catch the greenskins now.\n\nGrund ran as hard as he ever had in his life. He liked a fight as much as the next orc but those stunties had just been too much. He had never seen anyone fight like that dwarf with the magic axe save Ugrek himself. He knew that if he wanted revenge he would have to tell the Manflayer his tale. Ugrek would get the lads together then, and they would all come down and stomp those stunties. Grund hoped the warboss was still camped at Bloody Fist knoll. It was less than a day away, a lot less if Grund kept up this pace. Thinking about the stunty with the axe, he decided that might not be such a bad idea.\n\nFelix passed the corpse of a goblin. Smoke rose from the body along with the smell of scorched flesh. It looked like the greenskin had died as a result of Max's spell. There was no mark on the body, no hole that would have marked the passage of organ gun shell or shrapnel from a bomb. When he looked closely, he saw that the small humanoid's eyes had exploded in their sockets, splattering jelly across its face. It was not a pretty sight but then again, few corpses ever were.\n\nHe walked to another of the creatures that lay sprawled face down in the dirt, and turned it over with his boot. It was not very large. Its body was no bigger than that of a child often. Its legs were very short in proportion to the length of its torso and the arms very long. Its head was big for its body. The creature wore a sort of hooded leather tunic, dyed bright yellow, and a sickly green. In death the hood had fallen back to reveal its face.\n\nThe features were twisted and malevolent and cunning. The nose was as long and as thin as a carrot, the mouth filled with sharp, ratlike teeth. The thing that struck him most was the creature's hands. They were gnarled and strong, with large knuckles and very long, very dextrous-looking fingers. Something about them made Felix think of stranglers, and he knew that he would not have liked to find those hands wrapped round his throat.\n\nIn death, though, the creature looked curiously pathetic. There was something infinitely sad about its small, still form. He mentioned this to Ulrika who stood nearby watching him. She looked at him with blank incomprehension.\n\n\"It's dead,\" she said. \"And that's good. For it would have killed us if it had got the chance.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" Felix said but still somehow he felt something like shame when he looked down on the small corpse.\n\nFelix walked over to where Malakai Makaisson stood atop his cart. The engineer glared down truculently and Felix soon saw why. One of the wagon's wheels had come off, and the buckboard had fallen open spilling the engineer's tools and equipment into the dirt. At least Malakai himself did not look too hurt, although his fingers were black and his face was smudged with soot or oil.\n\n\"Are you alright?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Aye. Niver better! It'll tak mare than these sleekit wee beasties tae dae fur me, don't you worry. It's ma stuff ah'm worried aboot. Ah hope this crash hisnae damaged it ony.\"\n\n\"I'll help you gather it up,\" Felix offered.\n\n\"Dinnae you bother. Ah hae ma ane system fur this. Ah'll sort it oot masel.\"\n\n\"Suit yourself,\" Felix said.\n\nHe strode over to where Gotrek and Snorri stood side by side, inspecting the hills into which the goblins had fled.\n\n\"Snorri reckons we've seen the last of them,\" said Snorri.\n\nGotrek spat on the ground, and shook his head truculently. \"Then you should leave the thinking to others, Snorri Nosebiter. For they'll be back as soon as they find their brethren. And there will be more of them next time. You can bet gold on it.\"\n\nFelix was forced to agree. Some instinct told him that they had not heard the last of the greenskins, not by a long chalk. Behind him came the sound of hammering, as Malakai Makaisson proceeded to repair his wagon.\n\n\"We'll kill them all then,\" Ulli said. Felix could see that his face was still pale, and his fingers shook where they gripped his axe. Still, he had acquitted himself well enough in the battle.\n\n\"In a brothel in Nuln they had what they claimed were goblin girls,\" said Bjorni reflectively. \"They weren't though. They were just human lassies with their faces painted green and their teeth filed.\"\n\n\"I could have lived my whole life cheerfully without ever finding that out,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Well you'd be missing something then,\" Bjorni said with his repulsive leer.\n\nFelix turned and walked away."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD",
+                "text": "It was dawn. The fire was dead, reduced to a black pit of ash and cinders. Stuffing a hunk of rubbery cheese into his mouth, biting on sour dwarf waybread and washing it all down with flat ale, Felix watched as the dwarfs and the Kislevites broke camp.\n\nUlrika smiled at him. He reached out and squeezed her hand, and was glad to feel the pressure returned. Over Ulrika's shoulder he could see Bjorni giving him a wink. The dwarf leered repulsively then grabbed his left biceps with his right hand and made a pumping gesture. Felix looked away. Malakai had fixed his wagon, packing away some of his components in wooden crates, leaving a bunch of things that looked suspiciously like weapons within easy reach. The ponies had returned after a couple of hours of wandering the previous evening, and were now standing docile in their harnesses.\n\nThe other Slayers had their weapons to hand and their packs over their backs and looked ready for trouble. Oleg and Standa had their bows ready. Only Max Schreiber looked out of sorts. He seemed pale and drawn and more than a little tired. A bemused, somewhat thoughtful expression marked his face. He stood taller. He had in some subtle way altered, and Felix was not quite sure how.\n\n\"Let's go,\" shouted Gotrek. \"We're still a long way from the Dragon Vale.\"\n\nMalakai jerked the reins. The Slayers fell into marching step. Far off, in the distance, Felix could see small clouds."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "Max Schreiber felt exhausted. He had used a lot of power yesterday in the battle with the greenskins.\n\nHe had not slept well. Jealousy gnawed at him while Felix and Ulrika lay together under blankets on the far side of the fire. That and the snoring of the dwarfs had not made for a restful night. Eventually, after hours of staring at the cold glitter of the stars, he had managed to get to sleep. Mere moments later, it seemed, Snorri was kicking him awake. He felt like he had not slept at all. His eyed seemed glued together and he ached. Still, all things considered, he did not feel quite as bad as he had expected, and he wondered why.\n\nHe took a deep breath and tested the winds of magic. They blew weakly this day, he knew, but, even so, touching them sent a tingling through his veins, and renewed his energy. He closed his eyes and probed his own being. He felt depleted, and at the same time, curiously elated.\n\nHe knew also that the expenditure of power in yesterday's battle had done him good, in some as yet undefined way. Sometimes, he knew, using his arts was the only way to improve them. He had gained no new insights he could think of during the battle yesterday, yet he knew he had gained something. He had managed to handle the flow of the magical winds with more fluency than he ever had before, and he had delved deeper into the well of his soul than at any time in the past. He knew his power was increasing.\n\nIn the past few weeks he had been called on several times to use his powers as he never had before. In combat with the skaven, with the dragon and yesterday with the orcs. He had used the power under pressures and stresses, the like of which he rarely encountered before in his scholarly life. It seemed to be having some profound effect on him.\n\nAs he grasped at the winds of magic and drew them to himself, he knew he was now a vessel of energies greater than any he had ever held. His senses seemed keener. His grasp of the flows of magic was stronger. His magical vision had grown more perceptive.\n\nHe was now aware in a way he had not been before of the play of awesome energies through the runes of Gotrek's axe, and of the less strong, but nonetheless still potent, magic that permeated the blade Felix carried. He sensed that both weapons had been forged with a purpose, and he could almost grasp what those purposes were. He knew Gotrek's axe had been forged to be baneful to Chaos.\n\nAnd yesterday, when Felix had drawn his blade, he had become briefly aware that it possessed something like sentience. Max wondered whether Felix knew. Most likely, yes. It would be almost impossible to bear a weapon like that for any time, and not be aware of it. Unless of course the weapon itself had concealed its power and its purpose. He decided that it was something he should talk with Felix about when he got the chance. It was something the young man should be warned about.\n\nGrund abased himself before Ugrek Manflayer. To be more precise, he abased himself before Ugrek Manflayer's tent. It offended Grund's orcish sensibilities to throw himself on the ground before anyone or anything, but with the Manflayer it paid to be careful. He was very touchy, and his temper was a thing that put fear even into orcs. That and his habit of skinning his enemies and eating bits of them while they still lived.\n\nUgrek's bodyguards grunted with barely suppressed sniggers at the Broken Nose chieftain's discomfiture. Let them, he thought. He had seen them humiliated often enough by their boss. They silenced themselves instantly when the entrance flap opened and Ugrek emerged from his tent of human skin. Grund shivered. The shaman Ixix was with the big chief and that was never good. The little runt was even madder than Ugrek and claimed to speak with the gods in his dreams. Grund supposed it must be true. Why else would the mighty Manflayer listen to a wizened little runt like the goblin?\n\n\"Wot is it?\" Ugrek asked. Grund looked up at him. Ugrek was the largest orc in the world, Grund was sure of it. He was nearly a head taller than any other orc in the mountains, and far stronger. In one hand he carried his magical cleaver, in the other he held a big axe. His armour had to be made special-like by the captured human smith that Ugrek kept chained to his tentpole. His helmet had two huge horns protruding from it. His eyes were a healthy red.\n\nGrund quickly explained what had happened. Much to his surprise, Ugrek looked at the shaman and then starting laughing. Ixix began to giggle too. He laughed so hard he had to wipe his nose on his snot-encrusted cloak. Grund didn't think he saw anything funny in the situation but he laughed anyway, just to be on the safe side. It never hurt to humour the big boss. Soon the bodyguards joined in. Once they were all howling with mirth, Ugrek silenced them with a gesture of his fist. He looked down at the shaman.\n\n\"It's the dream for sure,\" said Ixix. \"The gods spoke true. They are going to kill the dragon and then you are going to kill them. You will have a magic axe to match your magic cleaver, and you'll have all the dragon's treasure too.\"\n\n\"I will be the greatest orc war leader in the world?\" asked Ugrek.\n\n\"You will be the greatest orc war leader in the world.\"\n\n\"Send out word!\" Ugrek bellowed. \"Summon the tribes. We go to the Dragon Vale. We've got some stunties to kill.\"\n\nJust as everybody ran to obey his orders, Ugrek stopped them again. He was like that. \"And tell every last one of your boys to leave the stunties alone till they get there too. They are mine. I am going to kill them and eat their hearts.\"\n\nUlrika marched along through the mountains. She was not unhappy, but she was not happy either. She wondered what was happening between her and Felix. There were times when she felt certain that she loved him, and there were times when she felt equally certain that she felt nothing at all. It was odd how the passion came and went. Sometimes, as in the moment last night when they had sat by the fire and held hands, she felt they were connected deeply, as if by strong magic. And there were times, like this morning, as they marched forward under these brooding clouds when his merest glance could goad her to fury, and the look of stupid devotion she sometimes caught in his eye made her want to slap him in the face. At times like that it was almost as if he were a different man from the one who lay beside her in the night, as if he were a stranger who somehow had invaded her life.\n\nShe thought about that for a moment, and corrected herself. No. Sometimes, she felt like she was a different person, that something within her had changed in a way that she did not understand herself. He was the source of a spectrum of emotions that both enthralled and frightened her in a way no feelings ever had before. She feared to lose him, but she felt like running away from him. Somehow, in some strange way, he had gained power over her life, and she both hated this and wondered at it.\n\nShe glanced up at the turbulent clouds and felt that in some ways they reflected her own inner turmoil.\n\n\"Best get ready,\" Gotrek said from behind her. \"Looks like it's going to rain hard.\"\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol looked up at the gates of Hell Pit. The walls of the monstrous crater loomed above him. Poisonous-looking lichen covered the gnarled rock. Ahead of him, carved to resemble a monstrous ratlike head with gaping jaws, was the entrance to the lair of Clan Moulder. The black iron gates of the portcullis were its teeth and skaven heads peaked out from its eye sockets. In the distance Thanquol could hear the bellowing of beasts and sense the presence of a brain-numbing amount of warpstone. The sky overhead glittered with strange colours, as clouds of chemicals rose from the chimneys within the crater to pollute the air all around.\n\nThe thunder of hooves told Thanquol that the riders of Chaos had departed behind him. A tingling of his flesh told him that whatever spell had enwrapped them had departed with them. Thanquol felt certain that the spell was simply one to warp time and enhance their speed, allowing them to cover the distance between the horde and Hell Pit in a quarter of the time it would normally have taken. At least he hoped that was what it was. As far as he could tell, he had suffered no ill-effects from the magic nor had it affected him permanently.\n\nHe breathed a prayer to the Horned Rat, almost grateful for his delivery. The followers of Tzeentch had been as good as their word, and delivered him unharmed to this citadel of skavendom. Thanquol paused only for a moment to wonder why. The followers of the Lord of Change were famed for their cunning, not their mercy. Still, he reflected, they most likely had been impressed by his incredible eloquence. Thanquol knew that no matter how cunning they might be, they could not match wits with a grey seer. He knew that once again he had overcome his enemies by the sheer power of his intelligence.\n\nHe was uneasy. He wished that they had not brought him here of all places. He would have preferred any other stronghold than Hell Pit. Any port in a storm, Thanquol thought. And at least now he had great tidings to deliver. Surely, in the face of the threat of Chaos, the elders of Clan Moulder would see the sense of making a common cause with Thanquol.\n\nHe kicked Lurk up the posterior. \"Rise-rise! Get up lazy beast! Now is no time for resting!\"\n\nLurk glared up at him with hate-filled eyes. Foam frothed around his lips. His chest rose and fell like bellows. He had been hard pressed to keep up with the Chaos steeds that had carried his master, but, suspecting that to fall behind would mean his death, he had somehow managed to force his battered body to keep up. Whatever spell the Chaos sorcerers had cast had affected him too. He had not been left behind in spite of their supernatural pace.\n\nThanquol was aware of red skaven eyes glaring down at him from above the huge carved gate. He knew that weapons were being brought to bear on him, and that reinforcements were being hastily summoned to augment the guards within.\n\nFrom high above a skaven voice chittered: \"Who is there? What is your business with Clan Moulder?\"\n\nThanquol drew himself up to his full height and tilted back his head so that his horns were fully visible. He knew the guard would recognise the mark of the Horned Rat's favour. He gave them a few heartbeats to appreciate it, then boomed out in his most impressive oratorical voice, \"It is Grey Seer Thanquol come bearing important tidings for your masters.\"\n\n\"Are you Thanquol or Thanquol's ghost?\" a tremulous voice came back. \"Grey Seer Thanquol is dead. Killed by the dwarfs and their human allies at the battle of the horse soldiers' burrow.\"\n\nAlways, always, this idiocy to contend with, thought Thanquol unhappily. \"Do I look dead, foolish vermin? Open this gate and take me to your masters or I will unleash a spell of grievous deadliness to consume your bones!\"\n\nHe let a glow of pale warpfire build up around his hand to show that he meant what he said. In truth, he was certain that the protective magics woven into the crater's walls would most likely be able to withstand even his most potent sorceries, but how could a mere sentry know this?\n\n\"I must consult with my masters. Wait! Wait!\" Thanquol was not sure whether the guard skaven meant to stay his spell or simply wait outside the gate. It did not matter. He knew that as soon as someone in authority was summoned he would be allowed inside.\n\nNow all he had to do was consider what he was going to say. He needed to work out what would be advantageous to tell the Moulders and what was needful to keep from them. Such things could wait, he told himself. Suddenly, confidence filled him. He knew that a skaven of his supreme intellect would have no trouble outwitting the dullards of Moulder, just as he had easily out-thought the followers of Tzeentch.\n\nStill, he was troubled. Even for a skaven of his superlative abilities, escaping the clutches of the Chaos horde had seemed a little too easy.\n\nFelix stared along the valley. He was amazed by how quickly things changed in the mountains. This morning it had been bright and sunny, clear as a summer's day on the plains of Kislev. Now it was dreary and cold, with a chilliness to the wind that reminded him of snow and winter. The clouds were low and dark. In the distance he could see the flicker of lightning strokes, and hear the faraway boom of thunder.\n\nThe mountains themselves had changed appearance just as dramatically. At dawn they had been bright, clean titans, almost hospitable-seeming. Now they loomed large, dark and forbidding in the dreary light. The further peaks were obscured by more cloud. He felt his own mood darkening. The change in the weather had added to the ominous, oppressive atmosphere caused by knowing that they were coming ever closer to the dragon's lair.\n\nUlrika had moved to the head of the column and was scouting alongside Standa and Oleg. It made a certain amount of sense. She had by far the keenest eyes in the party and would be able to perceive a threat before anyone else. At least, such had been her logic. Felix felt that it was just as much to get away from him. She had become remote and withdrawn again, and ignored all his attempts at conversation. He was fast coming to the conclusion that he would never understand women, or at the very least never understand her.\n\nHe became aware that Max Schreiber had fallen into step beside him. The mage's face wore a curious look, at once exalted, yet indrawn. His first impressions this morning had been correct, Felix thought. There was something different about Max now. He looked even more like a sorcerer than ever he had before. Felix tried to tell himself that it was because now he was simply more aware of the power the mage wielded, but he knew it was more than this. A distinct change had come over the magician in the past few days. Now, more than ever, he seemed like a figure of hidden might.\n\n\"Felix, may I ask you a few questions about the sword you bear?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I am interested in it. It seems to me to be an artifact of considerable power, and it seems to be\u2026 awakening.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean I have sensed changes in it. The weapon harbours some sort of sentience, and it is gaining in strength.\"\n\nFelix thought about the burst of power he had received in the battle yesterday, and the way the blade had shielded him from dragonfire on the Spirit of Grungni. He had long known the weapon possessed magical qualities but not until recently had it exhibited anything like these powers. In the past it had simply been a blade that never lost its edge, with runes that glowed mysteriously under certain circumstances.\n\n\"Do you think that it is dangerous in any way?\" he asked nervously. Max shrugged. A frown marred his fine features.\n\n\"I do not know. All magical weapons are in some way perilous. They are repositories of power that can sometimes affect their wielders in unpredictable ways. Sentient weapons are the most perilous of all, for they can warp the minds and souls of those who carry them.\"\n\nFelix felt his flesh crawl at the magician's words. He did not doubt that they were true. He fought down the instinctive urge to draw the blade and simply cast it away that rose up in him. \"Are you saying that the blade might be able to control me?\"\n\n\"It is unlikely, unless it is particularly potent, and you are particularly weak-minded, which, I hasten to add, you do not appear to be. It might be able to affect your thinking a little, or take partial control in moments of stress. A weapon of the type I suspect this is could not control you, if you decided not to let it. At least, I hope not.\"\n\n\"You are starting to worry me, Max.\"\n\n\"That is not my intention. Could I ask how you came by the weapon?\"\n\nFelix considered this for a moment. \"It belonged to the Templar Aldred of the Order of the Fiery Heart. I took it from him after he died.\"\n\nEven as he said the words, Felix realised that this was both true and untrue. The blade had belonged to Aldred only for moments, when he had snatched it up from the hoard of the Chaos troll in Karag Eight Peaks. The Templar had come seeking the blade; it had not belonged to him. And yet, it felt like it did, or at least it felt like it belonged to his order. Felix had on many occasions felt as if he were merely the temporary custodian of the blade and he had fully intended to return it when the time was right. He mentioned all of these thoughts to Max. The magician looked thoughtful.\n\n\"It seems to me that the blade has been influencing your thoughts for a long time, albeit subtly. It also sounds like you have been unconsciously resisting its influence, which is both normal and instinctive when it comes to magic.\"\n\n\"Why would this blade be trying to influence me?\"\n\n\"Perhaps there is a geas attached to it. Or perhaps it is one of those weapons which possesses a single overriding purpose. Maybe it was forged with the destruction of a particular foe or type of foe in mind. Have you ever thought that this might be the case?\"\n\n\"I suspect you already know the answer.\"\n\n\"Just looking at the workmanship of the hilt is a clue, I would say. I would guess that the blade started to show changes after we encountered the dragon.\"\n\n\"You would be right.\" Felix told the mage of the way the blade had protected him from dragonfire, and of the way it had intervened in the previous day's battle when he had felt he might not survive to confront the beast. Max listened intently until after Felix had finished then said, \"I think your blade was forged to be a bane to dragons.\"\n\n\"Do you mean you think it will give me the power to kill Skjalandir?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I think it could hurt Skjalandir in a way that a normal blade could not but I don't think it will guarantee you could kill him. There are plenty of examples from history of heroes armed with the most potent magical weapons failing to kill the great drakes. Even Sigmar only wounded the Great Wyrm, Abraxas.\"\n\n\"You are not reassuring me, Max,\" Felix said. \"I thought for a moment I was about to become the hero of some mighty tale.\"\n\n\"Truthfully, Felix, judging by your deeds you and Gotrek are already that. I am a magician, not a prophet or a seer, but I do not think it is entirely by chance that your sword, Gotrek's axe, Malakai's weapons and even my own self are here. I suspect the workings of fate. If I were a more vain and a more devout man, I would see the hand of the gods.\"\n\n\"I find that difficult to imagine,\" Felix said. \"I find it easier to believe that Gotrek and I live under the curse of the gods.\"\n\n\"You are too cynical, Herr Jaeger.\"\n\n\"If you had seen what I have seen, you would be cynical too,\" said Felix.\n\nMax looked at Felix, as if trying to weigh how serious he was. After a moment, he glanced away.\n\n\"Gotrek was right,\" he said. \"It's going to rain. Hard.\"\n\nThe track descended into a long valley that might almost have been in the lowlands of the eastern Empire. Trees covered the slopes of the valley sides. Dry-stone walls turned the hills into a patchwork of overgrown fields. Here and there, patches of wild flowers bloomed. Felix caught the distinctive scent of wildberry and summer-thorn roses. Houses were visible among the walls, and at first glance, a stranger might easily have taken the place as inhabited.\n\nA second glance would convince them otherwise, Felix thought. The grey unmortared walls, built like the dykes themselves, were scorched and blackened as if by fire. The sod roofs of many had caved in. Weeds had overgrown the kitchen gardens. There were no signs of domesticated beasts anywhere. Just the occasional dog, gone feral, which looked at them with hungry eyes and then slunk away.\n\n\"Dragon work,\" Ulli said.\n\n\"Or the work of reavers,\" Gotrek said, gesturing to a patch of white bones bleaching in the long grass. Felix walked over to them and discovered grass growing through the eye sockets of a human skull. A rusty blade lay near at hand, and by pushing the grass aside, he discovered the rotting remains of a leather cuirass. It looked like it had been chewed, perhaps by hungry dogs.\n\nEven as he studied the remains, he felt cold wetness on his hair and on his face. The dark clouds above had finally made good on their promise of rain.\n\n\"We can shelter amid these ruins,\" Max said. \"Part of the roof is still intact, and we can rig a tarpaulin over the rest of it.\"\n\n\"Why not just creep into the back of the wagon?\" suggested Steg, with a glint in his eye.\n\n\"Over ma deid boadie!\" Malakai said. Something in Steg's appearance suggested that he might not be averse to that idea.\n\n\"I don't suppose the ruins will be haunted,\" boomed Ulli. He looked a little pale and nervous once more.\n\n\"You're not afraid of ghosts?\" Bjorni asked. \"Are you?\"\n\n\"I fear nothing!\" Ulli said. \"But only a fool tempts the wrath of the spirits of the dead.\"\n\n\"I suppose that means we should send Snorri in,\" Bjorni said nastily.\n\n\"Snorri thinks that's a good idea,\" said Snorri, oblivious to the insult. \"Snorri isn't afraid of ghosts.\"\n\n\"There are no ghosts in this place, or if there are they are the ghosts of mewling men, and what need have we to fear them,\" Gotrek said and stomped after Snorri.\n\n\"Might as well get in out of the rain,\" Felix said, and looked around to see if the Kislevites agreed with them.\n\n\"Ah'll joost stay wae ma wagon,\" said Malakai Makaisson, glaring at Steg from under his beetling brows.\n\nSteg shook his head, and disappeared inside. He was smirking to himself. For the first time it occurred to Felix that Steg might actually enjoy tormenting the engineer \u2014 and that in some perverse way, Malakai took pleasure in being tormented. He shrugged. If the Slayers wanted to indulge in such petty bickering it was no business of his.\n\nThe rain drummed down on the roof of the cottage. It was a typical peasant dwelling: one large room which had once been inhabited by humans, their dogs and their cattle. Rain puddled in the middle of the packed earth floor under the hole in the roof. Rats scuttled about amid the remains of the furniture. Despite the damp, Snorri had managed to get a fire crackling over by the chimney, and the not unpleasant smell of wood smoke filled the room.\n\nMore clouds of smoke drifted across the chamber, mingling with the weed fumes from the Slayers' pipes. All of the Slayers save Ulli had produced them, and were puffing away in the morose silence that passed as companionability among dwarfs.\n\nListening to the rain, Felix found time to be glad that the goblins had not attacked them in the middle of the storm. He wondered how Malakai's gunpowder weapons would have functioned then. Not well, he guessed. He prayed that it was a fine day when they finally confronted the dragon. That made him think of the sword. He drew it from the scabbard and began to inspect the blade, studying it with an intensity he had never used before.\n\nIt was a well-made weapon. From the dragon's head on the pommel to the runes on the blade it gave every indication of high quality. The steel of the blade gleamed. The edges were razor sharp despite the fact he had never taken a whetstone to them. The runes caught the firelight, but, at that moment, appeared merely decorative. There was no hint of any sorcerous power lurking within the blade, and, looking at it, Felix found it hard to believe that there could be. The weapon seemed so prosaic that, were it not for his memories of its power, he would have thought it merely another rich man's blade, not some mystical weapon. Then again, Firebeard's hammer had looked the same way back in the Temple of Grimnir, and Felix knew exactly how potent it was.\n\n\"You look thoughtful,\" Ulrika said. Felix looked up at her. She had been standing in the doorway not moments before, staring out into the rain.\n\n\"And you look lovely,\" he said.\n\n\"Always ready with flattery,\" she said, but there was no hostility in her tone. \"What were you thinking about?\"\n\n\"I was thinking about this sword, and how I found it, and about the dragon.\" Without meaning to, he found himself telling her of the quest to Karag Eight Peaks, of how he and Gotrek and Albrecht and the others had fought their way into the dark tunnels beneath the mountains, and had slain the Chaos troll. He told her of the spirits of the dwarf kings who had appeared before them, and of how they had left the treasures of the lost city in the tomb and he spoke of the eerie grandeur of the ancient dwarf city. It was only when he noticed that silence had fallen over the chamber that he realised that all the dwarfs were listening to him. Suddenly embarrassed, he stopped, but Snorri looked over at him and said, \"Go on, young Felix. Snorri likes a tale as much as the next dwarf and yours is a good one.\"\n\nThe other dwarfs nodded acquiescence, so Felix spoke on, telling of battles with Chaos warriors in the woods of the Empire, and encounters with evil cultists in the cities of men. He talked of the battle with the skaven amid the blazing buildings of Nuln, and of the long voyage across the Chaos Wastes in search of the lost dwarfhold of Karag Dum. It was dark by the time he finished, and the silence in the chamber had intensified. He realised that at some time during his speech the rain had stopped.\n\nHe looked up, and at that moment the smoke cloud which filled the room billowed under the impact of the night breeze, the same breeze that parted the storm clouds. Through the gap he caught a glimpse of the cold sky. Two moons hovered there. The larger one shone silver, sending a chill light down to bathe the land. The lesser moon glowed greenishly, and the aura that surrounded it obscured the stars. He was certain that its glow was brighter than ever he had seen it before, brighter even than on that unholy Geheimnisnacht when he and Gotrek had fought with the worshippers of Slaanesh. He knew then, in the innermost recesses of his soul, that the power of Chaos was growing in proportion to the moon's glow, and that however long he lived, that moon was going to grow brighter until its light eclipsed its larger sibling. He was suddenly dreadfully afraid.\n\nIf any of the dwarfs noticed they gave no sign. Eventually, Bjorni spoke, \"By Grungni, Grimnir and Valaya, Felix Jaeger, you have seen more of the ancient holy places of the dwarfs than many of the dwarfs. I do not know whether you have been blessed or cursed, but I believe that somehow the gods look on you with favour. Why else would you have been chosen to wield the Hammer of Firebeard?\"\n\nAll the other dwarfs except Gotrek nodded their agreement. Felix noted that some time during his tale-telling Gotrek had vanished outside. He could hear the Slayer talking to Malakai Makaisson now that he had stopped speaking himself. Bjorni glanced around, a feverish light illuminating his ugly face. He spat into the fire, rubbed his hands and spoke:\n\n\"Tis a night for tale-telling so I'll give you a yarn. Some of you may have heard the awful rumours about the night I met two elf maidens in a tavern in Marienberg. I want to tell you that the story is not true. Well, not entirely true. It happened like this\u2026\"\n\nThe groans and jeers of the other dwarfs threatened for a moment to cut him off but he continued unabashed. Felix looked over at Ulrika. \"Shall we take a walk?\" he asked.\n\nShe nodded agreement."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "The smell of damp and rain-soaked earth assaulted Felix's nostrils. He looked around warily. They had walked a long way from the cottage and the fire. Perhaps too far for safety in these perilous mountains. Still, he sensed that they had both wanted to be alone, to speak freely, far from the dwarfs. This was the one way they could have some privacy. He was willing to risk the danger, if only for a few minutes.\n\nUlrika's hand felt warm in his. He noticed that her fingers were calloused from blade-work. Her hair smelled faintly of sweat. As did her clothes. It was not a romantic scent but it was hers, and he liked it. He glanced at her face, admiring the profile. She was most certainly beautiful, and at that moment looked thoughtful.\n\n\"Felix, what is to become of us?\" she asked.\n\nHe considered her question for a moment, knowing he was no closer to an answer than he had been in Karak Kadrin. After a while he spoke.\n\n\"I will go with the Slayers to face the dragon. You will go on to Kislev and carry your father's warning to the Ice Queen. If I survive I will seek you out.\"\n\n\"Then what?\"\n\n\"Then most likely we will go to Praag or wherever the armies muster to fight the Chaos hordes.\" He glanced up at the greenly glowing moon, and shivered. \"And then perhaps we will die.\"\n\n\"I do not think I want to die,\" she said softly. It sounded as if it came as a revelation to her. Perhaps it did. He knew she was born and bred on the plains of northern Kislev, where duty and death were things children were taught as soon as they were old enough to understand their meanings.\n\n\"No one does.\"\n\n\"I have been given a holy trust by my father. I am to bear word of his need to our liege lady. And yet I find myself thinking of\u2026 abandoning my duty and running away, of finding a place to hide for a while to laugh and love and live. I find myself thinking this and I am horrified. What would my father think? What would the spirits of my ancestors think?\"\n\n\"What do you think?\"\n\n\"If I were to run away, would you go with me?\"\n\nFelix looked at her. At that moment, he forgot about his oath to Gotrek, about the destiny that Max Schreiber had talked of, about his own dreams and illusions of heroism. \"Yes. Do you want to go?\"\n\nShe was silent for a long moment, and he could see the struggle written on her face. A tear trickled down her cheek, and he almost reached out to wipe it away. Something kept him from doing it. He felt that at that moment, their two lives were hanging in the balance, and that perhaps she could change their destinies with a single word. He looked into her eyes, and saw a spirit at war, and thought, she truly does love me. He was going to speak, but at that moment she turned away. He did not move his hand. The silence lengthened. \"I do not know,\" she said. \"I do not know you and I do not know myself anymore. You are a fool, Felix Jaeger, and you have made a fool of me. I will go with you to face the dragon.\"\n\nShe turned and fled away from him back towards the mined cottage, running as if all the fiends of Chaos were at her heels. Felix wondered what had happened, and realised that he did not have a clue.\n\nFelix returned to find a stranger by the fire. He was a tall, scarred man, garbed in leather. A wide-brimmed leather hat shaded his face. A longsword lay scabbarded by his side. A bundle of cloth, tied to the end of a staff pushed into the earthen floor and the lute the stranger plucked idly with his fingers marked him as a wandering minstrel.\n\nNo one was showing the slightest interest, but the stranger did not seem too bothered. He looked only too grateful for the fire, and companions to share it with. Felix wasn't really all that interested in him. He wanted to talk with Ulrika but she had already cast herself down on the far side of the fire, and lay between her bodyguards, seemingly determined to pretend he was not there. Felix felt obscurely hurt. His pride was wounded. If that's what she wants, he thought, then let her get on with it. He wanted some time to think about what she had said anyway.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he asked the stranger, none too politely. The stranger regarded him pleasantly enough.\n\n\"Johan Gatz is my name, friend. What is yours?\"\n\n\"Felix Jaeger.\"\n\n\"You are a companion to these Slayers?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It's common enough to see men and dwarfs travelling together in these mountains. It is less common to see three Kislevites, a sorcerer, a man of the Empire and a gang of Slayers journeying as a group. Have you joined together for protection on the road, or is there a tale here I might sing of?\"\n\n\"That depends on what type of songs you sing,\" Felix said.\n\n\"All sorts.\"\n\n\"As I told you earlier, we're going to kill the dragon,\" bellowed Ulli boastfully. Johan Gatz winced and raised an eyebrow. \"And you are accompanying these Slayers on their death quest? Your friends here have told me all manner of tales about you and Gotrek there. You've led interesting lives.\"\n\n\"Apparently so.\" Felix did not know why he was offended by the man's curiosity but he was. It was quite common for minstrels to be inquisitive. Their stock in trade was quite often as much news and gossip as it was songs and music. The dwarfs seemed none too bothered by him, but there was something about the man that rubbed Felix the wrong way. He tried telling himself that he was being unfair, that he was just upset by his conversation with Ulrika, but there was something about the man that made him suspicious.\n\n\"How came you to be wandering through these mountains?\" Felix asked. \"I would have thought this a dangerous region for a man to travel in alone.\"\n\n\"A minstrel may travel anywhere he pleases. Even the most savage brigand will not slay a penniless player when he can have a song for free.\"\n\n\"I had not heard orcs and goblins were so appreciative of strolling players.\"\n\n\"I am a fast runner,\" said Johan Gatz with an easy smile. \"Though in truth, I must confess that I am somewhat alarmed by what I have found here.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yes. The last time I passed this way was several years ago. The High Road then was lined with towns and villages where a man could earn his bread and some coin. The region was not so wild and lawless. There were neither orcs nor bandits here then. Had I known what I know now, I would not have come back this way but would have stayed in Ostmark regardless of the competition there.\"\n\n\"It might have been wiser.\"\n\n\"Aye, that it might. Hindsight is always wise sight, as my dear old mother used to say.\"\n\n\"You say that even the most desperate bandits will leave a minstrel alone. Have you met any?\"\n\n\"I have met some who might have been, though they let me be.\"\n\n\"Have you heard aught of Henrik Richter? He is said to be the king of the bandits hereabouts.\"\n\nJohan Gatz laughed out loud. \"Then he rules a pretty poor kingdom as far as I can see. I have seen no great armies of bandits nor have I heard anything of this bandit king although I confess that now that you mention him, it might be a good idea for a song.\"\n\n\"I have never met any bandits quite so romantic as the ones you hear about in minstrels' songs,\" Felix said. \"None I have ever met robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, or fought unjust landowners for the rights of the downtrodden. The ones I met only wanted to separate my head from my shoulders and my purse from my belt.\"\n\n\"You have met many bandits then, Herr Jaeger?\" asked Johan Gatz with an odd gleam in his eye.\n\n\"A few,\" replied Felix.\n\n\"Then you must be a hardier man than you seem, to still be alive. You do not sound like a mercenary or a swordsman, if I may say so.\"\n\n\"Hardy enough,\" Felix said, sensing a subtle insult in the man's words.\n\n\"Felix Jaeger is one of the mightiest men Snorri Nosebiter has ever known,\" said Snorri from the far side of the fire. Felix looked over at him in surprise. He had not thought he had made quite such a good impression on the Slayer. Nor had he been aware that the Slayer had been listening quite so closely to the conversation. \"Of course, that is not saying much,\" added Snorri quickly to general laughter from the dwarfs.\n\nFelix shrugged and gave his attention back to the minstrel. \"We go to slay the dragon,\" he said. \"There should be a song in it, if you care to accompany us.\"\n\n\"I like living,\" said the minstrel. \"But should you survive the experience, seek me out and I will make a song of the tale. It will probably make me famous.\"\n\nHe paused for a moment, and considered his words. \"Do you honestly think you have a chance of surviving? Can you even make it to the mountain, if what you tell me of orcs and goblins and human bandits is true?\"\n\n\"We have already put a warband of greenskins to flight,\" Felix said, knowing that he was boasting, but needled by the minstrel's tone. Once again Johan Gatz raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"Twelve of you did that?\"\n\n\"One is a wizard. The Slayers are mighty. Malakai Makaisson is an excellent weapons engineer.\"\n\n\"You use dwarf armaments then, gatling canons and such?\"\n\nFelix nodded. The minstrel laughed gleefully.\n\n\"It seems you are not going about your dragon-slaying in the orthodox manner then. No white horses, no lances, no magical weapons.\"\n\n\"We are too,\" said Snorri. \"Gotrek's axe is magical. He killed a bloody big daemon with it. Snorri saw him. And Felix's sword is magic too. You can tell by the runes if you look closely.\"\n\nFelix wondered if Snorri had been eavesdropping on his conversation with Max Schreiber or whether he really could tell by the runes. In either case, Felix wished he had not said anything about the weapons in front of this inquisitive stranger. He had the feeling that he himself had already said too much. He did not know why but he was starting to trust Johan Gatz less and less, and he had not trusted him very much to begin with.\n\n\"It seems I have underestimated you,\" said the minstrel. \"Your expedition seems remarkably well-prepared. I can almost pity any bandits you run into.\"\n\n\"It's late,\" Felix said. \"I need to get some sleep.\"\n\n\"That seems wise,\" said the stranger mockingly. \"After all you have a busy few days ahead of you.\"\n\nFelix threw himself down on the far side of the fire. He took a last glance at the minstrel, and was not surprised to see the man watching him closely. He was surprised to see Max Schreiber was looking suspiciously at Gatz. It seemed he, too, had his suspicions about the man.\n\nFelix wondered if he would wake up in the night with his throat cut, and then decided that it was unlikely. Anybody who tried it with all the Slayers around was in for a very short life afterwards.\n\nNot that it would be much consolation if he himself were dead, Felix thought, as he dropped into a restless slumber.\n\nJohan Gatz cursed. The gods had spat on him again. When he had noticed the wagon, he had hoped to find a small merchant caravan with maybe a few bodyguards down here. He had not expected a gang of Slayers and this bunch of heavily armed humans. He was particularly annoyed by the presence of the wizard. There was no sense in trying to slip out and give the signal that would bring Henrik and the lads down from the mountainside. The wizard was watching him too closely, and the dwarfs were as suspicious as they were surly.\n\nIt was only to be expected, he supposed. Luck had not been with Henrik Richter's gang recently. Things hadn't really gone right since the dragon had arrived, and the orcs moved in along the High Road. Once there had been rich pickings along this trail, at least rich enough for a smallish band of former mercenaries and cut-throats. With all the extra mouths to feed, things were not so good. Johan cursed the necessity of taking in the human refugees from the destroyed villages, but there had been no other way. They had needed extra swords just to hold their own citadel against the orcs.\n\nHe supposed he should thank Sigmar for small mercies though. At least none of the travellers had questioned his disguise as a wandering minstrel, although that hard eyed man, Jaeger, had seemed suspicious. Taking this lot out was not going to be an easy proposition, he could tell. It wasn't going to be a case of offering an unsuspecting sentry a drugged drink, slitting his throat, and then summoning the boys with a lantern. These laddies were hard, and he did not want to try anything tricky with a magician watching. Anyway, he had always heard that dwarfs could smell poison and his own experience had confirmed this.\n\nHe felt certain that confident as this bunch might be, Henrik Richter and his bandit crew could overcome them. At least they could if Henrik assembled his whole army in one spot. They might even be able to do it with the fifty or so men that Henrik had in the foothills above. \"Might\" being the operative word. This gang looked tough, and even if Henrik and the boys could overcome them, they would probably take an unacceptable number of the lads to hell with them. On the whole it would probably be best to leave them alone.\n\nThere was not going to be any profit in this night's work, he could tell. On the other hand other possibilities suggested themselves. Perhaps he could offer the Slayers an alliance against the orcs. He knew that the stunties hated the greenskins even more than he did. Probably wouldn't work, he thought. They were Slayers and on their way to fight a dragon, and Johan was familiar enough with the ways of dwarfs to know that getting between a stunty and a hoard of gold was a sure way to get boot prints on your chest.\n\nIt was then that the idea struck him. This was a well-equipped expedition. Perhaps the Slayers could kill the dragon. Perhaps not. But there was always the possibility that they could, or wound it badly enough so that it might be slaughtered by an army of men. If that were the case\u2026\n\nSkjalandir had a big hoard of treasure, that was for sure. Dragons always did. That being the case, the way to profit from this might be to follow these maniacs and see what happened. Even if they won, they would most likely be weakened enough by the battle for Henrik and the boys to overcome them. And if they lost, maybe they would weaken the dragon. It was an idea he would put to Henrik tomorrow. He was sure his cousin would grasp its significance at once.\n\nJohan licked his lips at the thought of the dragon's hoard of treasure. He was certain that his share would be more than enough to buy him a little tavern in Nuln and let him leave the dangerous profession of banditry aside. Perhaps things were looking up, he told himself, and drifted into dreams of mountains of gold.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol glared around the great antechamber of the Tower of Moulder. He was furious and he was filled with fear. Since his arrival at Hell Pit he had been kept waiting. Clanrat warriors in the distinctive livery of the Masters had shown him and Lurk to this huge room and then abandoned them there. He wondered why he had been brought here. He had never been allowed into the inner citadel of the Moulders before. Previously all his business with them had been conducted in the cavernous chambers in the crater walls that the clan used for all its business transactions. He was not sure whether it was a good sign or a bad sign that he had been brought here. Being right at the heart of the city made him feel exceedingly nervous. He reached out and touched the winds of magic, just to reassure himself. The power of dark magic was strong here. It was hardly surprising, given how close they were to the Chaos Wastes and how much warpstone dust was in the air, but it was reassuring.\n\nOnce again he inspected his surroundings, searching for the hidden peepholes he felt certain were there. It was not in the least likely that any skaven clan would allow a stranger to stand unobserved in the heart of their fortress, and Clan Moulder were possibly the most devious and suspicious of all the ratman clans.\n\nThanquol wandered over to the window and stared balefully out at the benighted city. It was not made from glass but from some translucent leathery substance whose scent reminded him of flesh. It was a disturbing reminder that the raw material on which Clan Moulder's prowess and fortune was based was nothing less than the stuff of life itself.\n\nHe looked down on an eerie cityscape. Huge towers that reminded him of the tusks of some enormous beast dominated the inside of the crater. From their towering tips emerged clouds of glowing smoke: livid green, ruby, cobalt blue and all manner of other toxic shades. The pillars of smoke rose to contribute to the huge cloud of pollution that eternally hovered above the crater and sometimes descended to create thickly obscuring fog. Thanquol could tell from the faint eerie glitter that the smoke contained trapped particles of warpstone. Part of him was outraged by this flagrant waste, part of him was awestruck by the display of sheer wealth. He had no idea what was taking place within those towers but the cacophony of screams, howls and bestial roars told him that it was not pleasant.\n\nAmong the towers lay other buildings, constructed in a distinctly un-skavenish manner. The buildings were huge tents of decaying leathery flesh, thrown over massive skeletons of twisted bone. They had an odd look that suggested huge ticks or beetles frozen in place by some strange magic. These were the barracks within which the slaves and soldiers of the clans dwelt. The streets below teemed with skaven, and he realised that it was possible that Hell Pit was a ratman city second only to Skavenblight in population.\n\nHere and there, amid the wide streets, were greenishly glowing lakes of polluted water, reputedly still contaminated by the warpstone starfall that had created the vast crater. Far away, he could see the glitter of thousands of lights, windows in the crater wall. It was rumoured that the whole wall had been burrowed out into an endless labyrinth of tunnels and artificial caves to provide burrows and laboratories for the clan. Even as Thanquol watched, a huge door opened in the crater side, and a massive creature emerged. At this distance, in the dark, Thanquol could not make out all the details, but something about the creature suggested a cave rat grown to the size of a mastodon with a howdah on its back.\n\nAcross the night sky flickered forms that Thanquol at first took to be bats, but which he swiftly realised were too big. The simplest explanation was that they were mutant bats grown to massive size, but one of them veered closer to the tower, and he realised that it was a skaven with bat-like membranes under its arms. Part of Thanquol felt horror at this blasphemy. Had not the Horned Rat created the skaven in his own image? Was not tampering with shape of the highest of all creatures the supreme sacrilege? Thanquol had always known the Moulders were mad. He had just never realised quite how insane they really were.\n\nStill, it was a brilliant madness, in its way. Even he had to concede that. In this barren place far from the true centre of skaven civilisation, Clan Moulder had done things that even Thanquol had never dreamed of. He wondered if the Council of Thirteen were aware of quite how much the clan had achieved. Surely, he thought, there must be some way he could use all of this to his advantage.\n\nHe glanced around the room once again. Here, too, was evidence of the mad genius of Clan Moulder. The leather-covered thrones and couches appeared to be incredibly torpid living things. Every time Thanquol looked back, they had changed position ever so slightly, in a manner at once maddening and slightly sinister. The grey seer suspected that the whole room was designed to make visitors uneasy and put them off-balance in any confrontation with the builders. Finally, Thanquol found what he was looking for. High above in the ceiling amid the warpstone-powered globes of the chandelier, he saw a cluster of eyes. They swayed slightly as they observed him, and then, reacting to the fact he had noticed them, they withdrew into the ceiling, vanishing from sight.\n\nAs if this was a signal the door to the chamber opened like a set of great jaws, and the enormously fat figure of Izak Grottle waddled in. A living table covered in bone bowls and translucent fleshy plates followed him.\n\n\"Greetings, in the name of Moulder, Grey Seer Thanquol,\" rumbled Grottle in his unnaturally deep voice. \"Greetings indeed. It is good to see you once more.\"\n\nThanquol doubted that his old rival was pleased to see him. Grottle had tried to betray Thanquol many times when the grey seer had led the army against Nuln. There was bad blood between them, and Thanquol had sworn he would one day have vengeance on Grottle. He did not doubt that, if the opportunity arose, the Moulder would try to do away with him. He knew he would have to be careful.\n\nGrottle slumped into one of the thrones. Its leathery fur moulded itself to his shape, expanding outwards to make room for his fat rump, then enfolding him in an unnatural manner. Its legs flexed slightly as if with strain, and Thanquol would have sworn he heard it emit a slight grunt. After a moment, the chair's back started to ripple as if it were massaging its occupant. Grottle leaned forward and helped himself to a small broiled rat from the table which had manoeuvred itself into position in front of him.\n\n\"So, Grey Seer Thanquol, you have returned bearing the spoils of your attack on the horse-humans' burrow that you promised my Clanlords. You have come to report success in your acquisition of the dwarf airship and have brought the secrets of its construction to share with my overlords. You have come bearing tidings of the whereabouts of the Moulder troops who accompanied you on your quest.\"\n\nGrottle forced the rat whole down his throat and then smiled wickedly. He knew that Thanquol had brought no such pleasant tidings. It occurred to the grey seer that Grottle was enjoying this.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" Thanquol said, twitching his tail uneasily. Grottle helped himself to another morsel.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" he muttered to himself, in an almost gloating tone. \"Not exactly. This is not good news, Grey Seer Thanquol. This is not good at all. Clan Moulder lent you the services of several hundred of its finest troops, and many, many of our deadliest beasts, on the understanding that we would share the spoils of your success. At the very least, you will be able to return our warriors and our beasts to us then.\"\n\nThanquol knew that Grottle knew that he could do no such thing. The fat monster was simply toying with him, now that he had the grey seer in his power. He wondered if Grottle would dare do away with him. Thanquol was, after all, one of the chosen of the Horned Rat and a favoured emissary of the Council of Thirteen. Surely, not even this ravenous beast would dare harm him. Considered reflection told Thanquol that this was unfortunately not the case.\n\nAt this moment there was nobody save the Moulders and Lurk who knew of his whereabouts. He had set off in utmost secrecy, hoping to acquire the airship for himself and return to present himself in triumph to the Council. If anything happened to him now, it would be as if he had simply vanished from the face of the earth. Thanquol's fur rose at the sheer unfairness of it. He had come here in good faith to warn the Moulders of the peril of the approaching Chaos horde, and they were prepared to assassinate him over some petty debt they felt he owed them. He glared at Grottle, and swore that whatever happened he would make this fat fool pay for his insolence. He was still capable of blasting his enemies into their component atoms. Grottle had entered this chamber at his peril. As if sensing the change in Thanquol's mood Grottle looked up at him and growled. It was a fearsome sound, and Thanquol remembered that, for all his enormous bulk, the Moulder could be alarmingly swift and terrifyingly strong in battle. He let his anger subside a little, but remained prepared to instantly summon his powers in his own defence.\n\n\"The troops have not returned?\" said Thanquol, affecting surprise.\n\n\"A very few,\" allowed Grottle, spearing another morsel with one of his claws, transferring it to his mouth and gulping it down. \"They brought confused tales of a battle, and sorcery and a massacre of skaven. There were suggestions of incompetent leadership, Grey Seer Thanquol. Very incompetent leadership.\"\n\n\"I left command of the military side of the venture to the Moulders,\" said Thanquol quickly, knowing that in a sense it was true. It was not his fault that the Moulder leaders were incapable of implementing his brilliant plans. \"I would not presume to judge their efficiency.\"\n\nGrottle shook his head, as if Thanquol were a particularly slow runt who had failed to understand his meaning. \"You were in overall command, I believe, Grey Seer Thanquol. You were responsible for the success of the mission. You gave many assurances to the Clanlords of Moulder. They are\u2026 disappointed. Most disappointed.\"\n\nThanquol's tail stiffened in outrage. He bared his fangs angrily. A nimbus of light winked into being around his fingers as he prepared to unleash his most destructive spell.\n\n\"Before you do anything too hasty, Grey Seer Thanquol, please consider this,\" Grottle said. \"After the debacle at Nuln, I do not rank quite so highly within my clan as I once did. You might say I am in disgrace. You might also say that my Clanlords consider me expendable, which is why they have delegated me to have this conversation with you. You might further want to consider that you are in the heart of Clan Moulder's greatest citadel. Within call are thousands upon thousands of clanrat warriors. Not to mention a virtually limitless supply of altered beasts. Anyone so foolish as to attack a member of the clan, and then try to escape from this place, would not get more than a hundred strides. I mention this knowing that you are too wise to attempt any such thing. Far too wise.\"\n\nThanquol ground his teeth in frustration. Grottle's threat was clear. Also implicit in the statement was the fact that no one would care if he took Grottle hostage and tried to negotiate a way out. He was almost embarrassed to admit that he had not even considered trying it. Grottle continued to speak. His deep voice sounded mild, gentle even. \"To tell the truth, I was surprised that you came here. I would not have expected it after the\u2026 embarrassment with the airship. Why did you come?\"\n\n\"I bring appalling tidings, and a warning for the masters of Moulder.\"\n\n\"And what would that be?\" Grottle asked disinterestedly. He sucked something from his extended talon. His claws looked alarmingly sharp, Thanquol noted.\n\n\"A Chaos horde, limitless in numbers and boundless in power, makes its way southwards. It seems the servants of the four Powers are leaving the Wastes and coming south as they did generations ago.\"\n\n\"This is grave news. If true.\"\n\n\"It is true. I swear it by the Thirteen Secret Names of the Horned Rat. I have seen the host with my own eyes, smelled it with my own snout. Lurk and I barely escaped it with our lives.\"\n\nThanquol thought it best not to mention that the followers of Tzeentch had let him go. He wanted to give Grottle no excuse to think that he might be a spy or a traitor to the skaven cause. He knew there were many jealous ratmen who would be only too keen to give such an interpretation to events, despite the inherent ludicrousness of the idea. Despite the fact that Thanquol's name was a byword for devotion to the skaven cause, he was wise enough to know that he had enemies who would give a twisted interpretation to even his most innocent act. He prayed that Lurk would remember this too.\n\n\"This is terrible news then. What do you propose that we should do?\"\n\n\"Muster your armies, make ready to defend Hell Pit against an invasion by the forces of Chaos. It might happen.\"\n\n\"And if it does not?\"\n\n\"Then muster your armies anyway. Surely the horde will sow terror and alarm along its path. In the coming war there will be many opportunities to advance the skaven cause.\"\n\nEven as his words carried him away, Thanquol could see they were true. The Chaos horde was going to attack the human kingdom. Whatever the outcome, the struggle would surely weaken even the victorious side. All the skaven had to do was wait and new opportunities would inevitably fall into their outstretched paw. \"The Council of Thirteen must be notified at once.\"\n\nGrottle yawned and rose from his chair. \"You may be right, Grey Seer Thanquol. I will report your words to my masters. They will decide what to do next.\"\n\nThanquol could not believe it. He had just handed this fat fool information of the utmost importance, and he could not see the urgency of the situation. Thanquol considered blasting him out of sheer frustration. He restrained himself, knowing that he would have to get word to the Council. Armies would have to be assembled. Plans would have to be made. He knew that there was no one better equipped to lead such a force than himself. In his excitement he almost forgot about the airship. In the coming war there would be countless opportunities to cover himself in glory and advance his position in the eyes of the Thirteen. The Horned Rat had surely blessed him once more. Once again he was in the right place at the right time.\n\nGrottle paused at the entrance to the chamber. \"By the way, Grey Seer Thanquol, until this matter is resolved, you are the guest of my clan. We will see to your safety. We will make sure your needs are met. You are, after all, a very special guest. I am sure you understand my meaning.\"\n\nThanquol's heart sank. He knew exactly what Izak Grottle meant. He knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was the prisoner of Clan Moulder."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH",
+                "text": "Felix looked down on the entrance to the Dragon Vale. He had not seen a scene of such surpassing bleakness since they left the Chaos Wastes. Around the shores of a small lake lay a collection of burned out ruins that had once been a town. All the houses, watchtowers and farms that had once surrounded the town had been equally devastated. The fields were overgrown, and here and there what could only be bones glittered whitely amid the long grass. In some ways this was worse than the Wastes, for it was obvious that the lands below had once been as thriving and prosperous as they were now desolate.\n\nAt the far end of the valley stood a great barren peak, rising above the slopes of the foothills. There was something especially horrible about this mountain. It had a sense of presence, of menace. Just by looking at its greyish sides, you could tell that there was something dreadful lurking there.\n\nFelix tried to tell himself that it was just his imagination. Supplied with the knowledge that they were within sight of the dragon's lair, his mind was working overtime, conjuring up an atmosphere of gloom and destruction.\n\nEven as he tried to reassure himself he knew he was right. There was something horrible about this place. No birds sang. The wind that blew down the valley was mournful. The clouds hung low and oppressive in the sky. At any moment, Felix feared to look up and see a huge winged shape descending out of them.\n\nIt had been a long march. Almost three days had passed since their encounter with Johan Gatz, and during that time his suspicions about the supposed minstrel had increased. There had been times when Ulrika had thought she had seen men watching them from the hills. Times when he himself had caught sight of greenskins moving along the high slopes parallel to them. It looked as if they were being watched by at least two factions as they had moved through the mountains.\n\nAt least the watchers had proved wary. They had stayed well out of bowshot and vanished as soon as the Slayers made the first signs of pursuit. By the time they got to the spot where the greenskins had been, the orcs had vanished. It seemed that the fate of their earlier attackers had taught any would-be ambushers a lesson. Either that or they were waiting for something. Felix could not guess what. Perhaps now they had entered the Dragon Vale, they would be left alone. Or perhaps the greenskins were simply waiting for the dragon to slay the interlopers, then they would descend and despoil the bodies. If the dragon left anything to despoil. Felix wasn't feeling any too cheerful about the outcome of their quest. It was all too easy to believe that every last one of them would die in this place.\n\nHe squared his shoulders and smiled experimentally, hoping this would change his mood. If that were the case, he told himself, at least Gotrek would achieve his long-sought doom. He glanced over at Ulrika and any cheery thoughts evaporated. They had barely spoken on the trip here. Actually, she had spoken more to Max Schreiber than to Felix. It was obvious that she was purposefully avoiding him.\n\nIn a way he did not blame her. What future was there for them now? They would most likely die within the next few days. And even if by some miracle they survived the encounter with the dragon, they would soon have to face the horde of Chaos rampaging down into Kislev. He was not even sure how he felt about her himself. He was hurt by the way she treated him, and felt absurdly and exaggeratedly sensitive to her behaviour. At times during the march, he had been more concerned by the way she avoided looking at him, or the way she talked to Max, than he was with the possibility that he might soon be slaughtered by the dragon.\n\nMax, at least, looked cheery. He smiled as he joked with Ulrika. Felix's stomach churned as he saw her smile back. He was jealous and guilty and there was nothing he could do about it.\n\nOleg and Standa refused to look at him too. He was certain it was nothing personal, they were simply standing by Ulrika as was their duty. They could not take his side even if they wanted to. Felix cursed to himself. Even by the excruciating standards of the treks he had endured with Gotrek, this was a miserable journey.\n\n\"There's a dragon about here somewhere!\" bellowed Ulli. \"I can smell him.\"\n\nThe other Slayers looked at the youth with a mixture of contempt, amusement and irritation. \"Does your keen nose tell you how soon we will encounter it?\" asked Gotrek sarcastically. Ulli fell silent.\n\n\"I reckon we'll be at the dragon mount inside a day,\" said Bjorni. \"We'll see it then.\"\n\n\"I wonder how much treasure it has?\" Steg said. Felix looked at him uneasily. He could see the gleam of gold fever in the dwarf's eyes. It was not a reassuring sight. Dwarfs had been known to do many dishonourable things under its influence. It seemed he was not the only one who recognised it.\n\n\"Dinnae you worry yersel aboot the dragon's gold,\" said Malakai. \"You joost keep thinkin' about the big beastie itself.\"\n\nGrimme glared at Steg. Steg looked at his feet. He seemed almost embarrassed.\n\n\"There's something else down there,\" Gotrek said. \"I can smell it. And it's not a dragon.\"\n\nFelix had a lot more faith in Gotrek's nose than he had in Ulli's. \"What is it?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Gotrek said. \"But whatever it is, you can bet it won't be friendly.\"\n\n\"Now there's a surprise,\" muttered Felix.\n\n\"Who be ye?\" asked the madwoman as they entered the ruined town. She stood outside the remains of an inn. Like all the buildings in the town it was built from stone. Now it spoke only of the dragon's capacity for destruction. Its walls were scorched and caked with soot from the burning of its timbers. In places the stones had melted and run, a testimony to the heat of the dragon's breath.\n\nFelix looked at her. Her face was filthy and her clothing reeked. She was garbed in tattered rags. A blackened scarf held her matted hair out of her eyes. More rags were wrapped around her feet. A huge claw-like nail emerged from the cloth bandaged around her left foot. Just from looking into her eyes, Felix could tell that she and sanity had parted company a long time ago.\n\nThe dwarfs looked at her warily. Gotrek had warned them they were being watched minutes ago, and they had all readied weapons. It was difficult to see what threat she could be to such a heavily armed party unless she were some sort of witch. Felix glanced over at Max. As if reading his thoughts, the sorcerer looked at the woman and shook his head.\n\n\"We are travellers, passing through,\" Felix said. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"I had a name once. I had a man. I had babies. This was my home.\" A wild gesture indicated the burned out shell of the tavern. \"No more. Now I wait. Now you travel and you travel to meet death.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Death dwells on your road. He dwells in a cave in the mountains. Death came here and devoured my family, my friends and my children. Death will come again for me soon.\"\n\nFelix felt an uncomfortable sympathy for the old woman. She had seen her whole life destroyed by the dragon and had retreated into madness. Here was another of the creature's victims, like poor Varek. \"It was the dragon who killed your loved ones,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"Death is the dragon. The dragon is death,\" she said and let out a high pitched cackling laugh. \"And round here death has many servants and many worshippers. As you shall soon find out. As the others did.\"\n\n\"What others?\"\n\n\"Other dwarfs with big axes and bad haircuts. Mighty men mounted on chargers and armed with lances. Men of violence who came seeking death's hoard. All of them bones now, scattered along the road to death's cave.\"\n\nFelix knew she was referring to some of the Slayers who had preceded them. He wondered about the knights though, and this troop of mercenaries who had apparently come seeking the dragon's treasure. It seemed Skjalandir had visited destruction on them all.\n\n\"Tell me about these mercenaries,\" Felix said. \"Who were they?\"\n\n\"They came seeking death's gold. They had swords and shields and axes. They had great engines of destruction and wizards to cast spells. They climbed death's mountain. Death took them. Death gulped down their flesh and spat out their bones. He let a few of them flee and then hunted them down, flying after them on his leathery pinions. Listening to their screams as the shadow of his mighty wings fell across them. In the end, death took them all, but not before he had made them suffer.\"\n\n\"The dragon played with them,\" Max Schreiber said ominously.\n\n\"Death is not kind,\" said the woman. \"Death will come for us all. Some he lets live so that they might worship him. Some he punishes for their disobedience of his will. Death is a terrible, angry god. Best you turn back, strangers, while you yet may.\"\n\n\"Are you saying some of the surviving townspeople worship the dragon? Do you?\"\n\n\"Some there are who still dwell here, who kill newcomers and offer them up as sacrifices to death. I say they are fools. What need has death of their offerings? Death takes what he wishes, and one day he will take their lives as well.\"\n\nWonderful, thought Felix. Not only do we have the dragon, the greenskins and the bandits to worry about, we have some crazed survivors who worship the beast as a god.\n\n\"Thank you for your words. Do you need anything?\" Felix asked. \"Food? Water? Money?\"\n\nThe madwoman shook her head, then turned and limped away into the ruins. Felix felt he ought to do something. Perhaps call her back or offer her their protection, then he realised how ludicrous the idea was. They might well not be able to protect themselves, and the safest place for her to be was well away from them.\n\n\"Let her go,\" said Max Schreiber.\n\nFelix watched her walk away. Part of him thought he might be safer if he did the same.\n\nThe road wound along the shores of the lake. The waters were calm and still, and reflected the surrounding mountains like a mirror. Occasionally, the wind stirred up some waves and sent them to break on the beach. It was the only sound Felix could hear other than the moaning of the wind, and the creak of the wheels of Malakai's wagon. All around the landscape was bleak and desolate. There were many signs of human habitation \u2014 bothies, cottages, shepherds' huts \u2014 but all of them looked abandoned or destroyed. Felix tried to imagine what the valley must have been like when it was inhabited. Sheep must have grazed along these hills. Woodcutters must have worked amid the copses of firs. Lovers must have walked hand in hand along the water's edge. Doubtless fishing boats had dragged their nets through the lake. Felix had seen the stone pylons that had once supported the burned out pier back in the town. He had seen the blackened hulks of ships overturned in the water, scorched by dragonfire, holed by dragon claws.\n\nIt was cold now. He tugged his red Sudenland wool cloak tight around him to fight off the chill. Bjorni broke out into a raucous and bawdy ballad about a troll and a tavern keeper's daughter. His voice boomed out, disturbing the eerie silence. Felix knew that Bjorni was singing to lighten their gloomy mood, but even so, wished that he would not. It seemed somehow unwise to challenge the brooding silence, to draw attention to themselves in any way.\n\nTo do so invited destruction to descend on them as it had done on the inhabitants of the valley.\n\nPerhaps, thought Felix, that's what Bjorni wanted. He was a Slayer after all, and heroic death was his avowed goal. As if in answer to Bjorni's song there was a distant roar, low-pitched, bestial and threatening. It echoed through the mountains like thunder. It was unnaturally loud and terrifying, and on hearing it Bjorni fell silent. Felix stared at the horizon, convinced that in moments the dragon would be on them. His hand went to the hilt of his sword, and immediately a tingling warmth passed through him. He looked all around, but there was no sign of the dragon save the echo of its voice.\n\nHe looked at Ulrika and then Gotrek and saw an unease written on both their faces that mirrored his own. He exchanged glances with the rest of the party and noticed that they were all pallid and withdrawn. For long moments, the silence dragged on. They held their breaths waiting to see what would happen. After a minute or so, Bjorni began to sing again, very quietly at first but his voice gathering strength with every word. He was not singing a bawdy tale this time, but something else, some old dwarf hymn or war-song that resonated through the valley. Soon Malakai joined in, and then Ulli and then Steg. One by one all the dwarfs save Gotrek and Grimme added their voices, then Max Schreiber did as well. Soon Felix found himself humming along.\n\nThere was something reassuring about the singing, as if by doing it, they challenged the dragon and reaffirmed their own courage. As he fell into step with the others, Felix felt his courage return, and he marched along with a lighter heart than he had felt in many a day.\n\nAhead of him, he could see the place where the path left the road, and wound its way up the side of Dragon Mountain.\n\nThe clouds were lower. They billowed through the gaps in the surrounding peaks, extending mist-like tentacles to embrace the Dragon Mountain. Visibility decreased. The air became even more chilly. The sense of oppression deepened.\n\nOut of the mist loomed a small manor house. It looked as if it had once belonged to a wealthy family, perhaps some mountain nobleman. As such, Felix realised, it must have been one of the first places to be destroyed when the dragon awoke from its long sleep. Half the walls were tumbled down. Felix found it all too easy to imagine them being crushed by the weight of the dragon's mighty body ploughing through them.\n\nIn his mind's eye, he immediately conjured up a picture of what it must have been like to be inside the building with the mighty beast rampaging outside. He could almost smell the thatched roof on fire, feel the heat crackling in his face, the smoke making his eyes water. In his daydream he heard the ear-shattering bellows, the crunch of claws on stone, the shrieks of the dying, the unanswered prayers for mercy. Then finally, he envisioned the unnatural sight of the wall bulging inward, the stones cracking, toppling, giving way, and, in the last moment before fiery death, a glimpse of the dragon's hideous visage, the glare of its huge eyes.\n\nSo vivid was the image and so frightening, that he began to wonder if the dragon's mere presence had cast some sort of wicked spell on the place, cursing any who passed to experience the last moments of its doomed victims. He tried telling himself that it was just the mist, the memory of the dragon's roars, and his own impressionable mind that had conjured up the image. Or, perhaps, the image had been created by the sword, responding to the dragon's presence. Certainly he could feel a trickle of energy passing from the blade into his own body. Somehow that did not reassure him.\n\nHis legs ached from the long uphill march. He felt cold and lonely and more than a little depressed. He felt in his heart a certainty of impending death that was only slightly relieved by the magical warmth emanating from his sword. The encounter with the madwoman that morning remained with him, and the memory of her words disturbed him. He did indeed feel the closeness of death at this moment, and he realised that he had retreated into himself to avoid confronting it. The others appeared to have done the same. The singing had ceased the moment they had set foot on the path to the dragon's lair. All of the party of adventurers seemed to want to be alone with their thoughts and their prayers.\n\nFelix considered his life. It seemed likely to be much shorter than he would have wanted it to be. He did not consider it particularly wasted though. In his travels with Gotrek he had seen many things, met many people, and even, perhaps, done some good by combating the forces of darkness. He had done some extraordinary things, like flown in an airship, and seen the Chaos Wastes. He had fought with daemons and monsters, and talked with mages and nobles. He had witnessed rituals of magic and depravity, and feats of heroism. He had known a few good women. He had fought duels.\n\nStill there were things he had not done, and things he wanted to do. He had not completed the tale of Gotrek's deeds, or even fairly begun it. He had not reconciled himself with his father and family.\n\nHe had not even settled things between himself and Ulrika. Of all of them, that at least was possible at this moment, he thought.\n\nWith the shadow of imminent death now hanging well and truly over them, it seemed pointless to be jealous, or to worry about what she had been laughing about with Max, or even whether they would ever truly be lovers again. He felt at that moment that he wanted simply to show her some affection, make some human gesture of trust and understanding, connect for what might be the last time. Even if she rejected him or refused to speak to him, he wanted to at least make the effort.\n\nHe lengthened his stride and walked up the trail to overtake her. He fell into step beside her, reached out to touch her shoulder gently and get her attention.\n\n\"What?\" she said. Her tone was not friendly, but it was not unfriendly either. Suddenly, he was filled with odd emotion, a mixture of anger and need and pity and something else. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, and exactly the words needed to say it, and yet it was difficult just to speak them.\n\n\"This might be the last chance we ever have to speak to each other,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"Yes. So?\"\n\n\"Why are you making this so difficult?\"\n\n\"You are the one who wanted to talk to me.\"\n\nHe took a breath to calm himself, and tried to remember his good intentions of just a few minutes before. Eventually he forced his lips to move.\n\n\"I just wanted to say that I loved you.\"\n\nShe looked at him, but said nothing back. He waited for a response for a moment, slowly feeling the weight of hurt and rejection build up within him. Still she said nothing.\n\nThen, suddenly, the dragon's enormous roar filled the air again. The earth beneath their feet seemed to vibrate with it.\n\n\"I think we're getting close,\" said Ulli.\n\nThe pathway led up over the brow of the hill, and then sloped down to the right. Felix could see that they had entered a long, barren valley. The air smelled foul, and an acrid chemical stench mingled with the mist. It smelled more like the outside of a tannery than a mountain valley. Even the grass of the slopes in this place had a scorched yellowish look to it. It was as if the malign presence of the dragon had leaked into the earth itself, corrupting it.\n\nFelix realised that he had seen something like this before, in the Chaos Wastes. It was almost like the effects of warpstone.\n\nMalakai halted his wagon and began to search about within it. One after another he produced a selection of devices which he strapped to his chest. Felix recognised some of them. One was a portable gatling gun of the sort Varek had carried into Karag Dum. Others were large bombs he clipped to his harness. The last was a long hollow tube into which he loaded a large projectile before slinging it over his shoulder.\n\n\"Ah'm ready to pay the beastie a wee visit noo,\" he said, moving down the slope. Gotrek nodded his agreement and ran his thumb along the blade of his axe, producing a bead of blood.\n\n\"Come out, dragon!\" he bellowed. \"My axe thirsts.\"\n\n\"I wish you wouldn't do that,\" Felix muttered quietly.\n\nGotrek walked down the path, shoulder to shoulder with Malakai.\n\n\"Snorri thinks this will be a good fight,\" said Snorri Nosebiter, and hefting his weapons set off after them.\n\n\"I wonder if there are any sheep around here. I could use a little relaxation,\" Bjorni said, then shrugged and strode downslope. Grimme went with him. This left only the humans, Steg and Ulli standing at the hilltop.\n\n\"I suppose somebody ought to guard the cart,\" Ulli said. He looked a little shame-faced. Not that Felix blamed him. He was not too keen to go and face the dragon himself.\n\n\"I was thinking the same thing,\" Steg said. \"There must be lots of valuable stuff here.\"\n\nUlli and Steg looked at each other. They both looked more and more embarrassed.\n\n\"I thought Slayers were supposed to seek a heroic death,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Me too,\" agreed Ulrika.\n\nUlli gazed at his feet. Steg stared at the sky. Both of them looked very afraid.\n\nFelix shook his head, then he strode into the valley of the dragon. Ulrika and her bodyguards followed, bows held at the ready. Max gave Ulli and Steg a look that was somewhere between sympathy and contempt, and then strode into the valley.\n\nTo his horror, Felix realised that something was crunching underfoot. Looking down he could see that he was walking on sticks of something brittle and black. It took him a moment to realise that they were fire-scorched bones.\n\n\"Well, I guess we know what happened to the other folks who came here,\" he whispered. He wanted to be able to talk loudly and bravely but there was something in the air that compelled him to quietness.\n\n\"Yes,\" Ulrika said, then added, \"I don't think we always knew.\"\n\nShe sounded as if she thought his comment was idiotic. Which in a way, he supposed, it was. He took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. His fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword, and new strength and determination flowed into him. Felix felt as if he ought to resent the usurpation of his body and his will to the sword's purpose, but actually he was grateful for it. He wondered if he would even have been able to contemplate approaching the great beast if he were not carrying the weapon. He was astounded by the bravery of Ulrika and her henchmen, who did not even have to be here, and who did not have the power of a magical sword to encourage them.\n\nHe thought his courage had been tested before in his encounter with the Bloodthirster beneath Karag Dum, but in some ways this was worse. In the ancient dwarf city there had been no possibility of escape. He had been trapped along with the dwarfs. There had been nothing else to do but stand and fight. He did not have to be here.\n\nThere was nothing stopping him from running away, or going back to join Ulli and Steg. There was no army of Chaos warriors blocking the way back, as there had been in Karag Dum. He was not entombed deep beneath the earth. He knew that in some ways he was not even bound by his oath to follow Gotrek anymore. Only the other night, he had offered to run away with Ulrika in spite of it. And yet, here he was advancing into the mist, marching towards a dragon's lair, apparently of his own free will.\n\nIt was not that simple though. He was still bound by a whole complex pattern of events, dependencies and emotions. He did still feel some loyalty to Gotrek. He did not want to look like a coward in front of Ulrika and the others. He did not want to destroy his own image of himself. He knew he despised Ulli and Steg for their cowardice, even though he understood their emotions all too well. He did not want to be like them. He did not want Ulrika and Max and the others thinking of him in the same way.\n\nAnd there was no easy retreat. The hills were still full of orcs and bandits and there was no way back for one man on his own, even accompanied by two cowardly dwarfs. He wondered if Ulli and Steg had realised this. And he suspected that, beneath all his feelings, the power of the sword he held was at work on him, nudging him in the direction it wanted him to go.\n\nFelix wondered if the others were in a similar quandary, if they too felt the same complex mix of emotions that he did. From their grim expressions, it was hard to tell. Every face was a mask of self-control. Every hand was steady.\n\nNot wanting to, and yet somehow compelled to do it, Felix continued to put one foot in front of the other, certain that every step took him closer to death.\n\nMax could sense the dragon up ahead, as surely as he could feel the winds of magic. It was an ominous powerful presence that made him want to quiver with fear. He had read about the aura of dragons, of how they inspired fear in even the boldest heart, and, having experienced it once, he had thought that he was prepared for it. He was wrong.\n\nHe felt that at any moment the great beast might spring out and end his life with a snap of its jaws. This must be how a bird feels, when it senses the nearness of a cat, he thought. To distract himself, he reached out his senses and grasped at the winds of magic, preparing himself to lash out with a spell at the smallest warning. He had already woven his subtlest and most potent protective spells upon himself and his comrades. He wondered if they had even noticed.\n\nHe was also aware that other powers were at work here. The ominous blade that Felix Jaeger bore was beginning to blaze with power. To Max's wizardly eyes it glowed like a beacon. Max could sense the sentience in it was beginning to activate its own spells. Had he not been absolutely certain that the blade was as determined as they to put an end to the dragon, Max would have woven counter spells.\n\nEven as he thought this Max wondered why he was so certain as to the sword's purpose. Was it possible that the blade was affecting his own mind, and making him believe this? He doubted it. He felt that he would have sensed any such encroachment on his mind. He inspected his own mental defences, searching for a breach, just in case, and found none. Then again, any spell of sufficient subtlety to affect his mind would almost certainly leave him thinking that any way.\n\nHe almost laughed. Here he was worrying about a relatively minor possibility when ahead of him he sensed a dragon, with a dragon's magic and a dragon's incredible power. What did it matter what the sword was up to? It was not the only magical weapon here. There was Gotrek's awesome axe, a thing that carried a power within it an order of magnitude greater than Felix's sword, a weapon capable of banishing greater daemons.\n\nThe more Max thought about these events the more he believed there was a pattern to them. Malakai Makaisson was here, also armed with the deadliest devices dwarf steel-craft was capable of building, and he was here too, his magic having reached new heights of potency on the journey. Surely such things could not be accidents. Perhaps the benevolent powers who stood guard over the world had brought them here for a reason.\n\nMax found himself smiling quietly. This was a dangerous line of thinking. Warriors and wizards who thought themselves specially protected by the gods usually found themselves in an early grave. Perhaps they died serving the god's purposes, perhaps not. The higher powers were rarely open with their human followers, and not necessarily kind to them, either.\n\nIf he was honest, he was here because Ulrika was here, and he wanted to protect her. It was a foolish and romantic notion for a wizard, but it was the truth. If that led to his death, then so be it\u2026\n\nHe took another breath. Along with the winds of magic, he sensed rottenness and corruption. This was not the simple stink of evil. It was like the smell of gangrenous flesh he had sometimes scented in a hospice during his apprenticeship in healing magic. A faint hope stirred within him.\n\nPerhaps the dragon had been more badly wounded in its attack on the airship than they had thought. For a moment, his heart lightened then realism reasserted itself. Even if the creature was badly hurt, it was not necessarily a good sign.\n\nDragons, like most beasts, were always at their most dangerous when wounded.\n\nUlrika held her bow ready. She was not sure exactly what a single arrow could do against a monster as mighty as the dragon, but she was determined to at least try. She had already given instructions to Standa and Oleg to do the same as she intended to do: aim for the eyes. No matter how well armoured the creature's body might be, its eyes must still be vulnerable. At least she hoped this was the case. She could not see how they could be armoured.\n\nShe clung to this thought for reassurance. This was a dreadful place. It stank of death and illness. The bones of the dragon's previous victims lay all around, wrapped in rusting chainmail and mouldering leather, sightless eye-sockets staring towards the heavens. It seemed like hundreds had tried to kill the beast before them, and none of them had succeeded.\n\nFor the hundredth time she wondered why she was here. She could have left the Slayers, and tried to make her way north along the High Road. She could even have left Karak Kadrin by the long westerly route. She had not and there were times when she regretted it. Taking a different route would have meant leaving Felix and she had not been prepared to do that. More fool she.\n\nShe felt as if she had deserted her duty to her father and her kinsfolk for a stranger. And for what? She had thought she loved him, but, if this was love, it was not like anything the bards sung of. It was fury and irritation, and an insane sensitivity to the least little thing. It was fear, of loss and of having. It was feeling that you had stopped being yourself and were becoming a stranger to the person you had been. It was this powerful brutish force that made you think about a man even though you would not talk to him and even as you walked into a dragon's lair.\n\nShe wished he had not agreed to go with her the other night, and she was glad he had, even if it would make him an oathbreaker. She wondered whether they could have slipped away and made it through the mountains into obscurity and a life together. And she knew it was an illusion. They were not the sort of people who could have done that. She could not, in the end, abandon family and duty.\n\nShe looked over and saw that Max was smiling, and wondered what the magician could find here to smile about. He was a strange man, but a good one. He could not help it if the gods had gifted him with strange powers. He seemed to at least want to do his best to use them for good, and he had been a true friend to her and the rest of them. She was certain that the only reason he was here was because of her, and she was touched by that, though she thought it was foolish of him to be taking a path that most likely would lead to his death because of love. On the other hand, he was being no more foolish than she.\n\nUp ahead, she saw the Slayers had stopped. They stood before a huge cave mouth. The stink of rot and putrefaction was stronger here, as if they were coming close to its source. They stood now at the mouth of Skjalandir's lair. Where was the dragon, she wondered?\n\nUlli watched Steg rummaging through the back of Malakai Makaisson's wagon. A look of shame and embarrassment crossed his face. He tugged his beard. He kicked a stone. He felt dreadful. He had always known he was a coward. He had fled from his first battle and been ostracised by his clan. He had sought to atone for it by becoming a Slayer. He had thought that Grimnir might smile on him, and grant him the courage to find death. The god had not done so. In fact it looked like his shame was going to be increased. Who had ever heard of a Slayer who was a coward?\n\n\"Found anything interesting in there?\" he asked, just to make conversation.\n\n\"Lots of gear. Lots of tools,\" Steg said. \"Probably weapons. I don't know how to put them together. Must be worth a fortune but I don't know how to use them.\"\n\nHe sounded angry and disappointed. Ulli wondered if he had really thought to make his fortune by stealing the engineer's devices. He had been wondering that since the start of the trip. Not that he would have minded right now. The engineer's weapons had certainly routed those goblins. With them, they might have stood a chance of getting back. Without them, they probably did not.\n\nHe glanced back down slope. To his surprise the mist had started to lift. Through it, he thought he saw humanoid shapes, greenskins, coming ever closer. His heart sank. He knew now there was most likely no escape.\n\nHe felt something hardening within him. This was hopeless. There was no way back. Whichever way he looked there was only death. Perhaps Grimnir had answered his prayers after all. He came to a decision and climbed up onto the back of the cart. He saw that in the cases Steg had rummaged through were a collection of the black spherical bombs that Malakai was so fond of. They would do. He picked up a blanket and, using it as a sack, quickly filled it with bombs. Steg meanwhile had noticed the orcs.\n\n\"Looks like we've got company,\" he said.\n\n\"Aye,\" said Ulli. \"I'd stay and kill them, but the dragon is bigger. It's a better ending for a Slayer.\"\n\nSteg shrugged. \"Aye, you're right. And it most likely has gold too.\"\n\n\"Let's be away then.\"\n\nTogether they raced down into the Dragon Vale. Ulli hoped that if they hurried they might catch up with the others. He was not sure exactly why, but he felt it might be better to die in company.\n\nThe mouth of the dragon's cave loomed before them. Felix guessed that the roof must be nearly five times his own height. He peered in, half-expecting to catch a glimpse of a huge reptilian head in the heartbeat before its fiery breath incinerated him. He saw nothing save that the cave extended deep into the earth. In the shadowy gloom, he could make out stalactites and stalagmites. For a moment, the cave itself seemed to be the maw of an enormous monster, but then common sense reasserted itself. \"I can't see any dragon,\" he said.\n\n\"It's in there. I can smell it,\" Gotrek said. \"It's down in the dark, cowering. We'll just have to go in and get it.\"\n\nGotrek's description of the dragon's behaviour struck Felix as being unrealistic. He doubted very much that the dragon felt any fear of them at all. It probably just hadn't noticed them.\n\n\"We'll need light,\" he said. \"It's too dark to see down there.\"\n\nMax gestured and a sphere of golden fire hovered in the air above him. He gestured again and the sphere split into five smaller spheres, one of which moved to hover over each of the humans. Felix gathered that Max already knew the dwarfs did not need nearly as much light to see by as men did.\n\n\"I guess we're not going to be sneaking up on the dragon anyway,\" Felix said. He looked at the others. \"Let's get this over with.\"\n\nAs they descended into the darkness, Felix was glad of the magical light. It hovered just behind his head and gave him enough illumination to see by. It was an absolute necessity in this place. The floor of the cavern was rough, and descended steeply into the gloom. Rocks protruded from the floor at intervals. He did not doubt that if he had tried to feel his way forward in the dark, he might easily have fallen and broken his neck.\n\nThe way followed many branching paths but it was always obvious, from the smell, and the trail of slimy blood that lay before them, in which direction they would find the dragon. Felix was glad of the marked trail too. This was not one cave, he realised, but a vast underground labyrinth in which it would be all too easy to get lost.\n\nAn enormous roar echoed through the caverns. The winding corridors amplified it to the point where it was almost deafening. Felix's ears rang. He had no idea where the dragon might be. Once, judging from the intensity of the sound, he would have thought it was close, but his experiences in the tunnels of dwarf cities had taught him that noises could be deceptive. In a way this was worse. The uncertainty filled him with dread.\n\nAround him the others were shadowy figures. The humans were outlined by the sorcerous spheres. The dwarfs were near invisible as they moved through the gloom. He could see their silhouettes, and hear their voices, but nothing more. The smell of corruption was getting worse. He put his hand over his mouth and nostrils to keep from gagging.\n\nBehind him, he could hear the noise of running feet. He turned to see Ulli and Steg moving down the corridor. He noticed that Ulli had a huge sack thrown over his shoulder.\n\n\"I'm glad you could join us after all,\" Felix said sardonically. \"You're not too late for the action.\"\n\n\"We didn't have much choice,\" Ulli said, looking more than somewhat embarrassed. \"A whole tribe of greenskins has shown up outside.\"\n\n\"The way back is cut off,\" added Steg.\n\n\"Wonderful,\" Felix said. \"Just what I needed to hear.\"\n\n\"Don't worry\" said Snorri. \"We'll get them on the way out.\"\n\nThe cave became a long high tunnel. Shadows danced away from the glowing globes. The trail led on deeper into the earth. Somewhere off in the distance they could hear running water. The walls were damp, and covered in slick greenish moss. Suddenly the bellowing stopped.\n\n\"Och, the beastie must hae smelled us,\" said Malakai. \"Ah dinnae doot it kens we're here.\"\n\n\"Snorri thinks that's just fine,\" said Snorri. \"Snorri wouldn't want to take unfair advantage.\"\n\n\"The creature must die,\" Gotrek said. \"The dwarf folk have a mighty grudge against it.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" Grimme said. \"That they have. So have I.\"\n\nEveryone looked at him in surprise. It was the first time he had ever spoken to them. His voice was quiet and sad and sour. He met their gazes evenly. Hatred and sorrow were etched upon his face. \"The beast killed my whole clan. I was in the lands of men trading or I would have died with them. I have come back bearing this grudge. I will either kill the beast, or die expunging the shame of failing to die with my clan.\"\n\n\"The beastie will die,\" Malakai said. \"It owes me for what it did tae ma lovely airship.\"\n\n\"The dragon must pay for the death of Varek,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"We'll make it,\" Bjorni said.\n\n\"Are you going to stand here all day boasting?\" Gotrek said. \"I have better things to do.\"\n\n\"Let's go,\" Malakai said.\n\nAhead they could hear the roar of water, and see something glittering. \"Gold,\" Steg said, lengthening his stride, apparently unconcerned now with his personal safety. \"Or the glitter of dragon scales,\" Max said. \"Be prepared to fight.\" As they moved closer, Felix could see a great cavern looming ahead of them. It was a monstrous chamber, as vast as the interior of the Temple of Sigmar in Altdorf. At one end was a waterfall, which tumbled into a large pool. The wetness of the spray moistened Felix's face, even at this distance. The air stank of rotting flesh.\n\nAround the chamber's edge ran several ledges large enough to hold a man. The tunnel on which they walked ran into a crude ramp, smoothed by the passage of the dragon's massive body over the years. Here and there lay the bones of men and beasts and monsters. There was indeed treasure glittering in the cavern, great mounds of it, silver and copper and gold and jewellery all mingled together. It held the eye for mere moments though before it was drawn to the creature that dominated the huge space.\n\nIn the centre of the chamber lay the dragon, the largest living thing Felix had ever seen, or hoped to see.\n\nIt was the size of a small hill, an enormous mass of muscle and sinew and scale. Its leathery wings were wrapped tight around its body. Its long tail was tipped with a great razor-edged paddle-blade of flesh. Double rows of serrated spines, each as large as a tall man, ran down its spine. Even as Felix watched the monstrous serpentine neck uncurled as the dragon lifted its head to see who disturbed its slumber. It glanced down at them with baleful, hate-filled eyes. Felix could see pain and madness in the gaze. Part of him wanted to flee, but from the blade in his hand came a flow of strength and calm and courage.\n\nEven the dwarfs were daunted by those evil eyes, Felix could tell. Behind him, he heard Ulli and Bjorni and Steg whimper. Even Snorri let out a groan of despair. Only Gotrek, Malakai and Grimme stood their ground with no show of fear. Felix could sense Max and the Kislevites would turn tail at the slightest provocation. He did not blame them. The dragon was as large as the Spirit of Grungni. Its mouth was a massive tooth-filled chasm which could easily swallow a man whole. Flame flickered from its nostrils along with clouds of acrid chemical smoke.\n\n\"Hold fast,\" Felix said, surprised at how calm he sounded. Once again, he felt the power of the sword at work. \"Ulrika, Oleg, Standa, get up on the ledges and start shooting for the eyes, the throat or any vulnerable spot you can think of. Max, can your magic protect us from the flames?\"\n\n\"Aye. I hope so. For a time, at least.\"\n\n\"Then do so!\" A note of command entered Felix's voice and he was amazed to see them jump to obey. Something else struck him. The dragon was moving slowly, dragging its left side. Hope surged through Felix. He thought he understood what had happened.\n\n\"It's wounded,\" he said. \"It still hasn't recovered from Varek crashing the gyrocopter into it.\"\n\nThe dragon reared unsteadily, spreading its wings for balance. Its huge shadow flowed over the wall behind it, but that was not what held Felix's attention. He could see now that he was right. There was a massive wound in the beast's side, which festered greenly. This was the source of the stink in the air. Varek had hurt the creature far more than he had ever believed possible.\n\n\"Try firing arrows at the wound in its side,\" Felix shouted. \"The scales have fallen away there.\"\n\nUlrika and the two Kislevite bowmen were already running along the ledges, spreading out and taking cover behind the stalagmites. Max raised his staff and a wave of power flowed out of him, setting the air shimmering.\n\n\"Charge!\" roared Gotrek. All of the Slayers except Malakai raced forward. Without quite understanding why Felix did the same. The dragon moved to meet them, the earth shaking beneath its ponderous tread. Its roars were deafening. Its head looped forward on its neck and it breathed a sheet of flame. Felix raised his sword to parry it as he had done on the airship but there was no need. The shimmering protective field cast by Max held the flames at bay.\n\nFrom the corner of his eye, Felix noticed that Steg was not running towards the dragon, but towards the largest pile of loot. He dived into it like a swimmer plunging into water and shrieked, \"Gold! Lovely gold! It's all mine.\"\n\nHe's mad, Felix thought. Even as the dragon loomed over them, Steg tossed handfuls of coins ecstatically into the air, shouting, \"Mine! All mine!\"\n\nFrom behind Felix came a weird spluttering hissing noise. Something flashed past overhead, trailing fire. It exploded in the dragon's wounded side, sending great chunks of flesh hurtling outwards, and exposing bone and inner organs. The dragon let out a fearsome roar that was somewhere between a bellow and a scream. As he closed with the creature, Felix could hear the air hissing out of the dragon's lungs through the hole in its chest.\n\nThe mighty creature reared upwards, its wings flexing as it did so. The movement drove the stench of rotting flesh towards its attackers in an almost overpowering wave. Felix fought to keep from gagging, and looked up in wonder. He did not think he had ever imagined a living thing quite so large. It loomed over him like a walking tower. There was something unnatural about it, as if a building had grown legs and started walking around. It was so tall that its head almost touched the ceiling of the cavern, and that was almost twenty times the height of a man.\n\nHow can we possibly overcome this, he thought, as awe threatened to paralyse him? It did not seem possible that human or dwarf valour could prevail against such a thing. It was just too big. They were like mice trying to overcome a grown man. Even as these thoughts surged through Felix's mind, Gotrek reached the dragon's foot.\n\nFelix's numbed mind noted that the talons of the creature's paw were almost the size of the Slayer. If this dismayed Gotrek, he gave no sign of it. His axe flashed through a thunderous arc and bit into the dragon's leg at about the spot the ankle would have been in a human. The mighty blade parted scales and flesh. Greenish blood spurted steaming from the wound. The dragon bellowed its rage and pain once more then bent forward, its head coming down with the speed of a striking serpent, its huge jaws opening and threatening to take Gotrek with one gulp.\n\nFelix wondered if the moment of the Slayer's doom had finally arrived.\n\nDesperately Ulrika tried to get a bead on the dragon's eye. It should not be difficult, she told herself. The orb was larger than the targets she had used for archery practice ever since childhood. Of course, those targets had not moved around at enormous speed, nor had they been attached to something quite as overwhelmingly fearsome as a dragon. Part of her did not want to fire for fear of attracting the creature's attention. And, in archery practice, there was not the distraction of having Felix and the Slayers fighting with the target either.\n\nStay calm, she told herself. Breathe easily. It does not matter how large the beast is. It does not matter what it is doing. It is just another target. You can hit it easily enough. You have hit birds in flight. This should not be so difficult as that.\n\nTime seemed to slow. Her mind emptied and calmed. She drew back the arrow. With what seemed to her incredible slowness, the dragon's head started to descend. She compensated for the movement, aimed at where the eye should be when the arrow reached it, and then released.\n\nThe arrow flew straight and true. She prayed to Taal that it would find its mark.\n\nAn arrow flashed out of nowhere and hit the dragon in the eye, just before the head reached Gotrek. The Slayer threw himself to one side, and the dragon's jaws snapped shut on empty air. The dragon's own motion, and Gotrek's hamstringing blow, combined to overbalance the creature. It tumbled forward, headlong. Felix cursed, realising that it was going to land on him. Screams from Ulli and Steg told him that they had realised that they, too, were in the path of its descent.\n\nThe dragon's wings flapped instinctively, slowing its fall. Felix felt the wind flutter his cloak and threw himself to one side. Ulli did the same. For some reason, Steg refused to move. \"You can't have my gold,\" he shouted, swinging his pick up to strike at the dragon, even as the huge body landed on him. Felix heard the squelch as he only just rolled clear.\n\nFelix saw that Malakai was stuffing something into the metal tube he carried once more. As the dragon started to rise, he finished the operation and swung the cylinder into position on his shoulder. The dragon stretched its neck towards him, and as it did so, Malakai pulled some sort of trigger on the front of the tube. Sparks flew from the back of the tube and another projectile flashed forth and sped straight towards the dragon's mouth. It reminded Felix of the fireworks he had seen unleashed at Altdorf to celebrate the Emperor's birthday. No firework had ever exploded with quite such violence though. The force of the explosion loosened several of the dragon's man-sized fangs, and tore a hole in the top of the creature's mouth. How could anything survive such punishment, Felix wondered.\n\nIt had its terrible festering wound. It had a huge hole ripped in its chest. It had an arrow sticking from its eye. It had blood seeping from its ankle where Gotrek had hamstrung it. And yet it still refused to die. It lashed around in a frenzy. Its tail cracked the air like a whip. Its wings drummed like thunder. It lashed out with a claw that would have flattened Malakai like a swatted fly, had not the engineer thrown himself flat below it. As the dragon rose for another blow, Felix saw the flattened form of Steg was still attached to its chest. His pick was driven between the creature's scales, and even in death his hand still clutched the weapon's shaft. The force of the impact had embedded bits of gold in his skin and armour. In death, he glittered.\n\nGotrek's warcry rang out and Felix saw that the Slayer was at the dragon's rear, chopping at its tail with the axe. Each blow carved great chunks out of the dragon's flesh. Snorri had joined the fray and battered away with axe and hammer. Felix could not see whether his blows were having any effect.\n\nA flash of gold light told Felix that Max had cast a spell. A bolt of uncanny power flashed at the dragon's other eye. The eyeball sizzled and popped and now the dragon was blinded. Grimme raced forward as its head swooped low, and ran almost into the creature's mouth. His hammer smashed through a great arc, and pulped scale and flesh beneath it.\n\nThe dragon breathed, and even from where he stood Felix could feel the heat. Grimme was too close to its source for any protective spell to intervene: His armour and hair caught alight. His crest became a sizzling flame. His flesh blackened and then ran like liquid, so fierce was the heat. He did not even have time to scream, then he was gone. The dragon sprawled forward on all fours once more, emitting the fiery jet at its tormentors.\n\nOutrage flared within Felix's brain at the sight of this horrible death. The flames continued to flicker outwards, scouring the ledges on which the Kislevites stood. Max's magical barrier flickered but held, but Felix could see that it was starting to collapse. He had no idea how much longer the wizard could hold it for. Once the shimmering spell shield went down, Ulrika and Max and the archers would suffer the same fate as Grimme. Just the thought of that happening triggered something within Felix's brain. Power flowed out of the sword. Without even realising what he was doing, he found himself running forward towards the mighty beast. His path took him up a pile of treasure and a flying leap took him right on top of the dragon's skull.\n\nIf the blinded dragon felt his presence it gave no sign. He stood upright atop its head. The runes on the blade blazed bright with deadly magic. He summoned all his strength and drove the blade downwards, even as he felt the dragon rear up beneath him.\n\nThe deadly spells woven into it by its ancient creators enabled the blade to pass through scale and flesh. There was resistance as the enchanted steel met the bones of the skull. Felix leaned forward with all his weight. The blade twisted in his hands, aiding him. In a moment, the weapon was through and its deadly runes were lodged in the dragon's brain.\n\nThe dragon gave one last deadly bellow, and its whole body spasmed reflexively. Felix felt a sickening sense of acceleration as its neck uncoiled and the ground receded below him. He was almost thrown clear. Knowing the drop would kill him, Felix held onto the embedded blade with all his strength. Then the dragon began to topple backwards.\n\nThis was not such a good idea, thought Felix, as the ground rose to meet him once more."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE BATTLE",
+                "text": "Felix fell. He knew that he had moments to live. There was nothing in his mind save fear and a sick sense of vertigo as he dropped. No noble thoughts. No last memories of life. Just the thought that he had made an error. One strange image burned itself into his brain. The sorcerous sphere still followed him, keeping pace effortlessly. It occurred to him that perhaps he could reach out and grab it. The magic that allowed it to fly might slow his fall.\n\nDesperately he grabbed for it, but it remained out of his reach. His sword fell from his hands. He twisted desperately, straining with every fibre of his being to grab the light but it eluded him. He cursed and then there was the impact.\n\nDeath was not quite what he expected. There was pain. There was darkness. There was a sense of air being expelled from his lungs. There was a sense of being pushed downwards by an enormous force. He was not sure though that he should feel quite so wet. Blood, he thought irrationally. His body had split open on impact. That was the wetness he felt.\n\nThen the wet stuff filled his mouth and started to trickle down his throat. He could not breathe.\n\nI am not dead yet then, he thought. Maybe my lungs are filling with blood like those poor devils I saw dying of poison gas in Nuln.\n\nPanic filled him. This was worse than a nightmare. It was horrible knowing that these were his last few seconds of life and that there was nothing he could do about it.\n\nThen he noticed there were bubbles all around him. The light was still above him. Was he hallucinating, he wondered? Instinctively he grasped that something important was going on here. He had missed something. Then it came to him. He was not dead. He was in water. He must have been catapulted into the pool at the far end of the cave by the force of the dragon's last spasm. There was still a chance that he might live. He breathed out, expelling the water from his mouth, trying desperately not to breathe any more in.\n\nBut it was only a chance, he realised. The force pushing him down was not a product of his imagination. It was the pressure from the tons of water falling into the pool, driving him downwards with enormous force. He tried kicking upwards but it was useless. There was nothing he could do against such power.\n\nFor a moment he felt despair. He had merely exchanged one death for another. He was not going to be killed by the monster or by the fall, he was going to drown. His lungs were almost empty. In its need for air, his desperate body sought to betray him. It took a huge effort not to breathe in the water.\n\nFierce resolution filled him. He had not come so far and survived an encounter with a dragon in order to be killed by a waterfall. There had to be something he could do. He relaxed and let the pressure drive him downwards. His face hit rock. His mouth almost opened reflexively to scream but he held it shut by force of will. His lungs felt like they were bursting.\n\nBe calm, he told himself. Think. He noticed that he was starting to drift to one side. The current had hit the rocky floor of the pool and was being deflected. He allowed it to carry him, and the pressure from above eased.\n\nDarkness hovered at the edge of his vision. He was on the verge of blacking out. Just keep going, he told himself. Don't give up. The worst is past.\n\nHe struck out for the surface and noticed that the glowing sphere still followed him. That was good; it gave him some light to see by.\n\nHis chainmail shirt felt like it was made of lead. The weight of it tugged at him, pulling him down. He considered stopping and trying to pull it off, but knew that he would just be wasting precious time and air. He had to keep going.\n\nStroke by stroke, with all the effort of a man pulling himself up a mountainside, Felix swam for the surface. His limbs felt like lead. He could barely see. His lungs were about to explode. Still he swam onwards and upwards. Until at last, just as he was certain he could endure no more, his head broke the surface, and he breathed in a lungful of pure fresh air. He was certain he had never tasted anything so sweet.\n\nFelix pulled himself over the edge of the pool. Water puddled at his feet. His clothes were sodden. He saw that the dwarfs and Ulrika were running towards him. Despite the age he felt he had been underwater, he realised that only moments had passed since he killed the dragon. Its huge corpse lay flopping and twitching on the ground nearby, its movements scattering gold coins everywhere.\n\nUlrika raced up. Tears streamed down her face. \"I thought you were dead,\" she said as she embraced him.\n\n\"I feel like I ought to be,\" he murmured, pulling her close and feeling the warm weight of her body against his.\n\nThe dwarfs gathered round to congratulate him.\n\n\"Aye, well, we're rich,\" said Malakai, looking at the dragon's hoard.\n\n\"Except that we can't carry more than a small part of this treasure,\" Max said.\n\n\"And there's a small army of greenskins outside,\" Ulli said. \"What are we going to do about them?\"\n\n\"Kill them,\" Gotrek said. \"Or die trying. We've failed to achieve our dooms here. The gods have provided us with another.\"\n\n\"I've had enough of seeking death for one day\" Felix said.\n\n\"You're a dragon slayer now,\" Bjorni said. \"Surely you're not scared of a few greenskins.\"\n\n\"I would like to live to enjoy my triumph,\" Felix said sourly.\n\nHe looked around. Oleg and Standa were still with them, and more or less unmarked. Gotrek and Snorri appeared unharmed. Ulli looked almost exultant having survived his encounter with Skjalandir. Bjorni contemplated the dragon's hoard in wonder.\n\nTheir casualties had been surprisingly few. They had been very lucky.\n\nVarek had done them more of a favour than they had ever guessed when he gave his life to drive the dragon off. The wound he had inflicted on it had weakened the monster enough for them to kill it. If anyone deserved the title \"dragon slayer\" it was Varek.\n\nHe walked over and picked up his sword. It no longer felt particularly magical. All power seemed gone from it. It was just a fine blade once more. No hint of its fell purpose remained.\n\nStill, it was a good weapon, and he was used to it. He stuck it back in its scabbard.\n\nFelix wondered if he should suggest burying the dead, but Steg was lost beneath the body of the fallen dragon and Grimme was charred to a crisp. It hardly seemed worth the effort. Particularly since the orcs might soon be arriving. He mentioned this to the others.\n\n\"Perhaps we can find another way out,\" suggested Max. \"These tunnels must lead somewhere.\"\n\n\"They might be an endless maze,\" Ulrika said. \"We could get lost and wander till we die.\"\n\n\"No dwarf ever got lost underground,\" Bjorni said. The other Slayers nodded their agreement.\n\n\"Be that as it may,\" Felix said, \"there might not be another way out.\"\n\n\"The manling has the right of it,\" Gotrek said. \"And what's more, no Slayer ever ran from a mass of goblins.\"\n\nThinking of the less than totally courageous behaviour exhibited by some of their company, Felix wondered if that were true. Now did not seem like a good time to air his doubts however. Instead he said, \"What are we going to do?\"\n\n\"Snorri thinks we should go up to the surface and kill them,\" said Snorri Nosebiter.\n\nAre these maniacs really going to talk us all into going up to the surface and getting killed, wondered Felix? It seemed all too likely.\n\n\"What if they kill us all?\" Max asked. \"Are you really going to leave all this treasure here for them to take?\"\n\nThank you, Max, thought Felix. You just mentioned the only thing that might influence a gang of dwarf Slayers in a situation like this.\n\n\"They will not pass us,\" said Snorri. \"We shall stand on a wall of corpses and throw them back!\"\n\n\"Let's just assume you don't,\" Max said. \"All of this treasure will go to enrich the orcs. They could use it to buy weapons, and attack dwarf lands.\"\n\n\"No dwarf would ever sell them weapons.\"\n\n\"Alas, some humans might,\" said Max. The dwarfs nodded their heads sagely at the thought of such human treachery.\n\n\"You hae a point,\" said Malakai. \"If ah had some blastin' pooder ah could rig this ceilin' tae collapse. But ah dinnae!\"\n\n\"I brought a sack of your bombs from the cart,\" Ulli said.\n\n\"Guid lad!\" said Malakai beaming broadly. The smile faded just as quickly as the thought of someone fumbling around amongst his treasures occurred to him. Felix could read it on his face.\n\n\"It's a bit early to be thinking of such things,\" Bjorni said. \"Surely we should head up to the cave mouth and take a look.\"\n\n\"Best be careful, then,\" Max said. \"While they think the dragon is still alive I doubt that they will come in. If they see you up there, they might think we killed it, and come looking for us.\"\n\n\"But we did kill the dragon,\" said Snorri, obviously confused.\n\n\"We will all head up,\" Gotrek said. \"Except Malakai and Ulli. You can stay here and rig the tunnel to blow.\"\n\n\"Right ye are,\" Malakai said cheerfully.\n\nWhy do I think this is going to end in disaster, thought Felix, as he squelched back up the tunnel, shivering in his sodden clothes?\n\nFelix crawled forward to the lip of the cave mouth. Ulrika crawled alongside him. The two of them had been selected since they had the best eyesight. Max had doused his light spell so that it would not attract attention to them.\n\nThe stone was wet and cold under his hands. Felix wished he had something dry to wear. The mist had cleared away; a bright sun beamed cheerfully down. Carefully he poked his head forward and gazed down into the valley. One look told him the worst had happened.\n\nInstead of one army, there were two. On one side of the valley was a horde of orcs and goblins. They were drawn up in crude battle formation. Massive orcs stood in the centre armed with crude scimitars and round, spike-bossed shields. Masses of goblin archers scuttled about between the ranks. Off to one side were some orc riders mounted on huge battle boars. Their grunts and squeals were audible up the valley. A strange device had been set up on the brow of the hill. It resembled the catapults that Felix had used as a boy, only it was large enough to throw a boulder rather than a small stone. Beside it were several oddly attired goblins, wearing pointed spiked helmets, flapping odd bat-winged attachments fixed to their arms. Spider riders scuttled along the brow of the hill. On the back of one was mounted what must be some sort of shaman. He brandished a skull-tipped staff in the air and chanted encouragement to his troops. The greenskin force must be almost a thousand strong, Felix realised. He was glad the Slayers had not simply rushed out to meet it. There were too many greenskins down there for them to overcome.\n\nFacing the orcs across the valley were hundreds of armed men. There were ranks of halberdiers, and rows upon rows of crossbowmen. One or two of the leaders were mounted on horseback. There were some wild highlanders with massive two-handed swords. None of the men were well armoured but they were much better disciplined than the orcs. Even if they were outnumbered they still had a chance. Particularly if they held the high ground, Felix thought, and let the greenskins come at them.\n\nThis must be the bandit army of Henrik Richter, Felix realised. What had brought him here? What strange chance had caused these two forces to meet outside the dragon's cave?\n\nHe heard Ulrika gasp. \"Look there! To the right of the human army,\" she whispered.\n\nFelix instantly saw what she meant. He recognised the figure of Johan Gatz, the minstrel. Felix felt his suspicions had been justified. The man had been a spy for the bandits. They must have followed us. Both armies must have. The orcs probably wanted revenge for the slaughter we wreaked. The men probably came to see if they could hijack the treasure, if we slew the dragon.\n\nBut why were they drawn up in battle array now, and what were they waiting for?\n\nJohan Gatz cursed. This was not going according to plan. Henrik had assembled the army and brought it here along the high mountain passes as he had asked. The scouts that always watched for sign of the dragon stirring had seen nothing of it since it had flown back from the north well over a week ago. One of them who had witnessed its arrival had even claimed it looked wounded. That fitted with the story the dwarfs had told him. The same men had seen the dwarfs enter the caves this morning, and they had yet to come out. He wondered if they had actually succeeded in killing the beast. It seemed unlikely \u2014 the valley was littered with the bones of those who had tried, but there had been something about that bunch which had compelled him to think they might do it.\n\nEither they were the most convincing braggarts Johan had ever heard, or they were something special. Johan knew himself to be a sound judge of character, and they had convinced him. More than that, the names of Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger were not unfamiliar to him. On his travels he had heard tales of a pair answering to their description, and if even a tenth part of those tales were true, they were not people to take lightly. Some of the lads had seen the airship pass over the valleys too, so that had confirmed their story of the Spirit of Grungni. All in all, he had judged it worth taking the chance of bringing the whole gang here to rob them of the treasure if they should manage to kill Skjalandir. Henrik had thought it worth the risk too.\n\nWhat they had not counted on was the orcs coming up with the same plan, and being there as well. The idea had been to lie low and wait and see whether the dwarfs came out of the caves. That had gone out the window when the greenskins were spotted. The troops had mustered in plain sight. There was too much bad blood between men and orcs for either side to do differently. It was sheerest stupidity and bad luck, Johan thought.\n\nIf they had known the orcs were going to do this, they could have let the greenskins attack the Slayers and then ambushed them afterwards. But all they had gotten were reports of orcs shadowing the Slayers en route, and they did that to every caravan they spotted going through the mountains. Who would have guessed they would assemble their whole force? Now they all stood in the open like idiots, neither side willing to back down in front of the other. Johan shuddered to think of what might happen if the dwarfs did not kill the dragon, and it emerged from the cave. Maybe there were enough warriors assembled here to kill the beast. Even if there were, the casualties would be appalling. Johan considered legging it, but there was no way he could slip away without being noticed.\n\nWhat could have gotten the greenskins so stirred up, he wondered?\n\nUgrek Manflayer glared across at the hated human foes. For the hundredth time he considered ordering his warriors to charge. It would be good to feel human blood flow and human flesh part under his blade. It would be good to break bones and crack skulls. It would be good to kill, he thought. The need to give in to his violent nature was almost overwhelming. Almost.\n\nUgrek had not risen to be boss of all the orc tribes of the Big Mountains by giving way to his impulses. By orc standards he possessed a great deal of patience and so much cunning that some suspected him of having goblin blood. If anyone still harboured those suspicions they no longer grunted them; he had killed and eaten all those who had muttered such things. He pushed the distracting memories to the back of his mind. He needed to think. There was always the possibility that the shaman's dreams were wrong, and the dwarfs might not succeed in killing the beast. He knew that if the dragon emerged from its lair, it would not do for his lads and the pinkskins to be rucking. That would make them all easy meat for the monster, and Ugrek had no intention of providing anybody with a meal any time soon.\n\nAnd if the shaman was right, then the dwarf with the big axe would soon come out. Ever since he had heard Grund's tales of the slaughter the dwarf had wreaked with that blade, Ugrek had known it must be his. With such a weapon, and the dragon's treasure, he could forge a horde that would sweep through the human lands like an avalanche. orcs would muster from across the land to follow him, and kill and loot in his name.\n\nIt annoyed him that these humans had got in the way of his destiny. It annoyed him so much that he almost gave the order to attack anyway. Just bad luck that they were here, he thought. Their bad luck. More meat for his troops, he thought. That made him wonder what dragonflesh tasted like. He guessed he would find out soon enough if the shaman's dreams were true.\n\nThey always had been in the past. Why not this time?\n\n\"What are we going to do?\" asked Felix. His explanation of the situation outside had not been well received. The Slayers were silent. Max looked thoughtful. The Kislevites looked worried.\n\n\"If we wait there will be a battle,\" Max said. \"I don't see how it can be avoided.\"\n\n\"Maybe they'll send scouts to investigate the caves,\" suggested Ulrika. \"It's only a matter of time before one side or the other plucks up the courage to investigate.\"\n\n\"In either case, our goose is cooked,\" Felix said. \"There doesn't seem to be any way out, unless we wait for the battle and try to sneak away then.\"\n\n\"I will not sneak away, manling,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"If there's a battle, Snorri wants to be part of it,\" added Snorri Nosebiter.\n\n\"I suspect you'll get your wish,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Everybody has to die sometime,\" said Ulli. He seemed to have acquired the proper Slayer attitude of brute stubborn stupidity since the fight with the dragon. Either that or he was in shock.\n\n\"I was hoping to die a long time from now in my bed,\" Felix said.\n\n\"I wanted to die in bed once too. Identical twins it was,\" said Bjorni. \"I thought nothing could improve on that.\"\n\nThe other dwarfs looked at him in disgust. \"You're all just jealous,\" he said eventually.\n\n\"Enough of this,\" Gotrek said. \"It's time for an ending.\"\n\nHe strode up to the mouth of the cave and raised his axe above his head, holding the shaft in both hands.\n\n\"We've killed the dragon!\" he shouted. \"If you want its treasure, you're going to have to get it over my dead body.\"\n\nFor a moment, all was silence then there was a roar of voices. A moment after that Gotrek leapt back as a hail of arrows rained down where he stood. Felix noticed that some were black-fletched, some white. He wondered which had been fired by humans, which by orcs.\n\n\"I suppose being pin-cushioned with arrows is no death for a Slayer,\" Felix said. Gotrek glared at him.\n\n\"You'll see what is a suitable death for a Slayer soon enough, manling.\"\n\n\"I fear you are correct,\" Felix said and readied his blade.\n\n\"That's torn it,\" muttered Johan Gatz, perching himself on one of the boulders strewn across the hillside. The dwarfs' appearance had thrown the orcs into turmoil. The leading ranks obviously didn't understand a word of what Gotrek had said, but had correctly assumed their hereditary enemy was taunting them. They wouldn't have been orcs if they had stood for this. The nearest greenskin archers opened fire on the Slayer. The closest unit of orcs began to lumber up the hill.\n\nWhat surprised Johan the most was that some of the humans had fired as well. That was a waste of arrows. He supposed the lads must be on edge from waiting. A shout from the front ranks of the humans told him exactly how on edge they were. A group of halberdiers had rushed forward to take the orcs moving towards the cave in the flank.\n\nIt was the pebble that started an avalanche. The boar riders charged straight at the nearest unit of men. Hooves churned the thin mountain soil. Enormous droppings spurted from their rear as the creatures grew excited. The mountain clan's men, never the most disciplined of warriors and always eager to prove their bravery, rushed downslope. As they did so, some sort of drug-crazed goblin, using a chain to swing a massive iron ball almost as large as it was, broke out of the greenskin ranks and ploughed through them. In less than a minute all was a chaos of hacking, chopping, howling warriors.\n\nJohan Gatz watched them, thinking that as soon as the opportunity arose, he was out of here.\n\nFelix heard the crash of weapon on weapon, the screams of dying men, the guttural chanting of the orcs, the howled war cries of men. \"What in the name of Sigmar is going on down there?\" he asked.\n\n\"Sounds like a battle,\" Max said sardonically.\n\n\"Your powers of observation astonish me.\"\n\nFelix crept cautiously forward to take a look, mindful of the arrows that had almost skewered Gotrek earlier. He looked down and saw that the valley had erupted into a maelstrom of combat. Man and orc and goblin were locked in battle. Most of the human units had managed to restrain themselves from charging and held the higher ground against the more numerous orcs and goblins. As he watched he saw a rank of halberdiers repulse a charge by a gang of hulking green-skinned warriors. Both sides were taking awful casualties. The humans pursued the retreating orcs and were themselves caught in the flanks by a gang of crazed goblin warriors. Even as Felix watched the men vanished beneath a tide of tiny humanoids only half their size.\n\nA strange twanging noise attracted his attention and he glanced over to see one of the oddly garbed goblins clambering onto the giant catapult. The cable was drawn back by a team of sweating lackeys, and then suddenly unleashed. The goblin was ejected into the air and went swooping off towards the human position. It moved its be-winged arms, as if believing it could somehow control its flight, and screamed ecstatically as it flew. Perhaps it did manage to control its direction, for it descended on top of one of the human leaders, impaling him with the spike of its helmet. The impact must have broken its neck, for it did not rise after that. It was an impressive tribute to either its fanaticism or its stupidity that it would give its life like that.\n\nSuddenly other matters urgently required Felix's attention. One group of orcs had broken out of the general ruck and were racing up the hill towards him. He rose into a crouch and backed into the cave.\n\n\"They're coming,\" he shouted.\n\nUgrek spat on the corpse of his dead foe. So much for waiting, he thought. So much for patience. So much for planning. One shout from that accursed dwarf and those stupid Broken Nose bastards had charged in like orc boys at their first battle. He would crack a few heads and eat a few brains for that once this battle was done. By the great green-skinned gods, he would. He glanced around. It wasn't all bad tidings. He thought that his lads could rout these humans easily enough. And then he would have the axe and the dragon's treasure. It wasn't going to be such a bad day after all. He shouted to his bodyguard and began to make his way across the battlefield towards the mouth of the dragon's cave.\n\nHe was going to take the axe from the stunty's cold dead hands, he thought. And then he was going to eat his fingers.\n\nJohan could see the battle was finely balanced. The greenskins had the numbers, and their odd weapons and tactics were taking a toll. Those ball-wielding drugged crazed fanatics left a path of red ruin behind them until they collapsed from exhaustion or got entangled in their chains. The flyers had killed more than one brave horseman. The sheer strength and ferocity of the orcs was amazing to watch. He saw one that had to be literally hacked to pieces before it stopped fighting. They did not seem to feel pain as men did.\n\nOn the other hand, the humans were better disciplined. They had mostly managed to keep to their ranks and hold the higher ground. The crossbowmen were taking a heavy toll on the lightly armoured orcs and goblins. Even a few of those horrid giant spiders had fallen to them. If only they had a few cannons or even one of those organ guns. Or a squadron of heavy cavalry. With one charge they could have broken the orc ranks. Might as well wish for Sigmar to arrive with the host of the righteous dead, Johan thought. They did not have any knights. They were just going to have to win with what they had.\n\nHe wasn't certain this was possible. At least some of the orcs were distracted by attempting to get at the dwarfs in the cave. And it looked like the orc chieftain, the great Ugrek himself, was trying to cut his way up there. Johan decided that he wouldn't want to be up there when the Manflayer arrived. Not for all the gold in the dragon's hoard.\n\nFelix chopped down the last orc. He was breathing hard, and blood mingled with the water that saturated his clothes. Some of it was his own. He glanced around the cave mouth. Dead orcs lay everywhere. Gotrek and Snorri had done their usual bloody work. Between them they must have put paid to at least ten of the greenskins. Five lay blasted and smoking, a testimony to the deadliness of Max Schreiber's magic. Three more lay with arrows sprouting from their breasts. Felix himself had accounted for three. He guessed the others had killed about a dozen.\n\nThey had taken casualties themselves. Standa was dead, his skull split by an orc scimitar. Bjorni had taken a nasty wound. Felix watched Max mutter some kind of healing spell that knitted the flesh together, then wrap a torn piece of his cloak around it. Bjorni looked as pale as a corpse; he had lost a lot of blood. Ulrika and Oleg moved among the bodies, retrieving arrows to replenish their quivers.\n\nAbout thirty dead orcs, he estimated. It wasn't enough. There were hundreds more greenskins out there, and almost as many desperate men, all of whom would doubtless want their share of the dragon's treasure. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe they should offer to split it with the humans in return for their assistance. Good idea, he thought. Now all he had to do was get it to the human leader. And then wait for the inevitable treachery if they survived the fight.\n\nFootsteps sounded from behind them. He saw Malakai and Ulli coming up the corridor. The engineer was bent almost double. In one hand he held a black bomb. He was dribbling powder from it onto the ground. Felix knew what he was doing. A spark would ignite that powder. The powder would act as a fuse. The fuse would detonate whatever cache of explosives they had left back there.\n\n\"It's din,\" said Malakai. \"Black powder's in place. If it looks like the orcs are going to over-run us, ah'll set fire tae this pooder, an' boom the whole tunnel comes doon. Then let's see them get the dragon's treasure wie a whole mountain o' rock on tap o' it.\"\n\nFelix shivered. He hoped it would not come to this. If it did, it would mean that he and Ulrika would be dead along with all the rest of them. It was not a reassuring thought. He walked over to the woman. It was time for them to talk.\n\nUgrek chopped down another human, thumped one of his own bodyguards who had accidentally blundered into him, and continued to hew his way up the hill. His mighty blade dripped with blood. His axe was smeared with gore. He bellowed instructions and encouragement to his followers, certain that victory would soon be his. Heartened by his presence the lads fought on with redoubled fury, cutting down the pinkskins by the dozen. Ugrek could smell victory.\n\nJohan ducked back behind the rock. A random arrow had come close to ending his life and he did not feel like exposing himself to death at the moment. He glanced up and to his astonishment saw a tiny goblin, his eyes glazed in some sort of trance, go flying overhead. From its arms extended some sort of bat-like artificial wings. On its head was a sharp spiked helmet. Johan could have sworn it was shouting: \"Wheee!\"\n\nThis was madness, he thought. The orcs were mad, the goblins were mad, his comrades were mad and he was mad for staying here when he could be running. Unfortunately he found the whole scene dreadfully fascinating.\n\nOff at the valley mouth two units of orcs had blundered into each other in their eagerness to get at the men. Now they fought each other with the same ferocious savagery they had wanted to vent on their human foes. Maybe they were from different tribes or clans, Johan thought.\n\nOr maybe it was true what he had heard: when an orc's battle lust was up, it would fight with anyone.\n\nA change rippled over the battlefield. He sensed arcane powers at work. His hair stood on end. Something drew his eye to the goblin shaman the way iron filings were drawn to a magnet.\n\nThe shaman's cloak billowed behind him. His spider had reared, raising its four forelegs as if in salute. A yellow glow blazed from the goblin's eyes. A swirling green light flickered on the end of its staff. Streamers of greenish ectoplasm swirled outwards from its tip. When the magic energy touched an orc or a goblin, the recipient's eyes glowed reddishly, their muscles swelled like great cables, foam erupted from their mouth and they fought like berserkers. At each point this happened the battle started to turn against the humans.\n\nPerhaps the shaman's uncanny powers would turn the tide, Johan thought.\n\n\"Magic is being unleashed on the battlefield,\" Max said. \"I think the shaman has invoked the power of the orc gods.\"\n\n\"I wish the gods would aid us,\" muttered Felix, surveying the rent in his chainmail and the agonising red cut on his side the wizard was healing. Golden light flowed from the mage's hand, and where it touched his body the area first went extremely hot and then numbingly cold. It took all Felix's willpower to keep from screaming. After a moment, the chill passed and sank to a dull ache. He looked down and saw the flap of skin peeled away by an orc scimitar blow had knitted together. He could still remember the agonising pain and the satisfied look on the face of the orc who had chopped at him. He had turned just too late to parry the stroke. His own blow had beheaded his attacker. It had given him a certain satisfaction knowing that he had killed the brute he thought had killed him. It was a miracle he had not been killed. He had managed to keep fighting until the greenskins were repelled and Max could heal him.\n\n\"The gods gave us courage to stand our ground, manling, and weapons to cleave our foes. What else do we need?\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"An army of Sigmarite Templars would be good,\" Felix said. \"I prefer my divine aid to take tangible form.\"\n\nGotrek merely grunted and returned his attention to the cave mouth. Snorri stood at the edge gazing down.\n\n\"Good fight coming,\" he said. \"Some big orcs and a shaman on a spider. The spider is Snorri's.\"\n\n\"You can have him,\" Gotrek said. \"The chieftain is mine.\"\n\nBjorni shook his head. \"I heard somewhere that female spiders eat their partners when mating. I've met some women who did that too.\"\n\n\"Don't you ever think of anything else?\" Ulli asked.\n\n\"Only when I'm fighting,\" Bjorni said. \"And sometimes not even then.\"\n\nMax finished his spell. Felix thanked him and stood up.\n\n\"You'll feel real pain in a few hours, but the spell should keep you going till then. You won't be up for much fighting though. Unless\u2026\"\n\nFelix knew what Max was thinking. Unless the orcs swarm in, and I'll have to fight anyway. In a few hours it wouldn't matter since they would be dead anyway. The last wave had left Oleg dying slowly from a stomach wound that not even Max's magic could cure. That could so easily have been me, he thought. If the orc's blow had slightly more power behind it. If my mail had not deflected it just enough.\n\nThe man's groans and prayers filled the chamber, and worked on Felix's nerves like poison. It would be a mercy to kill him, he thought, and a mercy to the rest of us to silence him.\n\nHe shivered. He was becoming as bad as Gotrek and the rest of the dwarfs. Worse. None of them would have suggested such a thing.\n\nPainfully he went over to where Ulrika sat beside the dying man, holding his hand. He noticed that both of them were silent now. Oleg's skin looked waxy. His moustache drooped. A small amount of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.\n\n\"Is there anything I can do?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nothing,\" she said softly. \"He is dead.\"\n\nSuddenly Felix felt terribly guilty.\n\nUgrek led the lads right up the hill. He chopped down a few of the Broken Noses that were in his way, just to teach them not to do it again, and halted twenty strides away from the cave mouth. He turned for a moment to look back, and saw with some satisfaction that his lads were about to win the battle. The shaman's magic had helped. Filled with the spirit of the gods, his warriors were fighting as if possessed.\n\nThe spider had borne its mystic master all the way to where Ugrek stood. No one had interfered with it. It regarded Ugrek with beady intelligent malign eyes, and the warboss wondered whether it was true, and Ixix had bound the spirit of his former shamanic master into it. Not that it mattered. If he gave Ugrek any lip, he would die like anyone else. The shaman was gibbering and pointing at something excitedly. Ugrek looked to see what it was.\n\nIn the distance he saw a small dot approaching. From its size, he would have thought it was the dragon, but the dwarfs claimed to have killed it. It would be just like a stunty to lie about such a thing, and let the dragon escape by another exit. It was too late to worry about such things now, he decided.\n\n\"Right, lads,\" he bellowed. \"Into the cave. Kill the stunties. Grab the treasure. Leave the axe for me!\"\n\nHaving explained his plan, he implemented it instantly.\n\nFelix watched the inexorable tide of greenskins roll up the hill and knew he was going to die. These were the largest, fiercest orcs he had ever seen, and their leader made them look weak and mild-mannered. He was huge, half again as big as a normal orc, and he bore a cleaver in one hand, and an axe in the other. His cloak of manskin billowed behind him. His tusks dripped with saliva. His voice boomed out over the battle. Felix noticed that he was looking back at something and looked to see what it was.\n\nFrom beside him, he heard Ulrika gasp.\n\n\"It looks like we might be saved.\"\n\n\"Aye, if we can hold on long enough,\" he said sourly.\n\n\"Who said anything about holding on?\" Gotrek asked. \"I say we charge!\"\n\n\"Snorri agrees,\" said Snorri Nosebiter. \"Snorri is going to kill that spider.\"\n\nThe Slayers plunged downhill to meet the astonished orcs. There was a mighty crash as weapons met and the killing became fast and furious.\n\nJohan felt a shadow fall on him, and looked up. Was this more goblin sorcery, he wondered, seeing the vast shape that filled the sky overhead? No. It did not look like greenskin work although there was certainly powerful magic here. To tell the truth, it looked more like dwarf work. It had runes on the side and it flew the banners of the Slayer King.\n\nThis must be the airship the Slayers had told him about, Johan realised. It was certainly impressive. Even as he watched, spluttering black bombs began to fall into the middle of the battle. The explosions tore through greenskin and human ranks indiscriminately. Judging from the way they fell, the dwarfs were trying to aim for the orcs and goblins, but not very hard. It was an impossible task anyway. The two sides were too intermingled for any sort of precision shooting.\n\nA roaring noise announced the entry of another dwarf weapon into the battle. From turrets on the underside of the cupola, gatling cannons roared to life. Shells ripped man and goblin apart with ease. Johan had seen enough. It was time to be going. Maybe he could grab a horse.\n\nThe sound of explosions and the roar of gatling cannons told Felix that the Spirit of Grungni was doing its bloody work. His prayer had been answered, it seemed. The dwarfs must have finished repairing the airship and come looking for them. Judging by the new weapons bristling on its sides, they had come prepared to fight the dragon too. Felix knew that even if he died here, he would be avenged.\n\nScreams from nearby drew his attention back to the melee. He watched as Gotrek tore through Ugrek Manflayer's bodyguard. The dwarf killed a foe with every stroke. Snorri was right beside him. True to his word he was aiming for the spider and its rider. Felix wanted to rush down into the melee and aid them, but he was tired and the pain of his wound would make it impossible to fight. No, he would stay here and record Gotrek's doom if it came to him, and hope that the airship arrived in time.\n\nSnorri had reached the spider now. It came for him, huge mandibles dripping poison. Snorri ducked its bite, rolled under its belly, and chopped upwards. Felix heard the spider's evil scream and watched it sag in the middle. Snorri rolled out from behind it and lashed out at its rider, but the shaman leapt from his seat to avoid the blow, and scuttled away. Powerful he might be, but he did not have the nerve to face the Slayer.\n\nUlrika calmly nocked her bow and fired, nocked her bow and fired. With every shot an orc fell. The death of her bodyguards seemed to have goaded her into a calm, silent killing rage. Malakai stood next to her, his rocket tube over his shoulder. He took careful aim and pulled the trigger. Sparks flew from the rear of the tube and the rocket whizzed forth tearing through the orc ranks, killing half a dozen. Malakai threw down his weapon.\n\n\"Last rocket,\" he explained, unslinging his portable gatling cannon and starting to blaze away. Bjorni and Ulli fought back to back against the huge orcs. They used their opponents' size against them expertly, ducking between legs, moving through the press of bodies, hacking and chopping as they went. Felix felt useless and wished he could join in. Then he saw that Gotrek had fought his way to the orc chieftain.\n\nUgrek confronted the dwarf with the axe. Good. It saved him hunting the stunty down and killing him. He bellowed a challenge and glared down at the dwarf. Surprisingly the Slayer did not flinch, which was unusual. Ugrek had never met anything on two legs that did not back away when confronted by his massive form. This made him slightly uneasy. Still it did not matter. He was twice the dwarf's size and three times his weight. He was the toughest orc who had ever lived. He was going to kill this stunty.\n\nHe lashed out with his cleaver. Surprisingly, the dwarf wasn't there. That was unusual too. Ugrek knew he was fast for an orc. No one had ever been able to match his eye-blurring speed before. The dwarf struck back. That was good too. Ugrek liked it when his food put up a bit of a fight. It made things more interesting.\n\nSparks flashed as their blades met. The power of the Slayer's blow took Ugrek off guard. He was driven back by the force of the impact. The dwarf was strong. That was good too. Ugrek would gain some of that strength when he ate his heart. He lashed out with his axe. The dwarf ducked beneath it and aimed a counter blow at Ugrek's legs. Ugrek leapt above it, and brought both weapons down at once, knowing there was no way the dwarf could avoid them both.\n\nThe dwarf did not try. Instead, he used his axe two-handed and caught both blows in the haft of the weapon. The force of the impact drove him to his knees. He rolled backwards and away, coming to his feet easily. Ugrek was enjoying this. Already the dwarf had lasted longer than any foe Ugrek had ever faced, and he was showing no signs of running out of fight. Ugrek had always believed that you could measure an orc by the strength of his enemies, and when he killed this Slayer, all orcs would know that Ugrek was mighty indeed. The thought gave him some satisfaction.\n\nThe dwarf came at him, beard bristling, a mad light in his eye. He unleashed a hail of blows at Ugrek, each faster and more powerful than the last. It slowly dawned on Ugrek as he parried desperately that the dwarf had not really been trying before. Being knocked down by Ugrek had goaded him to make a mighty effort. Ugrek was forced to admit that the Slayer was almost as mighty as he was. This was even better. More than ever Ugrek looked forward to eating his heart.\n\nHis arms ached a little from parrying the dwarf's blows. It felt like his hand had been nicked. This was unusual. He had never met a foe that had done that before. The Slayer aimed another blow at him and Ugrek raised his cleaver to parry. At the last moment, he realised his cleaver wasn't there. In fact, his hand wasn't there either. The pain he had felt was it being separated from his wrist. By the gods, that axe was sharp. He must have it, he thought.\n\nIt was the last thought to pass through his brain before the axe descended, bringing eternal darkness with it.\n\nFelix watched Gotrek finish the orc chieftain. The bodyguards looked panicky, their morale already undermined by the flight of the shaman, the havoc wreaked by the dwarfs, and the screaming of their comrades behind them. A few turned and looked back to see the airship. It was the last straw. They must have thought the dwarf gods had come to punish them. First one then another turned and began to flee. Felix looked down to see that the battle had turned into a general rout. orcs and goblins and humans all intermixed, and no longer fighting, streamed out of the valley in all directions. The relentless death toll inflicted by the Spirit of Grungni was too much for them.\n\n\"I do believe we might survive this,\" Felix said to Ulrika, then wondered at the look of horror on her face. He turned to see what she was pointing at. A stream of fire was already receding into the depths of the mountain. Malakai's rocket tube lay near at hand. Instantly Felix realised what had happened. A spark from the weapon had ignited the detonating powder.\n\nCould they possibly get down there and put it out, Felix asked himself? He knew he would not be able to, not in his wounded condition. And he would not ask Max or Ulrika to try something he was not willing to do. He had no idea how powerful the explosives down there were, or what the possible consequences of an explosion might be.\n\n\"We'd best get out of here,\" he said and tried to move forward only to discover his legs weren't working properly. He fell forward onto his face. His wound must have been worse than he thought.\n\n\"Go!\" he shouted. \"Save yourselves!\"\n\nHe felt himself being lifted up by Ulrika and Max and they carried him down the slope towards the dwarfs.\n\n\"Prepare yourselves,\" he heard Max say. \"The tunnel's about to go up!\"\n\nAs one the dwarfs threw themselves flat on the ground. Felix felt the earth shake. There was a great blast of fire and heat from behind him, and the sound of rocks collapsing and stone grinding against stone.\n\n\"There goes a king's ransom,\" he heard Ulli mutter, then the sound of dwarf cursing filled the air."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "Felix opened his eyes and saw the steel ceiling of the Spirit of Grungni. Borek and Ulrika stooped over him. He could tell by the rocking of the chamber that the airship was in motion.\n\n\"I'm alive, then,\" he said.\n\n\"Only just,\" Borek said. The wrinkles of his ancient face crinkled benevolently as he smiled. \"There was some infection in your wounds. I am surprised that you are alive at all, with what Ulrika here has told me of your adventures. Slaying a dragon is not something most men live through.\"\n\nFelix felt embarrassed as well as pleased. \"I am glad to see you. I see you managed to repair the airship.\"\n\n\"Malakai left very specific instructions.\"\n\n\"Is he well?\"\n\n\"He and all the others. Although they are all disappointed about the treasure.\"\n\n\"Is it lost then?\"\n\n\"Nothing buried below the earth is ever lost to dwarfs,\" said Borek. \"It will take years to excavate all of the rock but we will get it eventually.\"\n\nFelix fell silent for a moment, thinking of the bodies of Steg and Grimme. They had received a more thorough burial than anything he could ever have given them. It was an alarming thought that he could have all too easily been buried with them. He reached out and took Ulrika's hand.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" she said. \"Max says you'll be up and about by the time we reach our destination.\"\n\n\"Where are we going?\" Felix asked, fearing he already knew.\n\n\"Praag,\" she said simply.\n\nHe shivered, knowing the greatest Chaos army assembled in two centuries would soon be there too."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "Legend 03",
+        "author": "Marie Lu",
+        "genres": [],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Out of all the disguises I've worn, this one might be my favorite.\n\nDark red hair, different enough from my usual white-blond, cut to just past my shoulders and pulled back into a tail. Green contacts that look natural when layered over my blue eyes. A crumpled, half-tucked collar shirt, its tiny silver buttons shining in the dark, a thin military jacket, black pants and steel-toed boots, a thick gray scarf wrapped around my neck, chin, and mouth. A dark soldier cap is pulled low over my forehead, and a crimson, painted tattoo stretches all over the left half of my face, changing me into someone unfamiliar. Aside from this, I wear an ever-present earpiece and mike. The Republic insists on it.\n\nIn most other cities, I'd probably get even more stares than I usually do because of that giant goddy tattoo\u2014not exactly a subtle marker, I gotta admit. But here in San Francisco, I blend right in with the others. The first thing I noticed when Eden and I moved to Frisco eight months ago was the local trend: young people painting black or red patterns on their faces, some small and delicate, like Republic seals on their temples or something similar, others huge and sprawling, like giant patterns of the Republic's land shape. I chose a pretty generic tattoo tonight, because I'm not loyal enough to the Republic to stamp that loyalty right on my face. Leave that to June. Instead, I have stylized flames. Good enough.\n\nMy insomnia's acting up tonight, so instead of sleeping, I'm walking alone through a sector called Marina, which as far as I can tell is the hillier, Frisco equivalent of LA's Lake sector. The night's cool and pretty quiet, and a light drizzle is blowing in from the city's bay. The streets are narrow, glistening wet, and riddled with potholes, and the buildings that rise up on both sides\u2014most of them tall enough to vanish into tonight's low-lying clouds\u2014are eclectic, painted with fading red and gold and black, their sides fortified with enormous steel beams to counter the earthquakes that roll through every couple of months. JumboTrons five or six stories high sit on every other block, blaring the usual barrage of Republic news. The air smells salty and bitter, like smoke and industrial waste mixed with seawater, and somewhere in there, a faint whiff of fried fish. Sometimes, when I turn down a corner, I'll suddenly end up close enough to the water's edge to get my boots wet. Here the land slopes right into the bay and hundreds of buildings poke out half submerged along the horizon. Whenever I get a view of the bay, I can also see the Golden Gate Ruins, the twisted remnants of some old bridge all piled up along the other side of the shore. A handful of people jostle past me now and then, but for the most part the city is asleep. Scattered bonfires light alleyways, gathering spots for the sector's street folks. It's not that different from Lake.\n\nWell\u2014I guess there are some differences now. The San Francisco Trial Stadium, for one, which sits empty and unlit off in the distance. Fewer street police in the poor sectors. The city's graffiti. You can always get an idea of how the people are feeling by looking at the recent graffiti. A lot of the messages I've seen lately actually support the Republic's new Elector. He is our hope, says one message scrawled on the side of a building. Another painted on the street reads: The Elector will guide us out of the darkness. A little too optimistic, if you ask me, but I guess they're good signs. Anden must be doing something right. And yet. Every now and then, I'll also see messages that say, The Elector's a hoax, or Brainwashed, or The Day we knew is dead.\n\nI don't know. Sometimes this new trust between Anden and the people feels like a string... and I am that string. Besides, maybe the happy graffiti's fake, painted by propaganda officers. Why not?\n\nYou never know with the Republic.\n\nEden and I, of course, have a Frisco apartment in a rich sector called Pacifica, where we stay with our caretaker, Lucy. The Republic's gotta take care of its sixteen-year-old most-wanted-criminal-turned-national-hero, doesn't it? I remember how much I distrusted Lucy\u2014a stern, stout, fifty-two-year-old lady dressed in classic Republic colors\u2014when she first showed up at our door in Denver. \"The Republic has assigned me to assist you boys,\" she told me as she bustled in to our apartment. Her eyes had settled immediately on Eden. \"Especially the little one.\"\n\nYeah. That didn't sit well with me. First of all, it'd taken me two months before I could even let Eden out of my sight. We ate side by side; we slept side by side; he was never alone. I'd gone as far as standing outside his bathroom door, as if Republic soldiers would somehow suck him out through a vent, take him back to a lab, and hook him up to a bunch of machines.\n\n\"Eden doesn't need you,\" I'd snapped at Lucy. \"He's got me. I take care of him.\"\n\nBut my health started fluctuating after those first couple of months. Some days I felt fine; other days, I'd be stuck in bed with a crippling headache. On those bad days, Lucy would take over\u2014and after a few shouting matches, she and I settled into a grudging routine. She does make pretty awesome meat pies. And when we moved here to Frisco, she came with us. She guides Eden. She manages my medications.\n\nWhen I'm finally tired of walking, I notice that I've wandered right out of Marina and into a wealthier neighboring district. I stop in front of a club with THE OBSIDIAN LOUNGE scored into a metal slab over its door. I slide against the wall into a sitting position, my arms resting on my knees, and feel the music's vibrations. My metal leg is ice-cold through the fabric of my trousers. On the wall across from me, graffiti scrawled in red reads, Day = Traitor. I sigh, take a silver tin from my pocket, and pull out a long cigarette. I run a finger across the SAN FRANCISCO CENTRAL HOSPITAL text imprinted down its length. Prescription cigarettes. Doctor's orders, yeah? I put it to my lips with trembling fingers and light it up. Close eyes. Take a puff. Gradually I lose myself in the clouds of blue smoke, waiting for the sweet, hallucinogenic effects to wash over me.\n\nDoesn't take long tonight. Soon the constant, dull headache disappears, and the world around me takes on a blurry sheen that I know isn't only from the rain. A girl's sitting next to me. It's Tess.\n\nShe gives me the grin I was so familiar with back on the streets of Lake. \"Any news from the JumboTrons?\" she asks me, pointing toward a screen across the road.\n\nI exhale blue smoke and lazily shake my head. \"Nope. I mean, I've seen a couple of Patriot-related headlines, but it's like you guys vanished off the map. Where are you? Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Do you miss me?\" Tess asks instead of answering.\n\nI stare at the shimmery image of her. She's how I remember from the streets\u2014her reddish-brown hair tied into a messy braid, her eyes large and luminous, kind and gentle. Little baby Tess. What were my last words to her... back when we had botched the Patriots' assassination attempt on Anden? Please, Tess\u2014I can't leave you here. But that's exactly what I did.\n\nI turn away, taking another drag on my cigarette. Do I miss her? \"Every day,\" I reply.\n\n\"You've been trying to find me,\" Tess says, scooting closer. I swear I can almost feel her shoulder against mine. \"I've seen you, scouring the JumboTrons and airwaves for news, eavesdropping on the streets. But the Patriots are in hiding right now.\"\n\nOf course they're in hiding. Why would they attack, now that Anden's in power and a peace treaty between the Republic and the Colonies is a done deal? What could their new cause possibly be? I have no idea. Maybe they don't have one. Maybe they don't even exist anymore. \"I wish you would come back,\" I murmur to Tess. \"It'd be nice to see you again.\"\n\n\"What about June?\"\n\nAs she asks this, her image vanishes. She's replaced by June, with her long ponytail and her dark eyes that shine with hints of gold, serious and analyzing, always analyzing. I lean my head against my knee and close my eyes. Even the illusion of June is enough to send a stabbing pain through my chest. Hell. I miss her so much.\n\nI remember how I'd said good-bye to her back in Denver, before Eden and I moved to Frisco. \"I'm sure we'll be back,\" I'd told her over my mike, trying to fill the awkward silence between us. \"After Eden's treatment is done.\" This was a lie, of course. We were going to Frisco for my treatment, not Eden's. But June didn't know this, so she just said, \"Come back soon.\"\n\nThat was almost eight months ago. I haven't heard from her since. I don't know if it's because each of us is too hesitant to bother the other, too afraid that the other doesn't want to talk, or maybe both of us are just too damn proud to be the one desperate enough to reach out. Maybe she's just not interested enough. But you know how it goes. A week passes without contact, and then a month, and soon too much time has passed and calling her would just feel random and weird. So I don't. Besides, what would I say? Don't worry, doctors are fighting to save my life. Don't worry, they're trying to shrink the problem area in my brain with a giant pile of medication before attempting an operation. Don't worry, Antarctica might grant me access to treatment in their superior hospitals. Don't worry, I'll be just fine.\n\nWhat's the point of keeping in touch with the girl you're crazy about, when you're dying?\n\nThe reminder sends a throbbing pain through the back of my head. \"It's better this way,\" I tell myself for the hundredth time. And it is. By not seeing her for so long, the memory of how we'd originally met has grown dimmer, and I find myself thinking about her connection to my family's deaths less often.\n\nUnlike Tess's, for some reason June's image never says a word. I try to ignore the shimmery mirage, but she refuses to go away. So damn stubborn.\n\nFinally, I stand, stub my cigarette into the pavement, and step through the door of the Obsidian Lounge. Maybe the music and lights will shake her from my system.\n\nFor an instant, I can't see a thing. The club is pitch-black, and the sound's deafening. I'm stopped immediately by an enormous pair of soldiers. One of them puts a firm hand on my shoulder. \"Name and branch?\" he asks.\n\nI have no interest in making my real identity known. \"Corporal Schuster. Air force,\" I reply, blurting out a random name and the first branch that comes to mind. I always think of the air force first, mostly because of Kaede. \"I'm stationed at Naval Base Two.\"\n\nThe guard nods. \"Air force kids over in the back left, near the bathrooms. And if I hear you picking any fights with the army booths, you're out and your commander hears about it in the morning. Got it?\"\n\nI nod, and the soldiers let me pass. I walk down a dark hall and through a second door, then melt into the crowds and flashing lights inside.\n\nThe dance floor is jammed with people in loose shirts and rolled-up sleeves, dresses paired with rumpled uniforms. I find the air force booths in the back of the room. Good, there are several empty ones. I slide into a booth, prop up my boots against the cushioned seats, and lean my head back. At least June's image has disappeared. The loud music sends all my thoughts scattering.\n\nI've only been in the booth for a few minutes when a girl cuts her way through the crowded dance floor and stumbles toward me. She looks flushed, her eyes bright and teasing; and when I glance behind her, I notice a cluster of laughing girls watching us. I force a smile. Usually, I like the attention in clubs, but sometimes, I just want to close my eyes and let the chaos take me away.\n\nShe leans over and presses her lips against my ear. \"Excuse me,\" she shouts over the noise. \"My girlfriends want to know if you're Day.\"\n\nI've been recognized already? I shrink instinctively away and shake my head so the others can see. \"You got the wrong guy,\" I reply with a wry grin. \"But thanks for the compliment.\"\n\nThe girl's face is almost entirely covered in shadows, but even so, I can tell she's blushing furiously. Her friends burst out laughing. None of them look like they believe my denial. \"Want to dance?\" the girl asks. She glances over her shoulder toward the flashing blue and gold lights, then back at me. This must be something her friends dared her to do too.\n\nAs I'm trying to think up some sort of polite refusal, I take in the girl's appearance. The club's too dark for me to get a good look at her, and all I see are glimpses of neon highlights on her skin and long ponytail, her glossy lips curved into a smile, her body lean and smooth in a short dress and military boots. My refusal fades on my tongue. Something about her reminds me of June. In the eight months since June first became a Princeps-Elect, I haven't felt excited about many girls\u2014but now, with this shadowy doppelg\u00e4nger beckoning me onto the dance floor, I let myself feel hopeful again.\n\n\"Yeah, why not?\" I say.\n\nThe girl breaks into a wide smile. When I get up from the booth and take her hand, her friends all let out a gasp of surprise, followed by a loud cheer. The girl leads me through them, and before I know it, we've pushed our way into the crowds and carved out a tiny space right in the middle of the action.\n\nI press myself against her, she runs a hand along the back of my neck, and we let the pounding beat carry us away. She's cute, I admit to myself, blinded in this sea of lights and limbs. The song changes, then changes again. I have no idea how long we're lost like this, but when she leans forward and brushes her lips over my own, I close my eyes and let her. I even feel a shiver run down my spine. She kisses me twice, her mouth soft and liquid, her tongue tasting of vodka and fruit. I flatten one hand against the small of the girl's back and pull her closer, until her body's solidly against mine. Her kisses grow more urgent. She is June, I tell myself, choosing to indulge in the fantasy. With my eyes closed, my mind still hazy from my cigarette's hallucinogens, I can believe it for a moment\u2014I can picture her kissing me here, taking every last breath from my lungs. The girl probably senses the change in my movements, my sudden hunger and desire, because she grins against my lips. She is June. It is June's dark hair that brushes against my face, June's long lashes that touch my cheeks, June's arm wrapped around my neck, June's body sliding against mine. A soft moan escapes me.\n\n\"Come on,\" she whispers. Mischief laces her words. \"Let's go get some air.\"\n\nHow long has it been? I don't want to leave, because it means I'll have to open my eyes and June will be gone, replaced with this girl that I don't know. But she pulls on my hand and I'm forced to look around. June is nowhere to be seen, of course. The club's lights flash and I'm momentarily blinded. She guides me through the throngs of dancers, down the club's dark hallway, and out an unmarked back door. We step into a quiet back alley. A few weak spotlights shine down along the path, giving everything an eerie, greenish glow.\n\nShe pushes me against the wall and drowns me in another kiss. Her skin is moist, and I feel her goose bumps rise beneath my touch. I kiss her back, and a small laugh of surprise escapes her when I flip us around and pin her against the wall.\n\nShe's June, I tell myself on repeat. My lips work greedily along her neck, tasting smoke and perfume.\n\nFaint static sizzles in my earpiece, the sound of rain and frying eggs. I try to ignore the incoming call, even as a man's voice fills my ears. Talk about a buzzkill. \"Mr. Wing,\" he says.\n\nI don't answer it. Go away. I'm busy.\n\nA few seconds later, the voice starts up again. \"Mr. Wing, this is Captain David Guzman of Denver City Patrol Fourteen. I know you're there.\"\n\nOh, this guy. This poor captain's always the one tasked with trying to get hold of me.\n\nI sigh and break away from the girl. \"Sorry,\" I say breathlessly. I give her an apologetic frown and gesture at my ear. \"Give me a minute?\"\n\nShe smiles and smoothes down her dress. \"I'll be inside,\" she replies. \"Look for me.\" Then she steps through the door and back into the club.\n\nI turn my mike on and start slowly pacing up and down the alley. \"What do you want?\" I say in an annoyed whisper.\n\nThe captain sighs over the earpiece and launches into his message. \"Mr. Wing, your presence is requested in Denver tomorrow night, on Independence Day, at the Capitol Tower's ballroom. As always, you are free to turn down the request\u2014as you usually do,\" he mutters under his breath. \"However, this banquet is an exceptional meeting of great importance. Should you choose to attend, we'll have a private jet waiting for you in the morning.\"\n\nAn exceptional meeting of great importance? Ever heard so many fancy words in one sentence? I roll my eyes. Every month or so, I get an invitation to some goddy capital event, like a ball for all the high-ranking war generals or the celebration they held when Anden finally ended the Trials. But the only reason they want me to go to these things is so they can show me off and remind the people, \"Look, just in case you forgot, Day is on our side!\" Don't push your luck, Anden.\n\n\"Mr. Wing,\" the captain says when I stay silent, as if he's resorting to some final argument, \"the glorious Elector personally requests your presence. So does the Princeps-Elect.\"\n\nThe Princeps-Elect.\n\nMy boots crunch to a halt in the middle of the alley. I forget to breathe.\n\nDon't get too excited\u2014after all, there are three Princeps-Elects, and he might be referring to any one of them. A few seconds pass before I finally ask, \"Which Princeps-Elect?\"\n\n\"The one who actually matters to you.\"\n\nMy cheeks warm at the taunt in his voice. \"June?\"\n\n\"Yes, Ms. June Iparis,\" the captain replies. He sounds relieved to finally have my attention. \"She wanted to make it a personal request this time. She would very much like to see you at the Capitol Tower's banquet.\"\n\nMy head aches, and I fight to steady my breathing. All thoughts of the girl in the club go out the window. June has not personally asked for me in eight months\u2014this is the first time that she's requested I attend a public function. \"What's this for?\" I ask. \"Just an Independence Day party? Why so important?\"\n\nThe captain hesitates. \"It's a matter of national security.\"\n\n\"What's that supposed to mean?\" My initial excitement slowly wanes\u2014maybe he's just bluffing. \"Look, Captain, I've got some unfinished business to take care of. Try convincing me again in the morning.\"\n\nThe captain curses under his breath. \"Fine, Mr. Wing. Have it your way.\" He mumbles something I can't quite make out, then goes offline. I frown in exasperation as my initial excitement fades away into a sinking disappointment. Maybe I should head home now. It's time for me to go back and check up on Eden, anyway. What a joke. Chances are he's probably lying about June's request in the first place, because if she'd really wanted me to go back to the capital that badly, she\u2014\n\n\"Day?\"\n\nA new voice comes over my earpiece. I freeze.\n\nHave the hallucinogens from the meds worn off yet? Did I just imagine her voice? Even though I haven't heard it in almost a year, I would recognize it anywhere, and the sound alone is enough to conjure the image of June standing before me, as if I'd run across her by chance in this alley. Please, don't let it be her. Please, let it be her.\n\nDid her voice always have this effect on me?\n\nI have no idea how long I was frozen like this, but it must've been a while, because she repeats, \"Day, it's me. June. Are you there?\" A shiver runs through me.\n\nThis is real. It's really her.\n\nHer tone is different from what I remember. Hesitant and formal, like she's speaking to a stranger. I finally manage to compose myself and click my mike back on. \"I'm here,\" I reply. My own tone is different too\u2014just as hesitant, just as formal. I hope she doesn't hear the slight tremor in it.\n\nThere's a short pause on the other side before June continues. \"Hi.\" Then a long silence, followed by, \"How are you?\"\n\nSuddenly I feel a storm of words building up inside me, threatening to pour out. I want to blurt out everything: I've thought about you every day since that final farewell between us, I'm sorry for not contacting you, I wish you had contacted me. I miss you. I miss you.\n\nI don't say any of this. Instead, the only thing I manage is, \"Fine. What's up?\"\n\nShe pauses. \"Oh. That's good. I apologize for the late call, as I'm sure you're trying to sleep. But the Senate and the Elector have asked me to send this request to you personally. I wouldn't do it unless I felt it was truly important. Denver is throwing a ball for Independence Day, and during the event, we'll be having an emergency meeting. We need you in attendance.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Guess I've resorted to one-word replies. For some reason, it's all I can think of with June's voice on the line.\n\nShe exhales, sending a faint burst of static through the earpiece, and then says, \"You've heard about the peace treaty being drafted between the Republic and the Colonies, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, of course.\" Everyone in the country knows about that: our precious little Anden's greatest ambition, to end the war that's been going on for who knows how long. And so far, things seem to be going in the right direction, well enough that the warfront has been at a quiet stalemate for the past four months. Who knew a day like that could come, just like how we'd never expected to see the Trial stadiums sitting unused across the country. \"Seems like the Elector's on track to becoming the Republic's hero, yeah?\"\n\n\"Don't speak too soon.\" June's words darken, and I feel like I can see her expression through the earpiece. \"Yesterday we received an angry transmission from the Colonies. There's a plague spreading through their warfront cities, and they believe it was caused by some of the biological weapons we'd sent across their borders. They've even traced the serial numbers on the shells of the weapons they believe started this plague.\"\n\nHer words are turning muffled through the shock in my mind, the fog that's bringing back memories of Eden and his black, bleeding eyes, of that boy on the train who was being used as a part of the warfare. \"Does that mean the peace treaty is off?\" I ask.\n\n\"Yes.\" June's voice falls. \"The Colonies say the plague is an official act of war against them.\"\n\n\"And what does this have to do with me?\"\n\nAnother long, ominous pause. It fills me with dread so icy cold that I feel like my fingers are turning numb. The plague. It's happening. It's all come full circle.\n\n\"I'll tell you when you get here,\" June finally says. \"Best not to talk about it over earpieces.\"\n\nI despise my first conversation with day after eight months of no communication. I hate it. When did I become so manipulative? Why must I always use his weaknesses against him?\n\nLast night at 2306 hours, Anden came to my apartment complex and knocked on my door. Alone. I don't even think guards were stationed in the hallway for his protection. It was my first warning that whatever he needed to tell me had to be important\u2014and secret.\n\n\"I have to ask a favor of you,\" he said as I let him in. Anden has almost perfected the art of being a young Elector (calm, cool, collected, a proud chin under stress, an even voice when angered), but this time I could see the deep worry in his eyes. Even my dog, Ollie, could tell that Anden was troubled, and tried reassuring him by pushing his wet nose against Anden's hand.\n\nI nudged Ollie away before turning back to Anden. \"What is it?\" I asked.\n\nAnden ran a hand through his dark curls. \"I don't mean to disturb you so late at night,\" he said, leaning his head down toward mine in quiet concern. \"But I'm afraid this is not a conversation that can wait.\" He stood close enough so that if I wanted to, I could tilt my face up and accidentally brush my lips against his. My heartbeat quickened at the thought.\n\nAnden seemed to sense the tension in my pose, because he took an apologetic step away and gave me more room to breathe. I felt a strange mixture of relief and disappointment. \"The peace treaty is over,\" he whispered. \"The Colonies are preparing to declare war against us once again.\"\n\n\"What?\" I whispered back. \"Why? What's happened?\"\n\n\"Word from my generals is that a couple of weeks ago, a deadly virus started sweeping through the Colonies' warfront like wildfire.\" When he saw my eyes widen in understanding, he nodded. He looked so weary, burdened with the weight of an entire nation's safety. \"Apparently I was too late in withdrawing our biological weapons from the warfront.\"\n\nEden. The experimental viruses that Anden's father had used in attempts to cause a plague in the Colonies. For months, I'd tried to push that to the back of my mind\u2014after all, Eden was safe now, under the care of Day and, last I heard, slowly adjusting to semblances of a normal life. For the last few months, the warfront had stood silent while Anden attempted to hash out a peace treaty with the Colonies. I'd thought that we would be lucky, that nothing would come out of that biological warfare. Wishful thinking.\n\n\"Do the Senators know?\" I asked after a while. \"Or the other Princeps-Elects? Why are you telling me this? I'm hardly your closest advisor.\"\n\nAnden sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. \"Forgive me. I wish I didn't have to involve you in this. The Colonies believe that we have the cure to this virus in our laboratories and are simply withholding it. They demand we share it, or else they put all of their strength behind a full-scale invasion of the Republic. And this time, it won't be a return to our old war. The Colonies have secured an ally. They struck a trade deal with Africa\u2014the Colonies get military help, and in return, Africa gets half our land.\"\n\nA feeling of foreboding crept over me. Even without him saying it, I could tell where this was going. \"We don't have a cure, do we?\"\n\n\"No. But we do know which former patients have the potential to help us find that cure.\"\n\nI started shaking my head. When Anden reached out to touch my elbow, I jerked away. \"Absolutely not,\" I said. \"You can't ask this of me. I won't do it.\"\n\nAnden looked pained. \"I have called for a private banquet tomorrow night to gather all of our Senators. We have no choice if we want to put a stop to this and find a way to secure peace with the Colonies.\" His tone grew firmer. \"You know this as well as I do. I want him to attend this banquet and hear us out. We need his permission if we're going to get to Eden.\"\n\nHe's serious, I realized in shock. \"You'll never get him to do it. You realize that, don't you? The country's support for you is still soft, and Day's alliance with you is hesitant at best. What do you think he'll say to this? What if you anger him enough for him to call the people to action, to tell them to rebel against you? Or worse \u2014what if he asks them to support the Colonies?\"\n\n\"I know. I've thought through all of this.\" Anden rubbed his temples in exhaustion. \"If there was a better option, I'd take it.\"\n\n\"So you want me to make him agree to this,\" I added. My irritation was too strong to bother hiding. \"I won't do it. Get the other Senators to convince Day, or try convincing him yourself. Or find a way to apologize to the Colonies' Chancellor\u2014ask him to negotiate new terms.\"\n\n\"You are Day's weakness, June. He'll listen to you.\" Anden winced even as he said this, as if he didn't want to admit it. \"I know how this makes me sound. I don't want to be cruel\u2014I don't want Day to see us as the enemy. But I will do what it takes to protect the Republic's people. Otherwise, the Colonies will attack, and if that happens, you know it's likely the virus will spread here as well.\"\n\nIt was worse than that, even though Anden didn't say it aloud. If the Colonies attack us with Africa at their side, then our military might not be strong enough to hold them back. This time, they might win. He'll listen to you. I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew that Anden was right.\n\nSo I did as he requested. I called Day and asked him to return to the capital. Just the thought of seeing him again leaves my heart pounding, aching from his absence in my life over these past months. I haven't seen or spoken to him for so long... and this is going to be how we reunite? What will he think of me now?\n\nWhat will he think of the Republic when he finds out what they want with his little brother?\n\n1201 HOURS.\n\nDENVER COUNTY COURT OF FEDERAL CRIME.\n\n72\u00b0F INDOORS.\n\nSIX HOURS UNTIL I SEE DAY AT THE EVENING BALL.\n\n289 DAYS AND 12 HOURS SINCE METIAS'S DEATH.\n\nThomas and Commander Jameson are on trial today.\n\nI'm so tired of trials. In the past four months, a dozen former Senators have been tried and convicted of participating in the plan to assassinate Anden, the plan that Day and I had barely managed to stop. Those Senators have all been executed. Razor has already been executed. Sometimes I feel like someone new is convicted each week.\n\nBut today's trial is different. I know exactly who is being sentenced today, and why.\n\nI sit in a balcony overlooking the courtroom's round stage, my hands restless in their white silk gloves, my body constantly shifting in my vest and black ruffled coat, my boots quietly tapping against the balcony pillars. My chair is made out of synthetic oak and cushioned with soft, scarlet velvet, but somehow I just can't make myself comfortable. To keep myself calm and occupied, I'm carefully entwining four straightened paper clips in my lap to form a small ring. Two guards stand behind me. Three circular rows of the country's twenty-six Senators surround the stage, uniform in their matching scarlet-and-black suits, their silver epaulettes reflecting the chamber's light, their voices echoing along the arched ceilings. They sound largely indifferent, as if they're meeting about trade routes instead of people's fates. Many are new faces that have replaced the traitor Senators, who Anden has already cleaned out. I'm the one who sticks out with my black-and-gold outfit (even the seventy-six soldiers standing guard here are clad in scarlet; two for each Senator, two for me, two for each of the other Princeps-Elects, four for Anden, and fourteen at the chamber's front and back entrances, which means the defendants\u2014Thomas and Commander Jameson\u2014are considered fairly high risk and could possibly make a sudden move).\n\nI'm no Senator, clearly. I am a Princeps-Elect and need to be distinguished as such.\n\nTwo others in the chamber wear the same black-and-gold uniform that I do. My eyes wander over to them now, where they sit on other balconies. After Anden tapped me to train for the Princeps position, Congress urged him to select several others. After all, you cannot have only one person preparing to become the leader of the Senate, especially when that person is a sixteen-year-old girl without a shred of political experience. So Anden agreed. He picked out two more Princeps-Elects, both of them already Senators. One is named Mariana Dupree. My gaze settles on her, her nose turned up and her eyes heavy with sternness. Thirty-seven years old, Senator for ten years. She hated me the instant she laid eyes on me. I look away from her and toward the balcony where the second Princeps-Elect sits. Serge Carmichael, a jumpy thirty-two-year-old Senator and great political mind, who wasted no time showing me that he doesn't appreciate my youth and inexperience.\n\nSerge and Mariana. My two rivals for the Princeps title. I feel exhausted just thinking about it.\n\nOn a balcony several dozen yards away, sitting flanked by his guards, Anden seems calm, reviewing something with one of the soldiers. He's wearing a handsome gray military coat with bright silver buttons, silver epaulettes, and silver sleeve insignias. He occasionally glances down toward the prisoners standing in the chamber's circle. I watch him for a moment, admiring his appearance of calm.\n\nThomas and Commander Jameson are going to receive their sentences for crimes against the nation.\n\nThomas looks tidier than usual\u2014if that's possible. His hair is slicked back, and I can tell that he must've emptied an entire can of shoe polish onto each of his boots. He stands at attention in the center of the chamber and stares straight ahead with an intensity that would make any Republic commander proud. I wonder what's going through his mind. Is he picturing that night in the hospital alley, when he murdered my brother? Is he thinking of the many conversations he had with Metias, the moments when he had taken down his guard? Or the fateful night when he had chosen to betray Metias instead of help him?\n\nCommander Jameson, on the other hand, looks slightly disheveled. Her cold, emotionless eyes are fixed on me. She has been watching me unflinchingly for the past twelve minutes. I stare back for a moment, trying to see some hint of a soul in her eyes, but nothing exists there except for an icy hatred, an absolute lack of conscience.\n\nI look away, take deep, slow breaths, and try to focus on something else. My thoughts return to Day.\n\nIt's been 241 days since he visited my apartment and bid me good-bye. Sometimes I wish Day could hold me in his arms again and kiss me the way he did on that last night, so close that we could barely breathe, his lips soft against mine. But then I take back that wish. The thought is useless. It reminds me of loss, just like how sitting here and looking down on the people who killed my family reminds me of all the things I used to have; it reminds me too of my guilt, of all the things Day used to have that I took from him.\n\nBesides, Day will probably never want to kiss me again. Not after he finds out why I've asked him to return to Denver.\n\nAnden's looking in my direction now. When I catch his gaze, he nods once, excuses himself from his balcony, and a minute later he steps into my balcony. I rise and, along with my guards, snap to a salute. Anden waves a hand impatiently. \"Sit, please,\" he says. When I've relaxed back into my chair, he bends down to my eye level and adds, \"How are you holding up, June?\"\n\nI fight the blush as it spreads across my cheeks. After eight months without Day in my life, I find myself smiling at Anden, enjoying the attention, occasionally even hoping for it. \"Doing fine, thanks. I've been looking forward to this day.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Anden nods. \"Don't worry\u2014it won't be long before both of them are out of your life forever.\" He gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Then he leaves as swiftly as he arrived, vanishing with the faint clink of medals and epaulettes, then reappearing moments later in his own balcony.\n\nI lift my head in a vain attempt at bravery, knowing that Commander Jameson's icy eyes must still be upon me. As each of the Senators rises to cast aloud his vote on her verdict, I hold my breath and carefully push away each memory I have of her eyes staring me down, folding them into a neat compartment at the back of my mind. The voting seems to take forever, even though the Senators are all quick to say what they think will please the Elector. No one has the courage to risk crossing Anden after watching so many others convicted and executed. By the time my turn comes, my throat is parched. I swallow a few times, then speak up.\n\n\"Guilty,\" I say, my voice clear and calm.\n\nSerge and Mariana cast their votes after me. We run through another round of voting for Thomas, and then we're done. Three minutes later, a man (bald, with a round, wrinkled face and scarlet floor-length robes he's clutching with his left hand) hurries into Anden's balcony and gives him a rushed bow. Anden leans toward the man and whispers in his ear. I watch their interaction in quiet curiosity, wondering whether I can predict the final verdict by their gestures. After a short deliberation, Anden and the messenger both nod. Then the messenger raises his voice to the entire assembly.\n\n\"We are now ready to announce the verdicts for Captain Thomas Alexander Bryant and Commander Natasha Jameson of Los Angeles City Patrol Eight. All rise for the glorious Elector!\"\n\nThe Senators and I stand with a uniform clatter, while Commander Jameson simply turns to face Anden with a look of utter disdain. Thomas snaps to a sharp salute in Anden's direction. He holds the position as Anden stands up, straightens, and puts his hands behind his back. There's a moment of silence as we wait for his final verdict, the one vote that really matters. I fight back a rising urge to cough. My eyes dart instinctively to the other Princeps-Elects, something I now do all the time; Mariana has a satisfied frown on her face, while Serge just looks bored. One of my fists clenches tightly around the paper clip ring I'm working on. I already know it will leave deep grooves in my palm.\n\n\"The Senators of the Republic have submitted their individual verdicts,\" Anden announces to the courtroom, his words bearing all the formality of a traditions-old speech. I marvel at the way his voice can sound so soft, yet carry so well at the same time. \"I have taken their joint decision into account, and now I give my own.\" Anden pauses to turn his eyes down toward where both of them are waiting. Thomas is still in full salute, still staring intently at the empty air in front of him. \"Captain Thomas Alexander Bryant of Los Angeles City Patrol Eight,\" he says, \"the Republic of America finds you guilty...\"\n\nThe room stays silent. I fight to keep my breathing even. Think about something. Anything. What about all the political books I've been reading this week? I try to recite some of the facts I've learned, but suddenly I can't remember any of it. Most uncharacteristic.\n\n\"... of the death of Captain Metias Iparis on the night of November thirtieth\u2014of the death of civilian Grace Wing without the warrants necessary for execution\u2014of the single-handed execution of twelve protesters in Batalla Square on the afternoon of\u2014\"\n\nHis voice comes in and out of the blur of noise in my head. I lean a hand against my chair's armrest, let out a slow breath, and try to prevent myself from swaying. Guilty. Thomas has been found guilty of killing both my brother and Day's mother. My hands shake.\n\n\"\u2014and thereby sentenced to death by firing squad two days from today, at seventeen hundred hours. Commander Natasha Jameson of Los Angeles City Patrol Eight, the Republic of America finds you guilty...\"\n\nAnden's voice fades away into a dull, unrecognizable hum. Everything around me seems so slow, as if I'm living too quickly for it all and leaving the world behind.\n\nA year ago I'd been standing outside Batalla Hall on a different sort of court stage, looking on with a huge crowd as a judge gave Day the exact same sentence. Now Day is alive, and a Republic celebrity. I open my eyes again. Commander Jameson's lips are set in a tight line as Anden reads out her death penalty. Thomas looks expressionless. Is he expressionless? I'm too far away to tell, but his eyebrows seem furrowed into a strange sort of tragedy. I should feel good about this, I remind myself. Both Day and I should be rejoicing. Thomas killed Metias. He shot Day's mother in cold blood, without a second's hesitation.\n\nBut now the courtroom falls away and all I can see are memories of Thomas as a teenager, back when he and Metias and I used to eat pork edame inside a warm first-floor street stand, with the rain pouring down all around us. I remember Thomas showing off his first assigned gun to me. I even remember the time Metias brought me to his afternoon drills. I was twelve and had just begun my courses at Drake for a week\u2014how innocent everything seemed back then. Metias picked me up after my classes that afternoon, right on time, and we headed over to the Tanagashi sector, where he was running his patrol through drills. I can still feel the warmth of the sun beating down on my hair, still see the swoosh of Metias's black half cape, the gleam of his silver epaulettes, and still hear the sharp clicks of his shining boots on the cement. While I settled down on a corner bench and turned my comp on to (pretend to) do some advance reading, Metias lined up his soldiers for inspection. He paused before each soldier to point out flaws in their uniforms.\n\n\"Cadet Rin,\" he barked at one of the newer soldiers. The soldier jumped at the steel in my brother's voice, then hung her head in shame as Metias tapped the lone medal pinned on the cadet's coat. \"If I wore my medal like this, Commander Jameson would strip me of my title. Do you want to be removed from this patrol, soldier?\"\n\n\"N-no, sir,\" the cadet stammered.\n\nMetias kept his gloved hands tucked behind his back and moved on. He criticized three more soldiers before he reached Thomas, who stood at attention near the end of the line. Metias looked over his uniform with a stern, careful eye. Of course, Thomas's outfit was absolutely spotless\u2014not a single thread out of place, every medal and epaulette groove polished to a bright shine, boots so flawless that I could probably see my reflection in them. A long pause. I put my comp down and leaned forward to watch more closely. Finally, my brother nodded. \"Well done, soldier,\" he said to Thomas. \"Keep up the good work, and I'll see that Commander Jameson promotes you before the end of this year.\"\n\nThomas's expression never changed, but I saw him lift his chin with pride. \"Thank you, sir,\" he replied. Metias's eyes lingered on him for a second, and then he moved on.\n\nWhen he finally finished inspecting everyone, my brother turned to face his entire patrol. \"A disappointing inspection, soldiers,\" he called out to them. \"You're under my watch now, and that means you're under Commander Jameson's watch. She expects a higher caliber from this lot, so you'd do well to try harder. Understood?\"\n\nSharp salutes answered him. \"Yes, sir!\"\n\nMetias's eyes returned to Thomas. I saw respect on my brother's face, even admiration. \"If each of you paid attention to detail the way Cadet Bryant does, we'd be the greatest patrol in the country. Let him serve as an example to you all.\" He joined them in a final salute. \"Long live the Republic!\" The cadets echoed him in unison.\n\nThe memory slowly fades from my thoughts, and Metias's clear voice turns into a ghost's whisper, leaving me weak and exhausted in my sadness.\n\nMetias had always talked about Thomas's fixation on being the perfect soldier. I remember the blind devotion Thomas gave to Commander Jameson, the same blind devotion he now gives to his new Elector. Then I see Thomas and me sitting across from each other in an interrogation room\u2014I remember the anguish in his eyes. How he'd told me that he wanted to protect me. What happened to that shy, awkward boy from Los Angeles's poor sectors, the boy who used to train with Metias every afternoon? Something blurs my vision and I quickly wipe a hand across my eyes.\n\nI could be compassionate. I could ask Anden to spare his life and let him live out his years in prison, and give him a chance to redeem himself. But instead I just stand there with my closed lips and unwavering posture, my heart hard as stone. Metias would be more merciful in my position.\n\nBut I was never as good a person as my brother.\n\n\"This concludes the trial for Captain Thomas Alexander Bryant and Commander Natasha Jameson,\" Anden finishes. He holds a hand out in Thomas's direction and nods once. \"Captain, do you have any words for the Senate?\"\n\nThomas doesn't flinch in the slightest, doesn't show a single hint of fear or remorse or anger on his face. I watch him closely. After a heartbeat, he turns his eyes up to where Anden stands, then bows low. \"My glorious Elector,\" he replies in a clear, unwavering voice. \"I have disgraced the Republic by acting in a way that has both displeased and disappointed you. I humbly accept my verdict.\" He rises from his bow, then returns to his salute. \"Long live the Republic.\"\n\nHe glances up at me when the Senators all voice their agreement with Anden's final verdict. For an instant, our eyes meet. Then I look down. After a while, I look back up and he's staring straight ahead again.\n\nAnden turns his attention to Commander Jameson. \"Commander,\" he says, extending his gloved hand in her direction. His chin lifts in a regal gesture. \"Do you have any words for the Senate?\"\n\nShe doesn't flinch from looking at the young Elector. Her eyes are cold, dark slates. After a pause, she finally nods. \"Yes, Elector,\" she says, her tone harsh and mocking, a stark contrast to Thomas's. The Senators and soldiers shift uneasily, but Anden raises a hand for silence. \"I do have some words for you. I was not the first to hope for your death, and I won't be the last. You are the Elector, but you are still just a boy. You don't know who you are.\" She narrows her eyes... and smiles. \"But I know. I have seen far more than you have\u2014I've drained the blood from prisoners twice your age, I've killed men with twice your strength, I've left prisoners shaking in their broken bodies who probably have twice your courage. You think you're this country's savior, don't you? But I know better. You're just your father's boy, and like father, like son. He failed, and so will you.\" Her smile widens, but it never touches her eyes. \"This country will go down in flames with you at the helm, and my ghost will be laughing at you all the way from hell.\"\n\nAnden's expression never changes. His eyes stay clear and unafraid, and in this moment, I am drawn to him like a bird to an open sky. He meets her stare coolly. \"This concludes today's trial,\" he replies, his voice echoing throughout the chamber. \"Commander, I suggest you save your threats for the firing squad.\" Then he folds his hands behind his back and nods at his soldiers. \"Remove them from my sight.\"\n\nI don't know how Anden can show so little fear in front of Commander Jameson. I envy it. Because as I watch the soldiers lead her away, all I can feel is a deep, ice-cold pit of terror. Like she's not done with us yet. Like she's warning us to watch our backs.\n\nWe touch down in denver on the morning of the emergency banquet. Even the words themselves make me want to laugh: emergency banquet? To me, a banquet still means a feast, and I don't see how any emergency should be cause for a goddy mountain of food, even if it is for Independence Day. Is that how these Senators deal with crises\u2014by stuffing their fat faces?\n\nAfter Eden and I settle into a temporary government apartment and Eden dozes off, exhausted from our early morning flight, I reluctantly leave him with Lucy in order to meet the assistant assigned to prep me for tonight's event.\n\n\"If anyone tries to see him,\" I whisper to Lucy as Eden sleeps, \"for any reason, please call me. If anyone wants\u2014\"\n\nLucy, used to my paranoia, hushes me with a wave of her hand. \"Let me put your mind at ease, Mr. Wing,\" she replies. She pats my cheek. \"No one will see Eden while you're gone. I promise. I'll call you in an instant if anything happens.\"\n\nI nod. My eyes linger on Eden as if he'll disappear if I blink. \"Thanks.\"\n\nTo attend an event this fancy, I need to dress the part\u2014and to dress the part, the Republic assigns a Senator's daughter to take me through the downtown district, where the city's main shopping areas are clustered. She meets me right where the train stops in the center of the district. There's no mistaking who she is\u2014she's decked out in a stylish uniform from head to toe, her light brown eyes set against dark brown skin and thick black curls of hair tied up into a knotted braid. When she recognizes me, she flashes me a smile. I catch her looking me over, as if already critiquing my outfit. \"You must be Day,\" she says, taking my hand. \"My name is Faline Fedelma, and the Elector has assigned me to be your guide.\" She pauses to raise an eyebrow at my clothes. \"We have some work to do.\"\n\nI look down at my outfit. Trousers tucked into scuffed-up boots, a rumpled collar shirt, and an old scarf. Would've been considered luxurious on the streets. \"Glad you approve,\" I reply. But Faline just laughs and loops an arm through mine.\n\nAs she leads me to a government clothing street that specializes in evening wear, I take in the crowds of people rushing around us. Well-dressed, upper-class folks. A trio of students pass, giggling about something or other, dressed in pristine military uniforms and polished boots. As we round a corner and step inside a shop, I realize that soldiers are standing guard up and down the street. A lot of soldiers.\n\n\"Are there usually this many guards downtown?\" I ask Faline.\n\nShe just shrugs and holds up an outfit against me, but I can see the unease in her eyes. \"No,\" she replies, \"not really. But I'm sure it's nothing for you to worry about.\"\n\nI let it drop, but a pulse of anxiety rushes through my mind. Denver's beefing up its defenses. June hasn't explained why she needed me to attend this banquet so badly, badly enough to contact me herself after so many months of no word. What the hell would she need from me? What does the Republic want this time?\n\nIf the Republic really is going back to war, then maybe I should find a way to get Eden out of the country. We have the power to leave now, after all. Don't know what's keeping me here.\n\nHours later, after the sun has set and fireworks for the Elector's birthday have already started going off in random parts of the city, a jeep takes me from our apartment toward Colburn Hall. I peer impatiently out the window. People travel up and down the sidewalks in dense clusters. Tonight each of them is dressed in very specific clothing\u2014mostly red, with hints of gold makeup and Republic seals stamped prominently here and there, on the back of white gloves or on the sleeves of military coats. I wonder how many of these folks agree with the Anden is our savior graffiti and how many side with the Anden is a hoax message. Troops march up and down the streets. All the JumboTrons have images of enormous Republic seals on display, followed by live footage streaming from the festivities happening inside Colburn Hall. To Anden's credit, there's been a steady decline in Republic propaganda lately on the JumboTrons. Still no news about the outside world, though. Guess you can't have everything.\n\nBy the time we reach the cobbled steps of Colburn Hall, the streets are a mess of celebrations, throngs of people, and unsmiling guards. The onlookers let out a huge cheer when they see me step out of the jeep, a roar that shakes my bones and sends a spasm of pain through the back of my head. I wave hesitantly back.\n\nFaline's waiting for me at the bottom of the steps that lead up to Colburn Hall. This time she's clad in a gold dress, and gold dust shimmers on her eyelids. We exchange bows before I follow behind her, looking on as she motions for others to clear a path. \"You clean up nicely,\" she says. \"Someone's going to be very pleased to see you.\"\n\n\"I don't think the Elector will be as excited as you think.\"\n\nShe smiles at me over her shoulder. \"I wasn't talking about the Elector.\"\n\nMy heart jumps at that.\n\nWe make our way through the shouting mob. I crane my neck and stare at the elaborate beauty of Colburn Hall. Everything glitters. Tonight the pillars are each adorned with tall scarlet banners displaying the Republic seal, and hanging right in the middle of the pillars and above the hall's entrance is the largest portrait I've ever seen. Anden's giant face. Faline guides me down the corridor, where Senators are carrying on random conversations and other elite guests talk and laugh with one another like everything in the country is going great. But behind their cheerful masks are signs of nervousness, flickering eyes, and furrowed brows. They've gotta sense the unusual number of soldiers here too. I try to mimic the proper, precise way they have of walking and talking, but stop when Faline notices me doing it.\n\nWe wander the lush, open setting of Colburn Hall for several minutes, lost in the sea of politicians. The tassels of my epaulettes clink together. I'm looking for her, even though I don't know what I'll say when\u2014if\u2014I find her. How will I even catch a glimpse of her in the middle of all this goddy luxury? Wherever we turn, I see another flurry of colorful gowns and polished suits, fountains and pianos, waiters carrying skinny glasses of champagne, fancy people wearing their fake smiles. I feel a sudden sense of claustrophobia.\n\nWhere am I? What am I doing here?\n\nAs if on cue, the instant I ask myself these questions is the instant I finally see her. Somehow, in the midst of these aristocrats who blend into one blurry portrait, my eyes catch her silhouette and pause. June. The noise around me fades into a dull hum, quiet and uninteresting, and all of my attention turns helplessly to the girl I thought I'd be able to face.\n\nShe's dressed in a floor-length gown of deep scarlet, and her thick, shining hair is piled high on her head in dark waves, pinned into place with red, gem-studded combs that catch the light. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, easily the most breathtaking girl in the room. She's grown taller in the eight months since I've seen her, and the way she holds herself\u2014poised and graceful, with her slender, swanlike neck and her deep, dark eyes\u2014is the image of perfection.\n\nAlmost perfection. At closer look, I notice something that makes me frown. There's an air of restraint about her, something uncertain and unconfident. Not like the June I know. As if powerless against the sight, I find myself guiding both Faline and me toward her. I only stop when the people around her move apart, revealing the man standing at her side.\n\nIt's Anden. Of course, I shouldn't be surprised. Off to the side, several well-dressed girls are trying in vain to catch his attention, but he seems focused only on June. I watch as he leans in to whisper something in her ear, then continues his relaxed conversation with her and several others.\n\nWhen I turn silently away, Faline frowns at my sudden shift. \"Are you okay?\" she asks.\n\nI attempt a reassuring smile. \"Oh, absolutely. Don't worry.\" I feel so out of place among these aristocrats, with their bank accounts and posh manners. No matter how much money the Republic throws at me, I will forever be the boy from the streets.\n\nAnd I'd forgotten that a boy from the streets is no match for the future Princeps.\n\n1935 HOURS.\n\nCOLBURN HALL, MAIN BALLROOM.\n\n68\u00b0F.\n\nI think I see day in the crowd. A flash of white-gold hair, of bright blue eyes. My attention suddenly breaks from my conversation with Anden and the other Princeps-Elects, and I crane my neck, hoping to get a better look\u2014but he's gone again, if he was ever there. Disappointed, I return my gaze to the others and give them my well-rehearsed smile. Will Day show up tonight? Surely Anden's men would have alerted us if Day had refused to get on the private jet sent for him this morning. But he'd sounded so distant and awkward over the mike that night, perhaps he just decided it wasn't worth coming out here after all. Maybe he hates me, now that we've had enough time apart for him to think clearly about our friendship. I scan the crowd again when the other Princeps-Elects are laughing at Anden's jokes.\n\nA feeling in my stomach tells me Day will be here. But I am hardly a person who relies on gut instinct. I absently touch the jewels in my hair, making sure they're all still in the right places. They're not the most comfortable things I've ever worn, but the hairdresser had gasped at how the rubies stood out against my dark locks, and that reaction was enough for me to think they're worth the trouble. I'm not sure why I bothered to look so nice for tonight. It is Independence Day, I suppose, and the occasion is a large one.\n\n\"Miss Iparis is as precocious as we all assumed she would be,\" Anden's saying to the Senators now, turning his smile on me. His apparent happiness is all for show, of course. I've shadowed Anden for long enough now to know when he is tense, and tonight the nervousness reflects off every gesture he makes. I'm nervous too. A month from now, the Republic might have Colonies flags flying over her cities. \"Her tutors say they've never seen a student progress so rapidly through her political texts.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Elector,\" I reply automatically to his compliment. The Senators both chuckle, but underneath their jolly expressions lies the lingering resentment they have against me, this child who has been tapped by the Elector to potentially become their leader one day. Mariana gives me a diplomatic, albeit stern, nod, but Serge doesn't look too pleased with the way Anden singles me out. I ignore the dark scowl that the Senator casts in my direction. His scowls used to bother me\u2014now I'm just tired of them.\n\n\"Ah, well.\" Senator Tanaka of California tugs on the collar of his military jacket and exchanges a look with his wife. \"That's wonderful news, Elector. Of course, I'm sure the tutors also know how much of a Senator's job is learned outside of texts and from years of experience in the Senate chamber. Like our dear Senator Carmichael here.\" He pauses to nod graciously at Serge, who puffs up.\n\nAnden waves off his concern. \"Of course,\" he echoes. \"All in good time, Senator.\"\n\nBeside me, Mariana sighs, leans over, and tilts her chin at Serge. \"If you stare at his head long enough, it might sprout wings and take flight,\" she mutters.\n\nI smile at that.\n\nThey steer off the topic of me and onto the topic of how to better sort students into high schools now that the Trials are discontinued. The political chatter grates on my nerves. I start scanning the crowd again for Day. After more futile searching, I finally put a hand on Anden's arm and lean over to whisper, \"Excuse me. I'll be right back.\" He nods in return. When I turn away and start blending in with the crowd, I can feel his stare lingering on me.\n\nI spend several minutes walking the ballroom in vain, greeting various Senators and their families as I go. Where is Day? I try to hear snatches of conversations, or notice where clusters of people might be gathering. Day is a celebrity. He must be attracting attention if he already arrived. I'm about to make my way across the other half of the ballroom when I'm interrupted by the loudspeakers. The pledge. I sigh, then turn back to where Anden has already taken his place on the front stage, flanked on both sides by soldiers holding up Republic flags.\n\n\"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Republic of America...\"\n\nDay. There he is.\n\nHe's standing about fifty feet away, his back partially turned to me so that I can only see a tiny sliver of his profile, his hair loose and thick and perfectly straight, and on his arm is a girl in a shining gold dress. When I observe him more closely, I notice that his mouth isn't moving at all. He stays silent throughout the entire pledge. I turn my attention back to the front as applause fills the chamber and Anden begins his prepared speech. From the corner of my eye, I see Day turn to look over his shoulder. My hands tremble at this momentary glimpse of his face\u2014have I really forgotten how beautiful he is, how his eyes reflect something wild and untamed, free even in the midst of all this order and elegance?\n\nWhen the speech ends, I head straight in Day's direction. He's dressed in a perfectly tailored black military jacket and suit. Is he also thinner? He looks to have lost a good ten pounds since the last time I saw him. He's been ill recently. As I get closer, Day catches sight of me and pauses in his conversation with his date. His eyes widen a little. I can feel the heat rising on my cheeks, but force it down. This will be our first face-to-face meeting in months, and I refuse to make a fool of myself.\n\nI stop a few feet away. My eyes wander to his date, a girl whom I recognize as Faline, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Senator Fedelma.\n\nFaline and I exchange a quick nod. She grins. \"Hi, June,\" she says. \"You look gorgeous tonight.\"\n\nShe makes a genuine smile escape from me, a relief after all the practiced smiles I've been giving the other Princeps-Elects. \"So do you,\" I reply.\n\nFaline doesn't waste a single awkward second\u2014she catches the slight blush on my cheeks and curtsies to both of us. Then she heads back into the crowd, leaving Day and me alone in the sea of people.\n\nFor a second, we just stare at each other. I break the silence before it stretches on for too long. \"Hi,\" I say. I take in his face, refreshing my memory with every little detail. \"It's good to see you.\"\n\nDay smiles back and bows, but his eyes never leave me. The way he stares sends rivers of heat racing through my chest. \"Thanks for the invite.\" Hearing his voice in person again... I take a deep breath, reminding myself of why I invited him here. His eyes dance across my face and to my dress\u2014he seems ready to comment on it, but then decides against it and waves his hand at the room. \"Nice little party you have here.\"\n\n\"It's never quite as fun as it looks,\" I reply in a hushed voice, so that the others can't hear me. \"I think some of these Senators might burst from being forced to talk to people they don't like.\"\n\nMy teasing brings a small smile of relief to Day's lips. \"Glad I'm not the only unhappy one.\"\n\nAnden has already left the stage, and Day's comment reminds me that I should be escorting him to the banquet soon. The thought sobers me. \"It's almost time,\" I say, motioning for Day to follow me. \"The banquet is very private. You, me, the other Princeps-Elects, and the Elector.\"\n\n\"What's going on?\" Day asks as he falls into step beside me. His arm brushes once against mine, sending shivers dancing across my skin. I struggle to catch my breath. Focus, June. \"You weren't exactly specific in our last conversation. I hope I'm putting up with all of these snobby Congress trots for a good reason.\"\n\nI can't help my amusement at the way Day refers to the Senators. \"You'll find out when we get there. And keep your insults to a minimum.\" I look away from him and toward the small corridor we're heading for, Jasper Chamber, a discreet hall branching away from the main ballroom.\n\n\"I'm not going to like this, am I?\" Day mutters close to my ear.\n\nGuilt rises in me. \"Probably not.\"\n\nWe settle down in the private banquet room (a small, rectangular cherrywood table with seven seats), and after a while, Serge and Mariana filter in. They each take a seat on either side of Anden's reserved chair. I stay next to Day, as Anden had wished. Two servers go around the table, placing dainty plates of watermelon and pork salad before each seat. Serge and Mariana make polite small talk, but neither Day nor I says another word. Now and then, I manage to steal a glance at him. He's eyeing the lines of forks, spoons, and knives at his place setting with an uncomfortable frown, trying to figure them out without asking for help. Oh, Day. I don't know why this gives me a painful, fluttering feeling in my stomach, or why it pulls my heart to him. I'd forgotten how his long lashes catch the light.\n\n\"What's this?\" he whispers to me, holding up one of his utensils.\n\n\"A butter knife.\"\n\nDay scowls at it, running a finger along its blunt, rounded edge. \"This,\" he mutters, \"is not a knife.\"\n\nBeside him, Serge notices his hesitation too. \"I take it you're not accustomed to forks and knives where you're from?\" he says coolly to him.\n\nDay stiffens, but he doesn't miss a beat. He grabs a larger carving knife, purposely disturbing his place's careful setup, and gestures casually with it. Both Serge and Mariana edge away from the table. \"Where I come from, we're more about efficiency,\" he replies. \"A knife like this'll skewer food, smear butter, and slit throats all at the same time.\"\n\nOf course Day's never slit a throat in his life\u2014but Serge doesn't know that. He sniffs in disdain at the reply, but the blood drains from his face. I have to pretend to cough so that I don't laugh at Day's mock-serious expression. For those who don't know him well, his words actually sound intimidating.\n\nI also notice something I hadn't earlier\u2014Day looks pale. Much paler than I remember. My amusement wavers. Is his recent illness something more serious than I'd first assumed?\n\nAnden arrives in the room a minute later, causing the usual stir as we all rise for him, and gestures for all of us to take our seats. He's accompanied by four soldiers, one of whom closes the door behind him and finally seals us in to our private meal.\n\n\"Day,\" Anden greets. He pauses to nod courteously in Day's direction. Day looks unhappy with the attention, but manages to return the gesture. \"It's a pleasure to see you again, if under unfortunate circumstances.\"\n\n\"Very unfortunate,\" Day says in return. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to imagine a more awkward scenario than this dinner setup.\n\nAnden lets the stiff reply slide. \"Let me catch you up on the current situation.\" He puts his fork down. \"The peace treaty we've been working on with the Colonies is now shelved. A virus has hit the Colonies' southern warfront cities hard.\"\n\nBeside me, Day crosses his arms and regards the crowd with a suspicious expression on his face, but Anden goes on. \"They believe this virus was caused by us, and they are demanding that we send them a cure if we want to continue peace talks.\" Serge clears his throat and starts to say something, but Anden holds up a hand for silence. He then goes on to spill all the details\u2014how the Colonies first sent a harsh message to the Republic, demanding info on the virus wreaking havoc amongst their troops, hastily withdrawing their affected soldiers, and then broadcasting their ultimatum to the warfront generals, warning of dire consequences if a cure was not delivered immediately.\n\nDay listens to all of it without moving a muscle or uttering a word. One of his hands grips the edge of the table tightly enough to turn his knuckles white. I wonder whether he's guessed where this is going and what all this has to do with him, but he just waits until Anden has finished.\n\nSerge leans back in his chair and frowns. \"If the Colonies want to play games with our peace offer,\" he scoffs, \"then let them. We've been at war long enough\u2014we can handle some more.\"\n\n\"No, we can't,\" Mariana interjects. \"Do you honestly think the United Nations will accept the news that our peace treaty fell apart?\"\n\n\"Do the Colonies have any evidence that we caused it? Or are these empty accusations?\"\n\n\"Exactly. If they think we're going to\u2014\"\n\nDay suddenly speaks up, his face turned toward Anden. \"Let's stop dragging our feet,\" he says. \"Tell me why I'm here.\" He's not loud, but the ominous tone of his voice hushes the conversation in the room. Anden returns his look with an equally grave one. He takes a deep breath.\n\n\"Day, I believe this is the result of one of my father's bioweapons\u2014and that the virus came from your brother Eden's blood.\"\n\nDay's eyes narrow. \"And?\"\n\nAnden seems reluctant to continue. \"There's more than one reason why I didn't want all my Senators in here with us.\" He leans forward, lowers his voice, and gives Day a humbled look. \"I don't want to hear anyone else right now. I want to hear you. You are the heart of the people, Day\u2014you always have been. You've given everything you have in order to protect them.\" Day stiffens beside me, but Anden goes on. \"I fear for the people. I worry about their safety, that we'll be handing them over to the enemy just as we're starting to put the pieces together.\" He grows quieter. \"I need to make some difficult decisions.\"\n\nDay raises an eyebrow. \"What kind of decisions?\"\n\n\"The Colonies are desperate for a cure. They will destroy us to get it, everything both you and I care about. The only chance we have of finding one is to take Eden into temporary\u2014\"\n\nDay pushes his chair from the table and rises. \"No,\" he says. His voice is flat and icy, but I remember my old, heated argument with Day well enough to recognize the deep fury beneath his calmness. Without another word, he turns from the group and walks away.\n\nSerge starts to get up, no doubt to shout at Day about his rudeness, but Anden shoots him a warning stare and motions for him to sit. Then Anden turns to me with a look that says, Talk to him. Please.\n\nI watch Day's retreating figure. He has every right to refuse, every right to hate us for asking this of him. But I still find myself rising from my own chair, stepping away from the banquet table, and hurrying in his direction.\n\n\"Day, wait,\" I call out. My words send me a painful reminder of the last time we'd been in the same room together, when we had said our good-byes.\n\nWe head into the smaller corridor that leads out to the main ballroom. Day doesn't turn around, but he seems to slow his steps down in an attempt to let me catch up. When I finally reach him, I take a deep breath. \"Look, I know\u2014\"\n\nDay presses a finger to his lips, silencing me, and then grabs my hand. His skin is warm through the fabric of his glove. The feel of his fingers around mine is such a shock after all these months that I can't remember the rest of my sentence\u2014everything about him, his touch, his closeness, feels right. \"Let's talk in private,\" he whispers.\n\nWe head inside one of the doors lining the corridor, then close it behind us and turn the lock. My eyes do a categorical sweep of the room (private dining chamber, no lights on, one round table and twelve chairs all covered in white cloths, and a single large, arched window at the back wall that lets in a stream of moonlight). Day's hair transforms in here to a silver sheet. He turns his gaze back to me now.\n\nIs it my imagination, or does he look as flustered as I am about our brief handhold? I feel the sudden tightness of the dress's waist, the air hitting my exposed shoulders and collarbone, the heaviness of the fabric and the jewels in my hair. Day's eyes linger on the ruby necklace sitting at the small of my throat. His parting gift to me. His cheeks turn a little pink in the darkness. \"So,\" he says, \"is this seriously why I'm here?\"\n\nDespite the anger in his voice, his directness is like a cool, sweet breeze after all these months of calculated political talk. I want to breathe it in. \"The Colonies refuse to accept any other terms,\" I reply. \"They're convinced that we have a cure for the virus, and the only one who might carry the cure is Eden. The Republic's already running tests on other former... experiments... to see whether they can find anything.\"\n\nDay cringes, then folds his arms in front of his chest and regards me with a scowl. \"Already running tests,\" he mutters to himself, looking off toward the moonlit windows. \"Sorry I can't be more enthusiastic about this idea,\" he adds dryly.\n\nI close my eyes for a moment. \"We don't have much time,\" I admit. \"Every day we don't hand over a cure further angers the Colonies.\"\n\n\"And what happens if we don't give them anything?\"\n\n\"You know what happens. War.\"\n\nA note of fear appears in Day's eyes, but he still shrugs. \"The Republic and the Colonies have been at war forever. How will this be any different?\"\n\n\"This time they'll win,\" I whisper. \"They have a strong ally. They know we're vulnerable during our transition to a young new Elector. If we can't hand over this cure, we don't stand a chance.\" I narrow my eyes. \"Don't you remember what we saw when we went to the Colonies?\"\n\nDay pauses for a heartbeat. Even though he doesn't say it aloud, I can see the conflict written clearly on his face. Finally, he sighs and tightens his lips in anger. \"You think I'm going to let the Republic take Eden again? If the Elector believes that, then I really did make a mistake throwing my support behind him. I didn't help him out just to watch him toss Eden back into a lab.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I say. No use trying to convince him of how much Anden also hates the situation. \"He shouldn't have asked you like this.\"\n\n\"He put you up to this, didn't he? I bet you resisted too, yeah? You know how this sounds.\" His tone turns more exasperated. \"You knew what my answer would be. Why'd you still send for me?\"\n\nI look into his eyes and say the first thing that comes to mind. \"Because I wanted to see you. Isn't that why you agreed too?\"\n\nThis makes him pause for a moment. Then he whirls around, rakes both hands through his hair, and sighs. \"What do you think, then? Tell me the truth. What would you ask me to do, if you felt absolutely no pressure from anyone else in this country?\"\n\nI tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. Steel yourself, June. \"I'd...,\" I begin, then hesitate. What would I say? Logically, I agree with Anden's assessment. If the Colonies do what they threaten, if they attack us with the full force of a superpower's help, then many innocent lives will be lost unless we take a risk with one life. There is simply no easier choice. Besides, we could ensure that Eden would be treated as well as possible, with the best doctors and the most physical comfort. Day could be present during all of the potential procedures\u2014he could see exactly what was happening. But how do I explain that to a boy who has already lost his entire family, who saw his brother experimented on before, who has been experimented on himself? This is the part that Anden doesn't understand as well as I do, even though he knows Day's past on paper\u2014he still doesn't know Day, hasn't traveled with him and witnessed the suffering he's gone through. The question is too complicated to be answered with simple logic.\n\nMost importantly\u2014 Anden's unable to guarantee his brother's safety. Everything will come with a risk, and I know with dead certainty that nothing in the world could possibly make Day take this risk.\n\nDay must see the frustration dancing across my face, because he softens and steps closer. I can practically feel the heat coming off him, the warmth of his nearness that turns my breath shallow. \"I came here tonight for you,\" he says in a low voice. \"There's nothing in the world they could've said to convince me, except that you wanted me here. And I can't turn down a request from you. They told me you had personally...\" He swallows. There's a familiar war of emotions in his expression that leaves me with a sick feeling\u2014emotions that I know are desire, for what we once had, and anguish, for desiring a girl who destroyed his family. \"It's so good to see you, June.\"\n\nHe says it like he's letting go of a huge burden that's been holding him down. I wonder whether he can hear my heart pounding frantically against my ribs. When I speak, though, I manage to keep my voice steady and calm. \"Are you okay?\" I ask. \"You look pale.\"\n\nThe weight returns to his eyes, and his brief moment of intimacy fades as he steps away and fiddles with the edge of his gloves. He's always hated gloves, I remember. \"I've had a bad flu for the last couple of weeks,\" he replies, flashing me a quick grin. \"Getting better now, though.\" (Eyes flickering subtly to the side, scratching the edge of his ear, stiffness of his limbs, timing slightly off between his words and his smile.) I tilt my head at him and frown.\n\n\"You're such a bad liar, Day,\" I say. \"You might as well tell me what's on your mind.\"\n\n\"There's nothing to tell,\" he replies automatically. This time he points his eyes at the floor and puts his hands in his pockets. \"If I seem off, it's because I'm worried about Eden. He's gotten a year of treatment for his eyes and he still can't see much. The doctors tell me that he may need some special contacts, and even then, he might never get his full eyesight back.\"\n\nI can tell this isn't the real reason behind Day's exhausted appearance, but he knows that bringing Eden's recovery into this conversation will stop any questions from me. Well, if he really doesn't want to tell me, then I won't pressure him. I clear my throat awkwardly. \"That's terrible,\" I whisper. \"I'm so sorry to hear it. Is he doing okay, otherwise?\"\n\nDay nods. We fall back into our moonlit silence. I can't help recalling the last time we were alone in a room together, when he took my face in his hands, when his tears were falling against my cheeks. I remember the way he whispered I'm sorry against my lips. Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers.\n\nDay leans toward me, as if drawn by some invisible force. The tragic plea on his face twists my stomach into painful knots. Please don't ask this of me, his eyes beg. Please don't ask me to give up my brother. I would do anything else for you. Just not this. \"June, I...,\" he whispers. His voice threatens to break with all the heartache he's keeping bottled inside.\n\nHe never finishes that sentence. Instead, he sighs and bows his head. \"I can't agree to your Elector's terms,\" he says in a somber tone. \"I'm not going to hand my brother to the Republic as another experiment. Tell him I'll work with him to find another solution. I understand how serious this all is\u2014I don't want to see the Republic fall. I'd be glad to help and figure something else out. But Eden stays out of this.\"\n\nAnd that's the end of our conversation. Day nods at me in farewell, lingers for a few last seconds, and then steps toward the door. I lean against the wall in sudden exhaustion. Without him nearby, there's a lack of energy, a dulling of color, gray moonlight where moments earlier there had been silver. I study his paleness a final time, analyzing him from the corner of my eye. He avoids my gaze. Something is wrong, and he refuses to tell me what it is.\n\nWhat am I missing here?\n\nHe pulls the door open. His expression hardens right before he steps out of the room. \"And if for some reason the Republic tries to take Eden by force, I'll turn the people against Anden so fast that a revolution will be on him before he can blink.\"\n\nSERIOUSLY, I SHOULD BE USED TO MY NIGHTMARES BY NOW.\n\nThis time I dream about me and Eden at a San Francisco hospital. A doctor's fitting Eden with a new pair of glasses. We end up at a hospital at least once a week, so that they can monitor how Eden's eyes are slowly adjusting to medication, but this is the first time I see the doctor smile encouragingly at my brother. Must be a good sign, yeah?\n\nEden turns to me, grins, and puffs his chest out in an exaggerated gesture. I have to laugh. \"How does it look?\" he asks me, fiddling with his huge new frames. His eyes still have that weird, pale purple color, and he can't focus on me, but I notice that he can now make out things like the walls around him and the light coming in from the windows. My heart jumps at the sight. Progress.\n\n\"You look like an eleven-year-old owl,\" I reply, walking over to ruffle his hair. He giggles and bats my hand away.\n\nAs we sit together in the office, waiting for paperwork, I watch Eden busily folding pieces of paper together into some kind of elaborate design. He has to hunch close to the papers to see what he's doing, his broken eyes almost crossed with concentration, his fingers nimble and deliberate. I swear, this kid's always making something or other.\n\n\"What is it?\" I ask him after a while.\n\nHe's concentrating too hard to answer me right away. Finally, when he tucks one last paper triangle into the design, he holds it up and gives me that cheeky grin. \"Here,\" he says, pointing to what looks like a paper leaf sticking out of the ball of paper. \"Pull this.\"\n\nI do as he says. To my amazement, the design transforms into an elaborate 3-D paper rose. I smile back at him in my dream. \"Pretty impressive.\"\n\nEden takes his paper design back.\n\nIn that instant, an alarm blares throughout the hospital. Eden drops the paper flower and jumps to his feet. His blind eyes are wide open in terror. I glance to the hospital's windows, where doctors and nurses have gathered. Out along the horizon of San Francisco, a row of Colonies Airships sail closer and closer to us. The city below them burns from a dozen fires.\n\nThe alarm deafens me. I grab Eden's hand and rush us out of the room. \"We have to get out of here,\" I shout. When he stumbles, unable to see where we're going, I hoist him onto my back. People rush all around us.\n\nI reach the stairwell\u2014and there, a line of Republic soldiers stops us. One of them pulls Eden off my back. He screams, kicking out at people he can't see. I struggle to free myself from the soldiers, but their grip is ironclad, and my limbs feel like they're sinking into deep mud. We need him, some unrecognizable voice whispers into my ear. He can save us all.\n\nI scream out loud, but no one can hear me. Off in the distance, the Colonies Airships aim at the hospital. Glass shatters all around us. I feel the heat of fire. On the floor lies Eden's paper flower, its edges crisping from flames. I can no longer see my brother.\n\nHe's gone. He's dead.\n\nA pounding headache pulls me from my sleep. The soldiers vanish\u2014the alarm silences\u2014the chaos of the hospital disappears into the dark blue hue of our bedroom. I try to take a deep breath and look around for Eden, but the headache stabs into the back of my skull like an ice pick, and I bolt upright with a gasp of pain. Now I remember where I really am. I'm in a temporary apartment back in Denver, the morning after seeing June. On the bedroom dresser sits my usual transmission box, the station still tuned to one of the airwaves I thought the Patriots might've been using.\n\n\"Daniel?\" In the bed next to mine, Eden stirs. Relief hits me, even in the midst of my agony. Just a nightmare. Like always. Just a nightmare. \"Are you okay?\" It takes me a second to realize that dawn hasn't quite arrived\u2014the room still looks dark, and all I can see is my brother's silhouette against the bluish black of the night.\n\nI don't answer right away. Instead, I swing my legs over the side of the bed to face him and clutch my head in both hands. Another jolt of pain hits the base of my brain. \"Get my medicine,\" I mutter to Eden.\n\n\"Should I get Lucy?\"\n\n\"No. Don't wake her,\" I reply. Lucy's already had two sleepless nights because of me. \"Medicine.\"\n\nThe pain makes me ruder than usual, but Eden jumps out of bed before I can apologize. He immediately starts fumbling for the bottle of green pills that always sits on the dresser between our beds. He grabs it and holds out the bottle in my general direction.\n\n\"Thanks.\" I take it from him, pour three pills into my palm with a shaking hand, and try to swallow them. Throat's too dry. I push myself up from the bed and stagger toward the kitchen. Behind me, Eden utters another \"Are you sure you're okay?\" but the pain in my head is so strong that I can hardly hear him. I can hardly even see.\n\nI reach the kitchen sink and turn the faucet on, cup some water into my hands, and drink it down with the medicine. Then I slide down to the floor in the darkness, resting my back against the cold metal of the refrigerator door.\n\nIt's okay, I console myself. My headaches had worsened over the past year, but the doctors assured me that these attacks should last no longer than a half hour each time. Of course, they also told me that if any of them felt unusually severe, I should be rushed to the emergency room right away. So every time I get one, I wonder if I'm experiencing a typical day\u2014or the last day of my life.\n\nA few minutes later, Eden stumbles into the kitchen with his walking meter on, the device beeping whenever he gets too close to a wall. \"Maybe we should ask Lucy to call the doctors,\" he whispers.\n\nI don't know why, but the sight of Eden feeling his way through the kitchen sends me into a fit of low, uncontrollable laughter. \"Man, look at us,\" I reply. My laughter turns into coughs. \"What a team, yeah?\"\n\nEden finds me by placing a tentative hand on my head. He sits beside me with his legs crossed and gives me a wry grin. \"Hey\u2014with your metal leg and half a brain, and my four leftover senses, we almost make a whole person.\"\n\nI laugh harder, but it makes the pain of my headache that much worse. \"When did you turn so sarcastic, little boy?\" I give him an affectionate shove.\n\nWe stay hunched in silence for the next hour as the headache goes on and on. I'm now writhing in pain. Sweat soaks my white collar shirt and tears streak my face. Eden sits next to me and grips my hand in his small ones. \"Try not to think about it,\" he urges under his breath, squinting at me with his pale purple eyes. He pushes his black-rimmed glasses farther up his nose. Bits and pieces of my nightmare come back to me, images of his hand getting yanked out of mine. Sounds of his screams. I squeeze his hand so tightly that he winces. \"Don't forget to breathe. The doctor always says taking deep breaths is supposed to help, right? Breathe in, breathe out.\"\n\nI close my eyes and try to follow my little brother's commands, but it's hard to hear him at all through the pounding of my headache. The pain is excruciating, all-consuming, a white-hot knife stabbing repeatedly into the back of my brain. Breathe in, breathe out. Here's the pattern\u2014first there's a dull, numbing ache, followed shortly by the absolute worst pain you can ever imagine going into your head, a spear shoved through your skull, and the impact of it is so hard that your entire body goes stiff; it lasts for a solid three seconds, followed by a split second of relief. And then it repeats itself all over again.\n\n\"How long has it been?\" I gasp out to Eden. Dim blue light is slowly filtering in from the windows.\n\nEden pulls out a tiny square com and presses its lone knob. \"Time?\" he asks it. The device immediately responds, \"Zero five thirty.\" He puts it away, a concerned frown on his face. \"It's been almost an hour. Has it gone on this long before?\"\n\nI'm dying. I really am dying. It's times like this when I'm glad that I don't see much of June anymore. The thought of her seeing me sweating and dirty on my kitchen floor, clutching my baby brother's hand for dear life like some weepy weakling, while she's breathtaking in her scarlet gown and jewel-studded hair... You know, for that matter, in this moment I'm even relieved that Mom and John can't see me.\n\nWhen I moan from another excruciating stab of pain, Eden pulls out his com again and presses the knob. \"That's it. I'm calling the doctors.\" When the com beeps, prompting him for his command, he says, \"Day needs an ambulance.\" Then, before I can protest, he raises his voice and calls out for Lucy.\n\nSeconds later, I hear Lucy approach. She doesn't turn the light on\u2014she knows that it only makes my headaches that much worse. Instead, I see her stout silhouette in the darkness and hear her exclaim, \"Day! How long have you been out here?\" She rushes over to me and puts one plump hand against my cheek. Then she glances at Eden and touches his chin. \"Did you call for the doctors?\"\n\nEden nods. Lucy inspects my face again, then clucks her tongue in worried disapproval and bustles off to grab a cool towel.\n\nThe last place I want to be right now is lying in a Republic hospital\u2014but Eden's already placed the call, and I'd rather not be dead anyway. My vision has started to blur, and I realize it's because I can't stop my eyes from watering nonstop. I wipe a hand across my face and smile weakly at Eden. \"Damn, I'm dripping water like a leaky faucet.\"\n\nEden tries to smile back. \"Yeah, you've had better days,\" he replies.\n\n\"Hey, kid. Remember that time when John asked you to be in charge of watering the plants outside our door?\"\n\nEden frowns for a second, digging through his memories, and then a grin lights up his face. \"I did a pretty good job, didn't I?\"\n\n\"You built that little makeshift catapult in front of our door.\" I close my eyes and indulge in the memory, a temporary distraction from all the pain. \"Yeah, I remember that thing. You kept lobbing water balloons at those poor flowers. Did they even have any petals left after you were done? Oh man, John was so pissed.\" He was even madder because Eden was only four at the time and, well, how do you punish your wide-eyed baby brother?\n\nEden giggles. I wince as another wave of agony hits me.\n\n\"What was it that Mom used to say about us?\" he asks. Now I can tell that he's trying to keep my mind on other things too.\n\nI manage a smile. \"Mom used to say that having three boys was kind of like having a pet tornado that talked back.\" The two of us laugh for a moment, at least before I squint my eyes shut again.\n\nLucy comes back with the towel. She places it against my forehead, and I sigh in relief at its cool surface. She checks my pulse, then my temperature.\n\n\"Daniel,\" Eden pipes up while she works. He scoots closer, his eyes still staring blankly off at a spot to the right of my head. \"Hang in there, okay?\"\n\nLucy shoots him a critical frown at what his tone implies. \"Eden,\" she scolds. \"More optimism in this house, please.\"\n\nA lump rises in my throat, turning my breath shallower. John's gone, Mom's gone, Dad's gone. I watch Eden with a heavy ache in my chest. I used to hope that since he was the youngest of us boys, he might be able to learn from John's and my mistakes and be the luckiest out of us, maybe make it into a college or earn a good living as a mechanic, that we'd be around to guide him through the difficult times in life. What would happen to him if I were gone too? What happens if he has to stand alone against the Republic?\n\n\"Eden,\" I suddenly whisper to him, pulling him close. His eyes widen at my urgent tone. \"Listen close, yeah? If the Republic ever asks you to go with them, if I'm ever not home or I'm in the hospital and they come knocking on our door, don't ever go with them. You understand me? You call me first, you scream for Lucy, you...\" I hesitate. \"You call for June Iparis.\"\n\n\"Your Princeps-Elect?\"\n\n\"She's not my\u2014\" I grimace at another wave of pain. \"Just do it. Call her. Tell her to stop them.\"\n\n\"I don't understand\u2014\"\n\n\"Promise me. Don't go with them, whatever you do. Okay?\" My answer's cut short when a jolt of pain hits me hard enough to send me collapsing to the ground, curled up into a tight ball. I choke out a shriek\u2014my head feels like it's being split in two. I even put a trembling hand to the back of my head as if to make sure my brain's not leaking out onto the floor. Somewhere above me, Eden is shouting. Lucy places another call to the doctor, this time frantic.\n\n\"Just hurry!\" she yells. \"Hurry!\"\n\nBy the time the medics arrive, I'm fading in and out of consciousness. Through a cloud of haze and fog, I feel myself getting lifted off the kitchen floor and carried out of the apartment tower, then into a waiting ambulance that has been disguised to look like a regular police jeep. Is it snowing? A few light flakes drift onto my face, shocking me with pinpricks of coldness. I call out for Eden and Lucy\u2014they respond from somewhere I can't see.\n\nThen we're in the ambulance and pulling away.\n\nAll I see for a long time are blobs of color, fuzzy circles moving back and forth across my vision, like I'm peering through thick, bumpy glass. I try to recognize some of them. Are they people? I sure as hell hope so\u2014otherwise I really must have died, or maybe I'm floating in the ocean and debris is just drifting all around me. That doesn't make any sense, though, unless the doctors just decided to toss me right into the Pacific and forget about me. Where's Eden? They must've taken him away. Just like in the nightmare. They've dragged him off to the labs.\n\nI can't breathe.\n\nMy hands try to fly up to my throat, but then someone shouts something and I feel weight against my arms, pinning me down. Something cold is going down my throat, choking me.\n\n\"Calm down! You're okay. Try to swallow.\"\n\nI do as the voice says. Swallowing turns out to be more difficult than I thought, but I finally manage a gulp, and whatever the cold thing is slides right down my throat and into my stomach, chilling me to my core.\n\n\"There,\" the voice goes on, less agitated now. \"Should help with any future headaches, I think.\" He doesn't seem to be talking to me anymore\u2014and a second later, another voice chimes in.\n\n\"Seems to be working a little, Doctor.\"\n\nI must've passed out again after that, because the next time I wake up, the pattern on the ceiling's different and late afternoon light is slanting into my room. I blink and look around. The excruciating pain in my head is gone, at least for now. I can also see clearly enough to know I'm in a hospital room, the ever-present portrait of Anden on one wall and a screen against another wall, broadcasting news. I groan, then close my eyes and let out a sigh. Stupid hospitals. So sick of them.\n\n\"Patient is awake.\" I turn to see a monitor near my bedside that recites the phrase. A second later, a real human's voice pops up over its speakers. \"Mister Wing?\" it says.\n\n\"Yeah?\" I mutter back.\n\n\"Excellent,\" the voice replies. \"Your brother will be in shortly to see you.\"\n\nNo sooner than her voice clicks off, my door bursts open and Eden comes running in with two exasperated nurses hot on his tail. \"Daniel,\" he gasps out, \"you're finally awake! Sure took you long enough.\" His lack of sight catches up with him\u2014he stumbles against the edge of a drawer before I can warn him, and the nurses have to catch him in their arms to keep him from falling to the floor.\n\n\"Easy there, kid,\" I call out. My voice sounds tired, even though I feel alert and pain-free. \"How long was I out? Where is...?\" I pause, confused for a moment. That's weird. What was our caretaker's name again? I grasp for it in my thoughts. Lucy. \"Where's Lucy?\" I finish.\n\nHe doesn't answer right away. When the nurses finally situate Eden beside me in bed, he crawls closer to me and flings his arms around my neck. To my shock, I realize that he's crying. \"Hey.\" I pat his head. \"Calm down\u2014it's okay. I'm awake.\"\n\n\"I thought you weren't going to make it,\" he murmurs. His pale eyes search for mine. \"I thought you were gone.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not. I'm right here.\" I let him sob for a little while, his head buried against my chest, his tears blurring his glasses and staining my hospital gown. There's a coping mechanism I've started using recently where I pretend to retreat back into the shell of my heart and crawl out of my body, like I'm not really here and am instead observing the world from another person's perspective. Eden's not my brother. He's not even real. Nothing is real. Everything is illusion. It helps. I wait without emotion as Eden gradually composes himself, and then I carefully let myself back into my body.\n\nFinally, when he's wiped away the last of his tears, he sits up and burrows in beside me. \"Lucy's filling out paperwork up front.\" His voice still sounds a little shaky. \"You've been out for about ten hours. They said they had to rush you out of our building through the main entrance\u2014there just wasn't any time to try sneaking you out.\"\n\n\"Did anyone see?\"\n\nEden rubs his temples in an attempt to remember. \"Maybe. I don't know. I can't remember\u2014I was too distracted. I spent all morning out in the waiting room because they wouldn't let me inside.\"\n\n\"Do you know...\" I swallow. \"Have you heard anything from the doctors?\"\n\nEden sighs in relief. \"Not really. But at least you're okay now. The doctors said you had a bad reaction to the medicine they put you on. They're taking you off it and trying something different.\"\n\nThe way Eden says this makes my heart beat faster. He doesn't fully grasp the reality of the situation\u2014he still thinks that the only reason I'd collapsed like that wasn't because I'm getting worse, but because I just had a bad reaction. A sick, sinking feeling hits my stomach. Of course he'd be optimistic about it all; of course he thinks this is just a temporary setback. I'd been on that damn medication for the last two months after the first two rounds also stopped working, and with all the extra headaches and nightmares and nausea, I'd hoped that the pills had at least done some good, that they were successfully shrinking the problem spot in my hippocampus\u2014their fancy word for the bottom of my brain. Apparently not. What if nothing works?\n\nI take a deep breath and put on a smile for my brother. \"Well, at least they know now. Maybe they'll try something better this time.\"\n\nEden smiles along, sweet and na\u00efve. \"Yeah.\"\n\nSeveral minutes later, my doctor comes in and Eden moves back outside to the waiting room. As the doctor talks in a low voice to me about \"our next options,\" what treatments they'll try to experiment with next, he also quietly tells me how small of a chance they have. Like I feared, my reaction wasn't just some temporary medicine issue. \"The medication is slowly shrinking the affected area,\" the doctor says, but his expression stays grim. \"Still, the area continues to fester, and your body has begun to reject the old medication, forcing us to search for new ones. We are quite simply racing against the clock, Day, trying to shrink it enough and pull it out before it can do its worst.\" I listen to it all with a straight face; his voice sounds like it's underwater, unimportant and out of focus.\n\nFinally, I stop him and say, \"Look, just tell me straight up. How much longer do I have? If nothing works out?\"\n\nThe doctor purses his lips, hesitates, and then shakes his head with a sigh. \"Probably a month,\" he admits. \"Maybe two. We're doing the best we can.\"\n\nA month or two. Well, they've been wrong in the past\u2014a month or two probably means more like four or five. Still. I look toward the door, where Eden's probably pressed against the wood and trying in vain to hear what we're saying. Then I turn back to the doctor and swallow the lump in my throat. \"Two months,\" I echo. \"Is there any chance?\"\n\n\"We might try some riskier treatments, although those have side effects that may be fatal if you react badly to them. A surgery before you're ready will likely kill you.\" The doctor crosses his arms. His glasses catch the cold fluorescent light and shine in a way that blocks out his eyes entirely. He looks like a machine. \"I would suggest, Day, that you begin getting your priorities in order.\"\n\n\"My priorities in order?\"\n\n\"Prepare your brother for the news,\" he replies. \"And settle any unfinished business.\"\n\nAT 0810 HOURS ON THE MORNING AFTER THE EMERGENCY banquet, Anden calls me. \"It's Captain Bryant,\" he says. \"He has put in his last request, and his last request is to see you.\"\n\nI sit at the edge of my bed, blinking away a night of fitful sleep, trying to work up the energy to understand what Anden is telling me.\n\n\"Tomorrow we transfer him to a prison on the other side of Denver to prepare for his final day. He's asked if he can see you before then.\"\n\n\"What does he want?\"\n\n\"Whatever he has to say, he wants it heard by your ears alone,\" Anden replies. \"Remember, June\u2014you have the option to refuse him. We don't have to grant this last request.\"\n\nTomorrow, Thomas will be dead. I wonder whether Anden feels any guilt over sentencing a soldier to die. The thought of facing Thomas alone in a jail cell sends a wave of panic through me, but I steel myself. Maybe Thomas has something to say about my brother. Do I want to hear it?\n\n\"I'll see him,\" I finally reply. \"And hopefully this is the last time.\"\n\nAnden must hear something in my voice, because his words soften. \"Of course. I'll arrange for your escort.\"\n\n0930 HOURS.\n\nDENVER STATE PENITENTIARY.\n\nThe hall where Thomas and Commander Jameson are being held is lit with cold, fluorescent light, and the sound of my boots echoes against the high ceiling. Several soldiers flank me, but aside from us, the hall feels empty and ominous. Portraits of Anden hang at sporadic intervals along the walls. My eyes stay focused on each of the cells we pass, studying them, details running through my mind in an effort to keep myself calm and focused. (32 \u00d7 32 feet in size, smooth steel walls, bulletproof glass, cams mounted outside of the cells instead of inside. Most of them are empty, and the ones that are filled hold three of the Senators who had plotted against Anden. This floor is reserved for prisoners associated specifically with Anden's attempted assassination.)\n\n\"If you experience any trouble at all,\" one of the soldiers says to me, tapping his cap in a polite bow, \"just call us in. We'll have that traitor down on the ground before he can make a move.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" I reply, my eyes still fixed on the cells as we draw closer. I know I won't need to do what he just said, because I know Thomas won't ever disobey the Elector and try to hurt me. Thomas is many things, but he isn't rebellious.\n\nWe reach the end of the hall where two adjacent cells sit, each one guarded by two soldiers.\n\nSomeone stirs in the cell closest to me. I turn toward the movement. I don't even have time to study the cell's interior before a woman raps her fingers against the steel bars. I jump, then swallow the cry that rises up in my throat as I stare into the face of Commander Jameson.\n\nAs she fixes her eyes on mine, she gives me a smile that makes me break out in a cold sweat. I remember this smile\u2014she'd smiled like this on the night Metias died, when she approved me to become a junior agent in her patrol. There is no emotion there, nothing compassionate or even angry. Few things frighten me\u2014but facing the cold, merciless expression of my brother's true killer is one of them.\n\n\"Well,\" she says in a low voice. \"If it isn't Iparis, come here to see us.\" Her eyes flicker to me; the soldiers gather closer to me in a protective gesture. Don't be afraid. I straighten as well as I can, then clench my jaw and force myself to face her without flinching.\n\n\"You're wasting my time, Commander,\" I say. \"I'm not here for you. And the next time I see you will be the day you stand before the firing squad.\"\n\nShe just smiles at me. \"So brave, now that you have your handsome young Elector to hide behind. Isn't that so?\" When I narrow my eyes, she laughs. \"Commander DeSoto would've been a better Elector than that boy could ever be. When the Colonies invade, they'll burn this country to the ground. The people will regret ever putting their support behind a little boy.\" She presses against the bars, as if trying to edge as close to me as possible. I swallow hard, but even through my fear, my anger boils under the surface. I don't look away. It's strange, but I think I see a sheen of gloss across her eyes, something that looks disconcerting above her unstable smile. \"You were one of my favorites. Do you know why I was so interested in having you on my patrol? It's because I saw myself reflected in you. We're the same, you and I. I would've been Princeps, too, you know. I deserved it.\"\n\nGoose bumps rise on my arms. A memory flashes through my mind of the night Metias died, when Commander Jameson escorted me to where his body lay. \"Too bad that didn't work out, isn't it?\" I snap. This time I can't keep the venom out of my words. I hope they execute you as unceremoniously as they did Razor.\n\nCommander Jameson only laughs at me. Her eyes dilate. \"Better be careful, Iparis,\" she whispers. \"You might turn out just like me.\"\n\nThe words chill me to the bone, and I finally have to turn away and break my stare away from hers. The soldiers guarding her cell don't look at me; they just keep staring forward. I continue walking. Behind me, I can still hear her soft, low chuckle. My heart pounds against my ribs.\n\nThomas is being held inside a rectangular cell with thick glass walls, thick enough that I can't hear anything of what's happening inside. I wait outside, steadying myself after my encounter with Commander Jameson. For an instant I wonder whether I should have stayed away and turned down his final request; maybe that would have been for the best.\n\nStill, if I leave now, I'll have to face Commander Jameson again. I might need a little more time to prepare myself for that. So I take a deep breath and step toward the steel bars lining Thomas's cell door. A guard opens it, lets two additional guards in after me, and then closes it behind us. Our footsteps echo in the small, empty chamber.\n\nThomas gets up with a clank of his chains. He looks more disheveled than I've ever seen him, and I know that if his hands were completely free, he'd go about ironing his rumpled uniform and combing his unruly hair right away. But instead, Thomas clicks his heels together. Not until I tell him to relax his stance does he look at me.\n\n\"It's good to see you, Princeps-Elect,\" he says. Is there a hint of sadness in his serious, stern face? \"Thank you for indulging my final request. It won't be long now before you're rid of me entirely.\"\n\nI shake my head, angry with myself, irritated that in spite of everything he has done, Thomas's unshakable loyalty to the Republic still stirs a drop of sympathy from me. \"Sit down and make yourself comfortable,\" I tell him. He doesn't hesitate for a second\u2014in a uniform motion, we both kneel down onto the cold cell floor, him leaning against the cell wall, me folding my legs underneath me. We stay like that for a moment, letting the awkward silence between us linger.\n\nI speak up first. \"You don't need to be so loyal to the Republic anymore,\" I reply. \"You can let go, you know.\"\n\nThomas only shakes his head. \"It's the duty of a Republic soldier to be loyal to the end, and I'm still a soldier. I will be one until I die.\"\n\nI don't know why the thought of him dying tugs on my heartstrings in so many strange ways. I'm happy, relieved, angry, sad. \"Why did you want to see me?\" I finally ask.\n\n\"Ms. Iparis, before tomorrow comes...\" Thomas trails off for a second before continuing. \"I want to tell you the full details of everything that happened to Metias that night at the hospital. I just feel... I feel like I owe it to you. If anyone should know, it's you.\"\n\nMy heart begins to pound. Am I ready to relive all of that again\u2014do I need to know this? Metias is gone; knowing the details of what happened will not bring him back. But I find myself meeting Thomas's gaze with a calm, level look. He does owe it to me. More importantly, I owe it to my brother. After Thomas is executed, someone should carry on the memory of my brother's death, of what really happened.\n\nSlowly, I steady my heartbeat. When I open my mouth, my voice cracks a little. \"Fine,\" I reply.\n\nHis voice grows quieter. \"I remember everything about that night. Every last detail.\"\n\n\"Tell me, then.\"\n\nLike the obedient soldier he is, Thomas begins his story. \"On the night of your brother's death, I took a call from Commander Jameson. We were waiting with the jeeps outside the hospital's entrance. Metias was chatting with a nurse in front of the main sliding doors. I stood behind the jeeps some distance away. Then the call came.\"\n\nAs Thomas speaks, the prison around us melts away and is replaced by the scene of that fateful night, the hospital and the military jeep and the soldiers, the streets as if I were walking right beside Thomas, seeing all that he saw. Reliving the events.\n\n\"I whispered a greeting to Commander Jameson over my earpiece,\" Thomas continues. \"She didn't bother greeting me back.\n\n\"'It has to be done tonight,' she told me. 'If we don't act now, your captain may plan an act of treason against the Republic, or even against the Elector. I'm giving you a direct order, Lieutenant Bryant. Find a way to get Captain Iparis to a private spot tonight. I don't care how you do it.'\"\n\nThomas looks me in the eye now and repeats, \"An act of treason against the Republic. I tightened my jaw. I'd been dreading this inevitable call, ever since I'd first learned about Metias's hacking into the deceased civilians' databases. Keeping secrets from Commander Jameson was damn near impossible. My eyes darted to your brother at the entrance. 'Yes, Commander,' I whispered.\n\n\"'Good,' she said. 'Tell me when you're ready\u2014I'll send in separate orders to the rest of your patrol to be at a different location during that time. Make it quick and clean.'\n\n\"That's when my hand began to shake. I tried to argue with the Commander, but her voice only turned colder. 'If you don't do it, I will. Believe me, I will be messier about it\u2014and no one's going to be happy that way. Understood?'\n\n\"I didn't answer her right away. Instead I watched your brother as he shook hands with the nurse. He turned around, searching for me, and then spotted me by the jeeps. He waved me over, and I nodded, careful to keep my face blank. 'Understood, Commander,' I finally answered.\n\n\"'You can do it, Bryant,' she told me. 'And if you're successful, consider yourself promoted to captain.' The call cut off.\n\n\"I joined Metias and another soldier at the hospital entrance. Metias smiled at me. 'Another long night, eh? I swear, if we're stuck here until dawn again, I'll whine to Commander Jameson like there's no tomorrow.'\n\n\"I forced myself to laugh along. 'Let's hope for an uneventful night, then.' The lie felt so smooth.\n\n\"'Yes, let's hope for that,' Metias said. 'At least I have you for company.'\n\n\"'Likewise,' I told him. Metias glanced back at me, his eyes hovering for a beat, then looked away again.\n\n\"The first minutes passed without incident. But then, moments later, a ragged slum-sector boy dragged himself up to the entrance and stopped to talk to a nurse. He was a mess\u2014mud, dirt, and blood smeared across his cheeks, dirty dark hair pulled away from his face, and a nasty limp. 'Can I be admitted, cousin?' he asked the nurse. 'Is there still room tonight? I can pay.'\n\n\"The nurse just continued scribbling on her notepad. 'What happened?' she finally asked.\n\n\"'Was in a fight,' the boy replied. 'I think I got stabbed.'\n\n\"The nurse glanced over at your brother, and Metias nodded to two of his soldiers. They walked over to pat down the boy. After a while, they pocketed something and waved the boy inside. As he staggered past, I leaned closer to Metias and whispered, 'Don't like the look of that one. He doesn't walk like someone who's been stabbed, does he?'\n\n\"Your brother and the boy exchanged a brief look. When the boy had disappeared inside the hospital, he nodded at me. 'Agreed. Keep an eye on that one. After our rotation's done, I'd like to question him a bit.'\"\n\nThomas pauses here, searching my face, perhaps for permission to stop talking, but I don't give it.\n\nHe takes a deep breath and continues. \"I blushed then at his nearness. Your brother seemed to sense it too, and an awkward silence passed between us. I'd always known about his attraction to me, but tonight it seemed particularly naked. Maybe it had something to do with his weary day, your university antics throwing him off, his usual air of command subdued and tired. And underneath my calm exterior, my heart hammered against my ribs. Find a way to get Captain Iparis to a private spot tonight. I don't care how you do it. This vulnerability would be my only chance.\"\n\nThomas looks briefly down at his hands, but carries on.\n\n\"So, sometime later, I tapped Metias on the shoulder. 'Captain,' I murmured. 'Can I speak to you in private for a moment?'\n\n\"Metias blinked. He asked me, 'Is this urgent?'\n\n\"'No, sir,' I told him. 'Not quite. But... I'd rather you know.'\n\n\"Your brother stared at me, momentarily confused, searching for a clue. Then he motioned for a soldier to take his place at the entrance and the two of us headed into a quiet, dark street near the back of the hospital.\n\n\"Metias immediately dropped some of his formal pretense. 'Something wrong, Thomas? You don't look well.'\n\n\"All I could think was treason against the Republic. He would never do it. Would he? We'd grown up together, trained together, grown close.... Then I remembered my commander's orders. I felt the sheathed knife sitting heavily at my waist. 'I'm fine,' I told him.\n\n\"But your brother laughed. 'Come on. You've never needed to hide anything from me before. You know that, right?'\n\n\"Just say it, Thomas, I told myself. I knew I was teetering between the familiar and the point of no return. Force the words out. Let him hear it. Finally, I looked up and said, 'What is this between us?'\n\n\"Your brother's smile wavered. He grew very silent. Then he took a step back. 'What do you mean?'\n\n\"'You know what I mean,' I told him. 'This. All these years.'\n\n\"Now Metias was studying my face intently. Long seconds passed. ' This, ' he finally replied, emphasizing the word, 'can't happen. You're my subordinate.'\n\n\"Then I asked, 'But it means something to you, sir. Doesn't it?'\n\n\"Something joyful and tragic danced across Metias's face. He drew closer. I knew that a wall between us had finally formed a crack. 'Does it mean something to you?' he asked me.\"\n\nAgain, Thomas pauses. Then, in a softer voice, he says, \"A blade of guilt twisted painfully in my chest, but it was too late to turn back. So I took a step forward, closed my eyes, and\u2014I kissed him.\"\n\nAnother pause. \"Your brother froze, like I thought he would. There was complete stillness. We drew apart, the silence heavy around us, and for a moment I wondered whether I'd made a huge mistake, whether I'd simply misread every signal from the past few years. Or perhaps, perhaps he knew what I was up to. I felt a strange sense of relief at that thought. Maybe it'd be better if Metias figured out Commander Jameson's plans for him. Maybe there's a way to get out of this.\n\n\"But then he leaned forward and returned the kiss, and the last of that wall crumbled away.\"\n\n\"Stop,\" I suddenly say. Thomas falls silent. He tries to hide his emotions behind some semblance of nobility, but the shame is plain on his face. I lean back, turn my face away from him, and press my hands to my temples. Grief threatens to overwhelm me. Thomas hadn't just killed Metias knowing that my brother loved him.\n\nThomas had taken that knowledge and used it against him.\n\nI want you to die. I hate you. The tide of my anger grows stronger until finally I hear the whisper of Metias's voice in my head, the faint light of reason.\n\nIt's going to be okay, Junebug. Listen to me. Everything is going to be okay.\n\nI wait, my heart beating steadily, until his gentle words bring me back. My eyes open, and I give Thomas a level stare. \"What happened after that?\"\n\nIt takes Thomas a long moment before he speaks again. When he does, his voice trembles. \"There was no way out. Metias had no idea what was going on. He'd fallen into the plan with blind faith. My hand crept to the knife at my waist, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't even breathe.\"\n\nMy eyes fill with tears. I want so desperately to hear every detail and at the same time for Thomas to stop talking, to shut this night away and never return again.\n\n\"An alarm cut through the air. We jumped apart. Metias looked flushed and confused\u2014only a second later did we both realize that the alarm came from the hospital.\n\n\"The moment broke. Your brother snapped back into captain mode and ran toward the hospital entrance. 'Get inside,' he shouted over his earpiece. He didn't look back. 'I want half of you in there\u2014pinpoint the source. Gather the others at the entrance and wait for my command. Now!'\n\n\"I started running after him. My chance to strike had vanished. I wondered whether Commander Jameson had somehow been able to see my failure. The Republic's eyes are everywhere. They know everything. I panicked. I had to find another moment, another chance to get your brother alone. If I couldn't do it, then Metias's fate would fall into much harsher hands.\n\n\"By the time I caught up with him at the entrance, his face was dark with anger. 'Break-in,' he said. 'It was that boy we saw. I'm sure of it. Bryant, get five and circle east. I'll go the other way.' Already your brother was on the move, gathering his soldiers. 'He's going to have to get out of the hospital somehow,' he told us. 'We'll be waiting for him when he tries.'\n\n\"I did as Metias commanded\u2014but the instant he was out of earshot, I ordered my soldiers to head east and then snuck away into the shadows. I have to follow him. This is my last chance. If I fail, I'm as good as dead, anyway. Sweat trickled down my back. I melted into the shadows, reminding myself of all the lessons Metias had taught me about subtlety and stealth.\n\n\"Then from somewhere in the night I heard glass shatter. I hid behind a wall as your brother raced past, alone and unguarded, toward the source of the sound. Then I followed. The night's darkness swallowed me whole. For a moment, I lost Metias in the back alleys. Where is he? I whirled around in an alley, trying to figure out where your brother had gone.\n\n\"Just then, a call came through. Commander Jameson barked at me. 'You'd better find a second chance to take him down, Lieutenant. Soon.'\n\n\"Finally, minutes later, I found Metias. He was alone, struggling up from the ground with a knife buried in his shoulder, surrounded by blood and broken glass. A few feet from him lay a sewer cap. I rushed to his side. He smiled briefly at me, while clutching the knife in his shoulder.\n\n\"'It was Day,' he gasped. 'He escaped down the sewers.' Then he reached out to me. 'Here. Help me up.'\n\n\"This is your chance, I told myself. This is your only chance, and if you can't do it now, it will never happen.\"\n\nThomas's voice falters as I search for my own. I want to stop him again, but I can't. I'm numb.\n\nThomas lifts his head and says, \"I wish I could tell you all the images whirling through my mind\u2014Commander Jameson interrogating Metias, torturing information out of him, tearing off his nails, slicing him open until he screamed for mercy, killing him slowly in the way that she did to all prisoners of war.\" As he speaks, the words come faster, tumbling from his mouth in a frantic jumble. \"I pictured the Republic's flag, the Republic's seal, the oath I'd taken on the day Metias accepted me into a patrol. That I would forever remain faithful to my Republic and my Elector, until my dying day. My eyes darted to the knife buried in Metias's shoulder. Do it. Do it now, I told myself. I seized his collar, yanked the knife from his shoulder, and plunged it deep into his chest. Right up to the hilt.\"\n\nI hear myself gasp. As if I expected a different ending. As if once I hear it enough times, the story will change. It never does.\n\n\"Metias let out a broken shriek,\" Thomas whispers. \"Or perhaps it came from me\u2014I can't remember anymore. He collapsed back onto the ground, his hand still clutching my wrist. His eyes were wide with shock.\n\n\"'I'm sorry,' I choked out.\" Thomas looks at me as he continues, his apology meant for both me and my brother. \"I knelt over his trembling body. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' I told him. 'I had no choice. You gave me no choice!'\"\n\nI can barely hear Thomas as he continues. \"A spark of understanding appeared in your brother's eyes. With it came hurt, something that went beyond his physical pain, a bleeding moment of realization. Then revulsion. Disappointment. 'Now I know why,' he whispered. I didn't have to ask to know that he was referring to our kiss.\n\n\"No! I meant it! I wanted to scream. It was a good-bye, the only one I could give. But I meant it. I promise.\n\n\"Instead I said, 'Why did you have to cross the Republic? I warned you, over and over again. Cross the Republic too many times, and eventually they'll burn you. I warned you! I told you to listen!'\n\n\"But your brother shook his head. It's something you'll never understand, his eyes seemed to say. Blood leaked from his mouth, and his grip tightened on my wrist. 'Don't hurt June,' he said. 'She doesn't know anything.' Then a fierce, terrified light appeared in his eyes. ' Don't hurt her. Promise me.'\n\n\"So I told him, 'I'll protect her. I don't know how, but I'll try. I promise.'\n\n\"The light gradually faded from his eyes, and his grip loosened. He stared at me until he couldn't stare anymore, and then I knew that he was gone. Move. Get out of here, I told myself. But I stayed crouched over Metias's body, my mind blank. His sudden absence hit me. Metias was gone, Metias was never coming back, and it was all my fault. No. Long live the Republic. That's what really mattered, I told myself, yes, yes, that was the important thing. This\u2014whatever this was between Metias and me\u2014wasn't real, could never have happened anyway. Not with Metias as my captain. Not with Metias as a criminal working against the country. It was for the best. Yes. It was.\n\n\"Eventually I heard shouts from approaching troops. I picked myself up. I wiped my eyes. I had to carry through now. I'd done it, I'd stayed faithful to the Republic. Some survival instinct kicked in. Everything seemed muted, like a fog had settled over my life. Good. I needed the strange calm, the absence of everything, that it brought. I folded my grief carefully back into my chest, as if nothing had happened, and when the first troops arrived on the scene, I placed a call to Commander Jameson.\n\n\"I didn't even need to say a word. My silence told her everything she needed to know. 'Fetch Little Iparis when you get a chance,' she said to me. 'And well done, Captain.'\n\n\"I didn't reply.\"\n\nThomas stays silent; the scene fades. I find myself back in his prison cell, my cheeks streaked with tears, my heart sliced open as if he had stabbed me in the chest as surely as he'd stabbed my brother.\n\nThomas stares at the floor between us with hollow eyes. \"I loved him, June,\" he says after a moment. \"I really did. Everything I did as a soldier, all my hard work and training, was to impress him.\" His guard is finally down, and I can see the true depth of his torture now. His voice hardens, as if he is trying to convince himself of what he's saying. \"I answer to the Republic\u2014Metias himself trained me to be what I am. Even he understood.\"\n\nI'm surprised by how much my heart is breaking for him. You could have helped Metias escape. You could have done something. Anything. You could have tried. But even now, Thomas doesn't budge. He will never change, and he will never, ever know who Metias really was.\n\nI finally realize the true reason he requested this meeting with me. He wanted to give a real confession. Just like during our conversation when he first arrested me, he is fishing desperately for my forgiveness, for something to justify\u2014in any small way\u2014what he did. He wants to believe what he did was warranted. He wants me to sympathize. He wants peace before he goes.\n\nBut he's wasted his efforts on me. I cannot give him peace, even on his final day. Some things cannot be forgiven.\n\n\"I feel sorry for you,\" I say quietly. \"Because you're so weak.\"\n\nThomas tightens his lips. Still searching for some bit of validation he says, \"I could've chosen Day's route. I could have become a criminal. But I didn't. I did everything right, you know. That was what Metias loved about me. He respected me. I followed all the rules, I obeyed all the laws, I worked my way up from where I started.\" He leans toward me; his eyes grow more desperate. \"I took an oath, June. I am still bound by that oath. I will die with honor for sacrificing everything I have\u2014 everything \u2014for my country. And yet, Day is the legend, while I am to be executed.\" His voice finally breaks with all his anguish and inner torment, the injustice he feels. \"It makes no sense.\"\n\nI stand up. Behind me, the guards move toward the cell door. \"You're wrong,\" I say sadly. \"It makes perfect sense.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because Day chose to walk in the light.\" I turn my back on him for the last time. The door opens; the cell's bars make way for the hall, a new rotation of prison guards, freedom. \"And so did Metias.\"\n\n1532 HOURS.\n\nThat afternoon, I head to Denver University's track with Ollie in an attempt to clear my thoughts. Outside, the sky looks yellow and hazy with the light of the afternoon sun. I try to picture the sky covered with the Colonies' Airships, ablaze with the fire from aerial dogfights and explosions. Twelve days before we need to offer something to the Colonies. Without Day's help, how are we ever going to do that? The thought troubles me, but thankfully it helps keep the memories of Thomas and Commander Jameson out of my head. I pick up my pace. My running shoes pound against the pavement.\n\nWhen I arrive at the track, I notice guards stationed at every entrance. At least four soldiers per gate. Anden must be doing his exercise routine somewhere out here too. The soldiers recognize me, let me through, and usher me into the stadium, where the track wraps around a large, open field. Anden's nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he's down in the stadium's underground lockers.\n\nI do a quick round of stretches while Ollie waits impatiently, dancing from paw to paw, and then I begin making my way down the track. I run faster and faster along the curved path until I'm sprinting around the turns, my hair streaming out behind me, Ollie panting at my side. I imagine Commander Jameson sprinting after me, gun in hand. Better be careful, Iparis. You might turn out just like me. When I loop around to the side of the track with targets set up, I skid to a halt, whip out the gun at my belt, and shoot at each of the targets in rapid succession. Four bull's-eyes. Without pause, I loop around the track again and repeat my routine three times. Ten times. Fifteen times. Finally I stop, my heart beating a frantic tune against my chest.\n\nI shift to a walk, slowly catching my breath, my thoughts whirling. If I had never met Day, could I have grown up to become Commander Jameson? Cold, calculating, merciless? Hadn't I turned into exactly that when I first figured out who Day was? Hadn't I led the soldiers\u2014led Commander Jameson herself \u2014to his family's door, without a second thought for whether or not his family might be harmed? I reset my gun, then aim at the targets again. My bullets thud into the centers of the boards.\n\nIf Metias were alive, what would he have thought of what I did?\n\nNo. I can't think about my brother without remembering Thomas's confession from this morning. I fire my last bullet, then sit down in the middle of the track with Ollie and bury my head in my hands. I'm so tired. I don't know if I can ever outrun how I used to be. And now I'm doing it all over again\u2014trying to persuade Day to give up his brother again, trying to use him to the Republic's advantage.\n\nFinally I pick myself up, wipe the sweat from my brow, and head to the underground lockers. Ollie settles down to wait for me under the cool overhang near the doors; he laps hungrily at a pouch of water I set before him. I head down the stairs, then turn the corner. The air is humid from the showers, and the lone screen embedded at the end of the hall has a light film of mist over it. I walk down the corridor that splits off into the men's and women's locker rooms. A few voices echo from farther down the hall.\n\nA second later, I see Anden emerge from the locker room with two guards walking alongside him. I blush in embarrassment at the sight. Anden looks like he just stepped out of the shower a few minutes ago, shirtless and still toweling off his damp hair, his lean muscles tense after his workout. He has a crisp collar shirt swung over one shoulder, the white of the fabric a startling contrast against the olive of his skin. One of the guards talks to him in hushed tones, and with a sinking feeling, I wonder whether it has something to do with the Colonies. A moment later, Anden glances up and finally notices me staring at them. The conversation pauses.\n\n\"Ms. Iparis,\" Anden says, a polite smile covering up whatever might have been bothering him. He clears his throat, hands his towel to one of the guards, and pulls one arm through the sleeve of his collar shirt. \"I apologize for my half-dressed state.\"\n\nI bow my head once, trying hard to look unfazed as all of their eyes fixate on me. \"No worries, Elector.\"\n\nHe nods at his guards. \"Go ahead. I'll meet you both at the stairs.\"\n\nThe guards bow in unison, then leave us alone. Anden waits until they've disappeared around the corner before turning back to me. \"I hope your morning went well enough,\" he says as he starts buttoning up his shirt. His eyebrows furrow. \"No trouble?\"\n\n\"No trouble,\" I confirm, unwilling to dwell on my conversation with Thomas.\n\n\"Good.\" Anden runs a hand through his damp hair. \"Then you've had a better morning than I. I spent several hours in a private conference with the President of Ross City, Antarctica\u2014we've asked them for military help, in case of an invasion.\" He sighs. \"Antarctica sympathizes, but they aren't easy to please. I don't know whether we can get around using Day's brother, and I don't know how to persuade Day to allow it.\"\n\n\"No one will be able to convince him,\" I reply, crossing my arms. \"Not even me. You say that I'm his weakness, but his greatest weakness is his family.\"\n\nAnden stays quiet for a moment. I study his face carefully, wondering what thoughts are going through his mind. The memory comes back to me of how merciless he can be when he chooses, how he didn't flinch when sentencing Thomas to death, how he'd thrown Commander Jameson's insult right back in her face, how he never hesitated to execute every single person who tried to destroy him. Deep underneath the soft voice and kind heart lies something cold. \"Don't force him,\" I say. Anden looks at me in surprise. \"I know that's what you're thinking.\"\n\nAnden finishes buttoning his shirt. \"I can only do what I have to do, June,\" he says gently. It almost sounds sad.\n\nNo. I will never let you hurt Day like that. Not the way I've already hurt him. \"You're the Elector. You don't have to do anything. And if you care about the Republic, you won't risk angering the one person who the public believes in.\"\n\nToo late, I bite my tongue. The people believe in Day, but they don't believe in you. Anden winces visibly, and even though he doesn't comment on it, I silently curse myself for my notorious turns of phrase. \"I'm sorry,\" I murmur. \"I didn't mean it like that.\"\n\nA long pause drags on before Anden speaks again. \"It's not as easy as it seems.\" He shakes his head. A tiny bead of water drops from his hair onto his collar. \"You would do differently? Risk an entire nation instead of one person? I can't justify it. The Colonies will strike if we don't give them an antidote, and this whole mess stemmed from something that I'm responsible for.\"\n\n\"No, your father was responsible. That doesn't mean you are.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm my father's son,\" Anden replies, his voice suddenly stern. \"What difference does it make?\"\n\nThe words surprise both of us. I tighten my lips and decide not to comment on it, but my thoughts churn frantically. It does make a difference. But then I think back on what Anden had once told me about the Republic's founding, how his father and the Electors before him had been forced to act in those dark, early years. Better be careful, Iparis. You might turn out just like me.\n\nPerhaps I'm not the only one who needs to be careful.\n\nSomething showing on the screen at the end of the hall distracts me. I look toward it. There's some news about Day; the footage shows some old video close-up of him and then a brief shot of the Denver hospital, but even though most of the video's cut off, I can catch glimpses of crowds gathered in front of the building. Anden turns to look at the screen too. Are they protesting? What could they be protesting?\n\nDaniel Altan Wing admitted to hospital for standard medical exam, to be released tomorrow.\n\nAnden presses a hand to his ear. An incoming call. He glances briefly at me, then clicks on his mike and says, \"Yes?\"\n\nSilence. As the screen's broadcast continues, Anden's face turns pale. It reminds me for an instant of how pale Day had looked while at the banquet, and the two thoughts converge into a single, frightening thought. I suddenly know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this is the secret Day's been keeping from me. A horrible feeling builds in my chest.\n\n\"Who approved this footage's release?\" Anden says after a moment, his voice now a whisper. I hear anger in it. \"There won't be a next time. Inform me first. Is that understood?\"\n\nA lump rises in my throat. When his call finally ends, he drops his hand and gives me a long, grave look.\n\n\"It's Day,\" he says. \"He's at the hospital.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I demand.\n\n\"I'm so sorry.\" He bows his head in a tragic gesture, then leans forward to whisper in my ear. He tells me. And suddenly I feel light-headed, like the entire world has funneled into a blur of motion, like none of this is real, like I'm standing right back at the Los Angeles Central Hospital on the night I knelt before Metias's cold, lifeless body, staring into a face that I no longer recognized. My heartbeat slows to a stop. Everything stops. This can't be real.\n\nHow can the boy who stirred an entire nation be dying?\n\nThey keep me at the hospital overnight before they release me to my apartment. By now, the news is out\u2014bystanders had seen me wheeled out, had spread the word to other folks, and soon the wildfire was unstoppable, and the rumor's been uttered in every corner of the city. I've seen the news cycles try to hide it twice already. I was in the hospital for a standard checkup; I was in the hospital to visit my brother. All sorts of goddy stories. But no one's buying it.\n\nI spend all day enjoying the luxury of a non-hospital bed, watching light, slushy snow falling outside our window, while Eden camps out on the bed by my feet and plays with a robotics kit we'd gotten from the Republic as a gift. He's piecing together some sort of robot now; he matches up a magnetic Light cube\u2014a palm-size box with mini screens on its sides\u2014with several Arm, Leg, and Wing cubes to create what's essentially a little flying JumboTron Man. He smiles in delight at it, then breaks the cubes apart and rearranges them into a pair of walking Legs that display JumboTron video feeds whenever they step down. I smile too, momentarily content that he's content. If there's one good thing about the Republic, it's that they indulge Eden's love for building stuff. Every other week we seem to get some new contraption that I've only ever seen upper-class kids own. I wonder if June's the one who put in this special request for Eden, knowing what she does. Or maybe Anden just feels guilty for all the stuff his father put us through.\n\nI wonder if she's heard the news yet. She must have.\n\n\"Careful,\" I say as Eden climbs up onto my bed and leans over to stand his new creation up at the edge of the window. His hands fumble around, feeling for the windowsill and the glass pane. \"If you fall and break something, we'll have to head back to the hospital, and I am not going to be happy about that.\"\n\n\"You're thinking about her again, aren't you?\" Eden fires smoothly back. His blind eyes stay squinted at the blocks standing barely an inch from his face. \"You always change your voice.\"\n\nI blink at him in surprise. \"What?\"\n\nHe looks in my direction and raises an eyebrow at me, and the expression looks comical on his childlike face. \"Oh, come on. It's so obvious. What's this June girl to you, anyway? The whole country gossips about you two, and when she asked you to come to Denver, you couldn't pack us up fast enough. You told me to call her in case the Republic ever comes to take me away. You're gonna have to spill sooner or later, yeah? You're always talking about her.\"\n\n\"I don't talk about her all the time.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh, right.\"\n\nI'm glad Eden can't see my expression. I've yet to talk with him about June and her connection to the rest of our family\u2014another good reason to stay away from her. \"She's a friend,\" I finally reply.\n\n\"Do you like her?\"\n\nMy eyes go back to studying the rainy scene outside our window. \"Yeah.\"\n\nEden waits for me to say more, but when I remain silent, he shrugs and goes back to his robot. \"Fine,\" he mutters. \"Tell me whenever.\"\n\nAs if on cue, my earpiece blares out a second of soft static, warning me of an incoming call. I accept it. A moment later, June's whispered voice echoes in my ear. She doesn't say anything about my illness\u2014she just suggests, \"Can we talk?\"\n\nI knew it'd only be a matter of time before I heard from her. I watch Eden playing for a second longer. \"We gotta do it somewhere else,\" I whisper back. My brother glances at me, momentarily curious at my words. I don't want to ruin my first day out of the hospital by breaking my depressing prognosis to an eleven-year-old.\n\n\"How about a walk, then?\"\n\nI glance out the window. It's dinnertime, and the caf\u00e9s down on the street's ground level are crowded with patrons, almost all of them huddled under hats, caps, umbrellas, and hoods, keeping to themselves in this twilight slush. Might be a good time to walk around without attracting too much attention. \"How about this. Come on over, and we'll head out from here.\"\n\n\"Great,\" June replies. She hangs up.\n\nTen minutes later, my doorbell rings and startles Eden to his feet\u2014the new cube robot he built falls from my bed, three of its limbs snapping off. Eden turns his eyes in my direction. \"Who's there?\" he asks.\n\n\"Don't worry, kid,\" I reply, walking over to the door. \"It's June.\"\n\nEden's shoulders relax at my words; a bright grin lights up his face, and he hops off the edge of the bed, leaving his block robot by the window. He feels his way toward the other end of the bed. \"Well?\" he demands. \"Aren't you gonna let her in?\"\n\nIt seems like during the time I'd spent living on the streets, I'd been missing out on seeing Eden blossom. Quiet kid turned stubborn and headstrong. Can't imagine how he inherited that. I sigh\u2014I hate keeping things from him, but how do I explain this one? I'd told him over the past year who June is: a Republic girl who decided to help us out, a girl who's now training to be the country's future Princeps. I haven't figured out yet how to tell him the rest\u2014so I just don't say anything about it at all.\n\nJune doesn't smile when I open the door. She glances at Eden, then back to me. \"Is that your brother?\" she says quietly.\n\nI nod. \"You haven't met him yet, have you?\" I turn around and call out to him. \"Eden. Manners.\"\n\nEden waves from the bed. \"Hi,\" he calls out.\n\nI step aside so that June can come in. She makes her way over to where Eden is, sits down next to him with a smile, and takes his small hand in hers. She shakes it twice. \"Pleased to meet you, Eden,\" she says, her voice gentle. I lean against the door to watch the exchange. \"How are you doing?\"\n\nEden shrugs. \"Pretty good, I guess,\" he replies. \"Doctors say my eyes have stabilized. I'm taking ten different pills every day.\" He tilts his head. \"But I think I've been getting stronger.\" He puffs out his chest a little, then strikes a mock pose by flexing his arms. His eyes are unfocused and pointing slightly to the left of June's face. \"How do I look?\"\n\nJune laughs. \"I have to say, you look better than most people I see. I've heard a lot about you.\"\n\n\"I hear about you a lot too,\" Eden replies in a rush, \"mostly from Daniel. He thinks you're really hot.\"\n\n\"Okay, that's enough.\" I clear my throat loud enough for him to hear, then shoot him a cranky look even though he's blind as a rock. \"Let's head out.\"\n\n\"Have you eaten yet?\" she asks as we head toward the door. \"I was supposed to be shadowing Anden with the other Princeps-Elects, but he's been called to the Armor barracks for a quick briefing\u2014something about food poisoning among the soldiers. So I had a couple of free hours.\" A faint blush touches her cheeks as she says this. \"I thought maybe we could grab a bite.\"\n\nI raise an eyebrow. Then I lean in toward her so that my cheek brushes against hers\u2014to my excitement, I feel her shiver at my touch. \"Why, June,\" I tease in a low, soft voice, smiling against her ear. \"Are you asking me out on a date?\"\n\nJune's blush deepens, but its warmth doesn't touch her eyes.\n\nMy moment of mischief ends. I clear my throat, then look over my shoulder at Eden. \"I'll bring some food back for you. Don't go out on your own. Do what Lucy tells you to do.\"\n\nEden nods, already engrossed with the block robot again.\n\nMinutes later, we head out of the apartment complex and into the thickening drizzle. I keep my head down and my face hidden under the shadow of a soldier cap; my neck's protected beneath my thick red scarf, and my hands are shoved deep into the pockets of my military coat. It's strange how much I've gotten used to Republic clothing. June pulls her coat collar high, and her breath billows out around her in clouds of steam. The slush has picked up some, sending fresh ice and water into my face and tickling my eyelashes. Bold red banners still hang from the windows of most high-rises, and the JumboTrons have a red-and-black symbol in the corners of their broadcasts in honor of Anden's birthday. Others along the street rush past in a blur of motion. We walk in comfortable silence, savoring the simple nearness of each other.\n\nIt's kind of weird, actually. Today's one of my better days, and I don't have a lot of trouble keeping up with June\u2014today, it doesn't feel like I only have a couple of months to live. Maybe the new medicines they gave me are going to work this time.\n\nWe don't say a word until June finally stops us at a small, steaming caf\u00e9 several blocks from my apartment. Right away I can see why she chose it\u2014it's mostly empty, a tiny little spot on the first floor of a towering high-rise washed wet with slush, and not very well lit. Even though it's open to the air, like many other caf\u00e9s in the area, it has a few dark nooks that are nice for us to sit at, and its only lights come from glowing, cube-shaped lanterns on each of its tables. A hostess ushers us inside, seating us at June's request in one of the shadowy corners. Flat plates of scented water sit scattered throughout the caf\u00e9. I shiver, even though our spot is pretty warm from our heat lantern.\n\nWhat are we doing here again? A strange fog washes over me, then clears. We're here for dinner, that's what we're doing. I shake my head. I recall the brief struggle I'd had a few days ago, when I couldn't remember Lucy's name. A frightening thought emerges.\n\nMaybe this is a new symptom. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.\n\nAfter we place our orders, June speaks up. The gold flecks in her eyes shine in the lantern's orange glow. \"Why didn't you tell me?\" she whispers.\n\nI hold my hands against the lantern, savoring the heat. \"What good would it have done?\"\n\nJune furrows her eyebrows, and only then do I notice that her eyes look kind of swollen, like she's been crying. She shakes her head at me. \"The rumors are all over the place,\" she continues in a voice I can barely hear. \"Witnesses say they saw you being carried out of your apartment on a stretcher thirty-four hours ago\u2014one of them apparently overheard a medic discussing your condition.\"\n\nI sigh and put my hands up in defeat. \"You know what, if this is all somehow causing riots in the street and more trouble for Anden, then I'm sorry. I was told to keep it a secret\u2014and I did, as well as I could. I'm sure our glorious Elector will figure out a way to calm folks down.\"\n\nJune bites her lip once. \"There must be some solution, Day. Have your doctors\u2014\"\n\n\"They're already trying everything.\" I wince as a painful spasm runs through the back of my head, as if on cue. \"I've been through three rounds of experiments. Slow and painful progress so far.\" I explain to June what the doctors had told me, the unusual infection in my hippocampus, the medication that's been weakening me, sucking the strength out of my body. \"Believe me, they're running through solutions.\"\n\n\"How long do you have?\" she whispers.\n\nI stay silent, pretending to be fascinated with the lantern. I don't know if I have the heart to say it.\n\nJune leans closer, until her shoulder bumps softly against mine. \"How long do you have?\" she repeats. \"Please. I hope you still care about me enough to tell me.\"\n\nI gaze back at her, slowly falling\u2014as I always seem to do\u2014back under her pull. Don't make me do this, please. I don't want to say it out loud to her; it might mean that it's actually true. But she looks so sad and fearful that I can't keep it in. I let out my breath, then run a hand through my hair and lower my head. \"They said a month,\" I whisper. \"Maybe two. They said I should get my priorities in order.\"\n\nJune closes her eyes\u2014I think I see her sway slightly in her seat. \"Two months,\" she murmurs vacantly. The agony on her face reminds me exactly why I didn't want to let her know.\n\nAfter another long silence between us, June snaps out of her daze and reaches to pull something out of her pocket. She comes back up with something small and metallic in her palm. \"I've been meaning to give this to you,\" she says.\n\nI stare blankly at it. It's a paper clip ring, thin lines of wire pulled into an elegant series of swirls and closed into a circle, just like the one I'd once made for her. My eyes widen and dart up to hers. She doesn't say anything; instead, she looks down and helps me push it onto my right hand's ring finger. \"I had a little time,\" she finally mutters.\n\nI run a hand across the ring in wonder, my heartstrings pulled taut. A dozen emotions rush through me. \"I'm sorry,\" I stammer out after a while, trying to put a more hopeful spin on everything. That's all I can say, after this gift from her? \"They think there's still a chance. They're trying out some more treatments soon.\"\n\n\"You once told me why you chose 'Day' as your street name,\" she says firmly. She moves her hand so that it's over mine, hiding the paper clip ring from view. The warmth of her skin against mine makes my breath short. \"Every morning, everything's possible again. Right?\" A river of tingles runs up my spine. I want to take her face in my hands again, kiss her cheeks and study her dark, sad eyes, and tell her I'll be okay. But that would just be another lie. Half of my heart is breaking at the pain on her face; the other half, I realize guiltily, is swelling with happiness to know that she still cares. There's love in her tragic words, in the folds of that thin metal ring. Isn't there?\n\nFinally, I take a deep breath. \"Sometimes, the sun sets earlier. Days don't last forever, you know. But I'll fight as hard as I can. I can promise you that.\"\n\nJune's eyes soften. \"You don't have to do this alone.\"\n\n\"Why should you have to bear it?\" I mutter back. \"I just... thought it would be easier this way.\"\n\n\"Easier for whom?\" June snaps. \"You, me, the public? You would rather just pass away silently one day, without ever breathing another word to me?\"\n\n\"Yes, I would,\" I find myself snapping back. \"If I'd told you that night, would you have agreed to become a Princeps-Elect?\"\n\nWhatever words sat on the tip of June's tongue go unspoken. She pauses at that, then swallows. \"No,\" she admits. \"I wouldn't have had the heart to do it. I would've waited.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" I take a deep breath. \"You think I wanted to whine to you about my health in that moment? To stand in the way of you and the position of a lifetime?\"\n\n\"That was my choice to make,\" June says through clenched teeth.\n\n\"And I wanted you to make it without me in the way.\"\n\nJune shakes her head, and her shoulders slightly droop. \"You really think I care so little about you?\"\n\nOur food arrives then\u2014steaming bowls of soup, plates of dinner rolls, and a neatly wrapped package of food for Eden\u2014and I lapse gratefully into silence. It would've been easier for me, I add to myself. I'd rather step away than be reminded every day that I only have a few months left to be with you. I'm ashamed to say this out loud, though. When June looks expectantly at me for an answer, I just shake my head and shrug.\n\nAnd that's when we hear it. An alarm wails out across the city.\n\nIt's deafening. We both freeze, then look up at the speakers lining all the street's buildings. I've never heard a siren like this in my entire life\u2014an endless and earsplitting scream that drenches the air, drowning out anything in its path. The JumboTrons have gone dark. I shoot June a bewildered look. What the hell is that?\n\nBut June's no longer looking at me. Her eyes are fixed on the speakers blaring out the alarm across the entire street, and her expression is stricken with horror. Together, we watch as the JumboTrons flare back to life\u2014this time each screen is bloodred, and each has two gold words etched in bold across its display:"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "SEEK COVER",
+                "text": "\"What does it mean?\" I shout.\n\nJune grabs my hand and starts to run. \"It means that an air strike's coming. The Armor is under attack.\"\n\n\"EDEN.\"\n\nIt's the first word out of Day's mouth. The JumboTrons continue broadcasting their ominous scarlet notice as the alarm echoes across the city, deafening me with its rhythmic roar and blotting out all other sounds in the city. Along the street, others are peeking out of windows and pouring out from building entrances, as bewildered as we are over the unusual alarm. Soldiers are flooding into formation on the street, shouting into their earpieces as they see the approaching enemy. I run right beside him, thoughts and numbers racing through my mind as we go. (Four seconds. Twelve seconds. Fifteen seconds a block, which means seventy-five seconds until we reach Day's apartment if we keep up our pace. Is there a faster route? And Ollie. I need to get him out of my apartment and to my side.) A strange focus grips me, just like it had the moment I first freed Day from Batalla Hall all those months ago, like the moment Day climbed the Capitol Tower to address the people and I led soldiers off his trail. I may turn into a silent, uncomfortable observer in the Senate chamber, but out here on the streets, in the midst of chaos, I can think. I can act.\n\nI remember reading about and rehearsing for this particular alarm back in high school, although Los Angeles is so far away from the Colonies that even those practice drills were rare. The alarm was to be used only if enemy forces attacked our city, if they were right at the city's borders and barging their way in. I don't know what the process is like in Denver, but I imagine it can't be that different\u2014we are to evacuate immediately, then seek out the closest assigned underground bunker and board subways that will shuttle us to a safer city. After I entered college and officially became a soldier, the drill changed for me: Soldiers are to report immediately to a location their commanding officers give them over their earpieces. We must be ready for war at a moment's notice.\n\nBut I've never heard the alarm used for a real attack on a Republic city, because there hasn't been one yet. Most attacks were thwarted before they could reach us. Until now. And as I run alongside Day, I know exactly what must be going through his mind. It triggers a familiar guilt in my stomach.\n\nDay has never heard the alarm before, nor has he ever gone through a drill for it. This is because he's from a poor sector. I was never sure before, and I admit that I never thought much about it, but seeing Day's confused expression makes it all very clear. The underground bunkers are only for the upper class, the gem sectors. The poor are left to fend for themselves.\n\nOverhead, an engine screams by. A Republic jet. Then several more. Shouts rise up and mix with the alarm\u2014I brace myself for a call from Anden at any moment. Then, far off along the horizon, I see the first orange glows light up along the Armor. The Republic is launching a counterattack from the walls. This is really happening. But it shouldn't be. The Colonies had given us time, however little, to hand over an antidote to them\u2014and since that ultimatum, only four days have passed. My anger flares. Did they want to catch us off guard in such an extreme way?\n\nI grab Day's hand and pick up my pace. \"Can you call Eden?\" I shout.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Day gasps out. Immediately I can tell that he doesn't have the stamina he used to have\u2014his breathing is slightly labored, his steps slightly slower. A lump lodges in my throat. Somehow, this is the first evidence of his fading health that hits home, and my heart clenches. Behind us, another explosion reverberates across the night air. I tighten my hold on his hand.\n\n\"Tell Eden to be ready at your complex's entrance,\" I shout. \"I know where we can go.\"\n\nAn urgent voice comes over my earpiece. It's Anden. \"Where are you?\" he says. I shiver as I detect a faint hint of fear in his words\u2014another thing I rarely hear. \"I'm at the Capitol Tower. I'll send a jeep to pick you up.\"\n\n\"Send a jeep to Day's apartment. I'll be there in a minute. And Ollie\u2014my dog\u2014\"\n\n\"I'll have him sent to the bunkers immediately,\" Anden says. \"Be careful.\" Then a click sounds out, and I hear static for a second before my earpiece goes dark. Beside me, Day repeats my instructions for Eden over his own mike.\n\nBy the time we reach the apartment complex, Republic jets are screaming by every other second, painting dozens of trails into the evening sky. Crowds of people have already started gathering outside the complex and are being guided in various directions by city patrols. A jolt of fear seizes me when I realize that some of the jets on the horizon are not Republic jets at all\u2014but unfamiliar enemy ones. If they're this close, then they must've gotten past our longer range missiles. Two larger black dots hover at the end of the sky. Colonies Airships.\n\nDay sees Eden before I do. He's a small, golden-haired figure clutching the railings by the apartment complex's entrance door, squinting in vain at the sea of people around him. Their caretaker stands behind him with both of her hands firmly on his shoulders. \"Eden!\" Day calls out. The boy jerks his head in our direction. Day hops up the steps and scoops him into his arms, then turns back to me. \"Where do we go?\" he shouts.\n\n\"The Elector's sending a jeep for us,\" I reply in his ear, so that the others don't hear. Already a few people are casting us glances of recognition even as they stream past us in a haze of panic. I pull my coat collars as high up as they can go, then bow my head. Come on, I mutter to myself.\n\n\"June,\" Day says. I meet his eyes. \"What's gonna happen to the other sectors?\"\n\nThere's the question I've been dreading. What will happen to the poor sectors? I hesitate, and in that brief moment of silence, Day realizes the answer. His lips tighten into a thin line. A deep rage rises in his eyes.\n\nThe jeep's arrival saves me from answering right away. It screeches to a stop several feet from where the others have crowded around, and inside I see Anden wave once at me from the passenger's side. \"Let's go,\" I urge Day. We make our way down the steps as a soldier opens the door for us. Day helps Eden and their caretaker inside first, and when they're both buckled up, we climb in. The jeep takes off at breakneck pace as more Republic jets fly by overhead. Off in the distance, another bright orange cloud mushrooms up from the Armor. Is it me, or did that seem like a closer hit than before? (Perhaps closer by a good hundred feet, given the size of the explosion.)\n\n\"Glad to see you all safe,\" Anden says without turning around. He utters a quick greeting at each of us, then mumbles a command to the driver, who makes a sharp turn around the next block. Eden lets out a startled yelp. The caretaker squeezes his shoulders and tries to soothe him.\n\n\"Why take the slower route?\" Anden says as we veer down a narrow street. The ground shakes from another far-off impact.\n\n\"Apologies, Elector,\" the driver calls back. \"Word's that several explosions have gone off inside the Armor\u2014our fastest route's not safe. They bombed a few jeeps on the other side of Denver.\"\n\n\"Any injuries?\"\n\n\"Not too many, luckily. Couple jeeps overturned\u2014several prisoners escaped, and one soldier's dead.\"\n\n\"Which prisoners?\"\n\n\"We're still confirming.\"\n\nA nasty premonition hits me. When I'd gone to see Thomas, there had been a rotation of guards standing in front of Commander Jameson's cell. When I left, the guards were different.\n\nAnden makes a frustrated sound, then turns to glance back at us. \"We're headed to an underground hold called Subterrain One. Should you need to enter or leave the hold, my guards will scan your thumbs at its gateway. You heard our driver\u2014it's not safe to head out on your own. Understand?\"\n\nThe driver presses a hand to his ear, blanches, and looks at Anden. \"Sir, we have confirmation on the escaped prisoners. There were three.\" He hesitates, then swallows. \"Captain Thomas Bryant. Lieutenant Patrick Murrey. Commander Natasha Jameson.\"\n\nMy world lurches. I knew it. I knew it. Just yesterday I'd seen Commander Jameson securely behind bars, and talked to Thomas while he was withering away in prison. They couldn't have gone far, I tell myself. \"Anden,\" I whisper, forcing my senses straight. \"Yesterday, when I went to see Thomas, there had been a different rotation of guards. Were those soldiers supposed to be there?\" Day and I exchange a quick look, and for an instant I feel as if the entire world is playing us for fools, weaving our lives into one cruel joke.\n\n\"Find the prisoners,\" Anden snaps into his mike. His own face has turned white. \"Shoot them on sight.\" He glances back at me while he continues talking. \"And get me the guards that were on duty. Now.\"\n\nI cringe as yet another explosion makes the ground tremble. They couldn't have gone far. They'll be captured and shot by the end of the day. I repeat these words to myself over and over. No, something else is at work here. My mind flits through the possibilities:\n\nIt's no coincidence that Commander Jameson managed to escape, that the Colonies' attack happened on the same day she was being transferred. There must be other traitors in the Republic's ranks, soldiers that Anden hasn't rooted out yet. Commander Jameson may have been passing information to the Colonies through them. After all, the Colonies somehow knew when our Armor soldiers would rotate shifts, and particularly that today we had fewer Armor soldiers stationed than usual due to the food poisoning. They knew to strike at our weakest moment.\n\nIf that's the case, then the Colonies may have been planning an attack for months. Perhaps even before the plague outbreak.\n\nAnd Thomas. Was he in on the whole thing? Unless he was trying to warn me. That's why he asked for me yesterday. For his final request, but also in hopes that I would notice something off about the guards. My heartbeat quickens. But why wouldn't he just shout a warning?\n\n\"What happens next?\" I ask numbly.\n\nAnden leans his head against the seat. He's probably thinking through a similar list of possibilities about the escaped prisoners, but he doesn't say it aloud. \"Our jets are all engaged right outside Denver. The Armor should hold for a good while, but there's a strong chance more Colonies forces are on their way. We're going to need help. Other nearby cities have been alerted and are sending their troops for reinforcement, but\"\u2014Anden pauses to look over his shoulder at me\u2014\"it might not be enough. While we keep funneling civilians underground, June, you and I need to have a private talk right away.\"\n\n\"Where are you evacuating the poor to, Elector?\" Day pipes up quietly.\n\nAnden turns in his seat again. He meets Day's hostile blue eyes with as level a look as he can manage. I notice that he avoids looking at Eden. \"I have troops on their way to the outer sectors,\" he says. \"They'll find shelter for the civilians and defend them until I give a command otherwise.\"\n\n\"No underground bunkers for them, I guess,\" Day replies coldly.\n\n\"I'm sorry.\" Anden lets out a long breath. \"The bunkers were built a long time ago, before my father even became the Elector. We're working on adding more.\"\n\nDay leans forward and narrows his eyes. His right hand grips Eden's tightly. \"Then split the bunkers up between the sectors. Half poor, half rich. The upper class should risk their necks out in the open as much as the lower class.\"\n\n\"No,\" Anden says firmly, even though I hear regret in his words. He makes the mistake of arguing this point with Day, and I can't stop him. \"If we were to do that, the logistics would be a nightmare. The outer sectors don't have the same evacuation routes\u2014if explosions hit the city, hundreds of thousands more people would be vulnerable in the open because we wouldn't be able to organize everyone in time. We evacuate the gem sectors first. Then we can\u2014\"\n\n\"Do it!\" Day shouts. \"I don't care about your damn logistics!\"\n\nAnden's face hardens. \"You will not talk back to me like that,\" he snaps. There's steel in his voice that I recognize from Commander Jameson's trial. \"I am your Elector.\"\n\n\"And I put you there,\" Day snaps back. \"Fine, you wanna talk logically? I'm game. If you don't make a bigger effort to protect the poor right now, I can practically guarantee that you'll have a full-on riot on your hands. Do you really want that while the Colonies are attacking? Like you said, you're the Elector. But you won't be if the rest of the country's poor hears about how you're handling this, and even I might not be able to stop them from starting a revolution. They already think the Republic's trying to kill me off. How long do you think the Republic can hold up against a war from both the outside and the inside?\"\n\nAnden's facing forward again. \"This conversation's over.\" As always, his voice is dangerously quiet, but we can hear every single word.\n\nDay lets out a curse and slumps back in his seat. I exchange a glance with him, then shake my head. Day has a point, of course, and so does Anden. The problem is that we don't have time for all this nonsense. After a moment of silence, I lean forward in my seat, clear my throat, and try an alternative.\n\n\"We should evacuate the poor into the wealthy sectors,\" I say. \"They'll still be aboveground, but the wealthy sectors sit in the heart of Denver, not along the Armor where the fighting is happening. It's a flawed plan, but the poor will also see that we're making a concerted effort to protect them. Then, as the people in the bunkers are gradually evacuated to LA via underground subways, we'll have the time and space to start filtering everyone else underground as well.\"\n\nDay mutters something under his breath, but at the same time he grunts in reluctant approval. He shoots me a grateful look. \"Sounds like a better plan to me. At least the people'll have something. \" A second later, I figure out what it was that he'd muttered. You'd make a better Elector than this fool.\n\nAnden's quiet for a moment as he considers my words. Then he nods in agreement and presses a hand against his ear. \"Commander Greene,\" he says, then launches into a series of orders.\n\nI meet Day's eyes. He still looks upset, but at least his eyes aren't burning in anger like they were a second ago. He turns his attention back on Lucy, who has an arm wrapped protectively around Eden. He's curled up in the corner of the jeep's seat with his legs tucked up and his arms wrapped around them. He squints at the scene blurring by, but I'm not sure how much of it he can actually make out. I reach across Day and touch Eden's shoulder. He tenses up immediately. \"It's okay, it's June,\" I say. \"And don't worry. We're going to be fine, do you hear?\"\n\n\"Why did the Colonies break through?\" Eden asks, turning his wide, purple-toned eyes on me and Day.\n\nI swallow hard. Neither of us answers him. Finally, after he repeats his question, Day hugs him closer and whispers something in his ear. Eden settles down against his brother's shoulder. He still looks unhappy and scared, but the terror is at least tempered, and we manage to finish the rest of the ride without saying another word.\n\nIt feels like an eternity (in actuality the trip takes a mere two minutes and twelve seconds), but we finally arrive at a nondescript building near the heart of downtown Denver, a thirty-story high-rise covered with crisscrossing support beams on all four of its sides. Dozens of city patrols are mixed in with crowds of civilians, organizing them into groups at the entrance. Our driver pulls the jeep up to the side of the building, where patrols let us through the door of a makeshift fence. Through the window, I see soldiers click their heels together in sharp salutes as we pass by. One of them is holding Ollie on a leash. I slump in relief at the sight of him. When the jeep halts, two of them promptly open the doors for us. Anden steps out\u2014immediately he's surrounded by four patrol captains, all feverishly updating him on how the evacuation is going. My dog pulls his soldier frantically to my side. I thank the soldier, take over the leash, and rub Ollie's head. He's panting in distress.\n\n\"This way, Ms. Iparis,\" the soldier who opens my door says. Day follows behind me in a tense silence, his hand still clutched tightly around Eden's. Lucy comes out last. I look over my shoulder to where Anden's now deep in conversation with his captains\u2014he pauses to exchange a quick look with me. His eyes dart to Eden. I know that the thought he has must be the same thought running through Day's mind: Keep Eden safe. I nod, signaling to him that I understand, and then we move past a crowd of waiting evacuees and I lose sight of him.\n\nInstead of dealing with the lineup of civilians at the entrance, soldiers escort us through a separate entrance and down a winding set of stairs, until we reach a dimly lit hallway that ends in a set of wide, steel double doors. The guards standing at the entrance shift their stance when they recognize me.\n\n\"This way, Ms. Iparis,\" they say. One of them stiffens at the sight of Day, but looks quickly away when Day meets his stare. The doors swing open for us.\n\nWe're greeted by a blast of warm, humid air and a scene of orderly chaos. The room we've stepped into seems like an enormous warehouse (half the size of a Trial stadium, three dozen fluorescents, and six rows of steel beams lining the ceiling), with a lone JumboTron on the left wall blasting instructions to the upper-class evacuees who mill all around us. Amongst them are a handful of poor-sector people (fourteen of them, to be exact), those who must have been the housekeepers and janitors of some of the gem-sector's homes. To my disappointment, I see soldiers separating them out into a different line. Several upper-class people cast them sympathetic looks, while others glare in disdain.\n\nDay sees them too. \"Guess we're all created equal,\" he mutters. I say nothing.\n\nA few smaller rooms line the right wall. At the far end of the room, the end of a parked subway train rests inside a tunnel, and crowds of both soldiers and civilians have gathered along both of its platforms. The soldiers are attempting to organize the crowds of bewildered, frightened people onto the subway. Where it will take them, I can only guess.\n\nBeside me, Day watches the scene with silent, simmering eyes. His hand stays clamped on Eden's. I wonder whether he's taking note of the aristocratic clothing that most of these evacuees are wearing.\n\n\"Apologies for the mess,\" a guard says to me as she escorts us toward one of the smaller rooms. She taps the edge of her cap politely. \"We are in the early stages of evacuations, and as you can see, the first wave is still in progress. We can have you, as well as Day and his family, on the first wave as well, if you don't mind resting for a moment in a private suite.\"\n\nMariana and Serge might already be waiting in rooms of their own. \"Thank you,\" I reply. We walk past several doors, their long, rectangular windows revealing empty, blank rooms with portraits of Anden hanging on their walls. A couple look as if they have been reserved for high-ranking officials, while others appear to be holding people who must have caused trouble\u2014detainees with sullen faces flanked by pairs of soldiers. One room that we pass by holds several people surrounded by guards.\n\nIt is this room that makes me pause. I recognize one of the people in there. Is it really her? \"Wait,\" I call out, stepping closer to the window. No doubt about it\u2014I see a young girl with wide eyes and a blunt, messy bob of a haircut, sitting in a chair beside a gray-eyed boy and three others who look more ragged than I recall. I glance at our soldier. \"What are they doing in there?\"\n\nDay follows my lead. When he sees what I see, he sucks in a sharp breath. \"Get us in there,\" he whispers to me. His voice takes on a desperate urgency. \" Please.\"\n\n\"These are prisoners, Ms. Iparis,\" the soldier replies, puzzled by our interest. \"I don't recommend\u2014\"\n\nI tighten my lips. \"I want to see them,\" I interrupt.\n\nThe soldier hesitates, glances around the room, and then nods reluctantly. \"Of course,\" she replies. She steps toward the door and opens it, then ushers us in. Lucy stays right outside with her hand tightly gripping Eden's. The door closes behind us.\n\nI find myself staring straight at Tess and a handful of Patriots.\n\nWell, damn. The last time I saw tess, she was standing in the middle of the alley near where we were supposed to assassinate Anden, her fists clenched and her face a broken picture. She looks different now. Calmer. Older. She's also gotten a good bit taller, and her once-round baby face has leaned out. Weird to see.\n\nShe and the others are all shackled to chairs. The sight doesn't help my mood. I recognize one of her companions immediately\u2014Pascao, the dark-skinned Runner with a head of short curls and those ridiculously pale gray eyes. He hasn't changed much, although now that I'm close enough, I can see traces of a scar across his nose and another one near his right temple. He flashes me a brilliant white grin that drips sarcasm. \"That you, Day?\" he says, giving me a flirtatious wink. \"Still as gorgeous as you've always been. Republic uniforms suit you.\"\n\nHis words sting. I turn my glare on the soldiers standing guard over them. \"Why the hell are they prisoners?\"\n\nOne of them tilts his nose up at me. Based on all the goddy decorations on his uniform, he must be the captain of this group or something. \"They're former Patriots,\" he says, emphasizing his last word as if he's trying to make a jab at me. \"We caught them along the edge of the Armor, where they were attempting to disable our military equipment and aid the Colonies.\"\n\nPascao shifts indignantly in his chair. \"Bullshit, you blinder boy,\" he snaps. \"We were camped out along the Armor because we were trying to help your sorry soldiers out. Maybe we shouldn't have bothered.\"\n\nTess watches me with a wary look that she's never used with me before. Her arms look so small and thin with those giant shackles clamped around her wrists. I clench my teeth; my gaze falls to the guns at the soldiers' belts. No sudden moves, I remind myself. Not around these trigger-happy trots. From the corner of my eye, I notice that one of the others is bleeding from the shoulder. \"Let them go,\" I tell the soldier. \"They're not the enemy.\"\n\nThe soldier glares at me with cold contempt. \"Absolutely not. Our orders were to detain them until such time\u2014\"\n\nBeside me, June lifts her chin. \"Orders from whom?\"\n\nThe soldier's bravado wavers a little. \"Ms. Iparis, my orders came directly from the glorious Elector himself.\" His cheeks flush when he sees June narrow her eyes, and then he starts blabbing something about their tour of duty around the Armor and how intense the battle's been. I step closer to Tess and stoop down until we're at the same eye level. The guards shift their guns, but June snaps a warning at them to stop.\n\n\"You came back,\" I whisper to Tess.\n\nEven though Tess still looks wary, something softens in her eyes. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nTess hesitates. She looks over at Pascao, who turns his startling gray eyes fully on me. \"We came back,\" he replies, \"because Tess heard you calling for us.\"\n\nThey'd heard me. All those radio transmissions I'd been sending out for months and months hadn't ended up lost somewhere in the dark\u2014somehow, they'd heard me. Tess swallows hard before she works up enough courage to speak. \"Frankie first caught you on the airwaves a few months ago,\" she says, nodding toward a curly-haired girl tied to one of the chairs. \"She said you were trying to contact us.\" Tess lowers her eyes. \"I didn't want to answer. But then I heard about your illness... and...\"\n\nSo. The news has definitely gotten around.\n\n\"Hey now,\" Pascao interrupts when he catches my expression. \"We didn't come back to the Republic just because we felt sorry for you. We've been listening to the news coming from both you and the Colonies. Heard about the threat of war.\"\n\n\"And you decided to come to our aid?\" June pipes up. Her eyes are suspicious. \"Why so generous all of a sudden?\"\n\nPascao's sarcastic grin fades away. He regards June with a tilt of his head. \"You're June Iparis, aren't you?\"\n\nThe captain starts to tell him to greet June in a more formal way, but June just nods.\n\n\"So you're the one who sabotaged our plans and split up our crew.\" Pascao shrugs. \"No hard feelings\u2014not that, you know, I was a big fan of Razor or anything.\"\n\n\"Why are you back in the country?\" June repeats.\n\n\"Okay, fine. We got kicked out of Canada.\" Pascao takes a deep breath. \"We were hiding out there after everything fell apart during the\"\u2014he pauses to glance at the soldiers around them\u2014\"the, ah, you know. Our playdate with Anden. But then the Canadians figured out that we weren't supposed to be in their country, and we had to flee back south. A lot of us scattered to the winds. I don't know where half our original group is now\u2014chances are that some of them are still in Canada. When the news about Day broke, little Tess here asked if she could leave us and head back to Denver on her own. I didn't want her to, well, die\u2014so we came along.\" Pascao looks down for a moment. He doesn't stop talking, but I can tell that he's just babbling at this point, trying to give us any reason but their main one. \"With the Colonies invading, I thought that if we tried helping out your war effort, then maybe we could get a pardon and permission to stay in the country, but I know your Elector probably isn't our biggest\u2014\"\n\n\"What is all this?\"\n\nAll of us turn around at the voice, right as the soldiers in the room snap into salutes. I get up from my crouch to see Anden standing in the doorway with a group of bodyguards behind him, his eyes dark and ominous, his stare fixed first on June and me and then on the Patriots. Even though it hasn't been that long since we left him behind to talk with his generals, he has a fine layer of dust on the shoulders of his uniform, and his face looks bleak. The captain who'd been talking to us earlier now clears his throat nervously. \"My apologies, Elector,\" he begins, \"but we detained these criminals near the Armor\u2014\"\n\nAt that, June crosses her arms. \"Then I'm guessing you weren't the one who approved this, Elector?\" she says to Anden. There's an edge to her voice that tells me she and Anden aren't on the best of terms right now.\n\nAnden regards the scene. Our argument from the car ride over is probably still stewing in his mind, but he doesn't bother looking in my direction. Well, good. Maybe I've given him something to think about. Finally, he nods at the captain. \"Who are they?\"\n\n\"Former Patriots, sir.\"\n\n\"I see. Who ordered this?\"\n\nThe captain turns bright red. \"Well, Elector,\" he replies, trying to sound official, \"my commanding officer\u2014\"\n\nBut Anden has already turned his attention away from the lying captain and starts to leave the room. \"Take those shackles off them,\" he says without turning back around. \"Keep them in here for now, and then evacuate them with the final group. Watch them carefully.\" He motions for us to follow him. \"Ms. Iparis. Mr. Wing. If you please.\"\n\nI look back one more time at Tess, who's watching the soldiers unclip the shackles from her wrists. Then I head out with June. Eden rushes over to me, nearly colliding with me in his hurry, and I take his hand back in mine.\n\nAnden stops us before a group of Republic soldiers. I frown at the sight. Four of the soldiers are kneeling on the ground with their hands on their heads. Their eyes stay downcast. One weeps silently.\n\nThe remaining soldiers in the group have their guns pointed at the kneeling soldiers. The soldier in charge addresses Anden. \"These are the guards who were in charge of Commander Jameson and Captain Bryant. We found a suspicious communication between one of them and the Colonies.\"\n\nNo wonder he brought us out here, to see the faces of our potential traitors. I look back at the captured guards. The crying one looks up at Anden with pleading eyes. \"Please, Elector,\" he begs. \"I had nothing to do with their escape. I\u2014I don't know how it happened. I\u2014\" His words cut off as a gun barrel cuffs him in the head.\n\nAnden's face, normally thoughtful and reserved, has turned ice-cold. I look from the kneeling soldiers back to him. He's silent for a moment. Then he nods at his men. \"Interrogate them. If they don't cooperate, shoot them. Spread the word to the rest of the troops. Let it be a lesson to any other traitors within our ranks. Let them know we will root them out.\"\n\nThe soldiers with the guns click their heels. \"Yes, sir.\" They haul the accused traitors to their feet. A sick feeling hits my stomach. But Anden doesn't take back his words\u2014instead, he looks on as the soldiers are dragged, shouting and pleading, out of the bunker. June looks stricken. Her eyes follow the prisoners.\n\nAnden turns on us with a grave expression. \"The Colonies have help.\"\n\nA dull thud echoes from somewhere above us, and the ground and ceiling tremble in response. June peers closer at Anden, as if analyzing him. \"What kind of help?\"\n\n\"I saw their squadrons in the air, right beyond the Armor. They're not all Colonies jets. Some of them have African stars painted on their sides. My generals tell me that the Colonies are confident enough to have parked an Airship and a squadron of jets less than a half mile from our Armor, setting up makeshift airfields as they go. They are ramping up for another assault.\"\n\nMy hand tightens around Eden's. He squints at the swarms of evacuees crowded near the subway, but he probably can't see anything more than a mass of moving blurs. I wish I could take that frightened look off his face. \"How long is Denver gonna hold?\" I ask.\n\n\"I don't know,\" Anden replies grimly. \"The Armor is strong, but we can't fight a superpower for long.\"\n\n\"So what do we do now?\" June says. \"If we can't hold them off alone, then are we just going to lose this war?\"\n\nAnden shakes his head. \"We need help too. I'm going to get us an audience with the United Nations or with Antarctica, see whether they're willing to step up to the plate. They might buy us enough time for...\" He glances at my brother, quiet and calm beside me. A stab of guilt and rage hits me. I narrow my eyes at Anden\u2014my hand clamps tighter on my brother's arm. Eden shouldn't have to be in the middle of this. I shouldn't have to choose between losing my brother and losing this damn country.\n\n\"Hopefully it won't come to that,\" I say.\n\nAs he and June launch into an in-depth conversation about Antarctica, I look back at the room where Tess and the Patriots are being held. Through the window, I can see Tess tending carefully to the girl with the bleeding shoulder while the soldiers look on with uneasy expressions. Don't know why all those trained killers should be scared of a little girl armed with a handful of bandages and rubbing alcohol. I shiver as I think of the way Anden ordered those accused soldiers out of the bunker and killed. Pascao looks frustrated, and for a moment, he meets my stare through the glass. Even though he doesn't move his mouth, I can tell what he's thinking.\n\nHe knows that trapping the Patriots inside a room during the middle of a battle, while civilians and soldiers alike are getting killed aboveground, is a total goddy waste.\n\n\"Elector,\" I suddenly say, turning back to face Anden and June. He pauses to stare at me. \"Let them out of this bunker.\" When Anden stays silent, compelling me to go on, I add, \"They can help your effort up there. I bet they can play the guerrilla game better than any of your soldiers, and since you won't be evacuating the poor sectors for a while, you might need all the help you can get.\"\n\nJune doesn't say anything about my little jab, but Anden folds his arms across his chest. \"Day, I pardoned the Patriots as part of our original deal\u2014but I haven't forgotten about my difficult history with them. While I don't want to see your friends shackled like prisoners, I have no reason to believe that they'll now help a country that they have terrorized for so long.\"\n\n\"They're harmless,\" I insist. \"They have no reason to fight against the Republic.\"\n\n\"Three death-row prisoners just escaped,\" Anden snaps. \"The Colonies have launched a surprise attack on our capital. And now my would-be assassins are sitting a dozen yards from me. I'm not in the most forgiving mood.\"\n\n\"I'm trying to help you,\" I fire back. \"You just caught your traitors, anyway, didn't you? Do you really think the Patriots had anything to do with Commander Jameson's escape? Especially when she threw them to the dogs? Do you think I like the idea that my mother's killers are on the loose now? Unleash the Patriots, and they'll fight for you.\"\n\nAnden narrows his eyes. \"What makes you think they're so loyal to the Republic?\"\n\n\"Let me lead them,\" I say. Eden jerks his head up at me in surprise. \"And you'll get your loyalty.\" June shoots me a warning glare\u2014I take a deep breath, swallow my frustration, and will myself to calm down. She's right. No point getting angry at Anden if I need him on my side. \"Please,\" I add in a lower voice. \"Let me help. You have to trust someone. Don't just leave people out there to die.\"\n\nAnden studies my face for a long moment, and with a chill, I realize how much he looks like his father. The similarity is only there for an instant, though\u2014and then it vanishes, replaced by Anden's serious, concerned gaze. As if he suddenly remembers who we are. He sighs deeply and tightens his lips. \"Let me know what your plan is,\" he finally says. \"And we'll see. In the meantime, I suggest you get your brother on a subway.\" When he sees my expression, he adds, \"He'll be safe until you join him. You have my word.\"\n\nThen he turns away and motions for June to accompany him. I let my breath out as I watch a soldier lead him and June toward a cluster of generals. June looks over her shoulder at me as they go. I know she's thinking the same thing I am. She's worried about what this war is doing to Anden. What it's doing to all of us.\n\nLucy interrupts my thoughts. \"Perhaps we should get your brother on the evacuation train,\" she says. She gives me a sympathetic look.\n\n\"Right.\" I look down at Eden and pat his shoulder. I try my best to have faith in the Elector's promise. \"Let's head over to the train and get the details on how to get you out of here.\"\n\n\"What about you?\" Eden asks. \"Are you really going to lead some kind of assault?\"\n\n\"I'll meet up with you in Los Angeles. I swear.\"\n\nEden doesn't make a sound as we make our way over to the train platform and let the soldiers escort us toward the front. His expression has grown serious and sullen. When we're finally in front of the train's closed glass door, I bend to his eye level. \"Look\u2014I'm sorry I'm not going with you right away. I need to stay here and help, yeah? Lucy's got you. She'll keep you safe. I'll join up with you soon\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah, fine,\" Eden grumbles.\n\n\"Oh.\" I clear my throat. Eden is sickly and tech-minded and occasionally obnoxious, but he's rarely angry like this. Even after his blindness, he's stayed optimistic. So his bluntness throws me off. \"Well, that's good,\" I decide to respond. \"I'm glad you're\u2014\"\n\n\"You're hiding something from me, Daniel,\" he interrupts. \"I can tell. What is it?\"\n\nI pause. \"No, I'm not.\"\n\n\"You're a terrible liar.\" Eden pulls himself out of my grasp and frowns. \"Something's up. I could hear it in the Elector's voice, and then you said that weird thing to me the other day, about how you were afraid the Republic's soldiers would come knocking on our door... Why would they do that all of a sudden? I thought everything was fine now.\"\n\nI sigh and bow my head. Eden's eyes soften a little, but his jaw stays firm. \"What is it?\" he repeats.\n\nHe's eleven years old. He deserves to know the truth.\n\n\"The Republic wants you back for experimentation,\" I reply, keeping my voice low so that only he can hear me. \"There's a virus spreading in the Colonies. They think you have the antidote in your blood. They want to take you to the labs.\"\n\nEden stares in my direction for a long, silent moment. Above us, another dull thud shakes the earth. I wonder how well the Armor's holding up. Seconds drag by. Finally, I put a hand on his arm. \"I won't let them take you away,\" I say, trying to reassure him. \"Okay? You're going to be fine. Anden\u2014the Elector\u2014knows that he can't take you away without risking a revolution among the people. He can't do it without my permission.\"\n\n\"All those people in the Colonies are going to die, aren't they?\" Eden mutters under his breath. \"The ones with the virus?\"\n\nI hesitate. I never asked much about exactly what the plague's symptoms were\u2014I stopped listening the instant they mentioned my brother. \"I don't know,\" I confess.\n\n\"And then they're going to spread it to the Republic.\" Eden turns his head down and wrings his hands together. \"Maybe they're spreading it right now. If they take over the capital, the disease will spread. Won't it?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I repeat.\n\nEden's eyes search my face. Even though he's nearly blind, I can see the unhappiness in them. \"You don't have to make all my decisions, you know.\"\n\n\"I didn't think I was. Don't you want to evacuate to LA? It's safer there, and I told you\u2014I'll catch up with you there. I promise.\"\n\n\"No, not that. Why'd you decide to keep this a secret?\"\n\nThis is why he's upset? \"You're kidding, right?\"\n\n\"Why?\" Eden presses.\n\n\"You would've agreed?\" I move closer to him, then glance around at the soldiers and evacuees and lower my voice. \"I know I declared my support for Anden, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten what the Republic did to our family. To you. When I watched you get sick, when the plague patrols came to our door and dragged you out on that gurney, with blood blackening your eyes...\" I pause, close my eyes, and shut the scene out. I've played it in my head a million times; no need to revisit it again. The memory makes the pain flare up at the back of my head.\n\n\"Don't you think I know that?\" Eden fires back in a low, defiant voice. \"You're my brother, not our mom.\"\n\nI narrow my eyes. \"I am now.\"\n\n\"No, you're not. Mom's dead.\" Eden takes a deep breath. \"I remember what the Republic did to us. Of course I do. But the Colonies are invading. I want to help.\"\n\nI can't believe Eden's telling me this. He doesn't understand the lengths the Republic will go to\u2014has he really forgotten their experiments? I lean forward and put my hand on his tiny wrist. \"It could kill you. Do you realize that? And they might not even find a cure using your blood.\"\n\nEden pulls away from me again. \"It's my decision to make. Not yours.\"\n\nHis words echo June's from earlier. \"Fine,\" I snap. \"Then what's your decision, kid?\"\n\nHe steels himself. \"Maybe I want to help.\"\n\n\"You've gotta be kidding me. You want to help them out? Are you just doing that to go against what I'm saying?\"\n\n\"I'm serious.\"\n\nA lump rises in my throat. \"Eden,\" I begin, \"we've lost Mom and John. Dad is gone. You're all I have left. I can't afford to lose you too. Everything I've done so far, I've done for you. I'm not letting you risk your life to save the Republic\u2014or the Colonies.\"\n\nThe defiance fades from Eden's eyes. He props his arms up on the railing and leans his head against his hands. \"If there's one thing I know about you,\" he says, \"it's that you're not selfish.\"\n\nI pause. Selfish. I am selfish\u2014I want Eden to stay protected, out of harm's way, and screw whatever he thinks about that. But at his words, my guilt bubbles up. How many times had John tried to keep me out of trouble? How many times had he warned me against messing with the Republic, or trying to find a cure for Eden? I had never listened, and I don't regret it. Eden stares at me with sightless eyes, a disability the Republic handed to him. And now he's offering himself up, a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter, and I can't understand why.\n\nNo. I do understand. He is me\u2014he's doing what I would've done.\n\nBut the thought of losing him is too much to bear. I put my hand on his shoulder and start steering him inside. \"Get to LA first. We'll talk about this later. You better think this through, because if you volunteer for this\u2014\"\n\n\"I did think it through,\" Eden replies. Then he pulls out of my grasp and steps back through the balcony door. \"And besides, if they came for me, do you really think we could stop them?\"\n\nAnd then his turn comes. Lucy helps him step onto the subway, and I hold his hand for a brief moment before he has to let go. Despite how upset he seems to be, Eden still clutches my hand hard. \"Hurry up, okay?\" he says to me. Without warning, he throws his arms around my neck. Beside him, Lucy gives me one of her reassuring smiles.\n\n\"Don't you worry, Daniel,\" she says. \"I'll watch him like a hawk.\"\n\nI nod gratefully at her. Then I hug Eden tight, squeeze my eyes shut, and take a deep breath. \"See you soon, kid,\" I whisper. Then I reluctantly untangle his fingers from mine. Eden disappears onto the subway. Moments later, the train pulls away from the station and takes the first wave of evacuees toward the Republic's west coast, leaving only Eden's words behind, ringing in my mind.\n\nMaybe I want to help.\n\nI sit alone for some time after his train leaves, lost in thought, going over those words repeatedly. I'm his guardian now\u2014I have every right to keep him from harm, and hell if I'm going to see him back in the Republic's labs after everything I've done to keep him from there. I close my eyes and bury my hands in my hair.\n\nAfter a while, I make my way back to the room where the Patriots are being kept. The door's open. When I step inside, Pascao quits stretching out his arms and Tess looks up from where she's finishing the bandaging of the wounded girl's shoulder.\n\n\"So,\" I say to them, my eyes lingering on Tess. \"You guys came back to town to give the Colonies some hell?\" Tess drops her gaze.\n\nPascao shrugs. \"Well, it won't matter if no one lets us back up there. Why? You have something in mind?\"\n\n\"The Elector's given his permission,\" I reply. \"As long as I'm in charge, he thinks we'll be good enough not to turn against the Republic.\" What a stupid fear, anyway. They still have my brother, don't they?\n\nA slow smile spreads on Pascao's face. \"Well. That sounds like it could be fun. What do you have in mind?\"\n\nI put my hands in my pockets and put my arrogant mask back on. \"What I've always been good at.\"\n\n51.5 HOURS SINCE MY FINAL CONVERSATION WITH THOMAS.\n\n15 HOURS SINCE I LAST SAW DAY.\n\n8 HOURS SINCE THE COLONIES' BOMBARDMENT OF DENVER'S ARMOR CAME TO A LULL.\n\nWE'RE ON THE ELECTOR'S PLANE HEADED TO ROSS City, Antarctica.\n\nI sit across from Anden. Ollie's lying at my feet. The other two Princeps-Elects are in an adjacent compartment, separated from us by glass (3 \u00d7 6 feet, bulletproof, Republic seal carved on the side facing me, judging from the edges of the cut). Outside the window, the sky is brilliant blue and a blanket of clouds pads the bottom of our view. Any minute now, we should feel the plane dip and see the sprawling Antarctican metropolis come into view.\n\nI've stayed quiet for most of the trip, listening on as Anden takes a stream of endless calls from Denver about the battle. Only when we're almost over Antarctican waters does he finally fall silent. I watch how the light plays on his features, contouring the young face that holds such world-weary thoughts.\n\n\"What's the history between us and Antarctica?\" I ask after a while. What I really want to say is, Do you think they'll help us? but that question is just silly small talk, impossible to answer and thus pointless to ask.\n\nAnden looks away from the window and fixes his bright green eyes on me. \"Antarctica gives us aid. We've taken international aid from them for decades. Our own economy isn't strong enough to stand on its own.\"\n\nIt still unsettles me that the nation I once believed so powerful is in reality struggling for survival. \"And what is our relationship with them now?\"\n\nAnden keeps his gaze steadily on me. I can see the tension in his eyes, but his face remains composed. \"Antarctica has promised to double their aid if we can draft a treaty that can get the Colonies talking with us again. And they've threatened to halve their aid if we don't have a treaty by the end of this year.\" He pauses. \"So we're visiting them not just to ask for help, but to try to persuade them not to withhold their aid.\"\n\nWe have to explain why everything has fallen apart. I swallow. \"Why Antarctica?\"\n\n\"They have a long rivalry with Africa,\" Anden replies. \"If anyone with power will help us win a war against the Colonies and Africa, it'll be them.\" He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. His gloved hands are a foot away from my legs. \"We'll see what happens. We owe them a lot of money, and they haven't been happy with us for the past few years.\"\n\n\"Has the President ever met you in person?\"\n\n\"Sometimes I visited with my father,\" Anden replies. He offers me a crooked smile that sends unexpected flutters through my stomach. \"He was a charmer during meetings. Do you think I have a chance?\"\n\nI smile back. I can sense the double meaning in his question; he's not just talking about Antarctica. \"You're charismatic, if that's what you're asking,\" I decide to say.\n\nAnden laughs a little. The sound warms me. He looks away and lowers his eyes. \"I haven't been very successful at charming anyone lately,\" he murmurs.\n\nThe plane dips. I turn my attention to my window and take a deep breath, fighting down the pink rising on my cheeks.\n\nThe clouds grow nearer as we descend, and soon we are engulfed in swirling gray mist; after a few minutes we emerge from their underbelly to see a massive stretch of land covered in a dense layer of high-rises that come in a wild assortment of bright colors. I suck in my breath at the sight. One look is all I need to confirm just how much of a technological and wealth gap there is between the Republic and Antarctica. A thin, transparent dome stretches across the city, but we pass right through it as easily as we sliced through the clouds. Each building appears to have the ability to change colors on a whim (two have already shifted from a pastel green to a deep blue, and one changes from gold to white), and each building looks brand-new, polished and flawless in a way that very few Republic buildings are. Enormous, elegant bridges connect many of the towering skyscrapers, brilliantly white under the sun, each one linking one building's floor to its adjacent building and forming a honeycomb-like web of ivory. The uppermost bridges have round platforms in their centers. When I look closer, I see what seem like aircraft parked on the platforms. (Another oddity: All of the high-rises have enormous silver holograms of numbers floating over their roofs, each ranging between zero and thirty thousand. I frown. Are they being beamed from a light at each rooftop? Perhaps they signify the population living in each skyscraper\u2014although if that were the case, thirty thousand seems like a relatively low ceiling given the size of each building.)\n\nOur pilot's voice rings out over the intercom to inform us of our landing. As the candy-colored buildings gradually fill our entire view, we zero in on one of the bridge platforms. Down below, I see people hurrying to prepare for our jet's landing. When we're finally hovering over the platform, an abrupt jolt jerks all of us sideways in our seats. Ollie lifts his head and growls.\n\n\"We're magnetically docked now,\" Anden tells me when he sees my startled expression. \"From here on out, our pilot doesn't need to do a thing. The platform itself will pull us down for the landing.\"\n\nWe touch down so smoothly that I don't feel a thing. As we step out of the plane along with our entourage of Senators and guards, I'm shocked first by how nice the temperature is outside. A cool breeze, the warmth of the sun. Aren't we at the bottom of the earth? (Seventy-two degrees is my assumption, southwest wind, a breeze surprisingly light considering how high up from ground level we are.) Then I remember the thin, substance-less dome we passed through. It might be a way the Antarcticans control the climate in their cities.\n\nSecondly, I'm shocked to see us immediately ushered into a plastic tent by a team of people in white biohazard suits and gas masks. (The news of the Colonies' plague must have spread here.) One of them quickly inspects my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, and then runs a bright green light across my entire body. I wait in tense silence as the person (male or female? I can't be sure) analyzes the reading on a handheld device. From the corner of my eye, I can see Anden undergoing the same tests\u2014being the Republic's Elector does not apparently exempt one from being possibly contaminated with plague. It takes a good ten minutes before we are all cleared for entry and led out from under the tarp.\n\nAnden greets three Antarctican people (each dressed respectively in a green, black, or blue suit, cut in an unfamiliar style) waiting for us on the landing bridge with a few guards. \"I hope your flight went well,\" one of them says as Mariana, Serge, and I approach. She greets us in English, but her accent is thick and lush. \"If you prefer, we can send you home in one of our own jets.\"\n\nThe Republic is hardly perfect; that much I've known for a long time, and certainly ever since I met Day. But the Antarctican woman's words are so arrogant that I feel myself bristle. Apparently our Republic jets aren't good enough for them. I look at Anden to see what his reaction will be, but he simply bows his head and offers a beautiful smile to the woman. \" Gracias, Lady Medina. You are always so gracious,\" he replies. \"I'm very grateful for your offer, but I certainly don't want to impose. We'll make do.\"\n\nI can't help admiring Anden. Every day, I see new evidence of the burdens he shoulders.\n\nAfter some argument, I reluctantly let one of the guards take Ollie away to the hotel quarters where I'll be staying. Then we all fall into a quiet procession as the Antarcticans lead us off the platform and along the bridge toward the connecting building (colored scarlet, although I'm not sure if it's in honor of our landing). I make a point of walking close to the bridge's edge, so that I can look down at the city. For once, it takes me a while to count the floors (based on the bridges branching out from every floor, this building has over three hundred floors\u2014approximately three hundred twenty-seven, although eventually I look away to shake off a sense of vertigo). Sunlight bathes the uppermost floors, but the lower floors are also brightly illuminated; they must be simulating sunlight for those walking at ground level. I watch Anden and Lady Medina chat and laugh as if they are old friends. Anden falls so neatly into it that I can't tell whether he genuinely likes this woman or he is simply playing the role of an agreeable politician. Apparently our late Elector had at least trained his son well in international relations.\n\nThe building's bridge entrance, an archway framed with intricately carved swirls, slides open to greet us. We halt in a lavishly decorated lobby (thick ivory carpet that, to my fascination, bursts with swirls of color wherever I put my feet down; rows of potted palms; a curved glass wall displaying bright ads and what seem like interactive stations for things I don't understand). As we walk, the Antarcticans hand each of us a thin pair of glasses. Anden and many of the Senators immediately put them on as if they're used to this ritual, but the Antarcticans explain the glasses anyway. I wonder whether they know who I am, or whether they care. They certainly noticed my puzzlement at the glasses.\n\n\"Keep these on for the duration of your visit,\" Lady Medina tells us with her rich accent, although I know her words are directed at me. \"They will help you see Ross City as it really is.\"\n\nIntrigued, I put the glasses on.\n\nI blink in surprise. The first thing I feel is a subtle tickle in my ears, and the first thing I see are the small, glowing numbers hovering over the heads of each of the Antarcticans. Lady Medina has 28,627: LEVEL 29, while her two companions (who have yet to utter a sound) respectively have 8,819: LEVEL 11 and 11,201: LEVEL 13. When I look around the lobby, I notice all sorts of virtual numbers and words\u2014the green bulbous plant in the corner has WATER: +1 hovering over it, while CLEAN: +1 floats above a dark, half-circle side table. In the corner of my glasses, I see tiny, glowing words:"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "\u2002JUNE IPARIS\n\n\u2002PRINCEPS-ELECT 3\n\n\u2002REPUBLIC OF AMERICA\n\n\u2002LEVEL 1\n\n\u2002SEPT. 22. 2132\n\n\u2002DAILY SCORE: 0\n\n\u2002CUMULATIVE SCORE: 0\n\nWe've started walking again. None of the others seem particularly concerned about the onslaught of virtual text and numbers layered over the real world, so I'm left to my own intuition. (Although the Antarcticans aren't wearing glasses, their eyes occasionally flicker to virtual things in the world in a way that makes me wonder whether they have something embedded in their eyes, or perhaps in their brains, that permanently simulates all of these virtual things for them.)\n\nOne of Lady Medina's two companions, a broad-shouldered, white-haired man with very dark eyes and golden-brown skin, walks slower than the others. Eventually he reaches me near the end of the procession and falls into step beside me. I tense up at his presence. When he speaks, though, his voice is low and kind. \"Miss June Iparis?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I reply, bowing my head respectfully in the way Anden had done. To my surprise, I see the numbers in the corner of my glasses change:\n\n\u2002SEPT. 22. 2132\n\n\u2002DAILY SCORE: 1\n\n\u2002CUMULATIVE SCORE: 1\n\nMy mind spins. Somehow, the glasses must have recorded my bowing action and added a point to this Antarctican scoring system, which means bowing is equal to one point. This is also when I realize something else: When the white-haired man spoke, I heard absolutely no accent\u2014he's now speaking perfect English. I glance over to Lady Medina, and when I catch hints of what she's saying to Anden, I notice that her English now sounds impeccable too. The tickle I'd felt in my ears when I put on the glasses... maybe it's acting as some sort of language translation device, allowing the Antarcticans to revert to their native language while still communicating with us without missing a beat.\n\nThe white-haired man now leans over to me and whispers, \"I am Guardsman Makoare, one of Lady Medina's newer bodyguards. She has assigned me to be your guide, Miss Iparis, as it seems you are a stranger to our city. It's quite different from your Republic, isn't it?\"\n\nUnlike Lady Medina, the way Guardsman Makoare speaks has no condescension in it at all, and his question doesn't rub me the wrong way. \"Thank you, sir,\" I reply gratefully. \"And, yes, I have to admit that these virtual numbers I see all over the place are strange to me. I don't quite understand it.\"\n\nHe smiles and scratches at the white scruff on his chin. \"Life in Ross City is a game, and we are all its players. Native Antarcticans don't need glasses like you visitors do\u2014all of us have chips embedded near our temples once we turn thirteen. It's a piece of software that assigns points to everything around us.\" He gestures toward the plants. \"Do you see the words Water\u2014Plus One hovering over that plant?\" I nod. \"If you decided to water that plant, for example, you would receive one point for doing so. Almost every positive action you make in Ross City will earn you achievement points, while negative actions subtract points. As you accumulate points, you gain levels. Right now, you are at Level One.\" He pauses to point up at the virtual number floating over his head. \"I am at Level Thirteen.\"\n\n\"What's the point of reaching... levels?\" I ask as we leave the hall and step into an elevator. \"Does it determine your status in the city? Does it keep your civilians in line?\"\n\nGuardsman Makoare nods. \"You'll see.\"\n\nWe step out of the elevator and head out onto another bridge (this time it's covered with an arched glass roof) that connects this building to another. As we walk, I begin to see what Guardsman Makoare is talking about. The new building we enter looks like an enormous academy, and as we peer through glass panels into classrooms lined with rows of what must be students, I notice that all of them have their own point scores and levels hovering over their heads. At the front of the room, a giant glass screen displays a series of math questions, each with a glowing point score over them.\n\n\u2002CALCULUS SEMESTER 2\n\n\u2002Q1: 6 PTS\n\n\u2002Q2: 12 PTS\n\nAnd so on. At one point, I see one of the students attempt to lean over and cheat from a neighbor. The point score over his head flashes red, and a second later the number decreases by five.\n\n\u2002CHEATING: \u22125 PTS\n\n\u20021,642: LEVEL 3\n\nThe student freezes, then quickly returns to looking at his own exam.\n\nGuardsman Makoare smiles when he sees me analyzing the situation. \"Your level means everything in Ross City. The higher your level, the more money you make, the better jobs you can apply for, and the more respected you are. Our highest scorers are widely admired and quite famous.\" He points toward the back of the cheating student. \"As you can see, our citizens are so engrossed in this game of life that most of them know better than to do things that will decrease their scores. We have very little crime in Ross City as a result.\"\n\n\"Fascinating,\" I murmur, my eyes still glued to the classroom even as we reach the end of the hallway and head out onto another bridge. After a while, a new message pops up in the corner of my glasses.\n\n\u2002WALKED 1,000 METERS: +2 PTS\n\n\u2002DAILY SCORE: 3\n\n\u2002CUMULATIVE SCORE: 3\n\nTo my surprise, seeing the numbers go up gives me a brief thrill of accomplishment. I turn to Guardsman Makoare. \"I can understand how this leveling system is good motivation for your citizens. Brilliant.\" I don't say my next thought aloud, but secretly I wonder, How do they distinguish between good and bad actions? Who decides that? What happens when someone speaks out against the government? Does her score go up or down? I marvel at the technology available here\u2014it really makes clear, for the first time, exactly how far behind the Republic is. Have things always been so unequal? Were we ever the leaders?\n\nWe eventually settle inside a building with a large, semicircular chamber used for political meetings (\"The Discussion Room,\" Lady Medina calls it). It's lined with flags from countries around the world. In the chamber's center is a long, mahogany wood table, and now the Antarctican delegates sit on one side while we sit on the other. Two more delegates who are at similar levels as Lady Medina join us as we begin our talks, but it's a third delegate who catches my attention. He's in his midforties, with bronze hair and dark skin and a well-trimmed beard. The text hovering over his head reads LEVEL 202.\n\n\"President Ikari,\" Lady Medina says as she introduces him to us. Anden and the other Senators bow their heads respectfully. I do the same. Although I don't dare turn my eyes away from the discussion, I can see the Republic's flag in my peripheral vision. With my glasses I see the virtual text THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA above it in glowing letters. Right next to it is the Colonies flag, with its black and gray stripes and the bright gold bird in its center.\n\nSome of the other countries' flags have the word Ally hovering under their names. But we don't.\n\nFrom the beginning, our discussion is tense.\n\n\"It seems like your father's plans have backfired against you,\" the President tells Anden. He leans stiffly forward. \"The United Nations is, of course, concerned that Africa has already given aid to the Colonies. The Colonies declined an invitation to talk with us.\"\n\nAnden sighs. \"Our scientists are hard at work on a cure,\" he continues. I notice he doesn't mention Day's brother in all this, and Day's lack of cooperation. \"But the Colonies' forces are overwhelming with Africa's money and military supporting them. We need help to push them back, or we risk being overrun within the month. The virus could spread to us as well\u2014\"\n\n\"You speak with passion,\" the President interrupts. \"And I have no doubt that you're doing great things as the Republic's new leader. But a situation like this... The virus must first be contained. And I've heard the Colonies have already breached your borders.\"\n\nThe President's honey-gold eyes are piercingly bright. When Serge tries to speak up, he silences him immediately, never taking his eyes off Anden. \"Let your Elector respond,\" he says. Serge falls back into sullen silence, but not before I catch a smug look pass between the Senators. My temper rises. They\u2014the Senator, the Antarctican President, even Anden's own Princeps-Elect\u2014are all taunting Anden in their own subtle ways. Interrupting him. Emphasizing his age. I look at Anden, quietly willing him to stand up for himself. Mariana nods once at him.\n\n\"Sir?\" she says.\n\nI'm relieved when Anden first shoots a disapproving look at Serge, then lifts his chin and calmly replies. \"Yes. We've managed to hold them off for now, but they are right at the outskirts of our capital.\"\n\nThe President leans forward and rests his elbows on the table. \"So, there's a possibility that this virus has already crossed into your territory?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Anden replies.\n\nThe President is silent for a moment. Finally, he says, \"What exactly do you want?\"\n\n\"We need military support,\" Anden replies. \"Your army is the best in the world. Help us secure our borders. But most of all, help us find a cure. They've warned us that a cure is the only way they'll retreat. And we need time to make that happen.\"\n\nThe President tightens his lips and shakes his head once. \"No military support, money, or supplies. I'm afraid you're far too indebted to us for that. I can offer my scientists to help you find a cure for the disease. But I will not send my troops into an area infected with disease. It's too dangerous.\" When he sees the look on Anden's face, his eyes harden. \"Please keep us updated, as I hope as much as you do to see a resolution for this. I apologize that we can't be of more help to you, Elector.\"\n\nAnden leans on the table and laces his fingers together. \"What can I do to persuade you to help us, Mr. President?\" he says.\n\nThe President sits back in his chair and regards Anden for a moment with a thoughtful look. It chills me. He's been waiting for Anden to say this. \"You're going to have to offer me something worth my while,\" he finally says. \"Something your father never offered.\"\n\n\"And what's that?\"\n\n\"Land.\"\n\nMy heart twists painfully at those words. Giving up land. In order to save our country, we'll have to sell ourselves to another nation. Something about it feels as violating as selling our own bodies. Giving up your own child to a stranger. Tearing away a piece of our home. I look at Anden, trying to decipher the emotions behind his composed exterior.\n\nAnden stares at him for a long moment. Is he thinking about what his father would say in a situation like this? Is he wondering whether he's as good a leader to his people? Finally, Anden bows his head. Graceful, even in humility. \"I'm open to discussion,\" he says quietly.\n\nThe President nods once. I can see the small smile at the corners of his lips. \"Then we'll discuss,\" he replies. \"If you find a cure to this virus, and if we agree to the land, then I promise you military support. Until then, the world will have to deal with this as we do with any pandemic.\"\n\n\"And what do you mean by that, sir?\" Anden asks.\n\n\"We will need to seal your ports and borders, as well as the Colonies'. Other nations will need to be notified. I'm sure you understand.\"\n\nAnden's silent. I hope the President doesn't see the stricken look on my face. The entire Republic is going to be quarantined.\n\nJune's left for antarctica. Eden's gone to los angeles with the second wave of evacuees. The rest of us stay down in this bunker, listening as the Colonies' assault continues. This time the fighting sounds worse. Sometimes the earth trembles so much that fine dust rains down on us from the underground bunker's ceiling, coating lines of evacuees with gray ash as they hurry onto the waiting trains. Rotating lights over the tunnel paint us all in flashes of red. I wonder how other bunkers across the city are holding up. The evacuations grow more urgent as each train leaves on the hour and is replaced by a new one. Who knows how long this tunnel will stay stable. Now and then I see soldiers shoving civilians back into line when they get unruly. \"Single file!\" they bark out, hoisting their guns threateningly. Their faces are hidden behind riot masks that I know all too damn well. \"Dissidents will be left behind, no questions asked. Move along, people!\"\n\nI stay at one end of the bunker as the dust continues to rain down, huddled with Pascao, Tess, and the other remaining Patriots. At first a few soldiers tried to hustle me onto one of the trains, but they left me alone after I lashed out at them with a string of curses. Now they ignore me. I watch people load onto the train for a few seconds before I return to my conversation with Pascao. Tess sits beside me, although the unspoken tension between us makes her feel much farther away. My ever-present headache pounds a dull rhythm against the back of my head.\n\n\"You saw more of the city than I did,\" I whisper to Pascao. \"How do you think the Armor is holding up?\"\n\n\"Not great,\" Pascao responds. \"In fact, with another country helping the Colonies, I wouldn't be surprised if the Armor breaks down in a matter of days with this kind of assault. It's not gonna hold for long, trust me.\"\n\nI turn to see how many people are still waiting to board the trains. \"How should we go about throwing the Colonies some curve balls?\"\n\nAnother voice pipes up. It's one of the Hackers, Frankie, the girl with the wounded shoulder. \"If we can get our hands on a few electrobombs,\" she says in a thoughtful voice, \"I can probably rewire them to scramble some of the Colonies' weapons or something. We might be able to throw their jets off too.\"\n\nJets. That's right\u2014Anden had mentioned the Colonies jets parked on a makeshift airfield outside the Armor's walls. \"I can get my hands on some,\" I whisper. \"And some grenades too.\"\n\nPascao clicks his tongue in excitement. \"So we get to have fun with nitroglycerine in your plan? You get on that, then.\" He turns to address Baxter, who shoots me a cranky glare. His ear looks as mangled as ever. \"Hey, Baxter boy. Back up Gioro and Frankie, make sure you give them cover while they're working their magic.\"\n\n\"Pascao,\" I say quietly. \"You up for some decoy work?\"\n\nHe laughs. \"It's what Runners are best at, yeah?\"\n\n\"Let's play with them a little\u2014I want you to be my double while I'm heading toward their makeshift airfield.\"\n\n\"Sounds promising.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Despite the grimness of the situation, I smile. A note of haughtiness creeps into my voice. \"This night'll end with a bunch of expensive, useless military machines.\"\n\n\"You're out of your mind, blinder boy,\" Baxter snaps at me. \"The Republic itself can't even keep the Colonies out\u2014you think our little group stands a chance at beating them?\"\n\n\"We don't need to beat them. All we need to do is stall them. And I'm pretty sure we're good at that.\"\n\nBaxter lets out a loud snort of irritation\u2014but Pascao's grin grows wider. Next to me, Tess shifts uncomfortably. She's probably thinking back on my past crimes, how she'd had to witness them all and how she'd had to bandage me up after every single one. Maybe she's worried about me. Or maybe she's glad. Maybe she'd rather me not be here at all. But she had come back here because of me. That's what she said, isn't it? She must still care, at least on some level. I try to think of the right thing to say to her to fill this awkward silence, but instead I question the others. \"You told me back in the room that you guys came back here because you wanted to be pardoned. But you could've tried escaping to a country other than the Republic, yeah? You wouldn't even have to help the Republic out. Anden\u2014the Elector, that is\u2014he would've pardoned you all anyway.\" My eyes fall on Pascao. \"You knew that, didn't you? Why'd you all really come back here? I know it's not just because you heard my plea.\"\n\nPascao's grin fades, and for a moment he actually looks serious. He sighs, then gazes around at our little group. It's hard to believe they used to be a part of something so much larger. \"We're the Patriots, right?\" he finally says. \"We're supposed to be committed to seeing the United States return in some way or other. With the way things seem to be in the Colonies, I don't know if they'd be the right ones to bring that kinda change about. But I gotta admit, the new Republic Elector has potential, and after what Razor pulled on us, even I think Anden might be the answer we've been waiting for.\" Pascao pauses to nod at Baxter, who just shrugs. \"Even Baxter boy here thinks so.\"\n\nI frown. \"So you guys came back here because you genuinely want to help the Republic win this war? You seriously want to help us defend ourselves?\" Pascao nods again. \"Why didn't you say that back in the room? Would've sounded pretty noble.\"\n\n\"No, it wouldn't.\" Pascao shakes his head. \"They wouldn't have believed us. The Patriots, the terrorists who used to blow up Republic soldiers every chance they got? Yeah, right. I figured it'd be better for us if we played the pardon card instead. It'd seem like a more realistic answer for your Elector and your little Princeps-Elect.\"\n\nI stay silent. When Pascao sees me hesitate, he dusts off his hands and stands up. \"Let's get started,\" he says to me. \"No time to waste, not with this hailstorm happening upstairs.\" He motions for the other Patriots to gather around and starts divvying up their individual tasks. I rise to a crouch.\n\nTess takes a deep breath, and when she catches my gaze again, she speaks to me for the first time since being in the room together. \"I'm sorry, Day.\" She says it softly, so that the others can't hear.\n\nI freeze where I am, resting my elbows on my crouched legs. \"Why?\" I reply. \"You don't have anything to be sorry for.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do.\" Tess looks away. How did she grow up so quickly? She's still thin, still delicate, but her eyes belong to someone older than I remember. \"I didn't mean to leave you behind, and I didn't mean to blame June for everything. I don't really believe she's bad. I never really believed that. I was just so... angry.\"\n\nHer face pulls me to her like it always does, the way it did all the way back when I first saw her digging around in that dumpster. I wish I could hug her, but I sit back and wait, letting her make the call. \"Tess...,\" I say slowly, trying to figure out the best way to express what I'm feeling. Hell, I've said so many stupid things to her in the past. \"I love you. No matter what happens between us.\"\n\nTess wraps her arms around her knees. \"I know.\"\n\nI swallow hard and look down. \"But I don't love you the way you want me to. I'm sorry if I ever gave you the wrong impression. I don't think I've ever treated you as well as you deserve.\" My heart twists painfully as the words leave my mouth, striking her as they go. \"So don't be sorry. It's my fault, not yours.\"\n\nTess shakes her head. \"I know you don't love me that way. Don't you think I know that by now?\" A note of bitterness enters her voice. \"But you don't know how I feel about you. No one does.\"\n\nI give her a level look. \"Tell me, then.\"\n\n\"Day, you mean more to me than some crush.\" Her brows furrow as she tries to explain herself. \"When the entire world turned its back on me and left me to die, you took me in. You were the one person who cared about what might happen to me. You were everything. Everything. You became my entire family\u2014you were my parents and my siblings and my caretaker, my only friend and companion, you were both my protector and someone who needed protecting. You see? I didn't love you in the way you might've thought I did, although I can't deny that was part of it. But the way I feel goes beyond that.\"\n\nI open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. I don't know what to say. All I can do is see.\n\nTess lets out a shaky breath. \"So when I thought June might take you away, I didn't know what to do. I felt like she was taking everything that mattered to me. I felt like she was taking away from you all the things that I didn't have.\" She lowers her eyes. \"That's why I'm sorry. I'm sorry because you shouldn't have to be everything to me. I had you, but I'd forgotten that I had myself too.\" She pauses to look over at the Patriots, who are deep in conversation. \"It's a new feeling, something I'm still getting used to.\"\n\nAnd just like that, we're both kids again. I see the younger us, dangling our feet over the edge of some broken high-rise, watching the sun dip every evening below the ocean's horizon. How much we've seen since then, how far we've come.\n\nI reach over to tap her nose once, just like how I always have. She smiles for the first time.\n\nThe night has transitioned into the early hour before dawn, and the drizzle and slush has finally paused, leaving the city glistening under the moonlight. The evacuation alarm still echoes every now and then, and the JumboTrons continue their ominous red warning to seek cover, but a brief lull has hit the battle and the skies aren't full of jets and explosions. Guess both sides have to rest up or something. I rub the weariness from my eyes and try to ignore my headache\u2014I could use some rest.\n\n\"It's not gonna be easy, you know,\" Pascao whispers to me as we both survey the morning. \"They're probably on the lookout for Republic soldiers.\" We're perched on top of the Armor, watching the field just beyond the city's boundaries. It's not like people don't live outside the Armor, but unlike LA, which is just one large spread of buildings that melts right into its neighboring cities, Denver's population is sparser outside the safety of its walls. Small clusters of buildings sit here and there. They seem empty, and I wonder if the Republic saw the Colonies approaching from a distance and evacuated their people inside the Armor. Although the Colonies' Airships have returned back to their own land in order to refuel, they've left a bunch of jets in the fields, and the areas they've occupied are well lit with floodlights. I'm kind of shocked by how repulsed I am at the thought of the Colonies taking us over. A year ago, I would be cheering at the top of my goddy lungs for this exact scenario. But now I just hear the Colonies' slogan over and over in my head. A free state is a corporate state. The ads I remember from their cities make me shiver.\n\nIt's hard to decide which I prefer, really: watch my brother grow up under the Colonies' rule, or watch him taken back for experimentation by the Republic?\n\n\"Yeah, they'll be on the lookout,\" I agree. Then I turn away from the Armor's edge and start making my way down the wall. Along the Armor's outer edge, Republic jets lie parked, manned, and ready. \"But we're not Republic soldiers. If they can hit us with a surprise attack, then so can we.\"\n\nPascao and I are dressed exactly alike, in black from head to toe, with masks pulled over our faces. If it weren't for a little height difference, I don't think anyone would be able to tell us apart.\n\n\"You two ready?\" Pascao mutters into his mike to our Hackers. Then he glances at me and gives a thumbs-up signal. If they're in place, then that means Tess is in place too. Stay safe.\n\nWe make our way down to the ground and then let several Republic soldiers guide us around to a small, discreet underground passage. It leads outside the Armor and into dangerous territory. The soldiers nod a silent \"good luck\" to us before retreating back inside. I hope to hell this all works.\n\nI look out at the field where Colonies jets are parked. When I first turned fifteen, I had set fire to a series of ten brand-new F-472 Republic fighter jets parked at the Burbank air force base in Los Angeles. It was the first stunt that landed me at the top of the most wanted list, and one of the crimes June herself actually made me confess to when I'd been arrested. I did it by first stealing gallons of highly explosive blue nitroglide from air force bases, then pouring the liquid into the jets' exhaust nozzles and across the tail end of the jets. The instant their engines turned on, their tails exploded into flames.\n\nThe memory comes back to me in sharp focus. The design of the Colonies jets looks different, with their strange, forward-swept wings, but at the end of the day they're still just machines. And this time, I'm not working alone. I've got the Republic's support. Most importantly, I've got their explosives.\n\n\"Ready to make your move?\" I whisper to Pascao. \"Got your bombs?\"\n\n\"You think I'd forget to bring bombs? You should know me better than that.\" Pascao's voice turns taunting. \"Day\u2014no bull this time. Got it, pretty boy? If you suddenly think you wanna go rogue, you sure as hell better tell me first. Then at least I'll have time to sock you in the face.\"\n\nI smile a little at the jab. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\nOur outfits blend us into the shadows. We creep forward without a sound, until we're past the short distance where the Armor's guns could protect us from the ground. Now we're out of range, and the Colonies' makeshift airfield looks within reach. Their soldiers stand guard along the edges of the field. Not far away are a couple rows of tanks. Their Airships might not be here, but there sure as hell are enough war machines to start up another battle.\n\nPascao and I crouch behind a pile of rubble near the airfield. All I can see in this light is his silhouette. He nods his head once before whispering something into his mike.\n\nWe wait for a few tense seconds. Then the JumboTrons that line the outer edges of the Armor light up in unison. Displayed across the screens is a Republic flag, and over the city's loudspeakers, the pledge blares out across the night. The whole thing looks exactly like one of the Republic's typical propaganda reels\u2014the JumboTrons start displaying generic videos of patriotic soldiers and civilians, war victories and prosperous streets. At the airfield, the soldiers' attention shifts to the JumboTrons' feed. At first they look alert and wary, but as the reel continues for a few seconds longer, the Colonies soldiers relax.\n\nGood. They think the Republic's just broadcasting morale-boosting video. Nothing weird enough to put the Colonies on high alert, but something entertaining enough to hold their interest. I pick out an area where the soldiers are all watching the JumboTrons, then nod at Pascao. He motions at me. My turn to head out.\n\nI squint harder to see where I can squeeze onto the airfield. There are four Colonies soldiers here, all of them focused on the broadcast; a soldier dressed like a pilot is the farthest away and has his back to me, and from here it looks like he's making fun of the broadcast with a pal of his. I wait until all of the guards are looking away from where I am. Then I scamper over the edge without a sound and hide behind the closest jet's back landing wheel. I tuck myself into a tight ball, letting my black outfit blend me in with the shadows.\n\nOne of the guards looks casually over his shoulder toward the jet. When he doesn't see anything interesting, though, he returns to surveying the Armor.\n\nI wait for a few more seconds. Then I adjust my backpack and climb up inside the jet's exhaust nozzle. My heart pounds with anticipation at the d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu this gives me. I waste no time now\u2014I pull a small metal cube out of my pack and attach it firmly to the inside of the nozzle. Its display panel gives off a very faint red glow, so dim I can barely see it. I make sure it's secure, and then shift to the edge of the nozzle. We won't have much longer before the guards lose interest in our little propaganda distraction. When the coast's clear, I hop out of the nozzle. My cushioned boots land without a sound. I melt back into the shadows cast by the jet's landing gear, watch for guards, and move to the next row of jets. Pascao should be doing the exact same work on the other side of the field. If this all goes down as planned, then one explosive per row should do plenty of damage.\n\nBy the time I make my way to the third row of jets and finish my work there, I'm soaked in sweat. Off in the distance, the JumboTrons' propaganda keeps running, but I can tell that some of the guards have already lost interest. Time to get out of here. I lower myself silently toward the ground again, dangle there in the shadows, and then pick the right moment to drop and rush toward the darkness.\n\nExcept it wasn't really the right moment. One of my hands slips and the metal edge of the exhaust nozzle slices my palm open. My weakened body doesn't land perfectly\u2014I let out a grunt of pain and move too slowly into the landing gear's shadows. A guard spots me. Before I can stop him, his eyes widen and he lifts his gun at me.\n\nHe hasn't even had a chance to shout out when a shining knife comes flying out of the darkness and sinks itself in the soldier's neck. I watch for an instant, horrified. Pascao. I know it was him, saving my ass while drawing attention to himself. Already a couple of shouts have gone up on the other side of the airfield. He's pulling their focus away from me. I seize the opportunity, racing into the relative safety of the land outside the airfield.\n\nI click my mike on and call Pascao. \"Are you safe?\" I whisper urgently.\n\n\"Safe as you, pretty boy,\" he hisses back, the sounds of heavy breathing and footsteps loud in my earpiece. \"Just got out of the airfield's range. Give Frankie the okay\u2014I gotta shake two more off my tail.\" He hangs up.\n\nI contact Frankie. \"We're ready,\" I tell her. \"Let 'em go.\"\n\n\"You got it,\" Frankie answers. The JumboTrons suddenly stop their reel and go dark\u2014the sound blasting across the city cuts short, plunging us all into an eerie silence. Colonies soldiers who'd probably been pursuing Pascao now look up at the blank JumboTrons in bewilderment, along with the others.\n\nA few seconds of silence pass.\n\nThen a bright, blinding explosion rips apart the center of the airfield. I steady myself. When I look back at the first line of soldiers on the street, I see them knocked off their feet and picking themselves slowly up in a daze. Sparks of electricity fill the air, jumping frantically back and forth between the jets. Soldiers farther down the street point their guns up at the buildings, firing randomly\u2014but the ones along the front line discover that their guns no longer work. I keep running back toward the Armor.\n\nAnother explosion rocks the same area and an enormous golden haze engulfs everything in sight. Shouts of panic rise from the Colonies troops. They can't see what's happening, but I know that right now each bomb we'd planted is destroying the rows of jets, both crippling them and temporarily disabling the magnets in their guns. Some of them pull out their guns and fire randomly into the darkness, as if Republic soldiers are lying in wait. I guess they're not entirely wrong. Right on cue, the Republic jets along the Armor take off into the sky. Their roars deafen me.\n\nI switch my mike back to Frankie. \"How are the evacuations going?\"\n\n\"As smoothly as possible,\" she replies. \"Probably two more waves of people left. Ready for your big moment?\"\n\n\"Go for it,\" I whisper back.\n\nThe JumboTrons flare to life. This time, though, they're displaying my painted face on all of their screens. A prerecorded video we made. I smile widely for the Colonies, even as they scramble to what jets they still have, and in this instant, I feel like I'm looking into the face of a stranger, a face that's unfamiliar and terrifying behind its wide black stripe. For a moment, I can't even remember recording this video in the first place. The thought makes me scramble for the memory in a panic, until I finally recall it and breathe a sigh of relief. \"My name is Day,\" my JumboTron video self says, \"and I'm fighting for the Republic's people. If I were you, I'd be a little more careful.\"\n\nFrankie cuts my feed again. Overhead, the Republic's jets scream across the sky\u2014I see orange fireballs light up the airfield. With our stunt and half their jets gone, and the advantage of surprise, the Colonies soldiers scramble for a retreat. I bet the calls going back to their command are flying fast and furious now.\n\nFrankie comes back online. She sounds elated. \"The Republic's troops have gotten wind of our success,\" she says. In the background, I hear\u2014to my relief\u2014Pascao's line click on too. \"Nice job, Runners. Gioro and Baxter are already on their way.\" She sounds distracted. \"We're heading back in now. Gimme a few seconds, and we'll be\u2014\"\n\nShe cuts off. I blink, surprised. \"Frankie?\" I say, reconnecting to her. Nothing. All I hear is static.\n\n\"Where'd she go?\" Pascao says through the white noise. \"Did she go offline for you too?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" I scramble onward, trying not to think the worst. The safety of the Armor isn't far away\u2014I can make out the tiny side entrance we're supposed to return through\u2014and here, in the midst of all the chaos, I see several Republic soldiers rushing through the dust to face off against any Colonies troops that might have followed us. Just a few yards from the door now.\n\nA bullet sparks past me, narrowly missing my ear. Then I hear a scream that makes my blood run cold. When I whirl around, I see Tess and Frankie running behind me. They're leaning on each other. Behind them must be five or six Colonies soldiers. I freeze, then quickly change course. I yank a knife from my belt and throw it at the soldiers as hard as I can. It catches one of them clean in the side\u2014he drops to his knees. The others notice me. Tess and Frankie barely make it to the door. I dash toward them. Behind me, the soldiers hoist their guns.\n\nJust as Tess pushes Frankie through the entrance, a soldier steps out of the shadows near the door. I recognize him instantly. It's Thomas, a gun dangling from one hand.\n\nHis eyes are fixed on Tess and me, and his expression is dark, deadly, and furious. For an instant, the world seems to go silent. I glance at his gun. He hoists it. No. Instinctively, I move toward Tess, shielding her with my body. He's going to kill us.\n\nBut even as this thought races through my mind, Thomas turns his back on us, facing the oncoming Colonies soldiers instead. His hand quivers with rage and tightens on the gun. Shock pulses through me, but there's no time to think about that now. \"Go,\" I urge Tess. We stumble through the side door.\n\nIn that same moment, Thomas raises his gun\u2014he fires one shot, then another, then another. He lets out a bloodcurdling yell as each bullet hurtles toward the enemy troops. It takes me a second to make out what he's screaming.\n\n\"Long live the Elector! Long live the Republic!\"\n\nHe manages six shots before the Colonies soldiers return fire. I hug Tess to my chest, then cover her eyes. She lets out a cry of protest. \"Don't look,\" I whisper in her ear. At that very moment, I see Thomas's head snap violently back and his entire body go limp. An image of my mother flashes before my eyes.\n\nShot through the head. He's been shot through the head. Death by firing squad.\n\nThe blast makes Tess jump\u2014she utters a strangled sob behind my shielding hands. The door swings shut.\n\nPascao greets us the instant we're safely through. He's covered head to toe in dust, but he still has a half grin on his face. \"The final evacuation wave is waiting for us,\" he says, nodding toward two parked jeeps ready to take us back to the bunker. Republic soldiers have already started toward us, but before any of us can feel relieved, I notice that Frankie has collapsed to the ground and Tess is hovering over her. Pascao's half grin vanishes. As soldiers seal off the side entrance, we gather around Frankie. Tess pulls out a kit of supplies. Frankie has started to convulse.\n\nHer coat's stripped completely off, revealing a blood-soaked shirt beneath. Her eyes are open wide in shock, and she's struggling to breathe.\n\n\"She was shot as we were getting away,\" Tess says as she tears away the cloth of Frankie's shirt. Sweat beads along her brow. \"Three or four times.\" Her trembling hands fly across Frankie's body, scattering powder and pressing ointment into the wounds. When she's done, she yanks out a thick wad of bandages.\n\n\"She's not gonna make it,\" Pascao mutters to Tess as she pushes him out of the way and pushes firmly down on one of Frankie's gushing wounds. \"We have to move. Now.\"\n\nTess wipes her brow. \"Just give me another minute,\" she insists through gritted teeth. \"We have to control the bleeding.\"\n\nPascao starts to protest, but I silence him with a dangerous look. \"Let her do it.\" Then I kneel beside Tess, my eyes helplessly drawn to Frankie's pitiful figure. I can tell that she's not going to make it. \"I'll do whatever you say,\" I murmur to Tess. \"Let us help.\"\n\n\"Keep pressure on her wounds,\" Tess replies, waving a hand at the bandages that are already more red than white. She rushes to make a poultice.\n\nFrankie's eyelids flutter. She chokes out a strangled cry, then manages to look up at us. \"You've\u2014got\u2014to go. The Colonies\u2014they're\u2014coming\u2014\"\n\nIt takes a whole minute for her to die. Tess keeps applying meds for a while longer, until I finally put a hand over hers to stop her. I look up at Pascao. One of the Republic soldiers approaches us again and gives us a stern frown. \"This is your final warning,\" he says, gesturing toward the open doors of two jeeps. \"We're heading out.\"\n\n\"Go,\" I tell Pascao. \"We'll take the jeep right behind you.\"\n\nPascao hesitates for a second, stricken at the sight of Frankie, but then hops to his feet and disappears into the first jeep. It tears away, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.\n\n\"Come on,\" I urge Tess, who stays hunched over Frankie's lifeless body. On the other side of the Armor, the sounds of battle rage. \"We have to go.\"\n\nTess wrenches free of my grasp and flings her roll of bandages hard at the wall. Then she turns to look back at Frankie's ashen face. I stand up, forcing Tess to do the same. My bloody hand leaves prints on her arm. Soldiers grab both of us and lead us toward the remaining jeep. As we finally make our way inside, Tess turns her eyes up to mine. They're brimming with tears, and the sight of her anguish breaks my heart. We pull away from the Armor as soldiers load Frankie onto a truck. Then we turn a corner and speed toward the bunker.\n\nBy the time we arrive, Pascao's jeep has already unloaded and they've headed down to the train. The soldiers are tense. As they clear us past the bunker entrance's chain-link fence, another explosion from the Armor sends tremors through the ground. As if in a dream, we rush down the metal staircase and through the corridors flooded with dim red lights, the sound of pounding boots echoing dully from outside. Farther and farther down we go, until we finally reach the bunker and make our way onto the waiting train. Soldiers pull us on board.\n\nAs the subway flares to life and we pull away from the bunker, a series of explosions reverberate through the space, nearly knocking us off our feet. Tess clings to me. As I hold her close, the tunnel behind us collapses, encasing us in darkness. We speed along. Echoes of the explosions ring through the earth.\n\nMy headache flares up.\n\nPascao tries to say something to me, but I can no longer hear him. I can't hear anything. The world around me dulls into grays, and I feel myself spinning. Where are we again? Somewhere, Tess screams out my name\u2014but I don't know what she says after that, because I lose myself in an ocean of pain and collapse into blackness.\n\n2100 HOURS.\n\nROOM 3323, LEVEL INFINITY HOTEL, ROSS CITY.\n\nAll of us have settled into our individual hotel rooms. Ollie's resting at the foot of my bed, completely knocked out after an exhausting day. I can't imagine falling asleep, though. After a while, I get up quietly, leave three treats for Ollie near the door, and step out. I wander the halls with my virtual glasses tucked into my pocket, relieved to see the world as it really is again without the onslaught of hovering numbers and words. I don't know where I'm going, but eventually I end up two floors higher and not far from Anden's room. It's quieter up here. Anden might be the only one staying on this floor, along with a few guards.\n\nAs I go, I pass a door that leads into a large chamber that must be some public, central room on this floor. I turn back and peer inside. The place looks whitewashed, probably because I don't have my virtual glasses on and can't see all the simulations; the room is partitioned into a series of tall cylinder-like booths, each one a circle of tall, transparent slabs of glass. Interesting. I have one of those cylinder booths in a corner of my hotel room, although I haven't bothered trying it yet. I look around the hall, then push gingerly on the door. It slides open without a sound.\n\nI step inside and as soon as the door slides shut behind me, the room declares something in Antarctican that I can't understand. I take my virtual glasses out of my pocket and put them on. Automatically, the room's voice brightens and repeats her phrase, this time in English. \"Welcome to the simulation room, June Iparis.\" I see my virtual score go up by ten points, congratulating me for using a simulation room for the very first time. Just as I suspected, the room now looks bright and full of colors, and the glass walls of the cylindrical rooms have all sorts of moving displays on them.\n\nYour access to the portal away from home! one panel says. Use in conjunction with your virtual glasses for a fully immersive experience. Behind the text is a lush video depicting what look like beautiful scenes from around the world. I wonder whether their portal is their way of connecting to the Internet. Suddenly, my interest piques. I've never browsed the Internet outside of the Republic, never seen the world for what it was without the Republic's masks and filters. I approach one of the glass cylinder booths and step inside. The glass around me lights up.\n\n\"Hello, June,\" it says. \"What can I find for you?\"\n\nWhat should I look up? I decide to try out the first thing that pops into my head. I hesitantly reply, wondering whether it'll just read my voice. \"Daniel Altan Wing,\" I say. How much does the rest of the world know about Day?\n\nSuddenly everything around me vanishes. Instead, I'm standing in a white circle with hundreds\u2014thousands\u2014of hovering rectangular screens all around me, each one covered with images and videos and text. At first I don't know what to do, so I just stay where I am, staring in wonder at the images all around me. Each screen has different info on Day. Many of them are news articles. The one closest to me is playing an old video of Day standing on top of the Capitol Tower balcony, rousing the people to support Anden. When I look at it long enough (three seconds), a voice starts talking. \"In this video, Daniel Altan Wing\u2014also known as Day\u2014gives his support to the Republic's new Elector and prevents a national uprising. Source: The Republic of America's public archives. See whole article?\"\n\nMy eyes flicker to another screen, and the voice from the first screen fades. This second screen comes to life as I look on, playing a video interviewing some girl I don't know, with light brown skin and pale hazel eyes. She sports a scarlet streak in her hair. She says, \"I've lived in Nairobi for the past five years, but we'd never heard of him until videos of his strikes against the R-oh-A started popping up online. Now I belong to a club\u2014\" The video pauses there, and the same soothing voice from earlier says, \"Source: Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. See whole video?\"\n\nI take a careful step forward. Each time I move, the rectangular screens rearrange around me to showcase the next circle of images for me to peruse. Images of Day pop up from when he and I were still working for the Patriots\u2014I see one blurry image of Day looking over his shoulder, a smirk on his lips. It makes me blush, so I quickly glance away. I look through two more rounds of them, then decide to change my search. This time I search for something I've always been curious about. \"The United States of America,\" I say.\n\nThe screens with videos and images of Day vanish, leaving me strangely disappointed. A new set of screens flip up around me, and I can almost feel a slight breeze as they shift into place. The first thing that pops up is an image that I instantly recognize as the full flag that the Patriots both use and base their symbol on. The voiceover says, \"The flag of the former United States of America. Source: Wikiversity, the Free Academy. United States History One-oh-two, Grade Eleven. See full entry? For textual version, say 'Text.'\"\n\n\"See full entry,\" I say. The screen zooms in toward me, engulfing me in its contents. I blink, momentarily thrown off by the rushing images. When I open my eyes again, I nearly stumble. I'm hovering in the sky over a landscape that looks both familiar and strange. The outline of it appears to be some version of North America, except there's no lake stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and the Colonies' territory looks much larger than I remember. Clouds float by below my feet. When I reach a hesitant foot down, I smudge part of the clouds and can actually feel the cool air whistling beneath my shoes.\n\nThe voiceover begins. \"The United States of America\u2014also known as the USA, the United States, the US, America, and the States\u2014was a prominent country in North America composed of fifty states held together as a federal constitutional republic. It first declared independence from England on July 4, 1776, and became recognized on September 3, 1783. The United States unofficially split into two countries on October 1, 2054 and officially became the western Republic of America and the eastern Colonies of America on March 14, 2055.\"\n\nHere the voiceover pauses, then shifts. \"Skip to a subtopic? Popular subtopics: the Three-Year Flood, the Flood of 2046, the Republic of America, the Colonies of America.\"\n\nA series of bright blue markers appear over the west and east coasts of North America. I stare at them for a moment, my heart pounding, before I reach out and try to touch a marker near the southern coastline of the Colonies. To my surprise, I can feel the texture of the landscape under my finger. \"The Colonies of America,\" I say.\n\nThe world rushes up at me with dizzying speed. I'm now standing on what feels like solid ground, and all around me are thousands of people huddled together in makeshift shelters in a flooded cityscape, while hundreds are launching an all-out attack against soldiers decked out in uniforms I don't recognize. Behind the soldiers are crates and sacks of what look like rations.\n\n\"Unlike the Republic of America,\" the voiceover starts, \"where the government enforced rule through martial law in order to crack down on the influx of refugees into its borders, the Colonies of America formed on March 14, 2055 after corporations seized control of the federal government (the former United States, see higher index) following the latter's failure to handle debt accumulated from the Flood of 2046.\" I take a few steps forward\u2014it's as if I'm right here in the middle of the scene, standing just a few dozen feet from where the people are rioting. My surroundings look shaky and pixelated, as if rendered from someone's personal videos. \"In this civilian recording, the city of Atlanta stages a fifteen-day riot against the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency. Similar riots appeared in all eastern cities over the course of three months, after which the cities declared loyalty to the military corporation DesCon, which possessed funds the beleaguered government did not.\"\n\nThe scene blurs and clears, placing me in the center of an enormous campus full of buildings, each displaying a symbol I recognize as the DesCon logo. \"Along with twelve other corporations, DesCon contributed its funds to aid the civilians. By early 2058, the United States government ceased to exist altogether in the east and was replaced with the Colonies of America, formed by a coalition of the country's top thirteen corporations and bolstered by their joint profits. After a series of mergers, the Colonies of America now consists of four ruling corporations: DesCon, Cloud, Meditech, and Evergreen. Skip to a specific corporation?\"\n\nI stay silent, watching the rest of the immersive video unfold until it finally pauses on the last frame, an unsettling image of a desperate civilian shielding his face from a soldier's hoisted gun. Then I remove my virtual glasses, rub my eyes, and step out of the now-blank and sterile-looking glass cylinder. My footsteps echo in the empty chamber. I feel dizzy and numb from the sudden lack of moving images.\n\nHow can two countries with such radically different philosophies ever reunite? What hope do we possibly have of transforming the Republic and the Colonies into what they once were? Or perhaps they're not as drastically different as I think they are. Aren't the Colonies' corporations and the Republic's government really the same thing? Absolute power is absolute power, no matter what it's called. Isn't it?\n\nI exit the chamber, lost in thought, and as I turn the corner to head to my room, I almost bump right into Anden.\n\n\"June?\" he blurts out when he sees me. His wavy hair is slightly disheveled, as if he's been raking his hands through it, and his collar shirt is crumpled, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the buttons near his neck undone. He manages to compose himself enough to offer me a smile and a bow. \"What are you doing up here?\"\n\n\"Just exploring.\" I return his smile. I'm too tired to mention all my online research. \"I'm not sure what I'm doing here, to be honest.\"\n\nAnden laughs softly. \"Me either. I've been wandering the halls for over an hour.\" We pause for a moment. Then he turns back in the direction of his suite and gives me a questioning look. \"The Antarcticans won't help us, but they've been kind enough to send a bottle of their best wine up to my room. Care to have a sip? I could use some company\u2014and some advice.\"\n\nAdvice from his lowliest Princeps-Elect? I fall into step with him, all too aware of the closeness between us. \"How very polite of them,\" I reply.\n\n\"Exceedingly polite,\" he murmurs under his breath so that I can barely hear him. \"Next they'll be throwing us a parade.\"\n\nAnden's suite is nicer, of course, than my own\u2014at least the Antarcticans did him that courtesy. A curved glass window runs along half of the wall, giving us a breathtaking view of Ross City engulfed in thousands of twinkling lights. The Antarcticans must be simulating this nightfall too, considering how it's supposed to be summer down here\u2014but the simulation seems flawless. I think back on the dome-like film we passed through as we descended into the city. Maybe it acts like a giant screen too. Streaks dance quietly across the sky in sheets of breathtaking color, turquoise and magenta and gold, all of them swirling together and vanishing and reappearing against a backdrop of stars. I catch my breath. Must be imitating the aurora australis. I'd read about these southern lights during our weekly lessons, although I hadn't expected them to look this beautiful, simulation or not.\n\n\"Nice view,\" I say.\n\nAnden grins wryly, a small spark of amusement shining through his otherwise weary mood. \"The useless advantages of being the Republic's Elector,\" he replies. \"I've been reassured that we can see through this glass, but that no one from outside can see us. Then again, perhaps they're just messing with me.\"\n\nWe settle into soft chairs near the window. Anden pours us both glasses of wine. \"One of the accused guards confessed about Commander Jameson,\" he says as he hands a glass to me. \"Republic soldiers unhappy with my rule, paid off by the Colonies. The Colonies is taking advantage of Commander Jameson's knowledge of our military. She might even still be within our borders.\"\n\nI sip my wine numbly. So, it was all true. I desperately wish I could go back in time to when I'd visited Thomas in his cell, that I could have noticed the unusual setup in time. And she could still be within our borders. Where is Thomas?\n\n\"Rest assured,\" Anden says when he sees my expression, \"that we're doing everything we can to find her.\"\n\nEverything we can might not be enough. Not with our attention and soldiers spread out so thin, trying to fight a war on so many sides. \"What do we do now?\"\n\n\"We return to the Republic tomorrow morning,\" he replies. \"That's what we do. And we'll push the Colonies back without the Antarcticans' help.\"\n\n\"Are you really going to give up some of our land to them?\" I ask after a pause.\n\nAnden swirls the wine in his glass before taking a sip. \"I haven't turned them down yet,\" he says. I can hear the disgust with himself in his voice. His father must've seen such a move as the ultimate betrayal of his country.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I say quietly, unsure how to console him.\n\n\"I'm sorry too. The good news is I've received word that Day and his brother have both successfully evacuated to Los Angeles.\" He exhales a long breath. \"I don't want to force him into anything, but I might be running out of options. He's keeping his word, you know. He'd agreed to help us in any way he could, short of giving up his brother. He's trying to help, in the hopes that it'll guilt me out of asking for Eden. I wish we'd brought him. I wish he could see the situation from my point of view.\" He looks down.\n\nMy heart squeezes again at the thought of Day being killed in action, and settles in relief at the news that he has survived unscathed. \"What if we persuade the Antarcticans to take Day in for his treatment? It might be his only chance at surviving his illness, and it might at least make him consider the risk of letting Eden undergo experimentation.\"\n\nAnden shakes his head. \"We have nothing to bargain with. Antarctica has offered as much help to us as they're willing. They won't trouble themselves with taking in one of our patients.\"\n\nDeep down, I know this too. It's just a final, desperate idea from me. I understand, as well as he does, that Day would never hand over his brother in exchange for saving his own life. My eyes wander back to the display of light outside.\n\n\"I don't blame him, not at all,\" Anden says after a pause. \"I should have stopped those bioweapons the instant they named me Elector. The very same day my father died. If I were smart, that's what I would've done. But it's too late to dwell on that now. Day has every right to refuse.\"\n\nI feel a swell of sympathy for him. If he forcefully takes Eden into custody, Day will no doubt call the people to rise up in revolt. If he respects Day's decision, he risks not finding a cure in time and allowing the Colonies to take over our capital\u2014and our country. If he hands over a piece of our land to Antarctica, the people may see him as a traitor. And if our ports are sealed, we won't be receiving any imports or supplies at all.\n\nAnd yet, I can't blame Day either. I try to put myself in his shoes. The Republic tries to kill me as a ten-year-old; they experiment on me before I escape. I live the next few years in the harshest slums of Los Angeles. I watch the Republic poison my family, kill my mother and older brother, and blind my younger brother with their engineered plagues. Because of the Republic's experiments, I'm slowly dying. And now, after all the lies and cruelty, the Republic approaches me, begging for my help. Begging for me to allow them to experiment once again on my younger brother, experiments that can't guarantee his absolute safety. What would I say? I would probably refuse, just as he did. It's true that my own family suffered horrible fates at the hands of the Republic... but Day had been on the front lines, watching everything unfold from the time he was small. It's a miracle that Day had given his support to Anden in the first place.\n\nAnden and I sip wine for four more minutes, watching the city lights in silence.\n\n\"I envy Day, you know,\" he says, his voice as soft as ever. \"I'm jealous that he gets to make decisions with his heart. Every choice he makes is honest, and the people love him for it. He can afford to use his heart.\" His face darkens. \"But the world outside of the Republic is so much more complicated. There's just no room for emotion, is there? All of our countries' relations are held together with a fragile web of diplomatic threads, and these threads are what prevent us from helping one another.\"\n\nSomething's broken in his voice. \"There's no room for emotion on the political stage,\" I reply, putting my wineglass down. I'm not sure if I'm helping, but the words come out anyway. I don't even know if I believe them. \"When emotion fails, logic will save you. You might envy Day, but you'll never be him and he'll never be you. He isn't the Republic's Elector. He's a boy protecting his brother. You are a politician. You have to make decisions that break your heart, that hurt and deceive, that no one else will understand. It's your duty.\" Even as I say this, though, I feel the doubt in the back of my mind, the seeds that Day has planted.\n\nWithout emotion, what's the point of being human?\n\nAnden's eyes are heavy with sadness. He slouches, and for a moment I can see him as he really is, a young ruler standing alone against a tide of opposition and attempting to bear the burden of his country on his own shoulders, with a Senate cooperating only out of fear. \"I miss my father sometimes,\" he says. \"I know I shouldn't admit that, but it's true. I know the rest of the world sees him as a monster.\" He puts his wineglass down on the side table, then buries his head in his hands and rubs his face once.\n\nMy heart aches for him. At least I can grieve for my brother without fear of others' hatred. What must it be like to know that the parent you once loved was responsible for such evil acts?\n\n\"Don't feel guilty for your grief,\" I say softly. \"He was still your father.\"\n\nHis gaze comes to rest on me, and as if pulled by some invisible hand, he leans forward. He wavers there, hovering precariously between desire and reason. He is so close now, close enough that if I were to move even a little, our lips might brush against each other. I feel his breath faintly against my skin, the warmth of his nearness, the quiet gentleness of his love. In this moment, I feel myself drawn to him.\n\n\"June...,\" he whispers. His eyes dance across my face.\n\nThen he touches my chin with one hand, coaxes me forward, and kisses me.\n\nI close my eyes. I should stop him, but I don't want to. There is something electrifying about the bare passion in the young Elector of the Republic, the way he leans into me, his desire exposed even beneath his unfailing politeness. How he opens his heart for no one but me. How in spite of everything working against him, he still has the strength to step out every day with his chin up and his back straight. How he soldiers on, for the sake of his country. As do we all. I let myself succumb. He breaks away from my lips to kiss my cheek. Then the soft line of my jaw, right under my ear. Then my neck, just the softest whisper of a touch. A shiver sweeps through me. I can feel him holding back, and I know that what he really wants to do is to lace his fingers through my hair and drown himself in me.\n\nBut he doesn't. He knows, as much as I do, that this isn't real.\n\nI have to stop. And with a pained effort, I pull away. I struggle to catch my breath. \"I'm sorry,\" I whisper. \"I can't.\"\n\nAnden looks down, embarrassed. But not surprised. His cheeks flush a faint pink in the dim light of the room, and he runs a hand through his hair. \"I shouldn't have done that,\" he murmurs. We fall silent for a few uncomfortable seconds, until Anden sighs and leans all the way back. I slouch a little, both disappointed and relieved. \"I... know you care deeply for Day. I know I can't hope to compete with that.\" He grimaces. \"That was inappropriate of me. My apologies, June.\"\n\nI have a fleeting urge to kiss him again, to tell him that I do care, and to erase the pain and shame on his face that tugs at my heart. But I also know I don't love him, and I can't lead him on like this. I know the real reason we went so far is that I couldn't bear to turn him away in his darkest moment. That I wished, deep down... he were someone else. The truth fills me with guilt. \"I should go,\" I say sadly.\n\nAnden moves farther from me. He seems more alone than ever. Still, he composes himself and bows his head respectfully. His moment of weakness has passed, and his usual politeness takes over. As always, he hides his pain well. Then he stands up and holds a hand out to me. \"I'll walk you back to your room. Get some rest\u2014we'll leave in the early morning.\"\n\nI stand too, but I don't take his hand. \"It's fine. I can find my own way back.\" I avoid meeting his eyes; I don't want to see how everything I say only hurts him more. Then I turn toward the door and leave him behind.\n\nOllie greets me with a wagging tail when I return to my room. After a petting session, I decide to try out the Internet portal in my room while he curls up nearby and falls promptly asleep. I run a search on Anden, as well as on his father. My room's portal is a simplified version of the portals I used earlier, without interactive textures and immersive sounds attached, but it's still miles beyond anything I've seen in the Republic. I sift quietly through the search results. Most are staged photos and propaganda videos that I recognize\u2014Anden having his portrait done as a young boy, the former Elector standing in front of Anden at official press events and meetings. Even the international community seems to have little information on the relationship between father and son. But the deeper I dig, the more I stumble across moments of something surprisingly genuine. I see a video of Anden as a four-year-old, holding his salute with a solemn young face while his father patiently shows him how. I find a photo of the late Elector holding a crying, frightened Anden in his arms and whispering something into his ear, oblivious to the crowd that surrounds them. I see a clip of him angrily shoving the international press away from his small son, of him clutching Anden's hand so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. I stumble across a rare interview between him and a reporter from Africa, who asks him what he cares about the most in the Republic.\n\n\"My son,\" the late Elector answers without hesitation. His expression never softens, but the edges of his voice shift slightly. \"My son will always be everything to me, because someday he will be everything to the Republic.\" He pauses for a second to smile at the reporter. Inside that smile, I think I see glimpses of a different man who once existed. \"My son... reminds me.\"\n\nWe had initially planned to return to the capital the next morning\u2014but the news comes just as we board our jet in Ross City. It comes earlier than we thought it would.\n\nDenver has fallen to the Colonies.\n\n\"DAY. WE'RE HERE.\"\n\nI open my eyes groggily to the gentle sound of Tess's voice. She smiles down at me. There's pressure on my head, and when I reach up to touch my hair, I realize that bandages are wrapped around my forehead. My cut hand is also now covered in clean white linen. It takes me another second to notice that I'm sitting in a wheelchair.\n\n\"Oh, come on,\" I immediately blurt out. \"A goddy wheelchair?\" My head feels foggy and light, the familiar sensation of coming off a dose of painkillers. \"Where are we? What happened to me?\"\n\n\"You'll probably need to stop at a hospital when we get off the train. They think all the commotion triggered a bad response in you.\" Tess walks beside me as some soldier pushes me down the length of the train car. Up ahead, I see Pascao and the other Patriots getting off the train. \"We're in Los Angeles. We're back home.\"\n\n\"Where are Eden and Lucy?\" I ask. \"Do you know?\"\n\n\"They've already settled into your temporary apartment in Ruby sector,\" Tess replies. She's quiet for a second. \"Guess a gem sector's your home now.\"\n\nHome. I fall silent as we exit the train and stream out onto the platform with the other soldiers. Los Angeles feels as warm as ever, a typical hazy day in late fall, and the yellowish light makes me squint. The wheelchair feels so foreign and annoying. I have a sudden urge to bolt out of it and kick it onto the tracks. I am a Runner\u2014I'm not supposed to be stuck in this cracked thing. Another bad response, this time triggered by commotion? I grit my teeth at how weak I've become. The doctor's last prognosis haunts me. A month, maybe two. The frequency of severe headaches has definitely been increasing.\n\nThe soldiers help me into a jeep. Before we leave, Tess reaches through my open car window and gives me a quick hug. The sudden warmth from her startles me. All I can do is hug her back, savoring the brief moment. We stare at each other until the jeep finally pulls away from the station and Tess's figure disappears around a bend. Even then, I keep turning around in my seat to see if I can spot her.\n\nWe stop at an intersection. As we wait for a group of evacuees to cross in front of our jeep, I study the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Some things appear unchanged: Lines of soldiers bark orders at unruly refugees; other civilians stand on the sidelines and protest the influx of new people; the JumboTrons continue to flash encouraging messages of the Republic's so-called victories on the warfront, reminding people: Don't let the Colonies conquer your home! Support the cause!\n\nMy conversation with Eden replays in my mind.\n\nI blink, then look closer at the streets. This time, the scenes I'd thought were familiar take on new context. The lines of soldiers barking orders are actually handing out rations to the new refugees. The civilians protesting the new people are actually being allowed to protest\u2014soldiers look on, but their guns stay tucked away at their belts. And the JumboTrons' propaganda, once images that looked so ominous to me, now seem like messages of optimism, a broadcast of hope in dark times, a desperate attempt to keep people's spirits up. Not far from where our jeep's stopped, I see a crowd of children evacuees surrounding a young soldier. He's knelt to their eye level, and in his hands is some sort of puppet toy that he's now using animatedly to tell the kids a story. I roll my window down. His voice is clear and upbeat. Now and then, the children laugh, their fear and confusion momentarily held at bay. Nearby, the parents look on with faces both exhausted and grateful.\n\nThe people and the Republic... are working together.\n\nI frown at the unfamiliar thought. There's no question that the Republic has done some horrible things to us all, that they might still be doing those things. But... maybe I've also been seeing the things I want to see. Maybe now that the old Elector is gone, the Republic's soldiers have started to shed their masks too. Maybe they really are following Anden's lead.\n\nThe jeep takes me first to see the apartment where Eden's staying. He rushes out to greet me when we pull up, all unhappiness from our previous argument gone. \"They said you caused a bunch of trouble out there,\" he says as he and Lucy join me in the jeep. A disapproving look creeps onto his face. \"Don't ever scare me like that again.\"\n\nI give him a wry smile and ruffle his hair. \"Now you know how I feel about your decision.\"\n\nBy the time we end up outside the Los Angeles Central Hospital, word of our arrival has spread like wildfire and a huge crowd is waiting for my jeep. They're screaming, crying, chanting\u2014and it takes two patrols of soldiers to form enough of a walkway for them to usher us inside the hospital. I stare numbly at the people as I pass by. A lot of them have the scarlet streak in their hair, while others hold up signs. They shout out the same thing.\n\nSAVE US.\n\nI look away nervously. They've all seen and heard about what I did with the Patriots in Denver. But I'm not some invincible super-soldier\u2014I'm a dying boy who's about to be stuck, helpless, in the hospital while an enemy takes over our country.\n\nEden leans over my wheelchair's handlebars. Even though he doesn't say a word, I take one look at his solemn face and know exactly what's running through his mind. The thought sends terror trickling down my spine.\n\nI can save them, my little brother's thinking. Let me save them.\n\nOnce we're inside the hospital and the soldiers bar the doors, they wheel me up to the third-floor rooms. There, Eden waits outside while doctors strap a bunch of metal nodes and wires to me. They run a brain scan. Finally, they let me rest. Throughout it all, my head throbs continuously, sometimes so much that I feel like I'm moving even though I'm lying down on a bed. Nurses come in and give me some sort of injection. A couple of hours later, when I'm strong enough to sit up, a pair of doctors come to see me.\n\n\"What is it?\" I ask before they can speak up. \"Do I have three days left? What's the deal?\"\n\n\"Don't worry,\" one of them\u2014the younger, more inexperienced one\u2014assures me. \"You still have a couple of months. Your prognosis hasn't changed.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I reply. Well, that's a relief.\n\nThe older doctor scratches uncomfortably at his beard. \"You can still move around and do normal activities\u2014whatever those are,\" he grumbles, \"but don't strain yourself. As for your treatments...\" He pauses here, then peers at me from the top of his glasses. \"We're going to try some more radical drugs,\" the doctor continues with an awkward expression. \"But let me be clear, Day\u2014our greatest enemy is time. We are fighting hard to prepare you for a very risky surgery, but the time that your medication needs may be longer than the time you have left. There's only so much we can do.\"\n\n\"What can we do?\" I ask.\n\nThe doctor nods at the dripping fluid bag hanging next to me. \"If you make it through the full course, you might be ready for surgery a few months from now.\"\n\nI lower my head. Do I have a few months left? They're sure as hell cutting it close. \"So,\" I mutter, \"I might be dead by the time the surgery comes around. Or there might not be a Republic left.\"\n\nMy last comment drains the blood from the doctor's face. He doesn't respond, but he doesn't need to. No wonder the other doctors had warned me to get my affairs in order. Even in the best of circumstances, I might not pull through in time. But I might actually live long enough to see the Republic fall. The thought makes me shudder.\n\nThe only way Antarctica will help is if we provide proof of a cure against this plague, give them a reason to call in their troops to stop the Colonies' invasion. And the only way to do that is to let Eden give himself over to the Republic.\n\nThe medicine knocks me out, and it's a full day before I come around. When the doctors aren't there, I test my legs by taking short walks around my room. I feel strong enough to go without a wheelchair. Still, I stumble when I try to stretch too thin and spring from one end of the room to the other. Nope. I sigh in frustration, then pull myself back into bed. My eyes shift to a screen on the wall, where footage from Denver is playing. I can tell that the Republic is careful about how much of it they show. I'd seen firsthand how it looked when the Colonies' troops started rolling in, but on the screen there are only faraway shots of the city. The viewer can just see smoke rising from several buildings and the ominous row of Colonies Airships hovering near the edge of the Armor. Then it cuts to footage of Republic jets lining up on the airfield, preparing to launch into battle. For once, I'm glad that the propaganda's in place. There's just no point in scaring the hell out of the whole country. Might as well show that the Republic's fighting back.\n\nI can't stop thinking about Frankie's lifeless face. Or the way Thomas's head snapped back when the Colonies soldiers shot him. I wince as it replays in my mind. I wait in silence for another half hour, watching as the screen's footage changes from the Denver battle to headlines about how I'd helped slow down the invading Colonies troops. More people are in the streets now, with their scarlet streaks and handmade signs. They really think I'm making a difference. I rub a hand across my face. They don't understand that I'm just a boy\u2014I'd never meant to get involved so deeply in any of this. Without the Patriots, June, or Anden, I couldn't have done anything. I'm useless on my own.\n\nStatic suddenly blares out of my earpiece; an incoming call. I jump. Then, an unfamiliar male voice in my ear: \"Mr. Wing,\" the man says. \"I presume it's you?\"\n\nI scowl. \"Who's this?\"\n\n\"Mr. Wing,\" the man says, adding a flourish of cracked excitement that sends a chill down my spine. \"This is the Chancellor of the Colonies. Pleased to make your acquaintance.\"\n\nThe Chancellor? I swallow hard. Yeah, right. \"Is this some sort of joke?\" I snap into the mike. \"Some hacker kid\u2014\"\n\n\"Come now. This wouldn't be a very funny joke, now would it?\"\n\nI didn't know the Colonies could access our earpiece streams and make calls like this. I frown, then lower my voice. \"How'd you get in?\" Are the Colonies winning in Denver? Did the city fall already, right after we finished evacuating it?\n\n\"I have my ways,\" the man replies, his voice dead calm. \"It seems that some of your people have defected to our side. I can't say I blame them.\"\n\nSomeone in the Republic must have given up info to the Colonies to allow them to use our data streams like this. Suddenly my thoughts rush back to the job I'd done with the Patriots, where the Colonies soldiers had shot Thomas in the head\u2014the image sends a violent shudder through me, and I force myself to push it away. Commander Jameson.\n\n\"I hope I'm not inconveniencing you,\" the Chancellor says before I can respond, \"given your condition and such. And I'm sure you must be feeling a bit tired after your little escapade in Denver. I'm impressed, I must say.\"\n\nI don't respond to that. I wonder what else he knows\u2014whether he knows which hospital I'm currently lying in... or worse, where our new apartment is, where Eden's staying. \"What do you want?\" I finally whisper.\n\nI can practically hear the Chancellor's smile over my earpiece. \"I'd hate to waste your time, so let's get to the meat of this conversation. I realize that the Republic's current Elector is this young Anden Stavropoulos fellow.\" His tone is condescending. \"But come now, both you and I know who really runs your country. And that's you. The people love you, Day. When my troops first went into Denver, do you know what they told me? 'The civilians have plastered posters of Day on the walls. They want to see him back on the screens.' They have been very stubborn to cooperate with my men, and it's a surprisingly tiresome process to get them to comply.\"\n\nMy anger slowly burns. \"Leave the civilians out of it,\" I say through a clenched jaw. \"They didn't ask for you to barge into their homes.\"\n\n\"But you forget,\" the Chancellor says in a coaxing voice. \"Your Republic has done the exact same thing to them for decades\u2014didn't they do it to your own family? We are invading the Republic because of what they did to us. This virus they've sent across the border. Exactly where do your loyalties lie, and why? And do you realize, my boy, how incredible your position is at your age, how you have your finger on the pulse of this nation? How much power you hold\u2014\"\n\n\"Your point, Chancellor?\"\n\n\"I know you're dying. I also know you have a younger brother who you would love to see grow up.\"\n\n\"You bring Eden into this again, and this conversation's over.\"\n\n\"Very well. Just bear with me. In the Colonies, Meditech Corp handles all of our hospitals and treatments, and I can guarantee you they would do a much finer job dealing with your case than anything the Republic can offer. So here's the deal. You can slowly whittle away whatever's left of your life, staying loyal to a country that's not loyal to you\u2014or you can do something for us. You can publicly ask the Republic's people to accept the Colonies, and help this country fall under the rule of something better. You can get treatment in a quality place. Wouldn't that be nice? Surely you deserve more than what you're getting.\"\n\nA scornful laugh forces its way out of me. \"Yeah, right. You expect me to believe that?\"\n\n\"Well now,\" the Chancellor says, trying to sound amused, but this time I detect darkness in his words. \"I can see this is a losing argument. If you choose to fight for the Republic, I'll respect that decision. I only hope that the best will happen for you and your brother, even after we establish our place firmly in the Republic. But I'm a businessman, Day, and I like to work with a Plan B in mind. So, let me ask you this instead.\" He pauses for a second. \"The Princeps-Elect June Iparis. Do you love her?\"\n\nAn icy claw grips my chest. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Well.\" The Chancellor lets his voice turn somber. \"You have to see this situation from my point of view,\" he says gently. \"The Colonies will win, inevitably, at this rate. Ms. Iparis is one of the people sitting at the heart of the losing government. Now, son, I want you to think about this. What do you suppose happens to the ruling government on the losing side of a war?\"\n\nMy hands tremble. This is a thought that has floated in the dark recesses of my mind, something I've refused to think about. Until now. \"Are you threatening her?\" I whisper.\n\nThe Chancellor tsks in disapproval at my tone. \"I'm only being reasonable. What do you think will happen to her once we declare victory? Do you really think we will let live a girl who is on track to become the leader of the Republic's Senate? This is how all civilized nations work, Day, and it's been that way for centuries. For millennia. After all, I'm sure your Elector executed those who stood against him. Didn't he?\" I stay silent. \"Ms. Iparis, along with the Elector and his Senate, will be tried and executed. That is what happens to a losing government in a war, Day.\" His voice turns serious. \"If you don't cooperate with us, then you might have to live with their blood on your hands. But if you do cooperate, I might find a way to pardon them of their war crimes. And what's more,\" he adds, \"you can have all the comforts of a quality life. You won't need to worry for your family's safety ever again. You won't have to worry for the Republic's people either. They don't know any better; the common folk never know what's good for them. But you and I do, don't we? You know they're better off without the Republic's rule. Sometimes they just don't understand their choices\u2014they need their decisions made for them. After all, you chose to manipulate the people yourself when you wanted them to accept your new Elector. Am I correct?\"\n\nTried and executed. June, gone. Dreading the possibility is one thing; hearing it spelled out to me and then using it to blackmail me is another. My mind spins frantically for ways they could escape instead, to find asylum in another country. Maybe the Antarcticans can keep June and the others overseas and protected in case the Colonies overrun the country. There must be a way. But... what about the rest of us? What's to stop the Colonies from harming my brother?\n\n\"How do I know you'll keep your word?\" I finally manage to croak.\n\n\"To show you my genuine nature, I give you my word that the Colonies have ceased their attacks as of this morning, and I will not resume them for three days. If you agree to my proposition, you just guaranteed the safety of the Republic's people... and of your loved ones. So, let the choice be yours.\" The Chancellor laughs a little. \"And I recommend that you keep our conversation to yourself.\"\n\n\"I'll think about it,\" I whisper.\n\n\"Wonderful.\" The Chancellor's voice brightens. \"Like I said, as soon as possible. After three days, I'll expect to hear back from you on making a public announcement to the Republic. This can be the start of a very fruitful relationship. Time is of the essence\u2014I know you understand this more than anyone.\"\n\nThen the call ends. The silence is deafening. I sit in the thick of our conversation for a while, soaking it in. Thoughts run endlessly through my mind... Eden, June, the Republic, the Elector. Their blood on your hands. The frustration and fear bubbling inside my chest threatens to drown me in its tide. The Chancellor's smart, I'll give him that\u2014he knows exactly what my weaknesses are and he's going to try to use them to his advantage. But two can play at this. I have to warn June\u2014and I'll have to do it quietly. If the Colonies find out that I've passed the word along instead of keeping my mouth shut and doing as the Chancellor says, then who knows what tricks they might try to pull. But maybe we can use this to our advantage. My mind whirls. Maybe we can fool the Chancellor at his own game.\n\nSuddenly, a shriek echoes from the hallway outside that raises every hair on my skin. I turn my head in the sound's direction. Somebody's coming down the corridor against her will\u2014whoever it is must be putting up a pretty damn good fight.\n\n\"I'm not infected,\" the voice protests. It grows louder until it's right outside my door, then fades as the sounds of the voice and gurney wheels travel farther down the hall. I recognize the voice right away. \"Run your tests again. It's nothing. I'm not infected.\"\n\nEven though I don't know exactly what's going on, I'm instantly sure of one thing\u2014the sickness spreading through the Colonies has a new victim.\n\nTess.\n\nFor the first time in the republic's history, there is no capital to land in.\n\nWe touch down at an airfield located on the southern edge of Drake University at 1600 hours, not a quarter mile away from where I used to attend all of my Republic History classes. The afternoon is disconcertingly sunny. Has it really been less than a year since everything happened? As we step off the plane and wait for our luggage to unload, I look around in a dull stupor. The campus, both nostalgic and strange to me, is emptier than I remember\u2014many of the seniors, I hear, have been pushed through graduation early in order to send them off to the warfront to fight for the Republic's survival. I walk in silence through the campus streets a few steps behind Anden, while Mariana and Serge, as part of their Senator nature, keep up a steady stream of chatter with their otherwise quiet Elector. Ollie stays close to my side, the hackles up on his neck. The main Drake quad, normally crowded with passing students, is now home to pockets of refugees brought over from Denver and a few neighboring cities. An unfamiliar, eerie sight.\n\nBy the time we reach a series of jeeps waiting for us and begin traveling through Batalla sector, I notice the various things throughout LA that have changed. Evacuation centers have popped up where Batalla sector meets Blueridge, where the military buildings give way to civilian high-rises, and many of the older, half-abandoned buildings along this poor sector have been hastily converted into evacuation centers. Large crowds of disheveled Denver refugees crowd the entrances, all hoping to be lucky enough to get a room assignment. One glance tells me that, naturally, the people waiting here are probably all from Denver's poor sectors.\n\n\"Where are we placing the upper-class families?\" I ask Anden. \"In a gem sector, I'm sure?\" I find it difficult now to say something like this without a sharp edge in my voice.\n\nAnden looks unhappy, but he calmly answers, \"In Ruby. You, Mariana, and Serge will all have apartments there.\" He reads my expression. \"I know what you're thinking. But I can't afford to have our wealthy families revolting against me for forcing them into evacuation centers in the poor sectors. I did set a number of spaces in Ruby to be allocated for the poor\u2014they'll be assigned to them on a lottery system.\"\n\nI don't answer, simply because I have nothing to argue against. What is there to do about this situation? It's not like Anden can uproot the entire country's infrastructure in the span of a year. As I look on through the window, a growing group of protesters gathers along the edge of a guarded refugee zone. MOVE TO THE OUTSKIRTS! one of their signs says. KEEP THEM QUARANTINED!\n\nThe sight sends a shiver down my spine. It doesn't seem so different from what had happened in the Republic's early years, when the west protested the people fleeing in from the east.\n\nWe ride in silence for a while. Then, suddenly, Anden presses his hand against his ear and motions to the driver. \"Turn on the screen,\" he tells him, gesturing to the small monitor embedded into the jeep's seats. \"General Marshall says the Colonies are broadcasting something onto our twelfth channel.\"\n\nWe all watch as the monitor comes to life. At first we only see a blank, black screen, but then the broadcast comes in, and I look on as the Colonies slogan and seal appear over an oscillating Colonies flag."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE COLONIES OF AMERICA",
+                "text": "[ CLOUD . MEDITECH . DESCON . EVERGREEN ]\n\n[ A FREE STATE IS A CORPORATE STATE ]\n\nThen, an evening landscape of a beautiful, sparkling city comes up, completely covered in thousands of twinkling blue lights. \"Citizens of the Republic,\" a grandiose voice says. \"Welcome to the Colonies of America. As many of you already know, the Colonies have overrun the Republic capital of Denver and, as such, have declared an unofficial victory over the tyrannical regime that has kept you all under its thumb. After over a hundred years of suffering, you are now free.\" The landscape changes to a top-down map of both the Republic and the Colonies\u2014except this time, the line dividing the two nations is gone. A shiver runs down my spine. \"In the weeks to come, you will all be integrated into our system of fair competition and freedom. You are a citizen of the Colonies. What does that mean, you might wonder?\"\n\nThe voiceover pauses, and the imagery shifts to a happy family holding a check in front of them. \"As a new citizen, each of you will be entitled to at least five thousand Colonies Notes, equivalent to sixty thousand Republic Notes, granted from one of our four main corps that you decide to work for. The higher your current income, the higher we'll pay you. You will no longer answer to the Republic's street police but to DesCon's city patrols, your own private neighborhood police dedicated to serving you. Your employer will no longer be the Republic, but one of our four distinguished corps, where you can apply for a fulfilling career.\" The video shifts again to scenes of happy workers, proud, smiling faces hovering over suits and ties. \"We offer you, citizens, the freedom of choice.\"\n\nThe freedom of choice. Images flash through my mind of what I'd seen in the Colonies when Day and I first ventured into their territory. The crowds of workers, the dilapidated slums of the poor. The advertisements printed all over the people's clothes. The commercials that covered every square inch of the buildings. Most of all, DesCon's police, the way they had refused to help the robbed woman who had missed her payments to their department. Is this the future of the Republic? And suddenly I feel nauseous, because I cannot say whether the people would be better off in the Republic or the Colonies.\n\nThe broadcast continues. \"We only ask that you return a small favor to us.\" The video shifts again, this time to a scene of people protesting in solidarity. \"If you, as a civilian, have grievances with the Republic, now is the time to voice them. If you are courageous enough to stage protests throughout your respective cities, the Colonies will pay you an additional five thousand Colonies Notes, as well as grant you a one-year discount on all of our Cloud Corp grocery goods. Simply send your proof of participation to any DesCon headquarters in Denver, Colorado, along with your name and mailing address.\"\n\nSo, this explains the various protests popping up around the city. Even their propaganda sounds like an advertisement. A dangerously tempting one. \"Declaring victory a little too soon,\" I say under my breath.\n\n\"They're trying to turn the people against us,\" Anden murmurs in reply. \"They announced a ceasefire this morning, perhaps as a chance to disseminate propaganda like this.\"\n\n\"I doubt it will be effective,\" I say, although I don't sound as confident as I should. All these years of anti-Colonies propaganda are going to be difficult for the Colonies to work around. Aren't they?\n\nAnden's jeep finally slows to a halt. I frown, confused for a second. Instead of taking me back to a high-rise for my temporary apartment, we are now parked in front of the Los Angeles Central Hospital. The place where Metias died. I glance at Anden. \"What are we doing here?\" I ask.\n\n\"Day's here,\" Anden replies. His voice catches a little when he speaks Day's name.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nAnden doesn't look at me. He seems reluctant to discuss it. \"He collapsed during the evacuation to LA,\" he explains. \"The series of explosions we used to knock out the underground tunnels apparently triggered one of his severe headaches. The doctors have started another round of treatment for him.\" Anden pauses, then gives me a grave stare. \"There's another reason we're here. But you'll see for yourself.\"\n\nThe jeep comes to a halt. I climb out, then wait for Anden. A feeling of dread slowly creeps through me. What if Day's illness has gotten worse? What if he isn't going to pull through? Is that why he's here? There's no reason for Day to ever set foot inside this building again, not unless he was forced to, not after everything this hospital put him through.\n\nTogether, Anden and I head into the building with soldiers flanking us. We travel up to the fourth floor, where one of the soldiers swipes us inside, and then step into the Central Hospital's lab floor. The tense feeling in my stomach only tightens as we go.\n\nFinally, we stop in front of a smaller series of rooms that line the side of the main lab floor. As we go through one of these doors, I see Day. He's standing outside a room with glass walls, smoking one of his blue cigarettes and looking on as someone inside gets inspected by lab technicians in full body suits. What makes me lose my breath, though, is that he's leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. How long has he been here? He looks exhausted, pale, and distant. I wonder what new drugs the doctors are trying on him. The thought is a sudden, stabbing reminder of Day's waning life, the few seconds he has left, slowly ticking by.\n\nStanding beside him are a few lab techs with white jumpsuit gear and goggles dangling from their necks, each of them watching the room and typing away on their notepads. A short distance away, Pascao's deep in conversation with the other Patriots. They leave Day alone.\n\n\"Day?\" I say as we approach.\n\nHe looks over to me\u2014a dozen emotions flicker through his eyes, some that make my cheeks flush. Then he notices Anden. He manages to give the Elector a stiff bow of his head, then turns back to watching the patient on the other side of the glass. Tess.\n\n\"What's going on?\" I ask Day.\n\nHe takes another puff of his cigarette and lowers his eyes. \"They won't let me in. They think she might've come down with whatever this new plague is,\" he says. His voice is quiet, but I can hear an undercurrent of frustration and anger. \"They've already run tests on me and the other Patriots. Tess is the only one who didn't come up clean.\"\n\nTess bats away one of the lab techs' hands, then stumbles backward as if she's having trouble keeping her balance. Sweat forms on her forehead and drips down her neck. The whites of her eyes have a sickly yellow tint to them, and when I look closely, I can tell that she's squinting in an effort to see everything around her\u2014something that reminds me of her nearsightedness, the way she used to squint at the streets of Lake. Her hands are trembling. I swallow hard at the sight. The Patriots couldn't have been exposed for long to the Colonies soldiers, but apparently it was long enough for some soldier carrying the virus to pass it to one of them. It's also a very real possibility that the Colonies are purposefully spreading the disease right back to us, now that they're in our territory. My insides turn cold as I remember a line from Metias's old journals: One day we'll create a virus that no one will be able to stop. And that just might bring about the downfall of the entire Republic.\n\nOne of the lab techs turns to me and offers a quick explanation. \"The virus looks like a mutation of one of our past plague experiments,\" she says, shooting Day a nervous glance (he must have given her a hard time about this earlier) before continuing. \"As far as we can tell from the statistics the Colonies have released, the virus seems to have a low uptake rate among healthy adults, but when it does infect someone, the disease progresses rapidly and the fatality rate is very high. We're seeing infection-to-death times of about a week.\" She turns momentarily to Tess on the other side of the glass. \"She's showing some early symptoms\u2014fever, dizziness, jaundice, and the symptom that points us to one of our own manufactured viruses, temporary or possibly permanent blindness.\"\n\nBeside me, Day clenches his crutches so hard that his knuckles look white. Knowing him, I wonder whether he's already had several fights with the lab techs, trying to force his way in to see her or scream at them to leave her alone. I know he must be picturing Eden right now, with his purple, half-blind eyes, and in this moment a deep hatred for the former Republic fills my chest. My father had worked behind those experimental lab doors. He had tried to quit once he found out what they were actually doing with all those local LA plagues, and he gave his life as a result. Is that country really behind us now? Can our reputation ever change in the eyes of the outside world\u2014or of the Colonies?\n\n\"She tried to save Frankie,\" Day whispers, his eyes still fixed on Tess. \"She'd made it back inside the Armor right after we did. I thought Thomas was going to kill her.\" His voice turns bitter. \"But maybe she's already marked for death.\"\n\n\"Thomas?\" I whisper.\n\n\"Thomas is dead,\" he murmurs. \"When Pascao and I were fleeing to the Armor, I saw him stand and face the Colonies soldiers alone. He kept firing at them until they shot him in the head.\" He flinches at this final sentence.\n\nThomas is dead.\n\nI blink twice, suddenly numb from head to toe. I shouldn't be shocked. Why am I shocked? I was prepared for this. The soldier who had stabbed my brother through the heart, who had shot Day's mother... he's gone. And of course he would have died in this way\u2014defending the Republic until the end, unwavering in his insane loyalty to a state that had already turned her back on him. I also understand right away why this has affected Day so much. Shot through the head. I feel empty at the news. Exhausted. Numb. My shoulders sag.\n\n\"It's for the best,\" I finally whisper through the lump in my throat. Images flash through my head of Metias, and of what Thomas had told me about his last night alive. I force my thoughts back to Tess. To the living, and those who still matter. \"Tess is going to be okay,\" I say. My words sound unconvincing. \"We just have to find a way.\"\n\nThe lab techs inside the glass room stick a long needle into Tess's right arm, then her left. She lets out a choked sob. Day tears his eyes away from the scene, adjusts his grip on his crutches, and begins to make his way toward us. As he passes me, he whispers,\" Tonight. \" Then he leaves the rest of us behind and heads down the hall.\n\nI watch him go in silence. Anden sighs, looks sadly toward Tess, and joins the other lab techs. \"Are you sure Day is clean?\" he says to the one who'd shared the virus information with us. She confirms it, and Anden nods at her in approval. \"I want a second check run on all of our soldiers immediately.\" He turns to one of the other Senators. \"Then I want a message sent right away to the Colonies' Chancellor, as well as their DesCon CEO. Let's see whether diplomacy can get us anywhere.\"\n\nFinally, Anden gives me a long look. \"I know I have no right to ask this of you,\" he says. \"But if you can find it in your heart to ask Day again about his brother, I would be grateful. We might still have a chance with Antarctica.\"\n\n1930 HOURS.\n\nRUBY SECTOR.\n\n73\u00b0 F.\n\nThe high-rise I'm staying in is just a few blocks away from where Metias and I used to live. As the jeep I'm riding in approaches it, I look down the street and try to catch a glimpse of my old apartment complex. Even Ruby sector is now blocked off with segments of tape indicating which areas are for evacuees, and soldiers line the streets. I wonder where Anden's staying in the midst of all this mess; probably somewhere in Batalla sector. He'll definitely be up late tonight. Before I'd left for my assigned apartment, he had taken me aside in the lab hall. His eyes flickered unconsciously to my lips and then back up again. I knew he was dwelling on the brief moment we shared in Ross City, as well as the words that had come after it. I know you care deeply for Day.\n\n\"June,\" he said after an awkward pause. \"We're meeting with the Senate tomorrow morning to discuss what our next steps should be. I want to give you the heads-up that this will be a conference where each of the Princeps-Elects will deliver some words to the group. It's a chance to experience what each of you would do if you were the official Princeps\u2014but be warned, things may get heated.\" He smiled a little. \"This war has left us all on edge, to put it lightly.\"\n\nI'd wanted to tell him that I would sit this one out. Another meeting with the Senators\u2014another four-hour-long session of listening to forty talking heads all battling to outdo one another, all attempting to either sway Anden to their side or embarrass him in front of the others. No doubt Mariana and Serge will lead the arguments to see which of them can come across as the better Princeps candidate. The mere idea of it drains me of all my remaining strength. But at the same time, the thought of leaving Anden to shoulder the burden alone in a room full of people who were so cold and distant was too hard to bear. So I smiled and bowed to him, like a good Princeps-Elect. \"I'll be there,\" I replied.\n\nNow the jeep pulls up to my assigned complex and stops, and I push the memory out of my mind. I get out of the jeep with Ollie, then watch it go until it turns a corner and disappears completely from sight. I head inside the high-rise.\n\nI initially plan to stop by Day's room right after settling into my own, to see what he meant by his \"tonight\" comment. But as I reach my hall, I see that I don't have to.\n\nDay is camped outside my door, sitting slouched against the wall and absently smoking a blue cigarette. His crutches are lying idly beside him. Even though he's not moving, some small piece of his manner\u2014wild, careless, defiant\u2014still shines through, and for an instant I flash back to when I'd first met him on the streets, with his bright blue eyes and quicksilver movements and unruly blond hair. That nostalgic image is so sweet that I suddenly feel my eyes watering. I take a deep breath and will myself not to cry.\n\nHe pulls himself to his feet when he sees me at the end of the hall. \"June,\" he says as I approach. Ollie trots over to greet him, and he pats my dog once on the head. He still looks exhausted, but manages to give me a lopsided, if sad, grin. Without his crutches, he sways on his feet. His eyes are heavy with anguish, and I know it's because of our earlier stint in the lab. \"From the look on your face, I'm guessing the Antarcticans weren't much help.\"\n\nI shake my head, then unlock my door and invite him inside. \"Not really,\" I reply as I close the door behind me. My eyes instinctively study the room, memorizing its layout. It resembles my old home a little too closely for comfort. \"They've contacted the United Nations about the plague. They're going to seal off all of our ports to traffic. No imports or exports\u2014no aid, no supplies. We're all under quarantine now. They've told us that they can help us out only after we show them proof of a cure, or if Anden hands over a chunk of Republic land to them as payment. Until then, they won't send any troops. All I know now is that they're monitoring our situation pretty closely.\"\n\nDay says nothing. Instead, he wanders away from me and stands on the room's balcony. He leans against the railing. I put out some food and water for Ollie, then join him. The sun set a while ago, but with the glow from the city lights, we can see the low-lying clouds that block the stars, covering the sky in shades of gray and black. I notice how heavily Day has to lean on the railing to support himself, and I'm tempted to ask him how he's feeling. But the expression on his face stops me. He probably doesn't want to talk about it.\n\n\"So,\" he says after another puff on his cigarette. The light from distant JumboTrons paints a glowing line of blue and purple around his face. His eyes skim across the buildings, and I know he's instinctively analyzing how he would run each one of them. \"Guess we're on our own now. Can't say I'm all that upset about it, though. The Republic's always been about closing off her borders, yeah? Maybe she'll fight better this way. Nothing motivates you like being alone and cornered on the streets.\"\n\nWhen he lifts his cigarette to his lips again, I see his hand trembling. The paper clip ring gleams on his finger. \"Day,\" I say gently. He just raises an eyebrow and glances at me sideways. \"You're shaking.\"\n\nHe exhales a puff of blue smoke, squints at the city lights in the darkness, and then lowers his lashes. \"It's strange being back in LA,\" he replies, his voice distracted and distant. \"I'm fine. Just worried about Tess.\" A long pause follows. I know the name\u2014Eden\u2014that hangs at the tips of both of our tongues, although neither one of us wants to bring it up first. Day finally ends our silence, and when he does, he approaches the topic with slow and laborious pain. \"June, I've been thinking about what your Elector wants from me. About, you know... about my brother.\" He sighs, then leans farther out on the railing and rakes a hand through his hair. His arm brushes past my own\u2014even this small gesture sends my heart beating faster. \"I had an argument with Eden about it all.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\" I ask. Somehow, I feel guilty when I think back on Anden's request for me. If you can find it in your heart to ask Day again about his brother, I would be grateful.\n\nDay puts his cigarette out on the metal railing. His eyes meet mine. \"He wants to help,\" he murmurs. \"After seeing Tess today, and after what you just told me, well...\" He tightens his jaw. \"I'll talk to Anden tomorrow. Maybe there's something in Eden's blood that can, you know... make a difference in all this. Maybe.\"\n\nHe's still reluctant, of course, and I can hear the pain plainly in his voice. But he is also agreeing. Agreeing to let the Republic use his little brother to find a cure. A small, bittersweet smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. Day, the champion of the people, the one who can't bear to see those around him suffer on his behalf, who would gladly give his life for those he loves. Except it's not his life that we need in order to save Tess, but his brother's. Risking one loved one for the sake of another loved one. I wonder whether anything else made him change his mind. \"Thank you, Day,\" I whisper. \"I know how hard this is.\"\n\nHe grimaces and shakes his head. \"No, I'm just being selfish. But I can't help it.\" He looks down, laying bare his weaknesses. \"Just... tell Anden to bring him back. Please bring him back.\"\n\nThere's something else bothering him, something that's making his hands shake uncontrollably. I lean into him, then place one of my hands over his. He looks me in the eyes again. There's such deep sadness and fear in his face. It breaks my heart. \"What else is wrong, Day?\" I whisper. \"What else do you know?\"\n\nThis time, he doesn't look away. He swallows\u2014and when he speaks, there's a slight tremor in his voice. \"The Colonies' Chancellor called me while I was in the hospital.\"\n\n\"The Chancellor?\" I whisper, careful to keep my voice low. You never know. \"Are you sure?\"\n\nDay nods once. Then he tells me everything\u2014the conversation he had with the Chancellor, the bribes, the blackmail and threats. He tells me what the Colonies have in store for me, should Day refuse them. All my unspoken fears. Finally, he sighs. The release of all this information seems to lighten the burden on his shoulders, if only by a hair. \"There must be a way we can use this against the Colonies,\" he says. \"Some way to trick them with their own game. I don't know what yet, but if we can find some way to make the Chancellor think that I'm going to help him out, then maybe we can take them by surprise.\"\n\nIf the Colonies really do win, they will come after me. We'll be killed, all of us. I try to sound as calm as he does, but I don't succeed. A tremor still manages to creep into my voice. \"He'll expect you to react emotionally to all this,\" I reply. \"It might be as good an opportunity as any to hit the Colonies with your own brand of propaganda. But whatever we do, we have to be careful about it. The Chancellor should know better than to trust you wholeheartedly.\"\n\n\"Things won't go well for you if they win,\" Day whispers, his voice pained. \"I never took them to be some goddy compassionate softies\u2014but maybe you should find a way to flee the country. Sneak off to a neutral place and seek asylum.\"\n\nFlee the country, run away from this entire nightmare, and hole up in some faraway land? A small, tiny, dark voice in my head whispers agreement, that I will be safer that way... but I recoil from the thought. I draw myself up as well as I can. \"No, Day,\" I reply gently. \"If I flee, what will everyone else do? What about those who can't?\"\n\n\"They will kill you.\" He draws closer. His eyes beg me to listen. \"Please.\"\n\nI shake my head. \"I'm staying right here. The people don't need their morale crushed any further. Besides, you might need me.\" I give a little smile. \"I think I know a few things about the Republic's military that could come in handy, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nDay shakes his head in frustration, but at the same time he knows I won't budge. He knows, because he would do no differently in my position.\n\nHe takes my hand in his and pulls me toward him. His arms wrap around me. I'm so unused to his touch that this embrace sends an overwhelming wave of heat through my body. I close my eyes, collapse against his chest, and savor it. Has it really been so long since the last time we kissed? Have I really missed him this much? Have all the problems threatening to crush us both weakened us to the point where we are gasping for breath, clinging desperately to each other for survival? I've forgotten how right it feels to be in his arms. His collar shirt is rumpled and soft against my skin, and beneath it his chest is warm and pulses with the faint beating of his heart. He smells of earth, smoke, and wind.\n\n\"You drive me insane, June,\" he murmurs against my hair. \"You're the scariest, most clever, bravest person I know, and sometimes I can't catch my breath because I'm trying so hard to keep up. There will never be another like you. You realize that, don't you?\" I tilt my face up to see him. His eyes reflect the faint lights from the JumboTrons, a rainbow of evening colors. \"Billions of people will come and go in this world,\" he says softly, \"but there will never be another like you.\"\n\nMy heart twists until it threatens to break. I don't know how to respond.\n\nThen he releases me abruptly\u2014the coolness of the night is a sudden shock against my skin. Even in the darkness, I can see the blush on his cheeks. His breathing sounds heavier than usual. \"What is it?\" I say.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" he replies, his voice strained. \"I'm dying, June\u2014I'm no good for you. And I do so well until I see you in person, and then everything changes again. I think I don't care about you anymore, that things will be easier once you're far away, and then all of a sudden I'm here again, and you're...\" He pauses to look at me. The anguish in his expression is a knife cutting through my heart. \" Why do I do this to myself? I see you and feel such\u2014\" He has tears in his eyes now. The sight is more than I can bear. He takes two steps away from me and then turns back like a caged animal. \"Do you even love me?\" he suddenly asks. He grips both of my shoulders. \"I've said it to you before, and I still mean it. But I've never heard it from you. I can't tell. And then you give me this ring \"\u2014he pauses to hold his hand up\u2014\"and I don't know what to think anymore.\"\n\nHe draws closer, until I feel his lips against my ear. My entire body trembles. \"Do you have any idea?\" he says in a soft, broken, hoarse whisper. \"Do you know how... how badly I wish...\"\n\nHe pulls away long enough to look me desperately in the eyes. \"If you don't love me, just say it\u2014 you have to help me. It'd probably be for the best. It'd make it easier to stay away from you, wouldn't it? I can let go.\" He says it like he's trying to convince himself. \"I can let go, if you don't love me.\"\n\nHe says this as if he thinks I'm the stronger one. But I'm not. I can't keep this up any better than he can. \"No,\" I say through gritted teeth and blurry vision. \"I can't help you. Because I do love you.\" There it is, out in the open. \"I'm in love with you,\" I repeat.\n\nThere's a conflicted look in Day's eyes, a joy and a grief, that makes him so vulnerable. I realize then how little defense he has against my words. He loves so wholly. It is his nature. He blinks, then tries to find the right response. \"I\u2014\" he stumbles. \"I'm so afraid, June. So afraid of what might happen to\u2014\"\n\nI put two fingers against his lips to hush him. \"Fear makes you stronger,\" I whisper. Before I can stop myself, I put my hands on his face and press my mouth to his.\n\nWhatever shreds of self-restraint Day had now crumble into pieces. He falls into my kiss with helpless urgency. I feel his hands touch my face, one palm smooth and one still wrapped in bandages, and then he wraps his arms frantically around my waist, pulling me so close that I gasp aloud. No one compares to him. And right now, I want nothing else.\n\nWe make our way back inside, our lips never apart. Day stumbles against me, then loses his balance, and we collapse backward into my bed. His body knocks the breath out of me. His hands run along my jaw and neck, down my back, down my legs. I tug his coat off. Day's lips move away from mine and he buries his face against my neck. His hair fans out across my arm, heavy and softer than any silk I've ever worn. Day finally finds the buttons on my shirt. I've already loosened his, and underneath the fabric his skin is hot to the touch. The heat radiating from him warms me. I savor the weight of him.\n\nNeither of us dares to say a word. We're afraid that words will stop us, that they'll tear apart the spell that binds us. He's trembling as much as I am. It suddenly occurs to me that he must be just as nervous. I smile when his eyes first meet mine and then lower in a bashful gesture. Day is shy? What a strange new emotion on his face, something out of place and yet so fitting. I'm relieved to see it, because I can feel the blush rising hot on my own cheeks. Embarrassed, I feel an urge to cover up my exposed skin. I've frequently imagined what this would be like, lying with Day for the first time. I'm in love with him. I tentatively test these new words again in my mind, amazed and frightened by what they might mean. He is here, and he is real, flesh and blood.\n\nEven in his feverish passion, Day is gentle with me. It is a different gentleness from what I've felt around Anden, who is refinement and properness and elegance. Day is coarse, open, uncertain, and pure. When I look at him, I notice the subtle smile playing at the edges of his mouth, the smallest hint of mischief that only strengthens my desire for him. He nuzzles my neck; his touch sends shivers dancing along my spine. Day sighs in relief against my ear in a way that makes my heart pound, a sigh of freeing himself from all of the dark emotions that plague him. I fall into another kiss, running my hands through his hair, letting him know that I'm okay. He gradually relaxes. I suck in my breath as he moves against me; his eyes are so bright that I feel like I could drown in them. He kisses my cheeks, tucking a strand of my hair carefully behind my ear as he goes, and I slide my arms around his back and pull him closer.\n\nNo matter what happens in the future, no matter where our paths take us, this moment will be ours.\n\nAfterward, we stay quiet. Day lies beside me with blankets covering part of his legs, his eyes closed in a drowsy half sleep, his hand still entwined with mine as if for reassurance. I look around us. The blankets hang precariously off the corner of the bed. The sheets have wrinkles that radiate out, looking like a dozen little suns and their rays. There are deep indents in my pillow. Broken glass and flower petals litter the floor. I hadn't even noticed that we'd knocked a vase off my dresser, hadn't heard the sound of it shattering against the cherrywood planks. My eyes go back to Day. His face looks so peaceful now, free of pain in the dim glow of night. Even na\u00efve. His mouth is no longer open, his brows no longer scrunched together. He's not trembling anymore. Loose hair frames his face, a few strands catching the city's lights from outside. I inch forward, run my hand along the muscles of his arm, and touch my lips to his cheek.\n\nHis eyes open; they blink at me sleepily. He stares at me for a long moment. I wonder what he sees, and whether all of the pain and joy and fear he had confessed earlier is still there, forever haunting him. He leans over to give me the gentlest, most delicate kiss. His lips linger, afraid to leave. I don't want to leave either. I don't want to think about waking up. When I pull him close to me again, he obliges, aching for more. And all I can think about is that I'm grateful for his silence, for not telling me that I am joining us together when I should be letting him go.\n\nIt's not like I haven't had my share of moments with girls. I had my first kiss when I was twelve, when I locked lips with a sixteen-year-old girl in exchange for her not ratting me out to the street police. I've fooled around with a handful of girls in the slum sectors and a few from wealthy sectors\u2014there was even one gem sector, high school freshman who I'd had a couple days' romance with back when I was fourteen. She was cute, with pixie-short, light brown hair and flawless olive skin, and we'd sneak off every afternoon to the basement of her school and, well, have a little fun. Long story.\n\nBut... June.\n\nMy heart's been torn wide open, just like I feared it would be, and I have no willpower to close it back up. Any barrier I might've succeeded in putting up around myself, any resistance I might've built up against my feelings for her, is now completely gone. Shattered. In the dim blue light of night, I reach out and run one hand along the curve of June's body. My breathing is still shallow. I don't want to be the first to say something. My chest is pressed gently against her back and my arm's resting comfortably around her waist; her hair drapes over her neck in a dark, glossy rope. I bury my face against her smooth skin. A million thoughts pour through my head, but like her, I stay silent.\n\nThere's simply nothing to say.\n\nI jolt awake in bed, gasping. I can barely breathe\u2014my lungs heave in an attempt to suck in air. I look around frantically. Where am I?\n\nI'm in June's bed.\n\nIt was a nightmare, just a nightmare, and the Lake sector alley and street and blood are gone. I lie there a moment, trying quietly to catch my breath and slow the pounding of my heart. I'm completely drenched in sweat. I glance over at June. She's lying on her side and facing me, her body still rising and falling in a gentle, steady rhythm. Good. I didn't wake her. I hurriedly wipe tears from my face with the palm of my uninjured hand. Then I lie there for a few minutes, still trembling. When it's obvious that I'm not going to be able to fall back asleep, I slowly sit up in bed and crouch with my arms against my knees. I bow my head. My lashes brush against the skin of my arm. I feel so weak, like I just finished climbing up a thirty-story building.\n\nThis was easily the worst nightmare I've had yet. I'm even terrified to blink for too long, in case I have to revisit the images that danced under my eyelids. I look around the room. My vision blurs again; I angrily wipe the fresh tears away. What time is it? It's still pitch-black outside, with only the faint glow from distant JumboTrons and streetlights filtering into the room. I glance toward June, watching how the dim lights from outside splash color across her silhouette. This time, I don't reach out and touch her.\n\nI don't know how long I sit there crouched like that, taking in one deep lungful of air after another until my breathing finally steadies. It's long enough for the sweat beading my entire body to dry. My eyes wander to the room's balcony. I stare at it for a while, unable to look away, and then I gingerly slide out of bed without a sound and slip into my shirt, trousers, and boots. I twist my hair up into a tight knot, then fit a cap snugly over it. June stirs a little. I stop moving. When she settles back down, I finish buttoning my shirt and walk over to the glass balcony doors. In the corner of the bedroom, June's dog gives me a curious tilt of his head. But he doesn't make a sound. I say a silent thanks in my head, then open the balcony doors. They swing open, then close behind me without a click.\n\nI pull myself laboriously onto the balcony railings, perch there like a cat, and survey my surroundings. Ruby sector, a gem sector that's so completely different from where I came from. I'm back in LA, but I don't recognize it. Clean, manicured streets, new and shiny JumboTrons, wide sidewalks without cracks and potholes, without street police dragging crying orphans away from market stands. Instinctively, my attention turns in the direction of the city that Lake sector would be. From this side of the building, I can't see downtown LA, but I can feel it there, the memories that woke me up and whispered for me to come back. The paper clip ring sits heavily on my finger. A dark, terrible mood lingers at the back of my mind after that nightmare, something I can't seem to shake. I hop over the side of the balcony and work my way down to a lower ledge. I make my way silently, floor by floor, until my boots hit the pavement and I blend into the shadows of the night. My breaths come raggedly.\n\nEven here in a gem sector, there are now city patrols guarding the streets, their guns drawn as if ready for a surprise Colonies' attack at any moment. I steer clear of them to avoid any questions, and go back to my old street habits, making my way through back alley mazes and shaded sides of buildings until I reach a train station where jeeps are lined up, waiting to give rides. I ignore the jeeps\u2014I'm not in the mood to get chatty with one of the drivers and then have them recognize me as Day, and then hear rumors spreading around town the next morning about whatever the hell they think I was up to. Instead, I head into the train station and wait for the next automated ride to come and take me to Union Station in downtown.\n\nHalf an hour later, I step out of the downtown station and make my way silently through the streets until I'm close to my mother's old home. The cracks in all the slum sector roads are good for one thing\u2014here and there I see patches of sea daisies growing haphazardly, little spots of turquoise and green on an otherwise gray street. On instinct, I bend down and pick a handful of them. Mom's favorite.\n\n\"You there. Hey, boy.\"\n\nI turn to see who's calling. It actually takes me a few seconds to find her, because she's so small. An old woman's hunched against the side of a boarded-up building, shivering in the night air. She's bent almost double, with a face completely covered in deep wrinkles, and her clothes are so tattered that I can't tell where any of it ends or begins\u2014it's just one big mop of rags. She has a cracked mug sitting at her dirty bare feet, but what really makes me stop is that her hands are wrapped in thick bandages. Just like Mom's. When she sees that my attention is on her, her eyes light up with a faint glint of hope. I'm not sure if she recognizes me, but I'm also not sure how well she can see. \"Any spare change, little boy?\" she croaks.\n\nI dig around numbly in my pockets, then pull out a small wad of cash. Eight hundred Republic Notes. Not too long ago, I would've put my life in danger to get my hands on this much money. I bend down next to the old woman, then press the bills into her shaking palm and squeeze her bandaged hands with my own.\n\n\"Keep it hidden. Don't tell anyone.\" When she just continues to stare at me with shocked eyes and an agape mouth, I stand up and start walking back down the street. I think she calls out, but I don't bother turning around. Don't want to see those bandaged hands again.\n\nMinutes later, I reach the intersection of Watson and Figueroa. My old home.\n\nThe street hasn't changed much from how I remember it, but this time my mother's home is boarded up and abandoned, like many of the other buildings in the slum sectors. I wonder if there are squatters in there, all holed up in our old bedroom or sleeping on the kitchen floor. No light shines from the house. I walk slowly toward it, wondering if I'm still lost in my nightmare. Maybe I haven't woken up at all. No more quarantine tape blocks the street off, no more plague patrols hang around outside the house. As I walk toward it, I notice an old bloodstain still visible, if only barely, on the broken concrete leading toward the house. It looks brown and faded now, so different from how I remember it. I stare at the bloodstain, numb and unfeeling, then step around it and continue on. My hand clings tightly to the thick bundle of sea daisies I brought.\n\nWhen I approach the front door, I see the familiar red X is still there, although now it's faded and chipped, and several planks of rotting wood are nailed across the door frame. I stand there for a while, running a finger along the dying paint streaks. A few minutes later, I snap out of my daze and wander around to the back of the house. Half of our fence has now collapsed, leaving the tiny yard exposed and visible to our neighbors. The back door also has planks of wood nailed across it, but they're so rotten and crumbling that all I have to do is put a little weight on them and they come apart in a dull crackle of splinters.\n\nI force the door open and step inside. I remove my cap as I go, letting my hair tumble down my back. Mom had always told us to take our hats off while in the house.\n\nMy eyes adjust to the darkness. I step quietly up a few steps and enter the back of our tiny living room. They may have boarded up the house as part of some standard protocol, but the furniture inside the house is untouched, different only in that it's all covered in a layer of dust. My family's few belongings are still here, in exactly the same condition as I'd last seen them. The old Elector's portrait hangs on the room's far wall, prominent and centered, and our little wooden dining table still has thick layers of cardboard tacked to one of its legs, still doing their job of holding the table up. One of the chairs is lying on the ground, as if someone had to get up in a hurry. That had been John, I now remember. I recall how we'd all headed into the bedroom to grab Eden, trying to get our little brother out before the plague patrols came for him.\n\nThe bedroom. I turn my boots in the direction of our narrow bedroom door. It only takes a few steps to reach it. Yeah, everything in here is exactly the same too, maybe with a few extra cobwebs. The plant that Eden had once brought home is still sitting in the corner, although now it's dead, its leaves and vines black and shriveled. I stand there for a moment, staring at it, and then head back into the living room. I walk once around the dining table. Finally, I sit in my old chair. It creaks like it always did.\n\nI lay the bundle of sea daisies carefully on the tabletop. Our lantern sits in the middle of the table, unlit and unused. Usually, the routine went like this: Mom would come home around six o'clock every day, a few hours after I'd gotten back from grade school, and John would get home around nine or ten. Mom would try to hold off on lighting the table lantern each night until John returned, and after a while Eden and I got used to looking forward to \"the lantern lighting,\" which always meant John had just walked through the door. And that meant we'd get to sit down to dinner.\n\nI don't know why I sit here and feel the familiar old expectation that Mom is going to come out from the kitchen and light the lantern. I don't know how I can feel a jolt of joy in my chest, thinking John is home, that dinner's served. Stupid old habits. Still, my eyes go expectantly to the front door. My hopes rise.\n\nBut the lantern stays unlit. John stays outside. Mom isn't home.\n\nI lean my arms heavily against the table and press my palms to my eyes. \"Help me,\" I whisper desperately to the empty room. \"I can't do this.\" I want to, I love her, but I can't bear it. It's been almost a year. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just move on?\n\nMy throat chokes up. The tears come in a rush. I don't bother to stop them, because I know it's impossible. I sob uncontrollably\u2014I can't stop, I can't catch my breath, I can't see. I can't see my family because they're not here. Without them, all this furniture is nothing, the sea daisies lying on the table are meaningless, the lantern is just an old, blackened piece of junk. The images from my nightmare linger, haunting me. No matter how hard I try, I can't push them away.\n\nTime heals all wounds. But not this one. Not yet.\n\nI don't stir, but through my half-lidded, sleepy eyes, I see Day sit up in bed beside me and bury his face in his arms. He's breathing heavily. Seven minutes later he gets up quietly, casts one last glance in my direction, and disappears out the balcony doors. He's as silent as ever, and if him waking up from his nightmare hadn't roused me, he would easily have left my room without my ever knowing.\n\nBut I do know, and this time I rise right after he leaves. I throw on some clothes, pull on my boots, and head out after him. The cool air washes over my face, and moonlight drenches the whole night in dark silver.\n\nEven in his deteriorating condition, he's still fast when he wants to be. By the time I catch up with him at Union Station and follow him through the streets of downtown, my heart is pounding steadily in the way it does after a thorough workout. By now, I already know where he's going. He's returning to his family's old home. I look on as he finally reaches the intersection of Watson and Figueroa, turns the corner, and heads inside a tiny, boarded-up house with a faded X still painted on its door.\n\nJust being back here makes me dizzy with the memory. I can't imagine how much worse it must be for Day. Gingerly I make my way over to the boarded windows, then listen intently for him. He goes in through the back door\u2014I hear him shuffling around inside, his footsteps subdued and muffled, and then stop in the living room. I go from window to window until I finally find one that still has a crack between two of its wooden planks. At first I can't see him. But eventually I do.\n\nDay is sitting at the living room table with his head in his hands. Even though it's too dark inside for me to make out his features, I can hear him crying. His silhouette trembles with grief, and his anguish is etched into every single crumpled, devastated muscle of his body. The sound is so foreign that it tears at my heart; I've seen Day cry, but I'm not used to it. I don't know whether I ever will be. When I reach up to my face, I realize that tears are running down my cheeks too.\n\nI did this to him... and because he loves me, he can never really escape it. He'll remember the fate of his family every time he sees me, even if he loves me, especially if he loves me.\n\nI finally return, bleary-eyed and exhausted, to june's bedroom just before dawn. She's still there, apparently undisturbed. I don't try to crawl back into bed beside her; instead, I collapse onto her couch and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep until the light strengthens outside.\n\nJune's the one who shakes me awake. \"Hey,\" she whispers. To my surprise, she doesn't comment on how red or puffy my eyes must look. She doesn't even seem shocked to wake up and find me lounging on her couch instead of in her bed. Her own eyes look heavy. \"I've... informed Anden about what you decided. He says a lab team will be ready to pick you and Eden up in two hours, at your apartment.\" She sounds grateful, weary, and hesitant.\n\n\"I'll be there,\" I mutter. I can't help staring vacantly off into space for a few seconds\u2014nothing seems real right now, and I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of fog where emotions and images and thoughts are all out of focus. I force myself off the couch and into the bathroom. There, I unbutton my shirt and splash water on my face and chest and arms. I'm afraid to look in the mirror this time. I don't want to see John staring back at me, with my own blindfold tight around his eyes. My hands are shaking so badly; the gash on my left palm is open again and bleeding, probably from the fact that I keep clenching that hand instinctively. Had June seen me leave? I shudder as I relive the memory of her standing there outside my mother's home, waiting at the head of a squadron of soldiers. Then I revisit the Chancellor's words to me, the precarious situation that June is in... that Tess is in, that Eden is in\u2014that we're all in.\n\nI splash water repeatedly on my face, and when that doesn't help, I jump in the shower and drown myself with scalding hot water. But it doesn't numb the images.\n\nBy the time I finally emerge from the bathroom, my hair still wet and my shirt half buttoned, I'm sickly pale and trembling. June watches me quietly as she sits on the edge of her bed, sipping a pale purple tea. Even though I know it's pointless to try hiding anything from her, I still give it a shot. \"I'm ready,\" I say with as genuine of a smile as I can muster. She doesn't deserve to see this sort of pain on my face, and I don't want her to think that she's the one causing it. She's not the one causing it, I angrily remind myself.\n\nBut June doesn't comment on it. She studies me with those deep dark eyes. \"I just got a call from Anden,\" she says, running a hand uncomfortably through her hair. \"They have some new evidence that Commander Jameson's the one responsible for passing along some military secrets to the Colonies. It sounds like she's working for them now.\"\n\nUnderneath my tidal wave of emotions, a deep hatred wells up. If it weren't for Commander Jameson, maybe everything would have been better between June and me\u2014and maybe our families would still be alive. I don't know. We'll never know. And now she's working for the enemy when she's supposed to be dead. I mutter a curse under my breath. \"Is there any way to know exactly where she is? Is she actually in the Republic?\"\n\n\"No one knows.\" June shakes her head. \"Anden says they're trying to see if anything on her can be tracked, but she must have long changed out of her prison clothing, and her boots' tracking chips must be gone by now. She'll have made sure of that.\" When June sees the frustration on my face, she grimaces in sympathy. Both of us, broken by the same person. \"I know.\" She puts her tea down and squeezes my uninjured hand.\n\nViolent flashbacks flicker through my memory at her touch\u2014I wince before I can stop myself. She freezes. For a second, I see the deep hurt in her expression. I quickly cover up my mistake by kissing her, trying to lose myself in the gesture as I did last night.\n\nBut I've never been the best liar, at least not around her. She takes a step away from me. \"Sorry,\" she whispers.\n\n\"It's okay,\" I say in a rush, irritated with myself at dragging our old wounds back to the surface. \"It's not\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, it is.\" June forces herself to face me. \"I saw where you went last night\u2014I saw you in there....\" Her voice fades away as she looks down in guilt. \"I'm sorry I followed you, but I had to know. I had to see that I was the one causing all of the grief in your eyes.\"\n\nI want to reassure her that it's not all because of her, that I love her so desperately that I'm terrified of the feeling. But I can't. June sees the hesitation on my face and knows it's a confirmation of her fear. She bites her lip. \"It's my fault,\" she says, as if it's just simple logic. \"And I'm not sure I will ever be able to earn your forgiveness. I shouldn't.\"\n\n\"I don't know what to do.\" My hands dangle at my sides, helpless. Terrible images from our past flash through my mind again\u2014my best attempts can't stop them. \"I don't know how to do it.\"\n\nJune's eyes are glossy with tears, but she manages to hold them in. Can one mistake really destroy a lifetime together? \"I don't think there's a way,\" she finally says.\n\nI take a step toward her. \"Hey,\" I whisper in her ear. \"We'll be okay.\" I'm not sure if it's true, but it seems like the best thing to say.\n\nJune smiles, playing along, but her eyes mirror my own doubt.\n\nThe second day of the Colonies' promised ceasefire.\n\nThe last place I want to return to is the lab floor of the Los Angeles Central Hospital. It's hard enough being there and seeing Tess contained behind glass walls, with chemicals being injected into her bloodstream. Now I'll be back there with Eden at my side, and I'll have to deal with seeing the same thing happen to him. As we get ready to head down to the jeep waiting in front of our temporary apartment, I kneel in front of Eden and straighten his glasses. He stares solemnly back.\n\n\"You don't have to do this,\" I say again.\n\n\"I know,\" Eden replies. He brushes my hand impatiently away when I wipe lint off his jacket's shoulders. \"I'll be fine. They said it wouldn't take all day, anyway.\"\n\nAnden couldn't guarantee his safety; he could only promise that they would take every precaution. And coming from the mouth of the Republic\u2014even a mouth that I've come to grudgingly trust\u2014that little cracked bit of reassurance means almost nothing. I sigh. \"If you change your mind at any point, you let me know, yeah?\"\n\n\"Don't worry, Daniel,\" he says, shrugging off the whole thing. \"I'll be fine. It doesn't seem that scary. At least you get to be there.\"\n\n\"Yeah. At least I get to be there,\" I echo numbly. Lucy fusses over his messy blond curls. More reminders of home, and of Mom. I shut my eyes and try to clear my thoughts. Then I reach out and tap Eden on the nose. \"The sooner they start,\" I say to him, \"the sooner it can all be over.\"\n\nMinutes later, a military jeep picks me up while a medic truck transports Eden separately to the Los Angeles Central Hospital.\n\nHe can do this, I repeat to myself as I reach the fourth-floor laboratory. I'm escorted by technicians to a chamber with thick glass windows. And if he can, then I can live through it. But still, my hands are sweaty. I clench them again in an attempt to stop their endless trembling, and a stab of pain runs through my injured palm. Eden's inside this glass chamber. His pale blond curls are messy and ruffled in spite of Lucy's efforts, and he's now wearing a thin red patient scrub. His feet are bare. A pair of lab technicians help him up onto a long, white bed, and one of them rolls up Eden's sleeves to take his blood pressure. Eden winces when the cool rubber touches his arm.\n\n\"Relax, kid,\" the lab tech says, his voice muffled by the glass. \"Just take a deep breath.\"\n\nEden murmurs a faint \"okay\" in response. He looks so small next to them. His feet don't even touch the floor. They swing idly while he stares off toward the window separating us, searching for me. I clench and unclench my hands, then press them against the window.\n\nThe fate of the entire Republic rests on the shoulders of my kid brother. If Mom, John, or Dad were here, they'd probably laugh at how ridiculous this whole thing is.\n\n\"He's going to be okay,\" the lab tech standing next to me mutters in reassurance. He doesn't sound very convincing. \"Today's procedures shouldn't cause him any pain. We're just going to take some blood samples and then give him a few medications. We've sent some samples to Antarctica's lab teams for analysis too.\"\n\n\"Is that supposed to make me feel better?\" I snap at him. \"Today's procedures shouldn't cause him any pain? What about tomorrow's?\"\n\nThe lab tech holds his hands up defensively. \"I'm sorry,\" he stammers. \"It came out wrong\u2014I didn't mean it like that. Your brother won't be in any pain, I promise. Some discomfort, perhaps, from the medicine, but we're taking every precaution we can. I, er, I hope you won't report this negatively to our glorious Elector.\"\n\nSo, that's what he's worried about. That if I'm upset, I'm going to run to Anden and whine. I narrow my eyes at him. \"If you don't give me a reason to report anything bad, then I won't.\"\n\nThe lab tech apologizes again, but I'm not paying attention to him anymore. My eyes go back to Eden. He's asking one of the technicians something, although he's speaking quietly enough that I can't hear. The lab tech shakes his head at my brother. Eden swallows, looks back nervously in my direction, and then squeezes his eyes shut. One of the lab techs takes out a syringe, then carefully injects it into the vein of Eden's arm. Eden clenches his jaw tight, but he doesn't utter a sound. A familiar dull pain throbs at the base of my neck. I try to calm myself down. Stressing myself out and triggering one of my headaches at a time like this is not going to help Eden.\n\nHe chose to do this, I remind myself. I swell with sudden pride. When had Eden grown up? I feel like I blinked and missed it.\n\nThe lab tech finally removes the syringe, which is now filled with blood. They dab something on Eden's arm, then bandage it. The second technician then drops a handful of pills into Eden's open palm.\n\n\"Swallow them together,\" he tells my brother. Eden does as he says. \"They're a bit bitter\u2014best to get it all over with at once.\"\n\nEden grimaces and gags a little, but manages to wash the pills down with some water. Then he lies down on the bed. The technicians wheel him over to a cylindrical machine. I can't remember what the machine's called, even though they told me less than an hour ago. They slowly roll him inside it, until all I can see of Eden are the balls of his bare feet. I slowly peel my hands off the window. My skin leaves prints on the glass. A minute later, my heart twists in my chest as I hear Eden crying from inside the machine. Something about it must be painful. I clench my teeth so hard that I think my jaw might break.\n\nFinally, after what seems like an eternity, one of the lab techs motions for me to come inside. I immediately shove past them and enter the glass chamber to lean over Eden's side. He's sitting on the edge of the white bed again. When he hears me approach, he breaks into a smile.\n\n\"That wasn't so bad,\" he says to me in a weak voice.\n\nI just take his hand and squeeze it in my own. \"You did good,\" I reply. \"I'm proud of you.\" And I am. I'm prouder of him than I've ever been of myself\u2014I'm proud of him for standing up to me.\n\nOne of the lab techs shows me a screen with what looks like a magnified view of Eden's blood cells. \"A good start,\" he tells us. \"We'll work with this and try injecting Tess with a cure tonight. If we're lucky, she'll hang in there for another five or six days and give us some time to work with.\" The tech's eyes are grim, even though his words are pretty hopeful. The weird combination makes a chill run down my spine. I grip Eden's hand tighter.\n\n\"We don't have a lot of time left,\" Eden whispers to me when the lab techs leave us to talk in peace. \"If they can't find a cure, what are we going to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I admit. It's not something I really want to think about, because it leaves me feeling more helpless than I like. If we don't find a cure, there won't be any international military aid. If there's no aid, then we'll have no way to win against the Colonies. And if the Colonies overrun us... I recall what I saw when I was over there, and remember what the Chancellor had offered me. If you choose, we can work together. The people don't know what's best for them. Sometimes you just have to help them along. Isn't that right?\n\nI need to find a way to stall them while we work on a cure. Anything to slow the Colonies down, to give the Antarcticans a chance to come to our aid. \"We'll just have to fight back,\" I tell Eden, ruffling his hair. \"Until we can't fight back anymore. That's the way it always seems to be, yeah?\"\n\n\"Why can't the Republic win?\" Eden asks. \"I always thought their military was the strongest in the world. This is the first time I actually wish they were right.\"\n\nI smile sadly at Eden's na\u00efvet\u00e9. \"The Colonies have allies,\" I reply. \"We don't.\" How the hell do I explain it all? How do I tell him exactly how helpless I feel, standing by like a broken puppet while Anden leads his army in a battle they just can't win? \"They have a better army, and we just don't have enough soldiers to go around.\"\n\nEden sighs. His little shoulders slump in a way that chokes me up. I close my eyes and force myself to calm down. Crying in front of Eden at a time like this is way too embarrassing. \"Too bad everyone in the Republic isn't a soldier,\" he mutters.\n\nI open my eyes. Too bad everyone in the Republic isn't a soldier.\n\nAnd just like that, I know what I need to do. I know how to answer the Chancellor's blackmail, and how to stall the Colonies. I'm dying, I don't have many days left\u2014my mind is slowly falling apart, and so is my strength. But I do have enough strength for one thing. I have enough time to take one final step.\n\n\"Maybe everyone in the Republic can be a soldier,\" I reply quietly.\n\nLast night feels like a dream, every last detail of it. But this morning stands in stark contrast\u2014there is no mistaking the flinch I felt from Day when I touched his arm, the violent shudder that went through him at just a brush of my hand. My heart still hurts as I leave my apartment, headed for a parked jeep that will be waiting for me. A morning spent with the Senate. I try in vain to clear Day from my mind, but it's impossible. A Senate meeting feels so trivial right now\u2014the Colonies are gradually pushing our country back with the help of strong allies, Antarctica still refuses to help us, and Commander Jameson is at large. And here I'll sit, talking politics when I could be\u2014 should be\u2014out in the field, doing what I'm trained to do. What am I going to say to all of them, anyway? Are any of them even going to listen?\n\nWhat are we going to do?\n\nNo. I need to focus. I need to support Anden as he attempts, yet again, to negotiate with the Colonies' Chancellor and CEOs and generals. We both know that it won't get us anywhere.... The only thing that will make them budge is a cure. And even then, it might not be enough to hold the Colonies back. But still. We have to try. And perhaps he'll be up for helping the Patriots with their plans, especially if he knows how much Day will be involved in them.\n\nThe mere thought of Day brings back memories of last night. My cheeks turn hot, and I know it's not because of the warm Los Angeles weather. Stupid timing, I chide myself, and push last night from my thoughts. All around me, the usually busy streets of Lake are eerily empty, as if we're preparing for an oncoming storm. I suppose that's not so inaccurate.\n\nA prickling sensation suddenly travels up my spine. I stop for a moment, then frown. What was that? The streets still look deserted, but a strange premonition makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Someone is watching me. Immediately the idea feels too far-fetched, but as I walk, I tighten my jaw and let my hand rest on my gun. Maybe I'm being ridiculous. Perhaps the warning that Day had given me\u2014that the Colonies might use me against him or that they might have me in their sights\u2014is starting to play tricks on my mind. Still, no reason to throw caution to the winds. I lean against the closest building so that my back is protected, and call Anden. The sooner this jeep arrives, the better.\n\nAnd then I see her. I stop the call.\n\nShe wears a good disguise. (Weathered Republic attire that's supposed to be worn only by first-year soldiers, which means she looks unremarkable and easily missed; a soldier's cap pulled low over her face, with only a few dark red strands poking out from underneath it.) But even from this distance, I recognize her face\u2014cold and hard.\n\nCommander Jameson.\n\nI look casually away and pretend to dig around in my pockets for something, but inside, my heart pounds at a furious pace. She's here in Los Angeles, which means she somehow managed to escape the fighting in Denver and avoided the Republic's clutches. Is it too big a coincidence that she is where I am? Perhaps she is here because she knew that I would be here? The Colonies. There must be other eyes here. My hands shake as she passes me by on the other side of the street. She gives no indication of seeing me, but I know that she's noticed. On such an empty block, I should be impossible to miss\u2014and I'm not in disguise.\n\nWhen her back is finally turned to me, I cross my arms, tilt my head slightly downward, and call Anden on my earpiece again. \"I see her. She's here. Commander Jameson is in Los Angeles.\"\n\nMy voice sounds so quiet and mumbled that Anden has trouble making it out. \"You see her?\" he asks in disbelief. \"She's on the same block as you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I whisper. I'm careful to keep an eye on Commander Jameson's disappearing figure. \"She might be here intentionally, looking for where my jeep will take me or perhaps trying to locate you.\" As she pulls farther away, an overwhelming desire rises up in me to tag along. For the first time in a long time, my agent skills are calling out to me. Gone are politics; suddenly I've been thrust back in the field. When she turns a corner, I immediately abandon my spot and start heading after her. Where is she going? \"She's at Lake and Colorado,\" I whisper urgently to Anden. \"Turning north. Get some soldiers out here, but don't let her know you're following along. I want to see where she's going.\" Before Anden can say anything else, I end the call.\n\nI trail along the side of the buildings, careful to stay in the shadows as much as I can, and take a shortcut through one alley toward the street where I think Commander Jameson had gone. Instead of peering around the corner and potentially giving myself away, I instead huddle in the alley and calculate how much time has passed. If she kept up the same pace, and she stayed on this street, then she should have walked past this alley at least one minute ago. Carefully, I lean out until I can catch a quick glimpse of the street. Sure enough, she's already walked past me, and I can see the back of her figure hurrying away. This quick glimpse is also enough to tell me something else\u2014she's talking into her own mike.\n\nI wish Day were with me. He'd know instantly the best way to travel unseen through these streets. For a second I contemplate calling him, but for him to get here in time would be too much of a stretch.\n\nInstead, I follow Commander Jameson. I tail her for a good four blocks, until we enter a strip of Ruby that borders part of Batalla, where two or three pyramid Airship bases sit along the street. She makes a turn again. I hurry to turn with her\u2014but by the time I look down the street, she's gone. Perhaps she knew someone was following her; after all, Commander Jameson is much more experienced in this sort of tracking than I am. I look to the roofs.\n\nAnden's voice crackles in my earpiece. \"We lost her,\" he confirms. \"I've put out a silent alert to the troops there to search for her and report immediately back. She couldn't have gone far.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" I agree, but my shoulders sag. She'd disappeared without a trace. Who had she been talking to on her mike? My eyes scan the street, trying to figure out what she must have come here for. Maybe she's scouting. The thought unnerves me.\n\n\"I'm heading back,\" I finally whisper into my own mike. \"If my suspicions are correct, then we might have\u2014\"\n\nA whoosh of air\u2014a blinding spark\u2014something explodes before my eyes. I flinch and throw myself instinctively to the ground behind a nearby trash bin. What was that?\n\nA bullet. I look to the wall where it hit. A small chunk of brick is missing. Someone tried to shoot me. My sudden turn to go back the way I came must have been the only thing that saved my life. I start placing another frantic call to Anden. Blood rushes through my ears like a tidal wave of noise, blocking out logic and allowing the panic in. Another bullet sparks against the metal of the trash bin. There's no question now that I'm under attack.\n\nI click the call off. Where is Commander Jameson shooting from? Are there others with her? Colonies troops? Republic soldiers turned traitorous? I don't know. I can't tell. I can't hear and I can't see \u2014\n\nThrough my rising panic, Metias's voice materializes. Stay calm, Junebug. Logic will save you. Focus, think, act.\n\nI close my eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath, and allow myself a second to still my mind, to concentrate on my brother's voice. This is no time to fall apart. I have never let emotions get the best of me, and I'm not about to start now. Think, June. Don't be stupid. After over a year of trauma, after months and months of political bargaining, after days of war and death, I am starting to suspect everything and everyone. This is how the Colonies could tear us apart... not with their allies or weapons, but with their propaganda. With fear and desperation.\n\nMy panic clears. Logic sweeps back in.\n\nFirst, I yank my own gun out of its holster. Then I make an exaggerated gesture, like I'm about to dart out from behind the trash bin. Instead, I stay put\u2014but my feint is enough to provoke another bullet. Spark! It ricochets off the brick wall that my back is pressed up against. Instantly I glance at the mark it leaves and pinpoint where it might have come from. (Not from the roofs\u2014the angle isn't wide enough. Four, maybe five floors up. Not the building directly across from me, but the one right next to it.) I look over to the windows lining those floors. Several are open. At first I want to aim right back at those windows\u2014but then I remind myself that I might hit someone unintentionally. Instead, I study the building. It looks like either a broadcast station or a military hall\u2014it's close enough to the air bases that I wonder whether it's where the Airships are being monitored from.\n\nWhat is she up to that involves the air bases? Are the Colonies planning a surprise attack here?\n\nI click my mike back on. \"Anden,\" I whisper after I input his code. \"Get me out of here. Use my gun's tracking.\"\n\nBut my call has no time to go through. A split second later, another bullet cracks right above my head\u2014this time I flinch and flatten myself underneath the trash bin. When I open my eyes, I find myself staring straight into the cold eyes of Commander Jameson.\n\nShe grabs for my wrist.\n\nI bolt out from under the trash bin before she can reach me. I twist around to aim my gun at her, but she's already darted away. Her own gun's raised. Right away I can tell that she's not aiming to kill. Why? The question runs through my mind at lightning speed. Because the Colonies need me alive\u2014because they need me to bargain with.\n\nShe fires; I roll on the ground. A bullet misses my leg by inches. I hop onto my feet and aim at her again\u2014this time I fire. I miss her by a hair. She ducks behind the trash bin. At the same time I try to put a call through again. I succeed. \"Anden,\" I gasp into the mike as I turn tail and run. \"Get me out!\"\n\n\"Already on our way,\" Anden replies. I sprint around a corner right as I hear another shot fired behind me. It's the last one. Right on schedule, a jeep races toward me and screeches to a halt several feet away from me. A pair of soldiers pours out, shielding me while two others run out to the street toward Commander Jameson. I already know it's too late to catch her, though\u2014she must've made a run for it too. It's all over as quickly as it began. I hop into the jeep with the soldiers' help, then collapse against the seat as we speed away. Adrenaline washes through me. My entire body trembles uncontrollably.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" one of the soldiers asks, but his voice sounds far away. All I can think about is what the encounter meant. Commander Jameson had known I would wait at that block for my jeep; she must have lured me out in an attempt to capture me. Her presence at the Airship bases was no coincidence. She's feeding information to the Colonies about our rotations and locations here. There are probably other Colonies soldiers hiding amongst us too\u2014Commander Jameson is a wanted fugitive. She can't move around this easily without help. And with her experience, she could probably hold off a manhunt for her on these streets long enough for the Colonies to arrive. For the Colonies to arrive. They've targeted their next city, and it's going to be us.\n\nOver my earpiece, Anden's voice comes on again. \"I'm on my way,\" he says urgently. \"Are you all right? The jeep will take you straight to Batalla Hall, and I'll have a full guard on you\u2014\"\n\n\"She's feeding them information about the ports,\" I breathe into the mike before he can finish. My voice shakes as I say it. \"The Colonies are about to attack Los Angeles.\"\n\nI get the call about june as I'm sitting with eden. After a morning of experimentations, he's finally fallen asleep. Outside, clouds blanket the entire city in a bleak atmosphere. Good. I wouldn't know how to feel if it were a bright, sunny day, not with this news about Commander Jameson and the fact that she'd tried to shoot June out in the open on the streets. Clouds suit my mood just fine.\n\nWhile I wait impatiently for June to arrive at the hospital, I spend my time watching Tess through the glass of her room's window. The lab team still surrounds her, monitoring her vitals like a bunch of goddy vultures on an old nature show. I shake my head. I shouldn't be so hard on them. Earlier they let me put on a suit, sit inside next to Tess, and hold her hand. She was unconscious, of course, but she could still tighten her fingers around mine. She knows I'm here. That I'm waiting for her cure.\n\nNow the lab team looks like they're injecting her with some sort of formula mixed from a batch of liquid made from Eden's blood cells. Hell if I know what'll happen next. Their faces are hidden behind reflective glass masks, turning them into something alien. Tess's eyes stay closed, and her skin's an unhealthy yellow.\n\nShe has the virus that the Colonies spread, I have to remind myself. No, that the Republic spread. Damn this memory of mine.\n\nPascao, Baxter, and the other Patriots stay camped out at the hospital too. Where the hell else do they have to go, anyway? As the minutes drag on, Pascao takes a seat next to me and rubs his hands together. \"She's hanging in there,\" he mutters, his eyes lingering on Tess. \"But there have been reports of some other outbreaks in the city. Came mostly from some refugees. Have you seen the news on the JumboTrons?\"\n\nI shake my head. My jaw is tense with rage. When is June arriving? They said they were bringing her here over a quarter of an hour ago. \"Haven't gone anywhere except to see my brother and to see Tess.\"\n\nPascao sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. He's careful not to ask about June. I'd apologize to him about my temper, but I'm too angry to care. \"Three quarantine zones set up now in downtown. If you're still planning to execute your little stunt, we gotta move out within the next day.\"\n\n\"That's all the time we'll need. If the rumors we're hearing from June and the Elector are true, then this will be our best chance.\" The thought of parts of Los Angeles being cordoned off for quarantines sends a dark, uncomfortable nostalgia through me. Everything's so wrong, and I'm so tired. I'm so tired of worrying about it all, about whether or not the people I care about will make it through the night or survive the day. At the same time, I can't sleep. Eden's words from this morning still ring in my thoughts. Maybe everyone in the Republic can be a soldier. My fingers run along the paper clip ring adorning my finger. If June had gotten injured this morning, I wonder if the last shreds of my sanity would've vanished. I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread. I guess that's true in a pretty literal sense too\u2014my headaches have been relentless today, and I've grown used to the perpetual pain pulsing at the back of my head. Just a few months, I think. Just a few months, like the doctors said, and then maybe the medication will have worked enough to let me get that surgery. Keep hanging on.\n\nAt my silence, Pascao turns his pale eyes on me. \"It's gonna be dangerous, what you've told me,\" he says. He seems like he's treading carefully. \"Some civilians will die. There's just no way around it.\"\n\n\"I don't think we have a choice,\" I reply, returning his look. \"No matter how warped this country is, it's still their homeland. We have to call them to action.\"\n\nShouts echo from the hall beyond our own. Pascao and I both stop to listen for a second\u2014and if I didn't know any better, I'd swear it was the Elector. Weird. I'm not exactly Anden's biggest fan, but I've never heard him lose his temper.\n\nThe double doors at the end of the hall swing open with a bang\u2014suddenly, the shouts fill the hall. Anden storms in with his usual crowd of soldiers, while June keeps up beside him. June. Relief floods through my body. I hop to my feet. Her face lights up as I hurry over to her.\n\n\"I'm okay,\" she says, waving me off before I can even open my mouth. She sounds impatient about it, like she's spent the entire day convincing everyone else of the same thing. \"They're being overly cautious, bringing me here\u2014\"\n\nI could care less if they're being overly cautious. I cut her off and pull her into a tight embrace. A weight lifts from my chest, and the rest of my anger comes flooding in. \"You're the Elector,\" I snap at Anden. \"You're the damn Elector of the Republic. Can't you make sure your own goddy Princeps-Elect isn't assassinated by a prisoner you guys can't even seem to keep imprisoned? What kind of bodyguards do you have, anyway\u2014a pack of first-year cadets?\"\n\nAnden shoots me a dangerous look, but to my surprise, he stays silent. I pull away from June so I can hold her face in my hands. \"You're okay, right?\" I ask urgently. \"You're completely okay?\"\n\nJune raises an eyebrow at me, then gives me a quick, reassuring kiss. \"Yes. I'm completely okay.\" She casts a glance over at Anden, but he's too distracted talking to one of his soldiers now.\n\n\"Find me the men assigned to retrieve the Princeps-Elect,\" he snaps at the soldier. Dark circles line the skin under his eyes, and his face looks both haggard and furious. \"If luck hadn't been on our side, Jameson would have killed her. I've half a mind to label them all traitors. There's plenty of room in the firing squad yard for all of them.\" The soldier snaps to attention and rushes off with several others to do as Anden said. My own anger wanes, and a chill runs through me at how familiar his wrath feels. Like I'm looking at his father.\n\nNow he faces me. His voice turns calmer. \"The lab team tells me that your brother pulled through his experimentation so far very bravely,\" he says. \"I wanted to thank you again for\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't lay it on too thick,\" I interrupt with a raised eyebrow. \"This whole thing isn't over yet.\" After more days like today, where Eden's going to fade even faster from all the experiments, I might not be so polite. I lower my voice, making an effort to sound civil again. It's half working. \"Let's talk in private. Elector, I have some ideas to run by you. With this recent news from Commander Jameson, we might just have an opportunity to stir up some trouble for the Colonies. You, me, June, and the Patriots.\"\n\nAnden's eyes darken at that, and his mouth tightens in an uncertain frown as he scans his audience. Pascao's giant, ever-present grin doesn't seem to improve his mood. After a few seconds, though, he nods at his soldiers. \"Get us a conference room,\" he says. \"I want security cams off.\"\n\nHis soldiers scramble to do his bidding. As we fall into step behind him, I exchange a long glance with June. She's okay, she's unharmed. And yet, I'm afraid that she'll disappear if I'm careless enough to look away. I force myself to hold back on asking her about what happened until we're all in a private room\u2014and from the look on her face, she's also waiting for the right moment. My hand aches to hold hers. I keep that to myself too. Our dance around each other always seems like it's doomed to repeat itself over and over again.\n\n\"So,\" Anden says once we've settled into a room and his patrol has disabled all of the cams. He leans back in one of the chairs and surveys me with a penetrating look. \"Perhaps we should start with what happened to our Princeps-Elect this morning.\"\n\nJune lifts her chin, but her hands shake ever so slightly. \"I saw Commander Jameson in Ruby sector. My guess is that she was in the area to scout locations\u2014and she must have known where I would be.\" I marvel at how steady June sounds. \"I tailed her for a while, until we reached the strip of Airship bases that border Ruby and Batalla. She attacked me there.\"\n\nEven this short of a summary is enough to make me see red. Anden sighs and runs a hand through his hair. \"We suspect that Commander Jameson may have given some locations and schedules to the Colonies about Los Angeles Airship bases. She may have also attempted to kidnap Ms. Iparis for bargaining power.\"\n\n\"Does that mean the Colonies are planning to attack LA?\" Pascao asks. I already know his next thought. \"But that would mean it's true, Denver has fallen...\" He trails off at Anden's expression.\n\n\"We're receiving some early rumors,\" Anden replies. \"The word is that the Colonies have a bomb that can level the entire city. The only thing holding them back from using it is an international ban. They wouldn't want to finally force Antarctica to get involved, now would they?\" Since when did Anden become so sarcastic? \"At any rate, if they attack now, we will be hard-pressed to have a cure ready to show Antarctica before the Colonies overwhelm us. We can defend against them. We can't defend against them and Africa.\"\n\nI hesitate, then bring up the thoughts that have been churning in my mind. \"I talked to Eden this morning, during his experimentation. He gave me an idea.\"\n\n\"And what's that?\" June asks.\n\nI look at her. Still as lovely as ever, but even June is starting to show the stress from this invasion, her shoulders slightly hunched. My eyes turn back to Anden. \"Surrender,\" I say.\n\nHe hadn't expected that. \"You want me to raise the white flag to the Colonies?\"\n\n\"Yes, surrender.\" I lower my voice. \"Yesterday afternoon, the Colonies' Chancellor made me an offer. He told me that if I could get the Republic's people to rise up in support of the Colonies and against the Republic soldiers, he'd make sure that Eden and I are protected once the Colonies win the war. Let's say that you surrender, and at the same time, I offer to meet the Chancellor to give him the answer to his request, that I'm going to ask the people to embrace the Colonies as their new government. You now have a chance to catch the Colonies off guard. The Chancellor already assumes you're going to surrender any day now, anyway.\"\n\n\"Faking a surrender is against international law,\" June mumbles to herself, although she studies me carefully. I can tell that she's not exactly against the idea. \"I don't know whether the Antarcticans will appreciate that, and the whole point of this is to persuade them to help us out, isn't it?\"\n\nI shake my head. \"They didn't seem to care that the Colonies broke the ceasefire without warning us, back when this all erupted.\" I glance at Anden. He watches me closely, his chin resting on his hand. \"Now you get to return the favor, yeah?\"\n\n\"What happens when you meet with the Chancellor?\" he finally asks. \"A false surrender can only last so long before we need to act.\"\n\nI lean toward him, my voice urgent. \"You know what Eden said to me this morning? 'Too bad everyone in the Republic can't be a soldier.' But they can.\"\n\nAnden stays silent.\n\n\"Let me mark each of the sectors in the Republic, something that will let the people know that they can't just lie down and let the Colonies take over their homes, something that will ask them to wait for my signal and remind them what we're all fighting for. Then, when I make the announcement that the Colonies' Chancellor wants me to make, I won't call on the people to embrace the Colonies. I'll call them to action.\"\n\n\"And what if they don't respond to your call?\" June says.\n\nI shoot her a quick smile. \"Have some faith, sweetheart. The people love me.\"\n\nIn spite of herself, June smiles back.\n\nI turn to Anden. Seriousness replaces my flash of amusement. \"The people love the Republic more than you think,\" I say. \"More than I thought. You know the number of times I saw evacuees around here singing patriotic Republic songs? You know how much graffiti I've seen over the last few months that support both you and the country?\" A note of passion enters my voice. \"The people do believe in you. They believe in us. And they will fight back for us if we call on them\u2014they'll be the ones ripping down Colonies flags, protesting in front of Colonies offices, turning their own homes into traps for invading Colonies soldiers.\" I narrow my eyes. \"They'll become a million versions of me.\"\n\nAnden and I stare at each other. Finally, he smiles.\n\n\"Well,\" June says to me, \"while you're busy becoming the Colonies' most wanted criminal, the Patriots and I can join in your stunts. We'll pull them on a national level. If Antarctica protests, the Republic can just say they were the actions of a few vigilantes. If the Colonies want to play dirty, then let's play dirty.\"\n\n1700 HOURS.\n\nBATALLA HALL.\n\n68\u00b0 F.\n\nI hate senate meetings. I hate them with a passion\u2014nothing but a sea of bickering politicians and talking heads, talking talking talking all the time when I could instead be out in the streets, giving my mind and body a healthy workout. But after the plan that Day, Anden, and I have concocted, there's no choice but to brief the Senate. Now I sit in the circular meeting chamber at Batalla Hall, my seat facing Anden from across the room, trying to ignore the intimidating looks from the Senators. Few events leave me feeling more like a child than Senate meetings.\n\nAnden addresses his restless audience. \"Attacks against our bases in Vegas have picked up since Denver fell,\" he says. \"We've seen African squadrons approaching the city. Tomorrow, I head out to meet my generals there.\" He hesitates here. I hold my breath. I know how much Anden hates the idea of voicing defeat to anyone, especially to the Colonies. He looks at me\u2014my cue to help him. He's so tired. We all are. \"Ms. Iparis,\" he calls out. \"If you please, I hand the floor over to you to explain your story and your advice.\"\n\nI take a deep breath. Addressing the Senate: the one thing I hate more than attending Senate meetings, made even worse by the fact that I have to sell them a lie. \"By now, I'm sure all of you have heard about Commander Jameson's supposed work for the Colonies. Based on what we know, it seems likely that the Colonies will hit Los Angeles with a surprise attack very soon. If they do, and the attacks on Vegas continue, we won't last for long. After talking with Day and the Patriots, we suggest that the only way to protect our civilians and to possibly negotiate a fair treaty is to announce our surrender to the Colonies.\"\n\nStunned silence. Then, the room bursts into chatter. Serge is the first to raise his voice and challenge Anden. \"With all due respect, Elector,\" he says, his voice quivering with irritation, \"you did not discuss this with your other Princeps-Elects.\"\n\n\"It was not something I had an opportunity to discuss with you before now,\" Anden replies. \"Ms. Iparis's knowledge comes only because she was unfortunate enough to experience it firsthand.\"\n\nEven Mariana, often on Anden's side, raises her voice against the idea. \"This is a dangerous negotiation,\" she says. At least she speaks calmly. \"If you are doing this to spare our lives, then I recommend you and Ms. Iparis reconsider immediately. Handing the people to the Colonies will not protect them.\"\n\nThe other Senators don't show the same restraint.\n\n\"A surrender? We have kept the Colonies off our land for almost a hundred years!\"\n\n\"Surely we're not all that weakened yet? What have they done, aside from temporarily winning Denver?\"\n\n\"Elector, this is something you should have discussed with all of us\u2014even in the midst of this crisis!\"\n\nI look on as each voice rises higher than the next, until the entire chamber fills with the sound of insults, anger, and disbelief. Some spew hatred over Day. Some curse the Colonies. Some beg Anden to reconsider, to ask for more international help, to plead for the United Nations to stop sealing our ports. Noise.\n\n\"This is an outrage!\" one Senator (thin, probably no more than a hundred and forty pounds, with a gleaming bald head) barks, looking at me as if I'm responsible for the entire country's downfall. \"Surely we're not taking direction from a little girl? And from Day? You must be joking. We'll hand the country over based on the advice of some damn boy who should still be on our nation's criminal list!\"\n\nAnden narrows his eyes. \"Careful how you refer to Day, Senator, before the people turn their backs on you.\"\n\nThe Senator sneers at Anden and raises himself up as high as he can. \" Elector,\" he says, his tone exaggerated and mocking. \" You are the leader of the Republic of America. You have power over this entire country. And here you are, held hostage to the suggestions of someone who tried to have you killed. \" My temper has begun to rise. I lower my head so that I don't have to look at the Senator. \"In my opinion, sir, you need to do something before your entire government\u2014and your entire population \u2014sees you as nothing but a cowardly, weak-willed, backroom-negotiating pushover bowing to the demands of a teenage girl and a criminal and a ragtag team of terrorists. Your father would have\u2014\"\n\nAnden jumps to his feet and slams his hand down on the table. Instantly the chamber turns silent.\n\n\"Senator,\" Anden says quietly. The man stares back, but with less conviction than he had two seconds ago. \"You are correct about only one thing. As my father's son, I am the Elector of the Republic. I am the law. Everything I decide directly affects who lives or dies.\" I study Anden's face with a growing sense of worry. His gentle, soft-voiced self is slowly disappearing behind the veil of darkness and violence inherited from his father. \"You'd do well to remember what happened to those Senators who actually plotted my failed assassination.\"\n\nThe chamber falls so quiet I feel like I can hear the beads of sweat rolling down the Senators' faces. Even Mariana and Serge have turned pale. In the midst of them all stands Anden, his face a mask of fury, his jaw tense, and his eyes a deep, brooding storm. He turns to me\u2014I feel an awful, electric shudder run through my body, but I keep my gaze steady. I am the only one in the chamber willing to look him in the eye.\n\nEven if our surrender is a fake one, one that the Senators aren't meant to understand, I wonder how Anden will deal with this group once it's all over.\n\nMaybe he won't have to. Maybe we'll belong to a different country, or maybe Anden and I will both be dead.\n\nIn this moment, sitting amongst a divided Senate and a young Elector struggling to hold them together, I finally see my path clearly. I don't belong. I shouldn't be here. The realization hits me so hard, I find it suddenly hard to breathe.\n\nAnden and the Senators exchange a few more tense words, but then it's all over, and we file out of the room, an uneasy crowd. I find Anden\u2014his deep red uniform a bright marker against the Senators' black\u2014in the hall and pull him aside. \"They'll come around,\" I say, trying to offer reassurance in a sea of hostility. \"They don't have a choice.\"\n\nHe seems to relax, if only for a second. A few simple words from me are enough to dissipate his anger. \"I know. But I don't want them to have no choice. I want them solidly behind me of their own will.\" He sighs. \"Can we speak in private? I've something to discuss with you.\"\n\nI study his face, trying to guess at what he wants to say, dreading it. Finally, I nod. \"My apartment's closer.\"\n\nWe head out to his jeep and drive in silence, all the way to my high-rise in Ruby sector. There, we make our way upstairs and enter my apartment without a word. Ollie greets us, as enthusiastic as ever. I close the door behind me.\n\nAnden's temper has long vanished. He looks around with a restless expression, then turns back to me. \"Do you mind if I sit?\"\n\n\"Please,\" I reply, taking a seat myself at the dining table. The Elector Primo, asking for permission to sit?\n\nAnden takes the seat beside me with all of his signature grace, and then rubs his temples with weary hands. \"I have some good news,\" he says. He tries to smile, but I can see how heavy it is. \"I've made a deal with Antarctica.\"\n\nI swallow hard. \"And?\"\n\n\"They've confirmed that they will send military support\u2014some air support for now, more ground support when we prove we've found a cure,\" Anden replies. \"And they will agree to treat Day.\" He doesn't look at me. \"In exchange for Dakota. I had no choice. I'm giving them our largest territory.\"\n\nMy heart jumps with an overwhelming sense of joy and relief\u2014and at the same time, it sinks with sympathy for Anden. He's been forced to fragment the country. Giving up our most precious resource; everybody in the world's most precious resource. It was inevitable. Every win comes with a sacrifice. \"Thank you,\" I say.\n\n\"Don't thank me yet.\" His wry smile quickly turns into a grimace. \"We are hanging by a thread. I don't know if their help will come fast enough. The word from the warfront is that we're losing ground in Vegas. If our plans with this phony surrender fail, if we don't find a cure soon, this war will be over before Antarctica's support ever arrives.\"\n\n\"Do you think finding a cure will make the Colonies stop?\" I ask quietly.\n\nAnden shakes his head. \"We don't have many options,\" he replies. \"But we have to hang on until help arrives.\" He falls silent for a moment. \"I head to the warfront in Vegas tomorrow. Our troops need it.\"\n\nRight into the thick of war. I try to stay calm. \"Are your Princeps-Elects going too?\" I ask. \"Your Senators?\"\n\n\"Only my generals will join me,\" Anden replies. \"You're not going to come, and neither are Mariana and Serge. Someone needs to hold firm in Los Angeles.\"\n\nAnd here's the meat of what he wants to tell me. My mind spins over what I know he'll say next.\n\nAnden leans on the table and threads his gloved fingers together. \"Someone needs to hold firm in Los Angeles,\" he repeats, \"which means one of my Princeps-Elects will need to take my place as an acting Elector. She would need to control the Senate, keep them in check while I'm away with the troops. I would select this person, of course, and the Senate would confirm it.\" A small, sad smile plays at the edges of his lips, as if he already knows what my answer will be. \"I've already spoken individually with Mariana and Serge about this, and they are both eager for my appointment. Now I need to know whether you are, as well.\"\n\nI turn my head away and look out the apartment window. The thought of becoming an acting Elector of the Republic\u2014even though my chances of being chosen pale in comparison to that of Mariana and Serge\u2014should excite me, but it doesn't.\n\nAnden watches me carefully. \"You can tell me,\" he finally says. \"I realize what a turning point this decision is, and I've sensed your discomfort for quite some time.\" He gives me a level stare. \"Tell me the truth, June. Do you really want to be a Princeps-Elect?\"\n\nI feel a strange emptiness. I had been contemplating this for a long time, my disinterest and weariness with the politics of the Republic, the bickering in the Senate, the fighting among Senators and the Princeps-Elects. I'd thought this would be hard to say to him. But now that he's here, waiting for my answer, the words come easily, calmly.\n\n\"Anden, you know that the role of a Princeps-Elect has been a huge honor for me. But as time goes on, I can tell that something's missing, and now I know what it is. You get to head off and lead your army against our enemies, while Day and the Patriots are fighting back against the Colonies in their own guerilla way. I miss being out in the field, working as a junior agent and relying on myself. I miss the days when things were straightforward instead of political, when I could easily sense the right path and what I should do. I... miss doing what my brother helped train me to do.\" I hold my gaze steady. \"I'm sorry, Anden, but I don't know whether I'm cut out to be a politician. I'm a soldier. I don't think you should consider me as a temporary Elector in your absence, and I'm not sure whether I should continue on as your Princeps-Elect.\"\n\nAnden searches my eyes. \"I see,\" he finally says. Although there's a twinge of sadness in his voice, he seems to agree. If there's one thing Anden excels at, even more than Day, it's understanding where I'm coming from.\n\nA moment later, I see another emotion in his eyes\u2014envy. He's envious that I have the choice to step away from the world of politics, that I can turn to something else, when Anden will forever and always be our Elector, someone the country needs to lean on. He can never step away with a clean conscience.\n\nHe clears his throat. \"What do you want to do?\"\n\n\"I want to join the troops in the streets,\" I reply. I'm so sure of my decision this time, so excited by the prospect, that I can hardly bear it. \"Send me back out there. Let me fight.\" I lower my voice. \"If we lose, then none of the Princeps-Elects will matter anyway.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Anden says, nodding. He looks around the room with an uncertain expression, and behind his brave front I can see the boy king in him struggling to hold on. Then he notices a rumpled coat hanging at the foot of my bed. He lingers on it.\n\nI'd never bothered to put Day's coat away.\n\nAnden finally looks away from it. I don't need to tell him that Day had spent the night\u2014I can already see the realization on his face. I blush. I have always been good at hiding my emotions, but this time I'm embarrassed that something about that night\u2014the heat of Day's skin against mine, the touch of his hand smoothing my hair away from my face, the brush of his lips against my neck\u2014will show up in my eyes.\n\n\"Well,\" he says after a long pause. He gives me a small, sad smile, then rises. \"You are a soldier, Ms. Iparis, through and through\u2014but it has been an honor to see you as a Princeps-Elect.\" The Elector of the Republic bows to me. \"Whatever happens from here, I hope you remember that.\"\n\n\"Anden,\" I whisper. The memory of his dark, furious face in the Senate chamber comes back to me. \"When you're in Vegas, promise me that you'll stay yourself. Don't turn into someone you're not. Okay?\"\n\nHe may not have been surprised by my answer, or by Day's coat. But this seems to catch him off guard. He blinks, confused for a second. Then he understands. He shakes his head. \"I have to go. I have to lead my men, just like my father did.\"\n\n\"That's not what I mean,\" I say carefully.\n\nHe struggles for a moment to find the next words. \"It's no secret how cruel my father was, or how many atrocities he committed. The Trials, the plagues...\" Anden trails off a little, the light in his green eyes turning distant as he dwells on memories of someone few of us had ever come to know. \"But he fought with his men. You understand this, perhaps more than anyone. He didn't hang back in a Senate chamber while he sent his troops off to die. When he was young and brought the country from a lawless mess to strict martial law, he was out in the streets and in front of his squadrons. He fought at the warfront itself, shooting down Colonies jets.\" Anden pauses to give me a quick look. \"I'm not trying to defend anything he did. But if he was anything, he was unafraid. He won his military's loyalty through action, however ruthless.... I want to boost our troops' morale too, and I can't do it while hiding out in LA. I'm\u2014\"\n\n\"You are not your father,\" I say, holding his gaze with my own. \"You're Anden. You don't have to follow in his footsteps; you have your own. You're the Elector now. You don't have to be like him.\"\n\nI think back on my own loyalty to the former Elector, of all the video footage of him shouting orders from the cockpit of a fighter jet, or heading up tanks in the streets. He was always on the front lines. He was fearless. Now, as I look at Anden, I can see that same fearlessness burning steadily in his eyes, his need to assert himself as a worthy leader of his country. When his father was young, perhaps he had also been like Anden\u2014idealistic, full of hopes and dreams, of the noblest intentions, brave and driven. How had he slowly twisted into the Elector who created such a dark nation? What path had he chosen to follow? Suddenly, for however brief a second, I feel like I understand the former Republic. And I know that Anden won't go down that same road.\n\nAnden returns my look, as if hearing my unspoken words... and for the first time in months, I see some of that dark cloud lift from his eyes, the blackness that gives birth to his moments of furious temper.\n\nWithout his father's shadow in the way, he's beautiful.\n\n\"I'll do my best,\" he whispers.\n\nTHE SECOND NIGHT OF THE COLONIES' CEASEFIRE.\n\nWell, no point in returning home tonight. Pascao and I are gonna run through Los Angeles, marking doors and walls and alerting the people quietly to our cause, and we might as well do it from a central location like the hospital. Besides, I needed to sit with Eden for a while. An evening of blood tests haven't treated him well\u2014he's thrown up twice since I've been here. While a nurse rushes out of the room with a bucket in hand, I pour a glass of water for my brother. He guzzles it down.\n\n\"Any luck?\" he asks weakly. \"Do you know if they've found anything yet?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\" I take the empty glass from him and set it back on a tray. \"I'll check in with them in a little bit, though. See how they're doing. Better be worth all this.\"\n\nEden sighs, closes his eyes, and leans his head against the mountain of pillows stacked on his bed. \"I'm fine,\" he whispers. \"How's your friend? Tess?\"\n\nTess. She hasn't woken up yet, and now I find myself wishing that we could go back to when she was still able to shove the lab team around. I swallow hard, trying to replace my mental image of her sickly appearance with the sweet, cheery face I've known for years. \"She's asleep. Lab says her fever hasn't broken.\"\n\nEden grits his teeth and looks back at the screen monitoring his vitals. \"She seems nice,\" he finally says. \"From everything I've heard.\"\n\nI smile. \"She is. After all this is over, maybe the two of you can hang out or something. You'd get along.\" If we all pull through this, I add to myself, and then hurriedly banish the thought. Damn, every day it's getting harder and harder to keep my chin up.\n\nOur conversation ends after that, but Eden keeps one hand gripped tightly in my own. His eyes stay closed. After a while, his breathing changes into the steady rhythm of sleep, and his hand falls away to rest on his blanket. I pull the blanket up to cover him to his chin, watch him for a few more seconds, and then stand. At least he can still sleep pretty soundly. I don't. Every hour or so, for the last two days, I shake myself out of some gruesome nightmare and have to walk it off before attempting to sleep again. My headache stays with me, a constant, dull companion, reminding me of my ticking clock.\n\nI open the door and sneak out as quietly as I can. The hall's empty except for a few nurses here and there. And Pascao. He's been waiting for me on one of the hall's benches. When he sees me, he gets up and flashes me a brief grin.\n\n\"The others are getting into position,\" he says. \"We've got about two dozen Runners, all in all, already out there and marking the sectors. I think it's about time for the two of us to head out too.\"\n\n\"Ready to rouse the people?\" I say, half joking, as he leads me down the hall.\n\n\"The excitement of it all is making my bones ache.\" Pascao pushes open a set of double doors at the hall's end, ushers us into a larger waiting room, and then into an unused hospital room with the lights still turned off. He flicks them on. My eyes go immediately to something lying on the bed. It looks like a pair of suits, dark with gray outlines, both laid out neatly on top of the sterile blankets. Beside the suits is some kind of equipment that looks a little like guns. I glance at Pascao, who shoves his hands into his pockets. \"Check these out,\" he says in a low voice. \"When I was throwing ideas around this afternoon with Baxter and a couple of Republic soldiers, they loaned out these suits for us Runners. It should help you in particular. June says she uses suits and air launchers like these to get around the city quickly, without being detected. Here.\" He tosses me one. \"Throw this on.\"\n\nI frown at the suit. It doesn't look like anything particularly special, but I decide to give Pascao the benefit of the doubt.\n\n\"I'll be in the next room,\" Pascao says as he swings his own suit over his shoulder. He nudges my shoulder as he passes. \"With these things, we should have no trouble covering Los Angeles tonight.\"\n\nI start to warn him that, with my recent headaches and medications, I'm probably not strong enough to keep up with him around the entire city\u2014but he's already out the door, leaving me alone in the room. I study the suit again, then unbutton my shirt.\n\nThe suit's surprisingly featherweight, and fits comfortably from my feet all the way to my zipped-up neck. I adjust it around my elbows and knees, then walk around for a bit. To my shock, my arms and legs feel stronger than usual. Much stronger. I try a quick jump. The suit absorbs almost all of my weight's force, and without much effort I'm able to jump high enough to clear the bed. I bend one arm, then the other. They feel strong enough to lift something heavier than what I've been used to for the past several months. A sudden thrill rushes through me.\n\nI can run in this.\n\nPascao raps on my door, then comes back in with his own suit on. \"How's it feel, pretty boy?\" he asks, looking me over. \"Fits you nicely.\"\n\n\"What are these for?\" I reply, still testing my new physical limits.\n\n\"What do you think? The Republic usually issues these to their soldiers for physically taxing missions. There are special springs installed near joints\u2014elbows, knees, whatever. In other words, it'll make you a little acrobatic hero.\"\n\nIncredible. Now that Pascao's mentioned it, I can feel the very slight push and pull of some sort of spring along my elbows, and the subtle lift the springs give my knees whenever I bend them. \"It feels good,\" I say, while Pascao watches me with a look of approval. \"Really good. It feels like I can scale a building again.\"\n\n\"Here's what I'm thinking,\" Pascao says, his voice lowering again to a whisper. His lighthearted attitude fades. \"If the Colonies land their Airships here in LA after the Elector announces a surrender, the Republic will get its troops into position to stage a surprise attack on those Airships. They can cripple a hell of a lot of them before the Colonies even realize what we're up to. I'll lead the Patriots in with the Republic's teams, and we'll wire up some of the Airship bases to blow up ships that are docked on them.\"\n\n\"Sounds like a plan.\" I flex one of my arms gingerly, marveling at the strength that the suit gives me. My heart hammers in my chest. If I don't carry out this plan just right, and the Chancellor figures out what we're really up to, then the Republic will lose the advantage of our fake surrender. We only get one shot at this.\n\nWe slide open the hospital room's glass doors and head out onto the balcony. The night's cool air refreshes me, taking away some of the grief and stress of the last few days. With this suit, I feel a little like myself again. I glance up at the buildings. \"Should we test these things out?\" I ask Pascao, hoisting the air launcher on my shoulder.\n\nPascao grins, then tosses me a can of bright red spray paint. \"You took the words right out of my mouth.\"\n\nSo off we go. I scale down to the first floor so fast that I nearly lose my footing, and then make my way effortlessly to the ground. We split up, each covering a different section of the city. As I run my sector, I can't help but smile. I'm free again, I can taste the wind and touch the sky. In this moment, my troubles melt away and once again I'm able to run away from my problems\u2014I'm able to blend right in with the rust and rubble of the city, changing it into something that belongs to me.\n\nI make my way through Tanagashi sector's dark alleys until I come across landmark buildings, places where I know most people will have to pass by, and then take out my spray paint can. I write the following on the wall:\n\nLISTEN FOR ME.\n\nBelow that, I draw the one thing I know everyone will recognize as coming from me\u2014a red streak painted onto an outline of a face.\n\nI mark everything I can think of. When I'm finished, I use the air launcher to travel to a neighboring sector, and there, I repeat the entire process. Hours later, my hair drenched in sweat and my muscles aching, I make my way back to the Central Hospital. Pascao's waiting outside for me, a sheen of sweat across his own face. He gives me a mock salute.\n\n\"Care to race back up?\" he asks, flashing me a grin.\n\nI don't reply. I just start climbing, and so does he. Pascao's figure is nearly invisible in the darkness, a shapeless form that leaps and bounds each story with the ease of a natural Runner. I dash after him. Another story, and then another.\n\nWe make it back to the balcony that runs all along the tower's fourth floor. Inside lies the hospital wing we'd left from. Even though I'm out of breath and my head is pounding again, I made the run almost as fast as Pascao did. \"Hell,\" I mutter to him as we both lean against the railing in exhaustion. \"Where was this equipment when I was at my healthiest? I could've single-handedly destroyed the Republic without breaking a sweat, yeah?\"\n\nPascao's teeth shine in the night. He surveys the cityscape. \"Maybe it's a good thing you didn't have it. Otherwise there'd be no Republic for us to save.\"\n\n\"Is it worth it?\" I ask after a while, enjoying the cool winds. \"Are you really willing to sacrifice your life for a country that hasn't done much of anything for you?\"\n\nPascao stays silent for a moment, then lifts one arm and points toward some spot on the horizon. I try to make out what he wants me to see. \"When I was little,\" he replies, \"I grew up in Winter sector. I watched two of my little sisters fail the Trial. When I went to the stadium myself and had to take my own Trial, I almost failed too. I stumbled and fell on one of the physical jumps, you know. Ironic, don't you think? Anyway, one of the soldiers saw me fall. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. When I realized that no one else had seen me except for him, I begged him to let it go. He looked damn tortured, but he didn't record my fall. When I whispered my thanks, he told me that he remembered my two sisters. He said, 'I think two deaths in your family's enough.'\" Pascao pauses for a moment. \"I've always hated the Republic for what they did to the people I loved, to all of us. But sometimes I wonder whatever happened to that soldier, and what his life was like, and who he cared about, and whether or not he's even still alive. Who knows? Maybe he's already gone.\" He shrugs at the thought. \"If I look the other way and decide to let the Republic handle its own business, and then it falls, I guess I could just leave the country. Find a way to live somewhere else, hide out from the government.\" He looks at me. \"I don't really know why I want to stand on the hill with them now. Maybe I have a little bit of faith.\"\n\nPascao wants to explain himself further, like he's frustrated that he doesn't know how to put his answer into the right words. But I understand him already. I shake my head and stare out toward the Lake sector, remembering June's brother. \"Yeah. Me too.\"\n\nAfter a while, we finally head back inside the hospital. I take off the suit and change back into my own clothes. Plan's supposed to kick into effect starting with Anden's surrender announcement. After that, it's all one day at a time. Anything could change.\n\nWhile Pascao heads off to get some rest, I retrace my steps down the hall and back toward Eden's room, wondering if the lab teams have sent up any new results for us to look at. As if they've read my mind, I see a few of them clustered outside Eden's door when I arrive. They're talking in hushed tones. The serenity I'd felt during our brief night run fades away.\n\n\"What is it?\" I ask. I can already see the tension in their eyes. My chest knots up at the sight. \"Tell me what's happened.\"\n\nFrom behind the clear plastic of his hood, one of the lab techs tells me, \"We received some data from the Antarctican lab team. We think we've managed to synthesize something from your brother's blood that can almost act as a cure. It's working\u2014to a degree.\"\n\nA cure! A rush of energy courses through me, leaving me dizzy with relief. I can't help letting a smile spill onto my face. \"Have you told the Elector yet? Does it work? Can we start using it on Tess?\"\n\nThe lab tech stops me before I can go on. \"Almost act as a cure, Day,\" he repeats.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The Antarctican team confirmed that the virus has likely mutated from the original one Eden developed immunity to, or that it may have combined its genome with another genome along the way. Your brother's T cells have the ability to shift along with this aggressive virus; in our samples, one of the cures we've developed seems to work partially\u2014\"\n\n\"So I can understand you,\" I say impatiently.\n\nThe lab tech scowls at me, as if I might infect him with my attitude. \"We're missing something,\" he says with an indignant sigh. \"We're missing a component.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, you're missing something?\" I demand. \"What are you missing?\"\n\n\"Somewhere along the way, the virus that's causing our current outbreaks mutated from its original Republic plague virus and combined with another virus. There's something missing along the way, as a result. We think it may have mutated in the Colonies, perhaps quite a while ago. Months ago, even.\"\n\nMy heart sinks as I realize what they're trying to tell me. \"Does that mean the cure won't work yet?\"\n\n\"It's not only that the cure won't work yet. It's that we don't know if we can ever get it to work. Eden's not Patient Zero for this thing.\" The lab tech sighs again. \"And unless we can find the person who this new virus mutated from, I'm not sure we'll ever create a cure.\"\n\nI awake to the sound of a siren wailing across our apartment complex. It's the air raid alarm. For a second, I'm back in Denver, sitting with Day at a little lantern-lit caf\u00e9 while sleet falls all around us, listening to him tell me that he's dying. I'm back in the panicked, chaotic streets as the siren shrieks at us\u2014we're holding hands, running for shelter, terrified.\n\nGradually, my room fades into reality and the siren wails on. My heart begins to pound. I jump out of bed, pause to comfort a whining Ollie, then rush to turn on my screen. News headlines blare out, fighting with the siren\u2014and running along the bottom of the screen is an angry, red warning."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "SEEK COVER",
+                "text": "I scan the headlines."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "ENEMY AIRSHIPS APPROACHING LOS ANGELES'S LIMITS",
+                "text": "[ ALL TROOPS TO REPORT TO THEIR LOCAL ]\n\n[ HEADQUARTERS ]\n\n[ ELECTOR PRIMO TO MAKE EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT ]\n\nThey'd predicted that the Colonies would still take three more days before making a move on Los Angeles. It looks like they're ahead of schedule and preparing for the end of the three-day ceasefire, which means we need to put our plan ahead of schedule. I cover my ears from the siren, rush over to the balcony, and look out at the horizon. The morning light is still weak, and the cloudy sky makes it difficult for me to see properly, but even so, the dots lining up above California's mountain skyline are unmistakable. My breath catches in my throat.\n\nAirships. Colonies, African\u2014I can't quite tell from this distance, but there is no mistaking the fact that they are not Republic ships. Based on their position and speed, they will be hovering right over central Los Angeles before the hour's over. I click my mike on, then rush into the closet to throw on some clothes. If Anden's preparing to make an announcement soon, then it will undoubtedly be the surrender. And if that's the case, I'll need to join Day and the Patriots as quickly as I can. A fake surrender will only work for so long before it turns into a real one.\n\n\"Where are you guys?\" I shout when Day comes onto the line.\n\nHis voice sounds as urgent as mine. The echo of the siren sounds out from his side too. \"Eden's hospital room. You see the ships?\"\n\nI glance again at the horizon before lacing up my boots. \"Yes. I'm in. I'll be there soon.\"\n\n\"Watch the sky. Stay safe.\" He hesitates for two seconds. \"And hurry. We've got a problem.\" Then our call cuts off, and I'm out the door with Ollie close at my side, galloping like the wind.\n\nBy the time we reach the Central Hospital's lab floor in the Bank Tower and are ushered in to see Day, Eden, and the Patriots, the sirens have stopped. The sector's electricity must have been switched off again, and aside from the main government buildings like the Bank Tower, the landscape outside looks eerily black, swallowed nearly whole by damp morning shadows. Down the hall, the screens show an empty podium where Anden will be standing any minute now, poised to give a live national address. Ollie stays glued to my side, panting his distress. I reach down and pat him several times, and he rewards me with a lick of my hand.\n\nI meet Day and the others in Eden's room right as Anden appears onscreen. Eden looks exhausted and half conscious. He still has an IV hooked up to his arm, but aside from that, there are no other tubes or wires. Beside the bed, a lab tech is typing notes onto a notepad.\n\nDay and Pascao are wearing what look like dark Republic suits meant for physically demanding missions\u2014it's the same sort of suit I'd once worn back when I first needed to break Day out of Batalla Hall, when I spent a late night skimming building roofs in search of Kaede. Both of them are talking to a lab tech, and based on their expressions, they're not getting good news. I want to ask them for details, but Anden has stepped up to the podium already, and my words fade away as we turn our attention to the screen. All I hear is the sound of our breathing and the ominous, distant hum of approaching Airships.\n\nAnden looks composed; and even though he's only a year older than the first time I met him, the weight and gravity on his face make him look much more mature than he actually is. Only the slight clench of his jaw reveals a hint of his real emotions. He's dressed in solid white, with silver epaulettes on his shoulders and a gold Republic seal pinned near the collar of his military coat. Behind him are two flags: One is the Republic's, while the other is blank, white, devoid of color. I swallow hard. It's a flag I know well from all my studies, but one that I've never seen used. We all knew this was coming, we had planned this and we know it's not real\u2014but even so, I can't help feeling a deep, dark sense of grief and failure. As if we are truly handing our country over to someone else.\n\n\"Soldiers of the Republic,\" Anden begins addressing the soldiers surrounding him at the base. As always, his voice is at once soft and commanding, quiet but clear. \"It is with a heavy heart that I come to you today with this message. I have already relayed these same words to the Chancellor of the Colonies.\" He pauses for a moment, as if gathering his strength. I can only imagine that for him, even faking such a gesture must weigh on him far more than it already does on me. \"The Republic has officially surrendered to the Colonies.\"\n\nSilence. The base, filled with noise and chaos only a few minutes ago, is now suddenly still\u2014every soldier frozen, listening in disbelief.\n\n\"We are now to cease all military activity against the Colonies,\" Anden continues, \"and within the next day, we will meet with the Colonies' leading officials to draft official surrender terms.\" He pauses, letting the weight settle over the entire base. \"Soldiers, we will continue to update you on information regarding this as we proceed.\" Then the transmission stops. He doesn't end with Long live the Republic. A chill runs through me when the screens are replaced with an image of, not the Republic flag, but the Colonies'.\n\nThey are doing a stellar job of making this surrender look convincing. I hope the Antarcticans are going to keep their word. I hope help is on the way.\n\n\"Day, we don't have much time to get these bases ready to blow,\" Pascao mutters to us as the address stops. The three Republic soldiers with us are geared up in a similar fashion, all ready to guide them to where the air bases will be wired. \"You're gonna have to buy us some time. News is that the Colonies will start landing their Airships at our bases in a few hours.\"\n\nDay nods. As Pascao turns away to rattle off some directions to the soldiers, Day's eyes flicker to me. In them, I see a strained sense of fear that makes my stomach churn. \"Something's gone wrong with the cure, hasn't it?\" I ask. \"How's Eden doing?\"\n\nDay sighs, running a hand through his hair, and then looks down at his brother. \"He's hanging in there.\"\n\n\"But...?\"\n\n\"But the problem is that he isn't Patient Zero. They said they're missing something from his blood.\"\n\nI look at the fragile boy in the hospital bed. Eden isn't Patient Zero? \"But what? What are they missing?\"\n\n\"It'd be easier to show you than try to explain it. Come on. This is something we'll need to alert Anden about. What's the point of staging this whole surrender if we won't be able to get help from Antarctica?\" Day leads us out and down the hall. We walk in a tense silence for a while, until we finally stop in front of a nondescript door. Day opens it.\n\nWe step inside a room full of comps. A lab tech monitoring the screens rises when he sees us, then ushers us over. \"Time to update Ms. Iparis?\"\n\n\"Tell me what's going on,\" I reply.\n\nHe sits us down in front of a comp and spends several minutes loading up a screen. When he finally finishes, I see two side-by-side comparisons of some slides of what I assume are cells. I peer more closely at them.\n\nThe lab tech points to the one on the left, which looks like a series of small, polygonal particles grouped around a large central cell. Attached to the particles are dozens of little tubes sticking out of the cell. \"This,\" the lab tech says, circling the large cell with his finger, \"is a simulation of an infected cell that we're trying to target. The cell has a red hue to it, indicating that viruses have taken hold inside. If no cure's involved, this cell lyses\u2014bursts open\u2014and dies. Now, see these little particles around it? Those are simulations of the cure particles that we need. They attach to the outside of the infected cell.\" He taps the screen twice where the large cell is, and a short animation plays, showing the particles latching on to the cell; eventually, the cell shrinks in size and the color of it changes. \"They save the cell from bursting.\"\n\nMy eyes shift over to the comparison on the right, which also has a similarly infected cell surrounded by little particles. This time, I don't see any tubes for the particles to attach to. \"This is what's actually happening,\" the lab tech explains. \"We're missing something from our cure particles that can attach to the cell's receptors. If we don't develop that, the rest of the particles can't work. The cell can't come in direct contact with the medicine, and the cell dies.\"\n\nI cross my arms and exchange a frown with Day, who shrugs helplessly. \"How can we figure out the missing piece?\"\n\n\"That's the thing. Our guess is that this particular attaching feature wasn't a part of the original virus. In other words, someone specifically altered this virus. We can see traces of that marker on it when we label the cell.\" He points to tiny glowing dots scattered across the cell's surface. \"This might mean, Ms. Iparis, that the Colonies actually physically altered this virus. The Republic certainly has no records of tampering with this one in this specific fashion.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Day interrupts. \"This is news to me. Are you saying that the Colonies created this plague?\"\n\nThe lab tech gives us a grim look, then returns to the screen. \"Possibly. Here's the curious thing, though. We think this additional piece\u2014the attaching feature\u2014originally came out of the Republic. There's a similar virus that came out of a small Colorado town. But the tracers tell us that the altered virus came out of Tribune City, which is a warfront city on the Colonies side. So somewhere along that line, Eden's virus somehow came in contact with something else in Tribune City.\"\n\nThis is when the pieces of the puzzle finally fall into place for me. The color drains from my face. Tribune City: the city that Day and I had originally stumbled into when we first fled into the Colonies. I think back to when I'd gotten ill during my arrest in the Republic, how sick and feverish I'd been when Day carried us through that underground tunnel from Lamar all the way into the Colonies' territory. I'd been in a Colonies hospital for a night. They'd injected medicine into me, but I never considered the fact that they might have been using me for a different purpose. Had I been a part of an experiment without even realizing it? Am I the one holding the missing piece of the puzzle in my bloodstream?\n\n\"It's me,\" I whisper, cutting the lab tech short. Both he and Day give me a startled look.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" the lab tech asks, but Day stays silent. A look of realization washes over his face.\n\n\"It's me,\" I repeat. The answer is so clear that I can hardly breathe. \"I was in Tribune City eight months ago. I'd gotten ill while under arrest in Colorado. If this other virus you're talking about originated first in the Republic and then came back from Tribune City in the Colonies, then it's possible that the answer to your puzzle is me.\"\n\nJUNE'S THEORY CHANGES EVERYTHING.\n\nImmediately she joins the lab team in a separate hospital room, where they strap several tubes and wires to her and take a sample of her bone marrow. They run a series of scans that leave her looking nauseous, scans I've already seen being run on Eden. I wish I could stay. Eden's tests are over, thankfully, but the risk has now shifted to June, and in this moment all I want to do is stay here and make sure everything goes smoothly.\n\nFor chrissakes, I tell myself angrily, it's not like you being here is going to help anything. But when Pascao finally ushers us out the door and out of the hospital to join the others, I can't help but glance back.\n\nIf June's blood holds the missing piece, then we have a chance. We can contain the plague. We can save everyone. We can save Tess.\n\nAs we take a train from the hospital toward Batalla's Airship bases with several Republic soldiers in tow, these thoughts build in my chest until I can barely stand to wait around. Pascao notices my restlessness and grins. \"You ever been to the bases before? I seem to recall you doing a few stunts there.\"\n\nHis words trigger some memories. When I turned fourteen, I broke into two Los Angeles Airships that were set to head out for the warfront. I got in\u2014not unlike my stunt with the Patriots back in Vegas\u2014by sneaking in through the ventilation system, and then navigating the entire ship undetected by weaving my way through their endless air vents. I was still halfway through my growth spurt back then; my body was thinner and smaller, and I had no trouble squeezing my way through their myriad of tunnels. Once inside, I stole as much canned food from their kitchens as I could, then set fires in their engine rooms that destroyed the ships enough to ultimately cripple them from serving the Republic for years, maybe forever. It was this particular stunt that first landed me on top of the Republic's most wanted list. Not too bad a job, if I do say so myself.\n\nNow I think back on the bases' layouts. Aside from some Airship bases in Batalla sector, the four main naval bases in LA occupy a thin strip of land along the city's west coastline that sits between our enormous lake and the Pacific Ocean. Our battleships stay there, unused for the most part. But the reason that the Patriots and I head there now is that all of LA's Airship docks are there too, and it's where the Colonies will dock their Airships if\u2014when\u2014they try to occupy the city after our surrender.\n\nIt's the third and final day of the Colonies' promised ceasefire. As the train speeds through the sectors, I can see groups of civilians crowding around JumboTrons that are now running Anden's surrender notice on repeat. Most look stricken with shock, clinging to one another. Others are furious\u2014they throw shoes, crowbars, and rocks up at the screens and rage against their Elector's betrayal. Good. Stay angry, use that anger against the Colonies. I need to play out my part soon.\n\n\"All right, kids, listen up,\" Pascao says as our train nears the bridges leading to the naval bases. He holds out his palms to show us a series of small, metal devices. \"Remember, six per dock.\" He points to a small red trigger in the center of each device. \"We want clean, contained explosions, and the soldiers'll point out the best spots for us to plant these things. If done right, we'll be able to cripple any Colonies Airship using our landing docks, and an Airship with a messed-up landing bay is useless. Yeah?\" He grins. \"At the same time, let's not screw up the landing docks too much. Six per dock.\"\n\nI look away and back out the window, where the first naval base draws near on the horizon. Enormous pyramid landing bases loom in a row, dark and imposing, and I instantly think of the first time I'd seen them in Vegas. My stomach twists uneasily. If this plan fails, if we're unable to hold the Colonies back and the Antarcticans never come to our rescue, if June isn't what we need for the cure\u2014what will happen to us? What will happen when the Colonies finally get their hands on Anden, or June, or myself? I shake my head, forcing the images out of my mind. There's no time to worry about that. It'll either happen or it won't. We've already chosen our course.\n\nWhen we arrive at the first landing dock of Naval Base One, I can see enough of the inner city to notice the tiny, dark specks in the sky. Colonies troops\u2014Airships, jets, something\u2014are hovering not far from the outskirts of Los Angeles, preparing to strike. A low, monotonous hum fills the air\u2014guess we can already hear their ships' steady approach. My eyes turn up toward the JumboTrons lining the streets. Anden's announcement continues on, accompanied with a bright red Seek Cover warning running along the bottom of each screen.\n\nFour Republic soldiers join up with us as we hurry out of the jeep and inside the pyramid base. I keep close to them as they usher us up the elevators toward the looming inner roof of the base, where Airships take off and dock on. All around us is the deafening sound of soldiers' boots on echoing floors, rushing to their stations and preparing to take off against the Colonies. I wonder how many troops Anden had been forced to send off to Denver or Vegas for reinforcement, and I can only hope that we have enough left behind to protect us.\n\nThis isn't Vegas, I remind myself, trying not to think about the time when I'd let myself get arrested. But it doesn't help. By the time we've ridden our way up to the top of the base and climbed a flight of stairs up to the open top of the pyramid, my heart's pounding up a storm that's not all because of the exercise. Well, if this doesn't bring back memories of when I'd first started working for the Patriots. I can't stop studying the metal beams crisscrossing the interior underbelly of the base, all the little interlocking parts that will bind with an Airship once it lands. The dark suit I'm wearing feels as light as air. Time to plant some bombs.\n\n\"Do you see those beams?\" one Republic captain says to Pascao and me, pointing up to the shadows of the ceiling at one, two, three crevices that look particularly difficult to reach. \"Max damage to the ship, minimal damage to the base. We'll have you two hit those three spots at each of the bases. We'd be able to get to them ourselves if we set up our cranes, but we don't have time for that.\" He pauses to give us a forced smile. Most of these goddy soldiers still don't seem entirely comfortable working alongside us. \"Well,\" he says after an awkward pause, \"does that look doable? Are you guys fast enough?\"\n\nI want to snap at the captain that he's forgotten my reputation, but Pascao stops me by letting out one of his loud, sparkling laughs. \"You don't have enough faith in us, do you?\" he says, nudging the captain playfully in the ribs and smirking at the indignant blush that he gets back.\n\n\"Good,\" the captain replies stiffly before moving on with the other Patriots and his own patrol. \"Hurry. We don't have long.\" He leaves us to our work, then starts dictating bomb-planting spots to the others.\n\nOnce he's gone, Pascao drops his giant grin and concentrates on the crevices that the captain had pointed out. \"Not easy to reach,\" he mutters. \"You sure you're up for this? You strong enough, seeing as how you're dying and all?\"\n\nI cast him a withering glare, then study each of the crevices in turn. I test my knees and elbows, trying to gauge how much strength I have. Pascao's a bit taller than me\u2014he'll be able to handle the first two crevices best, but the third crevice is wedged in such a tight position that I know only I can get to it. I can also see right away why the captain pointed that spot out. Even if we didn't plant six bombs along this side of the base, we'd probably disable any Airship with a single bomb on that location. I point to it.\n\n\"I'll take that one,\" I say.\n\n\"You sure?\" Pascao squints at it. \"I don't want to watch you fall to your death on our very first base.\"\n\nHis words coax a sarcastic smile out of me. \"Don't you have any faith in me at all?\"\n\nPascao smirks. \"A little.\"\n\nWe get to work. I take a flying leap from the stairs' ledge to the closest crisscrossing beam, and then weave myself seamlessly into the maze of metal. What a feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. The springs embedded in my suit's joints take a little getting used to\u2014but after a few jumps I grow into them. I'm fast. Really fast with their help. In the span of ten minutes, I've crossed a quarter of the base's ceiling and am now within striking distance of that crevice. Thin trickles of sweat run down my neck, and my head pulses with familiar pain. Below, soldiers pause to watch us even as all of the base's electronic tickers continue to run the surrender notice. They have no goddy clue what we're doing.\n\nI pause at the final leap, then make my jump. My body hits the crevice and slides snugly in. Instantly I pull out the tiny bomb, open its clip, and plant it firmly into place. My headache makes me dizzy, but I force it away.\n\nDone.\n\nI slowly make my way back along the beams. By the time I swing down onto the stairs again, my heart's pounding from adrenaline. I spot Pascao along the beams and give him a quick thumbs-up.\n\nThis is the easy stuff, I remind myself, my excitement giving way to an ominous anxiety. The hard part's going to be pulling off a convincing lie to the Chancellor.\n\nWe finish with the first base, then move on to the next. By the time we're done with the fourth base, my strength is starting to give way. If I was fully in my element, this suit could've made me damn near unstoppable\u2014but now, even with its help, my muscles ache and my breaths sound strained. As the soldiers now guide me into a room in the air base and prepare me to make my call and my broadcast, I'm silently grateful that I don't need to run any more ceilings.\n\n\"What happens if the Chancellor doesn't buy you?\" Pascao asks while the soldiers file out of the room. \"No offense, pretty boy, but you don't exactly have the best reputation for keeping your promises.\"\n\n\"I didn't promise him anything,\" I reply. \"Besides, he'll see my announcement go out to the entire Republic. He's going to think that everyone in the country will see me switch allegiances to the Colonies. It won't last. But it'll buy us some time.\" Silently, I hope to hell that we can figure out the final cure before the Colonies realize what we're doing.\n\nPascao looks away and out the room's window, where we can see Republic soldiers finishing up the last few bomb placements on the base's ceiling. If this fails, or if the Colonies realize the surrender's fake before we have time to do anything about it, then we're probably done.\n\n\"Time for you to make your call, then,\" Pascao mutters. He locks the door, finds a chair, and pulls it off to one corner. Then he settles down with me to wait.\n\nMy hands tremble slightly as I click my mike on and call the Colonies' Chancellor. For a moment, all I hear is static, and a part of me hopes that it somehow can't trace the name that had called me before, and that somehow I'll have no way of reaching him. But then the static ends, the call clears, and I hear it connect. I greet the Chancellor.\n\n\"This is Day. Today is the last day of your promised ceasefire, yeah? And I have an answer to your request.\"\n\nA few seconds drag by. Then, that crisp, businesslike voice comes on the other end. \"Mr. Wing,\" the Chancellor says, as polite and pleasant as ever. \"Right on time. How lovely to hear from you.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you've seen the Elector's announcement by now,\" I reply, ignoring his niceties.\n\n\"I have, indeed,\" the man replies. I hear some shuffling of papers in the background. \"And now with your call, this day is looking to be full of good surprises. I'd been wondering when you would contact us again. Tell me, Daniel, have you given some thought to my proposal?\"\n\nFrom across the room, Pascao's pale eyes lock on to mine. He can't hear the conversation, but he can see the tension on my face. \"I have,\" I reply after a pause. Gotta make myself sound realistic and reluctant, yeah? I wonder if June would approve.\n\n\"And what have you decided? Remember, this is entirely up to you. I won't force you to do anything you don't wish to do.\"\n\nYeah. I don't have to do anything\u2014I'll just have to stand by and watch while you destroy the people I love. \"I'll do it.\" Another pause. \"The Republic's already surrendered. The people aren't happy about your presence, but I don't want to see them harmed. I don't want to see anyone harmed.\" I know I don't have to mention June by name for the Chancellor to understand. \"I'll make a citywide announcement. We got access to the JumboTrons through the Patriots. It won't be long before that announcement hits all the screens in the entire Republic.\" I kick in a little more attitude to keep my lie authentic. \"That good enough for you to keep your goddy hands off June?\"\n\nThe Chancellor claps his hands once. \"Done. If you're willing to become our... spokesman, so to speak, then I assure you that Ms. Iparis will be spared the trials and executions that come with an overturning of power.\"\n\nHis words send a chill through me, reminding me that if we do fail, then what I'm going to do isn't going to save Anden's life. In fact, if we fail, the Chancellor will probably figure out that I'm behind all this too, and there goes June's... and probably Eden's... chances at safety. I clear my throat. Across the room, Pascao's face has turned stony with tension. \"And my brother?\"\n\n\"You need not worry about your brother. As I mentioned to you before, I am not a tyrant. I will not hook him up to a machine and pump him full of chemicals and poisons\u2014I will not experiment on him. He\u2014and you\u2014will live a comfortable, safe life, free from harm and worry. This, I can guarantee you.\" The Chancellor's tone changes to what he thinks is soothing and gentle. \"I can hear the unhappiness in your voice. But I do nothing except what is necessary. If your Elector imprisoned me, he would not hesitate to execute me. This is the way of the world. I am not a cruel man, Daniel. Remember, the Colonies are not responsible for your lifetime of suffering.\"\n\n\"Don't call me Daniel.\" My voice comes out low and quiet. I am not Daniel to anyone outside of my family. I am Day. Plain and simple.\n\n\"My apologies.\" He actually sounds genuinely sorry. \"I hope you understand what I'm saying, Day.\"\n\nI remain silent for a moment. Even now, I can still feel the pull against the Republic, all of the dark thoughts and memories that whisper to me to turn my back, to let it all crumble to pieces. The Chancellor can gauge me better than I would've thought. A lifetime of suffering is hard to leave behind. As if she can sense the dangerous pull of the Chancellor's spell, I hear June's voice cut through this train of thoughts and whisper something to me. I close my eyes and cling to her, drawing strength from her.\n\n\"Tell me when you want me to make this announcement,\" I say after a while. \"Everything's wired up and ready to go. Let's get this whole thing over with.\"\n\n\"Wonderful.\" The Chancellor clears his throat, suddenly sounding like a businessman again. \"The sooner, the better. I will land with my troops at the outer naval bases of Los Angeles by early afternoon. Let's arrange for you to speak at that time. Shall we?\"\n\n\"Done.\"\n\n\"And one more thing,\" the Chancellor adds as I'm about to hang up. I stiffen, my tongue poised to click my mike off. \"Before I forget.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I want you to make the announcement from the deck of my Airship.\"\n\nStartled, I glance at Pascao, and even though he has no idea what the Chancellor just said, he frowns at the way my face has just drained of color. From the Chancellor's Airship? Of course. How could we think he'd be that easy to fool? He's taking precautions. If something goes wrong during the announcement, then he'll have me in his grip. If I make an announcement that's anything other than telling the Republic people to bow down to the Colonies, he could kill me right there on the Airship's deck, surrounded by his men.\n\nWhen the Chancellor speaks again, I can sense the satisfaction in his voice. He knows exactly what he's doing. \"Your words will be more meaningful if given right from a Colonies Airship, don't you agree?\" he says. He claps his hands once again. \"We'll expect you at Naval Base One in a few hours. Looking forward to meeting you in person, Day.\"\n\nThe revelation about my connection to this plague changes all of my plans.\n\nInstead of heading out with the Patriots and helping Day set up the Airship bases, I stay behind at the hospital, letting the lab teams hook me up to machines and run a series of tests on me. My daggers and gun lie on a nearby dresser, so that they won't get in the way of all the wires, and only one knife stays tucked along my boot. Eden sits in bed beside me, his skin sickly pale. Several hours in, and the nausea has begun to hit.\n\n\"The first day's the worst,\" Eden says to me with an encouraging smile. He speaks slowly, likely from the medication the lab team gave him to help him sleep. \"It gets better.\" He leans over and pats my hand, and I find myself warming to his innocent compassion. This must be what Day was like when he was young.\n\n\"Thanks,\" I reply. I don't speak the rest of my thoughts aloud, but I cannot believe that a child like Eden was able to tolerate this sort of testing for days. Had I known, I might have done what Day originally wanted and refused Anden's request altogether.\n\n\"What happens if they find out that you match?\" Eden asks after a while. His eyes have started to droop, and his question comes out slurred.\n\nWhat happens, indeed? We have a cure. We can present the results to Antarctica and prove to them that the Colonies deliberately used this virus; we can present it to the United Nations and force the Colonies back. We'll have our ports opened up again. \"The Antarcticans promise that help is on the way,\" I decide to say. \"We might win. Just maybe.\"\n\n\"But the Colonies are already at our doorstep.\" Eden glances toward the windows, where our enemy's Airships are now dotting the sky. Some have already docked at our bases, while others loom overhead. A shadow cast across our own Bank Tower building tells me that one is hovering over us right now. \"What if Daniel fails?\" he whispers, fighting back sleep.\n\n\"We just have to play it all carefully.\" But Eden's words make my gaze linger on the cityscape too. What if Day does fail? He told me as he left that he would contact us before his broadcast to the public. Now, seeing how close the Colonies' Airships are, I feel an overwhelming sense of frustration that I can't be out there with them. What if the Colonies realize that the Airship bases are all rigged? What if they don't come back?\n\nAnother hour passes. While Eden falls into a deep slumber, I stay awake and try to will away the nausea rolling over me in waves. I keep my eyes closed. It seems to help.\n\nI must have fallen asleep, because suddenly I'm awakened by the sound of our door opening. The lab techs have finally returned. \"Ms. Iparis,\" one of them says, adjusting his MIKHAEL name tag. \"It wasn't a perfect match, but it was close\u2014close enough that we were able to develop a solution. We're testing the cure on Tess now.\" He's unable to keep a grin from crossing his face. \"You were the missing piece. Right under our noses.\"\n\nI stare at him without saying a word. We can send results to Antarctica \u2014the thought rushes through my mind. We can ask for help. We can stop the plague's spread. We have a chance against the Colonies.\n\nMikhael's companions start unhooking me from my tangle of wires, and then help me to my feet. I feel strong enough, but the room still sways. I'm not sure whether my unsteadiness is from the tests' side effects or the thought that this might all have worked. \"I want to see Tess,\" I say as we start heading for the door. \"How quickly will the cure start working?\"\n\n\"We're not sure,\" Mikhael admits as we enter a long hall. \"But our simulations are solid, and we ran several lab cultures with infected cells. We should start seeing Tess's health improve very soon.\"\n\nWe stop at the long glass windows of Tess's room. She lies in a delirious half sleep on her bed, and all around her are lab techs rushing about in full suits, monitors dictating her vital signs, charts and graphs beamed against the walls. An IV's injected into one of her arms. I study her face, searching for some sign of consciousness, and fail to find it.\n\nStatic in my earpiece. An incoming call. I frown, press a hand to my ear, and then click my mike on. A second later, I hear Day's voice. \"Are you okay?\" His first thought. Of course it is. The static is so severe that I can hardly understand what he's saying.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" I reply, hoping he can hear me. \"Day, listen to me\u2014we've found a cure.\"\n\nNo reply, just static, loud and unrelenting. \"Day?\" I say again, and on the other side I hear some crackling, something like the desperation to communicate with me. But I can't get us hooked up. Unusual. The reception on these military bands is usually crystal clear. It's as if something else is blocking all of our frequencies. \"Day?\" I try again.\n\nI finally catch his voice again. It holds a tension that reminds me of when he'd chosen to walk away from me so many months ago. It sends a river of dread through my veins. \"I'm giving\u2014announcement on board a Colonies Airship\u2014ellor won't have it any other way\u2014\"\n\nOn board a Colonies Airship. The Chancellor would hold all the cards in that case\u2014if Day were to make a sudden move, or make an announcement that went against what they agreed to, the Chancellor could have him arrested or murdered right on the spot. \"Don't do it,\" I whisper automatically. \"You don't have to go. We've found the cure, I was the missing piece of the puzzle.\"\n\n\"\u2014June?\u2014\"\n\nThen no answer, just more static. I try again twice more before I click my mike off in frustration. Beside me, I can see the lab tech also trying in vain to make a call.\n\nAnd then I remember the shadow cast across the building we're in. My frustration fades immediately, followed by waves of terror and comprehension. Oh no. The Colonies. They're blocking our frequencies\u2014they've taken them over. I had not thought that they would make their move so quickly. I rush over to the window looking out at Los Angeles's cityscape, then turn my eyes skyward. I can see the enormous Colonies Airship that hovers overhead\u2014and when I look more closely, I notice that smaller planes are leaving its deck and circling lower.\n\nMikhael joins me. \"We can't reach the Elector,\" he says. \"It seems all the frequencies are jammed.\"\n\nIs this in preparation for Day's announcement? He's in trouble. I know it.\n\nJust as this thought crosses my mind, the doors at the end of the hall swing open. Five soldiers come marching in, their guns hoisted, and in a flash I can see that these are not Republic soldiers at all\u2014but Colonies troops, with their navy blue coats and gold stars. Panic rushes through me from head to toe. Instinctively I move toward Eden's room, but the soldiers see me. Their leader waves his gun at me. My hand flies to my gun strapped to my waist\u2014and then I remember that all of my weapons (save for one ankle knife) are lying useless back in Eden's room.\n\n\"With the Republic's surrender,\" he says in a grandiose voice, \"all reins of power have been transferred to Colonies' officials. This is your commander telling you to stand aside and let us pass, so that we can run a thorough search.\"\n\nMikhael throws up his hands and does as the official says. They draw closer. Memories whirl in my mind\u2014they're all lessons from my days at Drake, a stream of maneuvers that run through my head at the speed of light. I gauge them carefully. A small team sent up here to accomplish some specific task. Other teams must be swarming each of the floors, but I know these soldiers must have been sent up to us for something in particular. I brace myself, ready for a fight. It's me they're after.\n\nAs if he read my mind, Mikhael nods once at the soldiers. His arms stay up high in the air. \"What do you want?\"\n\nThe soldier answers, \"A boy named Eden Bataar Wing.\"\n\nI know better than to suck in my breath and thus give away that Eden's on this floor\u2014but a tidal wave of fear washes over me. I was wrong. They're not after me. They want Day's brother. If Day's forced to give his announcement on board the Chancellor's Airship, alone, he'll be helpless if the Chancellor decides to take him hostage\u2014and if he gets his hands on Eden, he'll be able to control Day at his every whim. My thoughts rush even further. If the Colonies truly succeed in taking over the Republic today, then the Chancellor could use Day indefinitely as his own weapon, as a manipulator of the Republic's people, for as long as the people continue to believe in Day as their hero.\n\nI open my mouth before Mikhael can. \"This floor just houses plague victims,\" I say to the soldier. \"If you're looking for Day's brother, he'll be on a higher floor.\"\n\nThe soldier's gun swivels to me. He narrows his eyes in recognition. \"You're the Princeps-Elect,\" he says. \"Aren't you? June Iparis.\"\n\nI lift my chin. \"One of the Princeps-Elects, yes.\"\n\nFor a moment, I think he might believe what I said about Eden. Some of his men even start shifting back toward the stairs. The soldier watches me for a long time, studying my eyes, and then looks down the hallway behind me, where Eden's room lies. I don't dare flinch.\n\nHe frowns at me. \"I know your reputation.\" Before I can think of anything else to say in order to throw him off, he tilts his head at his troops and uses his gun to gesture at the hall. \"Do a thorough search. The boy should be on this floor.\"\n\nToo late to lie now. If I owe Day anything, I owe him this. I shift into the space between the soldiers and the hallway. Calculations rush through my head. (The hallway is a little over four feet wide\u2014if I move into it, I can prevent the soldiers from attacking me all at once and break up my opponents into two smaller waves instead of one large one.) \"Your Chancellor won't want me dead,\" I lie. My heart pounds furiously. Beside me, the lab tech looks on with stricken eyes, unsure of what to do. \"He'll want me alive, and tried. You know this.\"\n\n\"Such big lies out of such a small mouth.\" The soldier hoists his gun. I hold my breath. \"Move out of the way, or I shoot.\"\n\nIf I didn't see the hint of hesitation on his face, I would've done as he asked. No use to Day or Eden if I'm just dead and gunned down. But the soldier's flash of uncertainty is all I need. I hold my arms up slowly and carefully. My eyes stay fixed on him. \"You don't want to shoot me,\" I say. I'm shocked at how firm my voice sounds\u2014not a ripple of fear in it, despite the adrenaline rushing through my veins. My legs sway a little, still a touch unsteady from the experiments. \"Your Chancellor doesn't sound like a forgiving man.\"\n\nThe soldier hesitates again. He doesn't know what the Chancellor has in mind for me. He has to give me the benefit of the doubt.\n\nWe hold our standoff for several long seconds.\n\nFinally he spits out a curse and lowers his gun. \"Get her,\" he snaps at his soldiers. \"Don't shoot.\"\n\nThe world zooms in at me\u2014everything fades, except for the enemy. My instincts kick into overdrive.\n\nLet's play. You have no idea who you're dealing with.\n\nI crouch into a fighting stance as the soldiers rush at me all at once. The narrowness of the hallway works instantly to my advantage\u2014instead of dealing with five soldiers at the same time, I only deal with two. I duck the first soldier's swing, rip my knife out from my boot, and slash his calf as viciously as I can. The blade tears effortlessly through both his pant leg and his tendon. He shrieks. Instantly his leg buckles, taking him to the floor in a thrashing heap. The second soldier rushing at me trips right over his falling comrade. I kick out at the second soldier's face, knocking him out, and step off from his back to lunge at the third soldier. He tries to punch me. I block his blow with one arm\u2014my other hand shoots up toward his face and smashes into his nose so hard that I feel the crunch of breaking bone. The soldier staggers backward once and falls, clutching his face in agony.\n\nThree down.\n\nMy advantage of surprise vanishes\u2014the last two soldiers take me on more warily. One of them shouts into his mike for backup. Behind them, Mikhael starts sneaking away. Even though I don't dare glance in his direction, I know that he must be moving to lock down the corridors in the stairwell, making it impossible for more Colonies soldiers to come swarming up. One of the remaining soldiers lifts his gun and points it at my legs. I kick out at him. My boot hits the barrel of his gun right as he fires it, sending a bullet ricocheting wildly over my shoulder. An alarm blares across the entire building's intercoms\u2014the stairwells are locked down, an alert's been sent out. I kick the gun again so that it arcs backward, hitting the soldier hard in the face. It stuns him momentarily. I spin and strike him hard in the jaw with my elbow\u2014\n\n\u2014but then something hits me hard in the back of my head. Stars explode across my vision. I stumble, falling to one knee, and struggle to swim up through my blindness. The second soldier must've struck me from behind. I swing out again, trying my best to guess at where the soldier is, but I miss and fall again. Through my hazy vision, I see the soldier raise the butt of his gun to strike me again in the face. The blow will knock me unconscious. I try in vain to roll away.\n\nThe strike doesn't come. I blink, struggling to my feet. What happened? When my vision clears a bit, I notice the last soldier lying on the ground and lab techs rushing over to tie their hands and feet. Suddenly there are people everywhere. Standing over me is Tess, pale and sickly and breathing hard, clutching a rifle from one of the other fallen soldiers. I had not noticed her leaving her room.\n\nShe manages a weak smile. \"You're welcome,\" she says, extending a hand to help me up.\n\nI smile back. She pulls me, trembling, to my feet. When I sway on uncertain legs, she offers me her shoulder to lean on. Neither of us is very steady, but we don't fall.\n\n\"Ms. Iparis,\" Mikhael gasps out as he hurries over to us. \"We've managed to reach the Elector\u2014we've told him about the cure. But we also just received a warning to evacuate the Bank Tower. They say the fake surrender will end very soon and that one of the Colonies' first targets of retaliation will be\u2014\"\n\nA shudder shakes the hospital. We all freeze where we are. I glance at the horizon\u2014at first the shudder felt a bit like an earthquake, or the rumble of a passing Airship, but the shaking is set off in short, regular intervals instead of the sharp roll of a seismic wave or the low, steady hum of Airships\u2014and an instant later, I realize that the Airship bases' bombs must have begun going off. I run to the window with Tess, where we look on as bright plumes of orange and gray billow up from the bases lining the horizon. Panic takes hold of me. Day must have made his announcement. Whether or not he survived it, I have no idea.\n\nThe phony surrender's over; the ceasefire has ended. The final fight for the Republic has begun.\n\nWhen I was fifteen, I broke into a bank in los angeles after guards standing at its back entrance didn't believe I could do it in ten seconds. The night before, I had made a detailed mental checklist of the layout of that bank, noting every foothold and window and ledge, and guesstimated every floor inside. I waited until its guards rotated at midnight, and then I snuck into the building's basement. There, I set a tiny explosive on the vault's lock. There was no way I could break in at night without triggering their alarms... but the next morning, when guards headed down to the vault to check on the inventory, most of the laser-guided alarms throughout the building would be off. I timed my entrance the next day to coincide. As I taunted the guards at the bank's back entrance, the guards inside the bank were opening the vault door. And the explosive went off. At the same time, I leaped through the bank's second floor window, then down the steps, then into the vault through smoke and dust, and made my way out of the building by hooking the bank's waiting line chains to myself and swinging out of the top floor. You should've seen me.\n\nNow, as I walk straight up the inner ramps of a pyramid dock and toward the entrance of my very first Colonies Airship, flanked on both sides by Colonies soldiers, I run through my old bank stunt and feel an overwhelming urge to flee. To swing onto the side of the ship, lose the troops tailing me, and weave into its vents. My eyes sweep the ship and try to map out the best escape routes, the closest hiding places, and most convenient footholds. Walking straight up to it like this leaves me feeling way too open and vulnerable. Still, I don't show it on my face. When I reach the entrance and a pair of lieutenants ushers me inside, then pats me down thoroughly for any weapons, I just smile politely at them. If the Chancellor wants to see me intimidated, he might be disappointed.\n\nThe soldiers don't catch the tiny, coin-size round discs sewn into my boots. One is a recorder. If there's any conversation I want to have to use against the Colonies, it's this one, to be shown to the entire public. The others are tiny explosives. Outside, somewhere beyond the Airship base and hidden in the buildings' shadows, are Pascao and several other Patriots.\n\nI hope the people are ready for my signal. I hope they're listening for my final step, watching and waiting.\n\nIt's the first time I've been in an Airship that has no portraits of the Elector hanging on its walls. Instead, interspersed between swallowtail-shaped blue-and-gold flags are ads, screens as high as the walls that advertise everything from food to electronics to houses. I get an uncomfortable sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, recalling the time June and I had stumbled into the Colonies, but when the lieutenants glance my way, I just shrug at them and keep my eyes down. We make our way through the corridors and up two flights of stairs before they finally usher me into a large chamber. I stand there for a moment, unsure of what to do next. This looks like some sort of observation deck, with a long glass window that gives me a view of Los Angeles.\n\nA lone man stands by the window, the city's light painting his silhouette black. He waves me over. \"Ah, you're finally here!\" he exclaims. Instantly I recognize the smooth, coaxing voice of the Chancellor. He looks nothing like how I pictured him: He's short and small, frail, his hair receded and gray, his voice way too big for his body. There's a slight hunch to his shoulders, and his skin looks thin and translucent in some areas, like it's made of paper and might crumple if I were to touch it. I can't keep the surprise off my face. This is the man who rules over corps like DesCon, who threatens and bullies an entire nation and negotiates with manipulative precision? A little anticlimactic, to be honest. I almost write him off before I get a good look at his eyes.\n\nAnd that's where I recognize the Chancellor I've spoken to before. His eyes calculate, analyze, and deduce me in a way that chills me to the bone. Something is incredibly wrong about them.\n\nThen I realize why. His eyes are mechanical.\n\n\"Well, don't just stand there,\" he says. \"Come on over. Enjoy the view with me, son. This is where we'll have you make your announcement. A nice vantage point, isn't it?\"\n\nA retort\u2014\"The view's probably better without all the Colonies Airships in the way\"\u2014is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it with some effort and do as he says. He smiles as I stop beside him, and I do my best not to look into his false eyes.\n\n\"Well, look at you, all young and fresh faced.\" He claps me on the back. \"You did the right thing, you know, coming here.\" He gazes back at Los Angeles. \"Do you see all that? What's the point of staying loyal to that? You're a Colonian now, and you won't have to put up with the Republic's twisted laws anymore. We'll treat you and your brother so well that you'll soon wonder why you ever hesitated to join us.\"\n\nFrom the corner of my eyes, I make note of possible escape routes. \"What'll happen to the people in the Republic?\"\n\nThe Chancellor taps his lips in a display of thoughtfulness. \"The Senators, unfortunately, might be less happy about the whole thing\u2014and as for the Elector himself... well, you can only have one real ruler for one country, and I am already here.\" He offers me a smile that borders on kindness, a startling contrast to his actual words. \"He and I are more alike than you might think. We are not cruel. We are simply practical. And you know how tricky it can be to deal with traitors.\"\n\nA shiver runs down my spine. \"And the Princeps-Elects?\" I repeat. \"What about the Patriots? This was part of our deal, remember?\"\n\nThe Chancellor nods. \"Of course I remember. Day, there are things you'll learn about people and society when you get older. Sometimes, you just have to do things the hard way. Now, before you work yourself up into a panic, know that Ms. Iparis will be unharmed. We already have plans to pardon her for your sake, given that you'll be helping us out. Part of our deal, just like you said, and I do not go back on my word. The other Princeps-Elects will be executed along with the Elector.\"\n\nExecuted. So easy, just like that. I get a nauseous feeling in my stomach at the memory of Anden's botched assassination. This time he might not be so lucky. \"As long as you spare June,\" I manage to choke out, \"and as long as you don't hurt the Patriots or my brother. But you still haven't answered my first question. What will happen to the people of the Republic?\"\n\nThe Chancellor eyes me, then leans closer. \"Tell me, Day, do you think the masses have the right to make decisions for an entire nation?\"\n\nI turn to stare at the city. It's a long drop from here to the bottom of the naval base; I'll have to find a way to slow myself down. \"The laws that affect an entire nation will also affect that nation's individuals, yeah?\" I reply, goading him. I hope my recorder's picking all this up. \"So of course the people have a right to contribute to those decisions.\"\n\nThe Chancellor nods. \"A fair answer. But fairness does not power nations, Day, does it? I have read histories about nations where every person is given an equal start in life, where everyone contributes to the greater good and no one is richer or poorer than anyone else. Do you think that system worked?\" He shakes his head. \"Not with people, Day. That's something you'll learn when you grow up. People by nature are unjust, unfair, and conniving. You have to be careful with them\u2014you have to find a way to make them think that you are catering to their every whim. The masses can't function on their own. They need help. They don't know what's good for them. And as for what will happen to the people of the Republic? Well, Day, I'll tell you. The people as a whole will be thrilled to be integrated into our system. They will know everything that they need to know, and we will make sure they are all put to good use. It will be a well-oiled machine.\"\n\n\"Everything they need to know?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" He folds his hands behind his back and sticks his chin up. \"Do you really believe that the people can make all of their own decisions? What a frightening world. People don't always know what they really want. You should know that better than anyone, Day, what with your announcement so long ago in favor of the Elector, and with the announcement you'll give us today.\" He tilts his head a little as he talks. \"You do what you need to do.\"\n\nYou do what you need to do. Echoes of the philosophy of the Republic's own former Elector\u2014echoes of something that, no matter what country I'm in, never seems to change. On the surface, I just nod, but inside, I feel a sudden hesitation to go through with my plan. He's baiting you, I remind myself, lost in the struggle. You are not like the Chancellor. You fight for the people.\n\nYou are fighting for something real. Aren't you?\n\nI've got to get out of here, before he works his way deeper into my mind. My muscles tense up, ready for the announcement. I study the room from my peripheral vision. \"Well,\" I say stiffly, \"let's get this over with.\"\n\n\"More enthusiasm, my boy,\" the Chancellor says, clicking his tongue in mock disapproval, and then gives me a serious look. \"We thoroughly expect you to sell your point to the people.\"\n\nI nod. I step forward toward the window, then let two soldiers hook my mike up to broadcast from the Airship. A transparent, live video of me suddenly appears on the glass. Shivers run down my entire body. There are Colonies soldiers all over the place, and they've ensured that if I don't make my move just right, I'll have sentenced myself and most likely all of my loved ones to death. This is it. There is no turning back from here.\n\n\"People of the Republic,\" I begin. \"Today, I stand here with the Chancellor of the Colonies, on board his very own Airship. I have a message for all of you.\" My voice sounds hoarse, and I have to clear my throat before continuing. When I shift my toes, I can feel the bump of the two tiny explosives on the bottom of my boots' soles, ready for my next move. I hope to hell that the markers that Pascao, the other Runners, and I left across the city have done their work, and that the people are prepared.\n\n\"We've been through a lot together,\" I continue. \"But few things have been more trying than the last few months in the Republic. Believe me, I know. Adjusting to a new Elector, seeing the changes that have come around... and as you all know by now, I haven't been doing so well myself.\" My headache throbs as if in response. Outside the Airship, my voice echoes across the city from the video feed playing from dozens of Colonies Airships and hundreds of Los Angeles JumboTrons. I take a deep breath, as if this might be the last time I ever speak to the people. \"You and I will probably never get a chance to meet. But I know you. You have taught me about all the good things in my life, and why I've fought for my family all these years. I hope for great things for your own loved ones, that they can go through life without suffering the way mine have.\" I pause here. My eyes turn to face the Chancellor, and he nods once, coaxing me on. My heart is beating so loudly that I can barely hear my own voice.\n\n\"The Colonies have much to offer you,\" I say, my voice growing stronger. \"Their ships are now in our skies. It will not be long before you see Colonies banners flying above your children's schools and over your homes. People of the Republic, I have one final message for you, before you and I say farewell to each other.\"\n\nIt's time. My legs tense, and my feet shift ever so slightly. The Chancellor looks on.\n\n\"The Republic is weak and broken.\" I narrow my eyes. \"But it is still your country. Fight for it. This is your home, not theirs.\"\n\nIn the same moment that I see the Chancellor's enraged expression, I spring from where I'm standing and kick at the glass as hard as I can. Colonies soldiers rush toward me. My boots hit the window\u2014the explosives embedded in my soles give two brief pops, sending tremors through my feet. The glass shatters.\n\nAnd now I'm midair, sailing through the open space. My arms whip up and grab the top edge of the broken windowpane. A bullet zips by. The Chancellor's furious shout rises up from inside. Guess they're not going to try keeping me alive after that. All my adrenaline rushes forward in a flood of heat.\n\nI shimmy up and out into the evening air. No time to waste. My cap threatens to blow off\u2014I hang out the window for a second and try to adjust it more snugly onto my head. Last thing I need right now is to have my hair blowing around like a beacon for anyone on the ground to see. When the gusts die down a bit, I pull myself completely out and cling to the window frame. I look up, gauging the distance to the next window. Then I jump. My hands grab on to the bottom ledge of the frame, and with difficulty, I manage to pull myself up. I grunt from the effort. Never would've had a problem with this a year ago.\n\nWhen I've hopped to a fourth window, I hear the faint sound of something popping. Then, the first explosion.\n\nA tremor runs deep through the entire Airship, nearly shaking loose my grip, and when I glance down, I see a ball of orange and gray explode from where the Airship is docked to its pyramid base. The Patriots are making their move. A second explosion follows\u2014this time the Airship creaks slightly, tilting to the east. Gritting my teeth, I pick up speed. One of my feet slips against a window frame at the same time a gust of wind blows by\u2014I almost lose my balance. For a second my leg dangles precariously. \"C'mon,\" I scold myself. \"You call this a run?\" Then I throw one arm up as far as I can and manage to catch the next window before my legs give way completely. The effort triggers a dull flash of pain at the back of my head. I wince. No, not now. Anytime but now. But it's no use. I feel the headache coming. If I get hit with it right now, I'll be in so much pain that I'll plummet to my death for sure. Desperately, I climb faster. My feet slip again on the topmost window. I manage to catch myself at the last second, then grab the ledge of the upper deck as my headache explodes in full force.\n\nBlinding white pain. I dangle there, clinging on for dear life, fighting against the agony that threatens to pull me under. Two more explosions follow the first couple in rapid succession, and now the Airship creaks and groans. It tries to launch, firing away from the base, but all it manages to do is shudder. If the Chancellor gets his hands on me now, he'll kill me himself. Somewhere far away, I hear a siren sound\u2014soldiers on the upper deck must know by now that I'm heading there, and they'll be ready for me.\n\nMy breaths come in short gasps. Open your eyes, I command myself. You have to open them. Through a blurry veil of tears, I see a glimpse of the upper deck and soldiers running. Their shouts ring out across the deck. For an instant, I lose my memory again of where I am, what I'm doing, what my mission is. The unfamiliarity makes my stomach heave, and I have to keep myself from throwing up. Think, Day. You've been in bad situations before. My memory blurs. What did I need up here again? Finally I clear my mind\u2014I need some way to swing down to the bottom of the ship. Then I remember the sleek metal chain railings lining the edge of the deck, and my original plan\u2014my eyes swivel up to the nearest chain. With enormous effort, I reach out and grab at it. I miss the first time. The soldiers see me now, and several of them run in my direction. I grit my teeth and try again.\n\nThis time I reach the chain. I grab it with both hands, then yank down. The chain pops free from its hooks. I throw myself off the side of the ship\u2014and let myself fall. I hope to hell this chain can support my weight. There's a chorus of pops as the chain snaps free of hooks on both sides, sending me down at dizzying speed. The pain in my head threatens to weaken my grip. I hang on with every shred of strength that I have. My hair billows around me, and I realize my cap must've fallen off. Down, down, down I fall. The world zips past me at the speed of light. Through the rushing wind, my head slowly clears.\n\nSuddenly one side of the chain snaps loose right as I reach the bottom of the ship. A lungful of air escapes me as I'm vaulted to one side. I manage to grab the remaining chain with both hands and hang on tightly as I swing along the bottom side of the ship. The pyramid base is almost close enough under my feet for me to jump, but I'm going way too fast. I swing closer to the side of the ship, then scrape the heels of my boots hard against the steel. There's a loud, long screech. My boots finally find traction\u2014the force spins me from my swing and sends me twirling. I fight to steady myself. Before I can, though, the chain finally breaks and I tumble onto the outside of the pyramid base.\n\nThe impact knocks all the wind out of me. I skid against the smooth, slanted walls for a few seconds, until my boots catch against the surface and I stop there, bruised and limp, convinced soldiers are going to fill me with bullets as I lie vulnerable against the pyramid. Pascao and the others will know by now that I've made my move, and they'll be setting off the bombs all along the naval bases. I better get off this thing before I'm burnt to a crisp. That thought fills my mind and gives me the strength to pull myself up. I slide down the side as fast as I can\u2014below, I can already see Colonies soldiers rushing to stop me. A sense of hopelessness stabs me. There's no way in hell I'll get past all of them in time. Still, I keep moving. I have to get away from the explosion site.\n\nI'm several dozen yards from the bottom. Soldiers are clambering up to seize me. I tense up, push myself up into a crouch, and quickly move sideways against the slanted base. I'm not going to make it.\n\nThe instant this crosses my mind, the two final explosions go off under the Airship.\n\nA huge roar above me shakes the earth, and when I glance behind me, I see an enormous fireball rise up from where the Airship is docked with the top of the base. All along the naval base, orange flames burst from every single pyramid dock. They've gone off in unison. The result is absolutely jaw-dropping. Quickly I glance back to the soldiers who were chasing me\u2014they've paused, shocked by what they're witnessing. Another deafening burst of flame erupts above us and the tremors knock everyone off their feet. I struggle to stabilize myself against the slanted wall. Move, move, move! I stagger down the last few yards of the base's wall and fall to my knees on the ground. The world spins. All I can hear are the shouts of soldiers and the roar of the infernos lighting up the naval bases.\n\nHands grab me. I struggle, but I have no more strength left. Suddenly they drop me and I hear a familiar voice at my side. I turn in surprise. Who is this? Pascao. His name is Pascao.\n\nHis bright gray eyes crinkle at me\u2014he grabs my hand and urges me to run. \"Nice to see you alive. Let's keep it that way.\"\n\nFrom the bank tower in downtown la, I can see the giant plumes of orange flame lighting up the naval bases along the coast. The blasts are enormous, illuminating the edge of the sky with blinding light and echoing through the air, the force shaking the glass windows of the tower as I look on. Hospital staff mill around me in a scene of commotion. The lab teams are prepping both Tess and Eden for evacuation.\n\nA call comes in from Pascao. \"I've got Day,\" he shouts. \"Meet us outside.\"\n\nMy knees turn weak with relief. He's alive. He made it. I peek inside Tess's room, where she's being secured to a wheelchair, and give her a thumbs-up. She brightens, even in her weakened state. Outside the tower, I see the shadow engulfing our building begin to move\u2014the Colonies Airship hovering overhead is heading away from us to join into battle. As if our explosions have unsettled a nest of wasps, dozens of Colonies fighter jets are taking off from its deck as well as the decks of the distant, crippled Airships, their shapes forming squadrons in the sky. Republic jets meet them in midair.\n\nHurry, Antarctica. Please.\n\nI rush off the lab floor and down the stairs to the lobby of the Bank Tower. There's chaos everywhere. Republic soldiers hurry past me in a blur of motion, while several gather at the front doors to prevent anyone else from getting inside. \"This hospital is off limits!\" one barks. \"Bring the injured across the street\u2014we are evacuating!\" The screens lining the hall show scenes of Republic soldiers clashing with Colonies troops in the streets\u2014and, to my surprise, Republic civilians wielding whatever weapons they can find and joining in to push the Colonies back. Fires burn along the roads. At the bottom of every screen in bold, menacing letters is the scrolling text: ALL REPUBLIC SOLDIERS TO BREAK SURRENDER. ALL REPUBLIC SOLDIERS TO BREAK SURRENDER. I cringe at the scene, even though this is exactly what we had planned for.\n\nOutside, the noise of battle deafens me. Fighter jets roar past us overhead, while others hover directly over the Bank Tower, prepared to defend the tallest building in LA if\u2014 when \u2014the Colonies try to attack. I see similar formations over other prominent downtown buildings. \"Come on, Day,\" I mutter, scanning the streets nearby for signs of his bright hair, or of Pascao's pale eyes. A deep tremor shakes the ground. Another ball of orange flame explodes behind several rows of buildings, then a pair of Colonies jets zoom by, followed closely by a Republic plane. The sound is so loud that I press both hands to my ears until they've passed.\n\n\"June?\" Pascao's voice comes over my mike, but I can barely hear him. \"We're almost here. Where are you?\"\n\n\"In front of the Bank Tower,\" I shout over the noise.\n\n\"We've gotta evacuate,\" he replies immediately. \"Getting some feedback from our Hackers\u2014the Colonies are aiming to attack the building within the hour\u2014\"\n\nAs if on cue, a Colonies jet screams by, and an instant later, an enormous explosion goes off at the very top of the Bank Tower. Soldiers all around me let out shouts of warning as glass falls from the highest floors. I jump backward into the safety of the building's entrance. Debris rains down in a thunderous storm, crushing jeeps and shattering into a million pieces.\n\n\"June?\" Pascao's voice comes back on, clearly alarmed now. \" June \u2014are you okay?\"\n\n\"I'm fine!\" I shout back. \"I'll help with evacuations once I see you. See you soon!\" Then I hang up.\n\nThree minutes later, I finally spot Day and Pascao staggering toward the Bank Tower against the tide of civilians escaping the area and soldiers rushing to defend the streets. They stumble through the debris. I rush from the entrance toward Day, who's leaning heavily against Pascao's good shoulder.\n\n\"Are either of you injured?\" I ask.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Pascao replies, nodding at Day. \"Not sure about this guy. I think he's more exhausted than anything.\"\n\nI swing Day's other arm around my shoulder. Pascao and I help him inside the lobby of a building several blocks from the Bank Tower, where we still have a direct view of the tower and the chaotic, debris-filled square that sits between the two buildings. Inside, rows of injured soldiers are already camped out, with medics running frantically between them. \"We're clearing out the tower,\" I explain as we gently help Day down to the ground. He grimaces in pain, even though I can't find any specific wounds on him. \"Don't worry,\" I reassure him when he glances up at me in alarm. \"Eden and Tess are being evacuated right now.\"\n\n\"And so should you,\" he adds. \"The fight's just beginning.\"\n\n\"If I tell you to stop worrying, will you?\"\n\nMy reply gets a wry smile from him. \"Are the Antarcticans coming to help us?\" Day asks. \"Did you tell Anden about the cure\u2014\"\n\n\"Calm down,\" I interrupt him, then stand up and put a hand on Pascao's shoulder. \"Watch out for him. I'm going back to the tower to help with the evacuations. I'll tell them to bring his brother here.\" Pascao nods quickly, and I cast one last glance toward Day before running out of the building.\n\nA stream of people is making its way out of the tower, with Republic soldiers flanking them on either side. Some are on crutches or in wheelchairs, while others are strapped to gurneys and being wheeled out by a team of medics. Republic soldiers bark orders at them, their guns hoisted and their bodies tense. I hurry past them and toward the entrance, then push my way inside to the stairs. I hop up the steps two at a time until I finally reach the lab floor, where the door's propped open and a nurse is directing people toward the elevator.\n\nI reach the nurse and grab her arm. She turns to look at me, startled. \"Princeps-Elect,\" she manages to blurt out, hastily bowing her head. \"What are you\u2014\"\n\n\"Eden Bataar Wing,\" I say breathlessly. \"Is he ready to go yet?\"\n\n\"Day's brother?\" she replies. \"Yes\u2014yes, he's in his room. We're preparing to move him comfortably. He still needs to be in a wheelchair, but\u2014\"\n\n\"And Tess? The girl who was under quarantine?\"\n\n\"She's already on her way downstairs\u2014\"\n\nI don't wait for the nurse to finish before rushing into the main lab room and toward the corridor. At the very end, I see a pair of doctors wheeling Eden out. He looks like he's unconscious, resting on a small pillow propped between his head and the chair's back, his forehead damp with sweat.\n\nI give the doctors instructions on where to take him as we all hurry together toward the elevator. \"You'll see Day there. Keep him with his brother.\"\n\nAnother explosion rips through the building, forcing half of us to our knees. Some of the medics scream. Dust rains down from the ceiling, making my eyes water\u2014I unbutton my coat, then shrug out of it and throw it across Eden to shield him. \"No elevator,\" I gasp out, heading toward the stairs instead. \"Can we carry him down?\"\n\nOne of the nurses gingerly picks Eden up and holds him tight in her arms. We hurry down the stairs as more dust showers us and muffled sounds of shouts, guns, and explosions echo from outside.\n\nWe rush out into a lengthening evening lit completely by the fire of battle. Still no call from Anden. My eyes sweep the roofs as we pause underneath the entrance, other evacuees streaming around us and between Republic guards. One of the guards recognizes me and hurries over, throwing a quick salute before he speaks. \"Princeps-Elect!\" he shouts. \"Get to the adjacent shelter, as quick as you can\u2014we'll send a jeep to take you to the Elector.\"\n\nI shake my head right away. \" No. I'm staying here.\" A spark from the roofs makes me look up, and instantly we all cringe when a bullet hits the overhang in front of the main entrance. There are Colonies gunmen on the roofs. Several of the Republic soldiers point their guns and open fire. The guard who had spoken to me puts a hand on my shoulder. \"Then move out,\" he yells, gesturing wildly for us.\n\nThe nurse holding Eden takes several steps forward, her eyes still fixed in terror on the rooftops. I put a hand out to stop her. \"Not yet,\" I say. \"Stay here a moment.\" Not two seconds after the words leave my mouth, I see a bullet hit one of the evacuees\u2014blood sprays, and instantly the people around him flee, screams reverberating in the air. My heart pounds as I scan the roofs again. One of the Republic soldiers finally catches a gunman, and I see somebody in a Colonies uniform fall from the top of a nearby building. I look away before the body hits the ground, but I'm still struck by a violent wave of nausea. How do we get Eden to safety?\n\n\"Stay here,\" I command the nurse holding Eden. Then I tap four of the Republic soldiers. \"Cover me. I'm heading up there.\" I gesture for one of the guards to hand me the gun at his belt, and he passes it over without hesitation.\n\nI move into the crowds and make my way toward the buildings. I try to imitate the effortless grace that Day and Pascao have in this urban jungle. As the chaotic evacuations continue and soldiers from both sides face off against one another, I hurry into the shadows of a narrow, nearby alley and start making my way up the side of the building. I'm small, dressed in dark clothes, and alone. They won't expect me to head up here. My mind runs through all of my sharpshooting lessons. If I can throw them off, it'll give the evacuees that much more of a chance to make it out in one piece. Even as I think this, another Colonies jet zooms overhead and a huge plume of bright red flame erupts on the Bank Tower. A Republic jet tails close behind it, firing as it goes\u2014as I look on, it manages to hit the Colonies plane and ignite one of its engines, sending it careening wildly to one side and leaving a trail of dark smoke behind it. A deafening roar follows; it must have crashed several blocks down. I look back up at the burning tower. We don't have much time. This building is going to come down. I grit my teeth and make my way up as fast as I can. If only I were as good a Runner as Day and Pascao.\n\nI finally reach the top floor's ledge. From here, I get a good view of the battle zone below me. The Bank Tower is under siege from the sky and the ground, where hundreds of Republic troops are pushing back in the streets against a steady tide of enemy soldiers. Patients and medics alike still stream from the tower and down the street toward the makeshift shelter, along with government officials from the higher floors, many of them covered completely in white dust and blood. I peer over the top ledge.\n\nNo gunmen here. I pull myself up onto the roof, careful to stay in the shadows. My hand grips the gun so tightly that I can barely feel my fingers. I scan the roofs in the danger zone leading up to the shelter, until finally I see several Colonies soldiers crouched on top of the neighboring buildings, taking aim at the Republic troops heading up the evacuation. I make my way silently toward them.\n\nI take the first one down quickly, aiming at him from behind as I peer over the building's top ledge. It's as if I can feel Metias guiding my gun, making sure I hit him somewhere that isn't fatal. As he collapses with a muffled shriek that's lost in all the chaos, I rush over and grab his gun, then fling it over the side of the roof. Then I hit him in the face hard enough to knock him out. My eyes settle on the next soldier. I press one hand against my earpiece and click my mike on.\n\n\"Tell the nurse to keep waiting,\" I hiss urgently at the guard by the Bank Tower. \"I'll send a signal when it's\u2014\"\n\nI never get a chance to finish my sentence. An explosion throws me down flat onto the roof. When I open my eyes and look down, the entire street is completely covered in ash and dust. Dust bombs? Through the veil of smoke and dirt, evacuees are running in panic toward the shelter and breaking through the lines of Republic soldiers flanking them, completely ignoring their shouts. The Colonies gunmen have visors on. They must be able to see through all this smoke. They fire down at the crowds, scattering them in all directions. I look frantically toward the tower. Where's Eden? I hurry to my next target, taking him down in the same way as the last. Another gunman down. I lock on to my third target, then spit out a curse as I realize that my gun has just run out of bullets.\n\nI'm about to make my way off the roof when something bright glints from a rooftop. I freeze in my tracks.\n\nNot far from me on a higher building, Commander Jameson crouches on a roof. A chill shakes me from head to toe when I see that she has a gun in her hand. No. No.\n\nShe's picking off Republic soldiers, one bullet at a time. Then, my heart stops as she catches sight of something that piques her interest. She takes aim at a new target on the ground. My eyes follow the line of her gun. And that's when I see a boy with bright blond hair pushing his way against the stream of the crowd and toward the Bank Tower.\n\nShe's aiming at Day.\n\nTess gets evacuated first\u2014i see her limp form being carried in the arms of a nurse as they exit the Bank Tower. I take her from the nurse's arms as soon as they reach ground level, then carry her alongside the stream of other evacuees. She seems only half conscious, unaware of my presence, her head lolling to one side. Halfway to the shelter, I slow down. Damn, I'm so exhausted and in so much pain.\n\nPascao takes Tess from my arms. He hoists her up to his chest. On the roofs, sparks fly\u2014signs of gunfire. \"Get back to the Bank Tower entrance,\" he yells at me before turning his back. \"I'll get her over!\" And then he's off before I can argue.\n\nI watch them go for a while, unwilling to look away until I'm sure Tess is safely across the square. When they reach the shelter, I turn my attention back to the tower. Eden should be down by now. I crane my neck, squinting through the crowds for a head of blond curls. Has June come back downstairs yet? I don't see her in the panicking masses either and her absence sends a jolt of worry through me.\n\nThen, an explosion. I'm thrown to the ground.\n\nDust. A dust bomb, I manage to think through the pounding in my head. At first I can't see anything through all the smoke\u2014there's chaos everywhere, sparks flying, and the occasional muffled sound of gunfire; through the floating white dust, I see a blur of people running toward the safety of the Republic barricades, their legs moving as if in slow motion, their mouths open in silent shouts. I shake my head wearily. My own limbs feel like they're dragging through the mud, and the back of my head throbs, threatening to drown me in pain. I blink against it, trying to keep my senses straight. Desperately I call out again for Eden, but I can't even hear my own voice. If I can't hear it, how can he?\n\nThe people thin out for a moment.\n\nAnd then I see him. It's Eden. He's unconscious in the arms of a terrified Republic nurse, one who seems to be stumbling blindly through the dust, headed in the wrong direction\u2014straight toward the Colonies troops lining the left side of the square, opposite of where the shelter is. I don't stop to think or shout at him, I don't hesitate or wait for a good interval in the gunfire. I just start running toward him.\n\nCommander jameson's going to shoot him\u2014the direction she's aiming her gun is unmistakable.\n\nDay's sprinting through the dust that blankets the street. Day, what are you doing? He stumbles in his dash, and even from the roofs I can tell that he's struggling to make his body move, that every last inch of him is screaming from exhaustion. He's going to push himself too far. I glance in the direction he's going, searching out what has drawn his attention.\n\nEden. Of course. The nurse holding Eden trips and falls in the midst of all the billowing smoke, and when she gets up, fear gets the best of her because she just starts running away. Fury rises up inside me. Left behind is Eden, slowly stirring and completely vulnerable in the open street, blind, separated from the group, and coughing uncontrollably from the smoke.\n\nI jump to my feet. With the way Day's running opposite of everyone else, he'll soon be in an area where he's an open target.\n\nMy hand flies to my waist\u2014and then I remember that my own gun is out of bullets. I sprint back across the rooftop toward my last target, where I hadn't yet dropped his gun off the roof. When I glance toward Commander Jameson again, I see her tense and aim. No. No! She fires a shot.\n\nThe bullet misses Day by a couple of feet. He stumbles in his rush, throwing an arm briefly over his head out of instinct, but picks himself up and continues doggedly on. My heart thuds frantically against my chest. Faster. I take a flying leap from one roof to the next. Down below, I see Day nearing Eden. Then he's there, he's reached him, he's skidding to a halt next to Eden and throwing his arms protectively around his little brother. The dust around them makes them hard to focus on, as if they're both ghosts in faded colors. My breath comes in shallow gasps as I draw closer to the fallen soldiers. I hope the dust is throwing Commander Jameson's aim off.\n\nI reach the downed soldier. I grab his gun. One bullet left.\n\nBelow, Day picks up Eden, puts one hand protectively against the back of his brother's head, and then starts staggering back toward the shelter as fast as his broken body will allow him. Commander Jameson takes aim again\u2014I scream in my head and push myself to go faster. All of my adrenaline, every fiber of my attention and concentration, is now focused like an arrow on her. She fires. This time the bullet misses the brothers, but it sparks barely a foot away from Day. He doesn't even bother to look up. He only clutches Eden tighter, then stumbles onward.\n\nI finally near the roof where she is. I leap onto it, landing on its flat concrete surface. From here, I can see both the roof I'm on and the street below. Three dozen yards ahead of me, partially obscured by chimneys and vents, Commander Jameson crouches with her back turned to me, her focus on the streets.\n\nShe fires again. Down below, I hear a hoarse shriek of pain from a voice I know all too well. All my breath escapes me. I glance quickly to the street to see Day fall to his knees, dropping Eden for a moment. The sounds around me dull.\n\nHe's been shot.\n\nHe shudders, then picks himself up again. Hoists Eden into his arms again. Staggers onward. Commander Jameson fires one more time. The bullet makes impact. I hoist the gun in my hands, then point it straight at her. I'm close enough now, close enough to see the ridges of her bulletproof vest lining her back. My hands shake. I have a perfect vantage, a straight shot right at Commander Jameson's head. She's getting ready to fire again.\n\nI aim.\n\nAs if the world has suddenly slowed to a million frames a second, Commander Jameson spins around. She senses my presence. Her eyes narrow\u2014and then she swivels her gun toward me, taking her focus off Day. Thoughts flash through my mind at the speed of light. I pull my gun's trigger, firing my last bullet straight at her head.\n\nAnd I miss.\n\nI never miss.\n\nNo time to dwell on this\u2014Commander Jameson has her gun pointed at me, and as my bullet whizzes past her face, I see her smile and fire. I throw myself to the ground, then roll. Something sparks barely an inch from my arm. I dart behind a nearby chimney and press myself as tightly against the wall as I can. Somewhere behind me, the sound of heavy boots approaches. Breathe. Breathe. Our last confrontation flashes through my mind. Why can I face everything in the world except Commander Jameson?\n\n\"Come out and play, Little Iparis,\" she calls out. When I stay silent, she laughs. \"Come out, so you can see your pretty boy bleeding to death on the street.\"\n\nShe knows exactly how to slice right into my heart. But I grit my teeth and force the image of a bleeding, dying Day out of my head. I don't have time for this bullshit. What I need to do is disarm her\u2014and at that thought, I look down at my useless gun. Time to play a game of pretend.\n\nShe's silent now. All I can hear is the soft tap of approaching boots, the steady nearing of my brother's killer. My hands tighten on my gun.\n\nShe's close enough. I shut my eyes for an instant, mutter a quick whisper for good luck\u2014and then whirl out from my hiding place. I point my gun up at Commander Jameson as if I'm about to fire. She does what I hope\u2014she flinches to the side, but this time I'm ready, and I lunge straight for her. I jump, then kick her face as hard as I can. My boots make a satisfying sound on impact. Her head snaps backward. Her grip on her gun loosens, and I take the opportunity to kick it right out of her hands. She collapses onto the roof with a thud\u2014her gun flies off to one side, then falls right off the roof and to the smoke-filled streets below.\n\nI don't dare stop my momentum. While she's still down, I swing my elbow at her face in an effort to knock her unconscious. My first blow hits\u2014but my second one doesn't. Commander Jameson grabs my elbow, snaps her other hand on my wrist like a shackle, and then twists. I flip with it. Pain shoots up my arm as it bends in her grasp. Before she can break it, I twist around and stomp on her arm with the sharp heel of my boot. She winces, but doesn't let go. I stomp again, harder.\n\nHer grip loosens by a hair, and I finally manage to slip out of her grasp.\n\nShe hops to her feet right as I put some distance between us and turn again to face her. We start to circle each other, both of us breathing heavily, my arm still screaming in pain and her face marred by a trickle of blood coming from her temple. I already know I can't win against her in an all-out brawl. She's taller and stronger, equipped with years of training that my talents can't match. My only hope is to catch her by surprise again, to find a way to turn her own force against her. As I continue to circle, waiting and watching for an opening, the world around us fades away. I draw on all my anger, letting it replace my fear and give me strength.\n\nIt's just you and me now. This is the way it was always meant to be, this is the moment I've been waiting for since it all began. We'll face each other at the very end with our bare hands.\n\nCommander Jameson strikes first. Her speed terrifies me. One second she's before me, and the next she's at my side, her fist flying toward my face. I don't have time to dodge. All I manage to do is jerk my shoulder up at the last second, and her fist hits me instead as a glancing blow. Stars explode across my eyes. I stumble backward. I manage to dodge her next blow\u2014barely. I roll away from her, fighting to clear my vision, and pop back onto my feet. When she lunges again, I jump up and kick at her head. It catches her, but she's too fast for it to be head-on. I dart away again. This time I back up slowly toward the edge of the roof, my eyes terrified to leave her. Good, I remind myself. Look as frightened as you can. Finally, the back of my boot hits the roof's ledge. I glance down, then back up at Commander Jameson. Despite a slight unsteadiness, she looks undaunted. It isn't hard for me to fake the fear in my wide eyes.\n\nShe stalks toward me like a predator. She doesn't say a word, but she doesn't need to\u2014everything she's ever wanted to tell me has already been said before. It runs through my head like a poison. Little Iparis, how much you remind me of myself at your age. Adorable. Someday, you'll learn that life isn't always what you want it to be. That you won't always get what you want. And that there are forces out of your control that will shape you into who you are. Too bad your time ends here. It would've been fun to see what you grow up to become.\n\nHer eyes hypnotize me. In this moment, I can imagine no worse sight.\n\nShe lunges forward.\n\nI have only one chance. I duck, grab her arm, and flip her right over my head. Her momentum sends her sailing over the edge of the roof.\n\nBut her hand clamps down on my arm. I'm yanked halfway over the ledge\u2014my left shoulder pops out of its socket. I scream. My heels dig in against the ledge, fighting to keep me from falling over. Commander Jameson flattens herself against the side of the building, grappling for footholds. Her nails dig so deep into my flesh that I can feel my skin ripping. Tears spring to my eyes. Down below, Republic soldiers are still herding evacuees, firing on enemy soldiers on other roofs, shouting orders into their mikes.\n\nI scream at them with everything I have left. \"Shoot her!\" I shout. \" Shoot her!\"\n\nTwo Republic soldiers snap their heads in my direction. They recognize me. As they lift their guns in my direction, Commander Jameson looks up into my eyes and grins. \"I knew you couldn't do it yourself.\"\n\nThen the soldiers open fire, Commander Jameson's body convulses, her grip suddenly loosens, and she plummets like a wounded bird to the street. I turn away so I don't have to look, but I still hear the sickening sound of her body against pavement. She's gone. Just like that. I'm left with her words and my own ringing through my ears.\n\nShoot her. Shoot her.\n\nMetias's words flash through my mind. Few people ever kill for the right reasons.\n\nI hurriedly wipe the tears from my face. What did I just do? Her blood stains my hands\u2014I rub my good hand against my clothes, but I can't get it off. I don't know if I'll ever be able to. \"This is the right reason,\" I whisper repeatedly.\n\nPerhaps she destroyed herself, and I only helped. But even this thought seems hollow.\n\nThe agony of my dislocated shoulder makes me light-headed. I lift my right arm, grip my wounded left arm, grit my teeth, and push hard. I scream again. The bone resists for an instant\u2014and then I feel my shoulder pop back into place. Fresh tears course down my face. My hands tremble uncontrollably, and my ears ring, blocking out any sound around me except the beating of my heart.\n\nHow long has it been? Hours? A few seconds?\n\nThe pulsing light of logic seeps into my mind, cutting through the pain. As always, it saves me. Day needs your help, it whispers. Go to him.\n\nI search for Day. He has reached the other side of the street and the safer areas around the shelter, where Republic soldiers have set up their barricades... but even as I start rushing to the edge of the roof, I notice that others have pulled Eden's unconscious form away from Day and are taking him to safety. A few hover over Day as he lies on the ground, momentarily obscuring him from my view. I scramble down the building as fast as I can, until I reach a fire escape and rush down the metal steps. Fear and adrenaline numb my injuries.\n\nPlease, I beg silently. Please let him be okay.\n\nBy the time I reach him, a crowd has formed. I can hear one of them shouting, \"Move it! Get back, give us some room! Tell them to hurry up!\" A lump in my throat chokes me, leaving me short of breath. My boots pound against the ground, keeping rhythm with my heart. I shove people aside and drop to my knees at Day's side. The person shouting was Pascao. He gives me a frantic look.\n\n\"Stay with him,\" he tells me. \"I'm going for the medics.\" I nod once, and he dashes off.\n\nI barely notice all the people crowded around us in a ring. All I can do is look down at Day. He's trembling from head to toe, his eyes wide open in shock, his hair clinging to his face. When I look closer at his body, I notice two wounds spilling dark blood across his shirt, one wound in his chest and the other near his hip. A strangled cry comes from someone. Maybe it's from me. As if in a dream, I bend over him and touch his face.\n\n\"Day, it's me. It's June. I'm right here.\"\n\nHe looks at me. \"June?\" he manages to gasp out. He tries to lift a hand to my face, but he's shaking so hard that he can't. I reach out and cradle his face with both of my hands. His eyes are full of tears. \"I\u2014I think\u2014I've been shot\u2014\" Two people from the crowd place their hands over his wounds, pressing down hard enough to force a painful sob from his mouth. He tries to look down at them, but has no strength to lift his head.\n\n\"Medics are on their way,\" I tell him firmly, leaning close enough to press my lips against his cheek. \"Hang on. Okay? Stay with me. Keep looking at me. You'll be okay.\"\n\n\"I don't\u2014think so,\" Day stammers. He blinks rapidly, spilling tears down the sides of his face. They wet the tips of my fingers. \"Eden\u2014is he safe\u2014?\"\n\n\"He's safe,\" I whisper. \"Your brother is safe and sound and you'll get to see him very soon.\"\n\nDay starts to reply, but can't. His skin looks so ashen. Please, no. I refuse to let myself think the worst, but it hangs over us like a black shadow. I feel the heaviness of death looming over my shoulder, his sightless eyes staring down into Day's soul, waiting patiently to overwhelm his light.\n\n\"I don't want\u2014to go\u2014\" Day finally manages to say. \"I don't want\u2014to leave you\u2014Eden\u2014\"\n\nI shush him by touching my lips to his trembling ones. \"Nothing bad will ever happen to Eden,\" I reply gently, desperate to keep him with me. \"Stay focused, Day. You're going to the hospital. They're coming back for you; it won't be long now.\"\n\nIt won't be long now.\n\nDay just smiles at me, an expression so sad that it breaks through my numbness, and I begin to cry. Those bright blue eyes. Before me is the boy who has bandaged my wounds on the streets of Lake, who has guarded his family with every bone in his body, who has stayed by my side in spite of everything, the boy of light and laughter and life, of grief and fury and passion, the boy whose fate is intertwined with mine, forever and always.\n\n\"I love you,\" he whispers. \"Can you stay awhile?\" He says something else, but his voice trails off so quietly that I can't make out what it is. No. No. You can't. His breathing grows shallower. I can tell that he is fighting to stay conscious, that with every passing second, his eyes have more and more trouble focusing on me. For a moment, Day tries to look at something behind me, but when I glance over my shoulder, there's nothing there but open sky. I kiss him again and then lean my head against his.\n\n\"I love you,\" I whisper over and over again. \"Don't go.\" I close my eyes. My tears fall on his cheeks.\n\nAs I crouch there against him, feeling his life slowly ebb away, I'm consumed with grief and rage. I have never been a religious person. But right now, as I see medics in the distance hurrying toward us, I send a desperate prayer to some higher power. To what, I don't know. But I hope that Someone, Anyone, hears me. That It'll lift us both into Its arms and take pity on us. I throw this prayer into the sky with every shred of strength I have left.\n\nLet him live.\n\nPlease don't take him away from this world. Please don't let him die here in my arms, not after everything we've been through together, not after You've taken so many others. Please, I beg You, let him live. I am willing to sacrifice anything to make this happen\u2014I'm willing to do anything You ask. Maybe You'll laugh at me for such a na\u00efve promise, but I mean it in earnest, and I don't care if it makes no sense or seems impossible. Let him live. Please. I can't bear this a second time.\n\nI look desperately around us, my vision blurred with tears, and everything is a smear of blood and smoke, light and ash, and all I can hear is screaming and gunfire and hatred, and I am so tired of the fighting, so frustrated, angry, helpless.\n\nTell me there is still good in the world. Tell me there is still hope for all of us.\n\nThrough an underwater veil, I feel hands on my arms pull me away from Day. I struggle stubbornly against them. Pain lances up my injured shoulder. Medics bend down over his body. His eyes are closed now, and I can't see him breathing. Images of Metias's body flash back to me. When the medics try again to pull me from Day, I shove them roughly away and scream. I scream for everything that has gone wrong. I scream for everything broken in our lives.\n\nI think june is leaning over me, but I have trouble making out the details of her face. When I try too hard, the edges of my vision filter out into blinding white. The pain, at first excruciating, is nothing now. Memories fade in and out\u2014memories of my first days frightened and alone on the streets, with my bleeding knee and hollow stomach; of young Tess, and then of John when he first learned that I was still alive; of my mother's home, my father's smile, of Eden as a baby. I remember the first time I met June on the streets. Her defiant stance, her fierce eyes. Then, gradually, I have trouble remembering anything.\n\nI always knew, on some level, that I wouldn't live long. It's simply not written in my stars.\n\nSomething bright hovering behind June's shoulder catches my attention. I turn my head as much as I can to see it. At first it looks like some glowing orb of light. As I keep staring, though, I realize that it's my mother.\n\nMom, I whisper. I stand and take a step toward her. My feet feel so light.\n\nMy mother smiles at me. She looks young and healthy and whole, her hands no longer wrapped in bandages, her hair the color of wheat and snow. When I reach her, she gently cups my face between her smooth, uninjured palms. My heart stops beating; it fills with warmth and light and I want to stay here forever, locked in this moment. I falter in my steps. Mom catches me before I can fall, and we kneel there, together again. \"My little lost boy,\" she murmurs.\n\nMy voice comes out as a broken whisper. \"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.\"\n\n\"Hush, my baby.\" I bow my head as she kneels over me. She kisses my forehead, and I am a child again, helpless and hopeful, bursting with love. Past the blurry, golden line of her arm, I can look down at my pale, broken body lying on the ground. There's a girl crouched over me, her hands on my face, her long dark hair draped over her shoulder. She's crying.\n\n\"Are John and Dad...?\" I begin to say.\n\nMom just smiles. Her eyes are so incredibly blue, like I can see the entire world inside them\u2014the sky and the clouds and everything beyond.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" she replies. \"They are well, and they love you very much.\"\n\nI feel an overwhelming need to follow my mother wherever she's going, wherever that might take us. \"I miss you guys,\" I finally say to her. \"It hurts every day, the absence of someone who was once there.\"\n\nMom combs a gentle hand through my hair, the way she used to when I was little. \"My darling, there's no need to miss us. We never left.\" She lifts her head and nods at the street, past the crowds of people who have gathered around my body. Now a team of medics is lifting me onto a stretcher. \"Go back to Eden. He's waiting for you.\"\n\n\"I know,\" I whisper. I crane my neck to see if I can catch a glimpse of my brother in the crowds, but I don't see him there.\n\nMom rises; her hands leave my face, and I find myself struggling to breathe. No. Please don't leave me. I reach out a hand to her, but some invisible barrier stops it. The light grows brighter. \"Where are you going? Can I come with you?\"\n\nMom smiles, but shakes her head. \"You still belong on the other side of the looking glass. Someday, when you're ready to take the step over to our side, I'll come see you again. Live well, Daniel. Make that final step count.\"\n\nFor the first three weeks that day is in the hospital, I never leave. The same people come and go\u2014Tess, of course, who's in the waiting room as much as I am, waiting for Day to come out of his coma; Eden, who stays as long as Lucy allows him to; the other remaining Patriots, especially Pascao; an endless assortment of doctors and medics who I begin to recognize and know by name after the first week; and Anden, who has returned from the warfront with his own scars. Hordes of people continue to stay camped out around the hospital, but Anden doesn't have the heart to tell them to disperse, even when they continue to stake out the grounds for weeks and then months. Many of them have the familiar scarlet streaks painted into their hair. For the most part, they stay silent. Sometimes they chant. I've grown used to their presence now, to the point where it's comforting. They remind me that Day is still alive. Still fighting.\n\nThe war between the Republic and the Colonies, at least for now, is over. The Antarcticans finally came to our rescue, bringing with them their fearsome technology and weapons that intimidated Africa and the Colonies into returning to our ceasefire agreement, bringing both Anden and the Chancellor before the international court, imposing the proper sanctions against us and them and finally, finally beginning the process for a permanent peace treaty. The ashes of our battlegrounds are still here, though, along with a lingering hostility. I know it will take time to close the wounds. I have no idea how long this ceasefire will last, or when the Republic and the Colonies will find true peace. Maybe we never will. But for now, this is good enough.\n\nOne of the first things the doctors had to do for Day, after stitching up the horrific bullet wounds, was to operate on his brain. The trauma he'd suffered meant he couldn't receive the full course of medications needed to properly prep him for the surgery... but they went ahead with it. Whether or not he was ready was irrelevant at that point; if they didn't, he would've died anyway. Yet, still. This keeps me awake nights. No one really knows whether he'll wake up at all, or whether he'll be an altogether different person if he does.\n\nTwo months pass, and then three.\n\nGradually, we all start to do our waiting at home. The hospital's crowds finally begin to thin.\n\nFive months. Winter passes.\n\nAt 0728 hours on an early spring Thursday in March, I arrive at the hospital's waiting room for my usual check-in. As expected at this hour, I'm the only one here. Eden's at home with Lucy, getting some needed sleep. He continues to grow, and if Day were awake to see him now, I know he'd comment on how his brother is starting to lean out, losing the baby fat on his face and taking the early steps into adulthood.\n\nEven Tess isn't here yet. She tends to come in the late morning to work as a medic assistant, shadowing the doctors, and when I catch her on her breaks, we huddle together and exchange conversation in hushed voices. Sometimes she even makes me laugh. \"He loves you, really he does,\" she told me yesterday. \"He'd love you even if it destroyed him. He matches you. I guess it's kind of cute.\" She said this with a shy, grudging smile on her face. Somehow, she had managed to return to the place where I'd first known her, but now as someone older, taller, and wiser.\n\nI nudged her affectionately. \"You guys have a bond I could never touch,\" I replied. \"Even when we're at our worst.\"\n\nShe blushed at that, and I couldn't help opening my heart to her. A loving Tess is one of the sweetest sights in the world. \"Just be good to him,\" she whispered. \"Promise?\"\n\nNow I greet the nurse at the waiting room's window, then settle down into my usual chair and look around. So empty this morning. I find myself missing Tess's companionship. I try to distract myself with the news headlines running on the monitor."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "\u2002ANTARCTICAN PRESIDENT IKARI, UNITED NATIONS, SHOW APPROVAL FOR NEW PEACE TREATY BETWEEN REPUBLIC AND COLONIES\n\n\u2002ELECTOR PRIMO ANNOUNCES START OF NEW\n\n\u2002RANKING SYSTEM TO REPLACE FORMER TRIALS\n\n\u2002NEW BORDER CITIES BETWEEN REPUBLIC AND COLONIES TO BE RENAMED THE UNITED CITIES, TO BEGIN ALLOWING IMMIGRATION FROM BOTH NATIONS STARTING LATE NEXT YEAR\n\n\u2002SENATOR MARIANA DUPREE OFFICIALLY INDUCTED AS PRINCEPS OF THE SENATE\n\nThe news headlines bring a faint smile to my face. Last night, Anden had stopped by my apartment to tell me in person about Mariana. I'd told him that I would extend my congratulations to her directly. \"She's very good at what she does,\" I said. \"More so than I was. I'm happy for her.\"\n\nAnden bowed his head. \"You would have been better in the long run, I think,\" he replied with a gentle smile. \"You understand the people. But I'm happy that you're back where you feel the most comfortable. Our troops are lucky to have you.\" He hesitated then, and for a moment he took my hand in his. I remember the soft neoprene lining of his gloves, the silver shine of his cufflinks. \"I might not get to see much of you now. Maybe it's best that way, isn't it? Still, please do drop by now and then. It'll be nice to hear from you.\"\n\n\"Likewise,\" I replied, squeezing his hand in return.\n\nMy thoughts snap back to the present. One of the doctors has emerged from the hallway near Day's room. He catches sight of me, takes a deep breath, and approaches. I straighten, tensing. It's been a long time since I've heard any real updates on Day's condition from Dr. Kann. A part of me wants to jump up in excitement, because perhaps the news is good; another part of me cringes in fear, in case the news is bad. My eyes scan the doctor's face, searching for clues. (Pupils slightly dilated, face anxious, but not in the manner of one who is about to break the worst news. There are hints of joy on his face.) My pulse quickens. What is he going to tell me? Or perhaps it's no news at all\u2014perhaps he's simply going to tell me what he usually does. Not much change today, I'm afraid, but at least he's still stable. I've grown so used to hearing that.\n\nDr. Kann pauses before me. He adjusts his glasses and scratches unconsciously at his trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. \"Good morning, Ms. Iparis,\" he says.\n\n\"How is he?\" I ask, my usual greeting.\n\nDr. Kann smiles, but hesitates (another oddity; the news must be significant). \"Wonderful news.\" My heart stops for a second. \"Day has woken up. Less than an hour ago.\"\n\n\"He's awake?\" I breathe. He's awake. Suddenly the news is too overwhelming, and I'm not sure whether I can bear it. I study his face carefully. \"There's more to it than that, though. Isn't there?\"\n\nDr. Kann puts both hands on my shoulders. \"I don't want to worry you, Ms. Iparis, not at all. Day has pulled through his surgery remarkably well\u2014when he woke up, he asked for water and then for his brother. He seems quite alert and coherent. We ran a quick scan of his brain.\" His voice turns more excited. \"We'll need to do a more thorough check, of course, but upon first glance it seems everything has normalized. His hippocampus looks healthy, and signals seem to be firing normally. In almost every aspect, the Day that we know is back.\"\n\nTears prickle at the edges of my eyes. The Day that we know is back. After five months of waiting, the news is so sudden. One minute he was lying unconscious in bed, hanging on to life night by night, and now he's awake. Just like that. I break into a smile with the doctor, and before I can stop myself, I hug him. He laughs, patting my head awkwardly, but I don't care. I want to see Day. \"Can he have visitors?\" I ask. Then, abruptly, I realize what the doctor actually said. \"Why do you say 'almost'?\"\n\nThe doctor's smile wavers. He adjusts his glasses again. \"It's nothing we can't fix over the course of extended therapy. You see, the hippocampus region affects memories, both short- and long-term. It seems that Day's long-term memories\u2014his family, his brother Eden, his friend Tess, and so on\u2014are intact. After a few questions, however, it seems like he has very little recollection of both people and events from the last year or two. We call it retrograde amnesia. He remembers his family's deaths, for instance...\" Dr. Kann's voice trails off uncomfortably here. \"But he does not seem familiar with Commander Jameson's name, or the recent Colonies' invasion. He also doesn't seem to recall you.\"\n\nMy smile fades. \"He... doesn't remember me?\"\n\n\"Of course, this is something that can heal over time, with proper therapy,\" Dr. Kann again reassures me. \"His short-term memory abilities are working well. He remembers most things I tell him, and forms new memories without too much issue. I just wanted to warn you before you see him. Don't be startled that he might not remember you. Take your time and reintroduce yourself to him. Gradually, perhaps in a few years' time, his old memories might come back.\"\n\nI nod at the doctor as if in a dream. \"Okay,\" I whisper.\n\n\"You can see him now, if you'd like.\" He smiles at me, as if he's delivering the greatest news in the world. And he is.\n\nBut when he leaves me, I just stand there for a moment. My mind in a haze. Thinking. Lost. Then I take slow steps toward the hallway where Day's hospital room is, the corridor closing in around me like a foggy, blurry tunnel. The only thing running through my head is the memory of my desperate prayer over Day's wounded body, the promise I had offered up to the heavens in exchange for his life.\n\nLet him live. I am willing to sacrifice anything to make this happen.\n\nMy heart sinks, turns gray. I understand now. I know that something has answered my prayer, and at the same time has also told me what my sacrifice must be. I have been offered a chance to never hurt Day again.\n\nI step into the hospital room. Day is alert, propped up on pillows and startlingly healthier than the times I've seen him lying unconscious and wan over the past few months. But something is different now. Day's eyes follow me without a hint of familiarity in them; he's watching me with the polite, wary distance of a stranger, the way he looked at me when we first met.\n\nHe doesn't know who I am.\n\nMy heart aches, pulling at me as I draw closer to his bedside. I know what I have to do.\n\n\"Hi,\" he says when I sit on his bed. His eyes wander curiously across my face.\n\n\"Hi,\" I reply softly. \"Do you know who I am?\"\n\nDay looks guilty, which only digs the knife in deeper. \"Should I?\"\n\nIt takes all of my effort not to cry, to bear the thought that Day has forgotten everything between us\u2014our night together, the ordeals we've been through, all that we've shared and lost. We have been erased from his memory, leaving nothing behind. The Day that I knew is not here.\n\nI could tell him right now, of course. I could remind him of who I am, that I'm June Iparis, the girl he had once saved on the streets and fallen in love with. I could tell him everything, just like Dr. Kann said, and it could possibly trigger his old memories. Tell him, June. Just tell him. You'll be so happy. It'd be so easy.\n\nBut I open my mouth and no sound comes out. I can't do it.\n\nBe good to him, Tess had told me. Promise.\n\nSo long as I remain in Day's life, I will hurt him. Any other alternative is impossible. I think of the way he had crouched, sobbing, at his family's kitchen table, mourning what I had taken away from him. Now fate has handed the solution to me on a silver platter\u2014Day survived his ordeal, and in return, I need to step out of his life. Even though he looks at me now like a stranger, he no longer has the look of pain and tragedy that always seemed to come with the passion and love he gazed at me with. Now he is free.\n\nHe is free of us, leaving me as the only bearer of our past's burden.\n\nSo I swallow hard, smile, and bow my head to him. \"Day,\" I force myself to say, \"it's good to meet you. I was sent by the Republic to see how you're doing. It's wonderful to see you awake again. The country is going to rejoice when they hear the good news.\"\n\nDay nods politely in return, his tenseness unmistakable. \"Thank you,\" he says warily. \"The doctors tell me that I've been out for five months. What happened?\"\n\n\"You were injured during a battle between the Republic and the Colonies,\" I reply. Everything I'm saying sounds like it's coming from someone else's mouth. \"You saved your brother Eden.\"\n\n\"Is Eden here?\" Day's eyes light up with recognition, and a beautiful smile blossoms on his face. The sight of it brings me pain even as I am happy that he remembers his brother. I want so much to see that look of familiarity on his face when he's talking about me.\n\n\"Eden will be so happy to see you. The doctors are sending for him, so he'll arrive shortly.\" I return his smile, and this time it's a genuine one, if bittersweet. When Day studies my face again, I close my eyes and bow slightly to him.\n\nIt's time to let go.\n\n\"Day,\" I say, carefully choosing what my final words to him should be. \"It has been such a privilege and honor to fight by your side. You've saved many more of us than you'll ever know.\" For a small moment, I fix my eyes on his, telling him silently everything that I'll never say to him aloud. \"Thank you,\" I whisper. \"For everything.\"\n\nDay looks puzzled by the emotion in my voice, but he bows his head in return. \"The honor's mine,\" he replies. My heart breaks in sorrow at the lack of warmth in his voice, the warmth I know I would have heard had he remembered everything. I feel the absence of the aching love that I've come to yearn for, that I wanted so much to earn. It is gone now.\n\nIf he knew who I was, I would say something else to him now, something I should've said to him more often when I had the chance. Now I am sure of my feelings, and it's too late. So I fold the three words back into my heart, for his sake, and rise from his bed. I soak in every last, wonderful detail of his face and store it in my memory, hoping I can take him with me wherever I go. We exchange quiet salutes.\n\nThen I turn away for the last time.\n\nTwo weeks later, what feels like the entire city of Los Angeles turns out to see Day leave the country for good. On the morning I left Day's bedside, Antarctica came calling for both him and his brother. They'd taken note of Eden's gifted touch with engineering and offered him a place in one of their academies. At the same time, they offered Day the chance to go along.\n\nI don't join the crowds. I stay in my apartment instead, watching the events unfold while Ollie sleeps contentedly beside me. The streets around my complex are teeming with people, all jostling with one another to watch the JumboTrons. Their muffled chaos turns into white noise as I watch it unfold on my screen."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "DANIEL ALTAN WING AND BROTHER TO LEAVE TONIGHT FOR ROSS CITY, ANTARCTICA",
+                "text": "That's what the headlines say. On the screen, Day waves at the people gathered around his apartment as he and Eden are escorted to a jeep by a city patrol. I should call him Daniel, like the screen does. Perhaps he truly is just Daniel now, with no need for an alias anymore. I look on as he lets his brother get into the vehicle, and then follows, lost completely from view. It's so strange, I think to myself as my hand moves absently across Ollie's fur. Not long ago, the city patrols would have arrested him on sight. Now, he's leaving the Republic as their champion, to be celebrated and remembered for a lifetime.\n\nI turn the monitor off, then sit in the quiet darkness of my apartment, savoring the silence. Outside on the streets, people are still chanting his name. They chant it deep into the night.\n\nWhen the commotion finally dies down, I get up from my couch. I pull on my boots and a coat, then wrap a thin scarf around my neck and head out into the streets. My hair blows in the balmy night breeze, wisps catching now and then on my lashes. For a while I wander the quiet roads on my own. I'm not sure where I'm going. Maybe I'm trying to find my way back to Day. But that's illogical. He's already gone, and his absence leaves a hollow, aching pain in my chest. My eyes water from the wind.\n\nI walk for an hour before I finally take a short train ride to Lake sector. There, I stroll along the edge of the water, admiring the lights of downtown as well as the now-unused, unlit Trial stadium, a haunting reminder of events long gone. Giant water wheels churn in the lake, the rhythm of their movement settling into a comforting background symphony. I don't know where I'm going. All I know is that, in this moment, Lake sector seems more like home to me than Ruby does. Here, I'm not so alone. On these streets, I can still feel the beating of Day's heart.\n\nI begin to retrace my old steps, past the same lakeside buildings and the same crumbling homes, the steps I'd taken when I was a completely different person, full of hate and confusion, loss and ignorance. It's an odd feeling to wander these same streets as the person I am now. At once familiar and strange.\n\nAn hour later, I pause alone before a nondescript alleyway that branches off an empty street. At the end of this alley, an abandoned high-rise towers twelve stories up, each of its windows boarded up and its first floor just the way I remember it, with missing windows and broken glass on the floor. I step into the shadows of the building, remembering. This is where Day had first reached his hand out to me in the midst of smoke and dust and saved me so long ago, before we even discovered who the other was; this was the start of the few precious nights when we simply knew each other as a boy on the streets and a girl who needed help.\n\nThe memory comes into sharp focus.\n\nThere's a voice telling me to get up. When I look to my side, I see a boy holding out his hand to me. He has bright blue eyes, dirt on his face, and a beat-up old cap on, and at this moment, I think he might be the most beautiful boy I've ever seen.\n\nMy wandering has led me to the beginning of our journey together. I suppose it's only fitting for me to be here at that journey's end.\n\nI stand in the darkness for a long time, letting myself sink into the memories we once shared. The silence wraps me in comforting arms. One of my hands reaches over to my side and finds the old scar from where Kaede had wounded me. So many memories, so much joy and sadness.\n\nTears stream down my face. I wonder what Day is thinking at this moment while on his way to a foreign land, and whether or not some small part of him, even if it is buried deep, holds slivers of me, pieces of what we once had.\n\nThe longer I stand here, the lighter the burden on my heart feels. Day will move on and live his life. So will I. We will be okay. Someday, perhaps in the far and distant future, we'll find each other again. Until then, I will remember him. I reach out to touch one of the walls, imagining that I can feel his life and warmth through it, and I look around again, up toward the rooftops and then all the way to the night sky where a few faint stars can be seen, and there I think I really can see him. I can feel his presence here in every stone he has touched, every person he has lifted up, every street and alley and city that he has changed in the few years of his life, because he is the Republic, he is our light, and I love you, I love you, until the day we meet again I will hold you in my heart and protect you there, grieving what we never had, cherishing what we did. I wish you were here.\n\nI love you, always."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA",
+                "text": "[ REPUBLIC OF AMERICA ]\n\n[ TEN YEARS LATER ]\n\n1836 HOURS, JULY 11.\n\nBATALLA SECTOR, LOS ANGELES.\n\n78\u00b0 F.\n\nTODAY IS MY TWENTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY.\n\nI celebrate most of my birthdays without too much trouble. On my eighteenth, I joined Anden, a couple of Senators, Pascao and Tess, and several former Drake classmates for a low-key dinner at a rooftop lounge in Ruby sector. My nineteenth happened on a boat in New York City, the Colonies' rebuilt version of an old drowned city whose outskirts now slope gently into the Atlantic Ocean. I'd been invited to a party thrown for several international delegates from Africa, Canada, and Mexico. I spent my twentieth comfortably alone, tucked into bed with Ollie snoring on my lap, watching a brief newscast about how Day's brother Eden had graduated early from his academy in Antarctica, trying to catch a glimpse of how Day looked as a twenty-year-old, taking in the news that he himself had been recruited by Antarctica's intelligence agency. My twenty-first birthday was an elaborate affair in Vegas, where Anden invited me to a summer festival and then ended up kissing me in my hotel room. Twenty-second: the first birthday I celebrated with Anden as my official boyfriend. Twenty-third: spent at an induction ceremony that placed me as the commander of all squadrons in California, the youngest lead commander in Republic history. Twenty-fourth: a birthday spent without Ollie. Twenty-fifth: dinner and dancing with Anden on board the RS Constellation. Twenty-sixth: spent with Pascao and Tess as I told them about being freshly broken up from Anden, how the young Elector and I came to a mutual agreement that I simply couldn't love him the way he wished I would.\n\nSome of these years were spent in joy, others in sadness\u2014but the saddest events were always tolerable. Far worse things have happened, and nothing tragic during these later years could compare with the events from my teenage years. But today is different. I've been dreading this particular birthday for years, because it takes me back to some of the events from my past that I've tried so hard to keep buried.\n\nI spend most of the day in a fairly quiet mood. I rise early, follow my usual warm-up routines at the track, and then head to Batalla sector to organize my captains for their various city operations. Today I'm leading two of my best patrols to escort Anden during a meeting with Colonies' delegates. We may not share the same apartment anymore, but that doesn't change how fiercely I watch over his safety. He will always be my Elector, and I intend to keep it that way. Today, he and the Colonies are deep in the middle of discussions about the smooth immigration status along our border, where the United Cities have turned into flourishing areas with both Colonies and Republic civilians. What was once a hard dividing line between us now looks like a gradient. I look on from the sidelines as Anden shakes hands with the delegates and poses for photos. I'm proud of what he's done. Slow steps, but steps nonetheless. Metias would've been happy to see it. So would Day.\n\nWhen late afternoon comes, I finally leave Batalla Hall and head to a smooth, ivory-white building at the east end of Batalla Square. There, I show my ID at the entrance and make my way up to the building's twelfth floor. I trace familiar steps down the hall, my boots echoing against the marble floors, until I stop in front of a four-square-inch tombstone marker with the name CAPTAIN METIAS IPARIS embedded in its crystal-clear surface.\n\nI stand there for a while, then sit cross-legged before it and bow my head. \"Hi, Metias,\" I say in a soft voice. \"Today's my birthday. Do you know how old I am now?\"\n\nI close my eyes, and through the silence surrounding me I think I can sense a ghostly hand on my shoulder, my brother's gentle presence that I'm able to feel every now and then, in these quiet moments. I imagine him smiling down at me, his expression relaxed and free.\n\n\"I'm twenty-seven today,\" I continue in a whisper. My voice catches for a moment. \"We're the same age now.\"\n\nFor the first time in my life, I am no longer his little sister. Next year I will step across the line and he will still be in the same place. From now on, I will be older than he ever was.\n\nI try to move on to other thoughts, so I tell my brother's ghost about my year, my struggles and successes in commanding my own patrols, my hectic workweeks. I tell him, as I always do, that I miss him. And as always, I can hear the whisper of his ghost against my ear, his gentle reply that he misses me too. That he's looking out for me, from wherever he is.\n\nAn hour later, when the sun has finally set and the light streaming in from the windows fades away, I rise from my position and slowly make my way out of the building. I listen to some missed messages on my earpiece. Tess should be leaving her hospital shift soon, most likely armed with a slew of new stories about her patients. In the first years after Day left, the two of them stayed in close contact, and Tess would keep me constantly updated about how he was doing. Things like Eden's improving eyesight. Day's new job. Antarctican games. But as the years went on, their chatter grew less frequent, Tess grew up and into her own life, and gradually, their conversations dwindled to brief annual greetings. Sometimes none at all.\n\nI'd be lying if I said I didn't miss her stories about Day. But still, I find myself looking forward to some dinner chatter with her and Pascao, who should be heading over from Drake University, probably eager to share his latest adventures in training cadets. I smile as I think about what they might say. My heart feels lighter now, a little freer after my conversation with my brother. My thoughts wander briefly to Day. I wonder where he is, who he's with, whether he's happy.\n\nI really, sincerely, deeply hope that he is.\n\nThe sector isn't busy tonight (we haven't needed as many street police in the last few years), and aside from a few soldiers here and there, I'm alone. Most of the streetlights haven't turned on yet, and in the gathering darkness I can see a handful of stars flickering overhead. The glow from JumboTrons casts a kaleidoscope of colors across the gray pavement of Batalla sector, and I catch myself walking deliberately underneath them, holding a hand out to study the colors that dance across my skin. I watch snippets of news on the screens with mild disinterest while skimming through my missed messages. The epaulettes on my shoulders clink softly.\n\nThen I pause on a message Tess had left me earlier in the afternoon. Her voice fills my ears, full of warmth and playfulness.\n\n\"Hey. Check the news.\"\n\nThat's all she says. I frown, then laugh a little at Tess's game. What's going on in the news? My eyes return to the screens, this time with more curiosity. None of it catches my eye. I keep searching, looking for what Tess might have been talking about. Still nothing. Then... one small, nondescript headline, so brief that I must have been skipping over it all day. I blink, as if I might have misunderstood it, and read it again before it cycles out."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "EDEN BATAAR WING IN LOS ANGELES TO INTERVIEW FOR BATALLA ENGINEERING POSITION",
+                "text": "Eden? A ripple glides across the silence that has stilled me all day. I read the headline over and over again before I finally convince myself that they are indeed talking about Day's younger brother. Eden is here to interview for a potential job.\n\nHe and Day are in town.\n\nI look around the streets instinctively. They're here, walking the same streets. He's here. I shake my head at the little adolescent girl who has suddenly woken up in my heart. Even after all this time, I hope. Calm down, June. But still, my heart sits in my throat. Tess's message echoes in my mind. I return to walking down the street. Maybe I can find out where they're staying, just get a glimpse of how he's doing after all this time. I decide to call Tess back once I've reached the train station.\n\nFifteen minutes later, I'm at the outskirts of Batalla sector; the train station leading to Ruby appears around the corner. The darkness has lengthened enough for the streetlights to turn on, and a few soldiers are heading down the opposite sidewalk; aside from them, I'm the only one on this block.\n\nBut when I reach a slight curve in the street, I see two other people headed in my direction. I stop in my tracks. Then I frown and peer closer at the street before me. I'm still not sure of what I'm seeing.\n\nA pair of young men. Details flit automatically through my mind, so familiar now that I hardly think twice about them. Both are tall and lean, with pale blond hair that stands out in the dimly lit night. Instantly I know that they must be related, with their similar features and easy gaits. The one on the left wears glasses and is talking animatedly, brushing golden curls out of his eyes as he goes, his hands painting some sort of diagram in front of him. He keeps rolling his sleeves back up to his elbows, and his collar shirt is loose and rumpled. A carefree smile lights up his face.\n\nThe young man on the right seems more reserved, listening patiently to his curly-haired companion while he keeps his hands tucked casually in his pockets. A small grin touches the corners of his lips. His hair is different from what I remember, now short and endearingly unruly, and as he walks he occasionally runs a hand through it, leaving it even more wayward. His eyes are as blue as ever. Even though he's older now, with the face of a young man instead of the teenager I'd known so well, he still shows hints of that old fire whenever he laughs at his brother's words, moments of startling brightness and life.\n\nMy heart begins to beat, cutting through the heaviness that weighs on my chest. Day and Eden.\n\nI keep my head down as they draw closer. But from the corner of my vision, I see Eden notice me first. He pauses for a second in the middle of his sentence, and a quick smile appears on his face. His eyes flicker to his brother.\n\nDay casts me a look.\n\nThe intensity of it catches me off guard\u2014I haven't been subjected to his gaze in so long that suddenly I can't catch my breath. I straighten and quicken my pace. I need to get out of here. Otherwise, I'm not sure whether I can keep my emotions from spilling onto my face.\n\nWe pass each other without a word. My lungs feel like they might burst, and I take a few quick breaths to steady myself. I close my eyes. All I can hear is the rush of blood in my ears, the steady thumping of my heart. Gradually I hear the sound of their footsteps fade behind me. A sinking feeling slowly settles. I swallow hard, forcing a flood of memories out of my mind.\n\nI'm heading toward the train station. I'm going home. I'm not going to look back.\n\nI can't.\n\nThen... I hear footsteps behind me again. Hurried boots against pavement. I pause, steel myself, and look over my shoulder.\n\nIt's Day. He catches up to me. Some distance behind him, Eden waits with his hands in his pockets. Day stares into my eyes with a soft, puzzled expression\u2014it sends an electric shiver down my spine. \"Excuse me,\" he says. Oh, that voice. Deeper, gentler than I remember, without the rawness of childhood and with the new elegance of an adult. \"Have we met before?\"\n\nFor a moment, I'm at a loss for words. What do I say? I've spent so many years convincing myself that we no longer know each other. \"No,\" I whisper. \"Sorry.\" In my mind, I beg myself to tell him otherwise.\n\nDay frowns, confused for a moment. He runs his hand through his hair. In that gesture, I catch a glimpse of something shiny on his finger. It's a ring made out of wires. Of paper clips. A breath escapes me in shock.\n\nHe is still wearing the paper clip ring I'd once given him.\n\n\"Oh,\" he finally replies. \"I'm sorry to bother you, then. I just... You look really familiar. Are you sure we don't know each other from somewhere?\"\n\nI search his eyes in silence. I can't say anything. There is a secret emotion emerging on his face now, somewhere between strangeness and familiarity, something that tells me he's struggling to place me, to find where I belong. My heart protests, reaching out for him to discover it. Still, no words come out.\n\nDay searches my face with his soft gaze. Then he shakes his head. \"I have known you,\" he murmurs. \"A long time ago. I don't know where, but I think I know why.\"\n\n\"Why, then?\" I ask gently.\n\nHe's quiet for a moment. Then he takes a step closer, close enough for me to see that tiny ripple of imperfection in his left eye. He laughs a little, pink creeping onto his cheeks. \"I'm sorry. This is going to sound so strange.\" I feel like I'm lost in a haze. Like this is a dream I don't dare wake from. \"I...,\" he begins, as if looking for the right words. \"I've been searching a long time for something I think I lost.\"\n\nSomething he lost. The words bring a lump to my throat, a sudden surge of wild hope. \"It's not strange at all,\" I hear myself reply.\n\nDay smiles in return. Something sweet and yearning appears in his eyes. \"I felt like I found something when I saw you back there. Are you sure... do you know me? Do I know you?\"\n\nI don't know what to say. The part of me that had once decided to step out of his life tells me to do it again, to protect him from this knowledge that had hurt him so long ago. Ten years... has it really been that long? The other part of me, the girl who had first met him on the streets, urges me to tell him the truth. Finally, when I do manage to open my mouth, I say, \"I have to go meet up with some friends.\"\n\n\"Oh. Sorry.\" Day clears his throat, unsure of himself. \"I do too, actually. An old friend down in Ruby.\"\n\nAn old friend down in Ruby. My eyes widen. Suddenly I know why Tess sounded so mischievous on her message, why she told me to watch the news tonight. \"Is your friend's name Tess?\" I ask hesitantly.\n\nIt's Day's turn to look surprised. He gives me an intrigued, puzzled smile. \"You know her.\"\n\nWhat am I doing? What's happening? This really is all a dream, and I'm terrified to wake up from it. I've had this dream too many times. I don't want it taken away again. \"Yes,\" I murmur. \"I'm having dinner with her tonight.\"\n\nWe stare at each other in silence. Day's face is serious now, and his gaze is so intense that I can feel warmth running through every inch of my body. We stand together like this for a long, long moment, and for once, I have no idea how much time has passed. \"I do remember,\" he finally says. I search his eyes for that same aching sadness, the torment and anguish that had always been there whenever we were together. But I can no longer see it. Instead, I find something else... I see a healed wound, a permanent scar that has nevertheless closed, something from a chapter of his life that he has finally, after all these years, made peace with. I see... Can it be possible? Can this be true?\n\nI see pieces of memories in his eyes. Pieces of us. They are broken, and scattered, but they are there, gradually coming together again at the sight of me. They are there.\n\n\"It's you,\" he whispers. There is wonder in his voice.\n\n\"Is it?\" I whisper back, my voice trembling with all the emotions I've kept hidden for so long.\n\nDay is so close, and his eyes are so bright. \"I hope,\" he replies softly, \"to get to know you again. If you are open to it. There is a fog around you that I would like to clear away.\"\n\nHis scars will never fade. I am certain of that much. But perhaps... perhaps... with time, with age, we can be friends again. We can heal. Perhaps we can return to that same place we once stood, when we were both young and innocent. Perhaps we really can meet like other people do, on some street one balmy evening, where we each catch the other's eye and stop to introduce ourselves. Echoes of Day's old wish come back to me now, emerging from the mist of our early days.\n\nPerhaps there is such a thing as fate.\n\nStill I wait, too unsure of myself to answer. I cannot take the first step. I shouldn't. That step belongs to him.\n\nFor a moment, I think it won't happen.\n\nThen Day reaches out and touches my hand with his. He encloses it in a handshake. And just like that, I am linked with him again, I feel the pulse of our bond and history and love through our hands, like a wave of magic, the return of a long-lost friend. Of something meant to be. The feeling brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps we can take a step forward together.\n\n\"Hi,\" he says. \"I'm Daniel.\"\n\n\"Hi,\" I reply. \"I'm June.\""
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "Sung in Blood",
+        "author": "Glen Cook",
+        "genres": [
+            "fantasy",
+            "steampunk"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Death stalked the night. It haunted the shadowed alleys of Shasesserre.\n\nThose it passed near hurried away, driven by the knives of fear.\n\nDeath wore the guise of a squat, gnarly man in a vile yellow mask, the mask of a shantor, a carrier of the weeping sickness.\n\nDeath was a liar, a wearer of false faces.\n\nThe gnarly man zigzagged the darkest ways, hurrying toward the City's heart\u2014the Plaza of Jehrke Victorious. Across his back he carried a rag-wrapped bundle. He reached the edge of the great square. Beyond, the Rock and its crown, Citadel Nibroc, reared their humped and spiky silhouettes against the stars.\n\nIt was a rare and cloud-clear night there at the crossroads 'twixt land and sea.\n\nBetween plaza's edge and Citadel stood a five-hundred-foot temporary needle of timbers, kept upright by scores of guylines. The masked man paused to see if he was observed, then ran to its foot. He swarmed upward with the tireless energy of a machine. When he reached the crowning platform, from which rope divers would plunge during tomorrow's celebrations, he was barely panting.\n\nThe gnarly man shed his burden. For a moment he stared at the nearest spire of the Citadel, then began ripping rags off his bundle. Starlight glinted off steel and polished wood. He began assembling some mysterious engine.\n\nA moist breeze off the Golden Crescent lifted his yellow mask. It betrayed an evil, gap-toothed murderer's grin.\n\nJehrke entered his laboratory almost furtively. His lamp illuminated a face gaunt with worry, with fear.\n\nThe Protector afraid? Impossible. For three centuries his wizardry had nurtured and shielded Shasesserre in a world that hungered to rape its wealth and plunder its power. He had brushed aside a thousand perils. He had survived a thousand threats. His might and skill were legend.\n\n\"It's him! But how does he come, that I do not smell him in every shadow?\" His web of sorcery lay everywhere upon the City. No magician great or feeble, white or dark, could evade his notice. \"The breath of him stinks. And what better time to strike?\"\n\nJehrke moved about, lighting lamps. They revealed a laboratory that would have amazed his most advanced colleagues. \"Through what dark crack does he design to thrust his wickedness?\"\n\nShasesserre remained Queen of the Orient, Crossroad of the World, because for three centuries no shadow had leaked past Jehrke's vigilance. There was a saying: \"Good or bad, Kings and Queens come and go. Jehrke is forever.\"\n\nIt was a time of a good King, and the Protector, and all at the heart of the world prospered.\n\nBut wolves howled beyond the border, dark and jealous. Their master kept them whipped to a frenzy.\n\nJehrke looked out the window on the night, on the constellation that was the city that never sleeps. The hairs on his neck bristled. A chill made him shudder.\n\nHe turned gaunt face and hollow eyes toward a map of Shasesserre's domains. \"Can there be a rent in the fabric of the web? Has he found some way to steal close unremarked?\" He scowled at the chart. It told him nothing he had not known for centuries.\n\nSuddenly, he whirled to face the window. He knew he felt death's cold breath and clammy touch.\n\nCursing, the gnarly man hammered a wooden frame member with his fist. It snapped into place. He glanced at the newly lighted window. The man passed the light.\n\nThe gnarly fellow cursed again and furiously pumped a crank on the side of his engine. Wood creaked. Steel scraped, a large coil spring wound tighter and tighter.\n\n\"He must die. The Master has condemned him. He must die tonight.\"\n\nFinished cranking, he gazed through a metal tube attached to his device. He adjusted its position. Satisfied, he tripped a wooden lever. The engine creaked as the coil spring drove gears and pulleys and hauled back the string of the massive crossbow that was the machine's heartpiece.\n\nA short arrow, or long quarrel, dropped from a hopper into the channel of the crossbow.\n\nThree hundred yards away the doomed man faced a map, back to the window, centered within its rectangle. The gnarly man tripped another lever and dove for the ladder down. Behind him the death engine thunked and began to rewind.\n\nA terrible cry ripped the fabric of the night. It shook the foundations of the Rock. A bleak and horrible wind bowled through the Plaza of Jehrke Victorious. The gnarly assassin clung to the ladder four hundred eighty feet above cobblestones and shrieked entreaties to heathen gods.\n\nThe wind departed as suddenly as it came. The killer resumed his scramble toward the ground.\n\nAbove, the death machine creaked and thunked methodically.\n\nThe first bolt shattered the window and hit Jehrke an inch above the heart. It flung him back against the map. Nine of its eighteen inches buried themselves in the wall.\n\nDirect physical assault! Never had he considered the chance of an attack so unsubtle.\n\nAgony tore his flesh. Almost, his control slipped as he screamed a death-curse that sent his web into insane paroxysms. He gestured with his left hand. Pale fire crawled about the laboratory. He gestured with his right. Shadows flew out into the storm, toward the diving tower, only possible point for launching the attack.\n\nThe next bolt arrived. The Protector jerked, then sagged. Soon another missile thumped home. Then another; and another, in regular, deadly rhythm."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "There were five people in the room with the pincushioned Protector. None were ordinary, but the eye tended to a grim-faced fellow in imperial Ride-Master of Cavalry uniform. He was tall, well-muscled, with arcticly cold blue eyes. He paced like a captive panther, restless grace in a cage. He was the last to arrive.\n\n\"We tried to find you as soon as Chaz told us, Rider,\" said a moonfaced imp of a fellow. He was an imp. He tried hard to look human, but yellow fangs lapped his fat lower lips and his eyes were all oily ruby pupil. Puffs of sulphurous smoke occasionally escaped his wide nostrils. \"But you was on patrol, Captain.\"\n\nThe imp's name was Su-Cha. He was the Ride-Master's familiar, kept in this world as one of his several associates.\n\nThe other three present were human men, but odd in their ways.\n\nChaz was a giant barbarian from the far north. In most ways he was faithful to stereotype. He enjoyed busting things up. Near Chaz stood a nut-brown, rail-thin, beetle-faced easterner whose hobby was crafting odd machines. His name was Omar and a lot more, but his friends called him Spud. The third man looked like a derelict, with wild white hair and beard, and clothing little better than rags. He had to be reminded to change. He used the name Greystone. He spent his attention on studying and thinking, not his appearance.\n\n\"Where's Preacher? Where's Soup?\" the man with the frosty eyes asked, about members of the group not present.\n\n\"Looking for you,\" said Su-Cha. \"Unless they got distracted by some floozy.\"\n\nRider\u2014for so he was called by his friends\u2014faced the corpse of the man who had been his father, for the first time squarely. \"He knew it would come. But he didn't expect it this soon, nor this way.\"\n\n\"Three hundred years,\" Chaz intoned. \"Hard to believe, Rider. Even that way he looks too young.\"\n\nThe younger Jehrke's eyes grew colder. \"The torch has been passed, ready or not.\"\n\n\"We're ready, Rider,\" Su-Cha said. \"Let's get at it.\"\n\nRider ignored the imp. \"Chaz. You're sure nobody has gotten in here? That only we and the assassins know?\"\n\n\"I was with him. He just wanted to check something, he said. I waited outside. I started to wonder how come he was taking so long. Then he yelled. When I broke in he was like that.\"\n\nRider went to the window, glared at the tower in the Plaza. Though festivities were not to start for hours, spectators had begun to assemble. \"They came from the diving platform. You went to find Su-Cha. How long were you gone?\"\n\n\"Two minutes.\"\n\n\"Then there was no time for an intruder to destroy any message my father left.\"\n\n\"Message? We would've found one if\u2014\"\n\nRider raised a hand. He cocked his head. \"You hear anything?\" he asked Su-Cha, indicating the door.\n\nThe imp shook his head but glided that way. He was accustomed to Rider's finely tuned senses. The dead wizard had raised his son to stretch every human capacity. At the door the imp vaporized. He reassumed corporeality moments later. \"Nobody. But there may have been someone. The sand you scattered was disturbed.\" Among other attributes Su-Cha had a perfect memory for the most minuscule details.\n\nRider merely nodded. He assembled various items from the laboratory, performed a slight magic. Then he dusted a handful of orange powder upon a blank piece of wall. Chaz gasped. \"Parts of words.\"\n\n\"My father's final message. I've long suspected it was there, awaiting his death to activate it.\" He stepped up to the wall, passed a palm over the message. The powder fluoresced.\n\nSon. Your hour is come. I have prepared you as well as I could. Protect Shasesserre from the wolves without and worms within. Always there will be enemies of tranquility and prosperity. You will be occupied continuously. Their wickedness knows no proportion. In the bathhouse on the Saverne side, in the place I once showed you, you will find the names of those who must be watched.\n\n\"He updated that list frequently,\" Rider said. \"I didn't know he kept it there, though.\"\n\n\u2002Do not waste time mourning me. Shasesserre's enemies will not. They will be moving before you read this.\n\n\u2002Your father\n\nThe elder Jehrke had had difficulty expressing affection even in writing.\n\n\"There it is.\" Rider brushed a palm over the wall again. The message vanished. He went to the window. \"Chaz. You said there was a howl outside?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nRider stared at the Plaza. \"How long will his name remain, now? He was not the sort to eradicate his enemies. There must be a dozen cabals awaiting this chance. One is moving already. We'll have to act fast if we're to grab the reins before word gets out.\"\n\nSome of his companions nodded. Chaz grunted. It was something they had discussed often. Though no traditional dictator, Jehrke had maintained himself as Protector by the terror he instilled in those who would plunder Shasesserre. With the Protector gone, any number of strongmen would attempt to prevent his ideals being perpetuated. Among them could be counted nobles, high officials, churchmen, rich men of trade, even gangsters. Not to mention the Queen City's foreign enemies.\n\n\"Chaos,\" Rider said. \"We look that dragon right in the mouth.\"\n\n\"Surely there will be popular support for the son to continue the work of the father.\"\n\n\"There will be. But ordinary people do not wield the power. The men who would see my father's ideals put aside care not about the popular voice. The voices they hear are power and greed.\"\n\nThe imp, Su-Cha, murmured, \"Then there are those who hearken overmuch to the siren call of revenge.\"\n\nRider acted as though he had not heard. He said, \"We'd better examine that tower. The assassin might have left a clue.\"\n\nThe group piled out of the room. None of the others noticed that Rider delayed a few seconds before joining them."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "Preacher and Soup were headed for the Rock. \"Somebody found him by now,\" Soup said.\n\n\"Verily.\" Preacher was so called because of his dress, manner of speech, and his incessant efforts to convert his comrades to a baffling dogma endemic to his native Frista. It was doubted even he took himself seriously. He yielded to temptation too easily.\n\nThe two rounded a corner and found themselves face to face with a short, gnarly man who looked remarkably like a bull gorilla. The gnarly man's eyes bugged. He gaped. He whirled and ran.\n\n\"The evil flee where no man pursueth,\" Preacher intoned.\n\n\"You said a mouthful, brother. Want to bet that geek had something to do with croaking Rider's old man?\"\n\n\"Gambling is a snare of the devil,\" Preacher replied. \"No bet. Let's get him.\"\n\n\"I got a better idea. Let's see where he goes. He's heading up Floral. Looked like a foreigner. Maybe he don't know you can cut through Bleek Alley.\"\n\n\"I'll take the alley. You run him.\"\n\n\"Lazy.\" Preacher had that reputation.\n\n\"He's gaining.\"\n\nThat gnarly man could move for having such short legs.\n\n\"The wings of fear carrieth the wicked.\"\n\n\"Stuff it, Preach. Cut out and head him off.\"\n\nPreacher ducked into Bleek Alley, black clothing flying around him. It was a dark, twisting way little more than the span of his arms wide, filled with trash and shadows.\n\nOne clot of shadow coughed up a swarm of gnarly men. \"Ambush!\" Preacher gasped. Footsteps hammered behind him. There was no exit.\n\nPreacher never backed down from a fight. And he was five times tougher than he talked, ten times tougher than he looked. He let rip one great bloody shriek and hurled himself forward.\n\nHis attack astonished them. Long thin arms tipped by fists as hard as rocks hammered them. The gnarly men grunted as the blows fell, got tangled as they tried to reorganize. Preacher produced a sand-filled leather sap and started thumping heads. Two gnarly men went to sleep.\n\nThen the tribe behind arrived. A wave of stubby limbs rolled over Preacher. Someone snatched his sap away and used it. His aim was erratic. Gnarly men suffered more often than Preacher.\n\nThen darkness enveloped Preacher.\n\nFour gnarly men stood over him, panting and rubbing bruises. Their leader snarled, \"Get the wagon. Get him out of here before the other one comes.\" He spoke a language of the far east, little-known in Shasesserre.\n\nAnother man, kneeling over the fallen, said, \"Broken neck here, Emerald.\"\n\nThe leader, Emerald, indistinguishable from the others, cursed the dead man for complicating his life. \"Throw him in the wagon, too.\" He kicked Preacher.\n\nSoup\u2014so called since childhood, for reasons he no longer recalled\u2014became suspicious. His quarry was not trying hard enough to escape. When there was no Preacher waiting, and the gnarly man turned into Bleek Alley, he knew.\n\nSoup trotted back the way he had come.\n\nSoup carried no weapon but the knife he used when eating. He did not approve of bloody-minded violence\u2014 not to mention that Shasesserre had laws banning civilians carrying blades\u2014though he was not shy about mixing it up when the occasion arose. None of Rider's gang were.\n\nHe stopped at a smithy, bought a pick, left its head with the baffled toolmaker.\n\nHe repaired to the mouth of Bleek Alley, listened, heard the distant creak of wagon wheels. Of Preacher there was no sign. \"Trouble for sure,\" he muttered, and stalked into the shadows.\n\nTrouble did not disappoint him. There was a sudden rush of feet. He hoisted his pick handle and used it like a two-handed sword.\n\nIts heavy end tapped skulls. Gnarly men shrieked. Heads cracked like eggshells. Bones broke. Soup let out a wild howl. \"Who ambushed who?\" he laughed, and laid on again.\n\nEmerald saw the way of things early. He fell back, scrambled up onto a rusted metal balcony dangling precariously eight feet above, yelled at his men to flee. As Soup passed below, shouting, \"Stand and take it, you cowards!\" Emerald reached down and whacked the back of his head. Soup's lights went out. Moments later he was bound and in the wagon with Preacher and several dead gnarly men."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "Rider went up the tower with a tireless ease matched only by Su-Cha, who levitated from stage to stage. The imp grinned down at Chaz, Spud, and Greystone, offering endless unsolicited advice.\n\nChaz threatened, \"Any more mouth and we'll see how you rope dive without a rope.\" It was an empty threat. Su-Cha would fall only if he wanted.\n\nRider reached the high platform well ahead of his men. Below, people pointed and asked what the Protector's son was doing. He was well-known, which he did not like. It would interfere with his new work.\n\nThe side of the platform facing the Golden Crescent boasted a pair of lithe, springy fifty-foot poles of newly trimmed green wood brought up just that morning. Workmen were attaching long, tough, elastic ropes. Similar poles and ropes were installed at stages all up the tower. Later, Shasesserre's young men would place their ankles in harnesses attached to those ropes and dive into space. The springy poles would absorb their momentum and halt them just short of death. They would dive from ever higher stations, their numbers dwindling as altitude betrayed courage's limit. It would be dark before they reached the top. The remaining divers would jump carrying torches. Rider had won the competition during his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth years.\n\nHe glanced at the workmen, then paid them no mind. They showed more interest in him. He was a remarkable physical specimen, and a reputed genius.\n\nThe death engine stood at the side of the platform facing the Citadel. Rider asked, \"Anyone touched this?\"\n\nHeads shook. One man offered, \"We didn't know what it was for. What is it?\"\n\nRider ignored the question. \"Ingenious.\" He moved around the engine cautiously, never touching it.\n\n\"Geep!\" a workman said.\n\n\"Hello to you, too,\" Su-Cha singsonged.\n\nRider faced his associates. \"Look this thing over when you catch your breath, Spud. See if it's booby-trapped.\"\n\n\"Never again,\" Spud gasped. \"Never again.\" He began studying the machine.\n\n\"You still got to get down,\" Chaz reminded.\n\n\"Let him jump,\" Su-Cha said. \"Maybe he can knit wings before he hits.\"\n\n\"Your sense of humor is juvenile,\" Chaz observed.\n\n\"I'm just a young thing. Barely two thousand.\"\n\n\"No booby traps,\" Spud announced.\n\n\"Do you recognize the workmanship?\"\n\n\"No.\" Spud looked over the edge. He swayed. Rider grabbed his arm.\n\n\"Dang!\" Su-Cha said. \"Thought he'd try it.\"\n\nChaz kicked toward the imp's behind. Su-Cha was absent when his foot arrived. He cackled from a far corner of the platform, perched atop a workman's tool chest.\n\nMumbling, the workmen started leaving.\n\n\"Let's see if my father marked his killer. Su-Cha, do you smell anything?\"\n\nThe imp sniffed around the killing machine. His face puckered into one huge frown. \"It's there. But weak. Be hard to isolate.\" He got down on all fours, snuffled like a hound. He went right to the top of the ladder and over the side, head down.\n\n\"Don't take no demon to figure that,\" Chaz said. \"No murderer was going to fly out of here.\"\n\nGreystone suggested, \"We could offer a reward for witnesses.\" The scholar seldom spoke. When he did, even Rider listened. \"Even at midnight someone might have seen him.\"\n\n\"Hmm. No,\" Rider said. \"Not yet. Likely to raise questions. Maybe if the news gets out. You and Spud might visit neighborhood watering holes. If anybody did see a climber he'll talk about it.\"\n\nSpud complained, \"Come on, Rider. Why can't we go with you? How come Chaz and Su-Cha get in on all the excitement?\"\n\n\"Chaz will miss out, too. He'll be looking for Soup and Preacher. We should have heard from them.\" Rider slowly turned as he spoke, flicked a glance toward the Citadel. \"Ah. I thought so.\"\n\n\"What?\" Chaz demanded.\n\n\"Someone is in the lab. Thought I saw movement a while ago.\"\n\n\"Let's go!\" Chaz whooped, and went over the side. Spud and Greystone followed. Rider examined the death machine again, then seized one of the diving ropes.\n\nHe jumped.\n\nWorkmen yelled. Rider plunged toward the Plaza. The spring in rope and pole absorbed his momentum. He came to a halt six feet from the surface, let go, landed running. His associates were not yet thirty feet down from the tower platform.\n\nHe whipped into the Citadel, climbed stairs at a pace punishing even for his iron muscles, slammed into his father's laboratory.\n\nThe place was a shambles.\n\nHe placed one finger on the wall. It was warm. He nodded, made supple-fingered passes over the floor. Glimmering footprints appeared. Two men. One larger than the other. The larger tracks ran to the window and back. A lookout. The smaller feet went straight to the door, spacing indicating haste. The lookout had witnessed Rider's jump.\n\nRider was rereading his father's message when Chaz, Omar, Greystone, and Su-Cha arrived. \"Catch them, Rider?\" the imp piped.\n\n\"No. They were looking for a last message. And found one.\"\n\n\"Darn. That means trouble.\"\n\n\"For them.\" Rider indicated the wall.\n\nSu-Cha chortled. \"You changed it. Are they going to be mad.\"\n\n\"More than you know. I'll be there to greet them.\"\n\nChaz rubbed his hands together eagerly, drew the huge and entirely illegal sword he carried. He examined its edge.\n\n\"No,\" Rider said. \"I'm going alone. You have your assignments.\"\n\n\"Rider!\"\n\nRider ignored their protests, leaned out the window.\n\n\"What is it?\" The whole laboratory shivered. Glass rattled. Dust danced.\n\n\"Military airship. I should have sensed it sooner. The web is more damaged than I thought. We'll have to wrap this up fast and get to repairing it.\"\n\nNoise rose from the Plaza as the airship passed over. It settled toward the military moorings on the Martial Fields.\n\nIt was a gaudy bombard from the eastern fleet. The side effects of the sorcery that propelled it faded.\n\n\"Off on your errands now,\" Rider said.\n\n\"Suppose we catch the killer?\" Su-Cha asked.\n\n\"Bring him here.\" Rider's voice was cold grey iron. \"There are questions I want to ask.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\nChaz was out the door already, humming. He'd thought of an amusing trick to play on Soup and Preacher.\n\nSu-Cha, Spud, and Greystone followed.\n\nRider busied himself in the laboratory, collecting items he concealed about himself. Then he set out on the trail of glowing footprints. He believed he knew where they were headed, but wanted to see what stops they made.\n\nThe footprints materialized a dozen steps ahead of him, faded that far behind. Before long the men making them separated. He elected to follow the smaller prints."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "Chance led Su-Cha, Spud, and Greystone across Chaz's path. The northerner was holding up a wall with one shoulder while talking to an attractive young woman. His mind was not on business.\n\nSu-Cha said, \"Feast your glims on this, guys,\" and he scrunched his eyes tight shut.\n\nHis body changed. Not much, but enough to provide the appearance of a child about four. Then he charged Chaz, wrapped his arms around the barbarian's legs. \"Daddy. Daddy. Mommy says you have to come right home.\"\n\nChaz's jaw dropped. The woman's brow wrinkled. The barbarian saw Spud and Greystone grinning. He roared, \"Su-Cha! I'll flay you and use your damned spook hide...\"\n\n\"Daddy? Are you mad?\"\n\nChaz kicked the imp into traffic, where he narrowly missed being trampled.\n\nThe young woman gave him bloody hell. He tried to explain. She did not believe a word he said. Imps!\n\nChaz was angry. He did not observe his surroundings in the alert way survival in the north demanded. He overlooked the gnarly men entirely, though they stood out even among the ten thousand outrageous foreigners haunting that Shasesserren street.\n\nHe worked his way from place to place, asking after Soup and Preacher. None of their acquaintances had seen them. He grew concerned. They should not have been so hard to find.\n\nHe made the acquaintance of the gnarly men as he cut through a delivery way between major streets. Those men seemed to prefer alleyways.\n\nA rush of feet from behind.\n\nChaz's reactions were not impaired. Out came the illegal but seldom challenged sword. A gnarly man howled out his life as a cross stroke opened his belly. Another shrieked and clutched a savaged bicep. The mob halted, danced back out of reach.\n\nEmerald cursed his men for idiots, cursed himself for being saddled with them, cursed the orders that brought him to Shasesserre. He redeployed. Two men with gladiatorial-style nets moved to the fore.\n\nChaz was not given to suicidal heroics. He retreated.\n\nThe net men knew their stuff. They feinted, pressed, feinted, tried to tangle Chaz's legs and blade. Their comrades threw brickbats. One especially savage throw glanced off Chaz's shin and succeeded in distracting him.\n\nNet in high, brushed aside. But the net low tangled his right ankle. Down he went. The pack leaped forward. Chaz bellowed and roared, punched, kicked, and bit. He littered that alley with howling villains. But all the while Emerald danced in and out, whapping his hard northern head with the captured sap.\n\nChaz gave up to the darkness.\n\nSoup wakened to a world throbbing and fogged. At one moment it seemed he was in a darkened coliseum, its walls so distant they were invisible, the lamps starry pinpricks miles away. The next moment it all rushed in. He was near crushed by gaudy eastern furnishings impossible to enumerate. His limited attention focused on a single detail, a slim, golden-skinned woman of incredible beauty, who paced before a wallhanging embroidered with eastern fantasies.\n\nShe was a little thing, and young, but no child. She moved with an animal litheness that set Soup's brain more aspin.\n\nShe said something softly.\n\nA muffled male voice replied. Soup could not distinguish individual words. But it seemed a voice he should know.\n\nThe woman glanced at the prisoners. She had the most remarkable eyes Soup had ever seen. Big, green, they were eyes to swallow a man's soul. She was a trap to break a heart of stone!\n\nShe faced left. \"There is no point complaining. Emerald is not here. And no change in plan can be made before the Master arrives.\"\n\nThe male voice became more strident but no more clear. Soup wished for a glimpse of the speaker.\n\nThe woman replied, \"Your desires are of consequence only insofar as they complement those of the Master.\"\n\nMore male talk, angry. Threatening.\n\nThe woman smiled. She pointed. \"Do you wish to join them? Or to do the Master's bidding?\"\n\nThe complaints subsided.\n\nAll this while Soup's world shrank and swelled and rolled on its belly and back. Now darkness returned.\n\nLater the veil parted again. A large, fluffy cat was nosing around his face. It would not go away.\n\nA different male voice grumbled something in an eastern tongue. Many feet tramped. Men grunted. A body flopped down nearby. A gnarly man bent over it, forced something small and brown between slack lips.\n\nChaz!\n\nAnother of the group taken. What was going on?\n\nThe woman said, \"Emerald, our friend doesn't like the way we're doing this. We're not moving fast enough to suit him.\"\n\nThe gnarly man spat. \"I came here with twelve men, as you asked, friend. I have five dead and two with broken bones already. You were not honest with us. I think, when the Master arrives, you will answer for that.\"\n\nThe unknown man responded with fear in his muffled voice.\n\nThe woman said, \"Your plan is sound. It will be pursued. We will isolate the Protector's son from his friends, then handle him. Then we will eliminate others who would resist us. That will not be difficult once the Master arrives.\"\n\nThe Master. The Master, Soup thought. Who is that?\n\nEmerald said, \"I suggest you obtain local helpers. I cannot keep losing men.\"\n\nThere was a stir. Someone came to where Soup, Preacher, and Chaz lay. He wore a heavy papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 mask pierced by two narrow eyeslits. The man in the mask laughed. \"For this I will hire an army. I must have them all.\"\n\nSoup again thought he sensed something familiar.\n\n\"Go recruit, then,\" Emerald said.\n\nThe man in the mask went away.\n\nEmerald and the golden-skinned woman murmured to one another. Soup's universe remained unstable. And now his head hurt terribly. Preacher, he noted, showed signs of recovering, too. Chaz, though, was out for the count.\n\nThen he went down into the darkness again.\n\nHe wakened to: \"The Master comes!\" The golden-skinned woman's breath caught in her throat. A fetching effect, he thought... The dizzies caught and spun him around.\n\nHe was not sure what he saw next was not part of a drug dream. A hideous little man no bigger than Su-Cha, with a large normal head, stood peering down at him. His coloring and dress were oriental. His hands were folded before him. His fingers were encased in golden shields meant to protect nails grown many inches long.\n\nThe dwarf radiated malevolence.\n\nThe Master.\n\nThe golden-skinned woman lay face down behind him, abasing herself. Of Emerald there was no sign.\n\nEmerald was stalking the remainder of Rider's men.\n\nHis manpower depleted, he had opted for cunning. He posted his men, then sought out Spud, Greystone, and Su-Cha. Speaking Shasesserren brokenly, bowing, he blocked their path. \"Is told you fella seek holy joe fella Pleacher, so? Is bounty find same?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Spud said. \"Depends.\"\n\n\"You come see belong you fella fliend Pleacher, longside tlouble.\" Emerald hurried away.\n\nThe three followed. \"A remarkable physical specimen,\" Greystone said, scholarly curiosity piqued.\n\nSpud grumbled, \"There's an accent behind that pidgin that I know from somewhere. Can't get my hooks on it.\"\n\nGrinning, prancing ahead, back to the gnarly man, Su-Cha said, \"We've found our man. This is the guy Rider's old man marked.\"\n\nSpud and Greystone halted. \"You mean?...\"\n\n\"Yes indeed.\" Su-Cha's little round face went hard.\n\n\"You fella come?\"\n\n\"By all means,\" Greystone replied. \"By all means.\"\n\n\"Ambush of some kind,\" Spud decided.\n\n\"Somebody's going to ambush somebody,\" Su-Cha chirped.\n\nBut they were not prepared when it happened, as, passing a tavern, they were set upon by five gnarly men with nets and ropes. It was no fight at all. Greystone and Spud were netted, tied, and dragged into an alley almost before bystanders were aware something was happening.\n\nSu-Cha was another matter. The gnarly men could not keep a net on a creature able to discorporate and reintegrate elsewhere. But they produced fetishes of holly and garlic and a rope of silver. They surrounded him with the rope. He could not escape their closing circle. The holly and garlic prevented him getting close enough to strike back.\n\nGrinning, Emerald tossed a net into which silver thread had been plaited.\n\nThe last of Rider's associates was caught.\n\n\"Better this time,\" Emerald said. \"Let's deliver them. Then we try the tough one.\"\n\n\"These guys were tough enough,\" one man protested.\n\n\"We'll have help after this. Shut up and come on. People are getting nosey.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "Rider followed the glowing footprints to a grand mansion on the Balajka Hill, Shasesserre's wealthiest section. He faced a decision. The tracks went in, but then came out again. Continue following them? Or investigate the house?\n\nThat was supposed to be empty.\n\nJehrke had known all Shasesserre's leading men, so his son knew them, too. This mansion belonged to one Vlazos, currently posted to the western army for his year in five of public service.\n\nSomeone had usurped the place in his absence.\n\nRider decided he would come back later. He continued tracking the man who had had his father murdered.\n\nHe was two hundred yards away when a rushing coach nearly overran him. He rose angrily. Such drivers had no place in Shasesserre on the overcrowded streets. The coach turned in through the gate to the Vlazos mansion.\n\nRider intuited the arrival of an important conspirator. Perhaps one more important than the man he tracked. He turned back.\n\nThe Vlazos grounds were surrounded by a fifteen-foot wall. Rider made sure no one was in sight, swarmed up using cracks between stones for foot-and handholds. He peeped over the top, saw nothing remarkable, hoisted himself, dropped lightly to the manicured turf inside. He reached the side of the house only moments after the front door closed behind the newcomer.\n\nThe carriage stood untended. Rider sent his wizard-trained senses to explore. He could find no guard behind the door. The newcomer and his driver were moving deeper into the house, one toward the kitchens, the other toward where several lifesparks glimmered.\n\nHe recognized the sparks of Preacher, Chaz, Soup.\n\nThe conclusion was unavoidable. His father's enemies had made them prisoners.\n\nRider went through the door as silently as death. He followed the man who had come in the coach. Already his driver was in the kitchens, drinking. Soon Rider heard a piping voice say something unintelligible.\n\nA dozen steps more, along a shadowed hallway. He noted that oriental furnishings had replaced those Vlazos preferred. Ahead, a strong smell of rare eastern incense. A tapestry hung across a large doorway. He heard movement beyond it.\n\nRider peeped through the narrowest of gaps on one side. He saw his three men immediately, bound and unconscious. Nearer him, an attractive oriental woman abased herself upon the floor. She chattered in a melodic tongue.\n\nRider spoke half a hundred languages, but this one evaded him.\n\nThe newcomer spoke one curt syllable. Rider nearly jumped. The man was right in front of him. Was he invisible? His gaze dropped. A dwarf!\n\nHe hearkened back to tales his father had told, in his uncertain, fragmentary fashion. There were many old enemies. One was an especially nasty dwarf. What was that name? Yes. Kralj Odehnal.\n\nKralj Odehnal, renowned sorcerer and dreaded torturer. One of the villains long stifled by the Protector. But Odehnal was a loner.\n\nThe dwarf and young woman chattered at one another. The fate of Rider's men was being determined. He prepared to surprise their captors.\n\nBut, it seemed, they were to be spared a while. He supposed as potential leverage. He decided to await developments. There was more afoot than a murder plot.\n\nTime passed. Then men trooped in through another entrance. They carried Spud, Greystone, and Su-Cha.\n\nSu-Cha! Even the imp.\n\nHis father's enemies were wasting no time bringing the shadow to Shasesserre.\n\nIt was time to move. To break the conspiracy's back before it became aware it had been found out.\n\nRider took an ebony figurine from a hidden pocket, held it against his forehead, over the point called the third eye. After a moment of concentration, he spat on it.\n\nBeyond the tapestry the dwarf and gnarly men gabbled at one another in the unfamiliar language. Rider ripped the hanging aside, tossed the figurine, shouted, \"Pyznar, you live!\"\n\nA shadow exploded into a dark, tusked demon. Its fangy mouth opened in a silent roar. Men squealed and shrieked. The sudden monster jumped on one of Emerald's gang. The dwarf cursed. The woman fled instantly, without thought or hesitation.\n\nThe shadow turned on a second victim as Rider stepped past the tapestry, his hands afire with fresh sorcery. Odehnal looked at him, snarled, \"You!\"\n\n\"Me. And the end of your game, Kralj.\" The shadow turned to a third gnarly man. Rider slapped his hands together, thrust them toward the dwarf. The combined fires flared violently, blindingly.\n\nOdehnal shrieked, terrified, knowing he could muster no spell in time to save himself.\n\nA gnarly man staggered into the space between Rider and Odehnal, shoved there by Emerald. The chief of the gnarly men snagged the dwarf and ran.\n\nRider's spell hit Emerald's sacrifice. Golden fires gnawed the man. He screamed. Then went silent when the shadow turned upon him.\n\nFinished there, and with all Emerald's crew, the shadow faced Rider's men. It took Rider a full minute to restore the demon to miniature form. By then he had abandoned hope of catching Odehnal. His task, now, was to get his men out before the dwarf struck back.\n\n\"Good show,\" Su-Cha congratulated, as Rider freed him first. The imp was the only one conscious.\n\n\"Help get these guys untied. We have to get them out. This place will be under attack in a few minutes.\"\n\nSu-Cha moved. He knew Rider wasted no threats. \"Who were those guys?\"\n\n\"The dwarf is Kralj Odehnal. A sorcerer. An old enemy of my father. It can't be coincidence that he turned up as soon as the web began to fray.\"\n\nSoup proved to be conscious. When Rider removed his gag, he croaked, \"The runt's the mastermind, Rider. But there's somebody from the Citadel involved. He came up with the original plan. He got the runt in. Then he took over. They were going to wipe out a lot of people besides us.\"\n\n\"Uhm,\" Rider responded. \"If you can walk, get out. Help Preacher.\" Rider hoisted Spud and Greystone effortlessly, ran to the nearest exit, out onto the lawn, dumped the two men, was back for Chaz in seconds.\n\nThe house had begun to glow when he charged out with the barbarian. The glow grew into a blinding brilliance. The roar of collapsing masonry rose inside the brightness.\n\nRider never looked. He dropped Chaz by Su-Cha. \"When they recover, go to the laboratory. Wait for me there.\" Before Su-Cha could protest he spun and ran to the gate.\n\nThe street showed no sign of Odehnal or his coach.\n\nRider shrugged, took up the trail of glowing footprints once more. Now he ran, a long, distance-devouring lope. Twice the trail led to and from the homes of men high in imperial councils. Rider did not pause. He would get back to those men later.\n\nThen the trail turned the direction he expected.\n\nRider's teeth showed in a grim smile."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Emerald did his bandy-legged best to keep pace with Rider while remaining unnoticed. He failed. He was built for endurance. Of speed he was capable only of short bursts. He turned back, watched the crowd gathering to stare at the wreckage of the Vlazos mansion. In time Rider's gang came out the gate, supporting one another. He trailed them. His heart thumped wildly whenever he reflected on the fact that thirteen men had come to Shasesserre. He was the last one left, and only the Protector himself had been dispatched.\n\nThe Master might be in for as much trouble with the son as he had had with the father. Maybe more. They said the Protector trained his child from birth to assume the role he now faced.\n\nHe had to seize it first, though!\n\nRight to the Citadel. Just as expected. Emerald blended into the holiday crowd in the Plaza. The initial festivities had begun. He pretended interest till he was sure he saw movement behind the window of the Protector's laboratory. Then he went to report to the Master.\n\nRider's men picked up and cleaned up. \"Looks like a whole tribe of northmen camped here a week,\" Preacher grumbled, adding some scriptural quote about the savages bringing the earth low.\n\n\"Why do you always accuse us?\"\n\n\"Because civilized people...\"\n\nSu-Cha, observing from the window, cackled.\n\nChaz glowered his way. \"I haven't forgotten you, devil. Your time is coming. Stewed imp with a garlic garnish. Think about it. Wonder when you're going into the pot.\"\n\nSpud said, \"If you ask me it would be revenge enough just getting him to help here. He wouldn't do his share if...\"\n\n\"Hold it,\" Su-Cha said, in a tone suddenly serious. \"Take a look at this.\" He dropped off the sill, stood looking over with his chin resting on his forearms, childlike.\n\nChaz and Preacher joined him. Cautiously.\n\n\"It's that villain, Emerald,\" Preacher said.\n\nThe festivities were gathering momentum. The Plaza was crowded. Nevertheless, Emerald stood out. He was on the fringe of the mob, watching the Citadel gate.\n\nThe entire band crowded the window now. \"Let's get him,\" Spud said.\n\n\"Rider said stay here,\" Greystone countered. \"The web needs mending. He'll want our help.\"\n\n\"But he'd want us to do something if we saw that guy.\"\n\n\"We should stay put,\" Chaz said, surprising everyone. Usually Chaz was the first to yield to impulse, the most eager to jump into trouble.\n\n\"This mess is big,\" he said defensively. \"We need to get organized to handle it.\"\n\nSu-Cha declared, \"I don't need to be organized to dance on that thug's head. And this time he isn't going to slick me.\" The imp headed for the door. Everyone but Chaz and Greystone followed.\n\nChaz went to the window to watch the gnarly man. Greystone continued picking up. He said, \"Precipitous action often leads to its own reward. The sensible course is to restore the web before undertaking any action. We need its support.\"\n\n\"You figure the news is out yet?\" Chaz glanced at the grisly ornament still pinned to the wall.\n\n\"This cabal would have an interest in maintaining secrecy till they placed themselves in the most favorable position.\"\n\n\"What happens tonight?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Jehrke always hands out the prizes to the rope divers.\"\n\n\"Ah. Yes. So. These enemies of ours must have been confident they could achieve their ends before then.\"\n\n\"Rider will take his father's place, I guess. Oh-oh. There they go.\"\n\nGreystone joined Chaz. They watched their comrades race toward the gnarly man, who spotted them, took off, stubby bowlegs pumping furiously. \"That fellow can surely run.\"\n\n\"For a ways,\" Chaz said. \"Bet he ain't much over a quarter mile.\" Below, Soup suddenly slowed to a trot, though he did not give up pursuit. \"What's Soup up to?\"\n\nSoup had been smitten by a suspicion that Emerald had been too easily spotted. Maybe he was leading them into another ambush. If so, he would get a surprise of his own. Soup would materialize after the trap was sprung.\n\nEmerald began to slow and his pursuers to gain. The looks he cast back seemed genuinely desperate. He whirled around a corner, knobby limbs flailing.\n\nRider's men rounded the corner and drifted to a halt. \"Where'd he go?\" Spud demanded. \"He couldn't disappear into thin air.\"\n\n\"Look around,\" Preacher said.\n\n\"I know. 'Seek and ye shall find.' Su-Cha, do your stuff.\"\n\nThere was no place for the gnarly man to have gone. The street was just a wide alleyway between two doorless walls. It dead-ended in another brick wall.\n\n\"Dig through that trash,\" Soup said. \"Maybe he's under it.\" He had arrived to find his friends baffled.\n\nThe usually loquacious Su-Cha said nothing for several minutes. Then he grunted, snatched up a broken brick, flung it at the alley-spanning wall. It did not rebound. It simply vanished.\n\nSoup howled. \"We've been hornswoggled! The wall is an illusion.\"\n\nHe charged forward\u2014and through. His hair stood up and crackled. When he looked back he saw no evidence of the illusory wall, just his comrades looking baffled.\n\nThere was no sign of Emerald.\n\nThe others joined him. \"What now?\" Spud asked.\n\n\"We still have a trick,\" Su-Cha said. He grinned and tapped his nose.\n\nThe others chuckled. \"Is he going to be surprised.\"\n\nSoup, though, recalled his earlier reservations. \"He may be leading us away from the laboratory.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Spud admitted. \"But Chaz and Greystone are there. And he expected to lose us here. Let's go, imp.\"\n\nThere was a delicate tap at the laboratory door. Chaz and Greystone exchanged looks. Greystone whispered, \"I'll cover,\" and stepped into a contrivance of mirrors from which a man could watch the doorway without being seen. He picked up a light crossbow.\n\nThe tapping was repeated.\n\nChaz pulled the door inward.\n\nHis eyes grew huge. He gasped, \"I think I'm in love. The heavens have opened and shed an angel on my doorstep.\"\n\nThe woman was startled, not just by this remark but by the barbarian's size. Then she glanced over her shoulder fearfully, as if expecting peril to overtake her any moment. \"May I come in?\" she asked breathlessly.\n\n\"A godsend,\" Chaz said. \"I have to be dreaming. Do come in. Do sit down. Just anywhere.\"\n\nThe woman did so, her gaze fixing upon the cadaver of Protector Jehrke. Her mouth opened and closed several times. Nothing came out. Horror flooded her face.\n\n\"More like a devil in disguise,\" Greystone said, stepping out of the mirror contraption. \"This is the witch Soup told us about.\"\n\n\"Mercy,\" Chaz breathed, startled. \"It isn't possible. The gods could not be so cruel as to make something so gorgeous so wicked.\"\n\n\"Horsefeathers,\" Greystone countered. He prided himself on his immunity to the glamor and wiles of the fair sex. \"Bet that Emerald character was supposed to draw us off so she could get in here and unravel what's left of the web.\" The scholar kept his weapon aimed at the woman's heart.\n\nChaz was smitten but not blind. \"Well? What about it, Sweetheart?\"\n\n\"The Master planned that. But not I. I knew you would not all pursue Emerald. Your reputations say you are too wise.\"\n\nGreystone snorted and muttered.\n\nThe woman continued, \"I hoped to be captured.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Greystone demanded.\n\n\"Because that is the only way I will ever escape him.\"\n\nChaz drifted to the window. Below, the festivities were approaching a roar. The rope divers had begun jumping. He saw nothing alarming. He moved to the doorway, checked the hall. Nothing. From a shelf nearby he took an earthen jar, scattered part of its contents outside. Tiny seeds rolled around. He stomped one. It exploded with a loud pop. \"Good enough.\" He closed and locked the door.\n\n\"Tell your story, Sister,\" Greystone said. His crossbow remained unwavering. \"I haven't heard a good fairy tale in years.\"\n\n\"Kralj Odehnal\u2014the sorcerer who had you captured, and would have had you killed had he taken Ride-Master Jehrke into his power...\"\n\n\"We know all that. We want to know about you. Who are you?\"\n\n\"Easy, Greystone,\" Chaz said. \"Would you care for something to drink, sweet lady?\"\n\nThe woman glanced at the remains of the Protector. \"I couldn't.\"\n\n\"Going to have to do something about him,\" Chaz muttered. \"Starting to spook me, hanging there. Like he was watching everything we do.\"\n\n\"Tell your story,\" Greystone snapped.\n\n\"I am Caracen\u00e9, a slave of Kralj Odehnal, who is known to his creatures as the Master. I was given to him as part payment for his joining the scheme to destroy Protector Jehrke and unseat Shasesserre as mistress of the world.\"\n\nShe was no Shasesserren, nor had her like appeared among the City's slaves. At least openly. Such beauty was too rare and precious to be allowed public display. Nor did she dress as, or have the manner of, a slave. Those eyes... She was a slave-taker.\n\nPuzzled, Chaz asked, \"Who gave you to him?\" He found that name Odehnal vaguely familiar. He could not imagine anyone bribing such a monster.\n\nThe woman stared at the cadaver on the wall. \"I cannot say. One greater than he. One from whom none escape.\"\n\n\"Horsefeathers,\" Greystone said again. \"We're being stalled, Chaz. It's time for a truth-casting. I'm no sorcerer, but I can manage that much.\"\n\nThe woman bolted to her feet. \"No! It would kill me! I must go. I was wrong to come here. There is no hope here, either.\" She looked at the dead Protector once more. \"Not even he...\"\n\nChaz moved to comfort her. As he reached out, a loud pop! pop! pop! came from beyond the door.\n\nThe woman gasped, \"He knows I thought to betray him!\"\n\nGreystone jerked his crossbow irritably, indicating that she should retreat into the connecting library. Chaz moved to a peephole that, through a succession of mirrors, would show him who was outside without his having to reveal himself."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "Rider slowed his pace after he had run three miles. Not that he was exhausted. He'd barely worked up a sweat. He ran ten miles every morning. But the tracks he followed were increasingly fresh. He did not want to overtake his man here, between the piers and yards and warehouses and ways of the Golden Crescent, and the strip of ten thousand markets the great ships served. There were crowds like no other city ever boasted. This was the hub of world trade, where the quarters of the earth came together in a frenzy and babble. Here there was no privacy, ever.\n\nRider's mouth was set in a grim smile. No doubt about it. His father's killer was headed into the trap prepared.\n\nHe stopped to purchase a quart of juice and a meat pasty. There had been no time to eat before. When he estimated time enough had passed, he washed at a public fountain, then strode toward the airship yards.\n\nNone but guards were on duty there, for it was a public holiday. The gatemen knew him, waved him through. He strode between vast construction docks, mooring stays, gas works where Jehrke's apprentices produced the magical air that buoyed the ships of the sky. All this vast industry was his father's doing. His greatest legacy to the City, perhaps, for it would go on even if his peace failed to persevere. The secrets here would be the first plunder sought by Shasesserre's enemies.\n\nThus, Rider had altered his father's message, knowing his murderer would believe the airship yards the likeliest place for the Protector to hide something.\n\nThe nethermost part of the yards occupied a promontory overlooking the Golden Crescent, the miles of waterfront facing the Bridge of the World, that long, narrow, snaking channel connecting the Amor Ocean with the Middle Sea. The ruin of an ancient watchtower stood at the headland's tip. Around it were structures of recent vintage, the Protector's original and now personal shipyard. As Rider approached he saw his father's ships protruding from their cradles like the brightly colored humped backs of whales breaking the surface of a flotsam-strewn sea. Twelve of them, in a variety of shapes and sizes. The family wealth.\n\nThe Jehrke yards were more still than the greater yards around them. Here even the guards were on holiday.\n\nA shadow fell across Rider's path. He looked up at the four-hundred-foot mast which rose beside the ruined watchtower. In his youth, in rare moments when he was free of studies, he had climbed that tower and watched the parti-colored sails scud along the Bridge, outward bound or coming home. So often he had longed to fly away upon those canvas wings, to lands of adventure... There was adventure enough now. And a lifetime's worth to come.\n\nHe entered the vast, long, hollow building where airships were brought out of the weather, making not a sound. He listened. Seconds later there was a pop, like a dry branch breaking, from far down the building. A startled exclamation, then curses, echoed off the empty walls.\n\nRider began walking, making no effort to keep his heels from clicking on the polished stone floor.\n\nThe cursing ceased. It was followed by a rustling, like that of frantic rats in a wall. As Rider neared the doorway beyond which his quarry waited, he heard a sob of frustration.\n\nHe stepped through the doorway into what had been his father's shipyard office.\n\nThe man caught there, one hand inside a desk that refused to let him go, was not surprised to see him. He had a dagger in his left hand.\n\n\"Vlazos!\" Rider said, startled. \"I thought you were with the army in Kleyvorn.\"\n\nVlazos said nothing.\n\nRider pulled up a chair. \"It does come together, though.\"\n\nVlazos hammered the desk with his dagger.\n\n\"Tell me about it,\" Rider said. He stared hard at his captive, his gaze like that of the fabled snake. He made a gesture with his left hand, caught Vlazos' gaze and held it. Vlazos' mouth opened and closed like that of a guppy as he fought a compulsion to betray his confederates. \"Tell me who else is participating in this atrocity.\"\n\nRider took several measured breaths, counting. His anger threatened to overwhelm him. He could not comprehend why a man of Vlazos' status would betray Shasesserre for personal gain.\n\nRider's spell took the inhibitions off the telling of the truth. He used it sparingly, for societies are founded upon mutually shared self-deceptions. But in Vlazos' case the spell opened no floodgate. Had the man acted from idealistic, if misguided, motives, he would have defended himself.\n\nSilence, too, is a telling of truth. Greed and powerlust were the foundation stones of the conspiracy threatening Shasesserre's peace.\n\n\"Where, besides your mansion, has your cabal set up?\" Rider demanded. \"Who belongs?\"\n\nVlazos was under the spell fully now. He began naming names, most of them ones Rider expected. They were men who obstructed the Protector at every turn. \"And Kralj Odehnal? How did he become involved?\"\n\nVlazos' breath caught in his throat. He gobbled, and scratched at his neck. His face puffed and darkened. His eyes grew huge. He was strangling on sorcery.\n\nRider heard someone move in the great space outside. He did not turn, for he was trying to find the end of the spell killing Vlazos, to unravel it before the man suffocated. He could not... Vlazos got out one whimper before life abandoned him.\n\nRider rose. \"Shy key?\" he murmured. \"What would that mean?\"\n\nHe rushed out of the office. Nothing stirred within the cavernous building. But the far door, through which he himself had entered, stood ajar. It leaked a pane of light. He had not left it that way.\n\nRider reached it in a time that would have shamed most athletes. He paused before stepping outside, every sense probing for signs of an ambush.\n\nHe detected only the fading disturbance of the powerful cycle of magicks that propelled airships.\n\n\"Feeble and high-pitched,\" he murmured. \"A small ship driven by someone self-taught.\" He stepped into the glare of day, caught a glimpse of an airship hurrying down the Golden Crescent, flying low.\n\nHe thought about taking one of his father's small ships in pursuit. But none were ready. It would take an hour to charge one with gas. The murderer of his father's murderer was safely away.\n\nHe went back and searched Vlazos. There was nothing of interest on the man except a key of the sort which fit the safe chests at the Imperial Treasury. He pocketed it.\n\nHe found no satisfaction in the fact that his father's killer had himself been slain. Vlazos set the wheel rolling, but now it was Odehnal's toy.\n\nWhere had the dwarf learned the spells to move an airship? How? That complex was a closely guarded secret, taught only to men whom Jehrke trusted absolutely.\n\nRider strolled toward the Citadel. The sun was into its westward plunge. About time he sought an audience with the King. The man needed to know, to prepare for the storm. And Rider hoped for his blessing in his assumption of the Protector's role.\n\nHe decided he'd better get himself a chariot. All this walking and running\u2014even he was subject to cumulative fatigue.\n\nBut first, before anything\u2014even before seeing the King\u2014he had to restore the web. When an enemy could bring a pirate airship within a few hundred yards undetected, the situation was desperate.\n\nJust how tired he had become, and thus unalert, was demonstrated when he reached his father's laboratory. He failed to notice the pop seeds scattered in the hall. His feet stirred a rapid-fire racket.\n\nThe door swung inward. \"Rider!\" Chaz said. \"We've got company.\"\n\nHe saw the golden-skinned woman in the doorway to the library. She saw him for the first time. Her eyes widened.\n\n\"You catch him?\" Greystone asked.\n\n\"Yes. It was Vlazos.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"He died before he could say much.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nRider heard the hollow sound in Greystone's voice. \"No. Not me. His confederates. With a strangulation spell. They fled in an airship.\"\n\nGreystone looked properly astounded.\n\n\"Yes. First order of business now is to restore the web. Where are the others?\"\n\nChaz explained about Emerald.\n\n\"I told them to stay here. Well. I suppose they have to learn the hard way.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "Emerald shambled along with his hands in his pockets, grinning and whistling. He had made clowns of those guys again. Too bad he had not had men enough to ambush them. Ten or fifteen guys with crossbows waiting behind the illusory wall. They wouldn't have known what hit them. But he had no men now, because the Master and that Vlazos fool insisted Rider's gang be taken alive. That damned Vlazos better find some local talent.\n\nSomeone stepped into his path. Emerald halted, lifted his gaze... and squawked.\n\nPreacher grinned.\n\nEmerald looked around wildly.\n\nThe other three closed in. Spud was next nearest, about twenty feet away, popping a fist into a palm meaningfully.\n\nThe gnarly man was quick! Preacher just had time for a startled squeak. Then he was in the air, flailing toward Spud. Emerald put on speed. More than a touch of panic drove him. He did not know what to do. There was no provision in the plan for his not being able to shake his pursuers. The wall of illusion should have worked.\n\nIt was a failed plan anyway. Not all Rider's men had left the Citadel.\n\nThe Master would know what to do. But he could not run to the Master. That would lead these men to him.\n\nHe grimaced. Then grinned. He would lead them away from the Master. Wear them down, till the Master became disturbed by his failure to report and investigated.\n\nSoup gasped, \"Are we going to keep this up all day? Or are we going to catch him?\" He stopped at a chandler's shop. The others paused. As long as Su-Cha could sniff Emerald's trail they would not lose him. \"Let's get organized. He isn't going to lead us anywhere. If he gets too tired and scared he might try picking us off. We've got to capture him.\"\n\n\"How you figure on doing that?\" Su-Cha demanded. \"Preacher and Spud already blew it.\"\n\n\"Buy some rope. Rope him like a steer, bind him up, and carry him back to the Citadel.\"\n\nSu-Cha cackled. \"Great. Get it! Reams or bales or bundles or whatever rope comes in. A mile of it! We'll turn him into a human cocoon.\"\n\nThree minutes later they were on the trail again, armed with coils of light line. Fifteen minutes later they had Emerald surrounded.\n\nThe gnarly man saw their intent. He darted this way and that. A wicked knife sprang into his hand. He feinted toward Preacher, rushed Spud.\n\nHands and feet flashed. The knife flickered away. Spud and Emerald rolled over and over, grunting and yelling. Su-Cha pranced around them, trying to slip a noose over Emerald's head. Soup got one on an ankle and pulled.\n\nPreacher looped an arm, took off. Emerald stretched out, cursing and flailing. Spud thumped his head a few times. Soup got another rope on. The four of them began baling the gnarly man.\n\nAll this took place on a busy street. Passersby pretended blindness. Shasesserre was that kind of city still, centuries after Jehrke began trying to turn it around.\n\n\"Hi ho, hi ho,\" Soup laughed as he and Spud hoisted their prisoner. \"Off to gaol for you, friend. Let's somebody find a wagon. This sucker's pants are full of lead.\"\n\nPreacher hired a rickshaw. Emerald rode. The others ran alongside, laughing and clowning.\n\nChaz answered the laboratory door. He grinned when he saw Emerald, but held a finger to his lips. \"Keep it down. Rider is mending the web.\"\n\nSoup and Preacher plopped Emerald down under the open window, where he could look at the Protector and contemplate his fate. They joined the crowd in the library, where Rider had spread his father's extra web charts atop a table fifteen feet long and five wide. Rider neither welcomed them nor upbraided them for leaving the Citadel. He gave them jobs to do.\n\nHours passed. The sun dropped to within two diameters of the horizon. The rope divers were just a few stages short of the tower's top. Rider finally rose, sighing wearily. \"That's enough for now. We'll put the final touches on after we finish this business.\"\n\n\"Got you a present, Rider,\" Su-Cha crowed. He pranced around, made smoke come out his ears. \"In the laboratory.\"\n\nRider followed the imp to the other room. Emerald sat where he had been dumped. \"He's the one who did the deed,\" Su-Cha said. \"It was him on the tower last night.\"\n\n\"Cool one,\" Chaz remarked. \"If he can sleep now.\" Rider darted forward, afraid he had lost another prisoner. But Emerald was asleep. \"There would have been a tug on the web,\" he told himself. He closed his eyes, allowed his being to flow out the web's strands, and the web to fill him. He sensed every magic within five miles of the Rock. Each was legitimate. He could detect nothing of Kralj Odehnal.\n\n\"Get the gag off him,\" Rider said. \"Untie him. Let him get some circulation back. There's nowhere he can go.\"\n\nEmerald cursed them roundly. He crawled to his feet, stood unsteadily. Then he spotted Caracen\u00e9.\n\nUnintelligible words whipped back and forth. They got hot. Emerald was angry, accusing; Caracen\u00e9 bitter and defensive. Emerald became increasingly pale. He began to shake.\n\n\"Are you ready to talk to us?\" Rider asked.\n\nEmerald spat on the floor.\n\n\"I guess that means a truth-drawing. Greystone, Spud, set it up.\" Rider followed Emerald's gaze to his father's body. Something would have to be done.\n\n\"Hey!\"\n\n\"Grab him!\"\n\n\"Su-Cha!...\"\n\nRider whirled as Emerald's feet went over the windowsill. The imp clung to one, desperately trying to catch Chaz's hand. He failed.\n\nEmerald made not one sound as he plunged to his death.\n\nSu-Cha, who was in no danger, did enough screeching for eight fall victims.\n\nRider elbowed his way to the window. He did not watch Emerald hit the Rock. He searched the Plaza for an island of reaction to Emerald's fall. He spied none. The gnarly man had done it on his own.\n\n\"Hey!\" Greystone shouted. \"The witch is getting away!\"\n\nRider turned. Caracen\u00e9 had slipped out while they were distracted. His helpers rushed to the door. \"Let her go,\" he said. \"We can find her when we want.\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Su-Cha?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"The web. I marked her while we were in the library. Greystone, you keep track. Maybe she'll run to Odehnal. The rest of you stay here. And stay alert. I'll be back in time to give out the rope-diving prizes.\"\n\n\"Where you going?\" Soup asked.\n\n\"To see the King. Not a task I'll enjoy, I'm sure.\" As he departed he heard Chaz and Greystone pick up their argument about Caracen\u00e9. Chaz was of the opinion that he was in love, and that Caracen\u00e9 was not unmoved by his own manly attributes. Greystone was of the opinion that Chaz had a head full of feathers. The others seconded his view."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "\"His Majesty is at dinner,\" a chamberlain told Rider. \"Then he must prepare to join your father for the ceremonies. I suggest you return at a more normal time.\" He scowled blackly. Few men dared that with Ride-Master Jehrke.\n\n\"It's about the ceremonies. There's been a change of plan. I'm giving the medals in my father's stead.\"\n\nThe chamberlain's scowl deepened. \"Even so...\"\n\nRider glanced at the nearby guards. They fought smirks. Not everyone appreciated his family's special status.\n\n\"Meghan, I am tired, upset, and short on patience. I have to see the King. I'll walk through you or over you if you make me.\" Was the chamberlain part of the conspiracy? Doubtful. The man was doing his job as he saw it, with a touch of officious spite.\n\n\"What is the nature?...\"\n\n\"If I wanted you to know I would have told you.\"\n\nThe chamberlain spun angrily, slammed a door in Rider's face. Rider was more irked with himself than with Meghan. He should not let his control slip like that. He stepped to the door, giving the guards a look that made them decide he was invisible. A tiny spell broke the bolt.\n\nThe King was a spare man in his thirties, tall and dark of hair and complexion, and new to the Shasesserren crown. His coffee eyes flashed fire as he shoved away from a table shared with two other men. Rider noted that both were trustworthy functionaries.\n\nThe King said, \"This runs in the family. I tolerate your father's lack of manners and respect because he serves a purpose. But you're not Jehrke Victorious, Ride-Master. Tell me why you shouldn't be flogged out of here.\"\n\nRider's patience remained thin. \"I'll give you two reasons. One is, I wouldn't let you. As my father would not. The other is that Jehrke is dead. I've taken over for him.\"\n\nAbsolute, deadly silence. Mouths worked but nothing came out.\n\n\"He was murdered before dawn, at the order of Khev Vlazos, by an assassin serving the sorcerer Kralj Odehnal. Vlazos, the assassin, and most of Odehnal's men have been dispatched. Odehnal remains at large, as do Vlazos' fellow conspirators. The web was damaged severely but has been restored. All is peaceful in Shasesserre\u2014at the moment. I expect a wave of assassinations\u2014reaching even the royal household\u2014was planned for tonight. These attempts may go forward despite what I've done to inhibit Odehnal. End of report, except to note that an unlicensed airship is in the hands of the conspirators.\"\n\n\"Jehrke dead,\" one of the ministers breathed. \"The gods forfend! Every barbarian on our borders will try to plunder the provinces.\"\n\nThe King noted, \"We have more to fear from homegrown pillagers. They'll get the news first.\"\n\n\"What can we do?\"\n\nRider said, \"Do nothing. Nothing has changed except that I stand in my father's stead.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" the King countered. \"Never again will any one man exercise that much power.\"\n\n\"Are you saying my father abused his?\"\n\n\"Hardly. But...\"\n\n\"He did tend to be a check on royal excess? Yes. I know. Though he seldom intervened even in your predecessors' blackest villainies.\"\n\nThe King glowered.\n\nKing Belledon was accounted a good ruler, but had held the throne only a year. Some of Shasesserre's most terrible monarchs had entered their reigns auspiciously.\n\n\"There will be no more Protector,\" the King said. \"The office dies with the man.\"\n\nRider had anticipated this exchange. Good or evil, no monarch willingly accepted a potential check on his power. \"There never was such an office. As you know. 'Protector' is an honorific bestowed by popular acclaim. No one appointed Jehrke. He did what was necessary for Shasesserre. As I will do. I have trained for the task since birth. I hope to achieve as much as Jehrke did.\"\n\nThe King went livid. \"You defy me?\"\n\nCalmly, \"Of course. As my father did you and every king before you.\" He raised a forestalling hand. \"Save your outrage, your pride. Think about it when you're calm. Ask the people their wishes.\"\n\n\"The wishes of shopkeepers are of no consequence.\"\n\n\"That attitude is what makes shopkeepers and tradesmen hail a Jehrke Protector. I have done my duty to the state by giving warning. I'm going to get ready for the awards ceremony now.\"\n\nThe King stared at Rider, exasperated. \"Like father, like son,\" he said. \"Where are you going, Konstantin?\"\n\n\"My people need to be alerted. I must tell...\"\n\n\"No one. You will tell no one, on your life. Rider at least sees the ramifications of Jehrke's death, if he is so vain as to arrogate his father's place.\"\n\nThe other man present, a greyhair whose role was informal and advisory, said, \"There should be no announcement. Let Rider take over. There will be speculation but slight inclination toward adventurism and chaos. A formal announcement would unleash the hounds of fear Jehrke kept chained.\"\n\nThe King grumbled something.\n\n\"You have your enemies, Belledon. Are they more restrained by the numbers of your soldiers or by the Protector's approval of your reign? Has any ruler he approved been found by an assassin? How many of the Bad Kings died natural deaths?\"\n\n\"It is something to consider, Your Majesty,\" Konstantin observed.\n\nThe older man said, \"You are a king, Belledon. Not a god. Never forget your oath. You serve Shasesserre. The City does not serve you.\"\n\nThe King continued to grumble, but admitted the truth. It was just such moments the old man was supposed to get him through.\n\nRider returned to his father's laboratory, thinking he had to get used to it being his. \"Everyone's still here?\" he asked in mock surprise. \"I'm amazed.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Chaz grumbled.\n\nSpud said, \"Rider, have you decided what to do about your father? Can't put it off much longer.\"\n\n\"Yes. It's grisly, but... A pattern of spells of stasis and preservation, and leave him where he died. As his own memorial. And as a reminder to us that we're mortal. That we can't let our vigilance slip.\"\n\nChaz leaned out the window, tossed something. Rider asked, \"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Throwing pop seeds at Su-Cha. He's down there waiting to see if anybody comes for that Emerald.\"\n\nSpud snickered. \"He's been doing it since you left.\"\n\nRider looked outside. There were torches on the uppermost platform of the diving tower. The crowd was noisy and restless. \"Almost time to go down. Chaz, I want you, Soup, and Preacher to follow me. This would be a good time for our enemies to express their displeasure with us.\"\n\n\"Right.\"\n\n\"Spud, you stay and back up Greystone and Su-Cha.\"\n\n\"Hey! How come I have to miss out?\"\n\nRider tended not to hear such protests. He stepped into the library, where Greystone was perched on a massive oak throne of a chair. It served as the heart of the web for those who, unlike Rider, were unable to make themselves part of it.\n\n\"Greystone. What have we got?\"\n\n\"She's stopped moving.\" He tapped the map on the table with a pointer. \"One of these tenements.\"\n\n\"Right against the river. Heart of the Protte rookery. Not a good place for a woman alone. Fifty thousand foreign sailors and not a ghost of law.\"\n\n\"But a good place for a foreigner to disappear.\"\n\n\"A most excellent place. We'll go down in the morning.\"\n\n\"Why not tonight?\"\n\n\"These ceremonies. And we're tired. When we're tired we make mistakes. We'll rest. Odehnal will wait.\"\n\nRider moved on through the library. Beyond lay a vast suite of rooms he and his father had used from time to time. There he would find apparel appropriate to the awards ceremony. He told Spud, \"We'll refurbish these rooms so we can hole up here comfortably.\"\n\n\"Our lives are going to change, aren't they?\"\n\n\"They have already. It'll be a long time before we comprehend how much.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "There was a band to precede the King, and guards in flashy uniforms with ostrich plumes atop their helmets. In a tradition which antedated the celebration of Jehrke Victorious, the King scattered tiny, specially struck silver coins.\n\n\"Helps clear the way,\" he told Rider, who walked beside him. Citizens scrambled wildly as a dozen coins arced into the crowd.\n\n\"Cynical attitude.\"\n\n\"Only a cynic and pessimist will survive wearing the crown.\"\n\n\"Or a stoic?\"\n\n\"My father was a stoic. A very patient stoic. He got a foot of steel stuck into his gizzard. Philosophy means nothing to a dagger.\" The King seemed more companionable than earlier. Was that a good sign or bad?\n\nAs the procession neared the tower, where the medalists waited, onlookers began to murmur about the Protector's absence. Rider was not universally known. But he was recognized by some. His presence fueled speculation.\n\nShasesserre was a wild and rowdy city. More so on festival days. Fifteen minutes passed before there was order sufficient for the King to speak. He did so at length, dulling the edge of the crowd. He passed the stage to Rider without explaining his presence. Rider presented the victors' laurels with amusing asides and humorous observations, and no more explanation. He finished swiftly, yielded the rostrum to the organizers of the contests.\n\n\"So your assassins turned out specters,\" Belledon said as they pushed through the crowd. \"I wonder if half what you've told me isn't imagination.\"\n\n\"We'll see.\" During his presentation he had felt a tug at the web, just a tiny vibration. Someone learning that the web had been made sound. The deaths of Emerald and Vlazos had not ended the game.\n\nThe attack came as the party passed behind an arm of the Rock and started up the incline to the Citadel gate. The King's guards were feeling safe.\n\nA horde of waterfront villains poured out of the dark cracks in the Rock, howling in a dozen languages. Odehnal seemed to have cleared the rookeries. In an instant the guards were all locked in struggle. More thugs swept toward Rider and the King.\n\nRider's men charged into the fray, falling on the villains from behind.\n\nRider dipped into pockets, spoke words of power rapidly. He scattered a handful of small black marbles. Smoke and stench boiled out of them. He shoved the King toward the densest smoke, called his men to join him.\n\nA scarfaced rogue plunged toward him, cutlass reaching. He turned inside the thrust, seized his assailant's wrist. The man shrieked as bones broke. Rider caught the dropped weapon and threw himself between another attacker and Belledon. He used the sword with a skill that would have embarrassed Shasesserre's most famous duelists.\n\nThe smoke caused confusion and bought time, but not enough. The evening breeze off the Golden Crescent dispersed it all too soon, and the scene it betrayed was not one to inspire hope.\n\nMost of the King's guards had been slain. A score of attackers remained upright. They began to close in.\n\nRider became aware of a great warp in the web. Someone had cast a powerful spell. He stood at its center. Everyone and everything within fifty paces was invisible to outside eyes.\n\nNo help would come, for no one could see this disaster.\n\nHe dipped a hand into a pocket, freed the thing he had loosed at the Vlazos mansion.\n\nHis men joined him, the King, and two surviving guards, everyone getting their backs together.\n\nThe demon raged. And still the villains came on. What had they been promised?\n\nThere was a violent twist in the web. Rider's demon shrieked, dropped a mangled victim, began to spin head over heels. And to shrink. In seconds it dwindled to a point, which vanished with a loud pop!\n\nBut before it went the monster did, momentarily, frighten the attackers into backing off. Rider turned his attention to the spell that masked the fray.\n\nThe attackers again moved in. The area was carpeted with soldiers and assassins. Chaz growled, \"These guys must be getting paid gold by the boatload.\" None were the sort who threw themselves on swords for causes.\n\nThe clangor resumed. A guard went down. A blow staggered the King himself. Chaz collapsed, struck on the head. Rider fended blows... He ripped the fabric of the invisibility spell.\n\nNot three seconds later there was a wild bray of trumpets from the Citadel. The garrison was alert already, concerned because the monarch had not yet appeared.\n\nSoldiers poured from the Citadel. The villains saw their deaths upon them. No reward was worth the mercy they could expect if they were captured. They fled.\n\nGroggy, Chaz caught one by the heel and piled onto him.\n\nThe very sky seemed to shriek in frustration.\n\nRider was ready when the deadly sorcery fell. So swift and sure was his response, none of his companions realized they came within seconds of death by melting.\n\nRider asked the King, \"Now will you concede the possibility Shasesserre may be in danger?\" But he paid little attention to the response.\n\nThat attack had not come from Kralj Odehnal. Of that he was sure. It did not have the dwarf's stamp. Nor did Rider believe Odehnal to be that powerful, nor possessed of so mighty an arrogance.\n\nAs he helped Chaz with his prisoner, he told his men, \"This is even bigger than we suspected. And there are more players in the game than we thought.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Rider wakened with the sun. His body ached from the previous day's exertions and bruises, yet he was eager to be at his new vocation. He leapt out of bed, began doing calisthenics.\n\nSu-Cha stuck his head in the doorway. \"Up already?\" Su-Cha was always up. Imps did not sleep often.\n\n\"The juices are flowing, little friend.\"\n\n\"Shall I waken the others?\"\n\n\"No need. They deserve their rest. How is the prisoner?\"\n\n\"Unhappy. And as full of blessed ignorance as ought to elevate him direct to nirvana. Someone put sixty pounds of gold on your head. The King's, too. Chaz is going to wilt when he hears his noggin is worth only five.\"\n\n\"What I expected. What of the web?\"\n\n\"Nothing shaking. His nibs ain't moved.\"\n\nRider abandoned his exertions, though customarily he devoted an hour to exercise. \"I'll bathe quickly. Two chores to be done. Take your pick. Cook breakfast or fetch shantor's robes for the whole crowd.\"\n\n\"And if I choose cooking?\"\n\n\"I'll boot you downstairs.\"\n\n\"What I thought.\" Having little need to consume food, Su-Cha had no need to learn cookery. His occasional efforts verged on the poisonous. \"Enough for everybody?\"\n\n\"Yes. It'll take the whole crew to corner a rat like Odehnal.\"\n\n\"Remember the old saw.\"\n\n\"I do. I don't expect he'll be taken easily.\"\n\nSomeone in one of the sleeping rooms grumbled about all the racket. Moments later Spud toddled past, headed for the kitchen. He banged around enough to waken everyone else. When Su-Cha returned with the shantor disguises he found the whole crowd tripping over one another while cooking and eating.\n\nThe donning of disguises took place not far from the suspect tenements. The weeping sickness was common in the slums, and the terror of the riverbanks. It was a slow and gruesome killer, and one challenge Jehrke had not been able to meet. Rider's men would not stand out unless they made it appear there were too many shantors in one area. People would stay out of their way. Though Jehrke had proven the weeping sickness not to be communicable like measles or the pox, no one believed him.\n\n\"Take your time getting into position,\" Rider told the others. \"Don't attract attention. I'll touch you through the web when I'm ready.\" He sent them off in pairs, ringing their warning bells.\n\nHe let a half hour pass. He spent that time touching the neighborhood through the web. There was a disconcerting quiet about it, as though people had sensed Odehnal's presence and knew it augured explosion and terror.\n\nOdehnal was not difficult to locate, this close. The woman Caracen\u00e9 made an outstanding marker. From her Rider caught hints of turmoil, from the dwarf a glowing calm.\n\nThere were others in the place. At least four more men, none of whom Rider gave any special attention. They would be the dwarf's hirelings.\n\nHe tugged that part of the web which allowed him to touch his associates. I am going in now, he sent. Be alert.\n\nHe moved into the filthy street, stooped, tinkling his shantor's bell. Through a gap between drunkenly leaning tenements he glimpsed the brown dirtiness of the river. Here the old wooden buildings stood with their tails over the water, supported by pilings rising from the bottom mud. These places were always collapsing into the flood, drowning their occupants, and being rebuilt as slovenly as before.\n\nThe suspect structure was identical to its neighbors. Rider tinkled from door to door, pausing before each as if begging. When he reached his destination, though, he flicked a finger. A soft click sounded behind the door, a bolt snapping open. There was no guard.\n\nHe stepped inside. Behind him one of his men rang his bell.\n\nThe darkness within was asphalt thick. He drew a gemlike crystal from a pocket, whispered to it. It began to glow, no more brilliant than a lightning bug. He did not go on till his eyes adjusted.\n\nOdehnal was too confident, Rider thought. No guard, no spell to alert him to intruders. As a soldier Rider had learned that one must always expect the worst in enemy territory.\n\nEyes adapted, he touched his men again. I am going upstairs now. Odehnal was above somewhere. Caracen\u00e9 and the others were in the rear, also upstairs.\n\nOdehnal was not as lax as first glance suggested. Two thirds of the way up, Rider froze. Something was wrong. He allowed his senses free rein, not moving a muscle. His attention focused upon a stairstep a couple above that where his feet rested.\n\nEven knowing where to look it was a moment before he spied the black thread stretched taut an inch above the worn and grimy tread.\n\nTricky, setting the trap for a point where an intruder would begin worrying more about what lay ahead. He examined the steps above with even more care. He would have set a back-up.\n\nThere it was. A step set to trigger an alarm when weight fell upon it.\n\nHe stepped over both carefully.\n\nThe stair ended on a balcony which ran athwart the building and L-ed to his right. Several doors along the back leaked light beneath them. But Odehnal waited out along the L.\n\nHe paused to scatter pop seeds at the elbow of the L, then moved to Odehnal's door. He listened, sensed. The dwarf seemed to be sleeping.\n\nHe examined the doorknob minutely. The crystal's light revealed no trap.\n\nBelow, he heard the slightest breath of sound. Sunlight poured inside. He saw a shape the size of Chaz slip inside, followed by one of Su-Cha's slightness. He frowned. It was too soon for them to come.\n\nMove quickly!\n\nHe turned the doorknob, passed through the doorway swiftly... and stopped, startled, awed.\n\nThe room was as opulent as an eastern potentate's private quarters. Odehnal lounged upon huge down-stuffed pillows, face asmile and dreamy. Burnt opium embittered the air.\n\nQuickly, now! Before Chaz or Su-Cha called attention to their presence.\n\nHe cast a small spell which sealed Odehnal's lips. He used a modified form of the same spell to join the dwarf's ankles, then his wrists, and even his fingers one to another.\n\nOdehnal stirred once, but only to make himself more comfortable.\n\nA gong hammered in the rear of the house.\n\nRider hurtled out of the room, into intense light. Chaz stood upon the trap step, a dumb look on his face.\n\nTwo men charged out of rear rooms, weapons in hand. Su-Cha materialized between one's legs. He pitched off the balcony with a shriek. The other saw Rider, whirled, charged into the room where Rider knew Caracen\u00e9 and another man to be.\n\nRider followed, pop seeds exploding beneath his feet. He hurled a shoulder at the door. It burst inward. Chaz breathed down his neck as he entered a room outshining Odehnal's. A thrown knife ripped between them.\n\nIn the rear of the room, in shadow, Caracen\u00e9 stood with hands at mouth, looking down. The man who had preceded Rider slammed her out of the way, dropped like a badger plopping into its hole. Caracen\u00e9 scrambled...\n\nThen Chaz had hold of her, and Rider was staring down at a man thrashing through brown water, chasing a boat which meant to waste no time on him.\n\nRider's gaze fixed on the man in the boat, a lean, powerful oriental with astonishing green eyes. \"Shy key, Vlazos said,\" he murmured. \"Shai Khe.\" One hand came from a pocket clutching a phial. He hurled it.\n\nThe man in the boat dropped his oars, raised hands, loosed a warding spell. The phial plopped into the river.\n\nThe man saved himself from the misery in that fluid, but lost his oars. He drifted at the mercy of the current.\n\nRider heard shouts. Soup and Greystone. They had spotted the fugitive. Someone threw a line to the man abandoned.\n\nThe oriental's long fingers began weaving sparks. Rider snapped, \"Out of here, Chaz. Take the woman. Su-Cha. Get Odehnal.\" His tone brooked neither questions nor argument.\n\nHe drew on the web, began binding it around the sorcerer. Chaz and Su-Cha pounded away.\n\nToo late Rider realized what the oriental was doing. Not attacking him directly at all.\n\nA piling snapped like a twig. The house lurched. Another piling went. The house began to shift, to groan, to tilt toward the river.\n\nRider did not hesitate. He dropped through the hole, hit the water feet first. He drove himself deep with one powerful stroke, then swam with the current. His strokes were strong and practiced.\n\nThe water screamed with the sound of the building collapsing. The scream grew to a roar. But no building comes down in seconds.\n\nWhen Rider surfaced he was beyond danger of the collapse. Indeed, the structure's main mass smashed into the river as he came up. It raised a wave that lifted him five feet. From the wave's crest he looked at the man in the boat.\n\nThe sorcerer's face betrayed frustration. His fingers began weaving again. But the wave caught the boat and toppled him into its bottom. When he recovered Rider had made the riverbank. The oriental wasted no time on an enemy in a position to best him. His boat flew away as though upon a lightning current.\n\nRider clambered between houses, to the street, where he settled on a stoop to drain his boots.\n\nChaz settled down beside him, Caracen\u00e9 held almost negligently in one arm. \"Who was that guy?\"\n\n\"Shai Khe,\" Rider replied. \"I should have thought of him when Vlazos tried to tell me. He said Shai Khe and I heard shy key.\"\n\n\"That's his name,\" Chaz said. \"But it don't tell me nothing about him.\" They watched Su-Cha drag Odehnal their way. The dwarf remained imprisoned in his opium dream.\n\n\"I know only one thing more,\" Rider said.\n\n\"Uhm?\"\n\n\"My father was afraid of him.\"\n\nChaz looked startled.\n\n\"Yes. He wouldn't talk about it. Shai Khe is some great terror in the east. He commands an empire more vast than Shasesserre's. But that does not satisfy him. He wants it all.\"\n\nWreckage from the collapsed building drifted away. Rider's men assembled. Neighbors came to watch from a distance safe from shantors.\n\n\"More prisoners,\" Greystone said. The man who had jumped into the river was trying to talk Soup and Spud into turning him loose.\n\nRider caught his eye. \"You're luckier than your friends.\" He indicated the wreckage. Two men were in it somewhere. To his own men, he said, \"We've done what we can do here. Take these people to the Citadel. We'll question them later. Spud, Su-Cha, Preacher, come with me.\"\n\n\"Where we headed?\" Su-Cha asked.\n\n\"Airship yards. Before we left the Citadel I sent word for a ship to be readied. We'll use it to hunt Shai Khe. Particularly if he runs to his own ship.\"\n\nShai Khe, not Kralj Odehnal, had killed Vlazos and escaped in an unlicensed airship.\n\nChaz stepped close as Rider was about to leave. He whispered, \"What about the girl?\"\n\n\"Treat her the way she wants you to treat her. If she doesn't suspect she's marked for the web, arrange it so she can escape again. She could lead us again.\"\n\n\"Right. Will do.\"\n\nRider and those he had chosen hurried a quarter mile, to where a pair of chariots waited. They shed their shantor's robes as they went."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "Rider's ship was ready. It was a light vessel, capable of carrying just a ton of crew and freight, designed for speed. Rider and Spud went to the control array. There were great magicks involved in the airship's propulsion, but much of its control was mechanical. Spud had helped refine the system.\n\n\"Ready to cast off,\" Rider called to the ground. \"Dump ballast, Omar.\" Rider was the only one of the group to use Spud's proper name. And he forgot much of the time.\n\nSpud tripped levers. The ship began tugging at its restraining lines. \"Cast off!\" Rider shouted.\n\nThe ship lurched upward. Rider murmured to the demonic body, spellbound and beguiled, which constituted its motive force. The airship turned toward the river, began to slide forward like a fish through water.\n\nAft, Su-Cha and Preacher hastened to take in the mooring lines.\n\n\"He was headed Henchelside when last I saw him,\" Rider said. \"And downriver. We'll start looking where Deer Creek Drain runs into the river.\"\n\n\"Keep an eye out for his airship, too,\" Spud said, making an adjustment to levers which controlled flaps on the ship's sharklike fins. \"Be hard to hide something that big.\"\n\nRider nodded.\n\nThe airship's balance shifted as Preacher and Su-Cha came forward. Spud adjusted with the fins. \"Any sign of him?\" Su-Cha asked.\n\n\"Too soon to tell,\" Rider replied. The river along Henchelside was crowded with the boats of fisherfolk. Rider directed the demon to follow the shoreline south toward the Golden Crescent. \"Take us lower, Omar. I want to see their faces.\"\n\nThere was no tension in the web. Shai Khe was not using his power.\n\nThe fisherfolk all looked up as the airship passed over. Rarely did one drop so low.\n\nIn time the riverbank curved away westward. The land grew marshy and wild. \"Not going to find him this way,\" Spud said.\n\n\"We'll return a ways inland, looking for somewhere where he might have put his ship down,\" Rider said. So they ran inland again, as far as that part of the city on Henchelside opposite the Protte rookery. Still they found nothing.\n\nRider persisted till nightfall made continued search pointless.\n\n\"You could turn a hand with this one,\" Soup complained to Chaz, as they faced the stair to the laboratory. Soup was carrying Odehnal.\n\n\"I could. But I like the one I've got just fine.\" He had Caracen\u00e9 over one shoulder. She was thoroughly bound despite Rider's admonition to treat her well. She wriggled, and squeaked behind her gag. Chaz just grinned at his companions.\n\nGreystone prodded his man with the tip of a sheathed dagger. That fellow never quit protesting his innocence of anything and everything.\n\nAt the laboratory door Greystone said, \"Somebody tried to get in while we were out.\" Evidence of attempted entry was obvious. The effort had been a failure, though.\n\nChaz said, \"Vlazos' friends, no doubt.\"\n\nGreystone popped a signet ring into a small hole in the wall some feet from the doorway. Each of Rider's men wore identical rings. The door responded with a down-scale, musical whine. \"Should have done something like this a long time ago.\"\n\nSoup countered, \"When the old man was running things nobody had the guts to try getting in. It'll be that way again when they get used to Rider.\"\n\n\"Let's hope.\"\n\nOne small lumber room had been converted to a cell for the prisoner already on hand. Odehnal and the other man joined him. \"Have you some dinner in a few minutes,\" Soup told them. \"Except you, Odehnal. You'll have to wait on Rider.\"\n\nThe dwarf's eyes smoldered.\n\nChaz released Caracen\u00e9 in another room. He told her, \"Couldn't give you special treatment in front of the dwarf. Sorry.\"\n\nShe did not answer. There was an odd, measuring look in her eyes. She watched him closely still when she sat down to eat with the three men.\n\n\"Shai Khe,\" Greystone said. \"An ill name out east. One that strikes terror everywhere. I wouldn't have thought his interest in Shasesserre to be so intense as to bring him here personally.\" He glanced at Caracen\u00e9.\n\nShe said, \"Shasesserre is all that stands between Shai Khe and creation of the greatest empire the world has known.\"\n\n\"He the one gave you to Odehnal?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What can you tell us about him?\" Greystone asked.\n\n\"Nothing. While he lives, nothing.\"\n\n\"Me, I lost something somewhere, beautiful lady,\" Chaz said.\n\n\"I am his slave.\" She said that as though it explained all. In her native land, perhaps it did.\n\n\"Who?\" Chaz insisted. \"Odehnal or Shai Khe?\"\n\nCaracen\u00e9 bowed her head. Softly, she replied, \"Shai Khe.\"\n\n\"Why? You're in Shasesserre.\"\n\n\"There are no slaves in Shasesserre?\"\n\nChaz had to think his way around the side of that. \"He is an enemy of the state. As such he has no rights. You have been freed. We could get you manumission papers by tomorrow.\"\n\nShe looked at him with eyes in which tenderness warred with exasperation. \"Paper has no meaning while Shai Khe lives.\"\n\nGallantly, Chaz offered, \"I'll kick his head in, then. Just tell me where he is.\"\n\n\"I cannot betray him. He is my master.\"\n\nSoup snickered. Even Greystone smirked.\n\n\"I give up,\" the northerner said. He began muttering about \"Women!\" under his breath. He cleared his plate and cutlery away, then prepared a tray for the prisoners.\n\nDuring the afternoon and evening he made every opportunity for Caracen\u00e9 to escape. She did not seize her chance.\n\nRider reached the laboratory quite late. He examined the prisoners while the others prepared themselves a supper. \"Any message from the King?\" he asked.\n\n\"Nary a word,\" Chaz replied. \"Nothing from anybody.\"\n\n\"I suppose that means he's decided to accept me as Protector\u2014to the extent that he'll ignore me. Till he wants something.\"\n\n\"That's what most of them did with your father. How long you reckon Belledon will last?\" Few Shasesserren kings fulfilled normal lifespans. Some years there were three or four self-coronations. Jehrke had held the opinion that the City was its empire's worst enemy. The Protector had provided more stability and continuity than the crown.\n\n\"He could be a good one. If he stays alive. Suppose we skip the hired hands and deal with Odehnal directly?\"\n\n\"A truth-drawing?\"\n\n\"Get it ready. I'll eat first.\"\n\nOdehnal's eyes were wild. He was hopelessly caught, for the first time ever at another's mercy. Judging his captors by himself, he was frantic.\n\n\"Ought to be interesting,\" Chaz said, closing the lumber room door. Softly, \"The girl wouldn't run.\"\n\n\"I noticed. We'll find him another way.\"\n\nAfter eating they brought a more composed Odehnal into the library and strapped him into a chair the twin to that Greystone had used to monitor the web. Rider exercised the utmost caution while unbinding the spells which restrained the dwarf. Odehnal was dangerous still.\n\n\"Bit backwards from the way you're used to?\" Rider asked. \"You willing to tell me what I want to know?\" Fear still lurked behind the dwarf's eyes. \"Got in over your head when you joined up with Shai Khe, didn't you?\"\n\nOdehnal betrayed a flicker of surprise.\n\n\"Oh, yeah,\" Chaz said. \"We know about your friend and his pirate airship.\"\n\n\"That being the case, you have no need to question me,\" Odehnal concluded with a snarl.\n\n\"Where is he?\" Rider asked.\n\nSilence.\n\n\"Do you consider yourself more valuable than Vlazos? He killed Vlazos.\"\n\nAgain Odehnal betrayed a moment's surprise. Vlazos, Rider believed, had been the foot in the Shasesserren door, the lone contact between outsiders and conspirators.\n\n\"Let's get on with the truth-drawing, Rider,\" Su-Cha chirruped. \"I love it when they squeal.\" His cherubic face darkened. \"And this one has abused so many of my kind. Let me have him when you're done.\"\n\nKralj Odehnal was not to be manipulated by psychological maneuvers. He was old and tough and tempered, and knew all the games interrogators played. He believed he had invented some himself.\n\nRider shrugged. \"Since we have no choice, then.\"\n\nGreystone placed a contraption on a stand in front of the dwarf. Odehnal looked puzzled. \"Spud's special design,\" Greystone said. \"More efficient than candles and mirrors.\"\n\nOdehnal drew a deep breath...\n\nChaz stepped behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth. The hand held a wad of cotton impregnated with a fluid of Rider's devising. In moments Kralj Odehnal wore a drugged smile. His head lolled to one side.\n\nSu-Cha stuck him with a hot pin. \"Just to make sure he isn't faking.\"\n\nRider said nothing, though he knew the Odehnal who was a legend among assassins had self-control sufficient not to start at a pin's prick. \"Start it.\"\n\nGreystone cranked a handle, opened a tiny door. Light flickered upon Odehnal's face. Greystone made a few adjustments.\n\nThis was a truth-drawing much less unpleasant than the traditional, which combined a bit of witchcraft with subtle torture. \"Waken him,\" Rider said.\n\nChaz buried Odehnal's face in cotton moistened with ammonia. The dwarf sputtered and spat and wakened. His eyes met the light and glazed.\n\nRider asked several hundred questions, each phrased so a yes or no answer would suffice. Greystone recorded questions and answers and kept his notesheets positioned so Rider could refer to them. The others stayed back, conferring in whispers. Occasionally Soup would dart forward with a note suggesting a question.\n\nThe picture that shaped was not one to gladden men devoted to Shasesserre's welfare.\n\nFor several years Shai Khe had been recruiting among the sorcerers of the world. Those who refused to make common cause, under his command, he crushed. Those who joined him he gave gifts like Caracen\u00e9, and powers torn away from those who would not serve him. Now he felt strong enough to test Shasesserre and its Protector.\n\nRider worked with especial care when he began drawing the names of those Shai Khe had recruited. Yes and no answers were not possible.\n\nSome names amazed him. Some chilled him. Some left him blank, for they were names unknown to him. Those he did know were widely scattered, proving the eastern master had a far reach indeed.\n\nHe had drawn just over a dozen names when Odehnal suddenly bucked against his restraints, made squealing noises, and began foaming at the mouth.\n\n\"What's wrong with him?\" Greystone demanded.\n\n\"I don't know... He's dying. Somebody get the medical kit.\"\n\nBlood flecked the foam on Odehnal's chin.\n\nRider brushed the hypnotic engine aside, laid hands on the dwarf's heaving chest. He felt the inner wrongness instantly. \"Poison!\"\n\n\"What kind?\" Soup demanded, yanking a battery of antidotes out of the medical kit.\n\n\"Can't tell. Something different... Complex.\"\n\nOdehnal's eyes opened. Hatred and the knowledge of his own murder filled them. \"Polybos House,\" he croaked. \"The Devil's Eyes.\" His eyes rolled up. He began to shudder violently.\n\n\"Rider!\" Chaz shouted from the laboratory. \"There's something out here.\"\n\nRider ripped away from Odehnal, rushed into the darkened laboratory. Chaz was at the window. \"Where?\"\n\n\"Down there now.\"\n\nRider leaned out. A shadow clung to the face of the tower, seventy feet below. Points that might have been eyes blinked. A limb of shadow moved. Rider whipped back, into the laboratory an instant before something tick! ed against the window frame. \"Light,\" he said. \"Get lamps in here.\" And, \"We have to get that pane replaced.\" He moved to the library door behind Chaz, blocked that against the rush of his men.\n\n\"Whatever it was, it shot something at me. It ricocheted off the window frame into the laboratory. Watch where you step. Find it.\" He took an oil lamp from Preacher, cautiously returned to the window. He leaned out and dropped the lamp.\n\nDown it plunged to smash on the foot of the Rock. He caught one glimpse of something scuttling into darkness.\n\n\"What was it? A demon?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"No. It was mortal. There was no strain on the web. But exactly what manner of mortal I don't know.\"\n\n\"Here,\" Soup called.\n\nRider joined him, looked where he pointed. \"A dart. Get tongs. Handle it with care. Let's see if we can't find another around Odehnal.\"\n\n\"This Shai Khe is some nice fellow,\" Chaz observed. \"Kills anybody... Caracen\u00e9. Where did that woman get to?\"\n\n\"I think Odehnal getting got, got her moving,\" Greystone said. He indicated the exit door. It stood open a crack.\n\n\"Su-Cha,\" Rider said. \"You follow her. I'll keep in touch through the web.\"\n\n\"Thought you had her on the web,\" Chaz said.\n\n\"Not anymore. She figured she was marked and negated it. Su-Cha.\"\n\n\"Yes sir, boss, sir.\" The imp dived out the window. This time he did not howl on the way down.\n\nRider moved back to Kralj Odehnal. In a moment he found the lethal dart. \"The bodies pile up. And still we make no progress.\"\n\n\"At least they aren't our bodies,\" Chaz said. \"That thing could have gotten one of us as easily as it got Odehnal.\"\n\n\"A point we were meant to take, I'm sure,\" Rider observed. \"A bit more caution from now on, friends. Omar. I want you to fix that window. Soon.\"\n\n\"What do we do now?\" Preacher asked.\n\n\"We find a place called Polybos House and something called the Devil's Eyes. We stay in touch with the web. And we wait for something to happen.\"\n\nIn the other room the dead eyes of Jehrke Victorious seemed to gleam with approval."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "Su-Cha returned soon after daybreak. He wore a chagrined look. \"She shook me in the Protte rookery. I figured she'd cross to Henchelside, so I staked out King's Ferry. She never showed.\"\n\nSoup snickered. Spud said, \"We'll hear from her again. How can she resist that great chunk of beef?\" He indicated Chaz, snoring in a chair.\n\nRider returned from setting Preacher and Greystone to searching land titles for a place called Polybos House. \"Soup, you and Omar head down to the Golden Crescent. Look at ships recently in from the east. Find ships that carried unusual cargoes or passengers.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Soup asked.\n\n\"Shai Khe's airship is a small one. He may have brought more men and equipment than it could have carried. He strikes me as careful and methodical. He would not have come unprepared for a difficult campaign.\"\n\nSoup and Spud departed. They returned that evening with nothing to report. Preacher and Greystone had no luck either. Greystone said, \"If a Polybos House exists it has to be outside the Wall.\" By that he meant outside the legal corporate limits. The city wall proper lay well inside those, and had been in decay for a century.\n\n\"Try again tomorrow,\" Rider said.\n\n\"What're you doing?\" Preacher asked.\n\n\"Trying to analyze the poison on these darts. It's eluded me so far. Looks like something drawn from an insect, though.\"\n\nSpud said, \"The jungles of Maijan fester with poisonous bugs. And lizards and snakes and bats.\"\n\n\"I'll remember that next time I'm in the far east,\" Chaz grumbled. He was in a sour mood. He had spent the day washing alembics and retorts under the dead, cold eyes of Jehrke.\n\n\"Patience, friend,\" Rider chided. \"Our turn will come.\"\n\n\"Soon, I hope.\" Chaz tested the window Spud had installed, for the hundredth time. \"My nerves are getting me.\"\n\nSoon did not come for four days.\n\nIt began with Soup and Spud. They had, at last, found a vessel whose origins and crew were suspect. After watching the ship, and noting the presence of men of both Emerald's and Shai Khe's races, they decided to contact Rider.\n\nBut their persistent presence over several days had betrayed them.\n\nThe attack was sudden and bold, initiated by a seaman who stepped into their path and shouted, \"At last my brother's daughter's honor will be avenged!\" Another half dozen seamen joined him, a wild, scruffy gang of cutthroats.\n\nSpud and Soup were not fooled. The easterner pointed a finger, declared, \"You have the wrong men, friend.\"\n\nThe sailor collapsed.\n\nSpud pointed at another man. He went down, too.\n\nBlades came out. A howl went up. More sailors materialized.\n\nSoup, meantime, dipped a hand into his pocket and crushed a crystal. That sent a screaming shock through the web. Then he activated an amulet which Rider could track. Then he scattered fistfuls of what looked like gold coins.\n\nAttackers and onlookers alike dived for the money.\n\nSpud dropped another two men with his pointed finger, ducked inside a clumsy cutlass, buried a fist in a fat belly.\n\nSoup's coins started an independent brawl. They exploded in the hands or pockets of those who had seized them.\n\nSpud pushed away from the man he had punched. \"Let's get out of here!\" he yelled.\n\nIn the confusion that was not difficult. But...\n\nSoup laughed. \"The idiots! Hoist by their own greed!\"\n\n\"Oh-oh,\" Spud said.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nThey had slipped into a breezeway to make their getaway. Their path, suddenly, was blocked by men of Emerald's ilk.\n\nRetreat, too, vanished.\n\nTough-looking orientals had appeared behind them.\n\n\"The coin trick won't work this time.\"\n\n\"I didn't reload my spring gun.\"\n\n\"Been nice knowing you. Take it out on the gnarly guys?\"\n\n\"Let's get them.\"\n\nPreacher and Greystone had been butting their heads against a stone wall. There was no Polybos House within fifty miles of Shasesserre, at least on record. They were with Rider, plotting a new strategy, when the web relayed Soup's trouble cry.\n\n\"Ask around the merchants' taverns,\" Rider said, and loped out. A minute later he passed through the Citadel gate in a racing chariot, sounding a warning trumpet. Though the way was longer, he took the Via Triumpha, which by law was closed to wheeled vehicles. Because there was no commerce there, few pedestrians were about.\n\nThe Via's prime function was as a processional for military holidays, and for the celebration of major victories.\n\nRider swung off the Via Triumpha a quarter mile from where his men had found trouble. During his mad flight he had acquired an escort of City Guards, who had recognized him and were carrying warning ahead. They made passage through the waterfront district much easier.\n\nSo quick was Rider to reach the scene that the crowd had not yet dispersed. A dozen people lay unconscious, not yet carried off by comrades. \"Collect these and deliver them to the Citadel,\" Rider told his escort. He left his chariot and set off after the moving disturbance the web noted as the location of his men.\n\nHe found the back-up ambush. There were signs of a vigorous fight, and spilled blood. Had Soup and Spud been slain, their bodies carried off with those of their enemies?\n\nHis heart sank. Shai Khe was a relentless and merciless opponent.\n\nHe allowed his wizard's senses to extend. This was a good time and place to jump someone tracking the missing men.\n\nThey were there, just ahead in the breezeway, hidden beneath trash and inside shadows. There were eight of them. They had several mystical devices that would have been potent had they taken Rider unaware. They were growing impatient.\n\nRider produced a deck of plaques the size of tarot cards. He shuffled out the one he wanted. It portrayed a man asleep, dreaming hideous devils. The devils were about to seize and drag him through a fiery gap in a background wall. There were graven words around the plaque's margin. Rider read them aloud.\n\nAs he spoke each word, it disappeared. After he spoke the last, the picture itself faded. The plaque crumbled into dust which dribbled between his fingers.\n\nRider went back and told the City Guards they could collect another eight customers in the breezeway. Then he set out after the receding disturbance marking the location of his men.\n\nHe loped to the waterfront, where he immediately identified both the vessel they had unmasked and the outbound fishing smack carrying them. The ship reeked of old sorceries forgotten by all but their victims.\n\nRider raced back to his chariot, pounded through the streets to the airship yards, where, in accordance with standing instructions, his airships were ready for immediate flight. He selected the fast vessel he had used before.\n\nLiftoff was hectic, as he had to cover the places of crewmen not present, but once he was aloft he had no trouble. He reached through the web, touched Chaz and Preacher, told them he wanted everyone atop their tower of the Citadel. He tried to reach Soup and Spud, but a grey null intervened. They might be unconscious. Or worse.\n\nChaz and Su-Cha were in the parapet when Rider halted the airship above the Citadel. Both carried packs. Rider hastened to the gondola door, dropped a rope ladder. As Chaz and Su-Cha scrambled up, Greystone and Preacher appeared.\n\n\"What's up?\" Chaz demanded as he clambered aboard.\n\n\"The game is afoot. They snatched Spud and Soup. What are the packs?\"\n\n\"Some odds and ends we threw together. Just in case.\"\n\n\"The laboratory secure?\"\n\nSu-Cha chuckled. \"And then some.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "Chaz repeated the news for Preacher and Greystone. Rider ordered the ship demon to proceed toward the Golden Crescent at speed, for the fishing boat was near the limit of the web. He had to get the vessel in sight first or lose it among a hundred others.\n\n\"I think I've been outmaneuvered,\" he said.\n\n\"How's that?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"The boat is leaving the web. To follow we'll have to keep it in sight. Which means they'll be able to see us, too.\"\n\n\"How about an invisibility spell?\"\n\n\"Wouldn't hide something this big.\"\n\n\"What about an angel?\" Su-Cha asked. Already he had shed his shirt and sprouted wings.\n\nRider understood immediately. \"An albatross or eagle would be less flashy.\"\n\n\"Dig out some of those mirrors and flares,\" Su-Cha told Chaz. Already his head was avian.\n\n\"A shape to go with his brain,\" Chaz said, ransacking the packs. He produced signal mirrors and four small flares, which he placed in a pouch the imp grew among his ventral feathers. Su-Cha retained rudimentary hands beneath his wings.\n\nRider spread a maritime chart. \"The ship is here, now, and headed so. If there are others around, watch the one that is in a hurry. They're making all the speed they can.\"\n\nSu-Cha squawked and plunged through a hatch Preacher opened. In a moment he was headed out over the strait on long white wings.\n\nGreystone looked over Rider's shoulder. \"They headed for the Hurm Islands?\"\n\n\"Maybe. They could shift course once they're sure they're clear of the web.\"\n\n\"How soon?\"\n\n\"I've lost them already.\"\n\n\"Signal from Su-Cha,\" Chaz said. \"He has them.\"\n\nRider peered out the window. Far away, a mirror flashed.\n\n\"Keeping their heading,\" Chaz read.\n\n\"Tell him not to get too close,\" Rider replied. \"What do you know about the Hurm Islands, Greystone?\"\n\n\"Not much to know. Uninhabited and considered uninhabitable. Except for the biggest, Radhorn Island, they're little more than marshy places off the mouth of the Claytyne River.\" The Claytyne emptied into the Bridge of the World from its southern, Saverne side. \"Long ago, before the seas were ours alone, there were naval fortifications on Radhorn. Earlier still, pirates nested there, lying in wait for ships headed west.\"\n\nRider nodded. \"And these days it's suspected of being a hideout for smugglers. The ruins of the fortifications would provide a good hiding place for a pirate airship.\"\n\n\"But Odehnal said Polybos House,\" Preacher protested.\n\n\"Let's forget that for the moment. Chaz. Can you make out Su-Cha?\"\n\n\"Only when he flashes an all right.\"\n\n\"Maybe we ought to call for an all-out raid,\" Preacher said. \"Half a dozen airships and a company of air marines. Could be anything waiting out there.\"\n\n\"If it becomes necessary.\" Rider spoke to the propulsive demon. The ship surged forward. \"Chaz. We're going down channel and crossing over. Tell Su-Cha.\" He began shedding altitude.\n\nThe airship crossed the Bridge of the World just yards above the waves. It was seen by several merchantmen and fishing vessels, but Su-Cha reported none steering near the Hurm Islands. Rider took the airship up into the southern hills, finally grounded in a side canyon leading down to the Claytyne River.\n\n\"Now what?\" Chaz asked. He was working his sword with a whetstone.\n\n\"We wait for darkness. And for Su-Cha.\"\n\nSu-Cha arrived first, but not by much. \"They stuck Soup and Spud in a basement under the old ruins, then headed back for the north shore.\"\n\n\"They just dumped them?\" Chaz asked. \"Didn't leave any guards or anything?\"\n\n\"Oh, there's guards. Fifteen or twenty smugglers and runaway slaves and such, that they paid to watch them.\"\n\nChaz said, \"Something's wrong here, Rider. Either it's a trap or we've been snookered into leaving town.\"\n\n\"No trap,\" Su-Cha said. \"I looked the place over good.\"\n\n\"Perhaps Shai Khe has fallen victim to his own arrogance.\"\n\n\"Well, at least we could have followed the fishing boat if the runt hadn't...\"\n\nSu-Cha was grinning his biggest grin.\n\n\"What instructions were the smugglers given as to the care of our friends?\" Rider asked.\n\n\"They're to treat them well. Till they hear otherwise. The men from the boat\u2014they were all orientals\u2014paid the smugglers for two weeks.\"\n\n\"And did you do what I suspect you did with your flares?\"\n\n\"Yep.\" Su-Cha grinned again.\n\n\"And your mirrors?\"\n\n\"Right up on the masthead. Nobody pays attention to a bird.\"\n\n\"Or a birdbrain,\" Chaz mumbled.\n\nRider said, \"Let's get flying, then. Soup and Spud are safe for the moment.\"\n\n\"You just going to leave them there?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"If we don't mess with them, Shai Khe will think we're off the trail,\" Su-Cha said.\n\nRider took the airship back along the reverse of his approach route, but midway across the Bridge of the World he lifted into the normal air lane from Kaizherion. \"Take over, Chaz.\"\n\nHe busied himself in the rear of the cabin for several minutes. In time he brought forward a plate of frosted violet glass. He handed this to Su-Cha. The imp held it at eye level, extended, in both hands. \"Ready when you are.\"\n\nRider spoke one Word of Command. Su-Cha turned rapidly, staring through the glass. \"There!\"\n\nRider marked the direction. \"Charts, Greystone. Not the direction I expected.\"\n\n\"Thought they would head for the City?\" Su-Cha asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe boat was bound westward.\n\nRider examined the chart. \"They're hugging the coast. Trying to slip past the patrol in the Narrows. Go down, Chaz. Let's see if we can't raise the guardship.\"\n\nFinding the Narrows sentinel was simple. The trireme was showing her lights. There were no challengers on Shasesserre's seas.\n\nRider went down the rope ladder, spoke with the vessel's commander. When he returned, he said, \"All set.\"\n\nSu-Cha squealed maliciously, then spoke the Word of Command that ignited the flares aboard the fishing boat.\n\nThe trireme was headed north already, cadence drum pounding. \"They'll make it look like a rescue,\" Rider said. \"But then they'll stay on station till they're relieved. Shai Khe will have to do without those men for a while.\"\n\n\"We could use a few for a truth-drawing.\" Chaz opined.\n\n\"The captain will turn them in as suspected smugglers. They'll be available.\"\n\n\"There she goes!\" Su-Cha crowed.\n\nA growing fire illuminated the strait.\n\n\"Pity we couldn't follow them,\" Chaz said.\n\nRider mused, \"I don't think they would have led us anywhere. I suspect their function was to draw us away.\" He shrugged. \"We'll see. Meantime, Shai Khe is short even more of his resources. Those can't be infinite.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "Rider used the ladder to deposit Chaz and Su-Cha atop the Citadel, then returned the airship to its cradle. It was near dawn when he reached his laboratory. Chaz opened the door grinning.\n\n\"Good news?\"\n\n\"Good and bad,\" Chaz said. \"The good is, we had visitors. They're still here.\"\n\n\"The woman?\"\n\n\"How did you know?\"\n\n\"It seemed reasonable. She saw a ring used to open the door. I assume that is how she got inside?\"\n\nChaz nodded. \"She used Soup's. The guy used Spud's.\"\n\n\"Guy?\"\n\n\"Look him over. He wants to play hard-boy. Wouldn't talk to us.\"\n\n\"All right. What's the bad news?\"\n\n\"Two kinds of it. Somebody let out the prisoners you took this afternoon. People are claiming it was all a mixup and misunderstanding, but a couple City Guards got themselves killed. And Kentan Rubios is dead. The King wants to see you about that.\"\n\n\"He was murdered?\"\n\n\"Belledon thinks he was. I already talked to the physician. Says he didn't find anything suspicious.\"\n\nRider checked to see if there had been disturbances in the web while he was out of touch. None were evident. Shai Khe was playing a careful game where the web was concerned. Perhaps he had come in contact with it before and been burned by Jehrke.\n\nThe library contained two outsiders, each still as a statue. Caracen\u00e9 was one. Her eyes gleamed fear. The other was a well-dressed man, though his clothing was a little flashy. He seemed more resigned than frightened.\n\n\"Searched him?\" Rider asked.\n\n\"Yep. Down to his socks.\" Chaz indicated ten pounds of razor-sharp cutlery upon the library table. \"Regular walking arsenal, this guy.\"\n\n\"I'll release him from the field,\" Rider said. He ignored Caracen\u00e9.\n\nChaz drew his sword.\n\nRider negated the static spell which held the captives. Caracen\u00e9 staggered. Greystone and Preacher caught her, placed her firmly into a chair. Rider offered a second chair to the other captive. The man seated himself with dignity. He kept his hands carefully in sight.\n\n\"A professional,\" Chaz said.\n\nRider nodded. Of the man, he asked, \"Do I need to indulge in a truth-drawing?\"\n\n\"You'd be wasting your time. I don't know anything.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. Who gave you the ring you used to gain entry?\"\n\n\"Sanjek Polybos House.\"\n\nRider concealed his astonishment. The others were less successful. The prisoner seemed not to notice.\n\n\"Your assignment?\" Rider asked.\n\n\"Pick up anything he might find interesting.\"\n\n\"That's pretty general. Wasn't he more specific?\"\n\nThe captive thought a moment. He eyed Greystone, who was setting up for a truth-drawing, just in case. \"He did mention a key to a Treasury lock box. Nothing else specific. I got the impression papers and documents would be of considerable interest.\"\n\n\"Your name?\"\n\nThe man smiled. \"Zantos? Yes. Zantos Leaela.\"\n\nRider nodded. In a Saverne side country dialect the name meant approximately Stranger Dark As Night. More colloquially, Shadowman. In a way, what Rider had expected from his first glimpse of the man. \"Put him in the lumber room.\"\n\n\"You made sense out of that?\" Chaz asked, once the prisoner was out of the way.\n\n\"Yes. He's one of the King's Shadows.\"\n\n\"The secret agents who watch for sedition? But...\"\n\n\"Sanjek Polybos House,\" Rider said. \"We have been mistaken again. We were looking for a place, a building, when we should have been looking for a person.\" He took Vlazos' key from his pocket. \"A person very high up, who is part of the conspiracy.\" Sanjek, as a title, ranked with legate, legionary commander, or general. Rumor said five men of sanjek rank controlled the King's Shadows. One ranked the other four and reported directly to King Belledon. Of the others, one was responsible for the City, another for the Home Territories. The other two oversaw the eastern and western provinces of the empire.\n\n\"Obviously, Shai Khe has found ways around Vlazos' death.\"\n\nRider faced Caracen\u00e9. \"And what was your mission?\"\n\n\"I was not sent. I came to warn Chaz...\"\n\n\"Been singing us the same song,\" Su-Cha said. \"As if anybody is fool enough to believe that even the big thug's own mother would give him warning...\"\n\nThe barbarian snagged Su-Cha from behind. His meaty hands surrounded the imp's neck. He wore several silver rings. Su-Cha could not escape. Chaz lifted him chest high. \"Should we stew him or fry him?\"\n\n\"Warn Chaz about what?\" Rider asked.\n\nCaracen\u00e9 would say no more.\n\n\"Chaz?\"\n\n\"The way I get it, Kentan Rubios expected an attempt on his life.\" He beamed at Caracen\u00e9. Su-Cha kicked and squeaked, to no avail. \"He talked about asking us to help. One of the conspirators heard. When Shai Khe found out, he sent men to intercept any messengers coming from Rubios.\"\n\n\"Did a message come?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Interesting. But you didn't explain why Caracen\u00e9 is here.\"\n\n\"Rubios was supposed to be killed. She was afraid I might try to stop it and get myself hurt.\"\n\nSu-Cha unleashed a wild, braying, peacock peal of derisive laughter. Chaz cut it off by squeezing his throat.\n\n\"So. Independent confirmation of Belledon's suspicions.\"\n\n\"You going to see him?\"\n\n\"Soon. Yes. He may know more than I thought. And I should let him know what we've found out.\"\n\n\"What about our spy?\"\n\n\"We'll keep him till we track down Polybos House. But we'll let him go eventually. He hasn't done any evil.\" Rider fingered the Vlazos key. That bore immediate investigation if someone wanted it recovered. \"I'd best get to it.\"\n\nAt the door, Chaz whispered, \"What about the woman?\" He now carried Su-Cha in one hand, toes dragging, like a child dragging a doll.\n\n\"Hold on to her. If she's told the truth, she's put herself in danger.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "\"Well,\" Soup said as Spud sat up, clutching his head. \"We're alive. For now.\"\n\n\"Where are we?\" Spud asked. And, \"What did they give us? I've never had a hangover like this.\"\n\n\"I don't know. To both. With me it's my stomach.\"\n\n\"They dragged us onto a ship. I remember that.\"\n\n\"This is no ship.\" Darkness surrounded them. So did the odors of damp earth and rot. \"You tied up?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Are you?\"\n\n\"Yes. But I think I can get loose.\"\n\nA bright square of light materialized overhead, nearly blinding them. Vague dark shapes looked down. \"You guys awake?\"\n\nSpud saw no need to pretend otherwise. \"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Good. Ready to eat?\"\n\n\"How the hell are we going to eat tied up like this?\"\n\n\"I don't know. That's your problem. We just get paid to watch and feed you.\"\n\n\"Where are we?\"\n\n\"In a hole in the ground.\" Both men above laughed. One lowered a basket by rope.\n\n\"Hurry it up,\" one jailor said. \"I ain't going to sit here all day.\"\n\n\"Hell, let the rope go,\" the other said.\n\nThe line snaked down. The square of light vanished. Soup asked Spud, \"What do you make of our new quarters?\"\n\n\"Only what we know already. It's an old cellar of some kind.\"\n\n\"Those weren't the guys who caught us.\"\n\n\"Hired thugs.\"\n\n\"How do we get out?\"\n\n\"First let's get untied. Step at a time.\"\n\n\"I'm almost loose... There. Be done in a minute.\"\n\nIt took longer. Soup's fingers were numb. But in ten minutes both men were free. Soup said, \"Shall we sample our host's hospitality?\"\n\n\"Your stomach better? My head is still pounding.\"\n\n\"A little. I'm starved. We must have been out a long time.\"\n\nThey emptied the basket.\n\nThey used the rope to measure their prison. It was twenty-one paces by twelve, and in terrible repair. One end wall was partly collapsed. But that was no help.\n\nSpud found human bones. Neither he nor Soup cared to speculate on their significance.\n\nSoup said, \"Looks like the only way out is the way we came in.\"\n\n\"Yeah. How high you figure that was?\"\n\n\"Twelve feet.\"\n\n\"We could reach it if I stood on your shoulders.\"\n\n\"Maybe. If we could find it. If it isn't locked or something. And if there isn't a guard outside. If I was guarding I'd sit on the lid.\"\n\n\"Best time would be at night, wouldn't it? Real early in the morning night.\"\n\nSoup asked, \"How are you going to know?\"\n\nThe darkness was dense in that pit. It was a darkness so dense it set the eye to seeing imaginary spooks. But it was not a darkness reserved to them alone. Whenever they were silent for a time, small things rustled. Sometimes it seemed the things were not so small.\n\n\"There,\" Spud said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Made a lariat out of the rope.\"\n\n\"What good is that?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Yet. It's a tool. The only one we have. Maybe I could rope the guy and pull him in.\"\n\nSoup did not think much of that. \"Maybe we ought to sit tight.\"\n\n\"You think Rider knows where we are?\"\n\n\"There's a good chance.\"\n\nThey sat tight a few hours because they had no choice.\n\nNext time a meal came through the hatchway the light was weaker outside. Spud complained, \"How about you guys untie us? There's rats down here.\"\n\nOnly one man had come. He laughed. \"You don't eat for a few days, those ropes will loosen up.\" He lowered another basket.\n\n\"Keep him talking,\" Soup whispered.\n\nSpud did his best. Soup examined their prison.\n\nIt had been used as a garbage pit. And dump for bodies. He saw fragments of several skeletons. But nothing useful as a tool or weapon.\n\n\"Quit your whining,\" the man above said. \"You're alive.\" And, \"I heard you guys was tough. Guess maybe you're not so much after all.\" He laughed as Spud spat something back.\n\nThe easterner demolished the man's claim to a family history.\n\nThe light went out.\n\n\"I think you made him mad, Spud.\"\n\nSpud chuckled. \"That was the idea. Look up there.\"\n\nSoup saw a hairline crack of light.\n\nThey argued about who would climb onto whose shoulders. The fading of the light caused Soup to give in.\n\nSpud fell off his first two tries. Third time around he caught hold and kept his balance. Soup huffed and muttered. Spud strained and stretched, forced the tips of his fingers through the crack. He ground his teeth, expecting a heel to smash them.\n\nNothing happened.\n\nHe pulled himself up, pushed the cover with his head. \"Heavy!\" he gasped.\n\n\"Hurry!\" Soup growled. \"You're ruining my shoulders.\"\n\nSpud heaved again. A corner of the lid rose. Then the whole thing slid aside. He threw an arm over the edge of the hole, anchored himself, looked around. \"Nobody up here.\" A moment later he was out. \"The rope!\" he said.\n\nIt came up. He hoisted Soup. They swung the lid into place.\n\n\"Where are we?\" Soup asked.\n\n\"Someplace near the Bridge. Tell that by the smell.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Looks marshy down there... What's that?\"\n\nA whiny, muted, metallic sound came from the north. \"Music,\" Soup said.\n\n\"If you say so.\" Spud coiled his lariat. \"Let's take a look.\"\n\nIn a moment they crouched behind a fallen wall, looked at a shabby building which leaked light and sound. A door opened on the far side. Enough light escaped to betray a small ship drawn up on a narrow beach.\n\n\"Smugglers,\" Soup said. \"They hired smugglers to watch us.\"\n\n\"What now?\"\n\n\"Put some distance between us and them. Hole up till dawn. Then head along the coast till we come to a village.\"\n\nSpud snorted. \"We'll see.\"\n\n\"We won't see much for long if we don't start stepping.\"\n\nThe sun had not been up an hour before they knew the awful truth. \"An island!\" Soup snarled. \"We're on an island.\"\n\n\"One of the Hurm Islands, to be exact,\" Spud said. \"Nowhere else fits.\"\n\n\"So we're trapped anyway.\"\n\n\"We'll steal a boat. We're not that far from the Saverne side.\"\n\nSoup demanded, \"How do you expect to do that? It won't be long before they know we're gone and start hunting. We can't grab one of their boats in broad daylight.\"\n\n\"We won't. I'll lower you back down so you can grouch and complain when they come to feed us. I'll pull you out again after dark. Then we'll grab a boat. And have twelve hours' head start.\"\n\n\"Why don't you go down in the hole?\"\n\n\"It's my plan.\"\n\nBickering, they headed for their former prison."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "Rider was thoughtful as he descended to the Treasury chambers.\n\n\"Why so quiet?\" Su-Cha asked. In the shadows the imp was almost invisible. He gave Rider a start.\n\n\"I'd better pay more attention,\" Rider said. \"You could have been one of Shai Khe's gang.\"\n\n\"Right. I could. So what did Belledon say?\"\n\n\"That Kentan Rubios was the chief of the King's Shadows.\"\n\n\"Aha.\"\n\n\"Aha indeed. Polybos House\u2014a pseudonym, of course\u2014 is the only other sanjek in the City.\"\n\n\"Aha again. Where are you headed?\"\n\n\"To look into Vlazos' safety chest. Afterward, we'll visit Rubios' City house. Belledon said he ordered everything left as it was found.\"\n\n\"What's he going to do about Polybos House?\"\n\n\"Call him in for a conference and surprise him with a set of chains. We get first crack at him.\"\n\n\"What was that?\" They were near the Treasury vault, deep in the living stone of the Rock. The hallways were nests of shadows.\n\nRider saw nothing, but trusted Su-Cha's senses. He took hold of the web, probed. \"Something... The thing that murdered Odehnal. It's gone now. Evidently just spying.\"\n\n\"You'd better be quick. He might have gone for help.\"\n\n\"He probably did.\" Rider lengthened his stride. \"Keep watch.\"\n\nTwo old pensioners guarded the vault. They knew Rider. He had a Treasury secure chest of his own. He gave them a sealed order from Belledon. Half the security of the vault arose from the fact that only the vault attendants themselves could distinguish between the thousands of identical chests.\n\nThey argued. Not even the King, they said, could authorize...\n\nRider waved a hand. They fell silent. \"Show me the box,\" he commanded.\n\nThe elder turned, led the way. The other remained on guard, occasionally shaking his head puzzledly. Su-Cha vanished into the shadows outside.\n\nRider's guide indicated a chest indistinguishable from a hundred others. Rider tried the Vlazos key. The chest opened immediately.\n\n\"Ah.\" Several bound ledgers lay inside the chest, with one packet of letters tied together with a red ribbon. Rider opened a ledger at random.\n\nNames. Dates. Places. Minutes of topics discussed.\n\n\"This is what I came for.\" He took ledgers and letters and headed for the door.\n\nSu-Cha sent warning by tugging at the web.\n\nRider cast a small spell which set shadows dancing like a madman's dream. Those who lurked outside became disoriented. They called to one another in confusion.\n\nA second spell sent shadows playing over Rider's own body. He entered the chaos in the hallway\u2014and seemed to disappear.\n\nSu-Cha, meantime, shifted form. He grew into something huge and ugly, a nightmare beast with eight-inch fangs and a disposition so foul fire bubbled from his nostrils. He jumped at a man. \"Boo!\"\n\nPanic added its mad whip to the confusion.\n\nThe two old guards came to investigate. Su-Cha frightened them, too. He giggled, then took off after Rider.\n\n\"Names, dates, places, and plans,\" Rider told the others. The contents of Vlazos' chest lay scattered across the library table. \"A meticulous man, our Vlazos. He kept records of everything.\"\n\n\"When do we round them up?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"We'll let Belledon have the credit for that,\" Rider said. \"We're going to Kentan Rubios' house.\"\n\n\"Let Belledon do it? When you can't trust anyone anymore?\"\n\nRider tapped the ledgers. \"He'll have these to go by.\"\n\n\"But they know about them. Else why would a bunch of them have been down at the vault?\"\n\n\"Maybe we'll see the rats scatter,\" Su-Cha said. \"Rider, you think Belledon will grab Polybos House? Because we still got to figure out about the Devil's Eyes.\"\n\n\"Things are going to get crazy, we'd better see about Spud and Soup, too,\" Chaz said. \"Shai Khe might kill them out of spite.\"\n\n\"I don't think he's the petty sort,\" Rider said. \"Still, he can't keep a close rein on all his henchmen. We'll go first time things slow down.\"\n\nChaz jerked his head to indicate Caracen\u00e9. \"What about her?\"\n\n\"We can't have her running off, can we? She knows what we know. I'll set the doors and window so they can't be opened from inside or out... What's that?\"\n\n\"Somebody pounding on the door.\"\n\nRider strode into the laboratory. Chaz ducked into the contraption of mirrors. \"It's all right,\" Rider said, after peering through the peeping device. \"One of the King's men.\" He opened the door.\n\nChaz was determined to trust no one. Likewise, Su-Cha, who had secreted himself behind a rack of glassware. Even Preacher and Greystone, in the library, had drawn weapons.\n\nThe King's man did not enter. Breathlessly, he said, \"His Majesty has taken the prisoner. But people from the Shadows are clamoring to talk to him. His Majesty suggests you take custody.\"\n\nInside his hiding place, Chaz snorted derisively.\n\nRider replied, \"I'll do that. But not right away. Tell him he might reduce the clamor by giving the Shadows an assignment. Chaz. Get me those ledgers.\"\n\nWhen Chaz returned with the books, Rider told the messenger, \"His Majesty should find these very interesting. They should tell him what to do till I can get to him.\"\n\nThe messenger accepted the load with ill grace, departed.\n\n\"You think he's going to be safe, walking around with those?\" Chaz asked.\n\nRider, concentrating, raised a hand that asked for silence. He wove mystic patterns with his fingers, clapped his hands. \"That should do it.\"\n\n\"Do what?\"\n\n\"Fix him so people won't notice him.\"\n\n\"You made him invisible?\"\n\n\"That would have been too difficult and too time-consuming. No. He'll just not seem worth paying attention to.\"\n\n\"What now?\"\n\n\"Now we go see how Kentan Rubios died.\"\n\nRider had his associates assemble certain equipment. Five minutes later, they left. Chaz stalled outside the laboratory door. Suddenly, he grinned. \"She's not that anxious to stay after all.\"\n\nSomeone was trying to get the door open.\n\n\"It's your overpowering charm,\" Preacher said. \"She can't stand to be parted from you.\"\n\nChaz looked hurt. \"Hey! I maybe got to take that from the runt, here, but from you I don't...\"\n\nSu-Cha cackled. \"You bring it on yourself.\"\n\n\"We don't have all day,\" Greystone observed from down the hallway.\n\nThey hurried to catch up.\n\nGreystone asked Rider, \"How long before Shai Khe hears Polybos House is incommunicado and gets suspicious? He hasn't been reluctant to shed potential embarrassments.\"\n\n\"I've been wondering myself. Especially since the appearance of those men near the vaults.\" Rider ordered chariots brought for them. \"We suffer the disadvantage of all defenders. We don't know where or when the enemy will strike next.\"\n\nGreystone observed, \"A closer study of those ledgers might yield a few hints.\"\n\nChaz snorted. \"How?\"\n\n\"They not only tell who is part of the conspiracy, by omission they tell us who isn't. Among those who aren't named we'll find the men Shai Khe will want to remove.\"\n\n\"True,\" Rider agreed. \"And we'll look at that angle. But more, we need to strike back. We need to get on his tail and stick. To keep him moving. To take away his time to plan murders.\"\n\nA black wreath decorated the gate to Kentan Rubios' Balajka estate. It was the only outward show of tragedy's having struck. A gateman let them into the grounds. Rider stared around narrowly. \"Su-Cha, you and Chaz look for traces left by an uninvited guest. Greystone, Preacher, stay with me.\"\n\nSu-Cha and Chaz dismounted. Servants moved the chariots aside and began caring for the horses. Su-Cha began walking the base of the estate wall, sniffing. Chaz followed, looking bored, pestering the imp with unpleasant remarks. There was little else he could contribute.\n\nA footman led them to the atrium, where a household servant met them and said, \"Doctor Recer has remained with the Lord. I fear he has grown impatient. We all expected you sooner.\"\n\n\"We had hoped to arrive sooner,\" Rider said, and extended gracious apologies. \"Our enemies kept us busy. I'll smooth the doctor's feathers.\"\n\nThe body lay on a couch in a library. The doctor and a woman of the household staff were waiting nearby. After extended apologies and social amenities, Rider said, \"Describe the circumstances surrounding the death.\"\n\nGreystone and Preacher began prowling the bookshelves, the former making little sounds of awe whenever he spotted a tome he especially coveted.\n\nThe woman replied, \"The Lord had closed himself in here, leaving instructions that he was not to be bothered. At about the tenth hour he cried out. Several of us went to the door, but found it locked. He cried out again. 'Keep away, shadow,' we think he said. When the men broke the lock they found him sprawled on the floor.\"\n\nRider was standing before a window, watching Su-Cha and Chaz while he listened. Now he interrupted. \"On the floor? I was assured nothing would be disturbed.\"\n\nDoctor Recer said, \"There is no evidence that he died of aught but natural causes. His position was undignified.\"\n\nRider interrupted, speaking to the woman. \"This window is locked. Was that his custom?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. It was. When he was working on something important.\"\n\n\"Yet he shouted at someone or something.\" Outside, Su-Cha's gestures, as he spoke to Chaz, indicated that he had found the point where something had crossed the wall.\n\n\"Rider?\" Greystone said. \"Look here.\"\n\nThe scholar was kneeling beside the room's one anomaly, an overturned chair. He pointed. A splinter of leg was split loose. Grey-brown hairs were caught there.\n\nRider squatted, considered, grunted. Then he went to the fireplace, in which no fire had been laid. Soot speckled clean firebrick. To the doctor, he said, \"Examine him again. Look for a puncture such as might have been made by a pin.\" He continued to examine the fireplace. Inside, caught on a brick, he found another hair.\n\n\"Well?\" Greystone asked.\n\n\"I think it was the same thing that killed Odehnal. It must be very agile and fairly intelligent.\"\n\nPreacher looked up the chimney. \"Skinny, too. This is a tight fit.\"\n\nThe doctor loosed a soft explosion of breath.\n\n\"You found it?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Recer indicated a tiny purple bruise centered by a pinhead scab on the corpse's hip. \"Not that it's especially noteworthy. The man had a history of heart problems.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Rider cut off the excuses, turned to the woman. \"Is anything missing?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"We were not permitted to come in here.\"\n\nIn minutes Rider knew her for a well gone dry. Kentan Rubios had been a secretive man.\n\nSu-Cha blew in bubbling with his news. Rider indicated the hairs snagged on the chair leg. \"Can you get enough from that to trail the creature?\"\n\nSu-Cha snuffled while Chaz made rude remarks.\n\nThe imp grinned. \"Got it. A close thing, too. Any imp but me couldn't have managed it.\" He hustled out the door. Chaz grumbled in his wake.\n\nRider told the doctor, \"We're finished. You can remove the body now.\"\n\n\"Don't you want to interview the rest of the staff?\"\n\n\"That won't be necessary. Tell His Majesty his suspicions were well-founded. That we are on the trail of the killer. Greystone. Preacher. Come.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "Rider overtook Su-Cha a block up the street. The imp looked crestfallen. \"It boarded a vehicle here.\"\n\nRider was not surprised. \"A closed coach, I'm sure. It would have spent some time waiting.\"\n\nChaz caught on before Su-Cha did. He guffawed.\n\nPreacher observed, \"Horses are as full of offal as the Lord is with mercy, and have no more sense of propriety than a northern barbarian.\"\n\nChaz shut up. He glared at Preacher, not quite sure what had happened.\n\nSu-Cha scowled but contained his pride. He sought the trail of the horses.\n\nGreystone, ever attentive to detail, observed, \"We're being watched. That man yonder picked us up at the gate.\"\n\nChaz glared at the loiterer, who was having trouble looking like part of the landscape. His sort did not belong on the Balajka Hill. \"Want me to grab him, Rider?\"\n\n\"Later, perhaps. Keep an eye on him. And keep another out for somebody watching him. Su-Cha. Can you track the horses or not?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" The imp's reply was curt. His expression dared disparaging remarks.\n\n\"Head in the right general direction but don't follow them exactly,\" Rider said.\n\n\"Eh? Why?\"\n\n\"Our nervous friend may be there to see if we can pick up the trail. We don't want him to run off and set up an ambush.\"\n\n\"Let's ambush him,\" Chaz urged. His blood was up. He was sick of being frustrated. He wanted to smack somebody around.\n\n\"We will,\" Rider said, his thoughts and plans shifting momentarily. \"Once we know if he's being watched in his turn.\"\n\nChaz chuckled wickedly.\n\nThey walked a block past where Su-Cha said the assassin had turned. Rider said, \"We'll go this way,\" and turned the opposite direction. That put them round the corner of a wall, out of view of the man who followed.\n\nRider reached into the web and drew power, hastily spun images of himself and Su-Cha. He did not have time to weave them well. In ten minutes they would begin floating between steps and leaking light through their bodies.\n\nRider swarmed up the wall, Su-Cha at his heels. From the wall's top, Rider said, \"Lead him along. Work your way back to the chariots. Lose him, then take the way Su-Cha pointed out,\" all in a rush. The web told him the watcher was nearby.\n\nTentative footsteps rounded the corner. Rider peeked carefully. The man seemed satisfied he was on the right track.\n\nRider reached into the web, seeking a watcher of the watcher. He found one quickly. \"Another one coming,\" he breathed.\n\nThis man's steps indicated great self-confidence. Rider let him pass, raised his head carefully. A man of Shai Khe's race. He murmured, \"Mark him carefully, Su-Cha. If we lose the horses we can follow him.\"\n\n\"Rider.\"\n\nSu-Cha's tone said they had trouble. Rider shifted and looked.\n\nA night gardener squatted among moon poppies, milk pot and milking fork in hand, gaping at them. He did not seem inclined to cause a fuss. Maybe he thought he'd caught an inadvertent whiff of pollen.\n\nThe oriental tracker's attention was directed in front of himself. Rider cast a small glamor that left the gardener shaking. He would be sure he had breathed pollen.\n\n\"He's out of sight,\" Su-Cha said. \"Let's go.\"\n\nRider jumped down. Su-Cha floated. They trotted into the street down which the assassin had departed his handiwork. Rider left a small chalk mark at each crossway, to indicate which direction he had gone.\n\nThe trail departed the Balajka district and its quiet, almost untenanted streets, dipping into an area occupied by merchants, tending downhill toward the Golden Crescent. The quality of their surroundings deteriorated. The farther they descended, the busier the night became, despite the hour.\n\nRider slowed the pace. He kept a greater part of his attention in the web, observing his surroundings. Su-Cha he charged with using his preternaturally sharp eyes and nose. In crowds like these it would be hard to spot Shai Khe's confederates. Dawn found them very near the waterfront, in a warehouse district. The assassin had traveled a long way."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "Pure good luck attended Spud and Soup. They slipped a boat away unnoticed, caught a brisk breeze, made a landfall not a half mile from a legionary encampment. The prefect of the camp was a friend of Rider and Jehrke. Within an hour they were crossing the Bridge of the World aboard the legion's courier airship. First light was just starting to limn the City when they stepped down into the jungle of the military yards.\n\nThough they were as far from the exit gate as they could get, they grinned at one another and set off jauntily. Spud whistled as he walked.\n\nMinutes later Spud's tune died behind Soup's hand. Both ducked into shadows.\n\nSoft voices approached. They saw men moving quickly, cautiously, probing shadows with shielded lights, arguing.\n\n\"Those knobbly guys again,\" Spud said. \"What're they doing here?\"\n\n\"Right now they're looking for a whistler.\"\n\nSpud reddened. \"Let's get them.\"\n\n\"I admire your confidence. Nevertheless, the odds aren't exciting for one of my delicate sensibilities.\" There were six gnarly men, none of whom were completely alert. They were going through the motions of a search, complaining.\n\n\"Let's even them up, then.\" Spud vanished, moving with feline silence.\n\nSoup sighed. Spud was in one of his moods. He would not give it up till he bashed a few heads. Or got bashed himself. Soup retreated the way he had come. Twenty feet back, he kicked a wooden support away from an airship cradle still under construction. He ducked behind the cradle.\n\nThe noise brought the gnarly men his way.\n\nSpud stepped out behind the last and smacked his head with a board. He jumped back into shadow.\n\nGnarly men chattered at one another. Knives came out. Lights probed shadows diligently.\n\nSoup took his turn crowning a man. When the gnarly men turned to rush him, Spud struck again.\n\nThen Rider's men waded in. Confused, howling, the gnarly men panicked. They fled into striped shadows. The yards resembled a boneyard populated by the skeletons of monsters more vast than any leviathan of the deep. The dawn itself was as bloody as a newly mown army.\n\nSoup and Spud skidded to a halt, dove into cover. The gnarly men had joined a young regiment working around a monster of an air warship from the eastern fleet. Soup sputtered, \"They're trying to steal that airship!\"\n\nChaos spread as the fugitives reported.\n\nSpud observed, \"Some big payoffs must have been made to let that many men sneak in here.\" An entire cohort guarded the military yards.\n\n\"Couldn't be all of them, though,\" Soup observed.\n\n\"No. Just a few officers and noncoms. A big enough racket ought to get the rest out here.\"\n\n\"What're you going to do? Howl like a mad dog?\"\n\nThe how did present a problem. They had come out of captivity with nothing but their clothing.\n\n\"Better think of something fast,\" Soup said. \"They're not going to wait around.\" The would-be airship thieves were organizing a counterstroke.\n\nSoup found himself talking to empty air.\n\nHe found Spud searching the apparel of a fallen gnarly man. \"Aha. Here we go. Now something flammable.\"\n\nSoup thought he got the idea. He also thought it was too dangerous. If the fire got out of hand the whole yard could go. Nevertheless, he collected a pair of dropped lanterns. One still burned. He tuned it up high, whirled like a hammer thrower in the athletic games, arced it toward the gas bladders.\n\n\"What are you, crazy?\"\n\nSoup glared. What did Spud want? He collected another lantern. \"Light this.\" Spud had taken a spark-striker from the gnarly man he had plundered.\n\nThe sparks betrayed their hiding place. But as men started toward them others nearer the airship sent up a howl of panic.\n\nThe lantern Soup threw had blown its reservoir. A merry fire was popping and crackling as it crawled toward the gas bladders. Would-be airship pirates fled. Some of the bolder tried to keep the burning oil contained. Those stalking toward Soup and Spud turned back.\n\nSoup sent the second lantern arcing into the crowd. Meantime, Spud set a safer fire which sent up billows of dark smoke. \"This is what I had in mind,\" he said. \"Not attempted suicide.\"\n\n\"Yeah? Let's get out of here. We don't want to get rounded up with that lot. Too much explaining, I figure.\"\n\nAvoiding capture, though, proved easier said than done. First, several very angry, determined, and perseverant gnarly men got onto their trail. Then soldiers popped up everywhere, sooner than expected.\n\nThe guilty officers, nervously alert, had heard the first uproar. They had decided to cover up. Three hundred soldiers were in the yards with orders to take no prisoners.\n\nUnlike the pirates, Soup and Spud did not try to escape, only to evade. They lay low during the worst howl and clang. When it waned and the troops were feeling smug, they spied around and found a noncom known to themselves and Rider.\n\n\"Baracas,\" Soup called. \"Over here.\" He stepped from the shadows skirting a mooring mast, into light where he could be recognized. Spud followed.\n\n\"You guys? What're you doing here?\"\n\n\"Foiling an airship theft.\"\n\nThe soldier frowned. \"That what was going on?\"\n\n\"We rushed in on the courier from the Twelfth's camp on the Saverne side...\" Soup shut up. Spud had gouged him.\n\nThe soldier, baffled, shrugged and said, \"Stay close to me or you might get gutted with the rest. We'll let the tribunes sort you out later.\"\n\n\"That was the idea,\" Soup admitted.\n\nThe troops had the fires out. They were collecting bodies. Not a few wore imperial uniforms. The gnarly men and easterners were fierce when cornered. Soup counted a score of the squat men and nearly as many orientals. Spud observed, \"This ought to break Shai Khe's back. He'll have to do his own dirty work now.\"\n\n\"How many got away?\" Soup asked Baracas.\n\n\"None. That we know of.\"\n\nSoup chuckled. \"That'll get Shai Khe's goat. Can you imagine what he could have done with that airship? And his powers? He could have held the City hostage.\"\n\n\"Who the hell is this Shy Key?\" Baracas asked.\n\n\"A villain with enough wealth to make your officers blind while forty men steal an imperial warship.\"\n\nBaracas took them to the leading centurion of his maniple, who immediately kicked the question of their presence up to the tribune level.\n\nThey found officers gathered, discussing the excitement in secretive voices, when Baracas brought them to headquarters, near the yard gates. A sour-faced subaltern demanded, \"What do you want, Baracas?\"\n\n\"Sir, these men were mixing it up with the foreigners trying to steal the Grand Phantom, and I thought...\"\n\n\"They were in there? What're they doing here? You had orders...\"\n\n\"They're Rider's men, sir. They were trying to stop that gang.\"\n\nA half dozen heads jerked around. Faces went pale. Someone muttered, \"If the Protector is mixed up in this...\"\n\nA tribune moved closer. He snapped, \"You! Baracas, is it? Why haven't you executed your orders?\"\n\n\"Sir, they're Rider's...\"\n\n\"Is Rider your superior officer? Kill them.\"\n\nSoup grinned. \"Now we know who'll be first to hang.\"\n\nAnd Spud, \"You do it, Baracas, and I'll bet you your pension you don't make it to sundown yourself.\"\n\nBaracas grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. He whispered, \"Shut up! You want to get out of this alive?\" The soldier was no fool. He had seen the lay of things.\n\nUnfortunately, the tribune had, too. He drew a dagger. \"Take them!\"\n\nSoup told Spud, \"Brother, in this thing there's no end to the heads that need busted.\" He snatched up a camp stool.\n\nSpud produced a knife taken from a fallen easterner. The officers closed in carefully. Those who knew the reputations of Rider and his men hung back, knowing a lot of people were going to get hurt.\n\nSuddenly, darkness descended."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "Rider stepped over the fallen tribune, knelt beside Spud, held an open phial beside his nose. He told Su-Cha, \"Get the rest of these men tied.\"\n\nSpud revived swearing and swinging. Rider plucked his fist out of the air. \"Easy, Omar.\"\n\n\"Rider! How'd you get here?\"\n\n\"Might ask you the same thing,\" Su-Cha chirruped. \"You're supposed to be buried under a ruin on the Hurm Islands.\"\n\nSoup reiterated Spud's behavior and question.\n\nSu-Cha said, \"We were thinking about rescuing you in a couple days. All that brainwork wasted.\"\n\n\"How come you're here, Rider?\" Spud asked.\n\n\"We were tracking a creature that killed the chief of the King's Shadows. The trail passed near the military yards. We saw smoke. We arrived in time to see you being brought in here. Once the situation became clear, I used a knockout spell. Hurry, Su-Cha.\"\n\n\"We know why Shai Khe was in the area, now. And by now he must suspect his plan has gone sour. Let's find him before he gets away again. Omar. This soldier, Baracas. Do you trust him to keep this lot under arrest?\"\n\n\"He knows what would happen to him if he didn't.\"\n\n\"Put him in charge, then. We have to go.\"\n\nMinutes later they departed the military yards. Baracas came behind, leading the prisoners. All had been stripped of togas and badges of rank. They seemed a well-kempt chain of convicts. Baracas headed for the Citadel.\n\nRider headed toward the waterfront, along the yard fence.\n\n\"Look there,\" Soup said. \"One of our eastern friends got away.\"\n\nA man had dropped over the fence. He spotted them hastening toward him. His eyes got big. He whirled and ran.\n\nSoup whooped and charged after him. Rider followed in a deceptive lope that ate ground fast. Over his shoulder, he told Su-Cha, \"Get upstairs and follow him.\"\n\nThe imp stopped laboring to keep up. Soon he was a bird circling high above.\n\nRider snagged Soup's shoulder. \"Let him lose us now.\"\n\nPuffing, Soup glowered. \"I'm not finished with those guys.\"\n\n\"He won't lead us while he can see us. If he loses us he'll run to his master.\"\n\nAnd so it proved. Touching Rider through the web, Su-Cha reported their quarry moving more cautiously, watching his backtrail, yet now traveling with obvious purpose. Rider said, \"Keep a sharp watch. Shai Khe will have sentries out.\"\n\nThat, too, proved true. But Rider's crowd kept them from reporting. They left a half dozen snoring thugs behind.\n\n\"This is the place,\" Rider said, staring at the blank face of a brick warehouse. Su-Cha circled above. \"This time let's not let him get away.\" He dipped into his pockets, passed out what appeared to be green hens' eggs. He assigned posts around the warehouse. \"Don't challenge him,\" he said. \"If he comes your way, throw that, yell, and get under cover.\"\n\n\"What are they?\" Spud asked.\n\nRider might not have heard. \"Move out. I'll keep track through the web. I'm going inside on the count of a hundred.\"\n\nThe door through which the would-be airship pirate had fled stood ajar. Rider gave it a minute examination. It was as safe as it seemed. He slipped inside.\n\nThe warehouse was dark and seemed empty. The scurry of mice sent hollow clackings tumbling into the distance and back. Shai Khe was fond of dark places.\n\nHe slipped a green egg into each hand and advanced slowly. His eyes adjusted. Enough exterior light leaked in to permit navigation.\n\nHe heard a voice raised somewhere below, then the sounds of men moving hurriedly.\n\nThe fugitive had reported. His master was about to make his exit.\n\nRider ran, hunting a descending stairway.\n\nHe was too eager. He failed to notice a black silk trip line at ankle level. His toe hooked it.\n\nHe pitched forward, twisting. He hurled the egg in his right hand so he would not crush it when he broke his fall. He managed that in adequate silence, but the breaking egg sounded like a bottle smashing against pavement.\n\nThe sound was heard. Orders barked in an eastern tongue. Feet hammered on the steps. Rider ghosted into the concealment of a pillar. Three men pitched out of a shadow he had not recognized as a doorway. He flung his second egg.\n\nIt broke against a man's chest. The man flopped down immediately. The man behind him took three steps before collapsing. The third, to one side, halted in consternation. Rider leapt, felled him with one powerful punch.\n\nThrough the shadowed door and downstairs he loped\u2014directly into a pair of guards with drawn blades.\n\nHe could not stop. It was too late. He flung himself through the air. His shout froze them for a second. A boot connected with a chin. A fist hammered the crown of a skull. Rider hit the floor and rolled, looking for more resistance.\n\nA vast cellar surrounded him, dank and rank. There wasn't a soul to be seen.\n\nA faint noise caught his ear. He hurried forward to a narrow canal leading into one wall of the basement. Shai Khe was escaping through the sewers!\n\nThe sound came again. It was the creak of an oar in an oarlock.\n\nRider extended himself through the web. The sewers were not well known to him. He traced them in his proximity. They formed a maze. He tried pinpointing Shai Khe, had no luck. The easterner used some clever sorcery to blind the web to his presence.\n\nHad Rider had the proper tools he could have raised a spirit to set tracking Shai Khe, but he did not have the tools. The easterner had evaded him again.\n\nOr had he? There was the thing Rider had been tracking when the uproar at the yards diverted him. Did Shai Khe's invisibility extend to it? It must be with its master.\n\nHe reached out, tugged at the web, took it in mental fingers, wove a net that would capture the whereabouts of the killing creature. And there it was! Moving away slowly, underground...\n\nRider raced upstairs, through the warehouse, into the bright street, touching his men as he went. They gathered quickly. \"Shai Khe escaped into the sewers, but I'm tracking him through the web. Follow me.\"\n\nHis lope was deceptive. Soon even Chaz was puffing and straining.\n\nRider slowed till everyone caught up. He beckoned Su-Cha down. The imp perched on a balcony railing. Rider said, \"Shai Khe is almost directly beneath us here. There is an outflow into the Bridge a few hundred yards away. There's nowhere else he can go.\"\n\n\"We going to jump him?\" Chaz puffed.\n\n\"Yes. And don't hesitate an instant. He'll be ready. Don't take any needless risks, either.\" He loped off again. People paused to admire his swift, easy grace. He reached the outflow well before he expected Shai Khe.\n\nThe others joined him.\n\nThe outflow debouched between wharves. Small grain ships were tied up alongside each. Rider subjected them to a swift visual examination, saw nothing suspicious. He sent Soup and Spud aboard the nearest vessel on the right side, left Preacher and Chaz above the outflow, took Greystone aboard the vessel to the left. The masters of both ships protested.\n\nA boat shot from the sewer mouth.\n\nEggs hailed against it. Rider hurled a grapnel appropriated aboard his ship. In a moment he was hauling the boat in. The sea breeze began to disperse the green mist hiding it.\n\n\"Where the hell is he?\" Chaz shouted.\n\nShai Khe was not aboard.\n\nThe boat contained only an unconscious, shaggy, monkey-like thing slightly smaller than Su-Cha.\n\n\"Somewhere enjoying his joke at our expense,\" Rider said. He did not hide his disappointment."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "Chaz tossed the shaggy assassin down onto the worktable in the laboratory. \"What is it?\" he asked Caracen\u00e9.\n\nShe chewed her lip for a moment. \"A khando. Their forebears were human. They lived in a city in the jungle in the east. One of their sorcerers overstepped himself a thousand years ago. A few generations later they had degenerated into near animals. They are just intelligent enough to be useful to Shai Khe.\"\n\n\"Well. A straight answer.\"\n\nRider completed a quick examination of the suite. The woman had done no damage. \"You men get some rest. I'll look into the matter of Polybos House.\"\n\n\"What about our friends in the closet?\" Preacher asked.\n\n\"Feed them. And the khando when it wakens. By which time I suggest you have it caged.\"\n\nSu-Cha snickered. He was studying the khando intently. Rider anticipated some devilment.\n\n\"I wonder if it could lead us to Shai Khe if we turned it loose,\" Chaz said.\n\n\"It might. And he'll be looking for that.\" Rider finished replenishing his pockets with oddities. \"I'll be back soon. Try to restrain your propensities for finding trouble.\" He went to the door.\n\nBehind him, Chaz growled, \"Don't even think about it, runt. You shift into one of those, I'll break two necks just to make sure I get the right one.\"\n\n\"Always bullying. Do they send barbarians to school for that? One of these days... wham!\"\n\nThe others began bickering about who had to feed the prisoners.\n\nRider smiled. They were handling the troublesome situation well.\n\nKing Belledon grumbled, \"You took your good sweet time getting here.\"\n\n\"I had a chance to capture Shai Khe. It didn't work out, though. He had one more bolt hole than I could plug. You heard what happened in the yards?\"\n\n\"Yes. I've been in a state of siege here. The Shadows have done everything but try to break in.\"\n\n\"Did Polybos House have anything to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing. Neither accusations nor offers of pardon reach him. The more time passes, the more he seems in dread, though.\"\n\n\"His master does not have an easy way with followers who get themselves captured. Let me have a look at him.\"\n\nHouse was isolated in a sitting room that could be entered by but one door. One of Belledon's nephews guarded that. The King carried the only key.\n\nRider did not recognize the bony human caricature called Polybos House. But House recognized him, and retreated in terror. Rider observed, \"You judge all humanity by yourself.\" He settled into the room's one chair, stared at the prisoner. \"Are you ready to talk?\"\n\n\"He would kill me.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But won't he do that anyway? Isn't that what you expected from the beginning? And thought you could evade?\"\n\nHouse did not reply.\n\nRider was sure he had touched the truth, though. \"Tell me about the Devil's Eyes.\"\n\nHouse looked blank.\n\nRider said, \"There is no way the King can overlook your treason. But you can get out of this with your skin if you help us take Shai Khe.\"\n\nStill nothing.\n\n\"I don't understand this unreasoning fear of the man.\" He began tapping the fingernails of his right hand against the arm of his chair. When House still did not respond, he said, \"I don't want to resort to a truth-drawing.\"\n\n\"There is no hope against him,\" House said. \"He has half the world at his command. He has half of Shasesserre.\"\n\n\"He has very little of the City. I have taken it away. If he doesn't run soon...\" Rider shifted subject. \"Who were the most important men scheduled for assassination?\"\n\nNothing.\n\nThere was a vaguely sagey, sweet smell in the air now. House began to look sleepy.\n\n\"General Partricus?\" Rider asked. \"His province is the east. I'd think Shai Khe would find him especially interesting. He returned to the City the other day. And he is a man beyond temptation or fear. If he hadn't those qualities he would not have received the eastern command.\"\n\nShasesserre, unlike some empires, was blessed with many devoted commanders.\n\nHouse's eyes were almost shut. He nodded feebly. Then he started, glared at Rider suspiciously. Rider continued tapping his chair. House's eyes drifted shut.\n\nSilent as death, Rider stalked closer. The sweet sage smell grew stronger. House began to snore.\n\nRider waited several minutes before breaking the seal on a small phial. He let House breathe the vapors that came forth. House wakened, but his eyes remained glazed.\n\nRider performed a series of small magicks. House became as stiff as a wooden statue.\n\nRider asked questions. House answered in a low, slow, flat voice, very literally. Rider had to phrase himself carefully to obtain answers filled with sense.\n\nEven then he was not sure he had learned anything of value.\n\nPolybos House had used the King's Shadows to advance Shai Khe's cause, but was not in the know in the easterner's organization. House mentioned names, but none were news to Rider. Every one had been in the book left by Vlazos. Those scheduled for assassination were no surprise either.\n\n\"The Devil's Eyes.\" Rider kept returning to that. And getting nothing, no matter how he phrased his question.\n\nMaybe there was no connection. Just random thoughts from the mind of a dying man.\n\nRider brought the King into the room. \"I've gotten what little there is to be had. Keep him out of the way.\"\n\n\"You got nothing useful?\"\n\n\"Very little. Shai Khe remains the key. I have to find him. Till I do we all have to stay alert. He'll keep trying.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "\"So what do we do now?\" Chaz asked. \"He's outguessed us right down the line.\"\n\n\"He is here to eliminate men who threaten his imperialist dream. I've looked over the list of candidates for assassination. I want one of you to attach yourselves to each of the most likely. Excepting you, Su-Cha. I want you to shift again and fly around looking for places that might hide an airship.\"\n\n\"Come on!\" Su-Cha protested. \"You know how much energy shifting takes? You know how much a bird has to eat to keep going? My bones still ache from the last time. And I lost ten pounds. When you're my size you can't afford to lose ten pounds.\" He spun on Chaz, source of a volcanic, rumbling, mocking chuckle.\n\nBut it was Preacher who sank the spurs with a scriptural quotation about shirkers and malingerers.\n\n\"How does a guy get any respect around here?\" Su-Cha demanded. \"Without wearing a skirt? I'm the only one who's contributed anything in this business. But do I get any appreciation? Oh, no! What I hear is a chorus of disdain from a bunch of losers.\"\n\nSoup and Spud made violin noises. Squeaky violin noises. Only Greystone refrained from baiting the imp. Su-Cha glowered his way, expecting one of his rare but powerful jibes.\n\nChaz asked, \"What're you going to do, Rider?\"\n\n\"Barhop. And ask about the Devil's Eyes.\" He looked at the woman. \"Do you have anything to report on the subject, Caracen\u00e9?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\nRider watched closely. He concluded that she knew nothing.\n\nHe did not understand women well. His life was too busy for them. But he knew the small twitches and evasions of eye that came with the slightest of lies, and believed women and men to be much alike in that respect.\n\nHe turned to his list of prospective murder victims. In a moment he began writing letters of introduction he hoped would place his followers near the men most at risk. He sent a man out as he completed each letter. The last gone, he began donning the disguise he would wear. Su-Cha watched. And ate.\n\nThe imp became bottomless when he did a lot of shifting, though in normal times he seldom ate at all. Su-Cha's metabolism was a mystery Rider could not penetrate. He suggested, \"If you've learned the khando well enough, you might assume its shape. If the opportunity arises. After you have yanked the web to let me know where you are.\"\n\nSu-Cha lifted a honey bun in salute. \"My thoughts exactly.\"\n\nRider looked at the woman. \"You're satisfied to be here?\"\n\n\"I am safe here.\"\n\nRider betrayed no expression. But he wondered. \"Su-Cha. Time. I'm ready, and I want to lock up behind me.\"\n\n\"Right. Any time.\" The imp grabbed two more buns. Once they had departed the room, he asked, \"When are you going to rest, Rider?\"\n\n\"I can't right now.\"\n\n\"A tired man makes mistakes.\"\n\n\"True. I haven't forgotten that.\"\n\n\"You think Shai Khe will run now? After the latest roundup?\" The easterner's men from the warehouse had been collected by the City Guard.\n\n\"Not till he is under more pressure than we've managed so far. He should limit his ambitions, though.\"\n\n\"Later, then.\"\n\nRider watched Su-Cha rise and fly southward, toward the Golden Crescent. The warehouses were among the largest structures in Shasesserre. If Shai Khe were to hide an airship inside the City, he almost had to do so there.\n\nRider drifted into alleyways where he would have no trouble ambushing anyone following him. Setting several ambuscades yielded nothing. Finally, confident that he was not followed, he donned the rest of his disguise and returned to the streets as a Tiberian sailor. The hour was yet early for the taverns to bustle, but those that catered to sailors were busy enough. Rider faded in, looking as rough and fierce as the worst. A livid false scar, down his left cheek from temple to chin, leaving his left eye partially closed, lent him an especially piratic air.\n\nA stranger in a sailors' bar dared not ask too many questions too directly. The distinction between merchant and smuggler was a matter of commercial or imperial viewpoint, and the crown was known for sending King's Shadows to look for customs evaders.\n\nRider, though, had a creditable story. He was hunting the man who had given him his scar, the man supposedly having struck him from ambush and left him for dead. He had come all the way from Tiberia seeking revenge. He had a perfect Tiberian accent, knew that land well having been there in service, and, as a Tiberian would on such a quest, he vacillated between frugality and offering drinks to anyone who might help him. The man he described to all listeners was Emerald.\n\nFew Tiberians came as far east as Shasesserre. But other westerners sympathized with Rider's tale, and a few began accompanying him from one stew to another, seeking his mythical adversary.\n\nHe had been legitimized among the sailors.\n\nIn time he felt safe enough to insert questions about the Devil's Eyes.\n\nMany a man had known Emerald, and none had become his friend. But no one recalled seeing him around lately.\n\nThe hunt widened as westerners with their own grievances began taking more active roles. Rider noted a growing uneasiness among eastern sailors, many of whom must have known who Emerald was and now feared being lumped together with him.\n\nRider suspected his imposture was getting out of hand.\n\nIt might have been the thirtieth tavern. He kept no count. But he was as alert as ever. He noted, amidst the rowdiness, one eastern face which remained quietly thoughtful. After a few minutes its owner began edging toward the door.\n\nBefore the man was halfway there Rider excused himself from his companions and headed for the rear of the tavern.\n\nHe ducked out the back and loped through the nearest breezeway to the street, arriving moments before the easterner marched past, oblivious to watching ayes.\n\nRider shed most of his disguise. He tore his sailor's clothing, making himself look less prosperous. He slipped a pebble into a shoe, donned a stoop, and set out after the easterner.\n\nRider's precautions were wasted. The sailor was not concerned about his backtrail. He merely meant to report news probably of minimal interest.\n\nThe trail, inevitably, led toward water. Toward the river again. It seemed Shai Khe had to have water at his back. As he hurried through the gathering shadows, Rider pondered the significance of that.\n\nHe reached through the web and touched his men. Without exception he found them bored. Then he reached for Su-Cha.\n\nHe found the imp perched among the gargoyles surrounding the statue of an old king atop a commemorative pillar facing the sea the king had conquered. Su-Cha had assumed the shape of a gargoyle. He was sleeping.\n\nRider nudged him.\n\nThe imp squawked and launched himself from the pillar, to the astonishment of witnesses below. He filled the web with conflicting excuses for his having taken a nap.\n\nRider ignored them all. Come help me follow a man, he sent. Disguise or no, his continued presence behind the man he stalked meant ever-increasing risk of discovery, especially as the gathering night made it necessary to remain close.\n\nSu-Cha arrived quickly. His night vision was superb. Rider drifted back.\n\nThe stalk led up the bank of the river, beyond the water gate and wall, and then past suburbs into marshes where country folk hunted waterfowl and gathered wild rice. The easterner seemed well acquainted with the path he followed through the boggy land.\n\nSu-Cha dropped down to confer with Rider, who followed a safe quarter mile behind. \"He's probably heading for an old hulk that's on the river's edge over yonder,\" the imp said. \"The trail is hard to spot from up there. But I did notice two places where men like that Emerald are hanging around. Good ambush places.\"\n\nRider gave the imp two green eggs. \"Drop these on them after the man goes past. Wait for me outside the hulk.\"\n\nSu-Cha grunted and flapped away.\n\nAn hour later Rider met the imp a hundred yards from the hulk, which loomed like the corpse of a beached whale against the night. Su-Cha said, \"I think we and our friend have had a long walk for nothing.\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"Right after I egged the first ambush I noticed a boat leaving the hulk. Headed downriver. I'm pretty sure Shai Khe was in it.\"\n\n\"Uhm.\" Rider stared at the hulk.\n\n\"Do we hit it anyway? Take it away, too?\"\n\n\"Did those men seem suspicious before they fell asleep?\" He had slipped past both sets of guards without bothering either.\n\n\"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"Then we'll leave things be. For now. Except to add a few flourishes.\" In his pockets Rider carried several stones, cousins to that through which he had tracked Soup and Spud. He showed them to Su-Cha, who grinned as much as he could with a beak. Then the imp began changing shape.\n\nHe became one of the huge semi-aquatic rodents that inhabited the marshes, a beast variously called a waterbear, a waterdog, or a waterrat. The creatures were known for their curiosity, stupidity, and a fearlessness based primarily on the fact that their flesh was so tough and ill-flavored even a crocodile avoided eating them. The men aboard the hulk would be accustomed to occasional inspections by itinerant waterbears.\n\nSu-Cha filled his rat mouth with Rider's stones.\n\nTen minutes later the hulk reverberated to shouts of exasperation. Five minutes more and Su-Cha had returned, grinning. He changed again. \"I marked most of them.\"\n\nRider sensed the stones through the web. \"Their movements should tell us a lot. Let's get back to the City. Shai Khe will be up to some deviltry.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "Chaz had been told to guard Lord Priscus Procopio. Procopio was a retired general who had won distinction in the far east. He had won many new provinces, and the hearts of the people who dwelt in them. He had shown no mercy to the old cults and tyrants that had oppressed and tortured those lands.\n\nNow Procopio was a leading royal adviser. And Rider assumed he was a man familiar with the threat posed by the sinister Shai Khe.\n\nIndeed he was. \"We crossed swords twice, out in Nuna,\" he told Chaz, as they looked out over Shasesserre from behind heavy glass. \"He was old and cunning even then. Lucky for me he hadn't the reputation he's got now. The people out there exposed his plots both times. The second time I caught and executed his son. Or a man purported to be his son.\"\n\n\"Then you really believe he's trouble, eh?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"'Bout time we ran into somebody who does.\" Chaz knew Soup and Preacher had been refused access to the men they were supposed to guard, and that the others had gotten only slightly more cooperation from their charges.\n\n\"I'll believe anything I hear about Shai Khe. The man is a devil. I've seen the wretches who have escaped his rule. I've talked to them. And I know I'm near the top of his hate list, because of his son. Shasesserre itself must bear that hatred, so long as he lives. No, I don't doubt anything. And I'm terrified.\"\n\nChaz said, \"You don't look it.\"\n\n\"You learn to tame fear, and mask it, when you're a proconsul trying to rule twenty millions and you're backed only by five thousand swords and a few airships. You learn to appear as indifferent as stone. If the dogs sense so much as an apprehension in you, you're lost.\"\n\nChaz scanned the lights of the great City. Even after years he was not comfortable here. \"And is there a point to it? To the army being in Nuna, I mean. Is there a mutual benefit?\"\n\nProcopio's expression soured. \"Until the magnates and tax farmers feel it's tamed enough to move in. Even then, I suppose. Our reign isn't nearly so fearful as that we displaced.\"\n\nA foreigner himself, Chaz vacillated between viewpoints on the benefits of imperial rule. Some were obvious, like freedom from continual intertribal warfare. But they seemed balanced by losses less tangible.\n\n\"Ach!\"\n\n\"What?\" Procopio demanded.\n\n\"Someone in the street. Passed through the light coming from yonder window. He was only there for a second, but I'd bet it was Shai Khe. Moved that snaky way he has.\"\n\nProcopio shuddered. \"Think he'll use sorcery?\"\n\n\"No. That would get Rider hot on his trail.\"\n\n\"It'll be something cunning and unexpected, then.\"\n\n\"Better be very sneaky. Or he's had it.\" The entire household was alert. Nevertheless, Chaz began another circuit of the darkened room, seeking weaknesses hitherto overlooked.\n\nThere were only two possible points of entry, other than a direct smash through the massive window.\n\nA faint drone came from the mouth of the fireplace. It put Chaz in mind of a beehive wakening.\n\nThe big barbarian grinned. For this he was prepared.\n\nOn a table nearby were several earthenware jars in the amphora shape but only eight inches tall. Each was sealed with a thin layer of wax. From the wax protruded a wick. He lighted one of these from a small candle hitherto concealed within a cabinet. He placed the jar in the fireplace. He and Procopio both drew deep breaths and buried their faces in balls of moistened cotton.\n\nThe jar suddenly sent flames and gases roaring up the flue. The fire blasted thirty feet up from the chimney's head.\n\nThe flue filled with a brief flutter, then a rattle. Chaz lowered the candle, watched scores of giant bees rain down upon the hearthstone. Each was dead, wingless, roasted, poisoned.\n\nChaz grinned wickedly in the candlelight. He beckoned Procopio. \"Come on.\"\n\nThe old soldier was spry enough to keep pace with Chaz's wild charge for the hatch that gave access to the roof. He snatched an old war axe off a wall along the way, a trophy from some campaign of his younger years.\n\nThe two erupted onto the roof in time to see a silhouette vanish over the edge. Another lay beside the chimney.\n\nFearless of the height, Procopio dashed to the edge. He hefted his axe and paused, as if timing... Down the weapon went, hurled. A yell attested to the accuracy of his throw.\n\nChaz knelt beside the form lying against the chimney. The man's face was gone. He must have been looking down the chimney when Chaz had sprung his surprise.\n\nBeside him lay an ovoid box, which proved to house a paper nest.\n\n\"Nasty thing,\" Procopio said. \"Saw them out east. Their sting can fell a mule. Worst part is, they can be trained. Never heard of using a whole nest before, though. Guess Shai Khe wanted to make sure.\"\n\nChaz straightened, stared down at the patch of light spilling from the window across the way. A tall, lean form glided into it. Its eyes glowed greenly. It bowed slightly, then moved away.\n\nHastily, Chaz dragged out a knife and hurled it. It rang upon stone. An almost mischievous chuckle floated upward. Chaz cursed. \"Let's get after him.\"\n\nThe old soldier restrained him. \"He would like nothing better. Stay. Savor the triumph we've achieved.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "All through the night assassins moved. They were not many, but their ways were stealthy and cunning. Never were they so direct or crude as to employ frontal attack with steel.\n\nThey struck in six places in addition to making the attempt on Procopio. Rider guessed well enough to have sent men to four of the slated victims. Not one man died who had the wit to accept protection from one of Rider's men. Both men who refused it perished.\n\nRider himself reached the City too late to participate in anything but the mourning.\n\n\"Four men dead.\" For the first time since the affair began his anger threatened to betray him. He had driven himself to the limit of his astonishing physical resources. \"One more imposition, Su-Cha. One more change. Patrol above the river. High up. See if Shai Khe's boat returns to that hulk.\"\n\nWeariness and reaction to the murders had sapped the imp's spirit. He voiced none of his customary complaints. He simply nodded.\n\nRider said, \"I'll be waiting at the airship yards.\"\n\nSu-Cha went up into the night. Rider gathered his men and led them to the yards, where they boarded his favorite fast airship. They all collapsed into exhausted sleep.\n\nSu-Cha arrived as Rider wakened, alerted by the imp's tug on the web. \"He's there,\" Su-Cha gasped, and collapsed.\n\nRider wakened his men. They gaped at the imp, for this was the first time they had seen him sleep.\n\n\"Take your stations,\" Rider said. He alerted the airship's motive demon. Then he described what he and Su-Cha had discovered while the others were, for the most part, trying to save the lives of men who refused to believe themselves endangered.\n\n\"We could be seen lifting off,\" Greystone cautioned.\n\n\"I intend operating on the assumption that we will be,\" Rider replied. \"But we'll feint to the east, up the Bridge. In any event, the ship can outrun any messenger.\"\n\nThe airship came out of the east, with the rising sun. It hurtled over the marshes so low the belly of the gondola whispered to the touch of tall reeds. Below, waterbears squeaked in sudden fright. Yawning marsh crocodiles bellowed in amazement and slithered into the safety of their deep pools.\n\nStartled Emerald-like sentries gawked, then shouted warnings that were far too late.\n\nThe hulk loomed ahead. Rider lifted the airship a dozen feet and slowed it. His men sent canisters tumbling down...\n\nA noxious violet miasma enveloped the decaying ship.\n\nSu-Cha, who had wakened only moments before, put into words what only Rider had noticed. \"The boat. It's gone.\"\n\nSullen grumbles greeted the news.\n\nRider backed and lowered the airship, dropped Chaz and Preacher. The purple fog had dissipated already.\n\nThe two were back in minutes. \"Nobody there,\" Chaz reported as he clambered aboard.\n\nRider nodded as he began making altitude, looking for a boat. The stones Su-Cha had planted were still alive. And still aboard the hulk. Shai Khe had detected their emanations and had known his hideout stood betrayed.\n\nNo suspicious boat plied the river. Shai Khe could not have gone far, for he hadn't had time. Rider doubted he could have reached the hulk long before the airship's arrival.\n\nThe eastern sorcerer had a sixth sense for peril, that was certain. He hadn't bothered wasting time setting booby traps. He had gotten while a chance to get remained.\n\n\"Back to square one again,\" Greystone said.\n\n\"Hardly,\" Preacher countered. \"Hardly at all.\" He handed Rider a sheet of paper.\n\nRider moved nearer a window and stared at the sheet a long time. Finally, he handed it to Greystone.\n\nThe scholar grunted. \"Il Diavolo. From the nether shore.\"\n\nChaz looked over Greystone's shoulder. \"Looks like Shroud's Head to me. Pretty good drawing, for charcoal.\"\n\n\"It is Shroud's Head. But when King Shroud had it sculpted, the slaves who did the work called it Il Diavolo. The Devil. The island sea peoples, they gave Shroud that name after he beat them off Klotus, then made them commemorate the defeat by carving the cliff into a face that would watch them forever.\"\n\nChaz said, \"That means that fishing boat was going somewhere after all.\"\n\nRider nodded. \"That's possible.\"\n\nShroud's Head had been carved from a two-hundred-foot-high promontory just miles down the Bridge from where Rider had had the guardship intercept the boat that had carried away Soup and Spud.\n\n\"The Devil's Eyes,\" Spud mused. \"One of them is a cave, isn't it?\"\n\nRider nodded. \"Big enough to conceal a small airship.\"\n\n\"What're we waiting for?\" Chaz demanded. \"Let's go get them.\"\n\n\"Haste is not indicated,\" Greystone scolded.\n\n\"He's right,\" Rider said. \"A clue like this is almost too sweet a find. For the moment we'd better assume it was left deliberately. Instead of rushing into a trap, let's see if we can't entangle Shai Khe in his own snare. In any event, we can close that door when we want. For now we'll concentrate on thwarting his assassins.\"\n\nRider started the airship down river in a not very hopeful search, leaving the hulk burning behind. After a few minutes, he said, \"We've won one victory, of sorts. We've forced him to abandon his designs on the City. To lower himself to the spiteful murder of fancied enemies.\"\n\n\"Kind of understating there,\" Greystone observed.\n\n\"Possibly. Our job now is to take away his killing game. To compel him to come at us head to head.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" Chaz said. \"That's what I've been waiting for all my life. A chance to go one on one with a guy so bad he scares himself when he walks past a mirror.\"\n\n\"We can handle him,\" Rider promised. \"And while he's preoccupied with us he won't have time for anybody else.\"\n\nChaz grumbled a lot.\n\nAs Rider expected, they found no sign of Shai Khe's boat."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "Between them, Rider and his men had hundreds of friends and acquaintances in all walks of life and at every stratum of society. Most notably at the lowest stratum, where the dark deeds and secret things are known, and the wicked deeds are done. Rider had the word go out at all levels, with a promise of a substantial reward where that might count: the Protector's son wanted information about certain easterners who might have been involved in his father's murder.\n\nThe Protector's death was a secret no more. And much of the City was aware that strange doings were afoot. The news of the murder had come out slowly, to a populace already certain something bad had occurred. There was tension and apprehension, but no panic.\n\nMost people believed Rider could assume the Protector's mantle. He was Jehrke's son and Jehrke had trained his boy to step into his shoes. This crisis would test the temper of the sword that Jehrke had forged.\n\nChaz thought the whole business had turned hilarious. \"Those guys are the ones on the spot now,\" he crowed. \"They stick their heads out anywhere and they're had.\"\n\nRider watched the woman Caracen\u00e9 hover around the barbarian. \"I'm uncomfortable being dependent on the help of others. We have to remain self-sufficient. There will be many times, in years to come, when we will have no other resources.\"\n\nGreystone countered, \"Your father himself said to use the tools at hand. In this case I think the threat justifies an appeal to the people.\"\n\nThe others were a bit puzzled. They were not used to seeing Rider doubt himself.\n\nRider said, \"I expect Shai Khe to make a gesture before long. A show of force, if you will, to demonstrate that he can move at will even in reduced circumstances. Chaz, you'd better go back to General Procopio.\" He also assigned men to Soup, Spud, and Su-Cha.\n\n\"What about me and Greystone?\" Preacher complained. \"Are you cutting us out?\"\n\n\"You hold the fort. Keep track of whatever reports come in. If anything comes in that looks especially good, investigate if you like. Don't start anything with Shai Khe. Just keep an eye on him.\"\n\nLooking at Caracen\u00e9 with an odd glint in his eye, Chaz smacked a fist into a palm and said, \"I'd like to lay something more than an eye on that wheezer.\"\n\n\"Where are you going to be?\" Su-Cha asked. Already Rider was adopting one of his many disguises.\n\nAs he often did when he did not wish to answer a direct question, Rider developed a sudden deafness.\n\nThose who were to go out on guard duty began collecting items they might need. No one pressed Rider when he did not want to talk.\n\nThey watched in awe as he prepared himself. It was amazing just how much he could secrete about his person."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "Rider and the others had not been gone twenty minutes when there was a pounding at the door. Trusting no one, Preacher concealed himself within the device of mirrors and covered Greystone.\n\nGreystone looked through the periscope peephole. \"It's an officer of the King's bodyguard.\" He unlocked the door \"What can I do for you?\"\n\nThe officer looked embarrassed. \"The King insists you guys should take charge of the prisoner Polybos House. His Majesty isn't up to all the fuss and bother.\"\n\nGreystone scowled. There were moments when he was not too fond of his sovereign. \"I guess we can throw him in with the others. Which reminds me. They're overdue to be fed.\"\n\nPreacher groaned from concealment. It was his turn to make the meal.\n\nThe officer said, \"The sergeant of the guard said to tell you he's got a bunch of reports for you guys down in his office. Everyone in town wants a piece of that reward. They're lined up at the gate.\"\n\n\"I'll go down while you're getting House.\"\n\nGreystone was astonished. Four harried scribes were taking statements as fast as they could write. They had completed a stack of reports nearly a foot high. \"We didn't expect this,\" he told the sergeant of the guard.\n\n\"It's just getting started. Take a look outside.\"\n\nGreystone looked. There must have been two hundred people waiting. Quite a few wore shantor's robes.\n\nThat made sense. Both Jehrke and Rider had done their best to help victims of the weeping sickness.\n\n\"I'll come back down as soon as we've digested these,\" Greystone promised, scooping up the stack already prepared.\n\n\"Anything strange happened around here lately?\" Chaz asked as he joined General Procopio. The general was in his study again. Chaz noted that several meticulously mounted giant bees had been added to the old soldier's collection of memorabilia.\n\n\"Been as quiet as a mouse's fiftieth birthday party.\" Procopio moved to the window.\n\n\"Mice don't live...\" Chaz reddened.\n\n\"Unless you count the shantors.\" Procopio pointed.\n\nChaz watched as two victims of the weeping sickness moved slowly past the house.\n\nProcopio observed, \"They usually don't beg this neighborhood.\"\n\nChaz grunted. \"Bet they usually ring their warning bells, too.\"\n\n\"And they don't keep shuffling around the same block.\"\n\n\"Maybe we should go down and give them some alms.\"\n\nProcopio put on a big grin. There was a lot of adventure left in that old soldier. \"Maybe.\"\n\nThe shantors Spud encountered were ringing their bells. They seemed old and advanced in their disease. They moved at a snail's pace, leaning upon their staffs heavily. \"Alms?\" one croaked hopefully as Spud came up.\n\nSpud reached into a pocket.\n\nAnd the instant his hand was engaged the shantor on his right swung his staff.\n\nSpud managed to evade that blow but not the one coming in from his left. That fake shantor tapped him over the ear. He sagged into the grasp of his attackers.\n\nBystanders gawked. Then they began shouting. Someone had recognized Spud and reasoned that these fake shantors must belong to the gang Rider was hunting.\n\nBut there were few bystanders, and none of them armed well enough to overcome two villains skilled with staffs. The shantors dragged Spud away.\n\nThe two who tried to take Soup were less fortunate. Bystanders overcame them. In moments they were trussed up and on their way to cells in the Citadel. Soup was on his way, too. He whistled. But now he was more alert.\n\nThe shantors outside the Citadel gate were not ringing their bells. They had been, but with so much enthusiasm that the sergeant of the guard had ordered them to stop.\n\nThey were very nervous. Their master had ordered out every man he had left on what seemed to be a desperate last gamble. One man, more bold than the others, dared say, \"This is a pretty savvy plan. We go charging into the Citadel so we don't inconvenience anybody by making them drag us here from halfway across town.\"\n\n\"Shut up and listen for the signal.\"\n\nThe sergeant of the guard was never sure if the shrill whistle came from behind him or from outside. He would never forget exactly what happened next, though.\n\nA mob of shantors poured through the gate, clubbing guards, would-be reward collectors, and scribes. He managed to cut one attacker with his shortsword, then his lights went out.\n\nThe gang split into two parties. One went upstairs. The other went down, toward cells where many of their associates were confined. As fate would have it, the latter group took a wrong turn, became lost for five minutes, and when they found their way again also found that they had used up too much time. Soldiers and jailors fell upon them while they were opening the cells.\n\nWhat followed was a merry roughhouse.\n\nThe invaders did not get the best of it.\n\n\"It's that captain and House and a couple of soldiers,\" Greystone said from the peephole. He opened the door.\n\nThe soldiers started House through...\n\nA wave of shantors hit them from behind. Greystone, House, the captain, and the soldiers went down under the tide.\n\nPreacher shot one man and brained another with his crossbow before the rush made a shambles of his hiding place. Then he was trying to defend himself against clubs with bare hands. He got in a few good licks before he fell.\n\nHe lay there in semi-consciousness while the raiders located Caracen\u00e9, the prisoners, and the hairy man-ape. Going into and returning from the suite the raiders gave Jehrke a superstitiously wide berth. They kept yelling at one another to hurry.\n\nHands grabbed Preacher up. He saw Greystone lifted, and Caracen\u00e9...\n\nAfter that there was a lot of confusion. A lot of fighting, in which a lot of Citadel folk seemed to be helping the raiders and getting killed for their trouble.\n\nThen one of the men carrying Preacher got bashed in the face with a pike butt. His partner dropped Preacher and ran for it.\n\nPreacher's world went watery for a while.\n\nA vigorous shaking wakened Preacher. He swore, then admonished himself with a scriptural quotation. He opened his eyes.\n\nIt took him a moment to recognize the man shaking him. The fellow had blood in his hair and all over his face. It was the captain who had tried to deliver Polybos House. The captain asked, \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I'll probably live. Worse luck. Did we get them all?\"\n\n\"Maybe a dozen got away.\" The captain looked around. \"Really brought all the rats out of the walls this time. Your eastern friend played every counter he had. And used most of them up.\"\n\n\"That seemed an awful lot of trouble just to rescue Polybos House.\"\n\nThe captain laughed a hard laugh. \"Rescue him? He's the first one they killed.\"\n\n\"Then what?...\"\n\n\"The woman. That ape thing. You and your sidekick. But I think mainly the woman.\"\n\nPreacher tried to get up. The pounding in his head forced him back down. \"Greystone?\"\n\n\"Took him with them.\"\n\nThe first reports began to filter in soon afterward. No one was stopping the raiders\u2014they were moving faster than the news\u2014but their every step was noted. Their path\u2014of course\u2014led directly to the river."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 28",
+                "text": "Rider noticed the men tailing him immediately. There were three of them and they were fairly good, but he spotted them all the same. He shook them by a method that was almost cruel.\n\nHe began running, confident none of his pursuers could stay with him all the way to his destination.\n\nThe toughest kept up for five miles.\n\nRider ran five more miles, at a slower pace. By then he was well into the farm country west of Shasesserre. He ducked into a woodlot and adjusted his disguise slightly. When he reappeared upon the road he looked to be just another farm laborer trudging along with hands thrust into pockets.\n\nHis trudge was deceptive. It ate ground quickly. And when he was sure no one was watching he ran.\n\nIt was the hard way to make this journey. The slow way. But Shai Khe's spies and eyes would not be watching for a man afoot. An airship or a dromon, yes. Perhaps chariots, coaches, or horsemen. But not a lone, stooped, tired farm hand.\n\nAt dusk he came to the ridge that formed the spine of Shroud's Head. He was more than forty miles from the Citadel. That much walking tired even him. He located a sheltered place and fell asleep immediately.\n\nHe wakened six hours later, in the ebb hour of the night, exactly as planned. He listened to cricket sounds. Nothing else was moving, a fact he confirmed by cautious extension of his wizard's senses.\n\nConfident that he was alone and unwatched, he began working his way up and out the ridge. He avoided trails and easy traveling. In the dark even the most skilled of men could overlook some warning device.\n\nHe reached the crown of Shroud's Head without incident or discovery. Once there he settled himself and set his wizard's senses roaming in earnest.\n\nThere were guards, yes. And warning devices. And an incredibly complex net of spells meant both as alarm and trap... And something more. Something dark, the nature of which he could not immediately discern.\n\nThere were only two men, though. One was asleep and the other was nodding. There should have been more. Unless Shai Khe had grown so short of manpower he had stripped his airship of its crew.\n\nThat must be it. Rider could detect no other human beings anywhere within reach of his talent.\n\nThat other thing, though... He had begun to sense its outlines, its black formless form. And he had begun to suspect what it might be. And if it was, he had learned much about the horror that slithered within a man named Shai Khe.\n\nIf that thing were loosed, no single sorcerer, not even a Jehrke or a Shai Khe, would be able to bind it again. An army would be needed, and many of them would die in the struggle. Horribly. But for now it was confined and constrained and could, with relative ease, be returned to that foul place whence it had been summoned.\n\nIf Rider could untangle the net of spells shielding both airship and devil.\n\nNow he knew why Kralj Odehnal had said \"Devil's Eyes\" instead of \"Devil's Eye.\" The deep cave and hidden airship were only half the story. There was, perhaps, the approximation of a pun in confining the devil in the other, shallower eye.\n\nRider examined the nest of spells. His regard for Shai Khe, as a sorcerer, rose. It would be a long, arduous, interesting, dangerous job, penetrating that without leaving tracks. He settled in to do it.\n\nHe was through. He was safely inside unseen. He had done what he had come to do and had seen what he had come to see. And now he was trapped.\n\nJust as he was about to leave, Shai Khe's airship crew returned, having come down the Bridge of the World by boat. And with them they had brought Caracen\u00e9, Soup, and Greystone. How had they gotten to Greystone and the girl?\n\nFor the moment all three were safe enough. The airshipmen had orders to install them in the airship and keep them confined. Nothing more.\n\nRider wished he could get back to the City and learn what had happened. The airshipmen knew nothing. But he could not depart without being seen, or, at least, without leaving traces that would be instantly apparent to Shai Khe's eye.\n\nHe slipped into a shadowed cleft and rested, and waited for a chance to make a properly discreet departure."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 29",
+                "text": "\"The boat just vanished?\" Chaz demanded, keeping one eye on General Procopio, who had his nose into everything in the laboratory. The general was as excited as a kid. Retirement had been a bore for him. \"Right in the middle of the river?\"\n\nPreacher nodded. He was tired of repeating the story.\n\n\"Then he used sorcery. Meaning he was willing to disturb the web and attract attention.\"\n\n\"Like maybe he hadn't been noticed so far?\" Su-Cha sneered. \"The boat only had to disappear for a couple minutes. Just long enough to get to shore and let those guys do a fade.\"\n\nChaz paced. He was concerned about Caracen\u00e9, though torture would not have gotten him to admit that. He stared at the darkness beyond the laboratory window. The gruesome memorial that had been Jehrke Victorious watched over his shoulder. \"Where is the boss?\"\n\n\"Gone. Without saying where he was going. The way he does.\"\n\nChaz stared at the vermilion characters in the window glass. They had, according to Preacher, simply appeared while his back was turned.\n\nRide-Master Jehrke: You no longer possess the pearl so precious to me. I now possess two gems priceless to you.\n\n\"What do we do now?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"We wait,\" Preacher said.\n\nGeneral Procopio was stirring through wreckage left from the recent raid. \"What is this thing?\" He indicated something that looked like a mummified gorilla head. \"Ugly character.\"\n\n\"No telling,\" Chaz replied. \"Jehrke had at least one of everything weird there ever was around here.\"\n\nSu-Cha scooted past the barbarian. \"Don't touch that!\" he squeaked.\n\nProcopio jerked away. Startled, Chaz asked, \"What's the matter, little buddy?\"\n\n\"That's nothing Rider or Jehrke ever had. That's a Koh-Rehn. We've been double-shuffled. Those clowns that broke in here left it for us. A little gift. A little nightmare come midnight, while you're all tucked safely into your beds, you think.\" He squatted beside the ugly head, studying it.\n\n\"Relative of yours?\" Procopio asked, catching on more quickly than the others.\n\n\"In a manner of speaking.\" After a thoughtful moment, Su-Cha said, \"Dirty tricks, eh, Shai Khe?\" And after another moment, \"We can play that game, too. Listen up, you guys. I've got an idea.\"\n\nMidnight. A blinding flash lighted the window of Jehrke's laboratory. Tough though the glass there was, it disintegrated, showering the Rock with fragments. Roars and screams ripped out into the night. A man who might have been Ride-Master Jehrke could, for a moment, be seen battling a huge shadow. Then the screaming stopped.\n\nOne minute. Two minutes. Three. Two battered men fled the Citadel gate, a semi-conscious woman dragging between them. As they neared the edge of the plaza, the shorter man stumbled. He let go the woman to break his fall. The shawl wrapping the woman's hair and concealing her features fell away.\n\n\"Damnit!\" Chaz exploded, but softly. \"Watch yourself. They find out we've still got her, we lose our chance to pull this out without Rider.\" He re-wrapped the woman while Preacher muttered weary apologies.\n\nThey resumed hurrying through the night, following a circuitous path that in time led them to a new hideout at General Procopio's City house. The general had insisted. He wanted to be in the middle of things, and the Protector himself had proofed the house against sorcerous espionage. He said. Where better to stake out the goat and wait for the lion? he asked.\n\nThere were fragile indications to convince Chaz that they were being followed. He allowed himself one merry grin.\n\nGood times and bad, chaos or disorder, there were comings and goings at the Citadel gate. Day, night, the hour made no matter.\n\nA curtained coach departed twenty minutes after Chaz and Preacher and their charge. Within were Spud, Procopio, and a stack of reports from the sergeant of the guard, who had not permitted a little thing like a raid to cancel his report-taking.\n\nThe coach hurried through the night, straight to Procopio's back gate, and so arrived there long before the others did afoot. They were in the darkened study, watching, to confirm the presence or absence of trackers when Chaz and Preacher arrived.\n\nThose two burst in with their burden. \"Well?\" Chaz boomed as Su-Cha surrendered the Caracen\u00e9 shape and collapsed with a feeble plea for food.\n\n\"Two of the bloody beggars,\" Procopio replied. \"One ran away to tell tales. One stayed.\"\n\n\"We ought to sneak out the back way and follow him home to Daddy,\" Chaz growled.\n\nSpud, trying to spoon-feed Su-Cha in the dark, said, \"We already know where to find Daddy.\"\n\n\"What? How?\"\n\n\"All those reports the sergeant gave me? While you guys were loafing I was reading. There's wheat in amongst all that chaff, and it adds up to another waterfront warehouse. While we were killing time giving you guys a head start, the general called in some favors. As soon as Shai Khe's gang heads out, wherever, they'll hit the place and get Soup, Greystone, the girl, and whoever is guarding them. Then they'll lay for Shai Khe in case he gets lucky or gets away out here.\"\n\nChaz grunted. It was an eloquent grunt, replete with sarcasm and cynicism. \"And it all depends on Rider being somewhere handy, looping snares and nets into the web for when Shai Khe cuts loose, eh? Ingenious.\"\n\nPreacher quoted something scriptural; predictably cryptic and confused; fierce, fiery, and deifically vengeful. He added, \"It's falling together. We have that rat in the middle, between two terriers, and we'll choke him on his own arrogant overconfidence.\"\n\nPerhaps the word choke occurred to him because of the strangling noises issuing from Su-Cha because Spud kept jabbing too-rapid spoonfuls of food into the imp's mouth. Su-Cha finally got his message through. He was recovering. He was ready for the next stage.\n\nThey began their wait for the mad enemy."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "When the alarms went off there was a tinge of grey in the night beyond the nose of the pirate airship. Men bolted to their weapons. There was panic in the air. The airshipmen's morale was low.\n\nIt was not about to improve.\n\nA man appeared outside, hands raised, yelling at them to restrain themselves, that he was on their side, that he had a message, that they were to let him come inside.\n\nThey let him in. Not because he insisted but because some of the crew recognized him. Immediately he began chattering in a clicky tongue Rider recognized but could not follow. His message was received with groans and outrage.\n\nA sleepy crewman leaned out of the airship gondola and demanded, in a language Rider could follow, \"What's all the racket?\"\n\nOne of the others replied, \"The Celestial Lord wishes us to put our guests back on the boat and take them back to the City. Right now.\"\n\nPuzzled, Rider watched preparations being made. When the airshipmen brought their \"guests\" forth he began to get a glimmer. Whatever had happened in the City, some of his associates had survived to counterattack. Through guile.\n\nCaracen\u00e9 had arrived under loose, indulgent restraint, like a wayward child being shepherded home. She was departing in bonds, hung about with every piece of silver the airshipmen could muster. She went silently, aware that protest was useless and time the sole cure for this indignity.\n\nRider permitted himself a rare grin. Somehow, Su-Cha had convinced Shai Khe that Caracen\u00e9 might in fact be a certain nimble-witted, shape-shifting imp.\n\nThe airshipmen hustled their prisoners out of the cave. Before they disappeared, Rider was at work preparing his own unnoticed departure.\n\nA spell of minor scale\u2014the one he had employed to escape the Treasury vaults\u2014blinded the stay-behinds to his presence. He then turned to Shai Khe's network of protective and detective spells. He saw instantly that slipping through would be easy. All the hectic in and out of airshipmen, prisoners, and messenger had left the magical artifact in a state of vibrant dissonance. It was a moment's work to confuse his own passage with that of those ahead of him.\n\nA narrow, steep pathway descended the face of Shroud's Head. From a ship on the Bridge it looked like the thin scar that appeared on the faces of all the old king's statues and busts.\n\nRider reached the head of the path only minutes behind the others. They were just two hundred yards ahead. But he was stumped.\n\nThe pathway slanted down to a wooden jetty that would be invisible from the shipping lanes. Tied up to it was a small smuggler's ship with mast unstepped. From the Bridge it might look like a rock.\n\nRider's immediate concern was the fact that the pathway appeared to be the only way to reach the ship. Or was it?\n\nHe set his mystic senses roaming.\n\nThere were handholds enough for a descent, but that way would be slow. And, shadow spell or no, he would be seen if exposed to enemy eyes that long. However...\n\nThe alternative appeared mad even for a man as remarkable as Rider. He cast his senses again. And hesitated not an instant.\n\nHe retreated into the cave as far as he dared, took several quick, deep breaths, sprinted forward\u2014right out into the nothing of a two-hundred-thirty-foot drop to the waters of the Bridge.\n\nShadow flickered around him. His plunge went unremarked\u2014till he hit water a dozen feet from the jetty.\n\nThe airshipmen halted and gabbled at one another about the tremendous splash. Several of the more daring hurried ahead.\n\nRider's collision with the face of the sea left him stunned for a few seconds. Then he realized he was going deeper than he wanted, dragged down by the mass of gewgaws he carried. He swam upward with powerful kicks and armstrokes, slanting so as to surface beneath the jetty. He rose, gulped air, clung to a float just long enough to dispose of such devices as would have been ruined by the water. Then he went under again, stroking under the smuggling craft.\n\nThe ship was long and narrow and had a very low freeboard. Rider grasped the gunwale amidships, levered himself aboard. The spell of shadows guarded him from the eyes of the forerunner airshipmen, who were approaching the foot of the path. He slipped into shadows beneath a raised foredeck. Before concealing himself within a pile of old tackle and sailcloth he flung a small spell across the deck and gunwale. The dampness there evaporated.\n\nThe three leading airshipmen clumped aboard the smuggler, grumbling. They had decided the splash had been caused by a rock falling off the face of Shroud's Head.\n\nWithin minutes the entire complement had boarded. The ship got under way."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 31",
+                "text": "With Chaz and General Procopio more or less running the show, the welcome planned for Shai Khe was about as subtle and gentle as a sledge hammer.\n\nChaz was not a man to use a rapier where a battleaxe would do.\n\nBut it seemed the battleaxe would not get taken in hand.\n\nIt was not that long a wait before shadows began flitting about outside. There was even a moment when one of those solidified into the devil shape of Shai Khe, calmly assessing the house. But the easterner was not to be taken easily. Whether or not he believed Rider dead, he would not abandon caution. Nothing else happened.\n\nWhen dawn came the watchers retreated. There was never any doubt of their nearby presence, though. Each few hours Su-Cha assumed Caracen\u00e9's form and showed himself at a window, casting longing looks toward liberty.\n\n\"I wish he'd do something!\" Chaz growled.\n\n\"He is,\" Preacher rejoined. \"He's working on your mind. In a little while he'll have you charging out where he can bang your head all day long.\"\n\nChaz scowled but refused the bait. \"We're the guys laying in the weeds. What's he waiting for?\"\n\n\"He smells a rat,\" the general said. \"The man has a nose for danger. The gods alone know how many times he slipped my snares out east.\"\n\nSu-Cha guessed, \"He's waiting for the real Caracen\u00e9, I'll bet. I'll bet he sent her out of the City, then had to have her brought back to make sure she isn't me.\"\n\n\"So we didn't accomplish anything.\"\n\n\"Sure we did. We bought time for Rider to finish whatever he's doing and get back into the lists here. While we've had Shai Khe tied down accomplishing nothing himself. We got rid of all but a handful of his thugs. If the general's pals have held up their end, we've grabbed off his hideout behind him. When he goes running back...\"\n\n\"Yeah? You're forgetting something, runt. If he figures Rider is croaked, the only thing keeping him from popping the cork on Shasesserre is the chance we've still got the woman. Whatever she means to him.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Preacher said, peeping out the corner of the window. \"We've got some action coming.\"\n\nThey all crowded the window. Below, an oriental horseman galloped toward the house. A pair of City Guardsmen pursued him, bellowing. Their words could not be distinguished, but it seemed they wanted the oriental to desist from his reckless behavior.\n\nAll three passed without slowing.\n\nA minute went by.\n\nMen began to appear as if from nowhere. One was Shai Khe himself. They departed at a brisk pace.\n\n\"One watcher each, front and back, I would guess,\" Chaz said. \"Get out there and do your stuff, little buddy.\"\n\nSu-Cha grinned. \"Ever notice how I get to be his buddy when he wants me to stick my neck out?\" But already he was shifting form, as they had made it up ahead.\n\nThey had no trouble with Shai Khe's men, who had not foreseen danger in the guise of a cute little boy. Besides the immediate watchers, the easterner left two sentries along his backtrail. His path led straight to the warehouse Preacher had identified as Shai Khe's current headquarters.\n\nAfter the last fell, Chaz said, \"I've got a feeling Shai Khe isn't going to be surprised we're hot after him.\"\n\nThe general said, \"No doubt. But, then, the surprise is at the other end, isn't it?\"\n\nAt that point they entered the street of Shai Khe's headquarters. And at that moment all hell broke loose inside the warehouse.\n\nThey charged the door by which Shai Khe had entered their trap."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 32",
+                "text": "Rider felt the smuggling craft nudge gently against a wharf. Sounds and odors told him they had docked along Tannery Row on Henchelside. The airshipmen, though tired, quickly made fast and left the ship. Moments later Rider heard the creak of oarlocks.\n\nHe popped out of hiding, surprised. And that was a mistake, for a guard had been left aboard. He was turning, drawing breath for a shout. Rider snagged the broken corpse of a single reeve stay block and hurled it. It thunked off the airshipman's forehead. The man went over backward.\n\nRider crept forth. He peered over the gunwale. Wonder of wonders. The spot of action had gone unnoticed, though the oarsmen in the two boats faced the ship.\n\nRider slithered to the wharf side and, when he was sure he would not be noticed, left the ship.\n\nA group of urchins audience to everything gave him a hand\u2014then scattered when he scowled.\n\nHe loped into the stench of Tannery Row, headed for King's Bridge, which lay a mile away. Thirty minutes later he was in hiding on the east bank, watching the airshipmen unload their prisoners and make their boats ready for a quick getaway. They left one guard again.\n\nWhen the main party was out of sight he moved in. In moments he had the sentry trussed up and the boats adrift. He resumed his shadowing of the airshipmen. He caught up as they entered a warehouse.\n\nHe reached into the web and extended his senses, searching for signs of Shai Khe. There were none. But someone was there. And that someone was not friendly toward the easterner's men. A fight broke out. It was over in seconds, a successful ambush. Rider did not go investigate.\n\nHe suspected it would be wiser, tactically, to remain on the outside of events, unseen and unknown.\n\nA wagon rolled up to the door Rider watched. Men from the warehouse loaded it with bound airshipmen, covered them with a tarp. Away the wagon went. A brisk, efficient piece of work.\n\nThe tough look of those men gave them away. They were air marines in mufti.\n\nSo. The next step was obvious. Wait for Shai Khe to come meet his people in a headquarters he believed to be secure.\n\nThere had been some busyness while he was off to Shroud's Head, that was certain. Despite his absence, his associates seemed to have Shai Khe on the run. But Rider had no great confidence in that appearance.\n\nHow long before the eastern devil showed himself?\n\nNot long at all.\n\nIt started like the row with the airshipmen. But that lasted only fifteen seconds. Then a brilliant flash illuminated the backs of the warehouse's few windows. The tenor of the uproar changed.\n\nRider was watching through the web.\n\nShai Khe had used a powerful spell to neutralize and incapacitate the marines, but before he could finish them off, Chaz, Su-Cha, and their gang broke in. The easterner had some bad moments with them. In fact, Chaz and General Procopio got in blows that nearly incapacitated Shai Khe.\n\nSu-Cha used the sorcerer's moments of distraction and disorientation to shove Caracen\u00e9 into hiding and take her place.\n\nRider nudged the web and added to the confusion by undoing the spells binding the marines. Those gentlemen jumped up with blood in their eyes.\n\nShai Khe was not whipped yet. Not by a mile and a year. But he was rattled. The unexpected recuperation of the marines decided him to retreat and regroup.\n\nHe grabbed Su-Cha/Caracen\u00e9's hand and took off.\n\nRider tugged the web just enough to make sure everyone in the warehouse was free and conscious. Then he withdrew and waited.\n\nShai Khe burst out the warehouse door. Fifty yards down the street he halted, whirled, hurled a vicious spell that undermined the warehouse's foundations. That whole nearer face of the building came down. Shai Khe headed for the river at a brisk walk.\n\nThe collapse should have killed all of the easterner's enemies. But Rider aborted that.\n\nHe had reached through the web and jammed an interior door. Chaz, the general, the marines, and the others had gone galloping toward the far exit before the collapse began.\n\nRider jogged to a parallel street, then raced to the river. He was sure Shai Khe meant to rendezvous with the airshipmen's boats. Shai Khe did things meticulously, calculatedly. He would know where the boats and ships made landings, for those points would have been preselected for his convenience.\n\nRider was in hiding not twenty yards away from the man he had left bound when the easterner loped into view, casting angry glances behind him. His enemies were closing in again.\n\nHe cursed once, softly, when he reached the river's edge and found his man unconscious and his boats gone.\n\nHe let go Caracen\u00e9's hand, used both of his in a complicated series of gestures. The airshipman's bonds fell away. But he would not arise from his dreams.\n\nShai Khe faced his pursuers.\n\nHe seemed to swell in stature, in presence. An aura of great dread grew around him. The bowl of his uplifted left hand began to glow turquoise.\n\nChaz and the crowd were just thirty yards away. In almost ridiculous unison they stopped, flung themselves around, and scattered.\n\nShai Khe arced the blue fire after them. It floated through the air, trailing turquoise mists, crackling, leaving a rent in the web that was almost painful to Rider. The easterner either thought Rider out of the game or no longer worried about attracting his attention.\n\nThe blue fireball hit the street with an impact that rattled buildings for half a mile. It shattered. Pieces flew about, landing with their own thunderous impacts, fragmented, impacted, fragmented. Some chunks knocked holes in nearby walls. The smaller the chunk, the faster it moved and more dangerous it was. But the smaller pieces turned into mist more quickly, so remained dangerous for only a few seconds.\n\nWhile the blue show ran, Shai Khe gathered his fallen henchman under one arm and Caracen\u00e9 under the other. With effortless ease. He raced toward the river, each step a longer one than the last. He did not stop because water lay in his way.\n\nWater flew as if from huge hammerblows each time one of his feet hit. Rider was reminded of a skipping stone flying in reverse. Shai Khe's last bound to Henchelside was fifty yards long.\n\nThe easterner headed for the smuggler. And that pushed Rider into a tight moral bind.\n\nThe man he had left unconscious could ruin everything. He had but to tell his story. If Shai Khe was not totally suspicious already, finding his bridges burned before him.\n\nRider considered alternatives and discarded them. Each was self-defeating, requiring the expenditure of so much sorcerous energy that Shai Khe would be alerted anyway. The choices were two. Let Shai Khe be warned. Or work a small magic and close a man's mouth forever.\n\nThere was no choice, really. Shai Khe was a shadow intent on poisoning millions of lives. He could not be allowed to escape just to avoid taking the life of his minion.\n\nNecessity made the thing no more pleasant.\n\nRider reached through the web and, as Shai Khe bounded aboard the smuggler, snapped a blood vessel in the airshipman's brain, behind the bruise left by the thrown block."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 33",
+                "text": "Shai Khe's feet hit the deck of the ship. He cursed, dropped his burden. A glance told him his man was dead. He whirled, began arcing a fireworks show toward the east bank.\n\nSu-Cha decided it was time he absented himself from the sorcerer's company. To go on meant ever-increasing danger. And it was unlikely that Shai Khe would ever be less attentive than he was at the moment.\n\nHis intent was to slip over the side behind Shai Khe, hit the water, become a porpoise, and swim as if sharks were after him.\n\nRider saw Su-Cha begin to move, guessed his approximate intent.\n\nHe would never make it. A sorcerer of Shai Khe's attainments never became so angry or so distracted he failed to notice the movement of people around him.\n\nRider cooked up a little golden firework of his own.\n\nThis quite needless bombardment, which threatened to demolish the district, hinted that the easterner was fishing for a reaction anyway.\n\nSu-Cha was not expendable. Neither were the people of the district.\n\nRider stepped out and delivered his apple-sized golden ball in one smooth motion. It streaked across the river. Halfway over it looked as if it would miss the smuggler by fifteen feet. Three quarters of the way over it began to slide to the right. In the last fifty feet it jumped.\n\nIt impacted upon the ship. Light flared. Timbers flew. A third of the smuggler burst into flames.\n\nMocking laughter and a volley of blue fireworks were Shai Khe's responses. He had won the roll, drawing Rider out.\n\nRider noted that Su-Cha was in the water.\n\nHe plucked another golden ball out of his left hand and hurled it. This one streaked straight toward Shai Khe. Another followed an instant later. Then another. The first died a hundred yards from the blazing ship, the second fifty. The third almost reached the easterner.\n\nShai Khe grabbed his surviving airshipman and bounded away, in leaps as long as those he had taken when he crossed the river. He trailed wicked laughter.\n\nRider's golden balls pursued him, through every twist and turn of his flight through Henchelside.\n\n\"Wondered when you were going to turn up,\" Chaz said, coming to stand beside Rider and glare at the burning ship.\n\n\"You played too long a bet,\" Rider admonished gently. \"You'd all have been dead if I hadn't.\"\n\n\"I know.\" The barbarian was not the least chagrined as he added, \"We didn't expect you. Glad you showed, though.\"\n\nOthers began leaving cover. Even a few residents began looking out to see if the storm had passed.\n\nGeneral Procopio lumbered up. \"Good show! Eh? What? Got the beggar on the run. What next?\"\n\n\"First we dig the woman out of the warehouse,\" Rider said.\n\nChaz gaped. \"But... The sorcerer. He carried her off with him.\"\n\nRider chuckled. \"That was Su-Cha again. He ought to be turning up any second, hungry enough to eat one of us.\" He was talking to the barbarian's back.\n\n\"And after Chaz saves Caracen\u00e9? What then?\" Greystone asked. The scholar looked exhausted, physically and emotionally.\n\n\"Then we loaf down to our yards and take a short airship ride.\" He peered across the river. Shai Khe was no longer visible, but his progress could be traced by the fireworks he tossed off as he went.\n\n\"He's going to turn into a ghost again in about two minutes.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But this time I know where he will do his haunting.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 34",
+                "text": "\"Caracen\u00e9!\" Chaz bellowed. The interior of the warehouse was a ruin. Spears of sunlight stabbed down through dust almost too thick to permit breathing. He stepped past an eastern airshipman groaning beneath rubble which buried his legs.\n\n\"Caracen\u00e9!\"\n\n\"Here.\" The woman's voice was feeble, like the mewl of an injured kitten.\n\nShe was all right. Just shaken and dirty, looking as if she had been dragged twice around the chariot course at the coliseum. Chaz's concern weakened the moment he saw her safe. Then he recalled that she had started out a witch in apparent alliance with Kralj Odehnal, and only later had she melted into the sort of woman to whom he was more accustomed.\n\nShai Khe was clever and savage. She might be the sorcerer's ultimate piece to be played. Chaz felt he was not as clever as Rider or Greystone. He was more likely to stumble into something unpleasant. So he was a little cool, a little distant, as he helped Caracen\u00e9 to her feet.\n\nShe was not so cool. She threw her arms around his neck and clung tightly, shivering like a captive rabbit.\n\nRider chose a larger ship this time, one intended to survive the rigors of battle. Greystone argued for speed.\n\n\"Speed will not count in this,\" Rider said. \"Survivability will. We're coming up to the face-to-face, where Shai Khe cannot duck us anymore. If it doesn't go our way, we want to be in good shape for getting out alive.\"\n\n\"You really think...\"\n\n\"In an hour we'll see. He'll have to surrender or fight.\" Rider looked directly at Caracen\u00e9. \"Will he fight, knowing you are with us?\"\n\nOutside, one of the ground crew shouted that the airship lines were ready to cast off.\n\nCaracen\u00e9's gaze became evasive.\n\nRider repeated the question.\n\n\"He would fight,\" she admitted. \"He cannot back down. Not for anything. He is totally committed.\"\n\nRider nodded. He surveyed his companions. \"This is what we've worked toward... I have to warn you. It could go sour. This is as great a wickedness as has ever arisen. Does anyone want out?\"\n\n\"Silly question,\" Chaz grumbled. \"What I want is to get my hands around his throat.\"\n\nEveryone else nodded.\n\n\"Take your stations, then. Tell them to cast off.\"\n\nIt was a bright, clear day. The Bridge was a broad blue highway running to the horizon. Its face was dotted with fishing boats and merchantmen. Rider viewed that traffic with concern. Someone down there could get caught in the middle.\n\n\"Shroud's Head,\" Preacher announced. He was steering the monster airship while Rider prepared for what was to come. \"Battle stations, everybody.\"\n\nChaz sat Caracen\u00e9 in a seat usually reserved for an airship's commander. \"You stay put till I tell you otherwise. You hear?\"\n\nHer eyes flashed fire, Rider noted. She had begun to show sparks of life. But she did as she was told, if only because it was the wisest thing she could do.\n\nSpud joined Preacher in handling the airship. Chaz and the others manned some of its weapons\u2014though little good they might do in a confrontation between sorcerers the caliber of Rider and Shai Khe. Rider said, \"Take station a half mile off the point, Preacher. Hold fast there. And wait.\" He seemed to go completely inside himself then.\n\nPreacher and Spud did exactly as instructed.\n\nShroud's Head glared malevolently.\n\nNothing happened for a long time.\n\n\"What the hell?\" Soup squawked suddenly. He pointed a shaky finger.\n\nThe air before Caracen\u00e9 had begun to glitter. The glitter became more intense, gave way to crawling patches of color that collided, mixed, spread, shone rainbow like oil on water. They formed the outline of a man.\n\n\"Our opponent wants to talk,\" Rider said.\n\nAs he spoke, the colors around the figure's head sorted themselves out and became fixed in the oriental features of the sorcerer Shai Khe. For half a minute those evil green eyes stared vacantly. They sparked then, recognized Caracen\u00e9, shifted their gaze to Rider.\n\nA hissing whisper seemed to come from everywhere at once. \"So. Face to face now, Ride-Master. You have been a stubborn, resourceful, and lucky opponent, if foolish now. You grow overconfident, leaving the shield of your father's web. Go back. You are overmatched here.\"\n\n\"I was never overmatched. You have fled me time and again. But now there is nowhere you can run. Surrender yourself.\"\n\nSoft, malicious laughter filled the cabin. \"I was about to suggest you do the same. For the sake of the woman. You are a gentleman, Ride-Master, and would not see her destroyed. She is of value to me. I will give you and your men your liberty, after you have been disarmed, if you return her to me.\"\n\nRider did not respond. He stepped to a window, examined the Bridge. The broad blue strait remained sun-drenched and busy. Finally, he faced the image of the easterner. \"Your hour is done. Give it up. Or suffer the consequences you bring upon yourself.\"\n\nRider's men stirred nervously.\n\n\"Brave, Ride-Master. But I am far too old to be bluffed that easily. Not even your father could do that.\" There was a glint of malice in Shai Khe's eye each time he mentioned Jehrke.\n\n\"As you will, then,\" Rider said. \"I have warned you enough. Still, one last warning. Do not bring that airship out of Shroud's Eye. I disclaim responsibility for what will happen if you do.\"\n\nPure evil animated the sorcerer's laughter. Then he vanished.\n\nA half hour had passed. Nothing had happened. Rider was growing concerned. Had Shai Khe, in his caution, readied one more bolt hole than expected?\n\n\"Think he's decided to take your advice?\" Chaz asked.\n\n\"No. Though he may try to wait us out.\"\n\n\"He won't get anywhere doing that.\" Chaz pointed.\n\nFour giants of the air were crossing the Bridge, two to either hand. Rider said, \"Procopio. I believe we'll hear from Shai Khe soon enough now.\"\n\nGeneral Procopio had left the group back in the City. It had been his idea to land troops upon Shroud's Head, to prevent flight to the landward side. He had convinced someone very high up\u2014maybe King Belledon himself.\n\nThe airships discharged their weapons as they passed the headland. The great stone face became spotted with fires. Several missiles penetrated the eye where Shai Khe's airship lay. The airships moved on. Soldiers slid down ropes.\n\nA spear of emerald fire ripped out of the Devil's Eye. Its target was Rider's airship. Rider was ready. At a gesture the light bent heavenward.\n\nBoth of the monument's eyes began to burn an evil carnelian. Darkness gamboled behind the light.\n\nThe troops were all off the airships. They were linking up. Soon they would draw their line tighter.\n\nThe sea itself leapt at Rider's command, a foot-thick serpent of water rising to hammer the monument with its head. The power of that stream tore huge chunks from the stone face.\n\nA horrible scream came from Shroud's Head. It grew louder rapidly. Just when it seemed it would become unbearable, it died.\n\nThe world was totally silent. And in the silence Rider's water monster collapsed.\n\nThe fires still burned in the monument's eyes.\n\nThe snout of an airship protruded from one.\n\n\"He's coming out,\" Preacher announced.\n\nRider nodded. \"Back off. Don't let him get too close. Everybody hang on.\"\n\nThe pirate airship exited the Devil's Eye slowly\u2014till its rear steering vanes cleared. Then it charged like a bull in the arena.\n\nRider sighed, both relieved and concerned. Such confidence might mean Shai Khe had no glimmer of his earlier visit\u2014or it might mean that the easterner had detected it and taken steps.\n\nRider's airship backed down more slowly than Shai Khe's charged. The gap between ships dwindled. Chaz and the others readied their weapons. Without a battle complement Rider's ship would have a feeble sting, but still one stronger than the pirate's. The easterner would have no crew to spare for fighting.\n\nA thin, almost invisible string of darkness connected Shai Khe's airship with the eye where Rider had detected the terror. The farther the easterner came out, the fatter and darker that line grew. Rider watched, face grim. \"The man is smart and strong, but a fool at times.\"\n\nThe others did not understand. But Rider's face told them he had done something of which he was mildly ashamed.\n\nA storm of sorceries exploded from Shai Khe's airship. Preacher dodged while Rider fended. Chaz discharged his weapon. Its flaring bolt arced toward the pirate, but fell far short.\n\nThe air before Caracen\u00e9 sparkled. Shai Khe's face appeared. A whisper of a voice said, \"Now you meet the true despair, Ride-Master.\" The face vanished.\n\nRider looked sad.\n\nThe air itself shuddered as if from godlike hammer strokes. The black cable connecting the sorcerer's airship with the promontory fattened till it was as thick as a big man's waist. Then the landward end broke loose.\n\nA globule of a darkness like nonexistence whipped toward Shai Khe's vessel. The eye could not fix upon it.\n\nIt impacted upon the easterner's airship.\n\nThe pirate folded like a sausage bent over a knee. \"Move back now!\" Rider ordered. \"Move fast!\"\n\nPreacher needed no encouragement.\n\nEveryone, on both ships, knew what would happen. But it was a long time coming\u2014as though mocking by delay.\n\nShai Khe's ship folded almost double before a skin crack appeared where the strain of folding was greatest.\n\nA gas bladder burst.\n\nAnd that was the pirate's doom.\n\nThe gas exploded on contacting the air. Billows of fire flung out of the airship. The fire penetrated another bladder, which exploded in turn. The airship settled toward the water. New fires continued erupting.\n\nWaves of heat beat against Rider's airship.\n\nRider took control and pressed closer, following the easterner down. Below, the nearest surface ships scurried away.\n\nTwo flaming crewmen jumped from the pirate. Rider tried to reach for them, to buoy them up, but without the web could not respond fast enough.\n\nGobbets of flaming ship dropped away, splashed into the Bridge, set the sea aflame.\n\n\"Holy Zephod,\" Preacher finally gasped. \"I never saw one blow before. What a sight.\"\n\nThey all watched in awe.\n\n\"What's that?\" Chaz asked, as the dying monster of the air started the final hundred feet of its fall.\n\n\"Sounds like...\" Su-Cha frowned. \"Sounds like somebody laughing.\"\n\nThe sound grew swiftly louder. And it was mad laughter.\n\nCaracen\u00e9 made a startled, squeaky noise. Chaz whirled. He gasped. \"Rider! You won't believe...\"\n\nRider turned. A vast, sparkling face was taking form between him and the woman. Flames enveloped and distorted it. It was laughing.\n\nIt glared at Rider. Its laughter became mocking. All-enveloping words filled the cabin. \"You have won nothing, Ride-Master. Nothing. Even I am but a messenger.\" More laughter, rising toward the insane.\n\nThe phantom snapped out of existence.\n\nThe pirate airship hit the water. A last half-dozen gas bladders erupted at once. A violent updraft staggered Rider's airship, sent it rising and whirling. He fought for control, finally got the vessel moving toward Shasesserre.\n\n\"What did he mean, he was only a messenger?\" Chaz demanded. His question was for Rider but he was looking at Caracen\u00e9.\n\n\"I'm not sure,\" Rider replied.\n\n\"Well, I don't like it.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I do, either. In some ways this has been almost too easy a victory.\"\n\n\"Too easy?\" Su-Cha squawked.\n\nChaz glared at Caracen\u00e9. \"Woman?\"\n\nBut Caracen\u00e9 remained silent. She stood at a window now, staring back at the nest of fire and flock of smoke celebrating Shai Khe's destruction."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 35",
+                "text": "Neither Rider nor his men bragged up what had happened. But countless others had been in the affair. They talked. In fact, most of the City had become aware of the struggle before its conclusion. So when it became generally known that the threat from a great devil of a sorcerer out of the east had been overcome by Jehrke's son, there developed a general acclamation of the son as Protector in his father's stead.\n\nKing Belledon was not pleased.\n\nRepercussions continued for some time, as the King purged or exiled the last of those who had conspired against Shasesserre.\n\nBorder situations that had threatened all along the empire's frontiers evaporated almost magically. The troublesome easternmost provinces fell into an abnormally peaceful state. Agents in those far lands said the report of Shai Khe's demise had paralyzed the eastern sorcerer's shadowed kingdom of terror. The great peril was at an end. The thing was done. Even King Belledon sent Rider his grudging gratitude and congratulations.\n\nBut the world was filled with illusions, and the greatest illusion of all was that of safety.\n\nNot for the first time, Preacher asked, \"What did Shai Khe mean when he said he was only a messenger?\"\n\nRider had not forgotten that. He, Greystone, Spud, and Su-Cha all were scouring their sources and resources in an effort to prepare for possible troubles.\n\nThey unearthed no news of any value\u2014not even a concrete indication that Shai Khe had been anything less than his own agent. They found only the faintest wisp of a rumor from the nethermost east about a cabal of which Shai Khe might have been a junior member. But that was only hearsay of a rumor of hearsay.\n\nChaz figured that in Caracen\u00e9 they had the next best thing to a primary source. \"Press her,\" he told Rider, in private. \"She knows a lot that she isn't telling.\"\n\nRider raised an eyebrow. It was an expressive querying gesture. Chaz reddened slightly. He had been paying elaborate public court to Caracen\u00e9. And she seemed pleased by his attention.\n\n\"Not yet,\" Rider replied. \"We're not under the sword. She has been a slave\u2014and more. She needs time to rediscover the meaning and bounds of her freedom. She has to determine for herself if she has a moral obligation to speak or to remain silent. With Shai Khe gone, and with his hold upon her charred and sunken beneath the Bridge, I can see no reason to doubt that she will come around. It will have far more meaning when it comes from the heart. Exercise your famous barbarian patience. Take her out on the town. Take her to the Little Circus. General Procopio is giving three days of games to celebrate his part in our success.\"\n\nThere had been some grumpiness over Procopio's having claimed so much. Rider, though, was pleased because the old officer was diverting attention from himself and his men.\n\n\"Take her out and buy her a western-style wardrobe. I do not know women well, but never heard of one whose morale could not be improved by a shopping spree. Especially when someone else is picking up the cost.\"\n\nChaz grumped, \"I think she looks just fine wearing what she has.\"\n\n\"You would. Most of the time she's half-naked. But she can't wander the streets like that.\"\n\nChaz grumped some more, mostly because he had fixed notions of the way women shopped. He did not look forward to squiring Caracen\u00e9 around the courtiers of the City. But he went out and collected her.\n\nHe knew his duty. And there was a fine chance that doing it would earn him pleasant rewards."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 36",
+                "text": "General Procopio invited Rider's gang to share his personal box at the Little Circus\u2014reluctantly, after Chaz accused him of ingratitude and glory-hogging. Since the public were well aware that the Protector's son\u2014himself acclaimed Protector now\u2014was primarily responsible for thwarting the danger to the City, a few bitter words could make of the Procopio Games the disaster of the social season. The general issued his invitation rather than risk humiliation.\n\nOther than Chaz, only Greystone evinced much interest in attending. The scholar had worked out systems for betting on horse and chariot races and wanted to test them in the field. Su-Cha would have attended had he been allowed, but the law was adamant about forbidding his kind to attend sporting events, the outcome of which might be mystically jiggered. Too many bettors' money might be affected.\n\nCaracen\u00e9 was both elegant and exotic in a white pleated creation which fell to her ankles but left her arms bare. Her hair was in a single twist that came around her neck to the right and fell between her breasts. Chaz felt drab and inadequate as they made for Procopio's private box. Ten thousand eyes measured Caracen\u00e9 and found her beauty more than adequate. A thousand men murmured their admiration and asked one another who that beauty might be.\n\nChaz felt smaller than ever.\n\nBut he was carrying his sword, his illegal sword, without challenge, so those who mattered did not lose track of his identity amidst Caracen\u00e9's radiance. That was reassuring.\n\nThe box of honor was shaded by a gaudy awning. The only other seating so honored was the royal box. Chaz dropped onto one of the stone benches. \"Thanks for small favors.\" He pointed upward. \"It's days like this that make me wonder why I never stayed home.\" It was hot, yes, and very humid.\n\nGeneral Procopio turned, held a finger to his lips. Charioteers were getting themselves aligned for a start and the herald was about to announce the contestants.\n\n\"You haven't told me anything about your homeland,\" Caracen\u00e9 whispered.\n\n\"Neither have you, Sweetheart. Sounds to me like we're even.\"\n\nGreystone had arrived before Chaz and Caracen\u00e9. He was seated behind the general, calculating on a wax tablet. He turned and scowled.\n\n\"Do they have chariot races there?\"\n\nChaz eyed the woman suspiciously. Why this empty-headed act? \"No. Pony races. Bareback. Through the woods.\"\n\nProcopio and Greystone both scowled. The herald had begun announcing the charioteers and the stables they represented. Caracen\u00e9 got the message, if Chaz did not. She folded her hands in her lap and watched the race get under way.\n\nChaz hardly noticed. A shadow too small for that of a cloud or airship, yet big, was rippling over the crowd. Some people were looking up instead of following the race. He stepped to the edge of the canopy, caught a glimpse of a large wing vanishing beyond the stadium rim. \"Su-Cha clowning around?\" he wondered.\n\n\"I don't think so.\" Greystone startled Chaz, who had not seen the scholar rise. \"The runt has more style. The bird is big but dingy. He'd be colorful.\"\n\nRising crowd noise kept Chaz from responding.\n\nThe chariots were running hub to hub going into the back stretch. The mob expected real excitement going into the final turn.\n\n\"It been here before?\" Chaz shouted.\n\n\"All morning. Here it comes again.\"\n\n\"Looks like a giant chicken hawk,\" Chaz opined. \"My size.\"\n\nCaracen\u00e9 moved up beside him. When she saw the bird she gasped and lost color. Chaz asked, \"You know what that thing is?\"\n\nCaracen\u00e9 nodded. As she opened her mouth to say something, Procopio shouted, \"If you people can't keep it down back there, go away.\"\n\nThe bird turned a half circle, one yellow eye fixed upon the stadium somewhere above Procopio's box.\n\nCaracen\u00e9 gasped again, and lost more color.\n\nThe bird folded its wings, falling into an attack dive. Its plunge was directly toward Chaz.\n\nHe hurled Caracen\u00e9 and a squealing Greystone into the concealment provided by the awning, dragged his blade out and braced himself.\n\nThe chariots were into the final leg of the race, the three frontrunners still neck and neck. The crowd was shrieking. Only a few spectators, quite close, noted Chaz's actions and looked up. They out-shrieked the race aficionados.\n\nAs Chaz prepared to meet his death Caracen\u00e9 bounded to her feet and rejoined him. Her hair was aflame. Her eyes had become whirling pools of smoke. She flung her hands toward the hawk. They glowed like red-hot steel.\n\nThe bird staggered just yards from completing its strike. That saved Chaz.\n\nIt smashed into the awning, shrieking and snapping at him over its shoulder. Beneath the canvas people scrambled. The bird ripped fabric and flesh with its talons.\n\nChaz swung his blade in a flat arc, scored the monster's beak and opened flesh nearby. His backstroke pruned feathers from a wingtip. The beast seemed of mixed minds. It wanted to face and fight him while continuing to rip at those still trapped beneath the canopy.\n\nIt dipped its head, snapped its beak, came up with a severed human arm. Chaz bounced a sword-stroke off its forehead, peeling flesh back. Blood flooded its eyes. It shrieked and dropped its booty, flung itself up to attack with its talons. Chaz clipped more feathers from the same wing, batted one monster foot aside with his blade, rolled beneath the other. From flat on his back he drove the tip of his sword into the beast's belly. Though he caused only a minor wound, the bird screeched and tried to flee.\n\nIt flung itself into the air, wings thundering. But with blood-blinded eyes and one wing trimmed it could not fly a straight line. It plunged into the crowd fifty yards away. People screamed as it began killing anyone it could reach.\n\nChaz gained his feet, ripped the canvas off the remains of those who had occupied Procopio's box, dreading what he might see when he found Greystone.\n\nBut the little scholar was fine. He had stretched out against a stone bench where it was impossible for the bird to reach him.\n\nProcopio had been less fortunate. It was he who had lost the limb.\n\nChaz roared and looked for the bird.\n\nIt had tried to fly again, and again it had plunged into the crowd. The panic was spreading. In a rage, he prepared to storm through the mob on a quest for revenge.\n\nCaracen\u00e9's touch stayed him. He looked down into her eyes. They had returned to normal. Her hair no longer blazed. Her face was drained. Once she had his attention, she pointed.\n\nHe looked up a dozen rows. He saw a tall, grey-haired gentleman in antiquated apparel who stood calmly observing the growing terror. As his gaze swept over Chaz a taunting smile tugged at his lips.\n\n\"Green eyes!\" Those awful green eyes! \"It's him!\" Chaz roared. \"It has to be him.\" He hurled himself out of Procopio's box.\n\nThe old man strode away. The chaos parted for him as though he were fiery to the touch.\n\nChaz did not have the same luck.\n\nA hammercrack of sorcery rang out over the stadium. Every hair on Chaz's head stood up and crackled. The monster bird screamed once, died.\n\nIn the moment he was looking away Chaz lost track of the grey-haired gentleman with the green eyes. He cursed.\n\nThen he sighted Rider and Su-Cha ploughing through the crowd, headed his way."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 37",
+                "text": "\"What brought you here?\" Chaz demanded when Rider reached him.\n\n\"Caracen\u00e9 twisting the web. What happened?\"\n\n\"She tried to stop that bird. I don't know where it came from, but I know how it got here. Shai Khe brought it.\"\n\n\"But...\" Su-Cha piped.\n\n\"I saw him. Caracen\u00e9 pointed him out. Where is she? He had greyed his hair and was wearing old-time clothes, like one of the Cynics, but it was him. Not his brother or cousin or uncle or whatever you're going to say, but him. There aren't any other eyes like his eyes. Where's Caracen\u00e9 gotten to?\"\n\n\"There is no strain on the web,\" Rider said, scanning the crowd. \"Su-Cha, start looking for him.\"\n\nChaz was looking around now, quietly desperate, seeking Caracen\u00e9. He did not catch a glimpse of her. He had remained calm throughout the crisis. Now he was ready to panic.\n\n\"Keep a watch for the woman, too,\" Rider told Su-Cha. He started down toward Procopio's box.\n\n\"Can't you feel her?\" Chaz demanded.\n\n\"She isn't leaving any trail in the web.\"\n\n\"It's his fault. Shai Khe. He did something to her. She was almost ready to come over to our side. How could he have survived an airship's destruction? Especially with that shadow of his trying to gobble every soul in sight?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Rider confessed. \"I'm as mystified as you. I was convinced that he was dead. But he is old and powerful and tricky.\"\n\n\"I'm going looking, too. He isn't getting away with Caracen\u00e9 if I've got anything to say about it.\"\n\n\"I don't know how he could have gotten through that alive,\" Rider repeated. \"Unless he was not aboard the airship at all. Which could have been, though I don't see how he could have managed the airship so deftly from ashore.\"\n\nChaz, a glob of moroseness feeling sorry for itself huddling in a corner, did not look up. No slightest trace of Caracen\u00e9 or the green-eyed man had come to light yet.\n\n\"We'll hear from Shai Khe again,\" Rider said. \"If, indeed, it was he that Chaz saw.\" Rider was not convinced that his only witness was reliable. \"His ego wouldn't let it be otherwise.\" What was meant to be a feather of hope fell flat with Chaz.\n\n\"If it was Shai Khe, I'm convinced he has left the City. He would have to do so. He would need to restore the edifice of terror that began crumbling with the report of his death. If he lives, and Caracen\u00e9 is with him, he will be in the east and we will have report of them soon enough.\"\n\nBut the big northerner refused to be encouraged. \"I'll find her,\" he mumbled. \"I'll find them both. And when the dust settles there won't be no more green-eyed spook doctor hanging around. No more slave-master for her to be afraid of.\"\n\nRider looked at his friend with compassion, but he said nothing more. There was nothing to say. What was needed now was the passing of time.\n\nIt would be a time shorter than any of them imagined."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(The Technocrat War 3) Maelstrom",
+        "author": "Austen Andrews",
+        "genres": [
+            "fantasy",
+            "Ultima Online"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Sosaria as it appears in The Technocrat War is the synthesis of many extraordinary talents. Armand de Orive, Andy Hoyos, Starr Long, Damion Schubert, and the entire team on the Origin project deserve credit for dreaming the world in which I am privileged to write.\n\nThanks also go out to the Ultima Online team at Origin Systems, who picked up the ball and ran with it. And of course we owe everything to the \"Lost King\" himself, who flapped his wings in Texas and sent hurricanes around the world.\n\nFor my parents and grandparents and everyone who came before me; for my children, nephew and nieces who came after me; and for Elizabeth, who stood beside me during the long, long War.\n\nAnd the terrible day came when Lord Blackthorn marched against the great army of the King. Foremost of His Majesty's defenders was the brave Sir Lazaro, resplendent in his silvery armor. When Blackthorn's dark troops appeared on the battlefield, the other knights lamented, \"What bleak injustice befalls us that the kingdom battles itself?\"\n\nSir Lazaro answered them, \"There is no injustice, for we have honored the Virtues. We have lived as good men. We have passed this to our children. Therefore no wickedness can defeat us, for though we may die, evil has already fallen. To live well is the truest act of Justice.\"\n\nAnd so did the Virtue of Justice triumph, though thousands of knights would perish in the flames on that horrifying day."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Tell me what troubles you, Sartorius.\" \"The plot has grown... complex.\"\n\n\"Complexity is an illusion. The design is very simple. The Juka Clans are invading Logosia. The New Britannians are coming to help. We must do all that we can to ensure their success.\"\n\n\"Perhaps that is a simple design for one in your position, Chamberlain Kavah, but it is my nation that falls under the enemy's sword. I have just sacrificed most of my armada to farther our scheme.\"\n\n\"You have nothing to fear. The Pact of Four is strong. General Nathaniel and Warlord Bahrok will remove Blackthorn from power. After the war is over, you will be left in control. Always remember that ultimate goal, Lector. It will make your sacrifice bearable.\"\n\n\"I am uncertain that Bahrok and Nathaniel are trustworthy. Already they have betrayed the secrecy of the Pact for the sake of their primitive honor.\"\n\n\"You are correct, of course. They're ambitious savages. But they are useful to our purposes.\"\n\n\"And what about me, Kavah? Am I a useful savage, as well?\"\n\n\"I hold the Technocrats in the highest esteem, Your Excellency.\"\n\n\"You did not answer my question. What is your goal in this war? You have never made that clear and it gives me some magnitude of concern. The time has come for you to answer.\"\n\n\"Very well. Like you, I am unsatisfied with the...arrangements in my homeland. The Matriarchs have disrupted the ancient order of Meer society. I intend to correct that mistake.\"\n\n\"I see. Then you seek political power, like the rest of us do. And how does this war service your needs?\"\n\n\"That is something you shall learn very soon. The scheme draws toward its conclusion. As it does so you must keep a clear head, Lector Sartorius. The plot is very simple. New Britannia and the Juka Clans will invade Logosia. We must ensure their success. We shall be rewarded in the end.\"\n\n\"As you say, Chamberlain. As you say.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Devastation at Akar",
+                "text": "Thulann's braids, silky and white, streamed back at the cusp of a desert breeze. The elderly Juka stood as tall and straight as the walking staff she carried. Her slim figure parted the hot, bitter wind. Her long cloak danced and snapped behind her. The laces of her armor creaked.\n\nIn front of her the sky boiled ash and embers. Golden flames reflected in the sweat of her jade-green face. Her one, weathered eye stared out with mounting rage.\n\nFrom atop a toothy, windswept bluff, she witnessed a fiery massacre. A distant Technocrat city burned redder than blood, sheeting the sky with clouds of black smoke. Three armies deployed on the cracked desert around it. One large force had seized the granite buildings of the city and occupied them in the midst of the hellish inferno. Even from miles away Thulann recognized the banners of Clan Kumar. They were her own people, the proud clan of Shirron Turlogan. They had succeeded in capturing this settlement, Akar, which was a key victory in the invasion of Logosia.\n\nBut the Technocrat defenders were extracting a deadly payment. If they could not hold Akar, the followers of Blackthorn looked eager to destroy it. Above the city hovered the dark hulks of Logosian airships, dozens of them, like iron spikes suspended from the clouds. Devastation rained down from the steam-driven war machines. Thulann saw spouts of amber flame feeding the blaze that tore through the captured buildings. She winced at the silver flashes of artificial lightning, eerily silent until the thunder reached her ears. She ground her teeth at the wafting reek of smoke and metal cinders.\n\nThe army of Clan Kumar was being decimated by fire, body by burning body.\n\nBy destroying Akar, the airships supported the retreat of the Technocrat ground army. The black-armored troops hurried southward, abandoning their dead soldiers and their wheeled war engines. The Logosians' march was hasty and desperate. They were beaten, vulnerable. Yet a third army watched unmoving, though it was poised to cut off their escape. The vast Jukan force arrayed in the west. Thulann could never mistake the tall banners of Clan Varang. Their chieftain, Warlord Bahrok, had finally arrived at Akar. And despite the fact that he was an ally, Bahrok took no action to help Clan Kumar escape its fiery destruction.\n\nA small figure drew beside the old Juka and spat a curse. The human girl's sea-green eyes narrowed with fury. She bared her teeth and dragged russet curls from her pale, freckled brow. \"Why doesn't Bahrok move in? This is the feast he's been hungry for! His catapults could drive off those airships. He's got eight thousand warriors standing around like virgins at a cathouse!\"\n\nThulann pushed words through a wrinkled frown. \"This battle is over, Toria. Clan Kumar has won it. What we are witnessing now is the calculated murder of the victors.\"\n\n\"You're saying Bahrok is deliberately waiting for our soldiers to be wiped out!\"\n\n\"This is a trap, laid by Bahrok. He waited for our army to capture the city. Then he called upon his Technocrat accomplices to strike us down with their hidden airships. But breathe deep, child, and snuff your fears. We shall not be defeated. The slaughter will end soon.\"\n\nToria glanced at the tall Juka. \"How do you know that?\" The old Way Master laid a palm on the hilt of her sword. \"Because I am here now. I am going to stop it myself. Now help me down this hillside. These rocks are damnably loose. Defeating those airships will be difficult enough without a broken ankle hindering my bladesmanship.\"\n\nThe desert floor was parched and dusty, laced with fissures from a recent earthquake. Under a titanic column of smoke, Toria and Thulann drew near the burning city. A line of refugees moved past them, hurrying in the opposite direction. The civilians of Akar were fleeing toward the craggy hills in the west. Fear lit their soot-blackened eyes. Thulann knew why. Warlord Bahrok offered little mercy to the civilian victims of his conquests. To Bahrok, security was paramount. Every Logosian, human or Juka, he regarded as a patient enemy. Even a child could poison a well or cut a sleeping man's throat. They all deserved chains and guards.\n\nThulann pitied the warlord for his angry existence. She murmured a soft prayer for the terrified refugees. The wilds of Logosia would not be kind to them. The bedraggled families carried fewer possessions than even Thulann and Toria, who each hefted weapons and a well-laden shoulder sack.\n\nThe blasting heat of fiery Akar conjured whirlwinds from the sand. The two women wrapped scarves over their faces. Toria looked up at the many Technocrat airships, glowing in the pillar of smoke like lanterns in a giant tree. Fire and lightning slashed down from the gloom. She clutched Thulann's arm and murmured, \"How do we stop them, hey? Are we going up there?\"\n\nThulann sighed at a twinge of pain in her back. Sixty-seven years had worn her body to its innermost nerves. She loosened her spine and answered, \"When I was younger, I would have done precisely that. But after that business with Braun's Needle I have resolved to keep my feet within striking distance of the earth. This old crow has clipped her wings for good.\"\n\nFlames clawed the outskirts of town, reaching up ten times the height of the redheaded Toria. She cried out, \"Then what can we do? We don't have time to map out a plan. Venduss and Turlogan are inside there!\"\n\n\"Indeed they are,\" growled the Way Master, \"and I know where.\" Without another word she rushed into the city. Toria followed at her heels. When they reached the first slab-paved road, the horror of the battle grew tangible. The air scalded their exposed skin and eyes. Fumes and embers stole the breath from their mouths. When they darted between buildings the heat struck like a hammer. The hellish roar shook their bones. They moved with care amid smoldering debris, not only of ruined wood and ironwork but increasingly charred corpses, both Logosian soldiers and Jukan clansmen. Farther through the inferno they plunged and the mounds of bodies grew larger. Heat ignited the littered dead. The piles stirred with terrible animation; flaming breaths and smoking eyes. Screams rose like sparks in the air.\n\nBlackthorn's war machines continued to smash the city from above. The ground shuddered and twitched.\n\nIn the chaos Thulann glimpsed Toria's expression and saw the hardness growing. The aged Juka frowned. In time every young warrior learned to accept the nightmare scenes of war. Their eyes tempered like metal. The transformation was never joyful, and yet the hardening of Toria seemed particularly tragic. The minstrel had lived an impoverished childhood, but had emerged with her innocence intact. To lose it like this, to Bahrok's treachery, was violence of the worst kind.\n\nBut Toria never hesitated and neither did Thulann. The Way Master led them toward the center of town. From the distant bluff she had discerned a pattern to the Technocrat attacks. The fiercest blazes described a circle around the perimeter of Akar. This fiery wall imprisoned more than half of Clan Kumar's forces. The Jukan warriors sheltered under sturdy granite buildings. Center-most of all structures was a tall, pointed tower, bristling with chimney pipes. Thulann had spotted the Shirron's banner flying at the summit. It was clear evidence that the city had been captured before the airships arrived.\n\nThulann intended to reach that tower where Shirron Turlogan stood his ground. Turlogan was her lover of many decades. His smile was her only home. But today she did not seek him for selfish reasons. The battle hinged on his presence.\n\nWhen they breached the interior of the ring of flames, the atmosphere grew bearable again. They paused to catch their breaths. Explosions echoed around them, joined by the haunting steam whistles and trumpets of Technocrat airships communicating with each other. Toria plugged her ears with a grimace, then muttered, \"Great Mother! How can they do this to their own city? I thought they'd spent the last few years building it into an airship factory.\"\n\n\"Do not forget who orchestrates this atrocity. Warlord Bahrok and Lector Sartorius are both members of the Part of Four. They have choreographed this battle from either side to further their own careers. I am certain Sartorius's rivals must be losing much in this battle. And yet both the Lector and the warlord are precise and efficient. I cannot believe that their goal is the simple destruction of Akar and Clan Kumar.\"\n\n\"Why not? A few more hours like this and both will be ashes.\"\n\nThulann shook her head. \"The airships cannot maintain this pace. They will run out of munitions before night has fallen. Then they must retreat to Logos or Crevasse, lest Bahrok decide to knock them out of the sky with his artillery. Pact or no pact, Sartorius would never leave himself that vulnerable. No, this action has a more strategic objective. And I suspect I know what it is.\" Leaning on her walking staff, she peered around a corner and pointed. \"Do you see the tower where Turlogan's banner flies? Notice the airships hovering just above it. Those are command vessels. Troop ships. They have deployed Janissars to capture or kill the Shirron. I am certain of it.\"\n\nToria squeezed her companion's shoulder. \"And Venduss is with him! I've lost him twice now. I won't lose him again. We've got to find them!\"\n\n\"On the contrary, we must ensure that they are not found. Unfortunately, Janissars are expert shock troops and not easily turned aside. They will not leave until they have what they came for. And I fear we have little chance of killing them all.\" She scrutinized the scene around the tower. From a distance the Logosian soldiers seemed tiny, though she knew most of them were quite tall and stout. Then she pursed her lips and mumbled, \"Perhaps there is a way. We shall have to scavenge from our own dead, but I doubt they will begrudge us.\" She glanced over the petite human. \"Get undressed, Toria.\"\n\nThe girl startled. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Fetch out those Logosian clothes you have been carrying. I need bait for a trap and you have a gift for drawing men's eyes.\"\n\nIn the pandemonium of shadows and smoke they traversed the battered city. Shafts of lightning pounded the angular buildings, flinging rubble and ruined machinery with dangerous velocity. Thulann trusted her armor to ward off flying debris. But Toria was now dressed as a Logosian youth, in a short leather skirt and bodice that revealed more than they covered. An oiled cloak was her only protection from harm. So the Way Master knew they could waste no time in reaching the tower where Turlogan was barricaded with his personal Tarkosh guard. With regret she hurried past groups of Kumar clansmen who huddled under strong metal roofs. She could hear their curses when lightning strokes exploded nearby. She longed to reassure them, but could not afford the delay.\n\nI am here now, she called out in her thoughts. I shall put a stop to this.\n\nThe grey tower at the center of Akar was angled like a steep pyramid. Tall chimney pipes bristled along its height. The structure was ringed by Technocrat troops, some of whom battled to capture the tower, while others fended off Jukan warriors desperate to aid their chieftain from outside. Thulann and Toria used the cover of a large pipeline to slip past the enemy forces. The clamor of battle afforded them freedom. They hid in the complex of doors and courtyards that surrounded the base of the tower, where Janissars clashed with the Shirron's elite Tarkosh guard.\n\nOverhead, Turlogan's proud banner undulated against the roiling blackness. Thulann watched it for an indulgent moment. She was only minutes away from the tall chieftain, with whom she ached to reunite. But he was not her present goal. Instead, from the smoky gloom she scrutinized the Logosian troops. Soon she found what she needed. She nudged her petite companion.\n\nToria let out a shriek as she sprinted across an open courtyard. Her minstrel's voice cut through the din and fetched the ears of a group of Janissars. The girl was convincing as an Akarian native. The Janissars pointed and bellowed in protest as Thulann chased after her. A stroke from the Way Master's sword drew blood from Toria's arm. Then the two women ran through a doorway that Thulann had carefully selected.\n\nThe Way Master faded into the shadows and listened. Boot steps clambered after them. The Janissars had fallen for the ruse. Inside the high-vaulted corridor, Toria clutched her superficial wound and glowered at the old Juka. Thulann waved her off. The Janissars had arrived. The girl loosed another scream to draw them deeper into the corridor.\n\nFive men charged past Thulann. She nurtured a calm, protracted breath, then flashed into their midst with a drawn sword. A quick sweep felled two Janissars, one with a severed windpipe and the other with a slash across the face. The latter was down but not dead, though Thulann could not spare a heartbeat to worry about it. Two enemies whirled to face her while the last one bolted after Toria. Thulann selected the weaker of her opponents and darted around him, so that he shielded her from the larger Janissar. Then she engaged him in a dance of blades, her ornamented Garronite steel clanging against his razor-edged Logosian hook sword. Their tempo was frantic. In the granite corridor the weapons chattered a loud, metallic song. It finished when she guided her sword-point through a seam in his armor and slit open certain organs in his torso. He snarled as he collapsed.\n\nThunder roared as the ground rushed up and hammered Thulann in the chin. The larger Janissar had kicked her. A heavy boot stamped on her white braid, pinning her head to the floor. The man grunted as he brandished a weapon that was apparently quite heavy, though she could not turn her face to see it. Without thinking she tossed her braid around his ankle, then kicked up her legs and rolled end-over-end. The braid became a snare around the Janissar's leg, unbalancing him. His weapon smashed the stone floor inches from Thulann's cheek. Granite chips stung her eye. She planted her feet and sprang away, her hair no longer trapped.\n\nThe Janissar recovered his balance while Thulann blinked away the dust. Her vision focused on the gigantic man. The Logosian Juka stood nearly two heads taller than herself. His frame was wide and athletic. She judged him to be close in size to the mountainous Shirron himself.\n\nThat was, of course, why she had not killed him first.\n\nThe man hoisted an enormous hammer into guard position. Its striking surface was augmented by a spring-mounted plate. Through the face mask of his helmet she could see his furious eyes and the outraged twist to his frown. \"I know you,\" he growled. \"Thulann of Garron. The Way Master who serves the Shirron.\"\n\nShe bowed her head a bit, panting. \"You have me at a disadvantage.\"\n\n\"You withered monster! You preyed on chivalry to trap us.\"\n\n\"I apologize. I would have preyed on something less noble, but my thoughts are not as agile as they once were. I have grown old and distracted.\"\n\n\"And dishonorable as well. I'd heard better of Way Masters.\" His fists tightened on the haft of his maul. He stepped a pace nearer. His footwork was unerring. \"I thought you were gone to New Britannia. They told us that's why the sneak attack was not detected.\"\n\n\"You flatter me, but I have concluded my business abroad.\"\n\n\"Business more important than your Shirron? Then it's true that Garronites prefer intrigue to loyalty!\"\n\nA pang darted through her gut. She disapproved of this conversation. Soundlessly she assumed a ready stance, two hands on her sword hilt, as perfect and still as an instructional diagram. Her eye fixed on his chest. \"I have returned now. Reckon with me.\"\n\n\"That I will.\"\n\nWhen he advanced into her range, one clean stroke from her sword penetrated his chest plate at a joint. She felt her blade cleave an underlayer of padding and part the Janissar's flesh. She thrust her sword tip inside his shoulder. He sneered in pain.\n\nThen his giant hammer smashed against her breastbone. Ribs popped and the corridor spun. Her weak leg smacked the wall with brutal speed, wrenching it at the hip. She toppled down. By instinct she folded into a ball and rolled, then stood and swatted away a second blow.\n\nHe had knocked the breath from her lungs. Without a respite she would falter in a few seconds. Before that could happen she carved a pattern of strikes in the air to freeze him in a defensive sequence. Then she dropped to the ground and wheeled her leg at his ankles. He jumped over her leg sweep. Without a pause she spun around again and on the second turn her foot connected. The Janissar hit the floor hard. She rammed her blade at the gap in his chest armor, but missed it by an inch.\n\nHer lungs burned. She cartwheeled backward and caught her breath. As sultry air tumbled into her chest, the enormous Logosian sprang up and grabbed her. With a practiced move she twisted loose, but by then she hurtled through the air once more. She was upside down when her back slammed the wall. Inverted, she saw the man's hammer racing toward her head. Her only possible reaction was to turn her face away from the blow.\n\nWhen the spring hammer struck, her head lay flush against the smooth, granite wall. The shell of her helmet collapsed and transmitted the impact to her skull. Vision and thought exploded apart in a burst of brilliant white. The pain was spectacular. She fell to the ground.\n\nThough her body answered the command to rise, her head felt like iron. Her ears chirred with deafening volume. Her sword was gone, nor could she see to find it. Blindly she jabbed a lunge kick where she thought the Janissar might be. He grunted as she knocked, him away. She tore another breath from the air, then tracked the vibration of her opponent's footfalls and leapt at him.\n\nShe fastened a grip on his arms. Her brief panic disappeared. Her eyesight had not yet returned, but she did not require it immediately. Darkness suited wrestling forms. She clamped a hold on his elbows, which no amount of strength could untangle. He twirled his body, preparing to slam her to the ground, but after decades of training her limbs moved unconsciously into position. As both combatants started to fall, her legs scissored around his throat. They dropped and his weight pounded atop her, but she locked herself into place and ignored the pain. The choking maneuver was complete. He would sleep soon, despite any effort he might undertake.\n\nSomething stung her waist. Though his strength was vanishing and his arms were pinned, the Janissar had forced his knee up at a startling angle. The top of his boot was barbed with a squat knife, which he drove into her flank. Bands of blood streamed from the wound, but she was confident the attack would not kill her before he lost consciousness. She thanked the Great Mother that the blade was not poisoned.\n\nMore running footsteps came to her ears. Her bruised eye regained sight, as if she stared into a murky pool, in which appeared the russet-haired Toria. The human was bloody and her clothes were tom, but she charged down the corridor with healthy rage. Above her head she lifted a large cutlass that shimmered with otherworldly light. Her target was the Janissar who pinned Thulann to the ground. The girl's enchanted blade stroked down with a noise like an ocean wind.\n\nThulann had to react with perfect timing. She kicked the cutlass aside, just before it severed the Janissar's spine. The shock of impact numbed her leg. The blade crashed on the floor and cast up a spray of sparks. In the next instant the Janissar yanked his throat away from Thulann's clutches, though his strength was nearly gone. He lay gurgling for a breath.\n\nThulann barked at Toria, \"We must not kill him!\" Then she stared into the man's glassy eyes and muttered, \"What is your name, warrior?\"\n\nThe weakness of his voice did not diminish its pride: \"I am Master Enosh of Junction.\"\n\n\"I greet you with respect and honor, Master Enosh. You fight splendidly and honorably. And no, I do not deny your charge that my people are afflicted with intrigue. But before you condemn us, I advise you to observe your own Lectors. Sartorius betrays your people. You yourself are the tool of his schemes.\"\n\nThe Janissar growled angrily, \"You're lying.\"\n\n\"I feint in battle, but I do not lie.\" Thulann winced at her injured ribs. Then she cocked back an elbow, ready to strike the Janissar. \"Now I must apologize, but you have become my tool, as well. Take comfort that I have chosen you for the most flattering of reasons.\" Her elbow landed on his face with a loud crack. When he did not fall unconscious, she repeated the action.\n\nMaster Enosh lolled onto the ground. Thulann's arm throbbed with pain.\n\nToria was peering through the doorway at the battle outside. She wiped blood from her cheek and murmured, \"No one else is coming, but we'd better hurry all the same.\"\n\nThulann summoned a Way Master's composure against the torment of her injuries. She staggered to her feet and said, \"You may put your armor back on, child. And bring me a lock pick and that bottle of ink Captain Bawdewyn gave you. He must forgive you writing him one less letter, for the sake of the nation of Jukaran.\"\n\nPain lanced her torso. Thulann realized with dismay that she had fallen down again. Her skull boomed like an iron drum. As Toria leapt to her side the old Juka rasped, \"And find me a healing potion, if you please. Concussions are not as deadly as sword-thrusts and stricken hearts, but they weaken you like the former and knock you senseless like the latter.\"\n\nToria rushed away to retrieve their gear. Thulann sat up and gritted her teeth to resist a savage headache. Then she steadied her breathing, raised an elbow above Master Enosh's unconscious face and resumed her exhausting work.\n\nSomeday, the Way Master resolved, she would commission a suit of Janissar armor specifically fitted to her body. As a spy she had many occasions to don the enemy's mail. For all of their advanced manufacturing methods, however, the Technocrats could not seem to fashion armor that was remotely comfortable for her. Straps bound too tightly. Hidden comers worried her skin. Despite the absence of ornamentation, Technocrat suits were heavier, not lighter, than those crafted in Jukaran. Thulann could not fathom it. Perhaps the philosophy of the Machine dictated that its adherents must suffer. More likely, she surmised, Logosian armorers were either unconcerned with comfort or unabashedly sadistic.\n\nCurrently she endured the Technocrats' handiwork in her disguise as a Logosian soldier. Through smoky corridors she made her way toward the Janissars who ringed Turlogan's tower. Behind her she dragged the body of Master Enosh. The Janissar was not dead, but Thulann and Toria had altered his appearance a great deal. He was dressed now in fine, if bloody, Garronite armor. His head was shaven. Toria had burned away the Janissar tattoo that adorned his massive arm, while Thulann had used ink and a needle-like lock pick to inscribe a new tattoo on his chest. The marking was distinctive, simple and regal: the sigil of the Shirron himself.\n\nTo complete the masquerade, Thulann had battered Master Enosh's face until it was entirely unrecognizable. He would not wake for many days, since the Technocrats did not embrace healing magic.\n\nNow she hauled his limp, heavy form back to the Janissar troops. She took care to select a platoon on the far side of the tower from Enosh's own company. When she broke into the open, her ears pulsed with the thunder of battle and the blare of airship horns. Several Logosians scrambled to help her. Wearing a full Technocrat face plate, she was not concerned about being recognized. \"It's the Shirron!\" she howled at the others. \"Take him, quick! His guardsmen can't be far behind me!\"\n\nThe Janissars looked incredulous. \"How did you get to him? What company are you from?\"\n\n\"I serve with Master Enosh and I want to get back there fast! Haul this Garronite beast to your airship so we can get out of this inferno. That monster Bahrok is lurking outside of town and I don't trust him to keep civil much longer.\" Thulann found Toria in the shadows of the original corridor, repacking their belongings. The girl was again dressed in the leather armor of a New Britannian buccaneer. The knee-length hauberk was a bit too large, but in Toria's case it seemed neither uncomfortable nor unflattering. Thulann envied the girl's versatility. \"It is done,\" commented the Way Master, joining Toria in the gloom. She found her walking staff and leaned her weight upon it. \"Do you hear how the war trumpets have changed their melody? They believe they have acquired their prey, and so they are retreating. Bahrok will move his troops in presently.\"\n\nThe minstrel hissed, \"He's got a lot to answer for. I can't wait till he shows that ugly face!\"\n\nThulann sighed. \"I shall be content to separate my face and the rest of my body from this unforgiving suit of armor. These Technocrat disguises are murder\u2014\"\n\nWithout warning someone smashed into her from the thick of the darkness. She flung to the ground. A cruel pain chewed her calf. The Way Master immediately knew that her game leg had broken again. She flipped away her attacker and tumbled to a defensive stance.\n\nThe man fell upon her once more. She plucked the sword from his grip and hurled it aside. Fighting unarmed, he engaged her with a barrage of expert kicks and punches. Thulann recognized the techniques of a Way Master, which meant he was a clansman, probably a Tarkosh guardsman. His stealth was impressive to have eluded her notice. Through his guard she jabbed an open-palm blow that thumped onto his throat. His steel gorget did not absorb the entire force. He gasped, then kicked her in the chest and toppled her backward. Her sore ribs complained.\n\nShe dove into deeper shadows and bit down a smoldering anger. Then a glittering light invaded the dark corridor. Toria had unsheathed her enchanted cutlass, strewing brilliant motes like flashing sand. The girl's face shone pale in the eerie glow. She ran toward the silhouette of their attacker.\n\nThe man choked out the name, \"Toria?!\"\n\nThe minstrel froze in place and answered, \"Venduss?\" Thulann closed her eye and frowned. A part of her was relieved that her former student was alive and healthy. Another part wanted to punish Venduss for attacking her without verifying that she was truly Logosian, despite the armor she wore. But prudence cautioned her to stillness. Until a week ago, Toria had believed that Venduss was dead, and not until this moment did Venduss know that his lover yet lived. Thulann had no part in this reunion.\n\nThen another burst of light chased away the gloom altogether. Thulann recognized the radiance of a magical spell. It sprang from the tip of a bladed spear, held aloft by a young Jukan woman in a white robe. Painted on her brow was an intricate symbol. Her garment distinguished her as an Initiate of the Way.\n\nThe Jukan magician was preparing to unleash sorcery at Toria.\n\nThulann stood in full view and snapped, \"Enough!\" In a quick motion she removed the Janissar helmet, allowing the attackers to see her face. Both of them dropped to their knees.\n\n\"Teacher!\" gulped Venduss.\n\n\"Way Master,\" murmured the young woman, bowing her head with obeisance proper to a lesser member of Thulann's order. Her spell faded away, replaced by a soft, benign light.\n\nThe old Juka sniffed at the ache of her broken leg. She regained her walking staff and stamped it against the floor. \"Venduss! Get up, suckling! You are learning to be a war master now. You kneel only to the Great Mother herself.\" The tall warrior rose at her order, though Thulann did not command his attention. His gaze was still attached upon Toria, whose own expression was transforming from shock to delight. Thulann added, \"See what I found overseas, Venduss? It turns out that when humans die, they only go to New Britannia.\"\n\nHer green eyes dampening, the minstrel rushed forward and threw her arms around the young warrior. But her happy murmurs clipped short when Venduss stiffened and pulled away. His face was taut with disbelief. Toria stepped back a pace, confused.\n\nThulann sighed and motioned to the kneeling Jukan woman. \"Toria, allow me to introduce Tekmhat of Clan Eryem, daughter of Warlord Savan. She is betrothed to Venduss. Tekmhat, this is my traveling companion, Toria of New Britannia.\"\n\nThe two young women regarded each other with cryptic expressions. When Tekmhat glimpsed Thulann again, she cast her eyes downward. Toria's blood-smeared face hardened once more, as it had when they traversed the burning city. \"I've come back to you, Venduss,\" she said with measured calm. \"I am happy to see you fit and breathing.\"\n\nVenduss composed himself and answered, \"As am I, Toria. The Great Mother blesses us with good fortune.\"\n\nThulann's broken bone sang with pain. Her patience dissolved. She snorted, \"You are quite fortunate indeed, nursling, that Tekmhat is learned in the arts of water magic. If my leg is not soon healed, I am liable to grow angry with you!\"\n\nTekmhat dashed to her aid. Using a spell learned from a New Britannian sorcerer, the teenager flooded Thulann's leg with exquisite, sparkling relief. As she did so the Jukan girl muttered, \"Way Master, what has happened? Why are the Technocrats retreating?\"\n\n\"I have given them fool's gold and they took it for the real thing. Pray that they do not uncover the deception before Bahrok secures the city. But even still, this nightmare is not over. We are trapped in an inferno and our army is scattered. We must quit this town and regroup. Our injured are legion. Tekmhat, with your healing magic I daresay you shall be the most exhausted of us all by morning.\"\n\nVenduss turned away and knelt to recover his sword, which lay on the ground nearby. Over his shoulder he remarked, \"My father is recovering near the peak of the tower. The fighting has been heavy. He will be glad to see you, Thulann.\"\n\nThe old Juka nibbled her lip. \"Indeed. There is much work to do. He cannot carry this burden alone.\"\n\nHer three companions gave no further comment. As they prepared to go, tension forced an uneasy quiet. Thulann joined in the silence. Days as black as this one were beyond the scope of conversation. The shadows between words more accurately expressed the pain.\n\nOutside the corridor, in the burning city, the boom of Technocrat thunderbolts dwindled like the fading of an old storm.\n\nThe chamber was sour with blood and sweat. Twilight deepened the shadows. The flames of Akar slung rippling light through a tall, iron-barred window. A giant of a warrior stood in the crimson glow, an armored outline watching the wreckage of a city. Shirron Turlogan held a notched sword in one hand. His grip was fierce. His breathing was heavy and doleful.\n\nThulann slipped her fingers into his other hand. Though both Juka wore fighting gloves, the warmth of the touch was overwhelming. Their fingers laced together as if they had never parted. Turlogan relaxed just slightly. He had not yet looked at her, nor did he have to.\n\n\"The Technocrat armada has been defeated,\" she said, knowing what his first question would be. \"Braun's Needle is destroyed. The New Britannians are preparing to sail to our aid.\"\n\nThe Shirron nodded. His voice pinched through angry lips. \"We shall need it. Kumar is decimated.\" He squeezed her palm. \"Welcome home. I wish I could give you happy news in turn.\"\n\nShe conjured a hint of a smile. \"No need, my love. Just sing me a bad poem.\"\n\n\"Look around you. This is my poetry today.\" The room was littered with dead Janissars. Firelight glinted in the wetness.\n\n\"Gruesome as ever,\" she murmured, then leaned against him. \"How did Venduss fare in the attack?\"\n\n\"Marvelously. He commands with conviction. He thinks and acts quickly. The war masters are fond of teaching him.\" For an instant his face lightened. He wrapped a long arm around her. \"You did well with my son.\"\n\nThe Way Master pressed her temple to his shoulder. She sensed the rage bound in his muscles. \"And not so well with you. I should have done better not to go to New Britannia. The airships\u2014\"\n\nTurlogan's finger touched her lips. \"No one in our clan is to blame.\"\n\nHis tone betrayed the lie. Thulann could see whom he blamed. Her absence had played a part in the disaster\u2014if she had not left the continent, she might have discovered the trap before it sprung\u2014but history would record the welfare of a clan as the responsibility of its chieftain. The weight of it hardened the Shirron's wrinkled face.\n\nIn her mind the aged woman whispered I should have beenhere, though no sound passed through her lips. Her arm snaked around her lover's waist. Her presence beside him conveyed as much of a statement as the bleak circumstances warranted.\n\nBy the next sunrise, the scope of the devastation was clear. Fires still smoldered in isolation, but the worst of the inferno was finished. Akar was a charred bone yard, heaped with corpses and cracked, ruined buildings. The soldiers of Clan Varang had secured the remains. They looted what few spoils the fires had left intact.\n\nThrongs of refugees herded into barricades. Warlord Bahrok's troops scoured the western hills for escapees. Untended livestock dispersed in clumps across the sandy desert, where Logosia's wild predators collected for a meal. Swarms of scavengers attended to their duty.\n\nThe survivors of Clan Kumar mustered in the arid plain to the north. Between the battle for Akar and the subsequent air attack, the losses to the army were terrible. Of a force of eight thousand, a full third had perished. Three thousand more suffered from diseases or injuries more severe than the clan healers could soon repair. The remaining soldiers were afforded little rest as they cared for the wounded and sorted the dead. A host of ridge-backs pulled charnel wagons. Funeral smoke pillared the desert.\n\nThe mood of the encampment was dour. Daylight had transformed anger into numbness. The only sounds were metallic, the clink of tools and the rattle of iron-shod wheels. Heat rose quickly in the windswept desert. Tiny steel creatures scuttled between shadows, the mechanical vermin of Logosia.\n\nOnce the army had regrouped, Thulann had convinced Turlogan to retire to his pavilion and rest. He had to be strong and alert now, for the sake of the clan. For some time that morning they lay together while Thulann postulated a lawful course of action against Bahrok. Even though Turlogan was the Shirron, he could not pass judgment on a grievance in which he himself was the injured party. Thulann decided that the only answer was to summon a council of warlords to vote. Bahrok would bring his allies to speak and Turlogan would bring his own, and so the unaligned clans would ultimately decide whether to punish Varang and in what kind.\n\nTurlogan listened to Thulann's words and never once dissented. Yet she knew that his thoughts still smoldered with Akar.\n\nShe woke to the flutter of a tent flap, bright in the desert sun. She did not know how long she had slept. Her heart immediately chilled.\n\nTurlogan was gone. His weapons and armor were not in the pavilion.\n\nShe dashed outside to find Toria sitting in the shade of the tent. The girl held a Logosian padlock and absently toyed her lock-picks inside it. When the lock drooped open, she snapped it shut again.\n\n\"Toria, did you see the Shirron?\"\n\n\"He was walking to the south end of the camp, half an hour ago.\"\n\n\"Damn.\" She glanced at the human, whose tone had been sour. \"I thought you were assisting the healers.\"\n\n\"I wasn't much help. The Initiates use so much healing magic now, I'm just in the way.\"\n\n\"Next time use songs instead of bandages. Music helps the dying as well as the injured. But as long as you are not presently occupied, I have a task for you. Find Venduss and tell him to meet me here as soon as possible. Make sure that he stays put until I arrive. It is very important that he does so.\"\n\nToria closed her eyes. \"I'd rather not see him, mistress. Not this morning.\"\n\n\"Our actions determine the future of the clan. You may settle your affair with Venduss at your own pace, but do not expea history to slow down for you!\" At the minstrel's scowl she added, \"Please, Toria. I need you right now.\"\n\nWith a nod and a sigh, the girl tossed away the lock and trotted off to find the Shirron's son. Thulann hurried back inside the pavilion and laced up her own armor.\n\nThe southern edge of the camp faced the smoking ruins of Akar, a mile away. Around the city clustered the peaked tents of Clan Varang. Thulann took a ridge back from the nearest corral and started in that direction. Clouds of dust rose phantomlike around her. To keep from breathing the fine desert sand she pressed her sleeve over her mouth. She owned a black silk scarf that normally served the purpose, but it was missing from Turlogan's pavilion when she awoke.\n\nAs she approached Warlord Bahrok's vast encampment, a small commotion caught her eye. Soldiers streamed from their tents and gathered into a crowd. She kicked her ridge back into a trot. Before long she plunged through the crowd to reach Shirron Turlogan. Unmolested, he walked among the startled soldiers, heading for the pavilion of Bahrok himself. Thulann dismounted and took step beside him.\n\nShe assumed a regal bearing and whispered, \"After careful deliberation, then, you have decided to stick a knife in Bahrok's gut?\"\n\n\"It is my legal right to seek the Black Duel.\"\n\n\"It is not the best answer. The council of warlords\u2014\"\n\n\"I shall not defend Kumar's honor with words! I am after vengeance, not redress.\"\n\n\"I know the Duel better than anyone. Now is the wrong time. Please turn around.\"\n\n\"Not even for you, my dearest.\"\n\nThulann paused, then muttered, \"Are you rested enough to beat him?\"\n\nA wild flash lit his eyes. \"In this affair I have rested enough to cut down Blackthorn himself. Do you not think?\"\n\nShe tried to stifle a smirk, but failed. \"Each one in his turn, love.\"\n\nThe warriors of Varang followed them with murmuring tension. Their faces registered confusion. When they pointed at Turlogan their individual moods shifted. Some appeared relieved, others somber, yet others sad or angry. Thulann realized that these men had thought the Shirron was captured or dead. His appearance this morning must be a shock. She wondered what lies Bahrok had told them to justify yesterday's treachery. These soldiers were loyal to their chieftain, and rightly so, but they were also Juka and men of honor. Many of them would not sleep well tonight.\n\nNor were they alone in their surprise. When Thulann and Turlogan reached the warlord's pavilion, Bahrok himself greeted them outside with a perplexed frown. The stocky chieftain was Thulann's height, much less than the Shirron, though both men shared a similar weight. Bahrok was dressed in a robe and trousers of exquisite material and utilitarian design. On his left hand he wore a glove. In his gaze sparkled angry cunning. \"Shirron Turlogan! I was told you were captured last night!\"\n\n\"Inside,\" growled the aged warrior as he pushed past the warlord and stepped under the large tent.\n\nBahrok squinted, then glanced at Thulann. \"And you have returned so soon from New Britannia? Then surely it was you who freed him from the Technocrats' hands.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Every hand that touched him lies severed on the floor. He was never captured, Bahrok, because I know how you think.\"\n\n\"I?\"\n\nShe snorted. \"The next time you want to commit treason, give clearer details to the enemy. The Janissars kidnapped the wrong person. I could paste feathers on a fleshwing and they would take it for an eagle.\"\n\n\"Mind your words, old witch. I do not indulge accusations.\" He tied shut the tent door after they passed through it. When he faced into the room, Shirron Turlogan stood inches from him. Bahrok stared at the older man's chest.\n\nTurlogan glared down and took a deep breath. \"I am here for payment. You will honor me.\"\n\n\"Of course. Your army is in need of assistance. I shall do everything I can to escort them back to Jukaran.\" He followed the comment with a smile.\n\nThe Shirron seized Bahrok's collar with a large hand. The warlord snatched his wrist in return and both chieftains traded glowers. Turlogan barked, \"Oh, you will pay me, warlord, every price I name! Because despite what you have done I am still stronger than you. I shall always be stronger than you. No bluster or back-stabbing can change that fact and you know it.\" He released Bahrok's collar with a slight shove.\n\nThe warlord crossed his arms and smirked. \"Stronger than I? Your army is sliced in half, Shirron. I am no scholar, but I think your math is faulty.\"\n\nThulann interjected, \"Soldiers do not vote in a council of warlords! The other chieftains will weigh your punishment and I assure you, justice will be your heaviest burden.\"\n\nBahrok spat a laugh. \"A council, shall it be? During an invasion? By all means summon one! The chieftains will not gather again until I am leading them down the streets of Logos to accept Blackthorn's surrender. Call for my blood on that day, if you believe your case is strong enough.\"\n\n\"We shall,\" she growled, \"if we do not yet have satisfaction.\"\n\nTurlogan gripped her shoulder. \"Thank you, my dear, but I have my own mouth with which to bite. And bite you I shall, Bahrok, until the bone cracks.\"\n\nThe warlord's tone lowered a register. \"Do you threaten a clan war now? With Logosia laid out like a meal before us and the New Britannians coming for dinner? You are as brash as your human-loving son and just as foolish.\"\n\nThe aged Shirron snarled, \"Foolish! Let me demonstrate what kind of fool I am.\" From his sleeve he withdrew Thulann's black scarf, which he flung on the ground before Bahrok. \"I am fool enough to wager everything on that piece of silk. Look at it, you viper! Look closely, because that is something you have forgotten. That is the Jukan soul. We face conflict with law and honor, not with treasonous pacts and needless slaughter. We are not barbarians!\"\n\nWarlord Bahrok stared at the black scarf with uneasy suspicion. Thulann almost imagined he was shrinking away from it. With an etched brow he muttered, \"What do you mean, wager everything?\"\n\n\"I mean you and I, sword to sword, horn to horn. If I win the Black Duel, you pledge your loyalty to me without question or condition. And if I lose, I shall step down from the office of Shirron. Only by tournament can you win the right to succeed me, but I shall no longer stand in your way and neither, as you know, will anyone else.\"\n\nThulann's body went cold. \"Turlogan\u2014\"\n\nThe immense Shirron ignored her. 'Why do you hesitate, Bahrok? Is that not what you most desire, what you have slavered over for so many years, like a hound by a butcher's door? There lies the meat, still bloody to taste. Bare your teeth, dog!\"\n\nThulann clutched her fists together. The breath caught in her throat. She wished she could pluck up the scarf and throw it away, but nothing could withdraw the challenge now. This was the decision Turlogan's pride demanded.\n\nBahrok peered at the black silk, then glanced up at Turlogan and opened a toothy grin. \"Die in your sleep, old man. I shall not notch my blade for your sake.\" His emerald lips parted and he spat on the black scarf. His eyes never released the Shirron's gaze.\n\nThulann winced. She realized that Bahrok had planned this entire scene. And he was playing it with a craft and patience of which she had not thought him capable.\n\nTurlogan's face ignited with fury. \"You still fear me! Forty years ago I beat your father in the Great Tournament, and you still see me with a child's terrified eyes!\"\n\n\"Fear you? Turlogan, I have already beaten you! After the war the other chieftains will clamor for me to replace you. Your throne is a sham. Your clan is in ruins. March around Logosia with your one-eyed nanny on a leash, if it suits you, but I have an invasion to complete. I shall not smear my hands on the filth of your reputation!\" With a snort he kicked a plume of dust over the black scarf and stomped deeper into the pavilion.\n\nThe air in the tent seemed to lurch as Shirron Turlogan hurtled forward and threw his fist at Bahrok. The warlord saw the attack but could not evade it. Gauntleted knuckles crashed against his cheekbone and the warlord tumbled backward, upending a desk amid a flurry of loose parchment. In an instant Bahrok was on his feet again with blade in hand. Turlogan's broadsword flashed as well. Thulann rushed forward to intervene, though she had no hope of stopping them.\n\nThen Bahrok raised his sword over his shoulder and flipped it at the ground. The blade stuck through the patterned rug and deep into the packed sand underneath. He lifted his chin, spread out his arms and presented his unarmored chest to the Shirron. \"This is your honor? This is your law? It seems you are a barbarian, after all! Nor am I surprised, after the way you squandered a throne built by your own mother and father. You have no more discipline, old man. Forty years in that palace have broken you apart. You are an honest catastrophe.\"\n\n\"Pick up that scarf and I shall show you how broken I am!\"\n\n\"Go back to Garron, Turlogan. Polish that fine sword for Venus wedding. Occupy yourself until the end comes. It shall not be long now.\"\n\nThe Shirron slapped his blade into its sheath, then with lightning speed snatched Bahrok's collar again. The warlord tried to free himself but Turlogan swatted away his hands and pulled him off-balance. Leaning down into Bahrok's face, the taller Juka muttered, \"As a coward, you are an absolute trailblazer! You redefine the term. That is the legacy you have secured at Akar. You have defeated yourself, not me! Not me. You have not beaten me.\"\n\nHe thrust Bahrok against a tent pole. The pavilion shuddered. Then he turned away and stormed out the door, his exquisite, bloody armor creaking at its leather joints. The shambles of the room seemed to roil in his wake. The tent flap hung slightly open, admitting a slash of bright desert sun.\n\nThulann knew better than to touch the Shirron as he left, or to follow him. Her heart wrung in her chest.\n\nBahrok straightened his robe and snorted. \"Rancid old pteranx.\"\n\nThe Way Master sneered, \"Quiet, vermin! Savor your success today. Tomorrow you will die for it. Or the next day, or the next.\"\n\nThe warlord's face eased into a smirk. \"He never had your wit, old hag. He is a helpless child without you.\"\n\nShe closed her weary eye and sighed. \"I know that.\"\n\nUnder a brightening sky, Turlogan was a tiny spot in the distance as Thulann guided her ridge back across the desert toward him. The tents of Clan Kumar spread out ahead of them. The Shirron walked in silence. She trotted alongside him and murmured, \"You were right, you know. Bahrok was terrified of you. He always shall be.\"\n\nTurlogan reached out a hand and patted her forearm gently. Then he quickened his pace without uttering a sound. Thulann grimaced, then hurried ahead to clear the way to his pavilion. He would not benefit from the attention of soldiers just now, nor would the soldiers benefit from his.\n\nThe Shirron's large tent looked deserted until Thulann peeked inside. She fell quiet. Toria and Venduss were there, as she had requested. The Way Master had wanted to ensure that Venduss did not interfere with the confrontation between Turlogan and Bahrok; but the young warrior and Toria were taking advantage of this rare opportunity for privacy. They stood together and embraced. It was a long, emphatic touch that expressed what words could not, a touch that knew neither the past nor the future but existed willfully in the present. They pressed a moment of time between their bodies and held it there.\n\nThulann pulled away from the tent flap and sat down outside. Heartbeats stampeded through her willowy frame. She summoned a trance to steady herself, then gazed ahead at the place where Turlogan would soon appear. In her mind he had already arrived, bearing on his broad shoulders the weight of this desert morning. The dry wind brought dampness to her eye.\n\nI should have been here, my love, she called to him, but I will not leave your side again."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Junction",
+                "text": "And when Sir Lazaro and his knights reached the bottom level of the cavern, they found a great chamber hot with smoke and lava. The cave bared its stalagmites like the teeth of a giant dragon. A dark shape slithered through the haze, clicking its claws on the stone floor and drooling flame from its snout. Sir Jacob of Yew led the charge against the ancient wyrm but it was Sir Lazaro's enchanted sword, the Talon of Covetous, that finally slew the monster. Ten knights lay dead beside its carcass.\n\nDeeper in the cavern the survivors found a hoard of gold and stiver. Sir Lazaro surrendered his share of the treasure. In exchange he took a simple iron pot, inscribed with peculiar runes. The knight-wizard Lord Blackthorn recognized the Cauldron of Kwan Li, a fabled artifact that rendered immortality upon the ancient wyrms of Sosaria. The other knights were amazed when Sir Lazaro placed the cauldron on the ground and smashed it to pieces with his magic sword, the blade of which flew apart in the action.\n\nOn that day did the brave knight forfeit his legendary weapon and the riches of a king in order to protea Britannia from the hunger of the wyrms. In the bowels of the earth, the Virtue of Sacrifice triumphed once again.\n\nSteel rivets clattered as the iron door rolled open. Steam and bright light tumbled into the darkened room. Two silhouettes stood in the doorway. One of them wore a robe and hood that concealed the shape of his body. The other stood tall and proud, his outline glinting from silvery plate armor. A triangular shield hung on one arm. A sword flashed in his hand.\n\nThe knight Montenegro took a step into the chamber and peered through the sultry murk. Steam and darkness concealed details, but he sensed a large open space between himself and the far wall and a considerable height to the ceiling. Metallic clanks haunted the chamber, the echoes of great machinery behind the walls. The stench of hot grease nipped the air.\n\nSilently Montenegro resolved, I'll kill them if that's what it takes.\n\nSomething moved in the gloom, a slick, mechanical sound. He could not place it. He lifted a small device to his face and hooked it to a stud on his helmet. The glass lens, banded with copper, pressed against one eye. For an instant his vision blurred. When he regained his focus, strange images resolved.\n\nThrough the sepia-hued lens he saw the room as if the darkness were gone. Steam still clouded the air, but he could make out the shape and contents of the chamber. The place resembled a large warehouse. The walls were fashioned of cement and steel. Wooden pallets crowded much of the floor space, stacked with half-assembled machine components in grotesque arrangements, like sculptures in frozen animation. From cranes in the rafters drizzled a shower of chains, their hooks clicking together as they swayed among currents of hot air. Vents in the high walls exhaled thick, tumbling fumes.\n\nA blur darted past the comer of Montenegro's eye. He whirled and thrust out his shield, but the movement was gone. The runner had exploited the limited peripheral vision of the miner's monocle. Whoever was out there was masterful at stealth. Nor was he the only enemy lurking in the storage chamber.\n\nMontenegro grimaced. He had not come here to skulk around in the dark. He sheathed his sword, crouched low and dashed across the open space. His plate mail clacked with each footfall. Then he stepped to the side and jumped up, gaining purchase on a mound of gears and axles. The machine parts shifted under his weight. Stout netting held them together. He knelt atop the pile. From this vantage he could scout the room for concealed enemies.\n\nHis grey eyes punctured the gloom. No one else was visible, except for the robed figure in the doorway. With a frown he thought, Where is everyone, then? Afraid to face a Montenegro?\n\nWhen a fierce light blinded him he knew the battle had come. He slammed his iron-clad shield in the path of a bolt of lightning that sprang from deep inside the room. The static shock banged through his armor like a physical blow. He kicked out his legs and dropped underneath the bolt. Arrows whizzed past him as he rolled away to the edge. Two enemy warriors lurked there, Technocrats in their distinctive armor, waiting for him to jump down. Instead he gripped the strands of netting. He slung out his feet. The men ducked, then charged forward as he clambered back onto the mound. Missiles bashed his shield. Ignoring the impacts he whisked out his sword and sliced downward, severing the net and releasing an avalanche of heavy metal parts. The two Technocrat warriors leapt over the cascade of machinery, but lost their balance when they tried to land on it. They toppled into the steely, sharp-edged tide.\n\nMontenegro let go of the chain from which he was hanging. He landed in an alert crouch.\n\nSomething clamped onto his shield. He spun around to see another Technocrat soldier behind him. This one wore a long, armored gauntlet with mechanical steel jaws at the end. The jaws bit down on his shield, chewing through its iron plating and shattering the wooden core. The knight released the shield. Then he kicked the jaws aside and clanged his sword against the Technocrat's chest plate. He recognized the sound of spring-enhanced kinetic armor. He changed his tactics to favor thrusting. The Technocrat dropped the shield and faced him. For a split second they gauged one another, then both men lunged forward. With furious speed they clashed in the gloom, longsword ringing, jaws snapping, throwing kicks and elbows amid a chorus of grunts and curses. Finally Montenegro unbalanced his opponent with a blow to the head, then knocked the man's legs out from under him. The knight flung himself atop the Technocrat and pressed the tip of his blade under the man's chin. The Technocrat froze.\n\nMontenegro felt his own breaths suddenly shorten. He glanced down to see the Technocrat's steel-jawed gauntlet clamped around his own plate-armored throat. The weapon had nearly crushed the metal of his gorget.\n\nThey would both be dead men in another instant.\n\n\"Cease,\" boomed a voice from the doorway. The robed silhouette raised one hand. \"Brigadier Khyber, I believe the point is made.\"\n\nMontenegro growled at his own lack of concentration. He pulled his longsword away from the Technocrat's head. His armor relaxed as the steel jaws undamped from his own throat. Montenegro began to rise, when a loud pop startled him. He brandished his sword. The blade had been sheared in half by the mechanical jaws of the Technocrat's gauntlet.\n\nThe Logosian soldier threw back his face mask as he stood. The bearded human's expression was pitiless. \"No, Your Excellency, now the point is made.\"\n\nThe knight snorted and flung down the broken sword. \"Lector Gaff, you should whip your dogs when they snap like that. Otherwise they're likely to get into trouble.\"\n\nWithout emotion the hooded figure said, \"Silence. The demonstration is complete. Conduct yourselves with civility.\"\n\n\"I was more civil than necessary in submitting to this test, but my tolerance is at an end. Patience, you recall, is not among the Virtues.\"\n\nLector Gaff nodded. \"You have proven your skill against Brigadier Khyber. Let us proceed. The task before us is urgent.\" He turned a crank on a device in his hand. A blue light sprouted in the glass of the spark lantern, illuminating the Mathematician under his yawning cowl. Lector Gaff was a middle-aged man with a sharp, angular face. Every inch of his skin was laced with tattoos, depicting the intricate mathematical equations sacred to the order that he commanded. His deep-set eyes were as cold as the numbers surrounding them. They reflected the icy glow as if they were luminant themselves.\n\nMontenegro caught the Mathematician's gaze for an instant. The knight narrowed his eyes. Gaff was the most powerful man in Logosia, behind only Lector Sartorius and Blackthorn himself. His glance demanded respect. The knight could not deny the Mathematician's deadly cunning and steely charisma. He was a formidable, impressive leader.\n\nMontenegro had disliked him from the moment they had met.\n\nWith a grumble the knight turned away, pulling off his metal helm. He removed the skullcap underneath, freeing long, ebony curls. Sweat dribbled down his cheeks. As more Technocrat soldiers emerged from the darkness, equipped with an assortment of mechanical weapons, Montenegro wiped his brow and muttered to Gaff, \"For elite soldiers these men weren't trying very hard. Perhaps I should put them through a test of my own, to see if they are worthy of a Montenegro's time.\"\n\nBrigadier Khyber growled back, \"I know who you are. The grandson of the famous Sir Lazaro Montenegro. You may assure yourself, Sir Gabriel, that in Logosia we judge a man's worth by his skill, not his pedigree.\"\n\n\"Do not goad me, Khyber,\" warned the knight. \"You are not far from becoming another head among the Technocrats I've collected.\"\n\nThe officer did not flinch. \"Count yourself fortunate that you never met my brigade on the battlefield, or we would not be having this discussion now. You've never faced anyone like me.\"\n\nThe New Britannian saw that Brigadier Khyber was not boasting. The Logosian was not a large man, but his body was taut, fast and lethal. From his carriage and frosty countenance he projected an impression of forged confidence, the emotional callus of brutal combat experience. Montenegro knew that look. It could not be counterfeited.\n\nThe knight grunted. \"Don't task me, Khyber, when we are supposed to be working together. Lector Gaff, I believe I can fight alongside these soldiers of yours. They have skill and spirit, even if they do bleed commoners' blood. Now I beg you to take me out of this place. We have plans to make and I find it difficult to concentrate in here, with the stench of your machines and your men.\"\n\nGaff nodded and stepped out the door, into the hallway beyond. Montenegro followed. The Mathematician entwined his fingers and said, \"Come, then. We shall make arrangements for your continued stay in Junction. Though I must warn you that animosity toward Khyber helps no one. You and he must learn trust.\"\n\n\"Trust? Will he ever trust the man who sank Braun's Needle? The man who has personally killed dozens of Technocrat soldiers? He won't, and neither would I in his position.\" Montenegro sniffed as he tucked his helmet under one arm. \"You will never trust me, either, Gaff, but that is irrelevant. We can work together without trust, as long as we are clear about each other's motivations.\"\n\n\"And precisely what is your motivation? Why have you come to join your enemy?\"\n\n\"You know exactly why. I intend to stop this dishonorable war. You and I shall defeat Warlord Bahrok's army. We'll sue Shirron Turlogan for peace before the invasion gains momentum. Not a drop of New Britannian blood need be shed for the sake of this worthless landscape.\"\n\n\"Except perhaps for General Nathaniel's blood.\"\n\nThe Mathematician's tone had been cold. The knight raised an eyebrow. \"You want to strike down the Pact of Four as badly as I do. And I thought Mathematicians were supposed to be emotionless.\"\n\n\"Lector Sartorius betrays the Machine. He is a component that must be replaced. It is a logical deduction, not an emotional one.\"\n\nMontenegro grunted. \"Call it by whatever name you see fit, but don't deny that you want revenge. Lies are most egregious when directed at oneself. Personally, I am not by nature a man who hides his feelings.\"\n\nThe Lector gave him no response, except to hand him a dark cloak. Montenegro donned the garment, which concealed his distinctive New Britannian plate mail. Then Lector Gaff led him down the wide corridor. The hall was fashioned of cement and stone. Its floor was rutted from the passing of many carts. Clearly the place was centuries old. This region of the vast building provided storage for a huge, fiery factory into which the two men now emerged.\n\nThe chaotic factory chamber could have been called a smithy or a foundry, though such terms did no justice to the scope of the nightmarish clamor. A jungle of machines clanged and thrummed and ground away amid the roar and flash of hundreds of fires. Smoke tumbled through the air. Molten steel pulsed around a labyrinth of stone conduits, like blood vessels pumping a ghastly yellow light. The entire, mountainous chamber crashed with animation. Huge bellows groaned. Giant pistons stomped in rhythm. Enormous gears gnashed hungrily. The mechanical din was furious. Even the scalding air itself was violently percussive.\n\nMontenegro retreated under the hood of his cloak to conceal his face from the factory workers. Consisting of both humans and Juka, the army of workers used rakes and hammers to tend the liquid steel. Their faces were masked with soot, their skin metallic with sweat. Every one of them was bald and solidly muscled. Yet these workers did not hold the knight's attention. His gaze was drawn instead to other faces in the chaos, faces unturned by fatigue or exertion. Their eyes gaped blankly, unheeding of the sparks and the clamor. Their mouths spoke no words. These were Blackthorn's tech drones, part men and part apparatus, part flesh and part gearworks, bodies and machinery tinkered together to create living factory tools. Most of the drones were small and mobile, equipped with pneumatic arms or pincers for manipulating white-hot metal. Others were monstrous, as large as trees, with furnaces in their gullets and multiple limbs acting like cranes. At a glance they appeared as gigantic spider-shapes made of wheels and rivets and girders. Montenegro found himself reluctant to turn his back on them.\n\nThe grotesque sight of the drones brought a tightness to his gut. In the presence of such horrors he had difficulty reconciling his new alliance with the Technocrats. Blackthorn wrought unforgivable abominations with his foul engineering. Montenegro did not enjoy the thought of risking his life in defense of such atrocity.\n\nYet he reminded himself that Logosia was a victim of the same conspiracy that threatened his own home of New Britannia. The two nations had been goaded into an unnecessary conflict. Warlord Bahrok of Jukaran was the relentless catalyst, the most active member of the Pact of Four that was determined to guide the war to its bloodiest conclusion. And General Nathaniel of Britain had personally betrayed Montenegro's trust. Lector Gaff had been correct, of course. Such an insult could not be forgiven. Montenegro was not acting in defense of Logosia, but rather they joined together against their common enemy. In his heart he fought out of loyalty to New Britannia herself.\n\nThe proud name of Montenegro afforded him no other desire.\n\nHe followed the Mathematician through a wide doorway. The smaller room beyond was choked with heat and smoke.Several vats of molten metal seethed along the wall. Another robed silhouette met them in the gloom. Beneath a wide cowl, Sister Raveka's skin was as smooth and unblemished as white porcelain, shaped into handsome features under a stream of black hair. Her brown eyes stared forward. She did not acknowledge Montenegro's presence. She and Gaff exchanged a musical chant, which served as a greeting among their sect.\n\nThe tattooed Lector bowed his head to Montenegro. \"Sister Raveka will prepare you for infiltration. You and I shall meet again this evening to discuss the further course of our endeavor.\"\n\nThe knight paused. \"I thought we were going to make our plans now.\"\n\n\"I have business in Logos. When night falls I shall be ready to discuss strategy. Good day to you.\"\n\nMontenegro frowned, but relaxed once Gaff had departed. The Lector's mood was indulgent, to have left him and Raveka alone. He glanced at the young Mathematician. She was watching the metal door. Her brow pinched with concern. In a soft tone she asked, \"How did Khyber's test go?\"\n\nThe knight shrugged as he doffed his cloak. \"How else could it go? I jumped through Khyber's hoops. Neither he nor I revealed our true skills. We sniped and insulted each other like children, as fighters will do. I am now convinced that I can kill him if the need arises. He is convinced of the reverse. I think we shall work together just fine.\"\n\nShe tilted her head. \"Are you sure something hasn't gone wrong?\"\n\nHe grimaced at the clang of the unwholesome factory. \"There is a great deal wrong in this museum of horrors, but nothing that isn't obvious. Why?\"\n\n\"I have never seen His Excellency so upset before.\"\n\n\"I have seen corpses more agitated than Gaff.\"\n\n\"No, he fears something. I can see it plainly. That should not be.\"\n\nThe knight shrugged. \"He doesn't trust me. He risks a lot by working with a dangerous enemy. And he might be a little concerned about the invasion, or have you forgotten about that? In a few months' time Warlord Bahrok and General Nathaniel will be knocking on the doors of this very building, unless you and I and Brigadier Khyber can turn them around before then. To that end, my dear, do you mind helping me out of this armor? It's served me through many campaigns and it is due some respect.\"\n\nRaveka paused for a moment longer, then took the helmet from him. Without meeting his eyes she carried it to a vat of molten iron. He blinked when she dropped it inside. The liquid flared, sputtered, and drank in the helm.\n\nMontenegro watched as she returned. Even though she wore a Mathematician's raiment, he saw only her long, athletic body, draped as it should be in the exquisite gown of a New Britannian noblewoman. Many weeks earlier Raveka had vowed to forsake the Order to be his lady. She claimed that she did not belong in Logosia anymore. But her present, stoic demeanor belied the sincerity of her oath.\n\nHe tried to catch her eyes. She ignored him as she reached for the buckle of his gauntlet. In a quick motion he grabbed her wrist and yanked her close to him. He glared at her, quelled her struggles, until the mask of the Mathematician slipped. The woman who stared back was frightened and defiant. She neither submitted to him nor rebuffed him, but faced him with eyes alight. This was the Raveka behind the masquerade, the one he had worked to reveal.\n\n\"You will not quit me,\" he said, then let go.\n\nHer mood calmed with practiced speed. \"We shall not see each other after today,\" she commented as she unfastened his steel gauntlets.\n\nThe knight furrowed his brow. \"Gaff is sending you back to Britannia so soon? We haven't been here for two days.\"\n\n\"Lord Gideon is vulnerable to my suggestions. He has fallen in love with Lady Aria. I cannot delay my return if I hope to persuade him against invasion. The equations are clear in this regard.\"\n\nMontenegro stretched his arms as she peeled off his chest-plate. \"Your equations are notoriously unsympathetic. I had hoped to spend more time with you before then.\"\n\nSister Raveka did not reply. Methodically she deposited each piece of armor and each garment of underpadding into the vats of molten metal. Warm steam and smoke rose from them, which felt oddly pleasant on Montenegro's bare skin. He raised his arms to enjoy the sensation while Raveka undressed him, until a single article remained on his body. It was a gold pendant hanging from a sturdy chain. When she reached for it, he pushed her fingers away. \"No. I'm keeping this.\"\n\n\"Disguise is the sum of details. You must wear nothing that is not Logosian.\"\n\n\"I do not care. I will not surrender this.\"\n\nShe peered at the necklace. \"Your family crest?\"\n\nHe nodded, lifting the chain to show her the pendant. It depicted a heart seized by a dragon's claw. \"My grandfather's crest. I've lost everything else now, my home, my life, but Sir Lazaro shall always be my companion. I inherited his legacy. I must honor his legend.\"\n\nShe sighed and caught his glance. \"You are not your grandfather, Gabriel.\"\n\n\"No, but one day I intend to be somebody's grandfather.\" A smile trickled across her lips. \"So you must,\" she answered, then took his hands.\n\nThe door scraped open and a figure entered on a carpet of steam. The legless tech drone floated several inches above the floor, carried by a small levitant engine. The whir of gears and the chop of propellers comprised the creature's only noise. Its spidery pincers clamped around one of the vats of molten iron, then hoisted the massive container from its support and hauled it out of the room, into the factory beyond. The iron door clamped shut behind it. The drone had never noticed Raveka or Montenegro.\n\nThe Mathematician chuckled. \"They're very diligent now, hey? They're making more drones for the war. I have to confess, they are adorable when they're children. The alchemy makes them grow up too fast, though.\"\n\nMontenegro blanched. His stomach hollowed at the thought of drone children. Abruptly he felt his nakedness. He cupped the back of Raveka's neck, clutching her raven hair. \"We're leaving this place the instant the war is over. We shall live in my manor at Cove. The Royal Senate will chastise me for faking my death, but my heart can bear the shame. I shall give you a wholesome life, Raveka.\"\n\nShe smirked. \"You are very confident of yourself.\"\n\n\"I am not being sentimental. New Britannia is your home now. You return there as a citizen, not as an enemy. Remember that fact when you conduct your espionage upon Lord Gideon. It is the Pact of Four you want to defeat, not the New Britannian army. Is that clear?\"\n\nRaveka squinted. \"I know what I must do, Gabriel.\"\n\n\"Be sure of that, my dear. I don't want to learn that you've engaged in sabotage as well as seduction.\"\n\nShe twisted her neck, pulling away from his grip. \"Which one would upset you more, hey?\" She crossed the room and lifted a bundle from a shelf. Unwrapping it she revealed a collection of Logosian garments. Leather and buckles highlighted in the red glow of the vats. She picked through the clothes for a moment, then handed them to Montenegro with a sigh. \"I am your lady. That much is done. But you must allow me time to adjust. It's not a simple thing to leave your life behind.\"\n\nMontenegro held up a long, full coat of grey leather. The Logosians wore them even in the summer, to ward off the storms of rancid dust that polluted this factory town. Here in Junction he would make a temporary home. For six months he had fought the Technocrats and now he would serve beside them, under the gaze of Lector Gaff. Everything had changed. His war-horse was a continent away, his magic sword had returned to its home, his armor was even now being reforged into mechanical drones. In the green hills of Britain they were erecting him a tomb.\n\nHe clutched the pendant around his neck and murmured, \"The Virtues guide us when the path is dark, and Sacrifice most of all. Sometimes Sacrifice is the greatest weapon we have. That is a cruel truth.\"\n\nThe factory clamored around him as he slipped into the Logosian clothes. Sister Raveka studied every motion he made. She hardly uttered another sound. Montenegro had the impression that she was indulging in the moment, as if this were the last time she would ever see him again. When Brigadier Khyber reappeared to take him away, Raveka resumed her stoic demeanor. She left him with a quiet glance and a whisper: \"Some things are immune to Sacrifice.\" The comment darkened his mood, though his bizarre surroundings were so oppressive that he maintained his silence.\n\nWhen Raveka was gone the brigadier remarked, \"She is solace to the eyes, isn't she? Cold as glass, too, by the look of it.\"\n\nMontenegro gave no response as he pulled on the overcoat.\n\n\"Don't roll with a Mathematician,\" warned Khyber. \"They don't know their own emotions. I speak from experience.\"\n\nThe knight grumbled, \"I'm not interested in your experience. I am here for war and nothing else. Let's get out of this pit. I want to talk tactics as soon as we can collect some privacy.\"\n\n\"We can't make plans until Lector Gaff comes back from Logos.\"\n\n\"To hell with Gaff. He can catch up when he returns.\"\n\nKhyber pursed his lips, as if suppressing a grin. \"You have much to learn about handling Technocrats. But no matter, we'll have privacy where we're going. Brother Barghast, my chief tinker, has offered to lodge you in his workshop. You can train with our equipment there. You'll enjoy this part, Sir Gabriel. It's time to put away the toys of New Britannia and learn the weapons of a real warrior.\"\n\nThe knight shook his head as they walked onto the factory floor. \"The heart and the mind are the only true weapons. Everything else is embellishment. If Blackthorn understood that, maybe you wouldn't need my help.\"\n\nKhyber chuckled. \"Lighten up and look around. This is the real world. This is Logosian magic.\"\n\nMontenegro disregarded the statement. He quickened his pace to put the factory and its horrors behind him.\n\nThe evening descended with unnerving calm. Beneath an overcast sky of purple and orange, Khyber led him through the dingy streets of Junction. The town was a chorus of mills and manufactories performing a symphony of smoke. Swirls of dust adhered to Montenegro's coat in a strange, oily fashion Gusting fumes turned his breathing shallow. He moved among a listless stream of dark-clad natives, comprised of humans and Juka and occasional mechanical shapes that smelled of burning oil. Rarely did anyone acknowledge his presence. The mood of the town was hard and somber. Above it all loomed a dark grey silhouette in the clouds, the spectre of mighty Logos fixed in the heavens like a giant, unblinking eye.\n\nMontenegro stared up at the floating city, his vision watery from the dust. Absently he thumbed his golden pendant and thought, Guide me in the footsteps of Virtue, Grandfather. I have walked into the mouth of the dragon. I can hear the roar of its hunger. But I am hungry, too, Grandfather, and in the name of New Britannia I'll take what I must until the Virtues are satisfied.\n\nOverhead the city of Logos crouched in the sky like a phantom of girders and rivets. It was an animated thing, a mindless clockwork titan chained to the earth by steel tethers, shrouded by an ocean of roiling, muddy smoke. Lifts and air carriages, tiny by comparison, transported goods and men from the surface. A constant thrum shook the surrounding air, like monstrous heartbeats or great, sleeping breaths.\n\nWithin Logos, a single tower reached above the forest of smokestacks. The edifice floated freely, itself tethered to the bulk of the city by an enormous, black chain. It was a place rarely visited by Logosians, who feared it as much as they worshiped it. At the center of that mechanical fortress echoed the lair of a solitary god.\n\nSomewhere inside was a large chamber that resonated a clear, metallic tone, as if the walk themselves sang incantations. The iron-plated floor vibrated with the sound. The only light in the room drizzled through a vent in the ceiling, chopped into slivers by a wide, torpid fan. The pale glow oozed across riveted walk. A garden of smoke drifted from the vent as well, of abrasive smells and textures, dispersing into a languid, ambient haze. The chamber was bare of furnishing and decor, naked in its sonorous calm.\n\nA tall Mathematician stood motionless in the center of the floor. A grey hood masked his features, except for the stem mouth and pointed chin that emerged from the blackness. His jaw was covered with tattoos. His hands were clasped at his waist, unseen in the volume of his sleeves. His breathing, though steady, was a fraction more shallow than might be expected of a disciplined Lector.\n\n\"Gaff,\" called a voice that hummed with the resonance of the room. Its tone was rolling, perfectly pitched. It sounded from a thicket of shadows the Mathematician could not penetrate. \"Lector Gaff. My artful Lector Gaff. I must kill you for coming here. I hope that doesn't embarrass you. There are rules, you see, which I wrote myself. Only my Chosen may speak to me unbidden.\"\n\nThe Lector bowed his head and murmured, \"Your Eminence, I am prepared to accept the punishment due me for this trespass. I am of the Machine and cognizant of its orders. But first I beseech Your Eminence to hear the dire information that I surrender my life to deliver, for it concerns Your Eminence's own safety and indeed, the security of all Logosia.\"\n\nThe voice answered, \"There is no difference between the two. You are presumptuous to imply otherwise. Yet you do nothing without a reason, do you, Gaff? I have watched you. You have spent your entire career perfecting the craft of intrigue. And now you have succeeded. You have intrigued me. It is a genuine pity to have to tear you apart.\" A shape moved in the darkness. Among slices of smoky light the Lector glimpsed an apparition of flesh and iron. It hovered like a factory drone several feet above the floor. It possessed a man's body, or parts of one, lodged among clumps and accretions of jagged machinery. Half of a human face regarded Lector Gaff, and half of something meant to look like a face. One eye glowed as red as a furnace. A massive, articulated claw flexed its long digits, whispering a dull, greasy sound.\n\nBlackthorn wore machines like a tattered garment, or perhaps the reverse was true. When the shadows cloaked the Techno-Prophet once more, Lector Gaff did not look again. He had never grown comfortable with the sight of his master. He spoke quickly, before Blackthorn could approach. \"Your Eminence, there is a traitor among us. He is Lector Sartorius of the Theorists. Your Chosen. He plots to deliver Logos into the hands of our enemies.\"\n\nThe Techno-Prophet commented, \"You are mistaken. Cogs do not plot. They simply function or they do not.\"\n\n\"Lector Sartorius engages in a plot that he has named the Part of Four. His accomplices are Warlord Bahrok, General Nathaniel and Chamberlain Kavah of the Meer ambassador's entourage. By allowing the Garronites and New Britannians to conquer Logosia, Sartorius seeks to undermine Your Eminence's power. I have calculated the threshold\u2014\" \"Time is measured by teeth on a gear, not by sand in a glass. That is how it must be.\"\n\n\"Your Eminence, I have calculated that if the invaders reach Junction, the probability is high that Logos will also fall. Your Eminence will be forced to parley\u2014\"\n\nA loud screech ripped through the air, startling the Mathematician. In the gloom he saw Blackthorn's steel claw gouging a mark into the armored floor, scooping up a curl of iron. The action seemed casual, as if the Techno-Prophet had grown bored. \"Lector Gaff, let me tell you a story with a happy ending.\"\n\n\"Your Eminence?\"\n\n\"Once there lived two wizards who became the best of friends. One of them was a king and the other a baron. Each one used his magic to improve the lives of the people of Sosaria. One day the king said, 'The path to happiness lies in Order. Only in a structured, lawful society will the people be content.' The baron replied, 'But every man must be free to pursue his own destiny. Only through Chaos will the people be fulfilled.' The two wizards did not agree, and yet they remained friends. That is, until the day came when the king discovered a spell that would remove all Chaos from the land and secure the reign of Order in Sosaria.\"\n\nLector Gaff knew the story of the Cataclysm. The Lost King was the ruler of New Britannia and the baron was Blackthorn himself. Gaff opened his mouth to interrupt, but the Techno-Prophet's rumbling voice overwhelmed him. \"The baron knew he must stop his friend from perpetrating the spell. A great sadness fell between them, for the two men had become enemies. And so each wizard raised a great army, one to safeguard the Ritual of Order and the other to disrupt it. When the two forces clashed, the universe could not withstand the fury of the battle. The world was tom to pieces. The king vanished in the conflagration and the baron was exiled to a faraway land. But there in the desert, the baron discovered the solution that might have saved his friend and his world.\"\n\n\"Your Eminence was revived by the Prime Overlord here in Logos,\" said Gaff quickly. \"I am aware of the history of our nation, Your Eminence. Sartorius\u2014\"\n\n\"It was not the Prime Overlord who saved the baron. The Overlords were pawns. Servants of a greater whole. It was the Machine that rescued the baron from the blackness that had consumed his body and soul. Though he learned it too late, the baron discovered that the Machine is the ultimate reconciliation of Order and Chaos. For all life is bom lawless. Chaos resides in the blood. But the Machine brings Order to the flesh, the Order that resides in iron and steel. The Machine weaves the two forces together. And so the baron embraced the Machine and brought it to his followers, for in the Machine dwelled the memory of the Lost King, the ghost of a fallen friendship. The Machine is harmony. The Machine is unity.\"\n\nThe Mathematician disliked Blackthorn's riddles. He sorted through the Techno-Prophet's words. \"Your Eminence suggests that Lector Sartorius represents Chaos? And the Machine will subsume his treachery.\"\n\n\"One wheel turns another. You have come to me, have you not?\"\n\n\"I have come to request that you punish Lector Sartorius. We must not allow him to destroy our nation.\"\n\n\"There is no clanger.\"\n\nGaff squinted. \"May I inquire what Your Eminence means?\"\n\nSomething like a metallic chuckle rang from the gloom. \"You know, I miss hunting. Do you hunt, Gaff?\"\n\nThe Lector swallowed his frustration. \"Not as such, Your Eminence.\"\n\n\"The best thing about hunting is the hounds. A good huntsman does not interfere when the hounds fight for dominance. In the end, all that matters is the dead fox.\"\n\nGaff closed his eyes and nodded. \"Then I must deal with Lector Sartorius without Your Eminence's aid. Please forgive my impudence. My concern for Logosia impelled me to seek your counsel.\"\n\n\"I am touched, Gaff. Truly. You have earned my respect in coming here. But as I said, my welfare and that of Logosia are the same. As long as I am unbeaten, Logosia is unbeaten. And there is something you do not seem to understand, something that will calm your troubled thoughts.\" Blackthorn's claw flashed in the gloom. Lector Gaff flinched. \"Logos shall never fall, Gaff, because I am greater than my enemies. I am greater than the Garronites, greater than the New Britannian wizards, greater even than the Matriarchs of Ishpur. I am certainly greater than Lector Sartorius. I am an undying spirit. Let them come to my doorstep if they can. Let them massacre the Technocrats. If every Logosian dies, I shall remain. I am the Forge and the Furnace. I am the Guardian of the Machine. Through me, Logos is immortal. That is the comfort I offer you and that is all you must rely on.\"\n\nGaff bowed his head. \"As you say, Your Eminence. We are all weapons of the Machine. Respectfully, then, I go to attend the defense of Logos.\"\n\n\"Logos itself is my weapon,\" said Blackthorn, \"and there are still more defenses injunction, below us.\"\n\n\"Indeed? I am not aware of any, except for the troops there.\"\n\n\"They are ancient defenses built by the Overlords. Sartorius knows of them. Seek your answers from him.\"\n\nLector Gaff bowed again. \"Thank you, Your Eminence. I shall do so. With your permission, I take my leave.\"\n\nWhen the Lector turned his back on the monarch, Blackthorn murmured, \"You've forgotten something.\"\n\n\"Your Eminence?\"\n\n\"I must kill you for coming here. Only Sartorius may give you permission to do so. The authority of the Chosen must not be spurned.\"\n\nGaff nodded. \"I am at your service. Summon me at your convenience and I shall submit to my punishment.\"\n\nA hard, gurgling noise erupted from the shadows. Lector Gaff realized it was the machine half of Blackthorn, laughing. \"As you say, Gaff. The next time you visit me, I shall tear out your heart. You are, I think, too clever for my comfort.\"\n\nThe Mathematician bowed in acknowledgment, then moved to the nearest wall and turned the wheel that activated the door. It hissed steam as it slid aside, and again as it closed behind him.\n\nGaff disregarded the Janissar guards who waited in the corridor. His eyes grew stony as he pondered the exchange with his lord. The mad Techno-Prophet was uncommonly ludd today. Because of that fact, the Lector had taken more from the meeting than his calculations had predicted. He had secured Blackthorn's tacit approval to bring down Sartorius. It was a legal foundation upon which to build. The mention of ancient defenses under Junction was a boon Gaff had not expected, but he intended to learn more. Blackthorn spoke in riddles, and yet he harbored an agenda that might serve Gaff's purposes. The Mathematician would decipher that mystery in time.\n\nThe Lector pressed on through the halls of Blackthorn's Citadel amid the thrum of Logos' vast machines, which marked a smoky rhythm in the bleak Logosian sky.\n\nA dozen spark lanterns illuminated the tall cement room. In the furtive blue light, Montenegro examined a steel creature walking toward him. It stood as black as opal on four large hooves. Its body was stout and artistically curved, with a proud arch to its neck and a head sculpted to convey both menace and beauty. Its skin was a mosaic of black metal plates that slid together organically as it moved. Its tail recalled a dragon's, spiny and serpentine. The strange mechanical horse emitted whirs and hums in a gait that mimicked a flesh-and-blood stallion so methodically that it chilled the knight. He could not look away from its dull, red eyes.\n\n\"A beautiful mockery of a horse,\" he frowned, crossing his arms. \"Do you expect me to ride this armored puppet?\"\n\nBrigadier Khyber raised a palm. The clockwork horse halted, utterly motionless. The soldier replied, \"Unless you intend to walk to the battlefield.\"\n\n\"I should prefer to travel the same way as the rest of your men.\"\n\n\"We use kite skids. They take months to learn. You need something else in the meantime. This automaton is extravagant but at least you can master it quickly. It rides very much like the real thing.\"\n\nAnother man added, \"As much as I was able to estimate, at least, with very little firsthand experience.\" The speaker was a middle-aged Juka wearing the robe of a Mathematician. His horns had a peculiar twist to them. Brother Barghast was Montenegro's host in Junction, in whose exotic workshop the knight had taken lodging. The mechanical creature was Barghast's creation. He talked about the machine in the dry tones common to his sect. \"Why are you reticent, Sir Gabriel? You are responsible yourself for this particular piece. The city's master merchants are fascinated with the exploits of your cavalry. Many of them have commissioned mechanical horses from myself and others. What you see before you is the culmination of six months of refinement. I was preparing to offer it for bids when His Excellency told me that you had joined the brigade. I realized immediately that it would be ideal for your quick assimilation. And so, at some financial loss, I am giving the construct to you.\"\n\nIn the context of this Technocrat workshop, the offer repulsed Montenegro. The high chamber appeared to him like the mechanical equivalent of a slaughterhouse. The walls and ceiling were draped with half-completed automatons, their metal bodies laid open to expose entrails made from gears and wheels and slender chains. Limbs were stacked in one corner, heads in another, while the bodies were suspended by hooks that dangled from the rafters. Mostly animal shapes lay in pieces around the shop. Two or three had an almost human outline, though, or would if assembled. They were roughly the size of a child. Montenegro grimaced at the sight. He approached the steel horse and mumbled over his shoulder, 'Tour generosity is a credit, despite your unseemly engineering. However, a knight on horseback, mechanical or not, is going to be conspicuous. You seem to have forgotten that I am in hiding. If the Pact of Four finds out I'm here, your brigade will attract more attention than you want.\"\n\nKhyber shook his head. \"Few will even see you. The brigade strikes quickly. We're shock troops. Night fighters. We attack from surprise. Lector Gaff has created a fog of misinformation to keep it that way. Besides, who would suspect it's you? Sir Gabriel Montenegro is dead, right? His corpse lies at the bottom of the ocean, according to Thulann of Garron herself.\"\n\n\"So I have heard, though he was always difficult to kill.\" In a swift motion he mounted the automaton. Its body felt more supple and organic than steel ought to. He disliked the sensation, precisely because it was so comfortable. \"But I have scars to prove my own incompetence at subterfuge, so I'll defer to Lector Gaff's expertise. That is, of course, provided that we take the battle to Warlord Bahrok as quickly as possible. He is the Pact's real weapon. Without him, their plot fails.\"\n\nThe brigadier grumbled, \"We will certainly strike at Warlord Bahrok By the close of this war I'll have his heart on a spit. I'm very interested in your thoughts on that particular matter, Sir Gabriel.\"\n\nMontenegro opened a hard smirk. \"I've had enough thoughts on Bahrok's death to fill the Britannian library. The bastard\u2014\" He swallowed his sentence when the mechanical horse reared. He had pulled the reins incorrecdy, or perhaps touched some control stud with his legs. When slits opened in the creature's steel sides, he realized that something new was happening. From the withers unfolded two arrangements of metal rods. Dark leather tightened over the frames. In another instant the mechanisms had extended seven feet on either side of him, knocking over dismembered automatons. Montenegro realized that the frames were shaped like a bat's wings.\n\nBrother Barghast jogged forward. \"My apologies. I should have disengaged the vanes until the levitant engine is functional.\"\n\nThe knight shifted his balance as the machine dropped onto four hooves. \"Levitant? Are you telling me this horse flies?\"\n\n\"How else would it match speed with our kite skids?\"\n\n\"Put the machine away, Brother,\" said Khyber, \"before someone gets hurt.\"\n\nMontenegro nudged the reins. The bat wings tilted in response. He waved off the brigadier and said, \"No. Leave it. Let's talk, Barghast. We've got some adjustments to make if this thing is going to have combat reflexes.\"\n\n\"I had hoped you would guide me in that,\" replied the Juka.\n\nThe brigadier chuckled. \"Our engineering is not so unseemly, after all.\"\n\n\"Even the darkest cave can yield a diamond,\" said the knight. \"I intend to make good use of every weapon I can, no matter who manufactures it or how. I trust the rest of you agree with that sentiment, because I have arranged to bring some weapons of my own here.\"\n\n\"Intriguing,\" said Khyber, \"though I'm not sure Lector Gaff will approve.\"\n\nA deep voice rumbled, \"I approve of innovation. We must be efficient and decisive. The odds of success have decreased tonight.\" The three men startled. A robed figure stood in the workshop where no one had been an instant before. Lector Gaff had entered without a sound. \"We stand alone against the Pact of Four. The Techno-Prophet will not take action against Lector Sartorius.\"\n\nMontenegro winced. \"Are you sure? Blackthorn told you that himself?\"\n\n\"Of course not. No one but the Chosen may attend His Eminence unbidden. Nevertheless we cannot rely upon his assistance, and so we must not delay in perpetrating our own strategy.\"\n\n\"You speak to my very heart,\" said the knight, who smiled as he leaned forward on the black, steel beast. \"I have no stomach for waiting. Tonight we plan. Tomorrow we start training. In two weeks' time we can make our first strike.\"\n\nLector Gaff blinked and replied, \"The equations are more complex than that, but your intentions are correct. The Pact of Four has constructed its schemes. We must show them that precisely concerted action can destroy what two years of treachery creates. We shall be swift, gentlemen, and surgical.\"\n\nKhyber and Barghast grunted their approval. Montenegro did likewise. As he dismounted the clockwork steed, his body felt charged with energy. Though darkness pressed from all sides, he breathed freely again. Warfare was his preferred condition. The Pact of Four dominated his contempt. He had traded everything to be here at this moment and the sensation was exquisite.\n\nThough perhaps, came a quiet thought, he had traded little of real value. He carried the Virtues inside him, and his grandfather's honored legacy. Everything else was expendable resources. Whether that served the Virtue of Sacrifice; he did not have the time to consider, as the four men converged on an empty table and unrolled a map of Logosia. In the buzzing glow of twelve spark lanterns they began to design their revenge. They spoke of blood and ambush and of their common, simmering hatred."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Encounter at Cove",
+                "text": "Dark shapes moved through the twilight forest as Sister Raveka descended on her carriole. The flying machine nestled into a familiar rock crevice in the side of a large hill. Shadows swallowed the vehicle. A loaded bolt thrower perched in the Mathematician's hand. She dismounted and scanned the terrain.\n\nThe trees of New Britannia welcomed her with the flutter of leaves. The breeze was laden with the smells of mud and moss and damp bark. Raveka inhaled deeply. This country was a glory to the senses. Her heart lifted at its greeting. But New Britannia sheltered many unsavory species of men, as well, one of which was stalking this black forest in considerable numbers. She smelled their reek, too, filthy and sour. Unmistakably ores. The savage creatures had been on the move several weeks earlier, when she and Montenegro had departed for Logos. In the knight's absence, they appeared to have overrun his estate by the dozens. Traversing the grounds would be dangerous. Ores were not clever, but when they found a victim their attacks were ferocious. Raveka draped a camouflage tarp over the carriole, strapped on a traveling bag and set out for the manor house. In the dusk her grey-cloaked shape vanished.\n\nAs she moved through the darkening forest, a warm memory rose inside her. These were the paths she and Montenegro had walked while getting to know each another. Here they had developed the persona of Lady Aria, Montenegro's distant relative and clandestine lover. For Raveka those days were the fulfillment of a childhood fantasy. She had pledged herself to a knight and had become a noble lady. She would always regard this place as a dreamland, though the circumstances had greatly changed with Gabriel's false death. The fact that Lady Aria had inherited this estate was, of course, delightful compensation.\n\nAt present she had a task to perform, though, one that would call her away from this new home. She had come to Cove only to retrieve a few papers and possessions. Then she must depart for the capital city of Britain, where Lord Gideon awaited her return. Lady Aria had begun to romance the powerful senator in the days before Montenegro's counterfeit demise. Now she would develop his confidence as far as necessary to turn him against the invasion of Logosia. Since Gideon was the lord of the House of the Lion, all military affairs fell under his jurisdiction. By seducing him, Raveka might save her homeland from slaughter.\n\nShe quickened her steps across the estate and up a hill to the manor. The house was mostly dark, except for a few slivers of candlelight peeking between the shutters on the ground floor. Someone was inside. Raveka frowned. Her mind raced through tactical equations. The intruder was probably a maid or a groundskeeper, but she could take no chances. She pocketed her bolt thrower, slipped extra ammunition beside it and crept through the shadows to the back door.\n\nThe house was locked tight. Every window was shuttered and every lock was enchanted by very old runes. Raveka was not comfortable with the supernatural traditions of this land, but she did appreciate the usefulness of sorcery. The enchantments prevented the ores from entering the house. They would protect her, as well. That also meant the intruders either possessed a key or had used sorcery to let themselves in. The latter possibility gave her great concern.\n\nAbruptly she crouched behind a bush. A band of ore scouts lumbered past. The creatures were larger than humans, sporting long tusks and an assortment of crude, deadly weapons. This group was loitering around the perimeter of the house, doubtless waiting for someone to venture out. Raveka kept still until they were gone, then reached into her bag. A large key was nestled within. It tingled when she touched it. She inserted it into the back door, causing a pale flash inside the lock. Then the door creaked open. Without delay Sister Raveka hurried into the safety of Montenegro Manor.\n\nShe relaxed a bit when the door clicked shut behind her, but she dared not let her guard down. She stood in a back hallway. The interior of the house was veiled in shadows. She strained to hear any noise. The manor sounded unoccupied, but her ears rang from the carriole journey, rendering them unreliable. Softly she removed her cloak, uncovering a lady's modest dress, then made her way to the nearest rooms. Candlelight flickered somewhere around the kitchen. She smelled cooked food. After a few minutes she discovered a parlor where a dinner table was laid, with a serving plate steaming between two place settings. Raveka nibbled her lip. A housekeeper or groundsman would have prepared a local dish, with bread or cheese or vegetables.\n\nThis meal was a game bird, cooked with the utilitarian technique of a wilderness traveler. Raveka noticed finger smudges on the dishes. The smell of sweaty leather lingered in the room.\n\nWhoever was here did not belong in a noblewoman's house. She adjusted the bolt thrower in her pocket so that it was quickly accessible. She had too many enemies to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. As she moved toward an adjacent corridor she fought down a lilt of sadness. It is a pity, she thought, to kill someone so soon upon returning to New Britannia. The cool evening wind had made her journey otherwise enjoyable and the moons were shining quite beautifully tonight.\n\nCobwebs and dust haunted the old wine cellar. The stone floor and wooden vaults and bottle-heavy shelves were grey with layer upon layer of age. The air hung thick and dry. For Jatha of Ishpur the ambience conjured a feeling of reverence. Dust, after all, was the footprint of time. It was the mande of tradition, the vindication of an enduring culture. Humans measured their era in centuries while Jatha's home of Avenosh counted its age in millennia, yet dust was the same no matter the continent, thick and frosty like the hair of a wise, old man. The ancestors smiled upon timeworn places.\n\nAs it always did, though, the mood quickly faded. Jatha rubbed the furry bridge of his nose. In a swift motion the Meer plucked a bottle of brandy from the nearest shelf, then stepped deeper into the cellar. To the shadows ahead he announced, 'Tve staked the bird onto a plate upstairs. You had best go up and eat before it squirms loose and tracks gravy on the rug.\"\n\nSilence answered him. The wizard glanced around a comer. At the far end of the cellar was a broad niche. Designed to hold select vintages, it was enclosed by iron bars like a jail cell, secured by a heavy lock. A single lantern strewed light over the area. Inside the niche the wine had been removed and in its place, on a low, wooden bench, lay a small Meer figure with fur glistening in the light. The slender woman did not move. Outside the bars, on a sturdy chair, sat a blond, muscular human. The man wore a white shirt, neat trousers and a wiry beard, and appeared to be very lost in thought.\n\nJatha called out, \"Did you hear me, Fairfax? I said dinner is ready. It is yet another of my culinary masterworks designed to enrapture the mouth, or at least to enliven the bowels.\"\n\n\"I cannot leave,\" replied Fairfax the Ranger as he contemplated his steepled fingers. \"I am not finished.\"\n\nJatha stopped a few feet from his companion. \"Finished with what? Your vigil over Shavade? You may as well employ your drool for its intended purpose. Have some faith in my locking spells. Shavade will still be here after you have slobbered over the pheasant.\"\n\nThe strapping ranger lifted a finger. \"The vigil over my goddess shall never be complete, but I was talking about something more concise than that. She is my inspiration, you see. She has inspired me to compose a song, but it has not yet emerged fully from my innards.\"\n\n\"A song! And I thought I was a fearless man. Pray keep it to yourself. Poetry sings in the heart but usually screeches in the ear.\"\n\n\"Keep it to myself? No, this song is destined for Shavade's own ears, those wondrous, velvety mussel shells. When it is finished I shall sing it to her, though a chorus of gods could do no justice to my love.\"\n\nThe Meer wizard crossed his arms. \"She's going to hate it. You realize that.\"\n\nFairfax shrugged. \"Probably.\"\n\n\"All right, then. Let me hear what you've got so far. Perhaps the two of us can bolt some words to your emotions before the bird upstairs gets cold. I used some strange ingredients from Montenegro's kitchen and I'm curious to find out if they're edible.\"\n\nThe ranger grinned and dragged his fingers through a shower of blond hair. \"Very well! Tell me honestly if I am half as inspired as our wayward friend Toria. This is what the ovens of my passion have baked:\n\n\u2003\"You make my heart swell\n\n\u2003A hundred miles in girth!\n\n\u2003You impregnate my soul;\n\n\u2003To Love I shall give birth!\n\n\u2003\"You 're a star overhead;\n\n\u2003You light up my path!\n\n\u2003The kingdom of my love\n\n\u2003No borders it hath!\"\n\nFairfax rubbed his hands together nervously. \"You can see how much I adore her.\"\n\nJatha realized his catlike ears were pressed flat against his head. He blinked to shake them loose. \"You're right. A chorus of gods could not do it justice.\"\n\nThe ranger scowled. \"You mock my devotion to her!\"\n\n\"No, I mock your song.\"\n\n\"I told you, it's not finished.\"\n\n\"You shall starve to death before that song is ready. Fairfax, you did not eat lunch, if you can remember that far back. Go get some dinner, man.\"\n\nFairfax sighed and glanced at the Meer woman inside the niche. \"But she'll wake up soon.\"\n\n\"You have several minutes before then. I'll watch her while you're gone. If she wakes I'll knock her out again with a rap to the head. I wouldn't want to deprive you of a moment of her consciousness.\"\n\nThe ranger smiled as he rose from the chair. \"A finer friend I could not ask for, even though your taste in poetry is wanting.\" To the sleeping Shavade he added, \"Good-bye for the moment, my goddess. You fill my heart but alas, it is Jatha who fills my stomach. Two great storms clash and I am buffeted between them.\"\n\nAs his companion passed by, Jatha held up the dusty bottle of brandy. Fairfax shook his head at the offer, then trotted out of the wine cellar. When the door creaked shut at the top of the stairs, the tall wizard dropped into the chair beside the iron-barred niche.\n\nA voice from inside murmured, \"How long are you going to keep me here with that buffoon?\"\n\nJatha glanced at Shavade of Arjun. The small warrior had not moved nor opened her eyes, but her face registered scorn. He chuckled and set down the liquor. \"Until the Matriarchs tell me what to do with you. I apologize if that interrupts your busy schedule.\"\n\n\"It could take weeks to get a message back from Ishpur! You can't keep me imprisoned that long.\"\n\n\"I shall likely miss the invasion of Logosia because of it. But if you tell me about your masters, perhaps I can arrange something agreeable to us both. I want Chamberlain Kavah and the Pact of Four, not a hireling like you.\"\n\nThe Hunter bared her teeth and spat.\n\nJatha tilted his head. \"Fear not, then. The days will pass quickly for you.\"\n\nThe woman grunted as she struggled to sit up. \"I'm going to kill you for this sleeping spell, Firstborn. How long since I was last awake?\"\n\n\"Two days. I do apologize, but every hour you're awake is an hour you plot to escape. I respect you enough to be cruel. Besides, your only alternative is sixteen hours a day listening to Fairfax's poetry, which would be cruder still.\" From the air he plucked the seed of an enchantment and cracked it open in his palm. A white glow appeared. \"I can get rid of that headache, if you like.\"\n\n\"Choke on it,\" she growled as she cast him an angry glare. Her large eyes were bloodshot but strikingly alert, accentuated by tiny spots in her fur. Shavade was small for a member of the Warrior caste, though her face bore the sleek angles distinctive to her kind. Jatha could not deny that she was beautiful. As an elite Hunter trained to fight wizards, she was also deadlier than he cared to ponder.\n\nShavade sat up and crossed her legs. Sleep had tousled her tawny hair and wrinkled her kidskin tunic. She pressed knuckles to her brow and groaned, \"Where the hell are we, anyway?\"\n\n\"Somewhere Chamberlain Kavah will not find us. He is not the sort of company I want to arrive uninvited.\"\n\nShe narrowed her eyes and smirked. \"You are far from the traditions of home, eh, Firstborn? To reject the company of a peer.\"\n\nJatha extinguished the glow in his hand and reached for the bottle of brandy. \"I have rejected a great many things, just as you have, Hunter.\" He uncorked the liquor and sniffed. The bouquet was exquisite. He pressed it to his Ups and drank a swaUow. It seared his throat magnificently.\n\nThe warrior leaned forward on the bench. \"Don't flinch like that. You know what I'm talking about. You're not so different from Kavah, are you? Tell me why you turned away from Ishpur.\"\n\nHe brushed a drop from his chin and grumbled, \"Choke on it, Hunter.\"\n\nShe snorted and leaned back against the wall, tapping her head on the stone. \"Where is my Stinger?\"\n\n\"It's safe and well-fed.\"\n\n\"I know that. I want to see her.\"\n\nJatha planted his feet on the ground and rose from the chair. He pushed the cork back into the bottle. \"Sorry, I won't be handing over your venomous pet today. However, I shall do you the courtesy of summoning Fairfax now. He has written you a song as painful as any poison a Living Weapon might secrete.\"\n\nShavade closed her eyes. \"I know. I heard it just now. Please, at least grant me the mercy of a dagger. I'll either cut off his tongue or my own ears. That man chatters more than a flock of hatchling kael.\"\n\nAnother speU leapt into Jatha's mouth. A Ught gUmmered while the iron bars rattled, then quieted in their mounts again. Jatha did not think the locking enchantments needed to be strengthened, but aU Hunters were trained to defeat sorcery. He took no chances when he left Shavade alone and awake. Only a proper key would release her. He gave the woman a smile. \"Take comfort in my friend's affection. He is as earnest as a teenager. Not every girl would shrink from the adoration of a fair-hearted man.\"\n\nThe Hunter sneered, \"What would you know about it, Firstborn?\"\n\nJatha shrugged as he tucked the bottle under his arm. \"More than you might imagine. I recognize honest desire when I see it. You might see it as well, if you paid closer attention to him.\" Then he ambled off, leaving a trail of boot prints on the dusty stone floor.\n\nIn her little prison, Shavade of Arjun waited for the creak of the cellar door. Then she twirled an iron key between her fingers. \"Maybe Fairfax should have paid closer attention to me.\" With a grin she uncurled from the bench and slid her feet into a pair of well-worn boots.\n\nRaveka froze. Someone was behind her in the darkened corridor. She heard the woody creak of a bow and the calm breaths of a person experienced in combat. He must have been an expert in stealth and tracking. The spring-powered bolt thrower was loaded in her pocket, but the archer's missile would run her through before she could hope to retrieve it. Instead she raised her arms and stepped into the center of the dim hallway.\n\nA familiar voice said, \"I have met a great many ores in my life, if only for a brief moment each, but you are certainly the best-dressed of them all.\"\n\n\"Please don't kill me,\" wheezed Raveka with conjured terror. She examined the silhouette to confirm his identity, though the voice was unmistakable. \"Fairfax? Is that you?\" The archer lowered the aim of his bow. \"Lady Aria?\"\n\nShe clutched her hands to her breast and exhaled deeply. \"Yes, it's me. By the Virtues, you had me terrified!\"\n\nFairfax did not move. 'Why are you sneaking around your own house?\"\n\n\"I saw lights inside and I didn't know if it might be ores. Thank the stars it was no one more uncivilized than yourself!\"\n\n\"Jatha has often compared me to an ore. It is a Meerish expression of brotherhood, I suppose. I shall never understand that rabbit-eared yeti. But my lady, where are your servants? Surely you did not come here alone.\"\n\nShe stepped closer. \"I have no servants. I shared the road with a group of soldiers traveling to Britain. They escorted me to the doorstep.\"\n\n\"I heard no such commotion.\"\n\nShe gave him a smile bright enough to show through the gloom. \"We were very quiet. The ores looked hungry tonight.\" She had advanced within a yard of the ranger. His nervousness was plain. He was hiding something. His secret was probably not dangerous, but her training dictated that she gain control of the situation. She reached out a hand with deliberate awkwardness. \"Fairfax, good sir, would you mind putting away your bow? I feel like a fox in a hunting pen here. This is my house, after all.\"\n\nHe relaxed the nocked arrow. \"Of course. A bounty of apologies upon you, my lady.\" Then he let out a chuckle.\n\n\"What's funny?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Nothing. I just remembered a conversation I had about you.\"\n\nRaveka hooked her elbow into his. \"Indeed? With my poor cousin Gabriel?\"\n\n\"No. With an old acquaintance of yours.\"\n\n\"You intrigue me. Who is it? Someone from Coventine?\" As she spoke, her eyes scoured his shadowy features for an answer. She had assumed the identity of Lady Aria less than two months earlier. Not enough time had passed for her to have an \"old acquaintance.\" Nor had she ever visited Coven-tine, where the genuine Lady Aria lay unmounted in a tomb. This was a troubling development.\n\nBut the ranger gave no hint of his meaning. Instead he responded, \"Let us discuss the matter over dinner, if I may be so impertinent as to invite you to your own table. It saddens me to say that the fare is nothing more than Jatha's unsophisticated output, yet he cooks it with honest intentions. That should console your heart, if not your tongue.\"\n\nShe grinned. \"An honest cook is rarely a good one, but I am famished enough not to care. Tell me, is Jatha the only other person here or shall I have even more guests for dinner tonight?\"\n\n\"There is only Jatha and me to share your sup, and even so we are one too many. Would that I had you to myself, Lady Aria, for not often does a simple man partake of such a banquet of beauty as you place before my eyes right now. A feast for the highest king you are, and I am humbled to enjoy whatever morsel falls upon my tongue.\"\n\nWith a laugh she said, \"Take me to the food, my friend! Though if dinner is as saucy as you are, we shall never find the meat.\" She clung to his elbow with a calculated grip, though not out of affection. She wanted to control his weapon arm. From his body language she knew that Fairfax was lying to her. He was tense, as if prepared for quick action. She would require every possible advantage if the situation turned against her, especially when the Meer wizard Jatha was involved.\n\nThey arrived at the parlor to find Jatha already seated. The furred sorcerer rose with an expression of surprise. \"Fairfax, I thought perhaps you had caught a burglar, but I see that the reverse is true. We have invaded the good lady's house and she has arrived to take us to task for it.\" He executed an elaborate bow. \"My Lady Aria, I have anticipated meeting you again. Please forgive our intrusion here. Do allow me to point out, if Fairfax has not already done so, that Montenegro gave us a key on a previous occasion. We are merely availing ourselves of his kindness. And of course I offer my deepest condolences on the passing of your heroic cousin. Never have I met a man with like courage and skill. May his soul find peace. May those responsible for his murder find none.\"\n\nShe bowed her head with an appropriate mixture of gratitude and mourning. Then she released Fairfax and sat in the chair next to Jatha, who represented the greater threat. She squeezed his hands and murmured, \"Please, do not speak of Gabriel just now. I'm starving. Let's fill our mouths with food and heartening words.\"\n\nFairfax set down his bow, then lifted a fork and carving knife. The implements gleamed silver in the candlelight. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. \"Ah, but my lady, we do have heartening news concerning your cousin. As fortune would have it, we have discovered the whereabouts of his murderer.\"\n\nShe squinted. \"Have you indeed!\" Her shock was not feigned. Montenegro had arranged the fiction of his own death, disguising the corpse of a Pact agent as his own. No murderer existed to be found. \"Who is the villain? And how did you find him?\"\n\nJatha let out a laugh. \"Not villain, but villainess. And she is currendy trapped within these very walls! Might I add that Fairfax and I are blessed with a most comely prisoner, at that. The ancestors smile upon us.\"\n\nRaveka did not like the menace in the Meer's face. She had never grown accustomed to the bestial aspects of Jatha's race, despite their peaceful society. And Jatha seemed less peaceful than most. \"She is here, you say? Who is she?\"\n\n\"Come now, my lady,\" said Fairfax as he stabbed the pheasant, \"this wickedness does you no compliment. You know well of whom we speak.\"\n\nAbruptly Jatha grabbed her wrist. She startled as he drew closer and said, \"It took us some time to remember the first night we met you, but ultimately Riona Lynch was unforgettable. Your eyes are as enchanting as any I have seen inside of a human head. So, first Fairfax and I met Riona, and then we met Lady Aria, and still we have not been properly introduced. Tell me, my ravishing Technocrat, what is your real name?\"\n\nRaveka's eyes dashed between the two men. Fairfax gazed back at her with a threatening grin as he sawed the cooked pheasant into pieces. With a gasp she murmured, \"Gende-men, have you gone mad? I am not entertained by this joke of yours!\"\n\nThe ranger lifted the knife to his mouth and licked the steaming juice. \"Nor are we entertained by yours. Montenegro was our trusted friend. You seduced and then murdered him. It was Captain Bawdewyn\u2014your 'old acquaintance'\u2014 who told us about the pretty Technocrat spy who had captured Montenegro's heart. With that information even an ape-wit like Jatha could deduce what had happened. It was always your intention to kill him when the time was right, wasn't it? Just like you ordered Lord Valente's assassination, two years earlier. I confess, though, that I never expected a murder weapon to be as a handsome as yourself. My compliments to the smith. Of course the biggest question remains, who wields you against us? Blackthorn or the Pact of Four? It is a rare point of contention between Jatha and myself.\"\n\nRaveka conjured a scowl. \"How dare you make such accusations! I vowed my love to Gabriel! I won't listen any further.\" With a precise maneuver she yanked her hand from Jatha's grip. Then a loud thump shot through the room. She found herself unable to rise from the chair. The carving knife was stuck in the seat, pinning down her skirt. Fairfax had thrown it with uncanny skill to keep her from escaping.\n\nThat was just the sort of reaction she had hoped to provoke. He had disarmed himself. In a lightning motion she drew the bolt thrower and pressed it against Jatha's skull. The Meer flinched as she shouted, \"Do not move, please! Hands on the table.\" Growling, the wizard complied. To Fairfax she commanded, \"Drop the fork and cross your arms. Do it now! Don't force me to kill him before we have a chance to talk. I apologize, but with you two this is the only way to muscle a word into the conversation.\"\n\nFairfax folded his arms across his chest and grumbled, \"Another toothsome woman seeks to kill us! And I thought giving up the bottle would make me more appealing. Temperance is overrated, my friend.\"\n\nJatha groaned, \"I do not succumb to temperance and look at my predicament! Yet in defeat I am vindicated. I have always maintained that woman is an inherently warlike species. Beauty is nothing but a clever feint.\"\n\n\"Quiet,\" ordered Raveka as she tugged loose the carving knife and pocketed it. She stood carefully. Neither man challenged her. She took a deep breath and continued, \"What a predicament indeed, hey? Let's try to solve this, then, with some modicum of candor. You're correct, of course. I was Riona and I am Logosian. However, I did not murder Gabriel, nor did any Technocrat. I tell you that with strict adherence to the Virtue of Honesty.\"\n\nThe wizard grimaced. \"Then one of your associates did. The Pact of Four has agents from every kingdom.\"\n\n\"You could not be more mistaken. The Pact of Four is my enemy just as it is yours. I plan to interfere with its schemes ' as far as my skills allow.\"\n\nFairfax commented, \"She lies with true charisma. See the glimmer in her eyes. I understand how she penetrated even Montenegro's armored heart.\"\n\nRaveka sighed. \"I shall satisfy your skepticism if you do me the courtesy of silence. In fact, you may occupy your lips on that bottle of brandy.\" She motioned to a dusty bottle in front of Jatha. \"Each of you shall take turns drinking until the last drop is finished. That should give me enough time to explain.\"\n\nThe ranger snorted. \"I no longer drink.\"\n\n\"I see. I'll save the brandy for later, then, and just stick a tap into Jatha's head.\" She nudged her bolt thrower into the Meer's scalp. Jatha hissed in pain.\n\nFairfax picked up the bottle and mumbled, \"Liquor, old friend, once more a woman drives me back to your company. Such is our destiny together.\" He guzzled a mouthful and squeezed his eyes shut.\n\nRaveka monitored them cautiously as they exchanged the brandy, each swallowing heady gulps. Their eyes began to redden. Their reflexes would soon diminish. In the meantime she explained how Montenegro had faced charges of treason from General Nathaniel, a member of the Pact, and how the knight had contrived his own death to escape the plot against him. Even now, she added, he resided in Logosia, working with the Technocrats to undermine the Pact's schemes. She did not reveal this information out of trust for the two men, but rather for fear of them. Jatha was a powerful wizard and Fairfax a deadly swordsman and archer. Her chances of escaping the manor were too low for the Mathematician's comfort. Even if she did get free, both men were veterans of the New Britannian wilds whom she could scarcely hope to evade in the forest. The best hope of retaining her freedom lay in winning their confidence. Montenegro had expressed to her his deep friendship with them, so she felt somewhat safe revealing the compromising truth.\n\nIn fact, if Gabriel had been present, she knew he would have been smug. Honesty was her greatest weapon now. The Virtues indeed lit her path.\n\nWhen she finished the tale, her two captives looked incredulous. Jatha thumped down the half-empty bottle and mumbled, \"I would sooner believe in a drunken Matriarch than Montenegro fighting beside Technocrat soldiers. You overestimate the potency of that brandy.\"\n\nThough the men were more lucid than she had expected them to be, she could see that the liquor had done its job. Their heads had begun to sway. She replied, \"If I wanted to deceive you, would I invent such an unlikely scenario? It is the truth. Montenegro is more cunning than his enemies give him credit.\"\n\n\"And you are more cunning still,\" said Fairfax with wet pronunciation. \"We know you to be a liar, my little eggshell. A bottle of brandy does not change that fact. To be absolutely truthful, when liquor and women are present in tandem, Jatha and I have learned that the wisest course is to assume the worst. And so we must reject your very imaginative alibi. Have you prepared another one, perhaps? We are willing to listen to all that you have. Your voice, at least, is pleasing to the ear.\"\n\nRaveka narrowed her eyes. \"I have confided secrets that could cost Montenegro his life. I can give you no more than that. If you lack the wit to recognize that we are allies, then you make yourselves my enemies. I cannot risk anyone interfering with my mission. I have no choice but to kill you now, while I have the advantage.\"\n\nJatha smirked. \"Ah, Fairfax, the wheel never stops turning, does it? Once again our death is at hand. It has been so many weeks since the last time, I was beginning to grow complacent.\"\n\nThe ranger uncrossed his arms. \"Women, liquor and death. One must take each in moderation and be wary of the sum of them all. What philosopher said that?\"\n\n\"I did,\" answered Jatha, then darted up from his chair. Raveka tilted down the bolt thrower and squeezed the firing lever. The weapon activated with a loud clack. The wizard toppled forward with a blossom of red on his throat. The brandy bottle thudded on the floor. It rolled aside as Jatha collapsed nearby, clutching at his neck.\n\nRaveka felt herself shudder.\n\nFairfax let out a scream and clambered across the table. She swept the carving knife from her pocket and jabbed it at the ranger. Though his reflexes were slowed, he managed to bat the knife aside. Then he kicked her. Raveka's face burst with heat. She hurtled backward against a chair that upended, dumping her onto the floor. His boot swept forward again, this time bashing into her gut, which erupted with fiery pain. Several times he kicked her as she lay stunned. Her mind swam, her thoughts in shambles. She was aware that he turned away from her and cried out, \"No, no, no, my friend! Not this way!\"\n\nShe watched as Fairfax knelt over the bloody form of his companion. He fished a vial of healing potion from the wizard's belt, but his inebriated hands fumbled it. The vial clattered on the floor. He snatched it up and popped out the cork.\n\nRaveka's mind filled with mathematical chants. They focused her thoughts and drove her to action. She spotted the brandy bottle a few feet away. Quietly she retrieved it and while Fairfax maneuvered the healing potion to Jatha's lips, she swatted the heavy glass butt across his skull. It thumped loudly. He cursed as he fell to the side. From the table she snatched a heavy silver plate. A few edgewise blows rendered Fairfax unconscious. Jatha lay beside him, senseless and bloody, unable to form sounds with his ruined throat.\n\nFor an instant she leaned against the table and trembled. Her gut throbbed with pain. She sipped a mouthful of brandy and set it aside for later. Then she followed a calculated plan. Quickly she hauled the two men into back-to-back chairs, yanked down a bell pull and tied their hands together. Jatha's healing potion lay half-spilled on the ground. She tipped the remainder into his mouth. The bleeding stopped. As he sputtered awake she gagged him with a cloth, which she tied in an intricate knot. Then she fetched a pitcher of water from a basin in the comer and splashed it over Fairfax's head. The ranger coughed and opened his bleary eyes.\n\nRaveka clutched her aching stomach and sighed, \"There's no intimidating you two, is there?\"\n\nFairfax growled, \"Ungag Jatha so he can heal himself.\"\n\n\"I don't trust sorcerers. If he can heal himself, he can strike against me. I can't give him back his tongue until we reach an agreement.\"\n\n\"Pray tell me what agreement I should make with an assassin. I won't kill you if you don't kill me? Meanwhile the serpent wets her fangs with more venom.\"\n\n\"Use your head, Fairfax. You are tied up. Jatha is half healed. That means I don't intend to kill you.\"\n\n\"No, it means you want something from us.\"\n\n\"I only want to convince you that we are on the same side. Together we\u2014\" Abruptly she held her breath. She had heard a noise. A door had creaked somewhere inside the house.\n\nFairfax's eyes widened. \"You didn't let her out, did you?\"\n\n\"Who else is here?\"\n\nHe glared suspiciously. \"Someone else who may be on your side.\"\n\nRaveka glanced over the knots that bound her two captives. They looked secure. She reloaded her bolt thrower as she darted out of the parlor toward the front wing of the house. The sound had come from the wine cellar. Carefully she crept through the shadows until she spotted the open cellar door. She knelt to listen more closely.\n\nSomething sprang at her. A fist connected with her nose. She fired the bolt thrower and a woman shrieked in pain. Raveka fell back as her attacker, a petite Meer warrior, threw open a shuttered window and leapt away into the dark summer night. Raveka spat a mouthful of blood, then swayed to her feet.\n\nBy the time she returned to the parlor, Jatha and Fairfax lay on the floor. Their chairs were overturned and partly demolished as they worked to free themselves. Fairfax looked up with panic in his eyes. \"Where is she? What happened?\"\n\n\"That was Shavade of Arjun, wasn't it? The Pact agent!\"\n\n\"The goddess herself! What did you do to her?\"\n\n\"I let her get away, dammit! Why didn't you tell me she was here?\" With a surge of anger she plucked the carving knife from the table and flashed it down at Jatha. The blade sliced through his gag. Then she cut their bonds and stepped back. \"Hurry or we'll lose her in the forest!\"\n\nWithout warning the house began to shake. The floorboards croaked and swelled, then split apart as something lunged up from underneath. A long, black tentacle lashed through the air and snapped at Raveka. Powerful coils enveloped her. She tried to squirm loose but the tentacle solidified into hard, smooth granite.\n\nSmoke curled around the room. A pair of eyes glowed at her through the haze. They belonged to Jatha of Ishpur. \"I want you to stay here,\" he snarled as he ran out of the parlor. Fairfax was already gone.\n\nRaveka attempted to free herself, but Jatha's spell held fast. She decided to conserve her strength. The magic would fade soon enough. While regaining her breath she sorted through her options. As a Pact agent Shavade must not be allowed to escape, but Raveka doubted whether her own skills could aid Jatha and Fairfax in the hunt. The New Britannian forest was not her element. Besides, as soon as they composed themselves, those two would be craving retribution. Meanwhile Lord Gideon awaited her return. She had perhaps less than two months to turn him against the invasion. Her primary mission had to take precedence. She resolved to make for Britain immediately. At that moment the security of the city called to her like a choir.\n\nBrusque noises reached her ears. Someone was poking around the house. She heard glass shatter and a series of low, barking laughs. She swallowed. Ores had entered the manor. Jatha and Fairfax must have left a door open. When the laugh was answered by many guttural voices, Raveka strained at the granite tentacle holding her. After several minutes it had grown britde. She cracked loose a segment and wriggled free. Catching her breath she retrieved the bottle of brandy, which retained half of its contents. It was a rare label, one of Lord Gideon's favorites, which she could make use of in Britain.\n\nAs she dashed toward Montenegro's old office, she was already calculating the optimal route to retrieve her papers and return to her carriole. Stealth was essential. The forest was full of men who wanted to kill her. Such was the lot of a spy, of course, though Raveka doubted she would ever get comfortable with it. She longed for the day she could become Lady Montenegro and live out her years in peace. The dream appeared to be impossible, yet she clung to it without faltering. There was a magic in New Britannia that made her believe anything could happen, if her desire was great enough. All she had to do was stay alive. For that, if nothing else, she knew she had a genuine talent."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "The HuntRess",
+                "text": "Morning light sprinkled through the treetops and lit the dewy forest. A summer fog slithered across the ground. Throughout the woods a parliament of birds commenced its daily debate, filling the air with wails and chattering. In a narrow clearing Jatha leaned against a tree. He waited for his breath to return. His ears rang with the echoes of battle.\n\nNearby, Fairfax was collecting arrows. A few of them were embedded in soil and tree bark. More protruded from a dozen ores who lay about the clearing in the awkward poses of death. When the ranger finished, he knelt and brushed away the fog. Through a curtain of blond hair he scrutinized the ground. After a moment he crept to another spot, and then another. His movements were informed by a patient urgency.\n\nThe Meer wizard rubbed fatigue from his face and said, \"Are you sure you haven't lost her trail?\"\n\nFairfax did not look up. \"Lost her trail! You insult my devotion as well as my skill. I sense my goddess intrinsically. Her footfalls mark the beating of my heart. I know her every breath.\"\n\nJatha chuckled. \"You should have paid attention to her hands, instead of her lungs and toes. Maybe then she wouldn't have stolen your key.\"\n\n\"The torrents of love dissolve worldly bonds. Perhaps in some deep, unconscious way I could not bear to see her imprisoned. My very soul reaches out to her.\"\n\n\"There's that soul of yours again, careening about like a drunken headless. It will get you killed one day and pride shall force me to gloat over your grave.\" He watched as his companion searched for Shavade's tracks with uncharacteristic quiet. Jatha was unused to his friend's silence. To break the calm he added, \"But if I recall how this usually works, the two of you inhabit a single soul, correct? And that's why fate summoned you together.\"\n\n\"No, that's just a tired cliche. It's different with Shavade. How can I describe my spiritual hunger? I fall into her like a shooting star plummets to the earth, unable and unwilling to resist, wanting only to touch her or explode in the striving.\" \"And the end result is a smoking crater.\"\n\n\"Who knows? Maybe I'll start a fire.\"\n\nThe wizard crossed his arms. \"I still think you've lost her trail.\" Fairfax snorted. Jatha shrugged. \"It doesn't matter. She will come to us.\"\n\n\"Such a divine thought!\"\n\n\"Not divine. Purely material. She wants her Stinger back, and this.\" From his shoulder bag he retrieved a small rod of black crystal. The object felt strange in his hand. It resisted movement as if it had great mass, though the weight of it was negligible. Jatha examined the rod carefully, as if it might plot its own escape.\n\nFairfax glanced back for an instant. \"What is that little sliver anyway, to make your eyes twitch like that?\"\n\n\"The root of corruption.\"\n\n\"I remember when she used it. It teleports people like a moongate. What's so irretrievably corrupt about that?\"\n\n\"How can I explain forbidden sorcery? Let me try to squeeze it into that constricted brain of yours. Imagine that the Ether is a wall around the entire world. A moongate is a carefully constructed door, built in such a way that the strength of the wall is preserved. That's responsible magic. But this shard is more like a miner's pick, gouging out a new, ragged hole every time it is used. Eventually the wall must crumble. Nasty things happen when the Ether starts to collapse.\"\n\n\"Let me guess. The world flies apart like a jilted poet.\"\n\n\"You're smarter than your hygiene portends. Human history claims that Blackthorn unleashed the Cataclysm, but as usual your scholars are wrong. It was the Lore Council of Anjur that split the world apart by misusing exactly this kind of sorcery. After the Cataclysm the Matriarchs disbanded the Council, forbade its sorcery and sealed away its dangerous spells. But this...\" He turned the rod in his hand. \"If Shavade carried this shard, then the seals must have been broken. Chamberlain Kavah has stolen power greater than even the Matriarchs can control. Disaster is stalking us, my friend, and this is one of its teeth.\"\n\nStill studying the ground, Fairfax spat a derisive laugh. '\"Disaster is stalking us!' By the Virtues, what fever afflicts wizards with melodrama? You mull over doom like a bad cook over soup.\"\n\n\"This is a serious threat, Fairfax.\"\n\n\"So was the last one and the one prior to that. When did we ever frown about it? Yet it's different this time and not because of an incontinent Ether. This is personal for you. I can see that. You know I'll never pry into your past, but some old wound has turned you as dark and bitter as Blue Boar stout.\" He looked over his shoulder at his companion. \"If I can ease your burden with some word or action, it's your duty as a friend to tell me so. I'm in love, in case you have forgotten. If you think the world is in peril, let us dispatch the villain so I can go on being in love. You and I cannot both be morose. One of us has to sleep.\"\n\nJatha relented a smile and returned the crystal to his bag. \"Quite so. But don't fret over Shavade. We won't lose her. She'll come looking for us soon enough.\" With a grumble he added, \"It's Lady Aria who has cleanly escaped us. We botched that one like children, my friend.\"\n\n\"You saw no sign of her when you returned for our things?\"\n\n\"Only a few dead ores. She has sharp edges, that porcelain doll.\"\n\nThe ranger paused. \"Do you believe her story about Montenegro?\"\n\n\"She shot me in the throat. That diminishes her credibility.\" He squinted. \"Why? Do you?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I suppose not. She did seem sincere, though.\"\n\n\"By the Ar'Kannor, you are like molten glass in the presence of women. They blow you into a hundred shapes and you never even feel the heat.\"\n\n\"You're wrong. I enjoy the heat. If I am malleable like glass, it is simply to entice them to pucker. That is life's most fundamental vice.\"\n\nJatha laughed. \"You're a wicked soul. No doubt my ancestors disapprove of our acquaintance and yet, for my part, I feel less wicked in your company. Onward then, unvirtuous ranger. Let's find the spoor of your goddess, if it will appease your hungry soul. We can hunt for breakfast along the way. My own hunger is altogether more gustatory.\"\n\nThe ranger extended his search of the area. Soon he recovered the Hunter's trail. Jatha gave in to the silence. His tall ears stayed alert to the sounds of the forest. Shavade would come for them, of course, and they had to be prepared. Fairfax's devotion would not stop her from killing them both like an assassin. Jatha would have it otherwise, even if the Hunter had to die herself. He dreaded the possibility, given his friend's infatuation, but the old ways of Avenosh were still entrenched inside him. He had lost his resolve to forget them. Years ago he had abandoned his home to avoid the conflicts in Ishpur, but if they followed him here, a continent away, he would meet them as a Firstborn Mystic. The pride of the caste had to be defended. No other allegiances stood above that.\n\nHe stifled a frown as he glanced at his companion, who nosed through the forest like a hound on a scent. Then he fetched a small bottle from his sack, uncorked it and drank a tongueful of liquor. It burned his throat pleasandy. After another sip he pocketed the bottle and chased after Fairfax through the underbrush. As usual they would pursue this matter a single footstep at a time. That was, Jatha appreciated, one of the unique appeals of traveling through the wilderness.\n\nThe levitant engine chirred as the carriole soared above the trees. Raveka crouched in the saddle, squinting against the bellicose wind. The sun had risen high enough to pale the sea in the south, beyond a ledge of jagged cliffs. The ocean's horizon was dotted with flecks of white. They were the sails of tall ships, dozens of them, speeding westward to the ports of Britain. The fleet that would invade Logosia had already begun to muster.\n\nBelow her the coast road curved inward. She veered the carriole northward over a vista of rustling treetops. She did not want to be seen by the ranks of soldiers who filled the road. The troops were heading toward the capital from as far back as Cove itself. She had counted thousands of them, equipped as infantrymen and marching imprecisely. They were not professional soldiers like rangers or knights. Rather they were volunteers, armed civilians, seeking glory and adventure in the war against Blackthorn. Each of them had left his home and family to join the army. They did not have the luxury to train together. That meant the fleet must be departing soon, because no general would leave volunteers idle for long.\n\nRaveka ground her teeth. This deployment was impossible. The invasion force could not be ready so quickly. By taking Montenegro to Logosia, she had missed some critical factor in the equation. As the carriole sailed over the forest she began to rework the formulae of her mission. Though she possessed little information, her new estimates did not yield an optimistic chance for stopping the fleet's departure. And low odds, of course, demanded greater risks. She hoped she would not be forced into desperate tactics. Gabriel had warned her against sabotage and she did not like the thought of placating his wrath again. It was the only time she ever thought her love for him might falter.\n\n\"Aria, my darling, look at the present I made for you. It's a lovely picture, don't you think?\" Lord Gideon spoke with pride as he wrapped a powerful arm around Raveka. The pair stood on a rooftop balcony amid a landscape of chimneys and slate tiles. They gazed at the breadth of Britannia Bay, just beyond the city. A fiery sunset spattered orange across the waters and painted purple the sails of a large, resplendent armada. The docks were clogged with countless tall ships, a bramble of spars and masts and riggings. Many more were already under sail, gliding toward the mouth of the harbor. Most were escort and provisioning ships, heavy with weapons and supplies. Their holds were jammed with barrels and crates, forges and smithing equipment, the timbers and planks that would become siege engines, great stacks of cloth from which to fashion acres of tents; the endless transportable components of New Britannia's centuried military society. So many ships filled the bay that their decks became a floating island, a gigantic wooden mosaic that obscured as much seawater as it revealed. Masts stood high like a forest of winter trees. Birds wheeled overhead with raucous excitement.\n\nRaveka had also observed countless troop carriers off the beaches east of the city, loading their plentiful human cargo as well as streams of horses and livestock. She had known the order of magnitude of the New Britannian forces, but she was unprepared for the emotional impact of the spectacle itself. Lady Aria should have been awestruck by the glorious sight. All Sister Raveka could see, however, was the horror of invasion and the devastation that this primitive horde might bring to Logosia. Her homeland was already scorched by the war with Garron. This was a blow it could little withstand.\n\nHer gut churned despite all attempts to calm herself. The armada was already under way. Her mission had failed before it began.\n\nHe laughed. \"No. We'll have to get the troops there the old-fashioned way. The fleet is a marvelous sight, though, wouldn't you agree?\"\n\nShe leaned her head against his muscular shoulder. \"But it's a terrible gift for me, Gideon.\"\n\n\"How can you say that?\"\n\n\"Because it means you'll be leaving soon. I had hoped to spend some time with you.\"\n\nHe squeezed her closer. \"Oh, my dear lady, but we shall. The moments will be few but exquisite. I promise you.\" \"How soon until you go?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow. But tonight belongs to us.\"\n\nShe heaved a doleful sigh. It was not altogether insincere. \"Were you able to handle the business matters I requested?\" \"Exactly as your letter asked. The Montenegro estate is now legally yours. I found a buyer for the silver mine and sent the payment to the individual you specified. However, my lady, forgive me if I say that I heartily disapprove of sending gold to criminals, and especially in such a tremendous sum! I don't care if Anzo helped the navy at the Battle of Buccaneer's Den. He is a plague on Sosaria second only to Blackthorn himself. I would rather have diverted the armada for a week and leveled his wicked pirate kingdom! I am horrified to think that Sir Gabriel had so much traffic with him.\" \"I do not care to investigate my cousin's past affairs. I do, however, intend to settle the debts of his estate. Honor demands it, even if criminals are involved. Money is worthless if one sacrifices Virtue to keep it. Do you not agree?\" The nobleman smiled with warm condescension. \"You're a rare flower, Aria. Virtue must be wonderfully simple in Coventine. While you're in this city, though, you had best allow me to keep an eye on your affairs. Britain may be the City of Compassion, but not everyone here defines the term correctly.\"\n\n\"And what shall I do when you're not here?\"\n\n\"I'll see that you're well attended. Worry not.\"\n\n\"But I am worried, about everything. What will happen when the soldiers leave? The troll king is raiding every settlement within a day of the Serpentspine Mountains, including Coventine. They've chased the ore tribes south. The Montenegro lands are filthy with them. Now half the men of New Britannia are going to sail away and I'm very afraid, Gideon. I have terrible doubts about this invasion.\"\n\n\"I know you do, but we have taken precautions. We would be fools to leave our home unguarded, don't you think? Enough soldiers will remain here to keep everyone safe.\"\n\n\"Twenty companies of rangers,\" said a man behind them on the roof. They turned to see General Nathaniel at the top of the stairs. Like Raveka and Gideon he wore the clothes of a wealthy courtier, though his haughty bearing revealed him as an elder knight. His long braids and trim beard had eluded the grey of age. His face lit with an unreadable smile. \"Half a garrison shall remain in each major city, as well as a master sorcerer. The trolls and ores won't dare to come near. And trust me, my lady, the invasion will do fine without the extra troops. When we muster with the Juka Clans, Blackthorn's armies will fall like wheat to a scythe.\"\n\nRaveka startled at the arrival of the officer. She concealed her surprise with a curtsey. \"General, forgive me. I did not mean to disparage your plans.\" Then she nesded into Gideon's arms. His strength lent her a feeling of safety in the presence of a member of the Pact of Four.\n\nGeneral Nathaniel chuckled and offered a bow. \"No, forgive me, your ladyship. I have rudely interrupted your conversation. Lord Gideon, I've just come to tell you that the Samlethe is ready for loading. I'm having my trunks carried on board in a few minutes, if you would like to do the same.\"\n\n\"Thank you, General, I'll see to it at once. I'm sorry, Aria, but I'll have to meet you at dinner. I must be present for this. Protocol, you see. We're moving confidential papers on board the flagship. One cannot be too wary of spies.\"\n\nShe nodded and glanced at Nathaniel. The officer looked away from her quickly. She read apprehension behind his smile, though she was not sure what it meant. \"Why, Gideon,\" she said with a manufactured giggle, \"you make it sound as if there are enemies everywhere.\"\n\n\"One can never be too careful,\" the nobleman repeated, tapping the side of his nose. \"You must always remember that, my darling. Battles are limited to batdefields, but war knows no bounds at all.\"\n\nThey exchanged farewells and the two warriors departed. Raveka retired to the guest wing of Lord Gideon's town-house, where she occupied a richly appointed suite. A young handmaiden arrived to dress her for dinner. To Raveka's surprise, Gideon had commissioned her an evening gown. It cradled her body lavishly and brought a genuine smile to her face.\n\nWhen she was ready for dinner, she sent the handmaiden away and sat in front of the ornate vanity. Staring back from the mirror was the beautiful Lady Aria, her hair as lush as sable, her skin as radiant as pearl, her gown an exquisite labyrinth of satin and silk and jewels. Aria was the perfect future, the goal for which Raveka had always yearned. And at this moment she was more than that. Aria was a weapon to strike at the enemies of Logosia. One day she would be Montenegro's wife, but never would she forget her homeland or allow it to be plundered. Gabriel would have to forgive her that conviction.\n\nFrom her bags she retrieved the half-empty bottle of brandy that had served her against Jatha and Fairfax. She uncorked it, opened a tiny metal box and tapped a pinch of powder into the liquor. It dissolved quickly. Then she held the bottle for a moment to subdue a feeling of dread. A quiet litany of numbers helped.\n\nAfter dinner she walked with Lord Gideon under the bright double moons. The nobleman's walled garden became a mystery in the silver light, its pools wavering and its flowers bleaching white. Insects started their nighdy chorus, a sound that was pleasant to her. Logosia had no such music. She enjoyed its soothing, exotic drone as the sea whispered in the distance.\n\nLord Gideon was explaining the extravagance of Britain's social season. Though he was a veteran of the battlefield, the nobleman had been raised a creature of wealthy Britannian society, a world of formal courtships and warrior chivalry. His notions of romance were stubbornly innocent. Raveka could see that he was thrilled in her company. His affection was deep and pure. The realization warmed her.\n\nIt also moved her into action. At an opportune moment she squeezed his arm and murmured, \"Gideon, stay in Britain for the season. Please don't leave me alone.\"\n\n\"I'll return before spring. I promise.\"\n\nShe smiled sadly. \"You can't abandon me.\"\n\n\"I'm a knight commander, if you please! My place is with the army. You're welcome to stay here in my house until I get back.\"\n\n\"I have a better idea. If you won't stay, then take me with you.\"\n\nHe chuckled. \"Would that it were possible, my darling.\"\n\n\"Why isn't it possible? Move me onto the Samlethe. I won't be a nuisance. Who will question the lord of the House of the Lion?\"\n\n\"General Nathaniel, for one. He commands the invasion. I am only going in my capacity as head of the Silver Serpents. I have agreed to submit to Nathaniel's judgment in all but the most strategic matters.\"\n\n\"Then ask him if I may come along.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"There's no need to ask. He will not allow it.\"\n\nShe murmured, \"I confess, I don't like General Nathaniel.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. That is your cousin talking.\"\n\n\"You don't think Gabriel was right? That Nathaniel wants your position as Lord of the House?\"\n\nHe grunted. \"That hardly makes him a villain.\"\n\n\"But there's more to it. He frightens me, Gideon. I don't like the way he looks at me. It's... unseemly.\"\n\nHe patted her hand. \"Surely you're imagining that! Nathaniel is happily married.\"\n\n\"As if that makes him ogle a lady less instead of more.\" She leaned very dose and wrapped both her arms around his elbow. \"Never mind. Of course you know him better than I do. I'm just being a fool.\"\n\nGideon made no answer. It was the response Raveka had wanted. After a calculated pause, she halted and pressed against his body. \"Stop. Please wait.\" She turned her face away and conjured a blush.\n\n\"My darling, what is it?\"\n\nShe bent her knees slightly so that she gazed up at him, then dampened her large, brown eyes. \"Gideon, I don't know what else to do, so I'm going to beg you. Please, take me with you to Logosia. Please. If you don't I'm afraid I might do something rash.\"\n\n\"Aria! What do you mean by that?\"\n\n\"I mean this.\" She raised onto her toes and mashed her lips against his.\n\nThe nobleman flustered. For a long moment he fell into the kiss, then abruptly pulled back. \"By the shrines, what are you doing?\"\n\n\"I'm using the time we have left. I can't take this, dammit! We've only known each other a short while and my heart is galloping faster than a racehorse. And now you're going to leave me alone\u2014\"\n\nHe held her shoulders gently. \"So soon after your cousin's death. I know. But you must be strong. I'll come back to you. There's no need to rush this.\"\n\nShe blinked a tear from her lashes. \"But there is a need. Because if you die in Logosia I'll always . . Her lips quivered. \"Gideon, I'll always regret...\"\n\nThe lord took her into his arms. She felt him tremble. \"Aria, please.\"\n\n\"No. Let me say it.\" She pushed away from him. \"Let me say it or let me go.\"\n\nHe heaved a deep sigh. With a large hand he cupped her cheek. She gazed into his eyes and whispered, \"I'm in love with you, Gideon, and I want to make\u2014\" and he pulled her mouth to his own, as if he did not want to hear her speak the words. But the passion of his kisses informed Raveka that she had succeeded. He was an honorable lord and a chivalrous knight, but underneath he was a man of flesh and blood. And tonight he was her prisoner. By morning, she knew, she would have everything she wanted.\n\nNighttime swelled in the thick of the forest under a humid blanket of clouds. In the crook of a tangled willow root, Jatha rested in dark silence. His tall ears flicked at a persistent gnat. His eyes half-glowed in a moonbeam. He watched as a black silhouette crept toward him, hardly brushing a twig or leaf as it passed through deep layers of undergrowth.\n\n\"Let's go,\" whispered Fairfax as he knelt before his companion. \"She's on the move again. She can't be more than a quarter mile ahead.\"\n\nThe Meer wizard inhaled a bouquet of earthy scents. He held his breath for a moment, then answered, \"No.\"\n\nThe ranger paused while slinging his bow across his back. \"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Shavade. She's not behaving.\"\n\n\"I don't follow you.\"\n\n\"She's still running. It doesn't make sense. She should have turned to fight by now.\"\n\n\"Fight both of us? Give her some credit. Just because she's beautiful doesn't mean she's an imbecile, as appealing a combination as that might be.\"\n\nJatha sat up and flattened his ears. \"Think about it. She knows by now that you won't lose her trail. The longer she runs, the more fatigued she'll get. She can't elude us forever. But she's a skilled enough warrior to lay an ambush for us. She could attack while one of us is asleep and have a reasonable chance of bagging both our heads in time for breakfast. That is what a Hunter is trained to do.\"\n\nFairfax scratched his beard. \"You sound as if you're disappointed to keep your neck intact.\"\n\n\"I wonder what other plans she might have for it.\" He gazed into the twilight that hung between the trees. \"She's not fleeing from us, my heart-whipped brother. She's leading us somewhere. We're coursing like foxes right into her trap.\"\n\nThe ranger glanced in the direction of their quarry. \"A trap out here? I have my doubts. These woods are sick with ores and trolls, who can hardly be her allies.\"\n\n\"True, but she is allied with the Pact of Four. Their resources stretch farther than the stink of the troll king. Listen, my friend, I say we should break off this pursuit. We're only two or three days north of the Black Goat Inn. I say if we must collide with Shavade and her packmates, let's do it on the battleground of our choosing.\"\n\n\"You're mad as a Jukan jester! If I lose her scent now we'll never find her again.\"\n\n\"We don't have to find her. We have her Stinger and the black crystal. She will follow us. That's my point.\"\n\n\"You can't be sure.\"\n\n\"I am completely sure. Hunters have a deep bond with their Living Weapons. I've dealt with them on many occasions.\"\n\n\"But never with one like my goddess!\" The ranger sucked a deep breath to compose himself. \"All right. I confess, you offer an intriguing argument. She may well be luring us into a camp of assassins or a pit of asps or a coop of murderous chickens for all we know. That is a perfecdy valid reason to turn away. However, I submit that I have a far more valid reason to stay on her track.\"\n\n\"I think I can guess what you're about to say.\"\n\n\"Precisely. My heart tells me I must. It charges after her like a sprinting hound and it's everything I can do to keep pace.\"\n\n\"Your heart! It isn't a charging hound, Fairfax, it's a potbellied mule dragging us behind it with plodding steps. You should lay a stout lash to that heart of yours and make it listen to reason.\"\n\n\"Reason! When has reason ever been a star that we followed? Something has come over you, my woolly brother, and it's clouding your baser judgment. Love and lust and hunger and whim, those are the blades we use to cut our path. Isn't that what we've always vowed?\"\n\nJatha rubbed at his eyes. \"Life is more tangled than that, though I don't expect your pastry of a brain to see it.\"\n\nFairfax stood and spread out his arms. \"I reject your tangles and the cowardice they spawn! And I am going to pursue my goddess Shavade tonight. In response to your redolent pile of doubt I have but this to offer:\n\n\u2003\"She makes my heart swell\n\n\u2003A hundred miles in girth!\n\n\u2003She impregnates my soul;\n\n\u2003To Love I shall give birth!\n\n\u2003\"She's a star overhead;\n\n\u2003She lights up my path!\n\n\u2003The kingdom of my love for her\n\n\u2003No borders it hath!\"\n\nThe echoes of his song chased night birds from the branches. The Meer grimaced and muttered, \"A star doesn't light up anything. It's too small.\"\n\nFairfax smirked. \"Granted.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't give birth to love or anything else. You're male, or so your prolific sweat leads me to conjecture.\"\n\n\"It's a metaphor,\" said the ranger.\n\n\"A romantic poem should never involve the word 'girth.'\"\n\nFairfax kicked the wizard's leg. \"Get up, you sour old stain. The mule is plodding out again.\"\n\nJatha rose sluggishly enough to retain his dignity. But as he trudged behind his lively companion, a weight settled on his brow. They might well continue in the blithe manner that had guided them for so many years, but the stakes were as high now as Jatha had ever seen them. The time would soon come when they must follow a more serious path. He did not know if Fairfax could accept that fact, and worse, he was unsure what to do if the human refused to see reason. Jatha knew where his own loyalties must fall. He could only hope that Fairfax would understand, because when action was required he would not hesitate to strike at Shavade or anyone eke.\n\nDawn blazed over the docks of Britain, hurling amber light through the riggings of the countless tall ships. The boardwalk was a swirl of activity, rattling with thousands of footsteps and the creak of wooden cranes heavy with cargo. In the center of the hubbub was a carriage in a wide clearing. Knights in silver armor held back the bustling crowd as Lord Gideon and General Nathaniel prepared to embark for Logosia. Standing before them were Lady Annabel, who was the general's elegant wife, and Lady Aria of Coventine. The couples exchanged farewelk with brave faces and discreet embraces. As the two commanders turned to leave, Raveka stopped them with a shout. \"My lords! I nearly forgot my gift to you both.\" From her pocket she produced the bottle of brandy, which she presented to Lord Gideon. \"It's a splendid label from the cellar I recently inherited.\"\n\nGideon beamed her a smile. \"We shall drink to your ladyships' health this very evening, on board the Samlethe.\"\n\nRaveka waved her hand. \"No. There isn't much left in the bottle, as you can see. You must save that for the day you land on the shores of Logosia. Toast us, brave warriors, and Lady Annabel and I shall toast you from here, and the treacherous oceans will not suffice to keep our spirits apart. Promise me!\"\n\nThe lord nodded happily. \"By my Honor and Valor, it shall be done.\"\n\nGeneral Nathaniel laughed. \"Do keep an eye on this tall damsel, Annabel. She's got a poet's imagination and I daresay, a child's mischief.\" He twinkled a glance at Raveka, which seemed several heartbeats too long. She sensed a vague threat in it.\n\nThen the men left for their proud warship and Raveka linked arms with Lady Annabel, who escorted her back to their carriage. Battling the sadness of the moment, the middle-aged gentlewoman remarked, \"You've positively entranced our poor Lord Gideon. I've never seen him so giddy.\"\n\nRaveka grinned. \"I nearly convinced him to take me along. But he was prepared to duel your husband for permission, so I decided not to press him too hard.\"\n\nAnnabel giggled. \"Nathaniel's right. You are a devil. I look forward to introducing you in my circles, depleted though they shall be with the knights going away. Will you be staying at Lord Gideon's house for the season?\"\n\nShe sighed. \"Just for a short while. I must leave for Cove soon. I have an inheritance to oversee and it's crawling with ores just now. Perhaps I can convince a company of rangers to help me chase them off.\"\n\n\"Lady Aria! By the lost shrines, you should stay here in the city. It isn't safe in the forests.\"\n\nRaveka glanced out at the Samlethe, looming like a monster over the smaller ships in the harbor. \"There's nothing to be afraid of here, compared to the place they're going. Blackthorn has weapons more deadly than a thousand ores.\"\n\nThe remark stilled the conversation, which suited the Mathematician's needs. She had many calculations to perform. Much remained for her to accomplish and little time in which to do so.\n\nThe morning simmered into afternoon. The spectacle of the departing fleet captured the attention of the city, but Raveka excused herself to Lord Gideon's townhouse under the pretext of preparing for the trip back to Cove. In reality she had other arrangements to make. When she was ready to undertake the next phase of her plan, she indulged in a few minutes to rest in her suite and gather her strength. Then she took out a paper and quill and wrote a letter of farewell to Lady Annabel. Her departure would seem abrupt, but she had no choice in the matter.\n\nShe glanced into the vanity mirror when the chamber door opened. A young handmaiden entered with a tray and a teapot. \"Put it there,\" mumbled Raveka, motioning to a table beside the bed. The servant complied, then began to straighten the sheets. When the girl lifted a heavy bag from atop a pillow, Raveka stood and collected the sack. Its contents were compromising. She chuckled and said, \"There's no need. The bed is exquisite already, don't you think?\"\n\n\"It won't take but a moment, your ladyship.\"\n\n\"It's all right. You can go.\" She raised the cup of tea as the handmaiden turned away. The steam had a sharp, subtle odor. Raveka squinted, then pretended to take a sip. \"Wait,\" she called out when the servant opened the door. \"I'm so sorry, but will you turn down the sheets for me, after all? I suddenly feel a bit woozy.\"\n\n\"Of course, your ladyship.\" The girl moved back to the bed. Raveka set down the teacup, then untied a long ribbon from her sleek, black hair. She stepped beside the handmaiden. When the girl leaned across the bed Raveka slipped the ribbon over her neck and looped it around the bedpost. The servant let out a squeal. Raveka yanked the ribbon violently, pulling the girl off her feet and lashing her neck to the post.\n\nThe Mathematician held her prisoner secure. In a cold tone she demanded, \"Who is your master? To whom do you report?\"\n\nThe servant choked, \"Ladyship! I don't\u2014\"\n\n\"You put sedative in my tea. I would be within my rights to strangle you for that. But you're young and probably terrified right now, so I'll let you go if you tell me who you work for.\" She jerked on the ribbon for punctuation. \"Allow me to help you. It's General Nathaniel.\"\n\nThe girl's face paled with surprise. Raveka nodded. \"There, that wasn't so difficult. What's your name?\"\n\n\"Faith, your ladyship.\"\n\n\"Faith, why did the general send you to spy on me?\"\n\n\"I don't know!\"\n\n\"You're lying. He suspects that I know about his secret affairs, correct? That my cousin Gabriel told me everything before he died. And you're here to look for a diary or letters or some other record that might reveal what I know. Do I have that right?\"\n\nThe girl rasped, \"Yes, ladyship! Please, I can't breathe!\"\n\nShe let go of the ribbon. The handmaiden fell onto the edge of the bed and rubbed her marked throat. Raveka sighed. \"Faith, it's time you left Lord Gideon's service. We don't need spies in the household.\"\n\nThe young woman nodded with a fearful expression. \"Yes, ladyship. I'm sorry.\" She took one quick step and stumbled. Something metallic jangled on the ground. She had tripped on Raveka's heavy bag, spilling its contents onto the floor. A ring of small keys lay glinting in the afternoon light. They were duplicates of the keys to the lockboxes that Lord Gideon had loaded onto the Samlethe. Raveka had stolen them last night, when Gideon was asleep.\n\nFaith's mouth gaped open. She recognized what she was seeing. \"Ladyship, I don't understand!\"\n\nThe Mathematician sighed. \"That is the saddest part of all.\" She whisked the bolt thrower from her pocket and fired it at the girl, who doubled over when the missile thumped inside her breast. Raveka lunged forward and guided Faith onto the bed sheets, then reached down to select an object from the overturned bag. It was a tiny metal box. She opened the lid to reveal the same powder she had sprinkled into Lord Gideon's bottle of brandy.\n\nThe handmaiden lay quivering on her back, her bloody mouth agape. Raveka touched the box to the girl's lip and stroked her fine, brown hair. \"I'm sorry, Faith. Someday this nightmare will be over. I promise you.\"\n\nRaveka did not look as she tapped a pinch of poison into the girl's mouth. The desiccation was never pleasant to watch. When it was finished, she wrapped the shrunken body in the red-stained sheet and plotted the safest course to the sewers. Scavengers would dispose of the evidence in less than an hour. Raveka could arrange an excuse for the girl's disappearance later. At the moment certain appointments awaited her that she could not afford to miss.\n\nBy now the ink had dried on the letter to Lady Annabel. Raveka folded and sealed it, then laid it on the pillow for a servant to find. She stood before the mirror again. Lady Aria gazed back, beautiful and elegant. Raveka sighed, \"We shall meet again soon, my dearest,\" and pulled a long knife from her bag. She lifted a fistful of sable hair and began to slice it off. Tears welled in her eyes and blinked from her long, dark lashes.\n\n\"Duck down!\" cried Fairfax as he leapt onto a tree limb. Jatha complied, kneeling behind a thicket of vines. In the mellow afternoon light the ranger scrambled for a high perch and quietly pulled his bow to full draw. After a heartbeat he loosed the arrow, which clipped through several curtains of leaves. Beyond a copse of trees something monstrous roared in pain. A second later the air burst with smoke and Fairfax's tree limb exploded into flames. The human dove away and tumbled across the ground, rising with another arrow nocked. He fired it and two others before a second fireball blazed past him. Then he scrambled into hiding and knelt at Jatha's side.\n\n\"It's a gazer,\" he panted, \"though it looks different than I'm used to. It saw me but I don't think it knows you're here.\"\n\nThe Meer grumbled, \"It knows.\"\n\n\"What are you not telling me?\"\n\n\"It's bigger than a regular gazer, right? And just has the one eye.\"\n\nFairfax squinted. \"It's one of those battle gazers from Avenosh?\"\n\n\"Correct. An oculus. I told you Shavade has friends out here. Someone has sent their hound to look for us.\" He flexed his hands, popping the knuckles. \"Let's bring it down.\"\n\n\"Light me,\" said the ranger, drawing another arrow. Jatha nurtured a spark in his palm, which he placed on the steel arrow tip. Fairfax rose and fired the missile, which spat embers as it shot through the woods and impaled a dark shape in the distance. The unearthly roar shook the trees again. Both men sprang from hiding and charged through the underbrush.\n\nJatha tracked the creature as it rose into the air. The oculus flew by means of a natural enchantment, maneuvering its bulbous thorax among the high branches of the forest canopy. It was a large beast, the weight of several men, with many spiderlike limbs that clambered through the dark tree-tops. Jatha could not see its single, giant eye. Neither did he want to. Instead he cracked open a spell that reached into the earth below him, seized upon a clump of heavy stones and tore them violently out of the soil. The stones streaked at the oculus, smashing through its cover of leaves and branches and pounding the monster with brutal force. A gold light flared around it. Smoke filled the air. Jatha leapt aside as the oculus unleashed another ball of flame that strewed fire across the brushy terrain.\n\nHe heard the thump of Fairfax's bow, several times in rapid sequence. The monster howled. Then the treetops shook and many branches snapped loose, toppling to the ground. When Jatha scanned the foliage he saw a hole through which the creature had escaped into the westering sky. The two men crouched in silence, convincing themselves that the oculus was gone.\n\n\"Damn,\" grumbled the wizard.\n\n\"Shh.\"\n\n\"Do you hear something?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nJatha paused for a few seconds longer, then stood. \"It's not coming back. And Shavade isn't here either, you mooncalf. If she was going to attack she would have done it while we were engaged.\"\n\nFairfax sighed. \"Hope never dies.\"\n\n\"Hope is closer to death now than it was five minutes ago.\n\nThe ranger slipped the bow across his shoulders as he rose. \"Go ahead, tell me the bad news that's wriggling on your tongue.\"\n\n\"An oculus is not just another Living Weapon. It's an aristocrat's war beast. Only high-ranking members of the Mystic caste keep them. Firstborn males of the Matriarch lines. As wizards they're second only to the Matriarchs themselves.\"\n\n\"I take it Chamberlain Kavah is one of these Firstborns?\"\n\nJatha grimaced. \"So he is. But Thulann said that he was a member of the ambassador's entourage in Logos. I cannot imagine he would be this far afield, unless the trip was extremely important.\"\n\nFairfax stomped out a handful of fires in the underbrush. \"And so we've got a very powerful enemy out there, in pursuit of some business of grave importance. I pray you won't try to convince me that we should turn back because of it. The way my blood is pumping right now, I confess the lure of my Huntress feels stronger than ever.\"\n\nThe Meer sorcerer shook his head. \"You'll be pleased to learn I have changed my mind. I agree that we should continue to track Shavade. She's probably luring us into a trap to get rid of us, so she can help Kavah with whatever he has come here to do. Well, my furless friend, I intend to stop him from doing whatever he is up to. It can't be wholesome. And Shavade is the only means we have to find him. I'll brave her traps for a chance to reach Kavah.\"\n\nFairfax chuckled. \"So why the dour face? You should be pleased. We have followed my heart, as our hedonistic principles instruct us, and we find ourselves on the proper course to do good. It is proof that selfishness and altruism need not be mutually exclusive.\"\n\n\"Altruism is merely a flavor of selfishness. Every nursemaid knows that. But this isn't a game anymore, Fairfax, and you'd best slither your mind around that fact. Kavah is no ore to be toyed with or pretty warrior to lech. He's the force behind the Pact of Four and one of the deadliest sorcerers in Sosaria. When we find him, he won't be unprepared. This is grave business indeed.\"\n\nThe ranger coughed. \"I think that point has been made prodigiously clear.\" He batted the ashy smoke that drifted through the trees. \"Let's move on, then, in case Kavah sends more hounds after us. A still fox is a doomed fox. I'd like to meet Shavade with a smile on my face and not a rictus grin.\"\n\nThey started off into the deeps of the forest, with Fairfax in the lead. The human scrutinized the terrain for clues of Shavade's recent passing. Though Jatha had little skill for it, the Meer found himself doing likewise. He felt as eager as his companion now to find the fugitive Huntress. It was a backward sort of synchrony, which he accepted for its own sake.\n\n[ Interlude ]\n\nSartorius, you are failing in your duties and I find myself somewhat distressed by it.\"\n\n\"You must cope with the facts in whatever way you see fit, Kavah.\"\n\n\"I told you, the plot is simple. The Juka Clans invade Logosia. New Britannia comes to their aid. Logos falls and Blackthorn is removed from power. It is a simple sequence of events.\"\n\n\"I am extraordinarily busy at this moment, Chamberlain. Please state your complaint succinctly.\"\n\n\"I have interrupted my own affairs, as well, to address this matter. Bahrok claims that your troops are doing considerable damage to his armies in the east of Logosia. He says that the battle plans you give him are no longer reliable. This is not in accord with our design.\"\n\n\"It is his own incompetence that returns to vex him. Ever since he and General Nathaniel revealed our pact to outsiders, I have been struggling to maintain secure lines of intelligence. There are forces in Logos that conspire against me.\"\n\n\"You assured us that the defeat of the Needle and the destruction of Akar would eliminate Lector Braun as a threat.\"\n\n\"Braun is no longer a factor. However, Lector Gaff of the Mathematicians controls an elite force of his personal training. I have not yet pinpointed its members. And he owns great influence in the command structure of the army. He is circumventing my designated tactics so that Bahrok cannot take advantage of the intelligence I give him. Without my help, you understand, Bahrok is just another well-armed barbarian.\"\n\n\"I see. Then eliminate Lector Gaff from the equation.\"\n\n\"If it were that easy, Gaff would be dead. But he is an order of magnitude more formidable than Braun.\"\n\n\"I am not interested in the details, Sartorius. Warlord Bahrok must proceed with the invasion unhindered.\"\n\n\"Chamberlain, I am enacting my response to the situation.\"\n\n\"Splendid. Then there is one more action you must perform.\"\n\n\"Elaborate.\"\n\n\"You must take the Ishpurian ambassador as your prisoner.\"\n\n\"You're a madman, Kavah.\"\n\n\"A platoon of Janissars should be sufficient to dispatch her guards. Bring along a juggernaut if it makes you feel more secure.\"\n\n\"Dame Adhayah is a Matriarch. Is she not one of the foremost sorceresses in the world? I have seen with my own eyes what destruction an archmage can conjure.\"\n\n\"Indeed she is spectacularly powerful. She is also a pacifist. She shall not resist you. I give you my assurance as a member of her entourage for ten very long years. More importantly, as your prisoner she shall not be able to interfere when Bahrok and Nathaniel break down the gates of Logos.\"\n\n\"That would be reassuring, except that her capture would be an act of war against your government.\"\n\n\"Leave that to me. Avenosh will not respond.\"\n\n\"You demand a great deal of trust.\"\n\n\"Just as I have put my trust in you, Lector. We are civilized men in an age of savagery. Trust is the currency in which we trade.\"\n\n\"Keep your rhetoric, Chamberlain. I shall do as you instruct. If this action visits harm upon Logos, you know that I shall hold you bodily responsible for it.\"\n\n\"As you say, Lector Sartorius. As you say.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Kumar's Throne",
+                "text": "And when Sir Lazaro felled the last dragon in the hellish caverns of Covetous, he stood bloody and ragged before a great wooden shrine. Inside rested an artifact sought by every warrior to brave that pit since the days of ancient heroes. It was the Talon of Covetous, the Sword of the Dragon-slayer, the culmination of the knight's lifelong quest. Though his wounds scarcely allowed him to lift it, he carried the weapon to the surface and held it aloft before his army. A great cheer erupted to honor the triumphant knight. Never once had danger turned him aside. On that day the Virtue of Valor presented Sir Lazaro with his reward.\n\nMontenegro unleashed a howl of joy as he charged into the Jukan horde. The savage clansmen barraged him with furious blows, but his static-charged kite shield lashed back with an electric bite. The spring-mounted plates of his kinetic armor repelled the swords and spears that slipped past his shield. And the whirling terror of his chain and mornings tar drove back the crowded Jukan warriors. Flames roared from the ball of his weapon, fueled by a furnace inside the Technocrat device. His assault carved a smoking path through the Garronite formation, littering the desert sunrise with twisted, sizzling corpses.\n\nIn the dry wastes of eastern Logosia, the front ranks of Khyber's Brigade pounded through the defenses of the Jukan military encampment. Fortifications lay destroyed by advance Logosian engineers. Showers of arrows peppered the rocky ground. Two hundred Technocrat soldiers fought beside Montenegro in crisp, responsive formations, their brutal advance hastened by war machines that vomited gouts of lightning and flame. Small, mobile smoke cauldrons flooded the air with a greasy haze. A bank of drums marked the rhythm of the attack.\n\nMontenegro admired Brigadier Khyber's offensive strategy. His elite troops had spent the night hours in a bloodless infiltration of the terrain, then ambushed their prey in the pale languor of dawn. The crafty approach required half the men of an ordinary frontal assault. Consequently the brigade was extremely mobile, swooping in and out of its missions before the enemy had time to mount a defense. It was as efficient a fighting force as Montenegro had ever seen.\n\nHe lamented that he had never met Khyber on the battlefield. He would have gladly pitted his knights against these shock troops. The conflict would have been legendary.\n\nInstead he battled in the midst of the brigade, leading his own unit against the armies of Clan Varang. Presently his men breached the perimeter and hurried their war engines inside the encampment. Montenegro climbed the ladder of a small, wheeled tower and surveyed the smoky conflict.\n\nKhyber's Brigade had swamped the modest encampment of a hundred warriors, one of whom was among Warlord Bahrok's most trusted generals. Farther to the north, across a stretch of cracked mud flats, lay a much larger force of Jukan clansmen. He could see plumes of dust rising from the ridgeback-mounted cavalry who rushed to the aid of their war master. But the knight disregarded them. The smoke cauldrons would slow their charge. This action would be finished before the Varang clansmen arrived in numbers. From the south approached a single Technocrat airship, traveling low over the desert floor, to spirit away the bulk of the brigade. The rear guard would escape using levitant-fueled kite skids. Riding his clockwork horse, Montenegro would be among the last to leave. The Technocrat troops had given him the nickname \"Cavalier\" and regarded him as something of a batde-hungry rogue. He felt a duty to meet their expectations. He had become an icon to them, a dark, exotic fighter from another world. He swore they fought harder in his presence.\n\n\"Cavalier! It's done!\" The warrior who had called out, a giant of a Juka, rushed beside the small tower on which the knight was standing. The huge officer sported exquisite kinetic armor and hefted a spring-plated war maul. The other soldiers called him \"Shirron\" and Montenegro agreed that it was an apt name, for in size and shape Master Enosh was the mirror image of Shirron Turlogan of Garron. His steadfast honor likewise recalled the proud warriors of Jukaran. His face was a lightningstorm of scars from a recent battle that he refused to discuss, though the loss of it had seemingly inspired him to join Khyber's Brigade. He spoke in a deep, confident rumble. \"The camp is secure. We've cornered the general on the hill.\"\n\nMontenegro nodded, examining the tangle of troops surrounding the central pavilion. \"Excellent. Make him the usual offer.\"\n\n\"I already did. He chooses to fight rather than surrender.\"\n\n\"They always do. Where's the brigadier?\"\n\n\"Organizing the extraction.\"\n\n\"Then what are you waiting for? Go fight the general. Or aren't you up to the challenge?\"\n\nMaster Enosh chuckled. His noble eyes smiled. \"The men want you to do it.\"\n\n\"Well, I can't. We've got cavalry on the way.\"\n\nThe weapons master thumped his hammer on the ground. \"I'll take over for you. Go cut down that war master. A lot of bets have already been placed.\"\n\nMontenegro laughed and climbed down the ladder. \"Very well, since we haven't time to argue about it. Yours is an immoral people, Shirron, but I can't fault your love of victory.\"\n\nAs he jogged into the ranks of eager Technocrat soldiers, the knight glanced at the feeble sunrise that tinged the smoky haze. The war drums crashed out the meter of the dawn. Assault engines clanked into position, ready to help the brigadesmen aboard the approaching airship. Montenegro inhaled the sharp whiff of the battle and smiled to himself. Forgive my unseemly company, Grandfather, but I fight where the Virtues have led me. You had the luxury of dragons for an enemy. My curse is to battle men. In the end, perhaps I may be arrogant enough to dream that my Valor outshines even yours. He did not believe it, of course, but the thought gave him a chuckle. He had found it prudent to keep his spirits high. The arid wastes of Logosia provided a sullen environment and he did what he must to survive.\n\nThe midnight ocean nuzzled the shore with gentle, foamy breakers. The sharp rocks of the coastline glistened like wet jewels. Whitecaps danced over the surface of the water, reaching out several hundred yards to surround a tall ship at anchor. Many rowboats bobbed their way closer to Logosian soil. Lanterns glowed sharp amber in the sheeting moonlight.\n\nFrom dry land Montenegro watched the New Britannian buccaneers pull their dinghies onto the rocky shore. The men slogged through glowing spume wearing loose, rugged clothes and high boots. The tallest of them sported a long coat as well, in the fashion of a naval officer. His wide-brimmed hat fluttered in the breeze, its plumage rippling like fire. From his rowboat he hoisted a short, burly animal. The creature was a ball of white fur that capered through the tide pools as it followed the man across the pebbled beach. The tall sailor drew his cutlass as he approached Montenegro.\n\nThe knight spread out his arms and said, \"Surely you would not cut down a Technocrat with breeding as impeccable as mine.\"\n\nThe brown-skinned buccaneer cupped a hand over his eyes, as if the light of two moons was blinding. Then he sheathed his blade and began to laugh. \"By Blackthorn's gaskets, I would not believe it if it wasn't standing right in front of me. Sir Gabriel Montenegro, alive and well and dressed in Technocrat armor! And I thought I was insane coming here like this.\"\n\nThe two men shook hands. Montenegro chuckled, \"The whole world has gone insane, my friend, and we're standing at the eye of the hurricane. But I'm glad to see you as well, Bawdewyn.\"\n\n\"Ain't this a spectacle, though? In Britain they're hailing Montenegro the fallen hero. The slayer of Braun's Needle.\n\nMartyrs are good for morale, you know. But what would they say to the sight of you clapped in springs and gears with a clockwork stallion beside you?\" Captain Bawdewyn examined the mechanical horse that stood a few feet away, black and motionless atop a flat boulder. \"Nice. You should keep it out of the sea wind, though. The salt's going to ruin it.\" \"They tell me it'll withstand the elements, but I don't trust much about these absurd machines. This one will never be nimble enough for battle, anyway. It does carry me around with a certain degree of panache, however.\" He glanced down at the buccaneer's animal, which was snuffling the clockwork steed. It was a white bear cub, as hefty as a war hound and sloppy with sea foam. \"I see you have a new companion, as well.\"\n\n\"Her name is Molly. She's a glory, hey? She eats enough to crew her own ship but she's a pretty little brute. A couple of years from now she's going to be an interesting addition to my boarding parties.\"\n\n\"Provided you can teach her to swing on a rope.\" He looked out at the other sailors, who were unloading barrels from the rowboats. \"You brought what I requested?\"\n\n\"I did indeed. Though I almost didn't believe your message was genuine. There's no dearth of Technocrats who would like to catch me in Logosian waters. But this arrangement struck me as a little too bizarre to be a simple trap. Besides, Valor breeds enterprise, hey?\"\n\nMontenegro patted his shoulder. \"I shall not keep you for long.\"\n\n\"Absolutely you won't. My lads shove off in twenty minutes, with or without me. I gave the order myself.\" He waved an arm toward the cargo his men were stacking on the rocks. \"Well, here's your magic swill and curse you for making me go to Anzo for it. I can't imagine what you must have paid for this stuff. Your cousin must be very loyal, selling half her inheritance to finance your secret vendetta.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"She is completely loyal to me.\"\n\n\"Are you sure about that?\"\n\n\"Why do you doubt it?\"\n\n\"Because I know who she is. Lady Aria. She's your Technocrat spy, ain't she? Me and Fairfax and Jatha figured it out after the battle. You know I never trusted that little love affair of yours.\"\n\nThe knight grumbled a sigh. \"I would be dishonest to say you were entirely unjustified. But put your faith in my judgment. Aria fights on the same side we do. I have transformed her into a New Britannian lady, though you are welcome to disbelieve it.\"\n\nCaptain Bawdewyn glanced over the knight in his intricate Technocrat armor. \"Uh-huh. Listen, I don't want to seem unfriendly, but since I came all this way I figure you owe me an explanation. What scheme are you working over here? Why does it look for all the world like you joined the enemy?\"\n\n\"It is an alliance of convenience. I'm taking down Warlord Bahrok using the best resources available. That's why I need the potions in those barrels. If my Logosian cohorts are skilled enough to keep up with me, this war will be over before the Senate gets the fleet under way. New Britannia need not be a pawn of the Pact of Four.\"\n\n\"I admire your initiative, but my friend, you're far too late. The sails are already flying by now.\"\n\n\"What's that? Are you certain?\"\n\n\"Certain as an itchy harlot. Why do you think I need to get back in such a hurry? I'm joining the fleet south of the Den. I'll be leading ten privateer warships myself. Can you believe it? Bawdewyn the Beast, Fleet Commander!\" He nudged the white bear cub with his boot. \"Someday, Molly, they're going to wake up and remember I'm just a pirate. We've got 'em fooled for now, though.\"\n\nMontenegro gritted his teeth. \"Damn Duarte and his obsession for efficiency! He could be a Technocrat himself This is all happening too fast. Do you know how soon the troops are supposed to land here?\"\n\n\"Hard to say. A fleet that big won't move like lightning, but the whole trip can't take more than a month, at the longest.\"\n\n\"Then I have to step up my plans. I appreciate the information.\" He grimaced and rubbed at a pain in his brow. \"You had better haul your carcass off these shores now, before a leviathan wanders this way. My memories of the Menagerie are favorable enough that I'm concerned for her well-being. She will be my preferred means of traveling home someday.\"\n\n\"If she's still afloat, I'm happy to oblige you. And Gabriel, do me the favor of relaying that offer to someone else here, if you see her. I'm talking about little Toria. You give her my love, hey? Tell her when she wants to go home, I'll sail up a river to fetch her away. And remind her she owes me some letters. You got it?\"\n\nHe smirked. \"I promise. Go with Virtue, Bawdewyn.\" \"Walk with Honor, you cunning bastard.\"\n\nThey clasped forearms again and the privateer headed back for his boat. The bear cub lumbered after him, splashing through the salty tide pools. As Montenegro watched them go, he growled to himself. This was disheartening news. Lector Gaff's informants had not reported that the New Britannian fleet was at sea. No more than a month remained now in which to cripple Bahrok's forces. He and Khyber had devised a strategy based on no less than thrice that span of time. So far their actions had been successful, but he was unsure how they could meet this new deadline. Even with the magic potions Bawdewyn had brought, the odds of success appeared scant.\n\nHe needed time to think. Success hinged on strategic decisions. Gaff would have to be involved. In a swift action he mounted the clockwork horse and reared its sleek body. Batwings snapped out from its withers. The levitant engine chittered awake and the steed leapt into the air, its serpentine tail lashing to maintain balance. As he gained altitude he spotted Captain Bawdewyn waving his oversize hat. Montenegro flew above the privateer, his moonshadow falling across the rowboat.\n\n\"Don't forget!\" shouted the captain. \"I promised Anzo I'd find him the head of Pikas of Enclave! Bring it to me if you happen across it!\"\n\n\"If he's not dead already, I shall bring you what's left after I'm finished gnawing it!\"\n\n\"And watch out for shooting stars, you black-winged demon!\"\n\nMontenegro saluted as he climbed into the star-dappled sky. The other sailors stared in wonder. The boats started back for the Menagerie and Khyber's brigadesmen climbed out of hiding to collect the barrels of potion. When the knight was satisfied that the situation was under control, he steered his mount inland. The high wind was brisk, despite the summer weather. It helped to clear his thoughts, like the numerical chants of a Mathematician. Lately he needed the extra concentration. The air of Logosia was sultry to breathe and too often he found his thoughts reaching homeward.\n\n\"This does irreparable harm to our schedule,\" said Lector Gaff in the shadow-streaked room. \"We shall not complete our dissection of Clan Varang in time.\"\n\nBrigadier Khyber offered, \"We can narrow our focus to the coastline. If we can prevent the New Britannians from landing too quickly, maybe we can buy ourselves another week or two.\"\n\n\"I won't support that plan,\" glared Montenegro. \"I am here to prevent New Britannian entanglement, not to draw them into battle.\"\n\n\"You are correct,\" nodded the Lector. \"We must not involve the New Britannian fleet, if possible. To do so risks full invasion. Gentlemen, the numbers no longer favor a stricdy military solution. I am undertaking certain political stratagems in Logos, in which you must now play a role. The time has come for greater stealth. Sir Gabriel, I have need to probe your personal experiences. Tell me about the Juka named Thulann of Garron.\"\n\nThe pavilion of Shirron Turlogan was a pageant of silver and silk. As befitted the ruler of proud Jukaran, the warrior chieftain lavished his tent with an arrangement of finery that was at once audacious and refined. Veils of intricate weave were draped and knotted according to centuried custom. Braziers flickered across a precise arrangement of idols. Not one bauble or ornament was out of place. Neither would the Shirron have noticed if they were, for though he adhered to the rituals of his society, his affairs addressed more practical concerns. Presently he had summoned a council to the crescent-shaped table dominating the room. Turlogan sat at the cusp of the crescent, a mountainous figure with a shaven head and two stout horns jutting from a large brow. The Juka's emerald flesh was glazed from the heat of the desert. He wore a full caftan, richly embroidered.\n\nAt his side sat Warlord Savan, the chieftain of Clan Eryem, broad-shouldered and opulently clad. Behind Savan stood his teenage daughter Tekmhat, a handsome, athletic figure in the bleached robe of an Initiate of the Way. Her black hair was braided under the hood of her raiment. On her brow was painted a sigil that denoted her betrothal.\n\nOn Turlogan's opposite side sat his only son Venduss, wearing the ornamented mail of an officer. Beside him was General Fekhet, Turlogan's most trusted war master. Completing the council was Thulann of Garron, dressed in her dark Way Master's robe, and her exotic attendant Toria. A collection of cups and pitchers littered the table. A large map of Logosia dangled before them, suspended on the pavilion's center pole.\n\nTurlogan swallowed a gulp of wine and clasped his hands together. \"Very well, Savan, let us hear this urgent message.\"\n\nThe middle-aged warlord motioned to his daughter. \"Tekmhat, please relate the news from Garron.\"\n\nThe statuesque teenager bowed, rustling the white fabric of her Initiate's robe. \"The Way Priests have received information from Master Badralghazi of Britain. They say the Royal Senate has already deployed the New Britannian armada. Their army shall arrive on the shores of Logosia in three weeks' time.\"\n\nTurlogan wrinkled his brow. \"Great Mother! These humans do not tarry when they have a goal in sight. Then we must secure enough coastline to grant them a safe landing. How many of our advance groups have established a camp?\"\n\nGeneral Fekhet answered, \"Three groups, Shirron.\"\n\n\"Only three? I sent twelve for the purpose. What is delaying them?\"\n\nThe war master grumbled, \"Clan Varang.\"\n\nThulann pointed at the map. \"Bahrok wants to capture the coast himself. He sends his allied warlords to keep us from staking our ground.\"\n\n\"Has there been open fighting?\"\n\n\"Not yet, but the danger is thick. He waits for us to set the first spark to the tinder.\"\n\nThe Shirron exhaled into his hands. \"We must control that landing zone. Whoever meets the New Britannians will set the conditions of the invasion. Bahrok knows that. It is critical to his plans.\"\n\nVenduss leaned forward. \"Then we have to push him aside. Father, we must not back down from this challenge.\"\n\n\"I do not intend to, my son, but neither can I fight Logos and Varang at the same time. Thulann, tell me again about Bahrok's troubles in the east. I like that story.\"\n\n\"Blackthorn is hitting him fiercely in the deserts around Enclave. Bahrok is stretched thin, in order to keep his supply lines secure. The Technocrats have forced him to do so with, I daresay, mathematical precision. I believe it marks a change in their defensive strategy.\"\n\nWarlord Savan nodded. \"They realize that Bahrok is the primary threat against them.\"\n\nTurlogan grunted disapproval at the comment. \"And what about these rumored assassinations of Bahrok's generals?\"\n\nTekmhat shook her head. \"The healers have not been able to confirm it. We doubt the assassinations took place.\"\n\n\"You're wrong,\" interjected Toria, leaning over the table. \"Bahrok has tried to cover it up, but four war masters are dead according to our spies in Varang. I spoke to one this morning. You should ask the keeners for confirmation, Tekmhat, not the healers.\"\n\nThe Jukan girl lifted her chin and said nothing.\n\nThe Shirron raised an eyebrow. \"Is this true, Thulann?\" \"Quite true. Bahrok has silenced the news, but I can hear the echoes plainly. The fact is, Blackthorn wants to cripple Bahrok and he is doing so in methodical fashion.\"\n\n\"That is a mixed blessing. Will it jeopardize the invasion?\" \"I doubt it. Once the New Britannians arrive, the Technocrats will have no choice but to pull back and fortify their cities. The final push should see little resistance until we reach Junction and Logos.\"\n\nThe mountainous chieftain smacked his hands on the table. \"Excellent! Then I am decided. We shall concentrate our forces at the coast to secure a landing zone for the New Britannians. If Bahrok wants to fight me for control, let him stretch his lines that much thinner. Blackthorn can pluck them like strings on a harp for all I care.\"\n\nGeneral Fekhet put down his wine and fidgeted his large hands. \"Shirron, with due deference to the pride of our clan, I do not believe it is wise to provoke open conflict with Clan Varang. We are at half our strength. Even weakened, Bahrok can inflict grave damage upon us.\"\n\n\"I strongly concur,\" said Thulann.\n\nThe Shirron snorted. \"Let him try. Ours will be the defensive advantage. We need only hold our ground until the New Britannians arrive.\"\n\nThe Way Master narrowed her single eye. \"Defense can be a bloody game. Akar was proof of that.\"\n\nVenduss raised a finger and said, \"Clan Eryem has a garrison in Jamark that can come to our aid, if necessary. They are no more than a week's journey by longboat from anywhere on the northern coast.\"\n\nWarlord Savan frowned. \"You would ask us to leave Jamark unguarded, Venduss?\"\n\n\"In the name of Clan Kumar I would, Savan, just as we would sacrifice for your sake. That is the strength of the bond between us.\" He reached behind his father to take the hand of Tekmhat, who returned him a proud smile.\n\nTurlogan smiled as well. He gazed across the table at Thulann. \"Come now, my dearest skeptic. Show some confidence in this old sword arm. It may ache when the weather turns bad, but it can still generate a storm of its own.\"\n\n\"Storms break,\" frowned Thulann.\n\n\"Not this one. Do not be a skittish old crow. We have suffered much, but we are not as weak as Bahrok wants us to believe. We fight in the name of honor.\"\n\n\"Let us hope it is a victorious sort of honor,\" muttered the Way Master. \"I am not certain we can afford any other kind.\"\n\nOutside the pavilion sprawled the seasoned army of Clan Kumar. The thronging encampment filled the basin of a red stone valley, the walls of which had eroded to form a maze of hard rocks. Under the high, jagged bluffs burned thousands of campfires, throwing light upon countless banners. The glow of the camp swelled out from the valley, holding back the desolate Logosian evening. The bustle of men and ridgebacks stirred a hot summer wind. The very rocks were alive with the clank of smiths and carpenters.\n\nThrough the tireless military clamor walked a pair of eyecatching figures. Toria was nearly a foot shorter than the Juka who surrounded her, yet her mane of russet curls stood out in the chaos. Beside the minstrel strode the willowy Thulann of Garron in the dark, textured robe of a Way Master. Her face was grooved with ire. When her mood became too sour to bear, she stamped her walking staff against the hard earth and growled, \"That rattle-skulled codger! His pride cannot accept what we lost at Akar. Kumar is not the juggernaut it used to be. Bahrok is a storm we shall be hard-pressed to shelter.\" She leaned on her staff and snorted. \"He pays no heed to my counsel and then wonders why I removed myself so long from his affairs.\"\n\n\"At least he's not sulking anymore. For a while I thought he was wasting away like a spectre.\"\n\nThulann calmed herself with a sigh. \"Thank the Great Mother for that. I was afraid for him, as well. It is a pity he has restored himself into a headstrong buck, though, instead of something more temperate. There are days I believe he has no more control over his passions than Venduss does.\" The redhead nibbled her lip. \"I am not scorched by the heat of Venus passion.\"\n\nThe Way Master glanced at her for a moment, then nodded. \"He does play the bridegroom rather diligently.\"\n\n\"But not faithfully. He still asks me to be his mistress. He knows I won't do that, though. He can marry me or he can marry Tekmhat, but he can't have both of us.\" She shook her head. \"But he's too much of a coward to decide.\"\n\n\"You are being unfair to him. He is shackled by protocol. His betrothal to Tekmhat is a symbol of the alliance between Kumar and Eryem. He will not jeopardize that bond while we are in the thick of a war.\"\n\n\"Then he should screw up the courage to send me away.\" A chuckle formed on Thulann's lips. \"He will not. That would admit defeat. He and his father share that particular inhibition. Toria, I suggest you apply a healthy dose of fortitude to this bind you are in. Venduss loves you, but only when the war is finished will he be able to demonstrate it to your satisfaction. Surely you can forestall your ultimatum until then.\" The girl watched her own feet, a curtain of ringlets hiding her face. \"I'm not sure I should take your advice on this, Thulann.\"\n\n\"What? That is an ungrateful remark to the woman who sanctioned your affair for two years, despite my more realistic instincts.\"\n\n\"That's not what I mean.\" She brushed back her curls and turned sea-green eyes on the Way Master. \"I don't understand you, Mistress. I dream of what you have. Turlogan worships you. He would give up everything if you'd agree to marry him. But you've rejected him for twenty years. I wonder if you know what you've lost.\"\n\nThulann smirked. \"I know all too well. You saw tonight what happens when Turlogan and I spend too much time together. Flint and steel are not wisely marriageable.\"\n\n\"No, that's not true. You want to hide behind that illusion, but the reality is much less glamorous, hey? You're just afraid to commit to that choice. Admit it, Thulann. You're exactly like Venduss.\"\n\nA mouthful of barbs welled up in the Way Master, but the old Juka swallowed them. She cast a glower over the presumptuous girl. Toria stood proudly in the slithering desert wind. Her long Garronite dress exaggerated the lean proportions of her body. Her freckles were reminiscent of a human child, but Toria's face was seasoned with hardship. She flinched at the disapproval of her mistress, but she did not look away.\n\nThulann pursed her lips. \"I stand at Turlogan's side now. I shall not leave it again. That is more than he ever sensibly expected.\"\n\nToria shrugged and glanced at the sky. \"That's all Venduss expects of me, too.\"\n\nFor a long while they stared in silence at the irregular shape of the valley ridge. The stars cascaded through the heavens beyond. Then the Way Master laid a hand on her companion's shoulder and said, \"I need you to do something for me, child.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"An informant from Akar should arrive at my tent soon. Please be so kind as to interview him for me. I am not in the proper mood after tonight's council.\"\n\nThe girl blinked at the unprecedented request, then bowed her head. \"Yes, Mistress. What will you be doing?\"\n\n\"I think I shall take a walk. Sometimes I need to rattle these old bones a bit, to shake some feeling back into them.\"\n\nThe valley was nestled inside a giant bowl of rich, red stone. The impressive mineral formation rose haughtily from the desert scrub, a blood-hued butte visible for miles in every direction. The high blufis of the perimeter were etched with deep channels and fractures from the corrosive rains that once plagued Logosia. The result was a labyrinth of rocky corridors in a ring around the valley. Thulann strolled without direction among those high crimson walls, where the sounds of the army grew muffled. Shadows streamed around her in the drizzling glow of the moons.\n\nIn the niches and corners of the crimson maze she passed many small structures of metal. They were the aged and rusty stems of pipelines that thrust out from the chiseled rock. The pipes were long shattered and abandoned. Thulann did not know what they had been used for, but she knew why they were here. This place was once a mineral quarry. Scores of Juka had worked here as slaves in the service of the Overlords. Ancient songs recounted a time when there was no valley at all, when the great machines of the Overlords had conjured the entire rock formation out of the depths of the earth. Bubbling pools of mud supported the legend of that volcanic event. For centuries the Juka had chipped away at the fresh, red rock, until the center of the formation became a wide valley. No song or record indicated the purpose for which the Overlords used the minerals. The Juka were never told. In those days they were regarded as nothing but strong hands and tireless backs to swing tools, and sometimes weapons, for the greed of their unseen masters.\n\nYet the Juka did not despair in those dark, cruel ages. As a neglected race they had cherished their own traditions of honor and discipline. Spoken lore grew lush and elaborate. Ritual mitigated the drudgery of their lives. The smoke-shrouded factories developed powerful bonds of community that would one day transform into the clan kinships of Jukaran. And the highest glory for the Juka came when the Overlords warred with each other. The fury of battle, though painful and terrible, granted the slaves freedom from their crushing work. As warriors they excelled beyond all other callings, for their spirits soared with weapons in their hands. As soldiers they could destroy, in fleeting clashes, the black machines that were the instruments of their bondage. In war they could unleash their shackled rage.\n\nWhen Thulann had learned the songs of recent history, it seemed inevitable to her that the Juka would rise against the Overlords. Not even those godlike beings could bottle the warrior spirit forever. Indeed, when the Hand of Honor led the shires in revolt, the movement spread so quickly that after five years only one citadel remained unconquered. It was named Citadel Moonglow, the fortress of the Prime Overlord, impregnable even in the fiercest mechanized wars. It was the last bastion of technological slavery, the heart of the foulest monster. Turlogan's parents, Kumar and Narah, gathered the Jukan armies to strike the floating city. In uncountable numbers they amassed in preparation for the final siege. And here in this valley of crimson stone did Kumar reside in the weeks before they marched to freedom. Legend had dubbed this place Kumar's Throne. Though it lay now in Logosian territory, it was a shrine of great honor for the Juka Clans. They called it the drum that sounded their liberty.\n\nNor was it happenstance that Turlogan had brought the army here after the slaughter at Akar. The location was convenient in both strategic and tactical terms, but of greater impact was the effect on morale. Here the soldiers could remember the glory of Kumar himself, the first Shirron and the father of the clan. Here they touched again the foundation of their strength. The benefit to Turlogan himself was most dramatic of all. After Akar he had sunk into a grave depression, but a week at Kumar's Throne had revived him to his old, fearless self.\n\nThulann was glad for his rejuvenation, though she was unsure that his thinking was sound. He wanted to recapture the glory of Kumar. She was not certain the feat was possible.\n\nShe set aside her walking staff, braced her foot on a rusty pipe and climbed up one of the red walls. From a high perch she looked out across the army in the valley. The sight was magnificent, she had to admit. Five thousand warriors dwelled in the dazzling firelight. The flags and banners adorning their tents combined in a vast, rippling tableau. On the north side of the basin camped the cavalry, with hundreds of armored ridgebacks bleating under the moons. In the east corner sprawled the engineers, their wagons heavy with elongated timbers and their forges ablaze with iron. The rest of the valley contained dozens of battalions, many of whom drilled with weapons even at this late hour. The mood of the encampment seemed taut and alert.\n\nThey wanted revenge for Akar, of course. They were proud Jukan warriors, eager to redeem themselves. Centuries of sacred tradition demanded nothing less. She felt the same resonance in her own chest. She understood their stem pride. Though her assessment of strategy reached a different conclusion, her devotion to the clan cried out for the blood of their enemies.\n\nShe laughed at herself as she sat on the ridge. Such emotions led to needless suffering. She would not heed them, nor would she let Turlogan do so. In these moments she recognized the utility of the cold society of the Technocrats. Their actions arose from strict, practical necessity. But at the same time she pitied the Logosian Juka. Did they carry the same passions in their blood? Or had they forgotten the heritage of ancient hardship? She had difficulty believing the latter, though the evidence suggested it was largely true. She let out a sigh, then sat quietly and trained her ears on the complicated sounds of the encampment.\n\nSomething stirred in the darkness nearby. She realized she was not alone. When she glanced in the direction of the movement, no one was there.\n\nHer body flushed with energy. She noted the lay of the sword across her back, then swiveled on the rock wall and slid down to her feet. A few yards away she glimpsed a figure. She nearly reached for her weapon until she recognized the towering silhouette of Turlogan standing on the path.\n\nHer smile was melancholy. \"Have you come to apologize or to convince me you're not a brash fool? I am unlikely to be receptive to either argument, I warn you.\"\n\nThe black shape did not answer. Thulann tensed. She realized with a jolt that the silhouette was not opaque but translucent like a veil, showing the night sky behind it. The spectre darkened slowly, devouring the stars inside its body. This was sorcery of a boldness she had not seen outside of New Britannia. And as the figure solidified the mystery deepened, for she saw that the enormous Juka wore the finely-crafted mail of a wealthy Technocrat soldier. In his hands rested a huge mallet, augmented by a spring-mounted striking plate. His stance was ominous but not overtly threatening.\n\nA sharp memory throbbed in her skull. Thulann lifted her chin and murmured, \"Dreams of the Great Mother, it is Master Enosh of Junction come to haunt me. I greet you with respect and honor, Janissar.\"\n\nThe Juka materialized slowly. Thulann recognized the dwindling effects of invisibility, possibly from a potion of the sort Montenegro had once employed inside Braun's Needle. She was shocked to see a Logosian employing magic at all. Though the weapons master's face was masked by the darkness, she glimpsed a webwork of scars on his cheeks and brow. In a grave tone Master Enosh replied, \"My allegiance to the Janissars is over. You forced that from me at Akar. I march in more discerning company now.\"\n\n\"I am gratified to have made an impact, if perhaps a bit surprised.\"\n\nBehind her a man said, \"You shall be more surprised still to learn with whom he serves.\"\n\nShe flashed her sword from its scabbard and wheeled around to face the second person. He too materialized from the thick summer air. Several others appeared behind him, each wearing Logosian kinetic armor; yet it was not the sudden arrival of these enemies that had caused her to draw steel. Rather it was the voice of the tall human who had spoken. She knew that rich, distinctive tone. She wondered if she might not be facing ghosts, after all.\n\n\"Sir Gabriel Montenegro is dead,\" she remarked, pointing her subdy curved blade at the human. \"To mock his memory is to provoke my anger.\"\n\n\"Way Master, in the past you have mocked me so ferociously that I still wake at night with retorts on my tongue. Yet our hostility vanished in the sewers under Britain. I stand before you now as a friend, offering you a greeting and a proposition.\"\n\nThulann's heart pounded. This smacked of an audacious ruse. \"Show me your face, Technocrat. Prove that you are who you portray yourself to be. Magic potions or no, you and your warriors stand in the midst of Turlogan's army and shall therefore live or die at my discretion.\"\n\n\"Put away your fangs, old cobra. I walk the path of Honesty.\" The man removed his Technocrat helmet, unfurling long, ebony curls like a banner in the circulating wind. Moonlight draped across familiar features. From under his gorget he withdrew a gold pendant, which glinted as it dangled on a chain. It depicted a heart seized by a dragon's claw, the family crest of Montenegro. \"I suppose you will want an explanation.\"\n\nThe Way Master propped her swordpoint on the ground and leaned her weight on the blade. \"I suppose I shall want to sit down first. I cannot articulate the joy in my heart until it stops hammering so loudly.\"\n\nThe black-armored knight gave her an earnest smile. They sat together on a slab while the Logosian soldiers stood watch for prying ears. In sparse detail Montenegro explained the circumstances behind his false death and his alliance with the Technocrats. When her mind ceased reeling and accepted the improbable reunion, she sorted his tale into the events of the last few weeks. \"Then it is you who have led the Logosian resurgence against Warlord Bahrok. This is your revenge against him.\"\n\n\"It's not only my doing, but of course my new allies as well. They are quite skilled and quite angry. Now that they know Lector Sartorius is the Logosian traitor, they're able to throttle his treachery. And so Bahrok's undeserved success has come to a halt. But to answer your question I am not seeking revenge, though it shall certainly spice the victory. No, my goal is to honor the Virtue of Justice. The Pact of Four nurtured this unjust war. I am going to squelch it.\" He pointed at her with a black gauntlet. \"And you are in a position to help me do that.\"\n\n\"If you imagine I might join your band and attack Clan Varang, you need to review my career. Above all I am loyal to Garron. Warlord Bahrok, despite his wickedness, fights on my side of this war. I shall not raise steel against him without due provocation.\"\n\n\"Thulann, you would be a treasure among these Technocrat soldiers. They are experts at warfare but they lack your singular refinement. I know better than to make that request, however, and so I shall make a more interesting one.\" His armor clanked as he leaned closer. \"Tell me, how committed would you say the Shirron is to this invasion?\"\n\n\"To his warrior's heart, of course. Otherwise we would not be here.\"\n\n\"He is determined to push all the way to Logos?\"\n\n\"Against my own counsel, yes. History has marked the path he follows. He hangs the honor of the clan on this victory.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Montenegro rubbed his chin. His grey eyes sharpened. \"What would you say if I told you Lector Gaff is willing to petition for surrender before the New Britannians arrive?\"\n\nA tingle shot through her. \"I would dread that you were deceiving me.\"\n\n\"You know I would not lie. Gaff wants to avoid further bloodshed. While Bahrok's resources are overextended, Turlogan has the power to call off the invasion. When the New Britannians arrive they can join with Turlogan to enforce the peace, despite any treachery Bahrok might attempt. The war will be finished and the crows will go hungry again.\"\n\nShe tumbled the thought around in her head. \"It is a breathtaking offer, I confess. It might even be convincing if it had the weight of law. Unless a great wheel has turned in Logos, I believe Lector Sartorius still holds the title of Blackthorn's Chosen. Lector Gaff does not possess the authority to surrender.\"\n\n\"Gaff has a plan for hobbling Sartorius. He claims the equations favor his success. Trust me, for a Mathematician the numbers have more authority than any god or king.\"\n\n\"And what of Blackthorn himself? Will he accept defeat?\"\n\n\"No one knows Blackthorn's mind, but Gaff has certainly factored him into the calculations.\"\n\nShe grimaced. \"The Pact of Four will fight you to the death.\"\n\n\"We will have neutralized Bahrok and Sartorius. I shall deal personally with General Nathaniel, and with considerable relish. They'll write songs about his downfall.\"\n\n\"And the Meer contingent? Chamberlain Kavah?\"\n\n\"He is an unknown. So far he's only served a supporting role, providing spells and equipment. I cannot imagine he would be able to jeopardize a truce signed by all three warring nations.\"\n\nThe Way Master grunted assent. She entwined her long fingers. \"Then tell me the terms of the surrender.\"\n\n\"Negotiators will have to decide the particulars, but Logos will cede the border mountains to Jukaran. They'll hand over the new mines to the Shirron. Lector Gaff proposes instead to trade for resources from New Britannia, assuming everyone can overcome their mutual distrust. Ironically enough, the end game is not far from what the Pact of Four had designed in the first place. Gaff's version, of course, subtracts the wholesale slaughter.\"\n\n\"It sounds as if Lector Gaff and I have solved the same equation. It is comforting to know that common sense is truly common.\" She closed her weary eye. Her mind thundered with possibilities. Many questions were still unanswered, and yet the window of opportunity was plainly open. Peace could be forged, but only with quick action. The New Britannians would arrive in three weeks. The bargain must be struck before then, to stave off their own desire for war.\n\nShe dragged her hands over her face, then smiled and squeezed the knight's wrist. \"I am grateful that your death was not binding, Montenegro. You are a blessing to us all. I shall present Turlogan with Lector Gaff's proposal.\"\n\n\"You'll do more than that. You'll convince him to accept the surrender. I won't have New Britannian blood spilling on Logosian earth.\"\n\n\"I make no promises, unfortunately, except to do everything I can. Turlogan is a stubborn man.\"\n\n\"He cannot be more stubborn than you. I'd wager my grandfather's ghost on it. Thulann, we can't accept failure this time. There's too much at stake.\"\n\n\"And what if Turlogan rejects the ofier?\"\n\n\"Do not fail me, Way Master. Blackthorn is a deadly enemy. Don't comer him.\"\n\nShe sighed and glanced at the other Technocrat soldiers. They formed a tight perimeter, watching for the approach of Kumar clansmen. From their expert deployment she judged them to be as skilled as the Shirron's personal Tarkosh guard. The presence of Master Enosh underscored the similarity.\n\n\"They are calling you assassins,\" she commented to the knight. \"They say you murder Bahrok's generals in their sleep.\"\n\n\"You know me too well to believe that.\" He stood and lifted his black helmet. Before donning it he said, \"I shall meet you again ten nights from now. I can only accept one answer, Thulann. I mist no one more than you to bring this war to an honorable close.\"\n\nShe rose beside him and clasped his arms. \"I accept the burden. My back will not stoop. Great Mother grant us victory, my friend.\"\n\n\"Victory for everyone, except the Pact of Four.\" He slipped the helm over his head and added, \"Oh, and I have a message for Toria. Captain Bawdewyn has offered to spirit her home. It appears she has struck his fancy. And tell her also, for my part, that I am glad she's still alive. If the world is burdened by a man like me, it deserves to be lightened by a face like hers.\"\n\nThulann opened a smile. \"I shall inform her. Perhaps it will be a comfort.\" She looked to Master Enosh and said, \"I am sorry for what I forced upon you, good warrior. Perhaps with this negotiation I can redeem myself.\"\n\nThe weapons master rose to his full height, a daunting apparition in the gloom. His eyes drifted into a cold moonbeam. \"Way Master Thulann, you taught me to question the false master I followed. You have nothing for which to apologize. I've joined Montenegro to secure my own redemption.\"\n\nThe Technocrats each drew a vial out of their belts, from which they drank a quaff of magic potion. Then the band dissolved into the warm, whirring air. Montenegro was the last to vanish, giving her a nod as he did. She was aware of their receding footsteps, almost imperceptible. Then she was alone in the red rock corridors, the noises of the encampment filtering back into her awareness.\n\nHer heart leapt suddenly. She had no time to delay. She retrieved her walking staff from where it rested against an old pipe, then hurried off into the night.\n\nAt the edge of Kumar's Throne bubbled a series of mud ponds. Steam churned beneath the ochre sludge, filling the air with a dense, viscous haze. Under this natural cover Montenegro and his men reappeared. The knight plucked off his helm. To the shadows he muttered, \"Khyber, it's done. She's taking the offer to Turlogan. Signal Barghast to bring the skids and let's leave this place before someone gets curious.\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" replied the brigadier, stepping into view. \"I want to make sure you weren't followed.\" He ordered the soldiers to double-check the perimeter.\n\nMontenegro frowned. \"Let's not dawdle. There are five thousand clansmen out there. Most of them will not be as accommodating as Thulann.\"\n\n\"And if just one of those clansmen sees our signal, we'll be dead before Brother Barghast ever gets here. Patience, Montenegro. Your job is done tonight. Let me do mine.\"\n\nThe knight squinted and massaged his eyes. Then he smirked at Master Enosh, who sat down beside him. \"So, Shirron, you have dealt with the old battleaxe before. I daresay it explains your melancholy demeanor when I ask why you joined the brigade.\"\n\nThe enormous Juka darkened his gaze. \"Thulann forced me to rethink who I was serving. I came to the conclusion that Sartorius was not the honorable choice.\"\n\n\"She has a talent for questioning motivations. Meeting Thulann will test a man's convictions, or at the very least his patience. I presume she is the one who gave you those scars?\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in discussing it.\"\n\n\"Come now, Shirron. By the look of it Khyber will be hours securing our privacy. I'm of a mind to relax.\"\n\nThe weapons master scowled. \"Naturally. It wasn't your nation that just surrendered.\"\n\nMontenegro held back a retort. He slapped a palm on the Juka's back. \"Quite so. Forgive me, Enosh. My family's shrine is devoted to Compassion and yet too often I neglect its demands.\"\n\nThe Juka pursed his lips. \"Enough of your Virtues, Cavalier. Grant me some quiet. This has been a long night.\"\n\nThe New Britannian said nothing more. The soldiers waited beside the burbling pools of mud until Brigadier Khy-ber returned. To the gathered men he announced, \"It's safe now. Barghast is on his way. When we get airborne we can't waste any time. We have to reach Junction in three days or less to rendezvous with the others.\"\n\nMontenegro furrowed his brow. \"Junction? I thought we were returning east.\"\n\n\"The plan has changed. His Excellency needs us in the city.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me before?\"\n\n\"I did not want to risk revealing the matter in the course of your discussion with Thulann.\"\n\nThe knight sneered. \"I am giddy at your confidence. But what is so important in Junction that it takes us away from the battlefiront? Unless...\" He raised an eyebrow. \"Unless Gaff has located the old defenses under the city?\"\n\nKhyber said nothing in response.\n\nMontenegro grinned. \"So we'll capture them from Sarto-rius's troops and force him to negotiate with Gaff. That should prove satisfying. I confess, I shall enjoy fighting Technocrats again. It appeals to something aesthetic in my bloodlust.\"\n\nThe brigadier rolled his eyes. \"You think too much of aesthetics. When Barghast gets here, try to force that dumsy automaton of yours to keep up with our skids. I don't want you slowing us down.\"\n\n\"I am in no hurry to smell the reek of Junction again, but under the present circumstances I'll make my best speed. The sooner we secure this peace, the sooner I can return home. I'm anxious to mount a proper horse again and tread grass instead of raindouds.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "When the soldiers climbed aboard their machines and fled into the night sky, a slender shape emerged from one of the pools of hot mud. Thulann coughed and stumbled out of the haze, shaking off the steaming muck. She scrambled atop a boulder and indulged a chestful of satiny desert air. Then she knelt and gazed southward, in the direction the Technocrats had gone.\n\nThe effort had taxed her skills, but she had managed to track Montenegro and evade detection by the man named Khyber. The information she had gained was not as rewarding as she had hoped. Apparently Lector Gaff's authority hinged on physically capturing Junction. Her confidence in the surrender was not improved. Yet Montenegro had proposed the first sensible resolution to this fractured mess of a war. Thulann would have to convince Turlogan to accept it. The alternative would devastate Logosia, redden the wastelands with Jukan blood and possibly end the reign of Clan Kumar in Jukaran. The weight of the matter took its toll on her body. She returned to the encampment leaning heavily on her walking staff, a noticeable stoop in her back."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Tizan's Wall",
+                "text": "In the lush folds of the Shirron's pavilion, Thulann leaned against the crescent table and watched her lover pace the tapestried rug. Turlogan stalked around the flickering bloom of a ring of braziers. His demeanor was anxious as he spoke. \"Of course I shall accept Lector Gaflf's surrender. When I march down the streets of Logos, I shall be happy to oblige him.\"\n\nThe Way Master crossed her arms. \"That is a rejection, not an acceptance. The intention of the surrender is to keep us away from Logos. They will accept defeat but not subjugation.\"\n\n\"Then we have nothing further to discuss. I tell you again, my dogged sweet, I will conquer this land by springtime.\"\n\n\"By springtime the continent will lie in ruins. End the war now and we might just get the harvest in this fall.\"\n\nHe laughed and shook his head. \"The benefits of peace are appealing, I grant you, but the notion is pocked with impossibilities.\"\n\nShe tilted her head. \"It has certain difficulties, but I do not view it as unrealistic.\"\n\n\"Do you not? Very well, how do you propose to placate the New Britannians when ten thousand of them step onto the shore? I wager they did not build a hundred ships and sail them for three weeks only to turn around because Lector Gaff grows timid. Blackthorn sent an armada to level their capital. They are eager to return that sentiment. They will crave their plunder.\"\n\nShe spread out her hands. \"They want recompense for their trouble and we shall have to give it to them. Consider this. There are forests on the southern coast that Blackthorn has not yet ravaged. I shall propose that Logos hand them over to the Britannians. They can settle beside the Technocrats and cement the trade relationship that Gaff wants to build. The two nations do share a common heritage, after all, such as it is.\"\n\nThe Shirron chuckled bitterly. \"You are very optimistic for someone who has felt the bite of failed diplomacy so many times. Are you eager to lose another divot of flesh?\"\n\nThulann rose from the table and barked, \"I would lose it all to save the flesh of those soldiers outside! You know this invasion will cost thousands of lives. We never thought Junction would fall easily. Now we learn it has even more defenses than we suspected. And Logos has been impregnable throughout history, even when the Overlords fought for it. Yet you want to march us into that slaughterhouse to fulfill some dream of glory. I say you dream too dangerously, my handsome young buck.\"\n\n\"Young buck,' is it? You see me as a headstrong boy? Let me tell you what this boy is dreaming about right now. He dreams that the Shirron accepts this surrender. The other clans perceive that it was Warlord Bahrok who forced Blackthorn into submission. When they return to Garron, the chieftains demand a Great Tournament to place Bahrok on the throne. Clan Kumar slinks away in disgrace, trodden by Bahrok's ambition.\" His mouth registered distaste at the words. Then he fastened an intense look upon the Way Master. \"But there is another version of the dream, you see. In this one the Shirron leads the armies of Jukaran and New Britannia to the very doorstep of Blackthorn. Though the victory is costly, Garron conquers Logosia. Clan Kumar occupies Logos and Blackthorn's armies become ours. The alliance with New Britannia is hardened in the fires of battle and we retain our honor and our dominance. That, my love, is a dream for which our soldiers will readily give their flesh.\"\n\n\"I never doubted your boldness, my love, but that is an ambitious vision.\"\n\n\"We forge the future. We are Jukan warriors. Without honor and glory we are worse than dead.\"\n\n\"Yes, we are warriors, but we are also mothers and fathers and wives and children. Let us not become a clan of orphans and widows. We are a mighty family, Turlogan. You would tear us apart in the lust for swift glory. I say our lives are better spent rebuilding. Kumar has lost no honor to Bahrok's treachery.\"\n\nA sigh issued from his broad chest. He stopped pacing and massaged his temples. \"You were always calm in the face of hardship. But my love, Akar is a weight I must bear every hour, every second I live. I have lost honor. I felt it crack apart with every stroke from those airships. Every warrior who died that day is a wound I must endure.\"\n\nThulann's heart sank. Akar was the crux of his pain, of course. Softly she murmured, \"I should have been at your side.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"The past is spent coinage. It has purchased our future. The defeat at Akar forces my hand. I cannot carry anything less than victory now.\"\n\n\"You can, Turlogan, because I shall carry it with you.\"\n\n\"Nothing you say will convince me to accept Gaff's surrender.\"\n\n\"And if I say I shall marry you?\"\n\nHis shoulders tensed. His brow furrowed. \"What was that?\"\n\nShe spoke quickly, listening to herself as if from a distance. \"Negotiate an end to this war and the next time we set foot in the Hall of the Shirron, I shall be your wife.\"\n\nTurlogan paled. \"Great Mother. You look sincere.\"\n\nHer breath began to flutter but she dared not stop. The words had been lurking inside her for longer than she could remember. They leapt from her tongue with strange catharsis. \"I have never had better cause for sincerity. The fact is, I dream as well, my dear. I dream of spending my last years in a real home with a doting husband, like an old woman deserves. I want to enjoy the peace of your bed, the calm of your days and nights. I want to midwife Venduss's children and watch them grow underfoot. That is my dream, old man. We have earned it, you and I. But it cannot come true if the invasion proceeds.\"\n\nThe Shirron drew back as if her voice frightened him. His eyes searched her face. They almost looked frantic.\n\nShe reached out to clasp his giant hands. \"Accept Gaff's surrender. Take me as your wife. Together we shall return to Garron and meet whatever challenge Bahrok flings at us. I have beaten him in combat before. We shall beat him in the Council of Warlords. He has never faced us when we stand together.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes and turned his face away. \"Please, Thulann. Let me think.\"\n\n\"We have no time. The New Britannian fleet approaches. Gaff expects an answer in ten days.\" She stepped before him, clasped his waist. \"I know what your heart is saying. Heed it, my love. I am yours to take, if you will.\"\n\nTurlogan shook his head vehemently, then pulled away from her. \"I said quiet! I need to ink!\" Toward the entrance of the pavilion he staggered wounded, then plunged out into the summer darkness. The tent flap sloughed loosely behind him. Thulann stared at it while her heart banged inside her chest. She felt the urge to cry out or to laugh or to call his name, but she simply lingered in heavy silence imagining where he had gone. She felt as if she had loosed some great animal into the night. Only the wild moons knew what direction it might run.\n\nThe blackness tasted metallic. Montenegro flared his nostrils, scenting the reverberant dark. He moved through some manner of tunnel or corridor that stung with smoky miasma. No light braved the cryptlike space, but small sounds whispered its shape. Steel floor panels registered his footfalls. Iron curves distorted the tenor of his breathing. He sensed the dull presence of a great mass around him, as if he ventured through the innards of some gigantic structure. Tiny clicks leapt through nearby spaces, like grains of rust or insect claws.\n\nHe nestled a miner's monocle over his eye. The lens had an alchemic glaze that imagined light where none existed. What Montenegro viewed in sepia tones surprised him. The underground corridor teemed with ancient, dormant machinery. The pathway traversed a hanging garden of beams and chains and heavy pipelines, threading between stout vertical axles and clusters of wheel-size gears. A million bolts held the components together. The huge device was decrepit with age, cracked by time and trauma and choked with roots that never reached the surface. Hazy smoke drifted from gaps in the crumbling pipework. Vermin skittered in and out of the holes, rusty metal embedded in their shells.\n\nThe knight paused to gauge his surroundings. Other figures crept through the murk with him, brigadesmen in the act of infiltration. Their weapons perched ready in their gaundets, but Montenegro did not think they would need them. This place was long deserted. If these were the only war machines that lay beneath Junction, he could see why Lector Sartorius had chosen to seal them off. They had not operated in generations.\n\nAfter several minutes he uncoiled from his stealthy posture and leaned against a block of old iron. The Technocrats around him relaxed as well. A compact silhouette drew beside him and lit the blue spark of a lantern.\n\n\"There's no one here,\" said Brigadier Khyber with cautious relief in his voice. \"I suppose Sartorius decided to lock up the tunnels and trust that no one would find them.\"\n\nMontenegro nodded. \"It nearly worked, too. If he had sent engineers down here, Gaff would have learned about it within hours. As it stands, we are only here through the dubious grace of the Techno-Prophet.\" He scanned the dead machinery. \"Though I'm not certain that we have achieved any great victory.\"\n\nA man in a grey Mathematician's robe stepped forward and warned, \"Never leap to judgment when discussing the works of the Overlords. These machines have not been used since before the Cataclysm, yet they are not as ruined as they appear.\"\n\nThe knight grimaced. \"Barghast, all the healers in Britain couldn't resurrect this contraption.\"\n\n\"It is not sorcery that can repair this machine, but alchemy. Do you see this pipe? It is designed to carry restorative fluids for metals, not unlike your healing potions work for flesh. The Overlords relied heavily upon such fuels. We still use them today inside dreadnoughts and other automatons. It is science of the highest order.\" Brother Barghast rapped a knuckle on the dusty metal. \"If we repair this pipeline and the pump to which it is attached, perhaps we may breathe new life into these old defenses. That should force Lector Sartorius to listen to His Excellency's demands.\"\n\nMontenegro pursed his lips. \"Can you really fix it?\"\n\n\"Not I. This task requires many craftsmen with specific expertise.\"\n\nKhyber wiped the dust from his hands and said, \"In any case we shall need to secure the tunnels while we decide what to do. Sartorius will learn all too quickly that we're here. And from the look of this place I'd say we have plenty of ground to defend.\"\n\n\"There are probably miles of tunnels,\" said Barghast.\n\n\"And we have less than three weeks to repair them,\" frowned the knight. \"It looks like we may not get many chances to hit Bahrok's army again before the surrender. That is a genuine pity.\"\n\nA large head thrust into the group. Master Enosh gave Khyber an urgent look. \"Sir, you had best come down here. Something's happening.\"\n\nThe men rushed deeper into the caves. The eerie light of their spark lanterns turned the mechanical gloom into a ghostly network of shadows. Montenegro was unsettled by the bizarre geometry of the place. Throughout Logosia the older, large-scale machines traced their origins to the mysterious Overlords who had ruled here before the Cataclysm. Not even the Jukan loresingers understood the nature of their vanished masters. The ancient technology reflected an alien symmetry that stirred deep, unnamed fears in Montenegro's gut. Blackthorn's most vile creations worried the same center of dread inside him. When he imagined a sprawling warren of these machines underneath the factories of Junction, the knight fought back revulsion.\n\nBut the sensation was not completely emotional, for he found himself enclosed by the sudden reek of decay. They moved through a region of odors that tangled the smoky air. It was the smell of organic rot. He wondered how that was possible in this lifeless place.\n\nFarther down the corridor he saw the answer. Half a dozen brigadesmen peeked through a large doorway. Their demeanor was alert, even fearful. Their weapons were bared. In the chamber beyond the door sat a large, boulderlike shape that glinted metal. Its surface teemed with crablike vermin, picking at rotten flesh. The stench was choking.\n\nAfter staring for a moment, Montenegro recognized the grotesque thing. It was a dreadnought, a fearsome half-living war machine, probably dead for a week. Under the carpet of scavengers he made out the shape of its metal chassis and its many-jointed steel arms. He pulled away and covered his nose. \"I'm afraid to imagine what might have killed it.\"\n\nKhyber's expression grew wary. \"Keep your voice down. It isn't dead, it's just dormant. Their flesh decays like that sometimes.\"\n\nBarghast added, \"The parasites inflict no lasting harm. Every few days it will wake up and circulate its restorative fluids, like we must do to these machines.\"\n\nMontenegro rode a surge of repulsion. He clenched his fists and whispered, \"Then let's get some heavy scourges down here and carve it up while it's still asleep! There's fifty of us. We can kill it if we have the stamina.\"\n\n\"We will not,\" countered the brigadier. He motioned to the soldiers around him. \"Fall back. We're pulling out.\"\n\n\"You have to be joking!\"\n\n'We'll send juggernauts to handle this. Maybe His Excellency will be able to enlist a dreadnought or two for the job.\" He nudged Montenegro in the direction from which they had come. \"Sartorius has chained a big watchdog down here, to keep us from overrunning the place. I won't lose ten or twenty men to subdue it. We'll let the automatons handle their own.\"\n\n\"You speak as though they're soldiers, too.\"\n\n\"They are what they are. Where's Piper? It's time to sound the retreat.\"\n\nA safe distance from the dreadnought's chamber, a lanky boy arrived wearing light armor. To his body was strapped a box of gears with a wheel-shaped crank. Several tall levers jutted up and over his shoulder. Piper turned the crank and the device began to moan. Steam rushed from inside. When he tilted the levers the musical instrument chirped out a raspy tune. At the signal the platoon of Technocrats hurried back toward the exit of the tunnels.\n\nFrom deep inside where the stragglers remained, Montenegro heard a piercing scream. He snapped the clockwork sword from his scabbard and lunged forward, but Khyber held him back. \"Cavalier! Don't bother.\"\n\nThe knight threw off the brigadier's hand, but realized that the screaming had stopped. Instead a heavy clanking sound banged closer and closer from the depths of the machine-choked cave. The stench of death invaded the tunnel. Montenegro cursed and followed Khyber as the soldiers fled out of the dry, smoky darkness. For a change he welcomed the dreary sight of Junction, its polluted sky awhirl with the throes of a coming storm.\n\nThulann crouched in a thicket of serrated leaves. The desert shrub clung to the slopes of a steep, rocky mountain. Its roots held fast like claws, sucking the earth so dry that the surface fractured into disjointed blocks. The Way Master squatted on a bend of the tough plant, ignoring the ache in her game leg as she peered down the side of the mountain. A narrow pass split through the cliffs below. Insect shapes winged among the crags. The afternoon sun rained down with such force that the bluffs exhaled dust like a sigh.\n\nInside the pass was a large commotion. A force of Jukan warriors crowded the space with polearms and banners held high. They had erected a stone wall to block the pass. They faced the east with swords and spears brandished.\n\nOn the cusp of the desert before them was a dark ribbon of soldiers. The army of Clan Kumar was approaching the mountains. Bolts of sunlight rang from their shields in a vast, sparkling display.\n\nThe old Way Master leaned back against the high, arid slope. She licked warm sweat from her lip, then pointed into the rocky pass. \"As I thought. There is the banner of Warlord Tizan of Clan Dragham. Bahrok picked his fattest toad to guard the pass against us.\"\n\nShe spoke to a tall, young warrior who knelt beside her.\n\nVenduss shaded his eyes with a hand and gazed at the troops below. \"He has no more than three or four hundred soldiers down there, I would say. Our siege engines can get us over that barricade. We can make a direct assault and punch through in less than a day.\"\n\nThulann nibbled her cheek in thought. \"We do not have that luxury. Clan Dragham is known for their perseverance. We might sustain three casualties to their one.\"\n\n\"Once we are through the pass, nothing stands between us and the sea. I say it is worth the risk of casualties to secure that landing zone. In two weeks the New Britannians will arrive with their swarms of healers to repair the damage.\"\n\n\"You assume that our soldiers will be injured and not dead. Even an archmage cannot heal a body two weeks down the path to dust. Think strategically, Venduss. This will be a long war and we dare not spend our resources on Bahrok's traps.\"\n\nVenduss grunted, \"Will it truly be long, though? We may see its end soon. My father has not rejected the surrender as such.\"\n\n\"Nor has he accepted it. Until he does, we must assume the worst.\"\n\nHe turned to watch her face. \"So you think my father will lead us into disaster.\"\n\n'When the enemy surrenders, the war is over. Further conflict is dangerous vanity.\"\n\n\"Pride, Thulann, not vanity. There is honor to redeem.\"\n\nShe snorted. \"This invasion will decimate us. We shall see how proud he is when the clan is destitute. I would expect such nonsense from a milk-toothed suckling like you, but your father has scars enough to know better.\"\n\n'Way Master! Sheathe your tongue, please. I happen to agree with your position. I believe we would acquit ourselves better than you imagine, but I see no pressing need to continue the invasion. I do not fear Bahrok's peacetime machinations. He will pay for his crimes in due course.\" He brushed a film of perspiration from his brow, then looked at her again. \"But something is wrong. You seem more agitated about this surrender than I have ever seen you before. Why is that?\"\n\nShe had told no one of her proposal to Turlogan. Neither had the Shirron divulged the secret. She mumbled, \"This may be your first war, pup, but it is my final one. I want an end to it before I am gone.\"\n\n\"I have known you too long to accept that answer. Something else is happening. There is some personal conflict boiling between you and my father. It is plain to see.\"\n\nShe glanced down at the soldiers in the mountain pass. \"Turlogan and I have always butted wills. We are two very old goats. This matter is no different.\"\n\n\"You should not lie to your future chieftain.\"\n\n\"And you should mind your own garden before you root around in someone else's! Your father and I shall tend our t relationship as we see fit. You, young buck, need to prune the extra branches from your own.\"\n\nHe lifted his chin and glowered. \"What are you suggesting?\"\n\n\"Simply that you make a fool of yourself and everyone else by pursuing two women. You are betrothed to Tekmhat. You must break off with Toria or break off the engagement. Your passion is not long enough to stretch between them both.\"\n\n\"Now who is rooting in someone else's dirt?\"\n\n\"It is not a private affair, Venduss. You represent all of us in the alliance with Clan Eryem. I will not presume to tell you which girl to choose, but you must make a choice.\"\n\nWith a blink he grumbled, \"Why must I? Important men keep their mistresses.\"\n\n\"Toria is no mistress and never shall be. If you do not marry her, you will lose her. You know that.\"\n\n\"I do not accept it.\"\n\n\"Then you will suffer. In the end you sacrifice both love and honor.\"\n\nThe warrior stared for a moment at the gathering forces of Clan Kumar. He measured his breathing and said, \"Tekmhat will be an astonishing wife. But I cannot let Toria go. Not again, teacher.\"\n\n\"Behave like a man, Venduss! The time has come to display some backbone.\"\n\n\"If and when I am ready. Not before!\" He punched the rough bark of the mountain shrub. The leaves rustled very slightly. \"Mind your own agenda, Thulann.\"\n\nShe narrowed her one, old eye. \"Heed my advice or not. It is your decision. For my own part, I have made my choices. Presently I await the consequences.\" In the rocky pass, another group of soldiers arrived to fortify the wall. The clatter of their voices and weapons careened from the stone bluffs. \"There, you see? Fifty more of Tizan's clansmen. This pass has teeth like a nest of gulbani.\"\n\n\"I still say we can take it easily with a frontal attack. Tizan will blink.\"\n\n\"There is no need for such theater. We can find a less dangerous way. War is a craft, not a show.\"\n\nVenduss displayed a frown. \"Sometimes the path goes straight ahead.\" He crossed his arms and leaned back against a stone. As they watched the troops of Clan Dragham, Thulann saw his expression shift from careful observation to a glare that was distinctly predatory. She did not approve of his attitude, but she doubted her opinion held much sway.\n\nThat night she dreamt of Venus childhood years, when Warlord Turlogan was lusty and fierce. For fifteen summers the son of Kumar and Narah had occupied his parents' throne, during which time he had been folded and hammered like fine steel into the personification of wild confidence. He was as strong as his namesake, the great enemy of the Overlords; he led the other chieftains with a mighty voice and a mightier sword arm; he was ferociously loyal to his motherless son; and for the war master named Thulann, he was the sinful epitome of temptation. Her own marriage was a dismal memory, her children turned into enemies; she was alone with her career when he stood before her with eyes agleam and mouth agrin, the glisten of wine on his lips, his titan's body fit and lean and taut as a stalking predator. He came for her and she ran, because she wanted to be hunted. She never relented; in her heart she knew that he was capable of running her down; and she meant to savor every moment until the day he captured her honestly. She was not young but she was beautiful and terrible, feared in Garron, and only one man could hope to chase her. And he did so, and he caught her often, but she never let him hold her; for she knew the night would fall when she could not break loose and she would be his prisoner, captive in his eyes and body. The fire of their passion would burn Garron to the ground. The rest of the world would be cinders and ash.\n\nShe woke in a sweat with the sheets thrown from her bed. A pale face leaned over, calling her name. \"Thulann! Mistress! Wake up! It's starting!\"\n\nThe Way Master squinted and gained control of her senses. Outside her tent honked the clan's war trumpets. The troops were attacking the mountain pass. She sprang from her bed and shouted, \"Armor!\" as she leapt into her silk fighting clothes.\n\nDawn had not fully spread its wings, but the crest of the sun hurled copper beams at the stone wall blocking the pass. Thulann and Toria kicked their ridgebacks as they galloped toward the clamorous front line. The Way Master saw the banners of three siege battalions mounting the initial assault. They would secure the walls for the siege towers, after which the heavy fighters would plunge into the fray. Thulann scanned across a thousand soldiers for the identity of the second wave. When she saw their insignia, she ground her teeth. The Tarkosh guard would spearhead the main attack. Turlogan, of course, would fight at their head.\n\nHe had not hinted that this action would take place. He must have planned it carefully behind her back. Her distraction had been unforgivable and this morning the clan might pay the price.\n\nThulann halted her mount in a swirl of dust. They had arrived at a spot on the parched ground that was unmarked but very tangible. It was the range boundary of the defensive artillery. Already the battleground was pitted with great wounds from spark stones hurled out of the crags. She and Venduss had mapped out the fortifications yesterday, so she was well aware of the ranges and positions of Clan Dragham's catapults and trebuchets. Turlogaris scout units were presently scaling the rock walls to eliminate them. Meanwhile, Clan Kumar's own artillery lined up at the boundary. Thulann galloped her ridgeback toward the huge stone throwers, with Toria close behind.\n\nShe dismounted beside the first trebuchet she reached. The enormous machine was a frame of timbers lashed with tarry rope. It had been erected during the night, according to standard protocol, but the crew of thirty showed no sign of fatigue. They sang hearty chants as they loaded another huge spark stone into the scoop, then unleashed the fifty-foot throwing arm. A sound like a gale wind roared from the swirling timber. The great arm flung the stone as if it were a pebble. The missile shrank from sight as it sailed toward the slopes. Its impact was marked by a burst of smoke and a blossom of electrical discharge. The sound arrived moments later.\n\nThulann motioned the crew to halt while she climbed to the spotter's platform. An engineer greeted her with a salute. She took from him a long spyglass. The contraption was prized booty from the Technocrats, one of their few devices that endured more than a week without replacement parts. She peered through the array of lenses to get a better look at the front ranks. Under the banner of the Tarkosh guard she discovered the Shirron. He sat under an armored shelter, safe from Dragham archers until his attack commenced. But Thulann did not see Venduss. She handed back the spyglass and hurried to ground level.\n\n\"We must not delay,\" she told Toria as they climbed into their saddles. \"I want to go into those cliffs on the left.\"\n\n\"I thought you were supposed to fight beside the Shirron.\"\n\n\"He does not appear to want me as part of the main attack.\"\n\n\"That's not necessarily unflattering.\"\n\n\"Leave it,\" grumbled the Juka. \"Venduss is not with him, either. I think I know why. When we mapped the bluffs yesterday we discussed a hidden pathway that would be ideal to take a small force unseen into the pass. There.\" She pointed to a slither of shadows in the rocks a quarter mile beside the defensive wall. \"I believe that is where Venduss has gone.\" The redhead ruffled her brow. \"Mistress, that's underneath their catapults, in the strike path of our own artillery. It'd be suicide to go through there.\"\n\n\"That is what makes it ideal. They will not expect enemies to use that route while the stones are falling.\"\n\n\"But even if he survives, he can't get more than a dozen men through at a time. Why would Venduss bother?\"\n\n\"For the same reason that we shall bother. Because on the other side of that path is a clear route to Tizan's wall. And in less than an hour Turlogan will be climbing that wall and swimming through an ocean of spears and swords and arrows. He might have some use for assistance from unexpected quarters.\"\n\nToria flinched as the giant trebuchet launched another spark stone boulder. The rush of sound was jarring. Seconds later the boulder crashed against the distant mountainside, exploding in an electric blast that toppled a landslide of stones bigger than herself. She raked small fingers through her mane of curls. \"Yeah, he'll be in a heap of danger, hey? Good thing we'll be along.\"\n\nThey skirted the battlefield to reach the rubble-strewn base of the mountain. On foot they crept among boulders and scrub brush until they reached the tiny path. It crossed under a ridge of stone for several yards, then dipped down to a level out of sight of both the open desert and the pass. Already the ground was littered with charred rocks thrown from artillery craters in the cliff face above them. They paused while another boulder whizzed overhead. It smashed against the mountain and rained heavy stones onto the pathway ahead.\n\nThulann handed Toria a small shield and strapped another to her own forearm. The minstrel looked incredulously at the wooden disk. \"What happens if we get trapped by rocks?\"\n\nThe Way Master shrugged. \"I rely upon you to tell me that. You have been buried before. I have not.\"\n\nThe minstrel smirked and crooned:\n\n\u2003\"When you are buried, and can't see the sun,\n\n\u2003Cast off your worries and try to have fun!\n\n\u2003Sing with the maggots and dance with the worms!\n\n\u2003You might as well rot on your own bloody terms!\"\n\nThey dashed along the pathway with urgent stealth. Each of them clutched a vial of healing potion in her shield hand. Within a few seconds the world shook and a rain of boulders crashed upon them. They whisked their shields overhead but the relentless blows hammered them to the ground. Thulann felt her ribs and one of her ankles crumple. The pain ripped her like knives. She swallowed her potion and the agony ceased. She heard Toria cursing as she did the same. When they proceeded, their pace was quickened. Then the whoosh of another boulder sounded overhead and they pressed against the rock face. The impact occurred behind them. They had taken two more steps when the next explosion tore through the cliff. Thulann's skull flashed with heat and the sunlight vanished. After a span of darkness she felt her fingers moving. She pushed outward. Stones fell away from her. Daylight returned. She coughed from the dust and gulped her second healing potion. Then she crawled from the rubble to find Toria pinned to the ground, her legs flattened under a slate of rock. The girl's green eyes lay open as wide as coins, her mouth trembling in horror. A crystal vial lay inches from her fingers.\n\n\"Great Mother,\" murmured Thulann. She crouched down and leaned her back against the rock. For a few seconds she chanted into a trance of the Way, then shoved her legs to lift. The huge rock slid from the girl's mangled legs. Thulann's back spasmed. She poured the healing potion onto Toria's tongue. When the girl crawled to her feet she pressed against the Way Master like a frightened child.\n\n\"Come,\" said Thulann, \"we are almost halfway there.\"\n\nAround a blind corner they stumbled upon a scene of carnage. An enormous slab of rock, twenty feet on a side, had separated from the mountain. It rested at an angle against the wall. Half a dozen corpses lay crushed where it landed. They had all died instandy. Thulann's heart fell cold when she recognized the livery of Tarkosh guardsmen. But Venduss was not among them, and so she whispered a prayer and moved on. There was no courage without risk. They faced that truth themselves.\n\nThey squeezed through the dark, narrow hole between the slab and the cliff. Two more rockslides pounded over them, but the slab gave them shelter. On the other side they were yards from safe ground. They wasted no time in crossing.\n\nThey had entered into a stone crevice that paralleled the mountain pass. A hundred yards ahead it joined the main corridor. The sounds of battle echoed from the cliffs. They crouched behind a swatch of scrub and caught their breaths. Their armor and clothes were a bloody mess. By habit Thulann checked the healing potions she had brought. Inside the leather bag on her belt, the stout crystal vials had been shattered by falling rocks. She licked a tingling drop from her glove and muttered, \"Conserve your healing, child. Mine is gone.\"\n\nThe human let out a whimpering sigh. \"I have one left. Let's hope we don't need it to get back out.\" Then she jerked her head and mouthed, \"Did you hear a voice?\"\n\nThey scrambled up a low slope behind them and discovered a Dragham soldier kneeling on a high ledge. His back was turned to them. He seemed to be watching something below. Thulann dispatched him noiselessly and they peered over the edge to see what was happening.\n\nFifteen feet below, the path they had followed rounded another bend. In an open area between hillsides was a band of nine Dragham warriors surrounding a smaller group. A pair of Tarkosh guardsmen braced shoulder-to-shoulder, their bow-spears jutting outward. With them stood two athletic figures, a tall Kumar officer and a female Initiate of the Way. Bloodstains covered the healer's white robe. Thulann grumbled under her breath, \"Venduss brought along his bride. How gallant of him. Warlord Savan will be ecstatic to hear about it.\"\n\n\"I guess I spoiled him. Who's that talking to them?\"\n\nA Dragham officer addressed Venduss. Some sort of parley was occurring. Thulann stared for a few moments longer and then exhaled sharply. \"By the Hand of Honor, I know that man. He comes from Ruhn. His name is Way Master Amhet.\"\n\n\"A Way Master? That's really bad news. Look, Venduss is going to fight him.\"\n\nThulann winced. \"Venduss is going to lose. Prepare yourself to jump down.\"\n\nThe two warriors clashed swords in single combat. Ven-duss was the larger man but Way Master Amhet hurled two strokes for every one of his. The youth lurched and tumbled around his middle-aged opponent. His armor striped with cuts and blood. Then he leapt into a handstand kick that toppled the Way Master backward. Amhet of Ruhn cartwheeled to his feet, then sprang up at an impossible height. His longsword cleaved down into the leather seam of Venus shoulder armor. The steel plunged deeper and deeper. The Way Master landed nimbly as his opponent struggled to remain upright, though the effort looked futile.\n\nThulann's breath caught as she slithered over the side and dropped soundlessly to the earth. Her game leg protested the landing.\n\nA bright sparkle tore across the path. As Venduss fell to his knees, Tekmhat loosed a glittering spell that engulfed her injured fiance. When one of the Dragham soldiers thrust his spear at the healer, he let out a sudden cry and clutched his throat. The hilt of a knife protruded from his gorget.\n\nToria touched down beside Thulann and twirled another throwing knife in her fingers. In her right hand crackled her enchanted cutlass, dripping magical sparks into the dust. She bared her teeth at the soldiers. \"Let's talk this out, hey?\"\n\n\"Stop!\" bellowed Way Master Amhet to his men. The sol-diers held their weapons in check. The officer flicked Venus blood from his weapon and straightened his posture. \"By the crows of Garron. Way Master Thulann. This is an unanticipated privilege. I greet you with the utmost respect and honor.\"\n\n\"I greet you with respect and honor, Amhet of Ruhn. Kindly help my student to rise.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Without looking down he offered a hand to Venduss, who was reeling to his feet. The youth grimaced and accepted the help. He nodded tersely at Thulann. His face was scarred with frustration.\n\nThulann called out, \"Tekmhat! Heal that Dragham dog.\" She pointed to the soldier with the knife in his throat. As the teenager complied, Thulann stood before her fellow Way Master. Her body required coaxing to its full height. She wished she had brought her walking staff, though it probably would have perished in the rockslides. \"Way Master, we must pass this way. Stand aside.\"\n\n\"Warlord Tizan doubted anyone would use this path. He commands great perseverance but too often he underestimates the trait in others. I do not share that weakness.\" He pressed his palms together before his chest. \"With respect, I shall not let you pass without conflict.\"\n\nThulann nodded. \"Then I believe this is an engagement you and I can settle between us, if you think it warrants the trouble.\"\n\n\"Do 1! What swordmaster does not dream of this opportunity? But again, with respect, you look somewhat haggard. Are you prepared?\"\n\nShe smiled darkly. \"For you, I am prepared.\"\n\nThe soldiers of both clans watched in wonder as the two masters bowed to each other. Amhet met Thulann's gaze and said, \"My last victory was Timbesk of Jamark in a White Duel, two seasons ago. She lost an arm.\"\n\n\"My last victory was Bahrok of Garron in a Black Duel this season. We both died, but he yielded first.\"\n\nThey bowed again. Each of them began a slow ritual dance. Thulann breathed into a trance and her joints and muscles remembered flawless moves. Her mind flooded with a lifetime of training. The feeling was exhilarating. She swept into a soft mental flow in preparation for the Duel of the Way. Unlike other contests, this one engaged particular rules that limited it to Masters of the Way. The battle was one of strategy and execution. It followed a strict sequence of actions. In trading accounts of their victories they had negotiated the pace and character of the fight. By announcing her defeat of Bahrok, Thulann had asserted the magnitude of her stamina and thereby warned Amhet against a protracted encounter. In turn he had conveyed to her that he was a highly mobile duelist. She knew to keep the contact tight. Thus had they agreed upon a very close and very quick engagement. Each then calculated how best to defeat the other. The ritual dance was a portrayal of the moves they would perform in the course of the duel. Thulann watched Amhet reveal exactly how he would try to kill her. She offered him the same courtesy.\n\nWhen the dances were complete, they bowed again. They had no secrets between them. All that remained was execution. The sensation was one of overwhelming liberation.\n\nIt was almost enough for Thulann to forget that Turlogan was rushing into danger.\n\nThey faced one another, swords sheathed. They monitored unseen currents of interaction. Then they struck.\n\nSeven pure metallic rings leapt in the air like birds. Thulann finished on one knee, her head bent, her sword flush to the pebbled ground. She was aware of dust clouding around her, filtering into her nostrils.\n\nBehind her came two thumps, one from Amhet's body, the other from his head.\n\nAfter a heavy silence followed the cries of the Dragham soldiers. Then their weapons clattered against those of the Tarkosh guards. In a whirl Thulann launched herself from the ground and streaked into the midst of the enemy. Her blade flew by scent and sound and the tactile impressions of breath and footsteps and tender, parting flesh. The tang of blood stirred in the air as the last Dragham soldier thudded at her feet. Then she rose proudly and took a step forward.\n\nShe stumbled and fell to her hands and knees. She blinked at the sting of dust, but it was no use. Darkness was everywhere, a furtive tapestry over the world.\n\nAmhet's first stroke had sliced open her eye. She was blind.\n\nA glorious pain scintillated before her face. When she looked up, Tekmhat was gazing down at her with the remnants of a spell crackling between her fingers. The girl's expression was one of awe. Thulann smiled her appreciation for the healing. Her chest unknotted in a distinctly uncomfortable way.\n\nVenduss helped her to stand. \"Thank you, teacher. Are you all right?\"\n\nShe blew out a very long, very relieved breath. \"I am a grand fool.\" She did not look at Amhet's corpse as she wiped and sheathed her sword. \"Let us keep moving. The battle does not wait for us and the object of my folly is in no less danger for this little skirmish. Toria, come here and let an old woman lean on you.\" The human rushed to her side. Thulann noticed a glance pass between Toria and Tekmhat, and another between the minstrel and Venduss; but the moment disappeared as the group hurried in the direction of the clamor of battle.\n\nWhen they crested the rise that overlooked Tizan's wall, they found brace-mounted crossbows and sacks of quarrels resting on the ground. Way Master Amhet's men must have been posted here as archers. Thulann, Venduss and Toria each loaded a crossbow while the two guardsmen nocked their bow-spears. Tekmhat flattened in the dust as the group watched a brutal melee unfold on the wall, twenty feet below them and twenty more away. Clan Kumar's wooden siege towers were fastened to the stone barricade by many steel hooks. The siege battalion pushed back the defenders with long pikes and bladed polearms. The Dragham soldiers sprayed flaming oil atop the structures and just as quickly the healers of Kumar doused the fires with water magic. A torrent of arrows slashed the noisy air, streaming in both directions. The roar of clashing warriors fed itself with a deafening frenzy.\n\nThen war trumpets blared. The army of Clan Kumar surged up the wooden towers and plunged into the sea of defenders. The Tarkosh guardsmen leading the charge overmatched the Dragham warriors, though sheer numbers slowed their advance to excruciating inches. And in the midst of the chaos stood one giant far above the others.: Shirron Turlogan wheeled his father's great two-handed sword as if it were completely weightless. Enemy Juka flew aside in swift, bloody ranks. The warlord's face was a mask of berserk rage as he carved into the horde of brawny warriors, the majority of whom were less than half his age. Yet his fury was greater than theirs. Within seconds his guardsmen had eased away to give him more room, as he had no use for their protection. The defenders shrank back from him as well and he seized every foot of the wall they surrendered. When he let out a furious war cry, Thulann's spirit leapt. \"Look at the magnificent idiot!\" she shouted. \"The Great Mother herself would melt in his heat!\"\n\nAn arrow sprouted from his chestplate, but he did not acknowledge it. A second arrow followed, then a terrible stream of them, one after another, eight or nine in the span of a second. He bellowed and staggered back. When enemy soldiers rushed forward he chopped them down in mighty strokes; but his stance was rapidly failing. Thulann and her companions fired their heavy missiles into the crowd. Then she gathered her legs to leap to his aid, when a column of glittering light spouted from the Kumar ranks. The healing spell from the siege battalion splashed the Shirron and restored his strength. The arrows dropped from his body. He renewed his assault with even greater vigor. Thulann noticed an awful kind of glee in his eyes. She spat a laugh and slapped Venduss on the rear. \"That stone-headed pter-anx does not need our help! But neither should he steal the glory. Lower this frail old crone to the wall and let us see if we can match his body count!\"\n\nIn the pounding sun of afternoon, deep inside the throat of the pass, Warlord Tizan sounded the retreat. Turlogan rode his ridgeback in the lead as Clan Kumar chased the Dragham forces down the long, rubble-thick corridor. At the other end the enemy Juka clambered aboard longboats that bobbed at the edge of the sea. They fled to the cheers of the triumphant army. Their triangular sails shrank into the distance, but Thulann's gaze fell elsewhere. To the south lay a wide strip of barren land bounded on one side by the ocean and on the other by the talon foothills of the high, grey mountains. This was the ground they must secure for the New Britannian landing. They would be woefully vulnerable to attacks from the sea, yet they needed to hold it for only two weeks. By that time, if the Great Mother willed it, the surrender would be finalized. She could not imagine what might happen after that. Wars she understood, espionage she had mastered, intrigue constituted her daily affairs; but peace was something that had always eluded her. It seemed a daunting proposition, though one that made her heart beat quickly. She had always enjoyed new challenges. This might be the most difficult yet."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "The Dagger",
+                "text": "Into a lair at the top of a mountain did Sir Lazaro lead his ten knights. There they awakened the ancient wyrm Malgotha and set themselves to killing it. One by one did the serpent devour the brave knights, and one by one did each strike a grievous wound before falling. In the end only Sir Lazaro remained, trapping the wounded creature in its cave.\n\nBut when he raised his magic sword, the Talon of Covetous, to render the felling blow, Malgotha the Wyrm begged him to stay his wrath. \"I am a human cursed by sorcery with an immortal form and a terrible hunger. If you kill me I shall rise again. If you help me remove the curse, the world shall be free of my terror.\" Sir Lazaro agreed to help the foul creature. The moment he did so the wyrm cried a tear that transformed into a golden heart. And Malgotha returned to the shape of a beautiful, grey-eyed maiden. On that day did the Virtue of Compassion move a brave knight to pity and thus rid the world of a monster.\n\nThe tunnel was a bramble of twisted machinery, shredded and heaped with savage force. Montenegro held up his spark lantern and whistled at the scope of the destruction. The slanted corridor must have once been a nexus of pipelines and great, oily axles, or so he surmised from the ruined metal shapes that clogged the fifteen-foot tunnel. Plumbing and mechanics had been tom from the walls and jammed together with deliberate intent. At some time in the past, someone had sealed off this passage. The result was imposing. The scene reminded him of an unthinkable rat's nest.\n\nA collection of robed men examined the wall of debris. Among them worked Brother Barghast. His jowled, green face was animated with thought. Montenegro stepped beside him and commented, \"You're going to need an ocean of restorative fluid to repair this little corner of the den.\"\n\nThe Juka nodded. \"There is no recovering these machines, but the Order of Engineers assures me that the war engines will function without them. The pumps we repaired do not service these conduits. A second circuit of pipes is in place here.\" He tilted his head and explained, as if he still pondered the theory, \"It seems, Cavalier, that the tunnels go much deeper than we expected. There is a complex of machines below us that serves a purpose or purposes we have not yet fathomed.\"\n\nThe knight grimaced at the thought, then muttered, \"I don't think they shall be functional in the near term.\" He touched a bent shaft that looked like a pipe, only to discover it was solid iron. \"By my Humility, that is a terrific bit of mayhem. Is it more handiwork of Sartorius's dreadnought?\"\n\n\"This is more than a dreadnought can do. Mechanical strength alone will not suffice.\" The Mathematician pointed to a strip of blackened steel. \"Do you notice the scorching? This metal was softened with heat before it was ripped apart. No dreadnought nor juggernaut can produce a fire that intense.\"\n\n\"So Sartorius has built a new kind of gear-boned monster, with a furnace in its gullet.\"\n\n\"No. One cannot construct so powerful a machine in a tinker's workshop. It needs factory resources. That would require the complicity of Lector Braun and the Engineers, and the odds are considerable that His Excellency would have mentioned such a project to us.\"\n\nThe knight chuckled. \"Braun did seem rather eager to stick a dagger in Sartorius's belly. But if the Chosen didn't do this, then it must have happened long ago. Before the Cataclysm. No one's been down here since then.\"\n\nBrother Barghast sighed. \"I fear this was done only recently.\"\n\n\"How recendy?\"\n\n\"Since we entered the tunnels. Not more than two days ago. Probably when our automatons were fighting the dreadnought.\"\n\nMontenegro widened his eyes. \"You're saying whatever did this is still down here with us?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. It is probable that the creature or creatures remain in the deeper levels of the complex.\"\n\n\"How can you be sure?\"\n\n\"Because this tunnel was sealed off from the other side.\" He clasped his forearms together and stared up at the massive, tangled blockage. \"Something does not want us to penetrate its lair. I believe it is prudent that we heed its wishes. There are many automatons constructed by the Overlords that still lurk in the pits of Logosia. We do ourselves no benefit to test their wrath.\"\n\n\"I should say not.\" He gaped at the mangled machinery for a few seconds longer, then said, \"Do what you think is wisest, Barghast. I shall not be here to help you. I leave tonight for the north. Lector Gaff has completed the formal application for surrender and Khyber and I are going to deliver it to Thulann. We'll soon find out how smart Turlogan is.\"\n\nThe Mathematician bowed his head. \"The Machine subsumes all outcomes, violent or peaceful. Yet the weaker half of my soul prays for your success.\"\n\nThe knight smiled. \"As do we all. The brigade should do fine without us for a week. We're well entrenched. Sartorius's troops are still loitering on the surface like nervous children. I doubt they will move in before we return.\"\n\n\"We shall manage in your absence. The first war engines should be functional in a few days. Once that occurs, we shall easily answer any hostility from Lector Sartorius.\"\n\n\"I'm here to ask about a different machine, though. Have you begun the latest modifications to my horse?\"\n\n\"My apprentices are constructing the parts, but we have not yet applied them to the automaton.\"\n\n\"Good, then I can take it with me. I have no mad wish to ride a kite skid again.\"\n\n\"You should learn anyway. That automaton was supposed to be a temporary solution. It is slow and your 'improvements' will make it slower still.\"\n\nMontenegro laughed. \"We're building a warhorse, my friend, not a racehorse. Have no fear. Once this business is over I'll take the machine home to New Britannia and not bother you again.\"\n\n\"I shall miss the challenge. It is among my finest work.\" The Juka blinked and said, \"And I shall miss you as well, Cavalier, after you go. I suppose we shall not convince you to remain in Khyber's service.\"\n\n\"Not with a tower of gold and Pikas' head impaled at the top. The green hills of Cove have never stopped calling me. I have a life to win back.\" He smirked and added, \"And a wife to conquer, as well, I suppose.\"\n\nBrother Barghast stared at him. \"Sister Raveka must not leave the Order. You are aware of that fact.\"\n\nHe boxed the Technocrat on the arm. \"We can fight about it later. Walk with Virtue, Baighast.\"\n\n\"And you as well, noble savage.\"\n\nThe knight chuckled and turned away. He exited the shredded ruins of ancient Overlord machinery, a huge, jagged whorl of rusty metal. The devastation was sobering but the end result was desirable. All of this foul technology from darker times ought to be crushed. He would be glad to leave it behind and return to the woods and meadows of New Britannia. He craved a draught of pure, silken air and the organic sensations of home.\n\nThe compound outside the Shirron's pavilion was alight with celebration of the day's victory. So many flames burned on lamps and braziers and firestacks that the tips of the ocean waves shone gold instead of pearl. The chime and tinkle of percussive Garron music danced atop the rush of sea wind. Long tables brimmed with food and dark wines. Great Jukan bull carcasses roasted over pits of coals, heaving their savory smoke across the jubilant scene. Overhead the banner of Shirron Turlogan fluttered and snapped with excitement.\n\nA bustle of smartly clad servants attended the whims of the revelers, who comprised the officers and war masters of Clan Kumar. The festivities were raucous with tales of the day, as drunken warriors leapt about to demonstrate their achievements in battle. Turlogan himself participated in the exchange. In dramatic fashion he mimed with stalks of vegetables the pattern of arrows that had stuck into his chest. Then he threw the stalks aside and showed the crowd how he had cut down the Dragham defenders. A cup of wine sloshed in his hand, thirsty for frequent refills.\n\nThulann sat at the head table wearing a shawl of the finest, gold-sprinkled silk. The voluminous fabric covered her head, one edge sweeping in a graceful curve to conceal her missing right eye. Toria had washed the Juka's cloud-pale hair and braided it for several hours. Her gown was belted with a silver cord. The embroidered fabric draped with luxuriant weight. A ruby glistened on her brow. She watched the animated Shirron with a quiet smile on her face. This was a Turlogan she had not seen in many years. He was acting like a child in the throes of victory. Ritual propriety lay trampled in the rush to celebrate, and yet this boisterous display was itself something of a tradition. Warriors sang the joys of life, and never more so than after battle.\n\nWhen Turlogan wheeled to face her, she broadened her smile. He leaned over the table and kissed her hand, then grinned, \"My dearest, tell them how you lost your beautiful eye this morning.\"\n\nThe officers goaded her into complying, though she spoke from the comfort of her chair. Briefly she recounted her introduction to Way Master Amhet and then described the swordstroke that had landed on her face. \"He cut my eye straight through like a grape with his first slice. Luckily Tekmhat gave me a fresh one from her bag of spells. But I felled six of their warriors without the luxury of sight.\"\n\n\"Five!\" protested Venduss, slamming down his goblet. \"The guardsmen slew one apiece and I killed two of them.\"\n\n\"You only thought you killed two. My blade is swifter than your eye, suckling, and even when I am blind I see more than you.\"\n\nThe crowd broke into laughter and Venduss threw cheese at them. Then General Fekhet rose from his chair and lifted his wine cup high. \"I rejoice that you are not blind, Way Master. We should be lost without your vision. Great Mother watch over brave Tekmhat and the wizards of Water Magic.\"\n\nThe festival murmured its agreement. A slip of calm invaded the seaside as everyone drank a swallow of wine. Thulann drank two herself and said, \"Indeed. Though I confess, I am not certain I approve of healing magic in all cases. It often makes us sloppy, do you not agree?\"\n\nTurlogan laughed and cupped her cheek. \"We should all be as sloppy as you, my love.\"\n\n\"But Thulann,\" asked Fekhet, \"what happened to the Way Master you fought? Did you slay him?\"\n\n\"In the end I removed both of his eyes, with a little room to spare.\" She dragged her hand edgewise across her throat. A golden choker twinkled in the action. The officers barked with laughter. \"Honor the name of Amhet of Ruhn. His skill was a lesson even to me.\"\n\nThe warriors raised their cups again and toasted a fallen enemy.\n\nThe Shirron cast his reddened eyes around the compound. \"Where is my daughter-to-be, anyway? I have not seen her tonight. Did her father spirit her away?\"\n\nVenduss shook his head and smiled. \"She is close. As an Initiate of the Way she does not indulge in wine, so I presume she has excused herself from the noise.\"\n\n\"I shall find her,\" said Thulann as she stood with the aid of her walking staff. \"I am overfull from the clamor myself. You swordsmen with your bleating voices overwhelm my delicate constitution.\" The officers laughed and hooted at the jibe, but none of them dared to throw food.\n\nShe walked away from the merriment and into the calmer shadows behind Turlogan's pavilion. The ocean breeze swept over her with a cool, salty touch. Her loose clothes waved and flowed in perfect arcs, evidence of the expense with which the Shirron adorned her. But she rarely wore his gifts of finery. Their appeal was mostly fleeting. She only did so tonight by way of apology to him. She held herself responsible for the way he had neglected her this morning. She had not approved of the frontal assault. Her demeanor had given him no room for negotiation and so he had not informed her of the dawn attack. Yet the result of the action was an easy victory. Warlord Tizan had not counted on such quick aggression. He was caught unprepared. Clan Dragham lost a hundred men. Clan Kumar lost fewer than forty. The evidence suggested that Turlogan's very presence in the thick of battle had demoralized the enemy and hastened their retreat. And so she owed an apology to Venduss, as well. He had been correct yesterday afternoon. Sometimes the path did go straight ahead.\n\nBut she would have to wait for the celebration to subside before offering Turlogan her apology in earnest.\n\nShe clasped both hands to her steel-encased walking staff. Pausing in the windy calm, she attended her pointed ears. She made out two female voices laughing. She tracked the sound behind Venus tent, where she discovered an unlikely scene. Toria sat cross-legged atop a wooden barrel. The girl wore fine clothes of her own, a filmy dress and sari acquired from a trader weeks ago. The outfit was disheveled, immodest. In her lap teetered a bottle of wine that looked mostly empty. The minstrel fought a spasm of giggles as she reached out to pat the shoulder of her companion. Kneeling on the ground in front of her was Tekmhat of Clan Eryem in a white Initiate's robe. The Jukan girl was laughing as well. Thulann heard the smack of wine in her voice. The jubilant pair gathered their self-control and began to sing in unison:\n\n\u2003\"Now pull, bully boys, and I'll tell you a lot\n\n\u2003'BoMt the wealthy young lassie they call Tekmhat!\n\n\u2003Her lust was unbound but her virtue policed,\n\n\u2003But she never had nothin' on Bawdewyn the Beast!\n\n\u2003So hey-holly-hoyo, now pull, bully-boy-os!\n\n\u2003'Twas never another like Bawdewyn the Beast!\"\n\nTheir composure collapsed into breathless laughter. Thulann recognized the shanty sung by the crew of Captain Bawdewyn's brigantine Menagerie. Toria drank from the bot-de again and Tekmhat followed suit. Then they prepared themselves and attempted a second verse:\n\n\u2003\"Now pull bully boys, and I'll tell you a story\n\n\u2003'Bout the wee little minstrel they call Tiny Tori!\n\n\u2003She'll give you a rise like a fistful of yeast,\n\n\u2003But she never had nothin' on Bawdewyn the Beast!\n\n\u2003So hey-holly-hoyo, now pull, bully-boy-os!\n\n\u2003'Twas never another like Bawdewyn the Beast!\"\n\nWhen they completed the song Thulann struck from the shadows. She cracked the end of her staff against the barrel, toppling it. Toria squealed and thumped onto her back, sandaled feet thrown high in the air. The minstrel watched the barrel as it rolled across the rocky ground, bumped past the limit of Turlogan's compound and splashed into the tossing breakers. The girl doubled over and choked with laughter.\n\nTekmhat's reaction was precisely the opposite. Her eyes followed the length of the staff until she saw Thulann standing in the gloom. The Initiate paled with terror and hurled her face and hands to the ground at the Way Master's feet. Thulann nudged her and growled, \"To your tent, filthy cub. Pray your judgment comes from me and not your father.\" Tekmhat reeled off into the encampment, her face a twist of raw panic.\n\nThulann glowered at the sodden Toria, who lay on her back and giggled. Her freckled face had turned scarlet and her lips were fastened into a smirk. \"Well, Mistress, I guess this means you won't invite me to the party, hey?\"\n\n\"I may well invite you to leave my service! What in the name of Kumar's honor were you trying to accomplish here?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" grunted the human as she struggled to sit up. Her copious hair fell into her face. She blew at a lock of it and laughed. \"Nothing, honestly. We were just getting to know each other.\"\n\nThulann growled, \"If this is some amateurish attempt to disgrace that girl\u2014\"\n\n\"No! Great Mother, Thulann, not everyone connives like you do, hey?\" The comment jabbed the Way Master deeply, but before she could retort Toria continued, \"Tekmhat came to me and asked how she could repay me for saving her life this morning. Can you imagine that? I mean, what was I supposed to say? So I told her she could sit down and share a drink with me. I thought maybe we could break the ice. I don't know. Work things out or... I don't know.\"\n\nThe old Juka regulated her angry breaths. \"You made a mistake, Toria. Tekmhat is not like you. She is a creature of tradition and ritual. She has no command of her world or herself. One trespass like this could ruin her life. Do you understand the damage you may have done?\"\n\nThe girl looked away and said nothing more. Thulann grumbled her pique, but did not shape it into further reprimand. Toria was too inebriated to listen. With a sniff she said, \"Take yourself away from here until you acquire a more respectable disposition. Perhaps you can celebrate with the Tarkosh guard. Their manner of revelry is more closely aligned to your own.\" The statement was not an insult but a genuine assessment of the facts. The minstrel seemed to take it as such.\n\nWhen Thulann turned away the human called out, \"You look beautiful tonight, Mistress. I mean that.\"\n\nShe did not look back. \"Thank you, child.\"\n\n\"Treat him well, Thulann.\"\n\nThe Way Master brought a crockery jar into Tekmhat's humble tent. The girl was chanting mantras of the Way, tear tracks staining her cheeks. Thulann found a cup and dipped warm tea from the jar. She handed it to the frightened teenager. \"Drink this. It will take the edge off the wine and help you sleep. You must also swallow five goblets of water tonight or your skull will split to pieces by morning. Do not forget. And hide your chamber pot. It can betray you. I shall come around later to collect it. I expect to find you asleep by then.\"\n\nThe Initiate was not yet proficient enough in Water Magic to eliminate the alcohol from her own blood. The fact must have mortified her, for she accepted Thulann's medicine as if it were an antidote to Logosian poison. She bowed her head quickly. \"I am unworthy of your mercy, Way Master.\"\n\n\"None of us are worthy, little insect, but we must pass the days nonetheless. Now hurry and drink. You are not my most important business tonight.\"\n\nThulann found Turlogan standing outside the door to his pavilion. He had thrown off the sleeves of his embroidered caftan, so that the garment draped in pleats over his belt. Above the hips the warrior's body was bare. She saw him in silhouette, his striking outline traced by the backlight of a lamp. To the Jukan woman he looked like temptation personified. Her body shivered. She crept behind him and snaked her arms around his waist and in an instant familiar warmth passed between them. He laid his giant hands over hers. She felt as much as heard his gruff moan of pleasure.\n\n\"Take me inside, old man,\" she murmured. \"I have had enough of the world tonight.\"\n\nThey were alone under the drapery of his opulent tent. He kissed her hand and opened a wooden cabinet, from which he selected another bottle of wine. As he poured two cups he said over his shoulder, \"Did you find Tekmhat?\"\n\nThulann leaned against the center pole and adjusted the lilting drape of her shawl. \"I did, poor child. She is cowering in her bed. One drop of wine and she fears being burned at the stake. I considered it, of course, but I thought I might save the effort until the weather turns cold.\"\n\nThe towering Shirron handed her a cup. \"I shall forget you said that if Savan comes to call. He need not know how rotten an influence we are. He coddles that girl, but she is stronger than he wants her to be.\"\n\n\"Strength without wisdom is a recipe for hardship. You should know that well enough, my darling.\" She chuckled, then attempted to banish her thoughts of Venus tangled relationships. She failed. The matter weighed upon her. She found solace in Turlogan's glistening eyes. After a sip she laughed, \"Great Mother, explain to me why some people dream of being young again? Youth is not a blessing. It is a disease. Time and again I have watched its ravages. It is a pox that irritates the flesh and enfeebles the senses. I spent a great deal of energy surviving my youth. I have no desire to be reinfected.\"\n\nThe warrior grinned, sly and askance. \"And what shall you do now that you have escaped into healthier decades?\"\n\nShe dangled the wine cup between two fingers, stepping away from the tent pole. Her exquisite gown swirled as she neared him. \"I believe I shall find an old man who has taken the measure of the world. I have no use for childish groping. I want results.\"\n\nHe stepped back and raised his hands. \"No. Stand there in the firelight. I am not finished looking at you.\"\n\nShe stopped and tilted her head. \"The landscape is pleasant to see, Shirron, but to conquer it you must walk the hills and dales.\"\n\n\"I thought I might avoid a frontal assault this time.\" She laughed without inhibition. With a heavy stare he watched her and said, \"You were like a mountain to me once, you know, when I was a boy and you were my mother's fetching young spy. You were so grand I could scarcely see all of you at once. But I knew I had to climb to the top. And I did. By the Hand of Honor, I did! And look at you now. You are my treasure. The years have tom down your clifls and crags and all that remains is this diamond at the center, bright and keen and harder than any steel. You dazzle me, my love, now more than ever.\"\n\n\"You shall recite a poem next, proclaiming the virtues of my bodily components. I can hear the winds building.\"\n\nHe tilted down his head, aiming his squat horns in her direction. \"If I do, you shall listen in silence, my dear.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows. \"Ah, the wine sharpens your tongue. Perhaps you shall slit me open.\"\n\n\"I have dreamed for years of the sight before me. I have lain awake in the night with this vision over my head, like a phantom. If words leap from my mouth it is because they cannot He still any longer.\" He lifted one hand as if reaching for her, but rubbed his fingers together instead. She sensed a nervous tremble. Quickly he gulped another mouthful of wine. \"And I do apologize for the quantity of drink I have poured into my gullet. I speak more boldly when the room spins, and I must be bold to do what I have to do.\"\n\nShe stepped before him. Her fingertips tickled up the line of his abdomen. \"If you drink much more, old serpent, I wonder if you shall do anything at all.\"\n\n\"But that is the entirety of the challenge, you see,\" he said. His breath caught. She swore he stuttered. \"Because I do not intend to do anything with you tonight, nor any other night, despite everything in the world that you are to me.\"\n\nHer hand tingled against him. He could not have spoken the words she had heard. She squinted. \"Will you say that again, my love?\"\n\n\"No. Yes, I will. I must\u2014 I have decided\u2014\" He pushed her wrist aside and took a long step away. He stared at the richly decorated wall of the pavilion. \"I have decided to be your chieftain and your Shirron, but not your lover, Thulann. Not anymore. I am withdrawing my heart.\"\n\nHer body turned to ice. Her muscles responded like molasses. She rotated to face him but could not see his expression. \"I see. This is about the surrender, is it not?\"\n\nHis great fists clenched. \"Of course it is, that offer, that damned dagger you shoved into my heart! What else would compel me to this?\" Then he latched a scowl upon her and she wished that he had not. Her chest began to ache. \"For twenty years I begged you to marry me, Thulann. For twenty years our love looked forward. And now you tell me that this is what I was waiting for, this political trick, this sleight of hand. If I surrender, you will marry me. How splendid! At least you saved that card for something extremely important.\"\n\nShe reached for him, but he deflected her with a disdainful glance. Her mouth could not form the proper words. \"Great Mother. Turlogan. You know that was not my intention.\"\n\n\"I have spent a week in hell. Do you know that? I tried to hate you for it. I truly did. But damn my soul, I cannot. I adore you, Thulann, but I have made up my mind. I shall not dangle on your hooks any longer. You have always schemed ton my behalf and Garron is in your debt for it, but by the Great Mother you shall not scheme against me! I am not a pebble on a game board. You ruined everything when you tried to move me like one.\"\n\n\"That was never\u2014\"\n\n\"No! I do not want to hear your explanation. We have never muddied our feelings with words. Reality is as hard as stone and we cannot deny when it sits before us.\" He sucked a tremulous breath and entwined his fingers before him. With measured calm he stated, \"The invasion will go on, my dearest, and we shall not be married. That is my decision. You may leave the army if you think I have betrayed you. You may leave the clan if you hate me now. But whatever happens, you must leave my side. You must leave my side, Thulann.\"\n\nShe regained her breath and murmured, \"You owe me a chance to defend myself.\"\n\n\"No, I do not. Leave me, Thulann.\"\n\n\"You are drunk, Turlogan!\"\n\n\"Yes, I am! I could not do this any other way.\"\n\nHer face grew stern. \"I shall not go, old man!\"\n\n\"But you shall!\" The tremendous weight of his body swept toward her. His arms enfolded and plucked her off her feet. She found herself moving quickly toward the exit.\n\nIn shock she cried out, \"Great Mother! Turlogan! Forget what I said, forget the surrender, look at what you are doing!\" and then the night air surrounded her. He planted her gold-braided sandals on the hard ground and pushed her away from his tent. Perhaps the wine had sapped his control or perhaps it was sheer anger, but his irresistible strength hurled her backward until her balance vanished. She could have recovered but her attention was captured by the flutter of the pavilion entrance. It closed with a distinct snap. Then Thulann landed on her back, tearing some part of her billowing gown. The insistent ocean breeze lifted the shawl from her head and flung it away into the encampment. Passersby lunged forward in several small groups, gasping and calling her name, but no one came near. Fear tinged their voices.\n\nThulann opened her mouth to speak, but a choked silence emerged. She knew Turlogan was correct, of course. Nothing meaningful between them had ever involved words. All that mattered were their actions, those that had provoked him and those he had taken in response. The result was plain in the amber firelight, sprawled out on the rocky ground for the benefit of the gathering crowd. The crash of the ocean waves could not fill their gaping silence."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "From atop the barren, moonlit crags, the ocean breakers looked like ranks of silver cavalry galloping ashore. Montenegro imagined steel-armored horseheads tossing in a frenzy. He was not prone to fantasy but nostalgia had captured his thoughts, though admittedly the feeling was bittersweet. In less than a week the New Britannian fleet would land within miles of here. The knights would come ashore in reality then. He was not sure how he might greet them.\n\n\"If the invasion continues,\" Brigadier Khyber had said to him, \"you must commit your intentions immediately. I would be more than satisfied to keep you in my company, but only if your motivations are clear. I have to trust you, Cavalier, or you must go.\"\n\n\"Then we'll spare no effort to stop the invasion,\" Montenegro had replied, \"because I have no wish to be your enemy.\"\n\nThe Technocrat had laughed. \"Don't lie. You would love to meet me on the battlefield. We would be spectacular enemies.\"\n\n\"That is the terrible truth,\" was his answer, \"and that is why we must not fail.\"\n\nNow he and Khyber and Master Enosh perched atop a coastal mountain. A squad of brigadesmen watched the perimeter of the scrubby plateau for signs of approaching Juka. Thousands of campfires scintillated on the beaches to the north, the sparkling might of Clan Kumar.\n\nThulann would arrive in an hour or two. She would bear the Shirron's response. In turn Montenegro would hand her a scroll that documented Lector Gaff's intent to negotiate a settlement. If all went well, they would effectively end the war tonight. A few days later Montenegro would meet the New Britannians as an unlikely, resurrected hero.\n\nAnd then he would pursue the Pact of Four until the last scrap of earth refused to harbor them.\n\n\"Montenegro, you could have at least drunk your draughts of invisibility and made this a challenge for me.\"\n\nThe windswept clearing sang a chorus of drawn steel. The brigadesmen leapt into a ring around Thulann, who stood, impossibly, a few feet behind Khyber. The officer himself crouched behind his shield, his mechanical-jawed gauntlet open wide to strike. The old Juka made no response except to lean motionless on a staff. Her textured Way Master's robe danced in the salty wind.\n\nAt her side stood the waifish Toria, dressed in loose Garronite clothes that were tied at the ankles and wrists. Her hair was cinched into a foxtail and her expression was restrained joy.\n\nMontenegro laughed and waved off the soldiers. \"Now that is the old woman I remember from the Vesper beaches. You've lost none of your skill, Thulann, though I am closing the gap between us.\" He shone a smile at Toria. \"Well, little thief, shall I embrace you or would Venduss and Bawdewyn fell me with jealous daggers?\"\n\nToria traded glances with Thulann and then sprang forward, throwing her arms around him. \"You may carry me away any time you want! I am yours forever, black ghost.\"\n\nHe gave her a squeeze. \"Perhaps I shall at that. You are less trouble than my present lady by a cataclysmic margin.\"\n\nShe wrapped her arm around his waist and giggled. \"I'll take that as a challenge, hey?\"\n\n\"And Thulann,\" he called out, \"tell me the news. I have never been good at reading your face and I am half as capable since you lost that eye.\"\n\n\"What is that scroll you carry?\"\n\nHe held up the metal tube. \"Lector GafF's truce, ready to sign and seal.\"\n\nShe glanced down for a fraction of a second, then said, \"Take it back to Logos. The Shirron is not interested.\"\n\nHis gut went cold. \"Are you positive? Did he even consider it?\"\n\n\"He took it under advisement, like a dog considers fruit, but his goal has long been set. If anything, this has encouraged him to proceed.\"\n\nMontenegro patted the small of Toria's back and she stepped away. He twisted the scroll in his hands as he talked. \"And you did everything you could to convince him? Be honest, Thulann. It would be uncharacteristic of you not to have another scheme in your quiver.\"\n\nShe chuckled with little sound. A sadness flitted across her features. \"I have used all my missiles, my friend. Too many, in fact. He will no longer talk to me except in the most formal of settings.\"\n\nThe knight remembered the glow on her face when she used to speak of Turlogan. She showed as much pain now as on that dread night, years ago, when they believed Venduss to be dead. He felt for her, but the sympathy was only a drop compared to the storm rising inside him. This simply could not be true. The Shirron would be a fool of historic proportions to turn down this offer of peace. He thrust the scroll forward again. \"Take it to him anyway. Let him read it. Maybe he'll see reason if it is written before his eyes.\"\n\n\"It will not sway him.\"\n\n\"Try it anyway! By the scars of Stonegate, he can't be that thirsty for carnage.\"\n\nThe Juka accepted the metal tube, though her expression showed no confidence. \"He believes the offer is proof that Logos cannot defend itself from us.\"\n\n\"It is exactly the reverse,\" said Brigadier Khyber. His voice was chilly and firm. \"We don't want bloodshed but we are extremely capable of producing it. Do not force us to prove that fact.\"\n\nMontenegro nodded. \"The brigadier is right. Thulann, I've seen a fraction of their defenses. You'll lose warriors by the thousands. This doesn't have to happen.\"\n\nThe Way Master sighed gravely. \"You need not convince me. I do not want to spend my final years mourning the decimation of my clan. But I fear I cannot help you, except to deliver this to the Shirron.\" She tucked the scroll into her belt.\n\nThe knight massaged his temples. \"Then he's the one who stands in the way of peace.\"\n\n\"And he shall not be moved.\"\n\nHe opened a deep frown. \"Nor shall I be denied.\" His stomach knotted in a wave of anger. He clenched his fists to stanch the feeling. Then he muttered, \"If he rejects Gaff, he'll force me to undertake more direct action. The Pact of Four will regret their deeds.\" He leveled a dark stare at Thulann. \"Are you willing to act with me, like you did in Braun's Needle?\"\n\nThe Way Master lifted her chin. \"What will you do, Sir Gabriel?\"\n\n\"Everything required.\"\n\nShe seemed to consider the offer, but her one eye closed. \"I shall not leave Turlogan's side, though he might have it otherwise.\"\n\n\"Then do what you must, of course,\" said Montenegro, \"but do not stand in my way.\"\n\nThulann gazed back. \"I shall stand where I stand.\"\n\nToria touched his gloved hand. \"Will you go after Bahrok?\"\n\n\"Stay with Thulann, little thief.\"\n\n\"I want to know.\"\n\n\"Stay with Thulann,\" he repeated. \"You'll be far safer at her side than mine.\"\n\n\"I don't care about that.\"\n\nHe wanted to say she needs you right now but the old Juka's dignity did not need that blow. Instead he nudged the girl and murmured, \"I'll return to you, I promise. We shall share a bottle on the cliffs of Cove and pretend nothing exists beyond the traitorous sea.\"\n\nShe grumbled and walked away.\n\nHe pointed a finger at Thulann. \"Take him the scroll. Do your best. This is the most important task you've ever accepted. I'll return here in a few days to find out what he says.\"\n\nThe Way Master nodded. \"Of course I shall try.\"\n\n\"Make it work. I know you, old woman. You're stronger than he is.\" When she did not respond, he motioned to Khy-ber. \"Let's leave her to her work. She has a long night ahead of her.\" He turned to Thulann. \"I'll be back for an answer in a few days, Way Master.\" He faced Toria but the girl had turned her back. \"Good night, little thief.\"\n\n\"Montenegro,\" said Thulann as he departed with his companions, \"do not forget your bloodline. You are a knight, not an assassin.\"\n\n\"I am true to the Virtues. That's all I need to be.\"\n\nAs they climbed over toothy ridges to reach their hidden flying machines, Master Enosh drew beside the New Britannian. 'What will you do if Turlogan still declines?\"\n\n\"We shall see on that day.\"\n\n\"It's a fair question, Cavalier.\"\n\nHe paused to frown at the towering weapons master. \"And everyone seems compelled to ask it. But I'll answer with a question of my own. Do you want to bring an end to the Pact of Four?\"\n\n\"Of course I do.\"\n\nHe called ahead, \"Khyber! What say you?\"\n\n\"My gauntlet has been hungry for a long time,\" answered the officer.\n\n\"Then we haven't the opportunity to consult Gaff. We must leave tonight. Bahrok's army is down the coast, not more than a day away by air.\"\n\nEnosh raised his scar-cleft eyebrows. \"If Turlogan changes his mind, it would be a mistake to attack Bahrok before the surrender is formalized.\"\n\n\"That gives us a few days to survey his encampment. Khyber has shown me the use of tactical patience. If Turlogan maintains this lunacy, then we can strike Bahrok at will.\"\n\nThe brigadier grinned. \"The noble Montenegro learns warfare from a Technocrat of common blood. It is a triumph of the Machine and no mistake. But Bahrok is not a fish in a barrel. He's got an army of thousands and we're only ten here. Even if we had time to summon the brigade, we couldn't spare the manpower from Junction.\"\n\n\"But he has a weakness,\" said the knight. \"He has secrets to keep.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But if we don't use assassination techniques, Cavalier, the odds of eliminating him are minuscule.\"\n\nMontenegro shook his head. \"I will only strike him with Honor. That is not subject to debate.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Master Enosh.\n\nKhyber grimaced, then chuckled. \"Your honor is an obstacle I have learned to overcome. We'll have to find a solution that's simultaneously honorable and successful.\"\n\n\"A triumph of the Virtues, indeed,\" noted Montenegro, grinning as he started to climb. But their mood was not as light as they portrayed it. Thulann had failed. Turlogan was a glory-mad fool. Full invasion was almost inevitable. Sosaria had never seen a war of the magnitude that was blowing on the stiff ocean wind. And in as little time as a week from now, Montenegro might be forced to raise steel against his friends. By blood he was a New Britannian knight. In a war he would ride with his fellows. But before that happened he would spare no effort to eliminate the source of the conflict. Valor and Justice commanded him to do so."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "The Behemoth",
+                "text": "And Sir Lazaro brought his magic sword, the Talon of Covetous, to the base of a low, dark mountain. Riding with him were ten bold knights dressed for battle. The villagers watched in terror as Sir Lazaro led his men up the slopes to face an ancient dragon at the top. Day turned into night and the mountain burned with a terrible fire. When dawn broke Sir Lazaro returned. His knights had perished but the beast was no more. From its lair he had rescued a grey-eyed maiden.\n\nThe villagers celebrated his courage but he did not hear their praise. So awed was he by the beauty of the maiden that he married her that very day. He built her a home under the shelter of the black mountain. From the old tongue he assumed the landed name of Montenegro. And so in the face of Love did Sir Lazaro honor the Virtue of Humility, discarding all glory for the simple rewards of the hearth and the heart.\n\nThe passage of four nights found Montenegro and his company concealed in the mountains farther south. Dawn paled the eastern sky, transforming the peaks into a sawtooth silhouette. Below them on the beach twinkled the immense encampment of Clan Varang. As many as six thousand soldiers were stirring at the blue of first light. So numerous were the torches and lanterns that it seemed the pebbles of the shoreline had caught fire, one by one. The seething glow sprawled in both directions for over a mile in length. The salty wind was tinged with smoke.\n\nA soldier arrived at Montenegro's side, panting heavily. He dropped something on the shadowy ground. The knight donned his miner's monocle and saw it was the metal tube containing Gaff's truce. He picked it up and discovered a layer of soot blackening the surface. When he opened the cap, ashes streamed into the gusty breeze.\n\nHe threw the message down and gritted his teeth. \"Brigadier, the time is upon us.\"\n\nThe officer grunted, \"And only a few years tardy.\"\n\nA quarter mile south of the army lay a deep fold in the mountains. The canyon was shielded from the ocean wind by a turn in the rocky cliffs, which permitted coarse plant life to bristle in the lee. The stone walls and rubble were thick with scrub like tufted fur. Under the brushy layers reclined an ancient, steel monster.\n\nThey had not seen the decrepit machine at first, overgrown and half-buried in dust and rocks. When they did uncover its dark outline, every one of them had shivered. The metal construct resembled a squid of inconceivable proportions. Lying at the base of the slope, its rusted body was the size of a small inn, though crushed and rent by rock-slides long ago. Massive gears and pistons were visible under a coat of red, spiny moss. But the machine's many appendages constituted the greater marvel. Like giant, black tentacles they lolled up the sloping walls of the canyon, their steel frames bent to the contours of the ground. They looked more like shadowy folds in the rock than pieces of machinery. And their scope seemed even more awesome when Master Enosh pointed out that they were not tentacles but jointed legs. This had once been an Overlord's war machine. It was called a behemoth and it had walked three hundred feet high, with a striking arm of equal length that acted like a giant war pick. The technology had vanished with the Overlords, of course, but the ruins were a reminder of what the Machine could achieve. For the Technocrat soldiers the sight elicited proud wonder. For Montenegro it stirred his bile.\n\nThey had discovered the site two days earlier in the course of their reconnaissance. Now the brigadesmen vanished into the surrounding terrain, while the officers quaffed invisibility potions from their dwindling supply and infiltrated the chassis of the behemoth. Their flying machines were concealed nearby, though Montenegro doubted they would need to reach them quickly. This action allowed for two outcomes, success or disaster. The margin for error was too small to accommodate a third result.\n\nInside the behemoth were the remains of what might have been a cargo bay. The large chamber, jumbled with rusted gears and chains, had a heavy door at one end that comprised the entire wall. At one time it was hinged from the top, though presently it gaped open on edge. Small breezes whirled inside, kicking up dust and the dry smell of fungus. A host of seaside fauna scrabbled through the whispering scrub.\n\nMontenegro watched the door with anxious resolve. His body felt charged with power. The rising light of morning applied details to the canyon outside and he scrutinized every inch for signs of Juka. He kept perfectly still in his kinetic armor, to avoid making any sounds. He regulated his breathing, though the effort was increasingly difficult.\n\nHe had dreamt of this moment for better than two years. In that time Bahrok had plotted the death of the knight and his friends, robbed him of hard-won victories, expelled his troops from the deserts of Logosia and embroiled New Britannia in costly battles to serve the warlord's greed. Montenegro despised the chieftain and he knew that the hatred was mutual. And so this would be a gift to Bahrok, as well. Both men had long craved the opportunity to cross swords. Though the brigadesmen had secured the area and Khyber and Enosh stood at his side, this morning's clash would involve just two warriors. Honor would be vindicated.\n\nThe sound of footsteps rasped outside. Montenegro tensed. Three shapes appeared at the cargo door and lifted themselves in. They were Jukan soldiers from Bahrok's command guard. The men fanned through the chamber, searching among the gears and thick grass for any signs of infiltration. They passed inches in front of Montenegro, whose invisibility served him well. Neither did they find Khyber or Enosh. After a few minutes they returned to the door and waved to someone beyond.\n\nThe body of the behemoth rocked slightly when Warlord Bahrok put his full weight into a footstep. The Jukan chieftain was a slab of a fighter, Montenegro's height and twice his mass. Bahrok wore utilitarian armor and a single sword at his hip. Imposing spars of metal adorned his helmet, which he removed almost immediately. With a grunt he dismissed the three soldiers. After they exited, he drew something from his belt and slapped it onto the horizontal surface of a large, toppled gear. In that dreary scene of rust and decay, the object glinted brightly. It was Montenegro's golden pendant in the shape of his family crest. Khyber had placed it in the warlord's pavilion while he slept last night.\n\nThe brigadier had lamented the lost opportunity for assassination. Enosh and Montenegro refused to hear his complaints.\n\nNow Bahrok yanked another item from a sack at his waist. It was a short rod made of black crystal. Montenegro had once seen Shavade of Arjun use a similar rod to teleport herself. Jatha of Ishpur had seemed quite distressed by its existence. It was wicked sorcery, as sorcery was judged, and it must have been Chamberlain Kavah's contribution to the resources of the Pact of Four. The fact that Bahrok employed it now indicated that he had taken the bait. Montenegro and his company had watched him come to this site the day before, for some kind of private meeting. They gambled he would return here if he needed to contact his agents again. All that remained was to give him a reason. The pendant had worked flawlessly.\n\nWith luck they would strike more than just the warlord this morning. The next few minutes would tell.\n\nThe massive Juka held up the rod and growled, \"Bring your foul carcasses here right now. I have something important to ask you.\"\n\nA moment later the room bleached with light. Half hidden by the afterimage in Montenegro's eyes, a new figure stood before the warlord. She was short and slender, more petite than even Toria, though her presence was decidedly more intimidating. She wore leather armor that covered little. Most of her lithe form displayed sand-colored fur dashed with sable spots. Her catlike ears stood tall and alert. Strapped to her body was a multitude of weapons, crystal blades and throwing needles and a short staff fixed to her back. Shavade of Arjun lounged on a giant gear and crossed her booted ankles. \"You should try to be more polite, Warlord. I might think you're trying to flirt with me.\"\n\nBahrok's face bunched into a scowl. \"Stuff that insolent tongue back inside your mouth or I shall slice it off myself. Where are the others?\"\n\n\"They're busy. Are you?\"\n\n\"I am about to be. With what agenda, you must inform me.\" He snatched up the gold pendant and held it in front of her face. \"Do you have an explanation for this?\"\n\nShe looked closer. \"That's Montenegro's crest, isn't it?\" \"Yes. I found it in my tent this morning. It was not there before. What game is this, Shavade? You told me Montenegro was dead.\"\n\n\"He is. Brother Rictor poisoned him. Thulann of Garron said so.\" She smirked. \"Maybe she's the one who left it for you. They were friends, right?\"\n\n\"It is not her method to play games. If she wanted to give me a message, she would do it to my face.\"\n\n\"What about her little human pet? Or maybe the Shirron's son? You do not want for enemies, Warlord, which must mean you're not a total failure.\"\n\nHe glared down at the Meer. \"What talk is this? It is not I who fail on the eastern battlefields! Sartorius gives me bad intelligence.\"\n\n\"Don't get too puffed up. If it wasn't for Sartorius, you would have never reached the eastern battlefields in the first place.\"\n\nIn a blur Bahrok's hand shot forward and clamped around the Huntress's throat. She flinched as he lifted her into the air.\n\n\"You shall only speak to the questions I ask. Is that dear?\"\n\nThe Meer tried to grin, though the effort looked physically challenging in her predicament. Montenegro thought the warlord might be squeezing her. But the knight had seen enough. With a deliberate thought he shrugged off the invisibility. In the shadows he took one step forward. The clatter of his armor sounded through the chamber.\n\nShavade became a whirl in Bahrok's hand. Montenegro swore that she cartwheeled in midair. Something shot at him and he threw his shield into its path. Tiny white spines danked into the metal, then vanished in the electric bite of the static-charged surface. Across the room the Meer warrior landed in a crouch atop a high, ruined piston. A bulbous object perched in her hand. The Stinger, a Living Weapon from Avenosh, was lashed by a thong to the handle of the weapon. The Huntress's ears pressed flat into her tawny hair. Her eyes reflected light like an animal's.\n\nWarlord Bahrok peered into the gloom and barked, \"Who the hell are you, Technocrat? Have you something to do with this?\" He held up the pendant with no hint of alarm.\n\nMontenegro lowered his shield to his side. With measured calm he removed the helmet that concealed his face, then stepped closer to the warlord where the dawn's glow could find him. He watched Bahrok's expression as it registered his identity. The Juka displayed shock and delight in equal quantity.\n\nThe knight muttered, \"No more obstacles, Juka.\"\n\n\"Absolutely none. Great Mother, I had thought my retribution was denied.\"\n\n\"Bahrok,\" said Shavade, \"he's not the only one here.\"\n\nBrigadier Khyber and Master Enosh materialized from the darkness. Bahrok tensed and glowered at Montenegro. The knight shook his head. \"They will not interfere.\"\n\nThe Juka nodded. \"Neither will she. Do you hear that, Shavade?\" He glanced at the Meer, then back at Montenegro. \"I shall kill you in honorable fashion in the name of my son Sigmhat, whom you murdered in cold blood.\"\n\n\"I shall kill you for that accusation, and for everything else,\" returned the knight.\n\n\"Noble vendetta,\" grumbled Shavade, \"the lifeblood of grave robbers everywhere.\"\n\nMontenegro frowned at her. Then he noticed a short braid dangling on her belt. The hair was as pale as flax. It looked human. \"Where did you get that?\"\n\nShe fingered the braid and smiled. \"It's just a memento.\"\n\nWarlord Bahrok donned his helmet again and sneered at his opponent. \"So you have joined the Technocrats. I knew you for a traitor from the beginning. That mechanical gear suits you, who hid behind sorcerers for so long.\"\n\n\"We can strip off these weapons and armor. I shall kill you knife-to-knife, if that is your preferred end.\"\n\nThe warlord smirked gravely. \"Keep your toys. They will sweeten the story of your demise.\"\n\nMaster Enosh propped his war maul on his shoulder and said, \"Gentlemen, there is little room to duel in here. We should take this outside.\"\n\nBahrok shook his head. \"We stay here. I do not want any of my soldiers to see or hear us. We must not be interrupted.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said Montenegro.\n\nEnosh sighed. \"Then draw your weapons and fight with honor.\"\n\nMontenegro pulled the morningstar out of his belt. It consisted of a two-foot handle from which hung a chain and a spiked ball of iron. He twisted a heavy knob. The ball flashed from inside. Then a globe of flame encircled the weapon, hissing as the chain swung like a pendulum.\n\nBahrok regarded the morningstar with amusement. \"I see Blackthorn is tinkering with New Britannian weapons now. Tell me, you are the one they call 'Cavalier,' are you not? I have heard tales from the eastern fields.\"\n\n\"I bear the name with pride.\"\n\n\"I shall see that it is written on your tomb. You may rot with pride in your barbaric fashion.\" He drew his sword with a clatter and stood ready. \"Proceed.\"\n\nMontenegro thumbed a stud on the morningstar as he twirled it at the Juka. From inside the handle the chain unreeled so that the ball flung over Bahrok's shoulder. The warlord smashed his blade against the knight's shield with an ear-splitting crack of static charge. Then the elongated chain of the morningstar wrapped twice around Bahrok's thick neck. The spiked ball rammed into his jaw and flames billowed up his face. He roared and staggered back a step. Montenegro braced himself. The chain went taut and the knight gained control of the Juka's movements.\n\nOr so he believed, until he discovered the power of Bahrok's huge frame. When the Juka lurched to the side, Montenegro was nearly yanked off his feet. He crouched low and leaned back, bracing the handle of the morningstar under his arm. The fire continued to sear the warlord's face as Bahrok raised his sword for another blow. It clanged upon the sturdy chain. Montenegro fought the jerk of impact. A dazzle of sparks shot from the metal links.\n\nThe knight leapt forward as Bahrok prepared another strike. Montenegro slammed the edge of his shield into the warlord's unguarded stomach, forcing the Juka to double over. The Jukan sword crashed down again but the chain had gone slack. No damage was inflicted. Then Montenegro swept the flat of his shield into the Juka's face. The hit drove the spiked ball deep underneath Bahrok's jaw. A fan of sparks ripped across the warlord's mouth and eyes. Montenegro heard a bone break.\n\nThe knight flew backward abruptly. Bahrok had thrust his shoulder against the shield. The morningstar chain yanked tout again and Montenegro tottered off-balance. Then the warlord's blade swooped down a third time on the chain and the iron links flew into pieces. Bahrok flung off the burning ball and howled with fury. Tears poured from his scorched eyes. His face had erupted in blisters.\n\nThe massive warrior charged Montenegro, who lifted his shield in defense. Bahrok's sword hammered him backward. The static charge of the shield blackened the expensive weapon, but the Juka did not relent. Montenegro's mom-ingstar was ruined and so the knight reached for his own sword; but the warlord's juggernaut assault permitted only defensive moves. Again Bahrok struck the shield in a crash of sparks and hot metal. Yet another blow pushed the knight back against the square teeth of a five-foot gear. On the next strike Montenegro tucked his shield under the Juka's arm and deflected the momentum of the swing. The Jukan blade clanged against the gear and Warlord Bahrok flipped over the knight's shoulder. He tumbled into a thicket of dry grasses and rusty machine parts.\n\nIn a comer of the chamber, the morningstar still burned. A patch of dry plants started to smolder. Montenegro pointed and shouted, \"Put it out or the smoke will bring others!\" Khyber and Enosh leapt to comply.\n\nHe whisked out his sword, then his ribs burst with pain. Bahrok had thrown a skillful kick from an awkward position, pounding the New Britannians chest and knocking him across the upended cargo bay. He gained his balance on a patch of empty floor and rose prepared. Impossibly, Bahrok was already atop him. He threw his shield out to parry. The warlord's blade imparted in an explosion of sparks. A metallic shriek stung both combatants. Bahrok lifted the sword again to discover that the blade had shattered. The static charge of the shield had destroyed it. The Juka flung down the hilt and drew a short dagger from his belt.\n\n\"Stop!\" bellowed the knight. \"Not with that. Khyber! Give him a weapon!\"\n\nThe brigadier had kicked sand over the embers in the grass. The Technocrat carried steel mandibles on one arm and a shield on the other, behind which he held a static scourge. A longsword hung across his back. He glared through the slit in his helmet and answered, \"No.\"\n\nMontenegro snarled, \"Damn you! Enosh, throw him yours!\"\n\nWithout hesitation the enormous Juka tossed his hammer across the room. Bahrok plucked it from the air and wheeled to face the knight. \"Did you catch your breath, you murderous gulbani?\"\n\nMontenegro opened his mouth to reply, but something seemed wrong. He hoisted the shield into guard position and its weight shifted awkwardly. He glanced down to find the steel casing split. The wooden core was bashed to splinters. With a growl he dropped it to the ground. \"Proceed,\" he grumbled, seizing his mechanical sword with two hands. He flipped a lever on the hilt. Moving parts whirred and whined. The device was called a clockwork sword and was as much a saw as a blade. It consisted of five razor-edged wheels in a narrow, sturdy frame. A compact engine spun the gear-driven blades at a fantastic rate, giving it tremendous cutting power. As a slashing weapon it was exquisite, though Montenegro sometimes missed the brute impact of an ordinary sword.\n\nThe kinetic hammer in Bahrok's hands was the same spring-enhanced maul that Master Enosh always used. Though the warlord was nowhere near Enosh's height, his strength looked to be equal if not greater. Luckily Montenegro's kinetic armor was most effective against blunt weapons, but even so he did not relish the thought of a solid blow. With this in mind he calculated a plan of attack.\n\nWhen Bahrok hoisted the great hammer, Montenegro sprang across the ground. He rolled past the burly Juka and slashed his clockwork sword atop the side panel of a steel breastplate. The spinning wheels chewed a groove in the metal. Then the hammer fell and the knight twisted aside. The weapon pounded a thick, rusted gear lying on the floor. The corroded metal fractured into pieces. A wash of tiny creatures evacuated the space beneath it. Montenegro darted behind the Juka and stroked his sword again. The clockwork blades grated across the same cut as before.\n\nBahrok executed a furious pirouette. The war maul whooshed toward the knight, who kicked an iron pipe for momentum to leap over the formidable swing. He landed, then used a quick fencing move to tap his sword against Bahrok's side once more. This time embers sprayed from the cut. He was almost through to flesh.\n\nThen Bahrok rotated the hammer strangely, with the head pointing down. He clutched the long handle with both hands and threw a barrage of rapid haft blows. He was using the hammer like a weighted staff. Montenegro had never seen the style before. The knight parried with capable reflexes but the tactic concerned him. Bahrok was not supposed to be this fast. This was a practiced ruse. The Juka was distracting him into a defensive sequence. Eventually the business end of the hammer would lunge upward to catch Montenegro off guard. He did not intend to let that happen.\n\nThen a parry missed its mark and the hammer haft cracked against Montenegro's helmet. His skull rang. He punched a counterattack but his gauntlet was empty. His clockwork sword squealed on the ground nearby, its blades sawing into a rusted gear shaft. Bahrok had disarmed him. He had used one of Thulann's moves. Montenegro snarled a curse. One of Thulann's moves!\n\nHe batted away another blow with his open palm, then dove for his weapon. He heard Khyber scream, \"Watch out!\" an instant before his spine erupted. Bahrok had brought down the war maul on his back. All sense of his body disappeared below the chest. Resisting the pain he snatched up his clockwork sword, then gathered the strength of his upper body to twist around. He faced up and saw Bahrok raising the hammer once again. \"That's a mistake,\" he grunted as he thrust out his arm. The clockwork blades slashed through the warlord's armor and tore loose a spout of blood. Bahrok cried out and reeled backward.\n\nMontenegro's legs were still numb but they responded again to commands. He planted his feet and swiftly stood. Bahrok charged him but the knight saw only the Juka's wound. It poured out a sheet of blood. One deep thrust would finish the raging troll. He tossed out a jab with expert precision, even as Bahrok's maul roared at him.\n\nThe world turned to flashes and fire. He felt himself soaring through the air. He banged against jagged machinery and slumped across it in an undignified position. Through his scrambled vision he spotted Shavade of Arjun leaning over him. Her handsome features were drawn into a smirk. As if speaking through water she murmured, \"Pity the halfwits who fight for pride or love. They never understand how pointless their death is.\"\n\nThen he raised himself and slid to his feet. He saw Bahrok doubled over, growling his anger at the blow Montenegro had traded him. The warlord's strength was draining away. The knight took a step forward, then toppled. His abdomen blazed with pain. He collected himself and stood once more.\n\nA cluster of heavy rocks thumped suddenly in front of him. They had fallen from the gloom of the ceiling. He looked down to see that they were not rocks but heads, the heads of the seven brigadesmen Khyber had stationed outside the ruins of the behemoth. Then a strapping figure landed in front of him. The man wore black kinetic armor identical to Montenegro's, though the helmet was not in place. Gabriel recognized the Juka's kelp-colored face, which was bright with a toothy grin.\n\n\"Look who's still alive,\" said Pikas of Enclave as he unsheathed his sword and threw a strike at Montenegro's neck. The knight got his blade in the way. When the weapons collided a great flash bathed the room. Montenegro stumbled backward from the force of the electric burst. But when the light did not fade he realized that Pikas' weapon was not the typical, static-charged design. An arc of streaming electrical power connected Pikas' blade with the clockwork sword. The long surge of energy buzzed at a deafening volume. In less than a second the clockwork mechanics threw out smoke and rending squeals. The device came apart in a snap of light, then the electrical arc was gone.\n\nShavade crouched with a crystal blade in hand and said, \"As usual, Pikas, you're rude and late.\"\n\nMontenegro looked at the smoking ruins of his weapon, destroyed in an instant. The assassin clucked at him derisively. \"A clockwork sword, Montenegro? That's all you could find to replace Starfell?\"\n\nThe knight answered by twitching both his arms. He had no particular attack in mind. The action was intended to keep Pikas' attention while Warlord Bahrok swung the war maul from behind. The hammer connected with Pikas' flank and tossed the assassin across the chamber. He smashed headfirst into a pipe with such force that Montenegro winced.\n\n\"Dammit, Pikas,\" grumbled Shavade, \"now I've got to get involved.\" Khyber and Enosh took note.\n\nThrough his bloody, ruined mouth Bahrok said, \"Vermin deserve no honor. Let us continue.\" Montenegro realized that the warlord's jaw was shattered, which accounted for his lack of conversation. The Juka laid down his hammer. Montenegro dropped his broken sword. The two men drew daggers and assumed guard positions.\n\nThe knight assessed his odds. The gash in Bahrok's side drained his immense strength. Montenegro still believed a solid thrust would finish the Juka. But he knew that his own wounds were severe, as well. He had abdominal injuries that would require healing very soon, before internal bleeding and damaged humors poisoned him. One good blow would finish him, as well. So the duel boiled down to defensive integrity.\n\nBut Montenegro knew how to proceed. For as long as he could remember, he had relied upon healing magic to aid him in battle. He had developed an offense-centered style that earned him numerous, agonizing injuries, yet bore rapid damage upon his enemies. He traded personal pain for sure victory. He reasoned that he was honoring the Virtue of Sacrifice. His record in battle was vindication.\n\nHe did not know if he could be healed this time. He heard the sounds of combat as Khyber and Enosh clashed with Shavade and the bloodied Pikas. In the distance, in tandem with the hush of the sea, he imagined the cries of many Jukan warriors coming to the aid of their chieftain. Pikas must have warned them. Time was against him now. But victory was all that really mattered. He would push this dagger into Bahrok's side and the rest of the world would take care of itself.\n\nHe met eyes with the warlord. An understanding passed between them. Then Montenegro lunged.\n\nHe feinted and then his dagger penetrated the Juka's flesh, as deep as he could shove it. He saw horror flash over Bahrok's face, but it switched to stubborn anger. Bahrok gazed into the knight's eyes as he jammed his own dagger under Montenegro's rib armor. The knife point tore through sensitive tissues. Montenegro's body shot through with trauma. He felt the day darkening around him. He poured all fury into his storm-grey eyes. He glowered a lifetime of rage at Bahrok but the Juka looked back clearly, even calmly. Triumphantly.\n\nSir Gabriel collapsed when Bahrok removed the blade. His head lay beside those of the slain guardsmen. He seemed to notice the warlord retrieving the war maul and hoisting it high in the air. Montenegro howled at his body to move, but it disobeyed him. It disobeyed.\n\nThe hammer did not fall. Something impeded Bahrok. It was Master Enosh grappling him from behind. The war maul fell to the ground and the two mighty Juka wrestled, then Enosh hurled Bahrok across the chamber. The warlord did not rise. Pikas and Shavade were missing. Montenegro felt himself lifted off the ground and carried outside. The barks of approaching clansmen fluttered on the ocean wind.\n\nA healing potion bathed his mouth. His body returned in stutters. Montenegro thrust his feet underneath him and stood.\n\nKhyber and Enosh and the knight were standing on the slope above the behemoth's ruined body. A swarm of Varang clansmen charged into the canyon, less than a minute behind them. \"Go,\" said the brigadier and the three men hurried up the scrub-covered slope. When arrows began to clatter around them, they doubled their pace. Behind a boulder waited their flying machines. Montenegro leapt atop the mechanical horse and churned its levitant engines. When the beast rose off the ground and tucked in its hooves, he snapped out the leather control vanes and aimed for the sky. Khyber and Enosh were close behind, perched in the frames of their propeller-driven kite skids.\n\nThe clansmen and the mountains shrank below them. A landscape of low, chilled clouds replaced the terrestrial world. The trio leveled their path and steered inland, toward the blossoming sun. When they found a sure wind and steadied their flight, the brigadier maneuvered between his companions and shouted, \"This is what comes of your damnable Honor!\"\n\nAt that moment Montenegro was ready to kill the Technocrat, but he had no weapons to use. Neither was he confident that his limbs would respond to battle. His body had failed him today. His flesh and bones had rebelled in the midst of a critical duel, and the worst part was that he suspected Honor had been satisfied. His conflict with Bahrok had been resolved according to proper form.\n\nIt occurred to him that he had left the gold pendant behind, but the loss seemed appropriate. He doubted that he deserved such good company any longer.\n\n\u2003\"Ravens black the belfry took,\n\n\u2003The belfry took, the belfry took,\n\n\u2003Ravens black the belfry took Atop the castle gold;\n\n\u2003\"Ravens black the belfry shook,\n\n\u2003The belfry shook, the belfry shook,\n\n\u2003Ravens black the belfry shook The day my heart was sold.\"\n\nThulann woke to the echoes of crows in her dreams. Her body tingled with energy. She climbed from her veiled bed to find Toria singing softly with Tekmhat. The two girls were dressed in sleeping gowns. They sat on a rug in the Way Master's tent, applying scrub cloths to her sand-dusted armor. Dawn had not yet brightened the fabric walls.\n\nThe old Juka shrugged on a flimsy caftan and left without a word. On bare feet she strode in the direction of Tur-logan's pavilion. The breeze traced her willowy frame in loose silk. Moments later the minstrel and the Initiate caught up to her. Toria whispered, \"Mistress, is something wrong?\"\n\nThulann did not answer. Her heart thumped loudly. The dream was barely an impression in her mind, like the dimple on a bed when a person rises; but the feeling it left behind was leaden in her chest. Sleep had gifted her a moment of unmuddied truth. She had seen beyond her pride and anger, beyond her guilt and sadness, beyond the passions and politics of the moment. She had gazed past all of it and realized that Turlogan was her home. Like a dying woman she would stay with him fiercely. Like a frail old crone she would kneel and beg for clemency. Her body moved with its own resolve before her mind could override it.\n\nShe threw open the flap to his pavilion and found the bed empty. Something nagged her. The room was not disheveled but parts of it were out of place. The precise arrangement of drapes and idols was disturbed. From his weapons stand she unsheathed a short sword and pushed through the back wall.\n\nA man stood in the bleak shadows. He wore a Technocrat's kinetic armor and held a bloody sword in his hand. A helmet covered his face. As he faded out of sight she saw the glint of Montenegro's golden pendant.\n\nOn the ground beside him lay a giant body, glittering with wounds.\n\n\"Tekmhat!\" shouted the Way Master as she leapt at Montenegro, but the knight had fled the instant he became invisible. Thulann saw the two girls rush around the pavilion. The Initiate cried out and dropped to her knees, summoning a handful of scintillating flares with which to heal the fallen Shirron. Toria ran to the Way Master's side but Thulann snapped, \"Fetch the master healers!\" The redhead dashed into the encampment as Thulann charged away from it. She knew that Montenegro and his Technocrat soldiers must have hidden their flying machines in the ripples of the mountain. She could outrace them and wait for their arrival. Whatever was happening, they would suffer justice for it.\n\nMinutes turned to hours as she combed the jagged slopes, but she saw no sign of Montenegro that was not many days old. Her caftan was soaked with sweat and humidity, tom from one shoulder after several difficult climbs. The risen sun lashed her with summer heat. Braids of white hair became a loose tangle on her neck.\n\nAn army of scouts joined her in the search but the morning yielded no answers. Weighted by fatigue, she paused on a boulder overlooking the army's encampment. Faint sounds reached her ears, dancing as echoes along the hard, stony inclines of the mountain. She thought at first they might be sea birds calling out the new day's hunger. But her body turned to ice when she realized the truth. They were the wails of keeners lamenting in the Shirron's compound.\n\nThe landscape seemed to detach from her thoughts. Something swept past her on the wind, a small body with scimitar wings and a color that looked familiar. It was a New Britannian falcon hunting for the first time on Logosian shores. The fleet from Britain must be close now. The humans would find a different land than they expected. The parched ground was drinking hot blood and its thirst only seemed to be growing."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "The Beacon",
+                "text": "The skyward surface of the forest canopy spread to the horizon like a surreal, green ocean. At the summit of a very high tree, Jatha the wizard and Fairfax the ranger peeked over the leafy vista from their roost on a sturdy limb. The Meer squatted near the trunk of the tree, scraping bark with a knife to collect a patch of rare, dark moss. A few yards away the bearded ranger lolled in a crux of two branches, his arms crossed and his gaze cast into the distance. In a lazy voice he commented, \"Jatha, I have been thinking.\"\n\n\"How ominous,\" mumbled the wizard, not looking up from his work.\n\n\"How long have we been tracking Shavade through this forest?\"\n\n\"Eight days.\"\n\n\"And how long since we were last attacked by an oculus?\"\n\n\"Five days.\"\n\n\"My friend, I don't think she's leading us into a trap anymore.\"\n\nJatha shrugged. \"Perhaps it's very far away.\"\n\n\"I don't think she's leading us anywhere. She's just running for her life now. I conclude that this chase is fruitless.\"\n\n\"Oh, when we catch her she'll yield up some fruit. I assure you of that. You can pluck it from her branches and I shall feast to the pit.\"\n\nThe ranger laughed. \"In truth I'm feeling uncommonly logical today. I think we should leave off the hunt and turn southeast for Britain. After all, the invasion party will be nearly gone by now. I thought you had an invitation to that wood-and-bamacle fete.\"\n\n\"I told you, I forfeited my role. This business with Kavah supersedes it. I notified Mistress Aurora two weeks ago.\"\n\n\"But you'll miss the glory of populating foreign graveyards.\"\n\n\"They will clog up with or without me.\"\n\n\"But you do it with such aplomb! Come now, I've grown weary of this pursuit. I am cured of the affliction named Shavade.\"\n\nThe wizard snorted a laugh. \"The ancestors take pity on me at last.\"\n\n\"You don't believe me, do you? The fires of the soul bum hot, my friend, so hot that they sometimes expend themselves in a brief but dazzling flash of glory!\" He popped open two fists to illustrate the analogy.\n\nJatha smirked. \"That's the same excuse you used on that flower seller in Yew.\"\n\n\"That was different. She smoked inferior tobacco. It affected her bouquet.\"\n\n\"Explosions of the heart are inconsequential, Fairfax. I'm not chasing Shavade for love. Go back to Britain if your ashen soul desires, but I shall cleave to her trail.\"\n\n\"Ha! As though you could distinguish a footprint from a forest sausage.\" Fairfax snickered to himself. \"It was only a ruse, anyway. My heart shall never be free of her touch.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\nThe human grunted, \"No, you didn't.\"\n\n\"I did. It's obvious when you're lying.\"\n\n\"It is?\"\n\n\"You get a certain cadence to your words. An incriminating timbre.\"\n\nFairfax turned at the waist to stare at his companion. \"What timbre?\"\n\n\"You can't tell?\"\n\n\"If I could, I would change it. My life would be astronomically easier.\"\n\nThe Meer chuckled. \"Good point.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\n\"What timbre, damn you!\"\n\n\"I don't know. It's just a way that you speak. It doesn't matter. I'm trying to work here, while you flap those hairy lips of yours. Why don't you get some sleep and spare me your glass-paned ruses?\"\n\nFairfax spat in disgust from the lofty branch. Jatha ignored him and continued with his task. This patch of bloodmoss was a rare discovery in the area and he would take as much as he dared. The dark substance contributed to many of his spells of Earth and Air Magic. It would justify the effort of climbing to this precarious spot.\n\nThe ranger examined the forest to the west. The midday sun glinted on the leaves. \"Do you recognize where we are?\"\n\n\"These are the Valente lands, aren't they?\"\n\n\"Quite so. The Valley of the Beacon lies over that hill. Did you ever visit one of Lord Valente's Wisp Hunts?\"\n\n\"I watched the beacon once with Mistress Aurora. Very impressive.\"\n\n\"I thought it only happened in the autumn.\"\n\n\"So it does.\"\n\n\"Then we must have slept for three months last night, because I swear I just saw a light over there.\"\n\nThe Meer looked up. To the west the terrain acquired more relief, dipping and bobbing in serpentine ridges. A verdant, wind-tossed carpet of trees textured the majestic scene. A few miles away lurched the crest of a hill, beyond which the forest disappeared into a wide valley. Jatha recognized the landmarks. The Valley of the Beacon had a distinctive bowl shape. He also recognized the furtive lights that wheeled in and out of view beyond the hilltop. Wisps were j not easily seen in the full glare of summer, but the strange geometry that guided their formations could not be mistaken for any other phenomenon.\n\nHe cinched up a small bag that now brimmed with blood-moss. \"Fairfax, in what direction do Shavade's tracks lead?\"\n\nThe ranger pointed toward the valley.\n\nHe tucked the bag inside a large satchel slung across his shoulder. \"We'd best move on, then. There's no time to nap after all, it seems. We may just have found the trap we've been pining for.\"\n\n\"I pine for love today, not danger, though one could argue the difference is semantic.\"\n\nThey climbed down from the tall tree and pressed forward, moving quietly among the gnarled vines and branches that characterized the old wood. Hanging moss loomed in the sun-dappled canopy. A blanket of dry leaves whispered on the ground, yet neither man stirred them enough to draw attention. Soon they mounted a steep incline and peeked over the rim of the valley. The forest grew thin below. In the center was a wide clearing in which twirled a pillar of sapphire sparkles.\n\nJatha studied the twisting lights with a swell of fascination. The \"beacon\" was a convergence of otherworldly energies, the nature of which was mysterious. The consensus among human archmages was that it represented a rift or leak in the Ether from which magical forces periodically seeped. Normally the beacon only lit one night a year. The trait revealed its kinship to wild moongates, which changed their behavior according to the phases of the moons. But the beacon's annual ignition fell on a predictable evening in autumn. Today was a brassy summer afternoon. Given the circumstances that had brought him here, Jatha felt uneasy about the incongruous event.\n\nBut the wisps were behaving as he would expert. They swooped and careened in the air above the beacon, fashioning daytime constellations of elusive volumes and angles. The shapeless entities themselves appeared as little more than shifting, shimmering lights. Their motives were unfathomed but their power was very clear. They were known to possess ancient, potent magicks. Even the Matriarchs gave them respect. Only once had a wisp been known to die in battle and the tale had become a legend. And so their muster by the hundreds around the beacon signaled an occurrence of momentous import. During the gathering in the fall the wisps performed a dance of infinite shapes and movement. They seemed to be duplicating the effort today. Jatha's human teacher. Mistress Aurora, had theorized that the wisps were conducting some manner of ritual or spell designed to influence the beacon, or perhaps the etheric rift that created it. Since the wisps had amassed today, as well, the Meer had to wonder at their purpose. Were they here to study, or perhaps to harvest power? Or might they somehow be responsible for igniting the beacon?\n\nAnd what had drawn Shavade of Aijun to the valley while this mysterious spectacle took place?\n\nFairfax grumbled, \"This might be bad.\"\n\nJatha nodded. \"It grows worse as I think about it.\"\n\n\"It's getting caught in my shirt now.\"\n\nThe wizard squinted. \"Come again?\"\n\n\"My hair. It's uncomfortably long.\" When the Meer looked at him with disdain he added, \"This display of lights is quite magnificent, I grant you, but natural beauty must assume its proper subservience to my personal comfort.\" \"Your mind is a cozy place, isn't it? Slice off your hair if it bothers you, then kindly rejoin me in the outside world.\"\n\n\"I don't want to cut it. I'm growing it to please Shavade.\" \"Your persistence would shame a horsefly.\"\n\n\"It needs a braid. Can you make one for me?\"\n\nJatha growled, \"Do I look like a handmaiden to you? There's a serious matter in front of us!\"\n\n\"Show some backbone! It is only emasculating if you tell someone else. I can't do it myself, backward and behind my head and all.\"\n\nThe Meer grimaced. \"All right. Turn around.\" The ranger faced away and Jatha grabbed a lock of the human's shoulder-length, flaxen hair. Then he drew out his knife and positioned it for a trim.\n\nThe ranger heard the noise and cried, \"Hey!\" He leapt away and rolled through the brambles, finishing on his back. Jatha shook his head and turned to watch the lights in the valley.\n\nFrom the underbrush Fairfax said, \"By the orchids of Bor-dermarch, that is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.\"\n\nJatha looked at his companion. The ranger lay on his back. He was staring up the length of a slender pair of legs, sleek with rich, spotted fur. The Huntress Shavade stood over the human with a long, crystalline quarterstaff in her hands. Her attention focused on Jatha. \"Welcome, Firstborn. Let me show you my own sleeping spell.\"\n\nShe slammed the butt of her staff into Fairfax's brow, shoving his head down into the brambles. Then she braced against the pole and used it to propel her nimble body forward, directly at Jatha. To free his hands the wizard flung the knife at her, though he had little skill for it. She deflected the dagger with a limber kick. He plucked a seed of lightning from the sultry air as she landed a foot before him. Her staff plunged toward his neck. The bolt of electricity burst out from his hand and caught the warrior in the stomach. The blast heaved her backward as thunder pealed across the forest. A tendril of smoke followed her into the underbrush. Her own strike had not landed, to his considerable relief.\n\nHe prepared a second thunderbolt when he realized her trick. She had not aimed the staff at his throat but rather at the strap of his shoulder-slung satchel. The bag was now gone, flipped away into the tangled bushes. Without the bloodmoss and other diverse contents, Jatha's range of spells was severely restricted. Of course Shavade had known that. As an Avenosh Hunter she was trained to battle sorcerers. She was versed in the effects and timing of all lesser circles of magic. Without his reagents Jatha could not draw upon the greater circles. And now Shavade had vanished again, somewhere in the tangled forest.\n\nBy instinct Jatha conjured a whirlwind around himself and was rewarded a second later. A volley of crystal daggers streaked at him from above. The whorl of air cast away the blades. The wizard's hair and leather clothes danced in the whistling funnel.\n\nHe was ready when she attacked again, springing down from a tree limb over his head. Hunters fought close and swiftly to overwhelm a wizard, in order to reduce the opportunity for spellcasting. Jatha knew he had to keep her at bay or finish her quickly. He thrust out another lightning bolt, hoping to knock her from the air before she landed atop him. But impossibly she parried the spell out of her path. Then she fell upon him, her weight disrupting the whirlwind, and smashed a kick on his lightly armored sternum. Jatha growled as he fell into the dirt. Shavade landed on his chest like an imp and blew on his face. Some manner of dust invaded his nose. He struggled to breathe but his throat rejected the notion. Without a voice, he realized with rising panic, he could not cast any spells.\n\nShe had sprayed him with saravan powder, a special concoction used by Hunters for just this purpose. Jatha cursed himself for being unprepared, but he had been away from Avenosh for nearly a decade. His reflexes were attuned to the fighters and fauna of New Britannia. And Shavade seemed quite dangerous even for a Hunter.\n\nShe punched him in the face several times before he threw her off his chest. His head throbbed and reeled. He coughed and frantically rolled to his feet. From his belt he drew a small rod that instantly shot out forks of magic power. But he did not aim the wand at her. Shavade was too alert to Jatha's attacks. However, he had one resource she could not predict. He had Fairfax. The wand propelled a healing spell atop the unconscious ranger. As Fairfax awoke and sprang off the ground, Shavade brandished a longsword and thrust it at the wizard. Jatha lunged aside. The blade that nearly punctured his chest gleamed as black as obsidian. Its length was inscribed with mystic runes. Jatha knew the weapon. It was the enchanted blade Starfell, property of the Valente family and once carried by Sir Gabriel Montenegro. How Shavade had acquired it he did not want to guess.\n\nHe forced down a breath, though it was not enough to power a chant. Then Starfell slashed across his abdomen, rocketing pain through his body. The wand of healing toppled from his grasp. She smashed a kick against his skull and he crumpled. The last image he glimpsed was Fairfax standing with sword in hand, doing absolutely nothing except to gape at the pretty Meer warrior.\n\nUnpredictable indeed, thought Jatha as darkness consumed him.\n\nHe woke with a throb in his wrists and arms. The world seemed unstable, shifting, and he saw why when he opened his eyes. Shavade had tied his wrists and ankles behind his back and hung him from a tree branch. Bent backward into an uncomfortable circle, he dangled knees-down four feet above the earth. A mound of animal droppings lurked below him. \"Charming,\" he muttered.\n\nHe was stripped to his kidskin breeches, bereft of weapons and magical reagents. He had mastered a few spells that worked without physical components, but they required precise hand gestures. Shavade had bound his fingers with the meticulous skill of a Hunter. Magic would not aid him now. A rush of helplessness soured his mood even more.\n\nAt least she had healed the wound to his stomach. Appar-endy she had some agenda for him.\n\nFrom the slant of the terrain he knew that she had brought him deeper into the valley. He was suspended at the edge of a hand-cut clearing, though he faced out into the woods and could not see any other signs of life. He resolved to use what few resources remained to him. That meant guile. His voice rasped from the saravan powder as he called out, \"Am I to be roasted over an open flame or cooked in a bed of coals? Or perhaps my coffin will be made of dough and you're having wizard pie for breakfast?\"\n\nFrom the clearing behind him Shavade replied, \"You'll know if I'm going to eat you, because I'll fatten you up first. 1 don't like rangy meat.\"\n\n\"Where's Fairfax?\"\n\n\"He got away from me. He runs fast for a human.\"\n\nJatha relaxed significantly. He smiled. \"Sometimes I wonder if he's human at all. He moves like a spider in the forest. It's almost unnatural.\"\n\n\"The human rangers learned their best skills from us.\"\n\n\"Fairfax is better than we are. I've watched him stalk wildcats with nothing more than a club. When he's bored he'll pick off bats with throwing knives. It's very nearly disquieting.\"\n\nThe warm breeze conveyed vague, sour smells. Shavade's small footsteps shuffled around the clearing. In a calm tone she said, 'Your bluster is manly, Firstborn, but don't imagine you're making me skittish. He's going to try to rescue you and when he does, he's a dead man.\"\n\n\"I see. So you're keeping me alive as bait?\"\n\n\"For the moment.\"\n\nHe grunted. \"Then as long as we're just waiting, why don't you tell me what's going on with the beacon down there?\"\n\nShe laughed. \"You'd have me give that information to a hostile wizard? I'd sooner bake my Stinger in a pie.\"\n\n\"I don't seem to be in a position to take advantage of the knowledge.\"\n\n\"Choke on it, Mystic.\"\n\nThe wizard grumbled, then steadied himself with a deep breath. \"I looked after your Stinger as best I could manage. 1 had no idea what it eats, but certain bugs sated it.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" She sounded grudgingly sincere.\n\n\"Where's Chamberlain Kavah?\"\n\n\"He'll come when he can.\"\n\nHe tried to move his fingers, but they had gone numb in their elaborate binding. He felt his shoulders weakening as his weight stretched the joints. A pang in his wrist made him wince. Trying to ignore the discomfort he commented, \"How interesting that you carry Starfell now. Where did you come by it?\"\n\n\"You don't want to find out.\"\n\n\"Show some mercy. Any conversation will be an improvement over staring at this pile of dung beneath me.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"\n\nSomething pushed his kneecap. He was dangling by a single rope and the touch started his body turning. Slowly the clearing behind him rotated into view. First he saw Shavade standing nearby, pulling back the crystal staff she had used to nudge him. Next he spotted an opulent carriage at the mouth of a forest road. It glittered with glass bangles that shifted in a delicate wind. The Valente crest was inlaid on the door. Two horses lay dead on the ground in front of it, large, dark mounds in a nest of dried leaves.\n\nThree human corpses littered the clearing, as well. Two of them wore chain mail hauberks and tabards with the Valente crest. The third looked to be a New Britannian lady. Her expensive dress bunched into peculiar shapes where she had fallen. From her silver hair Jatha judged her to be elderly, though he could not see her face. Black streaks painted all three bodies, the bloody marks of a brutal attack. Summer flies had begun to descend.\n\nJatha scowled at the diminutive Huntress. \"You're a monster, Shavade.\"\n\nShe laughed again and crossed her arms. \"You left your own trail of dead enemies all the way back to Cove. You've got no right to chastise me.\" She glanced over at the slain woman. \"That's Lady Valente, of course. Apparently when the wisps showed up she rushed out here to see them. She was waving the magic sword around like a madwoman. 1 have no idea why. Probably some barbaric superstition. Simple enough to put an end to it, really.\"\n\nThe wizard grumbled, \"Her late husband used to greet the wisps every year when the beacon lit. He would salute them with that sword. Are you aware that Starfell is the only blade known to have slain a wisp? I think Lord Valente saw it as a peace gesture.\"\n\n\"Or maybe as a warning.\"\n\nJatha examined the carnage to look for anything that might help him escape. He saw no sign of his own equipment. Lady Valente's guards had carried halberds, which leaned now against the back of the carriage. The sight of the dead men saddened him, but when he gazed at the slain noblewoman his anger started to boil. For his own good he turned away and muttered, \"Why are you here, Hunter? You come from a proud company. You know Kavah's work is evil. What did he promise you in exchange for all these crimes?\"\n\n\"Only to fulfill my every dream.\"\n\n\"I don't want to know what you might dream.\"\n\nShe smiled and cradled her staff against the elegant line of her cheek. \"My dreams aren't that different from yours, Firstborn. I just do a little more to make them come true.\"\n\nAbruptly she let out a shriek and rolled across the ground. Jatha startled and tracked her to the limit of his sight. An arrow stuck through one of her calves. Most of the shaft protruded from the exit wound. As the Huntress snapped the arrow in two and removed it, a familiar voice shouted from the billows of an oak tree across the clearing:\n\n\u2003\"You make my heart swell\n\n\u2003A hundred miles in girth!\"\n\nJatha grinned, even though the moment was dire. Shavade hurled a crystal knife into the thick foliage of the oak tree and then leapt upward, snatching the limb from which Jatha dangled. Her balanced weight hardly shuddered the rope. He heard her climbing and felt a small rain of leaves around him. Then more whizzing noises erupted from the oak tree. Three thunks sounded overhead. Shavade gasped. Blood drops spattered down.\n\n\u2003'Tom impregnate my soul;\n\n\u2003To Love I shall give birth!\"\n\n\"Shut up!\" howled the Huntress in anguish. Jatha sensed her scrambling through the tree like a squirrel, rushing to engage Fairfax face-to-face. But another volley of arrows flew and Shavade of Arjun dropped to the ground in the clearing. She staggered to her feet. Arrows jutted in neat clusters from her right shoulder and her left thigh. The warrior snarled and unsheathed Starfell. To Jatha's dismay she turned in his direction and charged, bellowing, \"He's killed you, the fool!\"\n\nAn arrow smacked into her sword arm. Starfell skidded across the ground. The wounded Shavade lost her balance and sprawled onto her face.\n\n\u2003\"You're a star overhead;\n\n\u2003You light up my path!\"\n\nWith a loud curse the Huntress plucked the rod of black crystal from her belt. Jatha grimaced at losing it. She raised the shard into the air. Sparkles danced over its length and then poured down to engulf her. An instant later she was gone.\n\nFairfax helped Jatha down from his binding and handed him the satchel of spell components. The shirtless wizard draped it over his shoulder. From inside he retrieved a leather cord, which he used to secure the bag redundantly to his belt.\n\nThe ranger chuckled, \"I think you're right. She didn't like the song.\"\n\n\"And that was your best delivery yet. But why didn't you put her down, dammit? One shot to the spine is worth a hundred to the leg. That's twice you've shown her mercy and nearly at the cost of my neck!\"\n\n\"You know why. I can't risk killing her, despite these murders.\"\n\nJatha clenched his fists. \"But your sick heart shall be the death of me! I've had about all I can stand of it.\"\n\n\"That's unkind, after I just saved your life. But you have endured a lot of strain, so I forgive you.\"\n\n\"Hand me back to Shavade. At least greed and bloodlust are rational motives.\" He rubbed his wrists to generate some feeling in his hands again. Then he glanced at Fairfax. \"I see you managed to braid your hair while I hung there like a draining pig.\"\n\nThe human fingered a short knotwork that thrust down from his yellow mop. \"In combat a man must be self-sufficient. Alas, she never even saw it.\" He slid his foot under the carpet of leaves and kicked. The black shape of Starfell sprang into the air. He snatched the hilt and said, \"Look what she left us, though.\"\n\n\"We can use it to disacquaint her head and her shoulders. You see what she did to Lady Valente.\"\n\nFairfax took in the bloody scene again. He closed his eyes and sighed. \"But she has the black crystal now. That ruins any chance of tracking her, I suppose.\"\n\n\"It may be as well. We might have our hands full elsewhere.\" He motioned to the glittering beacon in the center of the valley. It had begun to shudder as if it were unstable. Jatha had noticed the change when Shavade activated the black crystal, and the effect had since increased. He believed he knew what was happening. Shavade's teleportation had disrupted the local substance of the Ether. If the disturbance had spread outward, the rift that caused the beacon might have shaken open even more. The result would be unpredictable. Judging from the frantic reaction of the wisps, it might even be disastrous. \"We had better leave the valley,\" he suggested as the wisps darted through the air in patterns too complex to follow.\n\nFairfax was already backing up. \"I defer to your judgment. Your cowardice is better informed than mine.\"\n\nThen the beacon seemed to fly apart as if the air ripped open. Blinding scintillae shot out in all directions. In the midst of the display appeared many dark shapes. As they resolved in the glare Jatha realized that they were oculuses, trained Ishpurian war monsters, looking like giant ticks with a single eye for a body. The flying creatures poured from the beacon by the dozens. The soaring wisps descended and the two hovering swarms began a sorcerous battle that shook the forest with explosions and thunder. Light and dark spots wheeled and clashed and snapped with power. There seemed to be no end to the oculus invasion as more streamed out to replace those slain by the wisps. Embers fell and smoked in the trees. The ground itself shuddered, though none of the combatants touched the earth.\n\nWhen the battle expanded over their heads, Jatha shoved his companion toward the rim of the valley. \"This is an unfortunate place to be and it will only get more so.\"\n\nThen something changed in the character of the beacon itself. A solid glow appeared, catching Jatha's attention. When he stared for a moment he recognized that the light was in the shape of a man. Slowly the figure solidified. Standing in the midst of the otherworldly melee was a Meer in a sorcerer's colorful robes. The man engaged a spell that drew the sparkling beacon around him like a halo. The wisps redoubled their attacks on the oculus swarm.\n\nFairfax whistled. \"I think our Chamberlain Kavah has arrived.\"\n\nJatha felt his anger rising again. He tested the firmness of the knot on his satchel. The bag felt snug. He smacked the ranger on the back and said, \"I'd get away if I were you.\" Fairfax murmured, \"You're not going down there!\"\n\n\"He's right in front of me. I can't let him get away.\"\n\n\"Look at the bastard! He's commanding those gazers like a personal army! You'll be cinders before you get close.\"\n\n\"The oculuses are busy distracting the wisps. He's doing something else with the beacon. I'm going to stop him.\"\n\n\"Are you mad, Jatha?\"\n\nThe wizard smirked grimly. \"My heart calls out to me and I must answer. I am no madder than you.\"\n\nFairfax widened his eyes, then popped the flat of Starfell's blade against his palm and laughed, \"Well spoken, you marble-headed romantic! Lead on!\"\n\nUnder cover of the smoking trees they sneaked closer to Chamberlain Kavah. When they were less than twenty yards away, Fairfax nocked an arrow and said, \"Light me. We'll strike from surprise before he can toss up any defensive enchantments. And keep your head down, you troll!\"\n\nJatha smiled and answered, \"The wizards of Ishpur conduct themselves differently.\" The ranger watched in surprise as Jatha stepped into plain view of Kavah. He lifted both hands in the air and summoned into them the seeds of many lightning bolts. When he cracked them open the woods blinked in a white glow. The lightning burst from the valley and carved up the sky. In a haze of aftersmoke the wizard called out, \"Chamberlain Kavah! I am Jatha Sayarukan, Firstborn of Hidasah and Secular Heir to the House of Ramish-pur! I see the wickedness in your deeds and I've come to take you to task!\"\n\n'Wizards have no inkhng of guile,\" mumbled the ranger. The man in the beacon gazed at Jatha with eyes aglow. His very long ears flattened in anger. \"Stay your wrath, Sayarukan! My work here is delicate!\"\n\n\"Not so delicate as your flesh shall be when I carve it into pieces!\" He called upon the highest circle of sorcery he had achieved. Mistress Aurora had instructed him in the hybrid arts of Crystal Magic, where Earth and Air intersected.\n\nMuch of the discipline's focus involved the binding of spells into gemstones. But in dealing with such fundaments of magic Jatha had also learned how to disrupt ordinary, unbound enchantments. Presently he conjured into his arms a cloud of crystal splinters that thirsted for magic like a sponge. He chanted loudly and the splinters billowed at Kavah. When they entered the beacon they began to absorb power. When they had drained enough, Kavah's sorcery would be momentarily dispelled. At that point he would fall to a single arrow from Jatha's bow.\n\nExcept that the splinters drank their fill with no discernible effect. Jatha sent more at the chamberlain and again the attack failed. The crystal splinters rang loudly and shattered. Chamberlain Kavah spread out his arms and laughed, \"You have no concept of the power here! Yet it can be yours as well if you join me, Firstborn!\"\n\nJatha answered with a more direct attack. He pointed his hands toward the earth and reached his mana downward. Like sorcerous claws his spell gouged out stone and earth and roots and dragged them upward in a great swell. The ground puckered and split underneath Kavah. The beacon itself was engulfed in a rising column of earth. Jatha strained to keep control of the mighty spell even as many oculuses turned their fury against the mound that swallowed their master. The creatures lobbed balls of fire at the earthen pillar. The young wizard ground his teeth with exertion. Mana streamed through him in raging torrents and shook him to the bones. He could not channel this much power for long, but for now the magical trap was holding. He hoped the wisps might come to his aid.\n\nThen he felt a choke in the stream of mana. His sorcery stuttered or coughed and his body raked with agony. He fought to maintain control but his spell began to collapse. The earthen pillar shot through with glowing cracks and then flung apart with a stupendous crash. The world reeled. Jatha fell back. Kavah remained inside the glittering swirl of the beacon, though his demeanor had hardened noticeably.\n\n\"Very well, Sayarukan,\" said the chamberlain and began to glow more brightly.\n\nFairfax leapt to his companion's side. He grabbed Jatha's arm and pulled. \"I've decided I like your first plan better. Let's indulge in the sin of retreat.\"\n\n\"Too late!\" hissed Shavade of Arjun as she appeared next to the ranger. She fluttered a pair of crystal swords in the air around him. Fairfax ducked and dodged with nimble moves and whisked Starfell from his belt. When he parried one of her blades, the crystal split. It shattered on the second blow. The Huntress cartwheeled backward and crouched low.\n\n\"Fall back, my goddess, for I don't wish to skewer you!\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter at this point, does it?\" She looked up at the sky, which was sheeting with light. No, thought Jatha, not the sky but the valley. Chamberlain Kavah had conjured a spell that filled the terrain with sorcerous energy. Jatha felt the strength draining from his body. Kavah was sucking up all the mana in the area. Fairfax teetered as well. Then the ranger let loose a defiant cry and sprang at Shavade. Their swords clanged a dissonant chorus and abruptly he pressed against her. With a quick move he touched a kiss to the warrior's lips. An instant later she kicked him solidly in the abdomen, propelling him back to Jatha's side.\n\nThe Meer wizard suffered an overwhelming ache. His mana was nearly gone. The day was lost again but with effort he shouted, \"By the Ar'Kannor, you are a genuine god of lust!\"\n\nFairfax grimaced and spat blood. \"I'm more than that,\" he replied and slapped something into Jatha's hand. It was the black crystal rod that Shavade had carried.\n\n\"You pickpocket!\"\n\n\"Use it! Get us out of here!\"\n\nThe valley roared with Kavah's spell. Jatha's body faded into helplessness. Even Shavade was succumbing now, shrieking as she toppled to the ground. But the rod in Jatha's hand was a vasdy greater evil. He bared his teeth and said, \"I won't do it!\"\n\n\"You will! Jatha, if you don't, Kavah wins right now!\"\n\nThe chamberlain floated above the sundered earth. His body and the beacon had become one, a fountain of sorcer-ous power that pushed back the wisps and caused oculus bodies to burst into flames. From Jatha's chest boiled a howl of anger as he channeled the last of his magic into the black rod. The boundless power that filled the valley gave way to flashes of pure white. Jatha and Fairfax were engulfed in scintillae.\n\nWhen the clamor of the valley abruptly halted, the wizard felt a groan like the rocking of a ship. It was the Ether itself, he knew, protesting its crude violation.\n\nThen the flashes dissipated. They found themselves on the floor of what looked like a voluminous cave. The ceiling was shored by wide, stone arches. The floor was a mosaic of granite tiles, etched with swirling designs. Braziers threw amber light into the dank, stuffy air.\n\nA large, round table sat in the center of the floor. Around it collected a group of Meer men wearing the layered, gos samer robes of sorcerers. They stared at Jatha and Fairfax in surprise.\n\n\"Um, where are we?\" whispered the ranger.\n\nFighting the pain that gripped his body, Jatha answered, \"An old Terathan cave. We must be somewhere in Avenosh.\" He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned. He had not known how to control the rod, which remained in his grip. He had simply charged the device with power. They had teleported an extremely great distance, which meant the damage to the Ether would be great as well. His gut twisted with anguish.\n\nFairfax swallowed and said, \"Oh. Avenosh. That's unexpected.\"\n\nOne of the Meer sorcerers called out, \"What's this about? Who are you?\"\n\nWhen Jatha gave no answer Fairfax announced, \"This is Jatha Sayarukan, Firstborn of Dasadahaha and, um, Second Heir to the House of... uh...\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" rasped Jatha.\n\nAn old sorcerer frowned. \"Does Kavah know you're here?\"\n\n\"Damn,\" grumbled the human, \"they're his men. Can you walk?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Hang on to me, then. We're going to try retreating again. Who knows, it might work this time.\"\n\nJatha felt himself hoisted over his companion's shoulder. The action loosed a staggering pain through his body. He moaned aloud as Fairfax smiled, \"Kavah is occupied but he sends his love. Good day to you gentlemen!\" Then darkness enfolded the wizard once more, bringing a welcome relief from his torment."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "He heard the sound of sloshing water. His feet were cool and wet. Jatha parted his eyelids and saw that he was lying across Fairfax's shoulders. The ranger waded through black, swampy water to his waist. The Meer's boots dragged through the slime, collecting a drapery of thick algae. Stale humidity lingered above the surface. Insects choked the air. Exotic squawks and chirps clamored around them. Overhead loomed a vault of greenery, a mosaic of broad, dark leaves that did not grow in New Britannia. This was a marshland in northern Avenosh. Jatha had seen such jungles when he was young, though they were too dangerous for a Mystic child to visit past the daylight hours.\n\nHe glimpsed fragments of a moon through rare gaps in the canopy. Night was a bad time to be moving through an Avenosh swamp. In a cracked voice he muttered, \"What are we doing?\"\n\n\"Retreating,\" said Fairfax.\n\n\"We should stop till dawn. It's not safe here.\"\n\n\"It's less safe that way, toward the caves.\" He pointed behind them with his thumb. \"They're still looking for us.\" \"Kavah's sorcerers?\"\n\nThe ranger nodded. \"And their gazers.\"\n\n\"How long have we been running?\"\n\n\"Can't see the stars in this pit of a forest, so I'm not really sure. Thirteen, fourteen hours. Maybe more.\"\n\nJatha groaned weakly. \"It's a jungle, not a forest. Fairfax, you have to rest.\"\n\n\"Nope. Shavade stayed ahead of us for more than a week. I have my pride to think about.\"\n\nThe Meer wanted to protest further, but fatigue and soreness overtook him. Instead he mumbled, \"Pride is not a Virtue,\" and drifted back to sleep."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "\"Wake up, Jatha,\" whispered the ranger in an urgent tone. The wizard squinted at a sunbeam that punctured through the trees. He was laid out on a cradle of interlaced roots that suspended him above the swamp water. Fairfax knelt beside him with Starfell in hand. The black blade shimmered with gore. The wizard saw coin-size reptile scales stuck in the blood. The ranger himself had red drips trailing from his nose and mouth.\n\nSomewhere nearby, a very large animal roared with fury.\n\n\"Made a friend?\" coughed the wizard. His flesh still ached terribly.\n\n\"Shut up and be honest. Are you strong enough to heal me?\" He held up his left arm. The small bone of his wrist was broken.\n\nJatha evaluated his own mana. Chamberlain Kavah had ripped the sorcerous energy from him, doing untold damage to his body in the process. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure a simple spell. He was answered with stinging pain. His hands would barely move. \"Damn. I can't do it. Drink a potion.\"\n\n\"I used the last one yesterday. Your healing wand is missing, too.\" The human rubbed sweat and grime from his eyes, then tucked his injured forearm under the strap of his halffull quiver. \"Never mind. Stay quiet and keep those mule ears sharp. And as long as you're awake, try to eat something.\" He pushed a hardtack biscuit into Jatha's palm. Then he clutched Starfell and stood, peering through mossy vines in the direction of the roaring animal. \"Don't worry. I think he's had about all he can take.\"\n\n\"Wait. How long did I sleep?\"\n\n\"Three days and sixty miles. A hundred if you don't count delirium as waking, but I estimate you were as lucid as I've seen you in years.\" He twinkled a grin and leapt through the tangled undergrowth.\n\nJatha tried to get the biscuit to his lips, but could not manage the task. He would have to forestall his hunger and hope that Fairfax killed the angry beast in time for dinner.\n\nThe skyward surface of the jungle canopy spread to the horizon like a surreal, green ocean. At the summit of a very high tree, Fairfax the ranger and Jatha the wizard relaxed on a sturdy limb. Fairfax was skinning a fat, predatory snake. The serpent was spiked to the branch by a throwing knife, in the same place the ranger had discovered it stalking their treetop beds. Jatha reclined at a juncture where one branch became two. The Meer folded his hands behind his head and watched the gathering sunset. \"Fairfax,\" he said, \"I've been thinking.\"\n\n\"How bodeful,\" mumbled the human, not looking up from his work.\n\n\"How long have we been traveling this swamp?\"\n\n\"Twelve days.\"\n\n\"And how long since we were last attacked by an oculus?\" \"Seven days.\"\n\n\"My friend, I don't think they're following us anymore. I think they've abandoned us to the jungle.\"\n\n\"It's probably as lethal as any executioner's axe.\"\n\n\"You're more correct than you know. I'm convinced now, this swamp is one that extends all the way to the northern coast. It's brimming with old magicks from before the Cataclysm. It's easy to get lost here. They used to call it the Swamps of Deceit.\"\n\n\"Charming. But we have a problem if you want to reach.\"\n\n\"No, that's perfect. Ishpur lies to the south. You can visit the city that spawned me and take your vengeance for the act.\"\n\nFairfax stared over the treetops to the southern horizon. \"We have a long way to go. I don't suppose you want to try walking again?\"\n\n\"I might just manage it this time. I'm almost as strong as a kitten now.\"\n\n\"Good, because I'm not going to carry you another yard. All that fur gets heavy when you're wet.\"\n\nJatha chuckled. \"You forget, I can tell when you're lying.\"\n\n\"One day you must tell me your secret. You're right, I wouldn't leave you behind. Someone has to buy the wine when we reach Ishpur.\"\n\n\"Wine? You gave up drink to woo Shavade. Have you finally surrendered that infatuation?\"\n\nThe ranger smirked. \"Fill my cup, barkeep, and aim me at the lasses.\"\n\n\"They grow no finer than in Ishpur. But look, I just noticed that your braid is missing. Personal comfort overtook aesthetics, I see.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I lost it in the fight with Shavade. Sliced clean off. Better my braid than my neck, eh?\"\n\n\"You should have asked her to trim that beard, as well. Meer children can be easily frightened.\"\n\n\"Maybe I'll be their boogeyman and scare them into behaving. If someone had done that for you, we might be sharing a draught at the Blue Boar right now. How am I so fortunate to travel with a mad, crusading wizard? I'd trade every Meer in Sosaria right now for one frothy mug of stout.\"\n\nJatha chuckled. Of course it was another lie. The beer at the Blue Boar tavern was not worth a lame-winged mong-bat, much less a Meer. Watering the stout would improve it. But as with any alehouse, the appeal of the Blue Boar lay not with the drink but the fellowship. When the company was good, everything else was bearable. That, Jatha decided, was the primary lesson of hedonism. Everything else was froth."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Assassins",
+                "text": "Raveka stepped on bare feet through the gloom of the ship's cabin. Her miner's monocle replaced the darkness with the illusion of sepia light. The floor heaved gently with the rocking of the ocean, drawing a low, ponderous croak from the timbers of the flagship Samlethe. The contents of the cabin shifted back and forth with lazy calm. Stars peeked between opaque curtains.\n\nThe cabin was well-appointed, even for an officer's quarters. It was spacious and sturdy, fitted with a fine desk and bed, sealed tightly enough that the atmosphere was not choked with salt and mildew. The door had a lock tooled anew for this voyage. Raveka possessed a copy of the key, though she would not have needed it to enter. She could pick the lock if necessary. Nothing would keep her from the information in the chamber's desk.\n\nOn the bed lay a strapping knight, snoring with vigor. Raveka smiled at Lord Gideon. He was handsome even in the sepia monochrome. She considered leaning down to kiss his brow, but as usual she thought better of it. She could not play with toys when serious work awaited her.\n\nShe turned away, then glimpsed herself in a tall mirror. The sight made her pause. She was long and sleek, like a stalking cat. Her clothes were black and close-fitting. She wore knee-length breeches and a long-sleeved shirt, both of them men's apparel. They were less than comfortable but they suited her needs when she sneaked around the big ships of the fleet. On the Samlethe and a few others she kept a hidden stash of these garments. After sunset she swam between the ships and changed into the dry clothes before undertaking the night's chores. Never once had she been in danger of discovery.\n\nBut looking in the mirror, her eyes were mostly drawn to the arrangement of her hair. To infiltrate the fleet she had cut it very short, just a few inches from her head. The style was not unlike the one she had worn years ago, when Logos was her only home. It was now dyed a sandy blond, to further divert suspicion.\n\nShe had left Lady Aria far behind in Britain. Her hair was a frequent reminder. The woman who traveled with the invasion fleet was coarser, tougher and distinctly more dangerous. She acted in the name of Logos and the Machine. She was a Technocrat and she would die to save her people from harm.\n\nThe teakwood desktop was empty save for a small cup, inverted to keep it from sliding. Gideon always took his nightcap here after locking up his documents. He was obligingly methodical. From her pocket Raveka selected a key. She unwrapped its fabric winding, then tapped it with her fingers to loosen the oily coating. She inserted the key into a particular drawer, waited for the oil to seep into the mechanism and tenderly unlocked it. Inside the drawer was Lord Gideon's journal. He kept in the book a strict account of strategy and logistics as the New Britannian officers slowly evolved their plans. Raveka had come to his cabin several times a week to update her mental records. The information would prove golden to the Technocrat defenders.\n\nAnother tiny key released the journal's hasp. The monocle allowed her to read in the dark. She studied the pages with uncanny speed and committed every line to memory. Her training as a Mathematician served her espionage tremendously.\n\nWhen finished, she restored the desk to its original state. She paused to review what she had read, using precise mnemonic techniques to ensure that nothing would slip. Then she prepared to leave. Three more vessels awaited her infiltration tonight. The armada was only a few days from the Logosian coast and her work had become critical.\n\nHer nose wrinkled. A familiar smell came to her, sharp and subtle. She traced it to the inverted cup from which Gideon had drunk before bed. She raised her eyebrows. The wine had been drugged. Gideon was presently sedated. She had not done it herself, of course, and given the particular drug used she presumed this was General Nathaniel's handiwork. But why would Nathaniel drug Gideon?\n\nThe answer might be simple to discover. Keeping an eye on the snoring nobleman, she climbed atop his desk and reached for the ceiling. During the three weeks of the journey she had managed to cut a small hole in the timber. The cabin above belonged to General Nathaniel. From here she could watch and listen to him, though the effort was rarely very illuminating.\n\nShe removed the false knothole and peered up. Nathaniel's cabin was the largest on the ship, designed with enough room to accommodate officers' meetings. Such a gathering was taking place now, though at first she did not recognize the participants. After a moment she realized what she was seeing. Her long body shuddered from head to toe.\n\nAround a small table sat General Nathaniel, Warlord Bahrok, Chamberlain Kavah and Lector Sartorius. The whole of the Pact of Four was assembled above her. The fifth person in the room was a petite Meer warrior bristling with weapons. Raveka assumed it was Shavade of Anjur, though her glimpse of the woman at Cove had been fleeting. Otherwise the cabin was empty and doubtless locked up solidly.\n\nNathaniel had sedated Lord Gideon to prevent him from eavesdropping. But he had given the opportunity to Raveka instead. She observed the meeting with razor-sharp attention.\n\nThe Meer sorcerer named Chamberlain Kavah was speaking to the others. He wore colorful robes not unlike those of the Ishpurian ambassador's entourage. His voice was rich and confident in the manner of diplomats, though his words revealed trepidation. \"Sartorius, where is your man Pikas? I thought he was the security expert. He should be here for this.\"\n\nWarlord Bahrok interjected with a stem voice and a thick, pointed finger. \"I shall not allow that madman to disrupt this meeting! He is sadistic and undisciplined. Shavade will suffice as a watchdog, provided that the general has kept this room secure.\"\n\nNathaniel was his usual, ageless self. His long braids slung over an opulent tunic. He spoke with a neatly bearded smile. \"We are safe to speak freely, gentlemen, and I must say I am pleased to finally meet you face-to-face. Warlord, of course I remember your visit to Britain two years ago, though we did not have the pleasure of an introduction in those dark days. Chamberlain, Your Excellency, I am honored to clasp your hands. History will remember this hour with wonder.\" \"History need not record this meeting,\" remarked Lector Sartorius. He was a spectre of an old man, his black Theorist's raiment hooded and full. His skin, like all high-ranking Technocrats, was a filigree of mathematical tattoos. His voice was gruff and very cold. His presence churned Raveka's bile. \"Secrecy is a cornerstone of the Pact of Four. Yet it has been neglected with considerable impunity. Might I open this discussion with a comment on how this failure has damaged our cause?\"\n\nGeneral Nathaniel nodded and sighed. \"Yes, I'm aware of my own failure in this, for which I apologize. Might I point out, however, that no disclosures on my part can explain the current Technocrat victories in eastern Logosia. Someone has discovered you, Lector Sartorius, and not because of me. I did not know your identity until this very night.\"\n\n\"General, my own security is beyond doubt. The only agents who know me are also known to you. The breach did not come from my organization.\"\n\nNathaniel retorted, \"But someone started second-guessing the battle plans you're giving to Bahrok Otherwise your troops would not be harrying him in the eastern desert.\"\n\n\"It is Lector Gaff of the Mathematicians who moves against me. I am taking steps to eliminate his threat.\"\n\nAbrupdy Bahrok leaned his tremendous weight forward. The action drew the attention of the table. The Juka's demeanor became heated. \"I am not certain I appreciate your implication, General! My warriors in the east are not incompetent. We operate with poor intelligence, not with unsound tactics. And let me say that your confessed security failures, Nathaniel, have affected me in a very personal way that compels me to require immediate compensation.\"\n\nChamberlain Kavah spread out his hands and said, \"Gentlemen, let us not rush into these negotiations with the haste of emotionalism. We'll have the opportunity to address each of our concerns. We are businessmen. Let us apply ourselves to the compact between us.\"\n\nNathaniel shook his head. \"With all respect, Chamberlain Kavah, I must ask that Warlord Bahrok explain the remark he just made.\"\n\nThe warlord grumbled, \"There is nothing to explain. There is only this.\" He slapped an object on the table. From her perspective Raveka could not see what it was, but General Nathaniel drew back in surprise.\n\n\"That's the Montenegro crest! Where did you get that?\"\n\n\"From the black knight himself. He came to kill me yesterday. He failed.\"\n\nWhen Nathaniel lifted the gold object into Raveka's view, her every muscle seized with shock. It was Gabriel's pendant, the one he would not allow her to remove. So Gabriel truly had attacked Bahrok. And what had become of him, that Bahrok carried his necklace?\n\nGeneral Nathaniel ruffled his brow. \"You're certain it was he? I was told Montenegro fell at the Battle of Buccaneer's Den, to Brother Rictor's poison, no less. My spies watched his surviving cousin and reported no evidence to the contrary.\"\n\n\"It was Montenegro,\" growled the Juka. \"I could never mistake that demonic face. I do not know how he survived Braun's Needle, but he ambushed me outside my encampment yesterday morning, thirsty for my blood. We executed a proper duel. I won back the honor of my son, whom he murdered three years ago. That, at least, is satisfying.\"\n\nRaveka listened with stunned dispassion. She did not know how to react, except to evade the anguish that tightened her stomach. She dared not chant in her head, for fear of missing details.\n\nBahrok continued, \"But he escaped the killing blow and he is still out there.\" Relief tingled through Raveka's body. She exerted a conscious effort not to relax too quickly, lest Shavade detect her presence. The warlord added, \"We all know how dangerous he is. General Nathaniel, I hold you responsible for his involvement in our affairs. And Lector Sartorius, are you aware that Montenegro now wears the black of a Technocrat? He is the deadly warrior they call 'Cavalier.'\"\n\nThe Theorist steepled his fingers. \"In the service of Lector Gaff. Of course. It fits the evidence.\"\n\nNathaniel responded with waxing displeasure. \"And what do you imagine I must do to 'atone' for this, Warlord?\"\n\n\"I want your blood,\" grinned Bahrok.\n\nKavah rose from his chair and interrupted, \"Gentlemen, please! Bahrok, we shall have time to address your grievance later. First let us make a full disclosure of where our designs now stand. This fleet is three days from the coast. Warlord, are you prepared to secure the landing?\"\n\n\"As long as it lands where we agreed, and not where Clan Kumar thinks it will.\"\n\n\"Excellent. Lector Sartorius, what is the status of your army?\"\n\n\"We are recalling the majority of our forces to defend the capital. The east will soon belong to Garron. Lector Gaff has seized the war machines underneath Junction but I am not sure he will be capable of repairing them. If he does, I have troops in place to storm the facility before the invasion force arrives. Junction will fall without significant contest.\"\n\n\"Good. General, your troops will be ready to march immediately?\"\n\n\"Indeed we shall. Sartorius, I hope the intelligence that you give us will have improved by the time we arrive in Junction, but it doesn't matter in the end. We 11 force Blackthorn out of power for you. Rely upon that.\"\n\nRaveka grimaced. She had heard enough. With a slow, steady motion she reached a hand to her belt and inside a long, black bag.\n\n\"Excellent,\" said Kavah, \"then our only setback is that Bahrok's army is more scattered than we had hoped. I believe we shall recover from that. We can move on to our immediate plans. Lector, explain your next move.\"\n\nThe Technocrat gazed at Nathaniel. \"A force of airships will attack your fleet as you come ashore. I was unable to prevent this action without jeopardizing the confidence of my generals. I have eliminated any ground-based support, but you must be prepared to take some casualties. I suggest you decide which of your vessels you are prepared to sacrifice.\"\n\nFrom the bag at her waist, Raveka withdrew a slender bolt thrower. With careful patience she turned the handle that cocked the spring into place. Scrupulously maintained, the weapon made no sound. Then she pulled out a small vial and two needle-shaped darts. She dipped the points into the vial. They glistened with venom. She eased one of the poison darts into the bolt thrower.\n\nAbove, the general frowned bitterly at the Technocrat's suggestion. \"I knew it would come to this. It's distasteful, but such is warfare. I have just the rabble in mind for you to strike. We're abiding ten privateer ships, led by the Menagerie, that Admiral Duarte insisted we bring along. They're crewed by pirates and thieves who imagine they've been forgiven for their crimes. Sink them at your leisure. I shall not mourn them.\"\n\nSartorius nodded. \"Command them to secure the southern limit of the fleet. We shall attack from there.\"\n\n\"They'll be in position, and unsuspecting. Show no mercy to those cutthroats.\"\n\n\"Technocrats are rarely merciful, General.\"\n\nRaveka gauged the angles from which she could fire her weapon. She calculated a suitable trajectory to hit each person in Nathaniel's cabin. All that remained was to choose her targets. Kavah would have to die first, of course, lest his magic revive any others. Then she would have time for one more shot before the survivors fled or killed her. The death of any member of the Pact of Four would serve the defense of Logosia, but one of them must pose the greatest threat. She worked through the permutations to decide who must die.\n\nChamberlain Kavah remained on his feet. He gestured as he spoke, the idiom of a statesman. \"Very well. Let us proceed. There is more news from Logos, which I shall deliver myself. At my behest Lector Sartorius has made a prisoner of Dame Adhayah, the ambassador from Ishpur. This will ensure that she does not interfere with the attack on the city.\"\n\nRaveka pinched her brow. Her mind raced through political calculations. Why take the Meer ambassador as a prisoner?\n\nThe general nearly choked. \"Are you mad? That's an act of war! What do we gain from it? We don't need the Ishpurian army to help us with the invasion. And perhaps you know your own people better than I do, but I have a difficult time believing that a Matriarch would meddle in a full-scale bat-de. Not even one that's going on around her.\"\n\nBahrok let out a growl. \"Indeed, Chamberlain. What are you up to? Now that we know who you are, it is time you explained your stake in this war. I like to know a man's motives before I trust him with my well-being.\"\n\n\"He has been elusive with his intentions,\" commented Sartorius, \"and such behavior grows inappropriate.\"\n\n\"Gendemen,\" said Kavah, \"there's no cause for suspicion. I've served Dame Adhayah for many years. I tell you there's a danger that she might interfere.\"\n\nBahrok crossed his massive arms. \"You did not answer the question, sorcerer, and our patience is thinner by the second.\" At the side of the room, Shavade shifted her weight and smiled at the Juka.\n\nKavah clasped his hands together. \"Very well. You're correct, of course. I shall explain.\" He braced his fingertips on the table. \"Why take the Matriarch hostage? Because she might learn what I have planned. She would certainly move to stop me. You're right, I do have a concrete motive in this war. There's something in Logos that is very valuable to me and I intend to take it when the city is attacked.\"\n\nSartorius scowled. \"Elaborate at once.\"\n\n\"It's something you cannot give to me, Your Excellency, because it's not within your reach. It is a place of magical power in the city. A rift in the Ether, to be specific, though I don't expect you to understand what that means.\"\n\n\"Where is this place?\" asked the Technocrat.\n\n\"The Techno-Prophet's tower,\" said the Meer, \"in the keep of Blackthorn himself. As you are well aware, His Eminence never leaves that building. And I am not strong enough to challenge him directly.\"\n\nBahrok stroked his chin. \"You organized an invasion to distract Blackthorn long enough to get inside his tower? By the crows of Garron, our ally is nothing more than a burglar! Great Mother help us all.\"\n\n\"No,\" said General Nathaniel, \"it has to be bigger than that. What kind of power are you talking about, Kavah? What will you do with it?\"\n\n\"The rift will grant me a direct source of mana from the very Ether itself. With it I'll be able to strike down the theocracy of the Matriarchs and restore the ancient dignity of the Firstborn Mystics.\" He patted his chest. \"Until this century, my kind were the equals of Matriarchs. Our society was balanced between the masculine and the feminine. But the Matriarchs took advantage of the Cataclysm to outlaw our Lore Council. We've never had the power to take back our birthright, until now.\"\n\nRaveka blinked. So it was a political move for Kavah's benefit. The issue was not immediately relevant. She refocused her thoughts on the decision at hand.\n\nLector Sartorius said, \"Perhaps it is possible to direct the ambassador's wrath at Blackthorn himself. Pikas and I have secured her in the tunnels underneath Junction. She is cut off from outside contact. We can fabricate information that implicates the Techno-Prophet. A Matriarch would be a powerful contributor to Blackthorn's demise.\"\n\nAnd Raveka made up her mind. Sartorius plotted too big. He had to die now, while she had this remarkable chance. She gauged the optimal path between the bolt thrower and Chamberlain Kavah. One quick shot would fell the sorcerer. She would reload and fire the second dart before Sartorius could clear his chair. After that Warlord Bahrok would probably vanish using his crystal teleporting rod. General Nathaniel and Shavade, however, would certainly pursue her. She could leap out the window and swim away, but she doubted she could evade them for long. Nathaniel would set magicians of Water Magic on her trail. If she stayed among the fleet she would be found. She knew she could not swim all the way to the coast.\n\nHer death would come soon, then. The thought chilled her, but her body coursed with energy. A mathematical chant steadied her nerves. Then she aimed the bolt thrower and thought, Good-bye, Gabriel. Perhaps I'll see you soon.\n\nShe stopped her finger from throwing the switch.\n\nShe pursed her lips and realized that she dared not die. The information she carried was too important. She knew the logistics of the New Britannian army and just as impor-tandy, the plans of the Pact of Four. She knew where the Meer ambassador was being held. She might learn more yet.\n\nKilling Sartorius would not stop the invasion. Presenting her knowledge to Lector Gaff could save thousands of lives.\n\nShe closed her eyes and stifled a curse. Then she removed the poison dart and slid the weapon into the bag again.\n\n\"I shall help you with your civil war, then, Kavah,\" said Bahrok, \"and you can help me with mine. It is my turn to speak now. Gendemen, the four of us hold history in our hands. We must share in the difficult decisions. Tomorrow a change occurs in Jukaran and all of you must do your part. General, if you want to know what I require of you, it is literally a drop of your blood.\" The warlord whisked out a long dagger and stabbed it into the tabletop. \"My people have a ceremony known as Sanguination. Before embarking upon a journey or battle, warriors sacrifice their blood to the Great Mother in return for her blessing.\"\n\nSartorius muttered, \"Perhaps you might get to the point.\"\n\n\"It was Montenegro's attack that finally decided me. There is beauty in direct action. Shirron Turlogan of Garron will die tonight. We shall send Pikas to do the job. He shall wear this pendant to place suspicion on Montenegro. When the news reaches Clan Varang I shall declare myself Shirron of the Juka Clans and have authority over the people of Jukaran.\"\n\nKavah said, \"And you want us to participate in this Sanguination to share the blame among us.\"\n\n\"Do not balk at the responsibility. We are shaping nations.\"\n\nGeneral Nathaniel snapped, \"But we are not assassins! I agreed to eliminate Blackthorn with honorable warfare. Pikas is a vicious dog. The Virtues do not allow cutting throats in the dark of night!\"\n\n\"The Virtues! General, perhaps it is not clear to you, who have been so isolated from the conflict, but this war goes beyond the rules of any one society. Sartorius betrays the Machine because he refuses to serve a madman. Kavah rises against the Matriarchs to correct an injustice. I myself am loath to condone assassination, yet I am doing just that to unify my people. And so must your Virtues stand aside for the good of four nations. Nathaniel, we agreed to this pact with the understanding that each of us possesses the courage to make it work. Show us your courage now.\"\n\nSartorius added, \"He is correct, General. I am sacrificing tremendous resources in this affair. Surely you would not demean that loss with naive trepidation.\"\n\n\"I must concur,\" nodded Kavah.\n\nNathaniel entwined his fingers and stared at them grimly. Then he thrust out his hand and snatched the knife from the table. Pulling back his sleeve, he touched the blade to his forearm. \"Let Valor and Sacrifice stand where Honor fails.\" With a quick stroke he slit open his arm. A stream of blood poured onto the teakwood table.\n\nBahrok grinned. \"Great Mother, bless us with victory.\" He took the knife and cut himself, spilling his blood atop Nathaniel's.\n\n\"May our ancestors grant us fortitude,\" said Kavah as he added to the crimson pool.\n\n\"The Machine is the universe,\" grumbled Sartorius, then squeezed his bleeding arm. \"I do not approve of wanton magic, yet I insist that you heal me now, Chamberlain. I approve of this barbaric ritual even less.\"\n\nWarlord Bahrok laughed. \"It is not a sacrifice if you heal it, Technocrat! But do as you will. Turlogan's blood will be on all of our hands now.\"\n\nChamberlain Kavah smiled and rubbed his hands together. \"Excellent. This is a pivotal moment, gendemen. The destiny of Sosaria turns around this room. I propose that we toast the moment. General Nathaniel, I presume you have something to drink here? You look as though you could use it.\"\n\nThe general's expression was black. He pointed to a cabinet across the room. At Kavah's gesture Shavade opened it and began to pour brandy into the first of four glasses.\n\nRaveka held her breath. The Huntress had selected the bottle that Lady Aria had given to Nathaniel and Gideon. The brandy contained the deadliest poison in Logos.\n\nBut Nathaniel waved his hand. \"Not that one! It has a special purpose. Take the bottle beside it.\"\n\nShavade shrugged and complied. Raveka winced with disappointment. When the Pact of Four toasted their schemes, Shavade raised to her own lips the one glass that contained a splash of poisoned liquor.\n\nHer ears flattened before she drank. She sniffed the brandy. Then she glanced at Nathaniel and giggled.\n\nOn his bed, Lord Gideon coughed and began to stir. In a flash Raveka slipped behind the desk for cover. The nobleman stopped snoring, but he did not rise. The Mathematician sighed with relief. She strained her ears but heard no more voices in the cabin above. A series of bright flashes blinked through the spy hole, the signature of the Pact's teleportation crystals. The meeting, it seemed, had run its course.\n\nWhen Gideon resumed his snoring, Raveka massaged her eyes and pondered this unexpected gift of knowledge. She did not care about the assassination of the Shirron, of course. Turlogan was the enemy of Logos. She was more concerned with Kavah's agenda in Avenosh. The kidnapping of Ambassador Adhayah could bring more unwanted military attention to Logosia. She would have to inform Lector Gaff of the danger. But most of all she feared the coordination between parties on both sides of the invasion. Sartorius, Bahrok and Nathaniel could architect the bloodiest results from this war. It was almost an explicit part of their plan.\n\nBut Gaff had instructed her how to fight back. Fundamentally a system was only as organized as its components. Dissension could lever them apart. She had already planted the seeds while she was in Britain. From the desk she retrieved a quill and a sheet of paper, upon which she wrote, Nathaniel is responsible for the fate of Turlogan. Ask him about the stain on his table. For credibility she added, He will punish the privateers. Then she dried the note with a quiet breath and folded it. As she slipped it under Lord Gideon's pillow, she kissed the drugged man's brow. \"Rescue me, noble knight,\" she whispered, then crept out of the cabin as it swayed with the ocean waves. She still had much to accomplish tonight. The war was only beginning."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Intruders",
+                "text": "Clinging jungle vegetation gave way to a broad, golden savanna. The stagnant odor of the swamp relented to a fresh breeze. Painted in brown shades of muck, Jatha and Fairfax stood at the boundary of the two regions and gazed into the distance. On the southern horizon was a tiny spot that glittered in the afternoon sun.\n\nJatha smiled broadly at the distant sight of Ishpur, the city of crystal that was his childhood home. \"I told you it was beautiful, didn't I? The twinkle in the eye of Sosaria.\"\n\nFairfax seemed less impressed. At the end of a great task, he had begun to lament its difficulty. \"Three weeks. It took us three weeks to get here. We could cross the breadth of New Britannia in that time! Did all my skills drown in that vile cess pit?\"\n\n\"Cork your despair, you yeti cub. I told you this jungle is sometimes called Deceit. There's magic inside that confuses directions. Not even the Meer travel it lightly. No doubt that's why Kavah and his accomplices chose it for a lair.\"\n\n\"I shall return to this swamp someday and conquer it. By the Virtues, I have my pride.\"\n\n\"Don't lie. You wouldn't go back in there for all the wine in Trinsic. Neither would I.\"\n\nHe rolled his eyes and grumbled, \"Maybe not, but I'll curse it to the end of my days. But look, we've reached civilization at last. You promised you'd explain to me all those tides you hold. I don't wish to compromise your privacy, but it will probably have some bearing on our status and comfort when we enter the city.\"\n\n\"I suppose you have earned some modicum of kindness. Very well, my full name is Jatha Sayarukan, Firstborn of Hidasah and Secular Heir to the House of Ramishpur. Sayarukan is my family name, you see. I am the oldest son of Hidasah, who is the great-granddaughter of Dame Sayaru, the most revered of the living Matriarchs. The House of Ramishpur consists of the families of my mother and her sisters.\"\n\n\"What's a 'Secular Heir'?\"\n\n\"As the firstborn son of the eldest sister, I am the ranking male member of the household. That means I inherited all of its secular responsibilities. That is to say, the administrative chores. I was to become the supreme clerk of my family. Do you wonder why I left for more libertine enterprises? Yet if I were a woman I would have been in line to become a Matriarch myself. Fate works with unexpected tools, my friend. But for a trick of plumbing, I could have governed Avenosh.\"\n\n\"I knew your family was wealthy, but I did not know you were exalted! I'd be humbled if I didn't know you for a degenerate sot.\" When Jatha dignified no response, the ranger slapped him on the back. \"Thank your ancestors that you're not a woman. I couldn't bear to see you lose what little sense and integrity you manage to retain. Besides, govemment is nothing but a jewel-infested prison. Who would want to rule a kingdom at the expense of liberty and base gratification?\"\n\nThe wizard blew a wistful sigh. \"I wanted to, before I left Ishpur.\"\n\n\"You're joking.\"\n\nJatha chuckled. \"There was a time when I was headstrong and idealistic. Yes, I know that's not an easy image to conjure, but as a youth I was seduced by the glory of my tides. I wanted to fulfill some grand, undefined destiny. But these are spare times for a Firstborn. Before the Cataclysm I could have joined the Lore Council and participated in Ishpurian government, but when Adranath brought the Cataclysm upon the world, the Matriarchs disbanded the council and assumed full control of the government. And so Firstborn sons like me are obliged to become very esteemed household clerks. It was not the glorious fate my porridge-brain had envisioned.\"\n\nFairfax grinned. \"So you concocted some idiotic scheme to rectify the injustice?\"\n\n\"Not a scheme so much as an ultimatum. I informed Dame Sayaru that the time had come to return men to their place in government. I demanded to stand among the female leaders of the Mystic caste.\"\n\n\"You wanted to become a Matriarch? Ha! And I thought my ego was a juggernaut.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"The notion seemed reasonable at the time. I guess I would have called myself a Patriarch. Not that the title was ever debated, of course. They chased me off like a fox from a huntsman's yard. I bellowed my indignation to the ancestors and then sailed for New Britannia to escape my embarrassment. That's when I met you and my destiny was forever corrupted.\"\n\n\"You owe me for that, too. What a disaster you would have been without my artful guidance. Well, your family sends you a stipend, so I assume you're not a pariah. I have a chafing suspicion, though, that our welcome will not be without controversy. Should I be worried?\"\n\n'Worried? What is there to worry about? Those days are forgotten history.\"\n\n\"Don't kid me, Jatha. The Meer don't forget anything. That's the only reason you can call your society 'ancient.' But I'll partake of your confidence, despite my instincts to the contrary. And so, my friend, where your family is concerned I have just one further question to present.\"\n\n\"I hesitate to ask.\"\n\n\"When will you introduce me to your sisters?\"\n\n\"I have no sisters, Fairfax.\"\n\n\"Now who is the liar? You once told me you have ten of them!\"\n\n\"That was before your boots touched Avenosh soil. As of now, consider me an only child.\"\n\n\"What kind of gratitude is that?\"\n\n\"You assume I'm protecting them from you and not the reverse.\"\n\n\"Sorry, you're only intriguing me.\"\n\nJatha smirked. \"Forget it, you bearded troll. Mystic women are not like Shavade. They're chaste and dignified. Out of your depth.\"\n\n\"If I drown then I drown, my hirsute friend, but at least I'll be submerged in beauty. That is my own notion of a glorious destiny.\"\n\nWith a laugh they started across the wide savanna. Jatha leaned on a walking staff even though his strength had mostly returned. In a flood of energy his companion darted across the open field, slashing a furrow through the amber grass. His howl of freedom startled winged creatures to flight.\n\nWhen the armies of New Britannia arrived at Logosia, the production was a marvel to behold. A hundred tall ships anchored some distance from the rocky shore. Their sails were furled to reveal a spiny landscape of masts and pulleys and bowsprits. In the drizzle of a wet morning their lanterns shone like yellow gemstones. Proceeding from the midst of the fleet was a tide of smaller landing boats, each driven shoreward by many pairs of oars. Like a plague of insects did the boats crawl to land in a slow, inexorable swarm. Each boat carried at its prow a spellcaster whose magic ignited a lavender globe of light. When the boats landed, soldiers in leather armor disembarked, collected their long weapons and formed into neat platoons at the commands of their officers. As more troops arrived they marched farther up the pebbled beach. Soon the shoreline was brimming with ranks upon ranks of soldiers, measured by glowing points of magic.\n\nA few hundred yards inland, the length of the shore was walled by rough, grey crags. The harsh mountains stood watch like giant sentinels against the barbarian sea. The range extended to both horizons. Scattered across the slopes and crowding the open beach to the north was a vast horde of Jukan warriors staring in amazement. The army of Clan Varang was mighty to behold. In troops it seemed limitless, though the New Britannian forces arrived in such a swell that by dusk they would outnumber the Juka by a third.\n\nThe mood of the scene was somber, darkly expectant, as if the Logosian mountains themselves might lift up their foothills and squash both armies of invaders.\n\nBut so far no threats had materialized. Raveka kept her eyes to the south, though, in case the low, roiling clouds hid an ambush. The wooden Britannian ships looked fragile atop the steely sea.\n\nThe Mathematician sat in a boat with thirty soldiers and pulled on a stout, soggy oar. She was dressed in a hauberk of studded leather like the rest of the infantry. Naturally, penetrating the army had required trivial effort. With nearly ten thousand troops deployed, every soldier worked beside a stranger. While still in Britain she had contrived a false identity and insinuated herself into a platoon of spearmen. Or perhaps spearwomen was the better term, for her troop-mates were entirely female. They had accepted her at once when she demonstrated her brass. The company had been pleasant on the journey across the sea and had never suspected her nocturnal forays. Raveka would almost be sad to leave them.\n\nBut of course they were enemies and she had to detach herself. This landing would be the last she saw of them. So she ignored their chatter as she spied the southern clouds, wondering when Sartorius would strike.\n\n\"Sian's infatuated,\" commented one armored woman, using Raveka's false name. \"She can't stop looking at those privateer barks.\"\n\n\"Can't be,\" said another. \"She's too pretty to mix with that load of vagabonds. Sian, listen to me, you should find yourself a rich knight and let him pamper you. You're fair as any lady I ever saw and twice the man of any soldier.\"\n\n\"Nah, look at her. She's smitten. There's rogues in her eyes. You can see it in her face. She wants one of those dangerous lovers.\"\n\n\"I ran with a sailor once. They ain't so tough. More salty than hardy, if you get me.\"\n\nThe women all laughed except for Raveka, who jutted up a stem finger. \"Listen!\"\n\nThe platoon fell silent. The resdess ocean sloshed against the boat. Oars creaked in their mounts. Puddles rippled under their feet, amplified by the round, wooden hull.\n\nSomething bumped the bottom of the boat. They were still in deep water, a hundred yards from shore.\n\nThen the entire craft lurched upward with a great splash. The women cried out as they scattered through the air. Raveka clung to her oar and tried to glimpse what had upended them. In the frothy tumble of seawater she discerned a large, steely shape with mechanical claws. It was a clockwork leviathan, a marine cousin of the juggernaut. This was not the attack she had expected.\n\nShe hit the water hard and kicked away from the capsized boat. The leviathan began to tear the hull to pieces with devastating ease. The automaton was the size of a New Britannian carriage and riveted with thick, metal armor. Its crablike claws were larger than saddles, snapping through wooden planks like scissors. In seconds the boat was flotsam. Soldiers swam away from the monster and it pursued them by churning broad, submerged propellers. The women it caught proved as fragile as the boat. Now others turned against the leviathan and laid into it with swords and spears. The clangs of metal on metal filled the misty air, alongside the screams of human warriors and a constant, frantic splashing.\n\nAll around Raveka the sea boiled with blood as two or three dozen of the automatons surfaced. Then the wizards launched counterattacks of fire and roaring whirlpools. Great winds swept down from the sky. Leviathans tossed through the air, smoking and flailing, and crashed against the rocky beach. More than a thousand soldiers had already landed and they stormed the mechanical beings with a torrent of crashing blows. The troops of Clan Varang closed in to help.\n\nRaveka swam for shore through the thick, grisly seawater. She fought down a panic as her legs kicked opaque water. When her feet discovered the bottom she scrabbled onto the rocks, assisted by other infantrymen. Scores of other swimmers arrived with her. She draped on a flat rock and turned around to survey the battle.\n\nThe leviathan attack was over. Perhaps fifteen of the steel creatures were dismantled. The others must have fled. She estimated a hundred or more casualties, though the healers were already illuminating the distant waves with their spells. The final tally of dead would be lower than a conventional army. Such was the strength of the New Britannian military, permeated with sorcery.\n\nThen she heard a series of dull popping sounds. She looked south. The ambush had begun on the privateer ships. In the distance she saw blooms of fire, penstrokes of lightning, followed by unsynchronized booms. She shook the seawater from her close-cropped hair and dashed down the beach for a closer look. A host of other soldiers followed. As she closed on the battle she picked out airships hovering in the low, angry clouds. They seemed to be clustering over two or three privateer warships. The vessels fought back with sorcery and flaming missiles but their hulls had already begun to bum. One of the ships, she saw, bore the name Menagerie on its prow.\n\nAbruptly an airship listed in the sky. Slowly the floating vessel descended toward the ocean. Raveka saw chains attached to its hull. Great winches on the Menagerie dragged the airship from its high position of safety. Privateers thronged the barquentine's riggings, ready to board. The airship vomited great clouds of fire. Sailors screamed and dove for safety. Spells glittered across the Menagerie to extinguish the rising flames.\n\nRaveka watched in amazement as Captain Bawdewyn reeled the airship to the level of the mainmast. A stream of sailors leapt aboard the Technocrat vessel waving spears and cutlasses. She knew the airship was lost then. These bombardment craft were manned by engineers, not fighters, and the bloodthirsty sailors outnumbered them five to one. In minutes the airship descended to the water's surface. The privateers let out a hearty cheer as the waves swallowed the black, smoking vessel.\n\nMore lightning streaked from the sky. The Menagerie shook with the impact. One of its masts split and toppled. Raveka spotted a second wave of airships descending from the concealing clouds, doubling the number in the assault. She saw Bawdewyn's men preparing to fire another volley of boarding chains, but it was clear they could not haul down the airships fast enough. Another privateer vessel had started to blaze.\n\nWith excitement she clutched her hands to her chest. Though the privateers were not part of the New Britannian ground force, every Technocrat victory now was a boost to her spirit. Her emotions were rampant. She chanted a geometric proof to calm her twisted nerves, but abandoned it on the first verse. The drama on the water shackled her attention.\n\nA dazzling cascade erupted from the sea. In the middle of Bawdewyn's flotilla appeared a huge, resplendent galleon. She recognized the Akalabeth, the warship of the House of the Griffin. The archmages must have lain in wait for the full brace of airships to appear. A glimmering, translucent sphere enclosed the huge craft and repelled the lightning and fire that streaked from above. Wailing funnel clouds snaked from the deck and swatted aside airships like toys. The flying vessels tumbled to the mountainside at achingly slow speeds. Their impacts were gradual and devastating.\n\nThen the ocean itself emitted a groan. The rumbling noise hushed the land-bound audience. As the battle raged the privateer warships began to toss and roll fiercely. The waterline receded many yards from the beach. Then gigantic columns of seawater thrust underneath the privateers, hoisting the ships into the air. Plumes of white spray pounded the hulls like drums. Raveka gaped. This was unprecedented sorcery. She watched as each privateer vessel soared on a pillar of water to a position beside an airship. The Menagerie and her sisters disgorged howling warriors who overwhelmed the Technocrat engineers. The archmages on board the Akalabeth moved the privateers like kites among the airships, which succumbed to ruthless, unstoppable boarding attacks. Slowly, silently, the beaten Technocrat vessels descended from the clouds. The turbulent sea gulped each in turn. When the privateer warships touched gently to the ocean's surface, a titanic cheer exploded from the army.\n\nBut Sister Raveka fought a sickness in her belly. She hurried away from the waterfront and darted behind the boulders of the foothills. She doubled over and gasped for breath. Finally she droned a mathematical chant, softly but aloud.\n\nOf course this was the result of her note to Lord Gideon. She had mentioned the privateers so that, after this attack occurred, he would be convinced that her accusation of General Nathaniel was genuine. But Gideon must have deduced that an attack was imminent. He had alerted the archmages. With astounding efficiency they had organized a response. She could never have anticipated such a crushing defeat. The thought of it weakened her physically.\n\nAfter a few minutes she leaned her head back against the rock wall. She repeated the chant in her mind and the weakness of her body incrementally faded. Then she rubbed her tired face. Lector Gaff had been correct. She had become too emotional in her affinity for New Britannia. It had made her impulsive and prone to mistakes. The stakes were too high for that. To be an effective spy she would need to ground herself again in the strictures of the Machine. To do so she must travel to Logos. While she was there she would also deliver the vital information that she carried.\n\nAnd in Junction, in Logos's shadow, she would return to Gabriel's arms, which no verse or litany could entice her to forget.\n\nAt least today's events indicated that Gideon had received her message. Whether he would investigate General Nathaniel she could not say, but the nobleman was charmingly idealistic and faithful to the Virtues. The odds were not hopeless that he might foil the general's schemes.\n\nBut she had already fired that particular arrow. Now she must press onward. After a deep breath she headed up the mountain slope to a hidden place among the crags. She had swum ashore last night and stashed her clothes and equipment there. She would collect them, steal a ridgeback and set off to the southeast. The steam of Logos called to her and she intended to breathe it soon.\n\nThe crystal audience chamber of the venerable Dame Sayaru was at once austere and luxurious. In the manner of Matriarchs the very old Meer honored elegant, organic rules of design. The room had a high ceiling with simple arches, supported by pillars that evoked asymmetric crystalline shapes. Very little adornment cluttered the open spaces\u2014pots of smoldering herbs to scent the spicy air, a broad, soft rug underfoot, long veils draped from above to grant privacy to the Matriarch's glittering throne. Yet the walls were fashioned of magnificent crystal in the colors of sapphire and emerald. A gentle glow issued from within, softly illuminating the chamber. The rug and veils were woven using techniques honed by millennia, their textures and reflective qualities exquisitely cultured. Even the play of sound in the open spaces revealed deliberate, skillful refinement.\n\nJatha breathed deep the stately ambience of the room. A feeling of reverence swept through him. Here was the footprint of his ancient culture, the physical manifestation of thousands of years of civilization. The spirits of the ancestors guided them. Calm, dignified, natural, magical; these traits pervaded Meer society and were exemplified in the Mystic caste. His return to Ishpur had fanned the embers of his cultural pride.\n\nYet old resentments had flared inside him as well. As he knelt now before his exalted great-great grandmother, the ancient Matriarch Sayaru, he stifled the disenfranchised feeling that had driven him from Avenosh a decade earlier.\n\nInstead he respectfully explained the events that had brought him back.\n\nThe aged Matriarch listened with attentive reserve. She was a proud figure on her angular crystal throne. Gem-studded silk swathed her gaunt frame. A draped headdress fell across her shoulders. Her fur was marbled grey, painstakingly washed and oiled to grant her a nearly glasslike sheen. Her voice was rich and high. \"You say Chamberlain Kavah has captured the nexus point in New Britannia?\"\n\nThe wizard nodded from the pillow where he knelt. \"Yes, Venerable Grandmother, he has secured it. The humans call the phenomenon a 'beacon.' I've never seen such power before.\"\n\nThe old woman narrowed her severe eyes. \"I have. It is the result of the ghastliest violence to the Ether. The Lore Council once wielded it. I fear Kavah's desire is to resurrect that cursed circle. His cabal of Firstborn sons in Deceit are laying the groundwork for their abomination. And as yet, I fear, we have been unable to stop them. The Warrior caste cannot track them in that jungle. The Firstborns shield themselves from our dreams. Their power is already great, for they control a second nexus point in their lair.\"\n\n\"Fairfax and I were there. We saw no second beacon in that old Terathan cave.\"\n\n\"It is there. It is the source of the enchantment that makes the swamp impassable. You are lucky to have emerged from the heart of that foul place. Your human companion is to be commended.\"\n\nJatha dared a grin. \"Please don't tell him that, Grandmother. He thinks too much of himself already.\"\n\nThe Matriarch scowled. \"These are not flippant affairs, Jatha!\"\n\nHe dropped his gaze to the floor. He quelled his irritation. \"Forgive me, Grandmother.\"\n\n\"Are you aware of the nature of a nexus point?\"\n\n\"I understand they are rifts in the Ether.\"\n\n\"They are indeed, but that does no justice to the danger they pose. They are remnants of the Cataclysm itself.\"\n\nHe perked his ears. \"Interesting. The human archmages know nothing of this, that I am aware of.\"\n\n\"Nor should they. Some knowledge is too dangerous. It tempts weak minds, as it has done with Kavah. So we feign ignorance of these matters. You must use discretion, Jatha, before you tell this to anyone. Swear to it.\"\n\nHe blinked slowly. \"I swear, Grandmother.\"\n\n\"You are aware that every culture tells its own story of the Cataclysm. The New Britannians claim that Blackthorn and the Lost King unleashed it in a great battle. The Juka insist that the Overlords created it with a thunderous machine, to quell the slave revolt. And, of course, we know that our Lore Council attempted to reshape the world with disastrous consequences. But the fact is, these three separate events joined our worlds together in the fusion that was the Cataclysm.\" \"Fusion? I thought the Cataclysm tore the world apart.\"\n\n\"I can remember the days when the Meer were all that were. No other civilized races shared our lands. The humans and Juka did not exist. In those times the three races dwelt in different worlds, Jatha. Different Sosarias. But each of those worlds destroyed itself with the folly of great power. Each universe met its end. We stand today upon a patchwork, a mosaic of what remained. Fragments of our sundered lands came together in the Ether, like leaves in a pond. The Cataclysm destroyed three worlds and created a fourth one. It was a convergence.\"\n\nJatha nodded. \"I see. And the nexus points are weaknesses in the seams.\"\n\n\"It is a reasonable metaphor. We know of two such points, one in New Britannia and one in the pits of Deceit. We conjecture that a third exists somewhere in Logosia, near the place where the Overlords built their terrible machine.\"\n\n\"If I recall my Jukan history, that would be Logos itself, which was once called Citadel Moonglow.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. We do not know precisely where it is, though we fear that Kavah has located it. We fear too that he has perpetrated this so-called 'Pact of Four' as a scheme to capture it. If he does so, his power will become unthinkable.\"\n\n\"I have seen what one nexus point can do. Three would be daunting.\"\n\nSayaru raised a hand for emphasis. \"The three are more dangerous than their sum. Our world is composed of three great continents, three great fragments. If he controls a nexus point in all of them, he holds the breadth of Sosaria in his power.\"\n\n\"I don't understand, Grandmother.\"\n\n\"Imagine a clay pot with three cracks. Drive a wedge into one crack and water will leak out. Drive a wedge into all three cracks and the pot will fall to pieces. That is the power Kavah seeks to possess.\"\n\nJatha flattened his ears. \"You mean he could cause another Cataclysm?\"\n\n\"Which would rip the world asunder once more. The fragments would remain, but in what form no one can say. It is certain, however, that societies and governments will be thrown into chaos. We fear Kavah intends to use this power to strike down the Matriarchs and establish the rule of a new Lore Council.\"\n\n\"That's unthinkable!\"\n\nThe Matriarch lifted her chin. Her old eyes watched him closely. \"You are not unacquainted, Jatha, with the resentment that drives him.\"\n\nOld grudges stirred inside his chest. This time he could not conceal it from his face. \"Venerable Grandmother, understand me when I say that I gravely disapprove of such a comparison.\"\n\nHer stare literally flashed. \"Keep your tongue, Jatha! You are no pride to your house and family. You are a dissolute man.\" Then she deigned to add, with a sigh, \"But at least I can say that you are not evil.\"\n\nShe had deliberately provoked him to justify her own response. It was the guile of a pacifist. He subdued his pique and spoke in a low, measured tone. \"Thank you, Grandmother.\" Then he added, \"Kavah flirts with the ultimate evil, to use Cataclysm as a weapon.\"\n\n\"May the ancestors guide us to salvation. Three worlds are tossed together and the result is a maelstrom. Our universe, I fear, is a sinking ship.\"\n\nHe saw troubled thoughts behind Sayaru's austere mask. He had never imagined that she would be afraid of anything. But Kavah's treachery posed the first real challenge to the Matriarchs since the Cataclysm itself. He wondered how they would respond. Their collective power was as great as any in Sosaria but they were stubbornly passive when conflicts arose.\n\nJatha, however, knew the value of action. He was determined to rouse them to address the danger. If a threat appeared in a distant land then the Matriarchs must strike it down. Whether he could convince them of the necessity was a daunting question. Taking another deep breath, he began to pursue the answer.\n\nThe western shore of Logosia swarmed with New Britannian troops. By nightfall the bulk of the infantry had landed, albeit with no small amount of worry. But no further attacks came. Tents and torches and campfires sprang up by the thousands. The fleet of stolid warships observed the deployment quietly, their hundred golden lanterns impaling the ocean with serrated reflections. The boats that rowed back and forth mostly shuttled cargo and livestock now. Wagons were already assembled and loaded, preparing for the march inland.\n\nInside a laige tent at the center of the encampment, two men converged upon a small, wooden crate. General Nathaniel opened the lid and retrieved a bottle of brandy and two glasses, which he began to fill. \"There you are. Hale and intact, as I promised.\" He handed a glass to Lord Gideon, who accepted it absently. The nobleman's face was marked with unease.\n\n\"It does not make sense, Nathaniel. Clan Kumar was supposed to meet us, not Clan Varang. We should have been dealing with the legitimate government of Garron.\"\n\nThe general shrugged. \"Perhaps someone told Kumar the wrong landing point. You know these Juka. They plot against one other as casually as you or I might throw a summer party.\"\n\nGideon glanced at the officer. \"That's exactly my fear.\"\n\n\"Don't trouble yourself over it. The internal politics of the Juka Clans are not our problem, as long as they're united against Blackthorn. I'm interested in their strength, not their honor.\" He lifted his brandy glass. \"Look here, the time has come to toast our exquisite ladies, as we promised them in Britain. Here's to Aria and Annabel, whose beauty and loyalty shine all the way across the ocean. May they always be custodians of our souls.\" When Gideon gave no answer, the general frowned. \"What's wrong? I thought you were anticipating this moment.\"\n\nThe nobleman set down his glass with a conspicuous thump. \"I was. I am. But I must ask you a question first.\" Nathaniel tilted his head. Long braids whispered over his breastplate. \"I'm listening.\"\n\n\"Shirron Turlogan is dead. Warlord Bahrok has declared himself the successor to the throne.\"\n\n\"I know. Of course the murder is shocking, but this is a war. No one accuses Blackthorn of honor.\"\n\nGideon stared at the general. \"Nathaniel, what role did you play in his death?\"\n\n\"What's that? I don't understand.\"\n\n\"You heard my question.\"\n\nNathaniel lifted his chin. His face hardened. \"What are you implying, Gideon?\"\n\n\"Just this: I want you to look me in the eye and deny that you had a hand in Turlogan's assassination.\"\n\nThe general slammed down his brandy on the wooden crate. \"That's outrageous!\"\n\n\"I know you for an honest man. I shall take your word as truth, but you must give it to me explicitly.\"\n\n\"Who told you this slander?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter. Nathaniel, your reticence is an implication itself.\"\n\nThe older man threw up his hands in shock. \"Reticence! Insult, you mean! I can't believe you would suspect me of such a crime.\"\n\n\"Then explain to me the bloodstain on the table in your cabin.\" Gideon watched the general's eyes dart away for an instant. But the officer said nothing and Gideon continued, \"I saw it before we came ashore. It has some meaning. I want to know what.\"\n\nThe general paused to rub the bridge of his nose. \"Gideon, I beg you. Don't pry into my secret dealings. I make many allies while gathering my intelligence. Not all of them are savory people.\"\n\n\"I don't expect your allies to be honorable, but I do expect you to adhere to the Virtues. You're a knight, Nathaniel, in the order I command.\"\n\n\"And your order,\" growled Nathaniel, \"serves my army. Don't throw your rank at me. We're in a military action now.\n\nI shall do what I deem appropriate to secure our victory. I won't brook dissension, even from the lord of the House of the Lion.\"\n\n\"Won't you? Then settle the issue now. Tell me you had no part in Turlogan's assassination. Tell me it wasn't a plot between yourself and Warlord Bahrok to put that great boor on the Jukan throne.\" The general seemed to be weighing an answer, which was response enough for Lord Gideon. The nobleman moved toward the door of the tent. \"Very well. I shall not drink with you.\"\n\n\"Montenegro's paranoia has infected you, as well.\"\n\nGideon stopped. He spoke with subdued ire. \"Ever since Sir Gabriel presented his case to me, I have watched you for personal reasons. I now know I should have listened to him with more of an open mind. He was imperfect but he lived and died with a devotion to Honor. If we are diligent, you and I, perhaps the same can be said of us.\"\n\nNathaniel muttered, \"It is not Honor you appease. It is Montenegro's cousin. She's got into your head.\"\n\nThe nobleman glowered, \"Speak of her again and I shall draw my sword, Nathaniel. Is that dear?\" Then he turned away and headed for the exit.\n\n\"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"To collect my knights, if you please. I understand Clan Kumar is camped several miles north of here. The Silver Serpents shall ride to Logos alongside Warlord Venduss. I want no part of this criminal alliance between you and Warlord Bahrok\"\n\n\"You can't do that!\"\n\n\"Watch and see if I can, Nathaniel. Don't bother to saddle up. You are not welcome among us.\"\n\nGeneral Nathaniel pointed a finger and stalked after the nobleman. \"This is insubordination! You'll be disgraced in the House of the Lion!\"\n\n\"Why do you protest? Your design is now complete, isn't it? That's what this invasion means to you. A chance to take the Lion from me. You conniving toad! Tell me, am I next after Turlogan? Will I wake some night with a dagger at my throat?\"\n\n\"Get out, you bastard! If I see you again I'll have you in chains!\"\n\nThe lord's eyes flashed. \"Oh, rest assured you'll see me in Logos. I'll save some Technocrats for you, if you get there quickly enough. And you'll see me again in the Royal Senate when I hang you from the rafters!\"\n\n\"The knights won't follow you! I am the commander of this invasion.\"\n\nGideon laughed bitterly. \"Nathaniel the Dragonslayer, leader of knights and assassin of the Shirron! We'll see who they follow, General. Mark my words, the only cavalry you'll command will plod around on ridgebacks.\"\n\nWhen the nobleman vanished through the tent flap, General Nathaniel stormed back to the wooden crate. With a growl he swatted aside the brandy bottle and both glasses, which smashed to pieces on the hard ground. Catching his breath, he stared at the twinkling glass shards. With a frown he murmured, \"Forgive me, Annabel. I do it for us.\" Then he banged his fist on the crate, pounding the wooden lid back into place. The noise rang loudly in his ears.\n\nAs dawn broke over the city of Ishpur, the sun threw golden beams upon a multitude of crystal spires. The translucent structures captured the light and multiplied it across endless facets in a vast, dazzling spectacle. Each spire comprised a Matriarch's abode, busy with attendants of the Mystic and Warrior castes. The streets thronged with Meer and their birdlike ostard mounts. The hum of their voices echoed from the glassy buildings. Beyond the city stretched the plains and jungles of Avenosh, in which Ishpur shone like a sparkling jewel, a crystal garden in a verdant tableau.\n\nFrom a balcony on a particular spire, Fairfax reclined on a pallet of pillows and watched the theatrics of the sunrise. He was dressed in a filmy robe of lush silk. Beside him rested a plate of fruits of odd shapes and colors. In his hand perched a cup of satiny wine.\n\nA commotion interrupted his tranquility. He glanced behind him to see Jatha stomping onto the wide balcony. The wizard's colorful Mystic robes tossed about him as he marched angrily to his companion's side.\n\nFairfax chuckled and shook his head. \"Do the Matriarchs only give audience before breakfast? They must prefer their subjects in a chipper mood.\"\n\n\"The cowardly old harpies!\"\n\n\"Is that any way to speak of your elders? No wonder they chased you off all those years ago.\"\n\nJatha bared his teeth. \"You wouldn't say that if you spoke to them yourself. They sit on their glass thrones and dream that their feet will never get muddy!\"\n\n\"Ishpur is excruciatingly clean, I do confess. Do they never feed those ostards? But I can see that you've made some demand which your grandmother outrageously chose to disobey. Tell me, exalted Patriarch, what cowardice do they manifest?\"\n\n\"We are on the brink of a terrible crisis and they do nothing more than lounge in their temples and talk!\"\n\n\"Which crisis is that? Not the war, surely.\"\n\n\"Not just the war. It's treachery of the most heinous regard. Kavah's treachery.\"\n\n\"He did appear to have an unseemly amount of fun with Valente's beacon.\"\n\n\"Unseemly indeed! The power of the beacon is too great for any man to wield.\"\n\n\"Why, what can he do with it?\" He sipped his wine and swallowed quickly. \"Nay, permit me to conjecture. It is 'forbidden' magic in the ubiquitous, wizardly sense of the word.\"\n\n\"It is just that! Nor can I tell you much more without breaking an oath to Dame Sayaru. Suffice to say that our world may be in peril.\"\n\n\"Please, not before breakfast.\"\n\n\"Listen, I've worked out Kavah's scheme. He created the Pact of Four to convince the Royal Senate to invade Logosia.\n\nIt was a strategic maneuver. While the archmages are gone, unable to hinder him, Kavah has captured that nexus point on Valente's property. He's got another one under his control in the caves of Deceit. And there's a third nexus point in Logos, or near it, that he's eager to capture, as well.\"\n\n\"He is a captivating man.\"\n\n\"He's churlishly cunning. You see, with Logosia under attack, Blackthorn's attention will focus on repelling the invaders. That will free Kavah to secure the third nexus point. If he succeeds, Fairfax, his power will be greater than anyone can control.\"\n\n\"I begin to understand why the Technocrats lock up their alchemy inside machines. Wheels and gears seem more reliable than greedy wizards.\"\n\n\"If you understood even a dram of sorcery, you would never say such a thing. Magic belongs in skilled hands, not iron machines. But your mind is simple, like the food in Yew, so I absolve you of blame for that remark.\"\n\n\"I rather like the food in Yew, in a boiled tuber sort of manner. But O great, effulgent Patriarch, pray enlighten me. How do you propose that the Matriarchs ought to proceed? Should they mount their chariots and ride forth to do battle with Kavah? That would be a parade to catch the eye, though their gowns might billow with frightening portent.\"\n\n\"They have no interest in battle. It's their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.\"\n\n\"How is it a government of women shows such restraint? Most lasses I know are absolutely promiscuous with their violence. Especially in the last month or so.\"\n\n\"Flowers attract honeybees. Sweat attracts mosquitoes. If you'd remember that, your love life would improve a thousandfold. And if you want to know my counsel, I told Sayaru that the Matriarchs need to send the Warrior caste to secure the nexus point in New Britannia. Several thousand Hunters should be able to control that valley until the archmages return. Especially since the wisps would be their allies. Then the Matriarchs themselves should travel to Logosia, stop Kavah and free the Ishpurian ambassador.\"\n\n\"Slow down. The ambassador?\"\n\n\"Dame Adhayah. Apparently she's been missing for several weeks. The Matriarchs use dreams to communicate with each other and she has been out of contact. It can only mean that Kavah has locked her away somewhere that's enchanted with powerful spells.\"\n\n\"Or maybe she's just dead.\"\n\nJatha shook his head. \"The Matriarchs would know. The ambassador is both alive and imprisoned. Nor will she free herself, if it means violence against her captors.\"\n\n\"One wonders how the caste survived for thousands of years.\"\n\n\"It's a testament to the power of harmony. Pacifism is the cornerstone of Matriarchal magic. Like it or not, it has made them the most potent magicians in Sosaria.\"\n\n\"To what end, though, if the power is never used?\"\n\n\"That is the very question I posed to Dame Sayaru! Some emergencies require force. But the Matriarchs will never agree to it, the squawking old crows.\"\n\n\"Then why do you have that look in your eye?\"\n\n\"What look?\"\n\n\"Hungry anticipation. In years past, I have relied upon that look as an omen of fresh debauchery. In the last six months, however, I have come to associate it with causes and crusades. I have a feeling that you have a feeling that something can be done without the Matriarchs.\"\n\nJatha grinned. \"You know me too well.\"\n\n\"I have often said so.\"\n\nHe pointed a finger at the ranger. \"My crass but intrepid friend, you and I must hurry to Logosia and set things straight. If we can rescue the ambassador she may help us stop Kavah's scheme. Unlike the Matriarchs here in Ishpur, Dame Adhayah is already waist-deep in the muck. And she doesn't have to kill anyone if we do it for her, right?\"\n\n\"Slayers in the service of peace. Why not? We have certainly slain for lesser rewards. But didn't we try to perforate Kavah once already? I carried your carcass for two weeks afterward. My dignity still smarts when the weather turns.\"\n\n\"He was drawing his power from the nexus then. I'll gladly pit my spells against him under different circumstances. Besides, you and I shall not undertake this adventure by ourselves. There's someone in Logosia whose aid we must solicit for the task.\"\n\n\"You don't believe Lady Aria's tale about Montenegro being alive, do you?\"\n\n\"Of course not. I'm talking about Way Master Thulann of Garron.\"\n\n\"Capital plan! We did not see enough of the old turtle after that business with Braun's Needle. But how shall we find her? She travels more than a seaman's rash.\"\n\n\"Her clan is mustered on the western shore of Logosia, preparing to meet the New Britannians as they arrive.\"\n\n\"You sound very confident of that.\"\n\n\"The Matriarchs have monitored the conflict fastidiously. Apparendy voyeurism is an essential component of pacifism.\"\n\nFairfax laughed. \"Will they grant us the use of a ship, as well, so they can spy on us as we embark on our quest?\"\n\n\"We shall do better, my friend. Dame Sayaru has not been entirely unaccommodating. She has agreed to cook up a wild moongate to take us to Logosia.\"\n\nThe human whistled. \"That's no small feat, if I recall our journey to Garron two years back. She must be frightfully anxious to see us off.\"\n\nJatha selected a purple fruit from his companion's platter. He bit through the skin and savored the sweet nectar. With a brimming mouth he noted, \"It's your presence among her granddaughters that quickens her resolve. She doesn't approve of a serpent among the eggs.\"\n\nFairfax grumbled, \"An apt comparison, alas, for every one of your fair sisters is locked inside a shell. I'll need a hammer and chisel just to get a kiss.\"\n\n\"Courtship among Mystics is a formal ritual. I daresay you don't qualify to participate.\"\n\n\"It's not the rules that thwart me. It's the girls' insistence upon following them. I find myself longing for Shavade's brisk candor. Now there's a woman who skewers laws and men to get what she desires.\"\n\nJatha swallowed a bite and groaned, \"By all that's merciful, please don't start that again.\"\n\n\"I hope she didn't die in that valley. I never won her smile. If I could do that, I would be satisfied.\"\n\nThe wizard spat a seed over the edge of the balcony. \"Fairfax, you'll never be satisfied. You have all the restraint of a sotted berserker. Now start deciding how to say good-bye to my sisters while retaining some particle of dignity. The moongate should be ready in a day or two. We'll set out as soon as possible.\"\n\nFairfax lifted his cup to the glimmering city before him, shining copper and amber in the streaming dawn. \"Alas, radiant Ishpur, too briefly did our lips meet. But danger now calls me from your crystalline arms. You know, Jatha, for everything I sacrifice on your lamentable behalf, I ask so little in return. You would think I might demand something for myself, wouldn't you?\"\n\nJatha sucked a drop of sweet juice from his lip, then chuckled. \"You would think so, you wormy hound. You would think so.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "The Black Veil",
+                "text": "Thulann's black, flowing gown streamed at the cusp of an ocean breeze. A dark veil pressed against her face. The elderly Juka stood on a high, flat rock, as tall and straight as the walking staff she carried. Her slim figure parted the cool, salty wind. Overhead the sky was steely and low, a snarl of clouds that diffused the morning light to a dull character. The breakers on the beach heaved a whispering sigh.\n\nThe flat ground between the mountains and the sea was filled with Jukan troops. The splendid army of Clan Kumar was arrayed in parade formation, a glittering composition of shields and spears in crisp geometry. Five thousand clansmen stood at attention with armor polished and weapons presented. Their colorful banners lashed the wind. No other sounds emerged from the ranks.\n\nTo the south gathered a second force, nearly a thousand in number. These were the soldiers of Clan Eryem with their triangular flags and painted armor. Their many-oared longboats lined the rocky shore. At their head was Warlord Savan astride his giant ridgeback, in the posture of an arrogant chieftain. Since his army had arrived, his proper place was among them.\n\nStrangest of all was the ocean of steel that gleamed on the far side of Clan Eryem; for the knights of New Britannia had arrived unexpectedly as the muster began. A thousand strong, the silver warriors rode proudly atop their strapping horses. Tassels and ribbons adorned the slender-legged mounts. The knights' long, barbed lances were raised in a vertical salute. Their polished armor reflected the clouds. Every helmet displayed a crest unique to the knight who wore it, composing a sea of rainbow colors. A single banner raised above them, bearing the emblem of the Silver Serpent.\n\nBut the pageant of military strength was a distant backdrop for Thulann. Her attention lingered atop the flat rock on which she stood. Beside her waited Toria in a formal gown, the Way Master's constant attendant, but the other members of the ritual party each fulfilled a precise ceremonial role. General Fekhet and the other high officers saluted with drawn swords. A collection of robed loresingers formed a half-circle and chanted an undulating song. Tekmhat of Clan Eryem knelt in ritual supplication. And in the center of the gathering was Venduss of Garron in a suit of exquisite armor, his face locked into a reverent frown. With well-rehearsed precision he led the ritual that confirmed him as the chieftain of Clan Kumar.\n\nThulann's training compelled her to monitor the particulars of the display, but the deeper parts of her mind lay elsewhere. On the entire coast, only a handful of Kumar clansmen were absent from the coronation of the new warlord. These few gathered around a pillar of smoke that rose from the north side of the encampment. They were Turlogan's keeners, weeping shrilly around the slain chieftain's pyre. They would continue to do so for fifty days as prescribed by Jukan lore, accompanying the ashes back to Garron where priests would lay them to rest in the clan's tomb. The task of keening was difficult but essential. The funeral was now over, Turlogan's Life Song had been chanted to the Blessed Halls of Honor by his only son, and the new chieftain was nearly confirmed. All that remained for Turlogan's soul was the lamentation of the keeners, whose wails even now could be heard over the solemn ritual.\n\nThulann herself wore a keener's veil. Her cries, however, had no voice and no tears.\n\nThe Jukan healers had done what they could, but Turlogan had passed beyond their help. The assassin had been expert in his work. Perhaps a New Britannian archmage might have conjured back Turlogan's spirit, as Master Gregorio had once done with Venduss, but no such wizard had been on hand and that miracle was only possible within a few hours of death. And so did Turlogan receive a fatal answer to his rejection of Lector Gaff's surrender.\n\nBut the truth had to be more complex. The facts were clear. Turlogan had been killed by stealth. A battle would have certainly drawn attention. In all likelihood Turlogan would have beaten any assassin, even one as deadly as Montenegro. But Thulann could not accept that Montenegro would have cut a sleeping man's throat, continued to stab him until he was dead, then selectively mutilated certain organs to ensure that no healer could rekindle the spark of life. To be sure, the knight had the skills for it. He was a lethal bladesman. He had the requisite knowledge of healing magic, having fought beside spellcasters all of his life. He carried the potions of invisibility. He could have murdered Turlogan, but she did not want to believe that he would have. He had ruthlessness in his heart, but he had tamed it. She had seen him tame it.\n\nIf she looked into his eyes, she could be certain.\n\nOn the rocks before her the confirmation ended and Warlord Venduss announced himself to the mustered troops. He shouted the order to march for Logos. The warriors cheered their new leader and rushed to move out. But the next hour found Thulann in her sizable tent, packing a single shoulder bag. Toria helped, though the girl looked despondent. \"I just don't understand how you can leave, Thulann. Today of all days.\"\n\nThe Way Master still wore her mourning costume. She spoke from beneath a near-opaque veil. \"Venduss has Fekhet and Savan to guide him. He does not need my counsel.\"\n\n\"You know that's not true.\"\n\n\"It is his own choice. I have advised him against marching on Junction and Logos, just as I advised his father. And just as his father did, he ignores my words.\"\n\nToria leveled an incredulous stare. \"That's ridiculous! After the assassination, every one of those soldiers outside would give his life to avenge the Shirron. There's no turning back now. You know that.\"\n\nThe old Juka shook her head. \"Do we vote upon our strategies now? Leaders are obliged to make unpopular decisions. Venduss's grandmother knew that when she was chieftain.\"\n\n\"That's not fair. Turlogan himself couldn't live up to Narah's legacy. Why are you acting this way? Everyone's looking to you for guidance and you're hiding behind that veil.\"\n\n\"They look to Venduss, not to me.\"\n\n\"You're not that naive, Thulann!\"\n\nThe Way Master stuffed a fold of clothes into the sack with a brusque action. Her voice lowered a register. \"And how naive are you, Toria?\"\n\nThe human girl paused, then reached a tentative hand for Thulann. \"I'm sorry, Mistress. I didn't mean to... I know this has been terrible for you. I'm sorry.\"\n\nThulann clasped Toria's fingers and squeezed. \"Do not pity this old warrior. I have lost more friends in my lifetime than you would be able to count. I shall carry on.\" Her throat began to swell. She let go of the girl's hand before emotion overcame her.\n\nThe minstrel picked up a scabbard and short sword and commenced a ritual binding for travel. \"This would be easier if you'd tell us where you're going. What you're doing. Tekmhat thinks you're riding to Garron ahead of the keeners.\"\n\n\"That would be unwise. Now that Bahrok calls himself Shirron, I expea the city will be overrun by his soldiers. It will not be a friendly place for prominent members of Clan Kumar.\"\n\n\"Then where are you going? I never thought you would leave Venus side.\"\n\nThulann sighed. \"Nor shall I, when the time comes. But right now I remain at Turlogan's side. I must do so until honor is satisfied.\"\n\nToria blinked. \"You're off to avenge him.\" Thulann made no reply. \"So where does that road go? To Bahrok? He must have had a part in this.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly. But I have to be sure. I shall find the assassin first and then follow his leash.\"\n\n\"You don't think Montenegro really did it?\"\n\nThe Juka took the bound short sword and placed it in the bag. \"I shall ask him.\"\n\n\"You're going to Logos!\" Toria's face turned anxious. \"Mistress, that'll be very dangerous.\"\n\n\"It will be more dangerous if I wait until our armies surround it.\"\n\nThe girl looked down. \"I can't go with you, Mistress. I'm staying with Venduss.\"\n\n\"I know, child.\"\n\n\"They're having the wedding on the march and I promised Tekmhat I'd be there.\"\n\n\"Toria. Of course you must stay with the army. I need you to take over my duties as spymaster.\"\n\nThe human looked stunned. \"Me?\"\n\n\"You have assisted me for two years. You know my work You know my operatives and they know you. I need you to keep gathering intelligence in my absence. The invasion will be crippled without it.\" She smiled sadly, though Toria could not see it. \"Venduss needs you more than I do. Stay at his side.\"\n\n\"I'm worried that I won't see you again.\"\n\nShe took the girl's hand once more. \"Few things are certain, child, but this is one: I am proud of you and Venduss both. If you are the legacy I leave to this world, I shall walk boldly into the Blessed Halls of Honor.\"\n\nToria's eyes misted as she embraced Thulann. For long moments they held one another, then the Way Master pulled back. \"Enough. Say good-bye to the warlord for me. I shall not interrupt his business for this womanly foolishness.\"\n\n\"Lord Gideon wants a meeting before you leave.\"\n\n\"Give him my apologies. You can act in my stead now.\n\nRemember, he is a lord and a senator but he is also a noble warrior. Treat him with respect, be forthright, and he shall do the same for you.\"\n\nThe girl swallowed. \"Yes, Mistress.\"\n\n\"Farewell, Toria. Tread softly and wisely. You are one root of a mighty tree.\"\n\nShe did not look behind her when she exited the tent. As she walked from the camp she passed Venduss's tall pavilion. The young warrior stood outside conversing with the plate-armored Lord Gideon. Thulann knew that the knight would not recognize her in the black veil and robe of a keener, so she paused to indulge in one final image of Venduss. The youth had grown into a handsome chieftain. He was brash and foolish, but so had his father been all those decades ago. He would survive these trials. They would strengthen him daily. Someday he might even challenge for the tide of Shirron. She would watch that hour with pride from the afterlife.\n\nThe young warlord glanced up and saw her. She gave him a nod, though the windblown veil resisted her, and then she left him behind. One day she might stand beside him again. For the moment, however, she had a duty to Turlogan. She was a keener, after all, though she would force the wails from the throats of the guilty.\n\nIn the mountains above the striking encampment she came upon two figures. They wore the leather armor of New Britannian travelers. The taller of the pair, a Meer, bowed when she approached. The other, whose hair was a thicket of flaxen tangles, crossed his arms and frowned.\n\n\"What treachery is this?\" asked Fairfax. \"You want us to leave without saying hello to Toria?\"\n\nThulann set down her bag and pulled off her veil. \"I did not ask you to wait for me here just to take you back down to the beach again. You must trust my judgment. Toria needs no reminders of home right now. This is a dire time for her and for Venduss. He is marrying Tekmhat of Jamark in a few days. Her heart is breaking.\"\n\nThe ranger squinted. \"All the more reason for us to cheer her up, right?\"\n\nJatha laid a hand on his companion's shoulder. \"For a change, try to use that boiled tuber you call a brain. They're marching off to war. Toria needs to focus on the invasion, not pine for New Britannia. She's got a minstrel's soul, prone to daydreams and wandering. We would be an all-too-welcome distraction.\"\n\nThe Way Master fished dark garments from the bag. \"Besides, we have to make for Logos as quickly as possible. I want to get there well before any troops. Now put on these clothes so we can blend with the locals.\"\n\nThe Meer wizard grinned. \"I shall have a difficult time passing for a Logosian.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" murmured Thulann as she handed him a long scarf. \"Wrap it around your head so that only your eyes show. It is not an uncommon fashion for desert travelers.\" Jatha grimaced. \"I should wear a full mask in the desert heat? By my ancestors, this is an inhospitable place. Take me back to the swamps of Deceit.\"\n\n\"You can carry yourself this time,\" grumbled Fairfax.\n\nAs Thulann unbelted her robe she said, \"We shall be there in less than a week. Let us try to minimize our complaining during that time. If Montenegro and Lector Gaff are amicable, we may solve both of our problems shortly thereafter. If they are not amicable, however, we shall see hardship far greater than warm, sunny days.\"\n\nThe wizard chuckled. \"Ah, but I have missed your blithe demeanor, Thulann.\"\n\nThe Way Master paid them no attention as she changed into her Logosian disguise. The world seemed oddly remote. A more immediate sensation hit her\u2014she felt Turlogan's presence, strongly, physically, as if his ghost walked at her side. The feeling was both wonderful and frightening. She sensed herself moving in a twilight between life and death, between dark and light, between Shirron Turlogan and Warlord Venduss. It was a thin, taut sort of limbo that compelled her never to stop. As long as she kept walking Turlogan would still walk beside her. She imagined she might walk until the last day of her life.\n\nAnd the terrible day came when Lord Blackthorn declared war on the King. The knight-wizard rode before Sir Lazaro and said, \"I have given you a priceless gift and now I ask something in return. Stand with me against the King and repay your debt.\"\n\nAnd Sir Lazaro replied, \"I shall not stand with you, for on the day I became a knight I pledged my sword to the King.\"\n\n\"If you stand with the King, \" said Lord Blackthorn, \"then you stand as my enemy.\"\n\n\"That is not my desire but I am compelled by my oath. I should rather be an honored enemy than a dishonored friend.\"\n\nAnd so did Sir Lazaro uphold the Virtue of Honor, though it would soon cost him his life.\n\nIn the electric glow of the Technocrat workshop, Montenegro watched as Brother Barghast's apprentices took apart his mechanical steed. Its chest comprised a remarkable number of steel plates in a curved shell. Underneath was a frame of heavy bars and a dizzying mass of axles and wheels. He saw gears with strange, irregular cogs that ' rocked on and off as the tinkers moved the horse's limbs. In the center of the chest cavity perched the copper levitant tank. It connected to chains that drove the propeller inside. And along the flanks of the machine rested the rods and folded leather of the batwing levitant vanes, which the apprentices began to dismantle. The knight studied the work with intense care, as if to block out the words of Master! Enosh, who sat fidgeting beside him.\n\nThe brawny Juka flustered, \"I'm only saying, Cavalier, that honor is complex. You know I don't take it lightly. We have only served together a few months, it's true, but the brigade is part of you now. What honor is there in joining the Knights of the Silver Serpent and fighting against us?\" Montenegro mumbled, \"I have always been a knight, Shirron. When we fought Clan Varang I was still a knight. I made an oath. If they ride out, I must ride with them.\"\n\n\"But that oath was invalidated when they expelled you! Since then you've lived in Logosia. You've seen who we are. You know we are not monsters.\"\n\n\"I have also seen dark things in this land. Repulsive things.\"\n\n\"And have you no dark things in New Britannia? Your trolls and ores and dragons are superior to our Overlord machines?\"\n\n\"I have taken the measure of ores and goblins, but your machines are boundlessly wicked.\"\n\n\"You're trying to steel yourself against us, even though you know it will not work. I am not your enemy.\" He massaged the flesh around the base of his stout horns. \"To be truthful, I'm not even sure why New Britannia is invading us at all.\"\n\n\"Old grievances die hard. And don't forget, it was Blackthorn who struck the first blow.\"\n\nEnosh sneered, \"Lector Sartorius sent the armada to Britain, not the Techno-Prophet.\"\n\n\"The Royal Senate makes no distinction. A warship the size of a mountain was sent to attack the capital. That is not a deed they are likely to dismiss.\"\n\n\"You know that Sartorius betrayed us all. The honorable response is to reject his manipulation. That's what brought me to Khyber's Brigade in the first place. I wanted to beat the right enemy.\"\n\nMontenegro said nothing. He observed as tinkers unbolted the wheels that controlled the mechanical horse's wings. They hefted more massive assemblies into place, then tested the controls. The new wheels chirred and tilted with a distinctly heavier sound.\n\n\"So that's your decision?\" muttered Enosh. \"You're going to join the Silver Serpents and try your hardest to kill me? Is that what you think is right? Is that what you think is honorable?\"\n\nThe knight remained silent. His instinct, of course, was to swiftly address any challenge to his honor. His tongue moved inside his mouth, ready to bark a stem response. But the truth of the matter was, he had no answer to Enosh's question. He had waited for his heart to instruct him but it was black and empty. He did not know where Honor lay. He was unsure if it lay anywhere at all.\n\nIn the days since his failure against Warlord Bahrok, the numbness inside him had never faded. Instead it had become a place that he dared not look, for if Honor had been satisfied with his defeat, then he had failed to uphold the legacy of his grandfather. He had lost the final vestige of New Britannia. He no longer had a home.\n\nHe renounced that conclusion and turned away from his heart. Instead he relied upon the trappings of Honor, like his oath to the Silver Serpents, to inform his decisions. He had vowed to rejoin his old company of knights and fight whatever Technocrats they met. The thought of crossing steel with brigadesmen put an ache into his chest, but his life, if he were to be honest, was a parade of such dark moments. He had always survived them before. Perhaps the Virtue of Humility demanded that he bear the pain.\n\nBut he had not yet announced his decision to Brigadier Khyber. The words had never quite formed on his tongue.\n\nFrom a workbench the tinkers moved in tandem to lift a massive, black component. It was long, flat and jointed. When they attached it to the mechanical horse its shape became obvious. The new control vane resembled an eagle's wing in giant scale. Its length was jagged with black, steel feathers. When they fastened the second wing in place Montenegro stepped between the workers and leapt atop the automaton. He nudged the reins. The new mechanisms reacted just as the old ones had. He worked the controls until the wings pointed nearly straight up, forming a barrier on either side of him. Then he tried a few, subde adjustments. He smiled. With practice the machine would be responsive enough to use the wings like shields, while leaving both his hands free. He could invent new schools of mounted combat if the footing proved nimble enough in battle.\n\n\"How tough are these feathers?\" he asked the Technocrats.\n\n\"Resilient as kinetic armor, I would estimate,\" replied one of them.\n\nMontenegro thumped a wing and grinned. Here, at least, was a companion whose allegiance was beyond question. Whatever cause he might honor, this machine would serve him faithfully. He patted the creature's armored neck and murmured, \"Steady on, Humbolt.\"\n\n\"I see you are well accustomed to our technology now.\"\n\nThe luxurious voice flooded his body with warmth. He looked toward the staircase to find two new arrivals in the workshop. Brigadier Khyber wore an unpleasant expression, as had been his custom for a week now. Beside him was a tall, slender figure in the grey robe of a Mathematician. No one had told Montenegro that Sister Raveka was in the city. Even in her austere raiment, she looked like paradise to him.\n\nHe grinned and sprang from the automaton. In the presence of the others she would maintain the demeanor of a Mathematician, but at that moment he was not interested in decorum. He strode before her and cried, \"My lady!\" Then he took her hand and kissed the knuckle. He noticed that she wore equations painted on her hands and face. Apparently she had been in Junction for a few hours, at least.\n\nFrostily she replied, \"My good sir knight.\"\n\n\"Come,\" he said, leading her away, \"I want to hear about your adventures.\"\n\nAbruptly Khyber snapped, \"Cavalier!\"\n\nMontenegro lifted an eyebrow.\n\n\"Have you made your decision?\"\n\n\"Soon.\"\n\nThe officer grimaced. \"Tonight. I mean that. I can't wait any longer.\"\n\nMontenegro nodded, then led Raveka to the back room that had been his home for several months. When they were alone he took her in his arms. The curves and volume of her lean body were exquisite to the touch, like the landscape of home. He pulled back her hood, cupped her neck and pressed her painted face to his own. Their lips ignited with passion.\n\nIn a lull Raveka giggled, \"I surmise that you have missed me.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"What happened to your hair?\"\n\n\"I traveled with the fleet in disguise. It was remarkably successful. Once I marched right in front of Lord Gideon and he didn't recognize me.\"\n\nHe touched a finger to her lips. \"I don't want to hear about Gideon. Not yet.\" Then he kissed her again and the war vanished for a while.\n\nThey lay together on his narrow cot and she recounted in broad detail the story of her journey to New Britannia and back. In turn he told her of his life as a Technocrat soldier. The feeling of release was cathartic. Though every inch of her was marked with mathematical symbols, he still regarded her as a New Britannian. For the first time in months he could talk at leisure to a fellow countryman. And of course her touch, her breath, her presence were magical in spite of everything else. The longer he remained in her company, the more of a thrill charged his body. He was amused by the reaction. \"By the Virtues, you are a delirium to me.\"\n\n\"Is that a compliment?\"\n\n\"It's a deliverance.\"\n\nShe laid her head on his chest. \"Then stay here with me, Gabriel.\"\n\nHe chuckled. \"You mean fight on the side of Blackthorn? Would that it were so simple.\"\n\n\"Why isn't it?\"\n\n\"For two reasons. One, I am a knight. I'm not about to war against New Britannian soldiers. Two, you have given me your vow that no matter where I go, you will follow me. So if I decide to ride with the Silver Serpents, you must ride with them as well.\"\n\n\"Do you think it is that simple?\"\n\nHe kissed the top of her head. \"Yes.\"\n\nShe nestled closer. \"Perhaps. I don't want to leave you and I certainly won't fight you. But you've forgotten the logic of your position, my love.\"\n\n\"What logic?\"\n\n'You are here to fight the Pact of Four. If you join the knights, you can't ride against General Nathaniel or Warlord Bahrok.\"\n\nHe stifled a sigh. \"I can fight them in other ways.\"\n\n'Your skill lies in battle. That's why you joined Khyber in the first place.\" She tucked her arm under his. She felt splendidly soft. \"And what's more important, if you leave here you'll never touch Lector Sartorius. Our only chance of reaching him is from within.\"\n\nHe nodded. His chest tightened a bit. \"Maybe so.\"\n\n\"I know where he is. I overheard it when I spied on their meeting. He's holding the Meer ambassador somewhere under the city.\"\n\nMontenegro looked at her sharply. \"Are you certain that's what they said?\"\n\n\"I informed His Excellency already. He is going to investigate it.\" She kissed his throat. \"Sartorius will surely have automatons to defend him. Maybe dreadnoughts. But we can kill him by other means.\"\n\n\"That has a sinister ring to it.\"\n\n\"We can use stealth. Shoot him from hiding and flee. Khyber will agree, it's the surest way to evade dreadnoughts.\"\n\nHe grunted, 'You're talking about assassination.\"\n\n\"We must fight however we can. I have to do it in my work. I'm almost good at it now. I'd never ask you to compromise the Virtues, but you have to accept the reality that we cannot meet every challenge face-to-face. What good have we accomplished if we lose?\" Then she raised her head and rested her palms on his chest. \"Oh, Gabriel, I'm sorry. I wasn't talking about your duel with Bahrok.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes. \"Yes, you were. I take your point, Raveka, believe me.\"\n\nShe crossed her hands to make a pillow. \"There's no shame in losing face-to-face, my love. I mean that. Somebody has to fall first. What's shameful is to lose the whole war because of it.\"\n\n\"'Victory is a necessary evil.' That was my motto once.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying you should forget the lessons you've learned. I simply mean you have to respect Khyber's way of operating, too.\"\n\n\"You're trying to convince me to become a Technocrat assassin.\"\n\nShe pinched his side. \"Gabriel! I'm trying to get you to look past the oath you gave to the Silver Serpents so many years ago. You're a different man now. Look around you and see what's important at this very moment. Listen to your heart, my love.\"\n\nIn feet he was listening. What he heard was Raveka's voice. She called out from that place he dared not look. It was childish romanticism, he knew, but she absolved him of defeat. The feel of her overwhelmed his doubt.\n\nAnd most interesting of all, she was talking sense.\n\nHe squeezed her firmly and kissed her brow. \"Raveka, I shall stay here with you. It's time to bring down the Pact of Four.\"\n\nHer long, brown eyes dosed. Even amid a swirl of mathematical symbols, her smile was a thing of glory.\n\nThe plume of smoke was visible from many miles away. It was a giant, tilting column in the center of an acrid desert. Its yellow-grey billows poured into the sky, feeding an expanse of ugly, stagnant douds that lingered overhead. When Thulann, Jatha and Fairfax rode their ridgebacks doser, they spotted below the smoke the distant dties of Junction and Logos. From far away they looked like thin charcoal smudges, one floating just above the other. The plume rose from them in relentless gouts.\n\nFairfax wiped the sweat and grime from his eyes. \"This place makes no sense. I see a city that must be burning, but I see no fire.\"\n\nThulann answered, \"It is the smoke from their factories. They are preparing to be attacked. No doubt they are producing an extra weapon or two.\"\n\n\"What a stink!\" spat Jatha from beneath his fadal windings. \"Behold the glory of Blackthorn. I'm shocked they ever convinced a Matriarch to come here.\"\n\nThe ranger muttered, \"And to think we left Ishpur for this garden of filth. This is why we avoid political causes, my friend. They always seem to lead to the most dismal pocks on the face of the world.\"\n\nIn the guise of Logosian travelers they rode toward the distant cities. Parades of refugees converged there as well, abandoning towns and villages for the shelter of the capital. Long streams of families and livestock plodded through the cruel desert. Thulann knew they feared the approach of Warlord Bahrok. As in Akar, she felt pity for these bedraggled souls. They were the losers in this war, victims of the pride of great men. Their weary faces cried out in silence.\n\nAlso marching toward the two cities were companies of Technocrat soldiers. She noticed a profusion of older men in the ranks, as well as boys hardly old enough to fight. This would be the last stand of Blackthorn's people. Every resource would be put into play. Lector Sartorius intended to fight to the last man, sacrificing these conscripted soldiers to force Blackthorn himself into the fray. Then the archmages of New Britannia would bring down the mad tyrant, leaving Sartorius to rule the nation.\n\nThulann had no love for Blackthorn, but Sartorius would be a scant improvement. And she did feel compassion for the people of Logosia. They had suffered enough.\n\nBut none of it mattered until Turlogan was laid to rest. Presently he was with her still, riding at her elbow.\n\nOn the outskirts of Junction, Thulann felt an eerie sense that she had seen this sight before. The city was a sprawl of factories, tangled with pipework and silos and flame vents, thrusting smokestacks obscenely into the air. Like tributaries flowing into a river did each chimney pour its fumes into the great pillar of smoke in the sky. And ornamenting the plume itself were dozens of airships. Thulann recalled the picture of Akar in flames, with the attacking airships hovering above it like lanterns in a tree.\n\nBut these craft had come to defend, not to destroy. In fact, they were presently aiding in construction. Around the perimeter of the city, a great, steel wall was being erected. Serving as floating cranes, many airships hoisted tall slabs of metal into position. Juggernauts muscled each slab to fit with its neighbor. Tech drones swarmed the wall, riveting the segments together. Directing the project was a force of Technocrat engineers. They employed steam whistles with tall pipes to bleat coded instructions to the workers and automatons. The operation looked quite efficient. Thulann expected the wall might be complete in as little as a few days.\n\nBut the city's passive defenses were not its most impressive sight. The barren fields around it were black with Technocrat legions. At first guess Thulann decided twenty thousand soldiers had mustered to defend the capital. Among them were platoons of fearsome juggernauts, divisions of ridgeback-mounted cavalry and of course the endless, baroque war machines that conjured such fear in their enemies. Even so many days before battle, great iron drums boomed the pulse of the mechanized army.\n\nHer stomach felt hollow. Montenegro had not exaggerated. The Technocrats were well prepared to protect themselves. She could already envision the acres of clansmen who must die to capture Junction. And a thousand feet above the city, like a smaller reflection, lurked the floating enclave of Logos itself. It connected to the earth by great chains that looked like wispy strands from a distance. Even when Junction fell, Logos would be a supreme challenge. She did not know how the Pact of Four was planning to undertake that assault. As a general her own scenarios had involved commandeering mass numbers of airships, though she had little confidence it would work. Blackthorn was effectively unreachable. Siege was the only real answer and in the middle of a desert, it was hardly a pleasant one.\n\nWhen they reached the city, the trio blended among the refugees crowding the streets. A band of soldiers confiscated their ridgebacks. They offered no resistance. In the haze of fumes they withdrew into an alley and spoke in sullen tones.\n\n\"We must find an air carriage,\" said Thulann, \"to take us up to Logos.\"\n\nFairfax muttered, \"But the Meer ambassador is somewhere under Junction. You said Montenegro was with Khy-ber down there, securing the defensive machines.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Montenegro may well be underneath us, but unless you know of an entrance, we must find a local guide. The man I choose is Lector Gaff. He controls the Order of Mathematicians from a tower in Logos. He will take us to Montenegro.\"\n\nJatha grimaced. \"Lector Gaff! We're just going to sashay into his office and charm him into helping us? At least our heads will look good when they're piked.\"\n\nThulann snorted, \"If you refrain from injudicious commentary, there should be no pikes involved. Lector Gaff knows who I am. He sent Montenegro to contact me. When I am in his power I see no reason why he will not allow me to speak with Montenegro.\"\n\n\"Brilliant,\" grumbled Fairfax. \"Your logic is breathtaking. What happens if Montenegro turns out to be your assassin? I doubt Gaff is going to hand you a sword and ask him to kneel.\"\n\nShe narrowed her one eye. \"If Montenegro is the assassin, I shall not need a sword to kill him. Bare hands will be more satisfying, would you not agree?\"\n\nThe ranger glanced at his companion. \"What did I tell you? Promiscuous with violence. Even the old ones.\"\n\nJatha ignored the comment, at the behest of the Way Master's frown.\n\nSparks crashed through the gloom as the tech drones tore loose a huge piece of ruined machinery. In the mechanical tunnels under Junction, a crew of the strange automatons was digging through the whorl of twisted metal that clogged the route to the lower levels. Brother Barghast was the foreman of the operation. The young soldier named Piper stood beside him with his steam whistle, tooting coded commands as the Mathematician instructed him. In the light of several buzzing spark lanterns, a gap in the blockage began to show through. Younger Technocrats of the Order of Engineers shooed aside the tech drones and climbed the wreckage for a closer look.\n\n\"We shall be through within hours,\" said Barghast to the three people in front of him. Montenegro nodded as he observed the workers. His grey eyes revealed impatience. His hand rested on the small of Raveka's back. The tall woman wore her Mathematician's raiment and, for the second day, the painted equations on her skin. Also with them was Brigadier Khyber, who shook his head and mumbled, \"Please, Brother. I don't want to go down there without any idea what to expect. You must be able to give us some advice where the Pact of Four might be holding the Meer ambassador.\"\n\nThe Juka shrugged. \"I fear not, sir. My knowledge of the lower levels is unfortunately quite small. I can tell you that I believe the entire tunnel system is shaped like an inverted cone. The lower you go, the less floor space you shall need to search.\"\n\n\"That's some consolation,\" said the brigadier.\n\nBarghast added, \"But my research has suggested the nature of some dangers you might face. Montenegro, you explained to me about a sword that Pikas of Enclave carried. One that streams electric energy into whatever it strikes. Such a weapon was once employed by those in the favor of the Overlords. It was known as arc weaponry. The construction was extremely limited and quite secretive. I believe it may have required the intervention of the Overlords themselves.\"\n\nThe knight squinted. \"Huh. So you think Pikas, or someone else in the Pact of Four, might have found it down there.\"\n\n\"It's very possible. No arc weapons have been recorded since the Cataclysm, but the upper tunnels of this particular complex were sealed off by Kumar's rebels before then. There is a high probability that the deeper we go, the more we shall find undisturbed Overlord technology.\"\n\nMontenegro sighed grimly.\n\n\"That's fascinating,\" grunted Khyber, \"but I'm more interested in the creature that did this.\" He pointed to the gigantic clog of machinery in the tunnel. \"If that thing is still down there, I want to know how to kill it.\"\n\n\"I believe it is an automaton that the Juka slaves once called a 'salamander.' If one still exists, it would possess the correct traits to fashion this wall of metal.\" The Juka raised a finger as he explained, \"Recall that the Overlords mined a great deal of their resources from lava under the earth. This defensive complex draws its power from one such magma stream. Now, in order to maintain the lava pumps and conduits, the Overlords built an automaton that thrives in such high temperatures. It had the ability to withstand immersion and it could transport reservoirs of magma when required. So, if one of these salamanders existed today, it might well contain enough heat to soften the metal like we see in this wreckage. And it was a heavy loader, so its strength would be comparable to a dreadnought.\"\n\nThe brigadier grimaced. \"That sounds plausible, if not terribly heartening. How do we kill it?\"\n\n\"I doubt you can. The organic portion would be heavily armored to protect it from the heat. If it contains reservoirs of molten ore, you certainly don't want to hack it open. I would suggest striking its appendages and attempting to render it immobile.\"\n\nSister Raveka interjected, \"But our best approach is not to face it at all. If the Pact of Four is aware of us, they can escape using Kavah's black crystals. If we find them by stealth, we can surprise whoever is there. Perhaps we can finish them before they even know they've been infiltrated.\"\n\nMontenegro grimaced but said nothing. Raveka had a point\u2014they could not afford to lose this battle\u2014but he would not condone dishonorable tactics. He squeezed her waist to register his displeasure. She pretended to ignore him.\n\nThen another soldier arrived and whispered into Khyber's ear. He exchanged murmurs with the man and then turned to Montenegro. \"His Excellency has summoned you to his receiving chamber. It's a very urgent matter.\"\n\nThe group exchanged glances. To Raveka the knight said, \"Take me there.\"\n\nFor less formal occasions Lector Gaff kept his audience chamber furtively lighted, to avoid informing his enemies when guests had arrived. The steam-laced room was webbed with shadows. A broad fan slowly pulled hot air from the metal enclosure. A thousand rivets shone as humidity polished their surfaces.\n\nThe figure standing before Montenegro looked uncomfortably gaunt. The old Juka was dressed in the unfettered clothes of a much younger Logosian woman. Her arms and legs were bare, wiry and very aged. He had never seen Thulann in quite such detail; but her face elicited his strongest reaction. Her dour expression was genuinely frightening. He had seen the spectrum of emotions from the Way Master, but she had always grounded herself with either tranquility or a controlled release of anger. But presently she glowered at him with the sheerest veil of composure. He watched her body tense as he drew near. Her single eye blazed with hatred. She was a heartbeat away from trying to kill him, even though she wore neither weapons nor armor.\n\nHe knew what fire burned inside her. Raveka had told him of the plot to murder Turlogan and to frame him for it. Judging by the Way Master's demeanor, the villainy had succeeded. His heart ached for the old woman.\n\nAnd he knew exactly what she had come here for. He stepped in front of her using the calmest of movements. He focused both eyes upon her, inhaled deeply and said, \"Thulann, it was Pikas of Enclave. It wasn't me.\"\n\nThe old warrior blinked. Her breath caught. Her white braids shivered where they were pinned up high.\n\nMontenegro glanced at Gaff, Raveka and the two brigadesmen in the chamber. \"Please, leave us.\" They did not go, but they turned away. Then he laid his arm across the Way Master's shoulders and pulled her into an embrace.\n\nThulann shed a tear on his cheek. In a few seconds she had regained control. She took a step back and thrust out her jaw. \"Does your offer still stand? I am ready to take direct action against our enemies.\"\n\nThe knight opened a grin that was both sympathetic and eager. \"As it happens, and for the first time I can recall, I am in a position to give you exactly what you want. Surely that bodes well for the endeavor.\"\n\nLector Gaff turned to face them again, folding his hands together. \"Your skills are welcome in these dire times, Way Master Thulann.\" Coldly he added, \"Do not abuse my hospitality.\"\n\nShe returned him a look as icy as his own. \"Montenegro and I share Honor between us. That is what you must rely upon, Lector, for I shall give you nothing more.\"\n\nAs they rode an air carriage down to Junction they were accompanied by Jatha and Fairfax, who had hidden outside the Mathematicians' tower. They greeted Montenegro with warm camaraderie and jibes about his Logosian attire. Raveka, on the other hand, faced a somewhat cooler reception. Thulann gave her polite acknowledgment and nothing else. Fairfax and Jatha were more vocal. The ranger glanced over her dramatic appearance. \" 'Sister Raveka' is your actual name, then? So you do kill people in Blackthorn's service. You see, Jatha, I was correct. And you thought she was an agent of the Pact of Four.\"\n\nThe wizard protested, \"I did not! That was your folly. I knew that someone so brutally calculating could only serve the Order of Mathematicians.\"\n\n\"If you please,\" said Montenegro with a frown. \"I'll ask you to keep a civil head on your shoulders, or you may end up with none there at all.\"\n\nRaveka touched his arm and said, \"It is no trouble, Gabriel. I can bear the weight of misunderstanding.\"\n\nJatha's ears flattened. \"Misunderstanding? You shot me in the throat!\"\n\n\"Only because you left me no alternative. I had to defend myself from your irrational accusations. But under the present circumstances I forgive you.\"\n\nThe Meer looked at his companion and grumbled, \"She shoots me and is gracious enough to forgive me for bleeding. So much for famous Technocrat logic.\"\n\n\"Logic is an excellent servant,\" said the ranger, \"for it is easily dismissed.\"\n\n\"Enough,\" growled Montenegro. As their carriage dropped through the pungent smoke of Junction, their thoughts turned to the task at hand. The ancient bowels of Logosia awaited them. The Pact of Four lurked in the darkness. Their own disagreements would pale before the dangers that they presently sought to awaken."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "The Tomb",
+                "text": "Brother Barghast guided the party through the entrance to the sealed-off tunnels, but the Jukan Mathematician did not join them. Thirty brigadesmen moved quietly downward and fanned out through the darkened complex. Their objective was to locate the Meer ambassador. They reasoned that she must be guarded and that rescuing her would draw out the Pact of Four. Joining the soldiers were Thulann, Montenegro, Sister Raveka, Jatha and Fairfax, who comprised a search unit among themselves.\n\nAs they crept through the steely gloom, Thulann scanned the tunnels with the aid of a miner's monocle. In shades of sepia she examined the endless bundles of pipes and gears and vents and gauges, all dormant and dusted with sand. Clearly this pit had been long abandoned. Yet the ghost of a sharper smell lingered, as if some great heat had recently cooked the rusty metal and desert silt. She saw few of the dry roots that had plagued the levels above. The Jukan engineer named Barghast had been correct. Something currendy dwelled in this forgotten place. She wondered what evils the intrusion might stir.\n\nWhen she was young, she had asked Shirron Narah about the Overlords. The old warrior had been a member of the Hand of Honor, leading the Jukan revolt against their slave-masters. Narah had seen the Overlords themselves. But she had been elusive about their nature. In her eyes Thulann had recognized a suppressed anxiety, as if she avoided the memory. When pressed she had offered the cryptic answer, \"The tombs of the Overlords are empty.\" The statement had given Thulann chills. Her first thought was that their ancient masters had not perished at all, that they had somehow escaped the shackles of the grave. But in time she had deduced Narah's true meaning. The Overlords were gone entirely, body and spirit. By some alchemy they had fled the world. It was fruitless to seek knowledge about them, for all that remained were ruins and memories. Like the Juka who now cremated their dead, everything else was ashes.\n\nYet the corpses of their machines remained, buried inside the rocky earth. Like bones were the metal beams that shored the walls of this rust-haunted cavern. The Way Master shuddered at an unwelcome thought, that she was an insect creeping through the cavities of a dead body. Nor did she imagine that she and her companions were the only vermin here. The Overlords had spawned animate things that still haunted Logosia. She expected them to defend their black lairs.\n\nClanging sounds echoed from distant parts of the caves. Then came the shouts of soldiers and the musical piping of Technocrat communication. Thulann gathered with the others. Montenegro held up his hands and whispered, \"We have to keep searching. Unless they've found the 'salamander' that Barghast mentioned, we'll let the brigadesmen handle it.\"\n\nScreams cut through the dusty air. They heard the faraway roar of great flames. The metallic clamor grew more frantic. Montenegro reached out to Fairfax. \"Dammit! Give me Starfell. I'm going to help. Jatha, come with me.\"\n\nThe ranger handed him the sword and scabbard. \"I think I prefer a bow anyway, if that thing is truly a walking oven.\"\n\nRaveka shook her head. \"Let Gabriel and Jatha go alone. The three of us need to continue searching.\"\n\n\"She's right,\" agreed the knight. \"They probably know we're here now, so we've got to make the most of our time.\" He unsheathed Starfell a few inches and smiled at the black blade. \"Well, old friend, we are together once more. Now we must avenge your lord and lady both.\"\n\nThe knight and the sorcerer vanished in the direction of the distant combat. Thulann regarded her two remaining companions and said, \"The enemy will be watchful now. Montenegro gave us the last of his invisibility draughts. We must not use them until it is necessary. Let us hide from the Pact of Four, not from each other.\"\n\nThey continued for what seemed to be a very long distance. Thulann soon lost herself in the labyrinth of corners and intersections, but Sister Raveka had assured them that she would remember how to return to the surface. Periodically they stopped and listened to the darkness. The battle raged farther away now. Then Thulann heard'the cadence of voices. The trio moved more quietly as they tracked the sound to a vertical shaft in the floor. A large pipeline filled most of the space. It was warm to the touch. The Way Master squeezed between the pipe and the wall and climbed down the shaft. Her companions followed above her.\n\nThey emerged through the ceiling of a large chamber, the open space of which was tangled with pipes and chains. Spark lamps strewed crackling light over a series of deep pits in the floor. Inside each hole nestled a round tank or silo, fashioned of riveted metal. The tops were level with the ground. The room appeared to be a central storage facility with tunnels and conduits leading off in all directions.\n\nIn the center of the room, surrounded by lanterns, were three figures engaged in an animated discussion. One of them stood tall in a black, hooded robe. From her perch on a pipe near the ceiling, Thulann recognized the garments of a high-ranking member of the Order of Theorists. This would be Lector Sartorius. The Way Master felt a thrill of anticipation. Their plan might just work. Lounging on a horizontal beam near the Technocrat was the petite Meer warrior, Shavade of Arjun. And leaning against a steel pillar was a brawny figure in kinetic armor, his familiar Jukan face uncovered. Pikas of Enclave had a coin in his hand. It twirled nimbly through his fingers.\n\nThulann's body shot with tingles. A heat rose inside her. She conjured a soothing mantra in her mind, then swallowed her potion of invisibility. She searched for a route to the ground, thirty feet below. The others followed her, likewise invisible.\n\nShavade was in the process of advising Sartorius, \"We lave to leave here right now! If Khyber's men find us there may not be time to get out.\"\n\n\"I am aware of that, Shavade, but the salamander will not abey your commands. I must remain to instruct it to guard he ambassador. Then we shall see about removing her to a more secure location.\"\n\nPikas murmured, \"Or we could just kill her.\"\n\nShavade laughed. \"She's pacifistic, not suicidal. She would defend herself against murder. I'd like to see you try it.\"\n\n\"She is Chamberlain Kavah's hostage,\" said Sartorius, \"and I shall not kill her without his consent.\"\n\n\"Then there's only one way to solve this,\" said Pikas. \"You've got to attack Khyber from the surface to draw his men away from us here. There's no guarantee your automaton will stop them all, especially with Montenegro out there.\"\n\n\"I intend to do so, but I do not want to leave the ambassador unguarded.\"\n\n\"Leave her to us,\" said the Meer. \"We'll lead Khyber's men off if they make it this far.\"\n\nPikas smirked. \"I told you we needed to bring a full contingent of Janissars down here to guard the old witch.\" Sartorius answered without emotion, \"If we had, Khyber would have penetrated this place weeks ago. The more men one deploys, the less secure their mission becomes. Secrecy alone has brought us this far. Though I shall be interested to learn where Lector Gaff gets his intelligence. He has discovered us far too quickly.\" The Technocrat closed his tattooed eyelids for a moment. \"Very well, I shall go to the surface and command the Janissars to attack from above. Then I shall return. Prepare the ambassador to move, in case it comes to that.\"\n\nShavade rolled off the beam and crouched beside the nearest pit. Thulann had the impression she was looking inside for something. The Way Master surmised that the ambassador must be locked in that particular silo. Then Lector Sartorius reached into the folds of his raiment and pulled out a black crystal. The old Juka thought quickly. He was about to escape. She wore her armor and weapons but had brought no throwing knives to stop him from escaping. In another instant Sartorius would be gone.\n\nThen a jangling sound chimed near the lector. A slender chain careened through the air and swatted the black crystal from Sartorius's hand. A figure appeared before the elder Technocrat. It was Sister Raveka in her own hood and robe, with a chain whip attached to her forearm. She had used the weapon to foil his departure. The sudden action had disrupted her invisibility.\n\nPikas grinned broadly as he stepped forward. \"Well, it's the slippery little sister! I haven't seen you since Buccaneer's Den, though I understand you've kept your hands full.\"\n\nShavade plucked out the crystal fighting staff that was strapped to her back. \"Pikas, introduce me to your friend.\"\n\nRaveka raised her off hand, in which she held a loaded bolt thrower. \"There's no need for formality. This shall only take a moment.\"\n\n\"Kill her,\" growled Lector Sartorius.\n\nPikas and Shavade sprang into action and Thulann followed immediately. As the Way Master traversed a dozen or so yards she saw Raveka fire her weapon at Pikas, who was the most dangerous target. The assassin feinted. He ducked underneath the whizzing bolt. Sartorius backed away while Shavade thrust her staff at a low angle to trip the Mathematician.\n\nThen three thumps shot through the chamber. Shavade screeched and leapt backward. Lector Sartorius clutched his chest while Pikas crouched and scanned the room. Thulann saw an arrow protruding from each one's ribs. Over her shoulder, Fairfax squatted on a large pipeline and whisked another arrow into his bow. \"Anyone for seconds?\"\n\nThe Way Master stamped her foot to break her own invisibility. She drew her sword as she materialized into view, mere yards from the assassin. \"Leave Pikas to me,\" she hissed.\n\nThe man once called the Viper of Levanto plucked the arrow from his breastplate and faced her. Thulann saw Montenegro's pendant hanging around his neck. He unsheathed his sword and smirked, \"You're going to strike me down? And I thought you said you were beginning to respect me.\" His blade snapped with electric power in an arc that connected the scabbard and the swordtip. The air vibrated with its power.\n\n\"You are irredeemable, assassin,\" she muttered, \"and I am going to kill you now.\"\n\nSister Raveka watched Shavade leap across pipes and beams to reach Fairfax, who slowed her down with a barrage of arrows. Lector Sartorius, then, remained alone with the Mathematician. The older Technocrat wheezed as he held onto the arrow stuck in his chest. Blood drooled on his chin. She coiled her chain whip at her feet, then popped out the retractable talons along its length. In a low voice she said, \"Betray the Techno-Prophet and earn the consequences, Your Excellency.\"\n\n\"Silence,\" said the lector, then dropped a small sphere on the ground. It emitted a series of violent clicks and then exploded, tossing Raveka onto her back. A cloud of black smoke gushed around her. She heard the lector's footsteps as he fled. With a grunt she rose and pursued him, winding the chain whip on a reel on her forearm.\n\nThen from the thick smoke emerged the blare of a horn. Raveka listened as she chased Sartorius. From somewhere deep in the tunnels came an answer, harsh and metallic; but she dared not stop to consider what it was.\n\nThe salamander vomited a spray of molten rock at Montenegro, but the enchantment on his shield held fast. He deflected the lava and smashed Starfell against the automaton's pneumatic leg. The steel mechanism screamed and spat. But another burst of lava drove the knight backward from the sheer heat. He knelt for a moment to catch his breath.\n\nA good twenty brigadesmen were fighting the mechanical creature and so far the battle seemed even. The thing itself was terrible to behold. Montenegro had expected something shaped like a lizard, but the salamander more resembled an enormous metal insea. It walked on many segmented legs. Its long thorax was a white-hot tank of magma. Through a nozzle it spewed gouts of the liquefied rock that scorched every soldier it hit. Their only wizard, Jatha, kept busy healing the injured brigadesmen. Montenegro and the others occupied the monster by rushing in, striking its spindly limbs and then fleeing before it could spray them. Already two of its half-dozen legs twitched with wounded malfunction.\n\nThe knight prepared to move in again. Unless the salamander changed its tactics he was confident they could finish it, though the time required might prove exhausting. He only hoped that Thulann and the others had managed to find the ambassador or the Pact of Four. Otherwise this would be wasted effort.\n\nHe sidestepped a pool of smoking magma as he charged forward. The salamander had turned the other way and so he landed three solid blows on one of its rear legs. It whirled around quickly to attack him. The violent action wrenched the damaged leg and caused the creature to stumble. Montenegro dove aside as the automaton clanged on the ground. Its searing-hot magma tank melted the floor panel where it fell. But just as quickly the creature was on its feet again and Montenegro ducked behind his shield.\n\nFrom elsewhere in the tunnels came the blare of a horn. Without pausing, the salamander lunged past its attackers to follow the sound. It barked a harsh, metallic noise in response. Its glow receded down the corridor. Then a bolt of lightning streamed toward the creature. Jatha blasted it in the thorax, which smoked and groaned but did not rupture. Montenegro led Khyber's brigadesmen in swift pursuit. The salamander turned a corner far ahead and vanished.\n\nMontenegro cursed the creature's speed, which was astonishing even with its damaged legs. Wherever it was going it would arrive long before they did. He hoped it would not make the difference in the mission.\n\nEvery time Thulann's sword clashed with Pikas', a blinding electric stream linked the two blades. His arc weapon lashed at hers even from several feet off. The Way Master felt the metal of her blade weakening. The battle was furious, a clash of two master swordsmen throwing strikes and parries as fast as the eye could follow. Yet the inevitable shift in momentum came when Thulann's sword cracked. Her next parry shattered the expensive steel. She somersaulted backward and whisked out two short swords.\n\nPikas laughed raucously. \"You're slowing down, old hag! I always thought you'd be more threatening in a stand-up fight. Well, keep pulling out those weapons. I'll get through them all eventually.\"\n\nShe disregarded his taunts. She was in no mood for games. Though anger interfered with her concentration, she flung herself at him with rage in her throat. Turlogan fought beside her, of course, her tall, phantom ally.\n\nHer twin swords flurried around the assassin, clanging wildly against his arc weapon, trading the electric stream back and forth between them. She thrust snap kicks into his gut and drove him back. Once, then twice, she hacked his sword arm. A drizzle of blood sprang from beneath his armor. In turn Pikas bellowed his own fury and renewed his attacks. One of her short swords chipped apart in seconds. He smashed his blade against her shoulder and the arc stung her fiercely. She struck his sword to bring the arc back to her weapon and away from her flesh. But the action doomed the second blade. It burst into smoking shards. Unarmed she tumbled backward again and assumed a guarded stance.\n\nBoth combatants fought for breath. Her shoulder heated with pooling blood. Pikas clutched his arm where she had chopped it open. Panting, Thulann gazed at the pendant that dangled around his neck, the crest of Montenegro that he had worn when he murdered Turlogan. She saw the golden heart clutched by a dragon's claw. A spike of anger rose inside her.\n\nOn the other side of the room Fairfax was running away from Shavade the Huntress. The ranger's arrows were nearly spent and the Meer had not slowed down. Thulann feared his chances were dim.\n\nShe held no more weapons and Pikas was closing in. He hurled more insults but she did not hear them. To Turlogan she silently called I shall die for you and then straightened to a posture for unarmed combat. She knew she had little chance of beating the assassin when he wielded the arc sword, but the calm of a Way Master overtook her once more. All that remained now was to fight well until the end.\n\nThen she saw the Montenegro crest again. She realized what she must do.\n\nWhen he flung out his blade she caught it in her gloved hand. Instantly the electric charge seared her flesh, but she clung fast to the steel and threw a high kick. Pikas blocked it with his arm. She kicked again and struck his chin. He staggered backward. The sword pulled from her grip but she advanced with her hand upraised, keeping the arc attached to her palm. Her arm was nearly numb as she fell upon him with a hurricane of kicks and punches. He struck out with his sword but always she kept that one hand in its path. When her glove caught fire she ignored the pain and landed three fast kicks to his neck. He toppled over and rolled again to his feet. She dropped and struck his knee. Something in his leg broke. He howled and swung down the arc sword and its edge hacked through her glove and through her flesh and severed most of the fingers; and still she kept her hand close to the weapon, drawing off its terrible electric sting. Pikas stumbled on his injured leg. She leapt into the air and spun, connecting her boot with the side of his head and slamming him to the ground. Then she scissored her legs around his throat and began to squeeze. He crashed the arc sword against her chest. She swatted it aside with her ruined hand. Her old body was in agony but she felt him grow weaker. She had lost her hand but Pikas was falling.\n\nShe had used Montenegro's style of combat, in which the Virtue of Sacrifice lent the decisive advantage. Turlogan would be amused at the nature of her vengeance.\n\nThen Fairfax shouted, \"Thulann, look out!\" When she glanced up, a seething monster loomed above her. The giant mechanical insect thrust out a nozzle from what might be a face and unleashed a spray of white-hot, molten rock in her direction. She yelped and tumbled aside. The lava thudded behind her, catching Pikas in its searing ooze. Barely sensate, the assassin shrieked and clambered for safety. Thulann used her maimed hand as best she could to scale a cluster of pipes, until she stood well above the automaton. It was Barghast's salamander, of course. Lector Sartorius must have summoned it with the horn that he had blared. The creature seemed to be looking for him as it lurched around on broken legs, but the Technocrat had fled moments earlier. Sister Raveka had chased him. Thulann did not know if the Mathematician could find Sartorius, or what would happen if she did; but just then the Way Master was more concerned with the matter at hand. The salamander looked up and swiveled its smoking nozzle at her. Thulann prepared for further acrobatics, though she did not know how much more she had in her.\n\nShadows flailed around Raveka as she rushed down the machine-encrusted tunnel. The blast from Sartorius's smoke bomb had shattered her miner's monocle. She had grabbed a spark lantern and charged after him, though he now had the advantage. He could see the glow of her lantern, but she could not see him. His footsteps clattered ahead of her, though, easy enough to follow. His lead was dwindling. If he kept fleeing, she would catch him. If he stopped and concealed himself, however, he might well escape.\n\nThe corridor was lined with pipes and canisters that emitted liquid sounds. These particular machines were apparently functional; but she could spare no attention for them. She was gaining on Sartorius. When she followed him around a corner she faced a dead end. Blackthorn's Chosen was trapped between her and the far wall. When the Theorist realized his situation, he rose to his full, proud height and turned to face her.\n\nThe sight of his hooked nose and dour frown startled Raveka. She shivered reflexively. Lector Sartorius had held the position of the Chosen for as long as she could remember. She had grown up in awe of his somber presence. Now she faced an icon and a moment of hesitation took hold. Then the voice of Blackthorn himself rose from her memory, chanting litanies to soothe and focus her. She shaped her expression into the icy scowl of a Mathematician.\n\nSartorius's eyes were lit by the low angle of the lantern. They were cold as iron. His monocle gleamed. \"There is no point to this. Gaff has lost.\"\n\n\"He has not,\" said Raveka with an even tone. \"He controls the ancient defenses above us. He will sweep away your troops if they do not follow him.\"\n\n\"That is absurd. Gaff's machines rely on the magma pumps in these lower levels. I have disabled them.\"\n\nShe almost flinched. \"Then we shall repair them.\"\n\n\"You cannot. Only I know how.\"\n\n\"You're bluffing. Lector Braun sides with us. You cannot know more than he.\"\n\n\"Can't I? Sister Raveka, I know more than Gaff or Braun can conceive. As the Chosen I have seen wonders that amaze Blackthorn himself.\"\n\nShe watched his hands carefully. She saw his fingers moving when he thought she could not. \"That is irrelevant,\" she uttered as she released the catch on her chain whip. The links of her weapon streamed onto the ground in a neat spiral.\n\nSartorius flinched, then composed himself. \"Sister, I need you to tell me something. As a Mathematician you know the importance of discipline and logic. How then can a man like Blackthorn be our Techno-Prophet? You have met him. You know he is insane. He has neither discipline nor logic. Do you believe he is an adequate leader for Logosia? A suitable figurehead of the very Machine itself?\"\n\nRaveka blinked slowly. \"That is irrelevant.\"\n\n\"Logos needs sane Technocrats in charge of the Orders. We cannot continue to languish under the rule of a madman. Blackthorn is a victim of Chaos, a slave of the flesh, driven mad by his organic parts. Logos requires Order, Sister. Logos is Order.\"\n\nIn her mind she yelled at him Logos is the Machine, you old fool! The Machine is not Order, it is the synthesis of flesh and metal, of Order and Chaos! Blackthorn's humanity makes him mad hut it also gives him compassion, something of which you know nothing! She wanted to cry out all of these thoughts, but her training dictated a frozen countenance. She gave nothing of herself to him. Her fingers curled around the control handle of her chain whip. \"That is irrelevant,\" she said.\n\nHe scowled, \"Sister! I am your prisoner. Stay your weapon. Yours is not the authority to judge me. Only Blackthorn himself can do so.\"\n\nShe exhaled a long, measured breath. \"He already has, Your Excellency. He told Lector Gaff about this place. It is as good as an execution order.\"\n\nThe Theorist looked taken aback, though the effect was subtle. \"I see. Then that is where Gaff has received his intelligence. I am surprised, though I am not defeated.\" Abruptly his hand shot outward. As Raveka lashed her whip at him she noticed the bolt thrower in his grip. She heard its clack and time stood still. The missile was no doubt poisoned. She saw the whip coil around his neck as she waited for the bolt to strike.\n\nThe spark lantern crashed. The tunnel went dark. He had shot out the light in hopes of escape. But she felt a tug on the whip and she knew she had him caught. With a twist of the handle she snapped out the whip's talons. In the blackness Sartorius gurgled and choked. She heard him fall to the ground. The chain tugged and thrashed, but with decreasing strength. In less than a minute it did not move at all.\n\nShe followed the chain to his body. Then she knelt atop his chest, pressing out what little life might remain. She stayed there for a while to convince herself that she had succeeded. Her concentration faltered with the magnitude of the deed. Her hands began to shake. To still herself she conjured Blackthorn's voice once more, which carried away her fears in a deep, glorious drone of sound. She opened her lips and chanted with the Techno-Prophet and the world became at peace.\n\nThulann soared through the air as she leapt away from another spout of magma. She landed inches ahead of the white-hot stream. Smoke curled from her back. The salamander was chasing her around the large room like a fixed artillery piece. Its aim was maddeningly precise. She did not have time to pause for a breath. Judging from the size of its thorax the creature might continue the barrage for a long time yet. Retreat was her only viable option. She glanced about for an exit when she spotted Fairfax's predicament. The ranger's bow was broken on the ground. Shavade the Huntress attacked him with her staff. He was trying to escape but Thulann saw the futility of it. Fairfax would be unconscious in seconds, if not dead. Quickly she plotted a course to retrieve him.\n\nThen a voice shouted, \"Shavade! Get the ambassador! We're leaving!\" Thulann looked to the center of the room. Pikas had recovered himself enough to stand. He was struggling to lift his arc sword. In his off hand was a rod made of black crystal, of the sort that might ensure his escape.\n\nThulann cursed and thought of rushing him, but the salamander kept her at bay. The assassin remained behind the huge automaton. She took it as evidence of the gravity of his injuries.\n\nShavade left Fairfax, who was struggling to his feet. She somersaulted to Pikas' side and knelt on the silo that contained Ambassador Adhayah. She spun a large wheel valve and opened a trapdoor in the top of the silo. At that moment Pikas raised his arc sword overhead. With a sinister grin he said to Shavade, \"This is for letting Bahrok get away with that blind strike!\" He crashed the sword into a weak spot on the salamander's thorax. Shavade let out a scream as molten lava broke loose from the metal tank and cascaded toward her.\n\nA blur streaked behind Pikas. Glowing lava flooded the pit and curtains of smoke and steam rose into the air. But Shavade lay safely beside the deadly flow. Fairfax the ranger had snatched her from the fiery doom. He leaned shakily on his side and looked at the startled Meer. \"The crazy deeds we do for love, eh?\"\n\nShavade smiled back at him. \"You're sweet,\" she murmured, then snatched a crystal dagger from her belt and rammed it under his jaw. The flaxen-haired ranger popped his eyes open wide and clawed at his throat. Thulann howled and rushed toward them. Then thunder cracked the air as a streak of lightning pounded Shavade in the chest. She tossed away from Fairfax and landed in a smoking pile. When she started to rise a second blast sprawled her onto the ground.\n\nJatha of Ishpur stood in the entrance of a side tunnel. With a cry he ran toward Fairfax, followed by Montenegro and a crowd of brigadesmen.\n\nThe salamander protested its injury with a metallic squeal. It whirled to attack Pikas, who vanished in a cascade of sparkles. The creature's molten contents had drained into the pit and so when it turned upon Thulann again, its nozzle spat only steam. Without magma it was no fiercer than a juggernaut. The Way Master retrieved Shavade's crystal war staff and faced the creature with Montenegro and the brigadesmen at her side. They fell upon the monster, ducking around its massive legs as they bashed its exposed mechanics. One by one they disabled its limbs. The mechanical beast attempted to stagger away, but collapsed a dozen yards from the tunnel entrance it sought. It was not dead but neither was it a further threat.\n\nThulann indulged in a moment to collect her strength. Her ruined hand seared with pain. She swallowed a healing potion. Of course it did not restore her missing fingers, but the pain did fade to a dull throb. Then she lifted Shavade's crystal staff and ran in the direction that Raveka had chased Sartorius.\n\nMontenegro called after her, \"Where's the ambassador?\"\n\nGrimly the Way Master pointed to the seething pit of lava that had drained from the salamander. Montenegro paled. When Thulann hurried past Jatha, she saw that his healing spells had not wakened the bloody Fairfax. The wizard sat cradling his lifeless friend, silent sobs shaking his body.\n\nIn the darkness Raveka fumbled about for Sartorius's monocle. When she nestled it into her eye socket, the tunnel became visible in crude sepia. She hoisted the lector's body onto her shoulder and struggled to her feet, hoping that the battle outside had gone as well as her own.\n\nWhen she looked up, an eye stared back at her from inches away. She flinched backward. When she looked again, she realized what she was seeing. A long, glass tube was bolted among the mechanisms on the wall. Inside was a transparent liquid in which floated a single eyeball. She furrowed her brow and examined the strange machine of which it was a part. More clear tubes and canisters lined the walls, bubbling with thick fluids. Some of the conduits were shielded with vents. Others seemed open in places, oozing wispy fumes. As she broadened her view she got a sense of many small, fidgeting movements. Shapeless objects\u2014 perhaps scraps of fabric or globs of denser liquids\u2014traveled through the series of tubes, carried by bubbles or some internal flow. The sight of the machine chilled her. She shifted the weight of Sartorius on her shoulder and started to walk away from it.\n\nThe clear tube continued down the tunnel, beside her path. The eyeball Was floating along its length, peering at her as she walked. When she stopped, the eye stopped as well, rolling gently but always staring.\n\nA shudder coursed through her. She began to walk faster when she noticed more eyes inside other tubes and canisters, gazing blankly when she passed. The entire tunnel seemed filled with animation as if the machinery was awakening to her presence. Metal shutters snapped open and amorphous blobs swam inside. They were scraps not of fabric but of organic tissue, somehow animated in their alchemical bath. A strange buzz arose in her ears, like the ratde of vibrating glass. It came in crisp, distinct pulses like the cadence of speech. Vents exhaled sweet fumes across her face. Tiny gears whirred and chattered. The collection of these mechanical events blanketed the walls like a chattering swarm.\n\nRaveka broke into a run, her skin crawling with unfettered revulsion. Then something sprang in front of her. It looked like a humanoid skull, or most of one, with steel, spidery legs protruding under the cranium. The weighdess thing fanned its sharp legs and latched onto her chest. She screamed and knocked it off, then sprinted as fast as she could manage with her burden. She did not know how far she had come down this tunnel, but she knew she had to leave as soon as possible. This place was a living nightmare. She did not want to conjecture why Sartorius had come this way.\n\nWhen Thulann heard Raveka's scream, she charged down the corridor. The Technocrat ran into view carrying the limp form of Sartorius. Thulann saw that the girl was frightened but healthy. She allowed Raveka to pass and assumed a combat stance. \"Are you being followed?\"\n\nThe Technocrat answered, \"No.\"\n\nOnly then did the Way Master notice the animated walls. She took in the grotesque sight and backed away with rising disgust. When she realized what she was seeing, her gut wrenched. This was a catacomb of the Overlords, the answer to Shirron Narah's riddle, \"The tombs of the Overlords are empty.\" The Jukas' ancient masters had no bodies to entomb. Rather their flesh was strewn throughout their machines so that all semblance of rational life had vanished. They had become the machines in which they dwelled. The Overlords were the tomb. This was the master the Juka had served, the tyrant they had rejected.\n\nThulann hurried out of that terrible corridor. She vowed never to speak of what she had seen.\n\nWhen she reached the large chamber again, she witnessed a dazzling scene. From the glowing pit of lava emerged a sphere of white light. Within it stood a very old Meer in the gem-studded gown of a Matriarch. Ambassador Adhayah rose unscathed from the burning fluid. On slippered feet she alit beside Jatha. The Meer wizard pleaded to her with glistening eyes. The Matriarch reached down and touched the fallen Fairfax on the brow. A silent flash erased the room for an instant. When it was over, the ranger stirred.\n\nThe ambassador met eyes with Thulann. The aged Meer's gaze was somber and alert. The Way Master nodded in acknowledgment. Then the Matriarch raised her arm and a streak of light fell upon Thulann. The old Juka startled. Then she lifted her maimed hand to discover that the fingers were restored.\n\nFrom where he knelt, Jatha murmured, \"Thank you, Venerable Grandmother.\"\n\n\"Take me back to my chambers,\" said the old wizardess. \"I must dream to my sisters.\"\n\nWhen they emerged from the tunnels into the murky Junction air, the horns and whisdes of the airships bellowed a grim song. Thulann had fought the Technocrats enough to understand snippets of their army's musical language. The airships were announcing the arrival of the enemy. One of the Juka dans was gathering outside the tity's steel walls. Within days the others would join them, twenty-five thousand strong or more, as well as the teeming forces from New Britannia. The war was not over yet, though she prayed to the Great Mother that by felling Sartorius they had struck the killing blow."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "My troublesome Lector Gaff, I promised I would kill you the next time I saw you. Kneel, please.\"\n\n\"Your Eminence, I have important news. Your Chosen, Lector Sartorius, is slain.\"\n\n\"I said kneel!\"\n\n\"Please, Your Eminence. The city is in crisis. The enemy troops are arriving by the thousands and we have no Chosen to lead us.\"\n\n\"Bow your head. That's good. So you caught up to Sartorius, did you? I thought you might.\"\n\n\"I humbly owe it to Your Eminence's counsel.\"\n\n\"Yes, you do. And I suppose you want to be my new Chosen. Is that what you want, Gaff?\"\n\n\"I shall serve you in whatever office you desire.\"\n\n\"I'm not in a humor for cats and mice. Tell me, what will you do if I make you my Chosen?\"\n\n\"I shall surrender to the enemy, Your Eminence.\" \"Interesting. You would hand over Logosia to wizards and barbarians?\"\n\n\"No. I shall allow them to enter Junction as they please and negotiate some compensation for their trouble. This is preferable to a devastating battle. It is better that we lose resources than lose lives. In any case we shall retain sovereignty and Logos shall not be touched.\"\n\n\"Sartorius would have called you weak.\"\n\n\"Sartorius wanted to kill you. His mind was not rational.\" \"Surrender is dangerous. What if the enemy decides to attack us once we have invited them inside our defenses?\"\n\n\"Then we shall have a battle unlike anything since the Cataclysm.\"\n\n\"I should almost like to see that.\"\n\n\"As you say, Your Eminence. There is one other matter.\" \"The nexus point within my tower.\"\n\n'Why, yes, Your Eminence. You are aware that Chamber-lain Kavah wishes to reach it?\"\n\n\"It's a delightful bauble. I see things in it sometimes, when I look.\"\n\n\"What things?\"\n\n'Wisps. I've always been intrigued by them, since I was a boy. Did you know the wisps had their own Cataclysm, just like ours? A lot of them are trapped in the Ether. But they have heroes, too, just as we do.\"\n\n\"As you say, Your Eminence. I humbly request that you make certain the nexus point is secure. I am led to believe there is great danger if Kavah reaches it.\"\n\n\"He shall have to get past me, Gaff. Do you think he can?\" \"No.\"\n\n\"And what shall I do with you, my troublesome Gaff? Do I kill you or make you my Chosen? Or perhaps both?\"\n\n\"I should be honored to become your Chosen, Techno-Prophet.\"\n\n\"Of course you would. Very well, Lector Gaff. Tell the others that you are Blackthorn's Chosen. I am interested to see what you will do with the remains of Sartorius's war. And Gaff?\"\n\n\"Yes, Your Eminence?\"\n\n\"I shall kill you someday, like I killed Sartorius.\"\n\n\"It shall be my greatest honor, Your Eminence.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Maelstrom",
+                "text": "And a day came when Sir Lazaro found his young wife sobbing. He asked her the matter and in return she asked of him, \"Will you always serve the King?\" and he answered, \"I would die for the King. \" And then she asked, \"Will you always serve the Virtues?\" and he answered, \"I would die for the Virtues. \" \"Will you always serve me?\" \"I would die for you. \" \"Will you someday serve our children?\" \"I shall die for our children.\"\n\n\"Very well, \" said she, \"then I shall tell you my secret. I am under a curse. Though my form is mortal my spirit is immortal. 1 shall never die, but neither shall I bear you children.\"\n\nAnd Sir Lazaro said, \"Then I shall search the world for an answer to this curse, for though I do not wish to see you die, to live without children at your breast would be the greater evil.\"\n\nAnd thus did Sir Lazaro undertake the most terrible quest of his life, which the Virtue of Honesty laid before him.\n\nIn the haze of a crowded Junction street, Montenegro sat astride his mechanical horse. He wore the black kinetic armor that had served him well in Khyber's Brigade. A static-charged shield rested at his side. Its surface was painted with his family's coat of arms. Under his elbow was tucked a new helmet that Brother Barghast had forged, with his knight's crest adorning the top. The longsword Starfell hung from his belt.\n\nSister Raveka stood beside him in her Mathematician's paint and robe. The cowl of her raiment concealed her face from onlookers. For this reason she gifted him with a warm smile. \"Good luck. I wish I could come with you.\"\n\n\"Why don't you? Climb up here.\"\n\n\"I dare not. Someone might recognize me. Don't worry, everything should go smoothly. His Excellency has made the necessary calculations.\"\n\nThe knight stared deeply into her feather-shaped eyes. \"There's only one calculation you need to make, my darling: How to say good-bye to Logos. No matter what happens today, we'll be going home to Cove soon.\"\n\nShe blinked and almost reached for his hand, but refrained for the sake of propriety. \"Please, Gabriel. Not now.\"\n\n\"Soon.\" He nudged a control stud on his equestrian machine. The ebony creature walked forward, leaving the Mathematician behind. He donned his black, crested helmet. From a soldier he accepted the long, black shaft of a knight's lance, which Barghast had also constructed at his request. He held the weapon upright. Then he quickened his horse's pace and trotted toward the city gates. Behind him, riding unadorned ridgebacks, followed a contingent of hooded Technocrats from all three Orders. The streets were jammed with citizens and refugees who watched with fear as the mounted delegation set forth.\n\nMontenegro eyed the city's defenses as he rode past each layer. The original boundary was defined by many large factory complexes. While the facilities continued to operate during the crisis, they were thick with Technocrat platoons. Ballistas and lightning cannons had been fixed to the outer walls.\n\nBeyond the factories stretched a zone of open desert that ended at the huge steel wall encircling the city. More divisions of Technocrat warriors and elite Janissars waited here, as well as a vast formation of juggernauts and dreadnoughts. Here also was the larger artillery consisting of pneumatic trebuchets, flame hurlers and spring-operated catapults.\n\nThen Montenegro trotted through the massive, sliding gate of the wall itself. No battering ram would ever bring it down. At that moment he knew the Juka Clans could not hope to take the city without the aid of New Britannian sorcerers.\n\nOutside the walls lay the bulk of the Technocrat forces, both cavalry and infantry. And in the smoky sky above, between the earth and hulking Logos, hovered dozens of ominous airships with furnaces aflame in their bellies. Such was the state of the Logosian military as Montenegro rode among them that morning, looking like one of them himself.\n\nWhen he was past the troops he activated his mount's steel wings, which spread out dramatically to either side. He swept them up and aftward, forming barriers to protect his flanks as he continued trotting on. He heard the hushed reaction of the invaders as he did so.\n\nFilling the view ahead of him were the collected forces of Garron and New Britannia. Countless thousands of Jukan warriors arrayed under their fluttering banners. He recognized Clan Varang as the leadmost army. Kumar, Savan and many others followed. Siege towers and huge, wooden artillery machines rose above the ranks.\n\nThe New Britannians stood beside their Jukan allies, in formations that were very different but no less impressive. Most striking of all were the Knights of the Silver Serpent on steel-clad horseback, their plate mail agleam even in the dingy light of Junction. A thousand of the armored riders watched from atop their restless warhorses.\n\nMontenegro saw many of his erstwhile companions pointing out the crest that he wore. When he was nearer to them he removed his helmet, to eliminate any doubt of who he was. A shocked murmur rippled throughout the New Britannian formations.\n\nAhead of him was a lane that divided the two, great armies. In the center stood a wheeled platform that contained the highest officers of both forces. Montenegro made out Bahrok and General Nathaniel as well as Lord Gideon, Warlord Venduss and several others.\n\nHis face hardened. As he led the Technocrat contingent forward, he lowered his lance until it was horizontal. Stuck to the end of it was a severed human head, covered with mathematical tattoos. Lector Sartorius gaped at the invaders when Montenegro arrived to greet them. The knight gazed directly into the eyes of Bahrok and Nathaniel. The two men subdued their alarm, though Montenegro relished it.\n\n\"The villain Sartorius is dead,\" he announced. \"Lector Gaff of the Mathematicians is now Blackthorn's Chosen, speaking with the voice of the Techno-Prophet. On his behalf and for the glory of New Britannia, I bring you an offer of surrender.\"\n\nBahrok crossed his arms and snapped, \"What need do we have for surrender? We shall take what we want with or without Blackthorn's complicity.\"\n\n\"Look behind me. You see the army you face. There is no need to sacrifice so many lives, theirs and yours, when Logos has already conceded the war. I have brought these worthy Technocrats to negotiate the details of surrender. Take the offer, General. Warlord. It is the honorable end to this conflict.\" Bahrok growled, \"Address me as Shirron, you cur!\"\n\nNear to him on the platform Venduss grumbled, \"He has it correct, Warlord. There is no Shirron without the Great Tournament.\"\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Lord Gideon, \"Honor demands that we listen to their offer. Let us accept these negotiators and consider their terms. General Nathaniel?\"\n\nThe plate-armored general grimaced at Sartorius's severed head. With a gruff sigh he answered, \"Lord Gideon speaks true. We must hear their offer. With Sartorius dead, the nature of the war changes.\"\n\nWarlord Bahrok sneered, \"Very well! Bring them forward. But you, Montenegro, are not welcome in our presence.\" \"Don't worry, Warlord. Your presence is not a place I enjoy. Our personal affairs shall wait until after the surrender is finalized, which is all the more reason to stop dawdling, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nThe Juka grinned darkly. \"One defeat at a time, human, or you may overreach.\"\n\nThulann indulged in a trance to assess the condition of her aged body. She bore no wounds after the Matriarch's healing, though her old joints complained of the drills she had practiced for two days. She would not stop preparing herself, pain or not. She intended to remain sharp. The death of Sartorius was a great victory, but it was not necessarily the final one. Greater opponents might require her attention. And Pikas of Enclave remained at large.\n\nShe sat on the metal floor of an unadorned room inside the Techno-Prophet's tower. Lector Gaff had brought her here to safeguard the nexus point, located somewhere deeper within Blackthorn's private chambers. She joined the tower's own Janissar guards as well as the ranger Fairfax, who crouched in the comer fashioning arrows. Both he and Thulann glanced up when a tall figure stomped into the room. Dressed in his wilderness leathers, Jatha of Ishpur looked perturbed.\n\nFairfax chuckled to himself. \"So where is the ambassador, O mighty Patriarch?\"\n\n\"Where else? Talking! She's dreaming to the other Matriarchs and as usual, they're going to continue talking while their enemies run amok. We're on our own against Kavah, I fear.\"\n\nThe ranger shrugged. \"So much for rousing them to action. And people accuse you and me of sloth. How about Shavade? What's happened to her?\"\n\n\"She's going back to Ishpur for punishment. I do not envy her future.\"\n\n\"Alas, heavenly Huntress. At least I succeeded in winning her smile.\"\n\nThe Meer laughed without humor. \"Winning it? She smiled because she'd stuck a knife in your throat!\"\n\n\"She called me 'sweet.'\"\n\n\"Have you never met sarcasm before? And I took you for an intelligent man, from your refined and hygienic character.\"\n\nFairfax grinned and combed his bushy hair with his fingers. \"What about Sister Raveka? I haven't seen that bitter blackberry today.\"\n\n\"She's with Lector Gaff, calculating geometric permutations or some such, no doubt.\"\n\n\"I still say I should turn her over my knee for what she did to us in Cove.\"\n\nJatha shook his head. \"You have no instinct for self-preservation, do you? Leave women alone for a while, Fairfax. They've amply proven which is the weaker sex.\"\n\n\"There is no courage without weakness.\"\n\nThulann opened her eye and grumbled, \"Why not demonstrate the courage to rest your lips for a while? You may need all that energy later, if Kavah tries to get at the nexus point.\"\n\nThe ranger smiled. \"Ah, Way Master Thulann returns to the land of the conscious! But Kavah won't dare come here, though. Not with Blackthorn wary of the danger.\" He wrapped his fist around a bundle of arrow shafts and tapped the ends on the ground. \"We ought to be down there with the armies. I saw a company of rangers with whom I'd dearly love to share my latest escapades.\"\n\nThe Juka unfolded from her trance position and stretched. \"No, Montenegro was correct to go alone. We have no guarantee that Kavah will not come, nor that Blackthorn will be lucid enough to attend the problem, if you believe Gaff's assessment. Stay alert, my friends. The battle is not yet over.\"\n\n\"Or we can follow the Matriarchs' strategy,\" muttered Jatha, \"and continue to sit here and chat.\" He plopped down on a metal bench and removed his shoulder bag, then began to sort the components of his spells in anticipation of the call to battle.\n\nMontenegro was surrounded by an ocean of silvery armor. He walked through a crowd of New Britannian knights who watched him with a mixture of wonder and disapproval. He could not fault their surprise. His black kinetic armor gleamed in wicked contrast to theirs, and of course his death had been announced almost two months earlier. He must have seemed like a devilish apparition. But there would be time ahead to pave the rough spots on the return to his homeland. For the moment Lord Gideon was his primary reconnection. He strolled now beside the nobleman on the parched ground outside of Junction.\n\n\"You astound me, Sir Gabriel,\" the lord was saying. \"Two months ago I thought you were a traitor or a dupe. Now you have delivered Sartorius's head on a lance and Logos's surrender in your pocket. I am forced to confess, I'm glad you did not let me throw you into prison. We would have missed the astonishing sight of you on that steel horse. Naturally we must address your actions in a proper court of law, but after this morning I daresay you will be forgiven your lesser transgressions.\"\n\nMontenegro pursed his lips. \"I do not want to be forgiven for anything. I stand ready to face any punishment the Royal Senate deems appropriate. But we should not get ahead of ourselves. It is still early in the day. How fared the negotiations?\"\n\n\"I don't know the final terms. Bahrok and Nathaniel agreed to them in private. But the surrender is accepted and the documents have been sent back to Lector Gaff. When the horns blow, we shall enter Junction.\"\n\nThe black-haired knight smirked. \"How did you convince the archmages?\"\n\n\"There was no point to involving them in the discussion. In their eyes this place is one tremendous abomination. They would just as soon level it as walk through that gate.\"\n\n\"There are times I might agree with them, but let us be fair. The humans here are our cousins. They've forgotten our code of ethics, but they have not forgotten the ethics themselves. Like us they have their rotten grapes but on the whole the vine is healthy.\"\n\n\"I still don't like their grotesque half-machines.\"\n\n\"Neither do I, by any means. I cannot wait to leave this place and never return. But they don't like New Britannia's less pleasant denizens, either. We each endure what we must.\"\n\n\"Endure is the proper word. I won't mind returning home with this army so we can stop enduring the trolls and start eradicating them. They're on the move worse than ever now.\"\n\nMontenegro nodded. \"I'll have to dig my estate out from ore droppings when I get back.\"\n\n\"I hope you might join us for the larger campaign. But listen, Sir Gabriel, you remind me of an issue that's occupied far too much of my thoughts lately. I need your confidential honesty.\"\n\n\"You shall have it, of course.\"\n\nThe nobleman lowered his voice. His expression shifted nervously. \"It concerns your cousin, Lady Aria.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"I don't know how to say this except directly, so here it is. I shall ask her to marry me when I return to Britain. But I don't know how she might take the proposal. You and she were close before your premature demise, so perhaps you can give me some insight?\"\n\nMontenegro chuckled and glanced away. \"Ah, even the mightiest trees bow to the winds of love.\"\n\nGideon laughed. \"Indeed.\"\n\n\"As you well know, my lord, Aria is an independent soul. No matter what I say or think, she will do what she will do.\" \"Yes, but what's your opinion? I can use some guidance. Will she marry a man like myself? Do you think she is the sort to marry at all?\"\n\nMontenegro looked up at the mechanical hulk of Logos. \"We shall have to see, my lord.\"\n\nA loud, raspy tone sounded over the Junction wall. The knights watched the tall, steel gates as they slid open with a rattling clamor. Gideon and Montenegro exchanged a glance. The nobleman said, \"In we go,\" as the younger knight turned away. Montenegro jogged beside his black steed, which had collected a tangle of curious knights. He mounted it with a single leap. He activated a brisk canter and headed for the gates himself.\n\nA column of Varang cavalry reached the opening first. By the dozens they trotted into Junction, eyed warily by the Technocrat troops on the ramparts. Montenegro stopped to observe the clansmen stream inside. The procession seemed orderly. He knew the negotiators would only have agreed to the surrender with assurances that the occupation force would conduct themselves in a civil manner. Bahrok's distorted sense of honor made the arrangement work.\n\nHe looked straight up. According to the terms of surrender, the airships were beginning to pull away. The spectacle was impressive. Nearly fifty hovering, steel towers fanned outward in all directions, dispersing from a dense cloud into a broad, spotted canopy overhead.\n\nJukan horns sounded a victorious fanfare. The officers' wheeled platform rolled toward the gates of Junction with Warlord Bahrok standing proudly at the top, alone and arrogant, a many-pointed spear in his hand.\n\nMontenegro turned away in disgust. Bahrok would have his moment of glory, but Gabriel did not have to watch it. The Juka would get his reward soon enough. Patience was Montenegro's weapon now.\n\nAnother horn sounded. This one was Technocrat. He looked back to see a tuft of smoke rising from inside the wall. The war trumpets of Clan Varang called out a charge and all at once the Jukan warriors poured into the city. Flashes of lightning erupted from the steel parapets. Bahrok's artillery began to lob spark stones deep into the Technocrat complex. The Logosian troops cried out in anger and the great armies arrayed on the desert began to stir into action.\n\n\"Dammit!\" bellowed Montenegro as he activated his horse's levitant engine. The automaton lifted him to the height of the wall and gave him a better vantage. Clan Varang was flooding through the gates, spearheaded by their ridgeback cavalry. The wall-mounted lightning cannons and flame belchers scoured the outermost ranks of the Juka, but the sheer number of clansmen overwhelmed the Janissars inside. At the same moment great phalanxes of New Britannian infantry rushed toward the Logosian troops on the open ground. Sheets of arrows flooded the sky. The Technocrats lit their smoke cauldrons and moments later a tide of opaque clouds rushed across the battlefield. A symphony of blats and whistles directed the Logosians in the gloom. War engines began to flare and flash; fire and lightning ripped through the densely formed invaders. Montenegro heard the screams of his countrymen.\n\nThen the brickwork stacks of Junction coughed out torrents of black cauldron smoke that washed across the city in a mighty swell. The concealment would aid in Junction's defense. The steel walls brimmed with leaping plumes. The high gate poured thick clouds like a spout, even as it rattled closed again. The thunderous war drums of the Technocrat army crashed out a beat that echoed from distant mountains. Overhead the airships began to moan and toot an alien conversation and descend with eerie, deliberate calm.\n\nMontenegro squeezed the grip of his lance. This was Bahrok's treachery, of course. It would be his last. The black knight spread his horse's wings and soared down to find the Jukan villain. A clearing appeared in the midst of the smoke. A group of spellcasters had created a broad whirlwind that repelled the thick clouds. Warlord Bahrok stood in the center on his platform. Montenegro lowered his lance and streaked toward him.\n\nBut the warriors of Clan Varang launched a wave of arrows to intercept him. He wheeled to the side and tipped up the automaton's mechanical wings. The missiles clanked against the armored feathers. He grimaced. A direct assault would be suicidal now that the wizards and archers were in play. He veered away from the clearing in the smoke, plunged inside the dark cloud and alit on the cracked, dry ground.\n\nFrom his belt he produced a miner's monocle that he fixed to a stud on his helmet. The device did not penetrate the smoke but it gave him clearer vision than the Varang clansmen had. With his black garb and mount he was nearly invisible to them. He churned the levitant engine at a very low speed, just enough to glide without touching the ground. The horse's lashing, serpentine tail was enough to propel them forward. With lance and wings upraised to make his profile slender, he headed in Bahrok's direction.\n\nThose Juka who challenged him fell quickly to Starfell's blade.\n\nHe soon arrived at a clearing of circular winds that held back the opaque cloud. Montenegro touched down just within the wall of thick smoke. He gazed into the windy clearing at what he mistakenly thought would be Bahrok's rolling dais, but was actually the entourage of General Nathaniel. The older knight, estranged from his order, glittered on horseback in a fine suit of plate mail. He was surrounded by a handful of other, loyal knights as well as a collection of foot soldiers, messengers and a pair of mounted spellcasters. The group was moving at a slow pace toward the city. Nathaniel was busy listening to reports and sending out commands.\n\nMontenegro's body tingled with fury. From the quick deployment of the New Britannian troops, he knew that the general had been privy to Bahrok's treachery. It would be Nathaniel's last mistake, as well. He trotted his mechanical steed in the path of the entourage and waited for the gusting winds to reach him.\n\nThe roiling smoke pulled away from Montenegro in pale, wispy strands. He materialized from the haze like a phantom astride his black, mechanical warhorse. The automaton's wings tilted backward, its serpentine tail lashing the air. The knight glowered through his crested helmet. His dark armor glinted at distant flashes of lightning. With slow precision he aimed his barbed lance and nudged the clockwork steed forward.\n\nThe mounted general startled at the outlandish vision before him. Quickly his expression turned to rage as he snapped down the visor of his great helm and took up his own lance. Sorcerous enchantments glittered across his silvery plate mail. His tall, white horse stomped anxiously. When he lunged into a charge, Montenegro engaged his machine to gallop. Sparks crashed from iron hooves. The two men hurtled toward one another and the smoke-plumed battlefield seemed to dissolve around them.\n\nIn his mind Montenegro cried, Grandfather, I do this for Honor!\n\nMoments before they clashed he flipped a switch on his lance. A pneumatic mechanism shoved out the tip by three more feet. He struck Nathaniel first. The end of his lance punctured the general's armor, but still Nathaniel's spear bashed his shield like a hammer. He felt himself lifted from the saddle, falling backward. Quickly he leaned against one of the wings and prevented himself from unhorsing. He dropped his damaged lance. Then he reared his clockwork mount and spun around.\n\nGeneral Nathaniel was rising from the ground. His arm hung limply, blood rushing from a hole in his steel shoulder piece. Montenegro leapt forward to charge again but a bolt of lightning streaked at him. He ducked behind a wing. The bolt crashed against the machine and the gears inside complained. He frowned. Lightning was particularly effective against Technocrat mechanisms. He himself was the first New Britannian to discover that fact.\n\nThe wizard's attack had been designed to allow Nathaniel to regain his warhorse. The general's arm had apparently been healed, as well. He hefted a large mace and galloped toward Montenegro. The black knight pulled Starfell loose and charged. They passed with a great clang of colliding weapons. Then they closed. Each man's weapon battered the other's shield. Their mounts circled. Montenegro was at a disadvantage, having to actively steer his clockwork horse as well as fight; but he compensated by activating the levi-tant engine. With a leap his mount sprang up high, granting him the benefit of a loftier position. A steel wing rushed past the general's head, forcing him to duck. Montenegro kicked out his boot and bashed Nathaniel from his saddle again.\n\nA barrage of lightning crashed into his horse and his kinetic armor. He hissed in pain and reared the machine to conceal himself behind its body. When General Nathaniel mounted his warhorse a third time, Montenegro shouted, \"Enough!\" He feinted twice with Starfell and jammed the sword into the general's side. Then he steered his horse upward and carried Nathaniel into the sky.\n\nThe general gasped for breath as he clung to the sword that impaled him. They soared a hundred feet above the bat-defield, which roared and flashed under its blanket of smoke. Through bloody lips Nathaniel choked, \"Why? Why oppose me? I'm fighting for our victory!\"\n\nThe black knight spoke with deliberate enunciation: \"Because victory without Honor offends me, General. And because you crossed a Montenegro and it must be answered.\"\n\nThen he jerked the sword back. Nathaniel shrieked as he fell into the dense, billowing cloud. Montenegro knew the odds were low they would find the body in time for resurrection. He blew out a heavy breath.\n\nAround him the conflict escalated. The airships had lowered to battle altitude, which was the same height he was flying, and commenced raining fire and steel missiles on the enemy below. Steam horns blared on all sides of the knight. By the glow of the furnaces inside the vessels he could see crews of engineers toiling fiercely.\n\nA deafening sound bellowed near him. His flying steed lurched, nearly unseating him. He regained control of the steering vanes and leveled off, allowing him to watch as a gigantic pillar of rushing wind and dust roared past. The airships that it struck bent and tumbled. The funnel cloud swooped around for another pass through the flying armada. Montenegro dove out of the way. He stared down the length of the whirlwind to the batdefield, where an archmage was slinging it like an enormous whip. He presumed this was Mistress Aurora's work, though he could not make out the spellcasters identity.\n\nA swarm of airships floated nearer. They pounded the archmage with a storm of lightning and fire. The funnel cloud leapt again from the smoke and knocked down another aircraft. Montenegro dodged debris slinging past him at high speed. He thought it prudent to move away from the area.\n\nElsewhere the airships were devastating both the Jukan and New Britannian lines. Though smoke obscured the battle near the walls of Junction, farther out he could see masses of invaders falling back or outright fleeing. The Jukan artillery was reduced to flaming timbers. The cavalry of both armies frequendy rushed from the smoke to regroup. Montenegro knew exactly why. Blackthorn's automatons had rumbled onto the open plains. A platoon of juggernauts and a handful of dreadnoughts were a match for almost any number of soldiers. Only the Knights of the Silver Serpent had the skill to meet them and Montenegro noticed, with some surprise, that Lord Gideon had not entered the fray.\n\nThe entire tableau seized him with rising anguish. Even if the invaders triumphed, the cost would be terrible. This bloodshed was completely unnecessary, a product of the Pact of Four's lust for power. He thrust out his jaw with grim determination. The Pact was only two now. He was halfway finished.\n\nWhen he scanned the battle, smirched with black fog, he could not see Bahrok at all. He decided the warlord could wait. Chamberlain Kavah would be lurking around Blackthorn's tower now. The time had come to join Thulann and the others.\n\nThen the sky shrieked and split open.\n\nFrom a giant gash in the air tumbled a blast of hot wind, followed by many blurs of color. As huge shapes approached on great, fanning wings Montenegro's mouth dropped open. The archmages had just cast the largest summoning spell he had ever seen. A dozen or more dragons, seventy feet long, roared fire as they swept atop the hovering airships. Each great serpent was as big as one of the vessels. Their shield-size talons latched onto the black machines and ripped open their armor in seconds. Long necks reared back and flared like cobras as they belched tumbling waves of golden flame. The airships moved far too slowly to engage the terrible monsters. Soon the sky fleet of Blackthorn was half awash with fire.\n\nMontenegro flew toward Logos as quickly as he could. He presumed the dragons would attack anything in the air and he had no desire to be a target. His fear was confirmed when one of the massive beasts swiveled to face him. With a stroke of its wings it rocketed forward. He jerked the reins to careen aside as the monster's gigantic body stormed past. The wind alone caused his clockwork steed to tumble. He leaned against the horse's neck and regained control. Then he ducked near a burning airship and hid inside the billowing smoke, using the plume for concealment as he followed a path to the edge of the floating city. Logos was built upon a skeleton of great, riveted beams.\n\nHe rose toward an exposed girder where he could rest and gauge his options.\n\nBut a monstrous growl shook the air behind him. The dragon had tracked his escape. It thundered upward. He streaked among the exterior girders of Logos, searching for an escape. He plunged into a small hollow defined by a metal floor and riveted walls. His mechanical horse nearly touched the ceiling and he had to dismount to fit inside. To his dismay, there was no exit at the other end. Then the light dimmed. A giant head blocked the entrance to the hollow. Raptor-like eyes stared at him with fierce hunger. The dragon's snout was larger than a canopied bed, its slavering teeth as long as swords. He drew Starfell with a steely ring and faced down the monster, though he knew his end was at hand. Not even Sir Lazaro could have met a dragon this large, one-on-one.\n\nDammit, Grandfather, this is not the monster I want to fight!\n\nDust swirled around him suddenly. He realized the dragon was exhaling. With a shout he dove for cover as the beast's fiery breath smashed into the hollow and the air itself turned to flame.\n\nInside Blackthorn's hovering tower, Thulann rushed forward when Sister Raveka entered the room. The Way Master demanded, \"What is happening in Junction? Why do I hear a battle? I thought the truce had been signed!\"\n\nThe Mathematician had abandoned her stoic temperament. Her painted face registered panic. \"Bahrok attacked when his troops entered the city! It's a bloodbath down there on both sides!\"\n\nThe old Juka clenched her fists in the air. \"Damn him and all of his ancestors! His madness has no end!\"\n\nFairfax slung his bow across his chest. \"That's it. I'm going down there.\"\n\n\"No, look!' cried Raveka as she ran to the nearest wall. She turned a crank to open a set of metal shutters. Outside the window lay the cityscape of Logos, a bleak accretion of somber buildings and soot-black factories and huge, cryptic machinery. The smokestacks had begun to gush flames. The machines churned with increasing speed. The entire city shook with a swelling rumble, as if giant gears had begun to turn in the deeps of the ancient citadel.\n\nThulann uttered, \"Great Mother, it is the Cataclysm again.\"\n\nRaveka pointed into the air. A shape hovered there, small by comparison to the vast mechanical cityscape. It could have been called an automaton, except that such creatures had the appearance of practical design, displaying evidence of symmetry and function. The thing outside the tower was a conflict of man and machine, a horrid, parasitic adhesion of metal upon flesh, a human being whose body was half-swallowed by riveted steel. It had a portion of a human head. In place of one arm hung a heavy steel claw that flexed absendy. From its misshapen body draped a cloak and tunic, as if it had forgotten that it was no longer a man.\n\nThulann watched in horror as the Techno-Prophet Blackthorn glided away from his tower, heading for the edge of the city. All around him the machine called Logos whirled into strident, grinding activity.\n\nSister Raveka moaned, \"Lector Gaff tried to convince him to stay, but His Eminence wouldn't listen!\"\n\n\"Then we're not going anywhere,\" grumbled Jatha of Ishpur, gazing at his companions. \"Kavah's plan is working and we've got to be ready for anything.\"\n\nThe walls shook with what sounded like an explosion, somewhere high in the tower. They heard guards crying out in alarm. Thulann clutched the hilt of her sword and murmured, \"I have but one question. Is Kavah ready for us?\"\n\nAs an agonizing inferno devoured his body, Montenegro bit down on several glass vials he had shoved into his mouth. The healing potions drained down his throat. He felt with torment the battle between dragon's fire and the Water Magic. His skin burned away beneath his armor and healed itself again in torturous cycles. He screamed in the depths of the blaze.\n\nThen it was over. The air became white smoke. He coughed and rose from behind the glowing slag that moments before had been his mechanical horse. Wispy fumes rose from his kinetic armor. His shield lay in ruins. He heard the grumble of the dragon's breath as it sniffed at him.\n\nHe had drunk the last of his healing potions. He would not get another reprieve. He gritted his teeth, whisked Starfell to bear and sprang at the monster's gigantic head. Its lips curled back from scimitar fangs but he lunged faster than it could react. With a perfect thrust he shoved the enchanted sword deep into the dragon's huge eye. The beast yelped and began to withdraw its face from the hollow, but Montenegro tumbled over its snout and slashed his blade across the other eye. Then he rolled backward into a crouch. The blinded giant reared back its head and pawed its face with confusion. As it inhaled once more, Montenegro decided to retreat. He cast one last glance over the gear-driven machine that had shielded him from the brunt of the flames. \"Ride free, Hum-bolt,\" he whispered, then scrambled quickly out of the hollow.\n\nHe climbed up a framework of girders and struts toward the lip of the city. High winds shoved at him. His hands began to sweat. Below him the dragon clung to the steel beams and blew another gout of flame into the hollow. Montenegro flattened against a metal panel to evade the incidental ball of smoke and fire that billowed past him. The heat scorched his face through the eyeslit of his helmet. Then he scaled the girders once more, as the sightless dragon roared its displeasure and beat its mighty wings to sail away from the battle.\n\nMontenegro secured handholds and gazed down at embattled Junction, a thousand feet below. The city and most of the land around it still lurked under a blanket of cauldron smoke. A portion of the steel wall succumbed to a ferocious onslaught of lightning and fire, he presumed from one or more archmages. But the momentum of the battle belonged to the Technocrats. Again and again did the invading troops pull back from the opaque war cloud. Artillery machines inside Junction flung balls of flame and spark stones toward the unengaged segments of the Jukan and New Britannian armies. Even Lord Gideon's knights seemed to be involved now, as Montenegro could not see them. The airships, though contested by wizards and dragons, still struck at the ground troops with their myriad flashing, booming, clattering weapons. And presently a metallic shriek cut through the air. From the shroud of smoke that obscured the city rose many tall, mechanical arms or tendrils. Like gigantic swans' necks they arched above the black cloud. Then their steel jaws flung open and hurled white and yellow sprays of magma into the air. Where the fountains rained on invading troops, devastation followed. Even the dragons were halted by the clinging barrage thrown from the magma spouts. The huge beasts yowled in pain as lava stuck to their scales. The accumulated weight quickly dragged the monsters into the cauldron smoke, where Montenegro heard automaton companies tearing the dragons to pieces.\n\nHe turned away with fury in his eyes. The magma spouts were the very war machines that he had secured with Khy-ber's Brigade. His intent had been to leverage their power against Sartorius's troops and to deter Bahrok and Nathaniel from attacking. Now the machines were slaughtering New Britannians by the dozens. Montenegro snarled at his own tears and climbed toward the streets of Logos with increased determination. I have acted with Virtue, Grandfather! How can I have gone so wrong?\n\nThunder rolled across the desert. Montenegro pulled himself over a railing and onto a platform at the edge of the lofty city, then caught his breath and looked down. The sound came again, booming and cracking. He could not locate a source, though he noticed dark fissures traveling across parts of the desert floor. Abruptly the dry ground seemed to lurch underneath the Jukan formations. Soldiers crowded together as broad chunks of the earth rose into the air. Montenegro gaped. The New Britannian archmages had literally torn up the desert surface and were lifting the pieces toward Logos itself. Within seconds a throng of clansmen would pour into the hovering city.\n\nHe looked behind him. Janissar troops were hurrying to repel the invaders, but he wondered if they could man the perimeter quickly enough. Clearly they were unprepared for intruders. Most of the Technocrat soldiers were fighting below. No one had imagined that the height of Logos could be scaled so easily.\n\nThe city itself clamored with activity, flame spouts blowing brightly, huge gears spinning frantically. The floor shook beneath him. Logos was enraged.\n\nThen he saw, atop one of the rising islands of desert sand, the wheeled platform that carried Warlord Bahrok. The Jukan leader stood amidst a hundred of his personal guards. He raised up his spear as if leading a charge, though he could do no more than wait for his island to carry him to the city.\n\nThat is the dragon I want to slay! Aloud he hissed, \"Bahrok, you shall continue to reckon with me until one of us lies dead.\" Then he gauged where the warlord would land and sprinted in that direction.\n\nThe creature in front of Thulann was a cousin of the dune gazers of Jukaran, though its spidery legs were longer and it had just one, gigantic eye. It darted nimbly through the air, blocking the corridor to Blackthorn's chambers. The Way Master feinted a charge. The gazer spat a ball of fire. Thulann dove underneath its trajectory, rolled across the floor and stroked her curved sword across the monster's face. It bellowed in pain. She struck twice more. The gazer wheeled around to flee and she drove her blade into its spherical body. It thumped heavily onto the ground.\n\nFootsteps rushed behind her. She saw Jatha and Fairfax hurrying up the corridor. \"Where's Sister Raveka?\" she asked.\n\nFairfax said, \"She went with Gaff to follow Blackthorn.\n\nForget about her. There's more oculuses coming from that way! They're pushing back the guards.\"\n\nShe wiped her blade and asked, \"Are these Kavah's creatures?\"\n\n\"They are his swarm,\" sighed the ranger.\n\nJatha added, \"He'll use them to harry the opposition while he does his dirty work. If we can get past them, we'll be able to touch the chamberlain himself.\"\n\n\"Then let us start touching,\" said Thulann as she led them farther into Blackthorn's chambers."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Cataclysm",
+                "text": "And Sir Lazaro searched the world for a remedy to his wife's curse. No island was too distant nor pit too black for him to explore on his quest. But neither scholar nor wizard nor hidden scroll could reveal the secret cure. At last he fell to his knees before the Shrine of Spirituality. There he studied his own soul to find the weakness that caused him to fail.\n\nAs he did so a man approached him and said, \"You seek the remedy for your wife's curse.\"\n\nAnd Sir Lazaro said, \"Lord Blackthorn! I did not know you were in Skara Brae.\"\n\n\"I have waited here for you,\" said the knight-wizard, \"because I knew the day would come when you would search your own soul for the answer. Only now have you proved yourself worthy to find it. You must go to the depths of the caverns of Destard and destroy the Cauldron of Kwan Li. Then shall the curse be lifted and your wife bear you children.\"\n\nAnd on that day did the Virtue of Spirituality give Sir Lazaro the answer that he sought.\n\nOn the smoky streets of Logos, Montenegro rounded a comer and saw Warlord Bahrok plant his boots onto the metal-plated ground. A throng of fierce Janissars battled the warlord's guardsmen, but the knight did not foresee the defenders resisting for very long. Already Bahrok was tearing through them with hellish fury, impaling Janissars with his forked spear and hurling them like hay through the air. Montenegro had never seen Bahrok in group combat before. The sight was genuinely formidable.\n\nHe pondered how best to face the Juka. He had tried the direct approach and failed. For an instant Raveka's words visited him: We cannot meet every challenge face-to-face. What good have we accomplished if we lose? Khyber's strength, of course, had come from ambush. If Montenegro struck from hiding, he could throw one or two disabling blows before Bahrok might respond. The scales would tip in his favor. He would have to contend with the guardsmen, but Blackthorn's Janissars would keep them busy long enough for him to finish the job.\n\nInstinctively he reached for his pendant, before he realized it was not there. Bahrok, of course, had given it to Pikas. He shook his head. No. I am not an assassin. Victory without Honor is not worthy of a Montenegro. There's only one way to do this. He prepared to step into the street and confront Bahrok with a challenge, as he had done with General Nathaniel.\n\nThen a metallic sound made him flinch. He whirled around to see a dreadnought rushing at him from behind. Its huge, steel arm was extended and its claw was flared for attack. He jumped aside and brandished Starfell; but the automaton floated past him without stopping. He exhaled from relief. He was wearing Technocrat armor, so the creature did not recognize him as an enemy. Instead it charged into the middle of the melee on the street. The Janissars formed around the mechanical creature while the chieftain's guards fell back into a defensive stance. Warlord Bahrok himself remained in the thick of the fighting. His enormous spear slammed the dreadnought again and again. It pounded him back, but Jukan healers had repaired the damage even before he regained his feet.\n\nAbruptly another shape descended into view. Montenegro could not identify the automaton, though its cloak and peculiar shape seemed somehow familiar. When a flame spout blazed high on an adjacent building, the amber glow erased the smoky shadows and sent a chill through the knight's bones. The automaton had half of a human face, which Montenegro recognized. He had seen paintings of Lord Blackthorn from before the Cataclysm. This machine-clad nightmare was the Techno-Prophet himself. His grotesque mechanical form matched Raveka's description, though Montenegro had not anticipated the tyrant's loathsome aura of sickness. Blackthorn was just as abominable as the archmages predicted.\n\nThe Techno-Prophet waved aside the Janissars and the dreadnought. When he glided among the Varang clansmen they set upon him with as much ferocity as Montenegro had ever seen. Bahrok recognized his opponent, as well, and commanded his elite troops to attack with their full might. For an instant Blackthorn vanished in a sea of burly warriors and flinging polearms. Then his head raised above the mob. The Jukas' blows did not appear to concern him. He flashed a terrifying claw and began to rip through the invaders as if they were cobwebs. Two dozen had fallen before the guardsmen retreated. Bahrok stood tall among his men, bellowing insults at his foe.\n\nThen Blackthorn rushed forward. His claw snapped around Bahrok's waist and lifted him overhead. The warlord's taunts cut short. Blackthorn whisked backward to where the dreadnought idled. He handed the struggling Juka to the automaton. Montenegro picked out the words, \"Take him to my Chosen for sentencing,\" in a voice at once sonorous and harshly mechanical. The dreadnought soared away with Warlord Bahrok in its arm as Blackthorn confronted the clansmen again, who were pushing through the remaining Janissars. His claw shut with a shrill crash. \"Let us continue. It has been too long since I've heard the screams of unfamiliar voices.\"\n\nSixty elite Varang warriors charged at Blackthorn. Montenegro thought they might survive a few minutes, if they fought well.\n\nBut his concern was Bahrok and Kavah, not the Techno-Prophet. He hurried away from the staggering carnage and raced for Blackthorn's tower, not far from the battle. The imposing structure floated above the streets of Logos, attached by a collection of heavy chains. A stair-stepped bridge reached up to the atrium. As he mounted the steps he heard the sounds of combat ahead. Inside the front gate his boots slipped on a bloody floor. He caught his balance and surveyed the situation. The large atrium was a dour place, tall and shadowy, draped with chains to retract the bridge and lush with steam venting from other parts of the building. The floor was busy with the corpses of gazers and Janissars. Several passages led deeper into the tower. He followed the clang and flash of combat until he discovered a group of guards pinned down by the gazers' fireballs. They told him that Thulann, Jatha and Fairfax were beyond a door at the end of the smoky hallway. Montenegro borrowed one of their shields and led a charge against the gazers. He endured several nasty wounds on the assumption that Jatha would heal him when he reached the end. A few of the Janissars did not make it that far.\n\nBut eventually he fought past the oculus swarm and reached the interior door. On the other side, warned the guards, was one of Blackthorn's personal chambers. The Janissars seemed as daunted by the Techno-Prophet as the hostile gazers. Montenegro assured them that their master was not inside the building. They ran through the door and slammed it shut.\n\nThe room beyond was more grim than the atrium. It was completely unadorned except for a strange series of carvings that blanketed the armored walls. Montenegro saw that it was not skilled artwork. Instead it consisted of crude sketches, lisdess writing, mathematical equations, random doodles; all gouged into the heavy steel by some powerful tool. He remembered the Techno-Prophet's lethal claw and decided not to examine the carvings any further.\n\nRather the action inside the room demanded his attention. Jatha, Fairfax and Thulann knelt behind a crude wall of stone that Jatha must have conjured for protection. Several Janissar bodies strewed the floor, felled by sorcery. In the center of the room stood a Meer wizard shining with power, his colorful robe swirling about him. His hand stretched out toward a spinning funnel of blue lights. Montenegro recognized a beacon identical to the one that shone at Lord Valente's Wisp Hunt.\n\n\"Montenegro!\" laughed Chamberlain Kavah. \"You're just in time to see the end.\"\n\nFairfax lifted his bow over the lip of the stone barricade and fired an arrow at Kavah. The missile gleamed with some enchantment. It smashed against Kavah's hand and a brilliant light erupted. The Meer snarled and drew back, then hurled a torrent of lightning against his collected enemies. Montenegro dove behind Jatha's barricade. Some of the Janissars were not fast enough. Jatha returned a stream of his own lightning, forcing the chamberlain to erect a shimmering wall to defend himself.\n\nThulann was rubbing at a singe in her sleeve. \"Welcome to our stalemate. So far we have kept him from casting his spell on the nexus point, but we cannot do this much longer. We need to finish him.\"\n\nMontenegro grinned. \"Nathaniel is dead. Bahrok is in Gaff's hands. Our work is nearly finished.\"\n\nThe Way Master grabbed his arm. \"Bahrok is in Gaff's hands? Where?\"\n\n\"Outside.\"\n\nShe cursed under her breath. \"I must go there.\"\n\n\"Why? Gaff will have his head on a pike by the time we're through with Kavah.\"\n\n\"That is my fear. Bahrok must face his crimes before a council of warlords.\"\n\nHe frowned. \"He surrendered that right when he marched his army into Logos.\"\n\nThe old Juka shook her head. \"This is not for his sake. It is for Turlogan.\"\n\nMontenegro patted her shoulder. \"Go. Take these guards with you. There's a hive of gazers outside the door who'll roast you like a duck.\" While she gathered herself he added, \"Go with Virtue. May the Great Mother grant you victory, old woman.\"\n\n\"Live or die, I shall do my best, young pup.\"\n\nJatha tossed globes of fire to cover the Jukas' exit from the chamber. Then the wizard crouched beside his two companions. As he healed Montenegro's injuries he muttered, \"She's right. We have to end this. He's stronger than I. I'm going to wear out long before he does.\"\n\nThe knight hefted his Janissar shield into position. \"Enchant me with everything you've got. I'll rush him while you two keep him on the defensive.\"\n\nFairfax let out a laugh. \"Some of us are drunkards. Others are heroes. I'm not sure who is the more foolish!\"\n\nMontenegro smirked as Jatha infused his body and equipment with magical force. His muscles felt wildly energetic. With a nod he sprang over the stone barricade and charged at the glowing form of Kavah.\n\nSomething flashed in front of him, a cascade of sparkles, and another man intercepted his attack Pikas of Enclave bashed his arc sword against Montenegro's shield. The buzzing stream of electric charge found no purchase on the metal plates, however, rebuffed by Jatha's magic spell. Montenegro flung a torrent of sword blows at the assassin. Starfell clanged savagely against the arc sword. The black blade showed no evidence of damage from the electric assault. When the knight slashed a hole into Pikas' helmet, a trickle of blood emerged. The assassin backflipped and assumed a guard stance.\n\nFearsome spells and bewitched arrows flew back and forth around them, but the other combatants seemed thoroughly engaged. Pikas wiped at his blood and laughed, \"Back to your old form, I see! Recovered from the shaming Bahrok gave you?\"\n\nMontenegro had no desire to talk He faked a blow, batted the parry with his shield and jammed Starfell into Pikas' hip. The assassin roared with pain and lunged at him, flinging a high kick that battered Montenegro to the ground. The strapping Juka leapt atop the knight's shield and pinned him. One boot pressed Starfell against the floor. Through bloody lips Pikas cackled, \"You're right where I used to be, aren't you? You know you're a damn good warrior, but you still keep losing! One day you'll snap and realize that winning is the best Virtue of all.\"\n\nThe knight saw his family crest dangling from the assassin's neck. He bellowed with anger and tossed Pikas from atop the shield, then rammed the sharp comer into the Juka's gut. Pikas bashed the arc sword against Montenegro's helmet. The electric stream seared his face. He swatted at the arc with Starfell, drawing it off his helm. They each backed away.\n\n\"Look at you, Montenegro! From a knight to a Technocrat in two short months. You're one step from Khyber and two steps from me. Ruthless enough to win at any cost.\"\n\nMontenegro growled at the assassin's words. In his mind he cried It's a lie, Grandfather! You knew it's a lie! Then he barreled forward once more, his sword strokes becoming a hurricane of ever increasing force.\n\nAs Thulann dashed out of Blackthorn's tower, her sense of balance suddenly faltered. She stopped on the staircase drawbridge to regain her bearings, and then realized what was happening. Logos was a storm of activity, belching smoke and flame, clanging and clattering and rumbling to the very roots of its Cyclopean machinery; and for just an instant, for one terrifying moment, the entire floating city had tilted in the sky. At the lip of the city Thulann saw why. A horde of Jukan warriors had streamed onto the metal-plated streets. When the city had listed downward, great clumps of soldiers had toppled off the edge.\n\nThe Way Master had to look twice to register the scene. Huge slabs of desert earth floated upward from Junction, carrying with them masses of Jukan clansmen. Meanwhile numerous gigantic, crane-like arms had unfurled from the interior of Logos. The steel-frame tentacles swatted at the hovering slabs. When they hit their mark, the enchanted desert earth crumbled to pieces and countless soldiers plunged into the smoke of Junction. Blackthorn himself hovered in the air, directing the unearthly defense of his city.\n\nFireballs the size of tower trees roared up the perimeter of Logos. The heat caused the giant tentacles to bellow in metallic pain. Thulann knew the archmages were deploying the mightiest spells they had in their effort to conquer the impregnable Logos. The Techno-Prophet answered by rousing even more violent passion from his mechanical citadel. The pistons and furnaces of Logos rampaged with a thunderous din, great masses of steel smashing upon steel, gey-sering sparks and bursting smokestacks, until Thulann imagined a gear might crack and the whole city might fly to pieces. From the billows of smoke and rattling booms she knew terrible events were taking place on the battleground below, though she could not see what was happening. She could only imagine the terror and death that must have ruled the deserts of Junction.\n\nThe scope was too much for her to apprehend. Adjusting to the quake of the ground, she rushed down the steps on her original task, to locate the captured Bahrok. She had to ensure that the warlord traveled to Garron for trial. Turlogan needed proper justice and she would not fail him.\n\nA wide courtyard stretched out from the base of Blackthorn's tower. To her relief she spotted Lector Gaff at the far end. Sister Raveka stood beside him, with a dozen Janissars and a large, repugnant dreadnought. Trapped in the automaton's segmented arms was Warlord Bahrok, struggling poindessly, holding a defiant sneer on his face.\n\nThe clamor of Logos prevented Thulann from railing out. Instead she ran closer, until she realized that Raveka was pointing a bolt thrower at Bahrok. With the warlord restrained and so many soldiers on hand, the Way Master understood that the weapon was not for security. This was an execution. Quickly she ducked into the smoke and shadows of the closest building and crept near the two Mathematicians. Gaff and Raveka stood fifteen feet from the edge of the courtyard. Thulann crouched behind a pillar, drew her sword and listened to the conversation.\n\nIn his usual icy tone Lector Gaff was saying, \"It is a courtesy, Warlord Bahrok, one for which you might perhaps be thankful. I shall ask you a final time, have you any last messages to deliver to your heirs?\"\n\n\"I shall haunt this city!\" snarled the bold chieftain of Clan Varang. \"You shall never be rid of me!\"\n\n\"I am not prone to superstition,\" said Gaff.\n\n\"I shall not be a gjiost in your corridors, Technocrat, but in your history! I was the first to bring my troops to your streets! Not even Kumar himself did that!\"\n\n\"You would never have survived the first week of your invasion without the treason of Lector Sartorius. Your people are primitive barbarians.\"\n\nBahrok's eyes flashed. \"Behold this barbarian on your doorstep!\"\n\nGaff sniffed arrogantly and glanced at Raveka. \"Sister, is your weapon prepared?\"\n\nThulann bunched up her muscles.\n\n\"Yes, Your Excellency.\"\n\n\"Very well. Farewell, Warlord Bahrok. Sister Raveka, kill him.\"\n\nThe Way Master hurled across the open space and thrust out her sword. With one stroke she batted the missile as it emerged from the spring-powered weapon. A return stroke pressed her blade against Raveka's throat. \"I shall thank you not to murder a dan chieftain, if you please.\"\n\nBahrok grinned and barked, \"Thulann, you old pteranx!\" The Janissars lunged forward but Gaff stopped them with an upraised hand. \"Way Master Thulann, what do you want?\"\n\n\"Justice. Bahrok must return to Garron for trial.\"\n\n\"I see. And you would kill my servant over it?\"\n\n\"Indeed I would.\" She gazed at Raveka, who shivered as the blade kissed her neck. \"I have never liked you, Sister. You are a poor influence on Montenegro and he does not need more of those. Nor have I forgotten the nine bolts you shot into my stomach over Garron. I will have to reckon with the knight, alas, but that is the only remorse I shall feel if you convince me to slice open your throat.\"\n\nLector Gaff sighed. \"Killing her shall not help Bahrok.\" \"But threatening her gains your attention, does it not? I ask for a simple truce, Lector Gaff. Stay the execution until the battle is done. We can negotiate his release. Otherwise you shall make a martyr of him.\"\n\nThe Lector folded his hands together. \"What do you say, Sister Raveka?\"\n\nThe hooded woman swallowed. \"She speaks sensibly.\" \"Very well, Way Master Thulann. You have your truce.\" Thulann pulled the sword from Raveka's throat and sheathed it in a single action. Warlord Bahrok howled a laugh. \"You old witch, you never fail to bewilder me! But I never doubted where your loyalties lie.\"\n\nShe leaned close to him and bared her teeth. \"My loyalty is to Garron and to Turlogan, not to you! You are a disgrace to the clans and I intend to make you confess it before the council of warlords. You will never be Shirron, Bahrok!\"\n\nThe muscular warrior grinned wider. \"I am Shirron already! I have decreed it. Who will defy me?\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\n\"You cannot stop me, Thulann. History might squabble over how I did it, but nothing you do can erase the fact that I am in Logos at this moment. I may not have conquered it, but look how far I got. Look how far I got, Way Master!\"\n\nShe snorted. \"You may brag to the crows. When I am through with you no one shall announce you to Blessed Halls of Honor. Your corpse will rot, not bum.\"\n\nLector Gaff interjected, \"Perhaps you might save this discussion for another time. Something seems to be happening.\" The assembled group looked up at the sky. Directly overhead, amid swirls and pillows of smoke, appeared a disk of rich, scarlet color. Slowly the circle expanded until it covered the entire space above clamorous Logos. It was neither bright nor dark but a translucent phenomenon, like a heavenly veil encircling the city. When it continued to grow and drop below the city's edge, the thunder of the battle abrupdy ceased. The furious machines of Logos began to pace their activity. The sky had turned a lush red, with clouds of smoke wafting gently beyond the veil.\n\nSister Raveka began to reload her bolt thrower, stammering, \"Is this one of the archmages' spells?\"\n\n\"I suspect,\" said Thulann, her heart pounding roughly, \"that the Meer Matriarchs have decided to stop talking and start acting.\"\n\nMontenegro's body throbbed with burns. Jatha's enchantments had faded and the electric charge of Pikas' arc sword lashed through the steel kinetic mail. The wizard tossed him an infrequent healing spell but Chamberlain Kavah had stepped up his attacks. Jatha and Fairfax were now fighting a defensive battle, ducking behind the crumbling stone barricade to evade Kavah's fury. Montenegro was on his own.\n\nBut Pikas also bore his share of wounds. His kinetic armor was battered and cut. Springs hung broken from between the plates. Through it all the assassin never lost his mocking tone. At the finish of a brutal exchange he panted, \"The general said you shot him in the back with a crossbow. How did that feel?\"\n\n\"Be quiet,\" grumbled Montenegro.\n\nThen a terrific blast tore through the far end of the room. When the smoke turned to haze, the knight saw that his two companions were down. His ire spiked. He glared at Kavah, who was reaching again for the swirling beacon. If he cast his spell on the nexus point, according to Jatha he might be strong enough even to hold off Blackthorn himself.\n\nPikas smirked, \"It's a sham, isn't it? You and the Virtues? You're just pretending to be a knight. In your heart you know victory is all that matters, and the Virtues don't always let you win, do they?\"\n\nMontenegro frowned at the Juka. \"The Virtues don't achieve victory. They define victory.\" He took two steps forward in an unexpected direction and thrust his sword at Chamberlain Kavah. He was aware of the cold, terrible exposure of his back to the assassin, but Starfell tore through the wizard's defensive spells and penetrated the flesh of Kavah's belly. Then Montenegro watched in amazement as the black weapon split into a thousand shards and released a brilliant light. It was a wisp, a glimmering, otherworldly creature that Starfell was said once to have slain. The coruscating light forced the chamberlain to scream.\n\nAbruptly Montenegro felt the scorch of Pikas's arc sword as it cracked through his back armor, shoved through his spine and plunged out from the center of his chest.\n\nHe dropped prone on the metal ground. He could not move. It was not pain he felt but extremes in temperature, burning in his torso and frost in his limbs. He witnessed via patterns of color on the wall a dazzling conflict of sorcery between Chamberlain Kavah and something unseen, something that pulsed and shifted and scintillated but made very little sound. The Meer howled, \"It's the wisps! The damn wisps!\"\n\nAnd then the conflagration vanished. He could not sense the presence of wisps or spells or even the nexus beacon. The only light emitted from a vent high in the wall, painting wan stripes across the settling haze.\n\nPikas mumbled, 'It's gone. Is it gone?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course it's gone!\" snapped Kavah.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"There was a wisp in the sword. It captured the nexus and allowed others to come in.\"\n\n\"They destroyed it?\"\n\n\"They closed it. The damned wisp was in the sword! How could they have known?\"\n\n\"Who cares? I'm leaving this place. I've got one more score to settle.\"\n\n\"Help me up, Pikas.\"\n\n\"Shove it up your robe, Kavah.\" Pikas knelt down and pushed his face close to Montenegro's. He frowned bitterly. \"I hope that's how you define victory, you bastard. I wanted to kill you fairly and you turned your back on me. You bastard!\" He spat in the knight's face. \"Rot.\" As he pushed himself off the ground, Montenegro saw the gold pendant that remained around his neck. A pang lilted through the knight's gut. Then the room flashed for a moment with the scintillation of a black teleportation rod.\n\nA loud clang rocked the chamber. He heard Kavah gasp and spring to his feet. Then came mechanical sounds, the whisper of greasy joints, the grind of a levitant propeller, the gurgle of fluid in a tank. The Meer staggered backward as something large glided in. Montenegro saw a bulky shadow on the wall, though he could hardly discern a man in it. Then a voice murmured, \"Run, little mouse,\" in a tone that sounded as if it were spoken through a musical instrument.\n\nKavah vanished in another burst of flashing lights.\n\nThe air stirred. The stink of burnt oil drifted past in waves. Blackthorn moved closer to Montenegro, though the knight struggled simply to keep his eyes open. His body was dissolving, like melting ice. He wondered if Jatha might wake to heal him.\n\n\"I'm sorry it came to this, Sir Lazaro,\" said the Techno-Prophet with a soothing timbre. Montenegro heard the madness in his words. \"I asked you to join me but you wanted to stay with the King, didn't you? I can't fault you, I suppose. You did give him an oath. I know how important it is for you to leave a Virtuous legacy. Don't worry. You know I regard your children as the closest thing I have to my own. If I can, I shall watch over them, and Lady Malgotha as well. She does need watching, too, doesn't she? A genuinely cantankerous woman. I warned you about marrying a dragon.\"\n\nThe words seeped into Montenegro's mind like a dream or a rising memory. He fought to place them among the tales of his grandfather. Blackthorn had known Sir Lazaro, of course, but the Techno-Prophet was insane now, rambling nonsense. His mechanical tomb had stolen his reason.\n\nBlackthorn continued, \"I suppose that's all anyone really wants in the end, isn't it? To inspire their children. To make them proud. Did you know I can see the future, Sir Lazaro? No, I'm not mad. I'm a wizard. Yes, you must believe it, I truly can. I've seen your grandson. Yes, your son's son. The lad bears your name and your crest. He is proud of you. Quite proud. Rest easy on that. And I'D tell you a secret. Unlike you, my old friend, he shall deflect a Cataclysm in his time. Even you didn't do that, did you?\"\n\nThe knight no longer heard his own breath. His heartbeats, which a moment earlier had drummed in his chest, were now trickling away. By the Virtues, he thought, Jatha isn't going to reach me in time. Is Jatha dead, too?\n\n\"Yes, of course you're proud of him, too. You're his grandfather. Don't make too much of a fuss, you old fool.\"\n\nI shall miss the sight of Raveka in Cove. I believe that must be my only regret. Grandfather, was life this hard for you, as well?\n\n'\"All right, then. Go on. I shall see you again in time.\"\n\nThe mechanical din of Logos subsided as the scarlet veil descended over the city. In bewilderment Thulann and the others stared in the direction of Blackthorn. The Techno-Prophet rose higher into the air. Before him appeared a half-circle of tall figures with gemstones glistening in their robes. They were hazy apparitions of the Meer Matriarchs. The Way Master guessed that Ambassador Adhayah had summoned them from Ishpur. Blackthorn was having a subdued conversation with them.\n\nThen the Techno-Prophet turned away and glided back to his tower. The Matriarchs faded away. The clockworks of Logos resumed their normal thrumming and the scarlet veil remained in place.\n\nSister Raveka lowered her bolt thrower. \"The Meer have interfered. I believe it's to our favor.\"\n\nThe noises of the ground battle had disappeared.\n\nFrom the dreadnought's arms Bahrok grumbled, \"It is not over yet.\"\n\n\"But it is for you, you ugly gulbani!\" cried a voice from a rooftop. Thulann looked up to see a haggard Pikas of Enclave. The assassin lifted a knife in his hand and flung it at Warlord Bahrok. The Way Master jumped forward to knock it aside. Her hand missed the pommel by inches. The knife thudded into Bahrok's arm and the warlord let out a terrified howl.\n\n\"That's for blindsiding me!\" howled Pikas.\n\nThe dagger carried Logosian poison. The burly warlord writhed as his flesh began to wrinkle and split, his eyes shriveled, his powerful muscles pulling at bones until they cracked.\n\nThulann turned away. She knew there was nothing they could do for him, and that justice would never come for Turlogan.\n\nShe snorted. She could do nothing for Bahrok, but she could do something for herself. Without thinking she scrambled up a pillar to the rooftop. Pikas spat at her and whisked out a rod of black crystal.\n\nWith a crack the shard jumped from his hand. It landed at Thularm's feet. She stomped on it and the assassin darted away.\n\nSister Raveka stood in the courtyard with her bolt thrower upraised. She had shot the rod from his grip. She pointed in the direction he had fled and Thulann ran after him.\n\nThe Way Master kept pace as he leapt from roof to roof, scrambling across lofty pipelines, dodging large, churning gears and vents that exhaled noxious fumes. Over the outlandish roofscape of Logos she chased him until the edge of the city appeared. He stopped at the end of a platform that looked down on the ground, a thousand feet below. The scarlet veil continued under the floating city. Thulann had the impression it was a sphere around them.\n\nPikas gasped for breath as he drew his arc sword and wheeled around to face her. \"I killed Montenegro,\" he growled at her.\n\n\"Perhaps he shall recover,\" answered Thulann. \"You shall not.\"\n\nThe assassin groaned as he shook his head. \"No. I won't fight you anymore. I'm done with it. I can kill anyone in the world, but you were different, Way Master. I could have killed you in Crevasse, but I didn't. I wanted to beat you without tricks. I believed I was good enough, but I was wrong, huh? We fought face-to-face over the ambassador and you took me down.\"\n\nShe grumbled, \"Ego suffers without Honor, and just as often suffers with it.\"\n\n\"Don't mock me! Montenegro mocked me to the last. He didn't give me the honest fight I wanted.\"\n\nShe stepped closer. \"I am not moved to tears.\"\n\nHe sneered. \"You don't have to be, old woman. I just wanted to say that before I go.\"\n\n\"You shall not go anywhere.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"But I shall, because I refuse to die at anyone's hands but my own. Farewell, Way Master. Shed me a tear someday.\"\n\nWith astounding grace he performed a high backflip and hurtled off the edge of the floating city.\n\nThulann sprang after him. Logos vanished and a thousand feet of air separated them from the ground. She swatted her blade but he parried. Her second stroke landed true. Her sword passed through his neck and his head tumbled free with an expression of alarm. She grabbed his Jukan horns as she fell. With a painful thump she landed atop the airship that careened below them. Pikas' body bounced off a corner and continued to plummet to the desert below. She winced at the pain in her legs as she sat up, lifting the assassin's head. Something clattered on the metal panel where she sat. Gold glinted in the scarlet light. It was Montenegro's pendant. She picked it up, then rose to her full height and surveyed the vista below.\n\nThrough the Matriarchs' blood-red veil she saw the battlefield of Junction dispersing. The invading armies had pulled away from the city walls. Though she could not pick out many details from this height, she was horrified at the scope of the carnage that littered the open ground. Bodies carpeted the desert. The arid ground was cracked and gouged from the archmages' lifting spells. Giant black furrows had been raked by weapons she had not seen, except perhaps for their engines in Logos. Fallen airships blackened the fields. The steel wall surrounding Junction was bashed down in several places and ruined automatons smoldered around the gaps. The cauldron smoke had faded from the city itself, parts of which now burned. She saw the corpses of dragons twisted atop factories. The armies of Blackthorn huddled around the city and rested.\n\nIn decades past she had been one of Turlogan's generals. She well knew that this brief battle was costlier than any nation could afford. The lessons here would endure. The Pact of Four had arranged this conflict. Diligent work had ended it before the carnage was even worse. Jatha's arguments to the Matriarchs had provided the finishing stroke, but they had all risked their lives for this conclusion. History needed to record that fact, as the lesson would surely be needed again.\n\nWhile the airship on which she stood gently lifted her back up to Logos, Thulann rubbed her stiff neck and smiled. Turlogan, I did my best. I shall continue to do so. You will have time to forgive me before I join you in the Halls of Honor, but you must not forget your old rainbow. For I shall certainly honor you. We did far too little of that in life, but it is not too late. It is never too late, my love.\n\nSister Raveka knelt quickly when she entered Blackthorn's gloomy chamber. She cast her eyes to the ground to avoid the terrible gaze of the somber half-machine. Only then did she notice she was crouched in a pool of blood.\n\n\"Sister,\" came the Techno-Prophet's flawless voice, \"I believe that you knew this Britannian.\"\n\nShe looked up to see a body lying prone on the floor. Montenegro's lifeless face was angled toward her. His grey eyes stared blankly at the wall. Her gasp erupted involuntarily. She felt a clawing, hollow sensation inside. In a detached way she was horrified by her own sobbing in the presence of the Techno-Prophet.\n\nLector Gaff stood near the doorway. His tone was particularly cool. \"The ranger and the Meer wizard survived. We must deliver them to the New Britannian army. You shall do it, Sister Raveka, if you think you are able.\"\n\nBlackthorn added, \"You will be in no danger. The Matriarchs have mediated a new truce, without the benefit of Bahrok and Nathaniel. This one shall stand with the aid of the Matriarchs' veil of protection. Though I suspect it was actually designed to contain a burgeoning Cataclysm.\"\n\nRaveka barely heard what he said. She attempted to compose herself, but her litanies failed. The words fell apart on her lips. She mashed her eyelids shut. \"Your Eminence, Your Excellency, please forgive me. I do not think I can go.\"\n\nA sharp smell stung her nostrils. She opened her eyes again. Blackthorn was hovering directly in front of her, his human hand lain atop her cowled head. \"My dear Sister, do not cry. We are all of the Machine, which is Eternity itself. See, you smudge your paint. Come, let the equations comfort you. They are a part of Eternity. They are a part of you, my beautiful child.\"\n\nA heavy tear filled her eye and she blinked. Her vision turned red. It had not been a tear but a trickle of blood. Then pain rushed into her brow and she glanced up to see Blackthorn's claw gently cutting her flesh.\n\n\"Quiet, child. This is more fun if you resist the urge to scream.\"\n\nBut again, to her dismay, she could not obey the Techno-Prophet's wishes."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Ashes",
+                "text": "Thulann removed her headdress as she exited the Hall of the Shirron. The nighttime sky over Garron seethed with a million stars, like embers blown by the crisp mountain wind. The firelight of the hall threw her shadow long. Her ornately embroidered gown rustled with every step.\n\nThree people greeted her in the spiky garden outside. The smallest one pulled back her russet curls and grinned. \"So you're still Regent Thulann, hey?\" said Toria.\n\nThe Way Master heaved a sigh. \"I proposed Warlord Ustenn for the third time but they will not hear of it. Apparently they are stricken by my girlish beauty.\" She shrugged. \"The Great Tournament is only a month away. I suppose I shall endure my sentence until then.\"\n\n\"You're twice as competent as any warlord in that hall,\" said Jatha as he leaned against a pillar. \"I say you are the correct person for the office and I also say that false modesty is bad for the complexion.\"\n\nFairfax swirled the wine in his cup and offered, \"How about Venduss? He's a keen lad and easy on the ladies' eyes.\n\nBesides, everyone loves him right now, the mighty war hero who so valiantly penetrated the black orifices of Junction to capture those magma spouts.\"\n\nToria frowned, \"Hey, I found the bloody entrance!\" and Fairfax mouthed the words as she spoke them.\n\nThulann smiled. \"So you did, Toria. That was a fine piece of intelligence work You could train to be an excellent spy-master in Venus service, if I can somehow convince you to stay.\"\n\nThe freckled girl shook her head. \"Sorry, I've got some business to take care of in Britain. I also need to give Pikas' 'remains' to Bawdewyn, so he can settle his debt with Anzo. And anyway, Tekmhat wants me to send her some spices from Vesper. And Venduss...\" She smiled. \"Venduss needs time with his wife.\"\n\nJatha chuckled. \"You're a Virtuous lass, Toria, despite what the Tarkosh guardsmen claim.\"\n\n\"You should come with us, little sister,\" said Fairfax, \"after your chores are complete. Jatha and I are returning to Avenosh. There are wilds in that land that have languished without our calming presence for torturous millennia. Surely they would benefit from the intrusion of your brandywine voice.\"\n\nThe Meer flattened his ears. \"Avenosh? We have made no such agreement, Fairfax.\"\n\n\"You did agree, did you not, to assist me in resuscitating my romantic enterprises?\"\n\n\"I didn't mean I'd let you have another go at my sisters!\"\n\nToria giggled and wrapped an arm around each man's waist. \"We can discuss it as we sail to Britain. I may just be persuaded to travel in your company, if you can stifle your arguments for at least a few hours a day. I do need to sleep sometime, hey?\"\n\nThulann unpinned her hair and let the many white braids fall loosely around her shoulders. \"Ask not for miracles, child. Humility is the most neglected Virtue of all.\"\n\nThey laughed together and walked through the gardens of lofty Garron. The twin moons of Sosaria draped them in a silvery glow.\n\nThe vibrant New Britannian forest enveloped Toria with morning rain. Her senses filled with the battle of a thousand greens and browns, the hiss and patter of raindrops on leaves, the tumult of brisk, organic odors that rose from the soggy earth. She stood before a mossy hillside in which lay a sheltered hollow. Under the hanging shadow squatted a pedestal of carved stone. Atop it was a small icon, depicting a heart in the clutches of a reptilian claw. The mellow light of the morning shower antiqued the golden surface. Its gleam was guarded and subtle. Toria wrinkled her nose at the tingling scent of an active enchantment.\n\nMontenegro's shrine had been built to serve Compassion, but she knew it honored all eight Virtues. The magic of the Dragon's Tear protected the niche from destruction by the marauding ores. Toria, however, was not entirely safe from the savages who continued to stalk the forests around Cove, and so she wasted no more time. She knelt before the shrine, her bare legs cooled by the rain-soaked ground, and poured satiny words from her lips:\n\n\u2003\"Time absolves the dragon's flame\n\n\u2003And yet eternal shall he fly.\n\n\u2003The passing of his thund'rous wing\n\n\u2003Lends sparkle to the starry sky.\"\n\nGrunting voices sounded from the distance. Toria sighed and rose to her feet. She had expected the rain to hide her song from orcish ears. In any event she had to hurry along. She preferred to be alone for the moment. A company of knights would arrive soon to scour the woods of vermin. Many of the Silver Serpents had prioritized that task upon their return from Logosia, to honor their fallen comrade.\n\nToria had chosen a more private remembrance. The echoes of Montenegro still danced inside her, as well as other warriors she had left across the sea. The thought drew a smile to her face.\n\nIn case the ores found her, she unbuckled the enchanted cutlass from her waist, shouldered the blade and scabbard and stepped lightly through the dripping forest. The way to Cove, where Bawdewyn had anchored, was long and wild. Anticipation brought a pleasant tune to her mouth, which she hummed as she proceeded around the rocky foot of a proud, ominous mountain of black stone.\n\nThe first snow in Logos that year was a luxurious shade of grey. It formed a metallic slurry in the riveted streets, painting marbled colors on the frosty surface. Sister Raveka strolled through the razor-edged wind with a cloak draped over her raiment. Her cowl deflected the biting cold from her face.\n\nAs she traversed a landscape of black machinery, a lilt of excitement tingled inside her. Winter often elicited that feeling. Since she was a child she had always taken the chill as a sign to regroup, to make plans, to prepare for the eventual coming of spring. She enjoyed the solitude of a Technocrat's hibernation, when she could spend more hours each day in meditation and calculation. Winter was a time of intricate promise. And this one was more exciting than most.\n\nShe came upon a puddle of ice on the ground. When she glanced into the clouded reflection, a tattooed face looked back. Her sigh was bittersweet. To be inscribed by the Techno-Prophet was as great an honor as any Mathematician could desire, though the actual process had been less than enjoyable. Now Lector Gaff had begun her training for the rank of Mother in the Order. She had been given a second chance, which she knew she did not deserve. Despite her trespasses, her mentor asserted the highest regard for her talents. She was flattered by his confidence.\n\nBut of course his plans interfered with her own. The emerald hills of New Britannia still called to her from across the sea. Lady Aria was a phantom on those faraway shores, whom Raveka longed to give flesh again. The extra trouble would be bothersome, but she was proficient enough with a spy's cosmetics to conceal the tattoos on her face. Then she could set about finding sorcery to restore her pure, white skin. Lord Gideon would wonder where she had gone for several seasons, but she had an excuse that would more than suffice. Any story would, really. He had fallen for her completely. She could be his wife with no effort at all.\n\nHer reflection in the ice revealed a round, swollen belly. The baby would arrive in the springtime. She would convince Gideon that she carried his child, and that this was the reason for her long absence. She would hide the truth. The child was Gabriel's. He had left her a final gift. She could only be happier if he had lived to see it.\n\nLector Gaff had commanded that she surrender the baby to the Order. Raveka was formulating a different plan. The offspring of Montenegro would be New Britannian. Gold and satin would swaddle the baby. The wealthy society of Britain would be its playground. The child would learn to carry the shield and the lance of a Virtuous knight. It was the destiny of Montenegro blood and Raveka's fiercest wish.\n\nThe task would require the most stringent preparations. Gaff would not concede to her desires. To realize the dream she must extricate herself from Logos while leaving him powerless to fetch her back. Such conditions would be difficult to achieve. A tentative openness had developed between the two nations that would render Lady Aria more vulnerable to Technocrat scrutiny. But Gaff himself showed great confidence in her abilities. She gave herself hopeful odds of success. The most difficult months were those ahead of her now, the frigid winter nights during which she must calculate the details of the plan.\n\nThe challenge gave Raveka a unique thrill, like the knife edge of the icy wind. Of course she had a sharp edge of her own. She had carved her place in New Britannia once before. This time she would do it permanendy. If Gaff or anyone else interfered, they might just find themselves carved, as well.\n\nShe imagined that the Lord Blackthorn of old, that Virtuous knight and wizard of legend, would approve of her valor.\n\nThulann leaned back in her tall, granite chair and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. The voluminous sleeve of her Way Master's robe wafted in the action. Before her in the small room, three war masters bowed and turned to exit. They vanished in the muted light from the doorway. A soft spring breeze rolled in from beyond.\n\nThe old Juka rubbed a palm over her face. These generals were becoming tedious. The fragments of Clan Varang were proving difficult for them to subdue. Even several years after his death, Bahrok's coalition of allied clans remained loosely committed to his treachery. They gave the other clans fits of political trouble. Shirron Ustenn and his loyal chieftains too often reacted with strength instead of craft. Sometimes Thulann had to chuckle. Generals were as lost as children when it came to diplomatic guile. She gave them advice on frequent occasions, like today, but only after they asked politely.\n\nThe best part of the arrangement, of course, was that she lived at her own home. She did not have to travel and she could dismiss her visitors whenever it suited her. The perks of being a respected elder had finally caught up to her.\n\nStill, the schedule wore down her old body. Retirement had stolen the energy from her bones and muscles. Even the crisp spring winds were enough now to rouse the ache in her joints. Neither was her patience what it used to be. The tides of warfare yielded to other concerns.\n\nA tall silhouette appeared in the doorway. Venduss wore full trousers and no shirt, the casual attire of a warrior chieftain. A slender braid lolled over his shoulder. He crossed his arms and leaned against the jamb. \"You should keep your voice down. I can hear your groans from the yard.\"\n\nThulann laughed. \"Bahrok once counseled me to speak louder on my own behalf. Perhaps his advice is sinking in at last.\"\n\n\"You saw his fate with your own eyes. Do you wish for the same?\"\n\n\"He had it easy. He shriveled up in a matter of seconds. My demise has lingered for a decade and shows no sign of finishing. When I am a hundred you shall be draping me over this chair to squawk at visiting soldiers.\"\n\nVenduss grinned. \"I shall do my best to wear you down before then. There are two more war masters to see you.\"\n\nShe closed her eye and grimaced. \"Send them away. I have nothing left for them.\"\n\n\"Not even a chieftain could send them away, I fear.\"\n\nHer face brightened when two small children dashed into the room. Tarkosh and Torika, the son and daughter of Venduss and Tekmhat, nearly sprang into her lap before they remembered their manners. In their little warriors' clothes they bowed before her and said in unison, \"Good day, Way Master.\"\n\nShe conjured a frown. \"You say it is a good day? I shall not take your word for it, nurslings!\" In a fluid motion she leapt from her seat and tumbled through the air above them. Her quick hands snatched their collars. When she landed, she carried a child on each shoulder. \"You must escort an old woman outside and prove how good it is.\" Tarkosh and Torika giggled with delight.\n\nVenduss shook his head. \"So much for the decrepit old crone! What an act you play for the war masters. You are as decrepit as a sword fresh from the anvil.\"\n\nShe bumped him with her elbow as she passed. \"I exert myself for very few causes and warfare is not among them. If I must deceive the generals to keep it that way, then so be it. I do not lie, but I feint in battle.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"Go easy on my kids, hey?\" She ignored him as she walked outside. Springtime had unfurled blue skies above Garron. A flock of iridescent firewings crackled overhead. The children squirmed on her shoulders, making themselves seem twice as heavy to her old bones. But Thulann had borne terrible weights over the length of her career. Seventy hard years had deposited her in this place at this moment and she had no complaints. Wriggling children and brisk Garron winds were a happy load. They were precisely the burden she had always wanted to bear.\n\nWith white hair braided and no sword at her back, the old Jukan woman hefted her load and ambled into the springtime and the life that she could, at long last, begin to live."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Heritage of Power 3)",
+        "author": "Lindsay Buroker",
+        "genres": [],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "The sun blazed in the western sky, the wind whipped Captain Telryn \"Sidetrip\" Yert's scarf around, and the ocean gleamed dark and blue thousands of feet below his flier. The southern polar cap, more than a thousand square miles of sheets of ice, hadn't yet come into view, but icebergs bobbed in the water far below, promising the team was getting close.\n\nTrip had never been to the Antarctic and looked forward to seeing a new place. Even more, he looked forward to completing their challenging mission to destroy the portal that had been re-opened, allowing hostile dragons into the world. He and the others would be hailed as heroes then. There would be newspaper articles. Photographers. Pictures of him standing in front of his flier and\u2014\n\n\"Can't you keep your silly scarf from whipping into my face?\" his backseat passenger, Dreyak, demanded.\n\nIt was the latest of several grievances from the shaven-headed Cofah warrior. The last had been in regard to the lack of lavatory amenities in the open-air fliers. Trip could understand a woman being less than thrilled about the simple tube setup, it being more for emergencies than comfort, but one expected men to have fewer qualms about where they urinated.\n\n\"I thought you might want to use the end to keep your hairless head warm,\" Trip called back over the wind. \"The air is starting to get nippy.\"\n\nHe was glad he had donned his parka and the Iskandian winter uniform at their last stop. They had started their flight three days before from the Pirate Isles just south of the equator, with only short rest breaks along the way, sometimes on uninhabited islands little more than bare rocks thrusting up from the ocean. It hadn't been until that morning that the air had truly grown cold.\n\n\"Cofah warriors do not need such ridiculous garments,\" Dreyak announced, and without looking back, Trip was sure his chin had an arrogant tilt to it. \"We are a hardy people.\"\n\n\"You don't have scarves with playful little fringes on the ends?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What about ear muffs?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Fur caps with tufted balls on the top? What with your trend toward shaven heads, you must feel the need to protect those shiny domes from snowfall.\"\n\n\"For extreme winter conditions, we have fur coats and caps. Nothing is tufted. Or fringed.\"\n\n\"That must be why Iskandia is known for setting the world's fashion trends.\"\n\n\"What a pitiful thing to be known for.\"\n\n\"We can't all be known as conquering warmongers with a quota of countries to be invaded. Some of us prefer peace.\"\n\n\"I haven't noticed that your preferences for peace\u2014\" Dreyak said it as if it were the filthiest word in the dictionary, \"\u2014have kept your country from violence. It is better to be strong and fierce, thus to make enemies quail at the idea of attacking your shores.\"\n\n\"Yeah? And how's that working for the Cofah when it comes to dragons?\"\n\nThey were on this mission together since both of their countries had a dragon problem.\n\n\"It is highly likely that the dragons, realizing how fearsome Cofah warriors are, will soon grow weary of attacking our cities and instead will attack the easy targets that Iskandia offers, cities defended only by puny soldiers.\"\n\nTrip refused to get angry at the jabs. It was the most his passenger had spoken the whole trip, and after the frigid silence, Trip didn't mind having something to talk about with him. Besides, he always got the sense that Dreyak was deliberately goading him\u2014all of them\u2014with his ridiculous proclamations about the glory of war and the Cofahre empire. For the first time, he wondered if it was to divert their attention from something else, questions about him personally perhaps. And why exactly he'd been chosen for this mission.\n\nThat is a surprisingly astute observation, Jaxi, his borrowed soulblade, spoke into his mind. The weapon hung in its scabbard from the belt on his left hip, wedged awkwardly between his seat and the hull. Did sentient swords feel discomfort?\n\nSurprising because you hadn't thought of it? Trip asked, responding silently, though he still hadn't figured out if he could transmit his thoughts, like a real sorcerer could. Was transmit even the right word? He had little knowledge of terms related to the magical and the arcane. Or surprising because of the source?\n\nThe latter. In the time I've known you, you haven't convinced me to expect astuteness.\n\nYou've known me for less than a week.\n\nPlenty of time to suss out astuteness. It's hard for me to consider you as anything except obtuse, given your grasp of your own abilities regarding magic.\n\nThanks.\n\n\"Watch who you're calling puny,\" Trip said over his shoulder, realizing he was more likely to come out ahead in his sparring with the Cofah than with Jaxi. \"I have two swords up here with me now.\"\n\nA second soulblade, the one he'd picked up after Rysha defeated a pirate sorceress in battle, was jammed through his belt on his right hip. He'd found that he had to be very careful getting into and out of his flier with all the extra appendages dangling from his body.\n\n\"The second one should be in my hands,\" Dreyak said. \"It is a Cofah soulblade, and I am Cofah.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I know. The setting sun reflecting off your shiny head keeps reminding me.\"\n\nA snicker sounded over the communication crystal in the cockpit.\n\n\"Good one, Trip,\" Leftie said. He, Duck, and Blazer flew ahead of Trip in their four-flier formation.\n\n\"Thanks, Leftie.\"\n\nTrip glanced back, wondering how his passenger would respond. His scarf tried to tickle Dreyak's nose, leading him to roll his eyes heavenward.\n\n\"I'd be happy to give you the sword if the sword requested it,\" Trip said, \"but it hasn't said a word to me yet. Jaxi said it went dormant after its handler died.\"\n\nJaxi had also said giving it to Dreyak to take home to his people would be the right thing to do. Trip planned to do just that when they parted ways at the end of the mission, assuming the blade didn't request it sooner, but for now, it seemed like a good idea to have the Cofah soulblade right next to Jaxi where she could keep an eye on it.\n\nOn him, she said dryly. We've discussed this. His name is Azarwrath, and he is most certainly a boy.\n\nHe's not speaking to you, is he?\n\nNot now, no. But he introduced himself to me before we engaged in battle.\n\nThat was polite.\n\nNot really. It included informing me about his superiority and suggesting I'm not reverent enough to be a sorceress, followed by promises to smite me into molten ore.\n\nI see. Trip looked down at his right hip, reconsidering the wisdom of keeping the blade so close. He didn't want anything down there smote. If Azzy wants someone else to hold him, all he has to do is tell me.\n\nTrip didn't necessarily want to give Dreyak a weapon that would make him more powerful than he already was, adding magic to his repertoire of abilities as a combat specialist, but Trip didn't want to keep Azzy against its\u2014his\u2014will, either.\n\nThere are times when you're not unlike Ridge, Jaxi shared in that same dry tone.\n\nYou're comparing me to General Zirkander? I'll take that as a compliment.\n\nHe, too, has a tendency toward flippancy. It must be a trait inculcated in all Iskandian pilots.\n\nI've noticed it seems to be inculcated in Iskandian soulblades too.\n\nReally. Jaxi sniffed, the sound penetrating his mind as effectively as if she had a nose.\n\n\"The scarf, Captain,\" Dreyak growled, pulling out a knife as long as his forearm. \"Take care of it, or I will take care of it for you.\"\n\nTrip tucked the end of his scarf into the back of his leather flight jacket again. It kept wanting to wiggle free, to Dreyak's obvious consternation. Rysha hadn't complained about it when she'd ridden with him.\n\nHe looked toward Leftie's flier where Lieutenant Rysha Ravenwood rode in the back seat. Was he regaling her with piloting stories? Or tales of his cunning athleticism on the hookball field?\n\nTrip well remembered the long appreciative look\u2014leer\u2014Leftie had given Rysha when she'd walked out of the airship hold in that extremely revealing pirate costume. Since then, he'd shown a lot more interest in her. Trip couldn't pretend to be surprised, but he'd been fond of Rysha since she'd stood up for him in that dreadful bar in the capital. Wasn't there a rule that said girls were supposed to reciprocate the liking of whichever boy liked them first?\n\nNow you sound more like a twelve-year-old than Ridge, Jaxi said. What did that even mean?\n\nI don't know. I'm not good with girls. Women. Since he was a few months from his twenty-fifth birthday, he should probably think of himself as a man and interesting female prospects as women.\n\nImagine my shock, Jaxi said. I suggest you rein in your romantic interests toward the lieutenant, at least until the mission is over and she hands that dragon-slaying sword to someone else. A dragon-slaying sword that will happily slay sorcerers too.\n\nIt hardly seems fair when I'm not truly a\u2014\n\nOr those with the potential to become sorcerers, Jaxi added, cutting him off.\n\nTrip sighed and gazed toward the horizon. He'd given up denying that he was that. Even if all he wanted to do was fly and defend his homeland from pirates, imperial invaders, and dragons.\n\n\"Major Blazer?\" Captain Duck asked over the crystal. \"My passenger was wondering how much farther we'll fly today. She's unimpressed with the lavatory facilities and wishes a chance to stretch her legs.\"\n\n\"I knew I wasn't the only one,\" Dreyak growled, the words almost lost on the wind.\n\n\"Preferably not by propping them up on my shoulders again,\" Duck added. \"That makes me feel like she's the praying mantis and I'm the, uh, prey.\"\n\n\"Some men get excited at the prospect of being preyed upon by Captain Kaika,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"I'm sure it would be stimulating, ma'am,\" Duck said. \"I'm not sure I'd survive the experience. Earlier, she was fondling her explosives in my back seat.\"\n\nSomething twanged Trip's senses, and he scanned the horizon instead of staring glassy-eyed at it. Was someone else out there? Or something else? Dragons were faster than fliers and could reputedly cross oceans with ease.\n\nKaika leaned over Duck's shoulder to speak\u2014the back seats weren't equipped with communication crystals. \"All I was doing was trimming fuses. Captain Duck is being melodramatic.\"\n\n\"It's just that I've heard about your reputation for devouring men, ma'am.\" Even though they were the same rank, Duck seemed certain he should call her ma'am instead of by name.\n\n\"You needn't get your feathers all ruffled, Duck.\" Kaika patted him on the shoulder. \"You're not in danger of my attention.\"\n\n\"That's a relief.\" He seemed to consider that for a moment. \"Wait, does that mean you don't find me appealing? Why not?\"\n\n\"Do you want a list of reasons?\"\n\nDuck's shoulders slumped. \"No, I reckon not.\"\n\n\"Wise man.\"\n\nTrip heard the conversation, but he ignored it. He definitely sensed something out there ahead of them, something with a significant aura. So far, the only beings he'd encountered that oozed power and presence like that were dragons. He supposed a magical artifact, like the portal they sought, might do so, but he didn't think he sensed an artifact.\n\nJaxi? he asked. Do you feel a dragon out there?\n\nNot yet, but I wasn't trying to sense anything. I was contemplating the image of Captain Kaika as a praying mantis.\n\nTrip, who was learning how to extend his senses to search for life and get a feel for the terrain around them, attempted to reach out farther than his eyes could see. A strange thing to contemplate when the sky was clear, and visibility was more than ten miles.\n\nHe imagined himself in the lead flier, sailing far ahead of their tiny formation and looking down from above. Last time, that mental exercise had worked a lot better than Jaxi's suggestion that he imagine his mind unfurling like a flower bud.\n\nEveryone's a critic, Jaxi said.\n\nDoing his best to concentrate, Trip didn't answer. As his mind\u2014his senses\u2014extended outward, the cockpit controls grew fuzzy, and a different view came into focus. The ocean still lay dark and blue underneath him, but he also saw a white shoreline, a shoreline of solid ice. It was jagged along the edge, with icebergs floating in the water all around it, some as small as fliers, others as large as cities.\n\nAt the far edge of his vision, a bronze dragon soared over the white landscape. He couldn't tell if it was on its way somewhere or simply flying around, perhaps patrolling the area.\n\nMaybe hunting, Jaxi said. I see her now too. I don't know what she would be patrolling, or why a dragon would be lingering down here, unless she just came out of the portal. Dragons don't care for cold weather.\n\nAnother dragon flew into the range of Trip's senses, a silver this time. It paralleled the female's course.\n\nHe shifted uneasily in his seat. Despite what Jaxi had said, he had the distinct impression that the dragons were patrolling the shoreline.\n\nWhat if some were left down here to guard the portal? Trip suggested, though he hoped that wasn't the case. The plan was to sneak in and destroy the portal without encountering dragons. Had that been a delusional plan? Is it possible the dragons know humans are targeting it?\n\nDragons can easily read humans' minds, so it's definitely possible, but as far as I'm aware, we're the only team that's been sent to destroy it.\n\nBut you wouldn't know if the Cofah or some other nation had sent a team, right?\n\nThat's correct, but the Cofah sent your surly friend there with us, supposedly because their people didn't know the location of the portal. We don't know the location, either, but thanks to our missing ally, Bhrava Saruth, we at least knew to start in the polar regions.\n\nWhat if Dreyak was sent along to spy on us and report back to his government once he learned the location of the portal? Trip didn't know if Rysha had shared the coordinates that she and Sardelle had narrowed down, based on locations of dragon ruins, with anyone except the pilots. But if Dreyak had asked, she might have innocently answered his question. She enjoyed speaking about her passions, and with her degree in dragon history, this mission had to fall under that category. You said you can't read Dreyak's thoughts, right? Because he has dragon blood?\n\nBecause he's been trained to keep people out of his head, Jaxi said. You have dragon blood, and I can read you like a romance novel.\n\nI don't know how to respond to that.\n\nNo response necessary. Just ask Sardelle about walling off your thoughts from other telepaths when you sign up for her classes after this is over.\n\nSign up for her classes? Trip imagined browsing through a catalog like one might at a university. Under which section were the magicking classes?\n\nSo obtuse. It's a marvel you sensed those two dragons before I did.\n\nThree now.\n\nThree?\n\nThere's another one farther east. I don't know if it's with the others, but\u2026 I'm going to tell the others. The dragons will sense us as easily as I sense them, I assume.\n\nOh, more easily. Granted, we don't have the auras that they have, but their powers and abilities to sense their surroundings are far greater than any human's. I'll do my best to shroud us, but that generally only works against other sorcerers.\n\nWill they sense the chapaharii swords? Trip asked, using the term Rysha did for the dragon-slaying swords, though he didn't know what it meant.\n\nIt seems likely.\n\nAny chance that will cause them to leave our fliers alone and let us search the ice without interference?\n\nJaxi snorted even more effectively than she sniffed. She had an amazing range for a sword.\n\nIf anything, it will make them more likely to come investigate, and perhaps try to destroy us. They'll see us as a threat and probably believe we brought the weapons because we're hoping to hunt and kill them.\n\nNo, we just want to hunt and kill the portal they used to invade our world.\n\nTechnically, they're not invaders. You would have to ask your archaeology-loving lieutenant, but I'm fairly certain dragons evolved here on Linora. Then they were tricked into leaving, something it's unlikely we'll manage to do again. Humans weren't even the ones responsible for it last time, according to Bhrava Saruth.\n\nTrip wondered if he would ever get to meet this Bhrava Saruth or the other dragon the Iskandians had befriended, dragons that had been conspicuously absent since the portal opened and all the unfriendly ones spewed into the world.\n\nWhen Jaxi didn't comment on that, Trip addressed the rest of his team. \"We have a problem.\"\n\n\"Is it that Captain Kaika is using my shoulders for a leg rest again?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"No. There are dragons ahead of us, about thirty miles away. They're flying right along the shoreline where we were planning to cut inland.\"\n\n\"Jaxi reported that?\" Major Blazer asked.\n\nTrip hesitated. So far, he didn't think anyone on the team had figured out that he had a sixth sense\u2014more than a sixth sense\u2014and that somewhere in the distant past, a dragon had apparently frolicked horizontally, as Jaxi had called it, with one of his ancestors. He wouldn't be surprised if Rysha had some inklings, but he believed Blazer, Kaika, and the others thought the chapaharii blades responded unfavorably to him because he was carrying magical soulblades.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Trip said.\n\nIt wasn't exactly a lie.\n\nSure, hero, tell yourself that.\n\nJaxi, you know how magic is viewed in Iskandia. I know Sardelle has changed the mind of her friends and maybe some others in the capital, but my mother was hanged because the people in our village believed her a witch. You must understand why I don't want people to know I'm\u2026 different.\n\nHe thought Jaxi would make some sarcastic comment about different being an understatement, but instead, she sighed into his mind and said, I know, and I do understand. But you can't hide it from everyone. Trust me. Sardelle found that out quickly. When you have the power to do good, to save lives, you have to use it. And then the people around you find out. If you trust them, and they're supposed to be able to trust you, don't you think it's better to tell them on your own terms?\n\nTrip glanced toward Leftie, someone who had been his friend for six years, and someone who was superstitious and uncomfortable around magic. When the very nonthreatening, and very pregnant, Sardelle had openly admitted that she was a sorceress, he'd looked like he'd been torn between wanting to attack her and wanting to jump out the second-floor window to flee from her.\n\nBlazer swore, asking a question of her own before Trip could answer Jaxi's, not that he wanted to.\n\n\"Can she guide us around them? By my calculations, we're twenty-seven miles out from the shoreline, but then we have to fly four hundred more miles inland to reach the first destination we're checking.\"\n\n\"We can try,\" Trip said, \"but they can sense things over extremely long ranges, even greater than Jaxi's range.\"\n\nOr your range, Jaxi chimed in.\n\n\"And she said they may be able to sense the chapaharii swords,\" Trip added, \"that they might draw them to attack us.\"\n\n\"They can try,\" came Rysha's determined voice, as she leaned over Leftie's shoulder.\n\nHer hand rested on that shoulder, and Trip looked away, telling himself it was only because she had to lean awkwardly forward to be heard over the communication crystal.\n\n\"We don't want to pick a fight with them,\" Trip said. \"It won't be like standing on the ground and battling a sorceress.\"\n\n\"I'm aware of that,\" Rysha said, looking over at him. \"Might I remind you that I've read numerous history texts and am quite well versed on dragon capabilities?\"\n\nShe sounded cooler and more aloof than usual, and Trip wondered if her new chapaharii sword, Dorfindral, was influencing her, sending tendrils of magic into her to remind her that he was a hated foe and not a friend. It pained him every time he remembered the loathing-filled look she'd given him when he'd walked up the beach toward her after she had, with the magical sword's help, defeated the pirate sorceress. It had been so different from the friendly smiles she'd given him previously, the way she'd stood up for him before she had even gotten to know him.\n\n\"You're welcome to remind me of your versedness any time you like, Lieutenant,\" Trip said, opting for an affable response rather than a disgruntled one. \"You know pilots aren't that bright. Sometimes, you have to thump us over the head with your knowledge a few times before we remember it.\"\n\n\"Speak for yourself, low speed,\" Blazer said, even though Duck nodded agreeably from his cockpit.\n\nIt was hard to tell across the distance, but Trip thought Rysha looked a little abashed, either at her own comment or because his response had made her realize it had been snippy.\n\n\"You're not dim, Trip,\" Rysha said. \"I've seen you fix things. You're a whiz with wobbly tables.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah,\" Leftie said, \"he's a genius. Now, if we could discuss our more pressing problem?\"\n\n\"Twenty-three miles,\" Blazer updated them. \"We'll see the shoreline soon.\"\n\n\"Turn east,\" Trip said. \"Let's follow the coast about twenty miles out, and I'll let you know when Jaxi tells me there aren't any nearby dragons. Maybe then we can turn inland and get back on course.\"\n\n\"Isn't there anywhere we can land and get out of these flying jail cells for a couple of hours?\" Kaika called over Duck's shoulder. \"Maybe we'd have better luck flying inland at night, anyway. Do dragons hunt by day or by night?\"\n\n\"Both,\" Rysha said, before Trip could consult Jaxi.\n\n\"There is a Cofah research outpost that I believe may only be about a hundred miles away,\" Dreyak said.\n\n\"I'm sure they'd welcome us with open arms,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"They would welcome me,\" Dreyak said.\n\n\"Are shaven heads required for entrance?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"My presence would ensure your safety. If you are concerned about a few scientists.\"\n\n\"Considering the only Cofah scientist we know has the nickname Deathmaker,\" Blazer said, \"I've got reason to be concerned about them.\"\n\n\"Deathmaker is a traitor,\" Dreyak snarled with vehemence he usually reserved for enemies he was about to slay.\n\nTrip? Jaxi asked. You watching that silver?\n\nHe'd been paying attention to the conversation, but he shifted his attention outward. I am now.\n\nIt's heading our way.\n\nI see that.\n\n\"We're about to have company,\" Trip told his comrades."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Lieutenant Rysha Ravenwood unfastened the straps that kept Dorfindral's ancient wooden sword box secure next to her seat, then unlatched the lid and withdrew the sword. The dragon Trip had warned them about hadn't appeared in the sky yet, but the blade flared a pale green as soon as she had it in hand.\n\nHunt!\n\nOh, she didn't truly hear the word, nor did Dorfindral speak to her, but when she held the hilt, she sensed what the blade wanted, to slay dragons and all those with dragon blood. It also, as she'd discovered when it coerced her into pulverizing a magical construct, hated artifacts made by sorcerers.\n\nShe'd learned\u2014almost too late\u2014that it hated Trip, too. Something that saddened her a great deal. Because of that, she'd even tried to get out of wielding it. But Kaika had pointed out that there were three chapaharii blades and only five people along on the mission who were capable of wielding them. Rysha, Kaika, and Blazer each had swords with them now, Kaika and Blazer because they had a lot of unarmed combat experience, and Rysha because she had all the magical control words memorized and knew more than anyone else here about the chapaharii weapons.\n\nThe main control word that she had to keep on the tip of her tongue was meyusha, which meant \"stand down.\" There was also one that ordered the blades to stand guard, presumably while the wielder slept or was otherwise unable to remain alert. Another phrase, antyonla masahrati, ordered the swords to \"take over,\" a notion that Rysha found alarming. Dorfindral had already guided her movements when she'd battled the sorceress. She couldn't imagine what it would do if it was given that order, and she had no intention of trying it.\n\n\"Any chance it'll be afraid of us because we have a way to hurt it?\" Blazer asked, glancing toward Trip's flier.\n\nThey were paralleling the shoreline now, or so Rysha assumed\u2014after Trip had suggested it, all the fliers had turned, putting the setting sun at their backs. They couldn't yet see the ice of the polar cap.\n\n\"Jaxi snorted when I asked her that,\" Trip said. \"The good news is that all the fliers with the dragon-slaying blades in them should have a modicum of protection from the dragon's attacks. The bad news is that mine won't.\"\n\n\"Shit, we should have rifled through that pirate's stash and found a fourth blade,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"I don't think there were more,\" Rysha said. She imagined how badly Trip's shoulder blades would itch if someone with a chapaharii sword were sitting behind him.\n\n\"Give me the Cofah soulblade,\" Dreyak said, his voice sounding distant since he spoke from Trip's back seat. \"You can't wield two swords while you're flying.\"\n\n\"I doubt I can wield one sword while I'm flying,\" Trip said.\n\n\"You better acquire the skill fast.\"\n\nWithout commenting, Trip pulled a scabbard into view and one-handedly extended it over his shoulder. As far as Rysha could tell, it didn't glow or show any sign of life. Would the soulblade consider coming out of dormancy to help them battle a dragon? If it didn't, and Trip's flier crashed, it could be lost forever, sinking to the bottom of the ocean.\n\nDreyak wrapped a hand around the scabbard, but as soon as he touched it, he yelped and jerked his hand away.\n\nTrip glanced back.\n\n\"It zapped me,\" Dreyak growled. \"Or did you do that?\" He glared at Trip.\n\n\"Me? I agreed with you. Better we each have one to use. It's not like our pistols will do anything against a dragon.\"\n\nRysha doubted the soulblades would do anything against their foe, either. The red lightning the sorceress's blade had shot out had been effective at damaging fliers, but getting through a dragon's defenses was another matter. Still, a soulblade could shield Trip's flier for a while. Maybe a long while if two of them worked together.\n\n\"Jaxi says she didn't do anything, either,\" Trip added. \"Actually, she says you're welcome to take Azzy and drop him over the side because she doesn't need help.\"\n\n\"She sounds young and arrogant,\" Dreyak said with a sniff.\n\nTrip gave him a long look over his shoulder, one Rysha had no trouble reading even from her position well off his flier's wing. He thought Dreyak could have been describing himself. Rysha suspected Dreyak was simply irritated\u2014with his pride wounded\u2014because a Cofah soulblade was more interested in staying with Trip than in working with him.\n\n\"I see him,\" Duck blurted and pointed to the south.\n\nThe silver dragon had appeared on the horizon, powerful wingbeats carrying him against the wind without trouble. He flew straight toward them. There was no question about his destination.\n\nTrip jabbed the soulblade back through his belt or wherever he was keeping it. Somewhere secure, Rysha trusted. She'd seen Trip fly upside down and knew it was part of his battle repertoire.\n\n\"Keep your thoughts away from our mission,\" Trip warned everyone. \"Dragons can read minds.\"\n\n\"Fantastic,\" Blazer growled. She sounded like she had one of her cigars in her mouth, though Rysha couldn't imagine how it would stay lit in the wind.\n\n\"What should we think about?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"Praying mantises?\" Leftie suggested.\n\n\"Staying alive,\" Trip said.\n\n\"There's no way we can outrun a dragon, right?\" Leftie asked.\n\n\"No, they're faster than our fliers,\" Blazer said. \"Trust me. I know from experience.\"\n\nLeftie drew something from his pocket, his lucky ball on a chain, and kissed it before returning it to his pocket.\n\nThe group eyed the silver as it flew closer, the setting sun reflecting off its gleaming scales. It flew with its maw partially open, its fangs visible. Each one had to be as long as a soulblade, if not longer. Its powerful muscles grew visible, rippling beneath those scales. Silver eyes with reptilian slits bored into Rysha's soul.\n\nShe flexed her hand around Dorfindral's hilt, allowing the sword's eagerness to flow into her. Its desire for battle swept aside some of her fear. She made sure her rifle was wedged down beside her seat and strapped in tightly. Just because the sword would be her weapon for this battle didn't mean she wanted to lose her firearm.\n\n\"Diamond formation,\" Blazer said. \"Three points with Trip in the middle. Assuming these swords work as advertised, we'll do our best to protect his flier.\"\n\n\"That's not going to be enough, Major,\" Trip said. \"You're going to have to try to get close enough to him to touch his defensive barrier with one of the blades. If you do, Jaxi and Azzy can attack him with magic. I don't think they can kill him, but they might be able to drive him away.\"\n\n\"How close do we have to get?\" Rysha called over Leftie's shoulder. \"To reach the barrier? How far does it extend from him?\"\n\n\"We're not sure,\" Trip said, and she imagined Jaxi speaking into his head. Might the Cofah soulblade be speaking to him too? Azzy? Was that its name?\n\n\"You don't think the dragon will just go away if he finds it impossible to get to us?\" Blazer didn't sound like she wanted to jump into battle.\n\nAt first, that surprised Rysha. But she realized that this wasn't their mission. Fighting random dragons all over Linora wouldn't necessarily make a dent in their numbers, even if they were successful. Whereas every time they fought, they risked deaths or damage to their fliers that couldn't be fixed, not way out here. If someone was forced to land, this polar region wasn't a hospitable environment in which to be stranded. If someone crashed into the icy ocean, that would be even worse.\n\n\"I wouldn't assume that, ma'am,\" Trip said. \"Dragons are as smart as we are. I think he'll just keep harrying us until he finds out a way to get around the swords' defenses. Jaxi says a silver might be powerful enough to manipulate the weather too. And magic is the only thing those swords will make you immune to. We\u2014\"\n\nThe dragon surged forward, accelerating as it closed on the formation, and Trip broke off.\n\nA blast of wind whistled toward the fliers from the side. Rysha didn't feel it, but the wings of the flier wobbled, and the frame trembled. Trip's flier reacted far more strongly, as he'd predicted.\n\nIt shuddered in the air and bucked as if it were riding a wave. Concentration stamped Trip's face. His flier wasn't hurled to the side\u2014Rysha had witnessed that happen to many of the fliers protecting the city in the battle the week before\u2014so the soulblades must have been protecting it somewhat. But how many attacks could they stave off?\n\nAnother blast of wind slammed into their formation. Leftie's flier groaned and shivered, and Rysha gripped the seat well, wishing the dragon would come close enough to strike at.\n\nThe dragon's eyes narrowed in contemplation. He didn't appear worried, but maybe he was wondering why his attacks weren't doing more damage. Or, maybe he was simply probing them for weaknesses.\n\nTrip looked at the silver as he flew, and he raised Jaxi. But it was the other soulblade that sent the first attack. Its familiar red lightning shot out of Trip's cockpit, branching around the propeller and sizzling through the air toward the dragon.\n\nAs predicted, it didn't come close to touching his scales. Nor did the dragon's cold reptilian eyes show any sign of concern.\n\n\"There's your barrier location,\" Trip said.\n\nIt took Rysha a second to realize what he meant, but it struck her as the lightning faded. It had branched all around the dragon, delineating the invisible barrier, showing its distance outward from the dragon's scales. About ten feet in all directions.\n\n\"Get us within ten feet of it, Leftie.\" Rysha thumped one of his shoulders while pointing her sword over the other one. It flared with hungry green light.\n\n\"Shit, Ravenwood. Don't lop off my ear with that thing. The ladies like my ears.\"\n\n\"Get me close too,\" Kaika barked at Duck.\n\n\"Does that mean we're not trying to protect Trip?\" Duck asked.\n\nTrip answered before Blazer did. \"No. Get its defenses down.\"\n\nHumans are succulent, a voice spoke into Rysha's mind\u2014into all of their minds, she could tell from people's startled glances at the creature. My mate has ordered that I invite you to dinner. To be our dinner. The dragon chuckled.\n\nIf that was an example of dragon humor, Rysha found it appalling.\n\nTrip banked and flew straight at the silver, a fiery orange ball of flames shooting toward it from his left side and more red lightning streaking out from his right. He looked like some ancient god hurling magical power about more easily than a kid throwing rocks, but the attacks merely bounced off the dragon's defensive barrier. Trip was forced to bank again lest he run into it.\n\nHe was careful not to get close enough to be within range of the creature's fangs or talons, but as he flew past, the dragon lashed out with its tail. The long, sinewy appendage snapped toward him like a whip. The tip cracked into the barrier the swords had erected and didn't get through, but his flier shuddered again, affected by whatever magical power accompanied the attack.\n\n\"Leftie, go,\" Rysha ordered.\n\nLeftie was already veering toward the creature's other side, so she needn't have barked in his ear, but she couldn't help it. Dorfindral craved dragon blood, and Rysha wanted to protect Trip.\n\nTo her surprise, Dorfindral didn't send a surge of indignation into her at that thought. Probably because the sword was too focused on its target right now.\n\nLeftie took her toward the side of the dragon opposite Trip, firing his machine guns as he went in. So much for a sneak attack. Not that one would have worked, anyway.\n\nAs she rose up in her seat as much as her harness would allow, Rysha glimpsed Duck flying in from above, trying to get Kaika and her sword close. Blazer chased after the dragon's tail. She had no passenger in her flier, unless the group's gear and Kaika's bomb collection counted, so she would have to fly and wield the third blade at the same time. Maybe she hoped to get lucky and go unnoticed, swiping at the tip of that tail.\n\nAnother blast radiated out from the dragon in all directions. Once again, Rysha heard the wind blow past them, and the flier shivered, but Dorfindral did seem to be protecting her and the things around her, at least somewhat.\n\nLeftie tilted them sideways, their heads toward the dragon's side, just avoiding the wings beating up and down. Gravity tipped Rysha into the side of the seat well. Even though the harness limited her reach, she was glad she hadn't unfastened it. She lunged as far as it would let her go and slashed over her head with the sword.\n\nBut she swiped through empty air. She remembered the zing of energy that had gone up her arm when the blade touched the sorceress's defensive shield, and she felt nothing like that now.\n\n\"That wasn't close enough,\" Rysha yelled. \"Turn and try again.\"\n\n\"You're a demanding passenger,\" Leftie yelled back, though he was already looping to go in again.\n\nAfter strafing the top of the dragon, bullets bouncing off uselessly, Duck dipped low to take Kaika in for an attack.\n\n\"Don't shoot,\" Blazer ordered, \"or we'll end up hitting each other. Stick to the swords, and\u2014look out, Duck!\"\n\nThe dragon was dipping to chase Trip's flier. Its tail whipped up as it dove, the pointed tip smashing into Duck's flier.\n\nRysha gaped as Duck and Kaika spun away, wing tips rolling over wing tips.\n\n\"I thought we were supposed to be immune to attacks,\" Blazer snapped, swiping over her head as she dove along with the dragon, still trying to get close enough to hit that barrier.\n\n\"Magical attacks,\" Trip said after a few seconds. After he'd gotten clarification from Jaxi? \"Apparently, a physical attack can get through.\"\n\n\"Took some damage,\" Duck said grimly.\n\nHe'd righted his flier, but when he turned back toward the battle, the craft flew with a pronounced hitch.\n\nFortunately, the dragon barely seemed to have noticed that it had struck him. Or maybe that was unfortunately. The silver arrowed down after Trip's flier, its intent clear. Those magical attacks from the soulblades could be irritating it.\n\nTrip weaved and dove, corkscrewing to avoid his pursuer. The mechanical fliers always seemed clunky to Rysha, especially when compared to dragons, but he made his seem graceful. And the dragon truly struggled to anticipate all his crazy moves. It snapped at his tail repeatedly, but didn't come close enough to test the soulblades' barrier.\n\nUntil it hurled some mental attack at the flier, one that made it through. The dragon must have finally worn away the soulblades' defenses. Trip's craft lurched to the side, then dipped downward into a tailspin straight toward the ocean. Black smoke flowed from the back.\n\n\"No,\" Rysha cried, and gripped Leftie's shoulder. \"Go, go! We have to help him.\"\n\nLeftie chased the dragon downward. \"Don't you dare get yourself killed, Trip,\" he snarled, his hand tight around his flight stick as their nose pointed toward the dark ocean.\n\nThey shot down far faster than gravity alone would have carried them. The wind tore at the flier, and tears sprang from Rysha's eyes. The fuselage vibrated, and something shifted to her side. Her rifle had almost shaken free.\n\nCursing, she stuffed it down deeper and jammed her hip against it so it would stay put.\n\n\"Hurry,\" Blazer urged. \"We're not losing any people out here.\"\n\nHer flier was right beside Leftie's, and she fired at the dragon, despite her admonition telling the others not to. Rysha waved Dorfindral, wishing it had power it could shoot out like the soulblades did.\n\nThe dragon picked up speed as it closed on Trip's flier, both of them descending rapidly toward the ocean. As fast as Leftie flew after them, Rysha knew they wouldn't catch up in time. But maybe she could get a slash in as the dragon pulled up to avoid hitting the water. Right now, it seemed intent on catching up to Trip and crushing his flier in its talons.\n\nRysha didn't think it would reach him before his flier plummeted into the ocean. Not that it mattered. He would die either way.\n\nShe couldn't feel anything but horror at that thought, but if he had to die, she found solace in knowing the dragon wouldn't be able to deliver him to its mate for dinner.\n\nAt the last second, when it looked like Trip would plunge into the ocean, he pulled up. His flier skimmed so close to the waves that water sprayed up on either side of him.\n\nAs quick and agile as dragons were, it seemed the creature should have had time to react, but it plunged head first into the waves.\n\n\"Be ready for it to come out,\" Trip said, his voice utterly calm.\n\nHad he engineered that? Feigned the near crash? The smoke following him down? Maybe the soulblades had created an illusion.\n\n\"Jaxi's going to light up the spot where it's coming out,\" he added. \"Be ready to strike. There, now!\"\n\nA red sphere seemed to float on the water's surface, like some bullseye on a gun range. Leftie and Blazer flew toward it.\n\nRysha risked unfastening her harness. She might need the extra two feet of reach she could get without it. She just hoped that if she went for a swim, Leftie would come back for her before the sharks darted in.\n\nThe dragon burst from the water like a geyser erupting.\n\nThere was no time for thought, only to react. As Leftie flew toward it, tilting to give Rysha the angle she needed, she lunged from her seat, slashing overhead. Once again, she cut through air. But she was so close. Twelve feet away? Thirteen?\n\nIts silver body sped past, and she thought she would be too late for another lunge, but there was the tail, streaming out after it.\n\nKill! Dorfindral seemed to cry into her mind.\n\nShe wasn't sure if it was her idea or the sword's, but she jumped onto her seat and sprang toward that tail. Instead of slashing wildly, Dorfindral guided her arm into a neat stab. The very tip encountered resistance, and it felt like a bubble popping.\n\nAn electrical backlash shot up her arm, and she cried out at the shock, almost pain. But it was soon replaced with the shock of landing in the water. Absolutely frigid water.\n\nShe plunged downward, her head going under, as the ocean enveloped her, shocking her body with its iciness. At first, she couldn't move, and her body descended into the darkness, but fear sent a fresh surge of energy through her, and she kicked wildly.\n\nHer boots and her clothing dragged at her, and Dorfindral was a dead weight, but her flailing and kicking brought her to the surface. She tried to gasp in air, but it was as if the cold had shocked her lungs like a sharp blow to the solar plexus. They couldn't seem to work.\n\nIn the air above, red lightning streaked into the dragon's body, wrapping all around it at the same time as a blaze of white energy slammed into its body. For the first time, those attacks reached its scales. Machine guns fired, as well, and one of the fliers zoomed past right over her head.\n\nLeftie. He glanced over the side, lifting a finger toward her, but banked and pursued the dragon.\n\nRysha's lungs finally kicked into gear, and she managed to gasp in air. She treaded water as vigorously as she could, more than needed to stay afloat, and she hoped the energy expenditure would warm her body. She'd never been in water so cold in her life.\n\nThe dragon must have had enough of the battle because it flew away. Rysha had lost all sense of direction, and she had no idea if it sped out to sea or back toward land\u2014ice.\n\nThree of the fliers tried to pursue it, but it soon outpaced them, pulling ahead even though its wings didn't seem to beat that rapidly. The fourth flier\u2014Duck's damaged one?\u2014had more of a hitch now, and it looked like it needed to head straight for a safe landing spot. Wherever that would be.\n\nTwo of the fliers turned back. Rysha lifted Dorfindral out of the water, waving to get their attention. Could they still see her? She had to be the tiniest of specks in the dark ocean, especially with the waves rising and falling all around her.\n\nShe willed Dorfindral to glow green, since daylight was fading, and that glow would make it easier for her comrades to see her. But it didn't glow. What the hells? Because there was no magic nearby?\n\nSeven gods, she was freezing. How long could she survive in this frigid water? Even if she got out, would they be able to get her somewhere to warm her up in time?\n\nShe was so busy thinking about hypothermia that she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. Her arm brushed against something, and she shrieked, images of sharks lurching into her mind.\n\nWhirling, Rysha hacked with the sword before it registered what had touched her. An iceberg floated there. Her boot bumped the underwater part of it as Dorfindral sank into the visible ice, lodging there.\n\nShe grunted, feeling foolish, then wondered if she could climb atop it to make herself more visible.\n\nBut the roar of the fliers' propellers reached her ears, and she knew they were close. Leftie and Trip came into view over the waves, cruising low over the water. Trip had Dreyak behind him, but her seat behind Leftie waited for her.\n\nRysha yanked her sword free and pushed away from the iceberg. She reached her free hand up. She could see Leftie and Trip yelling to each other, but couldn't hear their words, not with freezing water burrowing into her ear canals. Her teeth chattered so loudly they hurt as they knocked together.\n\nTrip pointed at Leftie, then pointed at Rysha. As she looked at their fliers from below, she realized the problem. They couldn't land in the water, and with the thrusters mounted on the lower half of the craft, they wouldn't be able to reach her if they simply leaned over the sides and lowered a hand. The soulblades also wouldn't be able to levitate her out, if that was within their power, as long as she held Dorfindral.\n\nLeftie flew toward her, leaning over the side of his flier as he came in. He was going to make a grab for her.\n\nThough she did not think it would work, Rysha lifted her hand, trying to keep it steady as she treaded with her legs, raising herself as much as possible.\n\nThe propeller roared as he came in, leaning far out of the cockpit and stretching his fingers toward her. He missed by two feet.\n\nDamn it.\n\nTeeth cracking together, Rysha sank back down into the water. She couldn't feel her toes, and numbness was creeping into her legs, despite her efforts to warm herself through exertion. This wasn't the lake in her family's valley back home.\n\nShe thought about jabbing Dorfindral into the iceberg, leaving it there so they could reach her with magic. Surely, they could figure out a way to retrieve the blade once she was back in one of the fliers. But what if she didn't lodge it in well enough, and it fell out? They could never get it off the bottom of the ocean.\n\nThere was the surge of indignation from the blade that she'd expected to feel earlier.\n\nA flier cruised toward her again, Trip this time. Dreyak had been in his back seat a moment before, but now it was empty. Maybe the soulblades had levitated him over to Leftie's flier?\n\nRysha didn't care, as long as someone plucked her out of the water.\n\nDorfindral flared green as Trip approached.\n\n\"Knock it off,\" she told it, the words barely audible over her chattering teeth.\n\nTrip flipped completely upside down, his eyes never leaving hers. Their intensity sent a tingle through her. Or maybe that was from her body going entirely numb.\n\nShe grunted and hefted her leaden arm into the air as high as she could as he approached, praying he would be able to reach her.\n\nThe propeller roared, and she feared it would take her head off\u2014his upper wings were only an inch above the water. But she kept her arm up, resisting the urge to duck out of the way.\n\nFingers wrapped around her wrist, and she was yanked out so quickly, she almost dropped Dorfindral. Though her hand was so numb, she could barely tell, she willed her fingers to stay wrapped around the hilt, clenching so hard it hurt. The one thing she could not do was lose that sword. Her country needed it.\n\nTrip rolled his flier sideways, and briefly, she lay on the fuselage, her wrist still clasped in his hand. He glanced at her\u2014did he expect her to climb into the back seat? Normally, she could, but her body was so numb, she couldn't move anything, couldn't do anything except focus on keeping her grip on the sword.\n\nTrip rolled the flier the rest of the way upright, took them up over the waves, then twisted and grabbed her with his other hand too. Pain flashed in his eyes, and Dorfindral flared with intense green light. As Trip maneuvered her into the seat behind him, Rysha realized the sword must be hurting him, punishing him for being so close.\n\nHer mouth wouldn't work when she tried to yell the control order for, \"Stand down\" at the blade, so she yelled it in her mind. It seemed to work, somewhat. The glow faded partially.\n\nWith Trip's help, Rysha collapsed into the seat well. Trembles wracked her body, and the sword dropped from her limp fingers.\n\nShe reached for it, afraid it would fall out if she didn't hold it, but Trip yelled, \"Don't,\" over his shoulder. \"Don't touch it for a few minutes, and Jaxi will warm you up. I'll fly straight so it won't fall out.\"\n\nRysha slumped deeper into the seat, happy to comply, happy to do anything that would result in her being warm.\n\nRight after Trip spoke, a slow, subtle heat flowed into her. She continued to tremble and shake, and she knew it would take a while to truly warm up. She just hoped Trip had gotten her out quickly enough that there wouldn't be lasting damage. Though the soldiers all had combat-medic training, there weren't any doctors or healers among them, and she didn't want to be a burden going forward.\n\nTrip looked back at her. They'd ascended above the waves, and Rysha could see the three other fliers sailing ahead of them, Blazer and Leftie matching the slow pace of Duck's damaged craft. But she only glanced at them. She met Trip's gaze, wanting to tell him how grateful she was, but her teeth hadn't stopped chattering. Even though the warmth filling her was driving away the tremendous cold, she didn't think she could manage words yet.\n\nHis lips parted, as if he wanted to ask a question, but didn't know how to phrase it. He was probably wondering if she was all right, or if she would be.\n\nShe lifted her numb arms and leaned forward to hug him. She was soaking wet and had to look like something an owl had coughed up, but he didn't pull away. He reached back and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her as close as possible, given the seat back between them.\n\n\"Guess that answers my question,\" he said, warm humor in his voice, his cheek against hers.\n\n\"Wha\u2014at?\" she asked, proud she'd gotten a word out. Sort of.\n\n\"I wondered if the sword was going to make you brain me if you're riding behind me.\" He said it lightly, but she knew it had to be a true concern for him. That was the reason she hadn't been flying behind him, as she had done at the beginning of the mission.\n\nShe squeezed him tightly. Almost fiercely. Afraid. Afraid of what, she wasn't sure. That the sword would attempt to make her kill him? As it had been doing in the dream where she'd stalked him through a dark forest?\n\n\"I'll ha\u2014han\u2014dle the sword,\" she said, wishing the words came out more firmly, as if that could make them more true. No, they would be true. She swore it to herself.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\nHe drew back, not holding the hug for nearly as long as she wished, but she told herself he had to fly the craft. Before pulling away completely, he smiled and kissed her on the cheek. It was a perfectly chaste I'm-glad-you-didn't-die kiss, but it sent a warm tingle through Rysha. Long after Trip turned around, and she was looking only at the back of his head, she found herself thinking of the intensity of his dark green eyes as he'd flown in to get her.\n\nA sense of disgruntlement seemed to waft up from Dorfindral, even though she wasn't touching the sword, but she sat back in her seat and did her best to ignore it. Instead, as the soulblade continued to warm her numb limbs, she closed her eyes and thought of Trip's determined expression as he'd come to help her. Determined and confident. He'd never doubted he could pull her up. And why would he? He seemed more comfortable in the sky than on land. Maybe he was."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "As a full moon gleamed in the night sky, shining silvery light over the fields of ice below, Trip looked dubiously down at the Cofah research outpost. They were close to a mile away, but the ambient light was enough that he could make out two corrugated metal buildings that were standing, and a dozen more that weren't.\n\nWreckage scattered the ice all around the area, and the dark deflated envelope of an airship pooled like a blanket next to one of the remaining buildings. He couldn't tell if the ship itself was damaged. It was currently being smothered by the limp balloon.\n\nThere weren't lights on in the buildings, nor did he see or smell smoke. Given how cold he was, even with his parka on, he couldn't imagine sitting down there without a fire going. Though he didn't think his senses would tell him anything his eyes didn't, he did his best to stretch out with them, trying to determine if anyone was alive down there.\n\nHe detected a few small animals, but no people.\n\n\"There's nobody there, Major,\" Trip said.\n\n\"You sure? Jaxi tell you?\"\n\nJaxi? Trip asked, more because he didn't want to lie than because he didn't trust his senses.\n\nBy all means, let us keep up your ruse. You can truthfully let her know that I've detected no humans.\n\n\"Yes,\" Trip said.\n\n\"Well, I guess my worry about us getting shot down by Cofah scientists won't prove true,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"We must check on my people,\" Dreyak said from Leftie's back seat.\n\n\"We're landing because you said we could repair our battle damage here,\" Blazer said, \"but you're more than welcome to look for people who aren't there.\"\n\nThat started an argument, which Trip ignored. Instead, he told Jaxi, Thanks.\n\nShe could have forced him to lie to Blazer.\n\nYes, you should be pleased that Sardelle told me to help you without being specific in regard to how. Dragon portals, lying, who knows?\n\nTrip didn't respond to her sarcasm because he didn't want to argue about his decision to continue to hide his abilities. Maybe he would have been more open if Leftie hadn't been with them, as he wouldn't have had as much to lose if near strangers shunned him\u2014he was used to that.\n\nSelf-pity? Jaxi asked. I don't know what you've been reading, but the ladies are not drawn to that.\n\nI wasn't planning to share it with any ladies.\n\nWhat do you think I am?\n\nAn overly judgmental sword?\n\nYou're thinking of Dorfie. He was the one grumping about you kissing his handler.\n\nHe? You've given it a gender? Trip looked back at Rysha, more interested in how she was doing than anything regarding her sword.\n\nAs I told Sardelle years ago in regard to Kasandral, anything that surly and belligerent must be male.\n\nRysha was dozing, having finally warmed up enough to do so, though from the way she clutched her parka around her, she wouldn't mind being warmer yet. He would be happy to hug her again after they landed, to transfer some of his body heat to her.\n\nBody heat, of course, Jaxi said. That's why you want to wrap your arms around her.\n\nAre you sure you aren't the judgmental sword?\n\nCertainly not. I am merely sharing my wisdom with you when it's appropriate. You're young, and it's blatantly obvious that you need a mentor.\n\nTrip couldn't argue with that. But he'd always imagined someone like General Zirkander being his mentor, rather than a mouthy sword.\n\nYou don't need a pilot mentor. You need a mentor who can help you with magic. And your love life.\n\nAnd you're the one to do that?\n\nI can certainly advise you on the matter of relationships. I've had a dozen handlers over the years and learned much from observing their mating rituals. Also, I've read numerous books.\n\nOn\u2026 mating rituals?\n\nIndeed.\n\nTrip tried to decide if that implied anthropological textbooks or romance novels.\n\n\"Are we going to land, ma'am?\" Duck asked. \"Or just circle this place? I ask because my propeller hasn't been happy since it got clubbed by a dragon tail.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Blazer said. \"Everyone, land by the airship there. The remains of the airship.\"\n\nTrip turned his attention back to the outpost. He'd been following the others as they flew around it, looking with their eyes at what he'd already seen with his senses, presumably trying to determine if any danger lurked below.\n\nTrip was less worried about any danger the Cofah might present and more about dragons. He sensed a couple at the very edge of his range. He wasn't sure how far away that was, but he thought he would have time to warn his teammates if one headed this way, and they could hightail it into their fliers if need be. Not that a dragon couldn't catch up to a flier.\n\nIt was discomfiting to realize there weren't any places to take cover here, no way to escape angry predators. Judging by all the flattened buildings, hiding inside them wouldn't do much.\n\nTrip wished they had managed to kill that silver, especially after Rysha had so bravely leaped from the flier to pierce its defenses. But the dragon had screeched and taken off after that. Maybe, its injury would send the message to the other dragons out there that this team wasn't to be trifled with. But Trip feared the silver would simply, as soon as it licked its wounds sufficiently, round up some more dragons and come back for them.\n\nHe hadn't shared those grim thoughts with the others. Maybe he would be wrong.\n\nDoubtful, Jaxi said. Also, I don't sense any dragons, and my range for detecting something with such a powerful aura is at least forty miles.\n\nOh? Trip guided his flier toward the ground since the others had already set down. Are you suggesting I'm not sensing them? That it's my imagination? He still wasn't sure how much stock to put into his \"senses.\" He didn't think he was imagining them\u2014he'd been right earlier, after all\u2014but who knew?\n\nNo, I believe you sense them. I can see that you do, in fact. I'm just informing you that your range is remarkable.\n\nThat's a good thing, right? Maybe Trip should have been pleased by her observation\u2014it was certainly better than having her call him obtuse\u2014but he'd always wanted to be remarkable for his flying ability, not\u2026 this.\n\nIt suggests you have the potential to be a powerful sorcerer. Which is very rare in this time period. Even Tylie, Sardelle's student with the most potential, isn't powerful in the way sorcerers of my time period were. Six hundred years ago.\n\nI didn't know you were that old. I guess you are a lady. Or a matron?\n\nEw, gross. Don't call me that again, or I'll melt your flight stick.\n\nTrip glanced at the stick he held as he activated the thrusters for the landing.\n\nI might be talking about that flight stick.\n\nIt took him a few seconds to get the joke, if that's what it was. His mind was busy dwelling on her earlier words. Jaxi\u2026 would I have to choose? Between becoming a sorcerer and being a pilot? I'm sure you've figured it out, but I'd much rather be the latter.\n\nThat flummoxes me, but yes, I've figured it out. Speaking purely from the viewpoint of one gauging potential, there's no reason why you couldn't be both, though you wouldn't become as diverse and talented with magic if you only studied it part time.\n\nWhat about from the viewpoint of\u2026 other people? I'm concerned that if my fellow officers and my superiors found out, they wouldn't want me in a squadron.\n\nRidge's people have found Sardelle useful, Jaxi pointed out. At first, they mistrusted her, but she's become close with some of the pilots.\n\nOn her own merits or because she was\u2014is\u2014General Zirkander's wife?\n\nShe wasn't when Wolf Squadron first met her.\n\nBut she was his something, wasn't she? I mean\u2014\n\nI know what you mean. She had a national hero to vouch for her. Yes, I'll admit that it may be more difficult if you have to win people over on your own, but they would be utter fools not to want a sorcerer flying into battle on their side.\n\nOr\u2026 born into a time of rampant prejudices.\n\nThat's all times, Jaxi said dryly. People are the same in every era. The only thing that changes is what the prejudices are.\n\nTrip, not finding the conversation as encouraging as he would have liked, especially from his self-proclaimed mentor, unfastened his harness. Blazer, Dreyak, and Kaika were already on the ground with rifles and pistols at the ready as they gazed at the buildings and the wreckage around them.\n\n\"Rysha?\" Trip turned to wake her up if need be, but she was sitting up and looking around the flier curiously.\n\nShe must have brushed against her sword, because it flared green, highlighting her face. The curiosity disappeared, replaced by determination and something unfriendly as she looked toward Trip. But then she clenched her jaw, visibly wrestling with herself\u2014with the sword's influence.\n\nTrip jumped down to give her some space. He imagined the blade grew even more irate when in closer proximity to dragon blood.\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Rysha said, leaning over the side and giving him a quick smile, as if to say she had control of the sword now.\n\nHe believed she could control it, but he didn't want to be the cause of her need to wrestle with it. As sad as it made him feel, it would be wisest if she went back to riding with Leftie, and he did his best to give her space.\n\n\"Good.\" Trip nodded to her and kept his thoughts to himself. \"I didn't know when I was given Jaxi that she would be able to dry clothes and warm hands.\"\n\nI am a versatile as well as powerful sorceress. Should you dedicate yourself to studying magic, you too could dry clothes one day.\n\n\"I think she\u2014and you\u2014saved my life.\" Rysha climbed down and touched his hand.\n\nThey both wore gloves, so he barely felt it, but he appreciated the gesture. Especially since the tightness at the corners of her eyes suggested she had to fight the sword to do it.\n\nHis only answer was a sad smile.\n\nCaptain Duck lowered himself down from his cockpit, keeping one hand on his flier and eyeing the white ground warily. He stamped a boot experimentally. \"Oh, it's snow. I thought it would all be ice.\"\n\n\"There's ice under the snow,\" Rysha said. \"And in parts of the south pole, there's also land under the ice. Approximately seven hundred square miles spread across thirty islands believed to have originally formed as a result of volcanic activity. While there are human tribes that live within the Antarctic Circle, there are none known to have inhabited those islands, though they have left sign of visits. One can travel across the ice sheets that run between the islands and cover much of the pole itself. The ice is reputed to be anywhere from thirty to forty feet deep in the summer and even more in the winter. The edges of the sheet recede in the summer. Most likely, the Cofah outpost here was placed far enough inland so as not to be disturbed by the summer melts.\"\n\n\"Does that mean we're on ice now?\" Duck looked between his feet. \"Just ice?\"\n\n\"Thick ice, sir.\" Rysha stamped a boot. \"I dozed off after my unwise leap from the flier, so I'm not entirely certain of our coordinates, but I believe we're between two of the islands now, perhaps forty miles from solid land. But the ice is quite solid. As you can see from the buildings.\"\n\n\"The destroyed buildings,\" Blazer said, pointing toward some of the wreckage. They appeared to have been knocked down by force, rather than being burned or melted by fire. \"Did dragons do this?\"\n\n\"We'll have to look around, perhaps with better lighting.\" Rysha looked toward her previous flier. \"Leftie, is my pack still back there? And my rifle? It kept trying to slip free.\" Her voice held a plaintive note as she admitted the last.\n\n\"It's all there,\" Leftie said. \"I made Dreyak keep an eye on it.\"\n\n\"You made me,\" Dreyak said coolly, though his heart didn't seem to be in the grousing. He was frowning as he gazed all around.\n\n\"Yup, told him not to root through your belongings to peek at your undergarments too,\" Leftie said, throwing Rysha a wink.\n\nDreyak strode off, his pistol in hand. He didn't bother to light a lantern.\n\nKaika knelt by her pack, perhaps digging one out.\n\nTrip knew he should do the same, that he would be given the order to fix Duck's flier shortly, but he gazed out at the ice fields stretching for as far as the eye could see. The wind and snow had combined to make small ridges and peaks, but nothing high enough to block the view. Nothing to hide behind should trouble come find them.\n\nHe wondered how Dreyak had known how to guide them to this place. There were no landmarks other than the two standing buildings themselves. He also wondered if Dreyak had some private reason for wanting them to come here. He'd suggested it even before Duck's flier had been damaged.\n\nBlazer walked toward Trip, and he eyed her warily since she also carried one of those swords. She could have left it in the flier in favor of her rifle or pistol, but she hadn't. Kaika hadn't left hers behind, either. Its scabbard rested against her pack as she pulled out her lantern.\n\nWere they simply being cautious, keeping the weapons close at hand in case dragons came? Or were the blades compelling them somehow? Insisting on being carried along?\n\nIt's true that they don't like to miss out, Jaxi said. They're a bit like puppies. Fortunately, you have two soulblades who are far superior to puppies.\n\nComing from you, that's high praise for Azarwrath. Trip hadn't yet heard a word from the Cofah soulblade, but it\u2014he\u2014had helped with the dragon battle, so he was inclined to think of the sword more respectfully now.\n\nI thought that if I complimented him, he'd be more likely to help us fight again.\n\nThat probably wasn't a bad idea. Trip suspected the soulblade had only assisted them because it didn't want to end up on the bottom of the ocean. He didn't want to be holding it if they ever came face-to-face with enemy Cofah. He could all too easily imagine the blade turning on him. Azarwrath seemed to have rejected Dreyak as a handler, for whatever reason, but maybe Trip could leave the soulblade here in the Cofah outpost, so some of the scientists could ensure it made it back to its homeland. If they found the scientists.\n\nBlazer stopped several feet from Trip, grimacing at him.\n\n\"Did Captain Kaika and Lieutenant Ravenwood give you a copy of those command words, ma'am?\" Trip guessed the reason for the grimace had little to do with his rumpled uniform and beard stubble.\n\n\"Yeah. They're gobbledygook and hard to remember. I've got the one for 'stand down' memorized though.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"Definitely.\" Blazer prodded her sword's hilt. \"This thing really wants me to kill you. Or maybe it just wants to kill those.\" She jerked her head toward the two soulblades hanging from his belt.\n\nAll of the above, Trip thought, but all he did was nod and say, \"I assume I'm on flier repair duty, ma'am?\"\n\n\"You got it, kid. Requisition whoever you need to help. Get Duck's up to spec again, and check the others too.\" Blazer gazed toward the night sky. \"I have a feeling we're not going to get off this continent without another fight. Or ten.\"\n\n\"Is it a continent?\" Trip thought of Rysha's description of islands.\n\n\"Probably not, but I only fly over land. I don't study it.\" Blazer looked in the direction Dreyak had gone. Kaika and Rysha were heading that way, too, each with a lit lantern. \"The rest of us will look around. Ravenwood and Dreyak both want to know what happened to the Cofah. I, frankly, don't give a damn, but it's too cold to sit around and do nothing while we wait.\"\n\nTrip considered pointing out that they could help him with the fliers, but he didn't truly want the women with their surly swords breathing down his neck while he worked.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nLeftie and Duck came over as Blazer grabbed her rifle out of her flier and headed after the others.\n\n\"Which one of us is getting the honor of holding your wrench, Trip?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"Don't ask things like that,\" Leftie said, nudging Duck. \"He doesn't have much luck with women. He might take you up on the offer.\"\n\nDuck paused, as if working through the joke.\n\nTrip sighed and nodded to Duck. \"You were in the cockpit when you got hit. You see what took the brunt of the attack? Can you describe what the flier was doing after that? I saw you had a hitch.\"\n\n\"That's right. The engine was clunking, and one of the propeller blades might have gotten bent too. I'll show you.\"\n\nLeftie fell in beside Trip as they walked over and gave him a pat on the shoulder. \"That was quick thinking with Lieutenant Ravenwood. Good job. Wish I'd thought of flying upside down.\"\n\nTrip appreciated the praise, especially since his friend had been giving him so many wary looks lately, every time magic came up. \"I didn't think to suggest it when you were going in. I should have. She wouldn't have been stuck in the water as long if you'd gotten her on that first run.\"\n\n\"And then I could have been the hero she flung her arms around and kissed afterward.\" Leftie sighed melodramatically as they reached Duck's flier and started opening panels.\n\n\"She didn't kiss me.\" Trip decided not to mention that he'd kissed her. Only on the cheek, but he had a feeling officers weren't supposed to put their lips anywhere on other officers.\n\n\"She didn't?\" Leftie stared at him. \"Did you not give her The Look?\"\n\n\"What look?\"\n\n\"The deep gaze into her eyes that lets her know you saved her life and that she should now feel it required to give you a long, passionate, and deeply thankful kiss that could lead to clothing removal.\"\n\n\"How do you do that look?\" Duck asked from the other side of the flier.\n\n\"I'd show you, but I don't want you feeling required to kiss me, passionately or otherwise.\"\n\n\"I think I can control myself, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"Not many people can.\"\n\n\"You're about as arrogant as the lone cock in the henhouse, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Not without reason, I assure you.\" Leftie grinned at Trip. \"I'm surprised the lieutenant didn't need to shuck her wet clothing to dry off and survive. I expected her to. Kept looking back at your flier, hoping to get a show.\"\n\n\"You're a bit of an ass sometimes, Leftie,\" Trip said.\n\n\"I just say what's on my mind.\"\n\n\"I think that's what makes you an ass. Others refrain.\"\n\n\"They must be repressed. Mostly, I'm just sad that she was completely fine by the time we got here. All the way to the outpost, I was figuring we might have to build a fire when we got down here and snuggle with her. You know, to help her warm back up.\"\n\n\"We? Are you including me in that scenario?\"\n\n\"Nah, I meant me and my wrench.\"\n\n\"Definitely an ass,\" Trip said, punching him in the shoulder as he climbed into the flier to grab one of the toolboxes.\n\n\"Am not. I'm just impressed with how tough our bookish lieutenant is.\"\n\nTrip didn't mention that Jaxi had used her power to dry Rysha's clothes, warm her body, and save her from the hypothermia that had been setting in. No need to remind Leftie that magic was being used all around him.\n\n\"Bookish?\" Duck asked. \"Just because she knows some stuff, you think she's bookish? She single-handedly slew that sorceress. And she seems fit and comfortable in the wilds. I could see an alpha wolf choosing her to be his mate.\"\n\nTrip grimaced, hoping that didn't mean that Duck saw himself as an interested alpha wolf.\n\n\"I don't think she has mating on her mind,\" he murmured and groped for a way to steer the conversation to another topic, perhaps that of repairing fliers.\n\n\"Only because you didn't give her The Look,\" Leftie said.\n\nTrip shook his head and shifted his focus to his work. The longer they were stuck at this forlorn outpost, the more time that dragon had to find buddies and return for a rematch. He was fairly certain The Look wouldn't work on their scaled enemies."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "Wind scraped across the ice fields, swirling the powdery snow about and chilling Rysha through her winter clothing. She missed the warmth Jaxi had shared with her after her unfortunate dip in the ocean. While she had never had an interest in taking weapons to bed, she might make an exception for a soulblade that could warm the sheets on winter nights.\n\nRysha wanted to head straight into the buildings to look for the scientists, or perhaps clues about what they had been researching way down here, but Kaika and Blazer joined Dreyak who was already examining the snow outside the outpost. Rysha tagged along, not believing the group should split up any more than it already had. Also, if the scientists were dead inside those buildings, their bodies horribly mauled, she didn't want to walk in on that by herself. Captain Kaika wouldn't be fazed, Rysha was sure, but it would take her longer to grow used to things like that. To death.\n\n\"Claw marks,\" Dreyak said, pointing down at several spots on the white ground. \"It's snowed since this happened, but you can tell that dragons were here. The marks are far apart. No polar bear made them. And here.\" He walked a few feet and pointed to another spot. \"Something huge and scaled was rolling around in the snow. At first, I thought it had settled down here to rest, but I'm finding several places torn up like this, and they're more indicative of a fight than of a nap.\"\n\nRysha couldn't imagine dragons flying into a human outpost for a nap. Oh, she knew they slept, but this seemed an odd place for it.\n\n\"Why would a dragon have been fighting another dragon?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"Actually, I think multiple dragons were fighting. Far more than two.\" Dreyak continued to walk along the perimeter and point out spots to back up his suppositions. He hadn't claimed to be more than a warrior, but it seemed that reading signs and tracking were in his repertoire.\n\n\"Fighting over this place? To claim it as their territory?\" Blazer eyed the outpost dubiously.\n\nRysha couldn't imagine why a small human settlement would be coveted by dragons.\n\n\"I don't know. There aren't many settlements out here, are there? I'm only aware of this one from the Cofah, but I suppose there could be natives, or outposts from other countries.\" His gaze shifted to Rysha.\n\n\"There are native tribes that come out to the pole in the winter,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"Winter being the tourist season when it's especially appealing?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"In the winter, the ice sheets extend to the tip of the Dakrovian and Myar continents and the isolated countries of Yon-yon and Bygeronii. The people can easily walk across and hunt. There are native species. Seals, bears, penguins, and smaller animals. Winter is a good time to get furs too. Did you know that white seal fur goes for as much as five thousand nucros in the markets back home? And the natives covet their fat over all others since it's incredibly calorically dense?\"\n\n\"She's a veritable encyclopedia, isn't she?\" Blazer asked.\n\nRysha blushed. She already felt chagrined after flinging herself into the freezing sea earlier. She supposed this shouldn't embarrass her. It was hardly the first time someone had singled her out for her tendency to overshare.\n\n\"It's good that she knows stuff.\" Kaika draped an arm around Rysha's shoulders. \"We'd be in trouble if you were the smart one here, Blazer.\"\n\n\"That's Major Blazer. If you're going to insult me, I insist you use my rank.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that in mind. Dreyak, what did you say your people were researching here?\"\n\nKaika tossed the question out so casually that Dreyak opened his mouth and almost responded, but he seemed to catch himself. His eyes narrowed.\n\n\"I didn't say.\"\n\n\"Do you know?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Is it something dragons would be interested in?\" Kaika asked.\n\nDreyak walked another dozen meters along the perimeter, and Rysha didn't think he would answer. He stopped and looked down at an area next to a few six-foot stakes protruding from the snow. Snow dotted with several dark red spots. He kicked aside some of the recent layer of snow, showing that the stains were larger than they had first appeared.\n\n\"It is possible,\" Dreyak said, frowning down.\n\n\"Does it have to do with the portal?\" Rysha asked.\n\nDreyak pressed his lips together and didn't answer.\n\nRysha and the others joined him by the stakes. Dog paw prints marked the snow in addition to the bloodstains. Had the Cofah researchers brought teams for dog sleds? It seemed a primitive way to travel, given that steam-powered machines and vehicles were common in the world now, at least in Iskandia. But they were heavy too. Rysha imagined there were areas where the ice wasn't as thick as the averages the encyclopedia articles reported.\n\n\"I think at least one of the dogs was eaten,\" Dreyak said grimly. He walked over and picked up what appeared to be half of a leg bone.\n\nAlmost everyone looked uneasily toward the sky. They all wore clothing to protect their faces and necks from the cold, but Rysha had no problem reading the concern in people's eyes.\n\n\"And the humans?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"I'm not sure yet.\"\n\n\"Is it possible the dragons were fighting over the outpost because it represented dinner?\" Kaika asked. \"Maybe there aren't enough of those succulent seals to go around.\"\n\n\"If the dragons are hungry, why don't they just go elsewhere in the world?\" Rysha asked. \"They're cold-blooded creatures. They prefer warm climates.\"\n\n\"Maybe they're guarding the portal,\" Dreyak said.\n\n\"Unless it's much closer to this outpost than we believe,\" Rysha said, \"it seems like overkill for them to patrol the entire polar ice cap.\"\n\n\"Are dragons known for subtlety?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"Perhaps not.\" Rysha turned toward Kaika. \"Captain, can we look inside the buildings?\" She glanced at Dreyak. \"There could be survivors.\" She felt bad for misleading him about her interests, but she would like to find out what the Cofah had been researching, and he wasn't inclined to tell them. Besides, she would certainly grab a first-aid kit and help the inhabitants if she found them here and injured.\n\n\"Yeah, you and I will go, Lieutenant. It'll be nice to get out of this wind.\"\n\n\"I see it's your sense of altruism leading you to those buildings, ma'am.\"\n\nKaika gave her a sarcastic salute and led Rysha toward the closest structure. Dreyak frowned after them, but something else on the ground caught his interest, and he knelt for a better look.\n\n\"Something wrong with a man who can track in the middle of the night without a lantern,\" Kaika muttered as they rounded a corner and located a door.\n\n\"Maybe his dragon blood lets him see better in the dark,\" Rysha said. \"Or maybe he's using his mind more than his eyes.\"\n\n\"Both are creepy thoughts.\" Kaika touched the hilt of her chapaharii blade. She had claimed Brysdral, the one the pirate king had wielded. The third one, which Blazer now carried, was, according to the runes on its box, named Eryndral. \"My new buddy here would like to be thrust into his heart.\"\n\n\"I know, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Though it really wants to be thrust into Captain Trip's heart. Having two soulblades must make him a doubly appealing target.\" Kaika stopped at the door, tilting her head curiously. \"You'd think its focus would be on the swords though, rather than Trip's heart.\"\n\nSince Kaika seemed to expect an answer, Rysha offered one that wouldn't reveal Trip's secret. \"The chapaharii tools aren't that smart. They were magically instilled with a basic purpose and can respond to the command words, but they're not thinking beings, not like the souls inside the soulblades.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\nRysha couldn't tell if Kaika fully believed her. Maybe she was starting to put together the pieces in regard to Trip.\n\nOpting for her pistol rather than the sword, Kaika pushed open the door and stepped inside, the firearm in one hand and her lantern in the other. Judging by the foot of snow that had blown up against the door, nobody had used it for a while.\n\nRysha followed her inside, though she didn't anticipate finding anything interesting in this structure, as it had the look of vehicle storage rather than a laboratory or office building.\n\nKaika started looking around immediately, her lantern not pushing the shadows back very far. Even so, Rysha got the sense of a single cavernous space inside. There was a vehicle, a steam wagon with a plow blade on the front for snow removal. There were also harnesses and bags of dog food. Rysha hoped that only one animal had been caught by a hungry dragon and that the others had been able to get away, or maybe been harnessed to sleds and mushed away.\n\nShe paused. Was that possible? She hadn't seen sleds yet. Maybe the scientists had received enough warning, and most of them had fled before the dragons arrived. Or they'd had the opportunity to flee while the big scaled creatures had been fighting with each other.\n\nThe thought of dragons thrashing about in the snow outside the outpost puzzled Rysha. Oh, they had definitely been known for fighting with each other the last time they'd lived in the world, sometimes in one-on-one territorial squabbles and sometimes, among those who had allied with humans, against dragons living in other countries.\n\nShe hoped they could find some of those dragons that had been friendly toward humans. Trip had mentioned making a deal with the bronze that had attacked the pirate fortress, but that hadn't sounded like a true alliance. People had once ridden dragons into battle. They must have had close relationships. It was hard to believe, given that she'd thus far only encountered dragons that wanted to enslave or eat humans.\n\n\"Not much here,\" Kaika said, returning from her circuit of the building. \"I think that's the only vehicle they had. Not much sign that others were stored next to it.\" She waved toward the wagon and the roll-up door on another wall.\n\n\"I was wondering if the people might have fled by dog sled.\"\n\n\"If they did, I'm sure Dreyak will let us know. Let's check the other building.\"\n\nRysha jogged out ahead of her. That was the one she was more interested in investigating, since it looked like it might hold offices. She had no idea what the destroyed buildings had held, as most of them were completely flattened. Living areas, perhaps.\n\nShe didn't see Blazer or Dreyak as she hurried across the walkway toward the other building, but assumed they were all right. Trip or Jaxi would warn them if dragons were coming. It was handy to have them along. Rysha thought it strange that so many people had a hard time understanding that, that sorcerers could be helpful and shouldn't automatically be considered enemies.\n\nThough, she still wasn't sure how she felt about Trip on a more personal level, now that she suspected he could read minds. He'd only hinted that he could do that once, replying to a thought she'd had but not voiced. Was it possible he knew everything that sauntered through her brain? If he did, he'd probably grow bored quickly, since she was often dwelling on academic topics rather than scintillating ones. Of course, he never seemed bored when she rambled on, and he hadn't once cut her off.\n\nFaint clanks drifted from the direction of the fliers, and she wondered if he minded that he always got stuck doing repairs. He did have the engineering degree, and he had said he liked fixing things, but if it were her, she would definitely prefer to explore.\n\nThe front door was locked, placing an obstacle in front of her own exploration. She thumped her shoulder against it, hoping the lock might be old\u2014or frozen\u2014and break easily, but the metal door was sound.\n\nRysha stepped back, eyeing the windows. They had bars over them. The other building hadn't had windows, so she didn't know whether to get her hopes up that the extra security for this one signaled something valuable. Or valuable research?\n\nThere wasn't a hanging lock, or she might have shot it\u2014or seen if Dorfindral could cleave through it. Instead, the knob held a simple keyhole.\n\n\"Is my assistance needed?\" Kaika asked, coming up beside her.\n\n\"Yours or maybe Jaxi's.\" Rysha waved to the door. \"Do you have any explosives suitable for blowing open locks?\"\n\n\"My explosives typically blow the doors right off their hinges.\"\n\n\"That would be acceptable to me.\" Rysha gazed around at the mostly destroyed outpost. \"Who would even know it had been us?\"\n\nKaika lined herself up, shoulder to the door. She hummed a few bars, then performed a step-behind side kick. The door flew open so hard it banged on the corrugated metal wall inside.\n\n\"I like explosives more than the next person,\" Kaika said, \"but I prefer to save them for when they're truly necessary.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. A good policy.\"\n\nRysha hurried inside to a large room with a dozen interior doors. She hoped they weren't all locked, or Kaika's kicking foot would get quite the workout. The long tables in the large room kept her from checking right away. Large papers were sprawled across them, and she trotted over to take a look.\n\nMaps. Dozens of them. Topographical maps of the Antarctic in the summer as well as the winter, showing ice coverage for different years. Some of the maps were marked with ruins sites. Dragon ruins sites.\n\nRysha didn't have to take out her notes from Sardelle to know that the Cofah had marked some of the same spots she had. Interestingly, the coordinates that Trip had pointed to, saying he had a hunch that was their destination, were marked and described, as were several others within a couple hundred miles of the outpost.\n\nRysha peered closer to read the description for that one. It was on land. Mount Eldercrag. Ice Caves. Cave. Dragon statues carved into a fissure. Three thousand years old, no markings. No evidence of recent use. Cave explorations unfruitful. Dragons in area.\n\nRysha frowned. If the Cofah had already investigated her team's most likely prospect and found it lacking, was there any point in flying out there? The Cofah couldn't have anticipated that Iskandians would show up at their outpost, so it seemed unlikely these were fake notes meant to lead them astray.\n\nSimilar notes described what had been found at the other sites that had been investigated. None of them mentioned the portal, but Rysha had a feeling that was what the Cofah had been looking for, even if Dreyak hadn't been willing to verify that. With dragons terrorizing the empire, they also had a vested interest in destroying it.\n\nRysha gazed around, eyeing the walls, lights, and furnishings, only vaguely aware of Kaika opening doors and peering into rooms. \"This place hasn't been here long, has it?\"\n\nThe Cofah might have only set up the outpost after the dragon problem had started up.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Kaika said. \"And the people haven't been gone long, either.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Rysha thought of the snow drift against the vehicle building door. It had made her think the area had been abandoned for a while, but for all she knew, it could have snowed the day before.\n\n\"And they left in a hurry.\" Kaika walked out of a room carrying a tea mug and a half-eaten sandwich. \"The bread isn't that hard yet, even though there's not a lick of moisture in the air here. Humidity ten, twenty percent, I'd wager. I think those scientists were here as recently as yesterday. Maybe even this morning.\"\n\n\"I guess if dragons were fighting on the doorstep, that would be a good reason to leave.\"\n\n\"It would convince me to find a new apartment.\"\n\n\"But where did they go?\" Rysha looked back to the maps, this time investigating the area right around the outpost.\n\n\"I don't know, but it's not our mission to find them.\"\n\n\"Dreyak won't like the idea of leaving them.\"\n\n\"Dreyak isn't in charge.\"\n\nRysha pointed at something marked on the map simply as \"Cave.\" The spot was only five miles from the outpost. Though she couldn't imagine caves in an ice field, not significant ones anyway, it sounded like the kind of place one might seek out to hide from dragons.\n\n\"There are some journals and notes in some of these rooms if you want to take a look,\" Kaika said. \"I'm going to check on the flier repairs and see if our assiduous young men need help.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nSince they hadn't found any mauled bodies\u2014only a half-mauled sandwich\u2014Rysha didn't mind being left alone. Besides, she was intrigued by the fact that the Cofah had apparently been looking for the same thing her team was\u2014and for longer. Was there any chance they had found it? And that the dragons had somehow known?\n\nIt seemed unlikely, but it also struck her as strange that the outpost had apparently been here a couple of months without being harried, and that a bunch of dragons had descended on it out of nowhere. Maybe within the last twenty-four hours.\n\nEven though Kaika hadn't sounded interested, Rysha suspected it would be a good idea to convince the team to go looking for the scientists. Her instincts, formed by reading about countless Cofah invasions growing up, not to mention the attacks she had lived through, railed against the idea of working with those people. But they appeared to have more information than she did. In this instance, it might make sense for the two teams to join together.\n\nShe would look around more and hope to find something more substantial than maps to convince Major Blazer to lead a hunt for the survivors."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "The sounds of an argument outside drifted to Trip's ears, and he looked up from the project he was working on to keep himself busy\u2014and warm. After fixing the damaged flier and checking the others, he'd taken a look at the airship and found it only had a few issues, the torn envelope being the largest one. He had located patch kits in its hold, so it wasn't an insurmountable issue. Had the scientists been given the time, which it seemed they hadn't, they could have repaired it and left within a day or two.\n\nHe'd brought one of the other issues, a broken valve control from the airship's single large helium tank, into the vehicle shed to a workbench in the back. A clump of patch tar from his flier's repair kit was temporarily keeping the tank shut while he worked on the valve. Technically, he'd finished working on it, but thanks to a rickety kerosene heater, his little corner had warmed up enough that he was comfortable without his gloves on. He'd been loath to go back outside, so he'd started an extracurricular project.\n\n\"\u2026not staying here,\" Blazer's determined voice came through the walls, even though Trip had shut the door.\n\nNeither Leftie nor Duck stirred. They, too, had found their way inside and slept against the wall near his workbench, bundled in their parkas with their hands tucked under their armpits. Apparently, Leftie hadn't been interested in snuggling with Duck to share body heat.\n\nDeeming his small project complete\u2014it only needed installation\u2014Trip headed to the door with it. He left the others sleeping for now, though it sounded like the team would be leaving soon. He wasn't surprised. This wasn't a good place to loiter. Given how many dragons seemed to be down here in the Antarctic, he was surprised the outpost had survived as long as it had without being attacked.\n\nOutside, dawn had come, but clouds blanketed the sky, from icy white horizon to icy white horizon, so it wasn't much lighter than it had been during the night. Kaika and Blazer faced Dreyak and\u2026 Rysha. Oddly, she was standing by the Cofah's side.\n\n\"According to the map I found,\" Rysha said, \"there's a big cave only five miles to the east.\"\n\n\"The very direction that the dog sled tracks I found go.\" Dreyak stood with his gloved hands on his hips. \"Now that it is daylight, I will go after them, even if you won't. It won't take long.\"\n\n\"You can take as long as you like,\" Blazer said, \"but we're not waiting for you. If we're feeling generous, we'll fly back this way on our way out and see if you want a ride home.\"\n\n\"There was blood in the snow. Many could be injured. It is not noble to leave without finding the survivors and seeing if they need help.\" Dreyak thrust an arm toward the outskirts of the outpost. \"There was a dragon attack. How can you abandon the people who suffered from it? You've seen what the dragons do.\"\n\n\"Yes, which is why we have this mission to destroy their portal,\" Blazer said. \"That's our priority.\"\n\n\"If this was an Iskandian outpost, and those were your people, you would help them.\"\n\n\"Not when I've got a time-sensitive mission,\" Blazer said, though she didn't sound entirely convinced.\n\n\"But, Major\u2014\" Rysha held up an old book, as well as a much newer journal, the kind of item that one could pick up at the corner market, \"\u2014I believe the Cofah may have already searched the site I gave you coordinates to. And, according to their notes, they didn't find anything.\"\n\nBlazer frowned at her.\n\n\"I also found this very old book. It's Dakrovian, but I can read it. It's full of information on dragon artifacts. There's nothing specific to portals, but it mentions some of the strengths and weaknesses of the metals the dragons favored, and also that they created special crystals to imbue with their power. I believe information in here may be crucial to destroying the portal when we find it. It's possible that neither Captain Kaika's explosives nor our swords will be enough.\"\n\n\"Damn, are we talking about magic again?\" Leftie grumbled, walking out of the building with a yawning Duck following behind him.\n\n\"You two have an enjoyable night together keeping each other company?\" Kaika asked them. She smirked, though it didn't seem heartfelt.\n\nTrip sensed she was trying to lessen the tension radiating from Blazer and Dreyak.\n\n\"Dakrovian?\" Blazer frowned at the book. \"I've been to that continent for a mission. It's primitive, even today. What would they have known about all that stuff?\"\n\n\"They have powerful shamans,\" Kaika said. \"I remember Sardelle saying that their continent didn't have purges of witches, the way ours and Cofahre did.\"\n\nRysha nodded. \"Archaeological evidence suggests that dragons may have originated in those jungles and that some of humanity's earliest encounters with them happened on the continent.\"\n\n\"Fine, take the book with us,\" Blazer said. \"You can read it while we fly.\"\n\n\"That's thievery,\" Dreyak said, his eyes flaring.\n\n\"Nah, it's borrowing. We can return it when we come back to pick you up. What's the problem?\"\n\nDreyak seethed in silent fury.\n\nJaxi? Trip thought. Are you awake?\n\nSoulblades don't sleep.\n\nOh? You've been quiet for a long time.\n\nWatching you bend metal around and screw things into holes didn't excite me enough to comment.\n\nSorry my work isn't more exciting. I would have used a blowtorch if I'd been able to find one.\n\nThat would have been an improvement. The application of fire makes all projects better. As the glaring match between Blazer and Dreyak went on, Kaika, Rysha, Leftie, and Duck sharing uneasy looks with each other, Jaxi spoke again. I was also contemplating dragons and portals. Also, I have been missing Sardelle a little.\n\nSorry, Trip repeated, though there wasn't much he could do to help a homesick soulblade. He felt bad that he'd brought Jaxi on this mission without her handler, though it wasn't as if he'd had a choice.\n\nNo, and it's not your fault you're not Sardelle. Though you could at least try to be a little more interesting.\n\nI'll work on that.\n\nThank you.\n\n\"There's something else,\" Rysha said into the frosty silence. This time, she held up the journal. \"This is full of notes about the searches the scientists were doing. Though they were careful not to explicitly state what they were seeking, one gets the feeling they weren't looking for old tools and potsherds. Also, there's a page at the end of the journal that's missing. The last page of writing.\" She held the journal open to show the remains of a page that had been torn hastily from the back.\n\nDreyak narrowed his eyes at her, as if he objected to the fact that she'd been investigating here. Or snooping around, as he might consider it.\n\nTrip found himself walking over to stand closer to Rysha, as if his not-so-intimidating form could keep Dreyak from glaring at her.\n\nInstead, Rysha jerked in surprise, her hand twitching toward Dorfindral and irritation flashing in her eyes.\n\nTrip halted. He kept forgetting about that sword\u2014and his vow to give her space.\n\nRysha moved her hand away from the hilt and smiled at him, though it had a forced aspect to it.\n\n\"Are we ready to go, Captain Trip?\" Blazer waved toward the fliers but frowned at the object in his hands. \"Or does that need to be installed? What is that?\"\n\n\"Uhm.\" Trip hadn't particularly wanted to unveil it in front of everyone, mostly because he anticipated being mocked. But everyone looked expectantly at him. \"Lieutenant Ravenwood mentioned having trouble keeping her rifle from slipping out when she was flying with Leftie. I thought to build a simple gun rack into the side of the seat well, but that would have been\u2026 Well, I had an idea to add more versatility.\"\n\n\"It doesn't have drink holders, does it?\" Rysha's smile grew more genuine, even though a faint green glow slipped from Dorfindral's scabbard, a sure sign the sword was reminding her that it wanted to slay him.\n\n\"No, but I'll mount it on the side of the seat well, like this.\" Trip shifted the rack and demonstrated its features as he spoke. \"It'll secure the rifle when down in this position, but it can unfold and pop up when you need to fire. Very simple. There's a swivel here, so you can point your rifle anywhere on that side of the flier, but you can unlatch it here if you need to point at a target on the opposite side or up overhead. Also, this little lock will keep it in place if you need to alternate between firing and using the sword.\"\n\nA few people blinked at him and at the contraption. Leftie dropped his face into his gloved hand.\n\n\"Trip, Trip, Trip, don't you know you're supposed to give a woman you like flowers and chocolate, not gun holders?\"\n\nHeat flared in Trip's cheeks, more at this public announcement that he \"liked\" Rysha than at the admonition itself.\n\n\"Uh.\" Kaika lifted a finger. \"I'd rather have a gun holder than flowers.\"\n\n\"Hells, yes, me too.\" Blazer seemed to forget her feud with Dreyak and walked over with Kaika to examine the new contraption.\n\nTrip, more interested in what Rysha would rather have, looked at her with hope.\n\nShe bit her lip, still smiling back at him. He found that expression promising.\n\n\"I don't think the women here are representative of the sex as a whole,\" Leftie announced.\n\n\"That's not a bad thing,\" Duck said.\n\n\"I'm going to search for the wounded people,\" Dreyak said, sending a scathing glare at all of them. \"Leave if you feel that is the honorable thing to do.\"\n\n\"No,\" Rysha blurted. \"We all need to go. Major, I'm convinced the scientists have information that could shave a lot of time off our search.\"\n\n\"Didn't you say they haven't found the portal yet?\" Blazer asked. \"And that you're not even positive that's what they're looking for?\"\n\n\"The location of the portal could be on the missing page. The missing page that someone tore out, folded up, and stuffed into a pocket.\"\n\nBlazer scowled at her.\n\n\"It doesn't sound like it would take long to check,\" Trip said.\n\n\"I agree,\" Duck said, \"and if there are wounded people, I think it would be the right thing to help them. All the way down here, what does it matter if they're Cofah or Iskandian?\"\n\n\"It matters,\" Blazer grumbled. \"And we aren't taking a vote. This isn't a damned democracy.\"\n\n\"I'll build you a gun mount if you say we can go, Major.\" Trip offered a smile, though he utterly lacked Leftie's knack for smiling at women, flirtatiously or otherwise.\n\nDreyak sent a why-was-I-sent-on-a-mission-with-these-heathens look toward the heavens.\n\n\"Fine,\" Blazer finally said. \"Four hours. That's all you're getting. That should be plenty of time to walk five miles and back.\"\n\nTrip, having no idea how extensive the cave system was, didn't think that left much time for actually searching for the scientists, but he did not object.\n\n\"Walk?\" Rysha asked. \"Can't we fly?\"\n\n\"Not if we wish to follow the tracks. There is no proof they went to this cave of yours.\" Dreyak, already wearing his weapons and gear, strode off across the snow without waiting.\n\nBlazer strode up to Trip, and he expected her to chastise him for trying to manipulate her. Or a glower as her dragon-slaying sword suggested she attack him.\n\nAll she did was point at his fancy gun rack. \"I want to see a sketch on paper before you build anything. I want to have some input.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Trip,\" Rysha whispered, then grinned and waved at him before she jogged to the flier to grab her pack.\n\nHe gazed after her, warmth spreading through his limbs despite the frigid wind sweeping across the ice fields. He didn't mind one bit that he'd just made extra work for himself.\n\n\"No kiss for that, either?\" Leftie asked, stopping at his shoulder. \"Trip, you definitely need to work on The Look.\"\n\n\"Is there a class I can sign up for back in the capital?\" Maybe Trip could hunt for it while he was signing up for magicking lessons with Sardelle.\n\n\"You better hope there is. You need more help than I can give you.\" Leftie walked away, shaking his head."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "A soft snow fell as Rysha and the others strode across the field, slipping and skidding on the treacherous ground as they attempted to catch up to their determined tracker. Thus far, it had been easy to follow the parallel prints from the dog sleds, along with the paw prints themselves, but if that snow continued to fall, it would soon obscure the trail. The map showed where the cave was, but she didn't have any proof that the scientists had gone there. Maybe they had some other outpost or hideout that wasn't on the map.\n\nMaybe they had all been eaten.\n\nRysha looked back at Trip and Leftie, who strode side-by-side at the end of their little column. Even though Dorfindral continued to ooze disgruntled thoughts about Trip's presence, she kept murmuring the stand-down order at it whenever he came around. So far, it was working, though she had to watch for a tendency to feel irritation or flashes of anger toward him. And toward Dreyak, too, but she wasn't entirely sure she should blame the sword for that. The man was irritating. Or at least obstinate. Not like Trip.\n\nShe looked back at him again, and this time, she caught his gaze, and he lifted a hand. She waved back. When he'd shown her the gun mount he'd made, describing it with as much enthusiasm as she explained things she was passionate about, she'd wanted to hug him and thank him profusely, but everyone had been looking at them. And then Leftie had made that stupid comment. And then Blazer and Kaika came over. Hugs had been out of the question, but she vowed to find a moment for one later.\n\nDorfindral sent out another wave of disgruntlement, as if determined to warn her that Trip was an enemy. She wondered if there were any texts on the chapaharii that she hadn't yet read. A lot of the Iskandian and Cofah books related to the magical had been destroyed long ago by people who feared they would be used as grimoires or who knew what to teach people to become witches.\n\nToo bad the Dakrovians had few written texts\u2014they relied largely on oral histories. She'd been delighted to find that book in the outpost and couldn't wait to read it. In truth, she already was reading it. Any time the footing grew easy enough that she could manage it, she flipped open the pages to devour as much of the information as possible.\n\n\"In the elite troops,\" Kaika said, walking at her side while Duck and Blazer strode ahead, with Dreyak farther ahead still, \"you're expected to be perpetually alert. Scanning the horizon, watching for any indications of an enemy's passing, listening for hints of an ambush, and sniffing the air for traces of gunpowder or kerosene or even chewing gum\u2014anything that might suggest humans are nearby.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. But if we find the Cofah scientists, I'll feel obligated to give them their book back.\" Rysha lifted the open tome, having no doubt as to why Kaika had offered that particular bit of advice. \"I want to memorize it first, if possible.\"\n\n\"Memorize? It's four hundred pages.\"\n\n\"Closer to five hundred. Isn't it wonderful? I noticed a section on chapaharii tools\u2014well, the Dakrovians called them something else, but they work in a similar manner\u2014and I can't wait to read it, but I'm forcing myself to check on everything that could be useful in regard to the portal first.\"\n\n\"Memorize?\" Kaika asked again, eyeing the text doubtfully.\n\n\"Well, not really. I mean, I'm going to familiarize myself with it. I'll only memorize pertinent passages.\"\n\n\"So, what? Only a hundred pages?\"\n\nRysha didn't think there was anything mean-spirited behind Kaika's teasing, but she always felt a little self-conscious when people pointed out that her interests were on the all-consuming side. \"I bet you could recite a hundred pages' worth of information on all the different explosives out there.\"\n\n\"After almost twenty years of working with them, I imagine so. Not after an hour of reading information in a book. While walking. Through the snow.\"\n\nRysha brushed some of that snow off the pages. \"I could teach you some memorization techniques sometime if you want. There are all kinds of tricks for speeding up the process.\"\n\n\"Good to know.\" Kaika smiled as she faced forward again, picking up their pace since the snow fall was growing heavier, partially obscuring Dreyak from sight. Duck and Blazer had picked up the pace too.\n\nRysha shut the book as they hurried to close the gap. She slipped on the ice, but caught her balance before pitching over. She was glad she hadn't fallen flat on her face while she'd been reading. Balance had always been one of her strengths, perhaps thanks to the tumbling and trampolining she'd done as a child\u2014a former circus acrobat had come out to tutor her and her brothers for several summers. She hadn't put that on her application for the elite troops, figuring it would mostly be seen as a sign that she'd come from a noble family with too much money to spend on their children.\n\n\"Do you think I've got a shot at making it, ma'am?\" Rysha asked. \"Into the elite troops. Or am I\u2026 not close enough to the mold?\"\n\n\"You're not even sitting in the same room where the molds are stored.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\nKaika patted her on the shoulder. \"It's not bad for the army to have people with diverse backgrounds in it, and the same goes for the elite troops. The more kinds of expertise your people have, the more the unit has to draw upon. If you can pass the physical stuff\u2014and I'll be the first to admit, it's challenging\u2014then I think your only problem may be in carrying out missions that involve killing people. You have a gentle soul. That could be problematic.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\nAt least Kaika hadn't said her passions would be the problem. Unfortunately, Rysha feared there might be some truth in the rest. If Dorfindral hadn't been so busy giving her nightmares about stalking and slaying Trip, she was sure she would be having bad dreams about killing that sorceress, about the look in her eyes as she'd died upon the sword.\n\n\"Does it get easier?\" Rysha asked, though she had a feeling the answer would disturb her either way. \"Killing people?\"\n\n\"You do get hardened to it all after a while. If you're lucky, you'll get commanders who realize that your best assets don't have anything to do with assassination, and you won't be sent on those kinds of missions, but\u2026 you probably need to brace yourself for anything. You'll end up working for someone like Colonel Therrik at least once in your career. Trust me.\"\n\n\"Nothing I've heard about that man makes me want to meet him.\"\n\nKaika grinned. \"You just have to know how not to pull his triggers. He's better now, if you can believe that, since he got himself married to a nice professor. You'd like his wife, I bet. She's a paleo\u2026 something. Studies old bones.\"\n\n\"Paleontologist.\"\n\n\"Yup, that.\"\n\n\"I'm surprised, from what I've heard about Therrik, that he would fall for an academic.\"\n\n\"She has nice squishy bits.\"\n\n\"Well, that's important.\"\n\n\"And she stands up to him. Not many people do. She's a civilian, so that's allowed. You'd better not try it.\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. And thank you.\" Rysha wasn't sure she felt better after their talk, but she appreciated that Kaika was willing to answer her questions and address her doubts.\n\nUp ahead, Dreyak stopped. He lifted a hand, waving the group forward.\n\nRysha detected the outline of something large and dark through the falling snow. A cave? Was it made from ice? Or were they now atop one of the islands down here?\n\nKaika's walk turned into a fast jog, and Rysha hurried to catch up. The outline of a huge cave mouth came more clearly into view. Interestingly, there wasn't a mountain or slope of any kind behind it. The curving roof seemed to be made from snow and ice, forming a concave opening about twenty feet high and at least fifty wide. One could have driven that steam vehicle at the outpost into it, which made Rysha wonder why the scientists hadn't taken it. No time? Dogs could be harnessed faster than a fire built in the box and the water in the boiler heated.\n\n\"The tracks have been hidden by the snow, haven't they?\" Blazer asked as Rysha caught up with them.\n\nTrip and Leftie jogged up from behind.\n\n\"Yes, but they were heading this way.\" Dreyak looked at Trip. \"I just want to make sure there's nothing inimical inside before we charge in. Looks like that cave stretches back a long way.\"\n\n\"It does,\" Trip said. \"It descends so that it's under the surface, and inside, someone has hollowed out side chambers, as if they were turning this into a possible outpost or base of operations. The whole thing appears to be manmade. As far as dragons and the inimical go, I\u2014Jaxi\u2014did sense one at the edge of her range a while ago, about forty miles away, but it's gone now. It wasn't the same one we fought. She has no idea where that one went.\"\n\nRysha noticed his slip. She wasn't surprised that he could sense dragons, too, as she had read numerous reports about how they had incredible magical auras that sorcerers could feel from great distances. She was a little surprised that his range might be as great as Jaxi's.\n\nEven though the soulblade wasn't specifically listed in any books that Rysha had read, Sardelle had mentioned during their meeting in the library that Jaxi had been a sorceress over six hundred years ago. Reference material frequently stated that the more recent one's dragon ancestor was, the more powerful one was likely to be. Because of the thousand-year gap during which dragons had supposedly vanished from the world, nobody born recently should have abilities comparable to the sorcerers of old. Soulblades supposedly retained a great deal of the power they'd possessed as humans. So in theory, Jaxi should be stronger than Sardelle, and Sardelle should be stronger than Trip or Dreyak or any other humans in this time with a smidgen of dragon blood in their veins.\n\nAdmittedly, despite her studies about dragons, Rysha wasn't an expert on mages or soulblades. She did know that some sorcerers' gifts led them into different fields. One might specialize in mental manipulation and illusions, while another might be inclined toward healing, and another toward hurling fireballs. Maybe Trip was inclined toward sensing things over great distances?\n\n\"There are people inside the cave,\" Trip said. \"And dogs too.\"\n\n\"Can you tell if they're injured?\" Dreyak skewered him with his intense gaze.\n\nHe seemed genuinely worried about that.\n\n\"I don't think anyone is grievously wounded, but there may be some injuries.\" Trip shrugged, not sounding positive. \"They're a ways back in there.\"\n\nBlazer turned and walked toward the cave.\n\n\"Wait.\" Dreyak ran past her, taking the lead. \"Let me go in first and talk to them. They may shoot if they see Iskandians.\"\n\n\"We're not at war with each other right now,\" Blazer pointed out.\n\nThe look Dreyak sent over his shoulder did not seem to be one of agreement.\n\n\"Stick close to me,\" Trip said, waving to include Rysha, Duck, Leftie, Blazer, and Kaika. \"Jaxi will throw up a barrier around us if any of them attack.\"\n\n\"We don't think Dreyak will stop that?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"Just a precaution.\" Trip took a step, but stopped again. \"Oh, I forgot. Jaxi can't protect those with the anti-dragon swords. You three better walk behind me. You won't be within the bubble, but as long as they're firing from in front of us, the effect will be largely the same.\"\n\nHe was doing a lot of thinking for someone who thought this was \"just a precaution,\" Rysha decided, waiting for him, Duck, and Leftie to pass before following with Kaika and Blazer. Did Trip's senses tell him something he hadn't shared yet?\n\nDreyak stopped at the mouth of the cave and looked at the ground. Dogs barked a little deeper in, but he pointed at gouges in the snow, gouges that hadn't been filled in by the fresh flakes yet.\n\n\"A dragon was here too,\" he said.\n\n\"Chasing the people into the cave?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"It could be so.\" Dreyak pointed at a couple of other places, including a spot smudged with soot, as if some explosive had gone off there. \"They may have made a stand here.\"\n\n\"One that worked?\"\n\n\"There are ten people still alive back there,\" Trip said.\n\n\"One that worked, then.\" Dreyak jogged into the cave, taking the lead again.\n\nThe group followed more slowly. Dogs with heavy coats barked and growled at them, but they were tied to stakes driven into the ice, so it was easy to avoid them. Blood spattered the ground in front of them, remnants of frozen steaks or the like, Rysha assumed. Nearby, five dog sleds were parked against the wall.\n\n\"That's the alarm going off,\" Kaika said dryly, as they passed the dogs. \"If the Cofah didn't know we were here, they do now.\"\n\nThe light coming in through the mouth of the cave faded as they strode deeper inside, but Rysha spotted some of the alcoves Trip had mentioned. One had a desk and chair in it. Another a gun vault. The yellow light of lanterns appeared in the darkness ahead. Several lanterns.\n\nDreyak strode toward them, his hands in the air.\n\n\"Stop right there,\" a man's voice rang out, his Cofah accent unmistakable.\n\n\"I'm Dreyak. I'm from the capital.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we've heard that before. Stay right there.\"\n\nTwo men jogged toward him, wearing red military uniforms, their faces and heads recently shaven, despite this remote outpost.\n\n\"Those don't look like scientists,\" Rysha murmured, though after snooping through the labs, she believed scientists were here somewhere. Could they be military scientists? Or maybe these were guards for a civilian team.\n\nTrip stopped and spread his arms, warning the others to do so too.\n\nThe two Cofah men had reached Dreyak and were walking around him, their rifles pointed at him while they scrutinized him and asked him questions too quietly for Rysha to hear.\n\n\"I'd like to know what they're saying,\" Blazer said, looking like she didn't want to wait behind Trip.\n\n\"There are people in the back with a variety of gas grenades,\" Trip said. \"They seem very on edge, and someone is saying they should gas us without even talking to us.\"\n\nKaika grunted. \"Must be old colleagues of Tolemek's.\"\n\n\"I can see why they would be on edge if they were just attacked by dragons,\" Rysha said, \"but we're not dragons.\"\n\n\"We are Iskandians,\" Duck said.\n\n\"And thus almost as bad?\"\n\n\"Some Cofah might think so.\"\n\n\"I wasn't planning on eating any of them,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"I reckon they'll be heartened to learn that.\"\n\nTrip gazed deep into the cave, toward those lanterns, as the interrogation of Dreyak continued. Rysha was surprised so much talking was going on. He'd never given a surname or identified himself as anything but a soldier, but she had assumed he came from one of their noble families or was at least an officer in their army. It would have been odd if the Cofah, who deemed rank and heritage important, sent a nobody for a mission in another country.\n\n\"We can come back,\" Dreyak finally called to the rest of the group.\n\n\"Do we have to?\" Blazer looked over her shoulder, toward the semicircle of light that marked the cave entrance, snow continuing to fall beyond it.\n\n\"I'd like to see what that torn page says,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"And what if the Cofah aren't interested in sharing it with you?\"\n\n\"Then I would have to practice my pickpocket skills.\"\n\n\"Do you have pickpocket skills?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Helpful.\"\n\n\"Jaxi says she once read all the books in a prison library from under thousands of tons of solid rock,\" Trip said, walking toward Dreyak, who was waiting for them.\n\n\"Does that mean she'll read a note in someone's pocket for me?\"\n\n\"If it's in a language she knows, she says yes.\"\n\n\"That's lovely,\" Rysha said. \"Give her a kiss for me, please.\"\n\nTrip blinked and looked over at her. \"We don't have a relationship that involves lips.\"\n\n\"Trip struggles with getting ladies to accept kisses from him,\" Leftie said.\n\nRysha frowned at him as they walked. \"That seems unlikely.\"\n\n\"You're welcome to prove me wrong if you wish.\" Leftie smirked at Trip and gave him a nod, as if he were a mastermind setting up a smooching session, with her too dense to notice it.\n\nRysha was glad that Trip gave him a dour look and nothing more.\n\n\"We're invited back?\" Blazer asked, walking ahead to join Dreyak. He hadn't moved, but the two military men had strode back into the darkness broken only by the distant lanterns.\n\n\"Most of them would prefer it if we left.\" Dreyak sounded puzzled, as if he couldn't imagine his own people not welcoming him with open arms. \"But a couple of the scientists want to know what we're doing here.\"\n\n\"So, it's all right for us to go back if we agree to being interrogated?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"They just want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"And find out why we're here.\"\n\n\"Likely.\"\n\n\"Maybe they want to compare notes,\" Rysha said, happy to do the same.\n\nBlazer shook her head, grumbling, \"Lieutenants are like puppies.\"\n\n\"I don't suppose Jaxi can read pocket notes from here, Trip?\" Rysha asked, worried Blazer would order them to leave.\n\nTrip wasn't looking deeper into the cave any longer. His gaze had turned back toward the way they had come.\n\n\"If they don't need our help with injured people, then let's leave,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"There's a dragon coming,\" Trip said.\n\n\"Or we could stay,\" Blazer amended.\n\n\"It would be hard to fly in all that snow,\" Duck said.\n\n\"Is there anything that's going to deter the dragon from coming into the cave?\" Rysha asked as they strode deeper.\n\nThe cave was wide enough for one to fly right in. Even if it narrowed farther down, a dragon could simply shape shift into a smaller form and keep coming. From what Rysha had read, they retained their mental powers when in other forms, even if they couldn't breathe fire or crush people in their massive maws.\n\n\"No,\" Trip said. \"But it wouldn't be able to attack us from all sides.\"\n\n\"We can stand three abreast with our swords,\" Kaika said.\n\n\"Are we sure we want the Cofah to know all about those swords?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"No,\" Trip said again."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Trip hung back as the uniformed Cofah pointed their team into an alcove with lanterns perched around it. He sensed that dragon about five miles away, soaring over the outpost. It wouldn't take it more than a minute to fly over to their cave. It could also destroy the fliers, if it wished. There'd been talk of leaving someone there to guard them, but what could one person do against a dragon if it attacked? They'd decided\u2014hoped\u2014the dragons would be less interested in the fliers if there weren't any people nearby to draw attention to them.\n\nYou'd better pay attention to these Cofah, at least for the moment, Jaxi advised him.\n\nI know.\n\nOne of them is a sorcerer.\n\nI know that too. Trip also knew that woman hadn't yet made an appearance.\n\nShe was farther back in one of the other alcoves, talking to a man. Six people sat down in the alcove they'd been led to, in addition to the two soldiers, who stood guard by the entrance. The other six, four men and two women, wore civilian clothes, and several were in need of haircuts. They were some of the original outpost researchers. The soldiers, Trip sensed, were newer additions. The sorceress might be too.\n\nYou're getting much better at sensing things, Jaxi said.\n\nYes, but I have no idea how to hide our auras, or camouflage them. Like you do. Is it too late to consider that? Trip hadn't realized until the men had been questioning Dreyak that a Cofah sorceress was among them.\n\nYou don't want her to know that you have dragon blood? Jaxi asked.\n\nIdeally not. I sense\u2026 These people are very suspicious of us. They were even suspicious of Dreyak, and he looks like one of them and speaks with their accent.\n\nI noticed that. I could camouflage you and dampen down my aura, Jaxi said, as it's possible she hasn't noticed us yet, due to the proximity of a dragon\u2014their auras drown out those of less powerful beings\u2014but as soon as the woman walks in, she'll likely recognize my scabbard. And I can't camouflage Azarwrath there unless he wants me to. Be careful with him. If he's been waiting for his chance to jump ship, this would be it. The Cofah sorceress doesn't have a soulblade.\n\nSo, she might be shopping for one?\n\nJaxi snorted. As if you can select a soulblade from a market aisle along with cereal and cheese.\n\nIf Azarwrath wants to stay with these people, that's not a problem for me. Maybe I should offer to give him to the sorceress.\n\n\"Please sit down,\" one of the women said, gesturing Trip's team not to chairs but to crates stacked around the alcove. She wore spectacles, appeared to be about forty, and had a notebook and pen sticking out of a cargo pocket. \"I'm Jylea.\" She went around introducing her comrades, but didn't give the names of the soldiers.\n\nI can't sense her thoughts very well, Jaxi said. I don't sense that she has any dragon blood, but she has a very schooled mind. The others are being careful, too, not to think about anything other than the battle they had with those dragons.\n\nIs it possible that isn't due to duplicity? That it's just paramount on their minds right now? Understandably so, Trip thought.\n\nPossible, I suppose. I tend to assume humans are being duplicitous until proven otherwise.\n\nI had no idea you were such a suspicious soul.\n\nOnce you spend more time surfing around in the minds of men, you'll see why.\n\nThat's not encouraged, is it? Trip could see how it would be useful to know what enemies were plotting, but he wouldn't wish to invade the privacy of others on a regular basis.\n\nNo, there were rules against it in our era.\n\nThat you're breaking?\n\nUntrained people often ooze their thoughts like water from a squeezed sponge. It's hard not to sense what they're thinking.\n\nThat doesn't really answer my question, Trip observed.\n\nDoesn't it? Huh.\n\n\"You're here to destroy the dragon portal?\" Jylea asked after the introductions. Her voice was neutral. Carefully neutral?\n\nBlazer shot a dark look at Dreyak, one that Trip understood perfectly. He shouldn't have shared the details of their mission with strangers.\n\n\"The same as you presumably are, yes,\" Rysha said, smiling.\n\nJylea's eyes narrowed. \"I'm not used to the lieutenants doing the talking when I deal with Iskandians.\"\n\n\"She's our dragon expert.\" Blazer folded her arms over her chest. She'd leaned against her crate rather than sitting on it. \"We let her do the talking when it comes to dragonly things.\"\n\n\"Dragonly? That's not a word in Cofahre.\"\n\n\"It is in Iskandia,\" Blazer said. \"You have to put a couple of those little dots over the O.\"\n\nJylea's face crinkled up as she seemingly tried to figure out if Blazer was being serious.\n\n\"That's a diaeresis,\" Rysha told Blazer, then added to Jylea, \"and a joke.\" Perhaps thinking she might form a rapport with Jylea if she emphasized their commonalities, Rysha leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, \"She's a pilot.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" Jylea said, as if that explained everything. She smiled.\n\n\"Don't get too relaxed with them, Jylea,\" the man on her right said. \"Remember that Toph was charming too, and look where that got us.\"\n\n\"I haven't forgotten,\" Jylea said, her voice cooling, and she exchanged a long look with the man.\n\nToph? Trip couldn't imagine that being the sorceress's name. It neither sounded Cofah, nor like a woman's name.\n\nNo, despite their preoccupation, I'm learning a few things from these people's surface thoughts, Jaxi told him. It was a\u2014\n\nSomething seemed to tickle his mind, and Jaxi broke off. Did she feel it too? He had the sensation of fingers scraping through sand at the beach, searching for a lost coin.\n\nShe's probing us, Jaxi said. Do you want to block her from reading your thoughts?\n\nIs that an option?\n\nNaturally. There's a mental exercise to learn how.\n\nTrip grimaced. It doesn't involve unfurling flowers, does it?\n\nThat hadn't worked that well for him.\n\nYou barely tried it. Many do prefer to imagine their minds like rose buds, the petals still wrapped up inside the bud, inaccessible to outside elements. You, preferring manly images, would perhaps like to imagine laying a brick wall around your mind.\n\nIt takes days to lay a brick wall. I helped my grandfather build his current house. I know.\n\nLay yours more quickly. She's digging into your thoughts now.\n\nAlarmed, Trip gave up on thoughts of troweling mortar and imagined a brick wall instantly forming around his head. No, bricks weren't sturdy enough. He would use steel. No, iron. Wasn't iron supposed to have some element in it that blocked sorcerers from penetrating it with their magic? Or was that an old myth? In case it wasn't, he imagined some iron. The first thing that popped into his mind was his grandmother's cast iron pots, but that wouldn't work. He thought of a big, hulking bank vault with foot-thick walls. He stood inside it as the door clanged shut, and the circular handle spun into the locked position. Unfortunately, he also imagined the darkness and claustrophobia of being trapped inside a vault. He mentally added a light and a workbench. Some tools and a project to work on while he was stuck inside. Blazer's gun rack perhaps. And if he finished that, there was a cushy chair and some metalworking magazines to flip through. Perhaps an article on experimenting with the ore content of various new alloys.\n\nSeven gods, Jaxi moaned into his mind.\n\nWhat? Was I too late? Did she read all my thoughts?\n\nI'm sure she's sorry if she did. Are there actually magazines about metal? Who would read such things?\n\nTrip grimaced again. If Jaxi had tracked all that, then he hadn't been successful.\n\nYou were for a moment. When you locked yourself in the vault, I couldn't read anything. I was about to praise you for being such a quick study. Then you lost your focus.\n\nYou were going to praise me? He found that rather shocking and didn't think it had happened before.\n\nI was considering it. Just imagine the bank vault whenever you're trying to keep someone from probing your thoughts. Eventually, you'll get good at it, and it will become subconscious. You'll be able to keep people out while performing other magical feats.\n\nBut in the meantime, I was too late?\n\nWe'll see. Thinking about things other than what the sorceress is trying to extract can be a viable technique, too, though it doesn't usually work with those more powerful than you. Definitely not with dragons.\n\nShe's not a dragon, I assume? Trip could still sense the dragon flying around the outpost five miles away. He sensed that this woman had some power, but she possessed a much smaller aura or presence than the dragons radiated. It seemed similar to what he'd felt around Sardelle, though he'd barely been conscious of having more than a sixth sense then.\n\nCertainly not. I was merely warning you since we'll encounter more dragons, and since we won't want them to know why we're here. After you master walling off your own thoughts, you may want to learn how to protect the thoughts of those around you. Mundane humans can often be read as easily as books with large print.\n\nEven those carrying the dragon-slaying swords?\n\nTo a lesser extent. They are somewhat protected while they hold the weapons. It's Leftie and Duck that you may want to work on locking into the vault with you.\n\nCan that be done?\n\nYes. It's easier if they're close to you and harder over a distance, but you may be up to the challenge. Eventually, you might be able to protect the whole group.\n\n\"I'm going to be frank, Lieutenant,\" Jylea said. \"I don't see what we would have to gain from working with you.\"\n\nTrip realized their conversation had continued while he'd spoken with Jaxi and tried his mental exercise, but he'd missed most of it. He did his best to keep his bank vault locked around his mind while trying to catch up.\n\n\"We also have clues in regard to the portal's location,\" Rysha said. \"Clues you may need to find it.\"\n\nJylea exchanged glances with the man beside her.\n\n\"I highly doubt you know half as much as we do. And having someone wandering around with soulblades is only going to attract dragons to us.\" Jylea waved at Trip.\n\nA couple of her people looked at the weapons, giving him looks that ranged from wariness to that-man-is-odd-for-carrying-two-swords-at-once.\n\n\"It seems you attracted dragons before we came,\" Major Blazer said, her arms still crossed over her chest.\n\nKaika was in a similar pose, but closer to the alcove entrance. She kept eyeing the soldiers, who eyed her right back.\n\n\"Temporarily,\" Jylea said.\n\n\"One brief appearance is all it takes to kill people and annihilate an outpost,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"I cannot dispute that, but we have what we need to find the portal on our own.\"\n\nRysha's fingers curled into a fist. A triumphant fist? Maybe she hadn't known for certain that they were hunting for the portal.\n\n\"At which point, you intend to destroy it, correct?\" Dreyak squinted at Jylea.\n\nHe leaned against one of the frigid ice walls, his gloved fists propped on his hips. He was closer to the scientists, closer to the conversation, but they hadn't been looking at him much.\n\n\"We are not at liberty to discuss our mission here in front of Iskandians, your\u2014Mr. Dreyak.\"\n\nMr. Dreyak? What had she been about to say?\n\nRysha looked at Trip, holding his gaze for a few seconds. She'd noticed that slip-up, too, it seemed.\n\n\"They've rifled through your lab,\" Dreyak said, his mouth twisting. \"I doubt there's any point in hiding anything from them. There's no point in hiding it from me, either.\"\n\n\"Nonetheless, we have our orders. And you are not mentioned in them.\"\n\nDreyak lifted his chin, his eyes closing to slits.\n\nOffended, was he?\n\nI wish I could read him, Jaxi said wistfully.\n\nYou believe he's thinking about more interesting things than metalworking magazines?\n\nThat's a given.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" Rysha said, drawing the scientists' attention back to her, \"we should compare notes without making assumptions that we have nothing worth sharing with each other. My team did receive clues directly from a dragon.\"\n\nDirectly? Meaning a dragon had vaguely mentioned the portal years ago to Sardelle, and then Sardelle had shared what she remembered with Rysha?\n\n\"As did we,\" Jylea said.\n\nThat's interesting, Jaxi said. I wonder which dragon or dragons are currently working with the empire. I do remember that one of the females released from those prisons the same time as Bhrava Saruth\u2014Yisharnesh, was her name\u2014was reputedly aligned with Emperor Salatak. But that was three years ago when our people kidnapped him in Dakrovia. We haven't heard anything to suggest that Yisharnesh is still working with the imperial leaders.\n\n\"And I believe we shall keep our notes to ourselves,\" Jylea added. \"While we appreciate that you came to check on us\u2014\" she nodded to Dreyak, \"\u2014we will soon complete our mission, and all of the empire\u2014all the world\u2014will know that the Cofah are the ones who saved them from death and destruction created by rogue dragons.\" She jerked her chin up, an arrogant tilt to the gesture.\n\n\"I hope you won't need your airship to do so,\" Trip said.\n\nEveryone looked at him, their expressions startled or confused. He hadn't spoken since entering the alcove, so maybe the Cofah had considered him the muscle. An amusing thought, but he probably did look like some sword dancer of old with the two soulblades on his hips.\n\n\"We're aware that it's damaged,\" Jylea said, \"and also that we have the materials to repair the balloon once we're able to return to the outpost.\"\n\nTrip fished in his pocket and pulled out the valve control lever for the helium tank. \"Not if a piece is missing.\"\n\nJylea blinked slowly. \"You sabotaged our airship?\"\n\nTrip debated whether it would be better to be seen as a cunning asshole who'd imagined this scenario in advance or to admit to the truth. He twitched a shoulder and opted for the latter, figuring he should go for being less menacing rather than more if Rysha wanted to work with these people.\n\n\"I removed the part to repair it, but if our two teams aren't going to work together, I'm less inclined to help with repairs.\"\n\n\"Or return it, I'll wager,\" the man at Jylea's side grumbled.\n\nTrip smiled agreeably.\n\n\"What is that part?\" Jylea whispered to her man.\n\n\"Hells if I know. Yaruk was the engineer.\"\n\nThey shared grim looks. Had the man died? While Trip didn't care to capitalize on someone's death, it did occur to him that the Cofah team might find an engineer useful\u2014or necessary\u2014if they had lost theirs.\n\n\"Can we get to the ruins site by dog sled?\" Jylea whispered.\n\n\"No,\" the man whispered back. \"The geothermal activity to the northeast has melted huge lakes and left the rest of the ice for a hundred miles to either side unstable.\"\n\nTrip barely caught the words. Rysha, who was closer, leaned forward and, judging by the furrow in her brow, didn't quite catch them.\n\nYes, you're amplifying your hearing, Jaxi told him. Good job. There are all manner of handy things you can do once you learn to focus properly. Also, our company is coming.\n\nWhat?\n\nKaika and Blazer stirred, fingers resting on the triggers of their rifles, though they didn't raise them.\n\n\"Actually,\" a woman's voice came from the cave, \"you will return that part to our airship. After you finish repairing it.\"\n\nThe speaker\u2014the sorceress\u2014walked into view. A beautiful woman with bronze skin, black hair that fell to her shoulders, and fierce brown eyes, she looked Cofah through and through. She radiated power, and Trip sensed that was intentional, that she was doing the equivalent of puffing up her feathers to appear more threatening. He had no idea how to gauge how threatening she truly was. Her fingers were smudged with ink, and she wore simple attire suitable for the climate, fur-lined trousers and a parka. He would have expected an enemy magic-wielder to wear a robe or some flowing garment hemmed with golden thread sewn into mystical runes.\n\nYou're wearing an army uniform and goggles, Jaxi pointed out.\n\nTrip almost replied that he wasn't a sorcerer and hadn't been initiated to the fashion requirements, but the real sorceress was frowning imperiously at him, so he remained focused on her.\n\nHer gaze flicked to his waist. \"You will also give me the Cofah soulblade that you carry. You have no right to it. I do not know how you came by it, but I assume the blade only let you touch it because you were the only one around when a volcano erupted and a lava flow threatened to consume it.\"\n\n\"Actually, it was a beach, and the tide was coming in,\" Trip said.\n\nThe woman continued to glare at him.\n\nThe blade hung at Trip's side, unspeaking as usual.\n\nAzarwrath, he thought to it, assuming the blade could hear him, since Jaxi always seemed to, do you want to go with that woman? Even though it might give the sorceress the upper hand, he would rather hand over the blade openly than try to keep Azarwrath against his will. As had been pointed out, the soulblade might attack him and Jaxi later, at an inopportune time.\n\nSilence was his only answer.\n\n\"Give it to me.\" The sorceress held her hand out.\n\nDreyak watched her intently. Would he feel rejected if the soulblade was willing to go with her when it hadn't accepted him as a handler?\n\n\"Please,\" Trip said. \"There's no need to be rude.\"\n\nIndignation flashed in the woman's eyes. \"You are Iskandian scum. And you are attempting to blackmail us. That is a reason.\"\n\n\"I suppose that latter bit is true, with the former depending on the definition of scum currently in the Cofah dictionary, but either way, we'll probably get along much better if you're polite.\"\n\n\"Polite! You dare tell me how I should act, boy?\"\n\n\"Uh, Trip,\" Leftie whispered from a few feet away. \"Maybe you should give her the pig sticker.\"\n\nJaxi, are you strong enough to handle her if she lashes out at me? Is it all right to goad her?\n\nIt's always all right to goad Cofah mages who are ridiculously full of themselves. Jaxi sounded quite approving as she shared the words.\n\nHe noticed, however, that she hadn't answered his first question. There was probably nothing the woman could do to kill Jaxi, but what about Trip and the others?\n\nThe sorceress strode toward him, and he worried he'd gone too far. He imagined one of Jaxi's barriers going up to block the sorceress's advance, and hoped she took the hint and made it happen.\n\nRysha was the one to spring to his defense, drawing Dorfindral and thrusting the blade out between Trip and the sorceress. The sword flared with its pale green light.\n\nA painful snap to his mind startled Trip and almost made him stumble back. It felt like a rubber band shot to the forehead.\n\nIn defending you, your noble lieutenant broke your barrier, Jaxi told him dryly.\n\nMy barrier or yours?\n\nYours. I was excited to find out if yours would be effective, so I didn't create one. Also, I'm keeping an eye on Azzy there to make sure he doesn't plan to make this confrontation interesting. He may not be speaking to us, but I can definitely sense that he's awake and alert.\n\n\"Filthy blade,\" the sorceress snarled.\n\n\"We've got three of them,\" Major Blazer said, tapping the hilt to hers and nodding to the one Kaika carried in its scabbard on her back. \"Since Iskandians are scum, it should be no surprise that we enjoy filth.\"\n\n\"How could they have acquired so many chapaharii swords?\" the man Jylea had been speaking with whispered, awe on his face as he stared at Rysha's weapon.\n\nShe still held it out between Trip and the sorceress, her face fearless and determined as she glared at the woman. Having that sword bared and active so close to him made Trip's skin crawl, but he appreciated her defense of him.\n\nFor the record, Jaxi said, you didn't need her defense.\n\nThat doesn't make it less appreciated. It was kind of sexy, too, Trip decided.\n\nI may gag.\n\nTrip hadn't meant to share that thought. I can see I need to practice my bank vault more.\n\nIn order to keep me from reading your thoughts? Wouldn't you be bored without my commentary?\n\n\"We would be happy to share the story of how we acquired the swords,\" Rysha said, glancing toward the man who'd spoken while keeping the sorceress in her peripheral vision. \"With allies.\"\n\nJylea sighed. \"If you'll step outside, we'll confer on the\u2026 possibilities.\"\n\nRysha looked at their team members and nodded toward the cave outside.\n\n\"Mr. Dreyak,\" Jylea said, as he turned to go out with the others. \"Stay here, please.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure,\" Trip said. \"He gets a please.\"\n\nThe sorceress shot him a scorching glare that could have melted ice. Or steel. Trip had to fight the urge not to scurry out of the alcove. It helped that Rysha still had her blade out and was glaring right back at the sorceress, with intensity that also could have melted ore.\n\n\"Is this worth the hassle?\" Blazer whispered, as soon as their group had moved away.\n\nThe two Cofah soldiers stood at the alcove, looking out at them, but she'd put her back to them and was speaking low enough that they shouldn't hear.\n\nI can make sure they don't hear, Jaxi said. And the sorceress too. Unless Azzy tells her what's going on.\n\nHas he given any indication that he'll do so? Trip asked.\n\nI don't know. He still hasn't spoken a word to me. Which I find suspicious. I'm delightful to speak with, as you know.\n\nIndeed.\n\n\"It does add an element of uncertainty,\" Rysha said, seeming to realize that both Kaika and Blazer were looking at her. \"Even though Cofahre and Iskandia aren't technically at war right now, we have millennia of hatred and mistrust between our peoples.\"\n\n\"Yeah, since they've tried to invade Iskandia and take it over hundreds of times,\" Blazer growled. \"It's a rite of passage for all their idiotic emperors. It's only a matter of time before the one on the throne over there now tries something.\"\n\n\"He's a prince, not an emperor,\" Rysha said. \"Not yet.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it'll only be a matter of time before he makes things official.\"\n\n\"Trip?\" Rysha looked at him, and her sword pulsed a few times. She glowered at it, concentrated visibly, then jammed it into its scabbard. After taking a deep breath, she asked, \"Did Jaxi manage to find that page in anyone's pocket and read it? My vote would be to forget the alliance if we could get the information they have. It's just a hunch, but I suspect they've figured out where the portal is. Maybe the dragons know they have, and that's why their outpost was attacked yesterday after being ignored for months.\"\n\nI did look for the page that was torn out, Jaxi told Trip. And I believe I've found it.\n\nAnd can read it?\n\nNo. It's written in\u2026 not the same language as the rest of that journal was written in. Sardelle has studied the ancient languages and might have been able to translate it, but I'm not sure it even is an ancient language. I don't recognize it.\n\nJaxi flashed the image of the page into his mind. He saw nonsensical words written in tidy black ink. At least they were nonsensical to him.\n\nWhy would one of those scientists have switched to some obscure language halfway through the journal? he asked.\n\nBecause she didn't want anyone but her to know where the portal is? Jaxi suggested.\n\nHer? Jylea? Oh, wait. Would Rysha recognize the language? She's a lot smarter than I am.\n\nOf that, I have no doubt. But I can't show her an example of it while she's holding her glowy buddy.\n\n\"Trip?\" Rysha prompted.\n\n\"Sorry, we're discussing it.\" Trip shared what Jaxi had told him.\n\nLeftie made that grimace of distaste he made any time Trip admitted to communicating with Jaxi.\n\n\"Can she write down a couple of the words so I can see them?\"\n\n\"Can swords write?\" Duck whispered to Leftie.\n\n\"You know more about this creepy magic stuff than I do,\" Leftie whispered back.\n\nIt's a good thing those two geniuses can fly, Jaxi grumbled. Just tell Rysha to put the sword down for a minute, and I'll show her.\n\nTrip relayed the message.\n\nRysha reached for her belt to unclasp it, but her hands froze on the buckle. She grimaced and squinted. Fighting the sword again? It objected to being taken off?\n\nThat notion made Trip uneasy.\n\nKasandral is a cranky ass, Jaxi informed him. I don't expect any of these new swords to be different.\n\nKaika leaned forward and pointed to Rysha's buckle. \"That hook lifts up, and then you slide that out of there.\"\n\nBlazer snorted.\n\nRysha muttered something under her breath. One of those command words for the sword. Then she was able to unfasten the buckle.\n\n\"Thanks for the advice, ma'am,\" Rysha told Kaika. \"There's a reason I've decided to consider you as my mentor.\"\n\n\"Because I'm so worldly and well-versed in belt buckles?\" Kaika grinned. \"I have undone a lot of them.\"\n\n\"As the boys in the barracks will attest,\" Blazer said.\n\nRysha handed the sword to Kaika, though not without a hitch in the movement, as if the sword truly did not want to leave her grasp.\n\nWill you fight me like that if I try to let you go, Jaxi?\n\nI suppose it depends on who you're trying to hand me to. A worldly belt expert? Or a dragon to be melted down for scrap?\n\n\"I'm ready.\" Rysha nodded at Trip.\n\nLet's hope Dorfie doesn't punish her later for letting some tainted sword touch her mind, Jaxi grumbled.\n\nPunish? Trip hoped that wasn't possible.\n\nRysha's eyes widened, and her mouth parted. In wonder? Worry? He doubted Jaxi had communicated with her often.\n\n\"I insist,\" came loud, firm words from the alcove where the Cofah were conversing. It sounded like the sorceress.\n\nThe voices dropped again after that. Trip thought about trying to eavesdrop\u2014Jaxi had implied he might have that ability. But Rysha frowned and shook her head, drawing his attention back to her.\n\n\"It's Cytrikic,\" she said. \"I recognize it, but I can't read it. It's a province on an island chain to the northeast of the Cofah mainland. The inhabitants were conquered fairly late in imperial history, and their remoteness has resulted in them being given more lenience in regard to adopting Cofah culture. They speak the language and observe the holidays, but they've kept their own language too. Children learn both when they're growing up.\"\n\n\"Is one of the scientists from there?\" Trip guessed.\n\n\"Whoever was keeping the journal, it would seem.\"\n\nIt was in the sorceress's pocket, Jaxi said.\n\nYou mean, she's a scholar? One of the researchers? And isn't just here to sense dragons and use her powers?\n\nThat may be the case. That might also explain her ability. There aren't many legitimate sorcerers left in Cofahre, much like in Iskandia, but Cytrik, I believe, wasn't a part of the empire yet during their purge of those with dragon blood. Sardelle would know more, but it seems likely they could still have a tradition of finding and training sorcerers.\n\n\"Is there any way that Jaxi can simply pluck the information from the researcher's mind?\" Kaika asked. \"If we can figure out which one of them was keeping that journal?\"\n\n\"We already know which one,\" Trip said. \"And I'm guessing she'll prove pluck-resistant.\"\n\nRysha sighed. \"The sorceress?\"\n\nTrip nodded.\n\n\"I saw the ink marks on her fingers and thought it might be her. Even if she doesn't exactly look like an academic.\"\n\n\"What does an academic look like?\" Kaika smirked, plucking at Rysha's army parka sleeve.\n\nRysha smiled ruefully. \"Someone with bad eyesight from poring over texts, I should think.\"\n\n\"Maybe a sorceress can heal her own vision if it goes bad.\"\n\nRysha's smile went from rueful to wistful. \"That would certainly be nice.\"\n\nTrip wondered if he could ever learn to do something like that. Healing someone's vision? That would be even better than building a gun mount for someone. For Rysha.\n\n\"So, what I'm hearing,\" Blazer said, \"is that the witch knows where the portal is, so we have to work with these people. Unless we want them to potentially beat us to it.\"\n\nRysha nodded and accepted her sword belt back from Kaika. \"Assuming they're willing to work with us.\"\n\nBlazer pointed at Trip's hand\u2014he was still holding the valve control. \"Is that truly a critical component to their ship, or is it the handle off a lavatory door or something?\"\n\n\"Critical component,\" he said.\n\n\"Huh. That was quite clever of you to take it then.\"\n\nTrip thought about again mentioning that he'd simply removed it to repair it, but if his commanding officer wanted to list in her mission report that he'd been \"clever,\" that couldn't hurt. Maybe General Zirkander would send him on more important missions if he proved himself valuable here.\n\nAssuming you survive this one, Jaxi said.\n\nYou don't think the odds are in my favor?\n\nDo you really want me to answer that? Given that half your team is carrying weapons that long to decapitate you?\n\nPerhaps not."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "Rysha was disappointed that she hadn't been able to read the notes Jaxi had shown her. Only her second telepathic encounter with a magical soulblade, and she'd been forced to admit her ignorance\u2014and hear Jaxi sigh into her mind.\n\nIf those notes had been written in Middle or Old Iskandian or Ancient Cofah, or even Dragon Script, she could have read them, but modern languages? She'd never been particularly interested in them, and she was lucky she had even recognized the Cytrikic script. If there were more than ten thousand speakers in the entire world, she would be shocked. It was dumb luck that the researcher was from those islands.\n\nAs if her thoughts had drawn the woman, the sorceress strode out of the alcove, leading the two soldiers and the rest of the team. Jylea walked at her side. Rysha suspected Jylea was the mission leader, but she also suspected the sorceress\u2014had that woman shared her name yet?\u2014had a lot of sway over the group.\n\n\"We agree to join forces with your group,\" Jylea said, \"if three conditions are met.\"\n\n\"I'll bet,\" Kaika muttered from behind Rysha.\n\nBlazer moved to the front of their group, facing the Cofah and propping her fists on her hips. Earlier, she'd seemed willing to let Rysha take the lead in the negotiations, but maybe she sensed these \"conditions\" would have a military or security aspect rather than an academic one.\n\n\"First off,\" Jylea said, \"your mage agrees to fix and return that part, as well as\u2014\"\n\n\"Our what?\" Blazer asked.\n\nJylea's forehead furrowed, and she pointed to Trip. In his military uniform and parka, with his pilot's cap on, along with his scarf stained with engine grease from his flier, he hardly looked like a mage.\n\n\"Oh, our mage,\" Blazer said. \"Right. Go on.\"\n\nJylea's furrow didn't smooth, and she looked at the woman at her side. The sorceress lifted her shoulders and said, \"We can discuss him further later.\"\n\nRysha watched Trip for a reaction, but he was wearing a mask today, and she couldn't read him. He'd seemed indifferent to the sorceress's posturing in the alcove, and with two soulblades at his waist, Rysha hadn't been sure he'd needed her intervention. But she'd reacted on instinct, feeling the urge to protect him, if she could. Maybe he hadn't thought it through yet, but since the second soulblade he carried was Cofah, it was extremely possible it could turn on him eventually. It might be biding its time to do so in a way that would bring glory to the empire.\n\n\"As I was saying,\" Jylea continued, facing Blazer again, \"he will repair that part and lead repairs on the rest of the airship, ensuring that it's in as pristine a condition as possible.\"\n\nThe sorceress smiled and watched Trip, as if she thought this was some punishment he would find repulsive. Hardly. He was probably even now thinking about upgrades he could give the ship.\n\n\"Once that's been accomplished, you'll load your fliers onto the airship, and we'll all fly together on that vessel toward the site we believe holds the portal.\"\n\n\"How'd she know we have fliers?\" Duck whispered.\n\n\"You're wearing your goggles around your neck, and there's a Wolf Squadron pin on your parka,\" Trip pointed out.\n\n\"For all they know, that's a new fashion trend in Iskandia.\"\n\n\"You don't look like a fashion maven.\"\n\nDuck's forehead creased, as if he couldn't imagine this lack within himself.\n\n\"Is that all part of the first stipulation?\" Blazer asked dryly, ignoring the men.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It figures.\"\n\nJylea's eyes narrowed. \"We don't need you people. You're blackmailing us.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you won't need help destroying the portal?\" Rysha touched Dorfindral's hilt.\n\n\"We will not,\" the sorceress said coolly.\n\nThinking of the Dakrovian book she'd found, Rysha wondered if they had figured out another way to destroy it. Or thought they had. It was also possible they didn't intend to destroy it at all. That thought had crossed her mind a few times during her conversation with Jylea, but it was hard for her to imagine why else they would be looking for it.\n\nIt wasn't as if they could set up a recruiting booth next to the portal and try to coerce each dragon that came out to align with the Cofah Empire. More likely, they and the booth would be incinerated by the first cranky gold to come out.\n\nThough Rysha knew some dragons had worked with humans once, and Iskandia had a couple of allies from a past era, she hadn't seen much evidence that the ones coming into the world now were amenable to that. Maybe that era had passed. Or maybe those dragons that remembered humans as something other than prey had died off. That thought saddened her. As a girl, she'd read many of those novels with dragons in them, dragons who helped humans or even fell in love with them. They were part of the reason she'd gone into studying the field. The dragons she'd encountered thus far had been\u2026 disappointing, at least to her childhood memories. As an adult, she told herself that this was probably how it had always been, that even when some of the dragons of old had allied with humans, they had been using them to their own ends. People wouldn't have wanted to think of it that way, of course. History books, after all, were always written with the biases of the one doing the recording.\n\n\"The second condition,\" Jylea said, \"is that I remain the leader of the mission. You'll defer to me or to my co-leader, Kiadarsa.\" She tilted a hand toward the sorceress. \"When the portal is ultimately destroyed, our people will receive credit for it.\"\n\nLogically, Rysha knew it was more important for the portal to be destroyed than for anyone to receive credit for it, but she wasn't surprised when Blazer looked at the ceiling of the cave and shook her head, as if these demands were slowly torturing her to death.\n\n\"Third,\" Jylea said, \"your mage will return that stolen soulblade to its rightful people.\" She gestured again to the sorceress\u2014Kiadarsa.\n\n\"It's egregious, bordering on blasphemous, for an Iskandian to carry it around so,\" Kiadarsa added, glowering at Trip. \"Assuming that's what you are.\"\n\nTrip's eyebrows lifted, but he didn't reply to the snide comment. Rysha supposed that was a dig at his skin color. He wasn't as dark-skinned as the Cofah, and none of the ones in the group shared his green eyes. It was true that he did not look very Iskandian, but now that Rysha considered him alongside the Cofah, she doubted that had been his father's heritage, either.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Blazer muttered over her shoulder to Kaika. \"We haven't even tried on our own to find it. It's early to assume we need these people and to give in to their demands.\"\n\nIf Rysha hadn't seen the researchers' big map, and learned that the Cofah had already investigated and dismissed the spot she and Sardelle had considered most likely, she would agree. There was no reason to suspect the Cofah had marked up their map with lies, anticipating Iskandian spies would come along and read it. She was inclined to believe it accurate.\n\n\"I'll defer to Lieutenant Ravenwood in this,\" Kaika said.\n\nBlazer lifted her eyebrows.\n\n\"It doesn't matter who destroys it or who gets credit,\" Rysha said, \"just that it's destroyed. And if Trip is willing to give up the soulblade, it might be better for us that a sentient Cofah weapon isn't traveling with us.\" She hadn't pointed out that the sword could be, even now, spying on them and reporting to someone else\u2014this Kiadarsa, perhaps\u2014but maybe she should.\n\n\"It's actually yours to give up or keep.\" Trip nodded to Rysha. \"Inasmuch as the soulblade will allow. You killed the pirate sorceress.\"\n\nBoth Jylea's and Kiadarsa's eyebrows rose. Rysha decided to take that as surprise that a pirate had carried a soulblade rather than shock that she had defeated one.\n\n\"Then I say it should go back to the Cofah,\" Rysha said. \"If that's what it wants.\" She felt compelled to add that last because they were essentially dealing with a person, if all the legends were to be believed. And now that Jaxi had spoken, however briefly, into her mind, she had no reason not to believe them.\n\nKiadarsa looked toward the cave mouth, her eyes taking on a distant aspect. \"The dragon has flown away. We should be able to return to the outpost.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Jylea said. \"Our new mechanic can fix our ship. As soon as you two finish your deal.\" She waved toward the Cofah soulblade.\n\nUnlike Jaxi, who had a scabbard that hooked to Trip's belt, the Cofah blade's scabbard was thrust awkwardly through his belt on the opposite hip. Trip pulled it out without hesitating and held it toward the sorceress, hilt first.\n\nHer eyes gleamed as she strode toward it. Rysha wagered she hoped to claim it for herself rather than take it home for \"its rightful people.\"\n\nShe grabbed the hilt, but jerked her hand back immediately with a pained gasp. She gripped it, as if she'd been burned.\n\n\"You,\" she snarled at Trip, giving him a murderous look. \"You pretend to give it to me, then attack?\"\n\nTrip opened his mouth, an obvious protest about to come out, but she flung her hand toward him as if to hurl some attack at him.\n\nBelatedly, Rysha yanked Dorfindral from its scabbard and ran over. But she paused. Nothing seemed to be happening.\n\nTrip lowered his arm, the scabbard still in hand, and he gazed at the woman, as if she were doing nothing but standing there in tableau, some child pretending she had the ability to fling magic around.\n\nWe've got this handled, Jaxi spoke into her mind, startling Rysha. We'd appreciate it if you didn't zap our defenses with Dorfie again.\n\nRysha stared at Jaxi's hilt. Again? Did that mean when she'd thought she had been protecting Trip, she'd gotten in the way? Chagrined, she lowered her sword and backed up.\n\nDon't worry, Jaxi said cheerfully. Trip found it sexy.\n\nWhat? He said that?\n\nHe thought it.\n\nDoes he know you're talking to me and sharing his thoughts?\n\nNo, but soulblades speak with whom they wish. And sometimes, sharing romantic thoughts can hasten things along. You humans are so bad about speaking honestly about your feelings and desires with each other. Though perhaps I shouldn't encourage you to engage in romance and rutting, given the tastes\u2014or distastes\u2014of your newfound green-glowing friend.\n\n\"I didn't do it,\" Trip said. \"I assure you.\"\n\n\"As if your assurance means anything,\" Kiadarsa said. \"Who are you, anyway? Another spy?\"\n\nJylea looked sharply at her. \"You suspect that?\"\n\n\"I'm suspicious of everything after our incident.\"\n\nTrip looked as confused as Rysha felt. Spy?\n\n\"I'm Captain Trip.\" He shrugged. \"Wolf Squadron, Iskandian flier battalion.\"\n\nJylea looked at Kiadarsa again.\n\n\"I don't know. It seems unlikely. The Iskandians hate magic even more than the Cofah do. Most Cofah.\" Kiadarsa smiled for the first time, though it was directed at Jylea and not anyone else.\n\n\"Set the blade down and back away from it,\" Kiadarsa told Trip. \"I want to try one more time, though I suppose you'd have no trouble stopping me from the other side of the cave, if you wanted.\"\n\nTrip set the scabbard on the gritty ice at his feet and backed away. \"I've been told that soulblades can't be taken against their will.\" He shrugged. \"Maybe he's hitching a ride with me until somebody better comes along.\"\n\n\"Maybe he's holding out for a dragon,\" Duck said.\n\n\"Dragons don't need swords.\" Kiadarsa looked at him as if he were an uneducated toddler. \"The dragon riders of old carried soulblades into battle, and sometimes even the chapaharii weapons, but the dragons certainly didn't need them.\"\n\n\"Today's dragons don't seem to believe they need riders, either,\" Jylea said.\n\n\"No.\" A wistful expression crossed Kiadarsa's face.\n\nFor the first time, she seemed more a human being than a donkey's ass. Or maybe Rysha could simply identify with that wistfulness since she'd been having similar thoughts earlier.\n\n\"Try again, Kia,\" Jylea said. \"Maybe it was him and not the sword.\"\n\n\"If it's useful to know, it also did not allow me to touch it,\" Dreyak said.\n\nHe stood to the side, between both groups. He hadn't said anything, but he'd been watching the negotiations, such as they were, with interest.\n\n\"That's to be expected,\" Kiadarsa said. \"You've had little training, Mr. Dreyak.\"\n\nDreyak lifted his chin. \"I've had some.\"\n\nShe raised her eyebrows.\n\nHe lowered his chin and snorted softly. \"Little compared to you. I concede.\"\n\nRysha found it interesting that Dreyak seemed to know these people and vice versa. Perhaps not know, but know of? She'd caught a slip in the way Jylea had first addressed him and wondered if he might be a little more than some Cofah army officer of noble blood.\n\nKeeping a wary eye on Trip, Kiadarsa walked toward the soulblade again. She crouched and reached for it, but this time she paused without touching it. Her hand hovered above it, unmoving, for several seconds.\n\n\"I see,\" she said, and withdrew her hand.\n\nShe frowned at the blade, but did not try to touch it again.\n\n\"Did he speak to you?\" Trip asked curiously.\n\nKiadarsa squinted at him, and Rysha didn't expect her to answer.\n\nSurprisingly, she admitted, \"Only to say that he is not for me.\"\n\n\"That's more than I got,\" Dreyak said. \"I just got zapped. You should feel honored.\"\n\n\"Right.\" Kiadarsa stood up, still looking at Trip. \"Does he speak to you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, that's something. I would be upset if a Cofah soulblade defected and linked to an Iskandian. An Iskandian who already has a soulblade.\" Kiadarsa glanced at Jaxi.\n\nTrip opened his mouth, no doubt to tell her that Jaxi was on loan, but must have thought better of revealing the information, for he closed his mouth again.\n\n\"If that's truly what you are,\" Kiadarsa added quietly.\n\n\"The accent is right,\" Jylea offered.\n\n\"What else would I be?\" Trip tilted his head, like he truly cared what they thought. Or maybe he thought they might actually know. Hadn't he said he didn't know which country his father had come from?\n\n\"We'll see,\" Kiadarsa murmured. \"We'll see.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "Trip fastened the valve control back onto the helium tank, and Leftie clapped from the doorway. They were belowdecks in the airship, night having fallen again, and Trip longed for sleep. He regretted having stayed up all of the previous night. He would happily let someone else handle their navigation to\u2026 wherever they were going. As far as he knew, the Cofah hadn't announced a destination.\n\n\"I didn't know the flow of helium got you so excited,\" Trip said, turning on the gas so it could fill the envelope.\n\nDuck, Rysha, Leftie, Kaika, and the Cofah soldiers and scientists had spent the day patching it and repairing the framework for it. Rebuilding it, rather. It had been utterly smashed, as if a dragon had fallen out of the sky on top of it. Maybe it had.\n\n\"I was showing my approval for your whole scheme,\" Leftie said. \"Even though I'm not sure we came out on top in the end.\" He leaned backward into the passageway to look up and down it, then lowered his voice. \"I'm surprised the major agreed to the Cofah people being in command. I'm not real comfortable with that. I'm not going to yes, sir and yes, ma'am them, are you?\"\n\n\"I hadn't thought about it. Sometimes, those words automatically come out. They drilled them into us good at the academy.\"\n\n\"That's the truth. And Colonel Anchor liked to assign push-ups any time you forgot to yes, sir him.\"\n\n\"I remember.\" Trip checked a gauge and was pleased at the even flow of gas up the pipe and into the envelope. Not all of the pipework was visible, so he had worried there might be holes that he could only reach by digging into the bulkheads.\n\n\"And if you were in your flier and couldn't do them, he'd keep a tally for you. Did you ever see his little notebook? He actually wrote it down. Leftie, push-ups: one hundred and twenty.\"\n\n\"I saw it. I got up to three hundred once.\"\n\n\"I remember that. He made you do them in front of the formation before we could go home. I wonder if the Wolf Squadron commander will be like that. Colonel Tranq, isn't it? I can't believe we didn't get to meet her and just went straight off on this mission.\"\n\n\"Maybe that's a good thing. We weren't able to start accumulating push-ups.\" Trip moved over to the gauge that measured the fill percentage in the envelope. The airship had already been loaded, including moving the fliers onto its big open deck, and there weren't any ropes tying them down. They would start lifting as soon as they had the gas to do so.\n\n\"I'm curious about what Tranq looks like. She's supposed to be about forty, but that's not that old. Women can still be sexy at forty. And they have a lot of experience.\" Leftie grinned.\n\n\"I hope this speculation doesn't mean that you're hoping to sleep with our squadron commander. Lieutenant.\"\n\n\"Sleeping isn't what I do with women in bed.\" The grin widened. \"And I've never gotten with a colonel. Just Major Bee back in Charkolt. Remember her?\"\n\n\"Wasn't she married?\"\n\n\"Not happily.\" Leftie added a wink to his grin.\n\nHe looked up and down the passageway again. Before, he'd probably been hoping nobody was out there to overhear them. Now, he probably hoped someone was. Trip hadn't ever noticed that he was shy about sharing his exploits.\n\n\"Speaking of experience,\" Leftie said, \"I've been trying to work up the courage to proposition Captain Kaika.\"\n\n\"I didn't think you were ever lacking in courage when it came to women.\"\n\n\"Normally not, but the rumors about her and the king being a couple are daunting. It's too bad that Cofah witch is a witch. What do you think of her? She's a beauty, huh? I'd like to see her without her parka on.\"\n\n\"Leftie, we haven't been on this mission long enough for you to be this horny.\" Trip held up a finger, leaned toward a brass funnel\u2014part of the ship's communications system\u2014and flicked the switch under it. \"Major Blazer, are you in the wheelhouse?\"\n\n\"Yup, I'm here with our new mission commander.\" Blazer's voice managed to drip sarcasm even though it sounded tinny and distorted coming out of the funnel.\n\nTrip suspected Leftie wasn't the only one who wouldn't yes, sir or yes, ma'am the members of the Cofah team. He assumed Blazer had only agreed to that conditionally, at least in her mind, and that once a dragon appeared, she would be barking orders.\n\nTrip wondered what the odds were of them making it to this ruins site without encountering any. Not good, he suspected.\n\nEven though the sorceress had announced that the dragon investigating the outpost had left, Trip had continued to sense it at the edge of his range. And he sensed it still. It had to be forty miles away, but he had the feeling it had an eye on them. The presence of the dragon-slaying swords might be keeping it away. He wouldn't assume that. The bronze dragon in the Pirate Isles had proven that his kind weren't so terrified of the blades that they would be swayed from their goals.\n\n\"We should be ready to lift off in about five minutes,\" Trip said.\n\n\"Good,\" Blazer said.\n\nAs soon as he stepped away from the horn, Leftie said, \"A week is a long time, Trip. And it's getting closer to two now. You know I'm used to having company any time I want it.\"\n\n\"And that you want it often, yes.\"\n\n\"Any strapping young man should.\" Leftie peered into the passageway again. \"Seriously, what do you think of the witch? Normally, I'd steer clear of anything to do with magic, and happily sign a petition that would see her hanged, but\u2026\"\n\nTrip froze, staring at the gauge, chilled by his friend's casual words.\n\n\"I honestly was never expecting witches to be sexy. Like, in all the books, they're old and warty, unless they shape-change into young women to lure men away, and only afterward, the men find out they were disgusting. But Mrs. Zirkander is a real beauty, and this Cofah woman, man, she's got that exotic look from way in the west.\"\n\n\"Those with dragon blood are just people,\" Trip said. \"I imagine they can be beautiful or not, the same as anyone else. Luck of the gods.\"\n\n\"I can't help but wonder what it would be like to be with one. Do you think they do witchy things in bed? And if so, what would they be?\" Leftie managed to look appalled, horrified, and intrigued at the same time.\n\nGiven his prejudices, Trip couldn't believe he was considering it at all. Trip had been too worried about the loathing the sorceress had been sending his way to think of her as a sexual being.\n\n\"Witchy things?\" a woman asked from the passageway.\n\nLeftie jumped, cracking his head on the low doorjamb.\n\n\"Shit,\" he blurted, spinning around. He took a step into the passageway, looking like he meant to flee from the newcomer. But he glanced at Trip, clenched his jaw, and stepped back into the fuel room.\n\nThe sorceress appeared in the doorway, and Leftie backed farther into the room. To get away from her? Or did he have some notion of protecting Trip?\n\nTrip silently echoed his friend's curse. He'd been doing his best to avoid Kiadarsa. He wasn't too worried about the physical threat she posed, but he did worry that she would reveal what he was to his team. It had been clear she knew he had dragon blood. \"The mage,\" she'd called him. She had to be making assumptions that he had powers and training based on the fact that he had Jaxi. Trip didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Maybe she would leave him alone if she believed he might be her equal when it came to flinging magic around. But what if she wanted to challenge him?\n\nRealizing she might be trying to read his thoughts, Trip attempted to put that bank vault around his mind. \"Can I help you find something, ma'am?\"\n\nLeftie's eyebrow twitched at the honorific, but he didn't mention push-ups.\n\n\"I've actually found what I'm looking for.\" Kiadarsa squinted at him. She liked to do that. Scrutinize him.\n\nAnd he sensed her trying to probe his mind, too.\n\nBank vault, bank vault. Jaxi, you hear me?\n\nHe had left both soulblades in the cabin he and Leftie had been given, since he'd had to crawl through ductwork and clamber up on the framework of the envelope earlier. Doing so with swords dangling from one's hips was difficult. But now, he felt naked without the weapons close at hand.\n\nOf course, I hear you. I'm one deck above you, not on the other side of the world. Though I'm fairly certain I could hear your shouting from there too.\n\nJust checking. I have a visitor.\n\nSo I see. Perhaps you can interest her in Leftie. Since he wants to know about her witchy things.\n\nTrip felt somewhat comforted to know Jaxi was monitoring the situation, even if she was doing it irreverently.\n\nReverence is for minions, not mighty soulblades.\n\nI feel like you would get along well with that bronze dragon we met.\n\nUnlikely. He was on the dull side. One expects more from dragons.\n\n\"I'd like to speak with you\u2014Trip, was it?\" Kiadarsa wore a dubious expression as she said his name.\n\nHe shrugged. \"You can call me Telryn Yert, if you want.\"\n\nShe blinked. \"Is that your mage name?\"\n\n\"My what?\"\n\nShe didn't answer, merely staring at him, and he worried he'd made a mistake. Could she do something with his name?\n\n\"He's a pilot,\" Leftie told her slowly, as if he were explaining the situation to someone particularly dim.\n\n\"Yes, thanks for the tip.\" Kiadarsa waved a dismissive hand at Leftie. \"Run along, will you? I want to have a conversation with your friend, and I think he would prefer it be a private one.\"\n\nShe smiled at Trip, a knowing smile.\n\nHis stomach did a nervous flip. He had a feeling his bank vault hadn't been effective, or she'd just figured out from his reactions that he was keeping things from his comrades.\n\nHer smile remained, but her eyes narrowed in speculation. Or\u2026 concentration?\n\nThe probe he'd sensed before returned in more force, raking over his mind.\n\n\"I'm going to get irritated if you keep attempting to invade my privacy,\" Trip said, letting his voice cool.\n\nIf she truly believed him a trained sorcerer, would she be probing him so? Wouldn't she worry it would anger him? He hoped she hadn't noticed the lack of soulblades in the vicinity to protect him.\n\n\"I'm certain I don't know what you mean.\" Kiadarsa flicked her fingers at Leftie again. \"Leave.\"\n\n\"Nah,\" Leftie said, feet planted. \"I think he'd like me to stay here with him, to make sure you don't do anything witchy to him.\"\n\n\"And how will you do that?\"\n\nLeftie puffed out his chest and dropped a hand to the butt of his pistol.\n\nShe rolled her eyes. Leftie's belt unbuckled, and his trousers dropped to his ankles.\n\n\"Shit,\" he blurted for the second time in five minutes, lunging down to grab them.\n\nKiadarsa smirked at Trip, as if they were colleagues sharing a joke. Hardly that.\n\nAs soon as Leftie had his belt buckled again, Trip patted him on the shoulder. \"It'll be all right. I'll talk to her.\"\n\n\"Alone?\" Leftie scowled at both of them. \"I don't think that's a good idea.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's not, but I'll do it anyway.\"\n\nThe deck tilted slightly underfoot, the airship lifting off. That should mean Trip's time as mechanic was over, and he could get some sleep. Assuming the sorceress didn't say something to give him nightmares. Or do \"witchy things\" to him.\n\nDespite his words, Leftie didn't move. He wore a mulish expression and crossed his arms over his chest. Though only for a second. Then he shifted his hands to his hips, one finger hooking around his belt. To keep it up if she tried to drop it again, no doubt.\n\nKiadarsa met his eyes and said, \"Go.\"\n\nTrip sensed the magical compulsion\u2014the power\u2014in the command even before Leftie took a step toward the door. But he only took one step, then halted with a scowl.\n\nTrip sensed her gathering more power to try again, and before he could consider if it was wise to challenge her in any way, he stepped between the two of them, holding a hand toward her.\n\n\"Don't,\" he said as coldly as he could. Hoping Jaxi would protect him, he turned his back to her and gripped Leftie's shoulder. He deliberately did not try to persuade him with anything except words. \"Come on, give us ten minutes, Leftie, will you?\" He tried a smile, though he didn't feel amused in the least. \"If we have a good time, I'll tell you all about it.\"\n\nLeftie grunted. \"I'd leave in a second and hang a scarf on your doorknob on the way out if I thought that was what you had in mind.\"\n\n\"Good to know.\" Trip shooed Leftie toward the door.\n\nThat mulish expression remained, and Trip thought Leftie might refuse to be shooed\u2014would it be unmanly to ask Jaxi to help foist him out?\u2014but he finally grumbled, \"Fine, fine, sacrifice yourself to a dragon if you want.\"\n\nHe stomped out and slammed the door. Outside, Trip sensed him taking one step, putting his back to the wall opposite the door, crossing his arms over his chest, and glowering.\n\nEven though Leftie's babbling about women and sports\u2014but especially women\u2014could grow old, Trip felt lucky to have someone who would watch out for him. He believed he could count Rysha as someone like that now, too, even though he hadn't known her for long. Some people had legions of friends like that\u2014Trip wondered how many people would take a bullet for General Zirkander\u2014but for him, he felt lucky to have two.\n\nWhen he turned reluctantly to face Kiadarsa, he found her studying him again. Would he have to threaten her once more? Would it do any good? Probably not. At least, he didn't sense her probing his mind this time. She merely looked him up and down with her eyes. It still felt invasive.\n\nHe didn't know if it was within his power, but he attempted to exude some of the aura, the presence, that he'd sensed from the dragons. And from her when she'd been doing the mage equivalent of puffing up her feathers.\n\nTo his surprise, she stepped back, her mouth parting as her gaze jerked to his face.\n\nHe started to feel relieved, hoping it had worked and that she would leave him alone with her mind and her eyes, but she recovered and looked him up and down again. If anything, it was worse, with more sexual interest in her gaze now.\n\n\"What do you want to talk about?\" Trip refrained from asking what she found so damn fascinating about him. It wasn't as if he was gorgeous and women couldn't keep their eyes off him.\n\n\"Who are you working for?\"\n\nHe arched his eyebrows and pointed to the tag on his parka that read Iskandian Army.\n\nShe snorted. \"No mage with your power is going to be a stupid soldier in the army.\"\n\nPower? Was his attempt to radiate some truly working? Or did she assume he had power because she thought Jaxi had been given to him? That he'd earned her through some deed and display of great sorcery?\n\n\"Actually, I'm an officer in the army,\" Trip said.\n\nAnother snort. \"Sure, you are. With a soulblade.\"\n\nAh, yes, she was basing things on the presence of Jaxi.\n\n\"You're clearly somebody's spy, but not one of ours, right?\" Kiadarsa cocked her head. \"I would have heard of you if you were aligned with the Cofah. I used to work for Prince Varlok. Until a better offer came along. I know most of the sorcerers of any worth in Cofahre. There aren't that many these days, sadly. Not with any real power.\" She grasped her chin as she studied him. \"I don't care if you are somebody's spy unless it gets in the way of my mission again. The last person to get in the way was\u2014\" she bared her teeth, \"\u2014intolerable.\" Her eyes narrowed again. \"One of the dragon alliances didn't send you, did they?\"\n\nDragon alliances? Trip did his best to keep his face expressionless. He'd already made a mistake by allowing his confusion to show at the term \"mage name.\" Jaxi was right. Long before this mission, he should have gone to the capital for lessons from Sardelle. If only he'd known.\n\n\"Let me ask you a question,\" Trip said, figuring he should get information if there was any chance he could. He also wondered at her comment about a \"better offer\" than working for the prince. What could that be?\n\nHer eyebrows rose. \"Do you need to?\"\n\nWas that insinuation that she thought he could read her mind? Or that Jaxi could? She hadn't pointed out the lack of a soulblade on his hip. Maybe she knew the swords were on the deck above.\n\n\"I prefer being polite.\"\n\n\"That's surprising. Unless you are used to working with dragons and having to step lightly.\"\n\nNot sure what to make of that statement, he said, \"My grandmother always told me to be a gentleman.\"\n\n\"I'm sure.\"\n\n\"Will you tell me about this spy that betrayed you?\" Trip asked.\n\n\"Jylea wouldn't appreciate me sharing that story with strangers.\"\n\n\"Even those who are now aligned with you and will assist you in destroying the portal?\"\n\nShe hesitated. Thoughtfully? Uncertainly?\n\nFor once, Trip wished he did have the ability to read people's minds.\n\n\"For the moment, Jylea and I have agreed that we will work with you and your team, yes,\" she said. \"But as I've already told you, I suspect you work for someone other than the Iskandians. Is destroying the portal truly what you wish to do?\"\n\nHer eyes narrowed, and he expected her to try to probe his mind again, but she did not, at least not that he could detect.\n\n\"Of course.\" Trip made himself gaze back into her eyes, even though he didn't find it comfortable. On the chance that it would help, he tried to will her to answer. \"Who betrayed you? Why are you so sure we're at cross purposes?\"\n\nKiadarsa stepped toward him and licked her lips. Trip noticed those lips, along with the rest of her face. She was, as Leftie had pointed out, quite attractive. But if she had seduction or who knew what in mind, he wouldn't fall for it. Not that he could imagine her seducing him. Surely, if she wanted information, Leftie would be easy to read\u2014and happy to go along with a seduction. And he was the one with a face that made women want to look twice.\n\n\"A dragon,\" she said. \"Tophurnikus, as we found out later. But Toph was what he introduced himself as. He came in human form, a beautiful man with flowing blond hair\u2014golden hair\u2014and deep golden eyes that you could fall into. That I did fall into. As did Jylea. We ladies had quite the adventurous night during one of the blizzards.\" Kiadarsa smiled, her first self-deprecating smile.\n\nTrip had no idea what to make of it\u2014or the story so far\u2014but he nodded and said, \"Go on.\"\n\nIt seemed incredulous that she was sharing something with him, and he figured he shouldn't trust any of it, but he might learn something, even from lies. And she did go on.\n\n\"Toph claimed to be an Iskandian, but years gone from his homeland. An archaeologist and a treasure hunter. He knew all about dragon ruins, and we talked him into joining our team. While Aeolus was away, foolishly.\"\n\n\"Who is that?\" Trip had learned the rest of the Cofah researchers' and soldiers' names while he'd been working with them on repairs, or so he thought. He didn't remember that one.\n\n\"Who was that, you mean. A bronze dragon that was found and released from one of the three ancient stasis prisons around the world.\"\n\nTrip had no idea what she was talking about\u2014three prisons?\u2014but he nodded as if this wasn't news to him.\n\n\"He was an ally who was sent down here to work with us, a Cofah dragon from the old days, and one loyal to\u2026 another dragon ally. He even let me ride him, as he'd had a rider once, long ago, he said. He was helping us with our research before Toph showed up.\"\n\n\"The old dragon didn't simply know where the portal was?\" Trip had assumed all of the magical creatures would know that, that they would be able to sense it from afar, even if they hadn't themselves come through it.\n\n\"No. It was tampered with\u2014enshrouded I should say\u2014so it's no longer easy to detect, even for dragons. Also, we had other questions related to it.\"\n\n\"Such as how to destroy it,\" he guessed.\n\n\"Indeed. Aeolus was helping us investigate other ruins, some that have been here since before his birth, to try to find all of the answers we sought. He said to be wary of any other dragons we encountered until we were ready to make our move, but I wasn't wary enough. He had gone off hunting and then to an alliance meeting when Toph came, pretending not to be a dragon, but simply a human whose goals were similar to ours. He worked with us, but he secretly guided us toward the wrong conclusions, and he used his powers to affect our minds.\"\n\nKiadarsa squinted at Trip, and his heart beat a little faster as he wondered if she had sensed his feeble attempt to get her to talk. Had that even done anything?\n\n\"I'm not a dragon,\" he said dryly, then immediately felt stupid for saying it. As if a sorceress would believe him one under any circumstances.\n\n\"No,\" she agreed. \"I would sense that. I mean, I wouldn't be fooled again, I don't think. Toph was very good at dampening his aura and hiding what he was. I just thought he was a human with some dragon blood.\"\n\n\"But he was a dragon that wanted to ensure you never found the portal?\"\n\n\"Exactly. I believe now that we may have actually searched the right ruins without knowing it, with him using his magic to hide clues from our eyes.\" Her hand strayed to her hip. To a pocket? The one with that page of notes folded up inside? \"When Aeolus returned, he knew exactly what Toph was, and he soon saw how he'd been tricking us. He challenged him, even though he was just a bronze.\" She looked away, toward the dark porthole. A few snowflakes drifted past it. \"The battle was the day before yesterday. The two took their natural dragon form. Right in our camp. It didn't go well. For the camp or for Aeolus.\"\n\n\"The gold won,\" Trip assumed.\n\n\"He might not have if it had been one-on-one. Aeolus was an old and crafty dragon, who had survived many wars. But Tophurnikus had many allies he could call to help. And he did. Dragons who resented the idea of humans disturbing their portal. We\u2014the researchers\u2014all ran to the cave when we sensed them coming. Aeolus told us to. I felt like we were abandoning him, especially when Toph had already injured him, and was up there in the air, wheeling about and cackling into our minds. But Aeolus flew off, trying to lead them from the camp so we could make it to the cave. He'd put some glamour on that cave early on, making it so it would be harder for other dragons to see into it. We made it inside, but not before I sensed his death. Not before I heard the laughter of Tophurnikus. Not before I sensed that they'd razed our camp.\"\n\nJaxi? Can you hear me? Are you getting this?\n\nKiadarsa had turned back to him, though she gazed at his chest now instead of into his eyes. Trip didn't know what to make of the story. It seemed to match up with what Dreyak had seen of the camp, of multiple dragons fighting, but why would Kiadarsa go from glaring at him and oozing distrust and hatred to standing before him and confessing all this? Confessing a story that did nothing to make her shine, since she and her colleagues had been duped. Did she have something to gain from telling it? Did she want his sympathy for some reason? Or was it all a lie meant to trick him into revealing something?\n\nOh, yes, Jaxi said. This is quite entertaining. I'm munching on garlic-roasted pumpkin seeds up here and listening.\n\nCan you tell if she's lying?\n\nNo, I can't read her. She's better at bank vaults than you are.\n\nI think everyone is.\n\nGive it time. You only learned the exercise today. Sorcery takes a lifetime to master.\n\nKiadarsa stepped closer to him, her gaze still toward his chest instead of his eyes. Her demeanor was much different from the confident one she had come in with, or the challenging one from earlier in the day. She stopped less than a foot away from him.\n\nTrip was positive it wasn't manly to panic when a woman came close, but sweat dampened his palms, and he could feel his heart slamming against his ribs.\n\nIs she trying to seduce me? he asked Jaxi. If a telepathic voice could come out squeaky, he was sure his did.\n\nI'm not sure. This is quite interesting.\n\nPumpkin seeds interesting?\n\nKiadarsa rested a hand on his shoulder, her thumb brushing the side of his neck.\n\nIndeed. The seduction guess seems most likely, though I'm not sure what she wants or why she believes you're a spy. She could just be drawn to you, I suppose.\n\nDrawn to me? Jaxi, women aren't drawn to me. Trust me, I'd know if I had this power by now. The urge to bolt filled him.\n\nWell, other than Sardelle, have you been around any sorceresses? Women with dragon blood?\n\nI don't know any sorceresses, and for the other, how would I know?\n\nYou'd be able to sense it.\n\nThen no, he said, though he highly doubted he could have sensed anything two weeks ago. Until Jaxi had started giving him these mental exercises, his sixth sense had been erratic.\n\nKiadarsa raised her eyes, but not all the way to his, just to his lips. If she tried to kiss him, he was going to sprint out of the room. Up to the deck to talk to a normal woman. Rysha. Yes, he longed to run and find her now.\n\n\"I've told you my lamentable tale,\" Kiadarsa murmured. \"Will you share with me who you're working for? I need to know\u2026 I can't make the same mistake again. My people are counting on me.\"\n\nTrip had been prepared to flee, but he made his feet stay rooted to the deck. If he ran now, she would think he was hiding something.\n\n\"I am Iskandian,\" he said firmly. \"I serve King Angulus. Nobody else.\"\n\nHe expected some sign of disgust from her, but she seemed too busy considering his lips.\n\n\"I mistrust Iskandians deeply,\" she murmured. \"And those with powerful auras who claim to be Iskandians, as well.\"\n\n\"That sounds like a personal problem.\" The flippant words came out before he could think better of them. He didn't want to make light of the story she'd told him, but all of this was too strange, and he was positive she was toying with him, wanting to use him for some reason.\n\nTo his surprise, she chuckled. Then she inhaled deeply, as if she was breathing in his scent.\n\nHe found it bewildering. He knew his scent wasn't anything appealing right now.\n\n\"I have to go,\" he said, taking a step back.\n\nHe would have taken five steps back\u2014or five hundred\u2014at least enough to dislodge her hand from his shoulder, but he bumped against the door.\n\nHe expected that hand to dig in, to try and hold him there. But when she looked up, meeting his eyes, she had that scrutinizing look in hers again, as if he were some puzzle she meant to figure out. She drew her hand back and looked at it, then lowered it.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, the weird seductive voice shifting back to a more normal tone. \"Of course. As do I.\"\n\nShe stepped toward the door, but he was still standing in front of it. She frowned at him, the challenge back in her eyes. \"Let me pass.\"\n\n\"Of course.\" He stepped aside.\n\nShe strode out, shutting it behind her.\n\nTrip pushed a hand through his hair. Jaxi, what just happened?\n\nI have some ideas, but I'd like to cogitate on them before sharing. It's too bad Sardelle isn't here. She's more of a historian than I am.\n\nWhy would he need a historian to shed light on his women issues?\n\nSince Sardelle isn't here, you should ask Rysha. She's a historian, one who didn't fear studying the magical. Or at least magic related to dragons. I bet she would have some ideas.\n\nI'm not telling her the sorceress wanted to get cuddly with me.\n\nWhy not?\n\nBecause\u2026\n\nAh, because you want to get cuddly with her, and she may be upset? Well, if you choose to stay ignorant, there's nothing I can do about it.\n\n\"Wonderful,\" Trip muttered and walked out."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "Rysha rested her hands on the railing of the airship, gazing toward the snow falling from the black clouds obscuring the stars. The flakes dropped straight down and disappeared into darkness below the hull of the craft, the ship's running lanterns doing little to drive back the night.\n\nHow high were they? A thousand feet? Two thousand? Rysha couldn't make out the icy fields below and wondered how Major Blazer could keep them on course in weather like this.\n\nShe shivered inside her parka. She knew she should crawl into the bunk she had been given, burying herself under the pile of furs atop it, but the quiet of the night drew her. There was something magical about being out here, sailing through territory she'd read about but never thought she would visit. If only the constant threat of dragons didn't make it dangerous.\n\nShe imagined being an archaeologist, out there exploring the ruins those dragons had left long ago. Few people had spent much time down here in the perennial cold of the Antarctic, searching for signs of past civilizations, human and otherwise. She wagered there were a lot of temples and caves that mankind had never set foot in.\n\n\"Didn't expect to find you out here, Ravenwood,\" came Kaika's voice from behind her. She ambled up to the railing, the shadows and her fur-trimmed hood hiding her face, only the bright orange tip of one of Blazer's cigars visible. The sweet tobacco scent mingled with something else\u2014vanilla?\u2014and lingered in the air. \"Figured you'd be curled up and sharing body heat with your strapping young captain. I couldn't help but notice there aren't any heaters in the cabins. I bet most of the crew sleeps in the boiler room when they're flying around down here.\"\n\n\"My strapping young captain? Trip?\"\n\n\"I haven't seen you making moon eyes at Duck. Or at me. Those are the only options for captains.\"\n\n\"No, ma'am, but even if moon-eyeing were appropriate during a mission, Dorfindral wouldn't approve of it.\"\n\n\"So, leave him in the boiler room.\"\n\n\"He doesn't like being left behind.\"\n\n\"If that's true, and he can let you know that, that's disturbing.\" Kaika leaned her elbows against the railing and peered into the night ahead.\n\n\"Doesn't yours give you the feeling it's\u2026 feeling things?\"\n\n\"Maybe, but I've been ignoring it. And keeping it in its box whenever we're not in battle.\" Kaika looked pointedly at the strap Rysha had found that let her keep Dorfindral in its scabbard slung across her back.\n\n\"You think I should be doing that?\" Since Rysha couldn't sense dragons coming from a distance, the way Jaxi could\u2014or maybe that was Trip warning them\u2014she'd deemed it wise to never leave the sword out of reach.\n\n\"It's up to you. You know more about those things than I do. But\u2026 I've seen a friend killed by one. By accident. Someone spoke some of those command words to the sword to get it all riled up, and it's like a rabid dog once it gets going. Hard to calm it down even with the other command words. 'Course we didn't know how to tell it to stand down back then, but I've still seen Kasandral try to turn on people, even when those words were spoken.\"\n\n\"Your friend had dragon blood?\"\n\n\"No, he just got in the way. Between the sword and someone who did. Sardelle, to be exact.\"\n\n\"I'm being careful, and I'm aware of when it tries to manipulate me.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Kaika withdrew the cigar and offered it to Rysha. \"Puff? I won a couple off Blazer in a bet. I never much liked smelling like smoke when there might be enemies around, but it warms you up when the air is cold enough to freeze your nose hairs off.\"\n\nRysha snorted, her nose hairs were doing fine. It was cold, especially when she was used to the temperate, if rainy, climate around the capital, but she didn't think it was more than ten degrees below freezing. She wouldn't want to be here in the winter, but that was a few months away.\n\nStill, out of curiosity and some vague sense that soldiers were supposed to smoke and drink together when off-duty, she accepted the cigar.\n\n\"Pull the smoke into your mouth, hold it there a bit to enjoy the nuances of the flavor, then exhale through your nostrils. That's the best way to do it.\"\n\nThat sounded complicated, but Rysha lifted the cigar to her lips. The vanilla scent did smell appealing. Unfortunately, she inhaled more than she was probably supposed to, and thick warm smoke invaded her lungs. It irritated everything along the route, and she ended up coughing all over the railing.\n\nWith tears pricking her eyes, she handed the cigar back.\n\nKaika chuckled and accepted it. \"Takes a few tries to get used to it.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Rysha rasped, wiping her eyes. \"What was the bet?\"\n\nKaika grinned at her. \"This morning, when you were walking on the ice and reading, Blazer wagered you'd fall on your ass at least three times on the way to the cave. I said you wouldn't.\"\n\nRysha wrinkled her nose, not sure whether to be offended that she'd served as entertainment for the senior officers or pleased that Kaika had bet against her falling.\n\n\"I saw you on the obstacle course,\" Kaika said. \"You only look like you'd be a klutz.\"\n\n\"Was that\u2026 a compliment?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but I thank you for not falling.\" Kaika drew deeply on the cigar and blew out rings of smoke, clearly getting more out of the experience than Rysha had. \"Got a question for you, my scholarly prot\u00e9g\u00e9. Or I guess you would say that I'm seeking some confirmation.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" Rysha arched her eyebrows, glad for a chance to be helpful. That was more appealing than being the subject of bets.\n\n\"Jaxi's not the only reason our new swords want to attack Trip, is she?\"\n\nRysha's shoulders\u2014and eyebrows\u2014drooped. She didn't want to talk about Trip behind his back, and she also didn't want to divulge his secrets. \"Between Jaxi and the new soulblade, he's carrying a lot of magic around.\"\n\nKaika slanted her a flat look.\n\nRysha sighed. Did she truly have to confirm this for her? It sounded like she already knew.\n\n\"It took me a while to twig to it,\" Kaika went on. \"Because of Jaxi. But looking back, I've gotten that feeling from him since the beginning\u2014that he's a little odd.\"\n\n\"He's not odd.\"\n\nKaika chuckled. \"Don't think I've run into any sorcerers yet, just sorceresses, so I don't have a basis for comparison, but he reminds me a little of Phelistoth and Bhrava Saruth when they're walking around in human form. They can pass for normal if people aren't paying much attention, but there is this sense of otherness about them that puts you on edge. Of course, Bhrava Saruth can turn on his charms. Hm, that's not the right word. Allure, maybe? Anyway, when he turns it on and crooks a finger at you, you're perfectly willing to have sex with him, no matter what stupid things he's saying about you being one of his worshipful followers.\"\n\nRysha didn't know what to say to that. She had never met either of Iskandia's ally dragons, in human form or any other, and she hadn't met any sorcerers, either. She'd barely met Sardelle, and she wasn't sure if she had any kind of allure that went beyond standard human beauty. Obviously, General Zirkander was drawn to her, but was it because of dragon blood in her veins? Rysha had read of such things. It had generally referred to dragons, but the humans who had been direct descendants of dragons had apparently had a modicum of their allure too. As with magic, the farther removed from the dragon one was, the less powerful it was.\n\n\"You haven't, have you?\" Rysha asked, mostly because she didn't want to discuss Trip's dragon blood.\n\n\"What? Had sex with Bhrava Saruth?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\nKaika took another puff from the cigar. \"I got permission first. From my steady fellow. Sometimes, if you get an opportunity to do something that crazy, you just have to do it.\"\n\nRysha stared at her. She hadn't truly expected the answer to be yes.\n\n\"I told him that if he ever gets the chance to sleep with a female dragon, I would be fine with that. He doesn't have quite as adventurous a soul as I have, though, so I'm not sure he'd actually do that. Unless the dragon used her dragonly allure on him.\"\n\n\"It's called scylori,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"Oh, there's a term?\"\n\n\"Yes. And you're right, dragons can compel humans to do things against their wishes. Or make them believe they aren't against their wishes.\"\n\n\"I wasn't compelled. I was just curious. And he was amenable.\"\n\n\"Was it worth\u2026\" Rysha didn't want to say betraying her lover, because it didn't sound like it had been that exactly, but she couldn't imagine a man being excited about his woman sleeping with a dragon\u2014or anyone else.\n\n\"Nah, not really. He was very much focused on his own pleasure. You'd be better off with Trip. I suspect he'd be much more appreciative than a dragon. And that he'd be amenable to doing whatever you asked.\"\n\nRysha blushed. How did they keep ending up talking about Trip? She wasn't sure if doing it in this context was better than discussing his blood or not.\n\n\"You do know what to ask for, right?\" Kaika grinned at her.\n\n\"Of course I know. I'm not sixteen, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Yes, I forgot. You've kissed three boys. And had sex with one of them. That's good. Just remember, it's fine and good to polish his sword if he likes it and you like it, but make sure he knows how and where to use his tongue. You want to have a good time while you're cuddling, right?\"\n\n\"Ma'am, we haven't even\u2014\" Kissed, she was going to add, but Kaika kept speaking.\n\n\"And once you're familiar with each other's tastes, don't be afraid to bring in some props and toys. You know the Gilded Lady in the capital? Over on Aspen Lane? They sell some quality stuff, and everything comes with instructions and diagrams, so you don't have to feel awkward about asking the sales woman. Take him along too. You can pick out things together. If you want a list of recommended products, just ask. I'd be happy to provide it.\"\n\n\"Ma'am, when you told General Zirkander that I was your prot\u00e9g\u00e9, I was very honored, but I'd really imagined you teaching me about guns and bombs and how to kick men's butts rather than\u2026 products.\"\n\nKaika clapped her on the shoulder. \"We can do all those things too. I'd be delighted to teach you about demolitions. And now that we're not cramped up in those fliers, we can definitely practice with the swords. First thing in the morning.\"\n\n\"I would like that.\" Rysha remembered her battle with the sorceress, how the woman had been more experienced and had been getting the upper hand toward the end, even with Dorfindral guiding Rysha's movements. It would be a good idea to\u2014\n\n\"Ma'am?\" Leftie called, jogging toward them. \"Is that you, Captain Kaika?\"\n\n\"It's me.\" Kaika turned her back to the railing, propping her elbow on it.\n\n\"Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to ask you, er, warn you about something.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"It's the Cofah sorceress. I think she might be trying to\u2014\" Leftie glanced toward the doorway he'd exited from. \"I don't know why she would pick him, but I think she might be trying to control Trip. Is that possible? I mean, I know women can seduce men, and vice versa, but Trip's not very\u2014I mean, he's sort of the opposite of oversexed, you know? But if she's a witch and has powers she can use on him\u2014I don't know why she would, but she came down to the gas room and wanted to talk to him alone, and was looking him up and down. Honestly, I don't know why, except that he's the highest ranking after you and Blazer. Well, and Duck, but Duck's not a lady's man, and Trip's all-right looking, don't you think? It's not his face that gives him trouble with women. But what could she want from him? That sword, do you think? He seemed willing to give it to her without seduction.\"\n\nRysha shifted uneasily at the rapid flow of words\u2014and the topic. She hadn't heard Leftie babble and trip over sentences before, so it took her a few seconds to realize he was nervous. And worried.\n\n\"She's alone with him now?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"And you're sure\u2014\" Kaika glanced at Rysha, \"\u2014it's not by his choice?\"\n\nLeftie hesitated, also glancing at her.\n\nRysha's gut tied itself in a knot.\n\n\"He did ask me to leave them in privacy, but he's not\u2014he never\u2014it's not like him.\"\n\nKaika scratched her jaw. \"I suppose it's possible that sorceresses can have magical allure too.\"\n\n\"I really don't want to hear about this woman's allures,\" Rysha said, trying to sound tough and casual, as if she wasn't worried in the least about Trip being allured. \"But if he's in danger, we should help him. He knows a lot about\u2026\"\n\nWhat? He'd just transferred to Wolf Squadron and the capital, so he wouldn't know any military secrets there, and he didn't have a background in dragons or archaeology or magic.\n\n\"Very little?\" Kaika offered.\n\n\"Machines,\" Rysha said sturdily. It wasn't as if Trip was ignorant. He just didn't have specialties that she could imagine an enemy caring about.\n\n\"I'm sure she wants to seduce him to learn all about making gun mounts,\" Kaika said dryly.\n\n\"Ma'am,\" Leftie said, frowning. \"I don't trust her or any of them, and I don't think we should be unconcerned by things out of the ordinary happening.\"\n\n\"Don't you think Jaxi will protect him if he's in there against his wishes?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"Is a soulblade more powerful than a sorceress?\" Leftie sounded skeptical.\n\n\"I have no idea.\" Kaika looked at Rysha.\n\n\"It would depend on what era the soulblade came from and the abilities of the original sorcerer,\" Rysha said, the words sounding distant to her ears. She was barely aware of answering. As stupid as it was, she was imagining Trip down in that room, with that sorceress seducing him.\n\nWould he actually fall for that? The woman had been so antagonistic when they'd met, and that had been less than ten hours earlier.\n\n\"It's also possible the Cofah soulblade would interfere,\" Rysha said, looking toward the door. She wanted to go check on Trip and make sure untoward things weren't happening.\n\nBut the door opened as she watched it. Dorfindral sent a thrum of excitement through her, and she knew who was coming out before he stepped into the light of the lantern mounted there.\n\n\"Meyusha,\" she grumbled to the blade.\n\nSome of the Cofah scientists were out on the deck at the opposite end of the ship, but Trip looked right at Rysha, Kaika, and Leftie even though they were in the shadows and their parkas hid their faces. He strode past the parked fliers and toward them. There were, Rysha decided, many clues that he had dragon blood, for those interested in looking.\n\nAs he walked closer, his step determined, she tried to decide if he looked like a man who'd recently been seduced. Though what that would look like, she didn't know. The sorceress hadn't been wearing lip paint that she might have left on his clothing or his neck. His eyes didn't blaze with triumph and self-satisfaction or with chagrin. She told itself it was unlikely anything had happened. Maybe he was coming to report that the woman had tried to seduce him and failed.\n\n\"Two dragons, ma'am,\" he told Kaika without preamble.\n\n\"Shit. Where?\"\n\n\"Twenty miles that way.\" Trip pointed to the left. \"They flew to that distance quickly, and now they're paralleling us.\"\n\nEveryone looked in the indicated direction, even though, with the snow falling, they couldn't see one mile, much less twenty.\n\n\"They're silver dragons,\" Trip added. \"They won't be able to breathe fire, but they can destroy the airship with mental and physical attacks.\"\n\n\"We should get into the fliers and be ready,\" Leftie said. \"With passengers carrying those special swords.\"\n\n\"I'll report to Major Blazer,\" Trip said, and the two men jogged toward the wheelhouse together.\n\n\"Looks like we'll get all manner of sword-fighting practice on this trip,\" Kaika said.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Rysha said."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "Trip woke with a start to the sound of steel clashing against steel.\n\nImagining the battle already underway\u2014and why hadn't anyone told him?\u2014he lurched upright, cracking his knee against the flight stick of his flier. He stood in his cockpit, looking all around the deck of the airship, expecting to see sign of the dragons. He'd kept a mental eye on them the night before, standing with Blazer in the wheelhouse so he could let her know when they veered toward them, but the two silvers had maintained a course paralleling the airship and never drawing closer than twenty miles.\n\nHe, Duck, and Leftie had finally been ordered to sleep next to their fliers so they would be ready to take off at a second's notice. He'd opted for sleeping in his cockpit, buried under his fur and a parka. Daylight had come, though the snow continued to fall, and the gray clouds made it hard to tell what time it was. He stretched his senses out to check on the dragons and found that they continued to parallel the airship.\n\nTrip found the source of the commotion at the far rear of the airship, Kaika and Rysha leaping about and slashing with their dragon-slaying swords. It took him a moment to realize they were sparring with each other rather than battling some enemy.\n\n\"Seven gods, that's a racket,\" Leftie said, lurching upright in the next flier over. He, too, had opted to sleep in his cockpit, ready for action. Sort of. His leg hung over one side of the cockpit, his arm over the other, and his hair stuck up in so many directions it looked like lightning had struck him while he slept. He spotted the women, then slumped back in his seat. \"It would have been less alarming to wake up in a dragon's jaws.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to contact the dragons to see when that's scheduled?\" Trip asked.\n\n\"You can't do that, can you?\"\n\n\"I can do it.\" Trip patted Jaxi's scabbard to imply she would be the one handling the telepathic communication. \"I can't guarantee the dragons would answer.\"\n\nYou're asking that question yourself, hero.\n\nI wouldn't think dragon jaws would scare you. You can't be that palatable.\n\nTrue, but if my handler gets eaten, there's nobody left to carry me to interesting places. To unfrozen places.\n\nTrip clambered out of his flier, shivering as soon as he removed the fur. After taking care of biological needs, he looked for Major Blazer in the wheelhouse so he could update her on the dragons. But she was standing on the deck with Jylea, the two women holding mugs of coffee while watching the sparring match. Blazer also held a magazine in her gloved hand, though she seemed more interested in the swordplay. It amused Trip that the airship had a kitchen and a stove. So much more luxurious than travel by flier. But he wouldn't want to be stuck on the lumbering craft when enemies attacked.\n\nHe spotted Kiadarsa near the railing, gazing off in the direction of the dragons. Trip hurried past her, but not before she looked back at him, a long look over. He didn't acknowledge it. He didn't want to do anything to encourage her to make contact.\n\nBlazer and Jylea stopped their conversation when they noticed Trip approaching. Irritation flashed across Blazer's face, and he hesitated. She tucked her magazine under her arm and reached for her sword hilt\u2014the hilt of the chapaharii blade\u2014but halted before she touched it. Her hand hovered there for several long seconds. She took a deep breath, pulled her hand back, and withdrew her magazine again. It was folded open to what looked like sewing patterns for decorative squares. Not what he would have expected Blazer to read, but what did he know about women?\n\n\"Didn't mean to interrupt, ma'am,\" Trip said as he walked up warily, \"but I thought you'd want an update on the dragons' location.\"\n\n\"We've been getting updates from Kia,\" Jylea said blandly, looking toward her sorceress.\n\nTrip tried to decide if the statement contained censure. He didn't know what time it was, but feared he'd slept later than most people. That was surprising because he'd dozed off worried about the dragons, but he hadn't slept at all the previous night. His body had apparently decided to knock him out for as many hours as possible.\n\n\"Good,\" he said. \"Did they do anything in the night?\"\n\n\"They're maintaining their course and speed,\" Jylea said. \"I'm hoping that means it's a coincidence and that they have nothing to do with us.\"\n\n\"I don't think so, ma'am,\" Trip said. \"Even if they just happened to be heading the same way, it's unlikely they would perfectly match our speed. Dragons naturally fly faster than fliers and most certainly faster than airships.\"\n\n\"Did you just call my vessel slow, young man?\"\n\n\"I believe he did,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"Just in comparison to a dragon.\" Trip wondered if it was a good thing that Blazer was standing with the Cofah leader, jointly picking on him. Bonding with the enemy? \"Is there any terrain ahead of us that could potentially be hazardous? That an enemy might consider a good spot for an ambush?\"\n\nBlazer tilted her head. \"Would a dragon feel it needed to use trickery on us? To lay an ambush?\"\n\n\"We do have the swords. We drove off the other one and hurt it.\"\n\n\"Kia!\" Jylea called across the deck, waving for the sorceress to join them.\n\nTrip groaned inwardly and was tempted to slink away before she arrived. He could check on Kaika and Rysha. How long had they been sparring? Maybe they needed him to bring water.\n\nKiadarsa strode down the deck, her head high, looking much more like the sorceress from the cave than the woman who'd touched his shoulder in the gas room. She did not look at Trip as she approached. That relieved him. He felt more comfortable handling the tough sorceress than the odd one.\n\n\"We're about twelve hours from the ruins site we're going to check again, right, Kia?\" Jylea asked when she reached them.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Again?\" Blazer asked.\n\nKiadarsa and Jylea exchanged looks.\n\n\"Someone who proved untrustworthy was the one who reported there was nothing significant there,\" Jylea said. \"Upon further research, we believe it may indeed be the place we seek.\"\n\n\"Where is it?\" After sleeping for hours, Trip wasn't sure where they were. He sensed the ice fields stretching in all directions, but trusted Blazer, who'd been helping with navigation the night before, had a better idea.\n\n\"You'll find out when you need to,\" Jylea said.\n\n\"I'm just trying to figure out if there's a place we might be ambushed along the way.\"\n\nJylea's lips pressed together, and she looked toward Kiadarsa.\n\n\"It's flat the whole way,\" Kiadarsa said.\n\nWhat had they said the day before? That they couldn't reach the ruins site by dog sled because of places where the ice had melted? Creating an inland sea or lakes or some such?\n\nTrip gazed at Jylea, wishing he could pluck some information from her brain.\n\nHe'd no sooner had the thought than an image of a map floated into his mind. He recognized it as the one from the building in the outpost, the one with all the notes scribbled on ruins locations. He focused on the spot that Rysha had pointed to back in the Black Stag and that she'd also pointed out in the outpost. The words, what had they read?\n\nThe words appeared in his mind, as if he were reading them right there. Mount Eldercrag. Ice Caves. Cave. Dragon statues carved into a fissure. Three thousand years old, no markings. No evidence of recent use. Cave explorations unfruitful. Dragons in area.\n\nTrip twitched, realizing that sounded like an excellent place for a portal. Perhaps the words on that map had been inaccurate. If that proved true, the Iskandian team might not have needed to link up with the Cofah researchers, after all. They could have gone straight to that spot and\u2014\n\nWait, had he truly seen what Jylea was thinking? That wasn't one of his meager abilities.\n\nGuess again.\n\nGood morning, Jaxi.\n\nWe are heading to that location. I thought about mentioning it earlier, but you were snoozing like a dog in front of a fire crackling in a hearth.\n\nI wasn't nearly as warm.\n\nYes, it's odd that the Cofah didn't outfit an airship going to the Antarctic Circle with hearths, isn't it? And dogs. Since you haven't suggested to your lovely lieutenant that she should cuddle with you, you could at least keep warm with some dogs pressed against your back.\n\nInstead of answering, Trip considered the route ahead again. Now that he knew their destination, maybe he could better gauge what might be prompting the dragons to bide their time. He had no personal familiarity with the area, but he'd studied the maps.\n\nWould the dragons simply wait until the airship made it to the ruins to attack? Maybe they had more allies there, or something else that would make humans easier to slay. Or maybe\u2014\n\nThe inland sea, Trip thought with a lurch. The melted areas. If the dragons attacked there, they could sink the airship\u2014and the swords. To be lost forever in the depths of the Antarctic.\n\nHe looked toward the bow of the ship, wondering how close they were to that area now.\n\n\"You should learn to guard your thoughts better, Jylea,\" Kiadarsa said, squinting at Trip.\n\nJylea's eyes flew open, and she also looked at Trip.\n\nBlazer's brow furrowed, but she sipped her coffee and didn't comment.\n\n\"No,\" Trip said, thinking they believed he'd read Jylea's thoughts and discovered something enlightening. He had read them, according to Jaxi, but that wasn't what had enlightened him. \"I was thinking about what you said yesterday. That we had to fly instead of going on foot because of water blocking the way.\"\n\n\"Yes\u2026\" Jylea raised her eyebrows.\n\n\"The dragons might wait and attack us there. If they were to bring us down on the ice, the dragon-slaying swords would be there for anyone to retrieve, but if they fell into the ocean\u2014how deep is it under the ice here?\"\n\n\"Approximately one mile,\" Jylea said.\n\n\"Then we have nothing that could go down and get them. They'd be lost forever.\"\n\n\"A sorceress could levitate\u2014\"\n\n\"No,\" Trip interrupted her as Kiadarsa also shook her head.\n\n\"Nobody can use magic on them,\" Kiadarsa said. \"Nor can anyone with dragon blood touch them. They would be stuck down there indefinitely.\"\n\n\"Then we can't let them fall in,\" Blazer said, her hand straying to the hilt of hers again. This time, she let it rest there, not trying to stop it.\n\nTrip hoped she was thinking of using it on dragons and not on him.\n\n\"How far are we from the spot?\" Trip asked Jylea. \"And how wide is it?\"\n\nShe looked at him without answering. Considering whether she should?\n\nHe understood why they wouldn't trust Iskandians in general, but why hesitate to answer in this situation? They were all on the airship together.\n\n\"You might as well tell him, Jylea,\" Kiadarsa said. \"You're not trained to keep secrets from mages.\"\n\nBlazer eyed Trip. Trip shrugged at her. Her gaze flicked toward his waist where Jaxi hung. He'd left the Cofah soulblade in the flier, but he'd learned his lesson and didn't go many places without Jaxi now. Even to the head.\n\nYes, and let me tell you how exciting it is to watch a man pee.\n\nCan't you turn your back?\n\nHow would that work? Her hilt pulsed a subtle gold for a moment.\n\nHe was fairly certain that was meant as a reminder of her swordness, but Jylea, who'd been looking at the blade, twitched. Then sighed.\n\n\"Only about a half hour,\" she said. \"And it's about twenty miles wide, so it won't take us long to cross it.\"\n\n\"Assuming there are no complications,\" Kiadarsa grumbled.\n\n\"It's fortunate we have so many mages among us now, isn't it?\" Jylea said.\n\n\"It may prove so\u2014that is still debatable. But even so, mages aren't the equivalent of dragons.\"\n\nBlazer gripped Trip's shoulder and nodded for him to walk with her. They headed closer to Rysha and Kaika's ongoing sparring session, and he hoped she just wanted to get a good look at that, rather than question him about the mage comments. Given the firmness of the grip on his shoulder, he doubted it.\n\nHe stopped before they got too close, because he didn't want the women, prompted by their swords, to feel the urge to run over and attack him. As it was, being surrounded by all those blades made him uneasy.\n\nBlazer stopped too and released him. They were out of the Cofahs' earshot, and she looked frankly at him. \"They're just calling you a mage because you're wandering around with a soulblade, right?\"\n\n\"Technically, two soulblades.\" Trip wondered if he could sidestep the question without outright lying.\n\nGeneral Zirkander hadn't been even remotely fazed by the idea of one of his pilots having some magical powers, but he was clearly an exception to the rule and not the example.\n\n\"Uh huh, but that's why they believe it, right?\"\n\nTrip believed Kiadarsa sensed that he had dragon blood, but he wasn't positive. He shrugged. \"I suppose it's a logical assumption on their part, and I haven't corrected it, since they're not exactly trustworthy allies.\"\n\n\"No, definitely not. But could our own evasiveness backfire on us? I'm inclined not to tell them anything, either, but what happens if they expect you to be able to hurl fireballs, and then you can't?\"\n\n\"Jaxi can.\"\n\n\"Will that be enough?\"\n\n\"Nothing she or a sorcerer could do against a dragon would be enough. That's why this is important.\" He gestured to the sparring women.\n\nSweat dripped from both their faces, and their movements were slower now, with longer pauses between attacks, than they had been when he first woke up. He was surprised they'd been going this long. Trip well remembered from his basic army training how even a few minutes of hand-to-hand combat could leave a man panting.\n\nHe was impressed with how much force the women threw behind their attacks. They definitely weren't taking their training session lightly. Kaika, he noticed, had whiplike movements, and seemed to get a lot of power from the speed of the blade even though the way she slung it around appeared almost effortless. Her brow wasn't as sweat-slathered as Rysha's, nor was she breathing as hard. She looked like she could go all day.\n\nRysha managed to block her attacks, but Trip thought she put more effort into it than Kaika did. Muscling the movements instead of relaxing her arms and letting everything flow. But he would probably be the same way. Telling the body to relax was one thing. Having it obey was another.\n\nThe swords did not appear to be influencing them, not the way Rysha's had the night she'd battled the sorceress. If that was true, and this was only her second time picking up a blade, Trip decided she was doing extremely well. She always seemed in balance, even when scurrying back under a flurry of blows, and he admired her athleticism. And her sheer determination.\n\nKaika launched a series of high attacks, forcing Rysha to parry above her head, before whipping her blade down toward her thigh. Rysha jumped back as she jerked her sword down, but she wasn't quite fast enough. Kaika's sword tapped the inside of her thigh.\n\n\"Thirty-seven,\" Kaika said, backing off. \"Break?\"\n\nRysha huffed out a breath and wiped away a damp lock of hair that had escaped her bun. Her spectacles were so fogged that Trip couldn't imagine how she'd seen any of those attacks.\n\n\"If you're tired, ma'am. I don't want to overwork you, since we may have a real battle coming.\"\n\n\"That's very thoughtful, what with my advanced age.\"\n\n\"Lieutenants have to be mindful of their elders.\"\n\n\"How many points have you gotten, Ravenwood?\" Blazer asked dryly.\n\n\"Uhm, I\u2026 believe I lost count.\" Rysha looked at Trip.\n\nHe braced himself, expecting the sword to turn it into an irritated glower, but she wore a sheepish expression instead.\n\n\"Because there have been so many?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"Yes, that's it.\"\n\n\"It's thirty-seven to two,\" Kaika said, smirking.\n\nShe grabbed a towel hanging from the railing. They would need to dry off and put their parkas, scarfs, and gloves back on before their bodies chilled.\n\n\"You lost count of two, Lieutenant?\" Blazer's eyes crinkled.\n\n\"Well, a lot of other things happened between the two points.\"\n\n\"Like Kaika's thirty-odd points?\"\n\n\"Those would be the things, yes.\" Rysha shrugged at Trip, still looking sheepish.\n\nIt was only then that he realized she felt embarrassed or chagrined that she hadn't been doing better. Or maybe that she hadn't done better in front of him? He'd thought she had been doing great for a beginner.\n\n\"When did you pick up swords, Kaika?\" Blazer asked, as Rysha sheathed the sword and also grabbed a towel, using it first to wipe off her spectacles. \"I didn't think you cared for anything larger than a knife unless it could explode.\"\n\n\"I didn't, but there have been a couple of times in the last three years where I've almost gotten stuck with Kasandral. Maybe it was fate that I would end up wielding one of these.\" She ticked a fingernail against the hilt of her sword.\n\nIt and Rysha's weapon both glowed green currently. Trip wasn't sure if that had to do with his proximity, the dragons' proximity, or if they were simply excited\u2014could magical swords get excited?\u2014over the sparring match.\n\nOf course magical swords can get excited, Jaxi said. Right now, I'm most eager to go into battle. I want to see if we can actually kill a dragon this time. We were so close last time.\n\nIt's hard to finish them off when they can simply fly away when they're wounded.\n\nI've noticed. It must be convenient to have wings.\n\nI imagine so. Trip pictured a winged soulblade flying after a dragon.\n\n\"Once Colonel Therrik got back from his duty in the mountains,\" Kaika said, \"I asked him to give me some lessons.\"\n\nBlazer's upper lip curled. \"Why would you intentionally want to spend time with that man?\"\n\n\"He's really good at what he does.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" Trip asked.\n\n\"Making people dead.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\n\"You didn't have to do any favors for him in exchange for the lessons, did you?\" Blazer asked, her lip curling further.\n\nSomething at the edge of Trip's awareness changed, and he gazed out over the railing.\n\n\"No,\" Kaika said. \"He's married now, you know. Faithfully, I presume. He has his flaws, but disloyalty isn't one of them. Anyway, he loves sharp pointy things, and he's amenable to teaching people how to use them, for free. As long as you're not on the list of individuals who irk him.\"\n\n\"That's a long list, isn't it?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"I believe his list could fill a book. Chapter One would start with Zirkander.\" Kaika grinned. \"I was highly amused when Therrik married Zirkander's cousin, and they became in-laws. I dearly wish someone would invite me to a family dinner. If there are such things.\"\n\nTrip, his focus outward instead of on the conversation, realized what had changed. He no longer sensed the dragons. He hadn't noticed them flying away; they had simply disappeared from his awareness.\n\nHe looked toward Jylea and Kiadarsa, wondering if the sorceress had noticed anything. She was also frowning over the railing. The snow had stopped, the clouds lightening, but visibility wasn't anywhere near twenty miles.\n\nKiadarsa might have sensed him looking at her, for she turned and met his eyes. Trip started to take a step toward her, but she spoke into his mind.\n\nCan you sense them? she asked.\n\nA surge of panic ran through him. He hadn't anticipated that she would speak telepathically to him. She was sure to think it odd if all he did was think his response and expect her to pick it up without projecting or whatever it was sorcerers did.\n\nThey disappeared, he thought and tried to thrust the words into her mind\u2014he would have to ask Jaxi for a lesson on this.\n\nShe staggered back, touching her temple and wincing.\n\nWhat are you doing to the woman? Jaxi asked. Didn't I already tell you that you shout? Bring it down a notch. Or ten.\n\nI don't understand.\n\nJust look at the person you want to talk to and think the words toward them. You've already figured out telepathy.\n\nI\u2026 have?\n\nAnd I concur, Jaxi added. The abruptness with which the dragons disappeared is suspicious. I believe they're masking their auras.\n\nHow close are we to the water?\n\nLess than five miles.\n\n\"Trip?\" Blazer prodded him with her rolled-up magazine. She, Kaika, and Rysha were all looking at him, as were Jylea and Kiadarsa. How had he ended up surrounded by women?\n\n\"I think the dragons are coming,\" he said, \"but they may be in disguise.\"\n\n\"How does that work?\" Blazer asked. \"Hats and stick-on beards?\"\n\n\"We'll find out soon.\" Not waiting for his commander's orders, Trip jogged toward the fliers. \"Leftie, Duck, you ready to fly?\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Blazer said, lunging to catch him by the shoulder. \"You and your two magical friends are staying on the airship.\"\n\n\"What?\" Trip blurted, alarmed. \"I have to fly.\"\n\n\"It won't be a good idea to have you up there with a magic-hating sword at your back, and since machine guns don't do anything to dragons, there's no point in you flying around up there.\"\n\n\"I can still harry them with the help of the soulblades.\"\n\n\"Harry them from the deck. The airship is going to need some protection.\"\n\n\"But, Major\u2014\"\n\n\"Do it. No more arguing.\" Blazer ran to meet Leftie and Duck, yelling for Kaika and Rysha to climb into the fliers' back seats with their swords.\n\nDreyak must have heard the orders being given because he burst out from belowdecks, his scimitar and pistol in hand, and he also raced toward the fliers. Blazer stopped him with an outstretched hand, then pointed to Trip.\n\nHe said something\u2014a protest?\u2014but Blazer turned her back on him and vaulted into the cockpit.\n\nTrip tried his best not to glower at her, but it was hard. How was he supposed to stand down here while his comrades flew out to meet the dragons and risk their lives? He vowed to hop into his flier as soon as it looked like he was needed, whether Blazer said it was all right or not.\n\nBoots pounded on the deck behind Trip, the two Cofah soldiers running up with rifles. \"Which way are the dragons coming from?\" They looked toward Kiadarsa, who had drifted closer to Trip.\n\n\"We're not sure,\" he said. \"We don't sense them anymore.\"\n\n\"Uh, and that's a problem?\" a soldier asked.\n\nTrip nodded firmly. \"I'm certain it is.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Sitting behind Duck in his flier, Rysha gripped Dorfindral as they coasted in large circles around the airship, its huge black envelope in stark contrast to the snow and ice far below it. And the ice-rimmed blue water two miles ahead of it.\n\nThough Rysha assumed she would primarily use the sword against the dragon, she had mounted her rifle in the fancy rack Trip had affixed to the side of the seat well. She'd grinned when she spotted it and looked forward to having the leisure to see what all it could do, but for now, it kept her rifle secure and out of the way, and also close at hand.\n\nRysha glanced toward the port side of the airship as they flew past, at the stone-faced Trip down there, the two soulblades hanging from his belt. He stood by the rail with the sorceress, Jylea, Dreyak, the two Cofah soldiers, and a few of the researchers. His arms were folded over his chest, and he kept glancing at the lone flier that remained on deck, as if he was contemplating living up to his name and taking a \"side trip\" against orders.\n\nRysha didn't know why Blazer had ordered him to stay down there. To defend the airship? That made sense, but it wasn't as if they weren't all going to defend the airship. Those in the fliers would simply do it from the air.\n\n\"Not much threatening out here, is there?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"Nope,\" Leftie said. \"Kind of a pretty day. If you don't mind looking at it through the ice crystals edging your goggles.\"\n\nBlazer, up in the lead, banked so they wouldn't get too far away from the airship. They flew in a route that would allow them to circle it at a distance.\n\n\"Anyone see any dragons on the horizon yet?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"Nothing except birds, so far,\" Leftie said.\n\nThe sky had cleared enough that Rysha could see a seal colony near the water's edge, too, but there was nothing larger around.\n\n\"Birds can be dangerous if they get in your propeller,\" Duck said. \"Or poop on the cockpit when you're in it.\"\n\n\"Is that dangerous or simply inconvenient?\" Rysha asked.\n\n\"It depends on if it hits your goggles and spatters, making it so you can't see good.\"\n\n\"Why do I have the feeling you're speaking from experience, Captain Duck?\" Leftie asked.\n\n\"Because I'm an experienced pilot. And because nature is drawn to me.\"\n\n\"Nature, right.\"\n\nDown on the deck, Trip broke away from the others and sprinted toward his flier. Rysha thought he was going to power it up, but he slapped the communication crystal instead.\n\n\"They're coming,\" he blurted, his voice sounding from Duck's control panel.\n\n\"Which direction?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"The west. They've shape-shifted and dampened down their auras. That's why they seemed to disappear.\"\n\n\"Shape-shifted?\" Duck asked. \"Into what?\"\n\n\"Pigeons, I think. Birds, for sure. Innocuous-looking ones. I think they're hoping to get right on top of us before we notice them.\"\n\n\"Or they're planning a special bird-only attack on Duck's goggles,\" Rysha said.\n\nTrip didn't respond. He probably hadn't heard the comment. Which was fine. It had been a silly one.\n\n\"Are there really pigeons in the Antarctic?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"Polar pigeons,\" Rysha said. \"They're actually a different species and white instead of gray, but the first Cofah explorers found them as irritating as their local pigeons and gave them a similar name without worrying about scientific accuracy.\"\n\n\"Damned ignorant Cofah,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"An early Iskandian explorer dubbed a constellation only visible from the southern hemisphere Walrus Penis.\"\n\n\"That's not ignorant. It's just crude.\"\n\n\"It's good that we Iskandians are so much more evolved.\"\n\n\"Absolutely,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"You ready, Dorfindral?\" Rysha rubbed the sword hilt with her thumb, wondering if the shape-shifting would fool it.\n\nBut it flared brightly, as if it knew exactly what was coming.\n\n\"Uhm, are those all dragons?\" Duck pointed to his left.\n\nA huge flock of white pigeons was heading their way.\n\n\"Trip?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"I see them.\" Trip dangled half out of his cockpit, his head thrust down into the seat well, as if he was trying to repair something. How could he see anything? \"And no, they're not. It's just the two, but they're camouflaging themselves among the rest of that flock, and they're coercing the pigeons to head this way.\"\n\nTrip jumped down, the communication crystal from the cockpit now in his hand. He ran back to the railing, pulling Jaxi free and standing there, glaring at the oncoming flock.\n\n\"We can't fly into a bunch of birds,\" Duck said.\n\n\"They're heading for the airship, it looks like,\" Leftie said. \"What happens if you shoot a dragon when it's a pigeon? Will the bullets get through?\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" Duck said.\n\n\"Are we sure those are the dragons?\" Blazer asked skeptically.\n\n\"I don't reckon a bunch of pigeons would attack an airship of their own accord.\"\n\nEven as Duck spoke, the flock flew past right under their flier. Dorfindral agreed that there was magic afoot\u2014the sword flared even brighter.\n\nHunt! it seemed to cry into Rysha's mind.\n\n\"Chase after them, Captain,\" she ordered, even if lieutenants weren't supposed to give captains orders.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Duck said, apparently forgetting he outranked her.\n\nRysha leaned forward as much as her harness would allow, tempted to unfasten it to extend her reach, but Duck might have to fly upside down for her to have a chance at reaching those birds.\n\nLeftie came in from the side, also chasing after the pigeons. He fired into the flock, and blood and feathers flew.\n\n\"Aw, Leftie, that's not sporting,\" Duck said. \"Unless you're planning to collect those pigeons and fry 'em up later, you shouldn't kill 'em.\"\n\n\"They're about to attack the airship, Captain,\" Leftie growled, firing again.\n\nRysha found it telling that the pigeons didn't break up, not even with some of them being killed in their midst. They continued on, heading straight toward the airship. Would all the birds attack it?\n\n\"Faster, Duck,\" Rysha urged, amazed that the creatures were staying ahead of their flier.\n\nDorfindral blazed, the hilt warming her hand. It knew even if her eyes didn't that two of those birds were dragons.\n\nBut she couldn't hit any of them yet, not with the sword. Rysha jammed Dorfindral between her knees and leaned over to the rifle mount. Duck weaved as he rained fire into the back of the flock, striking them from different angles. It gave her opportunities to fire without the risk of hitting him or the propeller.\n\nDorfindral, still in contact with her, seemed to guide her aim. She let it, and her sights settled on a plump bird near the center of the flock. She fired, and though it was a small target, she struck it. But, unlike with the pigeons Leftie had hit, it didn't die. The bullet bounced off and didn't hurt it at all.\n\nYou will not strike me down so simply, a voice spoke into her mind. Our purpose is noble and just, and we shall prevail.\n\nThough Rysha appreciated her gun mount a great deal, she realized there was no point in firing at dragons with the rifle, so she took Dorfindral in hand again.\n\nDuck caught up to the rear of the flock, bringing her almost close enough to take a swing. She leaned to the side and as far out of her seat as her harness would allow.\n\nBut Duck had to pull up before she could strike. They had reached the airship.\n\nThe birds did not pull up. They streaked below the envelope and across the deck, fearlessly flying at the humans on it, their expressions warring between surprise and disbelief as they watched the flock approach. Neither Trip nor Kiadarsa wore such expressions. They crouched, ready for battle.\n\nRysha twisted to look back as Duck sailed around the envelope, frustrated that she hadn't gotten to take a swing. Would they be able to fly across the deck and give chase? Or were the quarters too tight for that?\n\nThe pigeons battered at several of the Cofah, their wings flapping wildly and aggressively. The ship's defenders shot back, but struggled to aim with dozens of sets of wings battering them.\n\nTrip ran toward the birds, Jaxi in his hand and the sorceress running at his side. A twinge of jealousy ran through Rysha at seeing them together. She tamped the emotion down. This wasn't the time.\n\nFire flared around Jaxi's blade, and a blazing orange fireball that seemed certain to set the balloon on fire roared into several of the pigeons. The soulblade had avoided aiming toward an area with people in it, but the Cofah soldiers still stumbled back, raising their arms to ward off the heat. The flames incinerated the birds instantly. Most of them. One survived the fire, twisting in the air and transforming into something else.\n\nWould it turn into a dragon right there? Was there room?\n\nRysha twisted the other way as Duck looped around, taking the flier toward the airship again.\n\nTrip sprang while the dragon was still transforming, swinging Jaxi toward it as lightning shot from his hip, from the other soulblade. The charge of electricity took down more of the attacking pigeons.\n\nBefore Jaxi could strike the creature\u2014it was turning into some giant cat\u2014an invisible force slammed into Trip.\n\nIt hurled him all the way across the deck and toward the railing on the far side. He almost went over, but the swords must have stopped him, for he jerked to a halt in the air. His feet dropped down to the deck again.\n\nBy now, the dragon had finished transforming. A huge white tiger with black stripes crouched on the deck.\n\nA second tiger had emerged from the flock near the Cofah\u2014Kiadarsa stood protectively in front of her people, ignoring the pigeons that still pecked and battered them as she faced the tiger. She splayed her fingers, launching some invisible attack.\n\nDuck flew by, looking like he wanted to angle bullets toward the magical creatures, but there was no way he could do so without hitting their allies.\n\nTrip ran back across the deck toward the tiger he'd tried to attack earlier. It sprang at him with its clawed paws outstretched. When it roared, the sound reached Rysha's ears over the noise of the propellers.\n\nJaxi slashed defensively in front of Trip, blocking those slashing claws and knocking the tiger aside. Trip lunged after it, raising the blade to strike, but once again, he was hurled away with great power. He slammed into a support post, and Jaxi tumbled from his grip.\n\n\"We have to do something, Duck,\" Rysha yelled in frustration as they flew uselessly past again. She barely resisted the urge to thump him on the shoulder. \"Can you land? I can't fight tigers from the air.\"\n\nLightning shot from Trip's hip as Jaxi launched another fireball from the deck. Both attacks slammed into the invisible bubble around the tiger as Trip grabbed the soulblade and rolled out of the creature's path. Once again, the attacks did nothing to hurt it.\n\nRysha clenched her fist. She needed to be down there, using Dorfindral to pierce the dragon's defenses.\n\n\"Find a spot to land,\" Blazer ordered from the other side of the airship, apparently coming to the same conclusion Rysha had.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Duck said.\n\nAs Trip turned to face the tiger, its pursuit relentless, Rysha hoped they wouldn't be too late."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "It wasn't a tiger.\n\nTrip reminded himself of that as the creature raced toward him once again, death in its predatory yellow eyes, eyes with reptilian slits. One of those mental attacks had nearly thrown him from the ship.\n\nAs he crouched, bracing himself with Jaxi in his hand, a surge of exhilaration flooded his veins. He felt in over his head, but that didn't keep him from longing to fight, to dominate his enemy.\n\nAzarwrath hurled lightning at the tiger. It branched around the creature without touching it. Trip had hoped the dragon's shields might be weaker in a shape-shifted form, but that wasn't proving to be the case.\n\nIt sprang, claws flashing as they slashed at Trip. He leaped to the side as he swung Jaxi at the creature's body. He hoped the blade might sink in and ravage his enemy, but once more, the sword bounced off before striking fur and flesh. The tiger twisted in the air, claws raking toward Trip's face. He jerked his head back, but a couple of those claws caught him, and fiery pain erupted from his temple.\n\nJaxi hurled a fireball at the tiger, the power and heat making Trip stumble back. He imagined a shield of his own flaring to life to protect him. Maybe it worked. Or maybe Jaxi did something, because the heat halted abruptly. The fireball still burned, filling his vision for a second, but he didn't feel it.\n\nUnfortunately, the tiger didn't seem to feel it, either. It landed, turned, and sprang at him again.\n\nTrip raised the soulblade to block it as he tried to throw a mental attack of his own, anything to keep the deadly foe away.\n\nTo his surprise, the tiger faltered in mid-air, as if struck by a powerful gale. Lightning and fireballs streaked toward it, Jaxi and Azarwrath working together.\n\nEvil humans, you think to hurt me? came a powerful cry in Trip's mind. You think you have the right to hurt me? To keep my kind from reclaiming our rightful homeland? You will know our wrath, and you will never get close to the Portal of Avintnaresi.\n\nBefore Trip could think of a response, intense pressure crushed his mind. It felt like his skull was shrinking, or his brain was expanding, and there wasn't enough room. He wouldn't let himself drop Jaxi, but he reflexively brought his hands to his head, as if that would help. But the pain only increased. His vision darkened, and he lost track of the tiger\u2014the dragon. He dropped to his knees, gasping for air.\n\nI'm trying to protect you, Jaxi said, but this one is strong in the mental ways.\n\nYeah, noticed that. Trip winced, trying hard to focus on his surroundings, knowing he was vulnerable right now.\n\nFight it off. We're shielding you so he can't physically get in to finish you off.\n\nTrip forced his eyes open enough to see the tiger throwing itself at him, but not reaching him, instead bouncing off the soulblades' barriers. But it kept trying, and Trip could sense the barrier faltering as their enemy threw mental attacks as well as physically slashing at it. Even two soulblades couldn't hold off a dragon, not indefinitely.\n\nYou have more strength than you believe, a male voice Trip hadn't heard before spoke into his mind. He tried to concentrate, to listen to it, even though his brain pulsed with pain, and he thought his heart would stop from the stress of it all. And you have two of us. You must attack the dragon back so that its concentration falters. If it is struggling to protect itself, it won't be able to continue this attack on you.\n\nGreat. How?\n\nYou tried a mental attack. That wasn't bad, but your strength will probably be fire. Hurl fire at it.\n\nTrip had trouble thinking of anything but the pain assailing him, the constant attack on his brain. He dropped his forehead to the deck, his body curling in on itself, as he imagined obeying the suggestion by finding matches, lighting them, and flinging them at the tiger. Obviously, that wouldn't help.\n\nBut, wait. He'd made fire before, hadn't he? Back on the pirate airship. Jaxi had said he'd done that, not her.\n\nTrip lifted his head and attempted to channel his anger, pain, and rage into one focused attack. He envisioned fire engulfing the tiger and burning its brain from the inside out. With a ferocious roar, he flung his arms out, willing the attack to happen.\n\nThe pressure on his brain halted, disappearing so quickly that he almost toppled over. But he caught himself on Jaxi, digging the tip of the sword into the deck and leaning on it. A wall of fire burned in front of him, but he didn't feel its heat. Was it real? An illusion? Had he created it or had the soulblades done it?\n\nA screech of pain filled his mind, so loud and powerful, he almost thought it a new attack. The deck quaked in response.\n\nThe roar of a flier propeller filled his ears, and he glanced left in time to see Rysha leap from the back seat of Duck's craft. She raced toward the fire, her sword held aloft, the blade blazing with that pale green glow.\n\nAfraid she would be burned, Trip willed the flames to go out. They disappeared, revealing the tiger on its back, writhing with all four legs in the air.\n\nHe realized he'd made a mistake in letting the fire die out, because the creature sprang to its feet. It transformed in front of his eyes, turning from the white tiger into a silver dragon. The hulking creature's head brushed the bottom of the envelope.\n\nRysha was close enough to spring at the dragon, slashing her green blade toward it. A spark of light flashed as Dorfindral pierced their enemy's protective barrier. Rysha jumped closer, slashing for scale and flesh this time.\n\nThe dragon bunched its legs to spring away. Though still on his knees, Trip locked eyes with the creature. A wave of ferocity welled up from deep within him, and he snarled as he willed it to stay in place, its talons locked to the deck.\n\nIt hesitated, frozen in place, but only for a couple of seconds before that big silver head shook itself. The dragon's eyes narrowed, staring into Trip's soul. He expected to be punished for his blasphemous attempt, but his soulblades attacked then, Jaxi sending another fireball and Azarwrath hurling lightning. Their magical attacks landed as Rysha sank Dorfindral deep into the dragon's side.\n\nHold him, the male voice ordered, or he'll simply get away. It's within you, I swear.\n\nThe voice was compelling, as if it had a power of its own over him, and Trip felt obligated to obey. Once again, he tried to light a fire in the dragon's mind, to inflict the kind of pain on it that it had thrust onto him. Anything to keep the creature busy, to prevent it from flying away.\n\n\"Don't let it escape,\" someone yelled. Kaika?\n\n\"I'm trying,\" Rysha yelled back, yanking Dorfindral out so she could sink it into the dragon's side again.\n\nIts tail whipped toward her, the angle such that it would knock her over the ship's railing.\n\nLook out! Trip yelled, and envisioned her flattening to the deck to avoid it.\n\nHe wasn't sure if his warning worked, or her own quick reflexes were responsible, but Rysha dropped to her belly as the tail whooshed over her. She sprang up immediately, raced in, and jabbed the blade into the dragon's haunches.\n\nThe creature screeched again, the deck quaking in response. It stood frozen, its eyes locked on to Trip, but pain gripped its body, and it didn't attack him.\n\nKaika raced in from the other side and sprang for the dragon's side. She sank her sword between scales and into flesh, then used it as a handhold to pull herself up onto its back. From there, she ran up and thrust her blade into the creature's neck.\n\nAnother screech burst from the dragon, but this one was weaker. Kaika sank her weight against the sword, driving it deeper. She twisted it, cutting through vertebrae. The dragon's head and long neck flopped to the deck. The eyes stared at Trip, accusingly.\n\nExcellent, the male voice said. You did well.\n\nTrip looked down at his hip. Was that Azarwrath speaking to him?\n\nIn truth, he wasn't sure he had done anything. All evidence of the fire was gone\u2014had it been his imagination? There was no soot on the deck, no burn hole in the envelope.\n\nThe male voice chuckled. Your accuracy is improving.\n\nWell, look who's talking, Jaxi said. But you two boys better not pat yourselves on the backs yet. Look.\n\nA man's scream came from the bow of the ship. The other dragon had also changed back to its natural form, and two bloody men lay on the deck next to it. Someone else knelt, injured. Jylea.\n\nBlazer stood over her protectively. She lunged and swept her blade toward the dragon, trying to get close enough to hurt it without leaving their injured allies vulnerable. The dragon jumped back, evading those swipes.\n\nEvil humans, it cried into everyone's minds, even if you slay me with those vile tools, know that you'll never make it to the portal. You'll never leave this land of ice and cold again. You haven't the right to deny our kind access to this, our homeland, and we know it. We will fight you!\n\nBlazer faltered, dropping to one knee and wincing at the force accompanying those words. Even with the sword protecting her from attacks, it couldn't keep out telepathic communications, and those communications resonated with intense power.\n\nThe dragon must have sensed that its words could affect its attackers, for it ran toward Blazer, wings spreading and its maw open, long, sharp fangs leering at her.\n\nWe wouldn't try to keep you out, Trip thought at the dragon, trying to make his own words intense, or at least heard, so the creature would focus on him long enough for Blazer to recover, if you didn't kill us or threaten to enslave us. If you would live in peace with humans, we wouldn't object to your presence.\n\nWe are great predators, the dragon replied, pausing its charge to glare at him. A predator does not live in peace with its prey. This territory, this world, belonged to us long before it belonged to your puny kind. You, of all humans, should understand this.\n\nBlazer regained her feet and stalked toward the dragon. Kaika and Rysha, who had also faltered at the dragon's words, now sprinted down the deck to help.\n\nKiadarsa clenched her fists. Blood smeared the side of her face, but she glared defiantly at the dragon. Trip sensed her launching a mental attack, trying to knock it toward Blazer and her sword.\n\nBut the silver wheeled and sprang at her, fangs flashing and talons slashing toward her. She raised a barrier, but the creature batted it aside with its mind while hurling an attack that knocked her to her back. Snarling with the pleasure of the hunt, it lunged for her.\n\n\"No,\" Trip cried, attempting to thrust flames into its mind, willing the creature to feel pain. He tried to channel all of his own energy into the attack, as if by sheer will he could stop the dragon.\n\nIts head jerked back, and it screamed in pain. The entire airship trembled.\n\nKiadarsa jumped to her feet and raced out of the way as the dragon's head whipped around on its long neck, as if it were a giraffe trying to get a bug out of its ear. Kaika and Rysha reached the creature, and they joined Blazer in an attack. As one, they raced in, cutting with those dragon-slaying blades, obliterating its defensive shield and springing for its scaled sides.\n\nTrip's legs trembled, and he sank to his knees, leaning on Jaxi to keep from collapsing all the way to the deck.\n\nHumph, Jaxi thought. I would hurl some more fireballs, but those silly swords are in the way.\n\nThose swords are more effective than your fireballs, the male voice said. Azarwrath. Women should know their limitations.\n\nWhat does that mean? Jaxi demanded.\n\nWomen are frail creatures that should be protected. If they have magic, they should become healers, not warriors.\n\nI assure you there's nothing frail about me. My fireballs may not be that effective against dragons, but in all other circumstances, they are most excellent. Much better than your unimpressive little lightning.\n\nA woman's place is at a man's side, or behind him, not in front of him.\n\nWhat benighted century are you from, you arrogant pig poker?\n\nAzarwrath sighed. A long-past one.\n\nTrip closed his eyes, not having the energy to join in the argument, and not sure what he would say if he did.\n\n\"Is it hard to feel manly when you're resting on your knees while three women hack a dragon to death on the other side of the ship?\" Leftie asked, walking up and looking curiously down at Trip.\n\n\"Extremely hard.\" Trip wasn't sure how much of a role he'd played in the battle, so he didn't try to defend himself. His weary body promised he'd done something. Even if all it had been was buying a couple of seconds here and there for the sword wielders, it had been worth it.\n\n\"If it makes you feel better,\" Duck said, coming up from behind them, his flier now parked next to Leftie's and Blazer's, \"all I got to do was shoot a couple of pigeons.\"\n\n\"That's better than I managed,\" Trip said.\n\nA ragged cheer went up at the front of the ship as the three women raised their bloody blades. The dragon's huge body lay unmoving on the deck, one wing dangling over a broken railing. Unfortunately, several people were unmoving as well.\n\nKiadarsa met Trip's eyes across the deck and across the neck of the dragon.\n\nCan you heal? she asked. Some of my people will die without a healer, and I haven't the training.\n\nTrip gulped. He'd been afraid something bad would happen if he let people think he was a sorcerer. And now it had. Kiadarsa believed he had power that he didn't have, and all the Cofah would frown at him in disappointment as people died at his feet.\n\nNo, Azarwrath said. Go to them. I have some knack for healing, despite it being a woman's art.\n\nA woman's art? Jaxi asked. Just so you know, I can make fire hot enough to melt a soulblade.\n\nYou can heal? Trip asked, hoping to stop the argument before it started again. I wouldn't have thought those who specialized in hurling lightning bolts at people could then heal them.\n\nIn my day, sorcerers learned a rudimentary level of skill in all the fundamentals. You were considered poorly educated if you didn't. Healing isn't an easy art to master, and many say it takes the patience of a woman, but I'll be shocked if you can't pick it up easily, Telryn.\n\nTrip wouldn't be shocked at all if he couldn't pick it up, but he pushed himself to his feet and forced his wobbly legs to stride across the deck. Those people needed whatever help he\u2014or the soulblade\u2014could offer.\n\nHe met Rysha's eyes as he approached. He would have liked to hug her, but his gaze flicked toward the bloody blade she held, the glow it still held, and he only gave her a quick smile.\n\nShe smiled back, but it appeared strained. Because she was injured and in pain? Or because she was fighting the blade again?\n\n\"Who's worst off?\" Trip looked at those sitting or lying on the deck, wincing when he saw right away that one of the researchers was dead. Yarokk, had that been his name?\n\n\"Many are injured,\" Dreyak said, frowning. \"They should not have been on the deck when they had no way to harm the dragons.\" He turned his frown toward Jylea.\n\nShe frowned back at him. \"You would have had us cower belowdecks? While our ship was destroyed around us?\"\n\n\"Better than to die needlessly when there were those here who could harm them.\"\n\n\"Iskandians.\"\n\n\"Iskandians with dragon-slaying swords,\" Dreyak said.\n\n\"You did not go belowdecks, Mr. Dreyak.\" Jylea gave the honorific an odd emphasis. \"You had no weapon with which to harm the dragons.\"\n\nDreyak glanced at the Cofah soulblade hanging from Trip's hip. \"No, but I am a soldier, sworn to protect my people. I have training. Few of your team have any manner of combat training.\"\n\n\"Your training and your sword were useless against the dragon. Though I see you managed to avoid getting hurt.\"\n\nDreyak's eyes narrowed. \"'Ware the tone you use with me.\"\n\nGo to the man over there first, Telryn, Azarwrath said, and ignore this bickering. Politics. A disgusted noise sounded in Trip's mind, something between a grunt and a harrumph. People have changed so little over the centuries. It is a pity.\n\nTrip headed toward the wounded man the soulblade indicated.\n\nI may need to draw upon some of your power, Azarwrath warned him.\n\nJust as long as I won't need to walk any time soon.\n\nYou are young. You will recover swiftly.\n\nThis new soulblade is awfully chatty, now that he's chatting, Jaxi said.\n\nTrip knelt beside the soldier and rested a hand on his shoulder while trying not to look at all the blood pooled on the deck underneath him. Or the way he'd been half eviscerated by tiger claws.\n\nAzarwrath's blade grew warm at his side.\n\n\"Jaxi can heal?\" Kaika asked, watching him. Dreyak and Jylea had moved away to continue their argument without onlookers. \"I'm not complaining, but I didn't think that was in her repertoire.\"\n\n\"It's the other one,\" Trip said. \"He's decided to talk to me. And these are his people, so I guess he's interested in helping them out.\"\n\n\"It must be getting busy inside your head, Trip,\" Rysha said, giving him a sympathetic look.\n\nLeftie, who had followed him over to the group, gave him a bewildered look.\n\nTrip, growing aware of a strange feeling in his body, as if his energy was seeping out of him, let his head droop to his chest and closed his eyes. After that battle, he didn't feel like he had much energy left. He assumed Azarwrath wouldn't draw so much from him that he would be in danger. At least he hoped that was the case.\n\nWell, you are just an Iskandian, Jaxi said. And he's healing Cofah. He might prioritize them.\n\nThanks, Jaxi. Now I'm afraid to close my eyes, lest I won't wake up.\n\nI'll keep an eye on him and let you know if things start looking shifty.\n\nI'm deeply heartened.\n\nAs I knew you would be."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "Rysha knew she should be cleaning off her blade\u2014and perhaps herself\u2014but she found herself watching Trip. He wasn't doing anything mesmerizing, other than moving from person to person, healing wounds. He'd said the Cofah soulblade was doing the healing, but she wasn't sure she believed that he was merely a holder for the sword. An odd weariness marked his posture as he knelt beside the injured people, resting a hand on them and closing his eyes. Clearly, it was taking something out of him.\n\nWhen she'd leaped from Duck's flier, Trip had been down on a knee, looking like he needed saving. But as she ran toward the dragon, that fire had come out of nowhere. Jaxi's work? Whoever had been responsible, the dragon had been delayed. Instead of leaping away from her attack, as she had expected, it had frozen for several seconds, staring at Trip, and she'd gotten a chance to sink her blade in. Then she remembered Trip's warning, the cry to look out, and the compulsion to drop to the deck. Everything had happened so fast that she couldn't say for sure, but she was fairly certain that cry had been into her mind and not aloud. And that he'd been the reason she had been flattened to the deck in time.\n\nHow much credit could Rysha, Kaika, and Blazer take for the dead dragons, and how much had Trip and the soulblades done?\n\nThe Cofah sorceress came back up on deck\u2014she'd escorted Jylea to one of the cabins below\u2014and walked toward the wounded people. Toward Trip.\n\nLeftie's words from the night before came to mind, his claims that Kiadarsa had been trying to seduce Trip. Only trying and not succeeding, Rysha trusted, but seeing the woman walk toward him made her uneasy.\n\nKiadarsa crouched, resting a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her. She murmured something, closed her eyes, and dropped her gaze demurely. The day before, Rysha wouldn't have guessed she would ever have used that word to describe the woman, but even though she stood and he knelt, there was something\u2026 subservient about the gesture, about her whole demeanor. Maybe Rysha was imagining things, but there seemed to be an unspoken offer there too. Of herself?\n\nRysha wondered if Trip had also saved Kiadarsa's life during the battle. And if she was now grateful.\n\nHer fingers curled into a fist. Even though she logically knew that she hadn't said anything to Trip to imply she wanted a relationship with him, she felt indignation and anger that another woman was touching his shoulder and giving him looks. Offers. It didn't help that the Cofah sorceress was beautiful, even with her hair tangled and blood dried on her jaw.\n\n\"What exactly are we supposed to do with two dead dragons?\" Leftie asked, waving at the closest one.\n\n\"Roll them over the railing and let them plop down into the water?\" Blazer asked.\n\nTrip nodded at something the sorceress said, then returned to his chin-to-chest position, one hand on the person he knelt beside, and one hand on the hilt of the Cofah soulblade. Kiadarsa rose and walked away. Disappointed? Pleased? Rysha couldn't tell.\n\n\"That seems wasteful, ma'am,\" Duck said. \"They're fresh meat. Anyone know how dragon tastes? Maybe we could find out.\"\n\nBlazer made a disgusted noise.\n\n\"They might be real fine,\" Duck said. \"Slip some chunks on a skewer, and we can build a nice fire in the cook stove and roast 'em up.\"\n\n\"That does seem fair,\" Leftie said. \"They were contemplating eating us, after all. At least one of the ones we've met was.\"\n\n\"And these dragons called us prey and themselves predators.\" Duck waved to the fallen creatures.\n\n\"It seems wrong to eat something intelligent,\" Rysha said.\n\nThe dragons were beautiful, too, when they soared through the skies. Even if they were enemies, it seemed a crime to contemplate turning them into kebab.\n\nMore than that, the words the dragons had spoken during the battle bothered her. Rysha knew from her research that dragons were believed to have evolved here on Linora, the same as humans. And, even though she hadn't chanced across texts that verified it, Sardelle had told her the dragons had been tricked into leaving through that portal a thousand years ago. Not by humans, but by some of their own kind, bronze dragons that had been tired of being on the bottom of their hierarchy. If the dragons had been trying all this time to return and had finally found a way, destroying the portal did seem questionable. But what choice did humanity have? What choice did she have? She was a soldier, obeying orders. And, with her grandmother's death fresh in her mind, it was hard to see the dragons as rightful inhabitants of the world rather than invaders. Cruel invaders.\n\n\"We should see if we can collect some of the blood,\" Blazer said. \"I'm not sure if anything special has to be done to keep it alive, but our mad scientist, Tolemek, can make weapons out of the stuff. Weapons that can hurt dragons.\"\n\n\"Collect? Like in vials?\" Leftie wrinkled his nose. \"Who gets that job?\"\n\n\"Sounds like a task for a lieutenant,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"It sounds like a task for a butcher.\" Leftie looked at Duck. \"Or someone already making kebabs.\"\n\nNow Duck wrinkled his nose.\n\n\"What are we doing?\" Kaika asked, limping up to join the group. \"Contemplating if we have the strength to roll these huge bodies over the railing?\" She peered over the side of the ship. They had sailed past the inland sea and flew over the ice and snow again.\n\n\"Duck is contemplating turning that one into our dinner,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"Gross.\"\n\n\"How do you know, Captain?\" Duck asked. \"We've had nothing but rehydrated dehydrated rations since we left Iskandia. A little fresh meat would taste good.\"\n\n\"I don't eat anything that talks to me before it dies.\"\n\n\"All sorts of animals talk to you when they're dying, crying out and the like. Haven't you heard a rabbit squealing as the wolves tear it to bits? That's the way of nature.\"\n\nKaika grimaced. \"I don't think the rabbit tells the wolves that it's told its buddies to avenge its death.\"\n\n\"You caught that, eh?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"That this one promised it had warned the other dragons that we were coming? Yes.\"\n\n\"Do we need to make some plans for that, ma'am?\" Duck asked. \"Seems like flying straightforward into this portal place might not be the wisest course.\"\n\n\"Too bad we can't turn into pigeons,\" Leftie said.\n\n\"That didn't turn out well for some of the pigeons.\" Kaika waved at the deck. More than a few dead birds had splatted onto the wood planks.\n\nBlazer looked thoughtfully around their group. Aside from Trip, who was healing the last of the prone researchers, their entire team had gathered together around the slain dragon. Kiadarsa was overseeing the removal of one of her people who had died, the man gutted by the dragon's talons. If the Iskandians wanted to talk in private, this was a good time.\n\nPerhaps thinking the same thing, Blazer tilted her head toward a less bloody spot on the deck and said, \"Let's chat.\"\n\n\"I'll see if Trip will finish soon and can join us,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"We don't need him right now,\" Blazer said. \"We can fill him in later.\"\n\nRysha didn't think it was right to exclude him from the decision-making, but she couched her objection in terms more likely to sway the major. \"We'll want the soulblades with us on any decisions we make. They may have advice.\"\n\n\"They?\" Kaika asked. \"Are we sure we want both of them with us? I trust Sardelle's sword, but the Cofah one? Didn't Trip say it was helping now because it wanted to heal its people?\" She waved toward the Cofah research team.\n\n\"Unless we're going to talk about something that would put the Cofah in danger, does it matter?\" Rysha asked.\n\nKaika and Blazer exchanged looks, making her think she might have missed a briefing.\n\n\"Let's just have a quick discussion without magical allies being involved,\" Blazer said, tilting her head toward her chosen spot again.\n\nThough Rysha didn't like the idea of excluding Trip, she followed the others.\n\n\"We leaving Dreyak out of this too?\" Duck asked, nodding toward the door leading belowdecks.\n\nRysha wasn't sure when he'd left or what he'd gone to do, but he wasn't around now.\n\n\"Yes,\" Blazer said. \"We'll make this a magic-free and a Cofah-free meeting.\"\n\n\"Are we plotting nefarious things?\" Rysha asked.\n\n\"Just figuring out the best way to ensure we complete our mission.\" Blazer put her back to the railing and fished out her cigar tin. \"I don't think we can survive a battle against more than two dragons at a time.\"\n\n\"With all due respect to our team,\" Rysha said, \"I'm not sure we should even count on surviving a battle against one at a time. Those two almost turned us into fools by circumventing the fliers and the swords. If Trip and the soulblades hadn't been on deck to delay them, they could have killed everyone and destroyed the airship before we managed to get our fliers back down here.\"\n\nBlazer looked like she might object, but then she nodded. \"You're right. That's true. Let's be glad we have the soulblades with us. I never would have guessed that Sardelle's sword would be so useful, and it seems to be quite a boon that we acquired another one.\" She extended a hand toward Rysha.\n\nGiving her credit for that?\n\nRysha might have defeated the sorceress, but Trip had picked up the soulblade. So far, the magical sword hadn't let anyone else touch it, and she highly doubted it would have let her take it after she'd slain its handler. If not for Trip, they might not have the weapon at all. Rysha didn't like the way Blazer wasn't giving him any credit for helping with the dragons. She wanted to come to his defense; she suspected he'd done much more than simply yelling that warning into her mind.\n\nBut what could she say without implying that he had magical powers? Nothing. And if he'd wanted that known, he would have told Blazer already. Of course, Kaika had already guessed at it. Maybe Blazer had too. Or maybe Kaika had told Blazer. Could that be why Blazer was excluding him now? Did she not trust Trip now because they'd figured out he had dragon blood?\n\nRysha didn't see how that mattered, not when it came to trust. She could understand someone who was afraid of magic being uncomfortable around him if they found out, but he was an army officer sworn to obey the king. He wouldn't do anything to endanger the mission or any of them, not intentionally. General Zirkander must have trusted him, and Sardelle too. Sardelle wouldn't have lent him Jaxi, otherwise, right? Unless Jaxi was along to keep an eye on him.\n\nRysha scratched her jaw, contemplating that. The idea of others in his chain of command not trusting Trip made her sad. She trusted him, and she barely knew him.\n\n\"My point is that we struggled with two dragons,\" Blazer said, addressing the group again. \"And if that silver truly warned all of its kin, there could be more of them waiting at the portal. A lot more.\"\n\nEveryone nodded grimly.\n\n\"Ravenwood, you have any idea about the number of dragons that are in the world now?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"No, ma'am. They were never as fecund as humans, with the females only going into heat once every few decades, so their birthrates are low, but they lived a long time.\"\n\n\"Decades?\" Duck asked.\n\n\"They have the potential to live for millennia,\" Rysha pointed out.\n\n\"Must be nice,\" Kaika said wistfully.\n\n\"Living for thousands of years?\" Blazer asked. \"Or only going into heat once every ten years?\"\n\nKaika snorted. \"Both.\"\n\nLeftie leaned close to Duck and whispered, \"They're not going to start talking about female problems, are they?\"\n\nBlazer stuck a cigar in her mouth. \"Just be glad you boys don't have to deal with them on missions. There'd be a lot more complaining in the unit.\"\n\n\"I haven't noticed a lack of complaining in units full of pilots as it is,\" Kaika said.\n\n\"They may be dealing with female problems right now,\" Leftie again whispered to Duck.\n\n\"How would we know?\" Duck whispered back. \"Major Blazer is always grumpy.\"\n\nBlazer cleared her throat. \"Let's get back to the mission. I don't know how much private time we'll have here. I was in the wheelhouse all night with Jylea's pilot. I'm ninety-nine percent certain we're heading to the spot we meant to head to before we diverted to the research outpost for repairs.\" She waved at Rysha. \"The spot you and Sardelle chose as the most likely location for the portal.\"\n\nAnd the spot Trip's hunch had pointed to, Rysha thought, remembering his certainty that night at the Black Stag.\n\n\"If that's the case,\" Blazer said, \"we know our destination, and we can fly there on our own.\"\n\n\"And we could get there faster than the airship,\" Duck said.\n\n\"Yes, or we could get there slower than the airship.\"\n\nHis brow wrinkled. \"Ma'am?\"\n\n\"You want to let the Cofah get there first and take the brunt of the dragons' attack?\" Rysha said. \"While we do our best to sneak in undetected?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Duck said, nodding in enlightenment.\n\nRysha frowned. As far as she knew, Kiadarsa was the only person among the researchers who had any power, and she didn't have a soulblade. None of them had the chapaharii swords. They would be close to defenseless against the dragons.\n\n\"I like that plan,\" Kaika said. \"It's not like they wanted to join forces with us, anyway. We can just say we decided to go our separate way and take off in the fliers.\"\n\nThe men nodded their agreement.\n\nWas Rysha the only one who found the plan unpalatable? And as the lowest-ranking person here, did she have the right to say so?\n\n\"I have an objection, ma'ams,\" Rysha said slowly, looking at both Kaika and Blazer. Even though Blazer was the mission leader, she and Kaika seemed to confer often on tactics. \"We would be sacrificing the Cofah, no doubt about it. They don't have a way to defend themselves.\"\n\n\"That's their fault for coming here in the first place without more firepower,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"What more firepower could they have brought, ma'am? Dreyak said that they've only uncovered two chapaharii weapons, and they were needed to defend their homeland.\"\n\n\"They could have brought one along if they'd known they were sending a team of people into a dragon's den.\"\n\n\"Did they know that?\" Rysha asked. \"Or were they just here to locate the portal? And then perhaps send word back to their people, asking for reinforcements or a team dedicated to destroying it. It's not like many of them are soldiers. Maybe our presence, our mission, has forced them to accelerate their timeline. Also, if they're like us, they probably didn't expect there to be so many dragons down here to deal with. Dragons don't like cold weather. Why are they lingering here? To guard the portal? We haven't answered that question.\"\n\n\"We weren't sent to answer questions, Lieutenant,\" Blazer said firmly. \"Nor were we told to worry about Cofah scientists. We're here to fulfill our mission in whatever manner is most likely to lead to success.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"I've noted your objections, but we will make plans to leave, let the Cofah arrive first, and sneak in while the dragons are, we hope, focused on them.\"\n\nBefore Rysha could decide whether she wanted to be a good subordinate officer and acquiesce, Kaika spoke up.\n\n\"When do you want us to be ready, Major?\"\n\nThe plan didn't seem to bother her. Or if it did, she knew she had to follow orders, regardless.\n\nRysha struggled with her desire to model herself after Kaika and to be a dutiful soldier, and her certainty that this wasn't the morally correct choice to make.\n\n\"We'll wait until nightfall,\" Blazer said. \"This barge is limping along at a snail's pace, so there's no hurry. I estimate it'll reach the ruins site after midnight. We can wait until a couple of hours before then to break away. That'll give them less time to figure out what we're up to, and it'll also give the dragons less time to react if they notice they've got humans coming in on two fronts. Though I'm hoping our little flier team will avoid their notice altogether.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" several people said.\n\nRysha grimaced and said nothing. She wouldn't do anything to impede the mission, but she couldn't nod and agree with it, either.\n\n\"Ravenwood, Leftie,\" Blazer said, stopping Rysha as she'd been about to turn away. \"Don't tell Trip. Not until right before it's time to leave.\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\" Leftie asked.\n\nRysha grasped the reason for the order right away, but once again, she did not agree with it.\n\n\"We tell him, we're telling the soulblades. Including the Cofah one.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" Leftie said. \"I understand.\"\n\nRysha opened her mouth, but Blazer pointed at her and spoke first.\n\n\"Yes, I know they can read minds, and that the Cofah soulblade might figure things out whether we say anything or not. I don't know how to combat that, but I suggest we all do our best to keep from thinking of the plan.\" She nodded to all of them. \"Check the fliers for pigeon guts and then take a nap if you can. Tonight could be eventful.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Rysha said. On that last point, she could agree."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "As darkness claimed the Antarctic and stars grew visible over the icy fields, Trip stood at the bow of the ship, gazing at the route ahead. For the first time, a mountain stood out on the horizon, its snow-covered silhouette jagged and dark. He remembered Rysha's mention of islands under the ice down here and suspected this was one such example. He also suspected it was their destination.\n\nHe sensed something powerful in that direction. Not dragons, though he wagered they were there, perhaps hiding their auras. This was something else, some powerful artifact.\n\nI sense it too, Jaxi shared. But barely. If it's the portal, I'm surprised I wasn't able to sense it from a long ways away. Perhaps the dragons have muffled its aura. I think it's underground, but I'm struggling to pinpoint where. There may be some iron in that mountain that's further interfering with my ability to sense it.\n\nTrip nodded. He hadn't thought of iron, but that seemed like as good an explanation as any. He, too, struggled to get anything more than a vague sense of magical energy.\n\nActually, my explanations are usually superior to other ones, Jaxi informed him.\n\nYes, of course. I shouldn't doubt you.\n\nPrecisely.\n\nA soft clang reached his ears, and Trip looked over his shoulder in time to see Rysha pushing her pack and the boxed sword into the back of Duck's flier. She was the third person who'd gone out to load the fliers when none of the Cofah were watching.\n\nTrip wasn't supposed to know about the updated plan, but Blazer had been naive if she'd thought she and four other people could keep a secret when Jaxi was around. If not for Jaxi, he wouldn't have known about the plan, and it stung him that they hadn't invited him to their meeting, even if he understood why. When he'd woken up from an extremely long nap\u2014exhaustion had forced it upon him after he'd helped Azarwrath heal everyone\u2014Jaxi had filled him in.\n\nAzarwrath hadn't said anything about it\u2014hadn't said anything since they had worked together to heal the Cofah\u2014but Trip wagered he knew everything Jaxi knew. The soulblades didn't seem shy about scraping through people's surface thoughts to glean information.\n\nActually, I try not to do that often, Jaxi informed him. There were rules about invading people's minds in my time. But in my time, people were a lot better about not oozing their thoughts all over the place too. Your would-be cuddle buddy thought about the plan every time she walked past me today. I think she wanted me to know.\n\nOh? Why?\n\nAside from the fact that it was quite rude of Major Blazer to exclude you from the planning in the first place? She objects to our people using the Cofah as cannon fodder.\n\nAh. Trip wasn't surprised. Rysha had a lot of heart and a definite sense of fairness. The Cofah hadn't endeared themselves to him with their talk of ensuring they received the credit for destroying the portal, so he was more inclined to let them fend for themselves. Further, he worried that Kiadarsa or Jylea would inadvertently say something that would remove all doubt and make his team realize he had dragon blood. He would be glad to get away from the Cofah researchers.\n\nStill, some of them had shown gratitude when he'd healed them. Technically, he hadn't healed them. He'd merely lent some of his body's energy to Azarwrath's efforts, and he'd told them the sword had been responsible, but they hadn't been belligerent about magic or tried to fight him. Some had gripped his hand and thanked him heartily.\n\nHe didn't particularly want to see them all killed by dragons.\n\nAzarwrath? he asked, wondering if the Cofah soulblade would deign to speak with him again. Azarwrath hadn't seemed irked with him that morning, nor had Trip gotten the impression that he was holding a grudge, but he didn't know how promising to find that, especially in light of Blazer's new plan.\n\nI am here, the soulblade replied neutrally.\n\nIt looks like my people are going to part ways with yours. Trip wondered if Blazer intended to leave Dreyak here or invite him to continue along with them. Do you want to stay here with Kiadarsa to help protect them from dragons?\n\nI have been considering this today. While you rested and your people conspired.\n\nTrip wanted to object to the idea that his team had been conspiring, as he knew they were only doing their best to ensure they completed their mission, but he understood why a Cofah soul would feel that way.\n\nI do not blame you for being one of them, Azarwrath said. People have always warred. This is simply how it is. Though it bemuses me that our two peoples are engaged in the same battle as they were fifteen hundred years ago. Will you Iskandians never concede that your nation would be better served by being assimilated into the empire?\n\nI highly doubt it.\n\nThe soulblade chuckled into his mind. It was different from Jaxi's laughs and cackles. It seemed the soft chuckle of an older man, one who rarely threw back his head and laughed uproariously anymore. His voice, too, seemed one of an ancient soul.\n\nAncient, really, Azarwrath said dryly.\n\nYou did just claim to be fifteen hundred years old.\n\nMuch of that time was spent in a stasis chamber, locked up with my great great great granddaughter for crimes she committed in an era when the rule was particularly draconian and spitting in the street was considered a crime. She wasn't the most noble of people, which I always lamented, but she didn't deserve to be imprisoned for centuries. A twinge of bitterness accompanied the words, but only a twinge.\n\nTrip had the feeling that whatever had happened, Azarwrath had come to terms with it a long time ago.\n\nIt is hard to stay bitter for centuries. I was sixty-three when I entered the soulblade. I'd been wounded in battle, a battle where my son was one of the generals leading the armies. The empire, as it seems to like to do again and again, had overextended itself and was attempting to claim Dakrovia as part of its domain, thinking it would be easy to defeat the jungle savages.\n\nBut their shamans were powerful, Azarwrath went on. Dragons originated on that continent, and mated frequently with the humans there. Even their mundane people knew every square inch of those jungles. Our armies, as well-trained and technologically superior as we were, never had a chance. One night, there was an ambush. My son was captured and dragged away, and I was grievously wounded. A gut wound. My people found me, and there wasn't a healer along powerful enough to help me, but there was time for me to make a decision, to decide whether to accept my death or to pour my soul into a blade that had been prepared by our sorcerers.\n\nI had never longed for eternity and hadn't considered the soulblade ceremony before, but I was worried about my son. I didn't want to leave this world when his fate was in enemy hands, when he might have been suffering through torture even as I lay dying. So, I entered the blade and helped my people recover him. And then he became my handler. We fought many battles together in the years that followed, until his own death came. When I'd made my quick decision that night years before, I hadn't considered that it would mean outliving, in a manner of speaking, my own son. But I was passed on to my grandson, and then to his daughter and so on.\n\nTrip stirred. Was the pirate king's\u2026 mate the great great great granddaughter you spoke of?\n\nShe was.\n\nTrip did not know what to say. He was more surprised than ever that Azarwrath was talking to him and had let him pick him up that night.\n\nI did debate for a long time over that, Azarwrath said. Not over initially being picked up, as I didn't want the tide to come in and for me to rust.\n\nI knew it, Jaxi inserted, proving that she was listening to the story too.\n\nIgnoring her, Azarwrath continued. I considered forcing you to leave me on that island, though I wasn't amused by the possibility that the dragon might find me and stick me into some hoard of treasure he planned to collect. As powerful as a soulblade is, we are not powerful enough to fight a dragon, not alone.\n\nDo you\u2026 Trip paused, not certain he should ask his question in case Azarwrath hadn't considered it, but the soulblade must have considered it. Right away that first night. Do you have any plans to avenge yourself on Rysha for defeating your descendant in battle?\n\nIt would be somewhat fitting if I wanted to kill her since her sword wants to kill us, but no. It was a fair fight, and my descendant, as you put it, and I weren't always in agreement. In my time, women did not become warriors or battle mages. They did not foolishly risk their lives. So, we disagreed on that aspect, but not only that. She reveled in the pirate life and being Neaminor's lover. He'd rescued her from stasis, if you didn't know. After finding her story in a book of legendary criminals and falling in love across time, he went looking for her, for at the end of her story, it explained how she'd been put into stasis at a dragon-rider outpost, to be tried later. But then, when the outpost was overrun, she was forgotten. Forgotten for over a thousand years. He found her and figured out how to free her, and she couldn't help but fall in love with him. For the next twenty years, they lived together as pirates.\n\nInvading Iskandia and killing people and stealing. Trip knew he shouldn't harp on that to someone who had been related to the woman, but he wanted to make sure the soulblade understood why Rysha had done what she had done. And why he had helped.\n\nYes, I understand.\n\nAzarwrath fell silent, and Trip realized he hadn't answered the original question.\n\nA freezing wind gusted across the ice field and battered the airship's envelope. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to come from that mountain.\n\nKiadarsa, Azarwrath? Trip prompted. Do you want to stay and help them?\n\nA part of me does want to help them. Even if they are little like my comrades of fifteen hundred years ago, they are Cofah. But Kiadarsa\u2026 She would not even have been considered a sorceress in my day. Her powers are very limited, and, as you saw, she is easily influenced. Your aura drew her, most certainly, and you don't even exude it the way you should. It's as if you've spent your life crumpling yourself into a tiny ball and trying not to be noticed by anyone.\n\nUhm. Trip could hardly deny that, since it was true, at least when it came to magic. He did want to be noticed for his piloting skills, but the rest\u2026 If you can read my thoughts, you know what happened to my mother.\n\nYes, the world is a strange place these days. Sorcerers were always feared by mundane humans, rightfully so, but they were respected, as well, and in my time, people wouldn't have dared hang someone for suspected dragon blood.\n\nIt didn't make Trip feel better to know his mother would have been left alone to pursue her passions if she'd only lived during another era.\n\nAs to Kiadarsa, Azarwrath went on, it is perhaps petty, but I could not see myself bonded with such a weak soul. If you wish to bed her, she would be yours, even though she doesn't trust you. If a dragon turned into a human and crooked a finger toward her, she would drop to her knees to please him in any way he wished. His tone turned dry. I believe that happened recently.\n\nAccording to her story, yes.\n\nHer story? Did you not see that it was true? All you have to do is look into a person's mind to see if they are telling the truth.\n\nA convenient talent.\n\nThat you have. There was that chuckle again. Most sorcerers have to spend years learning to master arts that come easily to you when you simply try. While a modicum of modesty and humbleness are admirable traits in a sorcerer, it is more than time for you to realize your talents and to take credit for what you can do, what you have done.\n\nTrip, uncomfortable with the suggestion that he might easily read people's minds, did not respond. Having such a power, aside from moral considerations, would only make his comrades more uncomfortable around him. If they allowed him to stay near them at all. Sorcerers, he suspected, did not fly as officers in Wolf Squadron. They were probably supposed to stay in dark mountain caves until they were needed to help defend their homeland.\n\nSardelle lives in a house on the outskirts of the city with Ridge, Jaxi said dryly. It's private, but definitely not a cave. She makes cookies with Ridge's mother and trains students in the ways of magic. I'm sure she would be more than willing to train you, as much as she's able. In between your Wolf Squadron missions.\n\nTrip hesitated. Do you truly think I'd be allowed to keep flying? Would the other officers accept a sorcerer in their midst? I've seen so much hatred and fear toward those even suspected of having magic.\n\nThe average Iskandian is not enamored with magic, Jaxi said, but I'm positive General Zirkander wouldn't object to having a sorcerer in one of his squadrons, and the others ought to learn to appreciate having your abilities up there. They would be foolish not to want any advantage that could help keep them alive.\n\nTrip, thinking of how many times he'd seen Leftie circle his heart with two fingers, a superstitious gesture to ward off witches and magic, knew pilots had their foolish moments.\n\nYour lieutenant is coming, Jaxi said. And she left her guard dog in the flier. Maybe she longs to cuddle with you.\n\nTrip glanced back to see Rysha heading his way. More likely, she was coming to tell him they would be leaving soon, assuming the team intended to bring him and not leave him to be cannon fodder with the Cofah. He knew that was unlikely, but admitted to feeling a little resentful at the moment.\n\nI will leave you for a private conversation, Azarwrath told him as Rysha drew nearer. But to answer your initial question, no, I do not wish to be left with the Cofah.\n\nThat's fine, Trip said. I'm happy to have your lightning bolts streaking out of my flier. But I feel obligated to point out, since this may be your last chance, that if Kiadarsa survives the battle for the portal, she could take you back to your people, and maybe you could find another Cofah sorcerer to bond with, one that's more powerful.\n\nI've considered that, but I understand that your other soulblade is on loan.\n\nYes, Jaxi is linked to a healer back home.\n\nThus, you do not have a soulblade.\n\nTrue, Trip said slowly, as what Azarwrath was suggesting sank in, but I'm just a pilot who barely knows anything.\n\nI will not disagree with that, Azarwrath said blandly.\n\nJaxi giggled. Or was that a chortle?\n\nBut you are learning much quickly, and will progress even more quickly once you have time for training. As it is, I suspect your people will barely recognize you when you get home.\n\nTrip knew the comment was meant to be encouraging, but he could only feel bleakness at the statement. He didn't want to return home a stranger to his grandparents, or General Zirkander and his colleagues. He just wanted to be Captain Trip. Pilot extraordinaire. Occasional maker of furnishings and gadgets to please women. At least one woman, he amended as he watched Rysha approach.\n\nSeven gods, what would she think about all this?"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "Rysha couldn't see Trip's face in the darkness, and she couldn't tell what he was thinking. He hadn't lifted a hand in invitation, though he'd been watching her approach. Was he lost in thought? Or had he realized what the squadron was planning, and it irked him that he'd been left out?\n\n\"Rysha.\" He nodded as she stepped up to the railing beside him. Was there wariness in those two syllables?\n\n\"Blazer will probably come up soon to tell you, but we'll be leaving in less than an hour. Our team. In the fliers.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Did Jaxi figure it out a while ago?\" Rysha looked sidelong at him, almost asking if he'd figured it out.\n\n\"While I was sleeping. Apparently, soulblades don't nap.\"\n\n\"Oh? What do they do while you nap?\"\n\n\"Pine with loneliness.\"\n\nRysha swatted his arm, relieved by his humor. It seemed to mean he wasn't irked. At least, not with her.\n\n\"I got to try my gun mount today,\" she said, starting with that since it was an easy topic. \"Only for one shot, which I used to peg a dragon-pigeon in its armored butt, but it was enough to see how useful it will be. Thank you for making it and installing it.\"\n\n\"You're welcome. I'm always glad to hear when my creations assist in dragon-pigeon assaults.\"\n\n\"That happens often, does it?\"\n\n\"This may have been the first time. If I ever open a gadget-making business, may I put your testimonial on the pamphlet?\"\n\n\"Verbatim? No editing?\"\n\n\"There's no need to edit that testimonial.\"\n\nRysha grinned, tempted to swat his arm again. Actually, she was tempted to lean against it, to lean against him. With their parkas, hoods, mittens, and scarves, she doubted they could warm each other up effectively by leaning together, but it would still be nice.\n\nShe'd been relieved when she'd seen him up here alone, not off somewhere with that sorceress. She hadn't seen him reciprocate that woman's touches, but Rysha also hadn't been watching him day and night. And Leftie's words about seduction had concerned her, for more reasons than one.\n\nShe wanted to find a way to let Trip know that she was developing\u2014had developed\u2014feelings for him. In case he'd been contemplating\u2026 other options. Because he didn't know she was an option. Maybe he didn't have such feelings for her, but she at least wanted him to know that she cared for him.\n\n\"I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things,\" Rysha said, looking toward his face, though the darkness and fur-lined parka hood ensured she wouldn't get any clues from it. \"If it's all right. Or did you want to be alone?\"\n\n\"Trust me, I wasn't alone.\" Trip tapped the two sword hilts near his hips.\n\nAgain, she found the humor in his voice encouraging, but he hadn't answered her question.\n\n\"I don't know who else to talk to,\" she said quietly.\n\n\"You can talk to me about anything.\"\n\nCould she? He didn't seem one given toward hyperbole, but they hadn't truly known each other that long.\n\n\"Anything? Even female problems? Leftie and Duck seemed completely uninterested in discussing them.\"\n\nHe shifted, looking down at her, and she blushed, glad the darkness would hide her red cheeks. How silly of her to have brought that up. She suspected her subconscious was trying to avoid talking about more serious matters.\n\n\"You can tell me about them, but I don't think I can fix them with a soldering iron and metal scraps.\"\n\n\"This is likely true.\" Rysha pushed her spectacles higher on her nose. \"First off, since you apparently know all about our new plan, I'd like to ask you what you think. Or if you can think of any way we can do this without leaving the Cofah defenseless. I know they haven't been that friendly to us, but we're not technically at war with them right now, so throwing them to the wolves\u2014the dragons\u2014doesn't seem right. Even if we were at war, these are mostly researchers. Aside from their sorceress, they don't have any way to fight dragons.\"\n\n\"I know, but I don't know what to do. I asked Azarwrath if he wanted to stay with them and help them, but he's disinclined.\"\n\n\"Oh? Really? Because he thinks it's a lost cause, and he'd end up left in an ice cave for all eternity?\"\n\nTrip paused. Considering his next words? \"He wasn't interested in bonding with Kiadarsa.\"\n\nRysha also paused, to rethink a snide comment that wanted to spring from her lips. She was too old to act like some snippy teenager making disparaging comments about the female competition.\n\n\"Earlier today, while I was supposed to be sleeping and was instead wrestling with this issue, I did have a thought about how to help them,\" Rysha said. \"I actually think Blazer's plan is good and improves our odds. I just can't dismiss other people as expendable.\"\n\n\"It's not wrong to care.\"\n\nHis words were off-hand and simple, but they touched her. He understood how she felt. And he didn't seem to judge her for it, didn't seem to think that someone training for the elite troops should harden herself and learn to accept that people died in military maneuvers.\n\nShe hadn't meant to lean against him, but she did, pressing her shoulder against his.\n\nAt first, he didn't react, but he soon shifted to wrap his arm around her shoulders. The wind was cold, and she wouldn't have minded snuggling closer, but she wanted his opinion on her plan. If she was going to enact it, she had to do it soon\u2014she was running out of time. But she had struggled to decide on her own and wanted someone to talk to about it.\n\n\"We have three chapaharii swords,\" Rysha said. \"And you and the soulblades. I'm not going to say three is overkill and that we wouldn't miss one if it disappeared, but one could make the difference between life and death for the Cofah on the airship. The dragons, if they sensed it, might hesitate to attack. That might give them more time. And it shouldn't affect our own incursion. If anything, the dragons might then focus on the airship for longer, giving us more time to get in without them noticing.\"\n\n\"So, you want to give one of the Cofah your sword?\"\n\n\"Lend it to them. Just for tonight. And then, if all goes well, I fly over and get it back after the portal has been destroyed.\" Rysha would, of course, need a pilot to fly her over, but she didn't say that out loud. She didn't want Trip to think that was the only reason she'd chosen to confide in him.\n\nShe truly couldn't imagine going to anyone else about this, not even Kaika. As much as she respected Kaika, she didn't believe she cared about the Cofah or would understand this choice. Kaika also might tell Blazer, and if Blazer outright forbade it, Rysha couldn't hand over the blade without disobeying orders. Given the seriousness of the situation, that might be grounds for a court-martial. At least if she did it without telling the others until it was too late, it couldn't be considered disobeying orders. She could still be court-martialed, of course. For handing over an irreplaceable artifact to the enemy, an artifact that could be key in defending Iskandia from dragons.\n\nShe rubbed her face, her cold cheeks. Was this the right thing? She was only at the beginning of her career, a career she'd dreamed of for a long time. Were these Cofah worth risking everything for? What would her parents say if she ended up kicked out of the army over this? What would Grandmother have said?\n\n\"You know if you need a pilot, I'm yours. And\u2014\" Trip added, his tone going dry, \"I wouldn't be that displeased if you weren't carrying that sword around. But\u2014\" his tone turned serious again, \"\u2014I think you should tell Blazer and Kaika rather than taking them by surprise.\"\n\nRysha grimaced. She'd considered that and knew it would be the more mature thing to do, but she kept thinking about that old axiom about it being easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.\n\n\"I'll stand by your side if you want to talk to them now,\" he said.\n\nShe appreciated the offer, but she also knew he was just a pilot to them, and the new kid at that. Even though Rysha disagreed with that assessment of him, she was positive his words wouldn't have a lot of sway with Kaika and Blazer.\n\n\"I can ask Jaxi to throb with an authoritative aura.\" Trip squeezed her shoulders.\n\nShe laughed, but stopped when she realized she hadn't been speaking her objections aloud and that he'd seemed to sense them anyway.\n\n\"Are you reading my thoughts?\" Rysha asked.\n\nHe hadn't been moving much, but he grew noticeably stiller.\n\n\"I know you probably can,\" she said, \"and I didn't mean to make that an accusation. I just\u2026 I guess I'd just like to know.\"\n\nHe lowered his arm, and she winced, wishing she hadn't said anything. It was obvious he wanted to keep his abilities a secret, and that was understandable given how the majority of Iskandians felt about magic. She wished she could retract the words.\n\n\"You know I probably can?\" Trip gripped the railing with his gloved hands and did not look at her.\n\n\"Well, you've spoken to me telepathically a couple of times now, so I didn't need all of my degrees to figure it out.\" Rysha smiled, hoping that humor could lighten the mood\u2014and make him realize she wasn't going to judge him for having dragon blood. Even if the mind-reading aspect made her uncomfortable, she thought she could learn to accept it. To accept him.\n\nHe looked sharply at her. \"I didn't realize\u2026 I didn't mean to do that.\"\n\n\"Really? I felt you help me with the dragon. I know you were the reason I fell at just the right time to avoid getting clubbed by that tail.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" He looked forward again, staring out at the white expanse and the dark mountain looming ahead.\n\n\"I'm glad you did.\"\n\nEven though he didn't seem that approachable now, she risked resting her hand on his forearm and squeezing him through his sleeve. She wished he wasn't wearing a parka, and that she wasn't wearing gloves, so she could feel the warmth of his skin against hers.\n\n\"I can understand why you wouldn't be eager to tell people, since it might not be well received, but if I can talk to you about female problems, you can most definitely talk to me about sorcerer problems.\"\n\nHe snorted. \"I'm not a sorcerer.\"\n\n\"But you do have dragon blood.\" Rysha looked over her shoulder to make sure nobody was nearby. There wasn't anyone on deck, and only one person near the lamp in the glassed-in wheelhouse. The navigator wouldn't be able to hear them from there.\n\n\"You're not surprised.\"\n\n\"No. I figured it out a long time ago.\" Realizing he might find that odd, since they'd only known each other a couple of weeks, she amended the statement. \"All right, I figured it out a few days ago. On the Pirate Isles. Before you spoke 'be careful' into my mind. I'm a brainy book girl, remember? I figure things out.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" He tightened his fingers around the railing and looked down at them.\n\nTensely. She didn't want him to be tense or worried around her, but she didn't know what else to say to make him more comfortable.\n\n\"Which isn't always a great boon,\" she said. \"Sometimes, you figure things out that people would rather you wouldn't.\"\n\n\"I don't mind you knowing,\" he said quietly. \"I'm just concerned about the others. Flying is all I ever wanted to do, and I'm afraid they wouldn't want me in the squadron. I know Wolf Squadron and the capital are different from Cougar Squadron and Charkolt, but it's still\u2026 It's scary. I've spent my whole life hiding my quirks. Or trying to. My grandparents had to move a lot when I was young because of those quirks, because people would notice I was odd. Like my mother had been. I made it all the way to adulthood, even though there were a couple of close calls when I was young, a couple of times we had to abandon everything and leave town in the middle of the night. I didn't even understand. I was too young to realize I was the problem.\"\n\n\"Trip,\" she whispered, his words tugging at her heartstrings, and stepped closer to him, wanting to ease his burden, or at least comfort him somehow. She slid her arm around his back and rested her other hand on his chest, looking up at him. \"I'm sorry you had to live through that and that you lost your mother. And I get why you're so wary now. I won't tell anyone, I promise, but I do think you'll find that you're in the perfect place to let people know, if you choose to do so.\"\n\n\"In sub-zero temperatures on a Cofah airship?\"\n\nShe swatted him on the chest. \"In Wolf Squadron and under General Zirkander's nose. I'm sure if you told him, he wouldn't bat an eye. Or does he already know? I assumed Sardelle did. And that Jaxi did before she agreed to go with you.\"\n\n\"He knows, though I'm not sure he knew in the beginning. He figured it out when we fought those dragons attacking the city.\"\n\n\"There you go. Zirkander and Sardelle already paved the way for sorcerous city defenders.\"\n\n\"I know. I've discussed this with Jaxi. But as I pointed out to her, I'm not dating or married to a national hero who has the king's ear.\"\n\n\"Hm, yes, clearly a problem. Do you want me to help you to find a national hero to date when we get back? My family has connections.\" She smirked at him, hoping to lighten his mood.\n\nHe gazed into her eyes for the first time since she'd confessed to knowing his secret. He also seemed to notice for the first time that she had an arm around him, for he returned the embrace, sliding his arm around her back. Too bad the parkas made it so she barely felt the gesture.\n\n\"I'm not sure who that would be,\" he said. \"Everyone pales in comparison to Zirkander, though Leftie informs me that there are sports figures that people idolize.\"\n\n\"Male or female?\"\n\n\"Male, I believe. I'd have to be\u2026 flexible.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure flexibility is what's required. We could ask Kaika. She seems to know about all things bedroom related.\"\n\n\"Even involving relationships between men?\" Trip lifted his finger to wipe a snowflake off the center of one of her lenses.\n\nHis glove left a watery smudge, but she appreciated the sentiment. And it wasn't as if she needed to see right now. It was night, and even if her lenses had been un-smudged, she wouldn't have been able to make out his features.\n\n\"I wouldn't be surprised,\" Rysha said. \"She's quite worldly. She offered to give me a list of her recommended sex toys.\"\n\nShe thought he might gape or snort, but all he said was, \"Oh? Do you also have your eye on a national hero?\"\n\n\"A table-making pilot, actually, though I'm a little concerned a beautiful sorceress is trying to seduce him.\"\n\nShe gazed at him, nervous about what his reaction might be. She had wanted to talk about this, to let him know that she felt\u2026 feelings, but maybe this wasn't the right moment, when he was wrapped up in other concerns.\n\n\"He's not interested in sorceresses,\" Trip said, touching her cheek with his fingers this time. \"He likes women who come to his defense in pubs, threatening to beat up brutes that won't leave him alone.\"\n\nRysha snorted softly, though all manner of emotions rushed into her heart at this simple admission that he was interested in her. \"I didn't threaten to beat anyone up.\"\n\n\"Would you have if they hadn't left me alone?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"I thought so,\" he murmured, then lowered his mouth to hers.\n\nShe danced on the inside, spinning pirouettes. Her aunt would have said pirouettes were unladylike, as was reacting so strongly to some man she barely knew, but Rysha didn't care. She leaned her chest against his and kissed him back eagerly, wanting to show him her enthusiasm, to let him know that she cared about him and that she'd stand beside him, no matter what. It didn't matter that his veins held some dragon blood in them. She liked that he made her laugh, that he listened to her rambles, and that he paid attention to her.\n\nAnd she liked the way he kissed too. At first, their lips had been cold from the frigid air, but sparks kindled, and fire ran up and down her nerves, heating her body all over. She forgot the cold, forgot everything except him.\n\nShe longed to slip her hands under his parka\u2014under his shirt\u2014and run them over his warm skin, but a door slammed somewhere, and Trip drew back, breaking the kiss. He didn't look away though. He held her gaze for a long minute and rested his hand on the side of her head.\n\n\"We should do this again with less clothing on,\" Rysha whispered. Only after the words came out did she realize she might have implied, or suggested, more than kissing. But maybe that was all right.\n\n\"I agree.\" He hugged her once more before releasing her and turning to face the two people who had walked out on deck.\n\nBlazer and Kaika. Rysha blew out a slow breath, wishing they hadn't shown up and that it wasn't time to leave for the mission. But they had, and it was.\n\nResolutely, Rysha walked toward the fliers.\n\nTrip matched her pace, sticking to her side. \"Are you going to tell them?\"\n\nIt took her a moment to bring her mind back to what they'd originally been speaking about.\n\n\"I think so. But if I have a stupid moment and don't, will you help me get the sword back afterward?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nShe expected him to add, \"But I think you should do the smart thing and tell them beforehand,\" but he didn't. She appreciated that, appreciated that he wouldn't try to push her, that he would support her even if she was doing something to hurt her career.\n\n\"Ravenwood,\" Blazer said as they approached. \"Trip. We're going to leave in our fliers and head to the ruins separately from the Cofah.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Trip said.\n\nBlazer frowned at Rysha.\n\n\"Jaxi told me when I woke up,\" Trip said.\n\nNow that they were closer to the fliers and Dorfindral, Rysha sensed the blade's discontent. She doubted the sword knew she had been kissing Trip, or what kissing was, but it definitely didn't want her standing next to him now.\n\nToo bad.\n\n\"Ah,\" Blazer said. \"Then I don't need to fill you in on anything?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. My flier is packed.\"\n\n\"Good. We're just waiting for Leftie, Duck, and Dreyak then.\"\n\n\"Dreyak is coming?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"I just asked him if he wanted to stay, but he said his assignment was to stick with us.\" Blazer's mouth twisted. \"Maybe I shouldn't have given him an option.\"\n\n\"He's been useful to have on the team,\" Trip said. \"And he's argued with his own people more than he has with us.\"\n\n\"That is true, isn't it?\" Rysha wondered a bit at that.\n\nBlazer only grunted.\n\nRysha took a deep breath. \"Major Blazer?\" She glanced at Kaika. Rysha doubted Kaika would understand her motives, but hoped she might back her up anyway. Having a prot\u00e9g\u00e9/mentor relationship should be good for more than getting a list of sex props, shouldn't it?\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"You remember that I had concerns about the Cofah being left without any defenses.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Blazer's face grew guarded, wary.\n\n\"I'd like to temporarily lend them my sword.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Dorfindral.\"\n\n\"I know its name.\"\n\n\"If they get attacked by dragons, then at least they'll have something to fight with,\" Rysha said, glad for Trip's presence at her side, even if he wasn't saying anything. \"And the dragons might hesitate to attack the airship if it's on board. If they don't have the blade, the dragons could make quick work of them and then have the time to turn their attention to us. The Cofah would likely prove a better diversion if they could make the battle last.\" That, of course, wasn't why Rysha wanted to lend them the sword, but she thought it might be more likely to sway Blazer. \"Did you know that dragons, though they resent being compared to animals, are like many other predators with a self-preservation instinct and will weigh their options and consider the strength of their opponent before picking a fight?\"\n\nBlazer dropped her face into her hand.\n\n\"Is that, by chance, agreement, ma'am?\" Rysha asked. Or defeat?\n\n\"No,\" Blazer snapped. \"Get in your flier. With your sword.\"\n\n\"But\u2014\"\n\n\"Even if I didn't think we would need it for tonight's battle, I wouldn't authorize giving an incredible weapon capable of helping defend our country to the Cofah.\"\n\n\"Not permanently, ma'am. If they're not willing to return it after this is over, I'll go get it personally.\"\n\n\"I'm sure they'll tremble in their boots knowing a lieutenant four months out of the academy is going to come after them.\"\n\n\"I'll go with her,\" Trip said, resting his fingers, not on Jaxi's hilt but on the other one's. Azarwrath's.\n\nBlazer lifted a dismissive hand and started to scoff at him, but when she looked his way, her gaze snagged on him. Other than the touch of the sword, he hadn't moved, but he seemed different. As he held Blazer's gaze, he had an unmistakable presence, an aura. Not as commanding as that of the dragons, perhaps, but he definitely exuded power. Rysha sensed it, even though he wasn't looking at her, and it sent a little zing of heat through her.\n\nShe wondered if the sword was lending some aura to Trip, or if he was simply not hiding what he was, at least not right now.\n\n\"All right,\" Blazer said, appearing mesmerized briefly. She soon grimaced and wrenched her gaze from him, and Rysha thought the moment had passed, that she had recovered and would rescind the words, but Blazer glared at her and said, \"You want to go defenseless into a dragon's den, then that's your choice. Make sure to tell one of your comrades if you have any last words you want delivered to your parents if you die.\"\n\nBlazer stomped off to round up Leftie and Duck. Or maybe to punch some holes into walls.\n\nKaika looked at Rysha, her face hard to read.\n\n\"I already asked Trip to let my parents know what happened to me if I die out here,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"Oh? Is that what you were doing over in the dark shadows by the railing? Because it looked like something else to me.\"\n\nTrip lost his aura of power when he blushed, a sheepish expression crossing his face. Rysha grinned, both because Kaika didn't seem to be angry with her and because, even though she was admittedly attracted to Powerful Trip, she liked Goofy Trip better. He was the one that fixed tables for her.\n\nLeftie and Duck jogged toward the fliers, a woman trailing after them. Or after Leftie, it appeared, since she blew him a kiss when he looked back at her.\n\n\"Does his cocky arrogance actually work on women?\" Rysha muttered.\n\n\"It's proud confidence, he tells me,\" Trip said.\n\nDreyak strode out by himself, his head freshly shaven, his face flinty. He jumped into Trip's flier without a greeting for anyone.\n\nAs Leftie and Duck hopped into their fliers, Blazer walked back out, Jylea running after her. Kiadarsa trailed at a less frantic, but still brisk pace.\n\n\"You're leaving now?\" Jylea demanded. \"We'll be there in an hour.\"\n\n\"We've decided to go in on our own,\" Blazer said over her shoulder.\n\n\"So you can reach the portal first and brag that you destroyed it before the Cofah? That's not going to happen.\" Jylea raced around Blazer and halted in front of her, her fists on her hips as she blocked the route.\n\nJylea looked at Kiadarsa, as if she expected the sorceress to make sure it didn't happen. Could the woman sabotage the fliers?\n\nBut Kiadarsa looked at Trip and shook her head once at her colleague. Jylea scowled. Blazer walked around her and headed toward her flier.\n\nMaybe this was the time to offer the sword. Rysha pulled Dorfindral's box out of Duck's flier, experiencing the usual tug to open it and hew down all the dragon-blooded people present, but she also experienced a feeling of reluctance. Not from the sword, she didn't think, but from within her. Did she not want to give it up? A few days ago, she hadn't wanted the dangerous weapon at all.\n\nShaking her head, Rysha strode toward Jylea with the box. The woman had been alternately glaring at Blazer's back and waving at Kiadarsa, urging her to do something. She didn't notice Rysha until only a few steps separated them.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Jylea asked her.\n\nKiadarsa eyed Dorfindral's box warily and backed up. \"It's one of the magic-hating swords,\" she told Jylea.\n\n\"We have three,\" Rysha explained. \"They won't make you impervious to dragons, but they help against magical attacks, and can pierce their mental defenses. They also want to kill dragons, very badly.\"\n\n\"Why are you telling me this?\"\n\n\"We didn't want to leave you defenseless, so I'm offering to let you borrow one of mine. You have to be careful around sorcerers because\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm aware of how they work,\" Jylea said. \"What do you mean borrow?\"\n\n\"We don't need one of those blades,\" Kiadarsa said, lifting her chin.\n\nJylea lifted a hand toward her. \"Go on,\" she told Rysha.\n\n\"If you have someone who can wield it, you can have it for the night. I do need to take it back to Iskandia as soon as we're done here\u2014\" Rysha waved toward the dark mountain, \"\u2014so it can only be a loan.\"\n\nKiadarsa gripped Jylea's elbow and drew her away. \"We don't need it,\" she said in a whisper that Rysha barely heard. \"The others are coming. Soon. We just need to delay the Iskandians. We\u2014\" The sorceress frowned at Rysha and drew Jylea farther away. Both women turned their backs and kept muttering.\n\nRysha turned her own back but eased closer to them, trying not to make it obvious that she wanted to spy.\n\n\"\u2026still use it,\" Jylea whispered. \"\u2026powerful to defend our homeland.\"\n\n\"\u2026won't matter after this.\"\n\n\"Still\u2026 to have.\"\n\n\"What if they\u2026 destroy\u2026\"\n\n\"\u2026won't have time.\"\n\n\"We're going, Ravenwood,\" Blazer called and pointed her toward Duck's flier. Duck was already in the cockpit.\n\nLeftie was in his, too, and Trip stood by his craft, though he was watching Rysha and the Cofah women. Waiting to see if Rysha needed him? Or also trying to spy on the others' words?\n\nKiadarsa and Jylea had stopped talking. They faced Rysha's team, their faces frosty.\n\n\"Do you want it?\" Rysha held the box out in front of her, though from those snippets of conversation, she wondered if she should rescind the offer. Who was coming, and what did these Cofah plan? \"I wrote down the ancient words that can command it. They're on a piece of paper inside.\"\n\nKiadarsa's eyes narrowed. With suspicion? Did she think this a trick?\n\nThough Jylea's scowl didn't lessen, she said, \"Yes,\" and took the box.\n\nHoping she hadn't made a mistake, Rysha ran to join her team. She was tempted to switch with Dreyak and climb into Trip's flier instead of Duck's since she no longer carried a sword that wanted to kill him. She paused in front of his craft.\n\n\"Ravenwood,\" Blazer said from her cockpit.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am?\"\n\nBlazer hefted a box, the one that held her chapaharii sword. \"You're not getting out of wielding one.\"\n\n\"Ma'am?\" Rysha stared at her, her feet rooted to the deck in confusion. It wasn't so much that she'd longed to get out of having one; it was that she didn't understand why she should receive another. She wasn't a sword-fighting master. Her sparring session with Kaika had proven that.\n\n\"You're the only person who can wield one who isn't piloting. As I found before, trying to poke dragons and fly at the same time isn't that effective.\"\n\n\"Oh, I guess that makes sense.\"\n\n\"That's me. Sensible.\" Blazer shoved the box toward her.\n\nRysha accepted it, giving Trip a sad smile as she left his flier. She wouldn't be riding with him, after all."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "The dark silhouette of a dragon appeared in the starry sky above the snow-smothered mountain. It wasn't a surprise to Trip\u2014he could sense that dragon, as well as three others in the vicinity\u2014but his colleagues groaned and swore over the communication crystals.\n\nThey were flying low to the ice, around the far side and back of the mountain, hoping to come to the ruins site from a different direction than the airship. The last he'd heard, the plan was to land a few miles away, camouflage the fliers as well as possible, and go in on foot. Ideally while the dragons focused on the Cofah.\n\nTrip hadn't yet mentioned that the dragons could and would sense the fliers' magical power crystals even if they completely covered the aircraft with snow. He was surprised the dragons hadn't already come over to investigate. Was the presence of the chapaharii swords keeping them away?\n\nActually, me and your new buddy, Azzy, are responsible, Jaxi informed him.\n\nTrip was less inclined to think of the Cofah sword as \"Azzy\" now that he knew a sixty-something-year-old soul lay within the blade. Technically, a fifteen-hundred-and-sixty-something-year-old soul.\n\nWe're doing our best to dampen our auras, your aura, and that of the crystals, she added.\n\nYou must be working well together\u2014and effectively. Trip nodded toward the mountain. I don't think they've even looked this way yet.\n\nWe're working together due to necessity. Azzy is almost as stuffy as Wreltad, Tylie's soulblade. They should probably spend time together. Boring time.\n\nI am not stuffy, Azarwrath proclaimed. You are impertinent. I've never met a soul so young and impertinent within a blade.\n\nThat is true. I am a supremely unique soul.\n\nThat is not what I said.\n\nTrip looked back at Dreyak, as if the Cofah warrior could save him from the silly bickering. Was it necessary for the soulblades to use his head as a meeting place for it?\n\nOh, we've been having discussions that you haven't been privy to, as well, Jaxi thought. We've been debating your potential as a sorcerer and who your father might have been. Or might be. Do you know if he's still alive? One would think that likely.\n\nI know nothing about him. My grandparents never knew him, and my mother didn't tell me much before she died. Trip decided the silly bickering might be preferable to having the swords discussing him.\n\nYou should probably go on a quest to find him.\n\nA man should know the male who birthed him, Azarwrath agreed.\n\nThe male doesn't do the birthing, Jaxi told him, conveying an eye roll. When she did that, Trip got an impression of her as a red-haired young woman with pigtails rather than a wise and venerable sword. Even particularly obtuse old men from primitive times should have a clue about how biology works, Jaxi added.\n\nI am not old, nor were my times primitive. I lived during the heyday of magic, when it was everywhere, improving the lives of all.\n\nBut not the biology knowledge, apparently.\n\n\"Dreyak,\" Trip blurted, not caring that his tone came out as desperate. Maybe if he had a conversation of his own going on, the swords would take their conversation out of his mind. Even though dealing with Azarwrath hadn't been difficult so far, he was starting to miss the days when the Cofah soulblade had been silent, if only because Jaxi hadn't had another soul to argue with then. \"You haven't spoken much since we met up with your people.\"\n\nHe glanced back, catching Dreyak looking toward that dragon silhouette as it did the aerial equivalent of pacing in the sky above the mountain. Or flying a patrol route?\n\n\"Among the Cofah, that is not considered a flaw.\"\n\n\"Not speaking?\"\n\n\"Yes. I have noticed that Iskandians feel the need to fill the air with inane chatter.\"\n\nTrip thought about mentioning that the Cofah soulblade seemed inclined to chatter too. Or was it different if it was arguing?\n\nMuch different, Azarwrath told him.\n\n\"We are a companionable people,\" Trip said aloud. \"I'm curious why you didn't want to abandon us and join the research team.\"\n\n\"Aside from the fact that you sent them off to be cannon fodder?\"\n\n\"Rysha gave up her sword in the hope that they wouldn't be cannon fodder.\"\n\n\"We'll see.\"\n\nTrip thought that might be the end of the conversation, and that his question would go unanswered, but after contemplating the mountain for a time, Dreyak spoke again.\n\n\"My mission is to destroy the portal,\" he said.\n\n\"Isn't that their mission too?\"\n\n\"They would speak little of their mission to me. I believe we may be at cross-purposes, which is disconcerting since the prince sent me to Iskandia.\"\n\n\"To help destroy the portal?\"\n\n\"Among other things.\"\n\nTrip frowned back at him. \"Such as?\"\n\nDreyak still gazed toward the mountain, and he didn't meet Trip's gaze. His lips pressed together firmly, and he did not answer. It was too bad Jaxi had said she couldn't read him. Trip would have liked to know what he was thinking. This was the first Dreyak had admitted he'd been sent by the prince\u2014was that Prince Varlok, the current leader of all of Cofahre?\u2014though perhaps King Angulus had known all along.\n\nHe imagined Dreyak in a great marble audience chamber, standing before a dais and facing a black-haired and bronze-skinned man in purple and blue robes. Receiving an assignment to work with the Iskandians, to offer his services, but also to keep an eye out for clues that would suggest Emperor Salatak still lived, for the Cofah believed the Iskandians had kidnapped him three years earlier and exiled him in a secret place. That was the reason Varlok had been unable to gain the support of the rest of his government, to be officially proclaimed the next emperor for Cofahre.\n\nDreyak's gaze shifted toward Trip, and his eyes narrowed.\n\nTrip started, feeling as if he'd been caught eavesdropping, and faced forward again. Had that been his imagination or something else? Jaxi? Did I\u2014\n\nYes.\n\nDid you know he had that mission?\n\nNo. I can't read him, as I told you.\n\nThen how can you be sure I saw his thoughts? Trip asked.\n\nBecause I can read you\u2014you need to work on making your bank vault a permanent fixture\u2014and sensed the magic you used to extract that information.\n\nTrip shifted uneasily in his seat. \"Extract that information\" made it sound like he was some inquisitor, torturing someone to pry out secrets.\n\nExcept without the torture. Sorcery is much more civil.\n\nBut no less an invasion of privacy.\n\nNo, and you're clumsier than a drunken ox walking a balance beam, so he sensed it. He's glaring at the back of your head right now.\n\nThinking of sticking his sword into me?\n\nYou'd know that better than I would. Jaxi sniffed.\n\nGreat, had he offended her too? By seeing something she couldn't? Or maybe she was just irked that he was a clumsy oaf and had alerted a questionable ally about his gifts.\n\nI said ox, not oaf. Though I suppose I don't object to either classification.\n\nTrip didn't know what to say to that. He thought about prying into Dreyak's thoughts again to see what his intentions were, but decided it wasn't necessary now. For obvious reasons, people rarely stabbed their pilots while riding in the back seats of fliers.\n\n\"Trip?\" Leftie spoke over the crystal.\n\nTrip realized he'd had the channel open, and the others might have heard his conversation with Dreyak. The wind was quiet tonight, nothing but the buzz of their propellers stirring the air and making noise.\n\n\"Yes?\" Trip asked.\n\n\"I told the major but realized I didn't tell you. When I was taking the tour of the airship with my lady friends\u2014\"\n\n\"Friends?\"\n\nThere had been more than one? They hadn't even spent two full days with the Cofah team.\n\n\"Friends, yes. You needn't be jealous. You got a sorceress, after all.\"\n\nMortified, Trip blurted, \"I didn't get a sorceress.\"\n\nEven though Rysha was in the back seat of Duck's flier, Trip feared she would hear the exchange without trouble.\n\n\"No?\" Leftie asked. \"You were in that room alone with her for a long time. With the door closed.\"\n\n\"A long time?\" Captain Kaika asked. \"I wouldn't have guessed our young captain had such stamina.\"\n\n\"It wasn't that long,\" Trip muttered, having a feeling that nothing he said would make things better. He glanced back at Dreyak. \"You may be right. A tendency toward silence might not be a flaw.\"\n\n\"As I said.\"\n\n\"Anyway,\" Leftie said, \"I saw that the airship had a whole lot of rope and hooks in their hold.\"\n\n\"So?\" Trip remembered seeing them, too, but he hadn't paid much attention. He'd been focused on looking for mechanical problems and making repairs.\n\n\"At first, I was just contemplating whether coils of ropes could make a useful place to lie down if one wasn't assigned a cabin. The answer is yes, ropes are fine to lie on, and no, hooks are not. But after I was down there a while, I had a thought that those ropes were really big, and it looked like the Cofah might be planning to pull something up with them.\"\n\n\"Like what? A dragon portal?\"\n\nTrip meant it as a joke, but Leftie asked, \"Did they ever actually say they were planning to blow it up?\"\n\n\"Kiadarsa led me to believe they were, but Jaxi couldn't read her thoughts.\"\n\nTrip now wished he'd attempted to do some mind-reading of his own. The idea of invading another's privacy might make him uncomfortable, but when it came to enemies\u2026\n\nI did notice the expedition leader, Jylea, was very guarded with her thoughts and careful not to think about the portal, Jaxi said thoughtfully.\n\n\"I can't imagine why the Cofah would want to take this hornet's nest back to their homeland,\" Blazer said.\n\nHer flier was in the lead, and she swung around the base of the mountain toward the southern side. Trip banked to follow her. Their growing proximity to the dragons made his head ache.\n\n\"I can't, either, ma'am,\" Leftie said, \"but maybe it's good that we parted ways from them.\"\n\n\"I'm beginning to feel like a fool for leaving my sword with the Cofah,\" Rysha said, her voice faint from the back seat of Duck's flier.\n\nNobody corrected her notion, and Trip saw her slump low in the back of the flier.\n\n\"We'll make sure the portal is destroyed,\" Blazer said. \"Captain Kaika is in my back seat, rubbing her bombs, and I know she'd be disappointed if she didn't get to blow anything up.\"\n\n\"I have no problem blowing up the portal while it's inside a Cofah airship,\" Kaika spoke over Blazer's shoulder.\n\n\"The portal is inside the mountain,\" Trip said. \"I don't see how they could get it out easily.\"\n\n\"It's there?\" Blazer asked sharply. \"Is Jaxi sure?\"\n\nJaxi, are you sure?\n\nNo, and neither are you.\n\n\"Something powerful is in there,\" Trip said. \"I'm assuming it's the portal, especially since there are so many dragons around, but it's possible it's another artifact.\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Ravenwood,\" Blazer said, \"it looks like we're about five miles from the ruins site. Do you concur?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"I see a likely landing spot there in the shadow of the mountain. Follow me down, boys.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Trip and the others said.\n\nHe eyed the side of the mountain as they descended. No trees or brush poked up from the snow. Was it too frigid for things to grow way down here? It wasn't just snow, he realized as they drew closer, but massive glaciers atop the rocks and dirt.\n\n\"Take food, water, clothing, those straps for the bottoms of our boots, and rope and picks,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"So, everything we packed?\" Leftie asked.\n\n\"You can leave behind that little ball that you kiss.\"\n\n\"No way, ma'am. That's my lucky ball. It goes everywhere with me. It was a gift from a lady.\"\n\n\"Didn't your grandmother give it to you when we graduated?\" Trip asked.\n\n\"Grammy Erma is most certainly a lady.\"\n\nThey set the fliers down between white boulder-sized chunks of ice that had broken free of the glaciers and tumbled down the mountain. If there was land underneath the aircraft, Trip couldn't see it. The ground seemed to consist of nothing but ice and snow.\n\nThe air was crisp and clear, but not unpleasant, even though it had to be twenty or thirty degrees below freezing. Maybe Trip was simply growing accustomed to the climate. What he wasn't accustomed to was the presence of the dragons and the way it made his head ache. The pressure against his eardrums was almost painful, as if he'd taken a dive in Charkolt Harbor and gone down too far.\n\nThe airship is approaching the ruins from the other side, Jaxi reported. The dragon scout is still flying around the top of the peak, even though the Cofah are definitely within his range to sense. He has to know they're coming.\n\nI see him. The three other dragons have gone into the mountain, right? Planning some ambush?\n\nThe chapaharii blade could be giving them pause. If those two silvers warned their buddies, then the dragons here know that people on that airship have been successfully killing their kind.\n\nLeftie slipped as he plopped down from his flier. The ground was slick here, more ice than snow. For the first time since arriving in the Antarctic, Trip strapped on the crisscrossing rope-like harnesses for his boots. They were a part of the winter army gear and were supposed to offer better traction on ice. He didn't want to fall on his ass during a dragon fight. Or while a dragon was watching. Or while Rysha was watching.\n\nSo, in general, you'd prefer to remain upright.\n\nYes, can a soulblade assure that happens?\n\nI could, but how would that be entertaining for me?\n\nRysha came up to stand next to him, a heavy pack on her shoulders. It wasn't quite as large as the one Kaika wore, perhaps not containing as many materials for demolitions, but it wasn't any lighter than the packs the men carried.\n\nHer sword\u2014Blazer's sword\u2014seeped its green glow out of its scabbard. Trip chose to believe it simply wanted to light the way for them, rather than that it was trying to influence her or having fantasies of killing him. Could swords have fantasies?\n\nSoulblades can, Jaxi said. Those chapaharii swords are far inferior.\n\nSo, Trip-slaying fantasies are unlikely? I'll find that encouraging.\n\nRysha smiled at Trip, and he also found that encouraging. Maybe it meant she'd gotten to the point that she could control the weapons, and he wouldn't be in danger from her. He hoped so.\n\nHe returned her smile as he remembered their kiss. He also remembered that she hadn't seemed bothered by his blood. He wasn't surprised that she'd figured it out, but it did worry him that he wasn't being as subtle about hiding things as he'd hoped.\n\nIt's hard to be subtle when you're hurling fireballs, Jaxi informed him. I've always preferred to be grandiose and magnificent, rather than subtle.\n\nI wouldn't have guessed.\n\n\"Who's leading?\" Kaika asked, striding away from her flier to join the gathering group. Everyone else had also stopped to attach the traction straps to their boots.\n\n\"Our archaeologist,\" Blazer said. \"Or our soulblade whisperer.\"\n\nEveryone looked at Rysha and Trip.\n\n\"I think we just got nominated to lead together,\" Trip murmured.\n\n\"I'm game as long as your pointy friends let us know if the dragons turn their interest toward us.\"\n\n\"I'm sure they will. Grandiosely and magnificently.\"\n\nRysha looked curiously at him.\n\nTrip waved a dismissive hand and started off, following the base of the mountain. Rysha walked at his side, and the rest of the team trailed behind. They slipped often, despite their fancy boot straps. The ground seemed the ice equivalent of a field of hardened lava, with ridges and ripples making the footing tricky. Maybe the dragons came out and practiced breathing fire on the snow to ensure the walk up was unpleasant for non-winged visitors.\n\nTrip pulled out a ration bar that he'd stuffed into his pocket before slinging his pack over his shoulders. It was all they had for dinner tonight, nobody having suggested they take the time to start a campfire and rehydrate some of their dehydrated rations.\n\nAlas, Azarwrath spoke into his mind.\n\nAlas, what?\n\nAlas, you're going to eat another of those sawdust-like bars of compressed\u2026 whatever is compressed into that flat stick.\n\nTrip looked down at the bar. They weren't exactly his grandmother's cooking, but they weren't awful.\n\nI beg to differ.\n\nWhat does it matter to you? You're not sharing it with me. Trip glanced at the sword hilt, wondering if the handler-soulblade relationship was more symbiotic than he'd imagined. I mean, you're not, right?\n\nI do not take in sustenance anymore, no. I do miss it, however. I enjoyed food a great deal when I was alive. All I can do now is live vicariously through my handlers. In a sense, I can taste what you taste. Such as honey-laced sawdust. The words seeped disappointment.\n\nSorry. Trip took a bite. It wasn't as if there were other options out here, and he would need energy if they had to battle dragons.\n\nWhen you return home, you will visit this grandmother? Her meals sound promising.\n\nI hope so. We'll probably go back to the capital first. I'm sure there are fancy restaurants there. Trip was less sure captains could afford them. Officers made more than sergeants and privates, but the army assumed its troops would live in fort housing and dine at the mess hall, so there was no need to pay them enough to purchase room and board.\n\nI dearly hope so. I would be most curious to know about modern culinary trends. Berasa was not much of a food enthusiast, I'm afraid, and the options in those pirate taverns were barely above abysmal.\n\nDuck cursed from the rear of their formation. \"Even a slug would slip and fall on this stuff,\" he grumbled.\n\n\"What about a waddling duck?\" Kaika asked.\n\n\"Ducks never fall, ma'am.\"\n\nAn \"oomph\" and a painful-sounding thud followed the comment.\n\n\"You may need to update your wilderness lore, Duck,\" Kaika said, helping him to his feet.\n\n\"Or get a new nickname, ma'am. Think Crash would mind if I borrowed his this week?\"\n\nA few people chuckled, but Trip's head hurt too much for humor. He'd always sensed the dragons when they were nearby, but this was more intense than before, and he wondered if more of them might be within the mountain than he believed. Or was it that the ones he sensed were extremely strong and had powerful auras? If so, that didn't bode well for their incursion.\n\nThe airship is drawing close to the start of a canyon cutting north to south along the side of our mountain, Jaxi reported. Two more dragons have come outside to join the first. They're sitting on the top of the mountain, looking down at the airship.\n\nTrip relayed the information.\n\n\"The canyon?\" Rysha asked, doing an excited hop. Her boots slipped when she came down, but she recovered more easily than Duck had. \"That's our destination. There are supposed to be statues carved along the sides and also a cave with drawings in it. The drawings are believed to have been made by humans visiting the area thousands of years ago. I can't wait to see them. They used charcoal and umber and yellow ochres that aren't native to the region. Did you know the iron oxide and manganese oxide in umber is largely found in\u2014\"\n\n\"This isn't a good time for lectures, Lieutenant,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"Oh, sorry, ma'am.\" Rysha was silent for a minute as they clomped along the ice, then said, \"Why not, ma'am? We're not discussing anything else. Our minds could use a distraction.\"\n\nBlazer paused, as if groping for an answer that didn't involve confessing that she didn't want to be lectured by a lieutenant. \"The dragons might hear us,\" she finally said.\n\n\"Are they not interested in umber and ochre?\" Duck asked.\n\nLeftie sniggered.\n\nTrip was gaining a greater appreciation for Dreyak's silence. He strode along beside Duck without a word, only the soft crunch of ice under his boots giving away his position.\n\nEveryone fell silent as they rounded the mountain, and Trip suspected that even those without magic could now sense the oppressive closeness of the dragons' presence, the power of their auras.\n\nThey passed through a field of those broken ice-chunk boulders, and two things came into view. A long dark canyon cut into the ground\u2014or perhaps the ice\u2014that didn't appear to be a natural geological formation, and the silhouette of the airship at the far end. The oddly straight canyon stretched for ten miles before ending as abruptly as it began, a deep scar in the earth. There was no evidence that a river had ever flowed through the area, or that anything other than magic had created it.\n\n\"How do we get down?\" Kaika whispered as the group gathered at their end of the canyon, using one of the ice boulders to hide them from the dragons perched atop the mountain.\n\nA few trees and brush would have been nice to help camouflage them.\n\n\"More than that, how do we get down without the dragons seeing us?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"Your ruse appears to have worked,\" Dreyak said. \"They are focused on the airship.\"\n\n\"Are we sure about that?\" Rysha touched the hilt of her sword. \"We have more magic on us than the airship has on board. Our swords should be like shining beacons to them. Just because their eyes aren't pointed this way doesn't mean they're not aware of us.\"\n\n\"Maybe they heard this group was giving boring lectures,\" Leftie said, \"and that scared them away even more than our swords.\"\n\nRysha did not say anything, but Trip sensed her gritting her teeth.\n\n\"Don't be an ass, Leftie.\" Trip knew Rysha didn't need his protection or for him to stand up for her, but he found himself putting his arm around her shoulders. Just in case she wanted the support.\n\nShe found his gloved hand and patted it.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Leftie said, sounding sincere. \"I meant it as a joke. It came out less funny than I intended.\"\n\n\"One wonders how he lured Cofah women into a cargo hold,\" Kaika said.\n\n\"I assumed he didn't talk much,\" Duck said.\n\n\"All right, all right, it can't be acceptable to pick on me if it's not acceptable to pick on Ravenwood,\" Leftie said.\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Duck asked. \"Because this feels right.\"\n\n\"Trip, I'm going to need you to come put your arm around my shoulders here in a minute.\"\n\nThe largest of the dragons\u2014a gold\u2014leaped from the mountaintop, flapped its wings, and headed toward the airship. The other two sprang into the air and followed.\n\n\"This is our chance.\" Blazer clenched her fist.\n\n\"There are still dragons inside the mountain,\" Trip said, \"but that's all of the ones outside.\"\n\n\"We'll figure out how to deal with the inside ones when we reach them,\" Blazer said, jogging toward the edge of the canyon to peer in, \"preferably by hiding a lot and not being noticed.\"\n\nRysha stepped away from Trip to join her. \"That's deeper than I expected.\"\n\n\"Our ropes won't reach the bottom.\" Blazer looked toward Trip. \"Got any soulblade magic that will help?\"\n\nJaxi? Trip asked. Azarwrath? What do you think?\n\nThat it is rather odd that a woman leads your military mission, Azarwrath said.\n\nHow can you possibly be that old-fashioned and stupid-fashioned when your last handler was female? Jaxi asked.\n\nShe was unorthodox. Are women not primarily healers, child-rearers, and caregivers in Iskandia?\n\nYou suggest to Kaika that she rear something, and she'll probably drop an explosive on your pommel.\n\nI am concerned about the altered values in this era. Certain policies seem less than wholesome.\n\nAware of Blazer waiting for a response, Trip cleared his throat. The canyon?\n\nI can thicken the air to carry your group to the bottom without injury, Azarwrath said.\n\nWe just step off the edge, and you'll float us down? Trip eased up beside Blazer and looked over the edge into the deep shadows below, shadows that the moon and stars did nothing to illuminate. He had to use his senses to detect the bottom\u2014a good three hundred feet down. Uhm.\n\nWe can do it, Jaxi added. You'll have to trust us. It would take hours for you to climb down in the dark, even if you had the right climbing gear.\n\n\"The swords are going to levitate us down,\" Trip said, even as power flared from his hip, and a rush of air swept in from all sides. His feet left the ground. He fought down an alarmed squawk that tried to come out. The others wouldn't want to follow him if they knew he was afraid. Besides, it didn't feel like he was floating. The compressed air was almost like a platform that he stood upon. \"There are no easy routes, and it's a long drop.\"\n\n\"Levitate?\" Leftie blurted.\n\n\"Do it,\" Blazer said, glancing toward the flying dragons. They were already more than halfway to the airship.\n\n\"No, don't touch me with that damn magic. I'll stand guard up here.\"\n\n\"We're not splitting up.\"\n\nCan you do us all at once? Trip asked silently.\n\nNo, Jaxi said.\n\nYes, Azarwrath said.\n\nTrip sensed Jaxi scowling at the other soulblade.\n\nThis is not a difficult task for me, Telryn, Azarwrath informed him.\n\nJaxi's scowl deepened, an impressive thing since she had neither a face nor lips.\n\nDo we take the ignorant one down against his wishes? Azarwrath asked while Jaxi fumed.\n\nIs that Leftie? Yes.\n\nI don't care how powerful you think you are, Azzy, Jaxi thought. You won't be able to levitate anyone with a dragon-slaying sword.\n\nAh, this is true. They must drop them down first, then retrieve them at the bottom.\n\n\"Drop them?\" Trip asked.\n\nThey are magical blades. The fall will not damage them.\n\nAware of Blazer frowning at him, Trip explained.\n\n\"Not a problem,\" Kaika said, striding to the edge and dropping her sword point down into the canyon.\n\nRysha gave her a startled look.\n\n\"We don't have a close relationship. It's been trying to make me surly around our magical allies, the way Therrik is.\" Kaika glanced at Trip. \"And I have a lovely disposition, so I object.\"\n\nRysha walked forward, drawing her sword, but she wasn't so quick to drop it. She stood at the edge with the blade across her gloved hands and struggled to let go. Long seconds passed, her jaw clenched. Finally, with a jerky movement, she dropped her hands, and the sword plummeted into the darkness.\n\nBlazer's feet left the ground. She dropped into an alarmed crouch, her arms spread for balance. She and Trip sailed over the edge, and his heart tried to leap out of his chest as fear overrode logic. He knew the soulblades were powerful and could handle this. But hanging in the air over absolutely nothing terrified him.\n\nThey descended rapidly, but not like they were falling. It was a controlled descent.\n\nWhen Trip's feet touched the ground, he gazed up at the slit of stars high above and his comrades being levitated down after him. A strange feeling came over him, something akin to peace, serenity. He still sensed the dragons, but the pressure in his head had lessened, and the icy canyon walls emitted a warmth that made his skin tingle in a pleasant way. Magic? He tried to decide if he sensed that. There was definitely an otherworldliness about the place.\n\n\"This canyon is a geological oddity,\" Rysha said, as she landed beside him, apparently too intrigued by their surroundings to have been disturbed by the magical descent. Kaika was the one to retrieve their swords and hand her borrowed blade to her. \"Unless I'm grossly mistaken, we're below sea level. Well below. And look at the walls. And the floor. This is all ice. Yet the walls are smooth. There's no sign of glacial activity. We\u2014\"\n\nA hand gripped Trip's shoulder and spun him around.\n\n\"Do not let them do that again,\" Leftie snarled, anger and terror radiating from him.\n\n\"It was the fastest way down.\"\n\n\"You don't pick someone up with magic when he's not\u2014when it's not\u2014 It's gods-cursed magic, damn it.\" Leftie circled his heart with two fingers while still grasping Trip's shoulder.\n\n\"Enough,\" Blazer said, pushing between them and breaking Leftie's grip. \"We need to find the portal before those dragons\u2014\"\n\nBooms sounded in the distance, and her gaze lurched up toward the stars.\n\n\"The airship must be firing its cannons,\" Kaika said.\n\n\"It won't do them any good,\" Dreyak said grimly, the entire group on the ground now.\n\n\"No, but it'll help us,\" Blazer said. \"Ravenwood, where\u2014\"\n\n\"That way, ma'am,\" Rysha said, waving for everyone to follow. \"If the maps are correct, there's a cave down there. We should check it first, but I wish there was time to explore everything. Those are magnificent.\" She pointed toward the sides of the canyon.\n\nStatues carved from the walls, from the ice, rose a hundred feet over their heads. Trip couldn't tell what they depicted yet, not with the darkness so thick at the bottom of the canyon, but he would be surprised if they weren't dragons.\n\nI believe they're statues of dragon gods, Jaxi said, as the group walked under them on their way to a dark opening in one side of the canyon. Which is rather remarkable since many dragons seem to believe themselves gods.\n\nThey do? Trip hadn't heard any of them proclaim that yet, but he'd only had a prolonged conversation with one of them, the bronze dragon at the pirate fortress.\n\nWell, perhaps not many, but of the two I know well, one believes he's a god. And he's deluded others into believing he's a god, as well. There's a temple in the capital.\n\nReally?\n\nRidge and Sardelle got married there. Her part-time job is being his high priestess.\n\nEr, does she believe he's a god?\n\nNo, but she, Ridge, and even King Angulus have been willing to feed Bhrava Saruth's delusions since he's been our best ally. He heals and blesses his followers regularly. It's a shame he's been missing for several months. I'm sure his followers are bereft without their god.\n\n\"Oh, I wish dearly that I had a lantern.\" Rysha paused at the mouth of the dark cave, looking left and right toward the walls. Looking for her ochre and umber paintings?\n\nTrip stopped at her side and drew Jaxi. Can you\u2014\n\nOf course, Jaxi said, glowing a soft silvery blue.\n\n\"Oh,\" Rysha blurted, grinning at him. \"I forgot about the swords.\"\n\nShe pulled out her own, and it glowed its usual pale green. A somewhat sickly green that wasn't nearly as appealing as Jaxi's illumination.\n\nHow kind of you to notice its clear inferiority.\n\nTrip suspected that dragon wasn't the only magic-user with delusions.\n\nReally. Jaxi sniffed.\n\nThe swords' light brightened the cave walls, illuminating a dark ice mixed with dirt that supported the crude paintings from the past. How old were the paintings? Did their presence mean this ice never melted? And was there no insulation down here? Trip thought he remembered some trivia that caves were roughly the same temperature all over the planet, a temperature well above freezing.\n\nNot caves made with magic, Azarwrath said. You were right out there. There's not a lot of it remaining, but the walls of the canyon and this cave are imbued with it. I believe this place was ancient even in my time.\n\n\"Don't turn those swords up too bright,\" Blazer grumbled, glancing back into the canyon.\n\nBooms continued to filter down to them, so the airship hadn't succumbed yet. Trip couldn't imagine they would be able to hold three dragons off for long.\n\n\"The chapaharii blades object to the magic that seems to be infused into the very nature of this place,\" Rysha said. \"I don't think we can get them to dim themselves.\"\n\n\"Keeping them sheathed helps,\" Kaika said dryly.\n\n\"But then I wouldn't be able to see the artwork.\"\n\n\"Darn.\"\n\n\"Let's get a move on,\" Blazer said.\n\nWith obvious reluctance, Rysha tore herself from the old paintings, which depicted dragons flying or swooping down to pluck up giant buffalo or something similar.\n\nTrip glanced left and right as he headed deeper into the cave. In one faded painting, a human rode a dragon while holding a sword aloft. A soulblade? Or one of the dragon-slaying blades? Or simply some crude copper weapon from a long bygone era?\n\n\"I dreamed of being a dragon rider when I was a girl,\" Rysha whispered to him. \"My grandmother used to tell me tales about noble dragons helping humankind fight against evil dragons. I suppose they were mostly just stories, but there are ruins of dragon-rider outposts around the world. Some of that must have truly happened.\"\n\nShe steered the group around a wide bend, the ground made from slippery ice that challenged even their special footwear.\n\n\"I wonder where all those noble dragons have gone,\" she added. \"Were they all left behind? In the world beyond the portal?\"\n\n\"Jaxi was telling me about a dragon in the capital that helps humans,\" Trip said.\n\nCaptain Kaika, who was walking behind him with Blazer, snorted.\n\n\"Do you mean Bhrava Saruth?\" Rysha asked. \"The dragon who believes himself a god?\"\n\n\"Apparently. Does that not qualify as noble?\"\n\n\"He did help defend the city from other dragons a few years ago, and he does heal people, I understand,\" Rysha said. \"If you can catch him in his temple. I saw it once. It's quite pretentious. And large. Larger than the temples in the city to the real gods. I'm not sure noble is quite the word to describe that dragon.\"\n\nGiven the distaste in her voice, Trip decided not to ask what she thought about Sardelle being the dragon's high priestess. Maybe that wasn't well known. Or maybe Sardelle didn't wish for it to be well known.\n\nYou're catching on, Jaxi said.\n\n\"Oh, more paintings,\" Rysha said, hefting her glowing blade high and jogging toward a wall ahead of them. She was remarkably agile on the ice, keeping her balance without appearing to try.\n\nEven though she has no dragon blood, Azarwrath said, I believe she would birth capable sorcerers, presuming a union with a sorcerer. She seems intelligent.\n\nEr, yes, Trip said, flummoxed by the random comment.\n\nI believe Azzy just gave his blessing, should you two wish to rut with abandon and create babies.\n\nIt's only been a few hours since we kissed for the first time.\n\nSardelle and her soul snozzle turned their first kiss into their first rutting session all in the same night. Granted, babies didn't come until much later, but I've observed that people overcome by attraction are perfectly capable of accelerating their mating rituals.\n\nSardelle and her what?\n\nTrip stopped beside Rysha, as there was nowhere else to go. They had reached the end of the cave. He raised Jaxi to help spread light across the walls, though he was hoping for a secret passage rather than more dragons hunting buffalo.\n\nSoul snozzle, Jaxi said. Ridge.\n\nI don't need to know those things about my commanding officer, Jaxi.\n\nThose things? Nicknames? Or rutting habits?\n\nBoth.\n\n\"Lieutenant Ravenwood,\" Blazer said dryly. \"I'm sure those dragon stick figures are fascinating, but we have a problem.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. This is what the Cofah map described. A canyon and a cave, and nothing else. But there must be something else. Or why would Jylea's team be coming back here?\" Rysha faced Trip. \"Did you say you\u2014Jaxi\u2014sensed something in the mountain?\"\n\nTrip nodded. Holding Jaxi aloft, this time to provide lighting for himself, he examined the back of the cave and the floor at the base of it. He didn't see any scrapes or cracks to suggest a secret door opened anywhere. Nor did claw marks mar the ice at their feet, but if the dragons came in and out this way, they might fly.\n\n\"Duck,\" Blazer said, \"take your tracking abilities over there to help him.\"\n\n\"I've never tracked a dragon, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Just see if you can find sign.\" Blazer looked over her shoulder. The booms had stopped.\n\n\"Dragon sign? I haven't noticed any spoor in the canyon or this cave, but perhaps they\u2014\"\n\n\"The door. Find sign of the door.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nAny ideas, Jaxi? Azarwrath? Trip worried the dragons had defeated the airship and were on their way back.\n\nActually, Jaxi thought, a second airship has appeared in the distance. The dragons have pulled back to consider it.\n\nA second airship? Trip sheathed Jaxi so he could run his gloves along the ice, peering close and searching again for cracks. The bared chapaharii blade nearby provided plenty of light.\n\nIt's of similar construction to the Cofah airship, Jaxi thought.\n\nBackup?\n\nIt seems a possibility. Also, there are two dragons accompanying it. Guarding it, it seems.\n\n\"Are we sure there's something back there?\" Kaika asked. \"A continuation of the cave or another room? Because I brought plenty of explosives along. I can blow a hole in that wall if it isn't too thick.\" Her lips quirked. \"And possibly even if it is.\"\n\nI could also melt a hole in it, Jaxi thought. If there's another cave back there. I can't tell. The ice you're touching appears to be reinforced with magic, and I still sense the portal or some other artifact within the mountain, but I can't tell quite where. Everything is obscured, and the nearness of the dragons and their powerful auras doesn't help. They drown out everything around them.\n\nDreyak came up beside Trip, tugging off his glove. He laid his bare palm on the ice wall.\n\nWhite light flared under his hand.\n\n\"That could be a sign,\" Duck observed.\n\n\"Your wilderness skills are not overrated, I see,\" Blazer told him.\n\nTrip sensed magic welling underneath Dreyak's hand and wondered if he should remove his own glove and touch the wall. But Rysha, ever curious, beat him to it. The wall remained dark and cold under her hand, and she sighed with disappointment.\n\nRealizing the wall must be responding to the presence of dragon blood in one's veins, Trip clasped his hands behind his back.\n\n\"Are you unlocking a door for us, Dreyak?\" Kaika said. \"Or do I still need to blow things up?\"\n\nA beam of intense light appeared all around Dreyak, and Trip jumped back, his hand dropping to Jaxi's hilt.\n\nDreyak stepped back from the ice and spread his arms, but the light enveloping him did not fade. He peered down his body and grimaced. Trip couldn't tell if he was in pain.\n\n\"Is it hurting you, Dreyak?\" he asked, wondering if prodding the incorporeal beam with a soulblade would do anything.\n\n\"No, it's just uncomfortable. My skin is crawling.\"\n\nI have seen this magic before, Azarwrath announced. A long time ago. It is called a scan.\n\n\"A scan?\" Trip asked, not realizing he spoke aloud until people looked at him.\n\nBefore Azarwrath could answer, someone\u2014or something\u2014else spoke. A sonorous voice boomed in Trip's mind, uttering words he did not understand. Power laced the words, making them painful as they rang out, as if someone were beating the inside of his skull with a drumstick.\n\nThe others winced, too, Rysha and Kaika jerking their hands to their ears. Thankfully, the words ended after a few sentences, and the light beam around Dreyak disappeared. The wall remained in place, and it was as if nothing had happened.\n\n\"Was that a language?\" Blazer looked to Rysha.\n\n\"One I haven't heard spoken before, but yes. Old Dragon Script. I think if I saw it in writing\u2026\" Rysha closed her eyes, nodding to herself, then tore off her pack and rummaged until she found a pencil and notebook. \"Dreyak, can you do that again?\"\n\nDreyak grimaced, but he pressed his hand against the wall. This time, there was no beam. An angry flash of white flared, then disappeared.\n\n\"I think I've been deemed unworthy,\" Dreyak said.\n\nThe words started repeating, and Rysha bounced on her toes as she copied down what she heard. It sounded like gobbledegook to Trip. She continued to write after the words ended, her lips moving as she nodded to herself again, like someone remembering the lyrics to a ballad.\n\n\"My philology professor would be appalled at my phonetic liberations with the text,\" Rysha said, holding her notepad up, \"but it's close enough. I think I can translate. Here goes.\" She cleared her throat and spoke in a deeper tone of voice. \"In this ancient prison, only they who are worthy may pass, the golden keepers of the law, they doing the will of the gods, they being god-like themselves. Only they or their offspring may come within to judge the merit of the imprisoned, whether they shall be released or held for all eternity. They of lesser blood shall not be permitted to judge those within, nor shall they pass through this gate.\" Rysha lowered her notepad. \"This is a prison? Fascinating.\"\n\n\"Uh huh,\" Blazer said. \"More importantly, are we going to be able to get in at all?\"\n\n\"I wager I can permit us to pass.\" Kaika slung her pack off her shoulders.\n\n\"Perhaps this place was a prison long before the portal was built?\" Rysha gazed around at the paintings again. \"That one over there\u2014I wondered about it. It seems to depict two gold dragons capturing a silver dragon. Maybe the gate will only open for gold dragons and their offspring, but the bronze and silver dragons must have been allowed to enter if they were brought through in a gold's keeping, thus to be imprisoned. Oh, and since dragons hate cold, it makes sense that they might have created a prison here. To truly punish those who strayed. Also, dragons aren't fecund in cold temperatures, so imprisonment might have been meant to ensure they didn't reproduce.\"\n\n\"So, what does that mean for us?\" Blazer asked. \"We can go in if we just find a gold dragon to escort us?\"\n\n\"Or one's offspring.\" Rysha hitched a shoulder.\n\n\"We'll see about that,\" Kaika said, kneeling now, and pulling a fistful of fuses out of her pack.\n\n\"A very distant ancestor of mine is reputed to be a gold dragon,\" Dreyak said.\n\n\"So just having a gold in the bloodline isn't enough then,\" Rysha said. \"Too bad, but I'm not surprised. My translation suggested as much.\"\n\nRealizing he hadn't relayed Jaxi's most recent update, Trip said, \"There's another airship coming with two more dragons. They seem to be there to join or protect the original Cofah airship.\"\n\n\"Is either of the new dragons a gold?\" Blazer asked.\n\nYes, Jaxi said.\n\nTrip nodded.\n\n\"Shit, maybe that's why Jylea and that sorceress didn't fight harder to keep us from leaving the airship,\" Blazer said. \"Maybe they knew we couldn't get in.\" She pointed at Kaika. \"You have my permission to blow that wall open, Captain.\"\n\n\"You know I wasn't waiting for that, right?\" Kaika whistled and set a bundle at the base of the wall.\n\nBlazer snorted.\n\nTrip worried the explosives might backfire, either bringing down the cave on top of them or doing nothing to the back wall. Or both.\n\n\"To destroy this cave would be a crime against archaeology,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"I'm only going to destroy this back part here,\" Kaika said.\n\nRysha turned a bleak expression on Trip. He spread his hands, not aware of anything he could do.\n\nTry touching the wall, Azarwrath suggested.\n\nMe? I'm not a gold dragon.\n\nIf your friend's translation is correct, the offspring of gold dragons may also enter.\n\nOffspring, not descendant. Not someone fifty generations removed from a gold dragon, or whatever I am.\n\nTrip removed his glove, though he knew he would only be scanned, the same as Dreyak.\n\nI don't know how far removed you are from your dragon progenitor, Azarwrath said, but I am positive it's not fifty generations. Or even ten.\n\nTrip froze, his fingers in the air inches from the wall. But that's impossible. Until a few years ago, there weren't any dragons in the world.\n\nNeither of the soulblades responded.\n\nRight? Trip prompted.\n\nThere weren't any known dragons, Jaxi said. That doesn't mean that some couldn't have been around, lying low. Or spending time in a stasis chamber, as was the case with Phelistoth. Sardelle and I suspected as soon as we met you that you had the potential to be very powerful. Three years ago, we encountered\u2014battled\u2014a sorceress who came from another time period, and she claimed to be the great granddaughter of a dragon. Even though you dampen down your aura well, we both thought you had at least as much dragon blood as she.\n\nTrip knew he must look stupid, standing there frozen with his palm in the air, but all he could think about were the soulblades' words.\n\nAre you saying\u2026 Is that the reason I was transferred? He looked down toward his collar, even though the parka hid his uniform and rank tabs. And promoted? And sent on this mission?\n\nSuch an intense disappointment filled him that he wanted to cry. He'd assumed\u2014even though nobody had said as much, he'd assumed his knack for killing enemies and his willingness to risk himself in battle had been the reason he'd come to General Zirkander's attention, the reason he'd been promoted so young and called to join the flier battalion's star squadron. To be given something because of blood that he had no control over\u2026\n\nRelax, hero, Jaxi said. Your pirate-slaying ways are what got you transferred and invited on the mission. Ridge didn't know about the rest until that dragon's defenses mysteriously went down. Sardelle and I didn't know until we met you. Well, about ten minutes before we met you when we sensed your presence in Ridge's office as we were walking into the citadel. That alarmed the hells out of us, I'll have you know. Thus far, all the powerful sorceresses and shamans we've encountered have been working for the other side. We assumed some spy had infiltrated Ridge's troops in the guise of a young pilot.\n\nWhen did you figure out I wasn't a spy? Trip asked numbly.\n\nWhen you fell off the couch.\n\nShall I thank the gods for the general's slippery cushions then? Trip imagined what might have happened if they had truly believed him a spy. He could have been dragged off and imprisoned in some iron coffin or whatever was done to enemy sorcerers.\n\nThus far, we've just killed them, Jaxi said brightly. But we realized right away from the fact that you didn't shield your thoughts and we could read everything in your mind that you were completely untrained.\n\nHe tried to remember if he'd been thinking anything embarrassing that day, anything that he would have been chagrined to have shared with others.\n\nNo, but I've since witnessed your lurid fantasies about Lieutenant Ravenwood.\n\nHe flushed, though he didn't think anything had been particularly lurid. Other than the day she'd worn that revealing pirate costume.\n\nNo, your fantasies aren't nearly as disturbing as those of your friend. He's speculated more than once about encounters featuring him in the middle of a threesome with Kaika, Blazer, and Ravenwood.\n\nAzarwrath cleared his throat in Trip's mind\u2014perhaps in Jaxi's mind too. There are dragons coming. It would not be good to be trapped in here when they arrive. Both of the new arrivals are gold dragons.\n\nYes, Jaxi said, and I believe I know those dragons too. Yisharnesh and her mate. Our people have battled them before. They were let out of a prison in Iskandia.\n\nAs golds, they will be able to open the gate, Azarwrath said.\n\n\"I'm ready to blow this wall as soon as our pilot statue is moved.\" Kaika rose from her kneeling position and looked at Trip. Three of her bombs rested along the base of the wall, linked by a wire to a detonator with a timer.\n\n\"Move it, Trip,\" Blazer said, the others having already backed away.\n\nThough he doubted it would do anything, Trip would feel like a coward if he didn't try, since the only reason he didn't want to try was because it might work.\n\nHe took a deep breath and pressed his bare palm to the wall. A beam of light flared out, identical to the one that had engulfed Dreyak. He felt a surge of relief until Duck spoke.\n\n\"Is that because of the soulblades?\" Duck asked, looking at Rysha.\n\nShe hesitated, then shrugged. Protecting Trip's secret.\n\nThe voice spoke words into their heads. Different words this time? There were only a few of them.\n\nAn ominous rumble came from all around them, and Trip backed away from the wall, afraid he'd triggered some trap. Or maybe the dragons were close enough to send some attack ahead.\n\n\"You are permitted to pass,\" Rysha whispered.\n\n\"What?\" Blazer looked sharply at her.\n\n\"That's what the words said.\"\n\nThe wall in front of them disappeared, revealing an icy passage stretching into the depths of the mountain."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "The translation must have been wrong.\n\nAs fascinated as Rysha was by the new passage leading deeper into the mountain, including numerous dragon statues carved into the ice and a soft blue light that emanated from all around them, all she could think about was the translation. She must have gotten some of the words wrong. Specifically, the one for offspring. Should it have been descendant? Because if she'd gotten it right, that implied Trip was not just some descendant of a dragon but the son of a dragon. And that wasn't possible, not in this era.\n\nAt least, everything she'd read suggested it wasn't. But if there was a dragon alive out there, one who hadn't left through the portal a thousand years earlier and had simply been lying low all this time\u2026\n\n\"What in the hells does that mean?\" Leftie asked, pointing at the passage and staring, first at Trip, then at Rysha, then back at Trip. \"You're half dragon?\"\n\nIf Trip's shoulders had slumped any further, they would have fallen off. All he could manage was a puzzled spreading of his hands.\n\n\"I must have translated incorrectly,\" Rysha said. \"The words must have stated that only the descendant of a gold dragon would be allowed to open the gate.\"\n\n\"Then it should have worked for me.\" Dreyak was frowning at Trip almost as darkly as Leftie was.\n\nDuck merely appeared confused.\n\nTrip's forehead creased, and he turned his puzzled expression toward Rysha. No, it wasn't a puzzled expression. It was more of a betrayed one.\n\nShe wished she'd kept her mouth shut and not shared the translation, damn it. This hadn't been her secret to reveal.\n\n\"It doesn't matter now,\" Blazer said, pointing at the bombs and nodding to Kaika. \"Disarm those, and let's go. We'll figure out everything else after we complete our mission.\"\n\nTrip winced. Rysha didn't need telepathic powers to know he didn't want to be \"everything else.\" He just wanted to be a pilot.\n\nKaika repacked her bombs, and she and Blazer led the way down the passage. Trip walked after them, and Rysha hurried to walk at his side. She felt the urge to apologize to him, though she didn't know what she could say. Sorry I told everyone your dad is a dragon?\n\nShe glimpsed Duck, Dreyak, and Leftie bringing up the rear, Leftie kissing his lucky ball before he fell in behind them. He'd known Trip longer than anyone else here, but he seemed the most rattled by this. Maybe it was because he'd known Trip so long that he was rattled.\n\nThe group strode along in silence. Rysha sneaked glances at Trip, but his puzzlement was buried now, replaced by a mask. She couldn't tell if he was angry, scared, full of dread, or what. Some people would have been perfectly delighted at finding out something like this, but he'd already been shying away from the idea that he had the power to perform magic. This was that to a much higher magnitude.\n\nSeven gods, no wonder the chapaharii blades wanted to kill him.\n\nAnd what did she want? She didn't know. Did this change anything? Should it?\n\nNo, she decided firmly. Though it was impossible not to think about what kind of power Trip might have the potential to develop, and that old axiom about power corrupting people. But wasn't there another quotation about wisdom in gifting power to those who least wanted it?\n\nRysha shook her head. Blazer was right. All of this should wait until after the mission was completed. The dragons would likely sense that the gate had been opened, including the ones reputedly allied with Jylea and her team. Rysha didn't know why the Cofah, or a band of the Cofah, would want to take the portal\u2014and the dragon problem\u2014to their homeland, but after listening to Trip talking to Dreyak, and Leftie's words about hooks and ropes in the airship, she believed they did. She'd wondered from the beginning why Dreyak had been at odds with the researchers from the outpost. This could explain it.\n\nThe passage opened up ahead, the blue glow shining from the white ice walls growing brighter, giving the place the sense of daylight. The group reached a ledge that overlooked a chasm, the bottom dark except for an orange glow far, far below. The scent of sulphur drifted up on a warm wave of heat.\n\n\"That's lava down there,\" Trip said, sounding bemused.\n\n\"That's even more of a geological oddity than the below-sea-level ice canyon,\" Rysha said, staring down at it. \"I don't see how it's possible.\"\n\n\"This place was built by powerful magic. I think that means anything is possible.\" Trip tilted his head. \"The portal is that way.\"\n\nTrip pointed toward the leftmost of three ice bridges that arced over the chasm, each leading to tunnels on the far side. They all appeared the same, beautiful, artistic, and very fragile, as if they were there for decoration, not to be used. And perhaps that was the case. A dragon would fly across the chasm rather than walk on a bridge.\n\n\"The swords telling you that?\" Leftie asked. \"Or do you just know these things now?\"\n\nRysha winced, wishing again that she had been vaguer with her translation, wishing she hadn't said anything aloud at all. She could have simply suggested Trip try touching the wall. Not that she could have foreseen that he would have the blood required to open it.\n\nTrip looked sadly at her, and she wondered if he was reading her thoughts. For a dragon, or a half-dragon, that would be simple magic, wouldn't it? By the gods, if he had that much dragon blood, he ought to be able to shape-shift and control people's minds and do all other manner of magic that the sorcerers of old had been able to employ. She did her best not to shudder at this new realization, and told herself that he was still the same person, the person who'd made her a gun mount and liked fixing fliers.\n\n\"The portal is this way,\" Trip said, his only answer to Leftie, and stepped toward the bridge.\n\nBut Leftie gripped his arm. \"Damn it, Trip, why didn't you say something before? Did you always know? I've known you six years. Have you been lying to me the whole time?\"\n\n\"I didn't think anyone would understand,\" Trip said quietly.\n\n\"So, you did know.\"\n\n\"Just that my father was probably some shaman from another country.\"\n\n\"Or a dragon,\" Duck whispered. \"Isn't that what Ravenwood meant? Is that even possible?\"\n\n\"You didn't think you could tell me?\" Leftie demanded. \"What, did you read my mind and not like what you saw in there? Didn't think I was good enough to share your secrets with?\"\n\n\"I didn't do that\u2014didn't know how to do that. But I knew how you felt about magic. I didn't have to read minds to know\u2014\"\n\n\"So, you didn't even give me a chance? You just lied to me? To everyone in the squadron? All the people who thought they knew you? That's cowardly, Trip.\"\n\n\"It is,\" he agreed, his eyes still sad. \"But would you have befriended me and stood up for me all those times if you'd known?\"\n\nLeftie hesitated, and Rysha suspected he knew the answer was no, but what he said was, \"How would I know? You didn't give me a chance to find out.\"\n\nRysha looked at Blazer, hoping she would remind them there wasn't time for this, but she and Kaika were pointing at the bridge and conferring quietly. Wondering if it was a trap? The bridges did look fragile.\n\n\"Do you need anyone standing up for you?\" Duck whispered, sounding more awed than betrayed.\n\nTrip grimaced, not looking like he appreciated that reaction any more than the other.\n\n\"Doesn't this mean you're like Sardelle?\" Duck added.\n\n\"There isn't time to discuss it now,\" Trip said, his gaze flicking back the way they had come. \"The two gold dragons have driven off the ones that were standing guard from the mountaintop, and they're escorting the Cofah airships down to land in front of the cave. They'll come in soon. I don't believe their mission is to destroy the portal.\" Trip looked at Dreyak. \"We need to get to it first, to protect Iskandia by destroying it. Before it\u2014and the dragons coming through it\u2014can be put to some other use.\"\n\nNot waiting for agreement, Trip strode onto the bridge he had indicated before.\n\n\"Ma'am?\" Rysha asked, looking toward Blazer and especially Kaika. Trip had the engineering degree, but with Kaika's demolitions background, she had to have experience assessing structures.\n\nKaika didn't look happy, but she didn't shake her head in the negative.\n\n\"We don't have any better choices,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"Follow him two at a time,\" Kaika said. \"Those bridges\u2014are they even bridges, or just decorative arches?\u2014don't look like they can sustain that much weight.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" Blazer said. \"Look down there. I see some that already broke.\"\n\nRysha hadn't noticed that before, but she squinted into the gloom and did see places where arches extended a few meters out from the sides of the chasm, then ended abruptly, broken off. Or maybe melted off. In a couple of spots, they lined up with protrusions on the other side, protrusions with which they must have once linked. Perhaps the magma lake rose at times, spitting lava into the air and melting the fragile bridges.\n\n\"So long as that doesn't happen now,\" she whispered.\n\nTrip hadn't waited, merely striding up the icy incline. Rysha followed after him, placing her feet carefully. No more than three feet wide, it was extremely slippery, like ice that had melted and refrozen numerous times.\n\n\"Hope he can levitate us again if this breaks,\" Duck muttered from behind her.\n\nLeftie muttered something else that Rysha couldn't make out. Maybe that was for the best.\n\nAs she climbed, she did her best not to look over the sides, nor to notice the sulfurous scent, the promise that deadly lava boiled far below.\n\nTrip reached the apex of the arch, where the bridge widened, making a platform about five feet wide. He paused and turned back. Waiting for Rysha? No, he was gazing back into the passage they had all come through.\n\n\"Trouble?\" Rysha whispered.\n\n\"Yes. Keep going.\" He raised his voice. \"Everyone hurry across. The soulblades will make sure the bridge holds. But there isn't much time. Those dragons are coming now. They\u2014\"\n\nPuny humans, a female voice rang in Rysha's head. Do you think we will let you destroy that portal? Or a priceless dragon artifact? Do you think you even could?\n\nThe voice made the others hustle more than Trip's urging had. They slipped as they hurried, and Blazer and Duck ended up using their hands as well as their feet, gripping the edges so they wouldn't fall.\n\nAfter we destroy you for your impudence, we will raze your tiny country. Those who survive will belong to the empire. And to Yisharnesh. I have not forgotten the scars your kind left on me.\n\nRysha looked at Dreyak as he reached the platform, but he didn't appear pleased to hear that the dragon had allegiance to the Cofah.\n\n\"Keep going straight. You'll reach the portal. You can't miss it.\" Trip drew Jaxi from her scabbard. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he also drew Azarwrath.\n\nThe soulblades glowed with power, with readiness.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Rysha asked, stopping on the platform as Dreyak, Duck, and Leftie hurried past.\n\nKaika and Blazer also paused at the apex.\n\n\"I'll delay them if I can,\" Trip said grimly, then met Blazer's eyes. \"Make sure the mission succeeds, Major.\"\n\nBlazer didn't question him. She said, \"I will,\" and hurried after the others.\n\nRysha drew her borrowed blade, Eryndral, and faced the passage with Trip. The sword flared an intense pale green, and she itched to swing it at him, itched to knock those soulblades into the lava and drive Eryndral into his chest.\n\nShe muttered the control words and glared at the blade, willing it to understand that a real enemy approached. It took a moment for the sword to understand, but its glow faded somewhat, and it stopped fighting her.\n\n\"You'll need help,\" Rysha said, noticing Trip frowning at her. \"A sword that can get through their defenses.\"\n\nKaika also lingered on the platform, and she drew her chapaharii blade. \"I can stay, too, though this is an iffy perch for sword fighting. I suggest the ledge on the far side there.\"\n\nShe pointed to where the arching bridge ended at the tunnel the others were hurrying toward. Duck and Leftie had already reached the ledge, an icy perch that extended about three feet from the wall.\n\n\"You two go with the others,\" Trip said, shaking his head. \"They'll need those swords to destroy the portal.\"\n\n\"Not both of them,\" Rysha said. \"I'll stay, Captain.\"\n\nA pulse of light came from the passage\u2014that gate scan operating? Letting the gold dragons through?\n\n\"Kaika,\" Blazer called from the ledge. \"We're going to need you, your sword, and your explosives.\"\n\nKaika cursed, gave Rysha a long look, and said, \"Don't do anything stupid.\" She included Trip in her look. \"Either of you.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" Rysha said.\n\nTrip did not acknowledge the order, only facing the passage, both swords in hand. Rysha didn't want to distract him, but she couldn't help but say, \"Kaika is right. Let's do this from the ledge over there, not some precarious little perch that could be melted by dragon fire. We can more effectively block the dragons from getting into the tunnel there too. Here, they could just fly over us.\"\n\nTrip looked down at the platform and the lava lake far below. \"You're right.\" He tilted his head in the direction the others had disappeared. \"Go.\"\n\nRysha hurried down the bridge, but glanced back, afraid Trip would do something stupid, like not following her. But he was right behind her, jogging backward across the ice, not taking his eyes off the far side.\n\nThe sound of wingbeats came from that passage. Rysha could feel their draft even across the chasm, the wind ruffling the fur lining her parka hood. She and Trip reached the ledge as the first gold dragon sailed out of the passage.\n\nRysha licked her lips, telling herself this one was no different from the bronze and silver dragons they had faced. Except that these dragons could breathe fire. And this time, she didn't have Kaika and Blazer, also with chapaharii blades, backing her up.\n\nBut she did have Trip and two powerful soulblades.\n\nThe dragon flapped into the great chasm, the ceiling high enough to provide plenty of room for its fifty-foot wingspan. It didn't fly straight toward them, instead holding a position above the far ledge. Waiting for its cohort?\n\n\"Just so you know,\" Rysha whispered to Trip, \"I'm planning to survive this.\"\n\nHe looked at her.\n\n\"And you better be planning to as well,\" she added. \"I want another kiss. Our first one was far too abbreviated.\"\n\nHis mouth parted. In surprise?\n\nWhy? Nothing had changed for her.\n\nAll right, maybe a few things had changed, but she still cared about him. And she still wanted to be friends with him. More than friends. Unless he suddenly believed himself too powerful to sleep with a mere mundane human and decided to seek out a sorceress or even a female dragon, but Rysha couldn't truly imagine that. Not from Captain Trip, pilot.\n\nShe rose on her toes and kissed him. He froze for a second, his lips slack, but then returned her kiss warmly. Her chapaharii sword buzzed an angry protest in her mind, but it wasn't as if there was time for a lengthy embrace anyway.\n\nTrip smiled as she drew back. \"That was also rather abbreviated.\"\n\n\"I know. Clearly, we need to finish our mission, so we can go off somewhere for a weekend together.\"\n\n\"That lake by your castle looked nice,\" Trip said.\n\nThe lake that was also by the house where her grandmother had died? That didn't sound like an appealing spot to her, not anymore. \"There's a pond farther back in the valley that's beautiful, and there's a little stone cottage by it. We can go there.\"\n\n\"Will your parents mind?\" Trip asked, alternating between watching the dragon and looking at her.\n\n\"Yes, but I don't care. Also, it's a manor, not a castle.\"\n\n\"Forgive me my ignorance. You know how commoners are.\"\n\nCommon, hah. He was anything but.\n\n\"Not much like you.\" Rysha wished she could swat him in the butt with her sword, but the sword might take that as a sign that an attack would be appropriate. \"You're odd.\"\n\n\"But you don't mind?\" He asked the question lightly, but he watched her intently.\n\n\"Not at all. You're a very lucky boy.\"\n\n\"I believe I am.\"\n\nRysha might have kissed him again, but the second dragon flew out of the passage. And she saw more shapes in the blue-lit passage behind it. Humans. Humans in Cofah uniforms, and was that the sorceress from the airship too? Kiadarsa?\n\nThe portal is still intact, the same dragon that had spoken before announced. The female. We are in time to take it back to the empire and to control which dragons come through it, those who will be loyal to Yisharnesh, those who will make Cofahre the most powerful land in the world. And under my rule.\n\nRysha arched her eyebrows. Did none of the Cofah object to that? Was Prince Varlok willing to be a figurehead\u2014or even less\u2014while this dragon ruled his nation? Or did he know about this scheme? Maybe he'd gotten wind of this, and that was why he'd sent Dreyak to help her people. To get here first.\n\nBefore her mind could parse more thoughts, the two dragons flapped their wings and sailed straight for her and Trip. Rysha shoved her spectacles higher on her nose and raised her sword, ready."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "Trip did not move as the dragons approached, unsure what they would do. Breathe fire? Strike at him magically? Attempt to pass? The more time he could buy for Blazer and the others, the better.\n\nNext to him, Rysha crouched, her borrowed chapaharii sword blazing with its green inner fire. She appeared every bit the warrior, ready to face their great winged foes.\n\nIn Trip's hands, the soulblades also blazed, also ready. Only Trip did not feel that he belonged here, did not know how to battle the dragons without his flier and his machine guns. The last half hour may have changed the way the others looked at him, but nothing had changed for him. He still felt bumbling and accidental with his power, a man desperately in need of a tutor.\n\nNo time for that now, Azarwrath said. Launch mental attacks similar to what you did before. Try your best to force them to lower their defenses.\n\nYou can do it, Jaxi encouraged. You faced a gold before. And won.\n\nWith all of General Zirkander's squadron fighting alongside him.\n\nThe dragons were almost upon them, leaving no more time to question, no more time to doubt. Despite his fear, some instinct deep within him heated his blood and almost convinced him he longed for the fight, the chance to pit himself against mighty enemies.\n\nRed lightning streaked from Azarwrath's blade, branching in the middle to attack both dragons at once. It struck their invisible shields, doing no damage. Jaxi hurled a fireball. Though it bloomed into a massive inferno, completely engulfing one of the dragons, it, too, was thwarted by the creature's defenses.\n\nThe female\u2014Yisharnesh\u2014opened her maw, her long sword-like fangs gleaming, reflecting the blue light emanating from the walls. Smoke curled in the back of her throat, promising she would spew fire at them.\n\nCan you block it? Trip asked the soulblades even as he focused on the other dragon's eyes, trying to needle his way into its thoughts, as he'd done before.\n\nA couple of times, yes, Jaxi said.\n\nRysha waited, her sword raised, needing the dragons to get closer before she could strike. Not wanting them close, Trip threw his mental attack at one as the other breathed fire onto their ledge.\n\nIt crackled in the air, flames blocking his view, but he continued to see the far dragon's head in his mind. It was the male, Yisharnesh's mate. As he'd done on the airship, Trip tried to distract the dragon with pain, tried to burn into its brain with mental fire.\n\nYisharnesh's very real fire beat at the soulblades' concave barrier. Their efforts protected the ledge from the flames, but Trip still felt the heat.\n\nThe dragon he'd been targeting screamed into his mind. Trip stepped back bracing himself. Had that been a cry of pain from his attack? Or was it a counter attack?\n\nThe fire-breathing female swooped away before she encountered the soulblades' barrier. But she only flew up and looped around, obviously intending to come in for another attack.\n\nNot sure he'd been effective with his attack, Trip tried again as the smoke and flames faded, and he could see the male's yellow reptilian eyes.\n\nPain! he cried into the dragon's mind, doing his best to hammer a mental nail between those eyes.\n\nThe dragon shook his head, screeching aloud, but lashing out in response. Trip staggered as a magical blow struck his brain like a sledgehammer.\n\nFocus on defending yourself, Azarwrath ordered. His defenses are temporarily down. We are attacking him.\n\nBefore he finished speaking, one of Jaxi's fireballs sprang forth. This time, it took the male directly in the face. He screeched and wheeled away, the smell of singed scales rising over that of the sulfurous chasm.\n\nTrip tried to imagine a bank vault protecting his mind, not sure if it would work for attacks the same way it did with prying telepaths.\n\nOn the heels of Jaxi's fireball, Azarwrath's lightning shot out, also striking the dragon, curling around his body and making him jerk in the air. He flew erratically, one of his wings clipping the bridge. Though it was a glancing blow, the snap of ice rang out, echoing from the walls.\n\nThe dragon recovered, flapping back up above the bridge, but a ten-foot-wide section of it, including the platform at the apex, crumbled and disappeared into the chasm. Ice plopped into the lava far below, melting instantly with a hiss of steam.\n\nYou dare attack my mate? Yisharnesh cried, the words so powerful they felt like an attack in their own right.\n\nTrip gritted his teeth, bracing himself for more.\n\nRaw power slammed into him, half physical attack and half mental attack. The massive force crumbled the soulblades' protective shields and hurled him back into the tunnel as pain exploded inside his skull. He smashed down, his head cracking against the ice floor.\n\nPain gripped his entire body, and he could scarcely draw in a breath, but he scrambled to find his footing, terrified because he'd left Rysha alone on the ledge. He slipped in his haste to rise, cracking his knee down on the ice.\n\nRysha yelled, and the pain blasting Trip disappeared from his mind. He raced toward the ledge as she slashed the sword into a dragon's tail.\n\nAn inferno blasted in from the side. Flames engulfed Rysha, and she disappeared from Trip's sight.\n\nShe screamed, and he couldn't tell if it was in pain or rage.\n\nAttack! he ordered the soulblades as he reached the edge of the flames. He sensed the dragons nearby and tried to fling a mental attack of his own.\n\nThe fire disappeared, and Trip shouted an alarmed, \"No!\" when he saw the ledge was empty, save for ice dripping water into the chasm.\n\nThen he saw Rysha out on the remains of the bridge. She sprang into the air as the female soared over her, banking to keep from running into the wall. The chapaharii blade slashed through the dragon's defensive shield and all the way to the scales of her belly.\n\nThe dragon screeched and whipped away, her body contorting in the air as she rushed out of the blade's reach. Her tail slammed down on the remains of the bridge, not five feet from Rysha.\n\nHer eyes bulged, and she flailed as the frail structure quaked under her. She turned, running back toward Trip and the ledge, but the ice snapped, and the bridge started crumbling underneath her.\n\nTrip willed her to levitate on a channel of air, the way the soulblades had levitated him in the canyon. But he had no experience doing what he needed to do. It didn't matter. He realized he couldn't help her, not when she carried that sword. It defended her from all magic, even friendly magic.\n\nThe ice cracked, and more pieces fell behind her. Trembles wracked the bridge, and she slipped, a knee slamming down.\n\n\"Throw the sword,\" Trip yelled, barely aware of what the dragons were doing.\n\nThankfully, Jaxi and Azarwrath continued to attack them. All he could do was focus on Rysha.\n\nRysha didn't hesitate, understanding what he wanted to do. She hurled the sword to the ledge, where it skidded into the tunnel behind Trip.\n\nThe bridge crumbled the rest of the way, and she cried out as her footing disappeared. Again, Trip willed her to levitate, for a huge gust of wind to form and blow her to safety behind him.\n\nHe wasn't sure whether he did it or the soulblades were responsible, but a hurricane gale carried her up and onto the ledge, her eyes wide and her arms flailing until she landed beside him. He wanted to hug her and kiss her, but the battle wasn't over yet, and she knew it. She raced into the tunnel to retrieve the sword.\n\nLook out! Jaxi yelled into his mind.\n\nTrip felt the soulblades raising a shield again to protect him, just before a wave of power slammed into it. He jerked up his hands, also attempting to raise defenses. Though injured, both dragons arrowed toward him, rage in their slitted reptilian eyes. The soulblades deflected a second attack, but a third struck the wall underneath the ledge, and Trip realized their mistake. Jaxi and Azarwrath had protected him, not the ledge on which he stood.\n\nThe ice crumbled and gave way before he could think of whirling and jumping back into the tunnel. There was nothing to jump from.\n\nHe tumbled down into the chasm as chunks of ice plummeted alongside him, battering his shoulders and back. Below him, the fiery orange of the lava lake grew closer and closer.\n\nLevitate, he cried in his mind.\n\nEven as he tried to figure out how he might channel wind to blow him back up and to safety, the air thickened underneath him, slowing his fall. The heat of the magma toasted him, and he halted, his boots scant feet from the surface. Ice and rock continued to rain down, dropping into the lava and spraying molten droplets in all directions. Trip roared with pain as some struck his legs, singeing him through his clothing.\n\nA huge piece of ice pounded him on the top of his head. He thrust his hands into the air, willing a defensive shield into place all around him.\n\nTo his surprise, it worked. The ice chunks bounced off, landing in the lava lake all around him, steaming and hissing as they instantly melted.\n\nThanks to whoever's holding me up. Trip peered upward, wondering if the soulblades could float him back up to the ledge.\n\nBut through the ice sloughing down, he saw that there was no ledge. Not anymore. He couldn't even see the tunnel. The entire top of that chasm wall appeared to have collapsed, burying it. Seven gods, had Rysha survived that? She must have been in the tunnel right behind him.\n\nAn angry dragon looked down at Trip from the ceiling of the chasm, yellow eyes flashing with irritation that he hadn't plunged into the magma and been incinerated. The other dragon perched on the remains of one of the bridges, healing its wounds, but this one\u2014the female, he sensed\u2014plunged down toward him. He had no doubt she meant to finish him off.\n\nThere are more tunnels and caves down here, Jaxi blurted into his mind, and he found himself floating upward and also toward the side of the chasm.\n\nLightning streaked from Azarwrath's blade\u2014if he'd had time, Trip would have marveled that he'd maintained a grip on both swords\u2014and toward the dragon's face. But the female had reestablished her defenses, and the lightning bounced off as she plummeted toward Trip, talons spread to grab him. Or pierce his heart.\n\nTrip tried to pour more energy into strengthening his defensive barrier, but he feared it would be far too weak to stop the dragon. It was. A mental attack assaulted him, wrenching down his barrier before the female reached him.\n\nBut Jaxi had lifted him to a cave a few dozen feet above the magma lake. Unlike some of the other openings in the chasm walls, no stubs of broken bridges thrust out of it. And Trip had no sense of a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain. Jaxi swept him into the cave a split second before those talons would have reached him.\n\nThe female screeched, spreading her wings to keep from hitting the lava. She swooped back up, angling to reach the cave.\n\nTrip sprinted away from the entrance. Her huge golden maw and yellow eyes grew larger as she flew straight toward it.\n\nHe hurled a wave of power at her and urged the soulblades to help, for he knew he wasn't strong enough to stop her. They wouldn't be, either. Realizing that, he shifted his aim, channeling his energy into the ice at the cave entrance.\n\nThunderous snaps and cracks nearly deafened him. Ice broke away and slammed down. Trip drew back as far as he could until his shoulder blades bumped the back of the cave. Shards of ice flew at him like shrapnel from a bomb. All he could do was lift his arms to shield his face. He didn't have the energy to do more.\n\nAll light disappeared, leaving him alone in the darkness with the walls and ceiling tumbling down all around him. One of the swords created a barrier to protect him from being pummeled, but as ice continued to slam down, he had no idea if he'd saved himself from the dragon or condemned himself to being buried alive."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "\"Trip!\" Rysha cried, hacking at the ice and rock boulders with her sword.\n\nEryndral, surely eager to reach the dragons on the other side of the rockfall, glowed fiercely. The blade cut through the boulders that had collapsed the tunnel more effectively than a normal sword could, but Rysha feared it wouldn't be enough. There had to be ten feet of ice and rock between her and the ledge. Between her and Trip.\n\nOr was the ledge even there anymore? She'd seen it crumbling under his feet as ice poured from the ceiling.\n\n\"Trip,\" she yelled again, hoping he would hear her and answer. In this case, she wouldn't object to telepathic communication, not one bit.\n\n\"Ravenwood, stop,\" someone\u2014Dreyak?\u2014ordered from behind her.\n\nRysha ignored the command and kept hacking at the ice. But hands gripped her from behind.\n\nShe almost whirled and attacked them, wanting to force her captors away, but Kaika yelled, \"Stop, Rysha!\"\n\nThis time, the words sank in, the words of her superior officer.\n\nPanting, Rysha let the sword droop, let Leftie and Duck pull her away from the wall. But she wasn't ready to give up.\n\n\"We're leaving Trip.\" Rysha said, pointing behind her.\n\n\"I know, but I don't think there's anything we can do, and we need as many obstacles between us and those dragons as possible.\" Kaika grimaced. \"We need more time. We can't find the portal, and there are all these\u2014hells, I don't know what they are. I need my archaeologist.\" Kaika jerked her thumb toward the tunnel behind her, toward another blue-lit opening farther down.\n\n\"We can't just abandon him, ma'am,\" Rysha whispered, looking back again.\n\nLeftie, too, was staring bleakly at the compacted ice and rock, the solid wall between them and the dragons.\n\n\"I doubt there's anything left to abandon.\" Kaika gripped Rysha's arm and pulled her in the opposite direction.\n\n\"No,\" Rysha protested. \"He can levitate. Or the swords can. And he's got their magic.\" She spun toward Dreyak. \"You have dragon blood\u2014can you tell if he's alive? Sense him?\"\n\nDreyak's eyes grew distant, as if he were checking, but he soon shook his head. \"I cannot sense him. The magic all around and the proximity of the dragons with their domineering auras may be interfering, but\u2026\" He finished with a shrug.\n\n\"Even if he kept himself from falling into the lava,\" Kaika said, \"the dragons would have finished him off. Soulblades aren't enough against dragons. Trust me, I know. I've been in such battles before.\"\n\nKaika kept pulling her, but Rysha dragged her feet, her mind whirring, seeking a plausible argument to make them believe that Trip had survived, that it was worth clawing their way back out and into the fight to help him.\n\n\"Rysha,\" Kaika said, squeezing her arm. \"This was what he wanted. He was willing to give his life to buy us time. Don't make his sacrifice pointless.\"\n\nTears welled in Rysha's eyes, and a lump thickened in her throat, but the argument persuaded her. Reluctantly, she let Kaika guide her forward.\n\nFor the moment, nothing but silence came from the other side of the cave-in. Rysha hoped that meant that if Trip had died, he'd somehow managed to take out the dragons first. Better yet, she hoped he was sitting on one of those broken ice nubs, resting while the defeated dragons writhed and died in the lava lake.\n\nAbsorbed by her thoughts, Rysha barely noticed the huge chamber that Kaika guided her into, another large area with blue illumination coming from the walls and the ceiling, though there was no obvious light source. Wherever the portal was, it wasn't sitting in the middle of the chamber, as they'd hoped. But there were other things in the cavernous room. At least a dozen huge alcoves were set into the far wall, their contents in shadows, but still discernible. Dragons.\n\nEach alcove held an unmoving dragon, the creatures' eyes closed. Were they dead? Or imprisoned? She'd read about the stasis magic that dragons possessed, chambers that kept their occupants alive but in a deep hibernation where they did not age and weren't aware of time passing.\n\n\"We're looking for the portal,\" Blazer said from the far end of the chamber, \"but there's only one other tunnel leading out of here, and Leftie already ran down it a ways. It winds deeper into the mountain and gets very narrow, far too narrow for what we assume is a large portal to have been carried through it. See those empty walls? We were thinking that they look similar to the one at the back of the entrance cave and might lead to secret passages or chambers.\"\n\n\"Which we now have no way to open if they have the same requirements as the last,\" Rysha said.\n\n\"Do you think these are dragons from thousands of years ago?\" Duck asked, walking past the alcoves. \"Or were they just put into these jail cells?\"\n\nRysha started to shrug, but she noticed plaques set into the ice walls next to each alcove. The names of the occupants?\n\n\"We're going to have to figure out how to get out one way or another,\" Blazer said, pressing her bare hand against an ice wall. \"The way back is destroyed.\"\n\n\"I'm always amenable to exploring alternative exit strategies,\" Kaika said, patting her pack.\n\n\"I know, but we need to find the portal first.\"\n\n\"Trip could have directed us to it,\" Rysha said, sighing.\n\nShe looked into an alcove at a gold dragon, its wings pressed to its sides, its head hung, as if in shame. Not that she'd ever read about dragons having shame. The plaque read Shulina Arya. Rysha had come across some names in her reading of history texts, but she wasn't familiar with that one. There weren't dates on the plaque, so she had no way of telling how long the dragon had been imprisoned. Even if she came across names she did recognize, that wouldn't help her determine if the dragons had been stuck in this chamber months ago or a thousand years ago, not when they were so long-lived.\n\n\"I wonder if it's possible to let these dragons out,\" Blazer said, \"and get them to fight the gold dragons for us. Think those gold dragons were the ones who stuck them in here?\"\n\n\"Releasing imprisoned dragons didn't work out well for Angulus,\" Kaika said. \"Technically, he only released one, but that made it trendy, and a sorceress came along and released some more.\"\n\n\"Didn't Bhrava Saruth come out of that batch?\" Blazer asked. \"He's been a good ally for the city.\"\n\n\"Yes, but Morishtomaric came out of there, too, and he was a nightmare,\" Kaika said. \"I'm pretty sure those gold dragons that just killed Trip came out of that prison too.\"\n\nRysha flinched. Just killed Trip.\n\nWere her teammates already convinced he was dead? Already so certain he couldn't have survived?\n\nWhile Kaika and Blazer investigated the walls and sought secret doors, Rysha moved along the alcoves, checking other names. If they came across an occupant who'd been known to humans, one who'd perhaps been linked to an Iskandian dragon rider, it might be safe to let that one out. Assuming they could figure out how. What if it took a gold dragon\u2014or Trip\u2014to unlock the doors and thaw out the inmates?\n\nDuck let out a startled squawk.\n\nBlazer whirled toward him, a hand on her pistol. \"What is it?\"\n\nHe was gaping at an alcove at the end. \"Tylie,\" he blurted.\n\n\"What?\" Kaika spun toward him.\n\nRysha frowned in puzzlement. Had she heard that name before? It definitely wasn't a dragon name.\n\nKaika and Blazer ran toward Duck, barely noticing as they slipped and skidded on the ice floor.\n\n\"And Phelistoth,\" Duck said, still staring. \"It must be.\" He leaned to the side, looking at the next alcove over. \"Here's a gold dragon. I can't tell these dragons apart, especially with their eyes closed, but doesn't it look like this might be Bhrava Saruth?\"\n\n\"Ravenwood,\" Kaika barked.\n\nRysha was already heading over to read the plaques for them. All of the Iskandians had converged on those last two alcoves. Only Dreyak remained by the entrance, watching impassively and keeping an eye on the tunnel leading back to the rockfall.\n\nDuck pointed into an alcove with a silver dragon in it, and Rysha jerked with surprise because the dragon wasn't alone. A young human woman stood beside him, leaning against his haunches, touching him with a hand, as if to comfort him, or perhaps draw support from him. Her eyes were closed, just as the dragon's were.\n\nKaika touched the front of the alcove, and her finger encountered something that gave slightly on the surface, like gelatin, but she could not press deeply into it.\n\n\"Phelistoth,\" Rysha affirmed, reading the plaque. The names were written in Middle Dragon Script. \"No mention of the human.\"\n\n\"That's Tylie,\" Duck said firmly, and Kaika and Blazer nodded in agreement. \"She's Tolemek Targoson's little sister and one of Sardelle's students.\"\n\nRysha spread a hand, not disagreeing with them. She'd just never met Targoson\u2014the ex-pirate formerly known as Deathmaker\u2014and hadn't known he had a sister. But then, she'd met Sardelle for the first time at General Zirkander's briefing.\n\n\"She's very sweet,\" Blazer said. \"How in the world did she end up in a dragon prison?\"\n\n\"Is Phelistoth sweet?\" Rysha asked.\n\n\"Not really,\" Duck said. \"He's arrogant. And eats all of General Zirkander's cheese.\"\n\n\"Clearly, the crime he was imprisoned for,\" Rysha said.\n\nDuck snorted.\n\n\"The woman\u2014Tylie\u2014may just have been captured with him. I hope she's alive in there.\" Rysha thought this looked like the dragon stasis magic she'd read about, but she couldn't be sure. Maybe they were fancy coffins. A grim thought, that, especially with the young woman standing at the silver dragon's side.\n\n\"How do we let them out?\" Kaika asked. \"Sardelle and Tolemek wouldn't forgive us if we found them, then left them here.\" She looked into the next alcove. \"And I'm fairly certain that is Bhrava Saruth.\"\n\nRysha checked the plaque. \"That's what this says.\"\n\n\"I bet he would help us against the other ones if we could get him out,\" Duck said. \"He fought those same two before to protect the capital. They were all tearing into each other in the sky over the harbor like cats squabbling in an alley.\"\n\nRysha grimaced, remembering that the most recent dragons to attack the capital had promised to return. If they'd indeed only waited three days, they would have come by now. Come and gone? She hoped the chapaharii sword Captain Ahn had been standing guard with had been enough to fight them off.\n\n\"There aren't any instructions anywhere in the chamber that I've seen,\" Rysha said, looking around. \"Those empty squares under the plaques might have a purpose.\" She placed her bare palm on one, but nothing happened.\n\nEven if they were controls for opening the prisons, it wasn't likely they would respond to her touch. Maybe if Trip were with them\u2026\n\nSighing, Rysha backed up. For the first time, she looked up. And she almost fell over.\n\nA huge purple donut made from crystal hung from the ceiling forty feet above their heads, its face toward them. It glowed softly, the light reflecting off the icy walls around it. Its surface was smooth except for another smaller crystal on the side toward them. Its three visible points protruded from the donut\u2014the portal?\u2014and three or four other points appeared to be sunken into it, staying there against the dictates of gravity.\n\n\"Uhm, Major?\" Rysha pointed.\n\nThe others gaped or jerked with surprise when they followed her gaze.\n\n\"That looks like a magical portal to me,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"Hells,\" Kaika said. \"How am I supposed to climb up there to blow that up?\"\n\nThe slick ice walls had no handholds, nor was there anything around that could serve as a ladder. Because the dragons flew, presumably.\n\n\"If Trip were here, one of the soulblades could have levitated you,\" Duck said.\n\n\"Note to self,\" Blazer said. \"On future missions, don't let the person with all the powerful magical tools sacrifice himself to dragons.\"\n\nRysha frowned at her, not finding the joke funny.\n\n\"You've got a grappling hook, don't you, Blazer?\" Kaika slung her pack off her shoulders. \"And Duck, you've got the rope. We'll have to see if we can find something up there to catch a hook on.\" She eyed the smooth crystal portal dubiously.\n\nA crack echoed from the direction of the lava lake, followed by the sound of boulders shifting and clunking to the ground.\n\nDreyak drew his scimitar and faced into the tunnel. \"The dragons are coming.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "I have good news and bad news, Jaxi announced.\n\nTrip's entire body hurt, and his head felt like someone was bludgeoning it with a truncheon. As he hunkered under tons and tons of ice, he wasn't sure he cared about any news. Only the knowledge that Rysha and the others should still be up there and might need his help made him lift his head and grunt to acknowledge Jaxi.\n\nThe good news is, the dragons either believe you're dead or assume you won't continue to be a problem. I can't read their minds, but they've stopped hovering outside of your blocked cave.\n\n\"And the bad news?\" he whispered, grimacing when warm blood trickled from his lower lip. Maybe he would stick to mental speech.\n\nThey're now hovering outside the blocked tunnel that the others went through. And unblocking it.\n\nDid Rysha\u2014our people\u2014get to the portal?\n\nThey are in the chamber with it now, Azarwrath said, but they are unable to reach it, and they're about to have visitors.\n\nDamn. He'd been willing to sacrifice himself so the others could finish the mission, but if he had only given them a few seconds, how was it worth it?\n\nI would prefer it if you not sacrifice yourself, Jaxi told him. I've been buried under rock for centuries before. It's not an experience that I'm eager to repeat. Also, as shocking as it is to me, I'm finding that I miss Ridge and Sardelle's squalling offspring and that I wish to see if Sardelle has delivered the new one yet.\n\nIs there a way out of here? Trip lifted his hands above his head to see if he could stand up. He was aware that Azarwrath had formed a barrier above him and also that ice boulders buried it from all sides.\n\nThis is a tunnel, not simply a cave, Azarwrath said. It was blocked long before you entered it, but I sense that it continues on beyond a pile of rocks. It's quite a maze of passages back there, but I believe it may be possible to find one that connects to the chamber where your comrades are now. As for escaping this cave-in, due to the unique geological nature of this tunnel system, getting out should be fairly simple.\n\nThat was a long-winded way of saying that we're surrounded by ice, and I love to melt ice. Jaxi's pommel flared, and heat radiated from the blade.\n\nI am not long-winded, Azarwrath said.\n\nPlease, you should have bonded with Professor Ravenwood. You two could have gone on the lecture circuit together. Make a hole in your barrier, will you? I'll melt the ice through it.\n\nDone.\n\nHold me out, Trip. Jaxi shared a mental picture of what she imagined. I plan to reunite you with your professor so you can give her a much more thorough kiss than up on that ledge. Though, you didn't initiate that kiss at all. Or the first one. She's going to think you're not interested.\n\nTrip held Jaxi out, and a red beam shot through a gap in the barrier, melting into the ice in the tunnel behind them. Maybe she'll believe I'm shy.\n\nShyly not interested. When you reunite, promise me you'll kiss her like you mean it.\n\nI'll keep your suggestion in mind.\n\nOh, no. That wasn't a suggestion. I need a promise, or you're not getting out of here.\n\nAzarwrath? Trip asked, though he wasn't sure what he was asking. If the other soulblade would help if Jaxi didn't?\n\nFor the first time since I've met her, I concur with your Iskandian soulblade, Azarwrath said. You must show your lady that you are most definitely interested.\n\nTrip didn't make a promise, mostly because he did want to kiss Rysha\u2014frequently\u2014but he didn't want there to be any question that it had been of his own free will.\n\nJaxi hummed, sounding contented, as her beam burrowed into the ice. It melted away huge chunks rapidly, but Trip paced his little enclosure as he watched. He could sense the dragons flying toward his comrades, and he wasn't sure if it would be rapidly enough."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "A wave of power slammed into Dreyak, hurling him backward into the chamber. He skidded across the icy floor and smashed into one of the alcove barriers.\n\nRysha, the chapaharii sword in hand, rushed to take his place in the mouth of the tunnel as Kaika ran toward the spot from the other side.\n\n\"I'll handle this,\" Rysha said, though the back of her mind screamed at her, telling her that was a ludicrous thing to proclaim, since she could see a gold dragon charging through the tunnel. \"You need to destroy that portal, Captain.\"\n\n\"No doubt about that, but I haven't found a ladder yet.\" Kaika raised her own blade, its subtle green glow flaring to a blinding one as the dragon approached, half running and half flying. \"Maybe I'll climb up a dead dragon,\" she growled.\n\n\"No luck with the rope and grapple?\"\n\n\"Blazer's working on it.\"\n\nAnother wave of power preceded the dragon down the tunnel, and Rysha sensed wind or something similar rushing past them, but the swords flared, and they did not feel the attack.\n\n\"Slash and get out of the way,\" Kaika ordered. \"It can still stomp us.\"\n\nWith the dragons almost upon them, Rysha didn't respond. The one in front\u2014it was the male, she thought\u2014charged them.\n\nRysha waited until the last second, then swung as she jumped to the side, using the wall for protection. Her blade bit into the dragon's shield, and that now-familiar jolt of electricity flowed up her arm. Had she succeeded in dropping the male's defenses? She didn't have Trip or the soulblades here to tell her.\n\nShe started to jump back in as the dragon came fully into the chamber, but his head whipped toward her, jaws snapping. Dropping to the floor, Rysha rolled out of the way. Against all instincts, she made herself roll closer instead of farther away, hoping to come up under the dragon's belly.\n\nThe head followed her, and fangs sliced into the back of her parka.\n\nA screech erupted from that deadly maw, and his head jerked up. As Rysha leaped to her feet, crouching under the dragon's belly, she glimpsed Kaika withdrawing her sword as the neck twisted, the jaws angling toward her. Her blade dripped blood.\n\nShe was agile enough to evade the snapping fangs, but the dragon spread his wings, knocking her back.\n\nRysha, encouraged by the sight of that blood, drove her blade upward.\n\nThe dragon must have sensed the attack coming, because he sprang into the air. But not before she sank her sword between scales and into three inches of flesh.\n\nThe dragon shrieked as he flew up toward the portal, flapping his wings to stay out of their reach.\n\nGunshots fired\u2014Duck, Blazer, and Leftie trying to help. Rysha didn't know if they could. Even with the creature's defenses down, the scales might deflect bullets.\n\n\"The other one is coming,\" Dreyak yelled, back in the tunnel once more.\n\nRysha was more worried about the one flying right above them.\n\n\"Fire coming,\" Kaika yelled, waving for Duck and the others to get back.\n\nThe dragon's maw yawned open, smoke filling the back of his throat, and Rysha shouted, adding her warning to Kaika's. The attack wasn't aimed toward them but toward the rest of their team, toward those who didn't have chapaharii blades to protect them.\n\nDuck, Blazer, and Leftie sprinted for the tunnel Blazer had identified earlier, one exiting the back of the chamber, but they wouldn't make it in time. The dragon flew after them, fire curling past its fangs.\n\nThough it would leave her vulnerable to attack, Rysha hurled her sword, point first, toward the dragon's belly. Seeing it coming, the creature twisted in the air. The blade only skimmed his flank, but that was enough to divert his stream of fire, so he didn't spray flames at the others.\n\nIt was not, however, enough to keep him from spraying flames at her. The dragon's eyes lit up when her sword clattered to the floor, leaving her without protection.\n\nRysha raced toward it, but the dragon unleashed a gout of fire at the bare blade.\n\nCursing, she tried to stop, but she slipped on the ice and fell. She scrambled to the side on hands and knees as the flames shifted toward her. Ice melted, the air smoldered, and her spectacles fogged up. Damn it, being blind right now would not help.\n\nKaika yelled, \"Over here, ugly!\"\n\nMaybe Kaika also threw her sword, because the call worked. The fire shifted away before it caught up to Rysha, and she was able to slide her way through melted ice toward the sword. Frigid water seeped through her clothes, but she ignored it. Relief surged through her veins when her fingers wrapped around the hilt again.\n\nHer spectacles defogged enough for her to see not one but both dragons veering toward Kaika. Trying to corner her?\n\nBoth were injured, dripping blood onto the ice floor as they flew, but it didn't slow them down. Kaika dropped something, then sprang to the side as the dragons converged, almost crashing into each other in their eagerness to chomp down on her.\n\nShe slashed wildly as she ran away. Or maybe it only seemed wild. Her sword bit into dragon flesh twice.\n\nThe creatures twisted to follow her, but an explosion ripped from the floor underneath them.\n\nRysha staggered as the ground shook.\n\nSmoke obscured the dragons, half hiding them from sight. Had the bomb or grenade or whatever it had been hurt them?\n\nKaika didn't wait to see, and neither did Rysha. They ran toward the smoke, their blades raised to cut into their enemies while they were\u2014Rysha hoped\u2014stunned.\n\nMetal clashed near the entrance tunnel, and Rysha almost faltered. Dreyak swung his scimitar at a shaven-headed man in a Cofah uniform. Rysha grimaced, spotting the sorceress back there too.\n\n\"Dragons first,\" she whispered, and leaped in to help Kaika."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "Trip heard the clangs and shouts of the battle before he came close enough to see the light in the chamber ahead. Three figures crouched in the passage, firing rifles into the fray. Was that Leftie, Blazer, and Duck?\n\nAs Trip sprinted to join them, to help in whatever way he could, a gold dragon's tail slammed into the floor right in front of the entrance. The three pilots sprang back, one slipping on the treacherous ice, and falling against the wall.\n\n\"Incoming,\" Trip barked, wanting to warn them he was coming without wasting the time to say a lot.\n\nHe sensed all the enemies ahead, two dragons, as well as more than a dozen humans, including the sorceress Kiadarsa.\n\n\"Trip,\" Leftie blurted, then skittered to the side, eyes widening at the two soulblades glowing in Trip's hands.\n\nNot taking the time to respond, Trip sprang past his teammates and into the chamber. At once, he sensed the dragons were injured, that the portal was above them, and also that other dragons, their auras severely muted, lined the back of the chamber. It took him a second to realize they weren't a threat, not at the moment.\n\nHe spotted Kaika fighting a dragon on the other side of the chamber, leaping to try to reach it as it flew up and down, alternating swiping its talons at her, breathing fire, and evading her slashes.\n\nNot far from Trip, Rysha drove her sword into another dragon, the gold whose tail he'd just seen. More injured than the other, this one fought from the ground, crouching on its haunches. Smoke and the scent of spent gunpowder filled the air.\n\n\"Antyonla masahrati akarli!\" came a cry from the tunnel\u2014Kiadarsa.\n\nTrip did not recognize the words\u2014they sounded like gobbledegook\u2014but Rysha halted in the middle of a swing that would have driven the sword into the dragon's neck. Her chapaharii blade pulsed, and her face twisted with a conflagration of emotions. Frustration? Anger? Loathing?\n\nBefore Trip knew what was happening, Rysha whirled toward him. Her eyes widened with surprise that quickly shifted to horror. She strode toward him, raising the glowing sword high, as if she intended to hew him down.\n\nAbruptly, Trip realized what those words had been, one of the control phrases for the sword. What was the one that told it to stand down?\n\n\"Meyusha!\" he blurted.\n\nKiadarsa cried out again, repeating her words. For some reason, they seemed to carry more power than his, and Rysha kept coming.\n\n\"What are you doing, Ravenwood?\" Blazer yelled from the tunnel as Rysha stomped closer to Trip. \"Stand down!\"\n\nTrip glanced across the chamber to see if Kaika was also heading his way, but she'd dropped her chapaharii blade. It lay on the floor while the dragon flew above it, jerking its head left and right on its long neck, snapping at the air behind it. No, it was snapping at the person on its back. Kaika.\n\nSomehow, she'd climbed up the side of the dragon and on top of it. Crouched on her feet, she didn't look like she wanted to stay. She kept glancing up at the glowing purple portal mounted to the ceiling.\n\nRysha charged Trip, and he yanked his attention back to her.\n\nNot this again, Jaxi groaned into his mind.\n\nBoth soulblades came up in front of Trip, forming an X to block the downward swing of Rysha's sword. Metal screeched, and sparks flew in the air between them. Even though he'd blocked, her amazing strength\u2014strength augmented by the sword\u2014sent painful jolts down his arms.\n\nRysha's face contorted with intense concentration, as if she was trying to fight this, and her lips moved as she kept repeating the term for stand down. But with the sorceress back there yelling the other term, the sword wasn't inclined to listen. It lashed at Trip again, feinting toward his face, then, when he parried, whipping back in low.\n\nTrip was no sword-fighting expert, and he would have been injured\u2014or killed\u2014but the soulblades knew what to do, and they guided his movements. They defended, parrying again and again so rapidly he couldn't track his own movements.\n\nThat instinct that liked to rear its head when Trip engaged in battle crept into his awareness. Blood surged to his muscles, and he wanted to spring, to pummel this enemy that dared attack him. To destroy her, to prove his might as he emerged victorious from battle, a mighty predator.\n\n\"No,\" he snarled, tamping down those urges, relieved the soulblades were in complete control of their movements.\n\nTrip glimpsed Duck creeping out of the tunnel, maybe thinking of jumping in and grabbing Rysha from behind.\n\n\"Don't,\" Trip yelled, envisioning him being hurt\u2014or worse\u2014by accident. Hadn't Blazer said that had happened before to one of their comrades? \"Stay back. Or better yet\u2014\" A slash to his face interrupted him, and Trip had to leap back, his shoulder bumping against a barrier stretching across one of those alcoves. \"Fight the others. Finish off the dragons.\"\n\nAfter uttering the order, Trip concentrated on parrying, on keeping Rysha as far away from him as possible.\n\nStop, Rysha, he cried into her mind, hoping she would hear him, that the words would somehow give her strength. You're strong. You can control that sword. We need you to control it.\n\nSweat beaded on her forehead, and she gritted her teeth. Though she appeared to fight the blade with her mind, that didn't keep it from using her body how it wished. The sword cut for his throat. Trip, his back already to the barrier, had to dive sideways. Rysha turned and chased after him, the blade held aloft.\n\nHe shoved up to his knees, bringing up the soulblades in an X again to parry.\n\nWe can do more, Jaxi said, but we know you don't want to hurt her.\n\nNo, Trip thought, still on his knees as he parried another barrage of blows. Is there no way to knock that sword out of her hands?\n\nWe can try, Azarwrath said grimly, but it is giving her great power right now.\n\nRifles fired out in the chamber. Consumed with defending himself, Trip prayed nobody was aiming at him.\n\nHe tried to throw a blast of power at Rysha's hand, hoping to force her to release the sword. But she didn't even seem to notice.\n\nHe should have known better, that the sword would protect her from all magical attacks. Would it protect everything around her and on her body? An image of trying to drop her trousers or unlace her boots came to mind.\n\nSweat\u2014or were those tears?\u2014ran down her cheeks as Rysha slashed relentlessly, backing him into a corner.\n\nWe may have to strike to wound her, Azarwrath said. The dragons are recovering.\n\nWhat had happened to Kaika? Trip spared a glance toward the dragons, but didn't see her.\n\n\"Rysha, please,\" Trip said. \"Fight it. Tell it there are dragons over there. A far greater prize than a lowly mage.\"\n\nHer eyes remained horrified behind her spectacles, and her movements seemed to slow slightly as she tensed her muscles, fighting the blade's influence.\n\nHer spectacles. Trip's gaze locked onto them. They weren't a part of her. Was it possible he could strike against them? Or one of the soulblades could?\n\nJaxi, he thought, even as he tried to formulate an attack of his own. He glared at the spectacles and, as he blocked another powerful blow, he imagined them snapping apart and falling from her eyes.\n\nThe lenses shattered, and Rysha squawked, stumbling back and flinging a hand to her face. Trip paused, horrified. He hadn't meant to break them in such a way that glass might pierce her eyes. The sword slipped from her loosened grip. Or maybe she let it slip free.\n\nTrip, worried about the sorceress yelling those words again, kicked the sword across the slick floor. A jolt of pain ran up his leg at the contact, but he gritted his teeth and shook it off.\n\nHe spun back toward the battle, but didn't run straight into it. Worried he'd handicapped Rysha, he stepped in front of her. He could fight with magic from the side. Or at least, the soulblades could.\n\nAs he had the thought, Jaxi and Azarwrath sent fireballs and lightning streaking toward a dragon in the air. Yisharnesh. The creature was flying back and forth, snapping at the portal. What the hells?\n\nA shadow moved on top of the portal, just visible through the hole in the center, and Trip understood. Kaika. She crouched atop it. Setting her explosives?\n\nThe dragon had reestablished its barrier, and both fireball and lightning bounced off. The other dragon\u2014the male that had been slumped against the wall, was rising to his feet. Blood pooled on the ice under him, but he looked like he wanted to get back into the fight.\n\nTrip heard Rysha behind him, her breaths coming in labored pants after their battle. His own breaths were ragged, and sweat streamed down the sides of his face. Should he direct her to the sword? He wouldn't be surprised if the magical weapon could use her to attack a dragon even if she couldn't see well.\n\nBut he spotted Kiadarsa across the chamber, standing in the mouth of the tunnel. She was waving to men behind her and pointing at the chapaharii swords. Both Kaika's and Rysha's lay unclaimed on the floor now.\n\n\"Get this dragon off me, Trip,\" Kaika yelled from her lofty perch. \"I'm trying to do something up here.\"\n\nAzarwrath hurled more lightning. Trip focused on the dragon's head, hoping he could recreate the mental attacks he'd effectively employed before and wishing to all the gods he'd had some training so he could do more than hope.\n\nActually, Jaxi said, why don't you see if you can let our allies out? Let them battle the other dragons.\n\nAllies? Trip asked, bewildered.\n\nThat one behind you is Bhrava Saruth.\n\nThough still confused\u2014he'd only glanced at the alcoves and been aware that disabled dragons were in them\u2014he risked glancing away from the fight.\n\nA gold dragon with its head bowed and eyes closed stood in the alcove.\n\nYou're sure that's an ally?\n\nIf you tell him you'll worship him, he'll be even more of one. Try pressing your hand to the wall there. See if it works like the entrance gate did.\n\nI will continue to harry the enemy, Azarwrath announced as more lightning streaked out. This time, his target was the injured male rising to his feet. That dragon didn't have his defenses up.\n\nHe shrieked, glaring at Azarwrath, and Trip sensed an attack before it came. He envisioned a barrier forming around him, and was relieved to feel Jaxi's energy pouring in to strengthen his meager effort.\n\nEven so, he stumbled as ferocious power slammed into the barrier.\n\nPerhaps harrying dragons isn't a good strategy, Jaxi said, even though she'd also been attacking the one after Kaika.\n\nHoping she was right about the imprisoned dragon, Trip lunged to the side so he could plant his palm against a square on the wall. White light flared about his hand. The barrier in front of the alcove disappeared, as did the magic he sensed inside of it, holding its prisoner in stasis.\n\nThe gold dragon's eyes opened, a dark emerald green with reptilian slits.\n\nGreetings, Bhrava Saruth, Jaxi announced with atypical cheer. I've brought you new potential worshippers, but they're in trouble. We need\u2014\n\nYisharnesh, came the dragon's cry. He sprang from the alcove, almost knocking Trip and Rysha over as he flew straight up to the creature hurling fire at the portal\u2014and at Kaika. We shall have that final dance now.\n\nI forgot, Jaxi said as the new dragon lashed out, batting aside the female's defenses and snapping at her with fang and talon. They've met before.\n\nKiadarsa and two soldiers trotted out, trying to sneak along the wall as the dragons warred overhead. They headed straight for Kaika's chapaharii blade.\n\nTrip, reacting on instinct, imagined halting them by creating a barrier between them and the weapon. But Azarwrath, with a growling sound in Trip's mind, did more than that. He hurled red lightning, and it forked into three branches, each slamming into one of the people.\n\nThe men screamed, dropping to the ground and writhing as their clothing\u2014and their skin\u2014grew charred. The sorceress dropped to one knee and did her best to raise her defenses, but Azarwrath was unrelenting. More lightning poured into her barrier. Jaxi joined in, hurling a fireball so large it engulfed her.\n\nTrip would not have killed Kiadarsa, even after what she'd almost forced Rysha to do, but the soulblades were less forgiving. By the time he thought to call them off, her defenses had failed, and she lay on the ground next to the men, their bodies charred and quite dead."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "Rysha's hands shook as she groped for one of the ammo pouches on her utility belt, the one where she kept a spare set of spectacles. Her other lenses were so fractured, she might as well have been looking through blocks of ice. She heard the battle raging all around her, and felt the heat of fire against her face, but the world was an incomprehensible blur, and that terrified her.\n\nFinally, she managed to pry the clasp open, dig out the case, and pull on the spectacles. She dropped her other ones, knowing they were beyond anyone's ability to repair.\n\nThe chamber came into focus, part of it. Someone was standing in front of her, protecting her. Trip.\n\nShe gulped, surprised he would risk standing so close with his back to her after\u2026 Shit, she'd known all the command words, and she'd still lost control. How had that sorceress's utterances proven more powerful than her own? And how had she known the words to start with?\n\n\"You gave them to her, idiot,\" Rysha whispered, realization slamming into her like a dragon's tail. She'd included the words in the box when she'd given it to Jylea.\n\nBut even so, shouldn't the chapaharii blades prioritize the words of their wielders? Why had the sword turned on her like that?\n\n\"Something to research later,\" she whispered, though her failure stung her deeply.\n\nWould Trip hesitate to get close to her in the future if she kept a chapaharii sword around? Would she be expected to carry one after this mission was over?\n\nOf course, maybe it didn't matter to him. He'd figured out an easy way to defeat her.\n\nRysha grimaced, touching her spectacles. Would other enemies think of that in the future? Somehow, it seemed worse that Trip had done it. She understood why he'd done it, and surely it was better than having him cleave her arm off, but it felt like he'd known her weakness and used it against her. A betrayal.\n\nNot a logical feeling, but she couldn't deny it. Maybe it was more that she resented having such a weakness to exploit.\n\nReminding herself the battle wasn't yet over, Rysha peered about to see where she could help\u2014and where her sword had gone. That was when she saw not two but three gold dragons in the chamber. She cursed.\n\nHer first assumption was that the new dragon had shown up to help the others, but it dawned on her that it was battling the others. In between the lightning and fireballs launching from Trip's soulblades, the dragon whirled and wheeled in the air, snapping and tearing at the larger of the two other golds. The female, Yisharnesh? She appeared injured, but she was also larger than the newcomer\u2014another male?\u2014with powerful muscles rippling under her scales.\n\nThe smaller male dragon that had been wounded earlier now hunkered against a wall, wings furled, eyes closed. Maybe that one was already dead?\n\nBlood streamed from the aerial combatants, drenching the icy floor. Some of it splattered on three dead people, their features charred beyond recognition.\n\nThe Cofah? Or\u2014where was Kaika? Rysha's heart lurched. She saw Leftie, Blazer, Dreyak, and Duck, but not Kaika.\n\n\"Trip,\" Major Blazer called from the back tunnel. \"Let Phelistoth out too.\"\n\nTrip looked at Rysha as he turned toward one of the alcoves. The glow of the soulblades bathed his face, and his intense green eyes gleamed with power.\n\nShe jerked her hands up, palms open, afraid for a moment. She remembered them battling, trying to strike each other down. But no, he'd never done more than defend himself. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, not then and not now.\n\nHe strode past her now, shifting the blades so he could plant his hand on the wall.\n\n\"You can get the sword,\" Trip told her, tilting his head toward where Eryndral lay on the floor, abandoned. \"The sorceress is gone. I'll watch your back.\"\n\nRysha nodded and crept toward it. As she did, light flared and went out inside the alcove he stood near. The silver dragon\u2014and the woman who had been trapped with him\u2014stirred.\n\nA squeal of sheer pain thundered in the chamber, reverberating from the walls. The female dragon had been flying up near the portal, but she plummeted to the ground, landed on her side, and did not move.\n\nThe great male dragon soared around the chamber, his head high. I, the god Bhrava Saruth, have avenged the pain and indignity inflicted upon me by Yisharnesh the Conniving.\n\nRysha peered around, expecting attacks from more sides. But the remaining Cofah appeared to have fled the chamber.\n\nThe dragon\u2014Bhrava Saruth\u2014dropped to all fours, his wings stretched wide.\n\nYou did have a little help, Jaxi pointed out, and Rysha twitched, not accustomed to hearing the soulblade speak. We injured her and the other one before you woke up.\n\nYes, I am awake! It is most glorious. Bhrava Saruth spun slowly, flexing his leathery wings like a bird ruffling its feathers. Where is my high priestess? Was she the one to wake me? He lowered his head to human level and gazed at Trip and Rysha, large luminous green eyes radiating power. His entire muscular form did that.\n\nThose eyes had a familiarity to them, despite the reptilian slits in them. The green\u2026\n\nShe glanced at Trip. Was it a common color for dragons? She'd rarely seen humans with eyes as deep and dark a green as Trip's. Her father was the geneticist in the family, but she thought she remembered some studies about how brown was the more dominant eye color among humans. What about with dragon-human pairings? Did the dragon eye color win out and appear for many generations?\n\nOf course, if she'd translated those words correctly, and Trip truly was the offspring of a human-dragon pairing, then there wouldn't have been many \"generations\" involved.\n\nTrip lifted his chin, holding the dragon's powerful gaze. Rysha found it difficult to meet those eyes, and was glad when they shifted toward Blazer, Leftie, Duck, and Dreyak, because she didn't have an answer to the question.\n\nLastly, the dragon's gaze turned upward, toward the portal. Would he object to having it destroyed? What would they do if these dragons didn't want to allow that?\n\nSardelle stayed home with Ridge to protect the city and birth another baby, Jaxi announced. Judging by the way Leftie shared uneasy glances with the others, the rest of the team was hearing the soulblade's words too.\n\nI thought you would all want to know what we were talking about, Jaxi added.\n\nHrummph. Bhrava Saruth ruffled his wings again, then stretched them outward. An intimidating sight, though he did not appear to mean it to be one. It does not seem fitting that my high priestess is not here but her mouthy sword is.\n\nI am delightful, not mouthy. And I was paramount in freeing you.\n\n\"How did she free the dragon?\" Rysha whispered. \"Wasn't Trip the one who touched the wall with his special fingers?\"\n\nTrip grimaced, looking down and rubbing his fingers together.\n\nI told him to touch the wall, Jaxi informed them.\n\n\"How did you end up imprisoned, mighty Bhrava Saruth?\" Rysha asked, aware of the silver dragon watching from his alcove, his wing draped protectively over the woman, Tylie, who was slumped against him, her eyes not yet open. Rysha noticed an old sword scabbard decorated with faded runes hanging from her belt. Some family heirloom? Or another soulblade?\n\nMighty, yes! Bhrava Saruth lifted his head, and Rysha turned her attention back to him. You acknowledge my mightiness? And my godliness? Perhaps you could make a good interim high priestess.\n\nSardelle will lament how easily she's being replaced, Jaxi said.\n\nRysha was too busy feeling alarmed by the statement. That was definitely not a job she wished to pursue. What would the real gods think of such proclamations?\n\n\"I acknowledge your mightiness, yes,\" she said carefully.\n\nAs to how I was imprisoned, that thief Yisharnesh found my secret spot where I had hidden the Akii Shard. Bhrava Saruth tilted his head toward the portal, or perhaps the purple crystal embedded in it. She stole it. I sensed this at once, but I did not immediately realize she was bringing it here to open the portal of old. I wouldn't have guessed that she wanted more dragons in the world to compete with, but I did not realize she had the audacity to see herself as a queen of dragons who wished to invite only those she could command into her fold.\n\nImagining yourself a queen, Jaxi said. It's almost as audacious as imagining yourself a god.\n\n\"Uh, Jaxi,\" Trip said, dropping his hand to the soulblade's hilt, perhaps wishing she had lips that he could cover. \"Maybe we shouldn't deliberately irk an ally.\"\n\nI, the god Bhrava Saruth, and those dragons I could talk into helping, stole the portal from Yisharnesh and brought it here to hide it from her, but we were followed and ambushed. They forced us into these prison cells, and they went back through the portal into their old world, to gather reinforcements, those who would also be loyal to Yisharnesh. Bhrava Saruth looked toward the portal. Did they come through? Do you know?\n\n\"Breyatah's breath, I hope not.\" Blazer rubbed the back of her neck.\n\n\"Captain\u2026 Wasley?\" an uncertain voice asked from the alcove with the silver dragon.\n\nCaptain who?\n\nThe dark-haired woman\u2014Tylie\u2014had stepped out in front of the silver dragon, and she peered toward Blazer, Leftie, and Duck.\n\n\"Tylie,\" Duck said, waving and running toward her. \"I'm glad you're all right. Your brother has been more worried than a rooster that knows there's a fox in the henhouse.\"\n\n\"Is Tolie here? And Sardelle?\"\n\n\"No, they're back at home, but we're here to take you to them.\"\n\nTylie smiled and stepped forward to hug Duck. The silver dragon\u2014Phelistoth\u2014also strode out of the alcove, but he didn't look like he wanted hugs. He gazed around, his eyes frosty, as if he sought the ones who had imprisoned him, so he could promptly slay them.\n\nPhelistoth's gaze settled on Trip with the kind of power that could bring a man to his knees. Rysha was glad it wasn't directed at her, but she worried because the dragon had singled out Trip.\n\nTrip gazed back at Phelistoth, seemingly fearless as he crossed his arms to rest his hands on the hilts of the soulblades hanging from his belt.\n\nWho is this? Phelistoth asked.\n\nTylie looked curiously at Trip, and Bhrava Saruth also swung his gaze down to him.\n\nRysha was impressed that Trip didn't squirm under all that scrutiny, human and dragon. He had changed since she first met him. That was probably a good thing\u2014they needed people who didn't tremble and hide when dragons showed up\u2014but she couldn't help but feel wistful, remembering the awkward young man from the pub. Was that person still in there? She struggled to see it now.\n\nHe smells familiar, Bhrava Saruth announced, and his massive head lowered on his long neck so his eyes could look straight into Trip's. He inhaled, nostrils quivering like those of a hound.\n\n\"Smells?\" Trip stepped back. \"Not like roasted lamb or a pot roast or anything, right?\"\n\nRysha grinned. Ah, there was a bit of his old awkwardness.\n\nLike one of the elder dragons. Agarrenon Shivar, I believe. Once, before the Rider Wars started, he had a voice on the Council of Elders and many listened to him, even though he had the personality of a malignant mushroom. He had great power, and dragons respect power. But I did not think he was still in the world. When I woke, only Phelistoth and Morishtomaric and those who woke with me were here. That we sensed. Has he been in hiding?\n\n\"I really don't know,\" Trip said.\n\nRysha gazed at him and noticed everyone else doing the same. No, not gazing. Gawking. Bhrava Saruth was lending evidence to the theory of Trip as the son of a dragon. A powerful dragon.\n\nYou have never sought out he who gave life to you? Bhrava Saruth asked. Are you not curious to know him? Or perhaps, the human books also speak of his malignant mushroom personality, and you have no interest. This is understandable. Not all dragons have the charisma and will to become gods to humans.\n\nTrip didn't look like he knew what to say.\n\n\"Is that dragon saying Trip is the son of a dragon?\" Leftie whispered.\n\n\"You hadn't figured that out yet?\" Blazer replied. \"When magical dragon doors started opening for him?\"\n\n\"I did. I just didn't really believe\u2014\" Leftie gripped the icy wall for support. \"I don't see how it's possible. Wouldn't he be better at sports if his blood was that magical?\"\n\nTrip smiled faintly. At least Leftie sounded more surprised than hateful.\n\n\"Can either of you strapping dragons give me a lift down?\" Kaika called.\n\nShe sat atop the portal, her legs dangling through the hole.\n\n\"Captain,\" Rysha blurted with enthusiasm, relieved to see her uninjured. And doing her duty. She never should have expected anything else. \"You're alive.\"\n\n\"A little dragon fire can't kill me.\" Kaika brushed ashes off her sleeve. \"A forty-foot drop might. Bhrava Saruth? A little help? I'll bring some chocolate dragon-horn cookies by your temple when we get back.\"\n\nI do appreciate a worshipper who provides appropriate offerings to her god. Bhrava Saruth stopped sniffing Trip and rose to his full height, so his head was directly under Kaika.\n\n\"You got things on a timer?\" Blazer asked her.\n\nKaika nodded. \"We've got thirty minutes to get out of here. I can change that if we need to, but I figured with our helpers here, we could get a ride back out in time.\"\n\nYou seek to destroy the portal? Bhrava Saruth asked, sounding shocked.\n\n\"Well, it's our mission,\" Blazer said, watching him warily. \"Dragons have been killing people and leveling towns all over Iskandia. And the rest of the world, as well.\" She waved toward Dreyak, who hadn't said much, merely watching everything unfold. \"And if more dragons that are friendly to the empire might be coming, as you suggested, that seems like an extra reason to destroy it.\"\n\nFrom what Bhrava Saruth had suggested, Rysha feared those dragons might already be here.\n\nYour mission was not to free your god?\n\nYou are a fool, Bhrava Saruth, Phelistoth said. As if humans would care if you disappeared from the world.\n\nThey would miss me greatly. I am a kind and benevolent god, and I now have three hundred and eighty-seven worshippers that I bless and receive offerings from.\n\nPhelistoth gave him a dark look, and Rysha wondered just how much of an ally to Iskandia he was. He certainly didn't seem to be an ally to Bhrava Saruth.\n\nTylie stepped close to Phelistoth and patted his flank. \"I'm sure they would have rescued you\u2014us\u2014if they had known where we were.\"\n\n\"I reckon that's true,\" Duck said. \"Tolemek was real worried about his sister, and I know the king was upset when you dragons disappeared.\"\n\nYou see? Bhrava Saruth said. Even the human king missed us. We are very valuable dragons. And now, we must free these other dragons. They are also valuable.\n\n\"Uh, hold on.\" Blazer held up a hand. \"We don't know these other dragons.\"\n\nThey were also imprisoned because they helped us steal the portal and wished Yisharnesh's plan to fail. They are good dragons. Even the surly ones. Bhrava Saruth eyed Phelistoth.\n\n\"Twenty-eight minutes, people,\" Kaika said, then dropped to the top of Bhrava Saruth's head. From there, she slid down his neck, to his back and to the floor. The dragon didn't seem to mind. \"How about we save the reunion chat for later and get out of here?\"\n\nBhrava Saruth eyed the portal, or maybe that purple crystal, but turned his attention to the alcoves. As soon as I free our allies.\n\nBlazer fingered her rifle, looking like she wanted to oppose that. But what could she do? What could any of them do?\n\nRysha looked at Trip, wondering if he thought this would be a good idea or a bad one. Not that he could do anything to stop it. Being half dragon could make him one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world, but he still wouldn't be the equivalent of a dragon.\n\nAs Bhrava Saruth walked to the various alcoves, touching a wing to the squares on the wall, Rysha picked up and sheathed the chapaharii blade. Kaika had already picked up hers.\n\nEveryone else fingered weapons as they watched the barriers disappearing from the alcoves. Everyone except Tylie. She smiled and clasped her hands together in front of her mouth, her eyes alight.\n\nRysha hoped she knew something the rest of them didn't.\n\nAre we certain we want them free? Phelistoth asked, a long-suffering aspect to his words. The female was\u2014is\u2014young and goofy.\n\nYou believe every dragon that is not as moody and morose as you are is goofy, Bhrava Saruth replied.\n\nDragons are meant to be stately and majestic, not\u2026\n\nFreedom, a new voice rang out, and a gold dragon hopped out of an alcove, her wings spread. She twirled. Rysha had never seen such a maneuver from a dragon, but it was definitely a twirl. Humans!\n\nShe looked around at all of them. Despite Phelistoth's promise that she was goofy, she was still a dragon and had that powerful aura and a compelling allure in her violet eyes.\n\nI have always wanted to meet humans, she announced.\n\nThese humans freed us, Bhrava Saruth said as he opened more alcoves.\n\nThen they are goodly humans? Like the riders from the stories? Wonderful! The female dragon finished bouncing about and turned toward Rysha.\n\nShe scrambled back a few steps as the creature's large head lowered on its\u2014her\u2014long neck. The deep violet eyes stared into her soul, and her maw opened, fangs gleaming.\n\nThough Rysha had sheathed the sword, the blade hurled the urge to draw it into her mind, to leap forth and slay the dragon.\n\nAre you a goodly human? the female asked. Your sword wishes to slay me.\n\n\"What it wishes is not necessarily what I wish,\" Rysha said, choosing her words carefully. \"I only want to protect my homeland, Iskandia. Dragons\u2014un-goodly dragons\u2014have been raiding it lately, killing our people and destroying our towns. That is why I carry the sword.\"\n\nDon't take it personally, female dragon, Jaxi said. Her sword wants to slay almost everyone. Just minutes ago, it attacked her lover.\n\nRysha's mouth dropped at this unexpected\u2014and inaccurate\u2014defense.\n\n\"Trip isn't my lover,\" she blurted aloud, then wondered if she should have responded in her mind. Had Jaxi's announcement been for everyone, or only for her and the dragon?\n\nBlazer's eyebrows arched. Captain Kaika smirked.\n\nTrip smiled at Rysha, though it seemed tinged with sadness. Regret?\n\nShe hadn't meant to imply that he could never be her lover. Though after she'd lost control of the chapaharii blade, she reluctantly admitted that wasn't something that should happen for a while. Until\u2026 she wasn't sure when. Someone else took the sword. Or she found a more reliable way to control it. Seven gods, what if something happened, and she ended up attacking him while he slept and couldn't defend himself?\n\nNo, for now, her words had been accurate. They couldn't be lovers.\n\nThe young female, Shulina Arya, was born in Dyrashinor, the temporary world, Bhrava Saruth explained. She knows humans only from stories the others told her. He extended a wingtip toward the dragons shambling out of their alcoves, flexing their muscles and spreading their wings.\n\nThe chamber was growing crowded, and Rysha was tempted to ease over to the tunnel where Kaika now stood with the others. Only Trip stood near her still, near the dragons. But he probably had the power to keep himself from being stomped on.\n\nUn-goodly dragons? Shulina Arya responded to Rysha's earlier words, as if she had been considering the idea and found it perplexing.\n\n\"Those who pick on humans and threaten to kill or enslave us,\" Rysha said. \"While it's true that good and evil are in the eye of the beholder, I must consider anyone who threatens my country an enemy. In addition to those who simply enjoy rampaging through my homeland, I must seek to keep out those who align themselves with the Cofah Empire, an empire that has, for more than two thousand years, sought to squash out or forcibly assimilate other weaker nations.\" Rysha hoped she sounded fair in her assessment and that the dragon appreciated such things.\n\nShulina Arya was gazing at her. Raptly? Or was she considering eating Rysha, since she carried that pesky sword?\n\nFeeling nervous, Rysha babbled a bit as she continued on, \"Did you know that Griyon, the first emperor of the Cofah, a man who conquered thousands of square miles in the time of bronze weapons and in an era when horses were the only means of transportation, convinced his people that the elder gods were on his side and that they decreed the Cofah the worthy rulers of the world? But in truth, he was an atheist. It was one of his eighteen wives who gave him the idea of claiming a divine right to rule, something would-be emperors and monarchs have glommed on to over the centuries\u2014almost everyone ruling a nation today claims the gods willed it to be so.\"\n\n\"Ravenwood,\" Blazer said, making a cutting motion across her throat with her hand, then pointing to the portal.\n\nOh, right. Kaika's detonator was counting down.\n\nYou're a storyteller, Shulina Arya blurted, the words thundering in Rysha's mind, powerful and\u2026 excited?\n\n\"A historian,\" Rysha said. \"Historians tell good stories,\" she added, since the dragon seemed to like the idea.\n\n\"Or bore people to sleep,\" Blazer said.\n\nThere are Cofah airships flying away from this place, a new voice cried into their minds. A male one. They are not utterly destroyed. The Cofah must be utterly destroyed.\n\n\"I don't know who that dragon is,\" Kaika said, \"but I like him.\"\n\nFollow me, comrades. A gold dragon flew toward the main tunnel, and two bronzes and a silver flapped after him. We will teach them not to trouble the humans or dragons of Iskandoth.\n\nWe shall also depart, Phelistoth said. I see enough explosives have been planted to destroy this entire mountain.\n\n\"Only half of it.\" Kaika smirked.\n\nTylie climbed onto Phelistoth's back and waved at Duck as the silver dragon flew her into the tunnel.\n\nHuman female, Shulina Arya said. Climb aboard my back. If you keep your evil sword sheathed, I will take you from this place. And you can tell me stories!\n\n\"I would be happy to tell you stories.\" Rysha grinned at the idea of riding a dragon, as if she were a dragon rider in the legends of old.\n\n\"That's an odd dragon,\" Blazer whispered.\n\n\"I like her,\" Duck said. \"She's right friendly. And doesn't seem to think she's a god.\"\n\nNot all dragons can be gods, Bhrava Saruth announced. One must have a divine presence and many worshippers.\n\n\"Leftie said he'd become one of your worshippers, Bhrava Saruth, if you carry us all out of here,\" Duck said.\n\n\"What?\" Leftie blurted.\n\n\"Wait.\" Blazer lifted a hand. \"We need to pick up our fliers. Also, someone is going to have to stay close and make sure the explosives do indeed blow up the portal. And if they don't\u2026\" She pointed at Kaika's chapaharii blade.\n\n\"Let me take a look at it,\" Trip said. \"The soulblades may have some insight into whether the bombs will be sufficient.\"\n\n\"Good luck getting up there,\" Kaika grumbled. \"I had to\u2014\"\n\nTrip rose into the air, as if he were in one of those fancy steam-powered elevators in the newer buildings in the capital. Rysha told herself it wasn't any different from when the soulblades had levitated them to the bottom of the canyon, but she wasn't positive they were responsible this time. Was that their power? Or Trip's?\n\nI don't know how to make myself fly, Trip said softly, speaking into her mind. There was a sadness to his tone again, as if he believed they would all distance themselves from him because everyone now knew about his scaled father\u2014and his potential as a sorcerer.\n\nBut that wasn't why she'd been thinking of distancing herself, or at least not kissing him again for a while. The sword was the problem, not him.\n\nToo bad, she thought, deciding on a joke instead of attempting to explain her concerns, concerns she feared he would attempt to bat away. You would be able to repair fliers while they were in the air.\n\nThat could indeed be handy, he allowed.\n\nTrip floated up through the donut and crouched atop the portal as Kaika had done. He pulled off a glove and laid his hand flat on the crystal.\n\nThe portal flared a brighter purple, highlighting his face and the startled expression on it.\n\n\"It's not telling him it's going to annihilate the world if we destroy it, I hope,\" Blazer said.\n\n\"Trip, don't kick any wires while you're up there,\" Kaika called up. \"I'd prefer it if the explosives didn't go off until after we're out of the mountain.\"\n\nTrip leaped through the hole, dropping forty feet to the ground and landing in an easy crouch.\n\nI did that, Jaxi said into Rysha's mind, sounding smug. Your dragonly future lover is an utter novice when it comes to magic. You should convince him to see Sardelle about some training. His primary interest is flying and shooting things. He takes after Ridge. It does seem like he should be Ridge's son instead of that of some big, scaly dragon that sounds like he has the personality of a dyspeptic warthog.\n\nWe don't get to choose our fathers, Rysha thought back, her own family coming to mind. She loved her father and wouldn't wish to have another, but there were times when she wished he were more like his mother had been when it came to outlooks and beliefs.\n\n\"I believe the portal can be destroyed with the explosives,\" Trip said, facing Blazer, \"if it's first drained of its power. If it's turned off, essentially.\"\n\nRysha looked around at the dragons, wondering if they would object further to the destruction of this doorway into another world. Bhrava Saruth had been surprised at the announcement, but he hadn't brought it up again. Because he'd been distracted? What about the other dragons? If some of their allies remained on the other side, they might fight the destruction of the portal. Or had all the dragons that wanted to come through already done so?\n\nBut she couldn't read expressions on those reptilian faces, and if they were speaking telepathically among themselves, she would never know it.\n\n\"Also,\" Trip said, \"when I touched the portal, it showed me in sort of an accelerated-time vision all the dragons that have come through it since it was powered up this time.\" His eyes were grim, somber.\n\n\"And it's a lot?\" Blazer asked.\n\n\"I can't tell whether they were loyal to the Cofah and Yisharnesh or not, but four to five hundred easily.\"\n\n\"That's more than the few dozen Sardelle thought.\" Blazer sighed.\n\n\"But we have some allies against them now, right?\" Duck gestured to Bhrava Saruth who was facing six other dragons, the ones who hadn't left to go after the airships. Were they all having a telepathic conference?\n\n\"A dozen at most,\" Blazer said. \"If we count the ones that flew out already. And if we assume all of those are interested in helping Iskandia. I won't object to any allies, but I'm concerned about how many that leaves that aren't interested in helping us.\"\n\n\"Who may be interested in eating us,\" Kaika said.\n\nHumans do not taste good. Bhrava Saruth's neck twisted, so he could look at them. Not like sheep. Sheep are delicious. He drew out that last word with loving care.\n\n\"Better than tarts?\" Duck asked.\n\nNo, tarts are also delicious. Many foods are delicious. Except humans. And muskrat. Muskrat is awful. It tastes like spoiled beef.\n\nWhat's a tart? Shulina Arya asked.\n\nI will show you. Humans make wonderful sweets. I do not know why other dragons want to destroy humans. Who would be left to make pastries?\n\n\"We need to power down the portal and get out of here,\" Trip said, pointing up.\n\nI can ensure the portal is not used again by Cofah dragons. Bhrava Saruth gazed up at it, and the purple crystal floated out of the socket it had been placed in. The portal grew dark. The crystal itself still glowed, and it floated down to his side, then disappeared from sight.\n\nHad he destroyed it? Or was he magically hiding it somehow?\n\nRysha noticed Bhrava Saruth hadn't said he would ensure the portal was destroyed. Just that it wouldn't be used by Cofah dragons again. Did that mean he didn't think the explosives would do anything? That the portal would remain intact and only inaccessible as long as the crystal wasn't inside that keyhole?\n\nOr was Rysha reading too much into his words?\n\n\"Is that all we had to do to make it so no more dragons could come through?\" Blazer asked, glancing at Kaika. \"Could Trip have done that?\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but wouldn't you feel better knowing it was also blown into a thousand pieces?\"\n\nRysha would feel better if Trip had removed the crystal and now had control of it. Bhrava Saruth seemed goofy, but it was entirely possible that was an act, or that he was goofy and intelligent.\n\n\"Assuming there's no way to trick all those dragons into leaving again, I guess that's the next best option.\"\n\nOur kind would not go through again under any circumstances, a male voice said. The other world was inhospitable to dragons. All this time, we have longed to come home.\n\nBlazer grimaced. \"Bombs it is, then.\"\n\nCome, my worshippers and future worshippers. Bhrava Saruth crouched low, spreading his wings to offer access to his back. Let us give you a ride over the lake of lava and out to finish off the Cofah before all the fun is done.\n\nThe rest of the dragons seemed more reserved, none of them offering rides as Blazer and the others headed toward him. Except for Shulina Arya.\n\nHer head swung toward Rysha again. You will ride with me, storyteller, yes?\n\n\"Yes.\" It seemed impolite, and possibly bad for one's health, to refuse a ride from a dragon. \"And so will Trip.\"\n\nHe'd started walking toward Bhrava Saruth, but he paused as Rysha extended a hand toward him.\n\nExcellent. I see that his swords do not wish to kill me.\n\n\"No, but Jaxi may insult you.\"\n\nI only insult delusional dragons, Jaxi informed them.\n\nRysha climbed onto the female dragon, and Trip followed her up. It wasn't quite like mounting a horse. He found a position behind her and, as the dragon sprang into the air, he brought his hands to her waist, either to keep her from falling off, or to keep himself from falling off.\n\nThe chapaharii blade sent a rumble of discontent into Rysha's mind, and she sensed it wasn't happy about her riding a dragon or being touched by Trip. She hoped she could figure out what the sorceress had done to give her command words more power than Rysha's because she didn't want to be a threat to any of their new dragon allies. Even more, she didn't want to be a threat to Trip.\n\nShe closed her eyes and thought of their kiss on the airship, his warm presence contrasting with the chill air. She wanted to kiss him again, to invite him to be a part of her life.\n\nOne way or another, Rysha vowed to find a way to completely and reliably control the swords. Because that was the only way her allies would be able to trust her. And because she liked the feel of Trip's hands on her waist, damn it."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "The smoking wreckage of the two Cofah airships grew visible as the dragons soared through a soft snow, following the canyon northward. Trip still rode behind Rysha on the female, Shulina Arya, while Blazer, Duck, Leftie, Kaika, and Dreyak all sat astride Bhrava Saruth's back.\n\nEven as large as the golds were, it seemed the team's combined weight would be far too much for one dragon. But perhaps magic played more of a role than physics. Trip hadn't missed Bhrava Saruth making that purple crystal disappear and that he'd abruptly stopped sensing its magical aura. He didn't believe the dragon had destroyed it or left it behind, and even though the entire side of the mountain had crumbled as the muffled booms of Kaika's explosives sounded, Trip wondered if the portal had truly been demolished. Or was it buried intact under the rubble? He couldn't sense it, but that had been true since the portal had been turned \"off.\"\n\nHe hoped, as long as Yisharnesh was dead and Bhrava Saruth had the crystal, the portal wouldn't be used against Iskandia, but he wished his team had dealt with it before freeing the dragons. With them looking on, Trip couldn't be certain he and the others had made the right choice. Maybe they should have hacked at the portal with the chapaharii blades before collapsing the mountain. Would Bhrava Saruth and the other dragons have allowed that?\n\n\"Is anyone left alive down there?\" Rysha asked, the wind almost stealing her words.\n\nTrip thought he knew the answer, but he swept out with his senses, something that was growing more natural for him. He didn't detect anyone left alive among the smoldering wreckage of the airships. The vessels had crashed near the edge of the canyon, and though he deemed it unlikely, he also checked for life at the bottom. But nothing lived down there.\n\nHe sensed more dragons flying over the surrounding fields of ice, and he jerked in alarm. Then he recognized them as the ones that had been freed and raced out to deal with the Cofah. Were they looking for more enemies to destroy? Trip shuddered at the devastation below.\n\nBlazer waved toward Trip and Rysha from atop Bhrava Saruth's back, a lit cigar once again clenched between her teeth, and she pointed toward the wreckage. Trip missed their fliers with the embedded communication crystals, and thought about attempting to speak telepathically into Blazer's mind, but he doubted she would appreciate that. Besides, he could guess what she wanted.\n\nYour teammates wish to retrieve the chapaharii sword, Azarwrath verified, then go back to your flying machines. They're not finding the experience of riding a dragon as glee-inspiring as your female is.\n\nMy female? Rysha? Trip would have told the soulblade that Rysha was hardly his, but Azarwrath spoke again first.\n\nIndeed. She is grinning every time Shulina Arya banks or swoops about. And they are speaking with each other.\n\nTelepathically?\n\nYes, the dragon is asking why these humans were slain. She wants stories that explain the differences between the Cofah and your Iskandians.\n\nYou could likely eavesdrop if you concentrated on it, Jaxi put in.\n\nDidn't you say that spying on people's thoughts was frowned upon?\n\nIn my era, yes, but times have changed. There's nobody left enforcing the Referatu rules.\n\nTrip shook his head. Though he felt a little left out because the dragon wasn't including him in the conversation, he wasn't tempted to intrude on their private words. The thought that he might be able to made him uneasy.\n\nRemembering Rysha's question, Trip rested his hand on her shoulder. \"There aren't any survivors down there, but we need to go down and retrieve your sword.\"\n\nRysha stiffened. Because of his words, or because of his touch? Worried it was the latter, he withdrew his hand. She still wore one of the chapaharii swords at her waist.\n\nRysha nodded, but didn't otherwise respond. Trip chose to believe the carnage below was what had upset her, the lack of survivors. Either way, he sensed her pleasure from riding a dragon disappearing.\n\nMaybe she didn't want to retrieve Dorfindral, and that was what bothered her. The squadron, or at least Blazer, seemed determined that she wield one of the chapaharii blades, whether she wanted to or not.\n\nTrip supposed it was selfish, but he hoped someone else would be given that task once they returned to the capital. He didn't have to ask Rysha to know she was upset that she'd allowed the sword to guide her into attacking him. Forced her to attack him.\n\nBhrava Saruth and Shulina Arya landed in the snow next to the wreckage. There wasn't any wind, and the smoke hung low over the field of ice. Strange how it smelled of nothing more than a campfire or someone's wood stove burning on a chill day. Smoke from a fire that resulted in death and destruction should have a gloomier scent.\n\n\"Can you lead me to it?\" Rysha asked Trip after they slid off the dragon's back.\n\nBlazer dismounted and headed over, but there was no need to wait for her orders, no question as to what she wanted.\n\nThe chapaharii swords did not emit auras of power the way the soulblades did\u2014indeed, they seemed designed to be difficult to find by those with magic\u2014but Trip found that he'd been around Dorfindral long enough that he could find its faint signature among the wreckage.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I'll show you the way.\"\n\nRysha jogged over and gave Blazer the chapaharii blade she'd carried during the battle, Eryndral. Then she followed Trip up the smashed hull of the airship, over the remains of the charred railing, and across the hole-riddled deck.\n\nThe smoke scent grew stronger, the haze thicker in the air. Here and there, flames still crackled. The envelope had burned away, with the skeletal remains of its framework toppled to one side, like a felled tree.\n\nTrip spotted the first body, charred and mutilated but not unrecognizable. He almost wished it had been. It was one of the Cofah researchers, a man that he and Azarwrath had healed.\n\nEven though the Cofah team had been withholding information and working at cross purposes to them, seeing people dead that he'd been speaking with the day before made Trip feel sick. He wished he'd tried to keep the dragons from going out to raze the airships, but how could he have? They would never have listened to him. Besides, he'd made his choice the day before, when he'd agreed to leave the Cofah airship to be bait so his team could sneak into the dragon compound. It seemed hypocritical of him to be upset now.\n\n\"There's Jylea,\" Rysha said, her voice numb as she pointed to a charred body dusted with snowflakes. Dorfindral's hilt was still in Jylea's hand, though her fingers had unfurled in death. The blade appeared undamaged by the dragon fire that had half-consumed the woman. It glowed a faint green, no doubt noticing Trip's presence, and that of the nearby dragons. \"What's left of her,\" Rysha added softly.\n\nTrip barely heard the words. He turned and, through the falling snow, glimpsed tears in her eyes. The flakes sticking to the lenses of her spectacles didn't quite hide the moisture behind them.\n\nHe thought about pointing out that Jylea had made her choice and had wanted to work with a megalomaniacal dragon, one that would have happily enslaved Iskandia. Or worse. But he doubted that would make Rysha feel better. Instead, he waited for her to catch up to him, and rested an arm around her shoulders, something he might not have done if she'd still carried the other blade.\n\nThis time, she didn't stiffen at his touch. She leaned into him, her chin dropping to her chest.\n\n\"I know they are\u2014they were\u2014Iskandian enemies,\" she said, \"and I also know that, in giving Jylea the control words for the sword, I set up that whole stupid encounter in the chamber.\"\n\nTrip hadn't caught that, that Rysha had shared the words when she'd handed over the sword. Jylea must have then shared them with Kiadarsa. He grimaced, realizing Rysha had to feel their battle had been her fault.\n\n\"But it's hard to see them like this,\" she went on. \"Dead, their bodies freezing. They'll soon be buried by the snow. Forgotten. Will their people, their relatives, even know what happened to them?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Trip said quietly, wishing he had something more helpful to say.\n\n\"Maybe this was a mistake,\" Rysha said, looking past the broken railing and into the falling snow. \"Me becoming a soldier. I thought I could handle anything, but I didn't know I'd care this much. That the killing would be this hard. When I was ten, one of our shepherd dogs caught a squirrel I'd been feeding all winter. Killed it before I could get there to free it. I cried for weeks. Maybe that should have been a sign that I don't have the heart for killing and death.\"\n\nTrip pulled her closer, turning the arm around her shoulders into a hug. \"You're doing fine, Rysha. It's all right to care. I'm sure it's better for the unit if someone does care. And question. Otherwise you get\u2026\" He thought of his own instincts, the savagery\u2014the glee\u2014he sometimes felt in battle when he was flying, holding down the triggers of his machine guns as he tore into pirate ships. And pirates. People. Did he have his heritage to thank for that? Were those the instincts of a predator arising within him?\n\nHe patted her back. \"It's just important that people care, at least some of them. That goes for soldiers too.\"\n\nShe dropped her forehead against his shoulder and let him hold her. He knew this wasn't the time, but he found himself wondering if she'd meant what she'd said before the battle, that they could spend a weekend together at a cottage on her family's property. He would love to escape all this, at least for a couple of days, and just be a man enjoying time with a woman who freely spoke of her passions and liked the things he built.\n\n\"Is the sword up there?\" Blazer yelled from the ground.\n\nShe shouldn't have been able to see them from down there, but Rysha stepped away from Trip. \"Yes, we're almost there, ma'am.\"\n\nShe removed her spectacles and seemed to pull herself together as she took a few seconds to wipe them off. \"Thank you, Trip.\"\n\n\"For what?\"\n\n\"Support.\"\n\n\"You're welcome.\" He thought about retrieving the sword for her, so she wouldn't have to go closer to Jylea's body, but Dorfindral wouldn't allow it. \"When we get back\u2026\" He paused, not wanting to mention the cottage or the weekend, since that implied more than she may have meant to offer, especially given that they'd only kissed a couple of times thus far. \"Will you have dinner with me and go for a sunset walk along the harbor?\"\n\n\"I\u2026\" Rysha stared down at her spectacles, still wiping them, though the lenses were clean. She didn't look at his eyes. \"I would like that, but I don't feel I can be with you as long as I'm a wielder for one of these swords. At least not until I figure out how to ensure that I and only I can control the one in my hands.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Trip bit his lip to keep protests from flowing off his tongue. He wanted to tell her that he was willing to risk being around her, that he'd been able to keep her from hurting him even when she had lost control, but he realized she wouldn't appreciate being reminded that he had ways to come out on top if they fought. And he wasn't entirely sure that this was about the sword and not about him. About what he had the potential to become. She'd said she didn't mind that he was odd, but he was more than odd now, wasn't he?\n\nTears pricked his own eyes, and when he blinked, they froze in his lashes. He wished he could go back to just being Trip. Captain Trip, Wolf Squadron pilot. Nothing more.\n\nRysha put her spectacles back on and pushed them up on her nose, an achingly familiar gesture. She walked toward Jylea and knelt, pulling the sword from the dead woman's hand.\n\nIt flared an even brighter green as Rysha turned back toward Trip. Her eyes reflected that green, and her face seemed to grow harder, more determined. Because she was fighting it, ensuring it wouldn't convince her to attack him?\n\nTrip turned his back, not wanting to see the battle in her eyes. And not wanting to think about how they wouldn't get that walk along the harbor, not as long as she carried one of those swords.\n\nHe wished he could ensure that someone else would be given the wielder job when they got back, but he feared that wouldn't happen. Unless this mission changed her mind about her career, she would resume her training in the elite troops, and that combined with her expertise on dragons would probably stamp her as an ideal candidate to carry a chapaharii weapon.\n\nThe only way he could see that changing was if the situation with the dragons changed. If they somehow became less of a threat to Iskandia.\n\nBut how? As the portal had shown him, hundreds of dragons had come into the world. A few\u2014maybe a dozen\u2014seemed willing to ally themselves with Iskandia, but there were so many others to worry about.\n\nUnless someone could make a deal with the dragons to ensure they left the nation alone, Iskandia would have to worry about them for years to come. Maybe forever.\n\nBut who could make such a deal? The king? Him? Hardly. What could either of them possibly offer a dragon, anyway?\n\nThis thousands-of-years-old elder dragon that Bhrava Saruth had spoken of\u2026 he might be able to sway others. Agarrenon Shivar.\n\nTrip blinked a few times, considering the thought from different angles. Was it possible that Agarrenon Shivar could be convinced to help? Assuming he was alive somewhere?\n\n\"I found the box,\" Rysha said from behind him.\n\nTrip jumped. He'd been so focused on his thoughts that he'd lost track of her.\n\nShe stepped up beside him, Dorfindral in its box, its glow hidden away for now. \"Are you ready to go? Shulina Arya said she would take us back to the fliers.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Trip said, \"but let me ask you something first. Do you think, if you did some research, you might be able to find where Agarrenon Shivar is located? Or was located approximately twenty-five years ago? If he's still alive, maybe\u2026\"\n\n\"You want to find the dragon that fathered you?\"\n\nTrip nodded.\n\n\"I don't think\u2014I mean, did you know that male dragons shape-shifted into all manner of animals to have sex and explore pleasure in various incarnations? Horses, lions, apes, even sea creatures such as whales. It's believed that unicorns, winged tigers, flash apes, giant octopi, and other creatures that are nearly extinct now first came into existence as a result of dragons mating with normal animals. The dragons weren't known to have any feelings toward these half-magical offspring. I think that if you went looking for your father, you would be disappointed, even if you found him.\"\n\n\"It's good to know not to get my expectations up, I guess.\" Trip managed a lopsided smile. \"But I mostly thought that if we found him, we might be able to make a deal with him and get his help in defending Iskandia. From what Bhrava Saruth said, he was respected among all dragons. Maybe\u2026\" He decided not to mention that he hoped to create a world where she didn't need to carry that sword around. It sounded selfish. Besides, he wanted to protect his homeland, not just his love life. That was what he'd sworn to do the day he'd accepted his commission as an officer.\n\nTrip shrugged and finished with, \"Maybe it would make a difference.\"\n\n\"I can't make any promises,\" Rysha said, \"but I would definitely be happy to do the research.\"\n\n\"Good. Thank you.\"\n\nThey walked back to join the others. With that sword box tucked under Rysha's arm, Trip didn't try to touch her again. And when it was time for the dragons to take them back to the fliers, he rode on Bhrava Saruth's back instead of on Shulina Arya's with her."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "Trip followed Blazer, Kaika, Rysha, Duck, Leftie, and Dreyak through the courtyard of the citadel toward the double doors and stairs that led to General Zirkander's office. The team had arrived late the night before after a long flight from the Antarctic. Their new allies had accompanied them for a portion of the journey before declaring the \"human flying contraptions\" tediously slow and disappearing over the horizon. Trip hoped they had headed to Iskandia and would be around to help in future battles. At least the capital hadn't been attacked again while his team had been away. The gold dragon that had promised to return in three days had either been bluffing at the time, or the presence of Kasandral had kept him away.\n\nThe soldiers standing guard at the entrance to the citadel did not stop Blazer's group or even quirk questioning eyebrows in their direction. Trip suspected reports had already been delivered and the general had received the details of the mission, if not by paper, then by soulblade. Maybe it was self-centered, but he worried that some of those details included the new revelations about him, that he was\u2026 what he apparently was.\n\nHis mouth twisted. Leftie hadn't spoken to him all the way back. He hadn't said anything mean, but he no longer seemed comfortable including Trip in his banter. As if he were some stranger rather than a friend of the last six years.\n\nKaika had mentioned him in her banter, including speculations about whether people who were half dragon were better endowed than typical humans, but since the jokes had been reminders of his otherness, he hadn't been enthused by them. Blazer and Duck didn't seem to know how to treat him, either. Maybe he was being overly sensitive, but he no longer felt a part of the one organization where he'd previously belonged, and he worried that he wouldn't be wanted in Wolf Squadron. As Jaxi had said, it would be logical for them to take him\u2014to want him\u2014for his burgeoning abilities, but humans weren't particularly logical creatures.\n\nRysha brushed his hand as they navigated the stairs inside and smiled at him. He managed a return smile for her, though she, too, had been more distant since she'd told him they couldn't be together until she figured out how to completely control the sword.\n\nHopefully, that would happen with time, or they would find Agarrenon Shivar, and the dragon would help them find a way to keep winged enemies from Iskandia's doorstep. For now, Trip would try to avoid doing something stupid that would drive Rysha away.\n\nLike moping and worrying about things that haven't come to pass? Jaxi asked. And that may not come to pass?\n\nI don't know. Is that the kind of thing that scares women away?\n\nMost definitely. Nobody likes a broody dragonling.\n\nThat's not very funny.\n\nAre you sure? Azzy is giggling.\n\nI most certainly am not. I was busy looking up dragonling in the Iskandian dictionary to see if it's a word. It is not.\n\nJaxi made a phhhht noise in their minds.\n\nRysha's step slowed when they reached the top of the stairs, and Trip looked up, wondering at the reason. Four men in uniforms that Trip didn't recognize stood, two on each side of Zirkander's closed door. Long knives, pistols, and ammo pouches hung from their belts, and they clasped rifles in their hands.\n\n\"What is that uniform?\" Trip whispered to Rysha.\n\nKaika, Blazer, Duck, and Dreyak didn't seem fazed, but Leftie glanced back, perhaps having the same question for Rysha.\n\n\"The king's personal guard,\" she said.\n\n\"Does that mean the king is in there?\"\n\n\"Most likely.\"\n\nTrip's first thought was that they would have to wait for Angulus to finish his appointment with Zirkander\u2014or would it be Zirkander who had an appointment with the king? But when Kaika gave the guards a sultry, \"Hello, boys,\" and knocked on the door, he realized the king might be there because of them. Or because of\u2026 him? No, surely not. Angulus would want the details of the portal mission, maybe a count of all the dragons that had passed into the world.\n\nTrip didn't have an exact number. Would the king expect an exact number? Would he assume Trip could provide it? Because of his dragonness?\n\nThat is also not a word, Azarwrath informed him.\n\nI hope you'll forgive me for going back to Sardelle, Jaxi said, and leaving you with this staid, vocabulary-obsessed log, Trip. You'll have to introduce him to Wreltad. They'll be perfect for each other.\n\nThe door opened, and the king's men moved nothing but their eyes as the group passed inside.\n\nTrip tried to tell himself there was no reason to feel worried by the guards\u2014any guards. Now that he knew how to erect barriers around himself, he needn't fear men with rifles. Men with the power to make or break his career, that was another matter.\n\nHe swallowed, stepping to the side of the door as soon as he passed over the threshold. He'd intended to duck into a corner, but another of those guards stood there, so he didn't have easy access. He glanced at the couch, but that was taken too. Sardelle sat on it, not yet having delivered her baby, but looking like she would do so soon. No doubt, she'd been waiting until Jaxi arrived home and could be there for it.\n\nBabies don't work that way, Jaxi said, but I am pleased to be back in time.\n\nGeneral Zirkander stood in a similar position as the last time Trip had been here, next to the desk instead of sitting at it, one thigh propped over the corner.\n\nIt took Trip a few seconds\u2014and several people saluting and saying, \"Good morning, Sire\"\u2014before he spotted the king near the window.\n\nAngulus was a tall, stocky man with broad features and short salt-and-pepper hair that wanted to curl. He looked far more normal than Trip would have expected. Like an ordinary person. Trip had never been to any of Angulus's speeches, since those were typically in the capital, but the man usually had a crown and a fur-trimmed cloak of office in the newspaper articles. Today, he wore well-tailored but unremarkable dark trousers and a cream-colored shirt with the sleeves rolled up. If not for the photographs and portraits around the country\u2014and the guards\u2014Trip wouldn't have guessed who he was.\n\nRealizing he was staring, he hurried to add his salute to those of the others, relieved that was the appropriate greeting for a soldier in uniform. He had no idea how one was supposed to greet one's monarch, otherwise. Bows? Genuflections?\n\nAngulus gazed over at him for a long moment, and Trip wondered what he'd been told.\n\nBut it was Zirkander who started the debriefing. \"You blew up the portal, Captain Kaika?\"\n\n\"It was a group effort, sir, but we destroyed it. Most of it. We didn't need the fancy dragon-slaying swords, after all. My mundane explosives worked juuuust fine. We did have to remove what appeared to be its power source first. A rather familiar pointy purple crystal that had been stuck into a slot in the portal.\"\n\nZirkander arched his eyebrows. \"The crystal from the Magroth mines?\"\n\n\"The one that Bhrava Saruth claimed?\" Sardelle asked.\n\nKaika nodded to both of them. \"He said Yisharnesh found his hiding spot, stole it, and was the one to stick it into the crystal-sized keyhole in the portal. That allowed her to open it and invite more allies to come through.\"\n\n\"I always believed that crystal was more than a 'repository of knowledge,'\" Sardelle murmured.\n\n\"Our dragonly allies stole the portal and hid it, sir,\" Blazer said, her cigar missing today. \"Temporarily. They were discovered and were imprisoned for doing so. I imagine they beat us here and gave you the story.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Zirkander exchanged looks with Sardelle, their mouths twisting wryly.\n\n\"Any idea on the number of dragons that came through?\" Angulus asked. \"And how many were truly Yisharnesh's allies\u2014and therefore may still be Cofah allies\u2014and how many are simply here to wreak havoc?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't think they came to wreak havoc, Sire,\" Rysha said. \"They may enjoy that, but they are intelligent, and they do consider this their homeland, however long they were gone. It's a desirable world to them.\"\n\n\"A desirable place for havoc wreaking?\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps to some, Sire.\"\n\nRysha didn't appear intimidated by speaking to the king, and Trip wondered if she'd met him before. Maybe those in noble families got invited to fancy dinners and balls at the king's court. He had no idea if that was done in the modern day, but had heard numerous fairy tales that suggested such things had been common once.\n\n\"As to the numbers, Trip was the one to touch the portal and receive\u2026\" Rysha looked at him. \"A vision?\"\n\nTrip tried not to squirm as Angulus's gaze swung toward him. He was certain the king would think him crazy if he spoke of visions.\n\n\"I saw something, Sire. It seemed to be a glimpse of dragons coming out of the portal in a compressed time frame. I'd guess there were four to five hundred of them.\"\n\n\"Hundred?\" Angulus mouthed.\n\n\"It's possible the portal, uhm, lied to me\u2014\"\n\n\"I do hate it when magical portals aren't honest,\" Zirkander said.\n\nAngulus glared at him.\n\n\"But,\" Trip said, deciding to ignore the exchange, \"a lot of doors opened for me in there, so I think it makes sense that the portal would have worked for me too.\"\n\nMost of his team members looked at him. Even though they'd been there, they couldn't quite hide that they all thought this was odd. Even Rysha seemed daunted by the reminder of what he was.\n\nHe sighed, not wanting to be odd. Just wanting to fly. And to take her for a walk along the harbor at sunset. He gave her a sad smile.\n\nShe recovered, masking the concern he'd caught in her eyes, and smiled back.\n\n\"We'll assume that what you saw is accurate,\" Angulus said, not commenting on Trip's ability to interact with the dragon compound. Neither he, Sardelle, nor Zirkander appeared surprised by it, so Trip was positive reports had preceded him.\n\nWhen one discovers a direct descendant of a dragon, one must tell everybody one knows, Jaxi said.\n\nI understand. Trip frowned. Er, how many people do you know?\n\nHe imagined word getting across the continent to his grandparents before he'd had a chance to tell them personally.\n\nNot that many that I can speak with\u2014not everybody appreciates having the delightful personality of a sentient sword in their minds.\n\nHuh, that's odd.\n\nExtremely so.\n\n\"I must attempt to get the so-called friendly dragons, the ones that may be willing to work with Iskandians, to come to a meeting.\" Angulus turned toward Sardelle. \"Can you ask Bhrava Saruth to humbly request that they come to the castle soon?\"\n\n\"I can ask Bhrava Saruth,\" Sardelle said, \"though I haven't observed that he understands what humbleness is or is overly loved by his fellow dragons.\"\n\n\"Do they not bow to his godliness?\" Kaika smirked.\n\n\"It's possible another among them is more of a leader. I'll do my best to find out, Sire.\"\n\n\"There were about twelve of them?\" Angulus looked at Trip again.\n\n\"Yes, Sire.\"\n\n\"Four of them went out to attack the Cofah airships without being asked,\" Blazer said. \"It's possible they may be eager to work with Iskandians.\"\n\n\"What were the other ones doing?\"\n\n\"Watching Bhrava Saruth sniff Trip like a hound, Sire.\"\n\nTrip resisted the urge to drop his face into his hand. Barely.\n\n\"I'm sure that was riveting,\" Zirkander said.\n\n\"A dozen dragons,\" Angulus said, not quirking a smile at the humor, \"seems so few in comparison to the hundreds that were mentioned, but it is more than we have now. I will do my best to secure a commitment of assistance from them.\"\n\n\"I'm certain that not all of those hundreds of dragons are aligned with the Cofah, Sire. The future is daunting\u2014\" Sardelle rested a hand on her stomach, \"\u2014but I do think it's unlikely we'll be swarmed. And we may have a little time to shore up our defenses since Yisharnesh is dead. It may be a while before another Cofah-loyal leader will arise among the dragons. Also, Tolemek has requested that I bribe Bhrava Saruth for samples of his blood so he can use it to make more weapons that are capable of harming dragons, as he did the last time we had vials of dragon blood.\"\n\n\"What bribes work on dragons, ma'am?\" Rysha asked. \"When they have the power to get whatever they want?\"\n\nSardelle smiled faintly. \"Fern, Ridge's mother, is helping me perfect a mango tart recipe.\"\n\n\"Apparently, they're best when they're still warm out of the oven,\" Zirkander said.\n\n\"We did also manage to bring back a few vials of blood from a dead dragon,\" Blazer said. \"I'm not sure if they were properly prepared, or how that's done exactly, but it's only been a few days since we acquired it. Maybe it's still viable and Tolemek can make use of it, no bribes required.\"\n\n\"Good, get them to him immediately.\" Angulus gazed out the window and toward the harbor for several long seconds before turning back to the room. \"Keep me apprised on everything dragon-related. I'll do my best to shore up our defenses, as Sardelle suggested, but we definitely need weapons that can strike at our enemies. There may be more missions to retrieve chapaharii swords, if they can be located.\" He nodded at Rysha, as if to suggest she would be responsible for that. \"I'll let our military leaders decide whether the ones we have should be reallocated or not. Thank you all for retrieving them and disabling the portal.\"\n\nTrip joined the others in nodding and murmuring, \"You're welcome, Sire.\"\n\nAngulus and his guards left the office, and Trip was relieved he hadn't been singled out for anything else, though he was surprised nobody had asked about his father. He had been wondering about how to find him all the way back, and if he could possibly be the answer to their problems.\n\nZirkander dismissed the team, and they headed for the door. Trip started after them, but the general spoke again.\n\n\"Trip?\" Zirkander waved him back into the room. Maybe Trip's heritage would be brought up, after all. \"You forgetting something?\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"I know soulblades are trendy, but you really don't need two.\" He extended a hand toward Sardelle.\n\n\"Oh,\" Trip blurted, feeling like an idiot as he unbuckled the scabbard. He would have remembered before leaving the citadel, he was sure.\n\nIf not, I would have reminded you, Jaxi said.\n\nI'm sure of that.\n\n\"Sorry, ma'am,\" Trip said, handing the scabbard to Sardelle. \"She was useful on the trip.\"\n\n\"Because of her sage advice or because she lit a lot of enemies on fire?\"\n\nZirkander grinned. \"Do you truly need to ask that question?\"\n\n\"No,\" Sardelle said. \"I was curious how diplomatic our young captain is.\"\n\n\"Pilots aren't generally known for their diplomacy,\" Zirkander said.\n\n\"Some pilots aren't.\" She gazed blandly at him.\n\n\"And yet they get promoted anyway. Exceedingly odd.\" Zirkander waved, as if to leave Trip to Sardelle, and plopped down in his desk chair, opening a folder.\n\nTrip looked back and forth between them, not sure what he was supposed to do. He hadn't been dismissed.\n\nSardelle smiled at him and gestured at his remaining scabbard. \"Azarwrath, is it?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Jaxi and Wreltad are the only soulblades I'm aware of left in Iskandia that haven't gone dormant. Technically, Wreltad isn't even an Iskandian blade. It's a good thing he likes playing cards with Ridge and our house guests.\"\n\nShe smiled at Zirkander while Trip tried to decipher what the comment meant. He'd briefly been introduced to Wreltad on the flight back and knew Tylie to be the soulblade's handler. He didn't think a soulblade could be linked to two people or to a mundane\u2014\n\nThey're just friends, genius. Don't hurt your brain thinking so hard. It seemed Jaxi, despite being back in Sardelle's hands, would continue to share advice with him.\n\nIt would be unfair of me to leave you bereft of my wisdom.\n\n\"I haven't heard of that many soulblades left in Cofahre, either,\" Sardelle said. \"I would appreciate it if you would come by the house for dinner, Trip, so we can all chat.\"\n\n\"We? Uhm, you and\u2026 the swords?\"\n\n\"You're welcome to speak too,\" she said dryly.\n\n\"At your house?\" Trip didn't know what he found more intimidating, the idea of going to the house of a sorceress he barely knew or the idea of going to General Zirkander's house. For dinner. \"Er.\"\n\n\"Life tip, Trip,\" Zirkander said, not looking up from the file he perused. \"If a woman shows interest in your sword, you should always chat with her.\"\n\nSardelle's eyebrows rose. \"Really, Ridge. It should depend on the woman.\"\n\n\"Oh? Are you sure?\"\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"Huh.\"\n\nSardelle shook her head and met Trip's gaze again. \"We'd love to have you, too, of course. Soulblades, regardless.\"\n\nWe? She and General Zirkander? Trip couldn't imagine that the general truly wanted young pilots traipsing around his house.\n\n\"I imagine you have questions and perhaps an interest in receiving training.\" Sardelle spread a hand. \"I admit I'd be intimidated at the prospect, but I can offer instruction in the basics. Jaxi informs me that you're quite a novice currently.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. I'm\u2014I don't know what I am.\" He hadn't meant that to come out quite so bleak and helpless.\n\n\"One of Ridge's pilots, I gather.\" She nodded toward the wolf head pin on his flight jacket. \"With the potential to do more than thwack enemies with machine guns.\"\n\n\"Not that there's anything wrong with machine guns,\" Zirkander said, proving he was listening, however distracted by his paperwork he appeared.\n\n\"Certainly not. Though they are noisy.\"\n\n\"So is the fwump of Jaxi lighting someone's flier on fire.\"\n\n\"Will tomorrow evening work, Trip?\" Sardelle asked. \"I understand the squadron is finally getting a day off, presuming no enemy dragons appear on the horizon. I hear that even overworked generals have been promised a day off.\"\n\n\"We'll see about that.\" Zirkander flipped a page and scribbled something with a pen.\n\n\"Bring Lieutenant Ravenwood, if you wish. We usually have a few house guests around, so there are plenty of people to talk to, especially now that our allies have returned.\"\n\n\"Did you say plenty of people to talk to?\" Zirkander asked.\n\nSardelle smiled serenely.\n\n\"Tomorrow is fine, ma'am,\" Trip said. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Come early if you want,\" Zirkander said, looking up from his folder. \"We'll have a beer. You may need one.\"\n\n\"Ridge, are you suggesting that he'll find our discussion onerous?\" Sardelle attempted a stern look, but the way her lips quirked didn't make it convincing.\n\n\"No, I'm suggesting he'll find our house guests onerous. I don't know whether to feel flattered or alarmed that we were their first stop. And that there are more of them now.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. I had better perfect that tart recipe soon.\"\n\nTrip didn't know exactly what they were talking about, but he caught himself smiling for the first time since he'd waved his hand and opened the gate in that dragon compound. He still felt intimidated by the idea of dinner at their house, and talk of training his talents, but General Zirkander had invited him to have a beer. He knew it was silly, especially now that he was a grown man, but that delighted him. He well remembered his daydreams of finding out Zirkander was his father and having him invite him to have a drink. The father dream was more of an impossibility now than ever, but Trip would happily share a beer with him.\n\nEpilogue\n\nTrip walked down a dead-end street toward the address General Zirkander had given him, the writing bordering on illegible. Was this the right way? He'd been strolling through well-populated suburban areas since leaving the city walls, but this last turn was taking him down a dirt road with a far more rural feel. On either side, tall trees stretched up toward the blue sky, and sunlight glinted on a large pond at the end of the street.\n\nWhen he located the right address, it was the last house before the pond, with nothing except tall grass and blackberry bushes on the lot across the street. The home itself was two stories and unpretentious, with a grassy lawn in front and more trees in the back. Trip turned up a tidy walkway toward the front door.\n\nHe wished Rysha were with him, but she'd gone home for her grandmother's funeral. He'd thought about offering to go with her for support, but couldn't imagine her parents wanting to see him with their daughter\u2014or at all. Besides, things hadn't been as comfortable between them since the sword fight. That saddened him, but he didn't know how to change it.\n\nA squeal of young giggles drifted through an open window.\n\nTrip lifted a hand to knock on the door, but it opened before he touched it. Nobody was standing there.\n\n\"General Ridge's guest is here,\" came the familiar voice of a young woman. Tylie?\n\nTrip hadn't seen her since she had flown away with Phelistoth and the other dragons.\n\nCome in, Trip, Sardelle spoke into his mind from wherever she was in the house. We're going to take over babysitting duties, so you and Ridge can have your beer in peace. Relative peace.\n\nTrip had gotten used to people\u2014well, swords\u2014speaking into his mind, but hearing Sardelle's voice that way surprised him. He wasn't sure why.\n\nAs he stepped inside, more giggles came from the other side of an eccentric couch that looked to be made from flier parts. Parts from crashed fliers. Bullet holes riddled the sides of it.\n\nEven though it wasn't his preferred aesthetic, Trip walked forward, curious despite himself. He was distracted from a more thorough examination by Zirkander\u2014the general lay on his back with his legs in his air and a brown-haired toddler in a polka-dotted dress resting on his socked feet, her little hands in his larger ones. He tilted his legs from side to side and front and back, eliciting whoops and giggles.\n\nZirkander winked when he noticed Trip. \"It's important to instill the love of flying in them when they're young.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" It was all he could manage to say, feeling flummoxed by seeing the legendary general on the floor playing with his kid.\n\nA golden ferret ran out from what Trip guessed was the kitchen. Powdered sugar dusted its tail, and the toddler giggled at the sight of it.\n\nOn first glance, Trip didn't think anything of the creature. It wasn't until his sixth sense kicked in that he realized that was no ferret. It was\u2014\n\nYes, it is I. Bhrava Saruth, the god!\n\nZirkander rolled to a sitting position, shielding his little daughter as the ferret launched itself onto his shoulder. He grimaced as claws dug into his clothing, and possibly his skin. The ferret\u2014was that truly Bhrava Saruth?\u2014leaned his head in to rub Zirkander's jaw. Zirkander reached up and patted the furry creature while Trip stared.\n\nIf seeing his general playing with his daughter had flummoxed him, seeing a dragon in ferret form acting like a house pet truly floored him.\n\nHouse pet? Certainly not. A dragon god must assume a pleasing form so as not to alarm his worshippers. The ferret lowered his head so the toddler, who was giggling once again, could give him some clumsy pats.\n\nYes, she missed you, Bhrava Saruth, Zirkander thought.\n\nTrip stirred, startled he had heard the silent words. As far as he knew, the general couldn't speak telepathically. Trip supposed he'd opened up his mind to hear the dragon's words and was catching surface thoughts from Zirkander. That was alarming. He didn't want to read his commanding officer's mind.\n\nDid you not also miss me, Ridgewalker? You were my first true worshipper when I awoke in this era.\n\nI know. Zirkander's expression grew wry. And yes, the house was entirely too restful without you and Phelistoth traipsing through periodically. My cheese wheel got moldy without any dragons here to consume large quantities.\n\nGoing solely by Zirkander's expression, Trip would have assumed the response sarcastic, but he got the sense that the general truly had missed the dragons being around.\n\nCheese? I do not understand why that snooty silver dragon likes that loathsome stuff. It is not at all sweet or appealing. Not like pastries. The ferret sprang from his shoulder to land on the back of the couch. Did you know that my high priestess has acquired a recipe for mango tarts? This is most fabulous news. I cannot wait to sample the results.\n\nYes, my mom has been instructing Sardelle on the finer points of baking. When she hasn't been busy with her students. Uh, speaking of students\u2026 Zirkander shifted his gaze toward Trip.\n\nTrip might have shied away from the attention switching to him, especially when the ferret rose on his hind legs to peer at him, but the fact that he'd met Bhrava Saruth already eased his nerves somewhat. It wasn't as if the dragon didn't know exactly what he was.\n\nGreetings, Telryn Yert, Bhrava Saruth spoke into his mind. It is good to see you have returned to Iskandia. Have you seen my temple? It is most magnificent. Have you decided to renounce all lesser gods and accept me as the pinnacle of divinity? Should you choose to worship me, I will bless you and be available to guide you as you learn to use your powers.\n\nTrip hadn't noticed before that Bhrava Saruth had deep green eyes, disturbingly similar to his own, especially now that he wasn't in dragon form. Oh, ferret eyes weren't all that close to human ones, either, but they didn't have slitted irises like a snake's.\n\n\"I think he just came for dinner,\" Zirkander said, and Trip realized Bhrava Saruth must have also been sharing the telepathic words with him. Or everyone in the room. Trip glanced at the girl, who couldn't have been more than two, and wondered if she also received telepathic communications. \"If you promise to bring him sweets and you rub his belly,\" Zirkander added, \"he'll probably bless and guide you regardless of your religious affiliation.\"\n\nYes, belly rubs are most excellent. The ferret dropped down onto the back of the cushion, rolling over to expose his stomach.\n\nWhen Trip hesitated, Zirkander gave that stomach a significant look. Bhrava Saruth, his small ferret paws crooked into the air, also gave it a significant look.\n\nTrip stepped forward and stroked the slinky creature. A contented ahhhh sounded in his mind, reminding him of a purring cat.\n\nThe kitchen door swung open, and Tylie walked out, barefoot, trailed by a boy and a girl of eleven or twelve.\n\n\"There he is.\" Tylie pointed at Trip. \"He's the one I told you about. He rescued us from our imprisonment.\"\n\nTrip started to protest\u2014all he'd done was press his palm to a wall\u2014but the boy blurted, \"Are you really a half dragon? That's cracking!\"\n\n\"Where's your father?\" the girl asked. \"Do you know him? Is he big and scary? Or is he\u2026\" She looked at Bhrava Saruth, who was still making contented sounds as Trip stroked his belly.\n\n\"I've never met him,\" Trip said. \"I'm not sure if he's even alive.\"\n\n\"He must be alive if he's a dragon,\" the girl said. \"Dragons live for eons.\"\n\n\"Can you shape-shift like Bhrava Saruth?\" the boy asked. \"Can we see?\"\n\n\"I don't know how or if that's possible.\" Trip's mind boggled at the idea of turning into a ferret. Or an anything.\n\n\"Trip, that is Ferrin,\" Zirkander said, waving to the boy, \"and Ylisa. You've met Tylie. They're all Sardelle's students. Kids, that's Captain Trip, one of my pilots. I don't think he's decided yet if he's going to be a sorcerer.\"\n\nTrip couldn't believe how calmly Zirkander said that, as if sorcerers and magic were such a common thing. But maybe in this house, they were. That boggled his mind anew.\n\n\"If your dad is a dragon, you have to be a sorcerer,\" the girl said. \"That's a rule. It must be.\"\n\n\"But he's too old to train with us, isn't he?\" The boy wrinkled his nose.\n\n\"Tylie's old, and she trains with us.\"\n\n\"But she's\u2026\" The boy waved to Tylie's bare feet and paint-spattered dress. \"She doesn't seem old.\"\n\n\"I need help with the cookies,\" came a call from the kitchen. Sardelle?\n\nThe kids bolted in that direction. Tylie waved at Trip and collected the little girl from Zirkander.\n\n\"Sardelle says you and Captain Trip can go have your beer, General Ridge,\" she proclaimed, smiling. \"We're going to babysit.\" The smile broadened. \"Jaxi's going to help. She missed babysitting terribly.\"\n\nThat's not what I said, Jaxi spoke into Trip's mind. I said I missed the family. Being in charge of a toddler? Nobody could miss that.\n\n\"Thank you, Tylie,\" Zirkander said, rolling to his feet. \"Why don't we go out to the duck blind, Trip? It's my escape for when the house gets a little too hectic. Magically hectic, that is.\" He didn't quite shudder, but Trip received the distinct image of Zirkander trying to read a magazine on the bullet-riddled couch while objects levitated across the living room, occasionally crashing to the floor when a young student's concentration lapsed.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Trip followed him out of the house, though a duck blind wasn't quite what he'd imagined when he'd pictured having a beer with the general. Did Zirkander hunt? Shooting ducks seemed like it would be boring after battling against flying pirates and enemy pilots, targets that shot back.\n\nA chittering came from behind them, and the golden-furred ferret ran past them and along a path out of the yard and toward the pond. He disappeared around a bend, following the shoreline.\n\n\"Alas, it's hard to keep magic entirely out of the duck blind,\" Zirkander admitted.\n\n\"He comes by often?\"\n\n\"To visit his high priestess, yes,\" Zirkander said, leading the way along the pond's edge, reeds and grasses stretching up to either side of the muddy path. \"And Phelistoth visits because he's linked to Tylie, who is here a lot, still learning from Sardelle. I guess it takes years to grasp all the finer points of magic. And last night, a new dragon came to dinner. I believe I have you to thank for that.\" Zirkander looked back and quirked his eyebrows.\n\n\"Yes, sir. I mean, we did free the Iskandian dragons. We were happy to do so once we learned they actually liked humans and wanted to be our allies. I didn't know visits to your dinner table would be the result. Which one was it?\"\n\n\"Shulina-something. I'm not positive, but I believe Bhrava Saruth may have been flirting with her. They\u2014ah, hm.\" Zirkander paused, his gaze forward again.\n\nThey had reached the duck blind, a cement and stone structure set into the shoreline at one end of the pond. A wide rectangular window overlooked the water, and a wooden door in the side stood open, revealing the interior, which had nothing to do with hunting. A faded carpet covered the cement floor, and two old, hideously upholstered chairs rested against the back wall, a table between them. A bookcase on the far side held magazines, novels, and a phonograph, as well as a cracker tin and a grease-stained brown bag.\n\n\"Well,\" Zirkander said, looking at the roof of the structure rather than inside. \"I guess that explains the absence of the ducks that usually rush the place, hoping for crackers.\"\n\nNot one but two golden-furred ferrets scampered about on top of the duck blind.\n\n\"I assume that's the female?\" Zirkander looked at Trip.\n\nThough the dragons' auras were significantly diminished when they were in this form, something Trip had first experienced when he'd struggled to pick the silver dragons out of that pigeon flock, he could still sense that they were magical creatures. And he could tell that Shulina Arya was the second ferret. Her aura brimmed with youthful energy and enthusiasm.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"That most definitely looks like flirting,\" Zirkander decided.\n\nBoth ferrets stopped scampering and rose up on their hind legs to look down at them. Bhrava Saruth's deep green eyes were different from Shulina Arya's violet ones, but they both contained power and an appealing allure, even in this form. Trip had the sense of them gazing into his soul and knowing all of his hopes and fears. Zirkander gazed back at them, a hand in his pocket, looking as unflappable as always. Though he'd battled enemy dragons numerous times, he didn't seem to have any trouble accepting these as allies. And house guests.\n\nGreetings, friends, the female said. I have been informed that many humans in this era are not yet aware that some dragons are amicable and do not pose a threat, so I am hiding in this diminutive form. The female ferret\u2014she was slightly larger than Bhrava Saruth\u2014dropped to all fours, ran forward, and peered over the roof. Also, Bhrava Saruth said it would be fun.\n\n\"Captain, does that ferret have frosting smudged in its whiskers?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure, sir,\" Trip said, startled by the question.\n\nThe female's whiskers did seem to be oddly clumped together on one side, and a smear of something white stuck to one furred ear.\n\nThe male ferret chittered, dropped to all fours, and sprang off the roof of the duck blind. He disappeared into the grasses, and the female leaped after him.\n\nZirkander shook his head and walked inside.\n\n\"Fish for a while?\" he asked, plucking up two poles that leaned in the corner by the door.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Trip grinned as he accepted one of the poles.\n\nHe suspected Zirkander had invited him out here to talk about something, but he didn't care. He was happy to chat with the general, both because of who he was and because he was one of the few people he'd encountered who wasn't perturbed by magic. If Zirkander had dragons and sorcerers-in-training all over his house, he wasn't likely to object to another magically inclined being in his life. Or in one of his squadrons, Trip hoped.\n\n\"Damn, I was afraid of that.\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\nZirkander had moved to the far side of the duck blind to peer in the brown paper sack.\n\n\"My stash from Donotono's Bakery was raided.\"\n\n\"By ferrets, sir?\"\n\n\"It seems so. Fortunately, Sardelle is making cookies. They're always good, and I pretend the eggs weren't magically lifted over the bowl and cracked open as part of a training exercise.\" Zirkander turned toward a rope that dangled through the open window and into the water outside. The inside end was tied to something reminiscent of a cat bookend. \"Beer or sarsaparilla?\" he offered.\n\n\"Yes, sir. Beer.\"\n\nZirkander tugged up the rope, revealing a net full of stoneware bottles that had been nestled in the pond. \"It's fed by glacier water from the Ice Blades,\" he said with a wink. \"The pond doesn't need to be resupplied daily with ice to stay cold.\"\n\n\"That's smart, sir. Though I imagine some magical device could be made to keep beverages chilled.\" Trip wondered if he could use his newfound talents to augment the devices he enjoyed building.\n\n\"Oh, no. The duck blind is a magic-free zone.\" Zirkander drew two bottles from the net with Rampaging Ram Brewery stamps on the front. \"It's a refuge for those unenlightened mundane folk needing a break from the peculiarities of sorcery.\"\n\nTrip peered past him toward the recently raided bakery bag.\n\n\"Well, in my fantasies it is.\" Zirkander handed him a beer, quirked a half smile, and grabbed a bait bucket.\n\nThey used a stump to clamber up to the roof. There weren't seats, but Zirkander plopped down on the edge of the duck blind, dangling his legs over the side, and poked into the bait bucket. Trip settled beside him and did the same. They cast out lines, carefully avoiding a surprisingly large flock of ducks making a home in the nearby reeds, and Trip looked over at Zirkander a few times, expecting the general to bring up whatever he had wanted to talk about.\n\n\"The swirlblers are most numerous, but sometimes you'll catch a dragon darter,\" Zirkander offered.\n\n\"I don't think we have those in Eastern Iskandia.\"\n\n\"You fish often over there?\"\n\n\"A few times with my grandfather. He used to make me scrounge for the bait.\"\n\n\"Ah, I have access to an eleven-year-old boy for that.\" Zirkander waved toward the house. \"I pay him a nucro for ten worms and pretend he doesn't use magic to dig them out of the ground in about five seconds.\"\n\nAs they further discussed the types of fish in the pond and strategies for retrieving them, it slowly dawned on Trip that the general hadn't invited him out here to speak of anything in particular. Maybe he'd just wanted to get to know Trip better or show him all the eclectic visitors that came and went here, and also show that he was accustomed to them. Even though Trip's heritage revelation seemed momentous to him, it might not be a big deal to Zirkander. If he'd had three full-blooded dragons as dinner guests the night before, what was one rather human-looking half-blooded one?\n\n\"Sir,\" Trip said, \"will there be more missions soon? I know the king was concerned about our report.\"\n\n\"Very likely, but we haven't put anything together yet. Tomorrow, we'll start training pilots to fly with soldiers wielding the dragon-slaying swords from the back seats, do some practice runs and figure out the best way to get them close enough to strike.\"\n\n\"Will Major Blazer continue to be a wielder?\"\n\n\"Nah, better to have the pilots piloting.\" Zirkander thumped him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. \"We're the flying rickshaw service for the army, you know.\"\n\n\"I suppose in the case of dragons, that makes sense.\"\n\n\"They'll all go to the elite troops, I figure. Brace yourself. You'll meet Colonel Therrik soon. He has a dislike for pilots, magic, dragons, magic, lower-ranking officers who don't salute him promptly enough, and magic. Did I mention magic?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Also, if you get stuck taking him up to fight, he may throw up in your back seat.\"\n\n\"Er, is it possible to avoid getting him? I'd much rather have\u2026 oh, I guess I don't know if she'll continue to be a wielder.\" Trip hoped her sword would go to someone else, but he doubted he would be that lucky.\n\n\"Lieutenant Ravenwood?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. She left my back seat in pristine condition, even pried out a ration bar wrapper that some previous occupant had left crammed in there.\"\n\nZirkander chuckled. \"I expect she will continue to wield one of the swords, if she's willing. Her academic background gives her some insight into the blades that the average combat soldier doesn't have, so she might even end up as an advisor on them.\"\n\nTrip hadn't expected anything less, though he felt a pang of disappointment at this confirmation. He would still like to have her in his flier, rather than some other soldier. Admittedly, it had nothing to do with tidiness or wrapper extraction.\n\n\"The king mentioned having already sent some archives over for her to study, information she might not have come across before that could help with locating more of those swords.\" Zirkander wiggled his pole. So far, neither of them had had any nibbles. \"As you could probably guess, he's worried about all those dragons reputed to have come through the portal, especially when compared to the small number of dragons interested in allying themselves with Iskandia.\"\n\n\"I wish my report had been more favorable for us.\" Trip wondered if he should mention the idea he'd been mulling over, of seeking his father. Unfortunately, it sounded like Rysha would be busy with other research.\n\n\"At least you kept the empire from getting the portal. That's something. I prefer the dragons that terrorize the countryside and eat sheep over the ones that ally themselves with enemy nations.\"\n\n\"But the ones that ally with us are acceptable?\"\n\n\"Oh, absolutely.\" Ferret chitters came from the grass behind the duck blind. Zirkander's eyelids drooped as he looked in that direction, then back to his inactive fishing pole. \"Is it possible their dragonly aura is keeping the fish away?\"\n\n\"You're asking me? I think you're more of a dragon expert than I am, sir.\"\n\n\"Am I? That's alarming.\"\n\nZirkander pulled his line in and checked the bait. The worm still dangled there. He plumped it up a little and tossed it back in. \"I've tried pieces of pastries before and had some luck. It's too bad my stash was raided.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nTrip didn't particularly care that his line hadn't received any nibbles. He sensed the fish down there, lounging in the afternoon sun, and thought about pointing out that they would be livelier earlier in the morning. But he doubted Zirkander would invite him out for fishing at dawn. Besides, it was pleasant out here with the sun warming his shoulders. Maybe this would be a good time to bring up his idea. If he wanted to go hunting for Agarrenon Shivar, he would need Zirkander to approve leave for him.\n\n\"Sir? I was also told\u2014well, Bhrava Saruth suggested it actually\u2014that the dragon who, uh, sired me\u2026 Is that the right term?\"\n\n\"If you're part horse, certainly.\"\n\n\"What about part dragon? You are the expert, sir.\"\n\n\"I'll have to consult with Sardelle later. She's more expertly than I.\" Zirkander spread a hand toward him. \"Your sire\u2014go on.\" He cocked his head, seemingly interested in the direction of the conversation.\n\nTrip found that promising. \"Apparently, Bhrava Saruth could tell by sniffing me who that dragon was. Is. Well, I'm not sure if it's an is or a was. He didn't go through the portal with the others a thousand years ago, so Bhrava Saruth didn't know, either. His name is Agarrenon Shivar. Nobody knows what happened to him, but he was supposed to be very powerful and thus respected by the rest of the dragons. Apparently, you just have to be powerful to be respected in their society, not charismatic, smart, or fair.\"\n\n\"I'd like to say that it's different for humans, but I can't make that claim.\"\n\n\"On the way back, I was thinking that if I could find him and entice him to join us, that he could, at the least, boost our allies by one. But if the rest of the dragons still fear and respect him, maybe he could do even more, like tell them to leave Iskandia alone altogether.\"\n\n\"You think he might be amenable to this because you're a relative?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure, sir. I'm inclined to think not, as when I mentioned this idea to Rysha\u2014Lieutenant Ravenwood\u2014she said that dragons don't have feelings for their offspring and that the ones that mated with humans often mated with all manner of interesting creatures, and it was more about pleasure and, uh, sexual conquest than relationships.\" Trip's cheeks heated. When he'd envisioned beer and fishing with Zirkander, talk of sexual conquests hadn't been a part of it. \"But,\" he pressed on, \"maybe we could offer him something. Maybe he's lonely wherever he is.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure there's room in the capital for another dragon temple,\" Zirkander said.\n\n\"It was just a thought, sir. Since we do have fewer dragon allies than Cofahre.\"\n\n\"Yes, we always seem to have fewer resources than they do.\" Zirkander sighed wistfully.\n\n\"I'll train with Sardelle whenever there's time, sir. If she'll have me. Then we can at least have\u2026 Well, I'd never dreamed of becoming a sorcerer, but since that fate has come my way, I'd at least like to be less bumbling with my abilities.\"\n\n\"She'll be happy to hear that, though I gather she is daunted by the idea of training you.\" Zirkander grinned. \"Even in her time, when sorcerers were more powerful than the ones around today, there wasn't anyone who was the offspring of a dragon.\"\n\nTrip couldn't imagine anyone being daunted by him, except perhaps pirates going up against him in aerial battles.\n\n\"So, are you proposing a mission?\" Zirkander asked. \"To find your father and try to recruit him?\"\n\nA mission? He hadn't considered that might be a possibility.\n\n\"I think it could be worthwhile to find him. But I figured it would just be something I could try to do the next time I have some leave. Are captains even allowed to propose missions?\"\n\n\"Sure. Whether anyone listens when they do so is debatable, but it might be good for you to do this sooner rather than later.\" Zirkander's face grew grim. \"We might not have time later.\"\n\n\"I confess, I wouldn't know where to start looking, sir. My mother was an herbalist and traveled quite a bit, looking for exotic plants useful in tinctures and such. I don't know which continents she went to. After I was born, she stayed at home with me, but before that, she went all over the world, I understand.\" Trip wished he'd had the chance to know his mother as an adult. She'd told him stories when he'd been a boy, but he barely remembered them now, and that saddened him.\n\n\"I imagine Lieutenant Ravenwood could help you research. It's a good idea to make friends with a smart woman, no matter how powerful you are.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that advice in mind, sir. It does seem sage.\"\n\n\"Any thoughts as to who you'd like on a dragon-seeking mission?\" Zirkander asked. \"I'd want to keep the team small, so we don't have too many people away from the country. It's been blessedly quiet this last week\u2014maybe all the dragons were concerned about the portal?\u2014but we can't count on that continuing. There were two more attacks in the north after your team left.\"\n\nTrip scratched his jaw, surprised he was being asked. Would he be in charge of such a mission? Even though he was technically a captain now, he still felt like a lieutenant.\n\nHe was tempted to throw out Leftie's name, since he knew what to expect from Leftie, but if he had the opportunity to use magic, he didn't want to have to stifle it because it might make people uncomfortable. Duck had been fairly unflappable in regard to dragons and magic. He supposed any of the soldiers who'd worked with Sardelle in the past would have a similar viewpoint. The trouble was that he didn't know who those people were.\n\nIf Blazer came along, Trip definitely wouldn't be in charge. That might be all right, so long as he had the leeway to follow hunches\u2014and wasn't left out of any planning meetings. He still felt a tad disgruntled over that.\n\n\"Should I pick some people?\" Zirkander asked when Trip didn't answer.\n\n\"You know everyone over here far better than I do, so that might be best, sir. I think people who aren't intimidated by magic would be ideal. I liked working with Duck. And Captain Kaika.\" Trip didn't know if Zirkander could get Kaika, since she was in another unit, and this would not be like the last mission, not sanctioned by the king. Somehow, Trip doubted Angulus would want to put a lot of resources toward a young pilot's search for his father.\n\n\"Major Blazer will be crushed that she didn't make your short list.\" Zirkander grinned.\n\n\"She was all right to work for, sir. I wouldn't mind flying with her again. I'm just not sure she adored me.\"\n\n\"Were you expecting that? I've yet to have a commanding officer who adored me, and Sardelle assures me that I'm adorable. Possibly because she's not expected to get me to obey orders.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Trip said, not wanting to comment one way or another on his commanding officer's adorableness.\n\n\"All right, a hunt for another dragon ally. Good.\" Zirkander clapped him on the shoulder. \"I'll see what kind of team I can put together for this.\" He cocked his head for a few seconds, then looked in the direction of the house and rose to his feet. \"Sounds like it's dinnertime.\"\n\nThere hadn't been a \"sound,\" so Trip assumed Sardelle had spoken telepathically to him.\n\n\"Fortunately, the fish we didn't catch weren't paramount for the meal.\" Zirkander pulled in his line. \"Actually, I think Sardelle prefers it when I don't catch anything.\"\n\n\"Does she have to clean the fish?\"\n\n\"No, I get that dubious duty, but nobody under twenty in the house cares for fish, so it's a battle to convince them to eat it.\"\n\n\"Do the dragons end up with the leftovers?\" Trip asked, still bemused by their presence in the general's house. But encouraged by it. He was beginning to believe some of those stories about humans and dragons living and battling together in dragon-rider outposts. And, as alarming as it was to have them back in the world en masse, he felt some hope that Iskandia would survive. He thought of Zirkander's little girl and his new baby coming and vowed he would do his best to make sure the country did survive.\n\n\"Baked goods leftovers? Yes. Fish? Not usually.\" Zirkander hopped down from the duck blind and tucked his pole inside. \"They prefer cheese, chili mango beef jerky, mangoes in general, strawberries, sweets of all kinds, vinegar crisps, and Phelistoth often shows up in human form for coffee in the morning. It's a good thing I ultimately accepted the promotion to general because my grocery bill has been alarming these last couple of years.\"\n\n\"I'll try not to eat too much at dinner.\"\n\n\"You eat as much as you want,\" Zirkander said as they walked up the path toward the house. \"You have a quest coming up.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I'm excited about it, even though\u2014well, I'll try not to get my hopes up that he'll be interested in me.\" Trip winced. He hadn't meant to voice that concern again.\n\n\"We don't all get the fathers we wish we had. But it goes both ways. Fathers don't always get the kids they want.\"\n\nSince Trip doubted the general's toddler was old enough to elicit such a sentiment, he assumed Zirkander was referencing his relationship with his father.\n\n\"I'm sure you couldn't have been a disappointment, sir.\"\n\n\"My father wanted someone to climb mountains with him and search for ancient treasures. He positively loathes dragon fliers and thinks I'm a kook for going up in them.\" Zirkander grinned as they crossed onto the lawn, and there didn't seem to be any bitterness in it. He must have come to terms with his relationship with his father long ago. \"But look, blood isn't everything. You find people in your life that you can trust and that care for you, and don't worry too much about the ones who are disappointed you're not the person they wanted you to be.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Trip said.\n\nZirkander paused at the door, holding it open as he looked back toward the yard. Trip thought he might give some more advice, but he merely watched as the two golden ferrets raced through the grass and into the house.\n\n\"I believe that means the cookies are done,\" he said."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "Daemonslayer",
+        "author": "William King",
+        "genres": [
+            "Fantasy",
+            "Adventure"
+        ],
+        "tags": [
+            "Warhammer",
+            "Gotrek & Felix",
+            "dark fantasy",
+            "action",
+            "airships"
+        ],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Fresh from their adventures battling the servants of the rat-god in Nuln, Gotrek and Felix are now ready to join an expedition northwards in search of the long-lost dwarf hall of Karag Dum. Setting forth for the hideous Realms of Chaos in an experimental dwarf airship, Gotrek and Felix are sworn to succeed or die in the attempt. But greater and more sinister energies are coming into play, as a daemonic power is awoken to fulfil its ancient, deadly promise."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "\u2002This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world's ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.\n\n\u2002At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.\n\n\u2002But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World's Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.\n\n\u2002\"After the dire events in Nuln we travelled northwards, for the most part following back roads, lest the Emperor's roadwardens come upon us. The arrival of the dwarf-borne letter had filled my companion with a strange anticipation. He seemed almost happy as we made our weary way to our goal. Neither all the long weeks of journeying, nor the threat of bandits or mutants or beastmen ever served to daunt him. He would barely stop for meat or, more unusually, drink, and would answer my questions only with muttered references to destiny, doom and old debts.\n\n\"For myself, I was filled with anxiety and recrimination. I wondered what had happened to Elissa and I was saddened by my parting with my brother. Little did I guess how long it would be before I would meet him again, and under what strange circumstances. And little, too, did I guess how far the journey which began in Nuln was to take us, and how dreadful our eventual destination was to be.\" \u2014From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III, by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)\n\n[ THE MESSAGE ]\n\n\"You spilled my beer,\" Gotrek Gurnisson said.\n\nIf the man who had just knocked over the flagon possessed any sense, Felix Jaeger thought, the menacing tone of the dwarf's flat gravelly voice would have caused him to back off immediately. But the mercenary was drunk, he had half a dozen rough-looking mates back at his table and a giggling tavern girl to impress. He was not going to back down from anybody who only came up to his shoulders, even if that person was nearly twice as broad as he.\n\n\"So? What are you going to do about it, stuntie?\" the mercenary replied with a sneer.\n\nThe dwarf eyed the spreading puddle of ale on the table for a moment with a mixture of regret and annoyance. Then he turned in his seat to look at the mercenary and ran his hand through the huge crest of red-dyed hair which towered over his shaven and tattooed head. The gold chain that ran from his nose to his ear jingled. With the elaborate care of one very drunk, Gotrek rubbed the patch covering his left eye socket, interlocked his fingers, cracked his knuckles \u2014 then suddenly lashed out with his right hand.\n\nIt wasn't the best punch Felix had ever seen Gotrek throw. In truth, it was clumsy and unscientific. Still, the Trollslayer's fist was as large as a ham, and the arm that fist was attached to was as thick as a tree-trunk. Whatever it hit was going to suffer. There was a sickening crack as the man's nose broke. The mercenary went flying back towards his own table. He sprawled unconscious on the sawdust covered floor. Red blood gushed from his nostrils.\n\nOn considered reflection, Felix decided through his own drunken haze, as punches went it had certainly served its purpose. Given the amount of ale the Slayer had consumed it had been pretty good, in fact.\n\n\"Anybody else want a taste of fist?\" Gotrek inquired, giving the mercenary's half-dozen comrades an evil glare. \"Or are you all as soft as you look?\"\n\nThe soldier's comrades rose from their benches, spilling foaming ale onto the table and tavern wenches from their knees. Not waiting for them to come at him, the Slayer swayed to his feet and bounded towards them. He grabbed the nearest mercenary by the throat, pulled his head forward and headbutted him. The man went down like a pole-axed ox.\n\nFelix took another sip of the inn's sour Tilean wine to aid his reflections. He was already several goblets south of sober, but so what? It had been a long, hard trek all the way here to Guntersbad. They had been moving constantly ever since Gotrek had received the mysterious letter summoning them to this tavern. For a moment, Felix considered reaching into the Slayer's pack and examining it again but he already knew that it would be a useless effort. The message had been penned in the strange runes favoured by dwarfs. By the standards of the Empire, Felix was a well-educated man but there was no way he could read that alien language. Foiled by his own ignorance, Felix stretched his long legs, yawned and gave his attention back to the brawl.\n\nIt had been brewing all night. Ever since they had entered the Dog and Donkey, the local hard boys had been staring at them. They had started by making nasty remarks about the Slayer's appearance. For once, Gotrek had paid not the slightest attention, which was very unusual. Usually he was as touchy as a penniless Tilean duke and as short-tempered as a wolverine with a toothache. Since receiving the message, however, he had become withdrawn, oblivious to anything but his own excitement. All he had done all evening was watch the door as if expecting somebody he knew to arrive.\n\nAt first Felix had been quite worried by the prospect of a brawl but several flagons of the Tilean red had soon helped settle his nerves. He had doubted that anybody would be stupid enough to pick a fight with the Trollslayer. He had reckoned without the sheer native ignorance of the locals. After all, this was a small town on the road to Talabheim. How could they be expected to know what Gotrek was?\n\nEven Felix, who had studied at the University of Altdorf, had never heard of the dwarfs' Cult of Slayers until the long-ago night when Gotrek had pulled him from under the hooves of the Emperor's elite cavalry during the Window Tax riots back in Altdorf. On the mad drunken spree which followed, he had discovered that Gotrek was sworn to seek death in combat with the fiercest of monsters to atone for some past crime. Felix had been so impressed by the Slayer's tale \u2014 and to tell the truth, so drunk \u2014 that he had sworn to accompany the dwarf and record his doom in an epic poem. The fact that Gotrek had not yet found his doom, despite some heroic efforts, had done nothing to reduce Felix's respect for his toughness.\n\nGotrek slammed a fist into another man's stomach. His opponent doubled over as the air whooshed out of his lungs. Gotrek took him by the hair and slammed his jaw down hard onto the table edge. Noticing that the mercenary still moved, the Slayer repeatedly banged his groaning victim's head on the table edge until he lay still, looking strangely rested, in a pool of blood, spittle, beer and broken teeth.\n\nTwo big burly warriors threw themselves forward, grabbing the Slayer by an arm each. Gotrek braced himself, roaring defiance, and hurled one of them to the ground. While he was down there, the Slayer planted his heavy boot into the man's groin. A high-pitched wailing shriek filled the tavern. Felix winced.\n\nGotrek turned his attention to the other warrior and they grappled. Slowly, even though the man was more than half-again Gotrek's height, the dwarf's enormous strength began to tell. He pushed his opponent onto the ground, straddled his chest, and then slowly and methodically punched his head until he was unconscious. The last mercenary scuttled for the door \u2014 but as he did so he slammed into another dwarf. The newcomer took a step back, then dropped him with one well-aimed punch.\n\nFelix did a double-take, at first convinced he was hallucinating. It seemed unlikely that there could be another Slayer in this part of the world. But Gotrek was now looking at the stranger as well.\n\nThe recent arrival was, if anything, bigger and more muscular than Gotrek. His head was shaved and his beard cropped short. He had no crest of hair; instead it looked for all the world like nails had been driven into his skull to make a crest and then painted in different colours. His nose had been broken so many times it was shapeless. One ear was cauliflowered; the other had actually been ripped clean away, leaving only a hole in the side of his head. A huge ring was set in his nose. Where his body was not criss-crossed with scars it was covered in tattoos. In one hand he held an enormous hammer and thrust in his belt was a short-hafted, broad-bladed axe.\n\nBehind this new Slayer stood another dwarf, shorter, fatter and altogether more civilised looking. He was about half Felix's height, but very broad. His well-groomed beard reached almost to the ground. His wide eyes blinked owlishly from behind enormously thick glasses. In his ink-stained fingers he carried a large brass-bound book.\n\n\"Snorri Nosebiter, as I live and breathe!\" Gotrek roared, his nasty smile revealing missing teeth. \"It's been awhile! What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Snorri's here for the same reason as you, Gotrek Gurnisson. Snorri got a letter from old Borek the Scholar, telling Snorri to come to the Lonely Tower.\"\n\n\"Don't try and fool me. I know you can't read, Snorri. All the words were bashed out of your head when those nails were bashed in.\"\n\n\"Hogan Longbeard translated it for Snorri,\" Snorri said, looking as embarrassed as it was possible for such a hulking Trollslayer to look. He glanced around him, obviously wanting to change the subject.\n\n\"Snorri thinks he missed a good fight,\" the dwarf said, eyeing the scene of terrible violence with the same sort of wistful regret that Gotrek had expended on his spilled ale. \"Snorri thinks he'd better have a beer then. Snorri has a bit of a thirst!\"\n\n\"Ten beers for Snorri Nosebiter!\" Gotrek roared. \"And better make that ten for me as well. Snorri hates to drink alone.\"\n\nAn appalled silence filled the room. The other patrons looked at the scene of the battle then at the two dwarfs as if they were kegs of gunpowder with a burning fuse. Slowly, in ones and twos, they got up and left, until only Gotrek, Felix, Snorri and the other dwarf were left.\n\n\"First to ten?\" Snorri enquired, knuckling his eye and looking up at Gotrek cunningly.\n\n\"First to ten,\" Gotrek agreed.\n\nThe other dwarf waddled towards them and bowed, politely in the dwarfish fashion, raising his beard with one hand to keep it from dragging on the ground as he leaned forward.\n\n\"Varek Varigsson of the Clan Grimnar at your service,\" he said in a mild, pleasant voice. \"I see you got my uncle's message.\"\n\nSnorri and Gotrek looked at him, seemingly astonished by his politeness, then began to laugh. Varek flushed with embarrassment.\n\n\"Better get this youth a beer as well!\" Gotrek shouted. \"He looks like he could use being loosened up a little. Now stand aside, youngling, Snorri and I have a bet to settle.\"\n\nThe landlord smiled ingratiatingly. A look of relief passed over his face. It looked like the dwarfs were set on more than making up for all the custom they had driven away.\n\nThe landlord lined the beers up along the low counter. Ten sat in front of Gotrek, ten in front of Snorri. The dwarfs inspected them the way a man might inspect an opponent before a wrestling match. Snorri looked over at Gotrek, then looked back at the beer again. A swift lunge brought him within range of his chosen target. He grabbed the flagon, lifted it to his lips, tilted back his head and swallowed. Gotrek was a fraction slower to the draw. His jack of ale reached his lips a second after Snorri's. There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of dwarfs glugging, then Snorri slammed his flagon back on the table a fraction of a second before Gotrek slammed his. Felix looked over in astonishment. Both flagons had been drained to the last drop.\n\n\"First one's easiest,\" Gotrek said. Snorri seized another flagon, grabbed a second with his other hand and repeated the performance. Gotrek did the same. He snatched up one in each hand, raised one to his lips, drained it, then drained the other. This time it was Gotrek who put down his beers fractionally before Snorri. Felix was staggered, particularly when he considered how much beer Gotrek had already drunk before Snorri had arrived. It looked like the two Slayers were entering into a well practiced ritual. Felix wondered if they really intended to drink all that beer.\n\n\"I'm embarrassed to be seen drinking with you, Snorri. A girly elf could do three in the time it took you to down those,\" Gotrek said.\n\nSnorri gave him a disgusted look, reached for another ale and tipped it back so fast that suds erupted from his mouth and frothed over his beard. He wiped his mouth with the back of one tattooed forearm. This time he finished before Gotrek.\n\n\"At least all my beer went in my mouth,\" Gotrek said, nodding his head until his nose chain jingled.\n\n\"Are you talking or drinking?\" Snorri challenged.\n\nFive, six, seven beers went down in quick succession. Gotrek looked at the ceiling, smacked his lips and let out an enormous cavernous belch. Snorri swiftly echoed it. Felix exchanged glances with Varek. The scholarly young dwarf looked back at him and shrugged his shoulders. In less than a minute the two Slayers had put back more beer than Felix would normally drink in one night. Gotrek blinked and his eyes looked slightly glassy, but this was the only sign he gave of the enormous amount of alcohol he had just consumed. Snorri looked not the slightest worse for wear, but then he had not been drinking all night already.\n\nGotrek reached out and downed number eight, but by that time Snorri was already half way through number nine. As he set down the flagon, he said, \"Looks like you'll be paying for the beer.\"\n\nGotrek didn't answer. He picked up two flagons at once, one in each hand, tilted back his head, opened his gullet and poured. There was no sound of gulping. He was not swallowing, just letting the beer run straight down his throat. Snorri was so impressed by the feat that he forgot to pick up his own last pint before Gotrek had finished.\n\nGotrek stood there swaying slightly. He belched, hiccupped and sat down on his stool.\n\n\"The day you can out-drink me, Snorri Nosebiter, is the day Hell freezes over.\"\n\n\"That will be the day after the day you pay for a beer, Gotrek Gurnisson,\" Snorri said, sitting down beside his fellow Trollslayer.\n\n\"Well, so much for starters,\" he continued. \"Let's get down to some serious drinking then. Looks like Snorri has some catching up to do.\"\n\n\"Is that proper World's Edge tabac you have there, Snorri?\" Gotrek asked, looking hungrily at the stuff Snorri was tamping into his pipe. They had all settled down by the roaring fire in the best seats in the house.\n\n\"Aye, 'tis old Mouldy Leaf. Snorri picked it up in the mountains afore coming here.\"\n\n\"Give some here!\"\n\nSnorri tossed the pouch over to Gotrek, who produced a pipe and started filling it. The Slayer glared over at the scholarly young dwarf with his one good eye.\n\n\"So, youth,\" Gotrek growled. \"What is the mighty doom your Uncle Borek has promised me? And why is old Snorri here?\"\n\nFelix leaned forward interestedly. He wanted to know more about this himself. He was intrigued by the thought of a summons which could excite even the normally morose and taciturn Slayer.\n\nVarek looked at Felix warningly. Gotrek shook his head and took a sip of beer. He leaned forward, lighted a spill of wood in the fire then lit his pipe. Once the pipe was burning well, he leaned back in his chair and spoke earnestly.\n\n\"Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of the manling. He is a Dwarf Friend and an Oathkeeper.\"\n\nSnorri looked up at Felix. Surprise and something like respect showed in his dull, brutish eyes. Varek's smile showed sincere interest and he turned to Felix and bowed once more, almost falling out of his chair.\n\n\"I'm sure there is a tale there,\" he said. \"I'd be most interested in hearing it.\"\n\n\"Don't try and change the subject,\" Gotrek said. \"What is this doom your kinsman has promised me? His letter dragged me halfway across the Empire and I want to hear about it.\"\n\n\"I wasn't trying to change the subject, Herr Gurnisson. I simply wanted to get the information for my book.\"\n\n\"There will be time enough for that later. Now speak!\"\n\nVarek sighed, leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his ample stomach. \"I can tell you little enough. My uncle has all the facts and will share them with you in his own time and fashion. What I can tell you is this is possibly the mightiest quest since the time of Sigmar Hammerbearer \u2014 and it concerns Karag Dum.\"\n\n\"The Lost Dwarfhold of the North!\" Gotrek roared drunkenly, then suddenly fell silent. He looked around, as if fearing that spies might have overheard him.\n\n\"The very same!\"\n\n\"Then your Uncle has found a way to get there! I thought he was mad when he claimed he would.\" Felix had never heard such an undercurrent of excitement in the dwarf's voice. It was contagious. Gotrek looked over at Felix.\n\nIt was Snorri who interrupted. \"Call Snorri stupid if you like, but even Snorri knows Karag Dum was lost in the Chaos Wastes.\" He looked directly at Gotrek and shivered. \"Remember the last time!\"\n\n\"Be that as it may, my uncle has found a way of getting there.\"\n\nA sudden trepidation filled Felix. Finding the location of the place was one thing. Having a method of getting there was another. It meant that this wasn't simply a fascinating academic exercise but a possible journey. He had a terrible sinking feeling that he knew where all this was going to end up, and he knew that he wanted no part of it.\n\n\"There is no way across the Wastes,\" Gotrek said. Something more than mere caution was in his voice. \"I have been there. So has Snorri. So has your uncle. It is insanity to attempt to cross them. Madness and mutation wait for those who would go there. Hell has touched the world in that accursed place.\"\n\nFelix looked at Gotrek with new respect. Few people had ever travelled so far and returned to tell the tale. To him, as to all folk of the Empire, the Chaos Wastes were but a dire rumour, a hellish land in the far north, from which the terrible armies of the four Ruinous Powers of Chaos emerged to reave and plunder and slay. He had never heard the dwarf speak of having been there, but then he knew little of the Slayer's adventures in the days before they had met. Gotrek did not speak of his past. He seemed ashamed of it. If anything, the dwarf's obvious fear made the place seem even more daunting. There was little enough in this world which dismayed the Slayer, as Felix well knew, so anything that did was to be feared indeed.\n\n\"Nonetheless, I believe that is where my uncle wants to go, and he wants you to go with him. He has need of your axe.\"\n\nGotrek fell silent for long moments. \"'Tis certainly a deed worthy of a Slayer.\"\n\nIt sounds like absolute madness, Felix thought. Somehow he managed to keep his mouth shut.\n\n\"Snorri thinks so too.\"\n\nThen Snorri is an even bigger idiot than he appears to be, thought Felix, and the words almost burst forth from his lips.\n\n\"Then you will accompany me to the Lonely Tower?\" Varek asked.\n\n\"For the prospect of such a doom, I would follow you to the mouth of Hell,\" Gotrek said.\n\nThat's good, Felix thought, because it sounds like that's exactly where you're going. Then he shook his head. The dwarf's madness was beginning to infect him. Was he actually taking all this talk of journeys to the Chaos Wastes seriously? Surely this was just tavern talk and the fit of madness would pass by morning\u2026\n\n\"Excellent,\" Varek said. \"I knew you'd come.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "MARK OF THE SKAVEN",
+                "text": "The bouncing of the wagon did nothing for Felix's hangover. Every time a wheel hit one of the deep ruts in the road, his stomach gave a troubled lurch and threatened to send its contents arcing out onto the roadside hedges. The inside of his mouth felt furry. Pressure was building up inside his skull like steam within a kettle. Oddest of all, now he had a terrible craving for fried food. Visions of fried eggs and bacon sizzled through his mind. Now he regretted not having taken breakfast earlier with the Trollslayers, but at the time the sight of them throwing back piled plates of ham and eggs and chomping on great hunks of black bread had been enough to turn his stomach. But now he was almost prepared to commit murder for the same food.\n\nIt was some consolation to him that the Slayers were more or less silent, save for grumbles in dwarfish which he assumed concerned the awfulness of their hangovers or just how plain dreadful human beer was. Only young Varek seemed cheerful and bright-eyed, but then he ought to. Much to the disgust of the other two, he had stopped drinking after three ales, claiming that he had had enough. Now he guided the mules with sure tugs of the reins and whistled a happy tune, oblivious to the dagger-like looks his companions aimed at his back. At that moment, Felix hated him with a passion which could be explained only by the intensity of his hangover.\n\nTo distract himself from that, and from thoughts of the awful adventure that was surely to come, Felix gave his attention to their surroundings. It was indeed a beautiful day. The sun was shining brightly. This part of the Empire looked particularly productive and cheerful. Huge half-timbered houses rose from the surrounding hilltops. Thatch-roofed cottages, the homes of the peasant labourers, surrounded them. Big splotch-sided cows grazed in enclosures, bells tinkling cheerfully on their necks. Each bell had a different tone, which Felix deduced was to enable the herdsmen to track each individual cow by sound alone.\n\nAlongside them a peasant drove a gaggle of geese along the dusty track for a while. Later, a pretty peasant girl looked up from the hay she was forking into a stack and gave Felix a dazzling smile. He tried to muster the energy to smile back but couldn't. He felt like he was a hundred years old. He kept his eyes on her until she disappeared around a bend in the road though.\n\nThe wagon hit another rut and bounced higher.\n\n\"Watch where you're going!\" Gotrek growled. \"Can't you see Snorri Nosebiter has a hangover?\"\n\n\"Snorri doesn't feel too good,\" the other Slayer confirmed and gave an awful muffled gurgle. \"It must have been that goat and potato stew we had last night. Snorri thinks it tasted a bit off.\"\n\nMore likely it was the thirty or so jacks of ale you threw back, Felix thought sourly. He almost said this out loud, but even through the misery of his hangover a certain prudent caution stopped him. He had no wish to be cured of his hangover by having his head chopped off. Well, maybe, he thought, as the wagon and his stomach gave another lurch.\n\nFelix gave his attention back to the hard-packed stony earth of the road that jarred and juddered along beneath them, trying to focus his mind on anything except the awful churning in his stomach. He could see the individual rocks jutting out of the ground, any one of which looked like it could break the wagon's wooden wheels if hit at the wrong angle.\n\nA fly landed softly, ticklingly, on the back of his hand and he swatted at it miserably. It eluded the blow with contemptuous ease and proceeded to buzz around Felix's head. His initial effort had exhausted him and Felix gave up the attempt to strike the insect, only shaking his head when it came too close to his eyes. He closed his eyes and focused his willpower on the creature, urging it to die, but it refused to oblige. There were occasionally times when Felix wished that he was a sorcerer and this was one of them. He bet that they didn't have to put up with hangovers and the disturbances created by fat-bodied buzzing flies.\n\nSuddenly it got darker and slightly cooler on his face, and he looked up to see that they were passing through a copse of trees which had overgrown the road. He glanced around quickly \u2014 more from habit than fear \u2014 because these were the sort of woods that bandits liked to frequent, and bandits were not uncommon in the Empire. He wasn't sure what sort of fools would attack a wagon which contained two hungover Trollslayers, but you could never tell. Stranger things had happened to him on his travels. Maybe those mercenaries from the night before would come back seeking revenge. And there were always beastmen and mutants to be found in these dark times. In his time Felix had encountered enough of them to be something of an expert on that subject.\n\nTo tell the truth, Felix thought, he would almost welcome taking an axe blow from a beastman the way he felt right now. At least it would put him out of his misery. It was strange, though, how his eyes were playing tricks. He was almost sure he could see something small and pink-eyed skulking amongst the undergrowth a little way back from the track. It was only there for a second and then it was gone. Felix almost called Gotrek's attention to it but decided against doing so, because interrupting the Slayer's recovery from a hangover was never a good idea.\n\nAnd it really probably was nothing after all, just some small furry animal scuttling for safety as travellers moved by on the road. Still, there was something familiar about the shape of the head that nagged at Felix's numb brain. He couldn't quite place it just yet but if he thought about it long enough he was sure it would come back to him. Another great lurch by the cart almost threw him off. He fought to keep last night's goat and potato stew within his stomach. It was a long fight and he only won it when the stew had battled halfway up his throat.\n\n\"Where are we heading?\" he asked Varek to distract himself from his misery. Not for the first time he swore that he would never touch another drop of beer. It sometimes seemed that most of the troubles in his life had somehow begun in taverns. It was amazing, really, that he had not had the sense to realise this before.\n\n\"The Lonely Tower,\" Varek said cheerfully. Felix fought down the urge to punch him, more because he couldn't summon the energy to do it, than from any other reason.\n\n\"Sounds\u2026 interesting,\" Felix managed to say eventually. What it really sounded was ominous, like so many other places he had visited in his sorry career as the Slayer's henchman. Any place called the Lonely Tower to be found anywhere in the Empire was most likely to be the sort of place no one in their right mind would visit. Fortifications in the middle of nowhere had a habit of being overwhelmed by orcs, goblins and other worse things.\n\n\"Oh, it's an interesting place all right. Built on top of an old coal mine. Uncle Borek took it over and renovated it. Good sound dwarfish workmanship. Looks like new. Better in fact, because the original work, human,\u2014no offence \u2014 was a bit slipshod. It was abandoned for several hundred years till we came along, except for the skaven. Of course, we had to clear them out first, and there might still be a few lurking down in the mine.\"\n\n\"Good,\" Gotrek grunted. \"Can't beat a spot of skaven-slaughtering for sport. Clears up a hangover better than a pint of Bugman's.\"\n\nPersonally Felix could think of dozens more appealing ways of spending the time than hunting for vicious rat-like monsters in an abandoned and doubtless unsafe mine but he did not communicate this information to Gotrek.\n\nVarek looked back over his shoulder to where his passengers huddled alongside their gear. They must have made a pitiful sight, for Snorri wasn't any better equipped than Gotrek or Felix. His pack was as empty as a sailor's purse after a spree in port. He didn't appear to own a cloak or even a blanket. Felix was glad that he had his red Sudenland wool cloak to huddle under. He did not doubt that the nights would get pretty cold. He did not look forward to the prospect of a night on cold ground.\n\n\"How long till we get there?\" he asked.\n\n\"We're making good time. If we take the short path through the Bone Hills, we'll be there in two, three days at most.\"\n\n\"I've heard bad things about the Bone Hills,\" Felix said. It was true. Then again, there were few places beyond the cities and towns of the Empire that he had not heard bad things about. At once Gotrek and Snorri looked up, interest written all over their faces. It never ceased to amaze Felix that the worse things sounded, the happier a Slayer looked.\n\n\"The skaven from the mine used to haunt them, and attack travellers. They'd come down and raid the farms as well. Nothing to worry about now though. We've seen them off,\" Varek said. \"Snorri and I came all the way down here in the cart by ourselves, never sniffed a hint of trouble.\"\n\nThe two Slayers slumped back into apathetic contemplation of their hangovers. Somehow Felix was not reassured. In his experience, trips through the wilderness never went smoothly. And something about the mere mention of skaven caused that rat-like shape he had noticed back in the wood to begin niggling worryingly at the back of his mind.\n\n\"You came all the way here yourselves?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Snorri was with me.\"\n\n\"Are you armed?\" Felix asked, making sure that his own longsword was within easy reach.\n\n\"I have my knife.\"\n\n\"You have your knife! Oh good! I'm sure that will be very useful if skaven attack you.\"\n\n\"Never saw any skaven. Just heard a little scuttling some nights. Whatever it was, I think Snorri's snoring scared it away. Anyway, if something attacked I have my bombs.\"\n\n\"Bombs?\"\n\nVarek fumbled inside his robe and produced a smooth black sphere. A strange metal device appeared to have been glued to the top. He handed it to Felix who inspected it closely. It looked like if you pulled the clip on top, it would come free.\n\n\"Be careful with that,\" Varek said. \"It's a detonator. You pull that, it tugs the flint striker which lights the fuse which sets off the explosive. You've got about four heartbeats to throw it, then \u2014 boom!\"\n\nFelix looked at it warily, half-expecting the thing to explode in his hand.\n\n\"Boom?\"\n\n\"It explodes. Shrapnel everywhere. That's assuming the fuse fires. It sometimes doesn't. About half the time, actually, but it's very ingenious. And of course, very, very occasionally they go off for no reason at all. Almost never happens. Mind you, Blorri lost a hand that way. Had to have it replaced with a hook.\"\n\nFelix swiftly handed the bomb back to Varek who tucked it back inside the pocket of his robes. He was beginning to think this mild-mannered young dwarf was crazier than he looked. Perhaps all dwarfs were.\n\n\"Makaisson made it, you know. He's good at that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"Makaisson. Malakai Makaisson?\" Gotrek asked. \"That maniac!\"\n\nFelix looked at the Slayer in open-mouthed astonishment. He wasn't sure he wanted to meet this Makaisson. Anyone who Gotrek could describe as a maniac must be crazed indeed. Could probably win prizes for their madness, in fact. Gotrek caught Felix's look.\n\n\"Makaisson believes in heavier-than-air flight. Thinks he can make things fly.\"\n\n\"Gyrocopters fly,\" Snorri piped in. \"Snorri been up in one. Fell out. Landed on head. No damage.\"\n\n\"Not gyrocopters. Big things! And he builds ships! Ships! That's an unnatural interest for a dwarf. I hate ships almost as much as I hate elves!\"\n\n\"He built the biggest steamship ever,\" Varek said conversationally. \"The Unsinkable. Was two hundred paces long. Weighed five hundred tons. It had steam-powered gatling turrets. It had a crew of over three hundred dwarfs and thirty engineers. It could sail at three leagues an hour. Such an impressive sight it was, with its paddles churning the sea to foam and its pennons flying in the breeze.\"\n\nIt certainly sounded impressive, Felix thought, suddenly realising how far the dwarfs had taken this strange magic they called \"engineering\". Like everybody else in the Empire, Felix knew about steam-tanks, the armoured vehicles which were the spearhead of the realm's mighty armies. This thing sounded like it made the steam-tank look like a child's toy. Still, if it was so impressive, he wondered, why had he never heard of it?\n\n\"What happened to the Unsinkable? Where is it now?\"\n\nThere was a brief embarrassed silence from the dwarfs.\n\n\"Err\u2026 it sank,\" Varek said eventually.\n\n\"Hit a rock on its first trip out,\" Snorri added.\n\n\"Some people claim the boiler exploded,\" Varek said.\n\n\"Lost with all hands,\" Snorri added with the almost happy expression with which dwarfs always seemed to confront the worst news.\n\n\"Except Makaisson. He was picked up later by human ship. He was thrown clear by the explosion and clung to a wooden spar.\"\n\n\"Then he built a flying ship,\" Gotrek said, savage irony evident in his voice.\n\n\"That's right. Makaisson built a flying ship,\" Snorri said.\n\n\"The Indestructible,\" Varek said.\n\nFelix tried to imagine a ship flying. In the abstract he could manage it. In his mind's eye, he saw something like the old river barges on the Reik, their sails filled, their sweeps tugging. It was powerful sorcery indeed that could do that.\n\n\"Amazing thing it was,\" Varek said. \"Big as a sailing ship. Wrought iron cupola. Fuselage almost a hundred paces long. It could fly at ten leagues an hour \u2014 with the wind behind it, of course.\"\n\n\"What happened to it?\" Felix asked, a sinking feeling hinting that he already knew the answer.\n\n\"It crashed,\" Snorri said.\n\n\"Crosswinds and some liftgas leaks,\" Varek said. \"Big explosion.\"\n\n\"Killed everybody aboard.\"\n\n\"Except Makaisson,\" Varek said, as if this made a big difference. He seemed to think this was an important point. \"He was thrown clear and landed in some treetops. They broke his fall along with both his legs. Had to use crutches for the next two years. Anyway, the Indestructible had a few teething problems. What do you expect? It was the first of its kind. But Makaisson has sorted them now.\"\n\n\"Teething problems?\" Gotrek said. \"Twenty good dwarf engineers killed, including Under-Guildmaster Ulli and you call that 'teething problems'? Makaisson should have shaved his head.\"\n\n\"He did,\" Varek said. \"After he was drummed out of the guild. He couldn't face the shame, you know. They did the Trouser Legs Ritual to him. Pity. My uncle says he's the best engineer who ever lived. He says Makaisson is a genius.\"\n\n\"A genius at getting other dwarfs killed.\"\n\nFelix was thinking about what Gotrek had said about Makaisson shaving his head. \"Do you mean Makaisson became a Trollslayer?\" he asked Varek.\n\n\"Yes. Of course. He still does engineering work though. Says he'll prove his theories work or die trying.\"\n\n\"I'll bet he will,\" Gotrek muttered darkly.\n\nFelix wasn't listening. He was wrestling with another, far more troubling concept. Counting Gotrek and Snorri, that would make three Trollslayers in one place. What was Varek's uncle up to? A mission which required three Slayers didn't sound good. In fact, it sounded positively suicidal. Suddenly something that Varek had said earlier came sharply into focus in Felix's mind, cutting through even the awful fog of his hangover.\n\n\"You said earlier you heard scuttling,\" Felix said, thinking of the small shape he had seen in the undergrowth. He was starting to have an awful suspicion about that. \"On your way to meet Gotrek and myself.\"\n\nVarek nodded. \"Only at night, when we made camp.\"\n\n\"You've no idea what made the scuttling?\"\n\n\"No. A fox, maybe.\"\n\n\"Foxes don't scuttle.\"\n\n\"A big rat.\"\n\n\"A big rat\u2026\" Felix nodded his head. That was exactly what he hadn't wanted to hear. He looked over at Gotrek to see if the Slayer was thinking what he was thinking, but the dwarf had his head thrown back and was staring blankly into space. He appeared to be lost in his own thoughts and was paying not the slightest bit of attention to the conversation.\n\nRats made Felix think of only one thing, and that thing scared him. They made him think of skaven. Could it be possible that the foul rat-men had tracked him even here? It was not a comforting thought.\n\nFelix sat beside the fire and listened to the tremulous whickering of the mules. The darkness and the occasional distant howls of the wolves made them nervous. Felix rose and ran his hand over the nearest one's flanks in an effort to calm it and then returned to the fire where the others were sleeping.\n\nAll day the track had risen into the Bone Hills, which had turned out to be as bleak and unprepossessing as their name suggested. There were no trees around them, only lichen covered rocks and sharp hills covered by short stunted grass. It was fortunate that Varek had thought to bring firewood with them or they would have spent an even more uncomfortable night camped out. It was cold in the hills, despite the summer heat of the day.\n\nSupper had consisted of some bread bought at the inn back in Guntersbad and hunks of hard dwarf cheese. Afterwards, they had sat round the fire and all three dwarfs had lit their pipes. For entertainment they had the distant howling of the wolves. Felix found this marginally less depressing than dwarfish conversation which always seemed to rotate around ancient grudges, tales of misery long endured and epic drinking bouts. And horrifying as the howling was, it at least drowned out the sound of dwarfish snoring. Felix had drawn the short straw and won the dubious privilege of taking the first watch.\n\nHe tried not to stare into the fire and kept his eyes turned in the direction of the darkness so that he would not ruin his night vision. He was worried. He kept thinking about skaven and the thought of those ferocious Chaos-spawned rat-men appalled him. He remembered encountering them in the Battle of Nuln. It had been like a scene from a nightmare, battling in the dark with man-sized humanoid rats who walked upright and fought with weapons just as humans did. The memory of their hideous chittering language and the way their red eyes glittered in the darkness came back to him and made him shudder.\n\nThe most awful thing about the skaven was that they were organised in a hideous parody of human civilisation. They had their own culture, their own fiendish technologies. They had armies and sophisticated weapons that were in some ways more advanced than anything humanity had ever produced. Felix had seen them when they had erupted from the sewers to invade Nuln. He could still picture that monstrous horde rushing through the burning buildings, spearing anything that got in their way. Vividly he remembered the green flames of their warpfire throwers illuminating the night and the sizzle of human flesh as it was eaten away by the blazing jets.\n\nThe skaven were the implacable enemies of humanity, of all the civilised races, but there were those who sided with them for pay. Felix himself had killed their agent, Fritz von Halstadt, who had risen to become the chief of the Elector Countess Emmanuelle's secret police. He wondered how many other agents the rat-men had in high places. He did not want to think about it now in this lonely spot. He pushed thoughts of the skaven aside and tried to turn his mind to other things.\n\nHe let his thoughts drift back into the past. The howling reminded him of the terrible last nights of Fort von Diehl down in the Border Princes, where he watched his first great love Kirsten die, murdered by Manfred von Diehl, and saw most of the population slaughtered by goblin wolf riders let in by Manfred's treachery. It was strange, but he could still remember Kirsten's gaunt face and her soft voice. He wondered if there was anything he could have done to make things turn out differently. It was a thought that tormented him sometimes in the quiet watches of the night. It was an event that still caused him pain although of late he had felt it less often and knew that it was fading. He could even consider other women now. Back in Nuln, there had been the tavern girl, Elissa, but she had left in the end.\n\nThe picture of the smiling peasant girl in the field came back to him very vividly. He wondered what she was doing right now. He resigned himself to the fact that he would never even know her name, just as she would never know his. There were so many encounters in the world like that. Chances that never turned out right. Romances which died stillborn before ever they had a chance to live. He wondered whether he would ever meet another woman who touched him as much as Kirsten had.\n\nSo engrossed was he in these thoughts that it took some time for him to realise that he was hearing scuttling, the soft sounds of claws scrabbling on flinty rock. He kept himself low to the ground and then glanced around, carefully, suddenly fearing that at any moment he might feel the searing pain of a poisoned knife driven into his back. As he moved, however, the scuttling sounds stopped.\n\nHe kept still and held his breath for a long moment and it started again. There. The sound came from off to his right. As he watched, he could see the glitter of red eyes, and dark silhouettes creeping ever closer over the ridge top. He slid his sword from its scabbard. The magical blade which he had acquired from the dead Templar Aldred felt light in his hand. He was about to shout a warning to the others when an enormous howling battle-cry erupted. He recognised the voice as Gotrek's.\n\nA strange musky scent that Felix had smelled before filled the air. The rat-like shapes turned and fled immediately. The Slayer dashed past into the darkness, the runes on his huge axe glowing in the night, swiftly followed by Snorri Nosebiter. Felix would have raced after them himself, but his human eyes could not see in the gloom like a dwarf's. He flinched as Varek moved up beside him, one of his sinister black bombs in his hands. The firelight reflected off the young dwarf's spectacles and turned his eyes into circles of fire.\n\nThey stood side by side for long tense moments, waiting to hear the sounds of battle, expecting to see the sudden rush of a horde of rat-men. The only sound they heard was the stomping of boots as Gotrek and Snorri returned.\n\n\"Skaven,\" Gotrek spat contemptuously.\n\n\"They ran away,\" Snorri said in a disappointed tone. Treating the event as if nothing untoward had happened, they returned to their places by the fire and cast themselves down to sleep. Felix envied them. He knew that even once his watch had ended, there would be no sleep for him this night.\n\nSkaven, he thought, and shuddered."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE LONELY TOWER",
+                "text": "Felix looked down into the mouth of the long valley and was overcome with awe. From where he stood, he could see machines, hundreds of them. Enormous steam engines rose along the valley sides like monsters in riveted iron armour. The pistons of huge pumps went up and down with the regularity of a giant's heartbeat. Steam hissed from enormous rusting pipes which ran between massive red brick buildings. Huge chimneys belched vast clouds of sooty smoke into the air. The air echoed with the clanging of a hundred hammers. The infernal glow of forges illuminated the shadowy interior of workshops. Dozens of dwarfs moved backwards and forwards through the heat and noise and misty clouds.\n\nFor a second the fog cleared as the cold hill wind cut through the valley. Felix could see that one vast structure dominated the length of the dale. It was built from rusting, riveted metal with a corrugated iron roof. It was perhaps three hundred strides long and twenty high. At one end was a massive cast-iron tower, the like of which Felix had never seen before. It was constructed from metal girders, with an observation point and what looked like a monstrous lantern at its very tip.\n\nHigh over the far end of the valley loomed a monstrous squat fortress. Moss clung to its eroded stonework. Felix could make out the gleaming muzzles of cannons high among the battlements. From the middle of the structure loomed a single stone tower. On the face nearest the roof was a massive clock, whose hands showed that it was almost the seventh hour after noon. On the roof, an equally gigantic telescope pointed towards the sky. Even as Felix watched, the hand reached seven o'clock and a bell tolled deafeningly, its echoes filling the valley with sound.\n\nThe eerie wail of what could only have been a steam whistle \u2014 Felix had heard something like it once at the College of Engineering in Nuln \u2014 filled the air. There was a chugging of pistons and the clatter of iron wheels on rails as a small steam-wagon emerged from the mine-head. It moved along iron tracks, carrying heaps and heaps of coal into some great central smelting works.\n\nThe noise was deafening. The smell was overwhelming. The sight was at once monstrous and fascinating, like looking at the innards of some vast and intricate clockwork toy. Felix felt like he was looking down upon a scene of strange sorcery of a kind which, if truly unleashed, might change the world. He had not realised what the dwarfs were capable of, what power their arcane knowledge gave them. He was filled with a wonder so strong that, for a moment it overcame the fear which had been nagging at the back of his mind all day.\n\nThen the thought came back to him, and he remembered the tracks he had seen this morning mingled with the hob-nailed boot prints of the Slayers. There could be no doubt that they belonged to skaven, quite a strong force at that. Felix knew that fearsome as the Slayers were, the rat-men had not fled out of terror. They had retreated because they had other things to do, and getting into a fight with his companions might have slowed them down in the performance of that mission. It was the only possible explanation for why so strong a party of skaven had fled from so few.\n\nLooking at this place now, he understood what the probable objective of the skaven force was. Here was a thing which the followers of the Horned Rat would want to capture \u2014 or destroy. Felix had no idea what was taking place down in that valley but he was certain that it was important because so much industry, energy and intelligence were being expended, and Felix knew that dwarfs did nothing without a purpose.\n\nOnce more, though, he felt his heart start to race. Here was industry on a scale that he had not imagined possible. It had a sordid magnificence and implied a terrifying understanding of things beyond the knowledge of human civilisation. In that moment Felix understood just how much his people had yet to learn from the dwarfs. From beside him he heard a sharp intake of breath.\n\n\"If the Engineers Guild ever finds out about this,\" Gotrek rumbled, \"heads will roll!\"\n\n\"We'd better get down there and tell them about the skaven.\" Felix replied.\n\nGotrek looked at him with something like pride showing in his one mad eye. \"What could those people down there have to fear from a bunch of scabby ratlings?\"\n\nTempted as he was to agree, Felix kept quiet. He was sure that he could think of something, given long enough. After all, the skaven had given him plenty of reasons for terror in the past.\n\nSomewhere off to their right something glinted, like a mirror catching a beam of sunlight. Felix wondered briefly what it was and then dismissed it from his mind as being some part of the wondrous technology he saw being deployed all around him.\n\n\"Let's go tell them anyway,\" he said, wondering why the dwarfs had put something that glittered so brightly amongst a clump of bushes.\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol peered down at the scene through the periscope. The device was yet another magnificent skaven invention, combining the best features of a telescope and a series of mirrors, thus allowing him to watch those unsuspecting fools below unobserved from within the cover of this clump of bushes. Only the lens at the mechanism's tip was visible and he doubted that the dwarfs would notice even that. They were so slow-witted and stupid.\n\nStill, even the grey seer had to admit that there was something magnificent about what the dwarfs had built down there. He wasn't sure what it was but even he, in his secret ratty heart, was impressed. It was fascinating to look at, like one of the mazes he kept for humans back home in Skavenblight. There was so much going on that the eye did not quite know where to look. There was so much activity that he just knew that something important was happening down there \u2014 something that might well rebound to his credit with the Council of Thirteen once he had seized it.\n\nYet again he congratulated himself on his foresight and his intelligence. How many other grey seers would have responded to the reports of a bunch of skavenslaves who had been driven out of the old coal mines beneath the Lonely Tower?\n\nNone of his rivals had paused to consider that there must be something important going on when the dwarfs sent an army to reclaim an old coal mine in these desolate hills. Of course, he had to admit, none of them had had the chance because Thanquol had executed most of the survivors before they had an opportunity to tell anybody else. After all, secrecy was one of the greatest weapons in the skaven arsenal and none knew this better than he. Was he not pre-eminent among grey seers, the feared and potent skaven magicians who ranked just below the Council of Thirteen themselves? And given time even that would change as well. Thanquol knew that it was his destiny to take his rightful place on one of the Council's ancient thrones some day.\n\nAs soon as he was certain the report was true he had journeyed here with his bodyguards. And as soon as he had seen the size of the dwarf encampment, he had sent a summons to the nearest skaven garrison, invoking the name of the Horned Rat and enjoining the strictest secrecy of its commander, on pain of a long, protracted and incredibly agonising death. Now the valley was all but surrounded by a mighty skaven force, and whatever it was that the dwarfs sought to protect would soon be his. This very night he would give the command that would send his invincible furry legions surging forward to inevitable victory.\n\nA flicker of movement attracted Thanquol's attention for a moment, a flutter of red in the breeze which reminded him vaguely of something ominous he had seen in the past. He ignored it and tracked the periscope along the side of the hill, inspecting the potent dwarf-built engines. Greed and a lust to possess them filled him; ignorance of their purpose did nothing to discourage him. He knew that they simply must be worth having. Anything which could make so much noise and create so much smoke was in and of itself a thing to make any skaven's heart beat faster.\n\nSomething about that fluttering scrap of red nagged at his mind but he dismissed it. He began to draw up a plan of attack, studying all the lines of approach along the valley edges. He wished he could summon a huge cloud of poison wind and send it blowing down the valley, killing the dwarfs and leaving their machine intact. The simple beauty of the idea struck him. Perhaps he should sell it to the warp engineers of Clan Skryre the next time he was negotiating with them. Certainly a device which could pump out gas the way those chimneys pumped out smoke would\u2026\n\nWait a moment! The strange familiarity of that flapping scarlet cloak sunk into his forebrain. He suddenly remembered where he'd seen its like before. He remembered a hated human who wore something very similar. But surely\u2026 it couldn't be possible that he was here.\n\nHastily Thanquol twisted the periscope on its collapsible frame. He heard a grunt of pain from the skavenslave to whose back it was strapped, but what did he care? The pain of a slave meant less to him than the fur he shed each morning.\n\nWith a flick of his paws he brought the lenses into focus on the source of his unease. For a shocked instant he fought down an almost overwhelming urge to squirt the musk of fear. He stopped himself only by reminding himself that there was no way that the hairless ape could see him.\n\nThanquol flinched and ducked his horned head down, even though his mighty intelligence told him that he was already out of sight. He looked around to see if his two lackeys, Lurk and Grotz, had noticed his unease. Their blank faces looked up at him placidly and he was reassured that he had not lost face in front of his underlings. He took a pinch of warpstone snuff to calm his shaking nerves, then offered up something which could have been a prayer, or might conceivably have been construed as a curse to the Horned Rat.\n\nHe could not believe it. He simply could not believe it! As plain as the snout on his face, he had seen the human, Felix Jaeger, when he looked through the periscope. He leaned forward and snatched another glance just to be sure. No \u2014 there was no mistake. There he stood, as plain as day. Felix Jaeger, the hated human who had done so much to thwart Thanquol's mighty plans, and who mere months before had almost succeeded, beyond all reason, in disgracing him before the Council of Thirteen!\n\nJustifiable hatred warred with the rational instinct of self-preservation which dominated Thanquol's soul. His first thought was that somehow Jaeger had sought him out and had come all this way to thwart his schemes of glory again. The cold light of logic told him that this could not be the case. Nothing so simple could possibly be true. There was no way that Jaeger could know where to find him. Not even Thanquol's masters on the Council of Thirteen knew his current location. He had cloaked his departure from Skavenblight in the utmost secrecy.\n\nThen the terrifying thought struck Thanquol that perhaps one of his many enemies far away, back in the City of the Horned Rat, had by some arcane means located him, and was feeding the information to the human. It would not be the first time that wicked rat-men had betrayed the righteous skaven cause for their own gain or revenge on those they envied.\n\nThe more he thought of it, the more likely this explanation seemed to Thanquol. Rage bubbled through his veins along with the powdered warpstone. He would find this traitor and crush him like the treacherous worm he was! Already he could think of half a dozen culprits who would be deserving of his inevitable vengeance.\n\nThen another thought struck the grey seer, one which very nearly sent the musk of fear squirting despite all of his efforts at self-control. If Jaeger was present it meant that the other one was most likely there as well. Yes, it meant that most likely the only other being on the planet who Thanquol hated and feared more than Felix Jaeger was there too. He did not doubt, and nor was he mistaken, that when he next looked through the periscope, that he would see the Trollslayer, Gotrek Gurnisson.\n\nIt was all he could do to suppress the mighty squeak of rage and terror that threatened to burst from his lips. He knew he was going to have to think about this.\n\nThe bustling activity of the place became even more evident to Felix as the wagon descended into the valley. All around them groups of dwarfs moved purposefully. Leather aprons protected their burly chests. Sweat ran down their soot-smudged faces. Dozens of odd-looking implements \u2014 which reminded Felix of instruments of torture \u2014 hung from loops on their belts. Some of the dwarfs wore strange-looking armoured suits; others were mounted in small steam-wagons with forked lifting tines on the front. These machines carried heavy crates and packages along the iron rails between the workshops and the central metal structure.\n\nAll around the factory complex a shanty town had sprung up where the dwarfs apparently lived. The buildings were of wood and drystone, with sloping roofs of corrugated metal. They seemed empty, all their occupants were out at work.\n\nFelix looked at Gotrek. \"What is going on here?\"\n\nThere was silence for a long moment as Gotrek appeared to consider whether he should even answer at all. Eventually he spoke in a slow, solemn voice.\n\n\"Manling, you are looking on something I had never thought to see, that perhaps only you of all your people will ever see the like of. It reminds me of the great shipyards of Barak Varr but\u2026 So many forbidden Guild secrets are being used here that I cannot begin to number them.\"\n\n\"All of this is forbidden, you say?\"\n\n\"Dwarfs are a very conservative people. We do not care much for new ideas,\" Varek said suddenly. \"Our engineers are more conservative than most. If you try something and it fails, like poor Makaisson did, then you are ridiculed and there is nothing worse than that to a dwarf. Few are even willing to risk it. And of course some things have been tested and because the tests failed so\u2026 spectacularly\u2026 they were forbidden to be used, by the guild. There are things here which we have known of in theory for centuries, but which only here have we dared put into practice. I know that what my uncle wants to do is considered so important that many talented young dwarfs were prepared to take the risk, to work here in secret on our great project. They think it is worth the attempt.\"\n\n\"And the expense,\" Gotrek said, with something like awe in his voice. \"Somebody spent a pretty penny here, and no mistake.\"\n\n\"Well, and that too,\" Varek said, flushing red to the roots of his beard for no reason that Felix could understand.\n\nGotrek glanced around with a critical eye. \"Not very well fortified, is it?\"\n\nVarek gave an apologetic shrug. \"Things were built so fast, we didn't have time. We've only been here just over a year. And anyway, who would possibly think to attack such an out of the way place as this?\"\n\nGrey Seer Thanquol scuttled back down the slopes to where his army had mustered in the gathering gloom. Clawleaders Grotz and Snitchtongue were already in position at the heads of their respective forces. Both looked at him with the expression of brute submissiveness which he had come to expect from lackeys. The communication amulets he had hammered into their foreheads glittered with the fire of trapped warpstone.\n\nHe looked down on a seething sea of shadowy, rat-like faces, each one set with fierce determination to conquer or die. He felt his tail stiffen with pride as he looked upon this mighty horde of chittering warriors. He could see black armoured stormvermin where they loomed over the lesser clanrat warriors, the masked and heavily muffled warpfire thrower teams, and his own mighty bodyguard, Boneripper, the second rat-ogre to bear that name.\n\nIt was not the most formidable force he had ever commanded. In truth, it was a mere fraction of the size of the force he had led to attack the human city of Nuln. There were no plague monks present, none of the mighty war engines that were the pride of his race. He would have liked a doomwheel or a screaming bell, but there had not been time to drag them here through the tunnels or over the rugged hills to this remote place. Still, he was certain that the hundreds of fine troops standing before him would be enough for his purposes. Particularly attacking at night, and with the benefit of surprise.\n\nAnd yet\u2026 A spasm of doubt shuddered through him and made his fur bristle. The dwarf and Jaeger were present down there and that was a bad omen. Their presence never seemed to augur well for Thanquol's plans. Had they not managed to somehow thwart his invasion of Nuln, and in some not-as-yet-understood way destroyed an entire skaven army? Had they not forced the grey seer himself to beat a hasty but prudent tactical withdrawal through the sewers, while the streets above ran black with skaven blood?\n\nThanquol dribbled some more warpstone snuff onto the back of his paw from the manskin pouch he always carried. He stuck his snout into it and sniffed, and felt anger and confidence surge back into his brain. Visions of death, mutilation and other wonderful things flooded through his soaring mind. Now he felt sure that victory would be his. How could anything resist his mighty powers? Nothing could stand in the way of the supreme skaven sorcery he commanded!\n\nHis hidden enemies back in Skavenblight had overreached themselves when they sent Jaeger and Gurnisson here. They thought to strike a blow against Thanquol by using his bitterest enemies to smite him! Well, he would show them that what they believed was cunning was merely sorely misguided folly! All they had succeeded in doing was placing the two fools he most wanted to humble within the grasp of his mighty paw. They had provided him with the opportunity to take a most terrible vengeance on his two most hated foes, while at the same time covering himself with glory by seizing the machinery the dwarfs had built in this place!\n\nSurely, he thought as the foul stuff bubbled like molten Chaos through his veins, this would be his greatest triumph, his finest hour! For a millennium, skaven would speak in hushed whispers about Grey Seer Thanquol's cunning, ruthlessness and awesome intelligence. He could almost taste victory already.\n\nHe raised his paw and gave the signal for silence. As one, the entire horde laid off its chittering. Hundreds of red eyes looked at him expectantly. Whiskers twitched in anticipation of his words.\n\n\"Now we will smashcrush the dwarfs like beetle-bugs!\" he squeaked in his most impressive, oratorical tones. \"We will roll over the valley from both sides and nothing will stop us. Forward, brave skaven, to inevitable victory!\"\n\nThe horde's squeaking rose in volume until it filled his ears. He knew that tonight victory would certainly be his.\n\nFelix shivered as he walked. A sense of foreboding filled his mind. Instinctively, he threw his cloak back over his right shoulder to free his sword arm. His hand strayed to the hilt of his sword, and he felt a sudden urge to pull it free and be ready to fight.\n\nThe castle loomed high above them, and he could see from this close that it was not quite as formidable as it looked from a distance. The walls were cracked and weakened; in some places the stone had crumbled away entirely. Despite what Varek had claimed, the work of the dwarfs did not in any way appear to have increased the defensibility of the place. Although Felix was no expert, he could see that Gotrek's claim that the place was not particularly well fortified was true. If they were to be attacked, this whole valley would turn out to be one big death-trap.\n\nThey were almost at the castle now. Their road had led all the way to the foot of the cliffs on top of which the castle sat. Despite the gathering gloom, Felix could spy an old dwarf with an enormously long beard who had emerged onto a turreted balcony above the castle portcullis. The ancient waved. Felix was about to wave back when he realised that the dwarf was greeting Gotrek. The Slayer looked up, gave a sullen grunt and raised his ham-like fist up a few inches in greeting.\n\n\"Gotrek Gurnisson,\" the old dwarf called. \"I never thought I would see you again!\"\n\n\"Nor did I,\" Gotrek muttered. He sounded almost embarrassed.\n\nLurk Snitchtongue felt his heart beat faster with pride, excitement \u2014 and a certain justifiable caution. Grey Seer Thanquol had chosen him to lead the attack, while the skaven mage observed the battle site from the slopes to the rear. It was the proudest moment of Lurk's life and he felt an emotion which could almost have been described as gratitude to Thanquol, had gratitude not been a weak, foolish, un-skaven emotion. He had not been so happy since he had recovered from the plague which had threatened his life back in Nuln. It appeared he had been forgiven for his part in the failure in that great human warren. Once again he was Grey Seer Thanquol's favoured emissary. Of course, if Grey Seer Thanquol ever found out how Lurk had conspired with his enemies during the Nuln fiasco\u2026\n\nLurk pushed that thought aside. He knew that if this attack succeeded he would be well rewarded with breeders, warptokens and promotion within the ranks of his clan. More than that, he would gain a great deal of prestige, which to a skaven like him was worth more than any of the other things. Those siblings who had sneered at him, mocked and ridiculed him behind his back would be silenced. They would know that Lurk had led his mighty horde to victory over the dwarfs.\n\nThe thought sidled sideways into his mind that it might even be possible to eliminate Thanquol and claim credit for this operation himself. He dismissed the idea as absurd immediately, fearing that the mage even now might be reading his thoughts through the amulet on his brow, but somehow the wicked notion stayed put, leaping into his consciousness despite all his attempts to suppress it.\n\nHe cast around for something to distract himself, and felt his heart race with anxiety. They had almost reached the crest of the hill and still they had not been spotted. Soon would come the moment of truth. As they broached the hilltop they would become visible to the dwarfs below unless their advance was concealed by the night and smoke. He raised his claw in the sign for silence. All around him, his stormvermin stalked near-silently forward, save only for the occasional clanking of sheath against armour that most likely would not be noticed by their dull-witted opponents.\n\nIt was not the slight noises of the stormvermin which worried Lurk. It was the racket that those stupid clan rat warriors and skaven slaves were making! Lacking the imperial discipline of the stormvermin, and the long hours of training, they were making a great deal of noise. Some of them were even chittering among themselves, trying to keep their morale up in the traditional skaven way \u2014 by boasting to each other about what torments they would inflict on their prisoners.\n\nMuch as Lurk sympathised with their sentiments, he swore that he would have those chatterers' lips sewn shut after his inevitable victory. Since he could not see who was talking at this distance, he decided that he would just have to pull out a few clanrats at random and make an example of them.\n\nBy now he knew that Clawleader Grotz was most likely in position on the other side of the valley. With typical skaven precision, they would be in place ready to sweep down on both sides of the valley, taking the surprised stunties from two sides and drowning them under a furry wave of unstoppable skaven might!\n\nHe looked around him and offered a silent prayer in hope that the warriors remembered his last feverish instructions \u2014 no burning of buildings, no taking of loot. Grey Seer Thanquol wanted everything left in one piece so that they could sell it to the warp engineers. He froze for a moment, almost hesitant to give the order to attack. Then the thought that Grotz might already be sweeping down on the valley and seizing all the glory took hold of him and swept away what remained of his caution. He crawled up the slope and looked down into the valley, driven on by the comforting smell of the mass of skaven around him.\n\nThe dwarfish settlement stretched out below him. By night it was even more impressive than by day. The flames of the foundries and the fires within the smokestacks illuminated the place with an eerie glow which was reminiscent of the great city of Skavenblight. The buildings bulked vast and shadowy in the gloom.\n\nLurk hoped there were no unpleasant surprises waiting down there, but then realised that it was impossible for there to be. Had not the great Grey Seer Thanquol himself planned this attack?\n\nVolgar Volgarsson stared out into the gathering darkness and tugged his beard distractedly. He was getting mightily hungry, and the thought of the ale and stew which the others would be digging into down in the Great Hall made his mouth water. He patted his belly just to make sure it was still there. After all, he hadn't eaten a morsel in over four hours. Except, of course, for that loaf of bread and hunk of cheese, but that hardly counted at all, not by Volgar's standards.\n\nBy Grungni, he hoped that Morkin would hurry up and relieve him. It was cold and uncomfortable up here in this sentry post and Volgar was a dwarf who valued his comforts. Of course, he was proud in his way to be part of the great work going on here, but there was a limit. He knew he wasn't smart enough to be an engineer and he was too clumsy to help in the manufacturing, so he did what he could, acting as a guard and sentry, spending long lonely hours with nary a morsel of food in this chill, damp place, keeping a look-out for anyone or anything creeping up on the valley.\n\nHe knew his position was a good one. The sentry's pillbox was set in the ground, with only an observation slot looking out on the far side of the valley. There were similar such posts on the other side and looking down on the road. All he had to do was keep an eye open for trouble and if he spotted anything nasty sound the horn. Simple really.\n\nAnd in a way it was actually a good posting. What trouble could there possibly be in this gods-forsaken spot? Ever since they had kicked the skaven out, there had not been the slightest hint of a problem. Now there had been a good fight, Volgar told himself, taking a long pull from his hip flask, just to keep the chill away, of course. They'd helped settle the score for a few grudges against the rat-men there. Over a hundred of the furry little buggers killed and barely a dwarf scratched. He belched loudly to show his appreciation.\n\nIt had been so quiet that Volgar had even managed a quick nap this afternoon. He was sure he had missed nothing. That was the one good thing about the settlement being so undermanned.\n\nThere was no troublesome fellow sentry to keep you awake with their talk about ale and the grudges they would settle when they got back to Karaz-a-Karak. Volgar liked a good natter about score-settling as much as the next dwarf but he preferred his kip more. Couldn't beat a good snooze right after luncheon. It helped set you up proper for the rest of the day.\n\nAnd now, well, his dwarfish eyes were good at night, and his dwarfish ears, attuned to listening to the warning hints concealed within the sounds of subsidence in the depths of the earth, were more than capable of alerting him to any trouble. If there was anything out of the ordinary \u2014 like that faint scuttling sound \u2014 or even something which sounded like the clink of weapon on weapon \u2014 like the noise he had just heard, in fact \u2014 he would notice it in an instant, and be ready to respond.\n\nVolgar shook his head. Was he hearing things? No, there it was again, and there was a faint high-pitched chittering as well. It sounded just like skaven. He rubbed his eyes to clear them of any obscuring film and peered out through the observation slot into the darkness. His eyes were not deceiving him. A tide of shadowy rat-like shapes were flowing up the hill all around him. Their beady red eyes glittered in the darkness.\n\nHis hand almost shook as he grasped the sentry horn. He knew that if he kept quiet, the skaven would most likely pass him by. They obviously hadn't spotted his concealed outpost. If instead he gave the signal, then he was going to die. He would give away his position to the horde which surrounded him and they would swarm over it like flies on carrion. The door behind him was strongly barred but it would not hold them forever, and then there was the poison gas and the flame-throwers, and all the other strange skaven weapons he had heard of. One poison globe through the observation slot and that would be the end for old Volgar.\n\nOn the other hand, if he did not give the signal, his companions would be overwhelmed by the rat-men, and would most likely die in his stead. The great work they were embarked on would fail and it would all be his fault. If he lived, he would have to live with the shame that he had brought on not only himself but on his ancestors.\n\nVolgar was a dwarf, and for all his flaws he had a dwarf's pride. He took a last long pull from his flask, wasted a second on a final regretful thought of the dinner he was never going to have, took a deep breath, put the horn to his lips and blew."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "The lonely bellow of the horn filled the valley. It seemed to come from below the earth itself. Felix looked around wildly.\n\n\"What was that?\" he asked.\n\n\"Trouble,\" Gotrek responded cheerfully, pointing at the vast horde of skaven swarming over the brow of the hill and into the valley."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE SKAVEN ATTACK",
+                "text": "Felix watched in abject horror as the dark tide of skaven flowed down the hill towards him. He was unsure how many there were but it looked like hundreds, maybe thousands \u2014 it was hard to tell in the darkness. He whirled to investigate as a great clamour arose behind him. Looking up he saw yet more skaven entering the valley from the other side. The jaws of a huge trap were closing.\n\nFelix fought down a surge of panic. Somehow, no matter how many times he had been in situations like this \u2014 and he had been in many \u2014 it never got any easier. He felt a sick feeling spread in the pit of his stomach, a tenseness in his muscles, and somehow a strange light-headedness too. His mouth was dry and his own heartbeat sounded loud in his ears. Just for once he would have liked to have been calm and relaxed in the face of danger, or filled with furious berserker rage like all those heroes in the storybooks. As always, it didn't happen.\n\nAll around him, dwarfs were downing tools and snatching up weapons. Horns sounded, each one with a different tone, their long notes like the wails of souls in torment, adding to the cacophony all around. Felix turned again and was about to make a sprint for the portal of the castle when he realised that no one else was doing that. All around him dwarfs raced through the gloom towards the enemy.\n\nWere they all mad, Felix wondered? Why did they not make a dash for the safety of the castle? Unsound as its walls appeared, they would doubtless have a better chance within them. It would almost certainly be safer inside the keep but these crazy dwarfs paid no attention.\n\nHe froze momentarily, overcome with curiosity and apprehension. The thought struck him that perhaps there was some good reason why they weren't going into the keep\u2026 and perhaps finding out that reason for himself was not such a good idea.\n\nSlowly it percolated into Felix's panicking brain that the dwarfs were not going to leave their machines in the hands of the skaven. They were prepared to fight and, if need be, die in defence of these monstrous smoke-belching mechanisms. It showed a determination that was either truly impressive or monumentally stupid, Felix could not decide which.\n\nWhile he was still making up his mind, an ominous clanking sound started up from behind him, followed by the ring of metal on stone. He turned just in time to see the keep's portcullis slam down. From inside he heard the grinding of gears and the whistling of a steam engine's boiler, then the enormous chains which held the drawbridge in place tightened and begin to raise the wooden structure. Suddenly there was a deep ditch between him and the castle. At least someone inside was showing some sense, Felix thought, even if they had trapped him outside in what promised to be a mad melee.\n\nA thunderous roar erupted from the castle above. A huge cloud of smoke belched above his head and the acrid smell of ignited gunpowder filled the air. Felix realised that someone above had wit enough to bring one of the cannons to bear. There was a whistling sound and then an explosion ripped through the darkness. A dozen of the charging skaven were thrown into the air. Limbs flew in one direction, torsos in another. The dwarfs let out a loud cheer; the skaven emitted what sounded like a long hiss of hatred.\n\nAll around him dwarfs raced into battle positions. Deep voices bawled out harsh guttural words in the ancient dwarf language. Felix felt lost and alone in the midst of this maelstrom of furious and yet somehow ordered activity. He could see that from the mad whirl of shouting and running dwarfs a coherent pattern was starting to emerge. The engineers and warriors were taking up their places beside their brethren in the line. Felix felt that he was the only one here who did not seem to have some idea where he was supposed to go.\n\nThey were all rallying around the horns, Felix suddenly realised, and now the different notes made sense. They were like those individual bells he had seen on the cattle a few days before. They identified their owners, gave his comrades a point to rally to, a nucleus around which a hard armoured shell could form.\n\nFelix could see now that this was a tactic which had long been drilled into the dwarfs, until they had it down perfectly. Where a few moments ago there had been a mass of disorganised souls just begging to be massacred, now there were well-disciplined ranks of dwarf warriors, wheeling to face their foes, marching with a discipline that would have shamed imperial pike-men. Perhaps whoever was in charge here knew what he was doing, Felix thought. Perhaps this was not going to be the utter bloody slaughter he had feared only a few moments ago.\n\nHe wasn't sure it would be enough, judging by the size of the skaven force tearing down the hill, picking up speed like a juggernaut, gathering what looked like irresistible momentum for its charge. The seething furry horde was so close now that he could see individual skaven, make out their foam-covered lips, the rabid fanaticism in their eyes. Some of them were larger, more muscular, and better armoured than others. He had fought such beasts in the past and knew that they would be the toughest. He kept his eyes peeled for any of those clumsy, awkward and yet oh-so-deadly field weapons the skaven loved, but mercifully could see none present.\n\nSuddenly Felix felt very alone. He was not part of any of those hastily assembled dwarfish units. There was no one beside him to watch his back. Perhaps in the darkness the dwarfs might even take him for a foe. There was only one place for him here. He looked around for Gotrek but overcome with battle-lust he and Snorri had raced off to get closer to the foe.\n\nFelix spat out a curse and clambered hastily onto the wagon, to get a better view of his surroundings. He noticed that Varek was sitting there, peering interestedly out into the gloom, occasionally laying the bomb he held in his hand down on the seat beside him, and scratching a note in the book before him with what looked like some strange mechanical pen. His eyes glittered feverishly behind his glasses.\n\n\"Isn't this exciting, Felix?\" he asked. \"A real battle! This is the first one I've ever been in.\"\n\n\"Pray it isn't your last\u2026\" Felix muttered, taking a few practice sweeps with his sword, hoping to loosen his tense muscles before the horde smashed into the dwarf line. He took a quick glance around hoping that he would be able to pick out Gotrek.\n\nThe Slayer was nowhere in sight.\n\nFrom his perch on the hill high above the battle, Grey Seer Thanquol peered down at his seeing stone. It lay blank and dormant before him. Within its depths there was perhaps a tiny flicker of warpfire, undetectable save to an eye as keen and all-seeing as Thanquol's.\n\nIndeed, to the untrained skaven eye it looked merely like a large multi-faceted piece of coloured glass inscribed with the Thirteen Most Sacred Symbols. Thanquol knew enough about the race of man to know that to a human eye, it would look like some tawdry gewgaw used by a sideshow fakir. He was also wise enough to know that the human eye would be mightily deceived, for this was a most potent artefact indeed.\n\nAt least, he hoped so. The raw moon-crystal had cost Thanquol many warptokens. The carving of those runes, each one inscribed on a different moonless night, had cost Thanquol much lost sleep. The embedding of potent spells within the crystal had been paid for in blood and pain, some of it the grey seer's.\n\nNow was the moment to find out whether it had all been worth it. It was time, thought Thanquol, to begin to use his new toy. Hastily he scratched runes in the hard earth around him, making the Thirteen Sacred Signs of the Horned Rat with practised ease. Next he put his thumb into his muzzle and bit hard. His sharp teeth drew blood, though he hardly felt a thing through the haze of powdered warpstone snuff and the seething sorcerous energies which filled his brain.\n\nBlack blood dripped from the wound. He held his thumb out over the first rune. A droplet impacted in the centre of the symbol and as it did so Thanquol spoke a word of power, a secret name of the Horned Rat. Immediately the fluid vaporised into a puff of acrid smoke, forming a small skull-like mushroom cloud over the rune. The symbol flared to life, lines of green fire illuminating its outline brilliantly before fading down into a less lurid yet still visible glow.\n\nQuickly and expertly Thanquol repeated the procedure with every rune and, once that was completed, he carefully dribbled three final droplets of his own precious blood onto the seeing stone itself. Instantly a dim picture flickered into life. He could make out the scene of chaos and imminent carnage in the valley below as if looking down on it from a great height, then the picture flickered and a cloud of static filled the stone. Thanquol administered an irritated thump to the side of the crystal and the picture cleared and settled. The sight of the battle came into view as clear as day. Well almost \u2014 there was a faint greenish tinge to the picture that would not go away, no matter how many gentle taps and thumps of adjustment Thanquol administered.\n\nNo matter! Thanquol felt like the master of some vast and secret game. All those skaven below were now but pieces for him to command. Pawns to be moved by his mighty paw. Tokens to be placed on the board and guided by his titanic intelligence. He took another pinch of warpstone snuff and almost howled with glee. He felt his power to be infinite. There was nothing like it, this sensation of control, of mastery. Best of all, he could exercise his power from well out of sight and personal danger. Not that he feared danger, of course, it was merely sensible to keep himself out of the way of unnecessary risks. It was every grey seer's greatest dream come true!\n\nThanquol allowed himself to gloat for a long moment, then gave his attention to the battle, trying to decide in exactly which spectacular way he would seize victory and immortal fame among skavenkind.\n\nFelix splayed his feet wider, trying to find his balance on the back of the wagon. The vehicle rocked slightly on its suspension and he wondered whether it was wise to stand here. On the one hand, the footing was unsure and he was a conspicuous target standing upright on the wagon's back. On the other hand, at least up here he had the advantage of being on somewhat higher ground and having partial cover from the wagon's sides. He decided to remain where he was for the moment \u2014 and to jump to the ground at the first sign of missile fire. That was the logical thing to do. Besides, it looked like someone would have to stay here and look after Varek.\n\nThe unworldly young dwarf was scribbling away for all he was worth in his book. Felix was amazed that he could see to write. He knew from his long association with Gotrek that dwarfs could see in the dark better than humans, but here was astonishing proof of the fact. By the flickering furnace light, which showed Felix only the barest of outlines of objects, the young dwarf was writing for all the world like a scribe copying a manuscript by candlelight If nothing else, it was an amazing feat of concentration.\n\nTo tell the truth Felix would have been happier if Varek paid more attention to the mules. The animals were showing distinct signs of distress as the skaven raced ever closer.\n\nFelix glanced nervously about them, wondering if any of those nasty skaven assassins with poison blades were skulking around. It was unlike the rat-men to go for a simple frontal assault without springing some nasty, sneaky surprises. He knew from bitter experience what they were capable of. He nudged Varek gently with the tip of his boot.\n\n\"Best pay attention to the mules,\" he said. \"They look restless.\"\n\nVarek nodded amiably, put his pen back in his capacious pockets, snapped his book shut and picked up his bomb.\n\nSomehow Felix was not reassured."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Thanquol glared into the seeing stone with furious concentration. He placed a paw on either side of it and chittered frantic invocations, trying to keep control of his point of view. It was not nearly as easy to control as he would have liked.\n\nHe raised his right claw and the point of view swung up and to the right. He clenched his paw into a fist and punched it forward, and the viewpoint shifted until he had a panoramic view of the battlefield. He saw the skaven loping down the hillside towards the hastily marshalling dwarfs. He saw the great furry spearheads of stormvermin aimed directly at the centre of the assembling dwarf host. He saw the flanking forces of clanrats and skavenslaves running somewhat less enthusiastically by their sides. He saw his bodyguard, Boneripper, running along beside Lurk Snitchtongue.\n\nThe keep above the valley looked like a ratchild's toy when viewed from this height, and the whole vast intricate structure of the dwarf camp looked suspiciously ordered and patterned, almost as if every building, pipe and chimney were the component of one vast machine. It was all very fascinating and he had to fight to keep his attention on the upcoming conflict. One of the side-effects of warpstone snuff was that the user could become enthralled by the most trivial things, losing himself in contemplation of the majesty of his toenails while all around cities burned. Thanquol was an experienced enough sorcerer to be aware of this, but sometimes even he forgot for a moment. And it was such a tantalising scene, so\u2026 He wrenched his thoughts back to the battle and willed his point of view to shift, zooming in like the eyes of a bird on the centre of the dwarf lines, to the wagon on which Felix Jaeger stood, sword in hand, looking tense and justifiably afraid.\n\nA simple but brilliant plan struck the grey seer. He had some doubts as to whether this Boneripper could handle the Slayer any better than his predecessor had, but he had no doubts whatsoever that the monster could slaughter that Jaeger. He had some special instructions for the rat-ogre concerning the human and he knew that the fierce, loyal and stupid brute would obey them to the death. In a glorious rush, he knew that Felix Jaeger's painful death was assured.\n\nHaving located his intended victim, Thanquol sent his sorcerous gaze questing back in search of Boneripper. When he found the monstrous hybrid of rat and ogre, he muttered another spell which would allow his thoughts to communicate with those of his henchling.\n\nHe felt a sudden dizziness and the blast furnace of hunger, rage and brute stupidity that was the rat-ogre's consciousness. Swiftly he placed the image of Jaeger's position in the monster's mind and gave his instructions: Go, Boneripper, kill!! Kill! Kill!\n\nFelix shivered. He knew someone was watching him. He could almost feel the burning eyes boring into his back. He glanced around, certain that he would see some malevolent skaven ready to plunge a knife between his shoulder blades, but when he did so, no one was there.\n\nSlowly the eerie feeling passed from him, to be replaced by a more immediate worry. The skaven were almost upon them! He could hear their chittering, and their crude weapons clashing terrifyingly on their shields. With a great rushing hiss, a flight of bolts flashed overhead from the castle battlements. Dwarf crossbowmen were at work firing into the nearest and largest skaven. A few of them fell, but not enough to slow the skaven advance. Their fellows simply ran on, trampling their fallen comrades into the dirt, in their frantic haste to enter combat.\n\nAn enormous roar filled Felix's ears, the deep basso rumbling of a creature far larger than a human. The mules whinnied and reared in terror, fear foam frothing from their lips. Felix shifted his weight to keep his balance as the wagon shifted. He turned his head, gripped his sword tightly and turned to look at the monster he knew was behind him.\n\nThis time his premonition was correct.\n\nLurk fought the fear which filled him, threatening to overwhelm his ratty frame. It was a sensation that he was used to. It nagged at his mind and told him to scamper from the fray, chittering with fright. With the mass of his fellows around him, he knew he could not do that without being trampled so instead, as he knew it would, the fear turned inward and like a dammed river flowed in a new direction.\n\nSuddenly he wanted desperately to get into combat, to face the source of his terror \u2014 to rend it with his weapons, stamp on its recumbent corpse, to bury his muzzle in its dead flesh and tear out its still warm entrails. Only by doing this could he slow his racing heart, fight down the urge to void his musk glands, and end this anxiety which was almost too terrible to be borne.\n\n\"Quick-quick! Follow me!\" he chittered and, racing forward, hurled himself at a burly leather-aproned dwarf armed with an axe."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "Felix doubted that he had ever come face to face with a humanoid creature quite so big. Even the monsters he had fought in the streets of Nuln were small by comparison. This thing was huge, immense. Its monstrous head, a distorted parody of that of a rat, was level with his own, despite the fact that he was standing high atop the back of a wagon. Its shoulders were almost as broad as the wagon itself, and its long muscular arms reached almost to the ground. Its vast hands ended in wicked curving claws that looked capable of shredding mailed armour. Enormous pus-filled boils erupted through its thin and mangy fur. A long hairless tail lashed the air angrily. Red eyes, filled with insane bestial hatred, glared into his own.\n\nFelix's heart sank. The beast had come for him, he just knew it. There was a look of feral recognition in its malevolent eyes, and something oddly familiar in the way that it tilted its head to one side. A pink tongue flickered over its lips, suggesting an obscene and all-consuming hunger for human flesh. Sharp rending teeth, each as long as a dagger, showed themselves in its mouth. The creature let out another triumphant bellow \u2014 and reached for him.\n\nIt was all too much for the mules. Frenzied with fear, they reared and fled. The wagon lurched forward, almost tipping as the terrified beasts turned just in time to avoid the ditch around the keep. The wagon hit a rock and bounced, sending Felix sprawling in the back. He had just enough presence of mind to hold on to his sword.\n\nThe rat-ogre behind them gaped at him in stupid astonishment and then lurched forward in pursuit.\n\n\"No!\" Thanquol shrieked, seeing Jaeger slip from Boneripper's grasp. The power of the seeing stone let him view the scene from close up. He had gloated in delight at the look of horror and apprehension on the man's face, felt a thrill of anticipation as Boneripper prepared to reach out, pull off his arm and eat it in front of Jaeger's horror-struck eyes \u2014 and been appalled when the mules had pulled the wagon into motion.\n\nIt was all so unfair.\n\nAnd yet somehow it was typical of the human's luck that, just as he was about to receive his well-merited doom, those dumb brute creatures should save him. It was galling that the man should still be alive and unharmed, instead of writhing in agony. Briefly and bitterly Thanquol wondered whether Jaeger had been born simply to thwart him, and then pushed the notion aside. He sent another thought arcing towards Boneripper: What are you waiting for, idiotfool beast? Get after him! Follow quick-quick! Kill! Kill! Kill!\n\nFelix rolled about in the back of the wagon, instinctively trying to get his footing. He could hear Varek calling to the mules, trying to calm them and bring them under control. Briefly Felix wondered whether this was wise. At the speed they were currently moving they were at least keeping ahead of the rat-ogre\u2026 weren't they?\n\nHe managed to get his hands underneath him at last, and pushed himself up onto his knees. As he stuck his head above the level of the wagon's tailboard, he saw that the monster was pursuing them and closing the distance with appalling speed. Its long stride was covering the ground as fast as any charger. Its yellow fangs gleamed in the light of the furnaces. Its long tongue lolled out. It brandished its claws furiously. Felix knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if ever he got within range of those talons he was going to die.\n\nHe heard something metallic rolling about on the floor of the wagon, then felt something cold and hard brush against his leg. He reached down and found that it was one of Varek's bombs. It must have rolled off the wagon seat when the animals shied. He almost dropped the thing in fright. He felt like at any moment it might explode; in truth, he was surprised that it hadn't done so already. He was tempted simply to lob it from him as fast and as far as he dared, when the thought struck him that that was exactly what he should do.\n\nHe fumbled the orb up in front of his face, fighting to hold onto it as the wagon lurched again, throwing him painfully against the wooden side wall. In the half-light, he could see the firing pin in the top and the complex cumbersome mechanism below. He frantically tried to remember how it worked. Let's see: you pull the pin, then you've got five \u2014 no!\u2014four heartbeats in which to throw it. Yes, that was it.\n\nHe dared to glance up again. The rat-ogre was closer. It seemed like it was almost on top of them. In mere moments it was going to leap into the back of the wagon and shred his flesh with those awful claws and fangs. Felix decided he could wait no longer. He pulled the pin.\n\nHe felt resistance as the pin came free, and something long and soft whipped into his hand. As he did so he noticed sparks coming from the top of the bomb. It seemed that there was a string attached to the pin, and the string was attached to some sort of mechanical flint-striker. When you pulled the pin, the flint struck, lighting the fuse. All of these thoughts flickered idly through his head as he rapidly counted up to three.\n\nOne. The rat-ogre was only a few strides away, moving impossibly fast, a look of awful hunger distorting its face. From behind him, he could hear Varek beginning to shout \"Whoa\u2014\"\n\nTwo. The monster was so close now that Felix could almost count its monstrous tusk-sized teeth. He was uncomfortably aware of the huge claws reaching out to grasp him. He knew that he wasn't going to make it. Perhaps he should just throw the bomb now. Varek called \"\u2014oa\u2014\"\n\nThree. Felix lobbed the bomb. It arced towards the creature, its fizzling fuse leaving a trail of sparks spraying behind it. The rat-ogre opened its mouth to bellow in triumph \u2014 and the bomb went in. Another lurch of the wagon threw Felix flat, slamming painfully on to the wooden boards. Varek finished shrieking \"\u2014aaaa!\"\n\nTime seemed to stretch out for a hour. Felix lay on the floor gasping hard, remembering what Varek said about these bombs often not working, expecting at any second to feel the great razorlike claws burying themselves in his neck and to be hefted from the back of the wagon. Then he heard a dull crump, and something horribly moist and jelly-like splattered onto his hair and face. It took a few moments for Felix to realise that he was covered in blood and brains.\n\nThanquol watched Boneripper's head explode and cursed the stupid brute long and loudly. It was true, he thought: if you want a bone gnawed properly, you had to gnaw it yourself. The foul and unreliable monster had been so close. Jaeger had been almost within his grasp. If the dumb brute had not swallowed the bomb, the human would now be writhing in pain. It was almost as if Boneripper had done it deliberately just to frustrate him. Perhaps the creature had been in league with his hidden enemies. Perhaps its idiot brain had been tampered with during its creation. Stranger things had happened.\n\nThanquol chewed his tail with frustration for a moment and expended a hundred furious curses on Boneripper, Felix Jaeger and every rival in skavendom he could think of. If pure malevolent wishes had been enough, their bones would have been filled with molten lead, their heads would have exploded and their guts turned to rotting pus in that singular moment. Unfortunately, such fine things were beyond even Thanquol's sorcerous powers at this range. Eventually he calmed, and contented himself with the thought that there was more than one way to skin a baby. He sent his point of view soaring over the larger battlefield once more.\n\nFortunately here things were going better. At a glance Thanquol saw that most of the dwarfish units had formed up in squares ready to resist the two-pronged skaven attack. The initial skaven rush has reached the dwarfish line. It had broken against it like the sea crashing down on a rock but the stormvermin, at least, were still fighting. As more clanrats and slaves poured into the melee, slowly the weight of numbers was starting to tell. Even as he watched, one closely packed dwarf unit started to break up and the melee became close and general. Under such circumstances, the greater number of skaven was a considerable advantage.\n\nThanquol saw one dwarf warrior bludgeon a stormvermin with his hammer, only to be leapt on from behind by a skavenslave. While the dwarf frantically tried to dislodge his clinging foe, he was dragged down like a deer surrounded by hounds by the rat-man's fellows. As he disappeared under the pile of skaven bodies, he managed a last blow with his hammer, smashing a clanrat's skull and sending blood and fragments of brain and bone everywhere. Thanquol felt no pity for the dead skaven. He would gladly make such a trade for a dwarf life with every heartbeat. There were always plenty more stupid warriors where those had come from. Thanquol knew that out of all skaven, only he was truly irreplaceable.\n\nThanquol watched happily as the green blaze flung from a warpfire thrower incinerated a clutch of dwarfs, melting their armour, causing their beards to ignite, reducing them first to skeletons and then to wind-blown dust within mere heartbeats. He was considering rewarding the weapon team when they themselves vanished in an enormous green fireball, killed by their own malfunctioning weapon. Still, thought Thanquol, at least they served the greater purpose\u2026 his purpose.\n\nSlowly but surely, across the whole battlefield the tide was turning in favour of the skaven. The dwarfs were well-disciplined and brave in their foolish way, but they had been caught unprepared. Many of them were unarmoured and equipped only with the hammers they had been using to work with. They were inflicting incredible casualties on the skaven but these were meaningless. Thanquol did not care if they slaughtered his entire force, just so long as the dwarfs were all dead by the end of the evening. So far, he congratulated himself heartily, things were going just exactly as he planned \u2014 except on one corner of the battlefield.\n\nSwift as thought, he sent his view arcing towards the disturbance. Somehow he was not surprised to find two burly shaven-headed figures hewing a path of bloody carnage through his troops. One of them he recognised instantly as the hated figure of Gotrek Gurnisson.\n\nThe other was new to Thanquol, but just as fearsome in his own way. Where Gurnisson fought armed only with that appallingly powerful axe, the second Slayer fought with a smaller axe in one hand and large hammer in the other.\n\nThe slaughter the pair wreaked was immense. With every blow at least one skaven fell. Sometimes Gurnisson would drive his axe through several bodies at once, hewing through skaven flesh and bone as if it were matchwood. At that moment Thanquol would have given anything for the presence of some jezzail teams. He would have ordered those cunning skaven snipers to pick off the gruesome pair from a distance. Still, there was no point in wishing for what you could not have. He would just have to do something about the pair himself.\n\nHis initial gambit was to send tendrils of his thought out to the leaders of two of his units, drawing them away from the main melee and into combat with the Slayers. It was regrettable that this would relieve pressure on the embattled dwarfs, but also necessary. Thanquol knew that he could not take the chance of leaving those two free to slaughter at will. It was sound good sense, as well as gratifying to his personal desire that Gotrek Gurnisson and his comrade should die.\n\nLurk looked up in disbelief as the voice spoke within his head. Take your squad to your left and slaughter those two Slayers.\n\nHe recognised the voice at once as belonging to Grey Seer Thanquol. A vivid picture of his route through the melee towards the tattooed dwarfs appeared in his mind. For a moment he considered the fact that he might be hallucinating but the voice spoke again in the familiar imperious chittering style which Lurk knew so well. What are you waiting for, foolscum? Go now-now or I will eat your heart!\n\nLurk decided that it would be best to obey. \"At once, most superlative of sorcerers,\" he muttered. He shrieked for his troops to follow him and raced off in the direction he had been ordered.\n\nDrawn by the panicked mules, the wagon raced through the melee out of control. Hastily dwarfs and skaven threw themselves aside to avoid the creatures' flailing hooves. Felix rolled about in the back, trying frantically to regain his balance. He could hear Varek alternately shouting at the mules to stop and laughing maniacally as he tossed bombs into onrushing groups of skaven. It did not seem to have occurred to him that every time the tired mules appeared about to slow down, he spooked them some more by lobbing another of his explosive devices. It did not surprise Felix in the least that the poor mules were terrified. The bombs had that effect on him too. Every moment he half-feared that one of the devices would explode in Varek's hand, destroying the wagon and sending the dwarf and Felix straight to the grave.\n\nEvery so often he managed to pull himself above the level of the wagon's sides and he caught glimpses of sights that he knew would be burned into his memory forever. Some of the buildings had caught fire and the blaze was spreading. Clouds of sparks and soot floated on the wind. Perhaps other dwarfs had used bombs like Varek, perhaps it was the effect of some dread skaven weapon or sorcery, but Felix did not doubt that the conflagration would consume the entire complex. Already flames gouted from the great chimneys, fitfully illuminating the battle to produce a selection of scenes from some lunatic vision of hell.\n\nHe saw a skaven burst out from one the foundry buildings, its entire body in flames, burning hair trailing from its body like a comet's tail. The horrible but tantalising smell of scorched flesh filled the air. The creature's agonised squeaks were shrill and audible even above the roar of the battle. As he watched, the dying rat-man threw itself on a dwarf warrior and held on like grim death. The flames from its body lapped around its victim and the dwarf's clothing began to smoulder, even as he put the creature out of its death agony with a swift blow of his axe.\n\nThe wagon shuddered and bounced over the ground. Something cracked and there was hideous sensation of snapping and grinding. Looking backwards Felix could see they had run over the corpse of a dwarf. The wheel had squashed its chest, and blood and pulped flesh oozed from its mouth and beard.\n\nSteam blinded him, and his skin felt momentarily scorched. Condensation gathered on his blade and brow, and he had a horrible feeling that this must be what it would be like to be boiled alive. After a brief, agonising moment they emerged from the cloud of steam. He saw then that one of the great pipes was broken, steam spraying freely across the battlefield. As he watched, a dwarf and two skaven rolled free of the cloud, hands still locked around each other's throats. The dwarf's face was lobster red and great patches of skin had blistered and come away from the heat. The skaven's fur looked horribly wet and sticky.\n\nThe wagon thundered into the centre of a great melee. Bodies were packed so close that there was no chance of anyone avoiding the mules' hooves. Skulls cracked and bones splintered as the wagon rolled through the ruck like a war-chariot. Those who fell were crushed beneath the iron-shod wheels. As the vehicle slowed, Felix managed to sway to his feet, and take a look around. Varek had stopped tossing his bombs. To do so now would be to cause indiscriminate carnage. The dwarfs and skaven were now too intermingled to provide any easy targets.\n\nThe mules reared and struck out with their hooves. As they did so the wagon started to unbalance. There were tides and currents in this vast ruck just like those in the sea. The press of bodies from one side began to tip the overbalancing wagon. Felix grabbed Varek by the shoulder and indicated that they should jump. Varek looked up at him and smiled. He paused only to snatch up his book, then leapt out into the throng.\n\nFrom the corner of his eye, Felix thought that he saw two squat, tattooed figures hacking their way through a horde of skaven. From his high vantage point he could see a new force of rat-men emerging from the gap between two buildings and bearing down on the Slayers. Pausing only to fix the direction in his mind, Felix leapt down from the wagon, sword swinging. Even before he hit the ground, his blade was cleaving skaven flesh.\n\nLurk halted for a moment and let his warriors sweep past him. He pointed to the two dwarfs he had been sent to kill and barked an order: \"Quick-quick! Slay-slay!\"\n\nHeartened by the fact that they outnumbered their foes twenty-to-one, his brave stormvermin swept forward, frothing with eagerness to be in at the kill, to claim the credit and the glory. Lurk was tempted to join them but just the look of these two dwarfs made the fur near the base of his tail stand on end, and sent shivers of justifiable caution running up his spine.\n\nHe was not quite sure what it was about them. Certainly they were big for dwarfs, and certainly they looked fierce with their bristling beards, outlandish tattoos and their gore-caked weapons, but that was not it. There was something about the way they stood, their complete lack of fear, the suggestion that they might even be enjoying the fact that they faced hopeless odds which gave him pause. It seemed certain that they were quite insane, and that in itself was cause to give them a wide berth. Then he recognised one of them from the battle of Nuln, and he wanted no part in fighting that one. Was it possible that Gotrek Gurnisson was really here, of all places?\n\nHis forebodings became certainties as the first stormvermin reached the two. He knew the skaven: it was Underleader Vrishat, a pushy, fierce foolish skaven who all too obviously wanted to challenge Lurk for the position of clawleader. A fool, but a fierce warrior and one who would doubtless make short work of their stunted foes \u2014 although the dwarfs gave no sign of any concern. The familiar one, the one with a huge crest of dyed hair rising above his furless scalp, lashed out with his monstrously large axe, and parted Vrishat's head from his shoulders. He didn't wait for the following skaven to come to him either, but charged forward, axe swinging, roaring and bellowing outlandish challenges in his own brutish and uncivilised tongue.\n\nLurk fully expected to see the dwarf go down, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of skaven but no \u2014 he wasn't even slowed. He came on like a ship of steel crashing through a storm-tossed sea, massive axe whirling, ham-like fist lashing out, breaking bones, severing limbs, killing anything that got in his path.\n\nThe other one was no better. His mad laughter roared out over the battlefield as he struck out with a weapon in each hand, killing just as dextrously with either, his appalling strength displayed by the way his hammer reduced helmeted skulls to jelly, and his axe buried itself happily within thickly armoured stormvermin breasts.\n\nAs Lurk watched, one smaller, more cunning skaven managed to circle behind the Slayer and leapt at his back, fangs bared, bright blade gleaming in the light of the blazing buildings. Without pause, somehow aware of the skaven presence without even seeing him, the dwarf whirled and chopped down his foe with his axe, then for good measure broke his neck with the hammer \u2014 all the while laughing out loud like a maniac and calling: \"Snorri kill loads!\"\n\nWas the dwarf's hearing so good that he could not be snuck up on? Had he felt the merest presence of the skaven's shadow fall across his own in the half-light? Lurk could not guess but the lightning quickness with which he had turned and lashed out told Lurk that he himself wanted to get nowhere near those weapons, at least until their owners were tired and severely wounded. This was not a thought he decided to share with his followers. He booted the nearest towards the fray.\n\n\"Hurry quick. Weakening they are! The kill is yours.\"\n\nThe warrior looked back at him somewhat dubiously. Lurk revealed his fangs and lashed his tail menacingly and was gratified to see the skaven charge, somehow more afraid of his clawleader than of the foe. Lurk pushed another two forward, shrieking: \"Swift swift. Outnumber them you do. Good their hearts will taste.\"\n\nThis reminder of superior numbers was all it took to encourage the rest of the claw to advance into the fray. Such a sign of superiority always heartened bold skaven warriors. Lurk only hoped he didn't run out of minions before the dwarfs tired.\n\nThanquol cursed once more. What fool had set light to the buildings? Thanquol swore that if it was one of his incompetent lackeys he would eat the fool's raw heart before his very eyes. If those buildings were destroyed, this great victory would count for almost naught. He wanted them taken whole and intact so that they could be inspected by the warp engineers, their secrets snatched and improved on by superior skaven technology. He did not want the whole complex burned to the ground before then. Right at this moment he could see nothing that he could do except order all of his clawleaders to take more care.\n\nAt least he would see the accursed Trollslayer destroyed, he consoled himself.\n\nThe agonised screams of the dying. The night pierced by the flickering light of burning buildings, the light dimmed further by the thick clouds of scalding steam. The press of hairy bodies. The shock of blade on bone. The sticky feel of warm black blood flowing over his hand. The look of sick hatred in the dimming eyes of the dying skaven. All of it, the whole infernal scene, seared itself into Felix Jaeger's memory. For a brief breathless moment time seemed to stop and he was alone and calm in the centre of this howling, turbulent maelstrom. His mind cleared of fear and horror. He was aware of his surroundings in a way that a man can only be when he knows each breath he draws may be his last.\n\nClose by him, two burly dwarfs fought back to back against a pack of howling skaven. The dwarfs' beards bristled. Their hammers were caked with gore. Their leather aprons were soaked with glistening black blood. The rat-men were thin, stringy, underfed, with the gaunt feral look of winter wolves. Bloody froth foamed from their lips where they had bitten their tongues and the inside of their cheeks in their battle-frenzy. Their swords were nicked and rusty. Filthy rags covered their scabby hides. Their eyes glittered with reflected firelight. One of them bounded forward, clambering over his fellows in a hasty rush to get at his prey. It reminded Felix of the seething advance of a pack of rats he had once witnessed in the streets of Nuln. Despite their humanoid forms, at that moment there was nothing human whatsoever about the skaven. They were unmistakably beasts in man's image and their resemblance to humanity only made them all the more horrifying.\n\nA terrible shriek from his right grabbed Felix's attention and he looked around to see a wounded dwarf warrior being dragged down by a pack of rat-men. There was a look of stoic endurance in the dwarf's eyes.\n\n\"Avenge me,\" he croaked with his dying breath.\n\nSomething about the way the skaven fell to fighting over scraps of the still-warm corpse sickened Felix. He leapt over to where it lay and plunged his sword into the back of a skaven slave. The glowing blade passed right through the scrawny body and into the neck of a skaven below. A kick sent another skaven flying backwards. Felix ripped his weapon free and brought it down again, driving it with full force into the bodies below him. The shock of the impart flexed the blade until he feared it would break. Driven by his hatred, Felix rotated the hilt, opening the wound with a hideous sucking sound, then he stepped back with barely enough time to parry the stroke of the huge skaven who leapt at him.\n\nHe had passed beyond fear now. He was driven only by the instinct to kill. Knowing there was no way to avoid fighting, he was driven to do so as best he could. It made him an awful opponent. He lashed out with his foot, catching the skaven a crunching blow to the knee. As it hopped backward shrieking in agony, he drove the point of his sword into its throat, turning his head to avoid the blood which sprayed from the severed artery. Now was no time to be blinded.\n\nIn the distance he heard a familiar bull-like voice bellowing a battle-cry. He recognised it instantly as Gotrek's and began to move towards it, hewing to left and right as he went, not caring whether he killed his foes, merely intending to clear them from his path. The skaven gave way before his furious rush and in ten heartbeats he came upon a scene of the most appalling carnage. Snorri and Gotrek stood atop a great heap of skaven bodies, hewing all around them with their terrible weapons. Gotrek's axe rose and fell with the monotonous regularity of a butcher's cleaver, and every time it descended more skaven lives ended. Snorri moved like a dervish, whirling this way and that, the foam of berserker rage bubbling from his lips as he lashed out with axe and hammer, pausing occasionally only to headbutt any rat-men which had got within his guard.\n\nAll around the pair flowed a tidal wave of huge black-armoured rat warriors better armed than most. The hideous emblem of the Horned Rat was emblazoned upon their shields. There must have been two score of these elite skaven warriors and it seemed all but impossible that anything could survive their furious charge. Even as Felix watched, the press of bodies obscured Snorri and Gotrek from view. It seemed like they must surely be dragged down by sheer weight of numbers.\n\nFelix stood frozen for a moment, unable to decide whether he was too late to be of assistance, then he saw Gotrek's axe pass through a skaven body, chopping the armoured figure in two despite its mail. In an instant the area around the Trollslayers was cleared. It seemed like nothing could live within the circle of that unstoppable axe. The skaven backed off and regrouped, trying to gather enough courage for a second rush.\n\nFelix charged down into the fray, striking right and left, shouting at the top of his lungs, trying to make it sound like there was more than just the one of him. Gotrek and Snorri moved to meet him, killing as they came. It was all too much for the skaven, who turned tail and tried to flee into the night.\n\nFelix found himself face to face with the Slayer, who paused for a moment to inspect the mound of dead and dying he had left in his wake. Blood caked the Slayer's entire form, and he himself bled from dozens of nicks and scratches.\n\n\"Good killing,\" he said. \"Reckon I got about fifty of them.\"\n\n\"Snorri reckons he got fifty-two,\" Snorri said.\n\n\"Don't give me that,\" grumbled Gotrek. \"I know you can't count above five.\"\n\n\"Can too,\" Snorri muttered. \"One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Er, seven. Twelve.\"\n\nFelix looked on in astonishment. The two maniacs looked almost happy in the midst of this scene of incredible destruction.\n\n\"Well, best get going. Plenty more to slaughter before this night is over.\"\n\nThanquol bit his tail with a raging fury. He could not believe it. Those incompetent fools had failed to kill the Slayers despite their overwhelming advantage in numbers and superior skaven ferocity. Not for the first time, he suspected some hidden enemy was sabotaging his efforts by sending him inferior pawns. Doubtless it was the same wicked conspirators who had dispatched Jaeger and Gurnisson to this distant location in the first place. Well, there would be a reckoning, he would see to that!\n\nRight now, though, he did not have time to worry about it. This was the moment to inspect the battlefield and see how his forces were doing. He pulled both hands backwards and upwards away from the seeing stone, and his point of view retracted until it seemed that he hovered over the battlefield like some enormous bat. Below him he could see the burning buildings \u2014 curse those incompetent fools!\u2014and the signs of the savage struggle.\n\nHere and there, huge clumps of warriors still battled it out. Weapon clashed with weapon. Sparks flew where skaven sword hit dwarf-forged axe blade. Blood gouted from fresh wounds. Headless corpses writhed in the dust, still spending the last of their life blood in a spasm of furious energy. Sparks rose, driven skywards by the night wind.\n\nOn the walls of the keep, a group of sweating dwarfs struggled to push a multi-barrelled organ gun into position.\n\nIt was obvious that this was the moment of crisis. Everything hung in the balance. It was equally obvious to the grey seer that his skaven were going to win. They had overwhelmed the dwarfs from both sides and the sheer weight of their numbers had ground down their ill-equipped opponents. Thanquol's frustration at the escape of his two deadliest enemies started to be replaced with the warm glow of imminent triumph.\n\nFelix knew that he was going to die. Wearily he parried the blow of a skaven scimitar. His aching muscles turned his arms and sent a counter-blow arcing towards his foe. The huge black-furred thing sprang backwards, lithely avoiding the stroke. Its tail lashed out, entangling Felix's legs, trying to trip the human by tugging him off his feet. A spark of exhausted triumph flickered feebly in Felix's mind. He had seen this trick before and knew how to respond instantly. He lashed out with his sword, severing the tail near its root, but only just managed to get his blade back into guard position in time to block the downward sweep of the rusting scimitar.\n\nThe shock of the impact almost numbed his hand, and reflexively he clutched tighter on the hilt of his sword to prevent it from slithering from his sweaty grasp. The skaven shrieked in horror and swished the stump of its tail. It made the mistake of looking down to inspect the flow of blood. As its eyes left him, Felix took advantage of its distraction to launch his sorcerous blade into its stomach. Warm entrails tumbled over his hand. He fought down a feeling of disgust as he stepped back. Clutching its stomach with both paws, an almost human look of disbelief on its face, the skaven tumbled forward. Felix drove his blade through the back of its neck, severing the vertebrae just to make sure that it was dead. He had seen many warriors dragged down to death by foes they thought they had killed, and he was determined never to make that mistake himself.\n\nFor an instant all was calm. He looked around and saw Gotrek and Snorri and a whole group of battered and fierce looking dwarfs. They all looked bone-tired, even the Slayers. It seemed like they had been killing for hours, yet for every foe that fell another two strode forward to take its place. The skaven came on in seemingly inexhaustible waves. In the distance Felix could hear the clamour of weapon on weapon, so he knew somewhere others still fought on but even as they listened an ominous silence fell, and then there was a roar that seemed to have been torn simultaneously from a hundred bestial throats. The dwarfs exchanged glances that told Felix that they were all thinking the same thing as him. Perhaps they were the very last dwarfs left alive outside the keep.\n\nThat wasn't going to last. Looking around them, Felix could see that they were ringed by fierce skaven warriors. Hundreds of reddish eyes glittered in the darkness. The light of the burning buildings reflected off a similar number of glistening blades. The skaven had pulled back momentarily to regroup for what he knew would be their final rush. They moved with a strange precision as if being organised by some swift, evil and unseen intelligence. In that moment Felix knew that he was definitely going to die, right here.\n\nHe took advantage of the momentarily lull to wipe the sweat from his brow. His breath came raggedly from his lungs. He gulped in air as greedily as a drowning man. All his muscles were on fire. His blade weighed a ton or more. He felt sure that he could not raise it again, even to save his life, but was thankful that he had enough experience to know how false that feeling was. When the time came, there was always a little more strength with which to fight. Not that it made much difference now, looking out onto those rows and rows of silent rat-like faces.\n\n\"Form up there,\" he thought he heard someone say behind him. \"Get ready to repel the charge. Let's give those verminous scum a taste of true dwarf steel!\"\n\nFelix wondered at the sheer stubborn courage of the dwarfs. The sergeant who spoke must know it was thoroughly hopeless, yet he was heartening his troops to sell their lives dearly. Felix prepared to do the same but only because he had no choice in the matter. If he could have seen a way out of here to live to fight another day, he would have taken it.\n\nSomewhere in the distance he thought he heard a droning as of some monstrous insect \u2014 or an engine. What was going on? Was this some new infernal device that the skaven were launching at their foes. Oddly enough, it seemed to be coming from the direction of the castle. A faint hope stirred in Felix's breast. Perhaps the dwarfs had a surprise waiting for their attackers. Although it seemed unlikely they could do anything before the skaven overwhelmed their current position, perhaps they might be avenged.\n\nThe skaven leaders seemed to be grunting orders to their teeming followers. Slowly, almost reluctantly, as if they feared to be first to spend their lives against the living wall of their grim foes, the skaven began to advance. As they took their first faltering steps they seemed to gain in confidence and their advance picked up speed and momentum at a terrifying rate. The strange thrumming noise grew much louder. It seemed to be coming from overhead. Felix wanted to look up but couldn't tear his eyes from the rush of the rat-men.\n\n\"Come on and die!\" Gotrek roared and the skaven looked prepared to take him at his word as they charged forward ever faster, brandishing their weapons, chittering their evil sounding war-cries, swishing their tails in fury. Felix braced himself for the impact and then fought the urge to throw himself flat as some outlandish shape roared close overhead. This time he did look up, and he saw a great flight of bizarre machines passing above them. Trails of fire leaked from their boilers as they blazed across the night. Enormous rotor blades whirled near-invisibly over their hulls.\n\n\"Gyrocopters!\" he heard somebody roar and realised that he was witnessing the night flight of some of the legendary dwarfish aircraft.\n\nBlazing sparkles of light descended from the machines and landed in the middle of the oncoming skaven. It was only when they began to explode in the rat-men's midst that Felix realised that they must have been the fizzling fuses of dwarf bombs.\n\nThe skaven rush slowed as the bombs tore their targets limb from limb. Their apoplectic leaders tried frantically to rally them, but as they did so one of the copters descended almost to head height and sent a wide jet of scalding, super-heated steam into their midst. Yelping with unutterable terror a huge group of the rat-men turned tail and fled. The panic was contagious. Within moments the charge had become a rout. The dwarfs around Felix watched with almost numbed disbelief, too weary even to chase after the fleeing foe."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE GREAT PLAN",
+                "text": "Felix slumped down against the broken wreckage of the wagon and inspected the blade of his sword. It had seen a lot of use in this battle but somehow it wasn't notched. The edge was still as keen as ever, even after all the hacking and chopping he had done. The ancient enchantment on the weapon obviously still held good.\n\nSomewhere off to his right, the wall of a burned-out shed, unable to support its own weight anymore, came down with a crash. Overhead a gyrocopter moved with the sinister grace of an enormous insect, pausing for a moment to hover over a blazing building. Its nose swivelled downwards and with a hiss like an angry serpent a jet of steam emerged. Felix wondered what the pilot hoped to achieve.\n\nThe steam met the fire and the flickering flames changed colour, becoming a duller yellow with perhaps a hint of blue. As the jet continued to spray, the fire slowly died down, smothered by the vapour and condensation like a small rainstorm. Even as Felix watched, the gyrocopter swung around on the spot and moved towards the next nearest blaze.\n\nHe suddenly felt enormously tired, drained of all energy by the conflict. He was bruised and battered, bleeding from dozens of small nicks and cuts which he had not noticed during the frenzy of combat. His right shoulder, the shoulder of his sword arm, ached horribly. He was almost convinced that the repeated swinging of the sword had dislocated it. It was an illusion he was familiar with, having survived many other battles. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a hundred years.\n\nLooking around him, he wondered where the dwarfs got their energy. Already they were starting to clear up the debris of the battle. Bodies of fallen dwarfs were being gathered for burial in the sacred earth. Skaven corpses, meanwhile, were being lugged into a huge pile for burning. Fully armoured sentinels had descended from the keep and kept watch, just in case the skaven should return.\n\nFelix doubted that they would tonight. In his experience it took the skaven longer than a human army to recover and reassemble after a defeat. They did not seem to like to return so swiftly to the scene of a defeat, and for this he was profoundly glad. At this moment he doubted he could move a muscle, even if the rat-ogre was to rise from the dead and come looking for him. He pushed that evil thought from his mind and searched for a happier topic.\n\nHe found one: at least he was still alive. He was beginning to believe again that he just might live. Sometimes before and during a battle, when fear threatened to overwhelm his reason, he had this terrible sensation that he was certain to die. It settled on him like a curse, this certainty of his own mortality. Now it amazed him that he was still here, that his heart still beat, that breath still moved in and out of his lungs. Looking around he could see plenty of evidence that this could easily not have been the case.\n\nBlood-covered corpses were everywhere, being pulled like sacks of dead meat through the thoroughfares by bone-weary, grumbling dwarfs. The sightless eyes of the dead stared at the sky. Despite his earlier imaginings, he knew they would not get up again. They would never laugh or cry or sing or eat or breathe. The thought filled him with a profound melancholy. Yet at the same time, he knew with certainty that he still lived, that he could do all those things, and for that he should therefore rejoice. Life is all too brief and fragile, he told himself, so enjoy it while you can.\n\nHe began to laugh softly, filled with a quiet joy which felt strangely like sorrow. After a moment he limped painfully off into the night to see if he could find Gotrek or Snorri or anybody else he might know amidst this vast shambles.\n\nThanquol could not believe it. How could it all have gone so wrong so quickly? One moment, victory was within his grasp. His brilliance seemed to have assured triumph. In the next, it had vanished as quick as a skavenslave turning tail in battle. It was a sickening, dizzying sensation. It took long, bitter moments of reflection to convince the grey seer that even the most brilliant of schemes could be foiled by the incompetence of underlings. Through no fault of his own, his lazy, cowardly and stupid minions had let him down once more.\n\nReassured by this brilliant insight, he considered his options. Fortunately he had a contingency plan, devised for just such an unlikely eventuality as this. Lurk was still alive and still reachable through his speaking stone. With any luck, he could be left in place, ready to report on the secrets the unscrupulous dwarfs had tried to conceal here.\n\nThanquol looked into the seeing stone once more and sent his mind questing for contact.\n\nFelix felt a tug on his sleeve. Looking down he saw Varek. The young dwarf's blue robes were soiled with mud and blood. The sleeve of his robe had come away, ripped at the seams to reveal a torn and tattered white linen shirtsleeve. His glasses were broken; a crazy web of cracks marked their lenses. In one hand he clutched a small warhammer. The other held his leather-bound book tightly against his chest. Felix was surprised by how large Varek's hands were, how white the knuckles seemed. There was a mad feverish gleam in the youth's eyes.\n\n\"That was the most amazing experience of my life, Felix,\" he said. \"I have never seen anything so exciting, have you?\"\n\n\"It's the type of excitement I could cheerfully live without,\" Felix said sourly.\n\n\"You don't mean that. I saw you fighting back there. It was like watching a hero from the days of Sigmar. I never knew humans could fight so well!\"\n\nVarek blushed, seeming to realise just what he had said. It was a dwarfish fault, being blunt about what they considered to be the inferior abilities of the younger races.\n\nFelix laughed softly. \"I was only trying to stay alive.\"\n\n\"And I hate skaven,\" he added as an afterthought. He considered that fact and felt slightly appalled. He did not consider himself to be a particularly violent or vengeful man, but the skaven made his flesh crawl. He was slightly shocked by the idea that he took pleasure in killing them but inspecting his feelings now he was honest enough to admit that it was true.\n\n\"Everybody hates the skaven,\" Varek agreed. \"Even other skaven, most likely.\"\n\nLurk Snitchtongue moved stealthily through the burned-out ruins. Fear filled his heart and warred with his hatred of Thanquol. His musk glands felt tight and he fought down the urge to squirt the fear scent, for it might give away his presence to the dwarfs all around him.\n\nRight now, away from the comforting scent and furry mass of his brethren, he felt terribly alone and exposed. He wanted to run swiftly into the night and find the other survivors of the battle. The thought goaded him intolerably.\n\nStill, fear of the grey seer was uppermost in his mind. Staying here most probably meant death, but defying one of the Chosen of the Horned Rat meant an inevitable, agonising doom. There were worse things than a swift blow from a dwarf axe, as Lurk well knew. Not that he wanted one of those either.\n\nTurn right, the nagging voice said inside his head.\n\n\"Yes, most magnificent of masters,\" Lurk whispered. He followed orders, moving down a long, quiet alley towards the monstrous structure which dominated the centre of the dwarf settlement. He flinched, wondering whether Thanquol could read his thoughts. He certainly hoped not, after some of the things he had been ruminating on.\n\nHis paw toyed idly with the amulet and briefly he considered what would happen if he tore it from his flesh and threw it away. Something nasty, he was sure. It would be just like a grey seer to have some intricate curse woven into the device. He did not doubt that digging it from his skull would most likely kill him, or cause him severe pain at the very least, and Lurk was no keener on pain than most skaven.\n\nAgain he flinched, hoping that thought had not gone over the link to Thanquol. He hoped not; he was only supposed to be able to send when he touched the stone and concentrated. He supposed it would take a lot of effort to drive his thoughts through the ether. He didn't know that for sure, not having tried it, but right at this moment he actually hoped it was the case.\n\nStop! came the imperious command. He did so at once, automatically and instinctively. A moment after he did so, he heard the sound of booted dwarfish feet ahead of him. A moment after that, a small squad of dwarfs stomped past the alley mouth. Lurk shivered instinctively when he saw that they were dragging skaven corpses off to be burned. His whiskers twitched. He had already recognised the foul scent of scorching skaven flesh earlier.\n\nNow \u2014 run quickly across the street. Hurry-scurry while the way is clear.\n\nHe steeled himself and leapt forward into the wide exposed space between the buildings, risking a quick glance right and left as he did so, and seeing that the way was indeed clear save for the backs of the departing dwarfs. He had to admit that, whatever else he might be, Thanquol was a mighty sorcerer. He had no idea how the grey seer was able to guide him so well, but so far he had made no mistakes.\n\nLurk dove into the cover of the alleyway opposite and hurried on. Directly in front of him now was the huge dwarfish building. Its metal roof gleamed in the moonlight. He saw that vast and powerful steam engines were attached to its side. His skaven curiosity was piqued. He wondered what could possibly be stored within so huge a structure.\n\nQuick-quick \u2014 head right till you find the entrance or swift death will be yours.\n\nLurk hastened to obey. He slid through the entrance arch and halted \u2014 and stared upwards in wide-eyed wonder. A gasp of pure amazement was torn from his uncomprehending lips.\n\nFelix wandered through the burning night, Varek by his side. Things look worse than they are, he told himself, hoping against hope that it was true. It was evident that both sides had taken enormous casualties. Many dwarfs had fallen in the conflict and each and every one of them seemed to have taken at least two skaven with him. The stink of burning rat-man flesh was well-nigh unbearable. Felix pulled his cloak across the lower half of his face to keep out the smell. No one else seemed at all bothered.\n\nIt looked like the vast complex had taken a lot of damage. Felix wondered whether it would be enough to set back whatever project the dwarfs had been working on, and realised that he was in no position to hazard a guess. He simply did not have enough knowledge of what was going on here.\n\n\"What is this all in aid of?\" he asked Varek suddenly. The young dwarf stopped polishing his broken glasses on the hem of his tunic and looked up at him. He breathed on the lenses as if wanting time to gather his thoughts, then started to polish again, not noticing that a shard of glass had broken free.\n\n\"What is what in aid of, exactly?\"\n\n\"All this machinery,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Er \u2014 perhaps I should leave that for my uncle to explain. He is in charge here.\"\n\n\"That's very discreet of you. Where can I find your uncle?\"\n\n\"In the keep, along with the others.\"\n\nBefore he could ask another question, a gyrocopter whizzed low overhead. Standing on the strut of the landing gear was a burly figure with a shaven head. He held a monstrous multi-barrelled musket. Something about the way he stood set Felix's senses to prickling. The dwarf turned a crank on the side of the musket and a hail of shot churned up the earth at Felix's feet. Felix pushed Varek to one side and threw himself flat, turning to track the gyrocopter, wondering what madness had possessed the demented dwarf. Surely he had not mistaken Felix for a skaven? Then from behind him Felix heard a chorus of agonised squeaks.\n\nIt was only as he turned his head that Felix saw the group of skaven who had been advancing noiselessly behind him, blades bared. Felix recognised them as gutter runners, the dread skaven assassins he had fought in the Blind Pig tavern back in Nuln. The dwarf on the gyrocopter had cut the things down with his strange weapon. He had most likely saved their lives, even if his lack of accuracy had almost killed them both.\n\nThe gyrocopter swept backwards and slewed down to a not-quite perfect landing. The musket-toting figure leapt down from its side, and hurried away from the flying machine in a low crouch designed to stop the swiftly rotating blades separating his head from his shoulders. The downdraft from the machine flattened the enormous crest of red dyed hair which rose above his head.\n\nThe gale sent Felix's cloak flapping in the wind and the dust the machine stirred up brought tears to his eyes. Varek was forced to squint through the lenses of his broken glasses. He had covered his mouth with his book to prevent himself from breathing in the dust. The strange chemical smell of the vehicle's exhaust reached Felix's nostrils even through the wool of his cloak.\n\nThe newcomer was short and incredibly broad. His chest was bare, revealing amazing muscular definition. Twin bandoleers of what must have been ammunition were looped over his shoulders. A red scarf was tied round his forehead. He wore high leather boots with a large dagger scabbarded on the right boot. A monstrous silver skull buckled the belt which held up his green britches. His white beard was cut short almost to his jaw. A two-headed Empire eagle was tattooed on his right shoulder.\n\nStrange thick optical lenses covered his eyes. Felix could see that they were engraved with some sort of crosshairs. Judging from his appearance, Felix decided that this had to be another Trollslayer. The stranger clumped over to him and looked him up and down, then he spat on the corpse of one of the skaven.\n\n\"Nasty, evil wee creatures, skaven!\" he said by way of a greeting. \"Never liked them. Never liked their machinery.\"\n\nHe turned to Felix and executed a formal dwarfish bow. \"Malakai Makaisson, at your service and your clan's.\"\n\nFelix returned the bow with that of an Imperial courtier. He used the movement to cover up his expression of astonishment. So this was the famous mad engineer of which Gotrek and Varek had talked. He did not look that crazed. \"Felix Jaeger, at your service.\"\n\nThe dwarf turned the crank on his musket again. The barrels spun. Shot tore into the skaven corpses. Black blood spurted as fur and flesh tore.\n\n\"Ye cannae be too careful with these beasties. They're awfae sleekit, ye ken.\"\n\n\"He means they are very cunning,\" Varek translated.\n\n\"Ach, awae wi' ye! Ah'm sure Herr Jaeger kens exactly what ah mean, don't ye, Herr Jaeger?\"\n\n\"I think I follow you,\" Felix said non-committally.\n\n\"Well, there ye go then. Best be gettin' up tae the castle. Auld Borek will be wantin' tae talk tae ye and the others. I suppose ye'll be wantin' tae ken what this is ah aboot.\"\n\n\"That would be excellent,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Well, just wait till they lower the brig then \u2014 unless ye want a wee lift back the noo. Ah think the copter will tek an extra body.\"\n\nIt took Felix a few moments to work out that this maniac was offering him a ride on the landing gear of the gyrocopter. He tried to force a pleasant smile onto his face as he said, \"I think I'll just wait for the gate to open, if it's all the same to you.\"\n\n\"Fine by me. See ye later then.\"\n\nMakaisson clambered back on to the landing gear of the gyrocopter and shouted something to the helmeted and goggled pilot. The engine roared and the machine lurched skyward \u2014 leaving Felix wondering whether the meeting had ever actually happened at all.\n\n\"Do all your engineers talk like that?\" Felix asked Varek. The young dwarf shook his head.\n\n\"Makaisson's clan comes from the Dwimmerdim Vale, way up north. It's an isolated place. Even other dwarfs find their manner of speech strange.\"\n\nFelix shrugged. He could hear the creaking of huge chains as the drawbridge into the keep was lowered. He paced rapidly in the direction of the gate, suddenly aware of exactly how tired he was and hoping to find a place to lie down for the night.\n\nFelix woke from a nightmare of insane violence, in which a great rat-ogre chased him round a burning town while the gigantic figure of an enormous pale-skinned skaven leered down from the sky. Sometimes the city was the dwarfish community around the Lonely Tower; sometimes he ran through the cobbled streets of Nuln; sometimes he was in his home city of Altdorf, the Imperial capital. It was one of those dreams where his foes' blades were bright and terribly sharp and his own blade simply bounced off unarmoured flesh. He ran and ran while mangy, flea-infested skaven-things clutched at his arms and legs, slowing him, and all the time his monstrous pursuer came ever closer.\n\nHis eyes snapped open and he found himself staring at the ceiling of an unfamiliar room, an awakening which always disoriented him, even after many years of wandering.\n\nHe found that he was lying in a bed designed for a much shorter and broader person, and that even though he was lying diagonally his feet still protruded over the bottom. He was sweating from the heavy blankets entangling his limbs and he began to see where the feeling of being dragged down in his dream might have stemmed from. He had vague memories of entering the castle the night before, being introduced to various dwarfs and being shown to this chamber. He could remember casting himself on the bed, and after that nothing \u2014 except his fast-fading bad dreams.\n\nHe had not even taken off his clothes. Blotches of blood and dirt stained the sheets. He sat upright and shook his head wearily, aware of all the aches in his muscles left behind by his participation in last night's battle. Still he felt a sense of exhilaration. He had survived to see a new dawn, and that was the main thing. There was no feeling quite like it, knowing that you were one of the lucky ones after a battle. He pulled himself off the bed and stood up, half-expecting to need to duck his head and therefore rather surprised to find that the castle had been built on a human scale.\n\nHe moved to one of the narrow arrowslit windows and gazed out into the valley. Clouds of smoke rose from below and with them came the stench of burning skaven flesh. He wondered how much of the obscuring vapours came from the machines down there and how much from the funeral pyres, and then he realised that he didn't care.\n\nHe was suddenly very hungry. There was a knock on the door and he realised the sounds of his awakening had been noticed.\n\n\"Come in!\" he shouted.\n\nVarek entered. \"Glad to see you're up. Uncle Borek wants to see you. You're to come to breakfast in his study. Hungry?\"\n\n\"I could eat a horse.\"\n\n\"I don't think it will come to that,\" Varek said.\n\nFelix laughed \u2014 then from the expression on the dwarf's face he realised that Varek wasn't joking.\n\nIt was a comfortable room, which reminded Felix of his father's study. Books lined three walls, embossed spines showing Reikspiel script and dwarfish runes. Scroll racks filled some shelves. A huge map of the northern Old World, covered in pins and small flags, draped all of the fourth wall. The northernmost parts of the world showed symbols for cities and mountains and rivers in an area that Felix had never seen shown on any human map, and which he realised must have been long swallowed by the Chaos Wastes. A massive desk in the centre of the study was drowning beneath a sea of letters and scrolls and maps and paperweights.\n\nBehind the desk sat the oldest dwarf Felix had ever seen. His huge, long beard was forked and reached all the way to the floor before being looped back up into his belt. The crown of his head was bald. Wings of snowy white hair framed his face, which was lined with deep furrows of age in the tough leathery skin. The eyes that peered out from behind the thick pince-nez glasses twinkled like those of a youth, and at once Felix discerned a family resemblance to Varek.\n\n\"Borek Forkbeard, of the line of Grimnar, at your service and your clan's,\" the dwarf said, advancing from behind the desk. Felix saw that he was so bowed as to be almost hunch-backed and walked only with the aid of a stout, iron-shod staff. \"Excuse me if I don't bow. I am not as flexible as I once was.\" Felix bowed and introduced himself.\n\n\"I must thank you for your aid in the battle last night,\" Borek said, \"and for saving my nephew.\"\n\nFelix was going to say that he had only fought to save himself, but somehow that did not seem very appropriate.\n\n\"I only did what any man would under the circumstances,\" he managed to force himself to say.\n\nBorek laughed. \"I think not, my young friend. Few of Sigmar's people remember the old debts and the old bonds these days. And few indeed can fight like you do, if my nephew is to be believed.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he exaggerates.\"\n\n\"Few dwarfs speak anything but the truth, Herr Jaeger. You are making a serious accusation when you say such a thing.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I did not mean to say\u2026\" Felix stammered, then realised from the look in the old dwarf's eye that he was teasing him. \"I simply meant that\u2026\"\n\n\"Do not worry. I will not mention this to my nephew. Now you must be hungry. Why do you not join the others to eat? After that there are serious matters to be discussed. Very serious matters indeed.\"\n\nBreakfast lay spread across the table in the adjoining chamber. Huge ham hocks lay on plates of wrought steel. Monstrous slabs of cheese formed monuments to gluttony. Massive loaves of dwarf waybread, dark and yeasty, made mountain ranges across the middle of the spread. The smell of beer filled the air from the barrel that had already been broached. It came as no surprise to Felix, to see Gotrek and Snorri squatting down by the massive fire, swilling ale and cramming food into their mouths like they had just heard news of an imminent famine.\n\nVarek watched them as if they were about to perform new prodigies of valour at any moment. His leather-bound book lay close at hand just in case he needed to record them. He wore new glasses of a style Felix now realised had been copied from his uncle's.\n\nAnother dwarf was also present, one whom Felix did not recognise and who did not immediately move forward to make his introductions in the dwarfish fashion. He glared at Felix suspiciously, as if expecting him to steal the cutlery. Ignoring his glares, Felix walked up to the table and helped himself to food. It was among the best he had ever tasted, and he wasted no time in saying so.\n\n\"Best wash it down with some ale, young Felix,\" Snorri suggested. \"It tastes even better then.\"\n\n\"It's a bit early in the day for that,\" Felix said.\n\n\"It's after noon,\" Gotrek corrected.\n\n\"You've slept through two watches, young Felix,\" Snorri said.\n\n\"A minute wasted is like a copper spent,\" grumbled the dwarf Felix did not recognise. He turned to regard him. He saw a dwarf shorter than most, and broader than most too. His beard was long and black; his hair was close cut and parted in the middle. His eyes were keen and piercing. His severe black tunic and britches while obviously well made were old and threadbare. His high boots looked old but well-polished. Metal segs protected the heels from wear and tear. He was portly and there was a fleshiness about his face which reminded Felix of his father and other rich merchants he had known. There was a suggestion to it of large meals eaten in well-appointed guildhalls where serious business was discussed. The dwarf's hands flexed at his belt as if constantly checking to see whether his rather flat purse was still there.\n\nFelix bowed to him. \"Felix Jaeger at your service, and your clan's,\" he said.\n\n\"Olger Olgersson at yours,\" the dwarf said before bowing back. \"You wouldn't be connected with the Jaegers of Altdorf, by any chance would you, young man?\"\n\nFelix felt momentarily embarrassed. He was the black sheep of the family after all, and had left the family home under a cloud after killing a man in a duel. He forced himself to meet Olgersson's gaze calmly and said, \"My father owns the house.\"\n\n\"I have done good business with them in the past. Your father has a good head for business \u2014 for a human.\"\n\nThe near contempt in the dwarf's tone made Felix bristle but he kept calm, reminding himself that he was a stranger here. It would not do simply to take offence in a keep full of touchy dwarfs who may all be this stranger's kin.\n\n\"He'd have to be, if he made any money dealing with you, Olger Goldgrabber,\" Gotrek said unexpectedly.\n\n\"Olger is a famous miser,\" Snorri said cheerfully. \"Snorri knows that when he takes a coin from his purse the king's head blinks.\"\n\nThe two Slayers cackled uproariously at this ancient joke. Felix wondered how much they had already drunk. Olgersson's face went red. He looked as if he would like to take offence but did not dare.\n\nObviously neither Gotrek or Snorri cared about his wealth, his influence or his kin.\n\n\"No one ever got rich by spending money,\" he said huffily and turned and stalked back into the other room.\n\n\"You should be kinder to Herr Olgersson,\" Varek said. \"He is the one funding this expedition.\"\n\nGotrek sputtered out a mouthful of beer in astonishment. His head swivelled to inspect the young scholar as if he had just claimed that gold grew on trees. \"The greatest tightfist in the dwarf kingdom is giving you gold. Tell me more about this!\"\n\n\"My uncle will, in just a few moments.\"\n\nFelix felt a mixture of trepidation and curiosity as they filed into Borek Forkbeard's study. He was curious to hear what had drawn all these disparate dwarfs to this out-of-the-way place. He was worried by the prospect of where this whole thing might lead. Looking out the window at those mighty industrial structures, recalling the ferocity of the skaven's attempt to take possession of them, and seeing the huge assemblage of craftsmanship and skill which had been put into place here made it difficult for him to imagine that the dwarfs were not serious about their mysterious purpose. It was all too easy to imagine how Gotrek and himself might be drawn into it.\n\nBorek looked up at him with twinkling eyes. Olger stood in the far corner, swivelling a globe of the world with his hands, his back ostentatiously turned to the party. The old scholar grinned at them, and bade them all take a seat. Since the dwarf armchairs were too close to the ground for Felix he remained standing.\n\nThere was a moment's silence while Borek consulted some of the papers on his desk and made an annotation in runic with a quill pen. Then he coughed to clear his throat just like Felix's lecturers used to back at the University of Altdorf and began to speak.\n\n\"I am going to find the lost citadel of Karag Dum,\" he said without preamble. There was a challenging look in his eye when he glanced over at Gotrek.\n\n\"You cannot,\" Gotrek said flintily. There was a hint of bitterness in his voice. \"We tried all those years ago. We failed. The Wastes are impassable. Nothing can survive there sane and unchanged. You know that as well as I do.\"\n\n\"I believe we have found a way.\"\n\nGotrek snorted then shook his head in disbelief. \"There is no way. We tried to force a passage with the best armed and equipped expedition ever assembled for the purpose. You know how many of us survived. You, me, Snorri, maybe a handful of others. Mostly dead now or mad. I tell you it cannot be done. And you know how many died in the expeditions before ours.\"\n\n\"You did not always think that way, Gotrek, son of Gurni.\"\n\n\"I had not then seen the Chaos Wastes.\"\n\n\"Then you will not even listen to what I have to say?\"\n\n\"No, no. I will listen, old one. Go ahead, tell me what crazy scheme you have in mind. Perhaps it will give me a good laugh.\"\n\nThere was a shocked silence in the room. Felix suspected that dwarfs were not used to hearing venerable loremasters spoken to in that way. To break the tension, he dared to ask, \"Why do you want to go to this place? What's so special about it?\"\n\nAll eyes in the room turned to him. Eventually Borek spoke: \"Karag Dum was one of the greatest cities of our people, the mightiest in all the northern lands. It was lost over two centuries ago during the last great incursion of Chaos, just before the reign of the one you call Magnus the Pious. In the great Book of Grudges, on page three thousand, five hundred and forty-two of volume four hundred and sixty-nine, you will find a record of the debt of blood we owe to the foul followers of the Dark Powers. In the ancillary codicils, we find records of all the names of those who fell, of all the clans which were wiped out. The last message we had was that Thangrim Firebeard had led his brave hosts in a doomed defence of the citadel against a mighty host which came from the north as the Chaos Wastes advanced. Since then, there has been no word from Karag Dum, nor has any dwarf from our lands been able to reach the place.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"For the Chaos Wastes advanced and swallowed all the lands between Karag Dum and the Blackblood Pass.\"\n\n\"How can you know where to find it then?\"\n\n\"It was I who brought the last message from Karag Dum,\" Borek said, bowing his head sadly. \"The city was once my home, Herr Jaeger. I am kin to King Thangrim himself. During those last dreadful days, our foes had summoned a mighty daemon, and our need for aid was great. We drew lots to see who would carry the word of our need to our kinfolk. I and my brothers were chosen. We left the citadel by secret routes, known to but a few. Only myself and my brother, Varig, Varek's father, made it through the Wastes. It was a hard trek and not one I wish to recall at this moment. When we reached the south, we found that war raged there too and no aid was to be had. Then we found there was no way back.\"\n\nWas it possible that this dwarf was so old, Felix thought? He certainly looked ancient and Felix knew that dwarfs lived longer than men. Even so, it was an astonishing idea that this dwarf was at least ten times his age, perhaps more. Then another thought struck him.\n\n\"If the Wastes are so deadly, how could you make it through and then not get back?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"I see you are a sceptic, Herr Jaeger. I must convince you. Well, let me just say that in the days of our escape, the Wastes had only just advanced and the influence of Chaos was not so strong. By the time we tried to return, the fell power of Chaos had grown great indeed and the land was impassable. Now, if I have your permission to continue\u2026\"\n\nFelix realised that he was interrupting the old dwarf, and making him go over ground that everybody else present seemed familiar with. He suddenly felt embarrassed. \"Of course. Forgive me,\" he said.\n\n\"Tell us of the treasure that was lost,\" Olgersson cut in.\n\nBorek looked less than pleased by the second interruption. He cast a quick glare at the merchant. Felix caught the glint which had appeared in the miser's eye. It was something akin to madness and Felix knew enough about dwarfs now to recognise it for what it was: gold fever. Suddenly it was no mystery why Olger was putting up money to fund this quest. He was in the throes of the near-insane thirst for gold which sometimes overtook even the sanest of dwarfs.\n\n\"Yes, the huge hoard of Karag Dum was lost when the city fell, and all the treasure was lost. And of all the treasures that were lost, the most precious were the Hammer of Fate, the mighty weapon born by King Thangrim himself, and the Axe of the Runemasters.\"\n\nAt this point, Borek turned and looked at Felix. \"We are talking of such things that it is moot only for a dwarf or a Dwarf Friend to know, Felix Jaeger. Gotrek, son of Gurni, has spoken for you, but now I must ask you for your word that you will speak of nothing discussed here with any but a dwarf of the true blood or with another Dwarf Friend. If you feel that you cannot give your word on this, we will understand, but we must ask you to leave this gathering.\"\n\nAs if a light had been shone upon him, Felix suddenly felt that he had reached a boundary, one which if he crossed would significantly change his life. He felt that if he agreed to stay he was in some way, tacitly committing himself to whatever mad scheme these dwarfs were undertaking. At the same time, he had to admit to a fascination with what was being discussed, with this tale of lost cities, ancient battles, old grudges and vast treasures. He certainly was curious \u2014 and surely there could be no harm in simply listening.\n\n\"You have my word,\" he said, almost before he realised he had spoken.\n\n\"Very good. Then I will continue.\" Somehow Felix had expected something more. He had expected to be asked to swear an oath or maybe seal the bond in blood as he had done with Gotrek during that epic drinking bout. This simple taking of his word at face value seemed altogether too casual for one about to be initiated into the lost secrets of an Elder Race. Something of his astonishment must have shown in his face, for Borek smiled at him.\n\n\"Your given word is enough for us, Felix Jaeger. Among our people, a warrior's word is a sacred thing, stronger than stone, more enduring than mountains. We ask for nothing more. If you will not hold to it, what use are written contracts, oaths sworn before altars or anything else?\"\n\nFelix realised that disagreement would only reflect badly on him, so he kept quiet while the old scholar continued to speak.\n\n\"Yes, the Hammer of Fate and the Runemaster's Axe, perhaps the most potent of the artefacts bequeathed to us by the Ancestor-Gods were lost to us, and with them a mighty portion of our ancient power and heritage. When Karag Dum fell, we believed it lost forever. The howling Chaos Wastes flowed over the ancient lands like a sea of corruption and buried the ancient peaks, and we wailed and gnashed our teeth in dismay and resigned ourselves to our loss. We thought them lost forever, and so it seemed for these two centuries.\"\n\n\"And they remain lost,\" Gotrek said grimly. \"And always will be. I repeat that there is no way through the Wastes.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. Perhaps not. After we failed in our last attempt, Gotrek, I renewed my search through the lorehalls and libraries. In the master lorehall of Karaz-a-Karak I searched through the oldest galleries, pulled dust-encrusted tomes from shelves where they had lain mouldering for millennia. I recorded every tale and mention of survivors who claimed to have visited the Wastes. I gained access to the forbidden vaults of the Temple of Sigmar in Altdorf. In their records, taken from the confessions of wracked heretics across the centuries, I found references to runes, spells and talismans that would protect against the influence of Chaos. I was determined to succeed this time. And I believe I have found the man who can make them.\"\n\n\"And who would that be?\" The note of mockery had diminished somewhat in the Slayer's voice.\n\n\"The man you will meet soon enough, Gotrek. He has convinced me that his enchantments work. I give you my sworn word that I believe they will shield us.\"\n\n\"For how long can you protect those who travel in the Chaos Wastes from madness and mutation?\"\n\n\"Weeks, maybe. Certainly days.\"\n\n\"Not long enough. It would take months to cross those wastelands to Karag Dum.\"\n\n\"Aye, Gotrek \u2014 on foot, or in armoured wagons as we tried to use last time. But there is another way. Makaisson's way.\"\n\n\"By airship?\"\n\n\"Yes, by airship.\"\n\n\"You are mad!\"\n\n\"No \u2014 not at all. Listen to me. I have studied the phenomenon of the Chaos Wastes extensively. I know much more now than we did then. Most of the mutations are caused by warpstone dust contaminating the food and the water or being breathed into unprotected lungs. It is that which drives folk mad and twists their shapes and forms.\"\n\n\"Aye, and it is present in the very sands of the Waste and in the clouds which rise from it. It is in the dust and the sandstorms and in the wells.\"\n\n\"But what if we were to fly above the clouds?\"\n\nGotrek paused for a moment and appeared to consider this. \"You would have to descend to take bearings, to check landmarks.\"\n\n\"The airship will be sealed with screens of fine mesh. There will be portholes and filters of the type you see on the submersibles of our fleets.\"\n\n\"The airship might be forced down by storms, or winds or mechanical failure.\"\n\n\"The amulets would protect the crew until repairs could be effected or the storm cleared.\"\n\n\"Perhaps repair would be impossible?\"\n\n\"A risk, certainly, but an acceptable one. The amulets would allow survivors to at least attempt a march home.\"\n\n\"No airship could carry enough coal for its engines to make the journey without stopping.\"\n\n\"Makaisson has developed a new engine. It uses the black water instead of coal. It has the power to propel the airship and the fuel is light enough to make the journey.\"\n\nAs quickly as his objections were overcome, the Slayer seemed to find new ones. He seemed to be frantic to find a hole in the loremaster's arguments.\n\n\"What about food and water?\"\n\n\"The airship would carry enough of both to make the trip.\"\n\n\"It would be impossible to build an airship large enough to do this.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, we have already done so. It is what we have been building here.\"\n\n\"It will never fly.\"\n\n\"We've already made trial flights.\"\n\nGotrek played his final card: \"Makaisson built it. It's bound to crash.\"\n\n\"Maybe. Maybe not. But we're going to try it anyway. Will you come with us, Gotrek, son of Gurni?\"\n\n\"You would have to kill me to stop me!\"\n\n\"That is what I hoped you would say.\"\n\n\"The airship \u2014 is that what the skaven were seeking?\"\n\n\"Most likely.\"\n\n\"Then you will need to move fast before they can amass another army.\"\n\nFelix paused for a moment, his mind reeling from what he had heard. It seemed that Gotrek was taking very seriously indeed all this lunatic talk of flying to the Chaos Wastes in an untried and highly dangerous machine, designed by a known maniac. And he did not doubt that he would be expected to come along for the ride.\n\nThen there was the fact that there was most likely some great foul daemon waiting for them at the end of the journey.\n\nWorse yet, it appeared that the skaven knew all about this new machine and would stop at nothing to get their hands on it. What hellish sorcery had they used to find out about something so new and well concealed? Or had they secret traitorous agents in place even among these dwarfs? Felix's respect for the long reach and fiendish intelligence of the rat-men was raised another notch by this evidence of their foresight and planning ability.\n\nAs he heard the dwarfs approach, Lurk quickly scurried into cover. He had spent most of the night gnawing his way through the back of a packing crate and had finally broken through just in time. He wriggled into its innards just before it was picked up by one of the strange, steam-powered lifting machines. He seemed to going up some sort of ramp.\n\nHis mind was still reeling from what he had seen last night. Within the huge hangar a massive sleek thing like an enormous shark had hovered overhead, apparently unsupported by any girders. The thing had bobbed up and down like an angry beast. The resemblance had been increased by the fact that the dwarfs had seen fit to tether it with steel hawsers. The sight of the monster had caused Lurk to spurt the musk of fear, but he felt not the slightest sense of shame at having done so. He did not doubt that any other skaven would have done just the same under similar circumstances, even the great Grey Seer Thanquol.\n\nIt had taken him long moments of observation, during which he thought his pounding heart would fight its way out of his breast, before he had realised that the creature was not actually alive and was in fact a machine. Something very like wonder had filled his mind as he contemplated the scale of the thing. It was several hundred skaven tails long, larger and more impressive than any other piece of machinery Lurk had seen in Skavenblight or in this dwarf town.\n\nHe was amazed by the sorcery which could keep such a huge seeming thing airborne. The skaven warrior in him turned over the possibilities in his mind. With such a machine, a skaven army could fly over human cities and drop poison wind globes, plague sacks and all manner of other weapons, without ever being attacked by the defenders below. It was every skaven leader's dream come true: a means of attack against which there might be no sure defence! For surely such a large armoured vessel must be proof against anything, short of an attack by dragons. And even then, judging by the size of it, and were those \u2014 yes, they were! \u2014 weapons cupolas embedded in the thing's fuselage, the vessel would have a good chance of surviving. This vessel would provide an awesome weapon in the paws of any skaven intelligent enough to understand the possibilities it offered.\n\nAt that moment, he guessed that Grey Seer Thanquol had come to much the same conclusion, for a mighty voice had squeaked inside his head. Yes-yes, this flymachine must be mine-mine!\n\nPerhaps, Lurk realised, he would soon have a chance to seize it, for the crate in which he was hiding was surely being raised on high into the very bowels of the mighty airship."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "DEPARTURE",
+                "text": "Felix stared out from the battlements of the keep. Below him the dwarf township filled the entire valley, but his eyes were glued to the huge central building, the one he now knew contained the airship. Beside him Gotrek leaned against the battlements. His massive head rested on his arms, which were folded atop the parapet. His axe lay near at hand.\n\nBelow them Felix could see long lines of dwarfs assembling in ranks before the great doors of the central hangar. Small but powerful steam-engines moved along the rails to the entrance. He picked up the telescope that Varek had lent him and placed it against his eye. A twist of his hands brought the scene into focus. He made out Snorri, Olger and Varek far below. They stood at the head of the line of dwarfs, almost like troops at attention.\n\nFlags fluttered from the struts of the enormous steel tower which loomed over the hangar. It was an imposing structure, more like a spider web of girders than a fortification. At the very top of the tower was what appeared to be a small hut or an observation post with a balconied veranda running all the way around it.\n\nSomewhere in the distance a steam whistle sounded its long lonely cry. By the side of the hangar one of the engineers pulled a huge lever. Pistons rose and fell mightily. Great cogwheels turned. Steam leaked from the monstrous pipes that had been hastily patched after the previous day's battle. Slowly, but surely, the top of the hangar opened. The roof itself slid apart, folding down the sides of the building. Eventually, an enormous structure rose into view, like a gigantic butterfly emerging from a monstrous chrysalis.\n\nFelix knew at once that, as long as he lived, he would never forget his first sight of the airship. It was the most impressive thing he had ever seen. With painful slowness great hawsers were paid out and, like an enormous balloon, the airship rose into view. At first Felix saw only a tiny cupola raised on the top of the vehicle, and towards the rear an enormous fin-like tail. Then, like a whale of the northern seas breaking surface, the gleaming expanse of the airship rose from below.\n\nIt was like watching the birth of a new volcanic island in the midst of the trackless ocean. The vast body of the vehicle was almost as long as the hangar and it sloped smoothly downwards like the beaches of an island running down to the sea. As the great craft continued to rise, Felix saw that this first impression was wrong, for, having reached its widest point, the hull curled inwards again, a smoothly curved cylinder. At the stern of the vessel were four massive fins, like the flights of a crossbow bolt.\n\nDangling from below its belly was a smaller cylindrical structure constructed from riveted metal. In this smaller structure were portholes, and from it protruded cannons and rotors and other mechanical devices whose purpose Felix could only guess at. He focused the telescope on it and could see that this smaller structure resembled the hull of a ship. Right at the front of the airship was a huge glass window. Through this he could see Malakai Makaisson, standing at the controls. Around him were many engineers.\n\nSlowly a strange thought occurred to Felix. Was it possible, he asked himself, that the real ship was the smaller vessel dangling beneath the mighty structure, that somehow the larger structure was something like the sail of a ship or the gasbag of a hot air balloon, huge and necessary for locomotion but not part of the living or working quarters below it? He did not know but he found himself at once repelled and fascinated by the idea, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, even if he only did so once in his life, he had to get aboard that craft. It was a thought which filled him with fear and curiosity. He glanced over at Gotrek, who was watching with equally rapt attention.\n\n\"Are you seriously considering going across the Chaos Wastes in this thing?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Yes, manling.\"\n\n\"And you expect me to come with you?\"\n\n\"No. That choice is yours alone.\"\n\nFelix looked over at the dwarf. Gotrek had not mentioned the oath that Felix had sworn, perhaps because he had felt that no reminder of it was needed \u2014 or perhaps because he was genuinely offering Felix the choice. Even after all this time Felix found it difficult to read the Slayer's moods.\n\n\"You have tried to cross the Wastes before, with Borek, and others.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nFelix drummed his fingers on the cold stone of the battlements. For long moments there was silence and then, just when Felix thought the dwarf was not going to say any more, Gotrek spoke again.\n\n\"I was younger then, and foolish. There were many of us, young dwarfs, full of ourselves. We listened to Borek's tales of Karag Dum and the Lost Weapons and how it would make our people great again if we found them. Others warned us that the quest was madness, that no good would come of it, that it was impossible. We would not listen. We knew better than them.\n\n\"Even if we failed, we told ourselves, we would fail gloriously, seeking to restore the pride of our people. If we died, we would give our lives in a worthy cause, and not have to witness the long slow years of attrition which ate away at our kingdom and our kin. Like I said, we were fools, with the confidence only fools have. We had no idea of what we were letting ourselves in for. It was a mad quest but we were desperate for some of the glory that Borek promised.\"\n\n\"The Hammer of Fate \u2014 what is it?\"\n\n\"It is a great warhammer, about the length of your forearm but weighing much more. The head is made from smooth, impervious rock, inscribed deeply with runes that\u2026\"\n\n\"I meant, why is it so important to your people?\" If Felix had not known better he would have suspected that Gotrek was trying to avoid the subject.\n\n\"It is a sacred object. The Ancestor Gods inscribed it with master runes when the world was young. Some think that it contains the luck of our people, that by losing it we brought a curse upon ourselves that we can only remove by recovering it. Certainly since the hammer was lost, things have not gone well for our race.\"\n\n\"Do you really believe that bringing it back will change things?\"\n\nGotrek shook his head slowly. \"Perhaps. Perhaps not. It may be that recovering the hammer will bring new heart to a people who have lost much over the past centuries. It may be that the weapon itself will unleash its magic to aid us once more. Or it may not. Even if not, the Hammer of Fate is said to be an awesome weapon, able to unleash lightning bolts and slay the most powerful foes. I do not know, manling. I do know that it is a mighty quest, and a worthy doom to fall on such a quest. If we can find Karag Dum. If we can cross the Wastes.\"\n\n\"And the axe?\"\n\n\"Of that I know even less. It is as ancient as the hammer, but few have ever looked upon it. It was always kept in a secret holy place and brought forth only in times of greatest danger, wielded by the High Runemaster of Karag Dum. In three millennia it was carried into battle less than a dozen times. Some whisper that it was the lost Axe of Grimnir himself. Only the High Runemaster of Karag Dum would know the truth of that for certain and he is dead, lost when the Wastes swallowed that place.\"\n\n\"Are the Wastes so bad?\"\n\n\"More terrible than you can imagine. Much more terrible. Some claim they are the entrance to Hell. Some claim they are the place where Hell and Earth touch. I can believe it. In all my days I have never seen a more foul place.\"\n\n\"And yet you would go back!\"\n\n\"What choice have I, manling? I am sworn to seek my doom. How could I remain behind when old Borek and Snorri and even that young pup Varek will go? If I remain behind I will be remembered as the Slayer who refused to accompany Borek on his quest.\"\n\nIt seemed strange to hear Gotrek express doubts or admit that he was considering accompanying the loremaster only because of the way others would remember him. He was usually so terrible and full of certainty that most of the time Felix had come to look upon him as something more than human, more like an elemental force. On the other hand, the Slayer was also a dwarf, and his good name meant far more to him that it could mean to even the proudest human. In this the Elder Race seemed truly alien to Felix.\n\n\"If we succeed, our names will live in legend for as long as dwarfs mine the under-mountains. If we fail\u2026\"\n\n\"You can but die,\" Felix said ironically.\n\n\"Oh no, manling. Not in the Chaos Wastes. There, you really can find fates far worse than death.\"\n\nWith this Gotrek fell silent and it was obvious that he would speak no more.\n\n\"Come on,\" Felix said. \"If we're going we'd better get down there and join the others.\"\n\nThe airship had emerged fully from the hangar now. It was moored, like a galleon at anchor, to the top of the great steel tower. It was only when he stood below it, and looked up at the tower's enormous metallic height that Felix truly appreciated the sheer size of the thing. It seemed as large as a cloudbank, big enough to block out the sun. It was larger than any ship Felix had ever seen, and he came from Altdorf, where ocean-going traders sometimes moored, sailing up the Reik all the way from Marienburg.\n\nHe had changed into clean clothes. His red woollen cloak flapped in the breeze. His pack was slung over his shoulder. He thought that he was packed and ready to go but now, for the first time, standing in the shadow of the immense metal tower with Gotrek and Snorri, he had some inkling of what he was really letting himself in for.\n\nA metal cage descended from the heights, supported by great metal hawsers unwinding from a drum at the structure's base. The drum was powered by one of the dwarfs' steam engines. As it moved it reeled the cable in and out and raised and lowered the cage as needed. It seemed like a mechanical marvel to Felix but Gotrek had remained unimpressed, insisting that such things existed in dwarf mines throughout the World's Edge Mountains.\n\nThe cage stopped next to them and its barred door was opened by one of the engineers. He bowed and gestured for them to enter. Felix felt a surge of trepidation, wondering whether the cable was strong enough to hold the combined weight of all three of them and the cage, wondering what would happen if it snapped, or something went wrong with the mechanism.\n\n\"Heh! Heh!\" Snorri cackled. \"Snorri likes cages. Snorri's been going up and down in this one all day. Better than riding a steam-wagon it is. Goes much higher!\"\n\nHe leapt in like a child given an unexpected treat. Gotrek followed him in showing no emotion whatsoever, his enormous axe slung lightly over his shoulder. Felix stepped tentatively inside and felt the metal floor flex under his feet. It was not a reassuring feeling.\n\nThe engineer slammed the cage door shut and suddenly Felix felt like a prisoner in a cell. Then another engineer pulled a lever and the engine's pistons started to rise and fall.\n\nFelix's stomach gave a lurch as the cage began to move and the ground fell away beneath them. Instinctively he reached out to grab one of the bars and steady himself. He gulped in air as nervous as he had been before the battle with the skaven. He noticed that he could see the ground through the small holes in the floor beneath his feet.\n\n\"Whee!\" went Snorri happily. The faces of the dwarfs on the ground shrank beneath him. Soon the machines were small as child's toys and the vast bulk of the airship swelled ever larger above them. Looking down gave Felix a very unsettling feeling. It wasn't as if they were really going that much higher than the topmost battlement of the castle, it just felt so much further.\n\nPerhaps it was something to do with the motion, or the wind whistling past through the bars of the cage but Felix felt very much afraid. There seemed to be something unnatural about just standing there with all your muscles rigid and your knuckles white from gripping cold metal while the girders of the metal tower glided past. His heart almost stopped as the cage came to rest and all motion ceased save for the slight swaying of the cage on its hawsers.\n\n\"You can let go now, manling,\" Gotrek said sarcastically. \"We've reached the top.\"\n\nFelix pried his grip loose to allow the engineer at the top to open the cage. He stepped through the opening and out onto a balcony. It was a structure of metal struts that ran around the top of the metal tower. The chill wind whipped his cloak and brought tears to his eyes. He felt suddenly frozen with fear when he saw how high he was above the ground. He could now no longer see all of the airship. It was too large for all of it to fit within his field of vision. A metal gangplank ran between the top of the tower and a door in the lower part of the airship's side. On the far side of it he could see Varek and Borek and the others waiting for him.\n\nFor a moment he could not make himself move. The ground was at least three hundred paces below him and that metal gangplank could not be that firmly attached to the airship or the tower. What if it gave way below him and he fell? There would be no chance of surviving a drop of this magnitude. The pounding of his heart sounded loud in his ears.\n\n\"What is Felix waiting for?\" he heard Snorri ask.\n\n\"Move, manling,\" he heard Gotrek say and then a powerful shove sent him stumbling forwards. \"Just don't look down.\"\n\nFelix felt the fragile metal bridge strain under his weight and for a moment thought that it was going to give way. He virtually bounded forward on to the deck of the airship.\n\n\"Welcome aboard the Spirit of Grungni,\" he heard Borek say.\n\nVarek grabbed him and pulled him further past. \"Makaisson wanted to call this ship the Unstoppable,\" the dwarf whispered, \"but for some reason my uncle wouldn't let him.\"\n\nFelix slumped beside Makaisson at the helm of the airship. He had been forced to duck as he came below. The airship had been designed with dwarfs in mind and so the ceilings were lower and the doors wider than they would have been for humans.\n\nThe engineer was dressed differently today. He wore a short leather jerkin with a massive sheepskin collar raised against the cold. A leather cap with long earflaps covered his head. There was another flap cut in the top for Makaisson's crest of hair. Goggles covered the dwarf's eyes, presumably as some protection against the wind if the front window was to shatter. Heavy leather gauntlets enclosed the dwarf's large hands. Makaisson turned and looked up at Felix, beaming with all the pride a father might show when pointing out the achievements of a favourite child.\n\nAs far as Felix could tell, some of the controls resembled those of an ocean-going ship. There was an enormous steering wheel which looked rather like a cartwheel, except that it had handgrips around the rim at strategic intervals to allow the pilot a comfortable grip. Felix imagined that by swinging the wheel the pilot could alter the direction of the craft. Beside the wheel were set a group of levers and a square metal box bearing all manner of strange and alarming gauges. Unlike with a ship, the pilot stood at the bow of the craft behind a shield of glass so that he could see where he was going. Looking out the window over the prow Felix could see there was a figurehead, some bearded and roaring dwarf god, which Felix presumed was the dwarf god, Grungni.\n\n\"Ah can tell yer impressed,\" Makaisson said, glancing over at Felix. \"An so ye should be \u2014 this is the biggest and best airship ever built. Actually, as far as ah ken it's only the second one ever built.\"\n\n\"You're certain that this thing will fly?\" Felix asked nervously.\n\n\"As certain as ah am that ah had ham fur breakfast. The balloon, that big thing above yer heed, is full of liftgas cells. There's enough o' the stuff up there to keep twice oor weight airborne.\"\n\n\"Liftgas?\"\n\n\"Och, ye ken, it's stuff that's lighter than air. It naturally wants to rise skyward, and as it does it taks us way it.\"\n\n\"How did you manage to collect the stuff if it's lighter than air. Wouldn't it just float away?\"\n\n\"A sensible enough question, laddie, an' one that shows ye hay the makin' o' an engineer. Aye, it's naturally rarer than hen's teeth but we make the stuff oorselves doon there in the toon. At least oor alchemist dae. Then we pipe it intae the balloon above us.\"\n\n\"The balloon.\" The thought worried Felix even more. It made him think of the tiny hot air balloons he had made of paper as a child. It seemed inconceivable that such a thing could lift a weight of solid metal, and he said so.\n\n\"Aye well, is a lot stronger than hot air and the balloon above yer heed is no made o' metal, nae metter what it looks like. It's made of mare resilient stuff. Alchemists made that as weel.\"\n\n\"What if the gas leaks out?\"\n\n\"Och, it woudnae dae a thing like that! Ye see inside that big balloon are hunnerds o' wee balloons. We call them gasbags or cells. If yin bursts it disnae metter much, we'll still hae plenty o' lift. Ivver half they wee balloons would hae tae burst before we lost altitude and even then it would be gradual. It just woudnae be natural for them tae aw burst at yince.\"\n\nFelix could see the sense of this arrangement. If the balloon above held thousands of smaller balloons, it was indeed unlikely that they could all be burst at once \u2014 even if they were attacked with hundreds of arrows, only the gasbags on the outside would be punctured, if arrows could even penetrate the outer structure of the balloon. Clearly Makaisson had given considerable thought to the safety of his creation.\n\nSomewhere at the rear of the ship a bell rang out. Felix looked around to see that the gangplank had been slid into place and a railing had been swung back round to cover the gap. He felt marginally safer.\n\n\"That's the sign that we're supposed to be awa',\" Makaisson said. He pulled one of the smaller levers close to hand and a steam-whistle sounded. Suddenly engineers swarmed across the ship to take up positions all around. From the ground below Felix heard cheering.\n\n\"Brace yersel!\" shouted Makaisson and tugged another lever. From somewhere below the ship came the sound of engines starting up. Their roar was almost deafening. At the sides of the ship the dwarfs were starting to reel in the hawsers on great drums, for all the world like a horde of sailors weighing anchor. Slowly Felix began to sense movement. Currents of air stroked his face. The airship began to rise and to move forward. Almost unwilling, he moved to the side of the ship and looked out through the porthole. The ground was starting to slip away below them, and the Lonely Tower complex fell away behind. The tiny figures of the dwarfs on the ground waved up at them and on impulse Felix waved back. Then he was overwhelmed by a sickening sense of vertigo and had to step back from the window.\n\nFor the first time it came home to him that he really was on a flying ship heading out for parts unknown. Then he started to wonder how they were ever going to land again. There were no hangars and no great steel towers that he knew of out in the Chaos Wastes.\n\nVarek led him down a metal stepladder which had been welded into the structure of the airship. Felix was glad to be off the command deck, away from the mass of excited dwarfs. The drone of the engine was audible even through the thick steel of the vehicle's hull, and occasionally for no reason that Felix could detect the floor flexed beneath his feet.\n\nSuddenly the whole vessel lurched to one side. Instinctively Felix reached out with his hand to steady himself against the wall. His heart leapt into his mouth and for a moment he was convinced that they were about to plummet to their doom. He realised that he was sweating, in spite of the chill.\n\n\"What was that?\" he asked nervously.\n\n\"Probably just a crosswind,\" Varek said cheerfully. Seeing Felix's confusion, he began to explain: \"The part of the ship we're in is called the gondola. Its not rigidly attached to the balloon above us. We're actually dangling from hawsers. Sometimes the wind catches us from one side and the whole gondola starts to swing in that direction. Nothing to worry about. Makaisson designed the airship so that it could fly through a gale if need be \u2014 or so he claims.\"\n\n\"I hope he did,\" Felix said, finding the nerve to put one foot in front of the other once more.\n\n\"Isn't this exciting, Felix?\" Varek asked. \"Uncle says we're probably the first people ever to fly at this altitude in a machine!\"\n\n\"That just means we have further to fall,\" Felix muttered.\n\nFelix lay on the short dwarfish bed and stared at the riveted steel ceiling of his stateroom. He found it difficult to relax with the thought of the long drop below him and the occasional motion of the vessel. He was pleased to discover that the cramped bunk had been bolted to the floor of the chamber to prevent it from moving about. The same was true of the metal storage chest in which he had thrown his gear. It was a good design and showed that the dwarfs had thought of things that he never would have. Which, he admitted, was typical; as a people, they were if nothing else thorough.\n\nHe turned on his stomach and pressed his face against the porthole, a small circle of very thick glass set in the airship's side. A chill communicated itself almost immediately to the tip of his nose and his breath misted the pane. He wiped it away and saw that they had risen still higher and that below them lay clouds in a near-endless rolling sea of white.\n\nIt was a view which Felix had imagined that only gods and sorcerers had ever seen before, and it sent a thrill of fear and excitement coursing through his whole body. Through a sudden gap in the clouds he could see a patchwork quilt of fields and woods spread out far below. They were so high that, for a moment, he could read the surface of the world like a map, glancing from peasant village to peasant village with a turn of his head. He could follow the course of streams and rivers as if they were the pen-strokes of some divine cartographer. Then the cloud closed again, to lie below him like a snow field. Above them the sky was an incomparable blue.\n\nFelix felt privileged to be given even a glimpse from such heights. Perhaps this is what the Emperor himself felt like when he looked down from the saddle of his royal pegasus, he thought, and took in all the kingdoms of his domain, stretching off into the distance as far as his regal eyes could see.\n\nThe gondola of the Spirit of Grungni was very impressive, in a cramped, claustrophobic sort of way, Felix decided. It was as big as a river barge and certainly a lot more comfortable. En route to his stateroom they had passed many other chambers. There was a small but well stocked kitchen, complete with some sort of portable stove. There was a ship's mess with enough space for thirty dwarfs to dine at a sitting. There was a map room filled with charts and tables and a small library of volumes. There was even a huge cargo hold packed with wooden crates which Varek had assured him were full of all the food and gear they would require further north. The thought reminded Felix that when they next stopped \u2014 if they next stopped \u2014 he would have to pick up some winter clothing and equipment. He did not imagine that it was going to get any warmer the further north they got.\n\nFelix wondered to himself whether this meant he was committing himself to going with the dwarfs. He wasn't certain. In its way, it was an exciting prospect, making such a journey in this mighty airship, to visit a place that no man had seen for three thousand years. If only they had been going any place other than the Chaos Wastes, Felix was certain that he would have chanced it in an instant.\n\nHe was not a particularly brave man but neither, he knew without false modesty, was he a coward. The thought of what this vessel was capable of excited him. Mountains and seas would prove no obstacle to a machine which could simply float over them, and this airship was capable of speeds far greater than the fastest ship. According to Varek it could average over two hundred leagues a day, a stupendous velocity.\n\nBy Felix's best reckoning it had taken him and the Slayer over a month to cover a similar distance on foot and cart. This vessel was capable of making passage to Araby or Far Cathay in under a week, journeys which took many months. Assuming the vehicle didn't crash or get blown from the sky by a storm or attacked by a dragon, it was capable of amazing feats of locomotion. The commercial possibilities were enormous. It could be used to move small precious perishable cargoes at speed between distant cities. It could do the work of a hundred couriers or stagecoaches. He was sure that there were those who would pay simply to be given a glimpse of the stupendous views he had witnessed through the gap in the clouds. Felix smiled ironically, realising that he was thinking as his father would under the circumstances.\n\nBut of course, having created this amazing vehicle, what did those crazed short-legged idiots propose to do with it? Nothing less than fly directly into the deadliest wilderness on the planet, a place which Felix had been brought up to believe was the haunt of daemons and monsters and those who had sold their souls to the Dark Powers \u2014 a belief that Gotrek had practically confirmed was true.\n\nFelix wondered at that. Was there some strange compulsion lodged in the dwarfish mind to always seek destruction and defeat? Certainly they seemed to relish tales of disaster and woe the way humans relished epics of triumph and heroism. They seemed to enjoy brooding on their failures and recording their grudges against the world. Felix doubted that any such cult as the Slayer cult could attract worshippers in the Empire and then pulled himself up short. That was most likely not true. Even the incredibly evil Chaos Gods had found worshippers amongst his people, so there would probably be no shortage of human Slayers if they were offered the chance.\n\nHe dismissed this line of speculation as pointless, and realised that he did not have to come to any decisions right now about whether he would accompany the dwarfs. He could always decide when they stopped.\n\nIf they stopped, he corrected himself.\n\nLurk flexed muscles long cramped from inaction. He wondered where he was. He wondered what he was supposed to do. For many hours now, he had heard no communication from Grey Seer Thanquol. For many hours now, he had felt a sense of isolation that was quite new in his experience, and in a way terrifying.\n\nHe had been born in the great warrens of Skavenblight, eldest of an average sized litter of twenty. He reached full growth surrounded by his siblings and all the others in the cramped burrow. He had lived in a city filled to bursting point with his fellow skaven, hundreds of thousands of them. When he had left that city it had always been on military duties, as part of a mighty unit of skaven. Even in the smallest guard posts there had been hundreds. He had lived and ate, defecated and slept always within squeaking distance of his kind. There had never been an hour of his short life when he had not been surrounded by the scent of their musk and their droppings, or the sound of their constant stealthy movements.\n\nFor the first time in his life he felt that absence like a sharp pain, as a man newly blinded might feel the absence of light. Certainly, all his fellows had been his rivals for the favour of his superiors. Certainly, they would all have stabbed him in the back for a copper token, just as he would them. But always they had been there. There had been something reassuring about their massed presence, for it was a world full of danger, of lesser races who hated the mighty skaven breed and envied their superiority, and in numbers there was safety from any threat. Now he was isolated and hungry and filled with the urge to squirt the musk of fear although there were no fellow skaven around to heed its warning. Now it was all he could do to simply listen to his racing heart and not bury his head in his paws in paralysed terror. In that horrible moment, he realised that he even missed the presence of Grey Seer Thanquol in his mind. It came as a terrible revelation.\n\nAt that exact moment, the whole ship began to shake.\n\nFelix opened his eyes in alarm. He realised that he must have dozed off. What was that banging sound? Why were the walls shaking. Why was his bed moving? Slowly it came to his puzzled mind that he was on the dwarf airship and it looked like something had gone terribly wrong. The floor was bucking and he could feel the vibration through his mattress. He rolled off the bed, sprang to his feet and banged his head painfully on the ceiling.\n\nHe fought down a feeling of claustrophobic terror as the whole airship thumped, creaked and vibrated round about him. In his mind's eye he pictured the ship breaking up and everyone in it plunging to their doom. Why had he ever allowed himself to set foot on this terrible machine, he asked himself as he opened the door. Why had he ever agreed to accompany these dwarf maniacs even this far?\n\nExpecting something terrible to happen at any moment, he threw open his door and shuffled out into the corridor, praying frantically to Sigmar to get him out of this mess, and hoping against hope that he lived long enough to find out what was going on."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "EN ROUTE",
+                "text": "The rocking of the airship threw Felix headlong into the corridor. Stars flashed before his eyes and pain seared through his head as his skull struck one of the metal walls. He started to pull himself upright again, realised that he was simply begging to have his head cracked on the ceiling and instead stayed down and started to crawl along the corridor.\n\nOf all the terrors he had ever faced, this was quite possibly the worst. Any second he expected the hull to shatter, the wind to snatch him up and then a long fall to his death. It occurred to him that, for all he knew, the gondola may already have parted from the balloon and be plunging to its doom. Impact with the solid earth might happen at any second.\n\nIt wasn't so much the fear that was appalling. It was the sense of helplessness. There was simply nothing he could do to alter his predicament. Even if he managed to get to the control room, he did not know how to steer the craft. Even if he found his way to an exit they were thousands of feet above the ground. Never before had he known a sensation quite like it. Even in the midst of battle, surrounded by enemies, he had always felt like he was in charge of his own destiny and could fight his way clear by virtue of his own skill and ferocity. On a tempest-tossed ship he might have been able to do something; if it sank, he could dive into the sea and swim for his life. His chances in either case might be slim but at least there was something that he could do. Here and now there was nothing to be done except crawl along this claustrophobic walkway, with the vibrating steel walls pressing in, and pray to Sigmar that he would be spared.\n\nFor a moment, something like blind panic threatened to overwhelm him, and he fought down an overwhelming urge to simply curl up in a ball and do nothing. He forced himself to breathe normally as he pushed these thoughts aside. He was not going to do anything to shame himself in front of these dwarfs. If death came he would face it standing, or at least crouching. He forced himself upright and slowly made for the control chamber.\n\nJust as he was congratulating himself on his determination, the airship rose then fell mightily, like a ship breasting an enormous wave. For a long moment, he was convinced that the end had come and he stood there waiting to greet his gods. It took several heartbeats for him to realise that he was not dead, and several more before he could gather the nerve to put one foot in front of the other and continue.\n\nOn the command deck no one showed any signs of panic. Tense-looking engineers strode backwards and forwards, checking gauges and pulling levers. Makaisson stood straining at the wheel, his enormous muscles swollen under his leather tunic, his crest bristling through his helmet. All the dwarfs stood with their legs wide apart, maintaining perfect balance. Unlike Felix they were not having any trouble standing upright. Envy filled him. Maybe it was because they were smaller, broader and heavier, he thought. Lower centre of gravity. Whatever it was, he wished he had it.\n\nThe only one showing any discomfort was Varek, who had turned a nasty shade of green and had covered his mouth with his hand.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Felix asked. He was proud that he managed to keep his voice level.\n\n\"Nithin tae worry aboot!\" Makaisson bellowed. \"Joost a wee bit o' turbulence!\"\n\n\"Turbulence?\"\n\n\"Aye! The air beneath us is a wee bit disturbed. It's just like waves in water. Dinna worry! It'll settle itself doon in a minute. Ah've seen this before.\"\n\n\"I'm not worried,\" Felix lied.\n\n\"Guid! That's the spirit! This auld ship was built for far worse than this! Trust me! Ah should ken \u2014 I built the bloody thing!\"\n\n\"That's what I'm worried about,\" Felix muttered beneath his breath.\n\n\"Ah still wish they'd called her the Unstoppable. Cannae understand why they didnae.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Lurk squirted the musk of fear again. The inside of the packing case stank of it. His fur was matted with fine droplets. He wished he could stop but he couldn't. The banging and shaking of the dwarf airship had him convinced that he was going to die. He knew he should stop, that the reek of the musk was only likely to draw attention to him but that thought just scared him more and kept him squirting the bitter acrid stench. It was only when his glands were empty and sore that he stopped. Bitterly he cursed Thanquol and the machinations that had placed him in this position of jeopardy. What was the grey seer doing now, he wondered?\n\nThanquol sat hunched in the desolate cave high in the mountains, pondering how he was going to get in touch with Lurk and find out the location of the airship. He had watched its departure, his heart filled with a lust to possess the thing such as he had never in all his life felt before. He finally understood what the dwarfs had been working on, and what it represented.\n\nThe military possibilities were endless. Judging by the speed with which the vehicle had gained height and flown off, it was capable of moving from one end of the Old World to the other in less than a week. The vision of a great fleet of such ships carrying the invincible skaven legions to inevitable victory filled his mind. The sky would be darkened by mighty vessels bearing the banner of the Horned Rat and Thanquol, his most favoured servant. Armies could be moved behind the lines of bewildered enemies before they realised what was happening. Cities could be brought to their knees by bombs, gas globes and plague spores dropped from above.\n\nWhen he looked at that airship, Thanquol had known that he looked upon the very pinnacle of technological achievement in the Old World and that it was the destiny of the skaven race to possess it and improve on it in their own inimitable way. Refitted with superior skaven engines and weapons, the airship would become better, faster and more powerful than its creators could ever imagine. Thanquol knew that it was his duty to his people and to his own destiny as one of their leaders, to acquire that airship, whatever the cost, however long it took. Only a skaven of his brilliance could understand its true potential. He must have it!\n\nBut right now the first problem was to find out where the thing was. He had lost contact with Lurk when his lieutenant had passed out of the range of the speaking stones. Thanquol knew he would have to extend himself to re-establish contact by sorcerous means. The link between his stone and his lackey's still existed but there was just not enough power in the spell. He believed he could compensate for that himself, given the opportunity.\n\nHe swiftly glanced round the cave. It was a propitious spot, one of the entrances to the great web of tunnels that linked the Under-Empire, the place where the survivors of his attack on the Lonely Tower had mustered beyond reach of dwarfish vengeance. It had been a long, tiring scuttle through the night to reach this place and Thanquol was weary as he had not been in many a year. Still, he was not about to let fatigue stop him from gaining possession of the airship.\n\nHe touched the amulet with the slender talon that tipped one of his long delicate fingers. He sensed the surge of warpstone energies trapped within the talisman. Patiently he sent his thoughts questing down the tenuous ectoplasmic link which streamed from the amulet. It was reassuring to know that it still existed in some form, even though it was stretched far beyond any distance he had ever envisioned. Slowly the grey seer gathered his power and sent his mind reaching out further. He closed his eyes to aid his concentration, feeling like one stretching further and further out over some abyss.\n\nIt was no use. He could not make contact over this distance, not unaided. He reached into his pouch and took a generous pinch of warpstone snuff, snorting it hungrily. The power aided him, bringing him the strength he required. Far, far off, at enormous range, he sensed the dim, frightened presence of the wretched Lurk. A smile of triumph revealed Thanquol's fangs. He knew instantly the distance and direction in which the airship flew. He could find it again when required. Now he needed more specific information.\n\nLurk, listen to me! Here are your orders!\n\nYes, mightiest of masters! the reply came back.\n\nFelix looked out through the window of the command deck in astonishment. The turbulence had ended. Night had come. Below him he could see countless lights which marked the presence of taverns and villages spread across the hills and plains of the Empire. Some that moved marked the presence of coaches hastening through the darkness to inns or other refuges. Off to the left he caught the glitter of moonlight on a river and patches of denser shadow which marked a forest. It was a scene of strange and eerie beauty, and something that Felix knew few men had ever seen.\n\nThey had passed through the turbulence of the storm and everything seemed to be going smoothly. The droning of the engines was regular. None of the dwarfs showed the faintest signs of alarm. Even Varek had lost some of his greenness and headed off to his cabin to rest. All was peaceful in the control deck.\n\nThey had been aloft now for many hours and at last Felix was starting to believe that this ship really could fly. It had survived the shaking and bucking earlier. Aside from a bruise on his forehead there was no sign of any trouble. Incredible as it had seemed just a few hours ago, he was starting to enjoy the sensation of being airborne, of travelling at astonishing height at god-like speed.\n\nHe glanced around. By the soft lamplight he could see the skeleton crew on the command deck. Most of the dwarfs had gone off to rest. Makaisson was slumped in a padded command chair while another engineer took the wheel. His eyes were shut but a maniacal grin of justified triumph spread across his face. Behind him, with his back to Felix, Borek leaned on his staff and gazed out the window. Thighs burning from maintaining his unnatural crouch, Felix shuffled over to him.\n\n\"Where are we headed?\" Felix asked quietly.\n\n\"Middenheim, Herr Jaeger. We're going to pick up some fuel and supplies and a few more passengers, then we'll be heading northeast to Kislev and the Troll Country. Makaisson says we lost some time against the head winds but we should reach the city on the spire by dawn tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Dawn! But it must be scores of leagues from the Lonely Tower to the City of the White Wolf.\"\n\n\"Aye. This is a fast ship, is it not?\"\n\nIntellectually Felix had already grasped this point but now he realised that emotionally he had not. Nor would he, really, until he saw the narrow, winding streets of Middenheim below him. It was all very well calculating in your head just how fast the airship was moving. It was another thing entirely experiencing it.\n\n\"It is one of the wonders of the age,\" Felix said with feeling.\n\nBorek stroked his beard with gnarled fingers and limped over to a seat. It was a huge, padded leather armchair, built to accommodate dwarfs. It was fixed to a short column, atop of which it swivelled, and there was a harness for strapping the occupant in which at the moment lay loose on the floor.\n\nGratefully the old dwarf slumped into his seat, took out his pipe and lit it. He fixed Felix with one bright eye. \"That it is! Let us hope that it is good enough for our purposes. For if it fails, there will most likely never be another.\"\n\nLurk levered open the packing case and steeled his courage to the sticking point. Slowly, stealthily, he clambered out onto the mass of packing cases. He realised at once that the Horned Rat had smiled upon him. If the case in which he had taken refuge had been on the bottom of this mass, he would never have been able to get free. The weight of all the other cases packed above him would have left him trapped to die of slow starvation.\n\nHe paused, nose twitching and sniffed the air. He could detect no scents of anyone close to him. His eyes probed the darkness. They were well adapted for this task. The skaven were a race of tunnel dwellers. Although their vision was poorer than that of human eyes in full daylight, they could see much better in the gloom. There was no sign of anybody in the hold either. To most people the cargo space would have been in total darkness. Lurk guessed this most likely meant that it would be night outside.\n\nThe first thing he needed to do was shift his refuge. If any dwarf looked into the case, they would find it suspiciously empty and stinking of his musk and droppings. It would not take them long to work out that they had a stowaway aboard ship and start a search. The very thought made Lurk's musk glands tighten.\n\nAs it turned out, the empty case was light enough and he had little difficulty lifting it and placing it further back in the rows of similar cases. Perhaps he should look for something to put in it, so that anyone lifting it would not notice its suspicious lightness. For the life of him he could not think how to do this, though, so he abandoned consideration of the problem and gave thought to something else. He was hungry!\n\nFortunately he could smell food. Nearby were sacks of grain. He gnawed the corner of one and plunged his muzzle in deep, chewing and swallowing frantically to assuage his hunger. In the far corner he now noticed hundreds of cured hams hung from a steel rack. Surely no one would miss one, and he knew that meat would satisfy his stomach far better than grain. He grabbed a haunch of meat and gobbled half of it greedily. It was just too bad it wasn't fresh and raw, but then he supposed you couldn't expect the Horned Rat to provide everything. He stuffed the rest of the joint inside his tunic for later. Now it was time to set about his mission for the grey seer, to carry out Thanquol's orders and search the ship.\n\nSlowly, using all the stealth he had learned in long years of ambushes and sneak attacks, he stalked forward. His natural posture caused him to slouch forward and he had little difficulty moving on all four paws. Actually, had the floors not been metal and had he not been surrounded by the presence of his enemies, he would have felt quite at home here. These low wide corridors reminded him oddly of a skaven burrow.\n\nHe fought down feelings of nostalgia. Ahead of him was a metal ladder fixed into the walls. He scampered up it easily and prowled on down a long corridor. All around him he heard the sound of snoring, from where the unsuspecting dwarfs lay asleep. If only he had a squad of his stormvermin now, he thought, he could take the entire ship. Unfortunately he did not, so he scurried on.\n\nAhead of him he heard the sound of pistons moving up and down and dwarfish voices shouting above the din. Slowly, heart pounding, he poked his head through a doorway and looked within. Fortunately the chamber's occupants had their backs to him. He glanced around. The room was filled with huge machines. Cogs turned, pistons pumped and two enormous crankshafts ran out through the walls, rotating as they went.\n\nSome buried instinct told Lurk that be had found the engine room. If only he could sabotage this machine he could bring the whole ship to a halt. He had no idea what good this would do him, but he felt that he'd best report the fact to Grey Seer Thanquol.\n\nNot wanting to push his luck, he ducked backwards and scampered along his scent trail back towards the hold. He still had not found what he was looking for and from portholes along the side of the ship he could see the sun was starting to peek over the horizon. He wanted to be back in his hiding place before the crew came fully awake.\n\nGlancing out through the porthole, he suddenly realised he had the answer to the grey seer's question. In the distance he could see a mighty peak rising out of the forest. That peak was crowned with the towers of a human city. He knew that city.\n\nFor long years he had been part of the skaven garrison which dwelt in the tunnels below the peak, ready at a moment's notice to infiltrate the metropolis of their hated enemies. The airship was heading for the place humans called Middenheim, the City of the White Wolf.\n\nFelix's eyes snapped open. He had fallen asleep in one of the armchairs in the control room. He noticed at once that the sound of the engines had altered and that the craft was juddering slightly as it lost height. He rose up, and only at the last second remembered to stoop before he banged his head on the ceiling. He shuffled slowly over to the window and saw distant towers silhouetted against the rising sun. It was a sight of considerable beauty, for the buildings rose out of a mighty fortress that occupied the heights of a great peak. They had reached Middenheim more or less on schedule.\n\nEven as he watched, he saw a large creature starting to rise from within the citadel and fly towards the airship. He fervently hoped that it had no hostile intent."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "MIDDENHEIM",
+                "text": "As Felix watched in rapt fascination, he could see that the creature was a winged horse, one of the fabled pegasii. Its rider wore the long robes and intricate headpiece of a sorcerer. A globe of fire encased one hand, and Felix knew that the mysterious rider could unleash it with a gesture. He had seen the wizards of the Empire on the field of battle and knew the awesome power they wielded.\n\nThe wizard directed his great flying steed alongside the airship. Its mighty pinions moved rhythmically, keeping the creature abreast of the airship with ease. The mage looked over and Borek rose from his chair and hobbled over to the window. He waved to the man, who answered him with a look of recognition. He applied spurs to his steed and hurtled forward, gesturing for them to follow.\n\nMakaisson took over the wheel and began to make minute adjustments to their course. The airship moved in response, losing speed and altitude swiftly as they descended towards the spires of the city.\n\nLooking down, Felix could see that the cobbled streets were full of people. They stared upwards in amazement, craning their necks for a better view of the vessel passing overhead. On some faces was written wonder, on others merely fear. In a way, Felix realised, whether they knew it or not, those people down there were looking on the passing of their way of life.\n\nFor thousands of years their city had rested secure and impregnable in its rocky eyrie. The only approach was up a long, narrow, spiralling path in the cliffside or via a cableway that ran from the villages below. In its entire existence, no invader had ever managed to conquer this place. It was a location where ten men could easily hold off a thousand, and often had. There were relatively few pegasii, wyverns or other flying steeds \u2014 and certainly no great armies of them.\n\nThe Spirit of Grungni changed everything. It could carry an entire company of soldiers in its hold. A fleet of such ships could deliver an army on to this spire. The odd-looking cannons he had noticed in the ship's side could bombard those cobbled streets and shale roofs from afar in a way no besieger could ever have managed before. In an odd way, today was the beginning of a new era, and he wondered if anybody except he himself realised it.\n\nThey passed over the steep and winding streets. The tall narrow tenements of the city rose towards the central heights of the peak which were dominated by the twin masses of the Elector Count's Palace and the mighty Temple of Ulric, Lord of Wolves. The two enormous structures glared at each other across the highest square of the city and it was over this open space, with a clear view of the maze of rooftops and chimneys spread out beneath them, that the airship came to rest.\n\nFor the past few minutes Felix had wondered how this operation was going to be achieved and now he watched in fascination as it was revealed to him. Clearly they were expected. A group of dwarfs had mustered in the square, where great metal rings had already been driven into the stones of the plaza. Makaisson threw one of his control levers backwards and the noise of the engines altered.\n\n\"Reverse engines,\" he called. \"Brace yersels!\"\n\nFelix had a few moments to realise what he meant before the airship slowed to a stop. Makaisson then moved the lever to a neutral position and the noise of the engines died almost completely.\n\n\"Anchors awa'!\" A group of engineers stood by the hawser cables. They hit release catches and the cables spun out dropping their attached lines. When the cables dropped like anchors, the dwarfs below were ready. They grabbed the lines and swiftly attached them to the hooks. In a matter of moments, the airship was made fast. Felix was still not sure how they themselves were going to get down, though. His curiosity on this point was soon satisfied.\n\nIt was a long way down. They were in the very bottom level of the gondola, looking at a massive hatch that an engineer had just thrown open. As Felix watched, a rope ladder was unrolled and dropped through the hatch. Still unfurling as it fell, it soon reached the ground below. One of the dwarfs in the square grabbed it and attempted to brace it but, for his pains, began to swing backwards and forwards.\n\nGotrek looked down through the hatch, grabbed the rope and swung himself out into space. He began the long descent, as agile as an ape. He used only one hand, fearlessly clutching his enormous axe in the other.\n\n\"After you, Felix,\" Snorri said.\n\nFelix looked down. It was a long drop but if he ever wanted to get his feet on solid earth again he was going to have to use the ladder. He swung himself outwards and down, feeling a moment of sick fear as his feet kicked in empty air before contacting the rope. Next he grabbed the top rung with his hands and began his descent, clinging on desperately as the wind tore at his cloak and brought tears to his eyes.\n\nThe rope ladder was not at all stable. It swung back and forwards in the breeze. Felix wished he had worn gloves, for the rope was digging into his fingers painfully. He forced himself to put one foot down and then the other. Having learned from his experiences when boarding the airship he did his best not to look down. At the level of the rooftops he was surprised to see people hanging out the windows and waving to him. In the distance he could hear cheering.\n\nA dizzying sense of vertigo overtook him as he glanced down for the source. He saw that the square was surrounded by a throng of people being held back only by the count's elite guard of Knights of the White Wolf. It slowly dawned on him that the people were cheering for him. He was the first and only human to have descended from this airship and they assumed that he was some kind of hero. So as not to disappoint them he waved. Losing his grip almost overbalanced him and the ladder lurched to the right, nearly sending him tumbling to the cobblestones below. Hastily he gripped the ladder once more and continued his descent.\n\nHe doubted there was ever a man happier than he was when his boots touched the ground.\n\nA group of heavily armoured and richly-dressed men strode out of the palace to greet them. Their robes were of the finest cloth, their heavy fur cloaks of mink and sable pelt. On their tabards was the wolf-head emblem of the Elector Count of Middenheim. They presented a sight that was at once redolent of wealth and strangely barbaric. Felix knew this was in keeping with the reputation of the city of their origin, for, in many ways, the Middenheimers were a people apart. The dominant faith in this city was the cult of the berserker god Ulric, and the priesthood of Sigmar, patron deity of the Empire, was more tolerated than revered. It was a source of abiding tension within the Empire but such was the wealth and military might of this powerful city-state that it was free to carve out its own path. Felix knew that this was a rare thing in a land where religious dissent had often been the cause of bloody civil strife.\n\nIt seemed that these men had been sent to welcome the dwarfs and usher them into the presence of Elector Count Stephan. Felix noticed that they were looking at him with something like surprise in their eyes. Quite obviously, whatever else they had been expecting, having a human descend from the great airship had not been included. Nonetheless they bowed to him in a courtly manner and informed him that the count requested his company. Felix returned their bows and allowed himself to be led into the palace, not quite sure whether he was a prisoner or a guest.\n\nThe palace was old and sumptuous. Great tapestries covered the walls, depicting scenes from the city-state's long, proud history. As he walked Felix recognised scenes from the Battle of Hel Fen, and the wars with the vampire counts of Sylvania. He saw wolfskin-cloaked warriors engaged in battle with green-skinned orcs. And depictions of the hideous hordes of Chaos, which had besieged the city two hundred years ago during the time of Magnus the Pious.\n\nThe palace was huge, carved from the same stone as the peak by craftsmen who had obviously been stupendously skilled. Above each doorjamb, gargoyle heads leered down and the arches themselves were carved with the most intricate of frescoes. Carpets from Tilea, Araby and distant Cathay covered the heavy flagstones. In each hall a massive fire burned, keeping the chill of the heights at bay. Even in the daytime, lanterns burned in those halls furthest from the light, shining out in the gloom.\n\nHere and there massive burly palace guards moved around on missions for their master, and every so often richly garbed councillors paused to gape at the dwarfs and those that accompanied them. So it was, spreading a strange silence in their wake, that Felix and his companions entered the throne room of the Elector Count of Middenheim, and confronted the lean, powerful figure sitting erect on the Wolf Throne.\n\nFelix could see others grouped around the throne. Most were old, bearded men who he assumed were councillors, but two figures stood out. One leaned forward and whispered something in the count's ear. He was a tall and slender man, garbed in robes of sumptuous purple.\n\nThe robes were trimmed with gold cloth inscribed with symbols which Felix had come to recognise as mystical signs. An ornate headpiece rested on his brow, of all things it resembled most a tall, conical elvish helm, only fashioned from felt and cloth-of-gold. Rings containing precious stones glittered on the man's fingers. An intangible aura of power hung over him, and made Felix uneasy. It was the pegasus-riding wizard and in the past his dealings with wizards had rarely been pleasant.\n\nThe other figure was equally intriguing. She stood just below the count's dais, a tall woman and perhaps a lovely one, but it was difficult to tell. Felix guessed that she was almost his height. She was not dressed in a court gown as the other ladies present were. She wore a sleeveless jerkin of leather over a white linen shirt. Her leather britches were cinched at the waist with a studded leather belt. High riding boots encased the thighs of her long legs. Her ash-blonde hair was cropped short almost to the scalp. Two swords were sheathed at her narrow waist. She stood straight-backed, with her chin tilted back. There was an air about her of far lands and distant places. Feeling his eyes upon her, she turned and glanced back in his direction.\n\nThe dwarfs bowed before the count's throne and began making florid introductions. Count Stephan cut them short politely enough, but with the manner of a military man who had no time for long-winded speeches. Felix was brought forward to stand beside Gotrek and Snorri and gave the best courtly bow he knew how. He saw interest flicker in the eyes of the count when he noticed a human in the dwarf party, before the ruler returned his full attention to Borek.\n\n\"Our chancellors have prepared the substances you requested for transfer to your vessel,\" Count Stephan said.\n\nBy the look on Olger's face, Felix guessed that whatever those substances were, they must have cost a pretty penny. The miser looked as pale and miserable as a man who had undergone amputation.\n\n\"I thank you, noble lord, and welcome this affirmation of the ancient friendship among our people.\"\n\nThe count smiled as if he and Borek were old friends and he had only been too pleased to make the gift. Felix looked up and was startled to find himself looking directly into the blue eyes of the woman on the dais. She was about the same age as he was, he realised. Unlike the noblewomen, her face was tanned. She had high cheekbones and wide lips, which lent her a decidedly exotic beauty. Felix guessed that she was not from anywhere within the Empire. She cocked her head to one side and examined him. Felix was unused to such direct and appraising scrutiny from a woman but he forced himself to hold her gaze. She smiled at him challengingly.\n\n\"Now you must tell me of your unique vessel and your mission,\" Elector Count Stephan was saying.\n\nBorek looked around the chamber meaningfully. \"Gladly, your Excellency, but some things are best discussed in private.\"\n\nThe count surveyed the vast audience hall, the crowds of lackeys, guards and hangers-on. He nodded to show he understood and clapped his hands.\n\n\"Chamberlain, I would speak to noble Borek in private. Have food and wine brought to my apartments.\"\n\nThe chamberlain bowed and without further ceremony Count Stephan rose, descended from his dais and offered Borek his arm to lean upon. Before Felix had even realised it, the audience chamber began to clear. In moments, he and the remaining dwarfs were left alone in the suddenly empty chamber.\n\nFelix turned to Varek. The young dwarf shrugged.\n\n\"Who were the wizard and the girl?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"I think they might be our passengers,\" Varek replied.\n\n\"Passengers?\"\n\n\"I'm sure either they or my uncle will tell you more when you need to know.\" Varek seemed to realise that he had said more than he ought to and scuttled swiftly out, leaving Felix alone with Gotrek, Snorri, Olger and Makaisson.\n\n\"I'll be leaving the expedition here,\" Olger said suddenly. \"Much as I would like to stay with you, I have clan business to transact here in Middenheim. Good luck and bring back the gold.\"\n\nHe bowed and stumped away.\n\n\"Good riddance,\" Gotrek jeered.\n\n\"Snorri thinks the old skinflint is scared,\" Snorri said.\n\nAnd why shouldn't he be, thought Felix? He was beginning to suspect that the miser was the most sensible dwarf of all he had ever encountered.\n\n\"Let's find some beer,\" Gotrek said.\n\nFelix stopped to purchase a pastry from a street vendor. He paused and looked around the street, happy to be in a human city once more, enjoying the teeming throngs all around him. Overhead the tall tenements of Middenheim loomed. People filled the narrow winding streets. Jugglers tossed multicoloured balls. Acrobats tumbled. Gaudily garbed men on stilts towered over the crowd. Drums beat. Pipers played. Ragged beggars stuck out grubby hands. The smells of roasting chicken, cooked pies and night soil filled the air.\n\nFelix kept one hand on his purse and the other on the hilt of his sword, for he was familiar with the perils and predators of urban life. Thieves, cut-purses and armed robbers were all too common. Dirty-faced children watched him with predatory eyes. Here and there warriors in the tabards of guardsmen moved through the crowds.\n\n\"Hello, handsome. Want a good time?\" Painted women waved to him from the doorways of shabby houses. One jiggled her hips in a parody of lust. From the narrow windows above, others blew him kisses. Felix turned his eyes away and pushed on past. Briefly he wondered about the woman he had seen back in the palace, but he pushed the thought aside. There would be time enough to get to know her as their journey continued.\n\nA drunk staggered from the door of a tavern and reeled against Felix. Felix smelled the man's beer soaked breath and then felt fingers fumbling for his purse. He brought up his knee, jabbed it into the would-be pickpocket's groin. The man collapsed, groaning.\n\n\"Quickly, this poor fellow has been taken ill,\" shouted Felix and stepped over the prostrate body. Like wolves on a sickly deer, the street people descended on the fake drunkard. Felix vanished swiftly into the crowd before the guards noticed the disturbance.\n\nHe smiled. It felt good to be back in civilisation, surrounded by his own people. It felt good to have some time to himself. He was glad that he had been given the day off while Borek talked with the count, and the dwarf engineers loaded the barrels of black stuff aboard the airship. Gotrek and Snorri had headed off to a tavern in the lower levels but Felix was in no mood for an all day drinking session. The memory of his last appalling hangover was still too fresh in his mind. Instead he had decided to take a wander round the city and meet up with the Slayers later. He was sure that the Wolf and Vulture tavern would be an easy one to find. He did not have to return to the airship until dawn tomorrow. There would be plenty of time for carousing later, if he decided that was what he wanted to do.\n\nFelix shook his head ruefully. Somewhere, somehow, during the flight to Middenheim he had obviously made up his mind to accompany the dwarfs. He was not entirely sure why, for it was certain to be dangerous. On the other hand, perhaps that was the reason. If he had wanted a calm, safe life he would doubtless now be working in the counting house of his father's business back in Altdorf. At some point during his wanderings with Gotrek he had come to enjoy the life of the wandering mercenary adventurer, and he doubted now that he could return to his old life even if he wanted to.\n\nThis quest was taking on a momentum of its own. There was an excitement about simply being aboard the airship which genuinely thrilled him. By daylight, in this teeming city, even the prospect of the Chaos Wastes was not so daunting. In fact, it represented a chance to see a place which few sane men had ever visited and returned to tell the tale. And of course, there was his oath to accompany Gotrek and record his doom as well.\n\nOf course, he knew he was kidding himself. He could pinpoint exactly where his decision to remain with the airship had taken place. And it had nothing to do with oaths or adventure or the thrill of travel. He had made up his mind to go on when he had discovered that the woman in the throne room was also going to be a passenger.\n\nAnd there was nothing wrong with that, he told himself. Providing it didn't result in his death.\n\nFrom the edge of the city, Felix looked down on the forest below. He had followed the winding alleyways all the way down to the great outer walls, where a short climb had taken him up to the battlements. From here he could see the cableway that brought merchants and their goods up from the small township below. As he watched, the last carriage of the day crawled up the cables towards its terminus in the walls.\n\nLooking further afield he saw the woods and the river stretching away to the horizon, and he appreciated the fact that the inhabitants of Middenheim had almost as good a view as the one he had got through the portholes of the airship. He wondered at the ingenuity and determination that kept this vast city supplied. According to the books of legend that he had read, the City of the White Wolf had started life as a fortress, its heights giving shelter to those who fled the constant tide of warfare that flowed below.\n\nDown through the long centuries a fair-sized community had grown up on the heights, clustered around the fortress and the monastic temple of Ulric. The township had begun as home to the nobility and their garrisons, but had grown to include the merchants who provided them with luxuries. Of course, all food and goods were more expensive here, for they had to be hauled up the cables from below, but the nobles controlled vast estates out there in the hinterland and were not short of a gold piece or two. The cost was more than made up for by the increased security they enjoyed on their lofty perch. And, of course, there were the mines below the peak, a source of much wealth.\n\nAnd other darker things besides. Felix had heard Gotrek talk of those mines and of a vast labyrinth of tunnels which extended below the peak. The mines were patrolled by dwarf soldiers and human guards, for it was rumoured that skaven had established a lair down there. Felix cursed suddenly, wondering if he was ever going to be out of reach of the accursed rat-men. Probably not. Somehow he knew that if the airship turned its nose towards the steaming jungles of legendary Lustria, they would arrive to find skaven already scuttling through the undergrowth.\n\nThe sun was starting to set. A bloody glow spread across the clouds as it descended below the horizon. Lanterns flickered to life on the watchtowers along the walls, and looking back Felix could see lights appearing in the windows of the tenements and taverns of the city. Soon he knew the lamplighters would be emerging and lantern-toting watchmen would start tolling the hours in the streets.\n\nHe knew it was time to go back. He had taken the last glimpse of Imperial society that he might ever have, and he felt strangely relaxed and contented, as if by making his decision to accompany the dwarfs on their quest, he had somehow absolved himself of all fear and doubt. It was better to have the thing decided, he thought, than to writhe in an agony of uncertainly. His way was clear now and he was relieved to find that he was not unhappy about it. He turned and started back up the long, cobbled path towards the palace, wondering whether he was imagining things when he thought he heard scurrying over the rooftops behind him."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "BEYOND THE SEA OF CLAWS",
+                "text": "As the airship cast off, the crowds stared up in awe. Makaisson turned the wheel and pulled the levers to alter their course a fraction. Narrowly avoiding the great spire of the Temple of Ulric, they set off northwards.\n\nFelix relaxed in one of the armchairs on the command deck. There was plenty of room. Most of the dwarfs were sleeping off hangovers, leaving only a skeleton crew to man the bridge.\n\nTo tell the truth, Makaisson himself looked a little worse for wear. The little groans he emitted from time to time, combined with the way he squinted at the horizon through sore eyes, were not reassuring. Felix was not at all sure that he should be flying the ship.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" he asked the chief engineer.\n\n\"What dae ye mean, young Felix?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I can take the controls while you rest.\"\n\n\"Ah dinnae ken. It's a highly technical job.\"\n\n\"I could try. It might prove useful to have somebody else on board who can fly the ship, in case anything should happen to you. I mean you are a Slayer, you know.\"\n\n\"The other engineers ken hoo to dae it\u2026 still, ah suppose ye hae a point. It woudnae dae onnie herm to hae an extra pilot \u2014 just in case.\"\n\n\"Does that mean you'll do it.\"\n\n\"Ah shouldnae really. It's against guild regulations tae teach onybody but a dwarf hoo to dae these things, but then again, this whole bloody thing is against guild regs, so whar's the herm, ah ask ye?\"\n\nHe beckoned for Felix to come over and stand where he was standing. \"Tak the wheel, Herr Jaeger.\"\n\nFelix had to bend his knees to stand at the same height as the dwarf and he found the position fairly uncomfortable. The wheel felt heavy in his hands. He did his best to hold it steady but it felt like it had a life of its own, exerting pressure first this way and then that, so that Felix had to constantly fight to hold his position.\n\n\"That's the air currents,\" Makaisson said. \"They tug at the rudder and the ailerons. Take's a while tae get used to it. Ye got it?\"\n\nFelix nodded nervously.\n\n\"Look doon a wee bit and tae yer left. Ye'll see a wee gadget there. It's a compass.\"\n\nFelix did so. He could see a compass that swung on a complex arrangement of gimbals so that the needle in its centre always pointed north.\n\n\"Ye'll notice that we're heading north-north-east at the moment. That's oor course. If ye turn the wheel a wee bit, we'll shift the course. Joost jink aroond a wee bit and bring the course back to north-north-east,\"\n\nFelix did as he was told and moved the wheel as gently as he could. Outside the window, the horizon seemed to spin slowly. He moved the wheel the opposite way and they spun back onto the correct heading.\n\n\"Weel din! Nithin' tae it, eh?\"\n\nFelix found that he was grinning back at Makaisson. There was something exhilarating about being in control of so massive and swift a thing as the airship.\n\n\"What next?\" he asked.\n\n\"See that row o' levers next tae yer right hand?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"OK, the first yin is fur speed. Dinna dae onything till ah tell ye tae, right, but when ye push it forward the engines pick up speed. When ye pull it back the engines lose speed. When ye pull it ah the way back, ye gan backwards, intae reverse. Ye follow me?\"\n\nFelix nodded again.\n\n\"Noo there's a dial in front ye, marked in increments. Ye'll see that it's marked in different colours as weel.\"\n\nFelix saw the indicated gauge beside the compass. Right now the needle was in the green zone at the tenth increment. It was about five increments short of the red zone.\n\n\"While the needle is in the green, ye're fine. That's the zone o' tolerance for the engine. Move it forward \u2014 but keep the needle in the green.\"\n\nFelix leaned forward on the lever. It resisted his efforts, so he pushed harder than he had originally intended. As he did so the needle moved forward and the drone of the engine altered to a higher pitch. The ground seemed to unreel faster below them, and the clouds drifted by more quickly on either side. Suddenly Felix felt Makaisson's hard hand on top of his. Fingers like steel bands closed and he found the lever was being pulled back.\n\n\"Ah said keep it in the green, ye unnerstan? The red is for emergencies only. Ye run the engine in the red and ye'll gaun much faster but ye'll burn it oot after awhile, maybe even explode it. That's no such a guid thing at this height.\"\n\nFelix saw that he had accidentally run the needle into the red zone. He tried to pull his hand away but Makaisson's held it in place for a moment. \"Dinnae tak yer hand off the controls until ah tell ye. Keep yer hand on the speed stick the noo, alright?\"\n\nFelix nodded and the engineer freed his hand. \"Dinnae worry. Ye're no daein' too bad. So, the next stick on the right controls the fins. Try tae no get the two sticks mixed up, it could be messy!\"\n\nFelix was beginning to wish he had never suggested that he might learn this. It seemed that there were many possibilities for disaster that he had never thought of. \"In what way?\"\n\n\"Well, the fins control oor height above the ground. When ye pull that lever back the fins on the tail change attitude and we gaun up. When ye push it forward we gaun doon. That's all ye really need tae ken. The actual reasons are a wee bit technical and ah doobt ye'd understand them.\"\n\n\"I'll take your word for it.\"\n\n\"Right, pull the lever back. Gently! We dinna want to wake onybody up. Now ye'll notice a wee gadget next tae the speed gauge. That's yer altitude. The higher the increment, the higher we are. Yince mare, dinna gaun intae the red zone for ony reason. That could be fatal because we'll be flying too high. An' try no to lay the thing get doon to zero either, coz that means we'll hae hit the ground. Now, slide the lever back to the neutral position. Ye'll feel a wee click when ye dae. That means we'll hae levelled off.\"\n\nFelix did as he was told. There was an odd buzzing in his ears, which vanished when he swallowed. He took his hand off the altitude lever and pointed to a smaller row of stubby levers attached to a panel at the height of his left hand. \"What do these do?\"\n\n\"Dinna touch ony of them. They control different functions like ballast, fuel and ither stuff. I'll tell ye aboot them anither time. Right noo, ye ken ah ye need to fly the ship. Noo, keep headin' north-north-east. An' see that clock there? In two hours' time wake me up. Ah'm ganne hae a wee kip. Ma heed's a bit sare fae ah the booze yesterday.\"\n\n\"What if something goes wrong?\"\n\n\"Joost gae me a shout. Ah'll be in this chair here.\" So saying, Makaisson sat himself down in the chair, and soon his snores filled the bridge of the airship.\n\nFor the first few minutes Felix felt a certain nervousness guiding the craft but as time wore on he gained confidence that nothing was going to go wrong. As time went on, some of the engineers came onto the bridge. Some glanced at him in amazement but seeing Makaisson slumbering nearby let him be. After a while, it became quite relaxing to watch the land and the clouds unroll beneath them.\n\n\"Are you the pilot then?\" The soft voice stirred Felix from his reverie. It was a woman's voice, husky and with more than a trace of a foreign accent in it. At a guess he would have said Kislevite.\n\nFelix shook his head but did not turn to look at the woman. He kept his attention focused on where they were going, just in case anything unexpected came their way. \"No. But you could say I am training to be one.\"\n\nA soft laugh. \"A useful skill.\"\n\n\"I don't know. I doubt that I can base a career on it. There are not too many vessels like this in the world.\"\n\n\"Only this one, I think. And given its mission, I doubt there will be another.\"\n\n\"You know where we are going, then?\"\n\n\"I know where you are going, and I do not envy you.\"\n\nFelix had to fight to keep his eyes fixed ahead and not to look round at her. He remembered what he had sworn to Borek back at the Lonely Tower. He did not really know this woman, and it was possible she was quizzing him for information.\n\n\"You know where we are bound?\"\n\n\"I know you are headed out into the Wastes and that is enough for any sensible body to know. I do not think you will be coming back.\"\n\nFelix was discouraged to hear an assessment which so closely concurred with his own. He was also disappointed to learn that the woman had no intention of coming with them on their quest.\n\n\"I take it you are familiar with the place then?\"\n\n\"As familiar as anybody can be who is not sworn to the Ruinous Powers. My family estates border the Troll Country which is as close as any mortal dare dwell to the accursed lands. My father is the March Warden there. We have spent much time battling the followers of Chaos when they try to infiltrate the lands of men.\"\n\n\"It must be an interesting life,\" Felix said ironically.\n\n\"You could say that. I doubt that it is any more interesting than yours though. What brings you aboard this vessel? I must admit I was astonished to see a human, and a good-looking one, where I expected only to find Borek and his people.\"\n\nFelix smiled. It had been a long time since anyone, particularly an attractive woman, had told him he was handsome. He did not let his guard down though. \"I am a friend.\"\n\n\"You are a Dwarf Friend? You must have performed some epic deeds then. Ulric knows there have been few enough of those in history.\"\n\nFelix wondered whether this was true. He had always assumed that it was simply a polite form of address. Now it appeared that it might actually be some form of title. He was about to reply when Makaisson interrupted from behind them.\n\n\"Och, the lad has stood beside Gotrek Gurnisson on many an occasion, lassie. And he had a hand in the cleansing of the Sacred Tombs of Karak Eight Peaks. If that is nae grounds for namin' him a Dwarf Friend ah dinna ken what is! Onyway, noo that ye've woke me up wi yer chatter, ye may as well gimme that wheel. Ah'll tak iver noo.\"\n\nMakaisson stumped over and elbowed Felix from his position at the controls. He gave Felix a broad wink. \"Noo you and the lassie can talk tae yer heart's content.\"\n\nFelix shrugged and turned to smile at the woman. \"Felix Jaeger,\" he said, bowing.\n\n\"Ulrika Magdova,\" she said, smiling back. \"I am pleased to make your acquaintance.\"\n\nThere was a formality about the way she spoke the words which showed she was unaccustomed to them. They were like a polite formula she had been taught for dealing with people from the Empire. He thought that in her own land the greeting would be somewhat different.\n\n\"Please, take a seat,\" he said, feeling a certain stupid formality he wished he could have avoided. They both slumped down with their legs stretched out in the overstuffed dwarfish chairs. Felix could see that his earlier guess was correct and she was almost as tall as he. Looking at her face, he revised his earlier opinion of her appearance. It went from merely beautiful up to stunningly beautiful. His mouth felt suddenly dry.\n\n\"So what are you doing on this craft?\" he asked, just for something to say. She gave him a glance of languid amusement, as if she could read his thoughts exactly.\n\n\"I am travelling home to my father's estates.\"\n\n\"I cannot imagine Borek simply letting somebody on to this ship as a passenger for no reason.\"\n\nShe raised her right hand to her mouth and stroked her lip with its forefinger. Felix could see the fingers were callused like a swordsman's, the nails pared very short. \"My father and Borek are old friends. They fought together on many occasions in my father's youth. He helped guide Borek's last expedition to the edge of the Wastes. He looked after him and your friend Gotrek when they staggered back with the survivors. He was not surprised. He had warned them not to go. They would not listen.\"\n\nFelix stared at her. He had not imagined that any humans had been involved in that last expedition. \"That does not surprise me,\" Felix said ruefully. He possessed considerable experience of just how stubborn dwarfs could be.\n\n\"Some things about it surprised even my father. He had not expected anybody to return from that doomed mission. Few indeed, save the followers of Chaos, ever do.\"\n\n\"How long ago was this mission?\"\n\n\"Before I was born. Over twenty winters ago.\"\n\n\"They have waited a long time to go back then.\"\n\n\"So it would seem. It also seems that they have prepared well. Indeed it was a message from my father to say that he had done what they asked which brought me to Middenheim.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Borek asked my father to make certain preparations on our estate. To collect the black water. To build a tower. To stockpile certain supplies. At the time, they did not make sense, but now that I have seen this ship I think I understand.\"\n\n\"The dwarfs have built a base, a way-station, on your father's land.\"\n\n\"Aye. And paid for it in good dwarfish steel.\"\n\nSeeing Felix's quizzical look she smiled at him, and unsheathed one of her swords, pulling it part way from its scabbard. Felix noticed dwarf runes along the blade. \"We have little use for gold along the Marches of Chaos. Weapons suit us better and the dwarfs are the finest armourers in the world.\"\n\n\"You came a long way from Kislev to Middenheim. That is far for a beautiful young woman travelling on her own.\"\n\n\"Better, Herr Jaeger! I had despaired of ever getting a compliment from you. Men are more forward about such things in Kislev.\"\n\n\"Women too, it seems,\" Felix said in mild surprise.\n\n\"Life is short and winter is long, as they say.\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\n\"Are you so obtuse?\"\n\nFelix could not help but feel that this conversation was moving out of his control. He had never quite met a woman like this Kislevite before and he wasn't sure he liked it. Imperial women did not behave in quite this way, except perhaps for camp followers and tavern girls, and Ulrika Magdova certainly did not have the manner of either. Or perhaps, he was simply misunderstanding her manner. Maybe this was just the way women behaved in Kislev.\n\nShe spoke to fill the silence. \"I did not travel to Middenheim on my own \u2014 although I could have. I came with a bodyguard of my father's lancers. They departed northward and I waited to return with Borek.\"\n\nFor the first time, she did not meet his gaze. He sensed that she was hiding something and he was not sure what. Certainly there was more going on here than met the eye. Also, for the first time, he started to suspect that she was not quite as confident as her beauty and her boldness had led him to believe. That suddenly made her more approachable and, in a way, more attractive. He smiled at her again and she smiled back, a little ruefully this time. Then she glanced over his shoulder, smoothed her britches with both her hands, and rose to her feet, all the while keeping him fixed with that dazzling smile.\n\nFelix looked over in the direction of her gaze and saw that their other passenger, the sorcerer, had just entered the bridge area. He was looking at them in a puzzled, and Felix thought, perhaps resentful manner. If that was the case, he soon regained control of himself. A look of languid amusement passed over his lean handsome features and he advanced into the room. Ulrika Magdova sauntered past him, pausing only to give him a mildly disdainful glance.\n\n\"Good day, Herr Schreiber. A pleasure talking to you, Felix.\"\n\n\"Good day,\" Felix said weakly, rising just as she vanished from view. The magician threw himself down in the chair she had left.\n\n\"So,\" he said, \"you've met the fair Ulrika. What do you think, eh?\"\n\nIt was an impertinent question from a complete stranger, thought Felix, but then he had heard magicians could be somewhat odd. Then he noticed that the man was smiling and shaking his head like someone enjoying a private joke. White teeth showed against his tanned skin, the animated expression taking years off the wizard's age. Felix guessed that the mage could not be more than ten years older than himself. Suddenly, impulsively, the man stuck out his hand.\n\n\"Maximilian Schreiber, at your service. My friends call me Max.\"\n\n\"Felix Jaeger at yours.\"\n\n\"Felix Jaeger. That's a name I've heard before. There was quite a promising poet of that name. Are you any relation? I read some of his verses in Gottlieb's anthology several years before. Rather liked them, actually.\"\n\nFelix was pleasantly surprised to find that the stranger had heard of him. He cast his mind back to his student days when he had written verse and contributed to various anthologies. That all seemed to have happened to someone else, a long time ago.\n\n\"I wrote those,\" he said.\n\n\"Excellent. A pleasant surprise. Why did you stop writing? Gottlieb's chapbook must be at least three years ago.\"\n\n\"I ran into some problems with the law.\"\n\n\"What were those?\"\n\nSomething about the mage's smooth manner was starting to set Felix's teeth on edge. \"I was expelled from the university for killing a man in a duel. Then there were the Window Tax Riots.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, the riots. So, in addition to being the poet Felix Jaeger, you are also the notorious outlaw Felix Jaeger, henchman to the infamous Gotrek Gurnisson.\"\n\nFelix went white with shock. It had been a long time since he had encountered anyone who had put those two facts together or even known he was an outlaw. The Empire was big and news travelled very slowly. It had been such a long time since he had been anywhere near Altdorf, the scene of that terrible slaughter during the riots. The wizard obviously noticed his expression. His smile became a grin.\n\n\"Don't worry. I am not about to turn you over to the law. I always thought it was an unjust and foolish tax myself. And to tell the truth, I sympathise with your predicament at the university. I was booted out of the Imperial College of Magicians myself, albeit a few years before you began your career of insurrection.\"\n\n\"You were?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. My tutors believed that I showed an unhealthy interest in the subject of Chaos.\"\n\n\"I would have to agree with them, I think. It's a subject in which any interest is unhealthy.\"\n\nA gleam had come into the wizard's eyes and he leaned forward eagerly in his seat. \"I cannot believe that you think that way, Herr Jaeger. That's the kind of short-sightedness I would expert from the wizened greybeards at the college but not from an adventurer like yourself.\"\n\nFelix felt compelled to defend his point of view.\n\n\"I believe I know something of the subject. I have had more experience of fighting Chaos than most.\"\n\n\"Exactly! I, too, have fought against the Dark Powers, my friend, and I have found its minions in some unlikely places. I do not think that I am wrong when I say that it is the greatest single threat to our nation, nay, our world, that currently exists.\"\n\n\"I would agree with you there.\"\n\n\"And that being the case, can it be wrong to study the subject? In order to fight such a powerful foe we must understand it. We must know its strengths and its weaknesses, its goals and its fears.\"\n\n\"Yes, but the study of Chaos corrupts those who engage in it! Many have started down that path with the finest of intentions, only to find themselves enthralled by that thing they sought to fight.\"\n\n\"Now you really do sound like my old tutors! Has it occurred to you that, if you were a servant of Chaos, you would use exactly that argument to discourage any investigation into your works?\"\n\n\"You're not seriously suggesting that your tutors at the Imperial College were\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course not! I am just saying that the servants of Chaos are subtle. You have no idea how subtle they can be. All they would need to do was put the idea into books, spread the rumour, encourage its belief. And, of course, Chaos does corrupt. If you work with warpstone, it will change you. If you perform dark rituals, your soul will be tarnished. I admit there is some truth to this line of argument. However, I don't think that this should stop us from examining Chaos, trying to find ways to prevent its spread, to detect its followers, to blunt its terrifying power. There is a conspiracy of silence which permeates our entire society. It encourages ignorance. It gives our enemies shadows in which to hide, places in which to lurk and plot.\"\n\nFelix had to admit there was something in what Schreiber was saying. To tell the truth, he had often had similar thoughts himself. \"You might be right.\"\n\n\"Might be? Come now, Felix, you know I am right. And so do many other people. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of publishing my opinions in a small pamphlet. The authorities decided that it was heretical and\u2026\"\n\n\"You too became an outlaw.\"\n\n\"That more or less sums it up.\"\n\n\"Why are you aboard this ship?\"\n\n\"Because I continued my researches. I moved from place to place fighting against Chaos where I could, compiling information when I found it, hunting down wicked sorcerers. I have made myself into something of an expert on this subject, and in the end found a refuge at the court of Count Stephan. He is more far-sighted than many of our nobles.\n\n\"He and the Knights of the White Wolf have helped fund my researches. Five years ago I met your friend Borek when he visited the library in the temple. He was most interested when he found out that I believed I had found a way to protect against the worst effects of Chaos. He enlisted me to help protect his airship on its voyage.\"\n\nSuddenly Felix began to understand the scale of the planning which had gone into their quest. It was of an order of magnitude that he had never encountered before. Not only had Borek overseen the building of the vast industrial complex at the Lonely Tower, he had employed Ulrika's father to build an advance base and discovered and engaged this wizard to ward them against Chaos. The old dwarf had not been exaggerating when he claimed this was his life's work. Felix began to wonder what other feats of planning would be revealed as the trip progressed. Still, he was not entirely convinced by Schreiber's claims.\n\n\"You have found a way of protecting this airship against the effects of Chaos?\"\n\n\"There are a number of them ranging from simple runes, to protective enchantments, to basic precautions such as ensuring an adequate supply of uncontaminated food and water. Believe me, Felix, I would not have agreed to aid you unless I believed that there was a good chance you would be safe.\"\n\n\"You are not coming with us then?\"\n\n\"Only to Kislev. Not all the way to Karag Dum.\"\n\nFelix looked at the wizard in surprise.\n\n\"I told you, Felix, I am a scholar. This is my field. I have studied all I could find on this subject. I was quite capable of working out for myself why an expedition of this magnitude is being prepared by a dwarf like Borek. It came as no surprise to me when he told me his goal.\"\n\nSchreiber rose from the chair. \"Speaking of that longbearded scholar, I must go and discuss some things with him now. But I hope to have a chance to talk more with you before this voyage is complete.\"\n\nHe bowed and walked away, but at the doorway he turned. \"I'm glad there is an educated man aboard. I thought I might have to spend this voyage simply chasing the delectable Ulrika. It will be nice to have some enlightened conversation as well.\"\n\nFelix wasn't sure why he found this remark so offensive. Perhaps, he told himself, he was simply jealous. And then he wondered, why did he already feel that way about a woman he had only just met?"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "KISLEV",
+                "text": "Thanquol's palanquin hustled northward along the great tunnel of the Underways. This section of the mighty road that ran beneath the spine of the World's Edge Mountains was almost totally empty. Normally Thanquol would have been nervous, travelling these dangerous corridors with his much reduced bodyguard. He could easily be attacked by orcs, goblins or dwarfish raiding parties, trying to reclaim some part of their ancient domain. However, at this moment, the grey seer was too upset to be nervous.\n\nHe gnawed his tail in despair. He knew from his lackey, Lurk, that the airship had departed from Middenheim and headed north-eastwards. The snivelling wretch had managed to report that they had passed over water, before making landfall again, and that the land below them was starting to look emptier and bleaker all the time. Fortunately for Thanquol, he was a far-travelled skaven of considerable knowledge, and he recognised that the airship's destination could only be the land known to humans as Kislev.\n\nHe had no idea what those foolish dwarfs could possibly want in that barbarous place. Perhaps they had heard rumours of gold or ancient treasure. Although dwarfs were not the race he had made his deepest studies of, Thanquol knew enough about them to guess that this was their most likely goal. Unfortunately he had no idea where this might eventually take them, and he also knew that the airship had travelled much further and much faster than he was capable of pursuing by normal means.\n\nHe was almost tempted to order Lurk to find some means of sabotaging the airship to give him time to catch up. Only one thing prevented him from doing this. In his considerable experience, a doltish lackey like Lurk would do something wrong and either get himself killed or destroy the very airship that Thanquol so desperately wanted to possess. No \u2014 giving such an order was the option of last resort, and Thanquol decided that he would have to be desperate indeed to try it. Before then, he would exhaust every other avenue open to him.\n\nHe considered his options. Perhaps he could contact the Lords of Clan Moulder. Their mighty fortress, Hell Pit, was located in northern Kislev and was the nearest skaven stronghold to the airship's probable destination. To a lesser intellect than Thanquol's, this might have seemed like a wise plan. Potent as he undoubtedly was, even the grey seer was forced to admit capturing the airship single-pawed was almost certainly beyond him. He was going to need help, even if it meant going with downcast tail to the Beastmasters of Clan Moulder. But the thought had also occurred to him that it might not be wise to give them all the details of his scheme, for they might try to seize the airship by themselves. Being the blundering fools they were, they too would doubtless fail without his guidance.\n\nNo, he decided, the best he could do was to scurry north as quickly as possible and hope that something would arise to delay the dwarfs until his arrival. He leaned out the palanquin's window and chittered at his bearers to redouble their efforts. Fearing their master's righteous wrath, they scuttled along more quickly, groaning beneath the weight of their burden and all his sorcerous equipment.\n\nFelix had always thought of Kislev as a land of ice and snow, where winter never lifted, and the folk wandered around constantly wrapped in furs. The land below contradicted this impression quite mightily. It consisted of rolling plains of long grass set amidst thick forests of pine. A moment's consideration told him that this had to be so, for Kislev was a land famed for its horsemen, and it would be difficult for them to be that way if they lived amid endless snowdrifts.\n\nFelix had to admit that, if anything, the sun shone even more brightly than it did on the Empire at the moment. The Kislevite summer might be brief but it was also intense. Felix wondered if this, too, was part of Borek's plan, to come northward before the stormy winds of winter could threaten the airship's progress. It would not have surprised him to discover that this was the case. The ingenuity and skill with which this expedition had been planned was a far cry from his haphazard wanderings with Gotrek. During their travels they had simply decided to go as the whim took them, with only whatever they happened to be carrying at the time to aid them. Obviously this was not typical dwarfish behaviour, except perhaps where Slayers were concerned.\n\nBelow the airship he could see a herd of caribou, startled by the airship's vast shadow, begin to bound away. Hunters rose from their crouches and shaded their eyes to peer up in wonder at the passing vehicle. One of them, braver or more frightened than the rest, cast his spear up at them but it fell a long way short of the vessel and fell point first to stand quivering amidst the long grass.\n\nThey were flying beneath the clouds for a good reason. Watchers peered from every porthole and through the large windows of the command deck. They were nearing their destination and all of them had been ordered to keep their eyes peeled for Ulrika's father's mansion. Makaisson's navigation had brought them to the general area. Now they quartered the landscape seeking the exact spot where they would make their final landfall before heading into the Chaos Wastes.\n\nSo far all they had seen was the occasional hunter and the odd village where smoke drifted lazily skyward from holes in the turfed roofs of the peasants' log huts. Their presence had sent the villagers scurrying away from their harvests to huddle within the village walls, doubtless convinced that the airship was some new manifestation of Chaos come to trouble their land.\n\nFelix was still amazed at how swiftly they had made the trip. A journey that would have taken months overland looked like it was going to take them only a few days at most, and much of that time had been spent searching for the Boyar's mansion in this sea of grass. Truly this engineering of the dwarfs was a most potent form of magic.\n\n\"There!\" he heard Ulrika shout and turned to see her pointing to something in the distance. It lay in the shadows of a distant range of dark and threatening mountains. Felix realised her eyes must be keen. All he could see was a vague smudge of smoke.\n\nMakaisson's hands shifted on the wheel, and the nose of the airship swung around in the direction the woman had indicated. He pushed the altitude lever and they swung down lower and faster, sending flocks of startled birds flapping out of the long grass. As the mountains approached, Felix kept his eyes pinned to the direction Ulrika had indicated. Slowly he saw a large, long hall come into view. To his surprise, beside the mansion house, within the compound's massive walls, was a tall tower, a smaller wooden version of the steel monstrosity which had loomed over the Lonely Tower.\n\nThis, then, was the place where they were going to land. This might well be the last human habitation he would ever see.\n\nUlrika's father was huge, a head taller than Felix and burly as a bear. His beard was long and white, but his head was shaved except for a single topknot. His eyes were the same startling blue as his daughter's, his teeth were yellow. A thick leather tunic encased his torso. Coarse cloth trousers covered his lower body, except where high riding boots covered his legs. A longsword and a shortsword hung from his thick leather belt. A dozen amulets jingled on the iron chains around his neck.\n\nHe strode out to where the dwarfs waited at the foot of the tower. Behind him a row of warriors presented their weapons with ritual formality. He loomed over Ulrika and clasped her to his mighty chest then swept her off her feet and whirled her round and round as if she were a child.\n\n\"Welcome home, daughter of my heart!\" he bellowed.\n\n\"It is good to be here, father. Now put me down and greet your guests.\"\n\nThe old man's gusty laughter boomed out and he stomped over to where the crew of the airship stood waiting. He stopped short of embracing the dwarfs. Instead he bowed low in the dwarfish fashion, showing surprising flexibility for a man of his age and enormous girth.\n\n\"Borek Forkbeard! It is good to see you. I trust you will find all as you requested it.\"\n\n\"I trust I will,\" the old dwarf said, bowing just as low.\n\n\"Gotrek Gurnisson, I bid you welcome also. It has been a long time since you honoured my hall with your presence. I am pleased to see you still carry that axe.\"\n\n\"I am pleased to return, Ivan Petrovitch Straghov,\" Gotrek said in his least surly manner. Felix guessed that the Slayer was almost pleased to see the Kislevite.\n\n\"And who is this? Snorri Nosebiter? I must see that a bucket of vodka is left at your table. Welcome!\"\n\n\"Snorri thinks that would be a good idea.\" One by one all the dwarfs were greeted or introduced and then Ulrika led her father over to where Felix and the wizard stood waiting.\n\n\"And, father, this is Felix Jaeger of Altdorf.\"\n\n\"Pleased to make your acquaintance,\" Felix said, extending his hand. Straghov ignored it as he loomed over Felix, hugged him in welcome and then kissed him once on each cheek. \"Welcome! Welcome!\" he bellowed in Felix's ear, loud enough to threaten deafness. Before Felix could respond, he had been dropped and the old man was doing the same to Schreiber.\n\n\"I thank you for the enthusiasm of your welcome, sir,\" the wizard said when he had regained his breath.\n\nFelix exchanged glances with Ulrika, then looked in wonder over at the row of warriors who lined their way to the hall. Ivan Straghov might look and behave like a barbarian but there could be no doubt that he was a mighty warlord in his own land. A hundred riders stood by as an honour guard. All had hard faces and cold eyes, and all looked like they could use the well-honed weapons they presented to the dwarfs. According to Ulrika there were nine hundred more of these fierce riders who had sworn allegiance to her father. Being March Boyar was obviously an important post. Since it commanded the first line of defence against the hordes of Chaos, Felix guessed that it ought to be.\n\n\"Now we eat!\" boomed Straghov. \"And drink!\"\n\nHuge tables had been set up inside the mansion's walls. Minor functionaries from all around had been invited to feast and marvel at the dwarfish airship. Caribou had been roasted on spits over great fire-pits. Plates were heaped with coarse black bread and cheese. Great flasks of fiery spirit which Snorri identified as vodka were put beside each plate. As promised, a bucket of the stuff was put beside Snorri.\n\nFelix followed the example of the locals and tossed back his tumbler in one swift gulp. It felt like he was swallowing molten metal. A cloud of something acidic seemed to burn the lining of his throat and make its way up to his nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes. He felt like he ought to be breathing fire and it was all he could do to keep himself from spluttering. He guessed that such behaviour would not be good form here however.\n\nHe was glad that he had not done so when he noticed that all eyes watched him to see how he reacted to his first taste of the spirit.\n\n\"You drink like a true winged lancer!\" Straghov bellowed and all the table banged their glasses on the table in agreement. Their host insisted that everyone fill their glasses, then shouted: \"To Felix Jaeger, who comes from the land of our allies, the Empire!\"\n\nOf course, Felix could do nothing less than pledge a return toast to the ancient friendship between his folk and the folk of Kislev. Before long, the dwarfs were joining in too. Felix noticed that a pleasant warmth had settled in his stomach and that his fingers felt slightly numb. The vodka certainly got easier to drink the more glasses he tossed back, and soon he ceased to feel like it was burning his throat.\n\nGreat mounds of food were devoured. Toast after toast was made. Great speeches of welcome and friendship were spoken until darkness fell. Somewhere during the course of the afternoon, Felix lost track of events. His head swimming from the vodka, he was only dimly aware of eating far too much, drinking far too much and joining in the singing of songs whose words he did not know. Some time during the evening he was sure he danced with Ulrika, before she whirled away to dance with Schreiber, and then sometime after that he wandered off to be sick beside the stables.\n\nAfter that his mind blanked completely and great chunks of memory were lost to the vodka and Kislevite hospitality. For the rest of his life he was not sure quite who he spoke to or what he said or how he got to the chamber that was allocated to him. Forever afterwards, however, he was grateful that he did.\n\nFelix awoke the next day feeling like a horse had kicked him in the head. Perhaps one had, he thought; he checked his face for bruises but could find none. He looked around the room and saw that the floor was of packed earth. The mattress was filled with straw and someone had thrown a thick quilt over him. During the night he had drooled on his pillow and a patch of wetness was evident where his head had been. At least, he hoped it was just drool.\n\nHe pulled himself to his feet, and wondered whether at some point during the previous evening he really had challenged Snorri Nosebiter to a wrestling match. He seemed to have a vague recollection of some such thing, or maybe he had just dreamt it. His limbs certainly felt twisted enough for him to have engaged in such a foolish pursuit. Maybe he had.\n\nThat was the worst thing about a really hard drinking session. You could never quite remember what you had said, who you had insulted and to whom you had issued foolish challenges. You simply engaged in insane behaviour. At that moment, he wondered if perhaps it was true that alcohol was a gift from the Dark Gods of Chaos intended to make men mad, as some of the temperance minded cults in the Empire claimed. Right now he didn't care. He just knew that he never, ever intended to drink again.\n\nA knock sounded on the door. Felix threw it open and blinked out into the harsh daylight.\n\n\"Amazing,\" Ulrika said by way of a greeting. \"You are on your feet. I would not have thought it possible after the amount of vodka you consumed last night.\"\n\n\"That impressive, eh?\"\n\n\"All were impressed. Particularly by the way you climbed the airship tower while reciting one of your poems.\"\n\n\"I did what?\"\n\n\"I am only joking. You only climbed the tower. Most people thought you would fall and break your neck, but no\u2026\"\n\n\"I really climbed the tower?\"\n\n\"Of course, don't you remember? You bet Snorri Nosebiter a gold piece that you could. At one point you were going to do it blindfolded but Snorri thought that was an unfair advantage because you would not be able to see the ground and would not be quite so afraid. That was just after you'd lost a silver piece arm wrestling him.\"\n\nFelix groaned. \"What else did I do?\"\n\n\"When we were dancing, you told me I was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen.\"\n\n\"What? I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Don't be! You were very flattering.\"\n\nFelix felt himself starting to blush. It was one thing flattering a pretty woman. It was another having no memory of having done so.\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"Is that not enough for one night?\" she smiled.\n\n\"I suppose so.\"\n\n\"So you are ready to go riding then?\"\n\n\"Eh?\"\n\n\"You told me that you were a great horseman, and you agreed to go riding with me this morning. I was going to show you round the estate. You were very enthusiastic about it last night.\"\n\nFelix pictured himself drunk and talking with this extremely pretty woman. He guessed that if she had offered to show him her father's pig-sties in his inebriated condition he would have shown a creditable amount of enthusiasm for it.\n\nActually, he was certain he would have managed to be enthusiastic about it in any condition except his present one. His hangover made even Ulrika Magdova look less ravishing than the prospect of going back to sleep.\n\n\"I am looking forward to seeing you on horseback. It should be quite an impressive sight.\"\n\n\"I might have exaggerated about my horsemanship.\"\n\n\"You can ride?\"\n\n\"Er \u2014 yes.\"\n\n\"Last night you told me you could ride as well as any Kislevite.\"\n\nFelix groaned again. Had some daemon taken over his tongue while he was under the influence of the vodka? What else had he said? And why had he drunk so much?\n\n\"Ready to go then?\"\n\nFelix nodded. \"Just let me have a wash first.\"\n\nHe strode out into the courtyard. Snorri Nosebiter lay, still slumped over the table, his head encased in a bucket. Gotrek lay snoring by the smouldering remains of one of the fire-pits, his axe clutched comfortingly in his hands. Felix walked over to the water pump, put his head below it and began to work the lever. The cold stream sent a shock jarring along his spine. He puffed and blew and continued to pump, hoping to drive the hangover away by inflicting still greater pain on himself.\n\nHad he really said all those things or was Ulrika Magdova kidding him? He found it all too easy to believe that he had told her she was beautiful. He had thought it often enough over the past few days. He knew how much he had a tendency to run off at the mouth when he was really drunk. On the other hand, it scarcely seemed possible that he had climbed the airship tower while so drunk he could not remember it. It was an act of mad recklessness. No, he decided, it was simply not possible. She had to be joking.\n\nSnorri took his head from the bucket. He looked blearily over at Felix. \"About that gold piece Snorri owes you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Felix uneasily.\n\n\"Snorri will pay you when we get back from the Chaos Wastes.\"\n\n\"That seems reasonable,\" Felix said and hurried off towards the stables.\n\nFelix leaned back in the saddle and rolled his head around to clear the stiffness out of his neck. He looked down from the top of the rise to where the small streams cut across the rolling plain. The land was somewhat marshy down there, and bright birds flickered in and out of the reeds. He thought he saw some frogs splashing into the water. Dragonflies flickered past his face, as did other larger insects which he did not recognise. Some of them had bright metallic coloured carapaces, far more striking than those of any insect he had ever seen before. Was this perhaps some evidence of the nearness of the Wastes, he wondered?\n\nHe looked over at his companion and smiled, glad at long last to be here. At first the ride had seemed like a peculiarly refined form of torture, with the motion of the horse sending spasms of protest through Felix's queasy stomach. He had cursed the woman, his mount, the fresh air and the bright sun, in roughly that order. But the exercise and the sunlight seemed to have at long last worked their spell on him, and sent his hangover back into the dim, dark recesses of his skull. He had found himself beginning to take an interest in the landscape, and even to enjoy the sensation of speed, of the wind on his face and the sun on his skin.\n\nUlrika rode easily, as if born in the saddle. She was a Kislevite noble, so of course she had been riding virtually since she could walk. She had not said a word since they had set out, seemingly content to race along beneath the vast, empty sky until at last they had reached this small hillock and by wordless agreement come to a halt.\n\nBeyond the stream, in the distance, the dark mountains marched threateningly towards the horizon, their huge bulk seemingly carved from the bleak bones of the earth. They looked more desolate than any place he had ever been. No snow marked those rugged peaks, but there was a hint of something else, of an oil-like film whose colours shifted and shimmered in the light of the sun. There was a sinister, threatening air about the mountains, hinting at the fact that beyond them lay the outriders of the Chaos Wastes.\n\n\"What is that pass?\" Felix said, pointing north to the enormous gap which looked as if it had been hacked out of the mountain barrier by some giant's axe.\n\n\"That's Blackblood Pass,\" Ulrika said quietly. \"It's one of the major routes down from the Wastes, and the reason why the Tzarina has placed this outpost here.\"\n\n\"Do the Dark Ones pass this way often?\"\n\n\"You can never tell when they will come or even what they will be. Sometimes they are huge riders in black platemail. Sometimes they are beastmen, with the heads of animals and the weapons of men, but sometimes other twisted deformed things that are even worse. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. It does not matter whether it's high summer or the depth of winter; they can come at any time.\"\n\n\"I have never been able to fathom the way Chaos works. Perhaps you should talk to Herr Schreiber about it.\"\n\n\"Perhaps but I doubt that even Max's theories could explain it. Best just to keep weapons sharp and the beacons manned, and be ready to fight at any time.\"\n\n\"Beacons?\"\n\n\"Aye, there is a system of beacons stretching back from the pass. When they're lit all the villagers know to flee to their villages and lock the gates, and all the lancers know to muster at my father's house.\"\n\n\"Smoke by day, fire by night,\" Felix murmured.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You live in a frightening land, Ulrika.\"\n\n\"Aye, but it is also beautiful, is it not?\"\n\nHe looked at her and the land beyond and nodded his head. He noticed that her pupils were large in her eyes, and that her lips were slightly parted. She was leaning slightly towards him. Felix knew a cue when he heard one.\n\n\"That it is. As are you.\" He leaned towards her. Their hands met and fingers interlaced. Their lips touched. It was as if an electric shock had passed through Felix, and almost as quickly as it had happened, it was over. Ulrika broke away, and reined her horse about.\n\n\"It's getting late. I will race you back to the mansion,\" she said and turned her mount suddenly and took flight. Feeling more than a little frustrated, Felix set off in pursuit.\n\nLurk scurried along the top of the gondola. He was happier than he had been in a long time. It was dark and the skeleton crew left on the airship were mostly asleep, except for the dwarf on the command deck. The others were down below, drinking and laughing and singing their foolish human songs. There was plenty of food in the hold, and so far no indication that his presence had been noticed. Now that he was starting to feel more relaxed he could indulge the curiosity which was another Skaven trait. He had slunk around the airship, exploring all the nooks and crannies and he had discovered some very interesting things.\n\nThere was a flexible metal tunnel that ran up into the big balloon overhead. It passed right through the body of the gasbag and came out on a small observation deck on top. There was a hatch which led out onto the top of the gasbag. The whole thing was covered in webbing to which you could cling.\n\nAt the very rear of the airship was a chamber containing one of the small flying machines which had helped rout the skaven force during the Battle of the Lonely Tower. There was a huge doorway and a ramp that looked like they were designed to let the flying machine out. If only he knew enough to fly the thing, he could have stolen it and made his way back to Skavenblight a hero. The urge to get behind the controls and start flicking switches and pulling levers had been almost irresistible. He had given the notion serious consideration \u2014 but the grey seer had been very specific during their last communication.\n\nLurk was to do nothing and touch nothing without Thanquol's express instructions. The grey seer's words had been quite insulting, implying that Lurk was an idiot who would most likely do something disastrously wrong without Thanquol's guidance. It was just as well for Thanquol that he was who he was, Lurk decided. Only a sorcerer of Thanquol's ability could get away with talking to Lurk that way.\n\nNo, he was just going to have to sit tight and do nothing until he got his orders. There was nothing more to do except wait."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "NORTHWARD",
+                "text": "Felix joined the crowd of peasants in the courtyard and stared up at the airship. Provisions were being placed aboard the craft, a reminder of the grim fact that all too soon they must leave this place.\n\nFrom the courtyard of the mansion he could see crates, cases and large leather sacks being winched up the tower and then heaved across the gangplank and into the vessel. It looked like the dwarfs intended to take plenty of vodka aboard to supplement their casks of ale, for, as Snorri had pointed out, you could never be too careful about such things. Mostly, though, the provisions were of a more basic nature: smoked and sun-dried caribou meat, hundreds of loaves of black bread, and as many huge round cheeses. Whatever else might happen, Felix doubted that they would starve, unless they spent a very long time in the Chaos Wastes. Of course, starvation was the least of his worries.\n\nHe had noticed the dwarfs were making modifications to their craft. Fine mesh screens had been fitted over the ventilation holes that allowed air to enter the cupola. This was supposed to filter out the mutating dust which rose from the deserts of the Chaos Wastes. Dwarfs in elaborate cat's cradles hung over the side of the airship and made last minute modifications to the engines and rotors.\n\nOther preparations were being made. For the past three days, Max Schreiber had retired to a small tower near the mansion and engaged in some arcane ritual. By night, Felix could sometimes see an eerie glow illuminating the tower windows, and feel the strange prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck that told him magic was being worked. If this bothered any of the others they did not show it. Presumably, Borek had told them it was the wizard's role to help them ward off the evil influence of Chaos, and he appeared to be doing just that. Schreiber himself had told him that this had been left until the last moment because the magic lost its potency over time. The nearer to their final goal he cast the spell, the more time it would last over the Wastes. Felix saw no reason to doubt the magician's expertise in this.\n\nEven as Felix looked up, he could see the engineers clambering along the meshwork on the side of the huge balloon, attaching things that must be jewelled amulets judging by the way they sometimes glittered when the light caught them. He knew that the eyes of the figurehead had been replaced with two oddly glowing gems for he had been up on the bridge of the Spirit of Grungni once or twice to take more lessons from Makaisson in how to fly the airship.\n\nFelix had come to enjoy these lessons and he believed that in an emergency he could most likely pilot the vast airship, although he was still uncertain whether he could land the thing if he was forced to. The banks of smaller levers had turned out to fulfill a multitude of purposes. One of them would release ballast, causing the ship to rise swiftly at need. Another sounded the horns which alerted the crew to some upcoming danger. A third would jettison all the black stuff in the fuel tanks in case of a fire, an eventuality that Makaisson assured him would be just about the worst thing that could happen to the airship.\n\nHe had found himself gaining a great respect for the chief engineer. Makaisson might well be as crazy as Gotrek claimed, but he obviously knew and loved his subject and he had supplied Felix with simple answers to even his most technical questions. He now knew that the airship flew because the gasbags were filled with a substance that was lighter than air, and had a natural tendency to lift up. He knew that black stuff was highly inflammable and might even explode if lit, and that was why it would have to be vented in an emergency.\n\nStill, for the most part life on the Boyar's estate in these warm summer days had been idyllic, and there had been times when he could almost forget the danger which awaited them on their departure. Almost.\n\nA hand fell on his shoulder and a low laugh sounded in his ear.\n\n\"There you are. Tell me, can you use that sword, Herr Jaeger?\" It was Ulrika.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I've had some practice.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you would care to give me a lesson.\"\n\n\"When and where?\"\n\n\"Outside the walls, now.\"\n\n\"You're on.\"\n\nFelix was not quite sure what he expected when he got outside. Ulrika had already unsheathed a blade and was making a few practice cuts in the air. Felix cocked his head to one side and watched her. She moved well, feet wide apart, right foot forward, keeping her balance as she advanced. The sabre gleamed brightly in the sun as she slashed at some imaginary foe.\n\nHe stripped off his cloak and jerkin, and unslung his own blade. It was a longsword, and it had greater length and weight than her weapon. It hissed through the air as he made some practice swipes. Felix moved confidently forward. He was good with a blade and he knew it. In his youth he had excelled in his fencing lessons, and as an adult he had survived many fights. And the Templar's blade he used was the best and lightest he had ever handled.\n\n\"Not with that, fool! With that,\" she said, nodding in the direction of another blade, which lay in a wooden case by the wall.\n\nFelix strode over to where the other sword lay against the wall. He unsheathed it from its scabbard and inspected it. It was another sabre, long and slightly curved. The cutting edge had been dulled which made sense if this was a practice weapon. He tested the weight and balance. It was lighter than his own sword but the grip felt unfamiliar in his hand. He tried a few experimental passes with it.\n\n\"Not what I'm used to,\" he said.\n\n\"Excuses, excuses, Herr Jaeger. My father always said in a fight, you must be able to use whatever weapon comes to hand.\"\n\n\"He is correct. But usually I make sure that the first weapon that comes to hand is my own sword.\"\n\nShe merely smiled at him mockingly, head tilted back, lips slightly open. He shrugged and moved over towards her, the blade held negligently in his right hand.\n\n\"Are you sure you want to do this?\" he asked, staring directly into her eyes, and wondering exactly why they were doing this.\n\nA few of the guards must be thinking the same thing he guessed, for a small crowd had gathered to watch them from the walls.\n\n\"Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"People can get hurt.\"\n\n\"These are practice blades, deliberately blunted.\"\n\n\"Accidents can still happen.\"\n\n\"Are you afraid to fight me?\"\n\n\"No.\" He was going to say he was afraid that he might hurt her, but something told him that this would be the wrong thing to say.\n\n\"You should know that in Kislev we fight to first blood. Usually the loser comes away with a scar.\"\n\n\"I already have many.\"\n\n\"You must show me them some time,\" she smiled.\n\nWhile Felix was still wondering what she meant by this, she lunged. Felix barely managed to leap aside. As it was a slice was taken out of his shirt. Reflex action let him parry the next blow, and before he could even think about it, the action sent his counter hurtling back towards her. She blocked the blow easily, and suddenly their blades were flickering backwards and forwards almost faster than the eye could follow.\n\nAfter a few moments they sprang apart. Neither was breathing hard. Felix realised that the woman was very, very good. Realistically, with his own blade in his hand, he was probably the better swordsman. But fighting at these speeds was mostly a matter of reflex, of a trained response which had been drilled into the fighter so often as to be automatic. In this kind of lightning-fast combat, things happened too quickly for any conscious response. The lighter curved blade was throwing his timing off and giving her the advantage. And that was the last chance he had to think about it for a while, as Ulrika pressed forward with her attack. The guards on the wall cheered her on.\n\n\"Did I tell you I have beaten all my father's guards at sabre practice,\" she said, as he just managed to get his guard up in time to block her swipe. She wasn't kidding about fighting to first blood either. This was not like the sporting duels of his youth, where you fought to display your skills. This was much more like real combat. He supposed it made sense in a way. In a place as deadly as Kislev you did not want to acquire reflexes that would cause you to pull your blows. He knew, for it had taken him many real fights to completely overcome that conditioning.\n\n\"If you had, we wouldn't be doing this,\" he muttered, slashing back at her wildly.\n\n\"And I have beaten all the local noblemen as well.\" Her blow ripped the chest of his shirt and severed a button. Felix wondered if she was playing with him. The guards above jeered at him. \"Since I was fifteen no man has beaten me with the sabre.\"\n\nFelix very much doubted that they had let her win simply to curry favour with her father either. He had fought many men, and she was a lot better than most. His face was flushed and he was panting with effort. He was starting to feel a little angry about the way the guards were applauding his humiliation. He forced himself to concentrate, to keep his breathing easy, to keep to his stance as he had been taught.\n\nHe realised now that he faced another disadvantage. Most of the fighting he had done had very little to do with this formalised style of combat. It had all been in the rough and tumble of melee combat, where you killed your foe in any way that you could and style counted for nothing.\n\nRealising that he would inevitably lose if he continued to fight in this manner, he decided to change his tactics. He blocked her next blow and pushed forward. As they were face to face, he reached forward and grabbed her left arm with his. Using all his strength he jerked hard, and pulled her around. As she went off-balance, he managed to strike her blade from her hand. He let her go and she fell backwards and he brought his blade down so that the point was against her throat.\n\n\"There's a first time for everything,\" he said. The slightest drop of blood trickled down her throat.\n\n\"So it would seem, Herr Jaeger. Best of three, perhaps?\" He saw that she was laughing, and he laughed too.\n\nFelix lay down by the stream near the mansion, looking out across the rolling grasslands, lost in reverie, wondering what was going on between himself and Ulrika. The woman herself stood nearby, holding a short Kislevite composite bow. She stood for a moment, with the bow tensed, in a posture which could not help but reveal her excellent figure, then sent another arrow flashing one hundred strides into the direct centre of the target. It was her third bulls-eye.\n\n\"Well done,\" Felix said.\n\nShe looked over at him. \"This is easy. It would be a far more difficult shot from the back of a galloping horse.\"\n\nFelix wondered if she was trying to impress him. It was hard to tell. She was very different from the other women he had known. She was more forward, more accomplished in the arts of war, more direct. Of course, this was Kislev, where noblewomen often fought alongside their menfolk in battle. He supposed they had to be able to, for this was wild frontier country with the Darkness to the north and wild untamed lands full of orcs to the east. This was a harsh country where every blade was needed. She seemed interested in him, in the way men and women always are interested in each other, but whenever he had pressed his suit she had backed away. It was most frustrating. He felt like the more he saw of the woman, the less he actually understood her.\n\nA shadow fell across him and a hand tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Felix looked up, his train of thought disturbed. Varek stood there, peering short-sightedly into the distance towards Ulrika.\n\n\"What is it?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"My uncle asked me to tell you that our preparations are complete. We will leave tomorrow at dawn.\"\n\nFelix nodded to show his understanding. Varek bowed low to Ulrika and then backed away.\n\n\"What was that?\" she asked.\n\nFelix told her. A cloud passed across her face.\n\n\"So soon,\" she said softly and reached out to touch his face, as if to reassure herself that he was still there.\n\nThe sun sank beneath the horizon. In the darkness, Felix stood on the wall and looked towards the distant mountains. It was still early and a warm breeze blew across the grasslands. The two moons had yet to rise. A strange shimmering glow was visible beyond the northern peaks. The sky was filled with dancing lights, the colour of gold, silver and blood. It was a strange sight, at once captivating and frightening.\n\nFrom below came the sound of musicians tuning their instruments, and cooks bellowing to each other as they prepared the evening feast. Judging from the number of cattle slaughtered and flasks of vodka being produced, Straghov was preparing to give them a right royal send-off.\n\nA slight noise to his left attracted Felix's attention and he realised that he was not alone on the battlements. Gotrek stood there too, gazing into the distance. He seemed rapt and a look of concentration creased his face.\n\n\"That glow \u2014 is it the light of Chaos?\" Felix asked at last.\n\n\"Aye, manling, that it is.\"\n\n\"From here it looks almost beautiful.\"\n\n\"You might think so now but if you went through Blackblood Pass and marched under that sky you would think differently.\"\n\n\"Is it really so bad?\"\n\n\"Worse than I can make it sound. The sands of the deserts are all of strange colours, and the bones of huge animals gleam in the light. The wells are poisonous, the rivers are not of water but other stuff like blood or mucous. The winds drive the dust everywhere. There are ruins that once were the cities of men, elf and dwarf. There are monsters and enemies without number, and they are not troubled by fear or by sanity.\"\n\n\"You lost a lot of people, the last time you were there.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\n\"What are our chances then?\" Felix wanted to add \"of surviving\", but he knew that would be a meaningless question to ask a Slayer. \"Of reaching Karag Dum?\"\n\nGotrek was silent for a long time. From behind them rose the sound of singing. From the grass beyond the manor house came the sound of night insects. It was so tranquil that Felix found it hard to believe that this was a land on the frontier of an endless war, and that tomorrow they would be passing over the Chaos Wastes, through a country from which they might never return. Standing here in the warm night air, Felix felt like he was going to live forever.\n\n\"In truth, manling, I cannot say. If we went on foot, there would be no chance whatsoever, of that I am certain. With this airship of Makaisson's we might be able to make it.\"\n\nHe shook his head ruefully. \"I do not know. It depends on how accurate Borek's maps are, and how potent Schreiber's spells prove, and whether the engines break down or we run out of fuel or food, or warpstorms\u2026\"\n\n\"Warpstorms?\"\n\n\"Monstrous tempests filled with the power of the Darkness. They can make stone flow like water and turn men into beasts or mutants.\"\n\n\"Why do you want to go back?\" Felix turned to lean against the battlements so that he could get a view of the courtyard behind them.\n\n\"Because we might get to Karag Dum, manling. And if we do, our names will live forever. And if we fail, well, it will be a mighty death.\"\n\nAfter that Felix asked no more questions. Looking down into the courtyard and catching sight of Ulrika in a long bright dress, he did not want to believe that it was possible that he could die.\n\nFelix made his way to the edge of the courtyard. Behind him he could hear the sounds of drinking and dancing. Pipers tootled on instruments which resembled miniature bagpipes; other musicians banged away rhythmically on their hide-covered wooden drums. The smell of roasting meat filled his nostrils, warring with the sharp acrid taint of vodka. From somewhere outside came shouting and grunting and cries of encouragement as the warriors egged on two wrestlers.\n\nHe was not hungry and he was stone cold sober, for he had decided that he could not face another night of drinking, even if it was to be his last night on earth. He was looking for Ulrika but she had vanished earlier, accompanied by two of the peasant women who appeared to be either her maids or her friends, he was not sure which. It was all a bit anti-climactic. Here he was, dressed in his freshly washed and mended clothes, his hair combed and his body washed \u2014 and he could not even find her to steal a kiss. He felt surly and miserable, and more than a little confused. Didn't the girl even care that he was leaving tomorrow? Wouldn't she even talk to him? He was in no mood for the gaiety behind him. He was going to return to his room and sulk. He smiled bitterly as he went, knowing he was being childish and not wanting to do anything about it.\n\nAt the half-open door he paused. His chamber was dark and there was a quiet sound from within. Felix's hand reached for his sword, wondering if this was a robber or some servant of the powers of Chaos which had slithered in from the night under the cover of the merrymaking.\n\n\"Felix, is that you?\" asked a voice that he recognised.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said in a voice suddenly so thick that he had difficulty forcing the words out of his mouth. A light flickered and a lantern was lit. Felix could see a bare arm protruding from beneath the coverlet.\n\n\"I thought you were never going to show up,\" Ulrika said and threw the quilt aside to reveal her long, naked body. Felix rushed to join her on the bed. The scent of her filled his nostrils. Their lips met in a long kiss and this time she did not break away.\n\nThe light of dawn and the crowing of the cockerels woke Felix. He opened his eyes to see that Ulrika lay beside him, propped up on one elbow, studying his face. When she saw that he was awake she smiled a little sadly. He reached up and ran his hand across her cheek, feeling the soft skin of her face beneath his fingers. She caught his hand, and turned it over to kiss the palm of his hand. He laughed and reached out. He drew her down to him, feeling the warmth of her body, happy to be there, happy to be holding her and feeling her heart beat against his naked flesh. He laughed from sheer pleasure, but she shuddered and turned away from him as if she was about to cry.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" he asked.\n\n\"You must go,\" she said.\n\n\"I'll be back,\" he blurted foolishly.\n\n\"No, you will not. No man ever returns from the Wastes. Not sane. Not untouched by Chaos.\"\n\nHe realised then why their lovemaking of the previous evening had possessed such desperate urgency. It was a one night thing, a gift from a woman to a warrior she thought she would never see again. He wondered if that happened a lot here. His happiness vanished but he held her anyway, stroking her hair.\n\nA heavy knock sounded on the door.\n\n\"Time to be away, manling,\" came Gotrek's voice, and it sounded like the voice of doom."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE CHAOS WASTES",
+                "text": "Felix felt sadness settle on him like a cloak as he watched the Straghov mansion fall away below the airship. The tiny waving figures slowly receded into the distance and then faded from view entirely as the Spirit of Grungni picked up speed. The mansion dwindled until it was lost in the endless immensity of the rolling grass-covered plains. Felix paced the metal deck restlessly.\n\nHe wondered if he would ever see Ulrika again. She plainly didn't think so, and she was in a better position to know about these things than he was, having lived on the borders of the Chaos Wastes all of her life. It was odd but already he missed her, strange considering he had never even met the woman until a few days before.\n\nFor a swift, dreadful moment, he felt like going to Makaisson and asking him to turn the airship around. He wanted to say that there had been a terrible mistake and he did not want to leave. He found himself wishing he had stayed behind with her, but things had happened so quickly and he had been swept up suddenly once more by the momentum of the dwarfs' quest. Everyone, including her, had seemed to believe he was going, and so he had gone, despite having no real inclination to do so.\n\nIt was typical of how things went in his world. Small events took on a life of their own, and before he knew it, he was caught up in wildly unlikely occurrences far beyond his control. He wondered if everybody's lives were like that and not just his. Did everyone pile tiny decisions upon tiny decisions like a child piling pebbles, only to realise at the last moment that they had built a shifting unstable mountain beneath themselves, and that there was no way off without causing an avalanche?\n\nHe knew that he could not go to the chief engineer and ask him to turn back for a number of reasons. The first and simplest was that Makaisson might not do it, and he would forfeit the respect and goodwill of the crew without gaining anything. The second reason was that he had no idea what reception he would get even if he did turn back. Perhaps what had attracted Ulrika to him was the belief that there was something heroic about his part in the quest, and abandoning it now would mark him as a coward. He knew that the people of this harsh land would want no truck with cowards.\n\nAnd maybe, he was forced to admit, part of him wanted to go on anyway, to see this new place, to find out how it would all end, to measure his courage against a wilderness that caused dismay even to Gotrek. Maybe the way he felt other people might judge him was the way he judged himself. If he abandoned the Spirit of Grungni he would be abandoning his heroic view of himself and retreating into being just like everybody else. Maybe part of him really wanted the fame that the dwarfs aboard the airship craved. He did not know. There were times when his motives confused even himself. They seemed to vary with his moods or his hangovers.\n\nHe just knew that he felt terrible right now \u2014 and that he wanted to see Ulrika again. The mood of gloom seemed to have infected the whole airship. All the dwarfs were quiet and their expressions were pained. Perhaps they felt this unaccountable sadness as well. Or maybe they were simply hungover, for last night every last one of them had drunk like a Marienburg sailor on a spree or, to be nastily exact, dwarfs confronted by a lake of free booze. Felix had to admit that the airship was currently no place for those with a hangover. The deck vibrated visibly and occasionally the whole gondola shook as they passed through clouds and patches of turbulence.\n\nHe pushed his way towards the command deck and saw that it was mostly empty, save for the basic crew needed to fly the ship. He paced moodily over to stand beside Makaisson and looked out the window. The vast stone bulk of the mountains loomed ever closer. He could see that they were headed for Blackblood Pass. It yawned in front of them like the mouth of some great daemon.\n\nSoon they were in the pass itself with the mountains looming all around them, and the lowest of the strange glittering peaks level with the airship. Felix studied them but the glowing, shimmering substance that capped them seemed strangely hard to look at. The eye slid along it like a man tumbling on ice, and he found that he could not really focus on the peaks close up. It was his first indication of how strange Chaos could be. He was sure that it would not be his last.\n\nThe pass itself was rocky and bleak. Here and there oddly shaped boulders had been placed alongside the track, and Felix felt sure that strange, outlandish runes had been carved into them. Noticing that some of them gleamed white, he borrowed a telescope from Makaisson and focused it on them. To his horror he saw that what he had taken to be a chalked symbol was in fact a deformed skeleton chained to the rock. Were they human sacrifices left here by warriors of Chaos, he wondered, or warning markers left by the Kislevites? Either seemed perfectly possible.\n\nVarek appeared beside Felix and maintained an awe-struck silence for a few minutes. Felix knew that the young dwarf shared his mood.\n\n\"Schreiber thinks these mountains shield all of Kislev,\" Varek said eventually.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I talked with him back at the manor house. He has a theory that says that if it wasn't for this range of mountains, the wind would blow all the warpstone dust down from the Chaos Wastes and infect the population with mutation. He says that they would all change and become deformed and subject to the mad whims of the Dark Gods.\"\n\n\"I thought there already were mutants in Kislev. Sigmar knows, I've fought enough of them in the Empire. There cannot be fewer here!\"\n\nVarek looked at Felix and smiled sadly. \"In Kislev they kill anyone who shows the slightest stigmata of mutation \u2014 even babies.\"\n\n\"They do the same in the Empire,\" Felix said, but he knew that wasn't really true. Many parents hid their mutant children and people shielded their mutant relatives. He had encountered such cases in his wanderings. Mutants were not bad people, he thought; they were just suffering from an illness. He shook his head bitterly, knowing that no dwarf and most likely no Kislevite would agree with that conclusion. It was indeed a terrible world.\n\n\"Schreiber claims it would be much worse without these mountains, that they are a natural barrier which prevents most of the dust reaching the lands of men. He says that the strange stuff on the peaks is congealed Dark Magic, the pure stuff of Chaos.\"\n\n\"He has many interesting theories, Herr Schreiber,\" Felix said sourly.\n\n\"He says these are not just theories. He has conducted experiments on animals using warpstone dust.\"\n\n\"Then he is mad. Warpstone is an evil substance. It drives men mad. I have seen it.\"\n\n\"He says he is very careful and shields himself with magic and all manner of protective substances. My uncle believes his theories. It is one reason why there is a layer of lead foil within the hull of this airship.\"\n\n\"I think no good will come to Herr Schreiber in the end.\"\n\n\"I am inclined to agree, Felix, but all the same he could be right. My uncle says it fits with dwarfish lore. Some claim that our people first started building their cities underground during the first great Chaos incursions long ages ago and that the rock shielded us from the taint of Chaos which has affected all other races.\"\n\nHe seemed embarrassed as he said this, as if unsure how Felix would respond to the accusation that his folk were touched by Chaos. From his own experience of travel within the Empire and beyond, however, Felix found it only too easy to believe that it was the case. Humankind gave itself over all too easily to the worship of the Darkness. It was a depressing thought.\n\n\"When we pass beyond these mountains we will be on the very edge of the Realm of Chaos,\" Varek muttered darkly.\n\n\"Do you think that the spells Schreiber wove around the airship will protect us?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"I know nothing of magic, Felix. It is not a subject that many dwarfs know about. My uncle believes that it will, and he is considered wise in these matters.\"\n\n\"A strange man, Herr Schreiber. You know, he asked me to record my impressions of the Wastes in case we made it back.\"\n\n\"Me too. He says it will help with his researches.\"\n\n\"Let us hope then that we return to present him with useful material.\"\n\nVarek smiled. \"Indeed, let us hope so.\"\n\nLurk was worried. Ever since the human wizard had come aboard the airship and begun casting his spells, he had been unable to contact Grey Seer Thanquol. It was a terrible thing, for he knew the skaven sorcerer would blame him for it whatever the real cause. He wanted to do something, but he knew nothing about sorcery. A feeling of helplessness surged in him. With it came a desire to rend and tear, to exorcise his fears by killing something, preferably something weak and helpless. Unfortunately there had been no likely candidates for his fury. The airship was full of well-armed and equipped dwarfs, and Lurk did not have a dozen of his packmates with him to encourage his righteous skaven wrath.\n\nHe had known that he needed to find this outlet for his pent-up energies. He had found it in exploring the airship while most of the dwarfs slept. Once again he had found himself at the promising tunnel opening in the topmost level of the gondola.\n\nSlowly, carefully, he turned the massive handle and felt the lock click open. He pushed upwards with all his strength and saw a ladder running upwards. Wind tugged his fur for a moment and he realised he stood atop the gondola. Looking up he saw the ladder disappeared into a circular opening in the fabric of the gasbag. He pulled himself up through the opening and was immediately surrounded by what appeared to be a mass of monstrous balloons. They were fixed in long rows within the gasbag by fine wires.\n\nQuickly he scurried up the ladder, leaping upwards with the natural agility of a skaven, reassured by the pressing closeness of the gasbags all around him. His keen nostrils twitched and his whiskers bristled. He recognised a faint acrid tang to the air that no human or dwarf would have noticed. He recognised this scent! He had caught hints of it down below in the gondola but that was not where he knew the smell from. No, he had encountered it in the great marshes around Skavenblight where the ratfolk factories poured their chemical by-products into the mud and quicksand. Sometimes huge bubbles would form where the effluent was piped, and when those bubbles broke the surface and popped this particular smell was emitted.\n\nWas it possible that the dwarfs had trapped this gas in these thin balloon-like sacks, and that it was these thousands of sacks which lifted this vessel into the sky? Could it be that the means to create airships was already within skaven paws? Should he tell Grey Seer Thanquol of his suspicions?\n\nHe considered the thought for a moment and then decided against it. It was a ludicrous theory! Surely only the most powerful of sorceries could keep this vessel aloft. That must have been what the human sorcerer was doing back at the human surface-burrow! He must have been recharging the spells that let the airship fly. These gasbags must serve some other purpose. Perhaps they were weapons, like poison gas globes. That, too, seemed unlikely, however, for he had never heard of the marsh gases giving anybody anything worse than a bad headache.\n\nHe scampered all the way to the top of the ladder, noting that various rope walkways ran through the massive balloon to allow access to its innards. This would make a good hiding place if he had to abandon the cargo hold below. When he reached the top of the ladder he emerged into an open crow's nest atop the ship. It seemed to be a kind of observation deck, about the size of a rowing boat. Various strange meters and gauges were set into a large metal box. Heeding Thanquol's words, he did not dare touch them. Standing on a large tripod beside them was a telescope, mounted above a large, multi-barrelled weapon which reminded Lurk of the organ guns he had faced in his battles with humans and dwarfs. Doubtless the weapon was meant to protect the airship in case of attack from above.\n\nOverhead he had a perfect view of the sky. The chill wind whipped his fur, and he sniffed the air. By the Horned Rat! It contained the faintest hint of warpstone! Lurk's fur bristled. If he could find a source of that fabled substance he would be rich beyond his wildest dreams of avarice \u2014 provided Thanquol let him keep some. Perhaps best not to mention the precious Chaos rock to the grey seer before it was absolutely necessary. After all, he could be wrong.\n\nA walkway ran away along the top of this massive structure to other crow's nests at the front and rear of the ship. He realised that he was looking at a row of defensive emplacements similar to this one. It looked like the dwarfs were taking no chances. Was it possible that those rope walkways within the balloon itself led to other weapons in the sides of the airship? He would have to investigate.\n\nHe looked through the eyepiece of the telescope and scanned his surroundings, taking careful note of the enormous mountains with their glittering peaks, and the odd traces of colour in the northern sky. He suddenly felt enormously exposed. This was not the place for a tunnel-dweller like himself. There was too much sky, too much fresh air and the horizon was too far away. He had best return below.\n\nThere you are! The thought was so powerful it truly startled him. Lurk shot bolt upright and his tail stretched to its fullest extent. Where have you been?\n\nNowhere, most understanding of Overlords. Lurk thought carefully. In the airship, as you commanded.\n\nThen our foe-fiends have shielded their ship with sorcery. Incompetent fool-slave, they must have detected your presence!\n\nIt was a terrifying thought, which Lurk prayed most devoutly was not true. He swiftly explained to the mighty voice thundering in his head about the presence of the human sorcerer on the ship, and about how he had enshrouded the cupola in mysterious spells. The silence which followed was so long that Lurk started to believe that Thanquol had lost contact. Just as he was offering up his thanks to the Horned Rat, though, the commanding voice spoke again.\n\nThe man-wizard must have put shieldspells on the shipcraft to protect it from something. The spells are only on the vessel below not where you are. Come to where you are now at the same time each day and I will contact you.\n\nYes, most potent of potentates, Lurk thought back.\n\nLurk hastily scampered back down the ladder. Only on his way back down did he wonder whether the grey seer understood the danger. Perhaps the crows nest would be occupied. Perhaps he would be unable to carry out this order. It was a frightening thought. Lurk wished he had a few underlings present to bully and relieve his frustrations. On the way back down he settled for slashing a few balloons with his claws. They burst, sending rushes of foul but familiar gas into his nostrils.\n\nOnly when he was safely back in his crate did Lurk start to worry what would happen to him if any of the dwarfs noticed the balloons he had burst. Perhaps they would suspect his presence. On the other paw, his natural skaven curiosity also made him wonder what would happen if he burst all of the balloons.\n\nFelix continued to survey the ground beneath them, as he had done for hours. They had reached the very beginnings of the Chaos Wastes now. Below them he could see the first dunes of odd, multicoloured sand beginning to mingle with the bleak rocky plain. The sky ahead was turbulent, filled with shifting clouds of unusual metallic shades. The sun was rarely visible and when it showed its face it looked larger, and redder. It was as if they were not only crossing into a new land, but into an entirely new world. The gems in the eyes of the ship's figurehead glowed brightly, as if whatever spell had been placed upon them was now fully activated.\n\nOnce again the sheer speed of the airship filled Felix with appalled wonder. In the past few hours they had passed over towering mountains, then rolling plains. Those plains had not looked too different from the grasslands of Kislev \u2014 except that when you looked more closely you could see charred ruins where the stones had apparently flowed like water into new and bizarre shapes, and the ponds and lakes shimmered with odd pinks and blues as if tainted by strange chemicals.\n\nAfter the plains had come marshland and then the tundra. The temperature had dropped noticeably and sometimes flurries of crimson snow had battered against the windows, before melting and running down the glass in red droplets which reminded Felix uncomfortably of blood.\n\nEventually these bleak lands had also given way, to a place where nothing grew, a stony plain littered with towering boulders that reminded Felix of ancient menhirs. It seemed to him unlikely that these could have been raised by men, but then you never knew. Sometimes they had passed over small bands of beastmen who had beat their chests and bellowed challenges up at them. On other occasions they had flown above clusters of foraging men, who scattered at their approach. Through the telescope Felix saw that all of them bore the stigmata of mutation. How did they survive in this unhealthy land, he wondered \u2014 trying not to consider the dark tales of cannibalism and necrophagy that were told of the cults of Chaos.\n\nNow they had left even those bleak lands far behind them and were looking down on the shimmering desert. Felix heard the click of Borek's stick on the stone floor as the old dwarf approached, then felt the touch of a leathery hand on his sleeve.\n\n\"Take this amulet and put it on,\" Borek said. \"We have entered the Chaos Wastes proper now, and it will shield you against their influence. Try to keep it at all times against your flesh, for that will transfer its power to you and ward you against the warping emanations of the Dark Magic.\"\n\nFelix accepted the amulet and held it up to the light. A silver chain and casing held a gem the exact shape and colour of a piece of ice, the sort of frozen stalactite he had often seen in winter hanging from the eaves of his father's house. It was a crystal of a type he had never seen before, and as he looked within it he thought that he caught sight of a faint glow.\n\nHe touched the stone, half-expecting it to be frozen, but if anything it felt slightly warm.\n\nHe cocked his head suspiciously and looked down at the old dwarf.\n\n\"This was made for you by Herr Schreiber, wasn't it?\"\n\nBorek beamed gnomishly up at him. \"You do not trust him, do you, Herr Jaeger?\"\n\nFelix shook his head. \"I trust no wizard who has dealings with Chaos.\"\n\n\"That is commendable, I suppose, but also a little foolish.\"\n\n\"I have had some experience of magic and of Chaos.\"\n\nBorek glanced out the windows and smiled ruefully. \"As have I. And let me tell you,. I trust Maximilian Schreiber with my life.\"\n\n\"Good! Because it seems to me that is exactly what you're doing.\"\n\n\"You are stubborn. We dwarfs find that an admirable quality. Yet you are wrong about the wizard. I have known him many years. I have talked with him and travelled with him. I have saved his life and he has saved mine. There is no taint in him.\"\n\nThe quiet tone of authority in the loremaster's voice was more convincing than his words. He felt that the dwarf was probably right, but still\u2026 Felix had grown up in a land where magic and Chaos had often been regarded with horror, and he had some terrible experiences at the hands of sorcerers. It was hard to put aside a lifetime of prejudices. He said as much.\n\nThe loremaster shrugged and then gestured at the gondola that surrounded him. \"Even dwarfs can change, Herr Jaeger, and if anything we are far more bound by tradition and by prejudice than you. This whole airship goes against the traditions of one of our strongest guilds. Yet we have put aside our prejudices because our need is great.\"\n\n\"And you think my need for this amulet is great.\"\n\n\"I think it will be your best protection against Chaos, Herr Jaeger, while its magic lasts. And believe me, you will need protection against Chaos.\"\n\nHe turned and shouted something in rapid dwarfish to Makaisson. It came as a shock to Felix to hear him speaking that harsh guttural tongue. During their travels together all of the dwarfs around him had spoken Reikspiel. At first Felix had thought it was out of politeness, because he was a foreigner and could not understand, but later he had come to realise that it was really down to the peculiarly suspicious dwarfish mind. Yes, they were being polite, but they also regarded their tongue as sacred and secret, and did not want outsiders to learn it. Unless they were completely trustworthy. Of all the humans he knew, only the higher ranks of the priesthood of Sigmar were proficient in the language and they taught it only to their own priests after ordination. Felix guessed that Borek's decision to speak now meant that he had crossed some barrier and that the old dwarf trusted him. He felt obscurely pleased.\n\n\"I was just telling the pilot to take the craft down towards those ruins. I thought I recognised them,\" Borek said.\n\nFelix followed the direction indicated by the loremaster's pointed finger. There were tumbled down buildings and other things among them. He raised the telescope to his eye and saw that they resembled wagons of metal, totally enclosed with only crystal window slots out of which drivers could see, and four more slots in the side through which weapons could be poked. There was a peculiar arrangement of funnels at the back and no yokes to which any beast of burden might be harnessed. Something about them reminded him of Imperial war wagons that had been completely roofed over, and also of the Imperial steam-tanks he had once seen in Nuln.\n\n\"This was our last expedition's first campsite in the Wastes,\" Borek said. \"See where those rusting hulks are? Those were our vehicles. We were attacked here by an enemy warband and drove them off only with great losses. Those cairns there were raised over our dead.\"\n\nFelix realised that the airship had come to a halt over the ruins and that the other dwarfs were crowding the windows and portholes to gaze down on it. They looked down at it with the sort of awe that Felix had seen human pilgrims display when they entered a shrine. In a way, it was worrying evidence of the dangers of the Wastes. In another, it was reassuring, in that it showed that people had come this way before, and that things were not a complete unknown here.\n\nHe looked down on the abandoned vehicles and the empty tombs, and his earlier sadness returned redoubled. Those things had stood there for nearly twenty years and the only other eyes that had looked upon them were those of Chaos worshippers and monsters. He truly wished that he had not come here.\n\n\"Near here are the caves where Gotrek found his axe,\" Borek said softly.\n\n\"Is that so? Was the failure of your expedition the reason why Gotrek became a Slayer?\"\n\n\"No. That happened later\u2026\"\n\nBorek smiled sadly then looked at him, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then, as if realising that he had already said too much, closed it again. Felix wanted to ask more but it came to him that if the old dwarf didn't want to speak there was no way to make him do so.\n\nFelix noticed that he still held the amulet negligently in his hand. The thought struck him that it was undoubtedly true that the old dwarf knew more about these things than he did, and that perhaps he should heed the loremaster's words. He looped the silver chain around his neck and let the stone dangle down inside his shirt. Where it touched his flesh he felt a strange tingling. A shiver passed through him and then was gone, leaving only a warm glow that in no way reassured him.\n\nBorek patted him on the back. \"Good,\" he said. \"Now you are better protected than we ever were in the old days.\"\n\nFelix looked up towards the horizon and offered up a prayer to Sigmar for the souls of the dwarfs down there, and for his own safety. A sudden premonition of doom came to him and did not leave, even after the airship's engines roared to life once more and they began to move forwards, deeper into the Chaos Wastes."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "WARPSTORM",
+                "text": "Felix pressed his nose against the cold glass of the window and for the first time felt truly terrified. The horns calling the crew to battle stations had just sounded, and all the dwarves ran to take up their positions at the guns and engines, leaving Felix to stand idly by, a helpless spectator in this time of fear. He looked down on the eerie landscape below.\n\nThe desert had a wild and terrible beauty. Enormous rock formations towered over the glittering sand like wind eroded statues of monsters. An emerald lake glittered greenly under the crimson sky. By its shores two enormous armies marched towards each other in a tide of flesh and metal.\n\nFelix wondered at his fear. The warriors of Chaos advancing below seemed not at all concerned with the airship overhead. They were far too intent on each other. Only occasionally would a beastman or a Chaos warrior look up at the sky and brandish a weapon. None of the missile weapons they carried appeared to have the range to hit the airship. Makaisson had sounded the alert just to be on the safe side, however, and Felix could not blame him. The numbers and the insane ferocity of the crowd below them were terrifying.\n\nThese were both mighty forces, perhaps the largest armies he had ever seen. Thousands of beastmen surged below, like a sea of hoofed and horned animals grown upright into twisted parodies of men. Felix had fought these followers of Darkness before, but now something about the sheer numbers here made them seem far more terrifying than ever before. Huge banners rose from the midst of the forces, each a twisted parody of the heraldic emblems of his distant homeland. Monstrous men garbed in incredibly ornate black armour marched at the head of each force or rode at its flanks on mutated steeds which dwarfed even the largest of human warhorses.\n\nThere were thousands upon thousands of warriors present. Felix wondered at that. How could this barren landscape support such vast regiments? Obviously there was sorcery at work here. Looking down on these immense armies he recalled the descriptions he had read of the previous incursions of Chaos, during the time of Magnus the Pious, when Praag had been besieged and it seemed like the forces of the Dark Gods were about to sweep away the entire civilised world. They had always seemed faintly unreal to him, with their lurid depictions of daemons, and their enormous hordes of twisted feral things but those armies down there made those hellish visions seem all too plausible. He could easily see those mighty forces crashing through Blackblood Pass and smashing through the lands of men. For the first time he started to truly understand the power of Chaos, and he wondered why it had not yet devoured the world.\n\nWith a roar Felix could hear even above the racket of the airship's engines, the armies closed the distance between them. Felix trained the telescope, focusing on those distant figures, turning them from tiny marionettes into living breathing warriors.\n\nA huge figure garbed in armour of black iron, on which was inscribed redly glowing runes charged his barded warhorse towards a mob of beastmen. This foul knight brandished an enormous battleaxe in each hand. The horse's trappings were fantastically ornate. Its head was shielded by a moulded mask that gave it the features of a daemonic dragon. The armour on its body was segmented like that of a centipede and on each section were numerous discs, carved in the shape of leering daemon masks. The mounted warrior rode full pelt into a band of beastmen. His axe decapitated a foe with each swing. His horse's hooves dashed out the brains of another, and it continued onwards trampling the bodies of the slain into bloody mush. Behind the knight his fellows charged with maniacal fervour towards packs of beastmen that outnumbered them more than twenty to one. They seemed fearless and uncaring of whether they lived or died.\n\nIn another part of the battlefield, monstrous minotaurs armed with axes the size of small trees hacked their way through all that opposed them. They towered over the beastmen the way adults tower over small children, and it seemed to Felix that a beastman had about as much chance of overcoming one as a child had of overcoming a full grown man. Even as Felix watched, one of the bull-headed giants caught a goat-headed thing on its horns and lifted it kicking and screaming from the ground. With a shake of its head, the monster sent its gored victim flying twenty paces to land atop its comrades. The impact sent half a dozen of them sprawling onto the bloody sand. But then, even as Felix watched, the rest of the beastmen swarmed over the minotaur, striking with spears, clambering up its legs, harrying it the way a pack of wild dogs would savage a bear. The massive creature fell and disappeared in a cloud of dust, to be trampled under the beastmen's hooves and impaled on their spears.\n\nWinged humanoids with daemonic features rose like a flock of hideous bats and wheeled over the battlefield. At first Felix feared that they were going to attack the airship and his hands reached for the hilt of his sword but then the hellish flock gave out a hideous, ear-piercing shriek and descended down onto the beastmen hordes. They lashed out with taloned claws and ripped their victims limb from limb with a strength that seemed supernatural, before being lopped into pieces themselves by their frenzied foes.\n\nIn the centre of all this howling madness loomed a gigantic figure clad in the most fantastically ornate armour Felix had ever seen. Every piece of it appeared to moulded with grinning skulls and leering gargoyle faces. The warrior was mounted on a skeletal steed which seemed barely able to sustain its great weight and yet moved with a speed like the wind. In his right hand, the Chaos champion held an enormous scythe; in his left, a banner depicting a throne of skulls whose empty eye-sockets wept tears of blood. The warlord gave instructions to his followers with great sweeping gestures of the scythe and hordes of lesser, black armoured warriors leapt to obey, running to their deaths or to dispatch their foe with a strange savage joy.\n\nFelix had to admit that they were terrifying. He watched aghast at the sheer frenzy with which the combat was fought. He had never seen such insane hatred as these two forces seemed to possess for each other, and suddenly it came to him that here was the reason why the followers of Darkness had yet to overwhelm the world. They were as divided amongst themselves as the nations of men were; more so, in truth. Perhaps then the rumours of rivalry between the Ruinous Powers were true. For this Felix was profoundly grateful, for here was a force that inspired respect and fear.\n\nThere was something disturbing about all this as well. What if the powers were somehow to put aside their rivalry and turn their faces towards the world? What if some mighty warlord was to arise among the forces of Chaos and unite them in one invincible horde? Then the uncountable hosts would march down on Kislev and the lands beyond. Suddenly Straghov's fortress and his thousand lancers seemed pitifully few.\n\nIn a matter of minutes the airship swept over the battle and it dwindled away behind them, lost in the enormous immensity of the endless desert. No matter how vast the warring armies were, this landscape could reduce them to less than the significance of ants. A vast dark gloom obscured the northern horizon. The very sight of it filled him with foreboding. Felix let out his breath in a long sigh and returned to his cabin to sleep.\n\nThe shaking of the airship woke Felix unhappily from a dream of Ulrika. He pulled himself upright just as an enormous crash echoed through the steel corridors, and the whole vessel vibrated as if struck with an enormous hammer. His stomach lurched as the lantern on his wall swung, sending shadows flickering across his chamber. In that brief instant he felt certain he was going to die.\n\nHe pulled himself upright and glanced through the porthole. Outside all was roiling murk. Then there was a flash of incredible green lightning, multiple forks flickering down from above and losing themselves in the gloom. After a few seconds the voice of thunder spoke and the whole ship shook once more. The vibrations cast Felix from his bed and sent him rolling to the floor. As he leapt upright, he banged his head against the low ceiling. The pain sent lights dancing before his eyes and he reached a hand out to grasp the wall and help keep his balance. To his surprise it felt warm.\n\nStruggling to keep his balance on the rocking floor, he shuffled out into the corridor and headed towards the control room. His ears rang with the sound of thunder, and he could barely control the terror which clawed at his guts. This was far worse than any earlier turbulence. It was as if a giant had grasped the airship in its enormous hand and was trying to wrestle it to the ground. He could hear the roar of titanic winds hurtling past the hull. Any moment he thought the vessel would be split like a ripe melon hit by a hammer, and he and everybody else in the vessel would fall tumbling through a thousand strides of storm-tossed air to splatter on the ground below.\n\nIt was the sense of helplessness that was so frightening, the knowledge that there was nothing he could do to prevent any of this happening. There was no way off the Spirit of Grungni except clambering out through the hatches in the roof and leaping to certain death. At least in battle he could do something, wield a sword, smite a foe. Here and now he could do nothing save pray to Sigmar, and he doubted very much, given where they were currently located, that there was anything the God of the Hammer could do to save them. The twenty strides to the control room seemed to take a lifetime and Felix confidently believed that each step might be his last.\n\nArriving at the control room at last, he saw the dwarfs clutching at their control stations like it was their last hope of life. Gotrek stood in the centre, his axe held negligently in one hand, looking almost relaxed, riding the rolling deck with slight adjustments of his stance. No fear showed on his face, just a fixed grin of the sort he normally only revealed in combat. Felix noticed that the runes on his axe blade were glowing redly. Makaisson wrestled with the control wheel, his enormous muscles straining, huge sinews standing out like cables beneath his tattooed flesh. Old Borek was strapped into one of the armchairs, while Varek huddled behind him, a look somewhere between fear and wonderment inscribed on his face. Snorri was nowhere to be seen.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Felix shouted, struggling to make himself heard over the echoes of thunder, the roar of the wind and the scream of the engines. The whole ship shook once more and there was a sickening sensation of being dropped, as if the airship had suddenly lost buoyancy and was falling like a stone towards the earth.\n\n\"Warpstorm, manling!\" Gotrek bellowed. \"The worst I've seen!\"\n\nEerie green lightning flickered once more, the flash illuminated the whole cabin intensely, elongated Makaisson's shadow until it filled the floor, then vanished. The bolt appeared to have flickered only a few hundred yards away. Felix noticed that in its aftermath particles of shimmering dust, like a cloud of strangely coloured fireflies, filled their field of vision as far as the eye could see. Then the blast of thunder almost deafened him and the ship began to drop once more. After a moment the sensation of falling stopped and the airship righted itself like a ship cresting a wave.\n\nFelix scrambled over to the window and looked downwards. Through a gap in the clouds, in the flickering of the lightning, he thought he caught sight of the ground below. It was only a few hundred paces beneath them, dunes of glittering sand rising and tumbling, being driven before the titanic winds like foaming breakers on a storm-tossed sea. The wind shook the huge airship like a terrier shaking a rat. Felix knew that in a few dozen more heartbeats they were going to be driven into the ground, and the vessel was going to buckle and break like a toy boat thrown against a wall by a vicious child.\n\n\"Malakai! We're going to crash!\" he shouted. \"We're almost at the ground!\"\n\n\"Then come ivver here and gae us a hand, laddie. Pull on that altitude stick for all ye're worth. An' keep yer eyes peeled. The instruments hae stopped workin' in this storm.\"\n\nFelix rushed over to stand beside the engineer and pulled on the lever. Normally it would have moved easily but now it appeared to be stuck. Felix braced both his legs and heaved with all his might but still it would not move. The cold metal refused to be shifted. A vision of the airship impacting on the rocky desert below filled Felix's mind and he pulled once more, putting all the strength of fear into his efforts. Sweat ran down his brow. His muscles felt like they were going to erupt through his skin, and he knew that if he kept this up much longer he would burst a blood vessel. It was no use; still the cursed lever would not move.\n\n\"I can't shift it!\" he called.\n\n\"'Tis the wind on the ailerons, laddie. It's fightin' ye. Keep tryin'. Dinna gae up!\"\n\nFelix kept tugging and still nothing happened. He knew they must be mere seconds from disaster and still there was nothing he could do. He offered up a prayer to Sigmar for his soul, knowing that his life was about to end here in the Chaos Wastes. Then suddenly Gotrek was beside him, lending his massive strength to the struggle with the lever. And still it did not move.\n\nGotrek's beard bristled. The veins stood out on his forehead, and then something gave way. At first Felix feared that they had simply bent the stick out of shape but no, it was moving slowly, surely, inexorably backwards. As it did so, the nose of airship tilted skywards. Then it seemed like the airship was being thrown backwards like a galleon caught by a huge breaker. The deck rocked and he and Gotrek lost their footing, and were sent tumbling backwards towards the rear cabin wall. There was a sickening sensation in Felix's churning innards as the airship began to leap uncontrollably skyward and then was dashed downwards again.\n\n\"Hold on tight!\" bellowed Makaisson. \"This is gannae be rough!\"\n\nLurk squirted the musk of fear. He felt his glands void until they were empty and still they tried to keep on spurting. The wind tugged at his pelt, riffling it with a thousand demon fingers.\n\nGlittering warpstone dust filled his mouth and threatened to choke him. He had already swallowed a fair amount of the stuff and a warm glow filled his stomach. His fur stood on end. The roar of thunder almost deafened him. Tears filled his eyes from fear and constant irritation of the onrushing wind. He clutched the rails of the crow's nest with all four paws; his tail was looped round the rails to anchor him in place. He fought to keep himself low within the observation post, yet still the wind threatened to tear him from his place and send him tumbling to his doom. It was almost too much to be borne.\n\nHe cursed the day he had ever left his nice warm burrow in Skavenblight. He cursed Grey Seer Thanquol for his stupid orders. He cursed the stupid dwarfs and their stupid airship and their stupid journey. He cursed everyone and everything he could think of \u2014 except the Horned Rat, towards whom he remembered to send the occasional prayer for his deliverance.\n\nOnly a few minutes ago it had all seemed so quiet. He had climbed from his hiding place in the hold up to the crow's nest to make his daily report to Grey Seer Thanquol. The ship had been vibrating a little but Lurk had become used to its little motions and had paid no attention. But by the time he had reached the observation deck, the movements had become larger, the whole ship was bucking in the air like a crazed horse. But it was only when he had poked his snout through the upper hatch into the crow's nest proper that he noticed that the ship was surrounded by the strangely glowing cloud and its bizarre, multicoloured lightning flashes.\n\nSound skaven prudence had told him that he should retreat below but he had been held in place by one thing: the tingling taste of warpstone dust on his tongue. It held him in place, fascinated. It was the source of much of the grey seer's much-feared power, and quite possibly the source of all magic. He had thought that maybe if he tasted some he, too, might acquire magical powers, but so far there had been no sign of them. By the time he had tried to return below, the accursed dwarfs had sealed the hatches and there was no way he could open them from above. They were locked.\n\nIn frantic fear he had scrambled around inside the gasbag but the strangely shifting balloons had spooked him and he had grown tired of hanging from the ladder. So he had clambered back up to the crow's nest and there the wind had grabbed him. He had only just been able to save himself by seizing the railings and now there was nothing he could do except wait and pray while the airship rocked below him like a raft in a typhoon.\n\nAnother series of thunderclaps made Lurk look up. He saw a series of lightning flashes marching across the sky, coming ever closer. Their unholy brilliance dazzled him. He shut his eyes firmly but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were about to hit the airship.\n\nHe remembered to send a final curse in the general direction of Grey Seer Thanquol.\n\nFelix, too, saw the line of lightning bolts exploding directly in front of the airship. Makaisson twisted the wheel instinctively trying to avoid being hit, but it was too late. The greenish bolts pummelled the airship. In the instant before the tremendous glare blinded him, Felix had time to notice that the gems on the ship's figurehead blazed bright as the sun. Then the ship shook as if it was about to fly apart and for a long moment Felix saw no more. For a heartbeat the terrible fear that he had been blinded filled him but it passed as his vision slowly returned, and he noticed that everything in the command deck was surrounded by a swiftly fading halo of green.\n\nThe amulet on his chest felt almost hot enough to burn and he felt like ripping it off until the thought struck him that this might not be wise, and that perhaps it was protecting him from the magic of Chaos which had so obviously been contained within the lightning. He saw that the amulet on Gotrek's bare chest was glowing a furious green as it absorbed the halo about him. Then suddenly the ship stopped shaking and the sky around them was clear.\n\nFelix picked himself up and limped over to the window of the command deck. He could still see the green-black clouds of the warpstorm boiling below them. Occasionally the clouds would flash brightly with a glow of witch-light as the lightning sparked again and again. It was like looking down on a peculiar chaotic sea and Felix half-expected to see some enormous monster rise up out of its depths and try and swallow the airship in its jaws.\n\nIt took him a few moments to realise that the drone of the engines had changed. The sound slowly died away, until they made no noise at all. The clouds slowly passed beyond the airship. It began to gently rotate this way and that in the breeze.\n\n\"We've lost power,\" Makaisson muttered. \"This isnae guid.\"\n\nSnorri chose that moment to appear in the cabin. He was yawning widely. \"What was all the noise?\" he asked. \"It woke Snorri up.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE RUINED CITY",
+                "text": "Felix listened unhappily as the engineers reported back to the command deck in turn, each bearing a tale of woe. It appeared that the warpstorm had caused a great deal of damage. There were rips in the gasbag, the engines had stopped working properly, the rotor blades were bent out of shape and there was some structural damage besides.\n\n\"We'll joost hae tae stop fur repairs,\" Makaisson announced calmly. Looking down through the windows Felix wished he shared the dwarf's confidence. The storm had finally cleared and the sky was its usual overcast mixture of strangely coloured clouds.\n\nBelow them lay the ruins of an enormous city, with not a soul visible in the streets. Such desolation was eerie. The wind whistled mournfully as it stirred the shifting sands which drifted through the abandoned buildings.\n\nThen Felix heard a much more cheering sound: somebody, somewhere had managed to get one of the engines working. Gleefully Makaisson took control of his craft again. He nursed the airship down until it was only a hundred strides above the buildings.\n\n\"We'll moor here. Draup they lines.\"\n\nMooring lines dropped. Felix saw the grapnel hooks on the end of one snag on a tumbled stone wall. It was enough to hold the drifting airship in place.\n\n\"Right, get doon there and secure they hooks! I'll try tae haud her steady up here.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" Felix said. \"It might be dangerous.\"\n\n\"Och, yer right, laddie. Gotrek, Snorri, Felix, off ye go and make sure that there's nae wee beastmen lurkin' aboot doon there.\" Felix wished that he hadn't opened his mouth.\n\nFrom the ground the ruins looked even more vast and forbidding than they had from the air. The buildings seemed immeasurably ancient. Huge blocks of stone had been placed atop of each other without the use of mortar. Originally their weight and the precision with which they had been positioned held them in place. It was a style that Felix had seen only once before \u2014 in the ruins he had seen above the ancient underground dwarfhold of Karak Eight Peaks. He said this out loud.\n\n\"This isn't dwarfish workmanship, manling,\" Gotrek sneered. His voice was muffled by the scarf he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to keep out any warpstone dust that might be in the air. Both Snorri and Felix had done the same thing. It seemed descending into madness and mutation did not fit in with the Slayer ideal of a heroic doom. \"Looks like it. Maybe it was copied or perhaps the builders had dwarf advisors but this was not dwarfish work. Stonework is shoddy. The alignment is less than perfect.\"\n\nFelix shrugged. His mail shirt felt heavy on his shoulders but he was glad it was there. In this strange place, the more armour he had the better. Right now he wouldn't have minded a complete suit of plate mail. He glanced around him. The street on which they stood was paved with huge flagstones. On each stone was inscribed an outlandish rune. The wind whispered eerily through the desolation. It was cold and he had the uncanny feeling of being watched.\n\n\"I have never heard of any human cities this far north, and it does not look like elvish work.\"\n\n\"Elvish work!\" Gotrek said contemptuously. \"A contradiction in terms: elves don't work.\"\n\n\"I doubt this was built by beastmen or the warriors of Chaos. It seems too sophisticated for them, and it looks very ancient.\"\n\n\"Looks can be deceiving here in the Chaos Wastes.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"There are all manner of illusions and mirages, and it is said that deep in the Wastes, the Great Powers of Chaos can create and destroy things at their whim.\"\n\n\"Then we'd best hope that we are not so deep in the Wastes.\"\n\n\"Aye.\"\n\nAn eerie wailing call echoed through the ruins, like the shriek of a soul in torment or the cry of a mad thing wandering lost and forlorn through an endless wilderness. Felix spun around and ripped his sword from its scabbard.\n\n\"What was that?\" he asked.\n\n\"I do not know, manling, but doubtless we will find out if it comes closer.\"\n\n\"Snorri hopes it does!\" said the Slayer almost cheerily.\n\nFelix glanced at the rope ladder hanging from the airship's side. He had not enjoyed clambering down it, and he did not look forward to the prospect of climbing up it again, but it was good to know that it was there, just in case they needed to beat a swift retreat. The bizarre call sounded again, closer now, but it was hard to tell exactly.\n\nWith the echoes in these ruins it could be coming from leagues away. Felix consoled himself with the thought that at least it had not been answered. He fingered the amulet on his chest, but it gave no sense of warmth. Perhaps there was no Dark Magic at work here; perhaps it had become overloaded in the warpstorm. He had noticed that none of the gems on the airship's sides were glowing now. That might mean something good or it might mean something bad. Felix did not know enough about magic to be able to tell.\n\nVarek was gesturing them from the opening above. He seemed to want to know whether they were about to secure the airship. Felix shook his head, trying to indicate that the folk above should do nothing till they had ascertained what was making this hideous racket.\n\n\"Should we investigate the shrieking?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Good idea, manling,\" Gotrek said nastily. \"Let's go wandering through these ruins and see how far we can get from the airship. Maybe we should split up too. That way we can cover more ground!\"\n\n\"It was just a suggestion,\" Felix said. \"There's no need to be sarcastic.\"\n\n\"It sounded like a good plan to Snorri,\" the other Slayer said.\n\nJust then, from amidst the ruins, a figure limped into view. It looked like a human but it was so filthy, ragged and unkempt that Felix wasn't sure if this was the case. Around him he sensed a change in the attitude of Snorri and Gotrek. Without them visibly changing position, they seemed to become more wary, ready to strike out in any direction at a moment's notice.\n\nFelix heard a clinking from behind them, and turned his head momentarily to see that the grapnel at the end of mooring line had come loose. The airship was drifting free on the breeze. The vessel's engines chose that moment to sputter and die. He cursed silently to himself as the rope ladder rose out of his reach, then he turned his head and forced himself to concentrate once more on the advancing figure.\n\nHe could see that it was indeed a man. He walked in a shuffling crouch. His hair was so long that it reached his waist. His beard was filthy and dragged almost to the ground. Weeping sores covered his hands and arms where they were exposed. He limped wearily up to where they stood and let out another long wail. He was leaning on a staff that looked like it had been made by lashing together a number of human bones with sinew. A blank-eyed skull glared from its tip.\n\nFelix stared at the man, and met a gaze full of melancholy madness.\n\n\"Begone from my city or I will feed you to my beasts,\" the stranger said eventually. He fingered one of the many verdigrised copper amulets which hung from a chain around his neck. Felix could see that it had been carved into the likeness of a screaming skull.\n\n\"What beasts?\" said Gotrek.\n\n\"Snorri thinks you're a nutter,\" Snorri said.\n\nListen to who's talking, thought Felix.\n\n\"The beasts which fear and worship me,\" the man said. \"The creatures to whom I am a god.\"\n\nFelix looked at the man and felt a surge of fear, knowing that he was mad. On the other hand, he did not want to simply slay the man out of hand just because he was mad. He had obviously been here for some time and it occurred to Felix that the man might have useful knowledge. He thought he had nothing to lose by humouring this lunatic.\n\n\"What is your name, oh mighty one?\" Felix asked, hoping the others would have wit enough to play along with him. It was, he knew, most likely a forlorn hope but he thought he might as well try. The stranger appeared to consider this for a moment.\n\n\"Hans, Hans M\u00fcller \u2014 but you can call me the divine one.\"\n\n\"And what are you doing here, Divine One?\" Felix asked softly. \"You're a long way from anywhere.\"\n\n\"I got lost.\"\n\n\"Take a wrong turning back in Kislev, did you?\" Gotrek asked sarcastically. Felix saw that the Slayer's axe was held ready to strike. There was a faint glow along the runes of the blade. This was usually a very bad sign.\n\n\"No, short one. I am a magician. I was experimenting with certain spells of translocation and something went wrong. I ended up here.\"\n\n\"Short one?\" Gotrek said, a note of menace in his voice.\n\n\"Translocation?\" Felix asked hastily. The fact that the man was a wizard was not making him feel any easier. He had never much cared for sorcerers, having had several bad experiences with them.\n\n\"A method of moving between two points without traversing the lands in between. My theories were at least partially correct. I moved. Fortunately I moved too far and ended up here where the natives recognise my godhood.\"\n\n\"Tell us, oh Divine One, what do you know of Karag Dum?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"The great daemon has returned there,\" Muller said instantly.\n\nAt the mention of daemons, Felix shuddered. In the Chaos Wastes it seemed all too likely that such sinister entities could be present.\n\n\"Daemon?\"\n\n\"The daemon told of in the Prophesy. The Great Destroyer. It awaits only the coming of the Axe Bearer to fulfil its prophesy and its destiny!\"\n\n\"Tell us more,\" Felix said, shuddering.\n\nSeeing Felix's reaction, a strange, furtive look came into the mage's eye. He licked his lips with the tip of a thin pinkish tongue. He looked twisted and cunning and suddenly Felix did not trust him at all.\n\n\"My beasts must be fed,\" the mage said, then made a strange gesture. His hand moved through the air and seemed to gather oddly glowing energies to it. A shimmering sphere of light suddenly surrounded his hand. Even as he made to cast it, Gotrek's axe flashed and severed the hand at the wrist. The sphere of light fell from Muller's outstretched fingers and hit the ground. There was an explosion. A blast of warm air passed over Felix. His flesh tingled and he felt an odd dizziness.\n\nIn a moment he had recovered and the flashing before his eyes calmed down. He was grateful to see that Gotrek and Snorri were still there too, although the wizard had vanished.\n\n\"That was not a very destructive spell,\" Felix said. \"He could not exactly have been a powerful wizard.\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure, manling,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Take a look around.\"\n\nFelix did so. The first thing he noticed was that the airship was gone. Then he noticed the roof, the walls, and the peculiar patterns arrayed on the flagstoned floor.\n\n\"Next time we meet a sorcerer, manling,\" said Gotrek, \"let's kill him first and ask questions later.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "They stood in an oddly shaped chamber, in the centre of a large pentagram. At each point of the pentagram was a human skull and within each skull something glowed. A greenish light leaked from the eye-socket of every skull. Overhead was a massive stone roof. The walls of the chamber were carved from the same stones as the rest of the city. Odd-looking luminous moss grew in the cracks between blocks.\n\n\"Where are we?\" whispered Felix. There was something about the atmosphere of this place which made him want to be extremely quiet. An aura of watchfulness, a sense of something old and evil waiting for something to happen. His words echoed away. Under the shadows of the roof something rustled and stirred and Felix sincerely hoped that it was only bats.\n\n\"Snorri has no idea,\" said Snorri loudly. \"Somewhere underground, maybe.\"\n\n\"Let us go and find out,\" said Gotrek, striding towards the edge of the pentagram. As he did so, the chalked lines on the floor began to gleam brightly. The hair on the back of Felix's neck stood on end.\n\n\"No! Wait!\" he shouted.\n\nGotrek strode blithely on. As his foot touched the edge of the pentacle, sparks flew up and he was surrounded by the brilliant glow. The smell of ozone filled the air. In an instant the Slayer was thrown backwards into the centre of the pentagram. It did not even slow him down. He threw himself at the barrier once more \u2014 and once again was tossed back.\n\nAs this happened, Felix watched closely what was happening. Each time the spell took effect, the eyes of the skulls blazed brighter; after Gotrek was thrown backwards, the illumination dimmed.\n\n\"You could try smashing one of those heads,\" Felix suggested. Gotrek did not respond but stomped over to one of the points of the pentacle. His axe flashed downwards, the runes on the blade blazing. The skull smashed into a thousand fragments. A cloud of ectoplasmic vapour rose above it. There was a long, shrieking wail, as of a soul that had been set free after centuries of imprisonment. As the cry subsided, the remaining skulls went dark. Gotrek stepped outside the pentagram easily this time.\n\nA quick inspection revealed that there was only one way out of the chamber. It led down a long ramp into a maze of gloomy corridors. The whole area was lit by glowing gems set in the ceiling. Felix had seen their like before, beneath Karak Eight Peaks.\n\n\"Those do look like dwarf work,\" he said, as they marched down the shadowy corridors.\n\n\"Aye, manling, they do. Maybe the folk of Karag Dum traded with this city.\"\n\n\"Or maybe Karag Dum was plundered by the people here.\"\n\n\"That is an evil thought but it is also a possibility.\"\n\nOnce more they fell silent. Gotrek led them easily through the maze, always moving with confidence, never having to retrace his steps. Felix was amazed by the certainty that the dwarfs showed here, for he knew that if he had been on his own, by now he would have been hopelessly lost.\n\nThe watchful stillness had once more settled over the labyrinth. Felix's flesh crawled. Every so often he stopped to glance back over his shoulder just to make sure that there was nothing coming up behind him. He felt as if a blade might be plunged into his unprotected back at any moment.\n\nAs they hurried on, Felix wondered where the other dwarfs were. He hoped that they had not left without them. The situation at the moment did not look good. The three of them were trapped in a huge maze, without food or water and with no knowledge of exactly where they were. If they made it to the surface, and they were still in the ruined city, then they might be able to attract the attention of the airship. But if it had already gone, then their prospects were bleak. Felix did not look forward to a long trek through the Chaos Wastes in an effort to get home. From what he had witnessed on the journey so far it seemed unlikely that they could survive.\n\nHe pushed these thoughts aside and forced himself to concentrate on his surroundings. The corridor had opened up into a long hallway. Light filtered in from high overhead. Glittering particles of dust shimmered in the beams. The hall itself was many storeys high. On each level was a gallery. A huge ornamental pool, filled with scummy water, took up most of the ground floor of the chamber. In the centre of the pool stood a fountain which had long since ceased to flow. It was a statue carved in the shape of an armoured warrior. The warrior looked human enough, save for the fact that he had an additional arm in which he held some sort of staff.\n\nFelix walked to the edge of the pool and looked in. The water was murky except where little flecks of green light glowed in, like trapped stars. He had seen this stuff before and knew it was warpstone.\n\n\"We won't be drinking this water,\" he muttered, and the thought immediately made him thirsty. And as he thought this, he noticed a distorted reflection in the water. A huge winged shape which grew larger behind him even as he watched.\n\n\"Look out!\" he shouted and threw himself backwards away from the pool. Razor-sharp talons slashed the air where he had stood there moments before. Felix had the fleeting impression of a hideous winged humanoid, much like the ones he had seen flying over the battlefield earlier. Then there was a huge splash as the creature tumbled into the waters of the pool.\n\nFelix had a moment to recover himself and look up. A horde of the winged creatures were emerging onto the galleries set into the walls high above them and throwing themselves into the air. He could hear the flap of their wings and the snapping of their pinions as they took flight. These creatures were not flying silently. The one which attacked him must have glided down from a long way above.\n\n\"Harpies!\" Snorri shouted. \"Good!\"\n\nGotrek looked grim as he brandished his axe. Snorri grinned like a maniac and capered on the spot at the prospect of impending violence. Felix glanced back over at the water where the winged fiend had vanished. There was a great splash and droplets of water soaked his face as the creature broke surface and flexed its water-logged wings. As it attempted to take to the air, it gave an unearthly shriek as a huge tentacle, as thick as a cable and covered in suckers, enfolded the mutant thing and dragged it back below the water. Felix was suddenly very glad that he had not disturbed the water, and then he had no more time for thinking.\n\nThe hellish flock descended. Felix was surrounded by flapping limbs. Their wingbeats drove the awful charnel stench of the creatures everywhere. He ducked a slashing talon, lopped off the attached hand with his counterstroke and caught a quick glimpse of a hideously contorted shrieking face. Quickly he slashed all around him, clearing an area in which he could fight. The dwarfs' battle cries rang in his ears along with the infernal croaking of the harpies.\n\nHe twisted his head trying to see where the Slayers had got to, intending to fight his way towards them. As he did so, he felt a sharp piercing pain in his shoulders. The whole world performed a cartwheel. The thunder of wings filled his ears and the smell of rotten meat filled his nostrils. He had been grabbed by a harpy and was being borne aloft, like a field-mouse being taken back to an owl's nest to feed its fledglings.\n\nThe thing's acceleration was awful. He glanced down and caught a quick glimpse of the battle below. Snorri and Gotrek stood in the eye of a storm of wings. All around them lay the mutilated bodies of dead harpies, but many more came on. Gotrek reached up and grabbed one by its leg, pulled it down and crushed its head with the blade of his axe. Next to him Snorri smashed another's shoulderblade with his hammer. As the crippled beast flopped to the ground, the Slayer beheaded it with his axe.\n\nIn the pool, the water boiled and churned as something truly huge rose to the surface. The thrashings of the entangled harpy died away as more and more tentacles enshrouded it and crushed its life out. An enormous head broke surface. The sight of a circular leechlike maw filled with needle-sharp teeth distracted Felix from his predicament. He had been about to stab upwards at the Harpy and hope that the water below broke his fall \u2014 but now it seemed like that would simply be a case of jumping out of the cookpot and into the fire.\n\nSnorri, seeing what was happening to Felix, cast his hammer straight up at the harpy. Felix flinched as it flew straight and true. There was a sickening crunch as the weapon impacted and suddenly Felix was tumbling downwards towards the pool.\n\n\"No! You idiot!\" he shouted as the turbulent waters grew beneath him and the air whistled past his ears. The thing in the pool looked up with huge, almost human eyes. In that moment it occurred to Felix that the creature might once have been a man warped by the hideous mutating power of Chaos. Then he saw the head turn upwards and the leech like mouth gape wide and in that instant he realised that he was going to die. If the fall didn't kill him then he would be grabbed by those hideous slimy tentacles and dragged into that vast mouth.\n\nHe knew a brief flicker of despair and then an eruption of something like a berserker's fury. If he was going to die, he was going to take the monster with him! He twisted his body to get his feet below him and as he impacted on the monster he drove his sword downward into the creature's rubbery flesh. All the force of his long fall, all of the weight of his body and all the strength of his arms powered the enchanted Templar's blade home. It cut through flesh and speared right into the creature's brain. The tentacles went limp instantly.\n\nThe impact drove all the breath from Felix but he did not feel anything break. The beast's rubbery mass and enormous soft bulk had broken his fall. He swiftly sprang upright and leapt from the thing's head to the edge of the pool, taking great care not to touch the water. Even as he did so, he noticed that Gotrek and Snorri had routed the harpies. The majority of the surviving flock had taken to the air and were swiftly flapping their way out of the Slayers' reach. A glance behind him confirmed that the thing in the pool was already slipping back beneath the surface of the fetid waters.\n\nSnorri bent down and picked up his fallen hammer. He looked up at Felix and grinned. \"Good throw, huh?\" he said.\n\nFelix restrained himself from striking the dwarf with his blade. \"Let's get moving,\" Gotrek said. \"We don't have all day to waste.\"\n\nFelix stopped and rubbed his shoulder. The bruising was painful and the area was tender. Fortunately for him the harpy's claws had not penetrated his flesh, although they had burst some of the chain links and driven the points through the armour's leather under-jerkin and into his arm. They were more like scratches than real wounds. Normally he would have paused to wash and dress them but here in the midst of these Chaos haunted ruins he had no desire to stop \u2014 and even less desire to remove his armoured shirt. To tell the truth, he had not seen any water he would trust here either.\n\nWhile Felix had paused, Gotrek and Snorri had continued onwards up the seemingly endless stairs. He rushed to catch them up, not wanting to be left on his own. The brooding stillness of the place had only intensified since the harpies' attack and he wondered what wicked thing they could possibly encounter next.\n\nHis legs were aching from the constant climbing of steep stairs. They had risen about ten levels. The pool was still visible below them. He stumbled suddenly. A warped skull, humanoid but with goat horns, rattled away from his foot. It had been stripped of all flesh. Felix stooped and picked it up. It was light and cold, dry in his hands. Looking inside he saw score marks along the crown. An image flickered through his mind and he saw one of the harpies reaching inside the severed head to scoop out the brain and devour it. Hastily he tossed the skull away. It fell and clattered among the bones which lay strewn about the gallery.\n\nThey had obviously reached the area where the harpies nested, for there were bones everywhere, cracked for marrow and stripped of all flesh. The skeletons of beastmen, mutants and humans lay mingled with each other. Many of them were fouled with light brown excrement and the stink was awful. Even through the scarf wrapped over his mouth it made Felix want to gag. He wondered how much longer these galleries could go on for, and whether he could go through even one more without vomiting. Why had Muller made his lair here, he wondered? And how had he survived among all these ferocious monsters? Had his magic prevented them from attacking him? Or had he come to some arrangement with the creatures? Felix was forced to acknowledge the fact that he would never know, and in truth, he was not sure he really wanted to. The pacts and alliances that must be needed to survive in a place like this did not bear thinking about \u2014 and that was before you came to consider the question of food and drink.\n\nPerhaps Muller had even been sane when he came here, but had been driven mad by a diet that must have consisted of tainted flesh and warpstone-corrupted water. Felix did not want to consider that this might be the only option open to him and his companions too, if they did not find a way out of here soon. At the moment, death seemed preferable to such an existence but who could tell? Perhaps it would become easier as your brain degenerated and warpstone-inspired madness consumed the mind. Perhaps you might even come to enjoy it. Once more he forced the thought from his head \u2014 and as he did so he realised that the staircase had finally come to an end.\n\nUp ahead Gotrek stood in front of a massive archway. The lintel was covered in a mass of carved daemon heads. They smiled mockingly, bared monstrous fangs, stuck out their tongues. Their expressions were crazed and debauched and full of madness and Felix wondered at the minds which could have carved such things. The archway itself was sealed by an enormous slab of stone inscribed with the twisted characters that Felix had come to associate with the followers of the Dark Powers of Chaos. It was becoming increasingly obvious that this part of the ruined city, at least, had long been home to the slaves of Darkness.\n\nGotrek reached out and pushed the stone but nothing happened. The slab did not budge. Slowly the Slayer applied more and more pressure until the huge muscles swelled and rippled all along his back and arms. Sweat beaded his forehead and his breathing came in ragged gasps. Snorri joined him but even their combined strengths had no effect on the archway. Felix did not even bother to try and help them. There was not enough room for him to squeeze in between them, and anyway, he doubted that his efforts would count for much compared to the amount of force the two dwarfs were bringing to bear.\n\nEventually Gotrek gave up. He stood back and scratched his head with one massive hand. He picked up his axe and looked as if he was considering swinging it at the door but then he simply grinned and reached out to touch one of the leering daemon heads carved on the lintel. He pushed down on the tongue. It moved and as it did so the archway swung open, sending the still-straining Snorri sprawling through it to land flat on his face on the dusty flagstones beyond.\n\n\"No damage done. He landed on his head,\" Gotrek muttered and strode through. With a last glance at the galleries behind them, Felix hastily followed."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "They emerged onto a wide flat space open to the sky. Ahead of them was a walled barrier like a battlement. Behind them was a massive wall. Felix strode forward to the barrier and looked down. At once he realised that they were on the penultimate level almost at the very top of a massive ziggurat, for below them were all the lower steps. Close by was a flight of monstrous stairs leading all the way back down to the ground. The stairs also led up to a peak of the pyramid, and Felix hastily climbed them. At the top was a great open ledge. It was old and crumbling and it extended out over a wide expanse of empty air. Felix gingerly walked to the edge and looked down.\n\nA long way below him was the pool in which the monstrous thing had dwelled and all the galleries in which the Chaos harpies had nested. There were chains and manacles along the walled edges of the ledge, and a slow realisation of the platform's function came to him. This was a place of sacrifice. Living victims had once been brought here and then thrown screaming from the ledge to tumble into the pool below, where the dweller in the murky water devoured them. It must have been an unpleasant fate, and Felix wondered about the sanity of those who had devised it.\n\nHad this whole vast ziggurat been built purely with this function in mind? Or it had it once served a different purpose and become corrupted as the foul power of Chaos spread across this ancient land? Was it even possible, as Gotrek had suggested earlier, that this whole structure had been created by whim of one of the Dark Gods or their daemonic servitors?\n\nNone of his thinking was going any way towards finding salvation, Felix decided. They had found the open air but they had no idea where the airship was or how they could locate it. And if they failed to do that they were doomed.\n\nHe turned back from the vertiginous drop and scanned the horizon. Surely, he thought, if the airship was still over the city, it would be visible. He squinted in the strange light filtering through the clouds and tried to concentrate, wishing all the while that he still had the telescope that he had left on the ship. All he could see was the cloud of harpies circling high above them.\n\nThen, to his amazement, far off in the distance, he saw a small dark speck that seemed to be moving in their direction. He prayed fervently to Sigmar that it was the Spirit of Grungni. Then he raced over to the outside edge of the ziggurat's uppermost level and shouted for the dwarfs to come and join him. But even as he did so, he noticed that an enormous horde of beastmen had emerged from the nearby buildings far below and were racing along the streets towards the ziggurat. Over their heads fluttered two harpies, screaming in their foul tongue.\n\nDoubtless they were the things which had attracted the beastmen's attention. Before he could throw himself flat, one of the bestial Chaos worshippers noticed him, for it brandished its spear in the air and pointed with one outstretched arm towards Felix. The whole disgusting horde let out a howl of triumph and began to hurry up the long stairway towards them. Felix cursed his luck and went to join Snorri and Gotrek.\n\nThe two Slayers seemed profoundly indifferent to the fact that several thousand beastmen were racing towards them, too many for even such formidable warriors as themselves to slay.\n\n\"The stairway is a good point to make our stand,\" observed Gotrek. \"Narrow. Not too many of them can get to us at once. Good killing.\"\n\n\"Hardly seems fair,\" Snorri said. \"They'll be tired by the time they get to us. All that running and then all those stairs. Maybe we should go down and meet them halfway.\"\n\n\"They're spawn of Chaos. I will do nothing to oblige them.\"\n\n\"Fair enough. Snorri sees your point.\"\n\nFelix shook his head in despair. He was going to die, and he was going to die in the company of two maniacs. It was too much. He had survived evil magic, the attacks of a tentacled monster and a flock of mutant harpies only to be brought down at the last by a horde of shambling, misshapen monsters, beasts that wore the shape of men.\n\nHe turned his head to the heavens to ask blessed Sigmar to simply smite him down and get it over with when he noticed that the dot in the distance had swollen into the definite outline of the airship. It was heading directly in their direction. Felix looked down the ziggurat again. The beastmen were almost halfway up it. He glanced back at the airship. It was much further away than the beastmen, but it was moving much faster. He hardly dared hope that it would reach them in time.\n\nThe beastmen were well up the steps now, an onrushing tide of twisted flesh, brandishing spears and howling war cries. Felix could distinctly hear the clatter of hooves on the stone stairs. His heart raced. His mouth felt dry. This was almost worse than certain death. Now there was a faint hope that they might get away.\n\nThe airship swept low over the beastmen. Felix could see that the outside had been cleaned and all the engines were working. The rips in the gasbag had been repaired. He would not have believed that it was possible for so much work to be done in so short a time. The dwarfs had certainly been busy. He could see now that the doorways in the side of the ship were open as was the hatch in the bottom. Someone had thrown open the portholes as well, and a rain of black spheres was descending on the onrushing horde. One of them burst in the air sending shrapnel everywhere. Beastmen howled in agony. Felix realised that the dwarfs on the ship were dropping bombs!\n\nMore and more fell tearing great holes in the ranks of the beastmen. The foul Chaos things stopped and howled and shook their weapons at the sky. One or two threw their spears but they fell short, then dropped back into the tightly pressed mass of beastmen, impaling their comrades. For a moment Felix dared to hope that they would be routed by their fear of this awesome apparition above their heads. Then a larger leader-type emerged from the milling throng and shouted at the rest of its force to advance, and the beastmen came on once more. Still, the precious moments of confusion had given the airship time to sail forward until it was almost overhead. Felix could see Varek in the hatchway above him, uncoiling the craft's beloved rope ladder. He let out a long sigh of relief, knowing that he was safe.\n\nThen the airship passed on by him, taking the rope ladder with it. What were they playing at, thought Felix, risking a glance down at the oncoming ranks of beastmen? This was no time for stupid jokes! Then he realised what had happened. The airship still had momentum from its rush to save them. The howling of the engines above him revealed that Makaisson had thrown the craft into reverse and was killing his vessel's speed expertly.\n\nThe Spirit of Grungni now hovered directly over the well in the centre of the ziggurat. Felix turned to the Slayers and bellowed; \"Come on! We must find Karag Dum! That is your destiny!\"\n\nThe Slayers looked at him as if he were mad. He realised that they did actually want to throw away their lives in this pointless battle against superior numbers. Inspiration struck him. \"There is a daemon at Karag Dum! It pollutes sacred dwarf soil. It is your duty to kill it!\"\n\nWell, he thought, he'd done his best to talk the Slayers out of their folly. Now it was time to go. Without looking behind him, he raced up the stairway and out onto the ramp from which sacrifices had been thrown. The ladder dangled right out in the middle of the great central well \u2014 far too far for him to jump out and reach it. Behind him he could hear the roaring of the beastmen. They seemed to be almost upon him. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Snorri and Gotrek brandishing their weapons defiantly. He knew that it could only be a matter of moments before the horde was upon him.\n\nHe glanced back and saw that the rope ladder was coming back in his direction. Instantly he made his decision. He sheathed his sword, took a flying leap and made a grasp for the ladder. For a moment he had a dizzying sense of the enormous drop beneath him, then his fingers were clutching the rope. The impact felt like it was going to tear his arm from its socket and sent a surge of agony shooting through the shoulder that the harpy had bruised earlier. Somehow, he managed to hold on and then to grasp the swaying ladder with his other hand and begin to pull himself up.\n\nHe risked a glance down and saw that they were running in the direction of the ramp's edge.\n\n\"Snorri! Gotrek!\" he shouted to encourage them.\n\nJust beyond and below them he could see the first of the onrushing beastmen come into view. The Slayers looked up and almost as one reached up and made a grab for the ladder. Both managed to catch hold of it as it went flying by and were pulled off the ziggurat and into the air. Felix caught a view of the great mass of bestial faces glaring up at him as they went soaring past.\n\nA rain of stuff was dropping from the ship now, and Felix realised that Makaisson was jettisoning ballast to enable them to gain height quickly. The sludge and pebbles dropped on the Chaos worshippers. They responded by casting their spears. Reflexively he closed his eyes as the missiles whizzed past his ears, then the beastmen were left far behind on the sacrificial ziggurat and the airship was gaining altitude fast.\n\nLooking back to where they had been he saw an awful thing was happening. Before they had realised their danger, the leaders of the charging beastmen had gone running right off the edge of the ramp and were tumbling out into space. A few of their followers had time to realise what was happening and to give out roars of horror and fear. However, pushed on by the press of bodies behind them, they were being forced off the edge of the ramp and out into the abyss beneath them.\n\nFelix offered up a prayer of thanks to Sigmar for his deliverance and began to pull himself, hand over hand up the ladder and into the Spirit of Grungni. Once safely there, he turned to reach down and helped pull the pair of Slayers up into the airship.\n\n\"Missed a good fight there,\" Snorri said. \"Pity they got the drop on us.\"\n\nFelix gave Snorri a penetrating look. Was it actually possible that the idiot was making a joke, he wondered. In the distance he could still hear the screams of the falling beastmen."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "\"How did you find us?\" Felix asked Varek as the ruined city faded into the gloom behind them.\n\n\"After you vanished, we finished the repairs and all the crew we could spare manned the telescopes,\" Varek said. \"We were lucky. We saw a great flock of those winged things rising over the ziggurat in the centre of the city and decided that something must have attracted their attention. We thought even if all we found was your corpses it was worth the effort.\"\n\nFelix realised exactly how lucky they had been. The same thing that had attracted the horde of beastmen had also brought the attention of the airship's crew. He shuddered to think of what might have happened if they had fought with the creatures during the night. They would never have been found."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE HORDES OF CHAOS",
+                "text": "Lurk felt peculiar. His skin tingled. His fur itched. He was hungry all the time. Ever since he had been exposed to the warpstone dust during the storm, an odd sickness had convulsed him. He had taken to stealing more and more of the dwarfs' supplies away, and he devoured them all in great orgies of consumption where he simply could not stop himself until all the food was gone. He was just thankful that someone had eventually opened the hatch back into the ship before he started to eat his own tail.\n\nThe effects of all this consumption were starting to show. His muscles had swollen, his tail had grown thicker and he was getting bigger. His head hurt a lot and he found it difficult to think straight. He prayed to the Horned Rat that he had not caught some sort of plague. He remembered his fear when he had fallen sick in Nuln and how that had almost ended his life. If the plague returned now, he had none of the herbal medicines Vilebroth Null had used to preserve his life.\n\nSlowly he pulled himself up the ladder to the crow's nest so that he could make his daily communion with that wretched Thanquol. He was heartily sick of that nagging voice within his head, babbling foolish orders and telling him what to do. Part of his mind knew that he should not be thinking this way, that it was most unwise but he could not bring himself to care. His body ached all over. His vision was blurring and his fur was beginning to fall out in places where monstrous boils were erupting. He decided not to bother about contacting the grey seer. He would return to his burrow and sleep. First though, he would need to eat. He was starting to feel a hankering for a nice bit of plump dwarf flesh.\n\nFelix knocked on the door of Borek's cabin. The metal echoed beneath his knuckles.\n\n\"Come in,\" the dwarf said. Felix opened the door and went in. Borek's cabin was larger than his. The walls were lined with crystal-fronted cabinets containing many books. A table was bolted to the floor in the centre and on it was laid out an ancient map, held in place by four strange looking paperweights of black metal.\n\nNoticing Felix's curiosity, Borek said, \"Magnets.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Those paperweights are magnets. They stick to iron and steel. It's some odd philosophical principle, akin to the one that keeps compass needles pointing northwards. Go ahead: try to pick one up.\"\n\nFelix did as he was told, and felt a resistance that he had not expected. He let go of the metal and it seemed to leap from his hand and adhered to the table with a click. It was typical of the dwarfs' attention to detail, he thought, that they had managed to find a way of keeping maps in place even on such an unstable platform as this airship. He mentioned this fact.\n\n\"It's a power that has been known for a long time. It's used by our navigators on the steamships out of Barak Varr.\" He smiled. \"But I suspect that you are not here to discuss the finer points of furnishing a vessel's cabin\u2026\"\n\nFelix agreed that he was not and he began to speak, telling Borek about what had happened with the sorcerer and his mention of the daemon. The encounter with Muller had made him think. For the first time, he had really begun to take seriously the dreadful possibility that such a thing might exist at Karag Dum. The old dwarf listened, nodding occasionally. When Felix finished, there was a short silence while Borek filled his pipe.\n\n\"How can this be?\" Felix asked. \"How can daemons exist here and not outside the Wastes?\"\n\nBorek looked at him long and hard. \"They can and do exist outside the Wastes. According to our records, many have fought against the armies of the dwarfs.\"\n\n\"Then where are they now?\"\n\n\"Vanished. Who knows why? Who can truly explain the workings of Chaos?\"\n\n\"But surely you have a theory?\"\n\n\"There are many theories, Herr Jaeger. As far as we know, raw magical energy flows much more strongly through the Wastes. It seems most likely that daemons feed on this energy and need it to exist. Beyond the Wastes they can manifest for only a short time before vanishing because magic is weaker. Here in the Realm of Chaos they can manifest themselves for much longer periods because there is more power for them to draw on.\"\n\n\"Why is that?\"\n\n\"Schreiber believes there is some sort of disturbance at the very centre of the Wastes which is the source of all magic. According to him, it also warps time and distance in some manner. Many scholars claim that time flows at different rates in different parts of the Wastes, you know. And that the further you go into the Wastes, the more pronounced this effect becomes.\"\n\n\"Why are the fiends not swarming all over us now then?\"\n\n\"Perhaps because we have not gone far enough. I doubt that it is possible for a daemon to exist for long out here, so close to the edge of the Wastes, but I do not know for certain that this is the case. There is a lot I do not know about these matters.\"\n\n\"But you think a daemon still dwells in Karag Dum?\"\n\nBorek laughed grimly. \"It is all too possible. Even as I left there were dire rumours that some dread thing had been summoned and King Thangrim Firebeard and his runemasters marched to meet it. It may be it was trapped there or never left. I do not know. I and my kin escaped the city before those final battles.\"\n\n\"It is not exactly a pleasant thought.\"\n\n\"No, but it is one that we will soon know the answer to. We should reach Karag Dum within the next day or so.\"\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"Then we will see.\"\n\n\"Faster! Quick-quick!\" Grey Seer Thanquol chittered. He was tired and restless from being constantly cooped up inside his palanquin. Such confinement went against all his skaven instincts to get up and scuttle about, but he really had no choice. For the past few days he had done nothing but use communications spells and ride relays of palanquins through the subterranean roadways of the Under-Empire, stopping only long enough to change bearers and palanquins, eating all his meals as he moved on. He had blisters on his rump from sitting so long and he felt like his back was going to be permanently curved.\n\nHis bearers whined their complaints and Thanquol considered blasting one or two apart just to make an example of them, but he knew it would be counter-productive. All he would achieve would be to slow himself down until they reached the next way-station, where he could acquire a change of slaves. Still, he promised himself, once they were there, these whinging lackeys would suffer!\n\nThat is, if he could find the strength. The grey seer felt drained by the strain of having to expend so much power to communicate with Lurk over so long a distance. And now the buffoon was not even responding to his calls. It was so frustrating! He had no idea what had happened. Was Lurk dead? Had the airship crashed in some hideous accident? Was this long chase all for nothing? Surely it could not be, but ever since he had seen that accursed Jaeger, Thanquol had felt a sinking feeling. Where the human and his wretched dwarf companion were concerned, Thanquol was always prepared for the worst. The two of them seemed to have been born only to thwart him.\n\nHe cursed the engineers of Clan Skryre. Why could they not bend their accursed ingenuity to building some improved means of transport through the tunnels of the Under-Empire? Surely they could think of something more effective than simple relays of slave-borne litters! Did they always have to spend their days working out bigger and better weapons? Why not warpstone-powered chariots or traction engines, Thanquol wondered? Or some long-range version of the doomwheel? Surely such things could not be beyond them? If he remembered, he would mention his ideas to the Council of Thirteen in his next report.\n\n\"Faster! Quick! Go-go!\" he urged, his throat hoarse. He needed to get to the northlands soon, he knew, and find out what had happened to that wonderful airship. If only he could get his paws on that, he would never again lack for swift transportation.\n\nAnd when he got there, he vowed, someone was really going to pay for the discomfort he had endured.\n\nFelix lay on the bed in his cabin, staring at the metal ceiling. His head spun with all the things he had learned this day concerning the Realm of Chaos. The world was a great deal more complex than he would ever have thought possible, and it was increasingly obvious to him that his own people still had a lot to learn from the Elder Races.\n\nHe closed his eyes but sleep would not come. He felt tired but also restless. His shoulder still pained him, despite the healing salves which Varek had applied. He knew the area was going to be tender for some time to come. Still, his mail had been repaired by one of Makaisson's apprentices, and it looked better than new.\n\nCursing his lot, he rose from the bed and pulled on his boots. Leaving his chamber, he walked to the airship's rear observation turret. The rearmost bubble of the turret was small and housed an organ gun mounted on a swivel platform. Felix slumped down into its seat and worked the foot pedals that sent it turning first to the left and then to the right. He found the motion oddly relaxing, reminiscent of swinging in a hammock or being in his grandfather's rocking chair.\n\nHe reached up and grasped the handles of the organ gun. This was another of Makaisson's unusual designs. It had grips like a pistol and was fired by pulling a trigger. The whole mechanism of the gun was balanced on a gimbal and could be swivelled up or down, left or right, almost without effort. Felix did not know what the dwarfs expected to attack them flying at such an altitude, but they were obviously taking no chances.\n\nHe gazed out over the land over which they had passed. The sky had darkened into some semblance of night. At least, the clouds were darker above them and there was no suggestion of a sun above. Felix wondered about that. They had reached an area where it seemed no matter how high they climbed the sky was always obscured. He had decided that it was either some form of potent magic or simply that somewhere in the distance, great masses of warpstone dust were being thrown high into the air and driven upwards by powerful winds. The only illumination came from huge fire-pits set in the rough terrain below, craters resembling the bubbling mouths of volcanoes around whose glowing openings twisted figures capered.\n\nAs the airship passed over the fire-pits, it shuddered slightly, caught by the rising current of warm air. This did not frighten Felix as it once had. He had come to find gentle turbulence actually rather soothing. It was strange. The more he flew, the more he had come to regard the sky as being something akin to the sea. The winds were its currents, the clouds something like the waves.\n\nHe wondered if the sea, too, had currents at different levels, the way the winds appeared to move at different speeds at different heights. There was much here for a philosopher to study, he thought yawning, and slipped gently into sleep.\n\nLurk pulled himself slowly and stealthily down the corridors of the ship. The hunger in his stomach was like a living thing clawing and trying to escape. It caused him actual physical pain. Ahead of him, he sensed prey. It did not have the scent of dwarf but of humanity. Lurk did not care. He simply wanted to feel hot red blood gush into his mouth and gorge on chunks of raw, warm meat and a human would suit his purposes just as well as a dwarf.\n\nHe entered the rear chamber and heard the snoring of the figure in front of him. Good! His foolish prey was completely unaware, lost in a swinish slumber the like of which no skaven would ever allow itself to fall into, even if there were no obvious threat of danger. The human's blond-furred head was thrown back, and his neck was bared, as if inviting Lurk's fangs.\n\nLurk tip-toed forward and loomed over the human's sleeping form. Saliva filled his mouth at the prospect of fresh meat. All it would take would be one bite to sever the artery! He would lock his jaws on the human's neck to smother his screams. Another few paces and he would be in a position to strike.\n\nSuddenly Lurk heard footsteps on the ladder leading down from the deck above. Someone was coming! He cursed quietly, knowing that if he attacked now, he would be discovered before he could consume his prey, and that the alarm would be given. Some spark of self-preservation buried deep in his mind told him that this would not be a good idea, so he padded swiftly back down the corridor, returning the way he had come.\n\nFelix woke suddenly at the sound of wary footsteps on the ladder. He was glad to be woken, for he had been having a nightmare in which a giant rat-like thing stalked ever closer to him down a dark, mist-shrouded tunnel. Doubtless it was a bad dream inspired by the beastmen he had seen today. Sigmar knew, they had been monstrous enough to inspire a lifetime of nightmares.\n\nHe looked up to see Varek lowering himself onto the observation deck. He carried his book in one hand and his pen in the other, and he looked a little disappointed to find someone else present, as if he had desired to be alone here.\n\n\"Good evening, Felix,\" he said, forcing a smile.\n\n\"Is it evening?\"\n\n\"Who can tell,\" the dwarf shrugged. \"It's as good a term for it as any in this foul place. The sky is darker and the land is obscured so I suppose it might as well be.\"\n\n\"Then good evening to you, Varek,\" said Felix. \"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I came here to write up my notes. It's difficult to do when you're sharing a cabin with Gotrek and Snorri.\"\n\n\"I can imagine.\" Felix was suddenly glad that his height and the fact that he was a human had qualified him for his own cabin. It was one of only three single rooms on the entire airship, and Borek and Makaisson had the others. \"What were they doing?\"\n\n\"Gotrek claimed that Snorri had beaten him on a technicality in their last headbutting contest. They were having quite an argument about it. Snorri wanted to have another contest right there and then to settle the matter but I talked them out of it.\"\n\n\"How?\" Felix couldn't imagine this soft-spoken young dwarf talking the pair of Trollslayers out of anything at all.\n\n\"I reminded them that it usually takes about three days for the loser to recover from a headbutting bout and that's assuming nothing serious is broken \u2014 and if that happened one of them would miss out on our arrival in Karag Dum. Assuming that we would arrive on time, of course. That seemed to do the trick. When I left them they were having a vodka drinking contest instead. Hopefully by the time I get back they'll have knocked themselves out with that instead.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't bet on it,\" Felix said.\n\nVarek smiled sadly.\n\n\"Nor would I.\"\n\n\"Don't mind me,\" said Felix. \"I was just taking a nap.\" He made to settle back once more.\n\n\"Before you do, could I just ask you to go over all the details of today's events. I want to make sure I get it all exactly right.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Felix said, and began to go over the story once more, with only slight exaggerations.\n\nFelix woke later, still in the gunnery chair of the organ gun to find one of the engineers sweeping the decks around him. Yawning and stretching, he pulled himself up and decided to go get some breakfast. As he rose he noticed that there was a small band of mounted warriors directly below them, apparently riding in the same direction as the airship was flying.\n\n\"Are they following us?\" he asked, knowing it was a foolish question even as he asked it. While he watched, the black-armoured riders had fallen far behind the swiftly-moving airship.\n\n\"No,\" replied the dwarf, \"but something is surely up. All morning we've been passing over warbands moving in the same direction. It's almost as if they know where we are going and are moving to intercept us.\"\n\n\"That isn't possible,\" said Felix, but in his secret heart he was unsure. After all, who knew what the forces of Chaos were really capable of."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "\"It's getting worse,\" Varek said, continuing to focus the telescope out the window of the command deck. \"There are hundreds more. Now there seems to be more of them ahead of us than there is behind.\"\n\nFelix was forced to agree; even with the naked eye it was obvious. All day they had been passing over bands of beastmen, Chaos warriors and other wicked things. The further they travelled, the more frequent the sightings had become. And all of the followers of Darkness were streaming in the same direction the airship was moving in. It was as if a secret signal had been given and an army was being gathered.\n\n\"I don't like this at all,\" said Felix. \"Can they really know what we're doing? Are they waiting for us?\"\n\n\"I don't think that is very likely,\" Borek said, a little testily. He had slumped back into one of the padded leather command chairs and sat there, stroking his beard meditatively with the fingers of one gnarled hand. \"There is no way they could be aware of our coming. We have no traitors aboard this ship. No one could have known our plans until we set out, and even if they did, they surely could not have sent word faster than we have travelled.\"\n\nThe old dwarf sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. Felix had no difficulty finding flaws in any of his arguments. Schreiber had known about their goal, as had Straghov and any number of his followers. Sorcery could transmit a message even faster than the airship could fly. More simply still, perhaps the Chaos followers had visionaries in their midst who could foresee the future. It sometimes appalled Felix how quickly and easily he could find the dark side of things.\n\n\"And we're assuming they are concerned with us,\" Borek continued. \"There is no proof of that either. Perhaps they have their own reasons for gathering along this route.\"\n\n\"And what could those be?\"\n\n\"I don't know but I'm sure that if it's the case we will find out soon enough.\"\n\nAs the airship flew on, the warbands became larger, as many of the smaller mobs of Chaos worshippers met and banded together to form larger units. In some bands up to a dozen banners could be seen fluttering in the wind.\n\nGrotesque creatures were becoming more common among the creatures below. Felix saw strange warriors, part man, part woman with enormous crab-like claws. They were mounted on loping two-legged creatures with long protruding tongues. As he watched through a telescope from high above, this troop of daemonic cavalry chased down a scattered band of mutants. Their foul steeds shot out their long sticky tongues, grasped their victims and reeled them into their masters' \u2014 or mistresses' \u2014 claws the way certain jungle lizards were supposed to capture flies.\n\nOdd, brightly coloured creatures whose hideously exaggerated faces appeared to emerge directly from the middle of their torsos capered through the bright desert sands. They waved up at the passing airship as if greeting a long lost kinsman and then clutched their sides, rolling around in insane daemonic mirth.\n\nOne enormous black-armoured rider led a pack of twisted hounds across the rocks. His animals had enormous reptilian crests and their skins glowed a bright metallic red. At times Felix felt like he was looking down into scenes dragged from some madman's nightmares, but he could not stop himself from watching all the same.\n\nAhead of them a range of hills rose out of the desert. As they approached, Felix saw that the foothills were merely outriders of a much larger range of towering peaks, tall as anything in the World's Edge Mountains. These hills shimmered with unnatural colours. And for the first time Felix saw something in the Wastes that resembled vegetation.\n\nA forest of monstrous slimy fungi bloomed on the hillsides. Each of the mighty mushrooms was as large as the tallest tree and its canopy was huge enough to shelter a small village. Each was a slightly different sickly shade \u2014 jaundiced yellow, bone white, nausea green \u2014 and each rose towards the sky as if fighting with its fellows for every scrap of light and every inch of space. Some of the fungi had multiple caps, each branching from a central stalk. A vile mucous enshrouded the flesh of the fungal trees and dripped poisonously onto the ground below. All suggested something unnatural and evil, a life that should not exist in any sane world.\n\nHere and there one of the mighty fungal trees had fallen \u2014 or been deliberately felled \u2014 and beastmen and mutants crawled over it, like ants on a rotted log. They consumed the corrupt flesh of the fallen giant and drank its slime. After they ate it, they shouted and fought and engaged in orgies of unspeakable activities, as if the dead thing's substance contained some strange and intoxicating drug.\n\nAs the hills rose before Felix's rapt gaze, they became cleaner and devoid of the unnatural vegetation. Instead more ruins became evident. He spied small forts made from little more than accumulated boulders. Intricately crafted castles with walls shod in steel and brass. Palaces carved from the living rock of the hills. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Near every structure lay skeletons and unburied corpses or gallows from which dangled dead beastmen. The smell of burning and death rose from the hillside. This was an area that had obviously seen a lot of fighting but was now deserted, and as they flew on, it became obvious why.\n\nOver the hills warriors moved en masse, flowing like a turbulent stream down into the roads which passed through the valleys, joining the torrent of Chaos worshippers who travelled on the dusty roads. They rode, they limped, they marched, they crawled, they hopped, they flopped obscenely but they all moved \u2014 and they all had one destination in mind. There could be no doubt now that all the worshippers of Chaos were heading in the same direction that they were themselves \u2014 the distant mountains.\n\nHours went by. The airship passed over a flat plain in the shadow of the hills and still the endless flow moved beneath them. In the centre of the plain, Felix could see that four enormous boulders had been carved into monstrous parodies of the human form. At first he had thought it was a trick of the light, a mirage brought on by the odd shape of the rocks and his own tired eyes but after a while he had realised that this was not true. Each of the mighty stones really had been carved into the shape of what he assumed was one of the Dark Gods of Chaos.\n\nAs he came closer he began to get some idea of the scale of these monumental statues. Each was loftier than the mooring mast at the Lonely Tower. He had heard that some of the peaks on the elves' Islands of Ulthuan had been carved into enormous statues but this was work that must surely dwarf even that. Some awesome magic had been used to reshape the very bones of the earth into these mocking images, and in a moment of wonder and terror Felix came to some understanding of the true might of the Powers of Chaos.\n\nOne of the statues was a huge squatting thing, its sides blotched with boils and cankers. Its leering image spoke of a million years of pestilence and death. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice whispered to Felix the name of Nurgle, Daemon God of Plague.\n\nAnother was shaped into something bird-headed, with enormous wings enfolded round its body. Eerie and unnatural light played around the head, a crown of mystical energy that transmitted the thought that here was an object sacred to Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate, the Changer of Ways.\n\nThe third statue was carved in the shape of a creature not quite man and not quite woman, posed in an attitude at once both lascivious and mocking. Huge caves made blank empty eye sockets. Felix shivered, for somehow he knew this to be a depiction of one of the many aspects of Slaanesh, Lord of Unspeakable Pleasures. He had encountered this Daemon-God's worshippers many times in the past.\n\nThe last took the shape of a massive warrior, bat-winged, armed with sword and whip, face masked by a helmet that obscured all features. There was something in the stance that suggested a creature at once shambling and ape-like, but possessed of enormous physical power. This must be Khorne, the Blood God, Lord of the Throne of Skulls. Felix shivered. Khorne's was a name which had inspired terror since the dawn of time.\n\nAround the feet of these titanic effigies a few worshippers prostrated themselves and threw down offerings but most simply saluted and moved on. Felix had given up on any attempt to count the Chaos worshippers. They numbered in the thousands now. It was like watching an army of ants on the march, and the motives of the horde seemed just as incomprehensible and just as threatening. He was only glad that they were marching away from the lands of men, deeper into the Wastes, although he realised that it would take only one order to turn this great army around and send it scything southward, if a powerful enough leader were to arise.\n\nThe command deck behind Felix was silent save for the throb of the engines, and Felix knew that all the dwarfs present were thinking the same thoughts as he was. All of them had been overcome by the terrible majesty of the army gathered below them.\n\nThe foothills climbed beneath them and now ahead of the airship loomed the true peaks of the range. Beneath them the land looked almost normal, with streams and trees and what might have been goats leaping along the ridges. Was it possible that some parts of the Waste had remained untouched by the warping influence of Chaos? Did some counter-balancing force still strive against its effects? Or was this some trick of the Dark Powers, an innocuous veil drawn over a secret thing even darker and more terrible than anything they had yet witnessed?\n\nMakaisson let out his breath in a long, slow whistle as he pulled levers and turned the great wheel, sending the airship soaring through a long valley which sliced between the brooding black peaks. He had to make constant small adjustments to the controls as he fought against crosswinds and turbulence while threading a path through the winding valley.\n\nThe airship turned almost ninety degrees to the right and ahead of them lay a long vale teeming with the followers of Chaos. Wisps of smoke rose from their cooking fires to form a dark cloud that threatened to obscure their vision. Tens of thousands of beastmen looked up at them curiously. Thousands of Chaos warriors were drawn up within a crazy maze of earthworks. The airship droned steadily down the valley towards the deepening darkness that filled its far end.\n\nEnormous chariots pulled by hideous mutant beasts larger than elephants rose above the mass. Here and there some had tumbled down, some had melted, some had simply been smashed as if by a superior force. Huge t-shaped crosses had been placed among the ranks of tents and blockhouses, and each bore a crucified figure. Some were fresh; others had been reduced to skeletons by the carrion birds.\n\nAhead of them loomed a singularly enormous mountain. Its huge bulk blocked the end of the valley. Its sides were covered in row upon row of broken fortifications. The ground on the mountain's lower slopes was covered by a white plain of bones. The fortifications rose to a citadel atop the mountain's very peak, and it was obvious that a battle had been fought here \u2014 and recently, for smoke still rose from burning buildings and black-armoured warriors moved among the corpses of the recently dead.\n\nA tense silence filled the command deck of the Spirit of Grungni. All of the dwarfs appeared to be holding their breath in amazement and horror. Eventually Borek spoke and his voice came out in a harsh croak.\n\n\"Behold the peak of Karag Dum,\" he said."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "KARAG DUM",
+                "text": "\"Look out!\" Felix shouted. From amidst the teeming hordes below them, one of the Chaos worshippers \u2014 a tall, lean figure robed in black, covered in amulets and wearing a silver helm with curved goat's horns \u2014 had raised an ornate staff to point at them. Sizzling energies crackled around the staffs tip and a bolt of blood red lightning leapt from the ground to the airship. His fellow sorcerers gathered to add their power to the attack, and the fury of the assault intensified until the blaze hurt the eye and the roar of the thunder threatened to deafen Felix.\n\nLightning flashed and crackled all around the Spirit of Grungni. The burnt tin stench of ozone filled the air. It was as if they were trapped in the centre of a thunderstorm all of their own. The gondola trembled and shook. The gemmed eyes of the figurehead blazed and Felix felt the amulet on his chest grow warm. Makaisson wrenched the wheel and tugged the altitude lever and they headed skywards towards the low, overhanging clouds.\n\nThe airship shivered and bucked like a frightened horse, and Felix feared that their magical protection was going to be overcome. Then, as suddenly as the attack had started, it ceased.\n\nNot a moment too soon, as far as Felix was concerned. He looked down on the encamped Chaos army. It seemed that they had crossed some boundary, come too close and so had been attacked. It seemed possible, therefore, that as long as they kept their distance, they would be allowed to fly above the army unmolested. Perhaps the Chaos worshippers had feared an attack from above, thought Felix. Or, just as likely, they were simply mad.\n\nAn appalled silence filled the control room. The dwarfs exchanged shocked glances. Felix crouched down by the window and watched them. Eventually Borek spoke in a low croak.\n\n\"This is not what I expected,\" he said, and the weight of his years showed in his voice. He shook his head. \"This is not possible.\"\n\nGotrek was pale, though whether with fury or some other suppressed emotion Felix could not tell. \"Does the citadel still stand? Are our people still down there?\"\n\nBorek looked up at him with one rheumy eye and shook his head. \"Nothing could withstand the forces of Chaos for two centuries. There can be no one left alive down there.\"\n\nGotrek's knuckles whitened as his grip on his axe tightened. \"Then why is that huge army down there? Why do they lay siege to the dwarfhold? Who are they fighting, if not our kinsfolk?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" Borek said. \"You saw that army. You saw the devastation in the vale. The dwarfhold could not have withstood such an attack for so long.\"\n\n\"What if they have? What if there are still dwarfs alive down there? It means we have abandoned our kinfolk to the mercies of Chaos for well nigh two centuries. It means we have forsaken our old treaties of alliance with them. It means our nations have not kept faith.\"\n\nBorek picked up his walking stick and tapped its tip on the steel floor. It was the only sound audible save for the hum of the engines. Felix considered their argument. He had to agree with Borek. It seemed hugely unlikely that any citadel could have held out for nearly two hundred years against a siege by the ravaging armies of Chaos, even one held by such tenacious defenders as the dwarfs. Another possible explanation struck him.\n\n\"Isn't it possible,\" he ventured, \"that Karag Dum fell to the forces of Chaos and some warlord of the Dark Powers took it over and used it as his citadel? Perhaps the Chaos worshippers fight among themselves for possession.\"\n\nHe saw that all eyes were upon him. On some faces was written understanding, on some disappointment. It struck him that some of the dwarfs had hoped to find their lost kinsfolk down there, Gotrek included.\n\n\"That seems the most likely explanation,\" Borek said. \"And, if it is true, then there is very little for us to do here. We would be as well to turn this airship around and go home.\"\n\nAgain Felix sensed disappointment in the control room, this time greater than before. These dwarfs had come a long way, made great sacrifices in order to get here, and now their leader was telling them it might all have been in vain. Even so, the dwarfs all nodded their agreement. Except Gotrek.\n\n\"But it is not the only explanation,\" the Slayer said. \"We do not know it is the case for certain.\"\n\n\"True, Gotrek, but what would you have us do?\"\n\n\"Land someone in the citadel! Conduct the expedition into the depths we came to mount. Find out if any of our people yet live down there.\"\n\n\"I take it you are volunteering to do this.\"\n\n\"I am. We can wait until it's dark and then descend on the peak. If I remember your maps, there is a secret passage down from the cliff face. I can enter there and make my way down to the Underhalls.\"\n\n\"Snorri will go too,\" said Snorri. \"Can't let Gotrek grab all the glory. Good chance to smash some Chaos warriors as well.\"\n\n\"I will go too, uncle,\" Varek said suddenly. \"I would like to look upon the home of my ancestors.\"\n\n\"I suppose I'd better go as well. You'll need someone with half a brain down there,\" said another voice. Felix was shocked when he recognised it was his own.\n\n\"Before we do anything, let us take another look at what is going on below,\" said Borek. \"Perhaps then we will have a clearer idea of what is happening.\"\n\nThey took the airship down to just below cloud level and moved in a wide sweep round the mountain. As they did so, it became obvious that it was surrounded by not just one but four enormous armed camps.\n\nEach camp was dedicated to one of the great Powers of Chaos. Over the nearest fluttered the blood red pennants of Khorne. Over another hung the luminous banners of Tzeentch. Over the third, the polychromatic flags of Slaanesh pulsed and changed hue. The slime-dripping flags of Nurgle erupted from the pestilent horde at the fourth camp.\n\nAs they watched, it became obvious that the followers of the powers were wary of each other. Each camp was surrounded by a ditch, not just facing the peak but all around, as if the armies feared attack by each other. Here and there, along the boundaries, Felix was sure that he saw sporadic skirmishes being fought between some warriors.\n\nHe also saw that these camps were the final destination of all the Chaos worshippers which they had seen out in the deserts. They were arriving from all points of the compass and found their way to one or other of the camps. Felix was willing to bet that they were each seeking the camp of their own faction, and going to swell its ranks.\n\nHe supposed there was a certain warped logic to it all \u2014 if the four powers were all rivals and fought with each other as much as they did with anyone else. Given the friction that must exist between their followers it made sense to segregate them and minimise tension. Somehow, though, he could not help but feel that he was missing something.\n\nThen, even as he watched from the safety of the airship, he saw the army of Khorne muster along its border with the army of Slaanesh, and, with a mighty roar, fling itself into battle. It was plain these armies were here to fight with each other, as much as they were to besiege Karag Dum.\n\n\"We will wait for you for as long as we have food and then we will go,\" Borek said solemnly. \"We'll fly high and watch the peak through our telescopes. If you discover anything, make your way back up and fire one of Makaisson's green flares. We will come and get you as quickly as we can.\"\n\nFelix nodded and not for the first time checked the flares he had stuck in his belt. They were still there, along with the other equipment the dwarfs had given him: a compass, an ever-burning lantern that used one of their precious glowstones for illumination, several flasks of water, and another of vodka. He had a small sackful of provisions over his shoulder. He wore his mail coat once more and was glad of it.\n\nAnd not for the first time, too, he asked himself why he was doing this, and once more he discovered that he could not quite formulate a reason. It made much more sense to stick with the airship. At least that way, he could get home even if Gotrek and the others failed. Yet there was more to this than common sense. He and Gotrek had faced countless perils together, and despite the Slayer's quest for death they had always survived. Felix suspected that there was more than luck involved, some kind of destiny even, and that he would have a better chance of escaping alive from the Chaos Wastes in the company of the Slayer than on his own. At least he was trying to convince himself that this was the case.\n\nAnd at the end of the day there was his oath. He had sworn to follow the Slayer and record his doom, and he suspected that enough of dwarfish culture had rubbed off on him for him to take his promise very seriously. He glanced out of the window. Below them he could see the fires of the Chaos camps, and the shadowy figures which moved around them. Occasionally, too, he could hear the sounds of weapon on weapon as a brawl broke out.\n\nIt was night or what passed for it here in the Wastes. They had waited many hours for the sky to darken and eventually their patience had been rewarded. The airship too was dark, all the lights having been extinguished so as not to give away their position. The engines were being run with minimum power so as to make as little noise as possible. Ahead of them loomed the shadowy bulk of the peak. He hoped that Makaisson knew what he was doing and that they weren't going to smash into the mountain. Intellectually he knew that dwarfs could see much better in the dark than humans, but there was a difference between possessing that knowledge and believing it with all his heart, particularly at a moment like this, when his life was at stake.\n\n\"If you discover people still alive and want us to come for you, fire a red flare,\" Borek said. \"Understand?\"\n\n\"I understand,\" Felix said. It would have been difficult not to have. Borek had explained it all to them a dozen times during the long wait. The flares were another of Makaisson's inventions, a variant of the basic rocket which would leave a brilliant trail of a chosen hue behind itself.\n\nThe airship juddered to a halt. Felix knew that this was their signal to go. Gotrek led the way, swinging himself out of the hatch and down the ladder. Snorri followed him, humming happily to himself. Next came Varek. He paused in the opening and gave Felix a nervous grin and then he, too, vanished through the hatch. He had a sack of bombs strapped to his chest and Makaisson's strange gun slung over his shoulder. Felix wished he owned one of the weapons and knew how to use it, but it was too late to learn now. He took a deep breath, exhaled and let himself out onto the ladder.\n\nThe night wind bit into his flesh. It was cold in a way that he would never have expected in the middle of a desert. He told himself to be sensible. They were somewhere far to the north of Kislev. It was bound to be chilly. The ladder swung a little under the weight of the climbers and Felix's stomach lurched.\n\nSigmar, what am I doing here, he asked himself? How did I end up dangling from a flying machine designed by a maniac, hovering over the sides of a mountain on the slopes of which are camped a great army of thousands of Chaos warriors. Well, if nothing else, he told himself, it will be an interesting death. Then he gathered all his courage and continued the descent."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "The four of them stood on a ledge close to the peak, under the shadow of a protective wall. Felix glanced up to see the ladder being rolled back into the airship, and the vessel lifting skyward once more out of range of the Chaos horde's sorcerers. He strained his ears to see if he could pick up the sound of any sentries giving the alarm. All he could hear was Snorri humming.\n\n\"Stop that, please,\" he whispered.\n\n\"Sure,\" Snorri said loudly.\n\nFelix fought down the urge to hit him with his sword.\n\n\"This pathway should lead us to the Gate of Eagles,\" Varek murmured.\n\n\"Then let's get going,\" Gotrek said. \"We don't have all night.\"\n\nThey stopped by a monstrous statue of an eagle carved in the face of the rock. Gotrek reached down between the talons of its right claw and depressed a hidden switch. A small opening, just large enough for a dwarf to scramble through, opened in its base. They hurried through. Felix heard another switch click and the dim light of outside vanished behind them.\n\nHe felt Varek tug at his sleeve. They had already agreed that they would not shine any lights until they knew their way was safe. That way there would be nothing to give them away in the darkness. It was all right for the dwarfs, Felix realised, for they really could see in the dark but this plan left him blind and utterly reliant on them for guidance. Perhaps this had not been such a great plan after all. He reached out with his left hand to feel the cold stone of the wall, and then he followed where Varek led.\n\n\"There are many such secret escape routes out,\" Varek whispered. \"They were used as sally ports during sieges.\"\n\n\"What if traitors used them to break into the city,\" Felix asked.\n\n\"No dwarf would ever do such a thing,\" Varek said. Felix could hear genuine shock in the young dwarf's voice that anyone could even suggest such a thing.\n\n\"Quiet back there,\" Gotrek said. \"You want to attract the attention of every beastman and Chaos thing on the mountain?\"\n\n\"That's not a bad idea,\" said Snorri. There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like Gotrek's fist connecting with Snorri's head, then there was silence.\n\nLurk grinned. The pain was over. The long days of sweating and writhing in his makeshift burrow had ended. He no longer felt the pulsing ache in his skull and the wracking agony of every bone in his body being stretched. He had been purified by pain, reshaped by agony. He had been chosen by the Horned Rat, blessed by the Lurker in Unknowable Darkness, the Scurrying Lord of the Pit.\n\nHe knew instinctively that he had changed and that these changes were a sign of his master's favour. The warpstone dust had been merely a catalyst, an agent of change that carried the blessing of his god. He was bigger now, too big to fit into his crate, so large he had to hunker down to squeeze through the corridors. And he was strong. His shoulders were as broad as a rat-ogre's. His chest had become a barrel of muscle. His arms were now thicker than his legs once had been and his legs were pillars of pulsing power.\n\nHe felt like he could bend steel bars with his bare paws and rip through granite with his fangs.\n\nHis teeth were much longer and sharper now. His lower canines protruded like tusks and made it difficult for him to keep his mouth properly closed. Saliva dribbled constantly from the corners of his mouth.\n\nHis skull was heavier and it felt like the bones had erupted through his cheeks to create a mask of hard armour. Large, ram-like horns had emerged from his forehead. At the time they had caused him a splitting headache but now he could see that it was a mark of the Horned Rat's favour, a sign that he had truly been chosen, a blessing that marked him as different, special, superior. All his life he had known he was better than other Skaven, and now, at last, was the proof.\n\nLook at his tail \u2014 so long, so sleek, so supple and crowned with four spikes, a veritable mace of bone. Look at his claws \u2014 so much longer, so much sharper, each the size of a poniard. He had become a living engine of destruction fuelled by the hatred and hunger burning in his heart. He had nothing to fear from a non-entity like Thanquol. When he returned to Skavenblight it would be in absolute triumph. The Council of Thirteen itself would grovel at his feet. He would lead the assembled armies of skavenkind and crush everything that got in his way. The whole world would tremble and be conquered by the invincible, omnipotent Lurk.\n\nBut now he was hungry, and it was time to hunt. He could hear dwarf feet approaching. After listening for a moment, he realised that there was more than one of them. A deep rooted instinct told him that superior numbers were only a good thing when they were on your side. It was not sensible to attack a group of foes. Perhaps, he decided, he would wait a little longer, until there was just the one, and then\u2026 then he would reveal his awesome power."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "Felix heard the deep rumble of stone on stone as Gotrek pushed another switch. A gust of foul air passed his face and he guessed that the dwarf had opened another secret door. They moved swiftly forward and Felix heard the opening shift back into place behind them. He was not sure how it was done. He had not heard a second switch being thrown. Perhaps the mechanism was timed. Perhaps there was a pressure plate underfoot. He knew he should wait to ask another time. He might have to find his way back this way on his own, if he became separated from the others.\n\nThere was light up ahead, a dim and distant glow. It was subdued and occasionally it faded, only to return to brightness once more. It was not like the light of a torch, more like that of glowstone or a spell. By its faint illumination, he could now see the squat outlines of the dwarfs ahead of him.\n\nGotrek held up a hand to indicate that they should remain where they were and then moved forward silently alone, with a stealth that Felix would not have guessed he was capable of.\n\nHe was glad that the Slayer seemed to be taking their mission so seriously. It appeared that his need to learn the fate of the inhabitants of Karag Dum was overriding even his desire for a heroic death. And why not, Felix asked himself? The two were not mutually exclusive. If Gotrek wished to be remembered in dwarfish history, surely there would be no better way than being recalled as the saviour of these lost kinsfolk? Or did he have another, more personal motive? Felix knew he would never dare to ask.\n\nHe took another deep breath to calm himself. The air smelled fusty, and there was a hint of rot and something else in it. It was the same sort of scent he remembered in the harpy's lair back in the ziggurat, the rank odour of Chaos beasts. He heard Snorri sniffing and knew that the hammer-wielding Slayer had noticed it too.\n\nGotrek had reached the junction ahead and beckoned for them to follow. They hastened forward until they reached the opening and emerged into another long corridor.\n\nThe flickering light came from glowgems set in the ceiling. Some had been smashed, others removed. Those which had been left behind were cracked and worked only intermittently, sending shadows skittering away into the gloom.\n\nThe stonework reminded Felix of the dwarf architecture he had marvelled at in Karak Eight Peaks. The walls were supported by hewn blocks of basalt. Massive arches supported the high, arching roof. Each was a work of art. The nearest were carved with the likeness of two kneeling dwarfs, facing each other across the corridor, lifting the roof on their backs.\n\nThey must have been beautiful when they were made but they had been vandalised. The faces had been chipped off and parts of the stonework had been scored with blades. It angered Felix that someone could have defaced something into which an artist had placed so much labour.\n\nAs they crept down the corridor, he saw that the destruction was no isolated incident. Every last arch had been ruined in some way. Many had been blackened by fire or scorched by spells. Some looked as if they had been eaten away by acid.\n\nSlowly it dawned on Felix that he was not looking at mere wanton vandalism, but rather the evidence of a battle. A bitter conflict had been fought out in this corridor using all manner of weapons, natural and supernatural. They started to pass skeletons, still clad in armour and clutching weapons in their bony fingers. Some belonged to dwarfs, some to hideously mutated beastmen.\n\n\"Well, we know that the followers of Chaos got in,\" Varek murmured.\n\n\"Aye, and were met with cold steel by stout-hearted dwarfs,\" said Gotrek.\n\n\"But are any of them left alive now?\" Felix muttered.\n\nThe corridors carried them deeper and deeper into the depths. Some sloped downwards. Others brought them to steep stairwells. Everywhere there were signs of old battles. Mummified corpses lay everywhere. An aura of evil brooded over everything. Somewhere in the depths lurked a terrible presence. Felix fought hard to control the fear which had started to gnaw at him, the certainty that \u2014 round the next bend or at the bottom of the next flight of stairs \u2014 they were going to encounter something malign, supernatural and terrible.\n\nGotrek paused in one long hall, lined by titanic statues. Bodies were strewn everywhere but none of them belonged to dwarfs. All were of beastmen or Chaos warriors. One pair of bodies lay with swords through each other's ribs. They had killed each other with simultaneous strokes.\n\nGotrek gazed down on them thoughtfully. \"Here there was a blood-letting between the foul ones.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they fell out over the division of spoils.\"\n\n\"So where is the treasure, Felix?\" Varek asked.\n\n\"Carried away by the victors?\" Felix replied. He looked closer at the corpses and noticed that their insignia were different.\n\n\"Perhaps they followed different powers or rival warlords. Perhaps there was some kind of squabble between the victors.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Gotrek.\n\n\"Why is it so quiet here?\" Felix asked. \"There was an entire army outside, but we have seen no evidence of anyone since we got in here.\"\n\nGotrek laughed. \"This is one of the ancient dwarfholds, manling. It extends for leagues under the earth. There are hundreds of levels. The total length of the corridors and halls must come to thousands of leagues. You could lose an army the size of the one outside in a small corner of this city.\"\n\n\"Then how are we going to find any survivors which might be here?\"\n\n\"If any dwarf lives on down here, there are certain places where they will be, and we are heading there,\" Varek said.\n\nWith that, they pushed on into the darkness.\n\nIn many more places it was clear that the battles had not been fought between dwarfs and Chaos worshippers but amongst the followers of the Dark Powers themselves. Only occasionally did they come across signs that dwarfs had been involved in any of the warfare. It became increasingly evident from the bodies they found that there had been a war between the forces of Chaos. Here they found signs that the warriors of Slaanesh had fought against the berserk followers of Khorne. There they found evidence that the worshippers of Tzeentch had struggled with the plague-ridden servants of Nurgle. In one large hall, they came across a place where the followers of all four powers had fallen out and slaughtered each other.\n\nFelix found the gloom oppressive. It was depressing to wander through these endless, battle-scarred corridors and find the remains of old battles. He thought of that vast army camped outside. Who did they represent? What were they waiting for? It seemed senseless. He shrugged. Then again, why did that surprise him? The followers of Chaos were not sane as he measured sanity. Perhaps they fought for the unknowable amusement of their Dark Gods. Perhaps they fought for the amusement of the evil thing he sensed down here. Perhaps they, too, were only being allowed to proceed by some whim of whatever thing lurked down here. He wondered if the others felt this same uneasy sense of presence. He could not find the courage to ask them.\n\nAs they passed through gallery after echoing gallery, and chamber after high-ceilinged chamber, it became obvious that Gotrek was right. There was certainly room enough in here to house a dozen armies even if they were all the size of the forces gathered outside. He wondered what it must have been like to dwell here in an underground city like this in its heyday. Even before the followers of Chaos came, it must have been near-empty, for he knew the dwarfs were a dying race and had been so for millennia. Still, there must have been a time when these streets were filled with dwarfs buying and selling, laughing and crying, loving and living and going about their daily business. Now it seemed like a tomb, and the dead bodies of interlopers everywhere seemed like a desecration.\n\nGotrek knelt beside the goat-headed corpse before which he had suddenly paused. It was not like the others they had seen \u2014 it was still warm! Flesh still clung to its bones. Warm black blood formed a pool under it. Nearby lay other beastmen, all just as dead.\n\nFelix squatted for a better look. In life the beastman had not been pretty, and death had not improved its looks. It had the great head of a goat and the body of a man. Its furry legs ended in hooves. Its brow had been branded with the mark of Khorne. Its strange liquid eyes were glazed in death. They stared blankly up at the towering ceiling high overhead. A crossbow shaft protruded from its chest; another stuck out from its gut. One hand still clutched at the missiles which had killed it. The hand was beautifully formed, more like that of a monk than a monster, and Felix thought of how incongruous it looked on that bestial form. The beast stank of wet fur and the excrement and urine that it had released when it died.\n\nGotrek tugged at one of the crossbow bolts. It came free with a hideous sucking sound and a thin trickle of black blood oozed forth from where it had been. Gotrek turned the missile back and forth in his hand, studying it closely with his one good eye. Felix could not see what fascinated him so much about it. It looked well made but hardly any different from any other crossbow bolt he had seen.\n\n\"This is a dwarf weapon,\" Gotrek said eventually, and there was something which might even have been triumph in his voice.\n\n\"How can you tell?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Look at the manufacture, manling. No human ever made a point that fitted so well, or feathered a bolt so perfectly. Also, there are dwarf runes on the tip.\"\n\n\"So you're saying that these beastmen were killed by dwarfs?\"\n\nGotrek shrugged and looked away. \"Maybe.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the beastmen found one of the armouries,\" Varek suggested tentatively. He plainly didn't want to contradict Gotrek, and Felix could see that he hoped he was wrong. He wanted for there to be dwarfs down here and still fighting.\n\n\"When have you ever seen a beastman armed with a crossbow?\" Gotrek asked.\n\n\"It might have been a dark warrior.\"\n\n\"Or such a warrior armed that way, for that matter?\"\n\nIt was a fair point. In all of his encounters with the followers of the Dark Powers, Felix had never met one which used such a sophisticated weapon. Of course, that didn't mean there couldn't be a first time. He decided to keep that thought to himself. Instead he asked: \"How will we find these dwarfs then?\"\n\n\"Maybe Snorri should ask those beastmen,\" Snorri suggested from behind them.\n\nFelix's heart skipped a beat when he heard Snorri's words. He turned to look in the direction that the Slayer had indicated. Sure enough, there stood a band of at least twenty beastmen. For a moment, they looked just as surprised as Felix but then they recovered from their shock and raised their spears for the attack.\n\n\"Or maybe we should just kill them,\" Gotrek said, lowering his head and charging.\n\n\"No! Don't!\" shouted Felix \u2014 but already it was too late. Varek had started to turn the crank on his strange looking gun. A hail of bullets tore into the beastmen, killing two and dropping another pair. Howling with rage and frothing with berserk fury, the beastmen charged forward. Felix knew there was nothing for it now but to fight and most likely die in a futile skirmish with the Chaos worshippers. Snorri had obviously decided the same, for he had raised his weapons and begun to move forward as well. With the two Slayers blocking his line of sight, Varek started to move to a new position, hoping to out-flank the beastmen and pour fire into the side of their formation.\n\nFelix drew his blade and raced forward to aid Gotrek and Snorri. Before he could get into action, before the two sides had closed to within twenty strides of each other, a new hail of crossbow bolts hurtled out of the dark and scythed into the beastmen. The missiles fell like a dark rain. Felix saw one dog-headed monstrosity tumble with a bolt through its eye, tears of blood running down its cheek. Its chest was pin-cushioned with bolts even as it dropped. Another clutched its heart and fell, to be trampled below the hooves of its brethren. The beastmen's rush faltered as more and more of them fell. The survivors halted and looked around, desperately trying to see where the attack was coming from.\n\nGotrek, Snorri and Felix crashed into them and went through their line like an axe through rotting wood. Felix felt a shock run up his arm from the impact, then something warm and sticky was running over his hands. He pulled his blade free, kicked his chosen beastman to the ground and stabbed another. His sword took the surprised beastman in the shoulder, glanced up and lopped off an ear. Not waiting to draw his weapon back, he smashed the pommel into his foe's face and felt teeth break in its mouth. The beastman bellowed in pain, before Felix clubbed it down and stabbed it through the heart.\n\nAlmost before it had begun, the fight was over. Overwhelmed by the fury of their foes, the last surviving beastmen turned and fled. Felix could see that Gotrek had slaughtered four of them; their sliced remains lay at his feet. Snorri was jumping up and down on a corpse, happy as a child playing in a sandpit. A burst from Varek's gun chopped down the surviving beastmen even as they fled.\n\nFelix looked around, panting more with reaction to the sudden short combat than from the effort. He wanted to see whoever it was who had aided them and thank them.\n\n\"Be very still!\" said a deep, guttural voice. \"You are inches away from death.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "THE LAST DWARFS",
+                "text": "Felix froze. He tried not even to blink his eyes, let alone breathe. He had no doubts that whoever was lurking in the shadows meant what they said, and he had no desire to find his body bristling with crossbow bolts.\n\n\"Are you dwarfs?\" Varek asked, with what Felix thought was more curiosity than common sense.\n\n\"Aye, that we are. The question is: what are you?\"\n\nA massively broad-shouldered dwarf strode into view in front of them. He was garbed in leather armour, huge metal shoulder pads protected his upper torso. A winged helm with cheekguards shielded his face. Slung over his shoulder he carried a crossbow. A heavy warhammer dangled from a loop on his belt. He removed the helmet to peer at them and Felix could see that his face was craggy and his eyes were feverishly bright. His beard was long and black shot through with silver. There was an unnatural leanness about his face such as Felix had never seen in a dwarf before.\n\nHe sauntered around the four of them and inspected them with a casual air that was almost insulting. Felix could tell that Gotrek and Snorri had their tempers barely under control and if something was not done soon, murderous violence would ensue.\n\n\"Two of you look like Slayers,\" the newcomer said. \"One of you has the look of Grungni's folk. The other, the human, must die.\"\n\nAlmost before Felix realised that the dwarf meant him, the newcomer had unslung his crossbow and pointed it directly at his chest. Felix found himself staring at the glittering point of a crossbow bolt.\n\nAs if in slow motion he saw the stranger's finger begin to squeeze the trigger. He knew he could never throw himself aside in time but his muscles tensed for the attempt.\n\n\"Wait,\" Gotrek said softly and there was such a note of command in his voice that the newcomer froze. \"If you harm the manling, you will surely die.\"\n\nThe other dwarf laughed harshly. \"Those are brave words for one who is in no position to back them up. Tell me why should I spare him?\"\n\n\"Because he is a Dwarf Friend and a Rememberer, and if you kill him your name will live long in infamy and will be recorded in the Book of Grudges as a fool and a coward.\"\n\n\"Who are you to speak of the Great Book?\"\n\n\"I am Gotrek, son of Gurni, and if you cross me in this matter I will be your death.\"\n\nThere was cold certainty in the Slayer's voice that commanded belief. Gotrek added something in dwarfish, which caused the newcomer's face to flush and his eyes to widen.\n\n\"So you speak the Old Tongue,\" he said.\n\nFelix heard a shocked murmur from around the hall, and suddenly realised how many other dwarfs were watching them.\n\nIt seemed inconceivable that such a large force could have moved through the tunnels with such stealth. He risked glancing around and saw that several score of lean, weary looking dwarfs had emerged from the gloom. All of them had weapons pointed at the party, and seemed prepared to use them. He could see that their wargear all had the same look, as of something that had been patched and reused many times over.\n\nA brief spirited debate followed in dwarfish between Gotrek and the newcomers. Felix looked over at Varek. \"What is being said?\"\n\n\"These dwarfs think that we are agents of Chaos. They wanted to kill us. Gotrek has told them that we come from outside and that we can help them. Some of them don't believe it and say it is a trick. Their leader says that he cannot risk killing us and that it is a matter for his father, the king himself, to decide.\"\n\nTo Felix this seemed like a very bald summary of what was obviously an impassioned debate. Voices were being raised. Harsh guttural oaths were being sworn. Both Gotrek and the dwarfish leader had spat on the ground in front of each other's feet. It was an odd sensation to know that his very life hung in the balance and that he could neither say nor do anything to influence the decision. He was reminded of being on the airship during the great warpstorm. All he could do now was remind himself that they had survived that, and might survive this.\n\nVarek continued to mutter: \"It is only the fact that we speak the Old Tongue which keeps them from killing us out of hand. They do not want to believe that any follower of Chaos could have learned it. Certainly no dwarf would teach them.\"\n\n\"That's reassuring to know,\" said Felix.\n\nThe argument ended. The dwarf leader turned and spoke to Felix in strongly-accented Reikspiel.\n\n\"I do not know if this tale of flying ships and other wonders is true. I only know that this is too grave a matter for me to decide. Your fate is in the hands of the king, and he will pass judgement on you.\"\n\n\"I still say it's a trick, Hargrim,\" said one of the other dwarfs, an old, miserable-looking fellow with deep set eyes and a beard of pure grey. \"We know that the world outside is ruled by Chaos. There are no other dwarfholds left. We should kill these interlopers, not lead them deeper into our realm.\"\n\n\"You have had your say, Torvald, and my decision stands until the king himself overturns it. If the world has not been overrun by the forces of Chaos, this is indeed momentous news. It may be that we are not the last dwarfs.\"\n\n\"Aye, Hargrim, and it may be that we are fools and dupes of the Dark Powers. But as you say, you are our captain and on your head be it. There will be time enough to kill these outsiders soon, if they prove false.\"\n\n\"The king will know,\" Hargrim said. \"Come! Let us go. We have wasted enough time and I would not want to be caught in these halls if the Terror comes. Bind them and take their weapons.\"\n\nA group of dwarfs broke away from the main body and moved towards them. As they did so, Gotrek stepped forward menacingly.\n\n\"You will take this axe from my cold, dead hands,\" he said softly and with such menace in his voice that the dwarfs froze on the spot.\n\n\"That can be arranged, stranger,\" Hargrim said just as quietly. Gotrek raised his axe and the runes on the blade flashed in the dim light. The closest dwarfs gasped.\n\n\"He bears the weapon of power!\" Torvald gasped, and his voice held horror and wonder. \"It is the Prophesy. Those are the Great Runes. The Terror has returned and the axe of our ancestors has come back to us. The Last Days are upon us.\"\n\nA look of shock once more passed over Hargrim's face and he advanced towards Gotrek, his eyes fixed on the blade of the axe. As he read them, a great look of wonder appeared in his eyes.\n\n\"Where did you get this blade?\" the dwarfish captain asked, then added something in dwarfish.\n\n\"I found it in a cave in the Chaos Wastes many years ago,\" Gotrek replied slowly in Reikspiel. He appeared to be considering whether he should say more, then thought better of it.\n\n\"If you are truly a dwarf then you are favoured by the Ancestor Gods,\" Hargrim said. \"For that is a mighty weapon.\"\n\nGotrek grinned nastily and scratched one of the Trollslayer tattoos on his shaven head meaningfully. \"If the gods favour me, they have shown no great sign of it,\" he said dryly.\n\n\"Be that as it may, such a weapon does not find its way into anyone's hands by chance. You may keep your weapons for now, until the king declares differently.\"\n\nHargrim looked at Gotrek for a long time, and what might have been a thin smile creased his lips. \"It may be as Torvald says, Gotrek Gurnisson. It may be your coming was foretold. The king and his priests will know.\"\n\nHe turned to his troops. \"Come. We have far to go before we can rest, and we do not want to be caught abroad while the Terror stalks the Underhalls.\"\n\nHe glanced back at them over his shoulder. \"Come with us,\" he said. The four comrades moved into place behind him and marched off into the gloom.\n\n\"We will rest here,\" Hargrim said, holding up his hand to indicate that they should halt. At first Felix had no idea why the dwarf captain had chosen this spot. It seemed to be just another ruined hallway, like so many others they had passed through. Eventually, though, he noticed that there was a rune carved low in the corner of the wall, and a jet of water sprayed from the wall into a large cistern. This, at least, would be a place where they could drink.\n\nHargrim barked an order to one of his warriors and the dwarf moved forward. He produced a stone from his leather satchel and dipped it in the water. For a few moments, he stared into the cup and then nodded his head.\n\n\"The water is clear, captain,\" he said.\n\nHargrim noticed Felix's curious glance. \"Sometimes the outsiders poison the wells. Sometimes it contains Chaos stuff that causes madness and mutation. Mikal's runestone contains old enchantments that warn of such things.\"\n\n\"A useful thing to have,\" Felix said.\n\n\"No. An essential thing to have. Without it, sooner or later, we would all die.\"\n\n\"What is this Prophesy of which you spoke?\" Felix asked, determined to at least try and get an answer.\n\n\"It does not concern you,\" Hargrim said bluntly. \"It is for the king to test its truth. Best get some rest while you still may.\"\n\nWearily, the dwarfs threw themselves down to rest, except for four sentries who took up positions at each entrance to the room. Felix noted with approval the four exits from this chamber, so hopefully if danger threatened from any direction they would always have a line of retreat. He walked over and sat down beside Gotrek, Snorri and Varek.\n\nAll three of his companions seemed strangely elated. Felix thought he understood why \u2014 they had found their lost kinsfolk. There were still dwarfs alive in the Underhalls of Karag Dum. In defiance of all probability, a few still lived, even after two hundred years of isolation in the Chaos Wastes.\n\nHe lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, thinking of the journey they had made to get to this isolated place. It had not been easy. They had made their way further and further into the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Karag Dum.\n\nDuring the trip Felix had counted the number of dwarfs around him; there were nearly fifty. All of them wore leather armour and were lightly armed and armoured, very unlike the traditional dwarfish warriors he knew of. It seemed they travelled light and quickly through the halls of what once had been their city, and relied more on stealth and surprise for victory than on the strength of their arms. Tunnel fighters, Varek had called them.\n\nAs they travelled further, Felix came to understand why they were so lightly armoured. They passed through areas where the presence of Chaos was evident and signs of open war between the powers were visible all around. It looked like an insane and ferocious struggle was being fought here in the ruins of the dwarf city. He had asked Hargrim about this, but the dwarf had not replied. There were mysteries here, that was clear. He just needed to find someone who could explain them to him.\n\nWell, there was little sense in worrying about it now. He lay back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what Ulrika was doing now. In moments, he was asleep. The last thing he heard was the scratching of a pen, as Varek recorded the day's events in his book.\n\nAn eerie howling woke Felix from his sleep. It echoed down the great hallways and had penetrated his dreams, jerking him awake. There was something unnatural about the noise, something that evoked primal terrors. The mere sound of it sent shivers of fear running down his spine, and made his legs feel weak.\n\nAll around him the dwarfs had come awake. He could hear the clamour as they reached for their weapons. He glanced around and saw his fear was echoed on every face, save Gotrek and Snorri's.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked. \"The Terror?\"\n\n\"No,\" Hargrim said. \"It is the hounds.\"\n\n\"What are they?\" Varek asked.\n\n\"You will soon see,\" Hargrim said. He turned and spoke to his followers. \"I want ten volunteers to hold the hounds off, while the rest of us try to win clear.\"\n\nIt was obvious from the expressions on their faces that the dwarfs thought he was asking for volunteers for a suicide mission. Still, more than twenty of them stepped forward.\n\n\"I will stay,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"Snorri too,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"You cannot. I must get you away. King Thangrim must hear your story.\"\n\n\"It might be too late for that,\" Felix said glancing over his shoulder at the northernmost entrance. An enormous beast had leapt through the entrance. Before anyone could react, it ripped off the nearest sentry's arm with a single snap of its jaws and pulled another to the ground and disembowelled him with its claws. The beast moved so swiftly, with almost supernatural grace, that Felix was barely able to follow its actions.\n\nThrough the doorway several more huge beasts bounded. They resembled monstrous dogs with strange reptilian ruffles around their heads and great iron collars around their necks. Their flesh glistened, the colour of blood. Each was bigger than a man. One of them opened its mouth and bayed. As it did so, its mouth distended widely like that of a snake. It looked like it could take off a man's head with a single bite. Something about the daemonic creature made Felix want to turn and flee, screaming for help. He forced himself to stand his ground. He knew that if he ran the beast would simply overtake him and rend his flesh as it had the sentries'.\n\n\"Flesh hounds of Khorne,\" he heard Varek gasp. \"I thought they were only legends.\"\n\n\"Fire at will,\" Hargrim ordered. A hail of crossbow bolts hurtled towards the ravenous beasts. They opened their mouths and bayed mockingly. Most of the bolts simply ricocheted off their flesh and fell to the floor. As far as Felix could see only one had bit home. Varek fired and his bullets had no more effect than the crossbows. The hounds bounded forward, loping with a deceptively long easy stride which covered the ground faster than a horse could run.\n\n\"Stand back,\" Gotrek said and paced out to meet them. None of the dwarfs disobeyed. Felix could tell that they were just as affected by the creatures' supernatural aura as he was. Only Gotrek showed no sign of dismay. Felix noticed that the runes along his axe blade were glowing brighter than he had ever seen them do before. Even so, Felix wondered whether the Slayer would survive. The creatures were so fast and strong. They were upon him almost before he had a chance to realise it. Their huge jaws widened. Their metallic teeth glistened. Their triumphant baying reached a crescendo loud enough to wake the dead.\n\nGotrek's axe flashed forward like a thunderbolt. The first hound's armoured skin smoked and burned where the blade touched. The beast seemed almost to explode as the axe swept though it, cutting it in two, sending innards erupting all over the floor. The Slayer's next stroke impacted on a second hound's collar. Sparks flew as metal met metal. There was a hideous grating screech. The runes on Gotrek's axe glowed as bright as red-hot coals and the collar gave way. The flesh hound's head and neck parted company. The corpse flopped to the ground, molten ichor spilling out onto the floor. Another stroke cleaved a third flesh hound down the middle lengthwise, revealing skeleton and spine and ruptured organs.\n\nSurprised by the fury of the Slayer's attack, the remaining pack pulled back, snarling like wolves at bay. Then, with an eerie intelligence, they returned to the fray. Two flesh hounds attacked the Slayer simultaneously, one from each side. Gotrek dashed one's brains out with the axe and caught the other by the throat even as it leapt. Almost without effort the dwarf held the monstrous creature at arm's length, then he lifted it so high that its hind limbs scrabbled for purchase on empty air. He dropped it. Before it had touched the ground he has smashed through its ribs with the axe.\n\nThe last beast had circled right behind the Slayer and was about to leap on his back. \"Look out!\" yelled Felix but Snorri had already tossed his axe. It bounced from the creature's shoulder but the force of the blow distracted the flesh hound. It gathered its legs beneath it for the spring but even as it took to the air, Gotrek half turned and sent his axe slashing through a bloody arc which crunched through the creature's ribcage and ended in its stomach. The force of the blow flattened the flesh hound into the ground. Gotrek stomped on its neck. There was a hideous sound of grinding vertebrae and then the axe fell once more, ending the monster's unnatural life.\n\nThe corpses of the Chaos creatures started to bubble where they lay. For a moment flesh and bone melted and ran, evaporating like boiling water. Even as Felix watched, they turned into wisps of foul looking vapour which rose towards the ceiling, then disappeared. It was like they had never been there.\n\nFor a moment there was silence, and then the dwarfs burst into cheering and applause. After a few moments they seemed to remember who they were applauding and fell silent.\n\n\"If ever I doubted that was the Axe of Valek, I do so no longer. That was a fight worthy of King Thangrim himself,\" Hargrim said.\n\n\"It was easy,\" Gotrek said and spat upon the floor.\n\n\"We'd best be moving,\" Hargrim said. \"If the hounds were here, their foul master may be near, and however mighty you are, Gotrek Gurnisson, against that you cannot prevail.\"\n\n\"Bring it on and we'll see.\"\n\n\"No! Now more than ever I must bring you before the king. He must hear your tale.\"\n\nAfter the fight with the flesh hounds, Felix noticed a change in the dwarfs' attitude. They seemed to be more accepting of the four comrades, and less suspicious. Even old Torvald contented himself with only an occasional suspicious glance in their direction. They marched on through the endless silent corridors and even Felix could tell that they were descending all the time now. He wondered how long this could continue. After several more hours it seemed to him that they would keep going down until they reached the world's fiery heart but it was not to be.\n\nInstead they stopped in the middle of a long and seemingly featureless corridor. While his troops shielded him from view Hargrim manipulated a hidden switch which opened a small secret doorway. An opening appeared in the wall where none had been before. The dwarf gestured for the four comrades to enter, his face stern.\n\n\"Tread very carefully now. You are on sacred ground and we will kill you at the first sign of treachery.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "FIREBEARD",
+                "text": "Warily, Felix stepped through the entrance. This corridor seemed no different from the rest, save that the glowstones all functioned and the air smelled slightly cleaner. The rest of the warband hastily pushed in behind and the door swung shut behind them. Felix noticed that the dwarfs of Karag Dum relaxed visibly; conversely, Gotrek, Snorri and Varek appeared more excited. He could not tell why. Perhaps because they felt they were getting closer to their goal. It was not a feeling he shared. The long trek through the Underhalls had made him tense and nervous and he just wanted to find a place to lie down and rest.\n\nThis new corridor led into a winding maze of passageways. Every now and again Hargrim stopped and pressed a panel in the wall. He gave no explanation as to why, he simply did it and moved on.\n\nFelix looked at Varek to see if the young dwarf could tell him what was happening.\n\n\"Deadfalls. Pit traps. Defensive works of some sort, most likely,\" the dwarf said quietly, but was silenced by a nasty look from their guardians.\n\nThey passed maybe a dozen sentries at their posts, all of whom looked amazed at the sight of strangers from the outside world. Eventually they entered a monstrously long hall which was plainly inhabited by the dwarfs. This was a huge place with many exits. A well had been sunk deep into the floor in the far end of the chamber. The ceiling was low, with none of the vaulting of the magnificent halls they had passed through en route. A forest of enormous squat pillars propped up the roof. On each pillar was inscribed a strange symbol which hurt Felix's eye when he tried to read it.\n\n\"Runes of Concealment,\" Varek breathed from beside him. \"No wonder this place has survived so long.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" Felix said.\n\n\"These runes protect the halls from magical seekings, just as the concealed entrances protect it from normal sight. This place would be all but impossible for one who was not a dwarf to find unaided.\"\n\nFelix could see hooded and cowled dwarf women working at their chores. A few priests strode backwards and forwards, speaking words of comfort and reassurance, patting heads, invoking blessings. There were many warriors, a good number of whom were crippled. Some had hooks. Some stumped around on wooden legs. Some had bandages over their eyes indicating that they were blind. Felix had never seen so many maimed people together in one place before, not even on the beggar-filled streets of Altdorf. It certainly looked like these people had come out on the losing end of a war. Nowhere did he see any children in evidence.\n\n\"So few,\" Varek muttered. \"This was once a great city.\"\n\n\"Welcome to the Hall of the Well. Wait here,\" Hargrim said. \"I will bring news of your coming to the king.\"\n\nThe captain strode off through a huge archway and vanished somewhere into the recesses of the city. Many of those who had been working stopped and stared frankly at them. A few of the crippled beggars came over. One reached out and touched Felix disbelievingly.\n\n\"You are the first human ever to set foot in this citadel,\" he croaked.\n\n\"I am honoured.\"\n\n\"Ha! You may soon be dead,\" the crippled warrior said and turned away. The rest of the crowd moved in. One of the cowled women asked a question in dwarfish. Varek responded. The crowd emitted a collective gasp. One of the women burst into tears.\n\n\"They asked where we had come from,\" said Varek in answer to Felix's unspoken question. \"I told them we had come from across the Wastes, from the kingdom of the dwarfs.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" said another greybeard, and turned and stalked away. It looked like there were tears in his eyes. As they waited, the crowd did not disperse. It surrounded them and stared until Hargrim returned, accompanied by a group of fully armoured warriors, each of whom carried a rune-engraved weapon. The eldritch symbols burned with a mystic light. Felix knew enough about dwarfs by now to tell that these were powerful magical weapons. These longbeards were the best equipped dwarfs Felix had seen since entering Karag Dum. They marched with a precision that would have shamed the Imperial Guard in Altdorf. Their armour gleamed, and they moved with pride and discipline.\n\n\"The king will see you,\" Hargrim said. \"Now you will be judged.\"\n\n\"So we are to meet the legendary Thangrim Firebeard after all,\" Varek said. \"Who would have thought it?\"\n\nGotrek laughed nastily.\n\n\"I have never seen so many rune weapons,\" Varek murmured to Felix. \"Every one of those warriors carries one.\"\n\n\"We collected them from the dead,\" Hargrim said coldly. \"There have been so many dead heroes here.\"\n\nKing Thangrim's hall was vast. Huge statues of dwarf kings stood like sentries against each wall. More of the heavily armoured dwarf warriors stood immobile between the statues. The four newcomers were surrounded by an escort of the king's guard. They were taking no chances of this being an assassination attempt. Their weapons were drawn, and they looked as if they knew how to use them.\n\nA raised dais dominated the far end of the chamber. On the dais was a throne bearing a powerful and majestic figure wearing long robes over heavy armour. Two priests flanked the king. One was a priestess of Valaya. Felix could tell that by the fact that she carried a sacred book. The other was armoured and carried an axe, and Felix wondered if he was a priest of Grimnir, the warrior god.\n\nAs they came closer to the dais Felix got a better look at the dwarfish king. He was old, as old as Borek, but there was nothing feeble about him. He looked like an aged oak, gnarled but still strong. The flesh had fallen from his arms but still there were massive knots of muscle there, and his shoulders were broader even than Snorri's. His hair was long and red, although striped through with white. His beard reached almost to the floor and it, too, was white in places. Piercing eyes glittered in deep-set sockets. Felix knew that this dwarf might be ancient but his mind was still keen.\n\nThe weapon that sat upon the king's knees drew Felix's attention. It was a massive hammer, with a short handle. Runes had been cut into the head and something about them compelled the eye to look. He knew without being told that this was a weapon of awesome power, the legendary Hammer of Fate, which they had come all this way to find.\n\nThe guard parted in front of them to leave a path leading only to the throne. The four comrades advanced. Varek went down on one knee, making florid and elaborate gestures with his right hand. Gotrek and Snorri lounged arrogantly beside him, making no sign of obeisance. Felix decided to err on the side of caution; he bowed low, then knelt beside Varek.\n\n\"You are certainly impertinent enough to be Slayers,\" said the king. His voice was rich and deep and surprisingly youthful coming from that ancient throat. He laughed and his mirth boomed out through the chamber. \"I can almost believe that the cock and bull story you told Hargrim is true.\"\n\n\"No one calls me a liar and lives,\" Gotrek said. The flat menace in his voice caused the guards to raise their weapons in readiness.\n\nThe king raised a mocking eyebrow. \"And few indeed threaten me in my own throne room and live. Still I ask your forgiveness, Slayer, if that is what you be. We are surrounded by the servants of the Dark Powers. Suspicion is only wisdom under such circumstances. And you must admit that we have cause to be suspicious.\"\n\n\"That you have,\" Gotrek admitted.\n\n\"You have come to us claiming that you have voyaged here from the world beyond our walls. I would hear your tale from your own lips before I pass judgement. Tell it to me.\"\n\n\"I claim more than that,\" Varek said suddenly. \"I claim kinship with the folk of Karag Dum. My father was Varig. My uncle was Borek, whom you sent out into the world to seek aid.\"\n\nKing Thangrim smiled cynically. \"If what you say is true it took a long time for Borek to send aid, and you do not represent much of an army. Still, tell your tale.\"\n\nThe king listened attentively while Varek spoke, stopping occasionally to ask confirmation from Gotrek. He told the tale simply and well, and Felix was astonished at the power of his memory. He also noticed that as the dwarfs spoke the priestess of Valaya's eyes never left them, and he remembered that the priestesses were supposed to have the gift of knowing the truth. At the end of the tale, the king turned to the priestess.\n\n\"Well,\" he said.\n\n\"They speak true,\" she replied. There was an audible gasp from the warriors in the chamber. The king raised his hand and scratched his chin through his fine long beard. He considered them for a moment and then smiled grimly.\n\n\"Now tell me, Slayer, how you came by the Axe of Valek,\" said the king.\n\nGotrek's answering smile was as grim as Thangrim's. \"Its owner had no use for it, being dead, so I took it. Do you have a claim upon it?\"\n\n\"The person who carried that blade from here was my son, Morekai. He sought to cross the Wastes and find out if anyone still lived there.\"\n\n\"Then he is dead, Thangrim Firebeard. His corpse lay in a cave on the edges of the Wastes. It lay surrounded by the bodies of twenty slain beastmen.\"\n\n\"There was no one with him? He left here with twenty sworn companions.\"\n\n\"There was only one dwarf. I buried him according to the ancient rites, and being in need of a weapon at the time, I took this one. If it is yours, I will return it to you.\"\n\nThe old king looked down and grief entered his eyes. When he spoke again he sounded as old as he looked. \"So he died alone at the end.\"\n\n\"He died a hero's death,\" Gotrek said. \"He paved his road to the Iron Halls with the bones of his foes.\"\n\nThangrim looked up once more and his smile was almost grateful. \"Keep the blade, Slayer. Such a weapon is not owned. It has its own doom, and it shapes the destiny of its wielder. If it is in your hands now, it is there for a reason.\"\n\n\"As you say,\" Gotrek said.\n\n\"And you have given me much to think on,\" Thangrim said wearily. \"And my apologies for doubting you. Go now. Rest. We will talk again later.\"\n\n\"Prepare apartments for our guests,\" he shouted. \"And feed them of our finest.\"\n\nFelix could not help but notice that there was a note of bitter irony in the king's voice.\n\nFelix stared at the fish suspiciously. It was large and it looked well-cooked, yet there was something odd about it. After a few moment's consideration he realised that it had no eyes. The meat smelled good and everyone else was eating it, yet he kept thinking of the things he had seen in the Wastes, of the mutants and beastmen, and of all the things he had been told about warpstone dust. He just could not bring himself to eat a mutant fish, and he knew there was good reason for this.\n\nBy all accounts it was possible for mutation to be passed on through eating mutated food. It was said that the worst mutants were always cannibals who fed on other mutants. He had no desire to put this theory of mutation being contagious to the test.\n\n\"It's blindfish, manling,\" said Gotrek from across the table. Felix realised that the Slayer must have seen the look on his face and understood what was going through his mind. \"It is naturally this way. Dwarfs have feasted on it since long before the coming of the Darkness. You can eat it.\"\n\n\"It's a delicacy, actually,\" Varek added. \"In the dwarfholds we breed them. They dwell in the deep cisterns. We feed them on mushrooms and insects.\"\n\nSomehow this knowledge did not make the fish seem any more appetising. Unaware of the effect he was having, Varek continued to speak. \"They live in darkness. Some loremasters think that is why they have no eyes. They don't need them. Try some.\"\n\nFelix speared some on his knife and lifted the flesh up for examination. It was white and tender looking and when he tried it, it was delicious. He said so.\n\n\"It can be monotonous,\" said Hargrim, who was sat on the other side of him. \"We live on mushrooms and bugs and blindfish. There are times when I wish I could have something different.\"\n\nFelix dug into his pack and produced a strip of beef jerky. Hargrim looked at it just as suspiciously as Felix had inspected the fish. \"Try some,\" Felix said.\n\nHargrim took some and began to chew. Eventually he managed to swallow. \"Interesting,\" he pronounced carefully.\n\nSnorri laughed. \"Now the blindfish doesn't taste so bad after all, does it? Here try some of this to wash it down.\"\n\nSnorri handed over a flask of Kislevite vodka. Hargrim swigged it down. For a moment, he looked like he might actually cough but then he recovered and smacked his lips and took some more. \"That's better,\" he said.\n\nFelix emptied his pack onto the table. There was waybread and cheese and more jerky. It added to the mushrooms cooked in blindfish oil, the blindfish itself and the jugs of water. \"Help yourself,\" he said.\n\nHargrim did so.\n\nWith the speed the provisions disappeared Felix was glad that Hargrim was the only one of the local dwarfs who had joined them at their table.\n\nFelix looked around the room. It was richly furnished with thick but worn carpets and drapes, fine dwarfish statuary and a merchant's ransom in silver and gold. It was one of the royal apartments. Each of the comrades had been given a similar one. Felix supposed that was one good thing about the casualties the dwarfs had suffered: there was plenty of room. He pushed the thought aside as unworthy and realised that he was getting drunk.\n\n\"I still cannot believe that we have strangers here,\" Hargrim said. From the flush on his face, Felix could tell that the captain was inebriated as well. \"It astonishes me. For so long we thought we were the last dwarfs in the world. We thought Chaos had overrun everywhere else. We sent out messengers and scouts into the wilderness but they never returned. It all seemed so hopeless and now you arrive and tell us that there is a whole world beyond the Wastes, that Chaos was thrown back, that the Empire and Bretonnia and all those other places of legend still exist. It hardly seems possible that others have survived these past twenty years without us knowing it!\"\n\n\"Twenty years?\" spluttered Felix and Varek almost simultaneously.\n\n\"Aye! Why do you look at me that way?\"\n\n\"It has been two hundred years since the last incursion of Chaos!\" Felix said.\n\nHargrim looked at him in astonishment. \"That cannot be!\"\n\n\"Time flows strangely in the Chaos Wastes,\" Varek reminded them.\n\n\"Strangely indeed,\" said Felix, remembering what Borek had told him of the odd powers of the place. Could the Dark Powers warp even the flow of time, he wondered, or was this some strange property that the Wastes themselves possessed?\n\n\"Believe me,\" Varek said to Hargrim, \"Here in Karag Dum only twenty years may have passed but beyond the Wastes it has been centuries, and there Chaos was thrown back.\"\n\n\"How did it happen?\"\n\n\"Magnus the Pious rallied men and dwarfs to his cause, and broke the hordes of Chaos at the Siege of Praag, in Kislev. Eventually the followers of the Dark Ones were driven back to beyond Blackblood Pass.\"\n\n\"And yet no one ever came to relieve us,\" said Hargrim, and he sounded almost bitter.\n\nFelix did not know what to say. \"Everyone thought Karag Dum had fallen. The last reports were of the city being overrun by the hordes of Chaos.\"\n\nGotrek surprised him by speaking. \"No one knew what had happened. The Chaos Wastes had retreated but they had still advanced beyond where they once had been. They always do. Karag Dum was cut off. No one could find a way through. It was tried, believe me. Borek sought long and hard for a way to return.\"\n\n\"I do believe you, Gotrek, son of Gurni, for I have seen the Wastes, looked out from our highest towers, and I know they stretch as far as the eye can see. I have fought the warriors of Chaos and know they are as uncountable as flakes of snow in a blizzard. We have so few warriors that we soon stopped trying to get messengers out. Many were captured and hideously tortured.\"\n\n\"How have you survived?\" Varek asked \u2014 somewhat tactlessly, Felix thought. Still he was glad the young dwarf had asked the question. He wanted to know the answer himself. Hargrim shook his head.\n\n\"With great difficulty,\" he said at last and smiled wearily, \"But that is not a fair answer my friends. The answer is that our foes are divided and we hide and fight them as we may.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Gotrek asked.\n\n\"Tell Snorri about the fighting,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"After the last great siege, when the forces of the Enemy used terrible sorcery to break our walls, we retreated deeper and deeper into the mines, determined to sell our lives dearly and make them pay for every inch of dwarfish territory with blood. Our people divided up into their clans and hosts and made their way to the secret fastnesses we had prepared against such a day.\"\n\n\"Like this one,\" Felix said.\n\n\"Precisely. We retreated under the earth, to places shielded by runes of power, and we emerged into the debated halls to raid and fight and we discovered a strange thing\u2026\"\n\n\"What was that?\" Gotrek asked.\n\n\"We found that the forces of Chaos had fallen out with each other. We did not know then but we found out from captured prisoners that their supreme leader, Skathlok Ironclaw, had been drawn away to a battle in the south, and that his lieutenants, each of whom followed a different power, had fallen into dispute over the spoils.\"\n\n\"When was this?\" asked Varek.\n\nHargrim gave a date in dwarfish which meant nothing to Felix.\n\n\"It was the Imperial Year 2302,\" Varek translated. \"At about the time of the Siege of Praag.\"\n\n\"If this was the case, why did you not drive them from the city?\" asked Gotrek. Hargrim laughed and there was no mirth to his laughter.\n\n\"Because there were still so few of us left, son of Gurni. After the Great Siege we numbered less than five thousand warriors, and those were split between five hidden citadels. Even with the majority of their warriors gone, our foes numbered ten times that and divided though they were, we knew they would unite to fight against us if we emerged in strength. So, over the years, we learned to sally forth in small groups and pick away at our enemies. It was not a good strategy, as we later learned.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked Felix.\n\n\"Because for every one of their warriors who fell, another one would appear. For every warband we destroyed, two more would come in from the Wastes. But when we lost a warrior we could never replace him. We may have killed twenty for every stout-hearted dwarf we lost, but in the end we had no way of replacing our losses, and they did.\"\n\n\"I can understand this,\" said Felix. \"There are many warriors out in the Wastes, and this is a worthy citadel and would provide them with shelter.\"\n\nHargrim shook his head sadly. \"You do not understand the followers of Chaos at all well, if that is what you think, Felix Jaeger. They came here because there was treasure here \u2014 gold and dwarf-made weapons, and most of all the black steel they covet for the making of their armour and the forging of their foul weapons. They came here because they knew they would find others to fight of their own kind, and thus win glory in the eyes of their insane gods. This place has become a kind of testing ground for the warriors of Chaos, where they can find others to slaughter in order to advance themselves.\"\n\nHargrim's words made sense to Felix. He had occasionally wondered where the Chaos warriors got their weapons. He had seen no sign of foundries or factories or any kind of manufacturing since they entered the Wastes, yet the followers of the Dark Powers must get their gear from somewhere. He had simply assumed that it was the product of sorcery or bartered from renegade human smiths but now he saw another answer. Here at Karag Dum was ore and all the equipment produced by dwarfish industry. If some of the things he had heard were true, this one hold could produce more steel than the whole Empire. He voiced his suspicions at once.\n\n\"You are correct, Felix Jaeger. We tried to destroy all the forges and furnaces and anvils we could not dismantle and carry into the hidden places, but we did not have enough time to get rid of them all. Some were seized by the followers of the Ruinous Powers. Some were repaired using black and incomprehensible magics. Now the mines are worked by hordes of beastmen and mutant slaves, and mage-priests oversee the manufacture of weapons and armour.\"\n\n\"If this place could be retaken, it would be a terrible blow to the powers of Chaos. For where else would they get their weapons?\" Felix said in drunken excitement.\n\n\"Perhaps. Perhaps not,\" Hargrim said. \"The Chaos worshippers must have other mines and other foundries now and empty as Karag Dum now seems it is still well held.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"It is not now as it was in the early days. Many warriors of Chaos have come here and hold their own small fiefdoms. There are entire towns in the Underhalls now which are dedicated to the worship of one of the four Powers of Darkness. They each have their own liege lords and armies. They trade ore, weapons and armour to those outside. They exchange swords for slaves, spearpoints and arrowheads for their disgusting food, armour for magical devices.\"\n\n\"You said there were other dwarf fastnesses in Karag Dum,\" Varek said.\n\n\"Gone now,\" Hargrim said. \"Over the years, they have been wiped out. Those of their people that survived made their way here. Most did not. Many have been hunted down by the Hounds of Khorne as they fled. Others would not come here lest they led the followers of the Terror to our last haven.\"\n\n\"The Terror?\" Felix said.\n\n\"Of that it is best not to speak,\" said Hargrim. \"For it is our doom. When first it came it took the lives of hundreds of stout warriors. Our runemaster gave his life to drive it off. Now that it has returned I doubt that anything can stop it \u2014 although your axe gives me some hope, Gotrek Gurnisson.\"\n\nFelix's heart sank as he saw Gotrek and Snorri exchange glances. He knew that Hargrim had aroused the Slayer's professional interest. Hargrim saw this too and shook his head.\n\n\"Tell me: what do you think King Thangrim is thinking about?\" Felix asked, just to change the subject. \"Do you think it likely that he will send messengers to the outside world.\"\n\n\"I do not know, Felix Jaeger. I think it likely that we will all die here.\"\n\nAfter that there was silence for a minute, and then Gotrek spoke: \"I wish to know more of this creature known as the Terror.\"\n\n\"This does not surprise me,\" Hargrim said, looking up and inspecting the dwarf's tattoos. \"You wish to hunt it?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"That would not be wise.\"\n\n\"It is not a question of wisdom. It is a question of my doom.\"\n\n\"And Snorri's,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"Spoken like true Slayers,\" Hargrim said. \"Very well. I will tell what I know of this fell creature It is a daemon of Chaos, potent and deadly. It was summoned by Skathlok in the last days of the siege and he treated it not as a master treats a servant but as a warrior treats his king. It came upon us at the south-west gate after that was thrown down and none of us could stand against it. It slew a dozen heroes armed with potent rune weapons. It almost slew King Thangrim himself when he faced it in the Hall of Shadows. They exchanged blows for mere moments but it had the mastery. He could not believe its strength.\"\n\nGotrek reached down and grabbed his axe. A gleam had come into his eye. \"It must be strong indeed to withstand the Hammer of Fate.\"\n\n\"Stronger than anything it is, Gotrek Gurnisson. More fell by far than the three orc chieftains of the Red Fang. More dangerous than the three ogre mages of Ventragh Heath. Deadlier even than the dragon Glaugir, for all its poison breath. I speak without boasting when I say I have stood beside my liege as he measured himself against mighty foes, but this vile thing was by far the mightiest. I doubt that in the full pride of his youth, even so great a warrior as Thangrim Firebeard could have overcome it.\"\n\n\"How then was it beaten?\" asked Felix, licking his lips nervously. \"How did you survive to tell us this tale.\"\n\n\"It was not beaten, it was driven off when our high Runesmith Valek smote it with the sacred axe you carry, then invoked the Rune of Unbinding. Such a wound it was that anything but a creature so great would have died instantly. This thing merely withdrew into the deepest depths of the mountain, near its fiery heart. It must have brooded down there for many years, recovering its strength, for now it has returned. As it prophesied.\"\n\n\"Prophesied?\"\n\n\"Even as it disappeared, it told us it would return to be our doom. It told the king that one day it would return and tear out his heart with its claws and devour it before his still-living eyes, and he told Thangrim that this was his doom. And all of us who heard it believed this prophesy, for there was a flat truth in its voice.\"\n\n\"It was a daemon,\" Felix said softly. \"Daemons have been known to lie.\"\n\n\"Aye, but this one gloated as it spoke and we knew that it intended to work our ruin in its own time and way. Some of the warriors even suspect that this is why we have been allowed to survive for so long. And our Runesmith Valek also spoke a prophesy before he died. He told us to fear not, for his axe also would return to us when the Last Days came. Many of us wondered about this prophesy, for how could the axe return to us when it was destined to remain hidden in our fortresses. Then the king's son took the axe and we thought it lost. And lo, you have returned it to us but a score of days after the Terror returned.\"\n\nHe looked meaningfully at Gotrek's axe. \"You can see why your coming has disturbed the king.\"\n\n\"How did Valek invoke this Rune of Unbinding?\" Gotrek asked.\n\n\"I know not. He was a runesmith and knew many secrets. I only know that he summoned its power and it killed him, consuming his life even as it banished the daemon. The axe you bear is old and potent beyond all reckoning. It passed from runesmith to runesmith from the most ancient times. Its full history was passed only from bearer to bearer, but with Valek's death the tale was lost. His son and apprentice fell before him in that final battle. The king's son, Morekai, took it from the runesmith's smouldering corpse and bore it away with him when he tried to cross the Wastes.\"\n\n\"Then without the Rune of Unbinding this creature cannot be beaten?\" Felix asked.\n\n\"Who can say. That weapon is potent indeed even without the Rune of Unbinding. Perhaps in the hands of a warrior sufficiently strong\u2026\"\n\n\"Describe this daemon,\" Gotrek said.\n\nHargrim leaned forward drunkenly and rested his chin on his fist. For a moment he smiled a smile empty of all humour. Then he sank into reverie and gazed off into the distance, as if looking once more on a sight he would rather not see.\n\n\"Huge it was,\" he said eventually. \"More than twice the height of a tall man. Vast were its wings. Vast and bat-like, and when it unfurled them there was a crack like thunder. In one hand it bore a terrible whip. In the other an axe emblazoned with evil and eldritch runes that hurt the eye to look upon. Its eyes burned with infernal fire. Horns crowned its bestial head. On its brow was the mark of the Blood God.\"\n\nAs Hargrim spoke, a silence and a chill spread across the chamber. Felix began to have a terrible suspicion that he knew what the dwarf was describing. It was a creature that was hinted at in the old books he had read about the time of Chaos. It was indeed a creature worthy to be known as the Terror.\n\n\"A Blutdrengrik,\" said Gotrek quietly.\n\n\"The Bane of Grung,\" Varek mumbled, tugging nervously at his beard.\n\n\"A Bloodthirster of Khorne,\" Felix whispered, and felt the cold hand of fear touch his spine. He had just named the deadliest, most violent and implacable creature ever to emerge from the nethermost pits of Hell. A daemon second only to the Dark God it served in its mythical powers of destruction. A being which even the mightiest would fear to face.\n\n\"Let's go and kill it,\" said Snorri.\n\n\"Let's have another drink first,\" Felix said, hoping to dissuade the Slayers from this foolish quest for as long as possible."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "Felix awoke with that same feeling of disorientation which he had become quite familiar with over the years. He was in a strange place, looking at a strange ceiling and he felt somewhat nauseous. It took him a few moments to get his rebellious mind and stomach under control and to work out where he was. When he managed to do so, he wished he had not.\n\nHe was deep underground in a chamber in a ruined dwarf citadel, somewhere deep in the Chaos Wastes. And he had a hangover. Surely there were few worse fates that could befall a mortal man, he told himself. He pulled himself up off the sumptuous but rather fusty smelling and too short bed, pulled on his boots and strode out into the corridor to find something that would settle his stomach. As he did so, he was greeted by one of the king's armoured guards who informed him that his presence was required in the throne room. Immediately.\n\nFelix realised that he had indeed found a worse fate. Not only was he stuck in this terrible place but he had to face an old and irascible dwarfish tyrant on an empty stomach. Stifling a groan he followed the guard.\n\n\"We cannot leave this place,\" said King Thangrim Firebeard. \"There are too many of us. According to what you have told me there is not enough room in your ship for more than an extra dozen people at most. There are several hundred of my people here. It would be unfair to chose some to go and some to stay.\"\n\nFelix had to admit the old dwarf had a point. He had arrived in the ruler's chamber only to find the others already being grilled by the old despot. Apparently Varek had suggested that the people of Karag Dum should leave their ancestral home. Thangrim had raised a few cogent objections.\n\n\"It would only be a temporary measure, your majesty,\" Varek said. \"Once we had flown those people back to the Lonely Tower we could return with a skeleton crew and take more. We could continue to ferry them back until we had taken everyone. It is possible.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But you have told me that even flying across the Chaos Wastes is perilous. Perhaps your ship will crash.\"\n\n\"Surely, your majesty remaining here with the forces of Chaos pounding upon your doors is more perilous. It is only a matter of time before you are hunted down and destroyed.\" Varek was becoming impassioned and flustered. His eyes were large and round behind the lenses of his glasses.\n\n\"You do not understand, youngling. We have here wives and wounded. We cannot simply abandon them or send them away with but a small escort. You know how perilous the halls are. You have seen them. It would take many warriors to guard them, and there is not enough room on your ship for them and the escort.\"\n\n\"The escort could return to your halls,\" Varek said. \"They are warriors. They have done this before.\"\n\n\"Your point is a fair one but eventually we would have to move our ancestral hoards. These are no small treasures, and not a gold piece or trinket will I leave behind for the despoilers.\"\n\nFelix spoke up for the first time. \"But surely gold means nothing when the lives of your people are concerned, your majesty.\"\n\nEvery dwarf present looked at him as if he was either deranged or profoundly stupid. No one even bothered to answer him. Felix wished the floor would open up and swallow him. He should have known better than to try and make such a rational argument to dwarfs when gold was being discussed.\n\n\"Could we carry away our father's treasures on your one small ship?\" Thangrim asked.\n\n\"From what I have heard about your hoard, may it ever grow and prosper, I doubt it.\"\n\n\"Then how can you expect us to leave this place while we have blood left in our veins?\"\n\n\"Perhaps we could return with more than one airship, great king,\" Varek said. \"Perhaps we could return with enough craft to carry all your people and all your hoard.\"\n\n\"If you could, I would see that you were suitably rewarded. Let me think on what you have said. You may go.\"\n\nVarek rose to go and Felix moved to join him. He felt a vague sense of relief at being about to leave the king's presence \u2014 and at the prospect of getting some food.\n\n\"Thangrim Firebeard,\" Gotrek said. \"I crave a boon.\"\n\n\"Tell me what it is, Gotrek Gurnisson.\"\n\n\"I wish to seek out this creature you call the Terror, and either slay it or find my doom.\"\n\nKing Thangrim smiled down at Gotrek and appeared to consider his request.\n\nAt that moment, however, a distant horn sounded. A few heartbeats later a dwarf raced through the entrance of the throne room and advanced at once to the king. Thangrim gestured for the messenger to come closer and then listened to his whispered words. When the new arrival had finished speaking, his face looked grim indeed.\n\n\"It appears it will not be necessary for you to seek the monster out, Gotrek Gurnisson. It is coming here now \u2014 and it brings with it an army.\"\n\nWonderful, thought Felix, and I haven't even had a chance to grab my last meal."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "BLOODTHIRSTER",
+                "text": "\"The hordes of Chaos come again,\" King Thangrim said. \"Sound the war-horns. We muster for battle.\"\n\nThe king raised himself from his throne and lifted his great warhammer up high. In that moment Felix could see a glittering aura like lightning playing around the head of the weapon. The air was filled with the smell of ozone.\n\nThe king's guard cheered heartily but Felix sensed a deep uneasiness behind their show of courage.\n\n\"This is good,\" Gotrek said.\n\nThis is very bad, thought Felix, contemplating the oncoming hordes of Chaos, led by a daemon of unspeakable power. He wondered how he could ever have thought things were bad when he got up this morning. All he had to worry about then was a hangover. Now he had much worse things to concern himself with.\n\nThe king strode down the steps accompanied by his priests, and made his way out into the hall. His guards fell into step behind him. Outside in the Hall of the Well, dwarf folk were hastily assembling. Warriors rushed out of every entrance. Some buckled on shields and weapons. Others had breastplates half-strapped to their chests and were hastily tightening fastenings as they assembled. As Felix watched, he saw one old warrior jam a helmet onto his head, spit on the floor and make a few practice swipes with his axe. Seeing Felix looking at him, he gave him a thumbs-up sign.\n\nOut of the corner of his eye, Felix saw Hargrim assembling his tunnel fighters. They too were strapping on heavier dwarfish armour. It seemed that the time for stealth was over and now they wanted the heaviest protection they could get. Felix did not blame them. His own chainmail shirt suddenly seemed woefully inadequate when he remembered the vast mass of bestial warriors he had seen during the approach to Karag Dum, and when he thought of the legendary deadliness of the Bloodthirster.\n\nBut what else was there to do but fight? He drew his own enchanted blade from the scabbard and strode over to where Hargrim stood. \"How did they find us?\" he shouted to make himself heard over the din of dwarfs preparing for battle.\n\n\"I know not. Perhaps they found the place where we killed its hounds. Mayhap others of his foul pack found our scent. What does it matter? It is the Prophesy. The Last Day is upon us.\"\n\n\"Try not to be so cheerful,\" Felix said, and glanced around to see where Gotrek, Snorri and Varek were. He could see the Slayers standing near the king. Varek was nowhere to be seen. Felix wondered where he had gone. He realised that whatever happened in this battle, his place was beside his companions. If nothing else, he knew he had no chance of finding his way out of these halls on his own. Any of the others could probably manage it blindfolded.\n\nOn the other hand, he was probably being far too optimistic imagining there would be any chance of escape whatsoever. Snorri and Gotrek would never leave while the Bloodthirster was present, but he doubted that even those two formidable warriors could prevail over so mighty a daemon.\n\n\"Good luck!\" he shouted to Hargrim and raced over to where the Slayers stood.\n\n\"May Grungni, Grimnir and Valaya watch over you, Felix Jaeger,\" Hargrim said and returned to bellowing orders to his troops.\n\nNow from out of the access tunnels came the sounds of battle: the brash echo of horns, the clash of weapons, and the bellowing of something hideous echoed down the corridors. The dwarfs had finished their dispositions and their line of battle was drawn up across the Well Hall. There were certainly more dwarfs here than had defended the Lonely Tower, but that was not a reassuring thought. Compared to the numbers their attackers could summon, they were pitifully few.\n\nFelix looked up to where King Thangrim stood, carried on a shield held by four bearers. \"They have breached the outer gate,\" said the king. \"Our sentries will hold them for a while.\"\n\nLooking beyond Thangrim, Felix could see that the women and those too aged and wounded to fight were disappearing through an entrance he had not seen before. Once the last one had gone through, the doorway was sealed behind them, and it was done so cunningly that no sign of the hidden exit remained.\n\n\"They go to the vaults with our hoard, to wait out the final battle,\" Thangrim said. \"If we are victorious they will be freed. If not, they die.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The vaults can only be opened from the outside,\" Gotrek said. Felix was suddenly glad he had not tried to flee through those doors. He could think of nothing worse than huddling in the gloomy vaults, waiting to die of suffocation or starvation while the battle raged outside. At least out here, he would have some control over his fate, and when death came it would be quick. He hoped.\n\nHe could see Varek returning now. The young dwarf had Makaisson's gun strapped to his chest and carried a bag full of bombs. He moved with a purposefulness that Felix had never seen in him before as he raced up and came to a stop beside Felix.\n\n\"Hold this for a moment,\" Varek said to Felix and handed him the gun. Felix sheathed his sword and took it, surprised by how heavy it was, and by the ease with which Varek had handled it. Varek produced his book and pen, and began to inscribe a few notes on its pages. Seeing Felix's astonished look, he said: \"Just a last explanation. In case someone comes upon this later. Well, we can but hope, eh?\"\n\nFelix forced himself to smile, but it came out shakily. \"I suppose so.\"\n\nIn the distance the clamour reached a peak and then there was a bestial roar of triumph. Felix guessed things had not gone well for the dwarf sentries.\n\nThangrim had started to shout in dwarfish. Felix could not understand a word he was bellowing but the dwarfs seemed to like it. They cheered him mightily, even Gotrek and Snorri. Only Varek did not add his voice to the resounding chorus, for he was too busy writing.\n\nFelix kept his eyes glued to the doorway through which he knew their foes would come. He knew that several hundred crossbow-toting dwarfs were doing the same thing. But still this did not reassure him. He had an oppressive sense of approaching doom. Fear gripped his heart. A shadow lay on his soul. He knew that something terrible was approaching.\n\n\"Bet Snorri kills more beastmen than you, Gotrek,\" said Snorri.\n\nGotrek grunted derisively. \"The manling will kill more beastmen than you,\" Gotrek replied.\n\n\"Want to bet on that, Felix?\" Snorri asked.\n\nFelix shook his head. His mouth was too dry for him to form a response. Terror had started to take root in his mind, a paralysing fear that shook the foundations of his sanity and made him want to find a dark corner in which to hide himself and whimper. Part of his mind told him that this was unnatural, that he should not feel such fear, but it was still hard to fight against it. There was something in that hideous roaring that turned his blood to water.\n\n\"Just remember, Snorri,\" Gotrek said. \"The daemon is mine.\"\n\n\"Depends if Snorri gets to it first,\" said Snorri with a grin.\n\nFelix found he could not bear to look at the entrance anymore so he glanced at Gotrek and Snorri. Even the Slayers were tense, he could tell. Gotrek's knuckles were white from gripping the haft of his axe so tightly. Snorri's hand trembled a little where he clutched his axe. Seeing Felix looking at him, he grinned. He appeared to make an effort to calm himself, and the trembling stopped.\n\n\"Snorri's not worried,\" Snorri said. \"Much.\"\n\nFelix grinned back, knowing how unnatural he must look. He felt like the skin of his face was too tight and as if all his hair was trying to stand on end like a Trollslayer's crest. He was probably pale as death too, he thought.\n\nSuddenly, just for a moment, everything fell silent. In the eerie stillness all Felix could hear was the scratching of Varek's pen. Then even that stopped and Felix felt a tug on his arm and realised that Varek was asking for his gun back. Felix gave it to him, and unsheathed his sword once more.\n\nThe roar which shattered the silence was so loud and so terrifying that Felix almost dropped his blade. He looked up and fought down the urge to soil his britches. The most frightening thing he had ever seen had entered the hall and behind it he could see the leering heads of hundreds of beastmen.\n\nAs he gazed on the creature in wonder and in terror, Felix thought: this is what a daemon looks like. This is the incarnate nightmare which had bedevilled my people since time began.\n\nHe knew now that there was something magical about the terror the thing inspired. It was the unnatural aura of something which had crept forth from the nethermost pits and which no mortal being could help but sense and respond to. In some ways it hurt the eyes simply to look upon the Bloodthirster. Its very appearance told you it was made from no natural substance. The charnel stink of the thing was worse than anything he could have imagined. It reeked of rotting meat and congealed blood and other less describable and far more loathsome things.\n\nIt looked as Hargrim had described it. It was far taller and far heavier than Felix. Vast bat-like wings flexed on its shoulders. It was as muscular as a minotaur. In one hand it held a great coiled whip, in the other a terrifying axe larger than a man's body. Its skin was ruddy red and its face was savage and bestial. And yet of all the Bloodthirster's features, it was its eyes which Felix knew he would never forget.\n\nThey were like pools of infinite darkness out of which a malign and ageless intelligence gazed. Somewhere in those unknowable depths flickered red fires of savage hatred, an insane ferocity that would overthrow the order of the entire universe if it could, in order to try and sate a bloodlust that could never be satisfied. Here was a creature that had looked upon the birth and death of worlds, and might look out on the death of everything. Compared to its life, his own existence was less than the life of a mayfly. Compared to its strength and savagery and cunning, he was less than nothing.\n\nAnd yet looking on, Felix felt his fear start to drain away. After all, embodied terror that it might be, it really was not as bad as he had imagined it would be. It could never be as fearful as the nightmare thing his own brain had been conjuring up mere heartbeats before. It was awe-inspiring, mystical and potent to be sure but he felt now that he had seen it, he could fight it, and glancing at the others he knew that they felt the same. In a way, he was not too sorry to look upon the thing, even if it caused his death. He knew he had now seen something that few men ever would, and there was a certain satisfaction in that. He knew also that he could confront this ultimately fearsome thing and in the end, not be completely daunted.\n\nThen it spoke and the fear returned, redoubled: \"I have come to claim my blood debt, King Thangrim, as I said I would.\"\n\nIts voice was like a brazen horn, and yet there was something in it that suggested the void, and a cold so chilly that it burned. It was as loud as thunder and yet so perfectly pitched that every word carried exactly the minutely calculated freight of hatred that the daemon intended it to. It was the voice of an angry and vengeful demi-god. Felix could tell that the daemon was not speaking in Reikspiel and yet he could still somehow understand its meaning perfectly, and not for a moment did he doubt that the same was true for the dwarfs.\n\n\"You have come to be cast into the pit once more,\" King Thangrim said. His voice was clear and deep and resonant but, compared to the Bloodthirster, he sounded like a rebellious child shrieking defiance at an adult.\n\n\"I will tear out your heart and eat it before your still-living eyes, just as I promised,\" the thing replied. \"And not all your little warriors will save you. For every moment of every hour of every day of every year of my waiting I have looked forward to this day, and now it has arrived.\"\n\nAs the daemon spoke more and more beastmen and black-armoured warriors filtered into the room behind it, yet not a single dwarf fired a bolt or raised a weapon. There was something hypnotic about the creature and something unbearably fascinating about its confrontation with the ancient dwarf king. Felix wanted to shout a warning, to tell the dwarfs to attack, yet he did not. He was held enthralled by the same spell as held them all, while more and more followers of Chaos flowed in. Thangrim looked as if he wanted to reply, but could not. He looked old and weary and beaten before he started.\n\n\"You have lost none of your arrogance, little one, but you are old and feeble now and I\u2026 I am stronger than ever I was.\"\n\n\"You certainly smell that way!\" Gotrek roared suddenly.\n\nThe daemon's burning gaze shot towards the Slayer and Felix quailed as for a moment the thing's eyes rested upon him. It was as if Death itself had looked on him from out of its bony sockets. Felix was astonished that the Slayer managed to hold the daemon's gaze but somehow he did. After a moment he even managed a feral grin and brandished his axe. The runes along the blade blazed brighter than ever Felix had seen them. Gotrek took his thumb and ran it along the blade. A single bead of blood appeared and the Trollslayer flicked it contemptuously in the direction of the daemon.\n\n\"Thirsty?\" he inquired. \"Try that. It will be all you get today.\"\n\n\"I will drink every drop of your blood, and I will crack your skull and devour your few brains, and as I do I will consume your soul. You will learn the true meaning of terror.\"\n\n\"I am learning the true meaning of tedium,\" Gotrek said and laughed a grating laugh. \"Do you intend to bore me to death with your speeches or do you want to come over here and die?\"\n\nFelix was amazed that the Slayer could say anything with that soul-blasting gaze upon him, but somehow Gotrek had managed to speak. And in doing so he had heartened the whole dwarf army. Felix could sense the dwarfs throwing off the influence of the daemon's presence and readying their weapons to fight. Thangrim straightened and raised his hammer and as he did so lightning crackled once more about its head.\n\nAmazingly the daemon smiled, revealing long fangs and a mouth that looked like it could swallow a horse. \"A moment of defiance earns you an eternity of torment. You will have aeons to reflect on your folly. And before you die, consider this. It was you who led me to this secret place.\"\n\nSeeing that Gotrek refused to rise to the bait, the daemon continued: \"That axe and I are linked. Since it wounded me I have always been able to sense its presence, no matter how well it was hidden. I followed its spoor to this place. I thank you for the service you have done me, slave.\"\n\nFelix looked at Gotrek to see how he was taking this. No emotion save implacable hatred showed on the Slayer's face. Felix wondered how Gotrek managed it. His own mind whirled. It seemed that their whole long quest, all the ingenuity which Borek had expended to bring them here, all the dangers they had overcome, had served only to lead this daemon to its final goal. It was a maddening thought that all their efforts had come to this, that they had been caught up in an intricate web of prophesy and doom of which they had known nothing, that they were simply pawns in an aeons-long game played by the Ruinous Powers.\n\nLooking across the narrow gap which separated the two armies, Felix once more felt the sick certainty of defeat. Ranks upon ranks of crooked horned beastmen were drawn up beside the daemon. Row upon row of Chaos warriors stood ready to attack, awesome mystical blades held ready for slaughter. Packs of their terrible hounds bayed hungrily, as if demanding the souls of their prey.\n\nRanked against them was a dwarf host which looked pitifully weak. Around the king's fluttering banner was his guard, all finely decked in the best armour and armed with potent weapons. Between King Thangrim and the daemon stood a line of mighty warriors, each armed with glittering rune-carved blades. Beyond the king, the army's right flank was hidden from him but Felix knew it was made up of units of crossbows and hammer wielders. Here on the left flank were rank upon rank of longbearded veterans armed with hammers and axes. Among them stood Gotrek, Snorri, Varek and himself. Felix offered up a prayer to Sigmar of the Hammer. If the deity heard he gave no sign.\n\nInstead the daemon raised its blade and gave the signal to advance. In a cacophony of drums and braying, brazen horns, the Chaos Horde began to advance; The lean hounds loped ahead of the foot troops ready to rend and tear. The daemon watched with an expression of hideous satisfaction. As the beastmen came on, the dwarfs opened fire with their crossbows, carving a bloody swathe through their inhuman foes.\n\nFelix was almost deafened as Varek opened fire with his gun. The blaze of the rotating muzzles underlit the young dwarf's face as he sent a stream of hot lead out to mow down the oncoming brutes. In the flashes, Varek's twisted face looked no less demonic and hate-filled than the creatures they faced.\n\nKing Thangrim raised his hammer, lightning bolts flickered around it, gigantic shadows flickered away to the edge of the chamber. He whirled it around his head and it seemed to gather power and light as it did so. The runes blazed dazzlingly. Blue sparks rained down all around it. The smell of ozone cut through the stench of the daemonic host.\n\nThe dwarf king released the Hammer of Fate. It hurtled towards the Bloodthirster like a comet, trailing sparks and streams of lightning. Where these fell beastmen fell also, their skin blackened, their fur standing on end. The great warhammer flew straight and true and impacted on the daemon with a sound like a thunderclap. The Bloodthirster bellowed in anguish and stumbled. The dwarf host roared mightily. To Felix's amazement the weapon hurtled back across the chamber, causing beastmen to flinch and duck. The king stretched out his hand and his weapon flew back, like a hawk returning to a falconer's glove after hunting.\n\nFor a moment Felix hoped that the awesome and terrible weapon might have downed the Bloodthirster. But when he dared look his hopes were dashed. Drops of blazing ichor dripped from a wound in the daemon's side and vanished into puffs of poisonous looking smoke where they hit the floor, but it still stood, immensely strong and immensely terrible gazing mockingly at the dwarfs. Its fiery glance silenced their cheers in a moment.\n\n\"If it will not come to us, we will just have to go to it,\" Gotrek said and charged forward to meet the onrushing Chaos horde.\n\n\"Snorri thinks this is a good idea!\" said Snorri, racing after the other Slayer.\n\n\"Wait for me,\" Felix said and loped along cursing beside them. With his longer stride it was easy for him to keep up with the running dwarfs and still have some time to glance around at what was happening. Around them, he could see the whole dwarf army was advancing to meet their oncoming foe.\n\nTactically Felix knew that this was a mistake. The dwarfs should have kept their distance and hammered their foes with crossbow bolts until the last moment. Now they seemed caught up in the general madness of the daemon's presence, overwhelmed by a lust to get to grips with their enemy, hand to hand, breast to breast, to rend and tear and kill at close range. Felix could not blame them. After so many years of being hunted through what had once been their home, they were filled with blazing hatred. In gratifying that hatred, Felix saw they were throwing away their one small tactical advantage.\n\nStill, perhaps it did not matter. They were going to die anyway, and so it might just be best to get it all over with. He gripped his sword with both hands as the first wave of beastmen swept over them, and then there was no more time for thought, only for killing.\n\nA shock passed up Felix's arm as his blade embedded itself in the chest of a dog-headed beastman. The sickening stench of blood and wet fur filled his nostrils as the creature fell against him. He kicked it away and chopped out at another of the foul creatures, severing an artery in its throat. As the thing reached up to try to press the wound shut, Felix worked his blade under its ribcage and up into its heart.\n\nAround him Gotrek and Snorri hacked and chopped and slew. Every time Gotrek smashed down with his axe, a mangled foe fell clutching the bloody ruin of its chest, the amputated stump of its limbs, or tried to staunch the flow of blood that simply could not be stopped. From the corner of his eye, Felix saw Snorri smash forward with a simultaneous blow of both axe and hammer that caught a beastman's head between them. The top of the creature's skull came away, sheared off by the axe and its brains erupted forth in a pulpy grey jelly driven out by the force of the hammer blow.\n\nA deafening bang followed by howls of bestial agony told Felix that Varek had lobbed one of his bombs. A moment later a cloud of acrid smoke filled his field of vision and brought tears to his eyes. He coughed and the sound attracted the attention of another beastman. A monstrous axe shrieked towards him from out of the smoke and he had only just time to raise his blade and parry before it hit. The shock sent tingles of agony shooting up into his shoulder. A moment later a huge hand came out of the gloom and grabbed him by the throat. Sharp nails driven by iron-sinewed fingers bit into his neck. Beads of blood ran down his windpipe.\n\nAs the smoke cleared he saw he had been grabbed by a monstrously muscular beastman. From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the beastman's disgusting brothers running closer with spear levelled. Everything started to happen in slow motion. He knew that he was about to die. Frantically, he tried to pull himself clear but the beastman was too strong, and was already drawing back its axe for the killing blow. The tip of its comrade's spear glittered as it came closer. With those awful fingers round his neck Felix could not even call for help from Gotrek or Snorri.\n\nAny second he expected the spear to burst through his ribs or for the axe to descend with skull-smashing force. Knowing he had only moments to live filled Felix with desperate strength and ferocious cunning. Instead of trying to pull away, he suddenly relaxed and stepped forward. His unexpected movement threw his captor momentarily off-balance. Taking advantage of this, Felix swivelled on the spot and threw all his weight into the move, swinging the beastman round and to the side. The Chaos worshipper grunted as the spear which had been aimed at Felix drove right into its back. Its muscles spasmed in agony and its fingers loosened around Felix's neck. Felix stepped back, took careful aim and lopped off its bestial head with one swing.\n\nThe sightless goat's head rolled onto the floor. Black blood gouted towards the ceiling from the stump of the neck, rising in powerful spurts which weakened even as the body tumbled forward onto the floor. The second beastman stood there, holding its newly freed spear, blinking in stupid astonishment as if it could not quite believe that he had just killed its companion. Felix took advantage of his momentary confusion to stab it in the groin and then send his blade ripping upwards, slicing the belly and sending ropy entrails looping to the ground.\n\nFor a moment, he stood in the eye of the storm, surrounded by a swirling vortex of incredible violence. Dwarf fought with beastman. Axe smashed against spear and club. Over to his right he could see Gotrek engaged in combat with two Chaos warriors. The black-armoured giants raced forward, hoping to take the Slayer from either side so that one could strike him while the other held his attention. Gotrek raced towards them, striking the first as he passed, caving in the warrior's breastplate with a blow of astonishing power. The armour did not quite give way, but the blood leaking through the armpits and joins at the waist told of a fatal blow. Instead of halting, the Slayer swept on past, leaving the second warrior to strike uselessly at the spot where he had been. As he did so, Gotrek struck downwards and backwards at his attacker taking his foe through the back of the leg, hamstringing him. As the warrior toppled Gotrek caved in his head and glanced around for more prey without a second thought.\n\nThe Slayer was covered in blood and looked as if he had been working in some hellish butcher's shop. Felix realised that he looked no better. His hands were red and slimy stuff covered his boots. He shook his head and noticed that the Slayer was gesturing a warning to him. Just in time he turned and ducked beneath the blow of a monstrous black armoured figure. His new opponent's sword was enormous and odd runes blazed redly along its length. Felix brought his own blade smashing forward but it rebounded off the man's armour. Demented laughter pealed forth from inside the man's face-concealing helmet. It was as if Felix had merely tickled him. The man slashed forward once more and Felix sprang backwards, out of reach of his blade. Seeing an opening, he hit the man's blade as it passed, adding to its momentum and sending his foe spinning round. As he did so, Felix leapt forward in a shoulder charge, sending his off-balance opponent tumbling to the floor. Before the man could rise, Felix pulled back his helmeted head and ran his blade along the man's leathery throat, severing an artery and leaving the dying Chaos Warrior flopping on the ground like a fish stranded on dry land.\n\nHe had no time to enjoy his triumph. He sensed rather than saw a blow descending on his own exposed skull and tried to leap to one side. His foot slipped on the blood-slick stone and he was only partially successful. A massive club clipped his head and sent him sprawling to the ground. Stars danced before his eyes. Even that glancing blow had come close to driving consciousness from his head. He tried to pull himself to his feet but he suddenly had no control over his limbs. They flopped wildly instead of obeying him. He was vaguely aware of a misshapen figure towering above him and a huge club being raised to dash his brains out.\n\nA sudden weariness overcame Felix. All sound seemed to die away. He was too tired to care and he was not afraid to die. There was nothing he could do now. The club would descend and his life would be over. There was no sense in struggling. Best just to lie back and surrender to the inevitable.\n\nFor a moment only, he felt so helpless. Then he gathered all of his willpower to make one final futile attempt at movement. He knew it was impossible, that in his weakened state he could never get out of the way in time. His shoulders tensed and at any moment he expected to feel agony smash through his brain as the fatal blow connected.\n\nIt never came. Instead, his foe toppled away from him, blood exploding from his back. Gotrek bent over, gripped him by his chain mail vest and hauled him to his feet.\n\n\"Get up, manling. There's still killing to be done!\" The Slayer swung his axe and dropped a beastman with one blow. \"You cannot die till you have witnessed me kill a daemon!\"\n\n\"Where is it?\" Felix asked, still dazed.\n\n\"Over there,\" Gotrek said and pointed with one blood-covered finger.\n\nFelix looked in the direction he had indicated and through a gap in the fury of battle witnessed a scene of momentous courage. Snorri steamed headlong at the daemon and lashed out at it with his axe and hammer. The daemon looked down and laughed mockingly as Snorri's attacks bounced off its hide.\n\n\"Snorri, you idiot!\" Gotrek bellowed. \"Only rune weapons will affect the accursed thing!\"\n\nIf Snorri heard, he gave no sign. He continued to lash ineffectually at the mighty monster, launching a whirlwind of blows that would have dropped a dozen oxen, yet left the daemon unscathed. At last, as if tiring of watching the antics of a jester, the Bloodthirster lashed out almost languidly with its axe. Snorri tried to block, crossing both weapons in front of him, but he had no chance. The haft of his axe and his hammer splintered, and the sheer force of the daemon's blow sent him hurtling across the chamber like a stone launched from a catapult. He went tumbling through the air to land at the feet of King Thangrim, splashing the old dwarf's beard with blood.\n\nThe Bloodthirster ploughed on through the warriors of King Thangrim's elite guard. Its weapons flickered almost too fast for the eye to follow and every time one struck, a dwarf warrior fell. It seemed like no armour could resist those hell-forged weapons. In mere moments, brave warriors were reduced to mewling, dying piles of ragged flesh. Proud armour was rent asunder. Even as Felix watched, the Bloodthirster smashed through a row of dwarfs with its axe, leaving only mangled corpses in its wake. Yet the great daemon was not having things all its own way. The rune weapons of the dwarfs had bitten its flesh in a few places. Smoking ichor dribbled onto the floor as it advanced.\n\nRage blazed in King Thangrim's eyes. His beard bristled. He raised his hammer once more as if in answer to the daemon's challenge and cast it to smash on the daemon's breast. Once more the ancient weapon bit home. Once more daemonic blood spurted forth. Once more the hideous thing staggered \u2014 then grinned and came on with redoubled fury.\n\nNothing could stand in its way. It ploughed through the dwarf king's guards like a battering ram through a rotting doorway. Felix saw that one warrior managed to ram a runic blade into its back before it was aware of him. The blade stuck fast, protruding out from the Bloodthirster's shoulder blades before it turned and lashed out with its whip. Felix had no idea what that infernal lash was made from but it cut through dwarf-forged armour with ease and flayed its targets to the bone. Felix saw skin and muscle part as if slashed with a cleaver, white bone and yellow cartilage suddenly exposed in the dim, guttering light. The whip lashed forward again, spinning its shrieking victim like a top and tugging more flesh from his carcass. Another dwarf strode forward and smote the daemon with a rune-etched hammer. The impact caused the daemon some discomfort, but the swing of its axe decapitated its attacker. All the while it kept lashing its victim. In heartbeats, a bloody, skinned carcass that was not recognisable as a dwarf lay at its feet.\n\n\"How much longer will you hide behind your warriors, little king?\" asked the daemon, and such was the dreadful magic of its voice that the words were audible where Felix stood even above the clamour of battle. The king threw his hammer once more but this time the daemon threw down his whip and caught it with one outstretched claw. The runes blazed along the hammer's head and where it held the weapon the daemon's hand blackened but it reversed the weapon and sent it hurtling back towards the king.\n\nThere was a crack like thunder and the hammer flew too fast for the eye to follow. It crashed into the dwarf king and sent him sprawling to the ground. A groan came from the dwarf army as they saw their leader tumble and fall. The daemon bellowed in triumph. Insane laughter rumbled above the fray and echoed through the hall. The host of Chaos fought on with redoubled fury and everywhere seemed to gain the upper hand over the dwarfs.\n\nThe Bloodthirster strode through the dismayed throng, slaying right and left as it went. The priest of Grimnir went forth to meet it and was disembowelled with a slash of its claw even as his warhammer buried itself in the daemon's flesh. The old priestess of Valaya stood before it. She raised her book as if it were a shield. A glow leapt from the pages and for a moment the daemon paused. Then it laughed once more and brought its axe arcing down, cleaving through the book and the priestess both. Her bisected form fell in two pieces to the floor and the daemon strode forward in triumph to stand above the dying king.\n\n\"Come, manling. Now is the hour of my doom,\" Gotrek said, and made to stride towards the daemon. Nothing could stand in the Slayer's way. Anything that tried to do so died. He was now as much an engine of destruction as the daemon had been. As he moved towards his goal he struck left and right and everywhere he struck beastmen and Chaos warriors fell, cloven by the power of the axe and the arm that drove it.\n\nWith a shrug, Felix strode along behind, resolved to his fate. His head still rang from the glancing blow he had taken, and the scenes of nightmarish carnage all around had taken on an unreal quality.\n\nThere now seemed nothing unlikely about the Slayer's mission. It did indeed seem inevitable that Gotrek would fight with the daemon, and die his heroic death, and that Felix would witness it and die in turn himself. There was no other possibility. Looking around the hall Felix could see that the dwarfs were beaten. Their foes had the upper hand, and the fall of King Thangrim had demoralised them utterly. There was no sign of Snorri or Varek. Felix knew that he was not going to leave this battlefield alive. He might as well do as the Trollslayer wished. He owed the dwarf his life once more, and this was the way to pay the debt.\n\nThe Bloodthirster stood over the recumbent form of the old dwarf king. It drove its axe blade deep into the ancient flagstones so that the weapon stood there quivering. Then it reached down and picked up Thangrim Firebeard with both its claws, as gently as a man might pick up a small child.\n\nFelix ducked the swing of a beastman's axe, lopped his attacker's hand off at the wrist and kept running, leaving the amputee falling to his knees and clutching a bleeding stump. Three Chaos warriors came between Gotrek and the daemon. His axe smashed through the neck of one, opened the stomach of another and buried itself in the groin of a third. The backward swing of the axe toppled them to the floor and left Felix with a clear view of what happened next between the king and his tormentor.\n\nThe Bloodthirster peeled away Thangrim's armour like a man might strip away the peel from an orange. The dwarf managed to lean forward and spat in his tormentor's face. The spittle mingled with the ichor that ran down the daemon's brow and evaporated with a sizzle. Grinning widely, the Bloodthirster pushed its claws into the king's exposed flesh and began to pull outwards. The dwarf's ribcage cracked and flew open like the shell of an oyster, revealing the exposed innards. Blood sprayed across the Bloodthirster as it kept at its unholy work.\n\nIt raised the body to the level of its eyes, holding him easily with one hand. With the other it reached out and tore Thangrim's still-beating heart from his chest, raised it so that the king's wide eyes could see what it was doing. It squeezed the heart. The meat was crushed with an audible squelch. Blood gushed forth and sprayed down into the monster's mouth. Then, like a Bretonnian epicure devouring the flesh of an opened shellfish, it threw back its head and let the heart slide down into its open mouth. All this the king watched with wide, appalled eyes.\n\nThe daemon's throat swelled as it swallowed the whole heart and then it opened its mouth and gave an enormous belch of satisfaction.\n\nIt let the heartless, now dead thing which had once been the proud king of Karag Dum flop to the floor and turned to bellow its triumph to its assembled followers.\n\nFelix had a perfect view of the whole thing, for at that moment he and Gotrek had almost reached the Bloodthirster.\n\n\"I hope you enjoyed your last meal, daemon,\" Gotrek said. \"Now you die.\"\n\nThe daemon looked down at him and smiled. \"Your brain will be my desert,\" it said with terrible certainty.\n\nFor a moment the Slayer and the daemon stood frozen facing each other. Gotrek held his blazing axe poised to strike. A look of near-berserk fury transformed his face into something almost as terrifying as the daemon. The Bloodthirster flexed its wings with an audible snap and gestured mockingly for Gotrek to advance. Felix looked from Gotrek to the daemon to the corpse of Thangrim. He had heard that the brain could still live for moments after the heart ceased to beat. He knew that in Thangrim's case this was true, for it was what the daemon had willed in order to fulfil its unholy oath. Suddenly he was very angry, at the senseless cruelty of the daemon and the insane malignity of all of Chaos. He wanted to take his sword and plunge it into the daemon's breast.\n\nThe long frozen moment ended. Gotrek bellowed his war cry and charged. His axe flashed forward and down and buried itself in the daemon's chest. Blazing ichor belched forth, scorching the dwarf and sending him reeling backward for a moment. He recovered himself well and launched another blow. The Bloodthirster raised its claw to block it and another huge gash appeared in its arm. For a moment, Felix thought that in his fury Gotrek might overwhelm it, but the Bloodthirster stepped back out of the Slayer's reach and made a grasping gesture.\n\nIts huge axe sprang up out of the ground and flew into the daemon's hand in the time it took to blink. For a moment the daemon stood there. Felix could see that it had taken damage. The dwarf guard's sword still protruded from its back. Thangrim's hammer had left deep welts in its flesh, through which broken bones showed. Gotrek's axe had left two gaping wounds from which ichor dripped, smouldering to the floor. From its entire body rose a foul vapour like smoke. At times its outline seemed to waver and go out of focus as if it were not quite there. Then it snapped into being once again, becoming hard-edged and distinct.\n\nAnd it launched itself at the Slayer.\n\nThere was a flurry of blows much too fast for the mortal eye to follow. Felix had no idea how Gotrek survived the encounter but he did, reeling backwards with a great gash across his forehead and claw marks all across his chest. The Bloodthirster bore another great rent on its arm but appeared less damaged than the Slayer.\n\n\"I see you've had enough,\" Gotrek gasped defiantly.\n\nThe daemon laughed and prepared to spring forward once again. Felix steeled himself, knowing now that what he was about to do was suicide. He was going to die. It did not matter, Felix knew that if the Slayer fell, the daemon would overpower him in heartbeats, so he decided to get in his blow while he could. He sprang forward and struck with all his might at the daemon. The Templar Aldred's enchanted blade bit deep into the daemon's flesh. Felix pulled back the sword and tried for a second blow. The daemon turned to face him at the last second and sent him sprawling backwards with a mere buffet of its arm that nearly knocked the life from Felix.\n\nAs its claw made contact, something exploded against Felix's chest, sending a surge of pain flickering right through him. The Templar's blade was sent spinning from his hand. As he fell, he landed on something hard and heavy, and the wind was knocked from his lungs. He could hear what might have been a howl of unearthly agony coming from the Bloodthirster.\n\nGotrek took advantage of the distraction to spring forward and for a moment Felix thought the Slayer was going to be able to take the Bloodthirster. His axe flashed through a ferocious arc and almost connected but the Slayer's wounds slowed him and the daemon leapt aside and avoided the stroke which otherwise would have beheaded it. There followed another flurry of blows that were too fast for the eye to follow. They ended with Gotrek's axe being knocked from his hand. As the dwarf stood there, staggering, barely upright, the Bloodthirster smashed down with a mighty fist, slamming the Slayer to the ground. Gotrek fell prostrate at the daemon's feet. All hope fled from Felix's heart.\n\nHe reached down and tried to push himself upright. Looking down he could see the smouldering remains of Schreiber's amulet on his chest. The daemon's fist must have caught it when it struck him. The amulet had exploded, overloaded by the daemon's sheer power. Still, thought Felix, perhaps it had saved his life. Something had robbed the Bloodthirster's blow of much of its force. He was certain that it should have killed him \u2014 yet it had not.\n\nHe could not find his sword but his fingers clutched something hard and heavy. He realised that it was the Hammer of Fate. He tried to lift it but it would not move. It was not simply that it was too heavy, it was that some force kept it locked in place on the ground like the magnet which held maps in place on the airship.\n\nFelix cursed. They had come so close. The daemon was moving slowly now, breathing hard, ichor dripping from great rents in its flesh, barely able to maintain its form. One more blow would finish the thing, of that he was certain. He heaved until he thought his muscles would crack and still the accursed hammer would not move. It was a magic artefact, intended to be wielded only by dwarf heroes, and it was beyond the strength of mortal man to overcome its magic.\n\nThe Bloodthirster had bent down now over Gotrek, as it had over Thangrim. It reached down and enveloped the fallen Slayer's head with one mighty hand. Slowly it lifted him upwards.\n\nFelix knew what was coming next. The daemon would squeeze the dwarf's head until his skull shattered like a melon, then it would consume his brain and eat his immortal soul. Behind the triumphant daemon he could see the beastmen were crushing the last of the dwarfs' resistance. Varek stood at one of the pillars. The scholar had armed himself with a hammer from somewhere. A wave of frenzied beastmen closed in.\n\n\"Help me, Sigmar of the Hammer,\" Felix howled with a fervour which he had not felt since he was a frightened child. \"Help me, Grungni! Help me Grimnir! Help me, Valaya! Help me! Help me, damn you!\"\n\nAt the invocation of the gods' names, the runes on the hammer flickered and fire leapt back into them. Felix felt the weapon begin to come free of the ground. It was heavy at first but weighed progressively less as he lifted it, as if some other force was lending him the strength to overcome its vast weight. A burning pain shot through Felix's hand where he held the warhammer. He felt sparks scorching his sleeve. The taint of ozone filled his nostrils. The pain almost made him drop the thing. He fought to keep a grip on it while every nerve ending in his hand shrieked with agony. Somehow, he managed to maintain his hold.\n\nFelix knew he would only get one chance. He drew the hammer back for the cast. The daemon sensed the gathering of energies behind it and turned to face him, the Slayer held negligently in one hand, the way a man might hold a broken doll. The terrible eyes rested on Felix and for a moment he felt another surge of that familiar terror. He knew the daemon was about to spring, to rend him limb from limb and he would not be quick enough to stop it. He wrestled down his fear, smiled shyly and decided to try anyway.\n\nThe Bloodthirster dropped Gotrek and sprang, both claws outstretched, its mouth wide open, its fangs bared. Eyes through which hell looked out upon the world glared directly into Felix's soul. Its hideous odour filled his nostrils. The heat of its body radiated across the closing gap. Felix flung the sacred warhammer forward and released it. It hurtled forward like a falling meteor, trailing a comet tail of blazing lightning. It smashed directly into the daemon's head with a noise like a clap of thunder. The force of the impact stopped its headlong rush. It toppled over backwards but only for a moment. The Hammer of Fate glanced off it and flew into the gloom.\n\nSlowly the daemon pulled itself upright. Felix knew now that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Its victory was inevitable. He had done his best, and it had not been enough. He barely had the energy to stand, let alone flee from the creature. His chest was scorched. His hand felt like the flesh was peeling off the bone.\n\nThe Bloodthirster staggered forward, grinning evilly. The look in its ancient eyes told him that it knew what he was thinking and that it mocked his despair. Its enormous shadow fell across him. It flexed its wings, pulling the rune-carved blade free from its back and sending it flying across the chamber. It drew back its claws for the killing blow.\n\n\"Oi! You! I haven't finished with you yet!\" roared Gotrek's voice from behind it.\n\nThe monstrous head of his great, ancient axe suddenly protruded through the Bloodthirster's chest. As it did so, the daemon began to come apart, in a shower of red and gold sparks which transformed into stinking vapour. The thing started to vanish, like a fire burning down before their eyes. Through the fading mist Felix could see the bruised and battered form of the Slayer, barely able to stand upright. Slowly the Bloodthirster faded from view.\n\nBut Felix could still see the daemon's blazing eyes and its last words still echoed inside his head: I will remember you, mortals, and I have all eternity in which to take my vengeance.\n\nWonderful, thought Felix, that's all I need. The enmity of the favoured of Khorne! Still, his heart had lifted. The daemon was gone and the terrible fear that its presence had inflicted had vanished like morning mist in the light of the rising sun. Felix felt a weight fall from his shoulders that he had not even known was there, and a vast sense of relief filled him.\n\nGotrek reeled over to where the Hammer of Fate lay and picked it up. This time the weapon lifted easily and as it did so something strange started to happen. Bolts of lightning flickered between the hammer and the axe, creating a searing electrical arc. As they did so, the Slayer seemed to swell with barely contained power. His crest stood on end above his head. His beard bristled. His eyes blazed with an odd blue light.\n\n\"The gods mock me, manling!\" he roared in a voice that was as audible as a thunderclap. Bitterness twisted his face. \"I came here seeking my doom, and instead brought doom upon this place. Now, someone is going to pay.\"\n\nHe turned and walked back into the fray. The Hammer of Fate left a blurred trail of light behind it as it struck. His ancient, daemon-slaying axe smashed through a Chaos warrior and took a huge chunk out of one of the pillars behind him. An aura of fear surrounded him now, like the one that had surrounded the daemon, and the Chaos worshippers began to back away.\n\nGotrek let out a mighty battle cry and leapt into their midst, and a terrible slaying began. Filled with god-like power by the awesome weapons he held, the Slayer was invincible. His axe sheared through armour and flesh effortlessly; no weapon could stand against it. The hammer sent bolt after bolt of terrifying power out to lash the Chaos warriors like a daemon's whip.\n\nFelix watched appalled at the carnage the Slayer wrought until he saw his blade lying on the floor, forced his hand to grip it, and rushed down into the fray himself. In moments it was over. Dismayed by the fall of their leader, unable to withstand the invincible power of the angry Slayer, the remnants of the Chaos horde turned tail and fled."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "AFTERMATH",
+                "text": "Felix surveyed the Hall of the Well wearily. Corpses lay everywhere, evidence of a battle fought with insane ferocity on one side and unyielding dwarfish determination on the other. Dried blood carpeted the floor. The stench of death filled his nostrils.\n\nHe looked down at where Gotrek lay, pale and still, propped up against one of the pillars which supported the ceiling's roof. His entire chest was swathed in bandages and one arm was held immobile in a sling. Bruises covered the Slayer's head, evident even beneath his tattoos. The grip of the daemon had not been gentle. The fight with the Bloodthirster had come very near to killing the Slayer and the combat afterwards had not helped any. The Slayer's chest barely moved, as he struggled on the borderland between life and death. Not even Varek could say whether he would live or die.\n\nThe young dwarf looked up uncertainly. \"I have done my best for him. The rest is in the lap of the gods. It is a wonder he lives at all. I suspect only the power of the Hammer of Fate kept him alive as long as he was fighting.\"\n\nFelix wondered whether the time had finally arrived when he would have to record the Slayer's doom. It had certainly been an epic battle, all that Gotrek could have wanted for his end. The dwarfs had rallied at the sight of the daemon's banishment. The Chaos horde had lost all heart for the fight as the berserk Slayer ploughed through their midst, armed with his invincible weaponry, violent and deadly as some ancient divinity of war. Such was the slaughter Gotrek had wrought, it must have seemed to the Chaos worshippers that their vile gods had turned against them. In the end, demoralised and panicking, they had turned and fled the hall, leaving the dwarfs triumphant. Only then had Gotrek collapsed.\n\nSuch a victory had been bought at a hideous cost. Felix doubted that more than a score of the dwarfs survived and most of those had been hidden in the Vault when the fighting was on. If not for the power of the hammer and Gotrek's skill with the axe, he doubted that any of them would have lived. And it seemed that the Slayer might yet pay the ultimate price for their victory.\n\nSnorri limped through the dead, favouring his right leg. He did not look much better than Gotrek. His chest had been stitched together with whipcord. It was probably testimony to his awesome dwarfish toughness that he was still alive at all. No human could have survived the Bloodthirster's blow or the loss of blood which followed. A makeshift turban of bandages wrapped round his head made him look like a very short, very broad, and very stupid native of Araby. He whistled happily to himself as he surveyed the red ruin all around. But even he lost some of his cheerfulness when he looked down at Gotrek's recumbent form.\n\n\"Good fight,\" he said softly to no one in particular. Felix was about to disagree. He wanted to say that, in his opinion, there was no such thing as a good fight, there were only those you won and those you lost. Fighting was a dirty, messy, painful and dangerous business, and on the whole he had decided it was something that he would rather avoid.\n\nYet even as he thought this, Felix knew that he was trying to deceive himself. There was a bizarre elation in survival and awful joy to be found in victory, and he was not immune to it. And when he considered the alternatives to victory he found he was forced to agree with Snorri.\n\n\"Yes, it was a good fight,\" he said, though he wondered whether any of those lying dead on the cold stone floor would agree, were they able to speak.\n\nThe effort of talking made his own body ache. He inspected his hand. It was stiff and scorched from where he had held the Hammer of Fate as it discharged its lightning bolts. Even the opiate salves that Varek had applied could not dull the pain entirely. He wasn't entirely sure what magic had protected Thangrim from this sort of thing, but it obviously did not work for humans. Still, it had done its work and he shouldn't really complain about the sloppy way in which the gods had answered his prayers.\n\nLooking at the bandages which bound his hand, he now wondered how he had ever managed to keep fighting \u2014 but really he knew the answer. In the heat of battle, a man could endure pain that would floor him under normal circumstances. He had once seen a man continue to fight for some minutes after taking a wound that eventually killed him. Looking at his hand, he wondered if he would ever be able to wield a blade again. Or even the pen that would be needed to record the Slayer's death.\n\nVarek had assured him that he would, in time, but right now he was not so sure. Still, he supposed, he could always learn to wield a blade left-handed. He tried to draw the Templar's sword from the scabbard with his left hand but it felt all wrong. Still, there was time enough to learn.\n\nHis whole body ached and he wanted simply to lie down and sleep, but there was still much to do. Hargrim and the other dwarfs finished their discussion and strode over to him. Hargrim held the Hammer of Fate in his right hand. Felix noticed somewhat sourly that it had not burned him.\n\n\"We owe you a debt we can never pay, Felix Jaeger,\" Hargrim started. \"You have saved the honour of our people and prevented the sacred warhammer of our ancestors from falling into the hands of our foes.\"\n\nFelix smiled at the dwarf. \"You owe me nothing, Hargrim. The Hammer of Fate saved my life. There is no debt.\"\n\n\"Nobly spoken. Nevertheless, what we have is yours.\"\n\n\"Thank you, but I just want to go home,\" Felix said, hoping he did not sound ungrateful.\n\n\"We will leave together,\" Hargrim said. Felix raised an eyebrow. \"There are too few of us now to defend this place, and the Dark Ones surely now know of its location. It is only a matter of time before they return. It is time to take our Book of Grudges and the hammer and what we can carry of our hoard, and leave.\"\n\n\"I believe there is enough room on the Spirit of Grungni, Felix,\" said Varek. He looked on Felix respectfully, as if seeking his approval for the decision. Obviously wielding the Hammer of Fate had given him some status among the dwarfs. \"There are only twenty-two dwarfs of Karag Dum now and if we clear the hold and double up in the cabins there will be space enough.\"\n\n\"I am sure you are correct,\" Felix said.\n\n\"It is imperative that we get the sacred warhammer away from here. And as much of the dwarfhoard as we can carry.\"\n\n\"Of course it is,\" Felix said, looking at the chests the dwarfs were bearing out of the hidden vault. \"But I worry about how we are going to get everything out. We have to find our way through the Chaos worshippers. And we are too weak and too few to fight.\"\n\nHargrim grinned. \"Do not worry about that, Felix Jaeger. There are still many secret paths through Karag Dum which are known only to the dwarfs.\"\n\nFelix looked over at the recumbent Gotrek, who looked far too pale and feeble to be moved. \"What about Gotrek and the other wounded?\" he said. Perhaps they should wait for the Slayer to die and bury him here in the vault along with the other heroes of the battle.\n\n\"When I'm too weak to walk, manling, I will be too weak to live,\" came a voice from the Trollslayer. Gotrek's one good eye slowly opened. They all hurried over as he forced himself upright.\n\n\"Then, by all means, let us get going,\" Felix said happily.\n\nThe Slayer looked around at the field of battle. \"It seems my doom has eluded me yet again,\" he said sourly.\n\n\"Don't worry,\" Felix said. \"I'm sure some other doom awaits!\"\n\nThanquol pulled back the curtain of his palanquin and blinked as the unaccustomed light crashed into his retina. He had just emerged from the Underways into the day. The bright summer sun of northern Kislev glared down on him like the watching eye of some pitiless god.\n\nHe looked out into the awesome crater of Hell Pit. Beneath him he could see the enormous fortress of Clan Moulder. A sense of satisfaction filled him. He had driven his exhausted bearers for days to reach his goal.\n\n\"Move quick-quick!\" he ordered the panting slaves. \"We still have a great distance to go!\"\n\nSlowly the bearers stumbled down the slope.\n\nEerie echoes erupted from the oddly sculpted towers. Great beasts roared. The smell of monsters and warpstone made Thanquol's nostrils twitch.\n\nHere he knew he would find the allies he needed to capture the airship and take his inevitable revenge on Gurnisson and Jaeger. Already he could see skaven warriors accompanied by misshapen shambling beasts coming to greet him.\n\nNow, if only he could re-establish contact with his minion Lurk Snitchtongue, things would be well. He wondered what Lurk was up to right now.\n\nLurk was not quite sure what those stupid dwarfs were up to, but he knew that soon the time would be right for him to act. He felt strong and certain that the Horned Rat was with him. Now, he waited only for his opportunity to strike. If the situation called for action, he would not wait. Oh no. He would spring out and overwhelm his foes.\n\nMaybe.\n\nProvided there weren't too many of them."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Shannara 15) Morgawr",
+        "author": "Terry Brooks",
+        "genres": [
+            "fantasy"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "The figure appeared out of the shadows of the alcove so quickly that Sen Dunsidan was almost on top of it before he realized it was there. The hallway leading to his sleeping chamber was dark with nightfall's shadows, and the light from the wall lamps cast only scattered halos of fuzzy brightness. The lamps gave no help in this instance, and the Minister of Defense was given no chance either to flee or defend himself.\n\n\"A word, if you please, Minister.\"\n\nThe intruder was cloaked and hooded, and although Sen Dunsidan was reminded at once of the Ilse Witch he knew without question that it was not she. This was a man, not a woman \u2014 too much size and bulk to be anything else, and the words were rough and masculine. The witch's small, slender form and cool, smooth voice were missing. She had come to him only a week earlier, before departing on her voyage aboard Black Moclips, tracking the Druid Walker and his company to an unknown destination. Now this intruder, cloaked and hooded in the same manner, had appeared in the same way \u2014 at night and unannounced. He wondered at once what the connection was between the two.\n\nMasking his surprise and the hint of fear that clutched at his chest, Sen Dunsidan nodded. \"Where would you like to share this word?\"\n\n\"Your sleeping chamber will do.\"\n\nA big man himself, still in the prime of his life, the Minister of Defense nevertheless felt dwarfed by the other. It was more than simply size, it was presence, as well. The intruder exuded strength and confidence not usually encountered in ordinary men. Sen Dunsidan did not ask how he had managed to gain entry to the closely guarded, walled compound. He did not ask how he had moved unchallenged to the upper floor of his quarters. Such questions were pointless. He simply accepted that the intruder was capable of this and much more. He did as he was bidden. He walked past with a deferential bow, opened his bedroom door, and beckoned the other inside.\n\nThe lights were lit here, as well, though no more brightly than in the hallway without, and the intruder moved at once into the shadows.\n\n\"Sit down, Minister, and I will tell you what I want.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan sat in a high-backed chair and crossed his legs comfortably. His fear and surprise had faded. If the other meant him harm, he would not have bothered to announce himself. He wanted something that a Minister of Defense of the Federation's Coalition Council could offer, so there was no particular cause for concern. Not yet, anyway. That could change if he could not supply the answers the other sought. But Sen Dunsidan was a master at telling others what they expected to hear.\n\n\"Some cold ale?\" he asked.\n\n\"Pour some for yourself, Minister.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan hesitated, surprised by insistence in the other's voice. Then he rose and walked to the table at his bedside that held the ice bucket, ale pitcher nestled within it, and several glasses. He stood looking down at the ale as he poured, his long silver hair hanging loose about his shoulders save where it was braided above the ears, as was the current fashion. He did not like what he was feeling now, uncertainty come so swiftly on the heels of newfound confidence. He had better be careful of this man, step lightly.\n\nHe walked back to his chair and reseated himself, sipping at the ale. His strong face turned toward the other, a barely visible presence amid the shadows.\n\n\"I have something to ask of you,\" the intruder said softly.\n\nSen Dunsidan nodded and made an expansive gesture with one hand.\n\nThe intruder shifted slightly. \"Be warned, Minister. Do not think to placate me with promises you do not intend to keep. I am not here to waste my time on fools who think to dismiss me with empty words. If I sense you dissemble, I will simply kill you and have done with it. Do you understand?\"\n\nSen Dunsidan took a deep breath to steady himself. \"I understand.\"\n\nThe other said nothing further for a moment, then moved out from the deep shadows to the edges of the light. \"I am called the Morgawr. I am mentor to the Ilse Witch.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" The Minister of Defense nodded. He had not been wrong about the similarities of appearance.\n\nThe cloaked form moved a little closer. \"You and I are about to form a partnership, Minister. A new partnership, one to replace that which you shared with my pupil. She no longer has need of you. She will not come to see you again. But I will. Often.\"\n\n\"Does she know this?\" Dunsidan asked softly.\n\n\"She knows nowhere near as much as she thinks.\" The other's voice was hard and low. \"She has decided to betray me, and for her infidelity she will be punished. I will administer her punishment when I see her next. This does not concern you, save that you should know why you will not see her again. All these years, I have been the force behind her efforts. I have been the one who gave her the power to form alliances like the one she shared with you. But she breaches my trust and thus forfeits my protection. She is of no further use.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan took a long pull on his ale and set the glass aside.\n\n\"You will forgive me, sir, if I voice a note of skepticism. I don't know you, but I do know her. I know what she can do. I know what happens to those who betray her, and I do not intend to become one of them.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you would do better to be afraid of me. I am the one who stands here in front of you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But the Dark Lady has a way of showing up when least expected. Show me her head, and I will be more than happy to discuss a new agreement.\"\n\nThe cloaked figure laughed softly. \"Well spoken, Minister. You offer a politician's answer to a tough demand. But I think you must reconsider. Look at me.\"\n\nHe reached up for his hood and pulled it away to reveal his face. It was the face of the Ilse Witch, youthful and smooth and filled with danger. Sen Dunsidan started in spite of himself. Then the girl's face changed, almost as if it were a mirage, and became Sen Dunsidan's \u2014 hard planes and edges, piercing blue eyes, silvery hair worn long, and a half smile that seemed ready to promise anything.\n\n\"You and I are very much alike, Minister.\"\n\nThe face changed again. Another took its place, the face of a younger man, but it was no one Sen Dunsidan had ever seen. It was nondescript, bland to the point of being forgettable, devoid of interesting or memorable features.\n\n\"Is this who I really am, Minister? Do I reveal myself now?\" He paused. \"Or am I really like this?\"\n\nThe face shimmered and changed into something monstrous, a reptilian visage with a blunt snout and slits for eyes. Rough, gray scales coated a weathered face, and a wide, serrated mouth opened to reveal rows of sharply pointed teeth. Gimlet eyes, hate-filled and poisonous, glimmered with green fire.\n\nThe intruder pulled the hood back into place, and his face disappeared into the resulting shadows. Sen Dunsidan sat motionless in his chair. He was all too aware of what he was being told. This man had the use of a very powerful magic. At the very least, he could shape-shift, and it was likely he could do much more than that. He was a man who enjoyed the excesses of power as much as the Minister of Defense did, and he would use that power in whatever way he felt he must to get what he wanted.\n\n\"I said we were alike, Minister,\" the intruder whispered. \"We both appear as one thing when in truth we are another. I know you. I know you as I know myself. You would do anything to further your power in the hierarchy of the Federation. You indulge yourself in pleasures that are forbidden to other men. You covet what you cannot have and scheme to secure it. You smile and feign friendship when in truth you are the very serpent your enemies fear.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan kept his politician's smile in place. What was it this creature wanted of him?\n\n\"I tell you all this not to anger you, Minister, but to make certain you do not mistake my intent. I am here to help you further your ambitions in exchange for help you can in turn supply to me. I desire to pursue the witch on her voyage. I desire to be there when she does battle with the Druid, as I am certain she must. I desire to catch her with the magic she pursues, because I intend to take it from her and then to take her life. But to accomplish this, I will need a fleet of airships and the men to crew them.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan stared at him in disbelief. \"What you ask is impossible.\"\n\n\"Nothing is impossible, Minister.\" The black robes shifted with a soft rustle as the intruder crossed the room. \"Is what I ask any more impossible than what you seek?\"\n\nThe Minister of Defense hesitated. \"Which is what?\"\n\n\"To be Prime Minister. To take control of the Coalition Council once and for all. To rule the Federation, and by doing so, the Four Lands.\"\n\nA number of thoughts passed swiftly through Sen Dunsidan's mind, but all of them came down to one. The intruder was right. Sen Dunsidan would do anything to make himself Prime Minister and control the Coalition Council. Even the Ilse Witch had known of this ambition, though she had never voiced it in such a way as this, a way that suggested it might be within reach.\n\n\"Both seem impossible to me,\" he answered the other carefully.\n\n\"You fail to see what I am telling you,\" the intruder said. \"I am telling you why I will prove a better ally than the little witch. Who stands between you and your goal? The Prime Minister, who is hardy and well? He will serve long years before he steps down. His chosen successor, the Minister of the Treasury, Jaren Arken? He is a man younger than you and equally powerful, equally ruthless. He aspires to be Minister of Defense, doesn't he? He seeks your position on the council.\"\n\nA cold rage swept through Sen Dunsidan on hearing those words. It was true, of course \u2014 all of it. Arken was his worst enemy, a man slippery and elusive as a snake, cold-blooded and reptilian through and through. He wanted the man dead, but had not yet figured out a way to accomplish it. He had asked the Ilse Witch for help, but whatever other exchange of favors she was willing to accept, she had always refused to kill for him.\n\n\"What is your offer, Morgawr?\" he asked bluntly, tiring of this game.\n\n\"Only this. By tomorrow night, the men who stand in your way will be no more. No blame or suspicion will attach to you. The position you covet will be yours for the taking. No one will oppose you. No one will question your right to lead. This is what I can do for you. In exchange, you must do what I ask \u2014 give me the ships and the men to sail them. A Minister of Defense can do this, especially when he stands to become Prime Minister.\"\n\nThe other's voice became a whisper. \"Accept the partnership I am offering, so that not only may we help each other now, but we may help each other again when it becomes necessary.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan took a long moment to consider what was being asked. He badly wanted to be Prime Minister. He would do anything to secure the position. But he mistrusted this creature, this Morgawr, a thing not entirely human, a wielder of magic that could undo a man before he had time to realize what was happening. He was still unconvinced of the advisability of doing what he was being asked to do. He was afraid of the Ilse Witch, he could admit that to himself if to no one else. If he crossed her and she found out, he was a dead man, \u2014 she would hunt him down and destroy him. On the other hand, if the Morgawr was to destroy her as he said he would, then Sen Dunsidan would do well to rethink his concerns.\n\nA bird in the hand, it was commonly accepted, was worth two in the bush. If a path to the position of Prime Minister of the Coalition Council could be cleared, almost any risk was worth the taking.\n\n\"What sort of airships do you need?\" he asked quietly. \"How many?\"\n\n\"Are we agreed on a partnership, Minister? Yes or no. Don't equivocate. Don't attach conditions. Yes or no.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan was still uncertain, but he could not pass up the chance to advance his own fortunes. Yet when he spoke the word that sealed his fate, he felt as if he were breathing fire. \"Yes.\"\n\nThe Morgawr moved like liquid night, sliding along the edges of the shadows as he eased across the bedchamber. \"So be it. I will be back after sunset tomorrow to let you know what your end of the bargain will be.\"\n\nThen he was through the doorway and gone.\n\nSen Dunsidan slept poorly that night, plagued by dreams and wakefulness, burdened with the knowledge that he had sold himself at a price that had yet to be determined and might prove too costly to pay. Yet, while lying awake between bouts of fretful sleep, he pondered the enormity of what might take place, and he could not help but be excited. Surely no price was too great if it meant he would become Prime Minister. A handful of ships and a complement of men, neither of which he cared overmuch about \u2014 these were nothing to him. In truth, to gain control of the Federation, he would have obligated himself for much more. In truth, he would have paid any price.\n\nYet it still might all come to nothing. It might prove nothing more than a fantasy given to test his willingness to abandon the witch as an ally.\n\nBut when he woke and while he was dressing to go to the Council chambers, word reached him that the Prime Minister was dead. The man had gone to sleep and never woken, \u2014 his heart stopped while he lay in his bed. It was odd, given his good health and relatively young age, but life was filled with surprises.\n\nSen Dunsidan felt a surge of pleasure and expectation at the news. He allowed himself to believe that the unthinkable might actually be within reach, that the Morgawr's word might be better than he had dared to hope. Prime Minister Dunsidan, he whispered to himself, deep inside, where his darkest secrets lay hidden.\n\nHe arrived at the Coalition Council chambers before he learned that Jaren Arken was dead, as well. The Minister of the Treasury, responding to the news of the Prime Minister's sudden passing, had rushed from his home in response, the prospect of filling the leadership void no doubt foremost in his thoughts, and had fallen on the steps leading down to the street. He had struck his head on the stone carvings at the bottom. By the time his servants had reached him, he was gone.\n\nSen Dunsidan took the news in stride, no longer surprised, only pleased and excited. He put on his mourner's face, and he offered his politician's responses to all those who approached \u2014 and there were many now, because he was the one the Council members were already turning to. He spent the day arranging funerals and tributes, speaking to one and all of his own sorrow and disappointment, all the while consolidating his power. Two such important and effective leaders dead at a single stroke, a strong man must be found to fill the void left by their passing. He offered himself and promised to do the best job he could on behalf of those who supported him.\n\nBy nightfall, the talk was no longer of the dead men, the talk was all of him.\n\nHe sat waiting in his chambers for a long time after sunset, speculating on what would happen when the Morgawr returned. That he would, to claim his end of the bargain, was a given. What exactly he would ask was less certain. He would not threaten, but the threat was there nevertheless: if he could so easily dispose of a Prime Minister and a Minister of the Treasury, how much harder could it be to dispose of a recalcitrant Minister of Defense? Sen Dunsidan was in this business now all the way up to his neck. There could be no talk of backing away. The best he could hope for was to mitigate the payment the Morgawr would seek to exact.\n\nIt was almost midnight before the other appeared, slipping soundlessly through the doorway of the bedchamber, all black robes and menace. By then, Sen Dunsidan had consumed several glasses of ale and was regretting it.\n\n\"Impatient, Minister?\" the Morgawr asked softly, moving at once into the shadows. \"Did you think I wasn't coming?\"\n\n\"I knew you would come. What do you want?\"\n\n\"So abrupt? Not even time for a thank you? I've made you Prime Minister. All that is required is a vote by the Coalition Council, a matter of procedure only. When will that occur?\"\n\n\"A day or two. All right, you've kept your end of the bargain. What is mine to be?\"\n\n\"Ships of the line, Minister. Ships that can withstand a long journey and a battle at its end. Ships that can transport men and equipment to secure what is needed. Ships that can carry back the treasures I expect to find.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan shook his head doubtfully. \"Such ships are hard to come by. All we have are committed to the Prekkendorran. If I were to pull out, say, a dozen \u2014\"\n\n\"Two dozen would be closer to what I had in mind,\" the other interrupted smoothly.\n\nTwo dozen? The Minister of Defense exhaled slowly. \"Two dozen, then. But that many ships missing from the line would be noticed and questioned. How will I explain it?\"\n\n\"You are about to become Prime Minister. You don't have to explain.\" There was a hint of impatience in the rough voice. \"Take them from the Rovers, if your own are in short supply.\"\n\nDunsidan took a quick sip of the ale he shouldn't be drinking. \"The Rovers are neutral in this struggle. Mercenaries, but neutral. If I confiscate their ships, they will refuse to build more.\"\n\n\"I said nothing of confiscation. Steal them, then lay the blame elsewhere.\"\n\n\"And the men to crew them? What sort of men do you require? Must I steal them, as well?\"\n\n\"Take them from the prisons. Men who have sailed and fought aboard airships. Elves, Bordermen, Rovers, whatever. Give me enough of these to make my crews. But do not expect me to give them back again. When I have used them up, I intend to throw them away. They will not be fit for anything else.\"\n\nThe hair stood on the back of Sen Dunsidan's neck. Two hundred men, tossed away like old shoes. Damaged, ruined, unfit for wear. What did that mean? He had a sudden urge to flee the room, to run and keep running until he was so far away he couldn't remember where he had come from.\n\n\"I'll need time to arrange this, a week perhaps.\" He tried to keep his voice steady. \"Two dozen ships missing from anywhere will be talked about. Men from the prisons will be missed. I have to think about how this can be done. Must you have so many of each to undertake your pursuit?\"\n\nThe Morgawr went still. \"You seem incapable of doing anything I ask of you without questioning it. Why is that? Did I ask you how to go about removing those men who would keep you from being Prime Minister?\"\n\nSen Dunsidan realized suddenly that he had gone too far. \"No, no, of course not. It was just that I \u2014\n\n\"Give me the men tonight,\" the other interrupted.\n\n\"But I need time.\"\n\n\"You have them in your prisons, here in the city. Arrange for their release now.\"\n\n\"There are rules about releasing prisoners.\"\n\n\"Break them.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan felt as if he were standing in quicksand and sinking fast. But he couldn't seem to find a way to save himself.\n\n\"Give me my crews tonight, Minister,\" the other hissed softly. \"You, personally. A show of trust to persuade me that my efforts at removing the men who stood in your path were justified. Let's be certain your commitment to our new partnership is more than just words.\"\n\n\"But I \u2014\"\n\nThe other man moved swiftly out of the shadows and snatched hold of the front of the Minister's shirt. \"I think you require a demonstration. An example of what happens to those who question me.\" The fingers tightened in the fabric, iron rods that lifted Sen Dunsidan to the tips of his boots. \"You're shaking, Minister. Can it be that I have your full attention at last?\"\n\nSen Dunsidan nodded wordlessly, so frightened he did not trust himself to speak.\n\n\"Good. Now come with me.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan exhaled sharply as the other released his grip and stepped away. \"Where?\"\n\nThe Morgawr moved past him, opened the bedchamber door, and looked back out of the shadows of his hood. \"To the prisons, Minister, to get my men.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Together, the Morgawr and Sen Dunsidan passed down the halls of the Minister's house, through the gates of the compound, and outside into the night. None of the guards or servants they passed spoke to them. No one seemed even to see them. Magic, Sen Dunsidan thought helplessly. He stifled the urge to cry out for help, knowing there was none.\n\nInsanity.\n\nBut he had made his choice.\n\nAs they walked the dark, empty streets of the city, the Minister of Defense gathered the shards of his shattered composure, one jagged piece at a time. If he was to survive this night, he must do better than he was doing now. The Morgawr already thought him weak and foolish, \u2014 if he thought him useless, as well, he would discard him in an instant. Walking steadily, taking strong strides, deep breaths, Sen Dunsidan mustered his courage and his resolve. Remember who you are, he told himself. Remember what is at stake.\n\nBeside him, the Morgawr walked on, never looking at him, never speaking to him, never evidencing even once that he had any interest in him at all.\n\nThe prisons were situated at the west edge of the Federation Army barracks, close by the swift flowing waters of the Rappahalladran. They formed a dark and formidable collection of pitted stone towers and walls. Narrow slits served as windows, and iron spikes ringed the parapets. Sen Dunsidan, as Minister of Defense, visited the prisons regularly, and he had heard the stories. No one ever escaped. Now and then those incarcerated would find their way into the river, thinking to swim to the far side and flee into the forests. No one ever made it. The currents were treacherous and strong. Sooner or later, the bodies washed ashore and were hung from the walls where others in the prisons could see them.\n\nAs they drew close, Sen Dunsidan mustered sufficient resolve to draw close again to the Morgawr.\n\n\"What do you intend to do when we get inside?\" he asked, keeping his voice strong and steady. \"I need to know what to say if you want to avoid having to hypnotize the entire garrison.\"\n\nThe Morgawr laughed softly. \"Feeling a bit more like your old self, Minister? Very well. I want a room in which to speak with prospective members of my crew. I want them brought to me one by one, starting with a Captain or someone in authority. I want you to be there to watch what happens.\"\n\nDunsidan nodded, trying not to think what that meant.\n\n\"Next time, Minister, think twice before you make a promise you do not intend to keep,\" the other hissed, his voice rough and hard-edged. \"I have no patience with liars and fools. You do not strike me as either, but then you are good at becoming what you must in your dealings with others, aren't you?\"\n\nSen Dunsidan said nothing. There was nothing to say. He kept his thoughts focused on what he would do once they were inside the prisons. There, he would be more in control of things, more on familiar ground. There, he could do more to demonstrate his worth to this dangerous creature.\n\nRecognizing Sen Dunsidan at once, the gate watch admitted them without question. Snapping to attention in their worn leathers, they released the locks on the gates. Inside, the smells were of dampness and rot and human excrement, foul and rank. Sen Dunsidan asked the Duty Officer for a specific interrogation room, one with which he was familiar, one removed from everything else, buried deep in the bowels of the prisons. A turnkey led them down a long corridor to the room he had requested, a large chamber with walls that leaked moisture and a floor that had buckled. A table to which had been fastened iron chains and clamps sat at its center. To one side, a wooden rack lined with implements of torture was pushed against the wall. A single oil lamp lit the gloom.\n\n\"Wait here,\" Sen Dunsidan told the Morgawr. \"Let me persuade the right men to come to you.\"\n\n\"Start with one,\" the Morgawr ordered, moving off into the shadows.\n\nSen Dunsidan hesitated, then went out through the door with the turnkey. The turnkey was a hulking, gnarled man who had served seven terms on the front, a lifetime soldier in the Federation Army. He was scarred inside and out, having witnessed and survived atrocities that would have destroyed the minds of other men. He never spoke, but he knew well enough what was going on and seemed unconcerned with it. Sen Dunsidan had used him on occasion to question recalcitrant prisoners. The man was good at inflicting pain and ignoring pleas for mercy \u2014 perhaps even better at that than keeping his mouth shut.\n\nOddly enough, the Minister had never learned his name. Down here, they called him Turnkey, as if the title itself were name enough for a man who did what he did.\n\nThey passed down a dozen small corridors and through a handful of doors to where the main cells were located. The larger ones held prisoners who had been taken from the Prekkendorran. Some would be ransomed or traded for Free-born prisoners. Some would die here. Sen Dunsidan indicated to the turnkey the one that housed those who had been prisoners longest.\n\n\"Unlock it.\"\n\nThe turnkey unlocked the door without a word.\n\nSen Dunsidan took a torch from its rack on the wall. \"Close the door behind me. Don't open it until I tell you I am ready to come out,\" he ordered.\n\nThen he stepped boldly inside.\n\nThe room was large, damp, and rank with the smells of caged men. A dozen heads turned as one on his entry. An equal number lifted from the soiled pallets on the floor. Other men stirred, fitfully. Most were still asleep.\n\n\"Wake up!\" he snapped.\n\nHe held up the torch to show them who he was, then stuck it in a stanchion next to the door. The men were beginning to stand now, whispers and grunts passing between them. He waited until they were all awake, a ragged bunch with dead eyes and ravaged faces. Some of them had been locked down here for almost three years. Most had given up hope of ever getting out. The small sounds of their shuffling echoed in the deep, pervasive silence, a constant reminder of how helpless they were.\n\n\"You know me,\" he said to them. \"Many of you I have spoken with. You have been here a long time. Too long. I am going to give all of you a chance to get out. You won't be doing any more fighting in the war. You won't be going home \u2014 not for a while. But you will be outside these walls and back on an airship. Are you interested?\"\n\nThe man he had depended upon to speak for the others took a step forward. \"What are you after?\"\n\nHis name was Darish Venn. He was a Borderman who had captained one of the first Free-born airships brought into the war on the Prekkendorran. He had distinguished himself in battle many times before his ship went down and he was captured. The other men respected and trusted him. As senior officer, he had formed them into groups and given them positions, small and insignificant to those who were free men, but of crucial importance to those locked away down here.\n\n\"Captain.\" Sen Dunsidan acknowledged him with a nod. \"I need men to go on a voyage across the Blue Divide. A long voyage, from which some may not return. I won't deny there is danger. I don't have the sailors to spare for this, or the money to hire Rover mercenaries. But the Federation can spare you. Federation soldiers will accompany those who agree to accept the conditions I am offering, so there will be some protection offered and order imposed. Mostly, you will be out of here and you won't have to come back. The voyage will take a year, maybe two. You will be your own crew, your own company, as long as you go where you are told.\"\n\n\"Why would you do this now, after so long?\" Darish Venn asked.\n\n\"I can't tell you that.\"\n\n\"Why should we trust you?\" another asked boldly.\n\n\"Why not? What difference does it make, if it gets you out of here? If I wanted to do you harm, it would be easy enough, wouldn't it? What I want are sailors willing to make a voyage. What you want is your freedom. A trade seems a good compromise for both of us.\"\n\n\"We could take you prisoner and trade you for our freedom and not have to agree to anything!\" the man snapped ominously.\n\nSen Dunsidan nodded. \"You could. But what would be the consequences of that? Besides, do you think I would come down here and expose myself to harm without any protection?\"\n\nThere was a quick exchange of whispers. Sen Dunsidan held his ground and kept his strong face composed. He had exposed himself to greater risks than this one, and he was not afraid of these men. The results of failure to do what the Morgawr had asked frightened him a good deal more.\n\n\"You want all of us?\" Darish Venn asked.\n\n\"All who choose to come. If you refuse, then you stay where you are. The choice is yours.\" He paused a moment, as if considering. His leonine profile lifted into the light, and a reflective look settled over his craggy features. \"I will make a bargain with you, Captain. If you like, I will show you a map of the place we are going. If you approve of what you see, then you sign on then and there. If not, you can return and tell the others.\"\n\nThe Borderman nodded. Perhaps he was too worn down and too slowed by his imprisonment to think it through clearly. Perhaps he was just anxious for a way out. \"All right, I'll come.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan rapped on the door, and the turnkey opened it for him. He beckoned Captain Venn to go first, then left the room. The turnkey locked the door, and Dunsidan could hear the scuffling of feet as those still locked within pressed up against the doorway to listen.\n\n\"Just down the hallway, Captain,\" he advised loudly for their benefit. \"I'll arrange for a glass of ale, as well.\"\n\nThey walked down the passageways to the room where the Morgawr waited, their footsteps echoing in the silence. No one spoke. Sen Dunsidan glanced at the Borderman. He was a big man, tall and broad shouldered, though stooped and thin from his imprisonment, his face skeletal and his skin pale and crusted with dirt and sores. The Free-born had tried to trade for him many times, but the Federation knew the value of airship Captains and preferred to keep him locked away and off the battlefield.\n\nWhen they reached the room where the Morgawr waited, Sen Dunsidan opened the door for Venn, motioned for the turnkey to wait outside, and closed the door behind him as he followed the Borderman in. Venn glanced around at the implements of torture and chains, then looked at Dunsidan.\n\n\"What is this?\"\n\nThe Minister of Defense shrugged and smiled disarmingly. \"It was the best I could do.\" He indicated one of the three-legged stools tucked under the table. \"Sit down and let's talk.\"\n\nThere was no sign of the Morgawr. Had he left? Had he decided all this was a waste of time and he would be better off handling matters himself? For a moment, Sen Dunsidan panicked. But then he felt something move in the shadows \u2014 felt, rather than saw.\n\nHe moved to the other side of the table from Darish Venn, drawing the Captain's attention away from the swirling darkness behind him. \"The voyage will take us quite a distance from the Four Lands, Captain,\" he said, his face taking on a serious cast. Behind Venn, the Morgawr began to materialize. \"A good deal of preparation will be necessary. Someone with your experience will have no trouble provisioning the ships we intend to take. A dozen or more will be needed, I think.\"\n\nThe Morgawr, huge and black, slid out of the shadows without a sound and came up behind Venn. The Borderman neither heard nor sensed him, just stared straight at Sen Dunsidan.\n\n\"Naturally, you will be in charge of your men, of choosing which ones will undertake which tasks...\"\n\nA hand slid out of the Morgawr's black robes, gnarled and covered with scales. It clamped on the back of Darish Venn's neck, and the airship Captain gave a sharp gasp. Twisting and thrashing, he tried to break free, but the Morgawr held him firmly in place. Sen Dunsidan stepped back a pace, his words dying in his throat as he watched the struggle. Darish Venn's eyes were fixed on him, maddened but helpless. The Morgawr's other hand emerged, shimmering with a wicked green light. Slowly the pulsating hand moved toward the back of the Borderman's head. Sen Dunsidan caught his breath. Clawed fingers stretched, touching the hair, then the skin.\n\nDarish Venn screamed.\n\nThe fingers slid inside his head, pushing through hair and skin and bone as if the whole of it were made of soft clay. Sen Dunsidan's throat tightened and his stomach lurched. The Morgawr's hand was all the way inside the skull now, twisting slowly, as if searching. The Captain had stopped screaming and thrashing. The light had gone out of his eyes, and his face had gone slack. His look was dull and lifeless.\n\nThe Morgawr withdrew his hand from the Borderman's head, and it was steaming and wet as it slid back into the black robes and out of sight. The Morgawr was breathing so loudly that Sen Dunsidan could hear him, a kind of rapturous panting, rife with sounds of satisfaction and pleasure.\n\n\"You cannot know, Minister,\" he whispered, \"how good it feels to feed on another's life. Such ecstasy!\"\n\nHe stepped back, releasing Venn. \"There. It is done. He is ours now, to do with as we wish. He is a walking dead man with no will of his own. He will do whatever he is told to do. He keeps his skills and his experience, but he no longer cares to think for himself. A useful tool, Minister. Take a look at him.\"\n\nReluctantly, Sen Dunsidan did so. It was not an invitation, \u2014 it was a command. He studied the blank, lifeless eyes, revulsion turning to horror as they began to lose color and definition and turn milky white and vacant. He moved around the table cautiously, looking for the wound in the back of the Borderman's head where the Morgawr's hand had forced entry. To his astonishment, there wasn't one. The skull was undamaged. It was as if nothing had happened.\n\n\"Test him, Minister.\" The Morgawr was laughing. \"Tell him to do something.\"\n\nSen Dunsidan fought to keep his composure. \"Stand up,\" he ordered Darish Venn in a voice he could barely recognize as his own.\n\nThe Borderman rose. He never looked at Sen Dunsidan or gave recognition that he knew what was happening. His eyes stayed dead and blank, and his face had lost all expression.\n\n\"He is the first, but only the first,\" the Morgawr hissed, anxious now and impatient. \"A long night stretches ahead of us. Go now, and bring me another. I am already hungry for a fresh taste! Go! Bring me six, but bid them enter one by one. Go quickly!\"\n\nSen Dunsidan went out the door without a word. An image of a scaly hand steaming and wet with human matter was fixed in his mind and would not give up its hold on him.\n\nHe brought more men to the room that night, so many he lost count of them. He brought them in small groups and had them enter singly. He watched as their bodies were violated and their minds destroyed. He stood by without lifting a finger to aid them as they were changed from whole men into shells. It was strange, but after Darish Venn, he couldn't remember any of their faces. They were all one to him. They were all the same man.\n\nWhen the room grew too crowded with them, he was ordered to lead them out and turn them over to the turnkey to place in a larger chamber. The turnkey took them away without comment, without even looking at them. But once, after maybe fifty or so, the ruined face and the hard eyes found Sen Dunsidan with a look that left him in tears. The look bore guilt and accusation, horror and despair, and above all unmitigated rage. This was wrong, the look said. This went beyond anything imaginable. This was madness.\n\nAnd yet the turnkey did nothing either.\n\nThe two of them, accomplices to an unspeakable crime.\n\nThe two of them, silent participants in the perpetration of a monstrous wrong.\n\nSo many men did Sen Dunsidan help destroy, men who walked to their doom with nothing to offer in their defense, decoyed by a politician's false words and reassuring looks. He did not know how he managed it. He did not know how he survived what it made him feel. Each time the Morgawr's hand emerged wet and dripping with human life, another feasting complete, the Minister of Defense thought he would run screaming into the night. Yet the presence of Death was so overpowering that it transcended everything else in those terrible hours, paralyzing him. While the Morgawr feasted, Sen Dunsidan watched and was unable even to look away.\n\nUntil finally, the Morgawr was sated. \"Enough for now,\" he hissed, glutted and drunk on stolen life. \"Tomorrow night, Minister, we will finish this.\"\n\nHe rose and walked away, taking his dead with him into the night, shadows on the wind.\n\nThe dawn broke and the day came, but Sen Dunsidan saw none of it. He shut himself away and did not come out. He lay in his roorr and tried to banish the image of the Morgawr's hand. He dozed anc tried to forget the way his skin crawled at the slightest sound of human voice. Queries were made after his health. He was needed in the Council chambers. A vote on the position of Prime Minister was imminent. Reassurances were sought. Sen Dunsidan no longer cared. He wished he had never put himself in this position. He wished he were dead.\n\nBy nightfall, the turnkey was. Even given the harshness of his life and the toughness of his mind, he could not bear what he had witnessed. When no one else was about, he went down into the bowels of the prison and hung himself in a vacant cell.\n\nOr did he? Sen Dunsidan could not be certain. Perhaps it was murder made to look like suicide. Perhaps the Morgawr did not want the turnkey alive.\n\nPerhaps Sen Dunsidan was next.\n\nBut what could he do to save himself?\n\nThe Morgawr came again at midnight, and again Sen Dunsidan went with him into the prisons. This time Dunsidan dismissed the new turnkey and handled all the extraneous work himself. He was numb to it by now, inured to the screams, the wet and steaming hand, the grunts of horror from the men, and the sighs of satisfaction from the Morgawr. He was no longer a part of it, gone somewhere else, somewhere so far away that what happened here, in this place and on this night, meant nothing. It would be over by dawn, and when it was, Sen Dunsidan would be another man in another life. He would transcend this one and leave it behind. He would begin anew. He would remake himself in a way that cleansed him of the wrongs he had done and the atrocities he had abetted. It was not so hard. It was what soldiers did when they came home from a war. It was how a man got past the unforgivable.\n\nMore than 250 men passed through that room and out of the life they had known. They disappeared as surely as if they had turned to smoke. The Morgawr changed them into dead things that still walked, into creatures that had lost all sense of identity and purpose. He turned them into something less than dogs, and they did not even know it. He made them into his airship crews, and he took them away forever. All of them, every last one. Sen Dunsidan never saw any of them again.\n\nWithin days, he had secured the airships the Morgawr had requested and delivered them to fulfill his end of the bargain. Within a week, the Morgawr was gone out of his life, departed in search of the Ilse Witch, in quest of revenge. Sen Dunsidan didn't care. He hoped they destroyed each other. He prayed he would never see either of them again.\n\nBut the images remained, haunting and terrible. He could not banish them. He could not reconcile their horror. They haunted him in his sleep and when he was awake. They were never far away, never out of sight. Sen Dunsidan did not sleep for weeks afterwards. He did not enjoy a moment's peace.\n\nHe became Prime Minister of the Federation's Coalition Council, but he lost his soul."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "Now, months later and thousands of miles away off the coast of the continent of Parkasia, the fleet of airships assembled by Sen Dunsidan and placed under the command of the Morgawr and his Mwellrets and walking dead materialized out of the mist and closed on the Jerle Shannara. Standing amidships at the port railing, Redden Alt Mer watched the cluster of black hulls and sails fill the horizon east like links in an encircling chain.\n\n\"Cast off!\" the Rover Captain snapped at Spanner Frew, spyglass lifting one more time to make certain of what he was seeing.\n\n\"She's not ready!\" the burly shipwright snapped back.\n\n\"She's as ready as she's going to get. Give the order!\"\n\nHis glass swept the approaching ships. No insignia, no flags. Unmarked warships in a land where until a few weeks ago there had never been even one. Enemies, but whose? He had to assume the worst, that these ships were hunting them. Had the Ilse Witch brought others besides Black Moclips, ships that had lain offshore until now, waiting for the witch to bring them into the mix?\n\nSpanner Frew was yelling at the crew, setting them in action. With Furl Hawken dead and Rue Meridian gone inland, there was no one else to fill the role of First Mate. No one stopped to question him. They had seen the ships, as well. Hands reached obediently for lines and winches. The tethering line was released, giving the Jerle Shannara her freedom. Rovers began tightening down the radian draws and lanyards, bringing the sails all the way to the tops of the masts, where they could catch the wind and light. Knowing what he would find, Redden Alt Mer glanced around. His crew was eight strong, counting Spanner and himself. Not nearly enough to fully man a warship like the Jerle Shannara, let alone fight a battle against enemies. They would have to run, and run fast.\n\nHe ran himself, breaking for the pilot box and the controls, heavy boots thudding across the wooden decking. \"Unhood the crystals!\" he yelled at Britt Rill and Jethen Amenades as he swept past them. \"Not the fore starboard! Leave it covered. Just the aft and amidships!\"\n\nNo working diapson crystal in the fore port parse tube, so to balance the loss of power from the left he was forced to shut down its opposite number. It would cut their power by a third, but the Jerle Shannara was swift enough even at that.\n\nSpanner Frew was beside him, lumbering toward the mainmast and the weapons rack. \"Who are they?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Black Beard, but I don't think they are friends.\"\n\nHe opened the four available parse tubes and drew down power to the crystals from the draws. The Jerle Shannara lurched sharply and began to rise as ambient light converted to energy. But too slow, the Rover Captain saw, to make a clean escape. The invading ships were nearly on top of them, an odd assortment, all sizes and shapes, none of them recognizable save for their general design. A mix, he saw, mostly Rover built, a few Elven. Where had they come from? He could see their crews moving about the ships' decking, slow and unhurried, showing none of the excitement and fever he was familiar with. Calm in the face of battle.\n\nPo Kelles, aboard Niciannon, flew past the pilot box off the starboard side. The big Roc banked so close to Redden Alt Mer that he could see the bluish sheen of the bird's feathers.\n\n\"Captain!\" the Wing Rider yelled, pointing.\n\nHe was not pointing at the ships, but at a flurry of dots that had appeared suddenly in their midst, small and more mobile. War Shrikes, acting in concert with the enemy ships, warding their flanks and leading their advance. Already they were ahead of the ships and coming fast at the Jerle Shannara.\n\n\"Fly out of here!\" Big Red yelled back at Po Kelles. \"Fly inland and find Little Red! Warn her what's happening!\"\n\nThe Wing Rider and his Roc swung away, lifting swiftly into the misty sky. A Roc's best chance against Shrikes was to gain height and distance. In a short race, the Shrikes had the advantage. Here, they were still too far away. Already, Niciannon was opening the gap between them. With the navigational directions Po Kelles had been given already, he would have no trouble reaching Hunter Predd and Rue Meridian. The danger now was to the Jerle Shannara. A Shrike's talons could rip a sail to shreds. The birds would soon attempt just that.\n\nAlt Mer's hands flew to the controls. Shrikes in league with enemy warships. How could that be? Who controlled the birds? But he knew the answer as soon as he asked himself the question. It would take magic to bring War Shrikes into line like this. Someone, or something, aboard those ships possessed such magic.\n\nThe Ilse Witch? he wondered. Come out from inland, where she had gone to find the others?\n\nThere was no time to ponder it.\n\n\"Black Beard!\" he yelled down to Spanner Frew. \"Place the men on both sides, down in the fighting pits. Use bows and arrows and keep those Shrikes at bay!\"\n\nHis hands steady on the controls, he watched the warships and birds loom up in front of him, too close to avoid. He couldn't get above them or swing around fast enough to put sufficient distance between them. He had no choice. On his first pass, he would have to go right through them.\n\n\"Hold fast!\" he yelled to Spanner Frew.\n\nThen the closest of the warships were on top of them, moving swiftly out of the haze, all bulk and darkness in the early morning gloom. Redden Alt Mer had been here before, and he knew what to do. He didn't try to avoid a collision. Instead, he initiated one, turning the Jerle Shannara toward the smallest ship in the line. The radian draws hummed as they funneled the ambient light into the parse tubes and the diapson crystals turned it to energy, a peculiar, tinny sound. The ship responded with a surge as he levered forward on the controls, tilted the hull slightly to port, and sliced through the enemy ship's foremast and sails, taking them down in a single sweep that left the vessel foundering.\n\nShrikes wheeled about them, but in close quarters they could not come in more than two at a time, and the bowmen fired arrows at them with deadly accuracy, causing injuries and screams of rage.\n\n\"Helm port!\" Big Red shouted in warning as a second vessel tried to close from the left.\n\nAs the crew braced, he swung the wheel all the way about, bringing the rams to bear on this new threat. The Jerle Shannara shuddered and lurched as the parse tubes emitted fresh discharges of converted light, then shot forward across the enemy's stern, raking her decking and snapping off pieces of railing like deadwood. Redden Alt Mer had only a few moments to glance over at the enemy crew. A Mwellret clutched the helm, crouched down in the pilot box to weather the impact of the collision. He gestured and yelled toward his men, but their response was oddly slow and mechanical, as if they were just coming out of a deep sleep, as if further information was needed before action could be taken. Redden Alt Mer watched their faces turn toward him, blank and empty, devoid of emotion or recognition. Eyes stared up at him, as hard and milky white as sea stones.\n\n\"Shades!\" the Rover Captain whispered.\n\nThey were the eyes of the dead, yet the men themselves were still moving around. For a moment, he was so stunned that he lost his concentration completely. Though he had seen other strange things, he had never seen dead men walk. He had not believed he ever would. Yet he was seeing them now.\n\n\"Spanner!\" he shouted down at the shipwright.\n\nSpanner Frew had seen them, as well. He looked at Redden Alt Mer and shook his wooly black head like an angry bear.\n\nThen the Jerle Shannara was past the second ship and lifting above the others, and Alt Mer brought her all the way around and headed her inland, out of the fray. The enemy ships gave chase at once, coming at her from all directions, but they were strung out along the coastline and too far away to close effectively. How had they found her in the first place? he wondered. For a second, he considered the possibility of betrayal by one of his men, but quickly dismissed the idea. Magic, possibly. If whoever commanded this fleet could enslave Shrikes and make the dead come alive, he could find a band of Rovers easily enough. It was more than likely that he had used the Shrikes to track them.\n\nOr she had, if it was the Ilse Witch returned.\n\nHe cursed his ignorance, the witch, and a dozen other imponderables as he flew the airship inland toward the mountains. He would have to turn south soon to stay within his bearings. He could not trust to the shorter overland route. Too much danger of losing the way and missing Little Red and the others. He could not afford to do that, to leave them abandoned to these things that gave pursuit.\n\nA sharp whang! cut through the rush of wind as the amidships radian draw off the port railing broke loose and began to whip about the decking like a striking snake. The Rovers, still crouched in their fighting pits, flattened themselves protectively. Spanner Frew leapt behind the mainmast, taking cover as the loose draw snapped past, then wrapped itself around the aft port line and jerked it free.\n\nAt once the airship began to lose power and balance, both already diminished by the loss of the forward draws, now thrown off altogether by the breaking away of the entire port bank. If the lines were not retethered at once, the ship would circle right back into the enemy ships, and they would all be in the hands of the walking dead.\n\nRedden Alt Mer saw those eyes again, milky and vacant, devoid of humanity, bereft of any sense of the world about them.\n\nWithout stopping to consider, he cut power to the amidships starboard tube and thrust the port lever all the way forward. Either the Jerle Shannara would hold together long enough for him to give them a fighting chance to escape or it would fall out of the sky.\n\n\"Black Beard!\" he yelled down to Spanner Frew. \"Take the helm!\"\n\nThe shipwright lumbered up the steps and into the pilot box, gnarled hands reaching for the controls. Redden Alt Mer took no time to explain, but simply bolted past him down the steps to the decking and forward to the mainmast. He felt exhilarated and edgy, as if nothing he might do was too wild to consider. Not altogether a bad assessment, he decided. Wind, wild and shrieking in his ears, whipped at his long red hair and brilliant scarves. He could feel the airship rocking under him, fighting to maintain trim, to keep from diving. He was impressed. Three draws lost, \u2014 she should already be going down. Another ship wouldn't have lasted this long.\n\nTo his left, the entangled draws snapped and wrenched at each other, threatening to tear loose at any moment. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Their pursuers had drawn closer, taking advantage of their troubles. The Shrikes were almost on them.\n\n\"Keep them at bay!\" he shouted down to the Rovers crouched in the fighting pits, but his words were lost in the wind.\n\nHe went up the foremast using the iron climbing pins hammered into the wood, pressing himself against the thick timber to keep from being torn loose and thrown out into the void. His flying leathers helped to protect him, but even so, the wind was ferocious, blowing out of the mountains and toward the coast in a cold, hard rush. He did not look behind him or over at the draws. The dangers were obvious and he could do nothing about them. If the draws worked loose before he got to them, they could easily whip about and cut him in half. If the S hrikes got close enough, they could rip him off his perch and carry him away. Neither prospect was worth considering.\n\nSomething flashed dark ly at the corner of his vision. He caught just a glimpse as it whizzed past. Another whipped by. Arrows. The enemy vessels were close enough that longbows could be brought into play. Perhaps the Mwellrets and walking dead were not proficient with weapons. Perhaps some small part of the luck that had saved him so many times before would save him now.\n\nPerhaps was all he had.\n\nThen he was atop the mast and working his way out along the yardarm to where the renegade draw was fastened topside. He clung to the yardarm with numb, bruised fingers, his strength seeping away in the frigid wind. Below, upturned faces shifted back and forth as men fired arrows at the approaching Shrikes then glanced up at him to check his progress. He saw the worry in those hard faces. Good, he thought. He would hate not to be missed.\n\nA Shrike swept past him from above, screaming. Its talons snatched at his back, and trie flying leathers jerked and tore. A wash of pain rushed through him as the bird's claws ripped into his skin. He wrenched himself sideways and nearly fell, his legs losing their grip so that he was hangin g from the yardarm by his fingers. The sail billowed into him like a balloon, and he lay across it, gathering his strength. While he was buried in the sail, another Shrike swept past but couldn't get close enough. It banked away in frustration.\n\nDon't stop, he told himself through a haze of weariness and pain. Don't quit.\n\nHe crawled back up on the yardarm, then dragged himself to its end, swung out from the spar, and slid down the length of the midships draw to where it had tangled in the aft, his boots clearing the lines as he descended. Battered and worn, but still clinging desperately to both stays, he hollered out to his crew for help. Two of them leapt from the port fighting pits and were beside him in moments, taking hold of the draws and hauling them back toward the parse tubes from which they had broken loose, ignoring the diving Shrikes and the hail of arrows from the pursuing ships.\n\nRedden Alt Mer collapsed on the deck, his back burning with pain and wet with blood.\n\n\"That's more than enough heroics from you, Captain,\" Britt Rill growled, appearing out of nowhere to take hold of one arm and haul him to his feet. \"Down below for you.\"\n\nAlt Mer started to object, but his throat was so dry he couldn't get the words out. Worse, his strength had failed him completely. It was all he could do to stand with Rill's help. He glanced at the other and nodded. He had done what he could. The rest was up to the ship, and he would bet on her in any race.\n\nBelowdecks, Britt Rill helped him off with his flying leathers and began to wash and clean his wounds. \"How bad is it?\" Redden Alt Mer asked, head bent forward, arms resting on his knees, hands clasped, and the whole of him knotted with pain. \"Did it sever the muscles?\"\n\n\"Nothing so bad, Captain,\" the other answered quietly. \"Just a few deep cuts that will give you stories to tell your grandchildren, should you ever have any.\"\n\n\"Not likely.\"\n\n\"Be a blessing for the world, I expect.\"\n\nRill applied salve to the wounds, bound him up with strips of cloth, gave him a long pull from the aleskin strapped to his waist, and left him to decide for himself what he would do next. \"The others will be needing me,\" Rill called back as he went out the cabin door.\n\nAnd me, Alt Mer thought. But he didn't move right away. Instead, he sat there on his bed for several minutes more, listening to the sound of the wind outside the shuttered windows, feeling the movement of the ship beneath him. He could tell from its sway and glide that it was doing what it should, that power was back in sufficient amounts to keep it aloft and moving. But the battle wasn't over yet.\n\nPursuers with magic enough to summon Shrikes and command the walking dead would not give up easily.\n\nHe went topside moments later, his shredded flying leathers pulled back in place. Stepping out into the wind, he cast about momentarily to gauge their position, then moved over to the pilot box to stand next to Spanner Frew. Content to let the shipwright guide them, he didn't ask for the helm. Instead, he spent a few long moments looking back at the clutch of dark shapes that were still in pursuit but beginning to fade into the haze. Even the Shrikes seemed to have given up the chase.\n\nSpanner Frew glanced over at him, took note of his condition, and said nothing. The Rover Captain's look did not encourage conversation.\n\nAlt Mer glanced at the surrounding sky. It was all grayness and mist, with a darker wash north that meant rain approached. Mountains loomed ahead and on both sides as they advanced inland toward the ice fields they must traverse in order to reach Rue and the others.\n\nThen he saw the scattering of dots ahead and off to the starboard where the coastline bent inward in a series of deep coves.\n\n\"Black Beard!\" he said in the other's ear, pulling on his shoulder and pointing.\n\nSpanner Frew looked. Ahead, the dots began to take shape, to grow wings and sails. \"More of them!\" the big man growled, a hint of disbelief in his rough voice. \"Shrikes, as well, if I'm seeing right. How did they get ahead of us?\"\n\n\"The Shrikes know the coastline and cliffs better than we do!\" Alt Mer had to fight to be heard above the wind. \"They've found a way to cut us off. If we stick to our flight line, they'll have us. We have to get further inland, and we have to get there quickly.\"\n\nHis companion glanced around at the mist-shrouded mountains. \"If we fly into these in this mist, we'll end up in splinters.\"\n\nAlt Mer caught his eye and held it. \"We don't have any choice. Give me the wheel. Go forward and signal back whenever you think I need it. Hand signals only. Voices might give us away. Do your best to keep us off the rocks.\"\n\nHaving repaired the broken draws and swept aside the bits of wreckage, the crew was standing by on the lines. Spanner Frew called out to them as he passed, sending them to their stations, warning of what was happening. No one replied. They were schooled in the Rover tradition of keeping faith in those who had the luck. No one had more of it than Redden Alt Mer. They would ride a burning ship into a firestorm if he told them to do so.\n\nHe took a deep breath, glanced once more at the shapes ahead and behind. Too many to evade or to fight. He swung the wheel hard to port toward the bank of mist. He let the airship maintain speed until they were into the soup, then cut back to dead slow, watching the vapor gather and fade, wispy sheets of white wrapping the darker edges of the mountains. If they struck a peak at this height, in this haze, with a third of their power already gone, they were finished.\n\nBut the Shrikes couldn't track them, and their pursuers were faced with the same problem they were.\n\nIt was oddly silent in the mist, in the cradle of the peaks, empty of all sound as the Jerle Shannara glided like a bird. All about them the mountains seemed afloat, dark masses appearing and fading like mirages. Alt Mer read the compass, then put it away. He would have to navigate by dead reckoning and gut instinct, then hope he could get back on course when the mist cleared. If it cleared. It might stay like this even further inland, beyond the mountain peaks. If it did, they were as lost as if they had never had a course to begin with.\n\nHe could just make out Spanner Frew standing at the bow. The big Rover was hunched forward, his concentration riveted on the shifting layers of white. Now and then he would signal by hand \u2014 go left, go right, go slow \u2014 and Redden Alt Mer would work the controls accordingly. The wind whistled past in sudden gusts, then died, baffled by a cliff face or air current. Mist swirled through the peaks, empty and aimless. Only the Jerle Shannara disturbed its ethereal fabric.\n\nThe rain returned, a gathering of dark clouds that turned quickly into a torrent. It engulfed the airship and its crew, soaking them through, shrouding them in dampness and gloom, claiming them as the sea might a sinking ship. Alt Mer, who had weathered worse, tried not to think of the way in which rain distorted shapes and spaces, creating the appearance of obstacles where there were none, giving hints of passage where walls of rock stood waiting. He relied on his instincts rather than his senses. He had been a sailor all his life, \u2014 he knew something of the tricks that wind and water could play.\n\nBehind him, the mist and darkness closed about. There was no sign of their pursuers \u2014 no sign of anything but the sky and the mountains and the shifting rain and mist between.\n\nSpanner Frew came back to stand with him in the pilot box. There was no reason to remain in the bow. The world about them had disappeared into space.\n\nThe shipwright glanced over and gave Redden Alt Mer a fierce smile. The Rover Captain smiled back. There was nothing for either to say.\n\nThe Jerle Shannara sailed on into the gloom."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "Heat and light gave way to cool darkness, the odd tingling sensation to numbness, and the present to the past as the Ilse Witch was swept away by the power of the Sword of Shannara. One moment, she was deep underground in the catacombs of Castledown, alone with her enemy, with the Druid Walker, surrounded by the wreckage of another age. In the next, she was gone so far inside herself that she had no sense of where she was. In the blink of an eye, she was transformed from a creature of flesh and blood to nothing more substantial than the thoughts that bore her away.\n\nShe had only a moment to wonder what was happening to her, and then it was done.\n\nShe went alone into the darkness, and yet she was aware of Walker being there with her, not in recognizable form, not even wholly formed, more a shadow, a shade that trailed after her like the flow of her long, dark hair. She could feel the pulse of him in the talisman she gripped like a lifeline. He was only a presence in the ether, but he was with her and he was watching.\n\nWhen she emerged from the darkness, she was in another time and place, one she recognized instantly. She was in the home from which she had been taken as a child. She had thought she would never see it again and yet there it was, just as she remembered it from her childhood, wreathed in the shadows of an approaching dawn, cloaked in silence and danger. She could feel the coolness of the early morning air and smell the pungent scent of the lilac bushes. She recognized the moment at once. She had returned to the morning in which her parents and brother had died and she had been stolen away.\n\nShe watched the events of that morning unfold once more, but this time from somewhere outside herself, as if they were happening to someone else. Again, old Bark was killed when he went out to investigate. Again, the cloaked forms slid past her window in the faint predawn light, moving toward the front doorway. Again, she fled, and again, it was in vain. She hid her brother in the cellar and tried to escape the fate of her parents. But the cloaked forms were waiting for her. She saw herself taken by them as her house burned in a smoky red haze. She watched them spirit her away, unconscious and helpless, into the brightening east.\n\nIt was just as she remembered it. Yet it was different, too. She saw herself surrounded by dark forms huddled in conference as she lay trussed, blindfolded, and gagged. But something was not right. They did not have the look of the shape-shifters she knew to have taken her. Nor was there any sign of the Druid Walker. Had she seen him go past the windows of her home this time as she remembered him doing before? She did not think so. Where was he?\n\nAs if in response to her question, a figure appeared out of the trees, tall and dark and hooded like her captors. He had the look of a Druid, a part of the fading night, a promise of death's coming. He gestured to her captors, brought them close to him momentarily, spoke words she could not hear, then stepped away. In a flurry of activity, her captors squared off like combatants and began to fight with one another. But their struggle was not harsh and brutal, \u2014 it was merely an exercise. Now and then, one would pause to glance at her, as if to measure the effect of this pretense. The cloaked form let it go on for a time, waiting, then suddenly reached down for her, snatched her up, and spirited her away into the trees, leaving the odd scenario behind.\n\nAs he ran, she caught a glimpse of his forearms. They were scaly and mottled. They were reptilian.\n\nHer mind spun with sudden recognition. No!\n\nShe was carried deep into the woods to a quiet place, and the dark-cloaked figure set her down. She watched him reveal himself, and he was not the Druid, as she now knew he would not be, could not be, but the Morgawr. Betrayer! The word shrieked at her. Liar! But he was much worse, of course. He was beyond anything words could describe, anything recognizably human. He was a monster.\n\nShe knew it was the truth she was seeing. She knew it instinctively, even doubting that it could be so. The images drawn on the magic of the Sword of Shannara could not lie. She could feel it in her bones, and it made perfect sense to her. How had she not known it before? How had she let herself become deceived so easily?\n\nYet she was only six years old then, she reminded herself. She was still nothing but a child.\n\nBesieged by emotions that tore through her like hungry wolves, she would have screamed in rage and despair had she been able to do so. But she could not give voice to what she was feeling. She could only watch. The magic of the sword would allow nothing more.\n\nShe heard the Morgawr speak to her, his words soft and cajoling and treacherous. She watched herself slowly come to terms with his lies, to accept them, to believe that he was what he claimed and that she was the victim of a Druid's machinations. She watched him spirit her away aboard his Shrike, deep into his underground lair in the Wilderun. She watched herself close the door on her own prison, a willing fool, a pawn in a scheme she was beginning to understand for the first time. She watched herself begin another life \u2014 a small, misguided child driven by hatred and determination. She watched herself, knowing she would never be the same, helpless to prevent it, to do anything more than despair at her fate.\n\nStill the images continued, spinning themselves out, revealing to her the truth that had been concealed from her all these years. She watched a shape-shifter burrow through the smoking ruins of her home to retrieve her still-living baby brother. She watched him carry her brother away to a solitary fortress that she quickly recognized as Paranor. She saw him give her brother over to the Druid Walker, who in turn took him into the Highlands of Leah to entrust to a kind-faced man and his wife, who had children of their own and a debt to repay. She watched her brother grow in that family, his tiny baby's face changing with the passing of the years, his features slowly becoming recognizable.\n\nShe might have gasped or even cried out as she realized she was looking at the boy who had come to this distant land with Walker, who had confronted her and told her he was Bek. There was no mistaking him. He was the boy she had disbelieved, the boy she had hunted with the caull and almost killed. Bek, the brother she was so certain had died in the fire...\n\nShe could not finish these thoughts, any of them. She could barely force herself to confront them. Nor was there any time for a balanced consideration, for a coming to terms with what she was absorbing. Other images swiftly appeared, a wave of them, inundating her so thoroughly that her chest constricted and her breathing tightened under their crushing weight.\n\nNow the images were ones of her training under the Morgawr, of her long, harsh schooling, of her mastery of self-discipline and her hardening of purpose as she set about learning how to destroy Walker. She saw herself grow from a girl into a young woman, but not with the same freedom of life and spirit that had invested Bek. Instead, she saw herself change from something human into something so like the Morgawr that when all was said and done she was different from him on the outside only, where her skin set her apart from his scales. She had become dark and hate-filled and ruthless in the same way he was. She had embraced her magic's poisonous possibilities with his eagerness and savage determination.\n\nShe watched herself learn to use her magic as a weapon. All of her long, dark experience was replayed for her in numbing, sickening detail. She watched as she maimed and killed those who stood in her way. She watched herself destroy those who dared to confront or question her. She saw herself strip them of their hope and their courage and reduce them to slaves. She saw herself ruin people simply because it was convenient or suited her purpose. The Addershag died so that she could gain power over Ryer Ord Star. Her spy in the home of the Healer at Bracken Clell died so that he could never reveal his connection to her. Allardon Elessedil died so that the voyage the Druid Walker sought to make might not have Elven support.\n\nThere were others, so many she quickly lost count. Most she did not even remember. She watched them appear like ghosts out of the past and watched them die anew. At her hand or by her command, they died all the same. Or if they did not die, they often had the look of men and women who wished they had. She could feel their fear, helplessness, frustration, terror, and pain. She could feel their suffering.\n\nShe who was the Ilse Witch, who had never felt anything, who had made it a point to harden herself against any emotion, began to unravel like an old garment worn too often.\n\nNo more, she heard herself begging. Please! Please!\n\nThe images shifted yet again, and now she saw not the immediate acts she had perpetrated, but the consequences of those acts. Where a father died to serve her needs, a mother and children were left to starve in the streets. Where a daughter was subverted for her use, a brother was inadvertently put in harm's path and destroyed. Where one life was sacrificed, two more were made miserable.\n\nIt did not end there. A Free-born commander broken in spirit and mind at her whim cost his nation the benefit of his courage and left it bereft of leadership for years. The daughter of a politician caught in the middle of a struggle between two factions was imprisoned when her wisdom might have settled the dispute. Children disappeared into other lands, spirited away so that those who obeyed her might gain control over the grief-stricken parents. Tribes of Gnomes, deprived of sacred ground she had claimed for the Morgawr, blamed Dwarves, who then became their enemies. Like the rippling effect of a stone thrown on the still waters of a pond, the results of her selfish and predatory acts spread far beyond the initial impact.\n\nAll the while, she could feel the Morgawr watching from afar, a silent presence savoring the results of his duplicitous acts, his lies and deceits. He controlled her as if she was his puppet, tugged and pulled by the strings he wielded. He channeled her anger and her frustration, and he never let her forget against whom she must direct it. All that she did, she did in expectation of destroying the Druid Walker. But seeing her past now, stripped of pretense and laid bare in brightest daylight, she could not understand how she had been so misguided. Nothing of what she had done had achieved her supposed goals. None of it was justifiable. Everything had been a travesty.\n\nThe shell of self-deception in which she was encased broke under the deluge of images, and for the first time she saw herself for what she was. She was repulsive. She was the worst of what she could imagine, a creature whose humanity had been sacrificed in the false belief that it was meaningless. In sacrifice to the monster she had become, she had given up everything that had been part of the little girl she had once been.\n\nWorst of all was the realization of what she had done to Bek. She had done more than betray him by assuming him dead in the ashes of her home. She had done worse than fail to discover if he might be whom he claimed when he confronted her. She had tried to put an end to him. She had hunted him down and nearly killed him. She had made him her prisoner, taken him back with her to Black Moclips, and given him over to Cree Bega.\n\nShe had abandoned him.\n\nAgain.\n\nIn the silence of the Sword of Shannara's quieting magic, the images faded momentarily, and she was left alone with her truth, with its starkness, with its razor's edge. Walker was still there, still close, his pale presence watching her come to terms with herself. She felt him like a pall, and she could not shake him off. She fought to break free of the tangle of deceits and treacheries and wrongdoings that draped her like a thousand spiderwebs. She struggled to breathe against the suffocating darkness of her life. She could do neither. She was as trapped as her victims.\n\nThe images began again, but she could no longer bear to watch them. Tumbling through the kaleidoscope of her terrible acts, she could not imagine how forgiveness could ever be granted to her. She could not imagine she had any right even to ask for it. She felt bereft of hope or grace. Finding her voice at last, she screamed in a mix of self-hatred and despair. The sound and the fury of it triggered her own magic, dark and swift and sure. It came to her aid in a rush, collided with the magic of the Sword of Shannara, and erupted within her in a fiery conflagration. She felt herself explode in a whirl of images and emotions. Then everything began to spiral off into a vast, depthless void, and she was swept away into clouds of endlessly drifting shadows.\n\nBek Ohmsford stiffened at the sound. \"Did you hear that?\" he asked Truls Rohk.\n\nIt was an unnecessary question. No one could have missed it. They were deep underground now, back within the catacombs of Castledown, searching for Walker. They had come down through the ruins, finding doors once hidden now open and waiting. No longer did the fire threads and creepers protect this domain. No sign of life remained. The world of Antrax was a graveyard of metal skeletons and dead machines.\n\nTruls Rohk, cloaked and hooded even here, looked around slowly as the echo of the scream died away. \"Someone is still alive down here.\"\n\n\"A woman,\" Bek ventured.\n\nThe shape-shifter grunted. \"Don't be too sure.\"\n\nBek tested the air with his magic, humming softly, reading the lines of power. Grianne had passed this way not long ago. Her presence was unmistakable. They were following her in the belief that she would be following Walker. One would lead to the other. If they were quick enough, they could reach both in time. But until now, they had not been so sure that anyone was left alive. Certainly they had found no evidence of it.\n\nBek started ahead again, running his hand through his hair nervously. \"She's gone this way.\"\n\nTruls Rohk moved with him. \"You said you had a plan. For when we find her.\"\n\n\"To capture her,\" Bek declared. \"To take her alive.\"\n\n\"Such ambition, boy. Do you intend to tell me the details anytime soon?\"\n\nBek kept going, taking time to think his explanation through. With Truls, you didn't want to overcomplicate things. The shape-shifter was already prepared to doubt the possibility of any plan working successfully. He was already thinking of ways to kill Grianne before she had a chance to kill him. All that was preventing it was Bek's passionate demand that Truls give his way a chance.\n\n\"She cannot harm us unless she uses her magic,\" he said quietly, not looking over at the other as they walked. He picked his way carefully through collapsed cables and chunks of concrete that had been shaken loose from the ceiling by an enormous blast and a quake that they had felt even aboveground. \"She cannot use her magic unless she can use her voice. If we stop her from speaking or singing or making any sound whatsoever, we can take her prisoner.\"\n\nTruls Rohk slid through the shadows and flickering lights like a massive cat. \"We can accomplish what's needed by just killing her. Give this up, boy. She isn't going to become your sister again. She isn't going to accept what she is.\"\n\n\"If I can distract her, then you can get behind her,\" Bek continued, ignoring him. \"Put your hands over her mouth and muffle her voice. You can do this if we can keep her from discovering you are there. I think it is possible. She will be intent on finding the Druid and dealing with me. She won't be looking for you.\"\n\n\"You dream big dreams.\" Truls Rohk did not sound convinced. \"If this fails, we won't get a second chance. Either one of us.\"\n\nSomething heavy crashed to the floor of the passageway ahead, adding to the mounds of debris already collected. Steam hissed out of broken pipes, and strange smells gathered in niches and slid through cracks in the walls. Within the catacombs, every passageway looked exactly the same. It was a maze, and if they hadn't had Grianne's distinctive aura to track, they would have long since become lost.\n\nBek kept his voice even. \"Walker would want us to do this,\" he ventured. He glanced over at the shape-shifter's dark form. \"You know that to be true.\"\n\n\"What the Druid wants is anyone's guess. Nor is it necessarily the right thing. It hasn't gotten us much of anywhere so far.\"\n\n\"Which is why you chose to come with him on this quest,\" Bek offered quietly. \"Which is why you have gone with him so many times before. Is that right?\"\n\nTruls Rohk said nothing, disappearing back inside himself so that all that remained was his cloaked shadow passing along in the near darkness, more presence than substance, so faint it seemed he might disappear in the blink of an eye.\n\nAhead, the tunnel widened. The damage here was more severe than anything they had encountered so far. Whole chunks of ceiling and wall had fallen away. Shattered glass and twisted metal lay in heaps. Though flameless lamps lit the passageway with pale luminescence, their light barely penetrated the heavy shadows.\n\nA vast and cavernous chamber at the end of the corridor opened onto a pair of massive cylinders whose metal skin was split like overripe fruit. Steam hissed through the wounds like blood leaking from a body. The ends of severed wires flashed and snapped in small explosions. Struts and girders wrenched free of their fastenings with long, slow groans.\n\n\"There,\" Bek said softly, reaching out to touch the other's cloak. \"She's there.\"\n\nNo movement or sound reached out to them, no indication that anyone living waited at the end of the passage amid the massive destruction. Truls Rohk froze momentarily, listening. Then he started ahead, this time leading the way, no longer trusting Bek, taking charge of what might become a deadly situation. The boy followed wordlessly, knowing he was no longer in control, that the best he could hope for was a chance to make things work out the way he thought they should.\n\nA sudden hissing shattered the stillness, the sibilance punctuated by popping and cracking. The sounds reminded Bek of animals feeding on the bones of a carcass.\n\nAs they reached the opening, Truls Rohk moved swiftly into the shadows of one wall, motioning for Bek to stay back. Unwilling to lose contact, Bek retreated perhaps a pace, no more. Flattening himself against the smooth wall, he strained to hear something above the mechanical noises.\n\nThen the shape-shifter faded into a patch of shadow and simply disappeared. Bek knew at once that he was trying to get to Grianne first. Bek charged after him, frightened that he had lost all chance of saving his sister. He breached the rubble at the entrance to the chamber in a rush and stopped.\n\nThe chamber was in ruins, a scrap heap of metal and glass, of shattered creepers and broken machines. Grianne knelt at its center beside a fallen Walker, her head lifting out of the shadow of her dark hair, her pale face caught in a slow flicker of light from a tangle of ruptured wires that sparked and fizzed. Her eyes were open as she stared toward the ceiling, but they did not see. Her hands were fastened securely about the handle of the Sword of Shannara, which rested blade downward against the smooth metal of the floor.\n\nThere was blood on those hands and on that handle and blade. There was blood all over her clothing and on Walker's, as well. There was blood on the floor, pooled in a crimson lake that trickled off into thin rivulets winding their way through the wreckage.\n\nBek stared at the scene in horror. He could not help what he was thinking. Walker was dead and Grianne had killed him.\n\nTo one side, a blade's sharp edge flashed momentarily in the shadows, and from the gathered gloom a deeper darkness eased silently forward.\n\nTruls Rohk had reached the same conclusion."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "Hugging each other like frightened children, Ahren Elessedil and Ryer Ord Star made their way through the silent, dust-choked passageways of Castledown toward the city ruins above. The seer was still sobbing uncontrollably, her head bent into the Elven Prince's shoulder, her arms clinging as if she was afraid she might lose him. Leaving Walker had undone her completely, and though Ahren whispered reassurances to her as they went, trying to bring her back to herself, she seemed not to hear him. It was as if by leaving the Druid, she had left the better part of herself. The only indication she gave that she was still present was in the way she flinched when fresh chunks of wall or ceiling gave way or something exploded in the darkening recesses through which they fled.\n\n\"It will be all right, Ryer,\" Ahren kept repeating, even long after it was clear the words had no meaning for her.\n\nStirred by the events of the past few hours, his thoughts were jumbled and uncertain. The effects of the Elfstone magic had worn off, leaving him quieted and at peace again, no longer filled with fire and white rage. He had tucked the stones safely away inside his tunic pocket for when they would be needed again. A part of him anticipated such use, but another part hoped it might never happen. He felt vindicated and satisfied at having recovered them, having successfully summoned up their magic, and having used the blue fire against the hateful machines that had destroyed so many of his friends and companions from the Jerle Shannara. He felt renewed within, as if he had undergone a rite of passage and survived. He had come on this journey not much more than a boy, and now he was a man. It was his odyssey in gaining possession of the Elfstones that lent him this feeling of fresh identity, of new confidence. The experience had been horrific but empowering.\n\nNone of which made him feel any better about what had happened to Walker or what was likely to happen now to them. That Walker was dying when they left him was indisputable. Not even a Druid could survive the sort of wounds he had received. He might last a few minutes more, but there was no chance for him. So now the company, or what remained of it, must continue on without him. But continue to where? Continue for what reason? Walker himself had said that with the death of Antrax the knowledge of the books of magic was lost to them. He had made a choice in destroying the machine, and the choice had cost them any chance of recovering what they had come to find. It was an admission of failure. It was an acknowledgment that their journey had been for nothing.\n\nYet he could not help feeling that somehow this wasn't so, that there was something more to what had transpired than what was immediately obvious.\n\nHe wondered about the others of the company. He knew Bek had been alive when Ryer had fled the Ilse Witch and come back into the ruins to find Walker. The Elven Tracker Tamis had escaped, too. There would be others, somewhere. What must he do to find them? Find them he must, he knew, because without an airship and a crew, they were stranded indefinitely. With the Ilse Witch and her Mwellrets hunting them.\n\nBut he knew what he could do to gain help. He could use the Elfstones, the seeking stones of legend, to find a way to the others. The problem was that using the magic would alert the Ilse Witch to their presence. It would tell her exactly where they were, and she would come for them at once. They couldn't afford to have that happen. Ahren didn't think for a moment that he was a match for the Witch, even with the magic of the Elfstones to aid him. Stealth and secrecy were better weapons to employ just now. But he wasn't sure that stealth and secrecy would be enough.\n\nHe had been navigating the passageways for several hours, lost in his thoughts, when he became aware of the fact that Ryer had stopped crying. He glanced down at her in surprise, but she kept her face buried in his shoulder, pressed against his chest, concealed in the curtain of her long silvery hair. He thought that she might be working her way through her grief and should not be disturbed. He let her be. Instead, he concentrated anew on regaining the surface. The debris that had clogged the lower corridors was not so much in evidence here, as if the explosions had been centered more deeply. The air seemed fresher, and he thought they must be close to breaking free.\n\nHe found he was right. Within only minutes they passed through a pair of metal doors that stood unhinged and ajar, ducked under the collapsed framework, and stepped out into the open. They emerged from the tower into which Walker had disappeared days earlier, there in the center of the deadly maze that had ravaged the remainder of the company. It was night still, but dawn's approach was signaled by a faint lightening along the eastern horizon. Overhead, moonlight flooded out of a cloudless, starlit sky.\n\nAhren stopped just outside the tower entry and looked around cautiously. He could trace the outline of the walls of the maze and discern the clutter of broken creepers and weapons. Beyond, the ruins of the city spread away in a jumble of shattered buildings. No sounds came from that wasteland. It felt as if they were the only living creatures in the world.\n\nBut that was deceptive, he knew. The Mwellrets were still out there, searching for them. He must be very careful.\n\nWith Ryer still clinging to him, he knelt and put his mouth to her ear. \"Listen to me,\" he whispered.\n\nShe went still, then nodded slowly. \"We have to try to find the others \u2014 Bek and Tamis and Quentin. But we have to be very quiet. The Mwellrets and the Ilse Witch will be hunting us. At least, that's what we have to assume. We can't afford to let them catch us. We have to get out of these ruins and into the cover of the trees. Quickly. Can you help me?\"\n\n\"We shouldn't have left him,\" she replied so softly he could barely make out the words. Her fingers tightened on his arms. \"We should have stayed.\"\n\n\"No, Ryer,\" he said. \"He told us to go. He told us there was nothing else we could do for him. He told us to find the others. Remember?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"It doesn't matter. We should have stayed. He was dying.\"\n\n\"If we fail to do what he asked of us, if we allow ourselves to be captured or killed, we will have failed him. That makes his dying an even bigger waste.\" His voice was low, but fierce. \"That isn't what he expects of us. That isn't why he sent us away.\"\n\n\"I betrayed him.\" She sobbed.\n\n\"We all betrayed each other at some point on this voyage.\" He forced her head out from his shoulder and lifted her chin so that she was looking at him. \"He isn't dying because of anything we did or failed to do. He is dying because he chose to give up his life to destroy Antrax. He made that choice.\"\n\nHe took a deep breath to calm himself. \"Listen to me. We serve him best now by honoring his last wishes. I don't know what he intended for us, what he thought would happen now that he is gone. I don't know what we've accomplished. But there's nothing more we can do for him beyond getting ourselves out of here and back to the Four Lands.\"\n\nHer pale, drawn face tightened at the harshness of his words, then crumpled like old parchment. \"I cannot survive without him, Ahren. I don't want to.\"\n\nThe Elven Prince reached out impulsively and stroked her fine hair. \"He said he would see you again. He promised. Maybe you should give him the chance to keep that promise.\" He paused, then bent forward and kissed her forehead. \"You say you can't survive without him. If it makes any difference, I don't think I can survive without you. I wouldn't have gotten this far if it hadn't been for you. Don't abandon me now.\"\n\nHe rested his cheek against her temple and held her, waiting for a response. It was a long time coming, but at last she lifted away and placed her small hands against his cheeks.\n\n\"All right,\" she said quietly. She gave him a small, sad smile. \"I won't.\"\n\nThey rose and walked out of the shadow of the black tower and into the maze, then back through the ruins. They kept to the shadows and did not hurry, stopping frequently to listen for sounds that would warn them of danger. Ahren led, holding Ryer Ord Star's hand, the link between them oddly empowering. He had not lied when he told her he still needed her. Despite his recovery of the Elfstones and his successful battle against the creepers, he did not yet feel confident about himself. He had passed out of boyhood, but he was still inexperienced and callow. There were lessons still to be learned, and some of them would be hard. He did not want to face them alone. Having Ryer there to face them with him gave him a confidence he could not entirely explain but knew better than to ignore.\n\nYet he thought he understood at least a part of it. What he felt for the girl was close to love. It had grown slowly, and he was only just beginning to recognize it for what it was. He was not certain how it would resolve itself or even if it would survive another day. But in a world of turmoil and uncertainty, of monsters and terrible danger, it was reassuring to have her close, to be able to ask her advice, just to touch her hand. He drew strength from her that was both powerful and mysterious \u2014 not in the way of magic, but in the way of spirit. Maybe it was as simple as not being entirely alone, of having another person with whom to share whatever happened. But maybe, too, it was as mystical as life and death.\n\nThey walked a long time through the ruins without hearing or seeing anything or anyone. They moved in a southerly direction, back the way they had come, toward the bay in which the Jerle Shannara had once anchored. She was in the hands of the Ilse Witch now, of course \u2014 unless things had changed, which was possible. Things changed quickly in this land. Things changed without warning. Maybe this time they would change in a way that would favor Walker's company rather than the Witch's.\n\nSuddenly Ryer Ord Star drew up short, her slim body rigid and trembling. Ahren turned back to her at once. She was staring into space, into some place he could not see, and her face reflected such dismay that he found himself quickly scanning his surroundings to find its cause.\n\n\"He's dead, Ahren,\" she said in a small, grief-stricken whisper.\n\nShe sank to the ground, crying. Her hand still clutched his, as if that were all that held her together. He knelt beside her, putting his arms about her, holding her close.\n\n\"Maybe he's at peace,\" he said, wondering if that was possible for Walker Boh.\n\n\"I saw him,\" she said. \"In my vision, just now. I saw him being carried by a shade into a green light over an underground lake. He wasn't alone. On the shore were three people. One was Bek, the second a cloaked form I didn't recognize. The third was the Ilse Witch.\"\n\n\"The Ilse Witch was with Bek?\"\n\nHer hand tightened on his. \"But she wasn't doing anything threatening. She wasn't even seeing him. She was just there, physically present, but at the same time she wasn't. She looked lost. Wait! No, that isn't right. She didn't look lost, \u2014 she looked stunned. But that isn't all, Ahren. The vision changed, and she was holding Bek and he was holding her. They were somewhere else, somewhere in the future, I think. I don't know how to explain this, but they were the same person. They were joined.\"\n\nAhren tried to make sense of this. \"One body and one face? The same in that way?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"It didn't look like that, but it felt like that. Something happened to connect them. But it was as much a spiritual as a physical joining. There was such pain! I could feel it. I don't know whom it was coming from, who had generated it. Maybe both. But it was released through the connection they formed, and it was a trigger for something else, something that was going to happen after. But I didn't see that, \u2014 I wasn't permitted.\"\n\nAhren thought. \"Well, maybe it has something to do with them being brother and sister. Maybe that was the connection you sensed. Maybe the Ilse Witch discovered it was true, and that was what released all this pain you felt.\"\n\nHer eyes were huge and liquid in the moonlight. \"Maybe.\"\n\n\"Do you think Bek and the Ilse Witch are down in Castledown with Walker?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Should we go back and look for them?\"\n\nShe just stared at him, wide-eyed, frightened.\n\nThere was no way to know, of course. It was a vision, and visions were subject to misleading and false interpretations. They revealed truths, but not in terms that were immediately apparent. That was their nature. Ryer Ord Star saw the future better than most. But even she was not permitted to catch more than a glimpse of it, and that glimpse might mean something other than what it suggested.\n\nGoing back for any reason suddenly seemed unthinkable to Ahren, and he abandoned the idea. Instead, they rose and walked on. Frustrated and troubled by the seer's words, Ahren found himself hoping that when she had another vision, she would have one they could do something about. Like finding a way out of their present dilemma, for instance. Visions of other people in other places were of precious little use just now. It was a selfish attitude, and he was immediately ashamed of it. But he couldn't help thinking it nonetheless.\n\nThey continued on. It would be morning soon. If they hadn't reached the shelter of the trees by then, they would be in trouble. They had the remnants of buildings to hide in, but if they were detected, they would be easily trapped. If they kept on after it grew light, they would be left exposed on the open roadways. Ahren didn't know if it made any difference what he did at this point since they were without a destination or a plan for rescue. All he knew to do was to try to find a way to keep out of the hands of the Ilse Witch and the Mwellrets. Or maybe only the latter, if Ryer's vision proved prophetic. Was it possible that Bek had made the witch a prisoner, had found some way to subdue her? He had magic, after all, magic strong enough to shatter creepers. Was it sufficient to overcome the witch, as well?\n\nAhren wished he knew more about what was happening. But he had wished that from the beginning.\n\nThey were close to the edge of the forest when he heard movement ahead. It was soft and furtive, the kind that comes from someone trying not to be discovered. Ahren dropped into a crouch, pulling Ryer down with him. They were deep in the shadows of a wall, so they would not be easily seen. On the other hand, it was slowly growing lighter and they couldn't stay where they were indefinitely.\n\nHe motioned for her to keep silent and follow his lead. Then he rose and began to make his way forward, but more slowly. Moments later, he heard the noise again, a scraping of boots on stone, very close now, and he dropped back into the shadows once more.\n\nAlmost instantly, a Mwellret slid out of the darkness and made its way across the open ground in front of them. There was no mistaking what it was or its intent. It carried a battle-ax in one hand and a short sword strapped about its waist. It was searching for someone. It might not be them, Ahren accepted, but that wouldn't help them if they were found.\n\nHe waited until the ret was out of sight, and started ahead again. Maybe they could get behind it. Maybe there was only the one.\n\nBut as they angled left, away from the first, they encountered a second, this one coming right for them. Ahren ducked back into the cover of a building's roofless shell, then led Ryer across the open floor to another exit. He picked his way carefully over piles of debris, but his boots made small scraping sounds that he could not seem to avoid. Outside again, he scuttled in a crouch to another building, Ryer at his heels, and made his way through. Enough dodging, he hoped, would lose any pursuers.\n\nOutside, he stopped and looked around. Nothing was familiar. He could see the outline of the treetops some distance off, but he had no idea in which direction he had been going or where the Mwellrets were. He listened for sound of them, but heard nothing.\n\n\"There's someone behind us,\" Ryer whispered in his ear.\n\nHe tugged her forward again, making for the cover of the trees, hoping that they could reach it in time. It was steadily growing lighter, the sun just beginning to crest the horizon, leaving the ruins bathed in a dangerous combination of light and shadows that could easily deceive the eyes. Ahren thought he heard a sudden grunt from somewhere close, and he wondered if they had been discovered after all.\n\nMaybe he should use the Elfstones, even if they gave him away. But the magic wasn't any good against rets or any other creatures not motivated by magic. Nor would it respond if he wasn't physically threatened.\n\nHe put his free hand on the handle of his long knife, his only other weapon, hesitating. He was deliberating over what to do when a movement off to his right stopped him. He faded back against a wall with Ryer, holding his breath as a cloaked form shouldered into view through the buildings. He could not make out who it was. Or even what, human or Mwellret. Ryer was pressed so close against him he could feel her breathing. He tightened his grip on her hand, feeling nothing himself of the reassurance he was trying to convey to her.\n\nThen the cloaked form was gone. Ahren exhaled slowly and began to move ahead again. It wasn't far to the trees. Beyond the ruins, only a hundred yards or so away, he could make out limbs and clusters of leaves in the new light.\n\nAs he stepped around the corner of a partially collapsed wall, he glanced back momentarily at Ryer to be certain she was all right. The look in her eyes changed just as he did so, her wariness giving way to outright terror.\n\nQuickly he looked back, but he was too slow. Sudden movement confronted him.\n\nThen everything went black."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "When he saw Truls Rohk move toward his sister, Bek Ohmsford didn't take time to consider the consequences of what he did next. All he knew was that if he failed to act, the shape-shifter would kill her. It didn't matter what the other had promised earlier, in a moment of rational thought, away from the carnage in which they found themselves now. Once Truls saw her kneeling at the side of the fallen Walker, the Sword of Shannara in hand and blood everywhere, that promise might as well have been written on water.\n\nIf Bek had allowed his emotions to get the better of him, perhaps he would have reacted the same way as Truls Rohk. But Bek could see from his sister's face that something was very wrong with her. She was staring skyward, but she wasn't seeing anything. She held the Sword of Shannara, but not as if it was a weapon she had just used. Nor did he think she would rely on the talisman to take the life of the Druid. She would rely on her own magic, the magic of the wishsong, and if she had done so here, there would not be this much blood.\n\nOnce he got past his initial shock, Bek knew there was more to what he was seeing than appearances indicated. But Truls Rohk was behind Grianne and couldn't see her face. Not that it would have mattered, since he was not inclined to feel the same way Bek did. For the shape-shifter, the Ilse Witch was a dangerous enemy and nothing less, and if there was any reason to suspect she might harm them, he wouldn't think twice about stopping her.\n\nSo Bek attacked him. He did so in a reaction born out of desperation, intending to hold the other back without really harming him. But Truls Rohk was so enormously strong that Bek couldn't afford to employ half measures when calling up the power of the wishsong. He hadn't mastered it yet anyway, not in the way that Grianne had, having only just discovered a few months earlier that he even had the use of it. The best he could do was to hope it had the intended effect.\n\nHe sent it spinning out in an entangling web of magic that snared Truls and sent him tumbling head over heels through the wreckage of the chamber. The shape-shifter went down, but he was back up again almost at once, throwing off his concealment, revealing himself instantly, big and dark and dangerous. With the long knife held before him, he rushed Grianne a second time. But Bek knew enough by now to appreciate how strong Truls was, and he had already assumed his first attempt at slowing the shape-shifter would fail. He sent a second wave of magic lancing out, a wall of sound that snared the other and sent him flying backwards. Bek cried out, but he did not think Truls even heard him, so caught up was he in his determination to get at Grianne.\n\nBut Bek reached her first, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms about her protectively. She did not move when he did so. She did not respond in any way.\n\n\"Don't hurt her,\" he started to say, turning to find Truls Rohk.\n\nThen something hit him so hard that it knocked him completely free of Grianne and sent him sprawling into the remains of a shattered creeper. Stunned, he dragged himself to his knees. \"Truls...,\" he gasped as he peered over at Grianne helplessly.\n\nThe shape-shifter was bent over her, a menacing shadow, his blade at her exposed throat. \"You haven't the experience for this, boy,\" he hissed at Bek. \"Not yet. But that doesn't make you less of an irritation, I'll give you that. No, don't try to get up. Stay where you are.\n\nHe was silent a moment, tensed and ready as he leaned closer to Bek's sister. Then the knife lowered. \"What's wrong with her? She's in some sort of trance.\"\n\nBek climbed back to his feet in spite of the warning and stumbled over, shaking off the disorienting effects of the blow. \"Did you have to hit me so hard?\"\n\n\"I did if I wanted to be certain you would remember what it meant to use your magic against me.\" The other shifted to face him. \"What were you thinking?\"\n\nBek shook his head. \"Only that I didn't want you to hurt her. I thought you would kill her outright when you saw Walker. I didn't think you could see her face, so you wouldn't know she couldn't hurt us. I just reacted.\"\n\nTruls Rohk grunted. \"Next time, think twice before you do.\" The blade disappeared into the cloak. \"Take the sword out of her hands and see what she does.\"\n\nHe was already bent over the Druid, probing through the blood-soaked robes, searching for signs of life. Bek knelt in front of the unseeing Grianne and carefully pried her fingers loose from the Sword of Shannara. They released easily, limply, and he caught the talisman in his hand as it fell free. There was no sign of recognition in her eyes. She did not even blink.\n\nBek laid down the sword and moved Grianne's arms to her sides. She allowed him to do this without responding in any way. She might have been made of soft clay.\n\n\"She doesn't know anything that's happening to her,\" he said quietly.\n\n\"The Druid lives,\" Truls Rohk responded. \"Barely.\"\n\nHe straightened the ragged form and tore strips of cloth from his own clothing to stem the flow of blood from the visible wounds.\n\nBek watched helplessly, appalled by the extent of the damage. The Druid's injuries seemed more internal than external. There were jagged wounds to his chest and stomach, but he was bleeding from his mouth and ears and nose and even his eyes, as well. He seemed to have suffered a major rupture of his organs.\n\nThen abruptly, unexpectedly, the penetrating eyes opened and fixed on Bek. The boy was so startled that for a moment he quit breathing and just stared back at the other.\n\n\"Where is she?\" Walker whispered in a voice that was thick with blood and pain.\n\nBek didn't have to ask whom he was talking about. \"She's right beside us. But she doesn't seem to know who we are or what's going on.\"\n\n\"She is paralyzed by the sword's magic. She panicked and used her own to try to ward it off. Futile. It was too much. Even for her.\"\n\n\"Walker,\" Truls Rohk said softly, bending close to him. \"Tell us what to do.\"\n\nThe pale face shifted slightly, and the dark eyes settled on the other. \"Carry me out of here. Go where I tell you to go. Don't stop until you get there.\"\n\n\"But your wounds \u2014\"\n\n\"My wounds are beyond help.\" The Druid's voice turned suddenly hard and fierce. \"There isn't much time left, shape-shifter. Not for me. Do as I say. Antrax is destroyed. Castledown is dead. What there was of the treasure we came to find, of the books and their contents, is lost.\" The eyes shifted. \"Bek, bring your sister with us. Lead her by the hand. She will follow.\"\n\nBek glanced at Grianne, then back at Walker. \"If we move you...\n\n\"Druid, it will kill you to take you out of here!\" Truls Rohk snapped angrily. \"I didn't come this far just to bury you!\"\n\nThe Druid's strange eyes fixed on him. \"Choices of life and death are not always ours to make, Truls. Do as I say.\"\n\nTruls Rohk scooped the Druid into the cradle of his arms, slowly and gently, trying not to damage him further. Walker made no sound as he was lifted, his dark head sinking into his chest, his good arm folding over his stomach. Bek strapped the Sword of Shannara across his back, then took Grianne's hand and pulled her to her feet. She came willingly, easily, and she made no response to being led away.\n\nThey passed out of the ruined chamber and back down the passageway through which they had come. At the first juncture, Walker took them in a different direction than the one that had brought them in. Bek saw the dark head move slightly and heard the tired voice whisper instructions. The ends of the Druid's tattered robes trailed from his limp form, leaving smears of blood on the floor.\n\nAs they progressed through the catacombs, Bek glanced at Grianne from time to time, but never once did she look back at him. Her gaze stayed fixed straight ahead, and she moved as if she was sleepwalking. It frightened the boy to see her like this, more so than when she was hunting him. She seemed as if she was nothing more than a shell, the living person she had been gone entirely.\n\nTheir progress was slowed now and again by heaps of stone and twisted metal that barred their passage. Once, Truls was forced to lay the Druid down long enough to force back a sheet of twisted metal tightly jammed across their passage. Bek watched the Druid's eyes close against his pain and weariness, saw him flinch when he was picked up again, his hand clawing at his stomach as if to hold himself together. How Walker could still be alive after losing so much blood was beyond the boy. He had seen injured men before, but none who had lived after being damaged so severely.\n\nTruls Rohk was beside himself. \"Druid, this is senseless!\" he snapped at one point, stopping in rage and frustration. \"Let me try to help you!\"\n\n\"You help me best by going on, Truls,\" was the other's weak response. \"Go, now. Ahead still.\"\n\nThey walked a long way before finally coming out into a vast underground cavern that did not look as if it was a part of Castledown, but of the earth itself. The cavern was natural, the rock walls unchanged by metal or machines, the ceiling studded with stalactites that dripped water and minerals in steady cadence through the echoing silence. What little light there was emanated from flameless lamps that bracketed the cavern entry and a soft phosphorescence given off by the cavern rock. It was impossible to see the far side of the chamber, though bright enough to discern that it was a long distance off.\n\nAt the center of the chamber was a huge body of water as black as ink and smooth as glass.\n\n\"Take me to its edge,\" Walker ordered Truls Rohk.\n\nThey made their way along the uneven cavern floor, which was littered with loose rock and slick with damp. Moss grew in dark patches, and tiny ferns wormed through cracks in the stone. That anything could grow down here, bereft of sunlight, surprised Bek.\n\nHe squeezed Grianne's hand reassuringly, an automatic response to the encroachment of fresh darkness and solitude. He glanced at her immediately to see if she had noticed, but her gaze was still directed straight ahead.\n\nAt the water's edge, they stopped. On Walker's instructions, Truls Rohk knelt to lay him down, cradling him so that his head and shoulders rested in the shape-shifter's arms. Bek found himself thinking how odd it seemed, that a creature who was himself not whole, but bits and pieces held together by smoky mist, should be the Druid's bearer. He remembered when he had first met Walker in the Highlands of Leah. The Druid had seemed so strong then, so indomitable, as if nothing could ever change him. Now he was broken and ragged, leaking blood and life in a faraway land.\n\nTears came to Bek's eyes as swiftly as the thought, his response to the harsh realization that death approached. He did not know what to do. He wanted to help Walker, to make him whole again, to restore him to who he had been when they had first met all those months ago. He wanted to say something about how much the Druid had done for him. But all he could do was hold his sister's hand and wait to see what would happen.\n\n\"This is as far as I go,\" Walker said softly, coughing blood and wincing with the pain the movement caused.\n\nTruls Rohk wiped the blood away with his sleeve. \"You can't die on me, Druid. I won't allow it. We've too much more to do, you and I.\"\n\n\"We've done all we're allowed to do, shape-shifter,\" Walker replied. His smile was surprisingly warm. \"Now we must go our separate ways. You'll have to find your own adventures, make your own trouble.\"\n\nThe other grunted. \"Not likely I could ever do the job as well as you. Game-playing has always been your specialty, not mine.\"\n\nBek knelt beside them, pulling Grianne down with him. She let him place her however he wished and did nothing to acknowledge she knew he was there. Truls Rohk edged away from her.\n\n\"I'm done with this life,\" Walker said. \"I've done what I can with it, and I have to be satisfied with that. Make certain, when you return, that Kylen Elessedil honors his father's bargain. His brother will stand with you, \u2014 Ahren's stronger than you think. He has the Elfstones now, but the Elfstones won't make the difference. He will. Remember that. Remember as well what we made this journey for. What we have found here, what we have recovered, belongs to us.\"\n\nTruls Rohk spat. \"You're not making any sense, Druid. What are you talking about? We have nothing to show for what we've done! We've claimed nothing! The Elfstones? They weren't ours to begin with! What of the magic we sought? What of the books that contained it?\"\n\nWalker made a dismissive gesture. \"The magic contained in the books, the magic I spoke of to both Allardon Elessedil and his son, was never the reason for this voyage.\"\n\n\"Then what was?\" Truls Rohk was incensed. \"Are we to play guessing games all night, Druid? What are we doing here? Tell us! Has this all been for nothing? Give us something to hope for! Now, while there's still time! Because I don't think you have much left! Look at you! You're \u2014\"\n\nHe couldn't make himself finish the sentence, biting off the rest of what he was going to say in bitter distaste.\n\n\"Dying?\" Walker spoke the word for him. \"It's all right to say it, Truls. Dying will set me free from promises and responsibilities that have kept me in chains for longer than I care to remember. Anyway, it's only a word.\"\n\n\"You say it, then. I don't want to talk to you anymore.\"\n\nWalker reached up with his good hand and took hold of the other's cloak. To Bek's surprise, Truls Rohk did not pull away.\n\n\"Listen to me. Before I came to this land, before I decided to undertake this voyage, I went into the Valley of Shale, to the Hadeshorn, and I summoned the shade of Allanon. I spoke with him, asking what I could expect if I chose to follow the castaway's map. He told me that of all the goals I sought to accomplish, I would succeed in only one. For a long time, Truls, I thought that he meant I would recover the magic of the books from the Old World. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I thought that was the purpose of this voyage. It wasn't.\"\n\nHis fingers tightened on the shape-shifter's cloak. \"I made the mistake of thinking I could shape the future in the way I sought. I was wrong. Life doesn't permit it, not even if you are a Druid. We are given glimpses of possibilities, nothing more. The future is a map drawn in the sand, and the tide can wash it away in a moment. It is so here. All of our efforts in coming to this land, Truls, all of our sacrifices, have been for something we never once considered.\"\n\nHe paused, his breathing weak and labored, the effort of speaking further too much for him.\n\n\"Then what did we come here for?\" Truls Rohk asked impatiently, still angered by what he was hearing. \"What, Druid?\"\n\n\"For her,\" Walker whispered, and pointed at Grianne.\n\nThe shape-shifter was so stunned that for a moment he could not seem to find anything to say in response. It was as if the fire had gone out of him completely.\n\n\"We came for Grianne?\" Bek asked in surprise, not sure he had heard correctly.\n\n\"It will become clear to you when you are home again,\" Walker whispered, his words almost inaudible, even in the deep silence of the cavern. \"She is your charge, Bek. She is your responsibility now, your sister recovered as you wished she might be. Return her to the Four Lands. Do what you must, but see her home again.\"\n\n\"This makes no sense at all!\" Truls Rohk snapped in fury. \"She is our enemy!\"\n\n\"Give me your word, Bek,\" Walker said, his eyes never leaving the boy.\n\nBek nodded. \"You have it.\"\n\nWalker held his gaze a moment longer, then looked at the shape-shifter. \"And you, as well, Truls. Your word.\"\n\nFor a moment, Bek thought Truls Rohk wasn't going to give it. The shape-shifter didn't say anything, staring at the Druid in silence. Tension radiated from his dark form, yet he refused to reveal what he was thinking.\n\nWalker's fingers kept their death grip on the shape-shifter's cloak. \"Your word,\" he whispered again. \"Trust me enough to give it.\"\n\nTruls Rohk exhaled in a hiss of frustration and dismay. \"All right. I give you my word.\"\n\n\"Care for her as you would for each other,\" the Druid continued, his eyes back on Bek. \"She will not always be like this. She will recover one day. But until then, she needs looking after. She needs you to ward her from danger.\"\n\n\"What can we do to help her wake?\" Bek pressed.\n\nThe Druid took a long, ragged breath. \"She must help herself, Bek. The Sword of Shannara has revealed to her the truth about her life, about the lies she has been told and the wrong paths she has taken. She has been forced to confront who she has become and what she has done. She is barely grown, and already she has committed more heinous wrongs and destructive acts than others will commit in a lifetime. She has much to forgive herself for, even given the fact that she was so badly misled by the Morgawr. The responsibility for finding forgiveness lies with her. When she finds a way to accept that, she will recover.\"\n\n\"What if she doesn't?\" Truls Rohk asked. \"It may be, Druid, that she is beyond forgiveness, not just from others, but even from herself. She is a monster, even in this world.\"\n\nBek gave the shape-shifter an angry glance, thinking that Truls would never change his opinion of Grianne, that to him she would always be the Ilse Witch and his enemy.\n\nThe Druid had a fit of coughing, then steadied. \"She is human, Truls \u2014 like you,\" he replied softly. \"Others labeled you a monster. They were wrong to do so. It is the same with her. She is not beyond redemption. But that is her path to walk, not yours. Yours is to see that she has the chance to walk it.\"\n\nHe coughed again, more deeply. His breathing was so thick and wet that with every breath it seemed he might choke on his own blood. The sound of it emanated from deep in his chest, where his lungs were filling. Yet he lifted himself into a sitting position, freed himself from Truls Rohk's arms, and motioned him away.\n\n\"Leave me. Take Grianne and walk back to the cavern entrance. When I am gone, follow the passageway that bears left all the way to the surface. Seek out the others who still live \u2014 the Rovers, Ahren Elessedil, Ryer Ord Star. Quentin Leah, perhaps. One or two more, if they were lucky. Sail home again. Don't linger here. Antrax is finished. The Old World has gone back into the past for good. The New World, the Four Lands, is what matters.\"\n\nTruls Rohk stayed where he was. \"I won't leave you alone. Don't ask it of me.\"\n\nWalker's head sagged, his dark hair falling forward to shadow his lean face. \"I won't be alone, Truls. Now go.\"\n\nTruls Rohk hesitated, then rose slowly to his feet. Bek stood up, as well, taking Grianne's hand and pulling her up with him. For a moment no one moved, then the shape-shifter wheeled away without a word and started back through the loose rock for the cavern entrance. Bek followed wordlessly, leading Grianne, glancing back over his shoulder to look at Walker. The Druid was slumped by the edge of the underground lake, his dark robes wet with his blood, the slow, gentle heave of his shoulders the only indication that he still lived. Bek had an almost uncontrollable urge to turn around and go back for him, but he knew it would be pointless. The Druid had made his choice.\n\nAt the cavern entrance, Truls Rohk glanced back at Bek, then stopped abruptly and pointed toward the lake. \"Druid games, boy,\" he hissed. \"Look! See what happens now!\"\n\nBek turned. The lake was roiling and churning at its center, and a wicked green light shone from its depths. A dark and spectral figure rose from its center and hung suspended in the air. A face lifted out of the cloak's hood, dusky-skinned and black-bearded, a face Bek, without ever having seen it before, knew at once.\n\n\"Allanon,\" he whispered.\n\nWalker Boh dreamed of the past. He was no longer in pain, but his weariness was so overwhelming that he barely knew where he was. His sense of time had evaporated, and it seemed to him now that yesterday was as real and present as today. So it was that he found himself remembering how he had become a Druid, so long ago that all those who were there at the time were gone now. He had never wanted to be one of them, had never trusted the Druids as an order. He had lived alone for many years, avoiding his Ohmsford heritage and any contact with its other descendants. It had taken the loss of his arm to turn him to his destiny, to persuade him that the blood mark bestowed three hundred years earlier by Allanon on the forehead of his ancestor, Brin Ohmsford, had been intended for him.\n\nThat was a long time ago.\n\nEverything was so long ago.\n\nHe watched the greenish light rise out of the depths of the underground lake, breaking the surface of its waters in shards of brightness. He watched it widen and spread, then grow in intensity as a path from the netherworld opened beneath. It was a languid, surreal experience and became a part of his dreams.\n\nWhen the cloaked figure appeared in the light's emerald wake, he knew at once who it was. He knew instinctively, just as he knew he was dying. He watched with weary anticipation, ready to embrace what waited, to cast off the chains of his life. He had borne his burden of office for as long as he was able. He had done the best he could. He had regrets, but none that gave him more than passing pause. What he had accomplished would not be apparent right away to those who mattered, but it would become clear in time. Some would embrace it. Some would turn away. In either case, it was out of his hands.\n\nThe dark figure crossed the surface of the lake to where Walker lay and reached for him. His hand lifted automatically in response. Allanon's dark countenance stared down, penetrating eyes fixing on him. There was approval in those eyes. There was a promise of peace.\n\nWalker smiled.\n\nAs Bek and Truls Rohk watched, the shade reached Walker's side. Green light played about their dark forms, slicing through them like razors, slashing them with emerald blades. There was a hiss, but it was soft and distant, the whisper of a dying man's breath.\n\nThe shade bent for Walker, the effort strong and purposeful. Walker's hand came up, perhaps to ward it off, perhaps to welcome it, \u2014 it was difficult to tell. It made no difference. The shade lifted him into his arms and cradled him like a child.\n\nThen together they made a slow retreat back across the lake, gliding on air, their dark forms illuminated by shards of light that gathered about them like fireflies. When both were encased in the glow, it closed around completely and they slowly disappeared into its brilliant center until nothing remained but a faint rippling of the lake's dark waters. In seconds, even that was gone, and the cavern was still and empty once more.\n\nBek realized suddenly that he was crying. How much of what Walker had hoped to see accomplished in this life had he lived to witness? Not anything of what had brought him here. Not anything of what he had envisioned of the future. He had died the last of his order, an outcast and perhaps a failure. The thought saddened the boy more than he would have believed possible.\n\n\"It's finished,\" he said quietly.\n\nTruls Rohk's response was surprising. \"No, boy. It's just begun. Wait and see.\"\n\nBek looked at him, but the shape-shifter refused to say anything more. They stood where they were for a few seconds, unable to break away. It was as if they were expecting something more to happen. It was as if something must. But nothing did, and at last they quit looking and began to walk back through the passageways of Castledown to the world above."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Rue Meridian flew Black Moclips through the last hours of night and into the first light of morning before beginning her search of Castledown's ruins. She would have started sooner, but she was afraid to attempt anything complicated until it was light enough to see what she was doing. Airships were complex mechanisms, and flying one alone, even using the controls situated in the pilot box, was no mean feat. Just keeping the vessel airborne required all her concentration. To make out anything in the darkness, she would have had to place herself at the railing, outside the box and away from the controls. She would not have lasted long that way.\n\nShe still had Hunter Predd to help her, but the Wing Rider was not a sailor and knew almost nothing of how airships functioned. He could perform small tasks, but nothing on the order of what would be required if anything went wrong. Besides, he was needed aboard Obsidian if they were to have any real chance of finding the missing members of the company. The Roc's eyes were better than their own, and it had been trained to search for what was lost and needed finding. For now, the giant bird was keeping pace with the airship, staying just off her sails as it wheeled back and forth across the skies, waiting for his master to rejoin him.\n\n'\"No chance of persuading that Federation Commander or any of his crew to help us, I don't suppose,\" Hunter Predd ventured at one point, looking doubtful even as he voiced the possibility.\n\nShe shook her head. \"He says he won't do anything that contradicts his orders, and that includes helping us.\" She brushed back stray strands of her long red hair. \"You have to understand. Aden Kett is a soldier through and through, trained to follow orders, to accept the hierarchy of command. He isn't a bad man, just a misguided one.\"\n\nThey hadn't heard anything from the imprisoned Federation crew since she had locked them away in the storeroom below. Twice she had sent the Wing Rider to check on them, and both times he had reported back that other than muffled conversation, there was nothing to be heard. Apparently the crew had decided that for the time being it was better to wait this business out. She was more than content to let them do so.\n\nStill, it would have been nice to have help. As soon as it was light enough, she planned to send Hunter off on Obsidian in search of Walker, Bek, and the others. In a freewheeling search, he would have a better chance than she would of spotting something. If he was successful, she could bring Black Moclips close enough to pick them up. The risk to the airship was minimal. In daylight, from the safety of the skies, she would be able to see for miles. It was not likely that anything would be able to get close enough to threaten, especially now that she had control of the Ilse Witch's vessel.\n\nOf course, she could not discount the possibility that the witch had other weapons at her disposal, ones that could affect even an airship in flight. The witch was down there somewhere in the ruins, hunting Walker, and they might be unlucky enough to encounter her in their search. Rue Meridian had to hope that Obsidian would spy out any sign of the witch before they got close enough for her to do them any damage. She also had to hope that they would find Bek or Walker or any of the others who still lived before the witch did.\n\nShe yawned and flexed her gloved fingers where they gripped the flying levers. She had been awake for twenty-four hours, and she was beginning to feel the strain. Her wounds, even padded and sealed within her flying leathers, were throbbing painfully, and her eyes were heavy with the need for sleep. But there was no one to relieve her at the controls, so there was no point in dwelling on her deprivations. Maybe she would get lucky and find Bek at first light. Bek could fly Black Moclips. Big Red had taught him well enough. With Bek at the controls, she could get some sleep.\n\nHer thoughts settled momentarily on the boy. No, he was not a boy, she corrected herself quickly. Bek wasn't a boy \u2014 not in any way that mattered. He was young in years, but old already in life experience. Certainly he was more mature than those Federation fools she had been forced to suffer on the Prekkendorran. He was smart and funny, and he exuded genuine confidence. She thought back to their conversations on the flight out from the Four Lands, remembering how they had joked and laughed, how they had shared stories and confidences. Hawk and her brother both had been surprised. They didn't understand the attraction. But her friendship with Bek was different from the ones she was accustomed to, it was grounded in their similar personalities. Bek was like a best friend. She felt she could trust him. She felt she could tell him anything.\n\nShe shook her head and smiled. Bek put her at ease, and that wasn't something many men did. He didn't invite her to be anyone other than who she really was. He didn't expect anything from her. He wasn't looking to compete, wasn't trying to impress. He was a bit in awe of her, but she was used to that. The important thing was that he didn't let it interfere with or intrude on their friendship.\n\nShe wondered where he was. She wondered what had happened to him. Somehow he had fallen into the hands of the Mwellrets and the Ilse Witch, been brought aboard Black Moclips and imprisoned. Then someone had rescued him. Who? Had he really lost his voice, as Aden K.ett had said, or was he just pretending at it? She felt frustrated by her ignorance. She had so many questions and no way to determine the answers without finding Bek first. She did not like to think of him being hunted down there. But Bek was resourceful, able to find his way through dangers that would overwhelm other men. He would be all right until she found him.\n\nHawk would laugh at her, if he were there. He's just a boy, he would say, not making the distinction she had. He's not even one of us, not even a Rover.\n\nBut that didn't matter, of course. Not to her, at least. What mattered was that Bek was her friend, and she could admit to herself, if to no one else, that she didn't have many of these.\n\nShe brushed the matter aside and returned her attention to the task at hand. The first faint streaks of light were appearing in the east, sliding through gaps in the mountains. Within an hour, she would begin her search. By nightfall, perhaps they could be gone from this place.\n\nHunter Predd, who had been absent for a time, reappeared at her elbow. \"I took a quick look below. Nothing happening. Some of them are asleep. There's no sign of any attempt to break out. But I don't like the situation anyway.\"\n\n\"Nor do I.\" She shifted her position to relieve her cramped and aching muscles. \"Maybe Big Red will reach us before the day is out.\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" The Wing Rider looked east. \"It's growing light. I should start searching. Will you be all right alone?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Let's find them, Wing Rider. All of them we left behind. Bek, for one, is still alive \u2014 along with whoever saved him from the Mwellrets. We know that much, at least. Maybe a few of the others are down there, as well. Whatever happens, we can't abandon them.\"\n\nHunter Predd nodded. \"We won't.\"\n\nHe went back down out of the pilot box and across the deck to the aft railing. She watched him signal into the night, then lower himself over the side on a rope. Moments later, he flew by aboard Obsidian, giving her a wave of reassurance before disappearing into the gloom. She could just make him out through the fading darkness. Wheeling Black Moclips in the direction he was taking, she moved out of the forested hill country and over the ravaged landscape of the ruins, the airship rocking gently in the wind.\n\nShe glanced down perfunctorily. Everything below looked flat and gray. It would have to grow much lighter before she could hope to see anyone. Even then, she doubted she would have much luck. Any rescue of the missing members of the company from the Jerle Shannara would rely almost entirely on the efforts of the Wing Rider and his Roc.\n\nDon't let us fail them, she thought. Not again.\n\nShe took a deep breath and put her back to the wind.\n\nHunter Predd swung down the rope from the airship railing, his keen eyes picking out Obsidian's sleek shape moving up obediently through the darkness. The Roc drifted into place below him, then rose so that his rider could settle aboard. Once Hunter Predd felt the harness between his legs, he reached down for the grips, released the rope, and with a nudge of his knees sent his carrier winging away.\n\nDawn was a faint gray smudge to the east, but its light was beginning to creep over the landscape. Flying out over the ruins, he could already make out the shattered buildings and debris-strewn roadways, empty and silent. Obsidian would be seeing much more. Even so, this search would not be easy. He had a feeling that Rue Meridian believed that all they needed to do was complete a sweep of the city and they would find anyone who was still alive down there. But Castledown was huge, miles and miles of rubble, and there was every chance that they would fail in their efforts to unmask its secrets. Those they sought must find a way to make themselves known if they were to be discovered other than by chance. To do that, they must be looking skyward in order to see the Roc. It had been almost two weeks since the Jerle Shannara had deposited the missing company on the shores of that bay to make the journey inland. By now, they might well have given up hope of being found. They might not be looking for help at all. They might not be alive.\n\nIt did no good to speculate, of course. He had come with the Rover girl to find whoever still survived, so it was pointless to start throwing up obstacles to their search before they had even begun it. After all( Obsidian had found smaller specks in larger expanses against greater odds. The chances were there, he simply had to make the best of them.\n\nHe flew in widening circles for the duration of the sunrise, searching all the while for movement on the ground, for something that looked a little out of place, for anything that would indicate a foreign presence. As he did so, he found himself thinking back on his decision to make this journey and wondering if he would have been better off staying home. It wasn't just that it had turned out so badly, \u2014 it was that nothing much seemed to have been accomplished for the effort. If it turned out that Walker was dead, then following Kael Elessedil's map would have been for nothing. Worse, it would have cost lives that could have been spared. Wing Riders were strong believers in letting well enough alone, in living their own lives and not messing in the lives of others. It had taken considerable compromise for him to come on this voyage, and it was taking considerable compromise now for him to stick things out. Common sense said he should turn around and fly home, that the longer he stayed, the shorter the odds grew that he would ever leave. Certainly the Rovers must feel the same way. Rovers and Wing Riders were alike, nomads by choice, mercenaries by profession. Their loyalty and sense of obligation could be bought and paid for, but they never let that get in the way of their common sense.\n\nBut he wouldn't leave, of course. He wouldn't abandon those on the ground, no matter the odds, if there was any chance at all that they were still alive. It was just that he couldn't help second-guessing himself, even if it wouldn't make any difference in what he perceived as his commitment to his missing comrades. What if this? What if that? It was the sort of game you played at if you spent enough time alone and in dangerous circumstances. But it was only a game.\n\nThe sun crested the horizon, daylight broke across the land, and the ruins stretched away as silent and empty as before. He glanced back to where Rue Meridian flew Black Moclips, a solitary figure in the pilot box. She was dangerously tired, and he wasn't sure how much longer she could continue to fly the airship alone. It had been an inspired idea to steal the vessel from the Ilse Witch, but it was going to turn into a liability if she didn't get help fast. He wasn't sure at the moment where that help was going to come from. He would give it if he could, but he knew next to nothing about airships. The best he could do was to pluck her off the deck if things got out of hand.\n\nHe caught sight of something odd at the edge of the ruins north, and he swung down for a closer look. He discovered a scattering of bodies, but they were not the bodies of his companions from the Jerle Shannara or even the bodies of any people he had ever encountered. These people had burnished skin and red hair, and they were dressed like Gnomes. He had never seen their like, but they had a tribal look to their garb and he assumed they were an indigenous people. How they had come to this sorry end was a mystery, but it looked as if they had been ripped apart by something extraordinarily powerful. Creepers, perhaps.\n\nHe flew over the still forms for a few moments more, hoping he would spy something that would help him discover what had happened. He thought it might be worth setting down to see if there was any indication that members of the Jerle Shannara had been involved, but decided against it. The information wouldn't do him any good unless he tried to follow up on foot, and that was too dangerous. He glanced over his shoulder to where Black Moclips hovered several hundred feet away, drifting in the wind. He signaled to Rue Meridian to swing by for a look, then began a slow sweep back out over the ruins. The Rover girl could make her own decision about what to do. He would continue on. If nothing else turned up, he would come back later.\n\nHe had barely settled into a fresh glide over the blasted expanse of the city when he caught sight of something flying toward them from the northeast. Obsidian saw it, as well, and gave a sharp cry of recognition.\n\nIt was Po Kelles aboard Niciannon.\n\nRue Meridian had just maneuvered Black Moclips over the collection of dead men at the edge of the ruins and was wondering what to make of it when she glanced back at Hunter Predd and saw the second Wing Rider. She knew it had to be Po Kelles, and she felt fresh hope that his arrival signaled the approach of her brother aboard the Jerle Shannara. With two airships searching, she would have a much better chance of finding Bek and the others. Perhaps she could take on a couple of Rovers to help her fly Black Moclips so that she could catch a few hours of sleep.\n\nShe watched the two riders circle in tandem, talking and gesturing from the backs of their Rocs. Holding her course, she peered back toward the coast, for some sign of the other ship. But there was nothing to be seen as yet, so she returned her attention to the Wing Riders. The discussion had become animated, and the first vague feelings of uneasiness crept through her. Something about the way they communicated, even from a distance, didn't look right.\n\nYou're imagining things, she thought.\n\nThen Hunter Predd broke away from Po Kelles and flew back to where she waited, swinging about to come alongside before dropping down and below the aft railing. Taking hold of the line he had left dangling from before, the Wing Rider swung down off the bird and pulled himself up, hand over hand, until he was back on board. A hand signal to Obsidian sent the Roc wheeling away to take up a position beside them, flying to keep pace.\n\nRue Meridian waited as the Elf hurried over to the pilot box and climbed inside. Even in the faint new light, she could tell that he was upset.\n\n\"Listen to me, Little Red.\" His weathered face was calm, but strained. \"Your brother and the others are flying this way, but they are being chased. A fleet of enemy airships appeared off the coast yesterday at dawn. The Jerle Shannara barely got away from them. She's been flying this way ever since, trying to shake them off. But fast as she is, she can't seem to lose them. They tracked her all through the mountains, all the way inland, even after she'd changed course to go another way entirely, and now they're almost here.\"\n\nEnemy airships? All the way out here, so far from the Four Lands? She took a moment to let the information sink in. \"Who are they?\"\n\nHe made a dismissive gesture with one hand. \"I don't know. No one does. They fly no flag, and their crews act like dead men. They walk around, but they don't seem to see anything. Po Kelles got a close look late yesterday when the Rovers set down to rest, thinking they'd lost them. Not an hour passed, and there they were again. The ones he could see were men, but they didn't act like men. They acted like machines. They didn't look as if they were alive. They were all stiff and empty-eyed, not seeing anything. One thing is certain. They know where they're going, and they don't seem to need a map to find us.\"\n\nShe glanced around at the brightening day and the ruins below, her hopes for continuing the search fading. \"How far away are they?\"\n\n\"Not half an hour. We have to fly out of here. If they catch you in Black Moclips by yourself, you won't stand a chance.\"\n\nShe stared at him without speaking for a moment, anger and frustration blooming inside. She understood the need for flight, but she had never been good at being forced to do anything. Her instincts were to stand and fight, not to run. She hated abandoning yet again those she was searching for, leaving them to an uncertain fate at the hands of not only the Mwellrets and the Ilse Witch, but now this new threat, as well. How long would they last on their own? How long would it be before she could come back and give them any help?\n\n\"How many of them are there?\" she asked.\n\nThe Wing Rider shook his head. \"More than twenty. Too many, Little Red, for us to face.\"\n\nHe was right, of course. About everything. They should break off the search and flee before the intruders caught sight of them. But she could not help feeling that Bek and the others were down there, some of them at least, waiting for help. She could not shake off the suspicion that all that was needed was just a little more time. Even a few minutes might be enough.\n\n\"Tell Po Kelles to take up watch for us,\" she ordered. \"We can look just a little longer before giving up.\"\n\nHe stared at her. She knew she had no right to give him orders, and he was debating whether or not to point that out. She knew, as well, that he understood what she was feeling.\n\n\"The weather is turning, too, Little Red,\" he said softly, pointing.\n\nSure enough. Dark clouds were rolling in from the east, borne by coastal winds, and they looked menacing even from a distance. She was surprised she hadn't noticed them. The air had grown colder, too. A front was moving through, and it was bringing a storm with it.\n\nShe looked back at him. \"Let's try, Wing Rider. For as long as we can. We owe them that much.\"\n\nHunter Predd didn't need to ask whom she was talking about. He nodded. \"All right, Rover girl. But you watch yourself.\"\n\nHe jumped down out of the pilot box and sprinted back across the decking to the aft railing and disappeared over the side. Obsidian was already in place, and in seconds they were winging off to warn Po Kelles. Rue Meridian swung the airship back around toward the ruins, heading in. Already she was searching the rubble.\n\nThen it occurred to her, a sudden and quite startling revelation, that she was flying an enemy airship, and those on the ground wouldn't know who she was. Rather than come out of hiding to reveal themselves, they would simply burrow deeper. Why hadn't she realized this before? Had she done so, perhaps she could have devised a way to make her intentions known. But it was too late now. Maybe the presence of the Wing Rider would reassure anyone looking up that she wasn't the Ilse Witch. Maybe they would understand what she was trying to do.\n\nJust a few minutes more, she kept telling herself. Just give me a few minutes more.\n\nShe got those minutes and then some, but she saw no sign of anyone below. The clouds rolled in and blocked the sun, and the air turned so cold that even though she pulled her cloak tight about her, she was left shivering. The landscape was spotted with shadows, and everything looked the same. She was still searching, still insistent on not giving up, when Hunter Predd swung right in front of her and began to gesture.\n\nShe turned and looked. Two dozen airships had materialized from out of the gloom, black specks on the horizon. One led all the others, the one being chased, and she knew from its shape that it was the Jerle Shannara. Po Kelles was flying Niciannon toward it already, and Hunter Predd was calling to her to tack east and head for the mountains. With a final glance down, she did so. Black Moclips lurched in response to her hard wrench on the steering levers and the surge of full power from the radian draws she sent down to the parse tubes and their diapson crystals. The airship shuddered, straightened, and began to pick up speed. Rue Meridian could hear the shouts and cries of the imprisoned Federation crew, but she had no time for them just now. They had made their choice in this matter, and they were stuck with things as they were, like it or not.\n\n\"Shut up!\" she shrieked, not so much at the men as at the wind that whipped past her ears, taunting and rough.\n\nAt full speed, her anger a catalyst that made her as ready to fight as to flee, she flew into the mountains."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "In the slow, cool hours before sunrise, Quentin Leah buried Ard Patrinell and Tamis. He lacked a digging tool to provide a grave, so he lowered them into the wronk pit and filled it in with rocks. It took him a long time to find the rocks in the darkness and then to carry them, sometimes long distances, to be dropped into place. The pit was large and not easily covered over, but he kept at it, even after he was so weary his body ached.\n\nWhen he was finished, he knelt by the rough mound and said good-bye to them, talking to them as if they were still there, wishing them peace, hoping they were together, telling them they would be missed. An Elven Tracker and a Captain of the Home Guard, star-crossed in every sense of the word \u2014 perhaps they would be united wherever they were now. He tried to think of Patrinell as the Captain was before his changing, a warrior of unmatched fighting skills, a man of courage and honor. Quentin did not know what lay beyond death, but he thought it might be something better than life and that maybe that something allowed you to make up for missed chances and lost dreams.\n\nHe did not cry, he was all done crying. But he was hollowed out and bereft, and he felt a bleakness that was so pervasive it threatened to undo him completely.\n\nDawn was breaking when he stood again, finished at last. He reached down for the Sword of Leah where he had cast it away at the end of his battle, and picked it up again. The bright, dark surface was unmarked save for streaks of blood and grime. He wiped it off carefully, considering it as he did so. It seemed to him that the sword had failed him completely. For all its magic properties, for all that it was touted to have accomplished in its long and storied history, it had proved to be of little use to him here in this strange land. It had not been enough to save Tamis or Ard Patrinell. It had not even been enough to enable him to protect Bek, whom he had sworn to protect no matter what. That Quentin was alive because he had possession of it was of little consolation. His own life seemed to have been purchased at the cost of others. He did not feel deserving of it. He felt dead inside, and he did not know how he could ever feel anything else.\n\nHe put the blade back into its sheath and strapped it across his back once more. The sun was cresting the horizon, and he had to decide what he would do next. Finding Bek was a priority, but to do so he had to leave the concealment of the forest and go back into the ruins of Castledown. That meant risking yet another confrontation with creepers and wronks, and he did not know if he could face that. What he did know was that he needed to be away from this place of death and disappointment.\n\nSo he began walking, watching the shadows about him fade back into the trees as sunlight seeped through the canopy and dappled the forest floor. He dropped down from the hills surrounding Castledown to the level stretches he had abandoned in his flight from the Patrinell wronk two days earlier. Walking made him feel somewhat better. The bleakness in his heart lingered, but something of his loss of direction and purpose disappeared as he considered his prospects. There was nothing to be gained by standing about. What he must do, no matter what it took, was find Bek. It was Quentin's insistence on making the journey that had persuaded his cousin to come with him. If he accomplished nothing else, at least he must see Bek safely home again.\n\nHe believed that Bek was still alive, even though he knew that many others in the company had perished. He believed this because Tamis had been with his cousin before she found Quentin and because in his heart, where instincts sometimes gave insights that eyes could not, he felt nothing had changed. But that didn't mean that Bek wasn't in trouble and in need of help, and Quentin was determined not to let him down.\n\nSome part of him understood that his intensity was triggered by a need to grasp hold of something to save himself. He was aware that if he faltered, his despair would prove overwhelming, his bleakness of heart so complete that he would be unable to make himself move. If he gave way, he was lost. Moving in any direction, seizing on any purpose, kept him from tumbling into the abyss. He didn't know how realistic he was being in trying to find Bek, all alone and unaided by any useful magic, but the odds didn't matter if he could manage to stay sane.\n\nHe was not far from the ruins when he caught sight of an airship flying out ahead of him, distant and small against the horizon. He was so surprised that for a moment he stopped where he was and stared at it in disbelief. It was too far away for him to identify, but he decided at once that it must be the Jerle Shannara searching for the members of the company. He felt fresh hope at this and began walking toward it at once.\n\nBut in seconds the airship had drifted into the haze of a massive bank of clouds coming out of the east and was lost from view.\n\nHe was standing in an open clearing, trying to find it again, when he heard someone call. \"Highlander! Wait!\"\n\nHe turned in surprise, trying to identify the voice, to determine from where the speaker was calling. He was still searching the hills unsuccessfully when Panax walked out of the trees behind him.\n\n\"Where have you been, Quentin Leah?\" the Dwarf demanded, out of breath and flushed with exertion. \"We've been hunting for you all yesterday and last night! It was pure luck that I caught sight of you just now!\"\n\nHe came up to Quentin and shook his hand warmly. \"Well met, Highlander. You look a wreck, if you don't mind my saying. Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" Quentin answered, even though he wasn't. \"Who's been looking for me, Panax?\"\n\n\"Kian and I. Obat and a handful of his Rindge. The wronk tore them up pretty thoroughly. The village, the people, everything. Scattered the tribe all over the place, those it didn't kill. Obat pulled the survivors together up in the hills. At one point, they were planning to rebuild their village and go on as before, but no longer. They're not going back. Things have changed.\"\n\nHe stopped suddenly, taking a close look at Quentin's face, finding something in it he hadn't seen before. \"Where's Tamis?\" he asked.\n\nQuentin shook his head. \"Dead. Ard Patrinell, as well. They killed each other. I couldn't save either one.\" His hands were shaking. He couldn't seem to stop them. He stared down, confused. \"We set a trap, Tamis and I. We hid in the forest by a pit and let the wronk find us, thinking we could drop it in. We used a decoy, a trick, to lure it over. It worked, but then it climbed out, and Tamis...\"\n\nHe trailed off, unable to continue, tears coming to his eyes once more, as if he were a child reliving a nightmare.\n\nPanax took Quentin's hands in his own, steadying them, holding on until the shaking stopped. \"You don't look as if you escaped by much yourself,\" he said quietly. \"I expect there wasn't anything you could have done to save either that you didn't try. Don't expect too much of yourself, Highlander. Even magic doesn't always provide the answers we seek. The Druid may have found that out himself, wherever he is. Sometimes, we have to accept that we have limitations. Some things we can't prevent. Death is one.\"\n\nHe let go of Quentin's hands and gripped him by his shoulders. \"I'm sorry about Tamis and Ard Patrinell, truly sorry. I expect they fought hard to stay alive, Highlander. But so did you. I think you owe it to them and to yourself to make that count for something.\"\n\nQuentin looked into the Dwarf's brown eyes, coming back to himself as he did so, able to form a measure of fresh resolve. He remembered Tamis' face at the end, the fierce way she had faced her own death. Panax was right. To fall apart now, to give in to his sadness, would be a betrayal of everything she had fought to accomplish. He took a deep breath. \"All right.\"\n\nPanax nodded and stepped back. \"Good. We need you to be strong, Quentin Leah. The Rindge have been out exploring since early this morning, before dawn. They went into the ruins. Castledown is littered with creepers, none of them functioning. The fire threads are down. Antrax, it seems, is dead.\"\n\nQuentin stared at him, not comprehending.\n\n\"Well and good, you might say, but look over there.\" The Dwarf pointed east to a steadily advancing cloudbank, a huge wall of darkness that stretched across the entire horizon. \"What's coming is a change in the world, according to the Rindge. They have a legend about it. If Antrax is destroyed, the world will revert to what it once was. Remember how the Rindge insisted that Antrax controlled the weather? Well before that time, this land was all ice and snow, bitter cold and barely habitable. It only turned to something warm and green after Antrax changed it eons ago. Now it's changing back. Feel the nip in the air?\"\n\nQuentin hadn't noticed it before, but Panax was right. The air was growing steadily colder, even as the sun rose. There was a brittle snap to it that whispered of winter.\n\n\"Obat and his people are going over the mountains and into Parkasia's interior,\" the Dwarf continued. \"Better weather over there. Safer country. If we don't find another way out of here pretty quick, I think we'd better go with them.\"\n\nSuddenly Quentin remembered the airship. \"I just saw the Jerle Shannara, Panax,\" he said quickly, directing the other's attention toward the front. \"It was visible for a moment, right over there. I saw it while I was standing where you found me, and then I lost it in those clouds.\"\n\nThey stared into the darkness together for a several moments without seeing anything. Then Panax cleared his throat. \"Not that I doubt you on this, but are you sure it wasn't Black Moclips?\"\n\nThe possibility hadn't occurred to Quentin. He was so eager for it to be the Jerle Shannara, he supposed, that he had never stopped to consider that it might be the enemy airship. He had forgotten about their nemesis.\n\nHe shook his head slowly. \"No, I guess I'm not sure at all.\"\n\nThe Dwarf nodded. \"No harm done. But we have to be careful. The witch and her Mwellrets are still out there.\"\n\n\"What about Bek and the others?\"\n\nPanax looked uncomfortable. \"Still no sign. I don't know if we can find them, Highlander. Obat's people still won't go into the ruins. They say it's a place of death even with Antrax gone and the creepers and fire threads down. They say it's cursed. Nothing has changed. I tried to get them to come with me this morning, but after they saw what had happened, they went right back up into the hills to wait.\" He shook his head. \"I guess I don't blame them, but it doesn't help us much.\"\n\nQuentin faced him. \"I'm not leaving Bek, Panax. I'm all done with running away, with watching people die and not doing anything about it.\"\n\nThe Dwarf nodded. \"We'll keep looking, Highlander. For as long as we can, we'll keep searching. But don't get your hopes up.\"\n\n\"He's alive,\" Quentin insisted.\n\nThe Dwarf did not reply, his weathered, bluff face masking his thoughts. His gaze shifted skyward to the north, and Quentin turned to look, as well. A line of black specks had appeared on the horizon, coming down parallel to the storm front, strung out across the morning sky.\n\n\"Airships,\" Panax announced softly, a new edge to his rough voice.\n\nThey watched the specks grow larger and begin to take shape. Quentin could not understand where so many airships had come from, seemingly out of nowhere, all at once. Whose were they? He glanced at Panax, but the Dwarf seemed as confused as he did.\n\n\"Look,\" Panax said, pointing.\n\nThe airship Quentin had seen earlier had reappeared out of the darkness, moving swiftly across the sky east toward the mountains. There was no mistaking it this time, \u2014 it was Black Moclips. A cry for help died on the Highlander's lips, and he froze in place as it passed overhead and receded into the distance. They could see now that it was attempting to cut off another ship, one further ahead. The distinctive rake of the three masts marked it instantly as the Jerle Shannara. The witch and her Mwellrets were in pursuit of the Rovers, and these new airships were chasing both.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Quentin asked, as much of himself as of Panax.\n\nA moment later, the pursuing fleet split into two groups, one going after Black Moclips and the Jerle Shannara, the other breaking off toward the ruins of Castledown. This second group was the smaller of the two, but was commanded by the largest of the airships. In a line, the vessels swung over the ruins, where they prepared to set down.\n\n\"I don't think we should stand out in the open like this,\" Panax offered after a moment.\n\nQuickly, they moved into the cover of the trees, then retreated back up into the hills until they found a vantage point from which they could look down on what was taking place. It didn't take them long to decide that they had made the right decision. Rope ladders had been lowered from the airships, which hovered a dozen feet off the ground, and knots of Mwellrets were climbing down and spreading out. On board the airships, the crews kept their stations.\n\nBut there was something odd about their stance. They stood frozen in place like statues, not moving about, not even talking with one another. Quentin stared at them for a long time, waiting for any sort of reaction at all. There was none.\n\n\"I don't think they're friends,\" Panax declared softly. He paused. \"Look at that.\"\n\nSomething new had been added to the mix \u2014 a handful of creatures that lacked any recognizable identity. They were being placed in slings and lowered by winches from the largest airship, one after the other. They looked a little like humans grown all out of proportion, with massive shoulders and arms, thick legs, and hairy torsos. They hunched forward as they walked, using all four limbs like the apes of the Old World. But their heads had a wolfish look to them, with narrow, sharp snouts, pointed ears, and gimlet eyes. Even at a distance, their features were unmistakable.\n\n\"What are those?\" Quentin breathed.\n\nThe search parties fanned out through the ruins, dozens of Mwellrets in each, armed and armored, a decidedly hostile invader. Secured on lengths of chain and ordered to track, the odd hunched creatures were being used like dogs. Noses to the ground, they began making their way through the rubble in different directions, the Mwellrets trailing. Within the ruins, there was no response from Antrax. No creepers appeared and no fire threads lanced forth. It appeared the Rindge were right about what had happened. But it only made Quentin wonder all the more about Bek.\n\nBurly, dark-skinned Kian appeared suddenly out the trees, moving over to join them. He nodded a greeting to Quentin as he came up, but didn't speak.\n\n\"We've got a problem, Highlander,\" Panax said without looking at him.\n\nQuentin nodded. \"They're searching for us. Eventually, they'll find us.\"\n\n\"All too quickly, I expect.\" The Dwarf straightened. \"We can't stay. We have to get away.\"\n\nQuentin Leah stared down at the searchers as they trickled into the city, tiny figures still, like toys. Quentin understood what Panax was saying, but he didn't want to speak the words aloud. Panax was saying that they had to give up the search for Bek. They had to put as much distance as possible between themselves and whoever was down there hunting them.\n\nHe felt something shrivel up and die inside at the prospect of abandoning Bek yet again, but he knew that if he stayed, he would be found. That would accomplish nothing useful and might result in his death. He tried to think it through. Maybe Bek stood a better chance than Quentin thought. Bek had the use of magic, \u2014 Tamis had told them so. She had seen him use it, a power that could shred creepers. His cousin wasn't entirely helpless. In truth, he might be better off than they were. Maybe he had even found Walker, so that the two of them were together. They might have already fled the ruins and gone into the mountains themselves.\n\nHe stopped himself angrily. He was rationalizing. He was trying to make himself feel better about abandoning Bek, about breaking his promise once more. But he didn't really believe what he was telling himself. His heart wouldn't let him.\n\n\"What do we do?\" he asked finally, resigned to doing the one thing he had sworn he wouldn't.\n\nPanax rubbed his bearded chin. \"We go into the Aleuthra Ark \u2014 those mountains behind us \u2014 with Obat and his people. We go deeper into Parkasia. The airships were flying that way. Maybe we can catch up to one of them. Maybe we can signal it.\" He shrugged wearily. \"Maybe we can manage to stay alive.\"\n\nTo his credit, he didn't say anything about coming back for Bek and the others, or resuming the search somewhere further down the line. He understood that such a thing might not happen, that they might never return to the ruins. He was not about to make a promise he knew he could not keep.\n\nNone of this helped Quentin with his feelings of betrayal, but it was better to be honest about the possibilities than to cling to false hopes.\n\nI'm sorry, Bek, he said to himself.\n\n\"They're coming this way,\" Kian said suddenly.\n\nOne of the search parties had emerged at the edge of the ruins below and found the bodies of the Rindge that the Patrinell wronk had killed two days earlier. Already, the hunched creatures were sniffing the ground for tracks. A wolfish head lifted and looked toward where they crouched in the trees, as if aware of them, as if able to spy them out.\n\nWithout another word, the Dwarf, the Elf, and the Highlander melted into the trees and were gone.\n\nIt took them the better part of an hour to reach the clearing where Obat and his Rindge were assembled. They were high up on the slopes of the hills fronting the Aleuthra Ark, which ran down the interior of Parkasia from northwest to southeast like a jagged spine. The Rindge were a ragged and dispirited-looking group, although not disorganized or unprepared. Sentries had been posted and met the three outlanders long before they reached the main body of Rindge. Weapons had been recovered, so that all the men were armed. But the larger portion of survivors was made up of women and children, some of the latter only babies. There were at least a hundred Rindge and probably closer to two hundred. They had their belongings piled about them, tied up in bundles or stuffed into cloth sacks. Most sat quietly in the shadows, talking among themselves, waiting. In the dappled forest light, they looked like hollow-eyed and uncertain ghosts.\n\nObat came up to Panax and began talking to him immediately. Panax listened, then replied, using the ancient Dwarf tongue he had employed successfully when they had first met. Obat listened and shook his head no. Panax tried again, pointing back in the direction from which they had come. It was clear to Quentin that he was telling Obat about the intruders from the airships. But Obat didn't like what he was hearing.\n\nExasperation written all over his face, Panax turned to the Highlander. \"I told him we have to move quickly, that the belongings must be left behind. As it is, it will take everything we have to move this bunch to safety without having to deal with all this stuff. But Obat says this is all his people have left. They won't leave it.\"\n\nHe turned to Kian. \"Go back up the trail with a couple of the Rindge and keep watch.\"\n\nThe Elven Hunter turned without a word, beckoned a couple of the Rindge to come with him, and disappeared into the trees at a quick trot.\n\nPanax turned back to Obat and tried again. This time he made unmistakable gestures indicating what would happen if the Rindge were too slow in the attempt to escape. His broad face was flushed and angry, and his voice was raised. Obat stared at him, impassive.\n\nWe're wasting time, Quentin thought suddenly. Time we don't have.\n\n\"Panax,\" he said. The Dwarf turned. \"Tell them to pick up their things and start walking. We can't take time to argue about this any longer. Let them find out for themselves whether or not it's worth it to haul their possessions. Set a pace the women and children can follow and go. Leave me a dozen Rindge. I'll see what I can do to slow our pursuers down.\"\n\nThe Dwarf gave him a hard look and then nodded. \"All right, Highlander. But I'm staying, as well. Don't argue the matter. As you say, we don't have time for it.\"\n\nHe spoke quickly to Obat, who turned to his people and began shouting orders. The Rindge assembled at once, belongings in place. Led by a handful of armed men, they set out along a narrow forest path into the hills, moving silently and purposefully. Quentin was surprised at how swiftly they got going. There was no hesitation, no confusion. Everyone seemed to know what to do. Perhaps they had done it before. Perhaps they were better prepared for the move than Panax thought.\n\nIn seconds, the clearing was empty of everyone but Quentin, Panax, and a dozen or so Rindge warriors. Obat had chosen to stay, as well. Quentin wasn't sure this was a good idea, since Obat was clearly the leader of the tribe and losing him might prove disastrous. But it wasn't his decision to make, so he left it alone.\n\nHe turned to look off in the direction of the ruins, wondering how much time they had before the Mwellrets and those hunched creatures discovered them. Perhaps it wouldn't happen as quickly as he feared. There would be other tracks to distract them, other trails to follow. They might choose one that would lead them in another direction entirely. But he didn't believe that for a minute.\n\nHe thought about his failures on his journey from the Highlands of Leah, of his missed opportunities and questionable choices. He had set out with such high hopes. He had thought himself capable of dictating the direction of his life. He had been wrong. In the end, it had been all he could do to stay afloat in the sea of confusion that surrounded him. He could not even determine whom he would use the magic of his vaunted sword to protect. He could use it to help only those whom fate placed within his reach, and maybe not even those.\n\nThe Rindge were among them. He could leave them and go on, because in the end they didn't really have anything to do with him, his reasons for coming to Parkasia, or his promise to Bek. If anything, they were a hindrance. If he was to have any chance at all of catching up to one of the airships and finding a way out of this land, speed might make the difference. But in the wake of his failure to save Tamis or Ard Patrinell or to find Bek, he felt a compelling need to succeed in helping someone. The Rindge were giving him that opportunity. He could not make himself walk away from it. He could not let anyone else be hurt because of him.\n\nHe would do what he could for those he was in a position to help. If helping the Rindge was what fate had given him the chance to do, that would have to be enough.\n\nPanax walked up beside him. \"What happens now, Quentin Leah? How do we stop those things back there from catching up to Obat's people?\"\n\nThe Highlander only wished he knew."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "When Ahren Elessedil regained consciousness, he found himself lying on his side in Castledown's rubble looking at the boots of his captors. His hands were tied behind his back, and his head ached from the blow he had received. Even without having witnessed the particulars, he knew at once what had happened and was awash in despair and frustration. He had stumbled into a Mwellret trap, one set for him as he tried to move through the ruins with Ryer Ord Star. How could he have been so stupid? After what he had gone through to retrieve the Elfstones and escape Castledown, how could he have allowed himself to be caught so completely unawares?\n\nThere wasn't any answer for such questions, of course. Asking them only invited self-recrimination, and there was nothing to be gained from that.\n\nHe blinked against the dryness in his eyes and tried to sit up, but a heavy boot pushed him back again and settled on his chest.\n\n\"Little Elvess sstayss where they are,\" a voice hissed.\n\nHe glanced up at the big Mwellret standing over him and nodded. The boot and the Mwellret moved away a few steps, but the watchful eyes stayed fixed on him. He could see rets standing all about him, maybe a dozen or so, heavy reptilian bodies cloaked against the dawn light, heads bent between heavy shoulders, voices low and sibilant as they conversed among themselves. None of them seemed to be in a hurry to go anywhere or to get anything done. They seemed to be waiting for something. He tried to imagine what it might be. The Ilse Witch, perhaps. She must have gone further into the ruins. Perhaps she had gone underground in search of Walker.\n\nHe thought suddenly of Ryer Ord Star, and from his prone position he scanned as much of the area as he could in an effort to find her. He spotted her finally, seated in an open space, alone and ignored. He stared at her for a long time, waiting to be noticed, but she never looked his way. She kept her gaze lowered, her face shadowed by her long silver hair. She might have had her eyes closed, \u2014 he couldn't tell. She was unfettered, and no Mwellrets stood over her as they did over him. They seemed unconcerned that she might try to escape.\n\nSomething about her situation bothered him. She didn't seem to be a prisoner at all.\n\nHe glanced around further, searching for any other members of the company who might have encountered the same misfortune. But no one else was in evidence, only the two of them. He shifted surreptitiously in an effort to see what else he might have missed from where he lay, but he saw only Mwellrets in the area.\n\nThen he glanced skyward and saw the airships.\n\nHis throat tightened. There were six of them \u2014 no, wait, there were eight \u2014 hanging in the air, not far off the ground at the edge of the ruins, silhouetted against the morning sky. They were close enough that he could see crew members standing about, Mwellrets climbing down rope ladders, and hoists lowering animals that twisted and writhed and grunted loudly. He caught only glimpses of them against the bright sunrise as they slipped over the sides of the airships and disappeared down into the ruins, and he couldn't make out what they were.\n\nMwellrets and airships. He couldn't understand it. Where had they come from, all at once like this? Had the Ilse Witch brought them, keeping them back from Black Moclips, hiding them until they were needed? He tried to reason it through and failed.\n\nHe glanced again at Ryer Ord Star. The seer still hadn't looked up, hadn't changed position, hadn't done anything to evidence that she was even conscious. He wondered suddenly if perhaps she was in a trance, trying to connect to Walker. But the Druid had to be dead by now. He had been dying back there in the extraction chamber, his blood everywhere. Walker had sacrificed himself to destroy Antrax. Even Ryer must realize that she could no longer reach him.\n\nSo what was she doing?\n\nWhy wasn't she tied up like he was?\n\nHe waited for the answers to come, for her to respond to his mental summons, for something to happen that would reveal her condition \u2014 without success.\n\nAll of a sudden, he remembered the Elfstones. He was astonished that he had forgotten about them, that he had somehow failed to remember the one weapon he still had at his disposal. Maybe. He had tucked them into his tunic on fleeing the ruins, in a pocket near his waist. Were they still there? He didn't think he could reach them with his hands tied, but he could at least determine if he had them. The Mwellrets would have searched him for weapons, not for the Stones. They wouldn't even know what they were.\n\nHe glanced about quickly, but no one was looking at him. He rolled onto his other side, moving slowly, trying not to attract attention. He squirmed down against the hard earth, searching for the feel of the Elfstones against his body. He could not find them. His hopes sank. He shifted positions, trying to see if they were somewhere else, but he could not feel them anywhere.\n\nHe was still searching when he heard a mix of heavy footfalls, rough voices, and deep growls. The Mwellret who had pushed him down came over at once and hauled him to his feet with a jerk, standing him upright and propping him against a section of wall.\n\n\"Sseess now what becomess of you, little Elvess,\" he muttered before turning away.\n\nAhren glanced over at Ryer Ord Star. She was on her feet, as well, still alone and still not looking at him. She stood with her arms wrapped about her slender body, looking frail and tiny. Something was going on with her that he didn't understand, and she wasn't doing anything to let him know what it was.\n\nA clutch of Mwellrets strode into the clearing. Two of the burliest held the ends of chains that were fastened to a collar strapped about the neck of one of the most terrifying creatures Ahren had ever seen. The creature tugged and twisted against the collar like a huge dog, grunts and growls emanating from deep within its throat as it did so. Its body was hunched over and heavily muscled. Four human limbs that ended in clawed fingers and massive shoulders were covered in thick black hair. Its torso was so long and sinuous that it allowed the creature to almost double back on itself as it twisted about angrily, trying to bite at the chains. Its head was wolfish, its jaws huge, and its teeth long and dark. It had the look of something bred not just to hunt, but to destroy.\n\nWhen it saw Ahren, it lunged for him, and the Elf pressed back against the building wall in fear.\n\nA tall, black-cloaked figure stepped forward, blocking the creature's path. The beast cringed and backed away.\n\nThe cloaked figure turned and looked at him. Ahren could just make out the other's face. It might have been human once, but now it was covered with gray scales like the rets, flat and expressionless, its green eyes compressed into narrow slits that regarded him with such coldness that he forgot all about the wolf creature.\n\n\"Cree Bega,\" the cloaked figure called, still watching Ahren.\n\nThe Mwellret who had been standing guard over him came at once. Big as he was, he looked small next to the newcomer. Even so, he did not do anything to acknowledge the other's authority, neither bowing nor nodding. He simply stood there, his gaze level and fixed.\n\n\"Cree Bega,\" the other repeated, and this time there was a hint of menace in his voice. \"Why is this Elf still alive?\"\n\n\"He iss an Elesssedil. He hass the power to ssummon the magic of the Elfsstoness.\"\n\n\"You have seen this for yourself?\"\n\nCree Bega shook his head. \"But the sseer tellss me thiss iss sso.\"\n\nAhren felt as if the ground had dropped away beneath him. He glanced quickly at Ryer, but she was still staring blankly.\n\n\"She is the witch's tool,\" the cloaked figure declared softly, looking over at the seer.\n\n\"Her eyess and earss aboard little Elvess sship.\" Cree Bega glanced at Ahren. \"Not anymore. Belongss to uss now. Sservess uss.\"\n\nAhren refused to believe what he was hearing. Ryer Ord Star would never go back to serving their enemies, not after what she had gone through, not after breaking free of the Ilse Witch. She had said she was finished with that. She had sworn it.\n\nStunned, he watched as his captors turned away from him and walked to where the seer stood. Bent close, the cloaked one began speaking to her. The words were too faint for Ahren to hear, but Ryer Ord Star nodded and then replied. The conversation lasted just minutes, but it was clear that some sort of agreement had been reached.\n\nHe moved his elbows down close to his sides, pressing them against his ribs, shifting first one way and then the other, straining at the cords that bound his wrists as he tried to determine if the Elf stones were indeed gone. It seemed they were, \u2014 he could find no trace of their presence.\n\nClose by, the chained beast growled and snapped at him again, trying to break free, all size and teeth and claws as it fought against its restraints. Ahren quit moving and stood as still as he could manage, staring into the creature's eyes. He was surprised to find that they were almost human.\n\nThe cloaked figure walked back across the clearing and stood looking down at him. \"I am the Morgawr,\" he said, his voice soft and strangely warm, as if he sought to reassure Ahren of his friendship. \"Do you know of me?\"\n\nAhren nodded.\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Ahren Elessedil,\" he answered, deciding there was no reason to hide it.\n\n\"Youngest son of Allardon Elessedil? Why isn't your brother here?\"\n\n\"My brother wanted me to come instead. He wanted an Elessedil presence, but not his own.\"\n\nThe flat face nodded. \"I am told you can invoke the power of the Elfstones, the ones Kael Elessedil carried on his voyage thirty years ago. Is that so?\"\n\nAhren nodded, disappointment welling up inside him. Ryer Ord Star had betrayed him. He wished he had never trusted her. He wished he had left her behind in the catacombs of Castledown.\n\n\"Where are the Stones now?\" the Morgawr asked.\n\nAhren was so surprised by the question that for a moment he just stared. He had assumed that the Mwellrets had taken them from him when he was captured. Had they failed to do so? Was he mistaken about having them still?\n\nHe had to say something right away, so he said, \"I don't know where they are.\"\n\nIt was the truth, which was all to the good because he could see the Morgawr reading his eyes. The Morgawr knew about the Elfstones, but didn't know where they were. How could that be? Ahren had carried them out of Castledown. They were hidden inside his tunic when he was knocked unconscious. Could Cree Bega have taken them for himself? Could one of the other rets? Would any of them dare to do that?\n\nThe Morgawr touched his face with one scaly finger. \"I am keeping you alive because the seer assures me you will use the Elfstones once I find them. She does not lie, does she?\"\n\nAhren took a deep breath, fighting down his fear and anger. \"No.\"\n\n\"I am mentor to the Ilse Witch. I trained her and schooled her and gave her my protection. But she betrays me. She seeks the magic of Castledown for herself. So I have come to eliminate her. You and the seer will help me find her. She is talented, but she cannot escape the seeking light of the Elfstones. Nor can she avoid her connection to the seer. She established it for the purpose of tracking the Druid and his airship, \u2014 now we will use it, in turn, to track her. One or the other of you will reveal the witch to me. If you provide your help, I will set you free when I am done with her.\"\n\nAhren didn't believe this for a minute, but he held his tongue.\n\nThe gimlet eyes fixed on him. \"You should welcome this offer.\"\n\nAhren nodded. As confused as he was about the disappearance of the Elfstones, he knew what to say. \"I will do what I can.\"\n\nThe Morgawr's finger slid away. \"Good. The Ilse Witch has gone underground to find the Druid. The seer says you left him there, dying. What wards this safehold is dying, too, so we have nothing to fear. You will take us down there.\"\n\nA chill swept through Ahren. He did not want to go back into Castledown for any reason, least of all to help the Morgawr. But he knew that if he refused, he would be made to go anyway, and he would be watched afterwards all the more closely. If they didn't just kill him and have done with it. It was better to do what was asked of him for now, to go along with the Morgawr's wishes. Antrax was dying when Ryer and he had ascended the passageways and would be as dead as Walker by now. What could it hurt to go into the catacombs a final time?\n\nEven so, he was not comfortable with the idea. He glanced at Ryer Ord Star across the way, but she was looking down again, her face lost in the shadow of her long hair. She would have agreed already, of course. By making herself an ally to the Morgawr and the Mwellrets, she would have promised to help them track the Ilse Witch. She had good reason to hate the witch, but not reason enough to bring harm to Ahren and the others of the company of the Jerle Shannara. Didn't she realize that the Morgawr and Cree Bega were no more trustworthy than the witch? He could not believe she had compromised herself so completely.\n\n\"Cut him loose,\" the Morgawr ordered Cree Bega, his silky voice a whisper of comfort and reassurance.\n\nThe Mwellret severed the cords that bound Ahren's wrists, and the Elven Prince rubbed the circulation back into them. Straightening his clothes, he sought one final time to locate the Elfstones. Perhaps they were shoved way down inside his tunic. His hands and fingers ran swiftly down his sides. Nothing. The Elfstones were gone.\n\nThe Morgawr moved away, beckoned for Ahren to follow, motioned Cree Bega toward Ryer, and called out instructions to the other Mwellrets. Ahren went without hesitating, still rubbing his wrists, already thinking of ways he might escape. He would find a way, he promised himself. He would not be part of this business for one moment longer than he had to. He would flee the Morgawr and his rets at the first opportunity and continue his search for his missing friends.\n\nHe glanced wistfully at Ryer Ord Star, who was moving just ahead and still not looking at him. He tried to move over to her, but almost instantly the Morgawr blocked his way.\n\n\"Don't think that because I have released you I am not watching you,\" he said softly, leaning close. \"If you try to escape, if you attempt to flee, if you fail to do as I ask, I will set the caull on you.\"\n\nHe motioned to the wolfish animal that had moved into the forefront of their party, tugging so hard on its chains that it dragged its handlers like dead weights behind it.\n\n\"No secrets, no tricks, no foolish acts, Elven Prince,\" the Morgawr cautioned in his smooth, quiet voice. \"Do you understand?\"\n\nAhren nodded, his eyes riveted on the caull.\n\nThe Morgawr touched Ahren's cheek with that odd caressing motion. \"You don't understand fully. Not yet. But you will. I will see to it that you do.\"\n\nHe moved away again, and Ahren rubbed at his cheek to erase the unpleasant feeling of the scaly touch. He had no idea what he was going to do to escape. Whatever it was, it had better work because he would get only one chance. But he could not imagine where that chance would come from if he did not regain possession of the Elfstones. His memory of what it had been like to wield the magic was still strong. Finding them and invoking their power had transformed him. He had redeemed himself in his own eyes, at least, from his cowardice in the ruins, and in doing so had discovered something of the man he had hoped to become. He had evidenced courage and strength of will, and he did not want to lose those. But without the Elfstones, he was afraid he might.\n\nHis eyes drifted skyward, to where the airships still hovered against the horizon. West, the sky was black and thick with rolling clouds. The temperature was dropping, as well. A storm was coming, and it looked to be severe.\n\nThey were moving deeper into the ruins, back the way they had come. The caull and its handlers led, but Ryer Ord Star and the Morgawr were close behind, whispering back and forth as if kindred with a common goal. Cree Bega shoved at Ahren, urging him to catch up to them, to lend whatever input he might have to give. The Elven Prince put aside his thinking and increased his pace until he was right behind the seer, following in her footsteps, close enough to reach out and touch her.\n\nLook at me, he thought. Say something!\n\nShe did neither. He might not have been there at all, for all the difference his presence made to her. He could not escape the feeling that she was ignoring him deliberately. Was her sense of guilt at betraying him so strong? It seemed as if she was rejecting everything she had tried to become since finding him and was reverting to the creature she had been when in the service of the witch. It felt as if her sense of loyalty had died with Walker. He could not understand that.\n\nThen she was pointing out something in the ruins to the Morgawr, and as the warlock turned to look, she lost her footing and stumbled, careening backwards into Ahren. He caught her without thinking, holding her upright. Without looking at him, she straightened and pushed him away.\n\nIt was over in seconds, and they were moving ahead once more, Ryer Ord Star back beside the Morgawr, Cree Bega and his Mwellrets all about. But in those seconds, when she was pressed up against him, she whispered, so clearly he could not mistake what she said, two words.\n\nTrust me."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "Less than a quarter of a mile away Bek Ohmsford crouched in a pool of deep shadows formed by the juncture of two broken walls and waited for Truls Rohk to return. He heard the approach of the Mwellrets and whoever was with them, the sound of their voices and the scrape of their boots carrying clearly in the early morning silence. He had already seen the airships hanging in the distance over the ruins, dark hulls and masts empty of insignia or flags. He had watched them disgorge their Mwellret passengers and creatures like the caull his sister had used to track the shape-shifter and himself. He knew they were in trouble.\n\nTruls Rohk had gone to investigate. He had not returned. Bek's hand tightened about Grianne's, and he glanced over at her to reassure himself that she was all right. Well, to reassure himself that nothing had changed, at least. She was hunched down next to him in the darkness, staring at nothing. He had pulled back her hood to let the light find her face. Her pale skin looked ghostly in the shadows, and her strange blue eyes were empty and fixed. She was compliant to his directions, but unresponsive to anything around her. She did not speak, did not look at him, and did not react to what was happening. He did not know much about the catatonic state, about what it would take to release her from it, but he supposed she was in a great deal of emotional or psychological pain and that was the reason for her condition. She would regain consciousness when she was ready, Walker had said. But after several hours of traveling with and watching her, he was not sure he believed it.\n\n\"Grianne,\" he said softly.\n\nHe reached over with his free hand and touched her cheek, running his finger over her smooth skin. There was no reaction. He wished there was something he could do for her. He could only imagine what it must have been like for her to confront the truth about herself. The magic of the Sword of Shannara had drawn back the veil of lies and deception, letting in the light she had kept out for so many years. To be made to see yourself as you really were when you had committed so many atrocities, so many ugly and terrible acts, would be unbearable. No wonder she had retreated so far into herself. But how were they to help her if she remained there?\n\nNot that Truls Rohk believed they should. The shape-shifter saw her as no different from before, save for the fact that she was helpless and at present not a danger to them. But he also saw her as a sleeping beast. When she awoke, she could easily erupt into a frenzy of murderous rage. There was nothing to say that the magic of the talisman would prevent it, nothing to say that she was any different now from what she had been before. There was no guarantee she would not revert to form. In fact, there was every reason to believe she would.\n\nBek had chosen not to argue the point. On their trek out, winding their way back up the passageways of Castledown to the surface of the ruins, he had kept silent on the matter. Walker had given them their charge \u2014 to care for Grianne at any cost, to see her safely home again, to accept that she was important in some still unknowable way. It didn't matter what Truls Rohk thought of her, \u2014 it didn't matter what he really believed. The Druid had made them promise to ward her, and the shape-shifter had sworn that promise alongside Bek. Like it or not, Truls Rohk was bound by his word.\n\nIn any case, Bek thought it better to let the matter alone. If the Druid, even while dying, had been unable to convince the shape-shifter of Grianne's worth, there was little chance that Bek could now. Not right away, at least. Perhaps time would provide him with a way to do so. Perhaps. Meanwhile, he would have to find a way to stay alive.\n\nHe took a steadying breath and tried to fight down the panic he felt at his dwindling prospects of being able to do so. They had fought their way clear of one trap and now found themselves facing another. Antrax and the creepers and fire threads might be gone, but now a mix of enemy airships and Mwellrets confronted them. That they were allied in some way with his sister was an unavoidable conclusion. It was too big a coincidence to believe they had come all this way for any other reason. Cree Bega would have linked up with the newcomers and advised them of his presence. They would be looking for Bek and for whoever had helped him escape from Black Moclips. If he stayed where he was for much longer, they would find him. Truls had better hurry.\n\nAs if reading his mind, the shape-shifter materialized across the way, sliding into the light like a phantasm, blacker than the shadows out of which he came. Concealing cloak swirling gently with the movement of his body, he crouched next to the boy.\n\n\"We have fresh trouble,\" he announced. \"The airships are commanded by the Morgawr. He's brought Mwellrets, caulls, and some men who look as if they have been turned into wooden toys. Besides the airships we see, at least a dozen more have gone off in pursuit of the Jerle Shannara and Black Moclips.\"\n\n\"Black Moclips?\" Bek shook his head in confusion.\n\n\"Don't ask me, boy. I don't know what happened aboard ship after we escaped, but it seems the rets managed to lose control of her. Someone else got aboard and took her over, sent her skyward, and sailed her right out from under their noses. Good news for us, perhaps. But not soon enough to make a difference just now.\"\n\nThe sounds of their pursuit broke into Bek's thoughts, but he forced himself to stay calm. \"So now they're hunting us, following our tracks or our scent, using these fresh caulls?\"\n\nTruls Rohk laughed. \"You couldn't be more wrong. They don't care about us! It's the witch they're looking for! She's done something to convince the Morgawr she wants the magic for herself \u2014 or at least convinced him she's too dangerous to trust anymore. He's come to take possession of the magic and do away with her. He doesn't realize there isn't any magic to take possession of and the witch has already done away with herself! It's a good joke on him. He's wasting his time and he doesn't even realize it.\"\n\nThe cowled head turned in the direction of Grianne. \"Look at her. She's as dead as if she'd quit breathing. The Druid thinks she has a purpose in all this, but I think his dying blinded him. He wanted something useful to come of all this, something that would give meaning to the lives wasted and the chances lost. But wishing doesn't make it so. When he destroyed Antrax, he destroyed what he had come to find. The Old World books are lost. There isn't anything else. Nothing!\"\n\n\"Maybe we just don't see it,\" Bek ventured quietly. He heard snarls and growls from the approaching caull. \"Look, we have to get out of here.\"\n\n\"Yes, boy, we do.\" The hard eyes peered out from the shadows, reflective stone amid a sea of shifting mist and bits of matter. \"But we don't need to take her.\" He gestured at Grianne. \"Leave her for the Morgawr. Let them do with her what they choose. They won't bother with us if we do. She's what they want.\"\n\n\"No,\" Bek said at once.\n\n\"If we take her, they will keep after us, all the way inland to wherever we run, to wherever we hide. If she could find us earlier, they can find us now. Sooner or later. She's a weight around our necks and not one we need carry.\"\n\n\"We promised Walker we would protect her!\"\n\n\"We promised it so that the Druid could die at peace.\" Truls Rohk spit. \"But it was a fool's promise and given without any cause beyond that. We don't need her. We don't want her. She serves no purpose now and never will. What she is has destroyed her. She isn't coming back, newly born, your sister returned, you're not going to be a happy family reunited. Thinking otherwise is foolish.\"\n\nBek shook his head. \"I'm not leaving her. You do what you want.\"\n\nFor just an instant, Bek thought that Truls Rohk was going to do just that. The shape-shifter went as still as the shadows on a windless night, all dark presence and hidden danger. Bek could feel the tension in him, a sort of singing sound that was more vibration than noise, a cord become taut on a bow drawn back.\n\n\"You persist in being troublesome,\" Truls Rohk whispered. \"Have you no capacity for rational behavior?\"\n\nBek almost laughed at the words, spoken with such seriousness but rife with irony. He shook his head slowly. \"She is my sister, Truls. She doesn't have anyone else to help her.\"\n\n\"She's going to disappoint you. This isn't going to turn out like you think.\"\n\nBek nodded. \"I don't suppose it will. It hasn't so far.\" He kept his eyes locked on the shape-shifter as the sounds of approach intensified. \"Can we go now?\"\n\nTruls Rohk stared at him a moment longer, as if trying to decide. Then he came forward, all blackness even in the early morning light, picked up Grianne like a rag doll, and tucked her under his arm.\n\n\"Try to keep up with me, boy,\" he said. \"Carrying one of you is load enough.\"\n\nHe sprang atop the nearest remnant of wall and began to navigate its length like a tightrope walker in a street fair, crouched low and moving swiftly. The feel of his sister's hand in his a lingering warmth, Bek watched him for a moment, then hurried after.\n\nAhren Elessedil listened with growing concern as the snarls of the caull leading the Morgawr's party deeper into the ruins grew more anxious. Clearly, it had come across something, tracks or scent that it recognized and wanted to pursue. Its handlers had not released it, however. Nor was the Morgawr giving it much attention, \u2014 his focus was on Ryer Ord Star as they walked next to each other, engaged once again in close conversation. What was it she was telling him? The boy was encouraged by her whispered words, but suspicious of her actions. She was asking him to trust her, but doing nothing to warrant it. He had thought she might at least try leading their captors in the wrong direction, \u2014 instead she was taking them the way she had come, directly toward the entrance that led underground to where they had left Walker.\n\nIt appeared she had become the Morgawr's ally in his business, and the Elf was having trouble convincing himself that he should trust her at all.\n\nThey moved more quickly now, navigating the rubble to where the opening led downward into Castledown. Judging from the sounds emanating from the caull, its snout lowered to the ground as it tugged and pulled its handlers ahead, whomever they were tracking had come this way recently. He wondered briefly if it might be their own scent the caull had come across, but that would make the beast a good deal more stupid than the Elf was prepared to believe. Since it was the Ilse Witch the Morgawr was seeking, Ahren had to assume the caull had been given her scent. She could easily have come the same way they had and still managed to miss them in the catacombs.\n\nThey passed through the entry in a cautious knot. Creepers lay in heaps just inside, unmoving. Flameless lamps still burned, casting a weak yellow glow from the passage walls, but the Mwellrets lit torches anyway. The smoky light lent the empty corridors an eerie, shadowy look as the group moved downward into the earth.\n\nSeveral times Ahren thought to make a break for freedom, but fear and common sense kept him from acting on his impulse. He needed a better opportunity, and he needed to know more about what Ryer Ord Star was doing. He needed, as well, to know who had the Elfstones so that he could try to find a way to get them back. He hadn't made a conscious decision on the matter before this, but he knew now, thinking about it, that he wasn't going back to the Four Lands without them. It was ambitious for him to think about getting home at all, but at this point, he couldn't help himself. Thinking about it was all he had to keep his mind off his current predicament, and if he didn't concentrate on something, he was afraid his dwindling courage would collapse completely.\n\nThey walked a long time, back the way Ryer and he had come, following the very same passageways down into the bowels of Castledown. Sporadic sounds rose in the distance, but nothing solid appeared to hinder them. Antrax and Castledown had gone back into time to join the rest of the Old World, dead and lost.\n\nWhen they reached the cavernous chamber where Antrax had housed its power, they found it empty. Walker was gone, though pools of his blood had dried dark and sticky on the metal floor. Twisted chunks of metal and broken cables littered the landscape, and fluids had begun leaking from tanks and lines, cloudy and thick. Excited by the blood and the lingering smells, the caull lunged this way and that, but there were no people to be found. The Morgawr walked around, looking at everything carefully, distancing himself from the rest of the party as he did so. He poked at the creepers, stood close to the massive twin cylinders, and entered the extraction chamber, where he remained alone for a long time. Ahren watched everyone, but particularly Ryer Ord Star. She stood only yards from him, staring off into space. She never glanced in his direction. If she sensed him looking at her, she kept it to herself.\n\nWhen the Morgawr was finished with his examination, he emerged from the extraction chamber, brushing aside Cree Bega with a hiss of impatience. The caull leading the way, its massive body jerking at its chains in frustration, they set off in a new direction. The Ilse Witch had been here, Ahren knew. No one had said so, but the behavior of the Morgawr as he plunged ahead down this new passageway made the conclusion unavoidable. Perhaps they had just missed her. He found himself wondering what had become of Walker. Even if the witch had found him, she wasn't strong enough to move him herself.\n\nHe had his answer not long afterwards. They navigated the maze of empty, ruined corridors until they came to a vast cavern housing an underground lake. Illuminated by the dim phosphorescence that streaked the cavern's rocky walls, a trail of blood led down to the edge of the water, pooled anew on the rocky shore, and disappeared. The surface of the lake was still and perfectly smooth. There was no sign of Walker.\n\nThe Morgawr stood staring out across the lake for a moment, black cloak drawn close about him. No one tried to approach him or dared to speak.\n\n\"Get back from me,\" he told them finally.\n\nThey did so, and Ahren watched as scaly arms emerged from the Morgawr's cloak and began to weave in quick motions, drawing pictures or symbols on the air. A greenish light emanated from the fingertips, leaving trails of emerald fire in their wake. The hush of the empty cavern filled with a whisper of phantom wind, and from the depths of the lake rose a deep, ugly hiss that seemed as much a warning as a response to the Morgawr's conjuring. Still, the warlock continued his efforts, robes whipping about his dark body, spray bursting from the waters in sudden explosions. Faint images began to appear, shades cast upon the darkness by his magic's light, there one moment and gone the next. Ahren could not tell who they were meant to be, he could not even be sure of what his senses were telling him. Once, he thought he heard voices, rough whispers that rose and fell like the lake's dark spray. Once, he was sure he heard screams.\n\nThen the wind increased, and the torches blew out. The Mwellrets dropped back a few paces, closer to the entrance to the cavern. Ahren went with them. Only Ryer Ord Star stood her ground, head lifted, a fierce look on her childlike face as she stared out across the lake into the darkness beyond. She was seeing something, as well, Ahren thought \u2014 maybe the strange images, maybe something else entirely.\n\nFinally, the Morgawr's hands stopped moving, the wind and noise died away, and the lake went still. The Morgawr stepped back from the water's edge and walked to where his rets crouched watchfully at the cavern entrance, motioning for the seer to come with him as he passed her. Dutifully, she turned and followed.\n\n\"The Druid is dead,\" he declared as he came up to them.\n\nHearing someone speak the words gave their truth fresh impact. Ahren caught his breath in spite of himself, and it suddenly felt to him as if whatever hopes he had harbored that a way out of this terrible place, this savage land, might be found, had just been stolen away.\n\nThe Morgawr was looking at him, assessing his reaction. \"Our little Ilse Witch, however, is alive.\" He kept his dangerous eyes fixed on Ahren. \"She's come and gone, and she's not alone. She's with that boy you let escape from Black Moclips, Cree Bega \u2014 and someone else, someone I can't put a name to.\" He paused. \"Can you, Elven Prince?\"\n\nAhren shook his head. He had no idea who Bek might be with if it wasn't Tamis or one of the other Elves.\n\nThe Morgawr came forward and reached out to touch his cheek. The cavern air turned colder with that touch, and its silence deepened. Ahren forced himself to stand his ground, to repress the repulsion and fear that the touch invoked in him. The touch lingered a moment and then withdrew like the sliding away of sweat.\n\n\"They brought the Druid here, down to the water's edge, and left him for the shades of his ancestors to carry off.\" The Morgawr's satisfaction was palpable. \"And so they did, it seems. They bore his corpse away with them, down into the waters of that lake. Walker is gone. All the Druids are gone. After all these years. All of them.\"\n\nHis gaze shifted from Ahren. \"Which leaves us with the witch,\" he whispered, almost to himself. \"She may not be as formidable as she once was, however. There is something wrong with her. I sense it in the way she moves, in the way she lets the other two lead her.\n\nShe isn't what she was. It felt to me, as I studied the traces of her passing, as if she was asleep.\"\n\n\"Sshe dissembless,\" Cree Bega offered softly. \"Sshe sseekss to confusse uss.\"\n\nThe Morgawr nodded. \"Perhaps. She is clever. But what reason does she have to do so? She does not know of my presence yet. She does not know I've come for her. She has no reason to pretend at anything. Nor any reason to flee. Yet she is gone. Where?\"\n\nNo one said anything for a moment. Even the caull had gone silent, crouched on the cavern floor, big head lowered, savage eyes gone to narrow slits as it waited to be told what to do.\n\n\"Perhapss sshe iss aboard the airsship,\" Cree Bega suggested.\n\n\"Our enemies control Black Moclips,\" the Morgawr replied. \"They would seek to avoid her, Cree Bega. Besides, there was no time for her to reach them before they fled from us. No, she is afoot with the boy and whoever goes with him \u2014 his rescuer, from the ship. She is afoot and not far ahead of us.\"\n\nSuddenly he turned again to Ahren, and this time the sense of menace in his voice was so overpowering that it froze the boy where he was.\n\n\"Where are the Elfstones, Elven Prince?\" the warlock whispered.\n\nThe question caught Ahren completely by surprise. He stared at the other wordlessly.\n\n\"You had them earlier, didn't you?\" The words pressed down against the boy like stones. \"You used them back there in that chamber where the Druid was mortally wounded. You were there, trying to save him. Did you think I wouldn't know? I sensed the Elfstone magic at once, found traces of its residue in the smells and tastes of the air. What happened to them, little boy?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Ahren answered, unable to come up with anything better.\n\nThe Morgawr smiled at Cree Bega. \"You searched him?\"\n\n\"Yess, of coursse,\" the Mwellret answered with a shrug. \"Little Elvess did not have them.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he hid them from you?\"\n\n\"There wass no time for him to hide them. Hssst. Losst them, perhapss.\"\n\nThe Morgawr took a moment to consider. \"No. Someone else has them.\" His gaze shifted quickly to Ryer Ord Star. \"Our quiet little seer, perhaps?\"\n\nCree Bega grunted. \"Ssearched her, alsso. No sstoness.\"\n\n\"Then our little witch has them. Or that boy she is with.\" He paused. \"Or the Druid carried them down with him into the netherworld, and no one will ever see them again.\"\n\nHe did not seem bothered by that. He did not seem concerned at all. Ahren watched his flat, empty face look off a final time toward the underground lake. Then the sharp eyes flicked back to his.\n\n\"Boy, I have no further need of you.\"\n\nThe chamber went so still that there might have been no one left alive, that even those who stood waiting to see what would happen next had been turned to stone. Ahren could feel the beating of his heart in his chest and the pulsing of his blood in his veins, he could hear the rasp of his breathing in his throat.\n\n\"Perhaps you do,\" Ryer Ord Star said suddenly. They all turned to look at her, but her eyes were fixed on the Morgawr. \"The Druid brought the prince on the journey because his brother the King insisted, but also because the Druid knew something of the prince's worth beyond that. I have seen it in a vision. One day, Ahren Elessedil will be King of the Elves.\"\n\nShe paused. \"Perhaps, with training, he could learn to become your King.\"\n\nAhren had never heard any such speculation, and he certainly didn't like hearing it now, particularly given the twist that the seer was putting to it. He was so shocked he just stared at her, not trying to hide anything of what he was feeling, a mix of emotions so powerful he could barely contain them. Trust me, she had urged him. But what reason did he have for doing so now?\n\nThe Morgawr seemed to consider this, and then he nodded.\n\n\"Perhaps.\" He gestured vaguely toward the girl. \"You seek to demonstrate your worth by sharing what you know, little seer. I approve.\"\n\nHis eyes flicked back to Ahren. \"You will come with me. You will do what you can to help me in my search. Together, we will track our little witch. Wherever she goes, we will find her. This will be over soon enough, and then I will decide what to do with you.\"\n\nHe looked at Cree Bega. \"Bring him.\"\n\nThen he motioned the caull to its feet, gave orders to its handlers, and sent them away into the tunnels once more. He took Ryer Ord Star by the arm and followed, ignoring Ahren. Seeing him rooted in place, Cree Bega clipped the boy across the back of his head and sent him stumbling after the warlock.\n\n\"Little Elvess musst do ass they are told!\" he hissed balefully.\n\nAhren Elessedil, saying nothing, trudged ahead in a sullen rage."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "Aboard the Jerle Shannara, Redden Alt Mer paused at the aft railing of the airship and looked back at Black Moclips. She was laboring heavily as she tried to outrun the approaching storm, her armored hull tossing and slewing like a heavy branch caught in rapids. The storm was a black wall coming inland off the eastern coast, a towering mass of lightning-laced clouds riding the back of winds gusting at more than fifty knots. Little Red was doing the best she could to sail the airship alone, but it would have been a difficult task under ordinary circumstances. It was an impossible one here. Even if she reached the relative safety of the mountains ahead, there was no guarantee she would be able to find shelter until the storm passed. Landing an airship in the middle of a mountain range, \\vith cliffs and downdrafts to contend with, was tricky business in any case. In the teeth of a storm like this one, it would be extremely dangerous.\n\nBehind Black Moclips, at least a dozen of the enemy airships continued to give chase. He had thought he might lose them with the approach of the storm, but he had been wrong. Since yesterday morning, he had tried everything to shake them, but nothing had worked. Each time he thought he had given them the slip, they had reappeared out of nowhere. They shouldn't have been able to do that. No one should have been able to find him so easily, especially not these ships, with their walking-dead crews and ship-shy Mwellrets.\n\nThey were tracking him somehow, tracking him in a way he hadn't yet been able to identify. He had better do so soon. The repairs to the Jerle Shannara had not been completed before they had been forced to flee the coast, and the strain of having to rely on four of their six parse tubes and diapson crystals, the radian draws reconfigured to allow for the transference of energy, was beginning to tell. The draws were threatening to snap from the additional strain, and the airship's maneuverability was less than he needed. Even though the Jerle Shannara was the faster airship, if something went wrong, their pursuers would be on them before they could make the necessary adjustment.\n\nIt didn't help that no one had slept for more than a couple of hours since yesterday, and everyone was dog-tired. Tired men made mistakes, and if they made one here, it would probably cost them their lives.\n\nHe tested the aft starboard draw, adjusted the tension, and looked back again at Black Moclips. She was struggling to keep up, losing ground at an increasing pace. The Wing Riders flew on either side of her, offering their presence as reassurance, but the Elves were of no help in the sailing of the ship. Po Kelles had flown back to tell him what Little Red had done, and at first Alt Mer had been elated. They had the witch's airship as well as their own, two chances to find a way out of this miserable country. But the convergence of their pursuers and the approach of the storm quickly made him realize that his sister might have seized too big a prize. Without a crew to assist her, she was seriously handicapped in her efforts to sail the captured ship. He would have put a couple of his own crew aboard to help her, but there was no way to do so without docking the airships, \u2014 Rovers were skittish where Rocs were concerned.\n\nA gust of wind howled through the rigging above him, producing a sharp and eerie whine, a wounded animal's cry. The temperature was dropping, as well. If this kept up, there would be snow in the mountains and conditions for flying would become impossible.\n\nHe left the railing and hurried across the aft decking and down to the main deck and the pilot box where Spanner Frew stood like a rock at the helm, guiding the airship ahead with his steady hand.\n\n\"Lines still holding?\" he bellowed as Big Red jumped up beside him in the box.\n\n\"For now \u2014 I don't know for how much longer. We need to get down before that storm catches us!\" They had to shout to be heard over the wind. He glanced over his shoulder at Black Moclips. \"We have to do something to help Little Red. She's game, but as good as she is, she can't go it alone.\"\n\nSpanner Frew's black-bearded face swung about momentarily, then straightened forward again. \"If we could get a line to her, we could tow her.\"\n\n\"Not in this weather \u2014 not with all those airships chasing us. We'd be slowed down, even using her parse tubes to help.\"\n\nThe big man nodded. \"Better get her off there, then! When that storm catches up, chances are pretty good she won't be able to stay aloft. If she starts to go down then, we won't be able to help her.\"\n\nRedden Alt Mer had already come to that conclusion. He wasn't even sure he could manage to keep the Jerle Shannara flying. He toyed briefly with the prospect of changing over to Black Moclips and sailing her instead, since she was in better condition. But the Jerle Shannara was the faster, more maneuverable vessel, and he didn't want to give her up when it was speed and maneuverability that were likely to make the difference in a confrontation with their pursuers. The matter was moot in any case because there wasn't any real chance that he could get everyone off his ship and onto Little Red's with the weather this bad.\n\nHe pursed his lips. Rue was going to be furious if he told her to give up her prize. She might not do it, even knowing how much trouble she was in.\n\nHe looked back again at Black Moclips and beyond to the enemy airships, black dots against the roiling darkness of the storm.\n\n\"How do they keep finding us?\" he snapped at Spanner Frew, suddenly angry at how impossible things had gotten.\n\nThe shipwright shook his head and didn't answer. A new level of frustration crept through Big Red. It was bad enough that they had lost Walker and all those who had gone inland to the ruins. It was bad enough that they had nothing to show for having come all this way and might well return home empty-handed \u2014 if they were able to get home at all. But it was intolerable that these phantom airships continued to harass them like hunting dogs would a fleeing, wounded animal, finding their tracks or their scent where there should be no trace of their passing at all.\n\nThere was nothing he could do about it just now. But he could do something about Little Red. She was not yet recovered from her wounds and couldn't have had much more sleep than they had. She must be near exhaustion from flying Black Moclips alone, trying to manage everything from the pilot box, the wind howling past her like a demon set loose to tear her from the skies. She was a good pilot, almost as good as he was \u2014 and a better navigator. But it wouldn't be enough to save her from this.\n\n\"I'm taking her off, Black Beard!\" he yelled over to the shipwright. \"Drop our speed one quarter and hold steady toward that split in the peaks ahead.\"\n\n\"You want to take her off in a grapple?\" Spanner Frew yelled back.\n\nRedden Alt Mer shook his head. \"It would take too long. She has to come to us. I'll send one of the Wing Riders in.\"\n\nHe jumped down to the main deck, shouting orders at the crew, telling them to find their places at the working parse tubes, to monitor the draws while he ran aft. At the railing, he dug through a wooden box and found the emerald pennant that meant he needed one of them to fly to him.\n\nOf course, the signal wouldn't work if no one was looking. And in a bad storm like this one, they might not be.\n\nHe fastened the pennant's clips to a line and ran the piece of cloth up into the wind, where it snapped and cracked like ice breaking free in the Squirm. Facing back, he watched Black Moclips lurch and buck. Several of her draws had broken loose, and one of her sails was in tatters. She was flying on her pilot's skill and sheer luck.\n\nEven as he watched, she faded farther back in the haze of clouds and mist. The Wing Riders were barely visible, still flying to either side. Their pursuers had disappeared entirely.\n\nRedden Alt Mer pounded his fist on the railing cap. Neither Hunter Predd nor Po Kelles had seen the pennant.\n\n\"Look at me!\" he screamed in frustration.\n\nLost in the howl of the wind, the words blew away from him.\n\nA thousand yards back, so fatigued that she was near collapse, Rue Meridian fought to keep the Jerle Shannara in sight. Her world had narrowed down to this single purpose. Forgotten were her plans for coming inland to the ruins, for finding and rescuing Bek and the others of the company, for trying to salvage something from the disaster this voyage had become, for doing anything but keeping her vessel flying. Though her thoughts were clouded and her mind numb from concentrating on working the controls, she knew she was in trouble. The Jerle Shannara was drawing farther away and the airships pursuing her were drawing closer. Soon, any chance for escape would be lost.\n\nBlack Moclips shuddered anew as the winds preceding the storm buffeted her. The airship lurched sideways and down. The problem was simple enough to diagnose if not to solve. The ambient-light sails had been kept furled during the past few days, and no new power had been gathered for the diapson crystals. No new power was being collected now because she couldn't put up the sails in this storm \u2014 couldn't put them up at all, for that matter, storm or not, by herself. The limited power that remained was being exhausted. Personal attention at the various parse tubes was needed to distribute it more efficiently, but she couldn't leave the controls long enough to attempt that. The best she would do was to try to manipulate things from the pilot box, and while that was possible, it was never intended that an airship be flown by a single person.\n\nShe had a crew, but they were locked up belowdecks, and once she set them free she might as well lock herself up in their place.\n\nThe first flurries of snow blew past her face, and she was reminded again of how far the temperature had fallen. Winter seemed to be descending into a land that hadn't seen such weather in more than a thousand years.\n\nShe tried to coax more speed from the crystals, forcing herself to try a different combination of power allocations, feeling Black Moclips slew and skid on the wind from her efforts, fighting off her growing certainty that nothing she could do would make any difference.\n\nShe was so absorbed in her efforts that she failed to see Hunter Predd soar ahead into the misty gray toward the Jerle Shannara. Po Kelles kept pace with her off to the port side, but she didn't even glance at him. In her struggle to fly Black Moclips, she had all but forgotten the Wing Riders. Then Hunter Predd flew Obsidian right over her bow to catch her attention. She ducked in response to the unexpected movement, then turned as the Roc swung around and settled in off her starboard railing, almost close enough to touch, rocking back and forth with the force of the wind.\n\n\"Little Red!\" Hunter Predd shouted into the wind, his words barely audible.\n\nShe glanced over and waved to let him know she heard.\n\n\"I'm taking you off the ship!\" He waited a moment to let the impact of the words sink in. \"Your brother says you have to come with me. That's an order!\"\n\nAngry that Big Red would even suggest such a thing, she shook her head no at once.\n\n\"You can't stay!\" Hunter Predd shouted, bringing Obsidian in closer. \"Look behind you! They're right on top of you!\"\n\nShe didn't have to look, \u2014 she knew they were there, the airships chasing her. She knew they were so close that if she turned, she could make out the blank faces of the dead men who flew them. She knew they would have her in less than an hour if something didn't happen to change her situation. She knew if they didn't catch her by then, it was only because she had gone down.\n\nShe knew, in short, that her situation was hopeless.\n\nShe just didn't want to admit it. She couldn't bear it, in fact.\n\n\"Little Red!\" the Wing Rider called again. \"Did you hear me?\"\n\nShe looked over at him. He was hunched close to Obsidian's dark neck, arms and legs gripping the harness, safety lines tethering rider and bird. He looked like a burr stuck in the great Roc's feathers.\n\n\"I heard!\" she shouted back.\n\n\"Then get off that ship! Now!\"\n\nHe said it with an insistence that brooked no argument, an insistence buttressed by the knowledge that she must realize the precariousness of her situation as surely as her brother and he did. He stared at her from astride his bird, weathered features scrunched and angry, daring her to contradict him. She understood what he was thinking: if he didn't convince her here and now, it would be too late; already, the Jerle Shannara was nearly out of sight ahead and the storm upon her. She could still do what she chose, but not for very much longer.\n\nShe stared through the tangled, windblown strands of her hair to the airship's controls. Dampness ran down the smooth metal and gleaming wood in twisting rivulets. She studied the way her hands fit on the levers and wheel. She owned Black Moclips now, it belonged to her. She had snatched it away from the thieves who had stolen her own ship. She had claimed it at no small risk to herself, and she was entitled to keep it. No one had a right to take it away from her.\n\nBut that didn't mean she was wedded to it. That didn't mean she couldn't give it up, if she chose. If it was her idea. After all, it was just something made out of wood and metal, not out of flesh and blood. It wasn't possessed of a heart and mind and soul. It was only a tool.\n\nShe looked back at Hunter Predd. The Wing Rider was waiting. She pointed aft and down, then at herself. He nodded and swung away from the ship.\n\nShe snatched up the steering bands and lashed the wheels and levers in place, then hurried down the steps and across the slippery surface of the decking to the main hatchway. She went down in a rush, before she had time to think better of it. She was curiously at peace. The anger she had felt moments earlier was gone. Black Moclips was a fine airship, but it was only that and nothing more.\n\nShe reached the storeroom door where Aden Kett and his Federation crew were locked away and banged on the door. \"Aden, can you hear me?\"\n\n\"I hear you, Little Red,\" the Commander replied.\n\n\"I'm letting you out and giving you back your ship. She's struggling in this storm and needs a full crew to keep her flying. I can't manage it alone. I own her, but I won't let her die needlessly. So that's that. You do what you can for her. All right?\"\n\n\"All right.\" She could tell from the sound of his voice that he was pressed up against the door on the other side.\n\n\"You'll understand if I don't stay around to see how this turns out.\" She wiped at the moisture beading her forehead and dripping into her eyes. \"You might have trouble doing the right thing by me afterwards. I'd hate to see you make a fool of yourself. So after I open this door, I'll be leaving. Do you think you and the others can refrain from giving in to your worst impulses and coming after me?\"\n\nShe heard him laugh. \"Come after you? We've had enough of you, Little Red. We'll all feel better knowing you're off the ship. Just let us out of here.\"\n\nShe paused then, leaning into the door, her face close to the cracks in the boards that formed it. \"Listen to me, Aden. Don't stay around afterwards. Don't try to do the right thing. Forget about your orders and your sense of duty and your Federation training. Take Black Moclips and sail her home as quickly as you can manage it. Take your chances back there.\"\n\nShe heard his boots shift on the flooring. \"Who's out there? We saw the other ships.\"\n\n\"I don't know. No one does, but it isn't anyone you want anything to do with. More than a dozen airships, Aden, but no flags, no insignia, nothing human aboard. Just rets and men who look like they're dead. I don't know who sent them. I don't care. You remember what I said. Fly out of here. Leave all this. It's good advice. Are you listening?\"\n\n\"I'm listening,\" he answered quietly.\n\nShe didn't know what else to say. \"Tell Donell that I'm sorry I hit him so hard.\"\n\n\"He knows.\"\n\nShe pushed away from the door and stood facing it again. \"See you down the road, Aden.\"\n\n\"Down the road, Little Red.\"\n\nShe reached for the latch and threw it clear, then turned and bolted up the stairs without looking back. In seconds she was topside again, surprised to find sleet had turned the world white. She ducked her head against the bitter sting of the wind and slush and moved to the aft railing. The rope Hunter Predd had used earlier to climb down to Obsidian was still tied in place and coiled on the deck. She threw the loose end overboard and watched it tumble away into the haze. She could just barely make out the dark contours of the Roc's wings as it lifted into place below.\n\nShe looked back once at Black Moclips. \"You're a good girl,\" she told her. \"Stay safe.\"\n\nThen she was gone into the gloom.\n\nMinutes later, Redden Alt Mer stood at the port railing of the Jerle Shannara and watched his sister pause in her climb up the rope ladder. She had gotten off the Roc all right, taken firm hold of the ladder and started up. But now she hung there with her head lowered and her long red hair falling all around her face, swaying in the wind.\n\nHe thought he might have to go down the ladder and get her.\n\nThinking that, he was reminded suddenly of a time when they were children, and he had gone high up into the top branches of an old tree. Rue, only five years old, had tried to follow, working her way up the trunk, using the limbs of the tree as rungs. But she wasn't strong yet, and she tired quickly. Halfway up, she lost her momentum completely and stopped moving, hanging from the branches of that tree the way she was hanging from the rope ladder now. She was something of a nuisance back then, always tagging along after him, trying to do everything he was doing. He was four years older than she was and irritated by her most of the time. He could have left her where she was on the tree \u2014 had thought he might, actually. Instead, he had turned back and yelled down to her. \"Come on, Rue! Keep going! Don't quit! You can do it!\"\n\nHe could yell those same words down to her now, to the little sister who was still trying to do everything he did. But even as he considered it, she lifted her head, saw him looking at her, and began to climb again at once. He smiled to himself. She came on now without slowing, and he reached out to take her arm, helping her climb over the railing and onto the ship.\n\nImpulsively, he gave her a hug and was surprised when she hugged him back.\n\nHe shook his head at her. \"Sometimes you scare me.\" He looked into her wet face, reading the exhaustion in her eyes. \"Actually, most of the time.\"\n\nShe grinned. \"That's real praise, coming from you.\"\n\n\"Flying Black Moclips all by yourself in a bad piece of weather like you did would scare anyone. It should have scared you, but I suppose it didn't.\"\n\n\"Not much.\" She grinned some more, like the little kid she was inside. \"I took her away from the witch, big brother. Crew and all. It was hard to give her up again. I didn't want to lose her, though.\"\n\n\"Better her than you. We don't need her anyway. It's enough if the witch doesn't have her.\" He gave his sister a small shove. \"Go below and put on some dry clothes.\"\n\nShe shook her head stubbornly. \"I don't need to change clothes just yet.\"\n\n\"Rue,\" he said, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice. \"Don't argue with me about this. You argue with me about everything. Just do it. You're soaked through, \u2014 you need dry clothes. Go change.\"\n\nShe hesitated a moment, and he was afraid she was going to press the matter. But then she turned around and went down through the main hatch to the lower cabins, water dripping from her across the decking.\n\nHe watched her disappear from sight, thinking as she did that no matter how old they grew or what happened to them down the road, they would never feel any differently about each other. He would still be her big brother, \u2014 she would still be his little sister. Mostly, they would still be best friends.\n\nHe couldn't ask for anything better.\n\nWhen she reemerged, the wind was blowing so hard it knocked her sideways. The rain and sleet had stopped, but the air was cold enough to freeze the tiny hairs in her nostrils. She wrapped her great cloak more tightly about her, warm again in dry clothes and boots, and pushed across the deck unsteadily to where her brother and Spanner Frew stood in the pilot box. Ahead, the mountains loomed huge and craggy against the skyline, a massing of jagged peaks and rugged cliffs piled one on top of the other until they faded away into the brume-shrouded distance.\n\nShe climbed into the pilot box, and her brother said at once, \"Put on your safety harness.\"\n\nShe did so, noting that all of the Rover crew on the decks below were strapped in as well, hunched down against the weather, stationed at the parse tubes and connecting draws.\n\nWhen she glanced over her shoulder, she found the world behind had disappeared in a thick, dark haze, taking with it any sign of the pursuing airships.\n\nBig Red glanced over. \"They disappeared sometime back. I don't know if they broke it off because of the weather or to go after Black Moclips. Doesn't matter. They're gone, and that's enough. We've got bigger problems to deal with.\"\n\nSpanner Frew yelled something down to one of the Rovers amidships, and the crewman waved back, moving to tighten a radian draw. Big Red had stripped back all the sails, and the Jerle Shannara was riding bare-masted in the teeth of winds that side-swiped her as badly as they had Black Moclips. Rue saw that the radian draws had been reconfigured, strung away from two of the six parse tubes to feed power to the remaining four. Even those were singing with the vibration of the wind, straining to break free of their fastenings.\n\n\"I left a ship in better shape than this one,\" she declared, half to herself.\n\n\"She'd be in better shape if we hadn't had to leave quite so suddenly to find you!\" Big Red grunted.\n\nThat wasn't true, of course. They would have had to leave in any case to flee the enemy airships, no matter whether or not they were searching for her. Repairs of the sort needed by the Jerle Shannara required that the airship be stationary, and that wasn't going to happen until they could set down somewhere.\n\n\"Any place we can land?\" she asked hopefully.\n\nSpanner Frew laughed. \"You mean in an upright position? Or will a severe slant do?\" His hands worked the steering levers with quick, anxious movements. \"First things first. See those mountains ahead of us, Little Red? The ones that look like a big wall? The ones we're in danger of smashing into?\"\n\nShe saw them. They lay dead ahead, rising across the skyline, barring their way. She glanced sideways and down and saw for the first time how high up they were. Several thousand feet at least \u2014 probably more like five thousand. Even so, they weren't nearly high enough to clear these peaks.\n\n\"Heading ten degrees starboard, Black Beard,\" she heard her brother order. \"That's it. There, toward that cut.\"\n\nShe followed his gaze and saw a break in the peaks. It was narrow, and it twisted out of view at once. It might dead-end into the side of a mountain beyond, in which case they were finished. But Redden Alt Mer could read a passage better than anyone she had ever sailed with. Besides, he had the luck.\n\n\"Brace!\" he yelled down at the crew.\n\nThey shot between the cliffs and into the narrow defile, skimming on the back of a vicious headwind that nearly drove them sideways in the attempt. Beyond, they saw the opening slant right. Spanner Frew threw the wheel over and fed what power he could to keep them steady. The passage narrowed further and cut back left. Rue felt the hair on the back of her neck lift as the massive cliff walls tightened about them like the jaws of a trap. They were so close that she could make out the depressions and ridges on the face of the stone. She could see rodent nests and tiny plants. There was no room to turn around. If the passage failed to run all the way through, they were finished.\n\n\"Steady,\" her brother cautioned to Spanner Frew. \"Slow, now.\"\n\nThe winds had shifted away, and they were no longer being buffeted so violently. The Jerle Shannara canted left in response to Spanner Frew's handling of the controls, sliding slowly through the gap. They rounded a jagged corner, still close enough that Rue could reach out and touch the rock. Ahead, the defile began to widen, and the mountains opened out onto a deep, forested valley.\n\n\"We're through,\" she said, grinning in relief at her brother.\n\n\"But not yet safe.\" His face was tight and set. \"Look ahead. There, where the valley climbs into that second set of peaks.\"\n\nShe did so, brushing away loose strands of her long red hair. There were breaks all through this range, but the movement of the clouds overhead suggested that the winds were much more turbulent than anything they had encountered before. Still, there was nowhere else to go except back, and that was unthinkable.\n\nSpanner Frew glanced over at Big Red. \"Where do we go? That gap on the right, lower down?\"\n\nHer brother nodded. \"Where it might not be so windy. Good eye. But stay hard left to give us room to maneuver when the crosswind catches us.\"\n\nThey navigated the valley through a screen of mist, riding air currents that bucked and jittered like wild horses. The Jerle Shannara shuddered with the blows, but held her course under Spanner Frew's steady hand. Below, the forests were dark and deep and silent. Once, Rue caught sight of a thin ribbon of water where a small river wound along the valley floor, but she saw no sign of animals or people. Hawks soared out of the cliffs, fierce faces set against the light. Behind, the entire sky was lark with the storm they had left on the other side of the mountains. Everywhere else, the horizon was hazy and flat.\n\nRue listened to the svind sing through the taut lines of the vessel. It always seemed to her that the ship was calling to her when she heard that sound, that it was trying to tell her something. She felt that now, and her uneasiness grew.\n\nWhen they reached the far side of the valley, they angled right, toward the draw that her brother had spied earlier, a deep cut in the peaks of the second range that offered clear passage to whatever lay beyond. More mountains, certainly, but perhaps something else, as well. She glanced skyward to where the clouds skittered over the peaks in frightened bursts of energy, blown by winds that channeled down out of the north. Since the weather was all behind them, she realized that these crosswinds must blow like this all the time. They would be dangerous, if that was so.\n\nThe Jerle Shannara lifted through the gap, catching the first rip of crosswind as she did, slewing sideways instantly. Spanner Frew brought her back on course again, keeping her low and down to the left. Ahead, more peaks and cliffs appeared, slabs of stone jutting from the earth like giant's hands lifted in warning. But the defile wormed through them, offering passage, so they continued on. Below, the floor of the canyon rose steadily as the mountains closed about, and they were forced to fly higher.\n\nRue Meridian took a deep breath and held it, feeling the tension radiate through her.\n\n\"Steady, Black Beard,\" she heard her brother say quietly. Then a burst of wind slammed into the airship and sent her spinning sideways for endless, heart-stopping seconds before Spanner Frew was able to bring her back around again.\n\nRue exhaled sharply. Big Red glanced over at her and broke into one of those familiar grins that told her how much he loved this.\n\n\"Hold on!\" he shouted.\n\nThey bucked through the gap's twists and turns like a cork through rapids, knocked this way and that, fighting to stay steady at every turn. The winds thrust at them, then died away, then returned to hammer them again. Once they were blown so hard to starboard that they very nearly struck the cliff wall, only just managing to skip past an outcropping of rock that would have ripped the hull apart. Rue clung to the pilot box railing, her knuckles white with determination, thinking as she did so that this was much worse than what they had encountered coming through the Squirm, ice pillars notwithstanding. At any moment they could lose control completely and be smashed to bits against the rocks.\n\nThey climbed to a thousand feet as the floor of the pass rose ahead, forcing them to gain altitude beyond what Rue knew her brother had hoped would prove necessary, \u2014 the winds at this elevation were too strong and unpredictable.\n\nThen the mountains parted ahead, and far below they saw a vast forest cupped by the fingers of scattered peaks, deep and impenetrable and stretching away into the haze. There would be a landing site there, a place for them to set down and make repairs.\n\nShe had no sooner finished the thought than the aft port radian draw snapped at the masthead and fell away.\n\nAt once, the Jerle Shannara began to lose power and slip sideways. Spanner Frew fought to bring her nose up, but without both aft parse tubes in operation, he lacked the means to do so.\n\n\"I can't right her!\" he grunted in frustration.\n\n\"Mainsail!\" Big Red shouted instantly to the crew.\n\nKelson Riat and another of the Rovers leapt up at once from where they were crouched amidships and began to unfasten the lines and run up the sail. Without the use of the aft parse tubes, Big Red was going to rely on the sails for power. But the crosswinds were vicious, \u2014 there was as much chance as not that they would fill the big sail and carry the airship right into the cliffs like a scrap of paper.\n\n\"Steady, steady, steady...,\" Big Red chanted to Spanner Frew as the shipwright fought to hold the Jerle Shannara in place.\n\nFluttering and snapping, the mainsail went up. Then the wind caught it and drove the airship forward with a lurch. She bucked in the wind's strong grip, and another of the draws snapped and fell away.\n\n\"Shades!\" Redden Alt Mer hissed. He snatched at the wheel as Spanner Frew lost his footing, struck his head on the pilot box railing, and blacked out.\n\nThey were still falling, but they were accelerating toward the gap, as well, the mountains widening on both sides. If they could stay high enough to miss the boulders clustered in the mouth of the pass, they might survive. It was going to be close. Rue willed the Jerle Shannara to lift, begged her silently to level off. But she was still falling, the rocky surface of the pass rising swiftly to meet her.\n\nHer brother threw the levers that fed power to the diapson crystals all the way forward and brought the steering levers all the way back. The airship shuddered anew, lurched, and rose a final time. They surged through the gap, breaking into the clear air above the forest below. But even as they did so, the keel scraped across the boulders beneath them, making a terrible grinding, ripping noise. The Jerle Shannara shuddered and then dipped, the bow coming down sharply, pointing left and toward the forest a thousand feet below. The crosswind returned, sudden and vicious, snatching at the crippled vessel. The mainsail reefed as several of her lines snapped, and the Jerle Shannara plunged downward.\n\nRue Meridan, clinging to both her safety harness and the pilot box railing, thought they were dead. They spiraled down, out of control, the canopy of the trees rising to meet them with dizzying swiftness. Her brother, still struggling to bring the bow up, cursed. Crew members slid along the decking. The safety line broke away on one, and she caught just a glimpse of him as he flew out over the side of the ship and disappeared.\n\nThen the crosswind shifted, ripping along the cliff face and carrying the Jerle Shannara sideways into the rock. Rue had just a moment to watch the cliff wall fly toward them before they struck in a shattering crunch of wood and metal. She lost her grip on both her safety line and the railing and flew into the pilot box control panel. Pain ratcheted through her left arm, and she felt the stitches on her wounded side and leg give. Her safety line snapped, and then she careened into her brother, who was hanging desperately onto the useless steering levers.\n\nA moment later, everything went black."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "As he finished tying off the bandages around Little Red's damaged torso, Redden Alt Mer was thinking things couldn't get any worse. Then Spanner Frew lumbered up the steps to the pilot box and knelt down beside him.\n\n\"We lost all the spare diapson crystals through the tear in the hull,\" he announced sullenly. \"They've fallen somewhere down there.\"\n\nHis gesture made it clear that somewhere down there was the jungle below the wooded precipice on which the Jerle Shannara had finally come to rest, an impenetrable green covering of treetops and vines that spread away from the cliff face for miles.\n\nAlt Mer rocked back on his heels and stared at the shipwright as if he were speaking in a foreign language. \"All of them?\"\n\n\"They were all in one crate. The crate fell out through a hole ripped in the hull.\" Spanner Frew reached up to touch the gash in his forehead, flinching as he did so. \"As if I needed another headache.\"\n\n\"Can we fly with what we have?\"\n\nThe shipwright shook his head. \"We're down to three. We lost the port fore tube and everything with it on landing. What's left might let us fly in calm weather, but it won't get us off the ground. If we try it, we'll just go over the side and into the trees with the crystals.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"The thing of it is, we came through this all right otherwise. We've got the timbers to repair the hole in the hull. We've got spare draws and fastenings. We've got plenty of sail. Even the spars and mast can be fixed with a little time and effort. But we can't go anywhere without those crystals.\" He rubbed his beard. \"How's Little Red?\"\n\nRedden Alt Mer looked down at his sister. She was still unconscious. He had let her sleep while he worked on her injuries, but he thought he'd wake her soon in case she had suffered a concussion. He needed to know, as well, if there was damage inside that he couldn't see.\n\n\"She'll be all right,\" he said with a reassuring smile. He wasn't sure at all, but there was no point in worrying Black Beard unnecessarily. He had enough to concern him. \"Who went over the side?\"\n\n\"Jahnon Pakabbon.\"\n\nBig Red grimaced. A good man. But they were all good men, which is why they had been chosen for the voyage. There wasn't a one he could bear to lose, let alone afford to. He had known Jahnon since they were children. The quiet, even-tempered Rover had a gift for innovation in addition to his sailing skills.\n\n\"All right.\" He forced himself to quit thinking about it, to concentrate on the problem at hand. \"We have to go down there and bring him out. We'll look for the crystals when we do. Choose two men to go with me \u2014 and make sure you're not one of them. I need you to work on the repairs. We don't want to be stranded here any longer than necessary. Those airships with their Mwellrets and walking dead will come looking for us soon enough. I don't intend to be around when they do.\"\n\nSpanner Frew grunted, stood up, and went back down the pilot box steps. The Jerle Shannara was canted to port at a twenty-degree angle perhaps a hundred yards from the precipice, the curved horn of her starboard pontoon lodged in a cluster of boulders. She wasn't in much danger of sliding over the edge, but she was fully exposed to anything flying overhead. Behind her, running back for perhaps another hundred yards, a forested shelf jutted from the cliff face of the mountain on which they had settled. They were lucky to be alive after such a crash, lucky not to have fallen all the way into the jungle below, from which extraction would have been impossible. That the Jerle Shannara had not broken into a million pieces was a testament to her construction and design. Say what you would about Spanner Frew, he knew how to build an airship.\n\nNevertheless, they were trapped, lacking sufficient diapson crystals to lift off, short one more crew member, and completely lost in a strange land. Big Red was normally optimistic about tough situations, but in this particular instance he didn't much care for their chances.\n\nHe glanced skyward, where clouds and mist hung like a curtain across the horizon, hiding what lay farther out in all directions. Nothing was visible but the emerald canopy of the jungle and the tips of a few nearby peaks, leaving him with the unpleasant feeling of being trapped on a rocky island, suspended between gray mist and green sea.\n\n\"Spanner!\" he yelled suddenly. The burly shipwright trudged back over to stand below the box and looked up at him. \"Cut some rolling logs, rig a block and tackle, and let's try to move the ship back into those trees. I don't like being out in the open like this.\"\n\nThe big man turned away without a word and disappeared over the side of the ship. Big Red could hear him yelling anew at the crewmen, laying into them with his shipyard vocabulary. He listened a moment and shook his head. He missed Hawk, who was always a step ahead in knowing what needed to be done. But Black Beard was capable enough, if a bit irksome. Give him some direction and he would get the job done.\n\nRedden Alt Mer turned his attention to his sister. He bent down and gave her a gentle shake. She groaned and turned her head away, then drifted off. He shook her once more, a little more firmly this time. \"Rue, wake up.\"\n\nHer eyes blinked open, and she stared at him. For a moment, she didn't say anything. Then she sighed wearily. \"I've been through this before \u2014 come back from the edge and found you waiting. Like a dream. Still alive, are we?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Though one of us is a little worse for wear.\"\n\nShe glanced down at herself, taking in the bandages wrapped about her torso and leg where the clothing had been cut away, seeing the splint on her arm. \"How bad am I?\"\n\n\"You won't be flying off to rescue anyone for a while. You broke your arm and several ribs. You ripped open the knife wounds on your thigh and side. You banged yourself up pretty good, all without the help of a single Mwellret.\"\n\nShe started to giggle, then grimaced. \"Don't make me laugh. It hurts too much.\" She lifted her head and glanced around, taking in as much as she could, then lay back. \"We don't seem to be flying, so I guess I didn't dream that we crashed. Are we all in one piece?\"\n\n\"More or less. There's damage, but it can be repaired. The problem now is that we can't fly. We lost all our spare diapson crystals through a break in the hull. I have to take a search party down into the valley and find them before we can get out of here.\" He shrugged. \"Thank your lucky stars it wasn't worse.\"\n\n\"I'm busy thanking them that I'm still alive. That any of us are, for that matter.\" She licked her lips. \"Got anything to drink that doesn't come from a stream?\"\n\nHe brought her an aleskin, holding it up for her as she took deep swallows. \"You hurt anywhere I can't see?\" he asked when she was done. \"A little honesty here wouldn't hurt, by the way.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"Nothing you haven't already taken care of.\" She wiped her lips and sighed deeply. \"Good. But I'm really tired.\"\n\n\"Then you'd better sleep.\" He arranged the torn bit of sail he had folded under her head for a pillow and tucked in the ragged folds of her great cloak about her arms and legs. \"I'll let you know when something happens.\"\n\nHer eyes closed at once, which was what he had expected, given the strength of the sleeping potion he had dropped into her drink. He took the aleskin and tucked it away in a storage bin to one side of the control panel, out of sight but ready to use if he needed it again. But she wouldn't wake for twelve hours or better, if he'd measured the dosage right. He looked down at her, his little sister, tough as nails and so anxious to demonstrate it she would have insisted on getting up if he hadn't drugged her. She confused him sometimes, the way she was always trying to prove herself, as if she hadn't already done so a dozen times over. But better to be like that, he supposed, than to be content with the way things were. His sister set the standard, and she was always looking to improve on it. He could wish for more like her, but he wouldn t find them no matter how hard he looked. There was only one Little Red.\n\nHe yawned, thought he wouldn't mind a little sleep himself, then walked over to the ship's railing and looked down at Spanner Frew and the others as they placed the rolling logs under the pontoons. The block and tackle was already in place, strapped to a huge old oak fifty yards back with the rope ends clipped to iron pull rings that had been screwed into the aft horns just above the waterline.\n\n\"We could use another pair of hands!\" the shipwright shouted up at Big Red as he took in the slack in the ropes with an audible grunt.\n\nRedden Alt Mer climbed down the ship's ladder and joined the others as they picked up the lead rope, set themselves, and began to heave against the weight of the airship. Even after she had been pulled off the rocks and straightened so that her pontoons were resting on the logs, the Jerle Shannara was difficult to budge. Eventually, Big Red took three others forward and began to rock her. After some considerable effort and harsh words had been expended, she began to move. Once she got rolling, they worked swiftly. Pulling steadily on the ropes, they rotated the rolling logs under her floats as she lumbered backwards until they got her perhaps three dozen yards off the exposed flat and into a mix of trees and bushes.\n\nAfter taking down the block and tackle and unhooking the ropes, Redden Alt Mer ordered Kelson Riat and the big Rover who called himself Rucker Bont to cut some of the surrounding brush and spread it around the decks of the airship as camouflage. It took them only a little while to change her appearance sufficiently that the Rover Captain was satisfied. With all the sails down and the decking partially screened, the Jerle Shannara might look like a part of the landscape, a hummock of rock and scrub or a pile of deadwood.\n\n\"Good work, Black Beard,\" he told Spanner Frew. \"Now see what you can do with that hole in her side while I take a look down below for those crystals.\"\n\nThe big man nodded. \"I've given you Bont and Tian Cross for company.\" He took hold of the Captain's arm and squeezed. \"Little Red and I won't be there to look out for you. Watch yourself.\"\n\nRedden Alt Mer gave him a boyish grin and patted the big, gnarled hand. \"Always.\"\n\nThey went down the cliff face in a line, Big Red in front setting the pace and finding the most favorable route for them to follow. It wasn't a particularly steep or long descent, but a misstep could result in a nasty fall, so the three men were careful to take their time. They used ropes as safety lines where the descent was steepest, \u2014 the other sections, where the slope broadened and there were footholds to be found in the jagged rock, they navigated on their own. It was midafternoon by now, and the hazy light was beginning to darken as the sun slid behind the canopy of clouds and mist. Big Red gave them another three hours at most before it would become too dark to continue the search. There wasn't as much time as he would have liked, but that was the way it went sometimes. You had to make the best of some situations. If they ran out of time today, they would just have to try again tomorrow.\n\nThe climb down took them almost an hour, and by the time they were inside the trees, everything was much darker. The canopy of limbs and vines was so thick that almost no light penetrated to the jungle floor. As a result, the undergrowth wasn't as thick as Big Red had anticipated, so they were able to advance relatively easily. They quickly discovered that they were in a rain forest, the temperature on the valley floor much higher than in the mountains. The air was steamy and damp and smelling of earth and plants. Life was abundant. Ferns grew everywhere, some of them very tall and broad, some tiny and fragile. Though most were green, others were milky white and still others a rust red. Their tiny shoots unfurled like babies' fingers, stretching for the light. Slugs oozed their way across the earth, leaving trails of moisture, sticky and glistening. Butterflies careened from place to place in bright splashes of color, and birds darted through the canopy overhead so fast the eye could barely follow. Now and again, they heard them singing, a mix of songs that seemed to come from everywhere at once.\n\nThe atmosphere was strange and vaguely unsettling, and they could feel the change immediately. The sound of the wind had disappeared. Over everything lay a hush broken only by birdsong and insect buzzes. In the silences between, there was a sense of expectancy, as if everything was waiting for the next sound or movement. They had the unmistakable feeling of being watched by things that they could not see, of eyes following them everywhere.\n\nSome distance in, they stopped while Big Red took a reading on his compass. It would be all too easy to become lost down here, and he wasn't about to let that happen. He had only a vague idea of where to look for Jahnon's body and the missing diapson crystals, so the best they could do was to navigate in that general direction and hope they got lucky.\n\nHe stared off into the hazy distance, thinking for a moment about the direction of his life. He could stand to take a compass reading on that, as well. At best he was drifting, tacking first one way and then another, a vessel with no particular destination in mind. He shouldn't spend a moment of time worrying about becoming lost down here given how lost he was in general. He might argue otherwise \u2014 did so often, in fact \u2014 but it didn't change the truth of things. His life, for as long as he could remember, had consisted of one escapade after the other. Rue had been right about their lives as mercenaries. Mostly, they had been centered on the size of the purse being offered. This was the first time they had accepted a job because they believed there was something more at stake than money.\n\nYet what difference did it make? They were still fighting for their lives, still careening about like ships adrift, still lost in the wider world.\n\nDid Little Red now feel that coming on this voyage was worth it?\n\nHe supposed he was rethinking his own life because of hers. She had been injured twice in the past two weeks, and both times she had come close to being killed. It was bad enough that he risked his own life so freely, \u2014 he shouldn't be so quick to risk hers. True, she was a grown woman and capable of deciding for herself whether or not she wanted to accept that risk. But he also knew she looked up to him, followed after him, and believed unswervingly in him. She always had. Like it or not, that invested him with a certain responsibility for her safety. Maybe it was time to give that responsibility some attention.\n\nThey said he had the luck. But everyone's luck ran out sooner or later. The odds in his case had to be getting shorter. If he didn't find a way to change that, he was going to pay for it. Or worse, Rue was.\n\nThey set off again, working their way through the jungle, and hadn't gone two hundred yards when Tian Cross spied the wooden crate that contained the crystals lying in a deep depression of its own making. Amazingly, the crate was still in one piece, if somewhat misshapen, the nails and stout wire securing it having held it together despite the fall from the precipice.\n\nBig Red bent down to examine it. The crate was maybe two and a half feet on each side and weighed in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. A strong man could carry it, but not far. He thought about taking out several of the crystals and tucking them into his clothing. But they were heavy and too awkward for that. Besides, he wanted to retrieve them all, not just some. It would take longer to haul out the entire crate, but there was no reason to think that on the long journey home they might not need replacement crystals again.\n\nHe stood up, pulled out the compass, and took another reading.\n\n\"Captain,\" Rucker Bont called over to him.\n\nHe glanced up. The big Rover was pointing ahead. There was a distinct gap in the wall of the jungle where trees and brush were missing and hazy light flooded down through the canopy. It was a clearing, the first they had come across.\n\nHe snapped shut the casing on the compass and tucked the instrument back into his pocket. Something about the break in the jungle roof didn't look right. He made his way through trees and vines for a closer look, leaving the crystals where they were. The other two Rovers followed. The brush was thicker here, and it took them several minutes to reach the edge of the clearing, where they slowed to a ragged halt and, still within the fringe of the trees, peered out in surprise.\n\nA section of the forest had been leveled on both sides of a lazy stream that meandered through the dense undergrowth, its waters so still they were barely moving. Trees had been knocked down, bushes and grasses had been flattened, and the earth torn up so badly it had the look of a plowed field. A hole had been opened in the trees that tunneled back down the length of the stream and disappeared into the mist.\n\nRucker Bont whistled softly. \"What do you suppose did that?\"\n\nBig Red shrugged. \"A storm, maybe.\"\n\nBont grunted. \"Maybe. Could have been wind, too.\" He paused. \"Could also be that something bigger than us lives down here.\"\n\nHis eyes darting right and left watchfully, Big Red walked out of the trees and into the clearing, picking his way across the rutted, scarred earth. The other two waited a moment, then followed. At the clearing's center, he knelt to look for tracks, hoping he wouldn't find any. He didn't, but the ground was so badly churned he couldn't be sure of what he was looking at.\n\nHe glanced up. \"I don't see anything.\"\n\nRucker Bont scuffed his boot in the dirt, glanced over at Tian Cross and then back at Alt Mer. \"Want me to have a look around?\"\n\nBig Red peered down the debris-strewn length of the little stream, down the tunnel that burrowed into the trees. In places the damage was so severe that the stream's banks had collapsed entirely. Tree limbs and logs straddled the stream bed, wooden barriers that stuck out in all directions and smelled of shredded leaves and wood freshly ripped asunder. Everything he was seeing felt wrong for a windstorm or a flood. The damage was too contained, too geometrical, not random enough. Perhaps Bont wasn't as far off the mark as he had thought. This had the look of something done by a very big, very powerful animal.\n\nAware suddenly of a change in the forest, he stood up slowly. The birds and butterflies they had seen in such profusion only minutes ago had disappeared entirely and the jungle had gone very still. His hand strayed to the hilt of his sword.\n\nHe saw Jahnon Pakabbon then, his eyes drawn to the corpse as surely as if it had been pointed out to him. Across the clearing, less than fifty feet away, Pakabbon lay sprawled against a clump of rocks and deadwood. Only he didn't look the way he had when he was alive, and the fall alone wouldn't account for it. His body had been stripped of its flesh and his organs sucked out. His clothes hung on bleached bones. His eyes were missing. His mouth hung open in a soundless scream and seemed to be trying to bite at something.\n\nAt almost the same moment, Redden Alt Mer caught sight of the creature. It was crouched right over Jahnon, as green and brown as the jungle that hid it. He might not have seen it at all if the light hadn't shifted just a touch while he was staring at Pakabbon's corpse. Intent on retrieving the remains of his friend, he might have walked right up to it without knowing it was there. It was so well concealed that even as big as it was \u2014 and it had to be huge from the size of its head \u2014 it was virtually invisible. All that Redden Alt Mer could see of it now was a blunt reptilian snout with lidded eyes and mottled skin that hovered over Jahnon's dead body like a hammer about to fall.\n\nHe never had a chance to warn Rucker Bont and Tian Cross. He never had a chance to do anything. Redden Alt Mer had only just realized what he was looking at when the creature attacked. It catapulted out of the jungle, bursting from its concealment in a flurry of powerful, stubby legs, and seized Tian Cross in its jaws before the Rover knew what was happening. Tian screamed once, and then the jaws tightened, the needle-sharp teeth penetrated, and there was blood everywhere.\n\nIt had been a long time since Redden Alt Mer had panicked, but he panicked now. Maybe it was the suddenness of the creature's attack. Maybe it was the look of it, a lizard of some sort, all crusted and horned, or the sheer size of it, rearing up with Tian Cross's crushed body dangling from its jaws. He had never seen a creature so big move so fast. It had come out of the trees, out of its concealment, with the quickness of a striking snake. He could still see that movement in his mind, could feel the terror it induced rush through him like the touch of hot metal.\n\nDrops of blood sprayed over him as the lizard shook his friend's dead body like a toy.\n\nRedden Alt Mer bolted back through the jungle. He never stopped to think what he was doing. He never even considered trying to help Tian. Some part of him knew that Tian was dead anyway, that there was nothing he could do to help him, but that wasn't why he ran. He ran because he was terrified. He ran because he knew that if he didn't, he was going to die.\n\nRunning was all he could think to do.\n\nAt first, he thought the creature would not follow, too busy with its kill to bother. But within seconds he heard it coming, limbs and brush snapping, leaves and twigs tearing free, the earth shaking with the weight and force of its massive body. It exploded through the jungle like an engine of war set loose. Big Red picked up his pace, even though he had thought he was already running flat out. He darted and dodged through the heavier foliage until he was back where the trees opened up, and then he put on a new burst of speed. He cast aside his cumbersome weapons, useless in any case against such a behemoth. He lightened himself so that he could fly, and still he felt as if he were weighted in chains.\n\nAlt Mer glanced back only once. Rucker Bont was running just as hard, only steps behind, features drained of blood and filled with terror, a mirror of his own. The lizard, thundering after them in a blur of mottled green and brown, jaws open, was right behind.\n\n\"Captain!\" Bont cried out frantically.\n\nAlt Mer heard him scream. The lizard was tearing at him, and the sounds of his friend's dying followed the Rover Captain as he fled.\n\nShades! Shades!\n\nHe never looked back. He couldn't bear to. He could only run and keep running, closing off everything inside but the fear. The fear drove him. The fear ruled him.\n\nHe gained the cliff wall and went up it in a scrambling rush, barely feeling the sharpness of the rock and roughness of the rope as he climbed. Forgotten were the crystals and Jahnon's body. Forgotten were his hopes for a quick exit from this valley. His companions lay dead in the valley below. His weapons lay discarded.\n\nHe gave them no thought. He had no faculty for thinking. He had nothing left inside but a frantic, desperate need to escape \u2014 not so much what pursued him as what he was feeling. His fear. His terror. If he did not escape it, he knew, if he did not run fast enough, it would consume him.\n\nHe gained the heights after endless minutes of climbing through the fading afternoon light and the deepening haze of an approaching nightfall. He never stopped to see if he was being pursued, and it was only as Spanner Frew's big hands reached down to pull him over the lip of the precipice that he realized how quiet it was.\n\nHe looked back in wonder. Nothing was behind him, no sign of the lizard, no indication that anything had ever happened. There was no movement, no sound, nothing. The jungle had swallowed it all and gone as still and calm as the surface of the sea after a storm.\n\nSpanner Frew saw his face, and the light in his own eyes darkened. \"What happened? Where are the others?\"\n\nRedden Alt Mer stared at him, unable to answer. \"Dead,\" he said finally.\n\nHe looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking.\n\nLater that night, when the others were asleep and he was alone again, he resolved to wake his sister and tell her what he had done. He would tell her not just that he had failed to retrieve the crystals or Jahnon Pakabbon and that the men who had gone into the valley with him were dead, but that he had panicked and run. It would be his first step toward recovery, toward finding a way back from the dark place into which he had fallen. He knew he could not live with himself if he did not find a way to face what had happened. It began with telling Rue, from whom he had no secrets, to whom he confided everything. He would not stint in his telling now, casting himself in the most unfavorable light he could imagine. What he had done was unthinkable. He must confess himself to her and seek absolution.\n\nBut when he rose and went to her and stood looking down, he imagined what that confession would feel like. He could see her face as she listened to his words, changing little by little, reflecting her loss of pride and trust in him, revealing her distaste for his actions. He could see the way her eyes would darken and veil, hiding feelings she had never before experienced, changing everything between them. Rue, the little sister who had always looked up to him.\n\nHe couldn't bear it. He stood there in the shadows without moving, studying her face, letting the moment pass, and then he left.\n\nBack on deck, well away from where the watch stood at the airship's bow looking out toward the dark bowl of the valley, he leaned against the masthead and stared up at the hazy night sky. Glimpses of a half-moon and clusters of stars were visible through breaks in the clouds. He watched the way they came and went, thinking of his feckless courage and uncertain resolve.\n\nAfter a time, he slid down to a sitting position, his back against the roughened timber, and lay his head back. As still as the mast itself, he lost himself in the fury of his bitter self-condemnation, and morning still hours away and redemption still further off, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "Imprisoned in the bowels of the Morgawr's flagship, Ahren Elessedil rode out the storm that had brought down the Jerle Shannara. He was not chained to the wall as Bek had been when held prisoner on Black Moclips a day earlier, but left free to wander about the locked room. The storm had caught up to them as they flew north into the interior of the peninsula, snatching at the airship like a giant's hand, tossing it about, and finally tiring of the game, casting it away. With the room's solitary window battened down and the door secured, he could see nothing beyond the walls of his prison, but Ahren could feel the storm's wrath. He could feel how it attacked and played with the airship, how it threatened to reduce her to a shattered heap of wooden splinters and iron fragments. If it did, his troubles would be over.\n\nIn his darker moments, he thought that perhaps this would be best.\n\nAn unwilling accomplice in the warlock's search for the Ilse Witch, he had been brought aboard by the Morgawr and his Mwellrets after leaving Castledown's ruins and taken directly to his present confinement. A guard had been posted outside, but had disappeared shortly after the storm had begun and not returned.\n\nJust before that, they had brought him some food and water, a small measure of both and only enough to keep him from losing strength entirely. No effort was made to communicate with him. From the way the Morgawr had left things, it was clear that he would be brought out only when it was felt he could be useful in some way.\n\nOr when it was finally time to dispose of him. He held no illusions about that. Sooner or later, promises notwithstanding, that time would come.\n\nRyer Ord Star had disappeared with the warlock, and the Elven Prince still had no clear idea why she had turned against him. He had not stopped pondering the matter, not even during the storm, while he sat braced in a corner of the storeroom, pressed up against a wall between two heavy trusses to keep from being knocked around. She had been the willing tool of the Ilse Witch, and it did not require a great leap of faith to accept that she would take that same path with the Morgawr if she thought it meant the difference between living and dying. Walker was gone, and Walker had provided her with both strength and direction. Without him, she seemed frailer, smaller, more vulnerable \u2014 a wisp of life that a strong wind could blow away.\n\nEven so, Ahren had thought she was his friend, that she had come to terms with what she had done and closed that door behind her. To have her betray him now, to reveal his identity and suggest a use for him to his enemy, was too much to bear. Like it or not, he was left with the unpleasant possibility that she had been lying to him all along.\n\nYet she had clearly mouthed the words trust me to him after they had been made prisoners. Why would she do that if she was not trying to let him know she was still his friend?\n\nWhat sort of deception was she working?\n\nHe thought some more about the Elfstones, as well. He simply could not understand what had happened to them. They had most certainly been in his possession in Castledown. He remembered quite clearly tucking them away in his tunic. He did not think he had lost them since, did not see how that was possible, so someone must have taken them after he had been rendered unconscious. But who? Ryer Ord Star was the logical suspect, but Cree Bega had searched her. Besides, how could she have taken them after the Mwellrets took them prisoner? That left Cree Bega or another of the Mwellrets as suspects, but it would take an act of either supreme courage or foolishness to try to conceal the stones from the Morgawr. Ahren did not think that the Mwellrets would chance it.\n\nHe was still wrestling with his confusion when the storm abated and the ship settled back into a smooth and easy glide through the clearing skies. He could tell the sun had reappeared from the sudden brightening that shone through the chinks in his window shutters, and he could smell the sharp, clean air that always followed a heavy storm. He was standing with his face pushed up against the rough battens, trying to see something besides the brightness, when the lock on his door released with a snap. He turned. A Mwellret entered, mute and expressionless, carrying a tray of food and water. The Mwellret glanced about to make certain that nothing was amiss, then placed the tray on the floor by the entry, backed out, closed the door, and locked it anew.\n\nAhren ate and drank, hungrier and thirstier than he had imagined, and listened to renewed activity on the decks above, the sudden movement of booted feet amid a flurry of shouts and gruff exclamations. The airship tacked several times, swinging about, maneuvering in a series of fits and starts. The ones who sailed her were inexperienced or stiff-handed. Other than to note that they were Southlanders \u2014 Federation conscripts and sailors like the ones who fought on the Prekkendorran \u2014 he had paid no attention to the sailors on being brought aboard earlier. Mostly he had spent his time studying the layout of the decks and corridors he was moved along, thinking that at some point he might have a chance to escape and would need to know his way.\n\nHe closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. That hope seemed impossibly naive just now.\n\nA sudden jolt threw him backwards and knocked the tray aside, spilling its contents. A slow grinding of wooden timbers and a screech of metal suggested that they were rubbing up against something big. He sprawled on the floor, as the ship lurched to a stop. He heard more activity overhead. For a moment he thought they were engaged in combat, but then the sounds died away. Yet the movement of the ship had changed, the earlier smooth, easy glide gone, replaced by a stiffer sway, as if the ship was resting against something solid.\n\nThen the door to his prison opened again, and Cree Bega stepped through, followed by two more Mwellrets. The latter crossed to where he sat, hauled him roughly to his feet, and propelled him toward the open door.\n\n\"Comess with uss, little Elvess,\" Cree Bega ordered.\n\nThey took him back up on deck. The sunlight was so bright that at first he was blinded by it. He stood in the grip of the Mwellrets, squinting through the glare at a cluster of figures gathered forward. Most were Mwellrets, but there were Federation sailors, as well. The sailors were slack-jawed, their faces empty of expression. They stood as if in a daze, staring at nothing. Ahren realized that they were still airborne, riding several hundred feet above a canopy of brilliant green forest with the peaks of a mountain range visible off their bow, a rippling stone spine that disappeared into a hazy distance.\n\nThen he saw that they were lashed to a second airship, one he recognized immediately. It was Black Moclips.\n\n\"Besst now to pay closse attention,\" Cree Bega whispered in his ear.\n\nAhren saw Ryer Ord Star then. She was standing beside the Morgawr, almost at the bow, her small figure lost in his shadow. The Morgawr warded her protectively, and she seemed to welcome the attention, glancing up at him regularly, leaning into him as if his presence somehow gave her strength. There was anticipation on her face, though the pale features still bore that ghostly pallor, that look of otherworldliness that suggested she was someplace else altogether. Ahren stared at her, waiting for her to notice him. She never even glanced his way.\n\nAboard Black Moclips, Federation sailors crowded the rail, making secure the fastenings that bound the two ships together. Their uneasy glances were unmistakable. Now and then, those glances would stray to their counterparts aboard the Morgawr's ship, then move quickly away. They saw what Ahren saw in the faces of those who crewed the Mwellret ship \u2014 emptiness and disinterest.\n\nA pair of men had descended from Black Moclips' pilothouse and come forward. The Commander, recognizable by the insignia on his tunic, was a tall, well-built man with short-cropped dark hair. The other, his Mate perhaps, was tall as well, but thin as a rail, and had the seamed, browned face of a man who had spent his life as a sailor. The crew of the Black Moclips looked to them at once for guidance, closing about them in a show of support as they came to the railing. The Morgawr came forward and stood talking to them for a moment, the words too soft for Ahren to make out. Then the broad-shouldered Commander climbed onto the railing and stepped across to the Morgawr's ship.\n\n\"Comess closser, little Elvess,\" Cree Bega ordered. \"Sseess what happenss.\"\n\nThe Mwellrets holding Ahren hauled him forward to where he could hear clearly. He glanced again at Ryer Ord Star, who had dropped back and was standing apart from everyone in the bow, her eyes closed and her face lifted, as if gone into a trance. She was dreaming, he realized. She was having a vision, but no one had noticed.\n\n\"She took you prisoner, commandeered your ship, and escaped \u2014 all of this with no one to help her but a Wing Rider?\" the Morgawr was saying. His rough voice was calm, but there was an unmistakable edge to his words.\n\n\"She is a formidable woman,\" the Federation officer replied, tight-lipped and angry.\n\n\"No more so than your mistress, Commander Aden Kett, and you were quick enough to abandon her. I would have thought twice about doing so in your shoes.\"\n\nKett stiffened. He was staring into the black hole of the other's cowl, clearly intimidated by the dark, invisible presence within, by the other's size and mystery. He was confronted by a creature he now knew to have some sort of relationship to the Ilse Witch, which made him very dangerous.\n\n\"I thought more than twice about it, I assure you,\" he said.\n\n\"Yet you let her escape, and you did not give chase?\"\n\n\"The storm was upon us. I was concerned more for the safety of my ship and crew than for a Rover girl.\"\n\nRue Meridian, Ahren thought at once. Somehow, after the Ilse Witch had gone ashore, Rue had boarded and gotten control of Black Moclips. But where was she now? Where were the rest of the Rovers, for that matter? Everyone had disappeared, it seemed, gone into the ether like Walker.\n\n\"So you have your ship back, but the Rover girl is gone?\" The Morgawr seemed to shrug the matter aside. \"But where is our little Ilse Witch, Commander?\"\n\nAden Kett seemed baffled. \"I've told you already. She went ashore. She never returned.\"\n\n\"This boy who escaped, the one she seemed so interested in when she brought him back to the ship \u2014 what do you think happened to him?\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about that boy. I don't know what happened to either of them. What I do know is that I've had enough of being questioned. My ship and crew are under the command of the Federation. We answer to no one else, especially now.\"\n\nA brave declaration, Ahren thought. A foolish declaration, given what he suspected about the Morgawr. If the Ilse Witch was dangerous, this creature, her mentor, was doubly so. He had come a long way to find her. He had gained control over an entire Federation fleet to manage the task. Mwellrets who were clearly in his thrall surrounded him. Aden Kett was being reckless.\n\n\"Would you go home again, Commander?\" the Morgawr asked him quietly. \"Home to fight on the Prekkendorran?\"\n\nThis time Aden Kett hesitated before speaking, perhaps already sensing that he had crossed a forbidden line. The Mwellrets, Ahren noticed, had gone very still. Ahren could see anticipation on their flat, reptilian faces.\n\n\"I would go home to do whatever the Federation asks of me,\" Kett answered. \"I am a soldier.\"\n\n\"A soldier obeys his commanding officer in the field, and you are in the field, Commander,\" the Morgawr said softly. \"If I ask you to help me find the Ilse Witch, it is your duty to do so.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, and then Aden Kett said, \"You are not my commanding officer. You have no authority over me. Or over my ship and crew. I have no idea who you are or how you got here using Federation ships and men. But you have no written orders, and so I am not obligated to follow your dictates. I have come aboard to speak with you as a courtesy. That courtesy has been exercised, and I am absolved of further responsibility to you. Good luck to you, sir.\"\n\nHe turned away, intent on reboarding Black Moclips. Instantly, the Morgawr stepped forward, his huge clawed hand lunging out of his black robes to seize the luckless Federation officer by the back of his neck. Powerful fingers closed about Aden Kelt's throat, cutting off his futile cry. The Morgawr's other hand appeared more slowly, emerging in a ball of green light as his victim thrashed helplessly. Then, as Ahren Elessedil watched in horror, the Morgawr extended the glowing hand to the back of his prisoner's head and eased it through skin and hair and bone, twisting and turning inside like a spoon. Kett threw back his head and screamed in spite of the grip on his throat, then shuddered once and went still.\n\nThe Morgawr withdrew his hand slowly, carefully. The back of Aden Kelt's skull sealed as he did so, closing as if there had been no intrusion at all. The Morgawr's hand was no longer glowing. It was wet and dripping with brain matter and fluids.\n\nIt was finished in seconds. Aboard Black Moclips, the stunned Federation crew rushed to the railing, but the Mwellrets blocked their way with pikes and axes. Pushing back the horrified Southlanders, the rets swarmed aboard, closing about and rendering them all prisoners. The sole exception was the rail-thin Mate, who hesitated only long enough to see the terrible, blasted look on his Commander's empty face, devoid of life and emotion, stripped of humanity, before going straight to the closest opening on the rail and throwing himself over the side.\n\nThe Morgawr squeezed what was left of Aden Kelt's brain in his hand, pieces dripping onto ihe deck, dampness sliding down his scaly arm.\n\n\"Bring the others now,\" he said softly. \"One by one, so I can savor them.\"\n\nUnable to help himself, tears filling his eyes, Ahren Elessedil renched and threw up.\n\n\"Thiss iss what could happen to little Elvess who dissobey,\" Cree Bega hissed into Ahren's ear. \"Thinkss how it feelss!\"\n\nThen he had the boy dragged belowdecks once more and into his prison.\n\nAt the bow, in the shadow of the curved rams, alone and forgotten while the subjugation of Aden Kell look place, Ryer Ord Star stood with her eyes closed and her mind at rest.\n\nWalker.\n\nThere was no response. Borne aloft by the wind, the smell of the forest filled her nostrils. She could picture the trees, branches spread wide, leaves touching like fingers, a sheller and a home.\n\nWalker.\n\n\u2014 I am here \u2014\n\nAt the sound of his voice, her tension diminished and the peace that always came when he was near began to replace it. Even in death, he was with her, her protector and her guide. As he had promised when he sent her from him out of Castledown, he had come to her again. Not in life, but in her dreams and visions, a strong and certain presence that would lend her the strength she so desperately needed.\n\nHow much longer must I stay here?\n\nIn her mind, the Druid's voice assumed shape and form and became the Druid as he had been in life, looking at her with kindness and understanding.\n\n\u2014 It is not yet time to leave \u2014\n\nI am frightened!\n\n\u2014 Do not be afraid. I am with you and will keep you from harm \u2014\n\nShe kept her eyes closed and her face lifted, feeling the warmth of the sun and the cool of the wind on her skin, but seeing only him. To anyone who looked upon her, to Ahren in particular, who was watching, she seemed a small, fragile creature given over to a fate that only she would recognize when it came for her. She was prepared for that fate, accepting of it, and her features radiated a reassurance that she was ready to embrace it.\n\nHer words, when she spoke them in the silence of her mind, were rife with her need.\n\nI am so lonely. Let me be free.\n\n\u2014 Your task is not yet finished. Grianne has not yet awakened. You must give her time to do so. She must remain free. She must escape the Morgawr long enough to remember \u2014\n\nHow will she do that? How will she find her way back from where she has gone to hide from the truth?\n\nShe knew of Grianne Ohmsford and the Sword of Shannara. She knew what had befallen the Ilse Witch in the catacombs of Castledown. Walker had told her at the time of his first coming, when she was made a prisoner of the Mwellrets with Ahren. He had told her what had transpired and what he needed of her. She was so grateful to see him again, even in another form, in another place, that she would have agreed to anything he asked of her. The soft, familiar voice whispered to her.\n\n\u2014 She will come back when she finds a way to forgive herself. She will come back when she is reborn \u2014\n\nThe seer did not know what this meant. How could anyone forgive themselves for the things the Ilse Witch had done? How could anyone who had lived her life ever be made whole again? Walker spoke again.\n\n\u2014 You must deceive the Morgawr. You must delay his search. You must lead him astray. No other possesses the skills or magic to find her. He, alone, threatens. If he captures her, everything will be lost \u2014\n\nShe felt herself turn cold at the words. What did they mean? Everything? The entire world and all those who lived in it? Could that be possible? Could the Morgawr possess power enough to accomplish such a thing? Why was Grianne Ohmsford's survival so important to whether or not that happened? What could she do to change things, even should she find a way out of her madness and despair?\n\n\u2014 Will you try \u2014\n\nI will try. But I must help Ahren.\n\nFor a moment it was as if he was touching her in the flesh. She watched his hand reach out to grip her shoulder. She felt his fingers close about, warm and solid and alive. She gave a small gasp of surprise and wonder. Oh, Walker!\n\n\u2014 Let the Elven Prince be. Do as you have been told. Do not speak to him. Do not look at him. Do not go near him. Carry through with your deception or everything I have worked for will be ruined \u2014\n\nShe nodded and sighed, still lost in the feel of his hands, of his flesh. She knew what was expected of her. She knew she must act alone and in the best way she could. She wondered anew at his choice of words. Carry through with your deception or everything I have worked for will be ruined. What did that mean? What had he worked for that could be at risk? Why did it matter so to him that she be successful in deceiving the Morgawr? What was so important that she make it possible for Grianne Ohmsford to escape?\n\nThen she saw it. It came to her in a flash of recognition, a truth so obvious that she did not understand how she could have missed it before. Of course, she thought. How could it he anything else? The enormity of her revelation left her so off balance that for a moment she lost her concentration completely and opened her eyes without thinking. The fierce glare of the midday sun was sharp and blinding, and she squeezed her eyes closed again instantly.\n\nToo much light. Too much truth.\n\nHis voice cut through her confusion and her agitation like a gentle breeze.\n\n\u2014 Do as I ask of you. One last time \u2014\n\nI will. I promise. I will find a way.\n\nThen he was gone, and she was alone in the darkness of her mind, his words still lingering in small echoes, his presence still warm against her heart.\n\nWhen she came back to herself again, out of her trance and unlocked from her vision \u2014 opening her eyes again, careful to shade them against the light \u2014 she could hear the screams of the Federation sailors from Black Moclips as the Morgawr fed on their souls."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "Bek Ohmsford, Truls Rohk, and the catatonic Grianne escaped the ruins of Castledown just ahead of the searching Mwellrets and their caulls and fled into the surrounding forest. Their pursuers were so close that they could hear them moving through the trees, fanning out like beaters intent on flushing their prey. Their closeness infused Bek with a sense of helplessness that even the reassuring presence of the shape-shifter could not dispel entirely. He had a vision of what it must be like to be an animal tracked by humans and their dogs for sport, though there was nothing of sport in this. Only the movement generated by their flight kept his panic at bay.\n\nThey would not have escaped at all if Truls hadn't taken on the responsibility of carrying Grianne. Lacking any will of her own, she could not have moved at any sort of pace that would have allowed them to stay ahead of their enemies, and it was only the shape-shifter's unexpected decision to carry her that gave them any chance. Even so, with Truls bearing the burden of his sister and Bek running free on his own, they were harassed on all sides for the first two hours of their flight.\n\nWhat gave them a fighting chance in the end was the coming of the same storm that had brought down the Jerle Shannara. It swept in off the coast in a black wall, and when it struck, pursued and pursuers alike were deep in the forest flanking the Aleuthra Ark and there was no hiding from it. It blanketed them in a torrent of rain and wave after wave of rolling thunder. Bolts of lightning struck the trees all around them in blinding explosions of sparks and fire. Bek shouted to Truls that they must take cover, but the shape-shifter ignored him and continued on, not even bothering to glance back. Bek followed mostly because he had no other choice. Darting and dodging through the blasted landscape with the fury of the storm sweeping over them like a tidal wave, they ran on.\n\nWhen they finally stopped, the storm having passed, they were soaked through and chilled to the bone. The temperature had dropped considerably, and the green of the forest had taken on a wintry cast. The skies were still clouded and dark, but beginning to clear where night had faded completely and the silvery dawn of the new day had become visible. The sun was still hidden behind the wall of the storm, but soon it would climb high enough in the sky to brighten the land.\n\nBek was taking deep, ragged breaths as he faced Truls. \"We can't keep up this pace. I can't, anyway.\"\n\n\"Going soft, boy?\" The other's laugh was a derisive bark. \"Try carrying your sister and see how you do.\"\n\n\"Do you think we've lost them?\" he asked, having figured out by now why they had kept going.\n\n\"For the moment. But they'll find the trail again soon enough.\" The shape-shifter put Grianne down on a log, where she sat with limp disinterest, eyes unfocused, face slack. \"We've bought ourselves a little time, at least.\"\n\nBek stared at Grianne a moment, searching for some sign of recognition and not finding it. He felt the weight of her inability to function normally, to respond to anything, pressing down on him.\n\nThey could not afford to have her remain like this if they were to have any chance of escape.\n\n\"What are we going to do?\" he asked.\n\n\"Run and keep running.\" Bek could feel Truls Rohk staring at him from out of the black oval of his cowl. \"What would you have us do?\"\n\nBek shook his head and said nothing. He felt disconnected from the world. He felt abandoned, an orphan left to fend for himself with no chance of being able to do so. With Walker gone and the company of the Jerle Shannara dead or scattered, there was no purpose to his life beyond trying to save his sister. If he let himself think about it, which he refused to do, he might come to the conclusion that he would never see home again.\n\n\"Time to go,\" Truls Rohk said, rising.\n\nBek stood up, as well. \"I'm ready,\" he declared, feeling anything but.\n\nThe shape-shifter grunted noncommittally, lifted Grianne back into the cradle of his powerful arms, and set out anew.\n\nThey walked for the remainder of the day, traveling mostly over ground where it was wet enough that their tracks filled in and disappeared behind them and their scent quickly washed away. It was the hardest day Bek could remember having ever endured. They stopped only long enough to catch their breath, drink some water, and eat a little of what small supplies Truls carried. They did not slow their pace, which was brutal. But it was the circumstances of their flight that wore Bek down the most \u2014 the constant sense of being hunted, of fleeing with no particular destination in mind, of knowing that almost everything familiar and reassuring was gone. Bek got through on the strength of his memories of home and family and life before this voyage, memories of Quentin and his parents, of the world of the Highlands of Leah, of days so far away in space and time they seemed a dream.\n\nBy nightfall, they were no longer able to hear their pursuers.\n\nThe forest was hushed in the wake of the storm's passing and the setting of the sun, and there was a renewed peace to the land. Bek and Truls sat in silence and ate their dinner of dried salt beef and stale bread and cheese. Grianne would eat nothing, though Bek tried repeatedly to make her do so. There was no help for it. If she did not choose to eat, he couldn't force her. He did manage to make her swallow a little water, a reflex action on her part as much as a response to his efforts. He was worried that she would lose strength and die if she didn't ingest something, but he didn't know what to do about it.\n\n\"Let her alone\" was the shape-shifter's response when asked for his opinion. \"She'll eat when she's ready to.\"\n\nBek let the matter drop. He ate his food, staring off into the darkness, wrapped in his thoughts.\n\nWhen they were finished, the shape-shifter rose and stretched. \"Tuck your sister in for the night and go to sleep. I'll backtrack a bit and see if the rets and their dogs are any closer.\" He paused. \"I mean what I say, boy. Go to sleep. Forget about keeping watch or thinking about your sister or any of that. You need to rest if you want to keep up with me.\"\n\n\"I can keep up,\" Bek snapped.\n\nTruls Rohk laughed softly and disappeared into the trees. He melted away so quickly that he might have been a ghost. Bek stared after him for a moment, still angry, then moved over to his sister. He stared into her cold, pale face \u2014 the face of the Ilse Witch. She looked so young, her features radiating a child's innocence. She gave no hint of the monster she concealed beneath.\n\nA sense of hopelessness stole over him. He felt such despair at the thought of what she had done with her life, of the terrible acts she had committed, of the lives she had ruined. She had known what she was doing, however misguided in her understanding of matters. She had embraced her behavior and found a way to justify it. To expect her to shed her past as a snake would its skin seemed ludicrous. Truls was probably right. She would never be the child she had been. She would never even come back to being human.\n\nImpulsively, he touched her cheek, letting his fingers stray down the smooth skin. He couldn't even remember her as a child. His image of her was formed solely from his imagination. She remembered him, but his own memory was built on a foundation of wishful thinking and imperfect hope. She looked enough like he did that no small part of his image of her was based on his image of himself. It was a flawed concoction. Thinking of her as he thought of himself was fool's play.\n\nHe reached out and gently drew her against him. She came compliantly, limply, letting him hold her. He imagined what she must feel, trapped inside her mind, unable to break free. Or did she feel anything? Was she conscious at all of what was happening? He pressed his cheek against hers, feeling the warmth of her, sharing in it. He couldn't understand why she invoked such strong feelings in him. He barely knew her. She was a stranger and, until lately, an enemy. Yet what he felt was real and true, and he was compelled to acknowledge it. He would not abandon her, not even if it cost him his own life. He could not. He knew that as surely as he knew that nothing about his life would ever be the same again.\n\nSome part of his sense of responsibility for her, he admitted, was the result of his need to feel useful. His life was spinning out of control. With her, if with no one else, himself included, he was in a position of power. He was her caretaker and protector. She had enemies all about. She was more alone than he was. Accepting responsibility for her gave him a focus that would otherwise be reduced to little more than self-preservation.\n\nHe laid her down on a dry patch of ground beneath the sheltering canopy of a tree that the rains hadn't penetrated, and covered her carefully with her cloak. He stared down at her for a long time, at the clear features and closed eyes, at the pulse in her throat, at her chest rising and falling with each breath. His sister.\n\nThen he stood and stared out into the darkness, tired but not sleepy, his mind working through the morass of his troubles, trying to decide what he might do to help himself and Grianne. Surely Truls would do what he could, but Bek knew it was a mistake to rely too heavily on his enigmatic protector. He had done that before, and it hadn't been enough to keep him safe. In the end, as the shape-shifters in the mountains had warned him he must, he had relied on himself. He had waited for Grianne, confronted her, and changed the course of both their lives.\n\nWhat he could not tell as yet was whether or not the change had been for the better. He supposed it had. At least Grianne was no longer the Ilse Witch, his enemy and antagonist. At least they were together and clear of the ruins and Black Moclips and the Mwellrets. At least they were free.\n\nHe sat down, closed his eyes to rest them, and in moments was asleep. His sleep was deep and untroubled, made smooth by his exhaustion and his willingness to let go of his waking life for just a little while. In the cool, silent blanket of the dark, he was able to make himself believe that he was safe.\n\nHe did not know how long he slept before he woke again, but he was certain of the cause of his waking. It was a voice summoning him from his dreams.\n\n\u2014 Bek \u2014\n\nThe voice was clear and certain, reaching out to him. His eyes opened.\n\n\u2014 Bek \u2014\n\nIt was Walker. Bek rose and stood staring about the empty clearing, the sky overhead clear and bright, filled with thousands of stars, their light a silvery wash over the forest dark. He looked around. His sister slept. Truls Rohk had not returned. He stood alone in a place where ghosts could speak and the truth be revealed.\n\n\u2014 Bek \u2014\n\nThe voice called to him not from the clearing, but from somewhere close by, and he followed the sound of it, moving into the trees. He did not fear for his sister, although he could not explain why. Perhaps it was the certainty that Walker would not summon him if it would put her in peril. Just the sound of the Druid's voice brought a sense of peace to Bek that defied explanation. A dead man's voice giving peace \u2014 how odd.\n\nHe walked only a short distance and found himself in a clearing with a deep, black pond at its center, weeds clustered along the edges and pads of night-blooming water lilies floating their lavender flags through the dark. The smells of the water and the forest mixed in a heady brew suffused with both damp and dry earth, slow decay and burgeoning life. Fireflies blinked on and off all across the pond like tiny beacons.\n\nThe Druid was at the far side of the pond, neither in the water nor on the shore, but suspended in the night air, a transparent shade defined by lines and shadows. His face was hidden in his cowl, but Bek knew him anyway. No one else had exactly that stance and build; Walker in death, even as in life, was distinctive.\n\nThe Druid spoke to him as if out of a deep, empty well.\n\n\u2014 Bek. I am given only a short time to walk free upon this earth before the Hadeshorn claims me. Time slips away. Listen carefully. I will not come to you again \u2014\n\nThe voice was smooth and compelling as it rose from its cavernous lair. It had the feel and resonance of an echo, but with a darker tone. Bek nodded that he understood, then added, \"I'm listening.\"\n\n\u2014 Your sister is my hope, Bek. She is my trust. I have given that trust to you, the living, since I am gone. She must be kept safe and well. She must be allowed to become whole \u2014\n\nBek wanted to say that he was not the one to bear the weight of this responsibility, that he lacked the necessary experience and strength. He wanted to say that it was Truls who would make the difference, \u2014 Bek was acting only as the shape-shifter's conscience in this matter so that Grianne would not be abandoned. But he said nothing, choosing instead to listen.\n\nBut Walker seemed to divine his reluctance.\n\n\u2014 Physical strength is not what your sister needs, Bek. She needs strength of mind and heart. She needs your determination and commitment to see her safely back from where she hides \u2014\n\n\"Hides?\" he blurted out.\n\n\u2014 Deep inside a wall of denial, of darkness of mind, of silence of thought. She seeks a way to accept what she has done. Acceptance comes with forgiveness. Forgiveness begins when she can confront the darkest of her deeds, the one she views as most unforgivable, the one that haunts her endlessly. When she can face that darkest of acts and forgive herself, she will come back to you \u2014\n\nBek shook his head, thinking through what little he knew of the specifics of her life. How could one deed be darker than any other? What one deed would that be?\n\n\"This one deed...,\" he began.\n\n\u2014 Is known only to her, because it is the one she has fixed upon. She alone knows what it is \u2014\n\nBek considered. \"But how long will it take for such a thing to happen? How will it even come about?\"\n\n\u2014 Time \u2014\n\n\u2014 Time we don't have, Bek thought. Time that slips away like night toward day, a certainty of loss that cannot be reversed.\n\n\"There must be something we can do to help!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\u2014 Nothing \u2014\n\nDespair settled through him, pulling down hopes and stealing away possibilities. All he could do, all anyone could do, was to keep Grianne out of the hands of the Morgawr and his Mwellrets. Keep running. Wait patiently. Hope she found a way clear of her prison. It wasn't much. It was nothing.\n\n\"Truls wants to leave her,\" he said quietly, searching for something more upon which to rely. \"What if he does?\"\n\n\u2014 His destiny is not yours. Even if he goes, you must stay \u2014\n\nBek exhaled sharply.\n\n\u2014 Remember your promise \u2014\n\n\"I would never forget it. She is my sister.\" He paused, rubbing at his eyes. \"I don't understand something. Why is she so important to you, Walker? She was your enemy. Why are you trying so hard to save her now? Why do you say she is your hope and trust?\"\n\nShards of moonlight knifed through the transparent form, causing it to shift and change. Below, the waters of the pond rippled gently.\n\n\u2014 When she wakes, she will know \u2014\n\n\"But what if she doesn't wake?\" Bek demanded. \"What if she doesn't come back from where she has hidden inside?\"\n\n\u2014 She will know \u2014\n\nHe began receding into the dark.\n\n\"Walker, wait!\" Bek was suddenly desperate. \"I can't do this! I don't have the skills or experience or anything! How can I reach her? She won't even listen to me when she's awake! She won't tell me anything!\"\n\n\u2014 She will know \u2014\n\n\"How can she know anything if I can't explain it to her?\" Bek charged ahead a few steps, stopping at the edge of the pond. The Druid was fading away. \"Someone has to tell her, Walker!\"\n\nBut the shade disappeared, and Bek was left alone with his confusion. He stood without moving for a long time, staring at the space Walker had occupied, repeating his words over and over, trying to understand them.\n\nShe will know.\n\nGrianne Ohmsford, his sister, the Ilse Witch, mortal enemy of the Druids and of Walker, in particular.\n\nShe will know.\n\nThere was no sense to it.\n\nYet in his heart, where such things reveal themselves like rainbows after thunderstorms, he knew it to be true."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "Bek returned to the camp to find Grianne still sleeping and Truls Rohk not yet returned. The position of the stars told him it was after midnight, so he went back to sleep and did not wake again until he felt the shape-shifter's hand resting on his shoulder.\n\n\"Time to go,\" the other said quietly, eyes on the woods behind them.\n\n\"How close are they?\" Bek asked at once. It was first light, the sunrise just a silvery glow east.\n\n\"Still a distance off, but getting closer. They haven't found our trail yet, but they will soon.\"\n\n\"The caulls?\"\n\n\"The caulls. Mutations of humans captured and altered by magic.\" He shifted his gaze back to Bek. \"Your sister's work, I would have said, if she wasn't here with us. So it must be the Morgawr. Wonder where he found his victims.\"\n\nBek sat up quickly. \"Not Quentin or the others? Not the Rovers?\"\n\nTruls Rohk took his arm and pulled him to his feet. \"Don't think about it. Think about staying one step ahead of them. That's worry enough for now.\"\n\nHe walked over to the supplies pack he carried and pulled out some of the bread. Breaking off a piece, he handed it to Bek. \"If you were like me, you wouldn't need this.\" He laughed softly. \"Of course, if you were like me, you wouldn't be in this mess.\"\n\nBek took the bread and ate it. \"Thanks for staying with us,\" he said, nodding toward the still-sleeping Grianne.\n\nThe shape-shifter grunted noncommittally. \"Packs of caulls and Mwellrets are everywhere in these woods, dozens of them. They're not chasing only us, either. I heard the sounds of someone else fighting them off when I went back to scout \u2014 a larger group, somewhere off to our right, heading into the mountains. I didn't have time to see who it was. It probably doesn't bear thinking on, except that maybe it will draw some of the rets away.\"\n\nHe gestured impatiently, a faceless darkness within his hood. \"Enough. Let's be off.\"\n\nHe scooped up Grianne, and they started out once more. They went swiftly and silently through the trees, then Truls moved them into a shallow stream, which they followed for several miles. It was as if they were repeating the events of less than a week ago. They were taking a different path, but traversing the same woods. Again, they were fleeing a hunter possessed of magic and a creature created to track them. Again, they were fleeing the ruins of Castledown, heading inland. Again, they were running away from something and toward nothing.\n\nIronic and darkly comic, but pathetic, as well, Bek thought.\n\nAs the morning slipped away, in spite of his companion's warning not to do so, he found himself speculating on the fate of his missing friends. He could not bear to think of them made over into caulls, not after what they had already endured. An image of Quentin become a snarling animal flashed through his mind. Wouldn't he know if that had happened? Wouldn't he feel it? But he wasn't Ryer Ord Star, so he couldn't be sure. At this point, he couldn't even be certain his cousin was still alive. The wishsong was a powerful magic, but it didn't make him prescient. There was nothing he could know of what happened to anyone but Walker.\n\nHe reflected anew on last night's visit from Walker's shade. He had said nothing of it to Truls. He was not sure why, only that there didn't seem to be any reason for it. If Walker had wanted Truls to hear what he had to say, wouldn't he have appeared to both of them? It was difficult enough dealing with Truls without having to argue over Walker's enigmatic pronouncements. The Druid had been quick enough to let Bek know that his destiny was not tied to that of the shape-shifter. Though they traveled together and for the moment, at least, shared a common cause, that did not mean things wouldn't change. They had changed so often on this journey that Bek knew he could ill afford to take anything for granted. There was nothing in Walker's message that was meant for Truls, nothing that would help or inform him, nothing that would change what they were doing now.\n\nBek didn't like dissembling, and although he could argue that he wasn't doing that here, it was close enough to feel like it.\n\nHis thoughts shifted to his present situation. He wondered if there was any chance at all that one of the Wing Riders would catch sight of them from the skies. He knew how unlikely that was, given the size and depth of this forest. They were like ants down here, all but invisible from above. Only a ground creature like a caull could track them, and that was exactly what they didn't need.\n\nHe pushed away the idea of rescue. He was dreaming, he knew. He was grasping at anything that offered even a semblance of hope. He could not afford such desperation. Determination and perseverance were all that he was allowed.\n\nThey walked all that day and into the next, climbing steadily into the foothills that fronted the mountains. The Mwellrets and their caulls still tracked them, but seemed to draw no closer. Now and again, the Morgawr's airships cruised the skies overhead. They came across no animals or people, no indication that anything lived in these woods but birds and insects. It was an illusion, of course, but it gave Bek a feeling of such loneliness that at times he wondered if there was any hope for them at all. The air had turned steadily colder, and snow clouds ringed the peaks of the mountains. Summer had faded with the destruction of Antrax, and the climate was in flux.\n\nOn the second night, after trying and again failing to persuade Grianne to eat something, Bek confronted Truls Rohk.\n\n\"I don't get the feeling that running away is going to accomplish anything,\" he said. \"Other than to keep us alive for another day.\"\n\nThe other's head was bowed, the black opening to the cowl lowered. \"Isn't that enough, boy?\"\n\n\"Don't call me 'boy' anymore, Truls. I don't like the way it sounds.\"\n\nThe cowl lifted now. \"What did you say?\"\n\nBek stood his ground. \"I'm not a boy, \u2014 I'm grown. You make me sound young and foolish. I'm not.\"\n\nThe shape-shifter went perfectly still, and Bek half expected one of those powerful hands to shoot out, snatch him by his tunic front, and shake him until his bones rattled.\n\n\"Sooner or later, we have to stop running,\" Bek said, forcing himself to continue. \"We tried running last time, and it didn't work. I think we need a better plan. We need somewhere to go.\"\n\nThere was no response. The empty opening of the cowl faced him like a hole in the earth that would swallow him if he stepped too close.\n\n\"I think we ought to go back into the mountains and find the shape-shifters who live there.\"\n\nThe other exhaled sharply. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because they might be able to tell us where we should go. They might help us in some way. They seemed interested in me when they appeared there last time, as if they saw something about me that I didn't. They were the ones who insisted I had to stand up to Grianne. I think they might help us now.\"\n\n\"Didn't they tell you not to come back?\"\n\n\"They saved your life. Maybe it would be different if we went back together.\"\n\n\"Maybe it wouldn't.\"\n\nBek stiffened. \"Do you have a better idea? Are we going to go up into those mountains and try to cross them without knowing what's on the other side? Or are we just going to stay down here in these woods until we run out of trees to hide in? What are we going to do, Truls?\"\n\n\"Lower your voice when you speak to me or you won't have a chance to ask those kinds of questions again!\" The shape-shifter rose and stalked away. \"I'll think about it,\" he mumbled over his shoulder. \"Later.\"\n\nMaybe he did, and maybe he didn't. He was gone all night, out scouting, Bek presumed. But, gone deep inside himself, unreachable, Truls Rohk refused to talk to Bek on returning the next morning. They set out again at daybreak, the skies clear, the air sharp and cool, the sunlight pale and thin. Bek had told Truls not to call him a boy anymore, but in truth he still felt like a boy. He had endured tremendous hardships and confronted terrible revelations about himself, and while the experiences had changed him in many ways, they hadn't made him feel any more capable of dealing with life. He was still hesitant and unsure about himself. He might have the power of the wishsong and the heritage of the Sword of Shannara to fall back on, but none of it gave him a sense of being any more mature. He was still a boy running from the things that frightened him, and if it wasn't for the fact that he knew his sister needed him, he might have fallen apart already.\n\nTruls Rohk's refusal to speak to him, even to acknowledge him, left him feeling more insecure than before. He half believed \u2014 had always half believed \u2014 that the shape-shifter's commitment to look after him was written on the wind. Nothing the other did or said suggested he felt particularly bound to honor that commitment, especially with Walker dead and gone. With one chase leading into another, with the effort of running wearing on the shape-shifter's nerves and nothing good coming from it, Bek felt the distance between himself and Truls growing wider.\n\nOnce, the shape-shifter had told him how much alike they were. It had been a long time since he had spoken in such terms, and Bek was no longer certain that Truls had really meant what he said. He had used Bek to poke needles into Walker, to play at the games they had engaged in for so many years. Nothing suggested to Bek there was anything more to his relationship with the shape-shifter than that.\n\nIt was mean-spirited thinking, but Bek was sullen and depressed enough by now that such thinking came easily. He resented it, regretted it the minute he was finished, but could not seem to help himself. He wanted more from Truls than what he was getting. He wanted the kind of reassurance that came from companionship, the kind he always used to get from Quentin. But Truls Rohk couldn't give him that. There wasn't enough of him that was human to allow for it.\n\nThey walked through the morning without speaking or stopping. It was nearing midday, when the shape-shifter brought them to an unexpected halt. He stood frozen in place, Grianne cradled in his arms as he lifted his head to smell the air.\n\n\"Something's coming,\" he said.\n\nHe pointed ahead, through the trees. They stood in a clearing ringed by old-growth cedars and firs, now high enough up in the foothills that the outlines of the peaks ahead were clearly visible. They were not far from the shape-shifter habitat that Bek had suggested they go to, and the boy thought at first that perhaps the mountain creatures were coming to meet them.\n\nBut Truls did not seem to think so. \"It's tracking us,\" he said quietly, as if trying to make sense of the idea.\n\nIndeed, it made no sense. Whatever it was, it was ahead of them, not behind. It was upwind, as well. It couldn't be following their footprints or their scent.\n\n\"How can that be?\" Bek asked.\n\nBut the shape-shifter was already moving, taking them through the trees, perpendicular to the route they had been following and away from whatever was ahead. They worked through the deep woods, then across a narrow stream, backing down for almost a quarter of a mile before coming ashore again. All the while, Truls Rohk stayed silent, concentrating on what his senses could tell him. When Bek tried to speak, the shape-shifter motioned him silent.\n\nFinally, they stopped on a wooded rise, where the shape-shifter set down Grianne, faced back in the direction they had been heading, then slowly pivoted to his right on a line parallel to the one they had been taking.\n\nHis rough voice was dark and hard. \"It's moving with us, staying just ahead. It's waiting. It's waiting for us to come to it.\"\n\nBek had not missed the repeated use of the pronoun if in reference to whatever tracked them. \"What is it, Truls?\" he asked.\n\nThe shape-shifter stared into the distance for a moment without replying, then said, \"Let's find out.\"\n\nHe picked up Grianne and started toward their stalker. Bek wanted to tell him that this was a bad idea and they should keep moving away. But trying to tell the shape-shifter what to do in this situation would just enrage him. Besides, if whatever tracked them could do so without following their scent or prints, it was not likely to be thrown off by a simple change of direction.\n\nThey moved ahead for a time, listening to the sounds of the forest. Slowly, those sounds died away. Within minutes, the woods had gone silent. Truls Rohk slowed, sliding noiselessly through the trees, stopping now and then to listen before continuing on. Bek stayed close to him, trying to move as quietly as the shape-shifter did, trying to be as invisible.\n\nIn a shallow vale through which a tiny stream meandered, the shape-shifter brought them to a halt. \"There,\" he said, and pointed into the trees.\n\nAt first, Bek saw just a wall of trunks interspersed with clumps of brush and tall grasses. It was dark where they stood, the light shut away by a thick canopy of limbs. The floor of the vale sloped down to the stream, where a patchwork of shadows and hazy light carpeted the forest floor. The air was cold and still, unwarmed by the sun, unstirred by the wind.\n\nThen he saw a shadow that didn't quite fit with everything else, squat and bulky, crouched back by the treeline where the dark trunks masked its features. He stared at it for a long time, and then it moved slightly, shifting position, and he saw the yellow glitter of its eyes.\n\nA moment later, it detached itself from its concealment and padded into view. It was a massive creature, hump shouldered and broad chested, covered with coarse gray hair that stuck out in wild clumps. It had a wolf's head, but the head had mutated into something dreadful. The snout was long and the ears pointed like a wolf's, but the jaws were massive and broad, and when they split wide in a kind of panting grin, they revealed double rows of finger-long serrated teeth. Down on all fours, it moved with a shambling gait, its long forelegs disproportionate to its rear, which were short and powerful and sprouted from hindquarters dropped so low it appeared to be crouching.\n\nIt eased its way down into the vale until it was almost to the stream. There, it stopped, lifted its head, and emitted the most terrible mewling sound Bek had ever heard, a combination of wail and snarl that froze the woods into utter silence.\n\n\"What is it?\" Bek whispered.\n\nTruls Rohk's laugh was low and wicked. \"Your sister's destiny, come back to claim her. That's the thing she made to track us when we fled from her before, the thing the shape-shifters saved me from. I thought it dead and gone, but they must have set it free outside their boundaries. It's a caull, but look at it! It's mutated beyond what even she had intended. It's become something even more monstrous. Bigger and stronger.\"\n\n\"What does it want with us?\" Bek looked at him. \"It tracks us, you said. What does it want?\"\n\n\"It wants her,\" the shape-shifter answered softly. \"It's come for her. See how it looks at her?\"\n\nIt was true. The hard yellow eyes were fixed not on the men, but on the sleeping girl, locked on her as she slept in the shape-shifter's arms \u2014 focused on her with such intensity that its purpose was unmistakable.\n\n\"There's true madness,\" Truls whispered, a hint of wonder in his voice. \"Captured, mutated, driven out, lost. It seeks only one thing. Revenge. For what has been done to it. For what has been stolen. A life. An identity. Who knows what it thinks and feels now? It must have tracked her through the connection of their magic, a joining of kindred. She created it, and it remains connected to her. It must be able to read her pulse or heartbeat. Or the sound of her breathing. Who knows? It sensed her and came.\"\n\nThe caull cried out again, the same high-pitched wail. The skin on the back of Bek's neck prickled and his stomach clenched. He had been afraid before on this journey, but never the way he was now. He couldn't tell if it was the look of the caull, all crooked and bristling, or the sound of its cry, or just the fact of its existence, but he was terrified.\n\n\"What are we going to do?\" he asked, barely able to get the words out.\n\nTruls Rohk snorted derisively. \"We let it have her. She made it, \u2014 let her deal with the consequences.\"\n\n\"We can't do that, Truls! She's helpless!\"\n\nThe other turned on him. \"This might be a good time for some rational thinking on your part, boy.\" He emphasized the word. \"There are so many things waiting to kill your sister that we can't even begin to count them! Sooner or later, one of them will finish the job. All we do by interfering now is to prolong the process. You think you can save her, but you can't. Time to let go of her. Enough is enough!\"\n\nBek shook his head. \"I don't care what you say.\"\n\n\"She is the Ilse Witch! Your sister is dead! Why are you so stubborn about it? Bah, I've had enough of this! You do what you wish, but I'm leaving!\"\n\nBek took a deep, calming breath. \"All right. Leave. You don't owe me anything. It isn't fair to ask you to do more than you have. You've done enough already.\" He looked over at the caull as it hunched down at the edge of the stream. \"I can take care of this.\"\n\nTruls Rohk snorted. \"You can?\"\n\n\"The wishsong was powerful enough to stop Antrax's creepers. It can stop that thing.\" He stepped close to the shape-shifter. \"Give her to me.\"\n\nWithout waiting for the other to respond, he reached in and took Grianne right out of his arms. Cradling her, he stepped away again. \"She's my sister, Truls. No matter what you say.\"\n\nTruls Rohk straightened and looked directly at Bek. \"The wishsong is a powerful magic, Bek Ohmsford. But it isn't enough here. You still haven't mastered it. Your sister proved that to you already. That thing over there will be at your throat before you figure out what's needed.\"\n\nBek looked at the caull and went cold to the bone thinking of how it would feel to have those teeth and claws tearing into him. It would be over quickly, he guessed. The pain would be momentary. Then it would be Grianne's turn.\n\n\"You could do something for me,\" he said to the shape-shifter. \"If you could draw its attention away, just for a moment, I might be able to catch it off guard.\"\n\nTruls Rohk stared at him. Bek couldn't see the shape-shifter's eyes within the dark confines of his cowl, but he could feel the weight of their gaze, hard and certain. For a long moment, Truls didn't speak. He just kept looking at Bek.\n\n\"Don't do this,\" he said finally.\n\nBek shook his head. \"I have to. You know that.\"\n\n\"You won't survive it.\"\n\n\"Then you can do what you wish with my sister, Truls.\" He gave the shape-shifter a defiant look. \"I won't be there to stop you.\"\n\nAnother long silence stole away the seconds. Bek brushed at a stray lock of hair and felt a bead of sweat slide down his forehead. He was hot in spite of the chill in the air. He felt as if he might never be cool again.\n\nThe shape-shifter stood where he was a moment longer, still staring at Bek. \"All right,\" he said finally, his voice harsh and angry. \"I've said what I needed to say. Staying with her is up to you.\" He turned away. \"I'll try to draw its attention. Maybe that will help, but I doubt it. Good luck to you, boy.\"\n\nBek watched as Truls Rohk angled down the gentle slope, moving with the grace and precision of a moor cat. Deformed and ill made, an aberration of nature, he was nevertheless beautiful to watch. Bek could not believe he was really leaving. They had been together since the beginning of the journey west out of the Wolfsktaag. Truls had saved him so many times Bek had lost count, had given him the insights he needed to come to terms with his heritage and his destiny. They had not always agreed on everything, and there had been a degree of mistrust and uncertainty between them, but the alliance had worked. It was shattering now to see that alliance end. Even watching the other go, Bek couldn't believe it was happening. It felt as if the shape-shifter was taking a part of Bek with him. His confidence. His heart.\n\nTruls, he wanted to call out. Don't go.\n\nThe caull swung around to watch the shape-shifter, its powerful body flattened and tensed. Bek lowered Grianne to the ground, placing her carefully behind him before turning back to defend them. When the caull struck, it would do so swiftly. He would have only one chance to stop it.\n\nHe never got even that. Before he could prepare himself, the caull attacked, springing sideways with blinding speed and tearing across the stream and up the slope in a blur of churning legs and gaping jaws. Bek would have been dead an instant later but forTruls Rohk, who moved even faster. So quick that he seemed simply to leave one place and reappear at another, he intercepted the caull from the side, slammed into it, and knocked it sprawling.\n\nThen he was on top of the beast, tearing at it like an animal himself, snarling with such ferocity that for an instant Bek wasn't sure that it was Truls at all. The shape-shifter ripped at the caull using weapons that Bek couldn't see \u2014 weapons he concealed beneath his cloak or perhaps just fashioned out of the mass of raw and jagged bone that comprised his ruined body. Whatever they were, they proved effective. Bits and pieces of the caull's body flew into the air, and blood jetted in dark spurts of inky green. The fighters careened across the vale, locked in combat, joined in purpose, lost in their desperate struggle to kill each other.\n\nBek recovered himself enough to remember to use the wishsong, but he could not think how to use it effectively. Shape-shifter and caull were so tightly fused that there was no opportunity to bring the magic to bear without striking both. Bek darted right and left at the edge of the battle, enveloped by its sound and fury, desperately seeking a way to intervene, unable to do so.\n\n\"Truls!\" he screamed helplessly.\n\nBright fountains of red spurted out of the tangle, the shape-shifter's human blood released from a wound somewhere beneath the concealing cloak, a wound that Bek could not see. He heard Truls snarl in rage and pain, then tear at the caull with renewed fury, bearing it down against the earth. The caull screeched with a sound like metal tearing, writhing and snapping in a flurry of claws and teeth, but it could not break free.\n\nThen Truls Rohk locked his arms about the caull's head and hauled back on its long, thick neck, twisting violently. Bek heard cartilage snap and ligaments tear. The caull shrieked with such fury that the sound matched the howl of the worst storm Bek had ever witnessed, of hurricane winds tearing past windows and walls, of funnel clouds ripping at the earth. The caull heaved upward in one last futile effort to dislodge the shape-shifter, then its head separated from its body and exploded into an unrecognizable ruin.\n\nIn the ensuing silence, cacophonous and empty both at once, Truls Rohk threw down the remains of the body. Still twitching, it fell to the forest floor, dark blood spreading everywhere. The shape-shifter stood over it a moment, bent to the stream to drink and wash, then strode back up the hill to where Bek waited.\n\nWithout pausing for even a second, he reached down and picked up Grianne, lifting her into the cradle of his arms.\n\n\"I changed my mind,\" he said, his voice harsh and broken, his breathing ragged.\n\nThen he set off walking once more, leaving an astonished Bek to follow."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "As the day went on and the trio climbed out of the foothills and onto the lower slopes of the mountains, two things became increasingly clear to Bek Ohmsford. First, they had moved into shape-shifter territory. He knew this not because there were boundary markers or signposts or anything that would designate it as such. Having come a different way, he couldn't even be certain he recognized what he was looking at from his previous visit. He knew where he was because he could feel the shape-shifters watching him. He could feel their eyes. It was broad daylight and the sparsely wooded slopes offered few hiding places, so it didn't appear as if anyone was there. Yet they were, he knew, and not far away. He might have questioned this feeling once, but having experienced it not much more than a week earlier \u2014 having felt it so strongly he could barely breathe because the shape-shifters had been right on top of him \u2014 he wasn't questioning it now.\n\nSecond, Truls Rohk was failing. He had come away from his battle with the caull winded and clearly hurt, but seemingly not in any real danger. He had walked strongly for several hours, carrying Grianne and setting a quick pace for Bek to follow. But over the last two hours, with the fading of the afternoon and the approach of nightfall, he had begun to slow, then to stagger, his smooth gait turned into an uneven lurch.\n\n\"I have to rest,\" Bek said finally, in an effort to find out what was going on.\n\nThe shape-shifter continued ahead for another fifty yards, then all but collapsed beside a fallen tree trunk, barely managing to set Grianne down before dropping heavily beside her. He wouldn't have thought to sit close to her before this, \u2014 now, it seemed he could not find the strength to move away.\n\nBek walked up next to him and reached down for the water skin. Truls handed it to him without looking up. A ragged gasping came from inside the cowl, and Bek saw the rise and fall of the shape-shifter's shoulders as he struggled to breathe. Seating himself, he drank from the skin and watched as Truls give a deep, involuntary shudder.\n\nThey sat together without speaking for a long time, looking out over the valley below, listening to the silence.\n\n\"We can camp here,\" Bek said finally.\n\n\"We have to keep moving,\" Truls said, his voice raspy and weak. It didn't even sound like Truls. \"We need to get higher up on the slopes while there's still light.\"\n\nThe cowl lifted, shadowed emptiness facing the boy like a hole dropping away into the earth. \"Do you know where we are?\"\n\nBek nodded. \"In the land of the shape-shifters.\"\n\nA cough racked the other's body, and he doubled over momentarily before straightening again. \"We have to get deep enough in that they'll have no choice, that they'll have to come to us.\"\n\n\"You've decided to ask for their help?\"\n\nHe didn't answer. Another spasm shook his body.\n\n\"Truls, what's wrong?\" Bek asked, leaning close.\n\n\"Get away from me!\" the shape-shifter snapped angrily.\n\nBek moved back. \"What's wrong?\"\n\nFor a moment, there was no response. \"I don't know. I don't feel right. The caull did something to me, but I don't know what. I didn't think those cuts and bites were much, but everything feels like it's breaking down.\" He gave a short, sharp laugh. \"Wouldn't it be a joke on me if I died because of your sister? Protecting her when I don't even like her? The Druid would love that, if he were here!\"\n\nHe laughed again, the sound weak and broken. Then he struggled back to his feet, picked up Grianne, and set off once more.\n\nThey walked on for another hour, the afternoon passing slowly into twilight, the air cooling swiftly to a chill that nipped at Bek's face. Shadows lengthened on the mountainside, dark fingers stretching, and the moon appeared in the sky, rising out of the hazy distance, half-formed and on the wane. Bek looked back the way they had come to see if anyone was following, an impossible attempt in this light, and quickly gave it up. He glanced at their surroundings, searching for the watchers, but the effort yielded nothing. He listened to the silence and was not reassured.\n\nThey reached a shelf of ground that angled back into a deep stand of conifers, and Truls collapsed again. This time he went down without warning, dropping Grianne in a heap, rolling away from her onto his back where he lay gasping for air. Bek rushed over at once, kneeling beside him, but the shape-shifter pushed him away.\n\n\"Leave me alone!\" he snapped. \"See to your sister!\"\n\nGrianne lay sprawled to one side, eyes open and unseeing, body limp. She appeared unhurt as Bek helped her back to a sitting position, straightening her clothing and brushing leaves and twigs from her hair before returning to Truls.\n\n\"I'm done,\" the shape-shifter rasped. \"Finished. Build a fire back in the trees to warm yourself. Wait for them to come.\"\n\nA fire might attract the attention of those who hunted them, but Bek knew that whatever happened now was in the hands of the shape-shifters. No harm would come to them if the spirit creatures didn't wish it \u2014 not in their habitat and not from caulls or Mwellrets or anything else. Truls Rohk knew this, as well. He was counting on it.\n\nBek set about gathering wood to build a fire. It wasn't until he'd set the wood in place that he realized he didn't have any tinder. When he went back to see if Truls had any, the shape-shifter was unconscious. Bek took Grianne to where he had stacked the wood, then returned for Truls, but found him too heavy to move. All those broken and missing body parts, and he still weighed so much. Bek left him and sat with Grianne by the useless wood. He thought about using the wishsong to trigger a fire, but he didn't know how to do that. He sat staring into the night, feeling helpless and alone.\n\nWhere were the shape-shifters?\n\nNight descended, and darkness closed about. The stars appeared overhead and the silence deepened. Soon it was so cold that Bek was shivering. He pulled Grianne close to him, trying to keep them both warm, wondering if they might freeze to death before morning. They were high up on the mountainside, it was too cold already and it was going to get much colder.\n\nOnce, he rose and walked out to where Truls Rohk lay and tried to rouse him. The shape-shifter was awake and breathing, but he did not appear lucid. A terrible heat radiated from his body, as if he was burning with fever. Bek sat with him for a while, trying to think of something he could do. But Truls Rohk's physiology was so different that Bek didn't even know where to begin. In the end, he just spoke quietly to the other, trying to reassure him, to give him some small comfort.\n\nThen Bek returned to Grianne and the waiting.\n\nHe must have dozed off finally, because the next thing he knew he awoke to find the fire burning brightly in front of him and the night air grown warm and comforting. He glanced at Grianne, who sat next to him, awake and staring, unresponsive when he spoke her name. He looked around and saw nothing, stood and looked some more, and still saw nothing.\n\nHe started to walk out toward the edge of the flat to where Truls lay and stopped. A dozen dark shapes blocked his way, massive forms rising before him like great rocks. As he started to back away, more closed about from both sides, huge and menacing, features hidden by the darkness and a sudden mist.\n\nBek stopped where he was and stood his ground. He knew what they were, \u2014 he had been waiting for them. What he didn't know was why they had waited so long to appear.\n\nWhy did you come back?\n\nThe voice was thin and hollow, almost a wail, and it came from all around and not from any single source.\n\n\"My friend is sick.\"\n\nYour friend is dying.\n\nThe words were unexpected, spoken without a trace of emotion or interest. For a moment, Bek could not make himself reply. No, he said to himself. No, that's wrong. That can't be.\n\n\"He's hurt,\" he said. \"Can you help him?\"\n\nThe shadows faded and reappeared in the deep mist like creatures conjured out of imagination. There was that ethereal quality to the shape-shifters, that otherworldliness that defied explanation. They seemed so impermanent that nothing about them was quite real. But Bek remembered how quickly they could change to something hard and deadly.\n\nThe caull has poisoned him. Teeth and claws excreted poison and it seeped into his human half, infecting it. The poison leeches away his strength. When his human half dies, his shape-shifter half will die, as well.\n\n\"Is there an antidote?\" Bek demanded, still trapped in a web of disbelief and shock. \"Do you know of one?\"\n\nThere is no cure.\n\nBek looked around in despair. \"There must be something I can do,\" he said finally. \"I'm not going to just let him die!\"\n\nAs soon as he spoke the words, he knew they were what the shape-shifters had been waiting to hear. He could see them move in response, hear their expectant whispers as they did so. He could feel a change in the air. He thought at once to take back the words, but did not know how to do so and could not have made himself, anyway.\n\nYou were told that halflings have no place in the world. You said that you would make a place for this one. Would you do so now?\n\nBek took a deep breath. \"What are you asking?\"\n\nWould you make a place for your friend? Would you give him a chance to live?\n\nThe voice was coldly insistent, uninterested in argument or reason, in anything but a direct answer to its question. The shape-shifters had gone still again, clustered about like stones. Bek could no longer see or feel the fire. He could no longer remember in which direction it lay. He was shrouded in darkness and enclosed by the spirit creatures, and all he could see of the world was the glitter of the stars overhead.\n\n\"I want to save him,\" he said finally.\n\nHe sensed a murmur of approval and, once again, of expectation. It was the answer they were hoping for, yet one that promised results he did not fully comprehend.\n\nHe must shed his human skin. He must cast it aside forever. He must become like us, all of one thing and none of the other. If he does this, the poison cannot hurt him. He will live.\n\nCast off his human skin? Bek was not sure what he was being told, but it didn't matter. He couldn't dismiss out of hand any offer that might save Truls. \"What do you want me to do?\" he asked.\n\nGive us permission to make him one of us.\n\nBek shook his head quickly. \"I can't do that. I have to ask him if that's what he wants. I don't have the right \u2014\"\n\nHe cannot hear you. He is lost in his sickness. He will die before he can give you an answer. There is no time. You must decide for him.\n\n\"Why do you need my permission?\" Bek was suddenly frantic. \"What difference does it make what I say?\"\n\nThe whispers and movement stopped, and the night went completely still. Bek froze in place and held his breath like a man about to jump from a very high place.\n\nA human must make this choice. It is his human side we would destroy. There is no one else but you. You said you were his friend. You said you would give up your life for him and he would give up his life for you. Should we make a place in the world for him? You must decide.\n\nBek exhaled sharply. \"You have to tell me what will become of him. If I tell you to do this, whatever it is, if I give you my permission, what will become of Truls?\"\n\nThere was a long pause.\n\nHe will become one with us, a part of us.\n\nBek stared. \"What does that mean?\"\n\nWe are one. We are a community. No one of us lives apart from the others. He would be joined.\n\nBek felt every bit a boy in that instant, a boy who had ventured out into the world and gotten himself into such trouble that he would never see home again. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He couldn't do this. He was being asked to save Truls, but he was also being asked to change him irrevocably. By saving Truls, he would transform him into something else completely \u2014 a communal creature, no longer separate and apart, but a part of a whole. What would that be like? Would Truls want this, even to save his life? How could Bek possibly know?\n\nHe stood there, adrift in a sea of profound uncertainty, knowing he was being offered the only choice available and hating that it was his to make. Truls Rohk had never been at peace in the world. He had been an outcast all his life with few friends and no family or home. He was an aberration created through forbidden breeding, a freak of nature that had never belonged. What place there was for him, he had made for himself. Maybe he would be better off changed into one of the spirit creatures, a part of a family and community at last. Maybe he would be happier.\n\nBut maybe not.\n\nBek wanted Truls to live \u2014 wanted it desperately \u2014 but not if the price was too high. How could he measure that?\n\nTell us your decision.\n\nBek closed his eyes. A chance at life was worth any price, too precious to give up for any reason. He could not know how this would turn out, he could not determine what Truls Rohk would do if he were able. He could do for Truls only what Bek would want done for himself in the same situation. He could fall back only on what he believed to be right.\n\n\"Save him,\" he said quietly.\n\nThere was a sudden rush of movement from the shape-shifters, an odd hissing that turned into a sigh. The wall of bodies that had gathered about him opened, and the darkness cleared to reveal the fire still blazing in front of his sister.\n\nGo back to her. Sit with her and wait. When morning comes, take her and go into the mountains. You will find what you are looking for there. Do not fear for your safety. Do not worry about those who follow. They shall not pass.\n\nDark forms changed into the bristling monsters he had seen once before, terrible apparitions that could smash a life with barely a thought, things that existed in nightmares. They hovered close for an instant, their smell washing over him, their raw presence reinforcing the promise they had made.\n\nGo.\n\nHe did as he was told, not yet at peace with himself, unable to gain the reassurance he sought. He could not bear to consider too closely what he had done. He did not want to ponder the result because he was afraid he might recognize something he had not considered and did not want to face. He went back to the warmth and comfort of the fire, seating himself next to Grianne, taking her hands in his and holding them while he stared into the flames. He did not look back at the shape-shifters, did not try to see where they went or what they did. He would not have been able to do so anyway, because his eyes could not penetrate the darkness beyond the firelight.\n\nHe stared instead at Grianne and tried to make himself believe that she had been worth everything that had happened \u2014 that saving her was not a Druid's whim or a brother's false hope, but a necessary act that would result in something more important and far-reaching than the losses it had caused.\n\nAfter a time, he fell asleep. His dreams were vivid and charged with emotion, and they ranged across the length and breadth of his life. In them, Quentin reappeared to him, working on an ash bow, red hair hanging loose and easy, strong face cocky and smiling, laughter bright with reassurance. Coran and Liria looked in on him as he slept, and he could hear them speak of him with ambition and pride. The company of the Jerle Shannara filed past him one by one as he stood at the edge of a forest, and then Rue Meridian stepped away long enough to come over to him and touch his face with cool fingers that swept away thoughts of everything but her.\n\nFinally, Walker stood looking down at him from a castle rampart, from a place that looked vaguely familiar. Truls Rohk stood next to him, then faded into a disembodied voice that whispered to him to be strong, to be steadfast, to remember always how alike they were. He was different than Bek remembered him, and after a moment Bek knew that it was because Truls was no longer a halfling, but a true shape-shifter. He was one with his new family, with his community, with the world that had given him a second chance at life. There was a sense of completion about him, of having found a peace that he had never known before.\n\nBek watched and listened to a box of empty space, to a wall of darkness, hanging on the other's words as if to a lifeline, and the peace that Truls had found settled over him, as well.\n\nWhen he came awake again, it was morning. A misty gray light rose out of the mountain peaks, east where the dawn was breaking. The fire had gone out, the smoking embers turned to dying ashes and charred stumps. He reached out his hand. The ashes were still warm. Beside him, Grianne slept, stretched out upon the ground, her eyes closed and her breathing slow and even.\n\nHe stared down at her a moment, then rose and went to find Truls Rohk.\n\nHe stopped at the edge of the flat where he had left his friend the night before. All that remained was a hooded cloak and a scattering of half-formed bones. Bek knelt and reached down to touch them, lifting the folds of the cloak away, half expecting to find something more. Truls Rohk had seemed so indestructible that it was impossible that this was all that was left of him. Yet there was nothing more. Not even bloodstains were visible on the hard, frost-covered ground.\n\nBek rose and stood looking at the bones and cloak a moment longer. Perhaps most of what Truls Rohk had been, what mattered and had value, had gone on to become a part of what he was now.\n\nHe wondered if the shape-shifters, Truls among them, were watching him. He wondered if he would ever know if he had done the right thing.\n\nHe walked back to the campfire, woke Grianne, took her hands in his, and brought her to her feet. She came willingly, her calm, blank expression empty of emotion, her limp acquiescence sad and childlike. He was all she had left, all that stood between her and random fate. He had become for her the protector he had promised he would be.\n\nHe was not sure he was up to it, only that he must try, that he must do what he could to save them both.\n\nHolding hands like children, they began to climb."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "On the next mountain over from the one that Bek and Grianne were struggling to ascend, Quentin Leah looked up expectantly from his breakfast of bread and cheese as Kian appeared out of the trees below the trailhead and began to climb toward him. Further up, gathered in the copse of fir where they had spent the night, the remnant of Obat's Rindge waited for instructions on where to go next \u2014 all but Obat himself and Panax, who had gone on ahead to scout their way through the passes of the Aleuthra Ark. They had been fleeing the Mwellrets and their tracking beasts for two days, and Quentin had hoped they would not have to flee for a third.\n\n\"They found our trail,\" Kian growled. His dark, square face furrowed as he sank down next to the Highlander and mopped his brow. \"They're coming.\"\n\nHe would not look at Quentin. No one would these days. No one wanted to see what was in his eyes. Not since they found him in the ruins of Castledown. Not since they heard what became of Ard Patrinell.\n\nQuentin understood. He did not feel right about himself anymore either. Everything seemed out of joint.\n\nHe handed the Elven Hunter what was left of his bread and cheese and stared down in frustration. They were sitting on a rugged slope that had the look of a hunched-over Koden, all bristle-backed with conifers and jagged rocks. Forty-eight hours of running had brought them here \u2014 frantic hours spent trying to throw off their pursuers. Nothing had worked, and now, finally, they had been run to earth.\n\nFrom the beginning, when Quentin, Panax, Kian, Obat, and a dozen Rindge had remained behind to slow down the hunt for the tribe, things had gone wrong. As a group, they possessed a lifetime of knowledge of hunting and tracking in wilderness terrain, and each knew a dozen tricks that would slow or stop anyone trying to follow them. They had employed them all. They had started with simple devices intended to create dozens of false trails that would take a hunting dog hours to unravel. But the beasts the rets were using to track them were far superior to dogs, and they separated the real trail from the false with uncanny quickness, coming after Quentin's group almost before they could make their escape. The Rindge next used extracts from plants to create strong scents that would throw off the creatures. That didn't work either. Kian and Panax led them into streams and even one river, using the water to hide their passage, but the tracking beasts found them again anyway.\n\nIn desperation, Obat lured them into a narrow ravine and set fire to the whole of the woods leading up, a strong wind blowing the fire right back down into the faces of the rets. The fire was intended not only to drive their pursuers back, but to obliterate their tracks and scent, as well. That bought them several hours, but in the end the rets and their beasts found them anyway.\n\nFinally, in desperation, Quentin and his companions set an ambush, thinking to kill or disable the tracking beasts. The ambush caught the rets by surprise, and a handful were killed by bows and arrows and blowguns before the remainder had a chance to take cover. The tracking beasts were struck, too, but the projectiles seemed to have almost no effect on them. They shrugged off the barbs as if they were nothing more than bee stings and came after their attackers with astonishing fury. Loosed from their chains, they turned into a pack of savage killers. Quentin had been involved in many hunts over the years, but he had never seen anything like this. The tracking beasts, at least eight of them, had charged through the scrub and over the rocks like maddened wolves, voiceless monsters that vaguely resembled humans evolved into something bigger and more terrible than the gray wolves that hunted the Black Oaks east of Leah.\n\nHaving no other choice, Quentin and his companions stood their ground and fought back. But before anyone could prevent it, three of the Rindge were dead, the beasts covered in their blood. They might have all been killed but for the Sword of Leah, which lit up like a torch, the magic surging down its length in a streak of blue fire. That was when Quentin realized that these beasts had been created out of magic, and that it would take magic to stop them. He killed two of them in a flurry of shrieks and severed limbs before the rest fell back, not defeated or cowed, but wary now of the power of the sword and uncertain whether or not they were meant to continue.\n\nTheir hesitation allowed Quentin and his companions to escape, but use of the sword marked them, as well, it alerted their hunters that at least one among the pursued possessed magic, and that hardened their determination to continue the pursuit. Airships appeared in the skies overhead, and fresh units of Mwellrets and trackers were lowered to the ground to join those already gathered. Quentin couldn't tell how many there were, but it was more than enough to overpower him should he choose to stand and fight again. He couldn't be certain whom the rets thought they were tracking, but it was clear that they were serious about finding out.\n\nThe chase wore on through that first day and all through the second, with the Rindge working their way deeper into the Aleuthra Ark, higher into the rugged peaks, following a trail they knew would eventually take them over the mountains and into the broader grasslands beyond. Quentin was beginning to wonder what good that would do. If their pursuers were this determined, they would be caught sooner or later whether they fled over the mountains or not. If they were to escape, a more permanent solution had to be found, and it had to be found quickly because the women and children that comprised the bulk of the fugitives were tiring.\n\nQuentin was tiring, as well, not so much physically as emotionally. He had lost something in his battle with the Ard Patrinell wronk \u2014 something of the fire that had driven him earlier, something of heart and purpose \u2014 so that now he felt more a shell than a whole person. With so many of the company dead and all the rest scattered and lost, his focus had become blurred. He was helping the Rindge because they needed it and because he didn't know what else to do. It gave him direction, but not passion. He had lost too much to find that again without a dramatic shift in his fortunes.\n\nHe didn't think Panax and Kian were much better off, although they seemed more hardened than he was, more accustomed to the idea of going on alone. Quentin was too young yet, unprepared to have experienced the kind of losses he had just endured, and the losses were affecting him more dramatically. At times, he collapsed inside completely. He saw Tamis again, covered in blood and dying. He saw Ard Patrinell's head, encased in metal and glass, an instant before he smashed it apart. He saw Bek, the way he remembered him in the Highlands, such a long time ago.\n\nHe was haunted and worn and disillusioned, and he could feel himself slipping notch by notch. He cried because he couldn't help himself, trying to mask his tears, to hide his weakness. Chills racked him in bright sunshine. Dark dreams haunted his sleep \u2014 dreams of what hunted him, of what awaited him, of fate and prophecy. He awoke shaking and afraid and went back to sleep cold and empty.\n\nBut he was also the best chance the others had of staying alive, and he was painfully aware of the fact. Without the magic of the Sword of Leah, they had no answer for the magic of the things that pursued them. Quentin might be slipping off the edge, but he could not afford to let go.\n\n\"How much time do we have?\" he asked Kian after a moment.\n\nThe Elf shrugged. \"The Rindge will try to slow them down, but won't succeed. So, maybe an hour, a little more.\"\n\nQuentin closed his eyes. They needed help. They needed a miracle. He didn't think he could give it to them. He didn't know who could.\n\nKian finished the bread and cheese, took a drink from his water skin, and stood. He was coated with dust and debris, and his clothes were torn and streaked with blood. He was a mirror image of Quentin. They were refugees in need of a bath and some real sleep, and they were unlikely to get either anytime soon.\n\n\"We'd better get them up and moving,\" Kian said.\n\nThey went back up the trail to where the Rindge waited. Using gestures and the few Rindge words they had picked up, they got the tribe back on its feet and trudging ahead once more. The Rindge were a dispirited group, not so much because of their weariness as because nothing the men had tried had worked and time was running out. Still, they kept on without complaint, the very young and old, the women and children, all helping one another where help was needed, a people dispossessed from their home of centuries, driven out by forces over which they had no control. They were demonstrating a resolve that Quentin found surprising and heartening, and he took what strength he could from them.\n\nStill, it was not much.\n\nThey had hiked for perhaps an hour when the Rindge rearguard appeared on the run. Their gestures were unmistakable. The Mwellrets and tracking beasts were catching up to them.\n\nAt the same moment, Panax and Obat appeared from the other direction. The Dwarf was excited as he hurried to reach Kian and the Highlander.\n\n\"I think we've found something that will help,\" he said, eyes bright and eager as they shifted from one face to the other. He rubbed vigorously at his thick beard. \"The pass divides up ahead. One fork leads to a thousand-foot drop \u2014 no way around it. The other leads to a narrow ledge with room for maybe two people to pass, but no more. This second trail winds around the mountain, then further up through a high pass that crosses to the other side. Here's what's important. You can get above the second trail by climbing up the mountainside further on and doubling back. There's a spot, perfect for what we need, to trigger an avalanche that will sweep away the pass and anything on it. If we can get the Rindge through before they're caught by the rets, we might be able to start a rockslide that will knock those rets and their beasts right off the trail \u2014 or at least trap them on the other side of where we are.\"\n\n\"How far ahead is this place?\" Kian asked at once.\n\n\"An hour, maybe two.\"\n\nThe Elven Hunter shook his head. \"We don't have that kind of time.\"\n\n\"We do if I stay behind,\" Quentin said at once.\n\nHe spoke before he could think better of it. It was a rash and dangerous offer, but he knew even without thinking it through that it was right.\n\nThey stared at him. \"Highlander, what are you saying?\" Panax asked angrily. \"You can't \u2014\"\n\n\"Panax, listen to me. Let's be honest about this. It's the magic that's attracting them. No, don't say it, don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about \u2014 we both know it's true. We all know it. They want the magic, just like Antrax and its creepers did. If I stay back, I can draw them off long enough for you to get past the place on the mountain where you want to start the slide. It will buy you the time you need.\"\n\n\"It will get you killed, too!\" the other snapped.\n\nQuentin smiled. Now that there were so many of the tracking beasts, he had virtually no chance of withstanding a sustained assault. If he couldn't outrun them \u2014 and he knew he couldn't \u2014 they would be all over him, sword or no. He was proposing to give up his life for theirs, a bargain that didn't bear thinking on too closely if he was to keep it.\n\n\"I'll stay with you,\" Kian offered, not bothering to question the Highlander's logic, knowing better than to try.\n\n\"No, Kian. One of us is enough. Besides, I can do this better alone. I can move more quickly if I'm by myself. You and Panax get the Rindge through. That's more important. I'll catch up.\"\n\n\"You won't live that long,\" Panax said with barely contained fury. \"This is senseless!\"\n\nQuentin laughed. \"You should see your face, Panax! Go on, now. Get them moving. The faster you do, the less time I'll need to spend back here.\"\n\nKian turned away, dark features set. \"Come on, Dwarf,\" he said, pulling at Panax's sleeve.\n\nPanax allowed himself to be drawn away, but he kept looking back at Quentin. \"You don't have to do this,\" he called back. \"Come with us. We can manage.\"\n\n\"Watch for me,\" Quentin called after him.\n\nThen the Rindge were moving ahead again, angling through the trees and up the trail. They wound through boulders and around a bend, and in minutes they were out of sight.\n\nEverything went still. The Highlander stood alone in the center of the empty trail and waited until he could no longer hear them. Then he started back down the way he had come.\n\nIt didn't take Quentin very long to find what he was looking for. He remembered the defile from earlier, a narrow split through a massive chunk of rock that wound upward at a sharp incline and barely allowed passage for one. Quentin knew that if he tried to make a stand in the open, the tracking beasts would overwhelm him in seconds. But if he blocked their way through the split, they could come at him only one at a time. Sooner or later, they would succeed in breaking through by sheer weight of numbers or they would find another way around. But he didn't need to hold them indefinitely, he only needed to buy his companions a little extra time.\n\nThe split in the boulder ran for perhaps twenty-five feet, and there was a widening about halfway through. He chose this point to make his first stand. When he was forced to give way there, he could fall back to the upper opening and try again.\n\nHe glanced over his shoulder. Further back, another two or three hundred yards, was a deep cluster of boulders where he had stashed his bow and arrows. He would make his last stand there.\n\n\"Wish you could see this, Bek,\" he said aloud. \"It should be interesting.\"\n\nThe minutes slipped away, but before too many had passed, he heard the approach of the tracking beasts. They did nothing to hide their coming, made no pretense of concealing their intent. Sharp snarls and grunts punctuated the sound of their heavy breathing, and their raw animal smell drifted on the wind. Further away, but coming closer, were the Mwellrets.\n\nQuentin unsheathed the Sword of Leah and braced himself.\n\nWhen the first of the beasts thrust its blunt head around the nearest bend in the split and saw him, it attacked without hesitating. Quentin crouched low and caught it midspring on the tip of his weapon, spitting it through its chest and pinning it to the earth where it thrashed and screamed and finally died as the magic ripped through it. A second and third appeared almost immediately, fighting to get past each other. He jabbed at their faces and eyes as they jammed themselves up in the narrow opening, and forced them to back away. From behind them, he heard the shouts of the rets and the snarls of other tracking beasts as they tried in vain to break through.\n\nHe fought in the defile for as long as he could, killing two of the creatures and wounding another before he made his retreat. He might have stayed there longer, but he feared that the rets would find a way around. If they trapped him in the defile, he was finished. He had bought as much time as he could at his first line of defense. It was time to fall back.\n\nWith the tracking beasts snapping at him, he backed through the split, then made his second stand at the upper end. Straddling the opening, he bottled up the frantic creatures, refusing to let them through, killing one and wedging it back inside so that the others could not pass it without climbing over. They tore at their dead companion until it was shredded and bloodied, and still they couldn't break free. Quentin fought with a wild and reckless determination, the magic driving through him like molten iron, sweeping away his weariness and pain, his reason and doubt, everything but the feel of the moment and its dizzying sense of power. Nothing could stop him. He was invincible. The magic of the sword buzzed and crackled through his body, and he gave himself over to it.\n\nEven when the Mwellrets got around behind him, he stood his ground, so caught up in the euphoria generated by the magic that he would have done anything to keep it flowing. He drove back this fresh assault, then returned to battling the tracking beasts trying to emerge from the split, intent on doing battle with anything that challenged him.\n\nIt took a deep slash to his thigh to sober him up enough that he finally realized the danger. He turned and ran without slowing or looking back, gaining enough ground to enable him to clamber into the rocks and find his bow and arrows just before his pursuers caught up with him. He was a good marksman, but his pursuers were so close that marksmanship counted for almost nothing. He buried four arrows in the closest burly head before it was finally knocked back, blinded in both eyes and maddened with pain. He wounded two more, slowing them enough that the others could not get past. He shot every arrow he had, killing two of the rets, as well, then threw down the bow and began running once more.\n\nThere was nowhere reasonable left to stand and fight, so he sprinted for the ledge where he hoped Panax, Kian, and the Rindge would be waiting with help. It was a long run, perhaps two miles, and he soon lost track of time and place, of everything but movement. Still infused with the magic of the sword, its power singing in his blood, he found strength he did not know he possessed. He ran so fast that he outdistanced his bulky pursuers, leaving them to scramble over boulders and rock-strewn trails he scaled with ease.\n\nMaybe, just maybe, he would find a way out of this.\n\n\"Leah, Leahl\" he cried out, euphoric and wild-eyed, with reckless disregard for who might hear him. \"Leahl\" he howled.\n\nThey caught up to him finally at the near end of the ledge, forcing him to turn and fight. He stood his ground just long enough to throw them back again, then rushed out onto the ledge. The sweep of the Aleuthra Ark with its massive backdrop of peaks and valleys stretched like a painting across the horizon, somehow not quite real.\n\nThe tracking beasts came at him once more, but they did not have enough room. Two tumbled away, clawing and screaming as they fell. He glanced back down the slope he had just climbed, \u2014 it was crawling with tracking beasts and Mwellrets. How many more could there be? Pressed against the cliff face, he retreated as swiftly as he could, slashing at the closest of his pursuers when they came within reach. He had been clawed and bitten in a dozen places, and the singing of the magic had taken on a high, frantic whine. His stamina and strength were nearly exhausted, \u2014 when they were depleted, the magic of the Sword of Leah would fail, as well.\n\n\"Panax!\" he called frantically, fighting to keep his newfound fear at bay, feeling the euphoria desert him as the brilliance of his blade began to dim.\n\nHe was perhaps a hundred feet out from where he had started, the cliff wall to his left an almost vertical rise, the drop to his right deep and precipitous, when he heard Panax call back to him. He did not look away from his pursuers. They were crowded out onto the ledge behind him, still coming, rage and hunger reflected in their eyes, waiting for him to drop his guard.\n\nThen he heard a rumble of rocks from above, and he turned and ran. He was too slow. The closest of the beasts was on top of him in a heartbeat, claws slashing. He whirled and knocked it backwards, slamming his closed fist into the rock wall with such force that he lost his grip on the sword. Knocked from his hand, it tumbled over the edge of the path and disappeared into the abyss.\n\nHe hesitated then, not quite believing what had just happened, and his hesitation cost him any chance of escape. Rocks and dirt showered down from above, pouring over everything in a thunderous slide that swept across the face of the cliff. Quentin tried to run through it, but he was too late. The avalanche was all around him, tearing away the mountainside, breaking off chunks of the ledge. The tracking beasts and their handlers disappeared in a roar of stone, then a massive section of the trail ahead tore free and was gone.\n\nQuentin flattened himself against the cliff wall and covered his head. The entire mountain seemed to be coming down on top of him. For a moment, he held on, pressed against the stone. Then the avalanche plucked him from his perch like a leaf, and he was gone."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "The Highlander regained consciousness in a sea of mind-numbing blackness and bone-crushing weight. He could smell dust and grit and the raw odor of torn leaves and earth. At first he could not remember what had happened or where he was, and panic's sharp talons pricked at him. But he held fast, forcing himself to be patient, to wait for his mind to clear.\n\nWhen it did, he remembered the avalanche. He remembered being swept over the narrow ledge and into the void, tumbling downward through a rain of rocks and debris, catching onto something momentarily before being torn free, tangling up in scrub thickets, all the while engulfed in a roar that dwarfed the fury of the worst storm he had ever endured. Then darkness had closed about in a wave and everything else disappeared.\n\nHis vision sharpened, and he realized that the avalanche had buried him in a cluster of tree limbs and roots. Through small openings in his makeshift tomb, he saw heavy gray clouds rolling across a darkening sky. He had no idea how much time had passed. He lay without moving, staring at the distant clouds and collecting his thoughts. He should, by all rights, be dead. But the roots and limbs, while trapping him in a jagged wooden cage, had saved him, as well, deflecting boulders that would otherwise have crushed him.\n\nEven so, he was not out of trouble. His ears were ringing, and his mouth and nostrils were dry with dust. Every bone and muscle in his body ached from the pummeling he had received, and he could not tell as yet if he had broken anything in his fall.\n\nWhen he tried to move, he found himself pinned to the ground.\n\nHe listened to the silence, a blanket that cloaked both his stone-encrusted prison and the world immediately outside. There wasn't the smallest rustle of life, not the tiniest whisper, nothing but the ragged sound of his breathing. He wondered if anyone would come looking for him \u2014 if anyone even could. There might be no one left to look. Half the mountain had fallen away, and there was no telling whom it had carried with it. Hopefully, Panax and the Rindge had escaped and the Mwellrets and their tracking beasts had not. But he could not be sure.\n\nHe tried not to think too hard on it, focusing instead on the problem at hand. He forced himself to relax, to take deep breaths, to gather his resources. Carefully, gingerly, he tested his fingers and toes to make certain they were all working \u2014 and still there \u2014 then tested his arms and legs, as well. Amazingly, nothing seemed broken, even though everything hurt.\n\nEncouraged by his sense of wholeness, Quentin set about looking for a way to get free. There was only a little room to move in his cramped prison, but he took advantage of it. He was able to extricate his left leg and both arms through the exercise of a little time, patience, and perseverance, but the right leg was securely wedged beneath a massive boulder. It wasn't crushed, but it was firmly pinned. Try as he might, he could not work it free.\n\nHe lay back again, drenched in sweat. He was aware suddenly of how hot he was, buried in the earth like a corpse, covered over by layers of rock and debris. He was coated with dust and grime. He felt as if he knew exactly what it would be like to be dead, and he didn't care for it.\n\nHe wormed himself into a slightly different position, but the smallness of the space and the immobility of his trapped leg prevented him from doing much. Deep breaths, he told himself. Stay calm. He felt raindrops on his face through the chinks in his prison and saw that the sky had darkened. The rainfall was slow and steady, a soft patter in the stillness. He licked at stray drops that fell on his lips, grateful for the damp.\n\nHe spent a long time after that working with an unwieldy piece of tree limb that he was able to drag within reach and position as a fulcrum. If he could shift the boulder just an inch, he might be able to wriggle free. But from his supine position, he could not get the leverage he needed, and the branch was too long to place properly in any event. Nevertheless, he kept working at it until it grew so dark he could no longer see what he was doing.\n\nHe fell asleep then, and when he woke, it was still dark, but the rain had stopped and the silence had returned. He went back to work with the branch, and it was morning before he gave the task up as impossible. Despair crept through him and he found himself wondering how desperate his situation really was. No one was coming to look for him, \u2014 he would have heard them by now if they were. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to do so on his own. What would that cost him? Would he cut off his leg if there was no other way? Would he give up part of himself if it meant saving his life?\n\nSleep claimed him a second time, and he woke to daylight and sunshine flooding down out of a clear blue sky. He did not give himself time to dwell on the darker possibilities of his situation, but went back to trying to get free. This time, he used a sharp-ended stick to dig away at the rock and earth packed in beneath his leg. If he could tunnel under his leg, he reasoned, he might create enough space to worm loose. It was slow going, the digging often reduced to one pebble, one small chunk of hardened earth at a time. He had to start as far back as his knee and work his way down, inch by painful inch. He had to be careful not to disturb anything that supported the boulder. If it shifted, it would crush his leg and trap him for good.\n\nHe worked all day, ignoring his growing hunger and thirst, the aches in his body, and the heat of his cage. He had come too far and endured too much to die like this. He was not going to quit. He would not give up. He repeated the words over and over again. He made them into a song. He chanted them like a mantra.\n\nIt was almost dark again when he finally worked his leg free, leaving behind most of his pants leg and much of his skin. Immediately, he began digging his way out, burrowing upward through the debris toward the fading light, toward fresh air and freedom. He could not afford to stop and rest. He felt the panic taking over.\n\nNight had fallen, a velvet soft blackness under a starlit sky, when he pulled himself from the rocks and earth and stood again in the open air. He wanted to weep with joy, but would not let himself, afraid that if he broke down, he might not recover. His emotions were raw and jangled from his ordeal, and his mind was not entirely lucid. He glanced around at the jumble of boulders and jutting trees, then upward to the darkened cliffs. In this light he could not determine from where he had fallen. He could tell only where he was, standing at one end of a valley that lay in the shadow of two massive mountains in the middle of the Aleuthra Ark.\n\nIt was cold, and he forced himself to move further down the slope into the trees beyond the avalanche line so that he might find shelter. He found it in a grove of conifers, and he lay down and fell asleep at once.\n\nHe dreamed that night of the missing Sword of Leah, and he woke determined to find it.\n\nIn the daylight, he could see more clearly where he had been and what had happened. The slide that had carried him over the side had torn away much of the mountain below, stripping it of trees and scrub, leveling outcroppings and ledges, and loosening huge sections of cliffside, all of which had tumbled into a massive pile of rubble. Looking up, he could just make out where he had been standing when he had fallen. No trace remained of those with whom he had fled or from whom he had been fleeing.\n\nHe hunted for food and water, finding the latter in a small stream not far from where he had slept, but nothing of the former. Even his woods lore failed to turn up anything edible so high up in the mountains. He gave it up and went back to the slide to search for the Sword of Leah. He had no idea where to look, so for the entire morning he wandered about in something of a daze. The slide was spread out for almost half a mile, and in some places it was hundreds of feet deep. He kept thinking that it was impossible that he was still alive, impossible that he had ridden it out without being crushed. He kept telling himself that his survival meant something, that he was not going to die in this strange land, that he was meant to go home again to the Highlands.\n\nBy midday, the sun was burning out of the sky and the valley was steaming. He was beginning to hallucinate, seeing movement where there wasn't any, hearing the whisper of voices, feeling the presence of ghosts. He went back down into the trees to drink from the stream, then lay down to rest. He woke several hours later, feverish and aching, and went back to searching.\n\nThis time, the ghosts took on recognizable form. As he trudged through the rocks, he found them waiting for him at every turn. Tamis appeared first, rising out of the landscape, healed and new again, short-cropped hair pushed back from her no-nonsense face, eyes questioning his purpose as she stared at him. He spoke her name, but she did not respond. She regarded him for only a moment, as if measuring anew the depth of his commitment and the strength with which he intended to pursue it. Then she faded into the shimmer of the midday heat, into the tangle of the past.\n\nArd Patrinell appeared next, sliding out of the haze as a metal-shrouded wronk, transformed from human into something only partly so. He stared at Quentin, his trapped, doomed eyes begging for release even as he raised weapons to skewer the Highlander. Even knowing the image wasn't real, Quentin flinched from it. Words passed the lips of the Captain of the Home Guard, but they were inaudible behind his glassy face shield, empty of sound and meaning, as insubstantial as his spectre.\n\nThe image shimmered and lost focus, and Quentin dropped into a guarded crouch, closing his eyes to clear his vision, his head, and his mind. When he looked again, Ard Patrinell was gone.\n\nBoth dead, he reminded himself, Tamis and her lover, ghosts lost in the passage of time, never to return in any other form, memories only. He felt himself drawn to them, less a part of his surroundings than before, more ethereal. He was losing himself in the heat, fading away into his imaginings, in need of rest and food and something hard and fast to hold on to. A chance. A promise.\n\nNeither appeared, and his stumbling hunt across the avalanche-strewn landscape yielded nothing of the missing talisman. The afternoon lengthened, and his exhaustion increased. He was not going to find the sword, he knew. He was wasting his time. He should leave this place and go on. But go on to what and to where? Did he have another purpose, now that he was alone and so lost? Was there something further he was meant to do?\n\nHis mind drifted into the past, to the Highlands, where he had spent his youth so carelessly, to the times he had spent hunting and fishing and exploring with Bek. He could see his cousin's face in the air before him, disembodied, but Bek all the same. Where was he now? What had become of him since the ambush in the ruins of Castledown? He had been alive when Tamis had seen him last, but had disappeared since. Bek was as much a ghost as the Tracker and Patrinell.\n\nBut alive, Quentin Leah swore softly. Even missing, even disappeared, Bek was alive!\n\nQuentin found himself kneeling in the rocks, crying, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders heaving. When had he stopped to cry? How long had he been hunched down like this in the rubble?\n\nHe wiped at his eyes, angry and ashamed. Enough of this. No more.\n\nWhen he put his right hand down to push himself back to his feet, his fingers closed about the handle of his sword.\n\nFor a second he was so stunned that he thought he was imagining it. But it was as real as the stone on which he knelt. He forced himself to look down, to see the blade lying next to him, coated with dirt and grime, its pommel nicked and scored, but its incomparable blade as smooth and unmarked as the day it was formed. His fingers tightened their grip, and he brought the weapon around so that he could see it more clearly, so that he could be certain. There was no mistake. It was his sword, his talisman, and his hope reborn.\n\nIt was impossible, of course, that he should have found it. It was a one-in-a-million chance that he would find it at all. He was not a strong believer in providence, in fate's hand reaching out, but there was no other explanation for this miracle.\n\n\"Shades,\" he whispered, the word a rustle of sound in the deep silence of the afternoon heat.\n\nHe took the offered gift as a sign and came back to his feet, infused with new purpose. A wayward spirit not yet ready to cross over to the land of the dead, he began to walk.\n\nDaylight faded quickly to twilight, the sun sliding behind the western rim of the Aleuthra Ark, turning the horizon a brilliant purple and crimson, cloaking the valley in long, deep shadows. The heat faded, and the air turned crisp and raw. The unexpected shift in temperature marked the coming of another storm. Quentin hunched his shoulders and lowered his head as he pushed on through the valley and began to climb where the mountains met and formed a high pass. Clouds that had been invisible before slid into view in thick knots and gathered across the sky. The wind picked up, slow and unremarkable at first before changing to gusts that were both icy and sharp edged.\n\nAhead, where the pass narrowed and twisted out of view, the darkness deepened.\n\nQuentin pressed on. There was no place to stop and no point in doing so. He was too exposed on the slopes to chance resting, what shelter he might find lay on the other side of the pass. He needed food and water, but he was unlikely to find either before morning. Darkness layered the earth, \u2014 roiling storm clouds canopied the sky. Sleet spit at him, icy particles stinging his face as he ducked his head protectively. The wind howled down out of the mountains, rolling off empty slopes, gathering force as it whipped across the valley from the passes and defiles. Trying not to think about how far he still had to go to reach safety, Quentin bent and wavered before the wind's tremendous force.\n\nBy the time he gained the head of the high pass, the sleet had changed to snow, and a carpet twelve inches deep covered the ground he trod. He had strapped the Sword of Leah across his back using a length of cord he found in one pocket, a makeshift that allowed his hands to stay free. He was walking mostly uphill over uneven ground, the wind tearing at him from all sides and shifting rapidly. Light played tricks in the curtain of falling snow, and it was all Quentin could do to maintain his balance. He was still dizzy and feverish, hallucinating from dehydration and lack of food, but he could do nothing about that.\n\nThe ghosts of his past came and went, whispering words that made no sense, gesturing in ways he could not understand. They seemed to want something from him, but he could not tell what it was. Perhaps they simply wanted his company. Perhaps they waited from him to cross over from the world of the living. The idea seemed altogether too possible. If things did not change, they would not have long to wait.\n\nHe had lost his cloak, and so he had nothing to protect himself from the cold. He was shivering badly and afraid he would lose all his body heat before he reached shelter. He had been made strong and tough from his years in the Highlands, but his endurance was not limitless. He hugged himself as he slogged ahead through snow and sleet and cold, trying to hold together in body and spirit both, knowing he had to keep going.\n\nAt the head of the pass, he found something else waiting.\n\nAt first, he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was even real. It was big and menacing, rising out of the rocks beyond, vague and indistinct in the whirl of the storm. It was man-shaped, but something else, as well, the limbs and body not quite right for a human, not quite in proportion. It appeared to him all at once as he crested the pass and walked into a wind howling with such fury that it threatened to tear the clothes from his body. He watched it slide through veils of white snow, then fade away entirely. He moved toward it, drawn to it instinctively, afraid and intrigued both. He had the sword, he told himself. He was not unprepared.\n\nThe shape appeared anew, further in, waited a moment for his approach, then disappeared once more.\n\nThis game of hide-and-seek continued through the pass and down the other side, where the walls of the mountain were thickly grown with conifers and the force of the storm was lessened by their windbreak. He had left the mountain off which he had fallen and was now beginning to ascend the one adjoining it. The trail was narrow and difficult to follow, but the appearance of the ghost ahead kept him focused. He was convinced by now that he was being led, but there seemed no reason for concern. The ghost had not threatened him, \u2014 it did not seem to mean him harm.\n\nHe climbed for a long time, winding his way westward around the mountainside, his path twisting and turning through sprawling stands of huge old trees, deep glades of pine needles dusted with snow, and rocky hillocks slick with dampened moss. The storm's fury had diminished. The snow still fell, but the wind no longer blew the flakes into his face like needles, and the cold seemed less pervasive. Ahead, the shape took on clearer definition, becoming almost recognizable. Quentin had seen that shape before somewhere, moving in the same way, a wraith of the woods in another time and place. But his mind was singing with fatigue, and he could not place it.\n\nNot much farther, he told himself. Not much longer.\n\nPlacing one foot in front of the other, eyes shifting between the ground below and the swirling white ahead, between his own movements and the ghost's, he pushed on.\n\n\"Help me,\" he called out at one point, but there was no response.\n\nNot much farther, he told himself again and again. Just keep going.\n\nBut his strength was failing.\n\nHe went down several times, his legs simply giving way beneath him. Each time, he struggled back to his feet without pausing to rest, knowing that if he stopped, he was finished. Daylight would bring light and warmth and a better chance to survive a sleep. But he could not chance it here.\n\nIn a clearing leading into a deep stand of cedar, he slowed and stopped. He could feel himself leaving his body, rising into the night like a shade. He was finished. Done.\n\nThen the dark shape ahead seemed to transform into something else, not one but two shapes, smaller and less threatening. They came out of the night together, walking hand in hand, angling toward him from his left \u2014 how had they gotten all the way over there? He stared at the new figures in disbelief, again uncertain that what he was seeing was real, that it wasn't some new form of phantasm.\n\nThe figures hesitated as well, as they caught sight of him. He moved toward them, peering through the curtain of snow, through space and time and hallucinations, through fatigue and a growing sense of recognition, until he was close enough to be certain whom he was seeing.\n\nHis voice was parched and ragged as he called out to the one who stood closest and who stared back at him wide-eyed in disbelief.\n\n\"Bek!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "Bek Ohmsford's journey over the past two days had not been as eventful as Quentin's, but it had been just as strange.\n\nAfter leaving the shape-shifters, and with Grianne in tow, he had continued into the Aleuthra Ark, the ghost of Truls Rohk an unwelcome guest borne with him. An image of the hooded cloak and scattered bones spread carelessly across the frozen ground lingered in the forefront of his thinking all that first day, a haunting that refused to be banished. He found himself remembering his protector in life, seemingly indestructible, offering his incomparable strength and unshakable reassurance. Though much of the time Truls Rohk had been an invisible presence, he had always kept close watch over Bek, fulfilling his promise to the Druid.\n\nIt seemed impossible that he was really gone. Bek could tell himself that it was so, that there was no mistake, but somehow he kept thinking that Truls would reappear, just as he always had before. He kept looking for Truls to do so. He couldn't help himself. At every turn, in every patch of shadows, Bek thought to find him waiting.\n\nSo that first day passed, a dream in which Bek walked with his catatonic sister and the ghost of his lost friend.\n\nBy nightfall, he was exhausted, having traveled far and rested little. He had given little thought to Grianne, taking for granted her compliance with the hard pace he had set, forgetting entirely that she could not speak and therefore would not complain. Aware suddenly of his failure, he sat her down and examined her feet. They were not blistered, so he turned his attention to feeding her. He had to do it by hand, and even so she was still barely taking anything. Mostly, she drank water, but he was able to get a little mashed cheese and bread down her throat, as well. She did not look different to him, but he could not tell what was going on inside her head. He trailed the tips of his fingers across her cheeks and forehead and kissed her. Her strange eyes stared through him to places he could not see.\n\nHe fed himself then, eating hungrily and drinking some of the ale he had salvaged from Truls' supplies. Night descended in a deep soft blackness, and the sky was awash in stars. He wrapped Grianne in her cloak and sat next to her in the silence, one arm draped about her protectively, his thoughts straying to the past they had lost and the future they might never share. He did not know what to do for her. He kept thinking there must be something that he had not tried, that her catatonia was a condition he could change if he could just figure out what was needed. He knew there was an answer to the puzzle if he could only put his finger on what it was. But the answer he sought would not come.\n\nAfter a time, he sang to her, his voice barely more than a whisper, as if anything more might disturb the night. He sang songs he remembered from his childhood, songs he had sung with Goran and Liria in the Highlands as a child. It all seemed very long ago and far away. He had not been a child for years. He had not been a boy since he had come on this journey with Quentin.\n\nOn impulse, he tried using the wishsong. Perhaps the magic could affect Grianne. It was their strongest connection, the shared heritage of their bloodline. If he could not reach her in any other way, perhaps he could reach her in this. He had not used it this way, but he knew from the history of the Ohmsford family that others before him had. The trick was in finding a chink in the armor of her catatonia, in worming his way past her natural defenses to where she was hiding. If he could reach deep inside, he might be able to let her know he was there.\n\nHe began to sing to her again, nothing more than humming at first, a soft and gentle melody to soothe and comfort. He blended himself with the night, another of its sounds, a natural presence. Slowly, he worked his singing around to something more personal, using words \u2014 her name, his own, their lost family revisited. He kept to memories that he thought would make her smile or at least yearn for what she had lost. He did not use her known name \u2014 Ilse Witch. He used Grianne, and called himself Bek, and he linked them together in an unmistakable way. Brother and sister, family always.\n\nFor a very long time, slowly and patiently, he worked to draw her to him, to find a way inside her mind, knowing it would not be easy, that she would resist. He made himself repeat the same phrases over and over, the ones he thought might trigger a response, giving her a fresh look each time, another reason to reach out for him. He played with color and light, with smell and taste, infusing his music with the feel of the world, with life and its rewards. Come back to me, he sang to her, over and over. Come out from the shadows, and I will help you.\n\nBut nothing succeeded. She stared at the fire, at him, at the night, and did not blink. She looked through the world to an empty place that shielded her from real life, and she would not come away.\n\nFrustrated, weary, he gave it up. He would try again tomorrow, he promised himself. He was convinced that he could do this.\n\nHe lay back, and in seconds he was asleep.\n\nThey climbed higher into the mountains on the following day, finding their path a snake of coiled switchbacks and rugged scrambles. Grianne followed after him compliantly, but had to be hauled over the rougher spots. It was hard going, and the sky west was darkening with the approach of a storm.\n\nAt one point, he heard the roar of a massive slide somewhere deeper in the mountains, and the eastern horizon was left cloudy with dust and debris in the aftermath.\n\nBy nightfall, it had begun to rain. They took shelter beneath the boughs of a massive spruce, lying on a bed of fallen needles that remained warm and dry. As the rain settled in, the temperature fell, spiraling downward with the change in the weather. Bek wrapped Grianne in her cloak and sang to her once more, and once more she stared through him to other places.\n\nHe lay awake much longer this night, listening to the soft patter of the rain and wondering what he was going to do. He had no idea where he had gotten to or where he was going. He was proceeding on faith, on the promise of the shape-shifters that he was moving toward something and not away from everything. He was adrift in the world toward something and not away from everything. He was adrift in the world with his stunned, helpless sister and with his friends and allies scattered or dead. He had one weapon, one talisman, one crutch on which he could lean, but no clear idea of how he might use it. He was so alone that he felt he would never find comfort or peace again.\n\nWhen he slept, it was from exhaustion.\n\nMorning dawned sullen and gray, a reflection of his mood as he rose sluggish and dispirited, and they started out once more. The storm caught up with them at midday, sliding past the high peaks north and curling down along the slopes on which he climbed. He had descended almost a thousand feet earlier, as the trail dipped and curved through a defile that opened deep into the mountain. Now, with the wind picking up and the cold penetrating his bones, he was high on the slopes anew and without suitable shelter. He picked up the pace, pulling Grianne after him with fresh urgency. He did not want to get caught out in the open if it began to snow.\n\nIt did, soon after, but the flakes were large and lazy and the way ahead remained clear. Bek pressed on, descending at a split in the trail, intent on gaining the forested stretches lower down. He did so just as the storm blew out of the high regions in a blinding sheet of sleet and rain. Everything beyond a dozen yards disappeared. The trees turned to phantoms that came and went to either side in the manner of soldiers at march. He held Grianne's hand as tightly as he could, not wanting to chance a separation that might prove permanent.\n\nThe storm worsened, something he had not thought possible. Sleet and rain turned to deep curtains of snow. The snow began to build underfoot, and soon it was approaching twelve inches deep even in the windswept clearings. Visibility lessened further until he was groping from tree to tree. He would have taken shelter if he could have found any, but in the blinding whirl of the blowing snow, everything looked the same.\n\nThen he stumbled and fell and lost his grip on Grianne. In an instant, she was gone. She disappeared in the whiteout, stolen away as surely as his faith in his purpose in coming on this journey. He groped for her, turning first this way and then that, everything white and empty about him, everything the same. He could not find her. Panic overwhelmed him as he grasped at snow flurries and air and empty chances, and he screamed. He screamed not just for his lost sister or his helplessness, but for all the pent-up rage and frustration he had been carrying with him for weeks. He screamed because he had reached the breaking point, and he did not care what happened to him next.\n\nIn that moment, a shape appeared before him, huge and dark, rising up like a behemoth roused from sleep to put an end to his intrusion. He stumbled backwards from it, surprised and terrified. As he did so, his hands brushed against his sister. He pushed his face close to hers to make certain he was not mistaken, calling to her. Her pale, empty features stared back at him. She was kneeling in the snow, docile and unbothered.\n\nTears of relief blinded him as he brought her back to her feet, holding on to her with both hands, then deciding that wasn't enough, wrapping her with his arms. He wiped the tears away with his sleeve and looked for the phantom that had caused him to find her. It was there, just ahead of him, but smaller and moving away. Bek peered after it, sensing something familiar about it, something recognizable. It faded and then reappeared, prowling just at the limits of his vision, expectant and purposeful.\n\nThen suddenly it turned and beckoned him.\n\nAlmost without realizing what he was doing, he obeyed. Both hands clasped tight on Grianne's slender wrist, he started ahead once more into the haze.\n\nWhich is how I found you,\" he finished, passing the aleskin back to Quentin, the pungent liquid warming his throat and stomach as he swallowed. \"I don't know how long I was out there, but my guide stayed just ahead of me the whole way, obviously leading me toward something, keeping me on track. I didn't know where it was taking me, but after a while it didn't matter. I knew who it was.\"\n\n\"Truls Rohk,\" his cousin said.\n\n\"That's what I thought at the time, but now I'm not so sure. Truls is gone. He's become a part of the shape-shifter community, and no longer has a separate identity. Maybe I just want to believe it was him.\" Bek shook his head. \"I don't guess it matters.\"\n\nThey were huddled in a shallow cave hollowed into the side of the mountain. Bek had started a fire, and it burned with little heat, but a steady, insistent flame that illuminated their faces. Grianne sat to one side, staring off into the night, unseeing. Every so often, Quentin looked at her, not quite sure yet what to make of having someone who had tried so hard to kill them sitting so close.\n\nBek watched Quentin take another deep swallow from the aleskin. The color was finally returning to Quentin's frozen body. He had been nearly gone when he had stumbled upon Bek and Grianne. Bek had wasted no time wrapping him in his cloak and finding shelter for them all. The fire and ale had brought Quentin around, and they had spent the last hour exchanging stories about what had happened since the ambush in the ruins of Castledown. They didn't rush it, taking their time, giving themselves a chance to adjust to the idea that the impossible had happened and they had found each other again.\n\n\"I never thought you were dead,\" Bek told his cousin, breaking the momentary silence. \"I never believed it was so.\"\n\nQuentin grinned, a hint of that familiar, cocky smile that marked him so distinctively. \"Me either, about you. I knew when Tamis told me she had left you outside the ruins, that you would be all right. But this business about you having magic, that's another matter. I still can't quite believe it. You're sure you're an Ohmsford?\"\n\n\"As sure as I can be after hearing everything Walker had to say.\" Bek leaned back on his elbows and sighed. \"I suppose I really didn't believe it myself in the beginning. But after that first confrontation with Grianne, feeling the magic come alive inside me and break out like it did, I didn't have the same doubts anymore.\"\n\n\"So she's your sister.\"\n\nBek nodded. \"She is, Quentin.\"\n\nThe Highlander shook his head slowly. \"Well, there's something we'd have never guessed when we started out on this journey. But what are you supposed to do with her now that you know?\"\n\n\"Take her home,\" Bek answered. \"Keep her safe.\" He looked at Grianne a moment. \"She's important, Quentin. Beyond the fact that she's my sister. I don't know how, but she is. Walker was insistent on it, when he was dying and afterwards when he returned as a shade. He knows something about her that he isn't telling me.\"\n\n\"Big surprise.\"\n\nBek smiled.\"! guess that Walker keeping secrets isn't unusual, is it? Maybe there aren't any surprises left for you and me. No real ones, I mean.\"\n\nQuentin exhaled a white plume that lofted into the chilly night. \"I wouldn't be so sure. I'd thought that earlier, and then I found you again. You never know.\" He paused. \"What do you think the chances are that anyone else is alive? Are they all dead, like Walker and Patrinell?\"\n\nBek didn't say anything for a moment. All of the Elves were gone, save Kian and perhaps Ahren Elessedil. Ryer Ord Star might still be alive. The Wing Riders might be out there somewhere. And, of course, there were the Rovers.\n\n\"We saw the Jerle Shannara fly into these mountains,\" Bek ventured. \"Maybe the Rovers are still searching for us.\"\n\nQuentin gave him a hard look. \"Maybe. But if you were Redden Alt Mer in this situation, what would you do \u2014 come looking for us or fly straight back to where you came from?\"\n\nBek thought about it a moment. \"I don't think Rue Meridian would leave us. I think she'd make her brother look.\"\n\nHis cousin snorted. \"For how long? Chased by those Mwellret vessels? Outnumbered twenty to one?\" He shook his head. \"We'd better be realistic about it. They don't have any reason to think we're still alive. They were prisoners themselves, \u2014 they won't want to chance being made prisoners again. They would be fools not to run for it. I wouldn't blame them. I would do the same thing.\"\n\n\"They'll look for us,\" Bek insisted.\n\nQuentin laughed. \"I know better than to try to change your mind, cousin Bek. Funny, though. I'm supposed to be the optimist.\"\n\n\"Things change.\"\n\n\"Hard to argue with that.\" The Highlander looked off into the falling snow and gestured vaguely. \"I was supposed to look out for you, remember? I didn't do much of a job of it. I let us get separated, and then I ran the other way. I didn't even think of looking for you until it was too late. I want you to know how sorry I am that I didn't do a better job of keeping my word.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" Bek snapped, an edge to his voice. \"What more were you supposed to do than what you did?\n\nYou stayed alive, and that was difficult enough. Besides, I was supposed to look out for you, as well. Wasn't that the bargain?\"\n\nThey stared at each other in challenge for a moment. Then the tension drained away, and in the way of friends who have shared a lifetime of experiences and come to know each other better than anyone else ever could, they began to grin.\n\nBek laughed. \"Coward.\"\n\n\"Weakling,\" Quentin shot back.\n\nBek extended his hand. \"We'll do better next time.\"\n\nQuentin took it. \"Much better.\"\n\nThe wind shifted momentarily, blowing snow flurries into their faces. They ducked their heads as it whipped about them, and the fire guttered beneath its rush. Then everything went still again, and they looked out into the darkness, feeling their efforts at getting through the day catching up to them, seeping away their wakefulness, nudging them toward sleep.\n\n\"I want to go home,\" Quentin said softly. He looked over at Bek with a pale, worn sadness in his eyes. \"I bet you never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?\"\n\nBek shrugged.\n\n\"I'm worn out. I've seen too much. I've watched Tamis and Patrinell die right in front of me. Some of the other Elves, as well. I've fought so hard to stay alive that I can't remember when anything else mattered. I'm sick of it. I don't even want to feel the magic of the sword anymore. I was so hungry for it. The feel of it, like a fire rushing through me, burning everything away, feeding me.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Bek said.\n\nQuentin looked at him. \"I guess you do. It's too much after a time. And not enough.\" He looked around. \"I thought this would be our great adventure, our rite of passage into manhood, a story we would remember all our lives, that we would tell to our friends and family. Now I don't ever want to talk about it again. I want to forget it. I want to go back to the way things were. I want to go home and stay there.\"\n\n\"Me, too,\" Bek agreed.\n\nQuentin nodded, looking off again, not saying anything. \"I don't know how to make that happen,\" he continued after a moment. \"I'm afraid now that maybe it can't.\"\n\n\"It can,\" Bek said. \"I don't know how, but it can. I've been thinking about getting back home, about how to take Grianne there, like Walker said I should. It seems impossible, crazy. Walker's gone, so he can't help. Truls Rohk won't be going any farther. Half of everyone I came here with is dead and the other half is scattered. Until I found you, I was all alone. What chance do I have? But you know what? I just tell myself I'll find a way. I don't know what that way is, but I'll find it. I'll walk all the way home if I have to. Right over the Blue Divide. Or fly. Or swim. It doesn't matter. I'll find a way.\n\nHe looked at Quentin and smiled. \"We got this far. We'll get the rest of the way, too.\"\n\nThey were brave words, but they sounded right, necessary, talismans against fear and doubt. Bek and Quentin were still fighting for small assurances, for bits of hope, for tiny threads of courage. The words gave them some of each. Neither wanted to challenge them just now. Look too closely at the battlements, and the cracks showed. That wasn't what they needed. They left the words where they were, undisturbed, an echo in their thoughts, a promise of what they believed might still be.\n\nTaking comfort in the shelter of each other, because in the end it was the best sort of comfort they could hope to find, they went off to sleep.\n\nThe dawn was cloudy and gray, \u2014 a promise of new snow reflected in the colorless canvas of the slowly brightening sky. The temperature had dropped to freezing, and the air was brittle with cold. They ate breakfast with few words exchanged, mustering their resolve. The confidence that had bolstered them the night before had dissipated like fog in sunlight. All about them, the mountains stretched away in an endless alternation of peaks and valleys. Save for the intensity of the light from the sunrise east, the horizons all looked the same.\n\n\"Might as well get going,\" Quentin muttered, standing up and slinging his sword over his shoulder.\n\nBek rose, as well, and did the same with the Sword of Shannara. He barely gave thought to the talisman anymore, it seemed to have served its purpose on this journey and had become something of a burden. He glanced selfconsciously at Grianne, realizing he could say the same about her and most certainly had thought as much more than once.\n\nThinking to cover as much ground as possible before the next storm and not wanting to be caught out in the open again, they set a brisk pace. The frozen ground crunched like old bones beneath their boots, grasses and earth cratering with indentations of their prints. If their pursuers were still tracking them, they would have no trouble doing so. Bek considered the possibility and brushed it aside. The shape-shifters had promised him that his pursuers would not be allowed to follow. There was no reason to think that their protection extended this far, but he was weary and heartsick and needed to believe this one thing if he was to have any peace of mind. So he let himself.\n\nThey trudged on toward midday, following trails that wound through the valleys ahead. The horizons never changed. In the vast mountain coldness, the land seemed empty of life. Once, they saw a bird flying far away. Once, further down in the shadowed woods, they heard some creature cry. Otherwise, there was only silence, deep and pervasive and unbroken.\n\nTime dragged, a dying candle, and Bek's spirits lagged. He found himself wondering if there was any sense to what they were doing, if there was a purpose for going on. He understood that it gave them a goal and that movement kept them alive. But the vastness of the range and the terrible solitude it visited on them gave rise to a growing certainty that they were simply prolonging the inevitable. They were never going to walk out of the mountains. They were never going to be able to find anyone else from the doomed company of the Jerle Shannara. They were trapped in a nightmare world that would deceive them, break them down, and in the end destroy them.\n\nHe was marking out the time that remained to him when a dark speck appeared in the sky to the north, faint and distant. It grew quickly larger, moving swiftly toward them, taking on a familiar look. Recognition flooded through Bek, and the sense of hopelessness that had possessed him only moments earlier fell away like old ashes in a new fire.\n\nBy the time Hunter Predd swung Obsidian down to a flat just ahead of them, one whipcord thin arm raised in greeting, Bek was ready to believe that in spite of what he had told Quentin earlier, there might still be a few surprises left."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "For nearly a week after taking control of Black Moclips, cruising the skies like birds of prey, the Morgawr and his Mwellrets scoured the coastal and mountain regions of Parkasia in search of the Jerle Shannara and the remnants of her company. Their efforts were hampered by the weather, which proved exceedingly arbitrary, changing without warning from sun to rain, either of which was as likely to see high winds and downdrafts as calm air. During the worst of the storms, they were forced to land and anchor for almost twenty-four hours, sheltered in a cove off the coast where bluffs and woods offered protection from an onslaught of sleet and hail that otherwise would have leveled them.\n\nDuring most of this time, Ahren Elessedil languished belowdecks in a storeroom that had been converted to a cell. It was the same room that had housed Bek Ohmsford when he was a prisoner of the Ilse Witch, although Ahren did not know this. The Elven Prince was kept alone and apart from everyone save the rets who brought him food or took him on deck for brief periods of exercise. The Morgawr had moved his personal contingent of Mwellrets onto Black Moclips, preferring its sleeker design and greater maneuverability to that of the larger, more cumbersome warship he had occupied previously. Reduced to mindless shells, sad remnants of better times, the doomed Aden Kett and his men were left to crew her. Cree Bega was given command. The Morgawr occupied the Commander's quarters, and while they sailed in search of the Jerle Shannara, the Elven Prince barely saw him.\n\nHe saw even less of Ryer Ord Star. Her absence fueled his already deep mistrust of her, and he found himself reexamining his feelings. He could not decide whether she had forsaken her promise to him and truly allied herself with the Morgawr or if she was playing a game he did not understand. He wanted to believe it was the latter, but try as he might he could not come to terms with her seeming betrayal of him when he was captured or her clear distancing from him since. She had told him in the catacombs of Castledown that she was no longer in thrall to the Ilse Witch, yet she seemed to have become very much the creature of the Morgawr. She had led the warlock on his search for the Jerle Shannara. She had directed him to Black Moclips. She had stood by while that Federation crew had been systematically reduced to members of the walking dead. She had watched it all as if in a trance, showing nothing of her feelings, as removed from the horror and degradation as if she were absent altogether.\n\nNot once had she tried to make contact with Ahren after they had been brought aboard Black Moclips. Nothing had come of the words she'd whispered days earlier. Trust me. But why should he? What had she done, even once, to earn that trust? On reflection, the words now seemed to have been whispered to gain his confidence, to assure his compliance at a time when he still might have escaped. Now there was no chance. Aboard an airship, hundreds of feet off the ground, there was nowhere for him to go.\n\nNot that he had any chance of getting beyond the door of his cell in the first place, he reminded himself bitterly, even if they were on the ground. Without the missing Elfstones or weapons of any sort to aid him, he had no hope of overpowering his captors.\n\nLocked away as he was, he had not been witness to most of what had happened during the past few days. But he could tell from the slow and steady pace of the airship that they were still searching. Mostly, he could tell from the unchanging routine of his captors that they had found nothing.\n\nHe thought ceaselessly about escape. He imagined it over and over, thinking through the ways in which it could happen, the events that would precipitate it, the ways in which he would react, and the results that would follow. He pictured himself going through the motions \u2014 slipping through the door and down the passageway beyond, climbing the stairs to the decks above, crouching low against the mast, and waiting for a chance to gain the railing and go over the side. But in the end the mechanics always failed him and his chances never materialized.\n\nOne day, shortly after a storm had grounded them for almost twenty-four hours, he was on deck with Cree Bega when he caught sight of Ryer Ord Star standing at the bow. He was surprised to see her again, and for a moment he forgot himself and stared at her with undisguised longing and hope.\n\nCree Bega saw that look and recognized it. Touching Ahren lightly on his shoulder, he said, \"Sspeakss to her, little Elvess. Tellss her of your feelingss.\"\n\nThe words were an open invitation for him to do something foolish. The Mwellret was suspicious of the seer, as much so as Ahren was. Cree Bega had never been persuaded that her alliance with the Morgawr was genuine. He showed it in his attitude toward her, ignoring her for the most part, making no effort to consult her, even while the Morgawr did so. He was waiting, Ahren judged, for her to reveal her treachery.\n\n\"Nothing to ssay, Prince of Elvess?\" Cree Bega mocked, his face bent close, the rank smell of him strong in Ahren's nostrils. \"Wassn't sshe your friend? Issn't sshe sstill?\"\n\nAhren understood the nature of the questions. He hated himself for his uncertainty, but he stayed silent, bearing the weight of the Mwellret's taunts and his own doubts. Anything he did would reveal truths that would hurt either Ryer or himself. If she responded to him, it would suggest a hidden alliance. If she did not, he would be made even more painfully aware of how things between them had changed. He was too vulnerable for anything so raw just now. It would be smarter to wait.\n\nHe turned away. \"You talk to her,\" he muttered.\n\nAnother opportunity arose a day later, when he was summoned to the Morgawr's quarters and, on entering, found the seer standing beside him. She had that distant look again, her face empty of expression, as if she was somewhere else entirely in spirit and only her body was present. The Morgawr asked him again about the members of the company of the Jerle Shannara \u2014 how many had set out, whom they were, where he had last seen them, what their relationship had been to the Druid. He asked again for a head count \u2014 how many were still alive. He had asked the questions before, and Ahren gave him the same answers. It was not hard to do so. Dissembling was not necessary. For the most part, he knew less than the Morgawr. Even about Bek, the Morgawr seemed to know as much as Ahren did. He had read the traces of magic left floating on the air in the catacombs of Castledown and knew that Bek had come and gone. He knew that Ahren's friend was still out there, running from the warlock, hiding his sister.\n\nWhat little the Morgawr hadn't divined, Ryer Ord Star had told him. She had told him everything.\n\nAt times while the Morgawr interrogated Ahren, she seemed to come back from wherever she had gone. Her eyes would shift focus, and her hands twitched at her sides. She would become aware of her surroundings, but only momentarily and then she was gone again. The Morgawr did not seem bothered by this, although it caused Ahren no small amount of discomfort. Why wasn't the warlock irritated by her inattention to what he was saying? Why didn't he suspect that she was deliberately isolating herself?\n\nIt took Ahren a long time to realize what was really happening. She wasn't distancing herself at all. She was very much a part of the conversation, but in a way the Elven Prince hadn't recognized. She was hearing his words and using them to feed her talent. She was turning those words into images of his friends, trying to project visions of them. She was using him in an attempt to track them down.\n\nHe was so stunned by the revelation that for a moment he just stopped talking in midsentence and stared at her. The silence distracted her where his words had not. For a moment, she came back from where her visions had taken her, and she stared back at him.\n\n\"Don't do this,\" he told her softly, unable to conceal his disappointment.\n\nShe did not reply, but he could read the anguish in her eyes. The Morgawr immediately ordered him taken back to his cell, an angry and impatient dismissal. He saw his real use then \u2014 not as a hostage for negotiation or as a puppet King. Those were uses that could wait. The warlock's needs were more immediate. Ahren would serve him better as a catalyst for Ryer Ord Star's visions, as a trigger that would allow her to help find the Ilse Witch and the others who eluded him. Unsuspecting, naive, the boy would help without even realizing he was doing so.\n\nExcept he had realized.\n\nAhren was locked away once more, closed off in the storeroom and left to celebrate in fierce solitude his small victory. He had foiled the Morgawr's attempt to use him. He sat with his back against the wall of the airship and smiled into his prison.\n\nYet his elation faded quickly. His victory was a hollow one. Reality surfaced and crowded out wishful thinking. He was still a prisoner with no hope. His friends were still scattered or dead. He was still stranded in a dangerous, faraway land.\n\nWorst of all, Ryer Ord Star had revealed herself to be his enemy.\n\nIn the Commander's quarters, the Morgawr paced with the restless intensity of a caged animal. Ryer Ord Star felt the tension radiating from him in dark waves of displeasure. It was unusual for him to display such emotion openly, but his patience with the situation was growing dangerously thin.\n\n\"He knows what we are trying to do. Clever boy.\"\n\nShe did not respond. Her thoughts were of Ahren's words and the way he had looked at her. She still heard the anguish in his voice and saw the disappointment in his eyes. Understandably confused and misguided, he had judged her wrongly, and she could do nothing to explain herself. If the situation had been bad before, it was spiraling out of control now.\n\nThe Morgawr stopped in front of the door, his back to her. \"He has become useless to me.\"\n\nShe stiffened, her mind racing. \"I don't need his cooperation.\"\n\n\"He will lie. He will dissemble. He will throw in enough waste that it will color anything good. I can't trust him anymore.\" He turned around slowly. \"Nor am I sure about you, little seer.\"\n\nShe met his gaze and held it, letting him look into her eyes. If he believed she hid something, the game was over and he would kill her now.\n\n\"I've given you nothing but the truth,\" she said.\n\nHis dark, reptilian face showed nothing of what he was thinking, but his eyes were dangerous. \"Then tell me what you have learned just now.\"\n\nShe knew he was testing her, offering her a chance to demonstrate that she was still useful. Ahren had been right about the game they were playing. She was feeding off his words and emotions in response to the Morgawr's questions in an effort to trigger a vision that would reveal something about the missing members of the company of the Jerle Shannara. He had been wrong about her intentions, but there was no way she could tell him that. The Morgawr must believe she could help him find the Ilse Witch. He must not begin to doubt that she was his willing ally in his search, or all of her plans to help Walker would fall apart.\n\nShe took a small step toward the warlock, a conscious act of defiance, a gesture that nearly took her breath away with the effort it cost her. \"I saw the Ilse Witch and her brother surrounded by mountains. They were not alone. There were others with them, but their faces were hidden in shadow. They were walking. I did not see it, but I sensed an airship somewhere close. There were cliffs filled with Shrike nests. One of those cliffs looked like a spear with its tip broken off, sharp edged and thrust skyward. There was the smell of the ocean and the sound of waves breaking on the shore.\"\n\nShe stopped talking and waited, her eyes locked on his. She was telling him of a vision Ahren's words had triggered, but twisting the details just enough to keep him from finding what he sought.\n\nShe held her breath. If he could read the deception in her eyes and find in its shadings the truth of things, she was dead.\n\nHe studied her for a long time without moving or speaking, a stone face wrapped in cloak and shadow.\n\n\"They are on the coast?\" he asked finally, his voice empty of expression.\n\nShe nodded. \"The vision suggests so. But the vision is not always what I think it is.\"\n\nHis smile chilled her. \"Things seldom are, little seer.\"\n\n\"What matters is that Ahren Elessedil's words generated these images,\" she insisted. \"Without them, I would have nothing.\"\n\n\"In which case, I would have no further need of either of you, would I?\" he asked. One hand lifted and gestured toward her almost languidly. \"Or need of either of you if he can no longer be trusted to speak the truth, isn't that so?\"\n\nThe echo of his words hung in the air, an indictment she knew she must refute. \"I do not need him to speak the truth in order to interpret my visions,\" she said.\n\nIt was a lie, but it was all she had. She spoke it with conviction and held the warlock's dark gaze even when she could feel the harm he intended her penetrating through to her soul.\n\nAfter a long moment, the Morgawr shrugged. \"Then we must let him live a little longer. We must give him another chance.\"\n\nHe said it convincingly, but she could tell he was lying. He had made up his mind about Ahren as surely as Ahren had made up his mind about her. The Morgawr no longer believed in either of them, she suspected, but particularly in the Elven Prince. He might try using Ahren once more, but then he would surely get rid of him. He had neither time nor patience for recalcitrant prisoners. What he demanded of this land, of its secrets and magic, lay elsewhere. His disenchantment with Ahren would grow, and eventually it would devour them both.\n\nDismissed from his presence without the need for words, she left him and went back on deck. She climbed the stairs at the end of the companionway and walked forward to the bow. With her hands grasping the railing to steady herself, she stared at the horizon, at the vast sweep of mountains and forests, at banks of broken clouds and bands of sunlight. The day was sliding toward nightfall, the light beginning to fade west, the dark to rise east.\n\nShe closed her eyes when her picture of the world was clear in her mind, and she let her thoughts drift. She must do something to save the Elven Prince. She had not believed it would be necessary to act so soon, but it now seemed unavoidable. That she was committed to Walker's plan for the Morgawr did not require committing Ahren, as well. His destiny lay elsewhere, beyond this country and its treacheries, home in the Four Lands, where his blood heritage would serve a different purpose. She had caught a glimmer of it in the visions she had shared with Walker. She knew it from what the Druid had said as he lay dying. She could feel it in her heart.\n\nJust as she could feel with unmistakable certainty the fate that awaited her.\n\nShe breathed slowly and deeply to calm herself, to muster acceptance of what she knew she must do. Walker needed her to mislead the Morgawr, to slow him in his hunt, to buy time for Grianne Ohmsford. It was not something the Druid had asked lightly, \u2014 it was something he had asked out of desperate need and a faith in her abilities. She felt small and frail in the face of such expectations, a child in a girl's body, her womanhood yet so far away that she could not imagine it. Her seer's mind did not allow for growing up in the ways of other women, \u2014 it was her mind that was old. Yet she was capable and determined. She was the Druid's right hand, and he was always with her, lending his strength.\n\nShe held that knowledge to her like a talisman as she made her plans.\n\nWhen nightfall descended, she acted on them.\n\nShe waited until all of the Mwellrets were sleeping, save the watch and the helmsman. Black Moclips sailed through the night skies at a slow, languorous pace, tracking the edge of the coastline north and east as Ryer Ord Star slipped from her makeshift bed in the lee of the aft decking and made her way forward. Aden Kett and his crew stood at their stations, dead eyes staring. She glanced at them as she passed, but her gaze did not linger. It was dangerous to look too closely at your own fate.\n\nThe airship rocked gently in the cradle of night winds blowing out of the west. The chill brought by the storms had not dissipated, and her breath clouded faintly. Below where they flew, where the tips of the mountain peaks brushed the clouds, snow blanketed the barren slopes. The warmth that had greeted them on their arrival into this land was gone, chased inland by some aberration linked to the demise of Antrax. That science had found a way to control the weather seemed incredible to her, but she knew that in the age before the Great Wars there had been many marvelous achievements that had since disappeared from the world. Yet magic had replaced science in the Four Lands. It made her wonder sometimes if the demise of science was for the better or worse. It made her wonder if the place of seers in the world had any real value.\n\nShe reached the open hatchway leading down into the storerooms and descended in shadowy silence, listening for the sounds of the guard who would be on watch below. Walker would not approve of what she was doing. He would have tried to stop her if he had been able. He would have counseled her to remain safe and concentrate on the task he had given her. But Walker saw things through the eyes of a man seeking to achieve in death what he had failed to achieve in life. He was a shade, and his reach beyond the veil was limited. He might know of the Ilse Witch and her role in the destiny of the Four Lands, of the reasons she must escape the Morgawr, and of the path she must take to come back from the place to which her troubled mind had sent her. But Ryer Ord Star only knew that time was slipping away.\n\nThe passageway belowdecks was shadowed, but she made her way easily through its gloom. She heard snores ahead, and she knew the Mwellret watch was sleeping. The potion she had slipped into his evening ale ration earlier had drugged him as thoroughly as anything this side of death. It had not been all that hard to accomplish. The danger lay in another of the rets discovering the guard to be asleep before she could reach Ahren.\n\nAt the door to his storeroom jail, she took possession of the keys from the sleeping ret and released the lock, all the while listening for the sounds of those who would put an end to her undertaking. She said nothing as she opened the door and slipped inside, a wraithlike presence. Ahren rose to face her, hesitating as he realized who it was, not certain what to make of her appearance. He kept silent, though \u2014 harking to the finger she put to her lips and her furtive movements as she came over to release him from his chains. Even in the dim cabin light, she could see the uncertainty and suspicion in his eyes, but there could be no mistaking her actions. Without attempting to intervene, he let her free him and followed her without argument when she was ready to leave, stepping over the sleeping guard where he was sprawled across the passageway, creeping behind her as she moved back toward the stairs leading up. Black Moclips rocked slowly, a cradle for sleeping men and a drowsy watch. The only sounds were those of the ship, the small, familiar stretchings and tightenings of seams and caulk.\n\nThey went up the stairs and emerged behind the helmsman, flattening themselves against the decking, scooting along the shadow of the aft rise and across to the rail. Wordlessly, she slipped over the side and crossed down the narrow gangway to the starboard pontoon, sliding swiftly to the furthest aft fighting port, a six-foot-deep compartment stacked with pieces of sail and sections of cross beam.\n\nCloaked in deep shadows, she moved to where the pontoon curved upward to form the aft starboard battering ram. She felt along the inside of the structure and released a wooden latch hidden in the surface of the hull. Instantly, a panel dropped down on concealed hinges. She reached inside and drew out a framework of flexible poles to which sections of lightweight canvas had been attached.\n\nShe passed the framework and canvas forward to Ahren, where he crouched at the front of the fighting port, then moved up beside him.\n\n\"This is called a single wing,\" she whispered, her head bent close to his, her long silvery hair brushing the side of his face. \"It is a sort of kite, built to fly one man off a failing airship. Redden Alt Mer had it hidden in the hull for emergencies.\" She reached up impulsively and touched his cheek.\n\n\"You never intended to help him, did you?\" the Elven Prince whispered back, relief and happiness reflected in his voice.\n\n\"I had to save your life and mine, as well. That meant giving your identity away. He would have killed you otherwise.\" She took a deep breath. \"He intends to kill you now. He thinks you're of no further use. I can't protect you anymore. You have to get off the ship tonight.\"\n\nHe shook his head at once, gripping her arm. \"Not without you. I won't go without you.\"\n\nHe said it with such vehemence, with such desperate insistence, that it made her want to cry. He had doubted her and was trying to make up for it in the only way he knew. If it was called for, he would give up his life for hers.\n\n\"It isn't time for me to go yet,\" she said. \"I made a promise to Walker to lead the Morgawr astray in his hunt. He thinks I intend to help, but I give him only just enough to keep him believing so. I'll come later.\"\n\nShe saw the uncertainty in his eyes and gestured sharply toward the single wing. \"Quit arguing with me! Take this and go. Now! Unfold it, tie the harness in place, and lean out from the side with the wings extended. Use the bar and straps at the ends to steer. It isn't hard. Here, I'll help.\"\n\nHe shook his head, his eyes wondering. \"How did you know about this?\"\n\n\"Walker told me.\" She began undoing the straps that secured the framework, shaking it loose. \"He learned about it from Big Red. The rets don't know of it. There, it's ready. Climb up on the edge of the pontoon and strap yourself in!\"\n\nHe did as she instructed, still clearly dazed by what was happening, not yet able to think it through completely enough to see its flaws. She just had to get him off the ship and into the air, and then it would be too late. Things would be decided, insofar as she was able to make it so. That was as much as she could manage.\n\n\"You should come now,\" he argued, still trying to find a way to take her with him.\n\nShe shook her head. \"No. Later. Fly inland from the coast when you get further north. Look for a rain forest in the heart of the mountains. That's where the others are, on a cliff overlooking it. My visions showed them to me.\"\n\nHe shrugged into the shoulder harness, and she cinched it tight across his back. She opened the wing frame so that it would catch the wind and showed him the steering bar and control straps. She glanced over her shoulder every few seconds toward the deck above, but the Mwellrets were not yet looking her way.\n\n\"Ryer,\" he began, turning toward her once more.\n\n\"Here,\" she said, reaching into her thin robes and extracting a pouch. She shoved it into his tunic, deep down inside so that it was snugged away. \"The Elfstones,\" she whispered.\n\nHe stared at her in disbelief. \"But how could you have \u2014\"\n\n\"Go!\" she hissed, shoving him off the side of the pontoon and into space.\n\nShe watched the wind catch the canvas and draw the framework taut. She watched the single wing soar out into the darkness. She caught a quick glimpse of the Elven Prince's wondering face, saw the man he had become eclipse the boy she had begun her journey with, and then he was gone.\n\n\"Good-bye, Ahren Elessedil,\" she whispered into the night.\n\nThe words floated on the air feather-light and fading even as she turned away, alone now for good."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "A hand shook his shoulder gently, and Bek Ohmsford stirred awake. \"If you sleep any longer, people will think you're dead,\" a familiar voice said.\n\nHe opened his eyes and blinked against the sunlight pouring out of the midday sky. Rue Meridian moved into the light, blocking it away, and stared down at him, a hint of irony in the faint twist of her pursed lips. Just seeing her warmed him in a way the sun never could and made him smile in turn.\n\n\"I feel like I'm dead,\" he said. He lay stretched out on the deck of the Jerle Shannara, cocooned in blankets. He took in the railings of the airship and the mast jutting skyward overhead as he gathered his thoughts. \"How long have I been asleep?\"\n\n\"Since this time yesterday. How do you feel?\"\n\nHis memories of the past week flooded back as he considered the question. His flight out of Castledown with Grianne and Truls Rohk. Their struggle to escape the pursuit of the Morgawr and his creatures. The battle with the caull. Truls, dying. Their encounter with the shape-shifters and the lifesaving transformation of his friend. Climbing with Grianne into the mountains, trusting that they would somehow find their way. Finding Quentin after so long, a miracle made possible because of a promise made to a dead man.\n\nAnd then, when it seemed the mountains would swallow them whole, another miracle, as Hunter Predd, searching for the Jerle Shannara's lost children, plucked them off the precipice and carried them away.\n\n\"I feel better than I did when I was brought here,\" Bek said. He took a deep, satisfying breath. \"I feel better than I have in a long time.\" He took a good look at her, noting the raw marks on her face and the splint on her left arm. \"What happened to you? Been wrestling with moor cats again?\"\n\nShe cocked her head. \"Maybe.\"\n\n\"You're hurt.\"\n\n\"Cuts and bruises. A broken arm and a few broken ribs. Nothing that won't heal.\" She punched him lightly. \"I could have used your help.\"\n\n\"I could have used yours.\"\n\n\"Missed me, did you?\"\n\nShe tossed the question out casually, as if his answer didn't mean anything. But he knew it did. For just an instant he was convinced it meant everything, that she wanted him to tell her she was important to him in a way that went beyond friendship. It was an improbable and foolish notion, but he couldn't shake it. Anyway, he liked the idea and didn't question it.\n\n\"Okay, I missed you,\" he said.\n\n\"Good.\" She bent down suddenly and kissed his lips. It was just a quick brush followed by a touching of his cheek with, her fingers, and then she lifted away again. \"I missed you, too. Know why?\"\n\nHe stared at her. \"No.\"\n\n\"I didn't think so. I only just figured it out for myself. Maybe with enough time, you will, too. You're pretty good at figuring things out, even for a boy.\" She gave him an ironic, mocking smile, but it wasn't meant to hurt and it didn't. \"I hear you can do magic. I hear you're not who you thought you were. Life is full of surprises.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to explain?\"\n\n\"If you want to.\"\n\n\"I do. But first I want you to tell me how you got all beat up. I want to hear what happened.\"\n\n\"This,\" she said sardonically, and she gestured at the airship. \"This and a lot of other catastrophes.\"\n\nHe lifted himself on one elbow and looked around. The Jerle Shannara's decks stretched away in a jumble of makeshift patches and unfinished repairs. A new mast had been cut and shaped and set in place, he could tell from the new wood and fresh metal banding. Railings had been spliced in and damaged planks in the hull and decks replaced. Radian draws hung limply from cross beams and sails lay half mended. No one was in sight.\n\n\"They've deserted us,\" she advised, as if reading his thoughts.\n\nHe could hear voices nearby, faint and indistinguishable. \"How long have you been here?\"\n\n\"Almost a week.\"\n\nHe blinked in disbelief. \"You can't fly?\"\n\n\"Can't get off the ground at all.\"\n\n\"So we're trapped. How many of us are left?\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"A handful. Big Red, Black Beard, the Highlander, you, and me. Three of the crew. The two Wing Riders. Panax and an Elven Hunter. The Wing Riders found them yesterday, not too far from here, with a tribe of natives called Rindge. They're camped at the top of the bluff.\"\n\n\"Ahren?\" he asked.\n\nShe shook her head. \"Nor the seer. Nor anyone else who went ashore. They're all dead or lost.\" She looked away. \"The Wing Riders are still searching, but so are those airships with their rets and walking dead. It's dangerous to fly anywhere in these mountains now. Not that we could, even if we wanted to.\"\n\nHe looked at the airship, then back at her. \"Where's Grianne? Is she all right?\"\n\nThe smile faded from Rue Meridian's face. \"Grianne? Oh, yes, your missing sister. She's down below, in Big Red's cabin, staring at nothing. She's good at that.\"\n\nHe held her gaze. \"I know that \u2014\"\n\n\"You don't know anything,\" she interrupted, her voice oddly breezy. \"Not one thing.\" She pushed back loose strands of her long red hair, and he could see the dangerous look in her green eyes. \"I never thought I would find myself in a position where I would have to keep that creature alive, let alone look after her. I would have put a knife to her throat and been done with it, but you were raving so loudly about keeping her safe that I didn't have much of a choice.\"\n\n\"I appreciate what you've done.\"\n\nHer lips tightened. \"Just tell me you have a good reason for all this. Just tell me that.\"\n\n\"I have a reason,\" he said. \"I don't know yet how good it is.\"\n\nBek told her everything then, all that had happened since he had left the Jerle Shannara weeks earlier and gone inland with Walker and the shore party. Some she already knew, because Quentin had told her. Some she had suspected. She had guessed at his imprisonment aboard Black Moclips and subsequent escape, but she had not realized the true reason for either. She was skeptical and angry with him, refusing at first to listen to his reasons for saving his sister, shouting at him that it didn't matter, that saving her was wrong, that she was responsible for all the deaths suffered by the company, especially Hawk's.\n\nRue told Bek her story then, relating the details of her imprisonment along with the other Rovers by the witch and her followers, and of her escape and battle aboard the Jerle Shannara, where Hawk had given his life to save hers. She told him of her struggle to regain control of the ship and the freeing of her brother. She told him of her search for Walker and the missing company, which led in turn to her regaining possession of Black Moclips and fleeing inland toward the safety of the mountains as the fleet of enemy airships pursued her. She told her story in straightforward fashion, making no effort to embellish her part in things, diminishing it, if anything.\n\nHe listened patiently, trying with small gestures to encourage and support, but she was having none of it. She hated Grianne to such an extent that she could find no forgiveness in her heart. That she had kept his sister alive at all spoke volumes about her affection for him. Losing Furl Hawken had been a terrible blow, and she held Grianne directly responsible. Rue Meridian refused to let Bek sit by passively, turning her anger and disappointment back on him, insisting that he respond to it. He did so as best he could, even though he was not comfortable doing so. So much had happened to both of them in such a short time that there was no coming to grips with all of it, no making sense of it in a way that would afford either of them any measure of peace. Both had suffered too many losses and were seeking comfort that required different responses from what each was willing to provide. Where the Ilse Witch was concerned, there could be no agreement.\n\nFinally, Bek put up his hands. \"I can't argue this anymore, not right now. It hurts too much to argue with you.\"\n\nShe snorted derisively. \"It hurts you, maybe. Not me. I don't bruise so easily. Anyway, you owe me a little consideration. You owe me a chance to tell you what I think about your sister! You owe it to me to share some of what I feel!\"\n\n\"I'm doing the best I can.\"\n\nShe reached down suddenly and hauled him all the way out of the blankets and shook him hard. \"No, you're not! I don't want you to just sit there! I don't want you to just listen! I want you to do something! Don't you know that?\"\n\nHer red hair had shaken loose of its headband and strands of it were wrapped about her face like tiny threads of blood. \"Don't you know anything?\"\n\nHer eyes had gone wild and reckless, and she seemed on the verge of doing something desperate. She stopped shaking him, instead gripping his shoulders so tightly he could feel her nails through his clothing. She was trying to speak, to say something more, but couldn't seem to make herself do so.\n\n\"I'm sorry about Hawk,\" he whispered. \"I'm sorry it was Grianne. But she didn't know. She doesn't know anything. She's like a child, locked away in her mind, frightened of coming out again. Don't you see, Rue? She had to face up to what she is all at once. That's what the magic of the Sword of Shannara does to you. She had to accept that she was this terrible creature, this monster, and she didn't even know it. Her whole life has been filled with lies and deceits and treacheries. I don't know \u2014 she may never be made whole.\"\n\nRue Meridian stared at him as if he were someone she had never seen. There were tears in her eyes and a look of such anguish on her face that he was stunned.\n\n\"I'm tired, Bek,\" she whispered back. \"I haven't even thought about it until now. I haven't had time for that. I haven't taken time.\" She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. \"Look at me.\"\n\nHe did so, having never looked away, in truth, but giving her what she needed, trying to find a way to help her recover. He said, \"I just want you to try to...\"\n\n\"Put your arms around me, Bek,\" she said.\n\nHe did so without hesitation, holding her against him, feeling her body press close. She began to cry, soundlessly, her shoulders shaking and her wet face pushing into the crook of his shoulder and neck. She cried for a long time, and he held her while she did, running his hand over her strong back in small circular motions, trying to give some measure of comfort and reassurance. It was so out of character for her to behave like this, so different from anything he had seen from her before, that it took him until she was finished to accept that it was really happening.\n\nShe brushed what remained of the tears from her face and composed herself with a small shrug. \"I didn't know I had that in me.\" She looked at him. \"Don't tell anyone.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I wouldn't do that. You know I wouldn't.\"\n\n\"I know. But I had to say it.\" She stared at him a moment, again with that sense of not knowing exactly who he was, of perhaps meeting him for the first time. \"My brother and the others are down at the edge of the bluff, talking. We can join them when you're ready.\"\n\nHe climbed to his feet, reaching for his boots. \"Talking about what?\"\n\n\"About what it's going to take to get us out of here.\"\n\n\"What is it going to take?\"\n\n\"A miracle,\" she said.\n\nRedden Alt Mer stood at the edge of the cliff face and stared down at the canopy of the Crake Rain Forest, very much the same way he had stared down at it for the previous five days. Nothing at all had changed during that time, save for the level of his frustration, which was rapidly becoming unmanageable. He had considered and reconsidered every option he could think of that would let him bypass the Graak and retrieve the diapson crystals they needed to get airborne again. But each option involved unacceptable risks and little chance of success, so he would toss it aside in despair, only to pick it up and reexamine it when he decided that every other alternative was even worse.\n\nAll the while, time was slipping away. They hadn't been discovered by the airships of the Morgawr yet, but sooner or later they would be. One had passed close enough yesterday for them to identify its dark silhouette from the ground, and even though they hadn't been spotted on that pass they likely would be on the next. If Hunter Predd and Po Kelles were right, there were only one or two this deep into the Aleuthra Ark; the bulk of the fleet was still searching for them out on the coast. When that effort failed to turn them up, the fleet would sail inland. If that happened and they were still grounded, they were finished.\n\nStill, for the first time since the Jerle Shannara had crashed, he had reason to hope.\n\nHe glanced over at Quentin Leah. The Highlander was staring down into the Crake with a puzzled look on his lean, battle-damaged face. The look was a reflection of his inability to imagine what waited down there, having not as yet seen the Graak. No one had, except for himself. That was part of the problem, of course. He knew what they were up against, and although the others \u2014 Rovers and newcomers alike \u2014 might be willing to go down into the rain forest and face it, he was not. What had happened to Tian Cross and Rucker Bont was still fresh in his mind. He did not care to risk losing more lives. He did not want any more deaths on his conscience.\n\nIt was more than that, though. He could admit it to himself, if to no one else. He was afraid. It had been a long time \u2014 so long he could not remember the last occasion \u2014 since he had been frightened of anything. But he was frightened of the Graak. He felt it in his blood. He smelled it on his skin. It visited him in his dreams and brought him awake wide-eyed and shaking. He could not rid himself of it. Watching his men die, seeing them go down under the teeth and claws of that monster, feeling his own death so close to him that he could imagine his bones and blood spattered all over the valley floor, had unnerved him. Though he tried to tell himself his fear was only temporary and would give way to his experience and determination, he could not be sure.\n\nHe knew the only way to rid himself of this feeling was to go down into the Crake and face the Graak.\n\nHe was about to do that.\n\n\"I won't ask you to go with me,\" he said to Quentin Leah without looking at him.\n\n\"He won't ask, but he'll make it plain enough that he expects it,\" Spanner Frew snorted. \"And then he'll find a why to make you end up thinking it was your idea!\"\n\nAlt Mer gave the shipwright a dark look, then smirked in spite of himself. Something about the other amused him even now \u2014 the perpetually dour look, the furrowed brow, the cantankerous attitude, something. Spanner Frew always saw the glass as half-empty, and he was ready and more than willing to share his worldview with anyone close enough to listen.\n\n\"Keep your opinions to yourself, Black Beard,\" he said, brushing a fly from his face. \"Others don't find them so amusing. The Highlander is free to do as he chooses, as are all of us in this business.\"\n\nQuentin Leah was looking better this morning, less ghostly and wooden than the day before when he was brought in with Bek and the witch. Alt Mer was still getting used to the idea of having her around, but he wasn't having as much trouble with it as his sister. Little Red hated the witch, and she was not likely to forgive her anytime soon for Hawk's death. Maybe having Bek back would help, though. She'd been upset at the thought of losing him, more so than by anything for a long time. He didn't understand the affection she felt for Bek, but was quick enough to recognize it for what it was.\n\nHe sighed. At any rate, there were more of them now than there had been three days ago, after Rucker and Tian had died. Down to only six, the Rovers had seen their numbers strengthened since. The Wing Riders had reappeared first, flying out of the clouds on a blustery day in which rain had soaked everything for nearly twelve hours. After that, Po Kelles had found Panax, the Elven Hunter Kian, and those odd-looking reddish people they called Rindge. It had taken the Rindge another two days of travel to reach them, but now they were camped several miles east in a forested flat high in the mountains, concealed from searchers while they waited to see what would happen down here.\n\nTheir leader, the man Panax called Obat, was the one who told them that the valley was called the Crake. He knew about the thing that lived there, as well. Obat hadn't seen it, but when Panax brought him down to talk, and Alt Mer described it, he recognized it right away. He had gotten so excited that it looked as if he might bolt. Hand gestures and a flurry of words that even Panax had trouble translating testified to the extent of Obat's fear. It was clear that whatever anyone else did, neither Obat nor any other Rindge was going near whatever was down there \u2014 \"A Graak,\" Obat told Panax over and over again. The rest of what he said had something to do with the nature of the beast, of its invincibility and domination of mountain valleys like the Crake, where it preyed on creatures who were foolish or unwary enough to venture too close.\n\nKnowing what it was didn't help solve the problem, because Obat had no idea what they could do about the thing. Graaks were to be avoided, never confronted. His information did not aid Alt Mer in any measurable way. If anything, it further convinced him of his helplessness. What was needed was magic of the sort possessed by Walker.\n\nOr by Quentin Leah perhaps, in the form of his sword, a weapon that had been effective against the creepers of Antrax.\n\nBut he could not say anything more to persuade the Highlander to help. If anything, he should advise against it. But then he would have to go into the Crake alone, and he did not think he could do that. Though he was a brave man, his courage had eroded so completely that he felt sick to his stomach even getting close enough to look down into the rain forest. He had concealed his fear from everyone, but it was there nevertheless \u2014 pervasive, inescapable, and debilitating. He couldn't confess it, especially to Little Red. It wasn't that she wouldn't understand or try to help. It was the look he knew he would see in her eyes. He was the brother on whom she had always relied and in whom she took such pride. He could not bear it if she found out that he had run away while his men were dying.\n\nThe Highlander looked over at him. \"All right, I'll go.\"\n\nBig Red exhaled slowly, keeping his face expressionless.\n\n\"I'll go,\" Quentin Leah continued, \"but Bek stays. Whatever magic he's got is new to him, and he doesn't have the experience with it that I do. I won't risk his life.\"\n\nWhatever magic the Highlander possessed was pretty new to him, too, from what the Druid had told Alt Mer. Still, he wasn't about to argue the matter. He would take whatever help he was offered if it meant getting his hands on the diapson crystals. He didn't know what they had accomplished by coming here in the first place, but he didn't think it was much. Mostly, they had succeeded in getting a lot of their friends killed, which was hardly a reason for going anywhere. You didn't have to come all the way here to get killed. His frustration with matters surfaced once more. He would do anything to get out of this place.\n\nBefore he could respond to the Highlander, Rue and Bek Ohmsford walked out of the trees from one side and Panax, having gone off earlier to try to find an easier way down the cliff face, appeared from the other.\n\n\"Morning, young Bek!\" the Dwarf shouted cheerfully on spying him. A grin spread across his square, bluff face, and he gave a wave of one hand. \"Back among the living, I see! You look much better today!\"\n\nBek waved back. \"You look about the same, but that's not something sleep will cure!\"\n\nThey came together at the cliff edge with Spanner Frew, Quentin, and Alt Mer and clasped hands. The Highlander's face had gone dark as he realized what was about to happen and knew he couldn't prevent it. Alt Mer gave a mental shrug. Some things couldn't be helped. At least his sister seemed composed again. Almost radiant. He stared at her in surprise, but she wouldn't look at him.\n\n\"I've scouted the cliff edge all the way out and back,\" Panax informed them, oblivious to the Highlander's look of warning. \"There's a trail further on, not much of one, but enough to give us a way down that doesn't involve ropes. It opens onto a flat, so we'll be able to see what's waiting much better than Big Red could when he dropped into the trees.\"\n\nHe glanced at Bek. \"I forgot. You just woke up. You don't know what's happened.\"\n\n\"About the Graak and the crystals?\" Bek asked. \"I know. I heard all about it on the walk down. When do we leave?\"\n\n\"No!\" Rue Meridian wheeled on him furiously. \"You're not going! You're not healed yet!\"\n\n\"She's right,\" Quentin Leah said, glaring at his cousin. \"What's wrong with you? I just spent weeks worrying that you were dead! I'm not going through that again! You stay up here. Big Red and I can handle this.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute,\" Panax growled. \"What about me?\"\n\n\"You're not going either!\" Quentin snapped. \"Two of us is enough to risk.\"\n\nThe Dwarf cocked one eyebrow. \"Have you suddenly gotten so much better at staying alive than the rest of us?\"\n\nBek glared at Quentin. \"What makes you think you have the right to decide if I go or not? I decide what's right for me, not you! Why would I agree to stay up here? What about our promise to look out for each other?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm going if you're going!\" Rue Meridian spat out the words defiantly. \"I'm the one who's done the best job of looking out for everyone so far! You're not leaving me behind! No one's leaving me!\" She shifted her angry gaze from one to the next. \"Which one of you wants to try to stop me?\"\n\nThey were face-to-face now, all of them, so angry they could barely make themselves stop shouting long enough to hear what anyone else was saying. Spanner Frew was quiet, his dark face lowered to hide the grin on his lips, his head shaking slowly from side to side. Alt Mer listened in dismay, wondering when to step in and if it would make any difference if he did.\n\nFinally, he'd heard enough. \"Stop shouting!\" he roared.\n\nThey quit arguing and looked at him, faces red and sweating in the midday heat.\n\nHe shook his head slowly. \"The Druid is dead, so I command this expedition. Both aboard ship and off. That means I decide who goes.\"\n\nHis eyes settled momentarily on Bek \u2014 Bek, who looked taller and stronger than he remembered, more mature. He wasn't a boy anymore, the Rover Captain realized in surprise. When had that happened? He glanced quickly at his sister, suddenly seeing things in a new light. She was staring at him as if she wanted to jump down his throat.\n\nHe looked away again quickly, out over the valley, out to where his fears were centered. He wondered again why he had come all this way. Money? Yes, that was a part of the agreement. But there had been a need to escape the Prekkendorran and the Federation, as well. There had been a need to see a new country, to journey to somewhere he hadn't been. There had been a need for renewal.\n\n\"There's not that many of us left,\" he said, more quietly now. \"Just a handful, and we have to look out for each other. Arguing is a waste of time and energy. Only one thing is important, and that's getting back into the skies and flying out of here.\"\n\nHe didn't wait for their response. \"Little Red, you stay here. If anything happens to me, you're the only one who can fly the Jerle Shannara home again. Bek might try, but he doesn't know how to navigate. Besides, you're all beat up. Broken ribs, broken arm \u2014 if you have to defend yourself down there, you'll be in trouble. I don't want to have to worry about saving you. So you stay.\"\n\nShe was furious. \"You're worried about saving me? Who was it who got you out of the Federation prison? Who was it who...\"\n\n\"Rue.\"\n\n\"... got Black Moclips back from the rets and would have kept her, too, with just a little help? What about Black Beard? Standing there with his head down and his mouth shut, hoping no one will remember he can sail an airship just as well as I can! Don't say a word about it, Spanner! Don't say anything that might help me!\"\n\n\"Rue.\"\n\n\"No! It isn't fair! He can navigate just as well as I can! You can't tell me not to go just because I \u2014\"\n\n\"Rue!\" His voice would have melted iron. \"Four of us are risk enough. You stay.\"\n\n\"Then Bek stays with me! He's injured, too!\"\n\nAlt Mer stared at her. What was she talking about? Bek wasn't her concern. \"Not like you. Besides, we might need his magic.\"\n\nShe glared at him for a moment, and he could see she was on the verge of breaking down. He had never seen her do that, never even seen her come close. For a moment, he reconsidered his decision, realizing that something about this was more important than what her words were telling him.\n\nBut before he could say anything, she wheeled away and stalked back toward the airship, rigid with anger and frustration. \"Fine!\" she shouted over her shoulder. \"Do what you want! You're all fools!\"\n\nHe watched her disappear into the trees, thinking that was that, there was nothing he could do about it. Anyway, his next confrontation was already at hand. If Rue Meridian was angry, Quentin Leah was livid. \"I told you I wouldn't go if Bek went! Did you think I didn't mean it?\" He could barely bring himself to speak. \"Tell him he can't go, Big Red. Tell him, or I'm not going.\"\n\nBek started to speak, but Alt Mer held up his hand to silence him. \"I can't do that, Highlander. I'm sorry things didn't work out the way you wanted, but I can't change that, so threats are meaningless. Bek has the right to decide for himself what he wants to do. So do you. If you don't want to go, you don't have to.\"\n\nThere was a long silence as the Rover and the Highlander stared each other down. There was a dangerous edge to Quentin Leah, as if nothing much mattered to him anymore. Alt Mer couldn't know what Quentin had gone through to get clear of Castledown and find them, but it must have been horrendous and it had left him scarred.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Highlander,\" he said, not knowing what he was sorry about, save for the look he saw in the other's eyes.\n\n\"Quentin,\" Bek interjected quietly, laying one hand on his shoulder. \"Don't let's argue like this.\"\n\n\"You can't go, Bek.\"\n\n\"Of course I can. I have to. We promised to look out for each other from here on, remember? We made that promise only a day or so ago. That meant something to me. It should mean something to you. This is when we have to make it count. Please.\"\n\nQuentin stayed silent for a moment, looking so desperate that Alt Mer wouldn't have been surprised at anything he did. Then Quentin shook his head and put his hand over Bek's. \"All right. I don't like it, but all right. We'll both go.\"\n\nThey stood looking at each another for a moment, aware that Quentin's words had made final their commitment to undertake a task that on balance was far too dangerous even to consider. Yet it was only the latest in a long line, and their decision to take this one, as well, no longer had the edge to it that it might have had once. Gambling with their lives had become commonplace.\n\n\"We'll need a plan,\" Panax said.\n\nBig Red glanced over his shoulder in search of his sister. She was out of sight now, and he wished suddenly that they hadn't left things as they had between them.\n\n\"I have one,\" he said.\n\nThe Dwarf stared down into the leafy depths of the Crake. \"When do we do this?\"\n\nAlt Mer considered. The sun had eased westward, but most of the afternoon light still remained, and the sky was clear. It would not get dark for hours.\n\n\"We do it now,\" he said."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "Quentin Leah was not in the least mollified by Big Red's and Bek's attempts to justify Bek's foolhardy decision to brave the Graak. It did not matter what reasoning they used, the Highlander could not help feeling that this would end badly. He knew it wasn't his place to tell Bek not to come with them. He knew that none of them thought him any better qualified than they were to judge the nature of the danger they would face. If anyone had the right to do so, in fact, it was Redden Alt Mer, who had already done battle with the creature and lived to tell about it.\n\nNevertheless, Quentin saw himself as the one they should listen to. Panax and Alt Mer were both battle-tested and experienced in the Four Lands, but neither had survived the challenges in Parkasia that he had. He knew more of this world than they did. He had a better feel for it. More to the point, he had the use of magic that they did not, which in all probability was going to make the difference between whether they lived or died.\n\nBek had magic, too, but he had used it sparingly and only on creepers \u2014 on things metal and impersonal \u2014 and he had not done all that much of that. Mostly, he had gotten through because he'd had Truls Rohk to protect him and Walker to advise him. He had not fought against something like the Graak. It was not going to be the same experience for him, and Quentin wasn't at all sure his cousin was ready for it.\n\nAs they made their way along the bluff toward the pathway into the valley, he trailed the others, stewing in silence and thinking about what they were going to do and how best to protect them while they were doing it. If Big Red and two of his most seasoned Rovers had been dispatched so easily, there wasn't much hope that things would change without help from the Sword of Leah. He would use it, of course. He would employ it as he had against the Ard Patrinell wronk. Maybe it would even be enough. But he wasn't sure. He had no idea how strong the Graak was. He knew it was bigger than anything he had ever encountered in the Highlands, and that was cause enough for concern. He could not be certain how well his talisman would protect them until he saw for himself what he was up against. As with all magic, the effectiveness of the sword depended on the strength of the user \u2014 not only physical, but emotional, as well. Once, he had thought himself equal to anything. He had felt the power of the magic race through him like fire, and he hadn't thought there was anything he couldn't overcome.\n\nHe knew better now. He knew there were limits to everything, even the euphoric rush of the magic's summoning and the infusion of its power. Events and losses had drained him of his confidence. He had fought too long and too often to feel eager about this. He was bone-weary and sick at heart. He had watched those around him die too quickly, more often than not helpless to prevent it. He mourned them still \u2014 Tamis and Ard Patrinell, in particular. Their faces haunted him with a persistence that time and acceptance had failed to diminish.\n\nPerhaps that was the problem here, he thought. He was afraid of losing someone else he cared about. Bek, certainly, but Redden Alt Mer and Panax, as well. He did not think he could bear that. Not after what he had been through these past few weeks. Bek and he had agreed only a day ago that they must look out for each other as they had promised, that they needed to do so if they were to get home again safely. But the truth of the matter was that he was the one who should be shouldering the larger share of the burden. He was the older and more experienced. He was physically and emotionally tougher than Bek. It might be true that Bek's magic was the stronger, \u2014 Tamis had made it sound as if it was. But it was the strength of the user that mattered. Although Bek had gotten the Jerle Shannara through the Squirm and had managed to get control of his sister, neither of those achievements was going to help him in a confrontation with the Graak.\n\nQuentin did not deceive himself into thinking that his own strength would prove sufficient for what lay ahead. He thought only that of the two, he had the better chance of getting the job done.\n\nBut there was no way of convincing his three companions that this was so, especially Bek, so he would have to do what he could in spite of them. That meant putting himself at the forefront of whatever danger they encountered and giving the others a chance to escape when escape was the only reasonable option.\n\nGiven the nature of the plan that Big Red had devised, Quentin did not think it would be that difficult for him to arrange. They needed only to get close enough to the crate of diapson crystals to get three or four of them in hand. More would be better, but if recovery of just those few was all they could manage, that would be sufficient. Three would get the Jerle Shannara airborne once more. A lack of spares might prove a problem later on, but staying alive in the here and now was a much bigger and more immediate concern.\n\nSo the four would make for the clearing where the crate lay waiting, searching as they went for any sign of the Graak. With luck, it would have gone elsewhere by now, lured away by its need for food or by some other attraction. If it was gone, this would be easy. If it was lying in wait, then it was up to Quentin and Bek to slow it down long enough for Big Red and Panax to gather up the crystals and regain the trail leading up. Bek had only the magic of the wishsong to rely on, and he was honest enough to admit he was not certain of his command of it, or of its effectiveness. That meant Quentin, who was sure where the Sword of Leah was concerned, was the front line of defense for all of them.\n\nWith that in mind, and unable to press further his demand that his cousin remain behind, he had at least managed to persuade him to stay a few paces back on their advance into the rain forest to give Quentin room to intervene if they were attacked.\n\nNone of which changed the fact that he was feeling much the same way he had felt going into the ruins at Castledown. There had to be more to this business of the Graak than he was seeing. He was missing something. He didn't know what it was, but he knew it was there. His hunting skills and instincts were screaming at him that he was overlooking something obvious.\n\nThey reached the trailhead and started down. The valley swept away below them, a vast carpet of leaves and vines, all tangled in a profusion of greens and browns. From high up, the jungle had the appearance of a bottomless swamp where the unwary could sink and be lost with a single misstep. Even as they descended the switchback trail, Quentin experienced the sense of being swallowed.\n\nHalfway down, Redden Alt Mer stopped and turned back to them. \"We are a pretty good distance away from where we have to go,\" he advised quietly. \"This trail leads us further away from the crystals than the other. When we get to the valley floor, we'll have to backtrack. We'll stick close to the base of the cliff before starting into the trees.\" He pointed. \"Over there, that's about where the crystals were when I was down here before. So we'll turn in where that big tree leans against the cliff face.\"\n\nNo one said anything in response. There was nothing to say.\n\nThey started ahead once more, working their way carefully down the narrow pathway, pressing back against the rock to keep their footing, grasping scrub and grasses for balance. It was difficult going for Quentin because he was wearing his sword strapped across his back and the tip kept snagging on roots and branches. Alt Mer carried a short sword, and Bek carried nothing at all. Only Panax bore a more cumbersome weight in the form of his huge mace, but his squat, stocky form allowed him to better manage the task. Quentin suddenly wished he had thought to bring a bow and arrows, something he could strike out with from a distance. But it was too late to do anything about it now.\n\nOn the valley floor, they angled back along the base of the cliff, moving swiftly and silently through the tall grasses and around trees that grew close against the rocks. The terrain was still open, not yet overgrown by the rain forest, and Quentin could see through the trees for several hundred yards. He watched closely for anything that seemed out of place. But nothing moved and everything pretty much looked like it belonged. The Crake was a wall of foliage that concealed everything in its mottled pattern. Sunlight sprayed its vines and branches in thin streamers, but failed to penetrate with any success. Shadows lay over everything, layered in dusky tones, moving and shifting with the passing of the clouds overhead. It was impossible to be certain what they were seeing. They would be on top of anything hiding out there before they realized what it was.\n\nThey had gone some distance when Big Red held up one hand and pointed into the trees. This was where they would leave the shelter of the cliff wall. Ahead, the trees grew in thick clumps and the vines twisted about them like ropes. Clearings opened at sporadic intervals, large enough to admit something of size. On looking closer, Quentin could see that some of the trees had been pushed aside.\n\nAlt Mer led with Quentin following close behind, Bek third, and Panax trailing. They worked their way in a loose line through a morass of earthy smells and green color, the dampness in the air rising off the soggy earth with the heat, the silence deep and oppressive. No birds flew here. No animals slipped through the shadows. There were insects that buzzed and hummed, and nothing more. Shadows draped the way forward and the way back with the light touch of a snake's tongue. Quentin's uneasiness grew. Nothing about the Crake felt right. They were out of their element, intruders who didn't belong and fair game for whatever lived here.\n\nLess than ten minutes later, they found the remains of one of the Rovers who had come down with Alt Mer six days before. His body lay sprawled among shattered trees and flattened grasses. Little remained but head, bones, and some skin, \u2014 the flesh had been largely eaten away. Most of his clothing was missing. His face was twisted into a grimace of unspeakable horror and pain, a mask bereft of humanity. They went past the dead man quickly, eyes averted.\n\nThen Big Red brought them to a halt, hand raising quickly in warning. Ahead, a crate lay broken open, slats sticking skyward like bones. Quentin could not make out the contents, but assumed they were the diapson crystals. He looked around guardedly, testing the air and the feel of the jungle, searching out any predator that might lie in wait. He had learned to do this in the Highlands as a child, a sensory reading of the larger world that transcended what most men and women could manage. He took his time, casting about in all directions, trying to open himself to what might lie hidden.\n\nNothing.\n\nBut his instincts warned him to be careful, and he knew better than to discount them. Tamis was better at this than I am, he thought. If she were here, she would see what I am missing.\n\nRedden Alt Mer motioned for them to stay where they were, and he stepped from the trees into the clearing and started for the crystals. He moved steadily, but cautiously, and Quentin watched his eyes shift from place to place. The Highlander scanned the jungle wall.\n\nStill nothing.\n\nWhen he reached the remains of the crate, the Rover Captain signaled over his shoulder for the others to join him. Spreading out, they moved across the clearing in a crouch. Quentin and Panax had their weapons drawn, ready for use. When they reached Alt Mer, Panax knelt to help the Rover extract the crystals while Quentin and Bek stood watch. The jungle was a silent green wall, but Quentin felt hidden eyes watching. He glanced at Bek. His cousin seemed oddly calm, almost at peace. Sweat glistened on his forehead, but it was from the heat. He held himself erect, head lifted, eyes casting about the concealment of the trees in a steady sweep.\n\nAlt Mer had extracted two of the crystals and was working on a third when a low hiss sounded from somewhere back in the trees. All four men froze, staring in the direction of the sound. The hiss came again, closer, deeper, and with it came the sound of something moving purposefully.\n\n\"Quick,\" Alt Mer said, handing two of the crystals to Panax. The crystals were less than two feet long, but they were heavy. Panax grunted with the weight of his load as he started away. Big Red extracted the fourth crystal from the crate, making more noise than he intended, but unwilling to work more slowly. The hiss sounded again, closer still. Something was approaching.\n\nWith two crystals cradled in his arms, Big Red backed across the clearing, eyes on the jungle wall. Quentin Leah and Bek flanked him, the Highlander motioning for his cousin to fall back, his cousin ignoring him. The tops of the trees were shaking now, as if a wind had risen to stir them. Quentin had no illusions. The Graak was coming.\n\nThey had gained the shelter of a stand of cedar ringed by scrub brush, perhaps a dozen feet beyond the edge of the clearing, when the monster emerged. It pushed through the trees and vines with a sudden surge, a massive dragon weighing thousands of pounds and measuring more than fifty feet in length. Its body was the color of the jungle and glistened dully where the sunlight reflected off its slick hide. Horns and spikes jutted in clusters from its head and spine, and a thick wattle of skin hung from its throat. Claws the size of forearms dug into the dank earth, and rows of teeth flashed when its tongue snaked from its maw.\n\nSquatting on four stubby, powerful legs, the Graak swung its spiky head left and right in search of what had caught its attention. Alt Mer froze in place, and Quentin and Bek followed his lead. Perhaps the creature wouldn't see them.\n\nThe Graak cast about aimlessly, then began to sniff the ground, long tail thrashing against the foliage. Quentin held his breath. This thing was huge. He had felt how the ground trembled when it lumbered out of the trees. He had seen how it shouldered past those massive hardwoods as if they were deadwood. If they had to do battle with it, they were in a world of trouble.\n\nThe Graak lumbered up to the crystals and sniffed at them, then put one massive foot atop the crate and crushed it. Hissing again, it turned away from them, searching the trees in the opposite direction.\n\nAlt Mer caught Quentin's attention. Now, he mouthed silently.\n\nSlowly, carefully, they began to inch their way backwards. Bek, seeing what they were attempting, did the same. Turned away, sniffing the wind, the Graak remained unaware of them. Don't trip, Quentin thought to himself. Don't stumble. The jungle was so silent he could hear the sound of his own breathing.\n\nThe Graak turned back again, its blunt snout swinging slowly about. As one, they froze. They were far enough back in the trees that they could barely see the creature's head above the tall grasses. Perhaps it couldn't see them either.\n\nThe reptilian eyes lidded, and the long tongue flicked out. It studied the jungle a moment more, then turned and shambled back the way it had come. Within seconds, it was gone.\n\nWhen it was clear to all that it was not coming back right away, they started swiftly through the trees. Quentin was astonished. He had thought they had no chance of escaping undetected. His every instinct had warned against it. Yet somehow the creature had failed to spy them out, and now they were within minutes of reaching the cliff wall and beginning the climb back out.\n\nThey caught up with Panax, who was not all that far ahead yet. The Dwarf nodded wordlessly.\n\n\"That was close!\" Bek whispered with a grin.\n\n\"Don't talk about it,\" Quentin said.\n\n\"You thought it had us,\" the other persisted.\n\nQuentin shot him an angry glance. He didn't like talking about luck. It had a way of turning around on you when you did.\n\n\"Back home,\" Bek said, breathing heavily from his exertion, \"if it was a boar, say, we would have looked for the mate, too.\"\n\nQuentin almost stumbled as he turned quickly to look at him. The mate? \"No,\" he whispered, realizing what he had missed, fear ripping through him. He pushed ahead of Bek, running now to catch up to Redden Alt Mer and Panax. \"Big Red!\" he hissed sharply. \"Wait!\"\n\nAt the sound of his name, the Rover came about, causing the Dwarf to slow and turn, as well, which probably saved both their lives. In the next instant, a second Graak charged out of the trees ahead and bore down on them.\n\nThere was no time to stop and think about what to do. There was only time to respond, and Quentin Leah was already in motion when the attack came. Never breaking stride, he flew past Big Red and Panax, the Sword of Leah lifted and gripped in both hands. The magic was already surging down the blade to the handle and into his hands and arms. He went right at the Graak, flinging himself past the snapping jaws as they reached for him, rolling beneath its belly and coming back to his feet to thrust the sword deep into its side. The magic flared in an explosion of light and surged into the Graak. The monster hissed in pain and rage and twisted about to get its teeth into its attacker. But Quentin, who had learned something about fighting larger creatures in his battles with the creepers and the Patrinell wronk, sidestepped the attack, scrambled out of the Graak's line of sight, and struck at it again, this time severing a tendon in the creature's hind leg. Again the Graak swung about, tearing at the earth with its claws, dragging its damaged rear leg like a club, its tail lashing out wildly.\n\n\"Run!\" Bek yelled to Panax and Big Red.\n\nThey did so at once, bearing the crystals away from the battle and back toward the cliff wall. But Bek turned to fight.\n\nThere was no chance for Quentin to do anything about that. He was too busy trying to stay alive, and the shift of the Graak's body as it sought to pin him to the earth blocked his view of his cousin. But he heard the call Bek emitted, something shrill and rough edged, predatory and dark, born of nightmares known only to him or to those who worked his kind of magic. The Graak jerked its head in response, clearly bothered by the sound, and twisted about in search of the caller, giving Quentin a chance to strike at it again. The Highlander rolled under it a second time and thrust the blade of his talisman deep into the chest, somewhere close to where he thought its heart must be, the magic surging out of him like a river.\n\nThe Graak coughed gouts of dark blood and gasped in shock. A vital organ had been breached. Covered in mud and sweat and smelling of the damp, fetid earth, Quentin rolled free again. Blood laced his hands and face, and he saw that one arm was torn open and his right side lacerated. Somehow he had been injured without realizing it. Trying to stay out of the Graak's line of sight he ran toward its tail, looking for a fresh opening. The Graak was thrashing wildly, writhing in fury as it felt the killing effects of the magic begin to work through it. Another solid blow, Quentin judged, should finish it.\n\nBut then the creature did the unexpected. It bolted for Bek, all at once and without even looking his way first. Bek stood his ground, using the power of the wishsong to strike back, but the Graak didn't even seem to hear it. It rumbled on without slowing, without pause, tearing up the earth with its clawed feet, dragging its damaged hind leg, hissing with rage and madness into the steamy jungle air.\n\n\"Bekl\" Quentin screamed in dismay.\n\nHe flew after the Graak with complete disregard for his own safety, and caught up to the creature when it was only yards away from his cousin. He swung the Sword of Leah with every last ounce of strength he possessed, the magic exploding forth as he severed the tendons of the hind leg that still functioned. The Graak went down instantly, both rear legs immobilized, its useless hindquarters dragging it to an abrupt stop. But as it fought to keep going, to get at Bek, it rolled right into the Highlander, who, unlike Bek, did not have time to get out of the way. Though Quentin threw himself aside as the twisting, thrashing body collapsed, he could not get all the way clear, and the Graak's heavy tail hammered him into the earth.\n\nIt felt as if a mountain had fallen on top of him. Bones snapped and cracked, and he was pressed so far down into the earth that he couldn't breathe. He would have screamed if there had been a way to do so, but his face was buried in six inches of mud. The weight of the Graak rolled off him, then back on again, then off again. He managed to get his head out of the mire, to take a quick breath of air, then to flatten himself as the monster rolled over him yet again, this time missing him as it twisted back on itself in an effort to rise.\n\n\"Quentin, don't move!\" he heard Bek cry out.\n\nAs if he could, he thought dully. The pain was beginning to surge through him in waves. He was a dead man, he knew. No one could survive the sort of damage he had just sustained. He was a dead man, but his body hadn't gotten the message yet.\n\nHands reached under him and rolled him over. The pain was excruciating. \"Shades!\" he gasped as bones grated and blood poured from his mouth.\n\n\"Hang on!\" Bek pleaded. \"Please, Quentin!\"\n\nHis cousin pulled him to his feet, then led him away. Somewhere close by, the Graak was in its death throes. Somewhere not quite so close, its mate was coming. He couldn't see any of this, but he could be sure it was happening. He stumbled on through a curtain of bright red anguish and hazy consciousness. Any moment now, he would collapse. He fought against that with frantic determination. If he went down, Bek would not be able to get him away. If he went down, he was finished.\n\nOh well, he thought with a sort of fuzzy disinterest, he was finished anyway.\n\n\"Sorry, Bek,\" he said, or maybe he only tried to say it, \u2014 he couldn't be sure. \"Sorry.\"\n\nThen a wave of darkness engulfed him, and everything disappeared."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "It was dark when Bek finally emerged from belowdecks on the Jerle Shannara, walked to the bow, and looked up at the night sky. The moon was a tiny crescent directly over the mountain they were backed against, newly formed and barely a presence in the immensity of the sky's vast sweep. Stars sprinkled the indigo firmament like grains of brilliant white sand scattered on black velvet. He had been told once that men had traveled to those stars in the Old World, that they had built and ridden in ships that could navigate the sky as he had the waters of the Blue Divide. It seemed impossible. But then most wonderful things did until someone accomplished them.\n\nHe hadn't been on deck for more than a few moments when Rue Meridian appeared beside him, coming up so silently that he didn't hear her approach and realized she was there only when she placed a hand over his own.\n\n\"Have you slept?\" she asked.\n\nHe shook his head. Sleep was out of the question.\n\n\"How is he?\"\n\nHe thought about it a moment, staring skyward. \"Holding on by his fingernails and slipping.\"\n\nThey had managed to get Quentin Leah out of the Crake alive, but only barely. With Bek's help, he had stumbled to within a hundred yards of the trail before collapsing. By then he had lost so much blood that when they had carried him out they could barely get a grip on his clothing. Rue Meridian knew something of treating wounds from her time on the Prekkendorran, so after tying off the severed arteries with tourniquets, she had stitched and bandaged him as best she could. The patching of the surface wounds was not difficult, nor the setting of the broken bones. But there were internal injuries with which she did not have the skill to deal, so that much of the care Quentin needed could not be provided. Healing would have to come from within, and everyone knew that any chance of that happening here was small.\n\nTheir best bet was to either get him to a healing center in the Four Lands or to find a local Healer. The former was out of the question. There simply wasn't time. As for the latter, the Rindge offered the only possibility of help. Panax had gone to see what they could do, but had returned empty-handed. When a Rindge was in Quentin's condition, his people could do no more for him than the company of the Jerle Shannara could for Quentin.\n\n\"Is he alone?\" Rue asked Bek.\n\nHe shook his head. \"Panax is watching him.\"\n\n\"Why don't you try to sleep for a few hours? There isn't anything more you can do.\"\n\n\"I can be with him. I can be there for him. I'll go back down in just a moment.\"\n\n\"Panax will look after him.\"\n\n\"Panax isn't the one he counts on.\"\n\nShe didn't reply to that. She just stood there beside him, keeping him company, staring up at the stars. The Crake was a sea of impenetrable black within the cup of the mountains, silent and stripped of definition. Bek took a moment to look down at it, chilled by doing so, the memories of the afternoon still raw and terrible, endlessly repeating in his mind. He couldn't get past them, not even now when he was safely away from their cause.\n\n\"You're exhausted,\" she said finally.\n\nHe nodded in agreement.\n\n\"You have to sleep, Bek.\"\n\n\"I left his sword down there.\" He pointed toward the valley.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"His sword. I was so busy trying to get him out that I forgot about it entirely. I just left it behind.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"It won't go anywhere. We can get it back tomorrow, when it's light.\"\n\n\"I'll get it back,\" he insisted. \"I'm the one who left it. It's my responsibility.\"\n\nHe pictured it lying in the earth by the dead Graak, its smooth surface covered with blood and dirt. Had it been broken by the weight of the monster rolling over it, broken as Quentin was? He hadn't noticed, hadn't even glanced at it. A talisman of such power, and he hadn't even thought about it. He'd just thought about Quentin, and he'd done that too late for it to matter.\n\n\"Why don't you stop being so hard on yourself?\" she asked quietly. \"Why don't you ease up a bit?\"\n\n\"Because he's dying,\" he said fiercely, angrily. \"Quentin's dying, and it's my fault.\"\n\nShe looked at him. \"Your fault?\"\n\n\"If I hadn't insisted on going down there with him, if I hadn't been so stubborn about this whole business, then maybe \u2014\n\n\"Bek, stop it!\" she snapped at him. He looked over at her, surprised by the rebuke. Her hand tightened on his. \"It doesn't help anything for you to talk like that. It happened, and no one's to blame for it. Everyone did the best they could in a dangerous situation. That's all anyone can ask. That's all anyone can expect. Let it alone.\"\n\nThe words stung, but no more so than the look he saw in her eyes. She held his gaze, refusing to let him turn away. \"Losing people we love, friends and even family, is a consequence of going on journeys like this one. Don't you understand that? Didn't you understand it when you agreed to come? Is this suddenly a surprise? Did you think that nothing could happen to Quentin? Or to you?\"\n\nHe shook his head in confusion, cowed. \"I don't know. I guess maybe not.\"\n\nShe exhaled sharply and her tone of voice softened. \"It wasn't your fault. Not any more so than it was my brother's or Panax's or Walker's or whoever's. It was just something that happened, a price exacted in consequence of a risk taken.\"\n\nThe consequence of a risk. As simple as that. You took a risk, and the person you were closest to paid the price. He began to cry, all the pent-up frustration and guilt and sadness releasing at once. He couldn't help himself. He didn't want to break down in front of her \u2014 didn't want her to see that \u2014 but it happened before he could find a way to stop it.\n\nShe pulled him against her, enfolding him like an injured child. Her arms came about him and she rocked him gently, cooing soft words, stroking his back with her hand. The hard wooden rods of the splint on her left forearm were digging into his back.\n\n\"Oh, Bek. It's all right. You can cry with me. No one will see. Let me hold you until.\" She pressed him into the softness of her body. \"Poor Bek. So much responsibility all at once. So much hurt. It isn't fair, is it?\"\n\nHe heard some of what she said, but comfort came not from the words themselves but from the sound of her voice and the feel of her arms wrapped about him. Everything released, and she was there to absorb it, to take it into herself and away from him.\n\n\"Just hold on to me, Bek. Just let me take care of you. Everything will be all right.\"\n\nShe had said he owed it to her to share the losses she had suffered. Losses as great as his own. Furl Hawken. Her Rover companions. He was reminded of it suddenly and wanted to give back something of the comfort she was giving to him.\n\nHe recovered his composure, and his arms went around her. \"Rue, I'm sorry...\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, putting her fingers over his mouth, stopping him from saying anything more. \"I don't want to hear it. I don't want you to talk.\"\n\nShe replaced her fingers with her mouth and kissed him. She didn't kiss him softly or gently, but with urgency and passion. He couldn't mistake what was happening or what it meant, and he didn't want to. It took him only a moment, and then he was returning her kiss. When he did, he forgot everything but the heat she aroused in him. Kissing her was wild and impossible. It made him worry that something was wrong, but he couldn't decide what it was because everything felt right. She ran her hands all over him, pushing him up against the ship's railing until he was pinned there, fastening her mouth on his with such hunger that he could scarcely breathe.\n\nWhen she broke away finally, he wasn't sure who was the most surprised. From the look on her face she was, but he knew what he was feeling inside. They stared at each other in a kind of awed silence, and then she laughed \u2014 a low, sudden growl that brought such radiance to her face that he was surprised all over again.\n\n\"That was unexpected,\" she said.\n\nHe couldn't speak.\n\n\"I want to do it some more. I want to do it a lot.\"\n\nHe grinned in spite of himself, in spite of everything. \"Me, too.\"\n\n\"Soon, Bek.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"I think I love you,\" she said. She laughed again. \"There, I said it. What do you think of that?\"\n\nShe reached out with her good arm and touched his lips with her fingers, then turned and walked away.\n\nWhen he went inside the ship to the Captain's quarters to see about Quentin, he was still in shock from his encounter with Rue.\n\nPanax must have seen something in his face when Bek entered the room, because he immediately asked, \"Are you all right?\"\n\nBek nodded. He was not all right, but he had no intention of talking about it just yet. It was too new to share, still so strange in his own mind that he needed time to get used to it. He needed time just to accept that it was true. Rue Meridian was in love with him. That's what she had said. I think I love you. He tried the words out in his mind, and they sounded so ridiculous that he almost laughed aloud.\n\nOn the other hand, the way she had kissed him was real enough, and he wasn't going to forget how that felt anytime soon.\n\nDid he love her in turn? He hadn't stopped to ask himself that. He hadn't even considered it before now because the idea of her reciprocating had seemed impossible. It was enough that they were friends. But he did love her. He had always loved her in some sense, from the first moment he had seen her. Now, kissed and held and told of her feelings, he loved her so desperately he could hardly stand it.\n\nHe forced himself to shift his thinking away from her.\n\n\"How is he doing?\" he asked, nodding toward Quentin.\n\nPanax shrugged. \"The same. He just sleeps. I don't like the way he looks, though.\"\n\nNeither did Bek. Quentin's skin was an unhealthy pasty color. His pulse was faint and his breathing labored and shallow. He was dying by inches, and there was nothing any of them could do about it but wait for the inevitable. Already emotionally overwrought, Bek found himself beginning to cry anew and he turned away selfconsciously.\n\nPanax rose and came over to him. He put one rough hand on Bek's shoulder and gently squeezed. \"First Truls Rohk and now the Highlander. This hasn't been easy,\" he said.\n\nNo.\n\nHis hand dropped away, and he walked over to where Grianne knelt on a pallet in the corner, eyes open as she stared straight ahead. The Dwarf shook his head in puzzlement. \"What do you suppose she's thinking?\"\n\nBek wiped away the last of his tears. \"Nothing we want to know about, I'd guess.\"\n\n\"Probably not. What a mess. This whole journey, from start to finish. A mess.\" He didn't seem to know where else to go with his thoughts, so he went silent for a moment. \"I wish I'd never come. I wouldn't have, if I'd known what it was going to be like.\"\n\n\"I don't suppose any of us would.\" Bek walked over to his sister and knelt in front of her. He touched her cheek with his fingers as he always did to let her know he was there. \"Can you hear me, Grianne?\" he asked softly.\n\n\"I don't know what I'm doing here anymore,\" Panax continued. \"I don't know that there's a reason for any of us being here. We haven't done anything but get ourselves killed and injured. Even the Druid. I didn't think anything would ever happen to him. But then I didn't think anything could happen to Truls, either. Now they're both gone.\" He shook his head.\n\n\"When I get home,\" Bek said, still looking at Grianne's pale, empty face, \"I'll stay there. I won't leave again. Not like this.\"\n\nHe thought again about Rue Meridian. What would happen to her when they got back in the Four Lands? She was a Rover, born to the Rover life, a traveler and an adventurer. She was nothing like him. She wouldn't want to come back to the Highlands and stay home for the rest of her life. She wouldn't want anything to do with him then.\n\n\"I've been thinking about home,\" Panax said quietly. He knelt down beside Bek, his bearded face troubled. \"I never cared all that much for my own. Depo Bent was just the village where I ended up. I have no family, just a few friends, none of them close. I've traveled all my life, but I don't know if there's anything left in the Four Lands that I want to see. Without Truls and Walker to keep me busy, I don't know that there's anything back there for me.\" He paused. \"I think maybe I'll stay here.\"\n\nBek looked at him. \"Stay here in Parkasia?\"\n\nThe Dwarf shrugged. \"I like the Rindge. They're a good people and they're not so different from me. Their language is similar to mine. I kind of like this country, too, except for things like the Graak and Antrax. But the rest of it looks interesting. I want to explore it. There's a lot of it none of us have seen, all of the interior beyond the mountains, where Obat and his people are going.\"\n\n\"You would be trapped here, if you changed your mind. You wouldn't have a way to get back.\" Bek tried the words out on the Dwarf, then grimaced at the way they sounded.\n\nPanax chuckled softly. \"I don't see it that way, Bek. When you make a choice, you accept the consequences going in. Like coming on this journey. Only maybe this time things will turn out a little better for me. I'm not that young. I don't have all that much life left in me. I don't think I would mind finishing it out in Parkasia, rather than in the Four Lands.\"\n\nHow different the Dwarf was from himself, Bek thought in astonishment. Not to want to go home again, but to stay in a strange land on the chance that it might prove interesting. He couldn't do that. But he understood the Dwarf's reasoning. If you had spent most of your life as an explorer and a guide, living outside cities and towns, living on your own, staying here wouldn't seem so strange. How much different were the mountains of the Aleuthra Ark, after all, from those of the Wolfsktaag?\n\n\"Do you think you can manage without me?\" Panax asked, his face strangely serious.\n\nBek knew what Panax wanted to hear. \"I think you'd just get in the way,\" he answered. \"Anyway, I think you've earned the right to do what you want. If you want to stay, you should.\"\n\nThey were nothing without their freedom, nothing without their right to choose. They had given themselves to a common cause in coming with Walker in search of the Old World books of magic, but that was finished. What they needed to do now was to help each other find a way home again, whether home was to be found in the Four Lands or elsewhere.\n\n\"Why don't you get some sleep,\" he said to the Dwarf. \"I'll sit with Quentin now. I want to, really. I need to be with him.\"\n\nPanax rose and put his hand on Bek's shoulder a second time, an act that was meant to convey both his support and his gratitude. Then he walked through the shadows and from the room. Bek stared after him a moment, wondering how Panax would find his new life, if it would bring him the peace and contentment that the old apparently had not. He wondered what it would feel like to be so disassociated from everyone and everything that the thought of leaving it all behind wasn't disturbing. He couldn't know that, and in truth he hoped he would never find out.\n\nHe turned back to Quentin, looking at him as he lay white-faced and dying. Shades, shades, he felt so helpless. He took a deep, steadying breath and exhaled slowly. He couldn't stand this anymore. He couldn't stand watching him slip away. He had to do something, even if it was the wrong thing, so that he could know that at least he had tried. All of the usual possibilities for healing were out of the question. He had to try something else.\n\nHe remembered from the stories of the Druids that the wishsong had the ability to heal. It hadn't been used that way often because it required great skill. He didn't have that skill or the experience that might lend it to him, but he couldn't worry about that here. Brin Ohmsford had used the magic once upon a time to heal Rone Leah. If an Ohmsford had used the magic to save the life of a Leah once, there was no reason an Ohmsford couldn't do so again.\n\nIt was a risky undertaking. Foolish, maybe. But Quentin was not going to live if something wasn't done to help him, and there wasn't anything else left to try.\n\nBek walked over to the bed and sat next to his cousin. He watched him for a moment, then took his hand in his own and held it. He wished he had something more to work with than experimentation. He wished he had directions of some kind, a place to begin, an idea of how the magic worked, anything. But there was nothing of the sort at hand, and no help for it.\n\n\"I'll do my best, Quentin,\" he said softly. \"I'll do everything I can. Please come back to me.\"\n\nThen he called up the magic in a slow unfurling of words and music and began to sing."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "Because he had never done this before and had no real idea of how to do it now, Bek Ohmsford did not rush himself. He proceeded carefully, taking one small step at a time, watching Quentin closely to make certain that the magic of the wishsong was not having an adverse affect. He called up the magic in a slow humming that rose in his chest where it warmed and throbbed softly. He kept hold of Quentin's hands, wanting to maintain physical contact in order to give himself a chance to further judge if things were going as intended.\n\nWhen the level of magic was sufficient, he sent a small probe into Quentin's ravaged body to measure the damage. Red shards of pain ricocheted back through him, and he withdrew the probe quickly. Fair enough. Investigating a damaged body without adequate self-protection was not a good idea. Shielding himself, he tried again and ran into a wall of resistance. Still humming, he tried coming in through Quentin's mind, taking a reading on what his cousin was thinking. He ran into another blank wall. Quentin's mind seemed to have shut down, or at least it was not giving off anything Bek could decipher.\n\nFor a moment, he was stumped. Both attempts at getting to where he could do some good had failed, and he wasn't sure what he should try next. What he wanted to do was to get close enough to one specific injury to see what the magic could do to heal it. But if he couldn't break down the barriers that Quentin had thrown up to protect himself, he wasn't going to be able to do anything.\n\nHe tried a more general approach then, a wrapping of Quentin in the magic's veil, a covering over of his mind and body both. It had the desired effect, \u2014 Quentin immediately calmed and his breathing became steadier and smoother. Bek worked his way over his cousin's still form in search of entry, thinking that as his body relaxed, Quentin might lower his protective barriers. Slowly, slowly he touched and stroked with the magic, his singing smoothing away wrinkles of pain and discomfort, working toward the deeper, more serious injuries.\n\nIt didn't work. He could not get past the surface of Quentin's body, even when he brushed up against the open wounds beneath the bandages, which should have offered him easy access.\n\nHe was so frustrated that he broke off his attempts completely. Sitting silently, motionlessly beside Quentin, he continued to hold his cousin's hand, not willing to break that contact, as well. He tried to think of what else he could do. Something about the way in which he was approaching the problem was throwing up barriers. He knew he could force his way into Quentin's body, could break down the protective walls that barred his way. But he thought, as well, that the consequence of such a harsh intrusion might be fatal to a system already close to collapse. What was needed was tact and care, a gentle offering to heal that would be embraced and not resisted.\n\nWhat would it take to make that happen?\n\nHe tried again, this time returning to what was familiar to him about the magic. He sang to Quentin as he had sung to Grianne \u2014 of their lives together as boys, of the Highlands of Leah, of family and friends, and of adventures shared. He sang stories to his cousin, thinking to use them as a means of lessening resistance to his ministrations. Now and then, he would attempt a foray into his cousin's body and mind, taking a story in a direction that might lend itself to a welcoming, the two of them friends still and always.\n\nNothing.\n\nHe changed the nature of his song to one of revelation and warning. This is the situation, Quentin, he sang. You are very sick and in need of healing. But you are fighting me. I need you to help me instead. I need you to open to me and let me use the wishsong to mend you. Please, Quentin, listen to me. Listen.\n\nIf his cousin heard, he didn't do anything to indicate it and did nothing to give Bek any further access. He simply lay on his bed beneath a light covering and fought to stay alive on his own terms. He remained unconscious and unresponsive and, like Grianne, locked away where Bek could not reach him.\n\nBek kept at it. He fought to use the magic for the better part of the next hour, maintaining contact through the touching of their hands while trying to heal with his song. He came at the problem from every direction he could imagine, even when he suspected that what he was trying was futile. He attacked with such determination that he completely lost track of everything but what he was doing.\n\nAll to no avail.\n\nFinally, exhausted and frustrated, he gave up. He rocked back, put his face in his hands, and began to sob. All this crying felt foolish and weak, but he was so weary from his efforts that it was an impulsive, unavoidable response. It happened in spite of his efforts to stop it, boiling over in a rush that left him convulsed and shaking. He had failed. There was nothing left for him to try, nowhere else for him to go.\n\n\"Poor little baby boy,\" a voice soothed in his ear, and slender arms came around his neck and pulled him close.\n\nAt first he thought it was Rue Meridian, come down to the cabin when he wasn't looking. But he realized almost before he had completed the thought that it wasn't her voice. Gray robes fell across his face as he twisted his head for a quick look.\n\nIt was Grianne.\n\nHe was so shocked that for a moment he just sat there and let her hold him. \"Little boy, little boy, don't be sad.\" She was speaking not in her adult voice, but with the voice of a child. \"It's all right, baby Bek. Your big sister is here. I won't leave you again, I promise. I won't go away again. I'm so sorry, so sorry.\"\n\nHer hands stroked his face, gentle and soothing. She kissed his forehead as she cooed to him, touching him as if he were a baby.\n\nHe glanced up again, looking into her eyes. She was looking back at him, seeing him for the first time since he had found her in Castledown. Gone were the vacant stare and the empty expression. She had come back from wherever she had been hiding. She was awake.\n\n\"Grianne!\" he gasped in relief.\n\n\"No, no, baby, don't cry,\" she replied at once, touching his lips with her fingers. \"There, there, your Grianne can make it all better. Tell me what's wrong, little one.\"\n\nBek caught his breath. She was seeing him, but not as he really was, only as she remembered him.\n\nHer gaze shifted suddenly. \"Oh, what's this? Is your puppy sick, Bek? Did he eat something bad? Did he hurt himself? Poor little puppy.\"\n\nShe was looking right at Quentin. Bek was so taken aback by this that he just stared at her. He vaguely remembered a puppy from when he was very little, a black mixed breed that trotted around the house and slept in the sun. He remembered nothing else about it, not even its name.\n\n\"No wonder you're crying.\" She smoothed Bek's hair back gently. \"Your puppy is sick, and you can't make him better. It's all right, Bek. Grianne can help. We'll use my special medicine to take away the pain.\"\n\nShe released him and moved to the head of the bed to stand looking down at Quentin. \"So much pain,\" she whispered. \"I don't know if I can make you well again. Sometimes even the special medicine can't help. Sometimes nothing can.\"\n\nA chill settled through Bek as he realized that he might be mistaken about her. Maybe she wasn't his sister at all, but the Ilse Witch. If she was thinking like the witch and not Grianne, if she had not come all the way back to being his sister, she might cure Quentin the way she had cured so many of her problems. She might kill him.\n\n\"No, Grianne!\" he cried out, reaching for her.\n\n\"Uh-uh-uh, baby,\" she cautioned, taking hold of his wrists. She was much stronger than he would have thought, and he could not shake free. \"Let Grianne do what she has to do to help.\"\n\nAlready she was using the magic. Bek felt it wash over him, felt it bind him in velvet chains and hold him fast. In seconds, he was paralyzed. She eased him back in place, humming softly as she moved once more to the head of the bed and Quentin Leah.\n\n\"Poor puppy,\" she repeated, reaching down to stroke the Highlander's face. \"You are so sick, in such pain. What happened to you? You are all broken up inside. Did something hurt you?\"\n\nBek was beside himself. He could neither move nor speak. He watched helplessly, unable to intervene and terrified of what was going to happen if he didn't.\n\nShe was speaking to him again, her voice suddenly older, more mature. \"Oh, Bek, I've let you down so badly. I left you, and I didn't come back. I should have, and I didn't. It was so wrong of me, Bek.\"\n\nShe was crying. His sister was crying. It was astonishing, and Bek would have felt a sense of joy if he hadn't been so frightened that it wasn't his sister speaking. He fought to say something, to stop her, but no words would come out.\n\n\"Little puppy,\" she whispered sadly, and her hands reached down to cup Quentin's face. \"Let me make you all better.\"\n\nThen she leaned down and kissed him gently on the lips, drawing his breath into her body.\n\nRue Meridian was sleeping in a makeshift canvas hammock she had strung between the foremast and the bow railing, lost in a dream about cormorants and puffins, when she felt Bek's hand on her shoulder and awoke. She saw the look on his face and immediately asked, \"What's wrong?\"\n\nIt was a difficult look to decipher. His face was troubled and amazed, both at once, \u2014 it reflected uncertainty mixed with wonder. He appeared oddly adrift, as if he was there almost by accident. Her first thought was that his coming was a delayed reaction to what she had told him hours earlier. She sat up quickly, swung her legs over the side of the hammock, and stood. \"Bek, what's happened?\"\n\n\"Grianne woke up. I don't know why. The magic, maybe. I was using it to try to help Quentin, to heal him the way Brin Ohmsford did Rone Leah once. Or maybe it was when I cried. I was so frustrated and tired, I just broke down.\"\n\nHe exhaled sharply. \"She spoke to me. She called me by name. But she wasn't herself, not grown up, but a child, speaking in a child's voice, calling me 'poor baby boy, little Bek,' and telling me not to cry.\"\n\n\"Wait a minute, slow down,\" she said, taking hold of him by his shoulders. \"Come over here.\"\n\nShe led him to the bow and sat him down in the shadow of the starboard ram where the curve of the horn formed a shelter at its joining with the deck. She sat facing him, pulled her knees up to her breast, and wrapped her arms around her legs. \"Okay, tell me the rest. She came awake and she spoke to you. What happened next?\"\n\n\"You won't believe this,\" he whispered, clearly not believing it himself. \"She healed him. She used her magic, and she healed him. I thought she was going to kill him. She called him a puppy \u2014 I guess that's what she thought he was. I tried to stop her, but she did something to me with the magic so that I couldn't move or speak. Then she started on him, and I was sure she meant to help him by killing him, to take away his pain and suffering by taking his life. That's what the Ilse Witch would have done, and I was afraid she was still the witch.\"\n\nRue leaned forward, hugging herself. \"How could she heal him, Bek? He was all broken up inside. Half his blood was gone.\"\n\n\"The magic can do that. It can generate healing. I watched it happen to Quentin. He's not completely well yet. He isn't even awake. But I saw his color change right in front of me. I heard his breathing steady and, afterwards, when I could move again, felt that his pulse was stronger, too. Some of his wounds, the ones you bandaged, have closed completely.\"\n\n\"Shades,\" she whispered, trying to picture it.\n\nHe leaned back into the curve of the horn and looked at the night sky. \"When she was done, she came back over to me and stroked my cheek and held me. I could move again, but I didn't want to interrupt what she was doing because I thought it might be helping her. I spoke her name, but she didn't answer. She just rocked me and began to cry.\"\n\nHis eyes shifted to find hers. \"She kept saying how sorry she was, over and over. She said it would never happen again. Leaving me, she said. She wouldn't leave me like before, not ever. All this in her little girl's voice, her child's voice.\"\n\nHis eyes closed. \"I just wanted to help her, to let her know I understood. I tried to hold her. When I did, she went right back into herself. She quit talking or moving. She quit seeing me. She was just like before. I couldn't do anything to bring her back. I tried, but she wouldn't respond.\" He shook his head. \"So I left her and came to find you. I had to tell someone. I'm sorry I woke you.\"\n\nShe reached out for him, pulled him close, and kissed him on the lips. \"I'm glad you did.\" She stood and drew him up with her. \"Come lie down with me, Bek.\"\n\nShe took him back to the canvas hammock and bundled him into it beside her. She pressed herself against him and wrapped him in her arms. She was still getting used to the idea that he meant so much to her. Her admission of this to him had surprised her, but she'd had no regrets about it afterwards. Bek Ohmsford made her feel complete, it was as if by finding him, she had found a missing part of herself. He made her feel good, and it had been a while since anyone had made her feel like that.\n\nThey lay without moving for a while, without talking, just holding each other and listening to the silence. But she wanted more, wanted to give him more, and she began kissing him. She kissed him for a long time, working her way over his mouth and eyes and nose, down his neck and chest. He tried to kiss her, as well, but she wouldn't let him, wanting everything to come from her. When he seemed at peace, she lay back again, placing his head in the crook of her shoulder. He fell asleep for a time, and she held him while he dreamed.\n\nI love you, Bek Obmsford. She mouthed the words silently. She thought it incredibly odd she should fall in love with someone under such strange circumstances. It seemed inconvenient and vaguely ridiculous. Hawk would have been shocked. He never thought she would fall in love with anyone. Too independent, too tough-minded. She never needed anyone, never wanted anyone. She was complete by herself. She understood his thinking. It was what she had believed, as well, until now.\n\nShe put her hands inside of Bek's clothing and touched his skin. She placed her fingers over his heart. Counting the beats in her head, she closed her eyes and dozed.\n\nWhen she woke again, he was still sleeping. Overhead, the sky was lightening with the approach of dawn.\n\n\"It's almost daylight,\" she whispered in his ear, waking him.\n\nHe nodded into her shoulder. He was silent for a moment, shaking off the last of his sleep. She could feel his breath on her neck and the strength in his arms.\n\n\"When we get back to the Four Lands,\" he began, and stopped. \"When this is all over, and we have to decide where we \u2014\"\n\n\"Bek, no,\" she said gently, but firmly. \"Don't talk about what's going to happen later. Don't worry about it. We're too far away for it to matter yet. Leave it alone.\"\n\nHe went silent again, pressed against her. She brushed back her hair where it had fallen into her face. His eyes followed the movement with interest, and he reached out to help. \"I have to go down into the Crake,\" he said. \"I have to get Quentin's sword back. I want it to be there for him when he wakes up.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"All right.\"\n\n\"Will you look after Grianne for me while I'm gone?\"\n\nShe smiled and kissed him on the lips. \"I can't, Bek.\" She touched the tip of his nose. \"I'm going with you.\"\n\nWhen she said it, Bek panicked. He kept the panic in check on the surface, but inside, where his emotions could pretty much do whatever they wanted to, he was a mess. All he could think about was how afraid he was for her, how frightened that something bad would happen. It had already happened to Quentin, and his cousin had at least had the protection of the Sword of Leah. Rue wore a splint on one arm and had no magic at all. If he agreed to let her come, he would be taking on the responsibility for both of them. He was not sure he wanted to do that right after failing Quentin so miserably.\n\n\"I don't think that is a good idea,\" he told her, not sure what else to say that wouldn't make her furious and even more determined.\n\nShe seemed to consider the merits of his objection, then smiled. \"Do you know what I like most about you, Bek? Not how you look or think, not your laugh or the way you see the world, although I like those things, too. What I really like about you is that you don't ever act as if I'm not just as good as everyone else. You take it for granted that I am, and you treat me with respect. I don't have to fight you for that. I can expect it as a matter of course. I am your equal, I might even be a little better in some ways.\" She paused. \"I wouldn't want to lose that.\"\n\nThere was not much he could say to her after that. So he simply nodded and smiled back, and she kissed him hard to show that she appreciated his understanding. He liked having her kiss him, but it didn't make him feel any better about taking her along.\n\nBut the issue was decided, so they slipped over the side of the ship and walked to the edge of the bluff, followed the precipice to the trailhead, and started down. It was light enough now that they could make out the shapes of the trees and the soft movement of leaves and branches in the slow morning wind. Bek cast about with his magic as they descended, taking no chances on being caught off guard, even if what he was doing somehow alerted the dead Graak's mate. If the mate was anywhere close, he had already decided they would turn right around. Even Little Red couldn't argue with that.\n\nBut fortune smiled on them, and they slipped into the Crake as invisible as wraiths. Bek used the magic of the wishsong to cloak them in the look and feel of the rain forest, choosing images and smells that would not attract a carnivore. Draped in trailers of mist and cooled by the morning wind, they slid through the trees with the ease and freedom of shadows, untroubled by the dangers that on this occasion were elsewhere. They found Quentin's sword muddied but still in one piece beside the body of the dead Graak, retrieved it, and made their way back again. The sun was cresting the jagged line of mountains east when they began their climb back up the trail.\n\nThat was so easy, Bek thought in surprise as they regained the bluff. Why couldn't it have been like that for Quentin? But then, of course, there would have been no reason for Grianne to come awake, and he would not have seen for himself that her responses to pain and suffering were no longer those of the Ilse Witch, but of his sister. He would not have discovered that maybe she could return to him after all when she was ready.\n\nRue Meridian turned to him, a mix of mischievousness and satisfaction mirrored in her green eyes. \"Admit it. That wasn't so bad.\"\n\nHe shook his head and sighed. \"No, it wasn't.\"\n\n\"Remember that the next time you think about doing something dangerous without me.\" She reached out and took hold of the back of his neck with both hands and pulled him close to her. \"If you love me, if I love you, there shouldn't be any question of that ever happening. Otherwise, what we feel for each other isn't real. It doesn't mean anything.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Yes, it does. It means everything.\"\n\nShe grinned, brushing loose strands of her long hair from her face. \"I know. So don't forget it.\"\n\nShe picked up the pace and moved ahead of him. He stared after her, barely able to contain himself. In her words and smile, in everything she said and did, he saw a future that would transcend all his expectations of what he had ever imagined possible. It was only a dream, but wasn't reality conceived in dreams?\n\nHis euphoria peaked and faded in a wash of doubt. It was foolish, he thought, to let himself think like this, to allow his emotions to cloud his reason. Look at where he was. Look at what had befallen him. Where, in all of this, did dreams like his belong? He watched Rue Meridian's stride lengthen and as he did so, felt those dreams slip away, too frail to hold, too insubstantial to grasp. He was drawing pictures in the sand, and the tide was coming in.\n\nWhen they reached the trailhead and walked back toward the Jerle Shannara, they found Redden Alt Mer and his Rovers gathered at the edge of the bluff, looking east. The Wing Riders were flying in from the coast, and they had someone with them."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "When the Morgawr found that Ahren Elessedil was gone, he had Ryer Ord Star brought before him. She denied knowing anything about it, but she knew he could read the lie in her eyes and smell it on her breath. Already suspicious of their failure to find any trace of the Jerle Shannara and her crew or of the Ilse Witch and her brother, he wasted no time in deciding that the seer had helped the Elven Prince escape. Whatever usefulness she might have had, she had outlived it.\n\nHe gave her to Cree Bega and his Mwellrets, who stripped her naked and beat her savagely. They broke all her fingers and slashed the soles of her feet. They defiled her until she fainted. When she woke again, they hung her by her wrists from one of the yardarms, lashed her with a rawhide whip, and left her to bake in the midday sun. They gave her no water or clothing and did not treat her wounds. She hung ignored in a haze of pain and thirst that left her ravaged and delirious.\n\nOnly once did the Morgawr speak to her again. \"Use your gift, little seer,\" he advised, standing just below her, touching the wounds on her body with interest. \"Find those I have asked you to find, and I will let you die quickly. Otherwise, I will make sure your agony endures until I find them myself. There are other things I can have done to you, things that will hurt much more than those you have already experienced.\"\n\nShe was barely conscious when he spoke the words, but her reason was not yet gone. She knew that if she gave him what he wanted, if she told him where to find her friends, he would not kill her quickly as he had said, but would do to her what he had done to Aden Kett. He would want that experience, to feed on her mind, a seer's mind, to see what that would feel like. The only reason he had not done so yet was because he was still hoping she would lead him to those he hunted. Damaging her so significantly would prevent her from giving him any further help. His hunger for her could wait a few days. He was patient that way.\n\nThe day drifted toward nightfall. The ropes that held her suspended had cut her wrists almost to the bone. Blood streaked her arms and shoulders. She could no longer feel her hands. Her unprotected body was burned and raw from exposure to wind and sun and throbbed with unrelenting pain.\n\nHer suffering triggered visions, some recognizable, some not. She saw her companions, both living and dead, but could not seem to differentiate between them. They floated in and out of her consciousness, there long enough for her to identify and then gone. Sometimes they spoke, but she rarely understood the words. She felt her mind going as her life drained out of her body, sliding steadily into an abyss of dark, merciful forgetfulness.\n\nWalker, she called out in her mind, begging him to come to her.\n\nNight descended, and the Mwellrets went to sleep, all save the watch and helmsman. No one came to her. No one spoke to her. She hung from the yardarm as she had all day, broken and dying. She no longer felt the pain. It was there, but it was so much a part of her that she no longer recognized it as being out of the ordinary. She licked her cracked lips to keep her mouth from sealing over and breathed the cool night air with relief. Tomorrow would bring a return of the burning sun and harsh wind, but she thought that perhaps by then she would be gone.\n\nShe hoped that Ahren was far away. The Morgawr and his airships had been searching for him all day without success, so there was reason to think that the Elven Prince had escaped. He would be wondering when she would join him, if she would come soon. But she had never intended to leave Black Moclips. Her visions had told her of her fate, of her death aboard this vessel, and she was not foolish enough to believe she could avoid it. Just as Walker had seen his fate in her visions long ago, so she had seen hers. A seer's visions came unbidden and showed what they chose. Like those she advised, Ryer Ord Star could only accept what was revealed and never change it.\n\nBut what she had told the Elven Prince about himself and his own future was the truth, as well, a more promising fate than her own. His future awaited him in the Four Lands, long after she was gone, long after this voyage was a distant memory.\n\nHe would wonder what had become of her, of course. Or perhaps he would know when enough time had passed and she hadn't appeared. He would never know how she had hidden the Elfstones from the Morgawr and the Mwellrets. That secret would remain hers. And Walker's. She had been quick to take them from Ahren when he was felled in the attack, feigning concern for his injury, bending down to shield her movements. She had known she would be searched, and she had slipped the Stones into a crevice in the wall while the Mwellrets were still concentrating on Ahren. A simple ruse, but an effective one. Search her once, and the matter was settled. After that, she had needed only to get aboard Black Moclips before finding a new place of concealment. She had left the Stones hidden until it was time for Ahren to leave.\n\nShe would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that she had thought of giving him the Stones earlier so that he could use them on his captors. But Ahren was new to the magic, and the Morgawr was old, too powerful to be overcome by any save an experienced hand. Only Walker would have stood a chance, and while she wanted to live as much as the next person, she was not prepared to risk Ahren's life and fate on a gamble that would almost surely fail. She had sworn an oath to protect him, to do what she could to redeem herself for the harm she had caused while in the service of the Ilse Witch. No halfway measures were allowed in fulfilling that oath. She had much to atone for, and her death was small payment for her sins.\n\nShe lifted her head out of the tangle of her hair and tasted the night air on her lips. She wanted to die, but could not seem to. She wanted release from her pain, from her helplessness, but could not find it alone. She needed Walker to help her. She needed him to come.\n\nShe drifted in and out of half sleep, always aware that no true sleep would come, that only death would give her rest. She cried for herself and her failures, and she wished she could have grown to be a woman of some worth. In another time and place, in another life, perhaps that would happen.\n\nIt was during the deep sleep hours of early morning, the sky clear indigo and the stars a wash of brightness across the firmament, that he appeared at last, lifting out of the ether in a soft radiant light that bathed her in hope.\n\nWalker, she whispered.\n\n\u2014 I am here \u2014\n\nAhren Elessedil flew north through the night after escaping Black Moclips, his only plan to get as far from the Morgawr as he could manage. He had no clear idea of where he was or where he should be trying to go. He knew he should be looking for a rain forest somewhere in the mountains, but there was no hope of doing that until it got light. He had the stars to guide him, although the stars were aligned differently in this part of the world and partially blocked by the spread of the single wing, so it was difficult to use his navigational knowledge.\n\nNot that he was deterred by this. He was so grateful to be free that his euphoria made every potential problem save being captured again seem solvable. The single wing sped on without difficulty on the back of steady breezes off the Blue Divide. He had worried at first that he might have trouble keeping his carrier aloft, but it proved to be relatively easy to fly. The wing straps allowed him to bank to either side and change direction, and the bar that ran the length of the framework opened and closed vents in the canvas so that he could gain altitude or descend. So long as the winds blew and he stayed away from downdrafts and bad storms, he thought he would be all right.\n\nHe had time to think on his journey, and his thoughts were mostly of Ryer Ord Star. The more he mulled over her situation, the less happy he was. She was playing a dangerous game, and she had no way to protect herself if she was found out. Once the Mwellrets discovered he was missing, she would be the first person they would suspect. Nor was he convinced that she had a way to get off the ship if that happened. Was there a second single wing hidden somewhere aboard the airship? She had told him that she would follow later, but he wasn't sure it was the truth.\n\nHe wished now that he hadn't been so quick to accommodate her. He wished he had forced her to come with him, no matter what she thought Walker wanted from her. He had been so eager to get away that he hadn't pressed the matter. He didn't like what he remembered about the way she had looked at him at the end. It felt final \u2014 as if she already knew she wasn't going to see him again.\n\nShe was a seer, after all, and it was possible that in one of her visions she had seen her own fate. But if she knew what was going to happen, couldn't she act to prevent it? He didn't know, and after a while he quit thinking about it. It was impossible for him to do anything to help until he found the others, and then maybe they could go back for her.\n\nBut in his heart, where such truths have a way of surfacing, he knew it was already too late.\n\nThe sun rose, and he flew on. New light etched the details of the land below, and he began to look for something he recognized. It quickly became apparent to him that his task was impossible. Everything looked the same from up there, and he didn't remember enough about the geography from flying along the coast aboard the Jerle Shannara to know what to look for. He knew he should turn inland toward the mountains, but how far north should he fly before he did that? Ryer Ord Star had told him she was misdirecting the Morgawr at Walker's request, so the coast was the wrong place for him to be. He should be searching for a rain forest. But where? He could see neither the beginning nor the end of the mountains that ran down the spine of the peninsula. Clouds blanketed the peaks and screened away the horizon, giving the impression that the world dropped away five miles in. He couldn't tell how far anything went. He couldn't even be sure of his direction without a compass.\n\nHe could try using the Elfstones. They were seeking stones, and they could find anything that was hidden from the naked eye. But using them would alert the Morgawr, and he had seen enough of the warlock's abilities to know that he could follow magic as a hunter did tracks. Using the Elfstones might bring the warlock down on his friends, as well, should he manage to find them. He didn't think he wanted to bear the responsibility for that, no matter how desperate his own situation.\n\nThe sun brightened, and the last of night's shadows began to fade from the landscape. The air warmed, but was still cold enough that he wished he was wearing something warmer. He hunched his shoulders and turned the single wing farther inland, away from the chilly coastal breezes. Maybe he would spy the rain forest and his friends if he just gave himself a little more time.\n\nHe gave himself the entire day, spiraling inland in ever widening sweeps, searching the sky and ground until his head ached. He found nothing \u2014 no sign of the Jerle Shannara or his friends or a rain forest. He saw barely anything moving, and then only a few hawks and gulls, and once a herd of deer. As the day lengthened and the sun began to slip west, his confidence started to fail. He swept further into the mountains, but the deeper in he went the more confusing things became. He had been flying for eighteen hours with nothing to eat or drink, and he was beginning to feel light-headed. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept. If he didn't find something soon, he would have to land. Once he did that, he wasn't sure he could get airborne again.\n\nHe stayed in the air, flying into the approaching darkness, stubbornly refusing to give up. Soon, he wouldn't be able to see at all. If he didn't land, he would have to fly all night because it was too cloudy for the moon and stars to provide enough light for him to try to set down. Soon, he would have to use the Elfstones. He would have no choice.\n\nHe rolled his shoulders and arched his back to relieve the strain of holding the same position for so long. Dusk settled over the land in deepening layers, and still he flew on.\n\nHe had almost decided to give it up when the Shrikes found him. He was far enough inland that he wasn't expecting them, thinking himself safely away from the danger of coastal birds. But there was no mistaking what they were or that they were coming for him. Hunting him, he thought with a chill. Sent by the Morgawr to track him down and destroy him. He knew it instinctively. They sailed toward him in the silvery glow of the failing sunset, seven of them, long wings and necks extended, hooked beaks lifted like blades.\n\nHe swung away immediately and started downward in a slow glide, unable to make the single wing respond with any greater agility or speed. It was like canoeing in rapids, \u2014 you had to ride the current. Opening the vents all the way would drop him from the skies like a stone. The single wing wasn't designed for quick maneuvers. It wasn't built to flee Shrikes.\n\nHe spiraled toward the land below, toward peaks and cliffs, defiles and ravines, already able to tell that there was nowhere safe to land. But there was no time to worry about it and nothing he could do to change things. The best he could hope for was to get down before the Shrikes reached him. His flight was over. All that remained to be seen was how it would end.\n\nHe was still almost a thousand feet up when the first Shrike swept past him, claws raking the canvas and wood frame, sending him skidding sideways with a sickening lurch. He straightened out and angled sharply away, casting about for the others. If he had been frightened before, he was terrified now. He was helpless up here, strapped into his flimsy flying device, suspended in midair, unable to outrun or hide from his pursuers.\n\nA second Shrike attacked, slamming into the single wing with such force that it jarred Ahren to his bones. He dropped dozens of feet before leveling out, and when he did, the single wing's flight had turned shaky and uneven, and he could hear the flapping of torn canvas.\n\nAll about him, the Shrikes circled, beaks lifted, claws extended, eyes reflecting like pools of hard light in the darkness of their predatory faces.\n\nUse the Elfstones!\n\nBut he couldn't reach them without releasing his grip on the control bar, and if he did that, he might go straight down. He also risked dropping the Stones, fumbling them away as he tried to bring them to bear. Nevertheless, he took the gamble, certain that he was doomed otherwise. He let go of the bar and plunged his right hand into his tunic, tearing open the drawstrings of the pouch to fish out the stones.\n\nInstantly, the single wing went into a steep dive. The Shrikes attacked from everywhere, but the wing was skewing sideways so badly that they were unable to get a grip on it. Shrieking, they dived past Ahren in a flurry of movement, wings whipping the air, talons extended, huge black shadows descending and then lifting away. He closed his eyes to sharpen his concentration, forcing his fingers to find and tighten about the Elfstones, drawing them clear.\n\nHe thrust his hand out in front of him, called up the power of the magic, and sent it sweeping out into the dark in a wall of blue fire.\n\nThe result was unexpected. The magic flooded the air with its sudden brightness, frightening the Shrikes but not harming them. Ahren, however, was sent spinning off into the void, the backlash from the magic nearly collapsing the single wing about his body. Belatedly, he remembered that the magic of the Elfstones was useless against creatures that did not rely on magic themselves. The Shrikes were immune to the power of the only weapon he possessed.\n\nStill clutching the Elfstones, he tried to maneuver downward, diving between cliff faces so sheer that if he struck one, he would slide all the way to its base unimpeded. The Shrikes followed, screaming in frustration and rage, whipping past him in one series of near misses after another, the wake of their passing spinning him around until he could no longer determine where he was.\n\nHe was finished, he knew. He was a dead man. The whirl of land and sky formed a kaleidoscope of indigo and quicksilver, stars and darkness melding as he fought to slow his descent. A strut snapped with the sharpness of broken deadwood. His left wing shuddered and dipped.\n\nThen something bigger than the Shrikes appeared at the corner of his eye, there for only a moment before the single wing spun him a different way. The Shrikes screamed anew, but the sound was different, and the Elven Prince detected fear in it. An instant later they were winging away, their dark shadows fading as quickly as their cries.\n\nSomething huge loomed over him, its shadow blacking out the sky. He tried to look upward to see what it was, but it collided with his single wing, knocking it askew once more, then latched on to the frame. He fought wildly to free it, to regain some control, but the control straps refused to respond or the grapples release.\n\nThe Morgawr! he thought in terror. The Morgawr has found me once more!\n\nThen a second shadow appeared, lifting out of the well of cliffs and valleys in a spread of massive wings and a shining of great, gimlet eyes.\n\n\"Let go, Elven Prince!\" Hunter Predd called out through the haze of shadows, reaching up from Obsidian's back to catch hold of his dangling legs.\n\nAhren quit struggling and did as he was told, releasing first the control straps and then the buckles and ties that secured him to the harness. In a rush of wind and blackness, he slid down into the Wing Rider's arms, scarcely able to believe the other was really there. In a daze, he watched the single wing and its harness tumble away, a tangle of crumpled wreckage.\n\n\"Hold tight,\" Hunter Predd whispered in his ear, rough-bearded face pressing close to his own, strong arms fastening a safety line in place. \"We have a ways to go, but you're safe now.\"\n\nSafe, Ahren repeated silently, gratefully, and began to shake all over.\n\nHunter Predd's strong arms tightened about him reassuringly, and with Po Kelles and Niciannon leading the way, they flew into the night.\n\nMiles away in the same darkness that cloaked the fleeing Wing Riders and the Elven Prince, Ryer Ord Star hung from the yardarm of Black Moclips, swaying gently at the ends of the ropes tied about her wrists. Blood coated her arms from the deep gouges the ropes had made in her flesh, and sweat ran down her face and body in spite of the cool night air, Her pain was all encompassing, racking her slender body from head to toe, rising and falling in steady waves as she waited to die.\n\n\"Walker,\" she begged softly, \"please help me.\" She had called to him all night, but this time he responded. He appeared out of nowhere, suspended in air before her, his dark countenance pale and haunted, but so comforting to her that she would have welcomed it even if it was nothing more than a mirage. Wrapped in his Druid robes, he was a shade come from death's gate, a presence less of this world than the one beyond, yet in his eyes she found what she was seeking.\n\n\"Let me go,\" she whispered, the words thick and clotted in her throat. \"Set me free.\"\n\nHe reached for her with his one good arm, his strong hand brushing against her ravaged cheeks, and his voice was filled with healing.\n\n\u2014 Come with me \u2014\n\nShe shook her head helplessly. \"I cannot. The ropes hold me.\"\n\n\u2014 Only because you cling to them. Release your grip \u2014\n\nShe did so, not knowing how exactly, only knowing that because he said so, she could. She slipped from her bonds as if they were loose cords and stepped out into the air as if she weighed nothing. Her pain and her fear fell away like old clothes she had tossed aside. Her heartache subsided. She stood next to him, and when he reached out a second time, she took his hand in her own. He smiled then and drew her close.\n\n\u2014 Come away \u2014\n\nShe did so, at rest and at peace, redeemed and forgiven, made whole by her sacrifice, and she did not look back."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "When he went to look for the Ahren Elessedil shortly after dawn, Bek Ohmsford found him sitting at the stern of the Jerle Shannara. They had been airborne for more than three hours by then, flying south through heavy clouds and gray skies, intent on reaching the coast before nightfall.\n\nThe Elven Prince glanced up at him with tired eyes. He had been asleep for almost twelve hours, but looked haggard even so. \"Hello, Bek,\" he said.\n\n\"Hello, yourself.\" He plopped down next to Ahren, resting his back against the ship's railing. \"It's good to have you back. I thought we might have lost you.\"\n\n\"I thought so, too. More than once.\"\n\n\"You were lucky Hunter Predd found you when he did. I heard the story. I don't know how you did it. I don't think I could have. Flying all that way without food or rest.\"\n\nAhren Elessedil's smile was faint and sad. \"You can do anything if you're scared enough.\"\n\nThey were silent then, sitting shoulder to shoulder, staring down the length of the airship as she nosed ahead through ragged wisps of cloud and mist. The air had a damp feel to it and smelled of the sea. Redden Alt Mer and his Rovers had cut short the repairs to the Jerle Shannara last night, installed the recovered diapson crystals early this morning, and lifted off at first light. The Rover Captain knew that the Morgawr had some control over the Shrikes that inhabited the coastal regions of Parkasia, and he was afraid that the birds that had attacked Ahren would alert the warlock and lead him to them. He could have used another day of work on his vessel, but the risk of staying on the ground any longer was too great. No one was upset with his decision. Memories of the Crake Rain Forest were fresh in everyone's minds.\n\nIn the pilot box, Spanner Frew stood at the helm, his big frame blocking the movements of his hands as he worked the controls. Now and then he shouted orders to one of the Rovers walking the deck, his rough voice booming through the creaking of the rigging, his bearded face turning to reveal its fierce set. There weren't all that many of them left to shout at, Bek thought. He numbered them in his head. Ten, counting himself. Twelve, if you added in the Wing Riders. Out of more than thirty who had started out all those months ago, that was all. Just twelve.\n\nMake that thirteen, he corrected himself, adding in Grianne. Lucky thirteen.\n\n\"How is your sister?\" Ahren asked him, as if reading his mind.\n\n\"Still the same. Doesn't talk, doesn't see me, doesn't respond to anything, won't eat or drink. Just sits there and stares at nothing.\" He looked over at the Elf. \"Except for two nights ago. The night you were rescued, she saved Quentin.\"\n\nHe told Ahren the details as he had done for everyone else, aware that by doing so he was giving hope to himself as much as to them that Grianne might recover, and that when she did, she might not be the Ilse Witch anymore. It remained a faint hope, but he needed to believe that the losses suffered and the pain endured might count for something in the end. Ahren listened attentively, his young face expressionless, but his eyes distant and reflective.\n\nWhen Bek was finished, he said quietly, \"At least you were able to save someone other than yourself. I couldn't even do that.\"\n\nBek had heard the story of his escape from Black Moclips from Hunter Predd. He knew what the Elf was talking about.\n\n\"I don't see what else you could have done,\" Bek said, seeking words that would ease the other's sense of guilt. \"She didn't want to come with you. She had already made up her mind to stay. You couldn't have changed that.\"\n\n\"Maybe. I wish I were sure. I was so eager to get away, to get off that ship, I didn't even think to try. I just let her tell me what to do.\"\n\nBek scuffed his boot against the deck. \"Well, you don't know. She might have gotten away. She might have done what she said she was going to do. The Wing Riders are out looking for her. Don't give up yet.\"\n\nAhren stared off into space, his eyes haunted. \"They won't find her, Bek. She's dead. I knew it last night. I woke up for no reason, and I knew it. I think she realized what was going to happen when she sent me away, but she wouldn't tell me because she knew that if she did, I wouldn't go. She had promised Walker she would stay, and she refused to break her word, even at the cost of her life.\"\n\nHe sounded bitter and confused, as if his realization of that premonition defied logical explanation.\n\n\"I hope you're wrong,\" Bek told him, not knowing what else to say.\n\nAhren kept his gaze directed out toward the misty horizon, above the sweep of the airship's curved rams, and did not reply.\n\nRedden Alt Mer walked down the main passageway belowdecks to the Captain's quarters \u2014 his quarters, once upon a time-searching for his sister. He was pretty sure by now, having walked the upper decks without success, that she had retired once more to the temporary shelter assigned to the wounded Quentin Leah and the unresponsive Grianne Ohmsford. It was the witch Little Red would go to see, to look at and study, to contemplate in a way that bothered him more than he cared to admit. He was feeling better about himself since braving the horrors of the Crake to recover the lost diapson crystals, especially after hearing from Bek how the witch had wakened from her dead-eyed sleep long enough to do the unexpected and use her magic to help heal the Highlander. Big Red was feeling better, but not entirely well. His brush with death in the rain forest had left him hollowed out, and he wasn't sure yet what it would take to fill him up again. Recovering the crystals was a start, but he was still entirely too conscious of his own mortality, and given the nature of his life, that wasn't healthy.\n\nBut for the moment his concern was for his sister. Rue had always been more tightly wound than he was, the cautious one, the captain of her life, determined that she would decide what was best for those she felt responsible for, no matter the obstacles she faced. But, of late, she had begun to show signs of vacillation that had never been apparent before. It wasn't that she seemed any less determined, but that she seemed uncertain what it was she should be determined about.\n\nHer attitude toward the Ilse Witch was such a case. In the beginning, there had been no question in his mind that as soon as she could find a way to do so, Rue would dispose of her. She would do so in a way that would remove all suspicion from herself, especially because of how she felt about Bek, but do it she would. Hawk's death demanded it. Yet something had happened to change her mind, something he had missed entirely, and it was impacting her in a way that suggested a major shift in her thinking.\n\nHe shook his head, wishing he understood what that something was. Since yesterday, when she had returned from the Crake with Bek after completing a mission he would have put a stop to in a minute had he known about it, she had come down here at every opportunity. She had taken up watch over the witch, as if to see what would happen when she woke, as if trying to ascertain what manner of creature she really was. At first, he had thought she was waiting for an opportunity to finish her off. But as time passed and opportunities came and went, he had begun to wonder. This wasn't about revenge for Hawk and the others, \u2014 this was about something else. Whatever it was, he was baffled.\n\nHe pushed open the door to his cabin, and there she was, sitting next to Bek's sister, holding her hand and staring into her vacant eyes. It was such a strange scene that for a moment he simply stood there, speechless.\n\n\"Close the door,\" she said quietly, not bothering to look over.\n\nHe did so, then moved to where she could see him, and knelt at Quentin Leah's bedside for a moment, placing his fingers on the Highlander's wrist to read his pulse.\n\n\"Strong and steady,\" Little Red said. \"Bek was right. She saved Quentin's life, whether she intended to or not.\"\n\n\"Is that what you're doing?\" he asked, standing up again, giving the Highlander a final glance. \"Trying to decide if it was an accident or not?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said.\n\n\"What, then?\"\n\n\"I'm trying to find out where she is. I'm trying to figure out how to reach her.\"\n\nHe stared at her, not quite believing what he was hearing. She was leaning forward as she sat in front of the witch, her face only inches away. There was no fear in her green eyes, no suggestion that she felt at risk. She held Grianne's hands loosely in her own, and she was moving her fingers over their smooth, pale backs in small circles.\n\n\"Bek said she was hiding from the truth about herself, that when the magic of the Sword of Shannara showed her that truth, it was too much for her, so she fled from it. Walker told him that she would come back when she found a way to forgive herself for the worst of her sins. A tall order, even to sort them all out, I'd think.\" She paused. \"I'm trying to see if a woman can reach her when a man can't.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I guess it's possible it might happen that way.\"\n\n\"But you don't know why I have to be the one to find out.\"\n\n\"I guess I don't.\"\n\nShe didn't say anything for a long time, sitting silent and unmoving before Grianne Ohmsford, staring into her strange blue eyes. The Ilse Witch was little more than a child, Alt Mer realized. She was so young that any attempt to define her in terms of the acts she was said to have committed was impossible. In her comatose state, blank-faced and unseeing, she bore a look of complete innocence, as if incapable of evil or wrongdoing or any form of madness. Somehow, they had got it all wrong, and it needed only for her to come awake again to put it right.\n\nIt was a dangerous way to feel, he thought.\n\nShe looked over at him. 'I'm doing it for Bek,\" she said, as if to explain, then quickly turned her attention back to Grianne. \"Maybe because of Bek.\"\n\nAlt Mer moved to where she could no longer see him, doubt clouding his sunburned features. \"Bek doesn't expect this of you. His sister isn't your responsibility. Why are you making her so?\"\n\n\"You don't understand,\" she said.\n\nHe waited for her to say something more, but she didn't. He cleared his throat. \"What don't I understand, Rue?\"\n\nShe let him wait a long time before she answered, and he realized afterwards that she was trying to decide whether to tell him the truth, that the choice was more difficult for her than she had anticipated. \"I'm in love with him,\" she said finally.\n\nHe wasn't expecting that, hadn't considered the possibility for a moment, although on hearing it, it made perfect sense. He remembered her reaction to his decision to take Bek with him into the Crake while leaving her behind. He remembered how she had cared for the boy when Hunter Predd had flown him in from the mountain wilderness, as if she alone could make him well.\n\nExcept that Bek wasn't a boy, as he had already noted days earlier. He was a man, grown up on this journey, changed so completely that he might be someone else altogether.\n\nEven so, he could not quite believe what he was hearing. \"When did this happen?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"But you're sure?\"\n\nShe didn't bother to answer, but he saw her shoulders lift slightly as if to shrug the question away.\n\n\"You don't seem suited to each other,\" he continued, and knew at once that he had made a mistake. Her gaze shifted instantly, her eyes boring into him with unmistakable antagonism. \"Don't get mad at me,\" he said quickly. \"I'm just telling you what I see.\"\n\n\"You don't know who's suited to me, big brother,\" she said quietly, her gaze shifting back to the witch. \"You never have.\"\n\nHe nodded, accepting the rebuke. He sat down now, needing to talk about this, thinking it might take a while, and having no idea what he was going to say. Or should. \"I thought what Hawk thought \u2014 that you were never going to settle on anyone, that you couldn't stand it.\"\n\n\"Well, you were wrong.\"\n\n\"It just seems that your lives are so different. If you hadn't been thrown together on this voyage, your paths would never have crossed. Have you thought about what's going to happen when you get home?\"\n\n\"If I get home.\"\n\n\"You will. Then Bek will go back to the Highlands and you'll go back to being a Rover.\"\n\nShe exhaled sharply, let go of Grianne Ohmsford's hands, and turned to face him. \"We'd better get past this right now. I told you how I feel about Bek. This is new to me, so I'm still finding out what it means. I'm trying not to think too far ahead. But here is what I do know. I'm sick of my life. I've been sick of it for a long time. I didn't like it on the Prekkendorran, and I haven't cared much for it since. I thought that coming on this voyage, getting far away from everything I knew, would change things. It hasn't. I feel like I've been wandering around all these years and not getting anywhere. I want something different. I'm willing to take a look at Bek to see if he can give it to me.\"\n\nRedden Alt Mer held her gaze. \"You're putting a lot on him, aren't you?\"\n\n\"I'm not putting anything on him. I'm carrying this burden all by myself. He loves me, too, Redden. He loves me in a way no one ever has. Not for how I look or what I can do or what he imagines me to be. It goes deeper than that. It touches on connections that words can't express and don't have to. It makes a difference when someone loves you like that. I like it enough that I don't want to throw it away without taking time to see where it leads.\"\n\nShe eased herself into a different position, her physical discomfort apparent, still sore from her wounds, still nursing her injuries. \"I wanted to kill the Ilse Witch,\" she said. \"I had every intention of doing so the moment I got the chance. I thought I owed that much to Hawk. But I can't do it now. Not while Bek believes she might wake up and be his sister again. Not after all he has done to protect her and care for her and give her a chance at being well. I don't have that right, not even to make myself feel good again about losing Hawk.\n\n\"So I've decided to try to do what Bek can't. I've decided to try to reach her, to see where she is and what she hides from, to try to understand what she's feeling. I've decided to let her know someone else cares what happens to her. Maybe I can. But even if I can't, I have to try. Because that's what loving someone requires of you \u2014 giving yourself to something they believe in, even when you don't. That's what I want to do for Bek. That's how I feel about him.\"\n\nShe turned back to Grianne Ohmsford, lifted the girl's hands in her own, and held them anew. \"I keep thinking that if I can help her, maybe I can help myself. I'm as lost as she is. If I can find her, maybe I can find myself. Through Bek. Through feeling something for him.\" She leaned forward again, her face so close to Grianne's that she might have been thinking of kissing her. \"I keep thinking that it's possible.\"\n\nHe stared at her in silence, thinking that he wasn't all that secure himself, that he felt lost, too. All this wandering about the larger world had a way of making you feel disconnected from everything, as if your life was something so elusive that you spent all the time allotted to you chasing after it and never quite catching up.\n\n\"Go away and leave me alone,\" she said to him. \"Fly this airship back to where we came from. Get us safely home. Then we can talk about this some more. Maybe by then we will understand each other better than we do now.\"\n\nHe climbed back to his feet and stood watching her for a moment longer, thinking he should say something. But nothing he could think of seemed right.\n\nResigned to leaving well enough alone, to letting her do what she felt she must, he walked out of the room without a word.\n\nStill sitting with Ahren by the aft railing, Bek Ohmsford glanced over as Redden Alt Mer emerged from the main hatchway and turned to look at him. What he saw in the Rover Captain's face was a strange mix of frustration and wonderment, a reflection of thoughts that Bek could only begin to guess at. The look lasted only a second, and then Alt Mer had turned away, walking over to the pilot box and climbing up to stand beside Spanner Frew, his attention directed ahead into the shifting clouds.\n\n\"I heard that Panax stayed behind,\" Ahren said, interrupting his thoughts.\n\nBek nodded absently. \"He said he was tired of this journey, that he liked where he was and wanted to stay. He said with Walker and Truls Rohk both gone, there was nothing left to go home to. I guess I don't blame him.\"\n\n\"I can't wait to get home. I don't ever want to go away again, once I do.\" The Elf's face twisted in a grimace. \"I hate what's happened here, all of it.\"\n\n\"It doesn't seem to have counted for much, does it?\"\n\n\"Walker said it did, but I don't think I believe him.\"\n\nBek let the matter slide, remembering that Walker had told him that his sister was the reason they had come to Parkasia and returning her safely home was the new purpose of their journey. He still didn't understand why that was so. Forget that he wasn't sure if they could do it or if she would ever come awake again if they did. The reality was that they had come here to retrieve the books of magic and failed to do so. They had destroyed Antrax, so there was some satisfaction in knowing that no one else would end up like Kael Elessedil, but it felt like a high price to pay for the losses they had suffered. Too high, given the broad scope of their expectations. Too high, for what they had been promised.\n\n\"Ryer said I was going to be King of the Elves,\" Ahren said softly. He gave Bek a wry look. \"I can't imagine that happening. Even if I had the chance, I don't think I would take it. I don't want to be responsible for anyone else but me after what's happened here.\"\n\n\"What will you do when you get home?\" Bek asked him.\n\nHis friend shrugged. \"I haven't thought about it. Go away somewhere, I expect. Being home means being back in the Westland, nothing more. I don't want to live in Arborlon. Not while my brother is King. I liked being with Ard Patrinell when he was teaching me. I'll miss him more than anyone except Ryer. She was special.\"\n\nHis lips compressed as tears came to his eyes, and he looked away selfconsciously. \"Maybe I won't go home, after all.\"\n\nBek thought about the dead, about those men and women who had come on this voyage with such determination and sense of purpose. Who would he miss most? He had known none of them when he started out and had become close to all at the end. The absence of Walker and Truls Rohk, because they had been his mentors and protectors, left the biggest void. But the others had been his friends, more so than the Druid and the shape-shifter. He couldn't imagine what his life would be like without them or even what it would be like when he parted company with those who remained. Everything about his future seemed muddled and confused, and it felt to him as if nothing he did would be enough to clear away the debris of his past.\n\nHis gaze drifted along the length of the ship's deck, searching for Rue Meridian. She was the future, or at least as much of it as he could imagine. He hadn't seen much of her since their return from the Crake Rain Forest. There hadn't been time for visiting while they readied the Jerle Shannara for flight, their sense of urgency at the approach of the Morgawr consuming all of their time and energy. But even after setting out, she had kept to herself. He knew she spent much of her time looking in on his sister, and at first he had worried about her intentions. But it seemed wrong of him to mistrust her when she felt about him as she did. It felt small-minded and petty. He thought that she was reconciled to her anger and disappointment at Grianne's presence and no longer thought it necessary to act on them. He thought that because she loved him she would want to help his sister.\n\nSo he left her alone, thinking that when she was ready to come to him again, she would do so. He didn't feel any less close to her because she chose to be alone. He didn't think she cared any less for him for doing so. They had always shared a strong sense of each other's feelings, even in the days when they were first becoming friends on the voyage out. There had never been a need for reassurances. Nothing had changed. Friendship required space and tolerance. Love required no less.\n\nStill, he missed being with her. He knew he could seek her out in Big Red's quarters and she would not be angry with him. But it might be better to let her find her own way with Grianne.\n\n\"Maybe I'll go home, too,\" he whispered to himself.\n\nBut he wasn't as sure about it anymore.\n\nIt was late afternoon when the Wing Riders reappeared, illumined by the red glare of the fading sun. The Jerle Shannara was less than an hour from the coast, and there had been no sign of the Morgawr's airships. With the return of the Wing Riders, Redden Alt Mer intended to turn his vessel south and begin working along the cliffs that warded the south end of the peninsula to where he could set out across the Blue Divide.\n\nHunter Predd brought Obsidian beneath the airship, released his safety harness, caught hold of the lowered rope ladder, and climbed to the aft railing. Alt Mer extended his hand, and the Wing Rider took hold of it and pulled himself aboard. His lean face was ridged with dirt and bathed in sweat. His eyes were hard, flat mirrors that reflected the sunset's bloodred light. He looked around the airship without saying anything, his callused hands flexing within their leather gloves, his arms stretching over his windswept head.\n\n\"We're maybe a day ahead of them,\" he said finally, keeping his voice low enough that no one else could hear. \"They're north of us, strung out along the edge of the mountains and flying inland. They must think we're still there, from the look of things.\"\n\nAlt Mer nodded. \"Good news for us, I'd say.\"\n\nHe held out a water skin, which the Wing Rider accepted wordlessly and drank from until he had emptied it. \"Ran out of water two hours ago.\" He handed it back.\n\n\"It will be dark in another hour. After that, we won't be so easy to track, especially once we get out over the water.\"\n\n\"Maybe. Maybe not. They tracked us easily enough from home and then inland here. The only time they had any real trouble was after you crashed. That doesn't sound like an evasion tactic you want to employ regularly.\"\n\nAlt Mer grunted noncommittally as he looked out over the railing at the darkness behind them, finding phantoms in the movement of the clouds against the mountains. The Wing Rider was right. He had no reason to think they could evade the Morgawr forever. Their best chance lay in putting as much distance between themselves and their pursuers as they could manage. Speed would make the difference as to whether they would escape or be forced to turn and fight. Speed was what the Jerle Shannara offered in quantities that not even Black Moclips could match.\n\n\"One other thing,\" Hunter Predd said, taking his arm and leading him over to the far corner of the aft deck. There was no one else around now. Even Bek and the Elven Prince had gone below. \"We found the seer's body.\"\n\nRedden Alt Mer sighed. \"Where?\"\n\n\"Floating in the ocean some miles west of here. All broken up and cut to pieces. I wouldn't have known she was down there if not for Obsidian. Rocs can see things men can't.\"\n\nHe looked at Alt Mer with his hard, weathered eyes and shook his head. \"You tell young Elessedil about her, if you can manage it. I can't. I've given out all the bad news I care to.\"\n\nHe squeezed Alt Mer's arm hard and walked away. Moments later, he was down the rope and back astride Obsidian, winging away into the darkness. Redden Alt Mer stood alone at the railing and wished he were going with him."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "Flying through the night, the Jerle Shannara reached the tip of the peninsula at dawn. The Wing Riders had flown ahead to scout for resistance to her passage and had not encountered the Morgawr's airships. With no sign of their pursuers to discourage them, they set out across the Blue Divide for home.\n\nFrom the first, they knew the return would be a journey of more than six months, and that was only if everything went well. Any disruption of their flying schedule, anything that forced them to land, would extend the time of their flight accordingly. So a certain pacing was necessary, and Redden Alt Mer wasted no time in advising those aboard of what that meant. They were down to thirteen in number, and of those, two were incapable of helping the others. Nor could Rue Meridian be expected to do much in the way of physical labor for at least several more weeks. Nor were the Wing Riders of much use in flying the airship, since they were needed aboard their Rocs to forage for food and water and to scout for pursuers.\n\nThat left eight able-bodied men \u2014 Spanner Frew, \u2014 the Rover crew members Kelson Riat, Britt Rill, and Jethen Amenades, \u2014 the Elves Ahren Elessedil and Kian, \u2014 Bek Ohmsford, \u2014 and himself. While Bek would be of great help to the five Rovers in flying the airship, the Elves lacked the necessary skills and experience and would have to be relegated to basic tasks.\n\nIt was a small group to man an airship twenty-four hours a day for six months. For them to manage, they were going to have to be well organized and extraordinarily lucky. Alt Mer could do nothing about the latter, so he turned his attention to the former.\n\nHe set about his task by drawing up a duty roster for the eight men he could rely upon, splitting time between the Elves so that there would never be more than one of them on watch at a time. At least three men were needed to sail the Jerle Shannara safely, so he drew up a rotating schedule of eight-hour shifts, putting two men on the midnight-to-dawn shift when the airship would be mostly at rest. It was not a perfect solution, but it was the best he could come up with. Rue was the only one who complained, but he deflected her anger by telling her that she could handle the navigation, which would keep her involved with sailing the vessel and not relegate her to tender of the wounded.\n\nOn the surface of things, they were in good condition. There was sufficient food aboard to keep them alive for several weeks, and they carried equipment for hunting and fishing to help resupply their depleted stock. Water was a bigger problem, but he thought the Wing Riders would be able to help with their foraging. Weapons were plentiful, should they be attacked. Now that they had replaced the damaged diapson crystals with the ones they had recovered from the Crake, they were able to fly the airship at full power. Since they were aboard the fastest airship in the Four Lands, no other airship, not even Black Moclips, should be able to catch them.\n\nBut things were not always as they seemed. The Jerle Shannara had endured enormous hardship since she had departed Arborlon. She had been damaged repeatedly, had crashed once, and was patched in more places than Alt Mer cared to count. Even a ship built by Spanner Frew could not stand up to a beating like that without giving up something. The Jerle Shannara was a good vessel, but she was not the vessel she had been. If she held together for even half the distance they had to cover, it would be a miracle. It was likely she would not, that somewhere along the way she would break down. The crucial question was how serious the breakdown would be. If it was too serious and took too long to correct, the Morgawr would catch up to them.\n\nRedden Alt Mer was nothing if not realistic, and he was not about to pretend that the warlock would not be able to track them. As Hunter Predd had pointed out, he had managed to do so before, so they had to expect he would be able to do so again. It was a big ocean, and there were an infinite number of courses that they could set, but in the end they still had to fly home. If they failed to take a direct course, they were likely to find the Morgawr and his airships waiting for them when they got there. Getting back to the Four Lands before their enemies would give them a chance at finding shelter and allies. It was the better choice.\n\nSo he addressed the company as Captain and leader of the expedition and made his assignments accordingly, all the while knowing that at best he was staving off the inevitable. But a good airship Captain understood that flying was a mercurial experience, and that routine and order were the best tools to rely on in preparing for it. Bad luck was unavoidable, but it didn't have to find you right away. A little good luck could keep it at bay, and he had always had good luck. Given what the ship had come through to get to this point, he was inclined to think that his streak had not deserted him.\n\nNor did it do so in the weeks ahead. In the course of their travels, they encountered favorable weather with steady winds and clear skies, and they found regular opportunities to forage for food and water. They flew over the Blue Divide without need for slowing or setting down. Radian draws frayed, ambient-light sheaths tore oose, parse tubes required adjustments, and controls malfunctioned, all in accord with Alt Mer's expectations, but none of it was serious and all of it was quickly repaired.\n\nMore important, there was no sign of the Morgawr's airships and no indication that the warlock was tracking them.\n\nAlt Mer kept his tiny crew working diligently at their assigned tasks, and if he felt they needed something more to occupy their time or take their minds off their problems, he found it for them. At first, their collective attitude was dour, a backlash from the hardships and losses suffered on Parkasia. But gradually time and distance began to heal and their spirits to lift. The passing of the days and the acceptance of a routine that was free of risk and uncertainty gave them both a renewed sense of confidence and hope. They began to believe in themselves again, in the possibility of a future safely back in the Four Lands and a life beyond the monstrous events of the past few weeks.\n\nAhren Elessedil emerged a little farther from his despondency each day. That he was damaged was unmistakable, but it seemed to Bek that the damage was repairable and that with time he would find a way to reconcile the loss of Ryer Ord Star. When Ahren learned of her death from Big Red, he seemed to lose heart entirely. He quit taking nourishment and refused to speak. He languished belowdecks and would not emerge. But Bek kept after him, staying close, talking to him even when he would not respond, and bringing him food and water until he started to eat and drink again.\n\nEventually, he began to recover. He no longer sought to blame himself for Ryer's death. He found it hard to speak of her, and Bek kept their conversations away from any mention of the seer. They spoke often of Grianne, who remained unchanged from when they had departed Parkasia, still a statue staring off into space, unresponsive and remote. They discussed what she had done for Quentin and what it meant to her chances for recovery. Ahren was more supportive of her than Bek would have expected, given the trouble she had visited on him, directly and indirectly. But Ahren seemed capable of unconditional forgiveness and infinite grace, and he displayed a maturity that had not been there when they had set out from Arborlon all those months ago. But then, Bek had been no more mature. Boys, both of them, but their boyhood was past.\n\nQuentin continued to improve. He was awake much of the time, if only for short stretches, but he was still weak and unable to leave his bed. It would be weeks yet before he could stand, longer still before he could walk. He remembered almost nothing of what had happened in the Crake or anything of Grianne's healing use of the wishsong. But Bek was there to explain it to him, to sit with him each day, gradually catching small glimpses of the familiar smile and quick wit, finding new reasons with each visit to feel encouraged.\n\nBek spent time with Grianne as well, speaking and singing to her, trying to find a way to reach her, and failing. She had locked herself away again. Nothing he tried would persuade her to respond. That she had come out the first time was mystifying, but that she would not come a second time was maddening. He could think of no reason for it, and his inability to solve the riddle of her became increasingly frustrating.\n\nNevertheless, he kept at it, refusing to give up, certain that somehow he would find a way to break through, convinced that Walker had spoken the truth in prophesying that one day his sister would come back to him.\n\nHe spent stolen time with Rue Meridian, hidden away from the rest of the company, lost in words and touchings meant only for each other. She loved him so hard that he thought each time it ended and they separated that he could not survive letting her go. He thought he was blessed in a way that most men could only dream about, and in the silence of his mind he thanked her for it a hundred times a day. She told him that he was healing her, that he was giving her back her life in a way she had not thought possible. She had been adrift, she said, lost in her Rover wanderings, cast away from anything that mattered beyond the day and the task at hand. That she had found salvation in him was astonishing to her. She confessed she had thought nothing of him in the beginning, that she saw him as only a boy. She thought it important that he was her friend first, and that her deeper love for him was built on that.\n\nShe told him that he was her anchor in life. He told her that she was a miracle.\n\nThey spent their passion and their wonder when the night was dark and the company mostly asleep, and if anyone saw what they were doing, no one admitted to it. Perhaps for those who suspected what was happening, there was a measure of joy to be found in what Bek shared with Rue, an affirmation of life that transcended even the worst misfortunes. Perhaps in that small, but precious joining of two wounded souls, there was hope to be found that others might heal, as well.\n\nSo the days passed, and the Jerle Shannara sailed on, drawing further away from Parkasia and closer to home. Voracious sea birds circled the remains of meals consumed by sleek predators, and schools of krill swam from the wide-stretched jaws of leviathans. Far away on the Prekkendorran, the Races still warred across a plain five miles wide and twenty miles long. Farther away still, creatures of old magic slumbered, cradled in the webbing of their restless dreams and unbreakable prison walls.\n\nBut in the skies above the Blue Divide, the troubles of other creatures and places were as distant as yesterday, and the world below remained a world apart.\n\nBut even worlds apart have a way of colliding. Eight weeks into their journey, with the Four Lands still a long way off, Redden Alt Mer's fabled luck ran out. The sun was bright in the sky and the weather perfect. They were on course for Mephitic, where they hoped to use the Wing Riders to forage for fresh water and game while the airship stayed safely aloft. Alt Mer was at the helm, one of three on duty for the midday shift, with Britt Rill working the port draws and Jethen Amenades the starboard. The other members of the company were asleep below, save Rue Meridian, who was looking after Quentin and Grianne in the Captain's quarters, and Ahren Elessedil, who was weaving lanyards in one of the starboard pontoon fighting stations.\n\nAlt Mer had just taken a compass reading when the port midships draw gave way with a sharp, vibrating crack that caused him to duck instinctively. It whipped past his head, wrapping about the port aft draw and snapping it loose, as well. Instantly, the masts sagged toward the starboard rail, the weight of their sails dragging them down, breaking off metal stays and pieces of crossbars and spars as they did so. Responding to the loss of balance in the sails and failure of power in the port tubes, the airship skewed sharply left. Alt Mer cried out a warning as both Rill and Amenades raced to secure the loose draws, but before he could right the listing vessel, it lurched sharply, twisting downward, sending Rill flying helplessly along the port rail and Amenades over the side.\n\nThey were a thousand feet in the air when it happened; Amenades was a dead man the minute he disappeared into the void. There was no time to dwell on it, so Alt Mer's hands were already flying over the controls as he shouted at Rill to grab something and hold fast. Without bothering to see if the other had done so, he cut power to all but the two forward parse tubes and put the ship into a steep downward glide. He heard the sound of heavy objects crashing into bulkheads and sliding along corridors, and a flurry of angry curses. As the airship finally righted itself, he opened the front end of the forward tubes, reversed power through the ports, and caught the backwash of the wind in the mainsail to bring up her nose.\n\nHolding her steady against the tremors that rocked her, he eased her slowly into the ocean waters and shut her down.\n\nBritt Rill staggered to his feet, Ahren Elessedil climbed from the fighting port, and all the rest poured out through the main hatchway and converged on Alt Mer. He shouted down their questions and exclamations and put them to work on the severed draws, broken stays and spars, and twisted masts. A quick survey under Spanner Frew's sharp-tongued direction revealed that the damage was more extensive than Alt Mer had thought. The problem this time did not lie with something as complicated as missing diapson crystals, but with something more mundane. The aft mast was splintered so badly it could not be repaired and would have to be replaced. To do that they would have to land, cut down a suitable tree, and shape a new mast from the trunk.\n\nThe only forested island in the area was Mephitic.\n\nAlt Mer was as unhappy as he could be on realizing what this meant, but there was no help for it. He dispatched the Wing Riders to retrieve the body of Jethen Amenades, then called the others together to tell them what they were going to have to do. No one said much in response. There wasn't much of anything to say. Circumstances dictated a course of action they would all have preferred to avoid, but could do nothing about. The best they could do was to land far from the castle that housed the malignant spirit creature Bek and Truls Rohk had encountered and hope it could not reach beyond the walls of its keep.\n\nThey made what repairs they could, detaching the draws to the aft parse tubes and reducing their power by one-third. All of a sudden they were no longer the fastest airship in the skies, and if the Morgawr was tracking them, he would quickly catch up. The Wing Riders returned with Amenades, and they weighed him down and buried him at sea before setting out once more.\n\nSetting a course for Mephitic, they limped along for all of that day and the two after, casting anxious glances over their shoulders at every opportunity. But the Morgawr did not appear, and their journey continued uninterrupted until at midday on the fourth day, land appeared on the horizon. It was the island they were seeking, its broad-backed shape instantly recognizable. Green with forests and grassy plains, it shimmered in a haze of damp heat like a jewel set in azure silk, deceptively tranquil and inviting.\n\nFrom his position at the controls in the pilot box, Redden Alt Mer stared at it bleakly. \"Let's make this quick,\" he muttered to himself, and pointed the horns of the Jerle Shannara landward.\n\nThey set down on the broad plain fronting the castle ruins, well back from the long shadow of its crumbling walls. Alt Mer had thought at first to land somewhere else on the island, but then decided that the western plain offered the best vantage point for establishing a perimeter watch against anything that approached or threatened. He assumed that the spirit that lived in the castle could sense their presence wherever they were, and the best they could hope for was that it either couldn't reach them or wouldn't bother trying if they left it alone. He dispatched the Wing Riders to search for food and water, then Spanner Frew, Britt Rill, and the Elven Hunter Kian to locate a tree from which to fashion a new mast. The others were put to work on sentry duty or cleaning up.\n\nBy sundown, everyone was back aboard. The Wing Riders had located a water source, Spanner Frew had found a suitable tree and cut it down, and the thing that lived in the ruins had not appeared. The members of the company, save Quentin and Grianne, sat together on the aft deck and ate their dinner, watching the sunset wash lavender and gold across the dark battlements and towers of the castle, as if making a vain attempt to paint them in a better light. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, the color faded from the stones and night's shadows closed about.\n\nAlt Mer stood looking at the outline of the ruins after the others had dispersed. Kian was scheduled to stand guard, but he sent the Elven Hunter below, deciding to take his place, thinking that on this night he was unlikely to sleep anyway. Taking up a position at the Jerle Shannara's stern, he left responsibility for keeping watch over the Blue Divide to Riat and gave his attention instead to the empty, featureless landscape of Mephitic.\n\nHis thoughts quickly drifted. He was troubled by what he perceived as his failure as Captain of his airship. Too many men and women had died while traveling with him, and their deaths did not rest easy with him. He might pretend that the responsibility lay elsewhere, but he was not the kind of man who looked for ways to shift blame to others. A Captain was responsible for his charges, no matter what the circumstances. There was nothing he could do for those who were dead, but he was afraid that perhaps there was nothing he could do for those who were still alive, either. His confidence had been eroding incrementally since the beginning of their time on Parkasia, a gradual wearing away of his certainty that nothing bad could happen to those who flew with him. His reputation had been built on that certainty. He had the luck, and luck was the most single important weapon of an airship Captain.\n\nLuck, he whispered to himself. Ask Jahnon Pakabbon about his luck. Or Rucker Bont and Tian Cross. Or any of the Elves who had gone inland to the ruins of Castledown and never come back. Ask Jethen Amenades. What luck had Alt Mer given to them? It wasn't that he believed he had done anything to cause their deaths. It was that he hadn't found a way to prevent them. He hadn't kept his people safe, and he was afraid he had lost the means for doing so.\n\nSooner or later, luck always ran out. He knew that. His seemed to have begun draining away when he had agreed to undertake this voyage, so self-confident, so determined everything would work out just as he wanted it to. But nothing had gone right, and now Walker was dead and Alt Mer was in command. What good was that going to do any of those who depended on him if the armor of his fabled luck was cracked and rusted?\n\nStaring at the dark bulk of the ruins across the way, he could not help thinking that what he saw, broken and crumbled and abandoned, was a reflection of himself.\n\nBut his pride would not let him accept that he was powerless to do anything. Even if his luck was gone, even if he himself was doomed because of it, he would find a way to help the others. It was the charge he must give himself, that so long as he breathed, he must get those he captained, those eleven men and women who were left, safely home again. Saving just those few would give him some measure of peace. That one of them was his sister and another the boy she loved made his commitment even more necessary. That all of them were his friends and shipmates made it imperative.\n\nHe was still thinking about this when he sensed a presence at his elbow and glanced over to find Bek Ohmsford standing next to him. He was so surprised to see Bek, perhaps because he had just been thinking of him, that for a moment he didn't speak.\n\n\"It won't come out of there,\" Bek said, nodding in the direction of the castle. His young face bore a serious cast, as if his thoughts were taking him to dark and complex places. \"You don't have to worry.\"\n\nAlt Mer followed his gaze to the ruins. \"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"Because it didn't come after me when I stole the key the last time we were here. Not past the castle walls, not outside the ruins.\" He paused. \"I don't think it can go outside. It can chase you that far, but no farther. It can't reach beyond.\"\n\nThe Rover Captain thought about it for a moment. \"It didn't bother us when we were searching the ruins, did it? It just used its magic to turn us down blind alleys and blank walls so that we couldn't find anything.\"\n\nBek nodded. \"I don't think it will bother us if we stay out here. Even if we go in, it probably won't interfere if we don't try to take anything.\"\n\nThey stood shoulder to shoulder for a few moments, staring out into the darkness, listening to the silence. A dark, winged shape flew across the lighter indigo of the starlit sky, a hunting bird at work. They watched it bank left in a sweeping glide and disappear into the impenetrable black of the trees.\n\n\"What are you doing out here?\" Alt Mer asked him. \"Why aren't you asleep?\"\n\nHe almost asked why he wasn't with Rue, but Bek hadn't chosen to talk about it, and Alt Mer didn't think it was up to him to broach the subject.\n\nBek shook his head, running his hand through his shaggy hair. \"I couldn't sleep. I was dreaming about Grianne, and it woke me. I think the dream was telling me something important, but I can't remember what. It bothered me enough that I couldn't go back to sleep, so I came up here.\"\n\nAlt Mer shifted his feet restlessly. \"You still can't reach her, can you? Little Red can't either. Never thought she'd even try, but she goes down there every day and sits with her.\"\n\nBek didn't say anything, so Alt Mer let the matter drop. He was growing tired, wishing suddenly that he hadn't been so quick to send Kian off to sleep.\n\n\"Are you upset with me about Rue?\" Bek asked suddenly.\n\nAlt Mer stared at him in surprise. \"Don't you think it's a little late to be asking me that?\"\n\nBek nodded solemnly, not looking back. \"I don't want you to be angry. It's important to both of us that you aren't.\"\n\n\"Little Red quit asking my permission to do anything a long time ago,\" Alt Mer said quietly. \"It's her life, not mine. I don't tell her how to lead it.\"\n\n\"Does that mean it's all right?\"\n\n\"It means...\" He paused, confused. \"I don't know what it means. It means I don't know. I guess I worry about what's going to happen when you get back home and have to make a choice about your lives. You're different people, \u2014 you don't have the same background or life experience.\"\n\nBek thought about it. \"Maybe we don't have to live our old lives. Maybe we can live new ones.\"\n\nAlt Mer sighed. \"You know something, Bek. You can do whatever you want, if you put your mind to it. I believe that. If you love her as much as I think you do \u2014 as much as I know she loves you \u2014 then you'll find your way. Don't ask me what I think or if I'm upset or what I might suggest or anything. Don't ask anyone. Just do what feels right.\"\n\nHe clapped Bek lightly on the shoulder. \"Of course, I think you should become a Rover. You've got flying in your blood.\" He yawned. \"Meanwhile, stand watch for me, since you're so wide awake. I think I need a little sleep after all.\"\n\nWithout waiting for an answer, he walked over to the main hatchway and started down. There was a hint of self-confidence in his step as he did so. One way or another, it would work out for all of them, he promised himself. He could feel it in his bones.\n\nThe company was awake and at work shortly after sunrise, continuing repair efforts on the damaged Jerle Shannara. Using axes and planes, Spanner Frew and the other two Rover crewmen took all morning to shape the mast from the felled tree trunk. It was afternoon before they had hauled it back to the ship to prepare it for the spars and rigging it would hold when it was set in place. The painstaking process required a careful removal of metal clasps and rings from the old mast so that they could be used again, \u2014 the work would not be completed for at least another day. Those not involved were sent out to complete the foraging begun the other day by the Wing Riders, who had been dispatched to make certain the company was still safely ahead of the Morgawr.\n\nThey weren't. By late afternoon, the Wing Riders returned, landed their Rocs close by the airship, and delivered the bad news. The Morgawr's fleet was less than six hours out and coming directly toward them. In spite of everything, the warlock had managed to track them down once more. If the enemy airships continued to advance at their present pace, they would arrive on Mephitic shortly after nightfall.\n\nAnxious eyes shifted from face to face. There was no way that the repairs to the Jerle Shannara could be finished by then. At best, if she tried to flee now, she would be flying at a speed that would allow even the slowest pursuer to catch her within days. The choices were obvious. The company could try to hide or they could stand and fight.\n\nRedden Alt Mer already knew what they were going to do. He had been preparing since the night before, when he had decided that no one else was going to die under his command. Assuming the worst might happen, he had come up with a plan, suggested by something Bek had told him, to counteract it.\n\n\"Gather up everything,\" he ordered, striding through their midst as if already on his way to do so himself. \"Don't leave even the smallest trace of anything that would suggest we were here. Put everything aboard so we can lift off. Hunter Predd, can you and Po Kelles find hiding places for yourselves and your Rocs offshore on one of the atolls? You'll need a couple of days.\"\n\nThe Wing Riders looked at each other doubtfully, then looked at him. \"Where will you be while we're safe and snug on the ground?\" Hunter Predd asked bluntly. \"Up in a cloud?\"\n\nAlt Mer smiled cheerfully. \"Hiding in plain sight, Wing Rider. Hiding right under their noses.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 28",
+                "text": "By the time the Morgawr brought his fleet of airships to within view of Mephitic, darkness had eclipsed the light necessary for a search, so he had them anchor offshore until dawn. His Mwellrets supervised the walking dead who crewed the ships, giving them directions for what was needed before setting themselves at watch against a night attack. Such a thing was not out of the question. His quarry was close ahead, perhaps still on the island, her scent stronger than it had been in days, a dense perfume on the salt-laden air.\n\nThe following morning, when it grew light and he could see clearly, he set out to discover where she had gone. Leaving the remainder of his fleet at anchor, he flew Black Moclips in a slow, careful sweep over the island, searching for her hiding place.\n\nHis mood was no longer as dark and foul as it had been after the seer had died, when he had felt both betrayed and outwitted. The seer had tricked him into following blind leads and useless visions. The Jerle Shannara and her crew had escaped him completely, flying out of Parkasia through the mountains even as he was flying in. With the Ilse Witch safely aboard, they had gotten behind him and turned for home.\n\nHe had known what that meant. The Druid's vessel was the faster ship, much faster than anything the Morgawr commanded, including Black Moclips. He had lost the advantages of surprise and numbers both, and if he did not find a way to turn things around, he risked losing them completely.\n\nBut the Four Lands were a long way off, and fate had intervened on his behalf. Something had happened to slow the Jerle Shannara, allowing him to catch up. Even though she had gotten far ahead of him, he had still been able to track her. She had brought aboard her own doom in the form of the Ilse Witch, and once that was done, her fate was sealed. Just as the little witch had tracked the Druid from the Four Lands through her use of the seer as her spy, so had he tracked her through her use of her magic. The scent of it, layered on the air, was pungent and clear, a trail he could not mistake. For a time, when the witch had escaped into the mountains with her brother, he had lost all track of her. He assumed she had simply ceased using the magic, though that was unlike her.\n\nThen, only days before the Elven Prince had fled and he'd had the seer killed, there had been a resurgence of the use of magic deep in Parkasia's mountains. At the time, intent on following the seer's false visions, he had ignored it. But now he had the Ilse Witch's scent again, so strong there was no need for anything more. Small bursts of it permeated the air through which he flew, sudden fits and starts he could not explain, but could read well enough. Wherever she went, while she remained aboard the Jerle Shannara, he would be able to find her.\n\nHer scent was present now, hanging in a cloud over the island, blown everywhere on the breeze. But did it lead away? Had they gotten off the island just ahead of him? That was what he must discover.\n\nHe cruised Mephitic from end to end, tracking the magic, following its trail. He determined quickly enough that it did not extend beyond the island's broad, low sweep. He felt a wildness building in him, an anticipation bordering on frenzy. They were here still, he had them trapped. He could already taste the witch's life bleeding out of her and into him. He could already imagine the sweetness of its taste.\n\nSo he swept the island carefully, flying low enough to read its details, seeking to uncover their hiding place, thinking that no matter how well they hid themselves, they could not hide the scent of his little witch's magic. They might even abandon their ship, though he could not believe they would be so foolish, but they were his for the taking so long as they kept the witch beside them. If the boy was her brother, as the Morgawr was now certain he must be, there was no question but that they would.\n\nEven so, he could not find them. He searched from the air until his eyes ached and his temper frayed. He put Cree Bega and his Mwellrets at every railing and had them search, as well. They found nothing. They searched until midmorning, and then he brought the rest of the fleet inland and had them fan out and blanket the island from the air. When that failed, he had the Mwellrets disembark and under Cree Bega's command search on foot. He had them comb the forests and even the open grasslands, seeking anything that would indicate the presence of his quarry.\n\nHe had them search everywhere except the castle ruins.\n\nThe ruins presented a problem. Something was alive inside those walls, something birthed of old magic and not made of flesh and blood. In spirit form, it had lived for thousands of years, and it regarded those broken parapets and crumbling towers as its own. The Morgawr had sensed its presence right away and sensed, as well, that it might be as powerful as he was. He was not about to send the Mwellrets stumbling about in its domain unless there was good reason to do so. From the air, he had seen nothing to suggest that his quarry had gotten inside. That they could do so seemed doubtful, but if they had, there should be some sign of them.\n\nThe hunt continued through the remainder of the day without result. The Morgawr was furious. It was impossible that he had been mistaken about the scent of the magic, but even so he went back around in Black Moclips, well off the island, to see if he had misread it somehow. But the results were the same, \u2014 there was no trail leading away. Unless they had found a way to disguise the Ilse Witch's scent \u2014 which they had no reason even to think of doing \u2014 they were still on the island.\n\nBy darkness, he was convinced of it. A tree had been cut down very recently, and shavings indicated that something had been shaped from it. A mast, the Morgawr guessed. A broken mast would explain why they had been forced to slow and why he had been able to catch up to them. The Mwellrets found tracks, as well, deeper into the trees where damp grasses and soft earth left imprints. There were fresh gouges on the plains across from the castle, as well, where an airship might have been moored.\n\nNow there was no doubt in the Morgawr's mind that the Jerle Shannara and her company had been on Mephitic less than a day ago, and unless he was completely mistaken, they were still here.\n\nBut where were they hiding?\n\nIt took him only a moment to decide. They were inside the castle. There was nowhere else they could be.\n\nHe sent his searchers back aboard their ships and had them make a final pass over the dusk-shrouded island before moving back out to sea to drop anchor just offshore. There he set the watch, and while the Mwellrets went about the business of shutting down the airships and settling in for the night, he stood alone in the prow of Black Moclips, thinking.\n\nHe did not yet know what had happened to reunite the Ilse Witch with her brother. He did not know if she was now her brother's ally or simply his prisoner. He had to assume she was the former, although he had no idea how that could have happened. That meant she would have the support of not only her brother, but also the young Elessedil Prince and whoever else was still alive, as well. But she would not have the Druid to protect her, and the Druid was the only one who might have stood a chance against him. The others, even fighting together, were not strong enough. The Morgawr had been alive a long time, and he had fought hard to stay that way. The power of his magic was terrifying, and his skill at wielding it more than sufficient to overcome these children.\n\nStill, he would be careful. They would know he was there by now, and they would be waiting for him. They would try to defend themselves, but that would be hopeless. Most of them would die quickly at the hands of his Mwellrets, leaving the few who possessed the use of magic for him to deal with. A few quick strikes, and it would be over.\n\nYet he wanted his little Ilse Witch alive, so that he could feed on her, so that he could feel her life drain away through his fingertips. He had trained her to be his successor, a mirror image of himself. She had become that, her magic fed by rage and despair. But her ambition and her willfulness had outstripped her caution, and so she was no longer reliable. Better to have done with her than to risk her treachery. Better to make an example of her, one that no one could possibly mistake. Cree Bega and his Mwellrets wanted her gone anyway. They had always hated her. Perhaps they had understood her better than he had.\n\nHis gaze lifted. Tomorrow, he would watch her die in the way of so many others. It would give him much satisfaction.\n\nRadiating black venom and hunger, he stood motionless at the railing and imagined how it would be.\n\nCrouched in the shadow of the crumbling castle walls, only a dozen yards from where the Jerle Shannara lay concealed, Bek Ohmsford watched the dark bulk of an airship pass directly overhead, then swing around and pass back again. It floated over the ruins like a storm cloud.\n\n\"That's Black Moclips,\" Rue whispered in his ear, pressing up against him, her words barely more than a breath of air in the silence.\n\nHe nodded without offering a reply, waiting until the vessel was far enough away that it felt safe to speak. \"He knows we're here,\" he said.\n\n\"Maybe not.\"\n\n\"He knows. He would have moved on by now if he didn't. He searched the entire island and didn't find us, but he knows we're here. He senses it somehow. Tomorrow, he'll search these ruins.\"\n\nThey had been in hiding all day, ever since Redden Alt Mer had taken the Jerle Shannara inside the castle walls. It was a bold gamble, but one that the Rover Captain thought would work. If the creature that lived in the ruins had not bothered with them when they had searched for the key, it might not bother with them now, even if they set the Jerle Shannara down inside one of its numerous courtyards. So long as they did not try to take anything out, it might tolerate their presence long enough for them to deceive the Morgawr.\n\nThere was time to try his plan out before the warlock reached them, and so they did. They had been able to fly the Jerle Shannara into the ruins and set her down in a deeply shadowed cluster of walls and towers. Once anchored, they had stripped her of sails and masts and rigging, leaving her decks bare. When that was done, they had covered her over with rocks and dirt and grasses until from the air, astride a Roc, they could not see her at all and would not have known she was there.\n\nAlt Mer knew they were taking a big chance. If they were discovered, they would have no chance of getting aloft with the masts and rigging and sails dismantled. They would be trapped and most probably killed or captured. But the Rover Captain was counting on something else, as well. When they had tried to penetrate the ruins on their way to Parkasia, the castle's spirit dweller had used its magic to turn them aside. Each new foray took them down blind alleys and dead ends and eventually back outside. If that magic was still in place, it ought to work in the same way against the Morgawr and his rets. When they tried to come inside, they would be led astray and never get past the perimeter walls.\n\nWith luck, it should not come to that. With luck, the Morgawr should determine after a careful sweep of the island that his quarry had eluded him. There should be no reason to search the ruins from the ground if nothing was visible from the air.\n\nBut Bek knew it wasn't going to work out that way. Their concealment had been perfect, but the Morgawr's instincts were telling him that they were still on the island. They were whispering to him that he was missing something, and it wouldn't take him long to determine what it was. He would decide that they must be hiding in the ruins. Tomorrow, he would search them. It might not yield him anything, but if it did, the company of the Jerle Shannara was finished.\n\nWith Rue still pressing close, he leaned back against the cool stone of the old wall. Black Moclips had not returned, and the sky was left bright and open in its wake, a trail of glittering stars shining down through a wash of moonlight. The others of the company were inside the Jerle Shannara, kept there by Redden Alt Mer's strict order not to venture out for any reason. Bek was the sole exception, because an outside perspective was needed in case of an attempted ground approach and Bek was best able to conceal himself from the spirit dweller, should the need arise. Rue was with him because it was understood that wherever Bek went, she went, as well. They had been out there, hiding in the shadows, since early morning. It was time to go inside and get some sleep.\n\nBut Bek's mind was running too fast and too hard to permit him to sleep, his thoughts skipping from consideration of one obstacle to the next, from one concern to another, everything tied up with the dangerous situation facing them and what they might try to do to avoid it.\n\nOne concern, in particular, outstripped the rest.\n\nHe bent close to Rue. \"I don't know what to do about Grianne.\" His lips pressed against her ear, his words a hushed whisper. Voices carried in the empty silence of ruins such as these, beyond even walls of mortar and stone. \"If the Morgawr comes for her, she will have no way to protect herself. She will be helpless.\"\n\nRue leaned her head against him, her hair as soft as spiderwebbing. \"Do you want to try to hide her somewhere besides here?\" she whispered back.\n\n\"No. He'll find her wherever we put her. I have to wake her up.\"\n\n\"You've been trying that for weeks, Bek, and it hasn't worked. What can you do that you haven't already done?\"\n\nHe kissed her hair and put his arms around her. \"Find out what it is that keeps her in hiding. Find out what it will take to bring her out.\"\n\nHe could sense her smile even in the darkness. \"That isn't a new plan. That's an old one.\"\n\nHe nodded, touching her knee in soft reproach. \"I know. But suppose we could figure out what it would take to wake her. We've tried everything we could think of, both of us. But we keep trying in a general way, a kind of blanket approach to bringing her out of her sleep. Walker said she wouldn't come back to us until she found a way to forgive herself for the worst of her wrongs. I think that's the key. We have to figure out what that wrong is.\"\n\nShe lifted her head, her red hair falling back from her face. \"How can you possibly do that? She has hundreds of things to forgive herself for. How can you pick out one?\"\n\n\"Walker said it was the one she believed to be the worst.\" He paused, thinking. \"What would that be? What would she see as her worst wrong? Killing someone? She's killed lots of people. Which one would matter more than the others?\"\n\nRue furrowed her smooth brow. \"Maybe this was something she did when she first became the witch, when she was still young, something that goes to the heart of everything she's done since.\"\n\nHe stared at her for a long time, remembering his dream of the other night. It had been nagging at him ever since, reduced to a vague image, the details faded. It hovered now, just beyond his grasp. He could practically reach out and touch it.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I think there's something in what you just said that might help, something about her childhood.\" He stared at her some more. \"I have to go down and sit with her. Maybe looking at her, being in the same room for a while, will help.\"\n\n\"Do you want me to come with you?\"\n\nWhen he hesitated, she reached out and cupped his face in her hands. \"Go by yourself, Bek. Maybe you need to be alone. I'll come later, if you need me to.\"\n\nShe kissed him hard, then slipped from his side and disappeared back into the bowels of the airship. He waited only a moment more, still wrestling with his confusion, then followed her inside.\n\nThere was no reason to think that this night would be different from any other, but Bek was convinced by feelings he could not explain that it might be. Nothing he had tried \u2014 and he had tried everything \u2014 had gotten so much as a blink out of Grianne from the moment he had found her kneeling with the bloodied Sword of Shannara grasped in her hands. Only when he broke down in frustration and cried that one time, when he wasn't even trying to make her respond, had she come out of her catatonia to speak with him. She had done so for reasons he had never been able to figure out, but tonight, he thought, he must. The secret to everything lay in connecting the reason for that singular awakening with the wrong she had committed somewhere in her past that she regarded as unforgivable.\n\nHe told Redden Alt Mer what he was going to do and suggested someone else might want to take up watch from one of the taller towers. Alt Mer said he would handle it himself, wished Bek good luck, and went over the side of the airship. Bek stood alone on the empty deck, thinking that perhaps he should ask Rue to help him after all. But he knew he would be doing so only as a way of gaining reassurance that he had done everything he could, should things not work out yet again. It was not right to use her that way, and he abandoned the idea at once. If he failed this night, he wanted it to be on his head alone.\n\nHe went down to the Captain's quarters and slipped through the doorway. Quentin Leah lay asleep in his bed, his breathing deep and even, his face turned away from the single candle that burned nearby. The windows were shuttered and curtained so that no light or sound could escape, and the air in the room was close and stale. Bek wanted to blow out the candle and open the shutters, but he knew that would be unwise.\n\nInstead, he walked over to his sister. She was lying on her pallet with her knees drawn up and her eyes open and staring. She wore her dark robe, but a light blanket had been laid over her, as well. Rue had brushed her hair earlier that day, and the dark strands glimmered in the candlelight like threads of silk. Her fingers were knotted together, and her mouth was twisted with what might have been a response to a deep-seated regret or troublesome dream.\n\nBek raised her to a sitting position, placed her against the bulkhead, and seated himself across from her. He stared at her without doing anything more, trying to think through what he knew, trying to decide what to do next. He had to break down the protective shell in which she had sealed herself, but to do that he had to know what she was protecting herself from.\n\nHe tried to envision it and failed. On the surface, she looked to be barely more than a child, but beneath she was iron hard and remorseless. That didn't just disappear, even after a confrontation with the truth-inducing magic of the Sword of Shannara. Besides, what single act set itself apart from any other? What monstrous wrong could she not bring herself to face after perpetrating so many?\n\nHe sat staring at her much in the same way that she was staring at him, neither of them really seeing the other, both of them off in other places. Bek shifted his thinking to Grianne's early years, when she was first taken from her home and placed in the hands of the Morgawr. Could something have happened then, as Rue had suggested, something so awful she could not forgive herself for it? Was there something he didn't know about and would have to guess at?\n\nSuddenly, it occurred to him that he might be thinking about this in the wrong way. Maybe it wasn't something she had done, but something she had failed to do. Maybe it wasn't an act, but an omission that haunted her. It was just as possible that what she couldn't forgive herself for was something she believed she should have done and hadn't.\n\nHe repeated to himself what she said when she woke on the night she had saved Quentin's life \u2014 about how Bek shouldn't cry, how she was there for him, how she would look after him again, his big sister.\n\nBut she had said something else, too. She had said she would never leave him again, that she was sorry for doing so. She had cried and repeated several times, \"I'm so sorry, so sorry.\"\n\nHe thought he saw it then, the failure for which she had never been able to forgive herself. A child of only six, she had hidden him in the basement, choosing to try to save his life over those of her parents. She had concealed him in the cellar, listening to her parents die as she did so. She had left him there and set out to find help, but she had never gotten beyond her own yard. She had been kidnapped and whisked away, then deceived so that she would think he was dead, too.\n\nShe had never gone back for him, never returned to find out if what she had been told was the truth. At first, it hadn't mattered, because she was in the thrall of the Morgawr and certain of his explanation of her rescue. But over the years, her certainty had gradually eroded, until slowly she had begun to doubt. It was why she had been so intrigued by Bek's story about who he was when they had encountered each other for the first time in the forest that night after the attack in the ruins. It was why she hadn't killed him when she almost certainly would have otherwise. His words and his looks and his magic disturbed her. She was troubled by the possibility that he might be who he said he was and that everything she had believed about him was wrong.\n\nWhich would mean that she had left him to die when she should have gone back to save him.\n\nIt was a failure for which he would never blame her, but for which she might well blame herself. She had failed her parents and then failed him, as well. She had thrown away her life for a handful of lies and a misplaced need for vengeance.\n\nHe was so startled by the idea that it could be something as simple as this that for a moment he could not believe it was possible. Or that it could be something so impossibly wrongheaded. But she did not think as he did, or even as others did. She had come through the scouring magic of the Sword of Shannara to be reborn into the world, tempered by fire he could barely imagine, by truths so vast and inexorable that they would destroy a weaker person. She had survived because of who she was, but had become more damaged, too.\n\nWhat should he do?\n\nHe was frightened that he might be wrong, and if he was, he had no idea of where else to look. But fear had no place in what was needed, and he had no patience with its weakness. He had to try using his new insight to break down her defenses. He had to find out if he was right.\n\nHis choices were simple. He could call on the magic of the wishsong or he could speak to her in his normal voice. He chose the latter. He moved closer to her, putting his face right in front of hers, his hands clasped loosely about her slender neck, tangling in her thick, dark hair.\n\n\"Listen to me,\" he whispered to her. \"Grianne, listen to what I have to say to you. You can hear me. You can hear every word. I love you, Grianne. I never stopped loving you, not once, not even after I found out who you were. It isn't your fault, what was done to you. You can come home, now. You can come home to me. That's where your home is \u2014 with me. Your brother, Bek.\"\n\nHe waited a moment, searching her empty eyes. \"You hid me from the Morgawr and his Mwellrets, Grianne, even without knowing who they were. You saved my life. I know you wanted to come back for me, that you wanted to bring help for me and for our parents. But you couldn't do that. There wasn't any way for you to return. There wasn't enough time, even if the Morgawr hadn't tricked you. But even though you couldn't come back, you saved me. Just by hiding me so that Truls Rohk could find me and take me to Walker, you saved me. I'm alive because of you.\"\n\nHe paused. Had he felt her shiver? \"Grianne, I forgive you for leaving me, for not coming back, for not discovering that I was still alive. I forgive you for all of that, for everything you might have done and failed to do. You have to forgive yourself, as well. You have to stop hiding from what happened all those years ago. It isn't a truth that needs hiding from. It is a truth that needs facing up to. I need you back with me, not somewhere far away. By hiding from me, you are leaving me again. Don't do that, Grianne. Don't go away again. Come back to me as you promised you would.\"\n\nShe was trembling suddenly, but her gaze remained fixed and staring, her eyes as blank as forest lakes at night. He kept holding her, waiting for her to do something more. Keep talking, he told himself. This is the way to reach her.\n\nInstead, he began to sing, calling up the magic of the wishsong almost without realizing he was doing so, singing now the words he had only spoken before. It was an impulsive act, an instinctive response to his need to connect with her. He was so close, right on the verge of breaking through. He could feel the shell in which she had encased herself beginning to crack. She was there, right inside, desperate to reach him.\n\nSo he turned to the language they both understood best, the language peculiar to them alone. The music flowed out of him, infused with his magic, sweet and soft and filled with yearning. He gave himself over to it in the way that music requires, lost in its rhythm, in its flow, in its transcendence of the here and now. He took himself away from where he was and took her with him, back in time to a life he had barely known and she had forgotten, back to a world they had both lost. He sang of it as he would have wanted it to be, all the while telling her he forgave her for leaving that world, for abandoning him, for losing herself in a labyrinth of treacheries and lies and hatred and monstrous acts from which it might seem there could be no redemption. He sang of it as a way of healing, so that she might find in the words and music the balm she required to accept the harshness of the truth about her life and know that as bad as it was, it was nevertheless all right, that forgiveness came to everyone.\n\nHe had no idea how long he sang, only that he did so without thinking of what he was attempting or even of what was needed. He sang because the music gave him a release for his own confused, tangled emotions. Yet the effect was the same. He was aware of her small shivers turning to trembles, of her head snapping up and her eyes beginning to focus, of a sound rising from her throat that approached a primal howl. He could sense the walls she had constructed crumble and feel her world shift.\n\nThen she seized him in such a powerful embrace it did not seem possible that a girl so slender could manage it. She pressed him against her so hard that he could barely breathe, crying softly into his shoulder and saying, \"It's all right, Bek, I'm here for you, I'm here.\"\n\nHe stopped singing then and hugged her back, and in the ensuing silence he closed his eyes and mouthed a single word.\n\nStay."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 29",
+                "text": "She had been hiding in the darkest place she could find, but in the blackness that surrounded her were the things that hunted her. She did not know what they were, but she knew she must not look at them too closely. They were dangerous, and if they caught even the smallest glimpse of her eyes, they would fall on her like wolves. So she stayed perfectly still and did not look at them, hoping they would go away.\n\nBut they refused to leave, and she found herself trapped with no chance to escape. She was six years old, and in her mind she saw the things in the darkness as black-cloaked monsters. They had pursued her for a long time, tracking her with such persistence that she knew they would never stop. She thought that if she could manage to get past them and find her way home to her parents and brother, she would be safe again. But they would not let her go.\n\nShe could remember her home clearly. She could see its rooms and halls in her mind. It hadn't been very large, but it had felt warm and safe. Her parents had loved and cared for her, and her little brother had depended on her to look after him. But she had failed them all. She had run away from them, fled her home because the black things were coming for her and she knew that if she stayed, she would die. Her flight was swift and mindless, and it took her away from everything she knew \u2014 here, to this place of empty blackness where she knew nothing.\n\nNow and again, she would hear her brother calling to her from a long way off. She recognized Bek's voice, even though it was a grown-up's voice and she knew he was only two years old and should not be able to speak more than a few words. Sometimes, he sang to her, songs of childhood and home. She wanted to call out to him, to tell him where she was, but she was afraid. If she spoke even one word, made even a single sound, the things in the darkness would know where she was and come for her.\n\nShe had no sense of time or place. She had no sense of the world beyond where she hid. Everything real was gone, and only her memories remained. She clung to them like threads of gold, shining bright and precious in the dark.\n\nOnce, Bek managed to find her, breaking through the darkness with tears that washed away her hunters. A path opened for her, created out of his need, a need so strong that not even the black things could withstand it. She took the path out of her hiding place and found him again, his heart breaking as he watched his little dog lying injured beside him. She told him she was back, that she would not leave him again, and she used her magic to heal his puppy. But the black things were still waiting for her, and when she felt his need for her begin to wane and the path it had opened begin to close, she was forced to flee back into her hiding place. Without his need to sustain her with its healing power, she could not stay.\n\nSo she hid once more. The path she had taken to him was closed and gone, and she did not know what she could do to open it again. Bek must open it, she believed. He had done so once, he must do so again. But Bek was only a baby, and he didn't understand what had happened to her. He didn't realize why she was hiding and how dangerous the black things were. He didn't know that she was trapped and that he was the only one who could free her.\n\n\"But when you told me you forgave me for leaving you, I felt everything begin to change,\" she told him. \"When you told me how much you needed me, how by not coming back to you I was leaving you again, I felt the darkness begin to recede and the black things \u2014 the truths I couldn't bear to face \u2014 begin to fade. I heard you singing, and I felt the magic break through and wrap me like a soft blanket. I thought that if you could forgive me, after how I had failed you, then I could face what I had done beyond that, all of it, every bad thing.\"\n\nThey were sitting in the darkness where this had all begun, tucked away in a corner of Redden Alt Mer's Captain's quarters, whispering so as not to wake the sleeping Quentin Leah. Shadows draped their faces and masked some of what their eyes would have otherwise revealed, but Bek knew what his sister was thinking. She was thinking he had known what he was doing when he found a way to reach her through the magic of the wishsong. Yet it was mostly chance that he had done so. Or perhaps perseverance, if he was to be charitable about it. He had thought it would take forgiveness to bring her awake. He had been wrong. It had taken her sensing the depth of his need.\n\n\"I just wanted to give you a chance to be yourself again,\" he said. \"I didn't want you to stay locked away inside, whatever the consequences of coming out might be.\"\n\n\"They won't be good ones, Bek,\" she told him, reaching over to touch his cheek. \"They might be very bad.\" She was quiet for a moment, staring at him. \"I can't believe I've really found you again.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it either. But then I can't believe hardly anything of what's happened. Especially to me. I'm not so different from you. Everything I thought true about myself was a lie, too.\"\n\nShe smiled, but there was a hint of bitterness and reproach. \"Don't say that. Don't ever say that. You're nothing like me, save that you didn't know you were an Ohmsford. You haven't done the things that I've done. You haven't lived my life. Be grateful for that. You can look back on your life and not regret it. I will never be able to do that. I'll regret my life for as long as I live. I'll want to change it every day, and I won't be able to do that. All of the things I've done as the Ilse Witch will be with me forever.\"\n\nShe gave him a long, hard look. \"I love you, and I know you love me, too. That gives me hope, Bek. That gives me the strength I need to try to make something good come out of all the bad.\"\n\n\"Do you remember everything that happened now?\" he asked her. \"Everything you did while you were the Ilse Witch?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Everything.\"\n\n\"The Sword of Shannara showed it to you?\"\n\n\"Every last act. All of the things I did because I wanted revenge on Walker. All of the wrongs I committed because I thought I was entitled to do whatever was necessary to get what I sought.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry you had to go through that, but not sorry that I got you back.\"\n\nShe pushed her long dark hair out of her pale face, revealing the pain in her eyes. \"There wasn't any hope for me unless I discovered the truth about myself. About you and our parents. About everything that happened to us all those years ago. About the Morgawr, especially. I couldn't be anyone other than who the Morgawr had made me to be \u2014 and who I had made myself to be \u2014 until that happened. I hate knowing it, but it's freeing, too. I don't have to hide anymore.\"\n\n\"There are some things you don't know yet,\" he said. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to decide where to start. \"The people we're traveling with, the survivors of Walker's company, all have reason to hate you. They don't, not all of them anyway, but they have suffered losses because of you. I guess you need to know about those losses, about the harm you've caused. I don't think there's any way to avoid it.\"\n\nShe nodded, her expression one of regret mixed with determination. \"Tell me then, Bek. Tell me all of it.\"\n\nHe did so, leaving nothing out. It took him some time to do so, and while he was speaking, he became aware of someone else entering the room, easing over next to him, and sitting close. He knew without looking who it was, and he watched Grianne's eyes shift to find those of the newcomer. He kept talking nevertheless, afraid that if he looked away, he would not be able to continue. He related his story of the journey to Parkasia, of finding the ruins and Antrax, confronting her, escaping into the mountains and being captured, breaking free of Black Moclips and the rets, coming down into the bowels of Castledown to find that Walker had already tricked her into invoking the cleansing magic of the Sword of Shannara, taking her back into the mountains, and finding their way at last to what remained of the company of the Jerle Shannara.\n\nWhen he had finished, he looked over his shoulder to find Rue. She was staring at Grianne. The look on her face was indecipherable. But the tone of her voice when she spoke to his sister was unmistakable.\n\n\"The Morgawr has come searching for you,\" she said. \"His ships are anchored offshore. In the morning, he will search these ruins. If he finds us, he will try to kill us. What are you going to do about it?\"\n\n\"Rue Meridian.\" His sister spoke the other's name as if to make its owner real. \"Are you one of those who have not forgiven me?\"\n\nLittle Red's eyes were fierce as they held Grianne's. One hand came up to rest possessively on Bek's shoulder. \"I have forgiven you.\"\n\nBut Bek did not miss the bitterness in her voice or the challenge that lay behind it. Forgiveness is earned, not granted, it said. I forgive you, but what does it matter? You still must demonstrate that my forgiveness is warranted.\n\nHe glanced at his sister and saw sadness and regret mirrored on her smooth, pale face. Her eyes shifted to where Rue's hand rested on his shoulder, and the last physical vestiges of the girl of six that she had been for all those days and nights of her catatonia vanished. Her face went hard and expressionless, the mask she had perfected to keep the demons of her life at bay when she was the Ilse Witch.\n\nShe looked back at her brother for just a moment. \"I told you,\" she said to him, \"that the consequences of my waking would not all be good ones.\" She smiled with cold certainty. \"Some will be very bad.\"\n\nThere was a long pause as the two women attempted to stare each other down, each laying claim to something that the other wanted and could never have. A part of a past gone by. A part of a future yet to be. Time and events would determine how much of either they could share, but there was a need for compromise and neither had ever been very good at that.\n\n\"Maybe you should meet the others of the company, as well,\" Bek said quietly.\n\nBeginnings in this situation, he thought, might prove tougher than endings.\n\nAt dawn, they stood together in the shelter of a tower's crumbling turret, Bek and Grianne and Rue, perched on its highest floor so that they could look out across the ruins to where the Morgawr's airships were beginning to stir. By now, Grianne had met all of the ship's company and been received with a degree of acceptance that Bek had not expected. If he was honest about it, Rue had proven to be the most hostile of the company. The two women were locked in some sort of contest that had something to do with him, but about which he understood little. Unable to deflect their mutual disdain, he had settled for keeping them civil.\n\nAcross the broad green sweep of the grasslands, the airships of the Morgawr were visible in the clear pale light of a sunrise that heralded an impossibly beautiful day. Bek saw the sticklike figures of the walking dead, standing at their stations, awaiting the commands that would set them in motion. He saw the first of the Mwellrets, cloaked and hooded against the light, emerging from belowdecks, climbing through the hatchways. Most important of all, he saw the Morgawr, standing at the forward railing of Black Moclips, his gaze, searching, directed toward the ruins where they hid.\n\n\"You were right,\" Grianne said softly, her slight body rigid within her robes. \"He knows we're here.\"\n\nThe others of the company were settled in below, hiding within the hull and pontoons of the Jerle Shannara, waiting to see what would happen. Alt Mer knew of Bek's fears, but he could do nothing about them. The Jerle Shannara could not fly if they did not put up her masts and sails, and the noise alone of doing so would give them away. Even if the Morgawr tried to search the ruins, there was reason to think he would not find them, that the magic of the spirit dweller would refuse him entry and lead him back outside without his even realizing it, just as it had done to Walker. But that was a huge gamble, \u2014 if it failed, they were trapped and outnumbered. Escape would be impossible unless they could overcome their enemies through means that at this point were a mystery.\n\nBek did not feel good about their chances. He did not believe that the Morgawr would be fooled by the magic of the spirit creature. Everything suggested otherwise. The warlock had tracked them this far without being able to see them and with no visible trail to follow. He seemed to know that they were hiding in the ruins. If he could determine all that, he would be quick enough to realize what the spirit dweller was doing to him when he tried to penetrate the ruins and would probably have a way to counteract it.\n\nIf that happened, they would have to face him.\n\nHe glanced at Grianne. She had never answered Rue's question about what she intended to do to stop the Morgawr. In fact, his sister had said almost nothing past greeting those to whom she was introduced. She had not asked them if they had forgiven her, as she had asked Rue. She had not apologized for what she had done to them and to those they had lost. All of the softness and vulnerability that she had evidenced on waking from her sleep was gone. She had reverted to the personality of the Ilse Witch, cold and distant and devoid of emotion, keeping her thoughts to herself, the people she encountered at bay.\n\nIt worried Bek, but he understood it, too. She was protecting herself in the only way she could, by closing off the emotions that would otherwise destroy her. It wasn't that she didn't feel anything or that she no longer believed that she must account for the wrongs she had committed. But if she gave them too much consideration, if she gave her past too great a hold over her present, she would be unable to function. She had survived for many years through strength of will and rigid control. She had kept her emotions hidden. Last night, she had discovered that she could not let go of those defenses too quickly. She was still his sister, but she could not turn away from being the Ilse Witch either.\n\nShe was walking a fine line between sanity and madness, between staying out in the light of the real world and fleeing back into the hiding place she had only just managed to escape.\n\n\"We have to decide what we're going to do if he comes into the ruins and finds us,\" Bek said quietly.\n\n\"He is only one man,\" Rue said. \"None of the others have his magic to protect them. The rets can be killed. I've killed them myself.\"\n\nShe sounded so fierce when she said it that Bek turned to look at her in spite of himself. But when he saw the look on her face he could not bring himself to say anything back.\n\nGrianne had no such problem. \"What you say is true, but the Morgawr is more powerful than any of you or even all of you put together. He is not a man, \u2014 he is not even human. He is a creature who has kept himself alive a thousand years through use of dark magic. He knows a hundred ways to kill with barely a thought.\"\n\n\"He taught you all of them, I expect,\" Rue said without looking at her.\n\nThe words had no visible effect on Grianne, though Bek flinched. \"What can we do to stop him?\" he asked, looking to avoid the confrontation he could feel building.\n\n\"Nothing,\" his sister answered. She turned now to face them both. \"This isn't your fight. It never was. Rue was right in asking me what I intended to do about the Morgawr. He is my responsibility. I am the one who must face him.\"\n\n\"You can't do that,\" Bek said at once. \"Not alone.\"\n\n\"Alone is best. Distractions will only jeopardize my chances of defeating him. Anyone whom I care about is a distraction he will take advantage of. Alone, I can do what is necessary. The Morgawr is powerful, but I am his match. I always have been.\"\n\nBek shook his head angrily. \"Once, maybe. But you were the Ilse Witch then.\"\n\n\"I am the Ilse Witch still, Bek.\" She gave him a quick, sad smile. \"You just don't see me that way.\"\n\n\"She's right about this,\" Rue interrupted before he could offer further argument. \"She has magic honed on the warlock's grinding stone. She knows how to use it against him.\"\n\n\"But I have the same magic!\" Bek snapped, hissing in anger as he sought to keep his voice down. \"What about Ahren Elessedil? He has the power of the Elfstones. Shouldn't we use our magics together? Wouldn't that be more effective than you facing the Morgawr alone? Why are you being so stubborn about this?\"\n\n\"You are inexperienced at using the wishsong, Bek. Ahren is inexperienced at using the Elfstones. The Morgawr would kill you both before you could find a way to stop him.\"\n\nShe walked over to stand beside Rue Meridian, a deliberate act he could not mistake, and turned back to face him. \"Everything that has happened to me is the Morgawr's doing. Everything I lost, I lost because of him. Everything I became, I became because of him. Everything I did, I did because of him. I made the choices, but he dictated the circumstances under which those choices were made. I make no excuses for myself, but I am owed something for what was done. No one can give that back to me. I have to take it back. I have to reclaim it. I can only do that by facing him.\"\n\nBek was incensed. \"You don't have to prove anything!\"\n\n\"Don't I, Bek?\"\n\nHe was silent, aware of how untenable his argument was and how implacable his sister's thinking. She might not have anything to prove to him, but she did to a lot of others. Most important of all, she had something to prove to herself.\n\n\"I won't be whole again until I settle this,\" she said. \"It won't stop if we escape. I know the Morgawr. He will keep coming until he finds a way to destroy me. If I want this matter ended, I have to end it here.\"\n\nBek shook his head in disgust. \"What are we supposed to do while you go out there and sacrifice yourself? Hope for the best?\"\n\n\"Take advantage of the confusion. Even if I am killed, the Morgawr will not emerge unscathed. He will be weakened and his followers will be in disarray. You can choose to face them or escape while they lick their wounds. Either is fine. Talk about it with the others and decide among you.\"\n\nShe leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. \"You have done everything you could for me, Bek. You have no reason to feel regret. I am doing this because I must.\"\n\nShe turned to Rue Meridian. \"I like it that you are not afraid of anyone, even me. I like it that you love my brother so much.\"\n\n\"Don't do this,\" Bek pleaded.\n\n\"Take care of him,\" his sister said to Rue, and without another word or even a single glance back she walked away.\n\nOrdering the rest of the fleet to remain anchored offshore, safely away from any attempts at sabotage, the Morgawr flew Black Moclips over the silver-tipped surface of the Blue Divide to the grassy flats of Mephitic. He landed his vessel and tied her off, leaving Aden Kett and his walking dead on board with a handful of guards to watch over them. Then, tossing a rope ladder over the railing of the starboard pontoon, he took Cree Bega and a dozen of his Mwellrets down off the ship and toward the castle.\n\nThey crossed the grasslands openly and deliberately, making no effort to hide their approach. If the survivors of the Jerle Shannara were hiding within the walls of the ruins, the Morgawr wanted them to see him coming. He wanted them to have time to think about it before he reached them, to let their anticipation build, and with it their fear. The Ilse Witch might not be frightened, but her companions would be. They would know by now how he feasted on the souls of the living. They would know how the Federation crew he had captured aboard Black Moclips had reacted while it was happening and what they looked like afterwards. At least one of them was likely to break down and reveal the presence of the others. That would save him time and effort. It would allow him to conserve his energy for dealing with the witch.\n\nHe told Cree Bega what he wanted. The Mwellrets were to follow his lead. They were not to talk. When they found their quarry, they were to leave the Ilse Witch to him. The others were theirs to do with as they wished. It would be best if they could kill them swiftly or render them unconscious so that they could be carried outside and disposed of.\n\nAbove all, they were to remember that there was something else living in the ruins, a spirit creature possessed of magic and capable of generating tremendous power. If it was aroused or attacked, it could prove extremely dangerous. Nothing was to be tampered with once they were inside, because the creature considered the castle its own and would fight to protect it. It cared nothing for the Jerle Shannara and her crew, however. They were not a part of its realm, and it would not protect them.\n\nHe said all this without being entirely sure it was true. It was possible that he was wrong and that the castle's inhabitant would attack for reasons the Morgawr could not even guess at. But no good purpose was served in telling that to the Mwellrets. All of them were expendable, even Cree Bega. What mattered was that he himself survive, and he had no reason to think that he wouldn't. His magic could protect him from anything. It always had.\n\nHis plan, then, was simple. He would find the witch and kill her, retrieve the books of magic from the airship, and escape. If he could achieve the former and not the latter, it would be enough. With the Druid dead, his little witch was the only one left who might cause him problems later. The books of magic were important, but he could give them up if he had to.\n\nHe began thinking about what it meant to have the last of the Druids gone. Paranor would lie uninhabited and vulnerable \u2014 protected by magic, yes, but accessible nevertheless to someone like himself who knew how to counteract that magic. It was Walker who had kept him at bay all these years. Now, perhaps, what had belonged to the Druids could be his.\n\nThe Morgawr permitted himself a smile. The wheel had come full circle on the Druids. Their time was over. His time was not. He need only dispose of one small girl. Ilse Witch or not, she was still only that.\n\nAhead, the broken-down walls and parapets of the ancient castle reared against the sunrise, stark and bare. His anticipation of what was waiting within compelled him to walk more swiftly to reach them."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "Grianne Ohmsford walked through the empty corridors and courtyards of the old castle with slow, deliberate steps, giving herself a chance to gather her wits. In spite of what she had allowed Bek and Rue Meridian to believe, her decision to face the Morgawr alone was impulsive and not particularly well thought out. But it was necessary for all the reasons she had given them. She was the one he was looking for, and therefore the one who must confront him. She was the only one who stood a chance against his magic. She had done a lot of harm in her life as the Ilse Witch, and any redemption for her wrongs began with an accounting from the warlock.\n\nShe was still weak from her long sleep, but fueled by anger and determination. The truths about her life hovered right in front of her eyes, images made bright and clear by the magic of the Sword of Shannara, and she could not forget them. They defined her, and knowing what she had been was what made it possible for her to see what she must now become. To complete that journey, she must put an end to the Morgawr.\n\nSilence cloaked her like a shroud, and the ruins bore the aura of a tomb. She smiled at the feeling, so familiar and still welcome, her world as she had known it for so many years. Shadows cast by walls and towers where sunlight could not penetrate spilled across the broken stone and cracked mortar like ink. She walked through those shadows in comfort, the darkness her friend, the legacy of her life. It would never change, she realized suddenly. She would always favor those things that had made her feel safe. She had found a home under conditions that would have destroyed others, had done so when everything she cared for had been taken away and all that was left was her rage, and she knew she would not be able to step away from that past easily.\n\nThat would not change, should she survive this day. Bek envisioned a returning home, a coming together of their new family, a settling into a quiet life. But his vision held no appeal for her and was rooted in dreams that belonged to someone else. Her life would take a different path from his, \u2014 she knew that much already. Hers would never be what he hoped it might, because the reason for her recovery lay not so much with him \u2014 though he had brought her awake when no one else could \u2014 but with the Dark Uncle, the keeper of secrets and the bestower of trusts. With Walker Boh.\n\nDead now, but with her always.\n\nShe began to hum, wrapping herself in the feel of the ruins and the thing that lived within them. It was dormant at present, but as pervasive in its domain as Antrax had been in its. It was everywhere at once, its presence infused in the hard stone and the dead air. She knew from Bek that the way to deceive it was to make it feel as if you belonged. She would begin her efforts to achieve that now. Once she had thoroughly integrated herself, once she was accepted as just another piece of rubble, she would be ready to deal with her enemy.\n\nIt took only a little time and effort to create the skin she needed, the mask she required. She eased herself along the corridors, listening now for the sounds of the Morgawr and his rets. They would have reached the walls and begun looking for a way inside. Her plan for him was simple. She would try to separate him from his followers, to isolate him from their help. If she was to have a chance against him, she must get him alone and keep him that way. Cree Bega and his Mwellrets were no threat to her, but they could become the sort of distraction she had worried Bek and Rue Meridian might become. To win her struggle with the Morgawr, that must not be allowed to happen.\n\nAlready, she was beginning to feel a part of her surroundings, a thing of stone and mortar, of ancient time and dust.\n\nShe shed that part of her that was Grianne Ohmsford and reverted very deliberately to being the Ilse Witch. She became the creature she must to survive, armoring herself against what waited and concealing what was vulnerable. It demanded a shift in thinking, a closing off of feelings and a shutting away of doubt. It required a girding of self for battle. Such prosaic descriptions made her smile, for the truth was much darker and meaner. She was taking a different path from the one she had followed when her purpose in life was to see Walker destroyed, but this path was just as bleak. Killing the Morgawr was killing still. It would not enhance her self-respect. It would not change the past. At best, it would give a handful of those she had wronged a chance at life. That would have to be enough.\n\nShe was glad Bek was not here to see the change happen, for she believed it was reflected in her eyes and voice. It could be contained, but not hidden. Maybe this was how she must always be, split between two selves, required by events and circumstances to be duplicitous and cunning. She could see it happening that way, but there was nothing she could do about it.\n\nThere were sounds ahead now, the echoes of small scrapings and slidings, of heavy boots passing over stone and earth. They were still a long way off, but getting closer. The Morgawr was trying to penetrate the maze. As yet, he had not detected her presence, but it would not take him long. It would be best if she attacked him before he did, while he still thought himself safe. She could wait and see if the magic of the thing in the ruins might confuse the warlock, but it would probably be wasted effort. The Morgawr was too clever to be fooled for long and too persistent to be turned away for good. Redden Alt Mer's plan had been a reasonable one, but not for someone so dangerous.\n\nShe continued to hum softly, the magic concealing her not only from the dweller in the ruins but from those who hunted her, as well. She made her way toward them, sliding through the shadows, watching the open spaces ahead for signs of movement. It would not be long until she encountered them. She breathed slowly and deeply to steady herself. She must be cautious. She must be as silent as the air through which she passed. She must be no more in evidence than would a shade come from the dead.\n\nMost of all, she must be swift.\n\nRedden Alt Mer seemed almost resigned to the inevitability of it when he heard what Grianne Ohmsford had done. Standing on the aft deck of the Jerle Shannara with Bek and Rue, he made no response, but instead stared off into the distance, lost in thought. Finally, he told them to go back on watch and let him know if they saw anything. He did not look ready to summon any of the Rover crew to prepare for an escape should Grianne fail. He did not appear interested in doing anything. He heard them out and then walked away.\n\nHis sister exchanged a quick glance with Bek and shrugged. \"Wait here,\" she said.\n\nShe disappeared below, leaving Bek to contemplate what lay ahead. He stood at the railing of the airship and looked up at the clear blue sky. Britt Rill and Kelson Riat stood together in the bow, talking in low voices. Spanner Frew was fussing with something in the pilot box, working through the heavy boughs they had laid down to hide it from the air. Alt Mer and the others were nowhere to be seen. Everything seemed strangely peaceful. For the moment, it was, Bek thought. No one would come for them right away. Not until the Morgawr had settled things with Grianne.\n\nHe thought about looking in on Quentin, but couldn't bring himself to do so. He didn't want to see his cousin while he was feeling like this. Quentin was smart enough to read his face, and he didn't think that would be such a good thing this morning. If Quentin knew what was happening, he would want to get out of bed and stand with them. He wasn't strong enough for that, and there would be time enough for the Highlander to engage in futile heroics if everything else failed. Best just to let him sleep for now.\n\nRue Meridian reappeared through the hatchway, buckling on her weapons belt with its brace of throwing knives, tucking a third into her boot as she came up to him. \"Ready to go?\" she asked.\n\nHe stared at her. \"Ready to go where?\"\n\n\"After your sister,\" she said. \"You don't think we're going to stand around here doing nothing, do you?\"\n\nNot when she put it that way, he didn't. Without another word, they slipped over the side of the airship and disappeared into the ruins after Grianne.\n\nRedden Alt Mer had been thinking about the company's situation all night. Unable to sleep, he had been reduced to pacing the decks to calm himself. He hated being grounded, all the more so for knowing that he couldn't get airborne again easily and was, essentially, trapped. He was infuriated by his sense of helplessness, a condition with which he was not familiar. Even though it had been his plan to hide in the ruins and hope the Morgawr didn't find them, he found it incomprehensible that he would actually sit there and do nothing while waiting to see if it worked.\n\nWhen Bek's sister awoke, brought out of her catatonia after all these weeks, he knew at once that everything was about to change.\n\nIt wasn't a change he could put a name to, but one he could definitely feel. The Ilse Witch awake, whether friend or enemy or something else altogether, was a presence that would shift the balance of things in some measurable way. To Alt Mer, that she had chosen to go after the Morgawr rather than to wait for the warlock to come to her seemed completely in character. It was what he would have done if he hadn't locked himself in the untenable position of hiding and waiting. The longer he stayed grounded, the more convinced he became that he was making a mistake. This wasn't the way to save either his airship or her passengers. It wasn't the way to stay alive. The Morgawr was too smart to be fooled. Alt Mer would have been better off staying aloft and fighting it out in the air.\n\nNot that he would have stood a chance with that approach either, he conceded glumly. Best to keep things in perspective while castigating oneself for perceived failures.\n\nHe left the airship and climbed the tower into which he had sent Little Red and Bek to keep watch, but they weren't there. Confused by their absence, he looked down into the courtyard where the Jerle Shannara sat concealed, thinking he might spy them. Nothing. He looked off toward the surrounding courtyards and passageways, peering through breaks in the crumbling castle walls.\n\nHe found them then, several hundred yards away, sliding through the shadows, heading toward the front of the keep and the Morgawr.\n\nFor, a second, he was stunned by what he was seeing, realizing that not only had his sister disobeyed him, but she was risking her life for the witch. Or for Bek, but it amounted to the same thing. He wanted to shout to them to get back to the ship, to do what they had been told, but he knew it was a waste of time. Rue had been doing as she pleased for as long as he could remember, and trying to make her do otherwise was a complete waste of time. Besides, she was only doing what he had been thinking he should do just moments earlier.\n\nHe walked to the outer wall of the tower and looked out across the grasslands. The Morgawr and his rets were already inside the castle, and the plains were empty save for Black Moclips, which sat anchored inland perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Beyond, clearly visible against the deep blue of the morning sky, the Morgawr's fleet hovered at anchor offshore.\n\nHe stared at the airships for a moment, at the way they were clustered to protect against a surprise attack, and an idea came to him. It was so wild, so implausible, that he almost dismissed it out of hand. But he couldn't quite let it go, and the longer he held on, the more attractive it seemed. Like a brightly colored snake that would turn on you once it had you hypnotized. Like fire, waiting to burn you to ash if you reached out to touch it.\n\nShades, he thought, he was going to do it.\n\nHe was aghast, but excited, as well, his blood pumping through him in a hot flush as he raced down the tower stairs for the airship. He would have to be quick to make a difference, and even that might not be enough. What he was thinking was insane. But there was all sorts of madness in the world, and at least this one involved something more than just standing around.\n\nHe burst out of the tower, leapt aboard the Jerle Shannara, and headed directly for Spanner Frew. The shipwright looked up from his work, doubt clouding his dark features as he saw the look on the other's face. \"What is it?\" he asked.\n\n\"You're not doing anything important, are you?\" Alt Mer replied, reaching for his sword and buckling it on.\n\nSpanner Frew stared at him. \"Everything I do is important. What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want you to go with me to steal back Black Moclips.\"\n\nThe shipwright grunted in disgust. \"That didn't work so well for Little Red, as I recall.\"\n\n\"Little Red didn't have a good plan. I do. Come along and find out. We'll take Britt and Kelson for company. It should be fun, Black Beard.\"\n\nSpanner Frew folded his burly arms across his chest. \"It sounds dangerous to me.\"\n\nAlt Mer grinned. \"You didn't think you were going to live forever, did you?\" he asked.\n\nThen, seeing the other man's dark brow furrow in response, he laughed.\n\nHe left Ahren Elessedil and Kian to keep watch over the Jerle Shannara and set out with Spanner Frew, Kelson Riat, and Britt Rill for the outside wall of the castle. It didn't occur to him until he was well away from the airship that he might have trouble finding his way back. Not only were the ruins a confusing maze to begin with, but the spirit creature's magic was designed to keep intruders from penetrating beyond the perimeter. But there was no help for it now, and besides, he didn't think he would be coming back anyway.\n\nHe told his companions what he thought they needed to know and no more. He told them that they were going to skirt the ruins to their most inland point, well away from the view of those aboard Black Moclips, then sneak around to the far side of the airship, get aboard, and steal her away. If they could manage it, they would have a fully operational airship in which to make their escape. With luck, the Morgawr would not be able to give chase, and without him, the rest of the fleet would lack the necessary leadership to act.\n\nIt was all an incredible bunch of nonsense, if he thought it through, but since they were already moving to do what he had suggested, there wasn't enough time for much thought on the part of anyone.\n\nHe took them directly to the outer wall, then east and north along their perimeter to a gate that opened almost directly into a heavy stand of trees. He was moving quickly, aware of the fact that the Morgawr could encounter Grianne or Bek and Rue at any time, and once that happened, it might be too late for him to succeed in what he intended. Scooting out from the cover of the walls, the four Rovers gained the trees and worked their way through them until they were across the flats. From there, they followed a shallow ravine that allowed them to creep through the tall grasses until they were less than a hundred yards from their target.\n\nSpanner Frew was huffing noticeably from the effort, but Kelson and Britt were barely winded. Alt Mer lifted his head for a quick look around. They were behind Black Moclips, and the Mwellrets he could see were all facing toward the ruins.\n\n\"Black Beard,\" he said to Spanner Frew, keeping his voice soft. \"Wait here for us. If we don't make it, get back to the airship and warn the others. If we get aboard, come join us.\"\n\nWithout waiting for a response, he slithered out of the ravine into the cover of the grasses and began to crawl toward the airship. Kelson and Britt followed, all of them experienced at sneaking into places they weren't supposed to be. They crossed the open ground quickly, easing through gullies and shallow depressions, pressed close to the ground.\n\nWhen Alt Mer could see the hull of the airship without lifting his head, he paused. The pontoon closest to him blocked their view of the rets on the main deck, but it blocked the rets' view of them, as well. Unless one of the rets came down into the fighting stations and peered over the side, the Rovers were safe. All they had to do now was to find a way to get aboard.\n\nAlt Mer stood up carefully, signaled to the other two men to follow, and started toward the rope ladder. He passed under the hull of the airship, which, anchored by ropes tied fore and aft, floated perhaps two dozen feet off the ground. He paused to study the rope ladder, the easiest way onto the ship, but the one the rets would be quickest to defend. Beckoning Britt and Kelson to him, he whispered for them to move as close to the ladder as they could without being seen and to stand ready to board when he called for them.\n\nThen moving to the bow of the airship, he took hold of the anchor rope and, hand over hand, began to haul himself up.\n\nHe reached the prow at the curve of the rams and peeked over the railing. There were four rets, two at the railing by the rope ladder, one in the pilot box and one aft. The hapless Federation crew stood around like sleepwalkers, staring at nothing, arms hanging limp at their sides. He felt a momentary pang of regret at what had to happen, but there was no way anyone could save them now.\n\nHe took a deep breath, heaved himself over the side, and charged across the deck toward the two closest Mwellrets. He killed the first with a single pass of his long knife, yelling for Britt and Kelson as he engaged the second. Both Rovers appeared up the ladder almost at once, grabbing his antagonist from behind and throwing him down. Alt Mer rushed the pilot box as the third ret snatched up a pike and launched it at him. The pike passed so close to his head that he heard the air vibrate, but he didn't slow. He went up the front of the box with a single bound, vaulted the shield, and was inside before the ret could escape. The ret swung at him with his broadsword in a desperate effort to stop him, but Alt Mer blocked the blow, slid inside the ret's guard, and buried the long knife in his chest.\n\nThe last ret tried to go over the side, but Kelson caught him halfway over the rail and finished him.\n\nThat wasn't so difficult after all, Alt Mer decided, aware that he had been injured in the struggle, both arms bleeding from slashes, his ribs bruised on his left side, and his head light with the blow it had taken from the first ret. He went back down to the deck, hiding the wounds as best he could. He ordered his men to throw the dead rets over the side, then go down the ladder and hide the bodies in the grass. It was a strange order, and they glanced at each other questioningly, but they didn't argue. They were used to doing what he told them to do, and they did so now.\n\nAs soon as they were safely over the side and on the ground, he pulled up the ladder. Then he walked quickly to the anchor ropes, passing the dead-eyed Federation crew, who made no effort to stop him or even to look at him, and cut them both. As the ropes fell away, Black Moclips began to rise.\n\n\"Big Red!\" he heard Spanner Frew call after him, lumbering across the grasslands in a futile effort to catch up. Below, Kelson Riat and Britt Rill were calling up to him, as well, shouting that the ropes were gone, that they couldn't reach him.\n\nThat was the general idea, of course. He didn't need any help with what he intended to do next. The sacrifice of his own life in furtherance of this wild scheme was more than enough.\n\nRedden Alt Mer leaned over the side and waved good-bye."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 31",
+                "text": "She could hear them coming now, the scrape of their footfalls, the hiss of their breathing, and the rustle of their heavy cloaks, the echoes reaching out to her through the silence. Grianne slowed to where her own sounds disappeared completely, lost in the concealment of her wishsong's magic. She disappeared into the stone walls and floors of the ruins, into its towers and parapets. She completed the transformation she had begun earlier, taking on the look and feel of the castle. She disappeared in plain sight.\n\nThe Morgawr had come to find her, but she had found him first. She could feel the magic of the castle dweller working about her, changing the way the corridors opened and closed, shifting doorways and walls to confuse and mislead. It did so in arbitrary fashion, a function of its being that required no more thought than did her breathing. It was not yet aroused to do more, to lash out as it had at Bek and the shape-shifter when they had stolen the key from its hiding place. Thousands of years old, a thing out of the world of Faerie, it slumbered in its lair. If it sensed the presence of the Morgawr and his Mwellrets, or if it sensed her own for that matter, it did so in only the most subliminal way, and was not concerned by it. That would change, she decided, when the time was right. In any arena in which she must do combat, weapons of all sorts were permitted.\n\nShe breathed slowly and evenly to quiet her pulse and her mind and to steady her nerves. She was at her best when she was in control, and if she was to overcome the Morgawr, she must take control quickly. Hesitation or delay would be fatal. Or any show of mercy. Whether or not to kill the Morgawr was not an issue she could afford to debate. Certainly he would be quick enough to kill her \u2014 unless he thought he could render her immobile and feed on her later.\n\nShe shuddered at the thought, never having gotten used to it or quite been able to put aside her fear and revulsion of what it would feel like. She had never thought she would be at risk and so never considered the possibility. It left her chilled and tight inside to do so now.\n\nBut she was still the Ilse Witch, cloaked in a mantle of steely confidence and hardened resolve, and so she choked off her revulsion and clamped down on her fear. The Morgawr had destroyed many creatures in his long lifetime and overcome much magic. But he had never had to face anyone like her.\n\nShe thought of the creatures she had destroyed in her turn and of the magics she had overcome. She did not like thinking of it, but could not help herself. The truths of her life were too recently revealed for her to close them away. One day, she might be able to do so with some of them, perhaps most. For now, she must embrace them and draw what strength she could from the anger they engendered. For now, she must acknowledge their monstrosity and remember that they were the consequence of the Morgawr's treachery. For a little while longer, she must be the creature he had helped create.\n\nFor a little while longer.\n\nThe words had a hollow feel to them, an ephemeral quality that suggested they could be blown away in a single breath.\n\nBut there was no more time for rumination. She spied movement through breaks in the stone walls, the bulky shapes of the Mwellrets sliding past the shadows of the sunless ruins. She moved to intercept them, already laying the groundwork for separating them from the Morgawr, casting her magic in places that would draw his attention long enough for her to do what was needed.\n\nDown through the corridors of broken rock they trudged, the Mwellrets and their dark leader. She could see him now, tall and massive and loathsomely familiar. He walked ahead, pointing the way for Cree Bega and his minions, testing the air for danger, for magic, for signs of her presence. He would already know about the spirit that warded the ruins, and he would be wary of it. His plan would be to find and engage her in single combat. He would expect her to be hiding with the company of the Jerle Shannara. He would not expect her to be hunting him as he was hunting her.\n\nShe used the magic of the wishsong to smooth the path he followed, to give him a sense of ease. It was a subtle effect, but one that, if he detected it, would not disturb him in a place where magic was rife. He knew he was being manipulated by the castle's dweller, and he would expect to be gently prodded in the direction the dweller wished him to go. In his arrogance, he would allow this, thinking he could compensate for it whenever he was ready. He would not suspect that she was there, acting as the dweller's surrogate, manipulating him for her own purposes. By the time he realized the truth, it would be too late.\n\nWhen he neared, she found a place suitable to her intent and stepped back into the shadows to wait.\n\nSeconds later, the Morgawr emerged from one of several corridors leading in, and she used the magic at once to suggest her presence in a chamber further on. He glanced up in response to the faint impression, leaning forward within the covering of his cowl as if to taste the air, sensing something he couldn't see, not quite sure what it was, only that it touched on her. He signaled for the Mwellrets, who were a dozen paces back, to hold up.\n\nCome ahead, she urged him silently. Don't be afraid.\n\nHe slipped into the chamber on cat's paws, little more than a hint of dark movement in shadows that were darker still. He crossed the room in pursuit of her tease, cautious and deliberate, and disappeared down a corridor.\n\nShe left her hiding place and slid along the wall that followed the Morgawr's path, as deliberate and careful as he was, humming steadily, purposefully, keeping herself concealed. She could just hear the soft muttering of the rets behind her, but nothing of the warlock.\n\nWhen she was all the way across the room and next to the corridor beyond, able to see the Morgawr's dark shape ahead, she turned back to the rets. Projecting the warlock's voice into their minds so that it seemed as if he were speaking, she summoned them ahead.\n\nThey came instantly, responding as she knew they would. But once they entered the room, she took them a different way. The ruins were a maze, and there were openings everywhere. She chose one that led away from the Morgawr, but gave the rets the impression they were still following him. Cree Bega's blunt, reptilian face lifted in doubt, gimlet eyes casting about for his leader. But, unable to find him, he continued on, following the thread she had laid out for him, moving steadily further away. Bunched together like cattle, they let themselves be herded into the chute she had chosen for them, and when they were all safely inside, she closed the gate. As quickly as that, the way back disappeared. She threw up a wall of magic that closed it off as surely as if it had never existed. The rets were in a corridor from which they could not escape without breaking through her magic or moving ahead down a series of twists and turns that would take them too long to navigate to be of any help to their leader.\n\nInstantly, she turned into the passageway the Morgawr had taken, spied him turning toward her, and attacked, striking out with every last measure of power she could muster, hurtling it at him like a missile. The magic was a shriek in the silence, hammering into the Morgawr, throwing him back down the corridor and into a wall with such force that the ancient stones shattered from the impact. She went down the corridor in a rush, bursting into the room just in time to watch her handiwork disappear in a whiff of vapor.\n\nIt was only an illusion, she realized at once. It wasn't the Morgawr at all. She had been tricked.\n\nShe turned around to find him standing right behind her.\n\nBek and Rue Meridian heard the explosion from several chambers away while still winding through the maze in a futile effort to catch up with Grianne. The sound was like nothing either of them had ever heard, a sort of metallic scream that set their teeth on edge. But Bek recognized the source instantly, Grianne had invoked the magic of the wishsong. He screamed her name, then charged ahead heedlessly, abandoning any effort at a silent approach, anxious now just to get to where things were happening before it was too late.\n\n\"Bek, stop!\" Rue called after him in dismay.\n\nToo late. Rounding the corner of a twisting passageway hemmed in by walls so tall they left only a sliver of blue sky visible overhead, they ran right into Cree Bega and his Mwellrets. Rushing from opposite directions into a tiny courtyard littered with debris and streaked with shadows, they skidded to a stop. It happened so quickly that the image was still registering in Bek's mind as Rue whipped out both throwing knives and sent them whistling across the short space in a blur of bright metal. Two of the rets died on their feet as the rest charged.\n\nThey would have been finished then, if Bek, watching the massive bodies of the rets bear down on them, had not reacted instinctively to the threat. Calling up his own magic in a desperate response, he sent a wall of sound hurtling into his attackers. It caught up the rets as it had the creepers in the ruins of Castledown and sent them flying. Three got past, breaking in at the edges. Bek had only a moment to catch the glitter of their knife blades, and then they were on top of him.\n\nRue, swift, agile, and lethal, killed the first, ducking under his massive arms and burying her third throwing knife in his throat. She intercepted the second as well, but it bore her backwards, its momentum too great to slow. Bek saw her go down, then lost track as the final assailant crashed into him, knife slicing at his throat. He blocked the blow, screaming at the ret in defiance. His voice was threaded with the wishsong's magic, \u2014 it exploded out of him in automatic response to his fear and anger and shredded the Mwellret's head like metal shards. The ret was dead before he knew what had happened, and Bek was scrambling back to his feet.\n\n\"Rue!\" he called out frantically.\n\n\"Not so loud. I can hear you.\"\n\nShe hauled herself out from under the body of her assailant, but only with some difficulty. Blood covered her, a jagged tear down the front of her tunic and another down her left sleeve. Bek dropped to his knees next to her, shoving the dead Mwellret out of the way. He began searching through her clothing for the wounds, but she pushed him away.\n\n\"Leave me alone. I've broken my ribs again. It hurts just to breathe.\" She swallowed against her pain. \"Bring me my knives. Watch yourself. Some of them might still be alive.\"\n\nHe pulled free the knife buried in the throat of the ret a few feet away, then crossed the courtyard to where the others lay in tangled heaps. The impact of striking the wall had smashed them so badly they were barely recognizable. He stared at them a moment, sickened by the fact that he was responsible for this, that he had killed them. He hadn't seen so many dead men since the attack on the company of the Jerle Shannara in the ruins weeks earlier. He hesitated a moment too long, thinking about the deaths here and there, and was suddenly sick to his stomach. He went down on his knees and retched helplessly.\n\n\"Hurry up!\" Rue called impatiently.\n\nHe retrieved the other two throwing knives, carried them back and gave them to her, and again reached to bind her wounds. \"Leave that to me,\" she said, holding him off.\n\n\"But you're bleeding!\" he insisted.\n\n\"The blood isn't all mine. It's mostly the ret's.\" Her eyes were bright with tears, but her gaze steady. \"I can't go any further hurting like this. You have to go on without me. Find your sister. She needs you more than I do.\"\n\nHe shook his head, suddenly concerned. \"I won't leave you. How bad are you hurt, Rue? Show me.\"\n\nShe set her jaw and shoved at him again. \"Not so bad that I can't get up and thrash you to within an inch of your life if you don't do what I tell you! Go after Grianne, Bek! Right now! Go on!\"\n\nAnother explosion sounded, this one closer, the sound deeper and more ominous than before. Bek looked up in response, fear for his sister reflected in his eyes.\n\n\"Bek, she needs you!\" Rue hissed at him angrily.\n\nHe gave her a final glance, then sprang to his feet and charged ahead into the gloom.\n\nRedden Alt Mer swung the bow of Black Moclips toward the Blue Divide and the Morgawr's fleet, setting his course and locking down the wheel before leaving the pilot box. Down on the deck, he raised all the sails, tightened the radian draws, and checked the hooding shields on the parse tubes, making sure that everything was in good working order and could be controlled from the pilot box. A quick glance over the tips of the ramming horns revealed that nothing had changed ahead. The fleet still lay at anchor, and there was almost no movement on the decks. It was a lapse in judgment and discipline that he would make them pay dearly for.\n\nHe paused for a moment in front of Aden Kelt and looked into the Federation Commander's dead, unseeing eyes. Like Rue, he had admired Kett, thought him a good soldier and a good airship Commander. To see him like this, to see all of them like this, was heartbreaking. Reducing men to puppets, to something less than the lowest animals that walked the earth, bereft of the ability to reason or act independently, was a monstrous evil. He thought he had seen more than enough kinds of evil in his life and wanted no more of this one. Perhaps he could put a stop to it here.\n\nHe went aft to the storage lockers and hauled out two heavy lines of rope and a pair of grappling hooks. Double-looping the lines through the eyes of the hooks, he carried one to each side of the rams and tied off the free ends to mooring cleats. Coiling the lines with the hooks resting on top so that they were ready for use, he went back up into the box.\n\nHe glanced back at the shoreline. Spanner Frew and the Rover crewmen stood at the edge of the bluff, staring after him in what he could only imagine was disbelief. At least they weren't shouting at him to come back, calling unwanted attention to themselves and to him. Maybe they had figured out his plan and were just watching to see what would happen.\n\nFor a moment, he found himself thinking of the Prekkendorran and all the airship raids he had survived under much worse conditions. It heartened him to imagine that he might survive this one, too, even though he couldn't see how that was possible. He looked up at the brilliant morning sky, a depthless blue expanse that seemed to open away forever, and he wished he had more time to enjoy this life that had been so good to him. But that was the nature of things. You got so much time and you made the best of it. In the end, you needed to feel that the choices you had made were mostly the right ones.\n\nHe adjusted his approach to the anchored fleet so that it would appear he intended to pass by them on their port side. The first faint stirrings of life were visible now, a few of the rets moving to the railings to look out at him. They recognized Black Moclips and were wondering why they didn't see any of the Mwellrets or the Morgawr. It helped that Kett's Federation crew was visible, the men ho had taken her ashore, but it would keep them from acting for only a few moments more.\n\nRedden Alt Mer pulled back on the levers to the thrusters. Drawing down power from the light sheaths through all twelve of the radian draws, Black Moclips began to pick up speed.\n\nAhren Elessedil heard the explosion, as well, standing on the deck of the dismantled Jerle Shannara with the Elven Hunter Kian. Save for Quentin Leah, who'd been sedated by Rue Meridian to make certain he stayed quiet, they were alone now on the airship. Quentin had suffered a setback in recent days, his injuries worsening once more after seeming to heal. He did not appear to be in any serious danger, but he was running a fever and had developed a tendency to hallucinate that often provoked loud outcries. So Rue had given him the sleeping potion to help him rest.\n\nBut the explosion might have brought him awake, so Ahren left Kian topside and went belowdecks to see after the Highlander. He wished he didn't have to stay aboard the airship, that he could go out with the others and see what was happening. It was bad enough when Bek and Rue left, but now the Rovers had all disappeared, as well, and with only the taciturn Kian and the sleeping Quentin Leah for company, he felt like he had been deserted.\n\nHe ducked his head into the Captain's quarters long enough to reassure himself that Quentin was all right, then went back down the passageway and upstairs again. Kian was standing at the port railing, looking off into the ruins.\n\n\"See anything?\" Ahren asked him, coming alongside.\n\nKian shook his head. They stood together listening, then heard a second explosion, this one of a deeper sort. There were sounds of fighting, as well, distant but clear, the bright, sharp clang of blades and sudden cries of injured or dying men. More explosions followed, and then silence.\n\nThey waited a long time for something more, but the silence only deepened. The minutes ticked away, sluggish footfalls leading nowhere. Ahren grew steadily more impatient. He had the Elfstones tucked in his tunic and his broadsword belted at his waist. If he had to fight, he was ready. But there would be no fighting so long as he stayed here.\n\n\"I think we should go look for them,\" he said finally.\n\nKian shook his head, his dark face expressionless. \"Someone has to stay with the airship, Elven Prince. We can't leave her unguarded.\"\n\nAhren knew Kian was right, but it didn't make him feel any better. If anything, it made him feel worse. His obligation to the company required him to stay aboard the Jerle Shannara even when it made him feel entirely useless. It wasn't so much that he was anxious to fight, but more that he didn't want to feel as if he wasn't doing his part. It seemed to him that he had failed as a member of this company in every conceivable way. He had failed his friends in the ruins of Castledown when he had run away. He had failed Walker by not being able to recover the Elfstones in time to help him in his battle with Antrax. He had failed Ryer Ord Star by leaving her behind when he escaped Black Moclips and the Morgawr.\n\nHe was particularly bothered by the death of the seer. Big Red had smoothed out the rough parts, but there was no way to soften the impact. Ahren's sense of guilt went unrelieved. He had been in such a rush to escape that he had let himself believe the lie she told him without questioning it. She had sacrificed herself for him, and to his way of thinking it should have been the other way around.\n\nHe sighed with sad resolution. It was too late to change what had happened to her, but not too late to make certain that it didn't happen to someone else. Yet what chance did he have to affect anything stuck back here on the Jerle Shannara while everyone else went off to fight his battles for him?\n\nThere were more explosions, and then a huge grinding sound that rolled through the ruins like an avalanche. The ground shook so heavily that it rocked the airship and sent both Elves careening into the ship's railing, which they quickly grabbed for support.\n\nBlocks of stone tumbled from the battlements and towers of the old castle, and new cracks appeared in the walls and flooring, opening like hungry mouths.\n\nWhen the grinding ended, it was silent again. Ahren stared into the ruins, trying to make sense of things, but there was no way to do that from here.\n\nHe turned to Kian in exasperation. \"I'm going to have a look. Something's happened.\"\n\nKian blocked his way, facing him. \"No, Elven Prince. It isn't safe for you \u2014\"\n\nHe gave a sharp grunt, and his eyes went wide in shock. As Ahren watched in confusion, Kian took two quick steps toward him and toppled over, eyes fixed and staring. Ahren caught him as he fell, lowering him to the ship's decking. The haft of a throwing knife protruded from his back, the blade buried to the hilt.\n\nAhren released him, rushed to the railing and peered over. A Mwellret had hold of the rope ladder and was climbing its rungs. The dark, blunt face lifted into the light, the yellow eyes fixing on Ahren. It was Cree Bega.\n\n\"Little Elvess,\" he purred. \"Ssuch foolss.\"\n\nUnable to believe what was happening, Ahren backed away in horror. He glanced down quickly at Kian, but the Elven Hunter was dead. There was no one else aboard, save Quentin, and the Highlander was too sick to help.\n\nToo late, he thought to cut the ladder away. By then, Cree Bega was climbing onto the deck across from him.\n\n\"Musstn't be frightened of me, little Elvess,\" he hissed. \"Doess little Elvess thinkss I mean them harm?\"\n\nHe stepped over to Kian and pulled out his knife. He held it up as if to examine it, letting the blood run down the smooth, bright blade onto his fingers. His dark tongue slipped out, licking the blood away.\n\nAhren was frantic. He backed all the way to the pilot box before he stopped, fighting to control his terror. He couldn't use the Elfstones, his most powerful weapon, because they only worked to defend against creatures of magic. Nor could he run, because if he ran, Quentin was a dead man. He swallowed hard. He couldn't run anyway, not if he wanted to retain even a shred of self-respect. It was better that he died here and now than flee again, than fail still another time to do what was needed.\n\n\"Givess me what I wantss, little Elvess, and perhapss I will let you live,\" Cree Bega said softly. \"The bookss of magic. Hidess them where, Elven Prince?\"\n\nAhren drew his broadsword. He was shaking so badly he almost dropped it, but he breathed in deeply to steady himself. \"Get off the ship,\" he said. \"The others will be back in minutes.\"\n\n\"Otherss are too far away, foolissh little Elvess. They won't come thiss way in time to ssave you.\"\n\n\"I don't need them to save me.\" He made himself take a step toward the other, away from the pilot box, away from the almost overpowering temptation to run. \"You're the one who's alone.\"\n\nThe Mwellret started toward him, coming slowly, dark face expressionless, movements almost languid. Don't look into his eyes, Ahren reminded himself quickly. If you look into a Mwellret's eyes, be will freeze you in place and cut your throat before you know what is happening.\n\n\"Doess ssomething sseem wrong, little Elvess?\" Cree Bega whispered. \"Afraid to look at me?\"\n\nAhren glanced at the ret in spite of himself, looking into his eyes, almost as if the question required it of him, and in an instant Cree Bega sprang. Ahren slashed at the other in desperation to ward him off, but the Mwellret blocked the blow. The throwing knife sliced across Ahren's chest, cutting through skin and muscle as if they were made of paper. Burning pain flooded through the Elven Prince as he pushed the other away, dropping into a crouch and whipping the sword back and forth to clear a space between them.\n\nCree Bega slid clear, watching him. \"Esscapess uss once perhapss, little Elvess, but not twice. Little sseer made that misstake. Sshall I tell you what we did to her? After the Morgawr gave her to uss? How sshe sscreamed and begged for uss to kill her? Doess that make you ssad?\"\n\nAhren felt a roaring in his ears, a tremendous pressure from the rage he felt building inside, but he would not give way to it because he knew that if he did, he was a dead man. He hated Cree Bega. He hated all the rets, but their leader in particular. Cree Bega was a weight around his neck that would drag him to his death if he didn't cut it loose. The Elven Prince was not the boy he had been even a few weeks ago, and he was not going to let the Mwellret win this contest of wills. He was not going to panic. He was not going to be baited into foolish acts. He was not going to run. If he died, he would do so fighting to defend himself in the way that Ard Patrinell had taught him.\n\nHe went into a defensive stance, calling on his training skills, his concentration steady and absolute. He kept his eyes averted from the ret's, kept himself fluid and relaxed, knowing that Cree Bega would want to make this next pass his last, that the ret would try to kill him quickly and move on. Ahren wondered suddenly why the ret was alone. Others had come into the ruins. Where were they? Where was the Morgawr?\n\nHe edged to his left, trying to put the Mwellret in a position that hemmed him between the railing and the mainmast. Blood ran down Ahren's chest and stomach in a thin sheet and his body burned from the wound he had received, but he forced himself to ignore both. He dropped his blade slightly, suggesting he might not quite know what to do with it, inviting the other to find out. But Cree Bega stayed where he was, turning to follow Ahren's movements without moving away.\n\n\"Sshe died sslowly, little Elvess,\" he hissed at Ahren. \"Sso sslowly, it sseemed sshe would take forever. Doess it bother you that you weren't there to ssave her?\"\n\nAhren went deep inside himself, back in time, back to where he practiced his defensive skills with Patrinell on this very deck, all those long, hot days in the boiling sun. Ahren could see his friend and teacher still, big and rawboned and hard as iron, making the boy repeat over and over the lessons of survival he would one day need to call upon.\n\nThat day had arrived, just as Patrinell had forecast. Fate had chosen this time and place.\n\nCree Bega lunged for him, a smooth, effortless attack that took him to Ahren's left, away from his sword arm and toward his vulnerable side. But Ahren had anticipated that this was how the ret would come at him. Guided by the voice of his mentor whispering in his mind, buttressed by the hours of practice he had endured, and sustained by his determination to acquit himself well, he was ready. He kept his eyes on Cree Bega's knife, squared his body away, angled his sword further down, as if to drop his guard completely, then brought it up again when the other was too far committed to pull back, his blade slipping under Cree Bega's extended arm, cutting through to the bone, and continuing to slide up across his chest and into his neck.\n\nThe Mwellret staggered back, the knife dropping away from his nerveless fingers, clattering uselessly on the wooden deck. A gasp escaped his open mouth, and his blank features tightened in surprise. Ahren followed up instantly, thrusting with his sword, catching Cree Bega in the chest and running him through.\n\nHe yanked his weapon free and stepped away as the other staggered backwards to the railing and hung there. No words came out of his open mouth, but there was such hatred in his eyes that Ahren shrank from them in spite of himself.\n\nHe was still struggling to look away when the other sagged into a sitting position and quit breathing."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 32",
+                "text": "If she hadn't already been using the magic of the wishsong to conceal her presence, Grianne Ohsmford would not have survived. The Morgawr was right on top of her when she turned, and his hand shot out to grip and hold her fast. But her defenses were already up, and her magic deflected his effort just enough that it was turned aside. As she jerked away, his blunt nails scraped across her neck, tearing open her skin. She threw up a wall of sound between them, shrieking at him in anger and shock, but his own magic was in place, as well, his black-cloaked form shielded by it, just as it must have been shielded all along. She had thought to catch him off guard when she separated him from the Mwellrets, but he was too experienced. He had created an illusion of himself for her to attack, and she had almost paid the price for her carelessness.\n\nSpinning away from him in a haze of sound and movement, she dropped into a crouch by the far wall, breathing hard. He made no effort to come after her, remaining in place by the chamber entry, watching her, measuring the effect of his appearance.\n\n\"Did you think I wouldn't be expecting you, my little Ilse Witch?\" he asked softly, the words smooth and almost gentle. \"I know you too well for that. I trained you too well to think that you wouldn't come looking for me.\"\n\n\"You lied to me,\" she replied, barely able to contain her rage. \"About the Druid, about my parents and Bek, about my whole life.\"\n\n\"Lies are sometimes necessary to achieve our purposes. Lies make possible what we would otherwise be denied. Do you feel yourself illused?\"\n\n\"I feel myself made into something loathsome.\" She took a tentative step left, looking to find an opening in his defenses. She could feel his power building, swirling all around him like heat off a fire. He would come at her shortly. She had been too slow, too confident, and she had lost the advantage of surprise.\n\n\"You made yourself what you are,\" he told her. \"I merely gave you the opportunity to do so. You were wasting your life anyway. Your father chose to keep you from the Druid, and for that I was grateful. Trying to keep you from me, as well, was a mistake.\"\n\n\"He knew nothing of you! You killed him and my mother for no reason! You stole me away to make me your tool! You used me for your own purposes, and you would have done so forever if I had not discovered the truth!\"\n\nHe gave a small lift of his shoulders as if to disclaim his guilt for anything of which she had accused him. His tall frame bent toward her as if to throw its shadow across her like a net. \"How did the Druid persuade you of the truth, little witch? You never would have believed him before. Or was it your brother who told you?\"\n\nShe did not care to explain anything to him, did not want even to speak with him. She wanted him gone from her life, from the earth she walked, and from her memory as well, were it possible. She hated him with such passion that it seemed to her that in the closeness of their shared space she could smell the stench of him \u2014 not the rankness of body odor, but the putrefaction of evil. Everything about him was so revolting to her that it was impossible to think of doing anything other than distancing herself in any way she could.\n\n\"You shouldn't have come after me,\" she told him, taking another sideways step, building her own magic in response to his.\n\n\"You shouldn't have betrayed me,\" he replied.\n\nThe power of her wishsong was born of earth magic, absorbed from the Elfstones by her ancestor, Wil Ohmsford, and passed on to his descendants. It could do almost anything once mastered by its wielder, from taking life to restoring it. But the Morgawr possessed magic very like it and every bit as powerful. His was rooted in the essence of his being, rather than extracted from the earth. Conceived at his birth in the dark reaches of the Wilderun, he the warlock brother of the witch sisters, Mallenroh and Morag, it had been fueled by his hunger for power and honed by his experiments with living creatures. Twisted by a special form of madness, he had sought for a way to increase the power of his birthright, and by so doing, the years of his life.\n\nHe found that way early on, when he was still quite young, discovering that feeding on the lives of others invested him with their life force. Stealing away their souls increased his vitality and strength, \u2014 it fed his hunger in a way that nothing else could. It was easy enough, he had told the Ilse Witch long ago, once you got over your revulsion for what it required.\n\nAll those years she had tolerated this madness because she thought him her ally in achieving her greatest goal \u2014 the destruction of the Druid Walker. She had known what he was, and still she had allowed herself to be his creature. She had subverted herself for him when reason told her she should not. She had done so in the beginning because it seemed her only choice, \u2014 she was homeless and still a child. But she had matured quickly, and that excuse had long since ceased to be a reasonable one for why she had stayed so long with him, or would be with him still if not for Bek. Nor could she claim that because she was a child, she'd had no other choice but to be what he made her. In truth, she had embraced his efforts freely, adopted his thinking and his ways, and hungered to be a part of his madness, his coveted power. That made her as guilty as he was.\n\n\"I am taking back my life.\" The tension she felt caused her to shiver. \"I am taking back what you stole.\"\n\n\"I let no one take anything from me,\" he replied. \"Your life is mine, and I will give it up when I choose to do so and not before.\"\n\n\"This time the choice is not yours to make.\"\n\nHe laughed softly, a swirl of dark cloth as he gestured disdainfully at her. \"The choice is always mine. Laying claim to your life was good for you, little witch, until you sought power that wasn't yours. You would pretend that you are better than I am, but you are not. You are no freer of guilt, no nobler of purpose, no higher of mind. You are a monster. You are as cold and dark as I. If you think otherwise, you are a fool.\"\n\n\"The difference between us, Morgawr, is not that I think I am better than you. The difference is that I recognize what I am, and I understand how terrible that is. You would go on as you are and not regret it. Even if I am able to change myself, I will look back at what I was and regret it always.\"\n\n\"Your time for regret will be short, then. Your life is almost over.\"\n\nThere was a fresh edge to his voice, one infused with anticipation. He was getting ready to attack. She could feel it in the movement of the air, in its crackle and hiss as the magic he summoned began to break free of its restraints.\n\nAs a result, she wasn't where he expected her to be when he lashed out. She had eased to the side, leaving just a shadow of herself behind to draw him out. Feeling the backwash of the magic's power, watching the whipsaw effect of his fury cause the wall behind her to rupture, she struck back at him with shards that would have ripped him apart had he not already made his own warding motion in response.\n\nTrading ferocious assaults, they quickly turned the chamber into a smoking, debris-clogged furnace, the heat and sound intense and suffocating. But they were more evenly matched than either had expected, and neither could gain the upper hand.\n\nThen the Morgawr simply disappeared. One moment he was there, his great form shadowy and fluid behind a screen of smoke and heat, and the next he was gone. Grianne slid back to her right, not wanting to give him a chance to come at her from another direction. She tested the air, searching for him, but the trail of his body heat told her he had fled from the room.\n\nShe went after him at once. If he was running, his confidence was breaking down. She did not want to give him a chance to recover. A fierce anticipation flooded through her. Maybe now she could put an end to him.\n\nBlack Moclips was closing on the Morgawr's fleet when Redden Alt Mer decided to take a look for something he was already pretty certain wasn't still aboard. He did it on a whim, having not even thought of it until now, remembering it because of something Ahren Elessedil had told him when they had talked about Ryer Ord Star, wanting suddenly to discover if it was true.\n\nSo he climbed down out of the pilot box, the controls locked, the airship on course, and walked past the living dead of the Federation and climbed down into the aft fighting station in the port-side pontoon. He walked back to where the ram began its upward curve, removed a panel on the side of the hull, and peered inside.\n\nThere it was, against all odds, in spite of his certainty it wouldn't be, still in the same condition in which it had been installed, neatly wrapped and ready for use. You never know, he mused.\n\nHe carried it out and laid it on the deck, piecing it together in moments, wondering why he bothered. Because it was there, he supposed. Because he lived in a world where a man's fate was often determined by chance, and he had believed in the importance of chance all his life.\n\nBack in the pilot box, he saw the sail-stripped masts of the Morgawr's fleet begin to loom ahead of him like trees in a winter forest.\n\nA few sails were still unfurled to permit the airships to hover, but most were rolled and cinched. Mwellrets clustered against the railings, peering intently at him as he neared, trying to figure out why Black Moclips was coming back and why they couldn't see the Morgawr or their fellow rets. They were not yet concerned, however. He didn't seem to pose a threat. He wasn't flying directly at them, instead pointing off to their port side and slightly away, as if intending to fly out to sea.\n\nBlack Moclips was traveling very fast now and still picking up speed. She was doing better than thirty knots, flying through the clear morning sky like a missile launched from a catapult, skimming the back of a gentle southerly wind, the ride smooth and easy. Sea birds flew at him and banked away, as if sensing that trouble rode his shoulder, but he only smiled at the thought.\n\nWhen his speed reached forty knots and he was less than a quarter of a mile off the fleet's port side, he went back down to the main deck and threw the heavy ropes and grappling hooks over the side. They swung out and away, trailing the vessel like monstrous fishing hooks. An apt analogy, he thought wryly. He sprinted to the pilot box, seized the controls, opened the starboard tubes, and raked the sails hard to port. Black Moclips swung sharply left, the sudden movement throwing most of the crew sprawling across the deck, where they remained, staring at nothing. Alt Mer ignored them, straightening out the airship and picking up new speed, heading directly for the Morgawr's fleet, the barbed ends of the grappling hooks glinting in the sunlight as they swung back and forth like lures. Aware that they were being attacked, the Mwellrets were racing about like frightened ants now. Sails were being run up, lines fastened in place, and anchors weighed. The Mwellret guards were trying frantically to get their dead-eyed crews to their stations. But in stealing their lives, the Morgawr had also stolen their ability to respond quickly. They weren't going to get under way in time.\n\nBlack Moclips was a brute among Federation warships, not particularly large, but blocky and powerful. She went through the Morgawr's fleet as if it were a stack of kindling, her battering rams and hull snapping off masts like pieces of kindling, the grappling hooks tearing apart sails and shredding lines. Half of the airships lost power immediately and plummeted into the ocean. The rest spun away, damaged and fighting to stay aloft. If they hadn't been so stupid about it, the rets would have put their ships down in the water right away, but they lacked the experience that would have taught them to do so.\n\nThe shock of multiple collisions rattled Black Moclips to her mastheads, tearing huge holes in her hull and collapsing her forward rams. Both grappling hooks had torn free somewhere along the way, leaving entire sections of decking and railing in splinters. Alt Mer was thrown to the back of the pilot box and lost control of the craft completely. He struck his head on the retaining wall, bright splashes of color clouding his vision. But he scrambled up again anyway, hands groping for the steering levers.\n\nIn seconds, he had Black Moclips swinging back around for a second pass. He could see clearly now the damage he had inflicted on the Morgawr's fleet. Airships lay in pieces in the water, some of them burning. Debris and bodies were scattered everywhere. A few survivors clung to the wreckage, but not many. Most were gone. He tried not to think of it. He tried to think instead of the lives he was saving, concentrating on his friends and shipmates and his promise to protect them.\n\nBack toward the remainder of the fleet he sailed, picking up speed as he approached. One or two airships were under way now, and he made for them. His purpose was clear. By the time he was finished, not one of them would be left. He intended to sink them all and leave the Morgawr and whoever was with him stranded on Mephitic.\n\nHe couldn't do this, of course, if there was any chance at all that the ships he was attacking might be repaired. He had to destroy them utterly. He had to decimate them.\n\nThere was only one way to do that.\n\nHe wished Little Red could be here to see this. She would appreciate the simplicity of it. He glanced over his shoulder at the island, but he was too far away now to make out anything clearly. Smoke and ash rose off the damaged fleet in waves, obscuring his view. A dingy gray haze masked the clear blue of the morning sky, and the fresh salt air smelled of burning wood and metal.\n\nHis speed was back up to better than thirty knots as he bore down on the ships still flying. He corrected his course to allow for what he intended, a pass that would take him directly into their midst, but lower down this time. Only one of those remaining had managed to get all her sails up and her anchor weighed, but she was floundering in dead air and smoke. Smoke roiled off the decks of three others.\n\nAlt Mer threw off his cloak and unsnapped his safety line. Mobility was his best ally at this point. He closed down the parse tube exhausts, but locked the thrusters all the way forward to keep drawing down power from the light sheaths. No airship Captain would do this unless he wanted to blow his vessel to pieces. The power generated by the radian draws had to be expelled from the tube exhausts or they would explode and take the airship with them.\n\nNot to mention everything within shouting distance.\n\nHe held Black Moclips on course, letting the power build inside the parse tubes until he could see smoke and fire breaking through the seams. They just need to hold together a little longer, he thought. He took a deep breath to steady himself. The Morgawr's airships loomed right ahead.\n\n\"Time to move on,\" he whispered.\n\nMoments later, Black Moclips tore through the hulls of the remaining airships like an enraged bull through stalks of corn in an autumn field, and exploded in a ball of fire.\n\nBek Ohmsford raced through the ruins after his sister, heedless of the noise he was making because no one could hear him anyway over the sounds of the battle being fought somewhere just ahead. Sharp cracklings and deep booms echoed through the stone corridors of the ancient castle, breaking down centuries-old silence and walls alike, the exchanges of magic powerful enough to cause the earth itself to vibrate beneath his feet. Grianne had found the Morgawr, or it might be the other way around, but the battle between them had begun in either case, and he needed to be a part of it.\n\nExcept that he had no idea what to do once he was, and it was a problem he couldn't afford to delay solving for long. After he found his sister, he was going to have to do something to help her. But what sort of help could he offer? His mastery of the wishsong's power was a poor second to her own. She had already warned him that he stood no chance against the Morgawr, that the warlock's experience and skill were so vast that Bek would be swiftly overwhelmed.\n\nSo what was he going to do that would make a difference? How was he going to avoid being the distraction she had told him she could not afford to have him be?\n\nHe didn't know. He knew only that he couldn't stay behind and let her face the Morgawr alone. He had gone through too much to find and heal her to let something bad happen to her now.\n\nThe sounds ahead quieted, and he slowed in response, listening carefully. He was in a gloom-shrouded part of the castle, its walls towering over him, corridors narrow and high and rooms cavernous. The ceilings were vaulted and multitiered, and the dark shadows they cast were alive with unexplained movement. He eased along one wall, walking softly, once again trying to hide his approach. Smoke rolled through the chambers, and the air had a burnt smell to it.\n\nHe quieted his breathing. Everything was still. What if it was over? What if the Morgawr had won and Grianne was dead? He went cold at the prospect, casting it away from him as he would a poisonous snake, not wanting to touch it. That was not what had happened, he told himself firmly. Grianne was all right.\n\nNevertheless, he moved ahead more quickly, anxious to make certain. He was surprised that the enormity of the struggle hadn't roused the castle's dweller. With so much sound and fury invading its privacy and so much damage inflicted upon its keep, Bek would have thought the spirit furious enough to retaliate. But there was no indication of that happening, nothing in the air to trigger a warning, nothing in the feel of the stone to suggest danger. For whatever reason, the spirit was not responding. Bek found it puzzling. Maybe it was because the spirit reacted only to attempts to take things away, as it had with Bek and Truls. Maybe that was all it cared about \u2014 keeping possession of its treasures. Maybe the fact that the walls and towers that made up its domain were collapsing didn't mean anything to it, no more so than when they crumbled as a result of time's passage.\n\nHe had an idea then, sudden and unexpected, of how he might use his magic against the Morgawr. But he had to find him first, and he sensed that time was running out.\n\nBut finding the warlock did not take him as long as he had expected. The silence was shattered moments later by a rough-edged sound that reverberated through the stone walls, a quick and sudden rending. He went toward it at once, following its echoes as they died away, hearing voices. He reached a break in the walls, and through it saw his sister and the Morgawr locked in combat. The warlock had trapped her and was holding her fast by the sheer force of his magic. She was fighting to break free \u2014 Bek could see the strain on her smooth face \u2014 but she could not seem to bring her magic to bear in a way that would allow her to do so. The Morgawr was squeezing her, crushing her, closing off air and space and light, the darkness he wielded a visible presence as it closed.\n\nBek saw the Morgawr's hand reach for Grianne, stretching the fabric of her protective magic to touch her face. Grianne's head snapped away, and she wrenched at the shackles that had trapped her. The Morgawr was too strong, Bek saw. Even for her, for the Ilse Witch, he was too powerful. His fingers extended, and Bek could see the sudden hunching of his shoulders as he forced his way closer. His intent was unmistakable. He meant to feed on her.\n\nGrianne!\n\nThere was no time left for Bek to think about what he wanted to do, no time for anything but doing it. He threw out the magic of his wishsong in an enveloping cloak that settled over the Morgawr like spiderwebbing, a faint tickling that the warlock barely noticed. But deep within the heart of the ruins, where even the Morgawr could not penetrate, the castle's dweller stirred in recognition. Up from its slumber it surged, fully awake in seconds, sensing all at once that something it had thought lost for good was again within reach. It roared through its crumbling walls, down its debris-strewn corridors, and across its empty courtyards. It paid no heed to the Jerle Shannara or to the living or the dead men who surrounded her or to what was taking place just offshore over the Blue Divide. It paid no heed to anything but the creature that had roused it.\n\nThe Morgawr.\n\nExcept that it didn't see the warlock for what he was. It saw him for what Bek had used the magic of the wishsong to make him appear. It saw him as the boy who had stolen its key weeks earlier, who had teased it with boldness and tricked it with magic.\n\nMostly, it saw him as a thief who still had that key.\n\nThe Morgawr had only a moment to look up from Grianne, to realize that something was terribly wrong, and then the spirit was upon him. It swept into the Morgawr like a whirlwind, ripping him away from his victim, bearing him backwards into the closest wall and pinning him there. The Morgawr shrieked in fury and fought back with his own magic, tearing at the wind, at the air, at the magic of the dweller, mad with rage. Bek screamed through the thunderous roar for Grianne to run, and she gathered herself and started toward him.\n\nThen, almost inexplicably, she turned back.\n\nBracing herself, she threw her own magic at the Morgawr, lending strength to the castle dweller's efforts to crush him. The sound was so terrifying, so wrenchingly invasive, that Bek put his hands over his ears and scrunched up his face in pain. Reptilian face twisting with shock and fury, arms windmilling to gain purchase where there was none to be had, the Morgawr jerked upright as the combined magics ripped through him. For a moment, he held them at bay, girl and spirit both, his dark heart long since turned to stone, his mind to iron. He would not be beaten by such as these, the bright glare of his green eyes seemed to say. Not on this day.\n\nThen the stone behind him cracked wide, and he was thrust inside the fissure. The opening ran deep and long, through multiple tiers of blocks set by its builders centuries ago to form a support wall for towers and ramparts now mostly gone. Thrashing against his imprisonment, the Morgawr fought to escape, but the pressure of the magics that held him fast was enormous.\n\nHe could not break free. Bek could see it on his face and in his eyes. He was trapped.\n\nSlowly, the stone began to seal again. The Morgawr shrieked, striking at it with his magic, chunks of it falling away beneath the sharp edges of his power. But not enough stone could be shredded or slowed, and the gap narrowed. Bit by bit, he was squeezed as he had sought to squeeze Grianne. Little by little, he was crushed more tightly by the dwindling space. Now he could no longer move his arms to gesture, to invoke his spells, to trigger his magic's release. His body twisted frantically, and his shrieking rose to inhuman levels.\n\nWhen the walls closed all the way, the fingers of one hand were still protruding from a tiny crack. They twitched momentarily in the fresh silence that settled over the ruins. When they finally went still, the crack had disappeared and the wall was leaking blood.\n\nThe explosions from land and sea had brought the Wing Riders out of hiding on the distant atoll. They flew their Rocs into the clear morning air and banked toward the dark smudges of smoke rising off the ruins of the ancient castle, then turned again at the sight of more smoke rolling over the waters of the Blue Divide. They caught a glimpse of the Morgawr's freshly smoldering airships and watched in shock as Black Moclips flew into them. Then everything disappeared in a massive explosion that filled the air with fire and smoke and created a shock wave so strong it could be felt miles away.\n\nHunter Predd could not tell what had transpired beyond the obvious. Hiding from the Morgawr had clearly not worked, but the nature of the battle being fought now was hard to judge. Catching sight of Spanner Frew and two of the Rover crew standing at the shore's edge, he banked Obsidian toward them, with Po Kelles and Niciannon following right behind. More explosions sounded, parse tubes giving way to the pressure of overheated diapson crystals as the destruction of the Morgawr's fleet continued. The Wing Riders swept downward to the island, landed close to the Rovers, jumped from their birds, and rushed over.\n\n\"What's happened?\" Hunter Predd asked the shipwright. Seeing the other's dazed look, he took hold of his arm and turned him about forcibly. \"Talk to me!\"\n\nSpanner Frew shook his head in disbelief. \"He flew right into them, Wing Rider. He hooded the crystals, drew down enough power to destroy a dozen airships, and he flew right into them. All by himself, he destroyed them. I can't believe it!\"\n\nHunter Predd knew without having to ask that the shipwright was talking about Redden Alt Mer. He looked out over the Blue Divide into the billowing clouds of smoke. Pieces of airships floated on the water, twisted and blackened. The water itself was on fire. There was no sign of an airship aloft and no sign of life in the water.\n\nHe stood with Po Kelles and the Rovers and stared in silence at the carnage. Big Red had found a way to stop them after all, he thought with a mix of admiration and sadness.\n\n\"Maybe he got out in time,\" he said quietly.\n\nNone of the others replied or even looked at him. They knew the truth of it. No one could survive an explosion like that. Even if you somehow managed to jump clear, the fall would kill you, the fire and the debris would finish you if it didn't.\n\nThey stared out into the heavy clouds of smoke, transfixed. None of them wanted to believe that Redden Alt Mer was really gone. None of them wanted to believe it could end like this.\n\nIt was quiet now, the morning gone still and peaceful. The explosions had stopped, even from the castle behind them. Whatever battles had been fought, they were over. Hunter Predd found himself wondering who had won. Or maybe if anyone had.\n\n\"We'd better see what's happened to the others,\" he said.\n\nThey were just turning away, when something appeared out of the roiling clouds of black smoke. At first, the Wing Rider thought it was a Roc or a War Shrike and wondered where it had come from. But it wasn't the right size and it wasn't flying in the right way. It was something else altogether.\n\n\"Black Beard,\" he whispered softly.\n\nThe flying object began to take shape as it emerged from the haze, slowly becoming recognizable for what it was, floundering badly, but staying aloft.\n\nIt was a single wing.\n\n\"Shades!\" Spanner Frew hissed.\n\nThe man who flew it still had the luck."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 33",
+                "text": "A little more than five months later, the man with the luck and those he had sworn to protect were safely home again. Redden Alt Mer stood at the rail of the Jerle Shannara and stared out into the misty twilight of the Dragon's Teeth, thinking for the first time in weeks of his harrowing escape from the destruction of the Morgawr's fleet, reminded of it suddenly by a hunting bird winging its way in slow spirals through the mist that drifted down out of the mountains. His thinking lasted only a moment. That he had found a way through the fire and smoke and explosive debris still amazed him and didn't bear looking at too closely. Life was a gift you accepted without questioning its generosity or reason.\n\nStill, he would not want to risk his luck like that again. When he returned to the coast and March Brume, he would still fly airships, but he would fly them in safer places.\n\n\"What do you suppose they are talking about?\" Rue asked, leaning close so that her words would not carry.\n\nSome distance off in the gloom, Bek Ohmsford stood with his sister, two solitary figures engaged in a taut, intense discussion. Their argument, pure and simple, transcended the parting that was taking place. Those who watched from the airship, those few who still remained \u2014 Ahren Elessedil, Quentin Leah, Spanner Frew, Kelson Riat, and Britt Rill \u2014 waited patiently to see how it would end.\n\n\"They're talking about the choice she has made,\" he answered quietly. \"The choice Bek can't accept.\"\n\nThey had flown in from the coast yesterday, the Wing Riders Hunter Predd and Po Kelles leaving them there to return home to the Wing Hove, their mission complete, their pledge to provide scouting and foraging for the expedition fulfilled. How invaluable their help had been. It was hard to watch them make that final departure, hard to know they wouldn't still be warding the ship. Some things he got so used to he couldn't imagine life without them. It was like that for Alt Mer with the Wing Riders.\n\nStill, he would see them again. Out along the coast, over the Blue Divide, on calmer days and under better circumstanced.\n\nThey would have returned Ahren Elessedil and the Blue Elfstones to Arborlon and the Elves, then flown the Elven Prince home to face his brother, but for the insistence of Grianne Ohmsford that they come first to the Dragon's Teeth, to the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. She would hear no arguments against it. She owed something to Walker, she told them. She must come to where the dead could be summoned and spoken with, to where the shade of the Druid could tell her the rest of what she must know.\n\nWhen she had told them why, they were stunned into silence. Not even Bek could believe it. Not then and clearly not now.\n\n\"She might be mistaken about this,\" Rue continued obstinately. \"She might be taking on more than was ever intended of her.\"\n\nAlt Mer nodded. \"She might. But none of us thinks so, not even Bek. She was saved for this, made whole by the Sword of Shannara and her brother's love.\" He grimaced. \"I sound almost poetic.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"Almost.\"\n\nThey watched in silence again. Bek was gesturing furiously, but Grianne was only standing there, weathering the storm of his anger, calm resolution reflected in her stance and lack of movement. She had made up her mind, Alt Mer knew, and she was not someone who could be persuaded to change it easily. It was more than stubbornness, of course. It was her certainty of her destiny, of what was needed of her, of what was expected. It was her understanding of what it would take for her to gain redemption for the damage she had done to so many lives in so many places for all those years that she had been the Ilse Witch.\n\nWhen this is done, he thought, nothing will be the same again for any of us, our lives will he changed forever. Perhaps the lives of everyone in the Four Lands will be changed, as well. What waited in the days ahead was that compelling \u2014 a new order, a fresh beginning, a reaching into the past to find hope for the future. All these would come about because of what happened here, on this night, in the mountains of the Dragon's Teeth, in the Valley of Shale, at the edge of the Hadeshorn, when Grianne Ohmsford summoned the shade of Walker.\n\nSo she had promised them.\n\nHe found it hard to argue with someone who believed she was meant to be Walker Boh's successor and the next Druid to serve the Four Lands.\n\nBek was having none of it. He had gone through too much in bringing his sister safely home again to let her wander off now, to place herself at risk once more \u2014 at greater risk perhaps than ever.\n\n\"You assume that you are meant to achieve something that even Walker could not!\" he snapped, willing her to flinch in the face of his wrath. \"He could not return for this, could not save himself to make the Druid order come alive. Why do you think it will be any different for you? At least he was not universally despised!\"\n\nHe threw out the last few words in desperation and regretted them as soon as they were spoken. But Grianne did not seem bothered, and she reached out to touch his face gently.\n\n\"Don't be so angry, Bek. Your life does not lie with me in any case. It lies with her.\"\n\nShe glanced toward the Jerle Shannara and Rue Meridian. Stubbornly denying what he knew was true, Bek refused to look. \"My life is not the subject of this discussion,\" he insisted. \"Yours is the one that's likely to be thrown away if you go through with this. Why can't you just come home with me, find a little peace and comfort for a change, not go out and try to do something impossible!\"\n\n\"I don't know yet exactly what it is I am expected to do,\" she answered calmly. \"I only know what was revealed to me through the magic of the Sword of Shannara \u2014 that I am to become the next Druid and will atone for my wrongs by accepting that trust. If through my efforts a Druid Council is formed, as Walker intended that it should be, then the Druids will have a strong presence again in the Four Lands. That was why I was saved, Bek. That was what Walker gave his life for, so that I could make possible the goals he had set for himself but knew he would not live to see fulfilled.\"\n\nShe stepped close to him and placed her slender hands on his shoulders. \"I don't do this out of foolish expectation or selfish need. I do this out of an obligation to make something worthwhile of a wasted life. Look at me, Bek. Look at what I have done. I can't ignore who I am. I can't walk away from a chance to redeem myself. Walker was counting on that. He knew me well enough to understand how I would feel, once the truth was revealed to me. He trusted that I would do what was needed to atone for the harm I have visited on others. How wrong it would be for me to betray him now.\"\n\n\"You wouldn't betray him by becoming who you should have been in the first place if none of this had happened!\"\n\nShe smiled sadly. \"But it did happen. It did, and we can't change that. We have to live with it. I have to live with it.\"\n\nShe put her arms around him and hugged him. He stood rigid in her embrace for a few moments, then little by little, the tension and the anger drained away until at last he hugged her back.\n\n\"I love you, Bek,\" she said. \"My little brother. I love you for what you did for me, for believing in me when no one else would, for seeing who I could be if I was free of the Morgawr and his lies. That won't change, even if everything else in the world does.\"\n\n\"I don't want you to go.\" His words were bitter with disappointment. \"It isn't fair.\"\n\nShe sighed softly, her breath a whisper in his ear. \"I was never meant to come home with you, Bek. That isn't my life, \u2014 it isn't the life I was meant to live. I wouldn't be happy, not after what I have been through. Coran and Liria are your parents, not mine. Their home is yours. Mine lies elsewhere. You have to accept this. If I am to find peace, I have to make amends for the damage I have done and the hurt I have caused. I can do this by following the destiny Walker has set for me. A Druid can make a difference in the lives of so many. Perhaps becoming one will make a difference in mine, as well.\"\n\nHe hugged her tighter to him. He sensed the inevitability of what she was saying, the certainty that no matter how hard he argued against it, no matter what obstacles he presented, she was not going to change her mind. He hated what that meant, the loss of any real chance at a life as brother and sister, as family. But he understood that he had lost most of that years ago, and he couldn't have it back the way it was or even the way it would have been. Life didn't allow for that.\n\n\"I just don't want to lose you again,\" he said.\n\nShe released him and stepped away, her strange blue eyes almost merry. \"You couldn't do that, little brother. I wouldn't allow it. Whatever I do, however this business tonight turns out, I won't ever be far away from you.\"\n\nHe nodded, feeling suddenly as if he were just a boy again, still small and in his sister's care. \"Go on, then. Do what you need to do.\" He gave her a quick smile. \"I'm all argued out. All worn out.\" He looked off into the sunset, which had become a faint silver glow in the gathering dark, and fought back his tears. \"I'm going home, now. I need to go home. I need for this to be over.\"\n\nShe came close once more, so small and frail it seemed impossible that she could possess the kind of strength a Druid would need. \"Then go, Bek. But know that a part of me goes with you. I will not forget you, nor my promise not ever to be too far away.\"\n\nShe kissed him. \"Will you wish me luck?\"\n\n\"Good luck,\" he muttered.\n\nShe smiled. \"Don't be sad, Bek. Be happy for me. This is what I want.\"\n\nShe tightened her dark robes about her and turned away. \"Wait!\" he said impulsively. He unstrapped the Sword of Shannara from where he wore it across his back and handed it to her. \"You'll know what to do with this better than I will.\"\n\nShe looked uncertain. \"It was given to you. It belongs to you.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"It belongs to the Druids. Take it back to them.\"\n\nShe accepted the talisman, cradling it in her arms like a baby at rest. \"Good-bye, Bek.\"\n\nIn moments, she had started her climb into the mountains. He stood watching until he could no longer see her, all the while unable to overcome the feeling that he was losing her again.\n\nRue Meridian watched him return to the airship across the broken rock of the barren flats on which they had landed, his head lowered into shadow, fists clenched. Clearly, he was not happy about how things had turned out with his sister. Anger and disappointment radiated from him. Rue knew what he had asked of Grianne and knew, as well, that he had been refused. She could have saved him the trouble, but she supposed he had to find it out for himself. Bek was nothing if not a believer in impossibilities.\n\n\"He looks like a whipped puppy,\" Big Red mused.\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"At least we can go home now,\" he continued. \"We're finished here.\"\n\nShe watched Bek approach for a moment longer, then left her brother's side, climbed down the rope ladder, and walked out onto the flats. She didn't think Bek even saw her until she moved to block his way and he looked up to find her standing right in his path.\n\n\"I've been thinking,\" she said. \"About your home, the one you were born in. It wasn't too far from here, was it?\"\n\nHe stared at her.\n\n\"Do you think we could find where it was, if we went looking?\"\n\nHis puzzlement was clear. \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Want to try?\"\n\n\"It's only ruins.\"\n\n\"It's your past. You need to see it.\"\n\nHe glanced toward the airship doubtfully.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Not them. They don't have time for such things. It would be just you and me. On foot.\" She let him consider for a moment. \"Think of it as an adventure, a small one, but one for just the two of us. After we find it, we can keep going, walk south through the Borderlands along the Rainbow Lake down to the Silver River, then home to the Highlands. Big Red can fly Quentin to Leah on the Jerle Shannara, then take Ahren on to Arborlon.\"\n\nShe stepped closer, put her arms around him and her face next to his. \"I don't know about you, but I've had enough of airships for a while. I want to walk.\"\n\nHe looked stunned, as if he had been handed a gift he hadn't expected and didn't deserve. \"You're coming with me? To the Highlands?\"\n\nShe smiled and kissed him softly on the mouth. \"Bek,\" she whispered, \"I was never going anywhere else.\"\n\nGrianne Ohmsford spent the larger part of the night climbing into the foothills below the Dragon's Teeth, seeking to reach the Valley of Shale before dawn. She might have had Alt Mer fly her in on the airship, but she wanted time alone before summoning the shade of Walker. Besides, it was easier to say her good-byes now rather than later, particularly to Bek. She knew it would be hard to tell him she wasn't going with him, and it had been. His expectations for her had always been his own and never hers, and it was difficult for him to give them up. He would come to understand, but only in time.\n\nShe found the darkness familiar and comforting, still an old friend after all these years. Wrapped in its protective concealment, given peace by its unbroken solitude, she could think about what she was doing and where she was going; she could reflect on the events that had led her to this place and time. The destruction of the Morgawr had not given her the satisfaction she had hoped for. She would need more than revenge to heal. Her Druid life might provide her with that healing, though she knew it would not do so in the traditional way. It would not soothe and comfort her. It would not erase the past or allow her to forget she had been the Ilse Witch. She was not even assured of the nurturing rest of a good night's sleep. Instead, she would be given an opportunity to balance the scales. She would be given a chance at redemption for an otherwise unbearable past. She would be given a reason for living out the rest of her life.\n\nShe did not know if that would be enough to salvage her damaged psyche, her wounded soul, but it was worth a try.\n\nBy midnight, she was approaching her destination. She had never been here before and did not know the way, but her instincts told her where she needed to go. Or perhaps it was Walker who guided her, reaching out from the dead. Either way, she proceeded without slowing, and found in the simple act of moving forward a kind of peace. She should have been frightened of what waited, she knew one day the fear she could not seem to put a name to would catch up to her, would make itself known. But her feelings now were all of resolution and commitment, of finding a new place in the world and making a new beginning.\n\nWhen she reached the rim of the Valley of Shale, coming upon it quite suddenly through a cluster of massive boulders, she stopped and gazed down into its bowl. The valley was littered with chips of glistening black rock, their shiny surfaces reflecting the moonlight like animal eyes. At the valley's center, the Hadeshorn was a smooth, flat mirror, its waters undisturbed. It was an unsettling place, all silence and empty space, nothing living, nothing but herself. She thought it a perfect place for a meeting with a shade.\n\nShe sat down to wait.\n\nEveryone despises you, Bek had told her. The words had been spoken with the intent of changing her mind, but also to hurt her. They had not succeeded in the former, but had in the latter. Did still.\n\nWith dawn an hour away, she went down into the valley and stood at the edge of the lake. From what she had been shown by the magic of the Sword of Shannara, she understood what had happened to Walker in this place and would happen now to her. There was a power in the presence of the dead that was disconcerting even to her. Shades were beyond the living and yet still held sway over them because of what they knew.\n\nThe future. Its possibilities. Her fate, with all of its complex permutations.\n\nWalker would see what she could not. He would know the choices that awaited her, but would not be able to tell her of their meaning. Knowledge of the future was forbidden to the living because the living must always determine what that future would be. The best the dead could do was to share glimpses of its possibilities and let the living make of them what they would.\n\nShe stared off into the distance, thinking that she didn't care to know the future in any case. She was here to discover if what the magic had shown her was real \u2014 if she was meant to be a Druid, to be Walker's successor, to carry on his work. She had told Bek and the others that she was, but she could not be sure until she heard it from the Druid's shade. She wanted it to be so, \u2014 she wanted to be given a chance at doing something that would matter in a good way, that would help secure the work Walker had begun. She wanted to give him back something for the pain she had caused him. Mostly, she wanted to think that she was useful again, that she could find purpose in life, that things did not begin and end with her time as the Ilse Witch.\n\nShe glanced down at the waters of the Hadeshorn. Poison, the magic of the Sword of Shannara had whispered. But she was poison, too. She bent impulsively to dip her hand into the dark mirror of moonlight and stars but snatched it back as the waters began to stir. At the center of the lake, steam hissed like dragon's breath. It was time. Walker was coming.\n\nShe straightened within the dark folds of her cloak and waited for him.\n\n\"I did not think to see you again, little brother,\" Kylen Elessedil declared, sweeping into the room with his customary brusqueness, not bothering with formalities or greetings, not wasting unnecessary time.\n\n\"Your surprise is no greater than my own,\" Ahren allowed. \"But here I am anyway.\"\n\nIt had been two days since he had said good-bye to Quentin Leah in the Highlands and three since Grianne Ohmsford had walked into the Dragon's Teeth. Afterwards, Ahren had flown west with the Rovers aboard the Jerle Shannara to Arborlon, thinking the whole time of what he would say when this moment came. He knew what was expected of him \u2014 not only by those with whom he had traveled, but also by himself. His was arguably the most important task of all, certainly the most tricky, given the way his brother felt about him. The boy he had been when he had left to follow the tracings of Kael Elessedil's map would not have been able to handle it. It remained to be seen if the man he had become could.\n\nThat he had been met by Elven Home Guard and brought to this small room at the back of the palace, quietly and without fanfare, testified to the fact that his brother still regarded him mostly as a nuisance. Kylen would tolerate his return just long enough to determine if anything more was necessary. The reappearance of Ahren was no cause for celebration absent a recovery of the Elfstones.\n\n\"Where is the Druid?\" his brother asked, getting right to the point. He walked to the curtained windows at the back of the room and looked out through the folds. \"Still aboard ship?\"\n\n\"Gone back into the Dragon's Teeth,\" Ahren answered. It was not a lie exactly, just a shading of the truth. Kylen didn't need to know everything just yet. In particular, he didn't need to know how things stood with the Druids.\n\n\"Were you successful in your efforts on this expedition, brother?\"\n\n\"Mostly, yes.\"\n\nKylen arched an eyebrow. \"I am told you return with less than a quarter of those who went.\"\n\n\"More than that. Some have gone on to their homes. There was no need for them to come here. But, yes, many were lost, Ard Patrinell and his Elven Hunters among them.\"\n\n\"So that of all the Elves who went, you alone survived?\"\n\nAhren nodded. He could hear the accusation in the other's words, but he refused to dignify it with a response. He did not need to justify himself to anyone now, least of all to his brother, whose only disappointment was that even a single Elf had survived.\n\nKylen Elessedil moved away from the window and came over to stand in front of him. \"Tell me, then. Did you find the Elfstones? Do you have them with you?\"\n\nHe could not quite hide the eagerness in his voice or the flush that colored his fair skin. Kylen saw himself empowered by the Elfstones. He did not understand their demands. He might not even realize that they were useless in most of the situations in which he would think to use them. It was the lure of their power that drew him, and the thought of it obscured his thinking.\n\nStill, it was not Ahren's problem. \"I have them. I will give them to you as soon as I am certain we are clear on the terms of the agreement Father and Walker reached.\"\n\nAnger flooded his brother's face. \"It is not your place to remind me of my obligations! I know what my father promised! If the Druid has fulfilled his part of the bargain \u2014 if you have the Elfstones and a share of the Elven magic to give to me \u2014 then it shall be done as Father wished!\"\n\nHis brother made no attempt to hide the fact that he thought everything was intended just for him rather than for the Elven people. Kylen was a brave man and a strong fighter, but too ambitious for his own good and not much of a politician. He would be causing problems with the Elven High Council by now. He would have already angered certain segments of his people.\n\n\"The Elfstones will be yours by the time I leave,\" Ahren said. \"The magic Walker sought to find requires translation and interpretation in order to comprehend its origins and worth. Those Elves who go to become Druids in the forming of the new council can help with that work. Two dozen would be an adequate number to start.\"\n\n\"A dozen will do,\" his brother said. \"You may choose them yourself.\"\n\nAhren shook his head. \"Two dozen are necessary.\"\n\n\"You test my patience, Ahren.\" Kylen glared at him, then nodded. \"Very well, they are yours.\"\n\n\"A full share of the money promised to each of the men and women who went on this expedition must be paid out to the survivors or to the families of the dead.\"\n\nHis brother nodded grudgingly. He was looking at Ahren with something that approached respect, clearly impressed, if not pleased, by his younger brother's poise and determination. \"Anything else? You'll want to keep the airship, I expect.\"\n\nAhren didn't bother answering. Instead, he reached into his pocket, withdrew the pouch containing the Elfstones, and handed it to his brother. Kylen took only a moment to release the drawstrings and dump the Stones into his hand. He stared down wordlessly into their depthless blue facets, an unmistakable hunger in his eyes.\n\n\"Do you need me to tell you how to make the magic work?\" Ahren asked cautiously.\n\nHis brother looked over at him. \"I know more about them than you think, little brother. I made a point of finding out.\"\n\nAhren nodded, not quite understanding, not sure if he wanted to. \"I'll be going, then,\" he said. \"After I gather supplies and talk with those I think might come to Paranor.\" He waited for Kylen to respond, and when he didn't, said, \"Good-bye, Kylen.\"\n\nKylen was already moving toward the door, the Elfstones clutched in his hand. He stopped as he opened it, and looked back. \"Take whatever you need, little brother. Go wherever you want. But, Ahren?\" A broad smile wreathed his handsome face. \"Don't ever come back.\"\n\nHe went out through the door and closed it softly behind him.\n\nIt was dawn off the coast of the Blue Divide, and Hunter Predd was flying on patrol aboard Obsidian. He had slept almost continuously for several days after his return, but because he was restless by nature, he required no more time than that to recover from the hardships of his journey and so was back in the air. He never felt at home anywhere else, even in the Wing Hove, \u2014 he was always anxious to be airborne, always impatient to be flying.\n\nThe day was bright and clear, and he breathed deeply of the sea air, the taste and smell familiar and welcome. The voyage of the Jerle Shannara seemed a long time ago, and his memories of its places and people were beginning to fade. Hunter Predd did not like living in the past, and thus discarded it pretty much out of hand. It was the present that mattered, the here and now of his life as a Wing Rider, of his time in the air. He supposed that was in the nature of his occupation. If you let your mind wander, you couldn't do what was needed.\n\nHe searched the skyline briefly for airships, thinking to spot one somewhere in the distance along the coast, perhaps even one captained by Redden Alt Mer. He thought that of all those he had sailed with, the Rover was the most remarkable. Lacking magic or knowledge or even special skills, he was the most resilient, the one nothing seemed to touch. The man with the luck. Hunter Predd could still see him flying, miraculously unscathed, out of the smoky wreckage of the Morgawr's fleet aboard his single wing. He thought that when nothing else could save you in this world, luck would always do.\n\nSeagulls flew across his path, white-winged darts against the blue of the water. Obsidian gave a warning cry, then wheeled left. He had seen something floating in the water, something his rider had missed. Hunter Predd's attention snapped back to the job at hand. He saw it now, bobbing in the surf, a splash of bright color.\n\nPerhaps it was a piece of clothing.\n\nPerhaps it was a body.\n\nHe felt a catch in his throat, remembering a time that suddenly did not seem so long ago after all.\n\nUsing his hands and knees to guide the Roc, he flew down for a closer look."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia",
+        "author": "Pete Ford",
+        "genres": [
+            "steampunk",
+            "alternate history"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 1",
+                "text": "Bright blue-white lightning flickered against the sheets of rain as Cornelius Gunn glimpsed upward briefly, squinting against the fat raindrops at the low, heavy clouds. A moment later came the crash and crackle of thunder, drowning the droning hum of airship propellers.\n\nGunn pulled the collar of his raincoat up and the brim of his hat down, and increased his pace along the rain-slick cobbles between the brick walls of the tall industrial buildings running the length of the street. Factory workers and clerks hurried along around him, hands in pockets and shoulders hunched against the rain as they headed toward their places of work in that part of Battersea.\n\nA steam carriage passed him on the cobblestone road, going his way, and its wheels splashed ice-cold water over his already-soaked shoes and ankles. Gunn cursed and shook his fist pointlessly at the driver of the carriage as it melted into the gloom.\n\nThunderstorms were unusual at that early hour of the morning, and particularly at that time of the year. Unusual, thought Gunn, but not unheard of, and more frequent these days. According to the Royal Society and their huge calculating engines, it had something to do with the increasing smoke and soot from the burning of coal in the capital.\n\nBabbage, the man who'd invented those engines, had himself examined and validated the sequences created by the statisticians, and had overseen the transcription of the old paper weather records into the form required by the engines.\n\nLord Salisbury\u2014an advocate of the country's incredible progress in the scientific and technical arts\u2014had voiced his concern in the House. He worried about the weather, the filthy condition of the River Thames, and the damage to trees by sulphurous poisons carried in the rain. He claimed those could ultimately cause the public to lose faith in the new industrial revolution and the scientific authorities behind it. He had requested a Royal Commission to find solutions while the situation was still manageable.\n\nThe engines that the Royal Society's scientists used fascinated Gunn, though he'd never seen the machines at work. He'd asked Maynard, his editor, to assign him to the story so he could see one for himself, but Maynard had refused and given it to Gallagher, instead. Gallagher got most of the interesting assignments, leaving Gunn to report on petty burglaries and industrial accidents. It left a sour taste in his mouth.\n\nHe sighed. The story he was following that day was one of the few that held any promise of interest.\n\nA gust of wind blew cold rain against the back of Gunn's neck, and he pulled his collar yet higher. Just ahead, a pair of police constables stood by a couple of portable bollards supporting a heavy rope, blocking an alleyway between two buildings. Passersby gave them curious glances as they hurried along, seeking shelter from the appalling weather.\n\nOne of the constables held a hand up to Gunn as he approached. \"You can't come through here, sir. I'm afraid you'll have to go 'round the long way.\"\n\n\"What happened here?\"\n\nThe policemen looked at each other. The other answered, \"Industrial vandalism. You can't go down there\u2014the wall's been broken through, and it could collapse at any minute. It's not safe.\"\n\nGunn took off a glove, and, after struggling with the buttons of his raincoat, pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and flipped it open to show the constable his press card. \"Cornelius Gunn with the Tribune. Is Inspector Jameson here?\"\n\nGunn knew his friend Jameson didn't work small-time breakins.\n\n\"Haven't seen him, sir,\" said the first.\n\n\"Were one of you here when it happened?\"\n\n\"It's my beat, sir, but I wasn't here at the time. I heard a noise and I went along the alley for a look, but whoever did it had already gone.\"\n\nGunn slipped his wallet back inside his jacket and made a mental note of the number, 247, in silver figures on the collar of the policeman's uniform. If the incident followed the pattern, then it was the sixth such crime perpetrated in the last few weeks. Gunn had begun to suspect that some beat coppers might have been paid to avoid particular locations during their nightly rounds. In an attempt to find commonalities, he was making a list of possibilities, but so far he'd found nothing to support his suspicions.\n\nGunn continued, \"Does this look like the others?\"\n\n\"I couldn't say, I'm afraid. I didn't see any of the others.\"\n\nGunn straightened his shoulders and stepped forward, and the other copper moved to unhook the rope from one of the bollards so that he could pass. Gunn suppressed a smile as he walked into the alley, and the copper replaced the rope behind him.\n\n\"Take care, sir,\" the second copper called after him, \"that lot down there could come down around your ears.\"\n\nThe high walls of the alleyway afforded a little shelter from the rain, and Gunn could just make out, fifty yards away, the far end the alley similarly roped off and guarded by two more constables.\n\nRain ran down the wall of deep red bricks and collected into rivulets that streamed from the top of the jagged hole, eight feet high and six wide. Gunn stepped carefully over the mound of rubble and into the workshop beyond, removing his hat once out of the rain.\n\nThe workshop was dark. Gunn found an oil lamp and a box of safety matches on a shelf; a few moments later, he held up the light to examine the room. The floor was a wet mix of cement dust, bits of mortar, and rainwater, and covered with footprints. A heavy workbench that had at one time been set against the outside wall now lay on its back six feet into the room, the wood splintered, shards of glass and metal filings strewn around it.\n\nTools cluttered another bench near the middle of the room, along with bits of wire, and pieces of crystal in various shapes and colours. Gunn noticed a patch of wood that was clear of the brick and mortar powder that dusted every other surface.\n\nHe went back to the hole in the wall and stooped to look closely at the mound of bricks. There were more inside the room than had fallen into the alleyway\u2014the wall had been smashed in from the outside. He picked one up and held it close to the lamp, turning it this way and that in his gloved hand.\n\nHe examined half a dozen of the fallen bricks before stepping back out into the alley and holding the lamp up to the wall around the breach, puzzled. Explosives would have blown rubble across the room, and pickaxes and hammers would have marked the bricks, but Gunn found evidence of neither\u2014just as it had been with the other breakins.\n\nGunn went back into the workshop and performed one last examination of the room. As he lowered the lamp, he noticed something on the floor, and crouched to get a closer look. Two shallow, parallel grooves, a foot long and about four inches apart, were gouged into the stone, as if someone had dragged some titanically heavy piece of equipment across the surface. The gashes had rough edges, as if they'd been made recently.\n\nFinally, he stood, straightening his collar, and left the workshop. As he stepped over the fallen bricks, he felt a rumble and shudder above him, and jumped forward into the alleyway just as another portion of the wall collapsed onto the spot where he'd been standing.\n\nGunn shivered at the close shave, then left to ask more questions of P.C. 247.\n\nGunn flagged down a steam taxi as he walked back the way he came. Climbing inside, he changed his mind about returning to the Tribune's office right away; instead, referring to a sheaf of notes he kept in an inside pocket, he directed the driver to an address on Kingsfield Street, not too far from his present location. There, he took care of business in short order, then asked the driver to take him to Fleet Street.\n\nMr. Maynard, the Tribune's editor, was not happy when Gunn arrived. \"My office, please,\" he said as Gunn hung his coat on the stand next to his desk.\n\nGunn followed his editor and closed the door behind him. He knew what Maynard was about to say.\n\nMaynard sat behind his desk, his eyes boring into him. Gunn defied the urge to look away. \"Where have you been all morning?\"\n\n\"Battersea, sir. I was\u2014\"\n\n\"You were, yet again, wasting time treating a petty burglary as if it was the Great Train Robbery.\"\n\n\"With respect, sir, I learned things that were not in the report that came in on the wire machine.\"\n\n\"But was it something worth reporting, Cornelius? Bearing in mind that this little story won't get more than three inches in the evening edition?\"\n\n\"There's a bigger story here, sir, I just know it.\"\n\nMaynard sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. \"Cornelius, you're one of our best\u2014but for the purposes of this newspaper, all I need you to do is report the facts. In the time you've been gone, you could have written up half a dozen stories from the wire reports without leaving your desk, just as your colleagues do\u2014a point you ignore deliberately.\" Maynard's eyes went to a sheet of newsprint on his desk, and he waved a dismissive hand at Gunn. \"Go back to work, Cornelius, and leave investigating crimes to the police.\"\n\n\"Do you still think a gang of men with sledgehammers is responsible for the breakins?\" asked Gunn, taking a sip from his pint of bitter. He looked over at Inspector Jameson's short, slightly overweight form.\n\nGunn had sent a message suggesting a discussion over a liquid lunch at a pub near Scotland Yard. It also gave him an excuse to get away from the office\u2014and Mr. Maynard\u2014for a while.\n\nInspector Jameson shifted awkwardly on his barstool and lifted his own glass. \"I take it from your tone you don't agree?\"\n\n\"No, I don't. According to your constable at the scene, there was nobody anywhere near the alley when he walked by ten minutes earlier. By the time he returned, the wall had already been smashed in.\"\n\n\"What's your point?\"\n\n\"They knocked an eight-foot hole through two layers of bricks. They had time to do whatever they'd come to do, then pick up their tools and leave without being observed. How many men would it take to knock a wall through in the few minutes they had?\"\n\n\"I think six men could do it.\"\n\n\"The alleyway is eight feet wide. It was dark, and raining cats and dogs. Could six men swing sledgehammers in those conditions without getting in each other's way?\"\n\nJameson said nothing.\n\n\"Moreover, sledgehammers and pickaxes leave distinctive marks on the bricks. I know, because I paid a visit to a demolition site to find out. There were no such marks on the bricks at the workshop.\"\n\n\"They didn't use those kinds of tools, then.\"\n\nNo point pressing further, he thought. He had made his point, and knew Jameson would come around when he had time to think about it. \"What was taken from the workshop?\"\n\nJameson took another pull from his pint, and savoured it before answering. \"I'm not sure. The owner of the workshop is an inventor\u2014name of Robinson\u2014and his latest contraption was taken. All he would say was that it would have been revolutionary. He wouldn't give me any details, other than a rough description.\"\n\nGunn recalled the clear space he'd seen on the workbench. \"A box, about a foot across.\"\n\n\"I won't even ask how you found that out. He said I wouldn't understand what it was or how it worked even if he explained it. He's probably right.\"\n\n\"Did anyone else know about it?\"\n\n\"Robinson didn't think so. He has his rivals\u2014all these inventor johnnies do\u2014but said he'd been extremely careful.\"\n\nGunn took another sip of his beer and recalled the bits of crystal he'd seen in Robinson's workshop. \"My guess is that it has something to do with light.\" Jameson shrugged and Gunn continued, \"I'd bet your man Robinson was extremely careful only when in the company of those he considered his equals. He said that you wouldn't understand. That tells me he doesn't credit the man in the street with any intelligence.\"\n\n\"So you think he may have let slip some details to someone?\"\n\n\"Perhaps to tradesmen, the people he bought his tools and materials from, yes.\"\n\n\"That's not much of a lead,\" said Jameson, frowning. \"Who knows how many other people might have heard whispers starting that way. We could never track them all down.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"Indeed. What are you going to do next?\"\n\nJameson paused. \"Gunn, I consider you a friend, but I also have to remember that you're a scribbler, and I sometimes wonder if information for your stories is the only reason you cultivate my acquaintance. That's police business, and you know I can't say anything.\"\n\nGunn knew, without even looking, that Jameson was smiling.\n\n\"Do me a favour, would you? Leave this one to me and my lads. We'll get to the bottom of it, and when we do, I promise that you and your rag will be the first to get the details. All right?\"\n\nGunn looked at Jameson, raising an eyebrow. \"Not like you to be offering professional advice, Jameson. Is there something you'd like to tell me?\"\n\nHe shook his head a little too quickly. \"You know as much as I do. I'm just saying that it'll probably turn out to be some group of youngsters stealing stuff to sell along with the lead they strip off of church roofs, and not worth your time and trouble. Especially trouble, from what you've told me about your boss. Not worth getting yourself sacked over.\"\n\nGunn spent the rest of his afternoon at his desk at the Tribune office. First, he wrote a handful of short articles about various assaults and burglaries that Jameson had told him about and got them into the Tribune's engine in time for the evening edition. Then he pored over a map of the city while thinking on an idea he'd had about the workshop attacks. Finally, with little else to do, he spent an hour working on his pet project\u2014the strange disappearance of Doctor Bohemia.\n\nDoctor Bohemia had been an engineer, inventor, and, as was true of many of that ilk, a showman, demonstrating recent discoveries and inventions in front of paying audiences to finance his work. Bohemia had been particularly successful on the stage.\n\nThen, in 1853, Bohemia had dropped out of sight. Gunn had become fascinated by the man after chancing across some handbills from late 1851 advertising his performances, and had made it a personal quest to find out why Bohemia had left the stage, and what had become of him. Something in Gunn's reporter's instinct insisted there was a story to be told.\n\nGunn had found some time to interview the owner of the theatre Bohemia had used for most of his performances, and the man had given him access to his financial records of the period. Bohemia was not his real name, of course, and Gunn had been able to determine he had been in reality a Doctor Magnus Ballard.\n\nThe records had shown the address of a rented apartment in Brentford, but the doctor had moved away in 1853 and left no forwarding address. Gunn was in the process of using the various London directories in the Tribune's library to compile a list of addresses for the name 'Ballard,' with the intention of further investigating the doctor's movements.\n\nOn the list, he drew a line through the address on Kingsfield Street he'd visited that morning; the owner was indeed named Ballard, but had no knowledge of any doctor. Gunn had started with a list of eighty addresses, and so far had eliminated about a quarter of those.\n\nGunn left the office at four as the evening staff began to wander in, picking up a copy of the early evening edition on his way out. He glanced up. The rain had stopped and the sky had brightened somewhat.\n\nHe looked at the front page of the newspaper, then frowned, his lips compressing into a thin line. Folding the paper and shoving it roughly under his arm, he walked down the street in the direction of his home.\n\nHe arrived at 4:30 p.m. The little flat where he lived with his wife was empty, and he assumed that Sophie was out visiting friends. He settled in the parlour with a book while he waited for her to return.\n\nSophie picked up her teacup and took a sip as she looked out of the window of Mrs. Stack's drawing room. The rain had almost stopped, and the sky, though still cloudy, seemed a little brighter. It didn't make her feel any brighter, though.\n\n\"And you, dear\u2014\" Mrs. Stack's voice broke into Sophie's reverie.\n\n\"Hmm?\" she said, turning to Mrs. Stack. She realised she'd been daydreaming while the other ladies\u2014Mrs. Stack, Miss Peacock, and Mrs. Benning\u2014had been talking. They looked at her with disapproval.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Eleanor.\" She placed the cup carefully back on its saucer. \"I'm being quite rude, aren't I?\"\n\n\"You just seem a little out of sorts today, dear. Whatever is the matter?\"\n\nSophie was at a loss for words. The truth was, she really wasn't interested in discussing gardening, or the latest recipes from the Women's Gazette, or the gossip about one society figure or another. But those subjects, and others just as banal and boring, were all Mrs. Stack and her little ladies' circle ever seemed to talk about.\n\nMrs. Stack was like a mother hen when the other ladies were present. Sophie much preferred the times when she and Mrs. Stack were without other company; then she was just Eleanor, and they could talk more informally. Since Sophie and Connie had moved to London, Eleanor was the only friend Sophie had.\n\nOf course, she couldn't say any of this without offending\u2014and Sophie was not the kind to offend. \"Nothing's the matter, Eleanor. I was just wondering whether it might be worth trying one of the other hospitals. For work, I mean.\"\n\nMiss Peacock frowned and looked at Mrs. Benning, who gave a tiny shake of her head, then stiffened when she saw that Sophie had seen the little sign of disfavour.\n\n\"Why on earth would you be thinking of such a thing, dear?\" asked Mrs. Stack. \"Your husband has a good job, and that leaves you free for your own pursuits.\"\n\n\"Unless,\" said Miss Peacock, \"you are in need of additional income\u2014\"\n\n\"Janice!\" Mrs. Stack looked at Miss Peacock sharply. \"We do not discuss personal matters of such a low nature.\"\n\n\"It's quite all right,\" said Sophie. \"It's not a matter of income. It's more to do with helping people.\"\n\n\"The less fortunate, you mean? Well, I believe there are any number of soup kitchens\u2014\"\n\n\"I was a surgical assistant in Africa, Eleanor. And I did the same job in Bristol, in a hospital. But the London hospitals that I've applied to . . . they simply won't consider taking on a woman for such a position. Even someone with my qualifications.\"\n\nMrs. Benning put her teacup down. \"And quite right, too, dear. Of all things! Of course those Bristol hospitals would allow it. We're above that sort of thing here in London. You should be grateful, dear. I know if I were to require the services of a surgeon, I shouldn't be trusting a woman.\"\n\nMrs. Benning's face suddenly turned quite red as she realised what she'd just said. Sophie knew that the older woman's remark should have offended her, but she was past caring what Mother Stack's brood thought. She would contact more hospitals until she found one that wasn't so . . . so eighteenth-century about such things. If that meant travelling to the far reaches of the city to work every day, then that was what she would do.\n\nThe silence in the room was broken by a loud click, followed by a mechanical whirring. Sophie glanced over her shoulder at the big brass clock on the mantelpiece as its gears clunked into position. An instant later, it chimed. It was five-thirty, and she knew Connie would be wondering where she was.\n\n\"Goodness!\" said Mrs. Stack. \"Is that the time already? I should be seeing to Horace's dinner.\"\n\nMrs. Stack insisted on using her machine to call for taxis, then escorted her guests to the door, where they each said their good-byes and left.\n\nAs Sophie rode home in her own taxi, the slight lift in her feelings she'd had at the thought of applying to the other hospitals faded as she thought about what Connie would have to say about it. By the time she arrived at home, she was every bit as miserable as she had been before going to meet with Mrs. Stack's ladies.\n\nIt was almost six and Gunn began to get annoyed. Sophie had mentioned that she'd be going for tea at Eleanor Stack's house, but she should have been home by that hour. He was hungry and dying for a cup of tea, but more than that, he craved some company. He wanted to tell Sophie about his day.\n\nHe dropped his book onto the side table and got up, intending to use their machine to send a message to Mrs. Stack. At that moment, he heard the front door open, and he stepped out into the hallway.\n\nSophie was just closing the front door, and she saw him as she turned. \"Hello, dear.\"\n\nStrands of Sophie's red hair had come loose from her bun as she removed her hat, falling around her shoulders. The softened look it gave her eased his annoyance. She looked tired, but he wasn't about to let that stop him making his point. He was supposed to be master of his own home, damn it all.\n\n\"Hello to you, too. Where have you been?\"\n\nSophie looked at him, her green eyes narrowing slightly. \"Please don't start on me, Connie. I'm really not in the mood.\"\n\n\"Oh? Drinking tea all afternoon with friends is bound to put one in a bad mood, I suppose.\"\n\n\"As it happens, it really has; Eleanor's snooty, stuck-up friends, to be precise. And now I have to make tea and get us something to eat\u2014and I'm really not in the mood to do that, either. So unless you feel like going to the pub for a stale sandwich, I suggest you sit in the parlour and leave me to get on with it.\"\n\n\"Why do you bother with those people, if you dislike them so much?\"\n\n\"Because they're Eleanor's friends, and I don't know anyone else here. It's not like Bristol. I wish we'd never left.\"\n\n\"I've told you a dozen times, Sophie\u2014we're better off here.\" Even as he said it, he knew it wasn't the honest truth. He was better off here, with a stronger chance of advancing his career with the London newspapers than he could have ever hoped for in Bristol. He'd hoped and believed Sophie would grow to like London, but so far, she hadn't. As it was, he felt guilty for dragging her there against her wishes.\n\nBut he had no intention of turning back at that late date.\n\nHe followed her as she walked through to the kitchen, where she turned to him. \"I'm going to be looking for a job. A proper job, in surgery. You'd better hope I find one, because if I don't, I'll be giving some serious thought to going back to Bristol.\" Gunn saw her lip tremble. \"I'll do it, too.\"\n\nHe knew that she would. Sophie wasn't one for false promises. He could see that she was upset, and his instinct was to go to her and hold her, comfort her. Instead, he turned and left, of a mind to go to the pub anyway just to make the point.\n\nHe sat down in the parlour, then almost immediately stood again and paced up and down the small room. Half a minute later, he returned to the kitchen. Sophie was at the stove, her back to him and her shoulders stiff.\n\n\"Look . . .\" he said. She didn't move. He persisted. \"Why don't we go out to eat? Then we could go and see a show. Professor Mooncrow's giving a performance at the Aldwych this evening. We could have dinner and still be there in time.\"\n\nA few seconds passed, then her shoulders slumped. She turned. \"I really don't feel like going anywhere.\"\n\nGunn stiffened and made to leave the room. He'd tried.\n\nSophie caught him by the shoulder. \"No, really, Connie. I'm very tired and I'd rather just stay at home tonight.\"\n\nHe relaxed. Perhaps the crisis was over. \"I'll tell you what. I'll help you look for a job. I can use my machine at the office to get you a list of hospitals to try. I'll even approach some of them myself, if you think it might help.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"What I said stands. If I can't find one . . .\"\n\n\"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.\"\n\nShe turned back the stove, but not quite quickly enough to conceal a hint of a smile. \"Supper will be tea and toast. I don't feel like doing anything more complicated.\"\n\n\"Six slices for me, then. With jam; I want strawberry jam.\"\n\nThe newspaper lay on the kitchen table in front of Gunn. His report describing the breakin at the workshop in Battersea was on page seven; the front page was dominated by an article by Gallagher about the formation of Lord Salisbury's Royal Commission, accompanied by a sidebar detailing an interview with Mr. Babbage concerning the weather calculation sequences used by the gentlemen of the Royal Society.\n\n\"You shouldn't let it upset you so, Connie,\" said Sophie as she put down the plates of toast and the cups of tea and took her place at the table.\n\n\"I'm not upset, I'm bloody angry. I write a good piece about the Battersea breakin, and it might as well end up on the page before the obituaries. Gallagher writes a dry, boring piece about the weather and gets page one.\"\n\n\"Hush, dear. Eat your toast,\" said Sophie patiently. She'd heard Cornelius' thoughts on the subject many times. \"Gallagher may have got the front page today, but when you work out who's behind all these workshop robberies, it'll be your turn.\"\n\n\"Oh, he didn't just get the front page. Look at this.\" Gunn opened the paper to page two. \"Gallagher's also been reporting on some bank robberies in the city. He gets page two for the latest one. I get page seven for a similar robbery in the industrial quarter.\"\n\n\"Similar?\" Sophie frowned. \"How similar?\"\n\nA light glimmered in Gunn's mind. He read Gallagher's article quickly, then went to the pile of older newspapers that Sophie kept as fire-lighters and shuffled through the stack to find a particular issue from the week before. He quickly located one of Gallagher's earlier stories. The walls of both banks had been broken in by a powerful force\u2014just like the workshops.\n\n\"Very similar,\" he said, excited. \"Too similar to be a coincidence, I think. Banks and workshops are being broken into in the same way, on the same nights. I'll look into that the moment I get back to the office, but I'm convinced there's a connection here. You're a wonder, Sophie.\"\n\n\"Do you think Gallagher may have noticed?\"\n\n\"Ha! Gallagher wouldn't waste his time reading my stories, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"And of course, you don't read his stories, but for much more high-minded reasons.\"\n\n\"Now, now. I don't read his stories because his writing sets my teeth on edge. Here he's written two stories about almost identical crimes with not a single mention of the fact of those commonalities. He gets a story, he writes it down, he moves on to the next story. He's not a reporter. If I could think of a way to make my typing machine stamp out a story from a few basic notes, the result would be indistinguishable from Gallagher's writing.\"\n\n\"What about Mr. Maynard? Do you think he'll see the connection?\"\n\nGunn frowned slightly in thought. \"There, I can't be so sure. He's a busy man. He doesn't get time to read every word we write. But he's far from stupid. If he's read the stories, I'm sure he's worked it out. On the other hand, if he'd noticed I'm sure he would have said something.\"\n\n\"You should tell him anyway.\"\n\nGunn thought about that for a moment. \"Yes, I should. But not yet.\"\n\nSophie looked at him quizzically.\n\n\"I need to make sure of the facts first.\" His face clouded as another thought occurred to him. \"Possibly not even then. If I know Maynard, and I draw attention to the connection between my stories and Gallagher's, he just might give everything to Gallagher. I can't take that chance.\"\n\n\"So what will you do?\"\n\nGunn thought for a long minute while eating before he replied. \"I'll have to do it without letting Maynard or Gallagher find out what I'm up to. Check the facts, find out who's behind it all, and write the story. Once it's written, there'll be nothing left for Gallagher to do. Maynard will have to publish, with my name on the by-line.\"\n\n\"On the front page.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed. On the front page.\" He finished his supper. \"I'll be leaving early in the morning.\"\n\n\"Again,\" said Sophie with a sigh and a slight smile.\n\nThere were three policemen guarding the hole in the wall of the bank in Lombard Street when Gunn arrived. Nearby, two workmen sorted out tools and mixed mortar to repair the damage\u2014work the previous day's heavy rain had prevented.\n\nThe street was hazy with a light fog. The engines of the Weather Office had predicted light showers in the afternoon and evening, so he had slipped into a raincoat and brought along a black umbrella.\n\nHe approached one of the policemen, who eyed him suspiciously. \"Cornelius Gunn with the Tribune.\" He held out his press card. \"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?\"\n\n\"You're a bit slow out the gate, aren't you?\" the copper said as he examined Gunn's credentials. \"All the other papers had their people here yesterday.\"\n\n\"I'm just following up.\" He gestured in the direction of the broken wall. \"I'd like to take a closer look, if I may. It'll only take a minute.\"\n\nThe policeman looked Gunn up and down. \"I'll have to escort you.\"\n\nThe guard led the way to the breach in the wall\u2014the same size as the one he'd seen at Robinson's workshop the day before. As he'd done there, Gunn picked up several of the fallen bricks, studying the ones immediately adjacent to the jagged hole. There were no marks to indicate that sledges or picks had been used\u2014no unusual marks of any kind, in fact\u2014just as Gunn had found at the workshop.\n\nHe stepped through the hole and into the strong room beyond. The room had been cleared of furniture and debris. Gunn turned to look at the wall from the inside. A layer of steel plate three quarters of an inch thick, intended to protect the room from exactly that kind of assault, had been torn, peeled inward like the skin of an orange.\n\nGunn could see scratches and gouges at the ripped edges of the plate, as if someone had used a chisel\u2014half a dozen chisels, in fact\u2014in a frenzied attack, although Gunn suspected that such tools had very little to do with it. He hesitated to think of the raw power required to tear a steel plate as if it were no more than a thick sheet of paper.\n\nGunn walked around the empty room, inspecting the walls and floor as well as he could in the little available light. His shoe scuffed something, and he looked down at a gouge in the metal plate covering the floor\u2014a deep scratch, a foot long, with raised burrs at the edges, had caught the sole of his shoe. Just like Robinson's workshop.\n\nGunn stepped back out through the hole and into the street. \"What was taken?\" he asked the policeman.\n\n\"Several strongboxes containing cash. About ten thousand pounds, they say.\"\n\nGunn whistled. He thanked the policeman and left for the Tribune's office.\n\nSophie thought Eleanor Stack was much nicer when she didn't have her awful friends with her. The little coffee shop Eleanor had recommended was clean, pleasant, and not expensive\u2014not at all good enough for the likes of Mrs. Benning and Miss Peacock. Sophie had no doubt that nothing less than Mivart's at Claridge's Hotel would have satisfied their sophisticated tastes.\n\n\"Almost done, dear? We should be going if we're to find a good spot,\" said Eleanor.\n\nSophie drained the last drop of the excellent coffee and nodded, picking up her handbag and following Eleanor out of the door. They chatted as they walked in the direction of Leicester Square, which was no more than five minutes distant.\n\nA platform stood near the middle, with two long tables running atop the front edge. A portable lectern stood in the narrow gap between the tables. A few dozen people milled around on the cobbled pavement in front of the platform, and a small group of men with notepads stood nearby, pointedly ignoring each other\u2014newspaper people, Sophie knew. She wondered which of them was from Connie's paper.\n\nShe noticed a constable walking slowly along the pavement by the theatre on the far side of the square. Then she spied a second policeman standing behind the platform, and a third rocking on his heels in a shop doorway to her left. She suddenly felt a little apprehensive. Were they expecting trouble?\n\n\"Good,\" said Eleanor, oblivious to the police presence, \"they haven't started yet. Let's get nice and close, shall we? I've been dying to hear what His Lordship has to say.\"\n\n\"As have I,\" said Sophie. They moved into the crowd, finding a gap twenty feet from the platform. A moment later, the clang of a bell in some nearby tower signalled eleven o'clock. \"He should be starting at any moment.\"\n\nOn cue, a tall, handsome, smiling man of about sixty strode to the lectern. He wore a frock coat and a top hat, his brown hair greying at the temples. Sophie recognised Lord Salisbury from the engravings that she'd seen in the papers. Half a dozen men and women followed His Lordship up onto the platform. His entourage, no doubt.\n\nThe small audience applauded. Other people in the square moved closer to see what was happening.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen of London,\"\u2014he turned to the group of journalists\u2014\"gentlemen of the press and wire. I am here today to tell you about the wonderful progress the Royal Commission has made in just three days since its formation.\n\n\"As every citizen is aware, the incredible progress of our industrial revolution has brought wealth and improved standards of living to everyone in our great empire\u2014but at a cost. Soot and smoke from the burning of coal have caused unnaturally heavy rains and flooding. Sulphurous gases have turned that rain to an acid that eats away the buildings, kills the grass and trees, and poisons our rivers, killing the fish that so many depend on for food.\n\n\"This cannot go on. The learned people of the Royal Society are unanimous in this. They say if we continue in this way, in twenty years, the Thames will be dead. Our parks and farmland will be desert. Our buildings will be beyond repair.\n\n\"And so a consensus has been reached, and with it comes a plan to put things right before it is too late. New equipment is being designed as I speak to you here today, to remove the soot and smoke and sulphur from the factory chimneys. The government has already agreed in principle to provide factory owners with grants to pay for the installation of this equipment\u2014\"\n\nA man's angry voice came from the crowd to Sophie's right. \"Who's going to pay for it all, then?\"\n\n\"Not me,\" said someone behind her.\n\n\"Let 'im finish!\"\n\n\"The factory owners made this mess\u2014they should pay to clean it up!\"\n\nAngry voices rose all around her, and people jostled each other, pushing back and forth as arguments broke out. On the platform, Lord Salisbury held his hands out to calm the crowd. His lips moved, but Sophie couldn't hear him over the raised voices.\n\nIn front of her, one man raised a clenched fist, shaking it in Lord Salisbury's direction. Another onlooker, seeing this, threw a punch at the heckler.\n\nWithin seconds, fighting had erupted all around her. Sophie whirled to find Eleanor, and as she did, an elbow caught her hard across the bridge of her nose.\n\nSearing pain burst through her skull. Her eyes felt as if they'd been driven back into their sockets. Everything was a blur. Warm wetness coursed down her cheeks and upper lip. Her legs gave way, and she crumpled, dizzy and nauseated. Bodies crushed close, and boots pounded the cobbles inches from her face. Shouts and screams hammered like nails into her ears.\n\nShe felt hands grip her arms as she was lifted and pulled hard to one side. Her head spun; she couldn't get her feet under her, but whoever was holding her didn't allow her to fall.\n\nShe was manhandled into a dark place, and half-pushed, half-guided into a sitting position on a hard bench. The dizziness faded gradually, and with it, the urge to vomit. She was able to focus her eyes again, and she wiped her hand across her face and looked at it. Not blood, she saw with relief; her eyes had been streaming hot tears. She touched her nose, gingerly\u2014it was sore, but thankfully, not broken.\n\nShe became fully aware of her surroundings. She was in the back of a police wagon, from the look of it. It was then that she realised there was someone else in the wagon. Sitting on the bench opposite her, red-faced, was Lord Salisbury.\n\nGunn paced the basement room that housed the Tribune's archive, thinking about what he'd discovered. After two minutes, he forced himself to sit down and relax. Then he took the stairs back to his office slowly and deliberately, for fear of raising Mr. Maynard's suspicions.\n\nBut those thoughts were quashed when he saw Gallagher rushing toward the door, hurriedly donning his hat and coat as he went.\n\nGunn and Maynard almost collided in the office doorway. \"What's happening, sir?\"\n\n\"Lord Salisbury was mobbed in Leicester Square a little while ago. Run along, quick-like, and find out exactly what happened. One of the juniors is there, but I need an experienced man.\"\n\n\"I saw Gallagher running out\u2014\"\n\n\"He's gone to the hospital to get an interview with Salisbury if he can. Now, go. I need statements from the police, shopkeepers, anyone who saw what happened, and I need them quickly so we can get a special edition out in time for the lunchtime crowd.\"\n\nGunn snatched his hat from the coat stand and hurried out.\n\nGunn waved down a steam taxi as he dashed along the street. \"Leicester Square, quick as you can,\" he said to the driver as he slammed the door shut.\n\nThe driver wasted no time, and Gunn was yanked back into the seat as the little vehicle accelerated sharply.\n\nLess than five minutes later, Gunn hopped out of the taxi. He looked around but saw no evidence that anything out of the ordinary had happened. That wasn't unexpected; the crowd would have evaporated within minutes once any kind of spectacle was over.\n\nA constable on duty paced a slow beat along the pavement. Gunn went up to him and held up his press credentials. \"I was told something happened here a little while ago. Were you here?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Lord Salisbury was here about half an hour ago, up on that platform.\" The copper pointed at a wooden structure draped with cloths near the centre of the square. \"He was talking about what the government's going to do about cleaning up the river and such.\"\n\n\"How big was the crowd?\"\n\n\"Not a very big one, sir, perhaps a hundred people or so.\"\n\n\"I was told Lord Salisbury was mobbed.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't say it was a mobbing, exactly, but people in the crowd started shouting about how long were they going to take and how much it would cost and so forth, and then they started getting a bit rowdy, and the next thing we knew they'd started grabbing tomatoes and apples and things and throwing them at His Lordship.\"\n\n\"What happened next?\"\n\n\"Well, then it was lucky there was a few of us here, because they tried to get up on the platform, but we were able to hold them back while His Lordship's hangers-on got him away safe.\"\n\n\"Was he hurt?\"\n\nThe copper shook his head. \"Not at all. I think I saw him catch a tomato in the phizog, and he probably had a bit of a shaking up, I imagine.\"\n\n\"What about the people? Did you find the ones who started the trouble?\"\n\nThe copper shook his head. \"No, sir, we were too busy watching out for His Lordship. By the time we'd packed him off to hospital, most of the crowd had scarpered.\"\n\nGunn thanked the man and moved on. He'd have to get back to the office without delay if he was to have the piece written in time. He flagged down another taxi and headed back to Fleet Street.\n\nSophie stood at the French windows, watching the rain falling on the huge lawn and flowerbeds of Lord Salisbury's garden. A thrush flew down from one of the trees and landed on the grass, pecked at something there for a moment, then flew off again, holding what looked like a worm in its beak.\n\nHer nose and cheekbones began to throb again, and her eyes threatened to water. The doctor at hospital had told her that nothing was broken\u2014but she'd already known that. She remembered, in Africa, telling young soldiers their minor wounds couldn't be as painful as they claimed. Now she knew better.\n\nShe heard the soft click of the door opening and turned to see Lord Salisbury. She checked her posture. She felt uncomfortable, out of place in His Lordship's house.\n\n\"I've just spoken with my driver. He found your friend Mrs. Stack while we were in hospital and took her home. She told him that she didn't get mixed up in that awful situation and is in perfect health.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Your Lordship,\" said Sophie. \"That is the correct form of address, isn't it? I don't believe I've met a lord of the realm before.\"\n\nSalisbury smiled. \"I don't stand on ceremony in my own home, Mrs. Gunn. Call me Leo. Is there anyone you'd like me to contact? Your husband, perhaps?\"\n\nSophie shook her head. \"My husband will be working at the moment, and I'm sure I'll be home before he is. There's no need to worry him. I've nothing worse than a bruise, after all.\"\n\nSalisbury invited Sophie to sit in one of the armchairs by the fire, and he sat in the one opposite. \"I shall have my driver take you home. But not until you have a little more colour in your cheeks; you still look rather pale. I've asked Cook to make us a nice cup of tea\u2014that should help. Are you sure you're feeling well?\"\n\n\"I'm still a little shaken, despite the sedative they gave me. But I do feel very much better than I did an hour ago. I'll be perfectly fine, Your . . . Leo.\"\n\nSalisbury nodded, then was silent for a long moment. \"May I ask, what does your husband do for a living?\"\n\n\"He's a journalist for the Tribune.\" Sophie wondered what newspaper a lord would read. The Times, probably, she thought.\n\n\"Ah, the Tribune. Excellent paper.\" Salisbury looked thoughtful for a moment, then he looked straight into Sophie's eyes. \"Gunn\u2014are you telling me your husband is Cornelius Gunn?\"\n\nSophie nodded, smiling that the man would know her husband's name.\n\n\"You must tell him from me that these burglaries he's been reporting on recently have made most fascinating reading. In fact . . . you know, I believe I'd like to tell him myself. Are you and your husband free Friday evening, Mrs. Gunn?\"\n\nThe light showers the Weather Office had predicted turned out to be somewhat heavier than expected, and Gunn's shoes were yet again soaked through by the time he stepped through his front door that evening and furled his inadequate umbrella.\n\nHe was impatient to tell Sophie what he'd found in the archive that morning\u2014but the flat felt empty. \"Sophie?\" he called out, but there was no response.\n\nHe wasn't too concerned; he'd left the office and arrived home a little earlier than he usually did. He changed into dry clothes and tended to the fireplace in the parlour, and was soon sitting comfortably in his favourite armchair, reading a book in front of a cheery blaze.\n\nAn hour and a half passed with still no sign of Sophie, and Gunn began to worry that she was deliberately taking her time to make a point after the earlier upset. His stomach churned at the thought. He really didn't want another argument.\n\nA knock sounded at the door. He dropped the book he'd been trying to concentrate on, and rushed to answer.\n\nOpening the front door, he found Sophie in the company of a chauffeur who held an umbrella over her head to keep off the rain. Both her eyes had been blacked, and a deep purple bruise ran from cheekbone to cheekbone. He bristled. Someone had attacked his wife!\n\n\"Here we are,\" said Sophie to the chauffeur before Gunn could react. \"Thank you.\"\n\nThe young man bowed slightly, then scurried back to the large black steam carriage sitting by the curb.\n\n\"My goodness,\" said Gunn, \"I must have arrived right after the police took you to hospital.\"\n\n\"There's more. Lord Salisbury has invited us to dinner, and I accepted on your behalf.\" Gunn's eyebrows shot up with surprise.\n\n\"He seems interested in the burglaries you've been writing about.\" Sophie stopped and frowned. \"In fact, I have to say that he seemed uncommonly interested, for a few trivial thefts.\" She paused again, shook her head ever so slightly, and turned to look at Gunn again, smiling. \"Perhaps he just likes the way you write. Now, tell me about your day.\"\n\nSophie's story had almost made Gunn forget about his findings in the archive, but now his excitement came back to him. \"I found incontrovertible evidence that Gallagher's bank robberies and the workshop breakins are related. Every one of the four bank robberies happened on the same night as one of the workshop jobs. From what I was able to find out, it looks as if they happened within minutes of each other, even though the locations were up to two miles apart.\"\n\n\"What does that mean?\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"I'm not certain, other than that we appear to have two groups of men working together. What I can't work out is why they'd work that way. It's bizarre. But there's more\u2014another connection that neither I nor Gallagher spotted. When I was looking at one of Gallagher's stories from a few weeks ago, I happened to notice a little article by one of the junior reporters about some noise complaints that the police had received. Apparently someone was flying an airship in the early hours.\"\n\n\"They're not supposed to do that. Are they?\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"No flights over the city between ten at night and five in the morning. I didn't pay the story much mind, but then I noticed a similar story in one of the other papers carrying one of the robbery stories, and it set me to thinking. So I went back over the last few weeks, and I found four noise complaints like that, every one of them happening the same night as one of the breakins.\n\n\"I went to talk to Haynes\u2014he's the junior reporter who wrote the stories\u2014and he confirmed it. There were no similar complaints on other nights, just those. And the locations of the noise reports are all within about a mile of the targets of the robberies that were happening at the time.\"\n\n\"Too much of a coincidence\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014to be a coincidence,\" Gunn finished. \"One of the police reports Haynes was working from said the airship engines sounded military in nature. That made Haynes curious, so he went to see the constable who'd taken the report.\n\n\"The complainant was a veteran who'd served in Africa, and he'd told the copper that the engines on military transport airships have a distinctive undertone because of the armoured cowls around the propellers, and he'd heard the same undertone that night.\"\n\n\"Do you think the military are involved?\" asked Sophie.\n\nGunn shook his head. \"I don't see how that would make any sense. It's possible that the man was mistaken, or that someone else has an airship that happens to use propeller cowls like the army transports. I can see no reason behind any of it. It's a jigsaw puzzle, and I don't think I have all the pieces yet.\"\n\nThe next day, Gunn arrived home from the office and sat, heavily, in his favourite armchair. \"I have had a truly awful day,\" he said to Sophie.\n\n\"Oh, dear. You must tell me.\"\n\n\"It seems that Maynard has had enough of me spending time investigating the workshop breakins, and I had to give all my notes about them to Gallagher. That's my work, and I just had to hand it over as if it meant nothing to me.\"\n\n\"All your notes?\" said Sophie. \"Surely you didn't tell him about the airship?\"\n\nGunn smiled a little. \"No. I hadn't actually committed that information to the engine, and I hadn't written anything down about the timings of the breakins. All I pointed out was the fact that the walls were broken in the same way, and left Gallagher with that.\"\n\n\"But if you're not working on those stories any more, what will you be doing?\"\n\n\"I was given a series of petty burglaries in Brentford to report. Which I did.\" Gunn grinned. \"While I was at it, I noticed that almost every one of them had been executed in the same way, and I recognised the pattern from some burglaries last year. It was light-fingered Freda Parker behind them, I knew it. So while I was at it, I tapped off a note to Jameson to tell him that Parker's been up to her old tricks. I expect tomorrow I'll be reporting that she's been arrested.\"\n\nSophie smiled, then frowned. \"You just can't stop yourself, can you? What will Maynard do if he finds out you did more than just write up the stories? He won't fire you, will he?\"\n\nGunn shrugged. \"His complaint was that I was spending more time investigating than I was sitting at a desk tapping out stories. This time, I did both. He has nothing to complain about. He also can't complain about me spending my own time looking into the workshop breakins.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"The other day I was plotting the locations of all the workshops that had been broken into, and it occurred to me to make a list of what was taken. I was looking for a pattern, and I think I may have found it. All of those workshops were being used by lone inventors, the kind who work in secret, thinking they're going to make a fortune from some brilliant idea that nobody else has thought of.\"\n\n\"Crackpots,\" said Sophie.\n\nGunn shrugged. \"In some cases, certainly, although I think these particular victims may have all had ideas with merit, because every one of them has had good ideas in the past\u2014proven inventions that work. That's the point, I think. I suspect that someone wanted these inventors' work because it's useful to them in some way.\"\n\n\"And the fact that their earlier work is known makes them targets, now.\"\n\n\"Precisely. I think our perpetrators have been watching these people because of their histories. It's a bit vague, I know, but I think I may be able to make use of it.\"\n\n\"You're going to try to work out who's next, aren't you?\"\n\n\"That's exactly what I'm going to do. And I'm planning on being there when the next breakin happens.\"\n\nLord Salisbury's steam carriage arrived at the flat at five-thirty precisely. Connie, wearing a new dark suit and top hat, almost stumbled when he caught sight of Sophie in her evening gown of deep flame orange\u2014he'd said it matched her green eyes and copper hair perfectly\u2014and she smiled at him. That was the reaction she'd hoped for.\n\nGunn took Sophie's elbow and guided her to the carriage. She'd used some powder to try to cover the bruise on her face, but she still felt a little self-conscious.\n\nIt was a half-hour drive to Lord Salisbury's townhouse, a large, four-storey affair. Connie took her arm and escorted her, passing beneath the Salisbury coat of arms above the arch around the front door. The door opened ahead of them as they went up the short flight of stone steps. A servant took Connie's hat and coat and Sophie's shawl, and showed them to the drawing room.\n\nThe room was large, filled with warm light from the wide fireplace and from gas lamps on the walls, which were decorated with fabrics of deep green and gold.\n\nLord Salisbury stood by the fire, talking in hushed tones with a tall, distinguished woman. She had a strong jaw and hair the same colour as His Lordship's; the word 'Rubenesque' flitted across Sophie's mind. She knew instinctively that this was Lady Salisbury.\n\n\"Gunn.\" Lord Salisbury, smiling broadly, stepped forward to shake Connie's hand. \"Delighted to meet you at last.\" He turned to Sophie. \"Mrs. Gunn. I'm glad to see you looking well. I trust you've quite recovered?\"\n\n\"Yes, Your Lordship, thank you. Please, call me Sophie.\"\n\nLord Salisbury insisted that they both call him Leo, and introduced his wife, Sandy. He asked, \"Would anyone care for an aperitif?\"\n\nConnie answered, \"Yes, we'd love one, thank you. Please, call me\u2014\"\n\n\"Connie,\" said Sophie. \"His friends just call him Gunn, but I don't think that's very friendly.\"\n\nWhile the drinks were being poured, Sophie noticed an anomaly in the pattern in the wall covering near the curtains, and realised she was looking at tubing that had been painted, not quite perfectly, to match the fabric behind.\n\nLord Salisbury noticed her interest. \"Is something wrong, my dear?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Your\u2014Leo. I couldn't help noticing those tubes by the curtains. Do you have an engine in the house? Your very own engine?\"\n\n\"My goodness, you do have sharp eyes. Yes. I use it for correspondence and in my work, generally, and also for calculating household finances and things of that nature. It also controls the radiators and ventilators to make sure that occupied rooms are maintained at the perfect temperature. It's saved us a small fortune in fuel costs, I can tell you. The day will come when every house in Britain has something similar. Save the country millions.\"\n\nConnie spoke up, \"I read recently that Babbage himself said the days of the mechanical engines are almost at an end.\"\n\n\"Quite true. All those cogs and gears are something of a limitation. Charles\u2014Babbage, that is\u2014was explaining it to me a few weeks ago. We really need to be able to make the things portable, and that means making them much smaller, and resistant to vibration and contamination by dust and dirt. Movable engines could be put aboard airships, boats, sea-skimmers, what have you. The safety record of the underground trains and the trams is first-class. Imagine being able to say the same of airships and cargo boats.\"\n\n\"But a portable engine would still be at risk from, well, just being moved around. Too many parts to get knocked about, and all that.\"\n\nLeo nodded. \"A portable mechanical engine, yes. The real problem is one of engineering. To make a machine half the size, you'd have to be able to engineer the parts to twice the accuracy.\"\n\n\"In other words, the precision of the engineering determines the size of the engine that can be built, and we're already at the limit of that precision.\"\n\n\"Precisely.\" said Leo. \"No pun intended.\"\n\nLady Salisbury\u2014Sandy\u2014gave a little laugh at that. A butler appeared at the door. \"Shall we continue this over dinner?\"\n\nAs they dined, Lord Salisbury explained that engineers all over the country were working on new engine designs using water, electricity, and even steam. They would be faster and lighter than any mechanical engines in existence. Sophie was fascinated, and she could see that Connie was, too.\n\n\"What about Europe? I mean, do we plan on sharing the new technology with our allies?\"\n\n\"That's a good question, Connie,\" said Leo. \"I've always maintained that science is international, and that sharing pure scientific work benefits every nation. Think where we'd be today if Babbage hadn't known about Leibniz's seventeenth-century work in Germany with base-two arithmetic.\n\n\"That was his great insight, you see, and once he'd made the connection\u2014the idea came to him in a dream, apparently\u2014he abandoned the machine that he'd been working on at that time, and instead worked with Boole to develop this new idea. The rest is history, as they say.\n\n\"But the inventions that come from that research . . . ah, now that's a different story. When a British inventor turns the data into tangible machines that can be sold abroad, the nation benefits from that income. It's not in our interests to be giving it away.\n\n\"I'd like to see Britain at the front of the pack when it comes to technology, and by that I mean everything, not just our engines. And if we're to do that, we need first-class engineers and inventors. In my view, the government should do whatever is necessary to ensure that our people are the best in the world.\"\n\n\"Surely the key to that is education?\" Sophie asked. \"We need a first-class education system if we're to have first-class minds, would that not be true?\"\n\n\"Goodness!\" said Sandy. \"That's precisely what Leo has been telling people for years now. Scientists are made, not born.\"\n\n\"Good show, my dear,\" Leo said to Sophie. \"And you've also proved something else I've been saying for years: that the ordinary men\u2014and women\u2014of this country are perfectly capable of understanding the issues. There is nothing that our men can do that our women cannot also do.\"\n\nLeo leaned back in his chair and grinned at Sandy. \"Science, on the other hand, the pure research, is international by its very nature. If only some people in government understood that distinction as well as the two of you.\"\n\nLeo shook his head as he continued.. \"Unfortunately, there are some who insist that we should keep British scientific research for Britain alone. The Secretary of State for War, for example, feels that sharing basic research would weaken the country in the event of a conflict.\n\n\"Apparently, what he has in mind for the next wave of engines is something far removed from improving our transport safety. He wants automated fighting machines to replace the armed forces. Machines designed to kill, efficiently and without remorse or conscience.\"\n\nSophie shuddered. \"That's obscene.\"\n\nLeo nodded, his face grim.\n\nConnie thought back to what Leo said about the international nature of scientific research. \"If Britain keeps its research to itself while the rest of the world shares their discoveries . . .\"\n\n\"You see it, don't you?\" asked Sandy. \"The rest of the world would very soon outpace Britain in basic science, and we could be at the mercy of any power that decided to move against us.\"\n\nAfter dinner, the four returned to the drawing room. Leo offered brandy all round, and they relaxed on the padded leather chairs near the large fireplace.\n\n\"I've been following your stories in the Tribune, Connie,\" said Leo. \"I'm particularly interested in those workshops that have been broken into, but I noticed that you haven't written anything on the subject for a little while.\"\n\nSophie glanced at Connie, wondering what he'd say.\n\n\"My editor decided my time was better spent on other stories.\"\n\n\"That's a shame,\" said Leo. \"Still, I expect you know a lot more than what the readers see in print. I'd be curious to know what you've been able to find out.\"\n\nConnie paused, and Sophie recognized the look on his face as he gathered his thoughts, then cleared his throat. \"Given that I'm not working on those reports anymore, I don't think it would be improper to discuss them. As long as you're not planning to sell the information to one of the Tribune's competitors, that is.\" He grinned at Leo.\n\nLeo and Sandy laughed. \"Quite right.\"\n\nConnie nodded and began to relate the connection between the incidents at the workshops and the banks, and the apparent involvement of an airship.\n\nLeo's face turned quite serious. \"My word. You say this could possibly be a military airship? Whose military, do you think?\"\n\n\"It would be unwise to make assumptions with so little information. This aircraft has only ever been heard, not seen, and only one witness is of the opinion that it is possibly military. Until a reliable witness gets a good look at it, I'd prefer to reserve my judgement. In any case, this is all conjecture. I have a friend who thinks it's just a gang of lads looking for things to sell\u2014and he may be right\u2014and this business with the airship is just coincidence.\"\n\n\"Ah, but wouldn't you like to know for sure? I think you should continue with this line of inquiry.\"\n\nSophie saw from the set of Connie's eyes that he didn't like the way the conversation was turning. He didn't like being told how to do his job\u2014even by a lord. Her insides twisted; she knew that Connie would say something rash if Leo persisted.\n\nBefore Connie could speak, Lady Salisbury called a halt to the proceedings by pointing out the lateness of the hour. \"And you have a meeting early in the morning, Leo.\" Sophie relaxed; a potential disaster had been averted.\n\nLeo looked at the clock and agreed. Reluctantly, thought Sophie, judging by his expression. \"We must invite you back again soon,\" he said as he escorted Connie and Sophie to the entrance hall, and he and Sandy watched from the doorway as they climbed aboard the carriage and departed.\n\n\"What did you think?\" Sophie asked Connie as he opened the front door and they went into their flat.\n\n\"A very interesting evening. I have to admit I was a little nervous at first, but they're both such nice people, I was at ease before I realised it.\"\n\nSophie couldn't help but notice that Connie seemed a little distracted. \"Is something wrong?\"\n\nConnie shook his head. \"I was a little bit bothered by what Leo said. About doing whatever is necessary to make sure Britain stays ahead of the rest of the world in technology.\"\n\n\"It sounded perfectly reasonable to me. Why wouldn't we want to do that?\"\n\n\"Just that phrase: whatever is necessary. It's been used to justify a great number of terrible things over the years.\"\n\n\"You're being too sensitive, Connie. It was just a turn of phrase.\"\n\nConnie shrugged, then smiled at her. \"You're right, of course. It's been a busy week and I'm tired. Forget I said it.\"\n\n\"I did wonder why he seemed so interested in your workshop robberies, though.\"\n\nConnie looked at her. \"A little too interested for my liking. I got the distinct impression that he was fishing for information.\"\n\nSophie thought back to what Leo had said. \"I still think you're reading something into it that isn't really there. But then, if there's one thing I've learned, it's never to ignore your journalist's instincts. They're what make you so good at your job. But now you've got me wondering, and just for once, I hope you're wrong.\"\n\nThe next evening, Connie got ready to watch for the workshop burglars. Sophie laid out the dark clothing she'd picked out for him. According to the Weather Office's engines, it would be dry, but bitter cold that night, so she'd chosen the warmest pieces she could find, and added a few things she'd picked up at a military surplus shop that morning.\n\nShe went to the kitchen to make him some ham and cheese sandwiches, and a large bottle of tea. She placed the provisions in his leather satchel. It was almost time.\n\nWhile she'd been busy, Connie had changed into the dark clothes. \"That navy coat makes you look like a sailor on shore leave,\" she said, grinning, as she went into the parlour.\n\nHe looked tense. She knew he was anxious to get going, and though he hadn't said anything, she was well aware that he was a little worried. \"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? We could keep each other warm.\"\n\nConnie smiled. \"Quite sure, dear. It could be dangerous, and it'll certainly be very cold.\"\n\nAt last, he'd acknowledged to her that there could be danger. Now she could say something about it, too. She folded her arms across her bosom and, still smiling, raised an eyebrow.\n\nHis eyes narrowed. She could tell he was kicking himself for saying too much, but it was too late now. \"Dangerous in what way, dear?\" she asked, trying to appear nonchalant.\n\n\"Oh, it's not that bad,\" he backtracked. \"If the criminals show up, I'll have to alert the police to stop them. Don't worry, dear. I can do that without being seen, and then the police will take charge and that will be that. And if they do happen to see me, I'll show them a clean pair of heels. Don't worry about me\u2014I'll be perfectly safe.\"\n\n\"If you're not home by five, I'm sending your friend Jameson a message.\" Connie opened his mouth to protest, but she held her hand up to stop him. \"I won't hear a word about it. Now, you said you'd show me exactly where you'll be. Please do, in case I have to get Jameson out looking for you.\"\n\nConnie had left his map opened on the little table, and he pointed to a spot in Battersea. \"Here, where these roads cross. There's a ladder up to the roof of the factory on the southwest corner; that's where I'll be. One of the workshops I think is a target is Culbertson's, here.\" He indicated a spot just to the east of the crossroads. \"And Tweed's is here.\" He moved his finger to a place a little way north. \"I can watch both places from that roof. It's perfect.\"\n\n\"I think you should tell Jameson before you even leave.\"\n\nConnie shook his head. \"No. He's against me doing what he thinks of as police work anyway, and if I call him in, he might very well come along to drag me home.\"\n\nHe felt around in the pocket of the navy coat and pulled out a police-issue whistle. \"If I see anything happening, I'll use this, and every copper within a mile will come running.\"\n\nThere was a tap at the front door; Connie's taxi had arrived. He dropped the whistle back into his pocket, then picked up his sheepskin gloves and put them on.\n\nSophie wished he would accept her help, or Jameson's, for the sake of safety\u2014but she knew him; he would do this his way, and that meant alone. \"You just be careful,\" she said, and kissed him. She followed him out to the hallway and watched him pick up the satchel, and leave.\n\nAs soon as the door closed, she used the machine in the study to request a taxi for herself. She then headed to the bedroom, taking a canvas bag from where she'd hidden it under the bed and tipping the contents out onto the coverlet: a pair of dark brown corduroy trousers, a heavy black sweater, a dark blue woollen work shirt, a blue duffel coat, and a pair of scuffed boots. She'd bought them at the same surplus shop as Connie's things.\n\nThere is nothing that our men can do that our women cannot also do, Leo had said, and in Sophie's mind that included making sure their spouses were safe. She'd be damned if she was going to spend a sleepless night in the flat worrying about Connie.\n\nShe changed quickly. She didn't have a hat, but the coat had a hood she hoped would do just as well, and she wrapped a woollen scarf around her throat for good measure. Picking up Connie's map, she memorised the names of the streets he'd pointed to, then folded it and put it in her pocket, and headed for the front door.\n\nAs a thought occurred to her, she ran back into the room. She retrieved her opera glasses from the dresser drawer, thinking they might help; she wished she'd thought about it earlier so that Connie might have taken his own pair.\n\nThe taxi arrived and Sophie gave the driver the name of the next street south of where Connie had said he would be. She would walk from there.\n\nIt was comfortably warm inside the taxi; a clever little arrangement of tubes and fans took excess heat from the steam engine and directed the warm air into the passenger bay through grilles underneath the seats.\n\nWhen she arrived at her destination, she asked the driver to collect her from that same spot at four-fifteen, and dug into her pocket for money. \"Please be here on time. It's very, very important.\" The taxi pulled away from the curb and disappeared around the corner.\n\nSophie looked around. She stood in an industrial region of the city, and the workers had gone home hours earlier. The street was deserted and silent, a dark trench under a sky of frost and sharp, cold stars, punctuated by pools of light thrown by the gaslights onto the pavements and factory walls. Water in the gutters was frozen into pale sheets, and a sheen of frost sparkled on the lampposts. Her breath turned to icy fog in front of her, and she could feel the frigid air turning her nose and cheeks pink.\n\nAcross the street from where she stood, on the south side, was one of many factory buildings lining the street\u2014but it had a three-storey brick office building attached. She crossed the street and looked up the alleyway leading down one side, and spied a metal ladder bolted to the wall leading to the roof, the bottom rung about ten feet off the ground. Perfect. All she needed was a way to reach it.\n\nAfter a moment, she grew accustomed to the dimness in the alley, and saw a pile of rubbish twenty yards farther along. As she walked closer, she could see it was mostly bits of broken wood. She pushed a few of the pieces to one side and saw the side of a box about three feet square. It would have to do. She dragged it under the ladder, climbed onto it, and, with her boots scrabbling against the brick wall to get what purchase she could, was able to get one foot and then the other onto the ladder.\n\nSophie gave herself half a minute while the aching in her arms subsided, but she knew the longer she waited, the colder her hands would get, and the harder the climb would be. She forced herself up the ladder, then, out of breath, she let herself flop over the low wall and onto the flat surface of the roof.\n\nStaying low, she shuffled to the north side of the roof, and, taking the folding opera glasses from her pocket, peered over the parapet. The glasses enhanced the light as she'd hoped they would, and she could see Connie quite clearly. He was fifty yards away and perhaps six feet below Sophie's level, lying on his stomach at the far edge of the factory roof, presumably watching the streets below. The bag containing his tea and sandwiches sat near his feet, and Sophie wished she'd brought her own refreshments; she was already cold, and hot tea would have been a great comfort.\n\nShe resigned herself to a long, cold few hours. Connie was safe, and she could stay behind the wall, out of sight, checking on him at intervals. As she lowered the opera glasses, she caught a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. She froze, training her eyes in that direction. She thought she saw someone on a factory roof fifty yards to Connie's left, using the slope of the roof to stay out of his line of sight.\n\nSlowly, she raised the opera glasses again to get a better look. There was a man there\u2014a stout man, with muttonchop sideburns, wearing a long black overcoat and a bowler hat\u2014and he was definitely watching Connie. If he'd seen her, he showed no sign.\n\nShe stayed still for two or three minutes, watching the man all the time. Who was he? A concerned citizen who'd seen Connie climbing up onto the roof? Perhaps the man assumed that Connie was a thief. But even as the thought came to mind, she knew that it made no sense\u2014no one in their right mind would follow someone onto a roof to see what they were up to when it was easier and safer to call the police.\n\nUnless the man was himself a policeman. But if that was the case, why was he watching Connie instead of arresting him? That left one option; this man was a criminal as well, perhaps a thief who'd planned to break into one of those buildings. Perhaps he was a lookout working for the men Connie hoped to catch. Sophie tensed at the thought. She was too far away to be of any help if the man decided to attack her husband.\n\nSuddenly, he moved, slipping quietly down the slope of the roof away from Connie, disappearing from sight. Sophie watched until she was sure he'd gone, then turned her attention back to Connie, who still lay in the same position. She saw him shuffle back from the edge of the roof and reach into his bag for his bottle of tea.\n\nShe tried not to panic as she scanned Connie's roof, looking for any sign that the man had made his way up there; she was ready to shout out a warning if that happened, and ready to run for help. But there was no further sign of him, and Sophie forced herself to relax. Her arms trembled, and she realised that she'd been holding the opera glasses in a vice-like grip for several minutes.\n\nOff in the distance, a clock chimed midnight.\n\nWithin an hour, Sophie's fingers and toes had grown numb with cold. She pulled off her gloves and put her hands in her armpits under the coat, and allowed herself to walk around the roof a little, as quietly as she could, to try to get the blood moving in her feet. It helped, but not much.\n\nShe'd seen Connie walking back and forth along the factory roof a few times, swinging his arms around and breathing warmth onto his fingers. He was plainly feeling the cold just as badly as she was.\n\nBy two o'clock, her feet ached to the bones, and she paced the edge of the roof to try to get the feeling back in her toes. As she walked behind the brick structure of the lift winch housing, she found a black metal pipe with a conical rain guard, poking up to waist height through the flat surface of the roof.\n\nAs she passed it, a breath of warm air caught her cheek, and she stopped. She put a hand by the top of the pipe and felt glorious warmth; somewhere down below must have been a boiler, and the pipe was throwing out the excess heat. She took off her gloves and flexed her fingers in the flow of warm air. After a few minutes, she felt almost comfortable again. She only wished that there was some way that she could put her toes into the heat.\n\nShe alternated between watching Connie and visiting the pipe to warm her hands. There was no sign that anything of interest had happened in the streets below Connie's station, and Sophie knew that meant that he'd be returning to that spot the next night; he was convinced the next robbery was imminent.\n\nThe clock in the distance struck four. It was time to go. Sophie eased herself over the parapet, then, after a heart-stopping few moments as she found the top rung with her toes, made her way down. She slid the box back to where she'd found it, knowing that she'd need it the next night, then crossed the street and waited for the taxi to return.\n\nShe arrived home and hurried into the flat. Connie would not be far behind. She changed quickly and bundled the clothes back into the canvas bag, which she returned to its hiding place under the bed. Hurrying back to the parlour, she stoked the fire back to life, and settled in her armchair to catch her breath and wait.\n\nConnie arrived half an hour later. \"I take it nothing happened?\" she asked as he kissed her on the cheek.\n\n\"Not really. But there was someone else there. I got the strangest feeling that he was waiting for the same thing.\" Sophie's heart missed a beat as she thought about the man she'd seen on the roof. Connie sighed as he relaxed into his armchair, yawned, and held his hands closer to the fire.\n\n\"Oh?\" she said, as calmly as she could, \"Where?\"\n\n\"He was in a doorway across the street from Tweed's, staying in the shadows.\"\n\nSophie was mystified. Was Connie talking about the man she'd seen watching him on the roof, or someone else? \"What did he look like?\"\n\nConnie shook his head. \"I couldn't really say. He was too far away and in shadow most of the time. Quite tall, I think, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a long leather coat.\"\n\nSophie tried to stay calm. It didn't sound like the man she'd seen. How many people had been out there that night, watching the workshops and each other? \"Were you warm enough?\"\n\n\"Just about,\" he said, but Sophie knew that wasn't altogether true. \"I could use a nice cup of tea, though, and a few hours in a warm bed. Tomorrow, I think it might be better if I take soup rather than tea. The Weather Office says it's probably going to snow.\"\n\nSnow. Sophie groaned inwardly.\n\nThe snow began to fall just after midnight. Sophie watched Connie on his rooftop to the north. She looked over to where she'd seen the man with the muttonchops the previous evening. Through her new goggles, the scene was bright, an effect of their light-collecting qualities. There was no sign of anyone there.\n\nShe and Connie had spent the morning resting, then Sophie had returned to the surplus shop for some more things. She'd bought Connie warmer, waterproof clothing to help keep the damp off\u2014she had every intention that they would both be as warm and dry as she could manage that night\u2014and a pair of goggles of the type drivers and airmen used: brass-rimmed, with leather padding to keep out the wind and rain, levers on the side to adjust focus and control various filters, and adjustable straps for comfort.\n\nWhile she'd been rummaging around in the shop, she'd happened across several pairs of navigator's binoculars in various states of repair, and picked out the two best pairs she could find. The lightweight brass tubes had tapered hoods on the front to shield the lenses somewhat from rain and sun, and were attached at eye level to a brass and leather headpiece that fitted securely over the ears and behind the head, designed to be worn under a hat if necessary.\n\nThe shopkeeper had assured her the binoculars were air service surplus, not something one would normally be able to buy. They'd be perfect for seeing at night, she knew, and far better than the opera glasses.\n\nConnie had been delighted when she'd shown him the goggles and binoculars and demonstrated how to operate them, just as her father had taught her when she was a little girl. Sophie had made a point of not mentioning how much they'd cost. There on the roof, she considered it money well spent.\n\nShe was glad of the waterproof gloves and hat, and thicker socks. She'd been on the roof for well over an hour, and had felt no need to go to the boiler pipe. She was still nicely warm, dry, and comfortable, despite the snow.\n\nA slight breeze came up, and she heard a thrumming sound. She looked around for its source and saw an open metal pylon that she hadn't noticed before, mounted on top of the lift winch housing. It was secured by thin cables of wound steel secured to the corners of the structure, and she thought they must be making the noise, humming in the breeze.\n\nShe turned back to check on Connie\u2014and dropped down behind the parapet when she saw that he was looking straight at her through his goggles.\n\n\"Sophie!\" he called out in an angry voice. There was no point maintaining the pretence, and she stood up. \"What the devil do you think you're doing?\"\n\nThe thrumming sound suddenly increased, shaking her insides. Her head felt as if it would burst. She covered her ears against the noise, spun around, and looked up sharply. No more than fifty feet above her, almost invisible in the dark and the snow, floated the gondola of an airship.\n\nShe threw a pained look back at Connie, her eyes watering from the agony of the noise. He was shouting something, but she couldn't hear him above the pounding of the airship's propellers. She could see his face, though, and he was angry. Stay there, his lips moved. Then he turned away.\n\nThe airship roared on. Sophie looked in the direction it had gone, but saw nothing. She felt for the lever on the side of her goggles and clicked rapidly through the various filters.\n\nSuddenly, she hit the right setting, and a grainy image emerged in muted shades of colour. The airship was huge\u2014Sophie guessed at least five hundred feet long. Three matte-black, unmarked gas envelopes, in a triangular arrangement, supported the gondola; lights in the portholes blazed like brilliant flares.\n\nConnie had vanished, no doubt already on his way down to ground level to follow the airship on foot. He'd told her to stay put, but she'd come to make sure he was safe, and she wasn't going to abandon that mission. Throwing the bag over her shoulder, she hurried to the ladder.\n\nThe goggles made the view down the side of the building into the shadow-black alleyway as clear as a full-moon night, and she made her way down with ease. She ran from the alley toward the street leading to the crossroads Connie had been watching. The walls of the buildings along the alleyway prevented a clear view of the sky and the airship, but she could still hear the propellers. She wasn't used to running, and a stitch in her side forced her to slacken her pace.\n\nThe tone of the airship's propellers lowered; they'd reduced engine power. A few seconds later, a loud clank sounded out. Then came a thump that she felt as much as she heard, a crash of falling bricks, and the tinkling of shattering glass. She wanted to run, but the stitch was agonising. There came the unmistakable sound of a police whistle\u2014Connie's whistle, she was sure. Holding her side, she reached the crossroads and looked to her right, following the sounds. She stopped, staring in disbelief.\n\nGunn was angry that Sophie had followed him. She could have frozen to death on that roof. Just then, with what appeared to be the criminals' airship upon them, she could get hurt. She should have stayed at home.\n\nHe'd told her to stay where she was. That was the best he could do for the moment. He hurried down the ladder to street level, then ran across the road and toward a side street, in the direction of the sound of the propellers. He knew the side street was there, but he couldn't see it through the snow.\n\nAs he passed by the double doors of Culbertson's workshop, he thought he saw the man from the previous night running in the same direction, disappearing into the thick haze\u2014but he couldn't be sure it wasn't just his imagination making something of a shadow. In any case, the airship was more important. He wanted to see the men breaking down the wall and catch them in the act.\n\nA loud metallic clank echoed off the buildings, and Gunn could tell that, whatever it was, it was on the next street. He turned the corner\u2014and skidded to a stop, stunned.\n\nThirty feet from him was a metal man, crouched down, its hands on the surface of the road. The thing was a monster\u2014nine feet tall, at least, and four wide across the shoulders. The left hand looked something like a boxing glove, while the right ended in a claw.\n\nIt stood, turning to face him. Then it took a step forward. Gunn felt, through his boots, the impact the metal foot made with the road.\n\nGunn froze in place as it came toward him. Its arms came up, glove and claw reaching out.\n\nThe steam-hammer thump of the other foot slamming down onto the road jolted Gunn back to action. He turned and fled, back around the corner.\n\nSnowflakes stung his eyes, blinding him. He couldn't tell which way he was going. Frantic, he scrubbed at his eyes as he ran.\n\nThe thumping was right behind him. Getting faster. Getting closer.\n\nA wall appeared out of the snow. He tried to stop, but the pavement was slick, and he skidded, slamming into the bricks.\n\nHe turned, his back to the wall. There was nowhere to go. The machine was twenty feet away, slowing, but still pacing faster than any man could run. It pulled back its left hand, ready to deliver a punch that would smash him with the power of a train engine.\n\nGunn ducked.\n\nFifty feet from her, a golden giant stood on the pavement next to a smashed wall.\n\nFor an instant, Sophie thought the goggles must have been playing tricks with her eyes. Not a giant, no, and not golden\u2014a machine, man-shaped and huge, made of brass or bronze or copper. It held a wooden box in its claw.\n\nIts head, almost as wide as its shoulders, turned in her direction. The single dark eye that ran from one side of its blank non-face to the other, stared right at her.\n\nThe machine took a step. The ground shook. Another step. By its fourth pace, it was running as fast as a galloping horse, each step a thunderclap.\n\nThere was no way she could outrun it. There was nothing to do, but try.\n\nShe ran. Ten feet to her right, she spied a doorway set into a wall by no more than six inches. Jumping into it, she pressed her back against the wooden door. Her heart raced. The machine was coming to kill her. She didn't want to die, but there was no way she could hope to fight this monster.\n\nIt thundered past her like a train at full speed, no more than a foot away, and vanished into the falling snow. Sophie's vision began to spin, and her legs gave way under her. She slipped down into a heap against the door.\n\nThe street was silent again. Her heart pounded in her ears, her lungs on fire. She needed to get her breath, but more importantly, she had to find Connie. Where is he?\n\nShe looked back up the street. A pile of rubble strewn across the pavement was all that remained of the wall. Next to it stood a tall man in a wide-brimmed hat and a long leather coat\u2014the man Connie had seen the night before\u2014bending low over a mound of dark rags.\n\nWith a start, Sophie realised that the mound of rags was Connie, partially buried under the bricks. The shock forced her to her feet. She tried to run, but her legs were jelly.\n\n\"Connie!\" she screamed. The man in the long coat turned his head sharply at the sound of her voice. He looked at her, then straightened and walked quickly away.\n\nShe didn't care who that man was or why he was there. She could only think of Connie.\n\nConnie was badly hurt, his left hand raw meat and bleeding freely, with a gash in his scalp that had turned his hair into a red mat. As she crouched down over him, his eyes flickered open. He mumbled something incoherent, and then his eyes closed again.\n\nShe tore a strip of fabric from his shredded jacket, knotted it around his bicep, and twisted it tight with a broken bit of wood from the rubble. The flow of blood reduced to a trickle. \"Oh, Connie, Connie,\" she whispered, sobbing. Then the tears came.\n\nShe heard the sound of running footsteps and looked up to see a policeman a few yards away. A second constable arrived, and then a third.\n\nWebster watched the scene below from the roof of a building across the street, careful to avoid being observed. Gunn's wife had seen him the night before\u2014it was only a slight movement in the corner of his eye that had told him that she'd even been there. He sighed to himself. First night on assignment, and he'd been spotted. He must be out of practice.\n\nHe had much to report to his master in the morning. Gunn had been badly\u2014possibly fatally\u2014injured, and as if that hadn't been enough, there was now an unidentified party, a tall man in a long coat. Webster had seen him the night previously, and again that night.\n\nThe police had arrived and milled about the scene. He watched as one of the men led Gunn's wife a few steps away. The other coppers lifted the bricks from Gunn's limp form. A minute later a steam-powered police wagon chuffed its way along the street. It halted, the officers bundled Gunn and his wife inside, then the vehicle moved off, accelerating until it was out of sight.\n\nThe street was empty. Webster was about to leave when he saw the tall man appear from the shadows of an alleyway fifty yards along the road, and walk away. Webster knew that by the time he reached street level, the man would be long gone. He clenched his jaw. Whoever you are, I'll find out what your part is in all this.\n\nSophie sat in the hospital room watching Connie, asleep in the bed. His skin was pale and shiny with perspiration, his breathing shallow. The doctors had stitched the scalp wound. He had numerous other bruises, scratches, and cuts on just about every part of his body.\n\nHis hand had been smashed to pulp. The doctors had had no choice but to amputate. Sophie had been horrified when they'd told her, but she'd seen the damage, and knew they were right.\n\nShe felt the sting of tears yet again. They would come if she let them. He's alive, and he's strong; he'll recover, she told herself.\n\nThere was a tap at the door. It opened, and Inspector Jameson removed his hat as he walked in. \"Good afternoon, Mrs. Gunn.\"\n\n\"Call me Sophie, please. Take a seat, Inspector.\"\n\n\"I came to see what I could do. But first, please, tell me how he's doing.\"\n\n\"He's in shock from the amputation and still under the influence of the anaesthetic. The doctor said he'll be better in the morning.\"\n\n\"Good, good. Now, about his work. I'll go by the Tribune office and talk to his boss. What would you like me to tell him?\"\n\n\"I was going to tell him that Connie's sick. Influenza or something. Lots of people have influenza at this time of year.\"\n\nJameson rubbed his chin. \"I think I'd better tell him that your husband's had an accident. Otherwise he might wonder how a dose of 'flu cost him a hand.\"\n\nSophie looked at Jameson sharply; then, hysterically, her face split into a wide grin, and she laughed heartily. \"You're quite right, of course. I must be more tired than I thought. I'm not thinking clearly.\"\n\n\"You've had a nasty shock, too, and you should be at home resting. Speaking as a friend, it might be better for all concerned if I use my influence to get your husband home. If his boss finds out he's here, it won't take him long to find out he was at the crime scene. If I understand correctly, the way things are at the Tribune at the moment, it could cause a lot of problems.\"\n\n\"He could lose his job.\"\n\n\"Precisely. Go home, and let me deal with this.\"\n\nWebster's contact in the police had provided some useful information. First and foremost, Gunn had survived the night, despite his fear that his injuries had been too serious. He felt relief at the news, though he hardly knew the man.\n\nThere was also some information about Gunn's history and that of his wife. Gunn had no criminal record, unless one counted the theft of some apples from an orchard when he was ten years old. Mrs. Gunn's record was spotless, and her service record from her time in Africa was impressive. And well it should be, with a legend like Gus Fletcher for a father.\n\nWebster flipped through the dozen or so sheets of paper that his machine had stamped out, then dropped them to one side of his desk. There was just one more area of Gunn's life left to look into. Who were his friends, with whom did he associate? Once he discovered the answers to those questions, his assignment would be complete.\n\nHe slumped in his chair and stared at the papers. He supposed he wouldn't get the answers to those questions for a time. Gunn was in no condition to go anywhere.\n\nSophie arrived home and forced herself to make up the fire, thinking that keeping her hands busy might help take her mind off worrying about Connie. It did, a little. She considered eating, but the knot in her stomach was too tight. A cup of hot tea was all she could handle. She sat in the chair by the fire, then after a minute drew up her legs and curled into a ball, as she had when she was a little girl. Sleep was out of the question, despite her mental and physical exhaustion.\n\nThe sound of someone knocking at the front door woke her. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, surprised to see it was already almost midnight. Against her expectations, she'd slept for several hours.\n\nShe opened the front door to find Jameson waiting on the step. He removed his hat, and smiled. \"It took some doing, but I persuaded the doctors to release him.\"\n\nHe signalled the constable standing next to the wagon at the curb. \"You may want to step aside, Mrs. Gunn.\"\n\nA minute later, two constables carried the sleeping Connie into the parlour on a stretcher and arranged him gently on the sofa with clean white hospital pillows and a sheet, then withdrew. When they'd gone, a large, middle-aged man in a Savile Row suit, with pince-nez glasses and a short, iron-grey beard, came into the room.\n\nHe was followed by Jameson, who carried Sophie's canvas bag, Connie's leather satchel, and a waxed paper bag. \"My men recovered these from the scene,\" he said, laying them on the floor. He nodded in the direction of the other man. \"This is Doctor Christie, a police surgeon.\"\n\nDoctor Christie straightened from where he'd been stooping over Connie, taking his pulse. \"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Gunn. Your husband is doing very well, considering what he's been through. Keep him warm and make sure he gets plenty of liquids and rest. I'll come back tomorrow and see how he is.\"\n\nAs the doctor left, Sophie saw him glance at Jameson\u2014and at that instant, the doctor's eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. Jameson's eyes flicked to one side and back to Christie.\n\nWhat was that about? Sophie wondered briefly, then dismissed the thought.\n\nShe opened the bags that Jameson had placed on the floor and rummaged inside. Connie's goggles were missing from his satchel. The paper bag contained Connie's blood-stained clothes and other belongings.\n\n\"Now, then,\" said Jameson, \"the people at hospital have agreed not to speak to anyone about what they've seen today\u2014I told them that it's part of an ongoing investigation that shouldn't be made public\u2014so there's no reason for Maynard, or anyone else at the Tribune, to find out where you and your husband were last night. I spoke to Maynard and everything's in order. As far as he's concerned, there was an accident involving a taxi. No need to worry about any of that. There's just one more thing I need from you.\"\n\n\"Just ask,\" said Sophie, thankful for all the help Jameson had given.\n\n\"I need to get a complete statement about what happened this morning. I would have asked earlier, but under the circumstances, that wasn't possible. I know it's very late, and you must be worn out, but I'd appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes while it's still relatively fresh in your mind.\"\n\nSophie looked at Connie, who breathed evenly. A little colour had returned to his face, and the sheen of perspiration was gone. She turned back to Jameson. \"Of course, but let's talk elsewhere, so we don't disturb Connie.\"\n\nSophie showed Jameson to the kitchen, then returned to the parlour and stoked the fire. She fetched a thick blanket from the linen closet and tucked it around Connie, kissed him on the forehead, and went back to talk with Jameson.\n\nHe took notes as Sophie relayed her story, seemingly entranced as she described the airship she'd seen passing overhead, the man-shaped machine, and the sequence of events from the time she first saw the airship until the policemen arrived. Once the story was told, Jameson sat back in his chair.\n\nHe said nothing for a long minute, then, \"You can't tell anyone about any of this. Not yet, at least.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Sophie, surprised.\n\n\"You have to look at it from my perspective, Sophie. First, the airship with three envelopes. That's a military pattern\u2014a heavy lifter, if I'm not mistaken. You saw no markings to identify it, which puts me in a very awkward spot, because it could be one of ours, in which case our own military would be implicated and I'll have a bunch of Air Marshals breathing down my neck.\n\n\"Or it could be foreign, and that would get me in trouble with the Foreign Office for suggesting that our allies might be responsible, or that our enemies may be planning to start trouble. Either way, you see my problem.\n\n\"As for that machine, we can't say with certainty that it was responsible for the breakin. You didn't actually see it happen, and it was gone by the time my men arrived. The only people who might have actually seen it all are your husband and this mysterious man in the leather coat, who also vanished before my men showed up.\"\n\n\"Are you doubting my word?\"\n\nJameson shook his head vigorously, \"No, no; please don't get the wrong idea, Sophie. I believe you. My problem is that the people I report to will tear me to shreds unless I can provide them with some concrete evidence.\" He stood and finished the last of his tea. \"I'd better be getting along. I'll come by tomorrow, if I may, to see how Gunn's doing.\"\n\n\"By all means, Inspector. I'm sure he'll be glad to see you.\"\n\nWebster had been about to leave his post outside Gunn's flat when a black police wagon appeared, driving slowly from the far end of the street. Curious, he watched and waited. The vehicle pulled up outside the flat, and a man climbed down from the passenger side of the cab.\n\nWebster recognised him, as many people would have; it was Inspector Jameson, the man who'd singlehandedly foiled a modern-day Gunpowder Plot by foreign anarchists. He'd been decorated by the Queen herself, no less.\n\nAs he watched, Jameson went to Gunn's door, leading a small procession of men, carrying a stretcher, into the building. After a minute the other men came out and waited in the wagon.\n\nHalf an hour later, Jameson reappeared and climbed back inside the wagon, which rolled slowly down the street and out of sight.\n\nSo, thought Webster. Jameson and Gunn are . . . what? Friends? Good acquaintances, at least. Why else would Jameson have brought him home in the dead of night?\n\nAs Webster pulled his collar a little higher against the cold and made his way in the direction of his home, he knew his employer would be most interested in that development.\n\nAgony woke Gunn early the next morning. His entire body ached abominably, and he hardly had the energy to move. His left arm was on fire, and when he lifted it, he cried out when he saw he had no left hand\u2014just a swathe of bandages where it should have been.\n\nSophie was asleep in one of the armchairs. She started awake at Gunn's yell, and came to him quickly. Her eyes were red. She'd been crying.\n\n\"What happened?\" his voice grated, but then memory began to return.\n\n\"Quiet, now, you're safe,\" Sophie said, her voice quavering. \"What do you remember, Connie?\"\n\nThe thumping headache made it hard to think, and he was beginning to get nauseated. He fought the feeling down and tried to concentrate.\n\nThe airship. He'd seen the machine coming toward him and run back the way he'd come. He'd become trapped. Then a deafening crash and blinding pain.\n\nHe remembered the shadowy figure of the man in the wide-brimmed hat standing over him, hearing Sophie's voice, and being shaken around in the back of a speeding police wagon; a vague memory of green and white painted walls and the smell of carbolic.\n\n\"There was . . . a metal man\u2014a big machine in the shape of a man. It knocked the wall down. I was too close. The wall fell on me. I think it either didn't know I was there, or it didn't care. I couldn't have stopped it. I think I just got in its way. Ye gods, this hurts.\" He shifted, uncomfortably, and another memory came to him\u2014and with it, a flash of anger. \"I told you to stay at home, and you didn't, and then I told you to stay on that building, and you didn't do that either. You could have been hurt. Must you ignore everything I ask you to do?\"\n\n\"I was there to make sure you were safe\u2014and it's a good thing I was.\"\n\nHe was too tired to stay angry, and despite what he said, he was glad that she'd been there\u2014and not just because she'd saved him from bleeding to death. He wanted to tell her that hearing her voice had meant not being alone in the cold and dark. But what little strength he'd had was gone. He slumped back onto the pillow, exhausted.\n\nSophie stood. \"I'll get you something to eat. Just rest.\"\n\n\"What happened to my hand?\" He already knew the answer.\n\n\"It was crushed too badly. The doctors tried, but they couldn't save it. I'm sorry, Connie.\" She hesitated, as if she was about to say something else, then left the room. He let himself fall back onto the pillow, and looked at his arm, depressed at the prospect of disability. He clenched his jaw, determined not to let the injury rule him. This isn't the Middle Ages. They can do wonders these days, he told himself. The thought lifted his spirits a little.\n\nSophie returned with a tray with tea and a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs and toast. He suddenly realised that he was ravenously hungry, and made short work of it, even with the lack of a hand. He took two of the pills the doctor had left for him, and then the pain subsided. He slept.\n\nSomeone shook his shoulder gently. He woke to see Sophie kneeling by the sofa. \"Wake up, dear. You have a visitor.\"\n\nSophie helped him sit up, arranging the pillows to support his back, then showed a large bearded man wearing pince-nez into the room.\n\n\"Good morning, Cornelius. Do you remember me?\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, no. Should I?\"\n\n\"I'm not surprised. You were unconscious most of the time. I'm Doctor Christie. Let's take a look at that arm, shall we?\"\n\nGunn held his arm out and Doctor Christie removed the dressing. Gunn flinched as even the feather-light touch sent searing agony up his arm, as if a red-hot poker had brushed his skin.\n\nWhile inspecting the arm, Doctor Christie nodded with approval. \"The stitches are good and there's no sign of infection. It appears to be healing satisfactorily. I'm going to give your wife a salve that will numb the skin a little. It will help with the pain.\"\n\nHe took off the pince-nez and put them into his breast pocket. \"I specialise in prosthetics, Cornelius. I can give you a new hand, and from the look of this, I don't think I'll have any trouble. We'll have to wait for a few days to let the swelling and bruises go down, and then I can begin work. I'll come back and see you next Monday. Does that suit?\"\n\n\"Yes, Doctor. I'll be here.\"\n\nA short time later, Gunn heard a knock at the front door, and Sophie showed Jameson in.\n\n\"You're looking much better,\" he said, smiling. \"How are you feeling?\"\n\n\"I feel like a ton of bricks fell on me and someone cut my hand off. Other than that, I'm fine.\"\n\n\"Connie . . .\" Sophie admonished.\n\n\"Sorry, Jameson. I ache all over and my arm feels like someone's hitting it with a hammer, but I don't feel too bad, considering.\"\n\nJameson nodded. \"Can you tell me what you remember?\"\n\nGunn frowned in thought. \"There was an airship; three envelopes, black as coal. It came from the south, flying very low. I remember thinking at the time that possibly the weather had something to do with the timing of the crimes. The one last week happened in heavy rain, this one in snow. I think it may have been a deliberate tactic, to help conceal the airship from observers on the ground.\"\n\n\"That would make a lot of sense. Go on.\"\n\n\"I belted down the ladder as quick as I could and followed the engine sounds, then this big machine came running toward me, so I ran for it. That's when I got into trouble, when I got trapped against a wall.\"\n\n\"In your opinion, was it an automatic machine?\"\n\nGunn paused to think. \"I'd say not. If you needed an automaton to smash through a wall, why not just build one using a bus or a tram as a starting point? To make one that looks and moves like a man seems to me an excessive amount of effort. No, I think the machine was nothing more than a powered suit of armour. Moving under the control of a man inside it, but endowing him with incredible strength.\" He looked over at Sophie.\n\n\"I agree,\" said Sophie. \"It could walk, it could run, and I assume that the box it was holding was what it was there for, so it was able to recognise it and pick it up. I think that's beyond a simple engine that would fit into a machine that size. There must have been someone inside, driving it.\"\n\nJameson reached into his pocket and pulled out a standard issue Metropolitan Police whistle. \"My men found this on the ground close to where you were injured. Somebody alerted the constables with this. Who?\"\n\nGunn looked at Sophie for an instant, then turned back to Jameson. \"Even if I'd had a police-issue whistle, which I know is quite illegal, I don't know when I would have had time to use it.\"\n\nIt was Jameson's turn to frown. \"That's what I was afraid you might say. If you didn't whistle for the police, and neither did Sophie, then who the hell did?\"\n\n\"The man in the leather coat!\" Sophie exclaimed. Gunn and Jameson looked at her. \"It's the only explanation,\" she said excitedly. \"There was nobody else there.\"\n\nJameson nodded thoughtfully. \"I agree. That makes it all the more important to find this man. I want to know who he is, and what his involvement is in all this.\" He stood to leave, then turned back to face Gunn. \"Remember when I asked you to leave this business to me? This is why. Next time I find you involved, friend or not, I'll have you arrested for your own good. Understand?\"\n\nGunn nodded, and Jameson left.\n\nThere was another knock at the front door. \"My goodness,\" said Sophie, and she put down the book she'd been reading while keeping Gunn company. \"We are popular today.\"\n\n\"I wish we weren't,\" said Gunn grumpily as Sophie left the room. \"I'm supposed to be resting.\"\n\nA moment later Sophie returned, wide-eyed, her face pink. Lord Salisbury followed her into the room. Gunn was stunned.\n\n\"Wonderful to see you both. My dear boy, how are you? I just heard about what happened to you at that workshop. Are you well?\"\n\nGunn didn't know what to say. Lying down on the sofa in pyjamas, he felt awkward and exposed. \"I'm quite well. Despite appearances. Very well,\" he blurted out, embarrassed. He tried to get up but almost fell, unbalanced.\n\n\"Don't get up, please. I just dropped by to give you our best wishes for a speedy recovery. You must come over for tea, both of you, as soon as you're well enough. Now, I'm sorry to leave so quickly, but I'm running late for an appointment.\" And with that, Sophie saw him to the door.\n\nShe still looked rather flustered when she returned. \"Well, that was a surprise.\"\n\n\"Indeed. And now we have another mystery.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"You, Jameson, and I are the only people who know all the details of what happened\u2014and where it happened. So how the devil did His Lordship find out?\"\n\nGunn decided that he'd prefer not to sleep in the parlour for a second night, and settled his aching body in bed.\n\nThe next morning, Doctor Christie visited again to check Gunn's progress and to change his bandages. \"You're healing very well,\" he said. \"As of tomorrow, I'll be delegating this task to a nurse. I'll see you as arranged, on Monday. I'll also give you my code, so you can send me a message if you have concerns in the meantime.\"\n\nAfter Christie had left, Gunn went to the parlour where Sophie was sitting, reading. \"I think I'd like to get out for a while.\"\n\n\"Are you sure? It's freezing cold outside. Do you think you're well enough yet?\"\n\n\"I don't really care. I'm bored, and I'm tired of being stuck indoors. I need some air, even if it's only for a short while. My arm still hurts like the devil, and I think getting out might help take my mind off it for a bit.\"\n\n\"Where would you like to go?\"\n\n\"The Regent's Park. I'd like to see the dynamics again.\"\n\nSophie smiled. \"I thought you'd say that. Let me send for a taxi, then I'll help you dress. And you'll need a sling for your arm.\"\n\nGunn wasn't surprised to see it had snowed overnight. The City's trams had been fitted with rotating sweepers so that they cleared the road as they went along, pushing the snow into even piles along the gutters, and their taxi was able to drive along cleared streets.\n\nThe sun was a watery disc above a thin layer of pale grey cloud, and the air was still. It was rather a pleasant day for the time of year. It was a Wednesday, and with most people being at their places of work, the park was relatively quiet. Gunn saw nannies watching their charges, and a few other people out for a stroll in the brisk air. He counted eight airships, all different sizes and colours, moving in different directions at varying distances and altitudes. One passing overhead cast a faint shadow that moved along the ground off to his right. He looked up, squinting against the wan sunlight, at the airship's silvery envelope.\n\nSophie linked her left arm with his right as they sauntered along, enjoying the scenery and the fresh air, making their way to the Broad Walk.\n\nThe dynamic sculptures were arrayed in two long lines, one on each side of the Walk. Gunn always found them fascinating and he could study them for hours. The third one on the right was a particular favourite of his\u2014it was modelled on a giraffe, made of polished aluminium and brass, with deep blue crystals for eyes, so that it looked like the work of a master jeweller. When it sensed Gunn and Sophie approaching, its neck lowered and its head turned toward them, tilting to one side like a curious dog. The little steam engine that powered its movements vented a white cloud from the machine's nostrils.\n\nGunn knew if he were to move suddenly toward the machine it would move its head up and back sharply, like a startled pup.\n\nHe stepped forward slowly and held out his good hand. Its head drew back a little, paused, and then moved forward so that its nose lay against his hand. Gunn felt the warmth that the steam had passed to the metal.\n\nThey continued wandering along the sculptures, admiring each in turn. There was a metal eagle, three feet tall and perched in a nest of bundled wire on top of a six-foot plinth that would turn its head as if to look at the surroundings, then bend down to peck at nothing, and straighten and stretch its wings at intervals.\n\nAnother display that had always caught Gunn's eye was a set of nested, open metalwork spheres, suspended mid-air by three hidden electromagnets. The spheres would spin and stop, and spin again in another direction, each one moving independently of the others. Gunn often wondered how it was powered, guessing that the spheres were driven by random fluctuations in the magnetic emanations.\n\nThey stopped halfway along the Walk at the cafeteria. \"I'd love something hot to drink,\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Capital idea, dear,\" Gunn agreed, and he led the way inside.\n\nThey found a table inside and ordered a pot of tea. Gunn looked around. He'd always liked the way the walls had been decorated with images of clockwork animals side-by-side with trees and grass; a vision of a future in which Man's modern technology blended perfectly with the natural world. He found the images inspiring.\n\n\"How are you feeling?\" asked Sophie.\n\n\"A little tired. I think perhaps we should go home soon. I wouldn't want to overdo it.\"\n\nSophie was quiet for a moment then said in a low voice, \"Don't look now, but I think we're being watched.\"\n\nGunn stiffened. \"By whom?\"\n\n\"A man who seemed to be looking at the dynamics, but he kept looking at us, too. I wasn't certain, but then I saw him over by the trees when we came in here, and I can still see him out there now.\"\n\nThere was a large mirror on the wall behind Sophie, and when Gunn shifted slightly to his right, he could see what Sophie was seeing. A tall man in a heavy winter coat and a fur hat stood next to one of the trees, thirty yards from the cafeteria. As Gunn looked, the man turned his head toward the cafeteria, and then away again. \"I can see him,\" growled Gunn. \"If he's still there when we're finished, we'll walk that way. If he really is following us, he'll find a reason to move.\"\n\n\"But what if he's dangerous, Connie?\"\n\n\"If he tries anything, I'll tackle him. You start yelling and run back in here.\"\n\nGunn continued to glance at the mirror at intervals while they sipped their tea. The man didn't move.\n\nThey finished their tea and prepared to move on. \"He's still there,\" said Gunn, glancing in the mirror as he made a pretence of adjusting his sling.\n\n\"I know. Are you ready?\"\n\nGunn was as tense as a coiled mainspring. He tried to relax. He hadn't seen the man until Sophie had pointed him out, and it was possible that she was simply wrong. On the other hand . . . he could be one of the criminals who had cost him his hand, there to finish the job by silencing the witnesses. Gunn steeled himself for a fight. \"Quite ready.\"\n\nThey went outside. Sophie linked arms with Gunn and they walked in the man's direction, not looking directly at him, as if they were simply taking a walk to the boating lake.\n\nThe man straightened his hat and pulled his collar up, as if against a breeze, then walked slowly away toward the lake. He gradually increased his pace, and Gunn and Sophie increased theirs to match.\n\n\"It's him!\" Sophie whispered excitedly. \"The man in the leather coat at the workshop!\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I recognise the way he walks.\"\n\nGunn's legs were on fire; he wasn't yet up to that kind of exertion. \"I can't go any farther like this. I have to slow down.\"\n\n\"We'll lose him,\" said Sophie in a determined tone. She unlinked her arm from his. \"Stay here.\" She continued ahead at a brisk pace. The man was fifty yards away. Gunn wanted to stop her, but he knew she'd go anyway. \"Be careful, Sophie,\" he hissed. He continued, slowly, in the same direction.\n\nSophie walked as quickly as she could. She was less than twenty yards behind the man. He glanced over his shoulder, saw her and increased his stride. He'd almost reached the boat storage sheds at the edge of the lake.\n\nHe looked over his shoulder again as he reached the sheds, and Sophie got a clear look at his face. He was in his fifties, with a short black beard and moustache, both peppered with grey.\n\nHe turned and slipped between the closest two sheds. Sophie broke into a run, cursing herself for her choice in footwear, not caring should anyone see her behaving in such an unladylike way.\n\nShe reached the gap between the sheds where the man had gone, and followed his footsteps.\n\nHe was not in the space between the sheds. She dashed along, emerging from the far end at the water's edge and looked both ways. He had disappeared.\n\nThe man reached the lake and was lost to sight between the storage sheds, then Sophie disappeared from Gunn's line of sight as well. He walked a little faster, forcing himself to ignore the torture in the muscles of his legs.\n\nHe was trying hard not to panic, sure that something awful was about to happen, when Sophie reappeared from between the sheds and hurried back to him. \"He eluded me, somehow, but I got a good look at his face this time, and I'll know him if we see him again.\"\n\n\"Ye gods, don't scare me like that. I was sure he'd got you.\"\n\n\"You shouldn't worry so, dear. But look at you\u2014you're as white as a sheet. We should go home.\"\n\nThey called for a taxi, and as soon as they arrived home, Gunn went to bed, more exhausted than he could remember being in a very long time, and slept like a dead man.\n\nThe next morning, he awoke to find that the weather had turned horrible. Sleet and rain fell from dark, low clouds, blown by gusts of wind, washing away the snow of the previous day. His arm ached terribly, as if the damp and cold had seeped into the bones. He was quite content to stay at home in front of a warming fire while Sophie went shopping.\n\nHe tried to rest, but couldn't take his mind from the encounter with the mysterious man. If he was one of the criminals, then why had he stayed after the machine and the airship had gone? It made no sense. He thought of different scenarios to try to explain the man's presence at the crime scene and the park, but all it did was give him a headache.\n\nHe needed something to take his mind off the question, and the aches and pains. He went to the study, and took out his notes on Doctor Bohemia, settling in to write a little more of his piece about the man.\n\nTwo hours later, he heard the front door open, then a little while later Sophie came into the study with a tray. \"I thought you might like tea. What are you working on?\"\n\n\"The article about the mysterious Doctor Bohemia, but I'm having a devil of a time typing with only one hand.\"\n\n\"I could type while you dictate,\" she offered.\n\n\"I'm not an invalid,\" he said, a little irritated at the suggestion that he couldn't cope. \"I'll have to manage on my own when I get back to work. I might as well get used to it.\" Then he saw the pained expression on Sophie's face, and instantly regretted his response. He took her hand. \"I'm sorry. This damned aching is driving me mad. I don't mean to take it out on you.\"\n\nShe poured a cup of tea and came around to his side of the desk, kissing him on the forehead. \"Don't wear yourself out\u2014oh!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" said Gunn, slightly alarmed.\n\nShe picked up one of the handbills that Gunn had sitting alongside his notes and slid it in front of him.\n\nDOCTOR BOHEMIA PRESENTS Evenings Of Science and Wonder. Demonstrations of Engineering Miracles of our Modern Age. 8pm Every Thursday and Friday in June\u2014at Huffman's Electric Theatre, The Strand.\n\nThe text was framed with line drawings of some of the engineering miracles referred to\u2014an airship, a Babbage Engine, a typing machine. In the top right corner was a drawing of Doctor Bohemia himself, smiling out at the viewer and holding his arms wide as if to say, I give you these things.\n\nSophie pointed at the image of Doctor Bohemia's face. \"That's him! The man we saw yesterday in the park!\"\n\nGunn was stunned. \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"I couldn't be more so. It's him, I'm certain of it!\"\n\nGunn flipped a lever on the side of the typing machine and started picking out letters, one-fingered.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Telling Jameson to get over here, quick-like. He needs to see this.\"\n\n\"This is the man we're looking for,\" said Gunn, handing Doctor Bohemia's handbill to Jameson.\n\nJameson put his teacup down and examined the paper, a doubtful frown on his face. \"What on earth makes you think that?\"\n\nSophie was breathless with excitement. \"He was following us yesterday, in The Regent's Park. As soon as I saw him, I just knew it was the same man I'd seen at the workshop. So I chased after him, and I was able to get a good look at his face. Then I saw this paper. I know this is just a silly line drawing, but I'm really very sure.\"\n\nThe look on Jameson's face told Gunn that his friend wasn't convinced. \"Well, it's a lead, I suppose. He shouldn't be too difficult to find.\"\n\n\"There, you're wrong,\" said Gunn. \"He disappeared in fifty-three; that paper's from the year before. I've been trying to find him for nigh on a year now.\"\n\n\"Why, for goodness' sake?\"\n\nGunn shrugged. \"Professional interest. He was very famous, then he vanished. I wanted to know what happened to him.\"\n\n\"How much do you know about him?\"\n\n\"His real name is Ballard. Doctor Magnus Ballard, to be precise.\" Gunn handed a list to Jameson. \"These are the addresses of all the people with the name Ballard that I could find in the Tribune's city directories. I didn't include the ones I've already checked.\"\n\nJameson glanced at the paper, and then put it in his pocket, along with the handbill. \"I'll have some of my men check these. Shouldn't take too long, I wouldn't think. We'll find him.\"\n\n\"Tell them to take care. I don't think he wants to be found, and he might become dangerous if he's cornered.\"\n\n\"If he's done nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear\u2014but I'll tell my men to go with caution all the same.\"\n\n\"There was one other thing,\" Sophie said. Gunn looked at her, curious. \"When you saw Mr. Maynard, did you happen to mention the place where Connie had his accident?\"\n\nJameson looked perplexed. \"Not at all. Why do you ask?\"\n\nGunn explained about Lord Salisbury's visit.\n\n\"That's very curious,\" said Jameson. \"My people wouldn't have told him.\" Then Jameson looked quickly from Sophie to Gunn and back. \"The police, I mean.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"We shall have to tread very carefully. Try to avoid Salisbury until we get to the bottom of this.\" Jameson stood and picked up his hat. \"I'll get back to the Yard, then. I'll send word as soon as we find Ballard. Thanks very much for the tea.\"\n\nSophie showed Jameson out, and came back holding a box about a foot on each side, wrapped in brown paper held with twine.\n\n\"This was on the step,\" she said, and sat on the sofa next to Gunn. He could see GUNN written on the wrapping. So it had been delivered by hand, and there was nothing to indicate where it had come from. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.\n\n\"Open it, then,\" said Gunn. \"Carefully.\"\n\nSophie untied the string and gently tore the paper, exposing a cardboard box. She lifted the lid a little and peeked inside.\n\n\"I don't see anything,\" she said then put the lid to one side. Inside was an object wrapped in thin paper, which Sophie lifted out. She pulled the paper away to reveal Gunn's lost pair of air service goggles.\n\n\"What the\u2014\" said Gunn.\n\n\"Doctor Bohemia\u2014or Ballard; it has to be.\"\n\n\"He's telling us that he knows who we are and where we live. From this moment on, I want every door kept locked and every window shut tight and latched.\"\n\nSophie looked inside the box. \"There's something else,\" she said, and pulled out a card. She glanced at it, frowned, and passed it to Gunn.\n\nThe cafeteria. 5 p.m.\n\nGunn argued with Sophie all the way to The Regent's Park.\n\n\"If he sees us together, he'll run.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Sophie. \"He saw us together yesterday, and he won't be surprised to see us together today.\"\n\n\"I'd rather not take the risk.\"\n\n\"If he'd wanted you alone, he'd have said so on the note.\"\n\n\"I could just as easily say that if he expected both of us, he'd have said that on the note.\" Gunn decided to put his foot down. \"No. I'll be inside the cafeteria and he won't be able to do a thing with people around. It'll be perfectly safe. You wait nearby, and I'll come straight out with it and tell him you're there. If he wants you there, I'll give you a signal. I'll have no more argument over this.\"\n\nSophie went silent, then let out a long breath. \"What will the signal be?\"\n\nGunn thought for a moment. \"I'll hold up both hands,\" he said.\n\nSophie nodded, then her eyes flashed as the penny dropped. \"Oh, you\u2014\" she said, and punched him on the shoulder.\n\nGunn laughed.\n\nThrough the window, Gunn saw Doctor Bohemia sitting at a table, alone. He entered the cafeteria and sat opposite him. Neither said anything. Gunn felt Bohemia's scrutiny, as if to get the measure of him before explaining why he'd summoned him.\n\nGunn took the initiative. \"My wife's outside. She'll call the police if there's any trouble.\"\n\n\"There won't be any trouble,\" said Bohemia. \"It's awfully cold outside. Please ask your wife to join us, if she will.\"\n\nGunn took his handkerchief from his inside pocket; that was the signal. Sophie came in a few seconds later. As soon as she was settled, Bohemia leaned forward, placing his elbows on the tablecloth. \"Why have you been looking for me?\"\n\n\"I'm a reporter. I think you know that.\" Bohemia nodded. \"You disappeared, and I was curious. I thought there might be an interesting story to tell. That's my job. Why did you disappear?\"\n\n\"That's a long and complicated story, and definitely a tale for another time. Why did you follow me to Culbertson's workshop?\"\n\n\"We didn't. I guessed that the workshop might be a target for the criminals responsible for a string of similar robberies. We saw you there, but we didn't know who you were until today . . . Doctor Ballard.\"\n\nBohemia chuckled. \"Ballard was my manager, oh, years ago, when I was on the stage. He's long gone, running a music hall in Birmingham the last time I heard from him. Whatever made you think I was him?\"\n\n\"That's the name that the theatre bookings were made under. I assumed\u2014\"\n\n\"You assumed incorrectly. Bohemia is my real name. It's not the name I was born with\u2013I changed it legally a long time ago. The delusions of youth, eh? I thought being a stage entertainer would make me rich and famous.\"\n\nGunn was becoming irritated by Bohemia's flippancy. \"Let's stick to the point, shall we? I almost died a few nights ago, and you were there. What's your involvement in the crimes at the workshops and banks?\"\n\nBohemia's slight smile vanished, and his tone turned serious. \"Are you suggesting that I'm responsible?\"\n\n\"Aren't you? What were you doing there?\"\n\n\"I was watching and waiting, as you were, and for the same reason\u2014I guessed the workshop might be a target.\"\n\n\"Are you trying to stop those crimes?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Yes, although I have no idea at present of just how the criminal behind them might be stopped.\" He leaned forward again. \"My question for you is: whose side are you on?\"\n\n\"What sides are there, Doctor?\"\n\n\"I'm a patriot, Mr. Gunn. I stand for Queen and Country. My enemy claims to be the same, but we're at opposite ends of a very long line. He would serve his country by plunging it into war. That is not his goal, but it is what will result.\"\n\n\"How, exactly?\"\n\n\"He intends to make Britain the strongest empire in the world by damaging the European countries' ability to compete with British technology. It's even possible that his plans will succeed in achieving that objective, but it will put us at war with all of Europe. The cost will be appalling.\"\n\n\"You're implying that one man is behind all of the crimes.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How is stealing from banks and workshops going to achieve his goal?\"\n\nBohemia looked doubtful for a moment before saying, \"I believe that I've given you enough for the time being. I'll tell you more when I feel that I can trust you. I'll ask you again, Gunn: whose side are you on? Would you sacrifice millions of lives to see a British Empire stretching from here to the Black Sea? You must think about this question. Please give me your arm.\"\n\nGunn paused, perplexed by the sudden change of subject, then offered Bohemia his wounded left arm.\n\nBohemia lifted the edges of the bandages carefully, examining what he could without stripping them off there in the cafeteria. \"You'll be getting a prosthetic, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gunn, gritting his teeth at the examination, \"a Doctor Christie is seeing me in a few days.\"\n\nBohemia's fingers clenched involuntarily in evident surprise and almost immediately relaxed, but for that instant it was as if Gunn's arm had been gripped with red-hot pliers. He gasped. Bohemia didn't seem to notice. \"Christie's a nincompoop. Don't let him near you. He'll carve up the remaining nerves and weld something useless onto your arm.\"\n\n\"You know Doctor Christie?\" said Sophie, her eyebrows raised in surprise.\n\n\"He was a mature student in my department, a long time ago.\" He looked at Sophie and raised an eyebrow. \"Ah, I see. You thought I was Ballard, so you don't know my true history. My doctorate is in Surgical Engineering, from the University of Southampton. I was Head of Department there for a while, and Christie was a student at that time. He was an awful student then, and he's an awful doctor now.\"\n\n\"Then what\u2014\"\n\n\"If I decide we can help each other, Gunn, and if we can develop a mutual trust, then I will give you your hand. Christie would give you something that looks pretty. I can give you something that you will be able to use. The choice is yours.\" With that, Bohemia pushed back his chair, preparing to leave.\n\n\"Doctor,\" said Sophie, \"I have one more question for you. Did you use Connie's police whistle?\"\n\nBohemia looked into her eyes. \"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"Thank you. Even with the bleeding stopped, he might have frozen to death before I could find help. You probably saved his life.\"\n\nBohemia stood. \"It was the only thing I could do.\" He paused. \"Remember my question. Think about it. I'll be in touch quite soon.\"\n\nWhen the tall man left the cafeteria, Webster followed, but the man looked over his shoulder every few paces and seemed to make a deliberate point of following the path away from the cover of the trees, staying close to the gaslights lining the park roads. Webster couldn't get closer than a hundred yards without taking the risk of being seen. As the man passed beneath one of the lights, Webster recognised him\u2014it was the same man he'd seen leaving Culbertson's.\n\nIntriguing, he thought.\n\nThe man walked all the way to the gates. By the time Webster reached the same point, he had disappeared.\n\nWhen he got back to the cafeteria, he wasn't surprised to see that there was no sign of Mr. and Mrs. Gunn, either.\n\nGunn sat in front of the typing machine, staring at it.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Sophie asked as she placed a cup of tea on the desk.\n\n\"I have to tell Jameson to stop looking for Ballard, since it's no longer necessary. He wouldn't thank me for sending him on a wild goose chase. The question is, what should I tell him? He'll want to know why, and then we'd have to tell him that we found Doctor Bohemia. Or rather, that he found us.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't we tell Jameson?\"\n\n\"Because the first thing he'll want to do is take Bohemia into custody and question him about the robberies. We can't let that happen. It would destroy any chance of building up Bohemia's trust, and then we'd never find out what he knows about this mysterious enemy.\"\n\nSophie thought for a moment. \"In that case, just tell Jameson he can stop looking for Ballard, and that you'll explain tomorrow over dinner. Invite him over for seven o'clock, and I'll cook something nice. Then we can have good long talk about Doctor Bohemia, and make sure Jameson doesn't do anything rash.\"\n\n\"And if Bohemia finds out that we've told the police? What then?\"\n\n\"Then you tell Bohemia, before he finds out some other way. Say Jameson's a friend and can be trusted. But first, be sure he knows we're on his side, since you and I both know that we are.\"\n\nAfter dinner the following evening, the three settled in the parlour with brandy coffees. Gunn offered Jameson one of the cigars he kept for such occasions\u2014which were infrequent, as Sophie and Gunn rarely had dinner guests\u2014and Sophie sat on the arm of Gunn's chair while Jameson took the other seat.\n\n\"Isn't it about time you got around to the reason you asked me here tonight?\" said Jameson.\n\n\"Yes, it is.\" Gunn made himself comfortable and began. \"We found out two very important things that you need to know. First, it turns out that Doctor Bohemia and Doctor Ballard are not, as we thought, the same person.\"\n\n\"So the man you saw at the workshop, and again in the park, is Doctor Bohemia, and Ballard is someone else entirely?\"\n\n\"Precisely. Ballard has nothing to do with this, and you'd be wasting your time trying to find him.\"\n\n\"Very well. You said two things?\"\n\n\"Yes. Bohemia's involvement with the robberies is the same as my own. We're both trying to find the person responsible.\"\n\n\"How could you possibly know that, Gunn?\" Jameson's eyes narrowed, and then lit up with realisation. \"You've spoken to him, haven't you?\"\n\nGunn nodded. \"He approached us yesterday. We believe him.\"\n\n\"Where can I find him? I'd like to verify that for myself. Ask him a few questions. You know\u2014let me do my job, instead of get yourself into trouble?\"\n\n\"He won't talk to you. In any case, I have no idea where he is. We're waiting for him to contact us.\" He leaned forward in his chair for emphasis. \"You must understand, Bohemia seems to have been following the person behind the crimes for some time. The criminal responsible appears to have access to an incredible array of resources. He has an airship, possibly military, at his disposal, and the machine we saw.\n\n\"Logically, he must have a number of men working for him\u2014enough men to crew an airship, for a start, as well as a ground crew to maintain it. Bohemia's one man up against all that, and I think perhaps it's made him somewhat paranoid.\"\n\n\"In that case, surely he'd be glad of some help from the police?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure he would, but first, we all have to earn his trust. Until then, one wrong move and he might assume that you're working for the wrong people.\"\n\nJameson took a puff of his cigar, then he shook his head, frowning. \"You win. I'll play this your way, and you'd better hope you're not mistaken. What would you like me to do?\"\n\n\"Nothing, for the time being. As I said, he should be contacting us soon. I think Sophie and I will have to tread carefully until we've gained a degree of his confidence. When we're over that hurdle, I'll tell him that you're with us. Then, we can arrange a meeting.\"\n\n\"How long might that be? Remember, I have superiors I have to report to and I can't tell them any of this. They expect to see me making progress.\"\n\n\"Then give them progress. Tell them you're still looking for Ballard, or something.\"\n\nJameson tapped the ash from his cigar into the ashtray. \"Actually, we are. Telling the Chief Inspector that I have my men working on a lead from an anonymous source isn't a problem\u2014it happens all the time\u2014but if I'd called them off there would have been awkward questions. Why I was dropping the only line of inquiry on the say-so of a journalist, for one. So I've left them to it, and I'll continue to do so even though you've told me it's a waste of time. Just don't take too long, and let me know the minute you have something for me.\"\n\nThe next morning, Doctor Christie's nurse, a short, plump middle-aged lady, examined the stump of Gunn's arm. It was far less painful than it had been. \"The swelling is down,\" she said, \"and the bruises have faded. Doctor Christie will be pleased to see that you're healing nicely.\"\n\nGunn didn't answer. After what Bohemia had said, he was determined not to allow Christie to operate on him, but he had no idea how to explain himself. After the nurse left, he voiced his concerns to Sophie.\n\n\"Jameson got Christie involved,\" she said. \"So why don't you ask him to have a word with Christie?\"\n\n\"What should I say? I can hardly tell Jameson that a man he's been chasing as part of an investigation has offered to give me a new hand.\"\n\n\"Just tell him that you've been given a recommendation. You don't have to tell him it's Bohemia. If he presses you, tell him that you're not happy with Christie's reputation.\" She sat down in her armchair. \"You've decided to let Bohemia do it, haven't you?\"\n\nGunn nodded. \"I did a little research over the wires last night, while you were asleep. Bohemia really was Head of Department at Southampton\u2014but not with that name, of course\u2014and he had an excellent reputation as a surgeon. I recognized his picture. I feel that I can trust him, despite his paranoia and brusque manner.\"\n\nSophie nodded. \"I'd like to call the university, as well, but I think it's the right decision. He has a charisma about him. I suppose that's part of why he was such a success as an entertainer.\" She stood and smoothed her dress. \"Now, I have to go out. I promised I'd meet Mrs. Stack for morning coffee. What are you planning to do with yourself today?\"\n\n\"I'll stay here, I suppose. I don't want to miss Bohemia.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. You need some exercise and fresh air. Bohemia said he'd be in touch, and we have no idea how he'll do that or when. And in any case, I'm sure he won't give up just because you weren't at home.\"\n\nGunn sighed. \"You're right, as usual.\" Then he smiled as an idea came to mind. \"I know. I think I'll take a tram over to Bloomsbury and wander the bookshops. I haven't done that in a long while.\"\n\nCyrus West's bookshop is a gem, thought Gunn. It was situated just off Malet Street, and most people unfamiliar with the place would take a glance at the little shop with its tiny bow-fronted window, and pass by. Only inside would one discover that the shop occupied almost the entirety of the four storeys behind and above that inconspicuous door, and was a bibliophile's dream\u2014aisles barely wide enough to move along, shelves running from the floor to the ceiling, filled with old and rare books. Gunn had often spent hours in the shop exploring.\n\nGunn wandered around for something more than an hour, flipping through the pages of old volumes on science, history, geography and a dozen other subjects, then decided to go to the rearmost room on the first floor, where Mrs. West ran a tearoom. He ordered a cup of coffee and a slice of walnut cake, and went to the convenience. When he came out, he saw his coffee and cake waiting for him\u2014and Doctor Bohemia.\n\nThere was nobody else in the room.\n\nBohemia nodded at him as he sat down. \"Well, Mr. Gunn. Do you have an answer to my question?\"\n\nGunn wasn't yet ready to play the man's game. \"You've been following me.\"\n\n\"Of course. Did you expect me to risk my well-being and freedom on the basis of a single meeting?\"\n\nGunn was about to say that he'd as good as decided to put his own health into Bohemia's hands, especially after the research he'd done and hearing Sophie's opinions, but he decided that he needed something more.\n\n\"Have you been watching my wife, too?\"\n\n\"Indeed, I have. I had to assure myself that you didn't go telling our business to others\u2014especially my enemy. Were you in my shoes, I believe you'd do the same.\"\n\nGunn could hardly blame the man for wanting to protect himself. He decided to let it pass.\n\n\"All right. But before I answer your question, Doctor, I'd like more information from you.\" Bohemia nodded again. \"You say the enemy would sacrifice lives to achieve his goal, yet at this moment I'm not clear on your goal, or how far you'd go to achieve it. Until I know, I'm not about to align myself with you.\"\n\n\"Admirable. And do you speak for your wife?\"\n\n\"We are of a mind in this.\"\n\n\"Very well. In that case, know that my intention at this time is simply to stop this despicable enemy before he takes action that might very well plunge this country into a terrible war. Nothing more. As for how far I would go, I would do my utmost to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Does that satisfy you?\"\n\nGunn felt a sense of relief, as if a threshold had been crossed. He realised that he wanted to trust Bohemia. \"Yes. We're with you, Doctor\u2014but don't disappoint us by showing that our faith is misplaced.\"\n\n\"I give you my word. I must say that it will be good to have allies after working alone for so long.\"\n\nGunn sipped his coffee and munched on a bite of coffee cake. \"So, tell me about our enemy, Doctor. Who is he?\"\n\n\"That will take a little time, and this is not the place. Besides, I'm sure your wife will want to be present. I've taken the liberty of arranging a better venue. A taxi will collect you from your home tomorrow morning at two. I suggest dressing warmly.\"\n\n\"Why such an ungodly hour?\"\n\n\"Did you know that someone else, besides myself, has been following you?\"\n\nGunn felt the hairs on his neck prickle. \"No.\"\n\n\"A portly man of about forty, middling height, with dark hair and muttonchops. He was watching your home, and he followed you here. He's been waiting outside in the street since you came in here, presumably on the watch for you to leave.\"\n\n\"I take it you know that because you were watching our flat, too.\"\n\nBohemia nodded. \"Indeed. I was waiting for an opportunity to speak with you. When you left your door I saw him move, and I realised what he was doing. He followed you, and I followed him.\"\n\n\"Could he be the enemy?\"\n\n\"I have no idea, but I have to say that the man has something about him that makes me think of the police.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"I have friends in the police, including one in particular who's quite highly placed. In fact, I believe the man could be a great asset to us. You should consider allowing me to introduce you. But I digress. If there were reason for the police to be watching me, I'm certain my friend would know about it and would have told me.\"\n\n\"Then I'll do what I can to find out who he is. In the meantime, do nothing to alert him that you're aware of him. At the moment, he seems to be simply watching, and I assume he's reporting your movements to someone else. I don't think he represents a threat, at least for now. As for tonight, it'll be difficult for anyone to follow you. You'll understand.\" Bohemia smiled, then stood and left the tearoom.\n\nGunn decided to continue his day the way he'd planned. He spent another hour browsing West's before moving on to another bookshop, and then a third. By the middle of the afternoon he was feeling quite worn out, and took a tram home from Tottenham Court Road.\n\nHe noticed the man Bohemia had described, standing on the tram's rear platform. Do nothing to alert him that you're aware of him, Bohemia had said; Gunn tried to put the man from his mind. He arrived home, stretched out on the sofa, and promptly fell into a deep sleep.\n\nGunn ran his fingers through his hair and yawned as he told Sophie about his day. \"I think we should get some sleep and be ready to leave when the taxi arrives. In my case, more sleep.\"\n\nHe set the typing machine to trigger the alarm clock in the bedroom, and they retired early.\n\nThe alarm went off at half past midnight. Gunn decided to take their goggles in Sophie's bag, just in case. \"I doubt we'll need them, but you never know.\"\n\nAt two o'clock precisely, the expected taxi pulled up quietly to the curb outside, and Gunn and Sophie slipped out of the front door. The driver was an older gentleman, stooped over and wearing the common driver's cap and goggles, and with a woollen scarf across his nose and mouth against the damp, chilly air.\n\nAs they trundled along the street, Gunn slid the dividing glass to one side a few inches. \"Can you tell us where we're going?\" The driver shook his head. Gunn slid the divider closed and settled back in his seat. Sophie shrugged her shoulders at him, and they sat in silence. Gunn watched through the windows, trying to guess their destination.\n\n\"Why did it have to be so late?\" said Sophie, yawning.\n\n\"I'll let Bohemia explain that himself when we see him,\" said Gunn. He didn't want to worry Sophie about being watched.\n\nThe taxi drove on, apparently not in any hurry, turning this way and that along streets both major and minor, but to Gunn it seemed that they were tending in an easterly direction. After about half an hour, he said to Sophie, \"I think we're heading toward the docks.\"\n\n\"The docks. At three in the morning.\"\n\nGunn shuddered. He knew from stories\u2014ones he'd written himself\u2014that after dark, that was a place where your life was worth less than what was in your wallet. He brushed away a trickle of sweat on his brow, and worried that he'd got them both into terrible danger.\n\nHe felt around in his pockets to try to find anything that he might use to defend them, but he knew it was pointless. He might give an attacker a nasty scratch with his house keys; that was all he had.\n\nThe taxi drove on, along a wide street that ran straight as an arrow between warehouses near the river. Abruptly, the driver turned the vehicle and stopped in front of one of the warehouses. He stepped out, slid the warehouse door open, then drove the taxi inside and stopped the engine. The warehouse was as black as pitch. Gunn couldn't see his hand in front of his face.\n\nThe driver had walked away from the taxi. Gunn knew that the goggles the man wore enabled him to see them, while they couldn't see him. He remembered his own in Sophie's satchel, but had no time to retrieve them. He took his keys from his pocket, and was about to open the door when the driver returned, holding a paraffin lantern, and opened the door for them.\n\nGunn positioned himself between the driver and Sophie and kept his eyes on the man, keys firmly in hand, ready to aim for the eyes at the first sign of an attackbut the driver turned his back to them and walked off. Gunn held back, not wanting to get too close, then he and Sophie followed him across the concrete floor, footsteps ringing hollowly in the huge, empty building. The driver led them to an office built against the back wall.\n\nInside, the man lit the gaslights on the wall and extinguished the paraffin lamp. Then he took off his hat and goggles, and unwound the scarf from across his nose and mouth. Gunn started, then realised he should not have been surprised to see their driver was none other than Doctor Bohemia.\n\n\"Doctor Bohemia,\" said Gunn, surprised.\n\n\"At your service, Mr. and Mrs. Gunn. But since we're to be allies, please, call me Harry.\"\n\n\"Why here?\" said Sophie, curious, and a little bit annoyed, \"and why so late?\"\n\n\"I apologise for the late hour, but it made it much easier to ensure that we weren't followed. In this part of the city at this time of night, any other vehicles behind us would have been quite obvious. I'm quite certain the man I told you about was not watching your home.\"\n\n\"What man?\" asked Sophie, alarmed.\n\nGunn clenched his fist, annoyed at Bohemia\u2014Harry\u2014for mentioning it. \"There was a man following me this morning,\" he said reluctantly.\n\n\"What did he look like?\"\n\n\"Average height, a little overweight, dark hair and muttonchops.\"\n\nSophie's eyes went wide. \"That's the same man who was watching you on the roof!\"\n\nGunn and Harry gaped at each other. Gunn looked back at Sophie. \"When?\"\n\n\"The first night you were watching Culbertson's. I saw him watching you, then he left. With all that's gone on, it slipped my mind.\"\n\nHarry rubbed his chin. \"Now that you mention it, I think I saw him, too, in the very same street that same night\u2014the night before the attack. I hadn't known at that time that you were up on the roof, and I assumed that he was just one of the factory owners, working late.\"\n\n\"Who is he?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"I plan to find out. First, Gunn, I'd like to know whether you made a decision regarding your hand. That is, are you confident that Christie will give you what you need, or do you trust in my abilities? Or, of course, you may have a third preference.\"\n\n\"I think I'd like to discuss the matter a bit more, Doctor, before I make a decision.\"\n\nHarry stepped toward a second door. \"Absolutely. If you'll step through here, we can begin.\"\n\n\"Begin? Begin what?\"\n\nWithout answering, Harry held the door while Gunn and Sophie went through. The room had no windows, and when Harry closed the door, they were momentarily in complete darkness. Then Gunn heard a click, and the room blazed with brilliant white light from a dozen electric filament bulbs suspended from the ceiling. He heard Sophie's sharp intake of breath as he beheld the impressive sight. Electrical lighting! he thought. Harry certainly likes to bedazzle people.\n\n\"Welcome to my workshop. One of them, at least. Gunn, if you'd lie on the bed over here and put your arm through the screen, I can get started.\"\n\nGunn followed Harry to the narrow bed, and lay down, resting his head on the pillow. To his left was a cloth screen two feet high, suspended from a metal rail, with a vertical slit through it. He rolled up his shirtsleeve, and put his arm through the slit, resting it on a low table on the other side. Harry sat on a low stool behind the screen.\n\nGunn felt searing pain, like a blowtorch on his skin, as the bandages were peeled away\u2014but resisted the instinct to pull his arm back.\n\n\"What are you doing, Harry?\" said Sophie. Gunn looked over and saw her eyes narrow with concern. He began to wonder if this had been a mistake after all.\n\n\"I need to see how the injury is healing. You're quite welcome to come around to this side and watch.\"\n\nHarry continued to work as he spoke. \"I've been a thorn in the enemy's side for some time, and I had to be sure that you aren't working for him, attempting to gain my faith while informing him of my plans. Such things have happened before. I must be truthful\u2014I've researched your histories, to make sure that I could trust you. Consequently, I already knew you, Sophie, had served in the military, with distinction, as a surgical assistant.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" said Gunn, peeved, \"what else do you know?\"\n\n\"I know that your parents live on a farm near Glastonbury, and that you moved to Bristol when you were eighteen, and worked there as a junior reporter. You've worked for several newspapers since then, working your way up to where you are today, a respected journalist at one of the most well-known London papers.\n\n\"I know Sophie's father is General Augustus Fletcher, retired now, and I assume his long and distinguished career was one factor in Sophie's decision to train as a medical officer.\"\n\nSophie nodded at that.\n\n\"Gunn, please be assured that everything I found out is public knowledge, if one knows where to look. I didn't ask questions at your newspaper, I haven't searched out friends and relatives. Regardless, everything I found out I will keep to myself. But I am not apologising for this. You must understand that it was something I had to do for my own security.\"\n\nSophie cleared her throat. \"Then I have something to tell you as well, Doctor. I spoke to a lady at the university, and she remembers you very well\u2014by the name Bohemia, and your birth name, Daneman. She told me you're the best prosthetic surgeon they've ever produced, and certainly one of the best five in the Empire.\"\n\n\"I'm flattered,\" said Harry, his eyebrows raised. \"The last I heard, they were saying I was in the best dozen.\"\n\n\"I also asked her about Doctor Christie\u2014and she confirmed your opinion. She told me she wouldn't trust him to treat her bunions.\"\n\nHarry rested back on his stool. \"I'm rather glad that you spoke to them. We know where we stand. So, to business\u2014I've examined your husband's injury, and it's healing nicely. I said I would give you a new hand, Gunn. Now is the time, if you're willing.\"\n\nGunn's eyes went wide. \"You mean surgery? Here? Now?\"\n\n\"All of my surgical equipment is modern, and in the best and most hygienic condition. I have the most advanced surgical chemicals\u2014you'll barely feel a thing, and the risk of infection is almost nil. The fact is, you're certainly better off if I do it here, than if we used the facilities at a hospital.\"\n\nGunn felt a bead of sweat trickle down beside his eye. \"Why now? What's the hurry?\"\n\n\"First, your arm is at the perfect stage of healing. Another day or two, and I'll be compelled to undo more of that healing than I'd like. Second\u2014if you're to help me against our enemy, you'll need to be fully functional, as soon as possible.\"\n\nGunn looked nervously at Sophie. \"What do you think?\"\n\n\"He's not lying about the equipment, or the chemicals. And his reputation is stellar, Connie\u2014he's done this hundreds of times. But it has to be your decision.\"\n\nGunn's mind whirled. He wanted the hand, but he didn't know if he should trust Harry. But then he thought of Christie\u2014and he most definitely didn't want that man anywhere near him.\n\nHe trusted Sophie\u2014and she'd said Harry was one of the best. \"Do it, then\u2014before I change my mind.\"\n\nHarry nodded, and set to work. He turned slightly, and Gunn heard a metallic clank from the other side of the screen. Sophie gasped slightly. \"I'm going to restrain your arm, and you'll feel a pinprick. Don't be alarmed.\"\n\nGunn felt his arm being squeezed in a padded clamp. Then it was securely fastened; he couldn't have moved it if he'd tried. The prick of a needle made him flinch, but the sensation was gone before he truly felt it, and numbness began to work its way toward his elbow.\n\nThe numbness became a warmth that travelled up past his elbow to the shoulder. It spread across his shoulders and down his spine. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation\u2014in fact, it was quite comfortable. Wonderfully comfortable. Gunn began to feel as though he could quite easily fall . ..\n\nGunn's arm felt heavy.\n\nHe opened his eyes, and he knew immediately that he was not in his bedroom. Light shone from somewhere behind him, and he saw reflections from some hollow glass globes hanging from the ceiling above him. He had trouble keeping his eyes on them\u2014they kept sliding to one side. He knew that feeling; he'd been drugged.\n\nIt took him a moment to recognise what the globes were, but then it came to him\u2014they were unlit electric filament lamps.\n\nGunn suddenly remembered where he was and how he'd come to be there. He sat up quickly, and instantly regretted the sudden movement as a wave of nausea made the room spin. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The nausea subsided, and he opened his eyes. Harry and Sophie were sitting on stools at a bench on the other side of the room. Sophie got up and hurried over to his side.\n\nHis arm still felt heavy, as if it had been tied down. He looked at it\u2014he had a mechanical hand attached just above his wrist.\n\nHe stared at it, stupefied by the anaesthetic. Then the cogs meshed, and he understood. His hand. As his wits returned, he felt wonder, and elation. He saw a hint of purple bruising, and a fleck or two of dried blood where flesh met metal. He was surprised at how clean a job Harry had done.\n\nHe looked at it more closely. It was impressive. Polished brass and steel joints on the fingers and wrists gleamed in the light, and through the gaps in the joints he saw tubes and wires of bright gold and glossy deep blue. He could feel the weight of it, but there was little other sensation. \"I don't feel anything.\"\n\n\"Give it time. Let's go and make ourselves comfortable in the office. I keep a rather good brandy, and I'm sure you could use a belt of something about now, am I right? Usually, alcohol isn't advised after surgery, but a small glass won't do any harm.\"\n\nGunn nodded; the dizziness had passed quickly\u2014the modern chemicals were a wonder\u2014and a brandy to calm his nerves would be welcome. Harry and Sophie helped him stand, and supported him as they went back to the office. He settled, heavily, into a leather-padded chair.\n\nHarry took the bottle of brandy and three balloons from a cabinet and poured the drinks, then slid open a desk drawer and took out a small brown paper bag. He passed it to Gunn, who opened it to see a dozen white pills. \"The analgesic I injected you with will wear off in a little while, and when it does, you're going to be in quite a lot of pain for the next few days as the bones weld themselves to the metal.\n\n\"Take two of those pills every four hours. They'll help. Once the pain subsides, you'll feel a tingling sensation as the nerves bind to the wires that control the hand. Most people report itching sensations, and there's nothing you can scratch that will help. You'll just have to grin and bear it, I'm afraid, but it will only persist for a few hours. There's a plant extract painted on the nerve connections to accelerate the binding process, and that's what you'll be feeling while it does its work.\n\n\"By the day after tomorrow, you should be able to flex the joints a little, which you should do to get the nerves accustomed to it. You'll begin to feel things when you touch them with the fingertips. Be careful for a few days when gripping things, because it takes a while to get used to the pressure you can exert without really trying. I had one lady who broke her husband's arm in two places before she got the hang of it.\"\n\n\"I'll be able to use a typing machine?\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"You will and you should\u2014it's excellent for fine motor coordination. A week from now, you'll be able to go back to work.\"\n\n\"Will I be able to play the piano?\"\n\n\"If you think you can catch me out with that old chestnut . . .\" Harry said, grinning.\n\nGunn looked at the hand again, his mind whirling. He had a hand again. He would be able to touch, to feel. \"I don't know how to thank you.\"\n\n\"You can thank me by helping me stop Pendragon.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. I believe the time has come for me to answer your questions.\" Harry paused, evidently gathering his thoughts, then began.\n\n\"In the middle of 1852, I was approached by a man who called himself Pendragon. He knew my reputation as an engineer and inventor, and wanted to know if I would be interested in collaborating with him on a number of design projects. He proceeded to impress me with his ideas for a number of machines based on some rather advanced science, some of which I was familiar with, and some of which I was not, but it became clear very quickly that the man was nothing short of a genius.\n\n\"At first, I was very excited by the prospect of working with him, then shocked to realise that all of his machines were thinly-disguised weapons of terrible power. I wanted nothing to do with that detestable work. I told the fellow to take his plans and leave.\n\n\"That was the last I heard of him for several months. Then I began to hear rumours and hearsay from other scientists and researchers, and it seemed that he had succeeded in recruiting a number of others of my profession, presumably less scrupulous, or, to give them the benefit of the doubt, more gullible. I also began to hear whispers of dangerous and irresponsible experiments being performed. Do you remember the terrible accident in Wimbledon, April of fifty-three?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gunn. \"Three houses collapsed into a hole that opened in the ground under them. Twelve people died, twenty more were seriously injured. They said the foundations had been laid above an underground stream.\"\n\n\"That was the story that the police and others made public to cover the fact that they didn't know the real cause. The truth was that it was the result of a test of one of Pendragon's weapons, a design I remembered from the plans he'd shown me. I knew I had to do something. I decided to stop Pendragon. That's why I disappeared.\"\n\n\"You did a good job. I've been on your trail for months without any success. Where the devil have you been hiding?\"\n\nHarry waved a hand vaguely. \"Here, and several other places like this that I have around the city. I rarely sleep in the same place for more than three or four nights before moving on.\"\n\nSophie looked at Harry, frowning. \"You've been on the move for all this time, to stay away from just one man?\"\n\n\"One very influential man, with a good number of people in his pay. I've had some success in providing obstacles to him at times, and I've drawn his attention more than once. At first, I suspect he didn't think I could oppose him, but after I'd got in his way a few times, he sent people after me. I've had a number of close shaves. Perhaps I'm being overcautious, but if you were in my position, you'd understand.\"\n\n\"Since we are allies, now,\" said Gunn, \"I suspect that such understanding will come to us quite soon.\"\n\n\"Quite. Now, to change the subject. What did you think about the machine he used to break into Culbertson's?\"\n\nGunn looked to Sophie, then back to Harry. \"We think it's like a suit of armour. There's a man inside.\"\n\n\"That's what I think, too. Pendragon must have two such machines, because he was able to attack two places at once.\"\n\n\"Ye gods, of course he does,\" Gunn exclaimed. \"And he may have more than two.\"\n\n\"True, but if he had more, why attack at most two places at one time? If he had, say, six, he could carry out six attacks at once and move his plans along that much faster. He hasn't done that, which leads me to conclude that he only has two.\"\n\nSophie said, \"So his black airship carries the machines, and lands to drop them off and pick them up when the job's done.\"\n\n\"I don't see how it could be any other way,\" said Gunn.\n\nHarry nodded, and continued. \"I've witnessed two such attacks\u2014the one at Culbertson's workshop, and another at a bank on Lombard Street a few days before\u2014and I have a rough idea of how the machines operate. I've also obtained a list of the items that have been taken from the workshops, and I think I know what Pendragon's looking for.\"\n\n\"I'd like to know how you did that. My contact in the police told me that most of the workshop owners kept that information very close to their chests.\"\n\n\"That's because they were being asked by the police. You have to use a little psychology. These chaps have a different attitude when they're talking to a fellow innovator. They do so like to brag about their brilliance\u2014if you can get them to trust you a little.\"\n\n\"What do you think Pendragon's up to, then?\"\n\n\"Judging by what he's taken, I think he's attempting to refine the design of his armoured machines, and to build more of them. He's stolen designs, prototypes, and materials that would allow him to enhance their speed and power, improve the system of vision they use, and make the armour itself much stronger without significantly increasing the weight.\"\n\n\"What is it that he's taking from the banks?\" asked Sophie.\n\n\"Money, pure and simple. He has to be able to buy raw materials as well as fuel and hydrogen to maintain his airship, and who knows what else.\"\n\n\"It sounds as if he's preparing for something.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"I believe that as soon as he's gathered everything he needs, he'll build an army of those machines, and he'll use them to damage or destroy workshops, laboratories, and factories across Europe. In England, his purpose was to steal, but when he strikes at Europe, his intention will be destruction, using the weapons he showed me. The death toll will be appalling. His aim appears to be to put those countries' capacities for technical innovation behind that of Britain, but the human cost is something I dread to think about.\"\n\nGunn felt a hint of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu\u2014but the drugs still slowed his mind, and the thought evaporated before he could grasp it. \"And those countries will blame us and declare war.\"\n\n\"I think that is a very likely outcome.\"\n\n\"How do we stop him?\"\n\n\"I'll show you. I have another workshop just a few minutes away. Come with me.\" With that, Harry led the way back to the steam carriage.\n\nWhile Gunn and Sophie rode in the back of the carriage, she asked to see his hand.\n\nHe held it up, turning it back and forth in what little light they had.\n\n\"It's rather beautiful,\" she said. \"It reminds me of some of the dynamics in the park. How does it feel?\"\n\n\"I can't feel anything yet.\" There was no sensation below a point about halfway down his forearm. \"It just feels numb, and cold, in a strange way. It's difficult to describe.\"\n\nThe carriage stopped, and Harry got out to open the door of a warehouse similar to the one they'd just left. \"Let's hope he's as good when it comes to stopping Pendragon,\" Gunn said quietly.\n\nOnce the carriage was inside, Harry showed them to a large corrugated metal cabin, set against the inside wall of the building.\n\n\"Why two workshops, Harry?\" said Sophie as they walked across the concrete floor. \"Wouldn't it be more convenient to have everything in one place?\"\n\n\"Yes, it would, but I have several workshops, for my own protection. This way, if Pendragon should find one of them, I don't lose everything. Also, I rarely keep any of these places for more than a few weeks before moving things around.\" He unlocked the door and went inside, and Gunn and Sophie followed.\n\nThis room looked much more like a workshop than the previous building, with heavy workbenches, drilling machines, planes, vices and other tools. Two lathes\u2014one for metal and the other for wood\u2014stood near one wall. Shelves on the other side of the room held raw materials.\n\nGunn saw a row of mechanical limbs, similar in construction to the hand Harry had just given him. \"Harry? Where does my hand get its power? I won't have to stoke it with coal, or something, will I?\"\n\nHarry grinned. \"Of course not. You energise it, Gunn\u2014just by moving about, you drive small clockworks that create electricity. There are devices inside that store the energy until it's needed. They're doing that already, but, of course, you can't use the hand until the nerves have grown into place. Then you'll be able to move it under its own might.\"\n\n\"So, I could use up all that electricity, and I'd have to wait for it to build up again?\"\n\nHarry shook his head. \"The cells can store an incredible amount of energy, Gunn. Quite remarkable, these new ones\u2014from Russia, you know. I don't think you could exhaust them if you tried. None of my other patients have done so.\"\n\nOn one workbench sat a machine that looked something like a tall, open-sided clock, ticking as the gears and switches inside moved in a complicated dance. Every few seconds a gasp of steam escaped toward the ceiling from a vent at the top.\n\n\"What is this, Harry?\" Sophie asked.\n\n\"That's something I work on when I need to take my mind off things. When it's finished, I'm planning to donate it to the dynamic sculpture collection in The Regent's Park.\" He walked down the row of workbenches that ran along one side of the room. \"The things I brought you to see are over here.\"\n\nGunn and Sophie walked over to where Harry stood. Next to the bench was a sturdy wooden tripod supporting a copper sphere the size of a football, with a short tube jutting from one side and two handles on the other. On the bench itself sat a solid-looking box made of dark polished wood, with brass strips laid into the edges and corners, and next to that, a crate holding a dozen bottles made of some black material that reminded Gunn of frosted glass.\n\nHarry began, \"Pendragon has three major resources at his disposal.\"\n\n\"His airship, and the two machines,\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Precisely. If we can destroy or damage any one of those, we can slow down Pendragon's plans and give ourselves more time. We can't do anything to his airship\u2014\"\n\n\"In a populated area, certainly\u2014but if we could attack it before it reached the city's outskirts, why not?\" said Gunn. \"We could find a way to shoot it down.\"\n\n\"There are a number of serious difficulties with doing anything like that. It's a military airship, and as such, it has a number of protective features\u2014armoured envelopes, engines, and propellers, for example. In addition, the triple envelopes of a military transport provide redundancy in that two of the three envelopes can be deflated, and the aircraft will still retain enough buoyancy to stay aloft, provided it's not heavily laden. The only way to bring down such an aircraft is to destroy all three envelopes, and that's something that's rarely been achieved even with the most advanced anti-airship weapons. I don't have anything that could do much more than scratch the paint on a ship of that kind.\"\n\n\"In other words, we can't do it.\"\n\n\"Our own military could bring it down,\" said Sophie, \"or at least disable it. We could tell them. I could talk to my father. He knows a lot of people who would be able to help.\"\n\n\"There, we have another problem, and that is simply that we don't know where Pendragon's airship came from. It may have come from the decommissioning yards on Barry Island\u2014according to my investigations, at least three airships of a similar type have been misplaced from there over the last ten years. Probably, the explanation is nothing more than careless record keeping, but it's possible that at least one has been stolen. Another possibility is that Pendragon has built his own. Many enthusiasts have built small ones for personal use, after all, and they're really not all that complicated. Building a full sized military class airship privately would be more difficult and very expensive, but not impossible by any means.\"\n\nGunn said, \"And then there's the obvious explanation\u2014that the military gave it to him.\"\n\n\"Yes, and that's the one that presents our problem. If the British military provided Pendragon with an airship, then they're the last people we can expect to help us shoot it down.\"\n\n\"What if it's foreign?\" said Sophie. \"What if he's duped the French, or the Germans, into giving him an airship\u2014telling them he's using it to attack English targets to help them?\"\n\n\"That had occurred to me, too. He could be working with any of a dozen countries. The trouble is, we just don't know. If we can find out, prove for certain that it's not British, then we can go to the authorities. Until then, though, we can't take the chance.\"\n\n\"But our own military wouldn't do such a thing.\" Sophie was plainly distraught at the idea.\n\n\"Are you certain of that, Sophie? Remember, Pendragon's goal is British superiority over Europe, at whatever cost. Can you be sure that every general, every admiral, every air marshal, is a right-thinking person like your father, who would be appalled by the very idea?\"\n\nSophie went quiet, frowning. Gunn took her hand and squeezed it. \"We can't attack the airship. That leaves the machines on the ground.\"\n\n\"Correct,\" said Harry. \"As I see it, there are two ways to try to stop the machines. The first is to attack their source of power.\" He placed his hand on the wooden box and lifted the lid, folding the sides down. Inside sat a small device, composed of several metal wheels arranged in a row, with small gears between them, and a hand crank at one end.\n\n\"That's the purpose of this machine.\" Harry turned the hand crank, and the wheels started to turn in opposing directions. Sparks jumped between the rotors, and Gunn became aware of the sharp smell of ozone, and a faint tingling in his left arm. The machine whirled faster and faster, and the electric lights above the benches flickered then went out. Gunn heard the machine slow and stop\u2014presumably Harry had stopped turning the crank\u2014and the lights came back on.\n\n\"It stops electricity?\"\n\n\"It creates a powerful emanation that disrupts the flow of electrical fluid in wires. I'm certain that Pendragon's machines use electricity. Running this machine nearby should have the effect of stopping the transmission of power.\"\n\n\"How close would one have to be?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"I found that once it was cranked all the way up to full charge, it stopped every electrical device within fifty feet, which, I have to say, surprised even me. But I'm not convinced this little thing will be able to disrupt the electrical flow in something as powerful as Pendragon's machines. I was thinking about building a larger one, powered by a steam engine, but, quite simply, I haven't had the time.\"\n\n\"It's still impressive. You said there were two ways to disable the machines.\"\n\n\"Yes. The other is to attack the vision mechanism. Now, you got very close to the machine. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it got very close to you. I assume, therefore, that you got a good look at the faceplate. Am I correct?\"\n\n\"It got very much closer than I would have liked. But yes, I did get a good look. I thought it was probably glass, like a diver's helmet. It was almost black, though. I couldn't see the man inside.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"You're both familiar with the light-augmenting goggles that airship pilots use.\" Gunn and Sophie nodded. \"The machine's faceplate appears to work on the same principles, allowing the man inside to see in a variety of environments, where it would otherwise prove difficult. In particular, the machines are being used at night, in enclosed, shadowed spaces, and with falling rain, snow or thick fog.\"\n\n\"How do we attack it?\"\n\nHarry placed his hand on the tripod-mounted copper sphere. \"Inside this is an extremely powerful lamp, and the tube contains an arrangement of lenses. When it's turned on, it produces a narrow but very intense beam of light.\"\n\n\"I see. Shine it at the machine's faceplate, and it amplifies the bright light further. Would that blind the man inside?\" He rubbed his arm; it had begun to ache badly.\n\n\"You have it,\" said Harry, smiling. \"The machine's helmet would become filled with strong light, and the operator wouldn't be able to see at all. It's also quite possible that overloading the faceplate's workings would destroy it.\" He patted the copper sphere. \"This projector will throw an extremely powerful patch of light, no more than a foot across, at a range of a hundred feet. For the man inside, it would be comparable to looking directly at the sun.\"\n\nGunn looked at the crate of black bottles. \"What about these?\" He wiped the sweat from his brow. His arm felt as if the bones were being crushed in a vice.\n\n\"Those are a last resort. Wax bottles filled with thick black paint, to be thrown at the faceplate to block the operator's vision. The problem with them is you'd need to be quite close to Pendragon's machine. It could be dangerous, and hitting the faceplate of a moving target will be tricky, to say the least.\"\n\n\"So that's our plan, then. Stop the machine, and catch the men responsible red-handed. Call the police. With the crimes public and the evidence in hand, the authorities will have no choice but to stop the conspirators\u2014with military might, if need be.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"Quite so.\"\n\n\"You seem to have thought this all out quite thoroughly, Harry,\" said Sophie, \"which just leaves one question. When do we use these?\"\n\n\"An excellent question. I've observed that Pendragon's attacks have occurred only on those nights when the weather conditions would make it easier for his airship to move unseen. The skies have been clear for the last two nights, but the Weather Office has predicted a thick fog for tomorrow night. I believe that if Pendragon plans a further attack, that is when it will happen.\"\n\n\"If?\" croaked Gunn. The pain had become almost unbearable.\n\n\"As I mentioned, I've compiled a catalogue of the items Pendragon has stolen, and from that, I've determined that he may be close to completing his list of equipment, if he hasn't done so already. If he already has everything he needs, we're all in a great deal of trouble. If, as I suspect, he's building more of his machines, he could be ready in a matter of weeks. We have to hope that he has at least one more attack planned, so that we have a chance to stop him and his men.\"\n\n\"Where will he strike, if he does?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Tweed's laboratory, near Culbertson's, remains a prime target. There's another workshop, Melton's, about a mile from there, which I think may be another target.\"\n\n\"Do you have a plan?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I think I should take you home now. Your husband appears to be suffering quite serious pain.\"\n\nGunn couldn't stand the agony in his arm any longer. Every heartbeat was like a blacksmith's hammer pounding the bones to powder. \"I think your injection is wearing off,\" he said, his voice a rasp.\n\n\"Then let's adjourn, so that you can rest until tomorrow night.\"\n\nHarry drove Gunn and Sophie home and arranged to collect them again the following midnight, then returned to his workshop. He loaded the projector sphere, the electrical disruptor and the paint bottles into the carriage, then wheeled a larger cart from a dark corner of the building and attached it to a hook on the vehicle's tail. He filled the cart with the other materials from the workshop\u2014the prosthetic limbs, the materials he used for construction, and finally, his dynamic sculpture. He would come back for the lathes and other heavy equipment later. By dawn, the building would be empty, its contents distributed between his other workshops.\n\nHe was almost sure he could trust Gunn and his wife, but until he was absolutely certain, he would continue to take precautions to protect himself. The man had lost a hand, and that had to count for something, but Pendragon was dedicated, and would demand similar commitment from his own people. If Gunn was working for Pendragon, he may have considered the loss of a hand a worthwhile sacrifice in aid of his cause.\n\nIf Pendragon attacked the next night, Harry thought, Gunn's and Sophie's actions would reveal their allegiance.\n\nWebster waited in the shadow of a tree close to the Gunns' flat. The fog's chilling dampness seeped gradually through his coat and the layers beneath\u2014Webster was frozen to the bone, and quite thoroughly miserable. Only his determination prevented him from giving up his watch and going home to get warm and dry.\n\nHe saw the glimmer of two brilliant white acetylene carriage lamps through the fog, and then the silhouette of a steam carriage becoming clear. The vehicle pulled up to the curb outside the Gunns' residence, and a moment later the couple got out and hurried up the steps. As they did so, the light from a nearby gas lamp glinted off something that Gunn appeared to be holding in his hand. His left hand, Webster realised. As Gunn opened the door, Webster got a clearer look, and was stunned when he saw that Gunn had a new prosthetic hand. Where the devil did he get that? Webster wondered.\n\nHe turned his attention to the steam carriage and cursed under his breath. He'd asked his employer to provide him with transport, and the request had been denied. Webster had hoped that the Gunns\u2014or more particularly, their friend\u2014would have arrived on foot.\n\nThere was nothing he could do, no way to follow the steam carriage as it rolled away from the curb and down the street. He would have to say something to his employer in the morning, to the effect that he could not do this job properly without the appropriate resources.\n\nThe carriage had gone into the fog and vanished. Webster looked back at the Gunns' flat just in time to see the lights in the parlour go out.\n\nThe next night was long, foggy, and cold. Gunn waited with Sophie on the roof of the building across the street from Melton's engineering workshop, with Harry's electrical disruptor. A mile southwest of their position, Harry watched Tweed's workshop from the factory roof where Gunn had been, with his light-beam projector. Pendragon's airship did not appear.\n\nAs the sun came up, Harry drove them back to the first warehouse.\n\n\"I know it's early in the day, but I think a snort of brandy might get the blood flowing.\" With that, he poured out three measures.\n\n\"What happens next?\" said Sophie. \"Should we watch again tonight?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said Gunn. \"What does the Weather Office say?\"\n\nHarry went to a compact typing machine on a stand in the corner of the office, and punched a few keys. There was a pause, then the typing head stamped out a line of text. \"They've predicted snow for tonight. Perhaps the fog wasn't sufficient for Pendragon's purposes, in which case snow might make the difference. Given that, I agree that we should stand guard again tonight.\"\n\n\"There was something I noticed,\" said Gunn. \"During the night I saw two or three beat constables.\"\n\n\"I saw the same thing,\" said Harry. \"Not unexpected.\"\n\n\"The night of the Culbertson's attack, I didn't see a single copper.\"\n\n\"What are you thinking, Connie?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"At one time, it occurred to me that perhaps someone was bribing some of the coppers to stay away from certain areas, and I put the idea to Jameson. He told me he knew some of those men personally and that they were honest, trustworthy officers and above that kind of thing.\n\n\"Now, I think I may have the answer. I'm thinking that when the weather is particularly bad\u2014snow, or heavy rain\u2014the policemen aren't walking those parts of their beats that take them very far from the comfort of a public house or something along those lines.\"\n\nHarry cleared his throat. \"In other words, they're in a pub on the east side, warming themselves with a hot toddy, when they should be on patrol in the industrial areas.\"\n\n\"Yes, and it may be that Pendragon is aware of that, in which case perhaps that's another reason why he moves only when the weather is suitable.\"\n\n\"In addition to keeping the airship out of sight,\" Harry finished. \"You know, I think you may very well be right. If I was a policeman on a beat, I know I wouldn't mind so much being out in fog, but rain and snow would be another matter. That makes it all the more likely that tonight will be the night.\"\n\n\"Well done, Connie,\" said Sophie, smiling.\n\n\"Another question occurred to me,\" said Gunn. \"Assuming that Pendragon mounts an attack, and we're able to stop one of his machines, what then? There's a man inside, who probably won't go quietly, and may well be armed\u2014and then the machines themselves are huge and very heavy.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"My thought was that once we saw the airship we'd know the attack was imminent, and at that point, your police whistle would bring assistance. Having said that, I hadn't considered that the man controlling the machine might be armed. We should be better prepared. Tonight, I'll make sure that we each have some way to defend ourselves. As to moving the machine, I hadn't given it any thought. I was planning to make my examinations on the spot, and if possible, remove any interesting components for study.\"\n\n\"If the police will let you,\" said Sophie.\n\n\"We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.\" Harry looked at Gunn. \"I think it's time we all got some rest, but first I'd like to see how your arm's coming along. How's the pain?\"\n\nGunn's arm no longer felt as though it was on fire. \"Bearable, at the moment. The pain seems to be fading.\"\n\nHarry looked at the arm and the places where the metal parts met flesh. \"No unusual inflammation, and no sign of infection. It seems to be coming along nicely. Can you feel anything yet?\"\n\nGunn nodded. \"I can feel something when I touch the fingertips. And I found that I can do this,\" he said, holding up both hands. As Sophie and Harry watched, Gunn tried to open and close his left and right hands simultaneously. With his uninjured right hand he made a fist and then spread his fingers; at the same time, the fingers of the mechanical left hand curled a little, then straightened.\n\n\"Excellent!\" said Harry, his smile beaming. \"At this rate, you'll have full function within two or three days.\"\n\n\"I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.\"\n\nHarry delivered Gunn and Sophie to their front door. Harry and Gunn looked around casually for any sign of the man with the muttonchops, but there was not a soul in sight. Gunn and Sophie retreated indoors and Harry drove off.\n\nGunn couldn't sleep. The pain in his left arm was bearable, now, but Harry had been right\u2014the itching was abominable. Gunn also, in some strange way, felt a cold, tingling sensation in the metal hand, as if the flesh was coming back to life after having the circulation of blood cut off.\n\nSophie was asleep and breathing softly, a strand of red hair across her cheek. Gunn smiled and gently kissed her forehead, then made his way to the kitchen to make himself some tea. While he was waiting for the kettle to boil, he heard a tapping at the front door.\n\nJameson stood on the step, holding an umbrella against the light snow that had covered the pavement and the road with a thin, fluffy white layer.\n\n\"Jameson. Come inside where it's warm. Care for a cup of tea? I was just making some.\"\n\n\"That would be very welcome,\" said Jameson, shivering a little. He shook the snow from his brolly and closed it, stepping inside.\n\n\"Take a seat in the parlour, then. I'll be with you in a minute.\" Gunn led the way along the hallway.\n\n\"By Jupiter!\" said Jameson, staring at Gunn's shiny metal hand. \"Where on earth did that come from?\"\n\n\"Ah. Therein lies a tale. I'll tell you all about it.\" He ushered Jameson into the parlour and went to the kitchen to finish the tea. He was unsure how much he should tell Jameson, but then decided to hold nothing back, reasoning that he owed it to the man. He'd tell Harry Bohemia in due course, and if Harry didn't like it, well then, he'd have to lump it. It was about time Harry afforded Gunn\u2014and Sophie\u2014a little trust in return for the trust they gave him.\n\nHe carried the tea tray through to the parlour, supporting the weight with his right hand, but allowing himself to steady it with the left. Through the unpleasant tickling, tingling sensations, he fancied that he could feel the wood of the tray against the fingertips.\n\n\"That hand is very impressive. It's a working prosthetic, then? Not just for show?\"\n\n\"Yes. I'm told I should be up to using a typing machine quite soon, in fact.\"\n\nJameson frowned. \"What about Doctor Christie?\"\n\nOh, Law, thought Gunn. He didn't want to upset Jameson by insulting the man's colleague. \"How well do you know Christie?\"\n\n\"I've worked with him for some years. He's not precisely a friend, if that's what you're asking.\"\n\nIt's too early in the day for this, thought Gunn. He decided to take the plunge. \"To be honest, I wasn't too pleased with his reputation as a surgeon. And there's something about his manner that puts me off. I can't say that I trust him.\" There, he thought, I've said it.\n\n\"Since we're being honest, then, you're probably better off.\" Gunn smiled, relieved. Jameson continued, \"Christie's a good man to have in an emergency\u2014he's saved more than one life, stitching up stab wounds and such\u2014but, say, if I needed my appendix out, I'd be looking for someone better.\"\n\n\"All the same, I'm sorry I wasted his time. If he should ask, tell him I had a recommendation that was too good to pass up.\"\n\n\"Whom did you go to, then?\"\n\n\"This,\" said Gunn, holding the hand up, \"is courtesy of Doctor Bohemia.\" He flexed the fingers for effect.\n\nJameson stood sharply. \"Are you insane?\" he spluttered. \"He's involved in these crimes, every copper in London's looking for him, and you're letting him at you like that?\"\n\n\"Calm down, man\u2014you'll wake Sophie. He's not responsible; far from it. He wants me to help him stop the man behind the robberies, a man calling himself Pendragon. Although, I suspect that's not his real name.\"\n\nJameson harrumphed, and sat down, frowning. He was silent for a few seconds as he calmed himself. Then he shook his head in resignation. \"A stage name, perhaps, like Bohemia himself?\"\n\n\"That's quite possible, but I haven't had time to look into it. We've been far too busy.\"\n\n\"Then leave it with me and I'll see what I can find out about him. Busy, you say? Doing what? I was under the impression that you've been recuperating here at home.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"Two nights ago, Bohemia gave me this hand, then last night, we were out on a rooftop waiting for Pendragon to strike. We'll be doing the same thing again, tonight.\"\n\n\"Busy, indeed.\" Jameson frowned, and his jaw clenched. His voice took on a firmer tone. \"You're going to get yourself and your wife into a great deal of trouble. You recall what I said about arresting you for your own protection? That goes for Sophie, too, if you get her involved in all this. Don't make me do that to a lady, Gunn.\"\n\n\"Jameson, you don't understand. This isn't about a handful of men stealing things to sell for a few quid. There's a conspiracy here.\"\n\n\"All the more reason that you should leave this to me. This is a police matter.\"\n\n\"We can't trust the police\u2014present company excepted, of course. There's a possibility that Pendragon's influence reaches into the Home Office\u2014\"\n\nJameson's eyes narrowed. \"I find that hard to believe.\"\n\n\"Pendragon has an airship, machines, and men. Bohemia and I think it likely that those resources were provided by others. People in positions of power. It's possible that those people might be within our own government, even. Until we know who's helping Pendragon, we have to be careful who we tell about all this.\"\n\nJameson whistled. \"That's a very serious charge.\" He shifted in his seat as if uncomfortable, and rubbed his chin. Then he nodded. \"All right, since you won't see sense, but you're not keeping me in the dark this time. I can provide some assistance without word going any higher up my particular ladder.\"\n\n\"And without Bohemia finding out, either. That's important. He won't thank me for bringing the police in behind his back.\"\n\nJameson nodded. \"Mum's the word, then. Now, I can think of half a dozen good men that I trust. I'll have them dress in plain clothes and place themselves around the area where you'll be tonight.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's advisable. If Bohemia sees men loitering he'll suspect something, and if you position them at the places we think are Pendragon's other potential targets, they won't be able to do anything more than raise the alarm. We have equipment that we think might stop Pendragon's machines\u2014but your men won't have any such thing, and I know from personal experience just how dangerous those machines are. You'd be placing your men in harm's way for no good reason.\"\n\nJameson looked disappointed, and Gunn knew his friend was just as eager to help bring Pendragon in as he, Sophie and Bohemia were.\n\n\"I have a better idea. We're going after the machines. You and your men could try to stop the airship.\"\n\nJameson smiled at that, and rubbed his hands together. \"Now you're talking.\"\n\n\"Pendragon uses the airship to land the machines, then fly them out after they've done their work. If you were to put your people in a vehicle and listen out for the airship's engines, they could follow it to the landing point. The airship lands, the machines go off to do their dirty work, and while they're away\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014my men take the airship,\" Jameson finished, grinning with evident excitement at the prospect of action.\n\n\"You'll have to be well prepared. We have no idea how many men the airship might be carrying, and they'll probably be armed.\"\n\n\"Then the objective will be to hold them. If we can disable the aircraft to prevent it from lifting, we can hold them on the ground until we can bring in reinforcements.\"\n\n\"More people you can trust?\"\n\n\"Even if you're correct about a conspiracy, the people involved would have to be at high levels. I don't see how beat bobbies could be a part of such a thing. I can make sure that there are plenty of men in the area. What do you think?\"\n\n\"You know your men, and I trust your judgement. Just don't let them get into a situation where they're laying siege to a group of criminals defending an armoured military airship. Remember, you wouldn't be able to call in military reinforcements\u2014we can't be sure that they're taking orders from the right people.\"\n\n\"Leave that to me.\"\n\n\"Your plan should also include dealing with two large, powerful machines arriving during the proceedings. If we're lucky, Pendragon will only deploy one machine, and if we're very, very lucky we might be able to bring it down. If he decides to go after two targets, you'll have at least one machine to deal with, and the only help I can give you is some information about how you might disable it by blinding the man inside.\"\n\nGunn explained what he and Bohemia had divined about the machine's visual mechanisms. Jameson rubbed his chin in thought. \"The armoury at the Yard has a few things that might suit, I think. The problem is getting anything out without raising eyebrows.\" He looked at Gunn. \"But that's my problem, not yours. Let me see what I can do.\"\n\n\"Then I leave it in your capable hands.\"\n\nThat evening, as they waited for Harry Bohemia to collect them, Gunn heard the machine in his study clatter then ring its little bell to signal that a message had been received. Jameson's men were equipped and would be ready and waiting to move against the airship.\n\nWhen Harry arrived, Gunn and Sophie dashed through the falling snow and hopped into his carriage. The carriage began moving before Gunn had even closed the door, and Harry slid the divider open so that he could talk while he drove.\n\n\"This weather's going to make it difficult to see and signal each other, so I've been considering an alternative plan for tonight. I was going to suggest that instead of lying in wait, we stay in this carriage and listen out for the airship.\"\n\nGunn and Sophie looked sharply at each other. Sophie shook her head, ever so slightly. Gunn knew she was thinking the same thing that he was; they couldn't risk Harry running into Jameson's men.\n\n\"I thought we'd agreed it would be pointless to go after the airship,\" Gunn blurted out.\n\n\"My idea was to follow the airship until it dropped off one of the machines, then follow that machine to its destination.\"\n\nGunn thought quickly and spoke in a rush. \"It won't work. The machine can run as fast as a racehorse. We won't keep up, especially in snow.\"\n\n\"That's a good point.\"\n\nSophie's eyes flashed at Gunn as she spoke. \"Harry, even if we could catch up to the machine, could we unload the equipment in time to use it?\"\n\n\"Another very good point.\" Harry sounded disappointed. \"In that case let's stick to the original plan.\"\n\nGunn looked at Sophie and rolled his eyes. She turned away, shoulders shaking, suppressing a laugh.\n\nThe little carriage rattled on through the snow toward Battersea, and half an hour later, Harry parked the vehicle in the alleyway below the roof from where Gunn and Sophie would stand watch. He opened the small luggage carrier mounted on the rear and pulled out three heavy objects, each wrapped in thick cloth. He kept one for himself and handed the others to Gunn and Sophie.\n\nGunn unwrapped the package and found a compressed-air dart pistol. It was shiny and clean, but the metal and wood on the grip had a patina that told Gunn the pistol had seen quite a bit of use.\n\n\"I was hoping to get something a little more powerful, but these were the best I could do. You do know how to use them, I hope?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gunn. He'd used something almost identical for vermin control on his parents' farm.\n\nHarry looked at Sophie. \"I couldn't find one more appropriate for a lady. Allow me to\u2014\"\n\nBefore he could finish, she clicked the magazine release with her right thumb and caught the falling magazine in her left hand, then inverted the pistol and pressed the air valve. Air hissed out of the pressure reservoir. Just as quickly, she slid the magazine back into place and pulled it back so it engaged into place with a solid click, then worked the pump built into the grip to pressurise the air tank.\n\n\"Calvert and Ward model eleven,\" she said, \"originally designed in 1840. Point four-one calibre. Six seventy grain darts in the magazine and one in the chamber.\" She flipped a catch on the side of the pistol and the barrel folded down to the grip. She slipped the weapon into a pocket of her jacket, grinning at Harry's open-mouthed expression of surprise. \"When I told my father of my decision to take medical training and serve in Africa, he made it a point to teach his daughter how to protect herself.\"\n\nHarry closed his mouth. \"Of course he did. My apologies, Sophie.\"\n\nGunn and Sophie walked out of the shelter of the alleyway as Harry drove off to his own position. A few minutes later, they were back up on the roof overlooking Melton's workshop. Snow fell in large, wet flakes. Gunn found the chilled air had the effect of reducing the pins and needles in his left hand significantly, and he was able to ignore the itching almost completely.\n\n\"Harry was wrong about the goggles. I can see him perfectly well,\" said Sophie.\n\nGunn followed Sophie's gaze in the direction of Harry's vantage point. He could see the building\u2014and Harry\u2014quite clearly.\n\nSophie turned back to Gunn, and absently ran her fingertips along the metal of his prosthetic hand. \"How much of someone could be replaced like this, Connie? While still remaining human, I mean.\"\n\n\"Did you ever hear about the Russian chess champion, Boris Gorodetski?\"\n\n\"I've heard of him. He played here in London when I was a little girl. Daddy wanted to come down and see him, but he wasn't able to get away. Later on, I seem to remember something about an accident.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"It was no accident. There was a tournament in Riga and Gorodetski beat the Latvian champion, which didn't go down well with the locals. A few days later, he was on a rest day admiring the view from a tower on a cathedral, and a local man accused him of cheating. An argument turned into a struggle, and Gorodetski fell, and landed in the cathedral square.\"\n\n\"Oh, my goodness!\"\n\n\"Indeed. The fall should have killed him, but somehow he survived. His body was devastated, though. Both arms and legs were smashed and had to be amputated, his skull was fractured, most of his ribs shattered, he lost an eye and the use of an ear, and some of his internal organs were ruptured.\"\n\n\"That's terrible, Connie.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was. The Russian government shipped him back to a hospital in Moscow. Nobody expected him to live, and nothing was heard about Gorodetski for quite some time. Then some incredible news came from an agency in Moscow\u2014Gorodetski had made a public appearance at a chess tournament there, and he'd been rebuilt.\"\n\n\"Rebuilt?\" Sophie's mouth was an O of disbelief.\n\n\"New arms and legs,\" said Gunn, holding up his left arm. \"A new eye and ear. Apparently his spine and most of his ribs had been replaced with metal, and the damaged organs removed and replaced with artificial ones.\"\n\n\"I don't know if I'd want to live like that.\"\n\nGunn shrugged. \"I think if it was me and the choice was to live like that or be left to die, I'd give life a chance. At least that way, I could choose to end it later if I really couldn't stand to go on.\"\n\nSophie shivered. \"I don't know that I'd want to go through all that. The surgeries, the pain.\" Then she turned back to face Harry's roof.\n\n\"There is that, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Hush. Do you hear that?\"\n\nGunn listened. He thought he heard a faint vibration in the breeze. Within seconds, it became unmistakeable. He looked off to the south, straining to see through the snow\u2014then saw the silhouette of the triple-enveloped airship.\n\n\"Pendragon's coming.\" He looked across at Harry's roof. Harry had heard the engines too, and was flashing the projector. Gunn waved back to acknowledge, and the flashes stopped. \"Are you ready?\"\n\n\"As ready as I can be,\" said Sophie. She cleared snow from the parapet to make a space, then placed onto it the box containing the electrical disruptor. She opened it. \"I hope the snow doesn't stop this thing working.\"\n\n\"Let's not risk it.\" He took his jacket off and draped it over the opening to keep the snowflakes from falling into the machine's innards.\n\n\"Connie, you'll freeze!\"\n\nHe had to raise his voice over the din of propellers. \"I'll be fine!\"\n\nHe looked up, his hands over his ears against the noise. The airship was almost over them, slipping gracefully through the snowstorm.\n\nSophie shouted, \"What should we do?\"\n\n\"Nothing! All we can do is watch and wait!\"\n\nThe engine noise began to fade as the airship continued north. Gunn dashed to the ledge overlooking the street and looked down, watching for movement from that direction, impatient for action. He glanced behind him and saw Sophie watching for Harry's signal, in case the attack happened at his location. The sound of the airship's engines faded away, leaving behind it only the faint pattering of fat snowflakes.\n\nA minute passed, then another. Gunn paced between the parapet, where he looked down into the street, and Sophie's side of the roof. It's taking too long, he thought, worried that Pendragon's attack was taking place elsewhere. \"Is Harry doing anything?\"\n\n\"I can see him watching the road over there. He hasn't signalled yet.\"\n\nGunn felt the rhythmic thumping of the machine's approach through the soles of his shoes before he heard the machine itself, clumping along the road from the north. \"It's coming!\" he shouted, relieved that they were in the right place after all, and excited at the prospect of some decisive action. His cheeks ached and he realised he was grinning like an idiot. \"Start cranking!\"\n\nThe machine came into sight, running along the road, arms outstretched. From behind him, a whirring noise built up to a high-pitched whine as Sophie cranked the electrical disruptor faster and faster. He ran to the parapet on the south side and waved frantically at Harry. For a moment, there was no response; then he saw Harry's acknowledgement, a quick double flash from the light projector. Gunn knew Harry would come as quickly as he could. Gunn ran back toward the other side of the roof, intending to see what effect, if any, the disruptor was having on the machine.\n\nWithout warning, a lightning bolt of pain shot from his mechanical left hand, up to his shoulder and beyond, into his spine. The impact knocked the wind out of him. He felt as if he'd been hit in the back with a sledgehammer. Gunn couldn't ever remember feeling such agony\u2014even losing his hand hadn't hurt that much.\n\nThe world began to slide and spin, then the strength evaporated from his legs and he collapsed. He couldn't breathe. He felt a strange fluttering sensation from his mechanical hand, and without thinking, he looked at it. Almost absently he saw that it was twitching, the fingers snapping open and shut spastically.\n\n\"Connie!\" he heard Sophie yell, and then she was kneeling by his side. \"What's wrong?\" Gunn gasped for air, unable to speak. \"Talk to me, Connie!\"\n\n\"Can't . . . breathe . . .\" he managed to croak.\n\nSophie's medical training asserted itself. \"You're going to be fine, sweetheart. You're just winded. Let your body go limp, close your eyes.\"\n\nGunn did so, and tried to relax. The pain began to subside.\n\n\"That's good. Try to take a deep breath.\"\n\nHe tried, and was able to take one shallow breath and then another.\n\n\"Again.\"\n\nHe forced himself to relax, and drew in a long, deep breath. He let it out and took another. \"That's better,\" he said in a rough whisper.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure. I think the hand may have gone wrong and given me some kind of shock.\"\n\n\"Harry will be here at any moment. We'll ask him.\"\n\nGunn tried to relax, then realised with a start that they were missing the attack, and Sophie wasn't cranking the disruptor. \"Help me up, quick.\" Sophie pulled his arm as he got to his feet.\n\nHe ran to the parapet, and heard the rhythmic thump of the machine's feet against the road to his left. He glanced that way and caught a flash of bronze that vanished as the machine disappeared into the falling snow.\n\nHe looked down. The front of the workshop across the street was smashed in. \"Damn it!\" he cried out. \"We've missed it!\" He clenched his fist and pounded the parapet. All was silent. \"It's all over,\" he fumed. \"We might as well go down.\"\n\nSophie closed up the disruptor and they made their way down to ground level. As they reached the street, Harry arrived in the steam carriage. He braked sharply to a halt and jumped out. He looked at Gunn. \"Heavens, Gunn, you're white as a sheet. What happened?\" He looked at the smashed wall. \"I take it the disruptor didn't work.\"\n\n\"We don't know,\" said Gunn through clenched teeth. He still trembled from the shock, and sweated despite the cold.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nSophie explained. \"Connie had some kind of convulsion. I had to stop to help him. He said the hand did something to him.\"\n\n\"That's not possible,\" Harry said, shaking his head in confusion, then the expression on his face changed to one of wide-eyed horror. \"Oh, no! This is all my fault. I should have realised\u2014\"\n\n\"The disruptor!\" said Sophie.\n\nHarry nodded. \"Precisely. The disruptor would have induced electrical currents in the control wiring\u2014powerful ones, shooting right into the nerves. They're easily irritated, and will remain so while they're bonding to the hand. Once that process is complete, the sensitivity will disappear. It didn't even occur to me. I'm very, very sorry, Gunn.\"\n\n\"Why didn't that happen in your workshop?\" said Gunn, recalling the faint tingle he'd felt at the time.\n\n\"Because I'd only just fitted it to you\u2014the bonding process had barely begun.\" He shook his head. \"You'd better go and rest. I want to take a look at what the machine did.\"\n\nSophie took Gunn's hand and led him to the carriage, while Harry surveyed the damage to the workshop. \"How are you feeling?\" said Sophie, once she and Gunn had settled themselves in the seats.\n\nGunn shuddered, and knew that he suffered from some delayed reaction to the jolt. \"Still a little shaken.\" His voice sounded little more than a hoarse whisper.\n\n\"You're in shock. We'll get home and have a nice hot drink, then I think you need some sleep.\"\n\n\"I think a nip of brandy would help.\" He suddenly felt very tired.\n\nGunn saw Harry come back out through the broken wall, then stop and look upward. He heard the sound of airship engines, and opened the door to peer out. Pendragon's airship was flying back the way it had come.\n\nHarry returned, and stood next to the open carriage door. \"I think we may have squandered our last chance.\"\n\n\"What did you find in there?\" said Gunn, his voice still quavering.\n\n\"A safe designed to hold blueprints and design papers, torn open like a wet cardboard box and emptied.\"\n\n\"What do you mean about this being our last chance, then?\"\n\nHarry frowned, his face a picture of despair. \"I think Pendragon now has all the items he needs to launch his campaign against the European countries. I suspect that waiting for another theft like this will be fruitless.\"\n\nGunn's spirits fell. Their chances of stopping Pendragon had just become almost nil. \"When do you think he'll move against Europe?\"\n\nHarry shook his head weakly. \"That's very difficult to say. I believe he'll spend some time building his forces first. I think he'll want more of those machines ready before he acts. If we're lucky we may have a few weeks of grace, but it could potentially be only a matter of days.\"\n\n\"Then what should we do?\" asked Sophie.\n\n\"I've been thinking about that for quite some time.\" He stood and took a breath, and brushed the snow from his coat. \"For now, I'm taking you home. We'll talk more tomorrow, when we've all had some time to rest.\"\n\nWebster waited in the little steam-powered buggy. He left the engine running, so he could move quickly when the time came\u2014and the heat from the engine kept the vehicle deliciously warm and dry. He looked out at the wet snowflakes making a halo around the nearest street gaslight, and smiled.\n\nHis employer had agreed, at last, to buy Webster a vehicle. Webster had found this little buggy. He had no need to walk around in the cold any more, which pleased him to no end.\n\nTime passed. The sun would rise soon, and there was still no sign of the Gunns. Webster grew drowsy in the warmth, and had to concentrate to stop himself from falling asleep.\n\nHe saw the acetylene lights at the far end of the street and shook himself properly awake. The vehicle dropped Gunn and his wife off at their door. Webster pumped the steam pressure and released the brake. The carriage moved off, and Webster let it get thirty yards ahead before he began to follow.\n\nHis quarry made a turn and went out of sight. Webster took the corner quickly; the carriage was already fifty yards ahead of him and accelerating. The driver must have seen him. Webster pumped up more pressure and pressed the pedal harder. The gap began to close.\n\nThe carriage made a sharp turn into an alleyway between two large houses. Webster cursed. He has to have eyes in the back of his head, he thought as he made the same turn.\n\nHe caught sight of the carriage as it reached the far end and disappeared around the corner. He raced along as fast as he dared, and turned the same way.\n\nThere was no sign of the carriage. He looked down in the hope of finding a trail in the snow, but this was a major road, kept clear by the brushes of the trams that passed along it every few minutes. Webster cursed again, and stopped at the curb.\n\nHe smiled. The mystery man had Webster's respect. It had been a while since he'd been up against someone who seemed to have more than a smattering of intelligence and cunning. Webster loved a challenge.\n\nI'll find you, he thought. This is going to be fun.\n\nAs Gunn and Sophie let themselves into their flat, Gunn heard the sound of a steam carriage coming along the street, and turned. The carriage pulled up at the curb sharply, and Jameson climbed out. Suppressed anger darkened his face. \"We need to talk.\"\n\nGunn nodded and the three went indoors and to the parlour. Sophie stoked the fire back to life.\n\n\"We failed miserably,\" said Gunn, explaining what had happened. \"Did you have better success with the airship?\"\n\nJameson shook his head. His eyes bored into Gunn's, his lips a tight line. \"A man is dead, Gunn.\"\n\nGunn's eyes widened. \"How the devil did that happen?\"\n\nJameson took a deep breath and let it out, evidently trying to calm himself. The man's shoulders slumped a little. \"We'd expected the airship to land on solid ground, but it hovered above the roof of a building, and the machine was winched down from there. We couldn't get high enough to make an effective attack, and we couldn't use the rigging cutter, because the damned airship was too high up for us to get within range.\"\n\n\"Rigging cutter?\" asked Sophie.\n\nGunn answered, \"A machine that throws out a spinning disk with a razor edge. Pirates use them to cut through ropes on boats and airships, to disable them from a distance before they attack.\"\n\nJameson nodded. \"Three of my men managed to get up onto a roof with the cutter, in an attempt to get close enough to use it. Then that big machine came back. I ordered the men to hold position, but I'd split my forces, and it was obvious we didn't have a chance. It took just seconds for the people aboard the airship to hook their machine, and they moved before it had even been winched aboard. That's when we found that one of my men had slipped on the snow and fallen off the roof.\"\n\nGunn heard Sophie take a sudden intake of breath, and Gunn's disappointment at their earlier failure turned to guilt. He shook his head. \"I'm sorry, Jameson. This is all my fault\u2014I shouldn't have got you involved.\"\n\n\"No one is sorrier than I am. Daniel was a good man, and now I'll have to lie to his family about what happened to him.\"\n\nGunn understood what Jameson meant; there was no way Jameson would be able to tell anyone that he'd had men out working on a clandestine operation.\n\n\"I can't maintain any further involvement in this, Gunn. As it is, it's going to be difficult enough to cover up what's happened.\" He got up, picked up his hat, and left.\n\nEarly the next morning, Harry appeared at Gunn's front door. Gunn invited him in\u2014the first time Harry had ever been inside Gunn and Sophie's home.\n\nAs Gunn showed him into the parlour, he couldn't help but notice the grim expression on Harry's face. Sophie joined them.\n\n\"You lied to me, Gunn,\" Harry said. \"There were police on the scene last night, and they were there because of you.\"\n\nGunn couldn't deny it. \"Yes. They were there because I trust the man who led them, and you can trust him too.\"\n\n\"And what about his superiors? Can I trust them? Especially after what I've told you?\"\n\n\"Jameson's superiors don't know anything about what happened last night, and they won't find out from him. As it is, one of his men was killed last night and he's going to have a devil of a time keeping that quiet.\"\n\n\"I don't know how he can possibly keep it quiet. How do you suppose I found out about it? A police constable saw the airship, and your man Jameson's futile attempt on it. That witness wired a report to none other than your own newspaper, and my equipment alerted me. The whole thing will be all over the city within hours.\"\n\nGunn stiffened, surprised by the revelation. \"Unless I can stop it. I have to see Maynard. Immediately.\"\n\nGunn sent a message to Jameson, asking him to meet Harry and himself at the Tribune's offices, then Gunn and Harry left in Harry's vehicle.\n\nAs Harry drove, Gunn glanced at him, eyes narrowed. \"You said you were alerted. What did you mean?\"\n\nHarry's eyes stayed on the road, but his mouth twisted into a grin. \"How do you think I was able to get to the crime scenes so quickly? I have a small engine watching the wires into the newspapers, including your own. Quite illegal, of course, but I have no criminal intent. It signals me if it sees mention of airships, or workshops or banks being broken into. You won't tell anyone, will you?\"\n\nGunn smiled. \"Your secret is safe.\"\n\nJameson waited by the street door of the building when they arrived.\n\n\"What's this all about, Gunn?\"\n\n\"I'm glad you could come, Jameson.\" Gunn indicated Harry. \"This is Doctor Bohemia.\"\n\nJameson extended his hand. \"Inspector Jameson. Glad to make your acquaintance at last, Doctor.\"\n\nHarry looked at Jameson suspiciously, then took his hand. \"You may call me Harry.\"\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Gunn, \"time is short.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Harry.\n\nGunn led the way into the building. \"It seems you were observed last night, Jameson. Maynard will print the story unless we can stop him. We have to make sure that we do.\"\n\n\"Do you know who the witness was?\" said Jameson.\n\n\"No, and we need to know that too. We have to make sure that they don't go blabbing the story all over Fleet Street. I may be able to persuade Maynard not to print, but I can't stop the other papers if they get the scent of a story.\"\n\nThe three marched up the stairs and along the corridor toward Maynard's office. Through the open door, they saw Maynard sitting behind his desk, reviewing a proof of a front page. Gunn tapped on the door and Maynard looked up curiously. \"Come in,\" he said. Maynard nodded at Gunn, \"Cornelius.\" He glanced casually at Gunn's missing left hand\u2014then his eyes opened wide at the sight of the metal replacement.\n\n\"Mister Maynard,\" said Gunn, \"may I introduce Inspector Jameson of Scotland Yard, and Doctor Harry Bohemia.\"\n\nMaynard tore his attention away from Gunn's hand. \"What can I do for you, gentlemen?\"\n\nJameson spoke first. \"We understand a person came to this newspaper claiming to have witnessed a rather unusual event in Battersea last night.\"\n\nMaynard nodded. \"A man came to us this morning with a story, yes.\"\n\nJameson stepped toward Maynard, gloved fists on the desk. \"You must not print this story under any circumstance.\"\n\nMaynard leaned back, as if to retreat a little from the inspector. \"I had no plan to print. At least, not immediately.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Gunn firmly.\n\nJameson stepped back, having made his point, and Maynard relaxed a little. He turned to Gunn.\n\n\"Cornelius, you of all people should know that you don't go to press with a story until you've got some kind of verification. In this case, we know that a workshop was broken into in a manner similar to the other robberies that you're well aware of, and that much we can print. However, this man came to us with an improbable story involving airships and mechanical men, and until we can be sure his story is solid, I'm not about to risk the Tribune's reputation for accurate reporting.\"\n\n\"We have that verification,\" said a voice from the doorway. The men turned to see Gallagher standing there. He stepped into the office and turned to face Jameson. \"I spoke to the constable myself. His story is consistent, and I see no reason to doubt it.\"\n\nJameson's face was suddenly inches from Gallagher's. \"Reveal this constable, sir. I require a name.\"\n\n\"I\u2014\" Gallagher began.\n\nMaynard interrupted, \"Don't set the piece for print just yet, Randolph. Please close the door on your way out, would you? There's a good chap.\"\n\nGallagher glared at Jameson, but said nothing. He turned and strode out of the room, closing the door none too gently.\n\nMaynard cleared his throat. \"Would you please explain what this is all about?\"\n\n\"There's a conspiracy, Mister Maynard,\" Harry said calmly, \"that we suspect may have worked its way to high levels of this country's government. Until we know who is involved, we have to be extremely careful. If you print this story, you'll be informing the conspirators that we're aware of them. It may very well provoke them into taking action that we're not prepared for.\"\n\n\"Such as what?\"\n\n\"There's a possibility that the Home Office may be involved. If that's the case, this story may bring Jameson's involvement to their attention, and that would not be a good thing. More importantly, and quite likely in my opinion, officials within the War Office may be a part of the conspiracy, and if that's the case, you'd be tipping them off that their plans may be under threat. I don't know how they might react to that, but there's a good chance that they'll do what they can to accelerate their schedule.\"\n\n\"Not to put too fine a point on it,\" said Jameson, \"but printing the story may very well be aiding an enemy of the Empire.\"\n\n\"Are you planning to have me arrested, Inspector?\" said Maynard.\n\n\"You misunderstand me, sir. I'm simply asking you to consider the interests of your country.\"\n\nMaynard sighed, and faced Gunn. \"You do realise, don't you, that if I suppress the story, Gallagher's quite likely to sell it to another newspaper?\"\n\n\"Would he do that?\" asked Gunn, surprised.\n\n\"It would result in his firing, and he knows it, but that won't stop him if he thinks it would get him a desk at one of our rivals. That's immaterial, though. It would be too late. The story would be out.\"\n\n\"Then let me deal with Mister Gallagher\u2014and see about this witness,\" said Jameson, and Gunn could see that he was seething as he stepped out of the office and closed the door.\n\nGunn turned back to Maynard. \"I can offer you something in return for holding back,\" he said in a conciliatory tone. \"When this is all over\u2014assuming we succeed in stopping these people\u2014you'll have an absolute corker of a story to print, and it will be exclusive to the Tribune.\"\n\nMaynard looked from Gunn to Harry and back, rubbing his chin. Gunn could almost hear the sound of money being counted.\n\n\"What do you say, Mister Maynard?\" said Harry. \"Can we count on your support?\"\n\nHe nodded. \"I'll hold back the story, and not only that, I'm going to have a quiet word with some of the other newspaper editors I know.\" Harry stiffened. \"Don't worry,\" said Maynard quickly, \"I won't tell them anything about this. Just a few general things, in the interests of the Empire, you understand. Trust me. In return, the Tribune gets your story.\"\n\n\"With my by-line,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"As you say. Your by-line.\"\n\nHarry returned to Gunn's flat the next morning.\n\n\"I'm sure that Pendragon is done gathering mat\u00e9riel. His next step will be to attack the European countries, to destroy their technical resources.\"\n\n\"How can we stop that?\" asked Sophie. \"How would we even know where to start?\"\n\nHarry shrugged. \"I don't believe we can. This is beyond the limited abilities of three ordinary people. All we might do is warn them.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we could try to find out where Pendragon keeps his airship,\" she suggested.\n\nHarry sighed. \"I've tried. It's military grade, so the first places to look would be the air service stations. But there are hundreds of them\u2014it would take months.\"\n\nSophie gave a Mona Lisa smile. \"Don't underestimate what we can do, Harry. But,\" she continued, precluding any questions, \"you were talking about warning Europe. How might we do that?\"\n\n\"We could visit the embassies and consulates, tell them what we know. And hope, for their sakes, that they take heed.\"\n\nGunn nodded. \"There may not be much time. We should start right away, with the French embassy.\"\n\n\"You two can manage,\" said Sophie with her enigmatic smile. \"I have other things to be getting on with.\"\n\nThe French Embassy looked like a ch\u00e2teau that had been lifted bodily from an estate in Bordeaux, and dropped in Knightsbridge. \"Beautiful, isn't it?\" said Harry.\n\nDespite the seriousness of their endeavours, Gunn found himself in good spirits. The pains in his arm had faded to a point where he could ignore them for the most part, which cheered him immensely.\n\nBut Jameson's warning to Gallagher lifted his spirits further still. If so much as a whisper of the Pendragon affair appeared in print, Gallagher would find himself in a cell in the darkest corner of Scotland Yard's basement. It was an empty threat\u2014Jameson could do no such thing without advertising his involvement\u2014but Gallagher hadn't known that, and caved in so quickly that, as Jameson had said, the furniture should have been sucked into the implosion. Gunn couldn't help but laugh as he recounted the story.\n\nThey proceeded into the embassy's foyer, and the young man sitting behind the reception desk nodded in greeting. \"Good morning, gentlemen. How may I help you?\"\n\nGunn opened his mouth to speak, but was forestalled when Harry spouted forth a stream of French, of which Gunn understood not a single word. The receptionist smiled, gave a similarly unintelligible reply, then pressed a button on a wood and metal console at one side of his desk.\n\nHarry smiled and gave a little bow. \"The gentleman here has called for someone to come and collect us, and asked us to take a seat while we wait.\"\n\nGunn led the way to a row of wooden armchairs set against a nearby wall.\n\n\"He said it may take a little while. I rather suspect our business is not the kind of thing they deal with often.\"\n\nGunn knew how slowly the wheels turned in these places, and settled in for a long wait.\n\nAlmost two hours had passed when a young man descended the marble staircase behind the receptionist's desk, and approached them. \"Monsieur Lambert apologises for keeping you waiting,\" he said in a strong French accent. \"This way, if you please, gentlemen.\" He gestured toward the stairs.\n\nGunn and Harry followed the young man up two floors, along a corridor, past elaborate alabaster carvings, and several dark, polished wooden doors with brass handles. Finally, he stopped at one of the doors. \"Please,\" he said, stepping aside to let Harry and Gunn enter first.\n\nThe room was furnished in an opulent style, with a heavy-looking desk near the windows, and matching chairs along every wall. In the centre of the room, a coffee table surrounded by padded leather armchairs rested on a thick red and gold pile rug.\n\nA man of about thirty stood behind the desk, and waved a hand at the chairs facing him. \"Please, sit,\" he said. \"I am Pierre Lambert, secretary to the Ambassador. What is it that I can do for you today?\"\n\nHarry cleared his throat, \"I believe the question is, rather, what can we do for you? Or to be more accurate, what can we do for your great country?\"\n\nLambert frowned slightly. \"Really, Mister\u2014\"\n\n\"Doctor Bohemia.\"\n\n\"Doctor Bohemia. Before you say anything more, I must point out that many people come here attempting to sell us information, or inventions, or equipment and machinery of all kinds. If that is what you intend\u2014\"\n\n\"No, Monsieur Lambert. We have information for you, that is true, but we do not expect any kind of payment.\"\n\n\"What kind of information?\" Lambert asked doubtfully, still frowning.\n\nHarry and Gunn explained Pendragon's plan to destroy the technological capabilities of the European countries. \"We believe the assault will begin with an imminent attack on France,\" Harry concluded.\n\n\"Have you spoken to your police, or the British Foreign Office?\"\n\nGunn answered. \"We have reason to believe that Pendragon is aided by people in the British government. We have no idea how many people are involved, or who they might be, but we can't risk this information falling into the wrong hands.\"\n\nLambert looked from Gunn to Bohemia and back in derision. \"I am not inclined to waste the ambassador's time with such an improbable story. Nevertheless, there are procedures that I am obliged to adhere to, and so I must inform him. However, I will be making my opinion of this matter very clear. Someone will show you out.\"\n\nWebster parked his carriage at the curb and began to follow the two men. He felt uncomfortable doing so in broad daylight. Gunn's friend had a habit of looking over his shoulder every few steps, so Webster had to stay farther back than he would have liked.\n\nThe daytime foot traffic helped with concealment, but also increased the risk that he would lose Gunn and the other man in the crowd. He crossed to the other side of the street, hoping it would decrease his chances of being identified.\n\nGunn and his companion walked through the main gate of the French embassy, and into the building. Webster sighed. He couldn't follow without being seen. Still, he thought, there was only one way in\u2014and out\u2014for visitors. Gunn and his friend would have to leave by the same door. Sooner or later they would part, and Webster could follow Gunn's friend to wherever the man called home. He was as good as certain he'd know the man's identity before the end of the day.\n\nWebster looked up at the cloudy sky, and sniffed. More snow was on the way\u2014he felt it in his bones. He looked back at the embassy gates and decided to move his carriage closer. At the very least, he could stay warm and dry while he waited.\n\n\"That couldn't have gone much worse,\" said Gunn, as they left the French embassy. He looked at the building with disdain as they made their way back to Harry's steam carriage.\n\n\"We shouldn't be surprised at these bureaucratic types. They're mostly just clerks and middlemen, and don't have the authority to make decisions. Our warnings will go through their paper channels, and when the people with the power become aware of what's happening, well, then, perhaps we'll see something done.\"\n\nGunn began to realise just how much worse the interview could have gone later that afternoon when they presented themselves at the Spanish embassy. There, a receptionist listened politely to what they had to say, then pressed a button on his desk. Two uniformed, armed men appeared. They insisted that Gunn and Harry leave the building immediately.\n\nThey proceeded to the German embassy, where an official listened to their story, then asked them to wait. A few minutes later he returned with a sheaf of papers\u2014forms\u2014which he asked them to complete. \"These will be processed by our administrative department, and they will contact you,\" said the official. \"You may call if you do not receive a response within four weeks.\" Harry gave Gunn a look of complete bewilderment. Gunn shrugged his shoulders, and filled out the forms.\n\n\"It's getting late,\" said Harry. \"I suspect the embassies will be closing their doors soon.\"\n\nGunn felt somewhat relieved. It had been a difficult day, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and enjoy Sophie's company.\n\n\"Let's continue this in the morning, then.\"\n\nHe arrived home to find the flat empty, and a note on the mantelpiece.\n\nConnie,\n\nI've left you some things on the stove to warm up for supper. I'll be back by tomorrow evening. I'll explain when I get home. I love you.\n\n[ Sophie ]\n\nGunn's spirits sank further. Whatever Sophie was up to must have had something to do with her inscrutable comment that morning. He wished she'd at least mentioned where she was going; if she got into some kind of trouble, he'd be unable to help. He hoped above all, that she would be safe.\n\nWebster followed the two men from embassy to embassy, then it became plain they were headed back to Gunn's flat. He took an illegal short cut across a narrow footbridge, almost flattening a pedestrian, and was waiting in the shadows when Gunn and his friend arrived at Gunn's home.\n\nWebster was ready. He had stocked his buggy with water and fuel, and stoked its boiler to maximum pressure. He deliberately left his acetylene lamps unlit to avoid revealing his presence. He would not be outrun this time.\n\nGunn went into the flat, and the carriage moved away from the curb. The forecasted snow hadn't yet begun, and the air was clear; Webster allowed the carriage to gain some distance before he released the brake and pushed the pedals. He stayed well back as the carriage trundled on, the driver seemingly unaware of his follower. The plan seemed to be working.\n\nFifteen minutes later, Webster still trailed the other man's vehicle, which moved along at an unhurried pace. Webster was certain he hadn't been seen, and felt that the destination must be near.\n\nThe road ahead curved under an old stone bridge, which carried a minor railway line over the road. The carriage was about to pass under the bridge when it turned sharply to the left and accelerated up a maintenance ramp that led to the train tracks.\n\nDamn, thought Webster. He must have been spotted, after all. He pressed the pedal hard, and turned the buggy up the ramp to follow.\n\nThere was no sign of the carriage anywhere. Webster halted and jumped out, looking along the lines in both directions, even checking over the sides of the bridge. There was no ramp on the other side\u2014no place for the carriage to have gone, other than back down the ramp Webster had just come up, or along the tracks.\n\nWebster climbed back into the buggy, defeated. He began to wonder if Gunn's friend had the power to make himself invisible.\n\nHarry appeared at Gunn's door the next morning. \"Are you ready? I suggest we start with the Italians. Let's hope they're more receptive than the others have been.\"\n\nAs they approached the main gates, Harry raised an eyebrow at something ahead. \"What's going on here?\"\n\nHalf a dozen police constables milled around, stopping people and apparently asking for identification before allowing them onto the embassy grounds. \"That's unusual.\"\n\nHarry drew the vehicle to a halt at the curb. Gunn made to step out, when Harry put a hand on his arm. \"I don't like the look of this, Gunn. Perhaps it's nothing, but we should be ready for anything.\"\n\nGunn agreed; the situation looked suspicious, and he couldn't help thinking it had something to do with him and Harry. For an instant, he considered turning away\u2014but he was curious. And, there was probably nothing to worry about; Harry was just acting his normal paranoid self. They climbed out of the carriage and approached the constables.\n\n\"Good morning, sir. May I see some identification, please?\"\n\nGunn presented his press card. \"What's happened?\"\n\nThe constable ignored Gunn's question, and instead turned to the sergeant by the gatepost. Gunn's stomach knotted. Something was wrong. \"Sergeant Logan?\" said the constable, and the officer walked over to them. The constable passed him Gunn's press card.\n\nGunn looked at Harry, who talked with another policeman a few yards away. Harry wrung his hands, plainly anxious. Trouble was brewing.\n\nSergeant Logan looked up at Gunn. \"Would you come this way, please, sir?\" he asked.\n\nGunn stood firm, and crossed his arms. \"Before I do that, I'd like to know why, please.\"\n\n\"Now, now, sir. We wouldn't want to make a fuss.\"\n\n\"No, we wouldn't,\" he said stubbornly. He turned away from Logan. \"Harry?\" he said loudly. \"We're leaving.\" Harry abruptly walked away from the policeman he'd been talking to.\n\nGunn felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Sergeant Logan. \"I have orders\u2014\"\n\n\"Am I under arrest?\" Gunn interrupted.\n\n\"Yes, sir. Please come with me.\"\n\n\"On what charge?\"\n\n\"All in good time.\" The hair at the back of Gunn's neck prickled. Logan looked at Harry. \"That includes you.\"\n\nGunn saw Harry tense, as if he was about to make a run for it\u2014and he was tempted to do the same. But these were the police, and running would only make things much worse. \"Breathe, Harry,\" he said calmly. Harry's eyes flickered in Gunn's direction nervously, then he relaxed, very slightly.\n\n\"This way, gentlemen, if you please,\" said Logan. The nearby constables moved to escort them.\n\nHarry glanced at Gunn, his face white as paper. \"These policemen are Pendragon's pawns, Gunn,\" he whispered tremulously.\n\nThey followed the sergeant past Harry's carriage to a black police steam wagon. Logan opened the rear doors. \"Inside,\" he said brusquely.\n\nGunn halted. \"Where are we going?\"\n\n\"To the station in Knightsbridge.\"\n\n\"And what are you planning to do when we get there?\" asked Harry. Gunn saw sweat beading on his brow.\n\n\"You'll be charged.\"\n\nHarry lifted a shaking hand to wipe his face. What has Pendragon done to you? Gunn wondered\u2014and suddenly Harry twisted to one side and stepped forward, as if to bolt.\n\nLogan grabbed Harry's upper arm firmly, a smug grin on his face. \"I can add resisting arrest to the charges, if you like.\"\n\nHarry looked around in a panic. The constables stood behind them in a semicircle, stone-faced, penning them in. Reluctantly, he climbed the steps into the wagon. Gunn turned and gave Logan a scornful look, then followed Harry inside. The sergeant closed the doors behind them with a solid metallic click.\n\nThe wagon lurched away from the curb with a hiss of steam, shuddering as it bumped along the street.\n\nGunn was certain that they were in serious trouble, but he didn't dare say a word to Harry\u2014the man seemed too close to breaking point, as it was. \"Harry, calm down.\" Harry turned to him, eyes wide. \"Logan may be working for the enemy, but he has to pretend to be a proper copper in front of the others. He can't hurt us.\"\n\nHarry took a deep breath, then blew it out, and Gunn thought he looked a little calmer. \"Yes, of course. But we must keep our wits, if we hope to get out of this.\"\n\nGunn hoped what he'd just told Harry was true.\n\nThe wagon continued on its way, then Gunn felt it slow and stop. The doors opened, and Logan led them into the police station. \"These men are under arrest, on a charge of sedition,\" Logan announced to the desk sergeant.\n\n\"Sedition?\" said Gunn. \"What the devil do you mean?\"\n\nLogan turned to him. \"The French ambassador has made a complaint against you. You were at their embassy yesterday, stirring up trouble?\"\n\nGunn fumed.\n\nLogan continued, his eyes fixed on Gunn's. \"And put 'em both down for resisting arrest, too. We all saw the fight they put up, didn't we, lads?\"\n\nGunn heard murmurs of agreement from the other constables and clenched his fists, speechless with anger.\n\nLogan gestured at the constables behind Gunn and Harry, and suddenly they converged on him, grabbing his wrists firmly.\n\n\"Hey!\" he yelled, but it did no good. He and Harry were frog-marched toward a solid metal door. Gunn tripped, landing hard on one knee. The officer behind him yanked him roughly to his feet, and he saw Harry staring open-mouthed at the arrest papers lying on the sergeant's desk. Gunn glanced at them, then his eyes widened with shock: R. Jameson, Inspector.\n\nThe cell had a single bunk and, Gunn noted with distaste, a bucket in a corner intended to serve as a toilet. The door was solid metal, apart from a slot through which food trays could be delivered.\n\nHarry sat on the bunk, red-faced and breathless. \"I warned you. I told you there was something wrong. And you walked us right into a trap!\"\n\nGunn knew Harry was right\u2014but what was done was done. \"Take it easy, Harry. We're in a police station, and Pendragon can't have every copper in the building working for him. I told you\u2014he can't do anything to us while we're here.\"\n\n\"Precisely. So he'll come for us soon. Then we're done for.\"\n\nGunn raised an eyebrow. \"I thought you said you'd been in worse situations.\"\n\n\"Pendragon's tried to kill me before, yes.\"\n\n\"And you lived through it. That shows you're smarter than him\u2014don't forget that. Keep your wits, Harry. We'll get through this.\" Strangely, Gunn found the words comforted him, too.\n\nHarry looked up, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Nothing was said for several minutes, as Harry calmed himself. \"Your friend Jameson's behind this.\"\n\nGunn paced the cell. \"I don't believe it. Not Jameson.\"\n\n\"He must be involved. We both saw his name on that paperwork. It can only mean that he's working for Pendragon. Nothing else makes sense.\"\n\nGunn sat down next to him. \"Perhaps it's just chance. Perhaps the commissioner needed someone to execute the warrants, and picked Jameson at random.\"\n\n\"Logan was the one dispatched to find us at the embassy, so he must have been the one given the warrants. You know as well as I do that if everything here was ship shape, Logan's name would have been on that paperwork\u2014not Jameson's.\"\n\nGunn drummed his fingers on the bed, frustrated. \"Then there's something we're missing. I've known Jameson a long time. He's a good copper and an honourable man. You know the Queen pinned a medal on him? For stopping the same kind of conspiracy that we're up against right now, no less. No\u2014Jameson wouldn't be party to something like this.\"\n\nHarry sighed in defeat\u2014which made Gunn want to grab him by the shoulders and shake some fight back into him\u2014and said, \"People change. I should know. Circumstances change them, or disillusionment, or any of a dozen other things. Look at the facts, man. One way or another, Jameson must be involved.\"\n\n\"You're wrong. When we get out of here, I'll prove it to you.\" Gunn punched the hard, thin mattress. Jameson could not be their enemy.\n\nThey sat in silence. Gunn was grateful for the respite. Harry had raised doubts in his mind\u2014doubts about a man he'd called a friend for a long time\u2014and that made him uncomfortable, and more than a little angry.\n\nAnger wasn't going to get them out of a locked cell, though. He needed a clear head. He took a few deep breaths, and rubbed at the knotted, tense muscles in his neck.\n\n\"Do you suppose the commissioner has something to do with Pendragon?\" he said after a while.\n\n\"Possibly, but given the circumstances, with a foreign ambassador making a complaint, I'd say that he's acted as anyone might expect.\"\n\n\"That's what I thought you'd say.\" Gunn sat heavily on the metal bunk, and a horrifying thought came to him. \"Ye Gods\u2014what will Sophie do when she gets home and we're not there? What if she calls Jameson for help?\"\n\n\"Now who's losing their wits? There's time. As you said, we'll get out of this, and we'll make sure your wife is safe and sound.\"\n\nHours passed. Gunn sat on the floor in the corner of the cell, allowing Harry to sleep on the bunk for a time, then they traded places so Gunn could rest. He tried to come up with ways to get out of the cell, but it was a futile effort\u2014the smell from the bucket turned Gunn's stomach and made it hard to think.\n\nAccording to Gunn's timepiece, he and Harry had been in the cell for almost ten hours when he heard a sound outside the door. As he moved toward it, the slot opened and a tray with two bowls of soup, bread, and cups of water slid in. Gunn took the tray, the slot closed, and the footsteps faded away. Only when silence returned did it occur to him that he should have asked to have the bucket emptied.\n\nJameson looked both ways along the street. It was dusk, and he saw a gasman some way off, using his spark pole to light one of the street's gas lamps. There was nobody else around.\n\nHe turned to an ordinary-looking wooden door set into the brick wall, and took a shiny brass key from his pocket. The key slid smoothly into the lock and opened it with the faintest click. Jameson took one more glance along the street, then slipped inside.\n\nHe stood on the metal catwalk that ran around the interior of the roofless building; above him, the last red rays of the setting sun lit up the clouds.\n\nHe looked over the railing into the black pit below. Jameson found it rather like being inside a brick chimney. The truth wasn't too different; he was inside one of the vents that carried fresh air down into the tunnels of the city's underground railway system.\n\nHe started down the stairs that spiralled down the inside of the vent. After only a few dozen paces, the darkness overwhelmed him, and he had to feel his way, using the handrail as a guide in the dark. He could see neither the steps nor his feet.\n\nA hundred or so feet below street level, the stairs ended at an open maintenance door. Light shone through from the other side. He went through, and into The Void\u2014that's what the workers who had dug the railway tunnel named it. It was a natural cave\u2014a fissure thirty feet wide, and several hundred feet long, which began with a solid rock ceiling twenty feet above Jameson's head, and extended below him, deep into the city's bedrock. He could hear the splash of running water, echoing from somewhere in the blackness.\n\nTo his right, along a makeshift wooden platform, was the end of the railway tunnel\u2014the tunnel that the digging teams had abandoned, when they'd bored their way into The Void. Light came from a couple of dusty gaslights mounted on the walls, left lit for the workmen who maintained the air pumps.\n\nThe designers had chosen another route for the railway, and made use of this one for ventilation. The existence of The Void had been kept quiet. Nobody wanted the people who lived in the houses above to find out that they were living above a huge, empty space.\n\nChristie found The Void the perfect place to hold clandestine meetings. Jameson couldn't fathom why the man didn't just book a private room in a pub, or somewhere a little more civilised, where they could have their discussions in more comfortable surroundings. The man could be insufferably melodramatic at times.\n\nChristie was late, and Jameson wished that he would hurry along. He was hungry and tired, and wanted to get this over with so he could go home. And, if he was frank with himself, The Void gave him the willies. The place was a tomb, quite literally; a man had died down there in the dark\u2014fallen to his end, along with the digging machine that had broken through rock only to find air. The poor man's body had never been recovered.\n\nJameson heard footsteps behind him, and turned to see Christie. \"About time.\"\n\nChristie ignored the comment. \"I have orders for you.\"\n\n\"Orders?\" Jameson snapped. Who on earth does he think he's talking to?\n\n\"Yes, orders. From the Management.\"\n\nJameson was tempted, yet again, to ask who the Management were, but he knew it would be pointless. The organisation worked in small units\u2014each person knew only two or three other members. Even Christie probably had no clue who the people at the very top were.\n\n\"Thanks to you, we finally have Doctor Bohemia, along with the journalist who's been reporting our activities in the gutter press. Your orders,\"\u2014Christie sneered as he accentuated the word\u2014\"are to take them to our facility at the docks, and get rid of them\u2014permanently. And you're to dispose of the reporter's wife, too. It seems she's been getting herself involved, instead of staying at home where she belongs. Understood?\"\n\nJameson's stomach turned over. Murder? Now they want me to commit murder?\n\n\"Is there a problem, Jameson?\"\n\nHe emboldened himself. \"Yes, Christie, there is a problem. You've been after Bohemia all this time, and now you've got him, you don't want to question him or this reporter? Don't you want to find out what they know, or who they might have told? On top of which you want to draw attention by going after the daughter of a famous general. Are you mad, or just plain stupid?\"\n\nChristie's face went red, and he snarled, \"Mind your tongue! We're here to follow orders, not to question policy.\"\n\nAnd look where it's getting us, Jameson thought.\n\nChristie fixed him with a steady gaze. \"We\u2014and that includes you, Jameson\u2014have had enough trouble from Bohemia. He's gotten away from us too many times in the past, and for all you know, he's working on escaping as we speak. The Management has had a belly full of him. Get rid of him and his associates.\"\n\nJameson shrugged to cover his torment. \"You can tell Management my objections, then. When do they want this done?\"\n\n\"As soon as you can. The Management wants them gone before morning.\"\n\nJameson nodded. Christie walked away, then stopped and turned back to Jameson.\n\n\"The Management are most appreciative of your efforts in apprehending Bohemia. But if you want to stay in their good books, I strongly suggest that you don't question them again.\"\n\nSophie arrived home to an empty house. She assumed Connie was with Harry, trying to persuade the Europeans, and made dinner, expecting that he wouldn't be long. Two hours later, she flung the ruined food into the bin, angry at her husband for being so late without letting her know where he was. She went to bed.\n\nAt two in the morning, too angry to sleep, she got out of bed and sat in the parlour. She'd have some harsh words for him, whenever he dared to show his face.\n\nBy four o'clock, she was curled up on the sofa, chewing her fingernails with worry. She was certain that something bad had happened. She considered sending a message to Inspector Jameson, but she knew he wouldn't be at Scotland Yard at that early hour. She paced up and down the little parlour. She wanted to go out and search for Connie, but had no idea of where to begin, and in any case, it was just as likely that he'd return, or send a message, while she was gone. She wanted desperately to do something, but felt there was nothing she could do.\n\nThere was a firm tapping at the door, and she almost jumped out of her skin. She hurried to the door and opened it. Jameson stood there in the lightly falling snow, and she craned her neck to look past him, expecting to see Connie. He wasn't there, and her heart missed a beat\u2014Jameson was there with bad news, she was sure of it.\n\nShe fought the impulse to shake answers out of him. \"Where's Connie? What's happened?\"\n\n\"He's fine. Perfectly safe. I'm here to take you to him. Have you got some warm clothes?\"\n\nSophie's breath caught in her throat. \"Why? Why can't he come home?\"\n\nJameson shook his head. \"It'd save time if I explain on the way.\" He turned slightly, and stepped back, as if expecting her to walk out into the street.\n\nSophie's head whirled with questions, but it was plain that Connie was in some kind of trouble. \"I'll change,\" she said, and left Jameson standing outside while she dashed to her dressing room and threw on the clothes that she'd used during their nighttime vigils. A few minutes later, she followed Jameson to his steam carriage.\n\nThe carriage moved off down the street, into the snow and the darkness.\n\nA faint sound woke Gunn. He lay on the floor, and had no memory of falling asleep. He strained to hear again the sound that had woken him. Harry was asleep on the bunk, breathing softly. Gunn looked at his timepiece; it was just after five in the morning.\n\nThe sound came again\u2014footsteps. He stood quickly, and shook Harry's shoulder gently.\n\n\"What\u2014\"\n\n\"Wake up, Harry. I think they're coming for us.\"\n\nHarry came to instantly, and sat up. Gunn went to the door and half-crouched beside it, ready to take advantage of any chance to escape. He heard the sound of a key being inserted into the lock, and the door swung open.\n\nJameson stood in the doorway. \"There's not much time. Come with me.\" He turned, not waiting for them to follow. Before he could take a step, Harry reached forward and grabbed his collar, yanking him back into the cell. He slammed Jameson against the wall, an arm across his throat.\n\nHarry's face was an inch from Jameson's. \"Are you working for Pendragon?\" he hissed. He pressed Jameson harder against the wall. \"Answer me!\"\n\nGunn, taken aback by Harry's reaction, reached out with his good hand to pull him away\u2014then stopped. He wanted Jameson's answer. \"Why was your name on the arrest papers, Jameson?\" he asked mildly.\n\nJameson gasped, unable to breathe. Harry let go, and Jameson stumbled forward, holding his throat with one hand and steadying himself against the wall with the other. He coughed, then looked at Gunn. \"It would take too long to explain, Gunn. Time you don't have.\" He coughed again, then straightened, and stepped toward the door.\n\nHarry was right, thought Gunn. Jameson is working for the enemy. \"Where are you taking us?\"\n\n\"To be with your wife.\"\n\nThey had no other choice but to stay in the cell, so they followed Jameson up the stairs and along a corridor to a solid looking door, which opened onto a dark alleyway at the rear of the station. Outside, snow fell heavily.\n\nJameson hurried to a carriage parked in the alleyway, and jumped into the driving seat.\n\nGunn took a step, then stopped when he felt Harry's hand on his elbow. Harry leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. \"I don't like this, Gunn. How do we know he's not planning to kill us?\"\n\n\"We don't. But if he is, then Sophie's in danger, too, and I'm not going to let anything happen to her. If he tries anything, I'll be ready.\"\n\n\"Then so shall I.\"\n\nGunn and Harry climbed into the rear seats, and the vehicle began to move.\n\n\"Where's Sophie?\" demanded Gunn.\n\n\"Not far from here,\" said Jameson shortly, \"and perfectly safe.\"\n\nGunn looked out of the window as the carriage sped along alleyways and back streets, but he was unable to see through the snowfall. Very soon, he was completely lost.\n\nTwenty minutes later, they had arrived in a street with market stalls three deep on both sides. The gaslights here burned brightly, and market porters dashed in all directions, pushing handcarts loaded with vegetables and fruit. Gunn recognised the place; they were in Covent Garden.\n\nJameson stopped the carriage at the curb and jumped out, and Gunn and Harry followed suit. If Jameson was planning to kill them, Gunn thought, he would have picked a more secluded place. \"Why are we here, Jameson?\"\n\nJameson didn't answer\u2014his eyes flicked wildly around the market. Then he looked at Gunn. \"Take Sophie, and get out of the city.\"\n\nGunn grabbed of Jameson's lapels. \"Where is she?\"\n\n\"Here, somewhere. I told her to stay hidden and watch out for you.\"\n\nGunn felt a glimmer of hope; Sophie was nearby\u2014if Jameson wasn't betraying them again.\n\n\"Where?\" he shouted into Jameson's face.\n\n\"I told you. Here. I can't help find her\u2014I don't have time.\" He forced Gunn's hands from his clothes, and stepped back. \"The people who arranged your arrest will be looking for you as soon as they realise you've gotten away.\"\n\n\"Who would that be?\"\n\n\"Someone high up. That's all I know. I have to go.\"\n\nJameson moved, but Gunn put his hand on his chest to stop him. \"Why are you helping us now?\"\n\nJameson hesitated, then shook his head. \"I'm trying to prevent a terrible mistake from being made.\" He climbed back into the carriage, and drove off.\n\nIt was bedlam. Market porters\u2014seemingly hundreds of them\u2014pushed barrows of vegetables in all directions, steering around Gunn and Harry as they rushed hither and thither. Customers haggled with salesmen, adding to the general din. Light from the gas lamps was swallowed by the falling snow, doing little to dispel the pre-dawn darkness.\n\nGunn whirled around, looking for any sign of Sophie, with no clear idea of where to even begin. He knew the market covered several acres; she could be anywhere.\n\n\"Jameson's running scared,\" said Harry. \"We should assume he was followed. We need to get away from here\u2014but how are we to find your wife in all this?\"\n\nSophie's voice came from a few feet behind them. \"It's all a matter of having the correct technology at your disposal, Harry.\"\n\nGunn spun around. Sophie wore her cap, heavy jacket and trousers, and as she walked toward Gunn she slipped off the goggles that had made it possible for her to see him and Harry through the gloom. A burst of emotion welled up inside Gunn. He rushed forward and hugged her, then kissed her on the cheek. \"Are you all right, dear?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm perfectly well,\" she said, smiling. Harry came up behind them, and put his arms round their shoulders, smiling. Sophie laughed, then pushed them away. \"We're attracting attention.\"\n\nGunn looked around and, sure enough, a number of passers-by were frowning at Gunn and Harry apparently hugging a young boy. They separated.\n\n\"Wherever have you been?\" Gunn asked\n\n\"To see Dad,\" Sophie responded. Gunn cocked an eyebrow. \"We'll talk about it later.\"\n\n\"What about Jameson? Did he hurt you?\"\n\n\"No, of course not. But he told me some things.\" She looked around the market. \"We shouldn't talk here, though.\"\n\n\"You're right. We'd better move on.\"\n\n\"Yes, but where?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"I suggest we do as Jameson said\u2014leave the city,\" said Harry.\n\n\"Actually, I think we'd better get out of the country, and we'd better make it quick,\" said Gunn. Harry and Sophie looked at him, curious. He jerked his thumb at a nearby news board emblazoned with the latest headline straight off the wires."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "JOURNALIST AND SCIENTIST WANTED FOR TREASON",
+                "text": "[ Police Instigate Nationwide Search ]\n\n\"Oh, dear Lord,\" said Sophie. Then she frowned. \"Wait a moment. If you were arrested, why are they still looking for you?\"\n\n\"Because our arrest was something less than official,\" said Harry. He glanced again at the board. \"This changes things.\"\n\n\"It certainly does,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"Where would we go?\" said Sophie.\n\nGunn looked at Harry. \"Paris?\"\n\nHarry rubbed his chin. \"France is but a hop across the channel. Paris would be the obvious first target for Pendragon. You're planning on trying to stop him?\"\n\n\"Someone has to, and it's obvious we can't trust the police to do the job. We'll need a vehicle, but no doubt yours has been impounded, Harry.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" said Harry, frowning. Then he beamed as an idea struck him. \"But you underestimate me. Did you think that was the only transport I have at my disposal?\"\n\nWebster looked closely at the fake warrant card, and shook his head. He was about to try something that had very little chance of success, and every chance of getting him into a great deal of trouble. If things went wrong, he'd be on his own\u2014he wouldn't be able to risk exposing his employer by calling for help.\n\nHe put his hand into the pocket and felt the smooth metal of a brass cylinder, careful not to press the button on the end, and slipped the warrant card into his wallet. Then he took a deep breath, and walked calmly up the steps and into the police station.\n\n\"Wright's the name,\" said Webster, flashing the warrant card just long enough for the desk sergeant to get a glimpse, \"Detective Constable Wright. I'm looking for two men who were arrested yesterday outside the Italian embassy.\"\n\n\"Oh, those two,\" said the officer. \"I was here when they were brought in. Cornelius Gunn and Harry Bohemia\u2014you don't forget names like that easily.\" Webster barely managed to mask his elation. At last, he could put a name to Gunn's friend.\n\nThe officer rummaged through a filing drawer behind the desk. \"That's funny. The charge sheets were right here. Hang on for a tick.\" He stood and went through the door behind him.\n\nWebster waited. A minute passed, then another. Then the officer returned, scratching his head. \"I'm sorry, sir, but nobody knows where the paperwork's gone. And I know for a fact that they were taken down to the cells, but they're not there, and there's nothing about that in the logbook.\"\n\n\"So you're saying that there's nothing to say they were ever here,\" said Webster. The officer nodded, running his fingers through his hair.\n\nWebster's mind raced. Someone had spirited Gunn and his friend Bohemia away, and made the paperwork vanish. That someone could only be a police officer\u2014no one else would have that kind of access to the charge sheets or the lockup log. What was the purpose? To save them from the police? Or to deliver them to someone else?\n\nA second officer came through a door behind the desk, and looked Webster in the eye. \"Wright? Detective Constable Wright?\"\n\n\"That's me.\" Webster tensed. Things were about to go down the toilet.\n\n\"I just looked you up on our machine. What's an officer from Surbiton doing all the way down here, asking questions about people he has no business with?\"\n\nTime to leave, thought Webster. He turned on his heel and walked quickly toward the door.\n\n\"Oi!\" the officer shouted, and Webster quickened his pace. He heard footsteps behind him. He slipped his hand into his pocket and took hold of the brass cylinder. In one smooth motion, he pulled it out, pressed the button on the end, and dropped it into a large wire waste-paper basket by the exit. He walked out of the building without slowing his pace.\n\nHe counted under his breath. \"Three . . . two . . . one . . .\"\n\nHe glanced over his shoulder as the smoke grenade detonated with a thump. The officer and the desk sergeant doubled over in fits of coughing on the top step, as smoke assailed their eyes and lungs.\n\nWebster grinned and kept walking. A small crowd of onlookers formed, watching the spectacle. A moment later, he melted into the throng.\n\nJameson returned to The Void and waited for Christie. He felt good, despite being up all night. He'd done what he could for Gunn and Sophie, and for once, he'd been the one to demand a meeting in this awful place. He smiled at the thought of Christie having to drag himself out of his bed before the sun was up.\n\nHe heard footsteps from the direction of the stairs, and looked up. Christie was there\u2014with a tall, thin man he didn't recognize.\n\n\"Who's this?\"\n\nChristie placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. \"This is Proctor, our airship commander.\"\n\n\"You're Jameson?\" said Proctor.\n\n\"I am he.\"\n\n\"So you're the one I have to thank for the advance warning. Because of that, our last expedition was most successful.\"\n\nJameson's temper flared. \"Because of that, a good man is dead. You'd do as well to remember that.\"\n\n\"Enough,\" said Christie in a firm voice. \"Why did you call us here, Jameson?\"\n\n\"Gunn and Bohemia have escaped.\" Jameson suppressed a smile.\n\nChristie's face twisted with anger. \"Damn it! I warned you about him! How in hell did he slip away this time?\"\n\n\"They appear to have had an accomplice. Probably went into the station by the back door, and let them out.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea where they might have gone?\"\n\nJameson shrugged. \"My guess would be that they've left the city by now.\"\n\n\"What about the woman?\"\n\n\"There's been no sign of her. She left London the day before yesterday, and hasn't been seen since.\"\n\nChristie made a fist of his right hand, and slammed it into his left. \"I'll have to inform Management.\"\n\n\"Police forces up and down the country are watching for them. If you want to catch them before they do, you'd better tell Management to get more men on this.\"\n\nChristie's face darkened. \"Who's in charge here, Jameson?\"\n\n\"I'm beginning to wonder,\" said Jameson coolly.\n\nProctor spoke. \"Gunn and Bohemia are no longer of consequence. The plans have been drawn up, and the timetable set. The operation is already in motion. Any that resist will be crushed when our great endeavour rolls over them.\"\n\nJameson looked at Proctor, and a feeling of dismay welled up inside him. He recognized those words. It was the voice of the fanatic.\n\nJameson knew a thing or two about fanatics. He'd arrested a ring of them once, and those arrests had made him famous. And if there was one thing he knew very well, it was that fanatics tended to do whatever they thought their cause demanded, no matter the cost\u2014even to their own comrades. That made them unpredictable and dangerous.\n\nAnd they put this maniac in charge of the airship. Jameson shuddered.\n\nChristie interrupted his thoughts. \"I'll alert Management to get people on the search. Proctor, you get back to the hangar and make preparations for the next phase.\" He looked to Jameson. \"You'd better make sure our people find Gunn and Bohemia before someone else does.\" He stalked off toward the stairs, Proctor following. Jameson was alone.\n\nHe waited a few minutes before making his way out. As he plodded up the stairs, he thought about the changes he'd seen in the organisation. Their goals were the same, and they were still right, in Jameson's view. But the ways they achieved them had metamorphosed over the years. They hurried for results, went to extremes too quickly, and too often. Ordering murders was a case in point. The organisation had lost its way.\n\nHe straightened his back and held his head up. We have to get back on the right path, he thought, and it's up to people like me to stand up and take charge.\n\n\"The police know how you're dressed,\" said Sophie to Gunn and Harry. \"You need clothes that blend in a bit better, and I happen to know just the place. Come on.\" Without waiting for an answer, she strode off. Gunn and Harry caught up with her at a little shop at the edge of the market. \"I came across this place while I was waiting for you.\"\n\nGunn and Harry looked at each other, nonplussed.\n\n\"What are you waiting for?\" Sophie shooed them into the shop like a mother hen.\n\nHalf an hour later they returned, wearing clothes much like those of the market porters\u2014heavy canvas trousers, thick cotton shirts, woollen jackets, and flat caps to help keep the snow off.\n\nAt Harry's suggestion, they made their way west by tram and steam taxi. Gunn tugged at his cap continually, worried they would be recognised, but the heavy snow hampered visibility\u2014and in any case, the clothes they wore helped them fit in, too. No one on the tram gave them a second glance, and neither did the taxi driver.\n\nGunn asked quietly as they rode along, \"Why didn't you tell me you'd gone to see your father?\"\n\n\"Because I know you. If I'd told you what I was doing, you'd have tried to stop me.\"\n\n\"You could have just asked him about the hangars by wire, you know.\"\n\nSophie frowned and shook her head. \"You know what they say about the wires, Connie. They say the government listens in. Asking Dad for details about military installations . . . I couldn't take that risk.\" She shrugged. \"Anyway, it gave me an excuse to visit. It's been months.\"\n\n\"Did he tell you anything useful?\"\n\nShe patted her bag. \"He wrote it all down.\"\n\n\"What did Jameson tell you?\"\n\n\"Everything\u2014that you'd been arrested because of him, on Pendragon's orders, and he was doing his best to help. He said we can't go back to the flat. They'll be watching for us there. And he gave me cash. A lot of cash, Connie. He said it was Pendragon's money.\"\n\nGunn sighed; Harry had been right\u2014Jameson was working for Pendragon. But then, why had he helped them? \"What the devil is Jameson playing at, I wonder?\"\n\nThe taxi driver dropped them off at an address in the middle of Brentford, and the three waited on the pavement until the vehicle drove out of sight. \"This way,\" said Harry, and he started down the road toward the river.\n\nThey arrived at a large brick building overlooking the water. Harry took a ring of keys from his pocket and opened the street door, closing and locking it behind them. Gunn looked around the small office and the dust-covered furniture. Plainly, no one had been here in quite some time.\n\nHarry walked to another door on the opposite side of the room. \"I have something to show you.\"\n\nGunn and Sophie followed Harry into what must have been the main production floor of a large factory. Light shone through dirty skylights set into the roof. Against the walls, Gunn saw old, rust-covered machines, lined up in a row. Cleaner patches of floor showed where the machines had once stood.\n\nIn the middle sat two objects covered over with canvas sheets\u2014one huge, the other small by comparison. Harry took the corner of the larger sheet and pulled it away, revealing what Gunn thought, at first, to be a large steam engine of the type used to pull road-going freight trains.\n\nIt was big and black, a painted metal box twelve feet high and thirty long, sitting on pneumatic wheels mostly hidden behind the machine's metal plating. At the front, short metal ladders led to an open-sided, covered cab, big enough for three or four men to stand in and move around easily, filled with brass levers, pipes and gauges. At the rear, a luggage rack had been shaped from polished tubes.\n\n\"We're going to drive to Paris in that?\" said Gunn, stunned. \"How the devil do you propose to get it onto a ferry without attracting attention?\"\n\n\"We won't be taking her on any ferry, trust me\u2014in fact, we won't be taking her anywhere, right now. She needs a little work first.\"\n\n\"What's the problem? It is going to get us there, isn't it? It's not going to leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere?\"\n\n\"Oh, do calm down, Gunn. She hasn't been fired up in a while, that's all. She needs fuel and water for the engine, but she also needs to be oiled and cleaned a little, and those things will go much quicker with your help.\"\n\n\"On the subject of fuel and water,\" said Sophie, \"perhaps you two would have better tempers with some breakfast and a cup of tea inside you.\"\n\nGunn had been too preoccupied to think of food, but now that Sophie mentioned it, he realised he was starving.\n\n\"An excellent idea,\" said Harry, \"but I'm afraid all I have is a little stove and a kettle. I don't keep any provisions here.\"\n\n\"I saw a bakery nearby, on the way here,\" said Sophie, \"and I'm sure if there's a bakery, there's probably a grocer's, too. I can get what we need.\"\n\n\"You'll have to take care not to be recognised,\" said Harry.\n\n\"The police aren't looking for Sophie, Harry. Only for us,\" said Gunn, \"but all the same, you should try not to attract attention.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry, Connie. Harry, perhaps you'd better give me the keys.\"\n\nGunn and Harry began stripping down the machine, which Harry had named Bertha, then Sophie returned with some supplies, and made tea and sandwiches, which lifted Gunn's spirits enormously.\n\nGunn and Harry resumed working on Bertha, while Sophie assisted by holding bolts and other parts, and passing tools and oil cans as required.\n\nGunn blinked several times, trying to clear the gritty feeling from his tired eyes, and used his prosthetic hand as a vice to hold a crank firmly. He pressed a cotter pin in with his other thumb. He couldn't see what he was doing clearly, and his thumb slipped and scraped painfully against the edge of the crank. The pin clattered on the concrete floor.\n\nHe cursed, and jammed the injured thumb into the warmth of his left armpit. He looked up at the skylights, then at his timepiece, and was surprised to see that they'd worked through the whole day. He straightened, and gave a mighty yawn. \"The sun's going down,\" he said to Harry as he rubbed his eyes. \"Do you have any lamps?\"\n\nHarry put down the screwdriver he'd been using, and massaged the back of his neck. \"I don't, and in any case, we can't risk showing any lights in here. Someone passing by might think the place is being burgled, and call the police. I never got around to installing blackouts as I did in my other laboratories.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we should finish in the morning.\"\n\nHarry sighed and yawned. \"Perhaps we should. Damned shame, though. We're almost finished, and I was hoping to move on under cover of night. Still, neither of us has rested properly, and I, for one, could use a good night's sleep.\"\n\n\"Me, too. I don't suppose you have beds here, do you?\"\n\n\"I've taken care of that,\" Sophie piped up from the office doorway, a little proudly.\n\nGunn went to the office, curious, and Harry followed. Sophie had wiped much of the dust from the furniture, and pushed a desk and chairs to one side to make a space on the floor. Into that space she'd piled canvas, cloth, and any other relatively soft materials she could find to create three makeshift beds. She'd lit the little wood burning stove in the corner, and the room was comfortably warm.\n\n\"I'm afraid it's not much, but it's the best I could do,\" she said.\n\n\"Don't diminish yourself, sweetheart,\" said Gunn. \"This is a splendid job. I'm sure I wouldn't have had a clue what to do, and here you are making the best of things. You're a wonder, Sophie. Isn't she, Harry?\"\n\nHarry beamed. \"It's marvellous. I'd been expecting to sleep on cold concrete tonight. Thank you, Sophie.\"\n\nSophie smiled back. \"Dinner is tea and sandwiches again. When we're done, if you gentlemen would care to leave the room for the sake of a lady's modesty, I'm going to get ready for bed.\"\n\nGunn woke up when someone shook his shoulder, and opened his eyes to see Sophie holding a cup of tea. \"Come on, sleepyhead. Harry's finished Bertha and he's ready to start her up. He's been waiting for you.\"\n\nGunn looked at his timepiece. It was nine in the morning. He'd slept for fifteen hours.\n\nHe carried his tea through to the factory. Harry was in Bertha's cab, tapping a fingernail against a gauge, while Sophie watched from floor level. Gunn heard the roar of a fire in the belly of the machine, and the faint hiss of steam from the boiler valves.\n\n\"Ah, there you are,\" said Harry, smiling. \"You're just in time.\"\n\n\"In time for what?\"\n\n\"Stand well back, and observe.\"\n\nGunn and Sophie stepped back. Harry pulled a lever in the cab. With a hiss of steam and the tapping of mechanical parts, Bertha began to move backward, rolling at less than a walking pace. Harry stopped the machine before it ran into the wall, then pushed the same lever the other way. Bertha rolled forward, and Harry stopped her when she'd reached her original position.\n\n\"That's it?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"It's quite enough to show that she's in working order,\" said Harry, affronted. \"She'll get us where we're going.\"\n\n\"How are you planning on getting us across the English Channel, Harry?\" said Gunn.\n\nHarry grinned and pulled another lever. \"Like this.\"\n\nMetal grated and creaked as the plates covering Bertha's wheels slid up and out of sight. Gunn could now see that Bertha had a hull, complete with a propeller and rudder.\n\nGunn's eyes went wide. \"She's a boat?\"\n\n\"She's a boat as well,\" said Harry proudly, \"and she'll get us to the coast, across the channel, and all the way to Paris.\"\n\n\"When do we leave?\"\n\n\"I still think it best to wait until dusk. She's a little conspicuous to be driving around the city in broad daylight. In any case, as tired as I was last night, I'd forgotten something important we must do before we leave London.\"\n\nThe smaller of the canvas-covered objects turned out to be a steam carriage similar to Harry's other one, but older, with faded paint. It took Harry and Gunn half an hour to get the engine running.\n\nHarry drove the carriage out while Gunn locked up the building. The snow had stopped, but the sky was heavy with dark, grey clouds, promising more to come.\n\nHarry drove them north.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"To collect the disruptor and the other equipment from my workshop in Wembley. If we're going to try to stop Pendragon, we're going to need it when we get to Paris.\"\n\nThe machine in Christie's office rattled and stamped out a line of text, chiming to signal the end of the message. Christie tore off the strip of paper and read it, then lifted the voice receiver and pressed a few keys.\n\nHe heard a click and then a voice. \"Jameson,\" came the voice, made tinny by miles of wire.\n\n\"Jameson, listen. Gunn and Bohemia have been spotted. I'll send you the location. I'm sending my people. You should do the same.\"\n\n\"Bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, isn't it, Christie? How many people do you think it'll take to grab three people?\"\n\n\"We're not taking any chances this time, and we're not out to grab them. Send heavily armed men, Jameson. Tell them Gunn is dangerous, and they are to shoot first.\"\n\nAt Harry's workshop, Gunn strapped the light projector's tripod to the back of the carriage\u2014everything else was already aboard\u2014and slid the warehouse door open. There was the shrill of a police whistle, and he spun in alarm. Fifty yards away, a black police steam carriage raced toward the warehouse.\n\n\"It's a trap!\" he yelled, running back to the carriage. He jumped into the rear seat next to Sophie, Harry slammed his boot onto the steam pedal, and the vehicle lurched out through the door.\n\n\"Pendragon's pet police must have found this place,\" Harry yelled, cornering sharply. Gunn glanced through the rear window. The black carriage was getting closer.\n\n\"Hold tight,\" said Harry as he turned another corner. Sophie was thrown against Gunn, then fell back into her seat as Harry straightened their course.\n\n\"They're catching up!\" Sophie shouted.\n\n\"Not for long!\" The road ahead of them ran straight. The chuffing of the engine sped up, like a train at full speed, and the carriage rattled over the cobbles. Behind them, the police carriage lost ground.\n\nThe street ahead was clear\u2014then three policemen on horseback appeared from a side street, followed by three more. The men unslung rifles from their shoulders.\n\n\"They're not planning on arresting us,\" Gunn yelled over the noise of the engine.\n\n\"Get down,\" Harry commanded, and Gunn and Sophie hunkered as the carriage swerved left and right. Gunn's stomach twisted as the vehicle almost tipped over, then the wheels banged down as it righted itself and ran straight.\n\nGlass shattered with a bang, and Gunn and Sophie were flung sideways as Harry spun the wheel. Engine noise and the whistling of rushing air filled the cab. Sophie covered her ears.\n\nGunn lifted his head above the seats. The police were lost to sight, but the rear window had been shot out. Sophie brushed broken glass from her clothes as she clambered back up to the seat, and Gunn put a hand on hers and looked into her eyes. She squeezed his hand. \"I'm fine.\"\n\nGunn asked, \"Harry, are you all right?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014it missed me.\" He pointed at the front windscreen, where a hole showed where the bullet had passed. \"I believe we've left them behind.\"\n\n\"No, we haven't,\" yelled Sophie in a panic, pointing ahead. Fifty yards away, an armoured gun carriage, squatting between the warehouses and factories lining the road, aimed its cannon at them.\n\nThe cannon fired. Harry yanked the wheel and the carriage swerved left, toward an open factory door. Gunn felt the wave of the blast shove the carriage forward as the road behind them exploded in flame, dirt, and broken cobblestones.\n\nGunn watched in alarm as Harry steered the racing carriage into the factory and up a ramp that followed the side of the building. There was no way they could avoid hitting the brick wall at the top of the ramp. \"Harry\u2014\" he said, his voice rising with dread.\n\n\"I know! Hold on!\" And he stomped the pedal to the floor.\n\nGunn glanced behind. The gun carriage had appeared at the bottom of the ramp. It fired again. The wall ahead of them exploded, bricks and flame flying in every direction.\n\nThe carriage powered into the fireball\u2014and shot through the hole in the blasted wall. It hit the paved surface of a yard on the other side with a bone-jarring crash. Gunn watched Harry fight with the steering wheel, yanking it left, then right, to keep the carriage upright. He got it under control, and drove out of the yard and turned onto a wide road.\n\nGunn wiped the sweat from his forehead, his heart pounding in his ears, as Harry hunched over the wheel, driving at high speed along alleyways and back roads.\n\nSophie watched the road behind them. \"We've lost them,\" she said, finally, in a quavering voice.\n\nHarry brought them to a halt against the curb, then took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. He grinned. \"I could say that I planned that, but I'd be lying. I was hoping to break through the wall\u2014I wasn't expecting their help.\"\n\n\"We could have been killed,\" said Gunn, but he was grinning too.\n\n\"Quite,\" Harry chortled. The chortle became a guffaw, and then he was roaring with laughter, and Gunn, relieved, laughed with him.\n\n\"Don't you ever\u2014ever\u2014do anything like that again!\" Sophie said, slapping Harry's shoulder with an open palm.\n\nHarry's laughter subsided as he wiped the tears from his eyes with a shirtsleeve. Gunn was having trouble getting his breath back.\n\n\"Men,\" said Sophie, shaking her head, but breaking a smile. \"All the same, and quite impossible. Pull yourselves together, both of you. What do we do now?\"\n\nHarry took a deep breath and got himself under control. \"No doubt the police across the city will have received descriptions of us, and how we're travelling, so I'm going to get us back to Brentford along the main roads. We should be lost amongst the other traffic. At least, I hope so.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we'd be better off abandoning this carriage somewhere. If someone happens to see it when we get to Brentford, and they see us go into your factory . . .\"\n\nHalf an hour later, he stopped the carriage halfway back to Brentford, between two similar vehicles on the side of a busy street, and unloaded the equipment. \"I don't think they'll look for a vehicle in a crowded place like this.\"\n\n\"The broken windows might arouse suspicion, don't you think?\" said Gunn as they walked away.\n\n\"Just keep walking, and don't look back,\" said Harry.\n\nThey took a taxi the couple of miles to Brentford, and, as before, walked the rest of the way to the factory, lugging the equipment.\n\nAs he unlocked the door, Harry said, \"I was going to suggest that we get some rest while we wait for dark, but now I'm not so certain.\"\n\nGunn carried the disruptor inside. \"I agree. All it would take is one vigilant citizen to recognise us. Those bogus police could be on the way here as we speak.\"\n\n\"Quite. And my other workshop was found, despite all my precautions. It might only be a matter of time before this one is discovered, too.\"\n\n\"Then we should leave immediately,\" said Sophie, in a take-charge tone. \"You two load that equipment on the rack and get the furnace lit. I'll gather the groceries.\"\n\nHalf an hour later, Gunn slid open the factory's main door, and Harry guided Bertha out. Gunn closed and locked the door, then climbed up into the cab, and the huge vehicle began to roll eastward along the waterfront road.\n\nGunn kept his eye on the people who stared at Bertha as she passed by, and wondered what they thought she was. A freight hauler, perhaps, or a troop carrier\u2014or some eccentric inventor's pet project. He glanced sideways at Harry, and suppressed a grin. At least, he thought, if they're looking at Bertha, they're not looking at us. With luck, they wouldn't be recognised.\n\n\"I'm not worried about that,\" said Harry when Gunn mentioned the thought. \"If we'd been recognised, you can be sure the police would have made themselves evident by now. The farther we get from the centre of the city, the less likely people are to be looking for us, I think.\"\n\nThey reached London's southern outskirts as dusk darkened the sky. \"How long until we get to Dover, Harry?\" asked Sophie. She sat on the cab floor with her back against the warm metal of the furnace, wrapped in a canvas sheet in an attempt to stay comfortable in the open cabin.\n\n\"Perhaps three hours, if the roads are good and we can maintain this pace.\"\n\nGunn thought about that for a moment. \"I hope you're not planning to put Bertha to sea in the dark.\"\n\n\"I don't intend anything so dangerous. No, we'll wait until daybreak before we attempt the crossing. The question worrying me most is how to get Bertha down to the shore. There's only one road between the cliffs, and it goes right by the harbour. We won't be able to avoid being seen, and when we are, we'll be in trouble.\"\n\nGunn grinned. \"You mean, when someone sees us trying to leave the country without the proper documentation and in sight of a major port?\"\n\n\"Precisely. There is an alternative, now that I think about it. Instead of Dover, let's make for Deal. It's a few miles north of Dover, and there are no cliffs\u2014just a beach. There's a harbour, but the place is more of a fishing village. I should be able to get Bertha to the waterline well away from the harbour, and if anyone happens to see us, we'll be away before they realise what we're doing. It would make for a longer crossing, but the risk of running into Pendragon's forces\u2014or the police\u2014would be lessened.\"\n\nAfter what had happened in London, Gunn was in favour of staying as far as possible from Pendragon's people\u2014even if it meant a riskier sea crossing.\n\nThe houses of the London suburbs gave way to the fields and woods of Kent, and after an hour of driving along the quieter\u2014and unlit\u2014roads, Gunn was having trouble seeing in the gathering twilight.\n\n\"You might want to slow down a bit, Harry. Wouldn't want to run into something.\"\n\nHarry leaned forward over the controls, squinting into the darkness. \"You're right. I don't know how much farther I can go on. I can barely see, either.\" He pulled back the steam lever, and Bertha slowed.\n\n\"Does Bertha not have any lights?\" said Gunn.\n\n\"I installed brackets, but I never got around to putting lights on them. She's not much more than a prototype, you see, and I hadn't planned on taking her anywhere in the dark until she'd been thoroughly tested.\"\n\n\"Try the goggles,\" said Sophie, and dug them out of her satchel, handing them to Gunn and Harry. After fiddling with the lever on the side, Gunn was able to see the road ahead clearly.\n\n\"Much better,\" said Harry.\n\n\"How much farther?\" Sophie asked.\n\n\"I'd say another two hours. It's all country lanes and a few villages from here on, so we shouldn't run into any trouble.\"\n\n\"We should stop at the next village with a shop.\" Harry gave her a questioning look. \"I think we should get some blankets,\" she explained, \"for when we have to stop to sleep.\"\n\n\"Good thinking,\" said Harry, \"although I'd envisioned that we might find a nice little country inn.\"\n\nHarry took a detour to a farming village, where, to his disappointment, they found no inn, but Sophie was able to obtain bedding.\n\nThey continued in darkness.\n\nSuddenly, Bertha lurched, and Gunn was thrown sideways and slammed into the bulkhead. He grabbed the door frame to steady himself, as Bertha bumped and shuddered. \"What the devil\u2014?\"\n\nSophie, sitting on the floor, yelped in surprise as she slid toward the door, and grabbed the handle on the fuel store hatch just in time. \"What's going on?\" she yelled, panicked.\n\nHarry grabbed the brake handle, and Bertha jerked to a halt.\n\n\"The road's thick with holes. Even with the goggles, I didn't see them in time. I fear I've taken a wrong turn.\"\n\nSophie stood, went to Gunn's side, and looked out. The track appeared to be more potholes than solid ground. \"Shouldn't we turn back, and try to find the right way?\"\n\nHarry shook his head. \"I have no idea where I might have steered us astray. It could be miles back along the way we came, and I'm not sure we would be able to find it in the dark, goggles or not.\" He sighed. \"It's not wise to try to proceed like this. I fear we have no choice but to wait until morning, for the sake of safety.\"\n\n\"Then I suggest we get away from the road,\" said Gunn. \"Better if we don't take the risk of being seen.\"\n\n\"Sound thinking,\" said Harry.\n\nGunn squinted into the darkness. \"I think there are some trees over there. Perhaps we can get Bertha hidden. Wait here while I look.\"\n\nGunn dropped to the ground and made his way toward the trees he'd seen. The land alongside the road was grassy and dotted with large stones, but he was sure Harry could manage it with care. The trees were not far from where Bertha sat, and turned out to be the edge of a small wood. They were spaced widely enough that the big vehicle would have little trouble getting in and out.\n\n\"Good enough,\" said Harry when Gunn returned. \"Lead on.\"\n\nGunn found a route that avoided some of the larger rocks. Behind him, Harry drove Bertha at a crawl until they reached the trees. Once into the wood, the blackness was almost complete, and even with the goggles, Gunn found it difficult to see.\n\n\"We don't need to go in very far,\" Harry shouted from the cab. Suddenly, a grinding sound came from above. Harry yanked the brake lever again, as Sophie flinched and looked up.\n\n\"Whatever was that?\"\n\n\"It didn't sound good, whatever it was,\" said Gunn. \"I think she hit a branch. Let's hope there's no damage.\" He climbed back up into the cab. \"We'll have to wait until daylight before we can take a proper look. I don't suppose you designed in anything to make it comfortable to sleep in here?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid not. We can leave the furnace burning for some warmth, but other than that, we'll just have to manage.\"\n\nChristie read the slip of paper that his machine stamped out, then crumpled it and threw it into the fireplace. He turned back to the machine and tapped in Jameson's code.\n\nJameson's irritated voice came through a moment later. \"What do you want, Christie?\"\n\n\"Message from Management, Jameson. One of our people in Kent spotted Bohemia and the others in a vehicle headed for the coast. They're probably making for Dover, to catch the ferry to France.\"\n\n\"Very interesting, and completely irrelevant. What do you expect me to do about it?\"\n\n\"You can call the police in Dover, and have them watching and ready to arrest them, that's what.\"\n\n\"Oh, really? And how am I supposed to explain to them how I know that's where Bohemia's going, when no one else in the country has a clue?\"\n\n\"I don't care how you do it, Jameson. In the meantime, there's a passenger airship to Dover, leaving in a couple of hours. I'm going down there with my men. I'll contact you when I get there.\"\n\nThe three spent a cold, uncomfortable, and mostly sleepless night, and rose with the sun.\n\n\"Let's see what made that noise,\" said Harry.\n\nGunn climbed up the ladder, and surveyed the top of the vehicle.\n\nBehind the cab, Bertha's top opened to the sky. When they had worked on her the previous day, Harry had explained that while he'd wanted solid sides to prevent prying eyes from seeing Bertha's secrets, closing the roof over would have added unnecessary weight, and made it inconvenient to access the fuel and water tanks. He'd warned Gunn to take care if he ever had to climb up; one misstep and he could end up against the red-hot furnace, or be ground to mincemeat by the pistons and cranks of Bertha's steam engine.\n\nGunn groaned when he saw a thick branch from a nearby tree lodged firmly across the water filler. \"It's worse than I thought, damn it,\" he shouted. \"There's a big branch jammed on the water tank. As if we haven't had enough trouble. I'll see if I can hold it clear while you drive forward.\"\n\nHe crouched down to get both arms under the tree limb. Bracing his back, he used the strength of his legs, and grunted with exertion\u2014but it didn't budge. The branch's natural springiness pushed it down against the tank with more force than he could overcome. \"I can't move the damned thing, Harry,\" he yelled in frustration.\n\nHarry's head appeared at the top of the ladder. \"Oh, my,\" he said, his eyes wide. \"I see what you mean.\"\n\n\"Perhaps if we try together.\"\n\nHarry showed Sophie the controls, then joined Gunn. They grabbed the branch from opposite sides. Gunn pushed upward with his legs as hard as he could, and Harry's face reddened with effort as he did the same. The branch moved upward a handful of inches. \"Now, Sophie!\" Gunn bellowed as loudly as he could manage.\n\nBertha creaked forward. Gunn and Harry shuffled backward unsteadily along the water tank, holding the branch clear until the filler passed under it.\n\n\"That's it,\" said Harry.\n\nGunn relaxed his grip on the branch\u2014and it sprang back, throwing Harry off-balance.\n\nHarry tried to regain his footing, arms windmilling as he struggled. Below him, Bertha's pistons and gears ground ominously.\n\nGunn jumped over the branch and, as Harry tipped back on his heels, grabbed the lapels of his jacket. Harry grabbed Gunn's upper arms instinctively to keep himself from falling back.\n\nFor a moment they were frozen in place, balancing precariously\u2014Gunn's hands grasping at Harry's jacket, his weight hard on his heels; Harry falling backward, clutching Gunn's biceps painfully. Gunn couldn't let go, but he wasn't able to get a firmer grip to drag himself and Harry out of danger.\n\nThere was no time for anything but the first thing that came into his head, insane as it was. He let his feet slide forward, between Harry's legs, deliberately overbalancing backward, and fell back onto the water tank, dragging Harry down on top of him with a grunt.\n\nBertha jerked to a halt. \"Whatever are you two playing at?\" came Sophie's voice. Gunn lifted his head and looked past Harry's shoulder. Sophie regarded them from the ladder, an eyebrow raised.\n\nGunn was still laughing as Harry helped him up, and clapped him on the shoulder, grinning.\n\nJameson stared at the scrap of paper in his hand, and bit his lip in thought. After a moment of indecision, he dialled the code for the hotel in Dover where Christie had settled for the night.\n\nThe hotel's desk clerk answered, and he asked to be connected to Christie's room. Christie's voice came through. \"Jameson?\"\n\nHe got straight to the point. \"Any sign of them?\"\n\n\"No word yet from my men watching the road. Anything from the local police?\"\n\n\"Not a whisper,\" said Jameson. And there won't be anything from that quarter, he thought; he hadn't contacted them as Christie had requested, but he wasn't about to tell him that. \"Listen, Christie. It occurred to me that Bohemia and company might not show up in Dover.\"\n\n\"Oh? Why is that?\"\n\n\"Because they're not daft. They know the police will be watching the ports and the airship stations, so they're hardly likely to go within a mile of any of those.\"\n\n\"You're of a different opinion, I take it?\"\n\n\"If I were in their shoes, I'd look for something less conspicuous. I'd rent a boat, or pay a fishing boat captain to take me across the channel on the quiet.\"\n\nJameson heard Christie clicking his tongue at the other end of the wire. \"You might be right, at that,\" he said after a long moment. \"Assuming you're correct, where would they go?\"\n\nJameson had spent half an hour prior looking at a map and asking himself the same question. Ramsgate, twenty miles or so along the coast from Dover, was a busy fishing port, but not one that had ferries going to France\u2014so there'd be no nosey passport officials. If he were Gunn, he'd go there, and offer a trawler skipper some cash for transport.\n\nJameson didn't want Christie to find Gunn and the others. He didn't want their deaths on his conscience. If he took care of it himself\u2014if he could find Gunn before Christie did, and talk to him\u2014there was a much better chance of resolving this whole business without bloodshed.\n\n\"Are you still there, Jameson?\"\n\n\"Still here. I suggest you watch the harbour at Deal, instead,\" said Jameson. Deal was a tiny place that Jameson had never heard of before he'd seen it on the map. That should divert Christie long enough for Gunn and the others to get away, then Jameson would have more time to make his own plans.\n\n\"Deal it is, then.\"\n\nWhen they arrived at Deal, Harry took a route around the north side of the town, rather than driving along the main street. \"I fear we may have to go to the harbour after all,\" he said.\n\n\"Why?\" said Gunn.\n\n\"I don't want to be stranded in the middle of the English Channel on Bertha's maiden voyage, so we need to fill the water and fuel tanks\u2014but I haven't seen any stores where we can buy what she needs.\"\n\n\"And you think we can get those things at the harbour?\"\n\n\"She can use the same fuel as the fishing boats.\"\n\nSophie frowned. \"Did I hear you say maiden voyage, Harry?\"\n\nGunn winced. \"Do you mean to say that Bertha has never been on the water before?\"\n\nHarry shrugged sheepishly. \"I was planning to test her on the river near the workshop, but other things took my time, and I never did get around to it.\"\n\nGunn covered his face with his hands and groaned. They were about to take a completely untested craft across twenty or thirty miles of open sea.\n\nSophie pressed her lips into a tight line. \"We'd better buy life vests, too.\"\n\nThey reached the waterfront. Ahead, the icy sea washed against the pebble beach where they would cast off. Gunn suppressed a shudder as he envisioned Bertha sinking into the frigid waves.\n\nThey purchased provisions at a shop by the harbour, and Harry and Gunn filled Bertha's water tank from a cistern nearby. A few people stopped to look at the unusual vehicle, and Gunn hoped none of them would make a fuss and draw attention to them. As soon as the tank was filled, Harry drove Bertha away from the harbour, back to the beach. He stopped her on the pebbles, a few dozen feet from where small waves lapped at the shore.\n\n\"Let's make sure everything is secure before we launch,\" said Harry. \"We wouldn't want anything vital falling into the sea.\"\n\nHarry showed them the storage spaces hidden underneath the floor of the cab. They weren't large, but they were deep enough to accommodate their supplies.\n\n\"Are we ready, Harry?\" asked Sophie as Gunn replaced the cover over the last of the compartments.\n\n\"Almost. Gunn, perhaps you'd help me stoke the boiler.\"\n\nGunn and Harry fed the furnace while Sophie stood by the cab's doorway, apparently taking in the view. She turned her head sharply at something he couldn't see. \"Someone's coming.\"\n\nHe went to her, and saw half a dozen men, wearing long camel coats and brown bowlers, descending to the beach from the seafront road. Gunn recognised the face of one of the men. It was the police sergeant, Logan, who had arrested them outside the Italian embassy.\n\nHe turned to Harry quickly. \"We have to go, Harry. Now.\"\n\nHarry slammed the furnace door closed, jumped to the controls, and pushed a lever, hard. Bertha started rolling forward.\n\nThen she stopped. Harry manoeuvred the lever back and forth. Bertha didn't move.\n\nThe men increased their pace. They were no more than a hundred yards away. The sight of another familiar face shocked Gunn: Christie was with them, at the rear. Christie's working for Pendragon, too!\n\nBefore he could say anything, Harry began to panic. He pushed and pulled levers, but to no avail. \"Something's jammed!\" he yelled.\n\nGunn rushed up the ladder and looked down into Bertha's innards. A piece of wood the size of his forearm\u2014part of the branch that they'd cleared that morning\u2014was jammed between two gears. \"Sophie!\" he shouted down into the cab. \"I need your help, quick!\" He dropped down onto his belly.\n\nSophie appeared an instant later. \"Grab my ankles,\" he said. Sophie wasted no time, and a moment later, he hung upside-down, tugging at the mangled piece of wood. He couldn't pull it clear of the gears. He changed hands and grabbed with his prosthetic, using its strength\u2014and the broken branch came free.\n\nThe gears whirled, Bertha lurched forward\u2014and his legs slipped in Sophie's hands. He yelped as he slid down, his face inches from the spinning gears. He thrashed about, trying to find something to hold onto\u2014then Sophie regained her grip, and braced her legs against the metalwork to stop him slipping farther. His hand found a metal pipe, and with a grunt of effort, he pulled himself back up.\n\nHe scrambled to his feet. The men were twenty yards away, with pistols aimed at him and Sophie. He pushed her back down into the cab as they fired, and dove after her head-first as bullets ricocheted off the metal siding.\n\nHarry operated another lever, and Gunn heard clanking and the squeal of metal as the plates over Bertha's wheels retracted, revealing the hull.\n\nThe men stopped firing and ran toward them. The water was ten yards ahead. \"Grab onto something!\" shouted Harry.\n\nBertha accelerated abruptly and pitched Gunn and Sophie backward. Gunn glanced out of the cab as the machine's wheels smashed into the waves, throwing ice-cold salt spray in all directions. As soon as she began to bob back and forth like a boat, Harry worked another control. Bertha's wheels retracted, her propeller whirled, and she shot forward.\n\nGunn looked behind, and saw their pursuers stop at the water's edge. Christie took his hat off and threw it down onto the beach. The other men stood there, watching them. Logan aimed his gun and fired. Gunn pulled his head back as the bullet struck Bertha's side.\n\nBertha was a good hundred yards out, breasting the waves just as a boat should. Gunn risked another look behind. Christie and the other men were retreating up the beach.\n\nHe was about to go to the others, when he caught a glimpse of a portly figure behind a newspaper stand a little way along the seafront road. He shielded his eyes with a hand, and squinted to see more clearly, but the man had disappeared from sight.\n\nGunn kept his eyes on the beach until the ocean spray obscured the view. He went to Harry and Sophie.\n\n\"Christie was there, with the others.\"\n\nSophie's eyes went wide. \"Doctor Christie? But that must mean\u2014\"\n\n\"He's Pendragon's man. And to think, I almost let him at me with a scalpel . . .\"\n\nHarry frowned. \"I can't say I'm surprised\u2014he's just the type\u2014but I wish I'd known sooner. I might have used that information to find Pendragon.\"\n\nGunn ran his fingers through his hair. \"There's more. That man was there again. At least, I think it was him.\"\n\n\"What man?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Bowler hat and muttonchops. Harry, did you ever find out anything about him?\"\n\nHarry shook his head. \"I neglected to mention that the man's followed me several times. Always at night, and always when I was alone, so I wasn't about to risk confronting him. I still have no idea who he might be.\"\n\nGunn's mind whirled. Christie was with Logan and the other fake police\u2014that much was certain. But the man with the muttonchops seemed to be hiding from them. \"I don't think he's with the others. Who the devil can he be?\"\n\n\"I'm sure we'll find out,\" said Harry. \"And I suspect we're in for a nasty surprise when we do.\"\n\nThe little bell on Jameson's machine rang three times. He picked up the microphone. \"Hello?\"\n\nChristie's voice came back. \"You were right about Deal, Jameson.\"\n\nJameson's heart skipped a beat. Gunn had shown up at Deal, after all? Had Christie caught him and the others? Had he murdered them?\n\nBefore he could ask the question, Christie continued. \"We weren't quick enough. Some busybody wasted our time, told us he'd seen Bohemia's vehicle on the other side of the harbour. Then it turned out the damned thing floats. They got away.\"\n\nJameson wanted to breathe a huge sigh of relief, but held back. \"Damn,\" he said half-heartedly, then grimaced, hoping Christie hadn't noticed. \"What are you going to do?\"\n\n\"Nothing, until I've informed Management and have new orders. You're to remain available in case you're needed.\"\n\n\"Bertha's not sinking,\" said Gunn, and he gave Sophie a cockeyed smile. \"Yet.\"\n\n\"Don't be like that, dear,\" Sophie chided. \"I think Harry's done a marvellous job.\"\n\nHarry looked at Gunn with a frown\u2014but the wrinkles around his eyes betrayed amusement. \"Thank you, Sophie. Gunn, if you'd care to open the inspection hatch below the furnace door and tell me what you see.\"\n\nGunn opened the hatch and looked around. It opened into the space above the hull, where he saw thin rivulets of water running down the metal plates and pooling in the bottom. \"There's some water coming in,\" he said. \"Just a trickle. Nothing serious.\" He closed the hatch and looked up at Harry, who raised an eyebrow. Sophie was looking out at the sea; Gunn gave Harry a slight shake of his head.\n\n\"To be expected,\" he said. \"The bilge pump will take care of it.\"\n\n\"What's our course?\" said Sophie, standing next to Harry.\n\n\"South for a few miles, to begin with, until I have a feel for how she handles. Then we'll make the crossing.\"\n\nGunn suspected Harry wanted to stay close to the coast until he was sure that the leak wasn't too serious, but said nothing.\n\nHe turned to Harry and Sophie. \"Christie and Logan were in charge of those men, but this time, they weren't in uniform. I suspect Logan is as much a policeman as I am.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"Either way, I think it's a fair bet that he and Christie are working for Pendragon, directly or indirectly.\"\n\nSophie brushed a wind-blown lock of hair from her eyes. \"We can only hope we'll be safe once we reach France.\"\n\n\"Relatively safe, perhaps. Pendragon most likely won't have anyone working for him in the French government or police, but nevertheless, our own police may have alerted their counterparts in France to watch out for us. Not to mention that we'll be entering the country illegally. We'll have to be cautious.\"\n\nSophie looked thoughtful. \"In that case, how far do you think we'll get in Bertha? She rather stands out, and they'll be looking for her.\"\n\n\"You raise a very good point,\" said Harry. \"We'll have to see what we can do as soon as we're back on dry land.\"\n\nSophie tapped at a front tooth with a fingernail, and stared out into space. Gunn left her to her thoughts.\n\nHe looked ahead to the chalk cliffs a few miles away, near Dover. The sea and sky in the distance were dark. \"I think we're heading into bad weather,\" he said.\n\nHarry looked. \"You might be right. I don't like the look of this.\" He surveyed the gauges. \"Let's not wait. Bertha seems to be handling well enough, and she has plenty of steam.\" He adjusted the controls, and Bertha made a slow turn to port.\n\n\"How far is it?\"\n\n\"Twenty-five miles, perhaps. An hour and a half, and we'll be in France.\"\n\nThe time passed slowly. Gunn watched the cliffs recede behind them and become a white line above the horizon before fading into the mist. His jaw ached, and he realised he'd been clenching his teeth, worrying and wondering how long it would be before they'd be able to return home\u2014or if they ever would.\n\nA flicker of lightning off to the west caught his eye, bringing his thoughts back to the present. Ahead, the French coast emerged through the haze. Gunn guessed that the beach was perhaps five or six miles away\u2014just another twenty minutes or so, he thought.\n\nThe dark clouds they'd seen off the English coast approached rapidly, and the light breeze that had been coming from that direction stiffened into a gusting wind. The small swells grew higher, and it wasn't long before they became six-foot waves. Gunn went to Sophie. She gave him a nervous smile in return, but the look in her eyes was one he knew. Heavy rain began ringing against the roof of the cab.\n\n\"She's fighting me,\" said Harry, his voice raised above the wind. \"I'm having trouble steering a straight course.\"\n\n\"Tack across the current,\" shouted Gunn. \"Point her a few degrees south of where we want to land and hold her there.\"\n\nHarry nodded in reply, angling Bertha as Gunn had suggested.\n\nSophie pressed against Gunn's side. \"How far?\"\n\nGunn looked out at the line on the horizon to the east. \"Three miles, perhaps four.\"\n\n\"We're fighting the current and the wind,\" Harry yelled. \"We may be out here for some time yet.\"\n\nSophie took Gunn's hand, and he pulled her close and hugged her. \"We'll get through this, I promise,\" he whispered into her ear. He held her for a long moment as she trembled with cold and fear.\n\n\"Check the bilge again, Gunn!\" said Harry.\n\nGunn opened the hatch and saw a foot of water sloshing around inside the hull. He closed the hatch, and went to where Harry was straining at the rudder controls. \"She's leaking more, Harry,\" he said. \"It looks like the pump isn't working.\"\n\n\"It's working,\" he said, pointing at a gauge, \"but the water's coming in faster than the pump can get it out. I hate to say this, Gunn, but you'd better prepare yourself and your wife in case we have to swim for it.\"\n\n\"She's scared enough as it is, Harry\u2014I'm not saying a word unless I have to.\"\n\n\"All the same, I think we'd better have the life vests on.\"\n\nGunn got them out, handed one to Harry, and helped Sophie with hers. He put his mouth close to her ear. \"Not much farther, sweetheart.\" She took his hand, burying her face in his chest.\n\nThe rain and spray had reduced the visibility to tens of yards, and he had no idea how far they were from the beach. He hoped they were going in the right direction.\n\nThe steam pressure gauge was dropping\u2014and stoking the furnace would be impossible in these conditions. He prayed they'd reach land before the pressure went altogether.\n\nHe felt a thump against Bertha's hull, and dashed to the doorway. \"Land, Harry!\" he yelled. \"Fifty more yards and we've made it!\"\n\nHarry operated the levers, and a few moments later, Gunn hugged a smiling Sophie as Harry drove Bertha through the howling wind and the lashing rain up onto the beach.\n\nThe shore on the French side of the water was much flatter than on the English side, and they were able to see some distance in all directions. Harry drove Bertha southwest along the sand, in what he hoped was the correct direction toward Calais. From there, Gunn knew, there was a major road that would take them to Paris.\n\nAfter a mile or so, Gunn spied a shape a few hundred yards inland from the beach. \"There.\"\n\nHarry squinted through the rain. \"It's a barn. Perhaps that will suit our needs.\"\n\nHarry steered Bertha up the beach, across flat sand and brown grass. As they approached the barn, Gunn could see the large doors at one end were wide open, and the inside was empty. \"Perfect.\"\n\nHarry drove Bertha into the barn. Gunn closed the doors, and Harry started a fire with coal from Bertha's fuel store. Meanwhile, Sophie, using the cab for privacy, stripped off her wet clothes and draped them next to Bertha's still-hot furnace to dry. She covered herself with a dry blanket then joined Gunn and Harry at the fire.\n\nHarry covered a yawn with his hand. \"If you don't mind, I think I'd like to turn in.\"\n\nWe should set a watch, Gunn thought\u2014they were wanted fugitives in a foreign country. But none of them had slept properly in days. He, for one, was prepared to take the risk.\n\nA few minutes later, Gunn heard Harry's snoring from Bertha's opposite side as he climbed under a warm, dry blanket next to an already-sleeping Sophie.\n\nChristie watched the fields of the Kent countryside slip by, two thousand feet below the gondola of the passenger airship. As he watched, the daylight faded, the rain intensified, and the ground was lost to view. He moved back to the rows of padded seats, and settled down to read a newspaper.\n\nLogan was aboard, somewhere, and another man\u2014Granger\u2014who Christie had called on. Granger wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, and Christie suspected he'd need a man like that when they got to Paris.\n\nManagement's orders were clear. The first priority was to identify primary and secondary targets for Proctor's airship and machines. Christie was also to watch for Bohemia and his friends, since they were likely to show up sooner or later and start making trouble.\n\nA shadow passed over Christie's newspaper, and he looked up to see Granger's scarred face as the man passed and took a seat farther along the row. They ignored each other, maintaining the pretence that they were just ordinary people, travelling on their own business.\n\nChristie went back to his newspaper and smiled at the thought of what he would do to Bohemia if he dared to show his face in Paris.\n\nThey slept undisturbed. During the night, the rain had abated and the wind had dropped, and they woke to a calm but cloudy morning. Gunn made tea and cooked some breakfast, and the three made ready to move on.\n\nGunn wondered what had been going through Sophie's mind the day before; tapping her teeth with a fingernail was a sure sign that she had been pondering an idea. He was about to ask, when she spoke.\n\n\"I was thinking about a time when Dad brought us all to France on holiday, when I was a little girl. There were quite a few people giving stage shows. Rather like Harry's shows, I imagine, but done from the back of a large wagon. And one thing I remember very well is that all the wagons had lovely pictures and things painted on them.\"\n\n\"I know exactly what you mean, Sophie,\" said Harry, smiling and nodding vigorously, \"I've seen them myself. I think that's a capital idea.\"\n\nGunn clapped his hands together, and grinned at Sophie. \"Perfect! We'll need some paint. We can find somewhere to stop near Calais, then walk in and get what we need. Sophie, think about how it might look. It needs to look convincing, and that means making it look French. With luck, no one will give us a second glance.\"\n\nTwo hours later, Harry, relieved to find that he'd picked the correct direction, stopped Bertha behind a stand of trees in a field outside Calais. Gunn stayed behind, since he was the only one of the three who did not speak French, and stood watch while Harry and Sophie went into the town. They returned some time later, carrying bags of supplies, and the three got to work.\n\nBy the time they'd finished, it was almost dark again. Gunn stepped back and admired their handiwork. Bertha's sides now proclaimed that she was carrying Cirque de la Science, or, as Sophie explained, The Travelling Science Show. Gunn nodded in satisfaction and pride. Sophie wiped a paint-spattered hand across her cheek, smearing it with yellow, and he couldn't help grinning at her. She smiled back.\n\n\"Excellent,\" Harry beamed. \"As good a job as I believe I've seen. I suggest a quick meal, then we can be on our way.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"Without lights?\"\n\n\"I have a solution to that problem. You'll see.\"\n\nThey ate, then Harry drove Bertha out onto the road, and a few minutes later, they entered Calais. There were people out and about, and Gunn was pleased to see when they looked at Bertha and saw the display on her side, they looked away with little interest. \"It's working,\" he said to Sophie. \"Well done, dear.\"\n\nThey stopped outside a shop in a main street. \"This won't take long,\" Harry said, and jumped down to the ground. A few minutes later, he returned, carrying two large carbide lamps and a fuel can. \"Help me with these, would you, Gunn.\" It was the work of a few minutes to fit the lamps and light them. \"Wonderful,\" said Harry. \"From memory, Paris is about a hundred and twenty miles, and it's a good road all the way. We'll be there well before dawn.\"\n\nWebster felt a thrill as the big, blue airship came into sight, descending through the cloud layer. He liked travelling on airships; they were quieter than trains, smoother than sea-skimmers, and there was always room to move and time to enjoy a meal and a glass of ale. He wished he had the opportunity to fly more often.\n\nThe picture is getting clearer, he thought as he watched the vessel approach the boarding ramps. The line had been drawn, and, for the most part, he knew on which side the players lay. He frowned as he considered the one thing he couldn't reconcile\u2014the situation between Gunn and Jameson.\n\nPlainly, they fell on opposite sides of that line\u2014and yet, they were friends. Webster couldn't begin to understand it. Jameson had arranged the arrests of Gunn and Bohemia, as well as their escape\u2014and then he'd sent Christie and the others after them at Deal. Had Webster not followed those men and had a chance to delay them a little, the three would probably be dead by now. So, whose side was Jameson on? Could another agency be at work here, a third party? Webster shook his head, and wondered how a simple job could have turned so complicated, so quickly.\n\nThe boarding bell rang, and he made his way up the ramp and onto the airship. He had informed his employer that Paris was Gunn's likeliest destination, and had been instructed to follow.\n\nParis, thought Webster, and smiled as he found a vacant seat on the passenger deck, near the windows. He hadn't been to Paris for quite some time, and he looked forward to seeing the city again, and perhaps dining at a good restaurant the following evening.\n\nThe smile faded as he thought about the more probable outcome\u2014watching Gunn, his wife, and Bohemia from a freezing rooftop.\n\nHe sighed. Nobody had ever said this would be a holiday.\n\nThey arrived in Paris in the early hours of the morning, and Harry drove directly to a hotel he knew well from his days on the stage.\n\nGunn jumped from the cab and stroked Bertha's side in a gesture of appreciation. He noticed Harry, regarding him from the cab with a raised eyebrow. \"She got us here safe and sound. If my doubts and such gave offence, I take it all back.\"\n\nHarry smiled as he descended the steps, and patted Gunn's shoulder. \"No offence taken. I knew she'd show you.\" He helped Sophie as she trod lightly down from the cab. \"Late as it is, we shouldn't have a problem getting rooms here\u2014at least, if they remember me.\"\n\nThey obtained rooms, and after a few hours sleep, made their plans over breakfast. They assumed Pendragon's intention would be to destroy the centres of technology, and Harry knew those were concentrated in the northeastern quarter of the city.\n\n\"The attack may not come for days or weeks,\" said Harry. \"We could be in for a very long wait.\"\n\n\"You're probably right,\" said Gunn, \"but we don't have any idea of Pendragon's state of readiness. For all we know, he could attack tonight. And besides, can you think of anything better to do?\"\n\n\"In a city full of theatres and wonderful restaurants? I'm sure I can. But you're right, of course. We must do what we came here to do. And when we've thwarted Pendragon's ambitions, we should celebrate at the finest restaurant Paris has to offer.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said Gunn, smiling.\n\n\"We have a small problem,\" said Sophie. \"We have the money that Jameson gave me, and there's quite a lot\u2014but it's English currency. I don't think we'd be able to change it at a bank without questions being asked.\"\n\n\"I believe I have the solution to that problem,\" said Harry after a few moments' thought. \"I have an old friend in the city who I'm sure will be able to help, and we have the afternoon. Gunn, perhaps you would accompany me.\"\n\nSophie yawned. None of them had gotten enough sleep after the long drive from Calais. \"That's fine,\" she said. \"I could use another hour or two in bed.\"\n\nShe retired upstairs, and Gunn and Harry left the hotel. Harry referred to a pocket-sized map for directions. \"Who's this friend?\" asked Gunn.\n\n\"His name's Mainwaring, and he's not really a friend. Gunn, be warned: I have every reason to think that he's working for Pendragon.\"\n\nGunn groaned. He might have known that this wasn't going be easy. \"How is this going to help us, Harry?\"\n\n\"He has access to large sums of money, and I think I can coerce him into providing us with what we need.\"\n\nA short time later, they ascended the steps of a three-storey house in a less than well-to-do area of the city. Piles of rubbish leaned against the bottom of the steps, and Gunn saw that the basement windows were mostly broken. The bricks had been painted a deep green, but the paint was faded and peeling. The front door was in the same condition. Gunn thought Harry must have made a mistake; judging by the condition of this house, Mainwaring couldn't have been at all wealthy.\n\nHarry pulled the doorbell handle. A few moments later, he heard the shuffling of feet against carpet, then a short, fat man, about fifty years old, opened the door. \"Oui?\" he said, then he looked up at Harry's face.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Mainwaring hopped backward a step and ran into the house, surprising Gunn; the man was nimble, belying his looks. Either that, or Harry's appearance had put him in fear of his life. Harry rushed after him through a door down the hallway. Bemused, Gunn closed the front door and followed Harry inside, to where he'd cornered Mainwaring in the kitchen.\n\nMainwaring, his back pressing hard against the stove and his face red and sweating, stared at Harry with an expression of terror. Harry leaned against the wall, smiling, looking completely at ease.\n\nGunn decided to play along and let Harry handle the situation. He placed himself beside Harry and squared his shoulders in an attempt to appear quietly menacing.\n\n\"So good to see you after all these years, Mainwaring,\" said Harry. \"I'm glad you haven't forgotten me.\"\n\n\"Why are you here, Bohemia?\" said Mainwaring in a tremulous voice. \"To kill me?\"\n\nHarry grinned like a predator, teeth bared, his voice smooth as silk. \"Whatever makes you think that? Other than the fact that you make money for people who've tried to kill me a number of times, of course. Give me Pendragon's money, and perhaps I'll let you live.\"\n\nGunn kept his face impassive, but his stomach fluttered with the shock of seeing this side of Harry\u2014then it occurred to him that Pendragon had indeed tried to finish Harry off more than once. Were he in Harry's position, he wasn't sure he would be so restrained.\n\nMainwaring still had his back firmly against the stove. \"Look at this place, Bohemia. Does it look as if I have any money?\"\n\n\"Come, come. I have it on the best authority that you've been working for the Paris underworld, helping them to move stolen art and jewellery, amongst many other things. In return for which they pay you rather handsomely, and most of that money goes to fund Pendragon's activities. So, Mainwaring, where's the money?\"\n\nMainwaring's eyes darted from side to side, as if he was looking for an escape route. \"It's not here. I keep it somewhere else. Somewhere safe.\"\n\nMainwaring didn't deny knowing Pendragon, thought Gunn. Harry was right\u2014the man was, indeed, working for the enemy.\n\n\"Really, man. You can do better than that. Next, you'll be telling me that you keep large amounts of illegally-made and untaxed cash in the bank.\"\n\nHe took a step closer, and Mainwaring forced himself back even harder, cowering. \"What do you suppose those gangsters will do when I tell them that you're helping to finance someone whose plan is to destroy the French way of life? They may be criminals, but they're also patriots, and you know just how protective they are of their country. I think that they'd probably kill you, don't you?\"\n\nHarry took another step; by this time, he was no further than a hand's breadth away from Mainwaring. Gunn saw the man's throat quiver as he gulped.\n\nHarry continued, \"And even if they don't kill you, the flow of money pouring into Pendragon's coffers would certainly dry up. I think we can both guess what Pendragon does with people that he has no further use for.\"\n\nA look of confusion passed over Mainwaring's face. \"If I give you the money, Pendragon will probably kill me.\"\n\n\"And if you don't, my trigger-happy friend here most definitely will.\"\n\nGunn took that as a cue for a menacing gesture, and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the metal fist of his left, intending to crack his knuckles. But Mainwaring stared open-mouthed at the prosthetic hand\u2014and his red face turned deathly white.\n\nThe man slumped in defeat. He turned to the stove and placed his hands on the corners. With a grunt of exertion he pulled it to one side, revealing a hole in the wall.\n\nMainwaring reached into the hole and pulled out two packages wrapped in dirty brown cloth. He turned and threw the packages at Harry, who caught them deftly. \"That's all I have,\" he spat. \"If you want more, you're out of luck.\"\n\nHarry unwrapped the ends of the packets, and Gunn saw that they were stuffed with French banknotes. He raised his eyes back to Mainwaring. \"I'd say it was a pleasure doing business\u2014but that would be a lie. Give Pendragon my regards.\" He slipped the packages into his overcoat pockets, then turned to Gunn and nodded. Gunn led the way back to the front door, and they left without another word.\n\n\"The anonymous messages might have been a mistake,\" said Sophie. They stood on the roof of the warehouse, across the street from one of three workshops they'd agreed would be a prime target for Pendragon. It was almost midnight, and a thin layer of cloud obscured the stars. The air was cold, but still.\n\nGunn looked over the parapet through his goggles, careful to avoid being seen by the two gendarmes patrolling the street below. \"Keep your voice down, dear,\" he whispered in warning. The two men moved on, giving no sign that they'd heard anything.\n\nWhile Harry and Gunn visited Mainwaring, Sophie hadn't been able to sleep, and instead had gone to a wire office to send messages to as many laboratories and workshops as she could, warning them of an impending attack. Now, the gendarmerie appeared to have increased their presence in the streets.\n\n\"This could impede us quite severely. I'm beginning to think we'd have been better off saying nothing,\" Harry said quietly.\n\nThe two policemen disappeared around a corner.\n\nSophie took Gunn's hand. \"If nothing happens for a few days, the police might assume it was a false alarm and reduce these patrols.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"We can hope so. We can also hope Pendragon doesn't act too soon. For all the increased presence, I fear the police are ill-equipped to deal with such an attack.\"\n\nGunn scanned the streets, counting three more pairs of gendarmes on patrol. The nearest were a good three hundred yards away. He sat down, his back to the parapet. The dart gun he'd secured in his belt dug into his side, and he adjusted it to make it more comfortable.\n\nHarry continued, \"However, at this moment, I'm more concerned about Bertha.\"\n\nGunn turned and peeped over the edge, glancing down into the narrow street behind the building, as he had done every few minutes since they'd settled themselves on the roof. Bertha was there, and so far undisturbed\u2014but she was the largest vehicle on the street, and by far the most noticeable.\n\nHarry had left the furnace lit, and wisps of smoke drifted from her innards\u2014another detail that could draw attention. \"Me, too. It's just a matter of time before one of those coppers wonders why she's there. I move that we abandon this for tonight. We need a better plan.\"\n\n\"I second that,\" said Harry.\n\nThey carried the equipment down the wooden stairs that followed the side of the building, and loaded it all into Bertha's cab. Within a minute, they were on their way.\n\n\"Harry,\" said Sophie and pointed at a barn-like building across the street.\n\nGunn made out a printed sign plastered on the large shutters at the front of the building. \"What does it say?\"\n\nSophie replied, \"It says, French-to-English dictionaries are half-price, and you should buy one.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nHarry snorted, and Sophie elbowed Gunn in the ribs.\n\n\"Of course not, silly. It says that the workshop and adjoining living space are available to rent.\"\n\nChristie operated the bell on the front door of the shabby house. There was no answer\u2014then the door opened a crack, and a red-rimmed eye regarded him.\n\nChristie didn't have time for Mainwaring's childishness. \"Let me in, you fool.\"\n\nThe door opened and Mainwaring looked up at him, his face flushed. His voice quavered. \"What are you doing in Paris?\" He turned and led the way inside, avoiding Christie's gaze.\n\n\"Business,\" he said shortly as he closed the door and followed Mainwaring to the little parlour. \"What's wrong with you?\"\n\nMainwaring sat in an armchair and reached for a bottle, almost dropping it. \"Ah, nothing. Nothing at all.\" Christie noticed that the man's hands trembled as he took a swig from the bottle. Christie caught a glimpse of the label: absinthe.\n\nChristie glanced around the room, wrinkling his nose at the faded, peeling wallpaper and the threadbare furniture, and took a seat in the other armchair. \"A bit early in the day for that, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Mind your own business, Christie. What do you want?\"\n\n\"I've come to collect this month's takings.\"\n\nMainwaring spluttered, spilling a few drops of the drink as he put the bottle down. He coughed again, then got himself under control.\n\nChristie was getting annoyed. \"What the devil's wrong with you, man?\"\n\nMainwaring pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his mouth. \"Where's the usual courier?\" he said.\n\n\"Management left it to me, since I'm here. Just get it, will you? I have more important things to be doing.\"\n\nMainwaring stood, his eyes moving back and forth between Christie and the door. \"Wait here,\" he said, then left the room.\n\nA minute passed, and Christie began to wonder what was taking so long. He got up to find out, and heard rattling sounds coming from the kitchen.\n\nMainwaring was there, straining at a sash window, trying to slide it up in the frame. He turned at the sound of Christie's footsteps, and backed into the corner, a look of terror on his face.\n\n\"What's going on, Mainwaring?\" Christie demanded.\n\n\"The money's gone,\" Mainwaring blurted out. \"Bohemia\u2014\"\n\n\"Bohemia was here?\" Christie shouted. \"You had strict orders. You were to report immediately if you saw him.\"\n\n\"He was here, with another man. He said he'd tell\u2014\"\n\n\"You gave him the money?\"\n\nMainwaring nodded sharply. \"He didn't give me any choice.\"\n\nChristie forced himself to speak calmly. \"Fine,\" he said. \"We'll find them. If they come back, you're to send word without delay.\"\n\nMainwaring nodded quickly, and Christie stalked out.\n\nChristie stormed down the steps of Mainwaring's house and hurried to the steam carriage. He climbed into the back seat next to Logan.\n\n\"Where next?\" asked Granger from the driver's seat.\n\nIt occurred to Christie that Granger was quite tall\u2014about the same height as Bohemia, if a little heavier. Logan, on the other hand, was shorter, with a build similar to Gunn's.\n\n\"Take me back to headquarters.\" The steam carriage started rolling. Christie looked out at Mainwaring's house as they drove by. \"I have a little job for you two.\"\n\nThe scar below Granger's eye wrinkled as he grinned.\n\nLate the following night, Gunn moved Harry's electrical disruptor up to the roof of the warehouse that Sophie had found, and surveyed the area nearby. It was the perfect location\u2014right in the middle of the industrial area, and across the street from a likely target. He could see Harry on the roof of a building fifty yards away.\n\nSophie came up onto the roof and took his hand.\n\n\"Well done finding this place, dear.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"I simply kept my eyes open for possibilities.\"\n\nGunn shrugged. \"Well, that makes one of us.\"\n\nHarry reasoned that Pendragon would probably use his machines to steal what he could from the French workshops before destroying them. The alternative was that Pendragon would simply raze the buildings, possibly by bombing them from the airship\u2014in which case, the three of them would be in the middle of a disaster area, and unable to escape or fight back. That possibility terrified Gunn.\n\n\"Another slow, boring night,\" he said, smiling to cover his nervousness.\n\n\"You should have brought a book to read, dear,\" said Sophie. She sat with her back against the parapet, holding a book in her gloved hands.\n\n\"How can you read in this light?\"\n\nSophie looked up at him and tapped the side of her goggles, grinning.\n\nGunn alternated between the goggles and binoculars, scanning the horizon and watching the gendarmes walking their rounds. At about two in the morning, a cold breeze blew in from the north, and he wrapped his coat more tightly around himself. Shortly after that, a light rain began to fall.\n\nSophie put her book away and huddled in the shelter of the parapet, her hat pulled down over her ears. After a short while, Gunn realised that she had fallen asleep, and he watched her with tenderness; she was exhausted, poor thing\u2014and despite that, she'd insisted on standing watch with him, in the cold and damp.\n\nHe thought about carrying her down into the warmth of the building for some proper rest, when he noticed a faint humming sound. He stood and looked around, clicking through the settings on the goggles.\n\nHe looked over at Harry, who had stood up, waving his arms frantically. Gunn waved back, and Harry, seeing him, stabbed his finger toward the north.\n\nPendragon's airship hung in the air, perhaps two miles away, a dark shadow against the clouds. Gunn stepped over to Sophie quickly, and shook her shoulder. She looked up at him, groggy with sleep.\n\n\"It's happening.\"\n\nSophie was on her feet in an instant. \"Where?\" she said, and Gunn pointed out the airship to her. She used her binoculars. \"It's coming right for us, and it's losing height.\"\n\nShe was right; the airship was landing, rather than remaining airborne to drop bombs. He was relieved\u2014Harry had been correct.\n\nThe airship reached ground level, the highest of its three envelopes showing as a rounded, humped shadow above and behind the buildings, about half a mile away. Gunn felt tense and excited, as if he should be doing something, but all he could do was wait.\n\nHe didn't have to wait long. He felt the now-familiar rhythmic thumping through his feet before he heard anything, then one of Pendragon's machines appeared from an alley across the street from Gunn and Sophie.\n\n\"Now, Sophie!\" Gunn shouted, and Sophie turned the handle on the electrical disruptor as hard as she could, winding it up to full power.\n\nThe machine stopped in front of the workshop, pulled back the arm with the boxing-glove hand, and punched through the wall with an impact that shook the roof under Gunn's feet.\n\nIt moved forward\u2014then jerked once, twice, and stopped.\n\n\"It's working!\" Gunn exulted, \"keep it going!\"\n\nHe pulled his dart gun from his belt and scrambled down to street level, glancing at Harry's roof on the way. Harry was nowhere in sight\u2014on his way to assist, probably\u2014but then a second machine came into view, a hundred yards away, with Harry following close behind.\n\nGunn rushed across to where the first machine had stopped. It stood there, inert, and Gunn wondered why the man inside wasn't trying to get out. Gunn watched for movement from the first machine while keeping an eye along the street. Harry was ten yards from the other machine, and he threw one of the bottles. It hit, precisely on target, across the second machine's faceplate.\n\nAs if the man inside had lost control, the machine ran in a zigzag, then smashed into a gaslight pole at the edge of the pavement, flattening it. It hit the wall of a building, lost its balance, and fell. Harry pulled his dart pistol from his belt as he ran up to the fallen machine.\n\nThere was still no sign of activity from the first machine. Then Gunn heard a humming sound, getting louder and higher in pitch. It came from the second machine. Harry backed away from it, then turned and ran.\n\nThe machine exploded, a ball of flame filling the space between the buildings on either side, almost blinding Gunn.\n\n\"Harry!\" he shouted, certain that his friend had been caught in the explosion. He turned his head and hunched his shoulders as bits of hot metal rained down all around him.\n\nThe second machine was gone, leaving just a small pile of mangled metal in the middle of the fire. There was no sign of Harry. Gunn wanted to find him\u2014but if he left his station, the man inside the first machine might escape, and all would have been for nothing. His mind raced; he didn't know what to do.\n\nThen Harry stepped out from an alley where he'd taken shelter, and Gunn grinned in relief. Harry jogged toward him and a moment later was by his side. \"I'll keep my pistol ready, Gunn. You use your hand to get the machine open.\"\n\n\"That won't be necessary, gentlemen,\" said an accented voice from behind them. Gunn and Harry whirled round to see eight gendarmes standing there. Gunn hadn't heard them approach.\n\n\"We will manage this situation now.\"\n\nWebster walked all the way from the centre of Paris to the industrial quarter, and for once, he'd been quite content to do so. Even in England, he knew his skills with a steam carriage wouldn't win him any medals, but here . . . they drove on the wrong side of the streets, and their traffic laws seemed to be designed to cause chaos. He'd decided that he was better off on foot.\n\nThe area crawled with police, even at that late hour, and Webster had a devil of a time getting up onto a roof with a decent view without being seen. He watched the sky, and the surrounding buildings. There was no sign of Gunn or Bohemia, but if that was where the attack would take place, they would be near.\n\nHe heard the faint sound of propellers. The airship was coming. If Bohemia and the others were there, they would be heading that way.\n\nQuickly, he checked the street below for police, then hurried down.\n\nHarry explained to Montand, the officer in charge, that the electrical disruptor that Sophie ran nearby was probably the only thing preventing the machine from exploding as the other one had. Montand shouted orders, and within moments, one of his men escorted Sophie down from the roof, while others kept the disruptor running. He gestured at two gendarmes, then turned to the three of them. \"Please go with these men.\"\n\nThe gendarmes escorted them away to a safe place between two buildings, and Gunn saw Harry make a point of positioning himself so he could watch Montand's men working on the machine. A few minutes later, Montand returned. \"The explosive device inside the machine has been disabled.\"\n\n\"I'd like to examine it, if I may,\" said Harry.\n\nMontand looked at him suspiciously, then shook his head. \"Not at this time, I think. Please wait here.\" He walked off.\n\n\"Did Pendragon blow that machine up with his man inside it?\" said Gunn, and Sophie shuddered.\n\n\"I was able to see Montand's men opening the machine. There was no man inside, although there was a space that a man could fit into. But I don't think it was controlled by a calculating engine, either. I'm anxious to know how these machines work.\"\n\nChristie drummed his fingers against the arm of the chair. He seethed with rage, angrier with every minute he was forced to wait. He stood and paced along the row of control harnesses. The humming of the engines vibrated the walls and floor, and the noise added to his irritation.\n\nThe door opened and Proctor came into the room, holding a sheet of paper. \"About time,\" said Christie. \"Where are we?\"\n\n\"Almost clear of the city.\"\n\n\"Land the ship as soon as it's safe, and contact Granger to come and get me.\" He sat down in the chair. \"How did you manage to lose two walkers? Where are they now?\"\n\n\"They ran into unexpected resistance. We were able to destroy one. For some reason, the control box didn't work on the other. We don't know where it is.\"\n\n\"We should assume that it was captured. I'll take a control box with me and see that it's taken care of.\"\n\n\"There's something you should see.\" Proctor handed the paper to Christie.\n\nChristie held the sheet up to the light. It was a photogram, showing an image captured through the viewer of one of the walkers. In the foreground a man was caught, frozen, as he hefted a black object, mid-throw. The man's face was grainy, but clear enough.\n\n\"Bohemia!\" Christie growled in rage. \"I don't suppose the explosion\u2014\" But Proctor was shaking his head. Christie screwed the paper up and threw it at Proctor's face. The man didn't even blink as it bounced off his forehead. \"Damn him! Can we not be rid of this nuisance once and for all?\"\n\n\"You know Management will want this mess cleaned up,\" said Proctor, calmly. \"We'd best get on with it. Use the control box. Find our walker. Bohemia won't be very far away.\"\n\nGunn paced the length of the room and back for the hundredth time. Harry sat in one of the shabby chairs that had been left behind by the previous occupants of the warehouse. Sophie had gone to bed.\n\nHarry shifted in the armchair, plainly just as exasperated as Gunn that Montand had kept them in the warehouse under guard for so long. Gunn dropped into the other armchair with a thump. The skylights in the warehouse roof began to brighten as the sun came up.\n\nGunn heard the street door of the warehouse open and close, and Montand came into the room. About time, thought Gunn.\n\n\"My apologies for the long wait, gentlemen. If you'd be so kind, I'd like to know why you are here, and what you can tell me about the machines.\"\n\nHarry spoke at length about Pendragon and his intentions. Montand listened, taking notes in a small black book. Harry finished, and Montand snapped the book shut.\n\n\"Please remain here,\" he said as he left.\n\n\"How much longer is this going to go on, Harry?\" said Gunn. \"Can't the man see that we're on his side?\"\n\nHarry yawned. \"I'm sure that Montand knows that. Give it time, Gunn\u2014at least we're safe, and I think that at last we may see some official acknowledgement that Pendragon is a threat.\"\n\nMontand returned just before noon. \"Doctor, you are to come with me.\"\n\n\"What's this about?\" said Gunn.\n\nMontand looked at him. \"You and your wife should remain here. Please be patient.\"\n\nHarry shrugged, and followed Montand out.\n\nHarry returned in the middle of the afternoon, plainly excited.\n\n\"Harry! Where have you been?\" exclaimed Gunn. \"Are we in trouble?\"\n\n\"The answer to that would seem to be no, with qualifications.\"\n\n\"Thank goodness you're safe,\" said Sophie. \"We've been worried.\"\n\n\"Nothing to be worried about at all,\" said Harry, smiling. \"Montand took me to the police laboratory. He had instructions to allow me to examine the machine, and it's quite an eye-opener.\"\n\n\"Instructions? From whom?\" said Gunn.\n\nHarry's brow furrowed slightly. \"A good question. He didn't say it outright, but I got the distinct impression that someone in Britain was behind it. We might have friends in high places, after all.\"\n\nGunn and Sophie looked at each other in surprise. \"Whoever could they be?\" said Gunn.\n\n\"I have no idea. Montand wouldn't tell me. But the good news is that he's recalled his men, so we're all free to come and go as we please. I came back for a change of clothes, and I'll be returning to the laboratory to continue working on the machine. You could join me there later, if you wish.\"\n\nGunn raised an eyebrow. \"We'd love to,\" he said, \"but I think I'd like to take Sophie to lunch, first.\"\n\n\"Very good. I'll see you later, then.\"\n\nChristie placed the control box next to him, on the rear seat of the carriage. He turned a knob on its side, then pressed a switch. A little filament light came on, flickered, then went out.\n\n\"Well?\" said Logan from the driver's seat.\n\nChristie frowned. \"It's nearby and has power, but it's not responding.\"\n\nGranger, in the passenger seat, looked in the direction of the police laboratory building across the street.\n\n\"You know what you're looking for?\" said Christie.\n\nLogan and Granger nodded.\n\n\"Good. Tear it out if you have to. If you can't get it, make sure it's destroyed. If Bohemia's there, shoot him in the head.\"\n\n\"You've come at the perfect time,\" said Harry with a grin as Gunn and Sophie entered the laboratory. Harry, accompanied by a young, thin man wearing spectacles, stood next to the partially dismantled machine, which lay on a long table under bright, electric lights. \"This is Herv\u00e9. Montand asked him to assist me.\" Herv\u00e9 nodded at them, then continued inspecting the machine's innards.\n\nHarry lifted a grey metal box out from inside the machine. It was about six inches square and two deep, with wires covered in black fabric leading from one side into the machine's workings.\n\n\"We've been examining this mystery component, and it is definitely not any kind of sequencer. It appears to respond to some form of invisible vibrations that can travel across distances. I believe it receives these vibrations from afar and converts them into electrical messages that control the machine. If I'm correct, it also sends information\u2014specifically, images from the machine's visual system, so the operator can see what the machine is seeing. I suspect the machine was being controlled by someone aboard Pendragon's airship.\"\n\n\"That's incredible,\" said Gunn. \"How far away could the operator be?\"\n\nHarry put the box back down, letting it rest on top of the machine's other workings. \"There's no way to tell by just looking at it, but the fact that Pendragon's airship was never terribly far from the machine's targets indicates that the distance is limited. A mile, perhaps.\"\n\n\"An idea stolen from someone's workshop in London,\" Sophie interjected.\n\n\"No doubt. I also believe that when I disabled the second machine by blinding it, the person controlling it sent a signal that activated the explosives.\"\n\n\"Why would they do that?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"To prevent us dissecting the machine to understand how it works, as we have done. We were lucky, by the way. Montand's man disabled the explosive device in this machine by ripping out some vital connections between that part and the rest of the machine, not just the detonator. Had it not been for that, whoever was controlling it would have been able to try again as soon as the electrical disruptor was stopped.\"\n\nSophie shuddered, and looked at Gunn in dismay. \"In other words, you could have been blown to bits.\"\n\nGunn nodded, his mouth a grim line.\n\nHarry's face paled; he'd only just realised just how serious the situation could have become.\n\n\"It seems that you have things well in hand,\" said Gunn. \"We'll let you get on. I think we'll go back to our headquarters, and I'll collect you later.\"\n\nHarry nodded, regaining his composure. \"I'm sure we'll have made yet more discoveries by then, and I can tell you all about them.\"\n\nGunn shook Herv\u00e9's hand, and he and Sophie made to leave. Then Sophie stopped. \"Do you think Pendragon is still trying to control it now?\"\n\nHarry and Herv\u00e9 smiled. \"We believe he was, indeed. We noted electrical activity for a time, which gave us an important clue as to its purpose. Then it stopped. Pendragon may have realised we had the component in our possession, and that continuing to send signals might give us information about it that he doesn't want us to have.\"\n\nThe hairs on the back of Gunn's neck bristled. \"But that means Pendragon must have been within a mile of here,\" he said. \"If that thing was trying to respond to the signals . . .\"\n\nHarry's eyes went wide, and Herv\u00e9 clapped a hand to his forehead. \"We must get out of here immediately!\" said Harry.\n\nGunn grabbed Sophie's hand and bolted for the door, then heard a gunshot from outside. He dragged Sophie to one side, pushed her into a narrow gap behind a row of tall mahogany filing cabinets, and crammed himself in after her.\n\nThe door burst open and two men rushed in\u2014masked men, wearing dark grey, military-style greatcoats, and wide-brimmed hats. In their gloved hands they held large pistols. One, with a deep scar visible above his mask, aimed at Harry, the other at Herv\u00e9. They fired.\n\nThe gunshots rang out in the enclosed space. Harry and Herv\u00e9 fell.\n\nGunn scrambled forward, raging, intending to fight\u2014but Sophie stopped him, gripping his jacket with white-knuckled hands.\n\nThe man with the scar rushed to the machine, ripped the grey metal box free, and dashed back toward his colleague, when he saw Gunn, jammed behind the cabinets. He stopped, swinging his pistol around to point it at Gunn.\n\nGunn froze. Instinct took control. He raised his arms to defend himself.\n\nThe man fired, and time slowed to a crawl.\n\nThe bullet ricocheted off the metal of his prosthetic hand, sending a hammer blow into his bones. Sparks flew as the bullet recoiled off the filing cabinet\u2014then came a thump as it punched into the second shooter. The man's head jerked back, his hat soaring away. Blood splattered against the wall, and he fell.\n\nThe scarred man spared only a brief glance for his partner, then ran from the room.\n\nGunn, dazed and in shock, looked around the room through the haze of gun smoke. Sophie pushed him out of the way and hurried to where Harry lay. Herv\u00e9 was slumped with his back against the wall, a hole the size of a silver sixpence above his left eye.\n\nGunn stooped by the dead gunman and pulled the cloth mask away. Logan.\n\n\"Connie!\" Sophie cried from where she was crouched next to Harry. Gunn darted to her side, as half a dozen gendarmes ran into the room.\n\nA doctor strode into the room, took one look at Harry, and yelled for assistance. Within seconds, two more policemen rushed in, bundled Harry onto a stretcher, and carried him away at a brisk trot. Gunn and Sophie were escorted outside, where Montand waited in a carriage.\n\nHe raced to hospital, where Gunn was diagnosed with mild shock and given a sedative. Sophie appeared unscathed, but shortly after arriving, her hands began to shake, then she wept hysterically. She was given a dose of the same sedative.\n\nHerv\u00e9 was dead. Montand, who'd gone to ascertain Harry's condition, assured them that the young man certainly hadn't felt a thing. \"The gunman who shot Harry was not as good a marksman as his comrade. The bullet missed his heart. He'll be kept here for a while, but the doctor says he'll live.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry about Herv\u00e9,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"So am I. But I'm glad that you made one of these bastards pay. You were lucky for that hand, Monsieur Gunn. It saved your life.\" Montand straightened his uniform. \"The doctor says you're free to leave. I'll assign one of my men to drive you.\"\n\nThe next morning Gunn woke to a faint humming, like the sound of airship engines. He made a pot of coffee and took it to the makeshift parlour, where Sophie sat, reading a book. \"How are you feeling?\" he said.\n\n\"Much better, dear.\"\n\nGunn realised that the sound of airship engines was still present. \"What is all that noise?\"\n\n\"Have a look from the roof. It's rather an impressive sight.\"\n\nCurious, Gunn went to the roof hatch, climbed out, and looked up.\n\nThe humming sound came from an aerial gun platform four or five hundred feet up, consisting of two armoured airship envelopes supporting a flat wooden deck with heavy guns mounted at the corners, tethered to the ground by ropes. The engines he heard drove propellers that kept the platform steady.\n\nGunn was astounded to see that the one above him was just one of at least eight in the vicinity. He hurried down from the roof, worried. \"It looks like they're expecting an attack\u2014and if one comes, we'll be caught in the middle of it. Let me see if I can find out what's happening.\"\n\n\"How are you going to do that?\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"I'll get a newspaper.\" He kissed Sophie and left.\n\nHe found a newspaper seller a few streets away and returned to the warehouse. On the way, he tried to decipher the front page, but he couldn't understand more than a handful of the words. He gave the paper to Sophie when he arrived back at their headquarters.\n\n\"Montand's done it,\" said Sophie excitedly. \"I must say, the French authorities don't waste any time. The police in every major city in France are on alert. The military has been deployed, and they've put gun platforms up near every centre of technical development and manufacturing, ready to shoot down Pendragon's airship if it comes within a mile.\"\n\n\"The events the other night must have shaken them up quite badly.\"\n\n\"Them, and others. Germany, Switzerland, and Italy are taking similar measures, and most of Europe is on the lookout for Pendragon's airship.\"\n\nGunn felt relieved, and yet at the same time, let down. Pendragon's plans were surely thwarted, but he was still at large. A thought struck him. \"You didn't mention Britain.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't,\" she said, turning the pages of the paper. \"I was hoping this would vindicate you and Harry and allow us to go home, but it seems that you're both still considered traitors. The official British government line is that what happened here the other night was the result of actions by French anarchists, and that you two are in league with them.\"\n\n\"Lies from Pendragon's allies. So we're still stuck here.\"\n\n\"We may not be able to stay here, either,\" said Sophie, and Gunn looked at her. She held the newspaper up for him to see, pointing out a short article low down on one of the inside pages.\n\nGunn recognised one word: Mainwaring. \"What does it say?\"\n\n\"It says Mainwaring is dead, and a witness saw two men leaving his house just before he was found. The police are saying he was murdered. The descriptions of the two men fit you and Harry, somewhat.\"\n\nGunn thought about the panicked state Mainwaring had been in when they'd left him. \"Are they sure he didn't do himself in?\"\n\nSophie re-read the article. \"So, he tied himself to a chair, shot himself in the head, then disposed of the gun.\" She put the paper down and smiled at Gunn, sweetly. \"I know I'm just a silly girl who doesn't know anything, but something tells me it wasn't suicide.\" Her expression turned serious. \"In any case, this happened the day after you and Harry were there. Someone dressed up to look like you, and made a point of being seen. You've been framed, dear.\"\n\n\"It's just a matter of time before the police realise who those descriptions fit.\" Gunn sighed. \"So we have a choice. We can stay here and hang as murderers, or we can go home and hang as traitors.\"\n\n\"You could talk to Montand. He seems a reasonable man.\"\n\n\"Ye gods, we can't do that. He's a high-ranking police officer. He'd have no choice but to detain us for questioning\u2014and with all evidence pointing squarely at me and Harry, we'd swing.\"\n\n\"We could go somewhere else. Germany, perhaps? Weren't you saying that Pendragon would attack Germany sooner or later?\"\n\nGunn suddenly felt anger building up in him. \"No, we're not running any more. Everything we've done so far has been driven by Pendragon, and where's it got us? I lost my hand because of him. We've been forced from our home and branded as traitors to our country. People have been murdered. Harry almost was, too. That gunman had me cowering, ready to have my brains shot out, and no doubt he would have killed you next. It was pure luck that we survived.\n\n\"We got too close to Pendragon and now he's coming for us, and if we run, we'll be shot in the back. I refuse to do things his way anymore. I've damned well had enough of Pendragon and whoever he's working with, and I'm not going to let them kill us without putting up a fight.\"\n\nSophie blinked, astounded. \"What do you think we should do?\"\n\nGunn took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to relax. He felt invigorated, clear-headed\u2014and determined. He knew precisely what to do. \"First, we're going to get Harry out of the hospital. Then, we're going back to England.\"\n\n\"Why England? It's not safe.\"\n\n\"Nowhere will be safe for very long. But there's only one place that can possibly be giving Pendragon shelter, and that's England. He operates from there, and that's where we'll find him. We're going after him, before he comes after us again. We're going to find out who he really is, and who's working with him, and we're going to stop them all.\"\n\n\"What about Mainwaring?\"\n\nGunn thought for a moment. At that point, he considered the Mainwaring business trivial compared to Pendragon. \"I'm going to write a letter to Montand explaining about Mainwaring before it gets any worse, but by the time he sees it, we'll be long gone.\"\n\n\"You do know that Montand left some men watching this place, despite what he said, don't you?\"\n\n\"Actually, I did. Uniforms or no, they still look like coppers.\" Gunn tapped a finger against the newspaper. \"I suspect this business has convinced Montand that we've told him the truth, and in any case, his men are probably far too busy fortifying the city against Pendragon. As it is, the men that were watching are gone. I saw no sign of them when I went to get the paper.\"\n\n\"All right, then. When are we going to do all this?\"\n\n\"There's no time like the present.\" Gunn stood. \"Help me pack up just what we need, and we'll load it aboard Bertha. Leave the rest behind. I don't expect we'll be coming back. Then, we're going to the hospital to tell Harry what we're about, and we'll see if we can get him out without being noticed. As soon as we have Harry, we're leaving.\"\n\nThey spent the rest of the morning getting Bertha ready for the trip back to England. Then, Gunn drove the steam carriage to the hospital.\n\nThey found Harry asleep. A faint sheen of perspiration moistened his pale skin, despite which he looked cold. He breathed shallowly, rapidly.\n\n\"The result of the surgery,\" said Sophie quietly. \"We may be better off waiting until tomorrow, for his sake. He needs more rest.\"\n\n\"Waiting for what?\" said Harry, just as quietly. His eyes remained closed.\n\n\"Oh, you . . .\" said Sophie, smiling.\n\nGunn sat on the edge of the bed so that he could speak without being overheard. \"To get you out of here.\" Harry opened his eyes in surprise. \"Don't talk, just listen. Mainwaring is dead, and they're going to think we killed him. We may have given Pendragon a setback, but we can be sure we haven't stopped him. He's still at large, and if we're going to find him, we have to get out of France before the police come after us over Mainwaring. We don't have much time. Are you well enough to travel?\"\n\n\"If I get out of this bed, I'll have a nurse pushing me back in before I can take a step. Come back for me as soon as it's dark. There will only be one nurse on duty, and she won't know I'm gone until the morning. Meet me across the street from the main entrance.\"\n\n\"I brought street clothes,\" said Sophie, holding her satchel.\n\n\"Thank you. They cut mine to pieces, and they've been burned. Leave them in the bedside cabinet.\"\n\nSophie slipped the satchel into the cabinet. \"Get some rest, now. You'll need your strength.\"\n\nGunn paced the war room like a caged beast until the sun sank below the horizon and it was time to move. He went to Bertha and fired the furnace. By the time the steam pressure had built, it was fully dark outside.\n\n\"I never thought I'd say this,\" said Sophie as she climbed into the cab, \"but I think I'll miss this place. It was getting to be quite comfortable.\"\n\n\"I thought you preferred the hotel,\" said Gunn as he studied the various controls. He'd watched Harry operating Bertha enough times, and he felt sure he could drive her without too much difficulty.\n\nSophie shrugged and smiled. \"The hotel was nice, but here, we had everything we really needed, and it was far cheaper.\"\n\n\"The rent's paid for two months. When we've dealt with Pendragon, perhaps we can come back. We should. We'll have earned that celebration dinner we promised ourselves.\"\n\n\"You seem very confident that we'll deal with Pendragon.\"\n\n\"We have to. We can't afford to fail.\" He jumped down from the cab and lit Bertha's carbide lamps, then turned off the warehouse lights, opened the large doors\u2014and there stood Montand, in Bertha's gleam. He was out of uniform, wearing a tan coat over a dark suit.\n\n\"Fallen at the first hurdle,\" groaned Gunn.\n\nMontand walked into the warehouse quickly. He wasted no time on pleasantries. \"Did you kill Mainwaring?\"\n\n\"He was alive when we left him,\" said Gunn, looking Montand in the eye.\n\nMontand addressed them both. \"Nobody can know I was here, understand?\"\n\nGunn nodded.\n\n\"Your descriptions were recognised. Warrants for your arrest are being issued as I speak. You have no more than an hour to get out of Paris, before the men at the city gates receive instructions to stop and search all traffic attempting to leave.\"\n\n\"Has Harry been arrested?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"Not yet. Because he is in my charge, it will be my men who perform that duty. Unfortunately I have been called away on urgent business, and I can't give that order until I return. I can give you half an hour, no more. Get your friend, and get out of Paris.\"\n\n\"Montand?\" said Gunn. \"Why are you doing this?\"\n\n\"Mainwaring is dead. Pendragon is not.\" Montand adjusted his collar, and walked out into the night.\n\nWebster was eating dinner in the dining room of his hotel when a bellboy appeared at his elbow holding a silver platter with an envelope on it.\n\nWebster took a sip of his wine, then slit the envelope with his fish knife and pulled out the folded sheet inside.\n\nDr. Bohemia and Mr. and Mrs. Gunn released. Expect Gunns to retrieve Bohemia and attempt to leave Paris. Destination uncertain.\n\nWebster folded the paper and put it in his pocket. That was that, then. It was time for him to make his travel arrangements. He sighed. He was rather enjoying Paris, despite the cold nights out. He finished his dinner, then asked the desk clerk to book him a place on the morning airship to London.\n\nSophie drove Bertha slowly out onto the street, and Gunn closed and locked the doors behind her. \"Ready?\" he said as he climbed back into the cab.\n\nTwenty minutes later, Gunn drew Bertha to a stop in a side-street a hundred yards from the hospital. \"Watch the pressure gauge,\" he said, pointing the instrument out for Sophie. \"If it drops below that green mark, throw a few bits of coal into the furnace.\"\n\n\"Be quick.\" She kissed his cheek. \"And be careful.\"\n\nGunn made his way to the hospital and looked for Harry on the opposite side of the street. He wasn't there.\n\nMinutes passed with no sign of his friend, then Gunn spotted two gendarmes walking quickly toward the hospital. He tensed but stayed put, not wanting to attract their attention. The police entered the building.\n\nAnother minute passed. Gunn worried that Harry had been apprehended, but decided to wait until he was certain. If the police had arrested him, they'd bring him out through the same door, and Gunn would create a distraction to allow Harry to escape.\n\nGunn noticed another man walking toward the hospital entrance. There was something familiar about him. With a shock, Gunn recognised him as he passed under the lights above the hospital entrance. It was the man with the scar, the man who'd tried to shoot him. There to finish Harry off.\n\nGunn's mind raced. He dashed across the street and down the alley at the side of the hospital building. Harry's room was on the ground floor. He stopped at the first open window he found and glanced inside. The room was empty. He climbed in.\n\nAt the door, he sneaked a look out into the corridor. Nurses, doctors, and visitors wandered the corridors, but he saw no sign of the police, or the man with the scar.\n\nHarry's room was three down. He slipped back out through the window and ran, counting windows, until he reached the right one. He looked in and saw Harry, dressed in the street clothes that Sophie had left for him. Harry was pressed against the wall by the slightly-opened door, peeping out into the corridor through the gap.\n\nGunn tapped at the window, and Harry whirled round. He saw Gunn, hurried to the window, and yanked it open.\n\n\"Thank goodness. The police are here.\"\n\n\"I know\u2014\"\n\nHarry scrambled out of the window and slid it closed behind him. The door opened, and they dropped out of the line of sight.\n\nStaying low, they slunk back along the alley\u2014and stopped when they saw the man with the scar step into view at the far end. \"It's him!\" Harry hissed.\n\nThey crouched in shadow; the man hadn't seen them. Gunn looked behind him to see if there was a way out, but there was nothing but a wall at the far end of the alley.\n\nHe looked back in time to see the man disappear into the open window that he'd used himself. He turned back to Harry. \"We have to run for it!\" he said in a hoarse whisper.\n\nGunn supported Harry, an arm round his waist, as they staggered back to Bertha. Sophie looked at the invalid as Gunn helped him up into the cab. \"How are you feeling?\" she asked.\n\n\"Terrible.\"\n\n\"I put a blanket by the furnace to warm for you. Sit down and get comfortable.\"\n\nHarry smiled. \"Thank you, Sophie. You're a wonder.\" He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and sat against the back wall of the cab.\n\n\"Montand told us they'd be watching the city gates for us,\" said Gunn, and he saw Harry raise his eyebrows in surprise. \"We'd better get moving.\" He pressed a lever forward, and Bertha began roll along the road in the direction of the nearest gate out of Paris.\n\nGunn despaired when he saw the city's north gate, and a line of vehicles waiting to be searched before they would be let through. \"We're too late.\"\n\n\"Can we turn around?\" Sophie asked.\n\n\"Not without looking suspicious. They're not looking for Bertha, though.\"\n\nHarry looked up from where he was sitting. \"How can you tell?\"\n\n\"The police are stopping everyone, even foot traffic. Not just the large vehicles.\"\n\n\"I don't see how we can get through,\" said Sophie, her face dark. \"They'll stop us.\"\n\nGunn thought for a few moments. \"No, they won't. I have an idea,\" he said.\n\nI must be mad, thought Gunn. He wished he'd had a better idea, but there hadn't been time. He dangled by his left hand, metal fingers hooked over the top edge of the bulkhead that separated Bertha's cab from the machinery behind. Harry hung behind him, arms tight around Gunn's neck, and his feet mere inches above the gears. Gunn sweated freely, and found it difficult to breathe in the heat of Bertha's furnace.\n\nHe felt their combined weight threatening to pull his prosthetic hand off, but Harry had assured him that it would carry at least twice this load. All the same, his flesh and blood shoulder was on fire with pain.\n\nNow it was all up to Sophie.\n\nBertha lurched forward then stopped, sending pain shooting all the way to his artificial fingers. He could hear Sophie talking to the police at the gate, but only made out a few French words over the noise of the engine.\n\nHe heard metal creak as the police lifted the deck plates in the cab, checking the storage spaces, then clanging as they let them drop closed again. Not much longer. Harry wheezed heavily, groaning with pain, and Gunn could feel the man's hold beginning to slip. Harry couldn't take much more of this.\n\nBertha lurched forward again, and Harry almost lost his grasp. Gunn grabbed the sleeve of Harry's jacket with his free hand, trying to stop him falling any farther. \"It's almost over, Harry,\" he said in a hoarse whisper, \"just a few more seconds. Hold on!\"\n\nHarry shifted again, trying to keep himself up, but with every movement, he slid closer to the spinning cranks. Gunn felt Bertha slow to a halt. A moment later Sophie stood above them, reaching down for Harry's arms.\n\n\"The main road to Calais is being watched,\" said Sophie. \"We can't go that way. I suggest heading west. We can get Bertha into the sea near St. Malo.\"\n\nGunn kept his eyes on the road as he drove. As if we haven't had enough trouble. He flexed his shoulder\u2014thankfully, the aching had subsided somewhat. \"Good thinking, dear.\"\n\nSophie continued, \"They're looking for you because of Mainwaring, and what the papers said about you being wanted in Britain.\" She turned to Harry, her eyes narrowing. \"And because something was stolen from the police laboratory in Paris.\"\n\nHarry's eyes went wide as they flicked in Sophie's direction. \"That thing? Surely it can't be that important\u2014\"\n\n\"So you did take something,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"I'll tell you about it later. First, we'd better think about how we can get to the coast.\"\n\n\"I think you should tell us about it right now,\" Gunn said, his voice edged with annoyance.\n\n\"What did you take from the laboratory, Harry?\" Sophie asked firmly.\n\nHarry lifted a deck plate and removed a small canvas bag. He opened it and took out a polished brass cylinder about nine inches long and three in diameter, with grooves and markings along its length.\n\n\"Poor Herv\u00e9 called this Tonnerre. Thunder. I had every intention of returning it once I'd had a look to see what it does.\"\n\nGunn spoke sharply. \"I might have guessed. I knew there was something fishy about you tearing yourself away from the machine just to change your clothes. You were hiding that thing.\"\n\nHarry shrugged. \"There were several of them in the laboratory, and I didn't think they'd miss one for a few hours. I had no idea it was important.\"\n\nSophie asked, \"Have you worked out what it does?\"\n\n\"I haven't had the time.\" He held it up to look closely. \"This slide appears to be some kind of intensity setting. And this switch\u2014\"\n\nThere was a flash of blue-white light. Sophie yelped, and Harry broke into a fit of coughing. Gunn's legs spasmed as a bolt of electricity shot through the soles of his boots. His hands gripped Bertha's metal wheel like a vice as muscles\u2014natural and artificial\u2014contracted involuntarily.\n\nIt lasted for a mere instant. Gunn stared wide-eyed at the dents his metal fingertips had made in the wheel, then steered Bertha sharply to the edge of the road and pulled the brake lever hard, bringing her to a jerking halt. \"What in God's name was that?\" he yelled as he spun round.\n\n\"It was like lightning,\" said Sophie, her voice quavering and her eyes wide.\n\nHarry brought his breathing under control. \"Lightning, indeed, and it appears to have a hair trigger. My apologies. It's a good thing I had it pointed at the deck\u2014Bertha's iron dispersed most of the jolt. Is everyone all right?\"\n\nSophie ignored the question. \"What is that thing?\"\n\n\"It appears to be some kind of electrical stunning weapon.\" He squinted at the controls. \"That was on the lowest setting, and it caused muscle paroxysms. I wonder what it would do at full power?\"\n\n\"Fry us in our boots, probably,\" said Gunn. \"Put the damned thing away before you kill us all.\"\n\nTheir progress the next day was slow, but steady, and Gunn felt that they were making good time. It was late afternoon when he came to a stop.\n\n\"Is something wrong?\" said Harry.\n\n\"There's no more road,\" said Gunn, picking up his map.\n\n\"Whatever do you mean?\" Harry got up and looked out of Bertha's front windows. Twenty yards ahead, the road ended at a sturdy fence. \"Ah. I see,\" he said, and the corner of his mouth lifted. \"Did you take yet another wrong turn?\"\n\nGunn gave Harry a stern look\u2014but his mouth betrayed the beginnings of a smile, too. \"Not as far as I can tell.\" He looked ahead at the fence. \"I think whoever owns that land decided to plough it, and destroyed the road in the process.\"\n\n\"Could we break through?\" Sophie asked Harry.\n\n\"Bertha's powerful enough, but that fence looks well built. We'd do some damage if we were to try.\"\n\n\"I think we should risk it,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"I have to disagree. We're in the middle of nowhere, with no way to repair Bertha if she's damaged. We have no alternative but to turn back and find another road.\"\n\nGunn banged the control panel with a fist, frustrated at another delay. But he knew that Harry was right.\n\nHarry looked up at the sky. \"Nightfall is not far off. I suggest we camp here until morning.\"\n\nJust after dawn, Gunn stoked Bertha's furnace and got her moving. An hour later, they drove through a small town, and Gunn halted Bertha on the far side. Harry and Sophie walked back for supplies while Gunn waited, sitting on an embankment, where he had a good view along the road in both directions.\n\nAn hour or so later, Gunn spotted Harry and Sophie returning along the road, a large bag slung between them. They appeared to be walking as quickly as they could, and Harry kept looking over his shoulder. Gunn hopped down from the embankment, jumped up into Bertha's cab, and made sure she was ready for a quick getaway.\n\nHarry and Sophie threw the bag into the cab and climbed in. Harry was breathless. \"No time to waste, Gunn. Let's go,\" he said.\n\nGunn got Bertha rolling. \"What's happened?\"\n\nSophie answered while Harry got his breath back. \"We were getting some very suspicious looks from a policeman, and we think he was following us while we did our shopping.\"\n\n\"Possibly the man was suspicious of strange faces in his small town,\" said Harry, \"or perhaps the Paris police have sent bulletins out, and we were recognised. Either way, I think we should assume that the police are onto us.\"\n\nGunn pressed the pressure lever forward a little more, coaxing more speed from Bertha.\n\nSophie rummaged through the bag, and pulled out a handful of folded papers. \"We found a good compass, and better maps,\" she said, and laid one flat on the floor of the cab.\n\nGunn watched behind. He saw no sign they were being followed\u2014but he kept Bertha moving at a brisk pace nonetheless.\n\nFor several hours, Sophie followed their progress on the maps and gave Gunn directions while Harry dozed on the floor with his back to the cab wall. He was still weak from his injury and surgery, and the morning's jaunt into the town had drained him.\n\nIn the late afternoon, as Gunn drove Bertha along a road that passed through a forest, Harry spoke up. \"What's that sound?\"\n\n\"What sound?\" said Gunn. He couldn't hear anything over the rhythmic hiss and clank of Bertha's engine.\n\n\"I can hear it, too, Harry,\" said Sophie. \"It sounds like an airship.\"\n\n\"Pendragon's airship?\" said Gunn, feeling exposed and vulnerable.\n\nHarry and Sophie scanned the sky around them. \"Not Pendragon, thank goodness,\" said Harry. \"It's a police craft, following the road about a mile behind us.\"\n\n\"All the way out here?\" said Gunn, surprised. \"We're miles from the nearest large town.\"\n\n\"They must be looking for something,\" said Harry, and then his expression hardened. \"That something can only be us. I fear our suspicious policeman has reported us to his superiors. Can you get us into the trees, quickly, before they see us?\"\n\n\"Not here,\" said Gunn. Ditches ran along the road on either side. He couldn't drive Bertha off the road without overturning her.\n\n\"They're getting closer,\" Sophie warned.\n\nGunn looked frantically for a way off the road. Just ahead, heavy wooden planks had been laid across the ditches on both sides. Gunn wrenched the wheel over, and Bertha rattled across the planks and into the shelter of the trees.\n\nHe braked hard, and the three of them jumped out. Gunn looked up in the direction of the engine sounds, and through the winter-bare branches he made out the silhouette of the aircraft, gliding along fifty feet above the road where Bertha had just been. It was small by airship standards, single-hulled and dark.\n\n\"Can they see us?\" said Sophie.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Harry. \"Don't move.\"\n\nThe airship got closer\u2014then continued past them along the road. The sound of the engines faded. Gunn realised that he'd been holding his breath. \"They missed us.\"\n\n\"Wait,\" said Sophie. She continued to look in the direction that the airship had gone, a frown on her face. \"If they're patrolling this road, they'll be back.\"\n\n\"Let's get a little farther in, then, away from the road. Tomorrow, we should see where this trail goes.\"\n\nThe next morning, they continued along the narrow trail through the forest, cold and uncomfortable, as Bertha lurched and juddered over rocks and ruts, and up hills and down into valleys, and across streams. The rough going forced Gunn to drive Bertha slower than he wished, and that made him nervous; he kept looking over his shoulder, feeling that the police must be close behind.\n\nThe forest gave way to cultivated fields, and the trail widened and became smoother, almost a proper road, running through a wide valley between hills to north and south. Gunn increased Bertha's speed. As soon as he had, he spied a familiar shape in the sky ahead, and slowed Bertha back to a walking pace.\n\nHarry joined Gunn at the controls. \"What's happening?\"\n\n\"Our friends are back.\" Gunn pointed. The airship was about a mile away, moving from south to north across their path.\n\nSophie stood at Gunn's side, watching the airship. \"What do we do?\"\n\nThe nose of the airship turned toward them. Harry's jaw clenched. \"That tears it. They've seen us. Go!\"\n\nGunn shoved the pressure lever forward, rocking back in his boots as Bertha powered ahead.\n\n\"I think they'll try to block our path by landing on the road.\"\n\n\"What do you suggest?\"\n\n\"Let them.\" Gunn and Sophie glared at him. \"As soon as they touch the ground, head across country, toward those hills to the north.\"\n\nGunn looked at the fields to the right of the road. \"Won't they just lift and come after us again?\"\n\n\"Certainly, but it takes time to get an airship aloft. By the time they've caught up to us, we should have made it to the hills. They'll have to fly higher, and the trees will help hide us. If we can keep them at a distance until nightfall, we may be able to escape them.\"\n\n\"Nightfall is a good four hours away,\" said Sophie.\n\n\"If we can get into those trees, I think we have a chance all the same,\" said Gunn. He looked at the airship again. \"You're right, Harry. They're going to land on the road. Find something to hold on to.\"\n\nA quarter of a mile ahead, the airship had slowed to a stop fifty feet directly above the road, and descended slowly. Gunn kept their course until they were two hundred yards from the airship, then one hundred. He slowed Bertha down as if planning to stop. At fifty yards the airship touched down, and Gunn saw the cables that ran from the gondola to the envelopes slacken.\n\nHe yanked the wheel to the right, and at the same time pushed the pressure lever forward. Bertha accelerated, bumping over the edge of the road and onto the flat, open grassland. Harry was caught by surprise and almost fell out of the doorway, just managing to pull himself back in time.\n\nA metallic ping came from Bertha's rear, and then a bang as something hit the cab roof. \"They're shooting at us!\" said Harry, sounding offended that someone would assault Bertha so.\n\n\"Hold tight!\" said Gunn, and he pushed the lever all the way forward. Bertha shot across the lumpy grass.\n\nBertha ran beyond the range of the guns, and the dinging of bullets against her sides ceased. Harry leaned out of the doorway a little way. \"They're still on the ground,\" he shouted.\n\nBertha shuddered as she thumped over rocks and hummocks. At that speed, if she hit something much larger, she would tip over.\n\n\"They're lifting,\" Harry shouted.\n\n\"Just two more minutes,\" said Gunn, leaning on the wheel, as if it would help nudge Bertha along a little faster.\n\nThen he felt Bertha slowing. They'd reached the slope leading up into the trees. He swerved Bertha sharply to the left.\n\nHarry grabbed the door edge to steady himself. \"What was that?\"\n\n\"Tree stumps,\" said Gunn as he jerked Bertha back to the right to avoid another stump just before it exploded, jolting Bertha.\n\n\"They're shooting again,\" yelled Harry.\n\n\"I'd noticed,\" said Gunn, grimacing. It was just a few dozen yards to the trees.\n\n\"They're almost above us,\" Harry shouted, as Gunn swerved around the last few stumps and under the cover of the trees.\n\nHe drove on as fast as he could, snaking a path between the trunks, changing direction every few dozen yards. All the while, he strained his ears, listening for the sound of propellers. He heard nothing.\n\nSophie came to his side, holding onto the control panel as Bertha lurched and bounced over tree roots. \"I think we've left them behind.\"\n\n\"Well done, Gunn,\" said Harry, with a grin.\n\nGunn felt a wave of relief as he pulled the power lever back.\n\nHarry put a hand on his forearm. \"I think we're safe, for the moment, at least. Find somewhere to stop, would you? I must check to make sure the gunfire didn't do any damage.\"\n\nGunn drove them another mile into the forest then stopped Bertha in a space between two large trees. Harry climbed onto the roof to perform his inspection, and Gunn and Sophie jumped down to the ground. Gunn looked up at the tiny patches of sky between the branches of the pines. He could hear the sound of the airship's engines, somewhere off to the east.\n\nHarry climbed down to join them, his expression grim. \"Bad news, I'm afraid,\" he said, shaking his head. \"The water tank has taken a bullet. I can patch it in a flash\u2014a wad of oiled cloth and some wire should do it\u2014but we've lost a lot of water. We should move on, while we still can, and watch for any ponds or streams on the way.\"\n\nThe three climbed back aboard.\n\nIt started raining just before dark, and Gunn reluctantly slowed Bertha down to something less than a walking pace. After another hour of driving, his eyes began to smart with strain so that he could barely see at all, even with the aid of the goggles.\n\n\"I'll take over for a spell, Gunn,\" said Harry.\n\n\"Are you sure you're up to it?\"\n\n\"I feel much better, and in any case, I'm well rested, which is more than can be said of you. You need to sleep, even if it's only for an hour or so.\"\n\n\"All right. Just see that you wake me no later than dawn.\" He made himself comfortable on the floor where he could stay warm in the heat from the furnace, and promptly fell asleep.\n\nGunn woke to his shoulder being shaken, and opened his eyes to see Sophie looking down at him. It was still dark, and raining heavily, and he assumed both Harry and Sophie had become too tired to drive safely.\n\nSophie quickly dispelled that thought. \"Trouble,\" she whispered. Gunn got up and went to where Harry stood at the controls, Sophie at his arm. Gunn saw they'd left the hills and were on flat grassland, moving at a snail's pace.\n\n\"What's happening?\" he said quietly. Sophie said nothing, but instead pointed off to Bertha's left. He saw a light there, and then another. \"What's that?\"\n\n\"We think it's the police,\" Harry answered. \"And we heard barking earlier. They've brought dogs.\"\n\nGunn looked around. Lights, bobbing slightly, as of hand-carried oil lamps, ran in a line across their path. \"Damn. What can we do?\"\n\n\"I don't know that there's very much we can do. If we crank up Bertha's engine to go faster, they'll hear her for sure. And if we stay put, it's only a matter of time before that line reaches us. We could turn around and try to get back into the woods, I suppose.\"\n\n\"How far is it back to the woods?\"\n\n\"Two miles, perhaps three.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"We'd never make it.\" He looked around again at the line of lights, creeping closer with each passing minute. The nearest section of the line was no more than a quarter of a mile away.\n\nThen he saw something. \"Look, there,\" he said, pointing to the northwest.\n\n\"A gap,\" said Sophie. \"Why are they leaving a gap there?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It might be just some lowlying ground. But it might be a chance to get out of this.\" He turned to Harry. \"Take us that way, slowly and quietly.\"\n\nHarry turned Bertha toward the gap in the line. Gunn was thankful for the rain, and the continuous hissing it made in the long grass. It covered the sounds of Bertha's engine, provided they moved very, very slowly. After two or three minutes, Gunn heard a sloshing sound, and Harry slowed Bertha even more. Gunn looked down from the doorway. \"We're in a bog.\"\n\n\"Damn. We'll get stuck for sure if it gets any deeper,\" said Harry.\n\n\"Harry, your brain's addled. Bertha's a boat, remember? Keep going. Twenty yards more, then stop.\"\n\nHarry slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, and shook his head.\n\nGunn watched from the doorway as they crawled into deeper and deeper water. The water had reached to the level of the axles when Harry brought Bertha to a halt.\n\nHarry took station by the left doorway while Gunn and Sophie watched from the right. The line of lights wobbled unevenly across his view. The nearest end was no more than fifty yards away, and getting closer. Sophie held her breath.\n\nThe nearest lamp came slowly toward them. If Bertha moved now, Gunn knew, the man carrying that light would see them for certain, and the game would be up.\n\nAt thirty yards away, the light stopped moving. Gunn tensed, waiting for the man to shout out. The light moved a little to the left and stopped again, then back to the right. It kept moving, at an angle that opened the distance between it and Bertha.\n\nGunn looked around again. The other lights had mostly passed them by. He turned to watch the straggler, following the light as it bobbed around them and joined the others.\n\nHarry patted Gunn's shoulder lightly. \"Well done,\" he said quietly as he moved back to Bertha's controls. They watched the lights until they'd faded into the rain, then Harry pressed Bertha's levers forward a little way and she began to roll.\n\n\"Not much farther, I think,\" said Harry as Gunn guided Bertha along a muddy farm trail through the pouring rain.\n\nGunn's pulse lurched as Bertha's wheels slipped sideways on the sodden, slimy ground for the hundredth time. Light flickered off to the west, and he smiled. \"Good,\" he said, grimly. \"A thunderstorm. That should keep that airship away for a while.\"\n\nAt last, Bertha rolled down onto a wide beach. Gunn puffed out a big breath of relief and grinned at Sophie and Harry when he saw the waves of the English Channel ahead.\n\nHarry looked at the sky. \"Only an hour or two before dusk. I suggest we wait until morning.\"\n\nSophie nodded. \"I won't argue with that. Connie's about ready to fall down.\"\n\nGunn yawned, and nodded. \"I could sleep on bed of nails.\"\n\nThey slept in the shelter of the cab, and when they woke in the morning, cold and aching, the rain had stopped. Gunn jumped down to the sand to stretch his legs. A stiff breeze blew from the south, chilling the air and lifting spray from the wave tops, but a watery sun shone through a thin layer of cloud. Not the best conditions for taking to sea, thought Gunn, but they could be far worse.\n\n\"I believe we're as ready as we'll ever be,\" said Harry. \"The boiler is up to pressure and the makeshift repair to the water tank seems to be holding firm. My only concern is fuel. We can make for the Channel Islands\u2014we'll be able to get fuel and water there.\"\n\nGunn looked out over the sea to the north. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. They had delayed long enough. \"Well then, I suppose we'd better get about it. Everyone aboard.\"\n\n\"Connie!\" Sophie shouted. He whirled around. Four black steam carriages raced along the beach toward them.\n\n\"It's the police!\" Harry yelled.\n\nThey jumped into the cab and Harry yanked at levers. Bertha began to roll toward the waves. Too slowly, Gunn realised, when two of the police vehicles cut in front of them. Harry swerved to avoid them. They raced along the sand, parallel to the waterline, two vehicles to their left, preventing them from making an escape up the beach; another two to the right, trying to get ahead of them to force them to stop.\n\nA hundred yards ahead, the beach ended at a spit of rocks that cut across their path and jutted into the sea.\n\n\"Harry!\" Gunn shouted. \"Get her in the water!\"\n\nHarry wrenched the wheel and Bertha swerved to the right, slamming into the side of one of the police vehicles, smashing it out of the way. It rolled onto its roof as Bertha flew by. The others braked hard, throwing up sand in all directions, then wheeled round. They shot toward Bertha.\n\nBertha hurtled into the sea, throwing up a wave. Gunn and Sophie were thrown forward as she came to a dead stop. The police carriages stopped at the water's edge, and the policemen climbed out, forming a line behind Bertha, advancing slowly.\n\nGunn grinned despite himself. He looked at Harry.\n\n\"They don't know about Bertha,\" said Sophie from Harry's other side.\n\nHarry glanced over his shoulder, then back at Gunn. He was grinning, too. He pulled a lever, hard, and Bertha's wheels retracted, her propeller whirled, and she shot forward.\n\nThe policemen broke into a run, splashing through knee-deep water, and one dived forward and swam with powerful strokes, grabbing hold of Bertha's doorframe. Harry engaged the propeller, and Bertha jumped forward.\n\nThe swimmer grunted with effort, scrabbling to pull himself aboard against the drag. Gunn dashed to the doorway and lifted a boot over the man's fingers. \"Bad idea,\" he said. The man glared up at Gunn, then scowled and let go, left behind as Bertha picked up speed.\n\n\"We're still in trouble!\" Sophie yelled over the noise of the engine, pointing to the sky.\n\nGunn looked up and spotted the airship above the beach, following them out to sea. \"Damn!\"\n\nHarry shouted above the din. \"If we can get three miles before they catch up, we'll be out of French waters!\"\n\n\"I don't think they care about jurisdiction. They'll start shooting the moment they're in range. We're sitting ducks out here.\"\n\nHarry's jaw clenched. Behind them, the airship gained on them rapidly. He stepped back. \"Take the wheel!\" Gunn grabbed the controls as Harry lifted a deck plate and grabbed the Thunder device.\n\n\"What are you doing, Harry?\" Sophie cried out. \"You can't use that. We're inside a wet metal box!\"\n\n\"We have no other choice. This should warn them to keep their distance.\" Harry replied. \"Don't touch any metal.\" He wedged himself against the edge of the doorway, and Gunn saw him move the slide on the device to the far end of its track. Full power. Gunn let go of the wheel, hoping Bertha would keep a straight course, and braced himself.\n\nThe cab filled with bright light and crackling as lightning shot from the end of the device and streaked, branching and forking, up toward the airship. Gunn's hair stood straight, and he smelled ozone.\n\nThe lightning struck the airship, and threads of blue-white electricity wrapped around its envelope in a net, flickering and moving like a living thing.\n\n\"Oh, my\u2014\" Harry began, a look of fascinated horror on his face.\n\nThe envelope exploded, consumed in an instant as the hydrogen bloomed into a fireball. The gondola hung in the air for a moment, then fell, tipping end over end until it splashed into the sea.\n\nSophie covered her mouth with a hand, and turned away. Gunn's mouth fell open, then he clenched his jaw as horror turned to anger. \"What have you done, Harry? How many men were aboard that ship?\" he said.\n\n\"I didn't\u2014I thought it would just scare them off. I swear to you, Gunn, I didn't know.\" Harry fell to his knees, and vomited into the sea.\n\n\"My intention was to force them to keep their distance, nothing more,\" Harry gasped, his breathing laboured. Still on his knees, he pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his mouth. He looked at the device, which had fallen to the floor. His face twisted with anger and remorse, and he picked up the weapon and threw it, violently, into the sea.\n\n\"Don't give me that,\" Gunn said angrily. \"You wanted a chance to see what that machine could do, and now all those people are dead.\"\n\n\"What else could I have done? It's the only defence we had.\"\n\n\"We could have kept going until they ran low on fuel, and were forced to turn back.\"\n\n\"They would have started shooting as soon as they were in range. I saw men at the guns, and they were ready to open fire.\"\n\n\"Enough,\" said Sophie. \"I've had it with the pair of you. Harry's right\u2014they would have sunk us rather than let us escape.\"\n\n\"As I\u2014\" Harry began.\n\n\"As for you,\" said Sophie, rounding on him, \"regardless of whether or not there was a choice, I agree with Connie\u2014you didn't seem terribly reluctant to use that awful thing.\"\n\nHarry stood shakily, his face pale. Gunn remained silent, seething.\n\nFinally, Harry let out a breath. \"You're right. I used it because I had to\u2014but also because I wanted to. I let my scientific curiosity get the better of my good judgement. I'm sorry I let that happen.\"\n\nSophie shook her head, and Gunn's ire softened when he saw the grief in her eyes. \"My father would have said that by threatening us, they gave us the right of defence. But I'm not my father.\"\n\nGunn had met Sophie's father. The man was a good soldier, a defender of peace; he didn't start fights, but he knew how to end them, and he knew when diplomacy was fruitless. \"What would he have done?\" Gunn asked.\n\nSophie sighed. \"Under the circumstances\u2014if it was the only means he had\u2014possibly the same thing. And he would be as horrified as I am\u2014as we all are\u2014at the result. But he would have considered the consequences first. He would have done it for the right reasons.\"\n\nHarry looked down at the deck, ashamed. Then he nodded. \"You're right, of course\u2014I should have thought it through. But there wasn't time. If I hadn't done it, they would have sunk Bertha and drowned us.\"\n\nSophie frowned, and opened her mouth to speak, but Harry held up a hand to stop her. \"Please, let me finish. I'm not proud of what I've done, but I still believe it was them, or us. Nevertheless, I promise that in future\u2014should we find ourselves in similar straits\u2014I will do my utmost to prevent fatalities.\"\n\nSophie stared at him, still frowning, then slowly nodded. \"Very well. For now.\"\n\nGunn's anger at Harry subsided, and he was glad that the air had been cleared somewhat. Sophie had her father's diplomatic way of calming troubled waters.\n\nHe tapped the compass, which he'd fixed to Bertha's controls the day before. \"We've been heading directly north since we left the coast. We should pass close by the Channel Islands quite soon.\"\n\n\"We'll have to pass very close,\" said Harry. \"Even in clear weather, from this low vantage we probably won't be able to see more than a dozen miles in any direction.\"\n\nGunn spotted land off to the west shortly after noon and turned Bertha in that direction. He drove Bertha up a beach of sand and pebbles, and they soon found a road. A signpost confirmed that they had landed on the isle of Alderney, less than a mile from the town of Saint Anne.\n\nHarry tapped his clenched fist against the panel, over and over, while staring off into the distance.\n\n\"What's the problem?\" said Gunn.\n\n\"I'm worried. The French want us, and the British want us. And here we are, on an island that is ostensibly British soil and also, if I remember correctly, has a good political relationship with France, owing to its proximity to their shores. We are, most certainly, in the lion's den.\"\n\n\"Then we should get done here and away, as quickly as we can,\" said Sophie. \"The harbour is on the north side of the island. There'll be water and coal for the boats.\"\n\nHarry nodded. \"And, if necessary, we can put to sea right there.\"\n\n\"Then let's do that,\" said Gunn. \"To be honest, I'm past caring whether or not we're seen.\"\n\n\"Quite,\" said Harry. \"Now is a time for action, not stealth.\"\n\nBertha rolled along the waterfront, past men and women working aboard the boats\u2014packing fishing gear, and mending nets. They looked up as Bertha passed, and a handful of them put down what they were doing, and followed along. Gunn made a point of not staring back, as if Bertha was there on everyday business. One of the fishermen pointed at the sign on Bertha's side, and turned to say something to the man next to him.\n\nGunn stopped Bertha at the fuel station, at the nearer end of the harbour wall. Sophie hopped out, and walked quickly into the office to pay for the water and coal, while Gunn and Harry moved Bertha alongside the water tower. Sophie caught up with them, and Harry climbed up on top to fill the tank.\n\n\"They think we're French,\" Gunn said quietly.\n\nHarry nodded as he manhandled the hose from the water tower into Bertha's filler. \"They think we're a travelling show, as intended. Let them continue to think that.\"\n\nSomething caught Gunn's eye; at the back of the small crowd, a man bent to say something to a young boy. The boy ran off.\n\n\"I think we'd best hurry this along.\" He climbed up to help, then moved Bertha to the coal store. As he opened Bertha's fuel hatch, Gunn glanced toward the end of the harbour wall, and saw a stone-built boat ramp. They'd be able to get Bertha directly into the water as soon as they finished loading fuel.\n\nGunn and Harry had only been shovelling coal for a short while, when Sophie yelled from the cab. \"Police, Connie!\"\n\nGunn whirled. A dozen uniformed policemen ran along the harbour wall toward them. He heard the clatter of Harry's coal shovel, dropped his own, and they jumped aboard Bertha. The policemen spread out to form a cordon as they ran. Harry yanked levers to start Bertha moving, and steered toward the boat ramp.\n\nThe men slowed. They think they have us trapped, thought Gunn. Sophie put that idea to rest a moment later. \"They've blocked the ramp!\" she said, pointing. A twenty-foot police boat, with three officers on deck, bobbed broadside on at the foot of the ramp. Someone had warned the police about Bertha, after all.\n\n\"Hold on,\" said Harry, and he pushed the steam lever forward. Bertha built up speed. Gunn caught a glimpse of Sophie grabbing hold of the control panel, and he did the same.\n\n\"Harry\u2014\" said Gunn, in a warning tone.\n\n\"It's the only way!\" said Harry as Bertha flew down the ramp. One of the officers' faces became a picture of open-mouthed shock as Bertha loomed closer, then slammed into the stern quarter of the boat, spinning it ninety degrees. Gunn was thrown forward as bits of wood bounced off the heavy glass of Bertha's front windows.\n\nHarry pulled levers to retract the wheels, then jammed the pressure lever forward. Bertha's engine growled, and her bow came up as she raced away from the harbour.\n\nGunn looked behind and saw the three policemen swimming back to the harbour wall as their crippled boat sank into the oil-slicked water.\n\nWebster arrived home from a pub lunch to find a message waiting for him on his machine.\n\nAgent on Alderney reports G & B sighted, heading for English coast using own transport. Intercept.\n\nThe message was accompanied by reports from his employer's contacts in France. Webster skimmed through them; Gunn, his wife, and Bohemia had been chased by the police across the country to the coast, then escaped an ambush at the last minute. A police airship had been destroyed under mysterious circumstances. A French coastguard boat had picked up the four-man crew, all suffering from exposure, and one man had broken a leg; against all odds, there had been no fatalities.\n\nIntercept, the message had said. He looked at the clock, and wondered how he was supposed to do that. They had their own transport; they could come ashore at almost any point along three hundred miles of coastline.\n\nHe put his coat and hat back on, and headed out.\n\nThe harbour shrank behind them as Harry piloted Bertha forward. Gunn consulted his watch at intervals. He made a mental calculation.\n\n\"If I'm right, we'll make land not long before dark.\"\n\n\"I very much hope that your calculations are correct,\" said Harry. He looked from Gunn to Sophie and back.\n\n\"Is something wrong?\" said Sophie.\n\nHarry frowned, and shook his head gravely. \"It's cloudy; it's going to be black as coal out here once the sun's gone, and attempting a landing in those conditions would be very, very dangerous. We won't know where the shoreline is until we encounter it. We could hit a cliff, or rocks in the shallows could sink us. If, as you say, we arrive before dark, there should be no difficulty. On the other hand, if the sun sets before we can land . . .\"\n\nSophie frowned. \"Life vests, then.\"\n\nGunn looked across the waves and up at the sky, worried. They had a long way to go, and not much time\u2014and in their hurry to leave Alderney, they hadn't taken a full load of coal.\n\n\"Push her as fast as she'll go.\" He threw several more shovels of coal into Bertha's furnace. Harry pressed Bertha's pressure lever all the way forward.\n\nGunn bit his lip in worry as he watched the horizon. The sun had begun to set, and they'd seen no sign of the coast. He wished they could go faster. He noticed a dark spot on the horizon ahead and squinted at it. Then he recognized the shape, and hurried to Harry's side.\n\n\"Harry!\" he shouted over the noise of the engine and the crashing of waves against the hull. Harry looked over, and Gunn pointed ahead.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Harry turned Bertha to port.\n\nSophie frowned. \"What's wrong? Why are we turning?\"\n\n\"There's a coastguard ship, anchored right in our way.\"\n\n\"Have they seen us?\"\n\n\"Let's hope not, or there'll be police waiting for us when we land.\"\n\nHarry shouted over the din. \"I'm taking us around them.\"\n\nSophie looked into Gunn's eyes, frowning again. \"But doesn't that mean\u2014\"\n\nGunn nodded, his mouth tight. \"It means we might not make land before dark.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we should turn back. Hide on Alderney until morning.\"\n\nGunn shook his head firmly. \"No. We're not turning back, damn it all. If we have to land in the dark, we'll manage somehow. If someone's there to stop us, we'll run Bertha right through them if necessary. But we're not turning back, and we're not stopping.\"\n\nThere was a tap at the door of Jameson's office.\n\n\"Come in.\"\n\nThe door opened and Wally Crisp entered. He closed the door behind him. Wally worked in Scotland Yard's information division, down in the basement with the police calculating engines.\n\n\"What can I do for you, Wally?\"\n\nHe sat down in the chair in front of Jameson's desk. \"You asked me to keep an eye open for unusual reports. Something's come in that might fit.\"\n\n\"It might fit, or it does fit?\"\n\nWally shrugged. \"You decide. A coastguard ship off Swanage sighted an unusual vessel heading for the coast. It changed course, apparently to avoid being seen, which naturally made the coastguard suspicious. They've put it on the wire as a probable smuggler.\"\n\nAfter Wally left, Jameson picked up the microphone on his machine and began tapping in Christie's contact code\u2014then stopped himself and put the microphone back. Christie doesn't need to know about this, he thought. Not until I'm sure.\n\nFor the next hour, Gunn kept his eyes on the coastguard ship as Bertha moved in a wide circle to go around it. After a while, Harry said, \"We've returned to our original course. Steam's dropping, though\u2014throw a bit more coal on, would you?\"\n\nGunn opened the fuel store and shovelled coal into the furnace\u2014and despaired when he saw he'd used the last of it. He slammed the store hatch, cursing their terrible luck on Alderney. \"We're in trouble. There's no more coal.\"\n\nHarry sighed. \"This is going to be a very close thing.\"\n\nGunn went back to the starboard door, and he and Sophie resumed watching the coastguard ship for any sign that that they might have been seen.\n\nA while later, he noticed a bright line on the horizon ahead of them. \"I think that's land,\" he shouted, pointing ahead. The bright line was a sandy beach, with low dunes beyond.\n\nHarry grinned. \"I see it. Just a few more miles, I think. Good thing, too\u2014we're almost out of steam.\" He patted the wheel. \"Come on, old girl, you can get us home. I know you can.\"\n\n\"I think we've been seen,\" Sophie shouted, looking behind.\n\nGunn followed her gaze. No more than a couple of miles away, a fast cutter headed directly for them. \"It's the coastguard.\"\n\nHarry's face was grim. \"Steam's almost gone. They're going to catch us.\"\n\nGunn watched the vessel closing the gap. \"Four hundred yards!\"\n\nThe beach was fifty yards ahead.\n\n\"Two hundred!\"\n\nGunn almost lost his balance when Bertha suddenly slowed to less than a walking pace.\n\n\"There's no more steam, Gunn!\"\n\nDamn it all! Gunn thought. \"Do something!\"\n\n\"Open the furnace!\" Sophie yelled. She jumped to the deck plates, yanked one open, and grabbed all the maps. Gunn opened the furnace door just in time for her to throw them in. They caught fire with a roar. Sophie dashed back to the store, seized the folded blankets, and threw them in, as well. Gunn heard the hiss of steam, and felt Bertha pick up speed.\n\nHe glanced out of the door\u2014the boat was fifty yards to Bertha's starboard, intending to get in front of Bertha to cut her off from the beach.\n\nAnd then the cutter jerked to a stop.\n\nGunn couldn't help laughing, and Sophie and Harry looked at him as if he'd gone mad. \"They've run aground!\" he shouted. We might get out of this yet, he thought.\n\nA bumping sound came from Bertha's hull as she touched the sand under the water. Harry engaged the wheels and Bertha rolled slowly up onto the beach, then limped over the dunes. The cutter was lost to sight.\n\nGunn grinned at Harry\u2014then frowned with concern at his pale, sweating face. He looked at Gunn with sunken eyes, then his knees buckled, and Gunn rushed to grab him as he fell. Sophie dashed to Harry's other side, and took his arm.\n\nBertha still rolled forward, and Gunn hurriedly grabbed the wheel while Sophie helped Harry into a sitting position.\n\nHarry croaked, \"We need to get away from here before the men on that cutter get the idea to wade ashore.\"\n\nGunn nodded, and turned back to the controls\u2014just in time for Bertha to stop as the last of the steam gave out. \"We need to find some coal, or wood, or something, and quick,\" he said, engaging the brake. \"Do you have any idea where we are?\"\n\n\"You're a little way from Lulworth Cove,\" came a man's voice. Gunn whirled around to see a stout man with muttonchops and a black overcoat, standing on the sand by the doorway.\n\nGunn stepped into the doorway, placing himself between the man and Sophie. He tensed, ready for a fight. \"Who are you?\" he demanded. \"Why have you been following us?\"\n\nThe man stepped back, his eyes widening in alarm. \"No need for violence, Mr. Gunn. Webster's the name. As to why I've been following you, suffice to say that I've been keeping an eye on you, in part so I can be assured of your safety.\"\n\n\"But why\u2014\" said Sophie from behind Gunn.\n\nThe enigmatic man held his hand up. \"I'll tell you all I know\u2014but not here. I'm sure you're aware that I'm not the only one looking for you, and I strongly advise getting this vehicle away from that coastguard boat, and under cover, as quickly as possible.\" The man turned and pointed off to the northeast. \"There's a railway yard that way. I will wait for you there.\" Webster walked off.\n\nGunn watched Webster, reluctant to take his eyes off the man.\n\n\"Should we trust him?\" said Harry.\n\nSophie stood next to Gunn, watching Webster disappear over the dunes. \"If he was a policeman, he'd have arrested us. And if he worked for Pendragon, he'd probably have tried to kill us. He says he's been helping us. Perhaps he has. I'm prepared to listen to what he has to say for himself, at least.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Gunn in a dubious tone, and he jerked his thumb in the direction of the dunes. \"Come on, then. Let's see if Bertha can run on dry grass and driftwood.\"\n\nBertha breasted the dunes and rolled down into the yard, her acetylene lamps throwing a pool of light ahead of her, illuminating stacks of shiny steel rails and newly-cut wooden sleepers, and two or three passenger carriages left stored there.\n\nWebster waited in the dark. He pointed at one of the large sheds at the side of the yard. \"This one seems to be mostly empty,\" he said as he walked alongside Bertha.\n\nHarry\u2014who had forced himself back up despite Sophie's protests, determined to be the first to confront Webster\u2014pointedly ignored the man, silent and grim-faced as he steered Bertha into the shed. He dropped down to the ground a little shakily, and walked up to Webster, who took a step back. Gunn and Sophie followed. Harry's voice was firm. \"Now, sir, please explain yourself.\"\n\nWebster's tense shoulders relaxed a fraction. \"Gladly, Doctor. Perhaps we could find somewhere to sit?\"\n\nGunn cocked an eyebrow at Sophie, and she stepped to him and took his hand in reassurance. He glanced around the yard, but as far as he could tell, but they were quite alone. He led the way to a stack of sleepers lying near the door, and took a seat on one. The others followed.\n\nHe looked at Webster. \"Tell me, Webster, how did you know that we'd be here, when even we had no idea when and where we'd come ashore?\"\n\nWebster smiled. \"Very simple. Your vehicle was recognised on Alderney and I was notified immediately of the course you'd set, so I had a fair idea of where you'd land. You were still a good way out when I spotted you, then it was just a brisk walk along the beach to keep up. To be honest, I hadn't expected to find you. It was pure luck that I was as close as it turned out.\" He looked around at the walls of the shed. \"You should be safe here. Thanks to my employer, there are a number of bulletins on the wires, reporting sightings of your vehicle on roads to the north and west. That should keep the police distracted for a while.\"\n\n\"Who is your employer, Webster?\" Gunn demanded.\n\n\"Lord Salisbury.\" His tone suggested he was surprised that Gunn hadn't known.\n\nGunn turned sharply to the others, astounded. Harry gave a tiny shake of his head in disbelief. Sophie stared at Webster, eyes wide.\n\nHe turned back to Webster. \"Lord Salisbury? You'll have to do better than that.\"\n\n\"His Lordship will confirm it\u2014but we're well aware that Pendragon knows he's involved, and watches his wires. If you contact him, be sure not to identify yourselves. As for me, I was engaged to help in the fight against our common enemy, and as such, I carry nothing that would connect me with His Lordship, in case I was to be captured, or worse.\"\n\n\"That's very convenient. Let's say it's true. In that case, what's his interest in us?\"\n\n\"His Lordship has been monitoring the conspirators' activities for some time, and he was certain they were behind the burglaries and bank robberies in London. He wanted to be sure that your writings weren't the result of inside knowledge\u2014that you were not involved in the conspiracy.\"\n\nGunn felt offended. \"He doubted me?\"\n\nWebster shrugged. \"Why would he trust you? He hardly knows you. My job was to find out, with certainty, whose side you're on.\"\n\n\"Presumably you've satisfied him of that. Why, then, are you here now?\"\n\n\"We were hoping that you might actually strike a blow against the enemy, and you have\u2014a much more effective blow than we could ever have hoped for. His Lordship can use his influence at higher levels, you see, but he's not able to act directly. He needs people like me\u2014and you. All of you. I was instructed to do what I could to help.\"\n\nWebster shifted on the hard wood of the sleeper. \"You three have caused rather a lot of upset with the French. They're well aware that you helped them with Pendragon's attack in Paris, and they\u2014and most of Europe, in fact\u2014know that they owe you a debt. But they've since linked you to a murder, and they're quite anxious to interview you about that. There's also a matter of stolen French government property, and the destruction of a police airship\u2014it's lucky for you no one was killed in that little incident, or you'd be facing a few more charges.\"\n\nHarry sat up sharply at that. \"Did I hear you correctly? No one died?\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Webster, and Harry, heaving a sigh of relief, beamed at the others. Sophie looked at Gunn, wide-eyed and smiling. Gunn grinned, cheered by the news.\n\nWebster continued. \"As it is, the whole business has become quite a mess, and the French authorities aren't quite sure what to make of it all.\"\n\n\"What about here, in England?\" said Harry.\n\nWebster's forehead wrinkled. \"England is a different story, I'm afraid. Defences have been put in place around the centres of research and production, just as they have been across Europe, and that's all to the good. Your situation is not so bright. His Lordship has known for some time that Pendragon's influence goes to the highest levels of government, so it's no surprise that the police are still looking for you.\n\n\"The treason warrants are still in force. Lord Salisbury and others are doing what they can, but, for the time being, it's in your interests to stay hidden. Don't return to London under any circumstances. Your descriptions and pictures are being circulated across the country, but London, in particular, is on high alert.\"\n\nSophie's voice betrayed her impatience. \"But if Pendragon's plans are in ruins, surely the government must act? Why don't they find out who the traitors in their own departments are and expose them?\"\n\n\"It's not that simple, Mrs. Gunn. At this time, we simply don't know how many people are involved\u2014it could be a handful, or entire departments. Our biggest hurdle is the simple fact that we have little evidence, and no way to identify Pendragon's people. They've been careful\u2014there's nothing that anyone in government has done that couldn't be shown to be justified in one way or another.\"\n\n\"Does anyone know where Pendragon is?\" said Gunn. \"Or for that matter, who he really is?\"\n\nWebster sighed in frustration, and his voice deepened to a growl. \"We're no closer to finding the man behind the name. Whoever he is, we think he must be in England, and most likely somewhere in the south. He's getting support from elements in the military, that much is certain.\"\n\nHe leaned forward to emphasise his next words. \"Listen. You've all done sterling work in foiling Pendragon's immediate plans, but we're sure he will continue to be a danger as long as he remains at large. We have no doubt that he intends to withdraw for a time, to regroup, as it were, and then he'll strike again. One thing that concerns us is he may now see you three as a major obstacle. For that reason, he may target you more directly so you don't jeopardise his future plans.\"\n\nGunn raised an eyebrow. \"Did we really cause him that much trouble?\" Gunn felt rather proud\u2014but at the same time, concerned. Like wasps that had stung a lion, perhaps they were about to be swatted.\n\nWebster turned to him, and smiled. He looked over his shoulder in Bertha's direction. \"Your vehicle is quite unique, and easily identified. I suggest you find some way to cover it, and leave it here.\" He took a notepad and pencil from an inside pocket, scribbled a note, then tore it off and handed it to Harry. \"Go and see this man in Swanage. He can provide you with a more conventional conveyance.\n\n\"The coastguard had assumed your vessel belonged to smugglers, and they didn't make the connection to the three of you. As far as anyone else is concerned, you're still in France, and most people believe you're making for Spain. That ruse should hold for another day or two, and I suggest you make the best use of that time.\" He stood, making ready to leave.\n\n\"Mr. Webster?\" said Sophie, and he stopped. \"Please give my regards to Sandy.\"\n\nWebster nodded. \"The next time I see Her Ladyship, I promise. Good luck, all of you,\" he said, then he walked out into the darkness.\n\nGunn nodded at Sophie. \"Good thought. But it doesn't prove anything.\"\n\nSophie shrugged. \"I thought it might catch him out. Perhaps he's just well-informed. I have to say, I'm inclined to believe him.\"\n\n\"As am I. Harry, what's your thought?\"\n\n\"I agree with Sophie\u2014if he worked for the police, or Pendragon, he'd have no reason to pretend to help. I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.\" He turned to Sophie. \"Do you still have that list of military installations that your father gave you?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Sophie, smiling.\n\n\"Good,\" said Gunn, grinning. \"No disrespect to Mr. Webster, but I think we'll arrange our own transportation. Then, we're going to find Pendragon.\"\n\nJameson scratched his head, bewildered. Every police force from Southampton to Bristol had reported sightings of Gunn, Bohemia, and that unusual vehicle, covering a swathe of southern England a hundred miles and more across.\n\nThere was only one explanation: someone was covering their tracks, deliberately muddying the waters, to help Bohemia and the Gunns to escape.\n\nIf I can't make sense of this mess, he thought, Christie hasn't a hope. With that thought in mind, he addressed the package of reports to Christie, and gave it to a messenger.\n\nGunn wandered around the yard and explored the other sheds, looking for a tarpaulin, or perhaps some canvas, to help hide Bertha from curious eyes, while Harry and Sophie gathered their things and made ready to move on. Gunn's breath fogged in the crisp morning air\u2014but the sun shone in a blue sky, the wind had dropped, and Gunn felt cheered. They were home, in England, and it seemed that they had allies\u2014among them, a lord of the realm, no less\u2014helping them in their endeavours.\n\nOne of the sheds held a collection of old, rusting railway maintenance vehicles. One appeared to be designed specifically to cut tree branches, and another looked like it was intended for nothing more than cleaning rusty railway lines. Most of the vehicles were oddly shaped, with strange tools attached to them. Gunn had no idea what their purposes might be. In a dark corner, he found barrels of machine oil. In another shed, he found a coal store. Gunn opened it up and found several tons of fresh coal\u2014enough to fill Bertha's fuel store many times over.\n\n\"I don't like leaving Bertha here,\" said Harry when Gunn returned to the others, dragging a large sheet of oiled canvas that he'd found.\n\n\"I'm not happy about it either,\" said Gunn. \"Webster's right, though. She does rather stand out.\"\n\nWhile Gunn surveyed the yard, Harry had moved Bertha to the darkest corner of the rail shed. Gunn and Harry stacked a couple of the sleepers against her wheels.\n\nGunn climbed into the cab to gather the few supplies that they would be able to carry. \"I've had a thought, though\u2014\" He heard a thump behind him, and spun round. Harry lay on the ground in a heap.\n\n\"Sophie!\" he called out. Sophie ran to Harry's side.\n\n\"I was worried this would happen.\" She crouched down and felt Harry's neck for a pulse.\n\n\"I'm all right,\" Harry croaked.\n\n\"No, you're not. Keep still.\" She put her hand on his forehead to check for fever, and lifted the edge of the dressing to check the gunshot wound. \"It's not infected,\" she said. \"You've just overdone things. You drove us all the way here from France, when you should have been resting.\"\n\nGunn's brow furrowed. Harry needed rest, but this shed wasn't the place for that. He was anxious to move on and find Pendragon, but he couldn't do it without Harry. It was beginning to look as though they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.\n\nHarry strained to stand up, but Sophie put a hand on his shoulder, and instead shuffled himself into a sitting position. \"Don't worry about me. We have larger concerns. I'll be fine.\"\n\nSophie stood, shaking her head. \"You'll be fine, just so long as you rest.\" Harry closed his eyes, weary. Sophie turned to Gunn. \"We need to find somewhere I can take care of him properly. The trouble is, he's in no fit state to be walking anywhere. We'll have to risk using Bertha.\"\n\n\"I think you're right. First, I think we should do something to make her less conspicuous.\" He remembered the oil and coal that he'd found. \"I have an idea about that, but I don't think Harry will like it very much.\"\n\n\"Gunn, what the hell have you done?\" Harry shouted. He began to cough. Sophie patted his back, trying to help him get it under control.\n\nGunn had known that Harry would be upset. Bertha was no longer the glossy black box that she had been. The wet remains of burned coal and oil stained the ground around her. The flames had burned away most of Bertha's paint, and Gunn had thrown bucketfuls of cold water onto the hot metal plating.\n\nNow she was a mottled, patchy mix of gunmetal, grey iron, scorched paint and oil soot, already blooming with traces of rust. With a little luck, she'd pass as just another old goods carriage.\n\nHe turned back to Harry. \"It's just on the surface. Just the paint. I was careful to make sure the fire wasn't near any vital parts.\"\n\nHarry's coughing subsided but left him weakened. He groaned. \"You'd better hope you're right about that. If the heat warped any of the drive shafts\u2014\"\n\n\"It hasn't. I checked. When this is all over, I'll paint her myself. But right now, this is the best option I could think of.\"\n\nSophie interjected, \"The sooner we can move him the better. Have you thought about where we might go?\"\n\nGunn nodded. \"I don't see the need to go as far as Swanage. Wareham's just a few miles away.\"\n\n\"Then help me get him aboard.\"\n\nProctor stood on the metal catwalk high up on the side of the hangar wall, filled with pride as he looked down at his airship. From below came the sounds of work\u2014the clanking of tools, the chattering of pump gears. His people were busy getting the aircraft ready for her next flight\u2014filling her tanks with fuel and water, charging the electrical batteries, and hundreds of other tasks.\n\nHe heard boots ringing against the metal of the catwalk, and one of his men handed him a folded paper. It was a message from Christie. The three who had made nuisances of themselves in Paris had, despite Christie's efforts, managed to escape from France, and were now back in England, whereabouts unknown.\n\nProctor frowned. It was possible that they would attempt to locate the hangar. Christie wanted Proctor to double the patrols and put extra men at the gates. Proctor shook his head. He could assign a couple more people to man the gates, but he didn't have anywhere near enough men for double patrols.\n\nBut that was of little concern. The work will continue, because it is righteous work, he thought. There would be setbacks, and there would always be those who opposed them, but they would make no difference in the long run.\n\nIn the grand scheme of things, Bohemia and his friends were insignificant next to the plan\u2014they were ants in the path of an elephant, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.\n\nThe Doctor and the Gunns still hadn't appeared in Swanage, and they'd had plenty of time to get there. Webster was a little annoyed, but not terribly surprised; they'd seen him on several occasions but hadn't known who he worked for\u2014and the truth did seem a little far-fetched. If someone had come to Webster, and told him that they worked for a duke or an earl, he wasn't sure that he'd believe it, either.\n\nToo late now, he thought, as he packed his small bag and made ready to leave the little guest house. Now he'd have to backtrack to Lulworth, and try to pick up their trail from there.\n\nAs he walked to the railway station, he wondered, above all else, why he hadn't had the good sense to drive his steam carriage down from London instead of taking the train.\n\nSophie's father had made a list of military installations across southern England, any of which Pendragon might use as a base of operations. Gunn had decided he and Sophie would start with the three most likely candidates, the closest of which was Shorncliffe Camp, a hundred and fifty miles along the coast to the east, next to the country village of Cheriton.\n\nHarry was too unwell to travel, and he decided to stay in a guest house in Wareham to recuperate. Sophie suggested a code for wire messages, assigning special meanings to certain words\u2014a method her father had told her about, from his war years\u2014and Harry and Gunn thought this was a superb idea. They agreed on a few keywords, then Gunn and Sophie wished Harry farewell, and took a train to Cheriton, where they booked a room using false names.\n\nThe next morning, they arranged a packed lunch, and made their way toward the camp. They sauntered, hand-in-hand, along the wire fence that separated the camp from the path and the beach below. Gunn looked through the fence and across the grass at the huge hangar a thousand yards away, and the smaller buildings alongside it.\n\n\"I don't see anyone around,\" said Gunn.\n\nAfter half a mile, the fence met a corner post and turned to the north.\n\nGunn stopped. \"I think this would be a good spot for an early lunch.\"\n\nSophie led the way to a small copse a little way from the fence. \"These bushes should shelter us from sight. And from the breeze, too.\"\n\nSophie unpacked their picnic basket, while Gunn took out his field glasses from inside his coat. They sat down on the blanket, and Gunn raised the binoculars, aiming them through a gap in the bushes. \"Still no signs of life in there,\" he said, but then he saw a movement near the hangar doors. \"I spoke too soon. Look there.\"\n\nSophie took her own field glasses from the basket. \"It's a guard,\" she said, curious. \"Why's he watching the hangar? He should be at the gate.\"\n\nSophie was right\u2014the man was in uniform, and carrying a rifle. Gunn watched him walk away from them, and then disappear as he turned a corner.\n\n\"Can you see inside?\"\n\nHe saw nothing but darkness through the gap in the hangar doors. \"I can't see a thing.\"\n\nHe scanned the surrounding area, but saw no other guards. Then he checked the smaller buildings. Windows ran along the side of one. Movement.\n\n\"There are people inside that building,\" he said.\n\n\"More guards?\"\n\nGunn shifted to keep the binoculars steady. \"Yes,\" he said after a moment. \"At least a dozen, I think.\"\n\n\"This place does seem to be rather over-manned considering it's supposed to be unused.\" Her cheeks were rosy with excitement. \"I think we might have found what we're looking for.\"\n\nGunn felt a thrill at the thought. Could it be that they'd found Pendragon so quickly? He grinned at Sophie. \"We need to find out what's inside that hangar. It's the only way that we can know for sure.\"\n\nHe surveyed the ground beyond the fence. There was no movement, no sign that they'd been seen. They went back to eating their lunch. Sophie was silent, and he wondered what she was thinking. \"I think I can get in,\" she said after a few minutes.\n\nGunn raised an eyebrow. \"How?\"\n\n\"Using my father's name. They're sure to know it. If I can think of a good reason to be here\u2014military business on his behalf, perhaps\u2014I think they'll let me in.\"\n\n\"Absolutely not. It's far too dangerous. Even if Pendragon has nothing to do with this place, they'd only have to do a little checking to work out that you're my wife, and they'll certainly know my name from the newspapers. And if Pendragon is here . . .\"\n\nShe nodded, looking somewhat crestfallen. \"I suppose you're right. We'd better think of another plan, then.\"\n\nThey packed up their things and carried on walking along the footpath.\n\nThey spent the rest of the morning walking hand-in-hand along the coastal path, then returned to their picnic site on the way back. Gunn wanted to see if he could get a better view of the hangar from another angle.\n\nOn that side of the hangar, a long row of windows ran the length of the structure, just below the roof. Gunn pressed his face against the wire fence. A pale shape moved in one of the windows, then disappeared. Had it been someone's face? At that distance, he couldn't be certain.\n\nSophie took his elbow, and he stepped back. They walked on.\n\n\"That was silly. You might have been seen.\"\n\nGunn shrugged. \"They probably get hikers looking through the fence all the time. It's next to a public footpath, after all.\"\n\nThey made their way back to the boarding house, and went to their room to change.\n\nSophie sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled her shoes off. \"Have you had any thoughts on how we might get inside?\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I've been trying, but I can't think of a way that wouldn't be foolishly risky. Whatever plan we're able to concoct, I've decided it's safer if I go alone. For one thing, I couldn't bear it if you got hurt.\" Sophie smiled at that. \"For another, if something happens to me, it'll be up to you to inform Harry.\"\n\nShe stood, and kissed him on the cheek. \"That's assuming we can even come up with a plan,\" she said. \"To be honest, it might be better to wait until Harry gets here. He's certain to think of something.\"\n\nSophie went to the house's office and sent a coded message to Harry, maintaining the guise of being his daughter. After dinner, feeling that they had made good progress, they turned in for an early night.\n\nChristie's machine sounded. He looked at the lights. It was Proctor, on the voice wire. Christie picked up the microphone.\n\n\"I have news,\" said Proctor. \"Gunn and his wife have been seen, outside the fence.\"\n\nChristie was elated. He'd soon have those three out of his way. \"Good. Where are they now?\"\n\n\"Granger followed them. They're staying in town, but it looks as though Bohemia isn't with them.\"\n\n\"They won't be out of contact with him. Cut into their wires, and catch any messages. As soon as you know where he is, let me know. Then you can send some men to bring them in, and we can be rid of them once and for all.\"\n\nThe next morning, Gunn went down to the dining room ahead of Sophie while she dressed, and ordered tea while he waited. Ten minutes later, he'd finished his first cup, and began to wonder what was taking her so long.\n\nAnother five minutes passed, still with no sign of Sophie. Gunn had gone from curiosity to impatience, and now, to worry. He took the stairs two at a time, and hurried to their room.\n\nSophie was gone. Blankets had been dragged off the bed and onto the floor, and the bedside cabinet lay on its side.\n\nHe darted to the bathroom\u2014it was empty, untouched. He whirled back to face the bedroom. He caught a movement in the corner of his eye\u2014the net curtains billowing in the breeze from the wide-open window. Gunn ran to look out into the fenced yard behind the house. There was no one there.\n\nThey've taken Sophie. With that thought, rage welled up inside Gunn. He turned and punched the wall, cracking the plaster, then slumped onto the edge of the bed, defeated. His mind was in turmoil. A hundred questions filled his head: why had they taken her, where had they taken her, what was he going to do? He paced the room, decided to call the police\u2014then, just as quickly, changed his mind.\n\nThis isn't helping, he thought. I have to clear my head.\n\nPendragon is behind this. He and Sophie must have been seen and recognised when they checked the military base, and followed to the boarding house. The fact that Sophie had been taken, and not Gunn, could only mean that she'd be used as leverage to ensure his cooperation, and possibly Harry's, too.\n\nHe still had no idea what to do, and after ten minutes of darting from one ridiculously dangerous idea to another, he realised he should be thinking on a different question: what does Pendragon expect me to do?\n\nNow, Gunn's thoughts became focussed. He'll expect me to summon Harry. Then he'll have us where he wants us.\n\nGunn decided he would play Pendragon's game\u2014or at least, he would appear to. He went to the little office in the boarding house, and sent a message to Harry informing him of what had happened. The last sentence of the message told Harry he should come to their aid as soon as possible\u2014but it included the code word that would tell him he should do no such thing.\n\nGunn played the part of a worried man, waiting for Harry's response or arrival, on the assumption he was being watched. It wasn't much of a stretch\u2014his guts were twisted into a knot with anxiety.\n\nPendragon won't hurt her\u2014she's worth more alive and unharmed. He kept that thought in his mind, and prayed he was right.\n\nHe went to their room, and, after tidying the mess and straightening the bed, tried to rest. It wasn't easy; his mind seethed with plans.\n\nShortly after noon, the owner of the house brought a message. It was from Harry, and told Gunn to stay put until he arrived, which he expected to do the next afternoon\u2014but Harry had included the keyword that meant that the message itself should be disregarded.\n\nA little while later, another message arrived, addressed to Mr. Gunn\u2014care of the fake name that he'd used. The message gave clear instructions: as soon as Dr. Bohemia arrived, he and Gunn were to present themselves at the main gate of the camp. There was no mention of Sophie, no warning against calling the police. The threat was implicit.\n\nPendragon wouldn't expect Harry to arrive for at least another day. That would give Gunn some time. He went to the dining room, where he had a better view of the road in front of the house, and took a table near the front window. He ordered tea, deliberately fidgeting and shuffling his feet, while casting an occasional surreptitious glance out the window.\n\nHe saw what he'd been looking for. Fifty yards along the street, two men in farm-workers' clothes sat on a bench near a steam-powered cart. They looked like field hands taking a break from work, but they glanced in the direction of the boarding house every minute or so. One of them took his cap off to scratch his head; his hairstyle appeared more military than Gunn would have expected for a labourer.\n\nThen, he noticed the distinctive scar on the man's face. It was the man who had shot Harry in Paris, and who had tried to kill Gunn himself. He clenched his fists. After drinking his tea and forcing himself to eat a slice of toast, Gunn returned to his room. He checked through the window, but saw nobody watching that side of the house. He lay on the bed and waited, impatiently, for night to fall.\n\nAs Gunn shinned down the drainpipe, he hoped the clothes he'd chosen would be dark enough. He reached the ground, and pulled again at the blue sweater. It will have to do, he thought.\n\nHe glanced up at the rear wall of the house. The window to their room was the only one showing a glimmer of light\u2014he'd left the little gas lamp burning to maintain the pretence that he was still inside. Sticking to the shadows, he padded to the rear gate, slipped out, and made for the coastal path.\n\nWhen he reached the east side of the base, he put on his goggles and adjusted the levers until they turned the black night into a pale grey. Next, he took out the boot polish he'd liberated from the boarding house and smeared streaks of it across his forehead and cheeks. He'd heard about such things from soldiers who'd served in Africa; silly as it seemed to him at the time, there was no doubt it had saved lives. Gunn knew he was going alone against, potentially, an army. He needed every advantage he could get.\n\nHe crept along the fence slowly, but inside, he was champing at the bit, wanting nothing more than to run and find Sophie. He used a bush for cover, and checked the ground beyond for guards. When he was sure it was clear, he flitted through the long grass to the shelter of a tree. From tree to tree, and bush to bush, he made his way.\n\nAfter a quarter of an hour of slow progress, he reached the point where the fence ran closest to the wall of the hangar. He still had quite a distance to cover; the building was a good two hundred feet from where he stood, and there was nothing but the odd patch of sparse grass in between.\n\nHe hunkered down behind another bush and checked the hangar walls, looking for any way in, other than through the main doors which would certainly be guarded. He spotted a pile of small boxes, and some metal barrels sitting on a wooden pallet, but no doors.\n\nHe looked higher up the wall. Halfway along, he spotted a ladder that began six feet from the ground, and led all the way to the roof, passing between two windows on the way. Fortuitously, the one to the right was slightly open. He'd found his way in\u2014if he could get to the ladder.\n\nHe looked to the left and right; he was alone. As he'd hoped, Pendragon hadn't dared put too many men out in the open, at a base that was ostensibly disused. He took a breath, steeling himself for the next move.\n\nUsing his prosthetic hand, he grabbed the wire at the base of the fence where it had been sunk into the earth, and pulled.\n\nThe hand was stronger than his natural one could ever have been, and the fence, corroded from age and neglect, broke away easily with a loud creak. Certain the noise would have alerted the guards, he quickly yanked the wire up another foot and scrambled under.\n\nHe remained lying there, waiting for the shouts of the sentries, but heard only the breeze. He jumped up and ran for the barrels, and, once there, crouched down next to them. He pushed lightly at the closest barrel. It rocked away from him, empty. Perfect. Pressing his ear to the hangar wall, he heard irregular clanking mixed with a rhythmic rushing that reminded him of steam passing through pipes under high pressure.\n\nThe ladder was thirty or forty feet away. He began to roll the barrel toward it\u2014and stopped before he'd gone a foot. The hollow barrel made an awful racket. He grabbed the rim with his prosthetic fingers and crushed the metal to get a firm grip, wincing at the sound, and carried it the rest of the way.\n\nHe set the barrel upright under the ladder and climbed onto it, then pulled himself up onto the first rung and began climbing toward the open window. He heard a scuffing sound from somewhere below, and froze. A sentry had come around the corner of the hangar, and walked slowly in his direction.\n\nGunn stopped breathing. He was certain the man would see the barrel under the ladder, and know that it hadn't been there before. Gunn was still ten feet from the level of the windows. If he moved, the guard would hear him.\n\nThe man drew level with the barrel.\n\nAnd passed by. Gunn watched his back as he walked on, and started breathing again, as quietly as he could. After another minute, the man turned the far corner and was gone.\n\nGunn was unable to move, petrified with fear of getting caught. I'm no soldier\u2014I'm a reporter, damn it! What chance do I have? His mind filled with dismay and hopelessness. This is folly. I should have waited for Harry, as Pendragon said. He prepared to climb back down the ladder and leave.\n\nThen he had a vision of Sophie, alone and scared, and the image pressed on him like a lead weight. Doing what Pendragon wanted was a sure way of getting them all killed\u2014as he'd told Sophie in Paris. I told her I would fight.\n\nHe grabbed the ladder firmly, and, with new determination, resumed his climb. When his eyes were level with the bottom of the windows, he sneaked a peek. He looked in on an empty corridor, illuminated by gas lamps mounted on the wall at intervals. He pulled the window open a little more and checked both ways along the hallway, then clambered inside and stuffed the goggles into his pocket.\n\nTo the right, a stairway led down to the hangar floor; if he went that way, he'd surely be seen. He went to the left, and made his way quietly. The corridor turned to the right. He poked his head around the corner, and saw it was empty. He padded along quickly.\n\nHe came upon doors on both sides of the corridor; offices, perhaps, or work rooms. Sophie might be behind any one of them. He stopped at the first door and pressed his ear against it, listening for any sign that someone might be on the other side. The noises from the hangar made it difficult to be sure, but he heard nothing.\n\nThere was a click, and he turned\u2014and froze, as a man in a uniform stepped out of a doorway into the corridor, a mere twenty feet away.\n\nHe had his back to Gunn, and stopped to speak to someone in the room. Quickly, Gunn opened the door next to him and slipped through, praying there was no one inside. He closed the door as gently as he could manage. He heard the murmur of the uniformed man's voice. A moment later he heard footsteps in the corridor, getting closer. Gunn braced himself, ready to lash out when the door opened.\n\nThe footsteps faded as the man walked past, and continued on.\n\nGunn took a breath, and turned to survey the room he was in. It was unoccupied, thankfully, and ended at a low railing, instead of a wall. Beyond that, there was featureless grey. He went to the rail\u2014and realised he was looking at the monstrous bulk of Pendragon's triple-enveloped airship.\n\nIt was a leviathan, as long as two soccer fields. Ropes as thick as Gunn's arms anchored the airship to huge hooks on the hangar walls.\n\nGunn's eyes widened, awed by the sheer scale of the thing. He stood at the tail end of the monstrous aircraft. Gigantic control surfaces almost touched the roof of the hangar, two hundred feet above him, and ended far below. How can such a thing float on air? He stared, open-mouthed, at men below him swarming around machinery, like ants. Then he remembered himself, and stepped back from the rail before anyone saw him.\n\nHe took stock of his surroundings, and noticed a grating, set into the ceiling above a desk in the corner. As he went to it, he spotted a similar grate in the floor, and through it, could see the hangar floor. He climbed onto the desk and pushed at the iron grille above. It lifted easily. He grabbed the edge and pulled himself up, high enough to see into the space above.\n\nThere was no one there, and he climbed up the rest of the way. To one side, the airship stretched the length of the hangar; to the other, the corrugated metal hangar wall went up and up, meeting the barely-visible roof in the shadows.\n\nUnder his feet, flimsy-looking wooden ceiling panels stretched across the short end of the hangar, covered in dust and bits of birds' nests. Two rows of grilles, just like the one he'd climbed through, were set into the panels. He placed a foot on the board next to him, testing its strength. It flexed a little, but held his weight. He set out, stepping carefully and as quietly as he could manage, to check the ventilation grilles one by one.\n\nThrough the first one, he saw an empty office; the second was the same. As he reached the third, he heard voices drifting up, but they were too quiet to make out. Through the grille, he saw two men bent over a schematic drawing.\n\nHe took a step toward the next office\u2014and the wooden board under his shoe creaked.\n\n\"What was that?\" The voice came up through the grating. Gunn stopped short, and held his breath.\n\nAnother voice replied. \"Probably just a rat. The place is full of them.\"\n\n\"Rats,\" came the first voice. \"Filthy things. They ought to clean this place out.\"\n\nThe voices went back to their murmuring. Gunn waited for a full minute before tiptoeing on. It took a few minutes to check all of the rooms. All of the inner offices were empty, while about half of those against the hangar wall were occupied.\n\nThere was still no sign of Sophie\u2014she was either not being held in the hangar, or she was in the only other place that Gunn hadn't been: the airship. He had to find a way to get aboard.\n\nHe checked the sides and tail of the aircraft, but saw no catwalks or loading ramps. The only way aboard, he reasoned, had to be from ground level\u2014and if he tried to cross the hangar floor, he'd be seen before he could get anywhere near the ship.\n\nHe considered climbing along one of the tethering ropes and cutting through the outer fabric to make a way in, but he didn't know enough about the internal layout of the airship. If it was at all like any of the passenger craft he'd travelled aboard, he was just as likely to find himself inside a hydrogen chamber, unable to breathe.\n\nA glimmer of blue-white light at the limit of his vision caught his attention; it was coming from the edge of a square patch of darker material on one of the envelopes, near one of the horizontal control surfaces. It must be some kind of inspection hatch.\n\nOne of the ropes anchoring the airship to the hangar walls ran above the offices, passing within twenty feet of him. He hadn't seen it in the dark. He padded over to it, then hesitated, nervous\u2014he was about to attempt something very risky. One slip and he'd end up dead on the hangar floor. Sophie came to the forefront of his mind again, and he steeled himself to move.\n\nHe grabbed the thick rope with both hands, and put his weight into trying to shake it. It didn't move, the airship's mass holding it taut. He got a firm grip, braced his nerves, and stepped off the edge. Moving hand-over-hand, he slowly made his way toward the ship.\n\nIt seemed to take an age, but after a while, he looked behind, and saw he was already more than halfway across. He looked down, and saw a man walking directly underneath him, toward the airship. Gunn swung his arm up, ready to move on\u2014and there, on the rope, sat a huge, black rat, watching him.\n\nHe grabbed at the rope frantically\u2014and bumped the rat with his fingers, knocking it off its perch. He got his hands properly onto the rope and gripped hard, glancing down in time to see the rat land on the man below. The man yelped in surprise as the rat bounced off his shoulder, hit the concrete hangar floor, and ran off.\n\nThe man looked up.\n\nThen he looked back down, brushed his shoulder, and walked off, disappearing beneath the right-side envelope. Gunn breathed a sigh of relief. He'd been hidden in the shadow of the airship, and the man hadn't seen him. Gunn waited for his heart to slow, and moved on.\n\nHe reached the tail plane and grabbed it, hauling himself up. It was firm under his feet, and he stepped quickly to the square of fabric he'd seen. He peered through the narrow gap at the edge. A wooden catwalk led into the airship's innards. There was no one there. No time to hang about, he thought. Quickly, he pulled the flap open and climbed in.\n\nHe paced quickly along the narrow walkway, between the bulging hydrogen cells. Blue light came from cylinders of glass and brass fixed to vertical wooden struts. He dashed up a short flight of steps. At the top, the path went left; Gunn poked his head around the corner, saw the way was clear, and moved on.\n\nHe hurried along the weaving catwalk, checking at every corner and stairway. It was slow going. He was beginning to worry that he'd made a mistake, that Sophie wasn't on the airship after all. But he couldn't be sure until he'd searched the entire aircraft, and he would do that, no matter what it took.\n\nWith that thought in mind, he turned a corner, and heard footsteps coming toward him. He spun around, ready make a run for it\u2014and heard footsteps coming from that way, as well. He was trapped.\n\nHe didn't have time to panic. He dropped over the side, grabbing the wooden edging as he went, and swung down. An instant later, he hung underneath by his fingertips.\n\nThe catwalk jerked up and down as booted feet approached from both directions. They stopped, no more than two feet from where Gunn was hanging.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" said one.\n\n\"They sent me to see what was taking you so long. Have you finished?\"\n\n\"Yes. It was just a stuck valve. All fixed.\"\n\n\"Good. Come on, then.\"\n\nThe men moved\u2014and Gunn's hand blossomed with agony as one of them brought his boot down onto Gunn's fingers. He almost screamed, but he clamped his jaw shut. He lost his grip, and dangled by his left arm.\n\n\"Did you hear that?\" said the first man.\n\n\"Hear what?\"\n\n\"I thought . . . never mind.\"\n\nThe men walked away.\n\nAs soon as they'd gone, he grappled his way up and flopped onto his back. His fingers felt as if they'd been crushed by a mallet, and he massaged them while he caught his breath, then stood, and followed the way the men had gone.\n\nHe came to a wooden platform, ten feet square, with a large hole in the centre. A ladder poked through, bolted to the edge, leading down into a room where two men in metal flying helmets stood at control boards made of metal and glass. One made an adjustment to a control, then moved out of Gunn's line of sight, and the other man followed.\n\nQuietly, Gunn poked his head down into the room. The men had gone\u2014for now.\n\nA drop of sweat trickled down his nose. His hands shook with stress and anticipation\u2014even the prosthetic. He clenched his jaw, took a firm grip on the ladder, and climbed down.\n\nLarge, angled windows on three sides of the room gave a view out into the hangar, and along the rounded undersides of the lower envelopes. All around him, gauges and levers connected to the engines, compressors, control surfaces, and whatever else it took to steer the huge machine around the sky. He was in the airship's control room, at the nose of the gondola, suspended under the envelopes.\n\nA door at the rear of the room led to a long, straight passageway that ran the length of the gondola. There was no sign of the men who had just left. Gunn knew a little about airships; crew cabins would be behind the control room, and cargo spaces below.\n\nBut where is Sophie?\n\nTall wooden cabinets stood on each side of the doorway. Large books\u2014navigation maps\u2014filled the one on the left. The other held four large, beige overcoats\u2014just like the ones the two men he'd seen had been wearing. Metal flying helmets, goggles, and other paraphernalia sat on an upper ledge; the bottom shelf held woollen, anti-spark overshoes. I could have used you earlier, he thought. Better late than never.\n\nGunn slipped on one of the overcoats and jammed his booted feet into a pair of overshoes, then donned a helmet and a pair of goggles. The greasy feeling under his fingertips reminded him he still had bootblack smeared on his face, and he used the sleeve of another overcoat to wipe off the worst of it.\n\nHe rummaged through the other shelves, hoping beyond hope that there might be a weapon\u2014but he hadn't really expected to find any firearms aboard a vessel that was, after all, ninety percent hydrogen by volume. He went out into the passageway.\n\nHe stopped at the first door on the left, and opened it cautiously\u2014if there was anyone the other side, he'd have to trust the disguise would work. The room\u2014a crew cabin\u2014was empty. Gunn closed the door and checked the room on the opposite side\u2014another cabin, a mirror image of the first.\n\nHe continued along the passageway, methodically checking each room. He found ten crew cabins total, as well as a tiny galley, a small bathroom with a toilet, and a room that appeared to be an infirmary. Halfway along the corridor, a flight of stairs led down. Still, he uncovered no trace of Sophie. She has to be aboard, he told himself, she simply has to be.\n\nHe stepped into the infirmary, closed the door and leaned back against the wall, letting his head fall back against the wooden panelling, and closed his eyes. His heart threatened to thump out of his chest. So far, he'd been lucky; it was still well before dawn, and no doubt most of the vessel's crew were still in bed. But that wouldn't last long\u2014the pumping of hydrogen and fuel he'd seen earlier could only mean the airship was being readied for flight. He might have only minutes before the crew arrived.\n\nHis heart had slowed a little. He used the tiny sink to wash his face with cold water, then put the helmet and goggles back on. He returned to the stairs and found another corridor at the bottom. He took a breath, straightened his shoulders, then strode down the corridor toward the stern of the airship.\n\nHe came across a small balcony overlooking a huge cargo space, three storeys high. Below him stood Pendragon's man-shaped machines\u2014eight of them, set in two rows, like a military formation. Men wearing white coats, magnifying goggles on brass headpieces, and protective gloves, worked on the machines' innards.\n\nUniformed guards stood at the edges of the cargo area, armed with large crossbows. One looked up at Gunn as he stood at the balcony. Gunn made a show of yawning, keeping the man in the corner of his vision. The guard stared at him, then looked away. Gunn breathed again, and moved on, trying to appear casual.\n\nHe took a short flight of steps down to a hallway, which ended in three closed doors\u2014one in front of him, and one either side. He went to the door on the right, and, bracing himself, turned the handle.\n\nAt first he thought he'd walked into a featureless, grey fog. Then he realised he was in a room with tarnished metal walls, ceiling, and floor, covered with scratches and dents. More of the strange blue lamps hung on hooks, but only one was lit, faint and flickering. A metal table stood in the middle of the room. A chart table, Gunn realised. This must be a navigation room.\n\nThere was no sign of Sophie. He checked the passageway outside to make sure it was still clear, stepped across to the opposite door, and went in.\n\nThe room was similar in construction, but along the wall stood a row of strange devices. Gunn stepped closer to the first one\u2014it comprised a brass framework eight feet high, with a seat mounted between two hinged brass rods. The rods ended in handgrips, with triggers, switches, and push buttons. The whole thing was topped with a helmet, rather like those used by divers. Heavy leather straps, plainly intended for arms and thighs, had been riveted to the metalwork.\n\nGunn brushed his fingertips against the framework, wondering why it looked so familiar. Then he gasped\u2014Paris, inside the walking machine that Harry had been examining in the police laboratory, just before he'd been shot.\n\nHe took a step back and counted eight identical machines. Gunn realised they were used to control the walking machines from a distance, using some magical technology. Harry was right, he thought. If only he were here to see this.\n\nBut Harry wasn't there, and neither was Sophie. Gunn had to keep looking. He left the room and turned to the last door. He took a breath, then opened it, and stepped inside.\n\nThe room was dark. Gunn removed the stolen goggles, and as his eyes adjusted, he realised he was surrounded by bombs. Grey metal cylinders a yard across and five long, with brass pipes running along the sides, were mounted in racks against the walls. In front of him, two trolleys sat on rails, each with a bomb resting in a cradle on the top. What looked like fins, or wings, stuck out on either side. Flying torpedoes?\n\nHe moved to stand next to one of the carts. The rails ran the length of the room, ending at circular ports set into the far wall. Between them was a metal desk, with various controls lit from behind and labelled with their functions. There were levers for opening the launch ports, switches to engage drive motors and arm warheads, and large red buttons marked Fire.\n\nHe heard a groan, and spun round, crouching. In a shadowy corner of the room, several metal chairs were bolted to the floor\u2014and one was occupied.\n\nA small figure sat, slumped over. In the dark, Gunn couldn't make out details, and the person didn't seem to have noticed him. He took a step forward, and froze when his\u2014her?\u2014head lifted up.\n\n\"Sophie!\" he cried out, and hurried toward her.\n\n\"Connie\u2014\" she said weakly. Then something heavy smashed into the right side of his neck.\n\nThe pain was incredible. His vision blurred, and the room spun as his legs folded under him. He fell to his knees. Someone tore his helmet away and grabbed his hair, yanking his head back. A hand held a piece of fabric across his nose and mouth. It smelled of metal.\n\nThe room spun, faster and faster, and then faded into blackness.\n\nAs Webster rushed along Wareham's main street toward the railway station, he cursed himself again for leaving his steam carriage in London.\n\nBohemia had been at the boarding house, but had checked out that morning. The house's owner had rules about giving out guests' information\u2014Webster snorted, a little disgusted, at how easily the rules had melted away when he'd waved a few banknotes in front of the man's nose. Bohemia had received a message from Cheriton, and had left immediately.\n\nWebster knew there was a military base near Cheriton; he had friends who'd been stationed there, years before. It all makes sense now. It would make a secure base of operations for Pendragon. And if the three of them were looking for him, it would be a place of interest. He had no doubt they were there.\n\nThe last train would be leaving in a matter of minutes. Webster lengthened his stride, then broke into a run.\n\nHarry felt awful. He'd dosed himself up with painkillers, which helped, but the aches and pains had been replaced with a lightheaded feeling and a persistent drowsiness, made worse by the rocking and shaking of a four-hour train journey.\n\nHe looked out again from behind the bushes. Even though it was very late\u2014or very early, depending on how you looked at it\u2014and there was no one nearby, he was certain the guest house was being watched. He worried that if he went inside, he'd be seen and recognised.\n\nIf I were in Gunn's shoes, he thought, I'd try to get to Sophie. Gunn was resourceful. He'd have found a way to leave the house unobserved. Harry should have realised that. Damn these drugs, he thought. He couldn't think clearly.\n\nThe base was to the south. He took a few deep breaths of the cold night air to clear his head, then hurried away into the shadows.\n\nGunn woke, head spinning, as harsh, headache-inducing light flared. It glittered against the polished brass of the bombs, reminding him where he was: aboard the airship, in the weapon room. His stomach churned. He tried to raise his hand, but found that he'd been bound to a chair.\n\n\"It will pass,\" came Sophie's voice. He looked to his right and saw her there, tied to her chair, blinking at the lights that had just been turned on. \"The sick feeling, I mean. It goes away after a little while.\" She looked pale, but she smiled a little when she saw he was awake. He wanted, very much, to reach out and take her hand.\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"The guard hit you.\"\n\nGunn's head cleared, little by little. His throat was hoarse, and his mouth tasted like tin. His voice rasped. \"Pendragon's got what he wants. He used you as bait to trap me. So, why aren't we dead? Is he waiting to get Harry, too?\"\n\n\"All in good time,\" came a voice from behind. Gunn tried to twist in his chair to see who'd spoken, but the ropes were too tight. A moment later, a tall, thin man, of about forty stepped around in front of them. He looked at Gunn.\n\n\"As you said, I kept your wife alive to ensure that you joined us\u2014although I'd expected you to follow instructions, rather than make such a dramatic entrance. But that just means that you'll die together, instead of apart.\" He sneered. \"How romantic. As for Doctor Bohemia, my men will have no trouble disposing of him when he arrives.\"\n\nHe dragged over a wooden chair and took a seat, crossing one leg over the other.\n\n\"We will be getting airborne in just a few minutes. We're going to Paris, you see, and I'm going to allow you to live long enough to see the city destroyed. After that, I'm going to kill you both.\"\n\n\"Why not just do it now?\"\n\n\"After all the trouble you've caused? I don't think so. You cost me one of my best men in Paris, and destroyed two of my walkers into the bargain. Now I'm going to have a little vengeance, so there'll be no quick, merciful death. You're going to suffer.\"\n\n\"Your men,\" said Gunn, stunned as realisation dawned. \"Your machines. You're Pendragon.\"\n\nThe man looked at Gunn sharply, and grinned. Then he started laughing. His laughter went on for what seemed like a long time, becoming more and more high-pitched. Like a madman, thought Gunn. Tears appeared in the man's eyes, and he pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped them away as he got himself under control.\n\n\"Oh, dear, oh, dear,\" said the man. \"That's priceless. You still don't understand, do you?\"\n\nIt was irritating, like being taunted by a child, and Gunn seethed inside.\n\n\"Pendragon isn't a person, you idiot. You want to see Pendragon? Look around you. Me, the people who work for me, all the people we've put in place throughout the English government\u2014we are Pendragon. Many people, all with a single, clear goal: to see that England gains its rightful place as the master of this world. As for myself, I am called Proctor. I simply manage the military aspects of Pendragon's plans.\"\n\n\"You're going to take over the world\u2014with a single airship?\"\n\nProctor shook his head. \"Oh, not just an airship. We already have technical superiority. Our weapons will knock the French air defences out of the sky, before this ship is even visible to them. Those platforms will fall in flames before the French even know that they're being attacked. Paris will burn to ashes as an example to the rest of the world of what to expect if they resist.\n\n\"Every nation on this planet will submit to the control of our reformed English government. Those that fight us will be destroyed, utterly and completely, by weapons you can't even begin to imagine. We will soon have new aircraft that will fly so high, our enemies won't even see them. In a few years, we'll be able to go even farther, beyond the atmosphere.\n\n\"Our engineers have designed weapons that can destroy cities. No country on this earth has a chance against us, and they'll very quickly understand that. Ten years from now, the world will be English\u2014one language, one way of thinking. Fifty years from now, not a single person on this planet will be able to imagine how it could ever have been any other way.\"\n\nSophie looked from Proctor to Gunn, eyes wide, mouth open in disbelief. Gunn knew what she was thinking, because it mirrored his own thought: the man is insane.\n\nGunn clenched his jaw. \"You can't win. You might have the more powerful weapons, but when all of Europe unites to fight you, you'll be like one man with a gun against a thousand archers. They'll throw everything they have at you. You don't stand a chance.\"\n\nProctor tilted his head to one side. \"You underestimate us. Don't you think our plans anticipate that? Others will join us, too\u2014every true-blooded Englishman will be with us, once they see what we're doing for them.\"\n\nGunn raised an eyebrow. \"Do you really believe the people will fight a war for you? A war they didn't ask for, and don't want, just so that they can be governed by you? It won't happen. They'll join the fight against you, rather than be ruled by a collection of warmongers.\"\n\nProctor's face twisted, red with anger. He jumped from his chair, and clamped his hands around Gunn's throat. Sophie screamed. Gunn struggled against the ropes, and twisted his head, trying to get free of Proctor's grip, but it was no good. His vision turned red, and he saw stars, and knew he was about to black out.\n\nThen the pressure ceased, and his head lolled forward. Gasping for air, he looked up. Proctor was standing a few feet away, while a guard murmured something to him. Proctor nodded, gave Gunn a look of unadulterated malice, then followed the guard out of the room.\n\nSophie stared at Gunn, wide eyed, her breathing rapid.\n\nGunn coughed, getting his breath back, and he smiled to try to ease her fear. \"I think I touched a raw nerve there.\"\n\nSophie's breathing slowed as she got it back under control. \"We have to get out of here.\"\n\nThey struggled against the ropes binding their wrists to the legs of the chairs.\n\n\"Do you believe him?\" he said, breathless, as he thrashed.\n\n\"About Paris? I don't think we can take the chance that he's wrong, or lying, or just out of his mind, Connie. Tens of thousands of people . . .\"\n\n\"We have to warn them.\"\n\nGunn's straining did no good. The ropes were too tight and too well tied. He stopped, realising he would get nowhere by tugging at bonds that were beyond his strength to break. He took a breath, and pulled lightly against the cords. Proctor\u2014or more likely, the guard who'd subdued Gunn\u2014had thoughtlessly tied the binding around his metal wrist, instead of higher up around his forearm. That gave him an idea.\n\nWith his prosthetic hand, he felt for the seat of the chair, and curled the fingertips around the edge to get a firm grip. He closed the hand, gradually increasing the force. He could feel the hand straining at the point where it met his own flesh and bone.\n\nThe bonds started to give under the intense pressure. The rope around his metal wrist began to separate, fibre by fibre, as the force of the mechanical fingers overcame its strength.\n\nWith a snap, the fibres tore apart, freeing his left hand.\n\nHe worked quickly, untying himself, then he hurried to Sophie.\n\nHe heard a click from behind him. Sophie gasped, and he spun round to see Proctor pointing a crossbow at his face.\n\nGunn sprang at him, swinging his metal hand at the madman's arms. Proctor pulled the trigger as Gunn's hand smashed the weapon away. The bolt shot over Gunn's shoulder, and the bow clattered to the floor as Gunn piled into his enemy, forcing him against the wall.\n\nGunn punched the man in the stomach, and he doubled over\u2014then he straightened sharply, and Gunn's teeth jarred as Proctor's skull smacked into his chin. Gunn stumbled back, his ears ringing, and Proctor paced forward, his face contorted with rage, his arms reaching for Gunn's neck. Then his hands were around Gunn's throat again.\n\nHe felt his eyes popping from their sockets as life was crushed from him. He thrashed at Proctor's chest, and tried to squirm free, but he wouldn't let go\u2014then Gunn's metal hand found the man's windpipe. He held firm and squeezed.\n\nProctor's grip loosened as he tried to pull away, and Gunn pressed his advantage, pushing the man backward until he slammed into one of the bomb trolleys.\n\nProctor kicked at Gunn's shin, sending a lightning bolt of pain into the bone. He lost his grip, then he was thrown backward as Proctor planted a foot firmly into his chest. He landed on the control desk\u2014and flames shot from a nozzle at the tail of the bomb Proctor had fallen against.\n\nGunn glanced at the panel. One of the red buttons had been jammed down when he'd landed on it.\n\nProctor pushed himself at Gunn\u2014and was stopped short. He twisted to see what was holding him; his belt had caught on the bomb's pipework. He tugged at it, but the leather was hooked firmly. He glanced at the jet of fire, and his face went white as he struggled wildly to free himself. \"No!\" he screamed, and he looked at Gunn. \"For pity's sake, man, help\u2014\"\n\nThe flames increased tenfold, and Gunn and Sophie covered their ears against the deafening roar. Gunn saw Proctor's mouth moving, pleading. The trolley pushed forward against its creaking, screeching brakes by the power of the rocket, and metal began to buckle\u2014and the bomb twisted around, its flames turning to point at Sophie.\n\nGunn spun round to the controls, looking frantically for a way to stop the engine. He saw a switch marked Carrier Release, and slapped it with his hand. The bomb shot forward, accelerating along the rails, dragging the screaming Proctor along with it.\n\nThe bomb slammed into the launch doors, then spun ninety degrees and bounced sideways. It jammed itself into the missile rack, tail upwards, smashing Proctor's limp body to pulp.\n\nGunn ran back to Sophie and freed her, then grabbed her in a bone-popping hug.\n\nThey separated, and he glanced at the carnage. Flames from the bomb's engine played against the wall and ceiling, burning the wood and paint. Gunn grabbed Sophie's hand and they ran for the door.\n\nGunn glanced down into the cargo bay, careful not to be seen.\n\n\"If that fire burns the other bombs\u2014\" he began.\n\n\"Nothing will happen unless the warheads are armed. Trust me\u2014my dad's an expert on them. I'm more worried about the gas cells. How long before the fire gets to them?\"\n\n\"Minutes, at most. We have to get off this thing, and we'll never get through those guards. We'll have to go through the control room, the way I got aboard, and get out of the hangar before the whole lot goes up.\"\n\nSophie trembled. He took her hand, and looked into her eyes. \"We'll get through this.\"\n\nThe doubt disappeared from her face, and she smiled a little, confident in him. Her back straightened. \"Yes. We will.\" She nodded in the direction of the cargo bay. \"Perhaps we can create a distraction.\"\n\n\"Good thinking.\" Gunn took hold of one of the blue lights mounted on the wall near the doors. It came free with one good pull, and he threw it as far as he could across the cargo bay.\n\nIt smashed against the wall, and intense blue-white light flared all around it. The guards and the engineers in the bay looked to see what had happened.\n\nGunn and Sophie moved as one, running along the balcony and up the stairs. Below, the lamp began to smoke. A guard looked up to see where it had come from. When he saw Gunn and Sophie, he shouted, and the other guards ran for the steps leading up to the catwalk.\n\nGunn and Sophie darted along the passageway and into the control room. Three men stood there, intent on the various control boards. One turned at the sound of their entrance, and was thrown across a panel as Gunn's left arm slammed into his chest. A second man joined the first as Gunn swept his arm round. The third man thought the better of trying to tangle with the assailant, and ran from the room.\n\n\"Connie!\" said Sophie, and he spun around. She looked out of the windows, wide-eyed. He followed her gaze. The waves of the English Channel crested, a thousand feet below them.\n\nHe heard footsteps hammering up the stairs. \"Up!\" he said, pointing at the ladder in the middle of the room. They scurried up, then galloped astern.\n\n\"I don't . . . want . . . to burn,\" Sophie shouted, between breaths.\n\nGunn stopped between two bulging gas cells.\n\n\"I'd rather we jumped, and took our chances,\" she continued. She put her arms around him and kissed him. \"I love you, Connie.\"\n\n\"I love you too, Sophie,\" he said. He held her, and kissed her in return. If they couldn't escape, at least they'd be together.\n\nBut they'd escape, if there was any way they could. They ran along the catwalk. And then the fire alarms went off.\n\nWebster, watching from the beach, saw the hangar doors open slowly. The rising sun caught the nose of the huge triple-enveloped airship inside. Pendragon had evidently ceased to worry about his vessel being seen during the day. He was getting bolder, and Webster knew that couldn't be a good sign.\n\nThe airship floated out of the hangar, then Webster heard the tone of the engines change as they were fed more power. It turned to the southeast, gaining altitude, and floated over him and out across the water.\n\nHe clenched his fists in despair and frustration; Gunn and his wife had been abducted from their lodgings. Webster had every reason to believe they were aboard that thing, and he was powerless when they most needed help.\n\nIt was time to report to His Lordship. He was about to turn away, when he noticed a glimmer of red-orange light at the bow of the airship's lower starboard side. He looked closer. Fire.\n\nThe flames spread quickly along the envelope, and jumped to the others moments later. They burned away the skin of the airship, exposing the vessel's skeleton. Burning fabric fluttered down, accompanied by darker, larger shapes\u2014the scales of the armour plating.\n\nThe nose of the aircraft dropped as the hydrogen burned away. Within seconds, the entire airship was on fire, and began to fall, faster and faster in the grip of gravity. With a sinking heart, Webster watched the smoking wreckage splash and splatter into the sea.\n\nGunn and Sophie could hear the alarms going off in the gondola below them. Gunn glanced the way they'd come. If they'd been followed, there should have been some sign of their pursuers by now. \"We might get out of this, yet. Come on.\" He turned and ran back toward the control cabin, Sophie on his heels.\n\nGunn was ready to use his metal hand to belt anyone that got in their way, but they reached the ladder without any sign of the crew.\n\nHe dropped down into the control room\u2014and found it deserted. Blinking red and yellow lights surrounded him, and the sounds of bells and buzzers filled the air.\n\nSophie slid down the ladder, and Gunn took her hand. They dashed for the door.\n\nTheir way along the corridor was clear, but they heard shouts and screams as they reached the cargo bay. They stopped short as they came to the railing.\n\nBelow them was chaos. Doors in the sides of the bay had been opened, and the engineers and guards were clustered around them, panicking. As Gunn watched, one jumped out to a certain death. Sophie shook her head in sorrow.\n\nThe floor under their feet tilted, almost tipping them over the rail, and Gunn knew the bow of the airship was sinking. There wasn't much time. \"I'd hoped there would have been lifeboats, or something.\"\n\n\"Don't give up, Connie.\" Then she pointed down into the bay. \"Look.\"\n\nGunn followed her finger, and instantly knew what she was thinking. \"Do you really think\u2014?\"\n\n\"It's that, or drown.\"\n\nThey ran down the stairs and toward the walking machines, scrabbling down the deck as it tilted more and more. The one farthest from them was open, its hatch swinging to one side. A guard stepped out in front of them, ten feet ahead, and raised his crossbow to point it at Gunn's head. Gunn slowed, then changed his mind. He raced forward, lifting his metal left hand, ready to hit the man.\n\nThe guard pulled the trigger.\n\nThe crossbow bolt shot toward Gunn's face\u2014and bounced off his wrist, clattering against the wall. Gunn swung and hit the man across the face. He collapsed as Gunn and Sophie flew past. Gunn grabbed Sophie's hand again as they reached the open machine. He half jumped, half climbed into the machine, pulling her in behind him.\n\nThe deck tilted again, more sharply, this time. He glanced out of one of the open bay doors, and knew they had but seconds before the gondola hit the water. Sophie pressed in tight against him, and he grabbed the machine's hatch and yanked it closed. There was a hiss, and he felt the hatch press itself inward and seal. Then all was silent, except for the sounds of their laboured breathing. He tried to put his arms around Sophie, but there wasn't room to move his elbows.\n\nThe gondola smashed into the sea. Gunn's head slammed back into the leather padding, and Sophie's weight forced the breath from his lungs. He raised his head. The faceplate was inches from his eyes, and he could see through it clearly. Jets of water shot across the bay from both sides through the open doors, blasting loose equipment, and the bodies of the remaining airship crew, across the open space.\n\nSeawater engulfed them. Bodies\u2014some dead, some convulsing as they drowned\u2014floated in front of him, amid bits of broken wood, and flurries of bubbles.\n\nThe gondola creaked and groaned around them as it sank slowly. After what seemed an age, it hit the seabed with a thump. A pair of goggles entwined with a glove drifted toward them, then away, as the gondola gradually tilted back to something close to level.\n\nAnd then everything was still. Sophie pressed close against him, her head against his chest and her arms still around him. He could feel her breathing against his stomach.\n\n\"Sophie?\" he said softly. \"Are you all right?\"\n\n\"I think so. But I can barely move. It's a little bit cramped in here.\"\n\n\"Let's\u2014oof!\" Sophie's shoulder jammed into his stomach.\n\n\"Sorry, dear. Let me just\u2014\" She shifted her arms, and he worked around her, trying to get his arms properly free. His buttocks were on a narrow seat, and his feet had slipped naturally into the contraption's hollow legs when he'd climbed inside. He felt pedals down there\u2014somewhere near the giant machine's knees, but in the right place for a normal man's boots. His shoes slotted into the straps.\n\n\"Ow!\" he said as Sophie's shoe scraped against his shin. But he'd managed to get his arms inside those of the machine, as far as its elbows, and found controls at his fingertips. He pressed them at random until tiny lights came on in front of his face. The machine's limbs came alive. He moved his arm, and the machine's arm followed. \"I think we might survive this, after all.\"\n\nWith some contortions, Sophie got her arms and legs next to Gunn's, inside the mechanical limbs. She rested her toes on his feet, held his wrists in her hands, and pressed her face into his chest. Then she took a deep breath and blew it out. \"That was quite exhausting.\"\n\n\"And painful,\" Gunn groaned, wishing he could reach down and rub his bruised shin. \"Move your feet with mine. You always swore you'd get me to dance one day, sweetheart, but don't you think this is a bit much?\" He could see over her head well enough. He pulled his foot up, and the monster's leg lifted. He took a step forward, then another. One of the other walkers lay on the gondola floor in his path. He swept his arm across, and swatted it aside.\n\nHe stepped out through the open door, and dropped in slow motion to the sea bed. Across the sea floor, sparse kelp strands waved gently, as the water nudged them to and fro. He looked up, and saw the surface of the sea. It was difficult to judge the depth, but he guessed that it was about a hundred feet.\n\nHe looked down. Sophie's eyes were jewels in the dark, looking into his. \"I don't suppose you'd know which way is north, would you?\"\n\nJameson arrived at his office to a ringing machine. Without stopping to take off his hat or coat, he picked up the microphone. It was Christie.\n\n\"Jameson? I've just been told that the airship's been destroyed, and now I've lost contact with the base. Have you any idea what's happening?\"\n\n\"Not a clue, old man.\"\n\nHe heard Christie sigh with frustration at the other end of the wire. \"It's a setback, but there are plenty more airships where that one came from. And it's not all bad news\u2014Gunn and his nosey wife were on the thing when it went up. That just leaves Bohemia. I want you to find him and deal with him, while I find out what's going on.\"\n\nJameson put down the microphone. He opened his desk drawer, and lifted out his revolver and the box of bullets. He loaded the gun, slipped it into his coat pocket, and left.\n\nChristie forced the secret drawer in the bottom of his desk open, hurriedly lifted out bundles of banknotes, and dumped them by the handful into the open briefcase. Stay where you are, Management had told him. You'll be needed when we resume operations.\n\nChristie didn't believe a word of it. He didn't know who the Management were, but he knew what they were. Cowards. The airship was gone, the base overrun by police. Resume operations? He snorted. They'd cut and run to save their own skins, leaving him holding the bag.\n\nThe briefcase was full. He forced it closed, picked it up, and strode to the door.\n\nHe opened it\u2014and stepped back, dropping the briefcase. The muzzle of Jameson's revolver pressed against his forehead.\n\n\"Going somewhere?\" said Jameson as he forced Christie back into his office.\n\n\"What are you playing at, Jameson?\"\n\n\"You have the right to remain silent, and I rather wish you would.\"\n\nChristie backed into his desk. \"If I go down, I'll take you with me.\"\n\nJameson took a step back, but kept the pistol pointed at Christie's head. \"I have no doubt of that, and I'm ready to face the consequences. You know what pains me the most, Christie? The fact that I was part of something that's become the very thing it claimed to be fighting against.\"\n\n\"What are you blathering on about, man?\"\n\n\"When Pendragon started out, it was about keeping the English way of things alive, and showing the world that it's a good way. Honour, and fidelity, and love of country.' That's what they used to say. Now, look at us, Christie. Stealing from our own people. Destroying what doesn't belong to us. Murdering in cold blood.\"\n\n\"We do what's necessary.\"\n\n\"The ends justify the means? I don't believe that. You know, I'd hoped things would change. I thought perhaps a few right-minded people might persuade Management to take us back to the way we used to be. I'm just sorry it took me so long to realise the truth.\"\n\n\"What truth?\"\n\n\"That as long as people like you are involved, that can never happen. You are the poison in my country's blood.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do about it? Shoot me?\"\n\n\"Doctor Ernest Christie, I'm arresting you on charges of treason, conspiracy to commit murder\u2014\"\n\nChristie jumped forward, grabbing the gun with one hand and Jameson's throat with the other. Jameson, thrown off balance, toppled backward. Christie fell forward onto him, pinning him to the floor. Panting with effort, Jameson tried to twist the gun around, but Christie was stronger, and forced it down and away from him.\n\nJameson got his leg under himself and pushed hard. The two men rolled. Jameson was on top for an instant, but Christie pushed again and they rolled farther. Jameson's hand slammed into the wall, and the gun went off. He screamed in agony as the bullet tore through his left boot and shattered the bones of his foot. Christie jumped up, grabbed the briefcase from where it had fallen, and fled.\n\nThe air was getting bad. Gunn took another breath, but it felt thick and moist, and tasted of sweat. He looked at the dial on the air gauge. The needle had dropped another point, and was barely above the red mark. A few more minutes, and they'd start gasping for oxygen\u2014shortly after that, they'd be unconscious.\n\nHe'd been walking along the sea bed for an hour or more, over smooth sand and lumpy, eroded chalk beds, and they still hadn't reached the beach.\n\nHe looked down at Sophie. Talking had become an effort. \"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I think I've been taking us the wrong way.\"\n\nHe heard Sophie wheeze. \"Cornelius Gunn,\" she croaked, \"you, of all people, have been the one who's taught me never to give up hope.\" She took another breath. \"So open this thing, and we can try to swim. We'll probably drown, but if we stay here, we'll definitely asphyxiate.\"\n\nGunn knew she was right. Lack of oxygen had slowed his mind.\n\nHe grasped the hatch handle. \"Take a deep breath.\" She did, and nodded at him. He pushed the handle.\n\nNothing happened. The pressure of the sea held the hatch firmly closed.\n\nThere was only one thing to do. He looked down at Sophie, and wished that he could reach her, and kiss her. \"Close your eyes, sweetheart,\" he said.\n\nHarry felt wretched. He'd seen the airship burn and fall, and had known that Gunn and Sophie must have been behind its destruction. But they'd sacrificed themselves to do it. He'd lost his only friends.\n\nDejected, he absently watched the waves rolling up the beach, collapsing, and falling back. Every so often, he picked up a stone and threw it into the water half-heartedly. He had nothing better to do, until Jameson showed up. Time was wearing on. He would arrive soon. Harry picked himself up, and as he brushed the sand from his trousers, he spotted something moving in the water.\n\nSophie held Gunn's arm as they wandered around the huge ballroom, each carrying a glass of port, mingling with Lord Salisbury's other guests.\n\n\"I've been thinking,\" said Gunn. \"After everything we've been through, I'm not completely sure I want to go back to being just a journalist.\"\n\nSophie nodded, smiling. \"I know what you mean. It does seem rather humdrum, doesn't it? Perhaps we should have a long holiday, to give you time to think.\" Gunn felt Sophie grip his arm, and she stopped. \"Over there,\" she said, a little excited. \"With the walking cane, hiding behind that potted palm.\"\n\nGunn followed her gaze. \"A-ha. I see him. Should we?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\nJameson didn't see Gunn until he and Sophie were standing next to him. His eyes widened. \"Gunn,\" he blurted out. \"I was . . . I mean, after everything I put you both through\u2014\"\n\nGunn and Sophie glanced at each other, then back to Jameson. Sophie beamed at him. \"We've talked this all over, and you have our forgiveness\u2014so, please, stop looking so contrite. Anyone can make a bad decision, Inspector, but not everyone gets the chance to make things right. We heard about what you did. Calling the Folkestone police, for one thing. And trying to stop Christie. How is your foot, by the way?\"\n\n\"Gone,\" said Jameson, and he tapped the foot with his cane. He lifted the cuff of the trouser leg an inch or so, revealing bronze and steel. Sophie gasped. \"Thanks to our mutual friend. He told me I won't be needing the walking stick for much longer.\"\n\n\"You couldn't be in better hands. You'll be right as rain in no time\u2014I should know. But wherever have you been?\" asked Gunn.\n\n\"I've been resting.\" Jameson leaned a little closer to Gunn and Sophie, and dropped his voice. \"The truth is, I'm suspended from duty because of my involvement with Pendragon. There's a hearing in a few days, and I don't expect I'll be keeping my job.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear that, old boy.\"\n\nSophie placed a hand on his arm. \"Don't worry\u2014things will work out. If there's anything we can do to help, please don't hesitate to ask.\" She looked around. \"Speaking of the doctor, where has he got to?\"\n\n\"I saw him a little while ago,\" said Gunn. \"He's enjoying himself, with all these scientists to talk to. We'll find him soon enough, I'm sure. Any news about Christie?\"\n\nJameson shook his head. \"Disappeared, along with the Secretary of State for War, and half of his staff. We have no doubt they were all part of Pendragon. We've had reports of sightings from Spain, Italy, and even Russia. I don't think we'll ever catch up with them all.\"\n\nLord Salisbury appeared behind Gunn, with Lady Salisbury at his side. He nodded at Jameson, and turned to Gunn. \"How are you two doing?\" he said. \"Quite recovered from your adventure, I hope?\"\n\n\"We're both very well, Your Lordship,\" said Gunn.\n\n\"Quite an incredible story. Webster thought you'd been lost with the airship. He's been in my employ for over twenty years\u2014he was my batman in the army, you know\u2014yet I've never seen the man as relieved as when he found out you both were still alive.\"\n\n\"Please give him our regards when you see him. And our thanks.\"\n\n\"I will. I have just one question for you, Mr. Gunn. I read your story, and I don't understand how you got out of that infernal machine.\"\n\n\"I smashed the faceplate, to let the sea in. With the pressure gone, I was able to open the hatch.\"\n\n\"But you were under a hundred feet of water!\"\n\nSophie shook her head. \"No, we weren't. Connie had been walking the right way all the time, and we were almost at the beach. We just didn't know it.\"\n\nLord Salisbury raised his eyebrows. \"Extraordinary, quite extraordinary.\" He looked around at the crowd, and at the clock on the wall. \"Now, I do believe it's about time to bring this meeting to order. Please excuse us.\" Lord and Lady Salisbury walked off in the direction of the platform at the far end of the room.\n\n\"What is this meeting all about, anyway?\" said Jameson.\n\n\"I think we're about to find out,\" said Gunn.\n\nSalisbury mounted the small platform and stood at the lectern, then rang a small bell. The hubbub of voices dropped to a murmur, then ceased altogether. All eyes focussed on him.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" Lord Salisbury began. \"For several years, we've known that the scientific and technical backbone of Europe has been under threat. As many of you may know, my wife and I have coordinated efforts to fight this threat through political action. Recent events have made us all very much aware that the threat has been more far-reaching, and more organised, than we possibly could have known.\n\n\"The identities of many individuals in the group calling itself Pendragon have been exposed, thanks to the courageous actions of several people whom we are honoured to have with us this evening. Pendragon's plans have been set back, one of their airships destroyed, and one of their leaders eliminated. But we must not allow ourselves to be lulled into complacency. Some of those in positions of authority, in government and the military, might remain loyal to Pendragon. I and many others believe that Pendragon will return, sooner or later. We must be ready for them.\n\n\"To that end, I am formally announcing the inception of a new organisation, dedicated to the protection of science, technology, and the very ways of life of the peoples of Europe, against the threats posed by Pendragon and its ilk.\n\n\"You are invited here this evening to become the founding members of this new body\u2014the European Society for the Advancement and Protection of Science and Technology. Please, enjoy the hospitality of my home, and after dinner, I will be available to answer any questions you might have.\"\n\nSalisbury stepped down from the platform amidst thunderous applause.\n\nGunn and Sophie linked arms and followed the crowd as they shuffled toward the dining room. Gunn felt a touch against his elbow, and turned. His jaw dropped at the sight of a familiar face, then his face broke into a wide grin.\n\n\"Montand! What a surprise!\" He took the man's hand and shook it vigorously.\n\nMontand smiled, too. \"Good to see you, Mr. and Mrs. Gunn.\"\n\nSophie leaned forward, smiling, and kissed the policeman's cheek. \"Here to arrest us?\"\n\nHe laughed. \"No, my dear Mrs. Gunn. His Lordship invited me personally, in the spirit of cooperation between our countries, and because of my earlier dealings with him.\"\n\n\"Earlier dealings? You're acquainted with His Lordship, then?\"\n\n\"Until this evening, only through his associate, Mr. Webster. You weren't told of his part in the affair?\"\n\nGunn and Sophie mirrored wide-eyed looks, then Sophie addressed Montand. \"No one has said anything.\"\n\n\"It was Mr. Webster, on His Lordship's behalf, who asked that Doctor Bohemia be granted access to Pendragon's machine, in the hope that weaknesses might be found. Later, Webster convinced me that you had nothing to gain by murdering Mainwaring, and that you had been\u2014in his words\u2014'stitched up'; an interesting phrase. And it was his suggestion to help you escape Paris, before Pendragon made another attempt on your lives.\"\n\nSophie looked at Gunn, open-mouthed in surprise. \"I had no idea. We must thank him.\"\n\n\"I was hoping to meet him here, but I was told he doesn't like to advertise his association with His Lordship too widely\u2014it interferes with his work. I hear you're giving him a false name in the book you're writing, at his request. When can I expect to read it, by the way?\"\n\n\"I'm hoping to finish it quickly, before public interest wanes. In my business, news goes stale quickly. It'll be on the bookstands in two or three weeks, I should think.\"\n\n\"I look forward to it. To be honest, I was asked by my government to make sure it presents the truth.\"\n\nGunn cocked an eyebrow. \"The French police will be shown in the best possible light, of course. Did you have any specific concerns?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014the matter of the police airship that was destroyed. A design flaw, I'm told. These unfounded rumours of a weapon are, of course, just that\u2014rumours. My government has no knowledge of any such device.\" He smiled at Gunn.\n\nGunn grinned. \"You have my assurance\u2014in the spirit of international cooperation, you understand.\"\n\n\"Ah, Cornelius, there you are,\" said Maynard as he approached. \"I owe you a debt, it seems.\"\n\nGunn rubbed his chin, curious, and Sophie held his arm a little tighter. \"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Your antics have got my reporters wanting to pound pavements, investigating stories. But it's paying off\u2014their stories are better, and sales are booming. Well done. See me in the morning, and I'll tell you about the opening we have for a new science correspondent.\"\n\nAfter dinner, Gunn and Sophie were approached again by Lord Salisbury, and they gladly signed their names as members of the new society. After that, Gunn stepped out to the garden to get some air, while Sophie remained inside to talk to some of the other guests. She'd been positively tickled at the thought of being part of something so important, and couldn't wait to discuss the whole affair with the other members.\n\nGunn wandered about outside, looking up at the stars in the cloudless sky. He heard footsteps crunching in the gravel behind him.\n\n\"Everything all right with you, Gunn?\" said Harry. \"You seem a little out of sorts, if you don't mind me saying so.\"\n\nGunn shook his head. \"What I did on the airship. Killing Proctor. I still feel horrible about it.\"\n\n\"Why? Do you think it wasn't the right thing to do?\"\n\n\"He was pleading for help. I could have tried to save him.\"\n\n\"The way you described it, you had little choice. It was him, or Sophie.\"\n\nCould I not have saved them both? Gunn grimaced, unconvinced.\n\n\"Tell me, did you enjoy doing it? Did it make you feel better?\"\n\n\"No. To be truthful, it made me feel ashamed and dirty.\"\n\n\"I think any normal man would have felt the same.\"\n\n\"I hated him. I hated him for what he'd done to me, and to you, and to Sophie. And because he was about to murder us, out of nothing more than vengeance and spite. I should have knocked him out, tied him up, and done my best to bring him to justice. Instead, I acted as judge, jury, and executioner.\"\n\nHarry shook his head. \"You're being far too hard on yourself, my friend. You know, as well as I, that bringing the man to justice would have been impossible at that time and place. Believe me, Gunn, when I say you did the right thing.\"\n\nGunn said nothing. He and Harry breathed the night air in silence.\n\n\"May I make another observation? It occurred to me that in getting you involved, Proctor set in motion a sequence of events that led to his own destruction. Him. Not you. Call it what you will, Gunn, destiny or fate\u2014an old friend of mine would have called it karma\u2014it all comes down to the same thing.\"\n\n\"And what's that?\"\n\n\"Even in this incredible modern age of science and reason, we are rarely in control of the course of our own lives. There are forces at work in the world that we may never understand, and we ignore that fact at our peril.\"\n\nHarry took an envelope from an inside pocket and held it out to Gunn. \"These are for you and Sophie.\"\n\nHarry's footsteps crunched against the gravel as he went back to the house.\n\n\"There you are,\" said Sophie, smiling as she found him still in the garden. \"You look a little brighter than you have been lately. What's happened?\"\n\nGunn shrugged. \"I just had a little chat with Harry, and he gave me something to think about. And he gave us this.\" He held out the envelope.\n\nSophie opened it. Her eyes went wide. \"Tickets to Paris?\"\n\n\"Harry did say we'd go back and have a little fun, once this was all over. And there's something else in there.\"\n\nSophie took a card from the envelope. She read it aloud. \"Doctor Bohemia presents: Evenings of Modern Magic. He's going back on the stage! Good for him. We must go and see.\"\n\nShe put the card back, and began tapping at a front tooth with a fingernail.\n\n\"What are you thinking, dear?\"\n\nShe looked at him, eyes bright. \"Let's find Harry, and tell him to get packed. We're all going to Paris. Tomorrow. I want to go to the theatre, and have the best dinner, and we'll need new clothes\u2014\"\n\nGunn smiled at her bubbliness. \"But what are we going to use for money, dear? Seashells? Buttons?\"\n\nShe took his hand. \"Nobody ever asked me to hand over Pendragon's money . . .\"\n\nHand in hand, they walked back to the house to find Harry."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "My Dangerous Heart",
+        "author": "Roxanne Werner",
+        "genres": [
+            "steampunk"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "My Dangerous Heart by Roxanne Werner",
+                "text": "\"Roshan, wait.\"\n\nHis long strides carried him up the hill, leaving Aarushi far behind. He was eager to inspect the newest batch of sun-crystals.\n\nHe turned and waved from the summit. Aarushi struggled up the last few meters, her sari catching on every twig. She wished women were allowed to wear sensible clothes.\n\n\"Must you charge your crystals at the top of the world?\" She sat and removed a stone from her slipper.\n\nRoshan laughed. \"You wanted to come. And this is hardly the top of the world. Someday I'll take you on an airship to the Himalayas.\"\n\nAarushi made a face. He knew her fear of airships, but it was impossible to stay angry with him. Few people saw this side of Roshan, his face animated with excitement, the curious young boy inside the sober engineer.\n\n\"And charging a crystal has nothing to do with height. I need to place them where they can capture the most sunlight.\" He bent over a rack of crystals. \"The ones on this tray are charged. Would you pack them for me?\"\n\nDeep within each crystal, the fiery glow of a miniature sun pulsed. Aarushi gently placed them in the velvet-lined compartments of a wooden box.\n\nAs Roshan examined the next tray, his face darkened.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Aarushi moved beside him. He didn't need to answer. Even she could see. The centers of these crystals were black and dead.\n\nHe held one up to the sunlight. Tiny fractures radiated through it as though it had exploded from within.\n\n\"I tried a different pattern of facets, thinking if I created larger interior planes the crystal would trap more energy. It should have worked.\"\n\nAarushi examined one. \"Maybe it worked too well.\"\n\n\"Too well?\" He scowled, pointing at the rows of blasted crystals.\n\nHands on her hips, she glared at him. \"You can only stuff so much rice in a sack before the seams burst.\"\n\n\"Seams?\" He stared at the fractured stones. \"Shi-shi, you're a genius! It did work, but I focused too much energy for the size of the crystals.\" He lifted her and spun around, laughing.\n\nAarushi's long black braid streamed out as Roshan twirled her around. She laughed.\n\nThen he stopped and his eyes locked on hers. He set her down, but didn't let go.\n\nHeat rushed over her as he drew her into an embrace and kissed her. Blood pounded through her body. She was a crystal absorbing the energy of Roshan, her sun. Any moment her heart would explode, but she didn't care if it shattered. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him even closer.\n\nAarushi paused before the dining room door and smoothed the folds of her sari. She had taken great care dressing today, not for breakfast with her father, but later for Roshan. Teal was his favorite color, and she knew he would notice. Heat rose to her face as she thought of him. She took a calming breath and stepped inside.\n\nToday was her birthday. Sweet and spicy aromas greeted her, confirming that her father had instructed the staff to prepare her favorite breakfast dishes-mango and papaya relish, scrambled eggs with curry and onions, and hot baked naan.\n\nAarushi approached the table, expecting the usual birthday kiss on the cheek, another engraved gold bangle, and an order for several new outfits from the seamstress. Her father never forgot her birthday, but he had no imagination when it came to celebrating. Once his family obligations were fulfilled, he would return to his business, leaving her to do as she wished for the remainder of the day.\n\nThat was fine with Aarushi because she wanted to find Roshan. That long-ago afternoon on the hilltop, everything had seemed so simple. How would she explain to her father that, for the past year, she had secretly spent her days in the company of his chief engineer? How would they explain that they wished to marry?\n\nShe still remembered the day Roshan arrived perched high atop a mechanical hatti, steam puffing from its bronze trunk. With his golden skin, ebony hair, and dark eyes, he looked like a young rajah poised to conquer.\n\nBut her father had greeted him with a frown. He had expected the university to recommend a seasoned engineer to replace the retiring Maahir, not an untried youth. But when the Maahir reviewed Roshan's credentials and inspected the schematics of his amazing elephanton, he told her father he would not find a more suitable replacement.\n\n\"Aarushi, do you notice anything different?\" her father asked, folding his napkin.\n\nRoused from her reverie, she cast her gaze around the room. Nothing seemed changed. The same rich gold and maroon tapestries hung from the walls. Chests of carved rosewood flanked the diwan piled with overstuffed pillows. Her father's intricately carved ivory chess set sat on a table awaiting the next move.\n\nPuzzled, she turned to face him. Then she saw it. Two silver grooves ran around the circumference of the polished teak table, mother of pearl strips inlaid evenly between them. The design reminded her of a railroad track. Before she could speak, her father smiled and pulled a lever.\n\nThe soft whirr of gears drew her attention to the wall. A panel slid open and a mechanized bridge extended out to the table. With a hiss and a whistle, a miniature silver steam engine puffed out of the opening, crossed the bridge and traveled across the inlaid tracks.\n\nThe train pulled to a stop in front of her, its sparkling engine awaiting her inspection. Intricate floral and bird designs decorated its sides. It pulled a matching coal tender, tank car, and flatbed behind it. Opening the tender, she found it filled with loose tea. A small shovel hung on a hook, no doubt to scoop the leaves into her cup. Turning a spigot on the tank car filled her cup with hot water and she breathed in the delicate aroma. Curious, Aarushi lifted a silver elephant from the flatbed. Cream poured from its trunk as she tipped it. A small barrel on the flatbed contained sugar.\n\n\"Do you like it?\"\n\n\"It's wonderful.\" She marveled at every detail. The train seemed almost magical. Only one person could have designed it, blending beauty and function so perfectly.\n\n\"I must admit I had my doubts when Roshan came to me with the sketches. I thought a young girl would prefer jewelry or clothes. But I don't believe I've ever seen you this excited over one of my presents.\"\n\n\"Oh Father, I love it.\" Aarushi jumped up and threw her arms around him.\n\nHe cleared his throat, embarrassed by the emotional outburst. \"Good, that's settled then. I will have the table and workings packed and ready to take with you.\"\n\nAarushi was busy dreaming of how she would thank Roshan when the words registered. \"Packed? What do you mean? Surely you are not sending me away to school again.\"\n\n\"No, no. Of course not. You're seventeen. It's time you were married.\"\n\n\"Married?\" Butterflies danced in her stomach. Roshan had hinted at a surprise for her birthday. Could he have spoken to her father already?\n\n\"I have arranged a wonderful match for you with Antonio Ruiz, the son of the largest coffee baron in South America. He's already en route on one of the cartel's airships. I expect him any day now. He wanted to be here for your birthday, but was delayed by storms over the Atlantic.\"\n\nAarushi staggered, clutching the back of her chair to keep from falling.\n\n\"Now, now.\" Her father rose and patted her hand, mistaking the response. \"There's nothing to worry about. Your bridegroom will arrive safely. Airships make the crossing all the time. Finish your breakfast. We will discuss it later. Right now, I have business correspondence to attend to. I'm finalizing the merger that will create The Great East/West Caffeine Corporation.\"\n\nHe left the room, closing the door behind him.\n\nAarushi's breakfast sat untouched. She sank down in her chair and ran a finger over the fluted smokestack of the tea train. Roshan created this for me. She pictured him at his workbench, his strong yet gentle hands. When he learned of her father's plans, would he think she'd betrayed him?\n\nHer touch triggered a catch cunningly hidden amid the engravings. A panel popped open. Tucked inside was one of Roshan's \"magic\" crystals. He always laughed when she called them magic, but they were. The crystals heated water without burning wood or coal, providing the steam needed to power his machines.\n\nShe plucked it out and smiled. Instead of a plain crystal, Roshan had charged a heart-shaped ruby. The brilliant engineer with the soul of a poet had captured her heart, as easily as the facets of his crystals captured the energy of the sun. The stone was surprisingly cool on her palm. It needed contact with metal to release the energy trapped within. She pressed it to her lips and knotted it safely in a fold of her sari.\n\nRestless, Aarushi opened the latticework doors and stepped into the garden. The breeze carried the scent of jasmine. A startled peacock squawked and shook its tail at her. Tame parakeets scolded from the tree branches, demanding the breakfast fruits and crumbs she normally shared with them. Her father never came out here; it had been her mother's sanctuary. If only she could speak to her mother now, but she had died when Aarushi was three years old, the victim of a British airship attack.\n\nThe Caffeine Wars had been long and bloody. Indian partisans had thrown out British colonialists to gain control of the tea trade. In the years that followed, the world's addiction to caffeine brought prosperity to her father. But a new kind of war was beginning\u2014a business war as South American coffee growers maneuvered to take their share of the market. Her father was using her as a bargaining chip\u2014a victim, like her mother, in the struggle to control the caffeine market.\n\nAarushi shivered. A cold shadow seemed to pass over her. She scanned the sky. For a moment, she thought an airship floated over the eastern horizon. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, but the sun blinded her. She must have imagined it. The ship carrying her betrothed would be coming from the west, not the east.\n\n\"Mistress.\" A young boy bowed before her. She recognized him as Roshan's apprentice.\n\n\"Yes, Nadir, what is it?\"\n\nHe glanced around furtively.\n\nImpatient, she snapped. \"No one is here. Do you have a message for me?\"\n\nHe lowered his eyes. \"A pigeon arrived last night from the garden watchman. The chowkidir's message reported trouble in the southeastern fields. My master went to check on it, but has not returned.\"\n\n\"What did the message say?\"\n\n\"The master did not share the message with one so unworthy as myself.\" He bowed even lower. \"But he expected to be back. He requested an early breakfast for the morning. He said he did not want to miss any of,\" the boy hesitated. \"pardon mistress. 'Shi-shi's birthday.'\"\n\nAarushi blushed at the use of her pet name. But the boy had the good sense to keep his gaze lowered, and she recovered her composure.\n\n\"Have you brought word of this to my father?\"\n\n\"No, mistress. I was not allowed to speak with your father.\"\n\n\"I will tell him. Go back to your master's quarters and await his return.\"\n\n\"As you wish, mistress.\" The boy bowed and backed out of the garden.\n\nAarushi knocked on the door of her father's study.\n\n\"Come.\" He glanced up from his desk. \"Ah, daughter, I just sent for you. The airship approaches. Young Ruiz pushed his ship to the limit and will be here for your birthday after all. No storm can keep a brave man from his intended.\"\n\n\"I thought I glimpsed a ship in the east earlier.\" Had it been the southeast? A knot of fear gripped her stomach. Could the trouble Roshan was investigating be an airship?\n\n\"The east? Nonsense, girl. You have no sense of direction. Don Antonio approaches from the west.\"\n\n\"As you say, Father.\" She cast her eyes down. \"I must have confused it with a rumor I heard about a problem in the southeastern fields. Roshan was sent for. Do you know what is wrong?\"\n\n\"Trouble? I heard of no trouble. If the overseer sent for him, it must be one of his infernal mechanical harvesters acting up. Speak no word of this to Don Antonio. Nothing must make him nervous about the merger.\" He put down his fountain pen and blotted the letter he had been writing.\n\n\"But father, Roshan left last night and has not yet returned. Shouldn't you send men out to investigate?\"\n\nHer father's eyes narrowed. \"Since when do the comings and goings of my chief engineer concern you?\"\n\nAarushi lowered her head, fearing what her father would read in her eyes. She gripped the fold of her sari; her hand closed around the small heart-shaped crystal. \"I am sorry, Father. It is not my place to interfere with your business.\"\n\nHe stared at her, about to speak, when a servant rushed in through the doorway.\n\n\"Pardon master, you wished to be informed as soon as the airship was sighted.\"\n\nRoshan adjusted the track on the harvester again. If he could just get the alignment right. He'd spent hours working on the damaged machine and he thought he had it this time. He hand-cranked the mechanism and watched the brass cogs and gears whirr to life.\n\nNayan, the chowkidar, looked over his shoulder. \"Is it working? Sahib Sengupta will not be pleased if it delays the harvest.\"\n\nNo. Aarushi's father would not be pleased with the machine or its designer. Roshan had gambled much on the success of his invention, hoping to prove himself a worthy suitor for Aarushi. He watched the gears mesh seamlessly for a moment, then jam as they hit the last section of track. He flung his wrench to the ground.\n\n\"I'll have to take the harvester back to the workshop and rebuild it.\" He studied the sky. It was already past midday. Aarushi's birthday was slipping away.\n\n\"I will load it onto the hatti for you.\"\n\nRoshan packed up his tools. \"Thank you, Nayan. I want to look over the ground one more time before I leave.\"\n\nRoshan bent to examine the earth closely. The harvester had been hit by something heavy and dragged several meters. Only two animals were large enough to have done such damage, but Roshan did not see any signs of either tiger or elephant. The only footprints were human.\n\nHe searched in widening circles and found a hole in the dirt. \"Nayan, was this here yesterday?\"\n\nNayan hurried over. \"It may have been, but I did not notice. I was too concerned with the machine.\"\n\n\"It looks as though someone put a stake in the ground here. If there were hoof prints, I'd think someone tied up a horse. Did you check the harvest?\"\n\n\"You suspect tea pirates? But why would they break the harvester?\"\n\n\"It doesn't make sense. Count the tea chests in the drying building anyway and if anything is wrong send word to Sahib Sengupta and me. I'm heading back to the main house.\" Roshan mounted the elephanton and slid a charged crystal into the heating chamber. At least one thing still worked properly.\n\nAarushi jumped as the heavy iron anchor crashed into the earth like a cannon ball, tearing the earth until it grabbed. She stood several paces behind her father and watched two deckhands scramble down rope ladders to the fore and aft of the ship. The pilot shouted orders to them from above while they pounded thick metal stakes into the ground and tied down the airship.\n\nShe had not seen an airship since the Caffeine Wars. It swayed and tugged at the mooring lines, a monster out of her earliest nightmares. She closed her eyes and the past roared in her ears. Cannons fired, her mother screamed at her to run, but she couldn't move. Trees crashed around her as Gita dragged her away from her mother's limp body. A scream rose in her throat. She clutched the ruby heart hidden within her sari until the point bit into her palm; the pain forced her back into the present.\n\nWith the ship secured, the tall dark man who had shouted commands from the gondola grabbed a rope and swung himself over the side. He leapt lightly to the ground, removed his goggles, and strode toward them.\n\nIn a single fluid motion, he swept a low bow. \"Se\u00f1or Sengupta, it is an honor to finally meet you. I am Antonio Ruiz, son of Don Pedro Ruiz, with whom you have corresponded. My revered father sends his respects; unfortunately, his health prohibited him from making the lengthy journey himself.\"\n\nAs he rose, his bold gaze traveled slowly up Aarushi's body.\n\nShe flushed. He dared insult her in her father's presence? But her father's back was toward her; his gaze was riveted on the airship.\n\nAntonio raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards in an impudent grin. \"Your father's letters did not do you justice, se\u00f1orita.\"\n\nAntonio leaned against one of the white wooden columns on the veranda and smoked a cigar. It was a pleasure he rarely indulged due to the highly flammable gas in his airship. The aromatic smoke put him in a complacent mood as he contemplated the plantation grounds. Soon all of this would be his\u2014not bad for the bastard son of a British airshipman from the East End. How ironic that the features and language of his Spanish mother that had held him back in London served him so well here.\n\nTonight, the greedy fool Sengupta would sign the papers merging his rich tea plantation with Antonio's fictitious coffee cartel, and a date would be set for Antonio's marriage to the daughter. After the ceremony, a tragic accident would remove the old man and the plantation would become Antonio's, his claim supported by both the merger documents and his rights as a husband. Lucky for him, women could not directly inherit land in India.\n\nAntonio smiled. The girl was an unexpected bonus. An exotic jewel dropped in his lap. She must resemble her mother. He would enjoy being married to her. She had spirit. She hadn't hid her disapproval of him. A trip in his airship would set things right. A bit of turbulence and she would be in his arms, clinging to him like all the others.\n\nHe'd been at home in the air since he ran away at the age of twelve. Small for his age, he'd become a monkey rigger on a British airship. Light and nimble, monkey riggers climbed over the metal skeletons of dirigibles, patching and repairing the gas cells. It was dangerous work. Those who didn't fall to their deaths outgrew the job in a year or two. The end of the Caffeine Wars had left him out of a job. Bastards like him were good enough to be monkey riggers, but the Royal Air Corps had no other use for them.\n\nThe dispossessed British tea merchants had no such qualms. He rose quickly among the tea pirates. He earned enough gold smuggling black-market goods out of India through the British-controlled port of Singapore to build his own airship. Light, quick, and agile, he named her the Monkey Rigger. She handled as though she was part of him. He could make her disappear among the clouds or hide her in the glare of the sun.\n\nThe ship's lines creaked, drawing Antonio's attention. Across the lawn, the setting sun bathed the dirigible in a fiery aura. The Monkey Rigger strained against its ropes like a trapped animal.\n\nJealous, darling? We will be off again soon. But tonight I must entertain the se\u00f1orita. It should prove a most interesting dinner.\n\nHe dropped his cigar, ground it out, and strode into the house.\n\n\"Mistress, your father sent me to help you dress for this evening.\"\n\nAarushi turned from the window where she had been watching for Roshan. The servant placed a jewel case and a rich green silk sari on her bed. She recognized the dress from her mother's closet. She opened the case, revealing a matching emerald necklace and earrings. Green\u2014the color of happiness and new beginnings. Wasn't it enough that he had arranged her marriage? Did he expect her to parade in her mother's clothes for the insolent stranger?\n\nShe flung the case on the floor. \"Take these away. I will dress myself for dinner.\"\n\nThe servant bowed and hurriedly backed out the door.\n\nAarushi paced her room like a caged tigress. Where was Roshan? One moment, she feared for his safety; the next, she felt angry. Why wasn't he here when she needed him? She whirled at the sound of a soft footstep.\n\n\"I told you to leave me!\"\n\n\"Is this how you welcome your ayah?\"\n\nHer nursemaid's gentle voice broke Aarushi's defenses.\n\nShe sobbed and threw herself into the ayah's arms. \"Oh, Gita. What will I do?\"\n\n\"There there, child.\" The old woman rocked her and stroked her hair. \"This is no way to behave on your birthday.\"\n\n\"But Gita, father has sold me like a prize bullock.\"\n\n\"A dutiful child knows her parents are wise and accepts their decisions. Your mother and I came here as strangers, obeying her parents' wishes.\"\n\n\"Father is not concerned with me or my future. He thinks only of his business. And what of Roshan?\"\n\n\"Ah, that is the real problem. You have given your heart away without your father's permission. Perhaps you are the one at fault. Give your new suitor a chance and you may find your father is right.\"\n\nStung, Aarushi pulled away. \"You are like a mother to me. I thought you would understand.\"\n\n\"I understand you are a young girl full of romantic dreams. But a parent sees the world differently.\"\n\nAarushi bowed her head. \"Please leave me, Gita. I wish to be alone to reflect on your words and calm myself before dinner.\"\n\nThe old woman smiled and nodded.\n\nWhen Gita left, Aarushi locked her door. She slipped Roshan's ruby heart from the fold of her sari. Taking a pair of brass scissors from her netting basket, she loosened her braid and cut three strands of her thick black hair. She braided them with three strands of gold silk from the basket and used an ivory needle to net a mesh bag around the heart. Attaching a black silk cord, she hung the pendant around her neck. A tiny flame flickered deep within the crystal.\n\nNext, she opened the rosewood chest at the foot of her bed and removed a brilliant red silk sari trimmed with gold zardozi embroidery. Her father wanted her to look impressive. He would get his wish. But she wouldn't be wrapped in his green sari of happiness. No. She would wear red, to match the flame burning in Roshan's heart. Red\u2014the color of Durga the Divine Mother, slayer of evil.\n\n\"Master, I was worried. I expected you back this morning.\"\n\n\"The damage to the harvester was worse than I expected.\" Roshan pulled the discharged crystal from the slot in the elephanton, tossed it to Nadir, and climbed down from the metal beast. \"I will need to rebuild the whole mechanism. Hurry. Help me get it into the workshop. I have just enough time to clean up and find Aarushi.\"\n\nNadir ducked under the elephanton's bronze trunk as the machine's pressure valve released a blast of hot steam.\n\n\"Nadir, you know not to get so near the trunk. I don't need anything else to go wrong today.\"\n\n\"No need to rush. I don't think dinner will be over early tonight, master.\"\n\n\"Because of Aarushi's birthday? Her father doesn't usually make much of it.\" Roshan lifted one end of the harvester while Nadir took the other.\n\nNadir walked backwards to the workshop. \"The big dinner is not for Aarushi. It is in honor of the visitor, the one who arrived on the airship.\"\n\n\"Airship?\" Roshan's brow furrowed as he and Nadir struggled to lift the harvester onto the workbench.\n\n\"I heard the kitchen servants say he flew all the way from South America on it. His father owns a coffee plantation that Sahib Sengupta wishes to merge with. Rumor says the sahib will use Aarushi to seal the bargain.\"\n\nThe heavy machine slid off the workbench and crashed to the floor. Shishi! How could I have been such a fool? I should have spoken to her father months ago. Roshan rushed out the door. If only he wasn't too late.\n\n\"Master?\" Nadir called after him. \"What about the harvester?\"\n\nRoshan didn't answer. He was already across the yard and slipping into the garden at the back of the Sengupta residence. Aarushi and he had met here often. It was one of her favorite places. Hiding in the shadow of a large bodhi tree, he crept toward the dining room doors. Inside, candles blazed upon a table set with fine china and crystal. At the head of the table sat Aarushi's father, deep in conversation with a dark stranger. There was no sign of Aarushi.\n\nSuddenly, the room fell silent. Her father leapt to his feet, his face ashen. The stranger turned and rose, his gaze locked on something beyond Roshan's range of vision.\n\nThen Aarushi entered the room. Roshan had never seen her look so breathtaking. It was as if a flame had floated off one of the candlewicks and taken human form. The stranger approached her like a supplicant, bowed and kissed her hand. He held out the chair next to him.\n\nShe laughed and took a seat across the table, instead.\n\nHer father remained silent. She had eclipsed him. The dinner belonged to her now.\n\nThe stranger raised his wine glass. \"A toast to my bride-to-be on her birthday. May her fiery spirit ever burn so bright.\"\n\nRoshan turned away. He could not watch.\n\n\"Be careful of your wish, sir. You may get burned.\"\n\nAntonio laughed and drained his glass. \"The only thing that is burning is my tongue, se\u00f1orita. Your Indian food is delightfully spicy.\"\n\n\"Try putting the cucumber raita on the chicken samosas to cool your palate.\"\n\nA servant bearing an envelope on a silver tray approached the table.\n\n\"Excuse me.\" Her father removed a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from his pocket to read the note. \"My time is never my own.\"\n\n\"Is anything wrong?\" asked Antonio.\n\n\"No, nothing important. My overseer informs me a harvester was smashed in our southeastern field. Most likely an elephant passed through, but for some reason my overzealous engineer Roshan asked him to recount the tea chests. He also mentions he found several more holes in the ground, whatever that means. I will speak to Roshan in the morning. I'm sure you're familiar with the minor problems of running a business. No reason to interrupt our dinner.\"\n\nHer father was covering up something. Aarushi felt certain there had been a raid. It was the first flush too, the most expensive harvest of the year. Was Father nervous that it would upset the merger if Ruiz found out they had been hit by tea pirates? Perhaps she could use the news to her advantage.\n\n\"I believe I saw your airship this morning, Don Antonio, as I walked in the garden.\"\n\n\"So, you were looking forward to my arrival?\" Antonio sampled a mouthful of the lamb curry.\n\n\"My father had just informed me of his plans. I must say I was surprised to see you approaching from the east out of the sun. I thought South America was to our west.\"\n\nAntonio choked on his food.\n\nHis reaction startled Aarushi. Was he hiding something too?\n\n\"You have a keen eye, se\u00f1orita. I did come from the east. My crew and I circled around to avoid a storm.\"\n\n\"Ah, storms must be a common hazard. Since you did fly over our eastern fields, perhaps you noticed something that would help our overseer.\"\n\n\"No\u2026I can't say I saw anything remarkable.\"\n\nAarushi felt like she was playing a game where the rules kept changing. His answers seemed evasive. Had he seen the pirate raid? Was he planning to use the information to drive a harder bargain with her father? She decided to try another tack.\n\n\"Your ship seems small to have made the long journey across the ocean. But then, I know so little of airships.\"\n\n\"Pardon my daughter's ignorance, Don Antonio.\" Her father took a sip of wine, turning to correct her like a young child. \"The airships you remember were large because they were warships, Aarushi.\"\n\nAntonio smiled at his host. \"No need to apologize. I find the se\u00f1orita's interest refreshing. I designed the ship myself and would be happy to show it to her. It is built for speed and is lighter and smaller than what she may have seen.\"\n\nAarushi wished her father would stop interfering. He definitely didn't want the conversation to dwell on pirates. She decided to make a bold move.\n\n\"Built for speed? You'd better guard your ship well, Don Antonio. It sounds like something the local tea pirates might want to steal.\"\n\n\"Aarushi!\" Her father waved away a hapless servant attempting to remove his empty plate. \"You have had too much wine. You are speaking nonsense.\"\n\nHer plan wasn't working. The only reactions she was getting were from her father. Don Antonio wasn't worried about the merger. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying himself.\n\nHe smiled at her. \"Would you pass me more of the cucumbers, se\u00f1orita?\"\n\nAs she offered him the bowl, his hand gripped hers, forcing her to look at him. He pitched his question for her ears alone, his grin daring her to answer.\n\n\"Have you ever met a tea pirate, se\u00f1orita?\"\n\nAarushi's hand shook as he released it. Hoping her voice didn't quiver, she whispered. \"Have I, Don Antonio?\"\n\nRoshan wandered out of the garden in a daze. He'd lost Aarushi. Something tugged at his sleeve. He tried to brush it away, but it wouldn't stop.\n\n\"Master, this message came while you were gone.\" Nadir waved a note at him.\n\nHow had he ended up back at the workshop? He pushed past Nadir and kept walking. Nothing mattered.\n\nUnaware of his surroundings, he stumbled along in the twilight until he tripped over a rope and fell to the ground. He raised himself up on his elbows. What was a rope doing in the middle of the lawn? His gaze followed the line up until he saw the gondola of the airship swaying above him. He was about to stand when he heard voices.\n\n\"Did you hear something?\"\n\n\"Stop jumping at shadows, Harry. You afraid a tiger's going to leap up here and eat you? The Captain's got everything under control.\"\n\n\"So you say, Ned. But it's not so easy to get away with murder.\"\n\n\"This will be an accident, not murder. You saw how interested the old man was in the ship. He couldn't hardly take his eyes off it. All Tony has to do is offer him a ride after the wedding. He'll be unsteady from celebrating. A quick push and over he goes. No one will suspect a thing. Tony will console the grieving daughter and take over the plantation. He'll be rich and he'll let us 'steal' tea to sell on the black market and make us all even richer.\"\n\n\"I'll be happy when it's all over. And I still say I heard something down there.\"\n\nRoshan lay still until he heard the men walk to the other side of the ship, their voices fading. Aarushi's intended was a fraud. It was all an elaborate scheme to steal the plantation. He had to stop them, but the moon had already risen. The crew would surely spot him if he tried to cross the lawns. His only chance was to crawl to the tree line while their backs were turned and then circle around the long way, back to his workshop.\n\n\"Don Antonio, let us retire to my study to enjoy a glass of port and a cigar after this fine dinner.\"\n\n\"A wonderful idea, Se\u00f1or Sengupta. We can finish signing the merger documents. My only regret is losing the company of your charming daughter.\" Antonio offered Aarushi his arm and escorted her out of the dining room. When they reached the hall, he bent and kissed her hand. \"Buenas noches, se\u00f1orita.\"\n\nAarushi turned to go up the stairs, but as soon as her father's study door closed she dashed back into the dining room and out through the garden. In a few minutes, she was knocking at Roshan's door, where a sleepy Nadir greeted her.\n\n\"Nadir?\" She glanced over the boy's shoulder, looking for Roshan. \"Hasn't Roshan returned?\"\n\n\"Yes mistress, but he went out again.\"\n\n\"Where? I must see him.\"\n\n\"He did not say. I tried to give him this note from the chowkidar, but he would not take it.\"\n\nAarushi snatched the note from Nadir's hand and read.\n\nIt is as you suspected. Several tea chests were missing from the drying shed. I discovered three more of the strange holes in the ground. They seem to form a rectangle around the area where the harvester was smashed and dragged. But what manner of beast the pirates tied there, I cannot guess. There were no tracks. As you requested, I sent word to Sahib Sengupta.\n\n\u2014Nayan.\n\nHer hands trembled as she finished reading.\n\n\"I will give Roshan the message. Which direction did he go?\"\n\nNadir pointed toward the front lawn. Mind racing, she hurried off, the note still clutched in her hand.\n\nThe smashed harvester and holes made no sense to Nayan, but Aarushi knew exactly what it meant. She had witnessed the airship landing, the heavy anchor crashing to the ground and dragging across the earth, the men scrambling down to pound the stakes in the ground to secure it. She recognized the mysterious beast that left no tracks; it loomed ahead of her. She quickly folded the note at the sound of a husky voice behind her.\n\n\"Se\u00f1orita, an unexpected pleasure. I thought you had retired for the evening.\"\n\n\"So much has happened today. I found I could not sleep.\" How did he sneak up on me? The man moves as quietly as a cat.\n\n\"Then allow me to give you a tour of my ship. Your father and I have completed our business and it is too dangerous for you to be out alone with pirates in the area.\" Antonio smiled and motioned for her to mount the ladder.\n\nAarushi forced a laugh. \"You continue your jest from dinner, Don Antonio. Surely you cannot mean to scare me away.\"\n\nAt the ladder, Aarushi hesitated, paralyzed by her fear of the airship. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to flee.\n\n\"You will not fall, se\u00f1orita. I will be right behind you.\"\n\nDurga, protect me.\n\nRoshan burst into his room and began firing orders.\n\n\"Nadir, put a new crystal in the elephanton and check the water level in the boiler. Have it ready upon my return. I must speak to Sahib Sengupta. And get my pistols from the chest under the bed.\"\n\nHe threw his rumpled shirt on the floor and pulled on a new one. He needed to look presentable or Aarushi's father would never listen to him.\n\nNadir rolled off his bed. \"What is wrong, master? Did the note have urgent news?\"\n\n\"The note? Oh, I forgot about that. Give it to me.\"\n\n\"Didn't you see Mistress Aarushi? She said she would deliver it. She headed toward the air\u2014\"\n\n\"Aarushi went to the airship? Never mind the elephanton, I'll get it myself.\" Roshan scribbled a note. \"Take this to Sahib Sengupta and don't let anyone stop you. Aarushi's in danger. Hurry!\" He stuffed the pistols into his waistband, grabbed a charged crystal from the workbench, and ran out the door.\n\nOddly, Aarushi found being on the airship less menacing than looking at it from below. In fact, it was quite beautiful. Antonio took great pride in his ship, from the polished maple woodwork to the gleaming brass fittings. His cabin contained a four-poster bed hung with heavy damask curtains. The brass spyglass on deck allowed him to survey the entire plantation. Antonio stopped his tour at the center of the ship where, instead of a mast, an open spiral staircase led up into the balloon.\n\n\"Why would anyone go up there? Isn't it full of gas?\" Aarushi asked.\n\n\"No, that's a common misconception. The balloon itself is full of air. The sides are packed with many small hydrogen gas cells. Come see.\"\n\nAarushi mounted the stairs into the belly of the beast. A steel-tube skeleton provided the framework of the dirigible. Hundreds of inflated gas cells lined the walls. A metal catwalk encircled the balloon, giving access to the gasbags. Leather harnesses were attached to pulleys and hung at various stations around the walkway.\n\n\"Those pulleys allow me to reach any of the cells for repair. Otherwise, I would have to employ a young boy called a monkey rigger to climb the framework, a dangerous but necessary job. The hydrogen gas in those cells is highly flammable. I cannot afford any leaks. No open flames are allowed above deck. For safety, the engine that drives the propeller is in a sealed compartment in the hull.\"\n\n\"Your ship seems almost alive, Don Antonio. Allow me to give it a heart, as a token of our future together.\" Aarushi slipped the black silk cord over her head. The ruby heart suspended from it glowed with an inner fire.\n\n\"I have never seen such a gem. You honor me, se\u00f1orita.\"\n\nAarushi tied the cord around one of the metal struts, making sure the charged crystal contacted the metal. Her hand felt the crystal begin to heat immediately. It wouldn't be long before the metal bar would grow hot enough to burn through the adjacent gas cell and ignite the hydrogen within it. The pirate's beast would not make another raid.\n\n\"And now, I am tired. Will you escort me back to the house, Don Antonio?\"\n\n\"Certainly, se\u00f1orita.\"\n\nSuddenly the ship rocked, throwing Aarushi into his arms.\n\n\"Captain, we're under attack. Someone riding a robotic elephant rammed us,\" Ned called from below. A shot rang out.\n\n\"Roshan!\" Aarushi pulled away from Antonio and raced down the spiral stairs, Antonio right behind her. The ship rocked again.\n\nNed swung the ship's bronze cannon around, preparing to fire.\n\n\"No!\" Aarushi screamed, throwing herself at the deckhand. Antonio jerked her back. She struggled against him. \"Don't shoot. He is only a jealous and foolish boy who wanted to marry me. Let me speak to him.\"\n\n\"Hold your fire.\" Antonio let go of Aarushi and allowed her to approach the ship's rail.\n\nRoshan lowered his pistol. \"Shi-shi, this man and his crew are not who you think they are. They are pirates. They plan to murder your father and take over the plantation.\"\n\n\"Roshan, please go back.\" She held his eyes, hoping he would understand her. \"I know you love me, but you must not make up wild stories to try to win me back. I have given my heart to Antonio. Even now it beats within his ship.\"\n\nRoshan stared at her, and then up at the balloon. If he understood her, they had very little time. He pulled a lever causing the elephanton to rear up on its hind legs. \"Shi-shi, jump! Now!\"\n\nShe leaped from the railing, but her sari snagged on a belaying pin. She dangled helplessly from the ship just out of Roshan's reach.\n\nAntonio leaned over to pull her back on board. \"Give me your hand!\"\n\n\"Fire!\" Ned yelled, pointing up at the balloon. \"Abandon ship!\" Without waiting for orders, he grabbed a mooring rope and slid to the ground. Harry followed close behind.\n\nAntonio looked at Aarushi as the first gas cell burst into flame. \"What have you done?\"\n\nRoshan aimed his pistol, but could not fire a shot without hitting Aarushi. He watched in horror as Antonio raised his sword over her.\n\nAarushi screamed. The cutlass flashed, slicing through her sari and dropping her into Roshan's waiting arms.\n\nAntonio turned then and quickly slashed the mooring ropes. Freed, the great ship tore its anchor from the ground and rose into the night. Antonio raised his cutlass and saluted them from the deck. \"Farewell, se\u00f1orita. May your spirit ever burn so bright.\"\n\nFor a moment, the ship hung in the black velvet sky before erupting in a giant fireball and plummeting back to earth.\n\nAarushi buried her face against Roshan's chest. He turned the elephanton away from the fiery wreck and headed back toward the house.\n\nAarushi's father, followed by Nadir and the plantation staff, hurried to meet them.\n\n\"The two deckhands fled into the woods.\" Roshan pointed to the west.\n\n\"Don Antonio?\" her father asked.\n\nRoshan shook his head.\n\nAarushi's father took charge, shouting orders. Men were dispatched to fetch water, put out the fires, and pursue the fugitives.\n\nHigh atop the elephanton, Roshan and Aarushi rode above the chaotic activity surrounding them. Roshan cupped Aarushi's chin and tilted her head up to look at him. Gently, he kissed the tears from her cheeks. Her lips sought his and kissed him back. Surprised at first, he returned her passion, pulling her closer.\n\nReluctantly he climbed off the elephanton and lifted Aarushi down. She clung to him, his protective arm around her. Aarushi's father was watching them. Roshan stepped forward and faced him squarely.\n\n\"Sahib Sengupta, I should have spoken with you months ago. I love Aarushi and wish to marry her. Will you give us your blessing?\"\n\nThe old man embraced him. \"Roshan, I have been an old fool blinded by ambition. You have saved both my life and my daughter's. A father could not wish for a better man to be his son-in-law.\"\n\nRoshan turned to Aarushi and took her hand. \"Aarushi, first ray of the sun, will you give me your dangerous heart to cherish and protect for all of my days?\"\n\nAarushi whispered. \"Roshan, it has always been yours.\""
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Dragons 2) Human, Beware!",
+        "author": "Gunnarsson, Thorarinn",
+        "genres": [
+            "fantasy"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "The Blue-Haired Child",
+                "text": "The rift exploded open, the burning edges of space itself peeling back as the Way Between the Worlds expanded wide in the pre-dawn sky. The golden-scaled form of a faerie dragon, illuminated in that yellow glow, shot through the opening pathway between the two universes even as it continued to draw back, and a second followed a moment later. They circled back sharply, spying out the broken, barren landscape in a quick reconnaissance, their keen eyes peering into the midnight shadows among the boulders and ledges of the steep walls of the vast ravine where they had emerged. The morning sun was only just beginning to lighten the eastern sky, but day itself was well over half an hour away. They hoped to be gone from this world by then.\n\nThe Way Between the Worlds continued to peel back until it formed a wide oval over a hundred feet across. A vast form emerged from the void: the long, slender shape of an airship's wooden hull. The bright colors of the canvas stabilizers in her bowsprit and the ribbed fins behind each of her four wide induction vanes were as black as the surrounding night in this dim light. She ran silent as a bird of prey, with only the whistle of the cold wind in her rigging, showing no lights.\n\nThe smaller of the two dragons dropped back to pace the helm deck of the airship, coming up as close behind the stem as she dared. \"All set?\"\n\nPrincess Merridyn of Elura looked up from the helm, where she had been watching the young sorceress Kerie Wold fly the swift airship. She was a tall, graceful woman, not much older than the young girl who stood at the ship's wheels. She stepped away from the helm to stand at the rail. \"All set, Lady Dalvenjah. We seem to have taken no damage coming through into this world. Were we seen?\"\n\n\"No, I think not,\" Dalvenjah answered. She was gliding alongside the airship, matching speed with her lift magic effortlessly. A fine blue magical mist trailed her form. \"We are perhaps two minutes short of the main entrance, but we must remain in the canyon until the last moment. Allan and I will lead you in.\"\n\n\"Lady Tenika is standing watch in the bow,\" Merridyn called after the dragon as she moved ahead.\n\nThe dark shape of a mountain rose before them, although only the keen eyes of the faerie dragons could see it in the dense night of this world. It was a massive block of solid, dark stone, at one time perhaps the molten core of a vast volcano, riddled with round tunnels and passages. Most of the lower passages were closed in by walls of massive stone blocks or gates of heavy iron, turning the hivelike interior of the mountain into a fortress. The faerie dragons knew the way; they had been through here before, several times in the past week, spying out their path.\n\nThey knew of the immense oval passage that opened two-thirds of the way up the towering front face of the mountain fortress. A tunnel opening that had never been secured because of its great height up the featureless, almost vertical face of that portion of the mountain, but large enough that the airship could be landed there. Dalvenjah Foxfire did not know who had built this fortress, a dead race on a dead world. A world that had been dead, dry and barren for untold thousands of years. But she did know who held it now.\n\nAfter a minute or so the two dragons shot out of the deep ravine and began to ascend swiftly toward the fortress, towering vast and dark barely a mile ahead. The airship followed, coming around slowly at first but accelerating swiftly as it entered open air. They might be seen any moment now and the alarm would be up, but they could at least get in before the confusion created by their sudden attack settled. With luck they could get what they came lor before any defense could be organized against them, but there was little hope of that. They had no idea of even where to begin looking, and were dependent upon the considerable magic the two dragons possessed to guide them. Getting back out again would surely be a battle, but there was at least one point in their favor. The defenders were few and widely scattered throughout the wandering tunnels.\n\nThe airship rose quickly in the dark sky. Kerie Wold brought Ihc ship expertly through the opening the dragons indicated and settled it gently on the stone landing just inside, although the twin masts barely cleared the ceiling even when it was resting on its four skids. The faerie dragons were already standing guard to cither side of her bowsprit with their long-bladed swords drawn, alert for guards, while the others lowered the boarding ramp. But there had been no one within the chamber, only a pair of dim lamps for the guards who might pass here on their rounds.\n\n\"Are we discovered?\" Princess Merridyn asked as she hurried to join them. She was a trained and highly skilled sorceress and Veridan Warrior, like all the rest. But no mortal could match the talents of the faerie dragons.\n\n\"No, I think not,\" Dalvenjah answered absently. Her sharp ears were perked, although she employed other senses to scan the massive fortress. \"I feel no changes in the sleepy calm that pervades this place. With any luck, we might not be discovered for some time. Marie and Lady Tenika will stay to guard the ship.\" \"I've got my shotgun!\" Marie Breivik declared indignantly, then hesitated when the dragon turned to glare at her. \"And we will both be very pleased to stay here and guard the ship.\"\n\nThe ease with which she surrendered to the dragon's will demonstrated just how much this business had affected her. Her brother Allan and Rex Barker, her husband-to-be, were both undecided whether to be amused or to feel sorry for her. Then again, she was also on Dalvenjah's turf now.\n\n\"We must move quickly,\" Dalvenjah continued. \"Allan, do you sense Jenny's presence anywhere within this place?\"\n\n\"Yes, very far below,\" the larger, slightly darker-scaled dragon responded. \"He is here as well. And his master, the Emperor Myrkan. He does not yet know that we are here, but he may soon.\"\n\n\"Yes, and I must go to him,\" Dalvenjah said softly, more to herself than the others. She turned to her mate. \"You must find Jenny. You must lead the others to her, and get her out of this place. I must go to him.\"\n\n\"Dalvenjah, you cannot,\" Allan insisted, watching her with deep concern. \"There is no point in doing so. Nothing can bring him back.\"\n\n\"No, nothing can bring him back now,\" Dalvenjah agreed sadly. \"But I must do this, and you know why. The High Priest has stolen countless bodies in the past, but he cannot be allowed to keep the form and the powers of a faerie dragon. I can defeat him, but it must be now.\"\n\nAllan nodded slowly. \"I wish that I could fight this battle at your side, more than any other. But Jenny is our reason for being here.\"\n\nMerridyn laid a hand gently on the female dragon's long, supple neck. \"Do what you must, my friend. We will await you.\" \"That you will not!\" Dalvenjah ordered sharply. \"Find Jenny and get her away from this place and out of this world as quickly as you can. I will follow in my own good time... if I am not here before you. Enough time is wasted already. Hurry! And may fortune be with you.\"\n\nAllan and Merridyn both considered wishing her well in return, but thought better of it. Dalvenjah turned and hurried away, moving swiftly on all fours with her long sword in its sheath on her harness. Allan sat back on his haunches, his emerald eyes shining as he watched her disappear into the shadows which flooded the passages. The others remained silent, knowing what this meant to her. Dalvenjah's brother Karidaejan waited somewhere within this place. And yet Karidaejan had in truth been dead these last two years; only his golden-scaled body lived on, stolen by a being immensely old... and immensely evil.\n\n\"Come. We have little time,\" Allan said as he slipped his own sword into its sheath. \"And stay behind me, since I may use my flame.\"\n\nThe Emperor Aressande Myrkan deftly smoothed the folds of his billowing black robes, checking to see that his face was well hidden within the shadows of the oversized hood. He would allow no one to look upon his true face and form. This was the price of his contrived immortality, that the features of any body he wore soon adapted themselves to reflect his inner nature, consumed as he was with hatred, greed and the destructive touch of raw Dark Magic. Few knew for certain the secret he kept hidden within the Iblds of his robes.\n\nThe only one in all existence he trusted to any great extent\u2014 dared to trust\u2014stood before him now, in the reception room of his private chamber. The High Priest Haldephren was no less evil than his master, but his powers were less and so he always connived to conceal his own evil within a form of deceptive grace and beauty. Now, for the first time in his own considerable existence, the High Priest did not wear a human form, as he had once himself been human, but the sleek body of a Mindijarah, a faerie dragon. He was grace and power in soft scales of burnished gold and a long, stiff crest of sapphire blue. There was a sharp, cunning look to his jewel-green eyes, half-hidden in the shadows of his forward-facing horns, a predatory look which could not have been more alien to the rightful inhabitant of this body.\n\nHaldephren waited patiently as his master seated himself in a massive chair which stood before the back wall. Heavy hangings and carpets of dark colors covered the cold, naked stone from which the chamber had been carved, and two round glowstones gave off a pale, timid light. This place did not lend itself to the High Priest's jaded tastes; he looked upon it as a form of exile. But the Emperor felt peaceful and protected here, an impenetrable fortress in a world without enemies. But not absolutely secure, it would seem.\n\n\"They have come to rescue the child, my lord,\" the High Priest reported simply. The Mindijaran were tiny by draconic standards. And yet, standing on his hind legs with his head thrust forward on its long, slender neck, he remained an imposing sight.\n\n\"Yes, so they have,\" the Emperor remarked, seemingly unconcerned. His voice was a velvety baritone, smooth and disarming. \"Guards have already been dispatched to intercept them. Do not allow that matter to concern you. You must attend to a problem of your own, for she has come as well. Dalvenjah Foxfire is here, and she is determined to deprive you of that which you have stolen.\"\n\nThe High Priest hesitated only a moment. If his first thought had been that he was no match for the faerie sorceress, he would have been correct. But his own conceit could never accept that. He deemed that he possessed too many advantages, especially his belief that she could never strike him. That he, the usurper, commanded the love that she had for the one whose form he now wore. He dipped his head in acknowledgement.\n\n\"It must be a fight to the death,\" the Emperor added almost as a question, as if he doubted such dedication from his chief servant. \"Dalvenjah is at this time our greatest threat. She is organizing enemies against us from throughout the many worlds. The Prophecy is a matter for the future, many years yet to come. Dalvenjah Foxfire must die, now.\"\n\n\"So be it,\" Haldephren agreed in a soft, cold voice. \"So be it. Even if it costs me the body I now wear, it will be worth the price to destroy her. I will always return, while she cannot.\" \"Then hurry, my old friend,\" Emperor Myrkan encouraged him. \"Go to meet her, but in a place of your choosing. For I foresee that you must seize every possible advantage if you hope to defeat her. Keep your pride and hatred under control, for now you must be calm, cold and ruthless.\"\n\n\"That is a lesson which I have learned well through the ages,\" The High Priest said as he dropped to all fours and turned to stalk away.\n\nThe Emperor smiled to himself, a cold, cruel smile of self-satisfaction. He had his doubts that Haldephren could defeat Dalvenjah Foxfire, but that hardly mattered. He had allowed the High Priest to assume the form of a faerie dragon as an experiment, and they had learned much from it. But now was the time to end the experiment, before Haldephren began to think that he could use his growing powers to defeat his old master and become Emperor himself. The High Priest would be returned to a mortal form, and the ancient balance of power that had existed between them would be restored. Ideally, the Emperor preferred that their battle should end in their mutual destruction, and the very real problem that Dalvenjah represented would be solved as well. But however matters turned out, he stood only to gain.\n\nHe could never accept that Haldephren truly did not want to be Emperor, that he was satisfied with his own position as second. From there, the High Priest enjoyed all the privileges and rewards, indulging his decadent whims and immense vanities, and all the more so for the lack of the added responsibilities of rule.\n\nThe Emperor judged others by himself, and he could not imagine a life in which the gaining and keeping of power was not allexclusive. But power was only the first of the High Priest's many lusts."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Dalvenjah Foxfire waged a hopeless battle with her own errant memories. She slipped through the darkened corridors of the ancient structure with all the cunning and caution she could muster, but her thoughts continually strayed, wandering down brighter paths of their own. The memories of her past were infinitely preferable to this horrible present.\n\nHer mind drifted upon the winds of time, returning to events of a distant past. She remembered herself as she had been then, young and insecure, and her earliest memories of her older half-brother. He had been tall and proud, surely the most majestic of all Mindijaran, wise and fearless. By his example, the overly small and very timid dragon that she had been had learned to be clever and brave.\n\nAnd then, suddenly, he was gone.\n\nKaridaejan had taken his secrets with him, leaving Dalvenjah a mystery that she might never solve. Why had Karidaejan gone into that same mortal world where she had been exiled, ten years before her own brief visit? Why had he set into motion the events that had initiated the Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons, the circumstances which had led to this very incident? She thought that she might never know, and yet she feared that the answer to that question was vitally important to her ability to know how to read the Prophecy and use it to her own advantage.\n\nThere was a new light in the corridor ahead, a warm, red glow, while most of the tunnels had been dark even to a dragon's keen eyes. It was the heart of the mountain, the core of the ancient volcano, a round passage two hundred feet across. She paused just inside the entrance of the passage for a discreet look about. The fiery interior was still alive; the bottom of the shaft was lost in a fierce glare several hundred feet below, and acid wisps of grey smoke rose through the shaft to the dark sky far above. A catwalk circled the shaft, opening onto several other tunnels on this level, although this main passage was spanned by a broad metal bridge.\n\nHaldephren stood on his hind legs at the far end of the bridge, sword in hand as he watched her calmly and closely. Dalvenjah was not to be hurried. She rose to her own hind legs and stepped out slowly onto the bridge to meet him. The bridge was a good eight feet wide and made of long metal plates that felt warm even beneath her tough feet. The plates were hinged at the ends and held rigid by solid steel shafts, one to either side. Another set of shafts provided siderails, supporting the lower shafts by connecting rods. She carefully noted every detail, wondering why he had selected this place for their battleground. Perhaps he was still thinking in human terms. But she was a dragon, with no reason to fear the heights.\n\nHaldephren stopped a short distance away and watched her with that same intent, almost hungry stare. But her heart was satisfied that this was not her brother Karidaejan, that she could indeed fight him. That cold, cruel look of pure hate, that lust for violence was so alien to the one she had known and loved that he looked to her now be another person altogether, a face that she had never seen. She no longer doubted that she could fight him, even strike him. But still it would be terribly painful.\n\n\"So, you have come,\" he said in a deep, rough voice that also was not Karidaejan's. \"I had thought that not even you would dare to come here.\"\n\n\"Did you leave me any choice?\" Dalvenjah asked in return. \"I think that you underestimate me even yet. I have fought worse enemies than you, and won. I will not hesitate to fight you.\"\n\n\"I think that you underestimate me,\" he countered. \"I am older than you. I am old even by the standards of your own immortal folk, while you are yet just a child. I have been a sorcerer of the Dark for over three thousand years. Jenny is mine, I tell you.\" \"No, that is a lie,\" she hissed coldly. \"Say what you like, I know better. You are not her father.\"\n\n\"That is not quite what I meant, and I will not argue the point with you,\" Haldephren said. \"But Jenny is the key to the Prophecy, and the Prophecy can cut either way depending upon which side of the debate she takes. And the fact remains that she is in our possession now.\"\n\n\"I have come to take her back,\" Dalvenjah answered simply as she lifted her sword. \"Nor will I allow you to keep that which you have stolen. You have held that body only four short years. Have you learned its ways well enough to defeat me?\"\n\n\"We shall see!\" Haldephren declared in a voice sharp with hate as he lunged to the attack.\n\nDalvenjah caught his blade with her own and turned his attack, throwing him back. The two combatants paused a long moment as they prepared themselves for honest battle, calling upon magic to enhance their own strength, speed and agility. Dalvenjah's one disadvantage was in her size; at two hundred and fifty pounds she was small and slight of build for a faerie dragon. Haldephren was much larger of body but not so long of limb for his size, so that he had little more than an extra inch of reach. He certainly did not have her speed or precision, at least not naturally. It remained to be seen which of them was the better when their abilities were magically enhanced.\n\nDalvenjah waited, letting him press the attack. Haldephren responded by driving at her relentlessly, striking blow after blow like lightning while his blade burned with the misty fire of raw magic. Obviously he thought that he could beat her in either speed or endurance. Dalvenjah did not feel threatened but she preferred to deal cautiously. Her chance would come if she waited and, as long as she did not waste her powers as he did, she could afford to wait. But she held her ground subtly, refusing to allow him to force her to retreat from the bridge.\n\nAllan stopped short as he came to the turn in the passage, sensing several mortals in the tunnel just ahead. He peered cautiously around the comer but saw no one, for the passage turned again only a few hundred feet farther on. So far they had avoided any direct confrontation in this maze of tunnels by simply cutting around any presence he sensed. But they were coming into the inhabited regions, and they were due to have a fight on their hands any moment now.\n\n\"They're coming up behind us,\" Kerie Wold warned nervously. She was the youngest of the group.\n\n\"I know it,\" the dragon said softly. \"Fortunately, we are almost there.\"\n\nHe led the way around the comer, proceeding cautiously along the passage beyond. Things were getting tight; he could sense enemies closing in on them both before and behind. Suddenly they heard heavy boots marching along the corridor behind them, echoing loudly in the stone passage. They paused long enough for one quick look back before they turned and ran, hoping to avoid detection one more time before they were forced to fight. Allan rounded the next turn as fast as he could and found himself nose to nose with another party of guards, nearly a score. It was fair to say that both groups were very surprised, the guards most of all, and both did their best to execute a hasty retreat. The soldiers of the Dark had heavy boots, and they reversed course fairly quickly.\n\nAllan was not so lucky. His feet slipped out from beneath him and he fell backwards on his tail. The three mortals, still fleeing the group behind, nearly fell on top of him as they came around the turn in the dim light. The dragon leaped up again in the next instant, scattering all three of them as they did their best to ready their weapons and stand prepared to fight.\n\n\"Stay behind me and watch my back!\" Allan ordered sharply.\n\nAlready the guards ahead were regrouping, drawing their swords and ready either to stand their ground or attack. Some had bows\u2014 Allan's greatest worry. He took a deep breath and sent a fireball straight down the middle of the passage, scattering frantic guards until it detonated near the middle of their group. The explosion rocked the very stone of the mountain itself and sent guards flying, but as the echoes faded away most of their number lay either dead or stunned and definitely singed. Allan had given it all he had, and he looked startled and just a little self-satisfied. He had only been a dragon for a few weeks, and was still getting used to things.\n\n\"Look out!\" Rex warned sharply. \"Behind you! Point that fire of yours in the opposite direction!\"\n\nAllan stuck his head around the corner and let loose two of his second-best fireballs, catching a glance of perhaps a dozen more guards. The three sorceresses had already advanced to meet the handful of survivors from the first group. Their skills enhanced by magic, the Veridan Warriors made quick work of what remained of the soldiers. Rex and the dragon waited until they were done and hurried them on their way, knowing that the reverberating blasts of his fireballs would bring trouble from all comers of the fortress.\n\nThey went some distance without being challenged, but Allan stopped again soon and stood for a long moment casting about for their goal. They were getting very close now, but that made it only that much harder to be exact. He found a wandering ramp leading down. There were no actual levels to the fortress, the passages twisting and rising at random but with chambers and side passages cut at various places.\n\nIt was in this passage that they met another small group of soldiers, this time only five. Allan did his best to stop but once again his feet slipped on the cold, polished stone. Instinctively protecting his folded wings, he slid on his belly down a rather steep length of the ramp, scattering the guards as they stood. Princess Merridyn swore a rather dire oath under her breath and led the others to the attack, taking advantage of the momentary confusion. She cut her way through the shaken defense of the tumbled guards and hurried on to join the dragon, who was just picking himself up. Then they both ducked their heads as Rex let loose with three rapid blasts of his shotgun.\n\n\"Are you alright?\" Merridyn asked.\n\n\"Oh yes, I am fine,\" Allan answered impatiently as he brushed the dust from his belly. He turned his head to glare. \"I really wish that he would not do that in these tunnels.\"\n\nRex was just standing there, staring at his gun in disbelief. \"Merciful heavens, I've never shot anyone before,\" he muttered, and sighed heavily. \"Awesome.\"\n\nAllan glanced around, then hurried back up the steps and confiscated the boots from one of the fallen guards. The fit was not good, for dragons had feet which were long but very narrow, and the boots flopped and threatened to fall off. He looked up to see that Rex and Merridyn were watching him appraisingly, while little Kerie was trying hard not to laugh.\n\nHe pushed past them and led the way on down the stairs, the thumps of his loose boots echoing through the length of the tunnel. The ramp ended presently, opening into a larger passage.\n\nHe paused at the entrance and peered warily around the comer. His ears twitched nervously. \"Guards. I was afraid of that. There are at least two dozen guards waiting in the hall outside her door. \" \"Any recommendations?\" Merridyn asked softly, privately surprised that the soldiers had not heard them coming.\n\nAllan sat back on his tail for a long moment, deep in thought, his ears laid back. \"I will cut around them from the other side, so that we may catch them between us. But stay in this passage until I call, for I would not have you caught in my own attack.\" Before Merridyn had a chance to ask him what he had in mind, the dragon abruptly disappeared. He simply faded to invisibility where he stood, boots and all, and was gone. A moment later the guards shouted in surprise and drew their weapons as they pressed eagerly to the attack. Princess Merridyn was about to hazard a quick glance when the hall was suddenly rocked by a series of tremendous explosions, so fierce that they cracked the walls and ceiling of the passage and raised quite a cloud of grey dust. Allan called out both aloud and telepathically, and Merridyn sprang out of the passage with her companions close behind.\n\nHalf of the guards were down already, but the rest were staggering to some attention and seemed ready to renew their attack now that the dragon's fireballs were momentarily exhausted. These were not simple guards but warriors in plate, mail and leather, which had helped them to survive that fiery barrage. The women were themselves only lightly armored, wearing padded leather with vests of mail. But both the main weapon and defense of Veridan Warriors lay in the remarkable speed, strength and endurance granted to them by their magic.\n\nRex, however, had the advantage of technology. In the swords and armor set, a pump-action shotgun made him something to consider. By the time he had run out of shells, he had also run out of targets. He had also made a startling amount of noise.\n\n\"The doctor is in, and the operation was a success,\" Rex remarked as he began slipping new shells into the gun.\n\n\"If you are quite finished, you might come with me,\" Allan remarked drily. \"You and I will collect Jenny. She knows us.\"\n\n\"And so what makes you think that she will recognize that fox's face of yours?\" Rex asked.\n\nHe disappeared with the dragon inside the chamber for well over a minute while the others watched the corridor outside. Allan returned at last, with Rex following close behind guiding before him a small human girl of about nine years. Her vast eyes were dark, but her scruffy mop of hair, once brown, was now a blue so deep that it seemed almost black in the dim light. She looked up at the two mortal sorceresses rather fearfully, although she was reassured by the dragon's presence.\n\n\"Jenny, these are my friends. They are going to help us get out of here,\" Allan told the girl soothingly. Then he lowered himself completely to the floor. \"Can you climb up on my back and hold on tight?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" Jenny answered uncertainly as she walked around the dragon's long body, guided by Merridyn. She moved stiffly, almost trancelike as if just awakened from a deep sleep. But she was clearly doing her best to hurry. The Princess lifted her up onto the dragon's back and showed her where to take hold of the straps of Allan's harness.\n\n\"All aboard, kitten?\" Allan asked.\n\n\"Ready!\" Jenny agreed with stoic determination. She was becoming more her old self with each passing moment.\n\n\"You just be ready to jump off if we have to fight,\" Allan warned as he rose carefully to stand on all fours. He bent his head around to look at Merridyn. \"Now we return to the ship as quickly as we can. You must lead, and let the others go behind me. They have been playing with us so far, thinking that they are in control, and we have surprised them. But if they know that we have Jenny, they will do all they can to stop us. They must prevent her escape at any cost.\"\n\nRex stared at him intently, understanding what he was implying. \"Surely she is of too much value to them.\"\n\nThe dragon closed his eyes and shook his head firmly. \"We must have Jenny if the Prophecy is to work in our favor. But they win two ways. The Dark is nearly as strong as long as they can stop her from serving us\u2014any way they can contrive it. But they will have to deal with me to get at her. I am not greatly concerned. Hurry, now.\"\n\nDalvenjah Foxfire held her enemy to the center of the bridge, returning blow for blow with swords that shimmered with misty flames of raw magic. Haldephren no longer pressed his attack with the fury of his initial offensive but he continued to drive at her mercilessly, never allowing her\u2014or himself\u2014even a moment's rest. He did not yet realize that she was easily his match in skill, although she was yet to prove how her magic stood against him. But her sword might have been moving with a will of its own. While her mind was enthralled in the absolute concentration of battle, her thoughts wandered dangerously along paths of their own.\n\nIt hurt her to have to see Karidaejan\u2014or at least Karidaejan's form\u2014again, and it hurt her more to sense the evil thing that now dwelled inside him. Her inner senses were infinitely accurate, and she trusted what she sensed in this matter. Her eyes saw Karidaejan, but it was a different Karidaejan than she had ever known. Her heart knew beyond any doubt that it was not him. All the same, this was all that was left to her of the one who had been her brother. She found it hard enough to fight him. She dreaded the thought that she should have to strike him, even kill him.\n\nHaldephren broke off the attack without warning, drawing back a step. \"So, Dalvenjah Foxfire, do you tire?\"\n\nDalvenjah did not have to feign surprise, for she could not imagine why he had said that. At least it roused her from her own thoughts. \"I tire of this pointless swordplay, I do confess. The time comes to make an end to it.\"\n\n\"My very thought,\" the High Priest agreed as he renewed his attack. \"Flee, Dalvenjah Foxfire, while you yet have the chance. You know that you cannot strike me.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt that I can, or I would not be here,\" she returned. How long had she been at this? Were the others already on their way out? The time had indeed come to be done with this game. Their blades locked and she allowed him to press her slowly back, as if she was folding beneath his strength. Then she drew back suddenly. A faerie dragon's weight was delicately balanced on either side of his hips between body and neck and tail. Even four years in that form had not taught Haldephren enough about being a dragon to avoid that simple trick.\n\nHe was thrust forward by his own weight, nose first toward the ground, although he caught himself before he fell completely over. But it threw him off his guard, leaving him vulnerable for a desperate moment. Dalvenjah's sword bit deep into the shoulder of his left wing, slicing through muscle and tendon at the same time that her magic ripped through his body like lightning. Then, in the same swift movement, she brought her blade over the top of his long neck to strike his right shoulder as well.\n\nHaldephren stumbled back with a sharp cry and stood gasping with pain, staring at her in fear and disbelief. Clearly he had not thought that she really would find the courage to strike him. His wounds were not great; he would fly again in a matter of weeks, with the proper care. But now he was betting his life that she could not finish what she had started. There was no escape for him unless she allowed it.\n\n\"No, you cannot!\" he insisted, panting heavily, dazed with pain and the shock of her magic. \"You must not. Dalvenjah, if you destroy me, I will be gone forever.\"\n\n\"I have no such hope,\" she answered coldly. \"All I can hope to do now is to deprive you of what you have stolen.\"\n\n\"No, Dalvenjah,\" he said, softening and gentling his voice in a crude counterfeit of Karidaejan. \"Think of all that we have been through, and the good things that we have known. Remember the love that we had. If you destroy me, there will be nothing left but your memories. Why do you even want to destroy me, my sister?\" \"No,\" Dalvenjah insisted desperately as tears came to her eyes. But she was not lured by his words. Haldephren had never known the real Karidaejan. He had no access to Karidaejan's memories, and nothing that had been Karidaejan's but his form was a part of him. And so his imitation was far from perfect.\n\n\"You must not do this to me,\" he continued, pleading.\n\n\"No!\" she shouted.\n\nDalvenjah lifted her sword, and the blade burned with magic. Haldephren drew back fearfully, but she did not strike him. Instead she swung the blade fiercely in an arc that shattered the metal rod of the siderail to her right in a shower of sparks, and in the next instant cut the left rail as well. The bridge swayed and dipped dangerously, but it did not fall yet.\n\n\"No! You must not!\" the High Priest declared. Too late he guessed her thoughts. She had damaged his wings so that he could not fly and the shock of her magic had stunned his own powers, leaving him unable even to levitate. Now she would cut the bridge from under him to plunge him into the fires below, sparing herself the necessity of destroying him by her own hand.\n\n\"Lye assanda min, Karidaejan,\" she said softly as she wept.\n\nShe brought her sword down once again in a double arc of flame, cutting the two remaining siderails that supported the floor of the bridge itself. The bridge broke immediately below her, parting in two even halves that fell away. Her broad wings snapped out as she began a slow ascending spiral about the perimeter of the core, but Haldephren fell helpless into the depths. He cried out only once as the bridge parted, a cry of rage and frustration rather than fear. He knew that he did not go to his own death, just the end of the body he now wore. Then he fell silently for what seemed a very long time, while Dalvenjah circled slowly and watched, before he disappeared at last in a sudden flash of flame.\n\nDalvenjah wept in silence as she began the long, spiralling climb up the core of the ancient volcano.\n\nAllan pulled himself to an abrupt halt, this time without falling, while the three sorceresses stood defensively behind him. They had just come around another sharp turn and now stood at the entrance of one of the largest natural chambers they had yet seen within the mountain, a roughly oval room several hundred feet long which had opened along a wide fissure. A wide stone bridge spanned the fissure, and the bridge was guarded.\n\nBut it was no mortal guard that stood facing them on the center of the bridge. It was roughly human in form but broad and shortlegged, its armored body like some immense crab standing manlike, with long plated arms ending in powerful pincers and a tiny head with glowing eyes peering at them from atop wide shoulders. Its entire form glowed with a pale, sickly light, as if it was some misty phantom. All the same, it looked very real and solid. It was much larger even than Allan, standing nearly ten feet tall and perhaps the better part of a ton of hard-shelled flesh.\n\n\"Mercy me!\" Allan exclaimed softly, and lowered himself to the ground. \"Off you go. It looks like I've got a fight on my hands.\"\n\n\"What is that thing?\" Rex asked softly, as if he knew already that he would not like the answer.\n\n\"That is what your people used to call a demon,\" the dragon explained as Jenny climbed off his back, then straightened. \"It is a creature of magic, brought into this world\u2014at least mostly into this world\u2014from a level of existence very different from what you know.\"\n\n\"Your level of existence is rather different from what we know,\" Rex pointed out.\n\n\"What should we do?\" Kerie asked. \"Can we go around it?\"\n\n\"It would follow us, I am sure. And I do not want that thing at my back.\" Allan considered the problem briefly. \"I will fight it, but not with sword. Swords, I fear, would be useless against that thing. I must fight it as a dragon.\"\n\nLeaving the others to guard Jenny, he stepped forward until he stood a few feet short of the base of the bridge. The demon watched him closely but with no outward sign of emotion or even awareness, almost as if it were as mindless as a machine. Allan took a deep breath and released a dense tongue of flame, striking it squarely in its armored chest. The demon only stood its ground, seemingly unconcerned about the fires that surrounded it.\n\nIndeed it was unharmed by his flames. Rex lifted his gun and gave the thing a couple of blasts, but to no better effect. Allan lifted his head to stare at the creature, realizing that he had something of a fight on his hands. But not in the big, loose boots he had appropriated. He slipped off one boot and hurled it with all his strength at the demon's round head. It snatched the boot casually from the air with one pincer and popped the entire thing into its mouth, eating it whole. Allan only stated, bemused.\n\n\"Well, do something!\" Rex said urgently as he stood at the dragon's side. \"Are you waiting for the other shoe to fall?\"\n\nAllan stared at him in disbelief, and they both sat down on the stone floor laughing. \"I cannot believe you said that!\"\n\n\"I do regret it, heart and sole,\" the surgeon answered.\n\n\"Bite your tongue!\"\n\n\"If you clowns don't mind,\" Merridyn called impatiently.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" Allan agreed as he rose, chuckling softly. He stood for a long moment peering intently at the demon, which only stared back in its typical bland manner. Jusl when he had decided that it was not going to press an attack of its own, it began to take slow, ponderous steps forward, raising its powerful pincers. He turned to the Princess. \"You should stand back. Better yet, get Jenny and be ready to run.\"\n\n\"Watch out for yourself,\" Merridyn entreated him as she slipped back to join the others in the shadows of the tunnel entrance.\n\n\"That matter is very much on my mind,\" Allan remarked nervously as he stepped out onto the bridge to meet the demon.\n\nHe stood his ground stoically until the demon stood only six feet away, then spun himself around swiftly. The long, golden whip of his tail caught the monster about its thick ankle and its tip curled around an armored leg. He pulled with all his strength, trying his best to toss the demon over the edge as it fell heavily to the stone bridge. The heavily plated creature was nearly six times his own three hundred pounds, but he succeeded in rolling it over the edge all the same as it fell with a thunderous crash.\n\nBut the demon, seeing its own defeat, meant to take him with it if it could. One massive pincer locked onto his right forearm with irresistible force, pulling him with it at the very moment that it tumbled over the edge of the bridge. Allan cried out in pain and fear, but at the same time he fought with his free hand to release the coil of cable at his belt, flip open the prongs of the clip at its end and toss that over the top of the bridge. Then he followed the demon over the edge before the others could run to his aid.\n\nBy chance the prongs of the clip caught the edge. The twenty-five feet of steel cable played out until it brought Allan up short at the end of the line, attached where the straps of his harness joined. The demon held on, but the shock of its tremendous weight was terrible. Allan gasped with pain as the long bones in his forearm were crushed in the vise of its grip, the serration along the edges of the pincers biting into his flesh. Panting with pain and shock, he reached around left-handed and drew his sword.\n\n\"Dragon!\" Merridyn cried, peering down over the edge of the bridge.\n\nAllan needed no warning. He brought the sword around in a glowing arc to sever at the wrist the other immense pincer that would have closed on his long, unprotected neck. The demon did not bleed; it was as dry inside its shell as a tree, its clear blood flowing like thick sap. He struck again but his leverage was poor, so that his blade only slipped off the tough carapace. He struck lower, snapping off the second pincer at the joint. The demon plunged into the fissure, as silent as it had been throughout their contest.\n\nBut the pincer still held on, almost as if it possessed a will of its own. Allan spread his wings for balance and raised himself with lift magic back to the top of the bridge. Merridyn and Rex were there immediately, taking hold of the heavy claw and pulling it apart until he was free. Kerie stood ready with a length of bandage from their supplies.\n\n\"Hold onto that thing,\" the Princess instructed as she bent to inspect the serration along the inside edges.\n\n\"There was no poison,\" Allan said impatiently, watching as the claw began to evaporate into the very air. \"It does not hurt bad enough. Just wrap me up so that we can get away from here. I will not be much good if we have to fight again. Stand back, now.\"\n\n\"Why?\" Merridyn asked.\n\n\"Because I anticipate saying a few things that might bum your ears,\" he stated, and the others stepped back. He muttered the words of command; his forearm glowed with a blue light, and the broken bones straightened and set themselves. His cry of pain became a string of rather potent words, fortunately all in Mindijari. Rex took the bandage from Kerie and carefully wrapped his arm.\n\nAllan turned to Jenny, who stood close watching with wide eyes. \"Can you walk well enough to keep up? It is not very far, but this dragon might have enough trouble just getting himself there.\"\n\n\"I can do it!\" Jenny declared.\n\n\"Good girl! If we hurry, we can be out of here in a few minutes more.\"\n\nAllan's greatest concern was that the Emperor would send more demons to intercept him, as he must have done when he realized that his mortal servants had failed him. Allan was certain of a few things about the Servants of the Dark that he had only suspected when they had arrived, and he now had a much better idea about what they could and could not do. It gave him hope.\n\nAnd his hope proved correct. Within five minutes they found themselves once again within the chamber where the airship sat just as they had left it. He had been somewhat concerned about what might have become of the ship during their absence, but it appeared unmolested. All except for the scattered remains of a demon's carapace, which were in the later stages of evaporation even as they arrived.\n\n\"Oh, there you are,\" Dalvenjah said, peering over the rail near the bow of the ship, her head extended to the length of her long neck. \"So, you have her. Very good.\"\n\n\"I see that they thought to wreck the ship after all,\" Allan remarked, watching the last of the demon's remains evaporate. \"You seem to have had a better time dealing with yours.\"\n\n\"I am your mate and your instructor in the studies of magic,\" she replied. \"And you are still very new at this. It stands to reason that I know a trick or two that you have not yet learned.\"\n\n\"Not if you were a proper teacher,\" Allan answered, knowing quite well that he was being teased. \"Can we get out of here?\" Princess Merridyn was already lifting Jenny up into Marie's waiting arms on the main deck of the ship, although she paused in climbing the boarding ramp herself to give the injured dragon a boost. Kerie Wold was preparing the airship for flight. Jenny would have liked a closer look at this most unusual ship, but she was already being smothered in Marie's backlog of motherly ministrations. Jenny had already recovered from her two-week abduction by the forces of evil, and absence had apparently not made the heart grown fonder.\n\n\"Is he gone?\" Allan asked cautiously.\n\nDalvenjah closed her eyes and nodded. \"He is gone. But you know that.\"\n\n\"I was aware when it happened,\" he agreed. \"That\u2014I suppose\u2014was not quite the question I meant to ask.\"\n\n\"I understand.\" Dalvenjah paused as the airship backed clear of the chamber, steering slightly into the wind to counter drift until her masts and vanes were clear of the tunnel walls. Kerie accelerated the ship quickly to full speed. Dalvenjah frowned. \"He did not die directly by my hand... at least I contrived to spare myself that. All I can say is that I am glad it is done and over.\"\n\n\"Dragon! What is the meaning of this?\" Marie bellowed, dragging Jenny over to where they stood. \"Look at this child's hair. Now you tell me why they dyed her hair blue.\"\n\n\"It is not dyed,\" Dalvenjah made the mistake of granting a candid answer. \"That is now the true color of her hair.\"\n\nWithout a word of warning, Marie pulled open Jenny's pants and looked inside. Unfortunately, the proof of that test would still have to wait a year or two for puberty. Dalvenjah sat back on her tail and sighed wearily, knowing that she had a fight on her hands. Marie had never said a word to Dalvenjah about turning her brother into a golden-scaled dragon, but she suspected that she would never hear the end of this business about blue hair.\n\nDalvenjah made some odd gesture over Jenny's head, and her hair returned to its original color.\n\n\"That fixes it?\" Marie asked suspiciously.\n\n\"For now,\" Dalvenjah assured her. \"It will grow out. Then she will need something like you use to make your hair blond.\"\n\nMarie glowered for a long moment, but it had no effect on the dragon. She let go of Jenny's arm. The girl ran over to hang onto the rail, looking at the green and blue canvas of the ship's fins and stabilizers.\n\n\"Are you trying to tell me that they've changed her in some way?\" Marie asked quietly.\n\nDalvenjah thought about that, her ears twitching like signal flags. \"Can this discussion wait until we get home?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you are not going to like the answer.\"\n\nThe airship settled almost gingerly on the ledge outside Dalvenjah's mountain home. It was a small ledge and a rather large airship, with four large vanes ribbed with red and blue canvas. Kerie Wold eased the ship down with an expert hand, and the others began taking in the vanes immediately so that sudden winds would not disturb the vessel. Vajerral, who had not at all liked being left behind, was there immediately. Jenny called out to her in delight and dropped over the rail of the ship even before the ladder could be set out.\n\nDalvenjah's home was indeed her castle. Marie had never known quite what to make of the faerie dragon's contention that she lived in an abandoned mountain fortress that she had converted for her own use, but it was just that. It was hardly Camelot, but it did make a rather sprawling abode even by draconic standards. There were no towers or battlements, just an almost haphazard group of grey stone structures joined together into a single rambling edifice.\n\nThe interior was considerably more comfortable; Dalvenjah had a talent for decorating that was subtly exotic without being imposing. She had adapted the main hall into a type of overgrown den. The cold stone of the walls had been mostly replaced by either paneling or heavy curtains. The back wall had been almost completely replaced by a bank of immense glass windows, leading onto a deep balcony that overhung the cliff itself, looking out across the vastness of the forested valley far below. Marie, at least, was interested to note that dragons had glass for picture windows. She had come expecting medieval squalor, but faerie dragons seemed to enjoy nontechnical prosperity without the benefit of mutual bonds and IRA's. Apparently there was something to be said about old-fashioned hordes.\n\n\"This is where you live?\" Jenny asked as she stared in fascination. There were no chairs or sofas, just firm cushions of immense size and low tables. Rex and Marie took their seats near the two dragons, while the sorceresses disappeared into the kitchen.\n\n\"No, this is the bus station, \" Dalvenjah said as she eased herself onto one of the cushions. \"We are awaiting the next trolley back to your world.\"\n\nJenny deflated like a sad balloon. \"Ah, do we have to go back so soon? We only just got here.\"\n\n\"That will depend upon many things,\" the dragon replied guardedly. \"What do you remember about the ones who took you away? Did they tell you why they brought you there?\"\n\n\"No, not really.\" Jenny frowned, apparently having some trouble remembering the incident. \"The big dragon said a lot of things. He said that he was my father, but I never understood what he meant by that... and I never believed him. He smiled a lot, but... but I always felt like he was going to bite me.\"\n\n\"He was not your father,\" she told the girl firmly. \"And faerie dragons do not bite. Are you afraid that I might bite you?\" Jenny thought about that for a long moment. \"I think that you would spank me, if I did something bad.\"\n\n\"Don't you do something bad, and we will not have to test. that,\" Dalvenjah said, trying to hide a smile. \"Why don't you and Vajerral help the others to prepare our dinner?\"\n\nMarie waited until she had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, then turned back to the dragon. \"What is this business about the big dragon being her father? Does she mean your brother?\"\n\nDalvenjah laid back her ears and sighed sadly. \"She means the High Priest Haldephren. The High Priest and the Emperor are mortal, but they have lived for thousands of years by taking the bodies of others. With Karidaejan, it was the first time that either one of them had taken an immortal form, and I have destroyed that one. What Haldephren meant was that he had once taken the form of the one you knew as James Donner, who was Jenny's father. That was his way into your world... the first time.\"\n\n\"But James Donner died,\" Marie protested.\n\n\"That was his way back out of both that form and your own world,\" she explained. \"At least that is what he said, to make his own claim upon Jenny. I do not know if it is true.\"\n\n\"But it could be?\" Marie asked fearfully.\n\n\"Yes, the possibility does exist,\" Dalvenjah admitted. \"It explains the only part of this business that I do not understand, which is how Jenny came to be the subject of a prophecy from a very different world. Unfortunately, I do know that the Prophecy itself is true. I saw it in my gold dreams. Almost every Mindijaran sorcerer shared that same dream on that same night, but I could not come in time to stop them from taking her.\"\n\n\"Just what is this prophecy exactly?\" Rex interrupted for the first time. \"I know it says something about either their destruction or their return to power.\"\n\nDalvenjah nodded. \"The blade that cuts both ways. You see, once the High Priest and his Emperor were very powerful indeed, but they fell two thousand years ago and have not returned since. They lack the third, the Consort Darja, who was a warrior sorceress even greater than Haldephren himself. She has never returned to this life as they have, and they cannot bring her back as easily as they keep themselves alive.\"\n\n\"Then Jenny is this Consort?\" Marie asked, too surprised to be properly horrified.\n\n\"No, I really do not think so,\" Dalvenjah explained, her ears laid back. \"I think that Jenny is simply meant to somehow prepare the way. And that is the matter that can decide this business either way. By what happens to Jenny, or perhaps because of Jenny, then the Emperor and the High Priest will either achieve greater power than they have ever held, or else they will be finally destroyed beyond all hope of recovery. But the exact answer is hidden from us even yet.\"\n\nDalvenjah elected to keep the most important question to herself, that of Karidaejan's mysterious part in this affair.\n\n\"Oh, my!\" Marie looked very thoughtful, and very frightened, as she considered all the implications of that. The only possible answer was obvious. She looked up at the dragon. \"You have to protect her.\"\n\nDalvenjah nodded. It was better that Marie had thought of that for herself, rather than having it suggested. \"That is a fact. The best that I can do for her is to bring her here, into my own home, even to the extent of making her immortal and a faerie dragon, as I did Allan. That will not stop the Prophecy, but it will make her best able to defend herself. But I would not ask you to agree to that.\"\n\n\"Is there any alternative?\" Marie asked, a good indication of just how desperate she was.\n\n\"She must learn the dragon magic, by any means. I do not doubt that the faerie centaurs are devoted, but their magic is poor and they could hardly drive off another attempt to take Jenny. The only hope I see is for Jenny to remain here, and her command of dragon magic will change her in time, making her immortal in subtle ways.\"\n\nMarie looked very thoughtful for a long moment. \"Then you just might as well make her a dragon. Otherwise she will just be stuck between, a dragon in everything except form.\"\n\nDalvenjah nodded reluctantly. \"That is so, although the choice must be entirely her own. I will protect her the best that I can. But if she is to ever be free of the Prophecy, then the day will eventually come that we will have to fight it and see it through to its end.\"\n\n\"When will that be?\"\n\n\"Not until she is quite grown up, I'm sure.\"\n\nThey were interrupted by the return of the others with their dinner. Marie looked at her own suspiciously. It appeared to be roast beef, large rolls with cheese, and beer. But the cheese was rather sharp, the beer was oddly sweet, and there was no way to know just what manner of beast had been roasted. She elected to keep her mouth shut. With dragons, she thought that she should consider herself lucky that it was cooked. Prime cuts of virgin; which would you like, breast or thigh?\n\nShe realized that she must have been under a worse strain than she had thought. That sounded like the sort of nonsense that Rex was prone to say.\n\nShe glanced over at the dragon. \"Will she ever have a life of her own? I mean, what will she have left when the Prophecy is complete, even if everything goes favorably?\"\n\n\"Her life, I hope,\" Dalvenjah admitted frankly.\n\n\"But the successful completion of the Prophecy is more important than even Jenny's life?\" Marie asked with detached candor.\n\n\"I do not think that Jenny will have to die for the favorable completion of the Prophecy,\" Dalvenjah answered cautiously. \"If she must, then nothing I can do will prevent it. Because I will do everything I can.\"\n\nJenny sat without touching her plate, aware that she was being discussed and that her very life was at stake. She stared back at them both, very wide-eyed with fright.\n\nDalvenjah softened her gaze, appearing more warmly reassuring. \"What of it? Would you like to be a dragon?\"\n\n\"That means I would never be able to go home,\" Jenny said, not making a question of that. She had obviously considered this.\n\n\"That is so,\" Dalvenjah agreed. \"You could visit, but you could never stay. But you would live here always.\"\n\n\"I would like to remain what I am for just a while longer, if you think I could,\" the girl decided surprisingly quickly. \"Maybe when I'm grown up, like Allan was when he became a dragon.\" \"Yes, that can be done,\" Dalvenjah agreed, although she was mystified about the reason why Jenny would be honestly afraid, even terrified, of that suggestion. She would have expected that Jenny would have begged for the chance to be a dragon.\n\nIt was easy enough to let matters stand for now. The Prophecy argued that Jenny would most likely be a dragon before the end.\n\nSo it was that Jenny began the serious study of dragon magic, and to be a Veridan Warrior. The first true Veridan had come from the mortal world of Morin, in the ancient days when the first sorcerers of the Light had by bitter necessity been warriors as well, battling the Dark in their long war with the Alasheran Empire. The Mindijaran had never had any need for swords until they began to have increasing contact with human folk, mortal and immortal, fighting with the weapons that nature had granted them as dragons. They had established a small colony of their kind in Morin some six centuries before, eventually adapting the ways of the Veridan for their own use.\n\nAnd so the years passed swiftly. Jenny was an adept student; far more so than she realized, measuring her progress against the standards of the faerie dragons, creatures of magic. She shared their keen telepathy and their ability to memorize instantly, she mastered their immortal magic with ease, and she could even hold her own with the sword. She enjoyed this way of life, and she never regretted her very limited contact with her own kind. And yet she remained unwilling to become a dragon herself, although she would never explain why.\n\nAccording to the custom of the Mindijaran, Jenny was to be taken into the forest on the night of her fourteenth birthday, where her inner name would be defined. She was growing quickly now, giving clear hints that she would be a tall, long-limbed woman, possessing a noble beauty if just a little large of nose, and her breasts were enlarging quickly. There was no hiding that fact, for she had spent most of her life among the dragons naked as they were.\n\nThat night came late in a spring that was warming quickly to summer, although most mortals would have still thought it chill there in the mountain forests, and the stars were frosty bright. Jenny had flown to the small clearing with the dragons. She did possess the ability to fly, using the same lift magic that made their own flight so swift and effortless, although without wings she lacked much of their speed and precision, and her endurance was very limited. Now, with the formal definition of her inner name, her powers would mature even more swiftly than her lithe body.\n\nAll objects, animate and inanimate, have their inner name, and people of all types, mortal and immortal, have an inner name that is far more intimate and individual than the one they are given at birth. The inner name, at least its sound, was only an instinctive prop that sorcerers used to identify and control the magical nature of objects. But an individual's inner name gave a sorcerer control over the person as well, granting the ability to command that person or to change their very essence to some creature very different.\n\nBut when the inner name was formally defined, it could at that time be set with defenses which hid it against a sorcerer, forbidding its unwarranted use to the harm of that person. All mortal sorcerers set such defenses about their inner names, for they were the most vulnerable to attack. And all immortal folk, whether they studied the higher magic of sorcerers or not, were given the most intricate defenses as well. Ordinarily no dragon could have given a mortal who had studied the dragon magic her inner name, for the dragon would know only that person's inner name as she would have been were she herself a dragon, and immortal. The inner name that Jenny was to be given this night was a counterfeit, incomplete, and not as secure as her true inner name.\n\n\"How long?\" Jenny asked. She had been waiting in the clearing with Allan and Dalvenjah, while Vajerral did her best to wait patiently with respectful solemnity for the occasion. The young dragon was beginning to grow quickly now that she had entered her ninth year; already she outweighed Jenny.\n\n\"Soon now,\" Dalvenjah assured her. She was an exceptional telepath, even for a faerie dragon, and she clearly sensed that Jenny was very anxious about something, even upset. She rubbed her soft cheek against the girl's in a dragon's sign of gentle affection. \"Dear child, what troubles you?\"\n\nJenny shrugged. \"Usually we go to my world for my birthday, and we have a party in the cabin by the lake with my parents and the centaurs.\"\n\n\"We will go tomorrow,\" Allan promised her, knowing how important to her were her two annual visits home. \"For tonight, this is important. This will help protect you from your enemies.\" \"Yes, I know,\" Jenny agreed. \"The Prophecy.\"\n\n\"Do you know the importance of the Prophecy?\" Dalvenjah countered.\n\n\"All I know is that I have always sensed how very important it seems to be to everyone,\" she answered. Her telepathy rivalled that of most of the dragon sorcerers. \"I know that it seems to be & matter of life and death.\"\n\n\"Life and death, but perhaps of whole worlds, if you fail,\" the dragon told her candidly. \"You know much already, but now is the time for you to understand the full nature of the Prophecy. Please sit.\"\n\nJenny seated herself in the dry leaves beneath the trees and Dalvenjah settled herself on her belly to one side, so that they could more comfortably be on one level.\n\n\"A matter of life and death,\" the sorceress mused. \"It began on the night when you were captured, now these five years past. On that night I had a gold dream, for gold enhances the magic of the Mindijaran and I am never without it. For so it is, that at times the dragons may dream the gold dreams and see something of the future. But on that night, every dragon sorcerer who dreamed, throughout any world where they might have been, dreamed the same dream. And on the rare times when that may happen we know it to be a warning, a most important prophecy. Many sorcerers of Morin dreamed the dream as well, for the Prophecy concerns most their world, although it may be of importance to every world where folk of any type dwell.\n\n\"Centuries ago, more than three thousand years, many of the mortal folk of Morin turned to the worship of the Dark, and in turn they were granted much knowledge of Dark sorcery until they came in time nearly to equal the evil of the Dark Dragons. No other folk would dare even to enter their world, for fear that the evil of the Alasheran Empire might spread if its wizard-priests gained knowledge of the Ways Between the Worlds. But the Light came to the good people of Morin in their desperation and they were given the knowledge of the Light Magic and the skills of the Veridan Warriors, and in time they defeated the Empire and destroyed the worship of the Dark in their world.\n\n\"Or so they hoped. For among their many evils, the Emperor and the High Priest learned a type of counterfeit immortality, transferring their spirits into the bodies of new, younger victims. For so long as a coven of the Dark survived with the knowledge to effect this transfer, they could have survived the fall of the Empire. And we know now that they have, that they live even now and plot the reestablishment of the Alasheran Empire and the worship of the Dark.\n\n\"For they too knew of the Prophecy, and they saw a chance to use you to their own ends. The High Priest Haldephren had his spirit transferred into the body of Karidaejan, my brother. Then, with the advantages of a faerie dragon's immortal form, he was able to steal you away from your world. But they moved too soon, and they revealed not only themselves, but the fact that they now have knowledge of opening the Ways Between the Worlds. In that way the return of the Alasheran Empire has become a threat not just to Morin, but to all the worlds. If the Empire should regain its full strength and form an alliance with the Dark Dragons, then all folk of the Light may be lost.\"\n\n\"And I am the key to stopping them?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"The Prophecy says that you and another are important to the final defeat of the Empire, for you and she will find the way to destroy the Emperor and the High Priest for all time, and break the power of the Dark,\" Dalvenjah explained, then paused and sighed with regret. \"But you are the primary key. For the second part of the Prophecy holds that you may be turned to the Dark, and in that way effect the final defeat of the Light.\"\n\n\"But I am dragon-trained, and I work dragon magic,\" Jenny protested. \"I thought that the dragons cannot be corrupted to evil.\"\n\n\"That is true, but only in part,\" she explained. \"The faerie dragons, like all immortal folk, will not turn from their true nature of their own accord, and we are creatures of the Light. The dragon magic will protect you. But you are not a dragon, only trained in the dragon magic, and still Vulnerable. That can be remedied, if you become a dragon.\"\n\nJenny frowned. \"Soon, perhaps. But not yet. I want to go home one more time before that happens.\"\n\nDalvenjah did not pursue the subject. Jenny was as adamant on that subject as ever, whether or not she really understood why.\n\n\"I could never be turned to the Dark,\" Jenny promised, perhaps mostly to herself, but Dalvenjah knew that the Prophecy would come in time to be balanced upon the blade of a sword, ready to fall either way. The girl looked up. \"But one thing I still do not understand. Who is the second?\"\n\n\"When the time is right, your paths will cross.\"\n\nJenny translated that to mean that she had just asked another of those all-important questions which Dalvenjah had no intention of answering. She knew that Dalvenjah knew more on the subject than she was willing to say.\n\nLate in the autumn of her eighteenth year, Jenny was finally allowed to return to her own world to begin her college education. Now that Jenny was finishing her apprenticeship in magic and was quite capable as a Veridan Warrior, Dalvenjah deemed it safe enough for her to return for four years. Jenny knew that this would be her last trip home, at least for more than just a rare visit. She believed that the Prophecy would be upon her before she ever got another chance. Once the Prophecy began to sneak up on her, she knew that she would finally have to face her fears and misgivings and accept Allan's choice, becoming a dragon for her own protection.\n\nThe important question in her life right now was the subject of her major in her college studies. She was looking for subjects that would be most useful to a Mindijaran sorceress. Allan was little help; his higher education from his pre-draconic days had been limited to music. Her mother still chose to believe that she would eventually return to her own world and a fairly normal, quiet and secure life as a financial advisor. Rex recognized the realities of the situation; he dropped occasional hints that medicine would serve Jenny well wherever she went.\n\nJenny was primarily interested in mechanical engineering.\n\nThe one thing that facilitated the matter of transferring Jenny's academic credits was the fact that the government had, in a very distant and discrete manner, been involved in Dr. Rex's Centaur School of Magic from the start. The two FBI agents Wallick and Borelli had not mentioned it at the time, but they had known all about the centaur colony. The advantage of government sanction was that the necessary texts had been imported for Jenny's education, and Allan had guided her studies to a high school equivalency.\n\nAlthough this plan remained a complete secret to the general population, certain elements of the government were quite willing to support the plan to return magic to that world. The entire area about Rex's cabin and the lake was now a sealed wildlife preserve. Faerie centaurs were apparently regarded as wildlife, and their very limited numbers in this world made them an endangered species.\n\nThe three dragons brought Jenny back to the cabin by the lake, what Allan was inclined to refer to as the scene of the crime. Jenny had grown into a tall, almost lanky girl, still so thin and long-legged that she looked taller than she was, so that Allan was able to carry her on his back for the longer flight between the worlds.\n\nThere was quite a party at the cabin in honor of Jenny's return.\n\nThe centaurs and their handful of mortal students were there, as well as the two agents Dave Wallick and Don Borelli. It was considered quite an occasion when the Mindijaran came, especially since the dragons visited only rarely and never stayed long. Their powerful magic was too disruptive to the fragile mortal magic the centaurs were helping their students to discover.\n\nSince they arrived a little early for the party, Rex took the dragons outside for a demonstration of the precision skills of an experienced surgeon. He took with him the most important tools of the trade, his clubs and a couple of balls. The problem was the lack of adequate open space in the forest for driving a decent ball, the best being the partial clearing just uphill from the cabin.\n\n\"The first time I was here, you were engaged in a very different manner of recreation,\" Dalvenjah observed.\n\n\"Because we have since discovered the convenience of formal cohabitation, I now have time for a little golf besides,\" Rex said as he stepped up to bat. \"This is known as addressing the ball.\" \"You expect to send it parcel post?\" she asked.\n\nRex afforded her a brief glance, then hauled back and gave the ball what for. It was a really beautiful drive, except that it sliced rather badly and failed to clear the opening through the trees. By some odd chance, it hit with just enough force to bounce off four trunks until it disappeared into the brush. The dragons had dropped belly to the ground with their hands over their heads.\n\nDalvenjah lifted her head to look about. \"Yes, I do understand. Golf is not unlike billiards.\"\n\nRex glared at his club, giving it an admonishing shake, then turned to the dragon. \"The idea is to get it between the trees. You want to give it a try?\"\n\n\"It looks damned awkward,\" Dalvenjah remarked as she took the club. She had a rather remarkable command of the English language. She looked down at the ball that Rex had set on a tee before her. \"Just what is the objective of this game?\"\n\n\"The one who hits it farthest wins,\" Allan explained. \"You get an extra point for each tree your ball bounces off. Rex is ahead by four points.\"\n\nRex turned to stare at him. \"You know, ever since you were turned into a dragon, you've been a real smartass.\"\n\n\"I quite disagree,\" Dalvenjah quipped. \"He always was.\" Before anyone could speak, Dalvenjah drew back the club and gave the ball everything she had. It was, as she had said, an extremely awkward stance for a dragon. But faerie dragons were also very agile, and tremendously strong for their size. The ball look off like a shot. In fact, it sounded almost like a shot, since her swing had propelled it just beyond the speed of sound. It might have gone the better part of a mile, except that it hit the same tree after only about ten feet. The ball exploded in a shower of bark and the little rubber worms that were packed inside cheap golf balls. The entire tree shook with the impact, and three squirrels fell chittering with fury from the branches. Dalvenjah was left holding a bent club.\n\n\"How many points do I get for each squirrel?\" she asked as she gestured a brief spell over the club, which straightened itself.\n\n\"The idea is to hit the ball several hundred yards and down a hole,\" Rex told her as he took the club.\n\nDalvenjah stared at him. \"How big a hole?\"\n\n\"Just big enough for the ball.\"\n\n\"That does take some skill.\" She turned to stare across the length of the clearing. \"Where is the hole?\"\n\n\"There is none,\" Rex explained.\n\nDalvenjah glared at him. \"Then why the hell did you have me hit the damned ball?\"\n\n\"I wish I knew!\"\n\nRex decided that it was time to cook dinner. Vajerral lit the charcoal grill\u2014for old times' sake\u2014and they were cooking within minutes. It made an interesting contrast to their old days around the cabin. For one thing, it was warm summer rather than the bitter cold of late winter. Vajerral was much larger than she had been during that first visit, now nearly as large as her mother. The most noticeable difference, of course, was that Allan was now a dragon himself, tall, serene and proud, very different from the shy Norwegian-born cellist he had been.\n\nThat time by the lake, waiting for Dalvenjah's last battle with the evil steel dragon Vorgulremik, were pleasant, warmly nostalgic days in Jenny's memories, although one could argue that\u2014 at eighteen\u2014she was too young to be so sentimental. But the fact was that her life had gotten tremendously complicated, even uncertain, almost immediately afterward. She still enjoyed life and delighted in indulging her insatiable curiosity, but the vague but constant threat of the Prophecy had taught her to fear the future.\n\nOther things had also changed considerably, mostly in the company they were keeping these days. The colony of faerie centaurs had grown to over a dozen, two of them of the young and small variety, looking over three dozen mortal students. There was now a regular little community on the other side of the hill from the cabin, although everything had been designed to appear inconspicuous, scattered like a knot of ordinary vacation cottages.\n\n\"Do you really want to return to this world?\" Vajerral asked privately as they waited for dinner. A growing dragon had an appetite like a bear; Jenny had often referred to her as the sky shark. \"What does this place have to recommend it? The reruns of Gilligan's Island?\"\n\n\"It will be a nice change to be among my own kind for a while,\" Jenny answered, glancing at the young dragon slyly. \"And when I come back in four years, you'll have matured enough that I can stand you.\"\n\n\"So, I see.\" Vajerral looked surprised. She rose to leave.\n\n\"Do you realize that you're speaking English?\" Jenny called after her.\n\nThe dragon turned her head to glance back, a look that was hysterically shrewd and self-satisfied. \"Of course. I am quite mature.\"\n\nJenny was careful to hide her amusement. The little dragon was indeed growing up, although she still had a lot to learn. Her amusement faded when she realized that her mother was coming up behind her, deep in conversation with the two older dragons. And that the subject of discussion was herself.\n\n\"There are any number of advantages to keeping her in your world,\" Marie was saying. \"Not the least was my own peace of mind in knowing that her virtue is in no danger. She could hardly lose her virginity to a dragon.\"\n\nJenny lowered her head to hide a very startled and self-conscious blush, and even Dalvenjah was a little fazed. The dragon knew, although not necessarily by personal experience, that a surprising number of things were very possible. She also knew that Jenny had explored such possibilities with a certain polite young dragon. Mindijaran could give such truly magical kisses that other constraints went out the window, and they could usually lay a pretty smooth line on a girl besides.\n\nOf course, Jenny was always willing to try anything, and she was usually one step ahead of the game. She had seduced the dragon.\n\n\"It's time to start letting her learn about such things,\" Allan interceded innocently. \"You don't want her to grow up inhibited.\"\n\nMarie crossed her arms. \"Fat chance! The girl is about as inhibited as a typhoon. That's frankly the least of her problems.\n\nI just wondered if she is going to be safe.\"\n\n\"She really should be quite safe,\" Dalvenjah insisted. \"I very much doubt that the Emperor Myrkan will attempt to capture her now. Besides, she is a well-trained Veridan Warrior, and she has passed her apprenticeship in dragon magic. As long as she keeps her sword at her side at all times, she should not have to fear magical assailants.\"\n\nAllan and Marie both fell silent, turning to look at each other. Allan scratched his head and turned to his mate. \"Jenny cannot wear her sword in this world. No one carries swords here.\" \"Yes, of course.\" Dalvenjah had to think about that for only an instant. \"We will just have to get her a gun. I remember that everyone here carries a gun.\"\n\nDalvenjah watched a few too many westerns during her original visit.\n\nMarie and Dalvenjah went into the house to prepare dinner\u2014 a matter that neither of them was willing to trust completely to the faerie centaurs\u2014and to continue their negotiations, that being the only word to describe their conversation. Marie would think of reasons to worry, and Dalvenjah would assure her that there was no cause for concern. Of course, Marie had never intended to talk Dalvenjah out of allowing Jenny to return. This was her first chance in ten years to spend any real time with her daughter, and it would most likely be her last. Which of course brought up the question of why she was arguing in the first place.\n\nIt was part of her nature.\n\nAllan waited until they were gone, then turned to Jenny. \"He has asked me to say farewell to you for him.\"\n\n\"He?\" Jenny asked. \"He, in big letters? Could you be referring to a certain dragon?\"\n\n\"So just how many dragons have you made love to?\" Allan asked succinctly. \"Not enough to know better, it would seem. But it is too late for that, I suppose. You are caught, and there is only one solution. So there is only one real question. Why are you running away?\"\n\n\"So who says that I'm running away?\" Jenny asked evasively, then shrugged. \"It was easy for you, because it all happened so quick. Dalvenjah Foxfire was ready to go home, and she asked you to join her. She never gave you a minute to think about it. I've had all this time to think about how absolutely final it is, and all the things I'll regret never having done.\"\n\nAllan frowned. \"Is that a reason or an excuse?\"\n\nJenny looked puzzled. \"Isn't that the same difference?\"\n\n\"Not at all. Reasons are the things we know to be true. Excuses are the things we say to satisfy ourselves and others.\"\n\nJenny rolled her eyes. \"That frightens me more than anything, the thought of spending the rest of eternity inflecting deep and esoteric utterances upon everyone I meet. And in achingly precise grammar, at that.\"\n\n\"We should go for a walk by the lake, just you and I... me,\" Allan said, smiling, as he waited for her to join him. \"Actually, Dalvenjah and I were not so different from yourself. It was love at first sight, in that completely magical way that dragons fall in love. She knew it and I knew it, but I was just too frightened and naive to be consciously aware of that fact. I wanted to go home with her so very, very much, and I never could figure out why. More than anything, I was just so relieved to finally understand why I was so miserable to be with her that I could not wait to go. So, do you really like to be miserable?\"\n\n\"No, I don't like feeling miserable,\" Jenny admitted, shuffling along with her hands in her pockets. \"I just don't like feeling trapped, either.\"\n\nAllan stared. \"Trapped? Are you pregnant?\"\n\n\"You know what I mean. Ever since this business began, I've been told that I'll have to become a dragon for my own protection. I don't have any choice, and I'm not asking for much time at all, measured against the life of a dragon. You had all the choice in the world.\"\n\nAllan shook his head firmly. \"I had no more choice than you. Not once the dragon magic binds you to an immortal spirit. Just do not stay away too long. Even a dragon can get impatient with forever, and the bond can break when you are worlds away for very long. Or do you want that bond to break?\"\n\nJenny looked startled, even fearful, but the moment faded quickly into her old uncertainty. \"I don't know what I want. I don't really want for him to go away, but I wish this could have waited until the Prophecy was settled and my life was my own. Perhaps then I could have welcomed it as eagerly as you did. Right now it frightens me, since I don't know what kind of life I'll have under this Prophecy... if any at all. I can't afford the distraction. I don't want to be hurt, and I don't want to see him hurt.\"\n\n\"It seems rather too late for that,\" Allan remarked, struggling with his awkward shape to walk upright on the steep slope. \"I can anticipate having a certain dragon hanging on our doorstep for the next four years, pining away for his one true love. There really is nothing more miserable than a pining dragon, I can tell you.\"\n\nJenny smiled at the thought of a dragon pining for her, and had to admit that Allan probably was not exaggerating by much. She bent to collect a large flat stone from the outer edge of the beach, then gave it a deft flip into the lake. It disappeared in a single enthusiastic plop. She put her hands in her pockets and sighed. \"Nice skinnydipping weather.\"\n\nAllan shook his head firmly. \"Your mother has radar, and she was upset enough even before you had tits. Sometimes I wonder that she never makes an issue of the fact that I wear no clothes.\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" Jenny agreed, kicking one large stone into the shallow waves. \"I guess that I need to start practicing mortal habits again.\"\n\nAllan twitched his ears. \"That is the key word, is it not? Mortal. Keep always in mind that you have been a part of the dragon magic for so long that you are no longer mortal, nor can you ever be again. Play if you will, but do not fall in love with one of them. They are less your own kind now than that golden-scaled fellow with the wings who does love you.\"\n\n\"I can hardly forget that,\" she said, kicking idly at the sand. \"There's no one in this world for me, not even in play. I love him too much.\"\n\nAllan was startled, actually surprised to hear her say those words that she had never dared to say before. He was not surprised by the tears in her eyes, or the depth of her emotion. Jenny wore a shell of bright eagerness and girlish charm, and in most ways she really was the person she pretended to be. But she could not hide the truth of her inner self from dragons, who were sensitive to the minds and hearts of others.\n\n\"Have you ever missed this world?\" Jenny asked after a long moment, still looking out across the lake, \"I have broken all ties with this world. You have not,\" Allan answered obliquely. Dragons did that almost as a point of polite conversation, even born-again dragons like Allan Breivik. He considered it time to change the subject. \"Engineering with a biology minor is an interesting combination, but it will serve you well when you are a full sorceress. Have you thought about what you will do and where you will go when you have finished here?\"\n\nJenny shook her head. \"Fulfilling the Prophecy is my business in life and I won't allow myself to think about anything beyond that until it's all done. Until then, I have only two purposes. I prepare myself in any way I can for what is to come, and I enjoy life while I can.\"\n\n\"You are wise,\" Allan agreed vaguely, although he knew better. He knew that Jenny was coming to fear the Prophecy now that her childhood was well behind her.\n\n\"There is just one thing,\" Jenny said, dropping her voice con-spiratorially. She glanced back up the hill toward the cabin, where Dr. Rex prepared burnt offerings beneath a cloud of grey smoke. \"I've never asked about the Prophecy, but I would like to know when I might expect it to begin.\"\n\n\"And what makes you think I know?\" Allan asked cautiously. \"You maintain a unique monopoly on that source of all arcane and esoteric information,\" Jenny pointed out. \"In other words, you're the only person who goes to bed each night with the mysterious Dalvenjah Foxfire.\"\n\n\"I would have it no other way.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"I will not betray Dalvenjah's trust,\" Allan said with a distinct note of finality. Dragons also had an almost instinctive devotion to perfect honor, like Boy Scouts.\n\n\"Oh, be that way!\" Jenny declared. She slipped her hands back in her pockets and stood for a moment, kicking at the sand. Allan saw it coming, and prepared himself. The forecast was for more hard admissions. She shrugged. \"You know, I never said goodbye. Maybe I knew that I would never have the courage to say some things I should. Will you tell him that I love him very much?\"\n\n\"He knows that, I am sure. But it still bears repeating.\" \"Nuts! Let's go for broke, and just scare the piss out of him,\" Jenny declared. \"Tell him that we're mates, no less than you and Dalvenjah. I've got things I have to do first, but if he can wait then I will come back to him. Tell him that when he does see me again, I'll be a dragon.\"\n\n\"That seems a lot to promise, for such a long way off,\" Allan observed.\n\nJenny shrugged. \"You said it yourself. Did I ever have any choice?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Higher Learning",
+                "text": "When Jenny Barker arrived in Bennasport, the cool, hilly coastal port where she was to study magic with the sorceress Kasdamir Gerran, she arrived in style. She had arrived in the mortal world of Morin the evening before, spending the night at the Academy of Magic in the capital city of Tashira. The airship that brought her down from the Academy was a freighter of considerable size, twice as long as the largest aircraft of her own world. That fact fascinated her all the more when she considered that it was made of wood. The ship settled gingerly for a landing on the stone-paved airship slips near the warehouses, floating down into a pocket of open space between the dark wooden buildings that was hardly any larger than herself.\n\nJenny had watched the landing from the rail, then hurried to collect her bags and guitar case. She did not have a cabin; the flight had only lasted eleven hours, leaving from Tashira that very morning at sunrise. Returning to the deck, she waited while the boarding ramps were set into place. She realized that she looked rather out of place in this late-Renaissance world of magic, dressed as she was in jeans and sneakers and a machine-knit sweater, with two pieces of vinyl Samsonite at hand.\n\nEven more out of place was her companion. Vajerral had grown into a very lithe and powerful dragon, and an exceptionally pretty one. She was only slightly larger than her rather petite mother, very slender and long-limbed of build. She had insisted upon accompanying Jenny into this world and remaining in the role of bodyguard\u2014at least as often as she could\u2014and Dalvenjah had been surprisingly agreeable to that idea.\n\nJenny was not about to complain. It was nice to have a familiar face in a strange world. Even a face like that.\n\n\"Our new home,\" Vajerral said, coming up behind her.\n\nJenny glanced at her. \"This is no place for a dragon.\"\n\n\"I have lived in worse places,\" Vajerral answered succinctly, meaning to imply certain things about the place Jenny came from. \"Besides, I can come and go as I like. You are stuck.\"\n\n\"So, here you are, safe and sound.\"\n\nShe turned to face the captain of the airship, who was also the sorcerer whose magic had provided its lift. He was still young, tall and powerfully built, like the handsome, derring-do captain of a sailing ship from some old movie. He certainly did not look like anyone's idea of a sorcerer, at least not anyone from her world.\n\n\"We'll have your crates stored in the customs warehouse, for you to collect later,\" he told her. \"They'll take good care of your things, especially when I mention the name of your new mistress.\"\n\n\"I would appreciate that,\" Jenny responded, still struggling with the language of this world. Her accent left her even more exotic and out of place.\n\nCarrying her bags gallantly, the captain escorted her down the boarding ramp and even managed to find her a ride. It was a freight wagon instead of a carriage, he explained with regret, although Jenny thought that anything was better than walking. Vajerral, of course, had no bags, only her own small crates of books and other goodies. She was also of the opinion that Hying was better than riding perched on the crates in the back of a wagon for the entire city to stare at her, but that was exactly what she got.\n\nEverything had gone well enough so far. Jenny had made connecting flights in three different worlds, and she still had all of her luggage. That was a considerable amount, since she expected to be staying in this world for the next couple of years at least. Morin, or at least the northern country Elura, was a place quaintly medieval in appearance, perhaps middle nineteenth-century in technology, and Scandinavian in landscape. The dress and custom reminded her quite a lot of Norway, but with a large amount of middle-eastern thrown in. Bennasport itself reminded her a great deal of Bergen, or perhaps Seattle of a century before.\n\nDalvenjah Foxfire had insisted upon this, but Jenny could not for her life imagine why. She had taken her apprentice training from the faerie dragons, and she had enjoyed that. Her last four years had been given to her college education, but then Dalvenjah had insisted that she complete her training in magic with Kasdamir Gerran. Since Jenny was trained in dragon magic, that in itself seemed to make little sense. It was like finishing her pilot training with a truck driver.\n\nJenny had little idea of where her future might lead her. The position of journeyman sorcerer was in some ways more difficult than that of an apprentice. She was no longer just a student; she was expected to do her share of competent work, and not just read and experiment and learn. But her mistress would declare her a full sorceress only when there was nothing more for her to learn. And Lady Kasdamir, according all that Jenny had heard, had a hell of a lot to teach. Jenny could be a journeyman here for years to come. But what choice did she have?\n\nThat ultimately led Jenny back to the real reason for that drastic change in both her training and her life. Dalvenjah always had her own reasons for everything, and Jenny was reminded that she was ultimately getting ready for that main goal in her life, that of facing the Prophecy and defeating the High Priest and the Emperor Myrkan. Since Dalvenjah had arranged this, it must in some way be to Jenny's eventual benefit.\n\nThe fact that she was here was, in part, her own fault. Her four years in college were to have been her last mortal fling before accepting the greater protection offered by the form of a faerie dragon. And to fulfill the promises she had made to a certain dragon to whom she was tied by bonds of love and magic. But she had hesitated yet again and Dalvenjah had been surprisingly agreeable to yet another delay, sending the girl into this world for special magical studies with the sorceress Kasdamir Gerran. Perhaps the dragon knew that the next time the question came up, the Prophecy itself would force Jenny to accept.\n\nThe wagon stopped before a wide wrought-iron gate set in a high brick wall that was half-hidden beneath draped blankets of ivy. Jenny hurried to collect her bags and guitar from the back of the wagon. She had hardly expected to find herself deposited at the entrance to an estate.\n\nJenny stepped through the open gate and stopped short to stare. She knew that the sorceress Kasdamir Gerran was among the most successful in the trade; Jenny's own abilities warranted only the very best teacher to complete her training. But she had never expected this. Many sorcerers had to sell love potions and fortunes to pay the rent, but the Lady Kasdamir dwelled in a mansion which must rival those of local master merchants. The residence itself consisted of a bulky central structure of three stories dominated by a massive tower of at least five, with wings that angled forward from either side, two stories high with turrets at each comer, framing the loop of the paved drive. Behind that were the stables and a dark, bamlike bulk that she thought must house an airship. Sturdy oaks, newly clothed in the fresh green of spring, drew a still, secure cloak over the yard.\n\nSo great was her surprise that she stepped back to the street quickly to check the address a second time. Not only was the number on the polished bronze plate correct, it bore the name of the proper owner as well. All of her previous reservations about this extended visit to a backward world vanished like smoke. This promised to be far more interesting than she had ever anticipated.\n\nJenny almost hesitated when she saw that some manner of party must be taking place behind those well-lit windows; several carriages were pulled up to one side, and a handful of coachmen seated about a game of cards looked up at her in a very appraising manner. She all but ran up the few steps and knocked, then brushed the long, dark hair out of her face as she waited, hair a blue so dark that it looked black in the dim light.\n\n\"Trick or treat!\" Vajerral said over her shoulder.\n\nJenny waved her aside impatiently. \"Go suck your tail.\"\n\nThe door opened after a long moment, the warm, deeply golden light of true oil lamps flooding out into the evening. Jenny's anticipation gave way to curiosity and amazement when she saw that the door was held by a very small and frail-looking old woman dressed in the odd combination of the black jacket and long skirt of an abbess of the Wandserian Nuns and high leather riding boots. Her large, dark eyes were bright and her long, silver hair was braided and bound on the back of her head. The Wandserians were civil if not friendly with the magebom, whom they professed to be demon-spawned, so one would hardly expect to find an abbess of their order answering the door at a sorceress's party. She stared at the caller rather appraisingly for a very long moment before she seemed to come to some decision on the matter.\n\n\"Yes, may I help you?\" the tiny abbess asked in a voice that radiated professional briskness, as if she was the proprietress welcoming a paying customer into her shop. She certainly did not seem surprised to see this odd pair at her door.\n\n\"We've come to see the Sorceress Kasdamir,\" Jenny answered, her usual confidence returning quickly to her own voice. \"I'm Jenny Barker, her new journeyman, and this is Vajerral Foxfire.\" \"How do you do, \" Vajerral added quickly. She saw the wisdom in keeping her own mouth shut.\n\n\"Oh, yes! We've been expecting you.\" The abbess beckoned them in as if welcoming the pair into her own home. \"Well, I'm Dame Tugg, and I've been Lady Mira's housekeeper since she came to make her residence here six years ago. You do know that we have five buildings on five acres of land, including an observatory, the largest private library on the west coast and an enclosed shed for a one-hundred-and-ten-foot airship.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't know that,\" Jenny answered, slipping the pack and guitar off her back as the housekeeper closed the door. She immediately perceived that to have been the wrong answer.\n\n\"Well, there's more going on here than there might seem from the street,\" Dame Tugg declared with slight condescendence for the stupidity of the world at large. \"Lady Mira is a research sorceress, as you surely know. Sorcerers and scientists and scholars of every description come from all over the world to consult with her. When she's not traveling herself, of course.\"\n\n\"Lady Mira?\" Jenny asked. This last part she had indeed already known.\n\n\"As the Sorceress Kasdamir prefers to be called.\"\n\n\"Does she have other students?\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" Dame Tugg said in a sharp manner which made the young sorceress feel rather stupid for not knowing something that should have been common knowledge, although Jenny could not imagine how.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she mumbled, daunted by that odd personality despite herself. \"Of course, I come from another world.\" \"Well, you'll learn how things are soon enough,\" the small abbess said, graciously accepting the apology. \"If you will come this way.\"\n\nShe led them into a type of sitting room to one side of the entranceway. In the few scant seconds of silence that followed, they were able to take their first good look about. The place was furnished as richly as the home of some wealthy merchant but in a manner that was more exotic at the same time that it was also more comfortable, with heavy, wooden furniture, rich, dark cloth and leather, and statues and paintings of magical subjects. The whole place was delightfully ostentatious, as if the entire house was designed around a mischievous sense of humor, bordering on gaudy.\n\n\"You may leave your things here while I inform Lady Mira and prepare your rooms,\" Dame Tugg said, although she seemed to be in no hurry to do so. \"You know, this house was built by my older brother about twenty years ago, when his shipping fleet was in its heyday. We came from a very old family, among the first settlers here nearly twenty-two hundred years ago. But my brother was in poor health and wanted to retire to the country, and so he sold the place to Lady Mira. Of course, I had already retired here after thirty years as the abbess of the Abbey of Wayn-got.\"\n\nAnd you refused to budge? Jenny thought to herself. Or did your brother sell you with the place? But, by exercising wizardly patience and firmly biting her tongue, she managed to say nothing.\n\n\"Ah, yes! So you must be my young student and her dragon friend.\"\n\nJenny turned quickly, and knew this woman as the Sorceress Kasdamir by the invisible cloud of latent magic that encircled her like a long cloak. She was not as old as Jenny would have thought for so accomplished a sorceress, surely not much past forty. And she was an elegant woman, in her own remarkable way. She hardly looked elegant, as richly as she was dressed. She was tall, two inches beyond even Jenny's rangy height, with a face that was the model of mature beauty, laughing eyes and an impish smile, and long, red hair tied up behind her head. She sauntered into the room like a sailor in port. And yet she radiated a regal elegance, obviously without trying or even caring, but an elegance that was open and friendly rather than cold and remote.\n\n\"Do see to their rooms, Dame Tugg,\" she said.\n\nDame Tugg nodded once and left without a word. Lady Mira watched her until she was gone before turning back to her protege. \"Dame Tugg is a dear, but I would gladly toss her out on her scrawny ass if I didn't have a weakness for old people. Well, I'm pleased that you made it, if a bit the worse for wear. You look done in.\"\n\n\"Time changes from one world to the next,\" Jenny explained. If she was tired, it was mostly her own fault. She delighted in airships\u2014just as she delighted in almost everything in life\u2014and had spent most of her journey with her head hanging over the rail like a hound in the back of an old truck.\n\n\"Well, that's all safely behind you,\" Lady Mira declared. \"What you look like you could use is a nice, hot bath.... No, you really look like you need something to eat more. Why don't you freshen up just a bit before you join us for a little dinner?\"\n\nVajerral, with the iron fortitude of a dragon, declined the offer and was sent on to join the party. Lady Mira led her new student upstairs, and even carried one of the heavy suitcases herself. They could hear Dame Tugg blathering blissfully to herself not far away, but the talkative housekeeper did not\u2014mercifully\u2014put in an appearance at that time. The room that Jenny was shown as her own was a luxury beyond anything she had ever known in her life, including Dalvenjah's subdued opulence. It was a complete apartment, with a bedroom, study, even a separate bath, richly appointed but in a more sedate manner than Mira's typical flair for the exotic.\n\n\"You just come downstairs when you're ready,\" Mira declared as she sailed out the door to rejoin her guests. \"We'll be waiting for you.\"\n\nJenny was not at all certain that she wanted to be introduced to her mistress's guests, no doubt the cream of Bennasport's high society, at least not this night. But it seemed that she had no choice if she wished to have any dinner, and she thought that she should hurry. She hesitated to think how Vajerral might be enjoying herself at the party.\n\nShe washed the dust off her face and changed quickly into the best clothes she had with her, dark slacks with a loose silvery-white blouse and fashionable boots. She had been warned beforehand to bring only pants; there was a cultural prejudice in the Northlands against skirts and dresses, which were considered to belong to the evil and decadence of the ancient Kingdoms of the Sea and the Alasheran Empire to the south. She glanced at herself briefly in the full-length mirror, her old dislike at seeing her own reflection keeping that inspection brief.\n\n\"Well, what do you think?\" she asked the black-and-white tomcat that had followed her in and had remained behind to watch her dress. Or perhaps he had simply been overcome by a sudden fit of exhaustion, for he had thrown himself down atop a wooden chest. The cat only looked up at her with an expression of droll exasperation for disturbing his rest, and went promptly back to sleep.\n\nJenny suddenly felt faint from the trials of her journey and had to sit down quickly on the edge of the bed. She sighed heavily. \"Oh, my!\"\n\n\"Put your head between your legs.\"\n\nShe looked up to see the cat staring at her, and it suddenly occurred to her that this was no common cat but its mistress's familiar, a spirit of magic in animal form. \"What did you say?\" \"I said, put your head between your legs.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well.\" She did as she was directed with remarkably little difficulty, being a very strong and agile girl. \"Now what?\" \"Now lick your asshole.\"\n\nJenny sat up quickly. \"What!\"\n\n\"Well, it's what I would do, if I were in your position,\" the cat remarked drily.\n\nJenny had never had much contact with familiars. For the moment she was unsure whether or not she was being teased. Leaving the cat to his business, she hurried downstairs. Lady Mira intercepted her at the bottom of the stairs, staring at her appraisingly. Jenny realized that, compared to the heavy materials and baroque enthusiasm of this world, her own attire had a simple and rather futuristic look, as if she had just stepped out of a flying saucer. Her dark blue hair hardly helped matters.\n\n\"My, you are a pretty thing. And Beratric Kurgel said that off-worlders are all homely,\" Mira declared. Then she paused to stare intently. \"What's upset you?\"\n\nJenny laughed. \"Oh, I'm not upset. Just surprised. Your cat says some very peculiar things.\"\n\nMira waved that aside. \"He'sjust a familiar. Pay him no mind.\" Jenny frowned as she followed her new mistress, wondering why Mira was speaking to her so gently. Did these clothes make her look delicate, or had Mira only received some wrong information about her new student? After spending so many years with dragons, Jenny was hardly delicate.\n\nJenny stopped short at the door leading into the spacious dining room. She had never seen such an odd assortment of characters in her life, and considering the company that she had kept most of her life, that was saying quite a lot. Of course, most of the three to four dozen people gathered about the tables in small groups were perfectly ordinary merchants. The rest might have been escapees from some storybook, if not an asylum. But there was a very casual, unprepossessing atmosphere to the gathering. Vajerral was enjoying herself immensely, daintily holding a glass of wine and a sandwich as she appalled a group of ladies with some draconic tale.\n\n\"Listen, everyone!\" Lady Mira held up both hands as she addressed the gathering in a loud voice, commanding imperfect attention. \"I wish to introduce my new joumeywoman, Jenny. She's only just arrived.\"\n\nJenny thought that her embarrassment could not have been more complete, until the entire group actually set down their cups and plates to applaud her entrance. The curious thing was that the cheers actually seemed to be sincere, if not overwhelming. It seemed that being Lady Kasdamir's own student counted for quite a lot. But Mira gave her no time for honest embarrassment, taking her by the arm to lead her right into the center of the group.\n\n\"Here you are, dear child,\" she said as she pushed a plate into Jenny's hands and began piling things on it from the platters and bowls that filled the table. \"You need to eat something right away. I'm sorry that the party tonight was strictly buffet, but you should make out just fine.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm...\" Jenny paused and took a step backwards at the sight of the two Trassek mercenaries, dressed in full armor and carrying bared swords, who had quietly appeared behind each of Mira's shoulders. One was very tall and very thin, with dark hair and eyes, while the other was short and blond but just as thin. Both looked like mere boys, eighteen or nineteen at the most, beardless and almost comically stupid of expression.\n\n\"Oh, pay them no mind,\" Lady Mira said after a quick glance over her shoulder at the pair. \"These are just my Trassek bodyguards, Dooket and Erkin. They understand that they are to serve you as they serve me... hopefully better. Say hello to the nice lady, boys.\"\n\n\"Hello, nice lady,\" they said as one.\n\n\"Ignore them,\" Mira added as she piled the plate to overflowing. \"That should do it for now. Will you have something to drink?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing stronger than ale, thanks,\" Jenny said as she did her best to balance the plate. \"I don't drink.\"\n\n\"Ale it is,\" Mira said as she took the full mug from Dooket's hand and gave it to her. \"So, how are things going?\"\n\n\"No luck yet, Lady Mira,\" Erkin answered. Dooket was still staring at his empty hand.\n\n\"No luck? Oh, you poor boys,\" She evidently understood what they meant, even if Jenny did not. \"Well, just remember that these are very important people. You simply must keep a hold on yourselves, no matter how hard it is.\"\n\nDooket looked down at his pants. \"I'll keep a hold on it, but how did you know...?\"\n\n\"Bite your tongue!\" Mira declared, although half amused. Jenny finally understood what they were talking about. \"Go wander about and keep your ears open. I can't imagine this crowd getting out of hand, but some of these dear old gentlemen are drinking quite a lot.\"\n\nThe two mercenaries bowed their heads over the curved swords they held at shoulder level and moved off into the crowd. By this time Jenny had decided that the two of them were not so stupid as they first appeared; they were just energetic but inexperienced kids who possessed the rather wry sense of humor that was required of those who served Lady Mira. She caught a glimpse of Dame Tugg, also wandering through the crowd under the ruse of serving drinks from the wide tray she carried. She appeared to be descending upon hapless victims and boring them half to death with banalities.\n\n\"Well, well. The Sorceress Kasdamir Gerran has finally gotten herself a student.\" A woman of about the same age as Mira descended upon them from out of the crowd. She was small and dark, and by nature seemed rather fussy and self-centered. \"It took you long enough to give in to the Academy's demands.\" \"It took this long to find a student worthy of what I intend to teach,\" Mira answered haughtily, although Jenny was beginning to comprehend that this cattiness was only play between two old friends. She turned to her student. \"Jenny, this is Addena Sheld, the finest concert singer on the west coast\u2014although I would never have her hear me say that.\"\n\n\"I never did,\" Addena said. \"How are you, dear girl? Mine is another middle-aged face for you to get used to, since I do an even half of my freeloading here.\"\n\n\"I can afford you both, if that's what you want to know,\" Mira said, blandly condescending. \"What I've never understood is how you could have hung about this place so long without learning any real magic for yourself.\"\n\n\"Have I not?\" Addena demanded in hurt tones.\n\n\"Oh, that's right! You haven't had to ask me for a contraceptive spell in a couple of years now.\"\n\n\"Hm... yes.\" Addena seemed to be at a loss for words. \"Well, why don't I talk to the two of you later?\"\n\n\"When you can think of a few tart comments of your own?\" Mira inquired innocently, but the singer made no response as she disappeared into the crowd. Mira stood for a long moment looking quietly amused. Then she spied someone else she evidently knew well, and descended upon a quiet-looking older man with a long, white beard. \"Ah, Dardles! Up to your old tricks?\"\n\n\"Doing well. Sorceress. Doing well,\" he answered in a thin, raspy voice.\n\n\"So, you're the new journey woman.\"\n\nJenny turned quickly to find a young man standing close\u2014too close behind her. She thought him a young merchant by his dress and manner, or perhaps even the son of a wealthy aristocrat; she was very sure that he was no older than herself. He was handsome enough, but he also radiated a smug conceit that she found repulsive. Her first thought was that she was heading into real trouble. Perhaps she was just skeptical, but she simply could not trust the sincerity of someone who was contemptuous of the one they were also trying to score on.\n\n\"I'm Jenny,\" she offered, momentarily at a loss for what to say.\n\n\"I'm Lon,\" he answered. \"You know, that old sorceress isn't the only one with something to teach you around here.\"\n\n\"Well, you certainly have a lot to leant,\" Jenny said coldly. Her first thought, she realized, was quite correct. Besides, she was telepath enough to know exactly what was on his mind. She took what she hoped was a very subtle step backwards.\n\nLon followed her, and more than made up for lost ground. \"I'm sure that I know some things they don't teach at any school for sorcery. If you would care to come to my classroom, I'll...\" \"You'll get your hands off me right now,\" Jenny told him. He had taken tight hold of both of her upper arms, as if he meant to crush her resistance with a casual display of strength.\n\n\"Hey, don't give me that, little rabbit.\" He laughed, arrogantly amused. \"You say one thing, but I know what you really want.\" Jenny rolled her eyes. \"I really can't believe you said that.\" End of discussion. Jenny had reached the end of her patience. Lon had just reached the end of the line. Whatever happened next happened too quick for anyone to see, except that Lon was suddenly face down on the floor and Jenny was standing over him with his arm pinned behind his back.\n\nVajerral's furry face appeared instantly. \"Good show! Now you skin him, and we'll have a fine supper.\"\n\nJenny said a few choice words\u2014in English, for the sake of privacy. Even Vajerral did not know most of those words.\n\nDooket and Erkin were there immediately. They scooped up the debris in one simple motion and headed for the door, and Jenny never did see Lon again. The guests stared for a moment longer, then returned casually to their previous conversations.\n\n\"Very effective,\" Mira remarked, appearing suddenly behind her. \"But you are going to have to be easier on the guests. That's what I pay those two barbarians good money to do.\"\n\nJenny laughed. \"You certainly know how to throw a party.\" \"Not exactly the first impression that I wanted to make,\" Mira muttered in disgust. \"This is actually fairly tame for one of my parties, but it's still probably a bit much after the journey that you've just been through. Why don't you two collect your plates and cups, and we'll just step outside for a little air?\"\n\nMira led them quickly through the maze of the large house and out the framed-glass doors of the dining room into the well-kept yard. Already night had fallen; the sky was dark and full of bright stars. Mira stopped short on the stone steps leading down into the lower yard and the airship shed and sat down, leaning well back against one of the posts that framed the top of the steps. Jenny sat down well to the other side, setting her plate and mug on the top step beside her, while Vajerral lay down on her belly in the cool grass, her long neck lifted like a snake.\n\n\"I suspect that this was all rather more than you expected,\" Mira began. \"Why, this place is like a madhouse. An obnoxious cat, bodyguards to protect your guests from each other, that blathering old abbess in riding boots... and me.\"\n\n\"No, not you,\" Jenny was quick to assure her new teacher.\n\n\"Do you jest? I know that I take more getting used to than all (he rest. But when most people get to know me, they still think that I'm damned eccentric.\" She shrugged, totally unconcerned with what anyone might think of her. \"Still, you might just find, if you ever do get to know me well enough, that I am in fact a very practical person. I do not believe in anchoring myself to burdensome conceits. I'll make no claims to being a moral person, but I am by no means immoral; I am, quite simply, amoral. I help those people I can, I leave those who do not want my help alone, and I enjoy myself. And that, dear child, is the closest you will ever hear me come to trying to justify myself to anyone.\"\n\n\"I can understand that,\" Jenny conceded. \"Listen, I'm neither shy nor delicate. I helped to fight my first steel dragon when I was only nine years old. I was raised for nine years by faerie dragons. I've been trained in the dragon magic, and I'm a very accomplished Veridan Warrior besides. I have a degree in Engineering, and I'm a member of the Star Trek Fan Club. I've seen it all.\"\n\nMira nodded soberly. \"I suppose you can. Do me one favor. Please just wait until tomorrow before you make up your mind. I've never had a student of my own before, but I will do my best for you. And I'll only teach you magic and other forms of higher education, and never require you to understand or adopt my philosophies of life. Also, you'll find that Dame Tugg has quite enough to keep her busy and out of our affairs. The Trassek twins are really two very good, honest boys who will do anything for you. And even J.T. has his dubious virtues.\"\n\n\"J.T.?\"\n\n\"The cat,\" she explained, certain reservations of her own quite evident. \"His initials stand for Just Trouble, and for reasons that will become quite obvious to you soon enough. What did he say to you anyway?\"\n\n\"Ah. .. you don't want to know,\" Jenny said as she turned with renewed interest to her plate.\n\n\"Try me,\" Mira said as she leaned back against the post to stare up at the stars, smiling with mischievous delight.\n\nJenny hurried downstairs the next morning, wondering if she had slept late. Hardly knowing what else to do, Jenny presented herself at the kitchen for breakfast. Dame Tugg, with an uncharacteristic economy of words, gave her a tray that included a plate for herself, a porcelain pot of hot water for tea and two cups, and instructions for their destination. Lady Mira was in her study, seated at a small round table in a glass-enclosed alcove to one side of the large room. An open book lay on the table before her, but she seemed far more interested in the garden outside, bright flowers of red and deep blue that almost sparkled in the bright morning light.\n\nJenny found that she was apprehensive of this first meeting with her new mistress this morning as she had been for the very first time the night before. Lady Mira put aside the book and indicated for her student to take the only other seat at the table, then poured tea for them both. She measured honey carefully and stirred both cups to almost meticulous perfection, then took a cautious taste of her own and sat back with a loud sigh of contentment. Then she sat up straight, staring at her young student with a curious intensity that Jenny found disconcerting.\n\n\"So, where should we begin?\"\n\nJenny started nervously. \"I can't imagine. Surely Dalvenjah gave you most of the information on my background and training. \" \"Only what she found valuable, although I saw enough to convince me to take you on as my joumeywoman,\" Mira agreed. \"You came recommended very highly by some people whose judgements I trust a great deal. And please do not sit there and look so surprised. There are certain people in this and certain other worlds whose thoughts and judgements I hold in as high a regard as my own, and a few I consider even better.\"\n\n\"What would you like to know?\"\n\nLady Mira seemed quietly appalled, although her student could hardly imagine why. \"Oh, all right. Since you seem to be in such a confessional-\u2014confessory?\u2014mood, why don't you tell me why such a nice girl like yourself hangs about with dragons?\"\n\nJenny looked genuinely surprised. \"Why shouldn't I? Is there something wrong with dragons?\"\n\n\"Dragons are wonderful folk! Faerie dragons are just about the highest and most noble of all the immortal races.\" Mira paused, and leaned forward to regard her shrewdly. \"So why, then, does such a remarkable and august dragon as Dalvenjah Foxfire find you so interesting?\"\n\n\"Oh, Dalvenjah Foxfire is my aunt.\"\n\nLady Mira nearly fell out of her chair.\n\n\"Well, there really is a reasonable explanation, \" Jenny insisted, realizing that what she had said was not entirely reasonable. \"You see, Dalvenjah married my uncle Allan Breivik\u2014my mother's younger brother. Only dragons don't really get married, so I guess they're just shacking up.\"\n\n\"Are you telling me that Dalvenjah Foxfire is married\u2014or perhaps not quite married to a mortal?\"\n\n\"Oh, he wasn't a dragon at the time.\"\n\nThat had not come out quite right. Mira was leaning forward in her chair, her head braced heavily on one arm with the other on her hip, one brow raised in a skeptical fashion as if she had just been offered the movie rights to Roget's Thesaurus.\n\n\"You see, my uncle Allan was a cellist.\"\n\nMira rolled her eyes. \"Oh, that explains it! The lady dragons all just swoon over cellists.\"\n\nJenny cast a puzzled glance at the floor, as if wondering if she would find her brain there. \"Perhaps I should start at the beginning. You see, Dalvenjah was stuck in my world several years ago while she recovered from a broken wing. She went looking for the best wizard she could find, which was my brother. But there were no wizards in my world at that time, so he was working as a cellist. Then they went off into the woods to live in the cabin that was owned by my father, only he wasn't my father at that time. And I guess they must have fallen in love, since she turned him into a dragon and took him home. Let me show you.\"\n\nShe pulled a large wallet from her pocket, one containing money from three different worlds, and flipped open the small group of photographs. \"You see? There are my own parents. And that's Allan and Dalvenjah.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see,\" Mira remarked absently; she seemed far more interested in the process. \"Is this dragon magic?\"\n\n\"No, Polaroid.\" The next picture, that of a handsome male dragon, seemed to embarrass her considerably. \"That's an old friend of mine,\"\n\nMira indicated the next. \"Who is that rather pretty woman?\" Jenny stared. \"Oh, that's Stella Stevens. And that last one is Allan and Dalvenjah with Vajerral when she was still young.\" \"Are you sure they didn't have to get married?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. You see, their daughter Vajerral was already four years old when they first met.\"\n\n\"Well, that's certainly a neat trick!\" Mira looked as if she had just been hit in the head. \"And you were wondering last night that my house was too strange for you?\"\n\nJenny frowned. \"No, you were.\"\n\n\"Oh, yeh.\" Mira shrugged. \"So that's the whole story?\"\n\n\"No, there is the Prophecy.\"\n\n\"Prophecy!\" Mira sat up straight. \"That frigging dragon didn't say a damned thing about a prophecy. Beratric Kurgel told me to never get mixed up in prophecies, and for once I quite agree. Just how did you manage to get tied up with a prophecy, and what is it about?\"\n\n\"Well, it all started just after Dalvenjah and Uncle Allan left, when I was nine years old,\" Jenny explained thoughtfully. \"I was kidnapped by the High Priest Haldephren, who had stolen the body of Dalvenjah's brother. He said that he was my father, and even Dalvenjah isn't sure about that. It seems that, according to prophecy, I'm supposed to either destroy the Emperor and the High Priest forever, or else I'll somehow cause the restoration of the Alasheran Empire.\"\n\n\"Yes, I've heard of the Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons. I didn't know that it referred to you.\" Mira looked impressed, and perhaps just a little frightened. The Alasheran Empire was a product of her own world, gone for the past two thousand years and yet still a nightmare of history. Worse yet, the Empire of the South had been reestablished in the past years, growing and prospering rapidly. There was as yet no direct evidence that this was the same Alashera as before, or that the Emperor or the High Priest had returned.\n\n\"I should tell you that I had already spoken with Dalvenjah before I ever agreed to accept you for training,\" Mira continued, tapping her empty teacup absently. \"She talked about you as if you were a dragon, which is perhaps the best she can understand. I do think, now that I know about your involvement in the Prophecy, that Dalvenjah is very concerned about this whole affair. She made no real secret of the fact that she is very worried about you. At the time, I couldn't imagine why.\"\n\n\"Do you believe the Prophecy?\" Jenny asked, somewhat anxiously.\n\nThe sorceress looked rather thoughtful. \"I would prefer not to believe it, maybe because I want to reject any thought of predestination as inexcusable interference in one's personal life. But as a sorceress, I know that you can at times see hints of what is to come. You've been raised all your life to believe that you are the pivotal feature in this all-important prophecy. The question is, do you believe?\"\n\nShe sat for a moment, stirring absently at her tea, while Mira waited with perfect patience and understanding. At last she sighed heavily. \"I know that the Prophecy is true. Right now it has me exactly where I am supposed to be, ready for the beginning of the end. Mostly I want it to be over, so that I can finally have a life of my own. But I know that I'm not ready.\"\n\n\"That's the trick, I guess,\" Mira remarked thoughtfully. \"Obviously the deciding factor is whether or not you turn to the Dark. And that depends upon whether or not you find the purpose you seek in life through the Light, or if you surrender to the temptations of the Dark.\"\n\nJenny started at what seemed to her an accusation. \"But that's just not possible. The Dark doesn't tempt me at all; I'm sure of that. I've always believed that if I do betray our side to the Dark, it will never be intentional. I might do the wrong thing by accident, but never deliberately.\"\n\n\"Hm, I see.\" Mira thought about that for a moment. \"It seems to me that the only way to beat this prophecy of yours is to face it head-on, go after it before it comes to find you. That's the way to use a prophecy to your own advantage, you know. First you discover all you can about it, and that tells you how you can make things turn out the way you want.\"\n\nJenny frowned. \"I'm not so sure. Dalvenjah has always considered the Prophecy to be a very complex and delicate thing.\"\n\n\"It was also Dalvenjah's idea to send you here, to the very home world of the Alasheran Empire, so she obviously means for you to get busy on solving the Prophecy,\" Mira said, obviously very pleased with herself for the way she had figured things out.\n\n\"Is that what you believe?\"\n\n\"No, that's just a guess,\" Mira admitted. \"But I'm not so sure that you are in no danger of falling to the Dark. The Dark Sorcerers reject love for hate, goodness for evil, and they make sex a thing of violence rather than gentle sharing. You're not a virgin, are you?\"\n\n\"Well, no.\" Jenny somehow managed one of the really spectacular blushes of her life. It came easily, since she had the uncomfortable feeling that her mother could hear her. If Marie Barker ever found out certain specifics about Jenny's sex life, someone was going to find that twenty-two was not too old to be spanked. \"Actually, I've sort of promised myself to someone already.\" Mira nodded. \"We would have had to fix that in a hurry, if you had been. You're going into that time of your life when all the magebom come to the realization that there never will be a special prince who will change everything in your life. When you realize that no one will ever come between you and your magic\u2014 that you cannot tolerate the thought of anyone coming between you and your magic\u2014but long before you realize that the conflict comes from your lack of understanding of your own desires.\" Mira paused to take another quick taste of her tea, and frowned. \"What it all comes down to is this. Life in general is rough, our romantic and sexual relationships are even harder to keep in any type of order, and the problems are compounded ten times over for the magebom. Hopefully that makes at least partial sense to you now. Rest assured that, as with all other of the deeper questions of life, the answer will make itself perfectly clear to you at its proper time. And then you will see that the answers to those big questions are actually very simple, since you really knew them all along.\"\n\n\"But that's just the problem,\" Jenny insisted. \"I can't really have a life of my own for as long as I have this prophecy hanging over my head. I don't know when it's going to come, next week or twenty years from now. But when it does come, everything in my life will change. I don't even know if I'll survive. Under the circumstances, I don't dare devote myself to anything, career or personal. I don't want to see things that I've worked for disappear. I don't want to hurt myself or anyone else if things should change, and I don't want to distract myself with the burden of excessive devotions or regret interfering with what I must do.\"\n\nMira looked surprised, almost stunned. \"Well, there is that. But how can you possibly turn your back on life? Don't you realize that you could be creating just as many weaknesses in your defenses by denying the things that everyone needs from life?\" \"I'll try to keep it in mind. I never thought that there was anything lacking in my life. I've always enjoyed myself immensely,\" Jenny said. That was largely the truth; she had learned long ago to simply concentrate on the simple, short-term pleasures. She did recognize something about her mistress's character. Mira was such a devoted hedonist that the thought of denying herself anything was horrifying to her.\n\nShe glanced up at the sorceress. \"Ah, do you mean to send me away?\"\n\nMira stared at her. \"Why would I want to do that?\"\n\nShe shrugged uncertainly. \"I realize that you never counted on this business with the Prophecy. It's rather a lot to take on.\"\n\n\"Oh, piffle!\" Mira declared impatiently. \"If I don't take care of you, who will? Besides, let's stop scaring ourselves by looking so far ahead. All I wanted from you this morning, after all, was only a demonstration of your magic.\"\n\n\"Oh... Well, what?\" Jenny was momentarily at a loss.\n\n\"Something that can show me your mastery of focused concentration,\" Mira said. \"That, I suspect, is where you still have room for considerable improvement, as good as you no doubt already are.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose,\" the young sorceress answered, brushing distractedly at her hair. \"I still say that I'm very pleased with my life as it is.\"\n\n\"We shall see,\" Lady Mira remarked as she poured herself another cup of tea, casting a small spell to heat the tepid water. \"You're going to find that the more you learn, the more your magic matures, and the more enjoyment you find in life, the more you are going to want. It's an insidious addiction, but a virtuous one.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "High Places",
+                "text": "The fine lines took shape on the intricately carved pewter dragon, every one of its scales executed in meticulous detail. Only two hours before it had begun as a round lump of raw metal on Jenny's worktable, until she had employed magic and raw concentration to bend and shape the metal cold. It had flowed in only minutes into the general shape of her subject, a flying dragon, wings spread, as he braced himself atop a jagged pinnacle of rock, the whole thing over two feet high. The slow, difficult portion of her work had been in the finished detail, from the fine lines of each scale to the angry glint of real jade in each eye. Finally she had hardened the pewter with an infusion of other alloys and plated it with gold, all the time working the metals at room temperature.\n\nJenny was no more reconciled with the subject of the Prophecy than ever, and Mira's opinions actually did not help. In Mira's eyes, everything was so simple. She believed the meaning of the Prophecy to be obvious. Jenny would eventually decide to fight either for the good guys or the bad guys, and that side would win. The answer, therefore, was for Jenny to take an aggressive stance with the Prophecy, go on the attack against her enemies before she had a chance to be tempted to evil. Jenny's dragon training argued that nothing could be that simple. She felt certain that she could never be tempted to evil, and she was afraid that the real danger she would eventually have to face would be less obvious.\n\nBut for the moment, Jenny was having the time of her life. The faerie dragons were wonderful people, but they were as a rule reserved and cerebral, quiet and noble. In a word, boring. And she had really had quite enough of her own world. There was real adventure here. Forests that stretched across whole continents, and ancient castles, airships and sailing ships. Lady Mira seemed to know half of the Northlands, and she had her nose quite literally in everything that was happening.\n\n\"Well, what do you think?\" she asked absently.\n\nVajerral blinked and began unlimbering herself. She had been serving as the model, and with a exercise of dragonly patience she had somehow avoided any movement for the past two hours. It was so contrary to her nature that Jenny had worried about her mental health. She stretched her arms and legs and long neck, and yawned hugely. Then she turned to look at the sculpture, and stared.\n\n\"That is not me,\" she complained, and blinked. \"That's...\" \"That's none of your business,\" Jenny said sharply.\n\nVajerral yawned again, sitting back on her tail. \"Just what is the purpose of all this procrastination? Why do you not just go home? Then you could be with him.\"\n\n\"We agreed a long time ago that we would never discuss this,\" Jenny said sternly as she began putting away her tools. \"Besides, I think I know now why Dalvenjah sent me here. A mortal world, with an eccentric sorceress and her demented retinue, and one adolescent dragon for company. This must be her idea of hell. She must be trying to make me grateful to go home and become a dragon.\"\n\n\"Dragons do not believe in hell,\" Vajerral remarked. \"Just recycling. Besides, I am enjoying myself immensely.\"\n\n\"She sent you because you like everything, and to be rid of you.\" She paused, entertaining a look of profound consternation. \"That's right. If I died, would I keep coming back as a faerie dragon like the rest of you?\"\n\n\"Yes, but Dalvenjah would consider that method of making a dragon of you only as a final resort.\"\n\n\"Mage Jenny?\" Erkin called at the same moment he knocked loudly on the outer door of her apartment. \"Lady Mira sent me to tell you that Addena Sheld has returned.\"\n\n\"On my way.\"\n\nJenny hurried to change. Addena Sheld was, after all, Lady Mira's best friend, and the singer had been away in the southeast giving recitals almost since the young sorceress's arrival months earlier, combining her own business with some judicious spying that Mira had wanted done.\n\nHer mistress had taken her into town only days earlier, insisting that she acquire at least a few new clothes against the coming of colder weather. She quickly slipped into pants, full-sleeved shirt and vest, all in shades of coordinating blue that complemented her hair. She hurried downstairs to Mira's study, finding the concert singer already discussing her exploits.\n\n\"Well, I'd never seen anything like it! The Kingdoms of the Sea may have been wealthy two thousand years ago, but they've fallen upon the worst poverty since,\" Addena Sheld exclaimed as she judiciously added brandy to the cup of tea that Lady Mira had just handed her. She looked up suddenly as Jenny and Vajerral entered. \"Ah, so there you are, my dears. I am so glad to see that you're still about the place. Your presence adds a note of normalcy to this lunatic asylum of a house. Although Mira never did help you do something about that hair, it seems.\"\n\n\"It's part of her magic, Addena,\" Mira reminded her.\n\nAddena glanced at her suspiciously. \"Just like you think that you have to...\"\n\n\"We don't have to talk about that!\"\n\nJenny took a seat at the table in the alcove of Mira's study. The day had grown darker than ever, and a cold rain gently chattered against the panes where they sat in the glass-enclosed alcove of the study. Vajerral was sitting back on her tail, staring out the window as if dreaming of bright, clear skies.\n\n\"You were telling me about your experiences in the South?\" Mira prompted.\n\n\"Oh, yes.\" Addena took a cautious taste of her tea, made a vile face and added more brandy. \"I just could not believe the changes in the last eight years, that being the last time I had toured in the South. I'd been there only once before, you know, and I had sworn that I'd never go back. It really just didn't pay, you know. I wouldn't have gone now, except that you had asked me to look about. But this time...! My word, it's like they're in some big hurry to catch up with the North, and then some. They certainly made no secret about their wealth, although they are entirely too ostentatious. You know how new wealth tends to be on the gaudy side.\"\n\n\"Yes, you have pointed that out to me often enough,\" Mira remarked succinctly. \"I've often wondered how you know.\" Addena chose to ignore her. \"It's like the ancient times have returned to the Southlands. There were scores of merchant ships and wargalleys in every harbor, but no airships. All the old palaces and forums have been restored and new ones are being built. And the old temples. Now that's the dark side to all of this, and I wouldn't go back to the South for anything. They've rebuilt the old temples, and there are priests and priestesses in black everywhere. Every one of their bright, clean cities has the spookiest feel of anything I've ever known.\"\n\n\"You think that they're worshipping the Dark again?\" Mira asked coldly. Jenny was so surprised that she pulled up a chair and sat down to listen. Twenty-five years earlier, the Alasheran Empire had still been in ruins and the Emperor had been in exile in another world.\n\n\"Mira, you know that I don't pretend to have a hair of talent, but I know for a fact that something bad is going on there,\" Addena said in the most serious voice that the younger sorceress had ever heard her use. \"It's just this feeling in the air, like something cold and predatory is watching you all the time. All the Northlanders who have been going into the South in recent years say that they're calling demons again, and getting results. But all the Southerners, they just look at you in that cold, superior manner, like they're going to get what they want out of you and then rip you apart with their own hands. Murderous, they all are. For all their faddish interest in the refined arts, killing is what seems to interest them most. They've reopened the old games.\" \"Great stars! With people?\"\n\n\"No, not yet. Just with animals now. But they made me go to their games all the time I was there, and I can't recall a game where at least a few people didn't get killed. Accidentally, of course. But the games are vicious enough that they've made that unavoidable.\"\n\nMira nodded sadly. \"That's very much what they say the worship of the Dark does to a person. Beratric Kurgel has suspected that for the last four years, as far as that goes. It seems to me that the time has come for someone to go down there and have a good look about, before it's too late.\"\n\n\"Too late for what?\" Jenny asked, politely ignoring the auspicious name of Beratric Kurgel.\n\n\"Too late to do anything to stop it,\" she explained. \"Elura has had the wealth and the benefit of strong magic since the fall of (he Kingdoms of the Sea, and in the last three centuries we've enjoyed technological advances that should allow us to stay ahead of the South for some time to come. But we've known that they were going to attempt to reestablish the Empire for the last quarter of a century, and we've done nothing I know of to stop them. Tell me, has the Emperor or the High Priest returned?\"\n\nAddena blinked. \"I don't know if the Emperor has returned or not, but they talk about him all the time. If he's not there yet, then he is at least running things from wherever he is, and he will be coming soon. But I heard very little about the High Priest. He has a secretary or minister who is doing his work for him\u2014his secular activities, you might say\u2014but it seems that he is not going to show himself directly for some time yet to come.\"\n\n\"I wonder if Dalvenjah scared him so badly that he's afraid she might come after him again if he shows himself, \" Mira mused. Then she looked up at Addena. \"Tell me everything that happened during your tour in the South. I want to know every smallest clue you have to tell me.\"\n\nAddena feigned extreme reluctance, all the time making it very clear that she would like nothing better than to be the center of attention for the next few hours and relate in detail her successes in the South. Mira made it very clear, however, that this matter was entirely too important, and the singer relented in tolerably good grace. All the same, she did impart her experiences in great detail, concentrating not necessarily on what made a good story but what she thought the sorceress wanted to hear.\n\nJenny paid strict attention as well, although she hardly knew what to make of it. The worship of the Dark had continued to exist, even in the Northlands, and they were eternally about their work preparing for the \"return.\" But times had changed. Life was far less harsh than it had been in ancient times. The old conflicts, the bands of barbarians in the North and the pirate nations of the Far South, were now at peace. Sorcerers now devoted as much of their learning to engineering and the sciences as to magic, thereby increasing the effectiveness of their talents many times over, and this entire world had prospered accordingly. There simply was no longer any need for the worship of the Dark and its promise of quick rewards through the domination of others.\n\nExcept, of course, in the Kingdoms of the Sea. Jenny could see that for herself easily enough, now that she considered it. The North prospered, but the Northlands were rich with resources. The Southlands were rocky, barren islands and coastal stretches bordering rugged mountains. They had very little land suitable for agriculture. There was no timber, no coal and very few metals of any type except for copper. The ancient kingdoms had prospered on copper, but the age of copper was past, diminished by the strength and versatility of Northland steel.\n\nNo, the Kingdoms of the Sea had prospered for only one reason. In their time they had overcome their own deficiencies at the expense of others. They had been nations of overlords, conquering and controlling other lands which did possess the necessary resources, until they had come at last to rule the known world as the Empire of Alashera.\n\nThe emergence of new sorcerers, those who were slaves to no forces but willing supporters of the Light, had broken the control of the Dark Priesthood, which had grown too bloated and secure in its self-belief. Then the Empire itself had collapsed in a matter of a few short years. With its armies devoid of the support of Dark Magic, they had been broken or driven out of the conquered nations with relative ease.\n\nAddena spoke voluntarily for the better part of three hours, and then Mira questioned her for another hour more. Night had come by that time, and with it a rather violent storm. Jenny could sense the restless forces that gathered in the world that night, as if the very discussion of the Dark had summoned its presence, and she was sure that her mistress knew what was happening as well. It seemed that Addena Sheld sensed something as well; she adamantly refused Mira's offer of a carriage home and retired\u2014or retreated\u2014to the upstairs room that was normally reserved as her own.\n\n\"Well, Lady?\" Jenny prompted as she took the empty seat at the table. Her mistress was so distracted that she had not even bidden her friend good-night.\n\n\"Well, she hardly told us anything that we did not already know,\" Mira said. \"Child, they've all known that it would come to this since they rescued you from the Emperor thirteen years ago. But what have they done about it since then?\"\n\n\"The faerie dragons have been preparing for war ever since,\"\n\nVajerral offered. \"I would have thought that the Combined Academy should have acted as the nucleus of our profession.\"\n\n\"Yes, so one would assume,\" Mira declared in a voice that spoke worlds of censure. \"The Academy is a bastion of learning, and as such it fulfills its function extremely well. As a body of responsible leaders in our hallowed profession, it sucks rotten lizard eggs. Those of us who do form an informal body of responsible leaders have been meaning for some time to make a detailed study of the possibilities. As one of the key members of that body, I fear that I must appoint myself that task. It certainly seems that no one else cares to undertake that mission.\"\n\n\"What task?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"Why, finding out if the Emperor or the High Priest has indeed returned to our world, and just how strong a presence the Dark really is.\"\n\nVajerral turned to stare, her eyes wide and her ears standing straight up.\n\n\"But why you?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"Because I am perhaps the only sorceress of the Light who can get away with it,\" Mira responded, although she did not look at all certain. \"I do have one advantage over my fellows. I'm enough of a hedonist to confuse the Dark Priests long enough to discover what I want and slip away with my life. I hope.\"\n\nJenny frowned, and glanced up at Mira. \"What do you think? Did Addena discover what you sent her to find?\"\n\n\"I didn't give Addena a clue of what to look for,\" Mira said. \"I wanted her to tell me what she saw, not what she may have thought I wanted her to find. Things have changed a lot in the last few years. We know now that both the High Priest and the Emperor were still alive, that they could open the Ways Between the Worlds and that they had some control over the demons they used to summon by battalions. It's time that we stick our noses back into their affairs, discover if either the Emperor or the High Priest is back in Alashera, and if they have made an alliance with the Dark dragons. Dalvenjah was rather worried about that.\" \"Then when do we go?\"\n\n\"As soon as possible, with winter coming on,\" she replied. \"But first, I do want to know all I can about the forces of the Dark. And the living expert on that subject, at least among those of our profession, is my own Master, the Sorcerer Bresdenant.\" Jenny searched her own memory. \"I don't remember him.\"\n\nLady Mira laughed aloud. \"Him? He resides at Coot Hall, the retirement home at the Sanctuary of Ley weld. He should know more than anyone about what we should look for. I also hope that he can give us a few hints about how to protect ourselves from the Dark, if we do happen upon something ugly. I just don't like this business about the calling of the Spirits of the Dark.\"\n\nVajerral had been all but speechless with surprise, and for the last few moments her ears had been twitching as if they were trying to jump right off the top of her head. \"What are you saying? You cannot risk Jenny and her part in the Prophecy for petty spying.\"\n\n\"But this is all a part of the Prophecy,\" Mira explained earnestly. \"It's started now, and the only way Jenny can defeat it is to go out there and fight it.\"\n\nJenny did not know what to think. Logically she knew that Mira was right about taking the offensive with the Prophecy, although she was less certain that this was the way. And she was frightened. She had lived in terror of the Prophecy for half her life, but it had always been easy for her to ignore her fear. Now that particular approach to personal stress management was quickly becoming impossible. Her instinct had always been to indulge her fear, to distance herself from the realities of the Prophecy and delay this confrontation until she felt more certain.\n\nShe liked to tell herself that she would know when the time had come, that she would feel bold and determined and ready to fight. But she knew that the fear and uncertainty would always remain, and that the day would come when she would have to fight the Prophecy despite herself. She knew that she would only grow more afraid with time, not less. For that reason alone, perhaps this was the time to begin.\n\nLady Mira knew that the weather would be clearing by dawn, and she had Dame Tugg and the Trassek twins preparing for their journey that very night. She always made a point of keeping Wind Dragon, her airship, serviced and provisioned for immediate travel, so that it was a simple matter to load a few perishable items and their personal effects. Addena Sheld agreed to accompany them as far as Ley weld, with the understanding that they would return her to Bennasport before they began their journey into the Southlands. She declared that she had no intention of ever returning to the Kingdoms of the Sea. Dame Tugg and J.T. were remaining to watch over the house.\n\nSince this first trip was over friendly lands, Vajerral seized this chance to run a quick errand of her own. She wanted to have more help at hand before they left for the South, and she had departed for a quick visit to her own world that very morning. She expected to return in a few days in the company of an experienced fighting dragon.\n\nWind Dragon was rolled out of her shed at dawn, and the Trassek twins immediately set about preparing her for flight. Wind Dragon was a tiny ship compared to the round-bellied freighters of over six hundred feet, but the young sorceress doubted that she had ever seen a ship that looked more sleek and swift. Sitting on her skids in the open yard, her vanes not yet deployed, she looked like some oceangoing racing schooner with a flat-bottomed hull, almost as if it had been cut off just below the waterline.\n\nJenny had flown on these ships often enough in the past, and so she was able to help ready Wind Dragon for flight. Her four lift vanes, with their spar-ribbed canvas stabilizing sails, were unfurled and locked into place, and the thrust vanes, the largest that Jenny had ever seen on a ship this size, were mounted in the stem. The smaller stabilizer vanes, of the same bright bands of red and blue canvas as the massive main vanes, were unfurled in the long bowsprit, the short securing masts were stepped in the center of the ship between the vanes and the rigging was pulled tight. The ropes and canvas were dampened by the heavy morning dew, but the ship was prepared for flight in little more than a quarter of an hour of brisk work.\n\nErkin and Dooket approached this journey with the same enthusiasm of a couple of boys asked to go on a picnic. Jenny was given to wonder if they even knew the meaning of danger, and just what they would do if matters did get rather serious. Either they were too brave to care, too stupid to care, or else they were simply a pair of complete innocents when it came to the realities of their profession. Addena Sheld boarded the little ship as though she was already having second or third thoughts on the subject. Dame Tugg made no secret of what she thought on the subject; she stood below the bow of the ship to evoke the blessing of St. Gum of the Cows. That only mystified the others, since St. Gum was commonly the protector of whores; Addena took it to be a personal insult. Only Lady Mira seemed unconcerned. She was standing on the helm deck pretending to be a pirate setting sail for the Jade Islands.\n\n\"You just watch out,\" J.T. told his mistress quite seriously. \"There are storms yet in those mountains you mean to cross.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" Mira assured him. \" Wind Dragon is as fast as they come. She can keep us ahead of almost anything.\"\n\n\"She's not that fast,\" the cat corrected her.\n\n\"If any storm does catch us, we can pull in the vanes and ride it out.\"\n\n\"Just be careful,\" J.T. repeated himself. \"Well, every minute of clear weather you have counts, so you had better be about your rat-killing.\"\n\nMira joined the travelers who had already boarded the airship and the Trassek twins pulled in the boarding ladder. From that time on the sorceress was in complete control of the ship. There were two large wheels at the pilot's station near the stem, one controlling the vanes that lifted the ship's nose and the other controlling the rudder. But magic alone activated and regulated the lift and thrust vanes that actually got the airship off the ground and moving. She applied lift until she felt Wind Dragon begin to stir restlessly, then moved the ship forward until the bow vanes caught the air and raised her nose gently.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Mira asked her student as the airship slowly gained speed and altitude, her skids barely clearing the trees that bordered the estate. She was already spinning the rudder wheel to bring Wind Dragon around to the south, looking for the first pass through the coastal mountains behind Bennasport.\n\nJenny only nodded. Wind Dragon achieved her cruising speed of forty knots in less than a minute and continued to climb steadily toward the pass. The others, she noticed, were completely unconcerned. Erkin and Dooket were still cranking in the retractable wheels, and even Addena was leaning over the rail near the bow.\n\nTwo hours of travel brought them through the coastal mountains and over relatively open land, although they could already see the greater range of the Northland mountains farther ahead. The sky remained clear and deep blue except for a few thick, white clouds about the peaks, and the air at their altitude was just a bit chill. But already the two sorceresses could sense the storms that would soon be building in those distant mountains, wet, heavy storms full of winds and snow.\n\n\"It'll be a race,\" Mira said, speaking a little loudly to be heard over the wind. \"We'll be heading back into the mountains tonight, about the same time this weather will begin to get thick. We won't be able to make half this speed, and we may not be able to stay in the air all that long either.\"\n\n\"We have to land at night anyway,\" Jenny pointed out. \"You're our only pilot.\"\n\n\"A situation that I mean to correct right now,\" her mistress said. \"Only someone trained in sorcery can fly an airship, but then what are you? Feeding the induction vanes is no great trick, and a couple of hours behind the wheels should give you a good feel for steering.\"\n\nMira had the airship grounded five minutes later, and Jenny found herself at the helm. She would have liked to have protested, but she found that she had no good excuse for not learning to fly this ship. The force-induction vanes operated by channeling the natural forces in the world, providing thrust either to lift the ship or to move it forward, and it was a simple matter for a sorceress of her caliber to work the simple spells that activated the vanes. Steering the ship with the stabilizers was hardly any more difficult, although she would have to be careful to keep the ship in trim, balanced on its lift vanes.\n\nSince the wheels were still retracted, leaving Wind Dragon sitting on her four broad skids, Jenny had to lift the ship straight up, not applying forward thrust until she was well off the ground. And there in the valley, that meant that they first had to get above the trees that bordered the glade where Mira had set them dow'n.\n\n\"Just ease her up,\" Mira urged her. \"Just tickle the lift vanes until we clear the ground.\"\n\nThe magic itself was no problem for Jenny. She thought of raising the ship with her own lift magic, the way she would if she was flying with the dragons. She was wrong on at least two points, the most important being that dragon magic was entirely too rich a fuel for these arcane engines. Wind Dragon went up like a rocket. \"Ease up on her, child,\" Mira urged her a little more firmly. \"I wish to hell I could!\" Jenny declared rather desperately. \"I don't know if I could ease off any more without letting her drop.\" \"I most devoutly wish that you can learn quickly,\" Mira remarked, peering over the side. \"I know that the air thins with altitude, but I don't recall that anyone has ever investigated just how far the process continues.\"\n\nUnfortunately, Jenny knew the answer to that. If the problem was in giving too much power to the lift vanes, then perhaps she could divert some of it to forward thrust. Wind Dragon jumped in a new direction. As it happened, the elevator wheel was spun almost completely around; the airship curved gracefully up and just kept going. It was most likely the first time that an airship had ever executed a complete loop.\n\nBy the time the ship righted itself, Jenny had learned through simple terror how to keep her magic under control. At least only she and Mira had been on deck at that time, and centrifugal force did a lot to keep them there. Mira had been holding on to the rail, while Jenny had entwined her arms and legs in the spokes of the rudder wheel and was still clinging there, upside down. Mira brushed herself off and walked over to spin the wheel, returning her young apprentice to a reasonable attitude.\n\n\"That was definitely not the idea,\" she commented.\n\nJenny disengaged herself from the wheel and returned Wind Dragon to her proper speed and course. Once she began to get the feel of the ship, she actually began to enjoy herself. Airships were never fast compared to the aircraft of her own world, but they had a lot of character.\n\n\"Ah, perfect,\" Mira remarked, peering over the rail at a couple of shepherds staring up from far below. \"Bring the bow up just a little more and she'll climb more smoothly. The idea is to search upward until you find a wind traveling in essentially your same direction and allow that to push you along. Ground winds are often unpredictable.\"\n\n\"What about this?\" Jenny asked as she felt a cold wind at her back.\n\n\"Ah, close enough,\" the sorceress declared, and ran forward a few steps. \"Erkin! Dooket! Hoist the running sails. Let's make all the speed we can, while we can. Helm, full forward thrust!\"\n\n\"Is this a good idea?\" Jenny asked.\n\nMira shrugged. \"I don't know. I've never tried running Wind Dragon all out like this before. Beratric Kurgel has always said that an air schooner like Wind Dragon was made for running, like a fine race horse.\"\n\nThat caused Jenny a certain amount of consternation. Mira evoked the name of Beratric Kurgel regularly, and claimed to consult with that wise and worldly character all the time. But Jenny had never actually seen any such person, nor could J.T. or the twins testify to his existence, although Mira would claim to have spoken with him over tea only days before. However, Jenny had noticed that any plan that Mira was unsure about had been inspired by Beratric Kurgel, and he was responsible for any idea that went wrong.\n\nSome children had make-believe playmates. Kasdamir Gerran had an imaginary scapegoat.\n\nThe two rather versatile mercenaries had both of Wind Dragon's broad, red-and-blue-striped sails unfurled within a couple of minutes. Jenny had her doubts about how much the sails really helped, since the stiff high-level wind was hardly moving any faster than the ship itself. But they were soon hurtling along at fifty knots or more, slightly faster than the airship could have moved without that aid. She did find, to her momentary dismay, that Wind Dragon did have a very different feel to her steering when the wind was blowing over the stabilizers from behind.\n\n\"Well, you seem to be doing just fine,\" Mira remarked as she turned and headed toward her cabin. \"I'll see you people later.\"\n\nShe was gone before Jenny could say a word, with no explanation of how long she intended to be away or what to do in the event of trouble. Knowing that her mistress had been up most of the night preparing for this journey, Jenny suspected that she meant to stay in her bunk a good, long while. As for the latter consideration, there was not much that could be done when an airship got into real trouble. The idea was to avoid it.\n\n\"Pull in the sails!\" Jenny shouted her order, wondering only briefly if she had that authority as a student pilot.\n\nWhether she did or not, the Trassek twins certainly saw the wisdom in that action and set about the task as quickly as they were able in this gale. The winds were too unpredictable to be running with the sails unfurled, which interfered considerably with the steering at the best of times. Jenny needed to be able to ride these fierce winds, not fight them, before they damaged the lift vanes and canvas stabilizers. She was trying to control the ship through a combination of manipulating the lift and forward thrust at the same time she was spinning the rudder wheel before her and the smaller elevator wheel at her side.\n\n\"What can I do?\" Addena asked, shouting over the wind. \"Should I go get Lady Mira?\"\n\n\"She surely knows by now that we need her at the helm,\" Jenny answered with unconscious authority. \"Check on her, all the same. Then take a good look below to make certain that everything is secure.\"\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"Bring my jacket,\" she added. The sky was still mostly clear, even though the sun would be setting within minutes. But the cold was increasing much faster than the coming of night could allow, and there was the feel of fine crystals of ice in the air.\n\nThe boys had the sails in a couple of minutes later, loosely tied to their booms to be taken down as time allowed. Now that Wind Dragon was no longer fighting the drag of her own sails, her handling improved tremendously and the situation went from critical to merely cautious very quickly. Jenny felt that she had the ship well under control by the time Lady Mira strolled out onto the helm deck, completely unconcerned.\n\n\"Ah, you do seem to be doing well enough,\" she remarked. \"I'll go attend to the running lights and stand bow watch. Perhaps we can keep in the air for a few hours yet.\"\n\n\"Don't you want to take the helm?\" Jenny asked rather desperately. She obviously felt that she could now afford to be frightened, when only a moment earlier she had not had any choice.\n\n\"We cannot transfer control of the induction vanes in flight,\" Mira told her. \"At least not under the present circumstances. And you don't seem to be having any trouble just now.\"\n\nThe matter appeared to be settled. Lady Mira retired to the bow of the airship and spelled the crystal globes hung to either side of the bowsprit. She aimed their beams into the growing darkness ahead and to either side of the ship and occasionally called back instructions and descriptions of the landscape to the unwilling pilot. Night descended within half an hour and Jenny was flying blind, riding the winds as best she could and steering the ship according to what her mistress told her.\n\nThree hours into the night, Mira decided that they had both had enough and directed Jenny into a deep cut in the mountainside, a flat-bottomed ravine so narrow that the ship might not have fit into it sideways, and barely fit as it was. Jenny was alarmed when she saw the walls of the canyon appeal- out of the misty darkness to either side and heard the occasional thump of treetops against the lower hull.\n\nMira soon found a clearing just large enough to hold the airship\u2014allowing for the crushing of a few saplings\u2014and Jenny brought Wind Dragon down. Settling straight in was no easy task, but the trees prevented a gradual descent. The ravine sheltered the airship from the worst of the wind, but there was still a strong headwind descending through the cut. She had to hold the ship directly over her goal with just enough thrust to counter the effects of the wind and drop slowly to a landing in the darkness below. Erkin and Dooket hurried to fold away the vanes and stabilizers so that sudden gales would be less likely to upset the ship. Wind Dragon rocked slightly on the tightly strung springs in her struts until they were finished.\n\nBy that time, Jenny was completely exhausted. She had been at the helm for twelve hours, the last three of that fighting the mountain winds, entirely too long for her first time. She was inclined to be rather annoyed at her mistress for leaving her there for so long, but she knew now that Mira had completely exhausted herself in some important magic the night before. Indeed, there was still some question about which of them would be in the best condition to resume the flight the next morning. Jenny thought that she could do it, as long as she got something to eat and a warm bed in very short order.\n\n\"We'll share rounds tomorrow,\" Lady Mira assured her, stepping up behind her out of the darkness to help her down from the helm deck to the cabins below.\n\nShe had her student in the galley, stripped of her cold, damp clothes and wrapped in a warm blanket, with a cup of hot tea, a mug of ale and warm bread, cheese and venison at hand while the others were still outside tending the ship. Even Addena, who could be a fussy, self-important performer at any other time, was a willing and silent crewmember on this flight.\n\n\"You did very, very well,\" Mira told her. \"I'm sorry that I couldn't help you more today.\"\n\n\"I know why,\" Jenny said, unconcerned.\n\n\"I made a potentially disastrous presumption based upon my belief that you are an extremely capable person,\" the sorceress continued. \"I should not have done that, whether you came through as well as you did or not. It really would have been best to have waited a day.\"\n\n\"It's done, and I've become an experienced pilot in a hurry,\" Jenny said. \"How much longer?\"\n\n\"Two more days, if the weather turns out as I expect. Starting tomorrow it might take the two of us to fly this ship, one just to sit on the bow and try to navigate the fog and snow in any way that sorcery will allow.\"\n\n\"That probably places me back at the helm again,\" Jenny offered, knowing that her teacher was not about to say that her own talents were best for the task of discovering a way through this mess.\n\nThe next morning brought not just winds and cold but winter storms. Icy fogs and gale-blown snow hid miles of the highlands, and restless winds shook and tugged at the struggling airship. Lady Mira was often reduced to finding their path as best she could in complete blindness, trusting her talent to show her shadowy images of the hidden peaks and cliffs. The running lights would sometimes pierce the storm at the final moment, illuminating a tree or rocky face just in time for Jenny to evade certain impact. The mercenaries probed below the hull with long poles, feeling for the unseen ground or treetops. Addena, her uncharacteristic silence now entering its second day, alternated between watching from the bow with Mira and assisting Jenny in any way she could.\n\nThe storm only worsened as the morning wore on, although it never quite reached the point that either of the sorceresses suggested that they would have to put to ground and ride this out. Probing the mountains at a speed of ten to twenty knots was better than sitting still. But they both agreed that, if either of them felt that they were not doing their best, then they would set down for a rest. They meant to stop for an hour or so at noon under any circumstances.\n\n\"Half speed, Jenny!\" Mira called from the bow. \"The storm is letting up, and we seem to be in fairly open air just now. Some fairly large valley.\"\n\n\"Right, but keep your watch all the same,\" Jenny answered. Increased speed meant that any impact would result in greater damage, and one wrecked vane was enough to send the airship tumbling from the sky.\n\n\"Tea, Addena!\" Mira added.\n\nAddena looked up from her work; she was currently sweeping accumulated snow from the decks. \"Tea? How can you think of tea at a time like this?\"\n\n\"This is the first moment I've had all morning to think about tea, and I need it.\" Mira paused, and turned abruptly back to stare out over the bow. \"Stand to! Something is coming toward us through the storm. Some two things, I should say, and making good time. Boys, I want you to string your longbows and get ready for a fight.\"\n\nJenny sensed it too, and she strained her talent for a better understanding to the point that Wind Dragon began to slow from lack of attention. She knew that something was out there, something of far greater evil than anything that she had sensed in a long time. Something out of the Dark itself. She also did not doubt that they were about to come under attack. The others only looked confused, but the mercenaries hurried below to collect their weapons. Addena accompanied them to find a sword and bow of her own.\n\nThe things were upon them before the warriors returned, two black shapes that passed to either side of the ship at the very edge of the storm, vast forms on broad wings just behind a veil of mist and snow. They circled for another pass just as the Trassek mercenaries arrived on deck. They stopped short and stared in awe and fear. Addena came up behind them, only to cower back from the sight of the strange beings.\n\n\"I've felt that before, in the South,\" she said aloud, perhaps for Mira to hear. \"They're of the Dark!\"\n\n\"I know that,\" the sorceress said impatiently. \"But that still doesn't explain what they are.\"\n\n\"They look like dragons,\" Jenny called from the helm deck. Standing almost in the very stem of the ship, she had been closer than any of them when the two creatures had circled around for their second pass. She had been too preoccupied to feel the intense fright that still had Addena shaking, but she was aware that the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end.\n\n\"What?\" Mira asked incredulously. \"But there are so few evil dragons left in the Northlands. Besides, those... those things had a stink of raw, violent evil about them worse than anything I've ever seen in even the worst of the Dark Dragons.\"\n\n\"I know that, but I also know what they looked like,\" Jenny insisted. Her mistress seemed to be speaking from experience in her observation about Dark Dragons, but she did not consider this the time or place to ask about that.\n\n\"We'd better be ready for a fight, whatever they are/' Mira declared. \"Boys, the two of you had better ready the catapults. Jenny, we need room to run. Head northeast and ascend an additional five hundred feet. Addena, you can forget about that tea for the moment.\"\n\nThe catapults were in fact crossbows of such immense size that even Dooket had some trouble carrying his. The bows themselves were large steel bars like carriage springs, six feet across and so tight that a large, long-handled mechanism had to be used to draw the braided-wire bowstring back for loading. The bolts looked more like spears, five feet long with iron heads that weighed four pounds. There was three mounts built into the rail on each side of the ship, although the mercenaries fitted their weapons into the mounts to either side of the bow where they could more easily follow Mira's directions. Addena had collected a longbow and shield and hurried to the bow to offer their helm some protection. Jenny wondered how much use a concert singer would be in battle, but this was better than nothing. She certainly could not release control of the ship to defend herself.\n\nThe Trassek twins loaded their weapons and stood ready, but the two dark shapes did not return. Lady Mira stood at the bow and probed the storm as best she could, but for the moment all she could detect was a shadow of their presence some distance to the southeast. The snowfall, which had never yet been truly heavy, began to pick up somewhat, driven by a harsh wind. Fortunately the snow was dry and hard, and constant eddies in the wind were continually sweeping it through openings in the rail.\n\n\"Stand ready!\" Mira called a couple of minutes later. \"There's a ship coming toward us through the storm. Jenny, stand by to turn toward them as they approach.\"\n\nJenny could sense the ship as well; force-induction vanes had a very distinctive sound or feel, depending upon how one chose to describe it, to those who were sensitive to the flow of magic. The curious and alarming thing was that both of the evil creatures appeared to be pacing the ship, or perhaps even leading it. There was a sorcerer on board that ship as well, not a very strong one. But the feel of the magic about him, driving his ship, was dark and violent. Mira's words seemed to imply a suspicion that they were about to come under attack from this combined force, and Jenny had to agree.\n\n[ That raised some rather difficult questions of its own, such as what a Dark Sorcerer was doing this far north, where had he acquired an airship, and why did he seem intent upon attacking ]\n\nWind Dragon? Jenny immediately had to wonder if this attack was directed at her.\n\nShe hoped to be able to find a few of those answers, assuming that they won this battle. If it remained a contest of magic, then she and Mira were more than a match for this rather mediocre sorcerer. But there was also the problem of those evil dragons; Wind Dragon'% canvas stabilizers had to be protected from their flames. And she was certain that the other ship would have a company of its own archers. As far as she knew, there had never been a battle between airships before. These ships needed a sorcerer at their helm, and two sorcerers trained in the service of the Light would never fight each other. That meant that there were no proven strategies they could rely upon; they were very much on their own.\n\nA tense minute passed as the enemy ship drew steadily nearer, striving to cut them off. Both of the sorceresses chose to meet the threat rather than run, aware that the two dragons could easily keep them occupied until their ship arrived. The two Dark creatures shot past, silent and evil but seemingly uninterested in engaging in battle themselves. Jenny brought Wind Dragon around sharply, and a few moments later the other ship emerged out of the blowing snow.\n\nThe enemy ship was larger than Wind Dragon by perhaps thirty feet. Her vanes and stabilizers appeared to be no larger, but the ship itself was much wider and deeper in construction, most likely a small freighter rather than a schooner like their own. If it came to a running battle, Wind Dragon did have the advantage of speed and maneuverability. But the other ship also had a couple of dozen archers clearly visible on her deck.\n\n\"What ship?\" Mira called.\n\n\"Blood Hawk, out of Alashera,\" the sorcerer at her helm shouted back. \"What ship?\"\n\n\"Wind Dragon, out of Bennasport.\"\n\n\"Stand to and prepared to be boarded, woman!\"\n\nLady Mira looked rather indignant. \"Stand to and prepare to get your ass whipped, bastard!\"\n\nIf the Dark Sorcerer had any reply to that, it was lost in the wind as the two ships shot past. Jenny could see the two mercenaries standing by at the catapults and she whipped Wind Dragon around as quickly as she could at the same time she increased speed to full, hoping to catch the heavier ship from the side as it labored through its own turn. Addena, well aware of how she would serve best in the battle, moved forward to protect them both with the large shield she carried. At least the Trassek twins were in a combination of plate and mail armor, hopefully enough to guard against the missiles from ordinary longbows. Mira stood at the bow unconcerned; she could guard herself with a warding spell.\n\nJenny's judgement was perfect; the enemy ship appeared out of the white curtain broadside to them and nearly on a level. She brought Wind Dragon's nose up sharply and climbed at full lift and thrust, showing the enemy archers the airship's hardwood hull. The Trasseks waited until they could shoot down from above. They aimed at the helm station but both of their bolts swerved in flight, missing both the Dark Sorcerer and the vulnerable controls to crash through the planks of the deck. Mira loosed a shot from her own longbow, and the spelled arrow did not swerve to avoid the warding spells but struck the sorcerer in the chest. He staggered back and the wheels spun, but he quickly returned to his post. The spelled arrow had been frustrated by very ordinary armor.\n\nAddena rushed to protect Jenny from behind with her shield as a small cloud of arrows followed their own ship. Blood Hawk disappeared again into the storm, but Jenny could sense it turning away to circle around and she quickly leveled out and turned Wind Dragon in the opposite direction, hoping to catch the other ship broadside yet again. In the bow, Lady Mira considered only a moment before she turned to the two bodyguards.\n\n\"Use the exploding bolts, boys,\" she told them.\n\n\"Lady?\" Erkin asked uncertainly.\n\n\"Do it, and hurry,\" she insisted. \"We have no hope otherwise. We can't hide from their arrows forever, and those dragons might attack at any moment.\"\n\nThe Trasseks were still nervous about this. The exploding bolts were Mira's secret weapon, something of her own design, and not yet tested. But they had to do something. The enemy archers were using fire arrows, although their first volley had been frustrated by spelled hardwood and the storm, and the canvas stabilizers had somehow been missed altogether. Addena was still trying to get a flaming arrow off her shield without burning herself.\n\nThe mercenaries hurried to a weapon locker to collect the special bolts, which they loaded quickly into their catapults. The explosive bolts had a small metal canister behind their longer but comparatively lighter barbs. Then Wind Dragon was upon her enemy, the larger ship still struggling through her turn. Jenny brought them around to catch Blood Hawk broadside yet again, while Mira laid aside her bow to concentrate on protecting her own ship, warding away the cloud of fire arrows that rose to meet them.\n\n\"Try for the base of the forward vane!\" she ordered.\n\nDooket and Erkin shot at almost the same instant, and their aim was flawless. Blood Hawk was shaken by two powerful explosions and the forward vane was ripped away, disappearing inside a ball of flames. Lady Mira's knowledge of chemistry and her skill at engineering nearly equalled her command of magic. Unsupported on that quarter, Blood Hawk began to dip slowly in that direction, rolling like a sinking ship. Then her critical balance reached a point of no return and she fell, tumbling in flames and smoke from the snow-filled sky.\n\n\"Fire and flatulatants!\" Mira declared. \"I told Beratric Kurgel that it would work!\"\n\nThe stricken airship crashed unseen on the snow-covered slope and, from the sound, continued to roll some distance down the mountainside. Apparently she did not shatter on impact, even though she must have dropped six hundred feet; airships were built strong and reinforced with magic. Jenny was already bringing Wind Dragon around for a very hasty landing, knowing that the two dragons would probably be upon them at any moment.\n\nShe found an open, level space mostly by chance. Wind Dragon slid across the snow for a short distance until she pulled to a shuddering halt, and her skids sank down at least a foot. Their advantage now lay on the ground, where her own attention and magic would not be involved entirely with keeping the ship in the air. She might not be a match for Lady Mira, but she was still a formidable fighter and two sorceresses were always better than one.\n\nThe dragons attacked moments later, diving toward the ship from opposite directions. Dooket and Erkin were ready, having reloaded their catapults with more of the exploding bolts, apparently assured to their complete satisfaction that the weapons did indeed work. They shot almost as one, again with the same deadly accuracy, but this time to no effect. The bolts passed unhindered through the bodies of the dragons, arcing over to explode somewhere in the storm-shrouded land.\n\n\"Those aren't dragons! Those are winged demons!\" Jenny declared. \"I've seen demons before.\"\n\nShe hurried to join her mistress, using her sword to fend away the cutting whip of a tail, which rang with a sound like very solid steel. They were the ugliest, most alien things that she had ever seen, not at all like the fierce majesty of true dragons. And they seemed to use fear as a weapon, causing the hand that moved sword or shield in defense to hesitate.\n\n\"Jade eyes!\" Mira exclaimed.\n\n\"Where are we going?\" Jenny asked as she helped to open the rail and lower the boarding ladder, confused. Faerie dragons had jade eyes, but these demons had eyes like burning rubies.\n\n\"To the wrecked airship,\" the sorceress replied. \"Our only hope of stopping these demons lies somewhere in that wreckage, if we can find it.\"\n\nJenny had no idea what her mistress had in mind, but she did trust that the older sorceress did have some idea of what to do. The problem with fighting demons was that they were creatures of another existence and not entirely real in this one; they were vulnerable to few forms of attack, either mundane or magical, although they could do very real damage. Being demons rather than dragons, they at least lacked fire. Her own education was rather lacking on the subject, which was not surprising, since sorcerers had not had to fight demons on anything like a regular basis in hundreds if not thousands of years. Even Mira professed to have no effective way of dealing with demons and other forces of the Dark, that being the whole point of the first part of their journey. But she did seem to have some way out of their present mess.\n\nJenny had at least some idea of where Blood Hawk lay wrecked in relation to where she had landed Wind Dragon. They could both sense the continued presence of Dark Magic, far weaker than it had been, as if the evil sorcerer still clung tenuously to life somewhere in this storm. At the same time it became obvious that they themselves, and not their airship, were the object of this attack. The demons followed them relentlessly, diving down to lash at their backs and heads with their long, lashing tails. Dooket and Erkin, protected by their armor, turned the attacks time again with sword and shield. The slopes were treacherously steep and hidden beneath drifts often several feet deep, so that they had to force their way forward as best they could.\n\nHalf a mile back along Wind Dragon's path they came upon an especially steep section of the mountainside, and Jenny was sure that this was where Blood Hawk had fallen. A moment later they caught a bitter trace of smoke on the icy wind, and there was no longer any question. This slope was so steep that it had, in effect, merely deflected the airship's fall, preventing its complete destruction as it rolled into the valley below. They could not yet see the ship itself, for the lower portions of the slope disappeared into the dimness and blowing snow, but bits of shattered wood and shredded canvas littered the mountainside.\n\nErkin, growing tired with the ninning battle, suddenly lost his footing and sat down heavily on his shield. He immediately slid off down the snow-covered hillside at an alarming pace, stopping with a loud crash somewhere far below. The others waited in silence for several long seconds, wondering if he had survived.\n\n\"I've found the wreck!\" he called back at last.\n\n\"Well, I'll be screwed,\" Mira muttered in mild amazement. Then she threw herself down on her rump and slid off down the slope as well, although at a more sane pace since she was able to use her legs to slow herself. Dooket and Jenny looked at each other, then shrugged and followed in the same manner. The younger sorceress could have flown, but she had no wish to meet the demons in their own element.\n\nBlood Hawk lay on her side near the bottom of the slope. She had come up hard against a large outcrop of exposed stone, which had almost broken her into two even pieces. She had lost her vanes, masts and bowsprit, and her deck cabins in the course of her fall. Boxes and bales had been lost from her broken hull and lay scattered with several bodies across the slope. Only one form in heavy black clothes lay struggling feebly to one side, and the two demons had come to ground to protect it fiercely.\n\n\"Now what?\" Erkin asked, brushing packed snow and pine needles out of his armor.\n\n\"We've got to kill that sorcerer,\" Mira declared. \"But how? None of us thought to bring our bows.\"\n\n\"Permit me,\" Dooket said gallantly.\n\nWhile the others watched silently, he searched about in the snow until he found a large stone. He tested its weight carefully and then heaved it with both hands toward the dying sorcerer. Jenny doubted that she could have hurled that stone more than a few feet, certainly not the sixty feet to its intended target. It sailed right over the Southerner's head and landed with a heavy thump in the snow at least five feet away.\n\nMuttering obscenities, Jenny stepped forward and stood with her legs braced and both arms held straight out before her. A glow of brilliant blue light surrounded her clenched fists, and a bright beam shot out to strike the nearest of the demons. It was blasted backwards off its claws with a harsh cry of distress, the first sound that either of the creatures had made. Singed and smoking, it leaped into the air, and Jenny repeated the process with the other. Then she seemed to collapse, or at least she had to sit down in a hurry. Erkin prevented her from tumbling over backwards into the snow.\n\nLady Mira rushed forward without hesitation. She paused long enough beside the sorcerer to snatch something from about his neck, then calmly employed her sword to separate him from his head. The demons screamed again, but for the moment they either would not or could not attack. She hurried over to the rock that Dooket had thrown and placed the object on top, revealing it to be a large piece of jade, pulsing with a sickly green light, which had hung about the sorcerer's neck by its golden chain. She fetched a second stone out of the snow and used that to crush the evil talisman. The two demons vanished screaming in flame.\n\n\"You destroyed them?\" Dooket asked.\n\nMira shook her head, panting heavily. \"I just sent them back where they came from. The spells that released them into our world were worked into the stone, which the sorcerer used to control them. That much I have heard about the summoning and control of demons... tricky business! Jenny, are you quite all right?\"\n\n\"Oh, fine,\" she said, brushing her long hair from her face; she still seemed rather disconcerted. She tried to rise and failed, and so she reluctantly allowed Erkin to assist her.\n\n\"Well, we've had quite a day!\" Lady Mira declared briskly. \"But we also need to be on our way, or the storms are going to pin us here for some time. I believe that I'm capable of flying Wind Dragon for the rest of the day.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll be able to fly the ship,\" Jenny assured her. \"I just need to rest a few minutes.\"\n\nMira started to protest, but had to consider that. \"Actually, it will take the two of us to navigate these mountains, so you might as well take the part you feel most comfortable with, steering or scouting. I'd keep us grounded for the rest of the day if I could. Boys, find us a way out of here.\"\n\n\"Going up is going to be harder than coming down,\" Dooket remarked, looking up at the towering slope at their backs.\n\n\"If we can't go up, then we might go around. You two see if you can find an easier way back. I want to have a closer look at this ship.\"\n\nWhile Jenny sat and rested, sheltered from the icy wind by the airship's broken hull, her mistress took a look inside. Mira would occasionally return to the break to toss something out, but she seemed far more interested in gathering evidence than salvage. Her search was hampered by the fact that she was having to walk on the walls of the ship, which made getting through the hatchways nearly impossible. She returned at last, and sat down beside her student with a heavy sigh.\n\n\"It's just as I suspected,\" she said. \"This ship was built in Elura, at Tashira for that matter, and went into freighter service fifteen years ago as the Sea Wind. The Southlanders must have stolen it quite recently and renamed it Blood Hawk. That indicates to me that they don't yet know how to build their own airships.\" \"Why did they attack us?\" Jenny asked.\n\nMira shrugged. \"For the practice, most likely. If they had taken us, we would have been just a small ship lost in a snowstorm. We were lucky, we took no harm, and we know a few things that we didn't know before. We know that the Southerners are getting aggressive, that they will steal our airships and attack others, and that they are summoning demons to serve them.\"\n\n\"I can't say that I'm pleased to know that,\" Jenny remarked dejectedly.\n\n\"Perhaps, but it's better than not knowing that they are doing it.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Ale and Old Wizards",
+                "text": "The Sanctuary of Sorcery at Leyweld was an unimposing quadrangle of buildings in the hills overlooking that modest town. It was hardly the equal of the Academy at Tashira, being barely a quarter of the size of that great center of research and teaching, lacking most obviously the training grounds for young students as well as the construction sheds for airships. And yet, except for that significant difference in size, the two might have almost been patterned after much the same model.\n\nThe Sanctuary filled a few special functions that the Academy could not, as its name suggested. To a small degree, it was a place where sorcerers who had no wish to teach could come to perform special research, although its facilities were limited in that respect compared to the Academy. It was also a place were sorcerers could come for a few weeks to several months of peace and rest, and where those who had fallen victim to ailments of the mind, an occupational hazard, would be cared for in comfort until they were cured, recovered, or died. And it also possessed an entire wing which housed wizards retired after a lifetime of hard work. Sorcerers paid high dues to their guild, but it provided a great deal in return.\n\n\"It's good that we were able to arrive so early,\" Mira declared as the ship descended toward the large building atop the low hill in a clearing of the forest. A small village lay below, about a quarter of a mile away.\n\n\"Why is that?\" Jenny asked, Mira laughed. \"You have to catch Bresdenant during that brief period of the day between the time when he gets up and before he's had enough to drink to get thoroughly stewed.\"\n\nLady Mira brought Wind Dragon down in the yard to one side of the quadrangle, since that seemed a most convenient place to land, without a thought for gaining permission. Her philosophy on that subject had always been that it is easier to get people to go along with something after it was already done. They were still folding away the vanes when someone of authority did come to investigate. He may have even come to protest, although Mira never gave him a chance.\n\n\"Come with me,\" she told Jenny softly as they hurried to the boarding ladder. \"Ah, Bardas, my old friend! We meet again in bad times indeed, but perhaps it is not yet too late.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" The tall, white-haired man paused at the base of the ladder to look up at her questioningly. \"Too late for what?\" \"Just look at this!\" Mira declared. She had not waited for his reply, but had descended the ladder as nimbly as an acrobat. She directed him beneath the ship, while Jenny hurried to follow. \"We were attacked, Bardas! Attacked, and in these very mountains. If not for the skill of my two bodyguards and the quick and capable wits of my journey woman Jenny, my Wind Dragon would be lying wrecked on a snowy mountainside rather than their ship.\" \"Yes, someone sent you a few good fire arrows,\" Bardas remarked, then turned to look at her in open amazement. \"You mean to say that you were attacked by another airship? Do you know who?\"\n\n\"They hailed themselves as Blood Hawk, out of Alashera. And they had two winged demons coursing for them.\"\n\n\"The Dark, then.\" The old man actually seemed satisfied with that answer, either because it laid that question to rest or because it precluded the disagreeable possibility that one of their own sorcerers had piloted an airship against his own kind.\n\n\"But come,\" Mira said suddenly, turning him back toward the building. \"I came all this way to discover what I can about demons and Dark Magic, and it seems that I got a good example on the way. Is Bresdenant well?\"\n\n\"I suppose, but we had better hurry,\" Bardas remarked drily. Apparently Mira had not exaggerated about the old wizard's drinking habits.\n\nCoot Hall, Sanctuary's self-contained retirement home, was the portion of the quadrangle that faced south and slightly east to catch as much as possible of the sun in morning and winter. They hurried up the steps leading directly into the middle of that building, and found themselves immediately inside a well-appointed lobby or sitting room of some size. Jenny was momentarily surprised. She had been expecting older sorcerers and sorceresses of high standing, men and women of quiet dignity and great wisdom. What she found was the strangest, most decrepit-looking assembly of backwoods wizards and witches.\n\n\"Don't let Bresdenant bother you,\" Mira warned her student softly. \"He really is harmless. Even cute, in a crude way.\" \"What?\" Jenny asked, alarmed.\n\n\"You'll see.\"\n\nIndeed she did. Bresdenant was among the youngest of those gathered in this room, although he still looked to be in his late sixties. He was neither short nor tall but rather thin, his clothing undeniably rich but questionably tasteful and terribly loose and wrinkled. His unruly hair was limp and white as snow, as was his short beard, and there was a slightly wild and very impish look to his dark eyes. He had a noticeable shake, especially to his hands, which Jenny would have thought the effects of a stroke or some other ailment if she had not been warned about his drinking. For the moment he was involved in a very animated conversation with one of the hall's serving girls, who was rather impressed with his charms even if she did not seem to have the slightest idea of what he was lecturing her about.\n\nHe paused in mid-sentence and turned to look up at Mira, who was smiling down at him with her own impish smile. He stared at her intently, sitting on the edge of his chair. \"Do I know you?\" \"Of course you do, you old goat,\" she told him patiently. \"I'm the Sorceress Mira. You set your evil hooks in me a little over twenty years ago.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! Kasdamir!\" he exclaimed in recognition. \"You sure were good in bed!\"\n\n\"You never found out,\" she told him evenly.\n\n\"Oh, yes! No wonder I didn't remember you. Hee, hee!\" His voice was not particularly deep, but it had a gravelly edge to it that made it captivating. And his curious laugh held an infectious charm. He reminded Jenny of her Norwegian Uncle Brent, who delighted in annoying his neighbors by pretending that he was going to sexually molest their cats.\n\nBardas had quietly indicated for the serving girl to be about her work, and now he pulled up chairs for the two guests. \"This is business, Brez. These two sorceresses have come a long way to speak with you. I have to be about my morning duties, so if you'll excuse me.\"\n\n\"Oh? What would I know that anyone would want to hear?\" \"You used to know more about the Dark than any sorcerer in the North,\" Mira said as she took her seat directly across from him. \"There were so many things that you never would teach me, but now I have to know.\"\n\n\"Why? Do you plan to go against the Dark?\" he demanded. \"You know that the Dark has returned,\" she told him. \"You knew that it was out there years ago, growing, but no one wanted to hear that. Well, it's coming to us, now. We fought Servants of the Dark on our way here, and I had to dispatch two winged demons the only way I could.\"\n\n\"Of course they're here,\" Bresdenant declared. \"You didn't have to come all this way to tel! me that. I felt them five days ago. They were way up in the air, and they were hunting. You fought them?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"They had a stolen airship. Jenny was flying my own Wind Dragon when they attacked us in a storm. Jenny outflew them brilliantly, and my two guards were able to bring their ship down by ripping away one of her vanes. But we still had two winged demons to deal with, and the only thing I knew was to find the body of the wizard who controlled them and destroy the jewel that was spelled with the magic that kept them in our world. \" \"That's doing it the hard way,\" Bresdenant said, sitting back in his chair. \"Still, if you were caught unprepared, it was the best you could do.\"\n\n\"What could we have done, if we had been ready?\" Mira asked. The old wizard frowned. \"You were trained a Veridan Warrior, were you not?\"\n\n\"Of course!\" Mira declared with a note of pride.\n\n\"Then you know how to fight demons. Or at least you know how to begin. In the old days all warriors were given weapons spelled with special magic, so that the touch of their blades could reach right into their own level of existence and hurt demons. Sorcerers also knew how to make their own magic to fight the Dark.\"\n\n\"Jenny shot beams of blue light at the demons that scorched them good.\"\n\n\"Did you?\" Bresdenant radiated approval. \"But do you know what it was you did?\"\n\n\"No, not really,\" Jenny answered self-consciously, brushing her long, blue hair away from her face.\n\n\"No, of course not. You acted entirely out of instinct. You've seen the Dark, haven't you? You've never looked close enough to learn any of its secrets, but you know how its magic feels and you know how to make your own magic respond accordingly.\"\n\n\"Yes, I guess so,\" she agreed with great reluctance.\n\n\"You mean that's the answer?\" Mira asked incredulously. \"That's how to fight the Dark directly?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Bresdenant leaned back in his chair with that sense of triumphant satisfaction of a teacher whose student had just made an important discovery. \"To know how to fight the Dark, you have to look deep enough into its ways for your own magic to get some instinctive feel for it. From that time on, your magic is not only able to recognize an enemy, but it knows what to do about it.\"\n\n\"But magic isn't a matter of instinct,\" she protested.\n\n\"It is when you pit Light Magic against the Dark,\" he told her impatiently. \"You also forget all that I ever tried to pound into that thick head of yours. Wizards and witches differ from sorcerers and sorceresses like us in that they do operate far more by instinct than education. Of course, that is also the reason why their magic is so limited. They don't really have the slightest idea of what they're doing. You get better results by guiding your magic.\n\n\"But in fighting Dark Magic, you really can't know what you're doing. If you understood Dark Magic that well, you would belong to the Dark. You let your magic do the fighting for you. Apparently this student of yours has a very good instinct for how to go about that.\"\n\nMira seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable with that idea. As a research sorceress, she had always believed in and supported the theory that all mages benefited from careful training, and that magic worked best when merged with all appropriate sciences. She did not care to have to consider that she possessed any professional prejudices against untrained wizards and instinctive magic, but that appeared to be exactly the case. She had to remind herself to be open-minded on the subject, but this unexpected turn of events had a very bitter taste.\n\n\"Ah, crap!\" Bresdenant declared, noticing her reaction of distaste. \"You know, that's exactly what's wrong with magic these days. All you women took over, and you want everything to run nice and predictable. You've even got the men these days thinking the same way, but I still remember that magic has to come first from the instinct. And that's why you sorceresses don't stand a chance of fighting the Dark.\"\n\n\"We've done well enough so far,\" she reminded him.\n\n\"You were lucky. You were trained all wrong to be able to control the magic you need every time you need it,\"\n\n\"But you trained me.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" He recovered quickly. \"That's quite beside the point. You sorceresses have taken Light Magic from a weapon against evil and made it a slave of your precious sciences.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" Mira asked coldly.\n\n\"That's right,\" Bresdenant declared. \"You can't name me one important sorceress working today who couldn't benefit from what I'm telling you right now.\"\n\n\"Not Melithen Reid, or Kerie Wold?\" Mira demanded. \"Or what about Deiven or Harlayn? Or even Lady Tenika?\"\n\n\"No, not a one.\"\n\n\"But you trained each and every one of those people,\" she pointed out.\n\nBresdenant considered that for a moment, and shrugged. \"So? Anyone can make mistakes.\"\n\nMira was prepared to launch a major attack when she reconsidered and closed her mouth. She reminded herself that this was not the man that she had known twenty years ago, when she had been a shy, self-effacing journey woman. Bresdenant had always been a self-important, lecherous ass. Now he was only a lonely, half-senile old drunk who would gladly keep her here arguing all day just for the attention and company. It might be doing him some good, but she had all the forces of the Dark and the Kingdoms of the Sea to worry about.\n\n\"That is quite beside the point,\" she told him slowly and sternly. \"The issue will become irrelevant if the Empire is reestablished and the Dark Priesthood drives us back into the arctic wastes. I must be on my way into the South as soon as possible, and I must know anything you can possibly tell me that will be useful to that mission.\"\n\n\"Well, let me think about that.\" Bresdenant rubbed his beard Ihoughtfully, and reached for a mug of fruit juice on the table beside his chair. But Mira leaped up and took the cup from his hand.\n\n\"What is this?\" she demanded, sniffing at it suspiciously. \"Just cherry juice,\" he insisted, looking rather hurt.\n\n\"Cherry juice, my ass!\" Mira declared. \"This is ale. You're still up to your old tricks, it seems, conjuring alcohol out of the sugar in fruit juice. Why do you think you have to drink so much?\" \"Why, to forget.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nHe considered that, and shrugged. \"I forgot.\"\n\n\"I'm glad that things are working out for you,\" Jenny remarked drily.\n\n\"Ah, about the Dark...\" Mira gently tried to get the conversation back on the subject. She had the suspicion that Bresdenant was trying to avoid the matter. She wondered why he had suddenly gotten so perverse.\n\n\"Oh, you don't want to go into the south,\" he told her suddenly. \"That's a terrible place for a sorceress, if they're worshipping the Dark again. Do you know what they'll do to you, if they catch you?\"\n\n\"I'm not going to let them catch me,\" she informed him. \"I've already got a plan that should keep us out of trouble long enough to discover what we want and get back out again. But I need to know anything you can tell me. What about those spells you mentioned to make weapons that we can use against demons?\" \"Now did I say that?\"\n\n\"You most certainly did.\"\n\n\"Well, it's been a long time, and you must understand that I never actually tried any of this stuff firsthand. I'll have to look .. well, hello there!\"\n\n\"Oh, you're cute!\" Addena Sheld said, tickled with delight, as she stepped up from behind the two sorceresses and sat down on the arm of the old wizard's chair. \"You didn't tell me whether or not you needed me to tell this distinguished older gentleman what I saw.\"\n\n\"Ah... Addena did some judicious sightseeing in the South for me when she was there on tour this summer,\" Lady Mira explained, looking at her friend questioningly. \"Addena Sheld is a very famous concert singer, you know.\"\n\n\"Oh, you don't say!\" Bresdenant radiated excited delight like a rat in a cheese pantry. \"So, are you going to sing for me?\" \"Right now I need for you to sing for me,\" Mira said impatiently, wondering what in the world had possessed Addena to make such an unexpected appearance.\n\n\"Listen, if I tell you all of this, the two of you are going to go running off into the South and get yourself into trouble,\" he told her firmly. \"If what you say is going on down there, then it's no place for a woman.\"\n\n\"I've been there,\" Addena declared reproachfully, in a way that encouraged him not to disagree with her. She knew an old fart when she saw one; she had been forced to deal with enough of his kind in the past. \"As Mira told you, I've already gone south as her spy.\"\n\nMira noticed that Jenny had the same wicked look in her eyes as she had when she had scorched those two demons.\n\n\"Do you really think these two could cavort with the Dark Priesthood and get away with their skins?\" Bresdenant asked her very seriously.\n\n\"You don't know these two as well as I do, \" Addena answered. \"They could probably get away with pretending to be Dark Priestesses.\"\n\n\"Now that's exactly the point.\" He turned to look at the two sorceresses. \"You seem to think that your relative familiarity with the Dark will help you to understand your enemies, hide you from them and perhaps even fight them if you must. But, you see, that's the old trap. To fight the Dark, you must look into the shadows. But once you do, you're easy bait for its true servants. If they get their hands on you, they're going to try to force you over to the Dark. And then you'll find it only too easy to fall, because you have seen the Dark. That's what they used to do with our sorcerers. The very thing that's your advantage is also your disadvantage.\" \"I understand that,\" Lady Mira agreed, although the idea clearly bothered her. And it bothered her more for Jenny's sake. \"But we still have to go.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because if we don't, then they're going to come into our lands after us in their own good time. They've already started... or do you need to see the arrow damage on the bottom of my airship to believe that? We've got to go now, to see what's going on and what those people plan to do, before it's too late for any of us to stop it.\"\n\nBresdenant looked up at Addena, still seated on the arm of his chair. \"Are you going?\"\n\nShe took a deep breath and sighed. \"I've already been, remember? And I will go back, if it will do any good.\"\n\nThe old wizard sat for a long moment, as if trying to reconcile himself to some idea that disagreed with every principle he held true. He sighed heavily. \"Ah, women. They aren't half trained the way they should be, they wouldn't have the slightest idea of what to do in a fight, and they probably don't even know what to look for. But you mean to go, I can see that. And I sure as hell don't see anyone offering to go in your place. I'd go myself, if I... Hell, I'm just an old man. I might as well sit around here all day and learn to do something harmless, like basketmaking or weaving.\"\n\n\"You were weaving when I first knew you twenty years ago,\" Mira remarked with just a hint of mischief.\n\n\"Yes, that's a fact!\" He was as quick as anyone to laugh at his drinking habits. He almost seemed to consider drunkenness the major accomplishment of his life. He paused again, and frowned. \"I've got a book where I've collected all the spells and lore I've run across over the years on how to fight the Dark. A lot of that stuff has come down second-and third-hand from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. And I've never been able to test the accuracy of any of it, you must understand.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" Mira agreed. \"Still, it is better than nothing. What can it tell me?\"\n\n\"Oh, any number of things you might find useful. I can recall offhand that it does have spells for forcing skulking demons to reveal themselves, and tests to see if someone belongs to the Dark. It has spells to let you shield yourself from the attacks of demons. It has spells that can be woven into the metal of swords and arrows to allow them to bite into demon flesh. Oh, it has quite a lot of useful little tidbits.\"\n\n\"I need it. But what about magic...?\"\n\n\"Damn it, I've already explained that to you,\" he said impatiently. \"You develop your instincts until your magic knows how to take care of you. Don't you worry about that, though. There are a few hints in the book itself that might make that easier. I don't know. I've never tested it myself. And you really won't know how well you're learning until your magic has to prove itself in battle.\"\n\n\"Why don't we go get that book?\" Addena suggested, then gave Mira a beseeching look that suggested that she did not care to be alone with this old wizard in his room. \"You need to start on it as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"Yes, I certainly do,\" Lady Mira agreed as she rose to follow them. Bresdenant, who alone remained seated, looked about in a bewildered manner, suddenly realizing that he was going to have all three females alone in his room and wondering what he was going to do about it. But at that moment the two young mercenaries made their appearance, moving in to stand protectively behind both of the sorceresses. Their attempts at looking grim and hard were laughable, but Bresdenant was in no position to argue. Looking like he had just tasted something terrible, he rose to lead the way.\n\n\"If I had known that we were going to have a damned party, I would have called for more fruit juice,\" he muttered miserably.\n\nLady Mira indicated for the bodyguards to follow behind Addena and the wizard, since she was the one who was placing her head in the lion's mouth for the sake of their mission. Jenny fell in close beside her mistress. \"Just what is going on here?\"\n\n\"I wish I knew,\" Mira answered, seemingly inclined to laugh. \"That old goat was beginning to get obstinate, almost as if he had decided that he wanted us to fail. Then Addena arrived and was perfectly willing to play him for the fool he is, and I have to let her. Letting her keep him too confused and distracted to turn devious is the only way I know to be able to trust what he tells us, and I still don't trust him completely. Having that book will be a big help, and Addena is the only one who has a chance of getting it away from him.\"\n\n\"He doesn't much like me,\" Jenny said, confused. She had always been such an eager, delightful personality that she had never had to deal with that problem.\n\n\"He likes women who are stupid and impressionable, and you are neither one of those. He especially dislikes women who are more intelligent than he is. He doesn't much care for my company right now either, so don't let it worry you.\"\n\nBresdenant had one of the larger apartments in Coot Hall\u2014\n\nJenny was beginning to appreciate that name\u2014consisting of a linlroom, a small kitchen and a front study. Bookshelves lined every wall of that front room and they were packed full, if in a haphazard manner, but half again that many books overflowed the shelves to end up as orphans on the floor, the extra chairs, the vast desk and even the kitchen table. But the books had to battle lor any available space with empty mugs, bits of magical paraphernalia, dirty plates, empty bottles and ordinary trash. The vis-Uors picked their way carefully through this maze, although the mercenaries remained on guard to either side of the door. Mira kicked a wad of paper, which deflected off the wall, and the side of the desk and into the large trash basket. That last item appeared to be the cleanest fixture in the room.\n\n\"You were a slob when I first met you, and you're still a slob,\" Mira remarked under her breath.\n\nJenny looked even less happy. The floor had an odd tendency to crunch as they walked.\n\n\"Oh, do you think you can ever find it?\" Addena asked with innocent consternation. Mira cleared her throat in a rather obvious effort to keep from laughing.\n\n\"Oh, I know it's in here someplace,\" Bresdenant assured her jovially as he forced his way through the undergrowth to the desk. I le happened to glance up at the two guards. \"Where did you get lliose two boys, anyway?\"\n\n\"Oh, they're just my guards,\" Mira answered with her own brand of innocence. \"The Trassek twins, Dooket and Erkin.\" \"Twins?\" the old wizard asked suspiciously. Dooket was very tall and dark, while Erkin was short and blond. But he decided lo avoid arguing the point, fearful of what he might be given as logic for this situation. He began to dig through the upper layers of the desk, then paused to stare at Mira. \"I remember you now! You used to be shorter.\"\n\nJenny and Addena stared at her in surprise, but Mira did her best to pretend that he had not said that. \"What do you mean, you only now recognize me? I was your student for six years.\" \"Yes, but you were barely four and a half feet tall back then,\" he insisted. \"I remember now. They found you doing cheap tricks and performing as a midget clown in a traveling circus, but you had such talent that they convinced you to go to the Academy. My, but you've grown!\"\n\n\"I was just late to get my full growth,\" Mira declared indignantly. Addena had collapsed in helpless laughter atop a pile of books behind the desk; Erkin was biting his tongue, while Dooket stood with his face in the comer behind the door. Only Jenny did not appear amused, although she could not have been more surprised. Mira looked at her, and shrugged. \"I got tired of being so short.\"\n\n\"Oh, I can understand that,\" Jenny agreed. \"Magic does sometimes have its benefits.\"\n\n\"Now, if we could take a look at that book...\"\n\n\"Ah, do you think that you can do something about my nose?\" Jenny interrupted her gently.\n\n\"Your nose is just fine, child,\" Mira assured her, and turned to glare at the wizard. \"If you don't mind.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. Here it is.\" He extracted a large but rather thin book from beneath a stack of papers. Mira made her way to his side as he laid the book out on the table, quickly checking its table of contents. It had the appearance of having been machine-printed, except that the style was very ornate; Bresdenant had, at one time, been very meticulous with his magic.\n\n\"This looks rather impressive,\" she admitted.\n\n\"The work of a lifetime,\" Bresdenant declared proudly. \"No part of this book is pure conjecture except for those parts clearly labeled so. I still have the source material, although a lot of it has to be spelled to translate the original text... and if you can find it.\"\n\n\"Will you let me read through this text?\" Mira asked guardedly. \"They really do need to have that book, considering how important it is for them to know how to fight the Dark,\" Addena added in a rather seductively beseeching tone, moving up close beside the old wizard and holding tightly to his arm. Bresdenant sighed deeply, knowing that he was going to allow himself to be had.\n\n\"Now, I'm not about to take the only copy of this text into the South with me, where it might be lost,\" Mira was quick to point out, although she was surprised to see that Bresdenant probably would have let them have the book. \"I can get paper from Wind Dragon and spell myself a complete copy in a matter of minutes.\" \"Oh, well, you can surely do that,\" Bresdenant agreed pleasantly enough, relieved that he was not going to lose his own copy after all. \"How soon do you want to get started?\"\n\n\"I might as well send Addena after paper right away and get on with it,\" she decided. She did not say that she actually meant to make several complete copies, so that at least one could be sent to the Academy. \"We really do need to be on our way in the morning, but I would like a chance to read through this material lirst.\"\n\n\"Would you like to go with me to get that paper?\" Addena said, taking the hint to get Bresdenant out of his room. \"I'm sure that you would like to see Wind Dragon. She really is the most beautiful airship ever.\"\n\n\"I don't much care for flying,\" Bresdenant said uncertainly as he followed her toward the door.\n\n\"Oh, I didn't mean that we should try to get it up.\"\n\n\"Hee, hee! That's what you think!\"\n\n\"Oh, piffle!\" Mira declared impatiently. \"You always did have a thing for sex.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure. I just never get to use it.\" Bresdenant was so pleased with himself that he tripped in the debris, but Dooket caught him before he hit the ground and returned him to an upright position. He stared up at the giant mercenary thoughtfully, rubbing his beard, then hurried out the door after Addena. Erkin closed it behind him.\n\n\"My word, I..Mira was caught off guard by a loud burst of giggling from the hall, followed by Bresdenant's rather bacchanal laughter. She glanced up at the door. \"And to think, all we have to worry about are demons and the Dark Priesthood.\" \"Will he...?\" Jenny asked nervously.\n\n\"Oh, great stars, no!\" the sorceress declared. \"As far as I've ever been able to tell, he's still a virgin who talks a lot. Why don't the two of you go after them and get that paper? Addena, I trust, knows to keep him away long enough for us to make several copies of this.\"\n\n\"Why do we always got to run your errands?\" Dooket demanded indignantly, and Erkin nodded. \"We're mercenaries.\" \"You are two postpubescent clowns whom I pay better than you deserve to do whatever I tell you,\" she explained patiently. \"Begone.\"\n\n\"Did you hear that, brother?\" Dooket demanded as they turned to leave. \"She called us clowns.\"\n\n\"She ought to know.\"\n\n\"What's a postpubescent, anyway?\"\n\n\"It means you have a beard, brother.\" Erkin paused in the doorway to explain.\n\n\"Oh.\" Dooket made an exaggerated grimace, as if he was forcing a reluctant brain into motion. \"But I've got no beard.\" \"Not on your chin, you dolt,\" Erkin said impatiently. The closing of the door spared the two sorceresses any further nonsense.\n\n\"My word, has the whole world gone mad today?\" Mira demanded as she sat down in the chair, which made a very unusual squeak of protest. She jumped up, brushed something off onto the floor, and sat down again. She checked the contents of the book quickly and turned to the indicated page. \"Yes, here we go. He does have quite a large section on the origins and nature of the Dark and the calling forth of Dark Forces. Although he does indicate that he does not consider the source material to have been absolutely reliable.\"\n\n\"What do you hope to find?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"At this point, anything would be useful. Specifically, I want to know how to recognize agents of the Dark from a safe distance, ways to take some measure of the Dark Forces that are gathered in a specific place, and the ways that the Dark Sorcerers work their magic. And, not incidental to all of that, how to get away with our hides. Why don't you prepare a place where we can assemble five copies of this?\"\n\nThat request fell into the category of things easier said than done, and after some difficulty Jenny had a small table clear enough to lay out the five manuscripts. Dooket and Erkin had returned with all the paper they could find by that time, then retreated to guard the door from the outside so that the two sorceresses could work undisturbed. Mira counted out five sheets and laid them stacked atop the first printed page of the text, then muttered a couple of words with the appropriate gestures. When she picked up the stack of paper, she had five perfect copies of that page.\n\nJenny watched the process with considerable interest. Mira seemed to have a spell for everything, including cabalistic copying and magical fax.\n\n\"Ah, nice,\" she remarked as she handed the pages to her student, who quickly separated them face down into five separate piles. She was already counting out paper for the next page. \"But we do need to hurry. I can imagine what poor Addena is having lo put up with, trying to keep one step ahead of that old fart. I had to put up with it for six years, remember?\"\n\n\"He never caught you?\" Jenny asked as she reached over to receive the second page.\n\n\"Brez is a bother, not a danger,\" she explained. \"He was younger then, but so was I. And a much smaller target than I am now.\"\n\nBy that evening, Mira had determined that the old wizard had either never really understood all that much about the material that he had so carefully collected, or else he had since forgotten the better part of it. She saw now that his earlier avoidance of her questions was due largely to the fact that he simply did not know the answers. That also meant that she and Jenny were very much on their own in the matter of finding the answers they needed in that book. And she hoped that the answers they needed were in that book, since they would have to learn its secrets on their way south.\n\nLady Mira may have hoped for better, but she had honestly expected no more than that. She now had five copies of that very important book neatly bound, one each for herself and her young student, one to remain safely at home, and the last two to be sent on to the Academy. That way all that information would be safe from even the worst of catastrophes, either their failure to return from their mission in the South or the loss of Bresdenant's library to spontaneous combustion.\n\nShe considered the first part of this mission to have been very successful; the rest could only go half as well, and they might just come out of this alive and enlightened. Her first inclination was to get Wind Dragon back in the sky, return Addena to Bennasport, stock the airship for an extended journey and collect J.T., and be on their way to the southern sea. Addena was quick to agree with that idea; she had reached the limit of both her strength and her patience in dealing with Bresdenant.\n\nThe next time she came, Mira meant to bring Dame Tugg with her. Those two strong and extremely peculiar personalities would either murder each other, or marry. And the both of them deserved either fate.\n\nBresdenant surprised them early that evening by paying a visit to Wind Dragon. Addena heard him coming, singing coarsely and telling himself snips of rank jokes, and locked herself in her cabin.\n\n\"Well, I don't suppose that I'll ever see you people again,\" Bresdenant remarked. \"I'll regret that. You're not much, but you're all I've got.\"\n\nMira's brows did calisthenics. \"Really.\"\n\n\"All the same, I will wish you luck in your mission. That book is the best that I can do for you.\"\n\n\"And we appreciate that,\" Mira assured him.\n\n\"Well, I might as well call it a night. It's a night.\" He turned to leave, but paused to look back. \"If you do make it to Alashera, by the way, you might have a look around for the Heart of Flame. \" \"The Heart of Flame was destroyed thousands of years ago,\" Mira said, as if daring him to deny that.\n\n\"So they say,\" Bresdenant answered as he leaned over the rail. \"The Servants of the Dark were supposed to have destroyed it themselves during the fall of Alashera. But, as you read through that book, you'll see that I've cited three references to the Prophecy of Haldephren, the High Priest of Alashera. He claimed to his followers, before they scattered and left him to his death, that his intention was to seal the Heart of Flame within the chambers of Mount Drashand. There it was to lie hidden until some later day, when the Forces of the Dark would again grow in strength and open the chamber for the new priesthood. It just occurred to me to wonder if they've found the damned thing, or if they've even bothered to look.\"\n\n\"I'll make a special point of that,\" Mira promised him. \"Do you think that the Heart of Flame still exists?\"\n\nBresdenant only shrugged. \"I've always thought it possible that the thing still exists, since there was no direct proof of its destruction. I really just don't know. I've never been in the South to have a look for myself, although I always meant to go.\"\n\n\"Will you go with us now?\" Mira asked.\n\nBresdenant thought about it for a long moment, but shook his head. \"I'm getting too old for this type of thing, and flying makes me dizzy.\"\n\nIt's because you're a drunk, Mira thought. But she kept that to herself. Matters were getting more and more complicated at every turn, so that their journey into the South was becoming a larger and more complex task every step along the way. But, since that was the way such matters usually turned out, she was not completely surprised.\n\n\"Is there anything else I should know?\" she asked.\n\n\"Well, ever heard of the Prophecy of Maerildyn?\" Bresdenant offered.\n\nMira was astounded. \"I've heard of Maerildyn, of course, but nothing about her having a prophecy. Just what does the prophecy purport?\"\n\n\"Hell, I don't know!\" Bresdenant declared. \"I don't much Ihink that anyone in the North knows. It dealt with the return of the Empire, and no one seemed to want to think about that. Only traces survive.\"\n\n\"Any hints?\"\n\n\"Just two,\" the wizard said, obviously beginning to enjoy himself, as any true sorcerer would during a scholarly discourse. \"The prophecy is said to deal with the return of the Forces of the Dark, the reestablishment of the Dark Priesthood, and the second rise of the Alasheran Empire. That seems a fairly safe assumption, under the circumstances during which the prophecy was delivered. Of the second part, all we have is a bare fragment of what is supposed to be the original prophecy.\"\n\nHe rolled his eyes upward as he searched through the cluttered library of his memory.\n\n\"Dragons gold and dragons black Seek to gain what each may lack.\n\nWhite and black, red and blue, Fortune hangs between the two.\"\n\n\"White and black is obvious enough,\" Mira mused. \"But red and blue? Do you have any idea?\"\n\nBresdenant shrugged helplessly. \"I have no idea.\"\n\n\"The Empire was coming down on their heads and everyone was busy making prophecies. I guess that they had already called the odds.\" Mira propped her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her hands and rolled her eyes. \"Very well. One more small task in our busy vacation itinerary. Wish you to impart any more gems of information, oh sotted sage?\"\n\nBresdenant spared one of his impish grins. \"Have you ever seen a demon?\"\n\n\"A winged demon?\" she offered, as if asking him not to tell her that things got worse than that.\n\nHe waved that away impatiently. \"The robins of spring, compared to the big beggars I've read about. I'm only glad that I've never seen one, at least not when I was sober.\"\n\n\"That leaves precious little time for sane enlightenment,\" Mira reflected to herself, muttering under her breath. She looked over at him. \"Can we fight them?\"\n\n\"As far as I can tell, yes,\" he agreed, nodding thoughtfully. \"People used to do it quite regularly. With the right weapons and a little experience, it seems that you can meet them on fairly equal terms. Listen, why don't just the three of you stop by my apartment later on for a little party? I can teach you a thing or two about having a good time.\"\n\nBy mutual consent between the two sorceresses and the singer, they declined a generous offer of rooms in Coot Hall for the night. They spent the night in Wind Dragon, and drew in the boarding ramp behind them.\n\n\"More prophecies,\" Jenny muttered to herself. \"I seem to be drawing the damned things like flies. As if the one wasn't really enough.\"\n\n\"Oh, cheer up,\" Mira told her. \"I'm not so sure that we do have more than just the one prophecy. They all seem to be different perspectives of the same thing.\"\n\n\"That's easy for you to say,\" Jenny complained. \"For you, it's just any other professional puzzle. I'm the one who has to put up with blue hair and dire fate.\"\n\n\"You do?\" Mira stared at her intently. \"I'd never noticed.\"\n\nLate during the night, a dark figure slipped from one shadow to another as it made its stealthful way across the yard outside the Sanctuary toward the parked airship. It made a sudden dart across the open, disappearing within the dark recess beneath Wind Dragon's hull. Lady Mira had been obliged to crank down the wheels and move the ship to a more suitable location. Now the furtive figure cut the brake cables to each wheel, then pulled out the blocks under the wheels themselves.\n\nThe little airship began to move slowly, almost lazily, her long, slender bowsprit swinging around as she followed the gentle slope. Because she rolled on inflated nibber tires with shock-absorbing struts, Wind Dragon hardly even shuddered as she stepped gently down off the curb onto the large, flat paving stones of the road leading down toward the village. Fortunately the curb itself was high enough to guide the wheels of the airship. That late at night, no one but an occasional cat observed as the ship lumbered through the very middle of the village.\n\nThe really interesting part came on the far side of the village. The paving stones and the guiding curb suddenly disappeared, and Wind Dragon seemed destined to crash into a stand of trees past a sudden curve in the road. That might have been better, since the ship was moving at hardly more than an indifferent walk and would not have damaged herself to any great extent. As it happened, she chose that particular moment to wander off the road and her right forward wheel truck ran down a wooden road sign. That had the unexpected effect of turning the forward wheels to the right, and the airship just barely managed to negotiate the turn.\n\nNow she began to gain speed slowly and she descended the gentle slope of the portage road that ran alongside the barge tracks, allowing passage for the teams of horses that hauled the empty ore barges back up to the mines from their long journey down to the coast. Slowly she moved off to the left toward the barge tracks. First the left wheels stepped down into the deep stone-lined trough, and then the right ones followed. It was quite a step down, although the ship was still moving along at no more than an uninspired run and her passengers were used to sleeping in a moving airship.\n\nWind Dragon was so small and narrow that her wheels fit almost exactly within the confines of the barge tracks. Now that the way was straight and open, the airship began to gather speed steadily.\n\nJenny awoke early the next morning and stepped out on the central deck for a breath of air. The morning wind seemed oddly brisk, but the air was cool and damp. She took a deep, full breath and released it slowly, and stood at the left rail watching the dark wall of pines whizzing past only a few yards away. Jenny just stood there at the rail watching the forest, which was deep and shadowy with a type of storybook charm, as if the eternal twilight beneath those tall pines hid the little cottages of reticent dwarves and the woodland hunts and banquets of elves. She knew such things from firsthand experience. She took another deep breath and paused.\n\nNow, what is wrong with this picture?\n\n\"Mira!\" she shouted with the impressive clarity and volume of a trained voice as she hurried to the wheel. \"Kasdamir Gerran, you overgrown midget! Get your ass on deck this moment!\"\n\nMira was a good long time in making her appearance on deck, and even then she was wearing nothing except an oversized flannel shirt and carrying a cup of tea in one hand. She yawned hugely. \"What is it, child?\"\n\n\"We're moving!\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. Drifting gently along on a sea of dreams, the soft breeze that fills our sail bearing us pleasantly away from that fair land of Morpheus.\" She paused, and stared over the rail. \"Holy shit!\"\n\n\"May I take that to mean that you haven't the slightest idea how we happened into this remarkable situation?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"I hope to kiss a pig.\" Mira hurried to the helm deck, and stopped short. \"The brakes are on.\"\n\n\"We have no brakes,\" Jenny informed her.\n\nMira looked over Jenny's shoulder to check the airspeed indicator. The dial listed up to a hundred knots, to allow for the measurement of headwinds. A very large percentage of the total lay on the wrong side of the pointer. She frowned. \"I wonder how long we've been at it.\"\n\n\"I wonder who put us here,\" Jenny countered. \"I know better than to think that Wind Dragon broke all her cables and jumped her blocks.\"\n\n\"And I know better than to think that Wind Dragon just happened to wander all the way from the Sanctuary, through the middle of a fairly large village and somehow managed to find herself in the barge tracks,\" Mira added, and she was never to know just how wrong she was. \"I can imagine setting us free to wreck, but I just can't figure out why they did this. I wonder what day this is?\"\n\nJenny stared at her. \"What does that matter?\"\n\nMira shrugged. \"Probably nothing, since we're in trouble either way. I was just thinking that the ore barges are rolled down to the port in a single group for two days, unloaded for two days and hauled by teams of horses back up for a journey of five days for reloading. The schedule is designed to insure that all the traffic on the line is always moving in the same direction.\"\n\n\"Land ho!\" Dooket shouted from the bow. \"No, strike that. Water ho!\"\n\nThe two sorceresses peered ahead. They were just corning over the top of a low rise that began a final long, steep run down to the distant coast. The forest ran unbroken right up to the edge of the sea, which was contained in a narrow bay between two long arms of land to either side. There was a town of considerable size at the end of the line, with sailing ships at rest in the harbor. The end of the line was the part that most occupied their attention, since it was no more than five miles ahead and looked to be at least a mile below. The ship's altimeter, operating by air pressure, insisted that they would indeed descend two thousand feet in a very short time. Jenny thought that, by the time they reached the end of this grade, she was going to find out what it was like to drag race a tea clipper.\n\n\"And airships don't have reverse thrust,\" Jenny said to herself. She turned to her mistress'. \"Lady Mira, do you know anything about this port? What happens when we come to the end?\" \"One of two things,\" Mira mused. \"We'll go right through the warehouses, unless the barges stop us first. That depends upon what day it is. Anticipating your next question, there will be no more than a mile of open ground in which we can swing out the vanes and take to the air. On this slope, even our brakes would never stop us now.\"\n\n\"You'll need to take the wheel,\" Jenny told her.\n\n\"I'll be quick,\" Mira promised as she headed toward her cabin. She waved to the two mercenaries on her way. \"Have everything rigged so that we can swing out the vanes and lock them in place as quickly as possible.\"\n\nJenny tried her best to hold the ship to the center of the track, fearful of losing a wheel or even a stnit from rubbing against the curb as their speed rose steadily. She wondered about their chances of surviving this while she watched the twins as they prepared the rigging, working to have the vanes as ready as possible to swing out as soon as they reached a space open enough. The increasing wind of their passage was making their work more and more difficult as Wind Dragon began to scream down that final slope.\n\nMira and Addena both appeared soon enough, suitably attired. Addena hurried to help the boys with the rigging, while the sorceress returned to the helm deck to take the wheel. She expected that Jenny would have gone forward to help with the rigging, but that was as ready as it could be. Instead she returned moments later with two ropes, one coiled over her shoulder while she trailed the other across the deck, and a large grappling hook. She quickly tied one end of the coiled rope to the hook and the other looped around both of the stem bracing bits used to tie up the ship.\n\n\"You'll only wreck us good if you try to stop us at this speed,\" Mira observed, although she made that something of a question.\n\nShe was perfectly aware that the girl knew that quite well.\n\n\"I'm not trying to stop us,\" Jenny said as she continued her work. \"I'm going to try to snag something that will slow us down, maybe buy us more time to get those vanes out.\"\n\nMira said nothing more, and Jenny continued her work. They came at last to the bottom of the slope and leveled out at a speed that they guessed to be on the better side of a hundred knots. Jenny stood, bracing herself against the wind by holding to the rail, the grappling hook in one hand, as she looked forward along the left side of the ship for a likely target. Wind Dragon emerged suddenly from the depths of the forest into a small belt of farmland behind the town, and she had to take the first target she could find.\n\nUnfortunately, it happened to be a small wagon loaded with round bales of straw that had been left right beside the barge track. There was an explosion of yellow straw, and the little wagon leaped right off its axles to follow the airship. It bounced and skipped at the end of the stout rope, smoking thickly almost at once because of friction from the stones before it suddenly burst into a bloom of flames. Wind Dragon began to slow noticeably, although she would still ram herself rather violently into the warehouses only a few hundred yards ahead if she could not get herself off the ground.\n\nJenny had tied the second rope to the first where it trailed out through an opening in the siderail. Now she cut the end of the first rope, and the weight of the wagon pulled the second rope tight. As it did, it gave a very firm tug on several other ropes and all four of Wind Dragon's vanes snapped out straight and firm. The Trassek twins hurried to secure the locking pins at the joints of the vanes and tighten up the remaining lines. Jenny could not release the burning wagon until they did.\n\n\"We've got an open path right through the middle of town,\" Mira reported, both delighted and horrified by what she could see coming. \"There are wide, open avenues to either side of the track. That should give us an extra two hundred yards of running room.\"\n\n\"We're going to need it,\" Jenny shouted back. \"Unless you want to fling this burning wagon right into the middle of the warehouses.\"\n\n\"Damn, this whole town could go,\" Mira muttered.\n\n\"Flight ready!\" Dooket shouted from the central deck.\n\n[ Mira began to apply lift from the levitation vanes, and Wind ]\n\nDragon began to rise steadily from the narrow canyon of two-and three-story buildings lining either side of the track. Jenny leaned over the back rail, watching anxiously until the rope was reaching almost straight down and the burning wagon slowly left the ground. It gave the edge of the roof of the first warehouse a glancing blow, but it did little damage and set no fire.\n\nThe only trouble was that Mira had no control over the ship, since the steering vanes were still retracted. Addena and the Trassek twins hurried to the bowsprit to rig those vanes as Mira took Wind Dragon out over the bay, allowing the ship to lose momentum. Jenny was about to cut the rope when the burning wagon collapsed, scattering flaming debris across the water.\n\nMira's intention was to bring the ship down in the water long enough for the steering vanes to be rigged. Wind Dragon was still moving along at a fair pace about twenty feet above the waves when the grappling hook, still trailing underwater at the end of its tether, suddenly snagged something that was even more reluctant to move than the airship. That brought the line up short, sending Addena and the two young barbarians over the rail and into the water.\n\nFinding her ship standing nearly on end, Mira had to apply full forward thrust as well as levitation to keep Wind Dragon from crashing stem-first into the waves. She was hanging from the forward wheel, staring over her shoulder at the waves below. Then, inexplicably, Wind Dragon gradually began to make headway, rising slowly bow-first into the sky. There was a curious stirring in the dark waters of the bay as some odd, shadowy form began to move toward the surface. The waves parted, and a sunken schooner nearly as large as Wind Dragon herself rose above the vanes. But it would go no farther, since the airship could hardly lift it into the sky.\n\n\"That's one hell of a rope,\" Jenny observed as she cut the knot.\n\nThat was probably not the smartest move, but they really had no choice in the matter. Wind Dragon shot forward as if she had been launched from some immense catapult. A long moment passed before Mira recovered from her surprise enough to reduce thrust and acceleration. The airship arched over in a neat trajectory before crashing back into the water with a rather awesome splash. It was a splash to end all splashes.\n\nMira picked herself up from the deck, dusted herself off, and stood for a long moment waiting to see if her little airship was going to sink. The vanes and rigging were all still intact, and it seemed that the hull had survived the impact through no fault of its own. She walked over to join Jenny at the aft rail, watching their lost members swimming toward them from over a quarter of a mile away.\n\n\"What a distressingly stupid thing to have happen before breakfast,\" Mira remarked to Jenny, who was still speechless. \"What do you say we have some tea before we get back to work?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Wind Dragon",
+                "text": "Only Lady Mira could pack an airship for an important and dangerous journey and host a party all at the same time. Or so it seemed to Jenny, who had to make frequent trips through the middle of that very party from Mira's study and storerooms to Wind Dragon's shed behind the house. She normally delighted in Mira's parties, and this evening she certainly would rather have been standing around enjoying wine and cheese rather than fetching baskets of supplies out to the airship.\n\nEven Mira found it a bit hard to keep both ends going at once. Ordinarily she could not resist a party, but she had been absolutely entranced with fascination for Bresdenant's book on the Dark. Jenny had to admit that it was all very interesting, but it also made her slightly uneasy. She was even more disconcerted to find that the material all seemed very self-evident to her, while her mistress would have to read the same passage many times and consult other references in her own books before a sudden, startling comprehension would take her by surprise. Jenny's own attempts to explain her own understanding to the older sorceress most often met with failure, since she found it hard to find the right words.\n\n\"Jenny, .child, I think I have it at last!\" Mira declared as her student entered her study, returning from yet another trip out to the airship. \"I think I have that spell of release mastered, the one that sends demons back to wherever they came from. I think I'm ready to try it again.\"\n\n\"What, now?\" Jenny asked apprehensively, pausing at Mira's side to glance down at the book. Her last attempt at working the spell of release on a \"target,\" small pieces of crystal that had been attuned to simulate the otherworld emanations of demons, had caused a yard-square section of the carpet to unravel itself. Fortunately Mira's magic had been able to put the threads back in place again.\n\n\"Yes, now,\" Mira declared impatiently.\n\n\"The practice room?\" Jenny suggested. \"It has a brick floor and only a few furnishings along the walls.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well,\" the sorceress agreed, and with no real reluctance. She had no desire to see what other variations of that spell might do to her study.\n\nJenny noticed that their retreat to the practice room somehow managed to acquire a following. The Trassek twins fell in immediately behind the sorceresses, but that was their duty. Addena noticed that something was up and followed as well, and somehow the entire gathering decided to fall in behind her. Curiosity, according to Mira, was a major cause of accidents, resulted in the wasting of a considerable amount of time, and was the driving force behind most love affairs.\n\nThe practice room was simply a large, empty chamber in the back of the house where members of the household could work to develop or maintain their martial skills... or even a trim waistline. It was mostly open space, with mats and equipment for exercises and room for fencing and broadsword fighting. The observers remained just inside the door, while the sorceresses advanced to the center of the room. Lady Mira bent to place a small, clear crystal on the floor, then stepped back four paces.\n\n\"It's really a matter of translation,\" she explained quietly to her student. \"My last mistake was making 'release' come out more as 'untie' or 'unravel,' since I was wanting to release the spells that bind the demons to this existence. This might work better.\"\n\nJenny only nodded.\n\n\"Forces of the Dark do shrink, turn out and slip away.\n\nStrip thee of thy protection, withdraw to that cold place Whence first it did come.\n\nNaked to this world, ye cannot abide!\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" Jenny half-shouted her warning, but it was too late.\n\nThe crystal did not disappear, nor did the sense of otherworldliness that surrounded it. But the magic was not without results. The two sorceresses, caught in the backwash of that spell, felt an icy breeze at their backs. And it was all the more icy to the feel, since they were now both completely naked. Even the pins which had held Mira's long, red hair piled atop her head were gone, so that her hair tumbled over her shoulders. Mira turned to her student with a look that dared her to say a word.\n\n\"A slight miscalculation,\" she declared as she turned and headed toward the door, where two score and more of guests stared in calm, quiet amazement. Since they seemed for the moment too startled to withdraw discreetly, the two sorceresses marched through the small crowd in the most casual manner they could contrive. Mira was blushing slightly, although it was not due to her state of undress.\n\n\"Where did our clothes go?\" Jenny asked softly as they marched through the dining room and headed toward the stairs. Dame Tugg, who was collecting empty glasses, was her usual unruffled self. She appeared to notice nothing. This was actually not a remarkable state of attire for some of Mira's more adventurous parties.\n\n\"I don't know for certain, but I have my suspicions,\" Mira answered. \"I just hope those foul demons enjoy my favorite lounging robe.\"\n\nJenny ran up the stairs and dressed as quickly as she could, intending to hurry back to Mira's study before her mistress might decide to attempt the spell again. She turned to close the door as she left her room, then turned to see the lithe, graceful form of a faerie dragon standing in the dark hall a few yards away. The dragon stood with his ears alert, staring at her in a rather disconcerting fashion, a fascinated yet troubled look, as if something about herself represented a problem to him.\n\nThen Jenny stopped short. It was Kelvandor.\n\nIn all the really weird things that she had done in her life, her curious relationship with Kelvandor had been the worst... and in its way the most wonderful. It was also five years past, a time in her life that she now considered to belong to her childhood. She had been interested in her first sexual experience. At that time there had been only the dragons, and she had believed that Mindijaran thought of their affairs only as play, a society without marriage. And Kelvandor had been mature, adventurous and exciting.\n\nBut there were a few things that she had never considered. One was the telepathic coupling of a perfect match, that love-at-first-sight manner in which Mindijaran most often began their amorous affairs. What she had never understood was why a dragon would find her sexually fascinating, or why she had felt a compulsion to respond. She had not suspected at the time that love was a part of their odd relationship. Nor had she realized until later that Kelvandor had not thought of her as human, but as a fellow creature of magic who was soon to become a dragon like himself. But Jenny had avoided taking draconic form, delaying that act she both feared and desired. Kelvandor had loved her and she had loved him, and she had studiously ducked the question completely. It was a classic misunderstanding.\n\nFor the moment, at least, they were both too surprised by the whole affair to do anything. Except to be polite.\n\n\"It is good to see you again, Jenny,\" the dragon said politely, his voice a deep, warm tenor, full of honest concern.\n\n\"Yeah, you too,\" she answered uncertainly, scurrying to collect her scattered thoughts. Then she saw another dragon come up behind him in the dim light. \"Vajerral! I ought to skin you.\" Vajerral looked profoundly surprised. \"Me? I've been good.\" Jenny regarded her skeptically. \"I am glad to have you back, all the same. Let's go see the Lady.\"\n\nJenny led the way down the stairs to Mira's study, where she paused to knock on the half-open door. Knowing her mistress's habits, she had to wonder if Mira would have taken the time to dress before returning to her study of the book and its elusive incantations. Mira was already dressed for travel and seated at her desk, reading Bresdenant's book with a pot of tea at hand. She looked up at the dragons indifferently.\n\n\"Ah, it's about time that the two of you put in an appearance,\" she said, then peered at the larger dragon closely. \"I say, who's your handsome friend? Your boyfriend?\"\n\n\"No, Jenny's,\" Vajerral answered innocently.\n\nEither Mira failed to notice, considered it a joke, or else she had simply reached the point where nothing surprised her. Jenny, however, nearly melted into the floor.\n\n\"This is Kelvandor,\" Vajerral explained. \"He is a very experienced fighting dragon, and very close to my mother. He knows as much of what is going on as anyone.\"\n\n\"Wonder of wonders, that Dalvenjah Foxfire should tell anyone what's going on with this mess!\" Mira declared, waving her hands. \"Not that I question your choice of companions, but just what is the esteemed Dalvenjah Foxfire doing these days? Anything?\"\n\nVajerral employed one of her ridiculously stupid looks; she had long since discovered stupidity as a device for tactical evasion. \"When I left, she was trying to talk to a dead dragon.\"\n\nMira tried on a stupid look of her own.\n\n\"Well, it's her half-brother Karidaejan,\" Vajerral volunteered when she realized that she would get off scot-free on that one. \"He did something during a visit to Jenny's world years ago, but no one has ever been able to figure out what. Mother thought it could be very important to know.\"\n\n\"I dare say,\" Mira agreed; \"I thought that faerie folk were always reborn soon after they die, and Karidaejan's been gone for years.\"\n\n\"The trick is finding out who he is now,\" the young dragon explained.\n\nMira looked surprised. \"Is he likely to remember?\" \"Normally, no. But this was very important, and there are magical means to protect important memories. Sort of like leaving a note to yourself in your next life.\"\n\nIt seemed like a good time to drop the subject.\n\n\"Vajerral has explained your plan.\" Kelvandor managed to get in his first words. \"Is this still what you intend?\"\n\n\"Yes, more than ever,\" Mira insisted. \"The Empire has already begun to move. We were attacked by a captured airship during our last journey, piloted by a Dark Sorcerer with two demons along just for fun.\"\n\n\"Demons.\" Kelvandor frowned, with a brief glance at Jenny. \"That does make things rather more difficult. Vajerral and I can hold our own against demons, and Jenny as well because of her command of dragon magic. But we must now be prepared for anything. What of the rest of you? Did your journey to visit your former master work out for you?\"\n\n\"We did learn a trick or two. We now have spelled swords, spears and arrows in such a way that they should be damaging to demons,\" Mira answered, and turned to her protege. \"What did we do with those weapons, anyway?\"\n\n\"You had Dooket and Erkin load those weapons on board Wind Dragon over an hour ago,\" Jenny replied.\n\n\"Indeed? Then let us repair forthwith,\" Mira said as she rose. Jenny was interested to note that the appearance of dragons at one of Lady Mira's parties did not seem at all unusual to the guests. That led her to wonder yet again about some of the parties that must have occurred here just prior to her arrival . The sorceress stopped short halfway down the steps to stare intently at some point in that loose gathering of guests.\n\n\"Well, I'll be,\" she muttered in a dire voice. \"Addena took up with that professional athlete after all, and I warned her that he's a hopeless bore. Well, it serves her right.\"\n\nMira marched right through the middle of the party to where Addena stood in conversation with the biggest, most musclebound man that Jenny had ever seen. He was handsome, but Jenny had to agree with her mistress's assertion that he was an accomplished lover\u2014of himself. Addena was at her fawning best, this time with apparent sincerity.\n\n\"Oh, I wouldn't miss the games for anything,\" Addena was saying, not yet aware of their approach. \"You know, I've always excelled at sports, myself.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll say!\" Mira interjected casually. \"You should have seen the sport she was with last night.\"\n\n\"Well... yes...\" Addena sputtered, turning to afford the sorceress an icy stare, and her eye teeth seemed to grow a fraction of an inch. \"Maybe you'll feel better about it when the cramps subside.\"\n\n\"Tacky, Addena,\" Mira remarked as she hurried on her way, well pleased with herself. No one was her equal when it came to puns, barbs and catty remarks, certainly not Addena.\n\nWind Dragon was secure inside her shed behind the house, with every lamp in the place spelled to full brightness to bathe the ship in soft light. The airship had somehow managed to avoid any serious damage during their previous journey. The fact that the brake cables had all been cut and the blocks removed demonstrated that they had enemies who would do anything to stop them. As a result, Mira had ordered Dooket and Erkin to stay with the ship every night.\n\nThe normal store of supplies for an extended journey had already been secured within her holds; the members of the expedition needed only to bring their personal baggage in the morning. Certain things that Jenny had been unsure about, the spelled weapons as well as the special items they might need for fighting demons or Servants of the Dark, still lay on the center deck.\n\n\"Oh, I meant for most of this to go into the special holds,\" Mira said, indicating various boxes and bales.\n\n\"What special holds?\" Vajerral asked innocently.\n\n\"I had some secret compartments built into the interior deck,\" Mira explained as she began directing the dragons up the boarding ladder. It was tricky going; Vajerral managed to get her leg caught between the slats and fell on her back.\n\nThat was enough for Jenny. She turned to walk slowly along the length of the airship. She was annoyed with Vajerral for bringing Kelvandor into this, and with Kelvandor for being his same disarming, ingratiating, delightful self. And mostly with herself, for being so hopelessly foolish.\n\nA large part of her difficulties, she thought, was that she was forever trapped between. Like her uncle Allan, her magic was such that she had never been strictly mortal. Her magical training had only complicated the matter, turning her into a creature of magic, a faerie dragon on the inside but still essentially mortal on the outside. Unable to ever go back, but afraid to go forward.\n\nSo there she was. Training to be a sorceress and in love with a dragon, and unable to do anything about any of it for as long as she had the Prophecy hanging over her head. She paused to check the tread on the tires of Wind Dragon's port forward strut. These people were doing their best, but it was stretching the limits of their technology to turn out even a simple rubber tire. Spending half of a long night running down the length of the barge track, rubbing against the stone curbs, had done them no favors. Mira would have liked to replace the front tires before they left, but there were simply none to be had.\n\nJust what was the problem? Was it that she really did not want to be a dragon? She did not think so. She had known most of her life that she would eventually have to become a dragon for her own protection, and that had never bothered her. She was looking forward to it. It would be nice never having to be the outsider, the odd piece, with Vajerral and her other dragon friends, and to finally enjoy her natural intimacy with Kelvandor. Was she just afraid to make that final decision? Although she disliked having to admit it, that did seem to be the explanation. It meant deciding that she was ready to make the decisions that would shape the rest of her existence, not just in this life but in all her lives to come. And it meant deciding that she was ready to face the Prophecy on her terms.\n\nPerhaps that was the key. Jenny's personal philosophy was to be aware of all the options available to her and to use her options wisely. In a matter as important as the Prophecy, she guarded her options like a miser. Actually becoming a dragon required that she had to surrender one of her most important options.\n\nJenny paused in her absentminded inspection of the forward struts, aware that she was no longer entirely alone. There was a vague magical disturbance in the air behind her that expanded rapidly as a presence began to form behind her. Her first thought was that her enemies had sent a demon after her. She retreated beneath Wind Dragon's bow, ready either to run like hell or call for the dragons to help her, whichever might seem to be the most effective for achieving the desired end of saving her ass.\n\n\"Do not fear.\"\n\nJenny hesitated at the tone of that distant voice. The misty form that was shaping itself in the air before her was not the dark, massive figure of a demon, but slender and golden. The long, graceful limbs and folded wings of a Mindijarah formed from out of the golden haze. It was a male, of the same size and general appearance as Kelvandor but slightly less powerful of build in the chest and shoulders. He stood regarding her intently, his long neck thrust forward, one hand raised in a reassuring gesture.\n\n\"Do not fear,\" he repeated. \"The time has come when you must soon face all the things you fear most, and you must not be afraid.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" Jenny asked, seeing that the misty figure was beginning to fade. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\"Karidaejan...\" the mysterious dragon said, and he was gone.\n\n\"Karidaejan!\" Jenny exclaimed softly to herself, so surprised that she nearly had to sit down.\n\nWell, speak of the devil and he shall appear. Vajerral had said that her mother had been trying to find Karidaejan, to see if he had forced himself to retain any important memories of his visit to Jenny's own world. It was no wonder Dalvenjah had never been able to find him. He had not returned to life in the way of all faerie folk, his magical spirit reborn in a new form. His part in the Prophecy was so important that he had remained between lives until it was done.\n\nBut just what was his part? Jenny knew that he had better things to do than bounce around mouthing vague and esoteric warnings. And yet she had to doubt that there were any great secrets to be had. For all Jenny knew, the High Priest Haldephren had come into her own world, quite probably taking the form of James Donner and fathering her in the process. If she had to guess, Karidaejan had discovered the scheme and had followed into her world to stop it. No one but Karidaejan knew what had happened then, but James Donner had died in an accident.\n\nNor had Karidaejan ever returned, and there had been no hint of his fate until Haldephren had turned up wearing his form. Some things just had a way of adding up. It seemed simple enough, and yet Dalvenjah believed that there was something more. And it seemed that Karidaejan himself had something more to say on the subject. Jenny reminded herself that Karidaejan was Dalvenjah's half-brother. She had never known him herself, but the two of them were probably a pair. Both of them were probably full of their private schemes that they had no intention of sharing until their own good time. She just wished that the two of them would get together and compare notes.\n\nJenny decided to keep the matter of her unexpected meeting with the spirit of Karidaejan entirely to herself. Out of respect for the departed dragon, she was not going to have Mira perform obscure experiments upon his ethereal essence. And she certainly did not want for Vajerral to go running home for Dalvenjah. If Karidaejan had something to say, he was going to tell it to Jenny only in his own good time.\n\nAs it was, the two dragons left immediately on an errand of their own, including the delivery of copies of Bresdenant's book to the dragons at the Academy at Tashira, to rejoin Wind Dragon in flight in a couple of days. Jenny was just as glad to see them go. For one thing, it would give her a chance to get used to the idea of having Kelvandor around before it became permanent. Nor was it too soon to begin thinking about what would come after. She did not need to go all the way to Alashera to know that the Prophecy was already in motion. She had her own personal ghost to tell her that.\n\n\"So, what do you think?\" she asked Vajerral as they stood on Wind Dragon's deck, waiting for Kelvandor. \"Am I finally going to have to give in?\"\n\n\"Soon,\" the dragon answered vaguely. She must have learned that from her mother, whose personal philosophies included never giving anyone a straight answer.\n\n\"Soon?\" Jenny stared at her.\n\n\"Not until after this journey, of course.\"\n\n\"Brilliant deduction,\" Jenny grumbled. \"Do you think that Dalvenjah will be coming to join us?\"\n\n\"She is busy now,\" Vajerral answered vaguely, quite obviously trying to say less than she knew or suspected. \"By the time we return, I think.\"\n\nJenny saw her opening and would have pressed the attack, but they were interrupted at that moment as Kelvandor came on deck from below. She had been thinking about matters a lot since the previous night, and she had realized that Kelvandor's presence was more likely Dalvenjah's bright idea than any thought of Vajerral's. That led her to wonder if Dalvenjah had sent him to her to provide incentive, distraction, or because the sorceress knew that he had his own part to play in the Prophecy.\n\nVajerral took three discreet steps back... and promptly tumbled backwards down the open boarding ramp with a startled cry. Fortunately she rolled down the length of the cargo ramp, rather than hitting the usual boarding ladder that would have ordinarily been in place. Kelvandor stared in quiet fascination, and shrugged. \"Well, that was subtle,\" he commented.\n\n\"The very soul of discretion,\" Jenny agreed.\n\n\"Vajerral and I will be leaving now,\" Kelvandor said rather lamely.\n\nJenny shrugged rather indifferently. \"I will miss you, Isuppose. The magical matchmaker will see to that.\"\n\n\"I am sorry,\" he began hesitantly.\n\nJenny shrugged. \"So, did I ask you to be sorry for anything? Or are you sorry for yourself?\"\n\nKelvandor smiled. \"Never for a moment.\"\n\nHe was doing his best. And yet he looked so miserable and eager, like some immense puppy trying desperately to escape trouble, that Jenny had to smile. She thought that if she had to love against her will, she could not have chosen better. She remembered Dalvenjah and Allan and what the love for a dragon had done for him, how much strength he had gained in the company of that golden lady he held so quietly and incredibly dear.\n\nA girl could do worse. Maybe.\n\n\"You had best be on your way,\" she told him. \"Just hurry back.\"\n\nKelvandor seemed to be beyond words. He stared at her a moment longer as if she represented a puzzle that he did not completely comprehend. Then he turned, leaped atop the siderail and thrust himself into flight. Jenny stood and watched as Vajerral rose into the sky to fall in by his side, and together they wheeled away toward the northeast. She stood and wished that it could have been herself at his side, riding golden wings.\n\n\"Why are you weeping?\" J.T. asked in complete mystification, walking up to stare at her.\n\nJenny shrugged. \"I suppose that I love him.\"\n\nThe cat was clearly stunned. \"Is that any reason to weep?\" She smiled wryly. \"It is, when you can see the future.\"\n\n\"I've got it, dear child!\" Mira declared as she exploded up the steps from the middle deck. Then, to Jenny's profound consternation, she set a spelled crystal on the deck. \"Watch this!\" Jenny did not watch the crystal. Instead she held out her hand as if feeling for rain, scanned the clear and sunny sky for clouds, and tested the wind. J.T., who had been reposed atop the rail, leaped down and streaked away toward other portions of the ship. Mira stopped short to watch this activity, and frowned.\n\n\"Oh, piffle!\" the sorceress stated. \"I've got the damned spell worked out. You're not going to lose your clothes.\"\n\n\"We'll see.\" Jenny remained skeptical.\n\nLady Mira did not recite the spell aloud this time, but leaned over the crystal to mutter just a few key words together with several appropriate gestures. Nothing obvious happened to the crystal, but the faint, disquieting sense of magic which surrounded it abruptly vanished. She straightened, quickly felt of her clothes to insure that they were in place, and turned to her student. Jenny was gone. Only her clothes remained in a neat pile on the deck.\n\n\"Mira?\" Jenny's distant shout came from beneath the airship. \"Kasdamir Gerran, I'll get you for this!\"\n\n\"How does it look?\" Mira called from the helm deck, where she stood at the wheels. A rather threatening bank of clouds was slowly moving in from due north, just off Wind Dragon's port stem. She could see it bearing down upon them menacingly every time she glanced over her shoulder.\n\nErkin climbed down from the rigging of the forward mast. Needless to say, the airship was not running under sail in this erratic wind. He turned toward the rear of the ship. \"All clear ahead for the next two miles or so, but after that the land climbs sharply. It looks very rugged, with quite a bit of mist and cloud down to ground level.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, it's still not as bad as we had it last time,\" Mira said to herself, although she was not entirely pleased by that report. She turned to her student. \"Not to worry, though. If it gets too bad, then I could always put you at the wheels.\"\n\n\"Me?\" Jenny was rather alarmed. \"Why would you do that?\" \"That way, if we do get in a fix and lose the ship, I can always blame you!\" the sorceress declared, as if pleased with what seemed to her a perfectly reasonable plan. \"I was only teasing you, of course. I'm a good pilot, but you seem to have a tremendous natural feel for this ship.\"\n\n\"I should have stayed at home,\" J.T. complained as he sat peering through an opening in the rail at the mountains passing far below.\n\nLady Mira glanced at him impatiently. \"What's your problem? Do you need your hairball remedy? You know that every ship needs a cat.\"\n\nHe looked over his shoulder at her. \"There are no rats on airships, and there never have been. They know better. By the way, those dragon friends of yours are coming.\"\n\n\"Oh? How soon?\"\n\n\"Any moment.\" J.T. rose and stretched. \"I think that I'll go below, if it's all the same to you.\"\n\nA sudden, fierce crosswind shook the ship violently and began to force Wind Dragon's nose slowly around toward the south, where rocky slopes rose in threat several miles ahead. Mira spun the rudder wheel, bringing the ship back around. Fighting this stout wind made the ship difficult to handle but, since it was also a following wind, it had the effect of picking up their speed slightly even if they had no running sails out to catch it.\n\n\"Here they come,\" Jenny warned.\n\nKelvandor and Vajerral were angling across the wind to intercept them, their broad wings beating in powerful strokes to thrust themselves forward at a hard pace. Mira glanced up at the dragons only briefly, and a new idea occurred to her.\n\n\"How are they going to land?\" she asked her young student. \"I guess that they could come down here behind the helm, if you swing Wind Dragon around into the wind,\" Jenny suggested.\n\n\"Is that how you would do it, if you were a dragon?\" She was beginning to recognize just how much she could rely upon her young student's quick mind and tremendous attention to detail.\n\n\"I don't really know,\" Jenny answered. \"I can fly very well, but without the benefit of wings\u2014which is not true flight. I just know that it's easier to land Wind Dragon facing into a wind.\" \"Here we go, then!\" Lady Mira declared as she spun the rudder wheel, bringing the airship around hard to starboard until they were facing hard into the wind.\n\nWind Dragon shuttered as she fought the wind. Her ground speed, judging by her shadow on the rocky slopes below, had slowed to a crawl, although her indicated air speed jumped as Mira pushed the ship full speed against the brisk wind. Jenny called for the two mercenaries to assist her, then ran to the very stem of the ship and waved to the dragons as they circled close for a good look at the ship. They appeared to understand what she wanted of them, for they nodded their heads on long, powerful necks in an exaggerated gesture.\n\n\"Stand ready to help pull them on board, but stay clear of their wings,\" she told the mercenaries as they hurried to assist. \"Let them go if they start to fall, since they can save themselves.\" Turning into the wind seemed to have been the answer, allowing Kelvandor to match speed with Wind Dragon slowly as he came up behind the ship. He reached out to grab the rail and used that to pull himself on board agilely, needing no assistance from the others. He moved quickly out of the way, and Vajerral followed him on board a moment later.\n\n\"We were followed!\" she warned. \"Winged demons began to follow us about half an hour ago. And there are airships just ahead. Since they were obviously moving to intercept you, we did not worry about leading the demons to you. It seems better that we make our defense together.\"\n\nJenny rolled her eyes. \"Oh, great! What is it with this airline? They should have three monitors in the terminals. Arrivals, departures and odds. This is worse than the Hindenberg.\"\n\nMira turned to the dragon. \"What the hell is she babbling about?\"\n\nVajerral only shrugged.\n\nLady Mira considered the matter a moment. \"I don't suppose that we have any choice. Boys, go get the catapults ready, and load them up with explosive bolts. Dragons, you two get your tails overboard and do what you can. Remember that their stabilizers are canvas and will bum. Jenny, I need for you to take control of this ship, and let me help the boys with their defenses.\" Jenny stepped forward, obviously reluctant, and took both of the wheels from her mistress. Changing pilots in flight was a very drastic act indeed. Mira released her own control over the induction vanes, and the ship hesitated and began to settle, losing both speed and altitude quickly. Jenny established her own control only an instant later, and Wind Dragon responded immediately. She brought the nose of the ship back up, angling over the rough terrain that rose only a mile or so before them. At that moment another blast of icy wind shook the airship.\n\n\"Is it coincidence that we always seem to run across these people in the middle of a snowstorm?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"J.T.!\" Mira bellowed, and the cat stuck his head above the top of the steps leading up from the main deck a couple of seconds later. \"What of it, old catgut? Is the Dark behind this storm?\" \"They guide the storm towards us, but they did not make it,\" J.T. said. \"That is why their control is not as obvious.\"\n\n\"Can we control it ourselves?\"\n\nJ.T. shifted his ears around, as if listening intently to a very distant voice. \"Perhaps, but that would be difficult.\"\n\n\"Do we even want to?\" Jenny asked. \"They will be using the storm to cover their attack, and they rely upon their winged demons to guide them. But we can dispose of the demons, then use the storm as our own cover. Wind Dragon is most likely a smaller, quicker ship than anything they have.\"\n\n\"A good point,\" Mira agreed. \"Very well. Jenny, you have the helm, and I will organize the counterattack. Lizards, we need for you to get yourselves overboard and lead those demons close enough that we can spell them back to where they came from. Can you hold your own with those monsters?\"\n\n\"We are faster, and we have our flames,\" Kelvandor answered with quiet dignity. \"This should be simple.\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly,\" Mira muttered as she turned to leave. J.T. took one quick look around, determined that he probably would not be needed, and decided that he belonged below.\n\nIt suddenly occurred to Jenny that they might just be in serious trouble. Three airships, with Dark Priests, archers and attendant demons all in unknown quantities, was hardly a casual matter. If they had come up against such a force a week earlier, they probably would not have survived. Would the formidable combination of Mira's weapons and Bresdenant's spells and counterspells make the critical difference?\n\nIt all depended upon how quickly they could dispatch the demons, leaving them free to concentrate their attack on the three airships. She was certain that they could handle either the demons or the airships as separate groups, but both together might be too much for their own rather meager forces. That depended upon whether two faerie dragons could make up for a very big difference in the odds.\n\nA minute passed, and then two, and the leading edge of the storm was upon them. At least there was not much snow with this storm, but an icy mist closed about them with a swiftness that was alarming. Lady Mira, standing in the bow, issued a spell that cleared a pocket of air for several hundred feet around them, so that their enemies could not approach completely unseen. J.T., seized by a sudden fit of responsibility, returned to the helm deck to assist Jenny in locating their enemies in the frosty mist.\n\n\"Here they come!\" Kelvandor called as he suddenly hurtled out of the white haze, circling the ship quickly. \"Demons first, but the airships are right behind them.\"\n\n\"Let's concentrate on getting rid of the demons first,\" Lady Mira ordered. \"Boys, you two go after them with longbows and spelled arrows. I'll do what I can with counterspells. Jenny, do your best to stay clear of their ships, and keep in mind their fire arrows. Dragon, lead those demons in!\"\n\nKelvandor turned and shot away, disappearing abruptly into the curtain of mist. Jenny could now sense the approach of the three airships and angled Wind Dragon up to pass slightly above them, remembering their earlier success in using the hull of their own ship like a vast shield. After a moment they heard the challenging roars of the Mindijaran roll dimly through the fog, followed by the harsh, nerve-grating screams of the demons in answer. By the sound, they were already heading back, and quickly. The three archers readied their bows.\n\nThe dragons shot out of the mist moments later, a cloud of at least a score of winged demons almost on their tails. The archers began shooting immediately and their aim was predictably deadly, but the spelled arrows, while clearly painful to the demons, did not seem especially damaging. Only one demon fell from the sky, pierced by three shafts including one that transfixed its long, plated neck just below its ridged skull. Its black form burst into flames just before it disappeared into the clouds, leaving a thick, oily trail of smoke.\n\nBut the demons were guided by greater intelligence than Jenny would have given them credit for possessing. While the main flock followed the dragons around the stern of the airship and back into the mist, two circled around to attack her. All she could do to defend herself was to wave her sword over her head to fend them away, for she was too involved with keeping Wind Dragon in the sky to work her own counterspells. But they abandoned their assault quickly when long shafts began cutting deep into their armored bodies.\n\nMira rushed up to her side, bearing her own longbow and a large pack of spelled arrows. \"Sorry about that. Our mistake was in failing to recall that we need an archer on the helm deck to protect our pilot.\"\n\n\"How did they know?\" Jenny asked. \"Are they intelligent enough to know that I was vulnerable, or do they recognize me?\"\n\n\"I just don't know.\" Mira glanced quickly to port. \"Here they come again.\"\n\nJenny waited until the very last moment, then angled Wind Dragon up sharply, showing the enemy ships her protective hull just as they emerged from the fog beneath her. The Southern archers held off for the most part, although a few fire arrows streaked upward at the smaller ship. Fighting a stiff, cold wind and dragging their burden of burning rags, all of the arrows arched over too soon and passed well beneath Wind Dragon's hull. The sorceress had a quick look at the enemy ships. Two were middle-sized, heavy freighters not unlike the one they had fought and defeated days earlier.\n\nThe third was a cargo ship of vast size, perhaps five hundred and fifty feet from bowsprit to stern, converted into a flying fortress by the addition of metal plating on her hull and broad shields raised above the two hundred archers who lined the rails of her deck. She also carried several small catapults, although of the type that launched heavy lead balls rather than the more accurate bolts such as Wind Dragon bore. She would be a tough nut to crack for little Wind Dragon and her crew of six\u2014not including the cat. But for the moment the fortress held back from the fight, staying well to one side of the other two ships.\n\n\"Yarg, what a beast!\" Lady Mira declared when she saw that ship, although she did not pause in loading her longbow. Kelvandor and Vajerral returned at that moment, leading the demons on a wild chase between the hulls of the ships.\n\n\"Fight, or run?\" Jenny asked her mistress even before the enemy ships shot past.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Mira asked in return.\n\n\"Fight,\" she decided, already spinning the wheel to bring Wind Dragon back around. \"At least for the moment. The confusion seems to be in our favor, and we need to stay in this open space,\"\n\nMira understood what she meant. She was herself too busy to guide the ship through the clouds as she had on their previous journey, and they knew that rough land was climbing very quickly just ahead of them. The demons were easier to pick off as they dodged around the hulls of the ships; an important point, since several telling shots were required to destroy the tough little monsters. The danger, of course, was from fire arrows. Jenny knew that she would have to keep just enough distance to make the task of the enemy archers difficult.\n\nUnfortunately, her own planning worked against her. What had been a very successful strategy against one ship no longer worked against three. The enemy vessels did not return in a group but scattered to move in on Wind Dragon from three different directions and at different heights. She saw no hope but to run straight through the middle of it before the enemy ships could converge for a concentrated attack.\n\nAt that moment it became obvious that the demons were definitely under some form of direct control. They suddenly broke off their chase after the dragons and descended upon the airship in a furious assault, ignoring the stinging arrows as they concentrated their attack on the helm. Jenny had to duck down behind what cover the two wheels offered, waving her sword over her head. Three of them concentrated on plucking her out of hiding, but Mira came to her defense. She worked the counterspell as quickly as she could, and the demons scattered screaming. But they had not been driven back into their own level of existence, as the spell should have done. She stared at them in mystification as the three demons retreated, still screaming in fury.\n\n\"Lady!\" Jenny said urgently.\n\n\"What..Mira turned to her young student, standing just behind her, and stopped short. \"Oh, my word, I've done it again!\" Jenny was clinging to the rudder wheel, as naked as a belly dancer in a Jade Sea pub. Mira paused a moment to reassure herself that she still had her own clothes.\n\n\"Oh, I can't take you anywhere!\" she exclaimed. \"I'll take the helm so that you can dress yourself.\"\n\n\"No, there's no time,\" Jenny insisted, recovering quickly. She looked up at one of the smaller enemy ships, which was dropping back alongside Wind Dragon just above and about two hundred feet to the right, half hidden in the clouds. \"I'm a winter nudist from way back. You have to defend the ship.\"\n\nMira did not have time to answer. At that moment Kelvandor looped around Wind Dragon's stem on a swift attack run on the enemy ship. He saw Jenny standing naked at the helm and did a startled double take. When he glanced around again he saw that he was on a collision course with the other ship and snapped his wings in powerful backstrokes, but too late. He struck the lower hull headfirst... and clung there. Instead of knocking himself senseless to tumble to his death on the slopes below, he had driven his eighteen-inch horns half their length into the hardwood of the lower hull and was stuck.\n\nJenny immediately cut speed slightly to pace that ship. \"We have to protect him. Once the demons see that he's helpless, they are going to come after him.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Mira agreed as she ran toward the front of the ship. \"We need a diversion.\"\n\nSuddenly another ship emerged out of the clouds, the second smaller vessel, closing in quickly from the left. Wind Dragon was caught between these two adversaries, and Jenny could see that they meant to catch their prey between them, perhaps pulling alongside close enough to board. Rather than force her own ship on ahead of the two, she held back, waiting for the other to pull even.\n\n\"Hold your arrows!\" she called to her crewmembers in the bow. \"Let them come even. I have a plan. Stand by the port catapult.\"\n\nMira apparently trusted that she did have a plan, for she indicated for the Trasseks to hide themselves behind the protection of the siderails. The approaching ship came even with Wind Dragon and matched speed, above and barely a hundred feet out. Her archers, forty at least lining the siderails on the near side of the ship, held their arrows. Jenny locked the wheels in place and ran to the front of the helm deck, leaping up on the rail where she could steady herself with the rigging for the vane immediately below. She wrapped herself in the strongest spell of raw sexuality she could manage as she showed herself to the archers and crew of the enemy ship, her legs spread wide as she stood atop the rail.\n\n\"Hello!\" she called alluringly, at the same time with the very uncomfortable feeling that her mother could somehow see this. \"Hello, boys!\"\n\nThe archers gaped, and one leaped so far out over the rail that he tumbled overboard. But so deep were the others in the thrall of the spell that they did not even notice. Jenny was a young and beautiful woman, her brown body lean and fairly well muscled. But beyond even that, she was one mean sorceress who knew how to turn a spell. The icy wind streaked like cat's claws over her bare skin, whipping her long, dark hair.\n\n\"Now!\" she barely heard Mira order from the bow. \"Don't stare, shoot!\"\n\nJenny was concentrating so hard on her spell of sexuality at the same time she worked to keep Wind Dragon in the air that she did not dare turn to look. Apparently she had done her work too well; Dooket and Erkin, who had never before afforded her a lecherous glance, were caught in the spell as well. She heard Mira swear softly but furiously. A moment later the braided wire of the immense crossbow sung like a guitar string, and the forward vane of the enemy ship exploded into flames.\n\nBut it did not collapse. Jenny remained atop the rail, arching her back to thrust out her breasts as she poured all the magic she could spare into keeping the crew of the enemy ship locked in a fiery enchantment as their vessel began to bum around them. She could hear Mira struggling with the cocking device to load the catapult for another shot. She could see the Dark Sorcerer at the rail, struggling to throw off the effects of her spell, perhaps even preparing a counterattack. Then the damaged vane folded at last, and the burning ship was plunged to sudden death on the rocky slopes hidden far below.\n\nJenny leaped down from the rail just in time to avoid the raking claws of a demon, already exchanging the sexuality spell for the one that had protected her from the biting cold as she hurried back to the wheels. Mira ran the full length of the ship as quickly as she could, sword and shield held aloft to protect her student from a renewed attack by the remaining demons.\n\n\"Sorry to take so long, but I simply could not get that catapult cocked to shoot again,\" Mira said as she ripped the wing of one bold demon with her spelled sword. She smiled grimly. \"Considering the show you were putting on, I'm surprised that it didn't cock itself.\"\n\n\"I hate it,\" Jenny said with disgust as she angled Wind Dragon away from the other ship, swearing in both Norwegian and the language of the Mindijaran.\n\n\"You did what you had to do, and you did it well,\" Mira told her.\n\n\"Lady Mira, the stabilizers are on fire!\" Dooket called from the bow.\n\n\"Oh, damn!\" Mira exclaimed and was off again, already working the spell to still the flames that ate ravenously at the canvas stabilizers. But it was already too late. Jenny felt the wheels go dead in her hands as the control surfaces were destroyed, and then the ropes themselves burned through and snapped. Wind Dragon was not completely helpless. Jenny could still control their altitude with the lift vanes alone, but she could not steer. Their only hope of avoiding a collision would be to fly above any obstacles.\n\n\"Mira, help me set the trim sail!\" she shouted. \"We don't have time to set new stabilizers, not while demons are harassing us, and we certainly cannot land.\"\n\nThe trim sail was a small triangular sail that was sometimes mounted to the back of the rear mast, corresponding to a spanker sail on an oceangoing ship, stretched between a horizontal spar below and an angled spar above. Under certain conditions it was used to augment the regular rudder, but in this case Jenny hoped to make it take the place of the missing rudder. She doubted that the control it gave would be as precise, but anything was better than what she had. As it was, they could not avoid the enemy ship that was slowly advancing from their right except to outrun it, which she was trying to do. Wind Dragon had a tendency to rock and bob at high speeds without her stabilizers.\n\nShe glanced over at the other ship in time to see Kelvandor finally manage to brace all four legs against the lower hull of the ship and pull his horns free with a powerful heave. She turned back to her own crew.\n\n\"Hold on tight!\" she yelled, and gave them to the count of live to brace themselves.\n\nShe abruptly cut speed, allowing the enemy ship to streak past, then poured every scrap of thrust she could find into Wind Dragon's lift vanes. The smaller ship seemed to climb straight up like a rocket; Jenny knew that Wind Dragon had oversized vanes for her size, and she was not weighed down with crew and cargo. They could not lose the Southland ships with this tactic, but they could buy themselves a couple of minutes to rig the trim sail, and perhaps do something about the dozen or so remaining demons as well. Jenny took the ship up to two thousand feet and leveled off, resuming full forward speed.\n\n\"Forget the stabilizers for now!\" she called to Mira. \"Have them get their bows after those demons.\"\n\nMira did not even relay the order, only indicated for the Trassek twins to comply with a brief nod. She joined Mira on the helm deck and, working together, they had the trim sail raised and rigged in little more than a minute. By that time J.T. was laboring backwards up the steps from the main deck, dragging something dark and heavy behind him.\n\n\"Bless you, cat!\" Jenny exclaimed as she hurried to collect the jacket that he had pulled all the way from her cabin. He could only nod, panting heavily, and hurried off again... presumably after trousers.\n\n\"Mira, you must take control of Wind Dragon for a minute,\" Jenny said. \"I'm going to do something about those demons once and for all.\"\n\nThey exchanged control of the ship as they had before, Wind Dragon dropping a few feet before Mira had the vanes in operation. Jenny had pulled on the jacket and hurried to fasten its buttons. Shoes and pants would have to wait, even as cold as it was. Compared to complete nudity in this wind, this was a minor discomfort. She hurried to the very back of the helm deck just as Kelvandor sailed past.\n\n\"Send them in my direction,\" she called to the dragon. He nodded, too far past to shout back his answer, then turned sharply after a small knot of demons not far away.\n\nDemons might possess some native intelligence, Jenny thought. But they had no patience and they did not learn from the mistakes of their fellows. Kelvandor was able to get them to chase him, singularly or in small groups, time after time. And Jenny would dispatch them with ease, using that same counterspell which gave Mira\u2014and indirectly her young student\u2014so much trouble. It seemed that Vajerral also knew the counterspell, dispatching her own share of demons on the wing. Working together, they sent all fifteen of the remaining demons back into their own level of existence in only three minutes of concentrated effort.\n\n\"All done?\" Mira asked. \"Can you take control of Wind Dragon again? J.T. says that those enemy ships are coming up on us in a hurry.\"\n\n\"Let me have it,\" Jenny agreed, and Wind Dragon bounced as they traded control. \"Can we take them? You know that I'm not going to be able to steer this ship anything like I can with a real rudder.\"\n\n\"No, you should be lucky just to hold a straight course.\" Mira considered that for a moment. \"Can we outrun them?\"\n\n\"I doubt it.\" Jenny brought the ship up to full speed, and it immediately began to buck and shake in protest. She allowed their speed to drop back down slightly. \"I'm sorry, Lady. Wind Dragon simply is not that stable without those forward control surfaces.\" \"There's no hope for it, then,\" Mira said, and walked to the forward portion of the helm deck. \"Dooket! Erkin! Come back here and set up two more catapults on the stern. Those enemy ships will be coming at us from behind.\"\n\nThe airship had been more or less riding the wind for the few minutes before they had been able to raise the trim sail, although Mira had been able to hold them on a steady course north by northeast since then. Then Jenny had an idea. After all, what else was the good of being a sorceress with a degree in engineering? She carefully brought Wind Dragon through the tricky and rather dangerous maneuver of reversing course until the ship was pointed directly into the wind. Now the combination of the wind of the airship's passage together with the fitful blasts of the storm itself caused the trim sail to act almost exactly like the rudder of a ship, if less precisely. In that time the two mercenaries had mounted catapults into frames built into the stem siderail, and were already loading the weapons.\n\n\"You're dented!\" Jenny exclaimed, suddenly seeing the deep crease in the plate armor on Dooket's back. \"A demon's tail.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"The mail inside turned the blow. I would say that my attire has fared better in this battle than your own.\"\n\nJenny glanced down, blushing. Then she looked up in alarm, aware that she had been inattentive. \"Ship dead ahead! Ready the catapults!\"\n\nBut it was too late for that. The rear catapults could not be brought about to bear on the enemy ship. Jenny bent every scrap of talent she could spare on the forward catapults, which swung mound in their mountings in response to her distant touch. At that same instant the white curtain of the clouds parted and a vast, dark shape emerged out of the swirling mist as the large airship bore down upon its tiny prey, approaching level with Wind Dragon and turning slightly to pass to starboard. Jenny released the bolts as soon as she felt she had a good shot at the forward vane of the ship that was on her right, but she shot too soon and the bolts swerved away from their target. Too late she realized that there was more than one Dark Sorcerer aboard that ship.\n\nThe immense form of the battleship passed just over Wind Dragon like a dark, threatening cloud. As her vast vanes overlapped over their own, lightly armored soldiers leaped down from that structure into the supporting net of the stabilizer's broad arc. They immediately swarmed up the canvas-covered spars and over (he siderail, while the Trasseks rushed forward to repel this invasion. Mira stood at Jenny's side, ready to defend Wind Dragon's vulnerable helm.\n\nThen, as the larger ship passed, three heavy grapples crashed to the helm deck just behind the two sorceresses and were pulled back along the deck to catch against the siderail. Jenny cut forward thrust before Wind Dragon's, stern was ripped away as the lines went taut. Lady Mira leaped forward to sever the ropes, only to lind that they were sheathed in braided wire and spelled to invulnerability. The enemy ship turned tightly as she passed, and Wind Dragon was whipped around at the end of her tether. Three of the enemy soldiers were thrown to their deaths by that violent jerk, but a dozen more scrambled over her sides.\n\n\"Not on my ship, you don't!\" Mira declared, and rushed to defend the nearest of the short flight of steps leading up from the main deck.\n\nJenny turned away from the battle, waving to Kelvandor as he circled up from below and pointing to the three cables that tied Wind Dragon to her adversary. He nodded and rose above the two ships, then dived to the attack, playing his fiercest flames across each of those cables in turn. Nothing, whether wrapped in steel or spell, could stand for long against dragon flame. When the first cable snapped, Jenny brought one of the two catapults around and released its massive bolt. She had never used a crossbow of any type in her life, but at fifty feet her aim was good enough. The port stern vane folded upward almost as the bolt exploded in flames against the hull, and the immense ship slowly rolled to that side and began to fall. Wind Dragon was pulled after her for an instant, before the smoking cables parted.\n\nWith one problem solved, Jenny turned back to the trim sail with the intention of getting under way before the remaining enemy ship arrived, only to find that she faced five soldiers who had cut around Mira's fierce defense to come up the other stairs. She was no slouch with a sword, having been trained as a Veridan Warrior by the faerie dragons. But at the moment she was distracted by the need to keep Wind Dragon in the air.\n\nJenny augmented her natural speed and strength with all the magic she could spare, pressing the attack. She thrust and ducked with lightning speed, mindful of what would happen to her light sword if she accidentally connected with the powerful swing of a heavy broadsword. She could get past their guard easily enough, but their heavy mail frustrated her time and again. Kelvandor had just landed in the stem and charged into battle, wielding his own sword as only a dragon could, while Dooket and Erkin were swordsmen almost without peer and Mira was raw fury with a blade.\n\nLady Mira dispatched her remaining adversary and turned without a moment's pause to rush to the helm deck, where she joined Kelvandor and her student in sending the Southland soldiers over the rail with little bother. Then she stood, panting as she leaned on her sword, watching as the Trasseks and the dragon made a swift end to what remained of the fight.\n\n\"Yarg, what I wouldn't give for a cup of tea!\" she declared.\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Jenny muttered, in what seemed to her mistress to be a grand understatement.\n\n\"One more?\" Mira asked wearily.\n\n\"A little one. We can't outrun her, not considering the shape Wind Dragon is in. But we can stay ahead for a couple of minutes yet.\"\n\n\"Right. I'll get the rest of your clothes.\" Mira turned to leave the helm deck, pausing at the steps. \"Dooket! Erkin! Get all the catapults ready for battle, and hurry.\"\n\nMira rushed to Jenny's cabin and pulled open both of the drawers under her bunk. A rather startled black-and-white cat lifted his head out of one of the drawers and blinked.\n\n\"What are you doing in there? Hiding?\" she asked suspiciously.\n\n\"Of course not!\" He sniffed haughtily. \"I had climbed inside to get a pair of pants. Then the floor dropped about ten feet and the drawer slammed shut and locked.\"\n\n\"Well, you're missing all the fun,\" Mira told him as she jerked the pants out from under him, sending the cat tumbling.\n\nShe turned to return to the deck and heard the sound of one distant explosion and then another, and assumed that the battle must already be over. She found that she was wrong.\n\nShe could make out the dim form of the enemy ship, slightly larger than her own, at the very edge of the fog. There it hung, apparently content to maintain that distance for the time. Occasional arrows arched through the sky between the two ships and Jenny was having a hard time spelling them away, between keeping Wind Dragon in the air, watching the trim sail and keeping herself from freezing. Multiple spells were difficult to maintain, and she was reaching her limit of endurance.\n\n\"I don't have to ask if both of the boys missed their target,\" Mira said as she stepped out onto the helm deck.\n\n\"They have a second sorcerer on board, and he is deflecting our bolts,\" Jenny said, turning back to her mistress. \"They must have learned...\"\n\nShe suddenly staggered and nearly fell forward, catching herself by the useless elevator wheel. Wind Dragon shuddered in response and began to drop, throwing the others off balance as well, but lift returned and she held steady. Mira picked herself up and rushed to the aid of her student. She took hold of the girl's jacket and spelled it off, so that it instantly came away in her hands. A long arrow transfixed Jenny's left side, the point emerging barely an inch above the upper edge of her pelvic blade.\n\n\"You make too good a target,\" Mira told her as she cast the spell that would deaden the pain. \"If you can keep this ship flying for a minute longer, I'll get that thing out of you and repair the damage.\"\n\nJenny only nodded as she stood holding the wheel, her legs firmly braced. Dooket and Erkin moved in close, protecting the two sorceresses with their shields and their own armored selves. Mira tried to maintain casual indifference, but inside she was scared half to death. She marvelled at her student's strength and endurance, for this was damage that, if left untreated, would almost certainly be fatal in a matter of minutes. Strong men had not survived such wounds even this long. But Jenny kept to her task, and Wind Dragon never faltered.\n\nMira laid her hand gently on the feathered shaft that emerged from one side of Jenny's back, and the arrow vanished as she conjured it away. That was one problem solved, but only a small problem compared to what followed. With the arrow removed, she began to bleed heavily... internally as well as externally, Mira was sure. She worked the complex regenerative spells step by careful step, reassured that this at least was magic she did very well. The bleeding stopped, and the wound began to close. She quickly cleaned away the blood with wet rags that J.T. had brought and helped Jenny to dress, then straightened her back and looked behind at the airship that still followed at the edge of their limited visibility.\n\n\"Why did they not take advantage of our vulnerability these last couple of minutes?\" Mira asked herself. \"Assuming they knew, of course.\"\n\n\"You could have left that thing in me for a few minutes,\" Jenny said tightly.\n\n\"You would not have survived that long,\" the sorceress told her frankly. \"How do you feel? Up to finishing this fight?\"\n\n\"I have no choice, do I?\" Jenny asked. She looked very worn and pale, and she was still holding on to the elevator wheel to steady herself. Still, Mira thought that she might last out this fight on sheer determination, something this young lady had in far greater abundance than she herself knew. Then she would likely pass out in her bunk for the next two days.\n\n\"Boys, I can shield us now,\" Mira declared. \"Did you reload all the catapults? Then go find the replacement spars and canvas for the stabilizers and get to work on that.\"\n\nThe mercenaries hurried on their way, obviously uncertain about climbing out on the bowsprit in armor. J.T. recognized where his own greatest potential lay in this battle and went to assist them. Lady Mira stood for a long moment staring back at the pursuing airship, ignoring the infrequent arrows that now swerved wide to avoid Wind Dragon. At last she weaved a complex spell, then collected her abandoned longbow and released an arrow at the enemy ship. It sped on its way, straight and true, and one of the dim figures standing in her bow disappeared behind the siderail without a sound.\n\n\"Ah, that did it! We can hit them, but they cannot hit us.\" She turned toward Wind Dragon's bow. \"Come on back, boys! We can finish them off quickly now.\"\n\nBut the enemy captain was no fool. He knew exactly what this turn of events meant as well, and he had no intention of tarrying long enough for his former prey to employ their catapults. The other ship suddenly turned away and disappeared into the clouds, and it continued to flee at full speed.\n\n\"We can't let them get away,\" Mira said. \"They'll return home before we get there and tell their superiors.\"\n\n\"They don't know that we are heading there ourselves,\" Jenny pointed out.\n\n\"True, but a tale of the destruction of three of their no doubt limited number of airships by new weapons and magic will create quite a stir,\" Mira said. \"Especially when they say that they were defeated by two women and two boys in a rather small ship.\" \"Help me put this ship about, then. But we must have those stabilizers replaced or we never will catch that ship. We can't run at full speed until we do, let alone fight.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Mira agreed, and turned to the mercenaries. \"Go back and get those stabilizers replaced, and hurry. Where did those dragons disappear to, anyway?\"\n\nThat was a good question. Kelvandor must have gone overboard immediately after the last fight, and he was nowhere to be seen now. And Vajerral had been gone even longer. But Jenny felt certain that they must have been attending to something important, or they would not have been gone for so long. Working together, the two sorceresses managed to get Wind Dragon turned back around and in pursuit of the enemy airship, but the Southlanders had a small advantage in time and distance that they could not yet begin to close. Jenny did not dare force the ship so much that it began to shake and rock, not with two mercenaries and one cat hanging from the bowsprit.\n\n\"The storm is breaking!\" Jenny observed several minutes later. \"The clouds are thinning,\" Mira said. \"The wind is goihg to be with us for a while yet.\"\n\n\"The elevator is working!\" Dooket yelled from the bow. He was often elected spokesman by virtue of having the biggest mouth. \"Give it a try!\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Mira called back.\n\n\"Well, we think so.\"\n\n\"Very reassuring,\" Jenny muttered as she released the lock on the elevator wheel and gave it an experimental spin. The nose of the ship lifted accordingly, and she immediately leveled back out. \"Well done, but we need the rudder as well.\"\n\n\"Coming up!\"\n\n\"It's times like this that I long for the quiet life,\" Jenny said to herself, then turned to her mistress. \"Lady, can I ask you a question?\"\n\n\"What is it, child?\"\n\n\"Have you always had this capacity for getting yourself into trouble, or is this a recent development?\"\n\nMira laughed. \"I've always had a capacity for generating personal disasters that involved only a very few people. These days I seem to be getting more ambitious.\"\n\n\"Your personal disasters must not have been that bad,\" Jenny observed.\n\n\"And why do you say that?\"\n\n\"Because you never seem bitter about it.\"\n\n\"Ask me about that again sometime when we have a couple of days,\" Mira said, and she was quite serious. \"But the point is, I don't dwell on it... and that, by the way, is something I learned the hard way, for the sake of my sanity....\"\n\n\"Land ho!\" Dooket called from the bow.\n\nMira looked up, startled and mystified. \"He must be joking.\" Unfortunately, he was not. The clouds were beginning to thin and break, so that they could clearly see, not two thousand feet ahead, the broken line of a rather steep and rocky ridge. They were perhaps a hundred feet to one side of what appeared to be an inviting pass through an otherwise imposing string of steep, barren peaks. But, with Wind Dragon handling so sluggishly with only the trim sail and elevator, that was a hundred feet too far, and even then the pass was two or three hundred feet above their present altitude.\n\n\"There they go!\" Mira exclaimed, indicating the ship that was slipping through the pass. \"Hard over, Jenny!\"\n\n\"What?\" the younger sorceress demanded increduously.\n\n\"We can make it. I'll pull trim sail, while you bring the nose up to get us through that pass. This is what I get for not sitting in the bow and witching out our way.\"\n\nJenny shrugged and did as she was told, reminding herself that Lady Mira was in command of this ship, owned it, and was entitled to wreck it. Mira brought the sail over and did manage to get the ship turned into the pass, although she had to spell a few blasts of well-aimed wind into the trim sail in order to accomplish this. Jenny was not quite so lucky in getting the ship to climb sufficiently, however. As they entered the pass, she could see that it continued to ascend for several hundred feet even yet. She thought that they should slide into the snow-covered slope about halfway up.\n\n\"I know where we are!\" Dooket declared. He was still hanging by the rigging of the bowsprit as he and Erkin worked on the rudder. \"This is Murker Pass through the Aydun Peaks.\"\n\n\"And there is a road somewhere under that snow!\" Mira agreed excitedly, and turned to her protege. \"If you have to touch down, try to find that road.\"\n\nJenny released the lock on the hub of the rudder wheel, engaging the steering for the forward struts. At the same time Mira hurried to the bow to guide their approach as best she could, and to order the twins and J.T. back on board. The ground was coming up beneath them quickly now and they appeared to be well centered over the road, which was barely visible as an even ribbon of depression across the blanket of snow. Which was just as well, since Jenny could no long work the trim sail by herself. She would have no steering control until they were actually on the ground, and she was doing her best to avoid that.\n\nShe nearly made it. Wind Dragon was almost through the pass when Lady Mira warned of impact, and the front skids bit deep into the snow. The ship shuddered and the nose lifted a little more. Then the back skids settled down as well as the ship slid relatively smoothly across the deep snow, and Jenny found that she could now steer the ship. The only problem was that she could not see ahead. But Mira could and she did her best to guide them on through the pass, ordering full speed when Jenny would have stopped.\n\n\"Rocks ahead!\" she warned. \"Up, up! Take us up five feet.\"\n\n\"Oh, fart!\" Jenny declared as she took Wind Dragon back into the air just briefly, then settled back into the snow. They were safer trying to negotiate this pass on the ground, where she could at least steer.\n\nWind Dragon cleared the pass, which was choked with just enough clouds to make things very tense as they ran blind for a few seconds, then emerged out the other side of the ridge. Jenny marvelled that they were still alive and moving, before she saw that several gentle switchback twists lay in the road ahead. Then she discovered something even more alarming as the ship continued to accelerate very quickly even though she eased off their forward thrust, then cut it completely. Wind Dragon seemed destined to repeat past mistakes.\n\nJenny began to engage the lift vanes, then stopped short when she saw the dark form of the enemy ship dropping down almost on Wind Dragon's stern. They had somehow overrun the other ship in the clouds, perhaps when her commander had cut speed to feel his way blindly through the pass. Now he found himself almost directly over his prey, where he could attack while his own ship was safely above the reach of Wind Dragon's catapults.\n\nLady Mira was just about to order the mercenaries to remove a catapult from its mounting and hold it by hand, but there was no need. The missing members of their party suddenly returned. Dodging arrows, the dragons dived at the enemy ship time and again, playing their deadly flames across her rigging and stabilizers. The enemy vessel was afire in a matter of seconds and it now began to descend slowly until it settled with a heavy crash onto its skids. But her springs somehow survived the impact, and the larger airship now began to close on Wind Dragon, pulled by the weight of her greater size and heavier cargo.\n\n\"Cliff ahead!\" Kelvandor warned as he landed heavily on the back of the helm deck. \"You'll never make the turn. Get back into the air.\"\n\n\"I'm... trying,\" Jenny panted, but she was in pain and clearly at the end of her strength.\n\nShe spun the elevator wheel, and Wind Dragon's nose began to lift as her front skids left the ground. Then she left the road and shot out into open air as the ground fell away beneath her.\n\nShe dipped slightly, then began to climb as the lift vanes took effect. The enemy ship followed a moment later only to nose slowly over, arching a hundred feet out and over six hundred down to crash bow-first into a tumble of massive boulders. It exploded into flaming debris with the force of impact.\n\nA moment later Jenny went limp and fell backwards into Kelvandor's waiting hands. He lifted her gently as Mira hastened to take control of the weaving airship.\n\n\"Courage, cunning and plain dumb luck prevail again,\" she remarked, then glanced over her shoulder. \"How is Jenny?\"\n\n\"The little sorceress seems to have passed out,\" Kelvandor answered. Jenny made a very limp burden in his arms. He stepped back as Vajerral landed on the back of the helm deck, peering at her friend with concern.\n\n\"What has happened?\" she asked, plucking at the tom, bloody jacket.\n\n\"She took an arrow, but I got it out and did what I could to repair the damage. Take her below and place her in her bunk,\" Mira directed. \"We're going to land in a couple of minutes and spend the rest of the day doing something about the worst of our damage.\"\n\n\"This ship will have to be repaired completely before you can take her into the Kingdoms of the Sea,\" Vajerral remarked, looking about at the damage. \"The bowsprit is charred, the siderail over the stem was chewed to pieces by those grapples, and there are arrows stuck in the hull and deck from one end of this shift, to the other.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" Mira agreed reluctantly. \"I suppose that we can lay over a few days at Woody Bog. And Jenny needs the rest even more than this ship needs repairs.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "In Country Mirth",
+                "text": "When Jenny awoke some time later, it was to discover that she was in considerable discomfort. Her head was pounding so intensely that she could actually hear the throbbing. There was a lierce, stabbing pain in her lower back that hurt even more. And her bladder was absolutely about to burst, a pint-sized container forced to hold at least five gallons. Well, she could do something about that, since the ship's head\u2014a silly name if ever she had heard one\u2014was adjacent to her own cabin. Assuming that she was in her own cabin. .. she opened one eye and looked around, and saw that she was.\n\nOnly an emergency like this could have gotten her out of her bunk, the way she felt. She sat up in bed, wondering whether Wind Dragon was still in the air or if it was her own impaired sense of balance that made the bunk sway. She slipped off the side of the bed, steadying herself by holding tightly to the wall, and looked down to find that she was standing in four inches of water.\n\n\"Oh, I had a boo-boo,\" she said to herself, then stared at the lloor with a look of almost painful concentration. \"But if I did ihis, then why do I still need to? Or again?\"\n\nShe shrugged, opened the door, and paid her visit to the privy.\n\nBy the time she finished, her head had cleared enough for her to know that she could not have made this mess. For one thing, it was obviously fresh water, and she was certain that she had a stronger constitution than that. She was also just a little suspicious of the volume. She returned to her cabin, pulled on pants and jacket, and staggered up the stairs to the main deck. She saw Mira standing at the wheels on the helm deck.\n\n\"Lady Mira, we seem to be sinking,\" she announced. \"Sinking?\" Mira looked over the siderail. \"Dear child, we happen to be a thousand feet above dry land, in a clear sky. What do you mean, sinking?\"\n\n\"There's a hand of water standing on the floor downstairs.\" \"Below,\" Mira corrected her absently. \"Erkin, take the wheels and keep us on course. I'll keep the vanes spelled.\"\n\n\"Right, Lady!\" Erkin bounced over to stand by the wheels, looking like a dog that had been invited for a walk.\n\nMira followed her student back to the stairs, and together they descended to the lower deck. Jenny stepped off into the icy water with complete indifference, but her mistress remained on the step just above its level. The pool shifted back and forth in sudden waves as Wind Dragon responded to the changing winds, pouring in and out of cabin doors.\n\n\"I didn't do it,\" Jenny stated flatly.\n\n\"Of course you didn't,\" Mira assured her, wondering what she meant. \"The water tank must have broken open. Are you feeling well, child?\"\n\n\"I hurt like hell,\" she answered. \"And I feel very sleepy and dizzy.\"\n\n\"Oh, you're still half under that sleeping spell I put on you,\" Mira said, and quickly reversed it. \"Better?\"\n\n\"Yes, much. But that seemed to make it hurt more.\"\n\n\"I'll see about that in a minute. If you don't mind that water\u2014 and you obviously don't\u2014then could you go to my cabin in the very stem of the ship, find the drain plug in the deck by the back wall of the room and pull it? Do you feel up to that?\"\n\n\"Oh, right away,\" Jenny agreed, sounding very much her usual self. She attended to the task, moving slowly from the stiffness and pain and for once being careful to avoid splashing herself more than necessary. She disappeared into the rear cabin, and a few seconds later a loud gurgling, slurping sound could be heard.\n\nBut the water level was in no apparent hurry to go down; the drain was rather small.\n\n\"That's done,\" Jenny said as she returned.\n\n\"Sinking, indeed!\" Mira laughed. \"Get yourself out of that water, child. Come up on the deck in the sun, or what's left of it. You've been sick, remember.\"\n\n\"I've been skewered, remember,\" Jenny said, and looked about as they came out on deck. The sun would soon be setting behind them, and the mountains she expected were nowhere to be seen. They were over rolling hills covered by a heavy forest. \"What's left of the sun? Have I slept away the entire afternoon?\"\n\n\"All afternoon and most of the next day, in fact. Sit down.\" Mira indicated the steps, casting one slightly apprehensive glance toward the helm and their temporary pilot. \"It will take a while for the lower deck to drain, and then the boys will have to mop it out. But you're going back to bed at the first opportunity.\" \"Oh, I won't argue with that,\" Jenny insisted. She seated herself on the steps, while Mira leaned back against the siderail. Wind Dragon was a mess, even though the loose debris had been cleared away. \"What do we do now, Lady? Our first stop was supposed to be Woody Bog.\"\n\n\"And we should be able to get repairs there,\" Mira said. \"Lord Araedyr of Kaendon does owe me a favor or two... although he might not remember it quite that way.\"\n\n\"Where are the dragons?\"\n\nMira laughed. \"They are both out patrolling or something. Vajerral seems rather nervous and restless. She either thinks or worries a lot. She worried about you a lot, and Kelly was beside himself\u2014although he tries not to show it. Also, I think that flying, under someone else's power, makes him nervous. He turns up when we land for the night. Now, may I ask you a question?\" \"Oh, certainly,\" Jenny agreed, slightly mystified.\n\n\"You arrived at my house half a year ago with a rather large guitar in a very stout case. I noticed that you brought it with you on this journey. And yet I've never heard you play it.\"\n\n\"That's three statements, not a question,\" Jenny pointed out. \"Will you play it?\" Mira asked evenly, without a hint that she thought that this was anything but a very serious matter.\n\nJenny looked down at her hands, wondering if she still could. \"Do you think I should?\" she asked without looking up. \"You are a person of many rare talents, of which music is only one,\" Mira told her. \"I would not have you turn your back on any talent you possess. You obviously used to play quite a lot, or you wouldn't still be carrying the damned thing around with you.\"\n\n\"I used to,\" Jenny said. \"I never wanted to be a musician the way my uncle Allan used to be, before he took up being a dragon instead, but I always enjoyed it. I guess that I could try.\"\n\n\"Why don't you?\" Mira turned to the bow, where Dooket was standing watch. \"Here, you great, skinny lout. Run below and fetch Jenny's guitar for her. We might have a little music.\" Dooket splashed about in the remaining inch of water for a few moments, then returned to the deck bearing the heavy guitar case. Jenny took it from him reluctantly and laid it carefully on the deck, then opened the lid. The guitar was large, long but slightly narrow of body and long of neck. It had the look of a well-used but well-tended tool of a professional musician.\n\nJenny lifted the guitar gently and held it against her as if to play, then gasped as that motion caused a sharp bite of pain from her wound. She adjusted her hold cautiously. She plucked the key string and adjusted it to pitch, then tuned the others to key. Satisfied, she began to run through a variety of chords, hesitantly at first but with increasing speed and certainty.\n\n\"I seem to remember how this thing works,\" she said. \"Lady?\" Dooket appeared again, this time handing a smaller guitar case to Mira. Jenny had not known that her mistress played, or that she even had an instrument of her own. When Mira took it from the case, Jenny saw that it was of course one of the small guitars of this world, almost like a lute.\n\n\"I'm supposed to be able to do anything, remember,\" Mira told her, mildly amused. She plucked each of the strings in turn and found that they were still in tune; she had obviously played recently. \"Name it.\"\n\n\"What do you know?\" Jenny asked. She had heard much of the music of this world, although she had never played it.\n\n\"Hm... how about this one?\" Mira found her key with some experimentation and began to snatch out the main line of a song.\n\nJenny recognized it almost immediately and began to weave her own themes around it. Then, as they returned again to the main theme, she began to sing. Her deep, warm voice was not as clear as it had once been, but it was still strong. Mira added her own, slightly higher voice to the song as well. It was a song of gentle passion and quiet longing, a song that told no real story but spoke of many things.\n\n\"Why did you ever stop?\" Mira asked softly.\n\nJenny shrugged. \"I guess I just no longer had the time. It seemed to interfere with my other studies. There's always so much that I want to do.\"\n\n\"Watching you in battle, I've come to realize just how clever and inventive you are,\" Mira told her. \"You think all the time, and nothing seems to escape your notice. Vajerral tells me that you're an accomplished artist and musician, and that you've mastered sciences that make us look like barbarians. You are a person of many talents, but you are a sorceress first of all. You can be anything else you wish, but you cannot force that to take the place of your primary obligation to yourself. Once you are sure of your priorities, perhaps you can begin to enjoy music again.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are right,\" Jenny agreed, although she knew that she would not. The guitar had been a private interest during her college years. Soon she would be a dragon, and dragons could not easily play instruments shaped for human use.\n\nMira set her guitar aside. \"Be true to yourself. You just have the same problem that all talented, ambitious people have. We want to be everything and do everything all at once, but you can't. Just know the one thing you really are in heart and spirit, and let everything else be your diversions.\"\n\n\"Never any time to talk,\" Vajerral said as she joined Jenny on the forward deck, speaking English for the sake of privacy. \"You are feeling well? Stuck like as pig?\"\n\nJenny laughed softly. \"You never could speak English worth a damn.\"\n\n\"Phooey!\" the dragon declared in a remarkable Russian accent. \"Phooey on mortal languages.\"\n\nJenny shook her head helplessly. \"Have you been through the Twilight Zone lately? How are things on Mother Earth?\"\n\n\"I spoke with your mother on the phone two weeks ago. She says that she loves you.\"\n\n\"I know that, although only the experience of long familiarity allows me to recognize that.\"\n\nVajerral just stared at her. \"Too many long words. Wallick has gone away. They sent him to a new place in Mexico.\"\n\nIt took Jenny a moment to realize that she probably meant Albuquerque.\n\nThey spoke together for some time, remembering years past and all the things that they had done together. They had grown up together almost as sisters ever since that first day, thirteen years past, when Jenny had chased Vajerral around the chair in Allan's house. They had seen a lot since then, faerie centaurs and unicorns, wyvems, dwarves and elves, and dragons of every sort. Vajerral's presence had kept Jenny from ever feeling lonely in a world of dragons. They were both in a form of exile from Jenny's world, since the dragon magic they both commanded was so damaging to the fragile natural magic that was being nurtured there.\n\nJenny wondered what had happened to her life, when most of the people she loved were dragons.\n\nThat brought Jenny's thoughts unavoidably back to the subject of the one dragon she was learning to love best. Her heart told her that there was no question. Her mind provided any number of excuses to avoid any commitments, this one especially. And that, she thought, was her whole problem. She was no longer a person, she was a debating team.\n\n\"What is Kelvandor doing here?\" she asked, determined to get at least one straight answer out of a dragon. \"Was this all your own bright little idea, or did Dalvenjah put you up to this?\" \"Oh, my,\" Vajerral muttered, looking away and laying back her ears.\n\n\"Answer me,\" Jenny said sternly. \"We would not want to talk to Dalvenjah about that cute dragon who came to study with your mother and had to go home in a hurry.\"\n\nVajerral's ears stood straight up. \"That was not as bad as the way you and Kelvandor used to carry on.\"\n\n\"I wasn't eleven at the time,\" Jenny reminded her. \"Besides, Dalvenjah already knows about that. I can't be blackmailed. I have no shame.\"\n\nVajerral had no shame, except where Dalvenjah was concerned. She had to think about that for a long moment. \"Dalvenjah and Allan were supposed to come themselves this time, but they are tied up with a problem of their own. Dalvenjah seemed to think that the Emperor has a new stronghold somewhere. Kelvandor really is the best choice to come in their place. Of course, I am sure that Mother was aware of certain... consequences.\"\n\n\"I'll have something to say to Dalvenjah when I do see her,\"\n\nJenny said to herself. It was, of course, an idle threat. No one took Dalvenjah to task. The Devil himself said \"Yes, Ma'am\" to Dalvenjah Foxfire. She frowned. \" At least Kelvandor is keeping a respectful distance, but he's so eager and endearing, and so damned innocent.\"\n\n\"Innocent!\" Vajerral nearly choked to keep from laughing. \"Kelvandor is a scrupulously honest and devoted lover, even for a dragon, and he has always been something of a loner. But he has been around. In fact, he is much older than Mother.\"\n\n\"He is?\" Jenny still had a hard time with dragons and their long lives.\n\n\"He is two hundred and sixty years, at least.\"\n\nJenny frowned. Dragons rounded off their age to the previous decade, at least after their first hundred years. Her first serious relationship, and it did have to be with an older dragon. \"Then I suppose that he's taken a mate before?\"\n\n\"Nothing serious that I ever heard.\"\n\n\"What about yourself?\" Jenny asked.\n\nHer ears standing up straight, Vajerral glanced in either direction before she dipped her head and spoke softly. \"I've been screwing around.\"\n\n\"Oh, ho! Vajerral has a boyfriend,\" Jenny exclaimed. Vajerral was now seventeen, a time of life when a young dragon's thoughts turned to her severe hormonal imbalance. Heaven help Vajerral if she had inherited either her mother's romantic obsessions or her hominess. \"Please tell me it's another dragon.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Good. There's quite enough debauchery in the family.\" Vajerral spent a long moment looking over the rail at the forest far below, her ears laid back. \"What will you do?\"\n\nJenny shrugged. \"I don't know. I can't say no, and I don't feel free to say yes. I don't have the right to ask him to wait, because I don't know how long it will be. And he expects... he deserves an answer soon. What am I going to tell him?\"\n\nVajerral made a helpless gesture. \"What are you going to tell your mother?\"\n\nLady Mira demonstrated that she did indeed have a fine sense of the dramatic as she brought Wind Dragon in for a landing at Woody Bog. She had brought the airship in low over the nearby village of Welliden, nearly tangling with the mast of a river schooner tied up at the dock and almost causing a riot of startled townsfolk and delighted children. She then swooped in low and fast over the fields, disrupting the autumn harvest. All that time, Vajerral raced and sported about the airship's vanes, chasing horses, stealing apples out of the orchard and otherwise showing off. Kelvandor sat quietly on the back of the helm deck and behaved himself.\n\nWoody Bog was the manor house of Lord Araedyr of Kaendon. This land had once been a small kingdom on the shores of a narrow, northwestern branch of the inland sea and was now a district of the constitutional monarchy that had united the Northlands in the single nation of Elura over a hundred years before. Lords and ladies were now legally the equals of all other folk. Many, like Lord Araedyr, were still major landholders and owners of large, prosperous estates, employing large numbers of the local people their ancestors had once ruled and still looked to as leaders of the local community, if their abilities and behavior warranted such respect. One of the advantages of democracy was that gentlemen of title and estate were much easier to ignore.\n\nJenny held mixed feelings about the old nobility. On the one hand she found it terribly quaint and romantic, but she was also the child of a society that held very little tolerance for divine right. In her own opinion, Mira, an untitled, illegitimate former circus midget who happened to do magic very well, deserved to be called Lady far more than most who claimed that name. But Mira obviously thought highly of Lord Araedyr.\n\nWoody Bog deserved at least half its name, since the manor house lay just inside the edge of the dense forest that stretched away north and west toward the distant hills. But the bog was now mostly rich pasture land, with only a remnant of the original swamp along the shores of the river four miles away. The name itself was a thousand-year-old carryover. With the old forest closing in closely about the house, there was not much in the way of open ground to land an airship. But Mira was able to drop Wind Dragon straight down into the pocket of yard behind the house with room to spare.\n\nThe first thing Jenny noticed upon landing was that it was still late summer or early autumn here, pleasantly warm and breezy but not hot. That was especially important to her now, since cold, wet weather bothered her injury, even though nearly all trace of the wound was now gone. The worst damage, of course, had been deep within.\n\n\"Let's go ahead and do a complete disassembly of the rigging,\" Mira directed as they set about closing up the vanes. \"We will be down for a few days, and we need everything out of the way for repairs.\"\n\n\"Permission to come aboard, Captain?\" someone with a smooth, pleasant voice called from beneath the hull.\n\n\"Permission granted!\" Mira called back, and looked around for the Trassek twins. Dooket was already unlatching the boarding ladder in order to drop it down, saving her the need to give that order.\n\nLord Araedyr climbed the ladder as soon as it was down; Jenny had no doubt about who this must be from first sight. He was a most impressive man, in both appearance and manner, which matched the vague thoughts of admiration, warmth and raw lust Jenny sensed from her mistress's thoughts and memories. Araedyr was an older man, at least from the stilted view of the young, with a rough, deeply lined but dashingly handsome face and a full, thick mane of cottony white hair. He was also tall, trim and strikingly broad-shouldered, his body belonging to someone half his sixty or so years. Mira hurried to his side and he took her offered hand with gentle gallantry.\n\n\"They sent word that you were coming,\" he began. His gravelly voice was almost a rich purr, carrying a rather charming trace of the Southlands accent. He stopped before the sorceress and smiled warmly. \"It is good to see you again. You look well.\"\n\n\"The only condition I tolerate,\" Mira answered, as she pulled him forward to make introductions. \"You surely remember my boys. This is my new student, Jenny Barker, her cousin Vajerral Foxfire, and Kelvandor.\"\n\n\"Charmed,\" Vajerral said graciously, bowing fluidly with one hand on her breast. Jenny was suffering through an uncharacteristic fit of shyness.\n\n\"You are all most welcome,\" he assured them grandly. Then he stopped short, having spied Wind Dragon's chewed rear deck and siderail. \"Now that looks like battle damage.\"\n\n\"We had something of an altercation with three Imperial airships on our way through the mountains,\" Mira answered casually.\n\n\"You are right to say Imperial,\" Lord Araedyr remarked, noticing the charred bowsprit. \"There is a newly declared Emperor in Alashera, although not all the Kingdoms of the Sea have formally recognized the full authority of either the Emperor or the Senate. I can only assume that you came out the winner of your 'altercation,' since you are here.\"\n\n\"We possessed certain advantages,\" she explained vaguely.\n\n\"The trouble is that we need to have this damage repaired before we continue on. If the Southlanders see an airship that was obviously damaged in a fight...\"\n\n\"I'll have carpenters get on this as soon as I can get them here,\" he assured her. \"But I suspect that you will need a completely new bowsprit, and we have no one experienced in ship-work.\"\n\n\"No problem. We'll just pull the old one out and have them make an exact copy. The vanes are the main concern on an airship, and those sustained no damage.\"\n\n\"As you say,\" he agreed. Then he stopped before Jenny and bowed gravely, one hand on his chest. \"I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, young sorceress.\"\n\nShe only looked profoundly embarrassed and muttered something inaudible.\n\nJenny stayed behind to assist in securing the ship for an extended stay, deciding that they might just as well remove the forward stabilizers at that time and save that delay when the carpenters arrived. They stripped the rigging completely off the bowsprit and began the process of unstepping the long boom, so that it could be pulled out as soon as a frame and pulley could be raised to lift it out. She stayed to work on the ship alone some time after that, sending the two mercenaries away to discover whatever mischief they could find.\n\nShe liked Woody Bog. There was a peaceful, even happy feel to the place, and such things were very noticeable to telepaths. The climate agreed with her, and she did need the rest. All the same, she was uneasy, very eager for them to be on their way. As much as she hated to admit it, she had no desire to meet any more new people at this time.\n\nJenny climbed down from the ship and stopped short when she saw Kelvandor standing under the stem of the airship, talking quietly with Vajerral as they surveyed the damage. For some reason, she was reminded strongly of the time that they had shared, now five years past. There had been a closeness between them unlike anything two mortals could ever know, and she found that she was tempted to share that seductive spell once again.\n\nKelvandor had been watching her with that same intensity, and now he turned to walk over to join her. \"I have not spoken to you. I hardly know what to say.\"\n\nJenny shook her head. \"You do not have to say anything. I just do not know how to answer.\"\n\n\"Is the answer so difficult?\" he asked, the faintest trace of impatience, even desperation in his voice. \"You must soon become a dragon; Dalvenjah has said that. Then there will be no barrier between us.\"\n\n\"It goes beyond that,\" Jenny insisted, frightened seemingly beyond reason. \"I must stay free of demands and commitments, or I'll face the Prophecy tied to blinding emotions.\"\n\n\"I have not spoken of demands or commitments,\" Kelvandor insisted. \"I know only the pleasure we have shared in each other. \" \"I know,\" Jenny said, turning away.\n\nKelvandor caught her arm before she could flee. \"I would not be the cause of your distress. I will go away, if you want.\" \"No, don't ever leave me,\" Jenny insisted, before she realized the desperation in her own voice. \"Just give me a little more time to think.\"\n\nAnd Kelvandor only stood there, looking up at her apprehensively. But he never spoke a word, chasing betraying thoughts from his mind, meaning for her to make her own decision. She turned and rushed back up the ladder onto the ship, the only piece of home she had in this strange and suddenly frightening place.\n\nJenny lost herself in her work, thinking furiously as she stripped down Wind Dragon's standing rigging. What was it in Kelvandor that caused her such fear? There was no reason for it. And yet she found herself locked in a limbo between pleasure in his company and terror of the thought of sharing something deeper, of exploring that magical link between them. This was nothing new and unexpected. This link had tied their lives together for five years. They had even been lovers, as awkward as that had been.\n\nShe had thought at the time that it had only been play, and now she knew that it very definitely was not. No, she knew what she feared most. She feared the loss of her ability to say no if she thought she must, knowing that she could never send him away once they became that close. She feared that magical link between them, knowing that it would never let her go.\n\n\"Lady Mira, what am I going to do?\" Jenny pleaded as she followed her mistress into the house. Night was falling and dinner was being served, in that order, and their presence was expected if not actually required.\n\n\"Right now, you'll follow me into the dining room, trying your best to avoid looking like a disaster has just befallen you, and at least make a pretense of eating,\" Mira answered her impatiently. \"Then maybe you can tell me what your problem is, and we'll do something about solving it.\"\n\n\"It's Kelvandor,\" Jenny blurted out.\n\nMira stopped short and turned to stare at her. \"What about him?\"\n\n\"I.. I...\"\n\n\"Oh my stars, you don't say!\" Mira looked very perplexed, and just a bit pleased. \"I felt that something was going to happen, but I never foresaw this. I really should invest in a crystal ball. Does he...?\"\n\n\"Well, yes. I'm sure of that.\"\n\n\"And do you...?\"\n\n\"No... well, yes.\" Jenny closed her eyes and sobbed aloud. \"I don't know!\"\n\n\"Piffle, it's not the end of the world,\" Mira declared as she turned and led the way. But she had only gone a few steps when she spied a certain black-and-white cat asleep in a chair in the hall. \"J.T., what are you doing?\"\n\nBy a supreme effort, he managed to lift his head slightly and open one eye enough to glare. \"I'm minding my own business. How about you?\"\n\n\"Pray don't trouble yourself,\" she told him, and started off again. \"What can I tell you? If this is something you do want, then it would do you good.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\" Jenny asked suspiciously.\n\n\"No, I'm not!\" Mira declared. She was surprised to see Jenny carrying on in this manner, when the girl had always seemed so certain of everything in her life. It did not surprise her to see that, when Jenny did let go, she did it with all the proper theatrics.\n\nFurther discussion was delayed as they entered the dining room. Lady Mira had been required to go in search of her student at the last moment, and so they were both late; the entire table watched them expectantly as they took their seats. As custom dictated, the host sat at the head of the table with his honored guests at his right hand; Mira, by necessity, took the first seat and Jenny the second. Kelvandor sat on his tail beside Jenny, with Vajerral across from him at Mira's side. Mira tried to break the strained silence by immediately reaching for a tray of hot bread, not waiting for Lord Araedyr to pass the first plate.\n\n\"Eat something,\" she hissed in warning to her student as she passed the tray.\n\n\"I'm not hungry,\" Jenny answered petulantly.\n\n\"You'll eat your dinner and you'll like it, or I'll practice that spell that always makes your clothes disappear.\"\n\nShe frowned. \"I'll eat it, but I won't like it.\"\n\n\"Well, did you have a pleasant journey?\" Araedyr asked in a desperate effort to avert social disaster. Mira afforded him a stare that spoke volumes of censure. \"Oh, yes. We have been through that, haven't we?\"\n\n\"Honestly, I don't care to hear that they've begun the process of trying to reestablish the Empire,\" Mira said, leaping like a panther into the conversation on another subject to distract attention from present matters. \"That, and the fact that they have attacked Eluran airships with their own captured ships, indicates to me that they've reached such a level of confidence in their own abilities that they think that there is nothing we can do to stop them. Kaendon used to be a province of the old Empire. Have they put you under any pressure to join their new Empire?\" \"They have inquired politely, if their insufferable haughtiness can be considered polite,\" Araedyr answered, obviously somewhat angered by the memory of the officious manner of the representatives who had visited him. \"Their representative promised vague rewards if Kaendon were to be an early supporter of the Empire. What it comes down to is this. Only the primary city-states have representatives in the Imperial Senate. After that are provincial city-states, which have a voice only in the Imperial Forum, and the Territories, the conquered lands. In the past, Kaendon was only a provincial member of the Empire. If we return now, we can be a primary member and I would have a respected place in the Senate.\"\n\n\"Meaning that they need any support they can get right now,\" Mira assumed. \"Later, when they don't need you as badly, they're not going to give you any more power in their Senate than they can help.\"\n\nAraedyr nodded. \"And if we support Elura, then we are to be treated as conquered territory along with the rest of their enemies... if and when their enemies are defeated. I signified that I intended to remain neutral for the time, with the indication that I wanted some real proof from these upstarts that they really could defy the North and establish their new Empire. My hope was that, to them, this would look like normal caution on my part before casting my lot. My real interest was to put some pressure on them to tip their hand too soon, encouraging them to show their true intentions prematurely. Then, perhaps, the North would have something to work on.\"\n\n\"Ah, a wise course,\" Mira agreed. \"You could have done no better.\"\n\n\"And from what I've been able to discover, the Kingdoms of the Sea agree on only certain points,\" Araedyr added. \"They all seem to have turned to the worship of the Dark, and they are all keeping their borders as tightly closed to rumor as they can. Which is no small trick, at the same time their trade is beginning to flourish. But their structure of power and political alliance is new and incomplete, still very shaky. They do have the unity of all their people, from the merchant princes in their great palaces to the beggars in the streets. My casual spies have been unable to get anything out of them beyond what you already know. You will be hard pressed to discover anything more.\"\n\n\"But what of the Emperor or the High Priest? Have either of them put in an appearance?\" Mira asked.\n\n\"Everything is in the Emperor's name, and his word is heard,\" Araedyr answered. \"But he remains absent, and some minister seems to attend to the High Priest's duties.\"\n\n\"But if they are confiscating airships for their own use, then are they going to let you take Wind Dragon back out again?\" Vajerral asked.\n\n\"That really does not worry me,\" she explained, demonstrating her own lack of concern. \"I have a three-part plan for getting in, discovering what I want, and getting back out again, all the time keeping their suspicions diverted just enough to delay them from taking any countermeasures until it is too late. All it involves is the proper combination of audacity, cunning and heaping mounds of bullshit, served up in the proper combination as the moment requires.\"\n\n\"Meaning that you intend to play it by ear,\" Araedyr concluded. \"Well, if anyone can pull that off, you can.\"\n\n\"I'll take that to be a vote of confidence,\" Mira said with a shrug, and turned her attention to her plate.\n\nDinner was over soon enough, and most of the formal guests retired to the main hall to join members of the household staff and others who lived and worked on the estate as they convened for music, conversation and a variety of entertainments. Mira arrived there in Lord Araedyr's company well ahead of Jenny and the dragons. She found that the Trassek twins had already arrived and were deeply involved in the hunt, stalking a pair of local girls who seemed nice enough and were easily impressed if just a bit simple. .. which helped to explain why they were so easily impressed. She disliked interrupting them, although she was not about to let them know that.\n\n\"You two run out to the ship and bring back both Jenny's guitar and my own,\" she ordered.\n\n\"Ah, Lady, do we have to?\" Erkin whined and wheedled.\n\n\"Yes, go earn your pay.\"\n\n\"Can our friends go with us?\"\n\n\"You can show them the ship afterward,\" she told them. \"If the four of you go now, I can't imagine when or if we'll ever see those guitars. This way, you'll get them here in a hurry.\"\n\n\"She's got us figured out,\" Dooket told his \"little brother,\" and they hurried off to complete their errand.\n\n\"I think we've spoiled her terribly,\" Erkin countered.\n\nMira continued on across the room, having a discreet but very good look about. Kaendon possessed many democratic traditions which had been hundreds of years ahead of their time, such as this hall which was open to everyone regardless of wealth or standing. The Lords of Kaendon had always been a rather informal lot, little impressed with rank\u2014even their own. There was a bright blaze built up in the fireplace at one end, although the nights this far south were only beginning to turn chill. Not more than a score of people had arrived yet, but the evening was still young and the keg of ale had not yet been tapped.\n\nMira leaned herself against a post in a doorway to one side of the fire, surreptitiously watching the evening crowd slowly accumulate. The girls that Dooket and Erkin had cornered were still waiting. She found that to be a mild surprise but a considerable relief, since she preferred not to interfere in their hunting. The boys had been with her just over two years now, and she wondered how much longer they would be around. They were competent warriors and far more mature\u2014at least professionally\u2014than one would suspect from their manner. But there was a big difference between watching over the guests at her parties and the type of work she had for them now.\n\n\"It's nice to see that some things never change,\" Araedyr said as he suddenly appeared behind her, rubbing her shoulders affectionately.\n\n\"I was just contemplating that very subject,\" Mira answered. \"Woody Bog has always amazed me, how a place so big and so full of people can also be so homey. It seems to me that all the rest of the world is changing in a hurry these days.\"\n\n\"Troubled times,\" Araedyr agreed. \"Troubled times. But is this old world changing into something new, or just taking a big step backwards into the dark past? All the same, I was speaking of you. Still the same old Mira. Still with your nose in all the world's business, worrying and worrying.\"\n\n\"When nature gave me this nose, I assumed it to be a sign.\" \"So what are you brooding about tonight, love?\" he asked. \"Those children of yours?\"\n\n\"Hardly children,\" Mira said. \"Jenny is twenty-two, and Kelvandor is pushing hard against two hundred and seventy. I just want for them to have something good this once.\"\n\n\"As I said, some things never change,\" Araedyr said, amused. \"Do you ever think of yourself?\"\n\n\"All the time, I assure you.\"\n\nShe paused, seeing that Jenny and Kelvandor had entered from the door on the far side of the room, so involved in their own conversation and each other that they failed to notice her. They retreated to one side of the fireplace, at the edge of the small crowd gathering there. Mira wondered what they were discussing, and even more what they might be thinking. She wished, and not for the first time, that she possessed her student's rather awesome telepathic abilities.\n\n\"Do you still believe that those two need any help?\" Araedyr asked. \"They seem to me to be doing well enough on their own.\" The Trassek twins entered through that same door a moment later, and Mira hurried to intercept them. She took the larger of the two guitars out of Dooket's hands and presented it to Jenny. \"This seems like a very good night for a little music. Guitar duets, if you please.\"\n\n\"Will you play with me?\" Jenny asked, seeing that Erkin was standing ready with her own guitar.\n\n\"I was contemplating a substitution, if he is willing,\" she said as she handed her guitar to Kelvandor. \"And none of your lame excuses, dragon. I've been told by Vajerral that you play quite well.\"\n\n\"I might just consider it, if Jenny will condescend to take pity with rank amateurs,\" he answered as he took the instrument, holding it to his chest with some difficulty. He plucked the strings experimentally. \"And I do mean rank. What should we play?\"\n\n\"A love song, but something light and hopeful,\" Mira insisted before her student had a chance to reply. \"This is a night for happy songs.\"\n\nJenny was looking up at her suspiciously. \"What have you got on your mind?\"\n\n\"As if you didn't know!\" Mira answered with a shrug and turned to walk away. A judicious retreat seemed to be in order.\n\n\"As it happens, I usually do.\"\n\nMira hurried back to rejoin Araedyr in the shadows along the far wall. The two musicians were plucking at the strings of their instruments with slow, careful determination, as if they were having some trouble coming to an agreement. Already the small crowd was beginning to take some notice, and the evening mood in the hall lightened with new interest and excitement. Dragons were rare enough as visitors, and even more so as musicians. Jenny was at last able to make her point clear to her eager but uncertain partner and their fumbling chords modulated into the opening measures of a song. Then Jenny began to sing, the depth and quality of her voice surprising and impressing Kelvandor to such an extent that he almost allowed his part to falter.\n\n\"Your new student plays like an honest professional,\" Araedyr observed after he had listened attentively through half the song. \"She's descended of the old aristocracy of the Middle Kingdoms, is she not?\"\n\nShe glanced at him questioningly. Jenny's dark blue hair had already been spelled to black, in the event that there were Imperial spies about. \"What makes you suspect that?\"\n\n\"I am only guessing, actually,\" he said. \"But only one group of people I have seen have noses quite like that.\"\n\nMira looked startled and, a moment later, faintly amused, but she made no comment. She just hoped that Jenny never heard, or otherwise perceived, what Lord Araedyr had to say about her nose.\n\nThe two musicians had drawn quite a crowd by the time the first song ended. Jenny was clearly a professional; Mira, who had already played with her, was all the more impressed. So were the locals, to judge by their response. Kelvandor was certainly good enough to get away with playing second guitar with her, and he had not yet had the opportunity to demonstrate his fine tenor.\n\n\"They do perform well together,\" Araedyr remarked, and turned to Mira before she could make some off-color comment that was forestalled between her brain and her tongue. \"We are usually responsible for entertaining ourselves during our nightly sessions, such as we are able. This is indeed a rare treat.\"\n\nThe crowd had been debating some point since the end of that first song, and they were now pulling back the benches to make room. Mira paused a moment to watch. \"What is this? Are we going to have dancing?\"\n\n\"That seems likely,\" Araedyr agreed, then paused a moment. \"Ah, yes! They are bringing out the drums.\"\n\nMira knew from her past visits that the drums were used for the powerful, relentless beat that thundered the time to many of the exuberant local folk dances, some of which were as old as the days of the Alasheran Empire. She had always enjoyed drum dances in the past, although the combination of noise, excitement and the strong southern wine tended to bring on a swift headache. Lord Araedyr might have read her mind, for he suddenly darted away to fetch a bottle and two glasses. They took their seats on a bench in a private comer of the hall where they could watch the dancing from a safe distance.\n\nFour drummers were stationed at the comers of the dance floor and the captain of the manor guard stepped to the center to mark the opening time, each downward stroke of his sword an echoing beat. Two young dancers, both members of the guard, quickly took their places behind him. Arms folded behind their backs, they began the vigorous and complex steps of the dance. Concentration was intense, not just on the part of the participants but also the audience. Mira had always been uncertain whether these energetic dances were entertainment, an art form or an acrobatic performance. Drum dances had long been a favorite of soldiers, especially the elite household guards, providing good training in strength, endurance and dexterity while giving more experienced dancers a chance to show off their hard-earned skills.\n\nThe first pair of dancers surrendered the floor at last and, after a quick but spirited debate between herself and several of the others, Jenny pulled off her shoes and stepped out to the center. Mira's interest and amusement turned to sudden apprehension when she saw four members of the household guard join her, moving with formal, military precision to form a square about the solitary dancer, their long, narrow-bladed swords upraised. As one they knelt and laid their swords on the floor, razor-sharp blades facing up with points touching to form a cross beneath the young sorceress's long legs.\n\n\"Yarg, surely she doesn't mean to do the sword dance!\" Mira protested, and turned to her companion. \"Ary, she can't do this.\" \"She means to try,\" Araedyr said. \"Surely she has done it before.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine.\" Privately, Mira was surprised that her protege knew any of the drum dances. Jenny must have learned some interesting tricks during her years among the dragons. Actually, she had practiced wild acrobatic dances with the best: Jane Fonda.\n\nJenny indicated for the drummers to increase their beat. The watchers muttered with growing excitement and leaned forward tense with anticipation, the concentration becoming almost tangible like a throbbing counterpoint to the drumbeat. Jenny began the dance, arms folded behind her back, dancing between the blades with lightning-quick steps. It was no variant of the sword dance of this world, but it worked.\n\n\"Put a stop to this, before she hurts herself.\"\n\n\"There is no stopping it now,\" Araedyr said sharply, indicating for her to remain silent. \"Nothing must break her concentration until she decides that the dance is done.\"\n\nMira had to admit the logic in that, as little as she liked it. Jenny was doing very well indeed, her every move quick, precise and strongly graceful. Mira's apprehension faded\u2014somewhat\u2014 as she watched in complete fascination, as captivated as everyone else in the room. Then a look of momentary surprise that crossed her face evolved into her usual mischievous grin.\n\n\"Ah, of course!\" she said to herself. \"Bless her, the dear girl is actually showing off for her dragon.\"\n\nAnd when she took a closer look at Kelvandor, she saw that he ploy was working very well at that. He was as captivated by Ihe dance as anyone else in the room, but he also looked very pleased and just a little proud. Mira was just a little pleased and proud herself, enough that she was almost willing to forgive her student for pulling such a dangerous stunt as attempting the sword dance without practicing first. And it was such a daring and impulsive stunt for Jenny, normally so cool and reserved, that her forgiveness was almost complete.\n\nAlmost, but not quite. Mira did approve of unorthodoxies and believed that impulsive behavior was a virtue to be rewarded. She would have to consider the matter as she calmed her nerves over a cup of tea.\n\nThe night was cool and clear, the air fresh and bearing a shadow of the snap of an autumn evening, an indication that summer was passing quickly even this far south. Mira, standing on the wooden deck of a porch behind the house, drank her tea slowly as she reflected that it was indecent for any land to be blessed with perfect weather. Which was not exactly the case; Kaendon did have rare snowfalls about every other winter, and she had not forgotten the hurricanes that threatened the coastal lands far more regularly. Yes, it was important to keep all things in perspective. That made living in cold, wet Bennasport more bearable.\n\nMira paused and set her cup on the wooden rail where she stood, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder. Jenny had just appeared on the brick-paved lower porch and was quietly making her way up the steps of the deck. Mira wondered why the girl thought she needed to be so stealthful, and if she believed that she really was getting away with anything.\n\n\"You dance superbly, dear child,\" Mira said without turning. \"I might add that you're about as subtle as a tipsy dragon.\"\n\n\"I'm as quiet as J.T.,\" her student protested.\n\n\"That's not saying much. And I was referring to your behavior earlier, not in your manner in stomping up those steps.\"\n\n\"What about my behavior?\" Jenny demanded, feigning surprise and slight indignation.\n\n\"You were most definitely showing off for a certain dragon,\" Mira told her bluntly.\n\n\"Who says that I was showing off?\" Jenny insisted.\n\n\"I say that you were showing off!\" the sorceress declared, refusing to be intimidated. \"Listen to me, young lady. If you've come here to ask my advice, then you are going to have to admit to a few obvious truths.\"\n\n\"Who says that I've come to ask your advice?\"\n\n\"Yarg!\" Mira pantomimed pulling her hair in frustration, and knocked her teacup off the rail in the process. She peered over the rail after it. \"Now see what you've made me do. And I have the suspicion that I'm going to need all the tea I can get tonight. Now, why don't we just get this over with? There are better things we could both be doing tonight.\"\n\n\"You were waiting for me.\" Jenny conjured the teacup back onto the ledge, only without its tea.\n\n\"Of course. Now, I'll start off with providing the answer to a question you might not think to ask. If you didn't love him, then there would be nothing for you to decide. The next question is, how much do you love him?\"\n\nJenny frowned. \"I don't know. I've been looking for those answers all night, and I just cannot find them. It's so hard to decide.\"\n\n\"Is there anything to decide?\" Mira asked. \"Kelvandor is a dragon. How could you possibly make love to him?\"\n\n\"I've... made love to him before,\" Jenny explained softly. \"Oh.\" Mira had to hastily reconsider her arguments\u2014at the same time that she was overwhelmed with fascinated curiosity. She would have given five gold crowns to have seen that. \"But I still don't understand. There is a difference between amorous and romantic, at least in my book, and I must be too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Kelvandor is a faerie dragon and you are...\"\n\nWell, that was an interesting question. Jenny had certainly started life human and quite mortal, but Dalvenjah had warned Mira, long before the girl had ever come into this world, what long familiarity with dragon magic had done to her. She had hardly forgotten that Jenny had taken an arrow in the gut with less harm than most mortals would have had from a slight wound to the arm or leg.\n\nJenny frowned. \"I know that I must become a dragon to play my part in the Prophecy. And that, I suspect, will not be long in coming. My uncle Allan became a dragon for Dalvenjah's sake, and they share a deep, quiet love that I can only describe as magical. I can see a distant glimpse of that when I'm with Kelvandor. But I'm not yet ready to commit myself that fully to him. I need more time.\"\n\nMira nodded in understanding. \"I know that many dragons spend most of their endless lives devoted to a fair number of loves, turning to one or the other as they feel or need. And some mortal folk like myself, who have learned the hard way to be properly circumspect, balance such relationships in our own way. Then, when the day comes that you feel ready to make a permanent commitment, so be it.\"\n\nJenny nodded in mute agreement, but she still did not look completely convinced. She stood for a long moment, leaning on the rail and staring into the dark forest only a short distance beyond. \"Love can be so complex and difficult to understand. What do you think? What is your position with men?\"\n\n\"Usually on the bottom,\" Mira remarked evenly, but with her sly little grin.\n\nJenny rolled her eyes. \"I should have seen that one coming. I should have learned, after half a year, to beware of how I phrase things with you.\"\n\n\"I can't make your decision for you,\" Mira told her sternly. \"I'm not asking you to,\" her student answered. \"Talk to me, Mira. Give me the benefit of your vast experience, and we'll see if any of it takes root. I trust you more than I trust anyone in this world.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well.\" Mira sighed heavily, unaware that the slender wooden rail creaked in warning. \"All right, then. This is the first truth I learned, a long time ago, and it has helped preserve both my perspective and my sanity every time I find myself in 'your situation.' There is no such thing as love. It's an illusion. You can't put it in a bottle or the bank, and it sure as hell don't make the flowers grow. You can do without it. You can get through life just fine, and possibly better, all by yourself. You don't really need anyone, not friends or lovers. Just clients.\"\n\nJenny looked so scandalized that Mira smiled. \"Of course, there is one important thing you do have to keep in mind about love.\" \"And what is that?\" Jenny asked breathlessly.\n\n\"It feels good.\" Mira shrugged helplessly, and shook her head. \"And so, keeping firmly in mind that love is something you can do just as well if not better without, it allows you to keep your perspective and watch out for yourself when you do find yourself involved in affairs of the heart... or the crotch. Keeping your perspective and watching out for your own interests\u2014and your partner's\u2014is the best insurance against something going badly wrong. It helps you get more out of love, and it tells you when the time has come to get out of a bad situation, with a minimum of friction.\"\n\n\"That makes sense,\" Jenny agreed. It all sounded very much like her mistress's curious but effective philosophies.\n\n\"Which brings us to rule number two,\" Mira announced. \"I never allow myself to proceed into a situation where I lose more than my half of the control. I refuse to stay in a bad situation. But I certainly never allow a promising opportunity to slip by. Practical hedonism is the only way to get the most from life.\" Jenny laughed softly. \"And I thought that Addena Sheld was a hopeless flirt.\"\n\n\"She learned from the expert,\" Mira said, pointing to herself. She turned to lean on the rail, and the two of them peered into the night for several long moments.\n\n\"It's easier to be a dragon,\" Jenny continued after a brief moment. \"Male or female, a dragon is a dragon and they are never at odds. But men and women often seem almost like different creatures, and I don't understand men. It just seems that men only care about what they want, like pleasing them is our only interest and purpose.\"\n\n\"It seems that way, I do admit,\" Mira agreed. \"Men are not by nature self-centered assholes, but an inordinate number turn out that way because they have never had to learn better. They don't know that they're missing the best part of love just to satisfy their lust. And there are certainly enough games that women play, so I guess it comes out fairly even in the end. But there is no reason to ever give in to that. You either get what you're entitled to out of a relationship, or you get out.\"\n\n\"You make love sound so transitory,\" Jenny observed.\n\n\"Do I?\" The sorceress looked startled. \"I certainly never meant to imply that. If you ever are lucky enough to find your perfect match, then don't you ever let him get away. It's just been my part to have acquired an impressive string of near misses.\"\n\nShe paused a moment to lift her cup, then looked within it and realized that the rest of her tea had gone over the rail. She sighed heavily. \"Hang me for a nosey old bitch, but I just have to ask. How do you make love to a dragon in the first place?\"\n\n\"Oh, that's not hard,\" Jenny insisted, rather innocently. \"The trick is getting the dragon on his back.\"\n\n\"Well, yes.\" For once in her life, Mira did not want an answer to her question. \"So, what do you think?\"\n\n\"It won't be long until I'll have to become a dragon for my protection,\" Jenny mused, almost to herself. \"It's not as if I'm becoming a dragon to be with him, as my uncle Allan did for Dalvenjah. But I'm afraid to get involved until I'm done with the Prophecy and have a life of my own. Once I become a dragon myself, this whole situation with Kelvandor will become a lot harder to ignore.\"\n\n\"So who says you should ignore it?\" Mira asked. When Jenny turned to stare, she shrugged broadly. \"I mean, what is really going to be different? You're going to have that dragon hanging about as it is. If you just go ahead and get it over, that's one less thing you'll have to worry about.\"\n\nJenny had to think about that for a moment. Mira did make one good point. If the idea was to avoid distraction, Kelvandor already had her distracted enough. If love itself was the distraction, then she was already in love. She was reminded yet again of Allan and Dalvenjah, and how they both seemed to be stronger and more secure for having each other. Of course, theirs was hardly the deep, magical relationship that Dalvenjah and Allan shared. It came down to a question of the better of two evils, having Kelvandor... or not having him. And as Mira said, he was going to be around anyway.\n\n\"I'm going to find another cup of tea before I fade away into the night like a shadow,\" Mira said as she turned back to the door. \"Just be certain that you're not making it more of a problem than it really is.\"\n\nJenny leaned on the rail, looking out into the night at the dark shape of Wind Dragon sitting in the yard beyond. The airship was in a state of partial disassembly, lacking her bowsprit and rigging, as well as the burnt and damaged sections of her deck, rail and hull. The old girl had really taken her lumps in the past couple of weeks. It frightened Jenny just to think about it.\n\n\"She is right.\"\n\nJenny turned sharply at the sound of that deep, soft voice to see the misty form of a golden dragon standing behind her. She relaxed. \"I was wondering when you would turn up again. You are going to have to be a little less mysterious, you know. You could just say what you mean.\"\n\nKeridaejan looked honestly surprised. \"I did not want to frighten you.\"\n\n\"Drifting in and out muttering cryptic messages is your idea of being discreet?\"\n\n\"Well, pardon me for dying,\" the dragon said, turning his head away. \"I was trying to do you a favor. But never mind that. After all I've done for you and this Prophecy, I should want to proceed as I see best.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm sorry,\" Jenny conceded grudgingly, turning back to lean on the rail. \"It just seems like know-it-all dragons have been running my life according to their own secret plans for most of my life.\"\n\n\"Yes, I can imagine that you would find it frustrating.\" Karidaejan was reluctantly mollified. He made vague motions of stroking his scales, a nervous gesture that was defeated by the fact that his physical appearance was an illusion. He sighed heartily. \"You have been patient, even devoted. You deserve to know the truth, and I know things that even Dalvenjah does not dare to suspect. And you deserve to know everything.\"\n\nJenny nodded. \"I've always thought that I could do better for knowing what was going on.\"\n\n\"That just goes to show how much you know.\"\n\nJenny turned to stare. \"You have no intention of telling me a damned thing, do you?\"\n\n\"The time has not yet come,\" he explained. \"You have an important and dangerous task before you. Once that is done, then I will come to you again and explain everything. But at that time you must become a dragon, for your own protection, before it is too late. Your enemies plan to trap you, and you will be betrayed by one you will not expect.\"\n\n\"And you have no intention of telling me who that is?\" Jenny asked as the dragon's misty form began to fade.\n\n\"Not on your life.\"\n\nWith that he was gone. A moment later the door opened and Mira stepped out onto the deck, holding a cup of tea. She blinked in confusion. \"Who are you talking to?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Jewel of the Southern Seas",
+                "text": "Five days of conscientious labor had Wind Dragon restored to perfect condition. The damage to her woodwork from fire arrows, grapples and the lashing tails of winged demons was repaired to invisibility. The new bowsprit was set into place, the stabilizers were rigged and a new set of replacement stabilizers were made and stored in the hold The water tank was also repaired, along with a careful drying out of the contents of the airship's lower deck. And Jenny was given a new set of clothes to replace what she had lost to rather unusual circumstances.\n\nMira was up before dawn, packing for her move back into her cabin aboard Wing Dragon so that they could be away shortly, but she was interrupted barely halfway through. She was just a little annoyed to discover Erkin knocking on her door, mostly because he was knocking so loudly. She opened it impatiently.\n\n\"Lady Mira, there's a big, Ugly ghost poking around the ship,\" Erkin explained before she had a chance to lecture him.\n\n\"What?\" Mira demanded. \"Oh, piffle! There's no such thing as ghosts.\"\n\n\"Whatever it is, something is out there,\" Erkin insisted, unconvinced. He was, after all, a barbarian. Or what passed for barbarian in this modern age. \"Dooket is keeping an eye on it.\"\n\n\"Oh, let's go have a look,\" she acquiesced. Ghost or not, she was willing to concede that her two mercenaries were level-headed enough to know that they had seen something unusual, even if they had no idea what it was.\n\nThe door across the hall opened and Jenny peered out inquisitively. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"We have a ghost in the ship,\" Erkin told her, perfectly serious. Mira sighed deeply and rolled her eyes, disputing that.\n\n\"Oh.\" Jenny seemed to get the message. \"Mind if I come along?\"\n\n\"The more, the merrier!\" Mira exclaimed. \"Lead on.\"\n\nNow there was one serious misconception being perpetrated, at least on Jenny's part. She knew of only one ghost, and she could not imagine why Karidaejan would be poking about. Any other ghost, perhaps. But not some secretive Mindijarah. She had not heard Erkin's description of the ghost as big and ugly, although she did think that he would know a faerie dragon when he saw one. Even one who had been dead as long as Karidaejan.\n\nThey hurried through the dark, silent manor house and stepped out onto the back porch. The sky was only just beginning to lighten in advance of the rising sun. The grass of the lawn was dark beneath a blanket of dew, and the morning air was cool, heavy and wet. Wind Dragon's vast, dark shape loomed only a short distance away. A dog was barking somewhere, but without any particular urgency or alarm, and everything seemed silent and calm. But in contrast to that sleepy, peaceful scene, there was a vague troubling to the native magic of the world. Mira shuttered despite herself, as if in revulsion from some foul touch.\n\n\"Over there, Lady Mira.\" Jenny indicated to their right.\n\nAt that moment Dooket stepped out of the open door of a storeroom in the comer of the house, near Wind Dragon's stem, and gestured impatiently for them to come. They hurried to join him, and Mira was surprised to note that he actually looked just a little frightened. Since none of their hair-raising adventures of the past two and a half years had ever come close to achieving that effect, she was surprised and mystified.\n\n\"It's in here,\" he whispered hoarsely. \"It glows quite a bit, so you can't miss it.\"\n\n\"Of, piffle!\" Mira declared yet again and she conjured a soft blue ball of light above her head and entered the storeroom boldly. \"There's no such thing as ghosts. Honestly, boys, you surprise me, trying to tell me such an absurd tale. I'll have you know that I'm a trained and competent sorceress, an expert in matters of magic, and I have no patience for superstitious nonsense.\"\n\nJenny kept her mouth firmly closed on the subject.\n\nShe stopped short when something vast and threatening stepped out from behind a stack of crates to block her way. It was well over seven feet tall, so enormous that it barely fit under the ceiling, and it did indeed glow faintly with its own pale, sickly light. In form it seemed like some impossible mixture of man and crab. Its massive body was encased in hard, armored shell, although it walked upright on two short, plated legs and its long, spine-edged arms ended in immense pincers. Its small head seemed to emerge directly from its hunched back, hinged so that it could look to either side only slightly. Two points of white flames marked its small eyes, burning balefully from deep within the shadow of its armored brow. Mira turned to the Trasseks with an impatient gesture.\n\n\"What did I tell you, boys? That's not a ghost. That's a demon,\" she declared, then turned abruptly back to the malevolent monster. \"Yarg!\"\n\nThe demon drew back a massive pincer and took a swipe at them that would have scattered the entire group across the room, except that they had already scattered. Dooket and Erkin stood ready to charge in with their swords, but Mira gestured them away sharply. She did not know if the weapons they carried were those which had been spelled for fighting demons. Then she began working the spell that should have sent the demon back to its own existence.\n\n\"Don't you dare!\" Jenny declared, one hand held protectively over her breasts. Mira turned to stare at her in astonishment and mystification.\n\nIgnoring her mistress, Jenny stepped forward to face the demon, coldly determined, even as it prepared to attack. She gestured toward the monster, one arm aimed level at its plated chest, and a soft blue glow surrounded her closed fist. The demon lunged ponderously forward straight toward her, but a shaft of blue mist shot out from her fist to impact against its thick shell, blasting it backwards against the wall behind with force enough to crack the brick and shake the very foundations of the manor. It stirred weakly and began to rise, but Jenny caught it with a second blast that exploded the monster, casting plated segments across the floor.\n\nA moment later those segments began to dissolve into thick, creeping mist.\n\n\"I do need the practice.\" Mira pretended to sound aggrieved. \"Well, do it when I'm not about,\" Jenny answered, rubbing her closed fist. \"My word, that tingles. So, what do we do now? Was that thing looking for us, or was it only in the neighborhood?\" \"That's a very good question, but I really do not know the answer,\" the sorceress said. \"I don't like the thought that they might be sending demons out to spy upon and intimidate their enemies and possible allies. I like even less the thought that they know who we are and had these things out looking for us. For the sake of our good host and his people, we should get Wind Dragon into the air as soon as possible. Let's get to work, boys.\" \"Right, Lady Mira,\" Dooket and Erkin agreed eagerly, as if nothing had ever happened, and hurried out of the storeroom to attend to the task.\n\nAn hour of hard work found Wing Dragon once again in the sky, and in somewhat less than an hour more the airship passed from the woody coast of Kaendon out over the rolling, white-headed waves of the sea. There was a brisk inshore wind that the ship was forced to climb above to maintain her speed, but the sky was mostly clear and the sun bright and warm. With luck, they would not be caught over water by an autumn storm. Mira kept very much in mind that this was the season for hurricanes, and that an airship was just as vulnerable to such violent weather as any other ship at sea.\n\nBut for now, matters aboard Wind Dragon were quiet enough. Kelvandor was overboard stretching his wings. Jenny stood at the ship's wheels, so lost in her own thoughts that she looked up only every two minutes or so to check the compass for drift. Lady Mira sat on the deck a short distance away, poring over her books with a single-minded interest.\n\nMira looked up at last, peering at her young student intently. \"What great matters are you pondering over there? You're thinking so hard that I can't concentrate on my reading.\"\n\n\"Oh, just thinking,\" Jenny replied with shy evasion, pushing a ribbon of her long, spelled-black hair away from her face. Mira recognized that nervous gesture and thought she knew what it meant.\n\n\"Oh, ho!\" she declared. \"So, how are things going between yourself and the dragon?\"\n\n\"Oh, just fine.\"\n\n\"Just fine? Your enthusiasm overwhelms me.\"\n\nJenny smiled. \"I'm not thinking about Kelvandor. I've got something else on my mind.\"\n\n\"Oh? So what am I, a mind reader?\" Mira inquired.\n\n\"I hate it when people say that to me,\" Jenny muttered with a frown, and sighed deeply. \"Frankly, I'm worried about that demon the boys found. If it was looking for us, then we're flying into a trap.\"\n\n\"Yes, I've thought about that too,\" Mira said, solemnly academic but not particularly concerned. \"I really don't see how they could be looking for us, specifically. They might have sent their demon to spy upon or terrorize Lord Araedyr, since he is holding out on their offer to join the Empire. But, more likely than not, they are just spying out the countryside for airships they can steal for their own use.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course!\" Jenny agreed. \"They have to be coming up with airships somewhere, and airship trade into that region has always been sparse. What did Araedyr have to say?\"\n\n\"What you no doubt suspect,\" Mirareplied. \"A certain number of airships have disappeared on routine flights here in the South. The ships are posted missing, and in two cases war galleys have claimed to have found wreckage. Then, a few weeks later, the same ships are seen flying again under new names as a part of the Imperial sky navy.\"\n\n\"Could they possibly be boarding and commandeering ships in flight?\" Jenny asked dubiously. \"They've attacked us in flight twice, but they seemed far more intent upon destruction than boarding.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't want to try it,\" Mira said. \"I suppose that it is possible to board and capture an airship in flight, as difficult and dangerous as that might be. That sounds like one of Beratric Kurgel's stupid ideas, and how did they capture the first? It seems far easier to capture the airship while it's still on the ground, say the night before, very quietly and secretly. Then they would have had their own crew take the ship out of port and fly it home rather than on to its next destination.\"\n\nJenny glanced over her shoulder to see that Kelvandor was laboring to come up behind the ship. She cut speed somewhat and moved as much as she could out of the way while still keeping hold of both wheels, and Mira discreetly withdrew to the starboard steps down to the middle deck. J.T., coming up the other steps at that moment, took one look and turned tail.\n\n\"Coming through!\" Kelvandor bellowed as he took hold of the rail and thrust himself forward onto the deck, only to trip and crack his chin sharply. He rose and shook his head vigorously. \"Hm. That was an improvement.\"\n\nMira glanced up from her book, affording him one of her droll expressions. \"Sometimes he's so stupid, he even frightens himself. Where have you been, Lizard?\"\n\n\"Having a look about,\" the dragon answered, rubbing his chin. \"But this little ship is making such speed, I cannot range very far for fear of losing you.\"\n\nLady Mira, still seated on the steps, was staring thoughtfully at the dragon. She shook her head slowly. \"You know, we can't just fly into port with a pair of faerie dragons on board.\"\n\nKelvandor stared at her. \"I never thought that we would. Vajerral and I will go overboard as we near the island, to do a little furtive investigating of our own, and generally just hang around in the event you need us for daring rescues. The rest of you can stick your head in the noose, and be safer without us.\"\n\n\"I don't like the way you phrased that, but I believe that would be best,\" Mira agreed. \"But for pity's sake, don't get yourselves caught or do a damned thing that could cast any suspicion on us. I dare say that we'll be in quite enough danger as it is.\"\n\n\"Right... Mom,\" Kelvandor agreed. He was in a playful mood. *\n\nMira rolled her eyes but refrained from answering him. She looked at Jenny, who was quietly attending the helm. \"You've remained completely silent on the subject.\"\n\n\"I just wish I knew what you had in mind, once we arrive,\" her student said frankly.\n\nLady Mira sighed deeply. \"So do I.\"\n\nWind Dragon had stopped for the night on the sands of a small island, and Jenny had gone with Kelvandor and Vajerral up the beach a short distance to do the laundry in a broad stream that emerged from the forest. They were bringing in the laundry that they earlier had hung to dry on a line stretched between two trees. Five days in Kaendon and they had not thought to have their laundry sent out. It was interesting that the dragons agreed to the task of washing clothes, since they were adamant about wearing only what they grew for themselves.\n\nJenny had found a small mirror in one of the pockets of Mira's jacket, and she seemed to have had a morbid fascination with it ever since. Now Jenny had always had something of a compulsive dislike, even fear, of mirrors. She had an intense aversion to seeing her own image, even in those times when she had spelled or dyed her hair black as a matter of necessity, such as the four years she had been in college, and she could not guess why. Now she seemed almost addicted to staring at her own image, as if to make up for those long years of avoidance.\n\nVajerral paused in folding towels to stare over her shoulder, wondering if Jenny was using the mirror for some magical spell. \"What do you see?\"\n\nJenny frowned. \"You know, I've had this face for nearly twenty-four years now, and I have never appreciated it. I have just never thought about it. Is it a pretty face? An intelligent face? A kind face?\"\n\n\"All of those things at once, I am sure,\" Kelvandor was quick to promise her. When love speaks, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Even if the beholder is a dragon, and knows not whereof he speaks. \"A pretty face, above all else. Very beautiful.\"\n\nShe turned to him. \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" he said, then laid back his ears uncertainly. \"At least for a human.\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks!\"\n\nVajerral placed a sock on the end of her snout and tossed her head to cause it to swing back and forth. \"Look! An oliphant!\" \"Oh, enough!\" Jenny snatched away the sock and used it to snap the young dragon in the rump.\n\n\"What is an oliphant?\" Kelvandor asked. He was entertaining the rather outrageous vision of a dragon with a long, obscenely limp nose.\n\nJenny glanced into the mirror yet again. \"I was just thinking that soon I will have to become a dragon. There is nothing wrong with being a dragon, I must admit. But I have become rather used to what I am, and I think that I am going to miss it... no matter how much I might enjoy being a dragon.\"\n\n\"Allan always did regret that he never could play his cello,\" Vajerral agreed thoughtfully. Then she saw that Kelvandor was glaring at her, and she remembered which side of the argument she was supposed to take. \"Of course, he does make a very good dragon.\"\n\nJenny was staring at the pair of them, thoughtfully. \"I am beginning to think that you two were exactly the wrong people to talk to about this.\"\n\n\"Look at that!\" Vajerral exclaimed. Trotting on all fours, she hurried across the beach to intercept a curious crawling shell like a horseshoe crab that was being tumbled ashore by the surf.\n\n\"Did you know Keridaejan?\" Jenny asked. She had been thinking about his warning that she would be betrayed by someone she would never suspect. She wondered if he foresaw that as a part of the Prophecy, or if being a ghost gave him a special advantage in being able to sneak about and discover things.\n\n\"Karidaejan was my father,\" Kelvandor answered simply.\n\nJenny stared. \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Long story,\" he explained. \"All old family history. You see, the Prophecy as you know it actually began before Dalvenjah's own birth less than fifty years ago. She was an orphan of circumstance, surrendered by her mother to apprenticeship at a very early age, unaware of the identity of her own father until she was nearly your age. She's a fighter, a survivor, even by the standards of our own kind.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" Jenny agreed. \"And I know that she lost her first mate.\"\n\n\"It was more than that,\" Kelvandor continued. \"You see, my father was her older half-brother, and also her first true mate. They knew each other only a very short time and yet they loved each other dearly, both as brother and sister and as lovers. And do not stare; that is the way of dragons. But they were also so very much alike that they were not completely comfortable with prolonged company. Then Derjadhan came and stole Dalvenjah's heart. The High Priest was able to get at Keridaejan, and Dalvenjah was forced to slay his body by her own hand. She saw her first two loves die within months of each other, but then she also found Allan. That was why Allan was so good for her; it took her three tries to get it right.\"\n\n\"Then you are a consulting sorcerer, like Dalvenjah?\" Jenny asked, thinking that he wanted to change the subject.\n\n\"In most ways, but not quite,\" Kelvandor explained, considering his words carefully. \"It is, I suppose, a matter of reputation.\n\nDalvenjah is known for solving mysteries, for finding things or figuring out how things happen. I am a troubleshooter, a solver of obvious problems. I do such things as slay evil creatures, negotiate for enemies or perform quests. I also do a good deal of consulting work in matters of landscape engineering, dams and bridges and the like.\"\n\nJenny bent down to pick up a large spiral shell and hold it to her ear. Kelvandor stared at her intently. \"Why are you sticking a shell in .your ear?\"\n\n\"You dragons know nothing about the sea,\" she declared, laughing. \"If you hold one of the larger coiled shells to your ear, you can hear the sea.\"\n\n\"I can do that without the shell,\" Kelvandor muttered as he stepped over to the edge of the surf to collect an especially large shell, and held it to his ear. A large hermit crab reached out with one pincer to grab his ear.\n\nJenny laughed as she gently removed the crab, but Kelvandor only glared. \"You never told me that things live inside.\" \"Begone, foul creatures of Darkness!\" a strong male voice declared from just behind them. \"Unhand that lady!\"\n\nThey all turned sharply, and Jenny saw one of the more amazing sights of a long and eventful career. There, on the very edge of the forest behind them, stood an actual knight in shining aonor. His visor was down and Jenny could see nothing of his features, but he was tall and his voice, a little deep for Errol Flynn, was still well cast for the part. He stood with drawn sword, ready to descend in righteous combat with the two dragons.\n\n\"I say, get your hands off!\"\n\nStartled, Jenny drew back the hand she had on Kelvandor's shoulder; otherwise neither of the two dragons was touching her. Vajerral was standing over a large crab some distance away, her head down and her back beginning to arch. She had inherited her mother's fighting instinct.\n\nJenny was beginning to recover her own composure. \"What do you mean by this? What manner of fool are you, if you don't know that faerie dragons are of the Light?\"\n\n\"One thing I've learned, little lady, is that things are not always what they seem.\" He advanced on Kelvandor, who had to take several steps backwards to avoid getting nasty. \"Shall it be you first, or do we save the best for last?\"\n\nJenny drew the long-bladed sword from Kelvandor's harness and intercepted him. \"You leave that poor dragon alone! He's my boyfriend.\"\n\n\"Honestly, Miss, I'm just trying to defend your virtue,\" the knight said reasonably, then stopped short. They could almost see the whites of his eyes in the shadow of his visor. \"Your boyfriend? Oh, my! I might already be too late to salvage your virtue.\"\n\nKelvandor glared. \"You're starting to get on my nerves.\"\n\nThe knight brought up his sword, and Jenny countered the attack by lifting her own blade. That left the poor fellow at something of a loss. Fighting a dragon to rescue a damsel was one thing, but this damsel was fighting him for possession of the dragon. If anyone should happen by, they might get the idea that he was trying to rescue a dragon from a damsel and that simply would not do at all.\n\nKelvandor decided to put a quick end to the entire question, whipping his tail around to trip the distracted knight. There was one thing that he knew about knights in heavy armor. They went over like a log, and they tended to stay down for the count. Kelvandor relieved him of his weapons, then stood with one hind paw in the middle of the knight's armored chest.\n\n\"Are you prepared to be reasonable?\" Kelvandor asked.\n\n\"I suppose that we might talk about it,\" the knight agreed.\n\nKelvandor stepped back and lifted him, armor and all, with deceptive ease, and the knight pulled off his helmet. He was everything that Jenny would have expected of a knight in shining armor: tall, powerfully built and ruggedly handsome. The only thing that she had not expected was that he was old, at least compared to her Prince Charming image. Actually, he was only in his mid-forties, slightly weatherbeaten but still quite hale and distinguished. Perhaps she had expected that an experienced knight would not have been running around behaving so foolishly, accosting innocent dragons as they folded laundry with their damsels.\n\n\"So, you mean to say that these are real faerie dragons, and that you are not in any danger?\" he asked, drawing himself up sternly. \"Then who, might I ask, are you, what are you doing here and how did you get here?\"\n\n\"I'm a sorceress from off-world,\" Jenny explained, mindful of giving her true name to strangers. \"My friends and I came here aboard the airship Wind Dragon, laid over for the night. My mistress is Lady Mira, a sorceress of some renown. We are on a quest, a spy mission to Alashera.\"\n\n\"Kasdamir Gerran?\" the knight asked incredulously. \"Well, why didn't you say so? Mira's an old friend of mine.\"\n\nJenny sighed. Here we go again.\n\nThe knight swept a surprisingly elegant bow, considering the fact that he was wearing a Toyota. \"I am Sir Remidan Ardont Resmaer-Traytess, Son of Sir Talebaem, Son of Sir Raemard, Defender of the Crown and Knight Errant of the Loyal Order of Stewards, Bearer of the Golden Horn of Valor. My card.\"\n\nJenny glanced at the card. Sure enough, it said all that.\n\n\"Just a moment,\" he turned to the forest immediately behind them. \"Yo! Staemar! Show yourself. We're going to see Mira.\" A white stallion of rather impressive size, decked out in saddle, neck and face armor, and sheets of chain mail hung about its form like draperies, stepped into the opening. \"Mira? That crazy lady?\" \"My word, it's Mr. Ed,\" Jenny muttered to herself. In fact, the voice was curiously the same, only this horse was a tenor. Staemar must have heard her, because he glared at her through the eyeholes in his face armor.\n\nRemidan seemed willing enough to accompany them back to camp, and he was able to see Wind Dragon's masts above the dunes about a quarter of a mile away once he put on a pair of wire-framed glasses. Jenny stared, fascinated to see that suits of armor had pockets. Staemar seemed less willing.\n\n\"These dragons won't eat me, will they?\" he asked uncertainly. Kelvandor looked at him in a very appraising manner for a long moment. \"No, I don't think so.\"\n\nMira and the two barbarians were standing below Wind Dragon's boarding ladder, staring in complete mystification as Jenny and the dragons approached with their unexpected guests. Mira peered very intently at Sir Remidan for a long moment, and then her eyes widened in surprise.\n\n\"Remidan?\" she asked. \"Remidan, it is you. I haven't seen you in years now. Where have you been all that time?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm afraid to say that Staemar and I have been shipwrecked on this island for the past two years,\" Remidan explained. \"I've never been sure, but I've always expected that it was the foul sorceress Queramael who caused me to be stranded here. If she thought that she made an end to me that time, then she is in for quite a surprise indeed.\"\n\n\"Sorceress Queramael?\" Kelvandor asked.\n\n\"A most evil sorceress and self-proclaimed Queen of the Shadow Islands,\" SirRemidan explained, wiping his glasses with a lacy hanky. \"Also a childhood companion of mine. We share a bitter and deadly rivalry that goes back these twenty years and more, and she will stop at nothing to destroy me.\"\n\n\"Why is she so peeved with you?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"He got her pregnant,\" Mira whispered succinctly.\n\n\"Oh.\" Jenny blinked. \"I'd be out for his hide myself.\"\n\n\"It was hardly my fault,\" Remidan explained, his pride ruffled by this distasteful admission. \"It happened during our first great contest, a fierce battle of Dark sorcery against my own finely crafted skills and magical armor. She employed a spell of uncontrollable lust against me, and was then caught in the backwash.\" \"Professional hazards,\" Jenny remarked.\n\n\"That's quite beside the point,\" Sir Remidan continued briskly. \"Your young protege has told me of your quest. I should be honored to accompany you on your noble mission.\"\n\nMira had to think about that for a long moment. Dooket and Erkin were glowering in the background; they obviously did not like the competition. At last she looked at the knight shrewdly. \"This is a secret mission, you know. You'll have to leave your armor and that stupid-looking nag behind. We'll collect them on our way back.\"\n\n\"Under the circumstances, I quite forgive your insults,\" Staemar remarked. \"In fact, I won't mind too much if you never come back, as long as I'm spared a trip to that place. I've heard that they're cannibals.\"\n\n\"The Alasherans are much too proud to eat horses,\" Mira told him. \"I just don't know how I could explain having a horse on an airship. You've been here for two years, you say? Why didn't you eat that horse?\"\n\nRemidan shrugged. \"Never had to.\"\n\nThe travelers found the early afternoon clouds very obliging, even if they did make for rough flying. The broken cover, only just beginning to build into afternoon storms, would allow Wind Dragon to arrive unannounced, or at least unseen long enough to land before the local authorities knew what to do about it. Mira firmly believed that it is far easier to get permission to do what you want if you first go ahead and do it, then ask politely. And she did not want to take the chance that they would be refused permission to land. Jenny privately thought that they were less likely to be attacked if they did not pop in upon the Alasherans as a complete surprise, but she kept that opinion to herself.\n\nThe clouds also presented them the excellent opportunity to set two of their numbers overboard with little risk of being seen. They were approaching the narrow, mountainous peninsula that separated the vast harbor of the city from the open sea to the northeast. Sir Remidan looked like he was beginning to regret his decision to accompany them. He was by no means afraid of the servants of the Dark, but it was rather beneath his dignity to pretend to be one of Mira's barbarian bodyguards... and even more so to have to dress the part. Even worse, he looked suspiciously like a knight of considerable reputation, dignity and rank pretending to be in disguise.\n\n\"Deucedly uncomfortable,\" he remarked to Jenny as they stood together on the helm deck. \"Of course, it's hardly as bad as the time I spent six weeks in the port of Edigan, pretending to be a barmaid.\"\n\nJenny turned to stare at him. \"A barmaid? How did that work out?\"\n\n\"Quite well, actually,\" he explained. \"I was too big to sit on anyone's lap, too damned ugly to make a proper whore, and I still made a tidy profit off the business in tips.\"\n\n\"Serving drinks?\"\n\n\"No, I doubled as a bouncer. Of course, if I had been trying to make a living as a proper harlot, I should have starved.\"\n\n\"Well, we're all ready?\" Mira asked as she bounced up the steps to join them. Kelvandor followed behind, bearing a small pack. \"My good Sir Remidan, do join me over at the rail. I want lo show you something.\"\n\n\"What is that?\" Remidan asked suspiciously, confused and slightly reluctant: They leaned over the rail near the top of the steps Mira had just ascended. \"What would you show me?\"\n\n\"How to mind your own damned business and give Kelvandor a chance!\" she hissed impatiently.\n\n\"Oh...? Oh!\"\n\nKelvandor looked at the odd pair with some amusement, then turned back to Jenny. \"It would be foolish of me to ask you to watch out for yourself. Just promise me that you'll watch out for the rest of this troupe of clowns.\"\n\nJenny tried to keep from laughing aloud; he was unaware of the inside joke. \"I will do my best. We'll get back out of here just as quick as we can. I won't-let Mira loiter.\"\n\nJenny hesitated only a moment, then grabbed him around the neck and gave him the best kiss that he had had\u2014at least from her\u2014in some time. From a dragon's point of view, humans could not kiss worth a damn, but Kelvandor was not about to complain. She leaned close to his ear. \"When we leave here, then I'll have a real surprise for you.\"\n\nKelvandor blinked. \"Sex?\"\n\nMira kept Remidan looking over the rail until Vajerral came up on the helm deck to join them. She was already wearing one of the larger, heavier harnesses that faerie dragons used when transporting packs. Kelvandor began wiggling himself into his own, while Jenny stood ready to help him with the pack.\n\n\"We will stay as close as we dare, so that you can contact us when you need us,\" Kelvandor said as Mira and Jenny attached a large pack of supplies to the straps behind the saddle. He glanced at Jenny. \"Are you certain that you have that much power?\" \"From that distance, I could talk to almost anyone,\" she assured him.\n\nA moment later the airship slipped into the clouds. Lady Mira looked around, then gave the dragon a firm swat on his rump. \"Get yourselves overboard, and be quick about it. And be careful!\"\n\n\"Right, Mom!\" Kelvandor agreed with raw mischief as he thrust himself up and over the rail, disappearing almost instantly into the thick, grey fog.\n\n\"I am not your mother!\" Mira shouted after him, rushing to the rail. She sighed heavily. \"So I'm a dragon's mother. Wonderful thing, being a mother.\"\n\nVajerral stepped forward quickly, placing a reassuring hand on Jenny's shoulder. The young dragon looked very somber. \"Please be very, very careful. Remember what your life means to the fulfillment of the Prophecy, and what the servants of the Dark would do to you if you were again in their power. And remember also how I would grieve should anything happen to you.\"\n\n\"I'll remember,\" Jenny insisted. \"Thank you for everything, especially for your understanding and good wishes.\"\n\nVajerral smiled and clasped her hands firmly, then turned and leaped over the rail to disappear quickly into the clouds. Jenny returned to the wheels and quickly checked their course. Lady Mira had already hurried to the front edge of the helm deck. \"Boys!\"\n\n\"Yes, Lady Mira?\" Dooket and Erkin responded instantly, looking up from their work.\n\n\"We'll be landing in a matter of minutes,\" she told them. \"Get all the spelled weapons and all the exploding bolts for the catapults into the hidden storage lockers. I've opened them for you.\"\n\n\"Right, Mom!\" They agreed eagerly. Mira flinched, and thought that the barbarians listened to more than was good for them.\n\nWind Dragon dropped down from the dark clouds into the bright afternoon sunlight, bold as brass as she ran at almost full speed, her skids barely skimming the bobbing waves. Round-bellied merchant ships crept in and out of port amid the vast bulks of Imperial wargalleys, their hulls ornately carved and decorated with lavish designs and with two and three full decks of long, slender oars stroking the waves. Wind Dragon was a gaudy little thing, with her blue-and-red-striped vanes and stabilizers, although far short of the blatant, even intimidating ostentation of the Imperial vessels. But she was undeniably the center of attention as Jenny, at Mira's direction, took the little ship right through the middle of the harbor, fleetly dodging in and out between the larger oceangoing ships.\n\nAlashera lay cradled in the protective arms of two long folds that reached out from the towering slopes of Mount Drashand, framing either side of the broad harbor. The city itself seemed to be built upon a successive series of irregular shelves, each one reaching back, shorter and shallower, until they filled the long, narrow triangle formed by the branching of the two towering ridges. Fields and pastures crowded tightly where they could in the rugged lower slopes to either side of the city while terraced vineyards clung stubbornly to the more treacherous slopes. The smoking cone of Mount Drashand stood in brooding challenge directly behind the city, her head lifted a mile and more into the clouds and crowned with her own billowing steam. And yet she was only a fraction of the size of the original volcano that had once risen in the dim, unremembered past and then destroyed itself in some incredible violence, leaving only the broken ring of her lower slopes which now enclosed the broad, deep harbor.\n\nThe great city itself lay open in the full radiance of the afternoon sun, as if the fitful thunderstorms which chased about the lower slopes deferred grudgingly to some royal person, not daring to darken her skies or hide her overt splendor from the world. Every building seemed a palace of white marble and bright gold, vast and shining and tastefully immaculate. Alashera was a city of immeasurable wealth, and the inhabitants wanted there to be no mistake about either the riches at their command or their willingness to possess the very best.\n\n\"Great stars, do they charge admission to this place?\" Lady Mira asked breathlessly, awed by garish pretentiousness beyond her fondest dreams. \"Our dear Addena's descriptions hardly begin to do it justice... as if mere words would ever suffice.\"\n\nJenny quietly bit her tongue.\n\n\"And to think that all of this is wasted upon such generally rotten people,\" the sorceress continued, and consulted the rude map of the city that Addena Sheld had somehow procured. \"Straight up the middle of town to that shelf where the two branches of the hills join. That's supposed to be the new Imperial palace, and the Temple of the Dark is built into the mountainside below.\"\n\nJenny was concerned about being shot at, although Mira was not. As she explained, the Alasherans were unlikely to shoot arrows or catapults of any type over their own city. Not for fear of danger to the populace; followers of the Dark considered life to be the cheapest and most easily replenished of commodities. But they did have a high respect for property, at least their own, or anyone else's which could be made their own. They kept a fastidiously tidy community.\n\nWhether Lady Mira's strategies had any effect or not, they climbed street by street toward the back of the city and reached the Imperial palace unmolested. She was determined that they should proceed straight to the palace and present themselves to the highest possible authority. Working their way through the rate's maze of local bureaucracy would have taken more time than they could spare, with no assurance that they would ever come anywhere near the top. Jenny had to agree; she did not have to like it.\n\nThe Imperial palace was a long, rambling structure in white and grey marble that stretched along the shelf formed by a crescentshaped cup in a rather steep section of the hillside. There was no apparent form or logic to its construction, just an ill-assembled string of halls, chambers and wide-stepped entrances which enclosed various paved courts and meticulously manicured lawns. Mira referred to it as two wings in search of a building, and its aimless wanderings amounted to nothing more. It was all shiny new with scattered portions still under construction, which was the case with much of this bright, clean city. The only point of real interest to be seen from outside was the fact that much of the central portion appeared to be built into the cliff face itself, as if the edifice followed unknown ways underground.\n\nIf Mira was tempted to land Wind Dragon on the pale grey flagstones of the court below the wide steps of the main entrance, she restrained her impulse and directed Jenny to a rather plain little stretch of pavement to one side. Not too far to one side, of course. The sorceress wanted it plain that she expected to be treated as an honored guest, with all rights and privileges, not as a servant at the back door. She also had the Trassek twins taking in the vanes and stabilizers the moment they were on the ground, making it plain that she had no intention of leaving until she was good and ready.\n\n\"Here they come,\" Mira warned softly. \"Leave everything to me.\"\n\nJenny refrained from remarking that she had little choice in the matter. A rather small squad of soldiers, not more than an even dozen, were marching in glittering formation toward the little ship. They were immaculate in ornate armor and brightly dyed leathers which seemed more like costumes from the distant past than modem uniforms. The twins spared them one amused glance before returning to their work; honest barbarians were far more efficient in a fight, although barbarians had seldom won wars.\n\nAn official of some undeterminable rank, although certainly not military, trotted along behind this tasteful vanguard. He wore a rich, fashionably cut version of what seemed the local costume, as if the loose, flowing togas of ancient Alashera had been shortened into some manner of oversized tunic and coupled with loose-fitting trousers of the same light material and bright colors. And he was very young, no older than Jenny, tall and thin, although he conducted himself in a very deliberate manner calculated to make him seem older, an air of experience and stem authority so forced that it betrayed its own falseness.\n\nThe guards arranged themselves in two widely spaced lines to either side of an imaginary aisle leading from Wind Dragon's boarding ladder and the boy official took his place at the far end.\n\nMira made some expression of minor surprise which Jenny chose not to try to interpret. It seemed that this was an honor guard to extend formal welcome, not a detail to dispatch trespassers. The Empire, it seemed, extended almost disdainful greetings to a pair of wandering sorceresses.\n\n\"Lady Mira, of the Wind Dragon out of Bennasport. Permission to come aboard is granted.\" The sorceress introduced herself formally. She was forcing the local authority to make the first move by having its young representative meet her in her own territory, stating his own position before she parted from the relative safety of her ship.\n\nThe young emissary seemed to pause only a moment, no obvious thoughts or emotions disturbing the practiced sternness of his features, then started up the ramp in his usual businesslike manner. Mira glanced at her student, with a quick petition to that nameless spirit of good fortune with the quirky sense of humor who watched over her that the girl would be attentive.\n\nHe took one step onto the deck and stood his ground, looking down his long nose at Mira as if using that instrument for sighting his target. \"Lady Mira, I am Chancellor Ellon Bennisjen, representing the government of the Alasheran Empire. I bid you welcome to our land, although, as you are a foreigner, I must inquire as to your business.\"\n\n\"Scholarly research,\" Mira answered without a pause. \"Surely not a matter to concern the Empire itself.\"\n\n\"It became the business of the Empire when you landed your ship almost on the doorstep of the Imperial palace,\" Ellon answered smoothly, although Mira had noticed that his diplomatic manners were rough and awkward. \"Is the nature of your research mundane or arcane?\"\n\n\"Purely mundane,\" she assured him. \"I have been researching the theory that major climatic changes have occurred in the course of recorded history. My student and I have been collecting data from old records from a great many sources, and our search has now led us southward.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" the young chancellor remarked thoughtfully; at least he could figure out for himself what old records had to do with climatic changes. \"And I take it that your search has led you to the Imperial Archives?\"\n\n\"It has indeed,\" Mira agreed eagerly, and began rubbing in the soothing balm of flattery. \"I need records not just from the longest possible period of time but from the widest possible sources. My research in the South quite naturally begins here, in this the oldest and grandest of civilizations. The Empire of ancient days was flourishing long before there even was a North, and it controlled the known world for many thousands of years. I also suspect the present Empire has tremendous access to a variety of resources.\"\n\n\"Quite logical, of course,\" he agreed sagely, complimenting her in a condescending manner for arriving at what was to him a self-evident conclusion. \"You must first, of course, petition your request to the proper authorities. If you will follow me, we'll see to that immediately.\"\n\nThe little procession of decorative warriors packed itself up without a word and reversed course, this time with the two sorceresses and their own small troop of guards following dutifully behind. The procession entered the Imperial palace through one of the nearer doors and made its way through the seemingly endless series of halls and foyers. The palace was in a far less advanced state of construction on the inside, revealing that much of the exterior was only an ornate shell. Even the finished portions near the center had the look of an empty house, with few furnishings and fewer inhabitants. The rhythmic tread of the honor guard echoed loudly through the polished stone corridors. Mira was constantly finding herself unconsciously falling into time with their step, much to her annoyance.\n\nThe honor guard went its own way at last, and the visitors found themselves deposited in a large and rather stately lobby with the polite request that they wait just a few minutes. Chancellor Ellon disappeared through the largest and most ornately carved of a handful of dark wooden doors, having announced himself to the young officer in decorative armor who served as some manner of secretary.\n\n\"So, what do you think?\" Lady Mira asked as she seated herself on a short sofa well away from any of the doors.\n\n\"I'm not sure what to think,\" Jenny answered as she brushed impatiently at the thick layer of grey dust that had accumulated on the bench. Dust from the construction was settling faster than it could be cleaned away. \"Chancellor Ellon is not telling us the truth by half. What is a chancellor, anyway?\"\n\n\"By Imperial usage, he's the private secretary to some official of high rank.\"\n\nJenny nodded. \"That makes sense. He's not taken us to the 'appropriate authorities,' as he said, but to his own immediate superior.\"\n\n\"I anticipated that already.\"\n\n\"In answer to your second question, Ellon himself does not know what to believe about your story of scholarly research,\" Jenny continued. \"Both he and his master consider it likely that you are here for clandestine reasons of your own. They also believe that you are no match for them, that they will have some sport at your expense and that you will be sent home emptyhanded, frustrated and embarrassed. And don't ask how I knew what your second question would be.\"\n\n\"I already know the answer to that,\" Mira remarked.\n\n\"I know' that you know. To answer your third question, they did not know you were coming until we arrived over the harbor. A description of your ship was transferred quickly, and whoever waits on the other side of that door recognized Wind Dragon from past experience. A small group of soldiers is already giving Wind Dragon a quick inspection, but they don't seem likely to discover anything we have hidden. J.T. is watching them closely.\"\n\n\"Well, so much for questions four and five.\" Mira frowned. \"You seem to be in rare form today. But..\n\n\"I don't know for certain, but here he comes,\" Jenny warned softly as the door opened.\n\nDasjen Valdercon was perhaps the last person Mira wanted to see walk through that door. But when she looked up, her inner hunch warning her too late who it would be, that was exactly who she saw, as big as life. He was a typical Southerner, tall and lean but far from gaunt, with long black hair streaked with grey, and just as handsome as on that last night they had spent together amid the golden canals of the port of Serras. That was a time that was now eight years past; a hundred years in terms of her own busy life. But she feared him just as much as she had then, ten times as much to see him standing in quiet authority in this place. And his cold, dark eyes still awakened in her that same raw, animal lust.\n\nA great many things could tickle her animal lust.\n\n\"Sorceress Kasdamir! So it is you!\" he exclaimed with gentle delight as he executed a courtly bow and kissed her hand. He had always called her by her full name; he knew how she hated it. \"Sweet lady, it is so good to see you again.\"\n\nJenny stared at first one and then the other, then crossed her arms and sat back in her seat with an exasperated sigh.\n\n\"Dasjen, I hardly expected to find you here.\" Mira retreated into flustered confusion to give herself a moment to think\u2014and to do a little digging. \"So what are you up to these days? Court magician for the new Emperor?\"\n\nDasjen laughed politely. \"Imperial secretary of magical training and research is my full title, which indicates that I am expected to provide an actual service for my keep and not just entertainment.\"\n\n\"That does sound very important,\" she observed, looking as impressed as she dared. \"You must be very close to the Emperor's ear.\"\n\n\"You will find this a very practical Empire,\" he assured her importantly; he even bragged romantically. \"We have the saying here, that the militaiy is the right hand of the Empire, magic and science are the left, and that it walks in the boots of trade. You will find that we conduct all necessary business with efficiency and quiet dispatch; it leaves more time for more important affairs. \" Do you have an affair in mind? Mira wanted to ask. But her first question was already answered beyond any doubt; Dasjen Valdercon was the same person she had always known. They were very much alike in curiosity, learning and their command of magic, but in other ways they were opposites. However mercenary she claimed to be, she treated her own magic as a tool to help and serve others; he considered it a key to wealth and power. She did not wonder that he had ended up here, she only wondered why he had to comprise her reception committee. That quirky spirit of fortune might be letting her down.\n\n\"My young assistant tells me that you are studying long-term changes in weather patterns,\" he continued, and chuckled to himself. \"Still the same old Kasdamir. I always was amazed at the wide variety of subjects that could captivate your complete attention. Your wish is granted, dear lady. You may have use of the Imperial library. An assistant will be appointed to help you sift through that rather formidable mass of information.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I do appreciate it greatly.\"\n\n\"All the same, there is a small fee,\" Dasjen warned. \"I ask only that you spare an old friend a few stray moments of your free time. If you and your fair companion...\"\n\n\"Addena. .. Addena Kurgel,\" Jenny answered quickly, having to dig for a false name in a very awkward moment. Her true name was from off-world, and it would have betrayed her as quickly as her blue hair, which Mira had spelled to deep black.\n\n\"I have planned a small gathering for this night,\" Dasjen continued without hesitation. \"I would be honored if the two of you could join me.\"\n\n\"We would be delighted,\" Mira answered graciously.\n\n\"Then I shall send for you at nightfall,\" He said. \"But for now, I fear that duty presses. My assistant will accompany you to your ship, and you shall be shown to suites that we reserve for honored guests.\"\n\nMira did not at all like being separated from Wind Dragon, but she had anticipated that. J.T., who remained scrupulously silent and acted as dumb as he looked, stayed on guard with the ship. Remidan and the Trassek twins would remain with them, fulfilling their roles as bodyguards. The Alasherans did not question that, since personal guards attended all individuals of importance in this land as a necessary precaution.\n\nApparently Valdercon had not exaggerated about their being shown to suites of their own, or at least one suite of such enormous proportions that there were apartments for each sorceress and even a spacious chamber for their guards. It was all richly furnished in light furnishings with flowing, transparent hangings which glided over stone walls or rippled across wide windows, all in colors of white or light pastels. Which was to say that it was hardly gaudy enough to hold Mira's attention for long. But she was momentarily impressed, at least.\n\n\"They reserve this room for uninvited guests?\" she asked as she stood in the center of the room, looking about. She shrugged. \"This must be the off season.\"\n\n\"You knew this Dasjen Valdercon before?\" Jenny inquired. Mira stopped short, looking about suspiciously. \"Is it safe to talk?\"\n\n\"I sense no one near, and no magical devices in this suite.\" \"You are handy,\" Mira remarked, and attended her luggage. \"Yes, I knew him well enough, eight years ago in Serras. I knew that he was leaning toward the Dark then. We played a game, he and I, more dangerous perhaps than I was aware at the time. I know that he plotted my own corruption at the time, but I felt secure that I was in control... at least of myself. But he knew the lust he stirred within me, and he could have used that as a weapon to break my defenses. I would not dare to go to bed with him again. Our stay must be as short as possible.\"\n\n\"Just how high do you suppose he is in the Imperial hierarchy?\" \"He actually avoided answering that question, as much as he pretended to brag,\" she observed as she carried her bags into her room, leaving Jenny to follow. She carelessly tossed the bags onto the vast bed. \"He is very high in the Dark Priesthood, I am sure of that. What impressions did you get?\"\n\n\"That the Emperor is still absent, and that he is relaying his master's orders in that absence,\" Jenny answered, crossing her arms. \"He is far more dangerous than you realize even yet, Lady Mira. Be very careful of him. He is, at this time, the most evil and dangerous man in this entire world.\"\n\n\"I don't like the way he looks at you,\" Sir Remidan growled. Mira turned to stare at him. \"Why, Remidan! I didn't know you cared.\"\n\n\"Well, I have to, don't I?\" he asked. \"I've taken oaths to that effect, and all that rot.\"\n\nJenny peered at him surreptitiously, wondering if he was secretly smitten by more than just knightly oaths. There were knights and then there were nights, and this knight might be interested in working nights. Whether he knew it or not. It seemed that life was full of people who had no idea what they were doing.\n\nMira blinked, then looked at her student thoughtfully. \"I forget that you have met the Emperor and the High Priest before. Would you know them, or sense their presence, if they were here?\" \"That was long ago and I remember nothing clearly, but I'm sure that I would know them on sight, whatever form they wear now,\" Jenny insisted. \"The Emperor may be the same as he was then; I do not know, for he looked very old and corrupt then. The last I saw of the High Priest Haldephren, he was in the body of a faerie dragon. But Dalvenjah insists that she destroyed that body thirteen years ago. He's most likely in human form again this time, but I will know him when I see him.\"\n\nBoth sorceresses had the same impression the moment they stepped into the room. It was full of young, beautiful people richly dressed in Imperial fashion, the short togas and pants such as the men wore and women in gownlike togas which left at least one breast bare. They moved with calculated grace and elegance, selfsuperior and languidly calm. And they were deadly evil, each and every one faithful and favored servants of the Dark. They were, by all appearances, the Imperial court. Or perhaps the lackeys of the High Priest, who was very conscious of his attendant admirers while the Emperor himself was cautious and allowed as few as possible in his presence as he could help. But in the absence of their true masters, they were clearly performing for the favor of Dasjen Valdercon.\n\n\"They really have put on the dog,\" Jenny remarked softly.\n\nMira made a face of disgust. \"My stars! I certainly hope not!\"\n\nNot all were professional lackeys; out of perhaps three score gathered at the single long table, there were two dozen older men and women who were themselves ministers. But that appeared to be the full tally of the true Imperial government; the Senate was a body of limited power, but it was not currently in session and its members were mostly away at home. The ministers were the hands and voices of the Emperor, who shared his authority grudgingly, and they all seemed to look to Valdercon for leadership. They were all so quiet, clam and circumspect that the young lackeys overshadowed their presence entirely.\n\nValdercon himself sat at the head of the table; he had met his two visitors at the door and had conducted them to places of honor, Lady Mira at his left hand with Jenny at his right. The younger sorceress was dressed in the local manner in a long, draped gown of light, frosty blue that had been brought to her room. The color was not her best but she looked astonishingly beautiful in it all the same, with her temporarily black hair brushed full and loose. She copied the manner of the young courtiers but on her own terms, calm and graceful but with an inner nobility and purity that made her shine all the brighter among the shadows of these servants of the Dark.\n\nAll the same, she had to wonder what her mother would think if she saw her dressed this way. Jenny was doing a lot of things these days that her mother would surely feel better not knowing about.\n\nMira was surprised and proud of her protege, although she tried to hide that in their present company. The girl clearly possessed a radiant charm and beauty which she preferred to keep hidden, for she seemed to reflect the immortal side of her nature that she had inherited from her magical training, like some elfin princess. Mira herself made no compromise; she was her usual gaudy self, dressed in some barbarian robe of brightly woven pattern, red silk pants and high-heeled sandals. Unlike her student, she had no intention of baring a breast in deference to local taste. As it was, they made a team who complemented each other well in incongruity.\n\n\"You look as radiant as ever,\" Dasjen told her earnestly. His eye wanted to rove in Jenny's direction, but he kept his attention studiously focused on his former lover. \"Almost one would think that the years could not touch you.\"\n\n\"Oh, you are kind,\" Mira insisted. \"Actually, those last few years and I have been at odds for some time now. They say that they're going to come back some day with a few more of their brothers and give it to me good.\"\n\nJenny bit her tongue. Dasjen Valdercon appeared to appreciate Mira's humor, but the others\u2014who had been sitting silently with their ears cocked in that direction like a roomful of cats\u2014hardly knew what to make of that. Jenny thought that if they did indulge in humor, it would be something much more biting, perhaps turned against others but never themselves.\n\n\"You people are very busy here, \" Mira continued as she studied her plate, attempting to make some sense of what it was or how it had been cooked. \"I don't know when I've seen such industry.\" \"This is a busy time for us,\" Valdercon answered. \"We try to get most of the construction done when the Senate is not in session. You see gathered at this table almost all that remains of the Imperial government, for now and for some months yet to come.\"\n\n\"I assume that the Emperor himself has already departed to some retreat for the season,\" Mira observed with casual innocence.\n\n\"You assume correctly,\" Dasjen answered guardedly.\n\n\"Such a shame. I had rather hoped to catch just a glimpse of him, but I certainly did not expect it. I'm sure that he has no time to spare for unexpected guests.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am remiss!\" Dasjen exclaimed suddenly. \"Lady Kasdamir Gerran and Sorceress Addena Kurgel, may I present Korin Sjeldisan, Lord Minister of the Imperial Navy, and Leridae Felde, Lady Manager of the City of Alashera.\"\n\nThe pair of older officials bowed their heads in polite greeting; Mira was beginning to think that these Southerners must age like granite. She thought that Lord Korin, seated to her left, must be well into his sixties, but like Dasjen he remained handsome, lean and strong, a barrel-chested bull of a man. And Lady Leridae, seated to the other side of Jenny, was at least ten years older than herself, but was slim and shapely in a flowing rose gown which discreetly revealed one breast that remained defiantly firm. Magic could cure a great many sins, even gravity. But neither made any attempt to hide the grey advancing in their hair; indeed, it only served to emphasize their remarkable conditions.\n\n\"Yours is a most beautiful little ship,\" Lord Korin remarked graciously.\n\n\"Oh, thank you,\" Mira responded, flattered. She considered asking if the Imperial Navy was contemplating the use of airships but thought better of it. \"I did see the most lovely and impressive galleys as we came in over the harbor. It goes without saying that your new ships are larger, faster and more efficient than the wargalleys of ancient days.\"\n\n\"Oh, quite,\" he answered, obviously careful of the content of his own replies. \"Our modem ships can sail in one day what the ancient wargalleys sailed in a week. And most have iron frames and ribs.\"\n\n\"Sorceress Addena, are you of the South?\" Lady Leridae inquired, pointedly changing the subject.\n\n\"Oh, no. This is my first journey South,\" Jenny answered a little belatedly, realizing that the woman was speaking to her.\n\n\"I've been in the South many times,\" Mira said quickly, fending off the subject. \"I grew up in the circus.\"\n\n\"The circus, did you say?\" Korin was astonished and perplexed; he must be of the local nobility. \"What ever did you do in the circus?\"\n\n\"I'm a midget.\"\n\n\"Oh, I see,\" Korin said thoughtfully; he obviously did not.\n\nAt that moment the handful of musicians who had silently filed into the room began to tune. One frail young musician gave his recorder a loud squawk, as if to clear it of cobwebs, not six feet behind Mira's unsuspecting ear.\n\n\"Yarg!\" She jumped in fright, and her fork and knife were sent sailing before the eyes of the courtiers. Jenny snatched the fork out of the air deftly, but the knife stuck point-first in the table not two inches from Lady Leridae's hand. Mira had already leaped out of her seat and drawn her sword\u2014she alone at the table was armed\u2014and she seemed about to come to blows with the frightened minstrels. One stout fellow seemed prepared to fend her off with the bow of his viola.\n\n\"Oh, mercy!\" Dasjen muttered in disgust, rolling his eyes and shaking his head slowly. He made an impatient gesture. \"You musicians please remove yourselves somewhat and be about your business. Bring more wine.\"\n\nLooking like a cat with ruffled fur, Mira waited as Lord Korin recovered her upset chair and assisted her in taking her seat. Jenny quietly returned the fork and knife; Leridae, wide-eyed, was still nibbing her hand as if she had indeed taken a wound. Naked, dark-skinned girls hurried to serve wine to the speechless company.\n\n\"Sorry about that,\" Mira said, but she did not appear at all apologetic. \"I just cannot abide people sneaking up behind me.\" Jenny had long since figured out her mistress's game. These people were the barbarians trying to mimic genteel manners, but for all their wealth and fine trappings, their nature was betrayed by the bare-breasted gowns of the women, the young, naked servants\u2014male and female\u2014and the generally disorganized atmosphere of this entire gathering. In the court of Queen Merridyn, dinner guests would not have been left to seat themselves in a haphazard manner, nor would musicians have filed in late to begin tuning after the guests were seated. But Mira pretended to be the violent, ill-mannered barbarian, allowing them the luxury of feeling superior and putting them off their guard.\n\nJenny saw her own part to play, as her mistress's shy, simple student. When handing back the knife, she leaned just a little too far across the wide table.\n\n\"Thank you, dear child,\" Mira said tightly, ignoring for the moment the mess Jenny had made. She turned to Dasjen. \"I don't want to make a mess of your little supper. It reminds me of the lime that we were traveling in the wilds of the arctic wastes. We lost our corkscrew and were forced to live on food and water for several weeks.\"\n\nDasjen chuckled softly. \"Kasdamir, you always were such a wit. But I do not recall you drinking anything stronger than tea.\" \"You never caught me, you mean, \" she answered, then glanced at Jenny and made a half-hearted gesture, as if trying to be discreet. \"Clean yourself up, dear child.\"\n\n\"Oh, my!\" Jenny permitted herself a healthy blush. In leaning well over her plate, she had acquired a large glob of some thick, yellow sauce directly on her bare nipple. She dipped her napkin in her water glass and, taking firm hold of her breast, proceeded to clean it.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" Dasjen shifted nervously in his chair, trying not to stare. No one else made that effort. \"Ah... so, what do you think of our city?\"\n\n\"Has all this work been done in the last few years?\" Mira asked in turn.\n\n\"Beginning ten years ago, the old town was systematically leveled and rebuilt,\" Lady Leridae answered with a practiced recitation after a quick glance at Dasjen for permission. This obviously was no secret. \"The work continues at a furious pace, but for the last six years all work has left the confines of the original town and spread into the surrounding hills. Trade is flourishing throughout the Kingdoms of the Sea due to the introduction of modem technology, contemporary magical practices and improved agricultural methods. And Alashera is now, as it was in ancient days, the hub of every major trade route. It is only logical that Alashera should become the capital of commerce and government throughout the South.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Mira said thoughtfully. Will there be a test after dinner? \"You are catching up with the North in a hurry.\"\n\n\"We feel that we are on the verge of surpassing the North,\" Dasjen himself answered, very serious now. \"That is no threat or boast, but a logical prediction of what must be. Elura has the benefit of wood and coal, diverse ores and diverse other resources, and the North shall forever remain strong and prosperous because of that. But the North is also cold and mountainous. Trade between cities is restricted to certain months when the passes are navigable by wagon, and agriculture is even more limited. We foresee that the North shall supply resources to the South at a furious rate in the warmer months, to be stockpiled so that industry may remain at full strength year round.\"\n\n\"Yes, there is some logic in that,\" Mira admitted. \"Except for one valid point. The North has been mass-producing airships for some time, freighters to rival an oceangoing vessel for size and speed, but several times as fast. Ships that are capable of delivering their cargo direct, rather than at some waterfront warehouse of a seacoast town. The strength of the South may be in ocean vessels, but the North has the strength of airships.\" \"Airship transportation will not endure,\" Korin told her in a condescending manner, smiling at obvious foolishness. \"You people have been very lucky so far, but you will soon learn the hard way that airships are unsafe, unreliable and inefficient.\"\n\nDinner ended soon after, and the gathering moved outside to a large moonlit terrace for late-night conversation and dancing to the gentle music of the small band of musicians. This was not a good strategic move for Jenny, since that left her at the mercy of the attentions of Dasjen's young assistant Ellon. She countered this threat by staying well out in the open, between the table of refreshments and the small, bubbling fountain in the center of the terrace. She knew that it would hardly be beneficial to their cause it she was to break Ellon's arm, as much as she was tempted. The dress was something of a hazard in itself; Ellon's hand seemed to have a mind of its own. She decided that if he did make a grab at her bust, she was going to bust him.\n\nMira tried to keep a protective eye on her young student, but she had her hands full with Dasjen\u2014mostly because he often had a handful of her. These people were not discreet.\n\n\"It was the fair goddess Fortune herself who bought you to us,\" Dasjen said as he brought her another drink. That seemed to be his tactic for the night: imbibe and conquer. He was unaware that she could drink a pirate under the table. \"That, and overwhelming curiosity.\"\n\nMira smiled at him, feigning ignorance. \"Actually, it was my pretty little airship.\"\n\nDasjen laughed. \"Lady Kasdamir Gerran, you are a sorceress of many arts and talents, but subtlety is not one of your stronger points. You surely know your history. The Alasheran Empire of two thousand years ago belonged to the Dark. You, and every sorcerer of the North, wonders if our new Empire belongs to the Dark as well. That, I suspect, is your true business here.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is the big question over cocktails these days,\" Mira admitted cautiously, and drained her glass.\n\n\"Then you will be answered,\" he told her. There was not, nor had there been, any hint of threat in his voice. Only amusement. \"We inherit many of our ways and manners from the ancient days. You may have heard that we have opened the games. That is so, but they are a tame shadow of the barbarity of olden times. Our servants are naked, and even our beautiful ladies of the Imperial court bare their breasts. Your own student does not hesitate to do the same. This is not decadence, only an expression of our deep appreciation of all things that are beautiful in life and nature.\n\n\"Our Empire is based upon industry and commerce, not conquest and slavery. Wargalleys fill our port, but they prey only upon the pirates of the petty kingdoms, further opening fair and honest trade and travel. We build our homes like palaces, but because we would leave something of lasting beauty to our descendants for many generations to come. There was much that was good in the ancient Empire, but much that was evil. We eagerly reawaken all that was good, but we shun the evil just as surely as you good people of the North. No, we are not of the Dark. And we welcome this opportunity to prove ourselves.\" Mira was impressed; she knew that he was lying a greasy streak, but he did it most eloquently. She bowed her head slightly. \"If you would, many minds would be set to ease.\"\n\n\"Beginning with your own,\" he said, smiling warmly and reassuringly, and he-gently took her hand. \"You shall stay here as long as you like, and you are free to go wherever you like. We have no secrets, and we will do whatever you request to prove that.\"\n\nMira excused herself as soon as she could with the claim for an early bed after a long day. Dasjen clearly wanted to volunteer his own bed to this worthy cause, but Mira made a hasty retreat. She snatched her student from the jaws of licentiousness and they made a hasty retreat to their rooms.\n\n\"I noticed that you declined to dance with Ellon,\" Mira observed.\n\n\"My mother always told me never to dance with my tits hanging out,\" Jenny answered. \"I'm sure that she had something else in mind, but it seemed to apply to these circumstances.\"\n\n\"Perhaps this won't take much longer,\" Mira said. \"I think that you should sneak out tonight and find those dragons of yours. I'd like to know what they've turned up. Let's hurry, now. Sir Remidan will be fretting so.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Local Intrigues",
+                "text": "Later that night, a short time after Jenny had gone to bed, she quietly rose again and, without summoning a light, slipped out the window. Her room was three levels above the hard stone walkway below, and that had perhaps been meant to discourage guests from departing in this manner. But that was of no consequence to Jenny. When she leaped out the window, she went up.\n\nFearing guards below, she moved stealthfully along the edge of the roof until she came to a place where a large tree, growing near the side of the building, offered her some concealment in its welcoming shadows. She leaped from the roof and hurtled across ;i hundred feet of open air, landing softly close to the massive imnk. She looked about for guards, then hurried through the landscaped grounds of the Imperial palace. Her enhanced vision found her path easily through the protective shadows of trees and shrubs, her bare feet making scarcely a sound on grass or smooth stone, and her lanky body was clad in loose, dark pants and shirt to hide her in the night.\n\nWhen she came to the edge of the grounds, well to the north where the steep, rugged mountainside encroached, she thrust herself into the night sky and over the wall, coming down in the street beyond. She moved as cautiously as she could, keeping to uninhabited ways as she hurried through the remote edge of the city. The buildings, mostly two-and three-story shops, were dark and silent.\n\nAs she worked her way through the long, deep shadows that filled the streets, the thought of Karidaejan's warning was very much on her mind. She had given it little thought at first. It had seemed inconceivable that any of her companions would betray her, and she had not been in the mood to hear any more prophecies from the mouths of secretive dragons.\n\nBut now she was not so sure. Mira seemed quietly fascinated with this Dasjen Valdercon, and the two of them had apparently spent some time together not so many years past. But Dasjen had a secret only Jenny knew, although she had to think that anyone who knew him as well as Mira claimed to would also have to suspect it. Jenny was still not prepared to consider the idea that Mira would deliberately betray them to their enemies. But she was not so certain about what Mira might inadvertently do in this distracted state. Mira was many things, but she was not a cautious person. Karidaejan had not said that the betrayal would be deliberate.\n\nBut he had also insisted that the betrayer would be the last person Jenny would suspect. Mira was at the top of the suspicion list, which made her the first rather than the last person Jenny suspected. Who, then? Sir Remidan lived for honor and duty, but Jenny also considered him quite capable of doing something stupid. The twins were unlikely to spontaneously do anything of any consequence in their entire lives, good or bad. The two dragons would willingly give their lives to defend Jenny or the Prophecy, which probably sent them to the top of the list of least likely.\n\nJenny paused at the approaching sound of heavy boots on the flat stones that paved the streets, aware that she had been inattentive. She backed into the shadows of a doorway of one shop, peering out into the light. The yellow glare of an oil lantern appeared around the next comer, behind it the black silhouettes of a patrol of three soldiers. With nowhere else to run, Jenny turned her attention to spelling open the lock of the door, then slipped inside the shop. She locked the door again for good measure, remembering from an old movie that policemen were supposed to check the locks of the shops on their beat, then crouched in the shadows until they were past.\n\nJenny remained in hiding for more than a minute longer, giving the patrol plenty of time to clear the immediate area. She finally returned to the door and was about to leave when she became aware that she was not alone. Something large was moving stealthfully down the narrow stairs in the far back comer of the room, and the presence she felt was definitely magical. Did the Alasherans release their demons into the streets at night to guard against spying sorceresses like herself? There was no time to wonder. Jenny looked around and found that she was in the front room of a bakery, complete with a stair-step of shelves before her stacked with cakes and pies.\n\nLacking alternatives, she chose the weapons that were at hand and picked up a large pie. She had always wanted to do this, and it seemed likely to provide enough distraction for her to get out of the shop. When a dark form appeared at the bottom of the steps, she hauled back and let fly.\n\nThe result was rather unexpected. The pie flew straight and true toward its target, the mushy side first. But about halfway through its trajectory, it was intercepted by a blast of magical flames. Where the flames would have deflected the pie from its dire course was never to be known, since it exploded. Sticky goop flew everywhere; Jenny was fortunate enough to have been hiding behind the shelves.\n\nBut there was something familiar about those flames, something that was not at all hard to place for someone who had grown up with dragons. She also knew better than to stand up, for fear that it was trigger-happy Vajerral.\n\n\"Yo, dragon!\" she called in English, which should also help to establish her credentials. \"Vajerral, is that you?\"\n\n\"Jenny?\"\n\nIt was indeed Vajerral. Jenny stood up. The young dragon was standing only a short distance away, with clumps of mutilated meringue and an extraordinarily surprised expression on her face.\n\n\"Well, fancy bumping into you,\" Vajerral remarked. \"This might just be an exceptionally good time to get the hell out of here.\"\n\n\"I am with you,\" Jenny agreed, turning to the door.\n\nA shout from the street sort of put an end to that idea. Jenny had no idea just what type of pie that had been, but it had certainly exploded with a great deal of enthusiasm. They were going to be open for business in a hurry.\n\n\"I came in through a door in the roof,\" Vajerral offered. \"I think that I would like to leave the way I came.\"\n\nVajerral declined to wait for an answer; she was already on her way up the stairs. In Jenny's experience, the young dragon was hardly ever right about anything and could generally be relied upon to exercise the most extraordinary bad judgment. This case seemed to be the exception. Jenny was only three steps behind.\n\n\"What are you doing here, anyway?\" she asked as she followed the dragon up the dark stairs. She could see nothing except a dim grey light far ahead, at least three stories.\n\n\"I was looking for you,\" Vajerral answered. \"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Looking for you.\"\n\nVajerral stopped short on the stairs and bent her long neck to look back over her shoulder. \"We must stop meeting like this.\"\n\n\"I ought to slay you!\"\n\nThe dragon turned and hurried on. \"Watch out on the roof. It is steep, and the tiles are slick.\"\n\nContrary to her own advice, Vajerral slipped out through the small doorway and stepped out onto the roof, and promptly lost it. Her legs flew out from under her in a rather interesting scrabble, and she tumbled the short distance down to the edge of the roof and away into the darkness of the narrow alley. Jenny observed the less than graceful execution of this maneuver, like a plane shot down the catapult of an aircraft carrier before its engines are running, and made a frantic grab at the only part of the dragon that lingered. Meaning, of course, the end of her long, slender tail.\n\nJenny braced herself, knowing what was to follow, and she was not wrong in her estimation. Vajerral was a small and rather slender dragon, but she was also well muscled from a very active life; she was still a strapping three hundred pounds. Jenny augmented her strength with magic, but it was traction that nearly got her. She slid down the roof and nearly went over the edge herself, saving herself at the last moment by sitting down hard. That left Vajerral swinging like a pendulum, while Jenny wondered how she would ever pick her nose if both of her arms were yanked off, and what would be the use of sleeves?\n\n\"Flap those wings, you rock-headed, lead-assed excuse for a dragon!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"You should look at it from my point of view,\" Vajerral complained. She was head down, hanging in the dark by her tail, and she was wearing an expression that she saved for just such occasions.\n\nAll the same, it seemed like very sound advice. Vajerral managed to get her arms and legs braced against the wall, a move that nearly brought Jenny off the roof a second time, then lifted herself cautiously with long, powerful sweeps of her wings. She was rising slowly in a hover, a difficult feat for any dragon even with the aid of lift magic, and the results of that were just as disastrous. This time Jenny did come off the roof, a dead weight at the end of the dragon's tail... which was an unhandy place to put it. The two of them disappeared into the darkness of the alley.\n\nMoments later, the pair of them shot out of the deeper shadows of the alley and disappeared into the night. Jenny had remembered, almost at the final instant, that she was able to fly using the same lift magic as the dragons possessed.\n\nKeeping to the shadows, they made their way quickly outside the city and across the rugged slopes of the volcanic island to where the dragons had made their secluded camp. Kelvandor emerged from the shallow cave, hardly more than a deep overhang of rock, where they had taken shelter. His ears twitched with concern.\n\n\"So, you found her,\" he said.\n\n\"We found each other,\" Vajerral answered. \"She was already on her way to find us.\"\n\n\"So? Why have you come?\" Kelvandor asked. \"Has there been trouble?\"\n\n\"Nothing is wrong, really,\" she was quick to assure them. \"Things go well, if hardly as expected. We were received as honored guests and treated like royalty. But the evil of that place...\"\n\n\"Gently,\" Vajerral encouraged her. \"What has happened? And speak the Mindijaran language, which no mortal of the Dark should understand.\"\n\n\"The Emperor and the High Priest are apparently absent, but we were met by this minister, Dasjen Valdercon,\" she continued in their own language. \"He seems to be in charge. He is an old friend and former lover of Mira's. She says that she thought him of the Dark then. Everything went just fine through dinner. Later, Valdercon told us that he is aware that we are spies. He says that the Empire had nothing to hide, and he has challenged us to stay on as long as we want, until it is proven to our satisfaction that they are not of the Dark.\"\n\n\"But we know they are,\" Vajerral remarked, laying back her ears. \"Do they think that they can pull that off?\"\n\n\"They seem to think that they can, since so little of the Imperial government is present. Then we will be sent on our way, to spread the misconception that the Empire has no business with the Dark. \" \"Then you are safe enough?\" Kelvandor insisted. \"Already you know that the true Emperor and High Priest are not present, do you not?\"\n\n\"But that is the thing,\" Jenny explained fearfully. She looked up at the dragon anxiously. \"The High Priest Haldephren is here. I remember him from before, and I knew that I would recognize him if ever I saw him, whatever form he wears. There is no question in my mind. Haldephren is masquerading as Dasjen Valdercon, pretending to be his own servant.\"\n\n\"Does he recognize you as well?\" Vajerral asked sternly. She had no intention of permitting Jenny to return to the palace if it meant that she could be identified and captured by the High Priest.\n\n\"I really don't know. His mind is closed to me, but not his strongest emotions. If he has recognized me for who I am, he did not betray himself with delight or pleasure. And yet I could sense his pleasure with the ruse he thinks to perpetrate on Lady Mira. I sense his lust for her as well. And his lust for me is blatant.\n\n\"This is the very part that worries me,\" she continued, and frowned. \"I am afraid that Mira may be, shall we say, quite smitten with Dasjen. She has no idea who he really is, but she is definitely captivated by his charm. Mira is, in many ways, a rather unsophisticated person, and she might not see that he knows how best to manipulate her. Frankly, I do not trust her to be logical even if she did know the danger.\"\n\nShe started to tell them of Karidaejan and his warning, but she thought it best to keep that secret for just a little longer. The two dragons were likely to take the cautious approach and refuse to allow her to return, leaving Mira, Remidan and the boys to save themselves. She felt a moment of guilt, knowing how annoyed she was when the dragons kept their secrets from her. But this was different.\n\nVajerral turned to Kelvandor. \"The map.\"\n\nThe male dragon nodded once and came forward to spread a large map atop the slight curve of a low, fiat boulder. Vajerral summoned the merest fragment of light, enough for the keen eyes of the dragons to see it clearly.\n\n\"We have been busy ourselves,\" Kelvandor said, indicating the map. \"The Empire must have a healthy respect for either airships or Mindijaran, for there are many things hidden on this island, not to be seen easily from the air. We have found them easily enough all the same.\n\n\"Look at this. The Empire makes no effort to hide the might of its traditional navy, and seems inordinately proud of its wargalleys. The things are worthless, easy prey to the dropping of explosives from high above. But here, a quarter of the way around the coast, is a great holding of airships of many types, and most appear to be quite new. We suspect that the Empire is building its own.\"\n\n\"How are they hidden?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"Vineyards,\" he explained. \"There are vast trenches beneath, and great racks bearing vines that can be pulled away. I do not know if there is ever a true frost here, but the vines are rather thin all the same. But we have yet to find what we think to be the construction yards for airships here on this island.\"\n\n\"They do not seem to be using these ships?\" Jenny asked.\n\n\"No. All are sleek military ships, and all are kept in waiting,\" Vajerral said. \"Remember this place well, and avoid it. Do not seek their secrets too hard and ignore what you may see, or they cannot allow you to leave.\"\n\n\"Play stupid?\" Mira asked when Jenny conveyed that warning the next morning. \"I don't know if I can play stupid. I am not naturally equipped. But I agree with the dragons. The plans have changed. They can do the spying, if we do nothing else but keep our hosts occupied.\"\n\nJenny said nothing. She had discussed the subject with Vajerral for some time, and they had decided not to wam Mira that Dasjen Valdercon was in truth the High Priest. They both agreed that Lady Mira might be a sorceress of many talents, but she was a poor actress. They also wanted to have her well away before she learned that she had once been the lover of Haldephren himself.\n\nJenny had so many secrets going at once, she was beginning to think that she would make a very good dragon.\n\n\"So we just let them give us the grand tour until the dragons are finished with their spying, then we make a glorious exit extolling their many virtues,\" Mira continued, and turned. Jenny was still arranging the elaborate folds of a local gown, one of several more gifts that had arrived with their breakfast. She must have made some impression; four of the five left both breasts bare. Not to disappoint her hosts, she wore the least conspicuous of those four, a rose-colored gown. Mira nodded. \"You do look grand. I admire your nerve.\"\n\n\"You would be a real distraction in the blue one,\" Jenny answered.\n\nMira chose to ignore that.\n\n\"Saint Gum protect us!\" J.T. declared as he leaped up on the bed. Dooket had been sent to the ship early to \"check on the cat,\" and to bear the message that J.T. was wanted. He had eaten at his leisure, given himself a spit bath, and made his way unobtrusively into the palace. Jenny glared at him; Gum was the patron saint of whores. Then she hurried to complete her makeup; another morning's gift. She had wore none the night before, nor did she require any.\n\n\"You behave yourself or I'll have you neutered,\" Mira told him sternly. \"I want you to hang around the palace all day and be a cat. Sir Remidan and the twins will watch the ship today; they can keep themselves busy in our absence.\"\n\nJ.T. cocked his head inquisitively. \"What do you mean, be a cat? Do you suggest that I poke my little button nose in all the back rooms and corridors, where you cannot?\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" she agreed. \"If they are worshipping the Dark, and we know they are, then there will be a temple somewhere.\" \"Where should I look?\"\n\n\"In ancient days, the Great Temple of the Dark was inside Mount Drashand itself, and a passage connected it with the Imperial palace. I don't know if the present palace is in the same location, but you can bet that they've reopened the Great Temple. If we cannot find a passage from here, the dragons are going to have to hunt for it down the neck of the volcano itself.\"\n\n\"Got you! Anything else?\"\n\n\"Do you speak the local language?\" J.T. tried to make a face, but cats are impeded by their lack of brows. Mira took that for a no. \"Be on your way, then.\"\n\nJ.T. leaped from the bed and ran from the room, his tail in the air. Mira turned away and walked over to the window to wait. She seemed rather pleased with herself; with a slight change of plans, everything seemed to be going exactly the way they wanted. She certainly did not appear apprehensive. She also had no idea that she was playing her games under the very nose of the High Priest Haldephren himself.\n\n\"Finished!\" Jenny announced a minute later.\n\nMira turned to view the results thoughtfully. Jenny had some experience with the use of makeup. Her intent now was to demonstrate a vague and slightly novice attempt without agitating her natural effect on the sexual instincts of the local males. Aping the courtesans, she had shadowed her eyes heavily, and her brown nipples were now a bright rose.\n\n\"J.T. may have been right,\" Mira observed thoughtfully. \"All the same, I do approve. Can you confuse some of the local boys with teasing hopes while maintaining your distance?\"\n\n\"I never was a flirt,\" Jenny admitted self-consciously. \"But if need and opportunity present themselves, I will do my best.\"\n\n\"Under the circumstances, you might find more opportunity than you wish,\" his mistress observed. \"Let's not keep them waiting.\"\n\nThe day was bright and clear for early winter, even here in the South. Dasjen Valdercon himself met them at the steps, gallantly indicating the way to a large open-air carriage waiting below. He afforded Jenny only one brief lecherous glance before he turned his attention back to Mira, who was herself dressed rather provocatively\u2014at least by Northland standards\u2014-in her own barbaric linery.\n\n\"A grand morning to you both, my beautiful ladies,\" he declared with an elaborate bow. \"I had thought that we might begin with a comprehensive tour of our fair city.\"\n\nIt seemed that he meant to conduct this tour himself, without benefit of a retinue of either guards or courtiers. Dasjen led Mira In the carriage but Jenny hesitated on the steps, suddenly aware I hat Ellon Bennisjen was descending quickly on a course to intercept her and that he was to be her appointed companion. She ilelested him. Dasjen was dangerous and predatory but he was also charming and witty, but his young assistant was a scavenger, cold and hungry and quite mad. He had not been at dinner the night before, but she now foresaw that she would not be free of liiin while they remained.\n\n\"Here's my pretty lady!\" he said as he slipped around her shoulder to stand before her, so close that she had to look up at him. His imitation of his master's charm was half-perfect, lacking only any depth of sincerity. \"My Lord Dasjen thought that you might be lonely.\"\n\n\"I had not anticipated a companion,\" she answered, hiding her revulsion and apprehension in teasing. \"But my mistress seems to be engaged herself, and I feared that this might be lonesome duty.\"\n\n\"I know a cure for any loneliness, day or night,\" Ellon said suggestively.\n\nJenny had to force herself from backing away, and not only in disgust and fear. Ellon was in a twisted manner the most sexual man she had ever met, for all her conscious disgust of him. But she knew that he would take and never give. She was somehow reminded of creatures which killed their mates; here, for the first time, she saw that in the male of any species.\n\nShe knew that Ellon expected her in his bed that night, and then she would belong to the Dark. She was also beginning to think that this whole affair was getting too complicated for words.\n\nFor now, at least, there was no immediate problem. They filed into the carriage to sit in the deep, soft seats across from Mira and Dasjen. While Jenny did have to sit beside Ellon for the rest of the day, he did conduct himself very circumspectly while they were with the others. Although Jenny did also have to endure being discreetly molested by him as opportunities presented themselves. By pure will she forced her fear and misery from her mind, knowing that she could not betray herself to Dasjen Valdercon's suspicions.\n\nThe carriage proceeded to the docks and a quick lesson on the economic philosophy of the Empire. What Dasjen had to say on the subject was essentially the same thing that they had heard before; the real lesson was to be learned from what they saw.\n\n\"I've never seen so many ships,\" Mira observed. Which was the truth; there were over a hundred merchant ships in port at that time, loading and unloading so quickly that the harbor was choked with their Coming and going. \"More of the native population must be employed as stevedores than anything else, with rowers close behind.\"\n\n\"Almost all of our menial labor is performed by slaves, \" Dasjen answered absently, then saw her startled glance and amended himself. \"Criminals condemned for serious crimes, some for life but others only for the term of their punishment.\"\n\n\"You must have...\" quite a lot of criminals, Mira began to say. She caught herself. \"...quite a strong industry to support this trade.\"\n\nDasjen nodded once, gravely. \"That is so. Alashera is, needless to say, a center of development of modem technology. Raw materials come in for the use of industry, and agricultural products as well as items of low technology come in for use of the population.\"\n\nApparently the Empire held a somewhat different idea of high technology than the North. Merchants were always eager to boast of their wares, but most of what was touted for the edification of the two visitors were things they found to be of very common design, although of generally good quality. A very large quantity of ordinary but very well-built and well-designed weapons seemed to be pouring out of the city for all portions of the Empire; nearly every ship, no matter what its cargo, had at least a crate or two of weapons.\n\nTheir morning's expedition was interrupted at one point by the ringing of bells throughout the city. The entire population abruptly fell silent and sank to their knees as they stood, heads bowed... almost cringing, as if they expected to feel the bite of a whip across their offered backs. Even Ellon copied this gesture, with a very fervent, religiously ecstatic look on his face, his eyes closed. But Dasjen only looked angry and impatient. Jenny caught the distinct impression that he had made arrangements for this not to happen, just as he had arranged that the streets be conspicuously empty of the black-robed priests and priestesses they had seen when flying over the day before. There was no doubt that they were seeing the calling of the devoted to a moment of worship to the Dark, and everyone in sight responded with the same intense, eager reverence.\n\n\"Funeral bells.\" He muttered an explanation, hardly seeming to care if they believed him. \"A local merchant ship has been long overdue. The city has awaited news for days, and that news was not good. This is a dangerous season to sail.\"\n\nThe Dark Priesthood might be keeping itself out of sight, but Dasjen could not hide one important item. This beautiful city of his was also replete with temples to the Dark, although none were clearly identified as such and they were all closed and silent. But temples they were, all the same, and there was nothing that Dasjen could do about that. There were no temples of the Light as such, but citadels of learning, from universities and academies of magic to simple village schools. Knowledge and understanding were the tools of the Light; ignorance and fear were the weapons of the Dark.\n\nAnother thing that was obvious enough was the large numbers of soldiers\u2014not constables of law but actual warriors\u2014who endlessly patrolled the streets. Mira thought that there must be an impressive army of infantry, perhaps ten thousand strong, stationed inside the city itself.\n\nThe afternoon was spent in a lengthy ride through the hills about the lower slopes of Mount Drashand, above and to either side of the city. That was uneventful enough to be boring, except for the distraction of the beautiful scenery. Jenny was unable to let her guard down for a moment or Ellon would have his hands somewhere they did not belong. But at the same time she did not want to discourage him with a flat refusal; he was more harmless for his quiet, frustrated infatuation. Mira knew quite well by that time what was happening and she found the subtle advances and even more subtle defenses quietly hilarious, and in that way she at least was amused.\n\nThey dined that night in Dasjen's villa far above the city. It was a small place and very unassuming, a dark, secluded dwelling hidden back among the trees well off the road, with a vast tract of vineyards to the south. But there were also cooks and servants with dinner waiting, and musicians to play, and a respectable garrison of soldiers who seldom spoke but seemed to be everywhere. Both of the sorceresses feared that they were expected to stay the night; but when Mira casually suggested that it was getting late, the carriage was brought and they were returned briskly to the palace.\n\nWhich was just as well for them. J.T. was waiting, and he was not happy. He lay in the middle of Mira's bed, his tail thrashing and snapping, and he gave them a very dirty look. Sir Remidan looked hardly less frustrated as he stood with his arms crossed, looking likely to take matters into his own hands.\n\n\"So, here you are at last,\" he accused. \"You leave me here all day long to do your dirty work, and then you have the nerve to stay out half the night while there's work to be done.\"\n\n\"Calm yourself,\" Mira told him with no concern for his pique. \"It's a good two hours short of midnight yet, and you know it.\"\n\n\"That's exactly the point!\" J.T. declared, leaping up. \"I've found what I think is the entrance of the tunnel leading to the heart of Mount Drashand and the ancient temple.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course!\" Jenny declared, stopping short and looking so thoughtful that both Mira and the cat turned to stare. \"Dasjen and Ellon both were very interested in a quick return to the palace.\"\n\n\"A midnight sacrifice?\" Mira asked herself. She stood for a moment with her head thrown back, holding the bridge of her generous nose with one hand; a rare gesture of hurried concentration. \"But of course. The moon set early tonight; we saw it going down across the harbor on our way back. Dasjen might order the Dark Priesthood to discretion during our visit, but he would not attempt to stop the ordained practices. He wouldn't want to. He is also the highest representative of the Empire in Alashera at the moment, or so we have assumed; he would have to officiate at any important ceremony in the Great Temple of the Dark. Could you not get in there?\"\n\n\"That's what I need you people for!\" J.T. exclaimed, his back arched. \"I don't even know for certain that this is it. There are doors I cannot open, and I waited hours for someone to come through. Then, about an hour ago, it seemed that the entire Imperial government was filing through those doors and not coming back. .. and they all wore black!\"\n\n\"It must be the temple, then,\" Mira told herself.\n\n\"I couldn't get through then... got kicked when I tried to run through,\" The cat continued. \"Now it's quiet again.\"\n\n\"I would have gone with him, but I am followed whenever I leave these rooms,\" Remidan added. \"If you had not come, I would have done something.\"\n\n\"I could go,\" Jenny offered softly.\n\nMira turned to look at her. \"Is that safe? Safe for you in particular, if you know what I mean?\"\n\n\"I do know what you mean, but I am safe,\" her student assured Iter. \"I am not altogether of the Light as you know it, but I reject the Dark even more. Nor do I intend to watch the ceremony, only lake enough of a look down that passage to know beyond any doubt where it leads.\"\n\nMira considered that very carefully, and nodded. \"I don't like sending you, of all people, on to the Great Temple of the Dark, but I also think that you have the best chance of getting in and out again without being seen. You do have something in mind?\"\n\n\"I do,\" Jenny insisted as she shucked her gown in a single swift movement, then hurried over to the dressing table. Sir Remidan, who had been scandalized enough by her attire, now looked about nervously with the beginning of a very boyish blush. The fact was that Jenny had forgotten about him in the excitement of the moment; the faerie centaurs had made an indifferent nudist of her at an early age.\n\nShe dipped a cloth in a bowl of water and began washing the makeup from her face and breasts. \"I know a trick or two that the dragons taught me. I can't take any weapons with me, but nothing mortal will even be aware of my presence. And the idea is to get away without a clue that I was ever there.\"\n\n\"You know what they will do with you, if they catch you,\" her mistress reminded her. \"What are you going to do?\"\n\n\"Disappear,\" Jenny insisted as she finished drying her face on a towel. She turned and grinned, and abruptly vanished as she stood. J.T., who had been seated on the edge of the bed, leaped up and swore briefly and brilliantly; even Mira looked impressed. The girl returned after a moment.\n\n\"Yes, I think you can do it,\" Mira agreed. \"Just keep your distance.\"\n\nA minute later Mira opened the door to allow the two spies into the corridor outside, although any watcher would have thought that she was only putting out the cat. J.T. did his best to imitate the nightly wanderings of a true cat, although not so much that he delayed too long in reaching their goal. Jenny followed him closely and silently, her bare feet treading softly on the smooth stone floor with no betraying rustle of clothes to warn of her presence. She had washed off the makeup with its less than subtle scents, and the perfume that she had used with deliberate profuseness had mostly faded.\n\nThey slipped quickly through the still, dark halls to the more central portions of the palace, so far not passing a soul nor even hearing a sound to indicate that the place was even inhabited. For the most part, it was not. The only tight moment came when they found themselves caught on a wide staircase as a troop of guards ascended, making their endless rounds. J.T. slipped deftly through their legs and waited on the steps below, but Jenny did not dare move. The stairs were thickly carpeted and the impressions of her feet were clearly visible in the heavy pile, even if she was not.\n\nShe hopped up on the bannister with the intention of sliding to safety, only to discover something that she had not considered. Bare bottoms did not slide on varnished rails, at least not without protest. Her initial launch propelled her only a few short inches, with the unexpected result of a very loud and incredibly rude noise. The other result was a friction bum to an exceptionally tender portion of her anatomy. She let out a startled squeak and jumped off the rail.\n\n\"What was that?\" the captain of the guard asked.\n\n\"I think I stepped on that cat,\" one of the soldiers answered.\n\n\"So who farted, you or the cat?\"\n\n\"Jenny?\" J.T. called at a whisper when the guards reached the top of the steps.\n\n\"Beside you.\" Her voice came from just above him. \"I hurt myself.\"\n\n\"Is that all?\" the cat asked impatiently. \"Should I kiss it and make it all better?\"\n\nSuch a question asked in perfect innocence required no answer.\n\nThe cat turned and ran down the remaining steps, turning at the bottom to streak away into the shadows of the back portions of the palace. Since much of its east side had been built into the face of the steep mountainside behind, none of the eastern chambers had windows but were in fact underground, although the palace did not cut deep into the mountain. J.T. reported that there were more levels below ground; even the storerooms had simply been cut deeper into the mountain, where temperatures were low and constant.\n\nWell behind the stairs, in the back of the palace, they came upon a short, wide corridor that led quickly to a pair of heavy, double doors. Jenny paused at the doors; at least J.T. assumed that she did, since the doors did not open and he heard no sound of her movements. What he could not see, due to the short stature of felines, were the wide louvered vents set in the shadows above I he door.\n\n\"This leads to the core of the volcano,\" Jenny observed.\n\n\"How do you know that?\" J.T. asked.\n\n\"There is a wind,\" she explained. \"Hot air rises up the neck of the volcano, and it draws cool air after it. There is enough air being drawn through this corridor that it would hold the doors shut if not for the vents.\"\n\n\"Then we are almost there?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. We must be at least two miles from the core at this point. We must hurry if we hope to reach the temple by midnight. In fact, I would prefer to be out by midnight, but I have no hope of that.\"\n\nOne of the two doors swung slowly open of its own accord, or so it seemed. J.T. leaped back, arching his back and hissing, then rushed forward to poke his head through the doorway for a quick look beyond. He slipped through, having seen no one beyond, and Jenny followed, opening the door just enough to squeeze through. The passage beyond was dark, featureless and endless, descending at a noticeable rate, the grey stone tunnel disappearing within a couple of hundred feet into the shadows. The doors closed slowly, silently behind them.\n\n\"Now what?\" J.T. wanted to know.\n\n\"Now we hurry,\" Jenny insisted, although she remained where she was for the moment. She seemed to be looking around. \"As I thought, the wind brings all the dust of the construction through. You can see that many people came through a couple of hours ago, and then just a few more as the dust began to settle again.\"\n\nJenny said no more, and the cat suddenly realized that he had been left behind. He ran to overtake her, only to run nose-first into the back of her leg and bounce back. Shaking his head, he was about to employ a few choice words when he saw what had caught the girl's attention. The tunnel could be seen to end just a hundred feet beyond in a wall of solid stone, without door or passage. As they went on, they saw instead that it turned to the right to open upon a much larger tunnel, this one of vast proportions. It was big enough for two wagons to be drawn abreast; indeed, the smell of horses indicated that it was used for that very purpose. It descended in the opposite direction, rising slightly toward the heart of Mount Drashand but sloping gently toward the harbor, where it gave every indication of leading. And like the smaller tunnel, it was dimly lit by glowstones.\n\n\"We don't have time to explore in both directions tonight.\" Jenny seemed to be arguing with herself. \"Cat, you follow it back down. Try to find every major exit along the way. If my guess is right, it will lead you to some hidden port down at the docks, possibly on the sea itself.\"\n\n\"Yes, I believe so,\" J.T. agreed. There was a modest breeze moving up the tunnel, a breeze wet and heavy with the chill night air right off the sea, and the smell of the harbor.\n\n\"You can surely get yourself out there and come back through the city,\" she continued. \"I'll go on up to the temple, take a quick look around, and come back out here. Watch out for yourself.\"\n\n\"I'm a cat,\" he reminded her succinctly. \"You watch out for yourself. If something were to happen to you, Lady Mira would skin me alive. And then your dragons would skin Lady Mira.\"\n\n\"I'll remember,\" Jenny promised, her soft voice already receding up the gentle slope of the passage. J.T. shrugged\u2014cats have good shoulders for that, but seldom use them\u2014then turned and hurried on his own way.\n\nThe passage up was long and uneventful, for it was now well inside the mountain itself and she expected no chambers or passages to intersect this one until they neared the core. She was lempted to run, except for the betraying slap of her feet against (he smooth stone, and so she kept her pace to a brisk walk. She could have flown, but not even the dragons could lift and maintain invisibility as well for long, and remaining unseen was far more important to her now. She reminded herself forcefully that she could afford to take no chances, that her role in the Prophecy vastly overshadowed even her own need to know the current state of the Great Temple of the Dark.\n\nThe heart of Mount Drashand lay two miles inward even of the palace; her vague mental map of Alashera had been proven true. Such a walk was of no consequence to her except for the time it look, for she could have easily run that distance without difficulty. The members of the Imperial court had not walked this distance; there had been carriages brought to provide their passage, for the smell of horses was fresh and heavy. That meant as well that there would be horses ahead. The beasts did not need to see her to recognize her presence, for they could hear and smell her.\n\nFor herself, Jenny hardly knew what to think. She knew already quite enough of what lay ahead, and she was ambivalent about what else she might leam. She yearned to be free of the Prophecy, to lead a life that was entirely her own for the first time in her own memory. At the same time she dreaded the supreme effort the Prophecy would surely demand of her, the hint of sacrifice she feared. She dreaded the beginning of the end, knowing that she could no longer afford to make a single mistake.\n\nShe paused when she saw the tunnel open into some wide chamber just ahead and listened carefully, but all she heard was the sounds of several horses. Expecting keepers watching over the beasts, she proceeded cautiously and quietly, but there was no one about. The chamber was vast, of size and shape like a large warehouse. Several carriages were parked in a row to one side and horses stood alone in their individual wooden stalls built along the south wall, tended and abandoned. Then it occurred to Jenny that the Great Temple was sacred ground indeed where no one but the sorcerers and servants of its very select coven were permitted, at least during important ceremonies.\n\nThe horses were nervous, restless. Jenny did not blame them. The sense of weight and time pressed down upon her, as if her anxious spirit struggled to support the great mass of the mountain above her. The darkness closed in upon the chamber tightly, slinking on tiger's paws around the desperate vigilance of outnumbered glowstones. There was something vaguely familiar about this place, a feeling that she had been here before.\n\nAnd then she knew. The memory returned to her, thirteen years past, a forgotten memory that forced its way back into her consciousness as clearly as if it had only just occurred. It was not a clear memory, telling nothing specific, just the sense of a place like this but many times as strong, dark and dangerous. Dalvenjah and Allen had come for her then, and they had taken her away from that terrible place where life itself seemed to gasp for breath. This was a lesser den of the Dark, but one she hardly dared to face alone.\n\nAnd it welcomed her. It was not yet consciously aware of her invasion, but it welcomed her all the same, seeking to pull her \\ in, whatever evil will animated this place, turning the heart of the 1 volcano into a thing alive. Or was the force acting upon her will entirely of her own design, that part of her own self that belonged to the Dark and sought its own? She hoped so, for she could easily control the Dark within herself. But she dared not match the strength of her own spirit against the immense, impersonal will of this place.\n\nShe made her way cautiously along the wall farthest from the horses, then slipped along the corridor beyond. The presence grew stronger, for she was not only making her way closer to its heart J but the closeness of walls and ceiling seemed to funnel that force in upon her like the wind which raced down the length of the passage. Now she began to see the trappings of wealth such as she did not remember from that other place. There was a strip of dense carpet on the smooth stone floor, further muffling her footsteps. Her enhanced sight could make clear the designs and symbols inlaid in gold and silver into the stone itself.\n\nAnd all of it very, very old, at least the original work, although it all bore evidence of recent and extensive restoration. The gold and silver was new; the etched designs in the walls were not. This, she thought, was in fact that ancient Great Temple of the Dark. History claimed that it had been destroyed, but she saw now that it had merely been abandoned for the last two thousand years. Or perhaps it had never been abandoned at all, only kept from complete decay by impoverished followers until the fortunes of their master improved and they began to prepare for his return.\n\nThis was one question for which she hoped to find an answer, although that was hardly vital. Of far more importance, at least to her mind, was the question of whether it was coincidence that the followers of the Dark established their greatest strongholds within these live but tamed volcanos, and if so then why. Did they in some way find access to elemental forces stronger and deeper than the Light knew how to command? She had to see the heart of the temple, the core of the volcano. In spite of her promises to Lady Mira and the cat, she was going on.\n\nThe corridor began to branch shortly, once and then again and again, but still the passages turned and wandered like tunnels rather than the straight halls and sharp comers of a true building. Jenny wondered about the purposes of these side corridors and what lay within the closed chambers she could see, their heavy wooden doors locked. Storerooms, or perhaps the cells of resident priests and their novices. Or even a school of Dark Magic, an evil parody of the Academies of the North, but not currently in use from the look of things. Which presented a question in itself; where did the Empire train its Dark sorcerers?\n\nShe came deeper into the heart of the Great Temple, and now the passages did more closely resemble a conventional building in form. She also lost the light breeze which had been her guide for so long, now that it had any number of outlets to the core. But her sense of direction did not fail her, for she now had a more certain guide. She could sense the pulsing heart of the Great Temple just ahead, not more than a few hundred feet away. The place had seemed utterly deserted until now, but she was suddenly aware of a regular rhythm that coursed through the air and the stone itself, a regular, frantic pulse. Drums. She knew then that she had come nearly to the core of Mount Drashand, and that its sorcerer priests were even now practicing their midnight ceremonies.\n\nShe had no fear of the priests, but the conscious, living presence of the temple itself would find her quickly now that she was deep within its own familiar ground. It was preoccupied with its own affairs, drawing in the rich, evil powers evoked by the priests and radiating them forth again like the vile warmth of some sickly flame. But it would sense her own magic the moment she came within its terrible presence, and her only hope in going on rested in her ability to hide her own powers. She belonged to the Light, but she was also trained in the dragon magic, something alien to its hungry, violent nature.\n\nJenny allowed her spell of invisibility to slip, drawing in her talents and calming them to complacency, now becoming magically rather than physically unseen. She hurried on, wanting nothing more than her one quick look before she got herself from this place as quickly as she could, trusting now to the shadows of these dimly lit passages to hide her. She felt naked now like she had never felt in her life, in all her draconic upbringing.\n\nThe passage ended in a pair of doors, and she carefully pushed through to find herself standing on a wide, narrow balcony which overlooked a second balcony or alcove, a long, deep slot cut into the wall of the volcano's wide core. The core itself lay just beyond, falling away quickly from her limited view except for a dim orange glow from far below and drifting clouds of vapors and hot steam that ascended the shaft. Three long, slender tongues of stone leaped out from equal points along the perimeter of the shaft, one just below her, to meet in the very center of the core.\n\nThe tongues of stone supported a thin circular platform that had the look of polished stone. An immense crystal hung suspended above the pit that opened in the center of that platform; three slender posts of stone or dark metal formed the platform to surround the crystal, smaller bits of crystal mounted in the tops of the post that somehow held the larger crystal suspended by some force which interacted between them. The crystal itself was perfect and clear of substance, almost white in its translucence, but in its heart pulsed a light that was blood-red tinged with black. Jenny knew that she looked upon the heart of the temple, a thing that had taken on a life of its own with the centuries of lives and thoughts of the priests who had sacrificed to it.\n\nAnd on the platform itself, the Dark Priests were assembled.\n\nJenny looked closer and saw from the figures atop it that the platform was wider than she had thought, at least a hundred feet across. Drummers lined the perimeter of the platform, endlessly beating the great kettle of the drums before them with a relentless precision which was almost mechanical. A single row of black-robed priests formed a second ring just inside the drummers, and before them perhaps two score young, golden bodies leaped and danced naked to the frantic pulse of drums and raw magic.\n\nThe limp form of victims were lashed to each of the three inner posts of stone, standing in wide pools of their own blood. Their bellies had been opened wide from crotch to ribcage, their organs already ripped free and cast into the fires below. Jenny thought that she could see fear frozen in their dead eyes; they had not been willing victims. They were all male, young and strong and handsome. Dasjen Valdercon, the High Priest Haldephren, stood beside his victims with a long-bladed knife still in one hand as he watched the dancers with a gloating, sated look, himself naked and bathed in blood.\n\nLooking upon this scene, Jenny understood the secret, innermost nature of the Dark, the secret that the sorcerers of the Light had hidden from the world in horror twenty centuries before. For that great crystal was the Heart of Flame that Bresdenant had warned them of, a great repository of Dark forces. Its servants had worshipped it and nourished it for countless years, as it drank in the violent emotions of their sacrifices, the raw, vicious lust of the orgies that would shortly follow, their very souls, until it assumed a counterfeit life and consciousness of its own. It fed upon them, and they fed it willingly, coven after coven tearing out pieces of their souls to abate its insatiable appetite, until it burned them dry... and a new coven would begin again.\n\nAnd Haldephren took part in that feeding, not feeding the Heart of Flame itself but sharing in its feast. He enhanced his own talents through that psychic cannibalism; he was himself a thing not unlike that massive crystal behind him, lesser in scope but greater in personal awareness, wrapped in a living form. Jenny sensed all this beyond any doubt. She understood him now, and she knew now why she feared him. If he had ever been a living man with a mortal soul, that part of him had been burned away long ago\u2014 or perhaps he had left it behind the first time he had taken a new form.\n\nThen she saw Ellon Bennisjen standing near his master, also naked and holding a knife, his young, lean body sleek with blood. And she realized this, too, to her horror, numb as she already was with new terrors: He was no simple chancellor but the favorite of his master. He was here to learn; for him these ceremonies were the lessons that would make him like the Emperor and his own master. Already he was learning to feed as his master Haldephren fed, but as yet he could only taste the powers that sported like whirlwinds in this place.\n\nShe feared him less than she feared his master, but she hated him more. She remembered the murderous hunger within him, the practiced cruelty, and suddenly she could bear this place no longer. The immortal magic that had become infused with her very spirit rejected this place, and the relentless drums seemed likely to burst her head with their thunder. She reeled back, found the doors by chance in her blind haste and slipped through. Then she turned and ran as swiftly and silently as she could, turning her back on the echoing drumbeats, the lust and hunger of death and violent sex.\n\nJenny ran, and as she ran she slipped unnoticed from the vile attention of the Heart of Flame and left its evil behind her. She felt almost as if she had forgotten herself in the eternity of perhaps ten seconds when she had looked upon the Dark, so that now she slowly became aware of her own being and the world around her. Her first returning awareness was that of her left hand lightly following the stone wall, guiding her through the deep shadows, of the beating of her own bare feet on the smooth, cool floor and the soft, sea-tainted breeze that tickled her skin. At that moment she could have wept, with either the horror of what she had seen and felt or else the relief at leaving it behind.\n\nBut she was not allowed that luxury, for she was suddenly aware that she ran from one horror into the embrace of another. She stopped short, sensing the evil thing just ahead of her and knowing it from her own distant past, when Allan had fought such a thing and nearly lost. She wrapped herself in invisibility and shrank back against the wall just as the massive armored form of the demon stepped ponderously around the corner just ahead and paused, filling the generous passage. It was sheathed in its own pale luminescence, and Jenny feared that it could see her in that sickly light. Indeed it did seem aware of her presence, or at least troubled, seeking something it did not yet know but sensed as alien.\n\nThere was no hope to win past the demon. Even had it been of stone, she would had needed to squeeze past its immense form with care. As it was, those powerful pincers could have snapped about her waist and crushed the life out of her in an instant. She retreated, slowly and cautiously, never turning her back on it, and as she receded it became more confused and uncertain, taking a few hesitant steps after her.\n\nThen she found the corridor behind her at last and ran, desperate to cut through the passages ahead of the demon before it could cut her off, even if it was aware of her by now. She hoped not. She could have fought this demon and won; she commanded such magic. Her goal was to escape clear detection altogether, before the demon was certain of her presence, for destroying it would have only told Haldephren beyond any doubt that enemies had penetrated to the heart of the Great Temple itself. And there would be no doubt about what enemies were prowling around these days. The lives of their entire party depended upon her quiet escape.\n\nJenny circled around, leading the demon, until she returned to the main corridor and knew that it was behind her. She paused a moment, probing the path ahead with keen senses. Then she ran, swiftly and silently and very mindful of the fact that she was not out of danger yet.\n\nBy the time she returned to her suite in the palace, all Jenny-wanted to do was to jump in bed, pull the covers over her head, and pretend that it had all never happened. Perhaps, somewhere near dawn, she might finally fall asleep, blit not if she could not forget that she would have to endure Dasjen Valdercon and Ellon Bennisjen the next morning and pretend that her glimpse of them beside the Heart of Flame had never been. She certainly did not expect to find Lady Mira waiting for her, anxious as a mother on her daughter's first date, demanding a full explanation of every moment that had passed. But that, unfortunately, was exactly what she got.\n\nJenny despaired of putting any of it into words, and so she did something that she had never before done with a mortal. Locking her mind to Mira's, she relived those terrible minutes inside the Great Temple, and so Mira saw those images directly from her own memory. The faerie dragons did this regularly and thought nothing of it, and hers was dragon magic.\n\nLady Mira was, needless to say, suitably impressed. In fact, she looked as shaken and repulsed as her student felt. The only thing that Jenny amended from that report was that Dasjen was in fact the High Priest Haldephren. If she had her way, her mistress would not be made aware of that disturbing fact until they were on their way home. Mira paid strict attention, making no comment and asking no question. In the end she had only one thing to say. \"Where did you leave the cat?\" she asked simply.\n\n\"Oh, hell!\" Jenny exclaimed with a very impatient gesture. \"He went the other way when we came to the main passage below the palace. We thought that he would come out somewhere near the harbor. He'll be along later.\"\n\n\"I trust so, since he could not have found the type of trouble you courageously struck your nose into,\" Mira said as she jumped up from the edge of Jenny's bed and began to pace. \"Well, at least we know what we came to find, and more than I had hoped to come away with. Do you think...?\"\n\nShe paused, seeing that Jenny had fallen back on the bed, sound asleep. She chuckled softly and gently pulled the girl up until she was fully on the bed with her head on the pillow, and pulled the cover up around her neck. Mira finished by casting a simple spell, making the appropriate gestures over the girl's head.\n\n\"Pleasant dreams,\" Mira said as she turned to leave, then smiled fondly. \"At least I hope you like them. Some of my favorites.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "What More Can Happen?\n\nJ.T. returned the next morning, looking like something the cat had dragged in. He sat at the door and meowed until Dooket let him in, then staggered across the floor mumbling and cursing in a low voice. He went directly to Mira's room, leaped up on her bed and threw himself down with a loud, weary sigh. Then he opened his eyes and looked up at the sorceress.\n\n\"I'll have baked fish and a bowl of milk, if you please,\" he told her.\n\nMira looked at him quizzically. \"You'll have what the servants brought this morning: fried mutton strips, breakfast rolls and fruit wine.\"\n\n\"Atrocious!\" The cat declared, making a face. \"I'll have a roll and wine.\"\n\nMira looked up at Dooket and Erkin, standing in the door. They nodded briefly and left to prepare a plate. She sat down on the bed beside J.T. \"Are you well? You look done in.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm fine,\" he insisted impatiently. \"What about that girl of yours? Did she make it in safe?\"\n\n\"Here I am,\" Jenny answered for herself, entering from the other door at that moment, still buttoning her shirt. \"I made it in some time ago.\"\n\n\"Real clothes?\" Mira inquired, staring at Jenny's usual pants and shirt which replaced the revealing gowns of the last two days. \"Poor Ellon is going to be beside himself, not to mention Dasjen's disappointment.\"\n\n\"Too bad,\" she said caustically. \"I've realized that these openbreasted gowns are imitative of their ceremonial orgies. Besides, I've had too much of Dasjen's eyes and Ellon's hands as it is.\" \"I don't blame you,\" Mira agreed emphatically, to show that she had never expected that Jenny should have to wear the things. She took the plate that Erkin handed to her and set it before the cat. \"Eat. Enjoy. The boys cut the mutton into tiny little bits for you. But speak.\"\n\n\"Not much to say,\" J.T. reported between a few quick bites. \"That tunnel leads straight to an opening at the waterfront where cargo can be unloaded directly during low tide, although the end of the tunnel floods during high tide. I know. I had to wait. There are actually several openings here at the palace itself, including one not far from where the ship is parked that is immense. There is another group of openings about a third of the way down to the harbor, but I could not get through. I came back through the city and found an Academy. I guess that you could call it that. It is a school for Dark Magic.\"\n\n\"That answers my last question,\" Jenny said. \"I knew that there had to be a school somewhere in the city, since they've moved it out of the Great Temple itself. So we also know that the temple is in use, that the Heart of Flame still exists, and that the Emperor is not here.\"\n\n\"Now that is interesting, since the servants reported that the Emperor has arrived and that we are to be taken into his presence later today,\" Mira mused. \"Not the real Emperor, I am sure. You will have to go back into one of those open-faced gowns, but you will have company this time. They brought three for me so that I can 'choose the one I want to wear for the occasion.' I take that to mean that I had damned well better have one on.\"\n\n\"You do get used to it,\" Jenny assured her.\n\n\"Oh, under other circumstances I would probably enjoy it. I plan to take mine home with me for my next dinner party.\" Mira sat down on the edge of the bed, deep in thought. \"I wonder what the others have discovered? A shame that we could not get in touch with them last night.\"\n\n\"Lady Mira, let's get out of here as soon as we can,\" Jenny insisted. \"We know enough, more than we expected to find. We won't gain anything by staying any longer, not balanced against the danger we are in.\"\n\nMira gave her an appraising look, and she was certain that Jenny was completely earnest... and on the verge of panic. That impressed her more than anything, for she knew that the girl was calmer and far braver than herself. She nodded. \"We will go as soon as gracefully possible. But not today. Now we are stuck with having to go through with our audience with this make-believe Emperor and the welcoming dinner. But I intend to be impressed and cooperative and claim to have seen all I need to see, and with any luck we will be on our way tomorrow.\"\n\n\"No, we really can't get out any sooner,\" Jenny agreed reluctantly. \"But we must be very, very careful. There is tension in the air today, violence and expectation. This entire city is about to explode.\"\n\n\"Now that would be an interesting sight!\" Mira remarked, grinning. \"And I can't think of anything that would do it more good.\"\n\n\"She is right,\" J.T. affirmed. He sat back to wash his face, but he was quite serious. \"Walk like cats.\"\n\n\"Really, Dasjen,\" Mira insisted. \"It's certainly too much trouble for the Emperor to come all the way here just to see us.\" \"Unfortunately you are right,\" Dasjen Valdercon agreed as he courteously assisted her in dismounting from the carriage. \"As much as we wish no misunderstanding between ourselves and the North, the Emperor is a busy man. He has come to attend to his own business. When the Senate is not in session, he is the sole government of the Empire and must be present to attend to his many important duties.\"\n\nThey waited as Ellon offered Jenny the same assistance in stepping down from the carriage. Jenny found many such local customs distasteful, but she endured such things as necessary evils. At least they had been encouraged to attend the reception at the docks in Northern dress; Jenny had no intention of baring herself in public yet again and Mira not once. But the formal reception at the palace later that evening was another matter. Jenny was dressed plainly by local standards in her best pants and tunic, her narrow-bladed sword belted at her waist. Mira wore black pants with a tunic that was a glory of glaring colors in abstract designs... her usual self.\n\nThey walked slowly down the length of the stone pier where the Emperor's ship would tie up, the rough, scarred flagstones now cloaked in carpets of Imperial red. The Emperor's ship had only just arrived in the inner harbor, an immense wargalley with three complete decks of oars and four masts with bright sails, flanked by two ships of identical size and design but less ornate in decoration. Mira frowned and reckoned that the better part of half an hour would pass before the ship was secured at the pier, and heaven only knew how long the Emperor\u2014or his counterfeit\u2014would take in actually departing his ship. That much at least was in their favor. The real Emperor would hurry on no one's account, but this imitation would probably pop out as soon as the plank was thrown down.\n\nAs she thought about it, Mira decided that she preferred that the Emperor and his High Priest were absent during her own visit. She doubted very much that she could be calm and polite in the presence of such evil. .. creatures. She could find no words to describe the revulsion she knew that she would feel for those two on sight.\n\n\"One moment, please,\" Dasjen said graciously, and hurried away to confer with the small delegation of dignitaries who waited nearby. Mira recognized all of the ministers, chancellors and local officials they had met so far, but only half of the resident courtiers\u2014those people whose only function seemed to be to attend ceremonies and look pretty, but who were in fact the principal members of the coven of the Great Temple.\n\nEllon looked at Jenny and started to say something, but bowed his head and hurried after his master. Mira watched him for a moment longer, then stepped closer to her student. \"What do you make of all of this?\"\n\n\"The real Emperor is not on that ship,\" Jenny reported. \"Dasjen is pleased with himself, but Ellon is scared half to death. I suspect that he is planning to do something his master may or may not approve.\"\n\nA large troop of Imperial warriors, resplendent in snapping new leather and polished armor of bronze and silver, rounded the comer from the street to march with mechanized precision along the length of the pier. The two sorceresses withdrew to the back of the pier to give them room, crowding against the stacked boxes and bales. This whole affair might be a glorious farce, but the farce would be carried through in proper form to the smallest detail. The honor guard split into two long lines, their heavy boots keeping time with their pace like drumbeats, loud enough to drown out casual conversation. They halted in the center of the pier, paused for a long moment, and snapped smartly to their right to be facing the galley when it pulled alongside to dock, all without a single spoken command.\n\n\"Yarg, what rude, noisy people!\" Mira exclaimed. \"I'll bet they chew with their mouths open.\"\n\nShe turned to say something to her young protege, but Jenny had abruptly disappeared at some point during the confusion.\n\nMira happened to look back to the small group of the Empire's commanding ministers in time to see the end of some argument between Dasjen Valdercon and his chancellor. Ellon seemed to have won his point; Dasjen gave reluctant consent, then watched with obvious misgivings as Ellon turned and hurried along the pier back to the city. Then Dasjen turned to stride quickly back to where she stood, threading his way through the motionless guards.\n\n\"My, you look worried,\" Mira observed. \"Is there any problem?\"\n\n\"No, I trust not,\" Dasjen answered. \"My chancellor feels that he should return to the palace to insure that the plans for the reception there proceed properly.\"\n\n\"A great deal of fuss, for the off season.\"\n\nHe laughed heartily. \"So it might seem, after the informality of the North. But Elura is old and secure. We are new and young, and we need formalities such as this to form our foundations, our own new traditions. The history and traditions we have inherited from the past are not things that we wish to maintain, nor even recall. Besides, this is only a shadow of the reception that our Emperor would receive if the Senate was in session.\"\n\nOr if it happened to have been the real Emperor. But Mira kept her ungracious thoughts to herself, whether they were true or not, and reminded herself that this was all for her benefit.\n\n\"The past is one subject that I wish to discuss with you,\" she said after a moment. \"Assuming that our meeting with the Emperor goes well\u2014and I see no reason why it should not\u2014then I will declare that I have seen enough to set my own mind at ease. The season is getting on and the weather less predictable, both here and in the North. By your leave, I will be on my way home in the morning.\"\n\nDasjen was obviously dismayed, but he struggled to cover it.\n\n\"So soon, my pet? After all these years, I do admit that I bask in your presence.\"\n\n\"You haven't gotten me to bed yet?\" she assumed, teasing at first, then grew serious. It was the best acting she had ever done. \"That would not be a good idea, I fear. My home and my duty are in the North, and you belong here. Let's not ask for trouble.\" \"I know better than to ask a commitment of you,\" he assured her.\n\n\"You need not,\" Mira told him, turning the blame on herself in gallant self-sacrifice. \"I am the victim of temptations which I cannot afford to contemplate. I never expected to see you again.\n\nI certainly never expected to find you here. But it is my own heart I break, now as I did seven years ago. The fault was never your own, except in being too perfect.\"\n\nMira pulled a silk hanky from the top of her tunic, where it had been stuffed down her bosom, and mopped delicately at her eyes, pleased with herself and blissfully unaware that she was serving up enough ham to feed an army. But Dasjen seemed compelled to buy the whole hog, as long as she continued to stroke his magnificent ego in the process. He gently, graciously took her hand and kissed it lightly.\n\n\"Forgive me, my pet,\" he offered, serious and full of regret. \"I fear that I have misjudged your heart from the start.\"\n\n\"You have done nothing that requires forgiveness. I only hope, when my little ship is riding the dawn winds away from your fair island, that I might be able to forgive myself.\" She paused and turned away with a shuddering sigh. \"Leave me, please, for just a minute. I have no wish to meet your Emperor with tears in these foolish eyes.\"\n\n\"Of course, my pet.\" He gently kissed her hand again before letting it slip from his own, slowly backing away. Then he turned and, with a sigh of vast relief, hurried to rejoin the other ministers at the front of the pier. Mira was a remarkable woman, but he had never contemplated keeping her.\n\nShe waited until he was safely gone, then turned to her bodyguards. There was not the slightest expression to be seen on the young faces of the two barbarians, in spite of the extraordinary scene they had just witnessed. She made a mental note never to play cards with these two.\n\nSir Remidan was obviously moved by the performance.\n\n\"Jenny is in trouble,\" she told them. \"I know it. Don't ask me how; I just know it. Go find her.\"\n\n\"Yes, Lady,\" the twins agreed without hesitation, and departed. Remidan looked like he wanted to go running to a bold rescue, but he seemed to have not the slightest idea how.\n\nMira frowned, suspecting that it was already too late and wishing that this silly charade was over. She could not imagine what danger Jenny could have gotten herself into so quickly, but she suspected that Ellon had something to do with this. He would surely get what he had coming; given half a chance, Jenny was perfectly capable of making short work of him. But Mira wanted to be ready for anything.\n\nJenny came suddenly and completely awake without ever having been aware that she had slept, and knew instantly that she had been caught unprepared by a spell. Her last awareness had been standing on the pier and suddenly sensing Ellon's presence behind her. Now she lay on a smooth stone floor in some warm, dark place, a place where the air itself seemed to hum with the tension of incredible evil. Ellon stood over her now, one hand extended above her face. He had only just finished the final gesture to remove the spell which had held her unconscious and defenseless.\n\n\"Ah, with us again.\" His voice was a velvet purr, a poor imitation of his master's charm and sophistication. \"Very soon, my pet, you will be with us forever.\"\n\n\"I'll fry you to a cinder the moment you touch me,\" she told him, and that was no idle threat. She knew already that she was held by more than physical restraints. She could not turn her magic outward, but no one could violate a sorceress and survive except a far stronger sorcerer. And Ellon was hardly her superior.\n\n\"You will accept me willingly,\" he told her with smooth satisfaction as he leaned over her to stroke loose hairs away from her face. \"You know, I suspect, just who we are. Just now you are held by the coven of the Great Temple of the Dark, and we do recognize our own. Nothing you or your wise mistress can do will ever return you to the Light. But the Dark extends a welcoming hand to orphans like yourself.\"\n\n\"The Dark cannot force me to its will!\" Jenny declared, feeling ihe first tremor of panic. She knew the test he meant to set upon her, and she had no desire to confront it. She distrusted her own resolve.\n\n\"The Dark has no need to coerce or beg,\" he corrected her patiently. \"The Dark offers a sorceress like yourself knowledge and power in exchange for your loyalty. It offers pleasure and contentment in exchange for your devotion. And you will accept because the will is within you to accept.\"\n\n\"That remains to be seen.\"\n\n\"And soon it shall be seen.\" He rose and stepped back, then made a brusque gesture in her direction. \"Take her.\"\n\nPriests in black robes appeared at either side to take her under her arms and lift her effortlessly, her hands still tied securely behind her back in a cruel grip. Priests who were young, handsome of face, large and strong of body. A third caught her bound legs and lifted her up so that they could carry her flat between them as they marched with slow ceremony through the dim passages of brown stone.\n\nJenny looked about as much as she was able, realizing for the first time that she knew exactly where she was. Ellon had told her that she was within the Great Temple, but only now did those words become clear to her. The evil of this place grew by that recognition, becoming heavy and suffocating like the thick sludge of shadows that flowed through the ancient passages. She knew where they were taking her.\n\nLady Mira had warned her often enough that she did not want to be taken alive. Vajerral had imparted that same warning, as if she had ever needed it.\n\nShe was going to the Heart of Flame. The coven would surround her, making her the object of their ceremony as they attacked her resolve with their relentless temptations, making her desire the destruction and the raw, perverted lust they practiced as an art. And the horrible, alien consciousness of the Heart of Flame itself would recognize her for what she was and strip away her defenses. And then, when she was weakest, Ellon would force his body into her own and show her the delight in the very perverse pleasures that repulsed her now. Then she would belong to them, and they would control the Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons through her.\n\nJenny knew that she could not hope to resist. Dasjen Valdercon possessed the powers to force access to her inner name, and with that he could command her or reshape her into anything that pleased him. She knew that she could not fight him, the High Priest Haldephren least of all. Every indication was that he was her father, and not even Dalvenjah could ever promise her that he was not.\n\nJenny could not see much, upside down and surrounded as she was by billowing black robes. But she knew when they carried her out onto the wide, deep shelf recessed into the wall of the core of Mount Drashand. Then Ellon led the way as they carried her up the slender tongue of stone that leaped out from the edge of the shelf to support a third of the broad round platform. There the priests untied her, although they held her arms tightly until they had secured her once again to one of the three inner posts which supported the Heart of Flame, her hands held high and wide above her head by the manacles which had held the sacrificial victims the night before. The crystal itself slept not six feet behind her, dim and dusky except for a faint translucent pulse of ruby light within its core.\n\nOnly the cold pillar of stone at her back hid her from its sinister presence, and it was small comfort indeed. She shrank from it with far more fear and loathing than she had ever felt from Ellon Bennisjen or even his master. They might be a threat to her in both body and spirit, but this thing knew only one purpose. It would consume her.\n\n\"There you are, my pet, nice and cozy.\" Ellon continued his pathetic mimicry of his master's geniality. \"Not to worry. The coven will convene as soon as possible. The others assemble at this moment. Then we will be done with this whole uncomfortable affair, and have you down from there.\"\n\nJenny paid him little mind, too consumed with her own thoughts. There had to be a way out of this. Too much was at stake.\n\nPerhaps it was not over yet. Mira was a Veridan Warrior and (he Trassek twins were capable warriors in their own right, but they could not take on the coven of the Great Temple. But add a knight and two Mindijaran and matters would be very different. They were compelled to come for her, valuing her life even above their own. She regretted this turn of events. She should never have come here, exposing herself to even the possibility that allowed this to happen.\n\nHer only consolation was that this was all Mira's big, fat, stinking idea to begin with.\n\n\"Ellon!\" Dasjen Valdercon said sharply as he marched out onto the platform, a black ceremonial robe over the elegant pants and flowing tunic he had worn at the reception. He was by no means pleased. \"What is this foolishness? What have you done?\" \"Master, I trust that I have not erred.\" Ellon was no longer gloating and vain, but humble and circumspect as he bent knee before his master. \"She belongs with us; you have said so yourself.\n\nI know that we can convert her, and I wish to do this thing myself.\n\nI desire her.\"\n\n\"You will have that rare honor, although we will discuss later how you may atone for a greater presumption than you realize even yet,\" Dasjen remarked, already dismissing his young chancellor from his thoughts as he watched Jenny appraisingly. \"A very desirable young lady, yes. She will be turned to the Dark, and you are most worthy of that gentle duty. But after that you will have to be very respectful of her desires.\"\n\nJenny edged back as well as the immobile stone behind her would allow, knowing only too well what he meant. But she was loath to see in his thoughts that he had known all along that he had only been playing his own game with her, just as she had pretended not to recognize him.\n\n\"Ah, you do know exactly what I mean,\" he said with satisfaction, standing close and menacing. \"We have met before, Jenny Breivik, although you were very young and I wore a very different form. But you recognize me all the same, just as I would know you despite the present color of your hair.\"\n\nHe made an impatient gesture over her head, effortlessly stripping her of the spell that had kept her long hair black. In the dim, ruddy light of the core of Mount Drashand, the difference was hardly noticeable. But a few errant strands of hair caught the honest light that filtered down from above, glowing darkly blue.\n\n\"Proof enough, if not for the very feel of your presence,\" Dasjen said, bitter and impatient with the deception. He turned quickly to Ellon and the rest of the coven, gathered as close as they dared. \"Behold, my children! Before you stands Jenny Breivik, the blue-haired child and the important half of the object of the Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons. My daughter!\"\n\n\"That was ever a lie!\" Jenny declared hotly.\n\n\"Believe what you want, my child,\" he told her tolerantly. \"Soon enough you will know the truth. The full coven will be gathered any minute now. Then the Heart of Flame will tear away your feeble defenses. You will belong to us, and we will have the other immediately after. You will bring her to us.\"\n\n\"The other?\" Jenny asked, heedless of her own fears for the moment. She was beginning to comprehend that matters were far more complex than she had ever anticipated, and that there were portions of the Prophecy that she had never known. She remembered now Dalvenjah telling her of the other, the second one needed to fulfill the Prophecy.\n\n\"Yes, have you truly not heard the words of the Prophecy of Maerdilyn?\" he asked guardedly, watching her closely. \"Dragons gold and dragons black seek to gain what each may lack. White and black, red and blue, fortune hangs between the two.\"\n\nJenny could not hide her dismay. She knew now exactly what the Prophecy of Maerdilyn meant, the full meaning of the Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons.\n\n\"Ah, you do know!\" He savored her discomfort. \"You are the blue, and the blue shall be the bait for the red. Only together could you have defeated either myself or the Emperor. But you will belong to the Dark, and Mira will be dead, both before this day is done.\"\n\nShe turned away from him in pain, from his hot, eager breath on her face. Dalvenjah had known all along. That was her reason for sending Jenny into Lady Mira's keeping. Mira was the second half of the Prophecy, her ignorance of that fact being her primary protection over the years. They had been thrust together for this very reason, blue-haired Jenny and red-haired Mira. She could have wept.\n\nShe was lost.\n\nAt that moment she happened to catch a glimpse of a small black-and-white shape streak across the floor of the ledge to the base of the stone bridge. Mira, Sir Remidan and the Trassek twins followed close behind, swords drawn and ready for battle. Jenny looked but could not see that any of them carried a bow, the one real hope they had of ending her own life and preventing her fall into the Dark. Mira and Remidan had both come intent upon a daring rescue, and the two barbarian bodyguards simply failed to see that the four of them together might not be equal to the task.\n\nDasjen turned almost casually to regard them with droll amusement. He made an impatient gesture, and six of the priests stripped Away their long black robes to reveal strong young men in armor and well armed, sorcerers no doubt trained in their own equivalent of the Veridan. They positioned themselves at the top of the arch of stone, the only way up to the platform. Dasjen stepped to the edge just to one side, serious but unconcerned; as he saw it, the bait was taken and the trap was ready to spring. Ellon held back, sword in hand, still humbled before his master but eager to prove himself.\n\n\"Lady Kasdamir, you tried to deceive me,\" he said in aggrieved tones. \"You bring my daughter to me and you make her pretend to be someone else.\"\n\n\"It's a trap!\" Jenny warned her mistress, and no one made any move to stop her. \"Dasjen Valdercon is really the High Priest Haldephren. He has been here all along.\"\n\n\"No shit!\" Mira was plainly surprised by that bit of news. \"You can't fight him!\" Jenny added. \"Do what you have to do and get away from here.\"\n\n\"Dear child, things are hardly that desperate!\" Mira admonished her. \"Did it not occur to you that your friends would all come running to your rescue?\"\n\nJenny caught the subtle hint, as subtle as Mira ever got, and understood that the sorceress was stalling for just a little more time. She had anticipated this herself, but she had never guessed that things would be so well organized. Mira glanced up briefly into the neck of the volcano, then lifted her sword and stepped forward for battle. Sir Remidan and the twins moved to join her.\n\nThe six guards beside Dasjen drew their own swords and stepped out onto the arch of stone to meet that attack. But Mira's advance was only a ploy, meant to attract the full attention of Dasjen and his followers toward herself and away from the core of Mount Drashand over their own heads. Mira paused a step short of the arch and held her ground, not wishing to fight on the narrow span itself if she could help it. The warriors of the Dark had a similar idea; they advanced quickly to meet her at the base of the bridge.\n\nKelvandor suddenly descended upon that unsuspecting knot of armored guards like a falcon, hurtling down to scatter them from the span with a well-aimed fireball. He circled around quickly and landed lightly on the platform itself a moment later, drawing his long sword. Vajerral quickly circled around to land beside him, completing their line of defense.\n\nKelvandor turned to Jenny, and the manacles that held her wrists snapped open in his large, powerful hands as he forced the catches. She stood for a moment, rubbing her abused wrists, then took the long, narrow sword the dragon drew from his harness to offer her. Dasjen stood for a moment to regard them, examining his own position and reckoning his chances. He commanded the larger force, but for the moment two Mindijaran stood between his forces and Jenny. He saw no immediate chance of either regaining the girl or preventing her rescue. At that moment he needed to generate a little confusion, delaying for time until his own guards arrived, and he was not opposed to sacrificing the entire coven to achieve his ends.\n\n\"Take the rest of our people who are armed and attempt to force those dragons from the platform,\" Dasjen told his chancellor softly. \"I will take these six and rid us of that interfering sorceress.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" Ellon agreed, plainly frightened. He had no liking for a real fight. \"What of the girl?\"\n\n\"Slay her if you must, but capture her if you can.\" He cautiously worked his way backwards through the small crowd, then lifted his sword. \"Now!\"\n\nMany of the priests whipped swords out from beneath their robes and rushed the dragons, while those who were unarmed, mostly the naked dancers, retreated quickly to avoid the battle. Dasjen led his smaller group of warriors down the arch of stone to attack the group at the base. Their initial lunge had scattered the four attackers, forcing them off the bridge, even though they lost two of their own number in the attempt.\n\nOne thing became obvious soon enough. The Dark Sorcerers might have been trained similarly to Veridan Warriors but something essential seemed to be lacking. They fought with determination but their magical enhancement barely made them the equals of Dooket and Erkin, two well-trained barbarians. Mira, Jenny and Sir Remidan could make short work of the lot of them, while no mortal could compare to Mindijaran. This battle gave every appearance of being a brief one.\n\nAt least until a troop of two score Imperial guards suddenly erupted from the inner passages of the temple to rush the rather precarious position that Mira and the boys were trying to hold.\n\nVajerral saw no hope for it. She muttered an oath that would have made her mother's ears twitch and leaped from the ledge, gliding down to reinforce their position below. Kelvandor could see that the responsibility for protecting Jenny was now largely his own and assailed the remaining defenders with a vengeance. He did possess two distinct advantages; his enhanced strength was appalling and his thick scales were proof against the sideways blow of any blade, although he was vulnerable against thrusts. Considering the fact that he was wielding a six-foot blade, no one was likely to get that close.\n\nJenny kept one eye on Vajerral and her mistress, and saw that things were not going so well below despite the dragon's help. Dooket and Erkin were back to back and doing their best just to stay alive, while the Imperial guards were pressing in on Mira relentlessly, heedless of their own losses. Sir Remidan was making a very good showing of himself, despite the lack of the armor that he had been obliged to leave on the island.\n\n\"Kelly!\" she shouted, and saw the dragon shift his ears in her direction. \"I can hold my own now. You have to help the others before Mira or the boys get hurt.\"\n\n\"I cannot leave you,\" he protested, bending his neck around briefly to afford her a quick glance.\n\n\"Save Mira!\" Jenny insisted. \"She is the other half of the Prophecy, and she is in far more danger than myself.\"\n\n\"What?\" He turned to stare at her again.\n\n\"Do it!\" she shouted. \"We can hold on here.\"\n\n\"Nuts!\" Kelvandor muttered darkly, and hurled himself toward the side of the platform. A final, powerful sweep of his long tail scattered half of the remaining defenders, sending a couple over the edge.\n\nJenny rushed to the attack, taking advantage of the momentary confusion. There were not above six trained fighters left in the group, although several of the ineffectual courtesans had taken up the weapons of the fallen to add to the confusion. Unfortunately Ellon remained and he was the greatest threat, for Jenny was certain that he was under orders to either capture her or kill her. He now came to the front of the battle, facing Jenny directly. Seeing that his supporters were disappearing around him, he knew that he had to press his remaining advantage while he still possessed one. No help seemed likely to come up the bridge from below for the present.\n\n\"You should have submitted when you had the chance,\" he hissed at her, and his hatred was sincere, no bluff or ploy to unnerve her. \"You have cheated me of my desire, and I mean to make you pay for that. You think that you can defeat me?\"\n\n\"I'm supposed to be good enough to defeat the Dark itself, remember?\"\n\nThat was blasphemy, to his ears at least, and it only infuriated him all the more. He stepped up his attack yet again, pushing himself beyond his limits in his blind hate. Jenny fell back before him, slowly but deliberately leading him out from his supporters toward the center of the platform.\n\nEllon was silent now, his entire existence focused upon the single goal of destroying Jenny. But the young sorceress looked unconcerned; she remained calm and confident, knowing that she would kill him in her own good time. She drew him on, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake, permitting him to think that he was winning.\n\nThen she allowed herself to be tossed back a step after blocking an overhead strike from his heavier blade. Ellon closed eagerly, but he had not reckoned Jenny's cold fury. She ducked under his attack and drove straight into the middle of Ellon Bennisjen and his three remaining supporters, hailing blows and thrusts at Ellon so furiously that the four of them were pushed to the limit fending off her attack. She ignored the guards, striking at Ellon so savagely that she pushed him right through the knot of his defenders.\n\nThe three priests tried to come at her now from behind, attacking her undefended back. But Jenny had not been careless in her fury. She ducked under their blows and caught one in the belly, then turned on the other two. They retreated before her wrath, only to lind themselves trapped between her and the Mindijaran sorceress. Vajerral had been keeping one eye turned in Jenny's direction, and she had come in a hurry when she observed the girl's attack. Ellon only stood with a sorely diminished band of the naked, helpless courtiers, knowing that he could not face the two of them.\n\nThe courtiers scattered, seeing that his presence was no safe place to be at that moment. For Ellon's part, he saw that he would be facing Jenny alone and considered that he still had a chance. He was desperately afraid of death, but his devotion to the Dark remained resolute and he would still give his own life without hesitation just for the chance to take her with him.\n\nEllon raised his sword defensively, and Jenny dealt him a blow that almost flung him backwards off his feet. She battered his defenses again and again, forcing him back near the edge of the platform. Then, when he lifted his sword yet again, she cut in from below to drive her blade deep into his belly. Even as he died, he tried to strike her one last time. She dodged the feeble blow easily and then forced him back by the blade that transfixed him until he stumbled backwards off'the edge of the platform, pulling out her sword as he fell into the fires far below.\n\nIn the need of the moment, Jenny did not even pause. She turned to stare at the pitiful group of courtiers, looking frightened and defenseless as they clustered at the top of the arch. Less than a dozen remained; these were the few who had lacked the courage to take weapons and join the attack, and they certainly had no interest in fighting now. She made a threatening gesture in their direction and they fled down the arch past Dasjen, who had been holding the span from both directions. He stepped back, as much as the narrow passage would allow, looking somewhat bewildered at this turn of events.\n\nPerhaps it was finally beginning to occur to him that he was going to lose this battle.\n\nThe fight below was winding down as well; Dooket and Erkin were assisting Kelvandor in putting a quick end to the remaining score or so of the Imperial guards. Mira quietly walked over to stand at the base of the bridge, looking up at Dasjen. Jenny took her own position at the top. The High Priest stood in the middle of the span, glancing back and forth at the two sorceresses in an indecisive manner. They were at either end of the bridge and he was trapped between. Very much on his mind was the fact that the two of them together were supposed to be a match for the Emperor\u2014more than a match for himself. He made his choice and turned to face Mira, taking a firm grip on his sword; he considered her the easier of the two to defeat, considering the fact that she was firmly mortal and not dragon-trained.\n\n\"Watch him, Lady,\" Jenny quickly warned her mistress. \"He is really the High Priest Haldephren.\"\n\n\"Yes, you told me that,\" Mira said, not greatly perturbed. \"He cannot afford the risk that you might escape,\" the girl added. \"You are the other half of the Prophecy.\"\n\nNow Mira did stop short to stare. \"What?\"\n\n\"Remember what Bresdenant said? White and black, red and blue. That is us, our hair. You are red and I am blue. He knows it. He can defeat the Prophecy by killing you.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" Mira frowned, more determined than ever. She afforded the High Priest an icy stare. \"You're stuck between a rock and a hard place, you know.\"\n\n\"All the same, you cannot kill me,\" he reminded her coldly. \"I'll take one of you at least with me, and then I'll come back for the other.\"\n\nDasjen raised his sword and stepped forward to meet her, at the same time calling upon the Heart of Flame to lend him the magic he needed to be certain of his victory. The massive jewel responded, awakening to a blaze of life, extending without hesitation the power he requested. But it never reached him. Jenny stood between and she had intervened, shielding him from that flux of power. He turned to glare at her, knowing at the same time that his position was far more desperate than he had anticipated.\n\nHe turned back to Mira and advanced, with good reason to believe that he could still defeat her on his own. Mira made no move to meet him, but she returned his first strike easily enough and then pressed her advantage. The arch was narrow, steep and treacherous and she was below him, her own swings and thrusts coming up from beneath so that he had to bend or crouch to defend himself against her. He was in no position to strike or thrust at her in return. He retreated before her, hoping to lure her up the arch to the platform where they would be on even ground and he could press his own advantage.\n\nIt was a foolish strategy, and he did not realize his mistake until he heard Jenny step up behind him. He turned swiftly to counter her attack, and Mira's blade cut deep into his unprotected back. Immediately she used the steel blade to channel a charge of destructive magic into him, seeking to blast him not only in body but in soul. She knew how to destroy him, not just this once but for all time. In a last desperate attempt to save that one part of himself that was immortal, he flung himself forward off the blade, collapsing heavily on the arch directly at Jenny's feet.\n\nHe lay there for a moment, panting in pain and fear, then looked up to see that Jenny was about to strike again and finish what her mistress had begun. Seeking his one chance to escape, he threw his sword at her wildly, forcing her to draw back just long enough lor him to thrust himself over the edge of the arch. He fell for several long seconds, and the fires took him into their embrace.\n\n\"A pity,\" Jenny remarked dispassionately. \"With only a little more luck, we could have been rid of him forever.\"\n\n\"This was not the time,\" Vajerral said as she stepped forward to join them. \"Dalvenjah accomplished no more in her own time, lie escaped into the heart of the volcano even then.\"\n\nJenny looked up at her. \"Did you know that Mira was a part of the Prophecy?\"\n\nThe faerie dragon shook her head emphatically. \"I did not, although I imagine that Mother did. She was, after all, the one who sent you to Lady Mira. For my own part, I was opposed to that.\"\n\nMira afforded her a droll expression, but made no further comment. None was needed.\n\n\"I mean no disrespect by that,\" Vajerral assured her. \"I expected no harm to come of it, but I did think at the time that Jenny belonged with us. There were designs that I could not foresee.\" \"I suggest that we get out of here, while we have the chance,\" Kelvandor remarked.\n\n\"That's a fact,\" Jenny agreed with a weary sigh, pushing her blue hair out of her eyes. \"Why don't the two of you start up the volcano? The rest of us must go back for Wind Dragon.\" Vajerral cocked her head, her ears alert. \"Jenny...\"\n\n\"I'll go with the others,\" she said firmly. \"They came all this way to help me, and chance has been kind to us so far. I owe them any help I have to give in getting back out.\"\n\nVajerral considered that only briefly, and nodded. \"I know better than to argue with you. We will await you outside.\"\n\n\"No, get yourselves away from here,\" Mira added suddenly, quite determined. \"This might soon be no safe place for quite a few miles around. You can meet us on that uninhabited island where we left Staemar.\"\n\nThe two dragons spread their broad wings and lifted themselves into the air, their forms surrounded in a pale blue glow. They employed their lift magic to the fullest, levitating more than actually flying to ascend the core of Mount Drashand. The warm air rising up the shaft beneath their wings helped all the more.\n\n\"Ready?\" Mira asked innocently as she turned to descend the arch.\n\n\"Do you have something in mind?\" Jenny asked suspiciously. \"I think you know.\"\n\n\"Be glad that those dragons don't suspect. But I do agree.\" They paused at the base of the arch, finding scraps of cloth from the fallen to clean their swords. They returned to the base of the bridge, standing one to either side with their drawn swords held between them.\n\n\"Ready?\" Mira asked, and Jenny nodded. \"Then strike an arch.\"\n\nA strand of blue flame, glowing like a sliver of lightning, jumped between their blades. Jenny fed it, making it stronger, and then Mira added what she had to contribute, and they slowly stepped back until the blue arch was as thick as a faerie dragon's arm, buzzing and snapping between the blades. They slowly lowered the swords until the base of the bridge was caught between the two blades, and the arch of magic wrapped itself about the slender tongue of stone and ate away at the structure.\n\nThe stone crumbled and split after a long moment, the arch shattering under the weight of the platform it supported. With that one support gone, the platform above bent slowly in their direction until the two remaining legs bent and then fragmented as well. The entire platform broke free and collapsed into the center of the shaft amid the hail of broken stone.\n\nMira did not even pause to watch an instant beyond that point. She sheathed her sword and turned to run, sending the Trassek twins and J.T. running ahead of her while Jenny followed close behind. They quitted the ledge in a hurry and did not stop running until they had slipped through the maze of dark, close corridors that formed the Great Temple itself to reach the vast chamber that held the stables. Mira paused only a moment to catch her breath.\n\n\"Well, that bit of unpleasantness is done,\" she remarked much the same as if they had just finished cleaning the bathrooms. \"We might have a few minutes before the heat shatters the Heart of Flame. J.T., get us out of here and back to the ship. Jenny, follow him closely. Boys, you stay behind me.\"\n\n\"Right, Lady Mira,\" Dooket agreed eagerly. \"We'll bring up your rear.\"\n\nShe turned to afford him her most droll expression. \"Do you think that the two of you can lift it?\"\n\n\"The horses!\" Jenny exclaimed suddenly. There were also two score or so horses saddled for riding who stood in a dejected knot in the center of the chamber; they had no liking for the underground passages.\n\n\"Oh, there's nothing that we can do for them now, child,\" Mira told her compassionately.\n\n\"They're not even proper horses,\" Sir Remidan added. \"They can't talk.\"\n\n\"No, the horses!\" the younger sorceress insisted.\n\n\"Oh, piffle!\" Mira declared to herself with an impatient gesture, then waved to the cat. \"Come back, J.T. We can ride out.\"\n\nJ.T. cared little for the idea, but only a moment later he was seated in a saddle between Jenny's legs. Mira rode ahead, leading the way, while the two barbarians followed close behind. In this way they reached the side passage leading into the palace in only a few short minutes. Which was just as well, for they had just leaped down from their saddles when the first of a series of tremors shook the passage, raising a cloud of grey dust, and the rumble of distant thunder echoed through the stone itself. A moment later the light breeze in that smaller corridor became a sustained rush of wind. The core of Mount Drashand was aflame.\n\n\"It must have worked,\" Mira observed as she paused a moment to look back, as if she could see through miles of rock to the core of the volcano.\n\n\"Knowing what that thing was and the power it possessed, I don't doubt it,\" Jenny told her. \"We're in a fair amount of danger.\"\n\nMira's only acknowledgement of that was to hurry even faster. They entered the palace through the hidden doors behind the stairs, the two halves now flung half-open by the sweep of wind through the passage. For once the vast structure did not seem so vacant; servants and workmen were in the process of a swift and frantic retreat. They did not likely know of the fall of the High Priest or the destruction of the Heart of Flame, but the entire island knew by now that Mount Drashand was about to erupt violently. That was not a comforting prospect, considering their proximity.\n\nJ.T. permitted them only a brief pause to look around before he streaked ahead, leading the way through the chaos of the palace halls. The distant rumblings of the volcano had become a sustained, fitful roar and tremors now shook the island every few seconds. The polished stonework of the palace was cracking and crumbling, so that chips and splinters rained down with every tremor and a cloud of dust filled the passages like thin grey smoke. The entire structure seemed likely to collapse under any additional stress, and the quakes only became steadily worse and more frequent.\n\nSo far they had not been challenged; the guards were as desperate to abandon the palace as the rest. J.T. suddenly came to an interception of corridors and came to an abrupt halt, pausing only a moment before choosing the hall to their left. Only a few steps led them to doors which opened upon the paved square where they had parked Wind Dragon. He stopped short to look around, ears and tail standing straight up in alarm. The airship was nowhere to be seen.\n\n\"Damn them, they took my frigging ship!\" Mira exclaimed in dismay. She turned to look at the clouds of thick, dark brown smoke pouring out of the volcano above them. Already a cloud of grey ash was beginning to darken the afternoon air. \"So now what? We go down with the volcano?\"\n\n\"I think I know where it is,\" J.T. announced as he turned and ran to their left toward a long, high section of well-tended hedge several hundred feet away. Many miles of such tall hedgerows divided the palace grounds, enclosing walkways and quiet gardens.\n\nBut when they rounded the hedge at the far end, they found not the garden they might have expected but a broad ramp leading into some subterranean chamber or passage far below. The ramp was ordinarily covered by the long, narrow leaves of a door which fit over the top, the two halves now standing open. The doors were wood reinforced by metal and covered on the top by some material made to look like paving stone, now propped open by the metal arms of some mechanism in the darkness below.\n\n\"The doors are open!\" J.T. declared, then turned to look up at them. \"I found this on my search of the underground passage. There are several very large chambers cut into the rock below, perhaps warehouses. Wagons of supplies were surely brought up this ramp.\"\n\n\"And they rolled Wind Dragon down the ramp to hide her below?\" Mira asked dubiously. \"We are discussing a very big ramp and a small ship, but this is something of a tight fit even with the masts down.\"\n\n\"We can only look,\" the cat insisted as he trotted down the ramp, his tail standing on end. They had no choice but to follow him.\n\nThe ramp was certainly steep; Mira had to wonder that anyone would try to negotiate several tons of airship through this opening while descending such a steep incline. There was indeed a chamber below, the stone overhead thick enough to sustain the unsupported roof. The chamber itself was vast, poorly lighted by glowstones. The main passage leading from the Great Temple down to the harbor bisected the chamber, dark and suspiciously foggy with brown, acid smoke.\n\nWind Dragon stood in the near half of the chamber, her masts unstepped but otherwise unharmed, although she appeared to have been the center of some activity that had been hastily abandoned with the start of the eruption.\n\nThen, even as they paused at the base of the broad ramp, the mountain was shaken by the most violent tremor yet. They were thrown to the floor by the force of the quake, fearful that the heavy roof of the chamber would come down on them any moment. That held, surprisingly, although the mechanism which raised and lowered the doors on the ramp pulled loose of the wall and fell, pulling one door closed and bringing the other down with it, ripped from its heavy hinges. The tremor lasted for at least half a minute, but Mira leaped up the moment it began to subside.\n\n\"That was the eruption of the volcano,\" she reported absently as she surveyed the damage choking the ramp. \"Yarg, we could never clear that in time, not even with our powers of levitation combined.\"\n\n\"Straight down, then,\" Jenny volunteered. \"J.T. reports that the passage is open all the way down to the sea.\"\n\n\"Was open,\" the older sorceress corrected her. \"Wecan'ttrust it after that last tremor.\"\n\n\"This chamber held,\" Jenny countered. \"The passage has a much smaller ceiling area unsupported, so it probably came through.\"\n\nThere was no arguing with that; Wind Dragon was not going out the way she had come in, and they were going nowhere without Wind Dragon. Mira climbed the boarding ramp after only a brief pause to consider their very limited options, heading straight to the helm deck while the others prepared the ship to travel. There was little to be done; they could not raise and rig the masts or extend the vanes inside the passage, and the ship was fortunately already sitting on her wheels, extended slightly below the skids.\n\nUsing the smaller thrust vanes, Mira began the slow, careful steps of turning the ship so that her length was aimed down the gentle incline of the main passage, leading toward the sea. Her task was complicated by the fact that she could not steer while the full weight of the ship was resting on the wheels, only when the ship was in motion. Jenny had joined her on the helm deck and stood staring up the darkened passage leading into the core of the mountain, alarmed by a distant grumbling, roaring noise. She suddenly knew what it was she heard.\n\n\"Mira, we have to get under way,\" she said. \"The volcano has erupted.\"\n\n\"I was aware of that some time ago,\" the sorceress answered impatiently.\n\n\"Are you aware that lava is rushing down the tube behind us?\" Mira glanced over her shoulder and saw the glowing mass of red and black rushing down the tunnel behind them. She indulged herself with some creative swearing, although she did not pause in her efforts to get the ship turned. Jenny hurried over to assist her in turning the reluctant wheel as the airship began to roll slowly forward yet again. Her long bowsprit missed the comer of the wall by inches as the ship aligned herself with the passage, and Mira began to apply heavy thrust even as she straightened the wheel. There would not have been time for another try; lava was already beginning to fill the chamber behind them.\n\nJenny watched behind, since her mistress was too preoccupied with keeping Wind Dragon to the narrow confines of the passage to look for herself. The lava poured into the chamber even as the ship disappeared out the other side; she could feel it like a dragon's breath following close behind them. It filled the chamber in seconds, the pressure behind the glowing mass enough to shoot it down the tube at a speed that threatened to overtaken them. \"Step on it!\" Jenny exclaimed.\n\nMira stared at the deck. \"Step on what?\"\n\n\"Faster!\" she entreated desperately. \"It's almost on us.\" \"Faster?\" Mira asked herself. \"We're already pushing twenty knots.\"\n\nShe brought their speed up to thirty all the same, and at Jenny's Irantic urging she pushed the vanes to their limit to increase their speed to forty-five knots. At that speed she expected one of the frequent tremors to send the ship sliding into the walls any time, and the stone ceiling of the tunnel streaked past less than two feet above their heads. But they had no choice; it was a matter of fly or fry.\n\n\"Light ahead!\" Dooket called from the bow where he and Erkin were watching. \"Half a mile at most, clear passage all the way!\" \"J.T.!\" Mira bellowed at her loudest. \"Is the end of the passage Hooded with seawater?\"\n\nHe streaked to the rear deck, panting. \"Not at low tide. I don't know what it would be now.\"\n\n\"The false Emperor's ship came in on the rising tide, but there's no telling how things stand with the island shifting and shaking,\" Mira mused. \"If we hit water, it's going to slow us down.\"\n\nFortunately they were gaining on the lava, moving steadily ahead. At that speed they would be coming up on the end of the tunnel in less than a minute. Already they could see the daylight ahead, and the mercenaries in the bow soon reported that they could see waves rolling well up inside the passage itself. They thought that it would be a tight squeeze. Mira was less worried about that than about the prospect of hitting the water at forty-five knots.\n\nWhen Dooket reported water a hundred feet ahead, she cut all thrust from the vanes and began riding the brakes. Wind Dragon slowed quickly, and a moment later the tunnel was filled with a cloud of spray as the wheels entered the water. The sorceress fought the wheel, hoping to steer as best she could as the ship's j wheels lost contact with the solid floor, but the ship slowed even more abruptly under the drag of water flooding over the wheels and skids. She applied thrust again, fighting the pull to keep up some speed, and Wind Dragon shot out the end of the passage into open air just below the wharf, hurtled off the end of the ledge to settle full into the sea with a tremendous splash.\n\nMira brought the thrust of the vanes back up to full, putting as much distance as she could between themselves and the tunnel.\n\nA moment later the lava hit cold water with an explosive rush of steam which flowed up around them like a wet, heavy fog. But the fiery touch of the lava itself missed the ship, carried even farther away by the boiling waves as lava continued to shoot out the tube behind them.\n\n\"We're free!\" Jenny reported as they left the tunnel behind.\n\nMira did not answer at once, pausing for a quick look around. Thick smoke from the volcano was descending upon the entire ] island along with a rain of hot ash and a hail of burning stones. She could hear the cries from the people trapped in the burning J city, see them lining the waterfront. Some had even leaped in I after the few remaining ships; most of the vessels were already I away, both merchant ships and sleek Imperial galleys pulled far ahead by long, desperate oars. The harbor was choked for miles I with the frantic exodus of ships of every size and type. She glanced : over her shoulder for another look at the volcano, sensing that j their greatest danger lay in that direction.\n\n\"She'll blow for sure,\" she said grimly, and turned back to j her scant crew. \"All hands crank up the wheels!\"\n\nDooket and Erkin hurried to attend to the front wheels, while Sir Remidan assisted Jenny with the back wheels.\n\n\"Hold on tight!\" Mira declared when they had finished. \"Once we're under way, start to work on the vanes and stabilizers immediately.\"\n\nTaking firm hold of the rudder wheel, she coaxed full thrust into the drive vanes. The ship shuddered, gaining speed quickly until she slowly, gracefully rose up clear of the water, actually skiing on the skids of her struts, the troubled waves parting in arcs of spray at the base of each of her four broad, stiffly braced struts. Within moments Wind Dragon was leaving even the swiftest of the true ocean ships behind, hurtling along at more than forty knots.\n\n\"It worked,\" Mira said, glancing over the side. \"So, Beratric Kurgel was right. For once.\"\n\n\"We've made it,\" Jenny observed.\n\nMira glanced at her. \"I don't stop worrying about live volcanos until they are a long, long way behind.\"\n\nFor the moment, however, Jenny felt very safe, the safest she had felt in a very long time. All possible dangers lay behind them, not ahead... assuming of course that they did not hit something substantial in the water and knock a strut off Wind Dragon. The airship's flat-bottomed hull would float; they had already proven that. But the shallow draft, top-heavy vessel was far from seaworthy in rough waves. What was not to say that she did any better planing over the water on her struts, but at this rate she might at least avoid trouble before it overtook her.\n\nMira deftly steered Wind Dragon between two Imperial wargalleys that closed to intercept them, a maneuver that was accidental rather than intentional on their part. She could not imagine that the fleeing Alasherans would pause long enough to trouble an airship that was moving too fast for them in the first place, and the fact that neither arrows nor catapults were loosed in their direction seemed to prove the point. After that they were in open ocean surrounded by the wide ring of islands, the better part of three miles from the harbor. There were many other ships even farther out, but too widely spaced to present any problem.\n\nMount Drashand continued to rumble like thunder, ejecting masses of thick, brown smoke and burning stones, some as large as houses, to crash in flames upon the slopes. The entire city was engulfed in flaming ruin. For the time Jenny was too busy helping rig the ship for flight to worry much about the two dragons. She only hoped that the eruption of Mount Drashand would not bring them back to investigate.\n\nAt that moment Mount Drashand exploded. Jenny happened to be looking in that very direction as it happened. For a moment the volcano shot a tremendous column of smoke and flame straight up, and the slopes of the mountain began to fold inward and roll away in immense landslides, stripping away the cone layer by layer. They had all turned to watch by that time, the ship hurtling over the water untended for the moment as Mira leaned against the wheel. In a final convulsion, Mount Drashand collapsed inward upon itself before it exploded upward and outward in a sustained surge that carried the entire island into the troubled sky.\n\nMira swore to herself and turned back to the helm; she was pushing the ship to its best speed, and she wished for more. They were ten miles or more from the former harbor, at least fifteen miles from the center of that blast and possibly more. She hoped that would be enough, because at forty knots Wind Dragon was only going to gain another mile or two before the fiery, ash-laden shock wave of that explosion overtook them. She waved for the crew to join her on the helm deck.\n\n\"Be ready to hold on,\" she told them quickly. \"If I can see the shock wave overtaking us...\"\n\nThat question became academic as a wall of furnace-hot air struck Wind Dragon like an invisible fist of fiery, bone-shaking noise, nearly lifting the ship from the water with a blast like the worst thunderstroke they had ever heard. She turned back and saw the wall of grey ash moving out across the harbor like a vast curtain, but she felt certain that they could outrun at least the worst effects of that. She was more concerned with the flaming boulders thrown out by that explosion, already arching down toward them like burning meteors, trailing billowing grey smoke.\n\n\"Stand by with buckets of water,\" she continued with her amended instructions. \"If we take a hard strike, be ready to go overboard.\"\n\nDooket and Erkin hurried off in search of buckets, but they were interrupted as the first boulder crashed into the sea not half a mile away, so hot that it exploded on contact with a small thunderclap loud enough to be heard over the relentless roar that pursued them. Boulders continued to crash into the sea around them for the next half-minute, most farther away and none so close as to endanger the ship. The hail of smaller stones that Mira had expected, an inescapable hazard, never materialized.\n\nSoon enough it seemed that they were well out of danger. The sky above them was clear, and Wind Dragon still promised to outrun the diminishing wall of burning dust that followed. Mira ordered the boys back to the task of preparing the ship for flight.\n\n\"You knew that this would happen?\" Jenny asked as she paused a moment in her own tasks to join her mistress on the helm deck.\n\n\"I had good reason to suspect,\" Mira told her, looking just a little self-satisfied with her cleverness. \"We're even now in the center of a ring of islands that once formed the fringe of a much larger volcano. A volcano that, in the distant past, exploded with many times the force that we've just witnessed. Mount Drashand was the modem offspring of that ancient volcano, but for two thousand years ago and more the servants of the Dark set the Heart of Flame in its core and that has served like a magical cork ever since. That volcano had a couple of thousand years of serious mischief to catch up on, all of it in one immense bang.\"\n\n\"And the city?\"\n\nMira frowned. \"I can't say that I have no regrets. Tens of thousands just died from my actions. But they were servants of the Dark, one and all, the evil citizens of the capital of the Dark. They would have carried a thousand times that destruction through the known worlds.\"\n\nMira paused, seeing her student stare in disbelief at the destruction behind them. She turned to look, instantly aware of the wall of water that had only just emerged from the grey curtain of roiling ash. It was perhaps five miles behind and closing steadily.\n\n\"Yarg!\" she exclaimed. \"I forgot that the collapse of the island would cause a tidal wave like that. Tsunami, I believe they're called. Boys!\"\n\n\"Ship ahead!\" Erkin called back. \"Imperial galley.\"\n\n\"Ignore it!\" she shouted impatiently. \"Get the vanes out and at least the main rigging in place. We're either airborne in the next minute or else the survivors will be swimming.\"\n\nThey needed no more urging than that. Jenny hurried to assist them, and even J.T. did what he could to pull ropes. They had the vanes folded out within seconds, but enough of the standing rigging had to be in place or they would never bear the weight of the ship. Mira divided her attention between watching their progress and that of the wave that was gaining on them, determined to get them in the air at the last minute no matter what.\n\nShe did not like to see Jenny climbing around on the vanes themselves to assist in the rigging, not with the ship so unstable, but the girl was the lightest and quickest for that task. Jenny also figured that, if anyone risked falling overboard, then it should be herself; she could fly. Indeed, she had no intention of going down with the ship, as hard as it would be for her to abandon the others. She tossed the final ropes to Dooket even as Wind Dragon shot past the Imperial galley, the larger ship laboring forward under frantic oars, doomed already.\n\nMira hazarded a glance back. They were coming to the far side of the ring of islands that marked the boundaries of the ancient volcano, and shallow water compared to the vast depths of the core. That slowed the wave somewhat, but it also began to climb as it found the bottom. Already it towered a hundred feet or more above the sea, overtaking the Imperial ship. The fore part of the wave lifted the galley as if it were a toy, and the main body of the wave sucked it in. Its splintered debris would emerge in the troubled sea after the wave was past.\n\n\"Ready!\" Jenny shouted over the wind as she ran back along the top of the left rear vane, the Trasseks waiting to pull her in.\n\nMira unlocked the elevator wheel and spun it all the way over, at the same time coaxing thrust into the lift vanes. Wind Dragon responded sluggishly, her nose lifting slowly until the entire ship stood poised on her rear skids. The wave rose like a mountain behind her, waiting to swallow her whole. Then the ship was entirely airborne with a final shudder that caught J.T. by surprise as he sat on the rail watching the wall of water; he disappeared overboard with a startled cry, lost in that instant. Wind Dragon continued to climb steadily, rising up the height of the wave even as the spray and cold wind of its thunderous passage closed about her.\n\nAnd with a final surge she climbed above, the crest of the wave passing within three feet of her rear skids. Wind Dragon continued to climb into the afternoon sky on broad canvas wings of blue and red, fiery destruction to her back and the golden light of the descending sun to starboard. Dooket and Erkin returned to the task of completing the rigging while Jenny hauled up a trailing rope, bringing on board a very wet and frightened cat clinging fiercely to its frayed end. And all the while Mira stood at the wheels of her proud ship, grinning like a pregnant monkey."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "While the Getting's Good",
+                "text": "Jenny returned to the helm deck, carrying J.T. wrapped in a towel. She had gone below to dry the cat as well as she could, and to soothe his shattered nerves with something good to eat. He had looked very wet and ragged after his ordeal, shaking with fright and furious with injured dignity. They paused for a long moment to stare back at the rolling grey cloud which marked the destruction of the capital of the Alasheran Empire. Arcs of lightning rippled through and across the creeping bank of clouds and the sound of distant thunder echoed occasionally, although that thunder more than likely marked continued volcanic activity rather than lightning. The prevailing wind carried the worst of the eruption away to the southeast.\n\n\"Not a bad day's work for two itinerant sorceresses,\" Mira remarked without turning away from the wheels.\n\nJenny did not answer, but she thought that the destruction of Alashera was something of which she could never be too proud. Not even when she recalled the place of complete and ruthless evil that it had been.\n\nJ.T. suddenly shifted impatiently in her arms. \"Put me down, please. I want to go fluff my fur in the sun.\"\n\nShe did as he requested, setting him on the deck and watching as he stalked off toward the bow.\n\nMira glanced over her shoulder at the girl. \"Why are you so sad, child? It's not every day that you get to kick the Empire in the knee and get away with it.\"\n\n\"Oh, it has nothing to do with that,\" Jenny insisted. \"It's just that, now that it's all over, I have to go ahead and become a dragon.\"\n\n\"Great stars, whatever for?\" Mira exclaimed in obvious horror, as if she could imagine a fate no less dire... and had not known this herself for the past half year.\n\n\"Any number of reasons, really,\" Jenny explained. \"What it all amounts to is that I must do this for my own protection. I've possessed dragon magic for so long that I'm no longer mortal, but I won't have complete command of my own magic until I do become a dragon. Also, when I do submit to the transformation, my inner name can finally be secured against any attack. No one, not even Emperor Myrkan himself, will be able to command me against my will.\"\n\n\"But you still don't like it,\" Mira pointed out.\n\n\"Not, it's not that at all,\" Jenny insisted. \"There are many advantages to being a dragon. It's my real nature, so I'll actually be a little more at peace with myself. I look forward to it, without regret or reservation.\"\n\n\"Except one.\"\n\n\"Except one,\" she agreed reluctantly, even sadly. \"Why do I feel like I'm losing an old friend?\"\n\nMira scratched her head. \"Who?\"\n\n\"That person I've looked at in the mirror every day for the past twenty-three years,\" Jenny exclaimed, \"Can you imagine the identity crisis involved in turning yourself into .something completely different? I mean, it can be upsetting enough just having a facelift.\"\n\n\"I dare say,\" Mira agreed, nodding slowly. She was trying hard to figure out just what in the hell a facelift could be. \"And then again, there is Kelvandor.\"\n\nJenny nodded. \"Yes, that's upsetting too.\"\n\nA sharp crosswind stirred her long, dark blue hair. She caught an errant handful and stood for a long moment, fondling it between her fingers while she studied the color in the afternoon sun. \"Kelvandor,\" she said to herself, and sighed. \"It used to be that my way of living with the Prophecy was to never try to look beyond its completion. Now I have that dragon waiting to see what comes after, and I don't know if there will be a future for me. I hate commitments. I have so little control over my own life, it's so hard to know the best thing to do.\"\n\n\"It always is,\" Mira told her. \"When it comes time to dump the chamberpots of your heart, you just get it over with and spare everyone the stink.\"\n\nJenny looked up at her suspiciously, but the older sorceress only stood at the wheels with her usual look of patient bliss. She shook her head slowly and smiled. \"Do you waste time pondering these wofds of wisdom, or do you just make it up as you go?\"\n\n\"I make it up as I go, along with the rest of my life,\" Mira responded without the slightest hesitation. \"I ignore the nonessentials, and I refuse to take anything else at all seriously. It saves worry and needless wear on the digestive tract. But I don't know what to tell you, because now I'm sad, too. I suppose this means that you'll be going away.\"\n\n\"I don't think that you're going to be rid of me quite that easily,\" Jenny said. \"You're a part of the Prophecy yourself, remember. I'm afraid that you are going to be on board for the duration.\"\n\nMira shrugged with almost exaggerated indifference. \"Someone has to come .along and keep you out of trouble. Those two dragons obviously can't stop you from doing stupid things.\"\n\nShe had meant that as a joke, but Jenny took it seriously. She stared at the deck, frowning fiercely. \"I never should have put myself at risk in the first place. I never should have gone.\" \"Ah, but the risk proved worthwhile, and we accomplished far more than we had ever hoped. Consider that practice for greater things yet to come.\" Mira paused a moment, and glanced back at her shrewdly. \"Just how much of all that dribble was true, anyway?\"\n\n\"All of it, if I understand what you mean,\" Jenny insisted. \"Dasjen Valdercon was the High Priest Haldephren. And he was when you first met him years ago, if he seemed unchanged to you.\"\n\n\"He was,\" Mira admitted with considerable regret. \"What happened to him? Will he really be back?\"\n\n\"Soon enough. But I don't have to tell you that. You know more about the ancient wars than I do.\" Jenny licked dry lips, and sighed with regret for past memories. \"I remember him from before, when he wore the Mindijaran form of Keridaejan. He seemed exactly the same person then, for all his vast differences of appearance.\"\n\nShe turned and stared over her shoulder for a long moment, watching the ripple of lightning over the rolling banks of grey clouds. She thought of many things past, and of things yet to be in a very uncertain future. She did not believe Haldephren's claim that he was her father, but she could not entirely ignore it either.\n\nThere were many questions in her mind. But she doubted that Vajerral knew those answers, and Dalvenjah would not say. All the same, she very much wanted to see Dalvenjah Foxfire once again.\n\n\"It's not over,\" she said at last. \"I have the terrible suspicion that it has only just started. If the Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons holds true, we will have to face Haldephren again, and the Emperor Aressande Myrkan, and destroy them both. And I've never heard the slightest hint of how we are supposed to accomplish that.\" \"We take it as it comes,\" Mira answered with her usual lack of concern. \"We blundered through this part, and I suspect that we did well enough. Heaven only knows what we can accomplish when we set our minds to it. I do have just one regret, though.\" Jenny turned to look at her mistress. \"What is that?\"\n\n\"That I wasn't consulted about this prophecy business first.\" \"And you think I was?\"\n\nMira glanced over her shoulder. \"You grew up knowing the part you have to play, with time to prepare for it.\"\n\n\"Time to get thoroughly sick of the whole affair,\" Jenny said with considerable disgust. \"I only wish that it was done and over, and that I could finally have a life of my own.\"\n\n\"We'll just take it all as it comes,\" Mira said. \"But there is just one thing I would like to know. Do you suppose that we might possibly be spared a little rest before this affair of prophecies starts up again?\"\n\nLady Mira knew that of all life's questions, many answers are self-evident by the nature of the question, some mysteries are not meant to be known, and some can only be proven in time. She suspected that the latter case applied here.\n\nShe also knew quite well that fate was an untrustworthy friend at best.\n\nDaylight was fading swiftly as Wind Dragon came in low over the waves before settling into the soft sands well up onto the beach. This group of islands, the first that they had passed over since leaving Alashera, showed a fair amount of damage from the waves generated by the destruction of the volcano. Alashera now lay more than a day and a half behind, although the airship had spent the previous night riding out the gentle waves of the open sea. Curiously, the little ship had survived its adventure without sustaining any apparent damage.\n\nEven more surprising, the crew had survived without apparent damage.\n\nThe two dragons glided down for a landing on the beach even before the airship had settled onto the sand, and the horse Staemar raced up to join them while they were still securing the vanes. The dragons were glaring\u2014in the way only dragons could glare\u2014 and Jenny had no wish to face their wrath. Of course, it would be good practice for facing Dalvenjah's wrath. Mira had no such concerns. The older sorceress was still disgustingly pleased with herself.\n\n\"Are you quite finished?\" Kelvandor asked when the two sorceresses finally saw fit to quit the ship.\n\n\"Yes, I think so,\" Mira agreed amiably. \"There didn't seem to be anything left that we could do.\"\n\nJenny just stood behind her, cringing and shifting nervously. She had never destroyed an island before. Mira was so unconcerned about the whole affair, it was easy to assume that she had done this before. Jenny did not consider that entirely outside the realm of possibility. To listen to Dame Tugg talk about it, some of Mira's parties were that raucous.\n\nA fire was lit in the sand and they cooked their dinner outside that night in spite of the fact that Wind Dragon had a complete galley and no one except Mira liked sand in their food. The sky darkened to velvety black and the stars came out bright and clear. The evening wind was soft and cool; autumn had come even to the South.\n\n\"This reminds me of my father's cabin in the mountains. .. heaven only knows why,\" Jenny commented after dinner. \"Late on cool nights like this we would put marshmallows on sticks and roast them over an open fire.\"\n\nSir Remidan stared at her in shock. \"Great stars, woman! That sounds horrible!\"\n\nHe somehow had the idea that marshmallows were a variety of small crab.\n\nVajerral, who alone knew the true nature of the elusive marshmallow, had a hard time not laughing aloud. Mira looked at each of them in turn, concluding with a rather perplexed expression. \"Jenny, why don't you take your dragon for a walk before it gets late?\"\n\nIt seemed like a good idea to Jenny. Not so much because she wanted to be alone with her dragon, but because she was getting heartily tired of the constant company of Lady Mira, her dippy bodyguards and smart-mouthed cat, and a certain self-important knight. There were rare times, usually no more than once a year, when Jenny did spend a few minutes thinking about her home world. Perhaps their recent adventures reminded her of Krakatoa. Then she would come to her senses.\n\nJenny pulled off her boots and took Kelvandor for a long walk along the deep sands of the beach. Late though it was in the year, she had grown up in the mountains of the dragons and had a high tolerance of the cold. Kelvandor walked beside her in silence, as he often was when alone in her company. She had to wonder what he thought about this whole affair, whether he was amused or resentful, or just confused by it all. Whether he honestly accepted her as she was or if he was just waiting for her to become a dragon, a form far more accessible and acceptable to him.\n\nAs it was, Vajerral elected to follow along behind. Jenny watched the two dragons surreptitiously, reviewing in her mind what she thought about faerie dragons in general, those she knew in particular... and what she thought of herself in relation to them. No, there was no question in her mind that this was what she was meant to be. She watched Vajerral sporting at the edge of the surf, the child in her unable to resist the unfamiliar temptations of the sea, and Jenny thought how right and comfortable it would feel to wear that powerful, long-limbed body or dart over the waves on broad wings. Almost she felt that she had ridden golden wings before, in that hazy deja vu that all dragons had of their previous lives.\n\nThat moment of warm belonging faded quickly, replaced by her ever-present doubt. What if that was only a ploy she used to force herself to accept something that quite frankly scared her half to death? She would have to wait and find out what Dalvenjah intended. After all, Dalvenjah had been threatening to turn her into a dragon for nearly fourteen years, but the dragon had always been suspiciously willing to accept any delay. Jenny had to admit that this could just be one more of Dalvenjah's strange, evasive ploys.\n\n\"I wonder what happens now,\" Jenny speculated after some time.\n\nKelvandor bend his long neck to look at her. \"All I know is that we are to meet Dalvenjah now. Whatever she might have in mind, she will not say.\"\n\nJenny stopped to stare at him. \"Do you think that Dalvenjah knows more about the Prophecy than she is willing to admit?\" Kelvandor seemed amused. \"That goes without saying, but she will never share what she knows or suspects. She insists that common knowledge of the Prophecy would defeat it, and I know that she is correct. I do think that the time has come when she will begin to guide you safely through the completion of the Prophecy.\"\n\nHe stopped short, staring into the darkness. \"Jenny! Vajerral! Something is coming.\"\n\nJenny felt it herself but, unlike the dragons, she recognized that curious magical presence immediately. Indicating for the dragons to remain calm and perfectly quiet, she turned to face the low rise leading inward from the beach. The forest beyond was dark and silent, disappearing into the deep shadows of the night just beyond that first fringe of bushes and low trees.\n\nThat familiar golden form took shape quickly, more so than in his previous visits, standing before them only a few paces away. Vajerral held back as if fearful of the unexpected apparition, peering cautiously over the shoulders of her two companions. Kelvandor recognized that strange figure and was plainly startled, taking a small, hesitant step forward.\n\n\"Father,\" he said softly. Jenny glanced at him, moved by the pain and quiet longing in his voice. He had never known what had become of his father.\n\n\"It is very good to see you again, my son,\" Keridaejan responded. \"I am pleased to see that the two of you have reached an understanding based in love and companionship. You are good for each other, and Jenny will need you in days to come.\"\n\nHe turned then to the girl. \"I would suppose that you know why I have come.\"\n\n\"You said that I would have to become a dragon as soon as our mission was over,\" she answered. \"You also said that I would be betrayed by the one I suspect least.\"\n\n\"You may well be, yet,\" he agreed. \"Time is very short, so listen well. You know that Haldephren claims to be your father, and that he and I once met in your world. What have you always supposed from that?\"\n\n\"That he really is my father, and that you followed him to my world to destroy him.\"\n\nKaridaejan nodded sadly. \"Hear now the truth of this matter. It was a necessary part of the Prophecy that a faerie dragon be reborn in mortal form, and left to the fates that have guided this Prophecy, it came to happen. And yet something went wrong, for the chosen one was bom a male and so unsuited to the Prophecy. Even so, he was still a dragon in spirit.\"\n\n\"My uncle Allan?\" Jenny guessed.\n\nHe nodded again. \"That is so. I knew him well, in my own time, although he never knew me for myself but for the one I pretended to be. For I dreamed the gold dreams and so was warned of the mistake, and of the part that was my own to play. I went into your world and took mortal form, and in that form I sired the one who would be the true object of the Prophecy, using my magic to guide her coming so that she would be female. I am your father.\"\n\nIt all made perfect sense. Jenny suddenly felt that she very much needed to sit down, but Kelvandor was there immediately, his strong, supporting hands on her shoulders. She glanced at him, aware that she had suddenly gained a brother. It was a good thing for them both that incest was not applicable to dragons.\n\n\"So you see that nothing was entirely chance,\" Karidaejan continued. \"Not Dalvenjah's meeting with Allan, nor your own meeting with Kelvandor. But you were wrong in your supposition. It was Haldephren who followed me into your world, where I had remained as your secret guardian. I destroyed him then, for it was his body that was found in the wreckage of the automobile. But he was able to overpower me in my mortal form, and so took my own body.\"\n\nJenny frowned. \"Mother said that you died an alcoholic.\" \"Your mother's memories were not entirely accurate. She never suspected my true nature, and it was better that she did not.\" \"She loved you,\" Jenny added, then glanced up at him. \"Or was that only what she was supposed to remember?\"\n\n\"Such memories are too precious ever to be tampered with,\" he told her. \"I loved her, in my own way. It was not simply to watch over you that I stayed as long as I did. That was something I never intended.\"\n\n\"And Dalvenjah...\"\n\n\"Dalvenjah never knew,\" Karidaejan insisted, his manner suddenly becoming more urgent. \"But your time is almost gone. Your enemies are at hand, and you must become a dragon now or you will be betrayed. Come, my child.\"\n\nHe held out his hands to her, ready to begin the transformation. But Jenny hesitated. \"Who? Who is the traitor?\"\n\n\"I cannot answer that,\" he said, desperate now. \"Please, child. Your lime is nearly gone. You must begin the transformation now.\"\n\nJenny took his word for the truth, as if the memory of these things had always been hidden within her mind and heart. For the first time in her life, she was not afraid of becoming a dragon. She stepped forward to join him, reaching out to take his hands.\n\nTheir world suddenly exploded in a flash of blue light. Jenny was hurled several paces by that silent explosion to lie senseless in the damp sand, her motionless form trailing wisps of blue mist that turned to a thick, sickly black before they evaporated into the cool evening air. Kelvandor and Vajerral both lay where they had fallen. Even though the worst of that blast had been aimed at them, they still clung to the very edge of consciousness.\n\nKaridaejan stood where he was, watching them sadly.\n\n\"I warned you that you would be betrayed by the one you would suspect the least,\" he said sadly, and his form began to fade. \"I am so sorry that it had to be me.\"\n\nVajerral had kept her distance from the spirit of Karidaejan, and she had only been stunned. She lifted her head and shook it uncertainly, then opened her eyes. Before her stood a dark figure hidden within the deep folds of a grey robe, stepping slowly forward with one hand raised to stand before the dragon. That long, withered hand began to move in the slow gestures of a silent spell, but Vajerral was too stricken by the earlier spell to resist. Two bright eyes peered out from the depths of the hood, and Vajerral had a momentary glimpse of a face twisted into horrible lines by evil magic, a face that was now as much canine as that of the man it had once been, a demon in mortal flesh.\n\nVajerral reeled under the effects of that more subtle spell, fighting to hold to the edges of consciousness, her limbs seemingly held in invisible bonds. The dark figure turned and walked almost casually over to where Jenny lay sprawled on the beach. He stood over her for a long moment, again working his subtle magic, and the girl's form glowed briefly. Then she stirred and turned over on her back, and he held out a hand to assist her.\n\n\"Welcome back, my pet,\" he said, his voice harsh and threatening even though he spoke softly.\n\n\"My Lord Emperor,\" she answered, looking about uncertainly. \"It has been a very long time.\"\n\n\"Two thousand years and more,\" the Emperor agreed. \"It could not be helped. But come. Haldephren has made rather a mess of things in his ridiculous efforts to bring you back. I was prepared for that, at least. Then the spirit of that dragon tried to betray me in the end, and it was a narrow thing.\"\n\nShe paused, looking back over her shoulder at the dragon, struggling desperately in the sand. She reached to the side of her belt but, finding no sword, dismissed the matter from her mind. The two dark figures turned to walk calmly down the beach to where an immense black shape was drifting gently down to the sand. It was an airship of vast proportions, five times as long as Wind Dragon, its hull dull and dark, with vanes and stabilizers that were as black as night. Running without light or sound, it settled like a black cloud to the beach just long enough for the two passengers to ascend the ramp, then rose to head out over the waves.\n\nVajerral broke free of the spells which held her then, rising and shaking her head briskly a final time, then hurtled herself into the night sky. She shot out over the sea after the departing airship, already half a mile or more away and gaining both height and speed. A ring of fire began to open just ahead of the dark airship, burning back the night until the passage became a vast oval. Fighting the cold winds that poured through the Way Between the Worlds, the airship disappeared down that long, dark tunnel through the void.\n\nMira and Sir Remidan arrived only a moment later, making use of Staemar's long legs to get them there in a hurry. Mira leaped off the horse's back and rushed over to assist Kelvandor, who was only then just beginning to recover from the shock.\n\n\"Kelly, what is it?\" she asked anxiously as she countered the lingering traces of the Dark spell. \"Who was that?\"\n\n\"We were talking with the spirit of Karidaejan,\" Kelvandor answered, still weak and uncertain. He glanced up, seeing that Vajerral was winging down to land. \"Then someone else came. I think it was Emperor Myrkan.\"\n\nMira frowned. \"Where have they taken Jenny?\"\n\n\"I've got Jenny,\" Vajerral insisted as she landed lightly in the sand beside them Mira stopped short. \"I beg your damned pardon?\"\n\n\"I am not entirely sure, but Jenny apparently had the spirit of another entity within her,\" she explained. \"Emperor Myrkan himself had come. He expelled Jenny's spirit from her body, then brought the dormant spirit of the other forward to take her place.\" Then she paused, a distant but vaguely startled look on her face. The others watched her in mystification.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said, almost to herself. \"The Consort, the missing part in this puzzle. Dalvenjah wondered if Jenny's part of the Prophecy, at least in that variant in which she serves the Dark, was to somehow prepare the way for the return of the Consort, the sorceress Darja. She was closer to the mark than she thought, it seems. Jenny did more than just prepare the way for Darja's return; she has carried the Consort's dormant spirit for years. They must have placed Darja's spirit within her when they had control of her thirteen years ago.\"\n\n\"That's all very well and quite fascinating, but what about Jenny?\" Mira demanded impatiently. \"Is she dead?\"\n\n\"No, not at all,\" Vajerral assured her. \"When the Emperor expelled her, I got her.\"\n\n\"Yes, you did say that,\" Mira declared. \"Where the hell did you put her?\"\n\n\"Oh, there was only one place I could put her. She is within me.\"\n\nMira was so stunned that she sat down in the sand.\n\n\"Ah, it's very simple, then,\" Sir Remidan exclaimed. \"All we have to do is find a new body for her.\"\n\nThe two dragons just stared at him. Even Staemar stared at him. \"Just a moment, and I'll see how she is.\" Vajerral sat back on her tail and assumed a very distant expression. \"Jenny? Are you there? You are safe now. Please speak to me.\"\n\nShe entertained a brief, errant thought about area codes, and bit her tongue. After a moment she stirred and bent her neck to look down at herself, running her hands over her scales.\n\n\"It worked!\" she exclaimed. \"I really am a dragon.\"\n\nThe she paused, assuming a more serious expression. \"You and I need to have a long talk.\"\n\nShe sat back on her tail, obviously preoccupied. Kelvandor glanced at Mira. The sorceress appeared to be utterly devastated by. this unexpected turn of events. And he knew what she was thinking. Mira had been very, very wrong. She had thought that she understood the Prophecy well enough to control it, to shape the future to her desired ends. She had been so busy thinking that she was having her way that she had been neatly and quite simply outmaneuvered.\n\nSir Remidan was also quite miserable, knowing that he had failed a damsel when she had needed help the most. Kelvandor knew that the shock of his own loss would awaken soon enough. He was a dragon, and as such his initial response was to fly and to fight, to hunt down his enemies and get Jenny back.\n\n\"The only thing now is to find Dalvenjah,\" he said gently. \"She will know, if anyone does, what we can do.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dalvenjah,\" Vajerral agreed, speaking aloud again. \"We will take you to Dalvenjah right away. She'll be able to do something to help you, if anyone can.\"\n\nShe paused for a long moment, her head down.\n\n\"Yes, but what can she do? It's not as if there are bodies just lying around waiting for people to pop into them, and I would really like to have my own back. Can she make me one out of magic?\" The dragon paused again. \"It might well be that she can. If not, we will recover your own. Dalvenjah and Allan are the best of all the faerie dragons. They rescued you once before.\" \"Yes, that's right,\" Mira agreed eagerly.\n\n\"I don't want anyone to risk their lives for my body,\" Jenny spoke again, looking at her. \"Damn! Now I know how Charlie McCarthy felt.\"\n\n\"I do think that we should get back to the ship and get away from here for now,\" Mira continued, recovering her composure but still rather subdued. \"I don't want to be surprised a second time. And just one of you try to walk.\"\n\nVajerral rose to follow the others along the beach, seeming to have little trouble walking but still quite distracted, obviously trying to converse with her new other half. Kelvandor walked at her side, the only one of the group with the size or strength to offer her any real support, while Mira walked at her other side.\n\n\"How are you making out?\" she asked cautiously.\n\n\"The body remains my own, and I am in complete control,\" Vajerral explained. \"Only if I withdraw myself can Jenny control any movement herself.\"\n\n\"Is there any real hope of ever getting me back?\" the dragon suddenly asked herself aloud, and answered. \"We will have to see. Perhaps Dalvenjah can work something out.\"\n\nMira turned to the dragon. \"I don't wish to seem uncaring, but can't the two of you talk to yourself?\"\n\n\"That will take a little practice,\" Vajerral answered. \"Yes, a lot.\"\n\nThey returned quickly to the airship, and Mira had Sir Remidan and the Trassek twins set to work on rigging Wind Dragon for flight. Vajerral was taken below, to the larger hold that was hastily converted into a cabin for the two dragons. The boys gave her one of the assortment of pies that they had acquired during their stay in Alashera, but Jenny detested berry. Erkin remarked that if they had known that the whole island was going to explode they would have stolen the pies. Vajerral was tired from the ordeal and was ready for bed, but Jenny remarked that she was not sleepy. Vajerral politely pointed out that she was not likely to ever be sleepy. They finally worked out an arrangement in which Vajerral slept with her eyes open so that Jenny could read.\n\nThat left only the problem of getting the horse Staemar on board the ship.\n\nMira had Wind Dragon in the sky soon enough. Staemar stood in the exact center of the middle deck, his legs braced wide on the boards and his eyes rolling with fright. Mira was too distracted by her personal guilt and misery to be interested to note that horses had a mortal fear of flying. Kelvandor returned to the helm deck a few minutes later, peering over the back rail. The island was now far behind.\n\n\"Have we lost?\" Mira asked suddenly. \"Was that the meaning of the Prophecy, that Jenny would betray us to the Dark whether she wished it or not?\"\n\nKelvandor shook his head. \"No, it is not over yet. They may be stronger for the return of the Consort Darja, but not greatly. They certainly have not defeated us yet. Remember also that we have hurt them considerably in ways we did not expect. And I will tell you that Dalvenjah and Allan are exploring their own lead in finding the secret stronghold of the enemy. After this defeat, we could move against them quickly and crack them like a nut.\" \"If we're lucky,\" Mira correct him. \"Remember that the Prophecy holds that it's up to Jenny to destroy the Emperor and his pals, and right now she's just a figment of Vajerral's imagination.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"We do have to do something about that.\"\n\n\"Now what?\" Mira asked. \"Can Dalvenjah really get Jenny her body back?\"\n\nKelvandor turned to look at her. \"I do think that there is hope. Jenny does have the prior claim to that body.\"\n\n\"Prior claim?\" Mira asked incredulously. \"What are we going to do, sue them? Besides, if it comes to that, possession is nine-tenths of the law.\"\n\nKelvandor smiled. \"What I mean is that there is a link between Jenny's spirit and her body that can never be broken. Perhaps Dalvenjah will know how to trace that link to its other end, and use it to force the Consort out of a body that is not her own.\" \"I've never heard that the true owner has ever been restored to his rightful body once a Dark Sorcerer has stolen it,\" Mira mused.\n\n\"That is because they are careful that the spirit is released to true death, even though the body survives,\" the dragon explained. \"But Jenny is a faerie dragon and always has been, no matter what form she has worn. Also, Myrkan released Jenny's spirit into the night, and Vajerral was there to intercept her spirit and give it sanctuary within herself. Perhaps that has never happened before. How soon can we return to your home if you and I take turns flying this ship without stop?\"\n\n\"Three days at least,\" Mira replied thoughtfully. \"And then?\" Kelvandor twitched his ears. \"First we get ourselves to the world of the faerie dragons as quickly as we can, and then we must ferret out the proper trail in this mess and make an end to this business.\"\n\nMira seemed content, but Kelvandor knew that it would not be so simple as that. He now demanded a double accounting. The first was for Jenny, whom he counted as his mate. The second was for his father. They had not only destroyed Karidaejan and stolen his body, they had held his spirit captive, even forced him to betray and trap Jenny. Now Kelvandor had two tasks, to win back both Jenny's body and his father's spirit. The Prophecy of the Faerie Dragons was far from complete; there were still too many pieces on the board to consider the game over. Jenny had been betrayed to the Dark, but she was still alive and on their side. And Mira still had yet to play her own part in the Prophecy.\n\nNo, they had not lost yet. But they were a long way from having won, and he feared what else the Prophecy may demand from Jenny before it was done."
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Free",
+        "author": "Joseph R. Lallo",
+        "genres": [
+            "steampunk"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Prologue",
+                "text": "In a sunless city, a neatly dressed man with a ghostly pallor sat at his desk poring over the assorted paperwork that came with running a city. A starched white shirt, black slacks, and a ruthlessly precise bow tie made up his uniform. The office was not impressive or ostentatious, though it was well stocked with perfectly preserved antique furniture. Each wall was hidden behind rows of books that lined the built-in shelves. If not for the size of the antique desk, and its brass nameplate labeling him Mayor, one would have assumed he was far lower on the bureaucratic ladder.\n\nAmber light flickered from an oil lamp, cutting through the thin purple haze that hung in the air to illuminate his current task. It was a ledger filled with the costs and earnings from various ventures throughout the city. Red ink scattered over the pages in greater and greater proportions. He observed the sliding profits dispassionately and loaded a fountain pen with ink, then opened his bottom drawer to reveal what might have been a typewriter. It was certainly as large as one, made from oak and brass, but the polished mother-of-pearl keys were entirely numeric or arithmetic in nature. He hefted it with some difficulty to his desk and began to punch in the figures from the ledger.\n\nHis calculation device was just rolling its first result to the row of display wheels when he heard a light knock at the door.\n\n\"Mayor Ebonwhite, I have your three o'clock here,\" stated an even voice from the other side of the door.\n\nEbonwhite placed the pen in its stand and flipped open a smaller ledger. He ran his finger down the page and came to the name's proper entry: L. Alabaster. The lines beneath the entry, usually filled with the details of the meeting and whatever useful information was available about the individual, were fairly sparse. No stated itinerary. Ambitious but unremarkable aristocrat from the northwestern territories, southwest of Circa.\n\nHe smoothed down his waxed black mustache, adjusted his spectacles, and raised his voice. \"Send him in.\"\n\nEbonwhite's assistant opened the door to reveal their guest. The man\u2014like Ebonwhite and most other fug folk\u2014was rail thin and paper white; but that was where the similarity to his host ended. Rather than subdued clerical attire, his clothes were vibrant and dashing. He wore a bright white suit, white gloves, a white vest, and a white tie. His hat was a bowler, also white, and with a white band. The buttons were gleaming polished silver, and he carried a white cane with a garish silver head. His facial hair was similarly ostentatious. A blond mustache, waxed like Ebonwhite's but curled at the ends, joined a Van Dyke curled forward at its pointed tip. Most curious of all, the edges of his eyes were rimmed with black makeup, not as a raccoon mask, but as a tiny thin line, like a stage actor trying to draw the eye to his gaze. Topping it all off was, of course, a brilliant-white cape.\n\nHe removed his hat to reveal slicked-back blond hair and bowed theatrically.\n\nMayor Ebonwhite glanced at his appointment book again.\n\n\"Mr. Alabaster?\"\n\n\"Lucius P. Alabaster, at your service,\" he said.\n\nThe man's voice was as brash as his attire, a trilling near-falsetto that managed to turn \"Lucius\" into a four-syllable word. He held his hat with one hand and offered the other for a handshake. The mayor ignored it.\n\n\"Have a seat, Alabaster. I'm rather pressed for time at the moment. If you would be kind enough to state your business so that we can tend to it quickly, I would be most appreciative.\"\n\n\"Of course, Mr. Ebonwhite, of course. I've come, as all decent men do, with a business proposition,\" Alabaster said, settling into a leather chair opposite the desk.\n\n\"Would you care to elaborate? I've made it my purpose to pursue any and all wise avenues of investment. While I am not so boastful to make the claim that I've found every means of fruitful exchange available, I would be rather impressed if you were to present to me something I've not considered.\"\n\n\"Oh, this matter, it is quite clear, is one to which you have turned a blind eye, good sir. But I, in my devilish cleverness, have come to shed light on this dark corner,\" Alabaster began, building up momentum with each word as though he was launching into a spirited monologue. \"And in my ruthless brilliance I shall\u2014\"\n\n\"To the point, sir. Again, I am quite busy. I have a city to run.\"\n\n\"Ah. Ahem.\" Alabaster stood and placed his hat with care onto his head. \"Then perhaps I shall return in six months, when you shall have more leisure time.\"\n\n\"The task of running a city is a constant one, Mr. Alabaster. I very much doubt I shall have any more time to squander on pointless bluster in six months.\"\n\n\"I suspect you shall. Because in five months, there is an election.\"\n\nEbonwhite narrowed his eyes. \"Are you suggesting the people of Fugtown won't see fit to reelect me?\"\n\nAlabaster sat again, removing his hat and eyeing it. Between comments he plucked bits of fuzz and lint from its surface. \"As you say, the task of running a city is a constant one, and such a constant task requires a steady hand. That is even more important for this city. Fugtown is the largest of our cities, and sits abreast of the largest surface settlement of Keystone. In many ways, the policies and decisions set forth by the man in your seat ripple outward to the rest of our society. As goes Fugtown, so goes the fug! And as goes the mayor, so goes Fugtown. You are the closest our little society has to a designated representative with the surface. It would serve us well to weigh your recent navigation before we allow you another few years at the helm.\"\n\nSatisfied with the state of his hat, he replaced it.\n\n\"Now I am not so shortsighted as to treat the acts of just the last few months as the measure of your skill. It is true that as a whole we have flourished under your wise and reasonable leadership. But still, few memories stretch as far backward as mine. For those records with wet ink on the pages of history, your tale is less than glorious. We can begin with your poor diplomacy, making an enemy of the first Calderan to leave her island since before the fug arose. Then there is the matter of the violation of our best-defended stronghold and the theft of some of our most closely defended goods and secrets. And though I would laud your firm hand in deploying the dreadnought to punish such a crime, you were nonetheless the one to lose the dreadnought as a result. To the people of the surface, until that day, we were the gods. And now they've seen us bleed. That is an injury to our people. One that cuts far deeper than even the loss of the dreadnought itself. The dreadnought at least has been replaced, though I'll note it has somewhat questionably been left undeployed. As for the scar left by its destruction, how long will that linger?\"\n\n\"Unless I have missed your rather graceless subtext, you are suggesting my actions regarding the crew of the Wind Breaker have fallen short of expectations.\"\n\n\"Oh, heavens no. I am not saying that at all. Perhaps your first failure to deal with them was a surprise, or even your second. But by now your repeated defeats and missteps are quite in line with expectation.\"\n\n\"Steps have been taken to deal with the Wind Breaker.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. Yes. I have no doubt you'll soon have them in your clutches, and then we'll just lock them away in Skykeep and then\u2026\" He covered his mouth in mock embarrassment. \"Oh, but of course they've not just escaped our most secure prison, they've destroyed it, haven't they? If I were you, I would consider seeking aid before that crew costs us any more landmarks.\"\n\n\"Am I to understand that your point, which you are so elegantly avoiding, is that you believe you can deal with the Wind Breaker crew?\"\n\n\"I believe I can, and I believe I must. And it would be my honor to do so, if you would sanction and bankroll such an endeavor.\"\n\n\"Forgive me if I decline. As I've said, we have our own measures in place.\"\n\n\"This crew has run rings around your measures thus far.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they have, but even if they are becoming titans in the eyes of the ignorant, you and I know that they are quite mortal. They are still members of this society\u2014a society that we have carefully crafted to make the fug and its people indispensable\u2014and as such they must play by our rules. The crew is nothing without a ship. A ship is nothing without phlogiston. And we are the only source. I've personally overseen the tightening of controls over the very substance that keeps the Wind Breaker aloft. There is only so much of the stuff in circulation, and when it is used up they will have no choice but to come into our clutches again, at which point we will have them, or they'll wither away, at which point they will cease to be our concern. So thank you, but no. I will not take your generous offer of allowing me to finance a task that in short order will solve itself.\"\n\n\"Now, now,\" Alabaster said, grinning to reveal straight white teeth accented with a single silver incisor. \"It is thinking like that which has fostered the belief that we fug folk are timid and fragile things, too frightened to venture out into the light to deal with things personally.\"\n\n\"I prefer to think of us as unwilling to dirty our hands with pointless tasks.\"\n\n\"Pointless? My good sir, these men killed your own nephews, did they not? Have you no sense of justice? Of revenge? Have you no pride? No dignity?\"\n\n\"I am quite proud, Alabaster. Quite proud of what I've made of this town. And yes, these men and women have injured me in a very personal way by daring to defy me. They have bruised me again and again. I couldn't care less about those idiot nephews of mine, but they did bear my name and they were my brother's sons, so their deaths are another slap in the face. But I am a sensible man, and embargo and sanction are the sensible approaches.\"\n\n\"I would not be so sure. These people are swiftly becoming the stuff of legend. And they can thus only be bested by someone cut from the same cloth. What this calls for is a grand gesture by a grander foe.\"\n\n\"And that would be you? A man my researchers\u2014who are quite thorough, might I add\u2014have only seen fit to describe as 'unremarkable.'\"\n\nAlabaster's face became stern. \"Perhaps you've heard of Ferris Tusk.\"\n\n\"Of course I know Ferris Tusk. He is the whole reason Fugtown stands as the beacon of commerce it is today.\"\n\n\"Precisely. And did he do it by lying idle? By waiting? No! He rose up! He met the surface dwellers face to face! Toe to toe! He burned the libraries, he stole the tools. He put the fear of the fug into the people above.\"\n\n\"Granted. But you, sir, are no Ferris Tusk.\"\n\n\"I'll grant you that as well. But I counter that Ferris Tusk was no one either, until he faced foes such as Admiral Maxwell, or when he achieved such feats as toppling Rigel Tower in Circa's capital! A man is only as big as his foe, and the Wind Breaker crew, they are the ones who shall wipe away the name Ferris Tusk from the hearts and minds of the people and replace it with the magnificent Lucius P. Alabaster!\"\n\nHe finished the proclamation with a flourish, holding his hand aloft and remaining in position as though awaiting a crowd to throw roses.\n\n\"If that will be all, Alabaster. Mr. Fross will see you out,\" Ebonwhite said.\n\nThe mayor drew a line through Alabaster's appointment and resumed clicking at his calculation device.\n\nAlabaster sneered and twisted the end of his mustache.\n\n\"Very well then, Ebonwhite. I suspect I shall hear from you again when you discover your foolproof solution to your little dilemma isn't quite so foolproof as you believe.\"\n\nHe turned, his cape flaring around him as he did, and strutted out the door."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "A freezing rain began to fall as Alabaster made his way to the top of a nearby mooring tower. Little more than a glorified scaffolding, the tower was a necessary addition to Fugtown. The city itself was the husk of a city that had existed prior to the calamity that brought the fug. Even after many years of redevelopment, barely one in every hundred buildings was inhabited. Most travel now utilized either the ubiquitous airships or the scattered funiculars from the surface, and it was unfeasible to install a full airfield, as ships came and went infrequently enough to make the key points of the city accessible. Thus, near each cluster of populated buildings was a row of mooring towers for personal airships.\n\nAlabaster's ship of choice was as obnoxious in its appearance as he. The envelope, a huge sack filled with phlogiston, was embroidered with his full name in glorious gold on stark white. The gondola slung underneath was a curving, ornate cigar of a shape painted in the same perfect white with golden filigree. A man, dressed in a plum-colored chauffeur uniform, was perched atop the gondola with a broom, scrubbing away a dusting of purple deposited by the fug. Judging by the deep purple stains that had settled onto every other surface, keeping the surface of the airship white must have been a round-the-clock job.\n\n\"Mr. Mallow, let us go,\" Alabaster said curtly.\n\nThe chauffeur deftly hopped to the scaffold and pulled the door open for his employer. \"Mr. Alabaster, I trust things went well?\"\n\n\"Mayor Ebonwhite is the worst of all possible worlds. A damn fool with no vision who has a simple solution to a complex problem,\" he grumbled as he stepped into the gondola.\n\nThe inside of the gondola\u2014even if it was only large enough for Alabaster, his driver, and perhaps a single additional guest\u2014was an order of magnitude more opulent than the entire office of the mayor. Overstuffed seats, cabinets loaded with expensive spirits, and even a hand-cranked music box filled the interior. Mr. Mallow stepped into the gondola and opened the liquor cabinet with one hand while pulling the knot from the mooring line with the other. The vehicle wasn't designed with people of his stature in mind. Standing a head taller than Alabaster and enjoying a lean but comparatively stronger build as well, Mallow was what people in the fug would call a \"grunt.\" Less intellectually gifted, grunts were larger, stronger, and made up the bulk of what passed for the working class beneath the fug. Despite having to stoop slightly when within the gondola, he showed all the dexterity of a juggler as he pulled the door shut, poured a snifter of brandy, set a record on the player, and cranked it in a choreographed dance of domestic servitude. Though the airship rocked at the mercy of the air currents, he didn't spill a drop of brandy; and when his boss was properly situated and seen to, he stepped through a small hatch at the head of the gondola and settled into the pilot's seat.\n\n\"He did not see fit to entrust you with the solution to his problem?\"\n\n\"Of course not, you buffoon. He believes the problem shall solve itself. He's through throwing time or money at it.\"\n\n\"Then you shall be left smiling as the plan blows up in his face, sir.\"\n\n\"No, Mallow, I won't. Because the most infuriating thing is that he is right. Starving these rogues out is well within his ability. His solution is sound. That is why he could not be convinced otherwise. He's a shortsighted fool, but an intelligent shortsighted fool. The worst kind.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 see, sir.\"\n\n\"No you don't, Mallow, because while you are many things, a thinker you are not. However, I do see. And what I see is that the only way to make Ebonwhite see is to take his solution away from him, and each solution after that, until he has no choice but to turn to me. And then,\" he proclaimed, jabbing his finger into the air, \"Lucius P. Alabaster shall have his day!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Mallow. \"Shall I head directly home?\"\n\n\"No, Mallow. Linger for a few moments. I shall pen a message. When I am through, take it to the messenger to deliver in as expedited a manner as he is able. Spare no expense.\" He selected a pen and paper from the small side table. \"The sooner this message finds its recipient, the sooner the sun rises on my new glorious day.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "Captain McCulloch West stared down from the deck of the Wind Breaker at the precarious wooden catwalks of the town called Lock. Despite some unpleasant times in this place, it had remained the safest harbor in all Rim for the airship and her crew. An icy wind blew across the deck, curling the misty sea air into a thickening crust of frost on the oak and brass of the deck. Winter was well and truly upon them. It was a terrible time to fly an airship, so much so that it kept many of the other traders from the air. For Captain Mack, all that meant was that there was more money to be earned for the crew bold enough to earn it.\n\nHe pushed back his hat and pulled the dark spectacles from his eyes to rub them clean on a handkerchief, one ear tipped up to listen to his idling turbines.\n\n\"Miss Graus,\" he called.\n\nAt the sound of her name, the ship's engineer popped up from a steamy opening in the deck, wiping grease and sweat from her forehead despite the cold. If one were to imagine an individual as different as humanly possible from the captain, one might settle upon a person like Amanita Graus. She was a young woman, dark of skin and short of stature. Though at present she was in her work clothes, a sturdy outfit of canvas and leather, there remained a subtle elegance to her that clashed with the concentrated gristle that seemed to compose her captain. The clothes were artfully stitched and accented, care given to form as well as function. From the hardy boots with arching, artful stitching to the polished goggles with a butterfly accent, every last patch of her work uniform was a masterful union of art and craft. Even her corset helped to keep the strain from her back as she heaved heavy machinery about.\n\nShe pushed up her goggles, revealing a bit of an inverted raccoon mask of grime-free skin around her eyes, and slipped her wrench into a bandoleer of others. \"Captain?\" she replied.\n\n\"Turbine three sounds like she's grinding a bit,\" he called.\n\nShe tipped her head in imitation of his own gesture.\n\n\"Aye, Captain. Sounds like she's picked up a bit of ice. She'll quiet down once she warms up a bit.\"\n\n\"Don't make claims like that if you're only dreaming them up to keep from having to scurry up the rigging.\"\n\n\"Captain, I'll gladly scurry up the rigging if you'll get someone down here to grease up these bearings and get them back in place.\"\n\n\"What're those bearings for?\"\n\n\"They're part of the primary linkage between the ship's wheel and the turbine manifold.\"\n\n\"And what'll happen if they don't get put to bed proper?\"\n\n\"Once we get to full pressure you won't be able to steer the ship. Valve three will lock up, the whole system will seize, and the port side of the ship will blow off.\"\n\n\"\u2026 I reckon you'd best be the one to put them to bed,\" he said.\n\n\"Aye,\" she replied, slipping her goggles back on and disappearing below the deck again.\n\nMack pushed his hand into his long leather coat and tugged a pocket watch from the vest beneath. \"Fourteen minutes past,\" he muttered.\n\nStowing the watch, he instead pulled a spyglass from his pocket and raised it to his eye.\n\n\"And here comes the crew now. Heaven forbid they show up with time to spare before we shove off.\"\n\nNita poked her head up again. \"Are you talking to me, Captain?\"\n\n\"Just keep at it,\" he snapped.\n\n\"Aye, Captain. Just a bit more and we'll be all set.\"\n\nHe squinted as a figure sprinted along the frosty, crowded pier toward the ship. At a glance one might not know what to make of it. The individual was barely taller than a child and bundled up from head to toe. A bright red stocking cap revealed a flutter of blond hair peeking from beneath it, and a sparkling pair of blue eyes shone in the narrow gap between the cap and the matching scarf wrapped around the rest of the face. The figure wore a heavy leather coat that almost dragged on the ground, its sleeves dangling a good six inches past the hands hidden within. And yet, with barely a distinguishing feature to be seen, anyone familiar with the lunatic moving with reckless abandon across a slippery, rotten walkway thousands of feet above the churning waves would have known precisely who it was.\n\n\"Looks like Lil found what she was after,\" Mack said.\n\nLil skipped the ladder dangling from the bottom of the Wind Breaker's gondola, instead leaping first to the mooring post and then to the mooring line, scurrying up with all the agility of a monkey. As she drew nearer, the eager young deckhand's voice began to rise above the howling wind and hissing machinery.\n\n\"Nita, Nita! They had it!\" Lil crowed as she hopped over the railing and scrambled across the icy deck.\n\nShe skidded sideways across half the deck and snagged the edge of the opening concealing Nita to keep from flying off the other side.\n\n\"I talked to the ol' coot who runs that antique shop, and he said a fella showed up a few days ago with a big stack o' books. There was only one copy of this one, so he sold it to me cheap.\"\n\nNita poked her head up and pushed her goggles up again. \"That's wonderful. Usually when something is rare like that, the shopkeeper can name his price.\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's what he thought too, but he obviously ain't never haggled with a Cooper. I told him if there ain't but one, then he ain't never gonna sell but one. And if he ain't never gonna sell but one, he ain't gonna make much money on 'em anyhow, and since I was the only one lookin' to buy one, either he gets what I give him or he gets nothin'. He saw it my way after a bit.\"\n\n\"Lil, Nita's putting the bearings to bed. You leave her be,\" Captain Mack scolded.\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n!\" she said with a crisp salute. She leaned low and whispered. \"You an' me are gonna read through it after supper, right?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it,\" Nita said, swapping out her wrench for a smaller one and ducking away again.\n\n\"Lil, did you get what I sent you for?\"\n\n\"'Course I did, Cap'n!\" she said, clomping to the steps leading up to the helm.\n\nShe slid one of the dangling sleeves up to reveal a dainty hand and unbuttoned one of the side pockets of her coat. After a bit of rummaging, she revealed a bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. \"Got quite a bit of mail this month, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Good, good. Get it down in the galley and we'll divvy it all up later. Where's the rest of the crew?\"\n\n\"Gunner went wheelin' and dealin' with our usual guy about the phlogiston. Seems like the news ain't good on that one.\"\n\n\"When's the news ever been good for us?\"\n\n\"Well, Butch seems happy with what she picked up from the market. Says the food always keeps better when it's cold. Lots of fresh stuff this time around, not so much pickled and salted. Coop's found some fun stuff too, I hear.\"\n\n\"So long as Coop has his fun, it's all worth it, I reckon,\" Mack rumbled.\n\nHe raised the spyglass again and spotted a few more familiar figures lumbering toward the ship with a good deal less energy. They boarded one by one, sounding off through a brass speaking tube beside the ship's wheel to let the captain know they'd arrived.\n\nNita finished her work on the system and slid the section of deck back into place. Coop, the other deckhand and Lil's elder brother, made his way to the deck and with Nita's help unmoored and hauled in the lines. Though he was a good deal taller and lankier than his sister, the family resemblance in both face and personality was uncanny. The stout ropes crackled and stubbornly refused to coil neatly.\n\n\"Dang it, I hate the winter,\" Coop muttered. \"Ropes freeze solid and I can't hardly do a thing with 'em.\"\n\n\"Whole ship's hangin' kind of low, Cap'n. The envelope's more white than red. I reckon we better shake some of this ice off if we don't want to burn up all the extra coal we took on,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Yep. She's sluggish.\" Captain Mack leaned down to the speaking tube. \"Everyone, to battle stations. Stand by to de-ice.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" replied Coop and Lil, scurrying down through the hatch to the lower decks.\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" added Nita a moment later after pulling on her plush fur-lined coat.\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" added a somewhat intellectual voice from across the talking tube. \"Though I would be remiss if I didn't inform you that the mayor of Lock has gently requested we stop 'de-icing' so close to the port.\"\n\n\"Let me ask you this, Gunner. Does he like the goods we've been bringing in from Caldera?\"\n\n\"He does.\"\n\n\"And does he like the money his town's been making by selling them goods?\"\n\n\"He does.\"\n\n\"Then until he feels less gentle about it, he's going to have to put up with how I do business. You about ready down there?\"\n\n\"Ready, Captain.\"\n\nCaptain Mack spun the wheel and felt the ship reel ponderously aside, weighed down by a crust of ice several inches thick in places. The turbines spun up, and the wind washed over the ice-laden envelope. Once he was heading head-on into the wind and out over the sea, Captain Mack leaned low to the speaking tube.\n\n\"All hands brace for de-icing,\" he said. \"Ready one and two. Fire.\"\n\nOn his order, the two angled front cannons of the ship burst forth with a thunderous report. The recoil sent the ship swinging backward and sent a ripple of vibration from stem to stern. The shock cracked the ice away, turning the crust clinging to the deck to powder and shedding vast sheets from the envelope and the hull of the gondola. Like a majestic beast waking from a long winter's sleep, the Wind Breaker shook off its coating of white to reveal the gorgeous colors underneath.\n\nUnlike the garish appearance of Alabaster's vessel, the Wind Breaker was elegant. The envelope was a rich crimson and bore five great turbines of polished brass etched with intricate designs. The gondola was dark-stained oak. Sweeping highlights of gold had been applied with tasteful restraint. Now free of the excess weight, it slipped gracefully through the sky and out over the open sea."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "Nita Graus wrung her sore fingers as she stowed her shovel. A brief shore leave after a long time at sea typically ended in the same way for all. The crew would gather as soon as their duties were complete to share what they'd learned and what they'd spent their hard-earned wages on in the town. For an airship, though, nothing during the winter was typical. The efficient, albeit bombastic, procedure for shaking off the ice that inevitably accumulated during the time ashore worked wonderfully for the envelope and hull. For the deck on the other hand, it only managed to pulverize the ice. That meant before any leisure time, they had to clear it all off the old-fashioned way: shovels and elbow grease.\n\nTwo long hours of scraping, sweeping, and heaving ice and slush overboard finally finished the job. Nita had the enviable permission of getting down off the deck a minute or two before the others, but it was for the unenviable reason that her shovel had to instead be put to work shoveling coal into the boiler. It traded the bitter cold for stifling, humid heat. Such a harsh swing in such a short time did curious things to the anatomy, not the least of which was cause a sharp stinging pain in her extremities for the first half hour after she was through, and almost comically frizzing her hair.\n\nShe reached the galley just as the rest of the crew filed gratefully in for a well-deserved meal.\n\n\"I swear that ice gets heavier every time,\" Lil muttered wearily, shuffling up to join Nita at the counter at the front of the galley. \"I can't hardly lift my arms.\"\n\nThe bulldog of a woman behind the counter set out a row of mugs and muttered something in a language Nita had yet to hear named. Butch, despite Nita's expectations, was one of the finest cooks and most able medical practitioners she'd ever had the good fortune to meet. She was also quite sweet, though she'd never seen fit to let her face know. With her jowly frown and formidable physique one would imagine Butch to be tough as nails and mean as sin. In reality she was only the former.\n\n\"I can vouch for Lil, Butch. She has been lifting with her knees. It's just awful up there lately,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yeah, see?\" Lil said. \"I don't always ignore what you tell me. Just most of the time.\"\n\nShe snagged the first two cups Butch filled and handed one to Nita. Lil downed hers in one long guzzle, while Nita sipped her own. It was a warm spiced cider, the sort of drink that felt like a glorious fire burning down one's throat to chase out the cold.\n\n\"Mmmm\u2026 I swear, Butch, this cider is the only thing that's kept me alive through his wretched winter,\" Nita said as she took a seat.\n\n\"They don't have winters this bad in Caldera?\" said Coop, trudging in after them and taking his mug of cider.\n\n\"We don't have much of a winter at all. Not compared to this, anyway.\"\n\n\"Honestly, Coop,\" Gunner scolded, \"how many trips to Caldera have we made during the winter? Have you not noticed they never have snow on the ground?\"\n\nGunner was, as his nickname would imply, in charge of munitions on the Wind Breaker. He was the only member of the crew to receive a formal education in a degree-granting institution, and he seldom missed an opportunity to remind his fellow crewmembers of that distinction. They, in turn, seldom missed the chance to remind him that his college education hadn't kept him from blowing off several fingers over the course of his career, nor had it kept him from regularly singeing off his eyebrows. He was skilled with explosives and firearms, but skilled and safe didn't always overlap.\n\n\"I figured we always showed up on a nice day,\" Coop said with a shrug, as though it was an entirely understandable mistake.\n\nGunner shook his head. \"Each day I grow a bit more concerned to know how frequently my life is in your hands.\"\n\n\"Just because I don't spend all my time figurin' things that don't need figurin' doesn't mean I ain't good at my job,\" Coop said.\n\nButch set out the first few plates of that night's meal. This was the one part of her culinary skill set that fell short. Her food was delicious and nutritious. A single bowl of her famous stew was enough to keep the crew working through the sixteen-hour days that were the norm. But she had never really gotten the hang of presentation. Her concoctions all fell into either the \"crispy and brown\" or the \"mushy and brown\" side of the spectrum. Today's meal was a thick soup with a stack of flaky biscuits to go with it.\n\nCoop took his bowl and palmed three biscuits. Before he turned away, a small furry hand with spidery fingers reached out from between two buttons on his shirt and snagged a fourth. The space between the buttons was too small for the biscuit, but that didn't stop the little unseen critter from trying to pull it inside. Finally Coop took a seat and snatched the biscuit away.\n\n\"Nikita, what'd I say about eating while you're tucked away in there? If I end up with crumbs in my britches just one more time, I ain't letting you in there anymore.\"\n\nCoop looked up to find the rest of the crew staring at him. \"I meant my shirt, not my britches,\" he clarified.\n\n\"And you believe that is somehow better, do you?\" Gunner quipped.\n\nCoop unbuttoned his white shirt and stuck his hand inside. A small bulge beneath his shirt stirred, then a creature somewhere between a cat and a monkey crawled out. It had ghostly gray fur, a vaguely bat-like face, a prehensile tail, and cunning hands with a bizarrely long middle finger. The thing managed to be both adorable and hideous in equal measure. It was an aye-aye, one of two on the ship. This one was named Nikita. Ever since her rescue from an unfortunate attempt on her life, she and Coop had become inseparable. It didn't seem to bother the deckhand.\n\n\"All right, all right. Everybody get your plates and settle down,\" said Captain Mack as he entered. \"I've got the wheel propped for course, but I don't trust these winds, so I want to get the meeting done and my belly filled before too much longer. Everyone present?\"\n\n\"Everyone except Wink,\" Lil said, loading up two bowls and plopping down at one of the bolted-down tables beside Nita.\n\nThe captain tilted his head up and bellowed. \"Wink! Get down to the galley, now!\"\n\nIn moments a second aye-aye came skittering through the door and climbed up to the table beside Nikita. The two creatures were quite similar in appearance, though each had their distinctive features. Wink wore an adorable little eye patch and was a bit larger, while Nikita's tail was missing a large tuft of fur near the end where she'd nearly had it cut short during her final moments under the care of her prior \"employers.\" It was also notable that while Nikita's face was perpetually timid when she wasn't tucked away inside Coop's shirt or jacket, Wink had mastered the art of making his tiny face look positively surly.\n\nCaptain Mack loaded up his mug and bowl and leaned against the wall between two of the tables, sipping from each rather than wasting his time on utensils. \"Let's have the reports. How'd everyone do? Gunner?\"\n\n\"Not much good news I'm afraid. I got three canisters of phlogiston, and not one of them is completely full. All told we might have two full ones if we married them up,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Blast it, why didn't you get more?\"\n\n\"There wasn't any more to be had! You know as well as I how much the fuggers have squeezed off the supply. I only got the third canister by underscoring how we were the crew who took down the dreadnought. If it wasn't for our reputation, we'd have run short of phlogiston a month ago.\"\n\n\"How do we look on the inventory?\"\n\n\"After that clash with the wailers we were down to six canisters. This brings us to about eight. At the rate we've been losing the stuff between new gashes and pinpoint leaks, I wouldn't give us more than two more months of staying in the air if we don't find a steady supplier.\"\n\n\"What about the rest?\"\n\n\"Coal isn't a problem. Our stores are brimming with it. We're getting low on burn-slow again, but there's a bit more of it back at the stash. Ammunition is plentiful. As a matter of fact, our munitions supplier threw in an extra case of packed charges and told us to 'down some of them fuggers for me.'\"\n\n\"We're not in the business of killing, we're in the business of trade.\"\n\n\"That's not how most of Rim sees it these days.\"\n\nMack drained his mug and set it down to free up a hand for biscuits. \"Anything else?\"\n\n\"I was able to find a lens that might work for\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm not interested in that gadget of yours, Gunner.\"\n\n\"Captain, you saw what it did to that scout's envelope.\"\n\n\"I also saw it burn through enough phlogiston to keep us aloft for weeks. Like I said, we're not in the business of killing, so set it aside. Coop, how about you?\"\n\n\"Spent some time in the tavern,\" Coop said.\n\n\"That's nothing to brag about, Coop,\" Lil said.\n\n\"I reckon it is something to brag about, Lil, on account of what I heard while I was there. You now Johnson? Fella with the three teeth and the crooked nose? Anyhow, he said he had some sort of new stuff. Better than phlogiston. Said he'd sell me the recipe if\u2014\"\n\nCaptain Mack rolled his eyes. \"You didn't pay him nothing, did you?\"\n\n\"Nah. I reckon it was best to run it by you first.\"\n\n\"Johnson ever tell you why he only has three teeth and a crooked nose?\"\n\n\"Nah.\"\n\n\"He tried to sell me that story six years ago. The man's been selling that recipe for fifteen years. Next time you see him, you knock out another couple teeth and let him know who told you to do it.\"\n\n\"Sure thing, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"How'd you do with trade?\"\n\n\"Darn good, Cap'n. We took in something like four hundred victors for them dresses Nita gave me. And that fugger booze is still fetching a good price. Oh, Nita, I got my hands on some of that ugly wood you said your folks were on about.\"\n\nNita's face brightened. \"You got some purple gnarlwood! How much?\"\n\n\"Roundabout twenty board feet, I reckon.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. I know at least a dozen carvers who would give their firstborn child for enough gnarlwood to do a decent inlay.\"\n\n\"You Calderan folk do like some strange stuff, Nita.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"I could say the same for you Rim folk. Those dresses you've been selling are practice designs by apprentices. If I hadn't asked for them on your behalf, they would have been burned.\"\n\n\"Guess it takes all types,\" Coop said.\n\n\"You all can jaw about the gossip later. I've got to get back to the wheel,\" Mack rumbled. \"Lil, you got the mail. Anything else I need to know about?\"\n\n\"Not as such, Cap'n,\" Lil said.\n\nHe nodded. \"Glinda, we set for food and medicine?\"\n\nThe captain remained the only member of the crew who referred to Butch by her given name, a lingering side effect of their former status as husband and wife. Butch's reply was her usual half rant. Nita only understood every third word, but since Butch made it a habit to say three times as many as she needed to, that was enough to get the gist. Broadly speaking, the answer was a colorfully phrased \"yes\" with a few admonishments about suggesting she didn't know how to fetch such things by now.\n\n\"Fine, fine. Miss Graus, how's the inside of the ship looking?\"\n\n\"Running smooth, Captain,\" Nita said. \"I've finished swapping out all the bearings. A few more valves and seals and the Wind Breaker can start using Calderan replacement parts for most of the key assemblies, so we won't have to worry so much about getting parts second-or thirdhand from the fug folk.\"\n\n\"But we can still use the fug-made parts if we get them.\"\n\n\"Yes, Captain. You'll have the only ship in the sky that can go both ways.\"\n\nCoop and Lil snickered.\n\n\"Settle down, you two. But while we're on you two, how's the education coming along? These two coached up on the boiler yet?\"\n\nLil shrugged a bit, trying to pull her head into the shoulders of her oversize overcoat like a turtle.\n\n\"Well\u2026 Lil's coming along. She can swap ruptured pipes well enough. Coop too.\"\n\n\"Wink could swap pipes. I'm talking about the tricky bits. Turbines, engines, them parts.\"\n\n\"They're\u2026 coming along,\" she said a bit more slowly.\n\n\"So if we ran into the wailers tomorrow and you caught a spike while you were up there getting the turbines spinning again, would Lil or Coop be able to get them spinning again instead?\"\n\n\"Not just yet.\"\n\n\"Then they ain't coming along,\" Mack said. \"Damn it, crew. All these years we had to toe the line the fuggers drew because we couldn't fix our own ship. Now that we've got an engineer on board, you folk should be tripping over each other to learn how to do what she does. If in two more weeks Gunner and Nita are still the only two members of this crew who can keep the engine pumping, then I'm going to have to start thinking about just how much I want to keep the rest of you.\" He thumped down his now-empty bowl. \"That takes care of the inside. Wink, how's the outside?\"\n\nThe patch-wearing aye-aye began to tap one of his long fingers on the table. His official purpose on the ship was as the inspector. Every fug-made ship in the air, and thus every ship in the air, was assigned an inspector to track down leaks and wood rot while the ship was in flight. That was the official reason they were on board. The unofficial reason, and one that only the Wind Breaker crew had discovered, was to spy on the activities of the crews to make sure they'd been obeying the rules set forth by the fug folk. Every time they returned to port, the inspectors would tap out a message, and if any rules were broken, the fug folk would know and take appropriate action. Wink and Nikita were the only two aye-ayes who no longer delivered messages to the fug. Their tapped-out messages nevertheless remained quite effective for everyday communication, even if it was taking a bit of effort to train out some of the linguistic quirks.\n\nNo big leaks in the envelope. Two boards, deck two, starboard, stern, were rotten. Gig was loose. Everything else was good. Butch gave Wink good food now, he tapped.\n\nButch gave Nikita good food too now, Nikita chimed in.\n\n\"Now, Nikita, what'd I say? You ask nice. You too, Wink,\" Coop said.\n\nNikita looked to Coop, then tapped again. Did Coop gave Nikita good food instead?\n\nBoth aye-ayes looked to Coop expectantly.\n\nCoop shrugged. \"Eh, that's halfway there. At least it's sort of a question.\"\n\nHe fished a couple of pieces of breadfruit out of a pocket and handed them to the creatures.\n\n\"I'm impressed,\" Nita said. \"Even last week neither of them knew how to ask questions. If they can figure out present and future tense, they'll be able to speak as well as any of us.\"\n\n\"Maybe they'd be able to teach Coop,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Ain't nobody need to tell me how to talk proper.\"\n\n\"Clearly,\" Gunner said.\n\nCaptain Mack forced down a biscuit and wiped his hands. \"Lil, let's get the mail call over with.\"\n\nLil nodded and pulled the paper bundle from her pocket. She produced a blade from somewhere inside the coat and cut the twine tying the bundle. The package split to reveal a stack of letters and small packages, mostly wrapped in their own paper covering. She shuffled through them, dealing them out into piles.\n\n\"Cooper\u2026 Cooper\u2026 von Cleef\u2026 Cooper\u2026 Heh, there's one for 'The Calderan Girl,' Nita\u2026 And the rest are West,\" Lil said, squinting at the writing. \"I gotta say, a girl could get used to having an address. This is twice in a month I heard from my cousins. I wasn't even sure we had any cousins left.\"\n\n\"Me neither,\" Coop said. \"Shame they all seem to want to borrow money. Guess that's how you find out how much family you got left. Do something that seems like it'd make you rich.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Captain Mack said, scooping up his mail. \"Finish up and get back to your stations. Gunner, I want you on deck with your rifle up and your eyes peeled. You too, Coop. Wink, you're with me. If we're going to be tight on phlogiston, I want to make double sure we spot any raiders or pirates before they spot us. Nita, get down to your room and tighten up the gig. Don't want that dragging in the wind if burn-slow is getting scarce. Glinda, last I checked we were getting low on bandages. Prep some more when the cooking's done.\"\n\n\"Aye,\" the crew replied.\n\nCaptain Mack thumped out of the room and down the hall. After a precisely judged amount of time, conversation continued.\n\n\"Is it just me, or is the captain a bit more\u2026 gruff than usual?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"Sometimes he gets like that. 'Specially during the winter. You stand up on deck at the wheel for as long as he does on days like these and see if you're feeling rosy,\" Lil said.\n\n\"I don't know\u2026 I think there might be more to it. Someone should talk to him.\"\n\n\"I reckon the cap'n being in a sour mood is a good reason to let him be,\" Coop said. \"And I been a part of his crew lots longer than you.\"\n\n\"Back home they teach us an angry person is a person with a problem that needs solving,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Back home they teach us you don't poke a mean dog,\" Lil said. She cleaned her plate and gave Nita a slap on the back. \"Let's get that gig tightened up. Your room's gonna be a mite nippy if that gig's not good and tight. You want I should stow your letters, Coop?\"\n\n\"May as well,\" he said.\n\nThe group finished their meals and set off to their assigned tasks."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "\"Well ain't you gonna open it?\" Lil said, rolling up her sleeves and prancing along in front of Nita like a child.\n\n\"We've got work to do, Lil,\" Nita said.\n\n\"We always got work to do, but you ain't always got a letter to open. It ain't like you got family here in Rim that'll be after you for a handout. All your folks are back in Caldera. So open it! Maybe it's from a secret admirer.\" She elbowed Nita and winked. \"Aside from the ones you already got on board.\"\n\nNita pushed open the door to what had become her room on the lowest deck of the Wind Breaker. A powerful gust of wind confirmed what Wink had observed, something was letting a hell of a draft into the room.\n\nIt wasn't the most luxurious of quarters on the ship, that was certain, but it was without a doubt the roomiest. The official name was the \"gig room.\" It was a single room that took up the center third of the deck. Steam pipes fed two potent cranes that held the captain's gig in place. The gig was a small boat, really little more than a raft, that served the dual purpose of ferrying the crew to shore when they moored over relatively open water and hauled cargo up into the belly of the ship. When not in use, it was pressed to the belly to streamline its shape and seal the worst of the weather out of the cargo hatch in the center of the room. Nita had laid claim to one corner of the room, where the steam pipes kept her cozy at night and a hammock rocked her to sleep.\n\nThe forward edge of the gig was pulled down easily six inches, causing the whole boat to rock a bit and funneling the full brunt of the wind up into the room. Sea spray had already formed a patch of frost around the edge of the hatch.\n\n\"Who brought the cargo down this time?\" Nita grumbled, eyeing the mess the constant wind had left of her hammock.\n\n\"This time was Gunner, I think,\" Lil said.\n\nNita frowned and picked up an overturned pot of grease that had been dislodged. \"He owes me a pint of number three axle grease then. And he's cleaning up the last one.\"\n\nShe turned a valve and released steam from the complex network of pipes into the workings of the winch, then pulled the appropriate lever to take the slack out of the chains that held the gig. It rattled into place in a second or two, sealing out the pale light from the outside that had been leaking in. Nita reached up and twisted another knob, this one a transparent tube above her hammock. Gas seeped into the glass capsule, and a bright green light filled the room, the glow of a phlo-light. The fug-made gadgets ran on a minuscule amount of the same gas that filled the envelopes, and tended to be the only light available in the bowels of an airship.\n\n\"There. Job's done. Read the letter,\" Lil said.\n\n\"The job's not done! Look at all the ice that crusted up the workings here,\" she said, looking reproachfully at the winch mechanism as it crackled with frost. \"Now I need to make sure nothing buckled from the temperature swing. And I've got to bleed the lines again to make sure they don't freeze up and clog.\" She shook her head. \"If I'd have known how much harder it is to keep a steam system happy in the cold, I would have thought twice about staying on the crew in the first place.\"\n\n\"Well can you read and work?\"\n\n\"If you want to know what it says so much, then you read it.\"\n\n\"I ain't much for readin' out loud, Nita,\" Lil said. \"Really ain't much for readin' at all.\"\n\n\"Then it can wait.\"\n\nNita took out a wrench and began to loosen a few of the fittings on the winch. She grinned as she saw Lil fidgeting out of the corner of her eye. The impatient deckhand had her arms crossed and was tapping her boot.\n\n\"Do you at least need any help?\" she asked.\n\n\"This has to be done in sequence, one thing at a time. You can do the other one if you want.\"\n\n\"What I want is to hear what your letter says,\" she pouted.\n\n\"Tough,\" Nita replied.\n\n\"\u2026 You sure you don't mind me reading it?\"\n\n\"Like you said, it can't be from someone I know, so it can't very well be something sensitive or personal.\"\n\n\"Well all right. But no laughing if I stutter.\" She tore open the letter. \"'Dear Miss Calderan Lady. I am nine years old. I never met a Calderan Lady before. I want to ask you some\u2026 questions. How come you got skin like that? My daddy says you was born on a volcano. Is that why? Did you get burned?'\" She snickered. \"Don't that beat all? \u2026 That ain't why, is it?\"\n\nNita looked at her flatly.\n\n\"I didn't think so, I was just makin' sure.\"\n\nLil continued to work her way through the substantial list of questions from the young knowledge seeker. As Nita listened, shaking her head at how little the people of Rim knew of Calderans, she hopped down into the gig to get a better angle on the next piece of piping. Her heel caught the edge of something and sent it rattling around the floor of the gig.\n\n\"\u2026 'Daddy says you live on the ground in Caldera. How come you can breath down there? Fuggers live on the ground, and they got different skin too. Daddy says\u2026' This kid's daddy sure does know a little bit about a whole lot. \u2026 What you got there?\"\n\nNita had chased down the mystery object and held it into the light. It was a small metal canister, a bit shorter than Nita's forearm and roughly the same diameter. A purple-stained swatch of paper was tied securely around it. She slipped the loop of string free and unfurled the slip of paper. Her eyes widened as she read it.\n\n\"We need to talk to Captain Mack. He's going to want to know about this\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "Coop pulled his coat a little tighter and buttoned an extra button. The sun was beginning to set now, and though Captain Mack had taken the Wind Breaker high enough to be free of the dampness of the sea, all that did was add a sharper bite to the cold and a stiffer wind to contend with. He was dressed in an outfit identical to that of his younger sister Lil. Precisely identical, in fact, because Lil tended to inherit his clothes when he picked up a fresh set. His coat was thus a bit crisper, his knitted cap had fewer holes, and his scarf wasn't so frayed, but otherwise they were a matched set. The clothes did fit Coop properly, though, which mean he'd added a pair of gloves to the mix to keep his hands warm, since they didn't tuck into his sleeves like Lil's did. Completing the ensemble was a long-barreled rifle and a conspicuous bulge beneath the jacket where Nikita was nestled.\n\nHe scanned the horizon. For the moment there was nothing but clear sky in all directions. When he was satisfied, he paced over to the opposite side of the deck, where Gunner stood. The munitions officer was predictably better armed, his own rifle sporting three barrels, a clockwork system ostensibly for reloading it, and a set of optics that was a match for the captain's spyglass. Unlike the common leather trench warn by Coop, Gunner was more or less in uniform, with a sharp gray overcoat with gold and silver trim. He wore a stiff cloth mask over his face and nose in lieu of a scarf, and while Coop was making do with squinting, Gunner wore a pair of goggles with another set of complex optics.\n\n\"Seen anything, Gunner?\" Coop asked, pulling out his pistol and aligning his eye with the sights.\n\n\"Did you hear me raise an alarm?\"\n\n\"Not as such.\"\n\n\"Then that would imply I haven't seen anything.\"\n\n\"I reckon so,\" Coop said with a nod. Coop alternated between eyeing the sights of the rifle and pistol. \"How come I gotta keep fixin' the sights on my pistol, Gunner?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because you fail to understand that the sights of pistols and rifles need different calibrations. If you've 'fixed' your pistol sights again, you've probably spoiled them.\"\n\nAfter a few moments of nothing but howling wind, Coop rested the butt of his rifle on the ground, holstered his pistol, and reached into his pocket. \"So I added a line or two\u2026\" he began.\n\n\"For heaven's sake, Coop. In all the years I've been working with you on this ship, I never thought the thing that would bring me to the brink of throwing you overboard would be poetry.\"\n\n\"You're the only fella on the ship who's good with words and all that, seein' as you spent all that time in that academy of yours. Who else am I going to run this sort of stuff by?\"\n\n\"Ideally no one. You don't honestly think anything you write could even approach the level of beauty and truth that even the most inept Calderan poet would scribble in the margins of his scrap paper, do you?\"\n\n\"Yeah I do, on account of Calderan folk ain't seen the sort of stuff I seen, so they ain't got the same stuff to write about,\" Coop said simply. \"So here's what I got so far. Ahem. I like lookin'. And I like cookin', 'specially when it's pie. Sometimes I reckon, the mornin' sun beckons, fer me to look it straight in the eye. When I see a bird, it churns up these words, and then I'm fixin' to write 'em down. 'Cause eggs in a clutch, an' flowers an' such, are pert near the pertiest things around. What do you think? Reckon Nita will like it?\"\n\n\"I've got to hand it to you, it certainly rhymes. And I wouldn't have expected to hear the word 'beckon' out of you.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I like that one too. Used to be a bit about birds and peckin', but I already got eggs and birds in the other bit. She'll like it though, right? It's got flowers an' such. Womenfolk like flowers an' such.\"\n\n\"You have a penetrating insight into the female mind, Coop.\"\n\n\"Yep! And I know how ladies think, too. I reckon one more bit, maybe about\u2026 something else pretty, and I'll be done. What else is pretty? I got flowers and birds. And pie. You reckon\u2014\"\n\nHis artistic pondering was interrupted by clamoring footsteps from the stairway to the lower decks. Nita burst from below, prompting him to stuff the poem back in his pocket.\n\n\"We'll talk later.\"\n\n\"I will count the moments,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Cap'n! Nita found something you need to see!\" Lil said, bounding up the stairs to the ship's wheel.\n\nCoop paced quickly toward them.\n\n\"You boys stay on watch. It don't take five sets of eyes to look at something,\" Captain Mack said without ever taking his eyes from the horizon.\n\nCoop stopped in his tracks, then paced back to the railing of the ship, but he kept his ears trained on the conversation at the wheel. It wasn't easy hearing conversation over the constant wail of wind, but a few years on an airship has a way of training that particular skill into you.\n\n\"Captain, this was in the gig. As Wink said, it was a bit loose. I think someone must have thrown it in while we were at port in Lock. Or maybe they dropped it in after Gunner finished unloading but before it was hauled up.\"\n\n\"Either way, sounds like I'm going to have a word with you folk about keeping a tight watch on the ship. Now's not the time to be slacking.\"\n\n\"Well sure, Cap'n, but look at it!\" Lil said.\n\nCoop glanced up to see his sister holding a small canister in front of the captain. Mack took it and turned it about.\n\n\"A top-off canister of phlogiston,\" he said, handing it back. \"Looks like one of ours.\"\n\n\"It looks like one of ours, but it isn't,\" Nita said. \"I checked the inventory on board and they're all accounted for. You taught me that the fug folk punch a date and a port code into every one of these canisters so they know where it came from and when. Ours don't have them because we stole them directly from the Fugtown stronghold. But this one doesn't have a date or a code either.\"\n\n\"Could have been scrubbed. Bently and Jameson up in Clifton like to scrub theirs. Keeps the sneaky sorts from figuring out where they been getting their supply and cutting out the middleman.\"\n\n\"I thought that too, but look at it,\" Nita said. \"No grinding or sanding marks. It hasn't been scrubbed. And it's still sealed and heavy enough to be full. Whoever got their hands on this has a source from within the fug.\"\n\n\"I'd say that's a bit of a leap,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"There was a note, Cap'n,\" Lil said, retrieving the scrap of paper and waving it. \"Have a look.\"\n\nMack took one hand from the wheel and snatched the flapping bit of paper. He pinned it skillfully against the wheel to steady it enough to read. \"'Dear Wind Breaker crew. We have all become great fans of your exploits. Rumor has it you are having trouble keeping yourself in phlogiston. Consider this canister a gift, and a sample of what you can expect if you are willing to share your skills with us. Meet us at the base of the northwest mooring tower at Springcrest on the eighth if you are interested. We will be waiting. Your friends, The Well Diggers.'\"\n\n\"What do you think, Cap'n?\" Lil asked.\n\nThe captain handed back the page and held out his hand. Nita gave him the canister again. He hefted it, then glanced over his shoulder. \"Coop, grab a phlo-lantern and run it up here. I want to see how pure this stuff is.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" Coop called back.\n\nHe jogged over to the bit of piping running along the rigging that supported the envelope. It was a phlogiston line, used to pump spare gas into the sack when it inevitably began to get slack. While not being used for that purpose, a bulb of treated glass was screwed into the input valve, such that if any additional light was needed on deck, a twist of the valve would allow the residual gas in the line to illuminate the bulb. He closed the valve good and tight and unscrewed the head to take it to the captain.\n\nMack took the lantern and screwed it onto the opening on the canister, breaking the seal. When he twisted the knob, the bulb illuminated with brilliant green light. Despite its smaller size, it was at least three times as bright as the tube that had lit the gig room.\n\n\"That's some pure stuff, Cap'n. Just as pure as what we got from the heist and a damn-sight purer than what we been getting from the black market,\" Coop said.\n\nThe captain nodded. \"If the wind ain't too hard against us, we'll be able to make Springcrest by the eighth, but only just. I don't know who these Well Diggers are, but if they were trying to make an impression, they made one. I'd say they earned themselves a sit-down to talk shop.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Captain Mack's navigational skill retained its almost uncanny accuracy, as the Wind Breaker was just pulling into port as the sun was setting on the day of their intended meeting. Springcrest had a delightful name, the sort that conjures to mind a pleasant town with friendly people and scenic vistas. As tended to be the case, the name had little to do with the town itself. Most towns on Rim were precarious, sparsely populated little clusters of buildings clinging to the top of the mountainside. The best of them were relatively low and had access to plateaus that could serve as grazing for goats or a few fields for farming. While it did have a flatter-than-normal stretch of mountain to call home, Springcrest was not the best of them. The only reason it existed at all was the white line that was barely visible along one edge of the eastern end of the boardwalk that ran the length of the city. That marked the border between Westrim and its smaller neighbor, Circa. And when it came to borders, nations liked to have a few people nearby to make sure everyone stays on his or her own side.\n\nTo serve this purpose, Springcrest was home to a few dozen airmen for the Westrim military, the entire staff of a small mining company, one goatherd, six goats, and a rather large stockpile of fuel and water. The northwest mooring post was the most remote from the city, jutting far out over the ocean on the off chance someone with an airliner too large for the three main piers would dock at the jerkwater burg. The Wind Breaker pulled into port and found the tower unmanned, with no one eager to rush out across a dozen yards of icy wooden catwalk to man it.\n\n\"Always a fine sign when the ground crew can't be bothered to pull in the lines. Coop, Lil, get down there and tie us up before a crosswind makes the old girl fussy,\" he said, feathering the throttle to keep the Wind Breaker relatively in position.\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" declared both Coopers.\n\n\"Gunner, keep a bead on the catwalk and let me know if anything seems off. Plenty of folk would be pleased as punch to see half our crew defenseless at the end of a rotten pier.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain. Way ahead of you,\" Gunner said, flipping up the optics on both goggles and gun to get a clear view of the short range.\n\nLil and Coop each dropped down the coils of rope that would secure the Wind Breaker and launched into an inadvisable display of aeronautical acrobatics that most people would pay to watch. The correct thing to do when no ground crew was present was to signal the port and wait until a ground crew was deployed. In an emergency the correct thing to do would be to drop a ladder and lower a single crewmember down to handle the lines one by one. Lil and Coop chose a third option, which was to slide down the mooring lines. Coop, the heavier of the two, was able to heave himself back and forth until he swung near enough to snag the port-side tower. Lil didn't quite have the weight for that. Instead she slid to the midpoint and fished in her coat for a length of cord with a weighted end. She spun it up, let it fly, and in two tries snagged one of the cross-struts of the starboard mooring tower. Once she was properly grappled she hauled herself over and climbed up.\n\nThe two stunts took about the same amount of time and delivered a deckhand to each tower. When lines were as taut as they could manage, Captain Mack let the turbines spin down. At no point was there even the suggestion the port office had been planning to send someone.\n\n\"Coop, Lil! Meet me on the pier,\" Mack called out. He turned to Gunner. \"Gunner, keep an eye on us and call out if anything smells funny. Wink, get down below. And where's Nikita?\"\n\n\"Where do you think she is?\" Gunner said.\n\nMack gritted his teeth and shook his head. \"I ain't never met a boy with so many horses and so few reins.\" He leaned down to the speaking tube. \"Miss Graus, keep the boiler warm. Don't waste too much coal, but keep us ready to move.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" Nita said. \"Though I have been on the crew for nearly half a year, so I think I know how you like your boiler when you're preparing to meet with some potentially unsavory individuals.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, Miss Graus. And you being such a veteran member of my crew, maybe you'd like to tell me what I expect to hear coming back through this tube when I give an order?\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain.\"\n\n\"And what else?\"\n\n\"And nothing else, Captain.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Miss Graus.\"\n\nCaptain Mack marched down from the wheel and into the bowels of the ship. \"Glinda!\"\n\nButch answered, bellowing through the corridors.\n\n\"Helm's yours. If you hear any gunshots that ain't answered back by Gunner, you get this ship out in open sky and wait for a signal, same as usual.\"\n\nHe didn't wait long enough for a reply, slipping through the various decks into the gig room and dropping the crew ladder. Though Captain Mack was not a young man, and a rope ladder hanging beneath even a moored ship was a devil of a thing to climb, he navigated it like he was born to do so. It wasn't until his boots struck the pier that he wavered, as though his body objected to a floor that didn't shift quite enough with the breeze.\n\nLil and Coop were already beside the ladder by the time he fished a silver tin from an inside pocket of his long coat and plucked a slender brandy-soaked cigar from inside.\n\n\"Coop,\" he said, lighting the cigar and taking a draw, \"how many inspectors we got on our ship?\"\n\n\"Two, Cap'n?\"\n\n\"Not by my count. By my count we got one on the ship and one in your jacket.\"\n\nCoop winced. \"Aye, Cap'n. Forgot to set Nikita aside.\"\n\n\"Yes you did,\" he said, smoke curling from his lips. \"Now personally, I don't mind much what you keep in your jacket, so long as it doesn't interfere with the job you do. But how many inspectors does everyone else think we have.\"\n\n\"None, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"You want I should run up and hand Nikita off?\"\n\n\"No. This being sunset, and us having a deadline, I'd say it's better we get moving. But you keep her quiet, you keep her out of sight, and you keep her still. Stay back when we do our dealings and let me do the talking.\"\n\n\"Like always, Cap'n. Where do you reckon we're to meet these Well Diggers?\"\n\n\"They said the northwest tower, and that's where we are.\"\n\nHe scanned the city. From their distant vantage nearly the entire place was visible. The slope of the mountain was shallow, giving most of the city no more than a yard or so of piling to keep it level. It was more stable than most cities could hope for, and it probably would have been a much larger settlement if not for its low altitude giving it more of a whiff of the fug than most people, crops, and livestock could stomach for long.\n\nThe reason the border between Circa and Rim had been drawn here was that it was the beginning of a long, low stretch of mountain. The gap between peaks was wide enough and ran near enough to sea level to risk dipping down below the surface of the fug. Even now the vast sea of twisting purple mist could be seen spreading off to the south and east. The whole of Rim was little more than a continent-size bowl filled to the brim with the toxic fumes. Here in the city the air had the subtle but undeniable stench of the stuff. Even a dozen feet lower and any surface dweller who wanted to keep breathing would need to do so through a mask more often than not.\n\nAs Captain Mack's eyes came to settle on the only stretch of town hidden in shadow by climbing mountains to the east, a figure stepped out into the light. The stranger, the only other person out and about aside from the Wind Breaker crew themselves, was at least a match for Coop's height. Whoever it was wore layer upon layer of winter clothes. Hoods, scarves, and goggles hid every bit of his or her face. There wasn't an inch of flesh exposed to the cold. Despite the cold-weather gear, the person barely looked bulky. Whatever was hidden beneath those layers was more skin and bone than anything else.\n\n\"Captain West,\" the figure said when it drew near.\n\nIt was a man, his voice clear, and his diction impeccable.\n\nThe captain cast a measuring look and breathed deep, barely suppressing a cough from a cloud of fug that curled around from the east.\n\n\"Would you be the generous would-be benefactor seeking our service?\"\n\n\"One of several. I cannot thank you enough for coming. I wasn't certain you would.\"\n\n\"I wasn't certain of it either, but I must say you made a rather strong argument.\" He puffed at the cigar again, more to overpower the lingering hint of fug than anything else. \"Since there doesn't look to be room under those clothes for enough compensation to make it worth our while, I imagine you've got a place in mind for us to talk shop?\"\n\n\"Indeed I have. I'm not local to the town myself\u2026\"\n\n\"Ain't nobody local to Springcrest,\" Lil said. \"Except maybe some of them goats.\"\n\n\"But I've taken lodging in a spare room of a miner. This way.\"\n\nHe turned and led them toward the town. Coop and Lil kept pace. Without being told, they scanned the surroundings. Coop kept the rifle over his shoulder and one hand on the grip of a pistol at his belt. Lil had no weapon in hand, but if today was like most days, she had at least three knives and a pistol hidden in the endless tangle of hand-me-downs, and wouldn't take more than the blink of an eye to get to them.\n\n\"You sure are a fancy talker, Mister,\" Coop said.\n\n\"Why thank you. My father will be pleased to know my education did not go without notice,\" he said.\n\n\"What do they call you?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Of late I've taken the sobriquet of Digger.\"\n\n\"Does he know you took it?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"He means that's what folks call him, Coop,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Oh. Better that way I reckon. Sobriquet sounds expensive if someone was to take it.\"\n\nAs they walked, they passed by houses shut tight against the cold. If not for the glow of fires and the smell of their smoke, one might have imagined the whole town deserted. Finally they reached a narrow two-story house beside a notch carved into the gray stone of the mountain. Digger fumbled with some keys and unlocked the door. Inside was a cramped entryway with two more locked doors. Digger unlocked the one to the left and revealed a staircase barely wide enough to climb.\n\n\"I've got the room upstairs,\" he said.\n\n\"Coop, you stay down here. Make sure we have our privacy,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Sure thing, Cap'n,\" he said, swinging his rifle down and leaning against the wall.\n\nThe rest of the group continued up the stairs. Digger stopped at the top, where he fiddled with a freshly installed padlock on the door.\n\n\"You're a careful man,\" Digger said, breathing heavily at the effort to climb the stairs.\n\n\"So says the fella who needs three keys to get into his room,\" Mack said.\n\n\"It wasn't a criticism, my good man. Merely an observation.\"\n\nHe clicked the lock open and led them inside. The room was toasty warm thanks to a potbellied stove against the far wall. It was a rather austere, little more than a table, four flimsy wooden chairs, and a rickety bed caked with dust.\n\n\"Have a seat,\" Digger said.\n\n\"I'd just as soon stand until you give me reason to stay long enough to sit.\"\n\n\"Likewise,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Well I certainly hope you don't mind if I do,\" he said.\n\n\"Not my place to say what a man can or can't do in his own home.\"\n\nDigger sat.\n\n\"I'll be plain, Digger. That can of phlogiston is the only reason I'm here. And the knowledge that I might be able to get more like it in a steady supply is the only thing that's liable to keep me here, so if you're interested in retaining my company, I suggest you start with that.\"\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" he cleared his throat, \"it just so happens I've got a source for phlogiston, but\u2014\"\n\n\"''But's' not a word I like to hear so early in a discussion of this sort, Digger. What's your source?\"\n\n\"That's a sensitive matter.\"\n\n\"It's the only matter that matters, so I'd say quit being so sensitive.\"\n\n\"All will be revealed in time, Captain West, but\u2014\"\n\n\"There's that word again, Cap'n,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Indeed it is, Lil.\"\n\nDigger tugged at the loop of scarf around his neck. \"Do I detect a note of distrust in your voice?\"\n\n\"I'm talking to a man selling goods he shouldn't be able to get. A man who tries to deal with his face covered. A man who says he's renting a room with a bed that ain't been slept in. The note of distrust you're detecting ain't nothing to the song you're singing.\"\n\nLil's hand slid into her coat. The captain's hand slid to his belt. Digger glanced back and forth between them.\n\n\"Captain West, what is this all about?\"\n\n\"That's what I'm hoping to determine. Like you say, Digger, I'm a cautious man. I've got plenty of enemies. I'd rather not walk out of this room with one more, but I wouldn't mind walking out with one less, and there're a few ways we can go about that.\"\n\nA conspicuous click came from within Lil's coat. Digger looked to her nervously.\n\n\"So where do we go from here?\" he said.\n\n\"I'd say showing me your face and looking me in the eye would be a good start.\"\n\n\"I fear that might sour relations by a fair margin.\"\n\n\"Judging by the current state of relations, that'd be quite a trick,\" Mack said. \"Let's see that face, or I walk.\"\n\n\"Can you offer me your word your gunwoman won't fire her weapon?\"\n\n\"Can you offer me your word you won't give her a good reason to?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Then let's just say my word's as good as yours. Now let's see that face.\"\n\nDigger slowly raised his hands and pushed back his hood, then began to unwrap the scarves. When the last loop fell free, it revealed stark-white skin on a long, gaunt face. A face that could only have come from the fug.\n\nLil raised her eyebrows, gripped her gun tighter, and looked to Captain Mack. His expression hadn't changed. Instead he leaned back against the wall and puffed slowly on his cigar.\n\n\"Coop,\" Mack called.\n\n\"Yeah, Cap'n?\" he replied.\n\n\"How do things look down there?\"\n\n\"Nothin' much to see, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"You lookin' good and hard?\"\n\n\"Lookin', listenin', and all that good stuff, Cap'n,\" Coop said. \"Nothing came of it so far.\"\n\nCaptain Mack took another slow puff, filling the room with the oddly sweet smell of the cigar.\n\n\"Digger, most of my life, seeing a face like yours would have put me on edge. Because most of my life, folks like you held an awful lot of power over me. I did what you said, followed your rules, or I couldn't keep living the only life I knew how to live. For better or worse, that changed when the good Miss Graus saw fit to join our crew. It's fair to say, for a bit, once I was out from under your thumbs I swung pretty wide in the direction of hostility. I'd thought of all the fug folk I'd wanted to put a bullet in over the years and thought how nice it was that these days I could, if I was so inclined. But then your folk snatched Nita away from me. Locked her up. Lil here too.\"\n\nLil nodded.\n\n\"And I can't say you were the best of hosts. But the folk you locked her up with were a bunch of your own. And I'll be darned if they didn't turn out to have some decent sorts among them. I ain't the kind of man who assumes everyone of a certain type is a certain way. At least, not anymore. For instance, one thing I always thought about fug folk was they got a lot going on upstairs. So it makes me curious to know how you thought this meeting was going to go.\"\n\nA bead of sweat rolled down Digger's face. \"Not much different from this, honestly.\"\n\n\"Then maybe that bit was right.\"\n\n\"I'd hoped I would be able to convince you of the purity of my intentions before I had to reveal myself.\"\n\n\"You lookin' to sell me goods you ought not have isn't what I'm liable to call pure intentions. But, now that we're not hiding anything from each other anymore, I'd say we can start this off the way it should have started off. On your feet.\"\n\nDigger hastily stood. Captain Mack stepped up to face him, looking slightly up to meet the gaze of the taller fug person. He removed the cigar from his mouth and blew the smoke to the side.\n\n\"The name is Captain McCulloch West. This here's my deckhand Chastity Cooper, fella downstairs is my other deckhand, Ichabod Cooper,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Most folk call him Coop, and me Li'l Coop, or just Lil. So if you're lookin' to get our attention, I'd suggest you do the same.\"\n\n\"And what may we call you?\" Captain Mack asked.\n\n\"I'm Fenton\u2026 Albus.\"\n\n\"That pause and the sweat on your brow makes me doubt that particular sobriquet,\" Mack said. \"I thought we weren't hiding anything anymore.\"\n\nLil stepped up and looked at him hard.\n\n\"Fine, fine. I'm Fenton\u2026\" He took a shaky breath. \"Ebonwhite.\"\n\nLil slid the gun from her jacket but hung it low.\n\n\"We ain't had much luck in our dealings with folk bearing that name, Fenton.\"\n\n\"Nor have I, I assure you. We are a large family, as families in the fug go at any rate. Somewhat smaller these days.\"\n\n\"We didn't kill your kin, Fenton.\"\n\n\"You may or may not believe me when I say this, but that doesn't come as a surprise. My cousins were heading for an early grave for a long time. You just happened to help them find it on their own. But back to the matter of my association with the rest of the Ebonwhites. The mayor isn't the patriarch, but he is the favored son. I'm a good deal further down the line. Youngest son of the youngest son. Well\u2026 technically my father and the mayor are both first generation, and thus establishing relative age and relation is complicated, but that is another matter for another time. I worked for the mayor briefly. He didn't appreciate how I did business. Now I spend my time in the fringe of a part of the fug we call The Thicket. Many would call it a greater punishment than being locked away in the Phylactery.\"\n\nHe looked to Lil.\n\n\"If you've been in the Phylactery, you know about the hounds. Bloodthirsty, massive. The Thicket is where we first found them. And they're hardly the worst of the things that lurk there. You'd be astounded by what the fug has made of the simplest woodland creatures\u2026 And for what it's worth, I was telling the truth. The group I've fallen in with has taken to calling me Digger, and I rather like the name.\"\n\n\"All right. So you're the enemy of my enemy. Maybe that makes you better, maybe that makes you worse. But at least now I know what the truth sounds like when it comes out of your mouth.\"\n\nCaptain Mack pulled out a chair, hung his coat on the back, and took a seat. Lil did the same. After a moment, Digger joined them.\n\n\"I must say,\" he said shakily, \"this isn't what I'd expected when I imagined the Wind Breaker crew.\"\n\n\"Oh no? What did you have in mind?\"\n\n\"You should hear the stories they tell about you down there. 'Captain Mack is a raving lunatic. Bloodthirsty. A thing of unbridled rage.' They say you have an endless horde of soldiers, and that your crew were like demonic apes, swinging from rigging and soaring through the air.\"\n\n\"Hey! I'll bet that bit's about me!\" Lil said proudly.\n\n\"I half expected you to breathe fire or shake the ground when you walked. To hear your story told, you are either an archangel descending from above to pay justice upon the unrighteous or the most vile and cold-hearted of killers ever to blight our society.\"\n\n\"I ain't an angel, Digger. And the killer bit only comes when you get on my bad side. Stay off it and you'll find me the reasonable sort. Now let's get down to brass tacks. You being local to the fug, there's no question how you got a fresh can of phlogiston. The only questions now are how many you got, and how much it'll cost us to get them.\"\n\n\"As for your second question, the price will be quite reasonable. To you and anyone else who wants them, provided we can come to an agreement. Though Mayor Ebonwhite doesn't appreciate my methods, I am a business man. And I can see quite a bit of profit to be made charging a fair price to people who are used to a stiff one. But how many cans I can get, and therefore you can get, is another matter. Because the reason I've reached out to you in particular is simple. I need your help securing the source.\" He leaned forward across the table. \"You see, Captain Mack. I won't be simply selling the phlogiston. I'll be making it.\"\n\n\"And I take it securing this source is the sort of task you imagine it would take the Wind Breaker crew to accomplish? A bunch of fire-breathing earth shakers, and high-flying apes.\"\n\n\"More or less.\"\n\n\"Then if you're willing, I'd like to take this discussion to the rest of the crew. If it involves all of us, then it involves all of us. And there are some questions Gunner and Miss Graus are liable to ask that I might overlook.\" He stood. \"Get yourself bundled up. We're going for a walk.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "Lucius Alabaster's white ship had taken on a bit of a purple tint after several days of travel, but his home port of Caer Fiona was in sight. It was like most cities in the fug, a small cluster of well-kept buildings within the heart of what had been a much larger settlement before the fug had rolled in and taken the local residents with it. In this case, the majority of the remaining structures were vast, sprawling estates hidden behind wrought iron gates and high stone walls. Pools of green light lit the handful of streets that had any life in them, and here and there a steam-powered carriage trundled along the cobbles. Though what passed for a sky in the fug was black as pitch, it was only just hitting sunset, and much of the business of the city was still being done.\n\n\"Mr. Mallow, I rather think a bit of imbibing is in order after so lengthy a sojourn with so little to show for it. Take us to the tower nearest the Ruby Club,\" Alabaster said, smoothing his mustache against his lip.\n\n\"Already on my way, Mr. Alabaster. As per usual.\"\n\nAlabaster squinted. \"\u2026 As per usual. What precisely are you implying, Mr. Mallow?\"\n\n\"Merely that it is your prerogative to conclude long journeys with a visit to the Ruby.\"\n\n\"Are you suggesting that I am a lush?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"No indeed. It is a well-known fact, proved by the most skilled scientific minds, that deep thought requires steady nerves, and the finest nerve elixirs come diluted in spirits. If I am to ply my trade and work my brilliance at the highest levels, I must partake of these elixirs on rare and appropriate occasions.\"\n\n\"Of course, Mr. Alabaster.\"\n\n\"That's right of course.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose\u2026 I might partake of some elixirs?\"\n\n\"Mallow, you are mercifully simple. Your nerves are unperturbed by the woes of great intellect. The deeper effects of the nerve elixirs would be lost on you. However, as I predict we are on the very cusp of my rise to greatness, I would be willing to allow you to join me for a bit of refreshment. For you, I think, simple spirits will suffice.\"\n\n\"That is very kind of you, Mr. Alabaster.\"\n\nMallow piloted the airship into a berth at a multilevel mooring tower. It was something of a vertical pier, built to accommodate the two-and four-person personal vessels favored by the wealthy residents of the town. He performed a contortionist's act of a dismount, squeezing his long, lanky body through a hatch near the pilot's seat and opening the door for Alabaster, while a small crew of ground workers tied the mooring lines. Alabaster strutted toward the wire cage of the elevator, looking through the ground crew as though they weren't there. When he stepped onto the elevator with Mallow and allowed his manservant to press the button, his gaze fell upon his ship and the grape color it had taken on during the trip.\n\n\"Ugh. Honestly, Mallow. See that my vessel is once again restored to glorious white.\"\n\n\"I shall, sir. If I may offer a suggestion, perhaps it would be wise to change to a darker color in the future. Everyone else favors the dark colors, I think because they don't readily show the stains of the fug.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mallow. But one does not distinguish oneself from the rest of the rabble by doing what others do. If it requires a bit more upkeep to maintain my singular status, then that is merely the cost of superiority.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThe elevator reached the street, and they paced a short distance to a large, ornate building. In a more typical town, the Ruby Club would have been a tavern or pub. Caer Fiona was almost entirely occupied by the wealthy elite and their servants and staff. Thus, something so crass as an establishment where any simple man could gather, socialize, and purchase alcohol was contemptible. The Ruby Club was exclusive, requiring a recommendation to even be offered membership, and a rather stiff annual fee to retain membership. That every last member of the local gentry had such a membership didn't seem to matter in the least, nor did the fact that said gentry used the place to gather, socialize, and purchase alcohol. The key point was that it cost more than the average man could afford. A man at the door, rather larger than Alabaster and rather smaller than Mallow, greeted them both and allowed them inside.\n\nIf one were to see the inside of the Ruby Club, one would not for a moment mistake it for a common pub. An enormous fireplace stood at one wall, and warm yellow light came from oil lamps scattered about. Thickly padded easy chairs upholstered with red velvet were clustered into small groups, strategically situated to offer the warmth of the fire and encourage but not require socialization with the others who might be seated. There was no bar, instead only a steward standing beside a servant's door. A few tables were set along the wall opposite the fireplace. Some were clear, others were stacked with the accoutrements of the sort of incomprehensible table games the wealthy busy themselves with. The walls themselves were hung with the stuffed heads of assorted creatures. The older, more ragged of them were familiar forest creatures: boar, wolves, deer, and similar. Fresher additions were a good deal more twisted and ferocious, usually covered with pale gray fur and barely recognizable as what they might have been before the fug got ahold of them.\n\nAlabaster took a seat in one of the high-backed easy chairs. It was quite near the fire, and a small brass plaque with his name on it was affixed to top center, as though labeling him while seated.\n\n\"Put in the order, would you, Mr. Mallow?\" Alabaster said, handing off his hat and cane. \"I shall have\u2026 a White Willow Nerve and Mindfulness Tonic. And something for yourself, naturally.\"\n\nMallow set off toward the steward.\n\n\"So, Alabaster,\" said a gruff voice to the left of the fire, \"any luck in your dealings?\"\n\nHe turned to the source of the voice. He was a rare sight among the fug folk, a portly gentleman. Such was the physiology and temperament of the people of the fug that maintaining anything more than a rail-thin physique required a vast overabundance of food, but this fellow had made the effort. He was dressed in a cream-colored uniform more appropriate for an expedition into the wilderness than sitting in polite company. He'd lost a fair amount of the white hair on his head, but made up for it in the form of a walrus-like mustache hanging past both lips.\n\n\"No, Barnum,\" Alabaster said. \"I'm afraid he is even more shortsighted than I'd given him credit for.\"\n\n\"Bah. What's he think then? That we can leave these rabble-rousers to rouse further rabble?\"\n\n\"Well said, Barnum. But no, he believes sanctions shall be sufficient to wither them.\"\n\n\"Bah again. You can leave a white boar in a trap to starve as well, but is that how I caught the devil?\" he said, hiking a thumb at a pig's head the size of a horse's hanging over his chair. \"No! If the beast is worthy of the hunter, the hunter owes the beast a proper hunt!\"\n\n\"Precisely, Barnum. But our friend in Fugtown holds a different opinion on the subject.\"\n\n\"Too much time away from The Thicket. It makes a man soft.\"\n\n\"Yes, Barnum,\" Alabaster said. \"You would be the leading authority on the subject of men being soft.\"\n\n\"Mmm,\" murmured Barnum, absorbing the portion of the statement that appeared complimentary and remaining blissfully unaware of any other intimation. \"Well, my boy. Let the man shoulder the consequences of his own foolishness, that's what I say. He'll get his. But the hour is late. I do believe I shall turn in.\"\n\nHe got up and ambled away, leaving only the steward, Alabaster, Mallow, and a simply dressed older gentleman to the left of the fireplace in the establishment. The older gentleman seemed out of place and likely would have been thrown out on his ear if not for the fact he'd been tending the fire in the place for longer than any of the other members could remember. As far as anyone knew, the man was named Tender. That was what everyone called him at the very least.\n\nMallow returned with a tray laden with two shot glasses and two mugs. One glass was filled with clear liquid, the other brown. Both mugs were brimming with ale.\n\n\"Now, Mallow, how many times must I tell you, I do not drink something so coarse as ale. It does not suit an evolved constitution such as mine.\"\n\n\"A thousand apologies, Mr. Alabaster. Of course I'll be happy to\u2014\"\n\n\"I wouldn't mind disposing of the spare mug,\" said Tender. \"If you're willing to spare it.\"\n\nAlabaster made a dismissive gesture. \"It is a low drink for low men. If you don't mind the implications, then by all means.\"\n\nMallow shot the man a hard look, no doubt displeased at not having the second mug for himself, but handed it over. He then turned back to his employer.\n\n\"Mr. Alabaster, I\u2014\"\n\n\"Have a seat, Mallow. I detest having to look up to someone as they speak.\"\n\nMallow paced over to the table games area and borrowed a chair. \"May I ask a question, Mr. Alabaster? I may be a bit thick, but it seems to me if this crew has been causing Mayor Ebonwhite so much trouble, why are you so eager to make it your problem?\"\n\n\"First, Mallow, no, you aren't thick. Barnum is thick. You're merely dim. And second, I want the problem because history remembers the problem solvers. I want the problem for the same reason I want my ship white. Because no one else does. Great men do great deeds. Great men stand apart from the rest. To support my case I point to none other than our most celebrated of figures, the great Ferris Tusk. In our earliest days, when the fug was still finding its feet, it would have been simple for those above to strike us down. Admiral Maxwell would easily have been the man to do it. Dealing with the admiral? That was a problem no one wanted either. But did Tusk turn away? No. He stepped forward. And in single combat, through superior tactics, he bested the foe and opened the door for the grand and glorious status now held by the fug folk.\"\n\n\"But, and forgive me for being dim again, if memory serves, Admiral Maxwell was gunning for the fug folk. The Wind Breaker crew seems content to stay out of the fug these days.\"\n\n\"That point is debatable. They are vile brigands and no one can know the dark plans of their twisted minds. And, moreover, history will not show what their intentions might have been. It will merely show the things they did and the name of the man who was wise and powerful enough to stop them. And I mean for that man to be me.\"\n\n\"Won't that cause trouble? Seems like any time that crew has a mind to dip their toes into the fug, something gets broken or someone gets killed.\"\n\n\"If I seek greatness, I cannot afford to be timid in the face of potential peril. Lives will be lost, certainly. Ideally a great many lives will be lost, because such a crime would make the Wind Breaker crew a still-greater prize.\"\n\n\"You're comfortable with your own people dying because of what you're doing?\"\n\n\"Of course. Immortality through legendary deeds is an end that can justify any expense. If my ambition sets the world aflame and leaves it in ashes, so be it, so long as the ashes spell my name.\"\n\n\"To ambition,\" announced Tender, raising his glass. \"That's what sets a man apart.\"\n\nAlabaster raised his glass. \"At least there is one other man who recognizes it.\"\n\nAlabaster and Tender sipped their drinks. Mallow knocked back the shot in a single swallow.\n\n\"Mallow, when you are through. Head to the messenger and see if I've got any messages waiting. He who strikes with most haste, strikes with most success.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "Captain Mack hauled himself up into the gig room, followed by the heavily bundled Digger, then both deckhands.\n\n\"I must tell you, Captain Mack,\" Digger said, \"there are many tales about the Wind Breaker circulating. In exterior appearance, it does not disappoint.\"\n\n\"You can thank Miss Graus for that,\" Mack said.\n\nDigger huffed a bit and caught his breath. \"Will I be meeting her? I've never met, or even seen, a Calderan.\"\n\n\"You'll be meeting her, along with the rest of the crew, directly. Because if I'm going to make a damn fool decision like help you with your damn fool job, I want each member of my crew to have a chance to talk me out of it.\"\n\nHe tromped over to the talking tube beside one of the doors and leaned down to it. \"All crew on board, I want us all in the galley. Usual orders for a meeting like this at shore. And Gunner, I want your hands in your pockets, not on your trigger.\" He stood up again. \"This way.\"\n\n\"May I ask, Captain, why that final order? About the hands in his pockets?\" Digger asked.\n\n\"Just about every member of this crew is likely to have a sour reaction to a face like yours on board without proper explanation, but Gunner's the one liable to leave the biggest hole.\"\n\n\"He would be your soldier?\"\n\n\"Munitions officer.\"\n\nDigger nodded and tightened the scarf, still breathing heavily.\n\n\"Digger, you sure seem to be short of breath all the time,\" Lil said. \"We ain't done nothin' but climbed stairs and climbed ladders.\"\n\n\"The air,\" he huffed, \"is a bit thin up here for me.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well that makes sense, because the air is a bit thick for me down there,\" Coop said.\n\nCaptain Mack led the group to the galley, where Nita was already present. She looked with interest and a dash of distrust at the newcomer and wiped grease from her hands. Gunner arrived at the door as they filed inside.\n\n\"Tell you what, Cap'n. I'm going to go let the little critter out,\" Coop said.\n\nAll eyes turned to Coop with disapproval. He stared vacantly for a moment, then raised his eyebrows in realization.\n\n\"That's to say, uh\u2026 I\u2026\"\n\nDigger glanced about. \"Is this some manner of vernacular to which I am unaccustomed?\"\n\nLil looked at him. \"I ain't sure, but to make things easier, I'm just going to say yes.\"\n\nCoop went and returned rather quickly, and the group settled around the tables. Butch, always the one to see to proper hospitality, put out a kettle and some tea, along with a plate of biscuits from the previous day. A sprinkle of sugar on day-old biscuits had become a tradition of sorts on the Wind Breaker. The concoction tasted better than it had any right to.\n\n\"All right,\" Captain Mack said. \"This here man's called Digger. He's got an offer that's interesting enough to get us here, and to get him on board for the details. Coop and Lil already know this, but when he sheds his gear he's likely to show the rest of you something you don't want to see. Listen up. Until he gives us a reason besides his looks to deny him our good courtesy, we are going to hear him out. Digger, off with the scarves.\"\n\nDigger, with very slow and deliberate motions, removed the scarves and goggles. A stir rolled through the room, but all held their peace.\n\n\"Now you folks all got an opinion about this fella already, I'm sure. I ain't interested in it. What I'm interested in is what he's got to say, and what you've got to say about that. So all of you listen.\"\n\nThe newcomer looked around the room at the suspicious faces.\n\n\"As I imagine all of you have determined, the message that brought you here was delivered on behalf of a group of which I am part.\"\n\n\"I would suggest you limit your discussion to the things that we've not determined,\" Gunner said. \"Because as I'm sure you've determined, we're a bit excitable at the moment.\"\n\n\"Gunner, quiet down. Digger, take them words to heart,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Yes, point taken. First, I'd like to establish just where we stand in terms of commonality of knowledge. Most of what I wish to discuss is completely unknown by surface dwellers, but this crew knows a good deal more than most, so I would hate to cover well-trodden ground unnecessarily.\"\n\n\"Ask,\" Coop said from the doorway.\n\n\"Do any of you know where phlogiston comes from?\"\n\n\"No. By design, I reckon,\" Lil said.\n\n\"That's right. It's a closely guarded secret. If not for my status, I very much doubt even I would know.\"\n\n\"And what status might that be?\" Gunner asked.\n\n\"Status that'll be revealed after he's gained or lost our interest, Gunner. Now keep your mouth shut unless you've got something useful,\" Captain Mack said.\n\nDigger continued. \"I am going to very slowly place my hand in my pocket and very slowly pull it free. I am not drawing a weapon. I am merely fetching something to help illustrate the nature of our potential partnership.\" He slid his hand into his pocket and, when he was not gunned down, took a breath. \"What you are about to see has likely never been seen above the fug. Men have been killed for even bringing it aboard a ship.\"\n\nDigger removed from his pocket a small glass ampule. Inside was a thick liquid that looked like honey, though a white crust clung to the portion exposed to the air inside.\n\n\"This vial contains the substance responsible for all of the successes and all of the failures of the world as we know it. This is the chief ingredient used to make both burn-slow and phlogiston.\"\n\n\"Make phlogiston?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I'd always imagined phlogiston was something that one found, rather than something one made.\"\n\n\"Curiously, you aren't far off. The legend is that phlogiston was found by chance, but found as a result of a natural process that we have since improved. Now, between burn-slow and phlogiston, just about every worthwhile device to come from the fug depends upon this stuff in order to function at the level to which we have become accustomed. We call the stuff 'ichor.' Blood of the gods. Every last canister of phlogiston ever sold or stockpiled, and every brick of burn-slow ever burned, has come from a single well of the stuff in the southeast. We call that well South Pyre. As far as anyone knows, it is the only source of ichor. \u2026 But that's not where this vial came from.\"\n\n\"You found a new well?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Indeed we did. And while I've never been to South Pyre as a point of comparison, I would call the well we've found large by any measure.\"\n\n\"So you're offering to sell us what you've been making off the fresh supply?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Not precisely. We haven't begun producing it yet.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Then what, may I ask, did I find hidden in the gig of our ship?\"\n\n\"As I said, a message was delivered on our behalf. We arranged for a canister to be stolen and delivered to you. This sample is one of precious few that we've been able to secure, and therein lies the first of two reasons we require your assistance.\n\n\"The well is located within The Thicket, which as I've told your captain is home to fug hounds and far worse, all manner of creatures twisted by the fug. But that speaks only to the bulk of The Thicket. Ichor, it would seem, has a similar but far more pronounced effect on the flora and fauna.\"\n\n\"Is it me, or did he start wandering off into a different language at the end there?\" Coop said.\n\n\"He means to say the plants and animals are like fug hounds, only worse,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Indeed. I very much suspect the raw hostility on display by the local wildlife is the reason no one had discovered the well and returned with word of it.\"\n\n\"And where in that do we enter?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"In order to utilize the ichor well, we must secure it. That will mean reaching it, in numbers and alive. We shall then need to defend it long enough to set up both permanent defenses and the rudiments of a facility. And ideally we would do so in a manner not likely to attract attention to the well, since if representatives of the current industry were to become aware of it before it is fortified, we would most certainly lose it to them.\n\n\"As I see it, what the situation requires is combat prowess, subterfuge, and engineering skill in equal measure. If what I have heard of your crew is true, this ship may well be the most concentrated source of all three ever to exist.\"\n\nCoop raised his hand.\n\n\"Subterfuge means sneakiness, Coop,\" Nita explained.\n\nHe and Lil nodded. \"Yep. Then we're that, all right.\"\n\n\"You said there were two reasons you needed us,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Yes. You see, assuming we are able to successfully secure the ichor well, there is still the matter of the manufacturing process. If the knowledge of ichor is silver, the knowledge of how to work it is gold. The process for making phlogiston out of ichor is trivial, but making it efficiently, and in quantity, is another matter. And that's to say nothing of the more complex concoctions like burn-slow. To fully utilize the well to its potential, we need a chemist with experience in the stuff, and as I understand it, there are only two. The first lives and works down in South Pyre. He and his staff are exceptionally well compensated. I wouldn't imagine anything could convince them to join our concern. But the industry is cautious. They know an errant collapse could easily take the lives of the primary chemist and his entire staff, so a backup was trained.\"\n\n\"And he's the one you want?\" Coop said.\n\n\"She, actually. A Dr. Samantha Prist. Because of the sensitivity of her knowledge, she's kept sequestered in a relatively secure and isolated facility. She is essentially a prisoner, and has been denied any opportunity to actually ply the precious trade she has been taught for fear of the knowledge spreading beyond their control. This has filled her with resentment, I'm told. If we were to liberate her, I feel certain she could be coaxed into serving as our primary chemist. To achieve this, we shall need to liberate someone from, in effect, a fug-folk-run prison. I understand you have some experience in that regard.\"\n\n\"And what do we get in exchange for helping you out?\" Lil asked. \"Just permission to buy phlogiston and burn-slow from you?\"\n\n\"Buy it? If you are able to help us begin production, you have my personal word, and at your request a written proclamation stating it, that you shall receive, free of charge, as much phlogiston and burn-slow as you desire for as long as you desire. \u2026 With the understanding that there shall be no resale. We are in this for profit, after all.\"\n\n\"You can take the fugger out of the fug, but you can't take the fug out of the fugger,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"That about all you got to say?\" Captain Mack asked.\n\n\"That, as you might say, is the long and short of it.\"\n\n\"Any questions for him?\" the captain asked his crew.\n\n\"Who exactly is this group you represent?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"We call ourselves the Well Diggers,\" Digger said.\n\n\"That name is a bit on the nose for a secret organization planning to dig a new well. I can see why you need aid in the area of subterfuge,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"How many people are in this organization, and of what sort?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"Thirty, excluding myself. Mostly, er\u2026 workers.\"\n\n\"Grunts you mean,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Yes. They work for me on various projects related to The Thicket. Clearing brush, gathering resources, things of that nature. My primary role is as the local surveyor, which is how I came upon the knowledge of the ichor well in the first place. Also\u2014and I would normally keep this information in the strictest confidence, but in light of present company that would appear to be unnecessary\u2014the bulk of the Well Diggers are formerly inmates in Skykeep. They came to me for employment and protection. It seems it is no secret that I've fallen out of favor with the other\u2026 with the more respected members of the industry. This has made me rather appealing as an ally for those with similar woes.\"\n\nCaptain Mack looked over his crew. \"That about it? Who wants to volunteer to watch this fellow while the rest of us discuss what we should or shouldn't do?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'll watch him,\" Lil said. \"I can't imagine Coop's gonna feel any different than me on the matter, so you can count his vote double.\"\n\n\"Good girl, Lil. Take him to the gig room while we collaborate.\"\n\nLil stood and slapped Digger on the back. \"Come on now. Let's let these folks get to figurin'. And don't try anything silly, because that'd sure make their decision easy.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't dream of acting out of turn. I have as much to lose here as all of you,\" Digger said.\n\n\"A little bit more to lose, if you ask me,\" Lil said.\n\nShe walked him out of the room from behind. When their footsteps disappeared down the hallway, Captain Mack spoke up.\n\n\"All right. I'm sure you all got plenty to say. Now's the time to say it. Gunner, we'll start with you, seeing as how you're the voice of opposition in matters of this sort.\"\n\n\"What do I think? I think a man has come to us seeking precisely the skills we have, and offering precisely the goods we need. And I think that is a bit too convenient for my tastes. Call me superstitious, Captain, but when nothing is ever easy, simplicity where it doesn't belong makes me nervous.\"\n\n\"What he's asking isn't exactly simple, to my ear,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Oh, it's a hell of a job. No one would argue that. But it was served up to us on a silver platter. Too good to be true if you ask me.\"\n\n\"I agree with Gunner on this one,\" Coop said.\n\n\"Now that makes me nervous,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Nothin' that came up out of the fug ever had anything good in mind for us. Especially nothin' with the name Ebonwhite.\"\n\n\"The man's an Ebonwhite?\" Gunner said. \"I can't even see the silver lining for all the red flags on this, Captain.\"\n\n\"Glinda, thoughts?\" Mack said.\n\nButch answered with her usual eloquence, weaving a sentence out of exotic profanities that roughly echoed the sentiments of the others.\n\n\"Nita?\" Mack said.\n\nThe engineer crossed her arms, causing the sash of wrenches to jingle.\n\n\"Captain, you know I came here without preconceptions about the fug folk. They made an impression rather quickly, and it wasn't a positive one. But there were some good people in Skykeep with us. People I might even be inclined to say I trust. I'd surely recognize any of them if I were to meet them, and if any were among those I'd become the most familiar with, I believe we could trust them to vouch for his intentions.\"\n\n\"So is that a vote in favor?\"\n\n\"Perhaps not in favor of the venture as a whole, but at least in favor of further investigation,\" Nita said. \"Nothing ventured, nothing gained.\"\n\nGunner cleared his throat. \"Now, I didn't deal with many of those prisoners except for during the cleanup after, and I'll admit there were better men among them than any other fugger I'd dealt with, but a wolf can easily dress in sheep's clothing for a few minutes. And gaining their council on the matter requires that he be telling the truth about them. Not only that, but to find out the truth of that we'd have to go where he leads us, which is down into a part of the fug we've never been to before. I don't know for certain this is a trap, but it's got damn fine bait, which is usually a good indicator. We don't even know if what he's saying about that ichor substance is true. For all we know he's scraped a bit of tree sap into a vial and made up a, frankly, extremely unlikely story about its properties.\"\n\n\"Then let's ask for a demonstration,\" Nita said. \"He said making phlogiston was trivial. My workshop has plenty of tools, and Gunner is no stranger to working with chemicals. If he can produce any phlogiston at all from the sample he brought, it would at least indicate there was some truth to his claims.\"\n\nGunner leaned on the table in front of him and eyed Nita. \"You just want to see how it's done, don't you?\" he said.\n\nNita smiled. \"Of course I want to see how it's done! What engineer wouldn't want to see? Gunner, you haven't stopped tinkering with that light gun of theirs since you got it. Don't tell me you haven't gotten a taste for their particular brand of ingenuity.\"\n\n\"I've got a taste for it when I'm pointing it at them.\"\n\n\"Well this is our chance to, just maybe, have an awful lot more of it to point with,\" Nita said. \"I'm with all of you. This does sound too good to be true. But sometimes things that sound too good to be true are true anyway. If it turns out to be a scheme, then we've gotten out of worse ones before. And at least this time it'll be coming from in front of us rather than behind us. The question here isn't should we trust him or not. The question is would you rather regret doing something dangerous or regret doing something safe, and I think my history speaks for itself on that issue.\"\n\nCaptain Mack glanced about again. \"Thoughts on this new argument our most junior member of the crew has presented?\"\n\n\"If you paint it like we're taking a gamble, then I ain't never been one to miss a chance at a good bet,\" Coop said. \"I suppose I'm for it.\"\n\nGunner considered his words for a moment. \"If he's able to do with that goop in the vial what he says he can, then I'd say it's at least worth a chance, provided we keep our eyes open the entire time for the inevitable double cross.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you all feel that way. Because we were going to do it regardless, but things go smoother when we're all tugging the line in the same direction,\" Captain Mack said. \"Let's go see if this fella can work some magic and set some minds a bit more at ease.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "Digger stood in the gig room, looking a bit uncertain about what to make of Lil. She'd taken a seat on Nita's hammock and was swinging her feet, smirking at the fug person.\n\n\"You sure look funny with that little narrow head of yours sticking out of all them clothes. I wonder why fug folk are always so skinny.\"\n\n\"It is just the way we are,\" Digger said. \"If you don't mind the observation, you are smaller than I'd expected. A few of the former inmates told stories about you and Nita. I'm having a hard time imagining someone of your stature making fools of trained guards to the degree they described.\"\n\n\"It don't take much of a finger to pull a trigger,\" Lil said. \"And the way I figure it, being little's come in more handy than anything else.\"\n\n\"If you'll also excuse the observation, you have a\u2026 curious way about you. I'm not certain if you are a friend, or if you're waiting for a chance to shoot me.\"\n\n\"No reason I can't be one until I'm the other,\" Lil said. She glanced at a book tucked behind a belt that held it to the wall near the hammock. \"Say, I been meaning to ask someone from the fug this. You folk get into anything artsy down there?\"\n\n\"Artsy?\"\n\n\"Yeah, you know. Music, paintin', storytellin'. Pretty stuff. I know you make them cameras, but I can't imagine there's much down there worth taking pictures of, it being so dark.\"\n\n\"I'm partial to theater, myself.\"\n\n\"Oh. I was sort of hopin' for something I could maybe buy or borrow to show off.\"\n\n\"We've worked out a way to share theater. It's related to that camera you're familiar with. There's more development to be done on that front, but it is a remarkable effect if you get a chance to see it. Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"Nita here,\" Lil said, patting the hammock. \"She and the folk back where she came from are all about stuff like that. I'm always trying to find things she might like. I worry that, being up here with us all the time, she might get to thinkin' she'd rather be home. I want her to be happy, you know? Because one of these day's we'll all learn to do her job like she's been learning to do ours, and we all know how to do each other's, mostly. And when that happens, she and us'd be square and she could hop off the Wind Breaker crew and stay home.\n\n\"That's why I bought her this book. It's the one book I can remember my mama readin' to us. Just kid stuff, rhymes and stuff, but there's lots of pictures. I guess she's been reading it, but I ain't seen her reading it. Her being the engineer and me being a deckhand, most days us getting time to spare that lines up with each other just ain't in the cards.\n\n\"But the details of what me and Nita do or don't find the time to do together isn't the point of the matter, Digger. The question is, do you know of any doodads and such that'd interest her? Artsy stuff. And tinkery too.\"\n\nDigger furrowed his brow. \"It isn't a matter of expertise for me, but I'll certainly put some thought into it if our association extends beyond this initial meeting.\"\n\n\"If this 'association' doesn't extend beyond 'this initial meeting,'\" she said, imitating his diction, \"then you're not gonna be keeping anything in mind at all. Because that'd mean we've reckoned you're trying to trick us, and like I said, it don't take much of a finger to pull a trigger.\"\n\nShe smiled sweetly and kicked her feet, not a hint of malice in her expression and no inkling that anything she'd said was out of the ordinary.\n\n\"You are a very disconcerting individual, Miss Cooper,\" he said.\n\n\"So I been told,\" Lil said.\n\nThe door opened and Coop, Nita, Gunner, and Mack entered. Lil hopped to her feet and stepped over to them.\n\n\"Has a decision been reached?\" Digger asked. Though there was a clear attempt, he had little success hiding the nervousness in his voice.\n\n\"Not just yet,\" Captain Mack said. \"One bit more. Call it a sign of good faith.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"You said it was trivial to make phlogiston from ichor, correct?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Trivial enough that you could do it with what we have here and what you have there?\"\n\n\"It isn't precisely my area of expertise.\"\n\nGunner crossed his arms.\n\n\"Seems like you got a lot of areas that ain't your expertise, Digger,\" Lil said.\n\n\"However, in expectation of the request for a demonstration, I had the fellow most familiar with the simplest form of the procedure give me some instructions.\"\n\nHe reached into his pocket. Before his hand reached bottom, Gunner, Coop, and Lil had their guns pointed at him, cocked and ready.\n\n\"You really ought to announce that sort of thing before you do it, Digger,\" Coop said.\n\n\"At what point in this potential partnership am I likely to be permitted to access my own pockets without prior announcement?\" Digger said, a flicker of anger flavoring his anxiety.\n\n\"Once it stops being potential,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Plus two or three days for good measure,\" Lil added.\n\n\"Well I'm going to remove a slip of paper and a small jar from this pocket, and then I'm going to retrieve the ichor sample from the other.\"\n\n\"Do it slow,\" Coop said.\n\nDigger revealed the described items and flipped open the piece of paper.\n\n\"It appears I shall require a double boiler, some glassware, and a pair of crucible tongs. We shall also need access to a reasonably well-ventilated workspace.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "In Fugtown, Mayor Ebonwhite approached the bottom of a substantial mound of paperwork. Running the affairs of the city was a substantial job, and one that had grown more substantial under his tenure. He was a man of exacting requirements, and he'd seldom found a subordinate capable of rising to them. Furthermore, while running Fugtown was task enough for anyone, he'd expanded his influence well beyond it. These days little went on beneath the fug that he did not consider his concern. He was a man with a great hunger for control, and it grew more ravenous by the day.\n\nHe was signing off on a request to construct a pair of new dry docks when a knock on his door broke his concentration.\n\n\"Mr. Fross?\" Ebonwhite said.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I trust it is a very, very pressing message that has motivated you to interrupt me at this hour.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Then enter.\"\n\nMr. Fross pushed open the door. Mayor Ebonwhite's personal assistant was not a distinctive man by fug standards. Tall, slender, and slightly stooped, he dressed in dark colors and perpetually wore a vest. His hair was black against his white skin, and of late he'd been keeping his long, gaunt face clean-shaven. He held a small folder of pages.\n\n\"Would you like to read them yourself, or shall I summarize?\"\n\n\"Does it warrant perusal past the summary?\"\n\n\"Unlikely, there wasn't much to learn, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"Then summarize. I've still got a fair amount of matters to see to.\"\n\nHe opened the folder. \"You'd asked us too look further into Mr. Alabaster, as you were unsatisfied with the depth of your current knowledge. He operates out of Caer Fiona, which is at the edge of The Thicket. We've seldom had occasion to keep surveillance upon locations so far north and east, so our agents there are stretched rather thin. As you suspected, however, Alabaster has had a few somewhat suspect activities recently. First, a summary of what we've found of his history.\"\n\n\"Quickly, Mr. Fross.\"\n\n\"Alabaster operates no significant industry directly. Most of his wealth was inherited from his father, who had accumulated it during the cleanup efforts following the initial arrival of the fug. This allowed him to lay claim to some significant real estate, which made him a small fortune when sold some years later. Alabaster himself has maintained the fortune and grown it through some sensible investment. He has a small stake in nearly every local business concern, either by holding the title to their land or owning a portion of the business itself.\"\n\n\"Meaning,\" Ebonwhite broke in, \"he has intimate knowledge of the activities of each local business and, if he is at all intelligent, influence over the local workforce.\"\n\n\"That is my estimation as well.\"\n\n\"This would make him ideally suited to filling the gaps in our intelligence network in the region. If he'd approached me with that offer, I might have accepted it. Foolish that he instead came seeking work as a problem solver.\"\n\n\"To that end, sir, the only other significant information we were able to ascertain was that he has made some rather sizable donations to various educational and labor organizations. He's been ordering some low-grade silverware from North Circa in medium-size quantities through Precipice, and he commissioned the construction of a personal conveyance, the one that ferried him here and back. That is the only officially commissioned ship, but the variety and quantity of materials acquired for its construction is vastly in excess of requirements for such a vessel. We believe he is arming himself.\"\n\n\"Arming himself,\" Ebonwhite said. \"To what degree?\"\n\n\"Perhaps a small collection of scout-type ships or one larger combat vessel.\"\n\n\"So nothing that might threaten even the most outlying people under my protection.\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"I take from this that he is genuine in his interest in clashing with the Wind Breaker and her crew.\"\n\n\"That is a reasonable assessment.\"\n\n\"The man is a glory-seeking fool, and he seems set on feeding himself to the very wolves we are trying to starve. That is the sort of person likely to spoil many carefully weighed plans. What is the most recent information regarding the whereabouts of the Wind Breaker?\"\n\n\"There was a sighting of it heading north.\"\n\n\"If I recall correctly, this time of the month would see them returning to that island the captain purchased, then their trip back to Caldera. That would imply south and west, not north.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"So it is possible he's already set out the bait for his trap, whatever it might be\u2026 A scheme is playing out, and by virtue of the remoteness of its backdrop, it is doing so without my knowledge. Listen carefully, Fross. I want you to monitor any requests and shipments of things the Wind Breaker may need. Phlogiston, replacement parts, burn-slow, things of that nature. If an unusual quantity is headed in the direction of Alabaster or his holdings, I want to know immediately. He knows I plan to overcome the Wind Breaker by choking off its vital supplies. He may attempt to feed them enough phlogiston to make them a continued threat until I seek his aid.\"\n\nHe frowned and steepled his fingers. \"Select an agent, one who is skilled and as near to being incorruptible as we have in our employ, and send him north. If Alabaster isn't completely inept, he will no doubt be aware that we've sent him, and that will encourage him, but it can't be helped. I need eyes on what that fool might be doing.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"There's nothing I find more frustrating than finding a man who might be useful, but who prefers to be put to a different use,\" he said, shaking his head."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Digger was clearly out of his element, handling the tongs as though they would bite him and watching anxiously as the water in the boiler rose past a simmer. It wasn't anything more complex than a bowl of water with an empty bowl set atop it and a burner set below, but he may as well have been handling a bomb with a short fuse from his apparent anxiety. The venue for the demonstration, thanks to the requirement for ventilation, was the gig room with the gig lowered a few inches. In order to spare Nita's corner any damage, they were working on the opposite side, and the crew had formed a quarter circle around the demonstration. The only person absent was Butch, who seldom saw the need to leave the galley.\n\n\"Would you like any help?\" Nita asked. \"You don't seem comfortable with the tools of the trade.\"\n\n\"My role thus far in any of the industries to which I've put my hand has always been administrative,\" Digger said, looking over his instructions. \"Unfortunately, this next portion is one that requires the hand of a fug person such as myself. First, some warnings. Ichor, in all but the smallest quantities, is phenomenally poisonous. It should not be consumed, inhaled, or allowed to touch unprotected flesh.\"\n\n\"Should we be wearing our masks?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"The instructions suggest the fumes will not be an issue, though there may be some spattering when heated.\"\n\nThe upper pot of the small double boiler was dancing, steam spurting from beneath its rim. Each rattle and spurt caused Digger to jump.\n\n\"If you'll excuse the observation, Digger, I don't think you've got the temperament for this venture,\" Nita said.\n\nDigger cracked the top of the vial containing the ichor and set the whole container into the upper bowl. He then opened the small glass jar and took back the tongs.\n\n\"I must again request that you all keep your distance. This paper has been treated with a solution of condensed fug. It is for purposes of illustration. As I'm sure you are all aware, the two key attributes of phlogiston are its exceptionally lighter-than-air nature and the illumination it produces when it comes into contact with the fug. I am instructed to hold it over the warming ichor.\" He did so. \"When the ichor reaches the proper temperature, a stream of compounds shall issue forth. The fug-treated swatch shall illuminate in the presence of phlogiston.\"\n\nFor a few moments, all waited while the heat slowly filtered into the mysterious substance. Digger's anxiousness, if it was not already exceptionally apparent, showed in the increasing shakiness of the tongs.\n\n\"About how long is this liable to take?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"I don't know. I've never performed the demonstration before. Until the well is secured, ichor is too precious to be squandered without good reason. The instructions claim the first sign of the reaction will be a cracking of the crust on the top of the ichor.\"\n\nThe substance obligingly chose that moment to begin. A small tinkling crackle came from the pot. Then came a curl of green gas that swept up and brushed against the swatch of paper, causing it to flash brilliant green.\n\n\"As our most chemically inclined crewmember, I must say that while I am intrigued, I am not impressed by this demonstration, Captain,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"I was hoping for something a mite more\u2014\" the captain began.\n\nBefore his hopes could be articulated, the ichor decided to rise to the occasion. A sharp snap sent fragments of white crystal scattering from the pot. Then came more phlogiston. Not an errant wisp, but a veritable spout. The green gas belched fourth nearly as wide as the opening of the pot, flitting up past the swatch of treated paper. The light from it was just short of blinding. The crew turned away and Digger flinched, dropping it into the pot where it flashed still brighter and brought with it a burst of heat before dying away.\n\nWith the light gone, the crew watched the phlogiston spread across the ceiling, seeking out every crack and crevice and filtering away. When the rush of gas finally finished nearly a minute later, all that was left behind in the boiler was a handful of small white crystals, some broken glass, and a black stain.\n\n\"That\u2026 was a fair distance on the other side of my hopes and expectations,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Would you fine ladies and gentlemen then consider this venture to be worthy of your investment and risk?\" Digger said.\n\nThere was a general murmur to the affirmative.\n\n\"I'd say we're done with the ifs and we're on to the hows and whens, Digger,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Ah\u2026\" Digger said, shakily setting down the tongs and fumbling with the burner. \"Good, good. Because those are matters I'm much more comfortable discussing.\"\n\n\"I'll take care of that for you,\" Nita said. \"A shaky hand with a burner like this is liable to start a blaze.\"\n\n\"I thank you,\" Digger said. \"Naturally, as you've included your crew in the decision-making process, from this point forward I would be remiss if I didn't do the same for my collaborators. It is my recommendation that we go our separate ways for now, meeting up once again at a location within the fug, which I've recorded right\u2026\" He paused. \"I am going to fetch a slip of paper from an inside pocket. Please do not interpret this as an act of aggression.\"\n\n\"The man's learning,\" Gunner said.\n\nDigger produced the page with the directions and presented it to Captain Mack. \"To provide you with time to supply yourselves and prepare for a trip into the fug, I would suggest meeting again in two days. That will also provide me time to travel to the meeting site. We have not been able to acquire an airship for our cause, so travel has been rather uncomfortably achieved by way of steam carts along the old roads.\"\n\n\"Just as well. If you want to keep working with us, all you folks ought to stay off airships entirely. Nothing that happens on a fugger airship stays secret for long,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"True enough. To that end, when you come I would recommend measures be taken to ensure stealth. I know you have a reputation of somehow escaping the watchful eye of my people, but it is now doubly important that you not be seen approaching the meeting place because, were you to be seen, it would reveal both of us. In your case I have no doubt that you can fight off the martial intent of any local contingent of Fugtown or its allies, but the Well Diggers, I assure you, cannot.\"\n\n\"We'll be discreet,\" Captain Mack said. \"Coop, drop the ladder and see Digger to his door. I'll see you all in the galley in twenty minutes to discuss preparations.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" Coop said.\n\nHe kicked down the ladder and did Digger the favor of climbing down to secure the bottom for his own descent. When the newcomer was out of earshot, the captain looked to his crew.\n\n\"Twenty minutes,\" Captain Mack repeated. \"Bring your questions, concerns, and other such thoughts, because one way or another we'll be setting our course by the time we bed down.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "The rest of the crew filed off to prepare for the forthcoming discussion, leaving Lil and Nita alone in the gig room.\n\n\"That was sure something, wasn't it?\" Lil said.\n\n\"It certainly was. That was as near to magic as I'm willing to admit exists,\" Nita said. \"I know a few people back home who would dearly love to be able to conjure such an effect on stage for the delight of the audience.\"\n\nShe picked up the bowl and wafted the air above it for a sniff. \"Oh my\u2026\" She coughed. \"That stinks terribly of the fug.\"\n\n\"He had that paper strip in there.\"\n\n\"There's no sign of it. And I swear the smell is stronger now than when he first revealed it. I wonder what that's about.\"\n\n\"I suppose you can ask him, if we go through with it,\" Lil said. She glanced over to Nita's hammock. \"I see you got that book I bought by your bed there.\"\n\n\"Of course! It's a delightful collection of stories. And some fine and colorful prints as well.\"\n\n\"I really liked lookin' at them when I was little. Ma and Pa weren't much for readin', so I only know about half the stories.\" She took a breath and whistled between her teeth. \"Twenty minutes. Seems like that's about as long as we've had to ourselves except for eating and sleeping since they sprung us from Skykeep.\"\n\n\"Captain Mack has been pushing us rather hard,\" Nita said, picking up the tongs and using them to stir at the shards of glass and crystal in the pot. \"Until this moment I've only had a passing interest in chemistry. But seeing the great force of that reaction and its small size, I almost wonder if it might do a better job than steam at pushing pistons.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't know about that,\" Lil said, scuffing the floor with the toe of her boot. \"Like I was saying, we haven't had too much time to chat and such, so much work to be done. But I know you've been fixing up the workings of the ship so they're easier to keep up and such, right?\"\n\n\"That's right. I'm nearly through, too.\"\n\n\"And after that, you'll finish teaching us how to keep it up?\"\n\n\"Yes. It should be much simpler. If Captain Mack gives us the time, I don't imagine it will take more than a few weeks.\"\n\nLil nodded. \"And then?\"\n\n\"And then you'll be able to look after yourselves.\"\n\n\"And what'll be next for you?\"\n\n\"I hadn't put much thought into it yet. I suppose that's one of my faults, not looking more than a few steps ahead.\"\n\nLil nodded again, a hopeful smile coming to her face. \"Aw heck, Nita. That ain't no kind of fault. Most folk can't see more than a few steps ahead anyway. Seems to me trying to think ahead further than that is a waste of time, since the place you're planning to set your next step might not look anything like what you were expecting. I say focus on what's right in front of you and don't worry about what's ahead unless you have to. You never know what sort of happy things will come along that'd make those plans seem foolish anyway.\"\n\n\"I don't know. Planning for one's future is something most of my teachers tried to hammer into me back in school. Captain Mack has been putting a lot of thought into his future.\"\n\n\"Has he?\" Lil said.\n\nNita looked to her. \"Oh, come now, Lil. The captain has been having us ferry all our goods back and forth to Laylow Island from where we'd stashed it near Caldera. And you know our business in Lock was about its purchase, right?\"\n\nLil furrowed her brow. \"I'd not, uh, paid that much mind. But I suppose I remember some talk about that, on account of the amount of money involved. What's that got to do with his future, though? I reckon that's just because he ain't ever been one for squatting. The only reason he felt comfortable stowing our things on that island near you is most folk don't even dare head out that far, from hereabouts or Caldera. I figured Laylow was just a place we could moor up and unload from time to time without feeling like we're stepping on toes.\"\n\n\"I imagine you haven't paid much mind to this either, since it is mostly on display in his office and I'm called in there far more often than you, but he's spent a great deal of time working on figures and finance lately. He's got a buying list up on his wall. There's all sorts of lumber and other items on it.\"\n\n\"We've traded in that stuff before\u2026\"\n\n\"Lil, he bought the island, and now I'd say he's planning to build a home on it. Captain Mack is getting ready to retire. I'm sure he is going to share his plans with the rest of us once he gets closer to the goal.\"\n\nNita continued to stir through the pot and thus missed Lil's face dropping at the brief feeling of relief crushed by near panic.\n\n\"You, uh\u2026 you need me for anything right now?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Not at the moment. Why?\" Nita asked, turning toward her.\n\nLil turned away and headed for the door before Nita could look her in the eye. \"I just got some things I need to see to before we have our big meeting about what we're fixin' to do,\" she said quickly.\n\nShe didn't wait for Nita to reply, hurrying instead to the stairs that would lead her most directly to her room, or what passed for it. She reached the closet-size recess in a hallway that she shared with her brother and threw the curtain aside, plopping down onto her hammock and fixing her eyes on the wooden ceiling. Pinned to it was a photograph Nita had taken the time to make during one of their trips to Caldera, a grainy black-and-white representation of the whole crew. It was a rare occasion when they'd even managed to get Captain Mack and Butch to step off the Wind Breaker and onto the mainland.\n\nLil gritted her teeth and turned to the wall. \"Dang it, Lil, how simple are you? You're spending all this time worrying Nita's going to leave and you don't take the time to notice that everyone's fixin' to move on.\"\n\nA bit of motion caught her attention. A lump under the blanket on Coop's bed was moving. The edge of it toward the door lifted up slightly, then dropped quickly again. Lil's mouth curled a bit in a grin, and she reached out to slide the curtain shut. As soon as they had what passed for privacy on the Wind Breaker, the blanket slipped up to reveal Nikita. The little creature turned its large red eyes to Lil and hopped to the hammock beside her.\n\n\"Well aren't you the good little inspector,\" she said, lifting the creature onto her lap and stroking her under the chin. \"Sneaking and spying just like you been taught to. The stranger ain't about right now, so you don't have to hide no more for a bit.\"\n\nNikita reached over and drummed her long finger on Lil's hand. Both Wink and Nikita were more than capable of communicating by tapping out the code the other members of the crew had learned. Only Nikita seemed to have picked up the quirk of tapping her message directly on the person she wished to talk to when it wasn't meant for everyone. The little inspector had developed a taste for private conversation.\n\nLil was sad, Nikita tapped.\n\n\"Now, now. What've we been trying to teach you?\"\n\nLil is sad.\n\n\"That's better. And I don't know if sad's quite right, but I sure ain't happy.\"\n\nLil told Nikita\u2026 Nikita paused. Why is Lil sad?\n\n\"Now you're learning!\" Lil said, giving Nikita another scratch. \"Now, as for what you asked\u2026 you remember what it was you did before you joined us on the crew?\"\n\nNikita remembered. Nikita wished Nikita forgot.\n\n\"It wasn't a good time, was it? And when Coop scooped you up, all hurt like you were, and brought you on the Wind Breaker for Butch to patch up, he wasn't just saving you from your injuries, was he? He was saving you from the dead end of a life you were heading down. Well, Cap'n Mack did the same for me and Coop. We were goatherds. Not too good at it, neither. But as lousy as we were at that, it was a fair bit better than we were at anything else we put our minds to. Then a bad storm came and caused the fug to spill over our land. Took the whole herd. Almost took us with them. But the cap'n scooped us up. And like you, he wasn't just scooping us up out of our peril. He was giving us something better. I never done nothing in my life as well as I done this job. And I never had anyone stick around with me as long as I stuck around with these folks. You know Nita, right?\"\n\nNita gave\u2026 gives Nikita good food. Very good food.\n\n\"That's her. You critters sure do love them macaroons she gets. Anyhow, she was never supposed to be part of this crew. Sort of wormed her way on, rather than gettin' plucked up like Coop and me. And that meant she wasn't meant to stay on this crew, but because she got us on the bad side of the fuggers, she agreed to stick around until we could handle ourselves without her and without them. We're just about there now. And that means she'd be within her rights to take her leave and head back home. You ain't seen much of her home, Nikita, but it's a wonderful place. No one in their right mind with the means to live there would live anywhere else.\n\n\"The thing is, I got used to having the folks I like best being all around me. And she's most definitely one of the folks I like best. I was all in a tizzy wondering what I would do if she left. Now I find out the cap'n might be hanging it up. The one dang thing in my life that I've been any good at is about to dry up, and I ain't had mind enough to take notice.\" She sighed. \"Anyhow, that's what's got me wearing this sour face.\"\n\nIt is all right, Lil. Lil is smart and Coop is smart. Nikita will stay with Coop and Lil.\n\nLil reached up and loosened a belt on the wall that held some of her effects and pulled free a small box. From inside she pulled out a bit of breadfruit.\n\n\"You're a sweet little thing, Nicky,\" she said, giving the creature the treat. \"And you're learning to talk real good. Now same rules with this as any other thing you hear on this ship. Don't go telling nobody what I said.\"\n\nNikita nodded.\n\n\"There's a good girl,\" Lil said, lying back on the hammock.\n\nNikita curled atop her. Lil stroked the little creature and put her mind to work."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "The twenty minutes passed and the group found itself once more in the galley. Butch boiled up some coffee.\n\n\"I trust we all put these last few minutes to good use mulling over what we saw and what it means for our future?\" Captain Mack said.\n\nHis crew nodded in response.\n\n\"Good. Gunner, I'll hear from you first,\" he said.\n\n\"I still don't trust the fellow has anyone's best interests at heart but his own\u2014\" Gunner began.\n\n\"I wouldn't begrudge him that, because I'd say that's so of us all.\"\n\n\"\u2014but it is clear there is at least some truth to his claims.\"\n\n\"Some truth?\" Lil said. \"Did you see the phlogiston that gunk spat out? That was a half a canister, easy, and all he had to do was heat it up!\"\n\n\"He suggested there were even more efficient ways to produce the stuff, and therefore even greater potential yields,\" Nita added.\n\n\"But just because he has proved where phlogiston comes from, it doesn't mean this well he described is real. And even if it is, there's still the chance it exists merely as an admittedly tantalizing lure to a trap we have all already been expecting.\"\n\n\"A trap we're all expecting is just about the best trap we can hope for,\" Lil said. \"And if we're quick, we can probably snatch the bait before it springs. And if it ain't a trap, same result, except we don't have to be so quick.\"\n\n\"The fella seems a decent sort, as fug folk go,\" Coop said. \"Heck, he seems the decent sort as regular folk go. A little too smart for easy conversation, maybe. And scared out of his britches about having to deal with us, but that's just sensible. Knowing what he knows about us and what we done, I'd be a mite nervous dealing with us, too. This could be a double cross sure. But I don't reckon he's the one who'll do it. Even if he is an Ebonwhite.\"\n\n\"I'm still not fond of that. We've encountered three Ebonwhites thus far. We robbed one after he saw fit to milk us dry of all of our money and condemn Nita's mother to a slow death because there wasn't enough money in curing her. The other two got themselves killed in prison trying to do the same to Lil and Nita. It sets a poor precedent to dealings with the family, wouldn't you agree?\" said Gunner.\n\n\"The best way to make determinations about a man's character is to spend some time with the fella,\" Lil said.\n\nGunner crossed his arms. \"And the best way to avoid the machinations of a man of poor character is to avoid him entirely and be mindful of where to find him. The fug folk in general and the Ebonwhites in particular are too dangerous to be taken lightly. And I am speaking as a man who willfully handles unstable ordnance during his leisure hours.\"\n\n\"Nita? Care to give your impression on the situation?\" Captain Mack asked.\n\n\"To be perfectly frank, Captain, after that display, I'd be willing to dive into the fug knowing full well it was a trap, just to learn a bit more about this stuff and what other wonders it can work. Both Gunner and I have pored over the pages we unearthed during the heist of the storehouse, and while we've learned a great deal about the workings of their technology, not a scrap of information anywhere in the volumes we stole even suggested anything like this. If there are wonders like that to be uncovered, those alone would be worth the risk.\"\n\n\"Admirable though it is to pursue something for the joy of learning alone, that's not what we're after in this.\"\n\n\"If you wouldn't call it too much of an overstep, Cap'n, I think I know how we should handle this,\" Lil said.\n\n\"I'm all ears, Lil.\"\n\n\"We agree to the plan. We meet him where we said we would, and we follow through like we're all dedicated and such. We keep our eyes open, but as bad as things might look, we stick with them at least as long as it takes to find out where this ichor well is. By then we should have a pretty good read on the situation. If things look good, we go through with the plan, no one the wiser about what we might have been planning otherwise. If we decide it stinks, then we make our own trip to the ichor well, pump up a couple barrels of the stuff, and hightail it back to Laylow or that place near Caldera and set down until Nita and Gunner here can work out how to make our own phlogiston.\n\n\"No matter how things turn out, we got enough to keep our envelope nice and full for years, and that means we can keep the crew together and in the air for a long time to come.\"\n\nLil looked to the rest of the crew. Mack did the same.\n\n\"Its source notwithstanding, the plan is sound,\" Gunner allowed.\n\nCoop gave Lil a slap to the back. \"That's my sister doing some world-class figuring. Next thing you know she'll be takin' the wheel while the cap'n sleeps.\"\n\n\"I agree. I think it is a very sound approach,\" Nita said. \"I might amend, if it is our plan to attempt to do our own preparation of phlogiston, it might be helpful to have a word with this chemist they are after. As while we've seen the creation of the gas, we've not seen what it takes to make burn-slow. And the warnings of the danger of ichor are reason enough to investigate the substance carefully before we begin working with it.\"\n\n\"Agreed. So we'll take this enterprise as far as its midpoint. Bend the ear of the chemist, make our way to the well, and start preparations for a defense and harvest of the stuff. At that time, if we suspect they are meaning to do us dirty, we'll do them dirty first, and it won't be anything they didn't earn. And if they earn better, then we'll have partners in a place we never expected to have them. As Digger suggested, the next two days had best be spent preparing. We need to be ready for a lengthy stay in the fug, or at the very least several shorter ones. We'll need to be armed, not just for fighting men but for fighting whatever manner of beasts we might find, and other airships in the worst case. We'll need to be ready to spring someone from a prison, or something like it. And we'll need room in our hold for ferrying supplies and bringing back one hell of a load of phlogiston and burn-slow, because if things go as well as they might, you'd better believe we are going to make our first taste of their hospitality enough to fill our bellies, just in case we don't get another taste.\n\n\"If we overstoke, and the wind is with us, we can get to Keystone and back again before the time comes for our meeting. That's where we're headed.\"\n\n\"We might have some difficulties there,\" Gunner said. \"That's right outside Fugtown and thus well within the influence of the most worrisome of the Ebonwhites.\"\n\n\"It can't be helped. That's the only place local that will fill all our needs for sale and purchase. Do I need to hand out individual orders, or do we all know our piece?\"\n\n\"I think we can manage,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Then get to them. Gunner, you're on the wheel. I need to close my eyes for a few hours.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "After watching the Wind Breaker depart, and giving his nerves time to settle, Digger locked up his rented room and paced into the mines. Within a shaft that was no longer being worked stood a wire-caged elevator, and though the rest of the tunnel was neglected and ignored, its machinery was well oiled. He gave a good hard tug to a line beside the elevator, then stepped inside. A few moments later a distant grind rang out below him and the elevator began to descend. A minute into the descent it plunged down into a purple cloud of mist that was the reason for the abandonment of the mine. The crew had punched through to natural caves that were saturated with the fug.\n\nA chemical coldness spread across his skin, easing his anxiety in the same way the shade of a familiar tree can provide respite from the summer's heat. Though a fug person was able to breathe and interact above its surface and the same could not be said of a surface dweller below it, Digger had never once felt comfortable or at ease when out from beneath the sheltering blanket of fug.\n\nThe rails and workings of the elevator were fresher beneath the fug and built with more precision. This was because they were the work of the fug folk themselves. Springcrest was one of only a handful of places where the miners had been imprudent enough to open a path to the fug, Lock being another. As such they offered the only means aside from an airship for fug folk to access the surface dwellers without climbing gear. Though the fug folk seldom had reason to have discreet dealings with the surface, maintaining the means to do so was valuable.\n\nNearly five minutes after he'd stepped onto the elevator, it reached the bottom. A shack had been built around the base of the rails, and inside was a taller, more sturdily built fug person in mining gear.\n\n\"So, how did it go? Did they show up?\" the man said, with all the enthusiasm of a child asking about the circus that was in town.\n\n\"They did. My hands are still shaking. It was an imposing lot.\"\n\n\"Imposing, sure, but a fun lot. You get to meet Lil and Nita?\" he asked.\n\n\"I got the meet them all, Kent, but most of my direct dealings were with Lil, the captain and\u2026 I believe the name was Coop?\"\n\n\"Oh sure. Fun lot, all of them. They agree?\"\n\n\"I believe we shall see them all, at least once more, at the indicated meeting place.\"\n\n\"Oh, they'll see it through. Like I said. A great lot. If they could take down the Phylactery, they can tackle this, no trouble.\"\n\n\"Again, having met them, they certainly seem vicious enough for the task. It's\u2026 off-putting, Kent. One moment they appear simple but civil. The next, weapons are raised and they seem cheerful at the chance to draw blood.\"\n\n\"They ain't in it for the blood, Digger. My only dealings were as one of the inmates they set free when they brought the prison down. If they'd wanted to, they could have killed the lot of us. They took careful pains not to, and even patched up the ones who were tossed about too much. I'd hate to be on their wrong side, or between them and what they've set their minds to, but they don't kill except those who've earned it and those who work for those who've earned it.\"\n\n\"I'll make no argument with your assessment of their formidable nature, though owing to your history with them, I would hope if they do rendezvous with us, you will speak to my trustworthiness.\"\n\n\"They didn't seem like they trusted you?\"\n\n\"As you say, they are more than willing to murder those who have earned the targets painted upon their backs. I would not be the first Ebonwhite to bear that distinction, or even the third. Their estimations of my character are justifiably skewed.\"\n\n\"I been working with you near since I got set free, Ebonwhite, and I still only understand every third word you say. But I'll do my best to set their minds at ease about you.\"\n\n\"How have things progressed in my absence? Any unforeseen difficulties?\" Digger asked, pacing toward the door of the shack.\n\n\"Nothing unforeseen, no. We saw every one of them coming. First, guns and things of that sort have been easy enough to get, but ammunition has been in short supply. We're pretty thin on volunteers for either the gathering of our chemist or the expedition into The Thicket. For the chemist, most of the folks I shared the prison with aren't keen on showing their faces in a place where they might be recognized and returned to\u2026 wherever they're putting folks like us now that the Phylactery is down. I don't imagine you need me to describe the reasons for not wanting to travel past the posted roads in The Thicket. The sound alone from what lurks among those trees is liable to test a man's resolve.\"\n\n\"It's a wonder we were able to get any samples of the ichor at all. What happened to that\u2026 Louis gentleman who brought these back, and who completed the map to the place?\"\n\n\"He set off on another trip to the well, seeking more samples, so he said.\"\n\n\"When do you expect him to return?\"\n\n\"Four days ago. Or more accurately, not at all.\"\n\n\"Good heavens\u2026 has he any next of kin to inform?\"\n\n\"I don't think a man with next of kin would have made the first trip, let alone the second.\"\n\n\"I hate to sound uncaring, but\u2014\"\n\n\"We've got copies of the map. Donald, one of the fellows unlucky enough to be on the first expedition and lucky enough to get back, vouches for the accuracy.\"\n\n\"Excellent. And the other preparations?\"\n\n\"Plenty of raw materials. Lumber, steel, brass, pipes, valves, and such. We can build a fortress, if the wildlife can be persuaded to leave us be long enough to do it.\"\n\n\"And the machinery? For mechanized defenses?\"\n\n\"Loads of bits and pieces, like I said. And most of us made our wages in shipyards and factories. We can build from plans just fine, but there aren't any designers and inventors among us, so there would be the issue of who might provide the instructions. But if what Lil said about Nita and Gunner is true, passable designs should be forthcoming.\"\n\n\"We are placing a good deal of confidence in these people.\"\n\n\"Digger, I'll say this to you, and then I'll be on my way, because two days is barely time enough to finish up the tasks ahead. I know what it's like to be a friend to these folks. And we've all heard what it's like to be an enemy to them. Of the two, I'm keen on being the first and pray nightly that I never become the second.\"\n\nKent turned and packed off into the darkness, lit by the lamp on his helmet.\n\n\"That doesn't quite set my concerns to rest, Kent,\" Digger said.\n\n\"It wasn't meant to, Digger.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "Hours into the hardening night, Gunner remained at the helm. As ever, he was sharply dressed, his heavy clothes coordinated and ornamented as a member of the military, even if his present position was firmly civilian. Lil was on watch, and both Nikita and Wink had joined her. Each was huddled within the coils of hose that fed the turbine on either side of the envelope's underside. The steam running through them kept each nest toasty warm, though from their expressions when they glanced down, the wind still chilled them a bit.\n\nLil paced up to the wheel and lingered in the dim glow of the phlo-light that kept Gunner from working in complete darkness. She had her rifle at her shoulder and was bundled even more thoroughly than Digger had been.\n\n\"Look at 'em up there, Gunner. All huddled and shivering with every gale. You reckon we could make something for 'em to wear?\"\n\nGunner looked at Lil. \"We didn't worry about that during the several prior winters Wink had to endure as our inspector.\"\n\n\"That's before the little bugger turned out to be a such a grumpy little sweetheart. Plus he's got his little friend. Puts a special light on something, having to see it happen twice at once.\"\n\n\"You already coddle and cuddle them. Now you'll dress them up?\"\n\n\"If it'll make 'em more comfy, why not?\" She turned to the bow of the ship. \"So how's the navigation going?\"\n\n\"We are following the shoreline south, Lil. It isn't a puzzle. Put the land on the port side and continue until Keystone presents itself. It is more of a test of endurance than anything else, which is probably why the captain entrusted it to me.\"\n\n\"How's the Wind Breaker handle these days?\"\n\n\"Like a proper ship, and has been ever since Nita joined the crew.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Ever since Nita joined the crew\u2026\" Lil said quietly to herself.\n\n\"What was that?\" Gunner asked.\n\n\"Just thinkin' out loud.\"\n\n\"Better that way than not at all, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Gunner\u2026 the, uh\u2026 the cap'n bought that island, right? Laylow?\"\n\n\"He did. Or at least he's set down the initial payment and hasn't missed any subsequent ones.\"\n\n\"Why do you figure he did?\"\n\n\"The man is in his declining years, Lil. I imagine it is for his retirement.\"\n\n\"You reckoned that too, huh? Nita said the same thing.\"\n\n\"Like navigation at present, it isn't a puzzle.\"\n\n\"I hadn't worked it out, myself.\"\n\n\"This doesn't surprise me.\"\n\n\"When do you reckon the cap'n's going to hang up his hat?\"\n\n\"His share of what we've got, plus what we've got left to earn, is just enough for the full cost of the island. But our primary income being trade, there's still the matter of exchanging those goods for items that could be used to balance the debt with the city of Lock. If it could be achieved in less than two years, I would be quite impressed. He'll also need to construct a home, though I suppose with enough additional income that could happen while the payments are being made, provided trustworthy labor could be found.\"\n\n\"What do you reckon happens after that?\"\n\n\"He moves in, puts his feet up, and actually sleeps for the first time in forty years, I would imagine.\"\n\n\"\u2026 And what happens to us?\"\n\n\"I haven't a clue, Lil. That would depend on a number of decisions the captain would have to make. The Wind Breaker is his ship, after all. If it continues to operate under another captain, or if he sells it to an interested party, or perhaps trades it to the bank to expedite the purchase of the island, all occurs at Captain Mack's behest.\"\n\n\"But any way you weigh it\u2026 we ain't the same crew no more,\" Lil said. In spite of her best efforts, her voice trembled.\n\nGunner looked to her. \"Is something wrong, Lil?\"\n\n\"Let's suppose Cap'n says he's hanging it up, and he's getting rid of the Wind Breaker.\"\n\n\"Of all possibilities, I think that's the least likely.\"\n\n\"Even so. If the Wind Breaker crew gets broke up, where do you reckon you'll land?\"\n\n\"I am a classically trained munitions officer from West Circa Academy. I've got more than a decade of capable, if not decorated, service. I'm sure any venture private or military would be happy to have me.\"\n\n\"Even with you threatening to blow the side off the ship twice a month with your tinkering on this and that?\"\n\n\"\u2026 I imagine I'll need to curtail my more ambitious experiments.\"\n\n\"And Butch\u2026 she's a good cook and a good doc. She'd be able to get a job anyplace too. I reckon Cap'n would keep Wink. But then there's me and Coop. We ain't winnin' any prizes. Folk won't be trippin' over themselves to take us on.\"\n\n\"You follow orders with reckless enthusiasm, the both of you. You'll have no trouble finding work.\"\n\n\"Even so!\" Lil snapped. \"It won't be with this crew. This thing we got. This little, heck\u2026 this family we put together, would be all torn up and parted out like a busted-up boiler stripped for parts. And yeah, maybe every part will find a place and keep on spinning and doing its work. But it ain't the same boiler no more.\"\n\n\"Crews change. This isn't my first ship, and I didn't have any illusions on it being my last.\"\n\n\"It is my first ship, and I sure expected it to be my last.\"\n\n\"No sense worrying about it now, Lil. Judging from the challenge we've all agreed to take on, the idea of us all having to go our separate ways in a few years is rather optimistic. For all we know, our ship could be minus a few members in a week.\"\n\n\"Aw, we'll come through this just fine. \u2026 You been\u2026 you been the one getting the most direct education from Nita about how to tinker with the boiler and turbines and such.\"\n\n\"I have, in relative terms. It would be a more equitable split if you, Coop, or anyone else aboard showed even a fraction of the interest and capacity as I have.\"\n\n\"Didn't she chase you out of the boiler room two weeks ago yelling something about overpressure or similar?\"\n\n\"She is highly protective of the systems and unwilling to permit me the leeway to uncover any potential martial applications to her modifications.\"\n\n\"So you reckon she's not liable to hand the care of the boiler over to you anytime soon, do you?\"\n\n\"I swear, Lil. This is by a wide margin the most inquisitive I've ever seen you. If you'd had this same zeal for knowledge in the past few months, you would be the one preparing to take Nita's task from her. What does it matter to you? Eventually we'll all learn it.\"\n\n\"And then she'll be on her way,\" she said, her voice trembling again.\n\n\"Egad, Lil. You sound nearly as troubled at the suggestion of our engineer leaving as at the thought of the whole crew disbanding.\"\n\n\"She's my friend, Gunner. And the only lady we ever had on this crew near my age. And her leaving isn't something that's maybe going to happen next year or maybe the one after. Her days with us are numbered. I feel it in my bones.\"\n\n\"Has she announced her intention to leave?\"\n\n\"She said she doesn't know yet, but you and I both know it would take a dang fool to willingly stay in this sort of life when you been raised expecting the sort of life she left behind. She's here out of obligation and maybe out of gratitude, but neither of those is cause for a life of flitting about for a girl too pretty and too smart for such.\"\n\nGunner looked to her again. \"I'm not entirely certain what worries you more. The thought of her staying or the thought of her going.\"\n\n\"Neither's a rosy outcome. One's good for me and bad for her, and the other's the other way round.\"\n\n\"What can I say, Lil? Ignorance is bliss. Your present vexation is evidence at least of wisdom finally breaching your thus far impenetrable defenses.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well, if this is wisdom, you can keep it.\"\n\n\"I should point out, the sources of your concern are Nita and Captain Mack. Have you brought your concerns to either?\"\n\n\"I already told you, I talked to Nita, and that's how I know she ain't decided.\"\n\n\"But have you discussed your feelings on the subject with either?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Don't you think that's worth doing?\"\n\n\"Ornery as the cap'n is right now, and with all the doing that's to be done, you reckon now's a proper time to bother him with such?\"\n\n\"No. But I wouldn't have wanted you to bother me with it, and that hasn't stopped you. And how does that factor in to your decision to leave Nita in the dark?\"\n\n\"Aw heck, I don't know.\" She pulled her coat tighter. \"Air's got a nasty bite to it this evening. I'm going in to fetch some hot cider. You want any?\"\n\n\"Yes, please.\"\n\n\"All right. Oh, and just so we're clear, just because I talked about all this with you doesn't mean you can go running your mouth to other folk about it.\"\n\n\"Nothing could be further from my intention.\"\n\nLil made her way from the deck. Gunner shook his head. After a moment or two, a light tapping along the rigging over his head drew his attention.\n\n\"Nikita?\" he said.\n\nLil told me not to\u2026 tell anyone what she told you.\n\nHe furrowed his brow and set his eyes on the flickering lights set atop the taller mountains.\n\n\"She told the inspector. She told the inspector before she told me. I don't know what it says about that girl that she'd tell her woes to a creature. Or what it says about me that I was the second choice,\" he muttered. \"And I certainly don't know what it says about me that I'm irritated by the idea of being runner up to Nikita in that regard. \u2026 What I wouldn't give for a wailer attack right about now\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "Perhaps it was because the most organized of their enemies had their attentions elsewhere, or perhaps it was because the growing reputation of the crew had given the majority of their disorganized enemies pause, but the journey to Keystone and back had been uneventful. The reaction of the locals had been evenly split between awed reverence of the crew and their exploits and vicious anger at the complications those exploits had heaped upon their lives. Money and goods, however, hold no grudges, and even the most irritable of shopkeepers had been willing to part with the supplies they required when a fair price was offered. For the most part\u2026\n\n\"Shame we couldn't get our hands on some burn-slow. Between the trip down and the trip back, it don't look good,\" Coop said from the lookout position on the starboard side.\n\n\"Yes, Coop. I worked the numbers and saw the inventory. I know we're coming up short. That's what this whole endeavor is intended to set straight, or weren't you paying attention?\"\n\n\"Just idle talk, Cap'n,\" Coop said sheepishly.\n\n\"Idle talk is talk I ain't got time for at present, Coop, so keep it to yourself.\"\n\nThe setting sun marked the end of the second day of travel, and they were pulling up to a feature of the Westrim coastline called Indigo Falls. It was a low, narrow valley leading nearly to the sea. The valley was carved by a river that now trickled with inky blackness down the mountainside, staining it deep purple. Layered atop this waterfall was a second one, formed by the fug itself, which poured in a steady stream through the valley and onto the sea there.\n\nIt was a handy landmark for navigation, but for the bold or those interested in avoiding observation it had a different purpose. The relative abundance of the fug on the seaward side of the valley made it undesirable for surface settlement, and the relative thinness of the fug on the inland side made it undesirable for fug settlement. This left it almost entirely unobserved, and thus anyone wishing to enter the fug quietly could do so through the valley with little threat of being seen. It was also just a few hours southwest of their intended rendezvous with the Well Diggers.\n\nCaptain Mack steadied the wheel with his knee and pulled his well-worn fug mask from the pocket of his overcoat. In the past he'd had to wear it when handling things like the repair of his ship and the acquisition of fug-made supplies during trips to Fugtown. Lately the uses had been more varied but less frequent.\n\n\"We're about to enter the fug,\" he said, leaning low to the speaking tube. \"Masks on, and sound off when they are secured so we can enter.\"\n\nOne by one the crew replied over the speaking tubes, their voices slightly muffled by the filtering apparatus.\n\n\"I want all of you up here on lookout, except Gunner and Glinda. Gunner I want ready to load the fore guns. Glinda I want ready to treat casualties. The rest I want with your eyes peeled for any sign of fuggers on land or in the air. Hostile or otherwise, I want to know if anyone down there sees us. Because if we're walking into the jaws of a trap, this is the first chance they'll get to spring it or, failing that, to tip their hand to their intentions.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" came the chorus of replies.\n\n\"You ever been to this place, Cap'n? This place they're having us meet?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"What'd I say about idle talk, Coop?\" Mack rumbled.\n\n\"It ain't idle. I wonder if there's hills or trees or such like. Or if it's one of them old towns they took to living in the center of. It'd be useful to know if we're going to have to find a spot to moor up, and how far we're liable to be traipsing on foot.\"\n\n\"All right, Coop. So it isn't idle talk. It's just foolish talk. Of course I haven't been here before. This is a place secret even to the other fuggers, so you suppose they invited me for tea some evening or another? And if they had, don't you suppose you'd know, you being on my crew for all these years?\"\n\n\"Could've been from before\u2026\" Coop said quietly.\n\n\"What's that?\" Mack snapped.\n\n\"Just idle talk, Cap'n. I'll quiet down.\"\n\nThe crew filed to the deck and took up positions at the railing. Captain Mack reached into his coat to retrieve his cigar tin. The next of his smokes had nearly been lit when he remembered the mask that would prevent him from enjoying it. He cursed quietly to himself, then tore it in half and loosened his mask enough to shove the wad of soaked tobacco into his cheek. He turned to find his crew faithfully at their stations.\n\n\"None of you ever guided the Wind Breaker through a pass this narrow, have you?\"\n\n\"No, Cap'n,\" Coop said. \"You always take the wheel for narrow bits like this.\"\n\n\"Who wants to step up? Learn how to do it?\"\n\n\"Why, Cap'n?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"Because I'm asking. How do I like the jobs divided up across my crew?\"\n\n\"Everybody knows how to do everything, but each crewmember knows his piece best,\" Coop said.\n\n\"And my piece is the guiding of the ship, and of the crew. And it seems that's the one bit I haven't passed around near as much as I ought to. So someone step up and put your hands to the wheel so you can learn the way to do this part.\"\n\n\"Why don't you do it, Nita?\" Lil said.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know\u2026\" Nita said.\n\n\"That might not be the best idea, Lil,\" Gunner said. \"This would be a poor way to start her education in earnest, since a wrong move could be rather disastrous.\"\n\n\"Well seems right then, don't it? Since Nita's the one that'd need to fix it if it busted, seems like her being the one to bust it is only fair.\"\n\n\"Miss Graus, step up,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Captain, I'm not sure\u2014\" Nita began.\n\n\"It isn't up for debate anymore. Step up.\"\n\nThe engineer climbed the steps to the helm. The captain stepped back and let her take the wheel.\n\n\"Widen up those legs in case she fights you,\" Mack said. \"Thanks to your tuning, it don't happen much anymore, but it happens, and you don't want her to throw you. You'll want to take her up just a touch. The valley's narrower than the fug makes it look.\"\n\nNita took a hand from the wheel and turned a valve. Above her the mechanism that piped phlogiston in and out of the envelope increased the mixture just a bit more.\n\n\"It's moving sideways, Captain,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Good you spotted it. Not always easy to notice. That's crosswind. The turbines only handle thrust, yaw, and a bit of pitch. When wind comes from the side, you have to turn a bit to compensate. We run an eight-spoke wheel. A hair less than two spokes starboard for this kind of wind.\"\n\nShe adjusted the wheel. Her breathing was shaky.\n\n\"You nervous, Miss Graus? If so, I do believe this would be the first time I've seen that particular sight.\"\n\n\"It's just the first time I've felt the work of my engineering actually at my fingertips.\"\n\n\"It gets to be intoxicating, Miss Graus. These days the only sort of intoxication I can properly enjoy.\"\n\nThe ship moved closer to the valley, Nita adjusting the wheel in an attempt to keep it centered.\n\n\"You'll want to back off the throttle, and mind the pitch change when you do. You don't want the darkness in the fug to sneak up on you, so get the lights on now.\"\n\nThe controls, at least, she didn't need to be told how to operate. In the course of her refit of the ship to be more easily maintained she'd done a fair amount of work on them and knew just what each of them did and how.\n\nShe held steady as the face of the cliff drew closer.\n\n\"What do you reckon you'll have to do when you take her into the valley?\"\n\n\"Avoid hitting the walls of the valley?\" Nita offered.\n\n\"And how best to you reckon you'll achieve that?\"\n\nNita watched the valley draw nearer. \"I would need to keep it moving straight.\"\n\nHe chewed the cigar in his mouth. \"True enough.\"\n\n\"If I'm missing something, tell me. I just put a polish on those turbines; I'd hate to have to buff out any fresh scrapes or hammer out any dents.\"\n\n\"If I wanted to steer the ship myself, I'd have my hands on the wheel.\"\n\nHer eyes darted as they drew near enough for the fug to start to pour onto the deck.\n\n\"\u2026 The crosswind!\" she realized. \"There won't be any crosswind in the valley.\"\n\nNita started to straighten the ship, but Captain Mack caught the wheel. \"You want to be pivoting as we slide in. Any sooner and you'll strike the wall in the direction of the wind, any later and you'll strike the wall toward the wind. How many spokes off center are you?\"\n\n\"Um\u2026\"\n\n\"That will become valuable information in a moment, Miss Graus.\"\n\n\"Two spokes.\"\n\n\"Get ready to pull her four spokes to port then, and then two spokes to starboard.\"\n\nWind whistled across the cliff face as they began to slide inside.\n\n\"Four spokes, Miss Graus.\"\n\nShe spun the wheel and the ship began to shift. It seemed to lurch toward the far wall.\n\n\"Two spokes.\"\n\nNita adjusted the heading just as the momentum of their turn tapered out. The ship continued its slide. Its outermost turbine brushed the valley wall enough to knock some gravel free.\n\n\"Steady as she goes. It widens a bit from here.\"\n\nThe engineer took a few more shaky breaths and squinted into the thick purple mist, tinted almost black by the green lights hung beneath the nose of the ship. Once they were clear of where the fug met the clean air, it thinned somewhat, and the fading glow of the sunset completely vanished, filtered out by the blanket of fug through which they traveled.\n\n\"Any other specific orders, Captain?\"\n\n\"If you go far wrong, I'll shout the corrections. Piloting a ship is about the feel, and you won't get the feel with me shouting in your ear.\"\n\nShe gripped the wheel tight and did her best to keep the ship on course. At its narrowest the valley offered five feet of clearance on either side, which sounded like more than enough until the wheel was in one's hands. It was quite straight, too. Even so, three times the turbines scraped the wall and twice the captain called out a spoke this way or that. A few minutes later the ship slid into the open, no harm for the journey but for a few bright scrapes and a badly shaken engineer.\n\n\"That'll do it for now, Miss Graus. That's the worst of flying a ship. Learn to read the wind, read the stars, and read a map and the only thing I'll have on you is forty years behind the wheel.\" He raised his voice. \"And as for the rest of you. Shame on you huddling so close. You were liable to upset the balance for Nita and send the whole ship pitching forward.\"\n\nHe and Nita turned to find Gunner, Lil, and Coop standing close to the helm, where they had gathered to anxiously watch Nita's inaugural time behind the wheel. She stepped down, allowing the captain to take the wheel again. When his back was turned, Nita gave Lil a halfhearted shove to the arm.\n\n\"What was that all about, volunteering me like that?\" Nita whispered, a smirk showing in her eyes and robbing the tone of its teeth.\n\n\"Don't tell me you never wondered what it was like to fly the Wind Breaker.\"\n\n\"Maybe I did, but you didn't have to toss me into the flames on my first try!\"\n\n\"Oh, like that's not how you go about all your business, Nita. You're a jump-with-both-feet kind of girl.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but not when other people's lives hang on it.\"\n\nThey each turned to the side of the ship. Though they intended to keep a lookout for ships, there wasn't anything to see. After early afternoon and continuing until late morning, the fug was little more than an inky void. A ship would be visible, if at all, thanks to the green glow of its lights. If the crew didn't wish to be seen and thus ran with no lights at all, the best hope they'd have would be the flicker of lights from within. If anyone was going to warn them of approaching ships, then it would be the inspectors. Once again perched in their nests against the belly of the envelope, their bat-like ears were turned to the darkness. Trained to pick out the tapping of the claws of one of their own at more than a mile away, the shudder of a boiler at ten times that distance would be like a stampede.\n\n\"Anyhow,\" Lil said, \"now you know how to do that. So that's one more way you're fit for the crew.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but fair's fair. When I have to climb up and tend to the turbines for the damage they sustained thanks to your volunteering of me, you'll be the one doing the tending right along with me.\"\n\n\"Aw heck, Nita. It ain't like nobody but me and Coop is even willing to climb up there with you to hand you wrenches and such anyway. That's no bother.\"\n\n\"No, no. You'll be the one using the wrenches.\"\n\n\"You sure that's a good idea?\"\n\n\"It's as good an idea as putting me at the helm during that little maneuver.\"\n\n\"That's enough talk,\" Captain Mack rumbled. \"Eyes and ears open. I'm shutting off the lights and taking us low, so the ship shall require my full attention.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "In almost complete darkness, with neither landmark nor sky to offer guidance, navigation within the fug was difficult. Finding a meeting place that, crucially, could not be found by anyone else was even more trying. Even with the skill of Captain Mack at the wheel, it took them until nearly midnight before something distinctive enough to be their destination presented itself in the gloom.\n\nThe landscape in this part of the fug was mostly deserted. Though the Wind Breaker's crew had spent more time unsupervised beneath the fug than any right-minded group should have, they'd spent much of their time too high to see the ground or in the reclaimed husks of precataclysm cities. Open country was something they'd seen only fleetingly. It was eerie and depressing. What a few generations ago would have been a rolling field of emerald grass now appeared as a crunchy dry expanse of black and ashy gray. Trees were gnarled and free of leaves, their bark stained by the fug. The one thing that indicated life at all was a small cottage and a scattering of small steam carts, the sort normally used to ferry goods within a city but retrofitted to carry a half-dozen passengers each.\n\nEven as standing deadwood, the roots of the trees ran deep, so Lil and Coop used them to moor the Wind Breaker before all but Butch and the inspectors climbed down the ladder. Lil and Coop sported their rifles, as well as whatever smaller weapons could be reasonably concealed beneath their coats. Captain Mack had his usual sidearm hung at his belt. Only Nita was unarmed, instead holding a lantern. Gunner had chosen a different sort of weapon.\n\n\"Gunner,\" Nita said, \"not that I'm not in awe of your innovative design, but are you certain that thing will even fire?\"\n\nGunner raised his weapon, which looked like someone had grafted a small wagon wheel to the body of a revolver in place of its usual cylinder.\n\n\"Oh, it will fire. I've tested it extensively. What's more, it will fire thirty-six times before I need to reload,\" Gunner said. \"And the intimidation factor is not to be ignored.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but how long does it take you to reload?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Four minutes. But that is entirely beside the point. By the time I need to reload, all potential assailants in the area will be dead, injured, or wisely seeking cover.\"\n\n\"Plus he could probably clock them in the head with that thing. And holding it up is liable to keep that arm good and strong,\" Coop observed.\n\n\"You sure you don't want a gun, Nita?\" Lil asked. \"I got a little one I keep in my boot I could borrow you.\"\n\n\"I'd rather not. I've not taken the time to become proficient with them. I'd be as likely to hurt one of you as whoever I was targeting. A good heavy wrench has served me well enough in the past. Also, this being our first proper meeting with the Well Diggers, diplomatically it seems like at least a few of us should be relatively unarmed as a showing of good will.\"\n\n\"Or poor judgment,\" Gunner said.\n\nThe group crunched along the dry grass until the glow of the lantern fell upon the door of the cabin. It was a curious sight for a building within the fug, as it was new construction rather than a reclaimed property. Well-seasoned wood, standing dead for many years, had been roughly shaped into a sturdy but simple structure with no windows and a door heavy enough to turn away a battering ram.\n\nCaptain Mack stepped up to the door. The muffled sound of murmuring voices through it indicated there was a crowd within. Mack rapped on the door. The subdued voices became silent.\n\n\"Who's there?\" replied a voice within.\n\n\"Who-all do you think is here?\" Lil shouted back, her sudden voice causing the whole group to flinch.\n\n\"Lil\u2026\" Captain Mack rumbled.\n\n\"What? They invited us, didn't they? It isn't like anyone else is liable to be knocking.\"\n\nThe door opened. Nita held her lantern high to reveal no less than four people clustered to peer out the door. All faces had the long, pale, gaunt features of fug folk. The foremost among them was Digger.\n\n\"Did you come alone?\" he asked.\n\n\"Who would we bring?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"Coop\u2026\" Captain Mack snapped.\n\n\"It ain't our fault they're asking dopey questions, Cap'n,\" Lil defended.\n\n\"Until matters specifically concern you,\" Gunner said, \"I suggest you let the captain conduct the business at hand.\"\n\n\"Come inside, quickly,\" Digger said.\n\nHe swung the door open and ushered them inside. The interior of the cottage was as plain as the outside. Almost the entire space was taken up by a single room, and with the addition of the Wind Breaker crew, there were nearly twenty people, which was a half-dozen more than the room could comfortably hold.\n\nWhen the door was shut again, the Well Diggers and the Wind Breaker crew took a silent moment to measure their counterparts. It was a formidable group. Aside from Digger, there were only two other of the scrawnier type of fug person, what Lil called \"white-collar types.\" The rest were the taller, somewhat more muscled workers who went by the name \"grunts.\"\n\n\"I would like to thank you for taking the extreme risk in coming here,\" Digger said. \"Am I correct in assuming you'd not have done so if you weren't interested in helping us with our tasks?\"\n\n\"Let's say I'm willing to discuss it further,\" Captain Mack said. \"And I want to make one thing clear. No secrets of any kind. If we're to help you, we need to know everything you know. Much as a few pleasantries would be called for, this being our introduction and such, we ain't fond of long stays in the fug. So for the sake of getting through it quick, I'd like to divide the labor a bit.\"\n\n\"Of course, of course,\" Digger said. \"Your crew is infinitely more expert in such matters. We shall proceed according to your preference.\"\n\n\"Fine. Now as I was made to understand it, this job comes in two parts. One involves finding this well of yours and putting up some walls. The other involves liberating and coaxing this chemist to our cause. Nita here'll hear what needs to be said about the building. Whoever knows what's got to be done, pair up with her and let her know. I'll do the listening when it comes to the prison break. Who volunteers?\"\n\nAnother short silence.\n\n\"Permission to speak, Captain?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"Granted.\"\n\n\"I'll admit, I haven't had the chance to develop an eye for fug person faces, but I do recognize a few of you from my unpleasant time within Skykeep. Do any of you know Donald or Kent, also former inmates at Skykeep?\"\n\nNo clear answer came, but the half-heard muttering implied an affirmative.\n\n\"I'm sure they can vouch for the quality of our character.\"\n\n\"They have,\" barked one man. \"Talk you lot up so much I'm through listening. No one could be the way those two describe.\"\n\n\"Bludo, please,\" Digger scolded.\n\n\"I see. I don't blame you if you are nervous upon meeting us for the first time. I had my doubts about them when I first met them. And that was before their reputation became quite so remarkable. Maybe things would go a bit more smoothly if you were to ask us a few questions, to set your minds at ease.\"\n\nAfter a moment, a hand raised.\n\n\"Yes?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"You're the engineer?\" asked one of the unfamiliar grunts.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How'd you learn if not from us?\"\n\n\"I'm from Caldera. Engineering is not kept a secret there.\"\n\nBludo spoke up again. \"I don't believe you are an engineer. And what's more, I don't believe what they say about you lot and the dreadnought. I worked on the dreadnought, and seeing as I have the ship you lot came in, it is a load of rubbish to say you took down that beast without a hundred more just like it.\"\n\n\"As it happens, sir, I took the ship down personally.\"\n\n\"Now I know this is all a load of rubbish.\"\n\n\"Would you like me to explain?\"\n\n\"And hear you tell another tale? Not likely. I say we wasted our time putting our trust in this\u2014\"\n\nNita raised her voice. \"I was correcting a pipe rupture in the primary phlogiston pressure regulator when a vertical ship-to-ship grappler lodged in our hull. It caused a forty-degree backward pitch that sent me tumbling onto the dreadnought from above. After bouncing off the primary load envelope and tangling in the retention rigging I reached the main deck, whereupon I worked my way down to the primary boiler. After vigorously applying a number six open-ended trith spanner to the head of the engineer, I opened the firebox and dropped in a fully tensioned quarter-size Calderan coil box. A few minutes of direct heat caused the frame of the coil box to buckle and explosively released the coil tension. This pierced the pressure tank of the boiler. The resulting out-pressure sheared the central hull of the dreadnought's gondola and propelled the largest intact portion of the boiler directly through the main deck and the primary load envelope above. The venting of the phlogiston caused a complete loss of load capacity.\"\n\nShe cleared her throat.\n\n\"And that was that.\"\n\n\"Anyone else got any questions as to Nita's credentials?\" Lil said with a sparkle in her eye.\n\nA new man raised his hand. \"You with the big gun. Where did you get that?\"\n\n\"I made it,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"\u2026 Could you make another?\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" Captain Mack said. \"Enough bandying about. Let's get to planning, or else we'll be on our way. Miss Graus on that side, myself on this one.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "The room divided itself among the two members of the crew, with Nita gathering the lion's share of the group. This wasn't a surprise. From what little she knew of the way the fug folk structured their society, the grunts did almost all the menial labor, and thus for a task that tended toward construction, they would be more knowledgeable and more comfortable\u2014though the relative silence and lingering stares of most of the group suggested there may have been ulterior motives for their choosing her side of the room over the captain's.\n\n\"Where exactly is the ichor well?\" Nita asked. \"Not in terms of coordinates, but in terms of the surrounding land.\"\n\n\"Mostly it's underground. There's sort of an open shaft, the rubble leads down into a shallow cave, and the ichor flows along its bottom.\"\n\n\"I assume we'll only need to fortify the rim of the pit then? Plus a bit of leeway around each side?\"\n\n\"More than a bit of leeway. We'll need a safe place to work and live, more or less.\"\n\n\"How big is the pit?\"\n\n\"Not big. A couple of yards.\"\n\n\"And what will we need to enclose in the fence?\"\n\n\"Room for twenty or thirty people, a pump house, a couple of boilers for power. A place to do the refining, and some storage. Oh, and a good, tall mooring tower, eventually.\"\n\n\"One hundred yards by eighty then, for the fence?\"\n\n\"That's roundabout the figures we had in mind.\"\n\n\"Say, fifteen feet high?\"\n\n\"Better if it was thirty.\"\n\n\"Isn't that a bit excessive?\"\n\n\"Some of the things we're hoping to keep out can jump higher than fifteen feet.\"\n\n\"\u2026 I see\u2026 Thirty feet tall then. And double reinforced. Barbed-wire top. Cargo gates at the center of the short sides and personnel gates at twenty-yard intervals?\"\n\n\"Meets with our thinking, roughly.\"\n\n\"Defenses. Armed guards?\"\n\n\"Something more substantial. If the industry comes knocking, they'll be riding in ships that'd take a fair number of shots, even with our rifles, for armed guards to stop.\"\n\n\"Antiship guns then. Fl\u00e9chette guns. Mounted on, say, every fifth support tower for the wall?\"\n\n\"We planned for every third.\"\n\n\"You'll need steam, then. To run them. As well as the pumps and assorted other machinery. Is there a supply of water?\"\n\n\"There's a spring.\"\n\n\"What of the materials then?\"\n\n\"We've got the guns, some ammunition, most of the raw metal, and the parts for four or five boilers. Bludo managed to snag the parts for a steam shovel too. Lumber can come from The Thicket. And, of course, we've plenty of strong backs to sling shovels and swing hammers.\"\n\n\"It seems to me you've got matters well in hand,\" Nita said. \"We'll just be loading the goods into the Wind Breaker and helping you do the building.\"\n\n\"Not so easy as that. It's a flashy ship you've got there, even if it wasn't already a famous one. And even if it wasn't even flashy, this job is as good as ruined if someone sees us coming down into The Thicket from the air. We need to move wholly unseen, and that means under cover of The Thicket itself.\"\n\n\"By land.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Do you have steam carts?\"\n\n\"Three of them. That's where we'll be scavenging most of the boiler parts from, once we're through with them. Fully loaded, and each dragging unpowered carts that are also fully loaded, we can just about get all the materials where they need to go in one trip. But that's not the hard part either. The hard part is getting there alive.\"\n\n\"Because of the beasts of The Thicket.\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"What sort of threats can we expect?\"\n\n\"You never having been to The Thicket, nothing I say can properly conjure to mind what we're liable to run into. But this'll get you started. Imagine the most vicious or most bizarre creature you've ever seen. Now imagine you'd only ever seen it in a nightmare. Now imagine describing it to a child. The beast that haunts the child's nightmares the next night is what The Thicket would make of that creature.\"\n\n\"I see. Wild animals are often frightened by fire. Can we keep them at bay in that way?\"\n\n\"It frightens off the small creatures, at first. The big ones, it just makes curious. Same goes for loud noises, evidently.\"\n\n\"I see\u2026\" she said, stroking her chin.\n\n\"Maybe we should be talking to one of the fellows with the guns for this bit?\"\n\n\"No, no. I've never met a problem that was a match for a properly trained engineer plying her trade. Has anyone got a bill of materials? A list of the items we'll be carrying along? That'll give me an idea of what we've got to work with.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "On the other side of the room, matters were being handled differently. Digger and the other white-collars of the group were handling things on the Well Digger side of the discussion. Captain Mack handled the Wind Breaker side. At the moment Digger's partner was doing the talking. He was a shorter, more crisply dressed fug person with dark, bushy eyebrows that seemed three sizes too large for his long, hollow face.\n\n\"What we would have you do, Captain West, is approach the facility from the south, as it is least guarded from that side,\" said Digger's partner. \"You will not under any circumstances use force of any kind. You will, in fact, approach the academy at a distance not less than\u2014\"\n\nCaptain Mack turned to Digger. \"What's this fella's name?\" he asked.\n\n\"I was not through with your instructions, Captain West, and I'll thank you not to interrupt.\"\n\n\"His name is Lester Clear.\"\n\nThe captain turned to Lester. \"Lester, you ever worked with an airship captain before?\"\n\n\"Prior to my arrival in The Thicket I was in charge of the dispatch of as many as fifteen scout vessels and messenger ships at a time. So yes, Captain West, I am quite familiar with the means to deliver orders to airmen.\"\n\n\"I reckon you didn't quite take my meaning, Lester. I didn't ask if any captains had worked for you. I asked if any had worked with you. But the answer still applies.\"\n\n\"I hardly see the distinction.\"\n\n\"The distinction is, tall though you are, you ain't in a position to be looking down your nose at me when you talk.\"\n\n\"You are a hired gun, and will be acting under my employ, so I shall address you in whatever means I desire. Now back to the\u2014\"\n\n\"No, Lester,\" Captain Mack snapped, \"you ain't hiring a gun. You're getting help from a crew. The guns are just what my crew holds on to to make sure folks don't try to do anything any more foolish than treat the people you came seeking help from like they're at your beck and call. You ain't doing the talking for your side anymore.\"\n\n\"I've carefully outlined a precise\u2014\"\n\n\"Coop, if Lester here feels the need to run his mouth past this point, dissuade him.\"\n\n\"That mean I should give him a fat lip, Cap'n?\" Coop said.\n\n\"That would do the job well enough.\"\n\n\"I cannot abide this rough treatment of\u2014\" Lester began.\n\n\"It ain't got rough yet, but it's about to be if you don't cool it,\" Coop said.\n\nLester's mouth hung aghast for a moment, but he wisely didn't use it for any further orders.\n\n\"\u2026 How would you like to proceed?\" Digger said.\n\n\"Let's start with where your chemist is being kept, and what sort of place it is,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Her location is Fadewell Academy. There she is ostensibly a professor, but one of history rather than chemistry. In reality she spends her time researching.\"\n\n\"It being an academy, I reckon there're students about?\"\n\n\"There are, but it is a very exclusive academy. Six professors, twenty-five students. It is also exceptionally well fortified to, again ostensibly, keep out those who would partake of an education without the proper fee.\"\n\n\"I ain't never heard of someone trying to steal a learnin', Cap'n,\" Lil said.\n\n\"No, I don't imagine you have\u2026\" Lester fumed.\n\n\"You know, for someone who's seems like he ought to be smart, you sure don't pick up on things too quick,\" Coop said, pushing up his sleeve and advancing.\n\nThree of the grunts behind Lester stirred and stepped forward.\n\n\"Coop, we'll give him two more. At least Lester here is acting the way we come to expect from fuggers, which is comfortable in a way. Keep going, Digger.\"\n\n\"I have the exact location here, as well as a rough rendering of the academy grounds,\" Digger said. He paused. \"May I retrieve it?\"\n\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\nDigger pulled a folded sheet from his pocket. It was drawn with a rather precise layout of the grounds, complete with guard patrol routes.\n\n\"Samantha Prist's private quarters are here. Her laboratory is here, and her classroom is here. She is not permitted to leave academy grounds without an escort and is seldom permitted to do even that. As such she can be found in any of these three places, or walking the grounds, at any time of day.\n\n\"It so happens we have a man in our midst who is familiar with the woman and might convince her of the wisdom of joining our cause. It would conceivably make the task a good deal easier if you were to take this man with you to act as an intermediary.\"\n\n\"And who might that be?\"\n\n\"That might be, and in fact is, me,\" said Lester.\n\n\"Should I count that, Cap'n?\" Coop said.\n\n\"Not that one, no. And if Lester is indeed the man for the task, I don't believe his presence will make the task simpler at all,\" Captain Mack said. \"In fact, quite the opposite. Lester here does not strike me as the sort who is keen to collaborate in a civil fashion.\"\n\n\"As if you would have any sense of what is civil,\" Lester said.\n\n\"That we'll count, Coop,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Sure thing, Cap'n. By my figurin', that leaves you with just one left, Lester.\"\n\n\"I'm genuinely impressed you were able to make that calculation with any accuracy.\"\n\nCoop grinned. \"And that'll do it.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "\"Having ridden one of those steam carts, I've found them to have more than enough excess capacity to do as I've proposed, even while pulling the train of cargo,\" Nita said. \"And I\u2026 oh lovely\u2026\"\n\nShe stepped back in time to avoid a tangle of three grunts, Coop in the center, and Lil piled on top, as they stumbled through the crowded room and bashed into the far wall. That was the last clearly discernible action that occurred before the entire room dissolved into utter chaos. Voices rose to shouts, treating the crew to a host of brand new profanities that seemed to be native to the fug. Fists, elbows, knees, and feet were flying without any regard to where they might land. Nita slid one of the smaller wrenches from her sash, but Captain Mack appeared beside her, grabbing her by the back of her coat and dragging her back into the corner.\n\nHe turned to face her, planting his hands on either wall and serving as a levy against the overflowing hostilities.\n\n\"I'd just as soon see you keep out of this particular part of the negotiation, Miss Graus,\" he shouted over the din. \"But if you choose to partake, no weapons. This room's a boiler and this tussle's the valve. It might burn a bit, but there's nothing to do but let the steam finish venting. You start swinging something less friendly than a fist and things are liable to get worse in a hurry.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain.\"\n\nThe moment he removed his hands from the wall, whatever force of will had kept the battle from absorbing them completely evaporated, and both Captain Mack and Nita were pulled into the melee. Fistfights were not Nita's strong suit, and if not for the mask on her face and the heavy winter clothes, she'd probably have earned more than a few bruises from the act. Few situations are better suited to teach quick lessons than a close-quarters brawl, though, and by the end she was delivering as many lumps as she was taking.\n\nAt the end of almost precisely five minutes, as though someone had rung a bell to end the round, the groups began to separate to their neutral corners. Coop had taken the worst of it, his cheek quickly swelling. Lil's ear was bleeding from what looked suspiciously like tooth marks. Gunner's eyebrow, or the space that would have been occupied by one if it hadn't been recently burnt away yet again, was bleeding. Captain Mack had no visible injuries, though his wheezing suggested he'd taken a few blows to the midsection. Nita felt some sore spots, but the exhilaration of the experience hadn't subsided enough to allow her the clarity to properly identify them.\n\nWhen he caught his breath, Captain Mack spoke. \"Nita, you make any progress toward a plan of action?\"\n\n\"We were just hammering out the details,\" Nita said, wavering a bit on her feet.\n\n\"Digger, your group happy with what they've seen and heard so far?\"\n\n\"I, uh\u2026\"\n\n\"Happy?! These ruffians attempted to murder me,\" broke in Lester, \"and it was through only the combined force of our own laborers that they were turned away!\"\n\nDigger raised his hands, one to Lester and one to the captain. He looked to Captain Mack. \"If I may?\"\n\n\"By all means.\"\n\nDigger turned to Lester. \"If these men and women were interested in murder or any other permanent recompense for your vile words, I don't believe you would be standing here to accuse them of such. You'll note each member of the crew is heavily armed yet not a shot was fired by either side. I would consider that evidence of admirable restraint. If you would show similar restraint with your tongue, then I think this venture might have a chance at success.\"\n\n\"I couldn't have said it better myself, Digger,\" Mack said.\n\nLester failed to take Digger's advice. \"I doubt their capacity to contribute in any regard. Look at the pummeling they've taken from just our meager force. What then could we expect if they were to take on the full brunt of the industry?\"\n\n\"If you take a census of injuries, I think you'll find an equal distribution on all sides. As there are five of them and fourteen of us, simple math would imply they can, in the vernacular, give it three times as hard as they get it. And if the industry were to arrive, I'm sure the crew would not withhold usage of their pistols, which would further tip the balance of power in their favor.\"\n\n\"Fine. In raw brute force they may be an asset. But you assured me their engineer would be an asset as well, and what has she produced?\"\n\n\"To be honest, Lester,\" said Bludo, who seemed loathe to be speaking in the Wind Breaker crew's favor, \"she's proposed we hook the mounted defense guns up to the boilers of the steam carts while we're on the road. And apply the barbed wire and fencing to the outside of them. Make something of a set of rolling forts against the wildlife.\"\n\n\"Heck yeah, Nita! A fl\u00e9chette gun'll cut through anything that forest could throw at us,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Interesting\u2026\" Gunner said. \"A rolling gun platform\u2026\"\n\n\"That's preposterous! I've never heard of such a thing. It couldn't possibly work!\"\n\n\"With a bit of tinkering,\" said Bludo, \"I think it might.\"\n\n\"Whose side are you on, Lester?\" Coop said. \"Trying to convince your own folk against the help they went looking for?\"\n\n\"Surely I'm not the only one thinking that nothing I've seen here today in any way qualifies these people to help,\" Lester sputtered.\n\nHis statement earned him only blank stares.\n\n\"Well then I suppose I'm overruled\u2026\" he fumed, his arms crossed.\n\nOne grunt stepped up to Coop. \"Where'd you learn to hit like that?\"\n\n\"Say one too many things in a bar up in Keystone and you'll see someone throw a punch like that. Take one too many punches like that you'll learn to throw it back or regret not learning,\" Coop said.\n\n\"And this one,\" remarked another grunt in reference to Lil. \"Let that one loose in The Thicket and its bears will come running for shelter.\"\n\n\"You lay your hands on one Cooper, you got to tussle with us both. Them's the rules,\" Lil said, puffing up her chest. \"And I'll give you all this. Not one of you boys hits any softer than a Westrim mule. And I admire you not holding back when going toe to toe with a lady. Speaking of\u2014Nita, you take any lumps?\"\n\n\"I think a few people tried to strike my ribs and back. Considering the sash full of wrenches I'm wearing, I imagine it was the ones with bloody knuckles right now.\"\n\n\"You got a good crew, Digger,\" said Captain Mack. \"Strong and spirited. Anyone need patching up? We've got a fine medic back on the ship.\"\n\nAn excess of pride or a legitimate ruggedness among the crew kept their hands from rising.\n\n\"Excellent. Now that we've all proved ourselves, maybe we can get to the root of our problems.\"\n\nThe Well Diggers and the Wind Breaker crew once again divided into their designated brainstorming groups. Nita marveled at how the outburst of hostility seemed to leave the room completely free of tension. She never would have imagined an out and out brawl would have been precisely what the situation called for. That Captain Mack did know explained how he'd managed to remain a captain for so many years. Every day she learned there was more to that man than she'd realized."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "The Ruby Club door swung open to reveal Lucius Alabaster in his radiant-white outfit.\n\n\"Nerve tonics, my good men! All around!\" he proclaimed.\n\nThe grand gesture would have been more generous if the room contained anyone beside Tender and the steward.\n\n\"What seems to be the source for such frivolity?\" asked Tender, fanning himself with his bowler hat after being startled by the proclamation.\n\n\"My day of recognition is at hand, that is what! Mallow, see to my friend in this triumphant time.\"\n\nHis manservant stepped inside. \"Er\u2026 what'll you have, Tender?\"\n\n\"I suppose I'll have to sample this nerve tonic of yours to see what the fuss is about,\" Tender said.\n\nMallow nodded and paced inside as Alabaster took his seat.\n\n\"I've seen not one but two fine signs of my machinations bearing fruit, good sirs,\" Alabaster said, plopping down and twirling his mustache with both hands. \"The first, I received a message just three minutes ago from an agent in my employ that an agent in the good Mayor Ebonwhite's employ has appeared in our midst. The first time, might I add, that he has seen fit to show the slightest interest in our forsaken little corner of the fug. And why? What could have drawn the interest of the most powerful man of our times? The answer, my gentleman, is Lucius P. Alabaster!\"\n\n\"I don't know that I would be in quite so celebratory a mood if I'd earned the interest of Ebonwhite. He has the means to make a life rather unpleasantly complex.\"\n\n\"Feh, I say. Feh, bah, and a thousand such scoffs! Ebonwhite knows not with whom he trifles! That, no doubt, is the reason for his interest. To determine the nature of my genius. And he shall soon learn that he not only needs to know my name, but that it needs to be on his lips, such that he might call it in this, his hour of need. Because the second message was to inform me that certain complicating factors have beset his own plans. And that very shortly his hated rivals from above, the bloody-handed slayers of his dragon and topplers of his dungeon, cannot simply be starved away. They must be dealt with. And who more capable than I to do the dealing?!\"\n\nTender glanced to Mallow, who was already returning with three shots. \"Forgive my denseness, but was I supposed to make sense of that?\" Tender said. \"His rivals cannot be starved away?\"\n\n\"No, good Tender. Few but myself have the wisdom and foresight to understand the intricacies of my schemes. But suffice it say that before the month is out, I expect to be at once an employee and credible rival of Ebonwhite. And my name shall be on the lips of all who speak of great men and great minds.\"\n\nHe took his drink in hand and downed it. Mallow and Tender did the same.\n\n\"Truth be told, my plans are soon to be quite vigorously in motion. And as they can only remain so in my absence for so long, I shall need to take my leave. My date with destiny is nigh. And I shan't be tardy.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "After several hours of plotting, the Wind Breaker crew retired to the ship. Captain Mack piloted far enough away from the meeting place to conceal its location, then emerged from the fug to take some grateful breaths of unfiltered air. After letting the lingering pockets of fug dissipate, they gathered in the galley. Captain Mack left Coop at the wheel while they ate. In a rare appearance out from behind the counter, Butch shuttled from table to table, muttering reprimands and applying ointments.\n\n\"You should've seen the other guy, Butch,\" Lil said, wincing as her ear was treated. \"I put my boot to more than a few. And they're only lucky I had this mask on, or you can be darn sure I'd've found out what fugger tastes like after they took a bite of me.\"\n\n\"Fine, fine,\" Captain Mack said. \"We can compare scars after. The important thing is we've got our tasks now. So let's divide things up and lay them out. Nita, what came of your figuring?\"\n\n\"In terms of the engineering, it's a straightforward job. Actually a great deal like what I'm accustomed to as a free-wrench in Caldera. A fence to keep man and beast out. Some mining equipment and whatever equipment will be needed to refine the ichor. With the workers we've got, provided their head count was accurate and their hearts are in it, under normal circumstances I'd say the defenses could be up in a week. The mine would be ready in two, but they'd probably take their time after getting the walls up, because\u2026 well, circumstances aren't normal. They impressed upon me, repeatedly, that The Thicket will not be obliging to our task. It turns out the fug hasn't kept all plants and animals from thriving. There are thorn bushes with cruel barbs, and animals they've declined to describe beyond great size and hideous appearance.\n\n\"I've proposed we outfit their steam carts to run the weapons that will eventually be mounted on the walls, and armor them similarly. It should add protection without adding weight, since every bit of the offensive and defensive equipment and more will be reused upon arrival.\"\n\n\"Fine work. How much of our crew would you need to get it done?\"\n\n\"Naturally I would need to be a part of the job from beginning to end. I would also prefer to have at least one member of the Wind Breaker crew to help coordinate.\"\n\n\"If you only need one, you can have your pick of everyone but Gunner. I'll need him with me. That Lester character would have us believe he's going to strut in and strut out with his chemist in tow, but my own assessment is to expect a good deal more excitement than that. Stealthy or not, that stretch of fug is situated midway between three fug cities I know of, let alone the many I no doubt don't know of. That means shipments. And shipments mean patrols and security. I don't count on us getting there and back without shots fired. And if it comes to that, in air or on the ground, I want Gunner with me,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"I'd have picked Lil anyway. No offense, Gunner.\"\n\n\"None taken, though take plentiful notes on the construction of those war wagons. A contraption like that has a future,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh no. Those wagons are coming apart just as soon as we arrive. And those are for defense, not offense.\"\n\n\"If it uses ammunition, it's good for both,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Let's not make plans for things that ain't been made yet. We should all set eyes on the next step,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"And what's that, Cap'n?\" Lil said.\n\nButch supplied the answer in an irritated grumble.\n\n\"Glinda's right. Let's get us a fair distance away, then make sure we're all patched up right. From there it'll be up north, as near to the edge of that forest of theirs as they're willing to let us get. Nita and Lil stay behind and get the group ready to venture into the woods. Then the rest of the crew and that Lester character load up and head to Fadewell Academy to get their chemist one way or the other.\"\n\n\"I'm not keen on us splitting up, Cap'n,\" Lil said. \"While I'm voting that it's not a trap, it's just as likely it is one now as it was before, and with us up north and without the ship and the rest of you to watch us, things could go wrong quick.\"\n\n\"Then you watch each other's backs. And you keep some things in mind, second only to your own safety. You find out where that well is, you find out if it is real, and you be sure that you can find it again. That's our insurance against treachery.\"\n\n\"And if the treachery takes you before you return to us?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"Then you get clear of them before they do the same to you, and you find out what happened to us. Simple as that. You both got good heads on your shoulders, and you're members of the Wind Breaker crew. Together I don't imagine there's anything in the fug more formidable than that.\"\n\n\"I ain't about to disagree with that, Cap'n, but how are we liable to find out if the rest of you have come to ill? Or if you need our help? Or if you got something you need us to know, or to do, how are we supposed to find that out? There's the matter of communication, is what I'm getting at.\"\n\n\"Don't think that hasn't crossed my mind, Lil.\" He tapped his knuckles on the wall in a rapid pattern. \"Near as we know, there's only one fugger alive today who knows we've figured out their code and that we know what the inspectors are really used for. That being the woman who filled in some of the last pieces for you girls back in Skykeep. They haven't changed their codes, and that's further proof of their ignorance. So far it's served us well enough for the fuggers to think we killed our inspector, and that's why they haven't received any reports on us. This might be reason enough to risk abandoning that.\"\n\nWink and Nikita, answering the tapped-out call, scurried into the room and onto the table, looking expectantly at the captain.\n\n\"I want you girls to take one of the aye-ayes with you. Hide it as best you can, not that you're liable to have much success at it. Not knowing where you are, I can't be sure we'll be able to get a message to you one way or another. But having one inspector with you and one with us, at least there's a means to do it. Half a plan is better than none.\" He looked to the creatures. \"Wink, Nikita, I know with those ears of yours you've heard every word of what I said, whether I meant for you to hear it or not. So I put it to you. These girls are going down in the fug and into The Thicket. I want one of you to go with them and listen for anything they might need to hear. Which of you wants to be the one?\"\n\nThe two inspectors exchanged glances and began to drum out messages on the table to one another. When they reached an agreement, Nikita looked to the captain.\n\nI do not want to leave Coop. But Coop wants Lil to be safe. Nikita will help keep Lil safe.\n\n\"So be it,\" the captain said. \"Scurry off with you, back to the watch.\"\n\nButch held up a hand, stopping them before they could leave, and fished into her apron to reveal two treats. The aye-ayes eagerly snatched them before hurrying off.\n\n\"You're fixing to spoil them,\" Captain Mack said.\n\nButch nudged him and pointed to his shirt.\n\n\"I'd just as soon wait until the ladies weren't present to see to that bit, Glinda.\"\n\n\"You ain't got nothing we ain't seen before,\" said Lil. \"And vice versa with us. Because I don't like the way Nita here is sittin'. I think she took some shots to the kidneys.\"\n\nAfter Butch reiterated her order, Captain Mack relented and opened his coat, then unbuttoned his shirt. Lil didn't seem bothered at all by it. Nita averted her gaze. This having been the first time she'd seen the captain without a shirt, and only the second time without his coat, her brief glimpse at his gray-haired chest was her first real indicator of his physique. The man was formidable for one in his advanced years, and checkered with scars and burns. Several fresh bruises added color to his otherwise pale flesh.\n\n\"Oof. You took some wallops, eh Cap'n?\" Lil said.\n\n\"Nothing that I won't forget after a good night's sleep.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but when's the last time you had one of those?\"\n\n\"My health isn't the subject, Lil. Matter of fact, if the two of you are set to be spending days at a time under the fug, your health is hard on my mind. Miss Graus, you ever take the time to work out how the masks work?\"\n\n\"Yes. They're rather simple,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Confident you could repair one if pressed?\"\n\n\"Absolutely.\"\n\n\"Good. When you two go under, I want you each to pick out the two best masks we've got to take with you, and the next two as backups besides. And then there's the matter of how you're to eat and drink in a place where you can't breathe.\"\n\n\"I reckon we can make do with holding our breath long enough to take a bite,\" Lil said. \"But if you got food that'll keep a week or two, I'd be much obliged if you'd send that down with us, Butch. While it's fair to say I'm curious what them fuggers eat when they ain't locked up, having had what they eat when they are locked up ain't made me optimistic of its quality.\"\n\nButch completed her ministrations on the captain, and gave him a short lecture and sharp slap on the head to motivate him to avoid further injury in the future. Thus delivered, she left him to button his shirt and turned to Lil. The deckhand pulled up her shirt to reveal a midriff remarkably unmarred by the brawl. Nita again averted her eyes quickly. Butch nodded and motioned for Lil to lower her shirt.\n\n\"Took most of my shots to the head, Butch. Like usual. Guess because it's so near to hand and elbow height for the folks I usually get into fights with,\" Lil said, tucking her shirt back in.\n\nThe ship's cook and doctor turned her attention to Nita, the last of her patients present. As she probed lightly at the Calderan's head and neck, Gunner stood.\n\n\"I've got to take inventory of our munitions. We were in a hurry when doing the loading, so the grape and standard shot aren't sorted the way I'd prefer, and there are charges to pack.\"\n\nCaptain Mack nodded. \"Keep to the usual mix on them charges, Gunner. Now's not the time to be toying with the powder.\"\n\n\"As you order, Captain, though I'll say that I'm at the very cusp of producing a mix that is entirely smokeless. That could be tactically valuable in open-air combat, as well as close quarters with firearms.\"\n\n\"This job calling for little or none of either, I would call that a low priority, Gunner.\" He stood as well. \"I'm off to relieve Coop of the wheel.\"\n\n\"Well sure, Cap'n. It's been darn near a half hour since you left him. I'm sure he's wondering if we'd forgotten about him,\" Lil said.\n\nThe captain ignored the jab and trudged out the door, leaving only Butch, Lil, and Nita behind. Butch's probing prompted a wince from Nita. This brought the immediate and direct attention of the medic, who made it clear in no uncertain terms that Nita was to reveal the source of the discomfort.\n\nShe shed her coat, then began to undo the lacing of her corset. A subtle rosiness came to her cheeks when she finally removed it and all that remained was her leather-and-canvas top, which she began to undo.\n\n\"As little privacy as there is on this ship and as long as you been on it, you still blush whenever you've got to show anything more than face, arm, and ankles,\" Lil said.\n\n\"That, I think, is what's taken the most getting used to and what I'll least miss about this ship.\"\n\n\"What you'll least miss\u2026\" Lil said. She shook herself and forced a grin. \"You coming down off what I'd guess is your first fistfight. You that's been shot at and fell off one ship onto another. You that's been locked up and busted out of a fug prison. You'd least miss having to pull up your shirt in a room where other folk might see? Plenty of fun to be had with your shirt off, you know.\"\n\n\"Lil!\" Nita scolded with a smile and an extra flush of her cheeks as she removed her shirt.\n\n\"Hey, if you're learning that from me, you ain't near as worldly as I made you for.\" Lil turned to give Nita a bit of privacy, but not before taking note of what the removal of her shirt had revealed. \"You folk from Caldera make sure even the bits of clothes that don't show are fancy, huh. Maybe I should get me some of them lacy things. Not that I'd have much use for clothes like that, you and me being built so different and all.\"\n\nButch turned and slapped Lil, still turned away, on the back of her head lightly like she was a disobedient dog.\n\n\"Ouch! You just got through treating me, Butch. Don't go making any new lumps; I got plenty of old ones,\" Lil said, ducking her head down.\n\nNita, her cheeks still rosy as Butch continued her examination, tried to return to the former topic. \"The rest of my time here, even the worst of it, has been an adventure. Granted some parts of the adventure are of the sort I wouldn't gladly repeat, I've had more proper excitement, and I feel I've done more genuine good in these last few months than I ever did at home.\"\n\nNita winced as Butch found a sore spot just beside her navel, but she continued.\n\n\"My job at home is fulfilling, even important. But if I wasn't doing it, someone else would be, and the world would spin on regardless. With you folks I've done a few things that maybe I shouldn't be strictly proud of, but I've nonetheless done things that I'd wager needed to be done and wouldn't have been done besides. And I've made loads more friends in the process. I've seen things my people might never have seen. So I\u2014\"\n\nHer sincere words were interrupted by a form stepping through the curtained door of the galley.\n\n\"I'm all done up at the wheel Butch and I\u2014oh heck!\" said Coop, barging in and catching the briefest of glimpses of Nita's examination before turning his head and covering his eyes. He began to stutter through an apology and missed the doorway three times before finally scurrying from the room.\n\nLil snorted. \"All right. I reckon I can see why you might find the quarters a little close and informal like.\"\n\nButch shouted something at Coop and instructed Lil to stand guard at the door.\n\n\"I sure am sorry about that, Miss Graus. I wasn't thinkin' and just charged in. I didn't reckon on you having them particular bits bein' inspected and such, but you rest assured, I'm going to set my mind to other things and just push what I saw right out of my head. Not that I saw much of anything mind you. And that's not to say that there wasn't much to see, just that I didn't get a good look is all. Not that what I saw wasn't\u2014\"\n\n\"Coop, I think you better hurry along before you get that foot so deep in your mouth you can't climb the stairs,\" Lil said.\n\nButch muttered something under her breath and then applied ointment to the one significant bruise Nita had received. Once the treated area was beneath a bandage, Nita quickly began to cover up again.\n\n\"Just the one bruise? How'd you get so lucky?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Wrenches across the chest, wrenches across the back, and the support struts in the corset. The tools of the trade are practically a suit of armor,\" Nita said, shakily closing up her shirt and lacing the corset back in place.\n\n\"Heh\u2026 You got\u2026 maybe you got a spare one of them corsets I can borrow? Me being in fistfights a mite more than you, I could probably use a little more help in that regard.\"\n\nNita laughed. \"You know, I got more than a few snide comments back on Caldera when I explained the corset was to help take the strain off my back when load lifting. I can't even imagine what they'd think if you were to don one to help you in a scuffle.\"\n\n\"Sounds to me like some of your folk don't have much of a mind for the practical.\"\n\n\"Uh\u2026 ladies?\" Coop called from down the hall. \"You all decent in there now? Only I ain't ate yet, and Butch ain't seen to my face.\"\n\n\"Decent enough, Coop,\" Nita said.\n\nHe approached the door and entered the room, his eyes held low and his hand formed into a visor to shield them.\n\n\"I am awful sorry, Miss Graus. That was just me not thinkin', which is something I'm liable to do, but you got my word as a Cooper I ain't done it on purpose and I ain't never doin' it ever again.\"\n\n\"It's all right, Coop. It was a mistake, I understand,\" Nita said, fanning her face as the blush finally began to fade.\n\n\"I ain't never seen you more ladylike than this. All in a tizzy and aflutter like that,\" Lil giggled.\n\nNita sighed. \"Let's just see to those masks.\"\n\nThe two women stepped out the door and into the hall. When they were clear, Coop finally raised his head and glanced after them.\n\n\"I gotta finish up that poem\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "Two days later, the Wind Breaker crept up to a cottage that was strangely similar to the last meeting place. It matched in design, was built of similarly new materials, and as they approached, rumbled with the same din of voices. If not for the significantly greater density of lifeless trees in the area, one could almost imagine the crew had somehow found its way to the original meeting place again by mistake.\n\nLil peered at the structure from the heavily loaded gig as it was lowered down from the Wind Breaker, Nita by her side. \"You reckon they just build those by the dozen, or did they take the last one to pieces and move it here?\" she mused.\n\n\"If so, I've got to admire the dedication to the cause to construct entirely new buildings expressly to do dealings with us,\" Nita said.\n\nNita adjusted her coat and cinched her mask up a bit tighter. She and Lil were clearly ready for a long expedition. Each was layered with clothes, even more so than they had been. Lil's long jacket was now draped with a few extra scarves and a backpack, and a rifle and twin pistols were evident. The mass of clothing and equipment quite effectively hid the snuggled little lump that was Nikita tucked well away. Nita carried a shoulder bag and wore her wrench sashes over the coat instead of under. She reached up with her gloved hand and pulled one of a pair of loops that ran over her shoulders affixing a massive purple-hued wrench head that took up the whole of her back.\n\n\"I can't believe you're toting that big, fancy wrench of yours along,\" Lil said. \"We're going to be traipsing about on foot and you decided to strap on who knows how much extra weight.\"\n\n\"I never go anywhere that might have work to be done without the monkey toe. Poor is the engineer who leaves a tool behind that can easily be carried, Lil.\"\n\n\"I reckon you and me have different ideas of what's easy to carry then.\"\n\nThe gig struck the ground, crunching into a few inches of snow. This being the fug, the snow had a faint purple tint and was likely poisonous, but that didn't stop it from giving the dimly lit surroundings an oddly whimsical look. Icicles that resembled garnet and amethyst hung from the curled black branches of the nearby trees, and even the scarce light made everything twinkle with indigo and puce.\n\n\"This is eerily majestic,\" Nita said as she stepped out of the gig and took in her surroundings.\n\n\"That's true. Spoils it some that if you was to catch one of these flakes on your tongue, it'd taste like the fug and probably kill you,\" Lil said.\n\n\"There are frogs back home that are the same way. Brilliantly colored but deadly even to touch. Curious how nature does such things\u2026\"\n\nThe door of the cottage opened, and out from within walked a handful of fug folk. They were heavily armed and layered with warm clothes, but there was little doubt these were the same individuals from the other day, as they still bore the injuries they'd received during the introductory brawl. Lil gripped her rifle.\n\n\"I gotta say, seeing that many fuggers coming at me with rifles and the like is enough to put my nerves on edge,\" Lil whispered. \"I haven't quite got the hang of considering these folk friends.\"\n\n\"This stuff need to be unloaded?\" asked Bludo as he approached.\n\n\"Yep. We got some ammo, some bits and pieces that Nita here needs for whatever it is she's planning with them carts of yours, and some food and water for us,\" Lil said.\n\nBludo and several of the others gathered around and heaved the crates and packages from the gig, doing so with little effort. When they finished clearing the gig, Lester appeared in the doorway of the cabin. He was dressed rather differently than the rest. While the grunts were outfitted with cold-weather work gear, Lester was wearing a black overcoat over a three-piece suit. A long red scarf was wrapped about his neck, earmuffs looped around behind his head, and the whole ensemble was completed with a top hat. In one gloved hand he carried an overnight bag, and in the other a cane. He almost looked like someone heading out to take in a show at the local theater, though the large white bandage on his left cheek from the blow he'd taken during the brawl spoiled the effect somewhat.\n\n\"Well ain't you all gussied up for a night on the town?\" Lil said, placing her rifle on one shoulder and the other hand on her hip.\n\n\"If you recall,\" Lester said, \"it is my task to convince our chemist to come along. I shall not achieve that goal if dressed like a ruffian or coarse laborer. Miss Prist is a civilized, refined woman and should be greeted by a similarly civilized and refined man,\" Lester said.\n\n\"Just so long as you don't mistake this trip for a pleasure cruise while Nita and me are trudging through this forest of yours doing real work,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Where are your carts? I'd like to see what it will take to modify them before we get moving,\" Nita said to Bludo.\n\n\"Over behind the cabin. We've got them all stripped down for you,\" he said.\n\nLil and Nita paced along behind him as he led the way. Once they were out from under the Wind Breaker, Lil glanced up to the top deck and waved to Captain Mack.\n\n\"So long, Cap'n! See you when we're all set!\" Lil said.\n\n\"You girls take care now,\" Captain Mack said, making the well-wish sound more like an order. \"And you boys be gentlemen. If I come back here and I find you been otherwise, it'll mean bad things for you.\"\n\nLester stepped onto the gig and promptly fell over backward as it was yanked from the ground and began to retract. \"A word of warning would not have been out of place, you troglodytes!\" he barked.\n\n\"I'm guessing you're trying to insult me or some such,\" called Coop from the controls of the winch. \"But the joke's on you, because I don't know what that means, so it don't bother me none at all.\"\n\nHe finished winching in the gig, and a pair of grunts helpfully tugged the mooring lines free of the trees to which they'd been tied. Nita turned and caught the eyes of the captain as he took the ship up. He looked irritable, but that was nothing new. Captain Mack usually looked irritable. As a seasoned member of the crew, though, she'd learned to interpret the different flavors of irritation. This one was as near to fear as she'd ever seen on his face. This was clearly unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory for him.\n\nThe thick fug quickly swallowed the Wind Breaker as it drifted skyward, and the thick, heavy air soon hid even the sound of its engines. It wasn't until the familiar hum of the turbines she maintained had faded entirely that Nita realized how comforting that sound had become for her, and how worrisome it was to be left in the fug surrounded by relative strangers without a means of escape. She swallowed hard and dragged a deep breath through her mask, then hurried to catch up with the others.\n\nSure enough, behind the cabin the three steam carts they'd been promised were present and stripped down to the barest of essentials for operation. This meant only a frame, some linkages for steering, the various components of a steam engine, and the associated fuel and water supplies were left. Piled beside each one were the spare parts that had been removed and the mass of equipment that would be loaded onto them when the time came to leave. Nita paced around them, looking them over. Two were in decent repair, though one was notably not. The frame between the front and rear wheels on the left side was quite crooked. It had the look of having been far worse and subsequently hammered back into the rough shape it ought to be. In the center of the mangled section was a scattering of silvery scratches where the oxidation and black paint had been scraped free.\n\nNita knelt beside the cart and ran her hands across the damage. \"What happened here?\" she asked.\n\n\"That's where Louis was,\" said a familiar voice. \"Now he's underground. The poor sod.\"\n\nLil and Nita turned to find a grunt looking woefully at the damage. The deckhand practically tackled him to the ground when she realized who he was.\n\n\"Donald! I was wondering when you'd show your face!\" Lil said. \"Is Kent around?\"\n\n\"Still inside. I fink he's tracing out our paf or somefing,\" Donald said.\n\n\"I want all of you folks to come over here and shake this man's hand, and Kent, too. Because them two are the ones that taught me there were some decent fug folk. If not for them, I might have gone to my grave thinking the lot of you were like the mayor back in Fugtown.\"\n\n\"What exactly happened here, Donald?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"That there's the cart we used to do our first survey. That's where somefing got ahold of us.\"\n\n\"You're telling me a creature did that?\" Nita said.\n\nHe nodded. \"Don't know what it was. Don't fink anyone got a good look at it, since the rest of the folk wif me just called it 'what the hell is that fing?'\"\n\nNita eyed the damage again and did the mental math of working out what size creature it would take to cause such destruction.\n\n\"I imagine we should get started on fortifying these carts then\u2026\"\n\n\"Nita, Lil!\" said Digger.\n\nThey turned to the doorway. He was just emerging, and his face was the very picture of relief. He had a few bruises from the brawl but had gotten off easy.\n\n\"I'm so glad you decided to come. I confess I was not confident, after our last encounter, that you would return to complete the mission.\"\n\n\"We keep our promises. Sorry about your jaw, by the way,\" Lil said. \"You shouldn't've tried to pull me off those three over there when they were beating on Coop.\" She hiked her thumb at a cluster of rather badly bruised grunts.\n\n\"A lesson learned quite thoroughly, I assure you.\"\n\n\"Are you coming along on this part of the mission?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"I'm afraid I wouldn't be much use. My skills are largely diplomatic and administrative. I've had only the most cursory education in technical matters, and no education at all on the subjects of wilderness hiking and big-game hunting. I would be a liability as part of the expedition, and furthermore I shall be needed here to coordinate the follow-up expedition to bring the chemist to the site, provided she is successfully gathered.\"\n\n\"Oh, they'll get her. Even if they have to tie her up and drag her,\" Lil said.\n\nNita finished sizing up the cart and looked to the dozen or so grunts in attendance. \"How many of you have ever worked on equipment like this?\"\n\nEight people raised their hands. Lil grinned and raised her hand as well.\n\n\"Okay. What we're going to do here is very simple. Watch closely, and when I'm through I'm sure you can do the same modifications on the other carts yourselves. We're going to tap into this line here, the vent feed for overpressure on the output of the steam engine. With some minor adjustments to the regulator we should be able to operate the guns by opening the vent valve. So you'll need pipe cutters, a bender, a threader, and some number four copper piping. If you've got a braising torch, that would be ideal as well. Are we all set? Then let's begin.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "Lester clambered up to the top deck of the Wind Breaker just as Gunner and Coop were finished reeling in the mooring lines. A surprised and confounded look was plastered on his face.\n\n\"Something wrong, Lester?\" Coop said, clapping the dust away from his hands.\n\n\"I\u2026 I believe I must have missed some part of the ship,\" Lester said.\n\n\"What were you looking for?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"The guest quarters.\"\n\nCoop laughed. \"Guest quarters. Listen to this highfalutin fella lookin' for guest quarters.\"\n\n\"Where am I intended to stay, if not in guest quarters?\"\n\n\"Lil and Nita are off ship, so that leaves two bunks empty. You can either sleep in the gig room where Nita usually sleeps, or bunk up with me in Lil's hammock. Except I'm not going to let you bunk up with me, so that just leaves the gig room.\"\n\n\"Surely you don't mean that drafty mass of greasy machinery on the lowest deck!\"\n\n\"Pretty sure I do.\"\n\n\"That room is not fit for man or beast!\"\n\n\"So far it's been a lady sleeping in there, so I reckon you're right. But you'll do fine.\"\n\n\"How long shall this journey take?\"\n\n\"Three days down, however long it takes down there, and three days back. Normally it would be more like two days each way, but Cap'n needs to take it slow so folks don't notice us coming and going.\"\n\n\"I thought your crew had some sort of means to avoid detection entirely. As far as I know, yours is the only ship the industry doesn't have moment-to-moment knowledge of.\"\n\n\"The industry? That what you folks call the fuggers who're running things?\"\n\n\"Informally, I suppose. Down here the haves and have-nots are defined by their capacity to engage in manufacturing and commerce. You either run an industry or you work for one who does. But that is not the issue at hand. The issue is how you've evaded detection thus far, and why it seems you've waited until it would be a direct inconvenience to me to suddenly lose this talent.\"\n\n\"You being a fugger, and your question being how do we keep secrets from fuggers, I reckon you'll understand if I don't answer that.\"\n\nLester muttered angrily and turned for the stairs.\n\n\"Coop,\" Captain Mack said, \"we're covered up here for lookouts. For the rest of this trip, you'll be keeping an eye on Lester.\"\n\n\"Keeping an eye on me? Are you insinuating I am not trustworthy?\"\n\n\"Whether you are trustworthy or not, I don't trust you,\" Captain Mack said. \"So Coop here will be keeping an eye on you. And Coop, get him to help you stoke the firebox.\"\n\n\"You would have me work?\"\n\n\"We are down a deckhand and an engineer, Lester. If you don't pull some weight, three days is a rosy estimate,\" Captain Mack said. \"And to be honest, if you don't pull the weight, you're just weighing us down, and dead weight gets jettisoned on this ship.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Was that a threat?\"\n\n\"I ain't a man for threats, Lester. That's just ship policy.\"\n\n\"I will not be a lackey to you. You are hired help, do you understand? As far as I am concerned you are merely a ferry to get me to the academy.\"\n\n\"Are you refusing to work as a member of this crew?\" Captain Mack asked.\n\n\"Categorically, emphatically, and without reservation.\"\n\n\"Coop.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" Coop said.\n\nThe deckhand snapped into motion. He didn't have malice or anger on his face as he advanced toward Lester, which was perhaps why Lester didn't react immediately. He didn't think to even step away until Coop had planted his shoulder into Lester's midsection and hoisted him from the ground.\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\"\n\n\"Dropping the dead weight, like the cap'n said we would,\" Coop said. \"Weren't you listening?\"\n\n\"Stop! You lunatics, stop!\" Lester cried, struggling but making little headway against the determined deckhand as he toted him to the railing.\n\n\"I thought I'd been clear, Lester.\"\n\n\"Fine! You madman! I'll work!\"\n\n\"Drop him, Coop,\" the captain said.\n\n\"On the deck or off it?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"On.\"\n\nCoop dumped Lester to the slick planks of the deck. The fug man scrambled backward away from him.\n\n\"You would have done it. You really would have killed me!\"\n\n\"You wouldn't be the first member of the crew we had to unload. That 'industry' of yours has made things a mite trying for us on the surface. Decisions like that are what have kept this ship in the air. Coop, take him down and get him shoveling.\"\n\nCoop motioned for the stairs, then plodded off behind him.\n\n\"Don't worry too much about being able to get to sleep, Lester. When you're through working, waking up will be the tricky bit.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "After several hours of tinkering, Nita was learning some very important lessons about working in the fug. Lifting heavy pieces of metal made for sweaty work even in the winter, and the icy chill combined with the chemical sting of fug seeping through her clothes made the process profoundly uncomfortable. Likewise, once she was out of breath the mask she wore made it difficult to get enough air to keep going. If she'd not spent the last few months mostly at high altitude, and thus adapted to much thinner air, she might have passed out. Even so, her chest ached with the effort of dragging each breath through the filters, and twice she had to stop herself from thoughtlessly removing the mask. The thin mist had a terrible way of hiding the fine details of whatever she was working on, and the green phlo-light if anything made it worse.\n\nOn the other hand, though, the grunts were marvelous workers. Those who'd raised their hands as having worked with boilers in the past were quick to pick up on what she was working at. Without the need for a mask, they were huffing and puffing much less, and they had the brawn to move with ease some of the materials that were a struggle for her. With their help the work had gone quickly. There were just a few more finishing touches to put on the first cart, and the grunts themselves had begun work on the others.\n\n\"We're going to want to swap this piece here for a valve with a stiffer tension,\" Nita said, gesturing with the tip of the screwdriver she held.\n\n\"Why?\" asked Kent, who had taken the lead when it came to distributing instructions to the other work crews.\n\n\"This whole assembly is going to shudder violently when the gun fires,\" Nita said. \"A valve this loose is liable to vibrate open under those stresses.\"\n\n\"Sure, granted,\" he said. \"But why not just up the tension on this one? This is a variable lock-out model.\" He rubbed away a bit of grease to reveal a small hole. \"Right for tight, left for loose.\"\n\n\"Fascinating\u2026 Quite a clever innovation. I've never noticed that in any of the equipment I've worked on up on the Wind Breaker.\"\n\nHe shrugged. \"We keep the best stuff down here.\"\n\nNita pulled a pouch open on her belt and selected an appropriate-size screwdriver. After a few twists, she tested the stiffness of the valve.\n\n\"That'll do it. Lil, get a chain of fl\u00e9chettes fed into the chamber and let's do a test.\"\n\n\"Can do,\" Lil said.\n\nThe deckhand climbed over the walls of the improved cart and hopped to the ground. As much as Nita claimed it was intended only for defense, she'd managed to construct quite an intimidating vehicle. The cargo platform was clear, but leaning out from it and extending five feet up and two feet out was a fortified wall, topped with barbed wire and crisscrossed with metal struts. It would take several minutes with a sledgehammer and crowbar to even make a dent in the armor without having access to the fasteners on the inside. Mounted at either side of the driver's seat, one atop the boiler and the other serving as a counterweight for it, was a scratch-built seat and a mounted fl\u00e9chette gun. These guns, provided by the fug folk themselves, were almost twice the size of the ones that had so dutifully defended the Wind Breaker from raider attacks in the past. The cart no longer looked like a vehicle. It was more like a fortress with wheels.\n\nLil rummaged through a crate and found a coiled-up string of foot-long metal spikes, then jogged around to the crew and cargo door at the rear of the vehicle. It was merely a full wall that had been hinged at the bottom to convert to a ramp.\n\n\"I forgot how heavy these things were,\" Lil said. \"I'm used to the hollow ones we use on the envelopes and such.\"\n\nNita fed the end of the roll into the receiver of the gun, dropped the rest in the bin, and looked up. \"Who wants to do the honors?\" she asked.\n\nAll twelve of the workers clambered for the chance, but the winner, thanks to proximity and initiative, was Lil. She'd hopped into the gunner seat before Nita had even finished asking.\n\n\"Let's see. What am I going to shoot\u2026\" Lil said, cracking her knuckles and leaning to look down the barrel. \"Anyone attached to that tree over there?\"\n\n\"You folk up there get attached to trees, do you?\" Donald asked as he levered a wall into place on one of the other carts.\n\n\"The ones up top are still growing. Figured you might want to hold on to the ones you got,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Wait until you get to The Thicket. You'll see what's still growing down here.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. Jabber, jabber. Can I shoot it or not?\"\n\n\"Go to it,\" Kent said. \"I'm eager to see if this thing works.\"\n\nLil pulled a few levers, and little puffs of steam jutted from vents as the seat rotated. \"This one here's the safety, right?\" she said, squinting through the haze.\n\n\"That's right,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Take this, ya lousy tree!\" Lil crowed.\n\nShe pulled the trigger. An almost musical sequence of squeaks, rattles, and hisses accelerated to an earsplitting din as a few moments of having the trigger held consumed three feet of chain and sent the spikes hurtling toward the tree at a startling speed. The force of the gun was enough to drive five of them entirely into the wood of the tree, and the handful that were off center actually punched clear through. The shudder of the gun as she fired it was bone-rattling and threatened to throw Lil from the seat as it rocked the cart back and forth on its springy suspension.\n\n\"Whoa!\" Lil said. \"Kind of hard to handle that kickback.\"\n\n\"It won't be a problem once we've got the cargo loaded,\" Nita said. \"That will give the whole vehicle a lot more stability under force. Does anyone need any help or instruction finishing the modifications on the others?\"\n\n\"We're not doing this as a perfect match, right? We're putting guns front of the cart on this one, rear on the other one, and sides on the other, right?\" said Bludo.\n\n\"That's right,\" Lil said, hopping down from the seat. \"Us traveling in one big line, putting guns on the front of the second one is liable to make the folks in front nervous, and so on all the way back.\"\n\n\"Then we might need help working the angles on these connectors and supports.\"\n\n\"I think I can work that for you,\" Kent said. \"Let's not overwork these ladies on their first day.\"\n\n\"You're sure?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Absolutely. From the looks of those eyes, you're fit to drop. I'm surprised you haven't already. Even some of our folks are eager for a break. In fact\u2026 Digger!\"\n\n\"Yes?\" called their leader from within the cabin.\n\n\"We're just about ready for a break out here. That suit the schedule?\"\n\nThe door opened and Digger paced out. Ink stained one hand that still clutched a pen. The other hand held a stack of pages. Having spent his time inside, he wasn't quite so well bundled up as the others, so the cold hit him like a hammer, stumbling him for a moment. He paced out far enough to inspect the work.\n\n\"My word, you're practically through with the modifications. That's twice as far along as I'd imagined we'd get today. Yes, yes. By all means, take your meals.\"\n\n\"You heard him, boys! Lunch break!\"\n\n\"What're you up to in there, Digger?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Paperwork. Though heading a subversive group substantially cuts down on the bureaucracy, there's still the matter of organizing, inventory, and the like. I daresay it results in more paperwork, as I've got to burn anything with names on it after I'm through, for if the cabin is discovered, I cannot risk my records revealing the roster of our little organization.\"\n\n\"I reckon the sort of fella who learns to get ink on his hands tends to find ways to keep getting ink on his hands,\" Lil said. \"Same goes for blood, I've noticed.\"\n\n\"One works to one's strengths,\" Digger said.\n\nThe grunts began to gather into little clusters, plopping down on the half-finished chassis of armored carts or the unpowered cargo carts in lieu of chairs. Each of them seemed to have their own flask on their belts, but Donald ducked into the cabin and returned with a burlap sack. One by one he handed out what looked like small loaves of dark brown bread, one per worker. When he was through, he and Kent approached Digger, Lil, and Nita.\n\n\"You need one too? Or you got your own?\" Donald asked, holding out a loaf to Lil.\n\n\"We got our own, but\u2026 what is it?\" she said, intrigued. \"I'd sniff it, if I could.\"\n\n\"This is nothing special. 'Stock bread' I fink they call it. We just call it 'brown.' Been living on three loaves of brown a day since forever.\"\n\n\"But what is it? Besides brown.\"\n\n\"Lunch.\"\n\nNita chuckled.\n\n\"Donald, anyone ever tell you you're not the brightest fella in the fug?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Not more than once,\" he said, giving her a shove to the shoulder that, if not for the playful smile on his face, would have been the prelude to another brawl.\n\n\"Standard provisions for workers,\" Digger explained. \"It's a dense bread with bits of meat mixed into the dough. And stock instead of water while it's being made. I'd not had it prior to being moved to The Thicket, but it has rather grown on me.\"\n\nHe accepted the loaf Donald offered. Lil plopped down on the ground beside the cabin and leaned against it, crossing her legs such that they disappeared into the bottom of her long coat. She then fished a bundle wrapped in brown paper out of one of the cavernous pockets. Nita took a seat next to her and fetched her own first meal, and each pulled a jar of amber liquid from an inside pocket. Using their laps as tables, they each unwrapped the paper to find one large pastry and three small biscuits each.\n\n\"What've you got there?\" Donald said, eyeing the meal.\n\n\"This here's what I always called 'stew pie,'\" Lil said, holding up the large pastry. \"It's like stew that's thick enough not to drip, wrapped up in dough. Sort of a pot pie without the pot. And these are just some biscuits.\"\n\n\"Those aren't biscuits.\"\n\n\"Yes they\u2026 oh. Are you like them from Circa, who call cookies biscuits?\"\n\n\"What's a cookie?\"\n\n\"I guess so. Here, educate yourself,\" she said, handing him one of the biscuits. \"Down here you call cookies biscuits and you eat 'em for dessert and such. Up there we call biscuits biscuits and we eat 'em with butter and gravy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Go ahead. Have a bite of heaven.\"\n\nDonald sniffed curiously at the flaky concoction, then popped it in his mouth. \"\u2026 If that's what you folk eat up there\u2026 I fink maybe I can see my way clear to visiting now and then.\"\n\n\"Just in Westrim, now,\" Lil said. \"In Circa you ask for biscuits and you get sweet crumbly things like down here.\"\n\nNita took a deep breath and loosened the belt securing her mask. She slid it down and took a big bite of her stew pie, then held the mask in place and huffed out a breath to clear the fug from inside.\n\n\"How'd that work?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"It is going to quickly become tiresome\u2026 but it's workable.\"\n\n\"Bah. You've taken a tremendous risk and are enduring terrible conditions to help us. The least we can do is ease your suffering during meal times,\" Digger said. \"Kent, run inside and get the large sample.\"\n\nThe grunt climbed to his feet and entered the cabin.\n\n\"I'm sorry, but what exactly can you do to help us?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"As I've said, we barely know more about ichor than you do. Most of what we know comes thirdhand from people who knew people who knew people who made deliveries to and from South Pyre. And\u2026 without getting too deeply into details, the circumstances of South Pyre make it difficult to handle pure ichor without taking special measures. So we've been learning quite a bit just by having some of the substance to study.\"\n\nKent returned. In his hand was a small stoppered jar with perhaps three healthy spoonfuls of ichor inside. In this quantity it looked even more like honey, and the dim golden glow was haunting in its beauty. It looked like someone had ladled out a bit of the sunset and stored it for later.\n\nHe set the jar on the ground and pulled the stopper. At first nothing happened, but gradually the air above the opening began to clear. Over the course of a few seconds, picking up speed as it went, the bubble of clarity pushed back the fug until there was a void perhaps ten feet in diameter.\n\nThe grunts and Digger backed away the same way one might retreat to shade as the clouds parted on a hot day. At the edge of the clearing, the fug took on a slightly thicker quality, forming a sort of translucent curtain of mist wrapped around the cleared air.\n\n\"Go ahead. Remove the masks. In its pure form, ichor seems to vigorously repel the fug. No doubt that's why it's seldom handled in that form in South Pyre.\"\n\nNita blinked her eyes. While she'd become accustomed to the constant, subtle sting while working, there was no doubt the sting subsided the moment the clear void pushed past her. She hesitantly took the mask from her face and ventured a tiny sniff. There was still the strong scent of fug, but no more so than what she had to endure for the first few minutes after the Wind Breaker surfaced from a few hours immersed in it. She took a slow breath and released it.\n\n\"Remarkable!\" Nita said. \"I'm not sure I'd trust it for the full meal, since a good hard breeze would sweep all the clean air away, but that's quite a trick.\"\n\n\"I would offer to allow you to eat in the cabin where the wind won't disturb the 'fresh' air, but I've got a few men working in there preparing navigational aids and the like and it might be a distraction for them to have to cope with a lack of fug. But in the future, I'm sure placing the jar in your tent will do nicely.\"\n\n\"This whole job just got a whole lot easier to swallow. You're not half-bad, Digger,\" Lil said.\n\n\"I strive to accommodate.\"\n\nNita moved the jar to between herself and Lil, where it would take a stiff gust for the fug to reach them in dangerous quantities, and munched happily. Slowly, the nearby fug folk wandered off, nearly as repelled by the fresh air as surface folk were by the chemical smell of the fug.\n\n\"I guess privacy is one of the little bonuses that'll come with this sort of thing,\" Lil whispered.\n\n\"I suppose so,\" Nita said.\n\n\"\u2026 Nobody's watching from over there. Anyone on the other side of me watching?\"\n\n\"It looks like they're mostly minding their own business. Why?\"\n\n\"Nikita's been tapping me. She's awful hungry.\"\n\nLil casually palmed one of her biscuits and reached inside her coat as if to scratch an itch. Her coat was fluffed up enough by sitting down that Nikita's movements inside were barely perceptible.\n\n\"I ought to say, she's said something that's got me a little worried.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"About an hour ago, when I went off to answer the call of nature, I let her do the same. She tapped out a message on a stone. Said she smelled and heard another inspector somewhere.\"\n\nNita tried to keep her face steady. \"But there aren't any airships here. And we made it clear there shouldn't be.\"\n\n\"I know it, but Nikita seemed pretty sure. And they've got pretty good ears, remember.\"\n\n\"Did she say where?\"\n\n\"She couldn't tell. Just that it was close.\"\n\n\"We have to find it\u2026 and find out who brought it.\"\n\n\"You think maybe the whole thing's blown?\"\n\n\"I don't want to believe that. Partially because, as you pointed out, these seem like a decent bunch. Partially because there's not very much we can do if this is proof of a trap.\"\n\n\"Sure there is. If we decide things are getting dicey, we'll just steal one of them carts.\"\n\n\"And then what? We barely know where we are.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but problems are usually easier to solve when you've got more firepower.\"\n\n\"\u2026 There's some logic to that.\"\n\n\"Darn right. I learned that from Gunner.\"\n\n\"Why am I not surprised about that?\" Nita took a bite and chewed it slowly. \"Okay\u2026 after the break it will be time to start loading up the first cart. Can Nikita hear me in there?\"\n\n\"\u2026 She says yes.\"\n\n\"Can she try to communicate with the other one quietly? Can she ask where it is?\"\n\n\"\u2026 She's tapping now\u2026 She says it says it is in a dark box.\"\n\n\"Well that narrows it down\u2026 Okay, that means it's part of the cargo somewhere. While we're loading, everyone pay attention. The sooner we find that box, the sooner we'll know what happened and what to do next.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "\"Okay,\" Lil said, heaving a breath, \"you boys gotta slow down. You're making me look bad.\"\n\nLoading the carts had been a slow process because it had to be done with care. Even with so much of the cargo strapped to the outside of the carts to fortify them, there was barely enough room to bring everything they intended to bring. Digger, in a questionably helpful decision, had taken it upon himself to direct the others where to load each piece of equipment. This provided the workers with ample time to rest and also allowed Digger to have a full manifest of the contents of each cart.\n\nLil hefted a box into place and leaned against it. In truth, she was being a bit dramatic in her claims of fatigue. The day had been exhausting to be sure. Her chest ached and her head throbbed from having to draw breath through the mask. But compared to the air while they were in transit, even filtered through the mask it felt like she was breathing soup, much thicker and more substantial. She was slow to lose her breath and quick to catch it. But the frequent breaks gave Nikita a chance to deliver messages and listen closely. At first Lil had been worried things would be unpleasant or difficult for the little creature, tucked away as she was while the day's work progressed, but it quickly became clear that being carried around by Coop in much the same fashion had given her a particular skill at coping and flourishing in such a state. Every so often she would release her grasp on Lil's shirt and tap out a message to her. Much of the rest of the time she was simply silent and snuggled close. Considering how warm and toasty she was under the jacket, Lil was starting to feel jealous.\n\nJust as Lil grabbed the edge of the next box to lift it, Nikita tapped a frenzied message.\n\nThe inspector is near. It is very near.\n\n\"Is it now\u2026\" Lil said quietly.\n\nShe looked over the box. It was just a simple crate, maybe a foot and a half cubed. The only thing that distinguished it from the rest was an apparent lack of care in its construction, as the slats each had a marginally larger gap between them than in the other such crates. Lil peered through one of the gaps, then slipped out her knife and probed it. Just inside there was a layer or two of tightly woven black mesh, keeping her from spying anything inside. The Wind Breaker crew had learned a few tricks from Nikita and Wink, though. Lil reached down and tapped out a message with her knuckle.\n\nIf you were in this box, you responded, she tapped, using the stilted syntax the inspectors had been taught.\n\nThis one was in the box, came the reply.\n\n\"What's wrong, Lil?\" asked Nita.\n\nThe engineer gave a knowing glance. Lil returned it. This was certainly the box they were looking for.\n\nIf Nita had been the one to discover the box, or the captain or Gunner for that matter, a slow, subtle investigation as to the details of its presence and who was responsible for it might have begun. The Coopers, however, were far more direct than that.\n\n\"Hey Mr. Inventory,\" Lil called, thumping the top of the box, \"what're you packin' a critter for?\"\n\n\"A critter?\" Digger replied, confusion apparent on his face. He paced over and looked at an inventory label that had been hastily pasted on the side of the crate. \"According to my manifest, this is under 'infrastructure and inspection apparatus.' That was part of a rather large gathering of cargo we were able to\u2026 ahem\u2026 acquire shortly before your arrival. I've got nothing here about a 'critter' of any kind.\"\n\n\"I'm pretty sure there's a critter in here,\" Lil said. \"Mind if I pop it open to see what's what?\"\n\n\"No harm in a little visual confirmation,\" Digger said.\n\nLil wedged her knife under the edge of the crate's lid and deftly levered it open. Digger, Lil, Nita, and two of the nearby grunts peered inside. An aye-aye, and a rather portly one at that, huddled in the bottom of the crate. Beside it was a half-eaten wad of some unrecognizable foodstuff and a damp sponge. Though to a trained eye the creatures could be quite expressive, one didn't need any training to see that this creature was miserable. Nonetheless it averted its eyes and tapped its claws against the floor of the crate.\n\nThey told this one where the main pole was. This one did not reported, it said, stretching its limited language skills to their limits.\n\nLil felt Nikita begin to tap out a reply, but she touched her hand to her jacket to quiet her.\n\n\"Oh, an inspector!\" Digger said, clearly pleased. \"Delightful. This is a tremendous boon!\"\n\n\"Why exactly is this a tremendous boon?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Because now we shall have thorough inspections without risking our own people for the purpose, clearly,\" Digger said.\n\n\"This seems to be a surprise to you,\" Nita said.\n\n\"I was unaware we'd been able to secure one.\"\n\n\"Are you sure we need it?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"We can certainly use it,\" Digger said.\n\n\"Maybe so, but we'll have to keep it alive during the journey. That means days more. I don't see food or water enough in that crate to keep it alive that long. And if I've understood your concerns, keeping ourselves alive is going to be task enough without caring for a creature we'd not planned for.\"\n\n\"Yeah. And besides. I can understand having one of these assigned to an airship,\" Lil said. \"Something rots through on one of those, you fall a thousand feet into the ocean or smash open on the land. This inspector is going to be responsible for what? Tapping on a few walls?\"\n\n\"Plenty of big factories and the like all over the fug have inspectors. If we're hoping to set up something that can take on the other industries down in the south, I say we keep the thing. Don't know when we'll be able to find another,\" said Bludo.\n\nThe other fug folk rumbled with approval.\n\n\"This is a sign of legitimacy. A tremendous windfall for our cause,\" Digger said.\n\nLil and Nita scanned the faces of those in attendance. All were either confused, pleased, or disinterested with this development.\n\n\"So who's going to take care of it? Any of you folk got any experience with that?\" Lil asked.\n\nDigger looked about. When none of his men were forthcoming, he turned back to Lil and Nita.\n\n\"As seasoned members of an airship crew, I imagine at least one of you must have had some sort of experience in the matter. They are standard issue to all airships, are they not? Mandatory, if memory serves. Oh! But then they say you've killed yours, is that right?\"\n\n\"That's right, they say that,\" Lil said.\n\n\"But prior to that, you must have had some experience.\"\n\n\"Look, if the question is do I know how to look after one of these critters, the answer is yes. If the question is would I mind looking after this critter, the answer is heck yes I mind, because that wasn't part of the deal. I joined up to help Nita here hammer on them carts, then do some exploring, and help you folk help us folk get some much needed phlogiston. Nowhere in that plan was there any talk of me being nursemaid to a little critter.\"\n\n\"I genuinely apologize. Surely the requirements aren't so taxing. Perhaps you could instruct one of the others in the proper means.\"\n\n\"Or maybe we could just leave it here.\"\n\n\"I suppose, if it is truly a sticking point for you, we could do so, but the facility will be operating on a skeleton crew for the foreseeable future. A dedicated full-time inspector that works for no more than food and water would allow us to be considerably more efficient.\"\n\nLil crossed her arms. \"I don't like when plans change. It makes me ornery. And all you folks with bruises that match my knuckles ought to know you don't want an ornery Cooper floating about if you can avoid it.\"\n\nNita turned to Digger. \"Let me talk to her. She gets like this sometimes. A moment of privacy if you would?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" he said.\n\n\"Askin' me to see to the little critter,\" Lil muttered under her breath as Nita led her a short distance away.\n\nWhen they were out of earshot, Lil whispered to Nita. \"What do you think? Think if I keep play acting I'm all upset, they'll let us leave it?\"\n\n\"You're overplaying the part a bit, if you don't mind the criticism. But I don't think it's worth the effort of alienating yourself and burning through the good will you've earned.\"\n\n\"You don't believe that little bugger just happened to be part of the cargo they stole. It's a spy, plain as day.\"\n\n\"There's little doubt of that. But I think you'll agree, none of the fug folk seem upset at its discovery. It if this was deceit, surely the person responsible would have shown some reaction.\"\n\n\"Could be they didn't know. Could be someone planted it, and they're finding out same as us.\"\n\n\"That would be a terrible gamble. The creature could have starved to death before we discovered it, and then all of its surveillance would have been for naught.\"\n\n\"Then it could be that fug folk are top of the heap, bar none when it comes to lying through their teeth with a smile on their faces. Except for a few folk we met since we arrived at Skykeep, I never spoke to one fugger who wouldn't put a knife in my back as soon as look at me.\"\n\n\"And if that is the case, then I have no doubt whoever smuggled it this far would have no trouble smuggling farther. Better that we keep an eye on it. We've been able to reason with Wink and Nikita. Perhaps we can reason with this one too. Even if we can't, having it with us will require the person or people responsible for planting it to take it away in order to put it to use, and then we'll know who we are up against.\"\n\nLil tipped her head back and forth. \"Fair enough. But you're doing the tending, then. I already got one to take care of. And we ain't keeping this one are we?\"\n\n\"I don't imagine we will.\"\n\n\"Good. Wink's fine, and Nikita's a sweetheart, but if we keep this up, the ship'll be overrun.\"\n\n\"Agreed.\"\n\n\"All right then. Let's get back to it,\" Lil said. She spun on her heel and raised her voice. \"Fine! We'll keep the little critter with us. But I ain't happy. You folk spring any more surprises like that and I ain't gonna be so obliging. Nita here'll be doing the looking after. Now let's get the rest of these boxes loaded!\"\n\nNita walked to the crate and slowly reached for the aye-aye. It scampered to the far corner of the crate but didn't put up a fight as she lifted it. As aye-ayes go, this one was quite heavy. At least half again as heavy as Wink. He seemed to go limp when lifted in some sort of passive resistance to being handled. She maneuvered him until he finally clung to her side, staring up at her distrustfully.\n\nDigger approached. \"Nita?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Your partner seems a bit\u2026 volatile.\"\n\n\"You hadn't made that determination from the scuffle at the last meeting?\"\n\n\"I suppose that was an indication, but some level of provocation was undeniably to blame. But\u2026 I'm not sure how to put this delicately\u2026 can she be trusted with the rest of the crew? She brought both rifle and pistol, and she seemed rather proficient with that larger mounted weapon. We here in the fug have justifiably roused the ire of the surface dwellers for quite some time. She's not likely to take this expedition as an opportunity to take out her frustrations, is she?\"\n\n\"Between the heist, the dreadnought, and Skykeep, I'm quite sure her thirst for destruction has been quenched. She can be trusted to do her job, don't worry.\"\n\n\"I've always wondered why you killed your inspector. Not you specifically, of course, but your crew. I suppose I'd always assumed you were a ravening bunch of bloodthirsty pirates, capable of anything.\" He raised his hand in placation. \"Not to offend you, of course.\"\n\n\"How could I possibly be offended by a statement like that?\" Nita said sternly.\n\n\"Don't get me wrong! What I'm trying to say is that what I've seen of you has led me to believe the crew is a bit saner than that\u2026\"\n\nA short outburst from near one of the mostly loaded carts drew their attention. Lil had climbed onto the very top of the pile to help haul one of the long, heavy struts onto the cart. Her light frame and the weight of the strut required an act of combined acrobatics and contortion to cantilever it into place. The final tug actually required her to hang from the bottom of the strut and plant her boots against the barbed top of the wall to drag it into place. Some silver coins were changing hands between the grunts. Lil hooked her legs over the strut and hung down to accept a handful of her own.\n\n\"Told you I could do it. Don't you ever bet against Lil Cooper!\"\n\n\"\u2026 Perhaps not saner, but more measured,\" Digger said. \"The point being, simply disposing of an inspector seems a frivolous and bloodthirsty act for a group who seems to have reasons for everything they do.\"\n\n\"Digger, the fug is full of secrets. No doubt over our time in collaboration I'll find my way to a question that you simply can't bring yourself to answer. When that time comes, if it isn't crucial to the success of the job you would have us do, I will allow you your privacy. On this point, I'll ask you to do me the same courtesy.\"\n\n\"As you wish.\" He took a deep breath. \"It appears we shall have the final materials loaded within the hour. That means very shortly you and I will part ways. Bludo and I will remain behind to organize a second crew for when the chemist arrives. Kent shall be acting foreman in my absence. He's handled things well in my absence in the past. You will be the one handling your side of things, won't you?\"\n\n\"I believe we'll be dividing the tasks. I'm fair bit handier with a wrench than she. She's more capable in matters best served by\u2026 volatility.\"\n\n\"Ah\u2026 Yes, playing to strengths. Quite wise.\" He cleared his throat. \"Would you be comfortable discussing broad strokes of the plan moving forward, or should Lil be present?\"\n\n\"If something requires her attention, I'll fetch her.\"\n\n\"Good, good. If I understand correctly, the journey to the ichor well should take three to five days. That makes for a round trip of, at worst, ten days. A return trip would arrive five days later. There is plenty of water available along the way, and The Thicket has very good hunting, but you've got twenty days of provisions, by my accounting. When you arrive, after an appropriate period of refueling and recuperation, I've asked that two of my men return on one of these carts to resupply and report upon the status of the project. If all goes without difficulty with the rest of your crew, by the time the resupply carts arrive here, we will have the chemist. And thus, provided the prognosis from those responsible for the supply run is good, we will be able to transport the chemist to the facility in time for defenses and harvesting equipment to be completed. Then it will simply be a matter of having her guide you through the creation of the refinement of the ichor. Does that meet with your approval?\"\n\n\"It sounds a bit optimistic with regard to the timetable, but I see no problem with it as long as you are comfortable if things are running behind.\"\n\n\"We shall adjust as necessary.\"\n\n\"And am I correct in assuming that the completion and activation of the defenses will make you more comfortable with the concept of the Wind Breaker arriving directly?\"\n\nDigger hesitated.\n\n\"With the number of guns you'd have us install, you should be able to fend off a fairly substantial attack from ground or air. So the discovery of your source wouldn't be much of a threat any longer.\"\n\n\"I would just as soon avoid any direct contact with the site by air.\"\n\n\"So when everything is operational, you would have Lil and I trek out through The Thicket by land again? And how shall we receive our initial payment and any subsequent resupplies, if not directly by air?\"\n\n\"We've not\u2026 fully completed that portion of the plan. It being contingent on the successful application of our current plan, it seemed more prudent to devote our time and energy to establishing the necessary infrastructure.\"\n\n\"For you, certainly. But while my captain is a good man, he is not helping you out of the goodness of his heart. So now that you've got our aid and your plans are on the verge of being carried out, this would be a good time to explain just how you intend to hold up your end of the bargain.\"\n\n\"Of course, of course. We've discussed a number of potential means to establish a supply line to you. The stranglehold the industry has on most surface ports means conducting our business in any of the more notable cities would end poorly for us. It has been suggested, however, that in the process of securing the lumber for the construction of the ichor well fortifications, a landing pad of sorts could be established. Something far enough away from the well to avoid endangering its discovery. There we could keep a small stockpile of burn-slow and phlogiston, and conduct our business with you.\"\n\n\"You do realize one of the reasons you sought our help was our ability to travel undetected. You trust the Wind Breaker to ferry your chemist about, but not to pick up the payment for doing so.\"\n\n\"This is not a matter of trust,\" Digger said. \"It is simple reality. The more often something approaches from above, the greater chance there is it will be seen by others. And until we have had time to grow and thrive from the proper utilization of the ichor, even with defenses that under your supervision shall no doubt be peerless, we cannot guarantee the continuity of the supply line. Miss Graus, please, if you've got superior recommendations, I am eager to hear them. But some compromises simply must be made.\"\n\nNita crossed her arms and mulled over the plan.\n\n\"The timeline worries me a bit in that, again assuming the rest of the crew performs as expected, you'll have the chemist on her way, and if all is ideal, we'll be loading ourselves onto a cart and heading back here. That leaves the rest of the crew waiting six to ten days for us to arrive.\"\n\n\"Will that be a problem?\"\n\n\"As Lil has illustrated, the Wind Breaker crew has a habit of getting into trouble when left to their own devices,\" she said. \"Couldn't they deliver the chemist directly and pick us up?\"\n\n\"Again, we can't risk it.\"\n\n\"We aren't talking about repeated trips in and out to resupply. We're talking about a single arrival and departure.\"\n\n\"I just don't feel comfortable with that.\"\n\nNita narrowed her eyes slightly. \"It seems like we are the ones doing most of the compromising on this job.\"\n\n\"Miss Graus, I must respectfully disagree. By even speaking with you we have put ourselves in terrible danger of reprisal by those in power. By providing you with even the single canister we already have, we've violated a very strict embargo. And by making this deal, let alone laying claim to a previously unknown ichor well, we are by most measures traitors to our own people. Every last one of these men and women, if their actions are discovered, will be pariahs at best and fugitives at worst if we don't succeed. I owe it to them to take every reasonable precaution, and many that to you may seem unreasonable. And again, not to offend you, but the relationship between our people is mutual in its hostility. I have as many reasons to distrust you as you have to distrust me. It is possible neither of our motives is entirely clean. I can appreciate you suspect me, or even all of us, of subterfuge. I would be a fool not to adopt a similarly pragmatic approach toward your plans.\"\n\nNita smirked. \"I can respect that. And as neither of us stands to gain anything if we don't reach the ichor well, unless you've got any other points to discuss, I should lend a hand.\"\n\n\"By all means,\" Digger said.\n\nThe engineer walked toward the other workers. As she did, she muttered quietly to the chubby little creature clinging to her coat.\n\n\"It seems like everyone is keeping an eye on everyone. I'm beginning to understand why Caldera cut off contact with this continent so long ago. The environment isn't conducive to friendly discourse.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 28",
+                "text": "Only three days had passed on the Wind Breaker, but to look at Lester one would have imagined it had been months. Coal dust had worked its way into the fine lines in his paper-white face, seeming to make a lifetime of wrinkles appear overnight. And then there was the matter of his clothes.\n\n\"I honestly don't understand how you can stand to dress in this way,\" Lester muttered, tugging with blistered fingers at the sleeves of an ill-fitting white shirt.\n\nHe was dressed in one of Coop's outfits, which was a shade too broad in the shoulder and hip and a few inches too short for Lester; but as there was nothing in the fug person's wardrobe that would stand up to more than a few hours of proper work, the borrowed clothes were the only option.\n\nLester gasped like the fish out of water he was and tugged a piece of rag from his pocket to mop his brow. Most of his time had been spent in the boiler room, shoveling coal, cleaning soot from this or that, and watching gauges dance between green and red.\n\n\"I don't know why the only clothes you brought were them fancy things. If that was the right sort of thing to wear up here, we'd all be wearing it.\"\n\n\"Regardless of the suitability of my clothes, you people wear white shirts and work with coal! Surely you would be better served by a black wardrobe.\"\n\n\"Cap'n likes us to look snappy. Black's for funerals. And once you're used to it, getting the coal out of the shirts ain't so bad. But we're supposed to be shoveling, not flapping our jaws about laundry.\"\n\n\"Would you please give me a moment to catch my breath before you begin to crack the whip yet again, sir?!\" he snapped.\n\n\"How come you need so much time to catch your breath?\"\n\n\"Because of the altitude, sir. I've told you repeatedly.\"\n\n\"We ain't that high up. Barely above the fug.\"\n\n\"Still a good deal higher than I'd ever hoped to be, thank you very much.\"\n\nCoop, as had been the case for the duration of his unwilling partnership with Lester, picked up the slack.\n\n\"Couple things, Lester,\" he said between shovelfuls into the firebox, \"first, if you folk would be a little looser with the burn-slow, there wouldn't be half as much shoveling.\"\n\n\"A point which I believe we are endeavoring to address with this journey.\"\n\n\"And second, how the heck did you get mixed up in this? That Digger fella at least seems to have sort of a stake in this mess, and seems kind of decent. You're about as 'fug' a fella as I ever met.\"\n\n\"I imagine that was intended as an insult.\"\n\n\"Only if acting like the rest of these folk is the sort of thing you take for a slight.\"\n\n\"As it happens, I have a tremendous amount invested in this venture. The sum total of my remaining wealth in fact.\"\n\n\"You put money up for this?\"\n\n\"Yes. Unlike the lawless skies, down in the fug we cannot simply steal everything we want. The vast majority of the equipment that has made this venture possible has come at my own personal expense.\"\n\n\"So you're only in it for the money? That ain't exactly heroic.\"\n\n\"And I suppose your motives are saintly?\"\n\n\"Heck no, but we ain't talking about me, we're talking about you.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. My motives are monetary. Do you have any idea why the fug folk you think of, when you can be troubled to think at all, are referred to by us as 'the industry'?\"\n\n\"I reckon that's just the name for them. You're the Well Diggers, they're the industry.\"\n\n\"No. It isn't so tightly organized as that. The simple fact is, since so little grows beneath the fug, and there are so few of us in total, anyone with any power at all derives it directly from whatever industry they run. Mayor Ebonwhite may have some symbolic political power, but what truly fuels his influence is the width and breadth of his business dealings. He has his fingers in everything from shipping to manufacturing, and his brothers are half owners and operators of South Pyre.\"\n\n\"And you want to be just like them folk, do you?\"\n\n\"What I want is for my time and efforts to bear fruit. I have no love for the industry. Nor, I suspect, do the individual members of that loose-knit group have any love for one another. If I'm being completely honest, my ideal outcome isn't to return to them and join their ranks, but to rise to a suitable level of success in spite of them, such that I can rub it in their faces.\"\n\nCoop checked the temperature gauge.\n\n\"That'll about do it. Lucky it took you so long to catch your breath, you were still chasing after it when the job got done.\"\n\n\"Certain hands are better suited to certain tasks.\"\n\n\"If that means you're willing to admit you're lousy at shoveling, then I'll agree.\"\n\n\"Shoveling is not a skill I've cultivated. Shoveling is not, I would contend, a skill at all.\"\n\n\"Then explain how you're lousy at it and I ain't.\"\n\n\"In my long life I've never once had to shovel before, and I would say that is proof of a life well lived.\"\n\n\"I say if you'd shoveled before, you probably wouldn't be so lousy at it now. And how long a life have you had anyway? You don't seem that old.\"\n\n\"I'm seventy-nine.\"\n\nCoop took a step back. \"You're pulling my leg.\"\n\n\"Not at all. I celebrated my seventy-ninth birthday a few days before the circumstances that placed me near The Thicket, in fact.\"\n\n\"I take it back then, you're a pretty decent hand at a shovel for a man at death's door.\"\n\n\"I'm by no means at death's door\u2026 You really don't know anything about us in the fug, do you?\"\n\n\"Old is old, what's the fug got to do with it?\"\n\n\"Fug folk are profoundly long lived, by surface standards. I'm considered rather young within my circle. Most of my associates are over a hundred years old. In fact, most fug folk are precisely one hundred forty-nine, six months, and I believe twelve days old.\"\n\n\"\u2026 I can't quite wrap my head around that.\"\n\n\"It was at that time that the 'calamity' that immersed most of Rim in fug occurred.\"\n\n\"So you folk all sort of crawled up out of whatever hole it came out of?\"\n\n\"Crawled out of\u2026 you are so penetratingly dim I honestly cannot distinguish sarcasm from legitimate ignorance.\"\n\n\"\u2026 So you folk didn't crawl out of a hole.\"\n\n\"No, we didn't crawl out of a hole! All first-generation fug folk, of whom the vast majority still live today, began their lives as surface dwellers. The fug literally made us what we are. It altered our complexion and physique, and for many enhanced our intellect, but it also cost us nearly all of our women. Coupled with the fact most of the women who remain seem unable to bear children, the second generation, of which I am a part, is much smaller.\"\n\n\"That's wild,\" Coop said. \"Kind of makes me wonder why the fuggers are all so bent on making us pay through the teeth for everything. Them having been us before all this.\"\n\n\"We choose not to dwell on the shameful fact of our ancestral status as former members of your race.\"\n\n\"Still, you folk have a lot more to you than I reckoned.\"\n\n\"Oh. What did you 'reckon' there was to us?\"\n\n\"Bunch of pale folk who like to keep the rest of us on a nice short leash.\"\n\n\"A jaundiced assessment.\"\n\n\"A what now?\"\n\nAny attempted vocabulary lesson that might have followed was interrupted by the captain's voice echoing through the speaking tube.\n\n\"We're just about three hours from that academy of yours, Lester. If you were planning on being gussied up in your finery to entice that chemist of yours away from her gilded cage, now's the time to get to it,\" said Captain Mack.\n\nLester threw the shovel down and marched for the door. \"At last this interminable journey is at least nearing its midpoint.\"\n\n\"Hey now, Lester, you pick that shovel up and hang it proper,\" Coop said.\n\n\"But your captain just said\u2014\"\n\n\"Cap'n said we got three hours. I don't reckon it takes you that long to tie a tie and all that. You ain't never going to learn to use a shovel proper if you don't treat it right.\"\n\nLester sneered. \"You are enjoying this, aren't you? Finally finding yourself in a position to make demands on a fug person as opposed to the other way around.\"\n\n\"I'm just trying to teach you to be a proper deckhand. It don't make no difference to me what else you reckon I'm up to. I ain't got time to plot and plan and be all sneaky like when I'm feeling ornery. You'll know when I'm sore with you because you'll catch another couple of knuckles to the chin. Now hang up the shovel, and then you can put on that snappy suit of yours and go out courting chemists.\"\n\nLester stooped over and snatched the shovel from the ground, hanging it with exaggerated care on the hook beside the door. \"There. Does that meet with your satisfaction?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\nThe fug person muttered under his breath and stalked away.\n\n\"Make sure you hang that shirt and them trousers up too!\" Coop called after him before placing his own shovel on its hook."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 29",
+                "text": "A few minutes prior to reaching the location the Well Diggers claimed they would find the academy, Captain Mack took the ship down into the fug and the crew gathered on the main deck. Lester was the last to arrive, dressed once more in an outfit better suited to viewing the premiere of an opera than an act of espionage. Captain Mack tightened his filter mask a bit and glanced at his temporary crewmember.\n\n\"Lester, come up here,\" he said.\n\nThe fug man reluctantly climbed the short flight of steps that separated the helm from the rest of the main deck. \"Yes, Captain West?\"\n\n\"You folk, and by that I mean the Well Diggers, seem to be thoughtful sorts, but seeing as how much is on the line for this, you'll excuse me if I feel obliged to double-check that proper plans have been made. You'll be arriving on foot from outside. That the sort of thing they're likely to allow?\"\n\n\"I've actually spent some time here as a student, Captain. I've got papers indicating my identity, and they have a policy of allowing alumni to revisit the grounds as often as they desire.\"\n\n\"And what'll you tell them if they ask how you got here?\"\n\n\"I shall inform them I have a personal valet who dropped me off and shall return at the appointed time to fetch me.\"\n\n\"They liable to ask why you came wandering in out of the darkness instead of being dropped right at their door?\"\n\n\"I shall tell them that my valet is an inept fool who cannot pilot the ship properly.\"\n\n\"Try not to smile too much when you say that,\" Captain Mack said. \"I won't ask you how you plan to convince the lady. A man's entitled to his secrets of his wiles with the fairer sex. But once you convince Dr. Prist to join the cause, how will you get her back to the ship?\"\n\n\"I'll speak to her overseers and request that we be given the opportunity for a short constitutional, with myself as her chaperon.\"\n\n\"\u2026 And on the off chance they don't oblige the request of a stranger to wander off with the woman they're keeping an eye on, what's your backup plan?\"\n\n\"I'll instead suggest that they allow us to walk with an additional chaperon of their choosing, at which point you will incapacitate the chaperon and we will be on our way.\"\n\nCaptain Mack considered his words. \"Head on down to the gig room and stand in the gig. We'll winch you down when we get close so you don't have to scuff your fancy shoes climbing the ladder. Since it's not for the unskilled, Coop here will do the mooring.\"\n\nLester nodded to the captain and headed below decks. When he was out of sight, Captain Mack addressed his crew without looking.\n\n\"Gunner, get one of them fancy rifles of yours with the good sights. The fug being what it is, I don't imagine they'll be much good, but better than nothing. Keep an eye on the man. Coop, when you're done mooring, give Lester time enough to get some distance between you, then shadow him. Out of sight to both him and anyone else. Confidant as he might be that they'll let him take their prisoner, I'd feel safer with plans C and D in place when A and B fail on him.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" Coop said.\n\n\"I had anticipated precisely that order, Captain, and I have just the rifle,\" Gunner said.\n\nHe stepped to the railing and untied a few lashings that were holding a long case there. Inside the case was a rifle as long and thin as a javelin. A trio of thin struts ran from grip to tip, stiffening the barrel, which might otherwise sag under its own weight. At the base, in place of a common sight or even his typical complex optics, was something that looked like a full-size telescope. All around it were assorted gauges and calibration screws.\n\n\"If you've been finding the time to patch together abominations like that, I haven't been keeping you busy enough,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"The rifle itself is designed for long-range accuracy. I've got wind gauges and\u2014\"\n\n\"That doesn't concern me, Gunner.\"\n\n\"No, Captain, I imagine not, but the sights should concern you greatly. You see, it turns out Caldera makes some fine colored crystal. Through Nita, I commissioned a few sets of lenses in various colors\u2014\"\n\n\"If there's a part of this that's relevant, I would suggest you cut to it.\"\n\n\"I found a lens that makes anything lit with green\u2014which is to say almost everything lit with phlo-light\u2014exceptionally visible. It should let me see things otherwise hidden by the fug in much greater detail.\"\n\n\"You've made a special sight for the fug. Why couldn't you start with that?\"\n\n\"Because occasionally I find it worthwhile to illustrate my own ingenuity, since no one else seems obliged to.\"\n\nHe clicked through a wheel of colored lenses at the front of the telescope and took aim. From the captain's point of view, he was targeting a hazy green point at the very limits of visibility.\n\n\"What do you see?\"\n\n\"Half-dozen buildings\u2026 ornamental wrought iron fence. Spikes at the top, but they look dull. Only about fifteen feet tall. Shouldn't be a problem for Coop.\"\n\n\"How many guards?\"\n\n\"We're approaching from the north. The main gate looks like it is at the center of the west fence. From the size, probably not more than two guards there. I've got what looks like a patrol walking along the courtyard in the center, and there is a small gate on this side with a guard. Possibly a matching one on the south wall.\"\n\n\"Five guards at best guess?\" Captain Mack said. \"Not much of a defense. Wink!\"\n\nYes, came the tapped reply from his hiding place among the rigging overhead.\n\n\"Any messages being tapped in or out that I should know about?\"\n\nNo tapping.\n\n\"You let me know the moment you hear anything.\"\n\nI do that always.\n\nHe adjusted the wheel and flipped a lever to ease the ship toward the ground.\n\n\"See that you keep at it. Either Lester is doing a terrible job of helping us, or he's doing an excellent job of pretending to be an idiot. Either way, I don't want any surprises.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "Lester paced along the poorly maintained cobblestone rode toward the main entrance of the academy. He'd spent so much of his life within the cities of the fug, and traveling between them via low-altitude airship, that he'd forgotten there were roads between the cities. He mused briefly on the number of artifacts from the precalamity times that might still find use on occasion, but there was little time for such idle thought. He had a task to do.\n\nThe gate ahead was an elegant, sculpted affair. An arch above it had Fadewell Academy emblazoned in gold. Pipes ran near the top of the fence, each feeding a phlo-light made to resemble an oil lamp.\n\n\"It is a fine thing to return to proper society,\" he said with a smile.\n\nHe straightened his bow tie and doffed his bowler hat to the two grunts in academy attire standing to either side of the gate.\n\n\"Hello, gentleman!\" Lester said, popping his hat back on. \"At long last, Lester Clear has returned to the hallowed grounds of his alma mater.\"\n\nEach grunt looked him over, thoroughly unimpressed.\n\n\"You been in a fight, sir?\" asked the taller of the two.\n\nLester felt his bruised cheek. \"Ah\u2026 A bit of clumsiness on my part. Stumbled into a doorjamb. May I enter and walk the grounds? Visit a few of my old professors?\"\n\n\"You walk here to do that?\" asked the second guard.\n\n\"No, heavens no. I came by airship. Personal airship, might I add. The blasted fool at the helm almost killed us trying to set down. We're way off in the trees.\"\n\n\"We didn't see no lights.\"\n\n\"No\u2026 no you wouldn't have. There's a problem with the lights on the whole ship. Hence the bruise you see. That's why I stumbled. Can't see a bloody thing.\"\n\nA grin flickered across his face. That was a rather clever bit of improvisation. Something to be proud of.\n\n\"You have your student card?\" asked the shorter guard.\n\n\"Of course. I carry it with pride, wherever I go.\"\n\nHe handed over the card. A bead of sweat rolled down his brow, despite the icy cold. It was absurd, obviously. He was an alumnus of this fine establishment. Yet he felt oddly as though his intentions would somehow be revealed by close scrutiny of the card itself. This life of subterfuge was not for him. Better to return to administration just as soon as the ichor well was established and operational.\n\n\"Lester Clear,\" read the first guard.\n\n\"Yes, as I said.\"\n\nThe second guard fumbled in the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a medium-size book that in his hands seemed like it was made for a child. He thumbed through the pages, looking over the lists of names and dates within.\n\n\"Here, yeah. Lester Clear. Didn't graduate.\"\n\n\"But I did attend. The finest few months of my life.\"\n\nThe grunts peered at him, long and hard. It was possible this was going to be more difficult than he had imagined."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 31",
+                "text": "Coop hustled along the ground, breathing heavily through his mask. He wasn't worried about being seen. A few years on a creaky ship trying to move in and out of a room without disturbing his sister had taught him to step lightly when he needed to. The dark brown leather of his overcoat may as well have been black when illuminated by the green light. And even if he'd been dressed in blazing white, there simply wasn't anyone to see him. The academy may have had a sturdy fence and a few armed guards on the grounds, but a prison it was not. The patrols were terribly plotted out and infrequent. During his approach he'd kept his eyes locked on the roving guards whenever they were visible between the two tall buildings he assumed were dormitories, and they rarely saw fit to even look toward the fence. They may as well have been sleepwalking for all the good they were doing.\n\nMore troubling would have been the windows of the buildings themselves. If it was true that there weren't more than a few dozen students in this academy, each one must have had his or her own apartment, because each of the two tallest buildings comprised three stories with three windows per floor on the broad side facing him. That would have been a tremendous number of potential witnesses to raise the alarm. Fortunately even fug folk didn't find the black void of the field surrounding the academy to be much to look at. Most flickered with amber light, and all had their curtains and drapes drawn.\n\nThe guards at the main gate were still considering whether or not Lester deserved to be admitted to the academy grounds, which was ample distraction for Coop to make his move. He scrambled up the fence with little effort, then performed a rather tricky vault over the top to avoid the pointed top. He hung there briefly, thinking over his next move. Finally he shifted hand over hand along the fence until he came to the corner of the dormitory where a sturdy downspout ran from the roof. He pushed off the wall and pivoted in midair, latching on to the pipe when he reached it.\n\nA loud, hollow ring ran along the pipe as he collided with it. Distantly, he heard a curious comment and the half-motivated footsteps of a guard jogging over to investigate. By the time the man had reached the alley between the dorms and rounded the corner to look where the sound may have come from, Coop was out of sight. The roof was mildly sloped and covered by icy slate shingles. That made for a treacherous surface to walk on, but no more so than the main deck of the Wind Breaker after a few good hours of freezing mist. He moved with slow care to the peak of the roof and eased himself to his belly, trying to take in the surroundings and puzzle out where they might be holding this chemist of theirs.\n\n\"Should have sent Gunner down here. He's been to an academy. Probably he'd know where they stow the teachers when they ain't using them,\" he muttered."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 32",
+                "text": "Despite the presence of the appropriate paperwork, the guards had yet to decide if they should let Lester in.\n\n\"Now see here, gentlemen. There really is no reason for this. If I didn't know better, I would suspect you were purposely drawing out this humiliating process simply to prolong the appearance of authority over me,\" Lester said. \"But it has gone on long enough! I demand to be allowed entrance, as is my right as an alumnus!\"\n\nBoth guards weathered the tirade with quiet patience, as though it was far from their first.\n\n\"Are you even listening to me?!\" Lester fumed.\n\n\"Fine, fine,\" muttered the taller of the two guards. \"Welcome back to Fadewell.\" He opened the gate.\n\n\"It is about time.\"\n\nLester marched through the gate, brushing his shoulders and straightening his overcoat.\n\nThe interaction with the guards had so thoroughly irritated him that it had pushed any anxiety about his mission entirely out of his mind. He paced along the perimeter of the central courtyard, clenching his fists and running through the list of remaining tasks.\n\n\"Let me see now. As memory serves, there are two dormitories, the first for students, the second for faculty. It is early evening now, so the classes should have only recently ended. Miss Prist should therefore be in the faculty dining hall, her personal laboratory, or her dormitory for the evening. If those ruffians hadn't delayed me, I could have no doubt spoken to her already. Really, what is it about little, insignificant peons who feel it necessary to lord their situational superiority over those who in all other circumstances rightfully hold the position of authority? People really ought to learn how a properly functioning society works\u2026\"\n\nLester walked past the two dorms on one side and a central stage of a sort on the other. The stage had the look of something temporary, likely set up for a speech or perhaps a dramatic performance. A long, low building with arched windows lay behind the courtyard. The inside was warmly lit, and through the windows he could see a mostly open interior that resembled a small restaurant. He stepped up to the door and pushed it open. Just inside the door a crisply dressed fug man with the same scrawny build as Lester stood in the doorway leading from the foyer to the main dining room. The sight of him, coupled with the rush of warmth and the smell of proper, dignified cuisine, brought a smile to his face. This was a tiny taste of the life he'd had shamefully little time to grow accustomed to. Any learning institution that staffed its dining hall with a m\u00e2itre'd was the sort of place he belonged.\n\nThe sharply dressed member of the staff raised a white-gloved hand, gesturing for Lester to stop. \"May I help you, sir?\" he asked in a mildly wheezy voice.\n\n\"Yes, thank you. I'm looking for one of the professors, a Miss Prist.\"\n\n\"As you do not appear to be a member of the current class or the staff, before we progress, would you please state the nature of your visit?\"\n\n\"I am an alumnus,\" he said, presenting the card.\n\nThe m\u00e2itre'd took the well-worn piece of paper and held it to a candle atop his podium. After the flickering light revealed a complex watermark, he handed it back and took on a mildly more respectful tone.\n\n\"Welcome back, Master Clear. Dr. Prist takes her meals promptly at 8 p.m. She will thus not arrive for forty-five minutes. Would you like to be seated? I would be pleased to inform you when she arrives.\"\n\n\"No, I'm afraid I've got some people waiting for\u2026\"\n\nHe paused, taking another whiff of the aroma surrounding him. In the dining room, there were people engaged in polite and intelligent debate, and even the tinkling sound of a harp. It was precisely the sort of environment he'd been raised to perceive as paradise.\n\n\"\u2026 Yes\u2026 yes, I believe I shall have a table, please. Send the sommelier to the table when I am seated as well.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 33",
+                "text": "For the first fifteen minutes of his time in the campus restaurant, Lester's mind nagged him periodically about the Wind Breaker crew and the time-critical nature of the mission. That was three glasses of wine and two plates of braised eels ago.\n\n\"Some more rye toast points and a freshening of my Vouvray, if you wouldn't mind,\" Lester said as a waiter approached his table.\n\n\"Of course, sir,\" said the waiter with the utter lack of sincerity only available to those tasked with serving the extremely rich.\n\nJust as the waiter turned to leave, the door opened and a woman stepped inside. She was dressed in a suitably academic fashion: a simple gray dress with some darker gray embroidery across the bodice, hem, and sleeves, topped with a furred wrap. Her build was slender and delicate, shorter by a hair than most of the fug men around her but still quite tall by human standards. She had a long face, hollow cheeks, and a short, sharp nose. Her expression was certainly dignified, but whereas dignity seemed so often to be coupled with a distant and cold disposition, even at first glance there was a quality of interest and curiosity to her.\n\nLester found himself transfixed by her. That she was the woman he was tasked with collecting was reason enough, but the simple fact that she was a fug woman at all would have drawn the eye to her upon first arrival.\n\n\"Oh! Hello there!\" Lester said, loudly enough to illustrate to all in attendance that the alcohol had begun to do its work. \"Miss Prist! Here! Have a seat! I've been looking for you!\"\n\nShe flinched lightly at the outburst, then squinted through the haze of pipe smoke, candle smoke, and fug.\n\n\"Oh! Er\u2026 hello,\" she said, stepping uncertainly toward him as two members of the restaurant staff swooped in to collect her wrap. \"I am terribly sorry, but do I know you?\"\n\n\"I'm sure you don't remember me,\" Lester said, pulling her chair out for her and dusting it with his napkin. \"I was fortunate enough to briefly partake of your class during my time here as a student. I was only able to maintain enrollment for a few months before circumstances elsewhere required my attention, but you made quite an impression on me.\"\n\n\"I see. Well, I'm pleased to hear it.\" She took a seat, and a menu was set before her. \"So, er\u2026\"\n\n\"Lester Clear, Miss Prist. At your service.\" He returned to his seat.\n\n\"Dr. Prist, actually,\" she said gently. \"So Mr. Clear, what brings you to the campus again?\"\n\nLester glanced rather obviously about, then lowered his voice to what he likely interpreted as a whisper, but was in fact a normal speaking voice.\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I've recently been given the opportunity to engage in a fascinating new business venture, and there is a place in it for you.\"\n\n\"Really? I am very sorry to inform you, sir, but the circumstances of my employment are such that I am quite unlikely to be given an opportunity to aid you.\"\n\n\"There are ways around any circumstance, no matter how unfortunate. All I ask, Miss Prist, is that you allow me to bend your ear with my proposal and leave the rest to be solved by some employees of mine. But please, place your order. We shall speak as we dine. I've got all the time in the world.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 34",
+                "text": "The clock ticked steadily onward, with Lester showing little in the way of motivation when it came to getting to the point of his sales pitch, while he ran his mouth and attempted to finesse and charm Dr. Prist. The attempts lacked subtly, but were also so thoroughly free of finesse and charm that Dr. Prist seldom noticed that he'd even made the effort.\n\nWhile he worked, the steady flow of alcohol keeping him blissfully oblivious of his lack of success, the Wind Breaker crew watched from their various vantages and waited. Gunner and Mack kept vigil from the deck through optics, burning slowly through a small but not insignificant portion of their load of coal. For Coop, this meant lying prone on the icy roof of a dormitory, watching the guards trudge through the slush. Another man might have come close to madness spending so much time holding perfectly still and waiting, but in this as in so many parts of his chosen career, his simplicity was nothing but an asset. A man without much mind to spare has little trouble keeping it from wandering. It simply wouldn't know where to go.\n\nNearly two hours after their arrival, as Coop gazed over the largely empty courtyard and mused over the next line of his poem, something in the sky caught his attention. He huddled lower and squinted, trying to make it out. At first he assumed it was an airship, because what else would be in the sky, but it didn't look at all like an airship ought to. As it drew closer, emerging out of the mist and into the light, details became clearer but no easier to understand. It seemed to be white, or perhaps the same shade of green as the lights, and when it drew near enough, he noticed lettering on the side.\n\n\"\u2026 Who the hell is Lucky-us P. Alabaster? \u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 35",
+                "text": "\"What do you make of that ship?\" Captain Mack rumbled, gazing at Alabaster's vessel as it settled down a short distance from the main gate.\n\n\"Could be a three-seater luxury vessel. With that color scheme I wouldn't place it as a representative of any official authority. Lucius P. Alabaster\u2026 What fool would write his name on the side of his ship?\" Gunner said.\n\n\"An idiot with too high an opinion of himself.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the circus is in town. Or a traveling theater? It is certainly flamboyant enough.\"\n\n\"I don't like it. The timing stinks to high heaven, and even if it is a coincidence, someone that strange is going to put the guards on edge and ain't going to make things any easier. What are our men up to?\"\n\n\"Still nothing new. The last interesting event was when Lester had words with the guards and entered the eatery at the far side of the entrance. Coop is still on the roof of one of the taller buildings. He's looking rather interested in the new arrival as well. Forgive the observation, but Coop is not our best man when it comes to dealing with the unexpected in a subtle and tactful manner.\"\n\n\"He can handle himself.\"\n\n\"Oh, I have no doubt he'll come out of this alive. But if the past serves as any indication, when he's left unsupervised his solutions usually leave a proportionately larger number of those involved bleeding.\"\n\n\"It wouldn't break my heart if Lester got a few new scars out of this. But if that chemist gets hurt or killed, we've got problems.\" He pocketed the spyglass. \"Keep your sights on them. I'm going to tie on the quick-release ropes for the mooring lines. I don't imagine we'll be leaving this place in anything but a hurry, and without Lil and Coop on board, that'll be a problem. Be ready to take the wheel, just in case I'm not through before Coop starts shooting.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain,\" Gunner said. \"I don't suppose this would be an appropriate time for me to point out that this is precisely the sort of thing I was expecting to happen when we got involved in this mad scheme.\"\n\n\"If this had gone smooth from beginning to end, that would've made me nervous,\" the captain said. \"What sort of shot have you got loaded in the forward cannons?\"\n\n\"One and one. Standard shot port, grape shot starboard.\"\n\n\"Good man. I've got a sneaking suspicion them guns won't be quiet for too much longer.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 36",
+                "text": "The guards observed the white ship with dull confusion as a small anchor dropped from its hind end and dug into the soil beside the road. Their confusion grew when the door opened and Mallow kicked out a rope ladder. As he scurried down to steady the bottom, Alabaster stood at the open door and addressed the guards.\n\n\"Gentlemen! At long last your illustrious benefactor has arrived to tour the grounds!\" he said, raising his cane.\n\nEach guard looked to the other then back to Alabaster. The oddly dressed newcomer climbed down the ladder with surprising aplomb and approached them.\n\n\"While I'm certain you would prefer me to have sent word of my forthcoming visit such that you could prepare a more appropriate welcome, I'm afraid circumstances forbade such formality. Time, you see, is of the essence.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Who're you?\" asked the taller of the guards.\n\n\"Who am I\u2026 Who am I?\" Alabaster turned to Mallow, who was fighting with a mooring line and trying to find a place to tie it. \"Egad, Mallow, I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered to have my name gloriously emblazoned upon my conveyance if the common rabble are unwilling to actually read it!\"\n\nHe thrust his cane at the envelope of his craft. \"The name is Lucius P. Alabaster! Now as I've said, would you kindly let me in so that I can go about my very important and time-sensitive business?\"\n\nAfter gazing at the envelope, one of the guards consulted his book.\n\n\"What is all this now? What are you after in that book of yours?\" Alabaster snapped.\n\n\"We've got to see if you're an approved visitor,\" he explained.\n\n\"Approved\u2026 Oh really now, that's too much. I'm Lucius P. Alabaster! \u2026 Of the Lucius P. Alabaster Center for the Advancement of Chemical and Alchemical Arts?!\"\n\nThe guards gave one another the customary silent glance before the shorter one remarked, \"What's the name of that new building they broke ground on last month?\"\n\nHis partner scratched his head. \"I guess that might be the Alabaster building.\"\n\n\"Look in the back of the book under 'donors.'\"\n\nAlabaster tapped his foot and stroked his waxed beard. \"I imagine I ought to be pleased. If you give so thorough a screening to the philanthropist who has helped to fund your very institution, one can only imagine how difficult it would be for a criminal or other interloper to gain unlawful entry.\"\n\n\"Here. I found him. He's on this add-in slip here. For\u2026 'Platinum Contributors'\u2026\"\n\nBoth guards opened their eyes wide.\n\n\"And so the realization dawns,\" Alabaster said.\n\n\"I apologize, Mr. Lucius Alabaster\u2026\" began a guard.\n\n\"Lucius P. Alabaster,\" he corrected.\n\n\"Right, sir. They only print the book once a year. All the other bits get added in, and they don't tell us about the endowments and\u2014\"\n\n\"Please, please, my dear gentlemen. You needn't worry yourselves. Is it true that you've failed to treat one of the men responsible for paying your salary with the respect and reverence he deserves? Yes, certainly. But you can be pleased to learn that your transgressions, which would normally be sufficient to inspire me to crush you each under the sheer weight of my influence, are today at best secondary to a more pressing concern. So, you can assuage my vengeance in two ways. The second is to help my long-suffering manservant Mallow to moor my ship, as he seems to be having trouble with your lackluster docking facilities. The first would be to answer me a pair of simple questions: Have you had any unexpected arrivals recently, and if so, where might I find those who arrived?\"\n\n\"We did let an old alum in. Not two hours ago. I don't know just where he went. He didn't seem to be the sort who needed to be supervised.\"\n\n\"It is that degree of shamefully poor intuition that has no doubt mired you and your colleague in this menial position. Open the gate, sir, and I shall seek him out personally. And while I would not think to distract you from the task of helping my valet, I will require the aid of some of your facility's other security staff, as the players in the scheme I believe I shall shortly uncover are no minor adversaries.\"\n\nThe guards, now fearful for their continued employment, snapped quickly to their tasks.\n\n\"Oi! You and you! Over here. All of you, over here! We've got a Very Important Person!\" the taller guard barked to his fellow security personnel inside. \"Platinum donor! Full platinum treatment on this one!\"\n\nFrom the reaction of those members of staff within earshot, one would have thought a fire bell had sounded. Every last guard rushed to the gate to be at the service of Alabaster. This brought a wide smile to his face, and he happily strutted onto the academy grounds.\n\n\"Let me begin by saying I am displeased by the lack of progress on the building I so graciously endowed. When I donated the funds, I'd imagined important discoveries would be rolling out the door by the bushel. And yet you of course drag your feet. What you need, my friends, is a mind to guide you. A mastermind perhaps. And there is no mind more masterful than that of Lucius P. Alabaster. But enough of where you have fallen short of expectations. Now I must make you aware of something that you could not have anticipated. Somewhere, lurking in the darkness of our glorious fug, are our greatest foes. I speak of course of the elusive Wind Breaker and its crew!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 37",
+                "text": "Coop, like all other residents and staff of the academy, had been watching with confusion and interest. Thanks to Alabaster's almost operatic vocal projection, every last word was crystal clear. In the beginning, Coop was as bemused as the rest of the people. At the mention of the Wind Breaker, his attitude sharply shifted.\n\n\"Well, Lester, you've had two hours to do whatever fug folk do,\" he muttered to himself, slinking down to the far side of the roof to jog recklessly along out of sight of the courtyard. \"Time to actually get the job done.\"\n\nHe jumped the alleyway between the two dorms, ignoring the shouts of dismay and confusion that burst out from the residents of the rooms below as his footfalls disturbed them, and quickened his pace. By the time he reached the opposite side of the roof, he wasn't so much running as controlling his slide along the frozen shingles. The next roof was some sort of storage shed, a full two stories shorter, so he dropped to his back and slid off the edge of the dormitory roof, grabbing the gutter as he did. A full-grown man wasn't the sort of load the architects had designed for when they affixed the gutter, so he popped three brackets free and nearly went plummeting to the ground when he put his weight on it. The gutter swung a good two feet away from the edge of the roof, but the return swing brought him near enough to grab the drainpipe and slide down enough to hop to the shed. From there it was a jump and tumble to the rear of the facility, where frosty ground undisturbed by footprints assured him he would not be likely to run into any guards.\n\n\"I know we're after a lady,\" he muttered to himself. \"Only seen two of them, and one went into the same place as Lester. If he didn't come out, probably it wasn't that one. I think I seen the other one milling about through the windows of this place\u2026\"\n\nThe building he felt confident would hold his quarry was at the opposite corner of the academy from the shed he'd dropped down to. That was handy, because the path of disruption and destruction he'd left in his journey had drawn its fair share of interest from students and staff alike. Alabaster's arrival and pontification had kept their attention reasonably well, and the worst of his stunts had been on the unobserved side of the buildings, but once he'd abandoned stealth for speed he'd started the clock on his own discovery. More than likely they'd find and follow his trail within a few minutes, but he'd be long gone by then. That was the nice part about his philosophy of infiltration. If he was fast enough, he could serve as his own distraction.\n\nUnlike the dorms, which were tall and densely built, the building he stalked behind now was much more open and ornamental in design. Large windows on all sides gave a good view into the dimly lit interior. The back door looked to be a service entrance, and the room beyond was pitch black. He thrust his heel against the door, delivering the full momentum of his run into a single kick, which burst the door open. He barely lost a step as he slid inside and slammed the door shut behind him.\n\n\"All right\u2026 Prist\u2026 I forget the first name. Can't be too many Prists,\" he murmured, squinting in the darkness.\n\nHe was in a mudroom of sorts, a tiny closet of a place lined with coat hooks and boots. The door at the other end of the room was not locked, so he eased it open and peered within.\n\nCoop hadn't spent much time in a proper school, and hadn't even seen a laboratory, so what he found beyond was utterly bizarre to him. Much of the interior of the building was open. Rather than rooms, it had flimsy dividers with open doorways separating out sections. Lab benches stacked with burners and glassware were arranged into grids, stations for each of the students to work.\n\nThere were three people in the building, and with no proper walls to separate out the floor, it was a testament to the utter flamboyance of Alabaster that Coop's forceful entry didn't draw their attention. Even now they practically had their noses pressed against the glass to watch the lunatic who was shouting orders and directing guards to search buildings.\n\nUnfortunately Coop's eyes must have failed him when he was spying on the building because none of the three lingering staff members in the building were female, and thus were not the eagerly sought Dr. Prist. This was, however, certainly her place of either business or pleasure. As he crept low along the floor, the third door he passed was labeled with a placard: Dr. Samantha Prist.\n\nHer own section of the floor was different from the others. It was barely a quarter the size, but that tiny space was stuffed with perhaps twice as much equipment and literature. Every spare inch was piled with delicate glass tubing or covered with shelves heavy with thick books.\n\nCoop's decidedly nonstrategic mind worked over the options. He was after the woman herself, but his luck had been pressed quite hard already. Chances were already good either one of the three people along the courtyard windows would lose interest soon and run the risk of spotting him, or else the back door would come bursting open as a guard reached the end of his footprints. He had precious few moments of privacy left before this mission shifted from sneaking to shooting.\n\n\"Heck,\" he whispered to himself, \"these folk love to write things down. I reckon Gunner or Nita could probably work out what this chemist lady can do if they had a few of these books.\"\n\nHe pulled a burlap sack from a pocket of his overcoat and shook it out. The content of the books was utterly incomprehensible to him, with letters used where he would have expected numbers, and fancy letters he didn't recognize mixed in with others, so Coop used different criteria. The more colorful the pictures the better.\n\nAs he flipped through what he reasoned was the last book he'd be able to carry while still being able to make his escape, a grainy black-and-white photograph fluttered out from between two pages. He snatched it up. In the past, photographs had been a fine product for them to buy and sell. Those photographs usually depicted women in various levels of undress, and Coop, having little other experience with such things, imagined they must all focus on that subject matter. What he found instead looked to be a graduation picture of sorts. It was a young fug woman smiling. That was a rare sight in two ways. First because the fug folk he'd spent most of his time dealing with seldom offered up much more than a smug grin. Second because he'd met only one other fug woman before. In the photograph, she held a hand-lettered diploma with her name.\n\n\"That's Dr. Prist?\" he said. \"But that's the lady that walked in where Lester was an hour and a half ago\u2026 I'm going to have to have a word with him\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 38",
+                "text": "In the cafeteria, over an hour of Lester's wiles had failed to convince Dr. Prist, but his determination had yet to falter. What did falter was his focus. In his attempt to keep the specifics of his plan shrouded in mystery, he'd managed to fill the whole of the conversation with such vague nonsense that even he didn't seem to know what he was talking about.\n\n\"Have you considered, perhaps, that there might be ways that my business savvy and your chemical expertise might achieve a synergy? All research needs funding, after all, and any fruitful research is bound to have value if properly marketed and developed,\" Lester said.\n\n\"That's undoubtedly true, but there is really only one area of research I am interested in, and that precise avenue of research is quite adequately funded here.\"\n\n\"I see, I see. But don't you feel\u2026 limited in this place?\"\n\n\"I'm\u2026 well treated,\" she said, her sunny disposition wavering a bit as irritation showed through. \"I'm not entirely comfortable with the area of instruction I've been offered. And a bit more experimentation and a bit less theory would be nice. But due to circumstances I am prohibited from discussing, that's not a possibility until I'm elevated to a higher position.\"\n\n\"Suppose I had the capacity to\u2026 create a new position in my own organization. One that would give you access to the materials to experiment as you've proposed. Would that\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, Mr. Clear. But do you hear that?\"\n\n\"If you'd allow me to finish my proposal, I\u2014\"\n\n\"There seems to be some sort of commotion outside,\" she said, craning her neck and shifting her head to try to see between the small gathering of people who had clustered near the window.\n\nLester tried to regain her interest, but her curiosity got the better of her and she stood to join the others at the window. He reluctantly did so as well.\n\n\"Probably some sort of\u2026 hazing or some such for the incoming class. I seem to remember quite a bit of that during my time here.\"\n\n\"Bah. The new class began weeks ago. This looks like a security drill. Though that oddly dressed fellow doesn't look familiar. Whatever it is, we'll know soon enough. He seems to be coming this way. What fun!\"\n\nLester watched Alabaster march up to the cafeteria, flanked by two guards. When they reached the door he stood and directed the security men to open it, then entered.\n\n\"Attention. Someone among you is not as he seems\u2026\" Alabaster said, stirring the air with his cane.\n\nIllustrating an acute lack of resolve in the face of potential exposure, Lester swallowed hard, looked nervously about, and took a step back. As was the case for Coop, the larger-than-life presence of Alabaster was enough to prevent most of those on hand from noticing. Everyone but Alabaster himself. He locked eyes with Lester, who, if it was possible, became an even starker shade of white as the hot sting of fear flared in his belly.\n\n\"And I believe that fellow is just the man I am after. Gentlemen, if you would?\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I don't\u2026 what is this? This is absurd!\" Lester objected, backing away a few steps before turning to run.\n\nHe stumbled over a chair in his haste. Before he could recover, the guards were upon him. Each seized an arm and hoisted his feet from the floor.\n\n\"Stop this! You have the wrong man! This is an outrage!\" Lester cried.\n\n\"What is this about, Mr. Clear?\" Dr. Prist asked.\n\n\"And you must be the radiant Miss Prist,\" Alabaster said, pacing up to her and removing his hat to bow.\n\n\"Dr. Prist, actually. Have we met?\" she said, offering her hand.\n\n\"Only in my dreams and machinations, madam. You are a large and quite crucial cog in the scheme that shall earn me my place in history. Come this way, if you would?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't think so. The lengthy conversation I've had with Mr. Clear here, though enriching, has kept me from completing my meal. If I wait any longer\u2014\"\n\n\"Oh, tut tut, Miss Prist. You say you've had a long talk with this man? As may not be generally known, but like so many secrets is quite well known to me, you are possessed of some very important, very privileged knowledge. Knowledge meant to be kept from our enemies; and as I'll soon reveal, Mr. Clear is most certainly one of our enemies. Now I am afraid I must insist.\"\n\nShe cleared her throat. \"I don't know who you are but\u2014\"\n\n\"Lucius P. Alabaster, my dear. And though I have no doubt you are going to make a claim at this point that you've offered no information of a sensitive type to this gentleman, I would not expect an intellect such as yours to be capable of identifying the subtle means through which devious malefactors such as Mr. Clear operate. You may believe you've said little, but I am quite certain you've said too much.\"\n\n\"An intellect such as mine?! Now see here, Mr. Alabaster, I'll have you know\u2014\"\n\n\"Gentlemen\u2026\" Alabaster said, turning for the door.\n\nTwo more guards rushed in and took Dr. Prist by the arms as well. They followed the charismatic mastermind as he stepped back outside, where the whole of the student body and most of the staff had now assembled to observe the bizarre scene that was unfolding.\n\n\"Mr. Clear, what have you gotten me into?\" Dr. Prist called.\n\n\"I assure you, I could not have foreseen this outcome!\" Lester said.\n\nAlabaster led the whole assembly to the center of the courtyard, visibly gleeful all the while at being the center of attention and source of all authority at the moment. Once he'd reached the center of his stage, he turned to address the masses and raised his voice to be heard by all.\n\n\"Ladies and gentleman of Fadewell Academy, I implored one of our wealthiest and most influential leaders, Mayor Ebonwhite, to contract me for my services with regard to a terrible plan currently in the works by our fiercest enemies. Lamentably, Ebonwhite saw fit to ignore my pleas, but out of a sense of duty and honor I have chosen to take action regardless. The full width and breadth of the machinations of our enemies are far too sensitive to be generally known, but to prove to you good people the truth of my claims, I shall now question this traitor to our cause and society.\"\n\nHe turned to Lester and held his cane out. \"If I heard correctly, you are named Lester Clear, correct?\"\n\n\"Yes! But I assure you, you have the wrong\u2014\"\n\n\"Mr. Clear, when did you arrive at Fadewell?\"\n\n\"Just a few hours ago. But\u2014\"\n\n\"And how did you arrive?\"\n\n\"I've told the guards, I have a valet who\u2014\"\n\n\"A likely story. But you've come from the north. Near The Thicket, haven't you? And I have a vested interest in all major ports and docks in that area. No one by the name Lester Clear, or anyone else besides standard shipping and message delivery, has traveled via formal means in seven days. It is thus revealed that you are lying. And who, may I ask, is known to travel both through and around our lands without notice or regard for our laws and our ways? Who could quietly deposit you here, to attempt to lure away one of our valued academics? The Wind Breaker crew!\"\n\nAn angry rumble rolled through the crowd.\n\n\"The Wind Breaker crew!\" Dr. Prist yelped. \"Those murderers?! I would never dream of associating with them. Mr. Clear, you are a contemptible cad to have attempted to embroil me in their schemes!\"\n\n\"That's not true! It simply isn't true!\"\n\n\"And I further suggest\u2014affirm, even\u2014that if they were the ones to deliver you to this place, then even as we speak, one or more of their agents is lurking in the shadows, awaiting their opportunity to do to this precious academy precisely what they've done to some of our other landmarks and points of civic pride.\"\n\nNow a murmur of fear, approaching panic, flavored the voice of the crowd. The wave of concern seemed only to encourage Alabaster, who spied the platform in the center of the courtyard and strutted up the steps to better address the crowd. He motioned for the guards to haul both Dr. Prist and Clear along with him.\n\n\"But fear not, good people! Though these monsters no doubt circle among us, sharks ready to fill out calm waters with the feathery tendrils of our lifeblood, you are not defenseless against them. In the spirit of the gone but not forgotten Ferris Tusk, I, Lucius P. Alabaster, am here to pit myself fearlessly against those who would do our people harm. The Wind Breaker crew may be the greatest threat to our people yet to arise, that is true. It takes a great man to tackle so daunting a threat, but I am equal to the task!\"\n\nHe stalked up to Lester and jabbed a finger in his face.\n\n\"I know that your wretched cohorts are near, Mr. Clear. Perhaps near enough to hear these words.\" He turned and marched back. \"So hear me now, Wind Breaker crew! I will find you, wherever you hide! And when I find you, I shall not kill you. No, not immediately. A swift death is too good for criminals such as yourselves. First I shall destroy your vessel. And when it is but a smoking hulk festering in some forgotten field, I shall dredge it up and install it where all can see, a glorious monument to my triumph over you! Then I shall take the rest of you and drag you in chains to Fugtown itself, where you shall be presented before the mayor for all to see. Then and only then, when your shame and defeat is known and observed by all who care to see it, shall you be killed. And you shall stand\u2014or more accurately you shall fall\u2014as an example for your kind that despite recent failings, the grand and glorious people of the fug are not to be trifled with. And there is nothing, nothing that you can do about it! So turn your cowardly\u2014\"\n\nThe monologue was showing no signs of stopping, but was brought to a swift and sudden end by an earsplitting report. A sound like thunder echoed off the walls of the academy buildings. The crowd, as though reacting to a coordinated cue, dropped to the ground. Both guards, lacking the training and discipline of proper soldiers, released their captives and leaped from the stage. Only Alabaster remained standing, frozen in his grand posture. He turned his wide-eyed gaze to his shoulder, where the pristine white fabric was sullied by a growing shock of red.\n\n\"There he is!\" called someone from the crowd.\n\nEyes turned first to the source of the exclamation, then in the direction he was pointing. A masked figure, his long coat flowing in the wind as he sprinted with twin pistols raised, was Coop. The crowd dissolved into a screaming flood. Alabaster's words had done a remarkable job of underscoring the terrible threat the Wind Breaker presented. When those words seemed to summon up a member of the crew like a demon, it was more than they could stand. In moments the only people remaining on or around the stage were Mr. Clear, Dr. Prist, and Alabaster. The latter was only now coming to terms with what had occurred.\n\n\"I\u2026 I've been shot!\" he said, more aghast that such an injustice could have occurred than in pain from the result.\n\nA second shot rang out. Sprinting as he was, Coop wasn't able to strike his target or anything near it, but the sound was enough to convince Alabaster to take cover as well. He leaped from the stage and scurried off after the crowd. A second later, Coop reached the stage and bounded up the steps.\n\n\"What is wrong with you? Are you a maniac?\" Lester growled.\n\n\"He said he was fixing to kill me and the rest of the crew. I reckon that's reason enough to take a shot at him. Gunner was right though, I think I mucked up my sights again. This is the lady we're after, right?\"\n\n\"The lady you are after\u2026 You do know this man!\" Dr. Prist said, backing away slowly. \"You, Mr. Clear, are a monster. And you've seen fit to feed me to your equally monstrous cohorts!\"\n\n\"You folk sure do talk fancy in these parts,\" Coop said, scratching his head with one of his guns. \"I hate to rush a lady, but if this fella had two hours to convince you and didn't make much headway, I don't imagine I'll have much more luck. So I'm going to have to ask you to come along so we can talk you into it along the way, Doctor.\"\n\nDr. Prist crossed her arms and turned away. \"I shan't go anywhere with enemies of our people, and nothing you can do will convince me otherwise.\"\n\n\"Fair enough,\" Coop said.\n\nHe ducked down and wrapped an arm around her legs, tipping her over his shoulder and then standing again.\n\n\"Is that your plan? You're simply going to grab her like a sack of potatoes and run off with her?\" Lester said, raising his voice over her wails of dismay.\n\n\"You had your chance to do something more clever and it didn't work,\" Coop said, hefting her once as she released a startled squeal. \"Now we're doing it the easy way. Follow me.\"\n\nBounding down the steps, carrying his struggling load with a practiced ease, Coop commented, \"Fug ladies are a tall drink of water. But there ain't much to 'em. The doctor ain't much heavier than Lil.\"\n\n\"Do you make it a habit of carrying women about?\" Lester called, rushing to catch up with Coop as they ran for the main gate.\n\n\"Just Lil. When she's been drinking she gets ornery. Every so often I have to tote her out of a saloon before she starts slugging folk.\"\n\nDespite his heavy load, Coop remained a step faster than Lester as they closed the distance between the stage and the main gate. Alabaster's presence had disrupted the normal operation of the academy sufficiently that only a single guard remained at his post. The man hastily pushed the gate shut. He fumbled with a large lock and key. Coop fired a warning shot that quite effectively discouraged that activity and sent the guard running for cover, but not before the first of two locks had been secured. The running deckhand turned the shoulder not burdened with a screaming woman toward the gate and clashed with it, but the gate barely budged.\n\nHe and Clear turned to see a handful of guards approaching, pistols in hand.\n\n\"Just what do you expect to do now?\" Lester said.\n\n\"I reckon it'll sort itself out,\" Coop said, attempting to aim while Dr. Prist struggled.\n\n\"Sort itself out? Sort itself out?!\" Lester raved.\n\nThree small shots rang out from far beyond the fence. One by one the pistols jerked from the hands of the guards. Then came a much louder report and the corner of the fence to their left exploded into shards.\n\n\"Things sort themselves out when you got a crew keeping an eye on you,\" Coop said.\n\nThey dashed for the ruins the Wind Breaker's cannon blast had made of the fence. A short distance beyond, and directly between the escaping men and their freedom, was Alabaster's personal ship. Mallow had finally managed to wrangle and moor it. His distraction with that task made him the only person in a two-mile radius who didn't notice the chaos in the academy from the cannon fire. He was only now folding up the retractable steps and shutting the door. When he turned to head toward the gate and aid his employer, he instead came face to face with a winded deckhand with a woman over his shoulder and a gun in his hand.\n\nCoop shoved the barrel of his weapon into Mallow's chest. \"Anything tricky I ought to know about how to start this thing?\" he asked, gesturing with his head for Lester to pull open the door.\n\n\"Who are you? What's going on here?\"\n\nThe deckhand answered by cocking the pistol with his thumb. Mallow wisely raised his hands and backed away from the door. \"The throttle sticks on the low end, and you'll want to keep the temperature gauge on the high side or the turbines are very sluggish!\" he advised hastily.\n\n\"Much obliged. Don't go running off, I got one last thing for you,\" Coop said.\n\nLester got the door open and the stairs deployed. Coop dumped Dr. Prist inside and climbed in after her.\n\n\"I trust you know how to fly a contraption like this,\" Lester said.\n\n\"I can usually get one going roughly where I want it to go. Never one this fancy, though.\"\n\nCoop climbed into the pilot's compartment and stuck his head out a moment later. \"That fella still out there?\" he asked.\n\n\"If you mean the man you threatened, he appears to be backing slowly away with his hands raised.\"\n\n\"Good,\" he said, disappearing for a moment, then reappearing with an aye-aye held by the scruff of its neck. \"Toss this critter to him, would you? I don't like flying with these buggers on board no more.\"\n\nHe handed off the ship's inspector to Lester, who immediately lost control of it. The creature scrambled up his arm and latched on to his head, terrified of the sudden intrusion. Lester gibbered incomprehensibly, then tore it free and hurled it out the door. It struck Mallow square in the face and swiftly made its displeasure known.\n\nMallow's cries of surprise and confusion as the furry tornado of claws and teeth enveloped his head were soon swallowed by the roar of the turbines as Coop plopped into the seat and boosted the throttle. A long, low creak filled the gondola of the airship. It was straining against the freshly secured mooring ropes.\n\n\"You can't believe you shall get away with this!\" Dr. Prist said, her wits slowly returning as she sat shakily on the floor of the opulent cabin, just in front of Alabaster's easy chair. \"The guards are already taking up their weapons. You'll never get this ship untied before they arrive.\"\n\n\"I ain't planning on untying anything, Doctor,\" Coop said.\n\nHe left the pilot's compartment with the throttle at full, then leaned out the open door with a gun. Three quick shots later the ropes snapped and the airship lurched forward.\n\nCoop turned back to the others.\n\n\"We'll meet up with the Wind Breaker in a bit. Cap'n'll want to make sure there ain't any scout ships or gunships lurking about to take any shots at us,\" he explained. \"Oh, and thank you kindly, Doc, for not trying to kick me out the door just then.\"\n\n\"I\u2026 I assure you I failed to do so only because my mind is not so thoroughly adjusted to violence as yours.\"\n\n\"Still, much obliged.\"\n\n\"Just get to the controls! As horrid as I'm sure your plans for me are, I just as soon survive this flight.\"\n\n\"Will do, Doc.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 39",
+                "text": "The Thicket had painted an entirely new picture of the fug for Lil and Nita. First and foremost among their observations was the utter darkness of it. The fug was dim on the brightest days and black at most other times, but at least there was a sky overhead. The first half of the day, their journey had been through an endless graveyard of skeletal trees, but when they found their way to the stretch of land that earned the region its name, things changed markedly. Something wholly different from anything either Lil or Nita had ever seen took the place of the husks of oak and elm. They had the same overall shape of oak trees, but the leaves were sharp, jagged things. They looked like their leaves, tired of being eaten by woodland creatures, had grown claws to defend themselves. The bark of the trees was smooth and silvery, with an odd oily sheen. They grew thick and stout, gnarled roots running near the surface and making the ground treacherous, while the branches arched high and interwove overhead into a dense canopy. Thorny vines wrapped around and wove between every stretch of tree sturdy enough to support them. Not a whisper of the weak glow of day filtered through the canopy of leaf and vine. The darkness was so complete that the glow from within the firebox\u2014barely visible in the seams between the door\u2014was comparatively glaring.\n\nEach of the fug folk had told stories of near misses with the wildlife, and few were nothing less than chilling. Thus far their three days of travel had turned up no direct encounters, but Nita didn't need to be convinced that this was a living place. Distant rumbles, certainly the warning calls of beasts, rolled through the forest. That she could hear them at all over the rhythmic hiss of the steam engine and the cacophonous rattle of the rigid carts traversing the uneven ground suggested the creatures responsible were either very large or very loud. Smaller things chittered unseen among the branches overhead, and seldom did they travel more than a few minutes without a set of large, vigilant eyes catching the glow of their phlo-lights in the distance.\n\nNita and Lil had found their way to the controls of the rearmost cart in the caravan. It was something of the runt of the litter. When modifying and improving the carts for the journey, there hadn't been enough worthwhile parts to make all of them fully functional, so the one they now piloted had been stripped down a bit. That reduced its power, but to offset this shortfall they'd not attached any trailers to tow. Aside from allowing it to keep pace with the others, the lack of a train of unpowered platforms behind it meant they could keep a watch on the very rear of the group and target anything approaching from behind. To further decrease the load, Nita and Lil were the cart's only passengers. At the moment, Nita drove and Lil sat beside her on lookout.\n\n\"This here is just about as far from the open air as I think I've ever been,\" Lil observed with a shiver. \"I don't like having this much between me and the sky. Feels awful.\"\n\n\"That's funny,\" Nita said. \"It was making me rather homesick.\"\n\nLil shot her a doubtful look. \"I ain't seen much of Caldera up close, but every inch of it was prettier than this. If nothing else, you've got loads of sun and color.\"\n\n\"Ah, but you've never been in the steamworks. For the last few years I've spent my days working in claustrophobic tunnels carved out of an active volcano. It's close, it's dark. The air is heavy with strong smells. Every moment of every day you're assaulted by the sound of rattling machinery\u2026 Really, the only thing missing right now is oppressive heat.\"\n\n\"And you're missing that, are you?\" Lil said, an eyebrow raised.\n\n\"Well you miss the sky right now, don't you? Biting cold, howling wind. Churning your stomach with constant rocking and swinging?\"\n\n\"Aw, that stuff ain't so bad. At least it's got a great view.\"\n\nA voice called out from farther ahead in the convoy, drawing their attention.\n\n\"Eyes to the left! Weapons hot!\" barked the forward lookout.\n\nLil and Nita turned and scanned the ground. The darkness was nearly complete on that side, and if there was a threat, it wasn't obvious.\n\n\"You see anything?\" Lil asked, climbing into the gunner's seat.\n\n\"Nothing. In fact\u2026 I don't even see any eye-shine out there. \u2026 Something scared off the nearby creatures\u2026\"\n\n\"That suits me.\" Lil twisted the knobs to feed steam to the gun and adjusted her goggles. \"I always like having one big thing to shoot at instead of a bunch of small ones. Big things are slower and easier to hit.\"\n\n\"I suppose that's one way to look at it\u2026 I suppose that's the sort of lesson you learn from stories like 'The Boastful Bullfrog.'\"\n\nLil looked to Nita, her eyes lighting up. \"'The Boastful Bullfrog'! That's from the book I got you! You have been reading it. I forgot to ask.\"\n\n\"Of course. It's a nice little book, and with some very interesting woodcuts.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you like it. I ain't sure we read the same story, though. How'd you get that out of that story?\"\n\n\"The bullfrog puffs itself up more and more until it's so big that the eagle gets him instead of the little frogs. Sometimes it's better to be little and fast than big and strong. A useful moral.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Me and Coop got a different moral out of that story.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Bullfrogs is funny lookin', mostly.\"\n\nThe caravan crept forward, those ahead picking up the pace as much as the uneven ground would allow. Now that their attentions were heightened, they began to notice other worrying changes in their surroundings. The subtle but constant sound of local wildlife had silenced. The only sound beyond the rattle of the carts was the creaking of branches in the wind. It felt like the whole forest was bracing itself for whatever was to come next.\n\nSomething snapped in the trees, and all eyes shot to the source. Nita leaned quickly aside to grasp the grip of the phlo-light and shift it upward. Her light converged with the others from farther ahead, focusing on a tree a hundred yards away, barely visible in the dim night and through the low branches of the trees between. A form was hidden among the thorny branches. The details weren't clear, but two eyes the size of fists caught the light and shone like emeralds. The eyes squinted and a chilling noise rolled through the forest. It was a deep resonant chatter, like something echoing up out of a cave or out of a nightmare.\n\nThe beast shifted among the branches, causing the whole tree to sway. A crust of purple ice crackled away and sprinkled to the ground. Even without seeing the whole creature, there was something predatory about the motion. It was preparing to pounce.\n\n\"\u2026 Oh heck\u2026\" Lil said, her eyes wide behind her goggles.\n\nShe was the first to fire, and the very moment she squeezed the trigger, chaos erupted. Lil's assessment hadn't been entirely sound, because while the thing was large, it was by no means slow. As spikes filled the air, issuing forth from all three steam-powered fl\u00e9chette guns, the thing flashed out of the trees. It was not frightened by the guns, and despite the sheer mass of ordnance whistling through the air, not a single spike met its mark. Spikes traced lines across the ground, conjuring bursts of sparkling snow and dust where they struck. Just ahead of them, moving with terrifying speed, was the creature. It didn't stand still long enough for Nita to get a good look at it, sprinting instead toward the center of the convoy. Whatever the thing was, it was long and lithe, moving in great bounding leaps that covered the distance between them faster than seemed possible.\n\nNot until it was barely ten yards away did a spike finally strike. A furious chatter erupted and it turned, instantly shifting from moving toward the convoy to running along it from the center and moving toward the rear. As it drew nearer, it was all Nita could do to track the thing with the light. It was a knot of muscles wrapped in short slate-gray fur, flexing and springing with each stride. She could only make out brief glimpses as it streaked by\u2014a short and powerful muzzle, chisel-like teeth, oddly small ears\u2014but most out of place was the long tail trailing behind. It was fluffy and lush, like something a wealthy dowager would wear to the theater.\n\nThe monster flashed by the cart, catching two more spikes from Lil's gun before it sprang up into the trees and vanished from sight.\n\n\"What in the world is that thing?!\" Nita asked, trying to keep the cart on course after the others while still sweeping the trees with her light.\n\n\"Whatever it is, it's a nimble little devil. Gotta reload. Keep your eyes peeled.\"\n\n\"I'll do my best. Keeping this thing under control.\"\n\nLil vaulted from the gun seat and dug through a crate teetering atop the rest of the cargo.\n\n\"Dang it. I know they just gave us a fresh belt from the ammo cart this morning. Where is it?\"\n\n\"The open-top crate, in the corner there. Hurry! I see motion again.\"\n\n\"Got it! Loading up!\"\n\nShe pulled a tightly coiled canvas belt from the crate and leaped back into the seat. Three deft motions clicked the roll in place, and she pivoted the gun to the tree the monster had vanished into.\n\n\"Anybody see it?\" Lil bellowed.\n\nSix people answered back, their voices drowning each other out.\n\n\"One at a time, fellas.\"\n\nThey answered again, but this time far more vigorously. Nita glanced forward to find every free hand in the group pointing in the same direction. To their left, motion rippled through the trees. Here and there a glimpse of fur revealed itself among the branches. Even moving through the treetops, the thing was easily outpacing the carts.\n\n\"I've got a bead on it. Here we go,\" Lil announced.\n\nShe pulled the trigger and her gun began to devour the fresh belt of spikes. Years of shooting at raiders had made her better than most at tracking a moving target from atop a vehicle. Two or three spikes struck the creature, as evidenced by renewed chitters and chatters of anger and fear. The motion slowed a bit and veered away. For a brief and precious moment it seemed they might have scared the beast off.\n\nThat moment vanished with an earsplitting trill. Lil flinched and covered her ears. The sound, uncannily like a steam whistle, roared with painful intensity from her weapon. She reached for the valve to cut off the steam supply, but the damage was done. The creature stopped and turned, diving from the trees with purpose and bounding toward the shrill sound.\n\n\"Lil! Lil!\" Nita screamed.\n\nIt was no use. She couldn't even hear herself over the whistle. Lil finally cut the supply to her weapon off and raised her eyes to find the beast upon them. It struck the side of the cart hard, giving Nita her first good look at the thing as near as it had ever been to stationary. In size and overall shape, the nearest point of reference she had was a wildcat, but it wasn't quite right. The fur seemed too long for that, the body too rounded. The head, similarly, was all wrong, too elongated, and with long, curving teeth with flat ends. Two spikes were visible sticking through its pelt in the center of dark stains.\n\nIf Lil's reflexes had been a fraction of a moment slower, she would have been beneath the beast's dexterous claws. Alas, though she was able to spring from the chair of the gun, when the animal struck the cart it was nearly enough to topple the overloaded vehicle. The pitching to the side didn't manage to dislodge the well-secured cargo, but it sent Lil tumbling over the edge.\n\nShe rolled to a stop and the beast leaped from the back of the cart and bounded toward her. Nita wrenched a brake lever into place, bringing her cart grinding to a halt. Ahead, the other carts were curving aside, bringing themselves into position to target the creature as it stalked toward her slowly recovering crewmate. Each cart's gunner perched in its seat, fingers ready to fire as soon as the motion steadied enough to offer some accuracy.\n\n\"Don't shoot! You'll hit Lil!\" Nita cried.\n\nWithout waiting for a reply from the others, she sprang into action. She scrambled across the cargo and reached down to the controls for the gun, twisting the valve to maximum pressure. This brought the whistling sound back in all its deafening intensity. The monster behind them turned from Lil, who was just beginning to climb to her feet. She groped for her pistol, and a very shaken but apparently unharmed Nikita was crawling from within her coat.\n\nNita jumped down from the cart and noticed two things that Lil, in very short order, noticed as well. The first was that the pistol was missing from her belt. It had bounced free of its holster and now lay among the deep purple foliage just on the other side of the beast before her. The second realization came when she tried to take a deep breath. One of the buckles of her mask had broken, and thus a small gap had opened between her face and the mask. Her deep breath pulled in a stinging dose of fug that doubled her over in an agonizing cough.\n\nThe monster charged past Nita, ignoring her in favor of the blaring whistle the gun had become. She reached her ailing friend and tugged a length of cord from a pouch on her belt, fumbling a bit with her gloves to help cinch the mask tight to Lil's face.\n\n\"Why ain't they shooting?\" Lil said once she was able to get a clean breath.\n\n\"I told them not to. They might have hit you.\"\n\n\"Well why ain't they shooting now?\"\n\nThey both turned to see the creature perched atop the cart. It had its jaws locked around the gun, straining to tear it free.\n\n\"I think they're afraid to hit the cargo.\"\n\n\"Where's the sense in that?\" Lil growled, stroking Nikita once before opening her jacket to let her crawl back inside. \"What good is saving the cargo if you don't live to put it to use?\"\n\nThe whistle came to a sudden end as the beast put a tooth through the supply line. Scalding steam rushed to fill its mouth, and the monster threw its head back and released the loudest screech yet. The sound alone was enough to shake ice from the trees and instantly robbed Nita, Lil, and likely the rest of the crew of their hearing.\n\nA dull hiss chased away any hint of sound as Nita's ears coped with the din. The lights of the other carts were all focused on the beast as it bounded from the cart and into the trees again, leaving the Wind Breaker crewmembers alone in the darkness.\n\nNita scanned the trees while Lil felt along the ground where she'd last seen her pistol before the lights trailed away from them. Each was yelling instructions to the other, completely unheard.\n\nFinally the light drifted back, initially to Nita's relief. Then her frazzled mind latched on to a simple fact that chilled her to the bone. The lights were following the monster, and if the pool of illumination was trending toward them\u2026\n\nJust as her fingers closed around one of the heftier wrenches in her sash, she felt an impact on her back. A weight forced her to the ground and squeezed the air from her lungs. The sashes and harnesses tightened and she felt something pin her legs to the earth. The thing was on top of her, making a concerted effort to pull her apart.\n\nFor better or worse, it lost its grip on her legs first and yanked her into the air. Her hearing was beginning to return, and the first thing to break through was the high-pitched screech of tooth on metal as the beast clamped ever tighter on to the massive wrench head that she kept faithfully strapped to her back.\n\nNita shut her eyes and tried to ignore being shaken like a rag doll by a ravening creature, focusing instead on unfastening and removing the only tool for the current job. It was a standard fixed wrench on one end but extended to a two-foot-long spike on the other side. She pulled it free and thrust it blindly behind her. The one good part of facing a massive beast was that it was a large target and difficult to miss. The sharp handle sank deep into the monster's flesh, and it released her to screech again. She struck the ground with a thud, and the next sound she heard was the six short barks of Lil's pistol emptying into the beast's face.\n\nThe accumulation of injuries were finally enough to convince the thing that whatever it wanted from the convoy, it wasn't worth the effort. As quickly as it had come, the monster bounded into the distance.\n\nLil pulled Nita from the ground and rushed her to their cart. As they climbed on, the rest of the crew began to fire spikes at the retreating beast for good measure. The crewmates' vehicle still spouted steam from the damage it had received, and a length of the barbed wire had been dislodged from the improvised armor, but the rest was relatively intact. Lil followed the steam pipe leading to the gun until she found a valve that could shut it off while Nita disengaged the brake and slung dirt with the wheels before launching after the rapidly departing convoy.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" Nita called.\n\n\"What?!\" Lil answered, making her way unsteadily to Nita's side.\n\n\"I said are you all right? Are you hurt?\"\n\n\"I'm fine. You're the one who got shaken by that panther-bear-thing! You've got holes all up and down the back of your coat, but I don't see blood.\"\n\n\"I'm fine. It latched on to the monkey toe. Heh. And you questioned my decision to bring it along.\"\n\n\"Darn good thing you did. And that you brought that shiv, too.\"\n\n\"What, the thing I stabbed that monster with? That's not a shiv. That's a podger spanner with a drift pin.\"\n\n\"Whatever you call it, it does a fine job of poking holes in folks.\" Her lips pulled into a sneer behind her mask as she glanced ahead. \"And speaking of poking holes in folks, you reckon there's any chance at all this whole mess was just bad luck?\"\n\n\"I would be profoundly amazed if that gun malfunction was anything but sabotage. Do you think you can manage getting the spike out of the barrel?\"\n\n\"Way ahead of you,\" Lil said, crawling over to the gun and working at the steaming hot barrel. She levered open the breech and slid out the spike. \"Well that settles it.\"\n\nShe returned to Nita's side and showed what she'd discovered. Rather than the stout, heavy solid spikes that made up their ammunition stores, it was a hollow tube with a sharpened end.\n\n\"It was loaded in backward, too. No wonder it made such a racket,\" she said. \"Seein' how that thing came a-running back just as soon as this started singing its song, I'd say whoever slipped this in our ammo belt knew what it would do. So what do you suppose? Someone just hates us? Wants us dead? Heaven knows we've given the fuggers plenty of reason over the last few months.\"\n\n\"Granted, Lil. But they need our help. Why kill us before we're through with the job at hand?\"\n\n\"Not so much anymore, right? We're nearly there. And these folk can build just fine.\"\n\n\"Bolting some guns to some carts is simple enough, but there's a good deal of work to be done that we've only scratched the surface of when it comes to design. We've got to assemble whole boilers, modify them for operation with\u2014\"\n\n\"All right, so there's more to do. So this was more about how much they hate us than how much they need us.\"\n\n\"\u2026 I'm not so sure it isn't both. They sabotaged the gun. Of the two of us, you're the only one who's used the gun. Getting the refinery fortified and functional relies more heavily on me than you.\"\n\n\"So the best of both worlds. Kill the ornery one and keep the smart one.\"\n\nLil tugged off one glove and flipped open the cylinder of her revolver. She dumped the casings out and one by one loaded fresh bullets from an inside pocket of her seemingly endless coat.\n\n\"What are you planning?\" Nita said warily.\n\n\"I'm planning on getting some answers. Is it one of these fuggers that wants me dead or all of them. Are we actually heading somewhere, or is this all a roundabout way of getting rid of me and hoping the rest of the crew will chalk it up to bad luck? Because all I seen so far is dark, thorn trees, and weird critters. None of this ichor stuff they've got us after. I'm startin' to think it was all a lie.\"\n\n\"And just how do you expect to get your answers?\"\n\nShe clicked the cylinder in place. \"I'll ask real nice. Get up real close on this next train of carts here.\"\n\n\"Wait. You're going to do it now? You're not even going to wait until we stop?\"\n\n\"The gun's broke. Ain't much for me to do till we fix it. We ain't gonna fix it till we stop, and we ain't gonna stop till that thing we shot full of holes is far enough behind us to not be able to change its mind about leaving us be. I'm liable to get impatient twiddling my thumbs all that time. Besides, in my experience, the quicker you show a body who they ought not meddle with, the quicker they don't do it again.\"\n\n\"Any chance I can talk you out of it?\"\n\n\"Not likely.\"\n\n\"Can I at least convince you to leave Nikita behind? No sense putting her through another bit of excitement if we can avoid it.\"\n\n\"Oh, sure thing.\" She tugged her coat open and looked down at the frightened creature clinging to her. \"Hop along, darlin'. Mommy has some business to tend to. Your other mommy will take care of you.\"\n\nNikita, moving quickly to avoid spending any more time in the cold than she had to, crawled from Lil's coat to Nita's. Once the creature was safely stowed away, Lil crawled onto the barbed-wire-laden front wall of the cart, standing with unnerving steadiness atop the precarious perch as the cart rumbled across the uneven ground.\n\nNita dialed up the speed gradually, closing the gap between her cart and the end of the train dragged by the cart ahead. When she was ready, about three feet farther away than Nita would have expected, Lil sprang from the top of the wall and nimbly snagged the rear of the cargo cart ahead. From there the defenses barely slowed her as she scrambled onto the teetering mound of secured cargo and moved toward the unwitting focuses of her wrath.\n\nWith her crewmate delivered, Nita backed off the throttle a bit and tried to keep an eye on Lil. The chances were better than average that in short order the convoy would bring itself to a sudden stop to deal with the chaos Lil was certain to cause. After a moment, she became aware of a tapping within her coat. It was Nikita.\n\nWhy do Coop and Lil do these things?\n\nNita sighed. \"Because if the Coopers didn't do that sort of thing, they wouldn't be the Coopers.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 40",
+                "text": "Lil made her way easily across the rattling trail of carts. The armored walls, with the one recent exception, had done a fine job of keeping the local wildlife at bay. It would have taken considerably more to dissuade a motivated member of the Wind Breaker crew. An army might not have been enough to do the job. She wasn't making any effort to avoid being seen. An attack from a forest monster was more than enough to keep the eyes of the fug folk on the surrounding trees. After hopping the couplings between three heavily laden carts, Lil climbed onto the steam contraption responsible for doing the pulling. There were six fug folk on board, Kent among them.\n\n\"Hello, boys!\" Lil said, bracing herself atop the wall.\n\nHer coat fluttered in the wind, and one gloved hand gripped her pistol with its hammer cocked and the barrel held high. The other hand held firm to the top of the wall. Though she was barely two thirds the height of the shortest man in the cart, she more than made up for her size with the fire in her eyes. They gleamed with a potent mix of madness and purpose, and if not for the mask, the fug folk would have seen an exhilarated grin.\n\n\"What in blazes?!\" Kent said, stumbling back. \"What are you doing?! I thought you were back with Nita.\"\n\n\"Oh, I was. But I got curious, and I just can't sit still when I got questions floating around in my head. So help me set some of that at ease, will you? First off, is it just me you all want dead, or both of us?\"\n\n\"Calm down, Lil,\" Kent said, as the others began to anxiously reach for their weapons.\n\n\"Oh, I'm calm. I always try to be calm when there's shootin' to do. Otherwise my hands get all shaky and I end up wasting bullets.\"\n\n\"No one wants you dead, Lil,\" Kent said.\n\n\"That true?\" she asked, raising her voice and sweeping her eyes across the others. \"Me and Kent here got more of a history than me and the rest of you, so him I'm liable to believe, but the rest of you seem awful quiet on the subject. Maybe the question's too hard. Okay, here's an easier one. Who was the one that portioned out the ammo this morning? Because I got a bone to pick regarding the quality. It was a bit noisy.\"\n\nNo one said a word, but one fug person who had never bothered to introduce himself reached subtly for his gun.\n\n\"If I was you, I'd either draw that pistol or leave it be. You keep teasing at grabbing it and I'm liable to make your mind up for you,\" she said.\n\nKent stepped between them. \"Lil, calm down. We only just survived an attack a moment ago. We're all on edge. Why don't we\u2014\"\n\n\"Who's 'we'? Because I don't know about you, but from where I was lookin' it wasn't you folk who just survived an attack, it was me and Nita. And thanks so much for all the help while we were down there getting torn up.\"\n\n\"We thought you were done for! No one's ever survived on foot when one of those things are around,\" remarked the would-be gunman.\n\n\"Uh-huh. So that's how you fellas work? You know how many times my crew went toe to toe with something no one ever came back from? If you boys are the sort to give up on someone just because saving them doesn't seem likely, I ain't sure I'm keen on collaborating.\"\n\n\"Put the gun away and we'll talk about whatever it is we can do to set you at ease,\" Kent said.\n\n\"Folks tend to be more obliging when I've got the gun out. And if you want me at ease, answer my questions, and they better be honest answers. First one up: Which one of you passed out the ammo the morning?\"\n\n\"If I answer, what exactly are you going to do?\" Kent asked.\n\n\"Just about the same thing I'll do if you don't answer, only to someone else.\"\n\n\"I'm not going to rat out one of our own if you're going to pull that trigger before hearing out what might have to be said. So you just\u2014\"\n\n\"It was Branca!\" yelped one of the smaller fug folk.\n\nKent shot him a sharp look.\n\n\"I'm not going to let that crazy surface lady shoot me for trying to keep a secret.\"\n\n\"Sensible fella, that one,\" Lil said. \"There being only one more train of carts, I figure I've got a bit more climbing to reach the culprit. Pull up closer so I can hop along.\"\n\n\"Don't do it,\" Kent said.\n\n\"Kent, you and me been through a bit together, so I'm not eager to put a bullet in you, but you're working hard to change my mind on that.\"\n\n\"This is too important a job and we're too deep into it to let it fall apart because you got a wrong idea in your head.\"\n\n\"Then put some right ideas in my head, Kent. Give me some sort of proof any of this is on the level.\"\n\n\"You've seen the ichor, the demonstration.\"\n\n\"I seen Coop make a ball disappear during a shell game, too. Could be the only difference between the two is I know how Coop did the trick. You folk are smart. You could pull some stunt to make what I saw happen look like it was happening when it wasn't. I ain't seen or heard one thing so far that couldn't have been double talk and parlor tricks. You want me to put this gun back? Show me something that proves what we're after is really there.\"\n\nKent's brow furrowed in combined frustration and concentration. Then he raised his nose and took a sniff.\n\n\"All right. Seems like luck is with us. You're about to see for yourself we're telling the truth, because we're just about to get there.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's awful convenient.\"\n\n\"It's three days and a bit more since we left, which is about how long we said it would take. That isn't convenience, that's just sticking to a schedule.\"\n\n\"And how exactly do you know we're just about to get there?\"\n\n\"I can smell it. You know how the fug is thickest and densest right where it meets the surface air?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"To our noses, it's not just thicker there, it's got a sharper smell. And the smell around here is pretty sharp and getting sharper.\"\n\n\"What's that got to do with anything? We ain't heading for the surface.\"\n\n\"It's hard to explain.\"\n\n\"Give it a try.\"\n\n\"You know how that bottle of ichor chases the fug out of that tent you girls share?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"A whole well of the stuff chases it out of a whole stretch of the forest. From what I heard, it's a pretty wide swath.\"\n\n\"Seems like that's the sort of thing we'd be able to see.\"\n\n\"It's a wall of deep purple haze hidden in a thick fog of deep purple haze. You can't see it for the same reason no one's spotted it from above for all these years. It blends in perfectly.\"\n\nLil narrowed her eyes. \"All this is just about perfect for me to not be able to prove what you're saying is true or not.\"\n\n\"What do you want me to\u2014\" Kent blurted. He paused and regained his composure. \"Look. Maybe you're right. Maybe there's someone here who wanted you dead. But maybe they acted now because they knew I wouldn't be able to prove what I'm saying, and they expect you to lose your temper and kill someone, which would give each of us reason enough to kill you.\"\n\nShe knitted her brow. \"That would be like a fugger. To tie folks up in knots with all sorts of different twisty plans and such\u2026 How long is it supposed to take?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I've never been there. Maybe five minutes? They say the bigger beasts always linger nearby, and we just ran into a pretty big one.\"\n\n\"Five minutes of me sitting here with the six of you getting antsy on account of me having my gun out? Not likely.\"\n\n\"You could put your gun away.\"\n\n\"Even less likely.\"\n\nLil stared off ahead for a moment, gun still held ready but not angled to threaten anyone in particular.\n\n\"I'm not sure I like you thinking this much. What are you planning?\" Kent said.\n\n\"I don't know. I'm not usually the one making plans. But there being one of me and six of you is something I ain't too happy about at the moment. That's six chances for one of you to get lucky if you make a move\u2026\" Her eyes drifted down. \"Ah, that'll do 'er.\"\n\nShe lowered her gun, causing those nearest to its line of fire to lurch out of the way. Rather than aiming at any one of them, she leveled the barrel at a large and clearly marked box peeking out from beneath a canvas tarp.\n\nAs the realization of her new target swept through the six other passengers on the cart, each reacted as though the pistol was pointed squarely at his head. She was pointing directly at a crate of explosives earmarked for blasting out bits of the well.\n\nWhen she was sure she had their attention, she placed her finger lightly on the trigger.\n\n\"That ought to keep you all honest. And if any of you feels the need to scratch your nose or the like, I suggest you do it nice and slow. Wouldn't want me to get startled roundabout now\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 41",
+                "text": "Lucius P. Alabaster reclined in an overstuffed chair in a small, comfortable office. Mallow was tending to him like a mother hen. Already he'd swaddled the gunshot wound with a truly excessive amount of bandages, and it was time for the obligatory moistened washcloth applied to the forehead. Though the injury was a grazing shot, the immaculate white of his suit was marred by blobs of bright red that made the wound seem infinitely worse.\n\n\"This is\u2026 an inauspicious beginning to my legendary career,\" moaned Alabaster. \"My personal ship stolen. My body broken and my ego bruised.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, sir.\" Mallow set down the medical supplies and began to pour out a snifter of brandy that he'd found in a cabinet beside the desk. \"You came face to face with a member of the Wind Breaker crew. No, you did battle with a crewmember. And you've come away alive and breathing. As a matter of fact, you remained here, and he left. I call that a retreat. And thus I would label you the victor.\"\n\n\"Oh Mallow. Occasionally I wonder why I retain you as my manservant, and then you illustrate your truly first-rate sycophancy. I am not so weak-minded to succumb to such shallow stroking of my ego. Most of the general public, however, shan't know better, so from this point forward that is the tale we shall tell.\"\n\nThere was a rapid, panicked knock at the door.\n\n\"Mr. Alabaster is not seeing anyone right now!\" Mallow barked.\n\n\"My dear sir, this is my office.\"\n\n\"Let him in, Mallow.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" he said, snapping to the task and answering the door.\n\nIn rushed a man dressed in a well-worn tweed suit with scuffed leather patches over the elbows. His face was plastered with the very specific flavor of desperation that occurs when the individual with absolute power within a facility suddenly loses control. Alabaster smiled when he saw the look. For him, it was an endlessly useful look. To a man like the dean, the need for order surpassed even his thirst for authority and control. The chaos had left a vacuum, and despite his position at the center of that chaos, Alabaster was ready, willing, and able to take the position of \"sound and stable mind.\"\n\n\"Mr. Alabaster, are you aware of what precisely has occurred?\" the dean asked.\n\n\"Intimately, sir.\"\n\n\"Professor Prist was not a mere educator, sir. She was delivered by representatives within South Pyre for my specific shepherdship! I can't imagine what those murderous thieves might want with her, but they've absconded with a very valuable woman.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dean. As I earlier suggested, I'm quite aware of the details of the situation. More so than you by a fair margin.\"\n\n\"What are we going to do, sir?\"\n\n\"I am pleased that you've asked. Are there any vehicles within the academy that can deliver me and my servant to Caer Fiona?\"\n\n\"I am afraid not. Students and staff reside on campus. Once a fortnight a Fugtown shuttle arrives, but that won't be here for another nine days. And airships with various food and sundries arrive monthly, but we've just been resupplied.\"\n\n\"Glorious\u2026\" Alabaster said.\n\nHe took a sip from his snifter.\n\n\"\u2026 Is that my brandy?\" the dean said, glancing at the glass, then the bottle. A whisper of his authority returned to his expression.\n\n\"Focus on the issue at hand, Dean. Can I assume that messengers arrive with at least a marginally greater frequency?\"\n\n\"Once every two days. The next is expected tomorrow morning.\"\n\n\"Ah, excellent. Then I shall require assorted stationary such that I may pen and address two messages. One to my employees to request rescue from this isolated den of education, and one to inform Mayor Ebonwhite what has transpired here.\"\n\n\"Mayor Ebonwhite?! Must we? This will reflect very poorly upon both myself and my institution.\"\n\n\"Do you suppose that you could conceal the theft of what you've so aptly described as a 'very valuable woman' from the best-informed man in our exceptionally well-informed society? Indeed, the man has eyes everywhere. It would not push us far at all into the realm of impossibility to suggest that he already knows of these developments.\"\n\n\"\u2026 I suppose.\"\n\n\"You suppose correctly. And thus is it not more sensible to act responsibly? Mayor Ebonwhite will surely appreciate the proper conduct and integrity of a man in your position choosing not to hide from his inevitable wrath. More importantly, by alerting him to the details, he may just find it wise to finally take the steps necessary to actively eliminate the Wind Breaker and its crew, rather than trust mere attrition to fell the beasts that continue to cut their bloody swath across our land and its people.\"\n\n\"Actively eliminate them? But if the stories are to be believed, these maniacs were able to destroy the dreadnought on their first clash! What more fearsome weapon could be levied against them?\"\n\nAlabaster grinned and set down the glass. \"Why, my good sir, I should think the answer to that question is clear. The one man who has faced them and lived to tell the tale. The one man who has stood tall while the Wind Breaker scurried away. The one man with the towering intellect and an iron resolve capable of overcoming their animal cruelty and disregard for civility, rule, and law. The man who stands before you.\" He sprang to his feet and thrust his finger high. \"Lucius P. Alabaster!\"\n\nWhen the exhilaration of his self-aggrandizement was through, his eyes widened in pain. His gesture had unfortunately utilized the injured arm and thus earned him a searing pain and a fresh bit of bleeding. Despite this, he managed to stifle any profanity or yelps of agony. Instead he pointed to the door with the other arm.\n\n\"Now go! Fetch me the means to compose the messages that will with a few strokes seal the doom of our common foe and my own reputation for generations to come!\"\n\nThe dean hurried to the task, spurred by sheer force of personality to obey the larger-than-life figure who had taken over his office. When the man was gone, Alabaster slumped into the chair again, clutching at the injury while Mallow readied yet another layer of bandages.\n\n\"Those fiends have injured my proclamation arm. The savages. How can a man expect to stir the spirits of the rank and file if he can't gesticulate properly?\" he grumbled, reaching aside to retrieve the brandy and sip at it. \"For that, and for absconding with among other things my supply of decent brandy, they shall be made to pay.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 42",
+                "text": "\"Captain, far be it from me to speak out of turn, but I believe we are long overdue to establish a proper docking procedure,\" grunted Gunner.\n\nHis comment was likely motivated by the inordinate amount of time spent attempting to properly capture and secure Ebonwhite's stolen vessel to the Wind Breaker in some way. Neither ship was properly designed for the task. Each had its gondola slung relatively close to its envelope, which meant that the large buoyant sacks that kept them in the air also collided to keep them separated when attempting to transfer crew. Coop's piloting skills, barely adequate for getting the stolen ship under control let alone precisely maneuvering it, did not help matters. At the helm of the small, sleek, and nimble vessel he was extremely heavy handed. Nearly a dozen times he'd slammed the smaller ship into the larger one at various speeds. The damage was largely cosmetic, but each such clash sent the two airships bounding away from each other and required the entire delicate ballet to begin again.\n\n\"My career's been spent trying to prevent folks from latching on to us. I ain't about to set my mind to finding ways to make it easier,\" Captain Mack called in return. \"You've got enough slack on that grappler to spear the gondola and haul it in. We've done it before.\"\n\n\"The Coopers are the grappling experts.\"\n\n\"You've had an awful lot of practice today. If that academy had so much as a scout or a spike gun, we'd have been done for fifteen minutes ago. I'm through pressing my luck. Get that thing grappled. Now!\"\n\n\"I am open to suggestions, Captain. That thing is made for speed and, as near as I can determine, to show off. There's nothing for the grappler to bite into that won't tear off like it was made of paper.\"\n\n\"Did I ask you for excuses?\" Captain Mack asked.\n\n\"No, Captain, but I felt they were relevant, since it would be rather anticlimactic for this mission if I were to punch a grappler through the chest of our chemist because the wall beside her was too flimsy for the hook to grip.\"\n\n\"Gunner!\" called Coop.\n\nGunner glanced to the hatch of Alabaster's ship to see Coop climbing out and hauling himself into the rigging connecting it to the envelope.\n\n\"What's the hold up?\" he called.\n\n\"I'm attempting to grapple without killing any of you.\"\n\n\"I'm sick of waiting for you. I got an idea.\"\n\n\"Ideas aren't your strong suit, Coop.\"\n\n\"And grappling ain't yours. But like I said, I'm sick of waiting. Cap'n, I'm going to take this thing up over the Wind Breaker. Try to keep moving about the same speed. Gunner, clear the mooring line off the port winch. I'll be down in a bit.\"\n\n\"Down in a\u2026 that insane idiot\u2026\"\n\nGunner let the grappling hook launcher swing loose. He knew that Coop had a very simple mind. If the goal was to get a rope tied between the two ships, he would take the most direct path to success he could manage. When it came to the Coopers, that path almost always led directly downward at inadvisable speeds. That left only one obvious choice, and there wouldn't be any time to waste if he decided to put that ludicrous plan into action.\n\nUnder Nita's direction, the Wind Breaker had recently gained a pair of mooring winches. Formerly the stout ropes that tied the ship to docks, piers, and pylons were hauled in by hand. As their activities so often necessitated fast arrivals and faster departures, their engineer had rigged up a fairly simple series of linkages, gears, and belts to power the winches. It added a bit of weight to the ship, something the captain wasn't fond of. It had been suggested that the reverse gear be abandoned to save weight and complexity, but Nita had stood her ground. As Gunner flipped the appropriate lever and spun the valve, he silently acknowledged the foresight. The well-used reel whined and smoked a bit, uncoiling chaotically as it spun up to speed.\n\nGunner tried to split his attention between the hazardous whipping lines and the portside of the envelope. The highly visible stolen ship vanished from view, rising overhead. A few seconds later the mooring winch was clear\u2014though surrounded by the tangled heap of its former contents. A rattling sound drew his eyes back to the portside rigging, but there was nothing to see.\n\n\"Over here! Clear that other winch!\" called a voice overhead.\n\nHe turned to find Coop clambering down the rigging on the opposite side of the ship. He had leaped from Alabaster's ship with its line tied to his waist, and was now climbing down from above in the role of \"human anchor.\"\n\n\"You said port side!\" Gunner called back, rushing to the other winch and tugging at the controls.\n\n\"The wind changed my mind,\" Coop said, sliding down the outside of the rigging.\n\nThe gusting wind had caught the smaller vessel and was carrying it off and away.\n\n\"Faster, Gunner. There ain't much slack on this thing,\" Coop said when he reached the deck.\n\n\"Is it even worth asking if you left anyone at the helm of that thing?\"\n\n\"Only folks on board are Lester and the doctor. They ain't got the nerve to leave the controls be until we're tied up proper.\"\n\n\"What you call lack of nerve, most would call the presence of good sense.\"\n\nThe second winch spun up to speed and launched its line into disorderly mounds as both crewmen watched the pilot-less ship drift farther away. Coop leaned against the weight of the rope as it began to tug him toward the railing.\n\n\"Why's that line so short?\" Gunner said. \"And frayed\u2026\"\n\n\"I had to shoot it free during my escape.\"\n\n\"Guns aren't toys, Coop.\"\n\n\"You're one to talk.\"\n\nA gust of wind dragged him across the deck and slammed him into the railing.\n\n\"Didn't think this through, I s'pose\u2026\" Coop said, struggling against the mass of the smaller ship and the force of the wind.\n\n\"Wouldn't have done you any good, Coop. You aren't equipped for it,\" Gunner blurted as he tugged the loose end of their mooring line free from the mess and hastily fashioned a loop.\n\nCoop managed two shaky steps forward before another gust yanked him fully off his feet and over the railing. In his desperate flailing, his fingers snatched the loop and dragged the rope after him.\n\nGunner watched helplessly as loop after loop of disorderly line whipped straight and dragged over the railing. There were ways to heap cords such that they could be pulled freely without tangling. Dumping them haphazardly from a powered winch was not one of them. In normal circumstances there would have been plenty of slack to allow Coop to tie line-to-line. The pile of looped rope, on the other hand, could snag and tangle at any moment.\n\nCoop dangled from the end of the frayed mooring line, his deft hands forming the unwieldy mooring cable into a complex hitch. Gunner couldn't take any steps to save his fellow crewman until he was certain the rope was affixed in a way that wouldn't use Coop's body as the weak link in a mooring chain. As such, he was left to watch Coop's handling of his predicament. Bizarrely, despite the precariousness of his position, Coop didn't seem harried or even particularly anxious. Gunner suspected Coop's fabled stupidity was such that he simply lacked the spare wits to worry about his impending doom when something as complex as knot-tying was occupying his thoughts.\n\nCourage and stupidity are remarkably interchangeable.\n\nJoining ropes from end to middle rather than end to end didn't make for the strongest of knots, but the end of Alabaster' ship's mooring rope was occupied by a deckhand. He looped and tightened as quickly as his precarious situation would allow. The knot was at least mostly tied when luck ran out and the Wind Breaker's rope hit a snag. Loops cinched tight into a hopeless rat's nest. It wrenched from the deck and tore away a section of railing, but when it drew taut Coop's knot held, leaving him to dangle beneath the join in the two ropes.\n\nThe Wind Breaker gondola swung violently to the side, but both the captain and Gunner barely stumbled.\n\n\"Coop!\" Gunner called.\n\n\"Yeah, Gunner?\" the deckhand replied, working now to untie himself.\n\n\"You broke the railing. If you survive this mission, Nita's going to give you an earful.\"\n\nCoop finished untying himself and began to work his way toward the Wind Breaker deck. \"That wasn't a bit she used that fancy Calderan wood for, was it?\"\n\n\"It was.\"\n\n\"Dang it\u2026\"\n\n\"Look on the bright side. Maybe your stupidity will get you killed before then.\"\n\n\"Not with my luck.\" He flipped down onto the deck and went to work managing the disaster the mooring line had become. \"Either way. Let's get this fancy ship pulled tight.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 43",
+                "text": "Several long minutes of the frustrating process of untangling rope as thick as their wrists under load passed, and finally the ornate ship was lashed a few feet from the deck. Such an arrangement was less than ideal, and in no way resembled anything a proper engineer would have designed. Envelopes were pressed tightly to one another, and bringing the smaller ship's gondola near enough for its passengers/prisoners to disembark meant hauling it until it was dangling at greater than forty-five degrees. From there Coop climbed the lashings, affixed a ladder between deck and gondola, and levered the door open.\n\n\"All right, you two, out, so I can get this whole mess tucked away a bit better,\" he said, straddling the exit hatch.\n\nHe'd not quite made his way through the full order before a pair of screeching voices attempted to drown both him and each other out with the sheer magnitude of their outrage.\n\n\"\u2014absolute lummox would do such dangerous and ham-handed things so far from the ground? I've got half a mind to teach you a lesson about torturing your collaborators with your utter lunacy and\u2014\" Lester growled.\n\n\"\u2014don't know what you've got in mind, you scoundrels and cads, but you'll get nothing from me! I will not be intimidated by your beastly tactics! So you may as well\u2014\"\n\n\"Hey! Shut it!\" Coop barked.\n\nThe suddenness of the outburst coaxed them into silence, if only briefly.\n\n\"Do yourself a favor and take a look out that starboard window there.\"\n\nThey turned.\n\n\"There's nothing to see,\" Lester said.\n\n\"Not quite. It's a bit dark, but a thousand feet or so away is trees and rocks and such. Behind me is the Wind Breaker. You got two choices. You can get out the starboard side, or you can get out the port side.\"\n\n\"You would shove us overboard and send us plummeting to the ground?!\" Lester said.\n\n\"I ain't pushing nobody. But in a bit we're going to siphon the phlogiston out of that envelope there, and if you're still in here when we do that, you'll start tumbling about, and these hatches here ain't strong enough to stand on, usually. Especially not for a fancy delicate thing like this one. So one way or another you're probably going to end up outside the ship. Since we got use for the two of you yet, I'd prefer you get out now. Cap'n would be awful sore with me if we got you this close and then you went splat.\"\n\n\"You have a ghastly way with words, sir,\" Dr. Prist said, her face managing to become a bit more pale as he described their predicament.\n\n\"Didn't mean to startle you, Doctor, but I been off ship for a few hours and I'm itching for a proper meal. When my belly's empty, I can get a bit short with folk. So, you folk want out now, or are you keen to take your chances with getting shaken up while we start working on the envelope?\"\n\n\"\u2026 I suppose boarding your ship is marginally less distasteful than the fatal fall,\" Dr. Prist said shakily.\n\n\"Glad to hear it. If you'll just give me your hand, the ladder's shimmying a bit. Might be dangerous for someone who ain't got her air legs yet.\"\n\nDr. Prist reluctantly offered her hand. Coop took firm hold and tugged her as gently as possible through the hatch. Rather than dropping her to her feet, he simply threw her across his shoulders and began to descend toward the ship. She objected and struggled, but only briefly, as the moment she opened her eyes she was treated to the view beneath the ladder, which was primarily an inky void. As outrageous as her indelicate treatment might have been, she was intelligent enough to know that now was not the place and time to voice such concerns. After a mercifully brief trip over the yawning abyss, Coop set her down on the deck and returned to fetch Lester.\n\nIf she'd known she was destined to be traversing the unsteady decks of assorted airships today, she likely would have dressed differently. Her skirt caught the wind, billowing out like a sail and making it rather difficult to preserve her modesty. Similarly her boots, which had a high and rather fashionable heel, weren't overly stable on the uneven and pitched surfaces of the deck. Matters were made worse by the fact that her mind quite reasonably assumed the deck she was stepping onto would be level, but the awkward docking maneuver had forced it to list steeply to port. Thus, her first step sent her stumbling clumsily off balance.\n\nGunner, predicting her unsteadiness, stepped into her path and gave her something relatively solid to grab on to.\n\n\"Oh! Ahem. My apologies,\" she said, pushing herself away and trying to steady herself.\n\nOwing to her race, Dr. Prist was a head taller than Gunner, but for her, that was not the most striking difference between them. Her interactions with surface folk had thus far been limited to Coop moments earlier, whose long, lean build was much closer to a fug person's than Gunner's. The armory officer, hardly a brutish mound of muscle, was nevertheless much more broadly built than anyone Dr. Prist had yet encountered. Even the grunts she'd had occasion to work with were comparatively stretched out. To her eye, Gunner was positively barrel-chested and thick. It was an oddly intriguing physique for her, much more powerful than she was accustomed to. That was sufficient to make it oddly difficult to gather her thoughts.\n\n\"Not a problem, Doctor,\" Gunner said, his eyes still lingering on Coop while he fetched Lester. \"Are you well? Do you need any medical treatment?\"\n\n\"I\u2026 ahem\u2026\" She wrangled her skirt against the wind. \"I am quite well, thank you. I would not dare subject myself to the butchers you barbarians must call physicians, besides.\"\n\n\"The fact our medic is also a butcher is entirely incidental,\" he said.\n\n\"\u2026Your medic is actually a butcher\u2026\" she said quietly, her eyes a bit wide. \"\u2026 You don't\u2026 eat your wounded, do you?\"\n\n\"Butch is a better cook than that. She wouldn't use substandard provisions like us.\"\n\nCoop returned to the deck and dumped Lester unceremoniously to the ground.\n\n\"Do you idiots want to kill us? Are you truly so\u2014\"\n\n\"Mouth shut, Mr. Clear,\" Captain Mack growled. \"The lot of you, get up here. Seems like things didn't go to plan down there. I want explanations.\"\n\nCoop yanked Lester to his feet. Gunner somewhat more gently guided Dr. Prist, and the group made their way up the half flight of steps to the helm.\n\n\"I'll take the short version, Coop.\"\n\n\"We showed up. Lester went inside what I reckon was a restaurant. Two hours later this fancy fella showed up and started stirring things up. Said he knew we were there. I decided not to hang around too long, so I tried to find the doctor. Turns out she was in there with Lester. Got some of her books, though.\"\n\n\"Suits me, Coop. Go see to that ship. Save the phlogiston, and strap the gondola on good and tight. Might be some parts we can use before we cut it free.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Mr. Clear, Dr. Prist. Two hours is a long time. I trust you two had time to come to an agreement?\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"I\u2026 er\u2026\" Lester stammered.\n\n\"Come to an agreement regarding what?\" Dr. Prist said, tapping her foot and glaring at Lester. \"As I recall, you were dancing about some sort of a business proposition.\"\n\n\"Two hours and you were still dancing about?\" rumbled the captain.\n\n\"A proposed partnership is not the sort of thing one should approach indelicately.\"\n\n\"Dr. Prist, these fellas found themselves a new ichor well, and they want you to help them put it to use.\"\n\n\"A new ichor well,\" Dr. Prist said, her eyes sparkling briefly before skepticism tempered her reaction. \"Surely you're lying. If there was another source of ichor besides South Pyre, it would have been found by the proper industry. I'm frankly disgusted that someone would have even revealed the existence of ichor to you and your kind\u2026\"\n\n\"Show her the sample you got, Mr. Clear.\"\n\n\"Sample!\" she said, turning to Lester. \"You've got a sample of ichor?!\"\n\n\"I hope it hasn't been broken by these ruffians\u2026\" he said, reaching into an inner pocket of his now badly rumpled suit.\n\nThe very instant the faint amber gleam of his remaining sample jar could be seen, Dr. Prist practically attacked him, stepping forward and snatching the thick glass container. It was much larger than the one Digger had used for his demonstration, containing perhaps a teaspoon of the stuff rather than a few drops. Dr. Prist held it up, tipping the jar side to side to watch the honey-thick goo flow slowly.\n\n\"My heavens\u2026\" she breathed reverently. \"I've\u2026 I've only ever worked with samples three times before\u2026 And they were half this size. More precious than gold\u2026\"\n\nHer fingers, shaking as much from excitement as from cold, twisted the lid and raised the jar. The fug rushed away from the opening, leaving a small bubble of fresh air billowing and bulging against the wind. She positioned her nose near the opening and angled herself such that the wind would waft a measure of the scent past her flaring nostrils.\n\n\"It\u2026 it is genuine\u2026 I'd know that scent in my dreams. Where did you get this? You must tell me.\"\n\n\"That is entirely classified, so\u2014\" Lester said.\n\n\"Someplace in The Thicket. We've got crew on the way there now. Plan is to secure it and start making phlogiston and such,\" the captain said.\n\n\"I would have expected a greater degree of discretion from you,\" Lester grumbled.\n\n\"If I was you, Mr. Clear, I'd hold that tongue of mine. Because in a minute I'll be asking you some questions, and I wouldn't want you to use up all your breath complaining.\"\n\n\"So there's more. You're sure there's more?\" Dr. Prist said.\n\n\"I had my doubts before. And this fancy ship showing up looking for us specific makes me doubt it more, but that's the story we been fed. Supposing there is, our hope is you'd be willing to help these folk make the most of it, and sell us our share of your wares.\"\n\n\"May I ask you some questions?\" she said, for the life of her looking as though she was locked in a heroic struggle with her own conscience.\n\n\"Ask,\" Mack said.\n\n\"Will you kill me if I don't?\"\n\n\"I don't see much use in that.\"\n\n\"So if I were to say no, I would simply be free to go?\"\n\n\"As free as you were before we showed up, which I understand wasn't much to brag about. Likely your people would want to have a word with you, what with you setting foot on this ship and making it back sill breathing.\"\n\n\"Is it true what they say about you and your crew?\"\n\n\"Ain't sure what they say, but like as not it's true. A crew like us, you don't need to make much up to make us seem as bad as they'd have us seem.\"\n\n\"Did your people destroy the dreadnought?\"\n\n\"We did. Them trying to kill us, it seemed the thing to do.\"\n\n\"And the Phylactery. You killed everyone inside and destroyed it?\"\n\n\"Destroyed it, sure. Didn't kill the inmates. Again, didn't seem much reason to. Just as well, as some of the better folk from the prison are doing the heavy lifting for this ichor well venture.\"\n\n\"Did you burn those schools?\"\n\n\"I suppose they did see clear to make up a thing or two.\"\n\n\"Is it true you have a Calderan prisoner on board?\"\n\n\"Never a prisoner, and not on board. She's slinging wrenches with the rest of the folk hoping to dig that well. That's about as many questions as we've got time for, Doctor. There ain't too many places down here where we could drop you off without having to dodge spikes, so the longer you wait to decide you want off the ship, the longer a walk you've got ahead of you.\"\n\nShe chewed her lip and gazed at the substance oozing in the container. Lester, at this point, felt it prudent to end his brief silence.\n\n\"I realize this crew is not as sophisticated as myself or the bulk of our culture, Miss Prist, but\u2014\"\n\nHer head snapped to him. \"Mr. Clear, I am Dr. Prist. As unsophisticated as you've observed this crew to be, my title is something none of them have failed to acknowledge and you have not once utilized. To be perfectly honest, I'm not overly impressed with your tactics in attempting to recruit me. Captain\u2026 I'm sorry, what is your name?\"\n\n\"Captain McCulloch West.\"\n\n\"Captain West, even if his infamy is deserved, has at least been straightforward and frank in his discourse, whereas you spent the better part of two hours prevaricating and discussing this vague 'partnership' and 'endeavor' without ever brushing on specifics. Did it not occur to you that as a scientist the real point of interest for the potentially traitorous enterprise you would have me engage in would be the academic value of working with this impossibly unattainable substance?\"\n\n\"It\u2026 I didn't\u2026\"\n\n\"This is literally the substance that has made every aspect of our society possible. The possibilities, Mr. Clear. Phlogiston, burn-slow. I'm convinced these are just the beginning.\" She turned to Captain Mack. \"You are\u2026 confound it, the rumors and legends I've been told would have me believe you are nothing short of the devil. And thus you are asking me to sell my soul\u2026\"\n\nShe closed the jar and clutched it close.\n\n\"Captain West, this could well be the one thing on this blasted planet I'd be willing to sell my soul for.\" For a few seconds, she fought a mighty battle in her mind. When she came to a decision, one could see it in her eyes. \"I'll need equipment,\" she said.\n\n\"Gunner, take the doctor below decks and show her what we've got. Keep an eye on her. If Nita's taught us anything, we'd be safer with a wild animal loose in the ship than a clever sort with an eye for mischief.\"\n\nGunner nodded and took her hand, steadying her as he led her down toward the lower decks.\n\nLester turned to follow. \"Thank you very much, Miss\u2014\"\n\nShe shot him a sharp look.\n\n\"\u2014Dr. Prist. You won't regret this.\"\n\n\"You're not going anywhere just yet, Mr. Clear. I've got some questions for you as well,\" said Captain Mack.\n\n\"For me?\"\n\nHe pointed at the white ship, which Coop was now siphoning the phlogiston from. \"Explain that.\"\n\n\"What, the ship?\"\n\n\"Anything else you reckon needs explaining more than that?\"\n\n\"It wasn't my idea to steal it.\"\n\n\"I ain't concerned about it being stolen. What's got me curious is why the fella who brought it knew we were here.\"\n\n\"Why would you ask me that? Surely you don't think I had something to do with it!\"\n\n\"He's a fugger, you're a fugger. The only folk who should've known we were heading here were my folk and your folk. I don't reckon Coop or Gunner would be liable to let someone else know we were coming, so that just leaves you folk.\"\n\n\"Even associating with you and your people is an offense that would easily have been punishable with exile to Skykeep if you'd not blown it to bits. Why would I risk discussing our plans with anyone outside our organization?\"\n\n\"Because being the man who helped snare the Wind Breaker crew'd be looking at one hell of a reward at the end of the day, I reckon.\"\n\n\"If you are seeking to attach simple greed to an act, then you are vastly underestimating the profit to be gained from creating even a minor competitor to South Pyre in terms of resource production. Every last one of us stands to gain fortunes upon fortunes if we can establish phlogiston production alone. With burn-slow\u2014\"\n\n\"That's all well and good if there's actually an ichor well, but if that's a lie, then the only money or favor to be made is by ratting us out.\"\n\n\"But you've seen the ichor drawn from the well!\"\n\n\"I seen stuff you an your chemist call ichor. No telling where it came from. Could easily be the old well.\"\n\n\"If I wished to see you captured, why would I even risk being nearby when it happened? And for that matter, why would I entrust your capture to one ridiculous little vessel piloted by what looked like a ringleader at a circus.\"\n\n\"You being a coward is something I'm more liable to believe. But that still leaves us with the fact that there's still at least one traitor in your group. Best case would've been if it was you. A bullet would've solved the problem then. If it ain't you, it means the girls are probably traipsing through a forest with a dozen potential traitors. That's a recipe for blood. Maybe ours, more likely yours.\"\n\n\"More likely?\"\n\n\"We been on the lookout for treachery since the start. It'll be mighty hard to catch them girls by surprise. But that doesn't set my mind at ease much. If all the folks down there with them are traitors, it could be more than they can handle, and if only a few are traitors, it's liable to make things uncomfortable.\"\n\nA loud snap rang out over the deck. Captain Mack turned to find the gondola of Alabaster's ship swinging rather more quickly than he would have liked from beside the ship to below it. Enough phlogiston has been drained from the envelope that it was no longer able to remain aloft. The knots and slings that affixed it to the Wind Breaker, each of which were tied with a good deal more care than the hasty capture of the mooring lines, allowed it to swing down beneath rather than crash into the side. It was not a gentle maneuver by any means. The sudden weight shift caused the whole ship to lurch to the side. Captain Mack rocked lightly, reflexively absorbing the motion with his knees. Lester, less experienced in the ways of the sky, ended up flat on his back.\n\n\"Coop! Keep both ships in one piece, will you?\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n. Sorry, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Get that gondola slung proper under the gig, then get inside and start searching it.\"\n\n\"What for, Cap'n?\"\n\n\"If plans are leveled against us, there may be some sign of that somewhere in there. I want that thing cleaned out. But sling it proper first. Much as I hate having a bright, visible eyesore like that strapped on, at least it's good and streamlined. Shouldn't slow us too much if we align it proper.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 44",
+                "text": "Samantha Prist walked unsteadily through the corridors of the ship. Gunner had one hand on her shoulder, partially to keep her from doing anything inadvisable, but mostly to keep her on her feet. The sudden motion of the ship would have sent her stumbling into the wall, and though she probably would have been well served by steadying herself along the way with a hand to the wall, she was utterly unwilling to take so much as a finger from the jar of ichor clutched to her chest like a religious artifact.\n\n\"I find it rather unlikely that you'll have the proper equipment to perform even the most cursory of analysis on this substance. It is delicate, exacting work. I'm told your crew isn't beyond throwing crewmen overboard for lack of room and resources, let alone equipment,\" she said.\n\n\"I suppose you'll need flasks and burners? Perhaps a pressure vessel with an integrated gauge?\" Gunner said.\n\n\"\u2026 Those would be quite useful, yes. And a high-precision thermometer.\"\n\nThey reached the curtain-lined section of the ship that made up the crew quarters. Gunner pulled aside the curtain to his own.\n\nSamantha took a sharp breath as she saw the veritable armory hanging from his walls. Everything from polished, ornate swords to cobbled-together monstrosities, scorched and discolored from their overabundance of firepower. She backed away. Still she gripped the jar, shielding it as if it were a child in need of defense.\n\nGunner stepped inside and flipped open a large chest in the corner of his quarters. At first sight of the contents, Dr. Prist's eyes widened. The chest was filled to the brim with carefully secured and more or less immaculate labware. He flipped open a pouch and slid out a long rectangular tool made from polished metal and delicate glass.\n\n\"Would a candy thermometer do?\" he asked, presenting it to her.\n\nShe raised an eyebrow. \"It\u2026 it will, actually. How did you get all of this? It appears to be fug-made.\"\n\n\"Cost me a fair amount to get my hands on it a few years back. You folk seem willing to part with very nearly anything for enough money. Of course, since then we got five more sets during the heist. Two survived the escape.\"\n\n\"Why do you have it?\"\n\n\"One of the things that doesn't seem to be available at any price is anything but the most pathetic of munitions. So I'm forced to cook up my own powder and explosives. You'd be surprised what you can manage with a strong constitution, a steady hand, and a little burn-slow.\"\n\n\"I assure you, I would not be surprised. What surprises me is that you know such a thing.\"\n\nHe thumped a thick and well-read set of books stowed on a shelf beside the chest. \"Another trophy from the heist. Though I worked out the broad strokes through trial and error.\"\n\nShe glanced at his hand and noticed for the first time that it lacked the full complement of fingers. \"So I see\u2026 Would you mind setting up the pressure kettle over that number three burner there? Put it at the third notch. Have you any distilled water?\"\n\n\"Of course. But if I'm to let you use my equipment, I'll have to know what you've got in mind.\"\n\n\"I need to measure its primary product yields and transition points. If this is indeed from a new well, it could have different levels of impurity, and that could greatly change the necessary conditions to refine it. As you say, a bit of trial and error will be necessary. Ideally I shall retain all my digits. Perhaps most importantly for all involved, any difference at all from the established values would be a strong indicator that a previously undiscovered ichor well has been found.\"\n\nGunner selected the equipment she requested and began to attach it to mounting rods, which slipped through strategically placed holes drilled in his fold-down desktop. Dr. Prist directed him, indicating what should be raised or lowered. To her credit, she did so without assuming the condescending, supervisory tone that was so often the default for fug folk dealing with surface dwellers. This either spoke well of her social graces, or else suggested she was too thoroughly focused on the task at hand to pay attention to such matters of discourse.\n\n\"Fine. That's fine. A pipette, please.\"\n\nHe selected one and attempted to hand it to her, but she was still clutching the jar protectively.\n\n\"Is there likely to be any rough maneuvering in the short term?\"\n\n\"That isn't the sort of thing we plan ahead of time.\"\n\n\"This is precise work. I'm not certain I can be trusted to perform it in such unsteady conditions.\"\n\n\"Spend a few years on an airship and you'll do just fine at it. I've dosed burn-slow with saltpeter quite precisely in the middle of a storm without much mishap.\"\n\nShe glanced to the equipment, then at the jar. \"If you follow my instructions very carefully, do you believe you can perform the elements of this experiment that will require precise dexterity?\"\n\n\"That raises a few questions.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Can you trust me with that goop that you seem to value more than life itself, and can I trust you not to attempt anything regrettable while I am occupied with your instructions?\"\n\n\"You are concerned about me doing something to you? You people are the infamous ones!\"\n\nGunner looked at her flatly. \"Ignoring the simple fact that self-defense would be my aim in your position, just what sort of a reputation do you suppose you folk have among us in the mountains?\"\n\n\"Whatever do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, they had you secreted far from reality, eh? Where do we start with this procedure?\"\n\nShe huffed. \"Light the burner and half fill the kettle with distilled water. And while you're at it, explain what you meant by that childish little jab.\"\n\nHe measured out the water. \"I suppose it comes as a surprise to you, but being in a stranglehold is something we above the fug aren't terribly fond of. It's led us to develop quite a grudge while you sit in your little hole and reap the fruits of our labors.\"\n\n\"We reap the fruits of your labors. The life you've all chosen to live wouldn't be possible without the products of our innovation. You should count yourself lucky that we have been able to hone our skills sufficiently to keep you supplied.\"\n\n\"And in exchange you charge ruinous prices and take every step necessary to keep us from producing any of these precious supplies or even maintaining our own ships. Are we raising this to a boil?\"\n\n\"No, no. Just below. Put in the thermometer. I'll tell you when,\" she said quickly. \"Your crew is evidence enough of why it is crucial we don't share our technology with you. Look at the recklessness and cruelty you are capable of with even the scraps of our knowledge. There are so few of us and so many of you, in order for there to be any semblance of a balance of power we must exert some level of control.\"\n\n\"Is that how you justify it? Did you come up with that on your own, or do they teach that in schools?\"\n\n\"And what of your rigid and nonsensical claims of victimhood? Are they a product of your education? \u2026 Just a bit more and then ready the pipette. You'll be putting in one small drop.\"\n\n\"You control the flow of vital materials and happily let whole cities wither and die if they cannot meet your prices. Are you going to tell me that we should be kissing your feet for your graciousness?\"\n\nShe unscrewed the lid and presented the jar to him, squinting as it once again chased the fug from the room. \"Quickly. These fumes are as unpleasant for me as the fug is for you.\"\n\nHe dosed out the drops under her watchful gaze. The moment the pipette was free, she clamped the lid back on and the fug began to seep back in.\n\n\"You can stir it a bit, then remove the thermometer and clamp on the kettle lid with all valves shut. We'll check the smallest relief valve once with each notch on the pressure gauge. Phlogiston should come first. Standard samples will bear it at the third notch. \u2026 Good. For now we wait. And while I'll admit your existence, as you've described it, does seem rather unpleasant, your record utterly ignores the unfathomable misfortune we've experienced in the fug.\"\n\n\"And what misfortune is that?\"\n\n\"Really now\u2026 we experienced the calamity.\"\n\n\"So did we!\"\n\n\"No. You observed the calamity. We experienced it. Granted, few of us remember it, but ours were the cities laid low by the arrival of the fug. The people taken by the rolling clouds of fug did not merely vanish, you know\u2026 Those cities may be empty now, but not in the beginning. Open the valve now, just slightly.\"\n\nHe did as she suggested, to very little effect. From the sour expression and the scrunch of her nose, she could smell something that wasn't making it through his mask, but no sign of phlogiston.\n\n\"Close it up again. It seems your ichor is indeed different. It might be a shade more difficult to process. I don't suppose you've got any masks to spare. The fumes are rather strong right now.\"\n\nGunner wordlessly fetched a mask from a hook beside the entrance and handed it to her.\n\n\"You say you don't remember the calamity?\"\n\n\"Before my time,\" she said.\n\n\"Stands to reason. It was hundreds of years ago, after all. I know you fug folk are long lived, but surely not that long lived.\"\n\n\"It has actually been one hundred forty-nine years since the calamity. The sesquicentennial is in a few months. And though I say it is before my time, it is by no means beyond the lifetime of the bulk of our populace. I just happen to be a part of the very small second generation of fug folk. \u2026 The pressure is rising quickly. Let's test that valve again.\"\n\nHe twisted the valve and was rewarded with a lance of brilliant green as phlogiston hissed from the nozzle.\n\n\"Ah, excellent, wonderful,\" Dr. Prist crowed.\n\nShe very carefully secured the jar to the table beneath one of the convenient leather straps scattered about its surface, then slipped a small pad and pencil from a fold of her dress and took note.\n\n\"We'll twist the valve a bit until the pressure stays steady. Bleed off the phlogiston and then close the valve again for the next step.\"\n\nIt was a delicate adjustment, but Gunner did so rather easily. \"So it's true then. You fug folk are indeed formerly human.\"\n\n\"Of course we are! What did you think? We crawled out of a hole one day?\"\n\n\"Have you been talking to Coop? I'd rather assumed you were altered by the fug, but I'm a bit more academic than many of the people of Rim. Crawling out of a hole is one of the kinder theories in ready circulation. But if most of the residents of the fug are somehow still alive since the calamity, then why do you claim most don't remember it?\"\n\n\"Get a beaker ready for this next stage, and a tube. You'll want to collect the result, or at least prevent it from leaking everywhere. And the transition from human to fug person is not a gentle one. Most suffered the same unpleasant fate as any of you might experience if left to the mercy of the fug without your masks. Even for those of us who survive, the physical changes are quite painful, withering our physiques in some cases, enhancing them in others, and altering our complexions. The change is deeply debilitating, rendering many unable to care for themselves for days or weeks in the worst case. But as you've no doubt noticed, there are mental alterations as well. Many of us have had our intellects vastly enhanced, and that alteration is no less destructive.\n\n\"In the worst case, people were left wholly without memory. Many had to relearn the language. Most were merely stripped of their experiential memory. They were left to rediscover who they were, forgetting even their names. More than a few succumbed to madness. Only a handful has any memory at all their time before the fug. It was eventually decided that a line should be drawn before the fug and after. The first generation chose new names, laid their old lives to rest. If you ever find yourself visiting Fugtown without vandalism or thievery in mind, you might visit the western edge of town. The three graveyards. The first, filled to capacity, marks the resting place of those taken by the calamity. The third is where the current residents are inhumed when they pass. The second is filled with empty graves bearing the original names of those who formed the local first generation. It is really quite a haunting place.\"\n\nGunner looked at the chemist. Her eyes had a distant, introspective look he'd never seen in a fug person.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said. \"The pressure is just about right. The beaker please, Mister\u2026 heavens, we've not been introduced either. Gunner, was it?\"\n\n\"Guy von Cleef. Gunner certainly for preference.\"\n\n\"The beaker, quickly, Mr. von Cleef. And keep it away from the burner. What comes out next is what we call 'pyrum.' It is what makes burn-slow burn, and in its unaltered state it isn't nearly so gradual in its combustion.\"\n\nIt took two more notches on the pressure gauge before a gray vapor worked its way down the tube, condensing along the way into a hazy liquid that seemed to be thinner than water. The vapor tapered off after just a few seconds, producing no more than a few drops of the stuff.\n\n\"That's a very good yield,\" she said. \"It appears your ichor source will have proportionately greater pyrum-to-phlogiston ratio, at least by a small amount. You'll want to be very careful with that. It is exceptionally volatile.\"\n\nHe held it up to the glow of his phlo-light, suddenly quite interested. \"Really now. We shall have to discuss that in greater detail.\"\n\nAfter fetching a rubber stopper and stowing the beaker safely, he turned to her again. \"So I suppose that is all?\"\n\n\"No. Two more steps. There's a final gaseous product, and then there are the solids, which should be left behind. Based on the variances we've observed, I believe two more pressure notches will be necessary before we see the final product. If so, that's very good news. It is a wider margin, which will greatly reduce the precision necessary to extract the primary products without triggering the production of the third.\"\n\n\"When we were recruited for this ichor well scheme, only phlogiston and burn-slow were listed as products of ichor. You're suggesting there are others?\"\n\n\"Indeed, but you'd never know it from the way the South Pyre team treats the process. One is treated as though it isn't a product at all, and the solids are generally discarded as unwanted byproducts. I understand they are reluctant to part with even a fraction of the products, despite the fact we've already seen three valuable medicines come from processing these 'byproducts.' Knowing the wonders achieved by the other ichor products, it is criminal not to fully explore the chemically complex remnants of the primary reactions.\"\n\n\"Knowing what I know of fug folk\u2014which in light of present conversation is a good deal less than I thought\u2014I suspect it is yet another form of information control.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by that?\"\n\n\"I'd never heard of ichor before this ridiculous enterprise. No real surprise, since you fug folk would prefer we didn't know anything about what goes on below the surface. So your South Pyre people jealously guarding the contents of their kettles for fear of the rest of you learning too much of their business makes sense.\"\n\n\"You believe we would hide that sort of thing from each other?\"\n\n\"\u2026 You were as good as held prisoner in an academy.\"\n\n\"My expertise is rare, and I was sequestered to ensure the safety of the knowledge.\"\n\n\"If one is frightened information is likely to be lost, it is safer to share that information, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"If the information was generally known, it would be far more likely that it would slip from our fingers and into those of the surface dwellers. And we've already discussed the wisdom of keeping secrets from you.\"\n\n\"Believe that if you like. But tell me, what do you know about inspectors?\"\n\n\"Inspectors? Oh. Those little creatures. They\u2026 tap on things. Check for rot and such. Why would you ask?\" she said, her confusion at the question clearly genuine.\n\n\"No reason,\" he said.\n\n\"Remove the tube now and get ready to open the valve fully and stifle the burner. You'll want to keep your hands away from the opening as well.\"\n\nOn her mark, he twisted the valve. A jet of dense purple gas escaped with terrific force. The blast, thanks to its ferocity, was brief, but the residual cloud of the stuff that billowed and mixed with the haze around them was unmistakable.\n\n\"That was fug,\" he said sharply\n\n\"Yes. And it was produced precisely at the point I'd predicted. Once the kettle cools, you'll want to\u2014\"\n\n\"You're telling me that fug is a product of ichor.\"\n\n\"Yes. Clearly. What do you suppose caused the calamity?\" she said matter-of-factly as she scribbled down some notes.\n\nGunner snatched her pencil. \"You know how the calamity happened?\"\n\n\"Well, as I've said, no one who survived has any memory of it, and there were no survivors near the event itself, but we've determined what happened, certainly. As we've seen here, ichor renders into its different products at different temperatures. The second, pyrum, burns at a very high temperature. At some point, something must have heated the surface of the ichor enough to generate pyrum, which then ignited, producing a continuous reaction. That's why it is called South Pyre. It still burns to this day, producing a constant flow of both phlogiston and fug, and fueling its own flame with pyrum. We harvest the former, of course, and bottle it for utilization and sale.\"\n\n\"How difficult would it be to cause that to occur at the new ichor well?\"\n\n\"It depends upon how exposed it is, but dropping a gas lantern or a hot coal would probably be enough.\"\n\n\"And what would happen if this second well were to ignite?\"\n\n\"It depends on the size, but likely there would be an exceptional increase in fug production. It would probably raise the fug level a few hundred feet.\"\n\n\"There are dozens of towns that are a few hundred feet from the average level.\"\n\n\"I don't think there is much to worry about. If the well hasn't ignited naturally by now, I can't imagine there is much risk.\"\n\n\"A whole team, including two members of our crew, is on their way to set up the beginnings of a facility there. It will be steam powered, and thus there will be plenty of fire.\"\n\n\"A bit of care is all it takes to avoid an ignition.\"\n\n\"They won't know to take care. And I'm not convinced ignition isn't the aim of some of the people involved.\"\n\n\"Mr. von Cleef, we are not monsters.\"\n\n\"Maybe not as a rule, but as an exception? There are always monsters. And this one needs only light a match and toss it in a hole to murder thousands. A simple lunatic would do that as a lark. And you people actually have a proper reason to do it, since it would expand your holdings.\"\n\n\"You're suggesting my people might justify the senseless destruction of dozens of your cities.\"\n\n\"You not having been to the surface much, you wouldn't know it, but ever since our run-in with the dreadnought, there's been a change. There are those who feel as though we made the devil bleed that day. You've all locked things firmly down, done your best to remind us you're the ones calling the shots, but plenty of our people have come to view you as a bit toothless. If this new well could help you expand your realm just that much more and prove once and for all that your hands are always about our throats, I don't doubt there are those among you who would gladly take the opportunity.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Without agreeing with you, I will allow that it is probably best if we reach your people as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"Yes. We're talking to the captain. Now.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 45",
+                "text": "\"This is turning out to be an awful long five minutes, Kent,\" Lil said, her pistol still pointed resolutely at the explosives.\n\n\"Just a few moments more! Just look how thick the fug's gotten.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. You're sure good at excuses. You planning to make excuses for whoever it was tried to kill us too? That what passes for a lawyer in the fug? Fella who makes up the best excuses. \u2026 Though I suppose that's what passes for a lawyer in our parts too\u2026\"\n\n\"I knew it was a mistake getting these people involved!\" barked one of the other fug folk. \"They're madmen, the lot of them!\"\n\n\"Hey!\" Lil snapped. \"I'm a madwoman, thanks very much.\"\n\n\"You don't think she's actually going to let us live, do you? These people aren't heroes! They're just lunatics who want to kill as many fug folk as possible. If they weren't on Skykeep when it went down, they'd have let it smash into the ground with all of us!\"\n\nLil glanced wearily to Kent. \"You fixin' to make excuses for him too? Because he's doing a fine job of making me think he might've been in on rigging the gun.\"\n\n\"She's just one woman! If one of us tackles her, we can get the gun away from her before she fires, and then she's done for!\"\n\n\"You better be awful sure about that,\" Lil said, lowering the pistol to touch the lid of the crate of explosives. \"Seein' how things'll go for you if you're wrong.\"\n\n\"Look, just look!\" Kent urged.\n\nAhead, the train of cargo carts pulled by the foremost of their convoy wholly vanished into a wall of fug too thick to see through. Lil grinned.\n\n\"Looks like it's about to get dark,\" she said, raising an eyebrow. The corners of her eyes crinkled with an unseen grin, and she glanced to the jumpiest of the fug folk in the cart. \"Guess this is your chance coming up. If you've got the nerve.\"\n\nTheir cart trundled onward, rattling across the ground. The chemical chill of the fug-drenched air grew stronger. Even having had to endure it for days, the potency of the sensation was almost more than Lil could bear. Her eyes began to sting, but she tugged at the strap for her goggles with her free hand and kept her gaze trained on the fugger who seemed all-too-eager to see her blink.\n\nTotal darkness swept across the cart. The fug was so thick now that the phlo-light may as well have been extinguished. Over the hiss of the engine and the clatter of the wheels, she could just hear the sound of someone scrambling across the cargo toward her. As mad as the fug folk believed her to be, Lil wasn't interested in blowing herself to pieces if it could be avoided. As her mind was well suited to split-second strategic brilliance, she instead skipped the pesky \"planning\" stage and simply acted on intuition. She dropped to her back, flattening against the uneven cargo. From the sound of his scrambling, her would-be assailant couldn't see any better than she could.\n\nA boot came down heavily upon her midsection. It was more of a misplaced step than a kick, but it was still more than enough to knock the wind from her. She wrapped her free arm around the leg and rolled sharply to the side, overbalancing the blindly flailing fugger. He cried out and pitched over, tumbling off the edge of the cart. If she'd not held tight, he would almost certainly have dropped between their cart and the ones trailing and fallen victim to a not-entirely-undeserved fate. Instead she kept her grip, and he instead struck the barbed-wire-topped railing. It was unpleasant, but at least not fatal.\n\nThe chill of the fug dropped away, and the green of their light rushed in again. It seemed brighter than before, though Lil was a bit preoccupied with the struggling attacker dangling off the wall of the cart. It wasn't until she considered pulling the mask from her face to give the man a bite on the calf that she realized how clear the air was. The Well Digger at the controls pulled a sharp left, clearing the path for Nita's cart, and released the pressure in the engine until his whole cargo train rolled to a stop.\n\nLil let go of the leg she'd been holding, dropping her hapless opponent to the ground, where he yelped painfully and uttered a few choice words.\n\n\"Oh, stifle it. You earned that and more,\" Lil said.\n\nShe raised her goggles to find the anticipated stinging sensation absent and took in her new surroundings. The place was\u2026 bizarre. A dome of dense purple fog hung over them, several hundred yards in diameter and a few dozen yards tall. Stiff wind deformed and stirred the very edge of the clearing, but for the most part it was a safe and stable shelter from the toxic fumes. The trees here were enormous, even compared to those in the densest parts of The Thicket. Their growth was unnatural, somehow. The trucks were thin and extremely long, relatively free of branches except for at the very tops where they vanished into the clouds of fug. Stubbier undergrowth\u2014bushes and other brush\u2014increased sharply in both quantity and hardiness the closer to the center they grew. Around the middle it was an uninterrupted mass of purple leaves and maroon thorns. At the very center, however, there was no brush and not a single tree. Instead the thick thorn-vines curled downward and dangled into a pit almost ten yards across. From Lil's vantage she could only see the opposite edge of the pit, but that was enough for her to notice the golden light that dimly smoldered within.\n\n\"Well heck. There's a well after all,\" she said.\n\nLil hesitantly put her fingers to the bit of cord that had been used to repair her mask and undid the knot, letting the breathing apparatus slide away from her mouth. Instead of the searing bite of fug-laden air, the experimental breath she took was clean and pure. Ichor did an astounding job of chasing away the fug. Even the residual vapor that clung to their clothes whenever they surfaced out of the fug was visibly streaming toward the edge of the dome, forming thin threads of purple that curled from every surface and every person until the last of the fug was gone.\n\nThe deckhand treated herself to three deep and cleansing breaths, reveling in the simple joy of filling her lungs without having to drag the air through a complex filtering system. For the first time since they'd dipped down from the surface for this mission, she smelled something besides the fumes that made it through her mask. The foliage had a sickly sweet smell, syrupy and cloying. And then there was the ichor. She'd gotten a tiny whiff during the demonstration, but this was different. It was a spicy aroma, and warm. It reminded Lil a bit of when Butch would make rum cake and fill the galley with the potent scent of the high-proof booze she reserved for the purpose. It was pleasant in its way, though the smell was somewhat tempered by its intermingling with the smell of a dozen hardworking fug folk and humans who had not had a proper bath for the better part of a week.\n\nShe blinked tears from her eyes. They weren't tears of emotion, but rather an attempt by her body to take full advantage of the comparatively clean air to wash away the lingering effects of the fug. When her vision was restored, she found all six of the fug folk from her cart staring at her uncertainly, and a handful from other carts had begun to gather. For her, having a pistol in her hand and having one or more people nearby who had clearly been at the receiving end of a well-deserved tumble was nothing unusual, but the Well Diggers did not share that opinion. Words filtered in harsh whispers between those men on her cart and the ones from others.\n\n\"Now, now, now. Before your buddies start telling fibs about what's been going on, let me lay it plain,\" Lil announced. \"You all saw and heard what happened there. Near as I can figure, someone decided they were sick of us and wanted to feed us to the critters in the forest, so they rigged up some ammo that'd jam our gun and make us real interesting to that big ugly thing we just shot up. Didn't work, no thanks to most of you, but I'm a mite peeved at the attempt anyhow. Now if these boys here are to be believed, Branca was the one who handed out the ammo.\"\n\nLil squinted and swept her eyes across the fug folk assembled before her. The potential culprit caught her eye as she tried to step behind a crewmate.\n\n\"There she is,\" Lil said brightly, pointing her pistol and beginning to stride forward.\n\nThe fug folk in her line of fire wisely separated, leaving Branca to back uncertainly against the cart behind her.\n\n\"I-I don't know what you think happened, but you're wrong.\"\n\n\"Am I now?\" Lil asked, getting closer. \"Funny because I'm pretty sure that gun started screeching like a banshee right about halfway through the belt of ammo you handed us. And then a big ball of fur and teeth tried to make a snack of me for being so close to the sound. You telling me I was daydreaming all that?\"\n\n\"It was a mistake! An honest mistake!\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure about that,\" called a voice from the edge of the fug-free area.\n\nAll eyes but Lil's turned to the source. As the final member of the convoy, Nita had guided her lightly loaded, moderately damaged cart inside. While Lil had been sampling the air and making her accusations, Nita had been busy with other tasks. She hopped down from the cart with a clattering bundle of canvas and metal under one arm and a single spike in the other hand.\n\n\"It's a tube fl\u00e9chette. This weighs a third what the other spikes do, and they come in special sabots to allow them to fire. I can't imagine anyone loading an ammo belt could make that mistake.\"\n\n\"These things are loaded by machines! From a hopper!\" said Branca, hands up and eyes wide as Lil backed her against the cart behind her. \"Someone could have just tossed the wrong sort of spike in the bin. Simple as that! How could I have known it happened? It was just bad luck that you got the defective belt.\"\n\n\"So how do you explain this?\" Nita asked.\n\nShe tossed the ammo belt on the ground between Lil and Branca. A large star, drawn in yellow chalk, marked the leading end of the belt.\n\n\"That doesn't prove anything! What does a star prove?\"\n\n\"Huh,\" Lil said, looking at the mark. \"Silly me, didn't think twice about that when I loaded up this morning.\"\n\n\"I wonder if any of the other belts have stars,\" Nita said.\n\nBranca glanced back and forth. If she was hoping to see one of the other fuggers rise to her defense, she was sorely disappointed. None of the other Well Diggers seemed happy about what was going on, certainly, but a distinct tone of confusion and suspicion was beginning to color their faces. Kent in particular was glaring at her.\n\n\"Stark, go fetch the other ammo crates, will you?\"\n\n\"You aren't taking their word for this, are you?\" Branca said.\n\n\"No, I'm not taking their word. I'm checking for myself,\" Kent said. \"That make you nervous?\"\n\n\"These are bandits! Maniacs!\"\n\n\"Yeah, but you knew that going into this mess,\" Lil said. She looked to the others. \"She have anything to say against it before?\"\n\n\"You weren't pointing a gun at me, accusing me of being a traitor before!\" Branca countered.\n\nThe fug man Kent called Stark dropped a half-empty case of fl\u00e9chette belts on the ground, startling Branca. Fortunately for her, Lil wasn't so quick to flinch or the deckhand might have pulled the trigger. He popped the lid off and began to dig through, piling belt after belt on the ground. None were similarly marked. When the case was empty, he slid another crate from the back of a cart. This one had its lid askew, and the contents were churned up and poorly packed. After clearing the disorderly top layer, he revealed a second layer with only one belt missing. Beside the empty spot were two more belts marked with the same star. He selected one and unfurled it across the ground. One spike stuck out like a sore thumb. He tugged it free to reveal a matching hollow tube, loaded backward and without a sabot.\n\nLil looked Branca in the eye. \"Another rigged belt, and tucked away in a separate box so no one else gets it by mistake? You better get real creative with this excuse.\"\n\nBranca glanced about again. Now the suspicion was plastered across each and every face.\n\n\"Come to think of it,\" Kent said, \"you made quite a fuss about being the one in charge of the ammo when we were dividing up the jobs\u2026\"\n\n\"I don't have to explain myself to you people!\" Branca snapped.\n\n\"If I do what I'm itching to do, you won't have to explain anything to anyone ever again, fugger,\" Lil rumbled, pressing her gun into the traitor's ribs.\n\n\"Lil,\" Kent interjected, \"I know you want to shoot her, and I'm not so sure she doesn't deserve it, but you putting a hole in one of us is liable to make things tense from here on, and there's plenty more work to be done. Seeing as how that squirrel that attacked you isn't too far off, and it isn't the only one, do you think you can hold off on this bit until we've got camp laid out a little better?\"\n\nLil didn't take her gun or her eyes off Branca. \"Did you say that critter was a squirrel? I thought it was a sort of a fancy bear or some such.\"\n\n\"No, no. That was a squirrel,\" Kent said. \"At least, that's what you get when you pitch a squirrel into the fug near an ichor well, I suppose.\"\n\n\"You don't want to see what the fug does to a bear\u2026\" Stark added, eyes distant and voice wavering like he was at that moment reliving his last such encounter.\n\n\"\u2026 Yeah, I'd say we ought to get some walls up,\" Lil said, sagely. \"After we get this traitor here tied up so she don't get up to any more mischief.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 46",
+                "text": "\"This fella sure does like his name,\" observed Coop as he ransacked the inside of the stolen ship.\n\nThrough a complex sequence of lashings and unlashings, Gunner and Coop had lowered Alabaster's gondola and aligned its crew hatch roughly with their own. They'd then slung a rope ladder between the two and had been transferring anything of value into their own cargo area. A few feet of frigid wind separated the two vessels, but that didn't seem to bother Coop in the slightest, nor Gunner, who was observing from the cargo hold/gig room/Nita's quarters.\n\n\"He's got handkerchiefs and pads of paper with his name. His pens all have his name. He's got it on the desk here. You'd think he was afraid he'd forget,\" Coop continued.\n\n\"You've got more important jobs than criticizing the man's obvious egotism and narcissism,\" Gunner called from above.\n\n\"I ain't doing none of that. I'm saying the man's full of himself is all.\"\n\n\"Yes. I see. Entirely different.\"\n\n\"Ain't you supposed to be watching that doctor we snagged?\"\n\n\"She and Lester are having a chat with the captain. To the woman's credit, she seems rather reasonable for a fug person.\"\n\n\"I think she's just got the same sort of mind as Nita's got.\"\n\n\"And what exactly do you mean by that?\"\n\n\"Just that once she starts to sink her teeth into something, she's liable to forget the bits around it that she don't like.\"\n\nA loud smash rang out from within the gondola.\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\n\"He had glass doors on this one cabinet here. What sort of fella puts glass doors on a cabinet in an airship?\"\n\n\"I would imagine the same sort who would emblazon his name on the side of a stark-white ship.\"\n\n\"Hang on\u2026 I got a big black book here. Leather and that fancy gold stuff on the edge. The first page says\u2026 ask\u2026 ask-end\u2026 it's got lots of big, long words.\"\n\n\"Give it to me,\" Gunner said, bending down.\n\nCoop heaved himself up to sit on the edge of the hatch and handed the thick volume up to Gunner. It was indeed a rather elegant tome. At a glance one might have imagined it was a holy book, or perhaps the registry at a particularly fine hotel. Gunner flipped to the first page and began to read aloud. \"'Ascendancy Toward Greatness: An Autobiographical Record of the Rise of Lucius P. Alabaster.'\"\n\n\"What's that mean?\"\n\n\"It's his personal journal.\"\n\n\"Why didn't he just write that?\"\n\n\"Because the man clearly appreciates pointlessly flaunting his academia at every opportunity.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah? I s'pose that's the sort of thing they teach to college types.\"\n\n\"What are you implying?\"\n\n\"That you and him like to point out to regular folk that they're regular folk and you ain't. What's the book say?\"\n\n\"It's\u2026 rather voluminous. There are dates at the top of each entry.\" He flipped through several dozen pages entirely covered with thin, sprawling script. \"The last entry is from yesterday morning. \u2026 'A thought occurs. As I endure the grueling final hours of this interminable flight toward Fadewell Academy and the first public evidence of my genius, I realize that, though impeccable in both taste and presentation, the power of this vessel leaves something to be desired. If I recall correctly, and naturally my unaccountable brilliance comes part and parcel with flawless recollection, the Wind Breaker is said to be quite ably equipped for swift voyage. As enticing as it is to retain its broken husk as a trophy signifying my great conquest when the plan reaches fruition, perhaps I would be better served to lay claim to it, and to embark upon my well-earned celebrity and simultaneously famous and infamous endeavors riding atop the very chariot that once conveyed\u2026'\"\n\nGunner flipped ahead. \"The man takes three pages to say he wants to steal the Wind Breaker.\"\n\n\"Is that what he was working at? With all that talk of trophies and husks I couldn't make heads or tails of it all.\"\n\n\"I think we've got what we need here. The good news is, the man's ego is such that he couldn't help but brag to himself about what a genius he is.\" He flipped through a few more pages. \"The bad news is, he's clearly got the money to make himself a thorn in our sides, and he's long-winded enough that finding anything useful in this is going to be agony. Get up here. We've got to get this up to the captain. There's no doubt, whatever this is, the whole ichor well fiasco was a plan of which we were a part.\"\n\n\"Hold on. I found where he keeps his booze,\" Coop said.\n\n\"This is more important than alcohol, Coop.\"\n\n\"It's two-hunnerd-year-old Caer Agathi Special Reserve. Three whole bottles and most of another.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Bring it along, but hurry up. I'll meet you on deck.\"\n\nGunner turned and headed for the door. Despite the cramped corridors and dim lights, he knew the ship well enough to navigate it with barely a glance up from the pages of the book he held before him. He tried to read quickly, skimming across the page to pluck out the useful information buried in self-aggrandizing and purple prose. Names and locations began to emerge, but most were meaningless to him.\n\nWhen the fug had claimed the lowlying cities, it wiped away their names along with their people. He could look at an old map and see a hundred hamlets and towns with names he knew from the history books, but most of those places had since been renamed or utterly forgotten. One of the many things they'd liberated some months ago during their heist at a Fugtown warehouse had been a small stack of maps, but he'd not bothered to learn the names. Foolishly he'd believed his business within the fug was through. And even if he'd memorized the geography beneath the purple haze, the less he knew about the people, the happier he was. In the beginning it was out of raw hatred of their cruelty and control. Since then he'd learned there were a precious few fug folk who actually behaved decently, but that only encouraged him to work even harder at ignoring them. The only thing worse than having a race of people you universally hate is knowing that there are some of them who haven't earned that hate.\n\nJust as he reached the top of the last set of stairs and stepped out into the whipping wind of the deck, he found a phrase he'd been hoping for. There, with three underlines and six exclamation points, was a simple sentence: They've found a new ichor well!\n\n\"Captain!\" Gunner called. \"We've got something.\"\n\n\"It better be something that can point me in a direction a mite more useful than 'north,'\" the captain called without looking.\n\nCaptain Mack was standing, as always, at the helm. Lester and Dr. Prist were standing before him. The captain's chivalry had clearly gotten the better of him, as his heavy leather coat now hung about the shoulders of the doctor. He must have been freezing, but to look at his face one would think he'd simply browbeaten the cold wind into leaving him alone.\n\n\"That remains to be seen,\" Gunner said, joining them at the helm. \"This Lucius P. Alabaster seems to have kept a journal of his plans.\"\n\n\"Not coded or anything?\"\n\n\"No. I've only spent a minute or two reading his entries, but I'm already convinced the idiot would never have imagined he'd be caught. He's such a blowhard, finding anything useful is going to be a chore, but he certainly knows about the ichor well. According to the date, he's known about it since before we took down Skykeep.\"\n\nDr. Prist pulled the coat a bit tighter and furrowed her brow. \"I don't understand. Wasn't that months ago?\"\n\n\"Yes it was,\" Gunner said.\n\n\"Then he's had ample time to inform the phlogiston industry of it, or, failing that, to do as the Well Diggers of yours are hoping to do and claim it for his own. Why wouldn't he have acted immediately?\"\n\n\"The only thing I care about right now is where our people are and who they ought to be watching out for,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"I'm reading as quickly as I can, Captain,\" Gunner said. \"Let me see\u2026 '\u2026unaccountable brilliance of my machinations\u2026 golden bait awaiting a trap to be fashioned and sprung'\u2026 Ah! 'If these imbeciles are to be believed, navigation within The Thicket is not conducive to determining locations with precision. Even less so than in the rest of the fug. They say they could easily find the well again, but giving coordinates sufficient to send airships for proper development and commerce will require a well-financed expedition of several months, or a means to send some sort of signal from within the fug, which could be viewed from above. Naturally I have no intention of financing a proper expedition. The size of\u2014'\"\n\n\"If there's a point to this, save your breath and skip to it,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Alabaster seems quite opposed to getting to the point. This may be it. 'Obviously the blood needs to be on someone else's hands. That black sheep of an offshoot of the Ebonwhite clan seems the right mix of administrative and subversive. I shall have those dolts drip-feed him information about the well. He'll no doubt set about claiming it himself. When he finds it, a signal can be sent. That Bludo character seems convinced the well is somewhere along the North Circa to Precipice trade route. I'll arrange some shipments on the appropriate dates, and a signal can be sent to pinpoint the place.'\"\n\n\"North Circa to Precipice is a long route without much payoff. Special orders are just about the only way anyone makes that trip direct.\"\n\n\"Captain, this journal is littered with mentions of us. He is obsessed. The only name that comes up more often than Wind Breaker in the pages I've read is Ferris Tusk.\"\n\n\"Tusk\u2026 He worships the man, no doubt. The man who crippled the surface\u2026\"\n\n\"In a way\u2026 but it seems more like he's grooming himself to become the new Tusk.\"\n\n\"Wait just one moment,\" Lester said. \"Are you suggesting that somehow this entire enterprise has been orchestrated by some well-heeled manipulator?\"\n\n\"I don't need to suggest it, Lester. It's all right here in his own copious words,\" Gunner said.\n\nThe shivering fug man clenched his fists tightly. \"Blast it! Blast it and confound it! This was to be my moment! My ticket to the life I deserved! It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! I've debased myself and endured the whims of you ruffians for nothing! Nothing at all!\"\n\nHe stomped angrily about the helm, raving about the injustice of it all. Captain Mack cast a weary glance at Dr. Prist.\n\n\"Is this the usual for you folk? Living your life like the world owes you something?\" he asked.\n\n\"It is\u2026 well, if I'm perfectly honest, that particular form of ambition and aspiration is not entirely uncommon among my countrymen. Among the intellectual set and the industry there is a rather firm pressure to succeed and the expectation of success, owing to our frequently superior cognitive skills.\"\n\n\"\u2026 the raw potential, and with my investment savvy and marketing acumen I could have turned it into an empire. We all would have been wealthy! This is an outrage! A tragedy! I\u2014\"\n\n\"Shut it!\" barked Captain Mack. \"I got people down there with folk working for this Alabaster fella. So unless you know a way to help us find where they are, you can clam up, or we're throwing you overboard.\"\n\nLester's mouth hung open briefly, but he wisely chose to forgo further comment.\n\n\"There's plenty of talk of traps and plans levied against us, Captain,\" said Gunner. \"If we do find the well, the chances are good we'll be walking into something.\"\n\n\"And now we know that, which gives us a leg up. You keep reading that book. Maybe you can find out what he's got in store. But before you do, go check the guns. I want grape shot in all of them, and get the valves set to feed these deck guns. Once you're through, get Lester to help go through that book. Since he seems so angry about Alabaster, maybe the chance to foil his plans will get him to stop moping.\"\n\nLester broke in: \"Oh yes, I assure you, even if it means memorizing every last word in that book and reciting it back to you, I shall find a way to prevent this opportunist from snatching away the well that would make me my fortune.\"\n\nGunner, visibly irritated with once again being saddled with Lester, led the furious fug man below decks. Along the way he passed Coop, who was on his way back up.\n\n\"I miss anything good, Cap'n?\" Coop asked.\n\n\"Alabaster knows about the well. Everything with the Well Diggers is his doing. Bludo's one of his men.\"\n\n\"Is he? Glad I got some slugs in during that brawl then.\"\n\n\"More like than not we're heading into a trap, so I want your eyes open, and be ready to unload them guns into anything that looks like it means us mischief.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n,\" Coop said.\n\nThe deckhand hurried off to his own assignment, leaving Dr. Prist with the captain.\n\n\"This is all\u2026 rather unfortunate.\"\n\n\"Nothing we didn't expect going into it. Ain't never had a deal with you folk go another way than this.\"\n\n\"I feel obliged to defend my race. But at present I am rather at a loss for how to do so.\"\n\n\"Don't trouble yourself on my account. I been alive long enough to know every rule gets broke from time to time. Just because most fug folk we meet'd sooner put a leash around our necks and start yelling commands don't mean you're the same.\"\n\n\"If you don't mind me asking, what is your plan for me now?\"\n\n\"I ain't lost hope that this well plan can't be salvaged, and you're a part of that. If things go sour\u2026 so long as you don't give us reason to feel different, I can see clear to dropping you wherever you want to go, within reason.\"\n\nShe paused and crossed her arms, causing the coat to crinkle and shift. \"This has been a rather unique experience thus far. On one hand, you and the rest of your crew have lived up to my expectations. You are crude and brusque. You are violent and impulsive. But on the other hand you aren't what I'd imagined at all. In your own way you're\u2026 almost gentlemanly. And even if you are rough around the edges, there is a cleverness to even the slowest among you.\"\n\n\"That's giving Coop a bit more credit than he deserves, I reckon. But you never met a finer deckhand. And his sister's just as good. You ain't met her yet. By now she's at the well. Either in a trap, on her way into a trap, or on her way out of one, if things are going the way the seem to be.\"\n\n\"That von Cleef fellow, the man you call Gunner\u2014he's actually rather brilliant, in a deranged sort of way.\"\n\n\"Not brilliant enough to keep all his fingers.\"\n\n\"Having caught a glimpse of the concoctions he's devised, I'd say the fact that he's kept his head is rather a surprise. In my university days, they referred to that 'burn-fast' explosive he's so fond of as 'the devil's candle.' I believe my instructor called it 'entirely theoretical' and 'not a theory worth pursuing for those wishing to avoid an early grave.'\"\n\n\"Gunner's never been one to let good sense get in the way of a good explosive.\"\n\n\"Rather an admirable trait. At a distance. If not for the fact you'd likely use them against my own people, I'd actually be intrigued to collaborate with him. He's a stubborn, wrongheaded brute, but he's got some interesting ideas about oxidizers.\" She cleared her throat. \"I understand the two women who went on the well expedition\u2026 one of them is the Calderan?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I've heard some rumors about her.\"\n\n\"Seems you folk spend a lot of time jawing about us.\"\n\n\"They say she's the one who fixes your engine. I'm no engineer, but from the glimpses I've seen, she's been keeping your ship in good repair.\"\n\n\"Not to offend, Doctor, but I ain't one for idle chitchat. Especially not when I'm at the wheel. And especially not about a woman who could end up dead if we don't figure out how to get to her.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. Perhaps I can offer my observations in hopes of solving the puzzle of finding the well. On general principle, I would prefer if your people weren't killed, but more selfishly the concrete discovery of the well\u2014and keeping it out of the hands of the industry\u2014is more or less my only chance of working with ichor personally.\"\n\n\"If you've got ideas, I'm all ears.\"\n\n\"Let us see\u2026 the fug density effect at the threshold of its repulsion would render it little more than a dense cloud of purple from above. Perhaps if it was in a field and the sun were particularly bright, that would make it easily visible from afar, but in The Thicket it would blend quite well with the foliage. Simply looking would do no good. \u2026 Alabaster's plan was for those within to signal passing airships. I imagine it is the sound of the airship that would prompt them to trigger whatever flare or other signal they might have in mind. Do you think if you were to pass, they would simply signal you?\"\n\n\"Could be. Of course, could be them girls already worked out what's what and took care of the people who were going to do the signaling. If they did it quick enough, they might not know to send the signal. And even if they did know that was the plan, they wouldn't do it. Keeping the well a secret until it's properly defended is a part of the plan.\"\n\n\"Ah\u2026 yes. Oddly, if they succeed in their task, it would make your task more difficult. A pity then that it can't work the other way 'round. You signaling them somehow. Of course, that's preposterous to suggest. You'd need to know where to signal them, you'd need a means to do so. All manner of flaws with that plan.\"\n\nThe captain's usually gruff and impassive face shifted slightly. To Dr. Prist's untrained eye, there was no change at all, but had one of the other members of the crew been present, they would have known it as the moment of epiphany. He reached down and twisted a knob. Machinery above them sputtered and ground to life, pumping additional phlogiston into their envelope and causing the airship to climb steeply.\n\n\"What are you up to?\" Dr. Prist said, gazing curiously at the workings above her.\n\n\"It's darn difficult to do any precise navigation beneath the fug. I've got to surface long enough to get a good look at the sky and work out how to get on that trade route. If we work the turbines hard, we could probably line up on it in half a day. Coop!\"\n\n\"Yeah, Cap'n?\" Coop called back while he fiddled with the valves running to one of the deck guns.\n\n\"Go rouse Wink. He's probably curled up by the boiler.\"\n\n\"Er\u2026\" Coop said, glancing surreptitiously from side to side. \"Who's Wink, Cap'n?\"\n\n\"Just get him,\" the captain barked.\n\n\"Okay, Cap'n. But he might take some convincing, on account of how he knows he don't exist too.\"\n\n\"You tell him he's ordered to report to the deck.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Wink? Is there a member of the crew I've not met?\"\n\n\"There is, Doctor. By design, seeing as how you're liable to have some questions I ain't keen on answering once he shows up and starts following orders. But since this is the best idea out of a bad set, I ain't got much in the way of options.\"\n\nThey were climbing quickly now, so much so that Dr. Prist felt her ears pop, and the chill to the air was getting ever sharper. The rigging creaked and protested as the overloaded ship pitched skyward.\n\n\"Captain, please remember we've got Alabaster's ship strapped to our belly,\" said Gunner, his voice echoing through the speaking tube. \"We aren't as maneuverable as we might be.\"\n\n\"Gunner, that ain't near the worst part of what I've got planned, so save your advice until you know the lot of it,\" Captain Mack said.\n\nAmid the groan of struggling turbines and torquing struts, a light skittering sound approached. Wink appeared as if from nowhere, hopping up onto the support for the ship's wheel and casting a distrustful glance at Dr. Prist.\n\n\"Oh my! Is that\u2026 is that an inspector? Heavens, they said you killed yours.\"\n\n\"Seems you're learning not to believe everything you hear, Doctor,\" the captain said. \"Wink, about how close do we need to be for Nikita to hear you doing your tapping?\"\n\nNikita on a ship and Wink on a ship, Nikita could heard from very far. Nikita not on a ship and Wink not on a ship, Nikita could not heard from very far, tapped the creature, its lack of recent practice showing in its stilted wording.\n\n\"You'll be here on the Wind Breaker, tapping on the main pole.\"\n\nCaptain said never tapped on the main pole.\n\n\"Well the cap'n's saying different now. How close for Nikita to hear it?\"\n\n\"Are you\u2026 do you think you are talking to the beast?\" Dr. Prist asked.\n\nMore than feet, less than miles.\n\n\"So a mile then, maybe a bit more.\"\n\nNot much more. And Wink couldn't heard Nikita answer from that far if she didn't tapped on a pole.\n\n\"All right. You get yourself down to Glinda and get yourself a bellyful. You got a long day of tapping to do. When you get back up here, I'll give you the message.\" He leaned down to his speaking tube. \"Glinda, I'm sending Wink down. You give him whatever he wants to eat and plenty of it. And send up something for me. Coffee, too. Ain't much sleep in our future.\"\n\nWink scampered off, leaving Dr. Prist with a puzzled look on her face.\n\n\"What is this all about, Captain?\"\n\n\"I ain't too pleased you saw what you did, but he's going to be drumming away at the main pole there for a day, so it ain't like I'd be able to hide him anymore. That said, I sure ain't going to lay it plain for you. You've got a good head on your shoulders. Shouldn't take you long to work it out.\"\n\nHe leaned low again to the speaking tube. \"Everyone, here's the plan. I let the cat out of the bag with Wink. He's going to be drumming out a message while we trace along a trade route Gunner dug up in Alabaster's book. That's liable to bring us a lot of attention, so everyone be on high alert.\"\n\nButch's unmistakable voice came blaring angrily out of the tube.\n\n\"Well I didn't order you to stay in the galley, now did I? You want an update, talk to Gunner. He's liable to know more than me about the details, him having the book. The important part is, if Wink gets through to Nikita, we can find the girls and warn them. We're mired pretty deep in a scheme, but we been in worse and come out safe. Just everyone keep your eyes and ears open, and don't be shy about pulling any triggers.\"\n\nHe finished his rally call just as the Wind Breaker breached through the top of the fug. Indigo streamers of the toxic gas twisted and pulled away, stripping away the chemical sting from the still-icy air. It was the early hours of dawn, and though the sun wasn't strong in the sky yet, Dr. Prist squinted and shielded her eyes.\n\nThe magnificent vista that served as the call to the sky for so many finally spread out around them once more. To the east the rising sun painted the sky yellow, gold, orange, and red. Above, the color deepened to purple and black, with the moon just slipping from the sky and the brightest of the stars fading. Far to the west and nearer to the north, hints of the mountains that almost perfectly circled the continent could be seen. Tiny lights twinkled there, marking cities clinging to the peaks.\n\n\"My heavens\u2026\" Dr. Prist said, shuffling aside until the shadow of some rigging shaded her somewhat. \"Is this what you endure during your long journeys?\"\n\n\"This is our reward for our life in the air,\" Captain Mack said, slipping the mask from his face to take a long-overdue deep breath.\n\n\"Reward, bah!\" She wavered, dizzy, and put her fingers to her lips. \"Everything is so stark and bright. And so sprawling. I feel adrift. Unanchored. It's\u2026 it's profoundly unsettling. I think I'm going to be ill.\"\n\n\"If you're going to make an offering, do it over the side. Right about now we could use the luck.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't understand\u2026\"\n\n\"An old airship tradition. If the sky's making your head spin, may as well head downstairs and work with Gunner and Lester. We won't be on the surface for long. Then you can have your black skies and toxic soup back.\"\n\nShe nodded and shakily headed for the stairs.\n\n\"If you don't mind, Doctor, leave the coat.\"\n\n\"Oh. Yes, yes certainly. Thank you very much for its use.\"\n\nShe slid the heavy coat from her shoulders and handed it over to the captain, who donned it in between adjustments to his heading. He dug his hand into his pocket and made good use of the fresh air by selecting a brandy-soaked cigar from its tin and striking a match. The way he performed the whole task while still wrangling a ship that was overburdened and lopsided was something akin to a plate spinner hard at work.\n\nCoop reappeared shortly after with a plate of small, dense cakes and a steaming tin cup.\n\n\"Butch had this all ready for you, Cap'n. Sometimes I think she knows what you'll be doing before you do.\"\n\n\"Spend a few years married to someone and they start doing that,\" Mack said.\n\nThe cakes and coffee joined smoking and navigation in his complex juggling of tasks, but none seemed at all impaired by the presence of the others.\n\n\"With that gondola on our belly, we're about nine hours out from the trade route we're after. Another three hours from where that Thicket of theirs starts. If I've got it figured right, it'll be two or three days to cover that whole distance.\"\n\n\"Seems pretty slow, Cap'n,\" Coop said.\n\n\"Strapping another ship to yours'll do that.\"\n\n\"You reckon we ought to cut it off?\"\n\nHe puffed his cigar. \"On one hand, that'd speed us up from here to The Thicket, but it'll take us near six hours to strip it clean. Once we get there, cutting it free won't help much since we'll have to take it slow to give Wink a chance to deliver the message and Nikita the chance to get it back. That and, since this is one of the longer shots we decided to take, we can't afford to cut that ship loose until we've cleaned it out and found every scrap of what it can teach us. And we can't be sure Alabaster ain't the sort who'd bargain away our people for his ship, if they're prisoners by now.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Get all your deep breathing done in a hurry, and get yourself something to eat while you don't need the mask. First glimpse we get of another ship, we're going under.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n.\" He turned to take his leave, but turned back. \"You, uh\u2026 you think Nita and them are okay?\"\n\n\"They survived being locked up together in a prison with a couple dozen fuggers. This ought to be nothing for them.\"\n\nCoop grinned and nodded. \"All the same, maybe next time we gotta split up, we don't put them together. Lil and Nita ain't got very good luck.\"\n\nThe captain gave a noncommittal grunt.\n\n\"Oh, and Cap'n, Butch said you ought to get some sleep.\"\n\n\"Can she keep the Wind Breaker on a straight line down in the fug with a strong crosswind?\"\n\n\"I don't reckon so.\"\n\n\"Can anyone else on this crew?\"\n\n\"No, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Then I'm staying at the wheel. Get your food, Coop.\"\n\n\"Aye, Cap'n.\"\n\nThe captain gulped down the last cake and tugged a simple, well-used pocket watch from his vest. A glance at the time and one at the sun did the work of half a dozen charts and navigational tools. All of that information translated down into twists of valves and turns of the wheel. His lifetime of experience forced all of these enormously complex tasks\u2014each often the dedicated duty of an entire crewmember on a larger ship\u2014into the back of his mind, as automatic as breathing or blinking. This gave him the mixed blessing of bearing the full weight of the situation without distraction. Another skill, one learned far later in life, was the ability to push this aside as well. Of course he was concerned for the safety of his distant crewmembers. Of course he worried that this whole gamble may have cost him more than he could afford to lose. But those were concerns for later. Right now, the task was to find the well, and to do it safely. Nothing else could be done until he'd achieved this task, and thus he wouldn't spare another thought to the rest of the journey until he was through with this step."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 47",
+                "text": "In the mayor's office in Fugtown, Mayor Ebonwhite stared intently at the message recently set before him. It was a priority delivery, sent for at least a portion of its trip via relayed tap-codes between the inspectors of various ships in the fug and surface fleets. Messages of that sort were exceptionally costly for individuals to send, so much so that even those in the fug tended not to be aware of the option unless they were particularly wealthy. That the message came from Alabaster was almost certainly meant as a heavy-handed reminder that he was a man of means and extravagance. Ebonwhite read over the message again, vague disbelief in his voice.\n\n\"'To my esteemed colleague, Mayor Ebonwhite. If you've not been made aware, it seems a certain chemist has been kidnapped by our mutual enemies, the Wind Breaker crew. It is regrettable that you did not see fit to hire me to neutralize them, as I just so happened to be present when the capture occurred. One might chalk such a meeting up to good fortune or exceptional intuition. Had I been in your employ, I might have equipped myself properly to dispatch them and this terrible tragedy could have been averted. Now, it seems, they are in possession of one of the few individuals with intimate knowledge of how to generate phlogiston and burn-slow. I shudder to think of what their plans for this woman may be. Perhaps your plans to starve them may yet prove ill-conceived.'\"\n\nEbonwhite pinched the bridge of his nose and set the page down.\n\n\"The message is charged by the word and Alabaster still sees fit to blather on,\" he muttered before raising his voice. \"Mr. Fross, would you come in here, please?\"\n\nThe door opened before the request had finished echoing. Fross entered, pen and paper in hand. \"Have you any requests, Mayor?\"\n\n\"I may. First, have we received any information from our northern agent regarding Alabaster's activities?\"\n\n\"Nothing yet, sir. His most recent report detailed a small epidemic of delays and misdirections, which he attributes to individuals in Alabaster's employ impeding his investigation. I have prepared a list of said individuals for your review. Has something occurred that compounded your concerns regarding Alabaster?\"\n\n\"The man was on hand to witness the capture of South Pyre's reserve chemist. He would have me believe it is a coincidence. Or rather, he would have me believe he would have me believe such a thing.\"\n\n\"Complex tactics, sir.\"\n\n\"No, Fross. Transparent as my office window. He has as much as confessed to his involvement. There are manipulations afoot. The man believes he can twist the wills of both myself and the Wind Breaker crew. The fool couldn't hope to take on either of us individually and yet he imagines he can take us both simultaneously. It bothers me that I've not worked out the specifics of his plan, but one thing is clear. He is critically overestimating his own skill. My own plans for the Wind Breaker were not grand enough for him and were too likely to succeed. This message is evidence that he is attempting to sabotage them. Dr. Samantha Prist, given the proper materials, could produce those resources I wish to deny the Wind Breaker. And now they have her. Clearly Alabaster would have me believe that the crew intends to fill their own needs through her prowess. But to do so, they would require ichor. There is but one source.\" He leaned back in his chair. \"Have we acquired the rye?\"\n\n\"We have, sir. It was difficult to find but rather inexpensive. We have three bottles. Shall I fetch one?\"\n\n\"Please.\"\n\nFross stepped away, leaving Ebonwhite to glare at the message for a few moments longer. When he returned, it was with a thick glass bottle bearing a poorly printed label. Fross splashed a bit into a shot glass and presented it to Ebonwhite, who took it in hand and regarded it with interest.\n\n\"As I understand it, this is the only spirit Captain West drinks.\" He took a sip, then grimaced. \"The man is a masochist.\" He set the glass down. \"We've not received any indication that the Wind Breaker or its crew are heading south?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nEbonwhite hissed a breath.\n\n\"They need ichor. There's but one place to acquire it. Samples don't even leave South Pyre, let alone anything in large enough quantity to be of aid to them. They could certainly attempt an assault on the Pyre. It seems almost perfectly tailored to their list of conquests. I'd suggest greater security there, but I very much doubt any steps could be taken to bolster the security already in place. And yet\u2026 if this is all the result of the misguided machinations of Alabaster, he would have himself in position to strike. Where is he now?\"\n\n\"He summoned a vessel to return him to Caer Fiona. If he hasn't yet reached it, he will be there in a day or two.\"\n\n\"North\u2026 Entirely in the wrong direction to observe or combat a South Pyre assault\u2026 Blast it\u2026 Though it turns my stomach to play into his scheme, Alabaster holds the cards. Until we can determine the details of his plan, we have no choice but to mire ourselves in it. At the very least it will enable us to have people on hand when something goes wrong.\"\n\n\"You are certain?\"\n\n\"Entirely. A man like Alabaster wouldn't dare take his final step without a blasted audience. Draft a message to him. Wording is not important. Simply inform him that I am formally acquiring his services to deal with the Wind Breaker crew. And from this point forward we are dedicating all available resources to observing his activities, even at the expense of observing the Wind Breaker crew directly. He's at least established a capacity to 'predict' their activity. If we follow him, we follow them.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"How quickly do you imagine that message can be in Alabaster's hands?\"\n\n\"Rather swiftly. Caer Fiona is home to a recently established high-priority message station.\"\n\n\"\u2026 Is it now?\"\n\n\"Indeed, one of several investments made by Alabaster in the months leading up to his initial visit with you.\"\n\n\"Caer Fiona is not a terribly key city, Fross. Rather remote from even its local industrial interests. Not a valuable place for inspector-facilitated communication.\"\n\n\"Another bit of vanity?\" Fross suggested.\n\n\"Or a bit of planning\u2026 Alabaster, it seems, may be aware of the greater utility of our inspectors. I am not overly pleased with such sensitive information resting in the hands of such a volatile individual. Steps shall have to be taken at our earliest opportunity to preemptively seal the inevitable information leak Alabaster is to become. But that is a matter for future consideration. Deliver the message, Fross. That will be all for now.\"\n\nFross hurried off to perform the required tasks. Ebonwhite picked up the shot glass and turned it in the light of the lamp.\n\n\"I truly hope this fool either succeeds long enough for me to take the reins and finish matters or else fails soon enough that he doesn't end up handing that crew something we can't take back\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 48",
+                "text": "Lucius P. Alabaster shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The passenger compartment of his current vessel was markedly similar to the ship he'd recently had stolen, though each individual feature was marginally less luxurious.\n\n\"Poor foresight, Alabaster,\" he muttered to himself. \"Inexcusable. From this point forward, the prototype shall be upgraded to match the final version and serve as a backup.\"\n\n\"What's that, sir?\" Mallow called from the pilot's cabin.\n\nOne of the finishing touches that had not been applied to this ship was the door separating his personal chamber from the pilot's chamber. The always attentive Mallow therefore interpreted every half-heard comment as a potential order.\n\n\"Nothing, Mallow, you great nincompoop. I'm engaging in conversation with the one and only person on board who is capable of intelligent discourse. Myself!\"\n\nHe glanced out the window, which was shamefully without a curtain, and saw one of the two escorts he'd arranged for.\n\n\"Tell me, Mallow, have the escorts spotted our quarry yet? \u2026 Mallow, I'm speaking to you!\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. What were you saying?\"\n\n\"Has the Wind Breaker been spotted!\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Mmm\u2026 they should be heading north. I suppose their stealth is one of their more celebrated skills.\"\n\n\"What was that, sir?\"\n\n\"Nothing, you great boob!\"\n\n\"Sorry, sir.\"\n\n\"Henceforth, if I require you, I shall\u2026 yes\u2026 I shall tap my glass, thusly.\" He picked up his brandy snifter and gave it a flick.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nAlabaster flicked it again.\n\n\"\u2026 Was that another demonstration, or do you need me right now, sir?\"\n\n\"Did I say I would demonstrate it again?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Then that would imply I am attempting to put the policy to practice! I swear to you, if your penetrating idiocy were any more complete, I would be forced to hire a second manservant to help you remember how to breathe!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir. What did you want, sir?\"\n\n\"How long until we arrive?\"\n\n\"Just a few minutes. I can see the lights in the Ruby Club windows from here.\"\n\n\"Brilliant. I'll be able to have a proper meal at last. I feared I would waste away being forced to subsist on the gruel that passes for common sustenance these days.\"\n\n\"There should be a physician waiting for you at the Ruby Club to see to your arm, sir. I hope it is not, er, vexing you too terribly.\"\n\n\"It is a searing pain that would no doubt cripple a conventional man, but through sheer strength of will I shall endure it, Mallow.\"\n\nThe ship rumbled forward on turbines weaker by a third than those in the proper vehicle. That much, at least, Alabaster didn't know to complain about, and in truth it didn't alter things too terribly, as the lack of modern amenities made for a much sleeker, lighter ship. In no time they were approaching the mooring tower.\n\nMallow opened the doors to the pilot's compartment, which sent an icy breeze through the interior. He kicked the mooring line down and called orders to the crew below.\n\n\"Don't bother too much about cinching it up tight, fellas. This rig's heading back to dry dock for a refit to match the other one. \u2026 You know, the other one! The stupi\u2026 uh\u2026 the stupendous white one!\"\n\n\"Would you finish your prattling and close the blasted doors, you ninny!\" Alabaster barked. He stood and began to stalk in a circle in what little space there was. \"Surely Ferris Tusk did not have to cope with such setbacks and irritations. But then, so often the brilliance of great achievement casts so blinding a light that the dull glow of the impediments that preceded it are lost. Yes. Yes I have no doubt the exploits of Ferris Tusk were littered with the blunderings of small-minded nitwits. Knowing that, it makes the achievements history does record all the more impressive to me\u2026\"\n\n\"You should sit down, sir.\"\n\n\"\u2026When my story is written, I shall be sure that these pitfalls and travails are properly cataloged. They shall serve as the rising action to my forthcoming climax.\"\n\n\"They're taking in the slack on the lines. Things'll get rough soon.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mallow, you buffoon. This is not my first landing. I am quite familiar with\u2014gah!\"\n\nHis assurance was cut short as the mooring line drew taut and the swaying of the ship came to a sudden stop. As he'd not yet taken his pilot's advice, Alabaster was thrown against the wall of the gondola, thumping his injured arm quite forcefully. The resulting outburst lacked his usual eloquence, though it was rather effective at illustrating his dismay.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sir. Entirely my fault, sir.\"\n\n\"Clearly,\" he growled. \"I'll tell you this. That Wind Breaker man who wielded the weapon\u2026 Mr. Cooper, if I am correct\u2026 his death shall be a personal project for me. Yes. It shall require all my considerable creativity. Something with insects, I believe. Small ones. In great quantity.\"\n\nA few moments of work from the ground crew pulled the ship to a steady, solid berth. Alabaster babied his injured arm as he pulled on his heavier coat. The wound had once again begun to trickle blood thanks to its rough treatment. Due to the theft of the vessel that had taken them to the academy, the many bags and trunks filled with the personal effects Alabaster deemed crucial were missing, so Mallow was free to trot along beside his employer. He opened doors, tipped crew and staff, and weathered a constant low-grade tirade.\n\nThe sound, smell, and warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth of the Ruby Club washed over them when they finally stepped through the door and stomped the slush from their shoes. The hour was late, and thus even the steward had retired for the evening. Only Tender, who seemed never to leave his post, was present to welcome them.\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Alabaster. Always a pleasure,\" he said, jabbing at the fire with a poker until he'd moved the freshest of the logs into the proper position. \"You look as though you've had a rough go of it.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tender, you cannot conceive of my misfortunes. I am unbathed, wounded, unrested. I have been forced to subsist on mere scraps. I have had my irreplaceable possessions torn from me by brigands, and I have been forced to travel on the barest framework of a vehicle rather than the masterpiece to which I have become accustomed. Lesser men would not have survived such events. But Lucius P. Alabaster is, of course, equal to the task.\"\n\nHe plopped into his designated chair and slumped down, his hat slipping over his eyes. \"Mallow, fetch the physician. I'll also have a tall glass of tonic and some manner of roasted meats to rebuild my strength.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Mallow said, jumping to the task.\n\nTender stood and approached a small box on the mantel. \"I'm sorry to say I may have something here to add to your woes.\"\n\n\"Naturally. Great men can always expect such things\u2026 What is it this time? Has the sun been snuffed out? Are the oceans threatening to spill over the mountains and drown the fug?\"\n\n\"Whatever it is, it's got the mayor of Fugtown's address as a return,\" Tender said, pulling an envelope from the box and delivering it to Alabaster. \"The message just came in a few hours ago. Priority. An envelope like that seldom contains good news.\"\n\n\"The mayor\u2026\" Alabaster said quietly, taking the envelope and gazing at its hand-lettered addresses. When the facts filtered through his layers of exhaustion and self-pity, he sat bolt upright and pushed up his hat. \"The mayor! Ah-ha! Even that stubborn fool couldn't ignore my utter brilliance forever!\"\n\n\"That's the first time I've seen someone in this club happy to get a message from the mayor.\"\n\n\"That is because you've never seen a mind such as mine at work! And thus you've never seen a masterful bit of manipulation and machination come to fruition before. What I hold in my hand is, indeed, the invitation to my own grandest achievement!\"\n\nHe shredded the envelope and unfolded its contents. The page was written with a precise hand, each letter positioned in its own box of a printed grid. It was a strange bit of stationary familiar to anyone who had received a priority dispatch. The absurd cost and relative unavailability of such a mode of communication meant that the list of those who had received one was very short.\n\n\"There, you see, Tender? And these other fools who so seldom occupy the chairs at the Ruby Club thought me a madman for financing the installation of a priority message center in our little village, but this is evidence that it was a prudent sum well spent.\"\n\n\"Good news?\"\n\n\"The best of news! Written with the mayor's spiritless and bland language, of course, but the man can be excused for lacking the Alabaster panache. Ahem. 'As you appear to have significant and inexplicable insight into the actions and motions of the Wind Breaker, I have decided to seek your aid in neutralizing them as a threat. Henceforth all reasonable actions and expenses associated with Lucius P. Alabaster's efforts to capture and/or provide proof of death for the Wind Breaker crew shall be underwritten and sanctioned by Fugtown. Please act quickly, and always with the safety of the fug people foremost in your mind.' There, you see! Our society's most powerful man has, in not so many words, begged me to rescue him from the tyranny of the surface folk!\"\n\n\"Interesting\u2026 I've worked here for over a hundred years, and this might be the first time I've heard of anyone here taken on as an outside contractor by the more impressive members of the industry.\"\n\n\"That's because I've only been alive for seventy years, my good sir, and thus it was not until this moment that you'd seen my properly matured intellect put to its full use.\"\n\n\"How did you do it?\"\n\n\"By means that would confound a simple mind such as yours, sir, but fear not! I daresay you'll be reading of my exploits in great detail before the year is out, for I shall in very short order be the most lauded man in all the fug. I shall be sure to inform those taking record of my actions to render them in words small enough for all to understand.\"\n\nAlabaster looked over the note to see if there was any further indication of his achievement.\n\n\"The man didn't leave much time to spare. Had he dragged his feet any further, I might have been too busy rescuing his constituents to even receive his formal request for me to do so. We've reached the point where my plans are quite swiftly in motion, and once started they cannot be stopped. To that end, have you any other messages for me?\"\n\n\"None. What you have there is the only message, priority or not, that we've received since you left.\"\n\n\"I shall have to send Mallow to my manor\u2026 By now I would have liked to have received some indication of the motions of the more hidden elements of my schemes.\"\n\n\"Just what sort of plans are you working at?\"\n\n\"Again, you may read of them in the history books. Just count yourself lucky to have been present at this momentous occasion. Today is the day the finest man of an era finally stepped into the limelight.\" He looked about. \"Where is that Mallow? Blast him and his dillydallying. You then. Tender. Fetch me stationary. I have dispatches to send. My agents can only be trusted to act autonomously for so long. And I must amass my forces. The timing is crucial to reap the greatest reward from this operation.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 49",
+                "text": "The looming threat of attack from abominations is a remarkable motivator to perform a thorough job quickly. Eleven fug folk and two humans threw themselves headlong into the task of raising at least a cursory set of defenses. Here and there, with increasing frequency as the work rolled on, the glint of large green eyes could be seen at the edge of the clearing, stoking the flames of urgency. The need for speed is also a fine recipe for innovation. The plan had been to fell trees, mill them into lumber, and use them for fence posts and lookout towers. Now faced with trees obligingly and relatively free of lower branches, the decision was made to simply string reel after reel of barbed wire between them, weaving a makeshift fence to keep the smaller creatures at bay in hours rather than days. Better fences could follow, provided the improvised ones did their job.\n\nAs illustrated by their encounter with what Lil was still reluctant to believe was a fug-squirrel, there was a need to defend against creatures that might attack from above. The barbed wire around the trunks of the trees would go a long way toward dissuading them from climbing, but there wasn't nearly enough wire to reach all the way to where the branches interwove. There was no obvious solution that didn't seem to be a hopeless engineering challenge or utterly insane. It was therefore helpful that Nita and Lil were present, as their respective areas of expertise seemed to be hopeless engineering challenges and utter insanity.\n\n\"Oof\u2026 the air's getting a little fuggy up here,\" Lil said, squinting a bit.\n\nStill wrapped in her heavy coat, she had scaled one of the trees that had been called into service as part of their improvised fence. She'd locked her legs around one of the final branches below the churning dome of fug and was taking a brief break in her hours-long task. In one hand she held a saw, sticky with sap. Her other hand was tucked into her coat, where she was stroking Nikita.\n\n\"You brought your mask, didn't you?\" huffed Nita from the other side of the tree.\n\n\"Well sure, but I was just getting used to not needing it. I ain't eager to start sucking breath through that pile of junk again anytime soon.\"\n\n\"Fortunately, this is the last tree, so after this we can head back down and stay down for a while.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what. Nikita sure is loving it up here.\"\n\nLil mopped some sweat from her forehead. Despite the icy temperatures, the hard work and layers of clothing had her close to overheating. It didn't seem to bother Nikita in the slightest, who had taken up residence in Lil's coat just as soon as they'd climbed the first tree far enough to escape the prying eyes of the fug folk below. The toasty interior of Lil's coat combined with the privacy of the tree and the proximity to her second favorite person were heavenly to the little beast.\n\n\"All right, back to it,\" Lil said.\n\nShe stepped off the branch, relying upon the bite of her heavy boots into the gnarled, vine-wrapped tree trunk that was not so unlike the rigging she'd been climbing aboard the Wind Breaker for so many years. Once she was in position, she dug the saw into the branch and went to work. She couldn't manage much of a stroke with the saw thanks to the awkward angle, but she was industrious and was soon making plenty of sawdust.\n\n\"So, no branches means it'll be harder for one of them monster things to jump from one tree to another, right?\"\n\n\"That's the idea,\" Nita said. \"I'm hoping it'll mean they have to attack from the ground.\"\n\n\"What's with your bit then?\"\n\nNita stopped hammering at an improvised cable hoop and leaned aside to talk.\n\n\"The thing that tried to take a bite out of me looked like it could probably jump a long way, so we've got to be ready if one makes it this far. Since they clearly seem attracted to high-pitched noises, I rigged some whistles to some canisters and signal rockets, then wired up these igniters. If something gets up high enough to touch these wires, a noisemaker will streak off into the trees and send it galloping away. Hopefully it won't come back, but if it does, we'll at least know where it was.\"\n\n\"Gosh dang it, you're a smart one,\" Lil said.\n\n\"It's funny. Back home the supervisors weren't fond of my tendency to use what was lying around to solve the problems at hand.\"\n\n\"Sounds like they ain't never spent any time on an airship. On the Wind Breaker if a problem don't get solved with what's lying around, a problem don't get solved.\"\n\n\"All the same. It'll be good to get back to work where I won't have to rig up an impromptu ladder by hammering fl\u00e9chettes into the trunk of a tree.\"\n\nLil stopped sawing. \"You\u2026 uh\u2026 you planning on getting back to a job like that?\"\n\nNita finished hammering and set about threading the trip wire, which had been whistling in the wind as it dangled between her belt and the previous tree.\n\n\"You and Gunner are pretty close to being able to do the emergency repairs you might need, and you can always swing by Caldera for anything major. Mother got her medicine and is recovering nicely. Our deal is nearly at its end.\"\n\n\"Maybe so, but, you know\u2026 that doesn't mean you have to go. I'm sure the cap'n would keep you on. Heh. You know. If you asked real nice.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"\u2026 It's just that\u2026 not so long ago you were saying you don't think too many steps ahead.\"\n\n\"Since then I've put my mind to it a bit. I think it's time to go.\"\n\n\"\u2026 But\u2026 don't you like being part of the crew? Getting into all these fun scrapes and then getting out.\"\n\n\"That sad part is that I do like it. I've been having the time of my life.\"\n\n\"Why's that sad? And why stop if you're having the time of your life?\"\n\n\"Lil, I'm clinging to a thorn tree, stringing a makeshift noisemaker-equipped rocket while at the bottom of a sea of toxic gas. I've been pushing my luck hard. Eventually it is going to run out. My brother and sister are always eager to find out what I've been doing, but my mother\u2026 the look in her face when I leave. She's never sure if I'll come home again. And as far as she's concerned, it is her fault I'm out here. If the worst happens, she'll never forgive herself.\"\n\n\"You know we wouldn't let something happen to you. I been doing this for years and I ain't died once.\"\n\n\"I can feel the wind blowing through the holes bitten through my jacket by a monster, Lil.\"\n\n\"Exactly. You got through that just fine. How much worse could it get?\"\n\nHaving finished her task, Nita leaned aside to look her friend in the eye. Lil had a weak smile on her face as though it was all in good fun. Her eyes told a different story. They spoke of fear and desperation. They were pleading.\n\n\"Lil, what's wrong?\"\n\n\"What's wrong? My world is fixing to fall apart, that's what's wrong.\"\n\n\"It's not your whole world, Lil. And it's not forever. You'll still see me from time to time. I'm just going to go back home.\"\n\n\"Oh sure. I understand. Because you got a home. You got a family to worry about you. Not me. Mom's been gone for years. Dad too. So what've I got? A couple cousins I don't see for years at a time, and when I do see them it's with their hands out? Nope. Everyone I got is on the Wind Breaker. I ain't even had a home since Cap'n Mack first picked us up.\"\n\n\"It's just me. You'll still have the rest.\"\n\n\"Sure, but for how long? Cap'n's not gettin' any younger, and he's got that island now. When he goes, Butch's liable to go too. Gunner only sticks around because of the cap'n. Give him the chance and he'll get back to a proper navy. With the things we've been doing, ain't no ship in the Circa fleet would pass on a chance to snap him up. And that leaves what? Me and Coop with no ship.\"\n\n\"If that's the case, then what good will me staying around do?\"\n\n\"If you stay around, then you'll still be around. It'll mean things ain't started to crumble yet. And if they do crumble, maybe at least you'll still be there. And I think maybe that'd be enough for me.\"\n\n\"Lil, it'll never be safe enough out here for my mother\u2014\"\n\n\"We ain't talkin' about your mother, Nita,\" Lil snapped. \"We're talking about us. About the whole crew. What if she weren't the problem? What if she was fine with it? What if no one cared what you did? Seems like all the big things you do are for somebody else. Forget about everybody. Your folks, the cap'n, Coop, me, everybody. What if this was just you? What do you want to do?\"\n\nNita looked Lil in the eye. She wanted to answer. It should have been simple. But the deeper into herself she looked, the less certain she was. Her rescue came in the form of a soft but insistent tapping from within Lil's jacket.\n\nI hear the other inspector.\n\nLil glared at Nita for a moment more, then turned one ear to the worksite below.\n\n\"All I hear is a load of hammering and sawing and such. You sure?\"\n\nYes.\n\n\"What's he saying?\"\n\nReport forwarded to Inspector Lucius P. Alabaster. Reply intended only for Inspector 58978. We have reached the well. Two crewmembers are present. Both survived. This message was sent at 4:23 a.m., seven days after the previous message.\n\n\"Dang it,\" Lil said, twisting to glance down. \"Branca is still tied up. Is that thing tapping away on its own?\"\n\n\"And who is it tapping to?\" Nita asked.\n\nThere is a ship high and far, Nikita explained. I can hear that too.\n\n\"Is it close enough to hear what the other fella is saying?\" Lil asked.\n\nYes. The ship inspector is repeating it back now.\n\n\"It would seem there may be more than one traitor in this group,\" Nita said.\n\n\"I'm starting to think there ain't nothing but traitors.\"\n\nLil growled and kicked the mostly sawed tree limb, causing it to snap free and plummet to the ground. She then looked sharply at Nita. \"And don't think this lets you off the hook for that answer. Only probably next time we won't jaw about it while we're up in a tree. Now let's go find out what's what.\"\n\nThe deckhand descended the tree with her usual recklessness, dropping as much as climbing. Nita took a bit more care, finishing the last few adjustments of her own task and then descending along the makeshift ladder of hammered spikes. By the time she reached the ground, Lil had already stalked over to the woman who still had her hands tied. After sitting on the cold ground at the end of her short tether for an entire night while the others worked, she was far too stiff and sluggish to get up in time to avoid Lil's wrath. Not that she would have been able to go anywhere.\n\n\"All right, Branca, spit it out,\" Lil demanded, snatching the woman by the collar and attempting to hoist her to her feet.\n\nThe size disparity meant that Lil instead ended up pulling herself down toward the informant, but the effect was the same.\n\n\"What? What do you want from me now? Come to kill me for some other imagined crime?\"\n\n\"I come to let you know we're onto you. Who else here is working with you?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Someone's taken the cage containing the inspector we discovered while we were loading,\" Nita said from behind her. \"We left it locked up, right here. None of the other goods from this area have been touched.\"\n\n\"Maybe it ran off,\" Kent offered, hefting a sledge to his shoulder and approaching the disruption.\n\n\"The cage is missing. Did it drag that off behind it?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"Either someone comes clean about who took that critter, or I'm gonna start handing out black eyes until I hear what I want to hear,\" Lil announced.\n\n\"Now, now. Let's calm down,\" Kent said.\n\n\"I'm sick o' you telling me to calm down when I got reason to be angry. And you got reason to be angry too, because this time it ain't about someone trying to kill us, it's about someone giving up the location of this here bonanza you got.\"\n\n\"What? How do you know that?\"\n\n\"Because we got\u2026\" Lil paused and looked to Nita.\n\nNita looked back with a raised eyebrow.\n\n\"Dang it, dang it, dang it!\" Lil said, stomping one foot as a punctuation on the outburst. \"Cap'n ain't gonna like it, but I'm tired of losing arguments I could have won if not for secrets I gotta keep!\"\n\nShe whisked her jacket open with an exhibitionistic flourish. This revealed a rather startled Nikita to the rest of the gathering crowd of workers. The initial reaction, as was frequently the case when Lil acted, was confusion.\n\n\"If you've got the inspector tucked in your shirt, why are you making a fuss about it being missing?\"\n\n\"Can't you folk tell the difference between your own critters? This ain't your inspector. We got our own.\"\n\nKent scratched his head. \"I don't follow.\"\n\n\"See? This is why I shouldn't've trusted you folk to know if you could trust each other or not. Fuggers never trust each other.\" Lil scooped her arm down to gather up Nikita. \"Come here, darlin'. We know something about these inspectors you folk down here ain't just been keeping from us, but you've been keeping it from each other, mostly. These critters are smart. And they can talk, in a way. That's what half of that tappin' is about. And right now that fat one you folk were so happy about having along and we were so angry about having along is tap-tap-tapping out a message to some ship way up yonder. Now maybe that ship has been following us and we just ain't heard it. Or maybe it's just a trade ship or messenger or something that wandered near enough for the critter to hear. It don't much matter, because it already said what it had to say, and if that ship heard it, then folk are going to be able to find this place right quick.\" She looked down. \"Which way is that ship headed, darlin'?\"\n\nNikita pointed.\n\n\"West. Back the way we came,\" Lil observed. \"For all we know that ship's headed right to Mayor Ebonwhite or someone just as bad who's gonna send a string of ships to take all of this away from you folks.\"\n\n\"This is all a little\u2026 dubious there, Lil,\" Kent said.\n\n\"You want proof, just watch.\" She looked to Nikita. \"Where'd you hear that tapping? Can you smell him too?\"\n\nYes, Nikita tapped.\n\nThe inspector extended a scrawny arm and pointed with her spidery middle finger at a half-finished gantry that would soon bridge the gap of the pit and form the beginnings of a crane to start harvesting buckets of ichor. Lil bounded over to it and scrambled up the side, climbing the cross-struts like a ladder until she reached the top. Once there she began throwing items aside, pitching hammers and bags of bolts off the top.\n\n\"Nita, I think your friend there's lost it. Maybe the fug's gotten to her.\"\n\n\"I assure you, she's quite sane. At least no less so than when I met her. In all honestly she's been showing remarkable self-control through this,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Ah-ha!\" Lil proclaimed.\n\nShe threw a canvas cover off the gantry and hoisted up the purloined crate that had been hidden beneath.\n\n\"Here's the aye-aye-turned rat,\" Lil said.\n\nLil opened the crate and pulled the creature free. Once she'd maneuvered it to cling to her side, she began to climb down the structure.\n\n\"Well I'll be\u2026 she found it just by that inspector thing pointing it out\u2026\" Kent said quietly.\n\n\"You\u2026 you don't really believe any of this nonsense she's saying,\" remarked Stark as he ran up to Nita and Kent. \"Inspectors are just stupid creatures who knock around looking for rotten wood. Everyone knows that.\"\n\n\"Aren't you the man Lil said tried to tackle her on the way to the well?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"She was brandishing a gun and threatening to blow us all up. It was the sensible thing to do!\"\n\n\"And weren't you working on the gantry construction?\" Kent said, his own suspicion growing.\n\n\"Five of us were working on the gantry!\"\n\n\"No sense guessing and accusing when we can ask someone who makes a living watching folks and snitching on them,\" Lil said, pacing up to them. \"What do you say, Lardo? Who's the one who told you to do the snitching?\"\n\nThe chubby creature peered up at Lil, then out at the anxiously\u2014if somewhat incredulously\u2014watching group. Nikita tapped out a few encouraging comments. Finally the inspector dubbed Lardo extended a hand, pointing with his own middle finger at Stark.\n\nAll eyes turned to the accused.\n\n\"Y-you don't really believe this! She could have\u2026 she probably trained it! Yeah! Trained it to point at who she tells it to point at! You could train a dog to do that. She's just trying to turn us on each other.\"\n\n\"We're kind of stuck in the middle of the forest with you folk. Seein' as how we'd have a hell of a time finding our way out without one of you folk at the wheel, I ain't eager to see folk start getting killed. But seems to me you and Branca there ain't really part of the team.\"\n\n\"What was the message that thing was supposed to have delivered?\" Kent asked.\n\n\"'Report forwarded to Inspector Lucius P. Alabaster. Reply intended only for Inspector 58978. We have reached the well. Two crewmembers are present. Both survived.' Then it gave the current time and date,\" Nita said.\n\n\"What good would that do?\"\n\n\"If there was an airship overhead, and Nikita there says there was, then even if it was just passing by, with the timing of the message and the knowledge of that ship's route, a person could get a reasonably close estimate of where we are in the forest right now.\"\n\n\"If that's true\u2026\" Kent said.\n\n\"It isn't true!\" cried Branca from the ground. \"They're manipulating us! They want to turn us on each other one by one! What they're saying is ridiculous!\"\n\n\"We've already established you wanted to kill us,\" Nita said, resisting the urge to punctuate the observation with a kick. \"That you would speak out in defense of another accused helps our argument, not yours.\"\n\n\"Yeah. So quit your yelling or you'll get the first of them black eyes I was promising\u2026\" Lil tipped her head to the side. \"Actually, do fug folk get black eyes? Oh, yeah, that fella over there still has his from that brawl back when we were talking specifics with the cap'n.\"\n\n\"Listen. I know it's a bit much to swallow. I was the one who worked it out in the first place, and I think I was only able to accept it because these things are new to me and it wasn't any more absurd than a continent mired in poison. But let's set aside how we got this information for now. What else do we know? Does anyone know this Alabaster person?\"\n\n\"He's a\u2026 what do you call it? One of those sorts who makes his money off other folks' business,\" Kent said.\n\n\"A freeloader?\" Lil said.\n\n\"No\u2026 investor, that's it. Spreads his money around like fertilizer and gets fat off what grows. You spend much time in the northwest parts of the fug, you'll probably find your way to one end or the other of a string he's got dangling from his bank account. Probably if you dig deep enough every last one of us has been working for him at one time or another.\"\n\n\"Is he someone we should worry about?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"You know my rule. If it's in the fug, worry about it unless you have a reason not to, not the other way around,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Him being the investor type, if he really did get that message mentioning a well, he's liable to want to claim it for himself and make heaps of money off it,\" Kent said.\n\n\"Has he got the resources to make that happen?\"\n\n\"No doubt.\"\n\n\"Then that's a problem.\"\n\n\"That's assuming this is all true,\" said Stark.\n\n\"Keep denying it, pal. You're really convincing us you ain't a rat,\" Lil said.\n\n\"Again, let us focus on other things,\" Nita said. \"We suspect Branca and Stark. Have they worked for Alabaster in the past?\"\n\n\"Like I said, most of us have, if you dig deep enough,\" Kent said.\n\n\"Fine, then is there a connection between the two of them?\"\n\nHe scratched his head. \"Not that I\u2026 hang on a tick\u2026 What's that fella's name? The one with the stupid hat. Left him back with Digger\u2026 Bludo! That's the fella. He's the one who recruited both of them. Made a pretty strong argument at the time.\"\n\nAt the mention of the recruiter, a flash of concern came across the faces of both Stark and Branca.\n\n\"You folk ain't played much poker down here, have you?\" Lil said with a grin.\n\n\"I think we've got to entertain the possibility that this Bludo character and anyone he handpicked might be working for Alabaster,\" Nita said. \"Are there any other Well Diggers he picked out?\"\n\n\"Me,\" came a voice from beside one of the munitions carts.\n\nAll eyes turned to a fug woman who was very tall, even by fug standards. She'd kept quiet and mostly to herself during the whole journey. She had a precise and elegant weapon, a fug-made rifle, and stood with a wide stance and a steady grip. From her vantage, any member of the Well Diggers who made a move against her could easily be picked off.\n\n\"Nerys!\" Kent barked.\n\n\"Aw, dang it! Both fug women on the crew are rats! And here I was starting to think maybe it was just the fug men who were evil as a rule,\" Lil moaned, seemingly more bothered by the identity of the remaining traitor than her weapon.\n\n\"I don't know how these surface dwellers figured it out, but what they said is true. These inspectors can deliver messages, and we were instructed to deliver one just as soon as we arrived. Not that it matters,\" said Nerys.\n\n\"Because if Bludo's working for Alabaster, then the man's known roundabout where this place is for weeks,\" Kent said.\n\n\"So there's no sense resisting. This whole well was going to be an Alabaster concern in a few weeks anyway, so anyone with weapons, drop them. We're all going to go forward according to plan. Build this place up, get it running.\"\n\n\"Why should we do that?\" growled Kent. \"One member of the industry is as bad as another. If I wanted someone else holding the reins of my destiny, I'd've stuck around in the coal mine.\"\n\n\"Because if you do a good and proper job getting this well running, Alabaster will make it worth your while. And if you don't, I'll put a bullet in your brain.\"\n\n\"See, that's a lousy thing to threaten. You can't keep a gun on us all the whole time we're working, and you can't get the work done if you kill us all,\" Lil said.\n\n\"I would shut my mouth if I were you,\" said the latest traitor. \"You're the one person Alabaster said he specifically wanted dead. You weren't supposed to survive that lure we gave you. Technically Alabaster wanted the Calderan alive, but I'd have considered her an acceptable loss.\"\n\n\"Jabber jabber jabber,\" Lil said, casually pulling her coat shut and stuffing her hands in her pockets. \"Like I said before. Pull the trigger or don't. You won't be the first person to shoot at me, and you sure ain't gonna be the last. And as soon as you pull that trigger, regardless of who you hit, the rest of us are going to bum-rush you. If they know what's good for them anyway.\"\n\n\"Stark, untie Branca and the two of you grab guns.\"\n\n\"Before you do that, Stark, you probably ought to take a look at my right hand.\"\n\nStark and the others flicked their gaze where she'd indicated and discovered she was gripping her pistol, and it was pointed directly at him.\n\n\"Bit of a standoff we've got here,\" Lil said.\n\nIt was unsettling how truly calm and composed the deckhand seemed in the center of this precarious situation. It was a long way from the bundle of anxiety she'd been just minutes before when she feared the breakup of the ship's crew. The utter lack of fear had a bizarre effect on those around her. It was subtle, but as the only person not stretched to the limit, the overall feeling was that she must be in a position of control. This simple fact was almost certainly the only reason the rifle had not yet been fired.\n\n\"You're going to lose this one, you realize,\" Lil said. \"My gun's lighter than yours. Your arms are going to get tired first. You're just lucky we didn't start this chat with my gun already pointing at you, or you'd already be bleeding. It's the turn from Stark here to you that'd give you your chance.\"\n\nLil continued to observe the two threats without any evident concern while everyone else remained perfectly still, too worried even to breathe. Slowly, Nita began to drum her fingernails on the handle of one of her wrenches.\n\n\"And that assumes I ain't got any other tricks up my sleeve,\" Lil said."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 50",
+                "text": "A few minutes passed with very little change in the vicinity of the well. Branca was still bound, Stark was still holding his ground, and Lil was still brandishing her weapon without any indication of concern. The one thing that had escalated was the uncertainty and agitation of Nerys, who clearly felt she ought to be the one calling the shots.\n\n\"I am through playing your games, Cooper. You will lower your weapon and do as I say!\" she cried.\n\n\"Quit yelling. You've had a rifle pointed at me for a while now, Nerys. Do you really think the only reason I ain't done what you said is because you ain't asking loud enough?\" Lil said.\n\n\"Nerys, I think we all know that the only way this is going to end without blood is if you lower that gun and listen to reason,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Who says I want things to end without blood. You two are monsters! How many fug folk have you killed?\"\n\nLil tipped her head in thought. \"I don't keep score of that sort of stuff. Gunner does. When he shows up you can ask him. I know it ain't near as many fuggers as surface folk though. Wailers, raiders, and pirates like them are the folk we usually shoot at. And only when they shoot first. Cap'n hates wasting ammunition. How many folk you killed?\"\n\n\"\u2026 None.\"\n\n\"That's another reason you might not want to point a gun at me.\"\n\nNita tapped her fingers a few more times. Lil tapped her own in response.\n\n\"All right, Nerys, I'm just about sick of all this posturing and such. By my count, you got one gun and three things to shoot at.\"\n\n\"There's just the two of you.\"\n\nLil flashed a smile. \"Wrong.\"\n\nShe snapped her fingers and fell backward. At the same moment, Nita dove to one side and Nikita burst from beneath Lil's jacket. Nerys pulled the trigger of her rifle, but having been wound steadily tighter by the events of the prior few minutes, she wasn't nearly in the right state of mind to adjust her aim quickly or accurately. Her first round struck the dirt, raising a cloud of dust and gravel.\n\nNita scrambled toward one of the carts, moving in a crouching run. Lil rolled aside and kicked her legs up, rolling back onto her shoulders and springing back to her feet. Nikita, her fur standing on end and her enormous eyes wide with fear, skittered under a cart.\n\nNerys's panic was evident on her face, but she retained enough sanity to keep her rifle pointed roughly in Lil's direction. On the surface this seemed like a sound decision, as Lil was the one with the pistol. The fug woman hadn't factored Lil's nimbleness into the equation, however. She managed a second and third shot with the repeater rifle, but neither came anywhere near the sprightly deckhand. All the wild shots managed to do was send the rest of the fug folk running for cover. Even Stark, who ostensibly should have been attempting to tackle either of the Wind Breaker's crewmembers, chose the better part of valor and ran for his life.\n\nIf Nerys had been looking in the appropriate direction, she would have seen a frenzied ball of fluff streaking toward her from under a cart. Instead she only noticed Nikita when the aye-aye had scurried up her leg and sunk a set of chisel-like teeth into her thigh. She screamed, and if the barrel of the rifle would have been short enough, she's probably would have pumped a round into her own leg. Instead she took one hand from her weapon to claw at the attacking creature. She scarcely had time to wrap her fingers around Nikita's crooked tail before Nita struck her from the side in a flying tackle. The three of them tumbled across the ground.\n\nNita, who lacked the reach advantage but made up for it in weight and leverage, came out on top when the tumble finished. Nerys reached aside and pulled a knife from her belt, but Nita caught her wrist. They struggled against one another for control of the weapon, but it didn't last long.\n\n\"Drop the knife or you'll be breathing through a new hole in your head, Nerys,\" Lil ordered breathlessly.\n\nThe traitorous fug woman glanced aside and found the muzzle of Lil's pistol mere inches from her face. She wisely let the knife fall to the ground.\n\n\"Now everybody just calm down,\" Lil said. \"We're all going to put down our guns and\u2014\"\n\n\"Both of you! You drop your weapons!\" raved Stark.\n\nThey turned to find him standing beside one of the carts, now armed with a rifle of his own from the substantial armory that the expedition had brought along. Lil then looked past him and grinned again.\n\n\"Pff. Took you long enough,\" she said.\n\nStark turned to see who Lil was talking to and received the full brunt of a sucker punch, courtesy of Kent. The blow dropped Stark like a sack of potatoes, and left Kent shaking his hand.\n\n\"You've got a hard head, Stark,\" he said, flexing his fist.\n\n\"Good to know at least one of you folk doesn't want us dead,\" Lil said, keeping her pistol trained on Nerys while Nita quickly bound her hands.\n\nThe tension, having reached its boiling point, slowly simmered down again and the rest of the Well Diggers took stock of the situation. Branca, Nerys, and Stark were gathered together and plopped down in the center of a tight circle formed by the remaining members of the expedition. Nita, Lil, and Kent stood at one end of the ring. The rest bunched rather uncertainly at the other side, watching the girls with roughly the same caution as they had watched the creature that had attacked during the trip.\n\n\"I'm sorry about all that. I had no idea about any of this,\" Kent said.\n\n\"You don't got to waste too much breath trying to convince me you didn't know something, Kent. That thick head of yours was one of the first things I worked out about you back at that Ph'lack'try. I reckon that's why you were palling around with Donald. He's even thicker.\"\n\n\"I suppose I deserve that\u2026 Now, we need to chat about this\u2026\" He looked to Nikita. \"\u2026 inspector nonsense.\"\n\n\"It's real simple. These critters tap out messages to each other, who tap them out to other critters, until they get to someone who knows what to do with whatever it is they say.\"\n\n\"They talk by tapping\u2026\" Kent said.\n\n\"How they do it isn't the important part. The important part is they've been spying on all of us and most of you for as long as they've been on ships, and now a creature on a ship that passed overhead is carrying a message about where we are,\" Nita said. \"Add to that the fact that we've got three traitors to your cause tied up here and at least one back at the headquarters, it seems likely this Alabaster person is going to take swift and decisive action to keep the well from slipping through his fingers.\"\n\n\"I don't know. I mean, we've all heard of Alabaster, but he's only ever been a name on a page. Not the sort who'd hatch a scheme.\"\n\n\"Everybody's gotta start sometime.\"\n\n\"Imagine for a moment he was someone to hatch a scheme. What sort of resources could he be expected to bring to bear?\" Nita asked.\n\n\"Oh, well, he's all over shipping, so he'd have plenty of airships to choose from. Ever since you folk stole from that Fugtown warehouse, every ship's been loaded up with extra weapons.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we noticed,\" Lil said.\n\n\"And like I said, he's got an interest\u2014that's to say, he's got money\u2014in just about every place to earn a living in these parts. So he's got plenty of folks to order around, if he was so inclined to order people around.\"\n\n\"The man has, in effect, a fleet and an army. And you don't consider him a particular threat?\" Nita said.\n\n\"You've got to see things the way we see them. Anybody with two coins to rub together down here in the fug is planting them in some business or another. What could be said about Alabaster could be said about any of the folks who laze about in the cities down here. Everyone invests money in everyone else. I suppose that's why we don't do much fighting between each other. There isn't much good in fighting with your business partner, and everyone's a partner at some level.\"\n\n\"Peace through mutual greed,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Probably they'd say mutual ambition, but one's as good as another,\" Kent said.\n\n\"From what I seen, different folk are greedy in different ways. Maybe this is a fella who's got enough money, and now he's after something else.\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"Fame? Power? Whatever else a body could get from a big hole full of stuff it used to be you could only get from one place? Point is, that's the sort of fella who'd come with guns a-blazing to ruin all our plans for this place.\"\n\n\"Captain Mack once sagely observed that, despite their claims to the contrary, the one thing all fug folk want above all else isn't money, it's control. That's why they refused to sell me the medicine for my mother. Once taken, it would cure her, and that wasn't enough for them. They would have wanted to dangle it over me forever. The same way they dangle the phlogiston and burn-slow over us,\" Nita said.\n\n\"That doesn't wash. They already control this stuff. If Alabaster were to get his hands on it, all he'd be doing is helping the other people in the industry keep control,\" said Kent.\n\nLil chimed in. \"Maybe that's what he's after then. Maybe this is his way in to the table with the big boys. Or maybe it don't matter, because the fella already put a bunch of his lackeys that we know about into your little team here, and he got them to tell him right where we are, so he's obviously interested. And since I had my heart set on us getting the fuel and phlogiston you folks promised us in exchange for our help, I sure as heck ain't gonna let him come and take it away. So we got a fight on the way that we gotta be ready to win.\"\n\nKent scratched his head, then turned to the others. \"What do you boys think? Original plan was to get the walls up, then drop some pumps down and start pulling this stuff up. If Alabaster's on his way, it'll be all defenses and as much offense as we can muster. That last bit's a real problem. We've got the guns from the three powered carts, plus the parts to build a few more, but I'd figured on them mostly being used to scare off any of the larger critters that might've given us trouble. We haven't got the ammunition to turn back a full-scale attack. The way Digger had it worked out, we'd get this refinery up on a shoestring and rely on the industry not knowing where we are until we scraped together the time and money to harden it up, bunker-style. I'm not even sure how we're going to use what we've got against airships. This pea soup hanging over us is going to make it impossible to aim at them. One scout with a few bombs'd be all it'd take to make mincemeat out of the lot of us.\"\n\n\"You leave the thinking to Nita here,\" Lil said, slapping the engineer on the back. \"She's smart enough to work out how to make this all work for what we need it for.\"\n\nNita ran her gloved hand over her head and released a slow breath. \"This is really more of a problem for Gunner, but I've worked with him long enough. Maybe some of his brand of inventiveness has rubbed off on me. If I understand the situation correctly, the issues are visibility, air superiority, accuracy, and firepower.\"\n\n\"Heh. Yeah. That's it. All we have to do is solve all those problems. Simple,\" Kent said.\n\n\"If you look at it as a whole, certainly it can seem hopeless, but each little step is simple enough, and if every step is simple, then the whole problem is simple. Now obviously, regardless of our solution, we'll need the guns operational.\"\n\nKent turned to the others. \"You three. Get cracking on the guns. No one sleeps until they're all up and tested.\"\n\n\"That's one aspect of firepower. We'll need fuel for the boilers as well. The coal we've got won't last long.\"\n\n\"Those branches you girls cut down will hold us for a bit. And we were looking to clear out these little trees and the brush. We can burn them too.\"\n\n\"Good. Good.\"\n\nNita paced over to the edge of the well and peered down. It was very deep, and not perfectly vertical, but the amber glow of the mysterious substance was clearly visible about twenty feet from the surface. Toward the bottom of the well, and entirely encrusting the surface of the ichor itself, a layer of translucent crystal had formed. Nita picked up a sizable rock and tossed it down. When it struck, the crust shattered like glass and the thick luminescent substance oozed through the cracks.\n\nShe looked to Kent. \"It was demonstrated to us that all it takes is a bit of heat to make phlogiston out of this stuff. Does anyone here know how to make burn-slow or anything else out of it?\"\n\n\"Nope. It was news to me you could even do that,\" Kent said.\n\n\"Still. Phlogiston gives us options,\" Nita said.\n\nShe rummaged through a crate and selected something they'd called \"the sample bucket.\" It was little more than a small container on a long chain, intended to be used to haul up ichor for their initial production until a proper pump could be installed. Tossing it into the well and hauling it back quickly rewarded her with a pint or so of ichor. Even in the short trip from the well to the surface it had begun to crust over with the thin crystal.\n\n\"Here, careful with that,\" Kent said, stepping back. \"That stuff doesn't do any good to us fug folk.\"\n\n\"Hey, that's something, right?\" Lil said. \"We could just douse the folk attacking us with this stuff.\"\n\nKent crossed his arms and looked at her sternly. \"What goes up comes down, Lil. And I don't think any of us are keen on being there when this stuff lands.\"\n\n\"So don't get hit,\" Lil said with a shrug.\n\n\"No, he's right, Lil. We can't hope to win if we're dodging our own attacks,\" Nita said.\n\nShe walked toward the edge of the dome in the fug cleared by the presence of the well. After only a few yards it was visibly bulging outward, pushed away by the influence of the substance.\n\n\"This works at quite a distance,\" Nita observed.\n\n\"Yeah. If there's enough of it, anyway,\" Kent said.\n\n\"\u2026 Okay. I don't have the whole solution, but I've got enough to act. We're going to need a few jars of this stuff. The pipes were wrapped in burlap, right? We'll need that too. A layer or two across the top of a jar should keep this from sloshing out and being a problem, but should still let it push back the fug. And then we'll need to get the kettles up so we can make some phlogiston. At least\u2026 five full canisters, if we can manage. I'll need all the canvas we used to secure the cargo, and as much from the tents as we can spare. Plenty of rope, too\u2026\"\n\n\"That's my girl!\" Lil said.\n\n\"What are you planning?\" Kent asked.\n\n\"I think if we can\u2014\" Nita began to explain.\n\n\"You'll know what she's planning once we're done getting it ready. No sense jawing about it when we could be working. Now let's go!\"\n\n\"Oh, one last thing,\" Nita said. \"Nikita! I need you to listen for ships. If it's a small one headed west, send a message to Wink. Lil, cook up a message to Captain Mack that will give him a chance at finding us. The same one as the traitors sent if you can't come up with something better.\"\n\nI will do that, Nikita tapped.\n\n\"Me too,\" Lil said. \"Now let's all get moving. This fight ain't gonna win itself.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 51",
+                "text": "Time began to creep by, with eyes across Rim peering anxiously to the skies above and around them. For the Wind Breaker crew, the hours they'd expected to spend reaching the trade route stretched into over a day. Fugger traffic perpetually threatened to reveal them, forcing retreat and evasion no less than seven times. Their water reserves ran low and had to be replenished. Fate itself seemed to be dead set against them reaching their destination. Better than thirty hours after they'd begun their journey, they finally reached the North Circa to Precipice route and began their search.\n\nIn Fugtown, the mayor busied himself with the affairs of the city, but bit by bit the consequences of his hiring of Alabaster began to trickle onto his desk. Alabaster was requesting funds and requisitioning ammunition and weapons. Reports of his activities, and requests for confirmation, clogged the inspector-delivered messages, stretching the clandestine system of communication to its limit.\n\nThe Well Diggers worked hard, piecing together ten fl\u00e9chette guns and mounting them on hastily erected pylons. Five boilers were coaxed into operation, a steam shovel pieced together, and trenches dug. Their barbed-wire-woven walls were reinforced where possible; a heavy gate was added to allow crew in and out during rare trips for resources from the surrounding forest. Every moment and every last scrap of resources was put to the best use they could muster, and whenever a task couldn't benefit from all available hands, those who drew the longest straw took the chance to rest, if only for a few moments.\n\nIn Caer Fiona, Alabaster bolstered his forces and made his plans. Every hour on the hour he had Mallow visit his personally funded messenger to see if any messages bearing his name had come through. When finally Mallow returned with the cryptic message in hand, Alabaster was fully equipped and ready to set sail for his destiny."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 52",
+                "text": "Alabaster marched the deck of a ferocious ship. It lacked the size and apocalyptic firepower of the fabled dreadnought, but in many ways it was more impressive. Twice the size of the Wind Breaker, it was a triumph of design. Gondola and envelope were both wedge shaped, forming something that resembled a stout flying blade. Both port and starboard edges of the ship were lined with a row of deck guns on top and cannons set into the deck below. On the belly were four yawning ports, ready to dispense bombs at the order of the captain. It was an aptly named \"destroyer.\" There were a handful of such vessels in the loosely organized military that patrolled the sky beneath the fug, and this one had formerly bore the uninspired name Destroyer 3. Shortly after its arrival, Alabaster had demanded a rechristening. The recently dried paint on the side of the ship now proclaimed it The Fist of Alabaster.\n\nThe raw power of the ship's turbines kept it slicing through the air with enough speed to leave the deck at the mercy of a constant staggering wind. Nevertheless, Alabaster insisted upon wearing his chosen uniform, a gleaming-white bowler hat, a matching cape, and a silver-tipped cane. Somehow the man managed to look smug and arrogant despite having to hold his hat to his head with an injured arm and periodically enduring slaps to the face from his cape. To look at him, one would imagine he had already won the battle that lay ahead. By his side, dressed in a more sensibly designed but still garishly purple outfit, hovered Mallow.\n\n\"I tell you something, Mallow. It is nothing short of inspiring to see the sort of power that is wielded by the mere mention of Mayor Ebonwhite's name. Waving a certified correspondence with his moniker is sufficient to conjure, as if from nothing, this wondrous ship of war complete with crew.\"\n\n\"If you were to ask me, sir, this ship is merely insurance. Your own ships would have had this battle handled,\" Mallow said.\n\n\"Yes, yes. Obsequiousness noted, Mallow.\" He gestured aside.\n\nStruggling to keep up with the destroyer on either side flew smaller ships of less overtly warlike design. Two were simple messenger ships bearing recently installed deck guns. The other two were larger and more heavily armed, but still little more than escort ships. All of them combined couldn't deliver the ordnance that could be volleyed forth from just the port-side weapons of the destroyer.\n\n\"I have no doubt that my makeshift militia would have risen to the challenge, but I think it is only fitting that an occasion as momentous as this be marked with the gravitas a ship of this sort brings to such matters. Yes. Yes, I believe the first purchase I make once the return on investment begins to flow will be a ship like this. Perhaps not so austere and artless, mind you. I'll commission something more stylistically suited to my sensibilities. But a predator to be sure\u2026\"\n\nMallow glanced to the bow of the ship, where the helmsman was signaling.\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Alabaster, I believe we are approaching the site.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" he said, looking about to see nothing but the dark-purple canopy of The Thicket made nearly black by the green light of their sweeping phlo-lights. \"Rather a mundane setting for so glorious an event. I had hoped the backdrop would be suitably epic in its scope and grandeur. It is bothersome that the Wind Breaker hasn't yet made its appearance. I suppose I may have overestimated them. Bah, offsetting misfortunes, nothing more. We shall snatch up those members of the crew present at the site and use them as bait to lure the others to a grander venue. Problems solved.\"\n\n\"Inspired, sir,\" Mallow said.\n\n\"Yes, it is.\"\n\nAlabaster stepped up to the elevated deck at the bow and raised his voice, projecting in a rather operatic manner to address the full crew. \"I have been informed that our destination is scant minutes away. Now that we are so near, I feel it is safe to reveal to you the nature of our target. You will find it below us. I am told it shall be rather difficult to identify, but an oddly rounded section of thicker-than-average fug is what we are hoping to spot. Once we reach it, we will take up positions surrounding it. I shall address those huddled within the obscuring cloud and entreat upon them to surrender themselves. We shall then deploy the mercenaries I've hired to clear away any who do not show the good sense to surrender. Of special interest is a pair of women, one a Calderan and one a Westrimmer. Each is a member of the hated Wind Breaker crew. The Westrimmer can die, though she would not be without use were she to survive. But it is preferable the Calderan be taken alive. She, perhaps secondary only to the site itself, is the greatest prize of this endeavor, if only for her uniqueness and rarity in these parts.\"\n\n\"Ho!\" called one of the gunners, pointing down.\n\nAnother gunner swung the powerful phlo-light in the direction of his gesture. The thick mound of haze revealed itself, completely opaque to the light but undeniably unlike anything else they'd seen in their journey.\n\n\"Ah! Wonderful. Precisely on cue!\" Alabaster said, marching to the railing to peer down. \"Downright theatrical in its arrival. Oh Captain! You may slow the ship. Keep it just beyond the edge and as low as the trees will allow, then cut your engines such that I might address these traitorous and villainous swine more clearly. Mallow, fetch the megaphone, would you? And hold my cane.\"\n\nThe eager manservant produced a large, cone-shaped contraption from a nearby case. Like virtually all Alabaster's possessions, it was perfectly white, save for the lettering of his name emblazoned across the side.\n\nThe Fist of Alabaster throttled down its turbines and coasted to a stop just short of the target. Each of the other escorts broke off and took up positions around its edge. Crewmen prepared themselves for a brief but intense battle. Alabaster stepped to the bow of the destroyer and gazed down at the odd formation of repelled fug below.\n\n\"So\u2026 that is what destiny looks like. Again, a bit mundane, but beautiful in what it represents, if not in what it is\u2026 Ahem.\" He held up the megaphone. \"Attention below. My name is Lucius P. Alabaster, and under the authority bestowed upon me by my own inarguable genius and the sanctioning of Mayor Ebonwhite, I now address the misguided Well Diggers and nefarious Wind Breaker crew. You have operated with impunity for far too long. But, though you are resourceful and ruthless, I want you to now understand that your success is the result exclusively of good fortune.\"\n\nAs he spoke, he waved his injured arm, twice nearly losing his hat. Despite his intended audience's inability to see it, and the poorly hidden impatience of the crew around him, Alabaster simply could not bring himself to make the speech anything less than a performance.\n\n\"Your good fortune in having not crossed paths with myself, the brilliant Lucius P. \u2014\"\n\nA distant chatter and hiss cut his proclamation short. A trio of spikes darted out of the churning dome of haze below. None came close to the target.\n\n\"What is the preoccupation with interrupting my oratory by shooting at me?\" Alabaster said. \"I feel certain there was a time when arch nemeses afforded each other the courtesy of their attention at least until a full ultimatum had been issued.\"\n\n\"From the sound of it, they've got a fairly potent fl\u00e9chette gun down there,\" observed the captain from his post a few steps behind Alabaster.\n\n\"What possible concern could that be for you? And I have been assured that this destroyer can take everything short of a cannonball without so much as batting an eye.\"\n\n\"Envelope and gondola are spike-resistant, but the same can't be said for the crew,\" he said.\n\n\"A matter of exceptionally little concern, as they cannot see us.\"\n\nOne of the crewmen called out. \"Eyes down! Flares!\"\n\nAlabaster turned to see a ball of brilliant green light rising out of the blanket of thickened fug. As it drifted higher, clearing the densest layers of purple, his squinting eyes could just make out the source of the light. It was a makeshift balloon, a poor imitation of an airship's envelope. Made from the wrong sort of material, it didn't have a weave tight enough to keep the phlogiston in. Most of the cloth had been smeared with an oddly glossy substance that seemed to make up for this, but scattered areas that had strategically been left dry streamed thin jets of the gas. When it mixed with the fug it became intensely luminescent, bathing the whole area with light brighter than day.\n\n\"Evasive action. Get us out of that light,\" the captain ordered.\n\n\"You will hold your position,\" Alabaster demanded, stabbing his finger at the captain. \"Light is the least of the reasons they couldn't see us. That soupy fug hanging atop them\u2026\"\n\nWhat happened next rendered even Alabaster speechless. A wave of purple vapor rushed past him. When the inky cloud was gone, it left behind air perfectly clear and fresh. He turned from the captain and raised his eyes to the still-rising flare balloons. They were visible now as bright pools of green cast against the blanket of thick fug that lay above them instead of below. Each flare balloon stopped as it hit the end of a tether rope, and dangling partway down each rope was a burlap-topped jar filled with ichor. One by one, similar balloons rose up and expanded the void in the fug upward with their own jars of the fug-phobic substance.\n\nNow the site below them was perfectly visible, and the Well Diggers had been busy. The gantry over the ichor well itself had been fully erected, and all the carts had been fully dismantled. Their boilers were now sunk into a protective trench along the south side of the facility and linked through a rather intricate network of tubes, pipes, and valves. Spinning wheels and interlocking gears moved with blurring speed, driving the gimbals for ten deck guns. Each pair of guns had a single operator moving twin guns in tandem and pivoting to aim at the well-lit targets.\n\nAlabaster's arm was still held high from his angry order to the captain when the first of the spikes began to strike their targets. Three of the five gun pairs were focused on the destroyer. Resounding thumps echoed through the hull as lines of spikes dotted its belly. Gunners along the port and starboard turned their guns to return fire.\n\nTwenty long seconds of fire and return fire passed before Alabaster snapped back into his usual state of relentless self-satisfaction. Though the railings of the ship were prickled with spikes, little actual damage was being done. The larger and ostensibly more sensitive target of the envelope had been pierced in a few places, leaking bright streams of phlogiston. Without any fug to react with, the gas remained dull and unlit, seeming to underscore what little effect the attacks were having. Most spikes simply thumped into the taut skin of the envelope with a hollow sound and fell back to the ground below.\n\n\"Hah! Hahaha! I knew it would be worthless to resist! The Fist of Alabaster is more than a match for your cobbled-together defenses!\" he barked into the megaphone. \"Your only hope to survive is for us to show you mercy, and your only hope for mercy is for you to give up!\"\n\n\"Your ships are taking heavy damage, Alabaster,\" said the captain.\n\nHe peered across the void in the fug. Though only facing two sets of guns, all four of the ships were approaching critical damage. One of them sagged toward the ground, its envelope barely intact enough to stay in the air. Two others vented steam from damaged conduits, and the last drifted in tight circles, one turbine locked at full while the other failed to spin.\n\n\"You addle-minded amateurs! Leave the air combat to The Fist of Alabaster! Land yourselves on the east side to avoid crossfire and begin the land offensive!\"\n\nHe lowered the megaphone. From his position of relative safety, he wasn't able to determine what the gunners on the destroyer were aiming at, but it was clear they were all firing downward.\n\n\"Captain, just what are your gunners doing?\"\n\n\"Standard ground-combat training. They are targeting the soldiers, the mounted guns, and the boilers.\"\n\n\"This is not standard combat, you fool. Have them fire at these contraptions they are using to clear the air. Without those they shall be unable to target us and we shall be free of their return fire.\"\n\n\"We also will be unable to\u2014\"\n\n\"I am in command of this mission, Captain. Now follow my orders.\"\n\nThe captain tightened his jaw but delivered the correction to his men. Alabaster paced away from the railing and shook his head. \"\u2026 It is as though I am commanding children.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 53",
+                "text": "On the ground, it was nothing short of a war zone. The destroyer alone doubled their firepower, and the smaller ships meant attacks were at least initially coming from all angles. The time they'd had to prepare hadn't been much, but they'd used it well. A long trench dug with the steam shovel on the north half of the facility served as cover for Nita and the others, and another to the south provided at least a measure of protection for the boilers. Two other foxholes of sorts to the east and west stored equipment. To protect those brave or unlucky enough to be manning the guns, some of the armor that had protected the carts during the journey had been bolted into shields. That left only one member of the group wholly without cover.\n\n\"Lil, damn it, you get back here!\" Nita screamed.\n\nThe deckhand had argued for almost the entirety of their preparations that someone ought to serve as a \"runner\" during the battle. Ammunition would need to be delivered, messages would need to be exchanged, and since she'd spent so much time as a deckhand, she was the woman for the job. Nita had put her foot down about it. Lil agreed to stay safe with the others, then ignored the promise just as soon as the first spikes were fired.\n\nShe sprinted low to the ground, belts of spikes over each shoulder. Puffs of dirt rose up behind her as two different guns traced lines of spikes just a few paces off target. Above her the shouted commands of Alabaster finally coaxed the guns away from targeting her, providing her the luxury of abandoning her serpentine dodges in favor of straight lines.\n\nLil dove forward and slid into the trench, then sprang to her feet.\n\n\"What did I tell you?!\" Nita said. \"We had an agreement.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. You can be sore at me after. I ain't got no new holes in me. Everybody fine in here?\"\n\n\"Some scrapes from flying debris, but nothing serious,\" Nita said.\n\nLil surveyed the faces of the others in the trench. \"Where's Kent?\"\n\n\"The far end of the trench there. He caught a good angle and has been firing with the rifle.\"\n\n\"Good. Glad we're all in one piece. Here's what's going on out there. Boiler number three took a couple of good shots, we're going to have to choke off the firebox or it'll blow. That means the guns on the south side are going to lose some range. What's-his-face on the northeast side is getting low on spikes and\u2014\"\n\nA bright flash drew their attention to one of the tethered flare balloons. It had been struck and now drifted down and to the east. The fug rushed back in, and the edge obscured their view of one of the ailing scout ships.\n\n\"\u2026 And pretty soon that all ain't gonna matter because we ain't gonna see what we're shootin' at again,\" Lil finished.\n\n\"That idiot shouting orders sounded like he was commanding the smaller ships to land and attack from the ground to the east, so we'll have plenty to fire at and won't need much range,\" Nita said.\n\nAnother flare died out and drifted off, now shrouding half the destroyer behind the fug.\n\n\"At least that'll give us something to do until that destroyer decides to drop its bombs,\" Lil said.\n\n\"If they wanted to bomb this place, they would have done so by now,\" Nita countered.\n\n\"Sure, but the more of a fight we put up, the better them bomb bay doors are going to start looking.\"\n\n\"We worry about the things we can fix. Now, it doesn't look like we did much damage with the spike guns.\"\n\n\"Against a destroyer, I didn't reckon we would,\" Lil said. \"If I'd've known they'd send something that big, I'd've told the gunners to leave off it entirely and take down the little ones. Heck, if I'd've known they'd send something that big, I'd've said we should hightail it and come back with cannons or some such.\"\n\n\"Things always seem clearer with the benefit of hindsight,\" Nita said. \"I think we've got enough phlogiston and gear to send up two more ichor flares. At this rate they won't last long, though. We'll need to save them until they can do the most good.\"\n\nThe last of the flares broke free of its tether and blew away, shrinking the ichor well's region of fresh air back down to its original size. The spike guns continued to fire, but with considerably less accuracy. The airships traced aimless lines across the facility. Here and there a lucky shot would clang against a hastily shielded piece of equipment or wander a little too close to the trench. The Well Digger gunners had a slightly better go of it, as the damage done to the airships meant every little leak to the envelope created a piercing glow that was faintly visible even through the curtain of purple.\n\nA short time later the glow of the smaller airships faded from view on the east side, and a few moments after that the whine of their turbines dropped away until they were lost behind the louder rumble of the idling destroyer.\n\n\"What do you reckon happens next?\" Lil asked in the relative peace.\n\n\"I reckon they wait until we run out of spikes, and then they do whatever they please,\" grunted Kent. He squinted to the west. \"Provided those things don't pick us apart first.\"\n\nThe women turned to match his gaze and saw a flash of eye-shine beyond the western wall.\n\n\"One problem at a time, Kent. Now why ain't you shooting?\" Lil asked.\n\n\"Only one box of bullets left and no clear shots. No sense just making a racket and giving them something to shoot at.\"\n\nLil wiped her face and placed her palm on her pistol.\n\n\"All this not shooting's getting me antsy,\" she said. \"I can hear 'em just rumbling there, just over the wall. Hey, ain't we got explosives?\"\n\n\"They're set up with a trip wire by the main entrance, in case they brought a vehicle that could break through.\"\n\n\"Well they ain't done that, and I know Gunner'd never let me hear the end of it if he found out I got shot full of holes by a bunch of fuggers while I had a whole crate of blasting charges sitting there unused.\"\n\nKent blinked. \"\u2026 If you get killed, how is he going to give you an earful\u2026\"\n\n\"Aw, he'd figure it out. He'd never miss a chance to give a good lecture. Nita, can't you rig up a catapult or some such so we can huck that crate at the airship?\"\n\n\"If I had a few hours and some practice shots to hone my aim, maybe. But\u2026\"\n\n\"Oh, I know that look. That's the look you get when you figure out how to fix something. I'm gonna go get the crate.\"\n\nLil scrambled at the edge of the trench, but Nita caught her by the hem of the jacket and pulled her back.\n\n\"No, Lil. That's not what I need. Head over and get the canisters of phlogiston we've got left, and both of the flare balloons.\"\n\n\"Won't be but two shakes,\" Lil said, dashing along the trench.\n\n\"What're you working at?\" Kent asked.\n\n\"Think I know a way to use that crate of explosives, but it's a long shot.\"\n\n\"Of course it is. After all the long shots we've had to hit, I was hoping maybe there'd be a sure thing or two lurking around the corner.\"\n\nNita tugged a tool-roll from beneath her coat and unfurled it. She selected a pair of sheers and a bit of measuring cord, then set about measuring out a few lengths of rope. Around the time she made the third cut, a frenzied ball of fluff bounded up the far end of the trench and desperately drummed out a message.\n\nNita flashed a smile. \"It's about time\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 54",
+                "text": "The captain stood at the helm, making slow adjustments to the ship's orientation and shuttling it about slightly.\n\n\"Must you reposition this behemoth so frequently? Surely your gunners would have greater luck in their targeting if you were to hold it still,\" Alabaster said.\n\n\"With that blanket upon them again, my gunners haven't got a chance of targeting anything, because there's nothing to see or hear down there. Something that was not an issue while the air between us was still clear. Of course, you saw fit to solve that problem,\" the captain rumbled. \"With your Ebonwhite-mandated overruling of my orders.\"\n\n\"It was the prudent decision.\"\n\n\"And would you care to explain why the prudent decision is not now to simply level the whole of the facility with a few well-placed bombs?\"\n\n\"Because there exists in that facility both persons and items of immeasurable value to me. And moreover because I've told you to keep the bomb bay doors shut, and as you've personally observed, my orders supersede yours at this time.\"\n\n\"So what would you have me do?\"\n\n\"Wait. My men are approaching on foot. They'll have the facility secured soon enough.\"\n\n\"Your men will be shredded by those spike guns before they reach the walls.\"\n\n\"If so, then it is merely an additional layer to the tale of my eventual victory. A hard-fought and costly victory is always a more stirring one when told after the fact.\"\n\nThe captain's expression grew more stern. \"I am glad you are on my ship.\"\n\n\"Oh, Captain, your tone and borderline insubordination indicate otherwise.\"\n\n\"If you're willing to sacrifice four ships of men to make for a better story later, I'm glad to be commanding the ship you are on, because one would assume even you wouldn't sacrifice yourself.\"\n\n\"Of course I wouldn't. What use is there in fame among your peers and infamy among your foes if you do not live at least long enough to bask in such?\" He held his hat a bit more firmly as the wind gusted. \"I wonder if it might be time to address the traitors again\u2026\"\n\nA distant thump echoed across the treetops.\n\nThree of the crew bellowed \"Cannon fire!\" just as the attack met its mark. A handful of projectiles struck The Fist of Alabaster. Two sent clouds of splinters bursting from the aft end of the main deck. The rest smacked hard into the sturdy envelope. Only one punched through to send a lance of green light feathering skyward.\n\n\"Bring us around. Starboard cannons loaded with grape. Lights in the direction of the shot and fire as soon as you've got a solution.\"\n\n\"The spyglass, Mallow,\" Alabaster said eagerly.\n\nHe exchanged the megaphone for the small telescope his manservant offered and began to follow the lights.\n\n\"It must be the Wind Breaker. It must be\u2026\" Alabaster said with an uncharacteristic hush in his voice. \"Oh glorious day! I shall have my moment of battle against them. I shall see my victory in full!\"\n\nThe ship swung wide, pivoting and sliding sideways through the air as it attempted to bring its weapons to bear on the apparent source of the attack. A second thump rang out but brought little more than the whistle of projectiles flying wide of their targets. The captain wrestled with the wheel to get the ship more or less stationary. He managed to arrest the ship's listing and drifting, but not before the destroyer strayed substantially over the roiling fog-screen that concealed the Well Diggers.\n\nPhlo-lights focused their beams and swept in a coordinated search, cutting deep into the thinner haze of the fug over the rest of the forest. One beam caught something, and the others shifted to the distant object. It was indeed the Wind Breaker, its red envelope barely visible. Bits of polished brass glinted here and there in the darkness, but the one glaring point of visibility was the white ship strapped to its belly.\n\nAlabaster's eyes widened when he saw it.\n\n\"Those barbarous trolls. Look what they've done to my ship! Oh, they shall be made to pay dearly for this. Fire upon them, Captain, but endeavor to ground the ship, not destroy it. If I am correct, there is a valuable individual aboard. And moreover I relish the opportunity to gloat over the survivors and parade them about the fug as my trophies.\"\n\n\"At this range we'll be lucky to hit them at all. I make no promises about picking my shots to be nonfatal.\" The captain leaned down to his speaking tube. \"Starboard cannons? Status?\"\n\n\"Charges packed, standard shot nearly loaded,\" came the reply.\n\n\"Fire when ready!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 55",
+                "text": "\"A destroyer. They had to bring a destroyer along,\" Captain Mack grumbled.\n\nDespite his gripe being about something that could quite easily blast him and his crew out of the sky, his complaint was no more vigorous than if he wasn't particularly happy with that night's choice of meal. To balance his remarkable calm, Lester was beside himself with panic, clinging to the base of the rigging and bellowing at the top of his lungs.\n\n\"A destroyer?! Why would you even fire! You can't hope to win!\"\n\n\"Wink! You get that message through to Nikita?\" he called into the rigging above.\n\nWink tapped. Nikita answered.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"What did it say?! Oh, never mind that. What does it matter? What good will it do, your crew on the ground knowing we've arrived? What could they hope to do?\"\n\n\"Gunner, speak up. I got a fugger up here running his mouth,\" Mack said into his tube.\n\n\"Port cannon loaded, standard shot, extra charge. Heading to starboard now.\"\n\nLester yelped as the simultaneous roar of the destroyer's full starboard armaments shook the air. The low whistle of nearby barely off-target rounds suggested the next salvo could be the last.\n\n\"When you're through, load the aft cannon and then get up on deck guns. We ain't gonna win this with cannonballs,\" Mack said.\n\n\"You're bloody well right you won't win it with cannonballs! The destroyer has a reinforced hull, a triple-layer envelope, and inner chambers to prevent full rupture! Even if you score a direct hit to the envelope, you'll barely hobble the ship!\"\n\n\"The dreadnought had all that and a hell of a lot more, and word is they still ain't found all the pieces. A load of armor makes for sluggish maneuvering, and if I remember right, one thing a destroyer ain't got is gunners for up top. We go high, they can't get us.\"\n\n\"But you'll have to close all the distance between you. They'll be firing again in moments!\"\n\n\"Then you'd best keep your mouth shut and quit distracting me.\"\n\nAfter what seemed like nowhere near enough time to load a cannon, Gunner appeared on deck, bearing his long-barreled rifle.\n\n\"Gunner, I said deck guns, not a rifle.\"\n\n\"All due respect, Captain, a destroyer is going to shrug off a few spikes. If we're going to do any good at this range, we need more precision than that.\"\n\n\"In this soup, you reckon you can manage precision?\"\n\nHe steadied himself against the railing, took aim, and flipped a colored lens in front of the sight. A grin crept across his face. \"We shall have our answer momentarily, Captain.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 56",
+                "text": "\"Haha!\" Alabaster laughed gleefully. \"I should have brought a camera. A moment this delicious ought to be immortalized in the medium of photography! How much longer until you've sent that ship to the ground, Captain?\"\n\n\"Less than a minute.\"\n\n\"Glorious! Time enough for what I've got in mind!\" He hurried to the railing, batting aside some of the spikes that had been lodged there. \"Mallow! Take the spyglass and give me the megaphone once more! Yes, excellent. Ahem. Attention! Well Diggers and Wind Breakers. You no doubt have fought this pointless battle for so long only out of the distant hope that the legendary Wind Breaker itself would come from above, carried on the wings of avenging angels, to strike us down and sweep you to safety! I take no small amount of delight in informing you that your beloved ship has arrived, and when next you hear these cannons fire, it will finally and irrevocably earn its place in history as the first great victory of Lucius P. Alabaster!\"\n\n\"Well said, sir,\" said Mallow.\n\n\"Of course it was well said. I said it. I am, if nothing else, a man destined for greatness. And there is no such thing as a great man who lacks the capacity for great words.\" He gazed down. \"They've ceased firing their guns. My words alone have all but beaten them. I've crushed their spirits in a way mere violence never could. I wonder, if I were to listen closely, do you think I might hear the cries of anguish when those below hear their savior blotted from the sky?\"\n\nHe leaned over the railing, now that the scattered whistle of flying spikes seemed to have fallen away, and cupped a hand to his ear. It was merely a gesture, of course. He'd not truly expected to hear anything over the rumble of the destroyer's engines. He did, however, expect to hear the report of the destroyer's cannons as they unloaded toward the Wind Breaker. Instead, he heard the soft crack and plink of sounds he couldn't easily identify, followed by the shouts of crewmen.\n\n\"Blast it, Captain, what is happening now?\" he demanded with the air of a petulant child.\n\nA pressure gauge beside the captain shattered, then the second of three spotters' telescopes burst into fragments of fragile metal.\n\n\"We're taking sharpshooter fire,\" the captain said, stepping into the lee of a support beam for some semblance of cover. \"How the hell are they getting shots off with that degree of precision at this range?\"\n\n\"What does it matter? Just fire the cannons and be done with them!\" Alabaster said.\n\n\"We're down to one ranged spotter.\"\n\nThe final spotter's telescope took a bullet.\n\n\"\u2026 And now none. We haven't a prayer of hitting them with the cannons now until they're practically on top of us.\"\n\n\"Feh. A fine excuse for your own incompetence. If there was concern of sharpshooter fire, you should have attacked sooner.\"\n\n\"There wasn't concern of sharpshooter fire, no one should have been able to aim at this distance in this light!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 57",
+                "text": "\"They're blind, Captain,\" Gunner said, clicking open the breech of his rifle. \"But I'm fresh out of cartridges for this. I knew I should have packed a few extra shells.\"\n\n\"If you had your way, Gunner, our cargo hold would be nothing but packed shells.\"\n\n\"At this moment, I think you would agree it would be quite useful. That's the extent of the weapons we can safely deploy at this range without risk of hitting those on the ground. And there is a tremendous amount of distance to cover before we're in position to move something more potent. What are the ground forces going to do until then?\"\n\n\"We've got good people down there, Gunner,\" Captain Mack said. \"They'll do their part until we can do ours.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 58",
+                "text": "Alabaster stood impatiently at the railing, waiting for the next opportunity to gloat. It was a considerable testament to the towering ego he effortlessly displayed, despite the death and destruction all around him, that he managed to behave as though the greatest injustice was that his eventual glory was being delayed.\n\nFrom his vantage at the edge of the deck, however, he did catch a glimpse of a new pool of green light rising toward them.\n\n\"Oh, bother. This again? Captain, they seem to have launched another of those flares. Just below us this time.\"\n\n\"I'll deal with it when the Wind Breaker has been destroyed,\" the captain said.\n\n\"Yes, yes. At your leisure. It has already been made quite clear that nothing the fools beneath us can muster can be of any threat.\"\n\nTwo balloons, each belching plumes of phlogiston that illuminated the whole of the deck, bumped into the belly of the destroyer's gondola and began to drag upward. They came to a stop just as the balloons themselves peeked up over the railing of the deck. The crew squinted at the bright light.\n\n\"Damn it, they must be tangled on the port cannons. Someone fetch a gaff and shove them off,\" the captain ordered.\n\nA deckhand scrambled to obey the order, and Alabaster resumed his somewhat theatric listening to the unseen sorrow below. The smile on his face faded as he realized there was a sound he'd not heard before.\n\n\"What\u2026 what is that sizzling sound?\" he muttered.\n\nHe leaned a bit farther and shielded his eyes as best he could from the painful brightness of the flares. Just beneath them he spied a crate. The sound appeared to be coming from\u2026\n\n\"A fuse?!\" Alabaster gasped. \"A bomb! They've sent up a bomb!\"\n\nAlabaster and Mallow sprinted away from the railing. They hadn't even crossed half the deck when the crate of explosives detonated. The sound instantly robbed him of his hearing, and the blast rocked the whole of the destroyer viciously to the side. It was a swift enough motion to knock every last crewman on the deck from their feet. Alabaster hit the deck hard. As his head spun and a dull hiss of slowly returning hearing filled his head, the deck began to tip further. A sizable portion of the ship had been blown away. Much of the port side was damaged. All but two of the heavy cannons lining that side of the craft broke free of their mounts and plummeted to the forest floor along with a handful of the crewmen and much of the ammunition. Thus lightened, the ship was no longer balanced. The return swing from the blast continued farther and farther, the reduced half of the gondola rising higher than the rest.\n\nBy the time the swing reached its peak, the deck was nearing a forty-five-degree pitch. Alabaster had begun to slide toward the starboard railing along with Mallow and two of the deckhands. The blast had shaken free a barrel of tar, which struck the railing ahead of them, splintering it. Alabaster was the next to strike it, followed by Mallow. The deckhands proved to be the straws that broke the camel's back, and the whole of the struggling heap of fug folk pitched off the edge and into the canopy of the trees below. They bashed painfully down into the branches, snapping through the thinner ones and bouncing off the stouter limbs, all the while being scoured by thorny vines.\n\nAlabaster came to a stop just barely above the blanket of thickened fug concealing the ichor well. He peered up through the broken branches and past the others who had fallen with him. Dazed and confused, he saw the ship overhead, bits of debris and fractured decking still dangling from the up-tilted end of the gondola. Flames were beginning to spread at the edge of the blast damage.\n\n\"Y-you cowards!\" he slurred, indignant the first state of mind to assert itself after the explosion. \"You come back here! I am Lucius P. Alabaster! Mayor Ebonwhite will not be pleased to learn you abandoned his sanctioned representative! M-mallow! Help me to my feet.\"\n\nThe only reply was a groan from a few branches up.\n\n\"\u2026 Lazy\u2026 Lout\u2026\"\n\nHe rolled sluggishly and clutched at the branch supporting him. When he was somewhat more steady, he glanced down to the mostly obscured stretch of tree beneath him, then glared at the liberal coating of tar staining the hem of his cape.\n\n\"Will the indignity never cease\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 59",
+                "text": "A cheer rose up from the Well Diggers as debris from their attack continued to rain down, forming a trail leading toward the wall. Lil and Nita, fresh from lighting the fuse and cutting the tether on their hastily improvised aerial mine, crouched at the edge of the trench and watched the bright green of the damaged envelope and the dull yellow of the burning deck through the dense blanket overhead.\n\n\"Well heck!\" Lil said. \"We should've done that right at the start!\"\n\n\"Do you suppose that took care of the destroyer?\" Nita said.\n\n\"Depends on who's calling the shots. A good cap'n'll get them fires out and start shuffling ballast pretty quick. Course, with the Wind Breaker inbound, that ship ain't long for this world.\"\n\nNita took a breath. \"Good. Because I'm seeing an awful lot of steam venting from the other trench. I've got to go do some service before we have an explosion of our own.\"\n\nA weak, pathetic chatter came from a gun on the east side of their defenses.\n\n\"That gun ain't sounding too good neither. And if he's shooting, that means we got something coming from that side. Probably whoever was on them ships that dropped down.\" Lil took out her pistol and spun the chamber. \"No rest for the wicked I suppose.\"\n\nThe members of the Wind Breaker crew parted company, one heading for the east wall, one headed for the south trench. Nita pushed the odd thump of stray cannonballs striking the earth from her mind. Worrisome as it might be to have a massive ship overhead with only marginal control, the looming threat of boiler failure was her main concern, and she couldn't afford to be distracted.\n\nWhen she slid into the boiler trench, she found her work cut out for her. Three of the five boilers had taken at least some damage from the fl\u00e9chette guns of the destroyer and smaller ships. The heavy cast iron kettles shrugged off the attacks with little more than a shiny scratch to show for it, but the less sturdy pipes and valves weren't quite so lucky. Steam belched from two of the main pipes, bleeding pressure from the system and hamstringing the efforts of the gunners to keep them safe. She'd done her best to build in redundancy where she could, but time and resources left her with little flexibility. To fix this problem she was going to have to improvise, which tended to be exciting when it involved scalding water vapor and random gunfire.\n\nShe slid down her goggles and scrambled out of the trench, heading instead to a smaller hole dug to contain some odds and ends they weren't quite so dedicated to defending.\n\n\"You! Are you mad! What sort of a monster are you!\" cried a series of voices from a few yards away.\n\nThe voices belonged to Alabaster's moles. The Well Diggers weren't so cruel as to leave them out in the open, but neither were they so kind as to keep them in the same trench as the less traitorous among the group. A happy balance of punishment and mercy had been to stow them with the replacement parts for the boilers.\n\n\"Just give in!\" Branca pleaded. \"If you keep fighting, they're bound to kill us all!\"\n\n\"At least untie us! Let us take cover for ourselves!\" Nerys said.\n\n\"I could do that,\" Nita said. \"But I think you'd rather me fix that pipe rupture before this whole half of the camp fills with scalding steam and boiling water.\"\n\nNita revealed a pipe cuff from the mound of debris and hauled herself back out into the open.\n\n\"This is horrid! It is torture to leave us here! Deplorable treatment! And I suppose you fancy yourself a hero,\" Branca said. \"You are merely violent hooligans!\"\n\nAt the edge of the site, the first shots of the ground troops began to ring out. It was clear they had either been instructed or had chosen on their own to target the boilers, because of the dozen or so shots taken, no less than five ricocheted off the top of one of the kettles.\n\n\"I'm sorry I can't stay and listen to you lecture me about how violent we all are, but I've got to stop the people on your side from killing us all,\" Nita said, dashing for the boiler trench."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 60",
+                "text": "Chaos had consumed the destroyer. The flames were slowly spreading inward to the exposed lower decks, and the unbalanced load left the craft unstable. Turbines on either side of the envelope and across its belly put the ship into a spin about its new center of mass. It was all the captain could do to keep some semblance of order among his crew.\n\n\"The throttle is jammed. Someone in the boiler room cut pressure to turbines two and four. And someone give me status on the fire in the hold and any crew loss,\" he cried.\n\nHis first mate answered, \"We lost five in the blast. Two more out the hole it left during the recoil. And two more off the deck. Plus Alabaster and his servant.\"\n\n\"Alabaster is overboard? Seems some good came of it\u2026\"\n\n\"The fire is mostly under control. We'll have it out soon, but the armory officer says he's afraid it'll hit the powder room and bomb bay before then.\"\n\nThe captain and his mate stumbled to the side as the ship pitched farther. \"Adjusting the engines won't do it. We need to lighten the load. Since Alabaster is no longer here to object, and our cannons are pointed down\u2026\" He leaned down to his speaking tube. \"Starboard cannons, fire on my mark. Staggered solution. And shift all bombs as ballast. We'll lighten this load and straighten ourselves yet!\"\n\nHe watched the treetops slide by beneath the ship as its uncontrolled spin continued. When the starboard side of the ship was roughly aligned with the obscured site below, he issued the order.\n\n\"Fire!\"\n\nThe cannons fired off one by one, alternating fore and aft. Even with this precaution, the recoil of each blast nudged the ship into a steeper and steeper pitch. Any crewmen not already braced had to scramble to a railing or strut. There was some doubt, as the cannons continued to fire, that the ship would be able to hold together. One thing was certain, though. If this was their final attack, it would be one those on the surface wouldn't soon forget."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 61",
+                "text": "Lil, Kent, and the three Well Diggers not manning the guns had the good fortune of being clustered at the east wall, hunkered behind cover and taking what shots they could at the mercenaries approaching through the trees. If they'd been closer to the center of the site, the cannon attack would certainly have been the end of them. The thunderous report of the cannons firing was punishing enough, shaking the trees and shattering the lenses of the phlo-lights on the west side. The destroyer's weapons, large even for ship-to-ship battle, were practically siege weapons. Even if they had built their stronghold into a fortress, it wouldn't have lasted long against the rounds The Fist of Alabaster slung forth. At such a short distance, each cannonball gouged a crater into the earth. Shattered projectiles and kicked-up dirt and stone sprayed in all directions with deadly force.\n\nUntil now they had been lucky. Foresight and proper use of cover and armor had spared the Well Diggers any real injuries. That was no longer so. One of the spike guns took a direct hit, destroyed along with its operator. Two men, one not two paces from Lil, took bits of debris across their faces, shoulders, and arms. And still the cannons roared.\n\nThe deckhand scanned the clearing they'd made for themselves, peering through the billowing columns of dust, and spotted Nita. The engineer had scrambled from the trench containing the boilers and was dashing madly for the relative safety of the spare-parts bunker. As insane as it seemed to be to abandon the boiler trench in the midst of a barrage, the second-to-last cannonball proved the wisdom of the decision. It struck the edge of boiler two, rupturing it and sending a rush of steam and debris in all directions. Pieces of cast iron scythed through the air, skipped across the ground, and clashed with other boilers. A chain reaction destroyed two more boilers and sent a third rocketing into the sky. A wall of white steam and black soil rushed across the war zone. Lil screamed as she saw it overtake Nita a few yards from the well.\n\n\"No!\" Lil screeched.\n\nHer mind ceased to have any say in her actions as her heart and body took the initiative. She threw down her pistol\u2014an unwanted weight and encumbrance for a hand that she might need to pull Nita to safety. She tore away her coat\u2014it would only slow her. In three strides she was at full speed, sprinting across ground barely visible through the settling dust and thinning steam.\n\nShe slid to a stop where she'd last seen Nita and called her name. The ground was thick with a slurry of loose stone and simmering water. Lil's heart pounded in her chest as she searched with growing desperation. Then her eyes caught a glimpse of motion. She dove for the mound of pulverized stone and clawed at it.\n\n\"Nita! Nita, hold on, I'm coming!\" she called out, scooping away more of the mounded gravel that had been solid rock before the onslaught began.\n\nFinally her fingers brushed a leather and fur coat. She clutched an arm and pulled the fallen figure upright. Nita threw her head back, first in a gasp, then in a scream.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" Lil asked urgently.\n\n\"J-just get to the trench,\" Nita wheezed.\n\n\"Get us to the trench, more like,\" Lil huffed. \"I ain't leaving you out here to take a cannonball to the backside after the job you did of dodging the last set.\"\n\nLil crouched and pulled Nita's arm around her neck. When she stood, hoisting Nita upright, the engineer hissed in pain again.\n\n\"What's hurt?\"\n\n\"My ankle. I can't move it.\"\n\nLil glanced down and spied a left foot that wasn't quite at the angle nature intended.\n\n\"Aw heck,\" Lil said, working as best she could to keep the weight off the afflicted limb. \"That ain't nothin'. I did that once, jumping down onto a pier that was farther than I thought it was. Butch'll fix you up fine. Plus, from now on you'll know if it's aching, that it's going to rain.\"\n\nA bullet stuck the soil a few paces back. Both Lil and Nita turned to the impact, then to the east wall. The mercenaries had reached it. Without the boilers, the fl\u00e9chette guns were useless. The Well Diggers did their best to ward them off with rifles of their own, but they were thoroughly outmanned and could scarcely risk a moment to aim before retreating to their cover again.\n\n\"We're going to move a little faster now, Nita. You just lean right on me. We'll get to the trench just fine.\"\n\nNita looked to the other side. \"The gunmen aren't our only concern\u2026\"\n\nLil turned and spotted a glimmer near the edge of the fresh air. The eye-shine from at least six beasts glinted among the trees beyond the barbed wire. Already the fence had been damaged in places. Thanks to their size, the fence as it was had only been a mild deterrent to the larger creatures of The Thicket when it was intact. With the snapped wires here and there and the broken gate, if the creatures decided they wanted to enter, it would be difficult to convince them otherwise.\n\n\"Leave it to the fug to whip up a monster that runs toward explosions and such. Come on, Nita. Almost there.\"\n\nThey limped along, trying to stay as low as they could in hopes of presenting a smaller target to the mercenaries that were swiftly approaching the damaged main gate. Though the pain was evident on her face and in her motions, Nita did not seem frightened. If anything, she seemed to be deep in thought. Finally they reached the trench and Lil helped Nita inside as smoothly as possible. The two of them and a terrified Nikita were the only ones safely inside, the rest of the crew either injured or doing their best to hold off the surface troops.\n\nLil propped Nita against the wall and looked her over. Though the leg was the most glaring injury, it was hardly the only one. The back of Nita's coat smoldered. Streaks of blood mixed with the smears of mud and grease on her dark skin. If not for the layers of leather and canvas, Nita could easily have been killed by anything from the steam to the debris. Lil plucked a shard of wood from the side of Nita's jacket. It was as long as her hand and had bitten deep into the layers of clothing, but it hadn't pierced the tough leather and bracing of her corset.\n\n\"I guess I understand why you dress the way you do,\" Lil said, smiling weakly. \"I really gotta get me one of them corsets.\"\n\n\"I'll have to\u2026 ah\u2026 get you one the next time I go home.\"\n\n\"Yeah\u2026\" Lil said. \"And once we get you home again, you ain't leaving. You were right. Livin' like this ain't a recipe for livin' very long. I ain't letting something like this happen to you again. You holding together all right at least? Anything you need me to do?\"\n\n\"You've done more than enough.\"\n\n\"Okay. You sit tight, Nita. I\u2026 I left my dang pistol. I gotta go get it.\"\n\n\"One pistol isn't going to do this, Lil,\" Nita said, gritting her teeth and easing herself to an emptied ammunition case to have a better vantage.\n\n\"Well I gotta do something.\"\n\nNita glanced at the trees they'd strung the barbed wire between, then shifted her eyes to the tops of the fences.\n\n\"I have an idea.\" She grimaced as her ankle throbbed. \"It's not the most sane idea I've come up with.\"\n\n\"That's fine. The crazy ones seem to work better anyways.\"\n\n\"It might leave us with an even bigger problem.\"\n\n\"Big problems are great. They're harder to miss, so you don't have to spend all your time trying to figure them out.\"\n\n\"Okay, listen closely\u2026\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 62",
+                "text": "\"I don't like that squealing!\" Captain Mack said. \"Sounds like turbine one is working on seizing up!\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's what it sounded like when number four locked up last month,\" Coop said, dangling from the rigging and trying to make his way up the side of the envelope.\n\n\"We didn't take any spikes. That's just bad maintenance.\"\n\n\"Well we ain't had Nita on board.\" He reached the edge of the envelope and stared up at the noisy, rattling engine.\n\n\"You and Gunner were supposed to take on her duties.\"\n\n\"Sorry, Cap'n. You had me digging through that fancy ship and babysitting Lester here so\u2014\"\n\n\"Did I ask you for excuses?\"\n\n\"No, Cap'n.\"\n\nLester, still clinging to the base of the rigging, interjected, \"Can you please take this seriously!\"\n\n\"Would you prefer panic? Because it seems you've got that aspect well handled,\" Gunner said, lining up the deck gun he was manning for a short burst of spikes.\n\n\"It wasn't my idea to be kept up here while you maniacs did battle! Why couldn't I stay in the galley with Miss Prist?\"\n\n\"Because Dr. Prist doesn't much like you, Lester, which makes it unanimous. Get that turbine working, Coop. This steering is getting sluggish.\"\n\n\"I'm on it, Cap'n.\"\n\n\"Just how is that idiot supposed to fix a turbine while it is running? He didn't even bring any tools!\" Lester said.\n\n\"Yeah I did! I brung this here persuader,\" Coop called from his unseen vantage above.\n\n\"What is a persuader?\" Lester asked.\n\nHis answer came in the form of a sequence of loud, clumsy clanks and thumps. After five good shots, the rattling died down and the turbine spun up to the proper speed. A moment later, Coop slid down the rigging and hopped onto the deck.\n\n\"I'm getting dang good at this engineerin',\" he said, flipping a hammer and catching it before tucking it into his belt.\n\nThe captain peered ahead at the destroyer, which was slowly righting itself. Flames still licked at the bottom of the ship where the gaping hole left by Nita's improvised mine had done its damage, but not nearly as many as there should have been. The crew had worked quickly and efficiently. In a few more minutes, despite the severe damage, the destroyer could be battle-ready again. That simply wouldn't do.\n\n\"We're almost over them. Gunner, get ready,\" Captain Mack said.\n\n\"Aye, Captain.\" He pulled a rather substantial knife from his boot. \"You realize with the frequency you've been using this tactic, it could well be called the West Maneuver.\"\n\n\"Suits me fine,\" Captain Mack said. \"They don't name something after a cap'n who didn't put it to proper use.\"\n\n\"Just what are you planning?\" Lester asked.\n\n\"To return something we borrowed,\" Coop explained."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 63",
+                "text": "On the destroyer, the main deck had reverted to an almost level pitch. The captain continued to bark orders, eyeing the instruments on the helm to direct his men.\n\n\"Three more degrees. Move another bank of bombs. That should compensate. What is the status on the enemy ship?\"\n\n\"It is directly above us, Captain. The spotters got a good look at it. Only basic deck weapons and cannons. There is a mid-size ancillary craft and a small gig. No room for dropped armaments. No weapons with sufficient force to breach our envelope.\"\n\n\"I don't care. Set a north heading at least two hundred yards past the edge of that hazy patch. I don't want to risk the ground forces sending up another mine, and I've heard stories about Captain West. I don't trust that man out of our sight. In fact\u2026\" He called to a trio of deckhands. \"You three, to the maintenance walk. One of you go to the edge of the envelope. The rest, space yourselves to relay messages. I want moment-to-moment descriptions of the Wind Breaker's actions until they are back in weapons range.\"\n\nThe deckhands, with clear reluctance, obeyed their orders. They shakily made their way up the rigging, taking up relay positions and weaving legs and arms through to keep themselves steady as the ship lurched into motion.\n\n\"Report!\"\n\nThe messages worked their way slowly back from the man at the top.\n\n\"It seems they are having some payload issues. One of the ships is\u2026 what? \u2026 Oh dear lord!\"\n\nFurther clarification for the outburst was not required, as mere moments later the envelope bowed outward, dislodging two of the deckhands, and then ruptured. A sleek white ship burst through the bottom and drove itself into the deck. Steam pipes burst, boards ruptured, and amid the blinding glare of nearly all the phlogiston pouring out at once, the captain caught a brief glimpse of the name Alabaster painted on the ship that the Wind Breaker had used as a weapon."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 64",
+                "text": "The green ball of light rushing skyward and the deafening crunch of wood and metal succumbing to the ship-to-ship impact was enough to draw the attention of friend and foe alike in the ichor well site. Hidden away on the other side of the blanket of haze, it wasn't clear what precisely had happened, but the sheer size of the flash meant it could only have been the destroyer's destruction.\n\nKent, hunkered behind cover and struggling to reload his rifle from his dwindling stock of ammunition, shook his head. \"I don't know how they did it. But I know they did it. I'm damn glad they're on my side,\" he said.\n\n\"If they don't hurry, I don't think it'll do much good,\" said one of the other Well Diggers, a man called Fesk.\n\n\"There's always the chance they'll listen to reason,\" Kent said.\n\nA bullet ricocheted off the mound of struts that had served as their cover thus far, but the angle from the gate was such that the first mercenary to break inside would be able to pick them off. If something wasn't done soon, things would end quickly and poorly for Kent and the men with him.\n\n\"Hey! Hey!\" Kent called as the gate began to rattle. \"Think about this! That's your destroyer that just got taken down. The folks calling the shots and paying the fees just went with it. The job's through! What are you risking your lives for?\"\n\nThe gate rattled harder, three more mercs joining in.\n\n\"Are you listening! You aren't going to get paid!\" Kent called out.\n\nFor people like these, the appeal to the wallet was always more effective than the appeal to mercy or principle.\n\n\"Shut your mouth!\" called one of the mercenaries. \"We've got contracts. We're to secure this patch of dirt. We can do it with you dead or you surrendering. Dead's easier.\"\n\n\"Yeah\u2026 that's about how I thought this would go,\" Kent said.\n\nThe next voice anyone heard was Lil's distant bellow.\n\n\"You all better back away from that gate! That goes for folks on both sides. If you don't clear out, you're going to be awful sorry!\"\n\nAll eyes turned to her. It was telling that even the hardened mercenaries had quickly learned that this diminutive young woman, if she was from the Wind Breaker crew, was nothing to be trifled with. The deckhand had scaled one of the trees that had been called into service as a fence post. One hand held tight to the last limb before the air began to thicken into the toxic soup that covered the rest of the continent. The other clutched a pair of wire cutters.\n\n\"She's unarmed. Someone take her out!\" ordered the lead mercenary.\n\nA few rifles turned in her direction, but she deftly pivoted around to the back of the tree before they could fire. A moment later she reappeared, now clutching a bizarre contraption: a long, thin cylinder with a canister at the tip and wires dangling from either side.\n\n\"You were warned. This is on you now,\" Lil called.\n\nShe took one of the wires in her teeth and gave it a yank. Smoke drifted from the near end of the gadget as she aligned it with them. Then a bright yellow flare sent the thing firing toward the gate. The rocket began squealing out a high-pitched whistle along the way, and to Lil's dismay, fell well short of the gate. Instead it fizzled out and dropped to the ground two yards on the inside of the fence, still dumping the compressed contents of the canister out through a jury-rigged noisemaker to produce a near-deafening tone.\n\nThe lead mercenary called something out, but over the sound of the noisemaker no one could make it out. His next, far more motivated remark, came through loud and clear.\n\n\"What the hell are those?!\"\n\nFour beasts, each varying somewhat in size and appearance but all roughly reminiscent of the so-called fug-squirrels, stalked from the forest beside them. From this distance and with the lingering brightness of the destroyer's vented envelope, Lil could see the twisted resemblance these monsters had with the woodland creatures they had been before the fug had done its grim work. They certainly moved with the same bounding agility, driven in a leaping gait by powerful legs onto cunning little paws. The only differences were that those cunning paws could easily tear a man apart, and the earth trembled with each leap.\n\nIt had taken mere moments for the creatures that had been lingering just beyond the walls, drawn by the noise of battle, to converge at the main gate. Something about the high pitch or the volume of the whistle seemed to drive them mad. They seemed to not even notice the mercenaries themselves, ignoring the scattering crowd as they approached. Two monsters reared on their hind legs and clawed at the gate, easily shearing through the steel cable with their chisel-like teeth. Another bounded to the stoutest tree nearby and leaped over the fence. The last, to its dismay, chose to scale the fence itself and learned just how unpleasant the barbed wire could be. Regardless, the gate soon gave way and the monsters viciously clawed and stomped at the lure, shattering it.\n\nThe mercenaries, confronted with the menace of mountain-lion-size beasts in an evident frenzy, did the only rational thing and put their rifles to use. A more steady mind might have reasoned that the monsters hadn't yet acknowledged their existence, and thus it might be best to retreat to a better defensible position first. The Well Diggers and Wind Breaker crew certainly took this approach, diving for whatever trench was nearest and most intact and topping off the ammunition in their weapons. Thus, as they unloaded their weapons into the monsters, the mercenary attacks did little more than get the beasts' attention. All four charged from within the walls. The two mercenaries nearest to the gate met with a fate terrifying enough to finally convince the others to scatter. Their retreat was too little too late, doing little more than catching the eyes of the other monsters, who eagerly gave chase.\n\nKent and the others crouched in the trench, clutching their weapons and trying to ignore the stomach-turning sounds of the mercenaries getting their comeuppance. He turned to those with him, and for the first time since the fl\u00e9chette guns had gone silent, took a head count.\n\n\"Okay. Looks like we've got\u2026 did we lose Benson? Roger too? And who's hurt\u2026\"\n\n\"I'm bleeding pretty bad,\" Fesk said. \"And Lou's going to have scars.\"\n\n\"Anyone know where the traitors are?\"\n\n\"Don't know, and don't particularly care,\" Fesk said.\n\n\"Seeing how much damage they did, and how much they could do if they got their hands on some weapons, I care.\"\n\nA pained voice answered, \"They're behind some repair parts and pipes. I think they were clear of the blast when the steam explosions went.\"\n\nThe Well Diggers peered down the dim length of the trench to spy Nita, still sitting where Lil had left her. She was bent over, fumbling with gloved hands to tie a makeshift splint from some rope, some canvas, and two appropriately sized wrenches from her sash. Peeking out from within her jacket was Nikita, who had recently taken refuge there. The inspector Lil had dubbed Lardo was huddled against the wall beside her.\n\n\"Nita! You okay? What happened to your leg?\" Kent asked, moving with the rest of the group toward her.\n\n\"I wasn't clear of the blast when the boilers went. I got caught in a wave of slurry.\"\n\n\"I'm surprised you're still alive,\" he said.\n\n\"Believe it or not, this is what I do for a living. This isn't the first time I've had to run from a steam explosion. Just the first time I've had to do it while people were firing rifles at me.\"\n\n\"Boy, that sure ain't pretty what's going on out there,\" said Lil, dropping down into the trench beside them.\n\nHer sudden appearance startled the Well Diggers enough for one of them to involuntarily fire his weapon into the ground.\n\n\"Good heavens, Lil. Are you working to get killed? Strung as tight as we are, you can't just pop up like that.\"\n\n\"You reckon I should have just hung out in the trees while a bunch of squirrel things are romping about? I got news for you, Kent. Squirrels climb trees.\"\n\n\"They also dig in the ground,\" Nita added.\n\n\"Oh\u2026 yeah\u2026 for hidin' nuts and stuff\u2026 Well, heck. Where do you hide from a squirrel?\"\n\n\"That wouldn't be a problem if you hadn't fired off a lure right inside the camp!\"\n\n\"Oh, well shucks, I'm sorry. I suppose I should have just let them soldier boys shoot you all full of holes while I tried to work out how far that rocket was liable to fire. You try firing a rocket by hand. It ain't made for sharpshootin'.\"\n\n\"Now we don't even have a gate!\" remarked Fesk.\n\n\"You mean the one the squirrels bit through quicker than you could blink, or the one the mercenaries were fixin' to break down in two or three blinks? A real loss to the cause that was.\"\n\n\"It was better than nothing!\"\n\n\"Not by much!\"\n\n\"Quiet!\" Nita hissed. \"The gunfire stopped.\"\n\nAll in the trench shut their mouths and listened. It was eerie. The sound of screaming and rifles had silenced. Now the only sound was the distant crackle of what was probably the smoldering remains of the The Fist of Alabaster, the hum of some airship engines, and their own panicked breathing.\n\n\"Anybody want to have a look?\" Lil asked. \"\u2026 Don't everybody volunteer at once, now.\"\n\nNone of the fug folk moved, until finally Kent lowered his rifle and approached the wall.\n\n\"This is what I get for ending up in charge of you lot\u2026\" he said.\n\nHe straightened up a bit until he was just able to see over the edge of the trench.\n\n\"What do you see?\" Lil asked.\n\nHe dropped back down. \"It's hard to tell with all this smoke and steam hanging over the camp, but I see a bit of good news and a bit of bad news. Good news is, the squirrels took care of our soldier problem. Bad news is, the soldiers did not take care of our squirrel problem. They're looking bloody and angry. Even money says they'll either limp away to lick their wounds or come looking to dig up a few more nuts to make the whole clash worth their while.\"\n\n\"How many bullets you all got? My pistol's still laying somewhere over by the east wall,\" Lil said.\n\nKent and the others popped their weapons open and turned out their pockets.\n\n\"Looks like\u2026 fifteen or so between us.\"\n\n\"Aw heck. With them critters already so full of holes, fifteen bullets should be plenty.\"\n\n\"For these maybe. But no gate and barely any bullets isn't going to leave us in a good position to survive the next few days.\"\n\n\"So you reckon it's better to die today saving bullets for tomorrow?\" She tipped her head to the side, listening closely. \"Lucky for you the cavalry's arrived.\"\n\nThey peered up and saw the belly of the Wind Breaker's gondola break through the fug. It was not quite centered over the well, with its starboard side roughly aligned with the trench. Gunner appeared at the rail and quickly assessed the situation. He manned the fl\u00e9chette gun and dispatched the first of the beasts. The others, perhaps at the sight of one of their own finally falling, scrambled back through the gate and into the distance.\n\n\"You keep that gun trained on the gate,\" Captain Mack bellowed, his voice raised loud enough for those on the ground to just barely hear him. \"I don't know what those were, but if I ever see one again, I don't want to have to see it for long.\"\n\n\"Aye, Captain. Agreed,\" Gunner called out.\n\n\"Lil, Nita! You down there?\" Captain Mack called out.\n\n\"Sure are, Cap'n,\" Lil called in reply. \"Nita's hurt, and a couple of the Well Diggers.\"\n\n\"We'll get Glinda ready. The gig's a bit fouled. Are you folk going to be able to climb a ladder?\"\n\n\"Might be tricky for Nita.\"\n\n\"Seems this whole mess was a trap. And looks like it sprang. You folks had a run in with some fella named Lucius Alabaster?\"\n\n\"Lucius P. Alabaster!\" cried a slightly unhinged voice.\n\nThe voice came from near the center of the site. The Well Diggers popped up and looked to the central pit. A figure in purple, the much disheveled Mallow, stood with a small pistol and a pained look on his face. Beside him, almost invisible in his dingy white outfit enshrouded by the lingering steam, was Alabaster. In the chaos of the squirrel attack and the rest of the combat, he and his manservant must have found their way to the ground. For once his garish outfit had served him well in concealing him as he moved, though with the greater threat of the beasts and soldiers to worry about, the two men would have had to work hard to draw any attention at all.\n\nThe mastermind of the entire plan raised a hand and flicked the end off a small black cylinder. A short, piercing-bright flame burst forth from the end, illuminating his maddened face.\n\n\"This all ends now! Drop your weapons! You are beaten!\" he said, holding the lit flare out over the edge of the pit.\n\n\"You sure about that?\" Lil said, snatching Kent's rifle and raising it toward him.\n\n\"Lil, lower that weapon,\" Captain Mack ordered.\n\n\"\u2026 Aye, Cap'n\u2026\" Lil said, reluctantly lowering the rifle. \"But why ain't I shooting this fella who tried to kill all of us and ain't got nothing but a fancy candle?\"\n\n\"Oh, you wish to know? You wish to peer into the infinite brilliance of my machinations? Do you even suppose that you could comprehend\u2014\"\n\nDr. Prist appeared at the railing of the Wind Breaker as the speech began and gasped. \"You must stop him! If he is able to light the ichor, then\u2014\" she began.\n\n\"You will shut your mouth, or I will drop the flare right now, Dr. Prist!\" he cried, eyes wide with fury. \"This is my ultimatum to deliver and you shall not steal my moment! That is the problem with you. With all of you. You do not know your place. Your place is at my beck and call! Your place is to obey my commands! Your place is under my heel. And I shall now do my best to tell you why.\n\n\"Some of you may be familiar with South Pyre by now. The source of all the phlogiston, all the pyrum, and all the fug for the continent.\"\n\n\"What? You folk have been making the fug?\" Lil said.\n\n\"Oh yes\u2026 yes quite efficiently. The truth of the catastrophe is not known, of course. Perhaps it was a purposeful act, someone who knew what wondrous thing would come to pass if the world were to be bathed in the elixir that created my race. Perhaps it was a simple accident, or even the act of a god, the work of lightning, or a wildfire. Regardless. One pyre, burning bright for over a century, has made the world what it is today. And if I were to drop this flare into the pit, there would be two.\"\n\n\"So? The lowland is already drowned in the stuff. What's a little more?\" Lil taunted.\n\n\"What's a little more? Do you suppose the fug has only risen to its current level out of respect? Out of kindness? It has risen that high because that is as far as a single source of fug can achieve. With another source, it will rise higher. Not much, perhaps, but enough. Enough to wipe out whole towns, to kill, or at least leave homeless, thousands of you surface dwellers. So you would do well to do as I say.\"\n\nAlabaster's eyes swept to the Well Diggers.\n\n\"And as for you, my useful little tools. The ones who so wonderfully played into my plot and made all of this possible. You may think to yourself, what do I care of the surface? What do I care of their homes and their lives? What is to stop me from eliminating this genius and once again seizing control of the precious well?\"\n\nLil gave Kent a sideways glance. \"You better not be thinking that.\"\n\n\"Yes\u2026 yes he and the others had best not. Because one of the places certain to be claimed would be the Midland Plateaus. The breadbasket of our continent. The crops there would wither. The livestock would die. Slowly but surely, people would starve above and below the fug. What I hold in my hand is not a simple flare. Not a fancy candle as you so densely stated. I hold the very fate of the world.\"\n\nMallow looked to him.\n\n\"You\u2026 you're telling me you could kill everyone by dropping that flare?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, Mallow. I've asked not to be interrupted.\"\n\n\"You didn't say that at the beginning, sir.\"\n\n\"Oh, am I to clear the minutia of my machinations with my minions now?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I can, in good conscience, continue to support you, sir.\"\n\n\"Now is not the time for independent thought or, for that matter, a conscience of any kind, Mallow. You are with me or you are against me.\"\n\n\"Then I am against you, sir.\"\n\nThe manservant turned the pistol to face him.\n\n\"Must you be so penetratingly dim? If you shoot me, the flare falls and the world dies. Why do you suppose they haven't fired?\"\n\n\"\u2026\"\n\n\"Back away with the rest of them, you great boob.\"\n\nMallow paused, then somewhat dejectedly lowered the weapon and stepped away.\n\n\"Your idiocy never ceases to amaze me.\"\n\nNita stood, somewhat unsteadily.\n\n\"Easy,\" Lil said.\n\nThe Calderan tapped her leg, and Nikita, who had been cowering within her jacket, subtly climbed down and held tight to Lil's leg.\n\n\"Nikita says Wink told her the captain's got a plan. We have to keep Alabaster talking,\" Nita whispered.\n\n\"Shouldn't be tough,\" Lil said.\n\n\"You there! Are you really so dim that you cannot pay attention to the greatest mind of your time while he speaks to you?\" Alabaster barked.\n\n\"Are you though? The greatest mind of our time? Because it seems you've forgotten about me,\" Nita said. She leaned hard on Lil and Kent to boost herself up out of the trench and walked in slow, painful steps toward him.\n\n\"And what have I forgotten about you? The injured engineer who made the Wind Breaker the wonderful nemesis I have been waiting for.\"\n\n\"I don't care how much the fug rises. It will never reach Caldera. What motivation do I have not to grapple with you?\"\n\n\"You are a hobbling invalid. I am unconcerned. And even if you were able-bodied and might be a credible threat to me, do you think the rest of these people, who would see their world destroyed by any failed attempt to stop me, would stand idle while you made a disastrous attempt? They would sooner kill you than allow you to take that risk.\"\n\n\"Perhaps they would. But I knew I was taking my life into my own hands when I joined this crew. Maybe I'm ready to die. And even if I can't stop you, at least I'm free to speak truth of your madness. What do you believe you can do? You can't actually order us to do anything but stay away from you, because you hold only one card, and once played, the power is gone.\"\n\n\"Ah, but you are wrong! You believe this is about control. That I wish to be in charge\u2026 and that is a lofty goal, to be sure. With this flare in my hand no one\u2014save perhaps you\u2014can openly defy me. The heads of all great industries, Mayor Ebonwhite, and everyone above and below the surface must do as I say. It is intoxicating, and it has the capacity to make me the wealthiest man in all the world. \u2026 But that is not my aim\u2026 It was never my aim.\"\n\n\"What then?\" she said, still limping ever so slowly closer as the Wind Breaker drifted overhead. \"What is your aim?\"\n\n\"Is it not obvious? From this moment forward, I have already won. If I succeed and claim the world as my own, then I am the greatest man of my era, no question. \u2026 But if I fail? If I choose to drop this flare and end the world, then I am the most infamous man of all time. More infamous than Mayor Ebonwhite. More infamous than Ferris Tusk. The world is mine already! I hold it in my hand, right here! And at my mere whim I can snuff it like a candle. The people of the surface will flee, first to higher ground, then to those islands that will still be free from the fug. Islands like yours. And they will carry with them words of my deeds. And when the war is fought, it shall be written that I was the cause. And when the last breath of society is drawn, it shall be my name that is on its lips. I shall be the single most important figure in all of history! And I shall have done it all with nothing more than this simple flare!\"\n\nHe held the burning stick aloft and descended into positively demented laughter. The humans and fug folks in attendance watched with fear and a dash of wonder at the raw insanity that must be to blame for such a mindset. Then, one by one, their eyes began to drift upward. Had Alabaster not been reveling so thoroughly in the culmination of his plan, he might have noticed. Instead he was utterly transfixed by his own genius, attempting between breaths to properly articulate his glee.\n\n\"I should drop it right now! Yes! If I were to drop it now, and start the long inevitable slide toward destruction, it would assure that no one could ever eclipse me. And surely that is the fate I've earned through my brilliance\u2026\"\n\nA faint whistling, like a bit of string spinning through the air, drifted down from above. Somehow, it was this sound that finally pulled him from his fixation. He looked up to see a one-eyed aye-aye, tied into a harness at the end of a long rope, swinging in a wide and precise arc toward the flare he held high. Alabaster acted quickly, pulling it out of the path of the swinging inspector.\n\n\"Ah! Ah-ha! Did you think I would be taken in by so puerile a ruse?\" he raved, watching the aye-aye swing uselessly past. \"I'm am Lucius P. Alabaster! I cannot be out-thought!\"\n\nHis taunting of the swinging lesser primate would likely have continued if not for a minor oversight on his part suddenly becoming apparent. In his split second move to pull the flare free of Wink's swing, he brought it well within Nita's reach. She took both the flare and the fist clutching it in one hand and pulled it sharply, yanking Alabaster off balance. He stumbled toward her and received a well-timed wrench to the side of his head.\n\nAlabaster crumbled to the ground, his grip loosening enough to leave Nita holding his potentially apocalyptic flare. She threw it clear of the pit, then painfully crouched beside him.\n\n\"I've seen a lot of madness since I joined this crew. I've seen obsession, blind greed, megalomania\u2026 but you, Mr. Alabaster\u2026\"\n\n\"Lee-oo-see-us P. Alabaster,\" he said slowly, managing to overenunciate his name even despite being at the brink of unconsciousness.\n\n\"You, Lucius P. Alabaster, are utterly unique.\" She sighed. \"Or at least I genuinely hope you are. Because I don't think the world could survive having two of you.\"\n\nThe job done, whatever mix of dedication and adrenaline had allowed her to push the pain of her ankle aside subsided and she nearly fell. Lil was there to catch her. The deckhand slid herself smoothly under Nita's arm and steadied her, then walked her toward the Wind Breaker's gig, which was already lowering.\n\n\"Give 'im a kick in the ribs for me, would you?\" Lil said as Well Diggers rushed past to deal with the delirious Alabaster.\n\nShe turned to face Nita as best she could while continuing the role of makeshift crutch.\n\n\"That was one heck of a wallop you handed him. I gotta ask. Do they teach that sorta thing back at that steamworks of yours? Because you sure do a lot of whomping with those things.\"\n\n\"It isn't a formal class, but the more martial aspects of free-wrenching come in handy more often in Caldera than you'd expect. We're artists. Artists are spirited.\"\n\nNita sat heavily on the edge of the gig and watched as the worst injured of the men were loaded on to be hauled up. There were three Well Diggers who wouldn't retain the title of survivor for very long without swift medical attention.\n\n\"Hang in there, fellas,\" Lil said. \"We got a medic up there who could sew a whole new fugger together out of spare parts if she had to, so patching you three up'll be no sweat,\" Lil said before turning to Nita. \"Of course, with folks who need so much patching, it might be a bit before she can get to you.\"\n\n\"That's fine\u2026 I've been hurt worse\u2026\" She leaned a bit more heavily on Lil, less out of need for support and more out of simple relief.\n\nThe gig cranked up to the belly of the Wind Breaker. Butch, Gunner, and Coop were already on hand, ready to deal with the wounded.\n\n\"There you are, you li'l runt, you,\" Coop said, yanking Lil up and giving her a bear hug. \"You two just can't keep out of mischief, can you?\"\n\n\"Us girls know how to have a good time is all. Help me get Nita here up to the galley though. She had a bit more fun than she can stand.\"\n\n\"Sure thing,\" Coop said, \"unless you need me, Butch.\"\n\nButch dismissed him and revealed a needle and thread, much to the dismay of the man about to receive treatment.\n\nCoop helped Lil with Nita as far as the first speaking tube, then leaned into it. \"We got 'em, Cap'n. Full crew complement again.\"\n\n\"Everyone in one piece?\" Mack asked.\n\n\"Yeah, but a few of them pieces need fixin'.\"\n\n\"Fine. Good to hear it. Let's get the wounded tended to quick as possible. There's four ships out there somewhere I'd like to put to bed. Near as I can tell, they ain't got much in the way of crews, but now would be a lousy time for surprises.\"\n\nAs they attempted to navigate with three people side by side in a ship with hallways barely wide enough for one, Nita tipped her head to the side and listened.\n\n\"Coop\u2026 would you care to tell me why it sounds as though someone has been beating on turbine one\u2026\"\n\n[ Epilogue ]\n\nSeveral weeks had passed, and the Well Diggers and Wind Breaker crew had used them wisely. The first several days were tense, as the threat of additional attacks from man or beast loomed large in their minds. Mallow\u2014now eager to underscore his abandonment of Alabaster and his cause now that the depths of the mastermind's lunacy had been revealed\u2014was quick to assure all that Alabaster had specifically kept the location and even existence of the ichor well secret. Even the crew of the destroyer was not informed of where they were going or what they would find there until they had arrived. Considering the source of this assurance, the Well Diggers were slow to embrace it. Nevertheless, days rolled by and the only threat came from the wildlife. An awful lot can be salvaged from a wrecked destroyer and four scout ships. Those parts went into a more permanent wall and a better defense system. Once the camp was in a state that could weather the occasional curious squirrel, the Wind Breaker began to make careful, stealthy runs to fetch supplies and crew. Now, though it looked a bit cobbled together, the place was at the very cusp of full functionality.\n\nNita sat on a cot in the cozy little bunkhouse they had erected. A potbellied stove, formerly of Alabaster's ship and sturdy enough to have survived the ship's destruction intact, made the place nice and warm. Comfortable as it was, Nita had been spending an awful lot of time there with little to do while the others worked feverishly at the facility's construction. She leaned aside and grabbed her crutches from where they hung beside the bed, then hauled herself to her feet. The moment the heavy cast on her left ankle thumped to the ground, Lil's head poked in the door.\n\n\"You supposed to be up?\" she said.\n\nNita smirked. \"What are you doing? Hovering over me like a hawk just waiting to catch me?\"\n\n\"I reckon I got to do that, what with Butch sayin' it'll be another three weeks at least before that foot's all healed up, and what with you havin' your mind set on not listenin' to her.\" Lil stepped into the bunkhouse and began to guide Nita back to her cot. \"You keep hobbling around on it and it'll be ten weeks.\"\n\n\"I'm still a member of the crew, Lil. I've still got a job to do. We're behind on the pipe run from\u2014\"\n\nLil pushed Nita to sit down, then plopped down next to her. \"Nope, we ain't behind on nothin'. Gunner and I got the kettles all piped up two hours ago. That big boiler from the one ship we tore up is warming up now. And since I don't hear no pipes bursting or folk screaming, I reckon we did it right. And Coop's installing them safety what's-its between there and the refinery.\"\n\n\"Really\u2026\" Nita said.\n\n\"Yep. I reckon having you here to tell us what to do, but not having you there able to do it for us if we had something else that needed doing, gave us the kick in the pants we needed to finish learning the ins and outs of all this. It really ain't so hard. I still ain't got much of a clue how it all works, or how you manage to build new bits of it. But putting the pieces together ain't too tough.\"\n\n\"I told you. General maintenance is simple.\"\n\n\"Simple if someone hammers it into your head for a couple of weeks. So anyway, you just sit here and relax. Ain't nobody out there that needs you for nothing important. Just let that ankle heal up and\u2014\"\n\nCoop stuck his head in the door. \"Nita, Cap'n wants you over in the refinery.\"\n\nLil glared at him. \"Dang it, Coop! I just got her sat back down!\"\n\n\"Cap'n wants her. Says Dr. Prist's just about ready to start up that brick-packer gadget Nita and her rigged up.\"\n\n\"Oh, excellent! I'd forgotten it was the new piping we were waiting for,\" Nita said, standing up again.\n\nLil grumbled. \"Now I know why Butch is always so surly. Us folk are the worst patients.\"\n\nNita got her crutches situated and began to make her way out the door, with Coop and Lil sticking close in case there was even the possibility she might stumble. They crunched along a fresh snow that still twinkled in the air under the glow of the phlo-lights. Keeping the place lit was something that had to be balanced against keeping it hidden, so the lights weren't nearly as bright as they could be. The result was a subdued, almost intimate lighting for such an industrial place. The light caught the flakes as they fell, making the periwinkle-stained ice crystals seem dark indigo. It was oddly beautiful, though the frigid nip to the air did motivate them to pick up the pace a little.\n\nThey moved through what had become something of a boomtown. Freshly milled lumber mixed with salvaged wood to build brand new buildings. Networks of pipe and belts ran between them, and the Well Diggers hustled to and fro to hammer in a new plank here or tighten up a timing pulley there.\n\n\"Look at all if it,\" Nita said with a smile. \"This is truly making me homesick for the steamworks in Caldera.\"\n\n\"We'll get you there soon as we can, darlin',\" Lil said, the barest hint of regret coloring her expression. \"You done more than you had any cause to for us, and it's just about time you traded them air legs for land legs again before you end up losing one.\"\n\n\"Not so long ago you were dead set against the thought of me leaving.\"\n\n\"Not so long ago you didn't need to use no crutches.\"\n\n\"What's this about Nita leavin'?\" Coop said, slowly catching up on the topic.\n\n\"Pay attention, Coop. You remember the deal. Nita here got us on the wrong side of the fug folk, so she stuck around until we could sort out our own repairs. We got that all covered now. And even if we didn't, we got these Well Digger folks we can deal with now. Couple engineers in the group, or at least near enough to do what we need.\"\n\n\"What's that got to do with Nita leaving? She's on the crew.\"\n\n\"She's finished her tour, Coop. She's earned her ticket back home.\"\n\n\"But\u2026 she's on the crew. A body don't leave this crew except if they get killed or get kicked out. And she ain't done neither.\"\n\nHis confusion was genuine, as though he'd been told Nita had decided to start breathing water. His brain couldn't comprehend that a decision such as hers was even possible.\n\n\"We'll talk about it later, Coop.\"\n\n\"All right,\" he said, effortlessly dropping the concern from his mind. \"So, Nita. I, uh\u2026 I been working on this poem. From way back.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. That's right, I do remember you mentioning that.\"\n\n\"Right, so, I finished it, I think. You reckon you want to hear it?\"\n\n\"Of course, Coop.\"\n\n\"I ain't even got to read it or nothin'. It's all up here,\" he said, tapping his head.\n\n\"I like lookin'. And I like cookin',\n\n'specially when it's pie.\n\n\"Sometimes I reckon, the mornin' sun beckons\n\nfer me to look it straight in the eye.\n\n\"When I see a bird, it churns up these words,\n\nand then I'm fixin' to write 'em down.\n\n\"'Cause eggs in a clutch, an' flowers an' such\n\nare pert near the pertiest things around.\n\n\"Singers that sing, painters paintin' things,\n\nand storytellers tellin' stories too,\n\n\"Ain't none do as good, as a single glance would,\n\nso long as that glance was at you.\"\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"So. What'd you think?\" he said.\n\n\"It's lovely, Coop,\" Nita said, trying her best not to sound like she was giving a child a pat on the head.\n\n\"Ha! I told Gunner you'd like it. He was saying folks from Caldera spend their whole lives writing just one poem. This here only took me a couple of months.\"\n\n\"You did fine work. My brother in particular will be delighted to hear it.\"\n\n\"You just make sure folks know it was ol' Coop who wrote that, and he wrote it for you. \u2026 You're the 'you' I was glancin' at in that last bit there.\" He looked aside and raised his voice. \"Hey, Gunner! She liked it! I told you she would. This poem stuff is easy!\"\n\n\"I'm sure she did,\" Gunner called back, his tone quite at odds with his words.\n\n\"So, Nita, you think\u2026 maybe\u2026 one of these days we might could\u2026 spend a day, you know\u2026 talkin' about poems and art and such? Once we head back to Keystone in a few weeks.\"\n\n\"She's heading home, Coop. Don't you remember?\" Lil said.\n\n\"Home? But she's a member of the crew,\" he said, confused anew.\n\nLil covered her eyes. \"Never mind, Coop. We're just about here.\"\n\nThe group made their way onto the gravel path leading to the main refinery building. It was the largest and most solidly built of the buildings, a long narrow hall that even from the outside looked like an assembly line with a building wrapped around it. Pipes ran out from a stout metal cover they had erected over the pit to eliminate any risk of accidentally bringing about the scenario Alabaster had so eagerly sought\u2014and which in retrospect had very nearly been caused by their unwittingly dangerous use of explosives during the battle. The pipes continued into the building, and a small glass window on the primary pipe showed a slow but steady flow of the radiant golden substance for which so much blood had been spilled.\n\nWhen they stepped inside the building, the fug folk flare for industry became instantly apparent. There was not an ounce of the artistic flare that one might find in a typical Calderan construction or the general slapdash nature that tended to result from the constructions of surface dwellers. Everything was austere and efficient, laid out in precise routes of pipes and tubes, each over well-placed burners or emptying into scrupulously clean vats and tubs. On her feet at the center of the building, looking over the entire venture with the air of a general reviewing her troops, stood Dr. Prist. The past few weeks had made her a very different woman. Gone was the simple but stately dress she'd worn at the academy. She now wore a darker outfit. It was still a dress, oddly, but made from the same material as the overalls worn by the rest of the crew. On top of it was a rubber apron, joined by shoulder-length rubber gloves. Rather than the typical goggles worn by most of the others, she had a face shield that may or may not have been cut from the curve of a large beaker and fashioned with leather and brass into something rather elegant.\n\n\"Dr. Prist, it's been a while since I was inside. You've really made something of this place.\"\n\n\"Mmm?\" the doctor said, drawn suddenly from her thoughts. \"Oh, yes! Your people and these diggers have done a fine job. I believe this chemical stack I've designed will certainly increase the yield, or at least maintain a similar one with reduced complexity.\"\n\nShe tapped at a small glass nozzle and slid a beaker under it. With a twist of a valve, a thin stream of liquid gold drizzled down.\n\n\"I've really been able to achieve a very high degree of purity. Not nearly what they purport to achieve at South Pyre, mind you, but\u2026 well, give me time! Oh! But you're here to see the brick packer. We were just about to activate it.\"\n\nShe paced along a long modular sequence of machines. Nita looked upon it in wonder. In point of fact, she was intimately familiar with the mechanical aspect of the equipment, if not the chemical processes. She'd helped to design it, but her additions to the project had been largely in spoken recommendations or scribbled notes. The ever-vigilant Lil had kept her out of the work areas for the most part. Seeing what had been done with the place was like seeing something fall out of her imagination and into reality.\n\n\"This is where we store the pyrum. Note the insulation and isolation. We wouldn't want that to catch fire. Here is where the ash is stored, and we're experimenting with some sticky gum from the bushes here in The Thicket to replace the wax that's usually used. Wood chips and sawdust are here, a bit of coal dust here, and of course, here are the forms.\" Dr. Prist clapped her hands together and turned to Nita. \"I must say I was rather\u2026 concerned when I learned that through no fault of my own I had become embroiled in some sort of plot involving the Wind Breaker. But this\u2026 this glorious facility\u2026 I would have had to wait years to have a chance to work with this remarkable substance. And to build something from scratch? To attempt new ideas? I might never have had the chance.\"\n\n\"Flip the switch, Doctor,\" said Captain Mack as he walked in from the far door. \"You done fine work here, and I can appreciate you're proud, but the sooner we've got a cargo-hold full of this stuff the quicker we can be out of your hair and on our way back with some of them goods you're after.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. Of course. Er, Kent, if you would? We'll just do the one tray, so push the lever all the way up when the sweeper arm is returning.\"\n\nKent, barely visible on the other side of the long assembly line among an array of switches and valves, nodded once and put his weight on a lever. A trio of pumps shuddered on and began to pipe a thick gray paste into a grid of brick-size voids that looked like something out of a factory bakery. The nozzles hitched upward and shut off in a little bit of automated choreography, leaving a curl of paste at the end of one brick before beginning another. The same elegant motion repeated across the whole of the pan, then the nozzles retracted and a wooden slat slid across the tops of the pans, wiping off the excess.\n\nAs instructed, Kent switched it off when the process was through.\n\n\"And there we have eighteen five-pound bricks of my own recipe for burn-slow. It isn't quite the equal for the South Pyre stuff. Mine isn't so dense, and it leaves a bit more resin in the firebox when it is through, but it burns just as long. A few minutes to cool, then wrapped in paper and they are yours and more to follow. All of this will be automated of course, once we get the new parts\u2026\"\n\nShe continued to speak, but the words went unheard by the captain, who stepped forward and stared down at the tray of fuel. His face was impassive, but those who knew him could see the emotion lurking just below the surface. In the days since the fug folk had begun limiting the supply of the stuff, the Wind Breaker had not had more than fifty pounds of burn-slow at any given time. They were finishing most trips with their last brick of the stuff in the firebox, and twice had been forced to limp to a port on coal alone. The fuel in front of him would have cost them more than a month's worth of their earnings, and finding it would have been anything but certain. What lay before him now wasn't just fuel. It was freedom. It was the lifeblood of his ship and his career.\n\n\"It works beautifully, Dr. Prist,\" Nita said.\n\n\"Thanks in no small part to your recommendations. I look forward to your proposal of performing the motion on the trays rather than the nozzles.\"\n\nA new voice rose over the din of the machinery as it whirred down. \"Oh! So the first test has gone well, I see.\"\n\nThey turned to find Digger, the organizer of the little group. He'd arrived along with the first round of supplies. Considering the danger he would be in, and thus the group would be in, if he were to be captured, he decided a bit of hands-on leadership from within The Thicket was called for.\n\n\"As Dr. Prist says, we are all great admirers of your ingenuity, Miss Graus. You don't work quite to the level of\u2026 precision that we are accustomed to, but your ideas are refreshingly innovative and quite reliable. I don't suppose you could be coerced into staying on as our engineer\u2026\"\n\n\"Hey! She's ours, and she ain't even going to be that for too much longer, so you just keep your coercing to yourself,\" Lil said.\n\n\"I really should be going home after this,\" Nita said with a nod.\n\n\"Of course. And that is entirely your right. Come, if you would, I'd like you to have a look at something we've been tinkering with.\"\n\nNita nodded and followed where he led. For the first few steps, Lil continued in her role of living crutch, but she paused.\n\n\"Coop, you reckon you can help her on your own for a bit?\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Coop said.\n\nLil watched them continue on their way. When they were out of earshot, and the rest of the Well Diggers had returned to their tasks, Lil turned to the captain.\n\n\"Cap'n?\"\n\n\"Yes, Lil.\"\n\n\"I know I ain't usually the sort to ask too many questions but\u2026 aw heck, there're some things that are running my mind ragged.\"\n\nHe looked at her, a bit more intently.\n\n\"I was talking to Gunner, and he was saying how, what with you having that island you bought from them folk at Lock and\u2026 look, just lay it to me plain. Are you lookin' to hang it up?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"When were you gonna say so?\" she said angrily.\n\n\"I didn't reckon I needed your permission.\"\n\n\"And that's another thing,\" Lil fumed. \"You been meaner than a hungry dog lately. If I was looking at the end of a nice long career like yours, I'd be lookin' forward to kickin' my feet up, not snappin' at folks and generally bein' miserable.\"\n\nHe glared at her briefly, but then his expression softened. \"No, Lil, you wouldn't. You'd think you would. But pretty soon you'd get to thinking about how you only ever knew how to do just the one thing, and now you were going to have to set it aside. And at the same time you'd be worried how you came this close and then things started aligning against you. You'd start to think how you were either going to win the fight or lose the fight, and either way the fight'd end, and fightin's all you ever done.\"\n\n\"If you don't want to quit, then don't quit. You still got a lot of years in you.\"\n\n\"No. Not good ones, Lil. You don't want a man who ain't his best at the wheel of any ship. Better to hang it up than take the Wind Breaker and the rest of you down with me when I finally run short of luck.\"\n\nLil crossed her arms. \"You ain't doing me and Coop any favors. Once you take off the cap'n's hat, we're pretty much adrift.\"\n\n\"No you ain't.\"\n\n\"Yeah we are!\" she snapped. \"No cap'n, no Wind Breaker. No Wind Breaker, no crew. I like my life right where it is, and now Nita's headin' out. You're not long for it either. And then we're off to find our own way, and there ain't no way that'll hold a candle to this one.\"\n\n\"You're free to settle down on the island. It's plenty big for that. But you won't. For the same reason settling down ain't putting a smile on my face. For the same reason you're wasting your tears weeping over Nita going home again.\"\n\n\"Wasting my tears?\"\n\n\"She's heading home. Maybe she even thinks it's for good. But if she makes it long enough for that ankle of hers to heal up, it'll be a miracle. The reason this crew works is because we all got a dose of the same madness. You, me, Butch, Coop, Gunner, Nita? We all got the sky in our blood now. The ground won't ever be enough for long. Nita'll be back. She'll be back in the sky again just as soon as she can be. And she'll be looking for a crew like this one. And that means she'll be back with us. Because there ain't but one crew like the Wind Breaker crew.\"\n\n\"\u2026 You mean it, Cap'n?\"\n\n\"Mean it? Ain't nothing to mean about, Lil. I know it. Now once Nita's through, round up the crew and let's get to loading. I want to get into the sky before our luck runs dry.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 65",
+                "text": "Deep in the remnants of a used-up mine, a defeated and dejected Lucius P. Alabaster lay in a cell, staring at the ceiling. He was alone, the first prisoner in the deepest section of a prison that was hastily contracted to replace Skykeep. Stripped of his garish white garb, he was dressed now as a common prisoner. His face was blank, his eyes distant. When there came a knock at the bars, he barely shifted his gaze.\n\n\"Mr. Alabaster?\" asked a familiar voice.\n\nAlabaster turned his head and squinted at his visitor. \"\u2026 Tender?\" he said, confused by the presence of the simply dressed employee of his old club.\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Alabaster. I've got some messages for you. You've been away from the club for some time.\"\n\n\"Away from the club\u2026 I have no place in the Ruby Club anymore, Tender. That place is reserved for visionaries and luminaries. I am undeserving of its hallowed halls.\"\n\n\"It's a place for louts and has-beens, Alabaster. You'll fit in just as before.\"\n\nAlabaster continued, the words not having penetrated his self-pity. \"Why didn't they kill me, Tender? That at least would have been a fitting end for one who had come so near to greatness. Let me live on as one of the titans of the fug that those 'heroes' of the surface have had to slay along their journey. Don't leave me to fester within the walls of a hole in the ground. I cannot even have the dignity of a berth within Skykeep because the blasted Wind Breaker snatched it from the sky!\"\n\nTender tossed the envelopes through the bars and leaned his back against them, drawing his pocket watch to check the time.\n\n\"You're right, of course. They should have killed you. Keeping the location of the ichor well a secret would have served them quite well.\"\n\n\"The ichor well\u2026 What do you know about that?\"\n\n\"But then, it's only natural they would have assumed you'd spread the word about it. It seems the only things you're good at are being the center of attention and running your mouth. Killing you wouldn't have solved anything in that case. Maybe it would have made them feel better, but that captain of theirs is a shrewd fellow. I'd wager he knew the worst thing he could do to you is leave you to rot and fade, alone and forgotten. Maybe with a bit of torture from Mayor Ebonwhite thrown in. He's on the way, by the way. And none too happy you've not told him all the details of that 'plan' of yours yet.\"\n\n\"I don't know who you are, but I don't like your tone. That plan you dismiss held the very world at its mercy. And it is for that reason that I've kept the details a secret. It should be revealed a triumph or not at all! I would have surpassed even the great Ferris Tusk in my infamy.\"\n\n\"Ferris Tusk\u2026\" Tender said, shaking his head. \"If you are going to idolize a man, at least do it for the proper reasons. 'He destroyed Rigel Tower' and 'He bested Admiral Maxwell.' Those were the least of his achievements. The coarsest, most ham-handed events in an otherwise remarkable campaign. Do you honestly believe the achievement was knocking down a stronghold? The achievement was stripping the surface of the confidence and infrastructure to make its own equipment. The achievement was bribing, negotiating, and manipulating the proper figures to keep the damage from being repaired. You want to run the world, Alabaster? The word is subtlety. Learn it.\"\n\n\"You aren't\u2026 you couldn't possibly be\u2026\"\n\n\"One thing you managed, though, is to bring to light something that had concerned me for some time. The Wind Breaker is a capable crew, certainly. But they were toeing the line just as carefully as the rest of the surface until one little change. Amanita Graus. The Calderan. As far as my machinations reached, I could never solve the Calderan Problem. Foolish me, I honestly thought after all this time they would remain content, tucked away in their little paradise without any notion to tinker with the balance I'd so carefully installed. But obviously that was flawed thinking. And so we must solve the Calderan Problem.\"\n\n\"We?\"\n\n\"Yes. As I've said. Running your mouth and being the center of attention are your primary skills. Misdirection appeals to me. So Lucius P. Alabaster shall remain at large. The Well Diggers can continue their endeavor undisturbed, at least until Ebonwhite's blind probing can stumble upon them again. For what I've got in mind, a well-equipped Wind Breaker shall serve as a valuable piece in the game.\"\n\n\"The Well Diggers won't remain undisturbed. Though I've not spoken of the place, surely Mallow or one of the other survivors will have told of the location by now.\"\n\n\"There were no other survivors. I saw to that. Mallow is in my employ now. He's a fine employee, and quite able to remain silent for the proper price, it turns out.\"\n\nA brief cry of pain and a sickening thud echoed down the hall. Tender\u2014or more accurately Tusk\u2014snapped his watch shut.\n\n\"Punctual as always. That is my signal to take my leave. It seems the incomparable Lucius P. Alabaster is about to escape. We'll be in touch, Lucius, just as soon as I've worked out how best to deal with that pesky Calderan Problem\u2026\""
+            }
+        ]
+    },
+    {
+        "title": "(Ring of Fire Anthology 3) Ring of Fire III",
+        "author": "Eric Flint",
+        "genres": [
+            "alternate history",
+            "time travel",
+            "Europe",
+            "short stories"
+        ],
+        "tags": [],
+        "chapters": [
+            {
+                "title": "Upward Mobility by Charles E. Gannon",
+                "text": "[ June 1634 ]\n\n\"We are almost at the border of Grantville, Herr Miro.\"\n\nEstuban Miro tried to nod an acknowledgement, but the motion was lost amidst the greater swayings and jouncings imparted by the wagon's passage across yet another set of muddy ruts. Miro had heard of the wonderful roads in and around Grantville, of their many improvements, but this was not one of those major thoroughfares. Political unrest in Franconia had peaked in the past few months, prompting the regional teamsters to give it a wide berth. Ultimately, that had meant a final approach on this narrow, twisting pike that pushed into Grantville out of Hersfeld, well to the west.\n\nDespite the presumed safety of the route, the driver had been slightly more alert the last few miles. Just south of the light forest that hemmed in this modest lane, the road from troubled Suhl wound its way north into Grantville. Indeed, according to the driver, even along this pike, recent reports of\u2014\n\nThere were sudden, sharp noises in the brush. Cracking branches and the unmistakable rustling of rapid, even violent motion. Miro's hand went to his dagger, a move which prompted the driver to scrabble for the rude ox prod cum cudgel that he kept at his side.\n\nAs Miro tracked the approaching noise, he noticed a small glade just beyond the treeline to the east. This was an excellent ambush point for bandits, particularly since the slight dogleg in this stretch of the road hid it from both its east and west continuations.\n\nThe low brush seemed to burst outward at them; Miro drew his dagger, went into a crouch\u2014and froze. A small, wooly ram\u2014a merino?\u2014leaped out into the roadway. Right behind it\u2014generating a much larger explosion of sundered underbrush\u2014was an equally immature ram of much less prepossessing appearance. The horns of both animals were small and ineffectual, but evidently spring had awakened their nascent rutting aggression. Or at least it had so affected the pursuer, who made up for his lack of comeliness with an inversely proportionate allotment of spunk. Charging stoutly, he routed the other ruminant eastward. Then, with what seemed a singularly defiant\u2014and self-satisfied\u2014glance at the wagon and its occupants, the unbecoming ramlet trotted further westward along the road.\n\nAnother commotion in the underbrush augured further drama: a boy\u2014perhaps nine years old\u2014broke free of the clutching foliage in a thrashing tumble of leaves and limbs. He jumped up and swore vehemently: \"Heugabel!\" Ignoring the wagon and its occupants, his searching gaze found the young ram's receding rump. The boy's mouth opened wide; invective streamed out: \"Ess-oh-Essen, du verdammten scheisskopf! Komm' doch hier! Schnell!\" And, the sound of his further exhortations dwindling along with his spare form, the boy\u2014and his wooly charge\u2014were lost to sight.\n\nThe wagoneer shook his head. \"Here, around Grantville, ist all-vays trubble. Even der rams are rebellisch... 'rebelyus,' I tink ist die Englisch wort.\" He shook his head again. \"All-vays trubble.\"\n\nMiro shrugged and carefully resheathed his dagger. Trouble, he supposed, was in the eye of the beholder. Miro had begun his journey to Grantville by debarking upon the shadiest wharves of Genoa, then heading north to begin his transalpine journey via Chiavenna. That newly open city had been tense: still patrolled by various Hapsburg detachments, this gateway to the Valtelline had lately become a hotbed of suspicion and intrigue.\n\nOf course, Italy in general was tense. The anti-Spanish restiveness in Naples was increasing steadily. Rome had been simmering higher as Philip of Spain became increasingly impatient with Urban VIII's \"irresolute stance\" toward heretical faiths. And with Galileo's much-anticipated trial approaching...Estuban Miro had simply been glad to leave Italy when he did. As a marrano\u2014a \"hidden Jew\" of Iberian origin\u2014any region in which both Spanish truculence and religious intolerance were on the rise was a region he preferred avoiding.\n\nHis transalpine journey had been slow (as he had been warned), but not particularly arduous: the light, intermittent snows of spring had been far less trouble than the run-off from the post-winter melt. The passes weren't the only messy parts of Switzerland, though: tariffs, tolls, and other administrative pilferings mired every border between the cantonments. Once beyond the alps in Konstanz, his travel choices had been either an armed caravan through still-embattled and bandit-ridden Swabia, or a barge up the Rhine and over on the Main to Frankfurt. And thence by wagon, and occasional cart, to\u2014well, to this very spot on the road.\n\nThe trees diminished on either side of the lane as it neared a more substantial east-west road. The driver pointed to the northeast, where the land seemed to jump up with an eerie suddenness: the famed rampart that was an artifact of the Ring of Fire. \"Grantville,\" he announced. And with a shake of his head, he predictably amended, \"Trubble.\"\n\nMiro smiled. For the driver, the growing cluster of strange buildings and strange customs would certainly define \"trouble.\" But for Estuban Miro, it simply meant \"new and different.\"\n\nAnd that, in turn, meant \"opportunity.\"\n\n[ July 1634 ]\n\nDon Francisco Nasi rose and proferred his right hand as Miro entered. The reputed spymaster's shake was not perfunctory, but it was brief.\n\nSitting in unison with his host, Estuban noted that this office, like every other he had seen in Grantville, was spartan by Mediterranean standards. Indeed, it was austere by any standards of the world outside the borders of this strange town, even considering that this small room was merely Nasi's occasional \"satellite office\": his duties were now in Magdeburg.\n\nDon Francisco evidently eschewed small talk: \"I'm sorry we could not meet earlier. My work for the Congress of Copenhagen was quite time consuming. Tell me, how are you enjoying Grantville, so far?\"\n\n\"It is full of wonders, mysteries, and puzzlements. I had heard the tales, of course, even seen some of the books. But it does not prepare one for...all of this.\"\n\nNasi almost smiled. \"Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming. Perhaps that is why you have not yet called upon my brothers or cousins? After all, it is not every day that a relative from the Mediterranean arrives in Grantville.\"\n\nMiro managed not to smile: Nasi was tactful, but wasted little time. \"It would not have been appropriate, Don Francisco. It was best that I made my presence generally known in town so that you might\u2014assess me\u2014first.\"\n\n\"'Assess you'?\" Don Francisco repeated mildly.\n\n\"Of course: to determine if I am whom I claim to be.\"\n\nNasi spread his hands in dismay. \"But you could no doubt furnish us with letters of introduction from your many commercial contacts. Or from your own father, my father's nephew\u2014\" and he stopped when he saw Miro's widening smile.\n\nMiro shifted into Hebrew as he asked: \"My father is your father's nephew? Hmm: shall I trace the entwined branches of our family trees, Reb Francisco? My father is your father's first cousin once removed, not his nephew. Joaquin Nasi is your grandfather through his son\u2014your father\u2014Mendo. Joaquin is my great-grandfather through his daughter Ana, my grandmother. But this proves little: any clever impostor would think to memorize our family tree.\"\n\nDon Francisco smiled, responded in the same language. \"Perhaps\u2014but not many could recite it so concisely and certainly as that, cousin. And I doubt any impostors would be able to mimic that Mallorquin accent so well, as well as the small linguistic quirks of Palma's xuetas.\"\n\nMiro answered Nasi's smile with one of his own. \"You have a keen ear, Don Francisco.\" Even other marranos usually failed to discern his origins as a son of Mallorca's Jewish\u2014or xueta\u2014community. Even when Estuban allowed his home dialect to emerge.\n\nNasi leaned forward, all business again\u2014but now, with a decidedly sympathetic undercurrent. \"So tell me: why do you have no letters of recommendation? As I hear it, you have contacts in Venice\u2014\"\n\nMiro waved a negating hand. \"Impossible. Seeking their attestations would have compromised my family in Palma.\"\n\nOne of Nasi's eyebrows elevated. \"How so?\"\n\nMiro shifted to Spanish, and adopted the bearing and diction of a true hidalgo. \"Don Francisco, I was not just any marrano. No one outside of the xueta community in Palma knew I was a Jew. No one. The marranos I dealt with in Portugal thought me a Spaniard. And I never undertook any action, or entered into any relationship, that connected me with other marranos\u2014including my own family. That is why I have not been back to the Balearics in eight years.\"\n\nDon Francisco leaned back, and despite his legendarily imperturbable demeanor, his mouth hung open a little. \"Eight years?\"\n\nMiro nodded. \"I went on my first trading voyage when I was seventeen. My father decided I had a gift for commerce and for navigating the various social complexities that it implies for us marranos. So at nineteen, it was decided that I was to be withdrawn from activity beyond the xueta community. I disappeared, insofar as the outside world was concerned.\"\n\nDon Francisco nodded, understanding. \"So you could emerge with a different identity, six years later, groomed to pass as a hidalgo and to operate as one in all regards, down to the smallest detail. And all the records of your community's hidden holdings, accounts, contacts\u2014?\"\n\nMiro tapped his temple. \"All up here. Never written down, not one bit of it.\"\n\n\"And your credentials were never questioned?\"\n\nMiro kept his shrug modest. \"Why would they be? I never attended a court, I never went to a ball, I never proposed a joint family venture, I never wooed a gentleman's daughter. My purpose\u2014and my activities\u2014were purely business, and my demeanor and speech were my bona fides.\"\n\n\"So, given your extreme separation, how did you manage to function as a factor for the xuetas in Palma?\"\n\n\"By working as a cargo broker only, and by making sure that my terminal clients in the Mediterranean were non-Jews who had a record of preferring to do business with the xuetas of Palma. I was able to impose terms on most transactions which made it inevitable that they would be brought\u2014advantageously\u2014to my community. Whose merchants would know, by a variety of codes, that it was I who had sent the deal to them. The money I made as a broker and speculator was, however, the source of our greatest gains, and I funneled both my profits, and my community's, into separate accounts in Venice. My family and friends access theirs through a lawyer who specializes in handling confidential transactions in the Rialto.\"\n\nNasi frowned. \"And you left your position\u2014why?\"\n\n\"Firstly, many excellent opportunities in the Mediterranean were compromised when the Nasis departed en masse from the Ottoman Empire.\" He allowed himself a smile at Don Francisco's raised eyebrows. \"I do not criticize your decision; indeed, have I not made the same one myself? But the regional consequences were undeniable: the marrano business networks that you managed in the Mediterranean faltered when your direct control dissipated.\n\n\"Besides, the trade in the Mediterranean is changing and as it does, it attracts new scrutiny. Any determined attempt to track where my trades ultimately resolve would reveal a suspiciously high percentage of them ending quite favorably in the hands of the xuetas of Palma. Not that I am particularly worried about the Spanish government: Olivares' hordes of auditors and investigators have troubles enough without worrying about small fish such as myself. Besides, they would only discover that I am facilitating trade upon which they grow ever more dependent, as their failures in war and diplomacy mount.\"\n\nNasi nodded. \"So, since exposing your past did not threaten you personally, your primary fear was for how it might impact your community.\"\n\n\"Exactly. I was particularly worried by a group of broadly inquisitive Portuguese nationalists that I knew: they would have found me extremely useful against their Spanish occupiers. Even though attempts at directly extorting me would have been fruitless, the related knowledge of how we xuetas have been manipulating trade would been decisive leverage against my community.\"\n\nNasi steepled his fingers. \"Our old Ottoman masters might have seen a similar advantage in coercing you to become their confidential agent\u2014and not just with regard to the Spanish, but all the European nations of the Mediterranean.\n\nMiro nodded. \"So, to protect my community, I left my life as a broker quickly, unannounced\u2014and with no time or opportunity to access my own funds in Venice.\"\n\n\"And now you hope to go into business in Grantville?\"\n\n\"That is my hope. Although I am open to opportunities involving an official position, as well.\"\n\nEvidently Don Francisco heard the subtle inquiry; he shook his head\u2014sadly, Miro thought: \"Had you arrived two years ago...\" Nasi shrugged. \"But now, if I tried to\u2014to find a place\u2014for you, there would be strong accusations of nepotism. And let us speak truth: what credentials, besides your claims of who you are and what you have done, do I have of your abilities and accomplishments?\"\n\n\"None whatsoever.\" Miro smiled and stood. \"My regards to your family.\"\n\n[ August 1634 ]\n\nWhile he waited for the bank's chief officer, Se\u00f1or\u2014no, \"Mister\"\u2014Walker, to finish guiding an elderly lady through a lien agreement, Estuban Miro considered his unusual situation. He was, by any reasonable assessment, a relatively affluent man, yet all his money was trapped in a Venetian bank. Radio was, unfortunately, no answer to his predicament. Even if access had not been highly restricted, no responsible bank would transmit or receive confidential instructions through these devices, since their nonofficial operations were expressly excluded from any assurances of secrecy.\n\nSo he would have to endure the to-and-fro tedium of exchanging bonded letters with Venice. The first several would be necessary to establish his identity, achieved through a multi-tiered set of codes and checks. Next would come detailed financial instructions, and finally, the actual transfer of credit to the bank here in Grantville. Even if he was fortunate, it would be at least four months before any of his assets\u2014other than his emergency stash\u2014became available.\n\nSo here he sat, waiting to see if there was a way to parlay his remaining travel monies into real estate. If the bank was willing to extend him any credit whatsoever, it might allow him to buy a humble property in which he himself could live while subsisting upon the meager rents generated by boarders. The plan elicited a small grin: the price of his newfound freedom was, evidently, a life of penurious humility. His old, Talmud-spouting neighbor in Palma would have found much to appreciate in this pass of events.\n\nHowever, it wasn't the frugality of the investment that irked Miro: it was the wrongness of it. There was a new kind of business booming here in Grantville, which was the epicenter of an expanding trade in information and credit-based (or as some called it, \"liquid\") finance. In all the known world, only Venice and Amsterdam had possessed primitive precursors of this kind of fluid commercial network. And of course they\u2014and so many others\u2014had now assiduously studied and selectively adapted the vast array of up-time financial instruments for the specific needs of their rapidly altering markets.\n\nThese trends were spawning a peculiar kind of economy, particularly in Grantville: here, the power of the up-timer bourse was not vested in traditional accumulations of common goods, coin, and land, but in a far-flung network of high-value, and often rare, equipment, information, and expertise. Interestingly, many of the most lucrative contracts involving the transfer of these \"new goods\" resembled the contraband trade. The freight was extremely low-volume, high-value, and required maximum security: the most common examples were bonds, contracts, bank notes, correspondence, research, copied up-time books, sometimes gems and specie. And in addition to safe transport, these objects also wanted rapid transport: it seemed that a constant challenge in this new economy was that its crucial assets were always needed in too many places at precisely the same time. And that, Miro knew, was the key to a whole new kind of wealth: anyone who could figure a way to swiftly and safely move these key resources from one nexus of need to another would become a very rich man, indeed.\n\nBut how to do it? Airplanes possessed the obvious, needed characteristics\u2014but, just as obviously, were not a practical answer at all. Regularly chartering airplanes was as completely out of the question as was owning them. Those few that existed were already overtaxed, and those in private hands seemed to spend half of their working hours commandeered by the government or its confidential agents. Furthermore, the airplane's need of specialized infrastructure\u2014airfields, prepositioned fuel and maintenance caches, repair personnel and ground crew\u2014made the establishment of a broad, commercial network based upon these rare and complex vehicles something far beyond his capacity for investment, even if all his Venetian resources were at his fingertips...\n\nBut they were not, and that lack echoed the very problem he sought to solve: if only there was a faster way to transfer the funds, to access his remote capital for a timely local investment...\n\nMiro caught movement from the corner of his eye: Coleman Walker was finally heading his way, the banker's elderly customer now being escorted to her safe deposit box by a teller. However, before Walker crossed half the distance, his subordinate\u2014an eager, but somewhat disheveled looking fellow named Marlon Pridmore\u2014rose and snared his manager with an eager, urgent phrase. Behind, the elderly lady reemerged from the vault, evidently in some dither of uncertainty, her eyes scanning intently for her implicit savior, Mr. Walker.\n\nMiro, sensing a further delay in the offing, edged closer\u2014and heard Marlon Pridmore gushing: \"So we've got the burner running at peak efficiency now, even with alternate fuels.\" Walker, facing slightly away from Pridmore, rolled exasperated eyes as his employee burbled on: \"I tell you, Coleman, that balloon of mine is going to soar...\"\n\nBy which time the little old lady had returned: she scooped her desperate arm through Walker's, who allowed himself to be drawn away with an apologetic glance.\n\nWhich Miro hardly saw. All he could see was the radiant glee of the ballooning enthusiast who stood before him, albeit now somewhat sheepishly.\n\n\"Sorry, sir\u2014I just get carried away when I'm talking about the balloon I'm building.\" Pridmore looked away guiltily. \"Other folks can get pretty tired hearing about it.\"\n\n\"Not me,\" Miro averred flatly. \"Tell me more.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 2",
+                "text": "Pridmore did just that. In excruciating detail. Miro estimated that he had understood about one third of Pridmore's discursis, possessed a vague conceptual appreciation of a second third, and was absolutely baffled by the rest. But he also knew that none of that mattered: what mattered was that Mr. Marlon Pridmore\u2014an indifferently skilled bank officer\u2014might be able to construct a working balloon. Or, in Estuban Miro's mind, a commercially viable form of air transport.\n\nPridmore was wrapping up: \"I'm actually amazed you can follow all this, Mr. Miro, particularly without any drawings or models to show you. Understanding a blimp is easier when you can see it.\"\n\n\"Well, then: may I see it?\"\n\nPridmore, like a proud father being asked to display his newborn child, beamed mightily. \"Why, sure you can! Whenever you want.\"\n\nMiro rose. \"How about now?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 3",
+                "text": "The ride to Pridmore's house was not long, and was the first Miro had ever taken in an up-time automobile. But he almost failed to notice the marvels of this conveyance, so focused were this thoughts.\n\nBalloons. He had read a little about them in the library already. They were not fast in terms of absolute velocity\u2014certainly not in comparison to airplanes\u2014but, like airplanes, balloons recognized few obstacles. Because the sky was their home, they flew as straight as the crow, rather than crawling as crooked as the tortoise. And for them, airfields were not required: a network of the simple support facilities would be easy enough to set up in communities located at the right intervals. And the operation of a blimp was, in comparison to piloting an airplane, almost laughably simple: it was the difference between manning a rowboat on a fishpond and steering a three-masted merchantman through treacherous reefs.\n\nAnd bandits and toll collectors could only stare up and wonder what small treasures might be nestled in the gondola above them, seemingly close overhead, but for all practical purposes, as distant from their greedy hands as the wealth of Prester John's fabled kingdom.\n\nPridmore's balloon turned out to be a surprisingly simple device. Large when inflated\u2014it would measure 150 feet in length, and 60 in girth\u2014it became so small when deflated that it would easily fit in its own, longboat-sized, wicker gondola. Two engines\u2014up-time devices once used to propel small, two-wheeled vehicles\u2014provided the motive force that pushed the floating lozenge through the air. Close beneath the bag\u2014or \"envelope\"\u2014of the vehicle was what Pridmore called a \"burner\"\u2014a special torch which sent new hot air upwards to keep the canvas inflated. Miro found himself deeply impressed by the elegance and practicality of the whole vehicle.\n\nOr at least, of its many unassembled pieces: they lay about the master ballooner's small barn in what almost looked like disarray, the envelope itself still a pile of unsewn strips. Miro gestured toward the gear: \"It seems that you have a long way to go before your airship is ready, Mister Pridmore.\"\n\nMarlon\u2014who was also called \"Swordfish,\" for reasons having to do with an obscure pun on piscine nomenclature\u2014nodded sadly. \"Yeah, got a ways to go with this ol' girl. Just me and Bernard doing the work. A few other folks pitch in\u2014when they have the time.\"\n\n\"Can you not hire more workers?\"\n\nPridmore stared sideways at him. \"On my salary? Not hardly. I'm lucky to have a week where I get twenty hours to work on her.\" He sighed and stared longingly at the somewhat chaotic collection of airship components. \"Not like I haven't had offers, though.\"\n\nMiro turned to face Pridmore. \"To what offers are you referring?\"\n\n\"Well, there was a bunch of Venetian fellows who came out here just last week. Said they had come all the way from Italy just to learn how to build aircraft\u2014any aircraft. But none of the airplane firms wanted 'em: they've got more staff and apprentices than they can pay, right now, and these Venetian fellas didn't have any prior experience with up-time machines. So they wound up coming here. They were plenty interested but couldn't stick around: said they needed a salary more than knowledge, so they left. Can't say as how I blame them. Last I heard, they were trying to scrape enough dollars together just to get back to Venice.\"\n\nMiro began walking to the barn door; Pridmore looked up, surprised, and trotted after. \"Where are you goin', Mr. Miro?\"\n\n\"If you would be so good as to drive me back to town, Mr. Pridmore, I have some new business to conduct there.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 4",
+                "text": "An hour from closing time, the tubular door chimes sounded, causing Nicolo Peruzzi to look up from securing the display case in the front room of Roth, Nasi, & Partners, Jewelry Sales and Lapidary Services. His first instinctual hope was that it might be a customer, but one glance made him conclude otherwise.\n\nHe had seen this fellow before\u2014a handsome, saturnine man of about thirty years with a hint of the hidalgo about him. And today he seemed more Mephistophelean than usual. Perhaps it was because he entered the store alone, and Peruzzi was\u2014uncharacteristically\u2014without nearby employees. Perhaps it was because of the fellow's careful backward glance into street, as if checking to ensure that he was neither followed nor under observation. Or perhaps it was because of the long, straight dagger he produced as soon as the door had closed behind him.\n\nPeruzzi's hand went to the large button under the rear lip of the display case and remained there, quite taut. Was this fellow\u2014named Miro?\u2014really going to rob him? In broad daylight? It was known that, although Miro was a wealthy man, he was struggling financially, still separated from his funds in Venice. But had he really become so desperate? And so stupid? Did he really think he would get more than a mile from the store before the police\u2014?\n\nBut Miro smiled at Peruzzi and pointed with his finger\u2014not the dagger: \"May I borrow that small\u2014do you say, 'screwdriver'?\u2014please?\"\n\nWordlessly, and now as thoroughly baffled as he had been terrified, Peruzzi complied.\n\nMiro used the screwdriver to wedge up the brass band that secured the narrow neck of the pommel to the end of the dagger's grip. Then, exerting pressure in the opposite direction, he levered the pommel off the hilt. As it fell into Miro's hand, Nicolo saw that it was hollow\u2014and that, nestled inside, were two rubies and an emerald, the latter of a most prodigious size.\n\nSometime later\u2014seconds? minutes?\u2014Nicolo Peruzzi realized that he had been staring at the green stone, and that his jaw had been hanging slack. As he closed it with an embarrassed snap, Miro smiled faintly and said: \"I am told that up-time gem-cutting techniques can dramatically increase the value of these stones. What share of the emerald would you charge to undertake this service for me?\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 5",
+                "text": "The Venetians were not hard to find in the Thuringen Gardens. In the first place, there were nine of them. In the second place, they had obviously been nursing well-watered wine and a few pretzels for a very long time. In the third place, they wore the morose expressions of the underemployed.\n\nMiro sat down without invitation. \"May I buy the table a round of drinks?\"\n\nFrom that moment on, no invitations were needed. Nor credentials. Nonetheless, Estuban Miro provided a (strategically edited) review of his assets, prospects, and immediate interests: to wit, constructing an airship. He ended by staring hard at the one who seemed to be the group's leader, a fellow named Franchetti. \"Can you build it?\"\n\n\"What? Signor Pridmore's airship?\" Franchetti shrugged. \"Our conversation with him never went so far. After all, we came here to build air-o-planes.\"\n\n\"Airplanes,\" Miro corrected him.\n\n\"Si: air-o-planes. But we learned that we did not have the skills for that work. Or the knowledge. And for every up-timer who could teach us, there are a hundred, maybe a thousand, down-timers who want to learn. And it is a long process\u2014made longer if one does not read English.\"\n\n\"Or does not read at all,\" grumbled his beefiest partner.\n\n\"Si: this is true. The balloon\u2014that would be easier. But Signor Pridmore, he does the work himself; he has no way to pay us. And we must eat.\"\n\n\"And, I fear, go home,\" added another sadly, watching a bevy of jeans-clad young women, recent high school grads, swaying past, the denim evidently painted on their hips.\n\nMiro kept his eyes upon Franchetti's. \"If Signor Pridmore were to let you watch him at his work, and explain his procedures as he did so, do you think you could learn to build it?\"\n\nThe Venetian shrugged. Among the French, that gesture would have meant, \"it simply cannot be done.\" Among Italians, it meant \"of course it can be done.\" His words matched the motion: \"Yes, the balloon is not so difficult, I think. We have the right kind of skills. Sails, wheel locks, ships, dyes, even clocks\u2014one or more of us have had a hand in crafting all these things in Venice. The work we saw Signor Pridmore doing\u2014the physical tasks\u2014appeared simple enough. But what to do, and why, and in what order?\" He shook his head. \"Of this, we have only a small understanding.\"\n\n\"Or no understanding,\" put in the beefiest one again. Miro decided that this large brooding fellow\u2014apparently named Bolzano\u2014could not be a bad sort: he was too forthright about his own cognitive limitations.\n\nThe wiry leader went on. \"But together, we could learn to copy what he does. Particularly if he will take the time to explain each action and its purpose.\"\n\nMiro allowed himself the luxury of a small smile. \"That, I think, can be arranged,\" he said, producing a purse that attracted the eyes of the Venetians like a magnet attracts iron filings.\n\n[ October 1634 ]\n\nMarlon Pridmore clapped an encouraging hand down on Franchetti's narrow shoulder. The Venetian foreman nodded gratitude and withdrew to study the burner yet again. \"They're clever guys, most of them,\" Pridmore averred with a nod as he came to stand beside Miro. \"Hardly need all the tutoring you're paying me to give them. They'll build you a fine balloon, sure enough.\"\n\n\"They have an excellent teacher.\"\n\nPridmore looked abashed and very, very proud. \"Aw, I jus'\u2014\"\n\n\"You have taught them as no one else could. Their progress is extraordinary.\" Yes, Miro added to himself, so extraordinary that they are already outpacing you, Marlon. Not that there was any surprise in that; a handful of part-time enthusiasts were no match for nine artisans working full time. But that speed of construction had a price\u2014nine salaries worth, to be exact. So Miro had to use his limited funds as efficiently as possible, which gave him no choice but to complete his own airship before Pridmore's. But one particular difficulty had begun to loom large: \"Mr. Pridmore, I am concerned about our engines.\"\n\n\"What about them? Don't they work?\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014I mean, I believe so. But they are not the same as yours. They are\u2014what is the term?\u2014'lawn-mower' engines. And this is where the understanding of my men is so very limited. Is there any chance that they could receive some special tutoring in regards to these engines? That, for an additional consideration, you might guide them through\u2014?\"\n\n\"An additional consideration? Don Estuban, your weekly fee for my services is plenty enough as it is. But I'll tell you what: some of the real small-engine experts are over at Kelly Aircraft. And Kelly always needs extra money. So if you could push a few hundred at him\u2014\"\n\n\"It will be as you say. And if you will be so kind as to be my intermediary to Mr. Kelly, I believe it is only right that you receive fifteen percent of the fee I will give him. This is your 'finder's fee' principle, yes?\"\n\n\"Well, yes\u2014but maybe you could help me with something else, instead.\"\n\n\"If I can, I will.\"\n\n\"Well, it's like this: to make the canvas really hold the air, I need to coat it with a blend of different substances. And one of them is pretty hard to get, up here.\"\n\n\"Oh? And what is that?\"\n\n\"Gum arabic. I'm telling you, with a few gallons of that stuff, I could\u2014\"\n\n\"I believe I have a connection for that substance, Mr. Pridmore. And I think he owes me enough old favors that it can be made available at a very reasonable price.\"\n\nPridmore's gleeful expression made his answer redundant. \"Not a problem, Don Estuban. Hell, I was worried that I might not be able to afford enough\u2014or maybe any\u2014gum arabic. So this is great news, just great.\"\n\n\"I am happy to be of service,\" said Miro with a small bow, and a smaller smile.\n\n\"Not as pleased as I am for your help, Don Estuban.\"\n\nStaring at the engines, Miro straightened and let his smile expand. \"I assure you, Mr. Pridmore, the pleasure is all mine.\"\n\n[ December 1634 ]\n\nFrancisco Nasi watched Piazza reading the report. \"Miro's airship is already closer to completion than Pridmore's. Much closer.\"\n\n\"Mmmm-hmmm,\" Piazza subvocalized.\n\n\"He's very good at what he does.\"\n\n\"Pridmore?\"\n\n\"No: Miro.\"\n\n\"You mean, building airships?\"\n\nNasi sighed; every time he made one of his brief returns to Grantville, Piazza seemed to take a subtle delight in becoming marginally more obtuse. \"No, Ed: I mean Miro is very good at getting information, managing relationships, coordinating disparate operations and drawing upon widely divergent resources.\"\n\nEd put down the report. \"What are you saying?\"\n\nNasi shrugged. \"I'm saying that you might want to consider Miro's capabilities in the context of a more\u2014permanent\u2014relationship with this government.\"\n\n\"You mean, as a spy?\"\n\n\"No. As an intelligence officer. Maybe even chief of intelligence, eventually.\"\n\nPiazza put aside his glasses: it was an exasperated gesture. \"Francisco, we've already got one of those.\" He stared meaningfully at Grantville's resident spymaster.\n\n\"For now, yes. But Mike anticipates that when his time as prime minister is over, he is likely to relocate, and my own interests might take me in the same direction.\"\n\n\"Oh, so we're back to the imminent Prague exodus again....\"\n\n\"Ed, I understand you don't welcome the thought of it, much less the actuality, but I have a duty there\u2014not just to the USE, but to my people. Sooner or later, I must\u2014\" He sent a desultory wave toward the east. Toward Prague.\n\nPiazza made a sound that resembled \"Umhh-grumpff\" and looked at the reports on Miro's airship project again. \"So you think he could do your job?\"\n\nFrancisco shrugged. Was it his merchant's instinct not to \"hard sell\" Miro\u2014or a sense of pride\u2014that kept him from simply answering \"yes\"? Instead he said, \"His mind is nimble, highly adaptive, but also capable of sustained focus. He speaks and writes six languages. He is a trained observer of nuances, including social ones\u2014such as those required to construct and to live an assumed identity for almost ten years. He has extraordinary knowledge of one of our most urgent intelligence areas, having unparalleled familiarity with waters, ports, and markets of the Mediterranean. And he learns very, very quickly.\"\n\n\"So you've been watching him? And he's reliable?\"\n\n\"Yes, to both.\"\n\n\"Do you think he knows you're watching him?\"\n\n\"Of course he knows. As I said, he's very good at what he does.\"\n\n[ January 1635 ]\n\nMarlon Pridmore walked around the large barn that Miro had rented, staring at the neatly arranged airship components at its center.\n\n\"You know, I would have been happy to do this without the extra\u2014\"\n\n\"Mr. Pridmore, please. It is the least I could offer. Your presence here is of immense help to us.\"\n\nPridmore snorted out a laugh. \"Really? Hell, I wish my shop looked so good\u2014or I was so far along.\" He started walking again, eyeing the rows of empty fuel tanks professionally. \"Giving yourself a lot of operating range, eh?\"\n\n\"Or more payload over shorter distances\u2014and at higher speeds.\"\n\nPridmore stopped. \"How high a speed?\"\n\n\"It is our objective to be able to operate at thirty-five mph.\"\n\nPridmore started, then glanced back at the envelope. \"Thirty-five mph? Then you're building it wrong.\"\n\nMiro felt a stab of panic deep in his bowels, but gave no sign of it. \"Wrong in what way?\"\n\n\"Well, you need a keel and a nose-frame; you can't just have an unsupported bag.\"\n\nMiro's response was the most routine sentence he used when discussing balloons with Marlon Pridmore. \"I don't understand: what do you mean?\"\n\n\"I mean, if you try to get an unsupported hot air envelope up to 35 mph, it's going to deform on you.\"\n\nMiro felt an incipient frown and kept it off his face. \"Can you explain that to me...erm, visually?\"\n\n\"Oh, sure. You've seen soap bubbles, right?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And they stay round as they float through the air, right?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But what happens if you blow too hard on them\u2014either with the wind or against it?\"\n\nMiro thought for a second, then nodded. \"Their shape begins to stretch, to warp. They can't really be pushed very hard without, without\u2014\"\n\n\"We would call it 'being deformed by atmospheric drag.' It's the same with a loose-bag blimp; there's only so fast you can go before the 'nose' of the bag starts dimpling and buckling: the air inside can't hold the shape against the pressure generated by the air friction on the outside.\"\n\n\"So you need a...an 'internal skeleton' to help it keep its shape.\"\n\n\"Right. In this case, you don't need more than a keel and a nose-cone\u2014sort of like a spine with an underslung umbrella at the front.\"\n\n\"I see. And you would know how to make this?\"\n\n\"Why, sure. And Kelly will have some good tips for you, too. Better, maybe.\"\n\n\"This is most helpful: please, let me compensate you for your advice.\"\n\n\"You already do compensate me for my advice. Damn, your money is helping me far more than my advice is helping you.\"\n\nMiro smiled as he opened his purse. \"Trust me when I insist that you are quite mistaken in that assumption, Mr. Pridmore; quite mistaken, indeed.\"\n\n[ March 1635 ]\n\nDespite the bitter wind that drove the cold rain sideways into every pedestrian's face, Francisco Nasi waved broadly at Miro and crossed the street toward him.\n\nMiro waved back and smiled. He had not seen much of Nasi over the last five months. Mike Stearns'\u2014and Ed Piazza's\u2014spymaster extraordinaire was usually in Magdeburg, often closeted for marathon meetings, and sometimes \"traveling on business\" to places about which only one thing was known: they were far away from Grantville. In consequence, Miro had had few opportunities to converse with Nasi again\u2014and whenever he did so, Miro sensed\u2014what? A shadow of guilt? A hint of regret?\n\nMiro took Francisco's extended hand, noted the same slightly melancholy smile. \"How are you, Don Francisco?\"\n\n\"I'm freezing, so my senses still function. And you, Don Estuban?\" Nasi's use of his full, correct title was code, but its message was quite clear: Nasi had learned that Miro's Venetian funds had finally arrived, were more considerable than even he had guessed, and\u2014most importantly\u2014were the proof positive that the xueta was exactly who he had claimed to be almost eight months earlier.\n\n\"I am well enough, Don Francisco. And my project is nearing completion.\" As if you didn't already know that.\n\n\"Excellent. But it must be very absorbing. We don't see much of you in town.\"\n\n\"But how would you know if I'm in town, Don Francisco? Your presence here seems much rarer than mine.\"\n\n\"Touch\u00e9. But I have much family here, and they are my eyes and ears. On the streets, in the restaurants, elsewhere\u2014\"\n\nElsewhere. By which you mean, \"the synagogue.\"\n\nNasi looked up the street at nothing in particular. \"I have regretted that the circumstances of your arrival made it impossible to\u2014to welcome you, as was proper. As is traditional.\"\n\nMiro proferred a small bow. \"You had no choice, Don Francisco. Your official responsibilities must trump all other considerations.\"\n\n\"Yes. But only for as long as they must.\" Nasi put out his hand to say farewell, opened his mouth, waited a long moment before speaking. \"You have no family here. And a seder alone is no seder at all.\" Then Nasi smiled faintly, released Miro's hand, and, hunching over, hurried off into the cold.\n\nMiro looked after him: it had not been, strictly speaking, an invitation. But that would no doubt change when Estuban Miro made his appearance in the almost-repaired synagogue this coming Shabbat.\n\nHe trusted that the spitting rain hid any other moisture that might have made his eyes blink so quickly. To sit and pray in a synagogue once again. To share a seder once again. To hear and speak Hebrew. To be a Jew in something other than name and memory only. To reclaim his life after nine long years.\n\nEstuban stared up into the cold rain and felt suddenly warm, felt his soul rise with the promise of his almost-ready airship.\n\n[ April 1635 ]\n\nFranchetti angled the props upward a bit, driving the blimp toward the ground. Then he cut the engines, and pulled hard on the lead ground line.\n\nThe forward bow of the gondola pushed into the soft loam, and the night-time noises hushed; the moon stared down, bright and indifferent.\n\nAs the rest of the Venetians swarmed the craft\u2014affixing new lines, tossing in some ballast, opening flaps\u2014Franchetti hopped out, followed by Bolzano, his beefy assistant in all things. \"I am an aviator!\" Franchetti cried. \"I have flown like the birds!\"\n\nMiro smiled. \"Excellent work, Franchetti\u2014and you must not breathe a word of it.\"\n\n\"But Don Estuban\u2014\"\n\n\"This is as we agreed, Franchetti. Would you take away Signor Pridmore's joy at being the 'first' to fly in a balloon? After all he has done to help us build the Swordfish?\"\n\nFranchetti looked like a truant child. \"No, you are right, Don Estuban\u2014but did we not finish first? Long before him? And look at her! Is she not beautiful?\"\n\nNow sagging slightly in the moonlight, her abbreviated ribs showing, Miro thought the airship looked more akin to an emaciated maggot. \"She is beautiful indeed, Franchetti\u2014and I promise, in the future, you will be able to tell everyone that you were the first test pilot\u2014for the next airship we build.\"\n\nFranchetti stared at him. \"The next\u2014? So we are not done? Then why did you say that this was our final week of pay?\"\n\n\"Because now we change how you will be paid, Franchetti. I have been thinking that the master craftsmen who build my airships should also have the option to have part ownership in them. Of course, not all will want that. However, for those who do\u2014\"\n\nBut Franchetti was out of the gondola in a single leap and, landing with his arms around Miro, planted a sweaty kiss on each of the xueta's well-shaven cheeks. \"I will be an aviator!\" he shouted loudly into the night sky.\n\nSo loudly that Miro harbored a faint worry that Marlon Pridmore might have heard\u2014and might have lost the joy of thinking himself the first to fly one of the airships he had designed.\n\n[ May 1635 ]\n\nFrancisco Nasi's desk was almost bare, and the contents of his \"courtesy office\" were now mostly in boxes. Nasi was bound to depart within a few months, and the process of relocation was already underway. But right now, his attention was very much riveted on the report in front of him. \"I notice that President Piazza's agents picked up this man Bolzano just a day after you passed word to me that we keep an eye out for him, heading south. What I'm wondering is: why?\"\n\n\"Why what, Francisco?\"\n\n\"Why you wanted the local authorities advised to pick him up. And how you knew he was a confidential agent for 'other interests.'\"\n\nMiro shrugged. \"The answer to the second is also the answer to the first. Bolzano started out as self-deprecating, unskilled illiterate, only worried about securing a salary. But during the process of constructing the Swordfish, he proved to be a quick study, dedicated, resourceful. And when I offered extended contracts with better terms to all my workers, he demurred, pleading urgent business in Padua. Nonsense. He had to return south to report to his real employers, and so had to decline the permanent position\u2014which was wholly out of character for the role he had opted to play up here.\"\n\n\"Well, you were right\u2014although it seems he was not working directly for any government. Only a factotum for parties unnamed. But why did you recommend that President Piazza hold him in custody, Estuban?\"\n\n\"Firstly, Francisco, I suggested it to you.\"\n\n\"Yes\u2014and my responsibilities here are finished. I no longer have power in this matter.\"\n\nMiro decided not to look as dubious as he might have. \"Yes\u2014that's what all the official documents say. But it seems to me that President Piazza has asked you to, well, 'watch over' me this far, so I surmised that he might ask you to oversee this final related incident. Just as a means of ensuring a smooth transition, of course.\"\n\nNasi did not blink or move for five full seconds. Then he said, almost without moving his lips: \"I have certain\u2014discretionary allowances\u2014regarding the resolution of your current project. But let us return to the topic: why did you request that Bolzano be held?\"\n\n\"First tell me this: why have you elected to do so? My suggestion certainly isn't justifiable grounds for detaining a foreign national, is it?\"\n\nNasi shifted uncomfortably in his chair. \"You know it's not.\"\n\n\"Then I was right to guess that\u2014for a little while, at least\u2014Grantville's own intelligence 'brotherhood' would like to keep my balloon a secret.\"\n\n\"Well...yes. So far as it's possible, since the Venetians spoke openly about what they were doing. But most everyone thinks they are still building the first balloon, not the second.\"\n\n\"Yes; that was why I suggested you find and detain Bolzano. Not to protect the knowledge of how to make an airship; that will be common knowledge, soon enough\u2014particularly since this design is so simple. But Bolzano might also have informed others that we already had a working balloon.\"\n\n\"Yes, about that\u2014\"\n\nEstuban let himself smile. \"It's about Italy, isn't it?\"\n\nNasi's face became completely expressionless. \"How do you know?\"\n\n\"News like that travels quickly; by tomorrow at the latest, everyone in Grantville will know that there will soon be an anti-pope, and that Urban is missing.\" Miro smiled wider. \"Or is he? Because if Urban isn't missing\u2014if, instead, someone wanted to fly him out from a spot where there was no airfield, or fly in a special security team and their equipment\u2014I suspect it might be very helpful to have a balloon to expedite that kind of mission.\"\n\n\"So you can do it? You can fly to Northern Italy?\"\n\n\"I can lift three thousand pounds over the Alps and arrive in Brescia four to eight days after we start out. The journey would be in four legs. Leg one is to N\u00fcrnberg. Then to Biberach. Then across the Bodensee up to Chur in the Grissons cantonment. Then south over the Valtelline and onto the Northern Italian plain. Each leg is a three-hour trip, give or take. Assuming that we must arrange support at the endpoint of each leg, we should be able to make a flight every two or three days. If the support could be arranged ahead of time,\"\u2014Miro looked through the wall in the direction of the radio room\u2014\"we could perform a flight a day.\"\n\n\"So we\u2014that is, President Piazza\u2014could have a team on-site in four days?\"\n\n\"If you consider Brescia 'on-site,' then, yes: if the weather permits, four days. Assuming that President Piazza\u2014or even higher authorities\u2014can arrange the necessary support.\"\n\n\"And what kind of support will you need?\"\n\nMiro wondered, given the carefully rehearsed diction of that question, if it had been originally anticipated by Nasi, or Piazza, or Stearns\u2014or maybe all three. \"At each endpoint, we need a place to store the balloon\u2014which, given its segmented keel, folds down to fifty feet long and twenty wide. And we need enough fuel on site\u2014ethanol, methanol, lamp oil, fish oil\u2014for the balloon's next flight.\"\n\n\"Sounds simple.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is\u2014which is why I already have twelve transport contracts for when I begin commercial flights.\"\n\n\"Twelve? Already?\"\n\nMiro nodded. \"Six out of Venice, one from Lubeck, two from Amsterdam, one from Prague, two from Brussels.\"\n\n\"And you are carrying\u2014?\"\n\n\"A fair number of passengers, particularly diplomats and specialists. Lots of documents: data, research copies, bonds, certificates, and contracts of all sorts. Some specie, some spice, some lenses, even some gemstones and pearls. Low weight, high value. My rates are steep, but the transport is fast, safe, and almost entirely tariff-and toll-free.\"\n\n\"And could you carry a\u2014a 'special cargo' for President Piazza, first?\"\n\n\"Of course; here's the rate sheet.\"\n\nNasi studied it, blanched, and then looked a bit like a penniless farmer confronting a burly amtman. \"Estuban\u2014I can't\u2014I don't think the government here can pay these charges.\"\n\nMiro nodded, watching Nasi closely: another second and the spymaster might start mentioning how President Piazza might need to \"nationalize a key asset\u2014such as your balloon\u2014for the duration of the crisis.\" Probably not, but why risk having the deal move in that direction? By claiming poverty, Nasi had inadvertently given Miro the initiative: \"Let's keep the operating expenditures equal to my costs, Francisco: just have the president\u2014or your successor\u2014pay for the fuel and the crew. Besides, what's more important to me than your government's money is your government's political influence.\"\n\n\"What kind of influence?\"\n\n\"The kind that would allow my airship company to become a government partner in bulk purchasing and shipment of various kinds of fuel. The kind of influence that would help us get support facilities established in the cities we'd be servicing directly. The kind of influence that reduces or eliminates certain tariffs or taxes. In short, nothing that needs to come out of a president's\u2014or a spymaster's\u2014always overburdened operations budget.\" And Miro smiled.\n\nFrancisco smiled back. \"To quote a fine, if sentimental, movie I just saw, I suspect that President Piazza may consider this 'the beginning of a beautiful friendship.'\"\n\nMiro nodded. \"Casablanca. See? I'm acclimating. And none too soon, for today I am truly embarking upon the American Dream.\"\n\nFrancisco frowned. \"What do you mean?\"\n\nEstuban feigned surprise. \"Why, I have attained what every person in Grantville is pursuing! Today, as my financial prospects promise to rise with my airship, its seems that I have literally achieved 'upward mobility.'\"\n\n\u2042\n\n[ Four Days on the Danube by Eric Flint ]"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 6",
+                "text": "The first notice Rita had that something was amiss was on the startling side. The front door to the small apartment in Ingolstadt's military headquarters that she and her husband Tom had just finished settling into was blown in by an explosion. A splinter from the door sliced open her left arm just below the shoulder. Another splinter flew into her side and stuck there like a pin, just above the hip.\n\nThe blast itself sent her stumbling back. She tripped and fell into the fireplace. Where her dress caught fire.\n\nA man came through the door on the heels of the explosion. He had a wheel-lock pistol in his hand which he leveled at her and fired.\n\nThat was pretty much the low point of the evening. Luckily for Rita, the door hadn't been completely blown off the hinges. Half of it was still hanging in the entrance and a jagged edge caught the man's sleeve as he brought up the gun. His aim was thrown off and the bullet went into the fireplace instead of Rita's chest.\n\nSqualling with fear and anger, Rita scrambled out of the fireplace. She started slapping at her dress to extinguish the flames licking at the hem. Then, seeing that her assailant was bringing out another pistol, she left off trying to extinguish the flames and turned instead toward the mantelpiece. Her husband Tom kept his shotgun up there.\n\nShe wouldn't make it, she realized despairingly. By the time she\u2014\n\nAnother crash drew her head around. Tom had burst in from their bedroom. The front room of the apartment doubled as a dining area. Tom disarmed the gunman by the simple expedient of driving the dining table across the floor into the man's hip.\n\nTom Simpson was a former football lineman. If anything, the years since the Ring of Fire and his military service had put still more meat and muscle on his immense frame. And he certainly hadn't lost any strength. The table smashed into the assailant like a battering ram, smashing his hip and slamming him into the door frame. His eyes rolled up and he slumped into the room unconscious.\n\nNow that he was out of the doorway, Rita could see another assailant coming right behind. This one had a pistol also.\n\n\"Watch out, Tom!\" she shouted, as she brought the shotgun to bear.\n\nRita had been raised a country girl, the daughter and sister of coal miners. She'd been handling firearms since she'd gotten a .22 rifle for her eighth birthday and had been hunting pheasant and quail with a shotgun since she was ten.\n\nThat had been a 20 gauge, of course, suitable for a small girl. But she'd graduated to a 12 gauge long since.\n\nTom had the gun loaded for war, not hunting. The heavy slug punched the man back with a hole in his chest. If he wasn't dead already, he would be soon\u2014and either way, he was out of the action.\n\nA third man stood behind him in the corridor, a look of surprise on his face. He had his dying companion half-supported with one arm while he tried to bring his own pistol to bear with the other.\n\nRita pumped in another round. Since she didn't have a clear shot at the man's center mass, she aimed at his head instead. Later, she'd realize that she could have taken the much easier center mass shot. At that range, a solid slug fired from a 12 gauge would have blown right through the man standing in front. But this was her first gunfight\u2014and it was a mistake even experienced gunmen probably would have made.\n\nThe head shot missed, not surprisingly. But the man she'd fired at, who was also not thinking clearly, frantically pushed his dying comrade aside so he could bring up his own pistol and fire.\n\nAnd miss. The shot went completely wild, in fact, striking the wall of the corridor and never even making it into the room Rita was standing in.\n\nNow she had a center mass shot. She pumped in another round and fired.\n\nAnd missed. Her intended target, at least\u2014but the shot went high and struck her opponent on the side of the head. A chunk of his skull was torn off and the corridor was splattered with blood and brains all the way to the outside entrance another fifteen feet further down the corridor. The man spun completely around, dropping his pistol, and then collapsed on top of his companion.\n\nRita jacked in another round. The next thing she knew, she was doused with cold water.\n\n\"Hey!\" she squealed, spinning around to face this new attack. Just in time, she managed not to point the shotgun at her husband.\n\n\"Don't move, dammit,\" Tom growled. \"You're on fire.\" He had the faucet running in the basin and the saucepan under it. A couple of seconds later, he threw half the contents over her dress.\n\nLooking down, she saw that there were still some flames flickering along one edge.\n\nAnd her leg hurt. She'd been burned, she realized.\n\n\"Ow,\" she said.\n\nTom took the time with the third panful to lift up the hem of her dress and carefully pour the water over the still-burning and smoldering spots, instead of just splashing it on her.\n\n\"You'd better see to your wounds and change clothes,\" he said, setting the pan down on the table he'd used to disable the first assailant.\n\nWho, for his part, issued a groan.\n\nTom leaned over, lifted the man to his feet with one hand, slammed the back of his head against the door jamb again, then let him slump to the ground.\n\nThis impact was far more savage than the first. The man would be unconscious for hours. If he wasn't dead\u2014Tom was in a quiet fury and he was very strong.\n\n\"I've got to go see what's happening, hon,\" he said, reaching for the jacket of his uniform hanging by the door.\n\nFor the first time, Rita realized there was a cacophony of shouts and gunfire coming from outside. It sounded like the whole city was under attack.\n\nIt finally dawned on her that this hadn't been a house invasion by criminals.\n\n\"What do you think...?\"\n\nNow, Tom was buckling the holster with his sidearm around his waist. He'd had that hanging by the door also.\n\n\"At a guess, the Bavarians are attacking.\"\n\n\"But how'd they\u2014\"\n\n\"Get in? Treachery, I figure. Has to have been, as many as there are from the sounds of it.\"\n\nHis gun holstered, Tom stepped forward, reached out and plucked out the splinter above her hip. That was her first realization that it was there.\n\n\"That's probably nothing to worry about,\" Tom said. \"It's hardly even bleeding, from the looks of your dress. But you'd better see to your arm.\"\n\nFor a moment, he seemed to be dancing back and forth, obviously torn by indecision. Rita shook her head.\n\n\"I'll be fine,\" she said. \"Go see to your men.\"\n\nA moment later, he was gone. After giving the corridor a wary glance, Rita put the shotgun back on the mantelpiece and drew her left arm across her chest to get a better look at the wound.\n\nIt was bleeding a fair amount, but she didn't think it was really all that serious. The proverbial \"minor flesh wound\"\u2014except that now it was starting to hurt, damn it all.\n\nThey had some first aid supplies in a small chest in the bedroom. It was under the bed, since there wasn't much room in the apartment and the kit wasn't something they expected to be needing regularly. She went in, knelt down and looked under the bed. Not to her surprise, she discovered that the first aid kit had faithfully obeyed the Iron Law of Anything Put Under A Bed. By whatever mysterious means, it had migrated to the very center.\n\nSo, an already torn, dirty and blood-stained dress got a bit more wear and tear on it, while she half-crawled under the bed to drag out the kit. By the time she got it out, she was worried enough that she almost gave up the effort halfway through. The sounds of fighting from outside were unmistakable now. That was a pitched battle being waged out there, with rifles and grenades\u2014even an occasional cannon shot\u2014not some sort of raid or minor incursion.\n\nWith the kit finally in hand, she hurried to the apartment's basin. The military housing had running water, even if it didn't have electricity. Fortunately, there was enough light being shed by the fire and the two lamps in the room for her to start working on her wounds.\n\nThe one on her side proved to be minor, sure enough. The dress itself had absorbed most of the impact. But the wound on her arm was a different matter. Once she washed it off and could see the damage clearly, she winced. That gash was big enough and deep enough that it ought to be closed with stitches. But there was no way she would be able to manage that herself, one-handed. She'd just have to be satisfied with a pressure dressing. She wasn't worried about blood loss, as such. But without stitches, she'd wind up with a pretty nasty scar on her upper arm. She tried to console herself with the thought that sleeveless dresses weren't in fashion in the year 1636 anyway.\n\nThere was a small bottle of concentrated alcohol in the first aid kit. She used that to sterilize the wound\u2014which really hurt\u2014and then started awkwardly wrapping some (theoretically) sterile cloth around it.\n\nSounds coming from the corridor drew her attention away from the task. She snatched the shotgun off the mantelpiece.\n\nHearing female voices, she relaxed a bit. There was far too much fighting going on for there to be any enemy camp followers moving around. Then, recognizing one of the voices, she relaxed completely.\n\n\"In here, Willa!\" she shouted. \"I'm alone, and there's no danger!\"\n\nShe glanced down at the two dead men in the corridor. \"Well, no immediate danger, anyway,\" she added.\n\nA few seconds later, the shapes of three middle-aged women appeared in the corridor. They minced their way across the two bodies, taking care not to step on them.\n\nTheir gingerly manner had nothing to do with squeamishness. The nickname given to Willa Fodor, Maydene Utt and Estelle McIntire was \"the Three Auditors of the Apocalypse.\" Tenderhearted, they were not. But they were also no longer lithe and athletic girls, if they ever had been, and the sprawled corpses in the narrow hallway were not minor obstructions.\n\nFodor was the first one into the room, followed by Utt. As her sister-in-law Estelle came in, Maydene knelt down and checked the pulse of the third assailant whom Tom had smashed into the doorjamb, then reached behind his head.\n\n\"Well, he's with the Lord,\" she announced. \"Or wherever. What d'you do? Hit him with a train? The whole back of his skull's caved in.\"\n\n\"Uh... Tom slammed him into the door. He was really pissed.\"\n\nGrunting, Utt heaved herself back on her feet. She was a big woman. Not fat, particularly, just very heavily built. \"Well, I guess a really-pissed Tom Simpson will pass for a pretty good train imitation. Where is he now?\"\n\nRita nodded toward the door. \"Out there, somewhere. He left to see what was happening.\"\n\nBy then, Estelle had come up to look at Rita's arm.\n\n\"Hold still,\" she commanded. After a quick examination, she said: \"You got a needle and thread in that first aid kit?\"\n\nRita was tempted to say no. Sorely tempted. McIntire was about as skinny as her sister-in-law was hefty, but they shared the same temperament. It was the sort of middle-aged female Appalachian temperament for which phrases like quit your whining and stop being a baby came trippingly off the tongue. Estelle would sew up the wound without worrying much about minor issues like agony.\n\n\"You got medical training...?\" Rita ventured, half-hoping she might fend the woman off.\n\nEstelle sniffed. \"Who needs medical training for something like this? I've been sewing up torn clothes since I was six.\" She turned her head. \"Mary, give me a hand.\"\n\nFor the first time, Rita realized that two other people had followed the three auditors into the room. The one to whom Estelle had spoken was Willa Fodor's niece, Mary Tanner Barancek. The girl had graduated from high school a year and half earlier and had gone to work in Dr. Gribbleflotz's laboratories in Jena. Some sort of clash with her boss had led her to quit and she'd come down to the Oberpfalz to work for her aunt. She had some sort of dignified-sounding down-timer job title, but she was really a combination gofer and clerk.\n\nThe man standing next to her, on the other hand, had a job that actually matched the title. Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler was the private secretary for the Upper Palatinate's new administrator, Christian I of Pfalz-Birkenfeld-Bischweiler. He'd held the same position for the previous administrator, Ernst Wettin, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, before Wettin had been reassigned to Saxony.\n\nB\u00f6cler was a certain type of German official, by now quite familiar to Rita after four and a half years in the seventeenth century.\n\nPhysically, he was unprepossessing. He was in his mid-twenties. On the short side, fattish\u2014not obese, just plump\u2014with a pug nose, brown eyes, and a prematurely receding hairline. The hair itself was that indefinite shade of gray-brown that so often signaled a prematurely receding youth.\n\nWith respect to his skills, he was very competent. As you'd expect from a man who'd gotten his position because of those skills, not because of any great social standing. He'd been born in a small town in Franconia whose name Rita couldn't remember. His father had been a Lutheran pastor; his grandfather, the down-time equivalent of a high-school principal. A respectable family, certainly, but not a high-placed one.\n\nIn short, the sort of fellow you'd want at your side to keep track of the complex details of a political and commercial negotiation. Not the sort of fellow you particularly wanted at your side in the middle of a city that was being overrun by enemy soldiers.\n\nWhile Rita had been contemplating these matters in order to avoid thinking about the proximate future, Estelle McIntire had been preparing that future with Mary Barancek's assistance.\n\n\"Okay,\" she said, \"this going to hurt a little.\"\n\nThe needle went in.\n\n\"Ow!\" Rita squealed.\n\n\"Don't be a baby. It's just a few stitches.\"\n\nAgain.\n\n\"Owowowowow!\"\n\n\"Oh, quit whining.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 7",
+                "text": "Tom found his commanding officer dead in his quarters, just a block away. The door to the apartment had been blown in by the same sort of explosion that had destroyed Tom's own. Colonel Friedrich Engels' body was sprawled across the floor of his living room, half-dressed, with at least two gunshot wounds that Tom could see at a glance. The floor was covered with drying blood. A pistol was lying near the colonel's body that Tom recognized as belonging to Engels. It was a wheel lock and the mechanism hadn't been engaged. Obviously, the attack had come so quickly that Engels had been roused from sleep but hadn't had time to arm the weapon.\n\nReluctantly, partly because he didn't much like the idea of getting his boots soaked in his commander's blood but mostly because he was pretty sure what he was going to find, Tom stepped over Engels' body and went into the bedroom. As he'd expected, Engels' wife Hilde was dead too. Her body was sprawled across the bed. Her neck had a deep gash in it and the bedding was blood-soaked.\n\nTheir year-old daughter, who slept in a cradle against the wall, had also been murdered. Also with a sword, at a guess.\n\nDoing his best to control his fury, Tom hurried out of the apartment. He was now certain that the enemy\u2014whoever it was, but it almost had to be the Bavarians\u2014had launched a well-planned and coordinated assault on the city. There was no way they could have managed something like this without the aid of traitors, including traitors in the military.\n\nTom and Engels had worried about that, but there hadn't seemed to be much they could do about it at the moment. Tom's artillery unit was the only one made up entirely of volunteers, mostly recruited by the CoCs in Magdeburg and the State of Thuringia-Franconia. The rest of the soldiers in the regiment were the men left behind by the Swedish general B\u00e1ner when he left for Saxony with most of his army. Those soldiers were all mercenaries except for the Jaegers and boatmen\u2014the River Rats, as they were called\u2014recruited by Ernst Wettin while he'd been the administrator of the Oberpfalz. Clearly enough, a number of them had been persuaded to switch their allegiance to Duke Maximilian.\n\nOnce he was back out on the street, he could hear the sounds of fighting all over the city. He was sorely tempted to return to his quarters and help Rita make her escape, but he had duties of his own. With Engels dead, Tom was now the commanding officer of the regiment\u2014or whatever portions of it, at least, had not defected to the Bavarians.\n\nThe one unit he was sure of were his own artillerymen. He'd have to start there. He set off at a run toward their barracks against Ingolstadt's eastern wall."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 8",
+                "text": "\"What do we do now?\" asked Estelle McIntire, once she'd finished sewing up Rita's wound and had sterilized it once again. \"Sit tight here? Go somewhere? If so, where?\"\n\n\"And if we do decide to go somewhere,\" added Maydene Utt, \"everybody better be really well-dressed. We're in January, not June. January in the Little Ice Age, mind you. Right now, at a guess, the temperature isn't any higher than fifteen degrees out there\u2014Fahrenheit, I don't hold with that Centigrade crap.\"\n\nEveryone looked at each other, gauging their mutual willingness and ability to brave the conditions of a January night in the middle of Germany. In the Little Ice Age, as Maydene had so kindly pointed out.\n\nThey'd almost certainly have to venture out into the countryside, too. Rita had no idea what the military situation looked like, but she was pretty sure it was dire. Tom had told her of his and Friedrich's worries over the loyalty of many of the garrison troops. It looked as if the worst of those fears had come true, and if so she didn't think there was much chance Colonel Engels and her husband could hold the city.\n\nShe said as much, ending with, \"I don't think we have a lot of choice. I think if we try to hole up here we'll just wind up getting captured. After that...well, it's likely to get awfully ugly.\"\n\nShe didn't see any reason to dwell on the details. She and Mary Tanner Barancek were young women. Both of them were good-looking, too, to make things worse\u2014but that probably didn't make much difference if Ingolstadt was sacked. Troops running amok were anything but discriminate. All five of the women were likely to be assaulted. The one man among them, Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler, would get slaughtered out of hand.\n\nTheir one chance was the fact that all of them were up-timers except B\u00f6cler. Most down-time rulers and military commanders were leery of infuriating Americans for no good purpose, which the brutalization of five American women would certainly do. All the more so since one of them was Mike Stearns' sister.\n\nBut...\n\nFirst of all, the commanders of this attack probably wouldn't even learn what was happening to the women until it was too late to stop it. Troops sacking a city were no more discriminate about getting official permission to commit atrocities than they were to commit them in the first place.\n\nAnd secondly, Maximilian of Bavaria was one of the exceptions. The duke had made quite clear in times past that he held up-timers in no high regard, to put it mildly.\n\n\"I really don't think there's any choice,\" she repeated. \"We've got to get out of the city.\"\n\nEstelle and Willa grimaced. Maydene, stoic as ever, shrugged her shoulders. \"I don't disagree. But we'll need some horses, or at least a wagon. There's no way we can manage for very long on foot once we get into the countryside. We're still hours from dawn. At that, we're lucky there's a moon out.\"\n\n\"What about the Pelican?\" said Mary.\n\nEveryone turned to look at her.\n\n\"Is it still here?\" asked Willa uncertainly.\n\n\"And even if it is,\" added Estelle, \"would it carry all of us?\"\n\nMary nodded vigorously. \"It'd carry all of us\u2014easy. And, uh, yeah. It's still here.\" She paused, seeming to avoid her aunt Willa's gaze. \"Well. At least, it was this morning.\"\n\nFodor glared at her. \"I told you to stay away from him!\"\n\nEven under the circumstances, as dire as they were, Rita couldn't help but choke out a laugh. Fodor shifted the glare onto her.\n\n\"Give it up, Willa,\" Rita said, shaking her head. \"Trying to keep nineteen-year-old girls from chasing after boys has been a lost cause since the Stone Age.\"\n\n\"He's not a boy! He's at least ten years older than she is.\"\n\n\"He is not!\" countered Mary hotly. \"Stefano's only twenty-six.\"\n\n\"Seven years is still too much! Especially when he's Latin.\"\n\nMaydene looked exasperated. \"Is that 'Latin' as in Eye-talian, Willa? Like a lot of the population of Grantville? In fact, if I recall correctly, wasn't your high school boyfriend Matt Difabri?\"\n\n\"He was Italian-American,\" Fodor said, defensively. \"That Franchetti guy is Italian-Italian. It's not the same thing.\"\n\n\"Can we please concentrate on what's important?\" said Estelle. \"Worry about Mary's love life later. If that contraption can get us all out of here, I'm for using it.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" said Rita forcefully. \"And there's no time to lose. By now, Stefano is bound to be trying to get up in the air. We've got to catch him before he does.\"\n\nShe gave the apartment a quick survey, to see if there was anything she wanted to take with her. The walkie-talkie radio, of course, which was also perched on the mantelpiece. Hopefully that would enable her to get in touch with Tom, since his unit had a radio also. Beyond that...\n\nThere was a fair number of personal items she'd hate to lose, but she sternly suppressed the urge to snatch them up. Besides the radio, there was really only one thing important.\n\n\"Mary, give me a hand,\" she said, hurrying into the bedroom. Once there, she began emptying the chest of drawers against one of the walls. Her clothes got piled onto the bed, Tom's got pitched unceremoniously onto the floor. No one, not even Maydene, was big enough to fit into her husband's clothes.\n\nAs she did so, she pointed to a corner. There was an old suitcase there, that Tom had had with him when the Ring of Fire came and had held onto ever since. \"Use the suitcase. Skip the underclothes but cram it full of whatever will help keep us warm.\"\n\nMaydene wouldn't fit into Rita's clothes, and she didn't think B\u00f6cler probably would either. But there was no help for it.\n\nWell...\n\nMaydene stuck her head in. \"Can I help?\"\n\n\"Yes. Grab the blankets off the bed and roll them up. We'll need them, I figure.\"\n\nLess than a minute later, the suitcase was packed and Utt had the blankets over her shoulder. Rita headed for the front door, stopped, and raced back into the bedroom. Tom kept a box of shotgun shells in the drawer of the little table next to the bed. She shoved it into the capacious pockets of the heavy jacket she'd put on and went back into the living room. After stuffing the walkie-talkie into one of her pockets and picking up the shotgun that she'd left leaning against the wall, she went into the corridor. As the rest of the party followed, she took the time to reload the weapon.\n\n\"Is anyone else armed?\" she asked.\n\n\"Me,\" said Estelle. Looking back, Rita saw that McIntire had pulled a revolver out from somewhere. The gun looked like a small cannon. Rita thought it was probably one of her husband Crawford's guns. He had a big collection of them and was partial to heavy calibers, as she recalled.\n\nThe weapon looked too big for Estelle, but Rita knew there'd be no point in saying anything on the subject. Besides, even if the woman lost the revolver after firing it, her first shot would hit the target. McIntire was the sort of person who'd handle killing the same way she'd handled sewing up a wound. If it needs to be done, just do it."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 9",
+                "text": "Once they were out in the street, the sounds of fighting were much louder. They seemed to be concentrated toward the eastern side of the city. That was where Tom's artillery unit had its barracks. The unit quartered next to them was a mercenary force, but it was under the command of Bruno von Eichelberg, a young man from a modest noble family in Brunswick whom Tom and Friedrich Engels had been on good terms with. Rita thought it was unlikely that Eichelberg's unit had participated in whatever treachery was underway.\n\nShe was tempted for a moment to head that way, but stifled the impulse. She and her party would just get in the way and be a distraction for Tom. The best way she could help her husband under these circumstances was simply to get herself out of the city.\n\nThe Pelican was hangared just outside the city walls near the northwest gate. She set off in that direction, with her shotgun held at the ready. Estelle came right behind her with the revolver, followed by the three other women. Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler brought up the rear.\n\nThe scholar and clerk seemed to be holding up well, a bit to Rita's surprise and certainly to her relief. He was a studious young man, straightlaced to the point of being something of a prig. But he hadn't gotten badly rattled at any point, and had even had the presence of mind to pick up one of the assailants' pistols and the ammunition pouch he'd had on his belt. Rita had no idea if B\u00f6cler knew how to use the weapon, but the fact that he'd thought to take it was a good sign in itself."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 10",
+                "text": "There was only one incident along the way. As they came around a corner, they found a couple of soldiers breaking into a shop. One of them was smashing in the window with the butt of his musket while his companion watched.\n\nAs was more often the case than not with seventeenth-century soldiers, neither of them was wearing a uniform. So Rita had no way of knowing offhand which side they were on. But she figured the act of vandalism and presumed looting was a good enough indication and she didn't dare hesitate for long.\n\nRemembering the wild misses in the earlier gunfight, though, she controlled herself enough to aim carefully before she fired. The man she aimed at was the one watching, not the one smashing the window, since she figured he was the one who'd be able to react more quickly. He was standing perhaps thirty feet away and not looking anywhere near her. She took a breath, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.\n\nHe went down as if he'd been hit by a truck. At close enough range where marksmanship wasn't a big issue, it was hard to beat slugs fired out of a 12 gauge. They had all the stopping power of heavy caliber seventeenth-century muskets but without the slow rate of fire.\n\nIn a hurry, but doing her best not to move frantically, Rita pumped in another round and aimed again. Luckily, the remaining soldier was either dim-witted or\u2014quite likely\u2014too drunk to react quickly. He wasn't even looking at her. He was staring down at his companion, who was now sprawled against the wall of the building.\n\nShe fired. And...almost missed, even at that range. Her shot did strike the soldier's musket, however. The bullet not only knocked the weapon out of his hand but some sort of ricochet struck him in the face. From the minimal damage done, it was probably a small piece of the firing mechanism or possibly just a splinter from the stock.\n\nBut the soldier was startled enough to clasp his face with his hands rather than deal with her. She jacked in another round. Not trusting her reactions\u2014she had to be practically afloat in adrenaline\u2014she strode forward a few steps, almost running, until she was no more than six feet away from him.\n\nThe soldier's hands came down from a bloody face. His mouth was wide open as he stared at her. She fired. At his chest, and this time the bullet struck where she wanted it to. The soldier was knocked off his feet and back into the window he'd been smashing, taking what was left of the glass mostly with him.\n\nRita did her best to blank out the horror from her mind as she reloaded. She'd never killed anyone before tonight, and now she'd killed no fewer than four men. She'd never even been in a gunfight, for that matter, except for the escape from the Tower of London. But she hadn't been directly involved in the fighting there.\n\nMaydene came up to her. \"You all right?\" she asked softly.\n\nRita nodded. \"Right enough.\" She'd probably have some bad reactions later, but there was no time to worry about that now.\n\nThe shotgun reloaded, she set off again. \"Let's go, folks.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 11",
+                "text": "Hearing another burst of gunfire, Stefano Franchetti was distracted from his work with the airship's burners. Nervously, he glanced in the direction the gunfire was coming from. Insofar as he could determine the direction, at least, which he couldn't with any precision. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky, but he still couldn't see very far. A line of trees at the edge of the clearing where they'd set up the airship station impeded his view of Ingolstadt.\n\nThe State of Thuringia-Franconia had leased one of the blimps built by Estuban Miro in order to carry out a thorough survey of Thuringia, Franconia and the Oberpfalz. They'd wanted Filippo Franchetti for a pilot, but since he was Miro's foreman he'd declined and offered his nephew Stefano in his stead. As it was, Miro was simply breaking even on the operation. The rates he normally charged were far higher than the SoTF would have been willing to pay. He'd cut them drastically in the interests of maintaining good relations with the authorities.\n\nThe man placed in charge of the project was Hank Siers, an independent engineer who'd been trained as a surveyor. Three young women who'd recently graduated from the geological survey program connected to the SoTF's State Technical College in Grantville had also come along. Those were Dina Merrifield, Bonnie Weaver and Amanda Boyd.\n\nStefano heard more gunfire, accompanied by the sound of at least one cannon firing.\n\nWhere were Hank Siers and the girls?\n\nNo, young women, he reminded himself. American females had odd quirks, one of them being that the older women liked to be called girls and the young ones resented it.\n\nAs always with up-timers, there were exceptions to this rule as there seemed to be to all rules concerning them. They were the most perverse people in existence. It was worth your very life, he'd been told, to refer to the famous Melissa Mailey as a \"girl\" in her presence. He'd also been told\u2014was there any coherence to American customs?\u2014that the young up-time women who were most famous for their free-spirited ways like the equally well-known Julie Sims and the rapidly-gaining-notoriety Denise Beasley, apparently had no objection at all to being called girls.\n\nThe four Americans had left the airship station that morning to obtain some supplies in Ingolstadt. They'd been planning to spend the night inside the city at one of the inns. They needed fuel, mostly, but they'd also wanted food. The girls\u2014no, women\u2014had quickly grown tired of the staples that Hank Siers had insisted on bringing. So had Stefano. Siers' idea of suitable provender for a geological survey consisted of crackers, dried meat and vegetables which had been subjected to some sort of \"preserving\" process that didn't bear close examination.\n\nWhy? Stefano didn't know for sure, but from idle remarks dropped by Siers it seemed the American thought that an airship survey of Franconia and the Oberpfalz was somehow similar to an expedition to the Arctic. As if Stefano couldn't land the ship almost any time they wanted at any one of the hundreds of well-provendered towns and villages that dotted the German countryside!\n\nStefano would have ascribed Siers' eccentricities to his advanced age, except that the American engineer wasn't more than forty years old. Bonnie Weaver had told him, a bit sarcastically\u2014well, more than a bit\u2014that Siers was hopelessly addicted to romantic adventure twaddle.\n\n\"I've been to his house a few times,\" she'd told him, \"since he likes to hold seminars around his kitchen table. Says it's quieter than the school, which is true enough. Practically every square foot of wall space is covered with bookshelves. At least a third of them hold books about exploration. It drives his girlfriend Mina David nuts.\"\n\nThe thought of Bonnie Weaver provided some distraction from his current anxieties, but only at the cost of raising new ones. It was bad enough for any young man to find himself caught between two girls\u2014no, women\u2014even if neither of them was an up-timer. When both of them were American, the situation was one which Hank Siers liked to call \"fraught with peril.\"\n\nThe engineer was fond of such florid phrases. Bonnie said that if he wrote anything besides dry survey reports Siers would redefine the expression \"purple prose.\" After she'd explained the term, Stefano had had his doubts. So far as he could tell\u2014keeping in mind that his education was fairly good but mostly informal and oriented toward practical matters\u2014his seventeenth century was the era which had more or less defined purple prose to begin with.\n\nBonnie ought to know that, too. She belonged to the Baptist church, an up-time sect that she claimed already existed in this world but which Stefano had never heard of until he encountered Americans. Apparently, in this day and age it was still confined to England.\n\nSomewhat against his will\u2014it might be better to say, against his spiritual will but in accordance with his interest in things of the flesh\u2014he had once attended a Baptist sermon with Bonnie, at her invitation.\n\nPurple prose, indeed. Thankfully, his own Catholic church mostly used Latin for such purposes. Latin was a language which Stefano could read, with some difficulty, but the difficulty was enough that he could ignore whatever the priest was saying unless he really wanted to pay attention.\n\nWhich he usually didn't. Had anyone questioned him on the subject, Stefano would have insisted he was a pious Catholic. But, in truth, he didn't think much about religious matters.\n\nIn that regard, he was closer to the Baptist woman than he was to Mary Tanner Barancek. Bonnie Weaver's attitude toward religion seemed quite relaxed. Mary, on the other hand, while she shared Stefano's own Catholic faith\u2014the odd up-time version of it, anyway\u2014was far more devout than he was. She'd told him that she'd even considered becoming a nun on several occasions.\n\nShe hadn't explained her decision not to take that course, but Stefano was pretty sure it was because Mary would have had difficulty adhering to the demands of chastity, and had enough sense to know it. The girl\u2014young woman\u2014was...attracted to men. And the reverse was certainly true.\n\nBest to leave it at that, he thought. Stefano was already on perilous ground without adding to the risks by thinking about it.\n\nAnother burst of gunfire came from Ingolstadt. Where were the Americans? Stefano's concern was for himself as well as for them. He couldn't get the airship ready to fly on his own. They'd deflated the balloon after they arrived in Ingolstadt, as they normally did when they were stopping somewhere for any significant stretch of time. The sheer mass involved in getting the balloon reinflated was just too much for one person to handle in any reasonable amount of time.\n\nFor that matter, even if he could get the blimp aloft on his own he couldn't really handle it safely. The airship was designed to be flown by a minimum of two people, and a crew of three was better.\n\nWhere were they?"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 12",
+                "text": "Hank Siers was lying next to a pile of rubble, from which his companions had just pulled him out. The building he'd taken shelter behind had been collapsed by an exploding cannon shell. His leg was broken and he was unconscious, but he was still alive and otherwise unhurt, so far as Bonnie Weaver could tell.\n\nOf course, that assessment was based on nothing more substantial than a two-week class in first aid that Bonnie had taken a couple of years earlier. For all she knew, Hank was bleeding internally, had all sorts of internal damage, and was even now exhibiting plain and unmistakable symptoms of said injuries that she was too ignorant to recognize.\n\n\"How is he?\" asked Dina Merrifield. She and Bonnie were the same age, had grown up together, and had been in the same classes in school. In short, they knew each other as well as people in a small town do who are acquaintances rather than friends\u2014but very closely acquainted. Closely enough that Bonnie didn't see any point in pretending to know more than she did.\n\n\"I don't really know, Dina, to be honest. I'm sure his leg's broken, although\u2014thank God\u2014it's not a compound fracture. He probably has a concussion, too.\"\n\nAmanda Boyd came around the corner of the building\u2014what was left of it, rather. She'd gone to see if there were any signs that enemy soldiers were moving around in the area.\n\n\"I can't see anybody, except a couple of women hurrying to get into a building. So far as I can tell, the fighting is still at least a quarter of a mile away.\"\n\nThat wasn't really much comfort. A man could walk a quarter of a mile in five minutes. But soldiers in combat wouldn't move that quickly, Bonnie told herself, unless they had specific reasons to know that a target was nearby.\n\nStill, she didn't think they had more than half an hour of safety. That gave them barely enough time to get out of the town and reach the airship, with a wounded and unconscious man to carry.\n\nHank was no lightweight, either. It would take all three of them to carry him, even if they could jury-rig some sort of stretcher.\n\nThe thought of a stretcher concentrated her mind and helped her to control the incipient panic. One thing at a time. We need something to make a stretcher from.\n\nAs it turned out, Dina had been thinking along the same lines. \"There was a wheelbarrow back there, where they were doing construction. And some wood we could make a splint from.\"\n\n\"Fitting a man as big as Siers into a wheelbarrow isn't going to be easy,\" Bonnie said dubiously.\n\nAmanda shrugged. \"I saw a picture once of something like twelve guys who crammed themselves into a VW. And I don't see where we've got an alternative, Bonnie, unless we just leave him here. Ain't no way we're gonna carry this fat asshole.\"\n\nAmanda didn't get along well with Siers. Partly that was because of her age\u2014she was two years younger than Bonnie and Dina, just shy of twenty\u2014and partly it was because Amanda was edgy and didn't get along with a lot of people. Being fair, although Bonnie herself wouldn't go so far as to call Hank an asshole, he certainly wasn't one of her favorite people, either. He was a fussy and overbearing boss, just for starters.\n\nDina straightened up. \"She's right. I'll go get it.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 13",
+                "text": "She was back in less than five minutes. It took them at least that long to fit a splint onto the surveyor's leg. Bonnie, who did the work of setting the broken bone, could only hope she'd done it right. If she hadn't, Hank would probably walk with a limp for the rest of his life. But she was beginning to fear that might be the least of his problems. Hank was still unconscious. Not even the pain of having a broken bone reset had aroused him. She didn't think that was normal, even for a man who'd been knocked out and almost certainly had a concussion.\n\nThen, it took another two or three minutes to get Hank into the wheelbarrow and positioned in such a way that he wouldn't fall out\u2014entirely, anyway; at least a third of him wasn't actually in the wheelbarrow\u2014and enough of his weight was distributed properly so that they could pick up the handles.\n\nAt that, it would take two of them, one on each handle, to move him. The third woman would rotate so they'd each get some rest.\n\nThey'd need it, too. Bonnie didn't know exactly how much Hank weighed. She'd have said two hundred pounds or so. Now, straining at one of the handles as they trundled toward the gate that led out of the town in the direction of the airfield, she revised her estimate upward.\n\n\"Like. I. Said.\" Amanda was on the other handle while Dina led the way ahead of them. \"Fat. Asshole.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 14",
+                "text": "As he got close to the barracks, Tom was relieved to find that his artillery unit was apparently still intact and, judging from the noise, fighting back with considerable spirit. The unit was officially a company\u2014a \"battery,\" in the artillery's parlance\u2014but it was way oversized because the men assigned to Ingolstadt's defensive guns had been incorporated into it. Instead of two hundred men, Tom had almost four hundred under his command. That was more than a third of the total strength of the Danube Regiment.\n\nNot all of them would have been at the barracks when the fighting broke out. But he probably still had close to three hundred soldiers available in his artillery unit, and he'd picked up a couple of infantry companies on his way to the barracks. The companies belonged to the 2nd Battalion, whose commanding officer had been murdered in his sleep also. The two captains in charge of them had no idea where the rest of the battalion was, nor what had happened to the 1st Battalion.\n\nTom didn't know the answer to that question either. But he was pretty sure the 1st Battalion had defected to the Bavarians. That would explain how the enemy had managed to pour into Ingolstadt the way they had. Units from that battalion had been in charge of several of the city's gates. They would have let in assassination teams first, to target the regiment's still-loyal officers, and then opened the gates for the Bavarian forces who were camped nearby.\n\nTom and Colonel Engels had both been worried about the reliability of the soldiers in that battalion, but there hadn't been much they could do about it given the political situation. Reliable units in the regular army\u2014meaning volunteers, in this context, not mercenaries\u2014were now mostly in Poland or Bohemia. And with a new prime minister, the few such units which were still stationed in the USE itself were not likely to be assigned to the Danube Regiment.\n\nThe officers and enlisted men in the 1st Battalion were Italian mercenaries, almost to a man. Italy provided a large percentage of Europe's professional soldiers. They were valued for their courage and skills\u2014nobody made wisecracks about Italian armies in the seventeenth century\u2014but were notoriously prone to switching sides if presented with the right inducement.\n\nTom stopped while still just out of sight of the barracks. Behind him, he could hear the sounds of a hundred and fifty men coming to a ragged halt. More ragged than usual. The companies were missing at least a fourth of their men and officers.\n\nThe two company commanders came up to join him. \"What do you want to do, sir?\" asked Captain Conrad Fischer.\n\nTom had been pondering the problem. With a firefight going on, they couldn't go directly to the barracks. Even with a moon out, the visibility wasn't good enough for the men in the barracks to distinguish easily between friend and foe at a distance. In this dim lighting, the field-gray uniforms of the USE regulars would be hard to tell apart from the more nondescript clothing and gear worn by the Bavarians\u2014even leaving aside the problem that, if Tom was right, a fair number of the enemy were USE defectors wearing the same uniform.\n\nIf the artillerymen saw a mass of soldiers charging toward them, they'd assume they were enemies and open fire. And that fire would be pretty devastating. By now, forted up in their barracks and the arsenal which directly adjoined it, the regiment's artillery units would have their cannons in position and loaded with canister. The somewhat desultory gunfire Tom could hear was not the noise produced by a frontal charge. The Bavarians would have tried that once, been driven off, and were now settling down to what amounted to a siege.\n\nIt couldn't last forever, of course. Eventually, they'd bring up their own artillery. But at least until dawn, the Bavarians were stymied.\n\n\"Nothing for it,\" he muttered.\n\n\"What was that, sir?\" asked Erhard Geipel, the other captain.\n\nTom shook his head. \"Just talking to myself. We don't have any choice. We'll have to attack the enemy from the rear\u2014well, more likely the flank\u2014and drive them off. Until and unless we do that, there's no way we can join the artillerymen.\"\n\n\"They'll just fire on us,\" agreed Fischer. \"But we may be outnumbered, sir.\"\n\n\"We almost certainly are,\" Tom said grimly. \"The Bavarians would have sent at least a battalion to seize the artillery barracks.\"\n\nHe was using \"battalion\" in a generic sense, not the precise meaning that the term had in the USE army. Like most armies of the day, the Bavarian forces were composed largely of mercenaries. A good number of them would be Italians, and not more than a third would have come from Bavaria itself. Mercenaries were organized into companies\u2014another generic term\u2014which were of whatever size their commanders could put together, ranging from less than a hundred to close to a thousand.\n\nTom was convinced that part of the reason many seventeenth-century armies liked crude formations like tercios was because the rigidity of the formation compensated to some extent for the irregularities of the units that actually made them up. But in a free-for-all melee like this sort of street fighting after a successful assault on a city, he knew the Bavarian commander, whoever he was, would have simply dispatched one of his larger \"companies\" to take the artillery barracks.\n\nThat meant Tom and his two understrength companies were going to be attacking a force that was at least twice as large as they were.\n\nSo be it. They didn't have any other option, so far as he could see. Hopefully, the much-ballyhooed \"advantage of surprise\" would turn out to be all it was cracked up to be."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 15",
+                "text": "Seeing motion in the shadows of the street ahead of them, Rita pressed herself against the wall of a building and gestured with her hand to tell the people following her to stop. She could hear the slight scuffling of their feet but didn't think anyone else could if they weren't within ten yards. The motion she'd spotted had been at least twice that far away, just past an intersection.\n\nShe tried to figure out what to do. They were now close to the gate that led out of the city toward the airfield. That made it tempting to just charge ahead, and deal with whatever they ran across. But the shadows were very dark. There was only one street lamp in sight and that was next to a door twenty yards or so down a cross street. Rita couldn't really see anything now. The motion she'd spotted had stopped. For all she knew, a whole squad of Bavarian soldiers was waiting in ambush.\n\nBehind her, Mary whispered something. Rita couldn't make out the words but she was pretty sure Mary had asked one of the other women what was holding everything up\u2014as if any of them knew either!\n\nFor a moment, she considered firing a shot into the shadows. Just to see what happened, basically. It was quite possible that the motion she'd seen had been nothing more than a street mongrel scurrying for cover.\n\nBut that would be insane. The motion could also have been caused by a frightened child.\n\n\"Oh, fuck it,\" she muttered. Rita turned and handed her shotgun to Maydene, who'd been following right behind her. \"If anybody shoots me, kill him, will you?\"\n\nShe turned back around and strode out into the street. In for a penny, in for a pound. She might as well make herself as visible as possible.\n\nIn the same spirit, not knowing what else to say, she shouted: \"Hey, you!\"\n\nA second or so later, she got a response.\n\n\"Rita, is that you?\"\n\nThat had to be Dina Merrifield. Nobody else she knew could manage to speak Amideutsch with that much of a twang. Dina was from southern West Virginia, where people's speech had a much more Appalachian accent than they did in Grantville.\n\n\"Oh, thank God!\" another woman exclaimed. Rita thought that was probably Bonnie Weaver.\n\nA woman came into the light cast by the distant street lamp. As she'd guessed, it was Bonnie.\n\n\"Boy, are you the proverbial sight for sore eyes,\" Weaver said. \"We heard you coming but didn't know who you were. We ran across a Bavarian patrol a few minutes ago, but we managed to hide from them. At least, I think they were Bavarian even though their uniforms looked like ours. I don't know who else would be attacking Ingolstadt.\"\n\nThey were probably traitors rather than Bavarians, Rita thought. But this was not the time and place to share her suspicions and guesses on that subject.\n\n\"Who else is with you?\" she asked Bonnie. \"And where's the Pelican?\"\n\nBonnie gestured behind her. \"It's at the airfield. Stefano should have it ready to fly by now, even working on his own. All we've got to do is get there\u2014but we've got a problem. Hank was hurt pretty badly.\"\n\n\"Can he walk?\"\n\n\"Hell, Rita, he's not even conscious. We've got him in a wheelbarrow we found, but we're not making much progress any longer. We're pretty well worn out.\"\n\nGiven Siers' size, Rita wasn't surprised. \"Well, we can spell you on that chore.\"\n\nBy now, all of her people had come out into the street. So had Amanda Boyd and\u2014sure enough\u2014Dina Merrifield.\n\nB\u00f6cler came forward. \"I will handle the wheelbarrow. I am not doing anything else and I am not much use with firearms.\"\n\nUncertainly, Rita stared at him. The secretary wasn't even five and half feet tall. He had pretty wide shoulders for a man his size, but a good part of his bulk looked to be fat rather than muscle.\n\nBonnie had obviously been thinking along the same lines. \"Ah...Hank Siers is awfully heavy.\"\n\nB\u00f6cler shrugged. \"So I will be very tired by the time we reach the Pelican. But I will be able to rest then. I am not much use with airships either.\"\n\nThe gunfire that Rita could hear had become rather desultory and all of it was now coming from the direction of the artillery barracks. She was pretty sure that her husband's unit was the only one still putting up a fight. They were probably well-fortified and the Bavarians had stopped trying to take the barracks with a frontal assault. They'd be settling in for a siege and waiting until they could bring up some cannons.\n\nSuddenly the sounds of intermittent gunshots was replaced by a cacophony. That was the sound of hundreds of guns being fired mixed in with the sound of men shouting. Here and there she could hear the clap of grenades, too.\n\nShe felt a surge of hope. That might be Tom, leading a charge to relieve the siege of the barracks.\n\nThe hope was short-lived, of course. Tom could easily get killed in the next few minutes.\n\nBut that thunderclap of battle also gave them their best opportunity to get out of the city. Any enemy patrols would be drawn toward the sound.\n\n\"Let's go,\" she said. B\u00f6cler left immediately, heading toward the shadows where the wheelbarrow was located. Rita turned to Weaver. \"Bonnie, stay on top of Johann Heinrich, will you? I think he's overestimating his strength and endurance. And you know what men are like in front of a bunch of women.\"\n\nBonnie grinned. \"Yeah, he'll refuse to admit he can't handle it until he collapses and we've got to carry two of the silly bastards. Neither one of whom would ever grace the covers of GQ or Esquire.\"\n\nRita chuckled. \"God, can you remember a world where they published magazines like that? Do you miss it much?\"\n\n\"Not the magazines. I sure as hell miss the plumbing, though, any time I venture out of Grantville. Wait'll you see what passes for toilet facilities on a seventeenth-century airship.\"\n\n\"Gah.\"\n\n\"You did bring your own toilet paper, I hope. No? Boy, are you in for a treat.\"\n\n\"Gah.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 16",
+                "text": "Tom never remembered much afterward about the assault that drove off the Bavarians besieging the artillery barracks. The light thrown by a three-quarter moon only seems bright when everything is calm and peaceful. In the chaos of a battle, there were shadows everywhere and all colors were leached out. You could detect motion clearly, and that was about it.\n\nThat might have been a blessing. Tom still had vivid memories of his first real battle, when he and Heinrich Schmidt had driven off an assault on Suhl by Wallenstein's mercenaries almost four years earlier. The horror hadn't stemmed from the fighting itself. There hadn't been much of that, since they'd been firing at an enemy in the open from behind good fieldworks. The end result had been a lot closer to a massacre than what you could really call a battle. Afterward, the field had been carpeted with bodies. And blood; and intestines; and brains; and some things whose identity Tom had never been sure about and didn't want to be.\n\nThere wasn't so much of that tonight. Not because it wasn't there but because you couldn't see it very well. Fighting in the darkness, by the light of a moon and the flashes of gunfire and grenades, all a man had time for was motion. Once an enemy went down, you ignored him. The blood spreading out from his body blended into the cobblestones. Everything was a shade of gray, and blood was no different.\n\nThere were drawbacks to that, of course. Twice he slipped and fell, when his foot skidded on something wet\u2014and, in one case, horridly squishy. But who could say? In that sort of melee, the falls might even have saved his life, when bullets passed through space he no longer occupied.\n\nHis one clear memory was that of an enemy soldier rising from the street, as he neared the last corner before the barracks. The man had probably slipped and fallen himself. He must have fired his gun and hadn't had time to reload\u2014or he simply panicked. He came up screeching, thrusting his arquebus forward as if it were a spear and catching Tom in the stomach. If the weapon had been a spear, the blade would have sunk into him at least six inches. As it was, the gun barrel just knocked some of the wind out of him and left a nasty bruise.\n\nNot all of his wind, though; not even most of it. Tom's torso was massive, and most of the mass was hard muscle. He didn't feel any pain and didn't even realized he'd been bruised until afterward. He just grunted\u2014a very pronounced sort of \"oof!\"\u2014and struck back in reflex.\n\nThat instinctive reaction was not the best response, all things considered, since he held his pistol in his hand and the blow was mostly delivered by his knuckles. Against a lobsterstail helmet, too, not a mere skull.\n\nThat did hurt. But as strong as Tom was, the blow knocked his opponent back down onto the street. He was dazed, and his weapon slid out of his hands.\n\nBefore Tom could decide what to do, a pikehead came from behind him, thrusting forward just past his elbow. He was almost deafened by the screech of the soldier wielding it, who was now standing right next to him as he skewered the man lying on the cobblestones.\n\nNight battles aren't much suited for taking prisoners. Tom would probably have decided to kill the man himself, in another second or two.\n\nHe took a moment to look around, the first time he'd had a chance to do so since he ordered the charge. And was relieved to see that the much-vaunted virtues of surprise had real substance. Everywhere he looked, the enemy was running away.\n\nAt least, he assumed they were the enemy. Some of them were wearing the same USE uniform that his own men were wearing. Traitors from the 1st Battalion, he figured. The rest, the ones in more nondescript clothing, would be the Bavarian mercenaries.\n\nHe fought down the temptation to order a pursuit. If there were any chance of winning a real victory here, he would have given the order. But even before he launched the charge, he'd come to realize that Ingolstadt was lost.\n\nTom wasn't the only commander who'd used the factor of surprise tonight. Duke Maximilian of Bavaria had done so also, and done so to much greater effect. Tom had taken a barracks; the duke had taken a city. There was simply no way Tom would be able to drive the Bavarians back out of Ingolstadt with the forces that remained to him. All he could do now was try to lead an organized retreat out of the city and salvage as much of the regiment as he could.\n\nCaptain Geipel came up to him, pointing over his shoulder with a thumb. \"One of my sergeants says he's established contact with the artillerymen in the barracks. But they're distrustful since they don't know him and\u2014just as you guessed\u2014a number of the regiment's units have turned traitor.\"\n\n\"I'll talk to them.\" Tom started toward the corner Geipel had been pointing out, with the captain walking alongside him. \"You and Fischer get your companies back into order. We're heading out as soon as we can get the artillerymen moving.\"\n\n\"Where to, sir?\" Geipel's question sounded a bit apprehensive.\n\n\"Don't worry, Captain. I don't propose to attack the Bavarians with what little we've got. We're leaving the city altogether.\"\n\nGeipel nodded, his expression obviously relieved. He'd never served under Major Simpson before, so he'd had no idea whether the American officer was reckless or not.\n\nOnce he got to the corner, Tom gingerly stuck his head out far enough to see the barracks. \"This is Major Simpson!\" he shouted.\n\nAfter a moment, a voice shouted back: \"What's your mother's maiden name?\"\n\nTom frowned. That wasn't a question a down-timer would normally think of; not, at least, as a security question. Seventeenth-century German women did not adopt their husband's last name when they got married. In the here and now, that custom was mostly restricted to England.\n\nBut Tom himself was the only up-timer in the Danube Regiment. There were three Americans in the TacRail unit that had been stationed in Ingolstadt, but they'd left the city a couple of months earlier in order to work on a rail line leading north from Regensburg. So who...\n\nThe answer came to him almost at once. In the months he'd been in Ingolstadt, Bobby Lloyd McDougal had made friends with one of the artillery units. He'd probably been gossiping.\n\nThe sergeant in command of that unit was David Steinbach. \"My mother's maiden name was Forbes, Sergeant Steinbach! Now quit playing games or I'll use you to demonstrate American football! You'll be the playing field!\"\n\nHe heard a distant laugh. \"All right, Major, come on!\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 17",
+                "text": "From there, things went quickly. The artillerymen were every bit as eager to get out of Ingolstadt as all the other soldiers in what was left of the regiment. The only hang-up was that the heavy artillery units wanted to salvage their twelve-pounders.\n\nThat idea was impractical to the point of lunacy. Artillerymen were not entirely sane on the subject of their guns. The twelve-pounders had been taken off their carriages in preparation for placing them as defensive guns on the walls. It would take at least an hour of hard labor just to get them remounted. And then how would they haul the carriages? Guns that size needed to be drawn by large teams of horses. There weren't enough horses in the stables adjoining the barracks for the purpose. In fact, there were barely enough to salvage the six-pounders, which would be a lot more useful in the field anyway.\n\nThat would have been true even in summertime. In midwinter, hauling big guns across the countryside would be extraordinarily taxing on men and animals alike. As it was, they were lucky there'd been no large snowfalls for the past few weeks. A moderate snowfall had struck Thuringia and Franconia a few days ago, but it hadn't come this far south. The roads would be icy but still manageable for lighter field guns.\n\nTom managed to quell them soon enough. In the meantime, artillerymen less subject to madness went about the business of getting the six-pounders ready to go. Within twenty minutes, they were done.\n\nIt took another fifteen minutes to load the wagons available with as much ammunition as possible. Begrudgingly, Tom set aside three of the wagons to carry enough food for a couple of days. Three, if he imposed tight rationing. He hated to cut back on ammunition since they might be in for a lot of desperate fighting soon. But it would be foolish to assume he could get any supplies from the countryside until they got a fair distance from Ingolstadt. Once he was well into the Oberpfalz, he was confident he could obtain supplies from local towns and villages. The province was loyal to the USE and hostile to Duke Maximilian. It also had a large and active Committee of Correspondence.\n\nHe also decided not to take the artillery's main radio. The device was powerful enough to transmit in voice anywhere in central Europe, at least during the evening window. But it was inoperative at the moment, due to a minor problem of some sort, so he couldn't use it tonight. The radiomen assured him they could get it fixed within a day or two, but the radio was too heavy to carry except in a wagon, because of the batteries, and on the fragile side. It would slow them down and might break again anyway.\n\nThey didn't really need it. He'd bring a small Morse-code-only radio that could be carried in a backpack. With one of those radios, he could transmit a brief signal to Bamberg that would tell Ed Piazza and Heinrich Schmidt everything essential. They'd have the bulk of the State of Thuringia-Franconia's National Guard on the march within twenty-four hours.\n\nHe also took the company's walkie-talkie. He'd been in such a rush that he'd forgotten to tell Rita to take the unit he kept in their home. He could only hope she'd thought of it herself.\n\nFor a moment, his fears for his wife surfaced, chittering for his attention. Savagely, he drove them under. He had no time for that now. The Bavarians could launch a counterattack at almost any time. He was pretty sure the only reason the enemy commander hadn't already gotten one underway was because many of his soldiers were running wild, as often happened when a city was being sacked. Especially in a night attack, where maintaining control was harder than usual.\n\nThe inhabitants of the city were going to pay a savage price for the 1st Battalion's defection tonight. But there was nothing Tom could do about that, so he pushed the matter out of his mind also. For now, at least. In the future, hopefully, there'd be a reckoning\u2014and it would be a harsh one, if he had any say in the matter. He had no use for the duke of Bavaria and even less use for traitors who took his silver.\n\nThe commander of the artillery battery came over to him. That was Captain Martin Kessler, from the Thuringian town of Langenwolschendorf. He was accompanied by the two infantry captains, Geipel and Fischer, and Bruno von Eichelberg. Tom had been pleased to see that the young captain from Brunswick had remained faithful to his oath. Von Eichelberg's company of mercenaries was undersized, barely a hundred men, but they were veterans. Between them, his artillerymen, and the two companies from the 2nd Battalion, he now had well over five hundred men under his command.\n\n\"We're ready to go, Major,\" said Kessler. \"We've spiked all the guns we're not taking and the big radio is destroyed. Are you sure about leaving the food and gunpowder, though?\"\n\nNormal practice, in addition to spiking the guns\u2014better still, if they'd been next to the river, pitching them in afterward\u2014would have been to destroy all the food and gunpowder they were leaving behind. But the only quick way to do that was to blow up the powder or set the whole barracks on fire, and the artillery barracks were right inside Ingolstadt. Nothing but city streets separated them from residences and places of business. Tom didn't think the food and gunpowder was important enough to kill citizens of his own nation in order to deny it to the enemy.\n\nIf he hadn't been so pressed to get out of the city quickly, he would have had the gunpowder casks opened and the contents spread all over the foodstuffs. Then, for good measure, soaked everything in water, wine and any other liquids available. That wouldn't completely destroy either, but it would go a long way in that direction and certainly create a time-consuming mess for the Bavarians to deal with. But they were just too short of time.\n\n\"No, we'll leave them as is.\" He fought down the urge to look around for himself. Unless junior officers gave you reason not to trust them, you had to take their word for things like this or you'd undermine morale.\n\nInstead, he just nodded. \"Let's go, then. Bruno, what's the situation at the gate?\"\n\nShortly after the fighting started, a few squads of artillerymen had seized the nearby gate that led out of the city walls to the east. That had been easy enough, since the gate was held by a platoon of still-loyal soldiers. As soon as Tom had driven off the enemy besieging the barracks, he'd ordered von Eichelberg to send most of his mercenaries to bolster the gate's defenders.\n\n\"Everything's quiet, sir,\" replied von Eichelberg. \"According to the last report, at least.\"\n\nThat report would have been carried by a mounted adjutant. There were a handful of them attached to the artillery units. The USE army still didn't have enough radios to provide them to many units smaller than battalions, unless they had special duties like the artillery. Most down-time officers weren't really comfortable with the gadgets, anyway. So almost every unit larger than a company had at least one mounted adjutant ready to serve as a courier.\n\nTom motioned for the radio operator to come over to him. \"Let's go then,\" he said.\n\nIt would take a few minutes to get hundreds of men with their wagons, guns, and other gear moving. Tom had enough time to send a message to Bamberg.\n\nThe radioman unlimbered his equipment. Once he was ready to start transmitting, Tom gave him the message:\n\nBavarians over-running Ingolstadt. Colonel Engels murdered. City cannot be held. Withdrawing what remains of regiment into countryside.\n\nHe wondered if there would be ever be a follow-on message. There was no way to know yet. Within a day or two, Tom and all of his men might share the same fate as the colonel who had once commanded them.\n\nWell, no. Whatever else, they wouldn't be murdered in their sleep."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 18",
+                "text": "Once he realized who was coming\u2014that had been a tense few seconds, until he recognized the women\u2014Stefano was immensely relieved. Before they'd even arrived at the airship, he'd already begun deploying the envelope.\n\nTrying to, rather. It really wasn't a job for just one person.\n\nDina Merrifield and Amanda Boyd hurried over to help.\n\n\"Where is Hank?\" Stefano asked, trying not to sound exasperated. The help of the girls\u2014no, women\u2014was appreciated, but neither Dina nor Amanda was large. Siers was big and there was quite a bit of muscle under the fat. That muscle would be useful at the moment.\n\nThankfully, it had been a cold and dry January night, with a clear sky. In damp conditions, the envelope had a nasty habit of absorbing moisture which not only reduced the lift but made it more difficult to deploy.\n\n\"He's hurt,\" Dina said. \"Broken leg, we think, and he's still unconscious.\"\n\nStefano broke off from the work long enough to look at the other people who were now arriving. A small man he didn't know was struggling with a wheelbarrow, heavily loaded with...\n\nSure enough, Hank Siers. He looked more dead than alive, although that might be an effect of the moonlight. One of his legs had been bound up in some sort of crude splint.\n\nBonnie Weaver was with him. Behind them came another group of women. He recognized all of them. The wife of the American artillery officer\u2014she was also the sister of the former prime minister\u2014was bringing up the rear, with a shotgun in her hands and a very fierce look on her face.\n\nMary Tanner Barancek was there, he was relieved to see. He was less relieved\u2014considerably less\u2014to see that her fearsome aunt was with her, along with the two women she seemed inseparable from. The three of them were something called \"auditors.\" Stefano wasn't sure what the term signified, but he knew that a number of people viewed their comings and goings with considerable trepidation. They were police officials of some sort, apparently.\n\nMary came over to help also. Within a short time, the envelope was ready and Stefano began the process of filling it with air driven by the fan that would maintain pressure in the envelope during flight. This air was cold, not hot, and would not provide enough lift for the craft to actually fly. But it would fill out the envelope and get it prepared for the hot air to come.\n\nThat process was finished in a few minutes. While the envelope was filling out, Stefano used the time to operate the control surfaces and engine tilts to make sure they were functioning properly. Then he lit the pilot lights for the burners.\n\nNow came the moment Stefano had been dreading. As soon as they were ignited, the burners would light up the entire area. The flames would be bright and visible even in broad daylight. At night, despite the moon in the sky, they would be like beacons.\n\nBut there was no help for it. They'd just have to hope they could fill the envelope with hot air and lift off the ground before anyone came out from Ingolstadt to investigate."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 19",
+                "text": "Slowly and carefully, as a man will when he's worn out, Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler lowered the handles of the wheelbarrow until the weight had settled firmly on the braces. Then, finally letting go, he staggered backward a couple of steps. He might have fallen, except that Bonnie Weaver came up quickly and steadied him.\n\n\"Easy, fella,\" she said. \"It's done. Don't hurt yourself now.\"\n\nHe grimaced, thinking of the damage he'd already inflicted upon himself. By tomorrow, his muscles would be aching all over. B\u00f6cler was stronger than he looked, but his life was mostly a sedentary one.\n\nThe worst would be his hands, though. He dreaded to look at them. He hadn't stopped once during the journey and he was quite sure he had a number of blisters.\n\nWeaver had figured out as much herself. \"Let me see your hands,\" she said. He held them up, unresisting. May as well learn the worst now, he supposed. She took them in her own and gently turned them over so she could see the palms.\n\nHe heard a little indrawn hiss and saw her wince. \"Let's go over to the light,\" she said. \"I can't see well enough just by the moon.\"\n\nFranchetti had the burners going by now, and the flames were very bright. Once they got near, Weaver resumed her inspection of his hands.\n\n\"Well, I won't lie to you, Herr B\u00f6cler. I'll see if I can find some salve and bandages. But even if I can, your hands are going to hurt like the dickens before too long.\"\n\nThe term \"dickens\" was unknown to him, one of the many English words that slid in and out of Amideutsch according to the whim of the speaker. No German dialect was standard in this day; Amideutsch less than any. But the meaning was clear enough.\n\nHe shrugged. The gesture was minimal, since she was still holding his hands. \"The problem should only be temporary.\" He smiled, a bit ruefully. \"I was not planning to do any more writing for a while, anyway.\"\n\nShe chuckled. \"Writing? I know you have a reputation for being meticulous, Herr B\u00f6cler, but I can't imagine there's any point in keeping records for a while. The Bavarians will already be turning everything upside down and inside out.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I was thinking of my book, not the province's records.\"\n\nShe cocked her head and raised an eyebrow quizzically. \"Book?\"\n\nB\u00f6cler realized he was speaking too freely. He was usually quite reserved, especially in the presence of women, but Bonnie Weaver had a relaxed and friendly manner that invited casual intimacy. Between that and his own exhaustion, he was being less guarded that he should be.\n\n\"What book?\" she repeated.\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"I am...ah. Well, it is an ambition mostly. So far I have a great deal of notes, but nothing I suppose you could properly call a book.\"\n\n\"That's how most books get written, I figure. What's it about?\"\n\n\"It's a book on history.\" He'd hoped he could leave it at that, but the expression on Weaver's face made it clear she expected a fuller explication. \"A record of our own times,\" he added.\n\n\"Good luck with that! I remember Ms. Mailey saying in class once that it was impossible to analyze human events dispassionately until at least two centuries have gone by\u2014and not always, even then. Anything more recent than that, according to her, was just current events. She said that with a sniff, as if the term was synonymous with gossip. She didn't teach current events, of course. That was taught by Dwight Thomas, who doubled as our driver's education teacher.\" She smiled. \"They didn't get along real well. Being fair to Mr. Thomas, he was a pretty good driver's ed teacher.\"\n\nB\u00f6cler had no intention whatsoever of asking the formidable Mailey woman her opinion on his book project. Or anything else. She was the sort of person his father and grandfather would both urge him to avoid at all costs. His father was a Lutheran pastor; his grandfather, a school director. Neither was a profession noted for taking risks.\n\nThankfully, Weaver seemed willing to let the matter drop. B\u00f6cler really didn't like to discuss his book with anyone. Some of that was his natural reticence. Most of it was the reluctance of an unpublished author to discuss his ambitions openly. The printing press was less than two centuries old, but it had already been well established that the phrase \"unpublished author\" was a ridiculous oxymoron.\n\nJohann Heinrich B\u00f6cler had a horror of looking ridiculous. In that, as in many things, he was a faithful son and grandson.\n\nWeaver looked away, toward the work being done to ready the airship. The envelope was now beginning to fill out completely, as the hot air produced by the burners did its work.\n\nThe moon was almost directly behind her, so her profile was well-illuminated. She had a short, blunt nose, above lips that were slightly imbalanced. Her lower lip was thin; the upper, rather fleshy. Her chin was round, as were her cheeks. Like B\u00f6cler himself, Weaver was someone who would constantly tend to be plump.\n\nHer figure, also well-illuminated, was much like her face. Not obese, certainly; but not at all slim, either. She was attractive, in a modest sort of way, but not a woman anyone would consider a beauty. Or even particularly pretty.\n\nB\u00f6cler felt a sudden, powerful attraction to the American. He was taken completely off-guard. What had triggered that impulse?\n\nHe was a bit alarmed, too. He was only twenty-five years old. A rich man's son or a nobleman would contemplate marriage at such an early age, but someone from Johann Heinrich's modest origins would not be able to sustain a household until he was in his late twenties or early thirties. He had no business getting interested in a woman yet. Any woman, much less an up-timer.\n\nThe thought of pursuing a mere dalliance never even occurred to him. A considerable number of people\u2014most people, truth be told\u2014thought B\u00f6cler was a prude. But at least he could claim the virtues of prissiness as well the vices. He was not a man who would toy with anyone's affections."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 20",
+                "text": "Bonnie Weaver wasn't thinking of the man next to her at all. Her concentration was on the man tending the burner that was filling the airship's envelope.\n\nStefano Franchetti. Slender, dapper in a commoner's sort of way, quick-witted; altogether charming.\n\nHe reminded her a lot of Larry Wild. The reminder drew her to him and repelled her at the same time.\n\nBonnie and Larry hadn't exactly been involved, but they'd been very close to it when the Ostend War started and he went off to fight the Danish fleet attacking Wismar. He'd been killed in that battle, when his rocket boat attacked the enemy ships.\n\nFoolishly, in hindsight, Bonnie had probed hard and long to find out exactly how he'd been killed. When she finally learned, she wished she hadn't. Cut in half\u2014literally, cut in half\u2014by a cannonball. They never found any part of his body. The upper half had been sent flying into the sea, where it would have long ago been eaten by sea life. The lower half had stayed in the rocket boat, but the boat itself had blown up a short time later when it rammed one of the Danish warships.\n\nOctober 7, 1633. More than two years had gone by since then, but she still had nightmares about it sometimes; even flashbacks to something she'd never actually seen.\n\nThe worst of it was that she couldn't grieve properly. It wasn't as if she'd lost a husband or a fianc\u00e9 or even an established boyfriend. Just...a possibility, forever gone. She still wondered what might have happened between them. Not just from time to time, either, but often. She was beginning to fear she'd developed an obsession over his memory.\n\nHearing a sound next to her, Bonnie turned her head and saw that B\u00f6cler had a tight expression on his face. That had been him, issuing a little hiss of pain. What was she doing, mooning over a dead man and his Italian doppelganger when she had an injured man to tend to?\n\nThere was a first aid kit in the gondola, she remembered. She'd never looked inside it, but it had to hold bandages and some sort of salve or unguent. Bandages, for sure.\n\nThe problem was that the envelope had been inflated enough to come completely off the ground. Stefano and Amanda and Dina were scurrying around with last minute preparations. This was the worst possible time for her to start rummaging around inside the gondola. She wasn't even in it yet.\n\nHer thoughts must have shown in her face, because B\u00f6cler cleared his throat and said, \"There is nothing you can do for me at the moment. Once we are in the air, we can see if there are medical supplies in the...what do you call it? The part that looks almost like a boat and hangs underneath the huge balloon?\"\n\n\"Gondola. It's called the gondola.\" She gave another smile. \"And you'd do better to call the inflated part the envelope instead of the balloon, or you're likely to get a long lecture from Stefano on the profound metaphysical distinction between a dirigible airship and a pitiful balloon, subject to the mercy of the winds.\"\n\nHe smiled back. It was quite a nice smile, she thought. Much less stiff-upper-lip than his personality seemed to be.\n\nThen, again, maybe the smile was the reality and the personality just the appearance. It was always a mistake to judge people too quickly. Whatever else, she'd learned one thing about the short, stout Franconian secretary tonight. He was a very steady man. Reliable in a crisis, and not given to either panic or self-pity. She knew plenty of people with more charming externalities who were a lot less solid.\n\n\"We're ready to go!\" hollered Dina. \"Hurry up!\"\n\nYou didn't want to dally when it came time to board an airship that used hot air instead of hydrogen. It was lifted and lowered by adjusting the heat produced by the burners, not by dropping a lot of ballast. Each passenger who came aboard added to the weight, which required more heat\u2014which, if you overdid it, ran the risk of lifting too far while another person was trying to climb aboard.\n\nThe long dimension of the envelope had been aligned to face into the wind, and there was a bow line anchored to a tree stump that kept the ship fairly steady. But \"fairly steady\" is one thing, once a person is in a gondola; something quite a bit more challenging, when you're trying to get into it in the first place.\n\nUnder normal conditions on a proper airfield this wouldn't be so much a problem, because there would be half a dozen groundspeople who'd be holding the gondola down with ropes. Not to mention that they'd almost always be working in broad daylight.\n\nIt dawned on Bonnie that she'd given no thought at all to the problem of getting Hank Siers aboard. The surveyor was still unconscious.\n\nStefano sprang over the side of the gondola and landed lightly on the ground, by now almost six feet below the rail. He was a lithe and agile man.\n\nNot a big one, unfortunately, nor a particularly strong one. With Willa and Maydene's help, he was now trying to get Hank into the gondola, and...\n\nWas not going to manage it. Bonnie hurried over, with B\u00f6cler right behind her.\n\nOnce there, she and the secretary lent a hand to the effort.\n\nStill no success. The problem wasn't simply Hank's mass, it was the height of the gondola. Dina had replaced Stefano at the burner\u2014she was more-or-less the expedition's designated copilot\u2014and was trying to lower the airship as much as she could. But, at best, that still meant trying to hoist more than two hundred pounds of dead weight over a railing that was never less than five feet off the ground.\n\n\"Use me as a stool,\" B\u00f6cler said. He got down on hands and knees, right beside the gondola. \"Quickly, please.\"\n\nStefano didn't hesitate for more than a second before he stood on B\u00f6cler's back. \"Pass him up to me.\"\n\nAs stated, the proposition was absurd. Franchetti was barely more than half the size of Siers. But with four women pushing from below and using Stefano as a combination hoist and ramp\u2014Amanda and Rita were pulling from above, too\u2014they managed to get it done.\n\nBonnie helped Johann Heinrich back on his feet.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" she asked. She was genuinely worried. He had to have taken something of a beating down there in the final frenzied push to get Siers into the gondola.\n\nHe took a deep breath. A bit of a shaky breath, too. \"I have been better, at times in the past. But worse also. It's not as bad as being bitten by a horse. Or kicked by a horse, which is still worse.\"\n\nShe stared at him. Northern West Virginia had been a rural sort of place, especially a small town like Grantville. But the truth was that Bonnie, like many people in the area, didn't really have any more experience with horses than a resident of Manhattan.\n\nOr hadn't, at least, until the Ring of Fire planted them all in the seventeenth century. But even then, Bonnie\u2014also like many people in Grantville\u2014still didn't have much experience with horses. You could get pretty far by walking, when you got right down to it. And didn't have to negotiate with a creature six or seven times bigger than you were in order to do it.\n\n\"You were bitten by a horse?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. They're quite vicious animals, actually. I look forward to the day when we can all ride in automobiles everywhere and put horses in the zoo. Or, better yet, in the larders. The meat's tasty, if you slaughter the animals before they get too old.\"\n\n\"You've eaten a horse?\"\n\n\"Not often. The meat's too expensive unless you get the flesh from horses slaughtered late in life. And that's no good except in sauerbraten. I've heard the Bavarians make a good sausage out of horse meat too, but I've never tasted it.\"\n\nIt was their turn to get into the gondola, everyone else having already gone aboard. That was an awkward process. Neither of them was slender and B\u00f6cler had the further handicap of hands which were now almost useless. But with the help of the people pulling from above and a complete disregard for dignity, they managed the task.\n\nAs soon as they were in the gondola, Franchetti increased the output of the burners. At his order, Dina cast off the anchor line. They began rising immediately.\n\nPanting a little from the exertion and half-sprawled on the floor of the gondola, Bonnie went back to staring wide-eyed at the secretary. \"You ate a horse. Was that, like, a revenge thing?\"\n\nB\u00f6cler frowned. \"For the horse who bit me? And the one who kicked me? Of course not. They're simply brutes, Ms. Weaver. I'd have to ask my father\u2014he's a parson\u2014but I believe seeking to wreak vengeance on dumb animals would be frowned upon by the Lord. Viewed severely, in fact.\"\n\nHe sounded for all the world like a man discussing the temperament of his department boss instead of the Almighty.\n\nSo. Steady, solid, seemingly unflappable. Add severely practical to the list, too."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 21",
+                "text": "Hearing the door open, General von Lintelo turned to see who was entering the chamber in Ingolstadt's Rathaus that he'd seized for his headquarters. To his surprise, the officer coming in was Colonel Caspar von Schnetter. He hadn't expected him back so soon.\n\n\"Simpson seems to have escaped, sir,\" said von Schnetter. \"His wife also. The cavalry unit I sent to investigate found all three of the men assigned to that task dead. All of them in or near the door, which had been smashed in. Somehow, the Americans must have gotten a warning.\"\n\n\"By their radio?\" asked one of the other cavalry officers in the room. That was Major Johann Adam Weyhel von Eckersd\u00f6rfer, usually known simply as Weyhel.\n\nVon Lintelo had to put a stop to that immediately. Even the Americans' enemies\u2014perhaps especially their enemies\u2014had a bad habit of ascribing near-magical powers to the up-timers' technology.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" he said firmly. \"The assassins simply bungled, that's all. What happened to them afterward, Colonel? The American couple, I mean.\"\n\nVon Lintelo already knew the answer to that question. In light of the latest developments, it was quite obvious. But he was a firm believer in the tried and tested method of reminding subordinates of their flaws and shortcomings.\n\nVon Schnetter hesitated. \"Ah...I don't really know, General. Perhaps...\"\n\n\"Again, nonsense!\" von Lintelo boomed. \"It's obvious that Simpson managed to rejoin his artillery unit\u2014which would account, of course, for their success in driving off your attack on the barracks.\"\n\nThe \"your\" was a collective pronoun, in this case. Von Schnetter hadn't been personally in charge of that mission. In point of fact, none of the officers in the room had been assigned to the mission. But they were part of von Lintelo's staff, the staff had clearly bungled, and since these were the officers present at the moment they would be the ones to receive his chastisement.\n\nThe general, a devout Catholic, did not share the Protestant superstitions about Biblical texts. But there was no denying the wisdom in the Proverbs, one of which was: He that spares his rod hates his son. That applied just as much to subordinate officers as it did to children.\n\nVon Schnetter flushed a little. But, of course, made no protest. Timon von Lintelo was one of Bavaria's most prestigious figures, and not just in the military. He was a member of Duke Maximilian's privy council as well as holding the rank of major general. It was a measure of the duke's trust that he had placed von Lintelo in charge of retaking Ingolstadt.\n\nA charge which von Lintelo had not failed, even if his success had a few ragged edges.\n\nSpeaking of which...\n\n\"And where is the artillery unit now, Colonel?\"\n\n\"Ah... They seem to have left the city, General.\"\n\n\"Escaped you, in other words.\"\n\nVon Schnetter said nothing. After a moment, von Lintelo decided to relent a little. The colonel had not been directly in charge, after all.\n\n\"Never mind, Caspar. What's done is done.\"\n\n\"I could lead a pursuit, sir,\" said Johann von Troiberz, one of the cavalry officers present.\n\nThe man's tone was obsequious. Von Lintelo had no objection to that, but in von Troiberz's case the fawning habits were tied to a man in whom the general had no great confidence. If he decided to launch a pursuit after the American officer and his artillery company, von Lintelo would give the assignment to Lorenz M\u00fcnch von Steinach. Colonel M\u00fcnch was as much of a sycophant as von Troiberz, but he was also a lot more competent.\n\nBut it was a bad idea, to begin with. \"They made their escape through the eastern gate, I assume?\" he said. The artillery barracks were located very near to it.\n\nVon Schnetter nodded. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"In that case\"\u2014he looked at von Troiberz\u2014\"I have better use for the cavalry. We need to send every cavalry unit available to the north, to Amberg. At first light.\"\n\nSeeing the expressions on the faces of several of his subordinates, von Lintelo sighed loudly with exasperation. \"I don't propose to seize the city, gentlemen. Not now, before we've taken Regensburg. But the heirs to the duchy are being held there. They need to be rescued.\"\n\nHe nodded toward yet another cavalry officer in the room, Captain Heinrich Benno von Elsenhaim. \"Von Elsenhaim has been preparing the mission. All of you cavalry commanders should discuss the details with him. Now, please, there's no time to lose. Colonel M\u00fcnch, I'm placing you in charge of the expedition.\"\n\nThe cavalrymen began collecting around von Elsenhaim in a corner. The general turned back to von Schnetter. \"Are there any other problems I need to be made aware of?\"\n\n\"Ah...\" Whenever he thought he might have bad news to report, von Schnetter seemed incapable of speaking without that annoying preliminary noise.\n\n\"What is it now, Colonel?\" The general made no effort to disguise his irritation. He rarely did, when dealing with subordinates.\n\n\"Nothing specific, sir. But... We don't have as much control of the troops as I'd like.\"\n\nVon Lintelo stared at him. Von Schnetter had been an officer long enough\u2014more than long enough\u2014to know the realities.\n\n\"Of course we don't,\" he snapped. \"They're in the middle of sacking a city\u2014which, I remind you, I gave them express permission to do if they succeeded in taking Ingolstadt. The legitimate spoils of war.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. But...\"\n\nAnother officer came into the chamber. Also an unexpected one\u2014Captain Johann Heinrich von Haslang, whom von Lintelo had sent to find out what had happened with regard to the airship. That hadn't been more than five minutes ago! He couldn't possibly have any news this soon.\n\n\"I think you'd better see this for yourself, General,\" said von Haslang. He pointed to one of the windows on the northern side of the room. \"It's quite visible from there.\"\n\nVon Lintelo went over to the window and looked down at the city. The chamber was on the third floor of the Rathaus, so he had a good view of the square below.\n\nThere was nothing to see, beyond some soldiers plundering a shop.\n\n\"Up in the sky, sir. You can see it clearly in the moonlight.\" Captain von Haslang came next to him and pointed up and to the left.\n\nThe general saw the object immediately. Even at what was clearly a considerable distance, the airship seemed enormous. The moonlight glistened off one of its flanks, as if it were a leviathan that had just leapt from the sea.\n\nVon Lintelo had seen diagrams of the things, but had never actually seen one in person. It was...impressive.\n\nAlso infuriating.\n\n\"What happened?\" he demanded. \"My orders were clear. I wanted that airship seized at once.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Who was in charge?\"\n\n\"Von der Felt, sir. As you instructed.\"\n\nVon Lintelo glared at him, and then glared at the airship. He had, in fact, specifically placed Captain Andreas von der Felt in charge. The former Catholic League officer was a reliable man. But he didn't appreciate the near-insolence involved in being reminded of it by von Haslang.\n\nSo, he shifted the issue. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't kn\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course you don't know! I specifically assigned you to find out what happened and here you are, back again almost immediately with no explanation. You won't find out anything here, Captain. Attend to your duty.\"\n\nAfter von Haslang left, the general went back to glaring at the airship. There would be no way to capture it now, of course. Or even destroy it. The craft was already at least a thousand feet high, beyond the range of any gun except cannons\u2014and no cannon was designed to fire almost straight up.\n\nThat was something that would have to be attended to, as soon as possible. Realistically, there was no way Bavaria would be able to match their enemy's capabilities in the air in the foreseeable future. That would have been true even if they'd succeeded in taking the airship. Von Lintelo would urge the duke to devote resources to developing guns which could strike down aircraft instead. Such guns were quite possible, he'd been told.\n\nThe general's foul mood didn't last for long. Every campaign has its shortcomings. Taken as a whole, however, this campaign had succeeded splendidly. Ingolstadt was theirs again."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 22",
+                "text": "When Captain von Haslang finally found Captain Andreas von der Felt, he still had no answers. The captain's body was cold\u2014ice cold, as you'd expect in the middle of a clear night in January\u2014and the first signs of rigor mortis were setting in. He'd been dead for hours. His body was half-sprawled against the wall of a shop that had been broken into. A general store, from the looks, which sold foodstuffs and other items. Von Haslang was pretty sure the captain had been dragged there from somewhere else, though, judging from the trail of blood leading out into the street. That was where he'd probably been struck down.\n\nThe cause of death needed no explanation. There was a big hole in his forehead and the back of his skull was missing. A gunshot had caused that, obviously. From the huge size of the entry wound, von Haslang would normally have assumed the captain had been struck by a canister ball. But that was most unlikely. Who would be firing a cannon in this vicinity? It was almost all the way across the city from the artillery barracks.\n\nAt a guess, the captain\u2014damned idiot\u2014had been breaking into the shop when someone inside fired on him with an antique arquebus, the type of huge gun designed to be fired from wagons or with a forkrest. They were often called by the French term arquebus \u00e0 croc. The weapons weren't much use on a modern battlefield but, passed down generation to generation, they'd serve a shopkeeper well enough.\n\nDrawing his wheel-lock pistol, von Haslang climbed into the shop through the smashed window. The shop itself was dark, but there was a gleam of light coming from somewhere in the back. He headed that way.\n\nBefore he got more than ten feet, he tripped over something on the floor and barely managed to keep from falling. Squatting down and investigating in the darkness with his free hand, he discovered another dead body. He'd stumbled over one of the man's legs.\n\nAfter a few more seconds of groping, he found a big arquebus lying next to the man. That confirmed his guess as to what had happened. The captain\u2014damned idiot\u2014had led his men into a plundering expedition instead of attending to his duty; he'd been shot dead by the shop's owner; his men had fired back and killed the owner. Then they'd dragged their commander's body out of the street and placed him against the wall of the shop.\n\nAnd then what?\n\nHe rose and resumed his slow progress toward the light. As he got near, he saw that the light was spilling from the floor above. What he'd seen from a distance was the crack in the door that led to the stairwell.\n\nSlowly and carefully, making no sound, he opened the door enough to pass through. Then, waited for a few seconds, listening for any noise coming from above.\n\nNothing. That he could detect, anyway. There was quite a bit of noise filtering into the shop from the street outside. A city being sacked is anything but quiet. Whatever noise might be coming from above was drowned out.\n\nBut von Haslang didn't think there was any. He had a sense for such things, from his years of war. Whatever had happened in this shop was over. The whole place had a dead feel to it.\n\nHe went up the stairs, still moving slowly and carefully. Once on the landing, he spent another few seconds listening.\n\nStill nothing. He started moving from room to room. As was often the case with small shops, these were the personal living quarters of the shopkeeper and his family.\n\nThe family was all dead, too. A wife, at a guess; two sons of teenage years; a girl perhaps eight years old. The boys had been killed immediately, shot dead. The woman and her daughter would have died later, after much torment. They'd both had their throats cut.\n\nSeveral empty bottles of liquor were lying about. Those would have been looted from the shop below. The few possessions of the family had also been ransacked, not that there would have been much to steal.\n\nDespite the empty bottles, the killers hadn't been completely drunk. Soldiers sacking a city didn't usually murder the women they raped. Their men, yes, as a rule; but they'd keep the women for concubines. This had been done to eliminate witnesses.\n\nNot witnesses to the atrocity itself. Duke Maximilian and General von Lintelo would be quite indifferent to that matter, and any of their soldiers would know it. But they wouldn't be indifferent to gross dereliction of duty\u2014and these men had been given an important mission. At which they'd failed completely, because of their own lust and greed.\n\nFor that, they'd hang\u2014if they were found out.\n\nBut would they be? Did anyone besides Captain Andreas von der Felt know which soldiers he'd taken with him? Anyone, at least, whose word could be taken as good coin.\n\nProbably...not. Von der Felt was well-known for committing atrocities, and such officers transmitted their attitudes to their men. Captain von Haslang strongly disapproved, and his reasons were military as well as moral. Units which behaved in that manner invariably became coarsened, and the coarseness spread over time into all areas of their conduct. Who in their right mind would take the word of a murderer, rapist, arsonist and torturer for anything?\n\nNot he, for sure. Not even General von Lintelo would.\n\nSo, the guilty men would probably go undetected and unpunished. And an important mission had failed in the process.\n\nThe colonel sighed, slid the pistol back in his belt, and headed back down the stairs. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this whole campaign\u2014and he was a man who trusted his instincts."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 23",
+                "text": "Tom and his soldiers got out of the city without any problem. He even had time to order the gate destroyed, after making sure no civilians would be caught in the blast. That was a pointless gesture, perhaps. By the time the USE army or the SoTF's National Guard could get back to Ingolstadt, the Bavarians would have had plenty of time to repair the damage. But blowing up the gate made Tom feel better anyway.\n\nIt made his troops feel better, too. They gave an impromptu cheer when the explosives went off.\n\n\"We'll be back, you bastards!\" shouted one soldier.\n\nAnd that was the key to it. Destroying the gate wasn't a pointless act of vandalism, it was a statement. A symbol, you might say. The Bavarians had taken Ingolstadt, yes. But they wouldn't keep it.\n\nNow, though, Tom had to make a difficult decision. Where should he take his rump regiment?\n\nThere were only two viable options: retreat north to Amberg, the capital of the province, or march down the Danube to Regensburg.\n\nAmberg was the safest destination. The city was garrisoned by a full regiment. The regiment was a mercenary unit, but Tom didn't think there was much likelihood it had been suborned also. Most of the soldiers in Amberg's garrison had been recruited in the Upper Palatinate, many of them from nearby towns. They'd been stationed in the capital long enough to develop ties with the local population, too. The chances that they'd agree to betray Amberg on behalf of the Bavarians were slight to the point of being nonexistent. Duke Maximilian had a reputation for savagery.\n\nAmberg was well-fortified, too. With Tom's men added to the existing garrison, they'd be able to withstand any Bavarian siege long enough for Heinrich Schmidt to come down from the State of Thuringia-Franconia with most of the National Guard.\n\nRegensburg was a riskier proposition. On the positive side, there was no chance at all that the garrison at Regensburg had turned traitor. That was the Iron Regiment, a unit of the regular USE army made up entirely of volunteers, most of them also recruited in this province. It was one of the few such regiments that hadn't been sent into Poland or Bohemia.\n\nRegensburg was also well-fortified, but the defenses had a weakness because the city was right on the Danube. Most of Regensburg was on the south bank of the river, with just a small and not-well-protected enclave on the north. The enclave wasn't even legally part of Regensburg, but was a separate town. Tom couldn't remember the name of it. That town couldn't be held against a large and determined enemy, but losing it wouldn't by itself threaten Regensburg. The Danube was wide enough at that point to require a great stone bridge to get across, and the bridge could be easily defended.\n\nExcept in winter. The river froze over, enabling enemy troops to cross without using the bridge or needing the use of boats. Doing so had dangers of its own\u2014no soldier likes to cross an iced-over river against enemy fire\u2014and there were occasional thaws that might weaken the ice. But it made Regensburg's bridge less of a defensive barrier than it was most of the year.\n\nTom decided he had enough time to try reaching Bamberg on the radio. This was really a decision that should be made by the president of the SoTF and his top officers. They'd known for months that if hostilities broke out with Bavaria again, the brunt of the fighting would have to be borne by the province's National Guard. Between the war with Poland and the domestic turmoil in the USE itself, the only units of the nation's army that would be available were the troops Tom had pulled out of Ingolstadt and the Iron Regiment in Regensburg.\n\nBut...\n\nNothing. No reception at all. Small radios like this one were chancy at any distance, except during the evening and morning windows. Tom could only hope that his original message had been received.\n\nHe'd have to make the choice himself. The road they were on, coming out of the east gate, was the road to Regensburg. If he decided to march for Amberg, he had to cross over now to the northern route. He couldn't delay the decision. The next road they'd encounter which would enable them to head for Amberg didn't intersect this road for another ten miles down the river. By then, they'd have covered about a fourth of the distance to Regensburg anyway. They'd do better to just keep going than try to backtrack.\n\nThere were several small roads before then, but they wouldn't be of any use. Five hundred men with their gear\u2014even infantry, much less artillery\u2014could not march down narrow country lanes without slowing down almost to a crawl. Tom couldn't afford to dawdle. The Bavarians had cavalry; he didn't. The enemy commander had probably lost control of his troops tonight, but he'd have them back under control by the end of the day tomorrow.\n\nHe decided to go for Regensburg. That was a riskier decision for his own forces, but Tom was pretty sure that the Bavarians would try to seize Regensburg before they tried to penetrate further into the Oberpfalz. If they held Regensburg as well as Ingolstadt, they'd control both of the main crossings of the Danube along the border between Bavaria and the USE. They wouldn't have to worry that a sudden attack by the USE would get large numbers of troops across the river that could threaten their own rear and cut their supply trains.\n\nThe Iron Regiment would be hard pressed to hold Regensburg on their own against the full weight of the Bavarian army. But with the help of what was left of the Danube Regiment and its guns, they'd have a real chance. They didn't need to hold for long, after all. Tom had been part of the staff planning for this eventuality. General Schmidt could get a full division of the National Guard down to the Danube within a week. Ten days, at the latest, if the independent little principality of N\u00fcrnberg got stubborn and refused to let the SoTF march its soldiers through their territory.\n\nHe turned to give the order to his immediate subordinates, who had gathered around him once he called the halt to use the radio. To his surprise, he discovered that none of them were paying any attention to him at all. They were all gawking at the moon, it seemed like.\n\nThat was annoying. It was just a three-quarter moon, no different from the same sight that came every month. Tom was normally an even-tempered officer, but there'd been enough stress tonight to put him on edge. He was about to make a sarcastic remark when a peculiar gleam caught his eye.\n\nWhen he looked up at the sky himself, he immediately understood what had drawn his officers' attention. They weren't looking at the moon\u2014in fact, they weren't even looking close to it. They were looking at an airship flying northwest of the city.\n\nThat was the Pelican, if Tom remembered what Rita had told him. The airship was carrying out a survey of the region and had arrived in Ingolstadt yesterday. He'd forgotten all about it. Luckily for them, they'd obviously managed to get airborne again before the Bavarians could seize their craft.\n\nHe cleared his throat. \"Gentlemen, if I could have your attention.\"\n\nHis officers immediately turned away from the sight of the airship, several of them with slightly sheepish expressions.\n\n\"I've decided to make for Regensburg,\" he said. \"That will almost certainly be the next target for the Bavarians. We and our guns\u2014especially the guns\u2014would be a big help for the Iron Regiment. Does anyone have any questions? Any problems you can see that you'd like to raise?\"\n\nMost of the officers shook their heads. Bruno von Eichelberg, though, had an intent look on his face. \"Does that airship have a radio, Major? If it does, it would give us superb reconnaissance. We could use that badly, come tomorrow. The Bavarians will be able to send out cavalry patrols everywhere and all we've got to match them are a handful of couriers.\"\n\nTom shook his head. \"No, unfortunately, it doesn't. I'm not guessing, either. Rita went over to pay a visit yesterday after they landed and spent an hour or two with them. She told me Dina Merrifield and Amanda Boyd were complaining about the absence of a radio, which they thought was plain stupid. Apparently the expedition commander insisted on loading the airship with enough foodstuffs to fly to the South Pole and back, so there wasn't...\"\n\nHe didn't finish the sentence, struck by a sudden thought. He'd forgotten about the Pelican\u2014but what if Rita hadn't?\n\nIt was a long shot, but you never knew. He looked around for the radioman and saw him standing ready just a few feet away. Tom had given him the walkie-talkie to put in his backpack.\n\nHe held out his hand. \"The walkie-talkie, please, Corporal Baier.\"\n\nThe corporal set down the pack and rummaged in it for a few seconds before coming up with the device and handing it to Tom.\n\n\"Rita, are you on the other end?\" he asked. \"Rita, Rita. Repeat: are you on the other end of this thing? Rita, come in. This is Tom. Over.\"\n\nA few seconds went by, that seemed much longer than they actually were. Then, when he'd just about given up hope, Rita's voice came through.\n\n\"Tom? Tom! Is that really you? Never mind, stupid question. Where are you? Uh, over.\"\n\n\"Looking right at you, babe,\" he replied, almost laughing with relief. \"Right up at you, I should say. Me and my soldiers\u2014what's left of us\u2014are out of the city and on the road to Regensburg not more than a mile from Ingolstadt. We can see the Pelican clearly in the sky. Over.\"\n\nBelatedly, it occurred to Tom that he was simply assuming Rita was on the airship. She might be transmitting from the ground herself, after all.\n\nBut she didn't correct him, so apparently she was. \"Hold on, I'll look.\" She was off the air for a few seconds. \"No, dammit, I can't see you. The moonlight's just not bright enough and I guess we're up pretty high. Over.\"\n\n\"You're not really all that close, either.\" He hesitated for an instant. \"Uh...what are your plans? Over.\"\n\n\"We don't really have any. Get out of Ingolstadt was about as far as it went. We were thinking about flying to Amberg, but Stefano\u2014he's the pilot\u2014thinks that's going to be a problem. We don't have much fuel because they weren't able to refuel in Ingolstadt, and he says the wind is blowing the wrong way. He's not sure we can make it before we run out of fuel. Then he says we're at the mercy of the winds. Over.\"\n\nVon Eichelberg had that intent look on his face again. \"Isn't there gasoline in Regensburg?\"\n\nTom held up a hand to interrupt him, nodding and talking into the walkie-talkie at the same time.\n\n\"There's plenty of gas in Regensburg, Rita. They're storing it up for the spring, when they hope to get that ironclad working again.\"\n\nWorking for the first time, would probably be a better way to put it. The small ironclad in question had been designed entirely by down-timers, whose enthusiasm had outrun their experience. The thing was so top-heavy it almost capsized the one and only time it had been put in the river, and was so awkward that the oars which were supposed to drive it through the water couldn't compete with the current. It was lying up in drydock to be fitted with an up-time engine as soon as a suitable one became available. But, hope springing eternal, the enthusiasts had somehow managed to sweet-talk the powers-that-be into providing them with several barrels of gasoline.\n\n\"And we could sure use your help while we're trying to get there ourselves,\" he added. \"We've got no scouting capabilities worth talking about and within a day the Bavarian cavalry will be all over the place. Over.\"\n\n\"Hold on a minute, hon. I've got to talk it over. Uh. Over.\"\n\nShe was off the air for about a minute before she came back on. Tom was surprised, actually. He'd figured Hank Siers would make a fuss and it would take Rita at least five minutes to bully him into it.\n\nThat she'd succeed, he didn't doubt at all. When his wife wanted to be, she was pretty ferocious.\n\n\"Okay, Tom. We're on. Stefano thinks it's a good idea and so does everybody else. What do you want us to do? Exactly, I mean. Over.\"\n\nShe made no mention at all of Siers. Tom wondered what had happened to him. Had the surveyor been killed?\n\nBut that wasn't something he needed to worry about tonight. Tom studied the distant airship for a few seconds, wishing he knew more about the devices than he did. How easy were they to land and take off? And what did they need in the way of space and facilities?\n\nFor sure, they'd need plenty of space. The Pelican was as long as half a football field, and at least fifteen yards wide. There was no way it could land in a small meadow.\n\nVon Eichelberg and his men had been stationed in Ingolstadt longer than Tom himself. So Tom turned back to him.\n\n\"Is there any large open area in the next few miles?\" He pointed up at the Pelican. \"It needs to be big enough for the airship to land. Say, a minimum of a hundred yards.\"\n\nThe young mercenary captain pursed his lips thoughtfully. After a moment, he said: \"Two, that I can think of. Luckily, the nearest one is the largest.\"\n\nHe turned and pointed toward the Danube. \"It's a big clearing alongside the river, perhaps two miles downstream from here. We could be there in an hour.\"\n\nThat was pushing it, Tom thought. In an hour, a man could walk two miles quite easily. Five hundred men, with six-pounders and supply wagons? In the middle of the night, to boot, with just moonlight to guide them? He thought they'd be doing well if they made it within two hours.\n\nStill, that would get them to the clearing before dawn, which was what mattered. The Bavarians wouldn't be sending out any large cavalry force until morning.\n\nHe got back on the walkie-talkie. \"How much room do you have in that thing? Can you carry another man, with\u2014\"\n\nHe looked at Corporal Baier, quickly gauging the weight of the radioman himself as well as that of the equipment he carried.\n\n\"Say, two hundred and twenty-five pounds, all told. Over.\"\n\nRita's answer came immediately. \"You're not talking about yourself, obviously. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, especially because we can subtract my weight from the equation. Your guy gets on, I get off. That brings it down to a net gain of less than a hundred pounds. Hold on, I'll check with Stefano.\"\n\nTom winced. He'd been afraid she'd come up with that alternative. With thousands of Bavarians running wild, he wanted his wife to stay right where she was\u2014way, way, way too high for the bastards to get to her.\n\nRita came back on the air. \"No problem, as long as we make the switch. Stefano says the Pelican could handle at least two more people\u2014if we weren't low on fuel. But he says we've got enough to land and take off with an additional hundred pounds or so. Where do you want us to set down? Over. No, wait\u2014don't tell me, tell Dina. She's the copilot and she'll double as the navigator. I'll put her on.\" A couple a seconds later: \"Oops. Forgot. Over.\"\n\nTom would have handed his walkie-talkie to von Eichelberg, since he was the one who'd actually be providing the directions. But he didn't think the Brunswick captain was familiar with the device. He'd show him how to use it after they were done here, but for now he'd keep serving as the intermediary.\n\nWhile he waited for Dina Merrifield to come on the air, he contemplated some of his wife's personal characteristics. There'd been a good reason he'd thought she could bully Hank Siers within five minutes.\n\nHe foresaw some difficult times ahead. In about...two hours."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 24",
+                "text": "By the time the rendezvous was made, Tom had figured out what to do. He and Rita\u2014and von Eichelberg, whenever further directions were needed\u2014had stayed in regular contact throughout those two hours. Once she told him about Hank Siers' condition, the solution to his problem was obvious.\n\nThe key was getting enough weight removed from the Pelican to be able to add Corporal Baier and his radio to the gondola without endangering the airship because of its fuel shortage.\n\nAnd...voila! The surveyor weighed almost twice as much as his wife did. And was useless aboard the Pelican because he was still unconscious. And\u2014could it get any better?\u2014badly needed medical attention, which Tom could provide since they'd brought the regiment's ambulance along with its doctor.\n\nTrue, the doctor wasn't exactly a medical titan. Dr. James Nichols, he was not. In fact, the soldiers usually referred to him as \"the surgeon\"\u2014which was not a prestigious title in the here and now\u2014because what he mostly did was amputate limbs and extract teeth. He also served as the regiment's dentist, a trade whose principal tool in the here and now was a pair of pliers.\n\nBut he knew and followed the principles of sanitation and sterilization, and however meager his skills they were better than anything they had aboard the Pelican.\n\nWell... That was pushing it, so he'd better leave that argument aside. Rita was a very good practical nurse in her own right, and had quite a bit of experience at it. During their long captivity in the Tower of London, she'd wound up being the prison's de facto medical expert. The Yeoman Warders had credited her with keeping several of their children alive when disease struck, and they were probably right.\n\nStill, she didn't need to deal with Siers. There wasn't much anyone could do for him now."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 25",
+                "text": "\"You want to put Hank in a wagon?\"\n\n\"Hey, hon, it's an ambulance,\" Tom protested.\n\n\"It's a fucking wagon with a red cross painted on it\u2014except you never even got around to painting on the cross. Don't bullshit me, Tom. This is just a scheme to keep me on the Pelican.\" Rita turned and pointed at the airship, which was tethered to a tree not far away in the clearing. A number of soldiers were helping to keep it down and steady with ropes.\n\n\"You see that?\" she demanded. \"It's not a wagon.\" Her hand made a gliding motion. \"Flies right through the air, as gentle as you please. And you want to take a man with a bad concussion\u2014maybe worse!\u2014off that best-ride-you-could-ask-for and put him in a fucking wagon? On seventeenth-century roads? Are you fucking nuts?\"\n\nWhen his wife got agitated, she tended to lapse into the Appalachian patois of her not-so-far-back youth. This ran heavily toward short Anglo-Saxon terms, which perhaps lent support to the theory that Appalachian speech was closer to Elizabethan English than any other dialect had been in the twentieth century.\n\nOr maybe hillbillies just liked to cuss a lot. The habit had been a source of trouble when Rita first met Tom's very blueblood parents.\n\nRita crossed her arms. Tom was familiar with that gesture. Alas.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"N. O. Absolutely not. Siers stays on the Pelican.\"\n\nA third party intervened. \"If I might interrupt...\"\n\nTurning, Tom saw that the speaker was the province administrator's secretary, Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler. Tom hadn't even been aware the man was standing nearby. The three middle-aged auditors were with him, along with Bonnie Weaver.\n\nTom didn't know the man very well, but any interruption was welcome. \"Sure, what is it?\"\n\nB\u00f6cler gave Rita an apologetic glance. \"I agree with your wife that Herr Siers should remain on the Pelican. Truthfully, it would be much safer for him. But I also think, for the same reason, that it would be foolish for her to leave that safety. She should also remain aboard the airship.\"\n\nWell. It turned out he was a splendid fellow. Who knew?\n\nRita was glowering at him. \"Why should I be any safer than anyone else?\"\n\nB\u00f6cler made a face. \"Mrs. Simpson\u2014please. You must be realistic about these things.\" Now he gave Tom an apologetic glance. \"Meaning no disrespect, Major, but the key political factor here is that your wife is also the sister of General Stearns. Short of recapturing the two young heirs to Bavaria now in Amberg, Duke Maximilian could have no better hostage than she.\"\n\nHe was right, Tom realized immediately. He hadn't even considered that. Rita was so unpretentious that no one who knew her thought of her as a \"big cheese.\" And like most up-timers, even years after the Ring of Fire, Tom didn't really think of holding people hostage as a political tactic. Kidnapping was just a crime, dammit.\n\nBut in the seventeenth century, as had been true for at least a millennium in Europe, holding high-ranked captives for ransom or blackmail was considered business-as-usual.\n\nBut then, why...\n\nRita had seen the same flaw in the logic. \"That's bullshit, Heinrich!\" she snapped at B\u00f6cler. \"You came in right after it happened, so you should know. Those guys who broke into our home weren't trying to take me hostage. The first thing the bastards did when they came through the door was try to shoot me.\"\n\n\"That happened in the heat of the moment, when they'd just smashed through the door,\" countered B\u00f6cler. \"I think they expected to find you in bed, not standing right in front of them. That first shot was probably fired in reflex. Thereafter, of course, since you were shooting back with the shotgun, they had no choice but to try to kill you.\"\n\nThe secretary spread his hands. \"A great deal depends on the instructions the assassins were given, which we don't know. In particular, were they offered a share of the ransom? If they were, then they'd have had a keen incentive in keeping you alive. But Duke Maximilian is just as well-known for his penny-pinching as his ruthlessness. They probably weren't offered any such incentive, so they had no great reason not to simply murder you.\"\n\nIt made sense. Tom had been there himself, and remembered the chaos and fury of that brief gunfight. Unless the assassins had been tightly focused on the goal of capturing Rita, their natural fighting instincts would have overridden everything else.\n\nAnd, regardless, B\u00f6cler's general point remained valid. Rita had no business getting down on the ground where she could be captured.\n\nFrom the fact that she was now just silently glaring at the secretary, Tom knew that Rita understood it herself. She could be stubborn beyond belief, but she also had a very strong sense of duty.\n\nStill, he hesitated to say anything. In the foul mood she was in, she'd lash out at him if he did.\n\nThankfully, B\u00f6cler stepped into the breach again. \"Of course, we do need to lighten up the airship. But I can take care of that problem. I don't weigh as much as Herr Siers, but I certainly weigh more than you do.\"\n\nAt a guess, the secretary probably weighed at least one hundred and eighty pounds. He might even be pushing two hundred. He was on the short side, but thickly-proportioned.\n\n\"One\u2014or all of us\u2014could get off also,\" said Maydene Utt. \"There's no use for auditors on board the Pelican.\"\n\nShe sounded a bit uncertain. Tom was more than a bit alarmed. He had no use for three auditors either, down here on the ground. He and his troops would be undertaking a forced march over the next two days. Granted that middle-aged Appalachian women were almost invariably tougher than they looked, they still weren't accustomed to that sort of exertion.\n\nBonnie Weaver stepped into the breach, this time. \"That's silly, Maydene. You and Willa and Estelle are almost fifty years old.\" Fodor started to protest something but Bonnie drove right over her. \"And the three of you have been on horseback for the last two years\u2014no, it must be three, now. When was the last time you walked as much as half a mile?\"\n\nShe made a wry face. \"Me, on the other hand, I'm scared of horses. So I walk everywhere. And I weigh more than any of you except Maydene. So we can lighten the airship further by putting me on the ground too. Between me and Heinrich, that more than makes up for adding the corporal and his radio equipment.\"\n\nTom was a bit dubious at the prospect of having Bonnie along on the march, but only a bit. Like every military force of the day that had been in one place for a while, the Danube Regiment had collected camp followers. Women, mostly, who were either married to one of the soldiers or pretended to be. They doubled as cooks and laundresses for the unit; and, in some cases, prostitutes. There were at least two hundred of them along on this march, including several dozen children. If they could keep up\u2014which they surely could, with the incentive of staying out of Duke Maximilian's clutches\u2014then Bonnie should be able to as well. She was on the plump side, true. But that was due to genetics, not sedentary habits. She was a vigorous sort of person, as you'd expect from someone who'd chosen to become a surveyor.\n\n\"What time do you think it is?\" asked Willa Fodor. She was squinting to the east, trying to see if she could spot any signs of the dawn arriving. \"My watch doesn't work any more.\"\n\nNeither did Tom's. He hadn't worn a watch in more than a year, since the battery finally died. By then, four years after the Ring of Fire, silver oxide batteries\u2014the very few that were left\u2014cost a small fortune. It hadn't seemed worth the expense, especially since the new battery would eventually die also. With a handful of exceptions, the only up-time watches that were still functional were old-fashioned wind-up watches. And there weren't all that many of those.\n\nHappily, there had already been a primitive watchmaking industry in Europe when the Americans arrived, which quickly began adapting the designs in up-time encyclopedias. The balance spring and balance wheel designed by Huygens in the late seventeenth century in the up-timers' universe were well within their capabilities. Within two or three years, a fairly large number of pocket watches were available in much of Europe.\n\nThey were expensive, of course, and up-timers tended to scorn them. The watches weren't nearly as accurate as the timepieces Americans were used to.\n\nB\u00f6cler dug into his coat pocket and came out with one. He flipped open the lid and tilted the watch so he could see the face by the light of the moon. \"It's almost five o'clock in the morning,\" he said.\n\nSeeing everyone staring at him, he smiled slightly. \"No, of course I can't afford such a device on my salary. Duke Ernst gave it to me as a gift, when he left for Saxony.\"\n\nHe put it back in its pocket. \"I have tested it against American electronic timers. It is accurate within ten minutes every day. I have to keep adjusting it, naturally.\"\n\nThe sun would be rising in a couple of hours, then. They still weren't more than four miles from Ingolstadt. Tom wanted to get five or six miles away before making camp, if at all possible. But he'd stop sooner if they found a good place to set up defensive fieldworks. It wouldn't be long before the Bavarian cavalry found them and they had to start fighting.\n\nThe men needed some sleep, too, even if only for two or three hours. And something to eat.\n\nVon Eichelberg had been reading his mind, apparently. He'd make a superb staff officer. \"There is a very good place to set up camp about a mile farther down the river, Major,\" he said. \"Thick forest comes almost to the river, creating a bottleneck. With your guns, we could hold off five or six times our number.\"\n\nTom nodded. \"Let's be about it, then.\" He turned to Rita. \"You're in charge up there, hon. If it looks like you're in any danger of running out of fuel, head for Regensburg immediately. I'm hoping you'll be able to scout for us all the way, but it's not worth the risk. If you lose power, the winds will probably blow you into Bavaria or Austria.\"\n\nIt was tempting to send the Pelican to Regensburg right now. They could refuel and, thereafter, could provide the regiment with reconnaissance without having to worry about losing power.\n\nBut that presupposed that \"refueling\" was a simple, cut-and-dried matter, which it certainly wouldn't be. By the time the relevant authorities could consult with each other, wrangle over everything relevant authorities could invariably find to wrangle about\u2014you could get a headache just thinking about it\u2014the regiment would probably have arrived in Regensburg and made it all a moot point.\n\nRita gave him a quick hug. A moment later, she was headed back toward the Pelican. The three female auditors and Corporal Baier followed her.\n\nTom looked at Bonnie and Johann Heinrich. \"Do you two have anything you need to get off the airship? If you do, you'd better move quickly.\"\n\nThe two of them looked at each other, then simultaneously shook their heads.\n\n\"No,\" said Bonnie. \"We were in such an all-fired hurry to get out of the inn when the fighting started that we didn't take anything with us.\" She nodded toward the secretary. \"He's been staying in the same inn and came with us.\"\n\nB\u00f6cler shrugged. \"I regret not taking some additional clothing, but other than that, there really wasn't anything in my room worth bringing. Administrator Christian sent me here to compile records on a number of routine matters. The Bavarians are welcome to plunder the lot\u2014the very great lot\u2014and take it back to Munich. Perhaps they'll die of boredom as they study the files. I came very close to doing so myself.\"\n\nSo B\u00f6cler had a sense of humor, too. Who knew?\n\nCertainly not Bonnie Weaver. The expression on her face, looking at him, was positively startled."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 26",
+                "text": "The next morning, Captain Johann Heinrich von Haslang wasn't any happier than he'd been the night before. If anything, his misgivings about the campaign were growing.\n\nThere were a number of things troubling him. To begin with, as he'd foreseen, there would be no serious effort made to track down the culprits who had caused the failure of the expedition to capture the airship. When he'd reported his findings to von Lintelo, the general had shrugged irritably and said, \"These things happen when a city is taken. Assign a reliable sergeant to see what he can find out. I have more important work for you.\"\n\nAssign a reliable sergeant was a meaningless phrase, applied to this task. What was one sergeant supposed to do? If he wasn't from the same mercenary company as the perpetrators, he would have no idea where to start his investigation. If he was from that company, acting essentially on his own, he'd be too wary of stirring up animosity toward himself to do anything but a perfunctory investigation.\n\nSo, not only would a vicious crime go unpunished, but the discipline of the troops would degenerate still further. But there was nothing Captain von Haslang could do about it, so he put the matter aside and concentrated on the new orders he was getting from the general.\n\nThose were...also not to his liking.\n\nThe one pleasant note was that he would be working under the command of Colonel von Schnetter again. He and Caspar were old friends, and got along well professionally as well as personally. So far as von Haslang was concerned, Colonel von Schnetter was the best field grade officer in General von Lintelo's whole army.\n\nThe assignment itself was straightforward, too\u2014always a blessing in military campaigns led by generals like von Lintelo, who thought of themselves as superb military strategists. In Johann Heinrich's experience, the phrase superb military strategist meant a general whose plans were invariably too complex and intricate and made too little allowance for the predictably unpredictable mishaps that all military campaigns were subject to. There might be some exceptions to that rule, but the Bavarian commander was not one of them.\n\nOn this occasion, however, the mission was clear and simple: Pursue the USE forces that had escaped the city, presumably under the command of Major Tom Simpson, and either capture or destroy them.\n\nSo far, so good. But thereafter, everything turned sour.\n\nThe first problem was that von Lintelo was not giving them a large enough force to do the job properly. All told, they'd have fifteen hundred men to overcome an enemy force that was probably no more than a third that size\u2014but consisted mostly of artillery. Well-equipped artillery, at that. Two of Colonel von Schnetter's adjutants had investigated the barracks and reported that Simpson's artillery unit had taken all of their six-pounders and four-pounders with them, along with plenty of powder and shot. They'd spiked the heavier ordinance and done a surprisingly good job of damaging the rest of their supplies before they left.\n\nThey'd have done a still better job if they'd simply blown up the barracks, of course. Presumably, they hadn't done so because Simpson was reluctant to inflict casualties on the nearby civilian population. Many officers might\u2014no, certainly would\u2014interpret that as weakness on Simpson's part. They'd think he was either a pewling neophyte or just too tenderhearted to make war his business.\n\nBut Captain von Haslang suspected otherwise. That act of merciful restraint was also what you'd expect from an opponent who was coldly determined to recapture the city someday\u2014and quite confident that he would. The American major's ability to rally his troops so quickly and effectively and lead a successful retreat\u2014one of the most difficult maneuvers of all in war\u2014certainly did not indicate a fumbling, uncertain novice.\n\nSuch a commander wouldn't panic, when pursuit caught up with him. He'd position his men behind good fieldworks and take a stand. With the guns he had, he'd inflict a lot of damage on his enemy before he was driven under.\n\nTo make things still worse, most of the companies von Lintelo had assigned to them were infantry companies!\n\nFor a pursuit? In Captain von Haslang's professional opinion, that practically constituted criminal negligence.\n\nInitially, in fact, von Lintelo had assigned them nothing but infantry units. After Colonel von Schnetter protested vigorously, the general had at least given them an explanation\u2014which was unusual for him.\n\n\"I need all the cavalry I can muster to send to Amberg,\" von Lintelo said. \"Above all else, we must rescue the heirs to the duchy!\"\n\nRescue the heirs to the duchy. There was another phrase that begged for a coherent translation.\n\nDuke Maximilian was childless himself, so the heir to the throne was\u2014had been\u2014his younger brother Albrecht. But the uproar that resulted when the duke's betrothed, the Austrian archduchess Maria Anna, fled before the wedding, caused a rupture between Maximilian and his brother. Who, with his wife and three sons, had also fled Bavaria.\n\nOr tried to. Duke Maximilian and his soldiers caught up with them and in the fracas that followed, Albrecht's wife Mechthilde and his oldest son Karl Johann Franz had both been killed\u2014Mechthilde at the duke's own hand.\n\nAlbrecht had become separated from his two other sons. He eventually managed to escape and had been given exile in Prague by Wallenstein. The tutor for his two younger sons, the Jesuit priest Johannes Vervaux, had managed to smuggle the boys out of Bavaria by a different route. They'd found exile in the United States of Europe; in Amberg, specifically, the capital of the province of the Oberpfalz. There was still a Jesuit school there, where the boys could continue their Catholic education.\n\nThankfully, the USE's formal stance of religious toleration and freedom was actually practiced in the Upper Palatinate. The province adjoined and was heavily dependent upon the State of Thuringia-Franconia, the province of the USE which, along with Magdeburg, took the principles very seriously. So there was no immediate danger of a forced conversion of the two boys\u2014who, since their father had been outlawed, were now Maximilian's only heirs.\n\nIn short, rescue the heirs to the duchy meant bringing back to the custody of their uncle two boys who'd seen him slay their own mother and had placed their father under a death penalty. So that one of them could eventually succeed him as the duke of Bavaria.\n\nSuch were the established principles of aristocratic and royal inheritance, as ridiculous as the results might sometimes seem.\n\nBut what made the project itself ridiculous was that it had no chance at all of succeeding, anyway. So why waste the time and efforts of good cavalry units, who could be put to much better use bringing down Simpson and his men?\n\nEven before the Ring of Fire, von Haslang was skeptical that such a mission would have succeeded. In essence, a large force of cavalry was being tasked with racing to a city at least fifty miles away, measuring as men and horses travel. In midwinter. They could not possibly arrive in less than a day and a half, and more likely two or three.\n\nThen, upon arriving, they were to assault a well-fortified city garrisoned by a full regiment\u2014with no artillery at their own disposal\u2014in order to reach and capture two boys being held in a school within.\n\nNot...impossible, in the old days. But very close to it.\n\nToday? Almost five years after the Ring of Fire? Did Duke Maximilian and General von Lintelo think there had been no radio in Ingolstadt? Or, even if the attempt to reach Amberg had failed initially, that the retreating artillery unit didn't have a portable radio with them with which they could try again?\n\nAnd even if by some near-magic luck the cavalry did manage to reach Amberg before a warning arrived, what then? They couldn't possibly break into the city in time to prevent the boys from being spirited away again. Von Lintelo was sending no more than five thousand cavalrymen to Amberg. The capital of the Oberpfalz was not a small town, and the surrounding terrain was hilly and wooded. There was no chance they could encircle the city and invest it tightly before any number of people could escape.\n\nThat would be true even if the means of escape were restricted to horse and foot. But they weren't. For the love of God, von Lintelo had seen the airship in the sky over Ingolstadt last night with his own eyes.\n\nNor was that the only airship at the enemy's disposal. Leaving aside any airplanes which could only land at the airfield outside of Amberg's city walls, the State of Thuringia-Franconia was home to a fleet of no fewer than four dirigibles. They could only hope that all of those airships were out of the province at the moment, having flown somewhere to the north.\n\nFinally\u2014it failed only this!\u2014the one and only cavalry company that von Lintelo had finally agreed to provide them was the one commanded by Colonel Johann von Troiberz. Who was probably the most incompetent field grade officer in the Bavarian forces and certainly the most obnoxious."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 27",
+                "text": "As it happened, all but one of Estuban Miro's fleet of airships was out of the State of Thuringia-Franconia that morning. But the one that was in the province was right where it needed to be\u2014at the Bamberg airfield, fueled up and ready to go.\n\n\"I've got an important mission for you, Estuban,\" said Ed Piazza, the president of the province. He nodded toward the third man present in his office, General Heinrich Schmidt, one of the top officers in the SoTF's National Guard. \"Heinrich and his staff can fill you in on the operational details later. But the gist of it is that I need you\u2014or Franchetti, rather\u2014to take the Albatross down to Amberg and get the two young Bavarian dukes out of there. Better bring their Jesuit tutor, too.\"\n\nMiro looked at Schmidt, and then back at Piazza. \"And bring them here? Or take them to Magdeburg?\"\n\nHe didn't bother pointing out that the boys could be flown just as easily to Prague as to Magdeburg, where they could be reunited with their father. The equations of power were what they were. So long as the USE had custody of Albrecht's sons, they had some leverage over the man who might very well become Bavaria's next duke without having to wait for Maximilian to die a natural death.\n\n\"Bring them back here,\" said Piazza. He didn't elaborate on his reasons for choosing Bamberg over the nation's capital. Given the near-civil war that had erupted within the USE, the SoTF's president probably saw no reason to give up any assets, even if he didn't have any immediate use for them himself.\n\nAs a technical exercise, the project was perfectly manageable. Bamberg had an airfield outside the city walls which could handle dirigibles as well as airplanes. But in a pinch, an airship could be brought into the city itself. The market square was big enough to land one of the Swordfish-class airships like the Albatross or the Pelican. Doing so in strong winds would be difficult, though. But the weather today looked good, and Miro presumed that Piazza wanted this mission undertaken immediately.\n\nThe news of the Bavarian attack on Ingolstadt had already spread throughout the city, but Miro knew very few of the details. Of course, it was quite possible that no one knew many details yet.\n\n\"Do we know if the Bavarians are sending an expedition to Amberg?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, they are.\" That came from Heinrich Schmidt. The thick-chested young general had a cold grin on his face. \"And if you're wondering how we know, you'll be pleased to hear that your Pelican escaped the city last night. With Rita Simpson on board, as well as your survey crew.\"\n\nThat was a relief. Estuban had been worried about what might have happened to Stefano and the airship.\n\n\"They've decided to remain in the area, serving Major Simpson and what survives of the Danube Regiment as scouts, while they try to reach safety in Regensburg.\"\n\nHe didn't bother to ask Miro\u2014who was, after all, the proprietor of the Pelican and Stefano Franchetti's employer\u2014whether or not he approved. Estuban was not surprised. He'd already learned that Americans and those like Schmidt who shared their view of things took a very expansive attitude toward the use of private resources in times of crisis. They called it \"nationalization.\" Being fair, plenty of down-time rulers did much the same thing\u2014and the Americans eventually returned the property and recompensed the owners for its use, which any number of kings and dukes neglected to do.\n\nEstuban had already figured out that the smart thing for him to do was to be very cooperative at such times. Indeed, he satisfied himself with simply billing the government for his expenses, not seeking a profit from such work at all.\n\nNot a direct profit, rather. Indirectly, eventually...ah, the possibilities were endless. The up-timers also had an appropriate name for that. \"Most favored nation status.\" Estuban saw no reason that term couldn't be used expansively as well. \"Most favored company status\" had a nice ring to it, he thought.\n\n\"In that case,\" he said, \"I think it would be wise to plan on bringing more gasoline to Regensburg. If it's not carrying anything else except the necessary crew, any Swordfish-class dirigible can haul five barrels of gasoline in a single trip. We could operate both airships out of the city, with that much fuel. Not just now but throughout the crisis.\"\n\nSchmidt and Piazza looked at each other. Then, the gazes of both men got a bit unfocused as they considered all the many military possibilities that would open up if the SoTF had what amounted to its own air force.\n\n\"Oh, splendid,\" said Schmidt. His grin widened while somehow not gaining any warmth at all.\n\n\"How soon can you leave?\" asked Piazza.\n\nEstuban pondered the question for a moment. \"I am tempted to say within an hour, but it might require two. The flight itself, depending on the winds, will take somewhere between an hour and a half and three hours.\"\n\nThe SoTF's president nodded. \"Either way, you'd get there well before nightfall. Would you have enough time to fly back?\"\n\nMiro shrugged. \"Perhaps not. But if the Bavarians are already investing the city\u2014very unlikely, I'd think\u2014and the situation was too critical to wait until morning, we'd simply take off. Then it all depends on the winds. That's what the Pelican chose to do last night, after all.\"\n\nAn airship the size of the Albatross, even with a minimal crew and all cargo space devoted to extra gasoline, couldn't fly for very many hours without refueling. The problem wasn't the engines, it was the fuel needed to keep the burners going. That was the great advantage of hydrogen over hot air designs, in addition to the greater buoyancy\u2014you could fly much greater distances before having to refuel. Estuban had chosen the more primitive but safer hot air design for his fleet because the ships were only intended for short-distance runs. And it was much easier to stockpile gasoline supplies where needed than make sure hydrogen would always be available.\n\nBut if the winds were light and there was no need to reach an exact destination\u2014nor any way to find it easily, in the dark\u2014it was usually possible to keep an airship like the Albatross afloat until daybreak. Nothing was certain, of course.\n\nUp-timers often had difficulty accepting that reality. They had come from a world in which air transport was a safer form of travel than any. But this world was in the very dawn of the aviation era. Nothing was certain, once you left the ground\u2014and casualties were heavy.\n\nEstuban loved it."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 28",
+                "text": "To Tom's surprise, the Bavarians didn't attack them until late in the afternoon\u2014and then, it was no more than a brief skirmish between a cavalry patrol and two platoons from Geipel's company. From what Tom could tell, the cavalry unit seemed to have stumbled upon the platoons by accident.\n\n\"There's a large force of infantry coming after you,\" Rita told him that evening. \"I figure at least a thousand men. But they've already camped for the night. I don't see how they could catch up to you until tomorrow afternoon.\"\n\nBy then, Tom would be within fifteen miles of Regensburg. That distance could be covered in a day, with one long hard march. That assumed they didn't have to stop and fight, of course, which was probably wishful thinking.\n\n\"All told, I think there's another five hundred or so cavalry on your tail,\" she continued. \"They're a lot closer, but they're hard to count because they're scattered all over east Jesus. I can't for the life of me figure out what their commanding officer thinks he's doing. Over.\"\n\n\"They're probably foraging,\" Tom replied. \"We haven't been leaving anything behind for them.\"\n\nHe was feeling a little guilty about that, but only a little. His troops were taking all the foodstuffs they could find as they marched down the Danube, and burning everything behind them. That wasn't much, in midwinter, but it was enough to keep his men and\u2014most important of all\u2014their horses going. They hadn't been able to bring much fodder with them when they left Ingolstadt. If they lost the horses, they lost their cannons, and without those guns they didn't have much chance of fighting off a force as big as the one pursuing them.\n\nThat was hard on the population, of course. But if Tom's soldiers hadn't taken the stuff, the Bavarians would have. At least the Danube Regiment was passing out promissory notes for it. What was probably more important, from the immediate standpoint of people living in the towns and villages they passed through, was that Tom's rump regiment provided them with an escort. Refugees were now streaming away from the Bavarian onslaught, but these were the only ones who had military protection.\n\nA lot of the refugees were coming out of Ingolstadt itself, according to Rita, some of whom were being savaged by Bavarian cavalry as they tried to flee. Her voice had been tight when she reported that; taut with anger.\n\nTom's own fury was near a boiling point. It was a near-constant struggle to keep his temper under control. The Bavarians were clearly making no effort to restrain their troops. The reports he got from Rita on the Pelican kept reminding him of the horror that the collapse of the Danube Regiment had allowed to spill over the inhabitants of Ingolstadt and stretches of the Oberpfalz near or on the Danube.\n\nSome of his rage was sublimated guilt. Whatever the reasons might be, in the end he and Colonel Engels had been responsible for the regiment. He was by no means blind to that reality. But most of Tom's anger was not directed at himself. It was not even directed at Duke Maximilian. The ruler of Bavaria had only been able to suborn the 1st Battalion because of the political crisis produced in the USE by the actions of the Swedish chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna. So far as Tom was concerned, every murder, every mutilation, every rape, every act of arson and every theft committed by Bavarian soldiers could be laid at the feet of that bastard.\n\nNot that he was giving Maximilian or his commanding officers a pass, either. There was no excuse for the conduct of their troops. The mayhem being inflicted on USE civilians went far beyond the occasional atrocities and excesses that were an inevitable feature of war. These soldiers hadn't simply been set loose, they'd obviously been given the green light to run wild by Bavaria's leaders.\n\nWhy? Tom wondered. Even in narrowly military terms, the policy made little sense to him. The Bavarians were not nomadic raiders, who simply intended to return to the steppes with their booty. Duke Maximilian planned to seize the Oberpfalz\u2014as much of it as he could grab, at least\u2014in in order to use its assets. So what was the point of ravaging the area? Of all those assets, the human resources were far and away the most valuable. Leaving aside the people being killed, there was now a flood of refugees heading north, east and west. There were close to a thousand such people being shepherded ahead of them by his own troops.\n\nHe hadn't been able to spare much time\u2014no time at all, really\u2014for the needs of those people. Fortunately, Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler had taken charge of that task. Some initial prodding from Bonnie Weaver had been necessary, because B\u00f6cler didn't think of himself as an \"authority.\" Partly that was his youth, partly that was his modest origins; but mostly, Tom suspected, it was just the man's personality. The provincial administrator's secretary was one of those people whose natural relationship to the world's affairs was that of an observer more than a participant.\n\nThat didn't necessarily mean such people were incompetent, however, whenever they set their minds to a practical task. Often they were not, and in some cases that same detachment made them very good at such work. They were more objective about the decision that needed to be made, and less prone to letting their own aspirations and ambitions influence them unduly.\n\nHow good would B\u00f6cler be at such an assignment? Tom had no idea. But he was pretty sure they'd know within a day or two. This column of people moving down the Danube might be going slowly, but so did a pressure cooker."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 29",
+                "text": "By the time they made camp for the night, Bonnie had already come to a conclusion on that subject. Once again, pudgy little Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler was proving to be a man of greater substance than he looked.\n\nTrue, he fussed a lot. Unflappable under pressure, steady at all times...well, no. He tended to get agitated, he talked a lot, and he dithered back and forth before coming to a decision. But he always did come to a decision, and he didn't dither for long. And insofar as the fussing and talking was concerned, that might well be an asset under these conditions. He was dealing with large numbers of frightened, uncertain and often confused people. His willingness to talk with them, once his authority was established, probably helped to calm them down.\n\nEven in the seventeenth century, Germans tended to be a law-abiding folk. They were not particularly orderly, though\u2014Bonnie had never seen a trace of the automatic obedience ascribed to Germans in the folk mythology of her own universe\u2014and they were quite willing to argue with the powers-that-be. At the drop of a hat, in fact. But that those powers existed legitimately was not something they disputed. They just felt keenly that they had a right to be consulted before they were commanded to do something, and they were always sensitive to issues of fairness.\n\nB\u00f6cler's authority derived from his status as the personal secretary of Christian I of Pfalz-Birkenfeld-Bischweiler, the imperially-appointed administrator of the Oberpfalz. The fact that he'd served in the same post for the previous administrator bolstered his status also. Ernst of Saxe-Weimar had been a popular figure in the province. \"A fair-minded man,\" was a phrase you heard often when people spoke of him.\n\nB\u00f6cler had that sense of fairness also. Perhaps that was his detachment at work, but Bonnie couldn't do more than guess at that. She still barely knew the man, although working with him in such close proximity and under such severe conditions was drastically speeding up a process that would normally have taken months, given his reserved nature. By late morning, at his invitation, she'd started calling him Heinz. That nickname was not used by many people who knew the secretary.\n\nHeinz would have been a disaster as a politician. Glad-handing, back-slapping\u2014the thought of him kissing babies was downright hysterical\u2014these were not his skills, to put it mildly. But he was conscientious and he listened to people. So, with few exceptions, his decisions were accepted with good grace, even by people who had wanted a different one.\n\nThose were usually people who just wanted to rest for a while, something that Heinz never allowed them to do until the army itself halted the march and began making camp. Then, Heinz chivvied his charges relentlessly, insisting that they had to help the soldiers set up the camp. Not until that was done\u2014yes, that included digging latrines; of course it did!\u2014would he allow the civilians to finally rest.\n\nBut he'd been chivvying the cooks and sutlers just as relentlessly, so when the time finally came when labors could cease, there was food ready\u2014and he saw to it that it was fairly distributed. He did not eat himself until he was sure that everyone else had been fed.\n\nHe was quite a guy, actually, in his own sort of way. Bonnie realized he was growing on her. And was surprised again."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 30",
+                "text": "Captain von Haslang was in a much fouler mood than the American woman two miles downstream, whom he'd never met and whose name he didn't even know. The day's pursuit\u2014by now he was using the term derisively\u2014had been a disaster from daybreak to sundown.\n\nThe retreating force was doing a very good job of destroying everything behind them. (So much, if further evidence was needed, for the absurd notion that Major Simpson was a fumbling novice.) In some places, where the conditions were suitable, they'd felled trees across the road. And not one bridge spanning the occasional smaller streams that entered the Danube was left intact.\n\nWorst of all, the enemy hadn't simply destroyed the bridges. The first one that Colonel von Schnetter's soldiers had come across had seemed in fine shape\u2014until they crossed over it and discovered it had been mined. Eight men were killed in the explosion and twice as many badly wounded.\n\nThereafter, the enemy had simply brought down the bridges, figuring that the surprise wouldn't work twice. But they left other mines hidden alongside the road. Given the hurried manner in which the mines had been designed and laid, the Bavarian troops spotted and disarmed all but one of them before any damage was done. The single mine they missed had been set well to the side and only injured one man when it went off, and him not badly.\n\nBut that didn't really matter, because the mines were doing the critical task for the enemy\u2014they were drastically slowing down the pursuers.\n\nThe pursuing infantry, that was to say. If the cavalry had been doing their job properly, they'd have been constantly harassing the enemy\u2014which would have accomplished the same task of delaying the opponent's movements. All other things being equal, a mostly-infantry force should be able to overtake an enemy that was primarily made up of artillery units.\n\nAnd why wasn't the cavalry doing its job? Because its donkey of a commander, Colonel Johann von Troiberz, had sent his men all over the countryside\u2014everywhere, it seemed, except in the vicinity of the retreating Danube Regiment.\n\n\"Foraging,\" he claimed. And stubbornly kept claiming, no matter how angrily Colonel von Schnetter demanded that he bring the cavalry units back into the pursuit. The claim was either a lie\u2014nothing but a fig leaf for looting\u2014or, which might even be worse, an attempt to cover up gross negligence or outright corruption.\n\nIt was true enough that cavalry\u2014infantry too, for that matter\u2014needed to forage from the countryside if they undertook a long march that outstripped the ability of the supply train to keep up. But that should not be necessary on the very first day. Any experienced cavalry unit with even half-competent officers had enough sense to load their mounts with ten to fifteen pounds of hay and a bit of oats or bran.\n\nIt was conceivable that von Troiberz was that much of a bungler. The officers he surrounded himself with were not much if any better. But von Haslang was almost certain that the real reason von Troiberz's cavalry had set out with no supplies for their horses was because their commander\u2014probably in cabal with his top subordinates\u2014had sold those supplies on the black market.\n\nWhatever the explanation, von Schnetter and von Haslang were pursuing a well-led enemy with nothing more than infantry companies. Even if they did manage to catch up with them, the ensuing battle would be ferocious. Without cavalry to threaten and tear at the enemy's flanks, they'd be forced to launch frontal assaults in the face of field guns that would certainly be loaded with canister.\n\nVon Haslang had even considered\u2014it was quite possible his commander had done the same\u2014that it might be wisest to simply slack off a bit in the pursuit. Stay on the heels of the Danube Regiment but let them make their escape into Regensburg. A siege of Regensburg was going to be necessary, in any event. While there was no doubt the addition of Simpson's forces would strengthen the defense, that was a problem for a later day.\n\nA sound from above distracted him. The enemy airship had returned and was again passing over the Bavarian column. It was no more than five hundred feet from the ground, but that was enough to put them out of range of infantry firearms. Effective fire, at any rate. It was conceivable that if a volley were fired at it, one or two bullets might strike the thing. But at that height, even if it struck the small boatlike appendage that held the passengers, it would hardly do much damage.\n\nThe contraption made a surprising racket. Von Haslang hadn't expected that. From a distance, the dirigible's flight seemed serene and effortless. But up close, the engines that drove the fans that propelled it forward were extraordinarily loud.\n\nThe distraction was brief. Captain von Haslang went back to his grim thoughts and prognostications, now made all the worse for the irritating noise yammering at his ears."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 31",
+                "text": "That very moment, as it happened, Rita was looking down on Captain von Haslang\u2014or rather, at the small group of mounted officers at the front of the Bavarian column, among whom he was riding. At that height, even with up-turned faces not hidden by hats, it was impossible to distinguish individual persons. And it wouldn't have mattered if she could. She'd never met the captain, or, indeed, any of the Bavarian officers.\n\nShe'd never met Duke Maximilian either, for that matter. But she could probably have recognized him at close range, because she'd seen a good likeness of him in a portrait.\n\nNot that she'd want to be in close range of the man. By all accounts she'd ever heard, Bavaria's ruler was as cold and deadly as a viper.\n\nThe Pelican had just returned from its first refueling stop at Regensburg. That had gone quite smoothly, much more so than Rita had expected and certainly more smoothly than she'd feared. Not only had there been no quarrels, but the city's authorities had already had barrels of fuel brought out to the airfield. It seemed that the administrator of the Oberpfalz and the president of the SoTF had both sent radio messages to Regensburg instructing the city's officials to do everything possible to aid Major Simpson and his one-craft air force.\n\nEven that might not have done the trick, by itself. German city officials could set the world standard for narrow-minded parochialism, in Rita's experience. But General Schmidt had also gotten on the radio and explained that:\n\nA. If Regensburg did not provide Major Simpson with sufficient aid and assistance\u2014in a timely and efficient manner\u2014then Major Simpson would almost certainly run into severe difficulties and setbacks in his attempt to save his regiment from the depredations of the Bavarians. Who set the world standard for wickedness, in the general's professional military opinion.\n\nB. That being so, General Schmidt himself\u2014now already marching his National Guard division to come to the assistance of Regensburg\u2014would have no choice but to divert his troops in order to rescue Major Simpson. Who, by then, would be engaged in a desperate last stand against that selfsame Bavarian wickedness.\n\nC. In which case, Duke Maximilian, a man whose wickedness was only matched by his cunning, would immediately launch the most furious assaults upon Regensburg, intending to seize the city while it remained lightly defended. In which project he would almost certainly succeed, since the relieving force under General Schmidt was unfortunately preoccupied rescuing Major Simpson from the predicament he had been placed in by the slothful and selfish behavior of the authorities of the very same city about to fall into the hands of Bavarian wickedness.\n\nD. Which wickedness, he reminded the officials listening to his radio message, had been demonstrated not five years earlier in the unspeakably barbaric sack of Magdeburg, carried out largely by troops on Maximilian's payroll.\n\nSo there they were, three full barrels of gasoline, ready to be loaded as soon as the Pelican was tethered. With six more barrels, they were assured, already on their way to the airfield.\n\nRita didn't wait for those next barrels. Stefano told her that they now had enough fuel for the burners and engines to stay in operation another day. So she ordered him to fly back to the location of the Danube Regiment.\n\nThat location had moved a few miles downstream, but only a few. Being married to a soldier, Rita had been abstractly aware that large military forces other than cavalry units\u2014and those also, more often than not\u2014simply could not and did not move quickly across a countryside. But seeing the phenomenon for herself at first hand drove home that reality in a way that listening to Tom talking with fellow officers never had.\n\nThe problem began with the very term that people used to refer to the process. They would say that an army \"marched.\"\n\nMarched. The word brought up images of parades, or newsreels Rita had seen of GIs during World War II passing through a bombed-out French or German town. No longer in formation, just walking. But unless they were moving carefully because there were enemy troops in the immediate vicinity, they were still making quite rapid progress. A person in good physical condition, like a young soldier, can easily walk two miles in an hour, even carrying a heavy pack, and maintain that rate for hours. They can move fifteen or twenty or even twenty-five miles in a day.\n\nBut that presupposed, first of all, twentieth-century macadamized roads. Wide roads, at that. Rita didn't usually think of up-time two-lane country roads as being \"wide,\" but compared to the roads that existed in central Europe in 1636 they were practically boulevards. A standard up-time lane measured somewhere between ten and twelve feet, which made a two-lane road somewhere between twenty and twenty-four feet wide\u2014not even counting whatever shoulders might exist. Half a dozen men could comfortably march abreast on that sort of road. Place them in rows spaced six feet apart\u2014again, a very comfortable distance\u2014and you could fit an entire regiment of a thousand men in a stretch of road that was less than a quarter of a mile long.\n\nAnd those World War II-era newsreels usually only showed the infantrymen, or perhaps the armored fighting vehicles. They rarely showed everything else that was needed to keep an army marching, such as the long line of trucks carrying all the necessary supplies, equipment and ammunition. You saw the quickly-moving teeth of an army, not the massive tail that came behind it\u2014a tail which was itself mechanized and therefore able to move pretty quickly.\n\nNone of that applied here. The road that Tom's men and the refugees were traveling on that ran more-or-less alongside the north bank of the Danube was no more than ten feet wide and often narrower than that. It was not macadamized. In fact, it was rarely even a gravel road. Most of it was just a dirt road. Hardened by the passage of many feet and hooves and wagon wheels over the years, to be sure, but still just a dirt road.\n\nAnd now, in mid-January, very often covered in thin ice and snow. The ice and snow didn't last long, of course, with hundreds of people and livestock moving over it. No, it melted and started turning a dirt road into a mud road, at least in patches.\n\nThings weren't helped any, of course, by the fact that Tom had decided to put the refugees ahead of the army so his soldiers could provide them with some protection from the pursuing Bavarians. But, in truth, that probably wasn't slowing them down all that much. There simply wasn't any way to move some fifteen hundred people and close to two hundred horses, mules and oxen at anything faster than a crawl.\n\nFrom high in the air, the army and its accompanying crowd of refugees made Rita think of a giant caterpillar inching its way down the Danube. Just as with a caterpillar, the center would expand as the soldiers in the rear pressed against the refugees ahead of them, forcing some of the refugees to move off the road. Then the officers would order a halt while the refugees were able to move a little farther, and the whole process repeated itself.\n\nThe situation would have been horrendous if the enemy cavalry had been doing what it should have been doing, moving ahead of the column and tearing at its flank. But the cavalry was still nowhere to be seen. Not from the ground, at least. From her vantage point two thousand feet in the air, Rita could see cavalry units moving about in the distance. But the closest cluster of Bavarian horsemen she could spot was at least half a mile from the river.\n\nShe wondered why the Bavarian commander, whoever he might be, was tolerating the state of affairs. If she'd been in his position, she'd have blown her stack by now."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 32",
+                "text": "Colonel von Schnetter blew his stack no fewer than four times before the sun finally set that day. He kept his mounted adjutants racing all over the landscape, bearing orders\u2014first, firm; then, stern; then, peremptory; then, furious and profane\u2014to the cavalry commander, demanding that he leave off his so-called \"foraging\" and attend to his proper duties.\n\nColonel Johann von Troiberz ignored each and every one of those orders. He didn't refuse to obey, he simply made no response at all. He was able to do that because the orders given by General von Lintelo had not specifically placed von Troiberz under von Schnetter's command. Most likely, the general had simply assumed that the cavalry commander would have the sense of a goose\u2014or, more to the point, wasn't desperately trying to cover up the fact that he'd sold off his cavalry unit's supplies.\n\nVon Troiberz had done that the day before the assault on Ingolstadt began. He knew that the assault was predicated on treachery and was primarily planned as an infantry affair. Thereafter, his cavalrymen would have access to the city's resources and could surely obtain replacements for vanished supplies within a couple of days. So he calculated that he could safely sell off the supplies before the assault began. Who pays attention to such things as hay and oats?\n\nHe hadn't considered the possibility that he might be ordered into an immediate cavalry action to pursue enemy soldiers who had managed to escape the city. That had been a tense moment, when he realized what might be in the offing at von Lintelo's staff meeting after the successful seizure of Ingolstadt. But von Troiberz had acted quickly\u2014he was still patting himself on the back for it\u2014and immediately volunteered his own force for the mission. Secure in his knowledge that von Lintelo had an inexplicable dislike for him and always favored one of his pets. So he wouldn't be given the mission anyway.\n\nThen, to his horror, von Lintelo had set forth his intention to send all the cavalry units available on a raid on Amberg. Von Troiberz had simply not considered the fact\u2014perhaps obvious, in retrospect\u2014that the unsettled state of Bavaria's line of succession would result in a cavalry expedition being sent north immediately. He was not, as an up-timer might put it, the sharpest pencil in Bavaria's military box. He was a lot closer to the eraser end of that spectrum.\n\nThankfully\u2014the only useful thing the annoying fellow had ever done, so far as von Troiberz was concerned\u2014Colonel von Schnetter insisted that he needed cavalry assistance, after von Lintelo placed him in charge of pursuing the retreating enemy. The general had eventually agreed and given the assignment of \"assisting\" the infantry to von Troiberz.\n\nSuch a vague and uncertain word, \"assisting.\" Truly delightful, the way its borders and boundaries wandered about.\n\nIt was still a very awkward situation for von Troiberz to be placed in, of course, but far better\u2014far, far better\u2014than if he'd been assigned to participate in a raid on Amberg under the direct command of von Lintelo's most favored officers. He'd have been in trouble almost immediately. As it was, von Troiberz figured he could fend off the pestiferous infantry colonel's demands for at least two days. That would give his men enough time to plunder what they needed immediately from the countryside.\n\nThose so-called \"commands\" were nothing of the sort, anyway. Given that von Troiberz and the infantry colonel were of equal rank and the fact that the general had never specified the command arrangement, von Schnetter's \"orders\" were legally nothing more than requests.\n\nVery rude requests, to boot. The man could be quite insufferable."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 33",
+                "text": "Night finally fell, on that first day. Tom thought it had probably been the longest day in his life. It had certainly been the most harrowing.\n\nTwo thousand feet above him, as she tried to get to sleep, his wife Rita thought exactly the same. And she was afraid she'd have the nightmares to prove it. Throughout the day, she'd been getting periodic flashbacks to the gunfights of the night just passed. The most upsetting was the look on the face of the soldier whom she'd shot dead outside the broken shop window.\n\nHe'd been young, barely more than a boy. At the very end, just before she pulled the trigger, he'd obviously understood that he was about to die.\n\nThat look...\n\nIt hadn't been so much an expression of despair as one of sorrow, for the things he would now never see, never do, never know, never feel. Rita was quite certain that she would carry that memory with her for all her days on earth, however many they might prove to be. She could live to be a hundred, and would never forget the man whom she'd severed from whatever days might have been his."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 34",
+                "text": "Not far from her in the gondola, on the other hand, Stefano Franchetti and Mary Tanner Barancek were having a very pleasant evening. They were engaged in the sort of lively conversation that young people think is dazzling beyond belief\u2014no greater conversation had been held anywhere on the planet since Socrates questioned his guests\u2014because every sentence, every phrase, seemed loaded with suggestion and invitation.\n\nThe conversation was all the more dazzling for the fact that Mary's grim aunt and her two fellow Furies were no longer on board the Pelican. They had been dropped off in Regensburg when the airship made its refueling stop earlier in the day. Rita had pointed out that there was really no purpose in the three auditors staying aboard, and the Pelican could use the extra lift provided by their departure to carry more fuel. Willa had been reluctant, but finally agreed when Maydene stated\u2014quite bluntly\u2014that there was not much opportunity for premarital coitus in the gondola of an active airship, especially with Rita not more than ten feet away from the youngsters in question. Estelle then weighed in by pointing out\u2014just as bluntly\u2014that even if such activity did take place, the girl was now of legal age and she'd hardly be the first country bumpkin to get screwed by a slick fellow of the Latin persuasion. She'd survive."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 35",
+                "text": "Bonnie Weaver and Heinz B\u00f6cler did not get to sleep until much later in the evening. The secretary stayed up for hours, checking with everyone in the refugee camp to make sure that they'd gotten something to eat and that no one, especially children and the elderly, was going to spend the night in freezing conditions. Those people who were short of blankets or other sorts of bedding got some loaned to them by people who were in better shape. On their own, they might or might not have made such offers, but the combination of B\u00f6cler's quiet persistence and his ever-ready notebook turned the trick. No one doubted for a moment that if the province administrator's personal secretary said he would keep accurate records of who had lent what to whom, it would surely be done and done properly.\n\nIn the event, Bonnie wound up keeping most of those records. She accompanied Heinz on his rounds and figured out early on that it made more sense for him to concentrate on wheedling people and for her to do his bookkeeping for him. It wasn't that he was a better wheedler than she was. Actually, he was rather inept at it. But he was extraordinarily persistent, long past the point where Bonnie herself would have stalked off in disgust at someone's recalcitrance and pigheaded selfishness.\n\nSo, she let him wheedle and cajole and harass and pester, while she wielded the magic pen. That worked because Heinz always introduced her as his secretary, which apparently satisfied the proprieties. It turned out that maintaining a clear and precise chain of bureaucracy was every bit as essential in Heinz's line of work as maintaining a clear and precise chain of custody was for police work.\n\nWho knew?"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 36",
+                "text": "The second day was a carbon copy of the first, for all intents and purposes. Two small armies kept moving slowly down the Danube. They were of approximately equal size, fifteen hundred people in each. But two-thirds of the leading army consisted of civilians, where the entire pursuing force was made up of infantrymen.\n\nFor whatever reason, however, the following army was moving no faster than the one it was pursuing. Hour after hour, now two days in a row, it remained about a mile behind. Close enough to make the fact of a pursuit obvious, but not so close\u2014not once\u2014as to make it necessary for Tom to break off the march and arrange his men into a defensive formation.\n\nThat was odd, on the face of it. Very odd, in fact. No large body of people could move quickly under these conditions, that was a given. Still, the pursuing force was made up of men in fit condition\u2014well, mostly\u2014and carrying nothing more than muskets and backpacks, with a supply train bringing up the rear. In contrast, a very large percentage of the fifteen hundred people ahead of them were composed of elderly people, children, the ill\u2014there were two very visibly pregnant women in the mix, even. Not to mention carts and wagons of all sorts including field guns and caissons. You'd think they'd have been able to move at least a little bit faster.\n\nBy the evening of the second day, when they made camp for the night again, Tom was pretty sure he knew what was happening. And he'd had all day to decide what to do in response.\n\nSo, he assembled a war council of his top officers, to which he also summoned the leaders of his (very unofficial) air force.\n\nThe suspicion privately entertained by some that he'd done so in order to see his wife again was actually quite unfair\u2014as was proven by the fact that, once the meeting was over, Rita got back into the Pelican and flew off.\n\nStefano Franchetti's uncle Filippo attended the council as well. The Albatross had successfully spirited away the two young Bavarian heirs from Amberg the day before. Actually, they'd done it in plain sight at the airfield and in broad daylight because the Bavarian cavalry was still a good two days away. At Ed Piazza's request, once Filippo brought the boys to Bamberg, Estuban Miro had agreed to send the Albatross down to the Danube to provide whatever assistance it could to Major Simpson and its sister airship.\n\nWhen Tom finished explaining his plan, the reaction of his officers was stalwart and supportive. The reaction of the two Franchettis was enthusiastic. That of Rita, uncertain. That of Heinz B\u00f6cler, dubious. That of Bonnie Weaver, agitated.\n\nThe officers were stalwart and supportive because they were soldiers and, besides, the plan didn't require them to do anything.\n\nThe Franchettis were enthusiastic because they foresaw their future fame. Their sure and certain place in the history, since they would fall into the blessed category of \"The Men Who First...\"\n\nRita was uncertain because she didn't know enough about the issues involved.\n\nThe provincial secretary was dubious because he was a dubious man by nature.\n\nBonnie was agitated because she'd not only taken some chemistry courses but, in her days hanging around with Larry Wild and his friends, had picked up a fair amount of knowledge on the subject. And because Tom wanted to put her in charge of the technical side of the project.\n\n\"You need to add styrofoam to the gasoline to make decent napalm,\" she protested. \"Where are we going to find that much styrofoam? I doubt if there's even much left in Grantville, these days.\"\n\n\"You can substitute soap or sugar, can't you?\"\n\nBonnie frowned. \"Well...I remember Larry and the guys talking about it. They wanted to try, naturally\u2014boys! But they never got around to it. Besides, I don't know what kind of soap and I think it's supposed to be powdered sugar and that's a lot trickier than it sounds. There's probably enough sugar in Regensburg, now that they're making it from sorghum around Freyburg, but very little of it will be powdered. And it's pretty expensive, no matter how it comes. Who's going to pay for it?\"\n\nThat last question was silly, and Bonnie knew it. She had a tendency to starting jabbering when she got uneasy. Talk first, think later. In time of war\u2014this happened up-time, too\u2014governments got very heavy-handed in the way they handled critical war supplies. And they got to define the term \"critical war supplies\" in the first place. If King Louis XIV could proclaim himself the state, any state could certainly claim the status of a dictionary.\n\nTom waited patiently until the little flood of protest ebbed. \"Bonnie, nobody's expecting military-grade napalm. Napalm is basically just thickened, jellied gasoline. The sugar, even if it isn't powdered, is bound to help in that direction. Soap is probably even better, if you liquefy it first. I'd suggest mixing in some fine sawdust, too. The worst that happens is that we get functional firebombs that aren't any better than big Molotov cocktails. For what I want, I think that'd be enough right there.\"\n\nHe turned back to Rita. He'd begun the council by asking her and Stefano a number of questions about the Bavarian cavalry dispositions.\n\n\"I'm a lot more concerned about getting the target right. You're sure about that village?\"\n\nHis wife shrugged. \"No, of course I'm not 'sure.' But that's where the largest bunch of cavalry spent last night, and whenever we've flown by there today it looks as if there are plenty of them hanging around. They're obviously planning to spend tonight there also. I think that's where they set up their headquarters. But who knows? They might pack up and leave tomorrow.\"\n\nThe Bavarian cavalry had taken over a village about a mile from the river. It had been a big village, with a sizeable inn and stables. All the inhabitants had already fled, so Tom didn't have to worry about civilian casualties.\n\nTom stuck a finger under the collar of his shirt and scratched an itch, thinking about Rita's cautions. She was certainly right that nothing was certain, but it was just human nature for people to get attached to creature comforts. It was the middle of January\u2014in the Little Ice Age, no less, as Americans always insisted on reminding everyone. Any soldier, even those in highly disciplined elite units, would prefer being billeted in a village house or tavern room than sleeping on the ground wrapped in nothing better than a blanket.\n\nAnd everything he'd seen about these cavalrymen indicated they were very far from being highly disciplined elite troops. He was now all but certain that the cavalrymen had been deliberately shirking their duties\u2014and the infantry units had delayed their own pursuit out of sheer anger. Were they supposed to bear all the casualties? Which were likely to be steep if they attacked artillery without cavalry support.\n\nThat's what the commander of those infantrymen had apparently been asking himself. And the answer he'd come up with was \"no,\" at least so far. Whether that was because he was a mercenary and those troops were his working capital that he didn't want to waste, or because he genuinely cared for the well-being of his men, or simply because he was peevish, Tom had no idea.\n\nNor did it matter. All that mattered, for the next two days, was making sure the Bavarian cavalry stayed out of the picture. Two days from now, they'd have reached Regensburg and could thumb their noses at anyone pursuing them.\n\nThat Bavarian cavalry wasn't much good to begin with, the way it looked to Tom. So let's see how they'd stand up to this world's first-ever aerial incendiary carpet bombing. Even allowing for the fact that the terms \"incendiary\" and \"carpet\" were gross exaggerations, Tom didn't think they'd stand up well. Not well at all.\n\n\"We'll do it,\" he announced, his mind finally made up. \"Bonnie, are you willing to give it a try?\"\n\nShe spread her hands. \"Yeah, sure.\"\n\nHe nodded and turned to B\u00f6cler. \"Heinrich, I want you to go with her.\"\n\nThe secretary started to protest. \"But the refugees\u2014\"\n\nTom held up his hand. \"They're fine. You've already got things well enough organized there. They can manage on their own for the next two days. The real danger to them now is that we won't reach Regensburg at all.\"\n\nB\u00f6cler frowned. \"But why do you want to send me to Regensburg?\"\n\n\"Because you're a top-notch organizer. Bonnie isn't\u2014no offense, Bonnie, but you're not\u2014and besides, she's got to concentrate on the technical side of making the bombs.\" A charming analogy came to him, and he couldn't help but smile. \"She's Oppenheimer, you're General Groves.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" That came from B\u00f6cler. Bonnie Weaver was staring at Tom as if he'd just grown horns.\n\n\"Never mind,\" Tom said. \"Up-time analogy. Something called the Manhattan Project. Bonnie, explain it to him\u2014\"\n\n\"Oppenheimer?\" Bonnie demanded. \"I've got a high school diploma! With a B-minus grade point average!\"\n\nRita started laughing.\n\n\"\u2014when the two of you have a spare moment. The thing is, Heinrich, you're only going to have a few hours to put together a lot of bombs. You'll have to organize people to get it done. Find suitable bomb cases\u2014I figure by now Regensburg has got to have started producing small barrels that can hold gasoline. Big glass jars would work too, if they've got decent lids, but that's probably asking for pie in the sky.\"\n\nGlassmakers in the seventeenth century could do phenomenal work, but they weren't really set up yet to mass produce things like Mason jars. Such containers in the here and now were mostly pottery. Speaking of which...\n\n\"See if you can find big clay pots and something to plug them with. That should work too. But probably the trickiest part of the work will be coming up with suitable fuses.\"\n\nHe stuck a big finger almost under the secretary's nose and waggled it in a warning gesture. Then, for good measure, waggled it under Bonnie's nose.\n\n\"But don't get too fancy! I don't want to risk having one of these things going off in the gondolas. If the best you can come up with is just a fuse you light at the last minute, when you're shoving the bomb over the side, that'll do.\"\n\nB\u00f6cler was frowning again, but the expression this time was simply that of a man pondering a challenge. \"How many bombs do you want?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure.\" He turned to Filippo Franchetti. \"How many do you figure you can handle in a couple of airships? Figure each bomb will be about this size\"\u2014his hands sketched out in midair a roughly spherical object about the size of a two-gallon jug\u2014\"and will weigh somewhere around twenty pounds.\"\n\n\"It will be three airships,\" Franchetti said, almost idly, scratching his chin as he contemplated the problem. \"We just got word from Bamberg before we landed. The Petrel has returned from Amsterdam. Don Estuban is sending it down to join us tomorrow morning. He told me to tell you the ship is at your disposal for the duration of the crisis, as are the Pelican and the Albatross.\"\n\nApparently, Miro had decided to use the crisis as an opportunity to rack up lots and lots of brownie points with the SoTF's administration. He was certainly racking them up with Tom himself, even though he'd never met the man.\n\n\"The problem is not the weight,\" Franchetti said. \"It's the space needed\u2014as well as the need to handle them safely. Two men to fly the ship, two men to handle the bombs, one man to choose the times and the places to drop the bombs.\"\n\nStefano cleared his throat. \"Some of those tasks do not require men, uncle.\" He held up his hands in a vigorous gesture, as a man might protest any suggestion of heretical leanings. \"Yes, yes, certainly to manage the bombs themselves! But Dina Merrifield and Mary Barancek have already helped fly the Pelican.\"\n\nHe now bestowed a solemn nod at Rita. \"And I am quite sure that Mrs. Simpson would make a splendid...ah...what is the term I want?\"\n\n\"Bombardier,\" Tom suggested.\n\n\"Fucking moron,\" was his wife's countersuggestion. \"What else can you call someone who tosses lit firebombs from a flimsy hot air balloon?\"\n\n\"Dirigible,\" said the Franchettis, sternly and simultaneously.\n\nRita shook her head. \"Well, at least one historical question is now answered. Fucking geeks can be found in any time and place.\"\n\nTom had learned long ago that when his wife started using Appalachian patois in every other sentence it was time to wrap up the discussion. Before the patois began appearing in every sentence. Then, every clause.\n\nHe clapped his hands. \"All right, it's settled. Mr. Franchetti\"\u2014that was directed at Filippo\u2014\"I figure your airship should lead the bombing run. So it's probably best that Rita transfer now from the Pelican to the Albatross. She's the best person to guide the run and serve as the lead bombardier. Bonnie and Heinrich can transfer into your ship also, since it's your turn to make the refueling run to Regensburg. You can drop them off in the city.\"\n\nHe turned to the young nephew, striving mightily to keep a straight face. \"Stefano, that'll leave you with Mary Barancek as your bombardier. I know she's awfully young, but I think she can handle the job.\"\n\nStefano beamed. \"Oh, certainly!\"\n\nTom was no slouch himself, when it came to racking up brownie points. He turned now to Bonnie and B\u00f6cler. \"Any further questions?\"\n\nThey looked at each other. After a moment, Bonnie shrugged. \"Probably a thousand. But we'll manage. We work pretty well together.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 37",
+                "text": "She thought about that, most of the way to Regensburg.\n\nIt was quite true, actually. They did work together well. Got along well, too.\n\nThe rest of the way into Regensburg, she spent contemplating the fact that for the first time since Larry Wild died, she found herself interested in a man who didn't remind her of Larry in the least, teeniest, itsiest, littlest bit.\n\nThat was probably mentally healthy, she figured, although she wasn't sure.\n\nShe giggled, then. B\u00f6cler, who'd been standing next to her in the gondola throughout the trip, raised his eyebrows. \"What has amused you?\"\n\nShe put her hand over her mouth, to cover the grin. \"Oh, nothing,\" she mumbled. \"Just a stray thought.\"\n\nIt was funny, but there were too many up-time referents for her to be able to explain the humor clearly to Heinz. Had anyone told her, back in her West Virginia days, that the time would come when she'd wonder where she could find a shrink, she'd have told them they were crazy.\n\nBut it was true, nonetheless. Up-timers now even had a saying about it. The Ring of Fire changed us all."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 38",
+                "text": "The third day went much like the first two. Two small armies moving slowly down the Danube, keeping the same steady distance. Hundreds of cavalrymen charging hither and yon across the landscape\u2014everywhere except where the armies marched\u2014plundering everything they could get their hands on.\n\nWhich wasn't much. That landscape had been picked pretty clean. If a cavalry platoon caught a chicken, they deemed it a great prize and a cause for celebration. They would hold the celebration immediately, roasting the chicken on a spit while consuming a bottle of very bad wine they'd looted from a neighboring village. As ravening plunderers went, these fellows were definitely bottom feeders."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 39",
+                "text": "By then, although Colonel von Schnetter had said nothing openly to him, it was quite obvious to Captain von Haslang that the infantry commander had decided to let the Danube Regiment make its escape. He would follow them closely all the way to Regensburg, for the sake of appearances, but he would make no effort to bring the enemy to battle. He would not subject his own men to the casualties of a frontal assault on prepared artillery, with no cavalry support. If General von Lintelo broke into one of his tempers over the matter, let him place the blame where it rightly belonged\u2014on the cavalry scoundrels and their own commander, Colonel von Troiberz.\n\nVon Haslang had no objection. Neither to the substance of the issue, nor to the colonel's tactical judgment. Insofar as the substance was concerned, he too saw no reason their own men should suffer because of a general's carelessness and a cavalry officer's dereliction.\n\nAs for the tactics...\n\nIf Colonel von Troiberz had been one of von Lintelo's favorites, this would be a risky maneuver. The general would almost certainly then bring his wrath down on Colonel von Schnetter\u2014and, the general being the sort of man he was, on von Schnetter's staff as well. Happily, von Lintelo held Colonel von Troiberz in no high regard either. That was the reason he'd given him this assignment, almost as an afterthought, instead of including his unit in the more important mission to Amberg.\n\nSo, most likely, von Lintelo's fury would come down on the cavalry, who richly deserved it. But it probably wouldn't be that great a fury anyway, since it had also been obvious that von Lintelo didn't view capturing the escaped fragments of the Danube Regiment as a particularly important matter.\n\nHe might come to regret that judgment. Captain von Haslang's own assessment of the enemy commander had steadily grown over the past two and half days. Given that a siege of Regensburg now seemed inevitable, he'd be a lot happier if Major Simpson and his men weren't part of the defending force.\n\nBut, like Colonel von Schnetter, he didn't think it was worth the casualties to prevent that from happening. If a man sought perfection, he should find a different trade than that of a professional soldier."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 40",
+                "text": "To her great relief, Bonnie found that her new assignment was not as hard as she'd thought it would be. (For years thereafter, whenever confronted with a quandary, she would throw up her hands and exclaim \"Oppenheimer!\") That was true for three reasons:\n\nFirst, Heinz B\u00f6cler turned out to be far better in his General Groves persona than she was when she tried to imitate a world-class nuclear physicist like Oppenheimer. Within less than an hour after their arrival in Regensburg, he had the city's officials and guild masters eating out of the palm of his plump little hand.\n\nHow he managed that was something of a mystery to Bonnie. It was certainly not due to his dazzling personality. Heinz was a pleasant enough fellow, but he possessed about as much in the way of social charm as you'd expect from a man raised by a parson, educated to be a clerk, and filled with the ambition to write a history book.\n\nHer guess was that Heinz fit, to a T, every pompous city official and stuffed-shirt guildmaster's notion of what the personal secretary of a provincial administrator should be like. So, oddly enough, it was his very lack of charisma that lent him great authority.\n\nThe second factor working in her favor was Brick Bozarth. Bonnie had completely forgotten\u2014if she'd ever known at all, which she probably hadn't\u2014that the State of Thuringia-Franconia had sent Bozarth to Regensburg back in 1634. The man served as one of the SoTF's semi-official trade representatives and consuls to the Oberpfalz.\n\nBozarth's precise position in the SoTF's bureaucracy was never clear to Bonnie. The middle-aged ex-miner had nothing more than a high school diploma, so far as his education was concerned. In his days as a coal miner, he'd operated a continuous mining machine\u2014a skill that was about as useful, in the here and now, as knowing how to pilot a submarine. She suspected that his main qualification for his post was simply the fact that was a member of the United Mine Workers.\n\nIn the period after the Ring of Fire, Mike Stearns had leaned very heavily on the membership of his union local to provide him with a ready-made cadre. Those days were over now. Mike himself had left for Magdeburg and the man who succeeded him to serve as the province's president, Ed Piazza, was not and had never been a coal miner.\n\nBy then, though, certain social customs had become rooted in the State of Thuringia-Franconia. The same customs didn't hold much sway elsewhere in the United States of Europe. Being a UMWA member in Magdeburg province, for instance, was certainly respectable\u2014even admirable\u2014but gave a man no particular status in political terms.\n\nIn the governing circles of the SoTF and its surrounding officialdom, on the other hand, membership in the UMWA had much the same informal prestige and ability to open doors that being a Harvard or Yale graduate had provided back up-time. That hadn't been due to the supposedly superb education one received at those Ivy League schools, no matter what people claimed. That education was certainly excellent, but so was the education a person could get at MIT or the University of California, or any number of top universities in America, public as well as private. Indeed, in many fields, the education someone could get outside of the Ivy League was quite a bit better.\n\nNo, the real cachet that having an Ivy League degree had given people back up-time was social, not educational. Being a graduate of Harvard or Yale put you in the right old boys' networks. Being a UMWA member did much the same in the SoTF.\n\nThankfully, Bozarth had not taken his post to be a sinecure. Being fair, very few UMWA people did. They might not necessarily be the best person for a job, but they almost always carried out those jobs with the same blue-collar work ethic that they'd taken into coal mines.\n\nSo, as soon as Bonnie explained her needs to him, Bozarth knew exactly where, how and from whom those needs could be met. He knew Regensburg very well by now, especially that part of Regensburg that was involved in what he considered \"useful work.\"\n\nBrick defined that term the way coal miners do. If you knew how to make something or fix something or grow something, you were a stout fellow. If you were a parson, you were regarded with respect but otherwise dismissed as being of no practical use. If you were a lawyer, you were automatically under a cloud of suspicion.\n\nThe third factor working in her favor was just blind luck. The first item Brick brought to her to try out as an additive to the gasoline was a tub of soap. It turned out that Regensburg had a soap manufacturer\u2014the German term was \"Seifensieder\"; literally, soap-boiler\u2014and he had plenty of his product available.\n\nThe standard soap of the time in the Germanies was a lye soap. You could also find some scented olive oil bar soaps from Italy, but they were an expensive luxury item. The lye soap came in the form of a semi-liquid soft soap, rather than being hardened into bars. In other words, absolutely perfect for Bonnie's purposes.\n\nThe first batch of napalm she mixed up worked like a charm. Being a firm believer in the principle if it ain't broke, don't fix it, Bonnie saw no point in going any further\u2014to the great disappointment of the commercial factor in Regensburg who controlled the town's sugar supply and had briefly imagined great riches were in store for him.\n\nIt was just as well. She found out later from people in Grantville who'd done the experiments back in the early days that sugar was a poor cousin to soap, in the \"hey, guys, let's make some napalm!\" department.\n\nThe bomb cases were easy. The city's cooper could provide her with barrels, but those were too big for the actual bombs. On the other hand, they made great containers to mix the batches. The result, which had the consistency of fresh-made pudding, could then be easily poured into jugs that held about three gallons. There were plenty of such jugs available in a town the size of Regensburg.\n\nThe end result was a bomb that didn't weigh more than twenty-five pounds, something that even one man could handle easily enough.\n\nThat left the fuses. Bonnie dithered back and forth between using gunpowder fuses and the even simpler device of rags soaked in gasoline. Both methods worked\u2014but which would work best when the bomb was dropped from a height of several hundred yards? She had no way of testing that short of the time-consuming method of taking them up in one of the airships.\n\nIn the end, Heinz solved the quandary for her, in his inimitable fashion. For a man whose great ambition was to become an historian, perhaps the world's most impractical profession, he had a surprisingly wide pragmatic streak.\n\n\"There is no danger of an explosion, from either type of fuse?\" he asked. \"If you light it too soon, I mean, and it burns down into the bomb before you want it to.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"No. These things aren't really bombs. They're basically great big Molotov cocktails. They don't blow up, they just shatter when they hit the ground. The napalm goes flying everywhere and sticks to everything\u2014and the lit fuse sets it on fire.\"\n\n\"Then use both,\" he said. \"Stick one kind of fuse on one side of the sealed lid, and the other across from it. Light them both, drop the bomb. One of them has to work.\"\n\nShe gave him a quick hug and set about giving the orders. So she didn't see the look of surprise that came to B\u00f6cler's face, followed by a look of pleasure, followed by a look of consternation."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 41",
+                "text": "By early afternoon, she had enough bombs to load up both the Pelican and the Albatross. The Petrel had arrived in the area also, by now, but it was flying over the Danube at the moment keeping an eye on the movements of the Bavarian troops below.\n\nGiven how easy the whole process had turned out to be, Bonnie decided it made more sense to transfer the final stages of the bomb-making from Regensburg to the field. Tom Simpson and his people were now within ten miles of Regensburg. The airships had found a suitable landing area about three miles farther down the Danube. It was on the north bank, fortunately, since the south bank was in Bavarian territory. She'd bring enough napalm there in barrels to provide the Petrel with a full load of bombs. And there'd be enough left over to fill quite a few more jugs. She figured at least one of the airships could carry out a second bombing run, if Major Simpson decided to do so.\n\nSo, off they went. By now, Bonnie was starting to take flying by dirigible almost for granted. She was even enjoying it.\n\nExcept for the incredible racket. Having four un-muffled lawnmower engines yammering at close range was enough to drive you crazy after a while. The noise was so bad that whenever they needed to use the radio or the walkie-talkie they had to shut off the engines and just let the ship drift for a while.\n\nBut Heinz had thought of that, too. He'd found linen and had it soaked in some kind of wax. Little strips of it rolled up and stuffed in your ears made pretty decent ear plugs.\n\nThe airship crews clapped him on the back. Bonnie gave him another hug. Not a quick one, either."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 42",
+                "text": "It did not occur to Johann Heinrich B\u00f6cler, then or ever, that it was peculiar for a man headed back to a war zone to spend the entire time worrying about anything else.\n\nBut, such was his nature. His background, training and personal inclination led him to be fatalistic on the subject of death and dismemberment. Not so at all, on the subject of right and proper conduct.\n\nWhat was he to do? By now, his attraction to the American woman was undeniable. Indeed, it was getting feverish. He was having thoughts\u2014images, even\u2014that he was quite sure his father would declare unseemly. His grandfather, should he discover, would be furious.\n\nThey were unseemly thoughts. But he could not stop having them.\n\nIf the woman in question had been uninterested, Heinz was sure he could have brought himself under control. Unfortunately\u2014well, also delightfully\u2014she very clearly was not. That last hug, especially, had born no resemblance at all to the sort of hugs one occasionally got from a particularly affectionate and free-spirited sister, aunt or cousin.\n\nThe fact remained that he was still too young to consider marriage. These past days had been eventful and stimulating; certainly. He would even allow that they had been exciting. But soon enough, the real world would intrude\u2014say better, return to normal. And he would go back to being a modestly paid secretary who was still some years away from having accumulated enough in the way of assets and income to sustain a household.\n\nWhat was he to do?"
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 43",
+                "text": "Tom decided to launch the bombing raid just before sundown. By then, the cavalrymen staying in the targeted village would be settling in for the night. Most of them, anyway. But there would still be enough light for the airship's bombardiers to see the targets easily. Even with a clear sky and moonlight, he didn't think they could do so very well after nightfall.\n\nSo, he stopped the march an hour earlier in the day than he'd stopped the previous two days, and spent the extra time setting up fieldworks to guard the camp. He wasn't sure how the Bavarians would react to the bombing. He didn't think they'd retaliate with an attack, because the infantry were the only ones really in position to launch such an attack and they weren't going to be the target of the bombing.\n\nBut you never knew. Relying too much on your own assessment of an enemy's intentions was a military error that probably dated back to Cro-Magnon times. Naw, those guys won't do nothing tonight so we may as well get some sleep. And so perishes another little band of hunter-gatherers...\n\nHe didn't use all of his men for that purpose, though. Earlier in the day, once Bonnie explained her plans to him over the radio, he sent Bruno von Eichelberg and his mercenary company on a forced march down the river. Their assignment was to meet up with the Pelican and the Albatross at the landing area the airship crews had selected and provide them with a guard unit. Tom didn't know yet if he would want to carry out a second bombing run, but he might. So he'd approved Bonnie's plan to set up an impromptu combination airfield and bomb-making facility.\n\nAnd, again, you never knew. There was certainly no way that the Bavarian infantry could get down there tonight or tomorrow morning. And he didn't think it was likely at all that a cavalry unit would either. There had always been at least one airship in the sky above them since early morning. They could keep an eye out for any enemy troop movements within miles, and they'd reported no cavalry any closer than half a mile upstream. But you couldn't rule out the possibility that some stray cavalry had gone unspotted and were now well down the river. If even a small number of cavalrymen came across the airships on the ground and unprotected, there'd be an outright slaughter.\n\nAnd now, there was nothing left to do but wait."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 44",
+                "text": "\"What do you think, Heinrich?\" asked Colonel von Schnetter. He passed the telescope he'd been using to Captain von Haslang. The two of them were sitting on their horses atop a small rise near the river bank, studying the fieldworks the Danube Regiment was putting up a half mile or so downstream. From here, they had a good view.\n\n\"Can you think of any reason they made camp earlier today, and are taking the time to create fieldworks?\"\n\nVon Haslang didn't reply for a few seconds, while he studied the enemy's activity through the glass. Then, passing it back to his commander, he got a slight smile on his face. He and von Schnetter had known each other for years and this was not the first time they'd worked together. The colonel's use of his given name was a subtle indicator that his friend wanted a frank and private discussion.\n\n\"Not really, Caspar. It's not as if you've given them any reason to expect an assault.\"\n\nVon Schnetter took the eyeglass and slid it back into the case he kept attached to his saddle. He had the same slight smile also.\n\n\"No, I haven't. And as I'm sure you're figured out by now, I have no intention of attacking them. That American major\u2014and it's him, for a certainty; did you see the size of the bastard?\u2014has shown himself to be altogether too competent for my taste. Any attack we launched with no cavalry to work at their flanks would be a bloodbath. We'd probably win, in the end, because we outnumber them three-to-one. But that's more of a butcher's bill than I'm willing to pay with good troops who've been left in the lurch by swine and...\"\n\nHe let the end of the sentence trail off. The \"swine,\" of course, referred to von Troiberz. Von Haslang was quite sure that if his colonel had completed the thought, the \"and\" would have been followed by a very unfavorable reference to General von Lintelo.\n\nHe had gotten a good look at the commander of the enemy force. Just now, and also the day before when he and von Schnetter had studied their opponent making camp from another rise in the landscape. The colonel's eyepiece was superb. He'd only been able to afford it because he came from a wealthy family.\n\nIt was conceivable, of course, that the Danube Regiment had two officers as huge as the one they'd been looking at. But it was not likely. The Simpson fellow was rather famous, all across the Germanies. So was his admiral father, but in the case of the son the fame came entirely from his physique, not his accomplishments. That would begin to change, of course, as a result of his exploits over the past few days.\n\nIt was said that the young American major had engaged in an up-time sport that required immense men. \"Feetball,\" it was called, if von Haslang remembered right. He was not clear with regard to the details of the game. His image of it, had he laid it before an up-timer, would have resulted in smiles, perhaps even laughter. Von Haslang's conception of \"feetball\" bore a much closer resemblance to mass sumo wrestling than the actual American sport.\n\nBut the details were irrelevant. Von Haslang would hate to confront that man in a physical clash, armed with anything but a gun. And now that he'd experienced three days of maneuvering against him, he'd want to fire the gun at a distance.\n\nHe and von Schnetter went back to looking at the distant enemy fieldworks.\n\n\"Make camp for the night, sir?\" von Haslang asked, figuring that the moment for informality had passed.\n\n\"Yes, please see to it, Captain. We'll not be launching any attacks.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 45",
+                "text": "Colonel Johann von Troiberz was planning no attacks of his own that night, either. Not even an attack on the virtue of the woman sharing his bed, since that virtue had fallen many years earlier. Not to him, but to a different officer.\n\nHe thought he was the second Bavarian officer for whom she'd become a concubine. In actual fact, he was the fifth, but the woman in question had never seen any need to enlighten the colonel on the matter. Men were always bothered by such details.\n\nAfter von Troiberz fell asleep, Ursula Gerisch stared at the ceiling. It was the sort of ceiling that she'd become familiar with, since she'd cast her lot with von Troiberz.\n\nThe ceiling belonged to one of the rooms in the sort of inn you ran across in large German villages. \"Large,\" in this instance, was a term partly defined by the mere fact that the village had an inn, that was more than just a front room in a villager's house that provided drink and food purely for the locals.\n\nNeedless to say, the room was neither large nor well-furnished. It was certainly not luxurious. There was a bed\u2014not large; not comfortable\u2014and a nightstand, one chair, and a chamber pot.\n\nThe chamber pot had not been washed lately. So much was obvious.\n\nShe tried to remember how she'd wound up in this state of affairs. She was still well short of thirty years old. She couldn't even claim the excuse of desperately poor origins. Her father had been a tanner in a small town in Swabia\u2014a trade that paid rather well, although you had to put up with the terrible stench.\n\nIt had begun with excitement, she recalled. Soldiers passing through town, a handsome young lieutenant. Ursula herself, bored. And she truly hated the stink of the tannery.\n\nTo this day, she liked to imagine that first liaison would have worked out well in the end. But the unfortunate young lieutenant had been serving under Ernst von Mansfeld at the disastrous battle of the Dessau Bridge, where the Protestants were crushed by Wallenstein. He'd vanished in the course of that battle. Presumably killed, but you never really knew. He might have just run off and decided to keep running. Whatever had happened, she'd never seen him again.\n\nThe second officer had not been exciting at all. A fat colonel in late middle-age, whose wife had died and whose career had stalled out. But he'd been a decent enough man, and she'd been desperate. Then, a year later, the colonel's heart had failed. He'd left no provision for her in his will, despite his promises. Everything had gone to his own children.\n\nBack on the streets again. She'd worked those just long enough to find another officer. Another lieutenant. Also, alas, another unfortunate. In this case, not a casualty of bullet and sword but a casualty of the still deadlier combination of getting stinking drunk and climbing onto a horse.\n\nThen, finally, a stroke of luck. Not much, but some. A captain this time, in his mid-thirties and in good enough health that she could expect some considerable years with him. As a concubine, to be sure, not a wife. The hopes Ursula had once had of eventually getting married and raising a family had died of neglect and malnutrition, somewhere along the way. But the captain was faithful enough that she didn't really fear he'd desert her for another woman or give her some sort of horrid disease.\n\nHe was something of a mean bastard, though, with a hot temper. He beat her from time to time. Life was far from perfect.\n\nWorse than the beatings was the temper itself. The day came when he mistook the ease of beating a concubine with beating another officer. Unlike the concubine, the officer had a sword\u2014and, as it turned out, was considerably more proficient in its use than the man who'd struck him.\n\nThey buried the captain's arm in the same coffin that held the rest of his body. The cut had taken it right off, after which he'd bled to death.\n\nLuckily for Ursula\u2014well, it had seemed lucky at the time\u2014Colonel von Troiberz had attended the funeral and took it upon himself to comfort the not-exactly-a-widow after the ceremony concluded.\n\nThat had been three years ago. Her life had been a slow but steady slide downhill ever since.\n\nThe colonel did not beat her. That was his one virtue. So far as Ursula could determine, his only virtue.\n\nOtherwise, von Troiberz was an unpleasant man in every particular. He had no sense of humor, no capacity for joy. He smiled maybe once a week. Laughed, perhaps once a month.\n\nHe had no capacity for any sort of pleasure, for that matter, except ones deriving from spite and greed.\n\nPetty spite and petty greed. The man lacked style and verve even in his vices and sins.\n\nMostly, von Troiberz was a sullen man, riddled with resentments and envies. He drank constantly. And then spent his few sober hours coming up with schemes that might save him from the consequences of other schemes he'd come up with while drunk. She knew perfectly well the reason he'd spent the last three days dragging her around this miserable countryside in January was because he was desperately trying to cover up one of his thefts.\n\nThe drinking also made him incapable in bed but that was not a problem, so far as Ursula was concerned. On the now-rare occasions when the colonel did choose to engage in sexual activity, the result was brief and would have left her completely unsatisfied except that she began the coupling with no such expectations anyway. Somewhere along the way, her hopes that sex would at least be enjoyable had also died a natural death. The causes, again, being neglect and malnutrition.\n\nThe biggest problem was that Colonel von Troiberz stank, most of the time\u2014and Ursula had begun this life in the first place because she hated bad smells.\n\nHe bathed once a year, at most, not counting the occasions he fell into a creek or stumbled into a pond while inebriated. But that didn't help because such bodies of water were usually smelly in their own right, not to mention the result of the time he'd fallen into a latrine.\n\nHe was flatulent. He had bad breath.\n\nNo, terrible breath. Even the food he preferred was nasty-smelling. His favorite meat was pickled pork, his favorite vegetables were onions, and his favorite herb was garlic.\n\nHis favorite drink was cheap korn made from rye taken with cheap beer. When he could afford it, he drank cheap schnapps made from apples. When he was short of money, he settled for cheap wine. All of it smelled bad to Ursula. Being fair to the colonel, all liquor smelled bad to her, even the expensive kind. She herself did not drink liquor except for an occasional glass of wine on celebratory occasions, and then only because it was expected of her.\n\nHe had no favorite flower. What was far worse was that he disliked flowers altogether\u2014he claimed they made him sneeze and made him itch\u2014and so he forbade her from putting any in their rooms. Even though she loved flowers and had ever since she was a child.\n\nLying in the bed staring at the ceiling, Ursula started to weep. No loud sobbing\u2014the last thing she wanted to do was wake up von Troiberz\u2014just tears, oozing slowly from her eyes. Eventually she would wipe them off, but not for a while. She was too tired. She was always too tired now. She could barely summon the energy to cook and do the laundry.\n\nThe colonel didn't want much of the first, since he usually ate in taverns, and he wanted almost none of the other. His clothing was as filthy and bad-smelling as he was, and there wasn't much point in her washing them because within a day he'd have them covered again with spilled liquor and food; within three days, vomit; and within a week, the condition of his breeches and underclothes didn't bear thinking about.\n\nEvery day seemed to pass in gray colors. She was losing her hopes for simple contentment as surely as she'd lost her hopes for marriage, for children, for joy, for pleasure. She'd begun to think about suicide, from time to time. So far the residue of her Catholic upbringing kept her shying away from the idea. But she thought that eventually her faith would die also. She felt like a walking corpse, stumbling toward a grave that she simply hadn't seen yet.\n\nBut she would see it some day, she knew. Probably before she saw her thirtieth birthday.\n\nShe knew her birthday, at least. Many people didn't. February 11th, less than a month from now.\n\nShe wouldn't be able to celebrate it, though. Von Troiberz disliked birthdays also, even his own. She wasn't sure why. She thought it was probably because the colonel had lost whatever capacity he'd ever had to enjoy a day just because it was a day to enjoy. And so he found it irritating to have others expecting him to celebrate. So might a man who has lost all sense of taste react when people urge him to eat a cake.\n\nIf she wasn't too tired, maybe she'd be able to have her own private little celebration. Just by herself. There still wouldn't be any flowers she could pick yet, though. Even the crocus wouldn't come up until March.\n\nShe'd often wished her birthday had been in April or May. Maybe then her life would have turned out differently. She liked to think so, anyway. There was still some small, not-quite-dead-and-buried part of Ursula Gerisch's soul that thought most of her life's trajectory had been the result of misfortune and happenstance. Not all, no; she accepted that she bore some of the guilt. But on her best days she thought\u2014well, mostly she just wondered\u2014about someday being able to find a new course for herself."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 46",
+                "text": "A peculiar sound coming from somewhere outside finally penetrated her bleak thoughts. Ursula realized that she'd been hearing it for some time but hadn't paid attention. It had gotten quite loud, by now.\n\nShe found a clean portion of the bedding and wiped the tears from her face. Then she rose from the bed and went to the window.\n\nThe sight beyond, in the glow of sunset\u2014even in January, it seemed warm\u2014was the most wonderful she could remember seeing in years. The one thing in the past three days that had brought some happiness to her was seeing those incredible flying machines in the sky.\n\nThey were so big! Yet not frightening. Not to her, at least. Many of the soldiers were scared by them, but she wasn't. Where they saw monsters in the air, she saw gigantic puppies.\n\nShe liked puppies. She liked dogs, too. They smelled nice to her, even if some people didn't think so.\n\nShe'd have kept a dog except the colonel didn't like dogs either.\n\nAnd now there were three of them! All at once, in a line, one behind the other. She'd only seen one at a time, up until now.\n\nThey were coming in her direction, too\u2014right at her, it seemed. And because they were approaching from the west, the setting sun lit up their huge, swollen bellies. She could easily see the boats that hung below them, with their noisy machines that apparently made them fly. She could even see people clearly, looking over the side of the boats.\n\nThey were quite low, she suddenly realized, much lower than she'd ever seen one of them come down before. They couldn't be more than six or seven hundred feet high, maybe even less.\n\nSuddenly, for the first time in years, Ursula was filled with excitement. She had to see them better! From outside, not through a small grimy window. It was a cheap window, too, which made everything look distorted.\n\nShe glanced at the colonel. Von Troiberz was sprawled on the bed, snoring heavily. He'd come to bed drunk, as he usually did. Nothing would wake him up except the clap of doom.\n\nSplendid. If he were awake, he'd undoubtedly forbid her to go outside. Moving quickly, Ursula put on her clothes and shoes, wrapped a cloak around her, and left the room."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 47",
+                "text": "In less than a minute she was outside. But the tavern door opened into a small courtyard surrounded by buildings. She couldn't see any of the ships from here. So, she hurried through the gate and out onto the village's main street.\n\nBut the street was narrow and the buildings alongside it just as tall. Frustrated, she looked around and saw a meadow in the distance, perhaps twenty yards beyond the last building. She could get there in a couple of minutes, if she hurried. The soil would probably be icy, but she had good shoes. It was the one piece of apparel she owned that the colonel had been willing to spend some money on."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 48",
+                "text": "She got there in a minute and half. Looking up, she saw that the first ship\u2014they were huge, now, huge\u2014had come right overhead.\n\nThis was so marvelous! For the first time since childhood, she started jumping up and down with glee, clapping her hands.\n\nThen, frowned. Not worried yet, just puzzled. Why were they dropping things from the boats? They looked like jugs or some sort of pottery.\n\nUnderstanding came, and she made a small moue of disgust. Thank God she'd gotten out of the village! It was going to stink in a few seconds.\n\nShe was a little sad, though. A little upset, too. She wouldn't have thought that people who could do such a wondrous thing as fly through the air would be so petty and spiteful that they'd drop their chamberpots on their enemies.\n\nUrsula couldn't help but giggle, though\u2014and then realized that might be the first time she'd done that in years, too.\n\nColonel Johann von Troiberz was in for a rude awakening. He was about to get shat upon by leviathans."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 49",
+                "text": "Ursula was wrong. Colonel von Troiberz did not get a rude awakening.\n\nHe didn't wake up at all. The tavern was one of the first buildings hit by the firebombs and it was hit by no fewer than four of them\u2014two dropped by the Albatross, and one from each of the airships that followed in the bombing run. Within less than five minutes, the building was an inferno. Von Troiberz had been so drunk when he fell asleep that he died of smoke inhalation without ever regaining consciousness.\n\nMost of the soldiers in that building died. Only five made it out alive, and two of them died immediately thereafter when the eaves of the tavern collapsed on them while they were still in the courtyard.\n\nThe very worst casualties were inflicted on the soldiers two buildings over. There were eleven of them crowded into that house. It had been the \"party house,\" where those soldiers went who were in the mood to carouse\u2014and they'd started carousing before noon. Only one survived and he suffered horrible burns that left him badly scarred.\n\nWithin fifteen minutes, the entire village was on fire. Almost three dozen cavalrymen had been killed, twice that many injured\u2014and the stables were burning too. Luckily for the horses, a sober and conscientious sergeant had raced about unlocking all the doors in time for most of the beasts to escape.\n\nHaving made their escape, though, the horses were in no mood to stay in the vicinity of the holocaust. They scattered across the countryside, leaving all but nine cavalrymen stranded on foot.\n\nIn January. In the Little Ice Age. As night was falling. Most of them without having had time to don heavy clothing. A number of them bootless. And with nowhere nearby to spend the night indoors that wasn't smoldering.\n\nSome of the men just wandered off, but most of them gathered together near the village when the fires began dying down. Their commanding officer was nowhere to be seen, and neither were the two captains who had been with them. Of the officers who'd been in the village, only three lieutenants were left.\n\nAfter some discussion, they agreed that the best course of action was to join Colonel von Schnetter's infantry. Insofar as they knew where that camp was located, a subject on which there was considerable dispute. The lieutenants, in particular, were quarrelsome men. In the end, three different parties went their separate ways.\n\nOne of the parties found the camp. Another eventually stumbled across a deserted village two miles away before any of them had died, although some wound up losing toes to frostbite.\n\nThe third party died of exposure. The last man went at three o'clock in the morning."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 50",
+                "text": "Watching this all unfold from above, Rita was aghast. She'd had no idea\u2014never once imagined\u2014that the bombing run would have such horrific success. She'd thought that most of the bombs would miss entirely, first of all. Some would hit the target, certainly, but few enough that by the time the fires really began spreading most of the men down there would have been able to escape.\n\nShe hadn't even thought about the horses. Americans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would have understood how deadly it could be for a man to be stranded in winter without a horse. But she'd come from the end of the twentieth. \"Being stranded\" meant running out of gas and hitching a ride with the next car to come by. In a rural area like Grantville, people would usually stop for you. Especially in winter.\n\nWhat had thrown her off, again, had been watching too many newsreels. She'd seen documentary footage that depicted bombing runs from World War II and the Korean War and the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm. Planes moving hundreds of miles an hour when they dropped their bombs; the trajectory of those bombs themselves covering a great distance before they finally hit the ground.\n\nIt was amazing any of them hit anything they were aimed at. And those bombs had been military-grade high explosives or incendiaries, vastly more powerful than the ones Bonnie Weaver had jury-rigged. By the time of the Iraq-Kuwait war, some of them had been guided munitions. But even as far back as World War II, she knew, the bombers had some kind of superb bombsights.\n\nHer bombsights had been her eyes, looking down over the lip of the gondola, while two of Franchetti's crewmen held a bomb on the same lip, waiting for her signal.\n\nWhat she hadn't considered, until the bombs started hitting, was that her bombing platform was almost stationary. She'd told Franchetti to maintain just enough power to keep the airship from drifting. Both of the airships that followed her after the Albatross unloaded all its bombs had done the same.\n\nAnd none of it had taken very long. Once Rita saw that the bombs really didn't need to be \"aimed\" at all, she'd told the crewmen to just start pitching them over the side as fast as they could.\n\nAnother deadly factor had been her decision to make the run at a much lower altitude that the airships normally flew over enemy troops. At her husband's insistence, the airships had stayed at least two thousand feet high most of the time. They never dropped below a thousand feet.\n\nBut Rita had decided, just this once and to hell with what Tom said about it afterward, that they'd come in not more than the length of two footfall fields over the target. That was still within range of seventeenth-century musket fire, technically speaking. But at two hundred yards the fire would be wildly inaccurate. Besides, although Rita didn't know the exact formulas, she knew from things her husband had said that smoothbore round shot lost its muzzle velocity much faster than rifled bullets did. She figured that even if a bullet fired from a musket six hundred feet down did manage to hit the envelope or even the gondola, it probably wouldn't be moving fast enough to do a lot of damage. Barring a really lucky shot, anyway.\n\nIn the event, only two cavalrymen shot at them, and both of them used wheel-lock pistols. She had no idea where those bullets wound up going. Nowhere close, for sure.\n\nThis was just a massacre. She felt sick to her stomach."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 51",
+                "text": "Once she stopped screaming and brought her panic under control, Ursula got up and looked around. She had to get up because in her frenzied race away from the inferno the village had become, she'd eventually tripped on something and sprawled flat on the ground.\n\nShe'd come a long way from the village, she realized. At least a quarter of a mile. She wasn't sure. She hadn't been thinking about anything except get away! get away!\n\nShe looked up. Now, the things in the sky did look like monsters to her. You could still see all of them very clearly, since the sun hadn't fully gone down yet. Its red hemisphere glowed above the western skyline.\n\nShe stood there for a while, gasping to regain her breath and trying to figure out what to do. Going back to the village was...unthinkable.\n\nBut where else? She looked around, more slowly this time, and realized she was the only person in sight.\n\nShe was cold, she suddenly realized. Very cold. The temperature was already below freezing. Within a few hours no one would be able to survive out here without some way to stay warm better than a coat and a pair of shoes. Even a good pair of shoes.\n\nNoise drew her attention back to the sky. The first of the airships had turned and was now coming...\n\nRight at her.\n\nShe screamed and started running again."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 52",
+                "text": "\"What do you think is happening, sir?\" von Haslang asked the colonel. Von Schnetter lowered the eyeglass and shook his head. \"It's too far away to see much. Something is burning, though. A whole village, I think, as bright as it is even from here.\"\n\nBoth of them now looked above the glow in the distance. The airships in the sky were quite visible, even this far away.\n\n\"Do you think...?\"\n\nVon Schnetter sighed. \"I don't know, Heinrich. But...it could be, yes.\"\n\nHe looked around at their own camp. \"Better make preparations, Captain. Just in case we have to move suddenly.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 53",
+                "text": "Tom Simpson was even farther away. But because of the radio, he didn't have to wonder what had happened.\n\nWhat he was starting to wonder about, though, was how much more his wife could take. There'd been a ragged edge to her voice that he'd never heard before.\n\nThere were a lot of ways in which Rita resembled her older brother Mike, but other ways in which they were not alike at all. One big difference was that Mike Stearns\u2014as nice a guy as he was, and Tom would vouch for that\u2014also had a ruthless side to him. As wide and deep as the Mississippi, sometimes.\n\nRita just plain didn't. She was the sort of person for whom healing and nurturing came easily and killing did not.\n\nAt all.\n\nTom was starting to worry that she was going to come out of all this with a lot more scars\u2014and a lot worse ones\u2014than the one left on her arm by a splinter from an exploding door.\n\nShe hadn't fired the first bullet. But she'd fired some of the ones that came after, including a gigantic bullet that had just taken out dozens of men and the whole village they'd been in."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 54",
+                "text": "\"Look there!\" said one of the Albatross's crewmen. His first name was Luca, but Rita couldn't remember his last name. It wasn't Franchetti but she thought he was somehow related to the Franchettis. Like most up-time businesses had been in a small town like Grantville, seventeenth-century companies were usually family affairs. The families got pretty big, too.\n\nLuca was leaving over the rail of the gondola, pointing at something on the ground ahead of them. Rita went over and looked herself.\n\nAt first she didn't see anything. It was now getting dark down on the ground, if not up here where the last of the sun was still visible.\n\nAfter a few seconds she spotted a flash of movement that drew her eyes. It took her a few seconds to realize what she was seeing.\n\n\"It's a woman, I think,\" said Luca. \"Hard to tell from here.\"\n\nRita thought the figure on the ground was a woman herself. She didn't know why, exactly. You really couldn't distinguish body shapes from this far up, much less facial features. It was winter, too, when people wore bulky clothing.\n\nBut something, whatever subtlety of movement or posture, led her to think Luca was right.\n\nHe shook his head. \"She might make it through the night, if she can find one of the abandoned villages and get inside. Probably not, though.\"\n\nRita stared at him. Then, down at the woman below.\n\nThat was a woman, she was almost sure now. But even if it wasn't, that person certainly wasn't a Bavarian cavalryman.\n\n\"Fuck that,\" she muttered. She turned to Franchetti. \"Take the Albatross down, Filippo. All the way to the ground.\" She pointed to the figure herself. \"We'll pick her up. We've got room and plenty of weight allowance, now that the bombs have all been dropped.\"\n\n\"But...signora...\"\n\n\"Oh, stop worrying! There's nobody else down there. Not within half a mile, at the very least. We've got plenty of time to get down, pick her up, and get back in the air before anyone'll be able to come at us.\"\n\n\"But... signora...\"\n\n\"Just fucking do it!\"\n\nShe took a deep, ragged breath. \"Please, Filippo.\" She had tears in her eyes. \"I am so sick of killing people.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 55",
+                "text": "In the end, what saved Ursula's life was her own despair.\n\nShe ran from the monster. Ran and ran for a while. But it kept pursuing her, coming closer and closer to the ground.\n\nEventually, partly from exhaustion but mostly from too many years of seeing her hopes all scraped away, she just stopped. Then, sat on the ground, holding her knees. Ignoring the cold seeping into her buttocks. Just waited for her death, the way prey run to the ground waits for the predator."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 56",
+                "text": "If she'd kept running, she could have escaped the Albatross. It was dark now and she could have slipped away into the shadows any number of times, if she'd been thinking clearly.\n\nRita had almost given up hope herself."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 57",
+                "text": "The monster had the face of a young woman. Ursula hadn't expected that.\n\nQuite a pretty one. Black hair, blue eyes. The color was very clear, even in twilight. A slender build, she thought, although it was hard to be sure. She was wearing a peculiar, puffy sort of jacket.\n\nThe monster extended her hand. \"Come on, girl,\" she said. \"It's time to go.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 58",
+                "text": "Some time later, looking out at the moon from the gondola, Ursula finally spoke.\n\n\"I'm flying,\" she said, wonderingly. \"I'm really flying.\"\n\nA while later, she added, \"Away.\""
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 59",
+                "text": "On the fourth and final day, the Bavarian infantry made no effort to close with the Danube Regiment. In fact, by late morning they'd let the distance between the marching armies stretch to two miles. By mid-afternoon, to three miles.\n\nColonel von Schnetter's couriers had come across several survivors of the bombing raid and two of them had been to see the village ruins themselves. So the infantry commander had a pretty good idea of what had happened.\n\nThe ever-growing distance between his forces and those of Major Simpson's were no longer due to simple caution, but outright worry. His infantry was moving more slowly down the Danube because he needed to be sure, at all times, that he could get the men away from the river if the need arose. Airships that could destroy a village could also destroy a tightly-packed infantry column.\n\nVon Schnetter was no longer concerned about General von Lintelo's reaction to the events of these past four days. First, because Colonel von Troiberz had certainly died in the fire\u2014and who better to take the blame for disaster than a man already dead? Second, because not even von Lintelo was so thick-headed as not to understand that the introduction of these infernal airships onto battlefields created many new problems.\n\nAnd third, because he had better things to do than fret over a general's possible peeves. Such as spend his time discussing new tactical possibilities with his friend and trusted aide, Captain von Haslang.\n\nIt was quite pleasant, actually, that last day's march down the Danube. Vigorous conversations with an intelligent man were one of life's high points. Even when the subject was grim."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 60",
+                "text": "Twice, Tom almost ordered another bombing run. Not because of bloodlust, or because he feared that the pursuing Bavarians posed a threat any longer. They were making it very clear that they had no intention of fighting before he reached Regensburg. You could almost call them an escort of sorts, in this final stretch.\n\nNo, it was because he too was beginning to consider tactical options in the light of new developments, and had started discussing them with his own trusted aides.\n\n\"It'd be interesting to see,\" pointed out Bruno von Eichelberg, \"how an infantry column marching down a road handles an attack from the air.\"\n\nBoth times, what stopped him was his wife's face. Rita was slender almost to the point of being skinny. Now, though, she was looking downright gaunt."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 61",
+                "text": "Every night since the first, the nightmares had brought Rita awake. Sweating, frightened, tight of breath. Always that same boy's face.\n\nThis morning, though, she'd been able to look at a woman's face that she thought might start easing her soul.\n\nShe could hope so, anyway."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 62",
+                "text": "When the Danube Regiment entered Regensburg, they discovered that a parade was expected. Right through the town to the square. Where apparently speeches would be inflicted upon them.\n\nAh, well. Even tired soldiers respond to applause. And they were getting a lot of it. An awful lot."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 63",
+                "text": "\"This was mostly Heinz's idea,\" Bonnie told Rita. They were watching the parade from one of the stands set up on the side of the square. Overhead, the Pelican came into view. The crowd in the square burst into cheers again.\n\n\"You know what city officials are like,\" she continued. \"I swear, frogs have more imagination. All they could talk about\u2014fuss and fuss and fuss about\u2014was where they would find enough billets for all these additional soldiers. But Heinz set 'em straight. 'First we make them welcome,' he said, and wouldn't take no for an answer. As usual.\"\n\nThere was a certain tone in her voice. Proud, you might call it. Proprietary, too."
+            },
+            {
+                "title": "Chapter 64",
+                "text": "B\u00f6cler was watching the festivities from the officials' stand. He would have much preferred to be with Bonnie Weaver. Mostly because he liked being around her, but partly because he wouldn't be at the center of everyone's attention. He disliked that rather intensively, he'd come to discover.\n\nHe'd also come to understand some things about his former employer, Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, that had been unclear to him before, as well as gaining a better understanding of the advantages that Caesar and Thucydides had had, when they turned themselves to the historian's trade.\n\nThe front ranks of the Danube Regiment entered the square. At the fore marched the figure of Major Simpson. Impossible to miss, of course.\n\nThe cheers erupted again.\n\nOr Xenophon. B\u00f6cler had read the Anabasis. But he decided he should read it again. He thought he'd get more out of it now. He was quite sure he would, in fact.\n\nHe looked toward Bonnie. She was standing next to the major's wife, and, as it happened, she was looking in his direction.\n\nShe waved at him, very cheerily.\n\nAnxiety, in the midst of celebration. Doubt, where certainty also tread.\n\nThe cautions were all in the Bible, of course. He'd known that for years, although he hadn't understood them so well until these past few days.\n\nIn his own way, he too had been marching upcountry.\n\nAnd still was.\n\nWhat was he to do?"
+            }
+        ]
+    }
+]
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